[Lanen Kaelar 03] - Redeeming the Lost (51 page)

I withdrew from her mind, shaking myself, back
in the real world. “Will, find more wood for the fire. Maybe Vari—maybe you
could help him,” I said, looking up at the dragon. The two of them hurried off
down the slope, towards a nearby stand of trees.

“I’ll go with them,” said Jamie, but I stopped
him.

“No. I need you to call to her,” I said. “She
is—the country folk would call it elfshot. Away with the fairies. In her
case—she was connected to the Farseer, and when it was destroyed something in
her gave up.” They all three stood about, slack-jawed. “She’s lost part of her
soul with the Farseer, damn it,” I yelled, resisting the urge to slap all of
them. “More than anything right now, she needs to hear the voices of those who
give a damn about her. Talk to her.” I sank down, weary beyond belief. “Give
her some reason to stay.”

Rella spoke up first, taking Maran’s hand. “You
get back here, Maran Vena,” she scolded, as only good friends can scold one
another. “Don’t tell me you’d come all this way and live through the battle
just to give up now? Hells, woman, you’re free of that damned Farseer at last!
Would you leave iron half shaped after you had done all the work to draw it
down?’ To my astonishment, Rella lifted Maran’s hand and lightly kissed it. I
don’t have so many friends I can afford to lose one, you stubborn blacksmith,”
she said. “Get back here.”

“Maran,” said Jamie. I could only admire him
for managing to get any words at all past that lump in his throat. “Maran, I’ve
so much to tell you yet. Don’t go, heart’s friend. Don’t go before I can speak
to you of our daughter s childhood.”

Maran twitched a little, and a small moan
escaped her hps.

“Oh, bugger it,” said Lanen. She elbowed the
other two aside, knelt beside her mother, lifted her under the shoulders, and
clasped her mother’s limp form to her heart. “I’m here, Maran,” she said. “Thank
Shia you’ve come to find me. I need you. I’ve always needed you, but more than
ever now. I can’t look after these babes all on my own, and Varien won’t be
able to help. Please, Maran. Stay to help me. Stay to know your grandchildren.”
Lanen sighed. “I know it’s early days yet between us, but—please, Maran.
Mother. Stay and let me learn to love you.”

The soul can be healed as swiftly as the body.
Sometimes. Maran rose to consciousness and tightened her arms about Lanen.
Then, as if only then realising she no longer dreamed, she released her and sat
up.

“Lanen? I was dreaming—I thought—did you
say… ?”

“I surely did,” said Lanen, rising to her feet
and giving her mother a hand up.

Maran stood and gazed at her. “Lanen…”

“And I’ll say it again later, but only after I’ve
eaten something,” said Lanen. She managed to find a grin. “Come on, Mother
dear. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving.”

Maran returned the grin. “I could eat a bear,
claws and all,” she said as we all started down for the lake.

“I’d fight you for it,” I chimed in. “Wait,
shouldn’t we tell Will—”

“They’ll meet us by the shore,” replied Lanen,
sounding just a touch smug. Truespeech is a wonderful thing.”

Thank you—and that reminds me, I must help you
heal up after I’ve had some food, Lanen. You’ve had a hard time of it.”

“I’ll not object, Mistress Aral,” she replied.
As we walked, she suddenly started looking around, as if seeking something or
someone. “Aral, I thank you for all your kindness, but why do you labour alone?
Where is Mage Vilkcas?”

I didn’t know whether to curse or weep. “Mage
bloody Vilkas was last seen heading for Castle Gundar,” I replied. “I hope he
thought to ask them to send us a few blankets and a bite to eat.”

Then something occurred to me. I stopped dead,
blinked, and looked at Lanen. “Wait. You are Marik’s daughter, are you not?”

She stopped and turned to me. “Yes, alas. I
am.”

I grinned. “Then it’s your castle. It was his,
he was your father, he’s dead, it’s yours. Right?”

Lanen’s eyes grew wide in the bright
moonlight. “Now that is an interesting idea,” she said.

