[Lanen Kaelar 03] - Redeeming the Lost (49 page)

“They are trying to get away, Vil, you have to
stopl”

“Stop? Why should I stop? You were the one who
said I needed to let go.” Another gesture. More screaming, more death, and the
smile on his face was becoming a terrible rictus.

I shook him. “Stop, Vil! Listen to me! You’re
not killing them to protect anything now, you’re killing them for the joy of
it!”

“Yes, isn’t it wonderful?” He grinned.

I struck him across the face, once, hard. “Vilkas,
stop it!”

He turned to face me then, holding me
motionless along with all those demons, gazing at me as though he’d never seen
me before. The power running through him made my hair stand on end even from
two feet away. “Why? Why should I stop? They are demons, they don’t deserve to
live.”

“Vilkas ta-Geryn,” I said quietly, “you listen
to me. They deserve life as much as we do, as long as they stay in their own
world. They’re trying to get back there. Let them go.”

He looked at me for a moment, considering. “No,”
he said, dropping me to the ground and turning back to the demons. More
screaming.

I raised my power about me, stood directly in
front of him, and put my hands on his shoulders. He did not react. Damn it.

I reached up and grabbed his hair, tugging it
down hard, forcing him to look at me. He was taken by surprise and actually
looked into my eyes. I let go his hair, I barely knew what I said. I would have
said anything to stop him.

“By the Lady, Vilkas, I charge you—by the
friendship between us, by the power of the Goddess that rages within you, I beg
you to stop this slaughter. You are not dreaming this time, Vilkas. This is
real. If you kill all the demons you will be the Death of the World in truth.
Remember the balance! If all the demons die at your hand, what will come to
take their place? Balance in all things, Vil! You have used your power to save
us all, the whole world owes you its life. Thus far you are the Sky God, Vil.”
I seemed to be weeping. “Do not do this. Stop with the Sky God.” A mad giggle
fought to escape me. “You can be the Death of the World some other time.”

There was a faint flicker, I could see it deep
inside him. A moment of hesitation, a moment of his real self.

Oh, Hells. Oh, Goddess. I had no choice.

I threw all restraint aside and spoke the
words I had sworn I would never say, knowing as I did so what it would do. To
both of us.

I conjure you, by Mother Shia, by all we have
been to each other, by every moment of friendship—oh, Vilkas—oh, Hells—” I had
to push so hard to say the words aloud that I practically shouted it. “I love
you, Vilkas ta-Geryn. I love you with all my heart and soul, I always will. And
now, here, this moment, by the endless love I bear you that you cannot return,
by that pain I must bear every day of my life for love of you, I require you.
Stop this. Now.”

It was like stabbing him with so many daggers.
I watched him wince, watched his mind reappear in his eyes. Watched as that
unutterable joy drained out of him and left him desolate.

He turned to the demons and growled, “Return
to the Hells that spawned you or die the True Death.” He gestured them free,
and in the instant every single one disappeared back to their own rightful
place.

He turned back to me. Oh, Hells, here it
comes, and I bloody deserve it…

“I do not love you. I have never loved you and
you know it, but it’s not my fault.” He shuddered. “Damn you. You had no right
to do that. How could you throw that in my face? I trusted you, Aral!”

He came right close to me, he took my chin in
his hand, his face a thundercloud. Goddess, what is he doing? I wondered, even
as a stupid, traitor part of me that had nothing to do with my mind prayed that
he was about to kiss me.

Far from it. He was returning the favour. He
forced me to look at his eyes, and as both of us were still in the depths of
our healing power, I saw him.

No. No, you don’t understand. I saw him. We
merged as we always did when we were working together, and I felt it: felt for
an instant that incredible delight, that transcendent bliss that had been his
for so fleeting a moment, felt it tear through me like a hundred swords, so
sharp was the joy—and then I felt it stop. Ten thousand swords, ail poisoned,
ripping me apart. Ten thousand thousand demons wrenching me from that pinnacle
and throwing me down, twisted and broken, mourning, into a dark pit.

