The Lesser Kindred

by Elizabeth Kerner

  Then, it looked me in the eye and tried to say something.

  I know, I know, it sounds mad, but I’d swear it was trying to talk. It moved its mouth and made sounds, its eyes were bright and full of intelligence, I just couldn’t understand it.

  Like an idiot I said, “What? What was that?”

  I would swear it said the same thing again. Near enough, anyhow. But I was no nearer to understanding. And I had forgotten my hurry, but the reason for it arrived and reminded me. A few big drops splashed on my arms and face, and the kitling looked up just like I did to see the clouds upon us and the rain smelled only moments away. I looked around, but the kitling was already moving. The big rocks away on the far side of the clearing weren’t solid like I had thought; one moment the dragon was there and the next it wasn’t. Well, I’d about made up my mind to go home and come back later, despite the rain, when I heard the creature cry out. It was nearly a mew, nearly a bleat, but more than either. If it wasn’t calling for its mother then it was the next best thing.

  Well, it was join the beast in the rocks and stay dry or keep out in that rain and get drenched, so I went to join it.

  I’d never heard tell of anyone going in the lair of a dragon of their own free will—I reckoned I was the first in many long years at least, if not the first ever. Sure enough, folk saw the little dragons from time to time, though there didn’t seem to be many of them—but they were shy, skittish creatures for the most part and stayed away from people. I didn’t have time to think about that or about what to expect, I just ran in to keep dry.

  There was some light from an opening overhead, in fact, the whole wall at the back was lit from above, though just at the moment it was right dim and there was more rain coming in than light. There was a smell in there of decay and illness, but it wasn’t overpowering. Just one small heap of half-digested something in a corner that had come back up, and one or two piles of not-quite-covered droppings away to one side. Otherwise it was dry and bare, almost you’d call it clean. No skulls, no bones, but no gold either. I was almost disappointed, when I had the time to think about it. I’d heard dragons slept on a pile of treasure and human bones.

  Well, I walked in and stood with my back against the wall near the entrance, and the kitling came up to me. I don’t know if it didn’t like rain or was just so desperate with need it would take any kind of comfort, but it came right up against me and stared into my eyes. I kneeled down again to get closer and it reached up its long neck so we were nose to nose. I couldn’t resist, I reached out and let it smell my hand. It sniffed once, briefly, then slid its head under my hand.

  That did it. I sat down with my back to the wall and patted it, my hand light on its scales. They were smooth, like nothing I’d ever felt before, and the colour of bright copper. If it were now, I’d say they felt like finest silk, but I’d never seen silk then. Its hide was warm to the touch. It worked its way closer, carefully at first, slowly, as if still not sure whether I’d up of a sudden and treat it ill—then all in a moment it gave in and just crawled into my lap.

  I’d had enough dogs in my day to know that they mourn every bit as much as people do, but this was worse. It knew more, somehow, and its misery was the deeper for knowing what it had lost. I could do no more than hold it, speak to it, let it feel a fellow creature’s touch and know it wasn’t all alone in the world. That’s about all anyone can do around death in any case.

  Eventually it slept, right there in my lap. I hadn’t the heart to move it even after the rain stopped. I was amazed as I sat there, my back against the wall, the weary little dragon curled warm in my lap like a great cat, its halfformed wings tucked neatly along its sides, the tip of the tail resting under its cheek. I felt light-headed, trying to understand the strangeness of it one moment, the next knowing full well that the creature would have gone to a cow for comfort as readily as it came to me, I just happened to be passing.

  I thought hard as it slept, for I knew fine that kitling needed food, but I had no notion what the creatures ate aside from salerian flowers. What did I have in my house, what could I catch—come to that, how old was it, and was it going to die because I didn’t know how to make up for its mother’s milk?

