I looked around me. I had been having the strangest dream, all about being sick and riding a lot of strange horses forever in a far country. I was delighted to have wakened to find myself strong and whole. Still, that far country had been lovely, what I had seen of it. I was tired of Hadronsstead, I wanted a change. I nudged Shadow into a gentle trot and went looking for Varien.
Suddenly, out of the stead came a tall dark-haired man. It seemed perfectly normal to see him, and it wasn’t until he turned a sour face to me and grunted, “What are you doing here? Be off with you,” that I realised with a shock who it was.
Hadron.
I half-jumped, half-fell off of Shadow and backed away. My dear mare Shadow. She had died in the fire. Hadron had been dead since last Autumn.
I ran with all the strength of terror towards the far fields, crying, “Varien! Varien! Where are you?”
Varien
I called to her aloud but she did not so much as twitch a finger. There was no help for it. I called to her in truespeech. “Lanen! Lanen! Come, you must waken.”
“Varien! Varien! Where are you?” she called, her mindvoice weak and confused.
“Here, dearling.” I said gently. “Come, I am here. Waken and come to me. You do but dream.”
“Akor, damn it, get me out of here!” she cried. Her thought was oddly distant, as though we spoke through water. She was far away, so very far away, and death so near.
“Lanen Kaelar, Kadreshi na Varien, I call upon thee.” I said with all the strength of my thought, sending all the depth of my love to her with all my strength, using her true name, sending love like water in a cold clear stream to one dying of thirst. “Come to me, beloved, my own Lanen.” I said, reaching out to her in the regions of the mind. “Come, littling. Thine hour of death is not yet come. Leave thy dream and waken to healing.”
“Akor?” she said, much nearer and stronger. “Akor, I can’t see you.”
I laughed. “Forsooth, dearling, it is no great wonder. Your eyes are closed! They are comely thus, it is true, but I love them better open.”
I felt her hands take hold of mine an instant before her eyes opened. “Good point,” she said. Her voice frightened me, it was so very weak. “Makes it easier to see, you’re right.”
I leaned over to kiss her. “It is good to have you back.”
“Varien, I had the strangest dream,” she began quietly, but I interrupted her.
“I will hear it later, dear one. Behold, these folk are healers to tend thee. This is Vilkas, a great mage, and this lady is his companion the healer Aral.”
“Work faster, will you, great mage?” she said with a strained smile. “It still hurts like all the Hells.”
“I am holding the pain at bay even as we speak, Lady,” said Vilkas. “When all is done it will be gone, but not yet. You must understand what is happening and what you and I must do about it.”
“We? You’re the Healer,” she said weakly.
“I am, yes, but have never tried the kind of healing your body requires,” he said. “You know that at the moment your body will not consent to keep these children any longer.”
“Child. Yes, I know. But it will not consent to leave.” She frowned and turned to me. “I only wish it would not take me with it.”
“You are not going to die!” cried Vilkas angrily, to my surprise. “There has been enough death. I have lost one I cared deeply for this day. By the Lady, these children will live if you will it, Lanen.” He turned to me. “She knows what you are, does she?”
“She knows full well,” I said, smiling down at my dear one.
“So I do,” she replied. Her voice was stronger now. “You’re an awkward so-and-so, but you’re my husband so I have to put up with you.”
“Lady, this is no time to jest,” said the Healer solemnly. “You know that this man was once a dragon?”
“Of course, you idiot,” she replied. “He just told you I knew. What of it?”
“It is the dragon in his blood that is causing the problem with your pregnancy,” he replied, ignoring Lanen’s insult. “I have stopped the bleeding and begun to repair the structures in you that are causing you pain, but unless you help me with the underlying cause the healing will not last.”
“Very well, O great mage. What can I do?” asked Lanen.
Vilkas stood, thinking. “I do not know exactly how to say this. You must—it is a matter of acceptance—”
The lady Aral spoke then, and her voice was soft and gentle. “Lanen, it has a great deal to do with the way you think of things. Vilkas can do wonders, but you have to accept the strangeness of these children in your mind and in your heart, or your body will never let them live.”
