[Lanen Kaelar 03] - Redeeming the Lost (46 page)

But that is our secret heart! cried my soul in
terror. That is the fire, that is the searing flame that protects and that we
protect. It rages ever in control. That is our power. That is our truth. We
cannot let that be touched or known, we cannot let down the barriers, once that
is loose we may never call it back.

Berys was fighting with all his strength as I
threw at him everything I could think of, but he did not seem to be more than—inconvenienced.
If I did nothing more he could surely fight me off forever.

No this is terrifying we cannot show who we
truly are it will hurt we will be overcome we will be derided it will fail we
wiUfail we will do something terrible we will kill again and again and again
!

I had never paid any attention to that poor
frightened part of my soul. The voice was my voice, yes, but as a small scared
child, the one who had so horribly killed the first demon-victim he had
treated, the one who had been having nightmares about it ever since and been
terrified of the power that could boil blood in living veins.

Who was this who said “we”?

Berys, sensing that my attention was turned
from him, gathered himself to attack once more. With a thought I held him
motionless. It was hard work, he cursed and fought back, but I could sustain it
for a short time while I investigated this last barrier.

I turned my Healer’s vision on myself, moving
into the realm of the mind where all is metaphor and outside time stands nearly
still—and there he stood. A skinny ten-year-old boy who had made a horrific
mistake and had been running from himself ever since.

Me. Ten years old, though I looked younger,
shaking, white-faced with terror and self-loathing.

I stopped before him and looked down, and
found myself moved by deep pity.

“Vil, lad,” I told him gently, “it wasn’t your
fault.”

“I killed her!” he shrieked, beating at me. “We
killed her, remember!”

I knelt down, that I might not loom over him. “I
remember, Vilkas. But it was a terrible accident. Our mentor Sandrish should
have realised that we could not control a power we barely understood. He should
never have let a child, however powerful, take over so difficult a case.”

“He didn’t kill her, we did!” shouted the boy.

I held out my hand to him. He hesitated, but
took it, and finally looked into my eyes. I think we both took comfort from
that.

In the back of my mind, Berys began to work
free from my binding. I didn’t have long.

“Yes, Vilkas,” I admitted heavily, his hand
clasped gently in mine, that he might withdraw it at any time. “We killed that
poor woman. You are right.”

He burst out weeping and grasped my hand in a
painful grip. “I’m sorry I’m sorry I didn’t mean to it must have hurt her
horribly I can still hear her screaming oh please let me not have killed her…”

“Vilkas, we made a mistake,” I said, putting
my free hand on the boy’s shoulder. “The one we trusted allowed us a freedom he
never should have allowed. We made a mistake and we have been devastated for
ten years and more because of it—but, Vil, it is done. She is dead. We cannot
bring her back, no matter how sorry we are for causing her death. But we can
honour her by putting that wild power to its proper use. I am older—we are
older now. I understand control, I have worked hard to learn it ever since that
day. And now we need the wildfire within us.” I showed young Vilkas the great
legions of demons harrying the Kantri; I showed him the Demonlord; and lastly,
I pointed to Berys in the realm of the spirit, a demon struggling out of a net
and beginning to break free.

“I know him, he tried to kill us he killed so
many of our friends Magistra Erthik he is bad!” my younger self cried.

“Yes, Vil,” I said quietly. “And we are
fighting him now. This is our chance to right the balance, to honour the woman
we killed. Let us release that power to its proper use.”

“I’m scared I’m scared we can’t make it do
what we want…”

I was profoundly moved by the lad’s fear. “It’s
alright, Vilkas,” I said, and putting my long arms around his skinny body, I
held him close. The first instant it was like hugging a plank of wood, but
after that first shock the lad relented and clung to me. “I can control it.
Truly.”

He drew back, staring frightened into my eyes.
“But what if we kill someone else?” he whispered.

“I promise I will not ever use our power to
kill anything except demons,” I swore to him. “Ever.”

I felt his gaze sear along my mind, down into
my deepest heart, as he searched out the truth of what I said. It was there.
Something began to dawn in his eyes, so brilliant blue, so large in that young
face. He reached out, and tentatively he put his light little arms around my
neck. “You promise?” he whispered.

“I promise,” I whispered back.

“Then what are you waiting for?” he demanded,
shoving me away with vigour. “Look, he’s getting loose!”

I stood and grinned down at my young soul. “Shall
we stop him, Vil?’

The lad grew to meet my height, changing
swiftly into the self I knew from the mirror. His identical grin began to meld
with mine.

“Oh, yes,” he said, his voice no longer its
boyish treble but my own.

And we were one.

A sharp pain ripped me back to the real world.
Berys was free, shooting black power like swords into me as fast as he could.
His eyes were bloodshot with fury but he was laughing.

“Poor little lad, killed someone did he? And
you impotent because of it ever since. How wonderful!”

I felt young Vilkas grow to fill my skin, and
the cage around the core of my true power grew thinner, thinner, like reeds,
like gossamer—gone.

I averted Berys’s attack with a contemptuous
flicker of thought.

He drew back his hand and started to chant something
hideous, his face a mirror for the words.

“Oh, do shut up,” I said, suddenly tired of
the sound of his voice. I sent silence around him, as he had kept Lanen silent.
He struggled to get away. I found it surprisingly easy to hold him still.

I gazed into his soul with my Healers sight.
It was revolting. In among the swirls of bloodred and poisonous bile green and
pus yellow there was a centre of solid black—no, a silvery black—oh! That wasn’t
him, it was something he carried. I ignored it and forced myself to look
deeper. There! There were the shields, like overlapping armour wrapped around
him. Like the layers of an onion gone soft and stinking.

