[Lanen Kaelar 01] - Song in the Silence (29 page)

I felt her make a deep effort to
concentrate and try to rid her mind of everything save what Shikrar needed to
hear. It was not a bad attempt, and certainly a vast improvement on what had
gone before. She learned quickly.

“I thank you, my friend
oh dear friend.
I hear what your Council might say
oh please let them
understand
but I shall abide by your wishes in all things. I shall wait to
hear from you tomorrow night.”

It was very convincing. The last
portion was quite clear of underthought. I was pleased; she had a natural
talent for truespeech and needed only a little instruction and some practice.
“That
was well done,”
I told her.

“And now, little sister,”
I
sent to her, controlled, calm, keeping my heart closed to her as best I could.
“Come
to me.”

Lanen

I had come by chance near the place
he meant, and as I walked and listened to him I found the little square space
with its gate. Somehow, once I was inside, hidden by the trees, separated by
only an ancient fence from safety and love, I lost much of my fear. Let them
search! How should they find me? And who would dare attack me, with Akor no
distance away? I wept then, for relief, then very deliberately loosed my hair
from its braid. Let him see me as few others had. It was only fair.

I tried to think of how to tell him
about what had happened, or of any of the thousand questions I had always
wanted to ask, but I could barely think at all. I felt him near, all my being
was moving me, moment by moment, away from fear and towards Akor.

Akor.

The very name hung between us like a
silken cord, pulling me towards where he waited; I could feel it tugging at me.

Akor, Akor.

Akhor

I waited in hiding, that she should
see me only when she herself requested it. I held tightly to Calm, breathed as
that Discipline demanded, tried to keep my mind clear of my foolish thoughts.

I had thought I was prepared, but I
could not have known. None of the Disciplines, none of my training, nothing in
all my centuries had prepared me for that bond, unspoken, unexpected,
unrealised in its fullness until that hour. Nothing could have prepared me for
the sound of her voice so full of what I was feeling, for the sight of her in
the daylight seen clearly at last.

When she whispered up to me through the
trees, trembling, her heart full of love, I nearly stopped breathing. It was as
though her words were tied to the strings of my heart, and each note plucked at
my pulse like wild, distant music. I forgot my strong resolve, forgot my
determination to remain cautious and wary, forgot everything but the sound of
her voice and that she seemed to me in all ways more wondrous than any creature
I had ever known.

Lanen

“Akor?” I whispered.
“Akor, are you there?”

Akhor

“I am here, dear one,” I
replied.

And with those words I released all
fears. I would not think of Shikrar, or of the Kindred, or of what might
happen. For once in my long life I would live as if there would be no tomorrow.

I felt the Fire stir within me. No
more boundaries. There were only the two of us now, and whatever truth we might
find together. I moved forward slowly into a small gap in the trees, trying to
still this mad riot in myself. I remembered at least to speak quietly for her.

She gasped as I came into her sight.
I did not have to ask why. Were we differently made, I would have done so as
well.

Her hair like a living waterfall
waved gently in the breeze, gleaming the same colour as the sunset, and her
eyes were grey as winter storms. She was altogether beautiful, tall for her
kind and lithe as I had seen her that first day, and her mind and heart were
open to me. There was the true beauty of her:

I found myself wondering what colour
her soulgem would be.

Lanen

I will never forget seeing him in the
light of the setting sun .  

He was more glorious in the day than
he had been by the light of the moon. Even in that golden light he shone
silver. The sun caught his soulgem as he leaned down to me and it sent out a
flash of emerald fire. His eyes were green as well, of the same hue, as though
the same fire burned behind all. He seemed for a moment to be the work of some
unimaginable jeweller. I could see his scales now, how smoothly they slid over
one another. And I had been wrong about his face, it was not truly a mask. There
was a wide ridge of bone on top, of a piece with the horns that curved back and
up—but below that was what looked like soft skin with small scales on it. I
longed to reach out and touch, see what it felt like.

And he said, “My dear one, you
are welcome.” I didn’t even bother to ask how he knew my thoughts. He came
close, close, his head near my hand, as he had been the first night when he
told me his name. And his voice was soft and more full of song than ever man’s
could be.

“I permit, Lanen. Touch me. Know
that I am here, that I am real.”

“That I feel as you do.”

I began to reach out and found my
hands would not obey. I stared, lost in wonder at this wonder before me.
Slowly, slowly, I reached out one hand and touched his face on the long ridge
below his eyes.

It was warm, even that smooth silver
bone was warm.

I moved my hand slowly; slowly, in
awe at what I did, to the soft skin below. My hand trembled as I was trembling,
I could bear only the lightest touch of him. The scales were no larger than my
fingernail, the skin was soft as a snake’s.

I snatched my hand away as though I
had been stung, clenched both my fists at my waist as I tried to hold in the
emotions that swept through me.

“No,” I said, and began to
weep.

“And still when we meet you make
seawater. But these are not tears of joy, my Lanen.”

“Don’t call me that!”

He drew away from me. “Forgive
me! I thought … no, I am certain. I can hear your heart as though it were my
own, and in this great folly I know we are one.” He came back close, but
stayed on his side of the Boundary. “I have not known such a love before,
Lanen, but I cannot deny it now. My heart beats with yours, I hear your
lightest thought. Do you tell me you do not feel as I know you do?”

I couldn’t look at him any longer.
“I meant never to tell you! I thought this was no more than my own
insanity. I would come to you and you would bring me to my senses with your
calmness, calling me little one, littling, so I would realise how impossible
this all is. And there you stand talking of love, as though we were one
Kindred.”

