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.
Vilkas
“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!”
Lanen
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.”
I had finally managed to find my voice.
“Bloody hellsfire!”
I think I yelled that a touch louder than I meant to, because there was a brief thunder on the stairs and Will, Maran, Aral, and Vilkas all piled into the room, the Healers with their coronas blazing, Maran with a hammer in her hand, Goddess only knew where she kept that hidden.
“All’s well, all’s well, my friends,” said Varien, grinning like an idiot. “There’s nothing to see. Not just now. Though I will give a demonstration later for those who are interested.”
He told them then, in so many words, what had happened.
I will never forget the stunned amazement on all of their faces. Vilkas was the best. I never thought to see that self-contained soul so lose his composure, he was an absolute picture.
“Varien, you’re not serious,” I said finally. “You—I mean, it’s not possible—”
And Varien laughed, a great hearty laugh from his belly that woke the babies.
“Lanen Kaelar, you never cease to amaze me. Of all that has happened to us in the last year, how much is even faintly possible?”
I smiled slowly. “Very, very little, to be sure,” I said, kissing Irian, who yawned and went back to sleep.
“Quite right,” he replied, far more softly. He gently rocked Trezhan until our son fell asleep again.
“Sweet Lady, Varien,” I swore quietly. “What in all the world and time are you meant to do with that gift?”
“I have no idea,” he said, his face transformed by utter joy. “But it will surely be a great adventure to find out.”
There is so much yet to say about those times. The world and everything in it was changing around us, faster than we could keep up with it. It took a very long time to truly understand all that had happened.
The twins were born when the harvest was ripe and the light was warm and golden, a little more than a moon before my own birth-day at the Autumn Balance-day.
Despite all my fears they did not have either wings or soul-gems, but they did each have a tiny bump in the centre of their foreheads where a soulgem would have been. Believe me, I thought long and hard about that over the next few years. And I only ever told Varien about this, but—a few weeks after they were born, when we all were sitting outdoors and it began to be a little chilly, I was sent what Mirazhe calls “a picture of their thoughts,” in this case a sudden feeling of cold and fear, from the children. Just like young Sherok’s first efforts. Perhaps he is not strictly the youngest of the Kantri anymore, I thought very quietly
to myself.
The news from all quarters was good. Kedra, away in the SuJkith Hills with his dear Mirazhe and Sherok and that contingent of the Kantri that chose to remain with them, bespoke us one day with the news that Kretissh and Nikis had arrived. We laughed heartily, though I felt sorry for poor Nikis. It was not her fault that she had been caught in the Weh sleep when the rest of the Kantri had flown the Great Sea! Still, Nikis the Weary she was and remains. The others have found chambers near the sea, and have tended the lansip trees on behalf of our whole people. Farmer Timeth takes lansip leaves for his rent, plays with Sherok, and bids fair to become quite disgustingly wealthy in a few years, when the trees have grown a little more.
Idai left Beskin soon after the twins arrived. She and a contingent of the Aialakantri have been working almost constantly since the day of Shikrar’s death, seeking out the soulgems of those who died in and around Lake Gand. It took them three years, but they eventually found every last one. The first, of course, was Shikrar’s, lifted from the midst of Berys’s cold ashes and cleansed with dragon fire. It gleams now a brilliant, untroubled red. His soul rests upon the Winds, and hardly a day passes even now that Varien and I do not miss him.
Varien has been much involved with the resettlement of the Kantri throughout Kolmar. Idai consults him regularly, and from time to time she comes to visit. When she arrived with Will and Aral and stayed until the babes had been born, she of course wished us joy of our younglings, and told us some of the best news yet. A number of the Kantri and the Dhrenagan had taken mates in the last few months, and there were already several younglings on the way. “We have even found a hot spring in the mountains above Castle Gundar,” she said happily, “and are digging out a birthing pool. The high mountains are riddled with caves perfect for Weh chambers for those who require them, and there are many who do. All is well. Oh, Akhor, all is well at last!”
“It is indeed,” he had said, smiling up at her. I remember that daft grin of his. He had barery looked away from the twins since their birth, I practically had to tear them from his arms to let them sleep in those first weeks. I recall being heartily grateful to Idai, who at least forced his eyes to focus on something more distant.
Before she left, though, she reminded him that no matter what his shape, he was still their King. “Do not think that you are released from your service just because the Winds have given you this astounding gift,” she said, pretending to a severity she did not feel in the least. “You are still our Lord and King, by acclamation, and you will not slip out of your duties so easily.”
“You are Eldest, Idai,” he said. “This is foolish. Let you call a full Council of our people and choose a new leader from among you.” He grinned up at her. “Perhaps it is time that we had Queen Idai to turn to, rather than King Akhor.”
She hissed. “Very well, Lord, if you so command. A full Council must be attended by two-thirds of the Kantri then on live. I suspect that enough will have wakened from their Weh sleep in, oh, perhaps twenty or thirty winters. I will do my best to remember your wishes at that time.”
Things had changed by then, of course—but that is another story. Ever since the Kantri came to Kolmar they have insisted on calling Varien their King. When the bards came to hear the tale of the wild adventures of that time, they soon heard that part of the story, and the idiots assumed that that must mean that I should be Queen Lanen. Ha! Never trust the bards, for they will always change the truth to make a good tale.
