The Lesser Kindred

by Elizabeth Kerner

  Vil released her and bowed. “If you are truly what you claim, I can only beg that you will drop your allegiance, else I will be forced to fight you and it would not be an equal contest. I am trained to healing, lady, and your death would weigh on my soul, but I cannot have you following me.”

  The woman smiled. It was a good smile. “Then be glad I’m not in his pay. My soul to the Lady, lad, it’s good to see such courage, even if it is misplaced. I’ve hated Berys for years—but you should be more careful who you declare yourself to. Be glad there’s no one else in here. How do you know about Berys?”

  “I am his Enemy,” said Vilkas simply. Cold, burning simplicity, like a new-forged blade plunged into the heart of ice. He might as well have shouted it. I shivered and felt Aral take my hand for simple comfort. I am afraid I found myself thinking that if the Death of the World were ever to speak, that would be its voice.

  The woman stared at him, trying to take his measure. The man, however, stood and held out his hand. “Then you are welcome here, lad, but if you’re going to call yourself Berys’s Enemy you’re going to have to stand in line. What’s your name?”

  Vil hesitated. The woman looked up at him. “Don’t bother thinking up a false one,” she said dryly. “I’m Rella, he’s Jamie. Our real names. Who are you?”

  “Vilkas,” he said, taking the man’s offered hand. “My soul to the Lady, I swear to you I am the strongest Healer you will find in or out of Verfaren who isn’t demon-touched. How can I help?”

  Well, that was enough of that.

  “Your pardon, gentles,” I said, coming up and putting a mug of beer in Vilkas’s hand. “Drink,” I told him, then turned to the couple. “His name is indeed Vilkas, he is what he claims, and before he can help anybody he needs food and a chair. Will you join us at the fire?”

  They glanced at one another and the woman shrugged. The man, Jamie, got up and closed the door and latched it. Gair, who was just coming in with our food, put it down on the table and began to protest, but Jamie said, “If it means you lose custom I’ll pay you for it. We need privacy.”

  Gair looked to me. “Up to you,” I said with a shrug.

  “Five silver will get you privacy and a closed door,” said Gair decisively. Despite the atmosphere, I restrained a grin with great difficulty. He’d be lucky to make that much in a week.

  Obviously, Jamie knew as much, from his laugh. “Make it two, master, and I’ll find it easier to believe!” he said.

  “Don’t bloody haggle,” snarled Rella. She stood and Gair took a step back. There was that in her eyes that made me nervous as well. She drew out three silver coins. “There’s for our beds, a closed door and food. Now where’s that bottle of spirits?”

  “Just coming, mistress,” he said, taking the money and bowing his way out.

  Aral and Vilkas were already eating like starveling waifs. Healing is a wearying business, I’m told, and they had walked ten miles on top of all that had beset them. Their youth was in their favour at least. Hard to believe that so much had happened in so few hours.

  I should never think such things. Mother Shia seems to take it as a challenge.

  A great cry came from somewhere beyond the kitchen. Before it had ceased we were all four on our way.

  Varien

  Lanen gripped my hands with all her strength while the pain swept through her. The moment the spasm relaxed I helped her to lie back against the wall. She could not lie flat, but at least this way she could relax a little. She closed her eyes as I covered her with a light blanket.

  I tried to bespeak her but met only silence. It terrified me.

  “Dearling, can you hear me?” I asked gently, and added in truespeech, “Oh, kadreshi, sleep not on the winds, not yet, I cannot bear it.”

  “Of course I can hear you,” she said. She tried to keep her voice light, but it was taught with her pain. “I may be falling apart at the seams generally, but for the moment there’s nothing wrong with my ears.”

  “Lanen, look at me.” She opened her eyes wearily, and the agony behind them struck me like a blow.

