[Lanen Kaelar 03] - Redeeming the Lost (26 page)

Varien rose and returned the grin. ‘Then the
score stands at two.”

“I’m glad that’s settled. Now if you two are
finished posturing, there is still work to be done,” said Rella pointedly.

Jamie had been watching the workers and shook
his head. “No need, my girl.” He nodded at Shikrar. “He’s better than ten
horses and two score men,” he said quietly. “I just wish to the Goddess they
had something worth looking for.”

“They won’t find all the bodies, you know,”
muttered Chalmik as Vil, Aral, and Will rejoined us. ‘That fire wasn’t natural.
It burned hotter than real fire, that’s what set the stones ablaze. And the
demon—I saw it pick some of them up and—and—” He stopped and turned away.

“And what, boy?’ said Jamie sharply. “Say it!”

Stung, Chalmik whipped around and shouted, “It
ate them!” far too loudly. “It ate them, right? It didn’t even kill them first,
they were all screaming until it bit—”

And Chalmik ran around a corner. The sound of
a person being violently sick is unmistakable. My own belly heaved in sympathy.
Take it easy, little ones, I thought to my babes. All is well.

Vilkas began to draw in his power, but Jamie
put a hand on his arm. “No, lad, leave him be,” he said. “He needs to get it
out of his system. He’ll be the better for it.” Jamie glanced at Rella, who
nodded.

“I remember what it was like, seeing violent
death for the first time,” she murmured. “Vomiting is the least of it. The
nightmares that will come, if they haven’t already—those are the worst.”

I shuddered. Perhaps I hadn’t been so badly
off, there in my silent cell.

Chalmik returned. He looked rather greener
than I prefer to see people, but he seemed to be a little better.

It’s a shame, really, that Salera chose that
moment to land more or less directly in front of him.

He cried out and stumbled backwards, but as no
one else seemed to be bothering to panic he gathered his scattered dignity
about him and stood firm. Amazed, but firm.

Will was at her side in a moment, grinning. “Welcome
back, lass. I’ve missed you.”

“And I you, Father,” she said.

There was a thump from Chalmik’s direction,
which we all charitably ignored.

“Though I have spent my time well,” she added.
I noted with some pleasure that her speech was improving, though she still
spoke slowly and carefully as her mouth grew accustomed to the shape of speech.
“My people and I have made ourselves known to the Kantri and to the Dhrenagan,
the Restored.” Salera’s eyes were gleaming, blue as a summer sky. “We live in a
time of wonders! We are sso many, Hwill, and all so different! I never dreamed
of this bounty ere we Awakened.” Her wings were fluttering in her excitement. “So
many minds, so many souls to see the world and learn from one another.”

“Have they taken to your people, then?” asked
Will, anxiously.

She lowered her head and touched his forehead
with hers, just for an instant, to reassure him, for all the world as if she
were a huge, bright copper cat. “Do not fear for us, my father. We all are the
same Kindred. My people and I, the Aiala, the Awakened, together with the
Dhrenagan and the Kantri—we are facets of the same soulgem. The Kantri”—and
here she sighed—“the Kantri cannot help themselves, as yet. We appear to be
younglings in their eyes, and in truth we are new-come to our true lives, but
we are not nearly so young as they think. Still, all is new, all is changed.
They will surely learn to see us in time.”

Varien stepped forward. Instantly Salera
bowed, the sinuous bow of the dragon-kind. He reached out to touch her jaw, a
greeting, a brief caress. “Littling, I beg you, have patience with us,” he said
gendy. “For thousands of winters we have sat round fires in our chambers,
telling over the old tales to pass the long nights.

For five thousand winters, Salera, we have
told the Tale of the Demonlord and tried to find some way to communicate with
the Lesser Kindred. In all our dreams of restoring the Lost, we never imagined
that you were growing into a different people! Name of the Winds, it is yet
less than a se’ennight since you and your people changed, and not even a full
day since the Lost have been restored!” He grinned. “The Kantri come to Kolmar,
the Lost restored—it is a winter’s tale come to life, a wonder as great as your
own Awakening. Bear with us, I pray you.”

