[Lanen Kaelar 03] - Redeeming the Lost (56 page)

I waddled along the rough path, feeling better
for the exercise but not able to keep it up very long. We came to an open space
where there was a convenient stone to sit on, and I made use of it.

“Are they not yet prepared for the world?”
asked Akor lightly, staring fascinated at my awkward body. “Surely you cannot
stretch any farther!”

I laughed despite myself. “Alas that we cannot
call to them and suggest that now would be a fine time to be born! The Lady
knows I am ready for it.” I sighed. “Right now, I’d settle for being able to
see my feet.”

I expected Akor to hiss, but he turned away
with a moan.

“Dear heart, what is it?” I asked, adding
dryly, “I mean, what is it more than we have borne these three months past?”

“Nothing more, Lanen, but—nothing less,” he
said. He could not look at me. “The time is nearly come. Our children are ready
to be born. And I will never—I cannot—damnation!” He cried out, a wordless
shout into the darkling sky. “Lanen, I can bear it no longer!” he groaned. His
wings were starting to flutter in his agitation. “Here you are, more beautiful
than ever, full of new life we have made between us—and I who have longed for
younglings for a thousand years will never be able to hold my own babes.” He
began to pace up and down, as much as so large a creature could in the space. “It
will be many years ere I dare even to touch them, lest a careless talon should
rip through tender skin. I could murder them by mistake!”

“Please, Akor,” I said, trying to compose
myself. “Love, don’t break now. I need you more with every passing day.”

“I know it, I know it, but Lanen—Lanen, I
cannot bear it! I am come to the end of myself.” He roared, sending Fire into
the night sky, and I realised that he was furious. “Ye traitor Winds!” he cried
out. “I have given myself, body and soul and life and all, to my people, as you
demanded. I never knew love until I knew her. Why have you given us to each
other only to tear us apart?” His voice grew even louder. “I cannot bear it!”
He was practically dancing on the spot, so desperate was he to be gone from me.
I knew exactly what he was feeling, and I couldn’t blame him in the least, and
I blamed him with every word he said. He turned to me again, agony in his
voice. “Lanen, I cannot bear it!”

Then go,” I said, stonily. “You have wings.
You can go wherever in the world you wish.” I stood tall, my belly prominent. “I
am held down to earth.”

I had sworn to myself that I wouldn’t bespeak
him, I knew it would be the last burden on a weakened back, but my anger rose
to meet his. “Your childer, Akor. Ourchilder. Donot turn coward on me now, damn
you. I need you.”

He screamed then, a soul pushed to the limit
of endurance. He rose with a thunderclap into the darkening sky, and his mind
voice sang its agony and its contrition as he flew away north, deeper into the
great forest.

“Lanen forgive, forgive, I cannot bear it, I
cannot bear it any longer. Lanen, my heart, you know that I love you beyond
words, to be separate forever from you and from my only younglings, it destroys
me, I cannot bear it, forgive, forgive…”

I felt as though I should weep, but there were
no tears. Curious. I think I would have been more angry with him if I had not
been so relieved He was not the only one who could not stand it any longer. It
was not his fault, nor mine. I bowed my head for a moment, my eyes closed. Ah,
Lady Mother Skia, I whispered. I heard the bards’ tales but I did not
understand. The love that is too wild and strong destroys the lovers every
time, doesn’t tt? I don’t think I could have stood his presence a moment longer
was agony to see him, agony to have him so close and so infinitely far away. I
gazed up where he had gone. Fly well, my heart, I thought, carefully not
bespeaking him. Thank you for leaving. Your suffering made mine worse too. If
you ever come back, I’M apologise properly.

I walked slowly back to my mother’s house. I
got in just before the rain came.

The next evening I went into labour.

I flew low, ashamed to be aloft yet as unable
to stay with Lanen as to turn back time.

I had never thought of myself as a coward
before, but I could not escape the evidence. The bravest thing I did was dare
to bespeak my wife as I left. My heart burned within me as though it were truly
aflame. I flew to escape my skin, to escape the torture of being so near to
happiness yet forever separated from it.

