Drawing my power to me, I gazed swiftly at Maran’s limp body. Exhaustion, weariness of soul, demon claw, all of these were obvious, but there was something else, something I could not see properly. I treated the Raksha bites and gouges first, cleansing and healing. She breathed easier, but still she did not move.
It is so hard, with those who have withdrawn. Still, I owed it to her to try.
I drew in a deep breath and focussed my sight, traversing all the systems of the body in turn. Wait, what was—there—a faint shadow, elusive, moving, but there.
Normally I’d have asked Maran herself if I could go so deep, but she was not there to permit. I put one hand on either side of her face, my palms to her temples, and went within. The landscape of her mind rose round about me, where all is symbol made manifest.
I was in a dark place, but there was a large fire and the smell of hot metal—oh, of course. A smithy.
Maran, clad in thick leather shirt, trews, and apron, stood at the forge, shaping metal on the anvil. I watched as a Ladystar magically took shape under her hammer. When it was complete, she picked it up with a pair of tongs and thrust it into the water barrel, where it made the water boil. A great cloud of steam arose, shaping itself into a small smoky globe. She sighed, lifted it out, and thrust it back in, but the same thing happened. A smoky globe of steam above, the Ladystar glowing an angry red in boiling water, refusing to be quenched. “I was afraid of that. Too hot for water,” she said, and calmly turning the tongs around, she pressed the hot iron into her flesh.
The shape of the Ladystar fell into her chest. It did not cause her pain of itself, but she began to thrash as it went deeper into her soul. “No, it’s gone, I swear it’s gone, I’ll never use it more!” she cried. “I never used it for gain, never!”
Smoky globe. Of course. Staying deep, I spoke aloud. “What has become of the Farseer?”
“I destroyed it, as she bade me,” said the voice of the dragon.
I saw it then, all clear before me. A demon artefact, used on and off for years by a good soul for what she perceived as good reasons, would yet forge an unseen bond with the user’s soul. If we did not act swiftly, she would follow the damned thing into oblivion.
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 lips.
“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 Vilkas?”
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.
Idai
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 Mirazhe and Sherók 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 full
est, I thought, sending my foolish truespeech 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?”
“I’ll 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 chélan.”
Vilkas
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 else.
She abused our friendship. She used emotional blackmail!
Yes. But no one else 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 your?
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.
She hurried around and stood before me. I started to go around her and she reached out and stopped me by the simple expedient of planting her hands on my shoulders.
“Don’t touch me,” I said haughtily.
“Why not?” she asked, not moving.
“Because I said not to,” I replied, trying to throw her off. Damn, she was strong. I couldn’t shift her, which of course made me angrier.
“Vilkas, you must listen,” she said, but I had come to the end of my tether.
“I don’t have to listen to anyone!” I cried. I summoned my power and threw her off easily. She staggered back and landed with a thump. “You have no idea what I have suffered this day,” I hissed at her. “I have been threatened by every demon in every Hell there is. I have saved Aral twice, by Mother Shia I have saved every living soul in the world this day and for thanks the only person I have ever trusted betrays me. I am sick unto death of helping people. I don’t care if t
he Kantri rot.”
I should have left then, I wanted to walk off and leave her there, but there was something about the woman that made me wait. Or something within me that knew she spoke truth, and stayed to hear it.
“Vilkas, you live,” she said, rising to her feet. She walked towards me slowly, her hands outstretched to me in supplication this time, her honest face full of heartfelt pain. “Hundreds of them do not. Hundreds of them have died—O Shikrar—” She bowed her head for a moment, then looked full into my eyes. “Vilkas, their numbers were dwindling before. This may be their ending as a people. I beg you, of your mercy—surely there has been enough of death this day. You have been given power beyond measure. Use it to heal. They are in such terrible pain.” She went down on one knee before me. “Please. I beg you.”
It is a way to atone, my conscience said. Traitor that it was, siding with her. You have done a terrible thing. It is a way to redeem yourself.
I sighed. “Damn.” I looked at Lanen out of the corner of my eye. “You sure you’re not a Mage? I had no intention of helping you.”
“I was tested years ago,” she said, grinning up at me. She was nearly pretty when she smiled like that. “Not a trace of power anywhere.”
“Oh, get up,” I said, giving her a hand and helping her back to her feet. “Very well. Where shall I start?”
“A moment,” she said. Her gaze lost focus. I was beginning to recognise that as an indication that she was using Farspeech.
“Idai comes,” she said, even-as Idai landed heavily a hundred paces away. She hurried to meet us, despite her injuries. I could not help myself, my power rose up in the face of pain, and I reached out to heal.
Nothing happened.
I tapped into that fire within, now banked a little, but there when I needed it. Nothing.
I poured my strength into her like a river, even a creature her size should have been restored from head to foot with that much assistance. I would have done better with a roll of bandages.
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