  That at least I dismissed, first because I didn’t know if dragons made milk in any case, and second because I took a good look at the fangs sticking out from its lower jaw. Those were made to tear meat, sure as life. I wondered if it would be happy enough with rabbit, which was all I had in my larder, or if I would have to fight to keep it off my chickens.

  Just then it woke and stretched, and it near broke my heart. I knew that moment, I’d done the same when I woke the morning after we laid our mother in the earth—the first time you wake after such a shock and it all seems no more than a bad dream just for that very first instant That stretch was utterly natural for one heartbeat—then it stopped and contracted, just like a person thinking, My world has changed I’m alone I can’t stretch or breathe or move as I did before, ever again. It was startled and scrambled away from me quick, sharp, scratching me with its claws as it went. That hurt, I can tell you for nothing. I yelled and it stopped running and looked back. I was angry and I scolded it. Damn stupid thing to do, but it’s hard to fear a creature that has slept on you, and those claws had been sharp.

  “Look now what you’ve done, Salera. What was that for? Here I sit with you for comfort, wasting away my morning, and I get ripped trews and a handful of scratches for my pains. What would yer mam have said, eh? Is that the way to treat a friend?”

  Well, it was full awake now, and damned if it didn’t come back to my hand, even tried to lick the scratches on my leg as if it was sorry.

  Believe me or not, when I left that cave, the little creature came along behind. I had a brew heating at home, I had to get back before the fire died out entirely, and bless me if Salera didn’t follow me all the way to my house. I stoked the fire, stirred the brew, then went to my little larder and brought out the rabbit I’d caught. I sighed just a little as I realised I’d have only roots for my own supper.

  I took the carcase out to Salera. She had stopped to drink at the stream that runs by the edge of the clearing to the north, whence we’d come. I’d cleared only enough land for my house and a little vegetable patch. I’ve always thought that trees deserve life as much as we do.

  She—well, yes, I was only guessing she was female, but I couldn’t think of her as “it,” and somehow she struck me more as a she than a he—anyroad, she came in a hurry when she smelled the meat. That was the real shock, though: she sat back on her haunches, took the carcase gently from my hand with her front claws—her hands—and ate that rabbit like any lady, save that she took only three bites to do it and crunched the bones as she went.

  Poor thing. Game isn’t very plentiful, that time of the year. She licked her claws, then licked my hand clean even of the scent, then walked very calmly to the stream and washed.

  I couldn’t think what to do with her, but in the end it wasn’t really up to me. She stayed with me all that year, through summer and harvest and all through the winter, until spring was come again. She had grown quite a bit in that year, must have been nearly her full height, for towards the third moon of the year it was like living with a horse in the house. I was grateful for my own height and strength then, for I could just about make her shift herself when I needed her to move. Still, she had learned for the most part not to knock things over. She slept in front of the fire and I moved my chair well to one side, and we managed well enough.

  By the end of that year I couldn’t imagine life without her. We had been constant companions. I had hunted for her, fed her up—and that took some doing, I’ll tell you for nothing—but when she was old enough and strong enough, just after the Autumn Balance-day, she got the idea, and after that she provided for me. I ate better that winter than ever I had, enough that I could share with others in the nearby village who were in need of a bit of help and grateful indeed for meat in winter.


  And she was someone to talk to. I spoke to her as to another soul, and though I don’t think she understood my words, she seemed to try to reply. As time went on, I almost thought I heard a word every now and then. I must have been a little daft.

  In spring, though, when the first warm wind blew through my little clearing, when I’d just put the early vegetables in the ground, she came out and felt the breeze. She lifted her head, sniffed for all she was worth, and spread her wings. She’d had trouble with them as they were growing, when the skin and the tendons stretched it bothered her, and I’d tried all my simples until I found a few that helped her. A soft ointment made with oil, mint, pepper and a scented resin, much as I’d use to salve an old man’s bones in winter, seemed to work best, and she chose the resin herself. Nosed it off the shelf, she did, while I was wondering what would be best. It would be one of the ones I have to trade for, and to be honest it convinced me I’d been right about her being female. I usually saved it for perfumes to sell at market, but—well, I couldn’t deny her, now could I? So she not only had her pains soothed, she smelled of the most amazing combination of exotic perfume and dragon.

