[Lanen Kaelar 01] - Song in the Silence

by Elizabeth Kerner

  Still Akor was silent. I could almost hear him trying to come to terms with this new knowledge that brought sorrow. After a little, I added, “I have not killed for this, Akor, nor set its worth above other things. I am sorry that it has been a source of ill will between our peoples—has anything not?—but I beg you, do not see in me the act of another.”

  He changed his position then and came down to me, all contrition. “Forgive me, littling. You are quite right. It is hard to remember, sometimes, how swiftly your lives hurry past. It has been many lifetimes for your race—almost as if you blamed me for the decision of the Firstborn. I beg your pardon, Lanen. You must keep reminding me.”

  The firelight had begun to dim. Dragonfire, it seems, burned hotter than normal tire, for that great log was nearly burned out. It had served its purpose, though, for my chill was gone. I felt warm and welcome. “Does not your fire need more wood, littling?” he asked.

  That was when I did one of the bravest and (had I known it) wisest things of my life.

  “No,” I said. “Let it die out. Then I can’t be dazzled by the look of this place, nor by the look of you.” I grinned up at him. “The best talks I ever had were at night when the lights were all out. I don’t have a blanket, but my cloak will serve, and if you will let me sit near you I’m not likely to get cold.” I looked around. “I still don’t like caves, but then again I don’t think you’ll let anything get me.”

  I was rewarded by a blast of steam. I was surprised, but the warmth was wonderful even though I had thought I was warm enough. I discovered that it was the Akorian version of a guffaw. “Bravely spoken, Lanen, well said! Let no creature small or great enter here, where Akor the Silver King guards Lanen of the Gedrishakrim!”

  And just like that the air was cleared of old anger, of the foolishness of others, of anything that was not of the two of us. Laughter is more powerful than many arguments.

  As the tire died we arranged ourselves. I was astounded to hear myself ordering him in jest to shift his tail, move his wing this way or that to accommodate me. I think he was a little surprised, too, but he was also amused, and it seemed that among them it was also true that friendship has such licence. We found ourselves curled up together in the corner on the floor of gold (which by the bye was not comfortable for me at all), under the opening that led to the sky. I sat leaning against his warm side wrapped in my cloak. His head rested on his forelegs, his wings folded back so they were out of my way. We watched the dying tire flicker on the wall, enjoying simply being together as we believed no two of our races had ever been.

  “It is quite beautiful here, Akor,” I said, quietly. “I meant to tell you that. And the firelight on the go—on the kadish is warm and comforting.”

  “I am glad, littling.” He looked at me with unfathomable eyes. “And I am glad also that the fear you carried has left you. Will you speak with me of this?” ”

  “Not now, please—soon, in a moment, but this is so lovely I don’t want to spoil it.”

  “Very well. Then what shall we speak of, here in this loveliness, across the long aeons of separation?”

  I grinned. “To begin with, what in the world made you practice landing like that?”

  He laughed, as I had hoped he would. Nice and warm. “It was foolishness, as I suspect you know,” he replied. “I had dreamt—I was recovering after my last Weh sleep and the ferrinshadik was heavy upon me, and I had to do something about it or burst, so I imagined that I had somehow a friend among the Gedri who wished to fly.”

  He had to tell me what ferrinshadik was; it was a familiar feeling, and I was pleased to learn that someone had made a word for it. As for his upright landing, he sounded proud of himself even as he made light of it. “Awkward it is still, but it worked.” I heard the grin in his voice. “I am glad you did not see me practicing. You would never have consented to leave the ground.”

  The fire was dying.

  “Probably not.” I shook my head. “I still can’t believe I was flying. It was wonderful.”

  “Would that you had wings, my Lanen. I think flying would delight you.”

  And I sighed with longing for wings, and scales, and the Winds to bear me up.

  Akhor

  She took in a deep breath and blew it all out at once. Very peculiar. I had to know. “What does that signify?”

