[Lanen Kaelar 01] - Song in the Silence (24 page)

“It is perhaps not surprising
that from this great good came great evil. The balance of all things will not
be denied. It was a Healer who turned to the Rakshasa and so to the sundering
of the peoples.

“He was a son of that line, the
kin of the first Healer of the Kantri. He lived in the south of the
Trollingwood at the edge of a settlement. As a child he was content enough,
willing to work, listening to the Kantri teachers with a single-mindedness
unusual in one so young. When he reached the first stirrings of manhood he
demanded to be tested, for Healers were discovered in youth that their
training might begin at once.

“His power was shown to be that
of the lowest of Healers, able to cure small wounds, help in a small way. Even
that little was more than most were given, but for him it was never enough.
From the moment he discovered that only the smallest portion of power was his,
he sought to increase it, convinced that he was born to surpass his revered
ancestor. He began by wanting to learn more from the Kantri, working hard for
many years and asking penetrating questions, but he learned at last that there
is no way to gain more power than the Winds have given.

“It was his ending and his dark
beginning. He left the settlement and burned his home behind him. The fire
spread to several other dwellings and one young girl was killed; thus his first
death was accomplished without thought or concern. It became the pattern of his
numbered days.

“No one knows how he discovered
a way to treat with the Rakshasa. Did his curses simply fall on receptive ears,
or did he stand in seven circles and call some dark name, or make some offer
that degraded race could not deny? It is a moot point. The Rakshasa have always
known the needs and the frailties of the Gedrishakrim, and they nurse ever
their hatred of my people. It is enough to know that he summoned them, and the
world is the worse for it.

“He is called only the
Demonlord. His name is not remembered. He traded it, before the end, to one of
the Lords of Hell for a great power in this world, and when it went to that
Lord it took all memory of itself from those who had known it. He surrounded
himself with the lesser race of the Rakshi, the Rikti or minor demons. Thus,
with no name to give power to another, and a defense that seemed to him
impenetrable, he was free to work his will.

“It is difficult for rational
beings to understand what moved the Demonlord. Did he seek the domination of
Kolmar? Of the entire world? Or perhaps it was an integral part of that small,
mad soul to require all power once he had even a taste of it.

“He went first, disguised, to
others of the Gedri, in a place where there were none of my people. He demanded
that they worship him as their king, showing them but a portion of his power.
When they denied him he grew wrathful and stood before them in his new person.
The Rikti that surrounded him became visible to natural sight, and the only
survivor of that place described a luminous glow about him, of the hue common
to Healers but scored with broken black lines like a mad spider’s web. The
teller of the tale admitted that he ran terrified from that sight alone.
Looking over his shoulder he saw that black-shot blue coyer the villagers, and
he heard them scream as from a great distance. When he returned with others of
the Two Peoples, they found nothing but dark steaming stains on the ground
stinking of the Rakshasa.

“The Kantri moved as one,
silently, terrifying him with their utter, inexorable response.

“They burned the black stains
clean with dragonfire.

“When the first tongue of flame
reached the first stain, there was a flash of light and a loud moan. The Kantri
grimly went about the settlement, flaming clean every stain, every house, every
burnt-out shell of every dwelling. As Kantri—fire met Raksha—trace the air was
filled with searing white flame, and with the cries of the damned.

“When at last the work was
finished, the Kantri met in a circle where the Demonlord had stood. None knew
where he had gone, but he must be found. They began to send out word to all the
Kindred.

“The Kantri and Gedri met then
in a Great Council. Every one of the Kindred who could fly or walk to the
meeting place in a day was there, bar one or two who chose to stay with their
settlements and defend them. It was the last Great Council. There were four
hundred of the Kindred there, glowing in all shades of bronze and copper and
gold, and fifty of the Gedri like small, bright children against the vast size
of so many of the Kantri. Its like will never be seen again.

“The Kantri knew the
Raksha-stink; the Gedri survivor told of the unholy alliance and described the
sickening corruption of the Healer’s will. More tales reached them, even as
they met, of further atrocities, through the links of truespeech between the Kantri.
All the news was of a madman steadily destroying settlements of the Gedri.

“The Great Council lasted only a
few hours while Kantri and Gedri debated the best way to deal with the
Demonlord, for it had become known that be travelled the demon lines and could
disappear in moments. The only hope of the council was that the Demonlord would
tire or demand more of his servants than he had paid blood for.

“It is remembered as the Day
Without End, though some now call it the Day of the End. Before noon, while the
sun shone bright and uncaring at the Great Council, a lady of the Kantri called
Tréshak cried out as in great pain. Two of the Gedri Healers rushed to her,
summoning their power as they ran. They could not have known.

“Tréshak, a kind soul with two
younglings, a teacher of the Gedri her whole life long, turned on the Healers
and destroyed them with fire. The only kindness is that they never knew her
betrayal. They were dead by the time they fell to earth.

“Tréshak screamed her agony.
‘Aidrishaan! His Rakshasa have killed Aidrishaan!’ Aidrishaan was her beloved.

“There was no more speech. The
Kantri broke from their circle, and in seconds the sky was black with them and
the clearing thundered with the sound of their wings. Flames preceded them into
the sky as they flew at best speed to the settlement where Aidrishaan had been.

“They found the Demonlord. It is
not known to this day why he did not simply leave that place when he saw the
Kantri coming for him, but he did not.

“He stood laughing beside the
smouldering bones of Aidrishaan.

“Tréshak was first. Her fury,
her fire burned hottest, and she had flown on the Wind’s wings for vengeance.
She drew in breath to flame this abomination, though she should die for it. We
waited in respect for her loss, knowing that no child of the Gedrishakrim could
stand against the armed fury of our Kindred.

