[Lanen Kaelar 03] - Redeeming the Lost (27 page)

“I did, I confess it!” cried Donal. “For the
love of Shia, I beg you, shrive me, kill me, I cannot bear it!”

“How did you fall?” demanded Rikard.

“Power,” said Donal. He was trembling in the
mild air as though he lay naked in winter. “They gave us all power, power to
heal, so much more than the Lady granted! And all for so small a price, that
might never need be paid.” His whole body shook now, his voice thick with
revulsion. “But they have called in our debt. I was drowning until you called
me forth, Rikard. I know not how long I will last, I fight it with every breath
as it is.”

“How may it be banished?” asked Lanen swiftly.
“What have we to do to help?”

“It depends. Did you sign in blood?” asked a
cold voice, and suddenly Vilkas stood over the wretch.

“No, no, it was just a lock of hair, that’s
all they took from any of us.” Donal’s eyes grew wild. “Save me, Rikard, it
returns. I beg you, take my life before I am lost forever!”

“You poor fool,” muttered Vilkas. “From such a
compact the only way out is the death of the demon-master who made the
agreement with you.”

“Who did you compact with?” demanded Maran,
pushing her way forward. “Quickly, man, a name!”

“Marik of Gundar and Archimage Berys,” Donal
replied, panting, as one who has run a long race. “It returns—in Shia’s name, I
beg you, strike to the heart while yet my soul has hope of paradise!”

Maran went to draw her sword, Rella pulled out
a dagger, but they were too slow. I went for my own weapon, but I was too late.

“Now!” screamed Donal, his face a mask of
terror.

Shikrar’s talons pierced his chest, four
talons sharp as swords. The Raksha, forced outside the body now that it was
dead, barely had time to scream its frustration before Salera and Shikrar
flamed it into oblivion.

With his last breath, the poor Gedri sighed “Thank
you” to bright Salera and to me, and left this life to sleep on the Winds.

I bowed and sent a benison after the departing
soul, and began to speak aloud the ancient prayer for the dead. I had never
known it to be used for a child of the Gedri, but the Wind of Change blew stark
across us all. Perhaps it was time for the Wind of Shaping to speak while the
world shifted around us.

“May the Winds bear you, Donal ta-Wylark, to
where the sun is ever warm and bright. May your soul find rest in the heart of
light. May you join your voice to the Great Song of Tune, and may those you
love who have flown before meet you and welcome you into the Star Home, the
Wind’s Home, where all is well, and all is joy, and all is clear at last.”

The words were meant to give comfort, but I
felt none. I had killed a Gedri Healer in full view of a hundred witnesses. No
matter that I had done so to grant him release from bondage—no matter that he
had begged for that mercy—it was an ill way to begin, and I did not like it as
an omen.

Varien had not flinched, even when Shikrar
solved the problem of who was going to release that poor soul, but I couldn’t
bear to look at the mangled body. I turned away, deeply regretting my
breakfast—and there she stood. We had been near the back of the crowd when I
heard some woman saying something about a Ladystar, but I hadn’t seen who it
was.

Maran, my mother, stood at my left shoulder,
gazing at Jamie and Rella as though her heart would break.

“Marik and Berys! He named them before
witnesses!” I turned to Jamie, laughing with savage delight, and saw that his
eyes burned with the same fire as mine. “Those bastards seduced that poor fool
of a Healer into selling his soul to demons. They are now outlaws in every
Kingdom in Kolmar. Fair game at last!”

I had been waiting years for this. The Silent
Service had known for some time that Marik had been building up the House of
Gundar, raising small branch Houses throughout the Four Kingdoms, each with its
own supply of men and arms, and—rumour had it—its own sorcerer. I had thought
that last an exaggeration.

“They have called in our debt,” Donal had
said. And “They gave us power.”

Hells.

I grabbed Rikard from the frantic melee around
Donal’s corpse. “Where was he quartered, Rikard? Where did he serve?”

