[Lanen Kaelar 03] - Redeeming the Lost (38 page)

It is annoying that the book of Marik’s thoughts
lies buried in the rabble of the College of Mages. I will have to get him to
tell me what he knows before the Demonlord arrives and I give it his soul.

I really must rest and make my preparations.

Tomorrow is the turning point.

I woke in panic from a dream of war to find
myself alone, though I didn’t have far to look. Most of them were gathered
around the fire having a hurried breakfast. I packed my bedding
and went to join them. Travel rations again, I
thought, sighing just a little. Never mind, at least the water was fresh.

Vilkas and Aral still slept. The sun was not
long risen, and the tail end of the dawn chorus of noisy little birds fell like
sweet refreshing rain from the eaves of the wood as I hurried to join the
others.

“Varien, Shikrar, I’m a fool,” I began.
Everyone laughed at this announcement and I had to raise my voice. “There is
much I should have told you yesterday, it’s important, especially for you two.”

“Yes, love?” asked Varien gently in
truespeech.

“Don’t!” I cried. He looked startled. “That’s
the problem. You and Shikrar must not use truespeech if you can possibly avoid
it.”

“Why, Lady?” rumbled Shikrar. Damn, he looked
huge in the morning light. “What do you know?”

“Marik can hear you. Anything you say, either
of you, he’s been listening for months now.” I explained swiftly how Marik had
come to have truespeech.

Jamie cursed. “That’s one of our greatest
advantages gone,” he said bitterly.

“Not entirely,” replied Shikrar, sounding
thoughtful. “Akor and I may not use it, but there is nothing to stop the rest
of us, or Lanen, from bespeaking one another.”

“I may not be safe either,” I responded
miserably. “He heard me too, when I was in that prison. He said he hadn’t
before. I don’t know if it was because I was shouting or because I was barely
ten feet from him, or if he’s getting better.” I turned to Varien and clasped
his forearms in mine, wanting an anchor, wanting him to have one. I felt
distinctly light-headed. “Varien, love, he also learned that I’m pregnant.
Berys didn’t know before, but I’d wager anything he does now,” I said grimly. “I’m
so sorry, love. I cried out to you in truespeech and he heard.” I looked up to
Shikrar. “But as far as I know, that’s all. You, me, Varien. Everyone else is
safe.”

“We cannot so assume,” said Varien.

“I was hoping to plan our strategy against the
Black Dragon as we flew this day,” said Shikrar.

“And so we shall, Teacher Shikrar,” said Idai.
She turned to me. “Know you if Marik can hear what we tell Shikrar?”

I thought about it. “He said he could hear you
two, he reported what you said,” I answered. “He didn’t mention anything about
hearing what you heard. Although,” I admitted glumly, “that doesn’t mean much.
Marik lies as easily as he breathes.”

“Indeed.” Idai hissed her amusement. “Perhaps
it would be best if we assumed that he can hear, and will report, anything that
you hear or say, Shikrar. Very well—then let you consider the most tedious
subject you can think of, in great detail and at length, and speak to Marik of
it all the day long.”

“Lady Idai, I like the way you think,”
approved Rella.

Idai continued. “The rest of us will consider
how to defeat the Black Dragon.” She glanced at Lanen and winked. “I know that
we have not your years, that we are the merest younglings, but we must needs
struggle along this once on our own. No doubt we shall falter without your
guidance, O Sage of the Kantri, but think of us in our hardship and have pity…”

Shikrar laughed, a bright tongue of Fire in
the broadening day. “Enough!” he cried. “It is all quite true, of course, and
no doubt it will be a terrible struggle for you to manage so trivial a task
without my assistance, but you must take courage and remain hopeful. If life
and the Winds are merciful, you may one day attain to my years and my wisdom—though
my natural modesty forbids my ever saying such a thing aloud.”

“Your natural modesty would fit neatly in Lady
Lanen’s palm with room to spare,” said Gyrentikh merrily.

Shikrar snorted. “Very well. I abjure pride
from this moment. You kitlings come up with a grand plan to defeat our Doom and
I will obey blindly!”

