Third is the Unknown
And last is the Word.”
The moon stood directly above, the earth under my feet listened as it held me, the waters of the pool gurgled their attention. And a wind, a light cold breeze, blew into the glade and played about me, seeming to come from all four directions in turn. My cloak was like a live thing, swirling and lifting on the hands of the Winds.
“Hear me!” I cried aloud, and there was silence. I opened my mouth to speak—
—and I could not draw breath. The lie stuck in my throat; all my soul bowed down before the gods and acknowledged what truly was….
Perhaps the balance will be restored, and Akhor’s life spared.
“I do not love him!” I cried with all my strength. My voice seemed to come from my gut, not my throat. I was surprised by the power of it. “Let the balance be restored. I do not love him!”
That was twice. Three times I must say it, three for the Lady was the charm to make it true. I ignored my heart that screamed its denial, I ignored the winds that grew stronger and seemed to come now from all directions at once. I drew a final breath, for after this was done all that I cared for would be lost—
—when in my mind I heard, impossibly, his voice. It was the only thing in all the world that could have stopped me. His truespeech whispered softly in my thoughts, echoed in my heart. I heard the agony of his body, I knew it as he knew it, I could almost feel the heat and the suffering that surrounded him, yet he spoke as gently as the first time I had heard from him the voice of love.
“My soul to the Winds, Lanen Kaelar, I am lost as you are lost.”
No, it couldn’t be. He was in the Weh sleep, I heard but an echo in my mind of what had gone before, he couldn’t be—
“Lanen Kaelar, dearest one, it is I, Khordeshkhistriakhor. Do not cast me from you. I love you as my life. Lanen, Lanen, do not deny me a third time, it is worse pain than the wounds or the fire. Let me die still in your love.”
And I had no strength to deny him. I had thought never to hear his voice again this side of death. I fell to my knees and bespoke him without words, let my love stream upon him in a clear light that surrounded us both, I in the dark clearing, he in this impossible wakefulness from the Weh sleep in his cavern. Even for the saving of him, I could not let the lie be spoken a third time.
Aloud and in truespeech I bespoke him. “Akor, my heart, you are in my love beyond life’s ending. Before the Winds and the Lady, Kordeshkistriakor, I say that I love you, I love you, I love you.” I rose on shaking legs, brushed the leaves from my leggings. “I come, dear heart. I will come to you, I will wait with you. I cannot save you, but I will not leave you to die alone.”
I walked slowly into the cave, leaving Idai and Shikrar standing wordless in the clearing, in the wind and the moonlight. I believed I went to my death, or at best to watch his.
I do not know how he had roused from the darkness of his pain and the Weh sleep to speak to me, but he was no longer awake when I came nigh him. He lay curled up on his floor of gold, quiet now, a silver statue splashed with gold. He seemed to be more at peace than he had been since this Weh sleep began.
But the heat was worse. The whole of that great chamber was as warm as high noon on midsummer’s day, and Akor himself was the sun. The very air shimmered.
I went as near to him as I could bear. I wanted to bid him farewell, to touch him one last time, but the heat drove me back. I had no words. In the end I could only speak his name, give it back to him and to the darkness that waited for him.
“Kordeshkistriakor,” I whispered. So beautiful, the name, the form of my beloved. I even managed a tiny smile when I said it, knowing that I could never say it as the Kindred pronounced it.
I sat as close to him as I could. I would watch by him, as I would watch by any I loved at their deathbed.
I prayed the Winds and the Lady to deliver him from this terrible fate, but if they answered I never heard it.
I cannot say how long I was there, through that endless night. It felt like forever. The brand I had carried in died out quickly, and I discovered that Akor was indeed glowing, a silver beacon, like the moon come to rest in that small place. Sun’s heat and moon’s light, my dear one.
My birth was an omen, though none knew what it might portend.
