The Lesser Kindred

  Lanen

  It was raining. It had been raining for-bloody-ever. The weather had turned foul a week after that fight in the dark, with a cold rain driven by a colder wind, and I had caught a sniffle that would not go away. We had been rained on for what felt like a solid fortnight: as we crossed the Arlen to travel south through the western reaches of the North Kingdom, as we rode through fields and woods to keep off the main roads, as we seemed to crawl our way south: sometimes harder, sometimes no more than a gentle mist that got into our packs and soaked everything, sometimes just a dreary never-ending drip all day long.

  The Spring Balance-day was still more than a fortnight away. We’d been travelling a full moon and a fortnight on every back road in Kolmar ever since the night the mercenaries had attacked, with never a sniff of an inn or a hostel, and it had been raining forever.

  Well, it felt like forever. When your best fire is a few tiny flames dancing on a stick for a few hours, believe me, patience and understanding fly out the window in a hurry. Jamie was growling at Rella, Rella was growling at me, and I was growling at everybody. Varien, maddeningly, was calm and unruffled. He was making me furious, but then, so was everything. In my poor defence I should say that the voices in my head had not stopped. They seemed to come in waves, sometimes loud enough to stop me from being able to think, sometimes barely there at the edge of hearing. I couldn’t decide which was worse, but I was heartily sick of them and of everything else, especially myself. At least there had been no more attacks, thank the Lady for small favours.

  Jamie had spent a little time every day training both Varien and me in swordplay. I was very little better than when I had started, but Varien seemed to take to it like breathing, and after less than two moons he was better at it than I was. This, of course, made me terribly jealous.

  I seemed to spend every waking moment in a foul mood. I did try to fight it, but for some reason every least little thing made me snarl.

  “Lanen, how fare you?” asked Varien quietly when we stopped in the poor shelter of some ancient trees to take our midday meal. At least the rain wasn’t quite so hard there.

  “Just as I’ve fared every time you’ve asked,” I growled. “I can’t get any peace, inside my head or out.” I stomped away, looking for any vestige of dry wood I could find. I didn’t find any.

  We ate cold bread and cheese and strips of salted meat that were drier than we were. “I swear to you,” grumbled Jamie, who was not much better off than I was, “if this keeps up much longer there’ll be murder done.”

  “Stop bragging,” said Rella. She was for some reason in better heart than she had been for some days. “We’re nearly there.”

  “Nearly where?” I asked.

  “There’s a way station half a day’s ride from here.”

  “And what is that?” asked Varien. “Of your good heart, lady, tell us that it hath a fire and shelter from the rain.” “No and yes,” she replied. “There is nowhere to light a fire, in case it should smoke, but way stations have roofs and four walls and a dry floor, and there is always a stock of dry wood for the taking. There are also things there more precious than lansip, if none have been there before me.”

  She refused to tell us what she was talking about, but the thought of a solid roof over my head sounded wonderful, even without a fire. We all cheered up a little, and the voices grew that bit quieter for a while. It just shows that anticipation is a strong influence. Just as well. When we finally came upon the way station, it had grown even darker than the grey murk we had travelled through all day, and it took Rella a few minutes to find it even though she knew what she was looking for. It was well hidden, certainly. It was also no more and no less than she had said. When Jamie finally managed to light a stub of candle, we saw that we were in a small room with four low walls, a roof that kept out the rain but was so low that Varien and I couldn’t stand upright, a small chest against a corner, a tiny grille high up in a corner to let in air, no windows and no place for a fire. I started grumbling and threatened to light a fire on the floor as I piled the wet saddles and other tack in a corner. The horses were in a sheltered brake; we’d fed and watered them, but the poor things had naught but the wet ground to sleep on. They each had two blankets, and we had to hope that would do.

  “And how will you start a fire in here without setting light to your own foot?” said Rella, offended. “Honestly, girl, you’re foul-tempered these days. Have some consideration for those of us who have to live with you. This is a way station of the Silent Service, not the common room of an inn! If anyone found out I’d let you in at all, I’d lose a month’s wages and have to stock way stations until the next quarter day. There’s nowhere for the smoke to go in any case. It’s well sealed, though, and with all four of us sleeping here we’ll be warm enough and dry for a change, and there are candles enough to keep a light as long as we want. That reminds me.” She took the candle and carried it to the chest. When she opened it she laughed with delight. “Oh, the Goddess bless the poor bastard who’s in disgrace! Dry blankets, by Shia, and enough waterproofs for all!”