“Ha!” barked Rella, finishing her chelan,
shaking the last drops from her cup onto the ground. “Even I know you better
than that, Shikrar.”

Varien laughed loudly. “Poor Shikrar! Even the
Gedri tease you now!”

Shikrar’s eyes gleamed in the morning light. “Alas,
all my secrets are known, my character discovered, my faults made public, and I
have not been here a fortnight! Where shall I hide from such infamy?”

“Please, Lord-Shikrar,” growled a deep voice, “have
mercy. Waking to the hissing of laughing dragons is bad enough. I beg you,
speak lower.” Vilkas, groggy and bleary-eyed, poured himself a cup of chelan
and drained it at once. Aral, behind him, grinned and drank her chelan more
slowly as he was inhaling his second.

“In truth, Idai,” continued Shikrar, more
quietly out of mercy for Vilkas, “if we look to be drawn into battle before day’s
end, I think we must chance Marik overhearing what is said.”

“Of course, Shikrar,” she replied. Looking to
Rella and Jamie, she said, “Have either of you any idea of how much farther
there is to go?”

“Quite a long way,” Rella said, and Jamie
nodded. “I think I have a rough idea of where we are. Castle Gundar is hundreds
of leagues northeast of here, through Mara’s Pass—though if you are flying high
enough, perhaps you won’t need to worry about the pass. But I shouldn’t think
you could reach Castle Gundar before tomorrow in any case.”

“Ah, but, Mistress Rella, you have not seen us
at our best,” said Alikirikh unexpectedly. It did my heart good to see her
taking part in this. “We are still weary, but a night’s rest will make a vast
difference.”

‘Then let us be at it,” said Shikrar. “Idai,
will you wait for these heroes to break their fast? You have the best chance of
catching me up.”

T will,” she replied, “though I recommend they
break it quickly.”

Aral and Vilkas ate faster.

“Then let us be gone,” he said to Lanen and
me. Gyrentikh gathered up Jamie and Rella, Alikirikh took Will and Maran—and we
were aloft.

That day was years long. The morning was
decent enough, clear weather and warmed by the sun, but clouds dark with rain
rose before us ere noon. We stopped briefly just before the rain came on, to
take some food and let the Lady Alikirikh catch her breath. I took the chance
to take my blanket out of my pack and wrap it around me. For all that spring
was now well along, it was bloody cold up there.

After we went back up, it rained almost
constantly. Of course, Alikirikh sheltered us from much of it, but there was no
escaping it all. After an hour we were soaked. When she remembered, she held us
near her, and we warmed up and dried off a little—but it seemed not to be a
natural position for any of them, and she often forgot.

Northeast, Rella had said. I didn’t know if it
was chance, but we seemed to be following the river. It had to be the Kai. I
stared, delighted. I had always wanted to see the Kai, though I had to smile. I’d
planned to be rather closer to it.

It would have cheered my heart to have passed
the time with Maran, heard her story, maybe found out what she and Lanen had
been yelling about, but the constant sound of the wind in our ears was all but
deafening, and speech all but impossible.

Northeast. How any creature could tell
directions in that downpour I know not, though of course the river lay below.
And eastwards it must surely have been, for the hills rose steadily higher
before us.

I sought the Black Dragon from the moment I
took to the Winds that morning. We soon, to my sorrow, came upon it and the
Dhrenagan together. Even as I approached, two of the Dhre-nagan broke off from
the rest and flew straight towards the Black Dragon. I could see their comrades
trying to dissuade them, but to no avail, and as I watched the Demonlord laughed
and caught them, burned them until all they could do was to choose the Swift
Death, cheating him of their souls but throwing their lives away to no purpose.
I could not bear it. I did not care if Marik heard every word.

“Naikenna, can you do nothing?”

Her mindvoice was disconsolate. “And how would
you stop one of your own who was determined on death, Shikrar?” she asked,
soul-weary, heartsick. “They are the seventh and eighth of our people to choose
their deaths in this fashion. Each is a soul I have known for many long
winters, each was a link to a past that is else lost forever. By my soul, I
assure you, I would stop them if I could.”

