[Lanen Kaelar 01] - Song in the Silence (57 page)

“It is my place as his mate to do so,
then?” I asked.

“Yes.”

”Then I will. I thank you for your offer,
Shikrar, but I think I must do this. I can understand
the meaning. I must see his ashes and
bid him farewell. I was his mate.”

I turned towards the cave. The body that had
insisted I live was reluctant now to carry me
there.

This time I won.

It was dark in the chamber, dark and very warm.
The walls had taken up the heat Akor had
given off; it would be warm in there
for days.

It was fairly dark, but I could see my way. The
sun was no more than an hour risen, but even
that much light coming through the
smoke-hole above allowed me to see, if not very clearly. I
looked slowly
towards the place where Akor had lain. Having seen I had to look away,
horrified,
sickened. That vision haunts my dreams yet.
Fool,
fool, he tried to spare you.

Akor had told me but I had forgotten. At death
the fire that sustains the Greater Kindred is let
loose and, unchecked, destroys the
body from within. All that lay on the floor of
khaadish
were
a few charred remains of his ash-covered bones.

I forced myself to look again.

I should find his soulgem close by what was left
of the skull.

Taking my courage in both hands I moved slowly,
reverently, towards the huge pile of
bones.

In the faint light I thought I saw something
move.

I ignored my traitor eyes. “Lanen, come, it
is only bone,” I said aloud, to steady myself. As I
finished
speaking I heard a small sound, like a sleeper makes at the edge of waking.
Surely
there
was something there?

No, there could be nothing, nothing but ash. And
one green gem the size of my hand, that I
must steel myself to take out to
Hadreshikrar.

I was nearly on top of the skeleton now, and this
close I could see that there was something, a
large pale something lying still
within the protective circle of bone.

My first instinct was to run towards it yelling,
to chase away whatever pale creature had crept
here for warmth, dared so swiftly to
desecrate the remains of the one I loved. But even blurred
in the
darkness, half-seen, it was somehow a familiar shape.

It stirred.

The sun climbed higher, sending more light into
the chamber.

No. This could not happen. This was insane. I had
lost my mind.

For there before me, surrounded by the charred,
ash-covered ribs that crumbled as I watched,
was the figure of a man. He lay naked
in that warm place, curled on his side in his cradle of
bone. One arm pillowed his head, the
other hand clutched something near his forehead. Long
silver hair spread gently over broad
shoulders pale as new snow.

Song whispered wild and distant in my heart, the
song that Akor and I had made for each
other in this place, but I dared not hear it. I could
not speak, I feared to breathe lest this spell
should break.

For in that place lay the form of the Akor of my
dreams, the silver-haired man that was Akor
in human form.

Not dragon.

Man.

My legs failed me and I fell to my knees, my
heart scarcely beating as I knelt, shaking, lost in
terror and wonder. This could not be.
I must be mad. Had my mind in desperation made this
phantom for heart’s ease?

Was he real?

I forced myself to speak.

“Akor?” I breathed, reaching towards
him through the cage of dead ribs. “Akor?”

He did not stir and I could not. I knelt there
captive, trembling, lost. What then, if not flesh
and blood? Waking dream?
Demon-sending? Insanity?

Still he did not move.

With a vast effort of will I got to my feet and
turned to go, to call Shikrar and Idai to come
and see, when behind me I heard a
rustling of movement and a clear voice saying sleepily,
“Lanen?”

I turned in a dream, slowly, as against a strong
current.

He stood before me, still within the high circle
of bone, shaky on his two legs, gloriously alive
in a body new-made. I could not
speak, only look with all my soul.

“Lanen? What has happened?” he asked,
his voice slurring slightly. I reached out to him. He
tried to walk towards me, but he was
still accustomed to four legs. He stumbled.

I caught him before he fell, held him up, helped
him back onto his feet. I moved without
thought, lost in wonder at the touch
of him, skin against skin. My love alive, healed of his
grievous wounds, made whole—made
human.

When he stood firm again, I saw he used only one
hand to steady himself. I reached for his
right hand, to see if it was injured,
when he raised his clenched right fist between us. In
silence he turned his hand palm up,
opening his fingers like the petals of a rose, to reveal a
faceted gem
that filled his palm, flashing in the torchlight, green as the sea.

His souigem.

I had to speak. And there was only one word I
could say, holding his soft hand in mine, filled
with wonder. First and last, a word
of love.

” Kordeshkistriakor?”

“Yes, Lanen. I am here.” His eyes
darted here, there, to me, to himself. “Unless this is a Weh
dream. But
no, you are real, this is all real. Why can I not speak? So strange a mouth.
What has
happened? What have I become?” He looked at me with the eyes of Akor
beneath
long
bright hair, emeralds set in a silver sea, opened wide now in wonder, and said,
“Lanen?”

I had to say it. The impossible. The truth.
”Akor, you—are human. A man, one, one of my
people, one of the Gedrishakrim.”
And the truth of it washed over me like a sudden
waterfall, thrilled down my spine
like rain on a sleeper’s face, and in that place of death I
laughed for
joy, loud and clear. “Akor, beloved, we thought you dead, but you live.
Bless the
Winds
and the Lady, you live, you live!”

I turned towards the cave entrance and shouted,
my voice soaring high with delight. “Shikrar!
Idai! Come and see! He lives, Akor
lives!”