  She started hauling out bundles of folded material and handing them round, a blanket each and another bundle. These last were surprisingly heavy, but when I took my sodden leather gloves off I felt the curious texture. It was like a medium-weight burlap, a finer weave than I had expected, but it smelled of something that wasn’t cloth. I sniffed.

  “Beeswax,” said Jamie, grinning.”Waxed cloth, by the Lady! Mistress Rella, I beg your forgiveness, and grant you mine despite the fact that I’m frozen to the bone.” He stripped off his sodden tunic, wrapped himself in a dry blanket, put the waxed cloth over all and settled down with his back to a wall.”Blessings upon the Silent Service, I’ll never curse them again without good cause,” he said, and Rella laughed.

  “Why doesn’t the wax break when the cloth bends?” I asked, copying Jamie. The dry blanket was the first real warmth I’d felt since we got soaked through two nights since, and though the waxed cloth wasn’t warm in itself it kept the heat in and I began to thaw a little. Varien sat beside me and wrapped the two of us in his cloth. He was, as always, nearly hot to the touch, bless him.

  “None of your business,” said Rella smugly. “Why do you think we’re called the Silent Service?”

  “How far are we from the Kai, do you think?” I asked. I had tried not to ask that every night for the past week. I was losing the battle.

  To my delight Jamie said, “I am not certain of these roads, but unless I am far out of my reckoning we should strike the river in the next day or so.”

  Rella raised an eyebrow in approval. “Not bad for one who’s been on a farm for a quarter of a century. I expect to reach Kaibar tomorrow,” she said.

  “Where we will find an inn, with a large fireplace and a real bed and hot food and cold beer,” said Jamie. “I don’t care if every assassin ever spawned is after our blood, I am going to sleep in a bed tomorrow night.”

  “Hear, hear,” I said. “If I could get warm enough and stay warm, maybe I could shake this blasted cold.”

  “You won’t get any argument from me,” said Rella. “My back is killing me. I’ve been ignoring it something shocking ever since we started out.”

  I tended to forget about Rella’s crooked back. She had exaggerated it when I first met her, to appear helpless and crippled in the presence of my father Marik, but it was not a disguise she could do off. I hadn’t known how it bothered her until we started travelling together. She was made of stern stuff, but the cold and the wet got into her bones and every now and then she’d swear at the ache. Varien had taken to sitting back-to-back with her when we had our meagre meals, for she said the heat was a great relief. Still, that very morning she had not been able to contain the groan when she mounted her horse.

  She wasn’t the only one. My long back was starting to bother me too, and to add insult to injury I had a growing sense of discomfort below the waist. I had taken to running alongside the hor
ses as often as I could stand it. It wasn’t that I was getting fat, really, but I felt the way I did each moon just before my blood time. I was concerned, because I was a week past that time, and still my fingers were swollen, and my belly, and I had to wear a breast band to keep the soreness at bay. My bloods had been much lighter and shorter of late as well. I felt decidedly peculiar below the waist, and I could seldom eat much. Half of what went down came back up again later, but I tried to keep that as secret as I could. I put all down to short rations, too much cold and too much riding. The idea of a night in an inn—or two if I could convince the others—sounded like heaven. A chance to clean my clothing, my hair, my grubby self—blessed Lady, what a delight! And perhaps, I said in my inner thoughts, a good long visit with a Healer.

  As we began to relax and to warm ourselves, I asked sleepily, “So, we are near to the South Kingdom at last. I have never been there. What is it like, Jamie?”

  “Much like anywhere else,” he grumped, but his heart wasn’t in it, for he let out a muffled laugh. “Now, there’s a thing. I never thought.”

  “What?”

  “That’s where the little dragons live.”

  “What!” I asked again, more sharply now, and I could feel Varien beside me sit straight up.