We stumped on down the hill.

After all was done, after we had sung our dead
onto the Winds and the sun was sinking rapidly into the west, I glided down to
the shore and drank sparingly of the water of the lake. It was fouled but it
was not poisoned, and I was desperate. Then, as Eldest, I began the terrible
accounting.

The Lesser Kindred—no, the Aialakantri now, I
must remember—were the only ones unhurt. Of the Restored, the precious Lost now
come to themselves again after all the long centuries, eighty-eight remained
alive out of two hundred, most with dreadful injuries. Twenty of those dead
were those who had chosen the Swift Death upon their Restoration, but to my
mind they were but the first casualties of this battle.

Of the Kantri, so lately arrived on these
green shores one hundred and eighty-seven strong, just one hundred and
twenty-six yet lived, including those who guarded the lansip trees with
Mi-razhe and ShertSk in the east and Kretissh and Nikis on the Halfway Island.
Here on the battlefield, one hundred and ten lay exhausted and in pain.

A hundred and seventy-three of us had fallen
in battle, including one whom I could least bear to lose.

For that moment, I envied the dead. They slept
on the Winds—O Shikrar, my friend, may the Winds bear you up—and we were left
to go on, to live, to start again in this new world full of those who would not
understand us. My heart was weary and my soul wrung beyond bearing. I came
again to land and sprawled by the side of the lake, wounded and exhausted and
weary nigh unto death at heart. There were no others by me, and I had only my
thoughts for cold company.

Ah, Shikrar, you always did say we didn’t fly
enough to keep our strength at its fullest, I thought, sending my foolish
true-speech to follow wherever he might have led. Now that all was over and
there was time for thought, Shikrar and Akhor filled my mind. I lacked only a
cent and a half of Shikrar’s age, I had known him since we were younglings
together, and now all those centuries rose up before me rich with memory. He
and Akhor had been the dearest creatures in all the world to me. I cannot say
the depth of all that was in my heart when I saw Akhor rise up from where
Shikrar had fallen, but I fear that old foolishness sent up fresh shoots in the
very instant. He cannot be husband to Lanen thus, he is himself again, perhaps
now, perhaps this time …

As I say, foolishness. I was too weary then to
discipline my heart, and it was soon forgotten in the battle that followed, but
when that incredible music began to echo in the mountains, singing of love and
the wonder of our three Kindreds reunited, I could not help but notice the tiny
flame of hope deep, deep within, that even I hardly dared to recognise.

When, a little later, Akhor and all of the
Gedri came down from the hill, I was the first soul they came to. For Akhor’s
sake I rose to my feet. I could not meet this wonder lying down.

“Akhor,” I said, bowing. It was most strange,
to look up to him. Akhor was younger than I, and so should have been smaller.
Does he wear Shikrar’s body? I wondered, horribly, but no—there was no
mistaking that gleaming silver hide that scattered the moonlight.

“Lady, I rejoice to see you among the living,”
he replied. His voice was deeper, but it was his voice. My heart leapt even as
I sternly beat it down. “Idai, my friend,” he continued, “forgive that I
intrude upon your grief. Know that mine is no less deep, but Shikrar would
surely want us to help the living ere we mourn the dead.”

“You speak truly, Akhor,” I replied sadly. “Though
I know not what may be done. There is a terrible toll among us, Lord,” I said. “Many
of our people are in pain, some in dreadful case, and all are wounded. What of
the Healers?” I asked, raising my voice and looking to the young Gedri Aral. “Are
you willing to assist?”

“Ill do what I can, Lady Idai, and welcome,”
said Aral, her voice so soft I could barely hear it. “It’s Vilkas you want,
though, and he’s—I don’t think he’ll work with me anymore.”

“For goodness’ sake, why not?” asked Lanen.
Then, gazing more closely at Aral’s face, she asked, “Aral, why have you been
crying?”

“It’s a long story, Lanen,” said Will the
Golden, who had appeared with Akhor. He lay his hand on Aral’s shoulder. “She’s
right, though. He’s in no mood to be helpful, especially if it means working
with Aral.”

