The Lesser Kindred

VIII Journeys

The moon was dark. Full six se'ennights had passed since the night of the earthshakes that had wakened me from my Weh sleep.

My dear son Kedra and I waited in the entry to the Chamber of Souls, watching the sun set. The winter days were growing longer, noticeably so now, but the cold had returned with a vengeance. Frost was in the air, sharp and clear, and this night there would be no moonlight to soften the ice with beauty.

Kedra was fully trained in the Kin-Summoning but I had decided that this time I should undergo the fasting and meditation, for he still kept watch over his youngling. However, it was not necessary to spend every waking hour in preparation. Even though I had to keep to my chamber for the full fortnight before the Kin-Summoning, to fast and to quiet my soul, Kedra brought young Sherok to visit me every day to lighten the waiting.

The little one was astounding and filled me with delight. I had forgotten how swiftly they change when they are so very small. Each day he was more steady on his feet, each day it seemed that his wings grew. It would not be many months now before they were in proportion to the rest of him. He was already making the sounds that would flower into speech, and soon thereafter he would begin to send his thought-pictures to more than his mother and father. True-speech was still a few years in the future, of course, but after a mere quarter of a year he was grown half again as large as he had been at birthing.

He was lighter in the scales than his father, for his mother, Mirazhe, was a burnished brass, and his colouring was somewhere between that and Kedra's dark bronze, but his eyes were golden as an autumn sky and beautiful beyond words. When his soulgem was revealed he would receive his true name, but that would not be for nearly a year. The gem is too soft at birth to be uncovered and has a natural scale of skin that protects it. Eventually, when the soulgem has hardened, sometime in the first year, the scale dries and falls off. It is the first coming of age, the first step towards life as one of the Kantri, and a time of great rejoicing.

His very fife was rejoicing to me. Every time I saw him, every time I picked him up and held him close, wrapped him in my wings, laughed with him, played with him, I saw behind him the form of Lanen the Wanderer, who had saved his fife and that of his mother on the very day of his birth. And sometimes I imagined, or felt in my heart as deep longing, my lost Yrais. She was my one true soulmate, mother to my own Kedra and more dear to me by far man my own flesh: but she had died young, when Kedra was yet a littling. I had never stopped missing her, and from time to time of late I found myself speaking to the air, telling her of her new grandson. How proud she would have been.

The last rim of the sun disappeared behind low cloud. "It is time, my father," said Kedra. He bowed to me, then stood in the formal Attitude of Respect. I was hard put to it not to laugh, he was being so serious, but I did manage to contain myself. I bowed in return and mirrored his stance. "Let us approach the Ancestors, in all humility, in this our time of need."

I took one last deep breath of the night air and turned back in to my chambers. Kedra remained until I should call him.

All was prepared within. With a brief invocation to the Winds, I drew breath and sent Fire into the heart of the wood piled high in the firepit, for Fire is sacred to us and the Kin-Summoning a solemn duty and honour. Light blossomed with the heart of flame, flickering and gleaming off the walls and the floor of khaadish, set thick with the soulgems of the Ancestors. I cast onto the blaze certain leaves and branches, representing each of the Winds. They made a sweet smoke, which I inhaled deeply.

I had fasted full a fortnight in preparation and so was light-headed to begin with. The smell of kirik and tel-aster, merisakis and hlansif (that the Gedri call lansip) rose and blended in the still air of the cavern. The fire shone bright on the gathered soulgems.

The back wall of the inner cavern was studded with them. They were ranged in order, eldest highest, set deep in khaadish to protect them. Now, you must not imagine that set in that wall was every soulgem of every one of the Kantri who had ever lived. Even apart from the soulgems of the Lost, with their never-ending flicker of light and darkness, it had been several lifetimes after the Choice before we had learned of the Kin-Summoning. Also, it had happened from time to time that some of us had died in far-off places with none to retrieve our soulgems and bring them home in honour. I bowed before them all, with a private thought of sorrow over the newest of them—the soulgem of Rishkaan, who had died in the autumn fighting a demon master. He had killed the rakshadakh who had threatened us though it had cost him his fife. "Lie safe on the Winds, old friend," I muttered, then turned back to the fire and settled down, still breathing deeply of the smoke, and began the Invocation.

"In the Name of the Winds, humble I call upon thee, Ancients of our Kindred. O ye who sleep, graciously wake ye to listen. We who live call upon thee in our need. Lend us thy wisdom, speak again in accents of life, teach us who are thy children those things that are needful. Hear, speak, aid us. It is one of thine own who calls. I hight Hadretikantishikrar, of the line of Issdra. I beseech thee in the name of our people, speak."

Kedra heard me and entered the Chamber, sitting far from the fire. I nodded at him, knowing I was protected now, and let my mind follow the smoke out the airhole far above.

I felt myself rising as on wings of mist even as I knew that I sat solidly on the ground. It is almost impossible to describe the sensation. I am told that the Gedri when they are desperately ill can feel something akin to it. My eyes would not focus but my mind was sharp and aware. K6dra tried to bespeak me, and when he could not he knew the time was come.

"O my ancestors, I summon thee," he said. "It is Khetrikharissdra of the line of Issdra who calls. The Gift of the Choice of the Kantrishakrim, the way to remember what has gone before, is needed sore by thy children. My father Hadretikantishikrar, the Keeper of Souls, stands near to welcome thee."

I felt my throat change, and in the voice, much deeper and harsher than mine, that takes me at such times, I responded, "Speak, Khetrikharissdra. What so concerns the living that they take counsel with the dead?"