  “I’ll admit the view is a fine one, Varien love, but I need to rest. Just let me close my eyes for a moment—”

  She cried out then, in surprise as much as pain as another spasm seized her. “Akor! Oh Hells, it’s worse!” She gave a great shudder. “Oh Hells,” she said, and her voice sounded terribly distant. “Akor, help me—dear Shia it hurts—”

  I happened to glance down from her face and saw a rapidly spreading bloodstain on the blanket. They tell me I shouted to bring down the roof tiles. I have no memory of it. All that remains to me of that moment is the memory of the bone-deep fear that I was going to lose Lanen, and the sickening knowledge that I could do absolutely nothing to help her.

  Will

  I had never heard anyone yell like that. There were no words in it, but it was a command sure as life. Vilkas, already blazing blue and ahead of all, turned to Jamie and said “Where?”

  Jamie pushed ahead of him and opened one of the many doors. Everyone else hurried in so I kept out of the way, but I caught a quick glimpse of the folk inside, for the bedroom was well lit and had a roaring fire in its own grate. There was a woman sat up in the bed, held in the arms of a silver-haired man, sitting in the middle of a spreading stain. I could smell the blood from the doorway.

  Gair came rushing up. I sent him away again to fetch boiling water and soap and a fresh set of sheets, and told him to prepare food and drink for healers and healed after the work was done.

  I only hoped the sheets wouldn’t be needed to wrap a corpse in. The lady was so very white, and there was so very much blood.

  Salera

  It was a night of the young moon when I sensed him. I woke from my rest. All around lay my new companions, curled neatly around one another to share warmth and the comfort of another heartbeat. I had slept alone this night, and now though dawn was yet hours distant, I woke as to a voice calling me.

  It was his voice, or the echo of it. In the deep heart of me I knew he was near and my heart rejoiced to think he drew nigh, for the longing I had to see him again was stronger than ever. I was drawn east, walking away from the late-setting moon. I sought for any trace of him, drank in the wind: but his scent was not there. Still he drew me east—perhaps I would catch his scent higher up.

  I climbed up one of the rock spurs that encircled much of the plain. It led soon to a ledge on the outer wall of the high rocks that might have been made for such a purpose. I leapt off and caught the air while my kinfolk lay sleeping. There was just enough lift to assist me, so I spiralled up and glided across the high meadow I had just left. It was a deep feeling, still and sacred, to be aloft when all the world was unaware. I saw distant lights to the north and much nearer lights south, and knew that he might be in either place, but still I was drawn eastward.

  Not far in straight Hight I noticed another light below and smelled smoke. I began to spiral down. Do not think I was using reason in any sense, for reason was not part of me then. Not yet. No, I followed some deeper instinct. How does a wolf find its mate in the deep forest, or a hawk its other half in the broad sky? There is a something that draws loved ones together that has no name and cannot be explained by reason.

  I finally knew he was there as I came lower. Did I smell his trace on the air, catch the scent of his passing or of his footsteps grown cold on the frosty road? No.

  But I knew he was there all the same.

  Jamie

  It was an evil sight that met our eyes. Lanen was bleeding badly and Varien looked completely terrified. The lad Vilkas hurried in and with a curious gentleness sent his power to aid her.

  “She lives yet,” said Varien, “though I know not for how long.” I think hearing that dead flat voice from him was the only thing that could make me take my eyes off Lanen. He stood beside the bed and held her close, as though daring death to come for her. I had never seen a living man so pale.

  “My lord,” said
the Healer, Vilkas, never turning his face from Lanen, “make room, I pray you, I must come closer to the lady.” Varien, with great difficulty, laid Lanen flat on the bed.

  “I thank you, my lord. Be assured, she sleeps now, I have released her from the pain—”

  Varien reached out and grasped the front of the Healer’s robe and lifted him off the ground, all in one swift motion. Varien’s eyes were blazing and his voice, far from flat now, echoed in the room. “I have heard these Gedri phrases for death before. If thou hast let her die, false healer, behold thine own death before thee!”

  No one else moved but the lady Healer spoke softly. “Master, my friend speaks not of death but of the Healer’s sleep. It is as if your lady had fainted, she does not feel pain. She is not dead, nor will be if you will let her healer get back to his work.”