  However, when I saw her ruffling her wings like that, I got a feeling I didn’t like. I knew the time was coming. It wasn’t natural for either of us, living together, and though she had taken well enough to my ways they were not hers. I hoped she’d be able to learn to fly on her own, though. Not as if I could teach her!

  Didn’t need to. She tried a few times, flapping and looking terribly awkward, then somehow she managed to stay aloft for a moment or two. That did it. She just kept at it after that, and by the next moon she was flying better than I thought was possible for the creatures. I had always heard they could barely fly, but she seemed to manage it without any trouble.

  Then one morning, as spring was drawing towards summer, I rose after her and found her in the most open bit of the clearing. She was waiting for me. I don’t know how I knew, but I did. She was leaving and this was farewell. I walked straight up to her and she watched my every step. I put my arms around her neck and hugged her, and she wrapped her wings about me just for a moment.

  It felt like saying farewell to a daughter, and I couldn’t just let her go like that, could I? So I held her big face in my hands and gazed into her eyes. “Fare thee well, then, my Salera.” I said, stroking her cheek ridge. “Kitling. Lady keep you wherever you fare, little one. I’ll miss you. Fly well and strong.”

  She closed her eyes and touched my forehead to hers, that bump on her forehead warm against my own brow—she was always so warm to the touch—then she straightened up and looked at me. She said something then, I’d swear, but even after all that time I couldn’t understand it. I think I tried in my mind to make it sound like my name, but in truth it was a long way off from that.

  “Lady keep you,” I murmured, and stood back. She crouched, then leapt, her great haunches launching her into the air, her wings sweeping down, beating fast. I watched her flapping madly until she found warm air. Then she stretched out her wings and rose smoothly in a gliding spiral upwards. I give you my word, she was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. She turned her face south—deeper into the forest, towards the Súlkith Hills—and was gone.

  “Blast the child, she’s trodden all over my new lavender,” I muttered. “Wretched dragon. She never did look where she was going in the garden.” Then I realised I’d walked on fully half of the new plants myself and broken most of them, and I started to swear at her, at myself, at the seedlings for being in the wrong place. I was so angry I could hardly see straight.

  Well, it might have been anger.

  I never saw her again, though I surely did look. I stayed there another two years, tending my garden, helping those I could, selling my potions and oils and perfumes at the market, waiting for Salera. She never came back. In the end I decided I had to find out what I could about her kind, for I’d never known a thing save what I learned from her, and she was raised by me, poor soul.

  The only place I knew to go was Verfaren, where the Healers are trained. I’d heard they had a library, writings from as far back as writing went. Surely someone must have studied the creatures in all those years. So I packed up my bits, left the door open and the fire laid just in case she returned, and went to learn what I could at the College of Mages.

  That was seven, nearly eight years ago now. I learned what there was to learn but I had to search the library through to find it. I helped in the garden to earn my keep. In time I came to know the library so well that when the master of the books was taken ill, he asked me to stay and help. I stayed, and helped, and when he passed on I was asked by Magister Berys himself if I would take the books for my work. I told him true that I hadn’t come planning to stay, but that if he was willing I’d stay awhile, until my way was clear to me and it was time to leave.

  “And when will that be?” he asks me.

  “When the wind’s right and the sky calls,” I answered. It wasn’t respectful, but then I never liked him. To be honest I was only staying to honour old Paulin. “And I’ll not give up the garden.”

