[Lanen Kaelar 03] - Redeeming the Lost (28 page)

Damnation. I’d never admitted that to anyone.
I’d barely admitted it to myself.

“If it hadn’t been for Jamie I’d have gone mad
years ago. Goddess, Maran, how could you leave Jamie to look after me? Did you
ever love him as he loved you? Did you ever even think about him?” My throat
caught, then, as I stood a handspan before her and shouted past the tightness.
I wanted her to shout back, cry, rage, anything, but she just stood there and
listened. “Eh, Maran? Did you ever think about me? Did you ever love me?”

She never moved.

“Damn you!” I screamed, and without thought I
drew back and struck her as hard as I could across the face.

She took the blow without flinching. A
distant, cool part of my mind took careful note that, whatever else she may be,
she was bloody strong. “I deserved that, Lanen,” she said. Her calmness was
infuriating. I went to strike her again, anything to get a reac—tion, but this
time she stepped in and caught my wrist in a grip of iron. And held it.

“Listen to me, Daughter,” she said, keeping
her voice low and as steady as she could. Her eyes were the hopeless grey of a
winter sky, but they were sharp and focussed entirely on me. “I don’t expect
you to understand or approve or forgive what I did, but you will hear me.” She
was breathless, suddenly, and had to stop and just breathe. I wrenched my arm,
trying to pull away. I might have been a child for all that her grip loosened.

“When I left you I was sure I was saving your
life,” she said finally. She closed her eyes just for an instant, swallowed,
continued. “The demons had found me. Found us. I didn’t learn that I was wrong
for sixteen years.”

“Demons?” I repeated, suddenly shaken. A memory
from before memory came to me then: a bright room, dark fear with red eyes, a
flash of silvery metal.

“Demons,” said Maran, letting go my wrist. “Have
you never wondered why you have that scar on your right shoulder?” She reached
out and touched the exact spot. How in the Hells did she know that?

I shivered. “Jamie said I hurt myself when I
was—tiny—” I said slowly.

“It’s a demon scar, Lanen,” she said, her face
unreadable. “You weren’t even a year old. They came for me. I had learned how
to get rid of them, but that time—that time there were more of them, and they
hurt you as well.” For the first time her gaze left mine as she lived that
moment again. I wondered, in a quiet part of my mind, how many times she had
lived it over the years. “It was such a tiny scratch, but you cried so hard. I
had to fight you even to cleanse it. By the time I was done I was shaking so
badly I had to put you down lest I drop you.”

I waited.

“I was younger than you are now, Lanen. I knew
so little of life,” she said, and for the first time she let her guard down a
little. “ I knew it was wrong to treat Jamie so, but—”

“Why did you, then?” I demanded.

She stared into my eyes, challenging me. “Life
is not always black and white, Daughter. Sometimes we just have to find the
shade of grey that we can live with. The sooner you learn that, the better.”
She frowned and looked away. “I thought the demons would take you and any who
cared for you. My own life I never feared to risk, but I could not bear that
they should hurt either of you, whom I”—she stopped and wrapped her arms about
herself—“either of you, whom I loved.”

“I see. You loved us,” I mocked. “You loved us
so much you abandoned us for twenty-four years.”

Maran sighed, and in that moment her whole
armour of self-control dropped away, leaving only a middle-aged woman with a
weary heart. “Bloody stupid, isn’t it? Hells, Lanen. I know I’m too late,” she
sighed. “I know I’ve done damn near everything wrong, but”—she caught my gaze
again and said very quietly—“my soul to the Lady, Daughter, I loved you and
Jamie so much that I murdered my own heart and left you. I could not bear to be
your death.”

I shivered again, blinking back tears—and my
new deeper vision shocked into me against my will. I had been fighting it, not
looking deep into her eyes, not wanting to know, for now I could see the truth
of her: the desperate fear, the courage it had taken to dare this meeting, the
resolve that held her to her course in the face of such pain, risking all in
the name of hope.