  “Forgive me,” said Varien, putting the healer gently back on the ground. “I cannot hear her, I feared—Jameth, help me—”

  I came and took him by the shoulders. Just for that moment he didn’t resist. “Can we be of any assistance?” I asked the lady Healer.

  “Take him back to the fire and feed him, if he’ll eat.”

  “I will not leave her,” said Varien, shaking off my light grasp. He looked to the Healers. “I will not interfere, my word to the Winds and the Lady, but I will not leave her.”

  “Let him stay,” said Vilkas, deep in his healing trance. “The rest of you, out.”

  The little lass looked me in the eye then, and her brown eyes were kind and reassuring in her honest face. “She will live, master, if it is within human ability to save her. Vilkas was not boasting, though I know it’s hard to believe chance met as we are. He really is one of the strongest Healers alive.” She stopped for a moment and smiled. “But if we’re not down in half an hour, send up food and wine, and a jug of water. Even Vil needs food.” She laid her hand on my arm and gently but firmly pushed me towards the door. “Now go, and take Will and your lady wife with you. We need quiet.” I was helping Varien to the door when she called out, “Oh—what is her name?”

  “Lanen,” said Varien from the corner. All credit to him, his voice was steady. “Her name is Lanen Kaelar.”

  The little healer turned back to Lanen without looking to see if we had gone. She moved her hands and spoke a short prayer, and her Healer’s blue corona grew brighter as she moved towards my heart’s daughter.

  I glanced over at the bed as I led Rella and the big fair-haired stranger, Will, out of the room. Berys’s Enemy over there was completely absorbed in his work, and to my relief he was surrounded by what looked like a small blue sun. Maybe he really was that good.

  Lanen slept.

  Aral

  That night was the first time I ever saw Vilkas working at—well, I thought at the time it was his full capacity. Certainly he was drawing on power that I had only suspected he had. I don’t know if it was the relief of having finally told someone about his dreams, or that he was too tired to hold back, or if it was just that he was so glad to have a simple problem of healing to work with rather than having to hold off demons, but he threw himself heart and soul into helping Lanen.

  It wasn’t swift or simple to aid her. The obvious problem was that her body was rejecting the babes. I said out loud, “She’s healthy otherwise.”

  “Yes, but—Aral, take a look at her blood,” said Vil, in the faraway voice he gets when he’s concentrating. “Not the stuff in her veins, just look at the blood around the problem.”

  I did as he asked, then I looked again. “What in all the Hells is that?” I said aghast. “That dark stuff, it’s like there’s a battle going on within her blood—sweet Shia, Vil, what is she carrying?”

  “They are too young to see easily, but they look normal,” he said. “And she has no taint of the Raksha about her, none at all.” He looked up. “I’ve got her stable and asleep, but I’m working flat out just to keep her there.” He turned to the silver-haired man, who now stood silent, watching every move with his great green eyes. “You—what is your name?”

  “I am called Varien,” he answered, far more politely than Vilkas deserved and with immense dignity. “And you are called?”

  Varien

  “I am Vilkas, and my colleague here is Aral of Berún,” said the young man. “You are the father, are you?”

  “Yes. Lanen is my wife and bears our child.”

  “Children,” snapped Vilkas from the bedside. I was too astounded to reply.

  He finally looked up at me. “Come here a moment, Varien, if you will. The difficulty your lady is having is not one I have seen before, and I must examine you to understand it and heal her. Do you permit?”

  “Yes,” I said. “But you should know, the last time a Healer tried to assist me he could not.”

  “I can believe that,” said the young man as he sent the blue strength of his power to surround me. “I can’t see a thing—a moment, I pray you.” The glow about him brightened, and suddenly he gasped and straightened, staring into my eyes. Lanen had often said that my eyes were yet the eyes of Akhor of old. Perhaps it was that which made him step back.

  “By our Lady,” he swore. “Woman never bore you, nor man never fathered you. Of what kind are you? And what is that which should sit there but does not?” he asked, touching my forehead.

  “That is my secret,” I said quietly.

