“Is there any word from Akor?” I asked. “Has anyone found Marik?”
“Lord Akhor bespoke me not long since, Lady,” replied Shikrar. “He has overflown the Gedri camp, and says that Mistress Rella speaks truly—all is being removed and taken in darkness to the southern shore. Of Marik there is nor sight nor smell.”
“Well, there wouldn’t be, would there?” said Rella. “He’s been in once and out again and you none the wiser. Have you something he would want, some treasure perhaps? He’s here to make his fortune, sure and certain, and if the camp is all broke down he’ll take what he’s after and straight to the ship with it.”
“By the treaty he must meet with us at dawn to tell us he is leaving,” said Shikrar, obviously distressed at this reminder of Marik’s ability to come and go unnoticed. “If he does not, we are within our rights to attack him.”
I could swear Shikrar looked pleased at the idea. I couldn’t blame him. So was I.
“Yes, well, he’s sure to stick to the treaty, isn’t he?” said Rella wryly.
“Why not have all the Kindred go to their own chambers and stay there?” I asked. “If there is something he seeks in one of these caves, I’d guess that finding it occupied would slow him down, at the very least.”
“It is well spoken,” replied Shikrar. He called out aloud to those of the Kindred who were still nearby. “Let us return to our homes, my people, and each keep safe his own dwelling. When the intruder is found, the Council will resume. This is the counsel of the Eldest and the Keeper of Souls.”
And the Dragons melted away like ice in sunshine, swift and silent, until only Shikrar stood with Rella and me. “I too must go, the Chamber of Souls must be guarded,” he said, and suddenly the idea of waiting helplessly so far away and so alone terrified me.
“Let us come with you,” I said, ashamed of my fear but sure of what I asked. Shikrar looked surprised, so I added, “We can’t go into Akor’s chambers. I suspect Rishkaan would take his chances with the Council and kill me if he had half a chance, despite Kédra. And if Marik comes here, hidden from sight and sound—well, it wouldn’t be as clean as Rishkaan, but the end would be the same. Please, Shikrar,” I begged, despising myself. Just like the idiots in the ballads. Damn.
I did not recognise the Attitude Shikrar took on, but his voice sounded an odd mixture of annoyance and approval. “Very well. Come, we must hurry. Both of you sit upon my neck, as Akhor bore you, Lanen. It will be the swiftest.” And he put his head on the ground.
I was just reaching out to clamber onto his neck when with a hiss and a deep rumbling growl he sat bolt upright, knocking me to the ground, his head whipping round to the southeast as though his gaze would pierce darkness, distance and all. My heart dropped into my stomach, for I knew the instant he did. I cannot imagine how, but I knew, even before Akor’s cry echoed in my mind.
The soulgems of the Lost.
Marik had them.
Akhor
I was stabbed with the theft as with a lance of ice, as I rode the night wind to the north and west seeking I knew not what. My back arched, my neck snapped skyward and I split the night with a plume of Fire to hallow my vengeance, for I was seized in that instant with a purpose beside which all else was nought. I would save the Lost Ones from this final desecration or die in the attempt.
I cried out to Lanen, a wordless cry of loss and desolation, as in my soul I knew this must be the death of all our words in Council. I turned on the wind and flew fast as thought, calling to Shikrar as I went. “Shikrar, Keeper of Souls, command me!”
“Akhor, soulfriend, meet me at the Chamber of Souls,” cried Shikrar, his mindvoice faint in despair. “Lost, lost, twice cursed and twice bereft, all my ancestors bear me witness I will have them back!”
We are brothers in the soul, after all.
Lanen
Shikrar crouched to fly but I cried out, aloud and in truespeech, “Eldest, leave me not here! I know what has befallen, I heard the Lost cry out as did you, bear me hence I beg you!”
I might as well have kept silence. “There is no time!” he cried, and sprang into the night with a clap of his vast wings. It blew us over.