  “You’re right, Jamie. I’d forgotten. Well, you almost never see them, do you?” said Rella. “Shy creatures they are. I have only seen a few in my travels, though that’s not so surprising, they don’t go where they know there are men.” Her voice softened in the darkness. “They are quite beautiful, really.”

  “The Lesser Kindred, kadreshi,” said Varien in truespeech, as excited as exhaustion would allow. “It is well. Perhaps we shall find them a little more easily, you and I.”

  We slept sitting up in that tiny way station, drier than we had been but still damp around the edges and not really warm enough, and dreamed of the simplest of pleasures. Being warm and dry may not sound like much, but it is the very stuff of heaven if you can’t get it. As I drifted off to sleep, trying to ignore the voices that were now muttering constantly just below hearing, I almost smiled. For years I had wanted to see the wide world and move out of the four confining walls that I felt were drawing in around me. I had heard that all things come full circle at the last, Lanen, but surely this is a bit quick even for you, I thought sleepily to myself.

  It was only just over the half of a year since I had first set out from my home.

  That thought was nearly enough to keep me awake. Nearly.

  Varien

  I waited until they were all asleep. It did not take long. Indeed, the most difficult part was to remain wakeful myself, for I was weary and the dry blanket was a blessing. Still, it had been far too long. I missed my people.

  I drew my soulgem in its circlet from my pack and put it on.

  The moment my soulgem touched my skin I felt Shikrar’s presence. I knew that feeling: it was as if he called me without words. We did so often, he and I, when troubled or lonely.

  “Hadreshikrar, my brother, I hear you. What weighs so weary on your heart?”

  “Akhor!” he cried, and I found myself in the centre of a wild storm of emotion that overpowered words. I feared at first that something had happened to Kédra, but I swiftly bespoke him and was answered.

  “Lord Akhor! Blessed be the Winds! My father is in need of you.”

  “Kédra, what is it? You sound almost as bad! Shikrar, soulfriend, I beseech you tell me what wrings your heart so. I hear your pain, my heart aches with it, yet Kédra is well. This is—” I stopped, stunned. “Shikrar, how—what hath befallen thee? I know this sadness of thine from of old, from my youth, yet it bleedeth like a new wound. It cannot be—”

  To my intense relief, I began to hear at least the slightest hint of recovery in his reply. “Akhor, soulfriend, thy voice is balm to my shattered soul. Alas, Akhorishaan! It was the Kin-Summoning—it has only just come to an end Akhor—I could not stop her. Yrais—Yrais—she spoke through me, she spoke to Kédra with her blessings for young Sherók. I heard her voice, her words, felt the touch of her soul—ah, my heart. Akhor, Akhor, it was Yrais.”

  I bowed, so far away as I was and despite the pain in my head that was growing steadily worse. Shikrar had been mated for so short a time before Yrais was taken from us. Their love had been remarkable among a passionate people, and Shikrar’s grief had been deep as the sea and nearly as boundless. “I have no words, heart’s friend, soulfriend. Is there aught to be done?”

  “No, Akhor, do not fear for me. I begin to recover. But oh, alas for that wound that will never heal!”

  I would have been shocked at his anguish had I not known how deep was Shikrar’s love and how long grief had claimed him after her death. I could only call his name, sending my friendship without words to comfort him. It was a blessing that he had the ordeal of the Kin-Sumrnoning behind him, for as soon as the worst of his grieving was past, as soon as he felt my mind-touch and that of his son and felt our love and friendship surround him, he was taken gently and irresistibly by sleep.

  “May sleep bring healing,” I said softly to Kédra. “Did you learn much from the Kin-Summoning before—”

  I could hear the sad smile in Kédra’s voice. “Fear it not, Lord Akhor—forgive me! I should say Lord Varien.”

  I smiled myself. “I answer to both Kédra. Lanen frequently calls me Akhor and does not even realise she is doing it. It was my name for a very long time, after all.”

  “And my mother, may her soul rest on the Winds, has been dead for a very long time. Do not fear to speak to me of it. I was astounded to hear her voice—she called me by name. Akhor, she remembers!—and pleased beyond measure that she somehow knows delight in Sherók, but I am not devastated like my father. The Kin-Summoning was extraordinary, in fact. Keakhor himself wakened to speak with us. Alas, his words shed no light. This island has never been so violently disturbed, and for all his travelling he never found another place that we might live. He even suggested that Kolmar was our rightful home and we were being called to return!”