  “Don’t be a fool!” said Vilkas, angry in the instant despite his wonder. “Your wife is dying because there is a violent battle raging in her body over the children she bears. Your children. If I am to keep her alive I must know what it is that she fights.” His eyes were hard.

  “I see,” I said. “Very well. I suppose the time of concealment is past, at least with you. Know, Healer Vilkas, that this knowledge is life and death to more than Lanen.” I glared at him. “Know also that death will be thine at my hand if this knowledge goes beyond this room.”

  In full view of both of the Healers I drew forth my circlet and put it on. They both gasped at the sight of the golden thing, for gold is very rare among the Gedri. Blessed be the Winds, the moment the soulgem touched my forehead I felt my old self sweep through me, and since I was not using truespeech my head did not ache. I did, however, feel all my years come back and settle quietly on my shoulders, and I grew impatient with this unfledged youngling.

  “Behold, Mage Vilkas,” I said. “This is what I lack, this is what I bore through all my years that now is no longer a part of me.”

  Before I could stop him he reached out and touched my soulgem. I heard his flesh sizzle, heard him cry out, and in a breath I was Akhor again, at what Lanen calls my stuffy best.

  “You young idiot! What did you hope to learn from that? How could you forget that another’s soulgem is sacred and never to be touched this side of death? Now stand you bold before me and show respect for your elders. If you want to know something, ask, but keep your claws to yourself unless you want to feel mine.”

  A thousand and thirteen winters are not so easily shed, alas.

  He healed himself with a thought, swiftly and efficiently, and stood foursquare before me as I had so severely demanded. Already I regretted my words. His jaw hung open just slightly. I could not help smiling to myself. Add the head held just so and the wings thus, and he would have been standing in pure Amazement.

  “Hells take it, I never meant to say that,” I sighed.

  Vilkas took a great gulp of air, as though he had only just remembered to breathe, and managed to gasp out, “Claws?”

  I sighed. “Yes, Vilkas. Claws. And fangs the length of your arm, the proud four, though the rest were smaller. And horns, and wings, and scales, and breath of fire.”

  “Sweet Goddess, how can it be? But you are, aren’t you?” He drew the blazing blue about him and stared at me with all his might. “Dear Lady Shia,” he whispered, “you’re a dragon.” He staggered backwards a step before he caught himself. “But how?”

  “The story is long in the telling and n
ow is not the time,” I replied. “I am no longer one of the Greater Kindred of the Kantrishakrim,” I said, a little sadly. “But so I was, Mage Vilkas. And so in my heart I shall always be. Before I became human I was one of the Kantri: the True Dragons, Lanen used to call us. My name was Akhor and I was the Lord of my people.”

  Vilkas was mastering himself and even thought to bow. “I—I thank you, Lord. It—that makes sense, it would explain—please, I must see your blood, and I cannot see past your skin. Can you spare a few drops?”

  I drew the belt knife I carried and pierced my fingertip. “How much do you require?” I asked.

  The Healer made a glowing blue cup of his hands. “Just a few drops will do. Into my palms—yes, that’s fine, thank you.”

  He raised his hands before his eyes, and what he saw there returned him to himself and to the healing before him. “Look Aral, it’s the same,” he said excitedly. “This is it, the dark fluid, it’s his blood. Her body’s fighting it.”

  I bowed my head. This was what I had feared from the beginning. “If my blood is yet the blood of the Kantri, it is no wonder that her body cannot bear it,” I said as sorrow took me. “Of your kindness, save her life. The younglings cannot live, half Gedri and half Kantri. Poor creatures.” I closed my eyes. “May the Winds bear them up and guard their souls,” I muttered, beginning the dedication of the dying. “May the souls of the Ancestors—”

  To my astonishment, Vilkas slapped my face. “Stop that,” he commanded. “I need your help. No one is going to die if I can help it. Speak to her. Call her.”

  I was so surprised I did as he asked.

  Lanen

  I heard Varien’s voice calling me, but he must have been several fields away, I could barely hear him. I stood up in the stirrups and shouted back but he didn’t seem to answer. I couldn’t see him either.