“I have tried,” she cried, “but it is killing me! I don’t want to die!”
Aral came close now and said, “Lanen, look at me.” She grinned. “No, not like that. I’m a girl too, remember? Now really look at me.”
Lanen relaxed a little.
“Forget your fear and anger for a moment and listen to me. It’s important. Have you and your husband ever worried about the children?”
“Of course, I have been ill from this for nearly a moon now.”
“No. I mean, knowing what he once was, have you feared what your union might produce?” The little Healer took a deep breath, swore briefly and said, “Monsters, Lanen. That’s the word. Have you been afraid that you were carrying monsters?”
Lanen wept, all in an instant.
“Oh, Goddess,” she said, her voice breaking. “Yes! The words, they haunt me, Rishkan’s words—oh Varien, help me! He said our children would be—would be—”
“What did this Rishkan say to her?” Aral asked me, “and why did it make such a deep impression?”
“He had a dark vision of world’s ending,” I said. “He tried to kill her, and only my friend Shikrar prevented it. Rishkaan said—”
“He said I would mingle the blood of the Kantri and the Gedri, that I would bear monsters, that the world would fill with Raksha-fire and there would be no one to stop it because of me,” said Lanen, her tears falling unnoticed. “Is it true? Oh Goddess, no, is it true? Are they monsters?”
“Don’t be stupid, woman. They are perfectly human creatures, if that can be said of babes so tiny,” said Vilkas sharply. “But the mingling of the blood is not happening, and it must happen. If they are to live, the two must blend and become something new, something that will sustain both them and you.”
“What in all the world can I do about it?” Lanen asked.
Aral spoke again. “It’s all in your mind, Lanen—well, at least that’s where it starts. This is all very new and we don’t really have words for it, but I think—I think you have to let these babes be what they are, both dragon and human, no matter what you think of it, and—Vil, is this right?”
“Yes,” he replied. All this while he had been sending a steady stream of power into Lanen, giving her his strength. “But there is more. For this change to happen, Lady,” he said, gazing into her eyes, “you must love them. As they are, what they are, who and what they will become—you must love them and be willing to be changed by them, shaped by them, as they have been shaped by you and your husband.”
“First is the Wind of Change, Second is Shaping, my Lanen,” I said, with a shiver. “Although it costs me nothing to speak thus, for it is thou who art being shaped.” I grasped her hand tight, making her look at me. “Kadreshi—”
“No, Akor,” she said, and her voice had some of its usual strength. “They’re right. Lady—I can’t remember—”
“I’m called Aral,” the little Healer said.
“Aral. What do I do?”
She smiled. “First, we ask the one who’s the focus of the healing. Vil?”
He looked up, his face carefully neutral. “We will work together, Mistress Lanen. You must welcome the dragon—”
“Kantri, please,” she said. “They call themselves the Kantri.”
He managed a s
mall smile. “You must welcome the blood of the Kantri into your body, and I will work to change your own blood that it might support both Kantri and human at once.” He gazed at her. “You must understand, Lady. This is the only way you will be able to survive, but it will change you forever. You will not be able to go back to the way you were.”
My valiant lady laughed, despite her pain and fear. From her true heart, in despite of all that beset her, she laughed. “Akor, you see, all is well. This is my turn!” She grinned at me. “Mind you, I have the easy part. I have these kind folk to keep the pain at bay, and I’m not going to be growing wings or losing anything I had before.”
“Are you certain, my heart?” I asked.
“Certain sure, Varien,” she said. “Very well, O great mage Vilkas. When shall we begin?”
“When you are ready, lady,” he said.
“Then let it be done now,” she replied.