I was sobbing so hard I couldn’t see his face
when he turned away, but I heard him.

“You have only ever been second-best and you
know it. I could never love you. You have used me, used our friendship, and I
have paid the price. Why should I ever speak to you again?’

Someone put their arms around me and held me
as I mourned. I think it must have been Will.

That was my mistake, of course. I wept. Not
tears seeping out for the beauty of the dragon-song, but true weeping, for
Shikrar’s passing, for Varien lost forever—for too many things. The only
problem was that I couldn’t stop.

Akor, the Lord of the Kantri now again in
truth, came spiralling down to land as soon as the lament for Shikrar was done,
but I could not look at him. The others sang for their own dead. I heard them,
but I heard nothing, I felt nothing beyond myself My world encompassed only my
own body, and my own pain, and a sorrow beyond words. Beyond living. Even then
some part of me, some last rational voice, reminded me that he was changed, not
dead, but at that moment I could see no difference. I knelt there on the cold
ground, my arms wrapped around my chest, rocking back and forth in a vain
search for comfort, my body forcing me to breathe, great ragged breaths
rattling painfully into my chest.

Gone, gone, knelled my ravaged heart. He is
gone beyond any hope of returning. I will never hold him in my arms again, our
children will be alien to him forever. He is lost to me forever. Unbound our
vows, unbound our future, the pain I have borne, the children yet in my womb
fatherless.

I am told that I screamed. I must believe it,
for my throat was raw.

And as suddenly I found myself on my feet, and
it wasn’t only my throat that was sore. My right cheek blazed pain at me. My
eyes flew open, and there before me, her right fist closed about a thick fold
of my tunic, her eyes locked on my face, her left arm drawing back to strike
again, stood my mother Maran Vena.

I threw up my right arm to stop her hand. She
loosed me instantly.

I shouted and threw a punch back at her. She
avoided it neatly and caught my hand. Damn she was fast, and strong as iron. “What
in all the Hells are you doing?” I screeched. “Leave me alone!”

“No, I think you’ve had long enough,” she
said, letting go my hand as she calmly looked me over and obviously found me
wanting. “I’ve seen this sort of thing before. If I let you indulge yourself it
will only get worse.”

“Damn you!” I cried, furious. “My future just
disappeared before my eyes!” I wrapped my arms around myself again, cold at the
thought, and my anger left all in the instant. “He’s gone, Maran. He’s gone.
Mother. He’s gone from me forever,” I said, my eyes stinging with yet more
tears.

She took me by the shoulders and shook me. “How
dare you?” she said, her eyes lighting with anger. “He is here, idiot child! He
stands before you, whole and unhurt,” she said, gesturing towards Akor, who
stood yet some way off, his face turned away from me. “Unhurt save for your
words, that are like to kill him more surely than any demon ever spawned,” she
added. She put her hands on either side of my face and forced me to meet her
gaze.

“Lanen, since the moment you took your first
breath I have known your warrior soul,” she said sternly. “You have been my
shining daughter all these years, you have borne more than I could ever have
done. Do not fail now, here at the bitter test.” Her eyes blazed. “Goddess
knows, I have failed in every kind of love, but you are better than that.”

“I am weary of being better, Maran!” I cried,
and in my extreme of passion I let slip the childish cry of my heart. “It’s not
fair] I’ve been alone all my life, with none but Jamie to care if I lived or
died, until I met Akor. I nearly died a dozen times on that island, and then he
changed, and—I thought we would have our whole lives together!” I was weeping
again. “It hasn’t been the half of a year! Is that all the happiness I am to
know in life? One half of one year? Goddess, what have I done to deserve so
little?”

“Life is not fair, Lanen,” she said quietly. “That
is no argument for a woman grown. Did you expect life, or love, to be perfect?
Or easy? In my experience it is seldom either. Only in bards’ tales does anyone
live happily ever after. You have had a whole six moons of happiness. Some
never even know that much.”

