“It should be pretty obvious. I’m trying to remember—there should be a mudball about the size of a fist, a few feathers, and a handful of the incense used for the dead. Probably wrapped up together in a cloth somewhere on the ship.”
“Start looking now,” I said.
Rella
Well, that was another sleepless night. We looked high and low, all over the ship, for hours and hours, and found nothing. I began to wonder if Marik wasn’t just babbling in his delirium, until one of his guards fell ill.
The one who had taken over Caderan’s quarters.
We quarantined the man and went back over the room. We thought we had already searched it thoroughly, but I had been taught that the Swift Destroyer always struck first in physical proximity to the fetish that bound it. It must be in that room.
It was Varien who finally found it, in a hidden panel above the small desk that was bolted to the deck. He removed it with gloves on, as I instructed, and dropped it over the side, then followed it with the gloves.
The outbreak was not nearly so bad as might be expected. The guard died, poor sod, but the rest of us who contracted it had little worse than what felt like a bad cold. Varien seemed to escape the infection, which surprised me, as he had come in closest contact with the fetish. I suppose the gloves held it off.
Maikel helped us as he might, letting Marik fend for himself for a few days. By the time we started expecting to sight land, there were a lot of us on board still sniffling and sneezing, but no worse. It would have been terrible had we not found that thing in the desk. I’d never seen the Destroyer, but one look at what was left of the guard’s body was enough.
And of a sudden, in the late morning of the twelfth day out from the Dragon Isle, there was a cry from the crow’s nest. Corlí had been sighted away off the starboard bow.
We were home.
Lanen
We drew nigh to Corlí as the sun rose to a splendid noon, and some three hours later I tossed the mooring ropes over the side to those who waited on the pier to haul them in and make us fast to the dock.
I sought out Varien as the ship erupted into a mad confusion. We had all been provided with tallies of the lansip we had gathered, and we were to be paid on the landward end of the gangplank. The moment we had docked all the Harvesters ran for their packs, aching to walk again on land and to collect their pay from Marik’s people (and, if I had known it, to get away from this Dragon-cursed ship).
Rella and I collected our tallies from the bursar, and I went with Varien to seek out Edril, the merchant we’d bargained with for our passage. We honoured our word and handed over what now seemed to me a tiny amount of gold. Edril’s eyes widened and he went so far as to bow his thanks to us. Well, fair enough, gold is exceedingly rare, and Marik never was the sort to inspire personal loyalty.
At the far end of the gangplank there was a milling crowd of Harvesters seeking payment, receiving payment, grinning madly, laughing wildly at family and friends in the crowd that had gathered to cheer and greet the first Harvest ship to return in a hundred and thirty years.
Rella was behind me when I collected my pay for the lansip I’d gathered, but I did not mean to linger. Varien and I, at least, had but one desire—to get away from there as far and as fast as possible.
Varien
I had never imagined such a great crowd of Gedrisha—of people. The quay swarmed with them, shouting, laughing, working, begging, a great seething mass of souls intent on their own business yet moving as in a great dance with their fellow creatures. It was dizzying.
We were past the paymaster and heading into the crowd when Rella called out to us. Lanen was in a hurry but she stopped, waiting for her to catch us up. “Whither now, Rella?” she asked. “Now you’ve made your fortune proper, where will you go?”
The old woman smiled, her pack resting effortlessly on her bent back, a mysterious something in her eyes. “Home, I think,” she said. She stared at Lanen, her smile growing wider. “It’s a long way to go alone, though. I wondered where you might be headed. If our paths lie together, perhaps I might ride with you—some of the way, at least.” When Lanen did not answer, Rella delighted me by standing in what could only be an Attitude, the backs of her hands on her hips, her weight all on one leg and that hip higher than the other, with a quirk of the lips and an expression I had not seen before. Now if only I could learn what it meant.
“I’m making for a little village in the North Kingdom, maybe you’ve heard of it. It’s called Beskin.”
“What?” exclaimed Lanen. “Beskin?” Her eyes glowed with delight. “Heithrek. Do you—have you ever known a man called Heithrek, a blacksmith? It would be—oh, near thirty years ago, but his family might still be there.”
Rella grinned with delight. “Never met him.” She paused, and I’d swear she savoured her next words. “I know his daughter, though. Tall woman, looks a lot like you, name of Maran Vena.”
Lanen let loose a little cry and her mouth dropped open. Her eyes were shining and she couldn’t speak for a moment, lost in wonder at something I could not imagine.
And then from nowhere, out of the seething crowd of humanity, a small dark-haired man came close behind Rella. I saw something flash in his hand and heard Rella cry out in pain. Lanen cried out as well and caught her as she fell, but from where she stood she could not have seen what happened. I left Rella to her care and ran after the man, or tried to. There were simply too many people. I could not keep up with him—it seemed almost as if the crowd parted to let him through, then closed up behind like an impenetrable forest. In seconds he was out of sight.