  She was silent a moment. “It’s called a sigh,” she said, with a kind of melancholy in her voice. “I’m not sure I can tell you just what it means, though I thought I heard one from you not so long ago. I was sitting here longing to have wings and fly, to be a—one of your Kindred, and knowing how impossible it is. It made me a little sad, in a way I can’t do anything about. Nothing too awful.”

  The fire was glowing embers, bright red still and warm, but even in such a minor thing I heard the true sadness in her heart. “Forgive me, dearling, I must ask you again. You know there can be no more secrets between us. I pray you, speak to me of your sadness, and of the fear that darkened our meeting this night.”

  “You’re right, it’s time.” She told me the story of Maran and Marik as Jamie had told it to her, then all that had happened since she had landed, and finished with Marik’s attempted seduction and her battle for freedom. “They were almost on us before we left, weren’t they?” she asked, her voice full of weary dread.

  “If they did not see us leave I would be surprised.”

  “When I go back they will take me. I’m still not sure what Marik wants, but I suspect I’ll either be killed or given up whole and alive to the Rakshasa.” She lifted her hands to cover her face. “Oh my friend, forgive me. I never meant to draw you into this struggle. It is none of yours, and now we have both broken the laws of your people.”

  “Your life was in danger, was it not?”

  “Yes,” she replied, certainty in her voice. “I give you my word, Akhor, if Marik’s men had caught me I would have been killed, or worse. When I go back I still will be.”

  “Then it is simple enough. You will not go back.”

  Lanen

  I looked at him, my eyes wide, my mouth a startled O. “But—but—won’t your people—Shikrar, won’t he—”

  He lifted his head off his forelegs and looked me in the eye. “Dearling, I have given you my word. There is nothing will harm you while I live and may prevent.”

  I covered my mouth with my hand. “Dear Lady,” I murmured. “Akhor, you must know that I was going to go down on my knees and beg you and Shikrar to let me stay here on this island. I had it all planned, I would stay on the Gedri side of the Boundary in one of those cabins—oh, but I never meant you to break the laws of your people!”

  I jumped a little as his near wing came close and wrapped softly around me. It was a gentle touch. “Dear one, I had already decided that that particular law is based on old prejudice and ancient grievance. Were it my province I would revoke the Great Ban and establish the Peace once more. But that can only be done in Council.”

  “Council?”

  “Yes. I know not how your people are governed, but we have a Council that meets every five years. Any of our people who wish to may attend. And sometimes, as now, they are called for special occasions. I have summoned one for tomorrow.” His voice sounded, I swear, like Jamie at his most cynical. “It should be interesting.”

  “Ha!” I snorted. “Interesting! They’ll have us both for breakfast.”

  “It will at least be a novel experience.”

  And I threw back my head and laughed. Don’t ask me why. Somehow the threat of Marik dwindled in the face of a whole Council of Dragons approaching with evil intent and a shaker of salt. When I told Akor why I was laughing, the steam clouded up the cave for some time.

  Marik

  I woke to find one of my guards hovering over me. “Where is she?” I muttered, cupping my jaw. It hurt to speak.

  “I have the Harvesters looking everywhere, lord, but so far we haven’t found her. Sul ran after her, but she had a headstart by way of
he had to get me off him first.” The idiot hung his head sheepishly and explained how Lanen had got past them, the lump on his forehead silent witness to truth. “Fetch my Healer,” I commanded as I rose, “and then fetch me Caderan.”

  Maikel, my Healer, was working on me when Sul returned. The expression on his face was quite beyond words. “Well,” I demanded, “where is she?”

  “Please not to speak just now, lord, it is not good for the work,” Maikel admonished me gently. I grunted.

  “She is gone, master,” said Sul, and I heard wonder in his voice, “I was a long way behind her and lost the trail in the woods, so I ran back to camp and started up search parties of whoever was around. I took two likely lads and started off along the Boundary, just in case she’d run that way and been trapped. We must have gone a good mile along when I heard noises and saw something up ahead, by where you met the Dragons.” His voice dropped to a respectful whisper. “It was one of them, on our side of the fence, and while I watched it picked her up in its hands and flew away.”