“We do not bear with you, Lord,” replied
Salera. “We rejoice in you. The wider world is yet so new to us, and we have
much to learn.” Her eyes twinkled. “We all have much to learn. The Kantri do
not know this land, and there we may assist them. The Dhre-nagan remember it,
but not as it is. Much has changed over the long ages. They will have to learn
again, an old song transformed, or a new one with echoes of the old. It will be
difficult at first, but surely we will sing together in time.”

“Bloody hellsfire,” muttered a voice from near
the ground. Chalmik hadn’t bothered to stand up again, which I suspect was just
as well. “What is this?”

Salera stretched her long neck around Will to
gaze at Chalmik s seated figure. “I am not a what, Master Gedri, I am a who. I
hight Salera, of the Aiala. What are you called?”

“Mik,” he replied, staring wide-eyed. “How—you’re—talking!”

“It is the way of a reasoning creature to use
speech, is it not?” she asked.

“But—but I always thought—I’ve seen you in the
forest, I thought you were… just…” He ground to a halt under her un—blinking
gaze.

“Beasts,” finished Salera. Mik nodded. “We
were, but the Wind of Change has blown upon us all. I believe you are the first
Gedri I have met who was not present at our Awakening.” Suddenly she glanced
back at Will. “Father—there are words for a first meeting among Gedri, I can
feel the shape of them in my mind, but I do not know what I must say.”

Will could hardly keep from laughing and
Varien was no better. Men! I replied calmly, ‘Tou have a choice, Salera. You
can say ‘well-met,’ or ‘good day/ or you can give your use-name.”

“I have done that,” she said, worried, “but
the shape of the words is not what it should be.”

Mik stood up, brushing off his robes. He
approached Salera slowly but without fear. Good lad. “Good morrow to you,
Mistress—uh—Sa—”

“Salera,” I whispered loudly.

“Mistress Salera. I am honoured to know you.”
He put out his hand as if to shake hers.

She stared at it for a moment and looked back
at me.

“We shake hands, one Gedri to another,” I
said. “Will, come here, put out your hand.”

Grinning like an idiot, Will obliged me and we
shook hands. Salera sighed and extended her hand, twice the size of Mik’s, each
finger tipped with a long sharp talon.

“I cannot,” she said sadly. “I would harm him.”

For once in my life inspiration struck at the
right moment. “Here, lass, you hold up your hand, but open it as much as you
can.” She did, and the talons spread wide, leaving the tough skin of her palm
exposed.

“Here, Mik,” I said. ‘Tou raise your hand too,
and touch palms.”

Mik touched Salera’s palm briefly and said,
simply, “Welcome, Salera.”

“Well-met, Mik,” she replied.

I couldn’t help but smile at the odd solemnity
of it, but withal I found myself moved. As it happens, Mik, all unsuspecting,
was the first to use the gesture of greeting between Aialakantri and Gedri that
is now commonplace.

It’s a shame the moment couldn’t have lasted a
bit longer. Ah, well.

I had been crouched over moving stone for some
time. My new-healed back began to ache, so I paused, stretched my wings on high
and reached out with my head and neck, easing the stiff—ness. I had not
considered the effect of my full height on the nearby Gedri—I heard some
cursing and, glancing down, saw that most of them had moved swiftly away from
me. I am ashamed to admit that my chief thought was that, all in all, it would
not be a bad thing for the Gedri to remain a little fearful of us for a time.
There were so few of us, so many of them; and I was certain that the mob that
had come casting accusations would not be the last to blame all their troubles
on the Kantri, and others might throw more than accusations. It occurred to me
as well that in all this long time, perhaps they had invented some weapon that
would do us harm.

In the midst of my musing, my eye was drawn to
a robed figure riding towards the town. I paid no attention until Salera shot
into the air not a wingspan from me.

My mindvoice was echoed by Varien s as we both
cried out to her in truespeech.

“Raksssshi!” she hissed, and launched herself
at the rider on the road.