I went back to Rella, now covered with blood and lying in Lanen’s arms on the ground. She was badly wounded, though I could not be certain that the smell of death was on her. I ran to seek Maikel, not knowing if he could do her any service, knowing only that there was no other hope for her.
Lanen
I had seen such a wound before, though Jamie was better at it. Rella still lived.
“Who has done this?” I asked urgently.
“Caderan’s master. Berys. Demonlord,” she said, breathless. Her face grew paler by the second and I feared death was not far off, but she managed yet to speak. “Beskin. Maran—give her…love…warning,” and then, staring into my eyes and speaking very clearly, she said, “Go to your mother.”
Then she fell back. I did not know if she had fainted or died.
Varien
Maikel and I came as swiftly as we might. He found the pulse of life in her yet, weak but present, and taking her body in his arms he bade us follow him to the Healer’s residence hard by. His fellow Healers laid her on a clean table and began to put forth their power to save her. We could only watch.
Lanen stood in shock, helpless and angry. She stared into nothingness for only a little space of time, then with a jerk opened her eyes wide and turned sharply to me. “Come on. They’ll take care of her. We have to go.”
“Where?”
“Away from here.” When I still did not respond, she gripped my arm tightly with the strength of her fear. “If they found her they can find us. We have to go now.”
And so it was that our first days in the land of the Gedri were spent in flight.
Lanen
I still regret there was nothing I could do for Rella, not even wait for her to be healed, but I knew where she was going. And she was alive. That would have to do for now.
On our journey it occurred to me that those who tried to kill her may have expected me to wait for her to recover, to stand useless vigil by her side. To this day I do not understand why so many people think that a kind heart is an indication of a weak mind.
Varien and I bought the first decent horses we found—not as good as Hadron’s, of course—and rode out of Corlí barely two hours after we had arrived. We journeyed north overland, keeping to the main highways, staying at crowded inns along the way, travelling as long as the sun was in the sky and keeping watch turn and turn about at nig
ht in our room. The late-autumn days were closing in, so we made the best of the shrinking daylight hours, riding until the last drop of daylight was wrung from the sky, rising well before first light to break our fast and be on our way.
We passed through the great plains of southern Ilsa. The ploughed fields were shorn now of their burden of grain and lay around us in untamed stretches, brown with winter’s approach. I found great beauty in the land, perhaps because I was given to see it with another’s eyes.
Varien
Once I had learned to stop falling off my horse—and I had an excellent teacher—I began to enjoy the stark beauty of the plains through which we rode. I missed the mountains and forests of my home, but the rising sun shone red-gold and kindly on fields where the Gedri had toiled, and I was content.
With the land, at least.
I found as we journeyed together, learning more of each other at night and morning in those few moments we had in peace, I could let sorrow and amazement and fear each have their place and yet have room for one feeling more. I would not have thought it possible, but my love for my dearling grew with each passing day. Everything I learned about her I cherished, her high heart and brave soul proved as true in everyday life as it had been on the Dragon Isle in the midst of high matters and great changes. I have found over the years that, as with my own people, the true test of character is to deal with others kindly from one day to the next. It is not so difficult to rise to the best of one’s being when matters of great moment are at stake. It is very difficult indeed to rise each morning with a kind heart.
As we travelled north, I found that other things were rising as well. The incredible sensitivity of my skin was gradually wearing off—clothing was no longer uncomfortable to wear, I had to think about it to notice the wind on my hand—but other things were happening that concerned me. The Kantri mate perhaps a dozen times in a lifetime spanning many centuries. It is a response to the urge to procreate, and though the joining of souls is a wonder, the act itself is difficult and, I understand, more than a little painful. Certainly there is no great pleasure in it.
When first I noticed something unusual happening to my body—we were some four weeks out of Corlí—I innocently asked Lanen about it. Then I had to ask why her face had turned red. At that time, she mumbled something incoherent and swiftly changed the subject. The next evening, however, she seemed to have come to terms with the idea. She sat me down and explained the technical details of human mating. It sounded dreadfully awkward at best. She laughed at my puzzled expression and put her arms about me—I had learned what “hug” was, and returned it gladly—and said we should discover more about it later.
Lanen
Dear Goddess, it was hard. At first I never mentioned the subject of sex, for we were still learning about each other, and Varien was busily coming to terms with a new life and a new form.
The problem was that his new form was to me the most alluring I had ever known. And I slept near him, and longed for him as a drowning man longs for air, and had not yet allowed myself so much as a lingering kiss.
It was not that I was, as the foolish maidens in Ilsa put it, “saving myself” until we were wed. The thought never crossed my mind to do any such thing. But for all his length of days, Varien was yet but a month or so old as a human, and in honour and simple respect I made myself wait until he had grown into his new body before I did anything about my own desires.
Typical, of course. When he finally asked me about “mating” (as he called it), I was in the blood of my moon-cycle. I tried to keep a straight face about explaining the details, but when he looked so skeptical—and at one point absolutely disbelieving—I laughed and held him tight and said we’d work on it later.