He had moved carefully out of his bony
coffin-cradle, and it struck me that it was not meet for
his Kindred
to see him thus naked. I took my cloak off quickly and wrapped it about him.

Shikrar and Idai stood at the cave’s entrance,
their eyes adjusting from bright morning light to
near darkness. I stood between them
and the new-made man. At first all they could see were
the bones of Akor in the light from
the high window. Shikrar spoke kindly to me, his voice
sad and gentle.

“Lanen, be at peace. I know it is terrible,
but death comes to us all. I fear—”

He fell silent as Akor stepped shakily out from
the shadows behind me. His new body was
flawless, healthy, clean-limbed, and
his long silver hair gleamed richly in the growing
daylight. He held up his soulgem that
they might see it clearly; then he handed it to me. I put
it reverently
in my scrip.

It seemed to me that he tried to bespeak Shikrar,
for he frowned at him at first. Then he spoke,
in a voice growing clearer and more
fully human with each word, but which bore yet an echo
of the deep music of
Kordeshkistriakor.

“I greet you, Hadreshikrar, Iderrisai, dear
friends,” he said. “You are as welcome as the
sunrise, for in all truth I never
expected to see either again in this world.” And suddenly he
laughed. It
was the most glorious sound in all the world, a laugh of pure joy from a throat
that
had
never known sorrow.

“Let us go out from this place,” he
said gaily. “And you, my Lanen, come bear me up lest I
fall.”
He held out his hand and I took it and put his bare arm around my shoulder.

Shikrar and Idai were struck dumb and motionless,
and could only watch as I helped Akor
walk out through the entry passage, watch as he
discovered he did not have to lower his head
to pass. His eyes glowed with the
knowledge and he grinned at me as we walked, putting his
free hand to
his mouth to feel what it was doing as delight took him.

I held him up, held him close, walked as in a
dream on two legs beside my two-legged love,
and prayed to the Lady that I might
never wake.

Akhor

When I stepped out into the morning I was dazzled
by the light. My new senses were assailed
from all sides, I did not know which
way to look. First and strongest, though, was the feeling
of air on my
skin. Never, even when my new armour was still damp and weak, had I known
anything like
it. The feel of Lanen’s rough cloak on my skin, the ground beneath my feet, the
strength of
her beneath my arm on her shoulder, even the touch of her hand on mine to
steady
me—small
wonder I could hardly walk. The sun was brighter than I had ever seen it, the
very air bore
upon it a glorious scent like nothing I had ever dreamed.

I turned to my dear one, now grown to a giant as
tall as I and able to help me walk. “What is
that smell?” I asked. I
delighted in the strange movement of my new mouth, so different, so
similar.

She sniffed once and smiled. “Lansip. Can’t
you tell? Or does it smell different now?”

That was hlansif? Now I understood. “Dear
heart, it was nothing like this to me before. This is
the very smell of paradise. I know
now why your people seek it out.”

Her smile broadened. “Wait until you taste
it.”

Her joy had nothing to do with hlansif and all to
do with me. I gazed at her until I could bear
the brightness of her face no longer.
I turned instead to face my old friends, come now
out of my chamber and blinking in the
sunlight.

When I looked at them, really looked for the
first time, I knew fully how much smaller I was
grown. They had not changed, they
still had all the stature of our people. I barely came to
Shikrar’s
elbow.

I tried to bespeak Shikrar again, soulfriend for
almost a thousand years, but even I could not
hear my own truespeech. “Forgive
me, Shikrar, Idai. The Language of Truth has deserted me
for the
moment,” I said. They could not answer; they were robbed yet of speech by
wonder.

I had to speak, if only to touch reality thus.
Holding fast to Lanen—for balancing on two legs
was proving most difficult—I faced
them and tried to speak in the tongue of the Kantri, but
my new mouth
would not make the sounds. No truespeech, no Kantriasarikh? Was I to have
nothing left
of who I was?

I spoke again in the language of the Gedri. ”It
is I, Shikrar. Truly,” I said. “Do you know me
for myself,
my friend? Lady Idai, do you know me for Akor?” When they did not reply, I
added,
“I am glad you have tended to your own wounds, Shikrar. I thank you from
my heart
for
bringing me here after the battle. I would have died there.”

“Akhor did die there!” cried a high
voice. We all three turned to look to Idai. Her eyes were
wide and her
Attitude spoke violent Denial. She was backing away from me, flapping her
wings as if
to take to the skies. “This is not Akhor! It cannot be. Akhor is
dead!”

I opened my mouth to object, but in that moment I
knew she spoke truth. I waited for the echo
of her words to die to silence, then
said gently, softly, trying to make my voice sound as
normal as I could, ”Idai, Iderrisai,
come, come, my friend, be calm, you are right. But for all
that I am not
to be feared. I am no wandering soul, no creation of the Rakshasa, though my
bones—”
I shivered. “—Akhor’s bones—lie yonder. You are right. That name is a part
of me,
and
all my life before I remember in the way of our Kindred, but I am made new, and
I will
need
a new name.”

“Name of the Winds,” swore Shikrar
softly, as Idai fought to control herself. He gazed full at
me, and his
Attitude swung bewilderingly between Fear, Denial, Friendship, Wonder and (I
was amused to
see) Protection of a Youngling. “I hear you and in your words and your
voice I
hear
my soulfriend, but I cannot believe my ears or my eyes. Akhor, Akhorishaan, is
it, can it
be
that you are trapped inside that body?”