“He worked in a little branch of the House of
Gundar some leagues north of here, towards Elimar,” said Rikard, still gazing
at the body. Rikard’s voice was flat, though with anger or with shock I knew
not, nor cared in that moment. I dragged Jamie a little apart.

“Hells’ teeth,” I whispered to Jamie, “that’s
it. The House of Gundar. We were right, damn it, the Healers are all sold to
Marik and Berys the Bastard.”

“Every one? In all the Four Kingdoms?” Jamie
swore. “Hells, there must be hundreds!”

“And Donal said the debt had been called in.
If that’s an example—”

“Lady save us,” muttered Jamie, and I’d swear
he turned pale under his tanned leather skin. “Hundreds like him? Walking
demons?” He shuddered. “What chance would anyone have against them if there
were no dragons by?’

“Little to none,” I growled. “But Vilkas said
there was another way. The death of the demon-master who made the pact.” And I
felt myself smile horribly. The idea of Berys’s death had always appealed to
me.

‘The sooner the better.” Jamie’s sudden grin
frankly blazed. “I’m first in line!” he cried.

“Only one tiny problem,” I said ruefully. “We
don’t know where he is.”

“Ah,” said Jamie, suddenly quiet. “It is just
as well then, isn’t it, that we’ve a Farseer to hand?”

And with that he strode over to face Maran,
who stood, head high, waiting for him. I would have greeted her but she was too
busy staring at Jamie, who was giving as good as he got.

They were both closed and armoured, hearts
locked securely away. At least, I knew Maran well enough to see that’s what she
thought she was doing, the poor innocent. You’re a blacksmith at heart, my
girl, I thought, wrapping my own fragile heart in stone. You’ve had no
practice. You can’t lie to iron.

Jamie, now, he was a lot better at it, but
when he saw her like that, so much older, so much like Lanen, and trying so
hard to pretend that she didn’t love him with every bone in her body—well, I
had known it was coming, no matter what Jamie said. I was desperate to turn
away. I forced myself to wait and watch.

“Jamie,” she said, nodding to him, not
trusting herself with more. I swear the sun could have turned green just then
and she’d not have noticed.

“Maran,” he said, nodding back.

Lanen, who stood astounded, watching, could
wait no more. “Maran!” she cried. Lanen’s eyes were huge with the shock, and I
could practically hear the clang when her gaze locked with her mothers. They
both just stared for ages, then I swear, with a single breath they both said
exactly the same thing, with exactly the same inflection.

“Hells’ teeth!”

I led the retreat. I think Jamie would have
stayed, if only to ensure a fair fight, but I grabbed bis sleeve and hauled. I
made sure Rikard came too.

The poor souls. It was going to be hard enough
without an audience.

For the longest time I just stood there,
staring at her. To be fair, she was returning the favour. Neither of us said
anything after that first outburst. Everyone else must still have been there—I
know Varien was somewhere near—but I saw no one but her.

She was my height or a little more, though she
looked to have twice my strength: her thick linen shirt covered shoulders wider
than mine, and could not hide the impressive lines of her arms beneath. Her
hair, light brown like mine but with a generous coating of silver, was braided
and wrapped round her head like a crown. Her eyes … ah, her eyes. I knew
them. They were the same as those that stared out of my mirror. And hers were
crinkling at the edges.

“Hullo, lass,” she said, grinning suddenly.
Her joy was mixed with a measure of panic, to be sure, but for all that it was
overwhelming. “By my soul, Lanen, but it’s good to see you in the flesh.”

“Maran Vena,” I replied quietly, my mind
reehng, my belly fluttering. Nervous, frightened, angry, floating on a sea of
wonder and of fury and of longing that threatened to undo me. “Maran. Mother.”

No, it wasn’t yet real. Impossible, she was on
the other side of Kolmar—“What in the name of sense are you doing here?”

“I do still have the Farseer, you know,” she
said, her grin fading to a wry smile, her self-control taking hold again. “I
left Be-skin while you were on the Dragon Isle. When it became obvious that
Marik had recognised you and knew you for his. By the time you had started back
with that new-minted husband of yours, I was well on my way. I’d swear it was
chance that brought us to meet here,” she said, her eyes narrowing, “but the
world is a strange place at the moment. I’m not so sure I believe in chance
just now.”