“The Demonlord uttered a single
word, and Tréshak
changed
. Before our eyes as she flew she dwindled to
the size of a youngling and fell out of the sky, for her wings would no longer
bear her up. A gleaming blue flame shot up from her blue soulgem, and no one
who lived through that day ever forgot the sound of her last cry. It haunts the
dreams even of those who were not there, as though time itself is offended and
cries out for pity.

“It was cut off in the midst as
her soulgem was ripped from her by the hands of the Rikti and delivered into
the Demonlord.

“Perhaps it would have been
better if the Kantri had retreated, taken time to consider.

“We did not.

“Four hundred of the
Kantrishakrim flew straight at the Demonlord, setting tire to the very air as
they dove. He spoke rapidly, the same word over and over, and fully half of the
Kantri fell from the air and had their soulgems ripped away by legions of the Rikti.

“He could not get us all.

“He laughed as he died, as the
Rikti around him disappeared in our flame (for they are the weaker of our
natural enemies and cannot withstand dragonfire in this world). We do not know
if he was so far into madness that he did not fear death or pain, or if there
was some darkness in his soul that believed even then that he would triumph in
the end.

“Fights broke out among the
Kantri as we all tried to add our own touch of destruction to the dead body. A
kind of madness gripped us, cooled only when the youngest, Keakhor, cried
aloud, ‘He is dead, we cannot kill him more. For pity’s sake look to the
wounded.’

“We turned to those who had been
struck by the Demonlord’s curse. We tried to speak to them, but in vain. One
sifted among the ashes of the Demonlord and found the soulgems; they were
already shrinking (as is their nature once separated from the body), and even
then they bore the taint of their demonic source. In the course of nature, the
soulgems of the dead resemble faceted jewels. When the Kin-Summoning is
performed they glow with a steady light, and the Keeper of Souls may speak with
the dead, but when the Summoning is over they again fall dark. These gleamed—to
this day they gleam—at all times from within with a flickering light.

“We believe the souls of our
Kindred are trapped within, neither alive nor dead, and despite endless years
of our best efforts they still are bound.

“The bodies of our brothers and
sisters had become the bodies of beasts. We could not kill them, for old love,
but we could not bear to see them either. Someone first called them the Lesser
Kindred on that day, and it has become our name for them. They breed now like
beasts and live brief, solitary lives. We try to contact the newly born every year
in the autumn, but we have had no evidence through the long, long years that a
single one has heard or tried to respond.

“We returned in shock, in
sorrow, mourning our loss though we could not yet comprehend it. It was a
forefather of Shikrar, little better than a youngling himself, who with great
effort kept the Kantri from destroying the innocent Gedri who waited still at
the settlement. He took the Gedri aside and explained quickly what had
happened, and he stopped them from offering to heal those who had been wounded.
It was decided then that those of the Kantri who remained must leave the
company of the Gedri, for in each face those who were now the Greater Kindred
would see the Demonlord, and the memory of their comrades falling from the
Winds in agony.

“Without a word, without a
glance at the Gedri (who yet had heeded some inner voice and gathered in
homage), the Greater Kindred leapt into the sky and left the land forever.

“This is the cause of the Great
Ban. Kantri and Gedri must not meet, lest the Kantri take delayed vengeance, or
another Demonlord arise among the Gedri.

“This took place five thousand
years ago.

“It is the blink of an eye to
the Kantrishakrim.”

Lanen

I sat on the cold ground, my arms
wrapped around my knees and my cloak around all, as he finished his tale. I
felt a little drunk and a little ill. The world of the moonlit glade had grown
hazy about me as I watched the tale unfold, as a mind older than I could
imagine sent thoughts behind my eyes. I sat calm and peaceful in that time when
the Two Kindreds lived in harmony, was devastated by death and betrayal,
watched in breathless horror as the Lesser Kindred fell from the sky, rejoiced
with a dark joy when the Demonlord was destroyed, flew back exhausted with the
Greater Kindred, and quietly wept at their final departure from the lands I
knew.

In the back of my mind I heard the
warning of the bards.
The eyes of a dragon are perilous deep
… I knew
then a little of why that is so, a little of our shared history in the world,
and I could only weep. I did not meet Akor’s eyes when he had finished, letting
instead my tears fall silently onto my cloak.

I knew many of the bardic songs about
Dragons—I had sought them out since I was a child—and none, had more than
hinted at a time when the Two Peoples had lived together in peace.

For a while we were both silent. The
cold darkness closed in around us, the small sounds of life stilled in the deep
night. The moon had sunk down in the sky, but there still was enough light when
I looked up to show the outline of that terrifying, expressionless face, like a
blank silver shield. His body that had shone like the moon on the sea was now
only a lighter patch in the darkness.

“I too am much moved by the
tale, Lanen Kaelar,”
he said softly in truespeech.
“Your
tears honour me.”

“They honour the Lesser
Kindred,” I replied aloud, surprised at the depth of feeling I had
discovered for creatures I had been told were little more than cattle. I cannot
explain why I felt as I did, but it seemed to me that all my sorrow, all my
long desire to speak with Dragons had led me to this place and distilled into
this: that I should bring our two peoples together, and that I should set the
Lesser Kindred free. What good I thought I could do, all alone, against thousands
of years of mistrust and the power of a Demonlord, I cannot now imagine: but
such are the dreams of youth, too gloriously stupid to realise what cannot be
done.

And without those dreams, how should
we ever accomplish the impossible?

“Akor, is there nothing to be
done?” I cried urgently as I rose to my feet. My heart was in my voice, as
were the tears that had dampened my cloak. “In all this time, have your
people found nothing that can help those poor trapped souls?”