[Lanen Kaelar 03] - Redeeming the Lost (50 page)

Goddess, I cannot bear this! I cried silently.
I looked away, closed my eyes to shut out the vision of him just for a moment,
and at last paid attention to what else was happening around about me.

The earth trembled yet, resonating to the
glory of the music of the Kantri. The great Mother Shia who bore us upon all
Her broad back was shaken with wonder. Glancing below the lip of the hill, I
saw the Laughing Girl of the Waters whispering up to us in a mist, rising from
the lake into the twilight. I glanced behind me—and yes, there, just rising
over the mountains, rode the Crone, the full moon in ail her glory. The first
rays of her loving light bathed us both in brilliance and struck gleams from
Akor’s soulgem. The Goddess in all Her aspects breathed in me, I was filled
with Her presence, and I heard again—in my mind? in my soul? in my memory?—the
words I had heard when Akor and I sought to understand why we had been so drawn
to one another against all reason.

Daughter, have no fear. Let not this
strangeness concern you. All will be well. All will be well. Follow your heart
and all will be well.

No word of “he will be changed.” No word of “you
will know his love for only six moons, then be parted forever.” No. All will be
well.

All will be well.

Akor spoke again, his own eyes closed, his
voice now soft with grief. “LanenP’

I reached out to him, the same gesture I had
used half a life and six moons ago, and touched his warm faceplate. His eyes
flew open, wild with hope, and I swear I could hear his heart beating as though
he had run a race. “The Winds and the Lady aid me, Akor. I am lost as you are
lost,” I said. The words, too, were an echo, and to my astonishment a tiny
smile touched my lips. “We might as well be lost together, eh, my love?”

I stroked the smooth bone below his soulgem. “Damn
and blast them all, my love. We’re caught in this together. Shia forbid I
should leave you now, when things are darkest.” I stretched up and embraced as
much of his neck, at the thin point behind the faceplate, as I could manage.

With that touch he opened his mind to me,
unleashed a great flood. I could hear his thoughts as though a multitude spoke,
a thousand voices at once, a thousand thoughts but each of them barely audible,
as though he were shouting through a stone wall.

Lansen, I never meant this I my heart is
broken even as yours I I feel your heart in my own breast its beating is all
that keeps me on live I beloved, those who sought our death are defeated beyond
recall I the Black Dragon is dust and ashes and the Kantri still live/ Shikrar,
Shikrar, soulfriend, my life is changed forever with your passing, sleep on the
Winds, O friend of my heart/ beloved, for all that has passed we yet live, our
babes yet live/ our future will not be what we expected but at least we are
both here to have a future/ was I not this shape when we first pledged
ourselves to one another?/I will never hold our babes O ye Winds, have pity,
have mercy/ my heart breaks anew/ Lanen Kaelar, Lanen, kadreshi, can you bear
it? Can I bear it? By every Wind that ever blew, how in all the world are we to
survive this parting? I for all that is, for all that will be, you are my love.

At that last, he drew back and fought for
control of his voice. It took him a moment, for which I was deeply grateful, as
I fought for speech as well.

“Lanen,” he said, his voice far deeper than it
had ever been, “Lanen, how shall we bear it?”

“One day at a time, kadreshi,” I replied.
Perhaps it was the Lady, perhaps I had touched again that strength of fire I
had found when I believed I faced death in my cell in Verfaren. “If necessary,
one breath at a time. It will not be easy, but—one breath at a time, I can do
this thing.”

He raised one great hand and wrapped it around
my shoulders, as gently as he could manage. “One breath at a time, then. It is
well.” And then the great idiot added, “At the least, you know that I am not
changed towards you.”

Damned dragon. How could he say that with a
straight face?

I felt one corner of my mouth turn up, then
the other, then I snorted, and then I let loose with a great laugh, right from
my toes. I felt his shock at my reaction, felt him hear the wild inanity of his
own words, and watched as a column of flame shot into the darkening sky. A
dragon’s belly laugh. Goddess help us all.