He stood up, not touching Lanen at all. “Aral, I need you,” he said. I was surprised at the flare in the girl’s corona at those words, but she said nothing as she drew nigh to Lanen. They stood one on either side of the bed and raised their hands—well, Aral raised and Vilkas lowered—so that their palms were a finger’s breadth apart. They stood thus with their eyes closed, allowing their coronas to combine. Together they were far brighter than they had been separately.
Aral, however, opened her eyes and regarded her companion. “Vilkas,” she said gently, “this is too great a work to approach half-made. Behold, you are safe. There are none here that you need to fear, all is well, all is healing and the work of the Lady. We cannot do this with the tiny portion of strength you have restricted yourself to. We are going to need your true gift, my friend. The time has come, as you knew it would.”
Aral
I have no idea why I said that, but as the words passed my lips I knew they were true. Lady, it scares me when that kind of thing happens.
“I am not prepared, Aral,” he answered me, but it was an excuse and we both knew it.
“You do not need to be prepared. All the power you could ever need is within you, at your command, as it has ever been. Call upon it and loose it gently, Vil. All will be well. Gently, slowly, under control. The power that is in you, release it to serve the Lady Shia and the Lady Lanen who lies before us in her need, blessing and blessed,” I intoned.
I suppose I should have expected it, but how was I to know?
When next I looked down Lanen was floating above the bed at waist level. Vilkas’s waist level. Her eyes were open and aware, but only aware of Vilkas. I don’t think he meant to do it; my guess has always been that it was just that his back was aching and he needed to see closer, so he brought her closer, but it was certainly a first.
I looked at Lanen, so near to my eyes, and was almost blinded by the blue Healer’s fire from Vilkas. It was astounding. She was all but transparent—I could see every bone, every organ in her body, her very blood as it was flowing through her veins.
I stood amazed as Vilkas poured strength into her, as he watched the blood circulating, as he looked deep into the structure of blood itself and understood.
Then he spoke. Blessed Shia, that voice. I freely admit that Vil’s voice is one of the best parts of him, but when he spoke from the heart of that healing sun he sounded wise and strong and—older. A lot older. Several hundred years older.
“Lanen Kaelar, it is time,” he said.
“Whenever you’re ready,” she replied, and managed to add, “Name of the Winds, Akor, he sounds like the Kantri!”
Vilkas raised his hands high and summoned all that blaze of power into a ball the size of his hand. It glowed blue-white and was soon too bright to look at. With a gentle gesture he pushed that blue-white sun into her body, where it spread in an instant to fill her from top to toe. For a moment she floated there, pulsing with that power that beat with her heart’s rhythm. Then I saw Vilkas—this is so hard to describe—as if he held back the last note of a song, or the last drop of water that will make the jug overflow. It glimmered in the palm of his hand.
Then suddenly I felt the pulsation begin to falter. Lanen cried out. Vilkas shouted over her cries. “Bear with it, it changes, all is well, all is well—Lanen, know the truth of it, Kantri and Gedri become one, like your beloved but deeper, allow it, in the blood, in the bone—yes, that’s it—Lanen, now!”
And he threw the last bright drop straight at her heart.
She screamed just once, a scream that shook her whole body, and then she lay still.
Vilkas lowered her then, oh, so gently on to the bed, where she lay still, so still—then I saw the bloodstained cotton gown rise a little. Fall. Rise again. Blessed be Shia, she was breathing.
I was shaking so that I could hardly stand. Vilkas had to take us both down, to release my poor little nimbus back to me, and—with what reluctance!—to let go the glory he had so briefly owned.
With the last of my strength I looked at Lanen with the fading remains of my Healer’s sight. All the battle that had raged in her blood was gone. She looked now like any completely exhausted, perfectly healthy pregnant woman.
“Vilkas. Vil, my heart, my dear one,” I said, too tired to be careful, “You did it. Wonder and glory! You found your deep power and used it, Vil! You did it. She’s fine.”
“Thank the Goddess for that. Mother of us All, but I’m weary,” said Vilkas, and collapsed in a heap on the floor.