"Revered Ones, we have two questions for thee. First, we seek knowledge of the firefields of our homeland, the Place of Exile." That is how we name the Dragon Isle in our own language. "The earth shakes with greater violence than any now living have known. The mountains burn and run like water. Revered Ones, know ye aught of this?"

I felt myself falling again, down deep under earth and clear water, and rose with a different voice. It was lighter and more resonant than the Speaker. I had never heard it before.

"I bring thee greetings, Khetrikharissdra. I hight Khemir-nakunakhor. In life I was called Keakhor, who led our people to the Place of Exile after the Day Without End. It was I who had found it long years before, for in those times I was a wide-traveller, flying to the limits of strength for the joy of it. I it was who saw the Isle much as thou hast described it, many years ere we arrived. But surely the earthshakes have never stopped, my child? What so stirs thee, thus to waken us?"

Kedra bowed again. "Of thy courtesy, Keakhor, see in the mind of thy vessel, my father Shikrar, that which we fear. He hath overflown the firefields. They burn in his mind and he hath known no rest from that sight."

I felt the touch, gentle, ancient, of that mind upon my own. I felt its surprise.

"Thou hast done well, Keeper of Souls, to summon us." I felt my head and neck bowing to Kedra. "Would that I had better tidings for thee. At the worst, when we feared for the life of the island itself, there was not half so much fire." I could feel the astonishment of Keakhor whistling through me. "Name of the Winds, youngling, if thy seeing be true the very mountains begin to melt like snow in summer." My head shook, sadly. "I fear me thou art in peril, my child, that all the Kantri are in peril, but I can be of no service to thee. The like hath never before been seen by any of us."

Kedra bowed. "I thank thee, Revered One, nonetheless. And from thine own words, it would seem that thou are the best source for my second question. Far-traveller, Keakhor, who didst lead the Kantri to the Place of Exile, knowest thou aught of other lands apart from Kolmar where we might live? For thou hast seen the doom that awaits us here. If we are to seek another home, where must we fly to find it?"

Keakhor within me sighed. "Alas, youngling, again the truth I have for thee is not what thou wouldst hear. In life I flew high and wide, sleeping on the winds, seeking new lands. Thrice I came near death for that I had nowhere to rest or to drink. Keeper of Souls, there is no land that we can reach save Kolmar. West, south, north, there is only the vast ocean. Do not forget that Kolmar is our home, littling. Perhaps it calls us back. If you must fly there, know that two days east and a little south there is a small island with sweet water, where younglings and the wing-weary may rest for a time. I know of no other lands."

Kedra responded swiftly, "Then I thank thee, Keakhor, for thy visitation, I honour thee for thy wisdom, and I release thee to sleep again on the Winds. Go in peace."

"I go, littling, but do not let thy good father waken yet. There is one here who would speak, if thou wilt hear her."

Even in the depths of my trance I was surprised. I had heard of this happening, when I was trained by Leealissenit, but it had never happened to me before. Kedra nodded. "If there is one who would speak, we honour and welcome her. Farewell, Khernirnakunakhor."

"The Winds bear thee up, youngling," said the ancient one, kindly, and was gone. Again the feeling of falling, dizziness, then caught up all in a moment by another.

Oh no. No, please, I cannot bear it.

"I give you greeting, my Khetri—what are you called, my littling?" said the one who spoke through me. It was the wonder of the Kin-Summoning that I could hear her voice and not mine. Oh, my heart.

I knew that voice as I knew the air that I breathed. It was Yrais, my beloved, my soul's other half. I had not heard it in eight hundred years.

Kedra was shaken, though he knew not why. "I am called Kedra. Who speaks?" he asked, his voice heavy with awe.

"I am your mother, Khetrikharissdra," she said. Kedra shivered to hear his true name spoken, but not with fear. The love in her voice could not be mistaken.

I knew that tone in her voice, she only ever used it when she spoke with me or with our son. Oh, ye Winds, bear me up in this. "Littling, I cannot stay, but when Keakhor looked in your father's mind he saw bright and shining your own son. Know that Shekrialanentier6k is known to me now, for all time, and know that my love comes to him through your father."

Yrais!

"Fare you well in all your travails, my kit, you and Mirazhe your beloved and Sherok your son, and may the Winds carry you safe wherever you fare."

And she was gone, save for a sweet gentle touch on my mind as she left—a phrase, an echo, of the Song of the Devoted we had made together so very long ago.

I rose out of the trance of the Kin-Summoning racked with a pain I had thought long since healed. It was forbidden to call up the Ancestors for personal reasons. I had never dreamt to hear her voice again.

Kedra came near and held me, helpless, as I cried out my agony to the Winds. Sorrow endless as the long years, longing like torture pierced my breast, against which the pain of the end of the Kin-Summoning passed unnoticed.

Unless you have lost one you truly love you may not understand, but I would gladly have fought demons to have been spared that sweet, gentle touch, that voice so well beloved and so swiftly silenced forever, and the memory of a song I would never hear again this side of death.

Soon after my lord Marik was restored to himself, Berys arranged for us all to leave my master's home in the Merchant quarter of Elimar. We were to take up residence in Ver-faren so that Magister Berys might continue his work at the College while looking after Marik. We travelled slowly: what should have been little more than ten days' journey even in winter took nearly a fortnight, and it was hard on my master even so. I spent several days simply helping him recover from travelling.

Once he was feeling better both Berys and I took a great deal of time working with him, helping him to walk and, eventually, to ride again. His recovery was wonderfully swift, all things considered, but I was still concerned. The vision of his patched-together mind haunted me.