“Damn,” I said aloud, as Rella and I stood and brushed ourselves off as Shikrar disappeared. “What in all the Hells is going on?” she asked. “I’ll tell you as we run,” I replied and was starting to follow after Shikrar when behind and above me I heard a roar like nothing on earth. I threw myself to the ground from sheer instinct and felt the wind batter me, heard the clap of Dragon wings, and watched as another took to the skies. It was hard to tell in the moonlight, but it was too large and too bright for Kédra and I only knew of one other nearby—one whose bright copper hide would reflect moonlight well.
Rishkaan.
Damn, damn, damn!
“Kédra! Swiftly, to me!” I cried, dragging Rella behind me, and met him coming out of Akor’s chambers.
Marik
My legs are weak, my old pain has come back even as I run with this burden of wealth. I stumble as fast as I may.
Curse it, the sign Berys warned me of! A tingling at my throat, the amulet drags at my neck and sends sharp stabs into my heart with every step. The wound on my chest where I scratched myself with the spike burns with the nearness of Raksha-fire, and I cannot get rid of the high voices of the gems. How should gems speak? They are cursed, perhaps they are demons themselves, Lords of Hell what have I got?
My two hours are all but sped.
I cannot find the Boundary! How can this be, I returned only last night with no trouble—but the gems, they sing, I hear them try to speak, their sounds confuse me, I cannot see despite the bright moon. The gems and their golden cask drag at me. Hells and damnation, I have to get out of here!
I can only run and hope I will blunder into the Boundary by chance. Lords of Hell, guide my steps who seek to serve you. The first of these gems will I give in free offering to you, if you will get me past the Boundary.
Hells and damnation. I hear in every breath their step behind me, feel every moment the hot wind that precedes my death. I saw the fury of the one who destroyed the demon, I know my life is forfeit if my amulet fades while still I walk in the forbidden lands. I remember the corpse of the youth who crossed over, I could not eat for days after—what will they do to me if they catch me with their greatest treasure?
Faster, man, faster! Hell’s teeth, the gems are keening high and shrill, terror flows cold up my spine bone by bone, freezing my legs and my heart, threatening to leave me here forever, the frozen statue of a running man. Your life, Marik, stay alive! Run, run with what strength you have left, for the amulet beats now its pulse to match my heart, faster, faster—there!
Dark in the moonlight the Boundary rises before me, safety in wooden rails. Fast as thought, Marik, run, run—through! Through and beyond, tear off the damned amulet that burns now where it touches chest and hand, throw it from me. I slow, out of breath, I watch as it glows brightly once more, bright as it flashed at first, but the glow now is a rich red, like light through blood. It lies on the ground, gleaming brighter and brighter. I cannot look away, it fills my sight like a red star fallen to earth.
I tear my eyes away at last and run, now south, where the ship lies waiting that will carry me safe from this place of horror.
Shikrar
Every bone in my body cried out when the soulgems of the Lost were stolen, every instinct told me to fly to the Chamber of Souls, and so I did, swift as wings would carry me. I had only just landed when Rishkaan arrived, a fury in his eyes that frightened me. Akhor came as swiftly as he could, but he had been far to the west.
I tried to reason with Rishkaan, but I might as well have spoken with a stone. He rushed past me into the Chamber, sniffing for all he was worth. “No scent, no scent, how can that be, there must be some trace, there has to be—”
“Rishkaan, remember what the Gedri Rella said, that he had come and gone without our knowledge before. We will never fin
d him this way.”
He snapped his head to face me. “You are right,” he said in a voice of iron. “He must have gone—” He did not stay even to complete his thought, but sped away past me into darkness.
I could not follow, and did not want to. If Rishkaan needed vengeance, if in his fury he slew this Marik, I would not stand in his way. I would await Akhor here, in my ravished Chamber, where the soulgems of my ancestors looked down in contempt on the failure of the Keeper of Souls.
These are the true words of Rishkaan, from the Kin-Summoning requested by Akhor, Silver King of the Kantri.
The soulgems of the Lost sang loudly of their theft; I could not ignore it. I took Kédra by surprise and pushed him aside—he is much younger and smaller than I, after all—and leapt into the sky as soon as I was out of Akhor’s cave, flying towards the Chamber of Souls.
