[Lanen Kaelar 01] - Song in the Silence (34 page)

“Save them? From what?”

How to tell her that which I had taken so many
years to understand, and still bore so ill?
“The son of Shikrar, who is
called Kédra, has gone with his lady Mirazhe to the Birthing cove. Many of the
females of my race are there, the Elders who remember what must be done, and
Idai who stands birthing sister to Mirazhe, and Kerijan. She is the only other
female who has borne a youngling in the last three hundred years.”

“Three hundred years?” said Lanen,
shocked. “Dear Lady, that must be a long time even as you measure
it.”

“It is as you say. My people are dying,
Lanen Kaelar, and I have wondered these three hundred years and more what to do
about it. Now I have heard the voice of the night Wind tell me that I will
suffer great pain, that I will come to know joy again, and that you and I may
save my people. And that I shall go with you, wherever you fare.”

“What?!”

“I tell you only what I was told.”

”Akor, I told you, I spent most of yesterday
wondering how to ask you if I could stay here on the island with you if I kept
on the far side of the Boundary. I was afraid you’d be angry with me or have to
refuse outright, but I couldn’t think of any other way to stay close to
you.” She smiled, albeit grimly. “Things have changed now, of course,
but still—how could you possibly go with me? How could you live in any part of
Kolmar where there are people, without your own Kindred?”

“I do not know. I cannot imagine it, unless
we were to find a cave far away from the rest of the Gedri. I shall have to
think about this. May I ask what your Lady said to you ?”

Lanen

“Only that what we are doing is right, and
that all will be well if I follow my heart.”

He hissed gently.
“Your Lady is kinder
than the Winds. Perhaps we could speak with each other’s gods? At this moment I
much prefer yours.”

I laughed. I was surprised I could still do it,
but I laughed. Akor joined me. Suddenly it all seemed so absurd, everything
from our first conversation to switching gods, and we both let go our fears. I
laughed till I cried, not least because the whole clearing was filling with
steam from Akor’s hissing.

“Be hwamed, Hlanen,” he managed to gasp
out, throwing his head back. A wide swath of flame split the night and left me
blinded for a moment.

It was, it had to be. A dragon belly laugh. What
a mad. wondrous world it was.

Then he began to speak. His speech seemed to have
recovered. “Ah, Lanen, what a life I am learning to lead! I stand here in
the night and cannot yet believe the truth of all we do.” His voice, so
warm and alive, grew deeper yet and richer. “For the first time in years
beyond living memory, Kantri and Gedri exchange lives and hearts and laughter,
and we both are the stronger for it. The Four Winds guide all our destinies.
Lanen,” he said quietly. “The first teaching rhyme for younglings is
our oldest knowledge.

“First is the Wind of Change

Second is Shaping

Third is the Unknown

and Last is the Word.

“It is not elegant, but it is true. All of
life is a great cycle. I believe that you are the wind of change, Lanen Kaelar.
blowing cold across the Kindred for good or ill, and for good or ill you have
come to me. You must know, none of the Kindred have ever had silver armour
before. I am the first and only, as best we know, since time began. My birth
was seen as an omen by my people, but what it portends none can say. I believe
this change is fated, as are you and I.”

At another time his words might have surprised
me, but I was beyond it by then. I do not know how or why, but I felt I could
almost have repeated that rhyme along with him. I was in a most remarkable
state, as if part of my mind listened to words spoken long before and only
repeated now. Akor was only stating the obvious.

“Does that mean that you are to shape
me?” I asked.

“I suspect we have already begun to shape one
another, dearling,” he answered. “I have expected you, or someone,
for some time now, but I did not know you would come so soon. I

believe that between us we will do our share of
shaping others as well.”

So soon?

Not for the first time I wished to all the gods
that I could read that immobile mask of a face more easily. It was terribly
distracting. The tone of his voice often made his meaning clear, and he shifted
his stance so often it must have some significance, but without thinking I kept
looking at his face. Which never changed.

“What do you mean, so soon?” I
demanded. I was getting tired of learning things after the fact. “What do
you know that I don’t?”

“Ah, dearling, forgive me. We have had so
little time together and there is so much you do not yet know. I have had Weh
dreams, and in one of them I had seen you before ever your foot stepped on this
shore.”

He had mentioned this before. “What is a Weh
dream?” I asked. He had said the words with reverence. He answered in
truespeech.

“It is a dream during the Weh sleep. And the
Weh sleep is one of the most closely guarded secrets of the Kindred, my Lanen.
I will tell you of it—I cannot keep anything from you— but you must give me
your word, on your life, never to reveal it to another of your people.”

If I had not been so tired I would have been
angry that he could doubt me even now. As it was I simply said, “You have
my word, as Lanen Kaelar Maransdatter. I will never tell another soul.”

And so I have not, and would not here did I not
know that the Kindred are safeguarded now against any danger during the Weh
sleep.

He spoke quietly but aloud.

“The Weh sleep is our one great weakness as
a race. If word of it reached the Gedri, we surely would be slaughtered one by
one as we slept.

“We do not require food as often as you. One
meal in a week, if it is large enough, will sustain us. We also do not require
sleep as often as you do—an hour or so in every day is enough, though some take
more.

” I understand that your people reach a
certain size early in life and never grow from that time on. I have long
thought that a convenient way of living, but it is not our way. The longer we
live, the larger we become. You have seen the size of Shikrar; he is more than
six hundred years older than I.

“Knowing this, do you not wonder how it is
that we can grow surrounded by armour?