“That’s it, and all the truth of it,” she
said. “I found out about eight years ago that I need not have left you. The
Farseer didn’t work the way I thought it did.” She managed a wry smile. “Berys
was just being enthusiastic. By then, though, I feared—well, this.” She shrugged,
her hands turned palms up and open in surrender. “Should have faced this the
moment I learned the truth, shouldn’t I? Got it wrong again. That’s no great
surprise.”

She stood there, waiting. When I said
nothing—how could I speak in the face of this revelation, with twenty-four
years of thoughts and feelings still fighting to get out?—she nodded, and those
broad shoulders slumped even as her chin rose. “As you will, Daughter,” she
said, and turned to go.

I was ready to curse my new sight, for I could
see pain scoring her soul like terrible weals from a whip. Odd, I thought. That’s
how I feel.

Well yes, idiot. That’s the point, isn’t it?

“Mother?” I whispered after her.

She stopped and turned back to me slowly,
hardly daring to believe what she had heard.

“Mother, please, I—oh, Hells, don’t bloody
leave again!” I cried. She was back in a moment, and we finally dared an
embrace.

What ever happened to the strength of lonely
despair? I asked myself mockingly, even as I felt my mother’s arms around me
for the first time, even as I clung to her. I thought that was what made us
strong?

No, I corrected myself. That was what helped
us survive. Knowing that love had not deserted us, even when we couldn’t feel
it—Jamie and Varien, our babes unborn, now perhaps Maran/Mother—that’s what has
always made us strong.

We did not hold each other for long, and we
both knew as we drew apart that this was only the beginning, but—I cannot speak
for her, but I felt something very small, very deep inside me, change. As if a
wound deep within had stopped bleeding at last; as if a loose brick deep in a
well had been mended and the clear water could begin to find its true level.

We were not given long to consider our
meeting, for at that moment Jamie and Rella came striding up to us.

‘Thank Shia you two have finally stopped
shouting,” growled Rella. “I’m sorry, but there is no more time for this. We
need your help now, Maran.”

She grabbed each of us by an arm and drew us
away, past where Rikard and his students were laying out the body of poor
Donal. There was quite a crowd of the townsfolk starting to gather.

Varien appeared again at my side. I took great
comfort from his presence, though I still felt—detached from myself. Everything
seemed so unreal.

Rella was busy explaining to Maran about the
corrupt Healers, and why she and Jamie needed the Farseer. “Can you find him?”
she demanded. “I never have understood the limits of that thing.”

“Oh, I can find him, certain sure,” said
Maran, frowning. She seemed to be having as much trouble as I was, trying to
wrench her mind back to the matter at hand. “The dragons aren’t going to like
the smell of me doing it, though.”

“I feel certain that Shikrar will forgive its
use in so worthy a case,” said Varien, a crooked smile on his face.

Maran shrugged off her pack and carefully
withdrew the Farseer. I remember thinking it had no business looking so normal.
Just a big glass ball. “There is a difficulty, however. I may well not
recognise what I’m seeing.” She turned to Rella. “This is where you get to work
for your information, my friend. I gave up wandering twenty years ago.”

My mother—how strange, to say that!—my mother
knelt down, putting the smoky glass globe on the ground before her knees, and
we all gathered round. Will had wandered over to see what we were doing. Jamie
and Rella were nearest, as they had travelled most.

I think I was expecting some kind of ritual.
Far from it. She put her hands on either side of it and said clearly, “Show me
Berys,” and instantly an image formed in the globe. It was him, sure enough, in
an airy, well-lit room, asleep in the middle of the day on a luxurious bed. I
thought of sleeping on the stone bench in my bare cell and wished him seven
kinds of ill.

“It could be anywhere,” said Jamie, fidgeting
in bis frustration, trying to see around the edges of the image. “Can you—does
the thing move?”

“What do you mean?”

“Getting a look out that window would be a
good start,” said Rella, shivering. I looked up. The morning was starting to
cloud over and a nasty cold wind was gleefully searching out every loose seam
and unmended tear in my old clothing.

