[Lanen Kaelar 03] - Redeeming the Lost (2 page)

Still, I have sworn to myself to write the
truth here, lest I forget it amid all the lies I have told myself and others
over the years.

I feared that the demons would find Jamie and
me, find us and rend us and send us screaming down into darkness. And if they were
going to take my husband, I could lose Hadron well enough, but if Jamie came to
harm through me I would have gone mad. If I had told Jamie as much he’d have
married me anyway, and I couldn’t let that be. Instead I told my dearest love
that I needed somewhere stable and safe for the growing babe, and that Hadron
would do.

Jamie stayed with me and I will never know
why. Surely no man could love anyone so deeply?

You know, it’s amazing, you get in the habit
of lying to everyone and in the end you lie to yourself. I’ve always been a
damn good liar. Conies of being honest most of the time. When I lie, hardly
anyone can tell. Even I lose track on occasion.

I knew fine that Jamie loved me truly and I
took ruthless advantage of it. And when Lanen was born, I could see in his eyes
that he yet had some hope that she was his. I never told him she wasn’t. Truth
be told, I wasn’t absolutely certain who her father was. I prayed it was him,
but deep inside I suspected she was Marik’s.

I lived with Hadron for nearly a year after
she was born, my shining girl, and I honoured him with my work and my body as
best I could. Jamie’s every look, every movement, burned in my eyes and in my
heart, but for his sake I never spoke word or let him see my own desperation. I
would not, for my own comfort, give him hope, shame Hadron, and then leave them
both. That would have been too great an evil even for me.

To say truth, before she was born I tried to
hate my babe because it was very likely the child of Marik of Gundar. Before
she was born I had some idea of abandoning the child to Hadron’s tender mercies
and leaving with Jamie, because I was going to hate it, of course I was.

Yes, yes, I know, I was an idiot. I’ve known
it for many, many years, so you can keep your thoughts to yourself.

Flesh of my flesh, whom my father would have
adored had he lived to see her—tiny, helpless, this stranger who had shared my
body for nine moons now alive, breathing for herself, shaking the air in her
demands for food—how could I do anything but love her? It was not her fault
that her father was such a man. From the moment she first drew breath I thought
her the loveliest, most incredible child in all creation. What mother does not
know this to be so? Her eyes, the smell of her hair, the feel of her at my
breast, the wonder I knew as I watched her first steps: at least I have had
these memories to keep me company through the long lonely years.

And yet I left her, for the demons came.

They pursued me always in dreams, from the
time I arrived in Ilsa, and then one terrible day during a late winter storm
one came in truth. Like an idiot I fought it with my knife—they can’t be killed
that way, though they don’t like being cut—until I started thinking and put my
free hand to the silver Ladystar I wore on a chain. I prayed then, aloud, for
help, and the next time my blade touched the thing it disappeared. I went
straight to a Servant of the Lady that I knew of thereabouts and had myself
shriven and my wounds dressed in secret. I asked the Servant if she knew how to
deal with demons, but she seemed to think I had brought it on myself by
summoning demons, no matter how often I denied I’d done any such thing. I
couldn’t tell her about the Farseer, of course, but I knew I’d been standing
next to it when the creature had appeared.

I took the short sword that Jamie had taught
me to use, found my way into the forge at night, and managed to grave the sign
of the Lady, the Goddess Shia, Mother of us All, on both sides of the blade. It
worked much better the next time, and the next—but then they started coming
once every se’ennight. The worst was the time I was feeding Lanen when one
arrived, and it scratched her. She screamed to shatter the sky as I fought it,
and I was scarce able to breathe for terror by the time I had dispelled it. I
washed the scratch with water tinged with honey and she stopped crying. I did
not. I knew that Marik had promised the life of his firstborn child in payment
for the Farseer, though he’d had no idea then that she was already growing in
my womb. Lanen was their prey, I was sure of it, and I was convinced that they
sought her through the damned Farseer and through me.

