[Lanen Kaelar 03] - Redeeming the Lost (48 page)

The Black Dragon, near enough now that I could
see its blazing sulphur-yellow eyes, cried out, a great NO! that rang in the
mountains.

I raised my hand, that it might see better.

“Die, you bastard,” I snarled, and crushed the
heart to a pulp.

The Black Dragon fell from the sky and landed
in a heap. True, a moment later it was aloft again—but this time it was flying
away.

I spoke to all the demons at once. ‘The
creature that called you here is gone,” I cried. “Return to that place granted
you by the Powers and I will allow you to go in peace.”

I was trembling harder now. Every part of me,
heart, body, and soul, longed to destroy them all. I held myself back with a
terrible effort. Aral, Aral, you cannot know, I have let loose the fire and it
threatens to burn the world…

“Stupid mortal!” cried one of the greater
demons. A lesser prince, perhaps Lord of the Second Hell? “We are free here at
last, with no strictures to bind us! Tremble and die!”

It threw itself at me. I brushed it away. I
longed to swat it to the ground like an annoying wasp, crush it, hear it scream
…

T give you all one final warning,” I said, my
voice shaking with the effort of restraint. “If you stay here, I give you my
word, by the Lady’s grace, I will destroy every living soul among you. Go now.
I cannot hold back forever.”

“We fear no mortal!” came a chorus of voices. “This
world is ours, we are come to kill and then to rule!”

That was it. I cared no more that I might do a
great wrong. I knew only that I was all that stood between the demons and the
death of the world of men. Not much of a decision.

I let go. Of everything. All restraint, all
self-control, burned away like straw as I became the flame that raged within
me.

I struck out at the princes first. They were
dust and ashes in that first moment. Then I began with the ones that harried
the Kantri. I burned them in swathes, like scything a field, brushing them off
the fallen Kantri like flies. They died in their tens, in their hundreds, and
it was good.

No. I lie.

It was wonderful.

It was better than cool water in the desert.
It was better than sleep to the exhausted. It was better than food to one dying
of hunger, better than sex, better than the dawn—my body, my mind, my heart and
soul, all working together seamlessly, all using the vast power that had been
forced into hiding all my life, finally set free.

I have never known such incredible,
transcendent joy.

I killed hundreds. Thousands. I was not
banishing them back to their place in the Hells. No. It was the True Death. I
was the True Death.

I laughed as I beheld my dream come true.

Eventually they realised what was happening
and many fled back to the Hells. They were the clever ones. I would pursue them
later. For now, I slaughtered those that were stupid enough not to run away. I
laughed again as I slew them, I rejoiced in their deaths. I was Death, and it
was good.

I wake as from sleep, find myself on the
ground, leap aloft and try to fly away. The Demonlord has forced me into
darkness. I have no idea what has happened since he and his servants declared
war on the world—except that the world seems still to be here, the Demonlord is
gone and the demons are dying in droves. I am now in sole possession of this
body.

I wonder if there is any chance of me getting
my old one back? Especially since I don’t know how long this one is going to
last without demon-strength to support it. Already it begins to cool, to
stiffen, around the edges.

Death soon, then. Real death this time.
Release at last.

I shall fly into the mountains. They do look
beautiful, so welcoming, so calm. There aren’t very many of those big dragons
around to stop me, either—except for that damned silver one. Again!

I flap harder, trying desperately to get away.

I threw the horrible thing from me. It burst
into searing flame the instant it left my hand, and was dust before it could
fall to the ground. My hand was scorched. It was a small price to pay.

I looked around. Vilkas was yelling something,
briefly, but I think the demons proved how stupid they were and defied him. In
any case, they weren’t bothering us anymore. I think they were too busy dying.

And the Black Dragon, still alive somehow, was
flying away. Akor flew in pursuit of the creature, but I did not fear for him.

Goddess. It was over.

By all the Hells, my poor battered heart ached
as if its pain would never cease.

He was a dragon again. My love. My husband.
The father of my children.

A detached part of my mind watched his
graceful flight. He was a glorious creature, gleaming silver in the late
afternoon sun—how had it come to be so late?—and he seemed to be borne aloft
like a leaf in a breeze. He was so huge. Shikrar’s size. Akor would have grown
that large in the fullness of time, as one of the Kantri, but not for hundreds
of years yet. He was—he was—

I ignored the rage, ignored the despair that
pressed against my heart. Ignored my lonely future, though a scurrying thought
danced past the vision of that vast dragon faced with children half the length
of one of his talons. He was himself always, no matter his form. Varien
kadreshi na-Lanen. My beloved. With a strength that came from I knew not where,
I drew myself up and began to sing. Aloud.

I sang—very badly—the wordless song of love
that we had made between us on the Dragon Isle. I sang to remind him, to remind
me, of that love that does not change save to grow deeper and stronger with the
passing of the years, no matter what else might happen. I let the music echo in
my mind as weil, and felt it when the bond of truespeech locked between us. The
song had changed yet again and was awash with sorrow, but it held the truth of
love as well.

Akor managed to get in front of the Black
Dragon and turn it, or the Winds were blowing it back in this direction. When
he turned to me, I realised Akor was singing too. He joined me in the song of our
making, adding to it the Tale of Lanen and Akor that he had composed for our
wedding as my bride-gift. As I watched, those of both houses of the Kantri who
still could fly joined him in the air, melding their voices with his, weaving
harmonies around and about the song. It grew wilder, deeper, higher, until
there was a sudden shift—from one moment to the next it changed, from a wild
symphony built around a story of two lovers into the pain and truth and deep
joy of love itself, and the sheer power of the music thrust me to my knees.