It was not only the theft that compelled me. I could not rid myself of that vision, it lingered before my mind’s eye like an image of the sun. Akhor, dead, his body turned to ash—that was bad, but death comes to all in their time. Far worse, worst of all, the horrible clarity of the Gedri Lanen with her younglings. They were a monstrous union of the two Kindreds, able to change from one to another at will. It was the sight of that perversion that struck bright flame within me. Such abomination I would spend my life to prevent.
The Silver King, Akhor the Wise, I had hoped for so much from him. Still, he would get over this Gedri child. It was merely a passing madness. He had many years yet in which to accomplish the purpose for which he had been born.
As long as my dream remained unfulfilled.
I saw Shikrar land before me, but the time for subtlety and obedience was past. I ran before him into the Chamber, where stray glints of moon and starlight filtered down from the airhole above and struck brief gleams from the soulgems of the Ancestors on the back wall. Someday I shall have my place there, I thought briefly, a good end for a long life, rest and peace and the voices of your descendants to call you forth from time to time—but as I knew it must be, when I turned to look at the flickering depths of the Lost Ones, I could but stare, for all my knowledge silent and open-mouthed, at the pedestal where they had rested near five thousand years, empty now of anything but memory.
Shikrar reminded me I could not trace him by smell, so I must outwit the creature. Where should he go but the fastest way back to the Gedri camp?
I hurried out of the Chamber of Souls and made the straightest way to the Boundary, searching still as I went for the smell of the Gedri or for Raksha-trace. I found none, but still I followed the way the evil one must have gone.
xvii
The Lost
Shikrar
It was but a moment after Rishkaan had gone that Akhor bespoke me. “What news, Shikrar?” he asked urgently.
“Rishkaan is gone after the thief,” I replied, and in the Language of Truth I could not keep my underthought from adding, “and I did nothing to stop him.”
“You are not to blame,” he said instantly. “Where has he gone?”
“Towards the camp of the Gedri,” I replied. “He is in a fury, Akhor. What must I do?”
“Keep you in the Chamber of Souls, Eldest, lest against all reason Marik should return. Reason seems to have little sway this night. I will await Rishkaan and Marik in the camp of the Gedri.”
And he was gone.
Lanen
“Kédra, please, I must be with Akor. All is changed now, I beg you, take me to him!”
“Lady, ask me anything but this,” he replied, deeply troubled. “I have already lost my charge Rishkaan, I dare not so disobey my King as to do this for you. Lord Akhor would not thank me for taking you into such danger.”
“I don’t care!” I shrieked. I was dancing with frustration and the need to be gone. “Damn it, Kédra, I can’t leave him alone in this. I tell you I heard the Lost cry out before Akor spoke word, I am called, I cannot stay here!”
He stared at me in silence for a long moment, then leaned swiftly down. “Come then, lady, the Winds and Lord Akhor forgive me.”
“Bless you, true friend,” I cried as I scrambled onto his neck.
“If you think I’m staying here without either of you, you’re both crazy,” said Rella’s voice from behind me, and there she stood, arms on her hips. “Kédra, of your kindness, either take us both or give me directions so I can walk.”
“Get on, then. Quickly!”
She scrambled up nimbly enough behind me. Kédra was not as strong as Akor, and had twice the burden. “I do not dare fly thus,” he said, “but I can run. Hold tight.”
He sped off in the direction of the camp. I called in truespeech, “Kédra, may I bespeak you?”
“Of course.”
“I’m sorry I have had to ask this of you, my friend, but I must be with him. How should I bear it if—” I could not say it aloud, but there rose in my mind the image of the wounds Akor had from the demon. No, no, I would not think of it….
“Lady, fear not. Rishkaan is with him, and though he bears you no love he is loyal to the King. There is no demon spawned that could stand against the two of them.”