By the time I finally wiped my eyes and he had
regained some measure of composure, the worst of our souls’ darkness had
passed, at least for that time. I grinned at him. “Well, we did promise each
other the spiky truth, didn’t we?” I said. “Damn it, Akor, I didn’t mean it
literally!”

He hissed his gende amusement, but was soon
solemn again. He gazed into my eyes, far calmer now, thank the Lady. “I bless
you for your loyalty, kadreshi. One breath at a time it is.” He sighed. “Name
of the Winds, Lanen Kaelar. What have we done that we must ever be faced with
such ungentle choices?”

“Shia alone knows, and she’s not telling,” I
said, sighing. “True enough, we have neither of us chosen the easy path in this
life.”

He cocked his head at an angle. ‘There is an
easy path?’ he asked.

“So I hear,” I replied dryly. “I hope for
their sakes our childer are blessed with better fortune. Or possibly better
sense.”

He hissed a little. “Hear us, ye Winds, and
protect our babes from our ill fortune
.”

“I hope they’re listening,” I said, my voice
trembling. I was starting to shiver, for now the sun was down it was growing
cold. Away on the far side of the hill a small fire began to gleam. “I’m
getting bloody cold, Akor,” I added. “And I’m tired and hungry and I could
drink that lake dry, I think.”

He hissed. “Some things have not changed. It
is well. Shall we go to join the others? I believe many of our companions have
moved down to the shore.”

“Not all of us,” said a voice, and my mother
Maran came to join us in the moonlight. “There’s a fire closer than that.”

“Have you been here the whole time?” I asked,
suddenly angry, afraid that she had overheard all we said.

“Not near enough to hear anything, Daughter,”
she said, “so you can save your anger for those who need it. Though I’m glad
you’re up to anger,” she said wryly. “It’s an improvement.”

She turned to Akor, as if to learn how he fared.
He raised up his head enough to look down at her.

“Lady Maran, I seem to recall—did you threaten
me just now?” he asked.

I didn’t think Maran would hear the slight
teasing note under his scold, but she did.

“Don’t be absurd,” she said, her smile gleaming
in the moonlight. “I may be daft, but I’m not stupid enough to threaten anyone
whose head is larger than I am.”

“Of course not. How foolish of me,” he
replied.

“And if I ever do it again, you’d best listen,”
she muttered, shrugging her pack from her back.

“Listen to what?” asked Akor innocently.

“Good lad,” she said, pulling out a familiar
cloth-covered shape. “I do have one request to make of you, if you have a
moment.”

“Of course, Lady,” he replied with a little
bow.

I couldn’t resist. “Goddess, you’re stuffy now
you’re back in that shape,” I said out of the corner of my mouth, pleased and
surprised to find that I had yet some remnant of humour within me.

“Silence, Gedri. You will show the proper
respect for the Lord of the Kantri,” he teased, mock-solemn, until Maran
unwrapped the Farseer. “What would you of me, Lady?” he asked cautiously. “I
wish to have as little to do with that globe as possible.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” she said, holding it
out. “It’s a kindness, really. I thought I’d give you the honour of doing what
I’ve longed to do for years.” She smiled. “Destroy this for me, will you, my
son?”

Akor took the Farseer, which looked absurdly
small in his great claws, and tried to crush it. I thought it would instantly
be powder, but it was too small.

He looked about at the green sward on which we
stood and handed the globe back to her. “Come,” he said, and flowed over to a
large outcropping of rock. He moved astoundingly fast for something so huge.

We followed. Maran handed the Farseer to him
once again and we stood back. He drew himself to his proper height, lifted his
arm high, and brought the demon-haunted thing down with all his strength
against the native stone of the mountains. It shattered with a splintering
crash.

Maran gave a great sigh, as of one who has
toiled long and hard come at last to rest, and fell senseless to the ground.