It was near dawn, I guessed, when I gradually realised that something else was happening. The heat was growing rapidly worse, the light brighter. Then suddenly Akor cried out, one final deep cry of pain that tore my heart and brought me to my feet. The heat doubled, driving me back from him with a blast of wind straight from the deepest circle of Hell. He writhed, his eyes still tightly closed, his soulgem blazing green fire, his tail whipping from side to side, his wings vainly trying to fan in that enclosed space.
In the glow I could see it. I felt my heart in my throat, I could not breathe.
Akor had begun to smoke.
All my resolve dragged at me, trying to make myself stay, forcing me to see what I had brought upon my dear one—but I found that the urge to life was stronger than I knew, too strong for my mind to overcome. It would have been death for me to stay one instant longer. I felt my traitor feet turn me away from him and I fled for the entryway.
I emerged just ahead of a great gout of flame. By the grace of the Lady I tripped over one of the tangled tree roots and fell flat. I felt the fireball come searing past me, over my head, and heard it strike a tree on the far side of the clearing.
I lay where I had fallen and wept, my body shaken by racking sobs. I knew I would never see Akor again. Even a Dragon could not have survived that. I could not hear him or feel his presence in my heart.
I had come to the dragonlands so full of dreams. I had finally found the one soul in all the world that was the match of mine, and the body that housed it was now ash in the place where we had joined our hearts and minds.
I longed for oblivion.
It was not granted me.
For a long time I lay as I had fallen. Cold and sharp against my face pressed the dead leaves of autumn, wet with dew and smelling of decay. The sky was lightening, dawn but a thought away, the birth of a terrible morning.
I lay unmoving, my eyes wide and staring at the earth as I tried to understand what had happened.
Akor was dead.
I could not grasp it. It seemed a tale told by a stranger of a distant land. How could it be? Not a day past I sat on that living silver neck and rode high as my spirit and strong with my love into the Council of the Kindred. How could he so quickly be gone?
And I heard a sound like tearing glass, joined by a cry of pain deeper than any sound I had ever heard, it shook me where I lay.
Idai and Hadreshikrar mourned.
Akor was dead.
I sought him despite that truth, called out with all my heart and mind, cried out aloud, met only silence. His voice in my heart was stilled, the last words he gave me lost to the echoes of memory. I would not forget his words, but I would never hear them again.
Dead.
He should have wept over my grave for a thousand years.
I curled against the pain as though around a dagger in my gut. This was no life, I was but half a person. My other half lay in smoking ruin there in the cave, gone forever, beyond all hope.
I rocked as I knelt on the wet leaf-fall, my arms wrapped tightly around me, holding on for dear life. I was holding back screams; they found their way out as whimpers, as a high-pitched moan dreadful even for me to hear. Death echoed in my mind, in my body, and I could not bear its presence.
I had lived my dream and found it perilous beyond imagining. I cursed the day I left Hadronsstead. If I had let my dreams alone at least I would still have them, and he would still have life. Now were we both bereft.
I was alone in a dry place. The pain of this grief was more than I could bear. I longed to die, for my heart to break, for death to cease its wanderings and come for me.
And in the still air, above the sound of my g
rieving, a wondrous voice rose to greet the dawn. The song was deep and rich, and through the cracks of grief shone the love of the singer. It grew like a tree, putting down roots in the past and rising straight into the morning, true and full of life and laughter, and it named the life it sang.
Kordeshkistriakor.
A high voice like crystal bells joined it, twining round the melody like a vine, soft buds of harmony bursting into flower as it climbed. The two would echo one another, join in a clear harmony, separate into their own ways.
The song lifted me to my feet, when I would have sworn no power on earth could do so. I stood in mute thanksgiving for his life, in honour of his song, but in time it seemed to me that there was something missing. I stood in the bright morning, my face wet and dirty with tears and dew and leaf mould, and joined in the song of passing for my beloved. I was no more than a creaking murmur that came and went added to the glorious voices above and around me, but somehow it was fitting, and three were complete where two were not.