“Hells, even you and Jamie had three years!” I
cried.

“That is enough, Lanen,” said Maran. She stood
square before me, her anger plain. ‘Think you that you are the only one whose
heart is riven by this? Listen to him!” she said, pointing to Akor. “Hells,
girl, I don’t have truespeech and even I can hear his heart breaking.”

“So is mine, damn it!” I cried.

“You cannot give up now,” she said,
implacable. “Broken or no, your heart must yet beat. You bear his children
under your heart. They need you. You cannot fail them. You must not.”

And suddenly she stepped in and held me tight,
her arms strong about me, her words softer than I expected in my ear. “Lanen,
for all that you have done, you must yet do one more thing. One last thing,
dear one, dear daughter, and all is done.” She held me again at arm’s length. “You
must forgive him.”

I burst into sobs, my whole body shaking, out
of my control. T can’t! I can’t bear it, I can’t face him, I beg you, no …”

“You can and you will,” she said firmly, and
dragged me bodily to the place where Akor lay upon the ground. He still faced
away from me, his head held at its natural level, far, far above my own.

‘Turn around, damn you!” shouted Maran, making
a fist and striking as hard as she could at the nearest bit of him she could
reach.

Akor ignored her and kept his face firmly
turned from me.

“You Hells-be-damned coward, you will face the
mother of your children or you’ll answer to me!” cried Maran, as loud as she
could.

He turned then and looked down. He still did
not speak, but his eyes, deep as the sea, old as time and wild with all regret,
were locked on mine.

Maran left us to it.

His soulgem gleamed a little in the last rays
of the dying sun, and his vast silver faceplate shone with tears.

Tears. From a creature of fire.

It was as if a human were to weep blood.

The sight shook me as nothing else could have.
Gready daring, I attempted truespeech.

“Akor?” I said, tentatively. No response. “Akor
my heart?” I said. Nothing.

Aloud, then.

“AkorP’ I said, my traitor voice cracking.

“I am here, little sister,” he answered,
finally. His own voice shook me. It was much deeper than it had been when last
he wore his natural shape, and with my new perception I heard far more than his
words. By speaking at all he laid his heart naked before me, and I saw in it
all that roiled in my own—hurt, anger, weary sorrow, longing. Despair. And over
and around all, through the pain and behind it, love.

Little sister. So he had called me when first
we met on the Dragon Isle.

“And still you leak seawater,” he said,
bringing his great head down to my level. His soulgem was dark, now, and
somehow that touched me more than ahnost anything. “I wished long ago that all
your tears might be tears of joy. Alas, that I have been the means—” And the
last of his control broke, and he bowed his head. “Lanen, kadreshi, my own
heart, I am as confounded as you. I know not how this has happened. Some cruel
trick of the Winds, some price perhaps required for the death of that terrible
beast—Lanen, by my soul, it was never my wish that this might happen, but I
know not how I might undo what has been done. I hear your anger, I share it,
but I can do nothing—” And then, the true cry from his heart, “I beg you, Lanen,
my wife, do not turn from me.” He lifted his great eyes again and I felt the
touch of his soul, my husband, my lover, and felt his despair sweep through to
meet mine. “My only soulfriend in all the world is gone to sleep on the Winds
this day, my Lanen, and I am severed from your arms forever. Do not leave me
alone here in this desert, lest I run mad, or die of sere loneliness and
sorrow.”

Maran was wrong. Forgiveness was not enough.

I could not think how to answer him for a
moment, when the words of our marriage vows rose up in my mind. I take you as
my husband and my mate for as long as life endures. Well, life still endured in
us both. He had not broken faith with me. He was changed, it is true—and,
Lanen, what if he had been merely human, and returned from some terrible battle
alive but unable to move without help? Would you leave him then? Abandon him to
his fate because he could not hold your children?