[Lanen Kaelar 01] - Song in the Silence (55 page)

Beyond hurt, beyond thought, beyond mourning, I
went into oAkor’s Weh chamber to bid him
farewell. Evening was closing in
rapidly, so I took with me a brand from the fire for light. I
would see him
clearly before I left, that when I returned somehow in fifty years I would
remember.

Akor slept still, but as I approached I was
shocked at the heat. He was hotter than a baker’s
oven, I could barely come nigh him.
He did not lie still, but twisted and turned in his sleep—for he slept
still—and as I watched he went rigid. It was terrifying, and all so strange. I
went
as
close to him as I dared, for the heat, and spoke to him gently. I did not use
his true name for
fear
he might rouse to pain, but spoke the soothing words one uses to a child.
Eventually he
relaxed.
I was greatly relieved, but not for long. It soon happened again, and then
again.

I had never seen Weh sleep, but Akor had said
nothing of this. I had assumed it was like a
human sleep. I might have been wrong,
but he had seen me sleeping the other night. If sleep
itself was so different for our
separate Kindreds he would have mentioned it, I was certain.

No. This was
wrong
.
For healing it was wrong.

Then he began to moan. It was a terrible sound,
deep and rich even in pain but cracked as mud
in the sun. For all my love I could
not stay. I ran outside, calling I know not what.

Shikrar waited in the firelight and I fled to his
side. “Shikrar!” I cried. “Oh, Shikrar,
something is wrong. He’s so hot, he
was sleeping but now he cries out, it can’t be right, I’ve
never seen
Weh sleep but this can’t be right.”

Shikrar was moving at a flat run by the time I
finished speaking, with Idai on his heels. I
followed after and found that even a
Dragon of Shikrar’s size could manage that small
opening at need.

Inside the cave the brand I had brought in (and
dropped) gave off light enough to see; but I
could not feel its warmth, a tiny
drop in the ocean of heat that ran in waves from Akor. He
fairly glowed
with it.

Idai called to him, aloud and in truespeech. But
there was no answer, no response at all. She
would not give up, calling again and
again in the hope of some reaction. As we all watched,
Akor’s body was gripped by another
spasm. He went rigid for what seemed like forever.

Finally, slowly, he relaxed.

Shikrar stood beside me, watching, looking very
old indeed. I would know now without being
told that he was the Eldest of them.
His eyes in that cave were ancient and completely
unreadable.

He turned to me and spoke gently. “What has
happened here, Lanen? Did you call upon him
in truespeech to rouse, or use his
true name?”

“No,” I said, managing to keep my voice
more or less level. “I didn’t use truespeech at all, and
aloud I only
spoke the words humans use to comfort their children in illness.” I drew
breath
with
difficulty; my chest was tight and I was so caught in deep sorrow I hardly
cared about
breathing.
“Shikrar, this is wrong, isn’t it? Akor never told me what the Weh sleep
was like,
but
this must be wrong.” I felt new tears run down to join the ashes of the
old on my saltcrusted
cheeks.
He bowed his head down to my level and spoke softly. “Yes, child. It is
wrong. In the
healing of the Weh sleep we grow cold. He should be chill to the touch by now,
and still as
a stone.”

Shikrar

I closed my eyes and bowed to Lanen as I saw the
pain in her eyes, the echo of my own
sorrow and Idai’s despite her youth. Perhaps, I
thought, our races are not so very different.

“Hadreshikrar, on your soul, I beg you, tell
me the truth. Is he dying?”

I looked long on the sleeping, painracked body of
the friend of my heart. I could hardly bear
to hear Idai; she still called to
Akhor, but quietly now, as though she could not stop herself.
Her voice was
a mourning lover’s.

Without turning back to Lanen I answered her
honestly. ”I do not know, lady. I have never
seen this before.”

Idai eventually fell silent. She turned from
Akhor with bowed head and left the cave without
glancing at either of us. After a
time I nodded to Lanen that she, too, should take the chance
for air
untainted by Akhor’s pain. I saw that she had begun to flinch every time Akhor
groaned, saw
her muscles twitch in sympathy with his, and fresh before my eyes rose a clear
vision of my
own watch on my beloved Yrais as she had neared death.

Without speaking her eyes commanded me to call
out to her if there was any change; without
words I swore I would. She tore her
glance away from Akhor, put on her cloak against the
cold, and went out wrapping her arms
around herself to keep out a cold far sharper and a
thousand times more bitter.

Lanen

I found I was thirsty again after the heat of the
cave. I walked over to the pool at the edge of
the forest, my way lit by the bright
moonlight. It was only so helpful. I could see no further
than my own
pain, I sought only a moment’s relief from cool water.

Idai was there before me, on the far side of the
pool, drinking in the manner of beasts. Her
long tongue flickered in and out of
her mouth, hissing,in the cool water. I knelt and drank
double handfuls; I was parched after
that long time in such heat. The cool water felt good on
the new skin
of my poor hands.

When I looked up she was staring at me through
the tree-shadowed darkness. I could not tell
anything about her thoughts, she was
just staring, her eyes gleaming in the filtered moonlight.