With a strength I had never known, with all my soul grown old in the night with grief, I sang my dearest love into the morning.
Rella
I did as Lanen asked and returned the gems to the Dragons, along with one of a different kind I found in the ashes of the Dragon that died. It seemed the right thing to do; at least, the Dragon that met me at the Boundary accepted it along with the others. It wavered its head at me—I suppose it was a kind of bow—and left.
I returned to the clearing and looked down at Marik’s body. It lay without movement, save that his wide staring eyes blinked occasionally. I left him as he lay—I remember hoping that the son of a bitch would die while I was fetching help—but no such luck. I trudged down to the shore and, waving and shouting, called out the boat. It took some time, but I managed to have his body taken aboard. He was not dead, though I thought death might be preferable. His mind was gone. I watched it happen.
He had something from Caderan that protected him against the Dragons, against flame and claw, but they destroyed his mind. He lies like an infant now, with as much life and as little thought. Maikel was with him for hours, and he says that it might be possible to recover some of what has been lost, but it will take years. It is frightful.
I find that, despite their leaving Marik alive (it would have been kinder to kill him), I quite like the Dragons. I am surprised. Shikrar, the Keeper of Souls, seems to be a kindred spirit. He reminds me of my grandfather. His son Kédra is a good soul and looked after me well through that cold night—I think I even made him laugh once or twice. Certainly I will never forget his “Lady Rella.”
They seem too old and too deep to be casual companions, but in such an adventure as this one—ah, the Silent Service can go whistle. I will think on my report on the voyage back, surely in all that time I will find a way to tell them as little as possible about the creatures.
On a more practical note, I do not know how long I can make them hold the ship for Lanen. As long as their fear of the Dragons lasts, I suspect. If all else fails I will go back to the island myself tomorrow morning—the Master of the ship was willing to wait that long—but I hope she will somehow come to us. Despite all, I have seen enough of that island for one lifetime, and if I never step again on its shores I will die happy.
Shikrar
I bespoke Kédra, telling him of my soulfriend’s death as gently as I could. The calm after the song held me still, my mindvoice was steady enough. He replied soon afterwards, saying that Rella had come to him again, wondering if Lanen was coming to take ship, and that the Master was anxious to be gone.
I decided such a thing could wait until all was done that must be done.
Lanen
The song was finished. I was not at peace—I did not believe that I would ever be at peace again—but at least I could move and act.
I knelt to Idai and Shikrar, in thanks, in friendship. They stood silent until I rose, then bowed to me as one. We stood together unmoving, unspeaking, in shared grief that went beyond tears, beyond words to the silence of souls.
Until, finally, there came a moment when we stirred, when life made its demands heard once again. I looked about me.
“Is there anything yet to be done?” I asked. “What are the customs of your people?”
“We have sung him to rest, there is only his soulgem to bring forth, that it may join his ancestors’ in the Chamber of the Souls,” said Hadreshikrar. He was beginning to show signs of weariness, and it seemed to me that his wound pained him deeply. “I will do that service for you, if you so desire.”
“It is my place as his mate to do so, then?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Then I will. I thank you for your offer, Shikrar, but I think I must do this. I can understand the meaning. I must see his ashes and bid him farewell. I was his mate.”
I turned towards the cave. The body that had insisted I live was reluctant now to carry me there.
This time I won.
It was dark in the chamber, dark and very warm. The walls had taken up the heat Akor had given off; it would be warm in there for days.
It was fairly dark, but I could see my way. The sun was no more than an hour risen, but even that much light coming through the smoke-hole above allowed me to see, if not very clearly. I looked slowly towards the place where Akor had lain. Having seen I had to look away, horrified, sickened. That vision haunts my dreams yet. Fool, fool, he tried to spare you.
Akor had told me but I had forgotten. At death the fire that sustains the Greater Kindred is let loose and, unchecked, destroys the body from within. All that lay on the floor of khaadish were a few charred remains of his ash-covered bones.
