[Lanen Kaelar 01] - Song in the Silence (39 page)

“And what is the last refrain, Akhor?”
he asked sourly “Your song is not complete, you have left out a verse in
the center. Why should this Gedri child do such a thing? She is no Healer by
her own admission. Did you threaten her? Or beg? I cannot believe either. All she
had to say was no, and no shame to her.” His voice grew harder. “And
why did she speak so to you, before the Council was begun. ‘Dear one’ she
called you. Why, Akhor? What have you not yet

told us?”

Trust Rishkaan, I thought. He knows me well, and
his disdain of the Gedri verges on hatred.

It was time.

“Because, Rishkaan, my people: she loves me.
She would do anything for me, and I for her.”

My soul to all the Winds, preserve my dearling
and me, bring us home to that joy you spoke of, for at this moment it seems a
thousand leagues and ten thousand years away.

“There is one last thing I have to tell you,
my people, and try though I might there is no way to ease the telling.

“I flew the Flight of the Devoted with this
child of the Gedri as we sat in my Weh chamber two nights past. We flew on the
wings of our souls and made a new song together.

“We know it is foolish, it is impossible, we
know there can be no joining save mind to mind; but I swear to you she is my
heart’s beloved, and my mate for now and ever. As I am hers.”

There was a brief moment as a hundred and fifty
of the Greater Kindred were stunned into silence, some for the first time in
centuries, some for the first time in their lives.

Then the Great Hall was awash with sound as they
found their voices and, as one, protested.

My own reaction was not what I had expected. I
knew a chastened pride in myself for speaking openly about Lanen, but apart
from that I was excited, and in the main I rejoiced.

For the first time since I could remember not only
were the Kindred united—albeit against me—they were awake.

My people have slept too long, this is snow on
their faces. It is good for them, however it may turn for Lanen and me.

Indeed, I began almost to be amused as the most
outraged stormed up to face me on the dais.

They stood in Admonition or Disgust or Anger, as
it took them, and I could not possibly hear more than a few words from each.

“You cannot, it is unholy….”

“What spell has this Gedri witch … ?”

“It has always been death for the Gedri to pass
…”

“Akhor, how could…”

“You fool, you were our hope for the future,
touched by the Winds….”

”What omen now, Akhor? Will the Silver King lead
us into the arms of the
Gedrishakrim?
”

This last was Rishkaan. He stood where I could
see him, his body twisted in the extreme of Fury, his wings half-raised and
rattling, and spat the word “Gedrishakrim” at me like a curse.

I stood in Sorrow. I could think of no words for
him, nothing to say to ease his pain and anger, and I would not dignify this
fury with a direct response.

Turning to the others, I stood and called in the
loudest voice I possessed, pitching it again to make the cavern ring.
“Silence! Silence, O my people! Is this the Council of the Kindred?
Silence I say!”

The habit of obedience is strong, as is our
pride. Those on the dais stepped off, save Rishkaan, who had the right of age
and claimed it now. He had controlled his anger and now took the place of the
Eldest, which was due him as the eldest of those present. All kept silence (out
of curiosity as much as anything else, I strongly suspected: there had not been
this much excitement at a Council meeting for centuries).

“Who has laid a spell on you to draw you
from your true nature?” cried Erianss. She was about the age of Mirazhe,
mated to a good soul, but she had never quickened from their nights. “Our
people diminish and you, the King, give your heart to one who is but a flicker
in our lives! Even should she live past this sickness, she will be dead in half
a hundred years. Is such a creature worthy of the love of our King?”

There was a general murmur of agreement.

“Erianss, you know that no spell could be
hidden from you all. How could the Rakshasa be involved and leave no trace for
our kind? We know such a thing cannot be done. And as for my—as for Lanen’s
life being short, you are right, and my mind knows that you are right. But I
cannot deny love, no matter what form it takes. Was Yrais less worthy of
Hadreshikrar because she lived but thirty years after their joining? I have not
taken a mate from our Kindred because there has never been a lady who could
understand the
ferrinshadik
that has haunted my heart all my life. One
lady even told me the kingship had made me too solemn, that I should try to
think less.” I had to smile; it had, of course, been Erianss. “I
suspect that lady is now less than happy with the outcome of her advice.

”My people, I am your King by your own gift.
When that office was bestowed upon me I changed, as a king must. In many ways I
have lived not the life I wanted, but the life I was required to lead. I have
not shunned that duty. I have held what I believed to be best for us all in the
front of my heart for nearly eight hundred years. In that time, I have come to
know that I must think of you at all times, and of our Kindred as a whole, our
future and our past.

“It is no secret but a great tragedy that we
are fewer than ever before in our history. In the last eight hundred years
there have been but three births, including Kédra’s youngling. We are
declining, my people, even from the few we were before, and I have wondered
what was to be done for many long, long years. Now I believe that it is time to
attempt a reconciliation with the Gedri. They were great Healers of our people
at one time. Perhaps if we can communicate

with them they might be able to discover what it
is that has so changed us of late.”

“It has always been death for the
Gedrishakrim to pass the Boundary,” said a voice behind me. Rishkaan had
mastered his fury and stood now in Anger and Rebuke. “I do not recall
there being anything in the treaty or in our laws which allowed for any other
fate, no matter how they happened to come there. Why should there be any other
consideration? She deserves death.”

My heart fell when I heard a murmur of assent; at
least, that was my first reaction. Then I began to grow angry.

“Is your respect so lightly given, my
people?” I demanded, fighting my instincts to take on Anger myself.
Calm,
Akhor, calm, that alone will sway them.
“Not a breath ago I heard your
praise for this child of the Gedri who put herself in peril of her own life
that two of us—strangers to her—might live; this child of the Silent People who
has the truespeech, as none of her Kindred had even in those times when our two
peoples lived in harmony and the Peace was in flower. And I charge you to
remember, it was I who crossed over to her, and that to save her life.”