He bowed his head and closed his
eyes. It was as he had said, in some way beyond knowing we were one. I could
feel his sorrow.

I could not think. My heart was both
confused and sure, my head whirling with what was and could not be. But truth
calls out truth, and I could not help but tell him my own.

“I will not, I cannot lie to
you, Akor. Akor, my dear one.”

The great gleaming eyes were fastened
on me. “I love you, Akor, beyond sense and beyond reason. Not because you
are a Dragon, not because you are the first of your people to speak with me. I
love you.” I bowed my head. “Our laws, our forms, even this wall of
wood stand between us. But I love you, now and always, may the Lady help me.
May she help us both.”

Silence fell between us as full as my
heart. The sun sank behind the trees and twilight was upon us.

“Please, Akor, say
something,” I said. “Speak to me.”

Akhor

I did not trust myself to speak. I
did not know what would come out.

I did not care.

At first I could say nothing but her
name.

“Lanen. Lanen. Lanen. ”

She covered her face with her hands.
I knew she wept, but she seemed almost to be laughing at the same time.

I reached out to her putting my
foreleg close to her, “Will you allow?” I asked softly.

She looked up, saw my clawed hand,
looked back at me and nodded.

It must have been frightening but she
never flinched. I spread my claws back and wide and touched her face with the
inside of my palm, where we are most sensitive.

Even water was not so soft as her
skin.

I trembled. I, Khordeshkhistriakhor,
Silver King of the Kantrishakrim, trembled in wonder at the feel of a woman’s
skin. I moved my hand away that I might not harm her by accident. Surely the
lightest touch of my claws would rend that fragile hide.

“My soul to the Winds, Lanen
Kaelar, I am lost as you are lost,” I said softly. “And though we
know this love cannot be as love for our own kind, at the least we may stand
together as friends.”

“At the least. But still the
Boundary lies between us. Your people will know if I cross it.”

“That is so. But they will not
know if I cross it, not instantly, and it is in my heart to take you to a
place where we may talk for a few hours in peace. We need only wait for true
dark, and so late in the year it will not be long coming.”

Indeed, it was nearly dark already.

“What will happen if they find
us?” she asked quietly.

“I do not know, dear one, but
they will have to reckon with me to get to you.”

Lanen

I was distracted by the sound of
people, not too near but not very far away either. I drew a deep breath,
knowing that I risked all by telling him, knowing that I must speak. “I
thank you for that, dear friend, but I must tell you, much has happened to me
this day. I am hunted now by my own people, for Marik tried to kill me and I
escaped him.”

“Ah,” he said sadly:
“So that is the fear in your voice—and something else, I think. Why did he
seek your death?”

The noise of pursuit grew louder.
“Akor, there is no time. They will find me soon. Dear friend, forgive me,
I never meant to bring you into this coil, but if we are to go somewhere, we
must leave now.”

“Very well, little sister,”
he replied, the sadness still soft in his voice.

“Is it far to walk?” I
asked, hoping it wouldn’t be. My legs still trembled.

“Dear one, it would take days to
walk there. No, we must fly.”

To say I was taken by surprise is
like saying the Kai is a river—it’s true, but it misses the scale of the thing.
All I could think of was one of the dragon ballads, in which the villain of the
piece “fell from the earth to the sky in the clutch of the vast-winged
beast.” It had always struck me as a particularly terrible thing, but
time was short and I wasn’t going to ask questions.

“Lanen, will you come with
me?” he asked, and in his voice lay all my future.

“Yes, Akor. With all my
heart,” I said: “But how shall we ….

He looked up. The first stars were
out, twilight but a brighter memory in the west. “Wait there but a
moment,” he said, and was gone in a muted clap of thunder.

Flying.
In my
wildest dreams I had imagined such a thing, but I never really thought—

“Come, Lanen,” said Akor
from behind me.

There he stood, gleaming silver even
in near-darkness. And there was no Boundary.

“Swiftly now, your pursuers approach.
Climb up on my shoulders, there is a place above my wings where I believe you
might sit.”

I saw the place he meant. It was half
again the girth of the roundest-bellied horse ever made.
Bareback and with
no reins,
I thought.
And a damn sight farther to fall.
Still, I
climbed up—or rather, he lay down as flat as he could on the ground and I
clambered up the last few feet.

I fell off as soon as he stood up.

“This isn’t going to work,”
I told him, rubbing my backside and brushing off the leaves. “I haven’t
fallen off anything with four feet since I was a child.” I grinned up at
him. “Shame you don’t have a mane to hang on to.”

“Lanen, we must hurry,”
whispered Akor urgently. “Will you try again?”

“Believe me, it won’t work, your
neck is too wide there for me to get my legs around.” Again the words of
the ballad flashed through my mind. Couldn’t hurt to mention it. “Could
you carry me in your … your hands?”

Suddenly, for a moment, he was again
a stranger, a creature out of my ken, a Dragon. Did he call them hands? Claws?
Forelegs? He had been gentle enough, certainly, but while he was flying? The
slightest mistake could crush me, rend me, before he even noticed.

“I shall try.” And the
moment was gone, as I heard in his voice the tenderness that was almost more
than I could bear. His very words were song, they poured over me in a wash of
melody that stirred my blood and caressed me all at once, soothed away all my
fears. “Come, dear one. Come with me, let me carry you to the star-home,
the Wind-home, the Place or All Songs.”