  “In the midst of all that has happened of late, Kedra, it would not astound me. The Kantri on Kolmar again! It would be a wonder.”

  “It might also be a disaster, Akhor. Not all of our Kindred are pleased at the thought.’”

  “I never thought for a moment they would be.” I replied. “Yet remind them for me, Kédra, this is a vast land. We forget, on our little island, how broad the back of Kolmar is. Few as we are, those who do not seek out the company of the Gedri need never endure it.”

  “Ah, my Lord King, your wisdom is sorely missed, and not only by my father! I will tell them, my Lord Varien. And a thought to pass along to your lady Lanen Maransdatter—did you know that Keakhor took the name Far-Traveller for his own? In the old speech, he was Keakhor Kaelar!”

  “I will tell Lanen when she wakes,” I said, smiling. “She will be pleased. Forgive me, Kedra, my head aches terribly, it saddens me but I must go. Give my regards to your father when he wakes.”

  “I will, Akhor. And do not be too sad. You may be seeing us all far sooner than any of us expected!”

  I removed the circlet and held my cool hands against my aching head. It helped a little, and the ache passed swiftly enough, but exhausted as I was I remained wakeful long enough to send a prayer winging to the Winds, that Shikrar might wake and find the armour of time and distance that had been stripped from him intact once more.

  Will

  Just before it all came to a head I found myself outside Vil’s chamber of a winter’s day. I heard voices through the door as I approached.

  “Vilkas ta-Geryn, put me down!”

  “Be quiet, woman. You’re in no danger.” A pause. “There, back in one piece.”

  “Not if I get hold of you,” came the sharp reply, then the voice softened a little. “You’re getting better at that.”

  I decided that at the very least someone had to tell them they could be heard. I knocked twice, loudly. r />
  The swearing was reasonably muffled and the delay before the door opened not too long.

  Vilkas flung open the door. His face was a picture, though he tried hard to keep his thought from showing. If he were a normal lad, he’d have been scowling at the interruption and been halfway through telling whoever had disturbed him just what they could do to themselves before he recognised me. Thankfully his face changed when he saw me. He drew me into the room and shut the door quickly behind me.

  “Keep it down, you two. I could hear you in the corridor,” I said as I sauntered to the chair before the tiny fireplace.

  “I thank you for the warning, Will,” said the girl. “Was anyone else out there?”

  “No. Everyone else is at their classes, Mistress Aral, as you well know. What excuse have you today?”

  “No excuse and none needed. Did we not tell you? Vil asked Magistra Erthik if we could work together, try combining our powers as a special project. She seemed happy enough to let us.”

  “And yet you are here, and not a patient in sight,” I said. “Not lying now, are we?”

  “Not in the least and you know it,” replied Aral stoutly. “I’m a servant of the Lady, you know, and She doesn’t take well to liars. We’ve already been down to All Comers—you know, where anyone can come who needs healing and isn’t afraid of students—and we worked together on two people.”

  “Any luck?”

  “Yes, if I take your meaning aright,” replied Vilkas with a brief smile. “One badly crushed leg, caught under a cart wheel, and one with a chest you could hear rattle from the next room. Not often we get such acute cases, but they served our purpose well.”

  “It was wonderful, Will,” added Aral, her dark eyes shining. “Once we got them asleep, we combined our coronas and—it was—oh, sweet Shia, Will, it was amazing.” Her voice grew thick with emotion. “That leg especially. I could—we could see the whole structure, and while Vil drew out all the bone fragments and put them back in place I knitted the muscles and the blood vessels back together. Together we cleansed the wound of dirt and infection, and I smoothed the skin. It was as if it had never happened.” She laughed, delighted, and the joy in her smote me like a blow. My heart started pounding as she gazed up at me. “When we woke him he couldn’t even speak at first. He just kept looking at his leg, and then he stood on it.” She laughed. “I think if his clothes hadn’t been bloodstained he would have thought it was a dream.”