I began to remove them. I worked slowly and
carefully, for I did not know how closely these touched him and I was
determined not to harm him with my power.

I had promised.

Sacred Fire rose within me as I flew from the
Black Dragon, drawing it after me. I went to breathe my Fire onto the Winds,
that this act might be consecrated—but when I opened my mouth no flame came
forth. I felt the air currents change, a sudden headwind—no, my head was forced
back. I tried turning my head to the left and breathed flame—a sudden gust
forced me to the right.

My thoughts reeled. I lived in a body that could
not be. Shikrar, turned to Akhor all in a moment—no flame, though I am a
creature of fire, but the power of the Winds at my command.

7 never wanted this.

There again, I didn’t recall anyone asking
what I wanted. The Wind of the Unknown blows hardest of all, it is said.

I turned to face the thing behind me, breathed
the Winds at it, and flew faster. I felt its contempt, heard its unnatural
laughter as it pursued me in my terrified attempt to escape. I heard it start
to roar and swerved left. The edge of its solid flame caught my tail-tip and I
screamed in agony.

Well, perhaps it didn’t hurt quite that much,
but it pleased the Black Dragon and stopped it thinking.

I veered right, it followed me close. It was
flying much better than before, but it was still clumsy in the air, and so
huge. So huge, so intimidating, so very… heavy.

Shikrar—oh, my soulfriend Shikrar—had made us
all learn to fly carrying weights when we were young, that we might come to
understand the changes that we would need to deal with as we grew older. We
learned swiftly that with greater weight, we could achieve far greater speed;
indeed, that was the first half of his lesson.

The second half is that with all that momentum
it is very, very difficult to manoeuvre, and even harder to stop.

I put on a burst of speed, rejoicing in the
midst of my fury at the feel of the Winds bearing me up, at the strength in
these great wings, speeding me onward towards that great cloud of smoke. Some
careless flame must have set fire to those trees. Oh dear, oh dear.

I concentrated, focussed my voice, and sent a
sudden loud note to ring in that spot in my faceplate where it would resonate
just… so… there.

The echo told me I was upon it. Heart racing,
I flew into the cloud and instantly folded the greater part of my wings in
close and, using just the tips, pulled up at the sharpest angle my body would
bear, praying to the Winds that my speed and the updraft would allow me to
change direction. I scraped the cliff with my belly and legs, and bashed my
poor tail, but I did it. Flying straight up for a brief moment, then flipping
over and rolling away left—I was right way up and heading back the way I had
come when I heard the Black Dragon fly into the cliff at speed. It barely had
time to scream before there was a terrible thump and a hiss, and black smoke
made a thicker screen than the white.

I rode the updraft, spiralling into clear air.
Always gain height, the advantage is always in height—I could hear Shikrar’s
voice in my head even after all these years. I was oddly untroubled by Rakshasa
as I rode the winds, trying to see through the billowing smoke and learn what
damage Idai and I had wrought.

A smaller thump, the sound of one taking to
the skies—and the Black Dragon emerged.

It was half the size it had been. No, less—it
had lost much of itself in its two dunkings, and only half of what was left now
flew.

Straight towards Lanen.

We fought on, Maran and Rella, Lanen and I,
beating away at the demons that beset us, aD the while watching Vilkas out of the
corners of our eyes. Aral protected us as she could against the demons. At
least she slowed them down to manageable numbers. We fought with all our
strength, all of us, and the dragons did what they could, but there were just
too many. Maran fought like a madwoman, her sword flashing in the sun, the
graven runes upon it at least as deadly to the Raksha as the blade. Lanen kept
cutting her arm and blooding her dagger—Goddess only knows what that was about,
but it seemed to work. It was Rella and I who fared worst, for all our skills.
Raksha are hard to kill.

The layers of enchantments surrounding Berys
came off slowly, almost physical in their intensity of evil. Some made him
writhe, some made him scream—but none made him weaker.

I stopped to think. He saw this as weakness
and struck out at me, snarling now like an animal. It was a very powerful
attack, as though he were the stronger for losing the enchantments I had
removed. I had to work a little harder to fend it off, and it drew blood.

The fool. I was in the midst of my Healers
vision even as he attacked. Perhaps I did not defend myself as well as I might,
but now I could see where much of his power was coming from. The shape of it,
the flow of it, jogged my memory—where had I seen that? I sought that shape,
that particular spell, hidden as it was among the others, woven around with
misdirection. He attacked more viciously, managing to stand, but I paid only
passing attention to what he was doing. Where was it now, a flow, almost like a
funnel—a soul’s memory of the smell of burning hair—got it!

Rathen. It was the other end of the flow of
power that had been draining Rathen, that had so devastated him when I closed
it from the wrong end. Close it from this end, though, and all the other
Rathens would be free.

Berys fought me, furious now, sweating
heavily, drawing every drop of power he could pull into himself. He gestured
and a cloud of Rikti surrounded me. I dispelled them with a wave of my hand.
His mouth moved, still caught in silence, and even then a dozen of the Rakshasa
converged on me. I drew a deep breath and felt the Lady’s power flow through
me, from the great Mother earth, from the Crone now hidden in daylight, from
the Laughing Girl—a sudden flash of that morning by the waterfall—fanning the
white-hot fires of my soul let free at last. I gestured and bathed the Rakshasa
in Her power. Screaming, they disappeared back to the Hells, where by rights
they belong.

But I was being distracted. I held Berys
still—it took more strength to do that than I had hoped—but still I could
search through the stinking morass of his soul—wait. Something blue flashed in
my vision. Was that some vestige of Berys’s, own native power? Some particle of
soul still uncorrupted? Surely not…