My words met only silence. Still mistrust, still
anger, still vengeance. When would it end? I felt my words falling as on stone.
I was suddenly weary. I gave them my last words.

“Consider well, O my people. I did not
invite this, and neither did my dearling. When Lanen and I met, it was with the
simple hope that our peoples might speak with one another, not that we two
would join in a hopeless union. For we both have doomed ourselves to
barrenness, to loneliness, to a life apart from all those we hold dear.

”When our several gods spoke to us at the same
time outside my Weh chamber, we realised there was more to this than wecan
know. I hope you also will realise that there is more to this than madness, and
will see in this joining the will of the Winds and of the Lady.

“Let any other speak who will; I have
done,” I said. “I am heartsick with my beloved’s pain, and weary with
this day. I shall be in my chambers hard by if any should require speech of me.
I will rejoin you at midday.”

I stepped off the platform and found a way made
for me.

I could not tell if it was an honour or if they
simply did not want to touch me, nor did I care. I was hungry and thirsty and I
needed to know how Lanen fared, and to talk with Shikrar.

Lanen

I woke in a bed, warm and comfortable. The last
thing I remembered was searing pain as the Healer took my hands in his. I could
feel my hands and arms now only as swollen lumps lying outside the bedclothes,
and blessed the Healer for it. I opened my eyes slowly and saw that I was alone
save for Rella, who snored in a chair against the wall near the fireplace.
There was a bright blaze, and I was warmer than I had been for days.

Fireplace?

Wall? In the camp?

“Rella? Where am I?” I creaked.

Rella opened a red-rimmed eye and said, “In
Marik’s second cabin, where his guards slept until now. Thanks to you I got to
spend the night in a chair and my back is killing me. How are you feeling?”

“Terrible,” I murmured. “But
better than I was. My arms and my hands don’t hurt at all.” I could see
them now, wrapped carefully in bandages. I lifted my left arm and tried moving
a finger. It didn’t go very far, but it didn’t hurt either. From the shoulder
down I was, for the most part, blessedly numb. ”What hour of the day or night
is it?”

“It lacks but a scant hour of dawn, and
you’ll oblige me by putting your hands back down and keeping still,” said
Rella. ”The Healer said leave them be for the rest of the day, you’re not to
move ‘em or touch anything. They still glowed bright blue when he bandaged ‘em,
my girl, I’d do as he says.”

I gingerly tried to bend my right arm a little at
the elbow. There was no pain. “That must be some Healer Marik’s got,”
I said in awe. Our village Healer had been nothing special, able to speed
healing a little, cure small aches and pains. This man had healed my arms and
hands almost completely—I shuddered again at the memory of great lumps of skin
in sea-water—and I knew that, beyond even the burns, he had saved my life.

I had little memory of the night before until
Rella told me of our arrival in camp, but I vaguely remembered when the Healer
was just beginning to work (when Akor bespoke me), and the fact that even when
he had taken the pain from my bums, I could not stop shaking. I was roasting
and freezing by turns, I could barely breathe, and I had started coughing
horribly.

Now, only a few hours later, I felt as though I
had the remains of a cold, and that on the mend.

“Aye, ‘twas his own personal Healer. Third
rank he is, and aiming for fourth already, but there’s no airs about him. He’s
a good lad, gentle-spoken as you could wish, though he’s so powerful so
young.”

I summoned the strength to smile at her.
“How do you know he was third rank?”

“Asked him, didn’t I? For now, though, my
girl, Marik’s left me in charge of you. He said I was to call him when you
woke, but first—” She went to the table and brought over a small bowl.
“—you’ve to eat this.”

Even in my weakened state, I had enough strength
to doubt. It was too strange seeing Rella here in what must be my prison.
“You first,” I muttered, trying to make it seem a jest.

Rella grinned. “Well, better late than
never,” she said. “Dear Lady knows I could use this after last
night.” She speared a piece of the orange flesh with her knife and ate it
with obvious relish. ”And so I become the first of my family ever to dine on
lan fruit,” she said, and shivered. “Blessed Shia, that’s wonderful!
But I reckon you could use it more than me.”

I have never tasted anything in my life so
glorious. Imagine the sweetest peach, the tartest pear, the lushest berry you
have ever tasted, and combine with them a rush of strength to a wounded body. I
could feel the virtue of the fruit as it flowed down my arms, healing,
renewing. She fed me a quarter of the fruit—she told me I had had the first
quarter the night before, I mourned not tasting it—then, looking at the rest as
it lay in the bowl, said quite calmly, “Hmm. Seems to be going brown at
the edges. You’d better finish it before it spoils. I’ll help you if it’s too
much.”

She barely had two more tiny pieces for herself.
And where a quarter, for all its vigor, had restored some of my lost strength
and started the blood moving around my slowly healing injuries, the added half
Rella stole for me danced wildly through my arms to my very fingers’ ends. I
could feel the knitting of skin and muscle beneath the bandages even as I ate.

For all that, it did not really satisfy hunger. I
found, as health and strength flowed back into my body, that I was ravenous. I
counted back and discovered I hadn’t eaten in two days. Rella had prepared a
stew with roots and dried meat, assuming I’d need food, bless her, but even she
was surprised by the amount I put away. She would not let me feed myself, but
insisted that I leave on the bandages and let her feed me.

Between the first and second bowls of stew I took
the chance to ask her something that had been nagging at me.

“Rella, why are you being so kind to me?
You’re the only soul I’ve seen here who cares whether another human being lives
or dies. Please don’t think me ungrateful, but why?”