I did not fly far. My strength seemed to drain
away from the instant I left Lanen. I just managed to glide to a patch of open
ground before I fell from the sky. I was confused and dizzy and my eyes didn’t
seem to be working very well. I felt rain begin to beat upon me, lightly at
first, then harder and harder as the clouds opened. I was soon soaked, and I
had the curious feeling that I was shrinking with every raindrop. Perhaps the
Winds have heard my plea and have sent this rain to dissolve me, I thought,
oddly cheerful. Eyes closed, shaking with fever, I imagined that I grew smaller
and smaller. Perhaps Lanen will have room in her womb for me, I thought, but
that was a very peculiar thought and I didn’t like it. I decided not to think
any longer. That was good. And after another little time, just before the end,
I realised that I could no longer move my limbs or feel my wings.

It is over then, I thought, tolerably content
for it to be so. Farewell, my dearest Lanen. Even as I sleep on the Winds I will
love you. Now awaken, Shikrar! I come! I sang with my last thought, and my mind
floated away into darkness.

Vilkas and Aral managed to stop my body from
continuing with the birth immediately, but at most they could delay it for a
fortnight. Still, as Vilkas said, at that stage even three days would be
useful.

Idai scoured the land round about, shocked and
angry, but Akor was nowhere to be found.

I began labour in earnest ten days later. I
was sufficiently terrified to be going on with, but—as Vilkas reminded me
forcefully, several times—I had in attendance the two best Healers in all of
Kolmar. Will spelled them at my bedside, letting first one then the other get
some rest.

They kept the worst of the pain at bay, and
they never left me alone, Goddess bless them. After full twelve hours of it, I’m
told—the Goddess is kind, I have no memory of how long it took—my son and
daughter were born within minutes of each other. She came out first, followed
after a very few moments by her brother.

My mother helped Aral clean them while Vilkas
looked doop into their tiny bodies, making certain that all was well with
thorn. He nodded, smiling, and they laid my children in my arms. I wept with
relief. I wasn’t the only one.

“They’re beautiful, Lanen. They’re just beautiful,”
said Maran, grinning madly. “All their fingers, all their toes, one head each.
Well done, my girl.” And then she said, more than a little stunned, “Grandchildren.
Goddess save us, I have grandchildren.” She burst out laughing. “Oh, very well
done, Lanen!”

“Are they meant to be this small?” I asked. I
was exhausted, thrilled, worried about them, missing Akor desperately, and
utterly enchanted by these two tiny people I held.

Everyone laughed. “They’ve been born a moon
and a half early, Lanen,” said Aral. “Yes, they are meant to be tiny. They’re
fine, believe me, they’ll grow soon enough. And Vil and I will stay with you
for a while yet to be certain that all is well with them.” She grinned. “Have
you and Akor chosen names for them?”

“Yes,” I said, choking back a sob. “He is
Trezhan, and she is Irian. They are to be called Ta-Varien, to remind them
always of their father’s love.” My throat closed on the words. Thankfully, just
then there was a knock at the door. Maran, muttering something about Will being
a lax door warden, went to answer it. We all waited to hear the voice of the
visitor, but whoever it was said nothing but came directly up the stairs. Maran
was silent as well. That was unusual, certainly.

We were, therefore, all staring curiously at the
doorway when Varien walked through it.

He strode to my bedside, leaned over, and
kissed me—I didn’t kiss him back, I was barely able to breathe let alone kiss
him back—it was—he was human—Varien, caressing our children—

I’m afraid I blasphemed rather thoroughly
before I fainted.

“Aral!” I shouted, catching up the baby
nearest me. She was watchful and gathered up the other before Lanen dropped it.

I was tempted to bring Lanen back to
consciousness immediately, but judged that she had been through enough and let
her recover in her own time. In the meanwhile I dragged Varien—Goddess, it was
Varien, wasn’t it?—downstairs and more or less threw him into a chair. Aral
stayed with Lanen, but Maran wisely brought down the other babe. In moments he
held one in each arm, gazing at them in turn, lost in wonder and delight.