I left that night, taking the Farseer with me.
I released Hadron from his vows to me, that he might pursue any chance of
happiness left to him without hindrance. Hadron I never worried about, Goddess
forgive me, my cold heart, but Jamie—Jamie I left without a word, and Shia
knows I have cursed myself roundly for that for many a year. I prayed he would
stay and watch over my Lanen, and he did.

I know not what fate awaits us all after we
die, but, dear Goddess, if there is a judgement awaiting all souls I dread it
to my bones. So unspeakable a trick, to abandon them all three together. I knew
I was doing ill, but all I could see in my heart was a vision of Lanen torn
from my arms and sundered by cackling demons. I killed all the love left to me
in the world that day and I would have done so ten times over to keep my
daughter and my best-beloved safe.

What life have I had? A very quiet one. I came
home, to Be-skin in eastern Eynhallow, to my fathers forge, long cold. I had
learned at his shoulder the working of iron, and in time I made a decent
blacksmith for the villages round. It has kept me here, unremarkable save for
my profession—for even here in the North Kingdom, where women are vastly more
independent than in any of the other kingdoms, I know of no other female
smiths. I have remained safe and largely unnoticed, while I have studied the
service of the Lady and used the Farseer to watch over my daughter Lanen.

Why did I not destroy the Farseer? I have been
tempted, a thousand times. But I learned in that dark hour when Jamie and I saw
it made that there can only be one in the world at a time. If I smashed the
thing, Marik could make another and all my sacrifices would have been in vain.
He would have found us in an instant, and Lanen, Jamie, and I would surely be
dead in moments.

Yes, yes, of course I was a fool. How could I
know then what I have learned since? It has taken me years to discover that the
Farseer has its own defences as part of its making. Jamie and I escaped with
the thing nearly the moment it was made and its makers spent vast resources
trying to find it. The results of nearly all of Marik’s fortune and Berys s
power at that time were those few Rikti that found me and attacked me in
Hadronsstead. The Farseer is invisible to the Rakshasa, those few that found it
and me must have been a few out of thousands sent all over Kolmar, discovering
by chance a needle in a hay field. Berys has not given up the hunt, over the
years, but I have studied and spent a great deal of time in prayer to the
Goddess, and I have learned that if I invoke Her name and bless the thing when
I use it, and have myself shriven afterwards, the stink of it is dispelled and
the demons can’t find me.

I had owned it for sixteen winters before I
learned that. I could have gone back then, when Lanen was fifteen, I suppose—but
by then she was at one of the hardest times of life, and I didn’t want to—oh,
Hells. It is so much easier to lie, and I’d sound so much more like the person
I wish that I were.

I didn’t dare face Lanen and her anger—Jamie’s
anger—Hadron—I told you I was a coward. Had it been Lanen in my place, she’d
have done it. The girl fears nothing. But it wasn’t Lanen, it was me, and I
couldn’t bear it. I had abandoned her as an infant, for the love I bore her and
for her safety, and I was convinced that she would never believe me. Or forgive
me.

You may think that love from a distance is
easy, and in some ways you are right. But every time she was in danger, as she
lived through childhood’s diseases, when pain and sadness visited her, I
watched for hours and hours despite the cost to my soul. Jamie and my Lanen have
been dearest in the world to me, despite the years and the distance, despite my
daughter not knowing I lived. Or cared.

I could not bear the thought of seeing hatred
in her eyes, or in his.

I met Rella about a year after I first
returned to Beskin. She was always coming and going, but in the end it was she
who eventually helped me learn how to protect myself from the dark influence of
the Farseer. When her daughter Thyris died—Goddess, may I never see such a
parting again—I sought to hire the Silent Service to help me find out how to
use the damned thing in safety.

I was astounded when Rella was assigned, I had
no idea she was a part of that guild, but she told me she had asked to work
with me, and that it was time there was truth between us.