“I’ll try,” said Maran doubtfully, turning
back to the Farseer. I noticed she had to be touching it for it to work. “Show
me the view out of the window there.”

I blinked. Berys was gone, and in his place
there rose up high, snowcapped mountains, ridge upon ridge stretching away into
the distance, the bright sun gleaming full on the white peaks. Away below and
to the left was a large placid lake, the far shore lost in a haze. In the
center of the lake a small hillock, an island ringed with trees, boasted a high
and ancient oak in its centre. That wooden monarch stood tall and leafless yet,
only a haze of green about it showing that spring was well under way.

Jamie cursed, roundly and creatively. It
helped a little, but not enough. “He’s in the East Mountain Kingdom,” he spat. “Hells’
teeth! And damn me if I don’t even know the place. It’s only bloody Castle
bloody Gundar! Where else? Marik’s ancestral home.” He rose to his feet and
stamped about, beating his frustration upon the ground as he paced. “Curse it!
If I’d had half a brain I’d have guessed they’d go there, but how in the name
of the Lady did they get that far away that fast?”

“Demonlines, of course,” said Vilkas quietly, and
I wasn’t the only one who jumped. He, Will, and Aral had joined us silently,
while we were absolutely focussed on the Farseer. Vilkas sounded grim. “Berys
must have set this one up a long time ago. You need to travel the distance in
the real world to set the things up in the first place. He must have been
planning this for years.”

Jamie gazed up at Vilkas, his eyes alight
again for a moment. “Just remember, lad, I’m first in line.” He swore. “If we
manage to get to him in our lifetimes. It’s on the other side of Kolmar,
hundreds of long leagues from here. How in all the Hells are we going to get
there this side of winter?”

“I’d have thought that part was reasonably
obvious,” said Varien dryly. I shared a glance with him and smiled. Varien
raised his chin in the direction of the mournful little group around Donal’s
remains, and there stood Shikrar, all the lovely size of him, his great wings
folded neatly over his back.

“Oh,” said Jamie. Then I swear, for the first
time in my life, I saw him blush. “I really am an idiot,” he murmured,
grinning.

“Shikrar cannot carry us all, of course,”
began Varien.

“Truly,” interrupted Vilkas. “It seems clear
who must go. Jamie and I…”

“We are therefore fortunate,” continued Varien
more loudly, “that there are a hundred and eighty-six others nearby from whom
we may request assistance. I would not ask it of the Aiala, though some of the
Dhrenagan may wish to be of assistance.” He grinned. “It will give them
something to do.”

Will, who was watching Salera and paying more
attention than the rest of us, said, “That crowd’s getting bloody noisy for
mourners.”

We turned as one. There were quite a few
raised voices. I exchanged a glance with Varien and we hurried over to where
Shikrar stood.

It did not surprise me that they took the
Healer’s death ill. Those who had been there—Rikard, the students, a few of the
townsfolk who were sifting the ruins of the College—knew the truth. The rest of
those gathered knew only that a Healer had been killed by a dragon. I had
cleaned my talons of his blood as best I could, but there was no water nearby.
Dark stains remained, testimony that could not be denied.

To my surprise I noted that many of them bore
small weapons—tiny blades, or slightly larger ones that must surely be swords.
I had heard of swords but never seen one close to. The largest was not the
length of my least talon, and it was thin and weak beyond belief. Some carried
what looked to be thick tree branches, others had long sticks with many-pronged
heads. I breathed a sigh to the Winds that they might not descend to an attack.
It would dishearten them so.

Rikard explained again and again, but there
were some in the growing crowd that would not believe him. “He is in thrall to
the dragon!” some idiot cried out. “Rikard is corrupted!”

“Rikard is one of the few who isn’t,” retorted
Lanen, loudly. She and Varien led the others, as they all came to stand by my
side. Rikard let out his breath. I think he had been growing anxious.