I suppose I should have been shocked that she
knew about Varien but, to be honest, in the face of her presence it seemed a
minor point. A thousand questions, a thousand blessings and curses and demands
coursed through me. Why did you leave? Why have you not returned until this
moment? Was I so terrible? Did you hate me? Did you love me?

“Why did you want to talk to me?” I managed to
choke out. Ah, well, it wasn’t the most pressing question, but it was a start.

She sighed. ‘There is much I need to tell you.”

“Is there, by all the Hells,” I snarled. I
hadn’t meant to be angry with her. I could see her calling on every ounce of
courage she possessed not to fly from me—but I swear, I felt possessed. The
words that burst from me didn’t even seem to be mine, at first. “Then why has
it taken you twenty-four years to bloody well come out and say it! Goddess,
Maran, was I so terrible you couldn’t bear me even for a year?” And then it
came out, the one thing behind all my bluster, the one thing every abandoned
child needs to know with all her heart, no matter how great the fear of the
answer.

“Why?” I demanded, my voice high and thin and
not my own. “Why did you leave me?” Oddly, I seemed to be shaking, and my eyes
stung. “Why didn’t you ever come back?”

My mother lifted her chin, her eyes wintry,
her face like car-ven stone. “Lanen, I swear to you, my soul to the Lady, I
left you because I believed you to be in peril of your life.”

“And was I?” I asked.

She shook her head, unable to speak, and
finally whispered, “No. I was wrong. I didn’t know it for years.” She cleared
her throat and managed to reclaim her voice, or most of it. “And even when I
knew you were safe I didn’t dare come back.”

“Why not?” I demanded.

She smiled at me then, one corner of her mouth
tilted up. “I was too bloody scared, what do you think? I know how I’d feel if
I’d been abandoned.”

“No you don’t!” I shouted, my fists clenched. “No
you bloody well don’tl”

I didn’t know whether to laugh or be sick. It
felt as though a dozen mice were quarrelling in my belly. I had longed for this
day from the moment I had understood, as a small child, that I didn’t have a
mother like everyone else. Jamie had done what he could and I adored him,
but—every girl needs her mother. I had mourned for her, longed for a mother’s
touch, been desperate for the wisdom of an older woman, so many, many times—and
now here she was. Now, when I had faced death not once but several times, now I
had grown strong and been wed and had children growing below my heart. I didn’t
know whether I wanted to throw myself in her arms or punch her in the nose,
though if I am truthful the latter was the stronger impulse.

She nodded. “No, you’re right. I don’t.”

“Its terrible!” I shouted passionately,
shaking my fists in her face, my whole body shaking with the terrible release. “Unloved,
unwanted, abandoned—with only Jamie to look after me, and Hadron who hated me
left to bring me up. How could you just walk away from your daughter?”

“Because I was young and stupid and I thought
I was saving your life,” she replied sternly. “Lanen, I can’t change what has
been or deny that I have been a fool and a coward—but I was hoping we might
start again.”

“You’re too damned late!” I shouted, my voice
soaring as years of hurt tore through me. Here I thought I’d got it out of my
soul long since, the more fool I. “You’re twenty years too late! Where were
you? Why didn’t you come before now?” I demanded. “Why did you leave me there,
my whole life there at Hadronsstead, with that man? It was terrible! I thought
Hadron was my fatherl He hated me, and for years I thought I was evil and
twisted because I couldn’t bear him either.”

“Lanen—” she began, but I was fairly started
now and I couldn’t stop.

“He kept saying I was too tall and too like a
man and not fit for anything or anyone!” I watched as my words struck her like
so many daggers. Years upon years of that terrible loneliness poured over me
afresh, and all the bitterness, all the years of desolation, came pouring out
in an agonized flood—and she stood there like a rock in a stream and bore it. “I
believed him. There was a time when I even thought of killing myself to get
away,”