Then half a year ago, I looked in on Lanen and
found that she had left the safe haven of Hadronsstead and struck out on her
own. Even Jamie only managed to go as far as Illara with her. I begged
Rella—truth to tell, I paid her—to go after Lanen and guard her for me, and she
went with a good will.

And of course, my daughter was not content
even with all the lands of Kolmar, oh no, she had to take ship away west and
seek the Dragon Isle, where grow the lansip trees whose leaves are the most
powerful healall in the world, and where dwell the True Dragons of
legends—great winged, clawed creatures the size of a house, able to speak and
reason. In die ballads they are clever and powerful, but all the songs agree
that they left Kolmar long ages since. There is one ballad, the Song of the
Winged Ones, that tells of them in their new home and touches briefly on their
leav—ing, but even that tale has no more than a hint of why they left Kolmar.
Something to do with demons, it seems, but the words are vague. In truth I had
thought the True Dragons no more than myth, but Lanen—ah, Lanen not only found
them, she fell in love with one.

Just goes to show she’s truly my daughter. Mad
child. As best I could tell, though, that great silver dragon who caught her
heart came to love her as well. What happened then I’m not entirely certain,
for there were times in that crowded few days when she was gathering lansip and
losing her heart to a dragon, when I could keep my eyes open no longer—but when
the dust settled there was no more silver dragon and Lanen was helping a man
with purest silver hair learn how to walk. They returned to Kolmar and were wed
this Midwinter Festival past. That was when I realised that I had to find her
myself, to tell her of the greater danger that awaited her and those she loved.
I left my home just after midwinter and have been travelling the three moons
since. It has been a hideous journey and cold as all the Hells most of the
time. Thank the Goddess for the river, diough I could not ride its broad back
at first—the Kai is too rough and rocky where it springs from the earth to
support a boat. Not for many a long league of walking could I hope for rest.
Still, I finally reached the great crossroads of Kolmar, the city of Sorun
where the Kai and the Kelsun meet. I have been moving swiftly south ever since,
on the river when I could, towards the hills north of Verfaren, the city of the
Mages.

The worst of it is that I don’t know what has
happened. Lanen is no longer with them. I watched in awe as she and those who
travel with her helped bring about a new race of creatures, the little dragons
who now bear the same great gems as their larger cousins, but I am only human.
I fell asleep, and when I woke and demanded of the Farseer to show me Lanen, I
saw her lying in a crumpled heap on the floor in some cramped stone room. I
know not how she has come there, or why she is alone. When I spoke Rella’s
name, I saw her in solemn conference with the others, and glimpsed Jamie’s face
looking—dear Goddess—looking like a lost soul bent on damnation.

I can only guess that Lanen has been stolen
away and that the others seek her. I might be able to help them find her. I
have learned that what I see in the Farseer is only the vaguest of directions
if I cannot recognise the place I am shown, but from all I can tell I should
meet up with Rella, Jamie, and the others in the next few days. There is one of
the True Dragons with them now as well, though why in all the green world it
has come hither I cannot imagine. Indeed, it seems that the green world is
changing profoundly even as I stand here, and my daughter is in the midst of it

Dear Goddess. I hope I live through it. I
fully expect her to do her very best to break my jaw when finally we meet. Or
my arm. I would, in her place. I don’t intend to let her have things all her
own way, mind you. At the very least I am bright enough to keep out of arm’s
reach until her temper cools.

Oh—and there is the one last thing I have
learned about the Farseer. It corrupts the soul. It was made with the help of
demons, after all, and that darkness inhabits it and taints any who dare to use
it. I have resisted that taint for more than twenty years, paying in the coin
of prayers and devotions to Mother Shia, and in having to live with the
Raksha-stink when I could not be shriven immediately. It isn’t a smell, really,
more a deep sense of gut-sickness. I have borne it for a very long time, and I
fear that all the shriving in the world will never cleanse me of this prolonged
contact with demons.

But if that is the price of watching over my
daughter, I will bear it until I break.