The music took on a life of its own then.
There were yet echoes of the Tale of Lanen and Akor but other voices wove a
wondrous tapestry of sound about it now. I heard the jangling chords of the
Lost, rattling against the music, until in a blazing chord they were resolved.
Restored. And they joined in the vast sound, so many-layered it was hard to
make out the melody—but—but it still wasn’t right. Something was missing, some
vital part of the tale untold.

The Black Dragon tried to escape the music,
charging Akor time and again, but Akor floated light as a bird’s feather and
danced away from it on the air with barely the flick of a wingtip. They all
moved with Akor, the Restored singing now their lives rediscovered, their
suffering redeemed with the death of the De-monlord. It was wondrous, but it
lacked something—something—

Away in the far distance a sound arose, so
faint as to seem more like a memory. It came from the west, where the sun sank
slowly towards the distant sea—for a moment, it almost seemed as though the Sun
itself were adding his voice to the music. I squinted, trying to see around the
edges of the blazing light. Was that a flock of crows flying swiftly towards
us?—no, it must be eagles surely, moving so swiftly—Ah. No. Not eagles.
Brighter than eagles, gleaming in the light, copper and steel and bronze and
golden, their soulgems scattering light of ruby and emerald and sapphire as the
sun caught them.

The Aialakantri. The Lesser Kindred.

They soared in, singing, joining the complex
pattern of flight as though they were joining a dance; and the music grew, made
full, made bright and sparkling with the higher voices of the smaller
creatures.

Made whole.

I probably should have stopped singing, but I
could not. They were now most truly my people as well. My voice could not be
heard by any save Akor, but I sang with all the peoples of the Kantri in a wild
rejoicing.

The Black Dragon was confused by the music,
stiffening even as I watched, trying to find a thermal to rise upon, trying to
find a way out—but the music grew and grew, until the very stones echoed with
it, until the mountains joined in the song and the Kantri wove even the echoes
into the full glory of that sound. My throat closed in the face of more beauty
than I could bear. I fell silent as the great mass of dragons, all three
Kindreds united, surrounded the Black Dragon in an ever-moving spiral. Their
unearthly music, so full and triumphant, woven of voices silent for long ages
of the world and voices new-come to life, danced until it came to a single
chord, complex beyond imagining—and there it locked, shining, all but visible.
I heard notes that not even the Kantri could possibly sing ringing in the air,
right at the edge of hearing, and in the lowest range I finally heard the voice
I knew to be Akor’s adding the deepest note of all. I felt it through the soles
of my feet, I felt my babes resonate to it in my belly, I felt it in my deepest
heart. That chord shook the earth. That chord the creator sang when the world
was brought into being replete with joy.

And as I watched, the Black Dragon, caught up
in that unimaginable music, caged, surrounded by music, began to shake. Every
separate mote of the creature, every bit of ash and speck of sulphur, every
drop of molten stone, quivered in the grip of that sound until, between one
breath and another, it gave one last cry that faded upon the instant to a
terrible sibilant hiss as it disintegrated. A great cloud of dust rained softly
down upon the earth, and it was gone.

All that remained was the music.

I am not sure when the Kantri stopped singing,
for to speak sooth that chord has never left my heart, down all the years. I
became a struck bell, resonating forever to the truth of it. No matter what
else may distract me, what life may throw my way—in my deepest being, that
living glory of music rings ever within my soul to remind me of beauty and
creation and the fundamental wonder of life.

There was only one distraction, as the sound
echoed is the mountains, dancing between hills alive with joy. I would swear
that in the silence behind the music, I heard my father Marik’s mindvoice one
last time. It was less than a whisper in my mind, the merest ghost of a breath.

“Thank you,” it said, and disappeared.

And the Kantri, rising in a vast spiral,
opened their throats again and began their lament for the dead. I should have
realized that they would sing their first farewell to him whose loss they most
would feel. The music was solemn, composed of equal parts of sorrow and hope
inextricably entwined. It would break your heart even if you knew not for whom
they sang. And it was Kedra’s voice that led them, with Akor’s in the second
line.

“May the Winds bear you up,
Hadretikantishikrar, Keeper of Souls, Eldest, soulfriend, Father, to where the
sun gleams ever warm and bright. May your soul find its rest in the heart of
light. May you join your voice to the Great Song of Time, and may those you
love, who have flown before, meet you and welcome you into the Star Home, the
Wind Home, the Place of All Songs, where all is well, and all is joy, and all
is clear at last.”

He has found his Yrais again at last, I
thought, and bowed my head, and wept.

I watched Vil as he changed. Sweet Shia. I
know I urged him to use his full power, but—heaven keep us, it was terrifying.
He had dealt with a demon prince, then held Berys at bay and stripped his works
from him (I reminded myself to thank Jamie from the bottom of my heart). But
now… now he was killing without let or hindrance, and the expression on his
face was terrible to behold.

He was in bliss.

I had heard his exchange with the demons and
given thanks then for his strength, that wildfire that raged in him—but now—now
he was pursuing the demons that fled. He was even stopping those that tried to
return to the Hells. It was wrong.

Never mind that they were demons. This was
genocide.

Damn.

I strode to his side. “Vilkas!”

He never twitched.

“Vilkas, damn it, man, you have to stop!”

He laughed. Goddess, what a horrible sound.

“Vilkas, you listen to me, you have to stop
right now! This isn’t right!”

He turned to face me, his eyes blazing that
incredible blue, his raven hair blowing in a wind I didn’t feel. “Aral, you
were right! I should have done this long since! Look, they cannot stand against
me!” He gestured again, and another score of demons died screaming.