Goddess, it was hard to let him out of my arms. I longed for him more each day, and we had never yet truly kissed. He was still learning how, though his pecks on the cheek were rapidly progressing from the buss of a toddler to something more interesting.
I am not by nature a patient soul. Thank the Lady we were working so hard to put distance between us and Corlí, and were keeping watch over each other through the nights. It meant we were seldom in bed (when we slept in a bed) at the same time.
Damn, damn, damn.
Varien
Lanen said we were making for her old home, Hadronsstead. She had told me about the Gedri custom of “wedding,” and when I asked if we might not be wed on the morrow, she laughed kindly and explained that the whole idea was to have friends and family to witness the formal joining, and we would need to wait until we reached her home.
It made perfect sense. There is a formality of roughly the same kind among the Kindred, in which the two who wish to be joined go together to their families and announce their intent. By happy chance I heard a ballad one night as we supped in the common room of that night’s inn. It was a tale of two lovers, and though it ended badly—very badly—I suspected that I could do worse than follow the hero’s early example.
Accordingly, a week after she had explained things to me, I judged that the time was ripe. When we returned from our supper,
“I went and took her hand in mine,
and down upon one knee
I begged my true love me to wed,
and gave her kisses three.”
Of course, I kissed her thrice on the cheek, though my rising blood told me that something else entirely was called for.
Lanen raised me up and took my face in her hands, smoothing back my hair, and said in truespeech, “Of course I will wed with you, Varien Kantriakor, did you think otherwise?”
“Never, dearling, since the Flight of the Devoted. We became one that night”—and with great satisfaction I leant down, such a little way, and kissed her on the lips, full and long and deep. It thrilled me, a simple kiss shivering down my spine, and I said in a voice now grown rough with longing—“and now we are of one kind and Kindred, and a true joining is possible. Come, my beloved, Kadreshi naVarien, join with me in love.”
“Varien. Akor. Kadreshi naLanen.”
Lanen
I have tried to write of that night, the first of our loving, a hundred times, and each time it sounds worse—full of gushing sentiment, the words of a green girl with her first true lover. But despite our lack of experience we were neither of us children, and after the first fumbling starts we laughed, kissed again deeply, and went about it with light hearts and urgent bodies.
It was wonderful. I suspect I did more than my fair share of laughing at Varien’s astonishment at finding things so pleasurable, but my love laughed with me, and it was good.
We had seen no sign of pursuit in all this time and dared to hope ourselves safe, at least for the moment. I had asked the hostellers along the way, and we were no more than halfway, if that, when we began our loving. The days sped past as we rode swiftly, still with the thought of escaping a threat, but also trying to outpace the onset of deep winter; and the nights were spent in love and delight as we learned each other’s bodies and rejoiced in their blending.
We were blessed in the weather as well—at least, when I remember those times, the sun is always bright with the edged golden light of late autumn, the sky is blue and only spotted with clouds enough to make a goodly show. There again, if we had ridden through another such tempest as had tossed the Harvest ship on the way to the Dragon Isle, I don’t think either of us would have noticed.
I do remember, though, that it was on such a day that we came to Hadronsstead at last. It was only two hours after noon and already the sun was falling in the West, but we saw the stead first in daylight as we came over the rise. I could hardly bear the joy that possessed me—for not only was I come home, I saw in a field not fifty paces distant the face of all my kindred.
“Jamie!” I cried, and in the instant I was off my horse and running.
Varien
If there had been a hundred men in that field, I would have known Jamie among them. His face gleamed like a sunrise when he saw her—and when I tou
ched my hand to my soulgem (I carried the circlet under my coat), I could feel his joy and his deep rejoicing.
He held her tight, the embrace of a father and daughter, and over her shoulder he looked into my eyes. I dismounted and strode over to them, stood waiting while yet they communed in silence.
When at last he could bear to let her go, she stood back and would have spoken (to give us each other’s usenames, I learned later—a curious but useful habit when there are so many to know), but Jamie silenced her with a gesture. He gazed deep into my eyes. I smiled, for he stood in what was unmistakably Protection of a Youngling, as I had when first I met Lanen. I met his gaze in quiet rejoicing, for Lanen had told me so much of this man who stood father to her.
Suddenly he grinned, and his first words to me were “Yes, you do love her truly, don’t you?”
“More than I have words to say,” I told him.
“Come away in, my children,” he said, taking an arm each of ours in his own and leading us towards the building. “We have much to do in little time, if there is to be a wedding at midwinter.”
Lanen could not speak for joy, and I would not interrupt their communion, so in the silence of kinship we came to Hadronsstead and in at the kitchen door.
It was late that night when at last all tales were told in full. I could not read Jamie’s expression as he glanced from Lanen to me and back again, but it was certain he could not be mistaken in our regard for one another.
Lanen retired first, pleading weariness, but we all three knew well enough why she left Jamie and me alone. He gazed at me in silence for some time. I returned his gaze openly, though I found it hard not to laugh.