Will
I heard the scream and ran to the room. I arrived just in time to see Vilkas collapse and Aral sink to her knees.
“Aral, what happened?” I demanded.
“All’s well, don’ worry,” she murmured. “Need food, sleep—help Vil—”
I would have gone to Vilkas, but the silver-haired man was there already. He lifted Vilkas into his arms as though he weighed no more than a child. “Let the keeper of this inn bring food and drink to the finest room he has, that these two who have laboured so mightily may be cared for,” he said, with the manner of a king.
Everyone else was right behind me, including Gair, so Vil and Aral were taken to the nearest bedroom and made comfortable. I knew just enough about Healers to wake them and force a little watered wine down their throats. Vilkas woke long enough to say, “Need sleep more than food, Will, bu’ leave it here.” He was asleep again almost before he finished speaking. We left them with food, drink and a good fire and closed the door.
When I went back to the common room Jamie was the only one there.
“I’ve seen Lanen,” he said, relieved, and for the first time I saw that he had a good face. It had been sharpened by his fear before, but his brow was clear now and his manner very nearly gracious. “Rella and Varien are making her comfortable—changing sheets and bathing her and so on.” He passed me over my drink.
“We owe you everything,” he said, “you and your friends. No gold could ever repay you for what you have done.”
“Gold, eh?” I said, grinning. “Well, you’re right, of course, such service is beyond any amount of gold, but you could certainly try to make it up to us. You could just start piling gold on the table, we’d tell you when it was enough.”
He laughed with me, a laugh full of deep relief. “Alas that I have no gold with me on this journey!” he said. “I fear we will be forced to offer silver. Will that serve?”
“I should think so,” I replied, not really thinking about it. “For now, food and a place to sleep are a good start.”
He smiled and said, “Aye, that of course, but we can discuss true payment in the morning. I have been riding since dawn—though to be honest, you look worse than I do.”
I yawned and felt my jaw creak. “Ah, well, I am that weary, but as the other two are sound asleep I thought I would—well, master Jamie, truth is that one of us must be awake and wary and there’s only me left to do it.”
Jamie looked long at me. “Will, I think you’re a good man,” he said finally. “You know nothing of me, I know, and have no
call to trust me, but I tell you true, we are keeping watch as well. Rella and I have the first shift, and believe me, we’re good at it. Get some sleep. I give you my word I will watch over you and yours, and wake you should danger threaten.” He held out his hand.
Well, you have to trust people at some point, don’t you?
“Willem of Rowanbeck,” I said, shaking his hand.
“Jameth of Arinoc.”
“Well, Jameth of Arinoc, I am going to believe every word you say,” I declared, “partly because I saw the way you looked at that poor girl in there and partly because I have had hell’s own day and I could sleep through the end of the world.,” I said, standing up. “Wake me if anything untoward happens.”
“I will that. Sleep well, Willem.”
I rose, staggering, and stumbled to the room Gair had pointed out to me. I fell on the bed and I swear I was asleep before my head touched the pillow.
Shikrar
We lay huddled together on a hilly green rock in the ocean. There were a few trees and there was fresh water, but there was little else. Barely room for us all to lie down, but that did not matter—the whole island was a mass of upraised wings, as those who were less tired kept the rain off those who slept. Beneath the shelter of friendly wings were heads resting on furled wings resting on nearby backs resting against other backs.
Idai and I lay curled around one another. It was very intimate, or it would have been if we were in a dry cave. As it was, we were simply huddled together against the cold, with Idai’s wings over our heads to keep off the lashing rain, talking.
“Shikrar, my friend, I do not believe that we can bear Nikis so far again,” said Idai wearily. “And by all accounts, the second leg of the journey is the harder.”
I tried to move my aching forelegs. Even thinking about it hurt. “I fear you may be right,” I replied. “I have not been this stiff and sore for many a long kell. Even with the assistance of you and Kretissh I nearly dropped her twice. But what choice have we?”