And he was gone, striding off to the cabins in the darkness. I breathed again, but I knew my relief must be short-lived. He was right. There was nowhere I could go, and for some reason he seemed quite willing to wait, I felt like a mouse in the paws of a cat—I might provide him some amusement, but in the end I was caught sure.
I went back to my tent, moving quietly so as not to disturb Rella, whose snores were reassuringly safe and homelike. I drew off my boots and lay on my blankets, my mind whirling. How if I was his daughter? From what Jamie had told me, Berys had made the deal to have control of an infant. I couldn’t imagine what it would mean to be given to demons as a thinking adult, but I suspected that death would be preferable. I could think of no escape, no way out, when like a candle in darkness I saw all clear. I very nearly laughed.
The Dragons. Those whom I had sought all my life, they were my way out. If—no, I reminded myself grimly, when—Marik and his cronies tried to trap me, I would do my best to lose myself in the deep forest, but if that failed all I would need to do was cross the Boundary. I did not relish the idea, but death was not as frightening as being demon fodder. Unless, of course, my madness bore fruit before then. Unless I really did manage to speak with one of them.
And with that thought, I was whisked away from the intrigues of evil. I had meant to sleep for an hour or so, but I could no more sleep than I could fly. The Dragons were so near I could all but smell them. I could wait no longer. I rose quietly, slipped my boots back on and from some sense of fitness I laid aside my old black cloak and wrapped myself in my fine new green one.
As I stepped outside I was thankful for the weight of my lovely cloak and the thick weave of it, for the night had turned cold. I pulled the hood over my head, for warmth and to cover my hair, lest it reflect moonlight and betray me. The moon was up and only a night before the full, but a thin layer of clouds obscured its light, scattering it blue around the clearing. The dying grass was soft under my feet; a noise like the sea surrounded me as I walked, listening to the light breeze as it swished the last lingering leaves against the sleeping branches overhead.
I kept to the shadows and moved as quietly as I could. It had occurred to me, belatedly, that I might not be the only one abroad; that thought saved me from crying out when I glimpsed a cloaked figure ahead of me. I was nearly at the Boundary when I saw it ahead of me, moving quietly through the tree shadows. I was about to speak when there was a break in the clouds, and the change in light made the figure whirl around.
It was one of the young men who had been on Joss’s boat with me—Perrin or Darin, I couldn’t remember which. I had seen them in passing on the journey over. Surely the idiot boy realised this was the very thing we had been warned against. Hadn’t he listened to the Master? Or did he think…
Satisfied that he was alone, he turned north again, planted a foot on the top rail and disappeared into the dark woods on the far side of the Boundary fence.
Almost immediately I heard a huge hiss. It was oddly soft for the size of throat it came from, terrifying in that quiet darkness. It was followed by an immense sound just on the edge of hearing, as of air displaced by something very fast and very, very large. There was a single thin, sharp cry, then silence.
I stood trembling in the darkness and knew what had happened as if I had watched it. There was a guard at the Boundary—of course there was—and he had executed the man (the thief, I told myself) without an instant of hesitation.
It was horrible—a life snuffed out in the blink of an eye but it was what they had said they would do.
I was not trembling with fear. I was trembling with the nearness of Dragons.
I walked slowly up to the Boundary.
“Hello?” I said softly to the night air. Silence.
I realised they must think l was with the poor idiot they had just killed. Surely no one had approached them directly for anything but dragon gold, even in the days when these journeys were not so rare. How could I get them to listen to me? Nothing for it, I thought. I’m going to have to call out. I reached for breath, but hesitated—what could I possibly say? What words could make a difference, here at the edge of two worlds?
I stood uncertain in the deep night, knowing my words might bring my heart’s desire or the end of all. My mind was whirling with the verses of bards’ songs, finding only “Dragon,” knowing in my bones it was wrong.