  I groaned. Damn it to all the Hells, not only talked with them but befriended, not only befriended but rescued! I had been so close. How had she resisted that amulet? It had been made by Berys himself; she should have thrown herself at my feet. Unless—

  Unless she had some innate resistance.

  Caderan appeared in the doorway, the darkness kind to his lank hair and sharp face. His eyes were bright with excitement. “The creature was on this side of the Boundary, you are certain?” he asked Sul.

  “Yes, lord. I saw it lean down and pick her up,” said Sul.

  “You are dismissed,” he told the two, and they left to take up their stations outside. Maikel still worked on my jaw so I could not speak, but Caderan’s face spoke even before he did. “We have them, my lord. Did you not say that the treaty included them staying on their side of the fence?”

  I grunted assent.

  An oily grin spread over his face. “The Dragons are creatures of Order, my lord, they are bound by it straitly. This is your bargaining point, one they cannot ignore. You may not need to make your excursion at all.”

  My Healer finally finished and I shooed him away. “I will live now, Maikel, I thank you for your pains. Master Caderan and I would be alone.”

  He bowed without a word and left.

  “Explain.”

  “My—sources have informed me that if you can find a point of their law that they have broken, they are bound to make restitution.” He rubbed his hands together gleefully. “She has done it for you, lord. By escaping to them, she has made them break their own laws. Think of it! Dragon gold for the asking!” He broke into a high-pitched laugh that sent shivers down my spine.

  “Enough,” I snapped. “You will accompany me to the place of Summoning at noon tomorrow. In the meantime, I will need you to explain to me how the girl resisted my amulet. ”

  “What?”

  “Yes, master sorcerer. She was well in my power, I could feel it, but the moment I spoke to her of what I needed to know she drew away from me, and a moment later she struck me.”

  Caderan did not entirely manage to hide his smile. “Yes, very amusing I’m sure,” I said sourly. “May she smite you one day. Fool! I care not for the blow. “How was she able to resist the amulet?”

  “I cannot imagine, my lord. No woman should have been proof against it. Of course it means nothing to men when a man wears it, and since it was made very specifically for you, should it be stolen and used by a woman you would be immune, but—”

  “Could it be that simple?” I wondered aloud. “It was made for me, I am proof against it—how would it affect one who was my own flesh and blood?”

  Caderan’s eyes went wide, then narrowed as a sickening smile crossed his face. “Yes, my lord. You have it, no doubt. I think we do not need her blood now, though when she is in your power again I would recommend the procedure for form’s sake. Unless she is in fact a man—”

  “Trust me, she’s a woman.”

  “—or a Dragon, then the only explanation must be that she is your daughter. Your first born child, my lord Marik, and the price of your pain.”

  His words swept through me like healing fire. I threw back my head and laughed, despite the aches from the blow, despite the pain I carried always with me. The price of my pain. Once paid it would be gone forever. It was worth anything.

  Now all I needed was the girl.

  She couldn’t stay with them forever. If she was not back in my hands by morning I would demand her return from the creatures, along with gold as recompense for their breaking of the treaty. If they would not agree, somehow I would use Caderan’s servants to fetch her back.

  And in the meantime, once Caderan left, I meant to don those articles prepared for me and go walking in the dragonlands. It is, after all, always best to learn what you may, and I suspected this lawbreaking by one of their own would not go unnoticed by the creatures themselves.

  The Lords of Hell were smiling on me at last.

  Akhor

  The fire was but a few glowing embers now. We see in the dark a little better than the Gedri, but not much. As the darkness closed about us I began to ask Lanen about herself. She spoke haltingly at first, but I prompted her when she fell silent and she had much to say in the end. She told me of her old life at Hadronsstead, of her friends and her travels since she left.