“Can they not even await our Council this
night?”

“Most can,” she replied. “Those of us who
slept can wait. Those of us who waked, even in part—ah, you cannot know. To
taste blessed freedom at last, to breathe, to ride again on the Winds! Thus far
we are in paradise, after long ages of torment undeserved. To see the founder
of that torment so near, in a travesty of our own shape, and know that we
cannot even now extract revenge—it is more than some can bear.”

“I hear you, Lady,” I answered sadly. “Can you
at least convince them to keep out of its sight? Let it not know where we are
or what we do.”

“I will try, Shikrar,” she replied. I thought
she had closed her mind to me, but—well, perhaps she was not shielding as
tightly as she might. “Alas for Hyrishli and Orgalen,” she mourned. “Hyr-ishli,
soulfriend, heart’s-sister, what darkness so overshadowed your soul? We are
alive again, we are free, released from our torment at last. Was life so
frightening after all these years? O Hyr-ishlianareli, my sister, sleep on the
Winds, sleep soft and gentle where you are gone.” Her mindvoice dropped to the
merest whisper. “Hyrish, dear one, why could you not let me say farewell?”

I could not keep silence. Quietly, I bespoke
her with the only words I had.

“May the Winds bear them up, where the sun is
ever warm and bright.

We finished the Blessing for the Dead
together. If Marik heard, much comfort may he take of it.

May their souls find rest in the heart of
light.

I bespoke Kedra, for my heart ached for the
sound of his voice. “Where are you, my son?”

“Far ahead and higher up,” he replied shortly.
“Fear not, my father.”

It was enough.

We flew on. I would fain have joined Kedra and
the others, but we four had to stay low for the sake of those we carried. We
swiftly passed both Black Dragon and Dhrenagan and settled into a steady
rhythm, following the river far below.

It came on to rain just after noon, and soon
after we reached that place the Gedri call Mara’s Pass. It is an excellent
landmark for flight. It is not truly a pass, for the hills to the north and
south fall away to flat ground for some leagues, but it is the only sensible
place to cross that range of mountains if you cannot fly above.

I became more and more unsettled as we
approached it. It looked—familiar. I could swear I knew the place, even to the
extent of knowing that there were better updrafts on the northern side. I rose
swiftly on the thermal, anticipating the jog to the left that I knew lay before
me just past the highest point of the surrounding hills. I swooped away left,
caught the rising air as though I had lived there all my life, and nearly
dropped Lanen and Varien when I saw the vista before me. Their cries in my mind
brought me back to myself, but all was changed.

There in the distance were the true East
Mountains, of which these hills were mere outliers. They stood, snow-topped and
menacing under the dark sky, looming at the edge of sight like a threat, and I
realised between one breath and the next how I knew this place.

My Weh dreams.

Dreams that occur in the healing Weh sleep are
important. The Weh sleep is our time of regeneration: the longer we live, the
larger we become, and it is impossible to grow surrounded by armour. Thus,
about every fifty winters the Weh comes upon us, with little or no
notice—perhaps a day, perhaps a few hours—and we have no choice but to find a
safe place and go to sleep. It is the only time that we are vulnerable to the
Gedri, when our old armour becomes brittle and falls away and the new armour
underneath has not yet had time to harden. It can take up to six moons for one
my age to rouse from the Weh sleep. In most cases we do not dream, or do not
remember it if we do, but sometimes a dream will come to haunt us. If it comes
more than once, we consider it worth paying attention to.

I had dreamed of this place four times, over
the space of three hundred and fifty winters. I knew the way to Castle Gundar
from here, I knew what it would look like and what surrounded it.

And I knew now, to my sorrow, that my destiny
awaited me there.

The rain lightened and gave way to clear skies
just before the sun began to set. The high mountains before us began to glow in
the golden light as we drew nearer, and the wind changed, blowing now from
those distant heights. The air was cold and clear and bracing. I took a breath
like a faceful of snow and was revived.