It was late one night towards the end of the second moon of the year, just as the worst of the winter was leaving and the days were getting longer, before I had the chance to speak to Berys alone. My master was asleep. He had ridden some few miles through the fields that day and eaten well afterwards, all good signs. I was delighted to see him doing so well, even as I feared it was but temporary.

I knew that Berys could not be working so late on anything of importance, but I was passing his chambers last thing at night on the way to my own and saw a light under the door. I knocked quietly and to my surprise was answered immediately by his servant Durstan. He welcomed me and took me in to Berys's study after only a very short wait. I found him seated behind his desk, plainly busy but pleasant enough.

"Master Maikel," he said, nodding to me. "You are welcome. I trust our patient is no worse?"

"He recovers still, Magister," I replied, somewhat absent-mindedly. There was a peculiar smell in the room and I was trying to think what it was. I thought I remembered it from somewhere.

"Then what brings you here?" he asked, smiling.

It was difficult to say, he seemed so kind and so concerned, but I knew I had to say something. "Magister, I have sought the chance to confer with you about Marik. I fear for him."

"In what way?" he asked, genuinely surprised. "Has his condition deteriorated?"

"No, he is as he has been since you healed his mind," I said. "But—"

After a moment's silence, he said rather more pointedly, "But what, Healer Maikel?"

"It's not right." I managed to get the words out. "Magister, I have the greatest respect for what you have done, but I have seen his mind. It was lost and broken, and true enough you have healed it, but the healing is patchy and largely on the surface. The break is still there, the rift between sanity and madness, and the bridge is very insecure. It would take very little to drive him back across and very little more for him to fall off altogether. My fear is that he would then be worse off than before."

"Are you questioning my methods?" asked Berys, smiling. "He has done nothing but improve since I brought him back. He grows stronger every day, mind and body. What you are objecting to, Maikel?"

"I—well—forgive me, but yes, Magister, I question your method. I admire beyond words that you have brought my master back from that dry! dead place, but surely a slower approach would have had more lasting results. This patch, this overlay of healing—I fear it cannot last." There. I had said it.

Berys stood up from behind his desk. He came close to me and stared into my eyes. "Hrnmm. Seems to be wearing off."

"What, already?" I asked, shocked. Did he know something of Marik that I did not? Surely that fragile sanity was not breaking already.

He laughed, a sharp, unpleasant sound. "I was not speaking of Marik. No, he will last some time yet. Perhaps in time my quick work will take root, though I do not know. However, he is well now. Is that not what you desired?"

"Not this way," I said. Suddenly I was reminded of my old reservations about Magister Berys. I had perhaps been too critical, but there was still something wrong about him. Something about his eyes—oh Goddess. What were Marik's first words to me? Not a simple greeting, not so much as "Hello Maikel," no, he'd said "What's wrong with your eyes?" I had wondered at the time. Now of a sudden I was frantic to be gone, to look in a mirror, to see if I had the same taint as Berys. In the same breath I remembered what the curious smell was.

Raksha-trace.

Dear Lady, see me safe out of here, I begged silently.

Her answer was swift in coming.

It was raining. It had been raining for-bloody-ever. The weather had turned foul a week after that fight in the dark, with a cold rain driven by a colder wind, and I had caught a sniffle that would not go away. We had been rained on for what felt like a solid fortnight: as we crossed the Arlen to travel south through the western reaches of the North Kingdom, as we rode through fields and woods to keep off the main roads, as we seemed to crawl our way south: sometimes harder, sometimes no more than a gentle mist that got into our packs and soaked everything, sometimes just a dreary never-ending drip all day long.

The Spring Balance-day was still more than a fortnight away. We'd been travelling a full moon and a fortnight on every back road in Kolmar ever since the night the mercenaries had attacked, with never a sniff of an inn or a hostel, and it had been raining forever.

Well, it felt like forever. When your best fire is a few tiny flames dancing on a stick for a few hours, believe me, patience and understanding fly out the window in a hurry. Jamie was growling at Rella, Rella was growling at me, and I was growling at everybody. Varien, maddeningly, was calm and unruffled. He was making me furious, but then, so was everything. In my poor defence I should say that the voices in my head had not stopped. They seemed to come in waves, sometimes loud enough to stop me from being able to think, sometimes barely there at the edge of hearing. I couldn't decide which was worse, but I was heartily sick of them and of everything else, especially myself. At least there had been no more attacks, thank the Lady for small favours.

Jamie had spent a little time every day training both Varien and me in swordplay. I was very little better than when I had started, but Varien seemed to take to it like breathing, and after less than two moons he was better at it than I was. This, of course, made me terribly jealous.

I seemed to spend every waking moment in a foul mood. I did try to fight it, but for some reason every least little thing made me snarl.

"Lanen, how fare you?" asked Varien quietly when we stopped in the poor shelter of some ancient trees to take our midday meal. At least the rain wasn't quite so hard there.

"Just as I've fared every time you've asked," I growled. "I can't get any peace, inside my head or out." I stomped away, looking for any vestige of dry wood I could find. I didn't find any.

We ate cold bread and cheese and strips of salted meat that were drier than we were. "I swear to you," grumbled Jamie, who was not much better off than I was, "if this keeps up much longer there'll be murder done."

"Stop bragging," said Rella. She was for some reason in better heart than she had been for some days. "We're nearly there."

"Nearly where?" I asked.

"There's a way station half a day's ride from here."

"And what is that?" asked Varien. "Of your good heart, lady, tell us that it hath a fire and shelter from the rain."