I forced myself to look again.
I should find his soulgem close by what was left of the skull.
Taking my courage in both hands I moved slowly, reverently, towards the huge pile of bones.
In the faint light I thought I saw something move.
I ignored my traitor eyes. “Lanen, come, it is only bone,” I said aloud, to steady myself. As I finished speaking I heard a small sound, like a sleeper makes at the edge of waking. Surely there was something there?
No, there could be nothing, nothing but ash. And one green gem the size of my hand, that I must steel myself to take out to Hadreshikrar.
I was nearly on top of the skeleton now, and this close I could see that there was something, a large pale something lying still within the protective circle of bone.
My first instinct was to run towards it yelling, to chase away whatever pale creature had crept here for warmth, dared so swiftly to desecrate the remains of the one I loved. But even blurred in the darkness, half-seen, it was somehow a familiar shape.
It stirred.
The sun climbed higher, sending more light into the chamber.
No. This could not happen. This was insane. I had lost my mind.
For there before me, surrounded by the charred, ash-covered ribs that crumbled as I watched, was the figure of a man. He lay naked in that warm place, curled on his side in his cradle of bone. One arm pillowed his head, the other hand clutched something near his forehead. Long silver hair spread gently over broad shoulders pale as new snow.
Song whispered wild and distant in my heart, the song that Akor and I had made for each other in this place, but I dared not hear it. I could not speak, I feared to breathe lest this spell should break.
For in that place lay the form of the Akor of my dreams, the silver-haired man that was Akor in human form.
Not dragon.
Man.
My legs failed me and I fell to my knees, my heart scarcely beating as I knelt, shaking, lost in terror and wonder. This could not be. I must be mad. Had my mind in desperation made this phantom for heart’s ease?
Was he real?
I forced myself to speak.
“Akor?” I breathed, reaching towards him through the cage of dead ribs. “Akor?”
He did not stir and I could not. I knelt
there captive, trembling, lost. What then, if not flesh and blood? Waking dream? Demon-sending? Insanity?
Still he did not move.
With a vast effort of will I got to my feet and turned to go, to call Shikrar and Idai to come and see, when behind me I heard a rustling of movement and a clear voice saying sleepily, “Lanen?”
I turned in a dream, slowly, as against a strong current.
He stood before me, still within the high circle of bone, shaky on his two legs, gloriously alive in a body new-made. I could not speak, only look with all my soul.
“Lanen? What has happened?” he asked, his voice slurring slightly. I reached out to him. He tried to walk towards me, but he was still accustomed to four legs. He stumbled.
I caught him before he fell, held him up, helped him back onto his feet. I moved without thought, lost in wonder at the touch of him, skin against skin. My love alive, healed of his grievous wounds, made whole—made human.
When he stood firm again, I saw he used only one hand to steady himself. I reached for his right hand, to see if it was injured, when he raised his clenched right fist between us. In silence he turned his hand palm up, opening his fingers like the petals of a rose, to reveal a faceted gem that filled his palm, flashing in the torchlight, green as the sea.
His soulgem.
I had to speak. And there was only one word I could say, holding his soft hand in mine, filled with wonder. First and last, a word of love.
“Kordeshkistriakor?”
“Yes, Lanen. I am here.” His eyes darted here, there, to me, to himself. “Unless this is a Weh dream. But no, you are real, this is all real. Why can I not speak? So strange a mouth. What has happened? What have I become?” He looked at me with the eyes of Akor beneath long bright hair, emeralds set in a silver sea, opened wide now in wonder, and said, “Lanen?”
I had to say it. The impossible. The truth. “Akor, you—are human. A man, one, one of my people, one of the Gedrishakrim.” And the truth of it washed over me like a sudden waterfall, thrilled down my spine like rain on a sleeper’s face, and in that place of death I laughed for joy, loud and clear. “Akor, beloved, we thought you dead, but you live. Bless the Winds and the Lady, you live, you live!”