“You are
so vulnerable when you drink, like all beasts,”
she said. The tone of her truespeech
was flat; like me, she had gone beyond caring.
”Lanen, do you know what is happening to
Akhor?”

”No, Lady
Idai. I would give my life, I swear, would it help him, but I don’t know what
is
wrong
or what I could do.”
My own mindvoice shocked me, it was
low and as flat as Idai’s.
“Why? Do
you know?”

”I am not
certain,”
she said, ”but I have an idea.

”For love of
the Lady, tell me! Is there aught we may do to save him? I beg you, tell me
your
thoughts,
even an idea is more than I have now.”

“How
well do you love him?”
she asked me.

“As I
love my life, Idai, I swear it on my soul,”
I said.
“In that cave lies my dearest dream of
love and all
my life to come, suffering torments. If I can help him I will, nor ever count
the
cost.”

“Then
renounce him,”
she said coldly.

“What!”

“Renounce him. Go into the clearing and call
upon the gods, ours and Iyours, and swear on
your soul to the Winds that you do
not love him. Perhaps then he may live.”

I did not move. I was beyond surprise, I had no
more capacity for it, but I did not
understand.

“How
should that help? It would be a lie. I do love him, as much as you do.”

“How
could you so?”
she hissed at me, and her coldness was
turned in an instant to raging
fire.
“I have
known him all his life long, full a thousand winters! He is blood of my blood,
soul given
wings and fire. How dare you say your love is like to mine! A few paltry days
you
have
known him, hardly a breath of time between you! How dare you!”

I knelt on one knee to her on the cold ground,
partly out of respect, partly out of weariness.
“Lady, I honour you. I see that the very depth of your love is
pain to you now—but still I dare
to say I love him as you do.”
She looked
as if she were going to spring at me. To be honest, I
didn’t much care.
“Lady Idai, a life is a life. I have
spent mine longing for your people and
dreaming hopeless dreams in the dark
to keep myself alive. Akor is those dreams made flesh,
the summit of
all my life—but more, infinitely more, he is himself. And I love him with all
my power. If
you want to kill me for it, then do so and welcome.”

My words shocked her. I could see her force
herself to relax.
“I do not wish
your death, only
to prevent Akhor’s,”
she said.

“Do you
truly think it possible?”
I asked.

”It may be.”

I waited.

“I
believe I know what is happening, Lhanen of the Gedri,”
she said, her mindvoice gentle
now. She stared into my eyes, as though seeking truth
there, and said
, “This love that you
and
Akhor
share, it is wrong, and not only because you are so different. I believe that
in the sight
of
the Winds it is too great a sorrow for both Kindreds to bear for so many years
as Akhor
will
live. I fear the balance is being restored by the great leveler of all life.”

Death.

“And if
I renounce him?”

“Perhaps
the balance will be restored, and Akhor’s life spared.”

It was the only ray of hope I had and I clung to
it. I did not, could not stop to think. The
vision ever before my eyes was of
Akor in agony, in torment even beyond his wounds, and if
this would
save him I would do it.

If I can help
him I will, nor ever count the cost.

I ran into the clearing, found Shikrar waiting
there. Above us the moon, just beginning to
wane from the full, was riding above
the trees and shone down into the glade bright and clear.
I planted my
feet and raised my arms to the heavens, I did not know what I was doing, but
the
words
came to me as naturally as if I had known them all my life.

“I call upon the Lady of my people, Lady
Shia, Goddess thrice holy. Mother of Kolmar
beneath our feet, Ancient Lady of the
Moon, Laughing Girl of All the Waters, I call upon thee
to witness my words.” I drew a
deep breath, sought the memory, found it. ”And to stand
beside thee,
Blessed Lady, I call upon the Winds of the Greater Kindred of the
Kantrishakrim.

“First is the Wind of Change

Second is Shaping

Third is the Unknown

And last is the Word.”

The moon stood directly above, the earth under my
feet listened as it held me, the waters of
the pool gurgled their attention. And
a wind, a light cold breeze, blew into the glade and
played about me, seeming to come from
all four directions in turn. My cloak was like a live
thing, swirling and lifting on the
hands of the Winds.

“Hear me!” I cried aloud, and there was
silence. I opened my mouth to speak—

—and I could not draw breath. The lie stuck in my
throat; all my soul bowed down before the
gods and acknowledged what truly was.
…

Perhaps the
balance will be restored, and Akhor’s life spared.

“I do not love him!” I cried with all
my strength. My voice seemed to come from my gut, not
my throat. I was surprised by the
power of it. “Let the balance be restored. I do not love him!”

That was twice. Three times I must say it, three
for the Lady was the charm to make it true. I
ignored my heart that screamed its
denial, I ignored the winds that grew stronger and seemed
to come now
from all directions at once. I drew a final breath, for after this was done all
that I
cared
for would be lost—

—when in my mind I heard, impossibly, his voice.
It was the only thing in all the world that
could have stopped me. His truespeech
whispered softly in my thoughts, echoed in my heart. I
heard the agony of his body, I knew
it as he knew it, I could almost feel the heat and the
suffering that surrounded him, yet he
spoke as gently as the first time I had heard from him
the voice of love.