"No and yes," she replied. "There is nowhere to light a fire, in case it should smoke, but way stations have roofs and four walls and a dry floor, and there is always a stock of dry wood for the taking. There are also things there more precious than lansip, if none have been there before me."

She refused to tell us what she was talking about, but the thought of a solid roof over my head sounded wonderful, even without a fire. We all cheered up a little, and the voices grew that bit quieter for a while. It just shows that anticipation is a strong influence. Just as well. When we finally came upon the way station, it had grown even darker than the grey murk we had travelled through all day, and it took Rella a few minutes to find it even though she knew what she was looking for. It was well hidden, certainly. It was also no more and no less than she had said. When Jamie finally managed to light a stub of candle, we saw that we were in a small room with four low walls, a roof that kept out the rain but was so low that Varien and I couldn't stand upright, a small chest against a corner, a tiny grille high up in a corner to let in air, no windows and no place for a fire. I started grumbling and threatened to light a fire on the floor as I piled the wet saddles and other tack in a corner. The horses were in a sheltered brake; we'd fed and watered them, but the poor things had naught but the wet ground to sleep on. They each had two blankets, and we had to hope that would do.

"And how will you start a fire in here without setting light to your own foot?" said Rella, offended. "Honestly, girl, you're foul-tempered these days. Have some consideration for those of us who have to live with you. This is a way station of the Silent Service, not the common room of an inn! If anyone found out I'd let you in at all, I'd lose a month's wages and have to stock way stations until the next quarter day. There's nowhere for the smoke to go in any case. It's well sealed, though, and with all four of us sleeping here we'll be warm enough and dry for a change, and there are candles enough to keep a light as long as we want. That reminds me." She took the candle and carried it to the chest. When she opened it she laughed with delight. "Oh, the Goddess bless the poor bastard who's in disgrace! Dry blankets, by Shia, and enough waterproofs for all!"

She started hauling out bundles of folded material and handing them round, a blanket each and another bundle. These last were surprisingly heavy, but when I took my sodden leather gloves off I felt the curious texture. It was like a medium-weight burlap, a finer weave than I had expected, but it smelled of something that wasn't cloth. I sniffed.

"Beeswax," said Jamie, grinning. "Waxed cloth, by the Lady! Mistress Rella, I beg your forgiveness, and grant you mine despite the fact that I'm frozen to the bone." He stripped off his sodden tunic, wrapped himself in a dry blanket, put the waxed cloth over all and settied down with his back to a wall. "Blessings upon the Silent Service, I'll never curse them again without good cause," he said, and Rella laughed.

"Why doesn't the wax break when the cloth bends?" I asked, copying Jamie. The dry blanket was the first real warmth I'd felt since we got soaked through two nights since, and though the waxed cloth wasn't warm in itself it kept the heat in and I began to thaw a little. Varien sat beside me and wrapped the two of us in his cloth. He was, as always, nearly hot to the touch, bless him.

"None of your business," said Rella smugly. "Why do you think we're called the Silent Service?"

"How far are we from the Kai, do you think?" I asked. I had tried not to ask that every night for the past week. I was losing the battle.

To my delight Jamie said, "I am not certain of these roads, but unless I am far out of my reckoning we should strike the river in the next day or so."

Rella raised an eyebrow in approval. "Not bad for one who's been on a farm for a quarter of a century. I expect to reach Kaibar tomorrow," she said.

"Where we will find an inn, with a large fireplace and a real bed and hot food and cold beer," said Jamie. "I don't care if every assassin ever spawned is after our blood, I am going to sleep in a bed tomorrow night."

"Hear, hear," I said. "If I could get warm enough and stay warm, maybe I could shake this blasted cold."

"You won't get any argument from me," said Rella. "My back is killing me. I've been ignoring it something shocking ever since we started out."

I tended to forget about Rella's crooked back. She had exaggerated it when I first met her, to appear helpless and crippled in the presence of my father Marik, but it was not a disguise she could do off. I hadn't known how it bothered her until we started travelling together. She was made of stern stuff, but the cold and the wet got into her bones and every now and then she'd swear at the ache. Varien had taken to sitting back-to-back with her when we had our meagre meals, for she said the heat was a great relief. Still, that very morning she had not been able to contain the groan when she mounted her horse.

She wasn't the only one. My long back was starting to bother me too, and to add insult to injury I had a growing sense of discomfort below the waist. I had taken to running alongside the horses as often as I could stand it. It wasn't that I was getting fat, really, but I felt the way I did each moon just before my blood time. I was concerned, because I was a week past that time, and still my fingers were swollen, and my belly, and I had to wear a breast band to keep the soreness at bay. My bloods had been much lighter and shorter of late as well. I felt decidedly peculiar below the waist, and I could seldom eat much. Half of what went down came back up again later, but I tried to keep that as secret as I could. I put all down to short rations, too much cold and too much riding. The idea of a night in an inn—or two if I could convince the others—sounded like heaven. A chance to clean my clothing, my hair, my grubby self—blessed Lady, what a delight! And perhaps, I said in my inner thoughts, a good long visit with a Healer.

As we began to relax and to warm ourselves, I asked sleepily, "So, we are near to the South Kingdom at last. I have never been there. What is it like, Jamie?"

"Much like anywhere else," he grumped, but his heart wasn't in it, for he let out a muffled laugh. "Now, mere's a thing. I never thought."

"What?"

"That's where the little dragons live."

"What!" I asked again, more sharply now, and I could feel Varien beside me sit straight up.