One other thing did take me by surprise. When the twins were a few years old, Varien spoke long with one of the bards and bought the man’s second-best harp from him. In the years between, he has worked hard to learn the old tales and has created any number of new ones. My Varien is well on his way to becoming an extraordinary bard, but then he has an unfair advantage to begin with. After all, the Kantri are the best singers in the world.
Trezhan and Irian ta-Varien grew and flourished as children will, though of course they were the most glorious children who have ever lived. Varien says that Shikrar always said that about Kedra, from the moment of his birth.
I think I understand Shikrar a little better now.
This is the true tale of the Redeeming of the Lost and the Second Death of the Demonlord.
There is more to tell, but then there always is.
True stories never really end.
Acknowledgments
First and foremost, I must acknowledge the usual huge debt of gratitude to my wondrous editor, Claire Eddy of Tor Books. She has put up with writing delays due to my iffy health, and my getting slighdy married, with a kind understanding that I probably don’t deserve, and her sharp insight has, as ever, improved this book vastly.
My sincere thanks again to Deborah Turner Harris, dear as a sister, whose clearheaded advice and experience have gotten me out of any number of writing dilemmas—without your help, kiddo, this book would have been a darn sight more boring, and you may not realise it but your support and friendship have kept me going when I was ready to throw either the computer or myself out the window. You’ll never know how much you’ve helped, Debby. Bless you.
Margaret Lynn Harshbarger for plotting sessions above and beyond the call of duty, for kicking me when I needed it, for hauling me back into the path of myth when I was getting lost in mechanics, and for her eye-opening insights into—well, too much to mention here. Much of life, actuairy.
Sandy Fleming, friend of many years’ standing, for chatting to me when I just had to talk to someone, for reading a few snippets in the interests of a reality check, and for being my Webmaster out of the kindness of his heart.
Dr. Frank Prior, for stopping me from killing off the Kantri through ignorance, and for generally keeping me straight on matters of basic physiology—although to protect his professional reputation he has refused to let me quote specifics about which I have consulted him. Understandably. However, any medical idiocies perpetrated herein are my own doing, and have occurred despite Franks kind assistance rather than because of it.
Catherine and John Mac-Donald, for their generous willingness to be interrupted and keep me right on matters of midwifery and pregnancy, and to Kirsty Nicol, dear friend, for information about being on the sharp end, as it were, of pregnancy. Again, any missteps are my own entirely.
Christopher, as ever, for putting up with frantic calls at all hours, for staunch friendship, for his delight in the language, and for being the voice of reason for me when I couldn’t think in a straight line.
And finally, ever and always, my deepest thanks go to my best-beloved, Steven Beard, dear friend for many years and now my treasured husband, who has carried an infinite number of cups of tea up the stairs over the last three years and never once threw one over me, richly though I may have deserved it. The man brings me toasted apple and cinnamon bread to keep me going, for goodness’ sake. What more could a girl want?
I couldn’t have done it without you, my dears. I hereby owe you a beer. Each.
—Elizabeth
Glossary
Aialakantri—OS for the Awakened Kantri, who were the Lesser
Kindred. Ceat—OS, a thousand years. Chelan—name of a plant and the brew made from it. It is drunk
as a stimulant. We would say it tastes rather like mate with a
hint of cinnamon. Dhrenagankantri—OS for the Restored Kantri, who for five
thousand years were the Lost. Ferrinshadik—the longing felt by (esp.) the Greater Kindred to
join in fellowship with the Gedri, though it is described more
generally as the desire to speak with other races. Gedrishakrim—humans. Usually shortened to Gedri. OS, “the
silent people.” Kadreshi na—“beloved of” is the nearest translation in English.
An endearment between lovers. Kairtach—a curse that is also an intensifier. I refuse to translate.
The Kantri would not be pleased if I did, and it would not reflect well on them. Kantriasarikh—the OS word for the language of t
he Kantri—
shakrim.
Kantrishakrim—the Greater Kindred of Dragons (originally all dragons). OS “the wise people.” Usually shortened to Kantri.
Kell—OS, a hundred years.
Khaadish—OS word for gold.
Language of Truth—the telepathy natural to the Kantri. It also has elements of empathic awareness. The Gedri call it Far-speech.
Lansip—name of a tree and the brews made from it. It grows only where dragons dwell, all attempts at transplanting to solely human regions have failed. Made into tea it is a tonic and general remedy for minor ailments, from headache to heart’s sorrow; taken in quantity, it is an elixir of youth. Lan fruit, the precious and rare fruit of the lansip tree, is a sovereign remedy, and when eaten fresh will heal nearly anything short of death.
Lesikrithic—a cripple among the Kantri, one who has lost a limb or sustained a wound that cannot be healed by Weh sleep and yet lives.
Old Speech—(OS) the name in the common tongue for the language created by the Kantri and used by all the peoples before the Choice. Since that time it has developed into distinctly separate languages.
Rakshadakh—demon droppings (that is the polite translation). It is the ultimate insult as far as the Kantri are concerned, and generally refers to a demon master or one who is tainted by the Rakshasa.
Rakshasa—(obs. form Rakshi) demons. Singular, Raksha (greater demon) or Rikti (lesser demon). OS: “people of chaos.” This is plural because, at the time of the Choice, the Rakshasa were already differentiated into two distinct peoples.
End
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