I could not get airborne nearly as quickly as
she, I had to run instead. Out the ruined gates of the College and swiftly
north to where the rider sat in the road, his horse long gone, gaping up at
Salera as she gathered the breath of Fire. I just managed to shelter him from
her Fire with my wing.

“Rakssshi! Evil!” she cried, trying to
maneuver around me for a clear shot. I had never seen her fly like this. She
was amazingly agile in the air, turning on a wingtip.

“We do not judge the Gedri, Salera!” I cried,
struggling to protect the creature. “Others of its kind must punish it if
punishment is due. For all our sakes, control yourself!”

She screamed her frustration and wheeled away,
breathing her Fire to the Winds in protest.

“You are wise, Old One,” said the creature
under my wing. The stench of the Rakshasa rising from it all but choked me. The
moment Salera had given up her attack, I folded my wings away. It laughed, and
the eyes of the Rakshi gazed back at me from that human face. I spat Fire,
carefully missing it by only a talon’s width.

“Take no comfort from my restraint,” I
growled. “I would sooner destroy you than not, and I would be less forgiving
than the little one—but you wear the guise of a child of the Gedri.”

“An excellent shield, is it not?” the thing
mocked quiedy. “And so hard for their useless eyes to see past.”

“Goddess, it’s Healer Donal!” cried a voice.
Magister Rikard came running up.

“Perhaps it was Healer Donal,” said I, cold
fury in my voice. “It is now the shell around a demon.”

“I was just riding down the road when those things
attacked me!” false Donal cried, as more of the Gedri crowded round. They are
ever curious, as a race. The students came along close behind Rikard. Vilkas’s
dark head rose above the others; at his side, as ever, kind Mistress Aral, and
behind her the Lady Rella.

“Friend, if either one of them had attacked
you, we’d be looking at a pile of cinders,” drawled Rella. Her voice was light
but her eyes were flint.

“The big one didn’t want to be seen to kill a
human!” cried false Donal loudly, trying to back into the crowd. “It said so!”

“You poor man,” said a new voice, with nothing
of pity about it. I had not seen Maran approach but there she stood, at the
side of the demon-caught Healer. “Here, this should give you comfort.” She took
something from around her neck and pressed her palm to false Donal s forehead.

He screamed and tried to fight her off, but
she held him in a grip that regularly bent iron to her will. Eventually several
men managed to remove her hand from his forehead, but still he screamed. There,
as though it had been graven in his flesh, was a shape I remembered well. A
star with many points around a central circle, the points in groups of three.

“What have you done to him!” cried one of the
students, who was drawing in his power to help the afflicted one. False Donal
tried feebly to fight him off.

“Nothing that would hurt a true Healer,” said
Maran, scowling. “It’s my Ladystar,” she said, holding it up for inspection. “I
had it blessed this morning. Just as well.”

The student laid his hands on false Donal and
sent his power into the creature. The Gedri stopped screaming and growled, a
grating, hideous noise from a human throat. “Leave off!” it snarled, knocking
over the Healer and standing up. “Gah!” It rubbed the black shape on its forehead.

Magister Rikard made his way through the
gathered folk. His face was grim and he glowed a clear blue, far brighter than
the hapless student. “Donal, in the Lady’s name, what has happened to you?”

The thing started to curse. Rikard’s eyes
widened. “True names—perhaps—I call you, Donal of Ker Torrin, Donal of the East
Mountains, Donal ta-Wylark, speak to me!”

The man shuddered violently, closed his eyes,
and collapsed. When next he opened them, they were no longer the eyes of the
Rakshi. A plain human stared back at us all. Shaken, revulsed, terrified, but
human.

“Save me, Rikard!” he cried. “It is not
banished, it lurks and waits its chance to take me over once more.” He began to
weep, suddenly, shockingly. “Shia’s heart, Rikard, I beg you, kill me, don’t
let that thing come back!”

“How did this happen?” asked Rikard. His voice
struck even me as being overly harsh in the face of such desperation. “Demons
follow laws. How could they take over a man—a Healer!—if he did not invite them
in?”