"You're right, Jamie. I'd forgotten. Well, you almost never see them, do you?" said Rella. "Shy creatures they are. I have only seen a few in my travels, though that's not so surprising, they don't go where they know there are men." Her voice softened in the darkness. "They are quite beautiful, really."

"The Lesser Kindred, kadreshi," said Varien in true-speech, as excited as exhaustion would allow. "It is well. Perhaps we shall find them a little more easily, you and I."

We slept sitting up in that tiny way station, drier than we had been but still damp around the edges and not really warm enough, and dreamed of the simplest of pleasures. Being warm and dry may not sound like much, but it is the very stuff of heaven if you can't get it. As I drifted off to sleep, trying to ignore the voices that were now muttering constantly just below hearing, I almost smiled. For years I had wanted to see the wide world and move out of the four confining walls that I felt were drawing in around me. I had heard that all things come full circle at the last, Lanen, but surely this is a bit quick even for you, I thought sleepily to myself.

It was only just over the half of a year since I had first set out from my home.

That thought was nearly enough to keep me awake. Nearly.

I waited until they were all asleep. It did not take long. Indeed, the most difficult part was to remain wakeful myself, for I was weary and the dry blanket was a blessing. Still, it had been far too long. I missed my people.

I drew my soulgem in its circlet from my pack and put it on.

The moment my soulgem touched my skin I felt Shikrar's presence. I knew that feeling: it was as if he called me without words. We did so often, he and I, when troubled or lonely.

"Hadreshikrar, my brother, I hear you. What weighs so weary on your heart? "

"Akhor!" he cried, and I found myself in the centre of a wild storm of emotion that overpowered words. I feared at first that something had happened to Kedra, but I swiftly bespoke him and was answered.

"Lord Akhor! Blessed be the Winds! My father is in need ofyou."

"Kedra, what is it? You sound almost as bad! Shikrar, soulfriend, I beseech you tell me what wrings your heart so. I hear your pain, my heart aches with it, yet Kedra is well. This is—" I stopped, stunned. "Shikrar, how—what hath befallen thee? I know this sadness of thine from of old, from my youth, yet it bleedeth like a new wound. It cannot be—"

To my intense relief, I began to hear at least the slightest hint of recovery in his reply. "Akhor, soulfriend, thy voice is balm to my shattered soul. Alas, Akhorishaan! It was the Kin-Summoning—it has only just come to an end. Akhor—/ could not stop her. Yrais—Yrais—she spoke through me, she spoke to Kedra with her blessings for young Sherok. I heard her voice, her words, felt the touch of her soul—ah, my heart. Akhor, Akhor, it was Yrais."

I bowed, so far away as I was and despite the pain in my head that was growing steadily worse. Shikrar had been mated for so short a time before Yrais was taken from us. Their love had been remarkable among a passionate people, and Shikrar's grief had been deep as the sea and nearly as boundless. "/ have no words, heart's friend, soulfriend. Is there aught to be done?"

"No, Akhor, do not fear for me. I begin to recover. But oh, alas for that wound that will never heal!"

I would have been shocked at his anguish had I not known how deep was Shikrar's love and how long grief had claimed him after her death. I could only call his name, sending my friendship without words to comfort him. It was a blessing that he had the ordeal of the Kin-Summoning behind him, for as soon as the worst of his grieving was past, as soon as he felt my mind-touch and that of his son and felt our love and friendship surround him, he was taken gently and irresistibly by sleep.

"May sleep bring healing," I said softly to Kedra. "Did you learn much from the Kin-Summoning before—"

I could hear the sad smile in Kedra's voice. "Fear it not, Lord Akhor—forgive me! I should say Lord Varien."

I smiled myself. "I answer to both Kedra. Lanen frequently calls me Akhor and does not even realise she is doing it. It was my name for a very long time, after all."

"And my mother, may her soul rest on the Winds, has been dead for a very long time. Do not fear to speak to me of it. I was astounded to hear her voice—she called me by name. Akhor, she remembers!—and pleased beyond measure that she somehow knows delight in Sherok, but I am not devastated like my father. The Kin-Summoning was extraordinary, in fact. Keakhor himself wakened to speak with us. Alas, his words shed no light. This island has never been so violently disturbed, and for all his travelling he never found another place that we might live. He even suggested that Kolmar was our rightful home and we were being called to return!"

"In the midst of all that has happened of late, Kedra, it would not astound me. The Kantri on Kolmar again! It would be a wonder."

"It might also be a disaster, Akhor. Not all of our Kindred are pleased at the thought.' "

"I never thought for a moment they would be." I replied. "Yet remind them for me, Kedra, this is a vast land. We forget, on our little island, how broad the back of Kolmar is. Few as we are, those who do not seek out the company of the Gedri need never endure it."

"Ah, my Lord King, your wisdom is sorely missed, and not only by my father! I will tell them, my Lord Varien. And a thought to pass along to your lady Lanen Maransdatter— did you know that Keakhor took the name Far-Traveller for his own? In the old speech, he was Keakhor Kaelar!"

"I will tell Lanen when she wakes," I said, smiling. "She will be pleased. Forgive me, Kedra, my head aches terribly, it saddens me but I must go. Give my regards to your father when he wakes."

"I will, Akhor. And do not be too sad. You may be seeing us all far sooner than any of us expected!"

I removed the circlet and held my cool hands against my aching head. It helped a little, and the ache passed swiftly enough, but exhausted as I was I remained wakeful long enough to send a prayer winging to the Winds, that Shikrar might wake and find the armour of time and distance that had been stripped from him intact once more.

Just before it all came to a head I found myself outside Vil's chamber of a winter's day. I heard voices through the door as I approached.