  “I would like to meet your Jamie. He has known you all your life, perhaps he would know whence your dreams of knowing my people sprang.”

  She laughed a small laugh. “It’s a good thought, but he has no idea. He always said I must have been dropped on my head sometime when he wasn’t looking. I don’t think he even believes you exist.” Then she made a marvelous sound, very short notes rising then falling in pitch.

  “What was that?” I asked, surprised. I had not thought to wonder if she could sing.

  “What was what? Oh—I laughed, that’s all.”

  “Forgive me, littling, but that was not a laugh. Is there no separate word for it?”

  “Mmm—well, yes, I suppose it was a giggle.”

  I tried to say it. The sound of the word was very like the thing itself and made her laugh again. “Usually only children giggle; it’s the kind of noise little girls make when they are together,” she told me.

  “Our younglings sing, though not very well at first. The sounds are similar,” I replied. “Do your people sing?”

  “Yes. At least, we all sing but we don’t all do it well. Jamie always told me I had a voice like a frog with a cold.”

  I smiled in the darkness. “I have never heard a frog with a cold sing. Would you sing something for me?”

  “What, now?” She was surprised; and seemed pleased.

  “Yes. I will join you, if I may.”

  “What if you don’t know the song?”

  “Littling,” I said gently, “I learn very quickly.”

  She sat up straight and cleared her throat. “Just remember, you asked for this,” she said. “This is a lullaby, such as mothers sing to their little ones to help them sleep.”

  She sang a sweet song, soft and low. Her voice was perfectly fine, though it was very young. I decided Jamie did not necessarily know everything about her. When she began the tune again I joined her in the second voice, keeping the harmony as simple as the melody. She did not stop as I had feared, she even sang it through once more. I was pleased with the way our voices blended.

  She let the last notes die away and said quietly, “If the bards could hear you they would fall at your feet and die happy. I have never heard anything so beautiful, if you take my voice out of it. Akor, please, would you sing for me?” she asked. Her voice was very soft, as if she feared to ask such a thing.

  There is nothing she could have asked of me that would have touched me more deeply, nor that I would more readily give. Perhaps it was chance.

  Perhaps chance had nothing to do with what Lanen and I did together.

  I was full
of her now, of small things and large, I could hold nothing else. “Lanen, dear one, I am honoured. I shall sing you a new song that my heart taught me this night past.” I closed my eyes. I had not meant to sing that to her; but no matter. I believe that whatever I had set out to sing would have come to that song in the end. I thought I was still safe, for it is only a true bonding if both create the song, if their voices can find a meeting place in the singing.

  I drew in breath, lifted my head and sang the song I had heard the night before as I dreamed of a Kantri-Lanen flying the Flight of the Devoted with me.

  Lanen

  He began softly and sweetly to sing, a lilting melody like a child’s voice that made me want to dance or laugh or both together. Then the song changed, became more melancholy; it reminded me of the dark days in Hadronsstead. I understood then a little of what he was doing. I heard my journey through Ilsa, the music of the rivers and the stronger theme of the sea.

  Then he let his voice deepen, taking on the beauty of the skies and of the winter’s night we had just flown through. I could hear his rejoicing as he bore in hands made for destruction the fragile body of the one he loved.

  Me.

  And then he made me grow.

  He turned me in his song into a Dragon, with wings of air and breath of fire, free and strong and brave. Together we flew on the night winds, made music, became in truth all things to one another as we would have done were the Winds or the Lady kinder. I wept, for joy, for wonder, as I felt my song-self ride the wind, become one with this fellow creature who held my name in his heart.

  And I joined him.

  I let go my fears; whatever it was that kept me earthbound I left behind. I let my voice join his, let it go where he went, then apart, then he would bring us back together. I had never imagined such music, it thrilled in my blood and pulsed along my every vein. Any part of my heart he did not have I gave him then. I felt my soul melt out of me and join with his as we flew. I could feel the very air on my wings, smell the approach of dawn and the nearness of my beloved; and we were one.