I’d seen it coming for more than a year now,
but that didn’t make it any easier when it came. Aral clung to me like a
drowning man clings to anything that will keep him ahve without noticing what
it is. I held her close, I breathed in the sheer perfume of her like a guilty
pleasure, and let my shirt and then my skin grow damp from her tears as she
sobbed.

I was growing angrier by the minute. Good
thing Vilkas had made himself scarce. I’d have felled him for a tin ferthing
and let you keep the fee, no matter what he did to me after.

Rella waited until Aral had settled down to
plain crying, then she brought over a waterskin and some bandages and ointment
and sat down with Aral and managed to get her to take a drink. I wandered about
and found just about enough sticks to get a fire going, though my hands shook a
little with the flint and tinder. The little fire wouldn’t last long, but it
was better than nothing. I took the waterskin off of Bella and drank deep. That
water was purest nectar.

With a sigh, I sat down with Rella’s little
pot of ointment and a few bandages. I’d barely begun when Aral croaked, “Here,
Will, let me help.” The poor soul, her eyes swollen with crying, her nose
bright red, still managed to call up her power and clean the worst of the cuts
for me and speed their healing. She soon realised that Rella was in worse case
than I and insisted on treating her as well. When Rella was patched up, Aral
went along to Jamie and did the same. Then she looked around.

“Where’s Maran?” she asked.

Jamie and Rella looked around as though they
expected her to appear from the darkness.

As it happens, she did. After a fashion. Akor
joined us, Lanen at his side, Maran draped gently across his neck, unconscious.
He lowered his head and I helped Lanen lower her mother carefully to the ground
in front of the fire.

“What’s wrong with her?” asked Lanen. I was
strangely glad to hear normal concern in her voice. Goddess knew they had a
long way to go, these two, but at least they’d made some kind of start. With
all she had been through, Lanen still found it in her heart to be worried about
this mother she barely knew. She is a great soul, Lanen.

Drawing my power to me, I gazed swiftly at
Maran’s limp body. Exhaustion, weariness of soul, demon claw, all of these were
obvious, but there was something else, something I could not see properly. I
treated the Raksha bites and gouges first, cleansing and healing. She breathed
easier, but still she did not move.

It is so hard, with those who have withdrawn.
Still, I owed it to her to try.

I drew in a deep breath and focussed my sight,
traversing all the systems of the body in turn. Wait, what was—there—a faint
shadow, elusive, moving, but there.

Normally I’d have asked Maran herself if I
could go so deep, but she was not there to permit. I put one hand on either
side of her face, my palms to her temples, and went within. The landscape of
her mind rose round about me, where all is symbol made manifest.

I was in a dark place, but there was a large
fire and the smell of hot metal—oh, of course. A smithy.

Maran, clad in thick leather shirt, trews, and
apron, stood at the forge, shaping metal on the anvil. I watched as a Ladystar
magically took shape under her hammer. When it was complete, she picked it up
with a pair of tongs and thrust it into the water barrel, where it made the
water boil. A great cloud of steam arose, shaping itself into a small smoky globe.
She sighed, lifted it out, and thrust it back in, but the same thing happened.
A smoky globe of steam above, the Ladystar glowing an angry red in boiling
water, refusing to be quenched. “I was afraid of that. Too hot for water,” she
said, and calmly turning the tongs around, she pressed the hot iron into her
flesh.

The shape of the Ladystar fell into her chest.
It did not cause her pain of itself, but she began to thrash as it went deeper
into her soul. “No, it’s gone, I swear it’s gone, I’ll never use it more!” she
cried. “I never used it for gain, never!”

Smoky globe. Of course. Staying deep, I spoke
aloud. “What has become of the Farseer?”

“I destroyed it, as she bade me,” said the
voice of the dragon.

I saw it then, all clear before me. A demon
artefact, used on and off for years by a good soul for what she perceived as
good reasons, would yet forge an unseen bond with the user’s soul. If we did
not act swiftly, she would follow the damned thing into oblivion.