"Vilkas ta-Geryn, put me down!"

"Be quiet, woman. You're in no danger." A pause. "There, back in one piece."

"Not if I get hold of you," came the sharp reply, then the voice softened a little. "You're getting better at that."

I decided that at the very least someone had to tell them they could be heard. I knocked twice, loudly.

The swearing was reasonably muffled and the delay before the door opened not too long.

Vilkas flung open the door. His face was a picture, though he tried hard to keep his thought from showing. If he were a normal lad, he'd have been scowling at the interruption and been halfway through telling whoever had disturbed him just what they could do to themselves before he recognised me. Thankfully his face changed when he saw me. He drew me into the room and shut the door quickly behind me.

"Keep it down, you two. I could hear you in the corridor," I said as I sauntered to the chair before the tiny fireplace.

"I thank you for the warning, Will," said the girl. "Was anyone else out there?"

"No. Everyone else is at their classes, Mistress Aral, as you well know. What excuse have you today?"

"No excuse and none needed. Did we not tell you? Vil asked Magistra Erthik if we could work together, try combining our powers as a special project. She seemed happy enough to let us."

"And yet you are here, and not a patient in sight," I said. "Not lying now, are we?"

"Not in the least and you know it," replied Aral stoutly. "I'm a servant of the Lady, you know, and She doesn't take well to liars. We've already been down to All Comers—you know, where anyone can come who needs healing and isn't afraid of students—and we worked together on two people."

"Any luck?"

"Yes, if I take your meaning aright," replied Vilkas with a brief smile. "One badly crushed leg, caught under a cart wheel, and one with a chest you could hear rattle from the next room. Not often we get such acute cases, but they served our purpose well."

"It was wonderful, Will," added Aral, her dark eyes shining. "Once we got them asleep, we combined our coronas and—it was—oh, sweet Shia, Will, it was amazing." Her voice grew thick with emotion. "That leg especially. I could—we could see the whole structure, and while Vil drew out all the bone fragments and put them back in place I knitted the muscles and the blood vessels back together. Together we cleansed the wound of dirt and infection, and I smoothed the skin. It was as if it had never happened." She laughed, delighted, and the joy in her smote me like a blow. My heart started pounding as she gazed up at me. "When we woke him he couldn't even speak at first. He just kept looking at his leg, and then he stood on it." She laughed. "I think if his clothes hadn't been bloodstained he would have thought it was a dream."

"I was prouder of the chest case," said Vilkas, his voice deep and slow and lazy. It pleased me to see him so relaxed. It didn't happen often. "We do work well together. Aral has a way of calming folk down and getting them to accept the healing that she ought to teach. The woman was nearly blue at the lips with it, and you know how those breathing cases panic."

"So would you if you were fighting for every breath," said Aral indignantly. "I had a bad chest infection once and it was terrifying. Don't dismiss people like that. As if you wouldn't panic if you couldn't breathe."

Vil bowed to her. "Quite right. Your pardon."

"Oh, get on with it," she said, flapping a hand at him.

"There's not much to tell, but it was harder work. The purely physical, the gross injuries are just a question of structure," said Vilkas, sounding briefly like Magister Rikard on a dull day. "It's the cause behind the infection that was such a challenge. She's one of those who gets a rattling chest every time she gets a cold. We didn't just clear up her lungs, we managed—"

"You managed," corrected Aral.

"We managed to find the underlying weakness in her lungs and repair it, though she's still got her cold." He grinned briefly. "She didn't seem to mind. And don't underestimate yourself, Aral. You were already there intuitively by the time I found it."

"So Magistra Erthik was pleased?"

"She will be when we tell her," said Aral, mischievously. "We finished ages ago and came up here to practice—other things."

"Magistra Erthik is always pleased when we find a reason to be elsewhere," said Vilkas. "She is a kind woman but mere is nothing more she can teach us."

"That's enough, Vilkas. There is no need to speak so of Magistra Erthik," I said sternly.

It was hard to object, though. He was right. Magistra Erthik was wise in her way and had a deep understanding of human nature, but she had never had much to teach Vilkas that he could understand. Still, Vilkas was too inclined to judge everyone and everything by his own impossible standards.

It was part of his great gift and part of his difficulty with life. He was the strongest Healer to appear before the Mag-istri in many a long year. Some said he would one day be as strong as Magister Berys himself, but that was because Vilkas had held back when he was tested. There was untapped power the limits of which no one knew inside that long, lanky frame. Aral and I were the only ones who had any idea of it and Vilkas had sworn us to silence. He'd had no need to do so, really, for we knew little beyond the fact of its existence.

"Quite right. My apologies, Will. Can I offer you a cup of chelan? It's bloody cold out there."

I grinned. "Then close the window, idiot. And yes, please, chelan would be a pure gift, I'm frozen."

Because I was the only outsider there, Vilkas sat back in his chair and closed his eyes, frowning with concentration.

The window creaked in on its hinges. Despite myself, I let out a low whistle. "By the Lady, Vil! You're getting good at that."

Aral let out a sharp laugh. "Ha! Good? He's getting insufferable. Just before you came in he lifted me off the ground and held me there for a quarter of an hour." She glowered at him.

"It was nowhere near that long, and you came to no harm. I don't see why you're upset," said Vilkas calmly as he made a pot of chelan for us all in the conventional manner.

"I don't appreciate feeling helpless, idiot," she replied. "Just let me catch you off guard and I'll keep you still as a stone for an hour, then you might get the idea."

"You might be able to, at that. Interesting thought. We should try it."