“The answer is that we cannot. Every fifty
years or so (the time is different for each individual) the Weh sleep comes
upon us. We may have an hour’s warning or a day’s, but no more than that. We
have learned that the only thing to do is to find a protected place and let it
happen.

“When it begins, it is little more than a
great weariness. That is the warning. We let our mates or our closest friends
know that it is upon us and leave immediately for our chambers.

“This cave is not where I spend most of my
life. This is my Weh chamber, my safe place for the Weh sleep. That is why it
is so far from my Kindred, so hidden, so difficult to get into.

“Next comes a terrible itching, as though
our hide were too tight (which indeed it is). In the privacy of our chambers we
scratch, and find that we can easily tear off the scales that normally protect
us from all assaults. It is a strange and frightening time. We try to remove as
many scales as possible for our own comfort, but usually the sleep takes us
before much can be done.

“The Weh sleep. During it we cannot move,
even if we can be partially awakened for a short while. Our old armour falls
from us as the new dries and hardens underneath, and for that time

we are vulnerable to any creature that wishes us
harm. And the sleep lasts until the new armour is hardened, or until any wound
we have has been healed—for it will also come upon us if we are badly
injured—or until the Winds wake us. It can last anywhere from a fortnight to
full six moons, or vastly longer if we are badly wounded. We heal but slowly.

“In the beginning, and on many occasions
since, some have tried to guard their loved ones during the Weh sleep. The
reason we take the sleep so far away from our Kindred is the same reason that
the idea never worked. The Weh sleep is catching—at least the sleep is. A mated
couple tried it once when I was young. He was fully into the Weh for but a
single day when one of us tried to bespeak her and received no answer. She was
found fast asleep in the middle of the day, outside the cave. She was awakened
easily enough, but she refused to

leave. She was awakened anew by friends every few
hours for the next fortnight before she at last admitted that it was impossible.

“You see now, dearling, why you must never
speak of it. We are asleep, unprotected by Kindred or armour, unable even to
call for help or defend ourselves. It is our greatest weakness and our greatest
secret.”

Lanen

“I understand. But why should dreams then be
more important than dreams at any other time?”

“Dreams during the Weh sleep are very rare.
They are generally taken to be the word of the Winds, and we are told by the
Elders to pay close attention to them.”

“And you had one about me?” I asked, very
pleased though I was beginning to drowse. All this talk of sleep had made me
realise just how tired I was. It had been an unbelievable day.

“I have had three Weh dreams, one each of
the last three times I have slept. In the first I met you. It was the first day
of the Harvest and I saw you come ashore, as I did in truth. In the

second half of that dream I heard someone call to
me.” His voice went soft and loving. “It was the voice of a child of
the Gedri, pleading in the dark, and it called me brother.”

I smiled. “I’m glad I got it right. What
about your other two dreams?”

“In the second you and I stood on a
clifftop, and I helped a pair of younglings on their first flight. There were
others there, but I did not recognise them.

“And in the third—ah, it was even more
mysterious than the other two. A female of your race, whom I had never seen,
approached me and called me by my full, true name, but I was not frightened. It
was as if we were old friends meeting after centuries apart.”

I liked the sound of them all—very reassuring,
somehow. I tried to say something sensible but couldn’t think of anything; I
was too busy yawning. Looking around, I saw that the sky was beginning to
lighten.

”Akor, forgive me, but I think even talk of the
Weh sleep must be catching. I don’t know about you, but I’m cold and hungry and
I need sleep in the worst way. Would you mind if I

slept in a corner of your chambers?”

He was amused. “Come, rouse yourself to
gather firewood enough for a little time. I shall light that which you took in
before.”

I dragged myself round the edge of the forest
twice collecting wood. Much of it had frost on it. I knew how it felt. Tired as
I was, I was thankful for the exercise if only to warm my cold bones. When I
brought the second armful in, Akor had already started a cheerful blaze. I
found him curled onto the floor of
khaadish
. I purposely ignored the
gleam of gold that surrounded me, not that I had to work very hard. I was
exhausted.

I stood before the fire for a while, getting as
warm as I could.

“Lanen, dear heart, forgive me. I forget
that you feel the cold so. Come close by me, take my warmth; it is greater far
than the fire.”

I grinned to myself.
Too tired, Lanen. You
never thought of that.

There was a space on the ground, in the midst of
the curl as it were. I leaned back against him and instantly relaxed against
the warmth that poured from his armour. It felt wonderful. I just managed to
mumble, “Goodnight, dear heart,” before I fell asleep.

A k h o r

I lay there for many hours watching her. She was
both beautiful and strange. How peculiar not to have wings! I found myself idly
imagining a world in which the Gedri had once bad wings, but had lost them and
been forced to walk on two feet. It still seemed an unnatural way to travel,
though it did free the forelegs to carry. That was one thing I had long envied
the Gedri.

She sighed in her sleep and stirred. I found
myself thinking of her as a youngling again, simply because of her size.
Without thinking I lay my near wing over her to keep her warm.

She did not wake, only pushed herself closer to
me. It was a wondrous feeling.

I knew that I must leave her by midday to join
the Council. What I would tell them now, I had no idea. I must give it thought.
But I would not give up a moment with Lanen that I did not have to.

They live such quick, fiery lives, the
Gedrishakrim. I had known more changes, more surprises, more emotions in the
last three days than I had felt in as many centuries. My sense of time was
becoming distorted also; I had begun to think in terms of hours instead of
days, or moons. Or years. I had, in effect, known a little time of living like
the Gedri, and it was a new and wondrous thing. I hoped I could convince the
Council of that.