“I’m not very good at hiding underthought yet, am I?” I said ruefully. “I vowed I’d stay well clear of this, but I can’t. I can’t. Damn. Damnation. Hell, blast and damnation.” And I can’t tell you why, but that opened the floodgates. Poor Kédra. I started cursing, aloud and in truespeech, beginning with the wide-ranging matter I had learned from the seamen on the voyage out, through the many choice oaths of the stablehands at Hadronsstead, and ending with a good long string of simple old-fashioned swear words. I must say, it helped, and I heard Rella behind me laughing quietly.
When I had done, Kédra bespoke me. Even in the Language of Truth, they hissed their laughter. “Lady, I am impressed. I thought I knew your language, but through all of that I caught little sense. Extraordinary. I could feel the shape of the words in my mind, but I had no sense of their meaning.”
“They don’t have much, really,” I said, deeply pleased that he hadn’t understood. “I was swearing. I don’t know if the Kindred do it, but for humans it’s a necessity.”
“I shall remember.”
Rella tapped me on the shoulder. I half-turned to hear her.
“You talk to them, don’t you? Without words. Farspeech.”
“Yes,” I said. It seemed so trivial now.
“Dear Lady Shia, is there no end to what I am to learn on this voyage?” She laughed. “I must remember that little skill of yours.”
In the darkness I had no idea of how fast we were moving, but now as false dawn began to lighten the sky, I could see the trees flashing past. It was frightening, a little, but at that point it was mostly satisfying. And there before us was the Boundary.
Akhor
I had flown first to the southern shore, where the last of the Gedri were taking their goods onto the ship that lay out in the harbour. The soulgems of the Lost were nowhere near, so I flew north along the trail that we kept clear.
Even as I approached the settlement I could smell the Raksha-stink. The camp reeked of it, growing ranker as I passed through the cleared spaces. There was the blackened site of my fight with the Raksha, smouldering yet—there the second of the wooden dwellings that had been here for centuries, there at the north end the doused ashes of the great campfire that had burned night and day. I landed in the clearing where the tents had been—it was the largest—and faced north and east. As I stood, I heard again faintly the soulgems’ wail.
The sky to the east began to lighten, an end at last to this endless night. I listened and waited, and wondered what I would do when the creature arrived.
I did not have long to wait. I smelled them long before I saw them, Raksha-stink and Gedri-smell, two of the creatures hurrying towards the clearing.
When they saw me they stopped abruptly.
Rella
Kédra leant down and let us off at the Boundary. Lanen took off at speed as
though she knew exactly where she was going, but I’d not had even the little sleep she had and I was tired. I also did not wish to be any too close to whatever was going to happen. I dragged myself along, drifting some ways east along the Boundary.
Sudden as lightning a Dragon landed a good ways ahead of me (ignoring me entirely, thank the Lady) and started sniffing along the ground. I could hear him from where I stood (some distance downwind of him), so I decided to stop and watch. Didn’t take him long to find what he sought; he turned his head and shot a blazing stream of fire at the ground. Content with that, it seems, he ran straight on—and those things can run, let me tell you. He seemed to move even faster than Kédra, low to the ground and fast as a snake. He was out of sight in a heartbeat.
My way lay in the same direction, so after a few minutes I followed him, and came upon the empty campsite just as true dawn was beginning to break. I moved forward cautiously, past trampled grass and ashes of dead fires—
And there before me sat a young battle ready to begin. On one side stood the silver dragon, Akor it was, who had saved Lanen’s life; I had lost track of the copper-coloured beast I had just seen. On the other was Caderan, looking fresh and strong, and Marik looking like a man at the end of his tether and ready for desperate measures. At the north end of the clearing, Kédra and Lanen had found one another again. He crouched like a great cat about to spring, but Lanen held desperately to the trunk of an old ash tree, as though that was the only thing keeping her from leaping into the fight.
I stayed well back and well hidden.
The true words of Rishkaan, from the Kin-Summoning
I stood in the trees to the northeast, silent and hidden, waiting behind the two Gedri that had just arrived, waiting for Akhor to destroy them. To my disgust he did not, but spoke to them instead.