And suddenly I realised how I had thought of them ever since. I heard the Song of the Winged Ones so many years ago, the song in the silence.
I drew in a breath and called softly, “My brother?”
There was a movement in the darkness between the trees.
I began to tremble in earnest now, my voice unsteady and my knees threatening to betray me, but it was too late for fear. “Oh please, my brother, please, come to me. I have waited for you so long—” and my throat closed against the words, as the memory of endless awakenings in my solitary bed at Hadronsstead rose up before me. I shook my head and banished those thoughts. That darkness was over; and the formal greeting I had crafted so carefully all those years before rose to my lips unashamed.
“I call to thee, my brothers of another kind; through the parting of ages I call to thee. I know not why our peoples live apart, but I summon thee through darkness to come to me, that together we may create a new light. I long for thee, through all my life I have sought thee, to learn thy ways and thy hearts, to tell thee of my own people and our dreams. Oh, my brothers of the Dragon kind, I summon thee by all I hold holy; by the Lady of the Moon, by Blessed Shia the mother of us all, I call thee brother and I long for thee.”
I was come to the end of my fine words. I knew nothing else to say, and could only add in a desperate whisper, “Oh please, please—come to me.”
A shaft of moonlight escaped its cloudy cage and glinted off something very large moving beyond the trees.
“Oh my brother,” I breathed softly.
Kantri
I could resist no longer—or perhaps it is truer to say I did not wish to. I had felt her call, as though she were one of the Kindred, and when that voice in the dark called me brother I knew I must answer.
I left my hiding place, left the broken body of the thief. She was so different from the small-souled dead one, though of the same Kindred. There was so much we did not know of one another, so much to fear—but the faith and the longing in her voice shone like a beacon.
I moved slowly that I might not frighten her. I had long imagined how I would appear to one of them; they are so small and naked, and I with my silver hide was strange even among my own people. I felt my soulgem glow brightly in a shaft of moonlight and heard her gasp, but it was neither fear nor greed. I did not know what she was feeling, not perfectly, but if appeared to be a mixture of ferrinshadik and adoration. I had always been told that we could not feel the Gedri, but I had sensed her even before our meeting.
I found that without thinking I had assumed the Attitude of Protection of a Youngling, and my soul grew in that moment. I discovered it was possible for one of the Greater Kindred to care for one of the Gedrishakrim.
We stared at each other through the darkness, not speaking; but even the dim seeing was enough. I leant down a little to see her better. She did not cry out despite the fear I felt from her, though she did draw back a little.
She was a brave dreamer.
“There is no need to fear, little sister,” I said quietly.
Her eyes grew wide with wonder, and her breath came short as if preparing to fly. “I’m not afraid,” she said; then, “Well, not very afraid.” For a long while we simply stared at each other, as though words would break the fragile spell and we would vanish disastrously from each other’s sight.
Then she spoke again, very softly, almost to herself. “You are so different from what I dreamt. The songs don’t even…you are terrifying.”
She tried to go on but could not. Her mouth moved as if to speak, but awe still held her. She breathed as one tried with gre
at exertion, but she stood in what looked like the Attitudes of Joy and Wonder and her eyes never moved from mine.
“You are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen,” she said at last.
I bowed my head in thanks and moved closer still to see her better in the dim light, and to be seen. We were silent again, drinking in each other at close range. Her eyes gleamed in the moonlight, and I smelled saltwater.
“Is it the way of your people to drop seawater from their eyes?” I asked, keeping my voice as soft as I could.
She bared her teeth but I sensed neither fear nor threat. “No,” she said. “It’s—the seawater, it’s called tears. We do it when we’re very sad, or very happy.”
I was fascinated. “So even do we with Fife, the same, expression for great joy or great sorrow. We are not perhaps so different as is thought, little sister.”
“We can speak and understand each other. Where is the great difference there?”
I hissed my amusement softly. “Little sister, I have taught myself your speech over many long years. If I spoke in my own tongue, the difference would be clear.”