For all that I was pleased at last to see him
in better case with Aral, the anger in his voice was plain.

“What’s got into Vilkas?” asked Lanen, her own
anger rising palpably. “Goddess, the man practically saved the world, what
could possibly be bothering him? I’d have thought he’d be damned proud of
himself.”

“He nearly destroyed the Rakshasa, Lanen,”
said Aral wearily.

“Shame he stopped too soon,” Lanen responded
fervently.

Aral shook her head. “It’s—it’s not that
simple, Lanen. I—he’s angry at me, with good reason.”

“I see,” Lanen said. “And people who need his
help can go hang, can they, while he goes off in a huff?”

“Lanen, it’s not that simple,” said Aral
quickly, but Lanen was already hurrying down the hill after Vilkas. Akhor went
with her. Maran started after them as well, but Jamie caught her sleeve and
held her back.

“Wait,” he said. Even to my eyes, his smile
was peculiar. “Give her a chance. She’s quite a lass, our girl Lanen,” he told
Maran. “Let s see what she can do.” He looked around. “And in the meantime, I
recommend we start a fire or six. It’s going to get cold when the sun goes
down, and I would happily maim for a cup of chelan.”

I had no idea where I was going, as long as it
was away from Aral. I found myself striding at speed along the north edge of
the lakeshore, the calm water on my right, swearing at her under my breath.

I knew how she felt, of course I knew, I’m not
blind deaf and dumb, but it wasn’t my fault. How could she throw that in my
face? I had trusted her with my deepest feelings as I have never trusted
another soul. She knew I felt guilty, even if I never said so. To use our
friendship as a—as a halter, as a weapon—damn the girl. I would never speak to
her again.

Vilkas.

First she had nagged at me, nagged for more
than a year, that I should let go the strong restraints I had placed around my
power, and the instant I do so she loses her nerve and…

Vilkas, you idiot, you know she was right.

She had no right to say that!

No, that’s true, but she had to shock you. You
were too far gone to hear anything eke.

She abused our friendship. She used emotional
blackmail!

Yes. But no one eke could get through to you
at all. She was the only one who cared enough to try.

Cared enough to betray my trust?

And a deeper voice, a wiser voice from my
secret heart, said, She cared enough to rip her own heart out and throw it at
your feet, man. To stop you from destroying yourself and half the world with
you. I’d call that true friendship.

“She stopped me!” I cried aloud, as though I
could win this internal argument by sheer volume. “I was free for the first
time in my life, I was happy, and she stopped me!” I clutched at my heart even
as I walked. “I was in paradise. I will never know that bliss again. She took
it from me.”

She saved your life.

I would rather have died!

And would you rather have taken every last
demon soul with you?

Yes!

That’s why she stopped you.

I trudged on, stubbornly ignoring the fact
that I’d lost the argument with my own conscience, when a vaguely familiar
dragon landed a little way in front of me. It let off a human passenger and
left. Anger swept through me. I didn’t care who it was, I was spoiling for a
fight.

It was Lanen.

She waited for me to come to her. Truth to
tell, she didn’t look very well.

I didn’t care.

“Mage Vilkas,” she began. ‘There are many yet
who…”

“I’m only human, Mistress Lanen,” I growled,
sounding petulant even to myself. “I’m too tired to help anyone else tonight.”

“There are many who wish to express their
gratitude to you,” she said evenly. “You have done a great work this day.”

I said nothing but plodded on. The ground was
heavy going just there.

‘There is a greater work yet that awaits you,”
she said, striding by my side. The woman was a fool. Hadn’t I just told her?

“I am exhausted, Lanen, didn’t you hear me?’ I
snarled at her.

“Pah! Don’t be stupid. You and Aral have
quarrelled and you’re angry at her. Fine, be angry, be bloody furious, I don’t
give a damn. But there are Kantri out there in mortal agony. I can do nothing
to help them. You can.”

I kept walking, but my anger was rising.