"Oh be quiet and make the chelan, thou great and powerful wizard."

"Honey for you, Will?" he asked. Their sniping was a good sign, it meant that all was well with them.

Vilkas and Aral—how to begin their story, they who have shaped so many stories since? At that time I had known them both for a little less than two years, ever since they first arrived at the College of Mages in Verfaren, young and fiery and green as grass in spring.

For a start, to look at, they were wildly mismatched. They could not have been more opposite in their appearance or in their approaches to life. Where he was quiet, solitary and withdrawn, she was all light and laughter, sound and movement. She spoke and acted according to her heart, he according to his head.

It was rather the friendship between them that was astonishing.

Aral was an attractive lass. She was on the short side of medium build, with long brown hair that curled and flowed like water when she let it escape from the braids wrapped around her head. Her deep brown eyes sparkled with the life in her, but she kept her generous curves hidden beneath what she called "work clothes" and what the rest of us called men's clothes—trews and a tunic that came below her knees and was belted loosely around her waist. I could understand her reasons, though. On those rare occasions when she wore a fitted dress and let her hair loose, she drew every man in the place—including me—to her like moths round a candle. Every man except Vilkas.

He was on the tall side but young enough yet that he might stretch even more, and so thin that he always looked even taller than he was. His skin was very pale and his hair black like a raven's wing, with the same blue depths, and his eyes when he unveiled them were a shocking brilliant blue. He wasn't handsome, or that's what the girls tell me, but he was certainly striking enough to look at. Soon after he had arrived he grew a neat beard and the picture was complete. A great Mage in the making. Several of the lasses tried for him, as they were honour-bound to do, but he showed no interest beyond friendship. Most of them found him too uncomfortable for that. Certainly it was the sense of mystery about him that drew Aral.

Not many knew it, but I had heard that of all the students she was nearest to Vilkas in strength and intellect. The Mag-istri had admitted her into the college only months after Vilkas had arrived. She worried them. Magistra Erthik told me once that the Magistri thought the arrival of two such powers would mean either internal strife or some dire threat to the world, and were relieved after two years to see that neither seemed to be the case. Shows how much they knew.

It might be that that was what started their friendship. She never expected any more of him than friendship—well, not at first—and he found in her kindness and a mind equal to his. After a little time, though, they could not be separated. It was never love in the usual sense—not on his part, anyway—though they had a partnership that most would envy. I think it was simply that they found in each other the presence of something they lacked. For her, a sharp mind equal to her own that would challenge her, power even greater than hers that was willing to work with her, a friend to rely on who, despite all the boundaries he put up to keep the world out, was always willing to help, and even let her come close on occasion. For him, it was the contact with a loving heart, one that listened and gave a damn about what he thought and felt and did with his life, a friendly hearth-fire at which to warm himself when the roiling power within threatened to overcome him.

We worried about Vilkas, Aral and I. In a college full of intense young men, Vil was unique. He was fond of drink and could usually hold it well, but Aral told me that one time, in his cups, he had let slip his defences, just once, just for a moment. It had left her shaking. She had not needed her corona or even simple Healer's sight to see what it was Vil was defending against. It was not that he was keeping the rest of the world out. He was defending the world from that which lived inside him. It terrified him, exhausted him, spurred him to learn and to control and to live life as full as he could, for he was convinced that he would never see thirty winters.

I for one was determined that he should live to be ninety, if only to prove him wrong.

Aral felt the same way, but lately for very different reasons. I knew the signs. She was young and passionate and spent most of her time with Vilkas, taking risks, working with their shared power. No wonder she fell in love with him. His complex intensity, which he shared only with her, must have been completely intoxicating for her, and their shared work was all their lives. It was hopeless, worse than, hopeless from the outset and even Aral knew it, but love, like weeds, grows where it will, and the mind has very little say in the matter.

I was their one friend, being just that bit older, and both together and on their own they came to me when they needed someone to talk to. I enjoyed their friendship, in fact I was honoured by it. When I realised the awful depth of the hole Aral was digging for herself I simply decided that come what may I would be there to help her out when she finally fell in, for so she would one day, and I would not leave her to be alone when that happened.

Of course, the fact mat I was deeply in love with her myself might have had something to do with it.

"What in the world are you thinking of, Will?" said Aral, smiling and handing me a cup of chelan. "You're miles away."

"Quite right, lass. I beg your pardon." I shook myself. "So," I said, sipping the hot chelan and enjoying the simple feel of the warmth in my throat. "Magistra Erthik has approved your activities, has she?" I smiled. "Somehow I find that hard to believe."

Vilkas lifted a corner of his mouth and Aral laughed. "Right as ever, Will," she said. "Vil and I only told her that we were going to try working together on a healing or two. Turns out that's her dearest cause."

"Indeed. And how long ago did you two first manage to work together?" I asked. I knew them well, these two. They would not lie, not outright.

Vilkas turned to Aral. "End of last summer?"

"Aye. Before harvest, in any case. Perhaps two moons after the solstice?"

"Sounds right."

Aral turned to me. "In any case, I can't believe you've come here simply to pass the time of a winter's day."

"I might as well. There's precious little to do in the garden this time of year, and my few simples are well stocked." That made me smile. A college of mages, the best healers in the world, and there was still a demand for the teas that would ease a sore throat, or the warming grease that kept old bones from seizing up in the frosty weather. More serious things were treated every day, but the abiding curses of humanity still included growing old and catching colds in the winter, and there was nothing any Healer had ever found that could slow down the one or hasten the cure for the other.