I stopped. She had started and drawn away when I laughed, und stood now uncertainly, ready to flee. “What frightens you?” I asked.
“Why did you do that?” she asked hesitantly.
“What did I do, little one?”
“You—you dropped your jaw and—hissed at me.”
I just managed to stop myself from doing so again. “I did not mean it to distress you. It is a sign of friendship or mild pleasure. Did you not just now bare your teeth at me, when I spoke of seawater?”
She thought for a moment, then bared her teeth again, more broadly, and the flesh at the corners of her eyes crinkled. “It’s called a smile. Do you mean the same thing when you drop your jaw and hiss?”
“I believe so, though I do not know the words you use.” She simply stared up at me, obviously standing in the Gedri way of Joy—she had changed from fear to gladness in the blink of an eye—and it struck me that we had changed the world as we knew it. For the first time in centuries, Kantri and Gedri had taught each other something.
My first reaction was great joy.
My second was the stirring of fear.
This, of course, was the reason why contact between the races was forbidden. The Gedrishakrim are always curious, and the Kantri seek to teach despite themselves. Without thinking we had exchanged knowledge, to our mutual delight; but old habit and long years of mistrust reminded me that, trivial as this exchange was, it was friendship between our peoples that had ultimately doomed the Lesser Kindred to live as beasts. For the first time the ferrinshadik dimmed and I began truly to understand the Great Ban.
“Little sister, forgive me, but I must ask you something of great importance,” I said. “When you called to me, you spoke of dreams, of a life spent longing for my Kindred. You called me brother,” I said quietly. “That is not a word used often or lightly among my Kindred.”
“Or mine,” she said. None of the awe was gone from her, but even these few moments spent to my company had made her bolder. “I called you that because that is how I thought of you,” she said. “Even more now than before.” Her voice wavered and she trembled, but not with fear. “Ever since I was a young girl I have wanted to speak with a—with your people.” .
Her words pleased me. She did not call us “Dragons”; deep in her heart she must know if was their word for us, not our own. I longed to tell her even then how we name ourselves, but I did not. Habit and old mistrust. The knowledge that this kind of meeting was forbidden sharpened suddenly into an urgent need. I had not known how strong the desire to teach was, how deeply she would infect me, how I would long to tell her of our Kindred and of myself—in truth, to teach her whatever she wanted to know. We had learned to our sorrow that the Gedri could use knowledge to evil ends. Our numbers were halved and the Lesser Kindred trapped in darkness because of misplaced trust between our peoples. Il must learn why she had come.
“Why?” I asked her. “Why have you wanted to know us? What brought you here, so far from your lands and your Kindred? Speak truly, and tell me why you are here.”
I asked her this aloud, and without thought repeated it in the Language of Truth. “Why do you seek me/us out in the night? What brings you? Do you mean us harm, do you seek for gain? Why are you here?”
To this day I do not know why first I used the Language of Truth with her. Every scholar of our Kindred had told me that the Gedrishakrim were deaf to it.
To my great delight she proved them wrong.
Her thoughts were faint and not well ordered; they spilled out all together and sparkled with emotion like stars streaking , across a dark night. It was much like speaking with a youngling—but it was the Language of Truth, undeniably.
“I come because I love you I want to know you, let us speak together and grow to know one another. You are so beautiful/ wondrous/not what I expected but real at last. I have dreamed of you so long, so long in the lonely darkness, it is glory and wonder to hear speech and reason from another creature A REAL DRAGON!” And below that, her underthought whispered, “Is this real oh please let it be real if it is not let me never wake from the dream, oh my heart aches you are so beautiful!”
She stood silent for a moment. “What did I—did you hear that?” she asked very quietly.
“Yes,” I said, standing in the Attitude of Surprised Pleasure. “I did not know you had the Language of Truth, little sister!”
“I didn’t either,” she said.