He was not alone. Looking around the room, I
decided that a quick treatment for shock would not go amiss. I sent my Power
out from me in a soft cloud, parting it around the newborns that it might not
so much as brush against them. We all were locked solid in amazement, though,
until Maran managed to speak. With difficulty. After clearing her throat.

“Varien, lad?”

He looked up at her, bemused. “Yes, Mother
Maran?”

“Would you care to tell us just how in all the
Hells you come to be here like this?” she asked. With admirable restraint, I
thought.

Before he answered, he looked to me. “Lanen is
well, Mage Vilkas?”

“Aside from an unexpected shock at a delicate
moment, yes, she’s fine,” I said. “How in all the world did you manage it?”

He began to answer, but his daughter drew a
deep breath and tried out her new lungs.

Good lungs.

Varien started violently.

“Take them back upstairs, you idiot,” I said,
restraining a rogue smile, as her brother took up the refrain. “They are
hungry, and you’re not equipped.”

He grinned and started back up the stairs.
Lanen’s voice greeted him halfway up.

“Varien Kantriakor, you bastard, get back up
here NOW and bring the children!”

In the face of all temptation, I held Martin
back and called Aral to come to me. “What, Vil?” she asked, worried. “Lanen’s
al-right, isn’t she? Her colours good…”

I smiled. At last, one up on Aral in the field
of humanity.

“Her colour’s fine. But I expect they have a
few things to say to each other. A little privacy for the new family, eh?”

Aral had the grace to blush.

“Blast your delicacy, boy,” said Maran
grumpily. “I want to know how in the Hells he did that!”

I had a thousand questions, a thousand
demands, a thousand kicks and kisses to administer, but truth be told I could
pay attention to nothing else once the babes began to suckle, and I fell asleep
instantly afterward. When I woke again, only a little time later, it was to
find mother Maran sat by my bedside.

She answered my expression before I could
speak. “It wasn’t a dream, he’s downstairs having a meal. I’ll send him up.”

“What did he…?”

“He’s refused to tell us a thing,” she pouted.
“And I’m sure he’s right, you should hear it first, but by every blade of grass
that ever grew, I’m this far from threatening his life if he doesn’t start
talking.”

When Varien was seated beside me, the babes
asleep in our arms and the rest of the company waiting patientiy and not so
patiently below, he told me the tale of the night he left.

“I honesdy thought I was dying, Lanen,” he
said earnestly. “I felt myself shrink, then I couldn’t feel my wings, then I
lost consciousness—and I woke in that spot some few hours later, cold and wet
and human.”

Fighting past the wonder, I managed to say, “What
think you, love? How could it happen? Did the Winds and the Lady have pity on
you? On us
?”
I laughed. “Goddess, do you think they
actually did something for us?”

Looking a little self-conscious, my husband
said, “Not precisely.
At least, not
in the way you mean.” He thought for a moment, choosing his words with great
care. “You know how deeply you were changed when Vilkas saved your life?”

“Of course.”

“Well—I appear to have undergone something of
the sort when—when Shikrar and I changed places.”

I stared at him, waiting. “Well? What? How are
you changed?”

“The Gedri chose choice itself, did they not,
my heart?” he asked in truespeech. His eyes blazed, now that he was come to it.
“I am of the Gedri as well, now, but for me, I am changed to—change itself .”

Bloody dragon.

“Would you kindly stop blethering and tell me
exactly what you mean before the children are old enough to walk?’ I said,
exasperated.

He grinned like a maniac. “I’d prefer to show
you, but there isn’t room in here,” he said. He was practically glowing. “Lanen—I
can change. At will. Entirely at will.” He laughed with the wonder of it. “I
did not believe it when I woke. I was terribly confused, and consciously
thought, I should bear the shape of the Kantri. Within the quarter of the hour,
I was changed back. I have done it several times since, to make sure. Kantri or
Gedri, whichever I like, when I like.” He barked another little laugh. “I’m my
old size, too, not as vast as Shikrar. Name of the Winds, how he ever managed
to move on the ground I’ll never know.”