"You know, if either of you were wealthy I'd be well off forever from the blackmail. If Magister Berys ever found out what you were doing you'd be tossed out of the nearest window so fast you'd hit the ground before the glass did."

Aral instantly looked sombre. Vilkas snorted. "I'm not so sure. I swear, Will, I have caught traces of things in this college that should not be here, and the nearer you come to Magister Berys the thicker the smell. And have you noticed that he seems to have been reversing time lately?" Vil was now as serious as Aral. "It's true, Will, I swear it. I didn't know anyone could do that, demon master or not. He doesn't look much changed in passing, but the last time I saw him I swear he had tried to make himself look old. He stood straighter than I've ever seen him, there were traces of players' paint on his jaw and his hands no longer have wrinkled skin or age spots. There is something very, very wrong about Magister Berys."

It has been a day for news. I have just had word of Gorlak, followed not an hour later by news, at last, of the fate of the mercenaries I sent after Marik's daughter.

Ah, Gorlak. My apprentice, my assistant in conquest. The King of the East Mountains, with a large and powerful army, a brutish son, a thirst for ever greater power and a weakness for flattery. He had come to my hand willingly when I sought material assistance in my aim, for why use demons when there are men who will fight among themselves instead? Gorlak's was the only line of the Kings of Kolmar untouched by disaster, for only Gorlak had agreed to wage war on the other three as my proxy. I would leave him untouched, as I had not left the others; I would assist him as I could with information, silver and provisions, and he would conquer the other three Kingdoms for me.

Why should any man do so? For power, of course. I have no heir nor ever will, and Gorlak knows it. I have even sworn that should such a one be born he might kill it with impunity. No, I have promised Gorlak the thrones of the Four Kingdoms when I am done with them. And I am an old man, am I not? How long would he be forced to wait—ten years, perhaps fifteen?

I may have forgotten to tell him of my experiment with lansip, that was restoring my youth. Ah, well. I am sometimes forgetful. Doubtless he will learn of it in time.

For the moment, however, I knew that some weeks since he had set a muster for the northwest border of his Kingdom of the East, so very, very close to Eynhallow, the capital of the North Kingdom. It is well known that it would be insane to attack Eynhallow in winter, so of course the Northerners were completely unprepared.

I had already heard, through word passed by my sources in Marik's Merchant House of Gundar throughout Kolmar, that Gorlak had fallen with no preamble upon the fortified city of Eynhallow. King Karrick for all his age was no dotard, even taken unawares, and it took Gorlak nearly a full moon to take the city, but it is taken. It is mine now. Ancient Karrick, cut down in battle, was buried with honour in the chapel of his ancestors. It cost Gorlak nothing, and it kept the populace from rising against him.

One accomplished, two to follow.

Gorlak is no fool. He immediately fortified Eynhallow with his own men, and when the assembled army of the North, under Karrick's surviving generals, came upon him, he was ready for them. They were badly prepared and far fewer than they should have been. After only one more moon he has subdued the North and managed to keep word of it from reaching beyond the borders, for the most part.

However, a spy of the Silent Service has managed to find out this very day, as swiftly as the news has reached me, and it is known now to those who can pay for the information.

I am not overly concerned. It will be a good first test— what will happen to Gorlak, now that he has taken such a desperate and irreversible chance? If he survives until spring, the next step in the plan is Ilsa. It is a kingdom of farmers, sparsely populated, and unlike Karrick, King Ter-shet can barely remember his own name. The army of Ilsa, such as it is, has not been mustered for ten years. Those few with some claim to the throne have been hovering like carrion birds for years now, doing nothing. If they are cut down at the same time as Tershet, who will mourn? Not the people. The people don't give a fart who the king is, as long as the taxes are low and life goes on much as normal.

So much for Gorlak. He has done well and I am pleased. Several large boxes of lansip leaves are on their way to him, guerdon for his good work. It may not seem much, but if you assume that the old man you are secretly fighting for is going to leave all to you, it would be enough.

Gorlak, as I have said, does not know that I am now physically no more than thirty years of age. I have stopped taking the lansip essence, for having lost more than half my years I am well enough content. No more stiff joints, no more failing eyesight and diminished hearing, no more aches and pains to plague me. No more, no more of those times when the glass showed Death looming over my shoulder, far too near.

As for the mercenaries, I had word early from those I sent north, to the Sulkith Hills between Verfaren and Elimar: they found something curious but it was not what I sought. The folk in the villages reported seeing far more of the little useless dragons about the place than ever before. Dragons are not all that unusual, though they tend to be shy of contact with men. Try as I might, however, I cannot see how they, the small, common dragons, might be connected with the Kantrishakrim. It is said in some of the oldest histories that far back in time they were one people—it is possible, I suppose, in the same way that the Rakshasa came originally from one kind. The Rikti said "Kantrishakrim and not"—I can only assume that the stupid thing mistook a large number of the little dragons for one of its larger cousins. Therefore Lanen must have been protected by the other "not Kantrishakrim" in northern Ilsa. In proof thereof I have had no word from those I sent to that place until this morning. It seems that only one of those who were in my pay survived. He left the others before they were killed. That must be only the second clever thing he has ever done, for the fool only bothered to send me word written by a public scribe and sent by the Long Riders, and even that was done many se'en-nights after he must have known the fate of his comrades.

The Long Riders are swifter than normal travel, but I had paid the leader to send word far more swiftly by means of a device I had given him. It must have died with him.

The only other clever thing the survivor has ever done was not to sign a name to his missive, nor ever to touch it himself. I cannot trace him. Alas.