“You have never done this before?”
She shook her head. “Never. I think it’s—we call it Farspeech, but I’ve only ever heard of it in tales from the bards.” She stared up at me. “I never thought it was real!”
“It is the Language of Truth,” I told her. I had not lost all restraint, but how could such knowledge bring harm? “It is the true speech of mind to mind, and minds cannot hide a lie from one another. This Farspeech—you are certain you have never used it before?”
“No. I told you, I didn’t even believe in it until now,” she replied. She looked up and smiled. “I’m not sure I do yet.” She seemed a little dazed. It was a common reaction among younglings, and I found myself wanting to cross the Boundary to comfort her, as though she were indeed one of the Kindred. I resisted with great effort. The least I could do would be to explain.
“With us it may only be used between two who consent,” I told her gently. “It is very revealing, and younglings find it leaves them unsettled.”
“Unsettled; yes, that at least. I wasn’t expecting it at all.” Her mouth drew up again, and I knew a small wash of pleasure as I realised that I was the only one of all the Kindred who could recognise the smile of the Gedrishakrim.
“You should warn a lady,” she said.
I bowed to her. “I will.”
And I realised only in the second after I had spoken that my words hung in the air like a winged promise. With those two words “I had changed my life and hers. There would be another meeting, I would again use the Language of Truth with her. I knew not until I spoke that I meant to continue this frightening, forbidden, wondrous communion.
I stared at her, startled by my own words, and saw to my wonder that some postures are universal. She stood in Anticipation of Joy as best she could. It seemed we merely acknowledged a fate already decreed.
“There will be another time?” she asked. “May I come back tomorrow night?”
I waited, wondering, seeking a reason to deny her and not finding one. “Yes, little sister,” I said at last, and the saying was a joy. “Come to me tomorrow at the same hour, alone as you are. We will speak again.”
“Thank you, my brother,” she said, and bent in the middle at me. It seemed to be a bow of some kind. I must ask her about that sometime, I thought, when she said in a different voice, “That man; the one who came just before me did you kill him?”
“Yes,” I replied,
; “Why?”
“He had broken the treaty our laws and yours. There was greed in him, and death in his heart for my Kindred. He reeked of the Rakshasa, he must have had dealings with them. He knew the prive.” I peered at her. “Does my killing of him frighten you?”
She paused, looking down, then answered, “No. It probably should, but no, it doesn’t.” She looked up at me again, and I longed to know what the glow in her eyes meant. “I trust you. I will obey your laws.”
“That is well, little sister,” I said. “You have nothing—” I caught myself. The temptation to trust was overpowering. I was amazed. I must have time, time to think about this strange impulse, ponder what it might mean. “Go now. We will speak again tomorrow, at the middle night.”
“Must we part so soon?” she asked.
“Do not your Kindred require sleep?” l asked.
“Yes, but…”
“In our laws, and I suspect in yours, our two Kindreds are warned never to meet.” I looked down on her and said kindly, “I think this first lawbreaking should not be overlong. There will be time enough, and we both have much to think on.”
“That’s true,” she said. “You won’t forget?”
I nodded. “We do not forget, little sister.”
She smiled at that. “Then goodnight, large brother,” she said. She bent in half again and turned to go, then turned back. She stood silent a moment, determined, hesitant.
“What is it, little one?” I asked.
And without hesitation she said, “I am called Lanen Maransdatter—but my true name is Lanen Kaelar.”
And she waited.
The giving of a name is with us the greatest act of trust. Only father, mother and mate know the true name, or perhaps one true friend of the heart; but the name gives power to whoever calls it.
It would be stupid, it would be blind senseless, it would be madness to give her my name and thus power over me and my Kindred. How could I so break the ban and do so foolish a thing?
How could I not?
For trust calls out trust, and this powerless child of the Gedri had given me that which could cost her soul.
[Lanen Kaelar 01] - Song in the Silence Page 13