  He just laughed, and said that if I knew the books and didn’t mind the students, it was good enough for him, and he’d get a gardener into the bargain. So I’ve stayed on here, learning what I could, getting to know a few of the students passing through, enjoying their different views on life and learning. The only difficulty I have is putting up every year with the new young girls, who find a tall, fair-haired man not so much older than themselves a great temptation, or perhaps a challenge. I’m not boasting, you understand, it’s all a bit wearisome as far as I’m concerned. I can’t help my looks, and I don’t encourage or take advantage of the girls.

  However, it has changed me, being around so much learning. I’ve read everything I could find, and I speak differently now than I used to. You can’t read so many words without starting to use some of them. My sister laughs at me but I think she is secretly impressed. She was the only other person who ever knew Salera and she misses her. I go back home occasionally, to visit with Lyra and to make sure my cottage in the wood has not fallen down. In fact I was there before midwinter just past, making all snug before the frost set in. I still returned to Verfaren though, to see in the new year, despite the fact that I have never felt that I belonged here. I have never felt the need to go back home, either.

  Until a few years ago, when I met Vilkas and Aral. Interesting that almost the only lass who has been able to see me as no more than a friend from the beginning has been Aral, and that she has captured my heart so completely.

  Life does that to you sometimes, when you’re not looking.

  Maikel

  I was speechless with wonder. “Marik? My lord?” I whispered, not daring to believe what I saw.

  “Who did you think it was, Maikel? And what’s wrong with your eyes?” he asked, frowning at me. Berys laughed.

  “He has not been well, Marik. Worn out with fussing over you. Still, you are both under my protection now, so there is no need for concern.”

  Marik seemed to get angry at that but he was not really strong enough for anger yet. “For now,” he murmured. Why he should be angry at Berys’s words I could not understand. I worried for a moment that he was not as fully recovered as he seemed.

  “How is your leg, master?” I asked.

  He seemed surprised. He glanced down and flexed the muscles. “It hardly hurts at all.”

  “Wait until you stand up,” chuckled Berys. “Maikel tells me you have been unable to get out of that bed for more than five minutes together ever since you returned, and that has been full four moons by my reckoning. It is time you took some exercise.” He grabbed the blankets and tugged them off the bed. “Come, man, it’s midmorning, time you were up and doing.”

  The Magister dragged my Lord Marik out of bed and got him to stand, which is more than I had managed to do for many months, but I barely noticed it. He was weak, he was disoriented, but he wa
s himself again. His mind was healed. I could scarcely believe it. I had not yet dispersed my Healer’s sight and without thinking I used it to look into his mind.

  No longer did I see that desert that had haunted me for so long. His mind appeared at first glance to be much like any other, bright with flashing thought and swirling with colour, but there was an obvious difference just below the surface.

  I know not how I may explain this to you. Imagine a hut made of twigs and branches of all different shapes and sizes. At first glance it appears solid, but when you look closely you see that it has been made hurriedly from shoddy materials, and the nails that hold it together are poorly forged and too short. It looks whole but one good wind would blow it to pieces. Or a bridge—yes, that’s it, imagine a single slim bridge spanning an abyss, barely long enough to reach across. There are no handrails and it shakes at every step. It is possible to cross, but the link is dangerously weak and could shatter at any time.

  For a moment I stared at Berys, horrified. He had not healed Marik, he had patched him together with thin cord and weak glue. It was a dreadful, irresponsible thing to do, for if that patch came undone my lord would be worse off than before. The undermind trusts only once. If Marik’s mind shattered this fragile link, it would never accept Berys’s healing again. It would probably never accept any healing again.

  I looked up to protest, then thought better of it. Best not to mention such a thing in Marik’s presence. I must speak to Magister Berys later, alone.

  In the meantime, Marik practiced walking. He was dreadfully weak, as might be expected, but he managed a few steps several times that day. And he finally ate real food, not just the infants’ mush we had managed to get down him before.

  Perhaps the mend would hold. Certainly the habit of sanity was the best cure. The longer he remained well, the stronger his mind would become. But I didn’t like the slapdash way he had been healed, and I resolved to say something about it when I could catch Berys on his own.