"I am here, Hadreshikrar, but I am not trapped. Though the world is so huge!" I could bear it no longer, I laughed for heart's ease. "It is like being a youngling again, looking up at the trees and being so close to the ground! I am alive, Shikrar, beyond hope, and the ferrinshadik is silent at last! Behold these hands, so dextrous, so gentle, and this supple body!" I tried to bow in the fashion of the Gedri, and only Lanen's strong arm held me up. She laughed as she caught me, helped me to balance, delighting in me.
I reached out my hand, so soft, so useless in the eyes of the Kantri, and touched her cheek.
The tips of my fingers (though I did not know the word then) were sensitive beyond belief. I shivered again with the sensation, not only on my hands but all over this new vessel of mine.
Lanen's smooth skin beneath my hand was like nothing I had ever known.
Now it was my turn to swear. "Name of the Winds, Lanen! I feel every breath of air on these hands. How could you bear to burn yours so terribly, no matter whose life you might save?'' I wondered at my new body, for suddenly it was hard to speak past a thickening in my throat. "Dear one, oh, forgive me, I never knew it was such agony for you."
She smiled and took my hands in hers. "Akor, dear heart, I grew up on a farm. My hands were covered with calluses— places where the skin had grown hard. It happens naturally, for protection, and it helped a little at first. You'll get them, too, given time." She blinked, surprised at her own words, and laughed. I rejoiced when I recognised it as the laugh of delight I had heard when first she set foot on the island of the Kantri. "Your outer form may have changed," she said, "but I would know you for Akor in ten thousand. Who else is so full of questions?''
"At least now I do not have to contort my tongue to speak them. The sounds make sense with a mouth like this."
I am afraid that my first thought was that a lot of other things did, too, but I managed not to say anything. ''I notice you can say my name now." I grinned. "I miss that little hiss you added—but what's done is done."
With that I turned to face Idai, who was still standing well away from Akor. "That's a human saying, lady, that you would do well to listen to. This thing has happened whether we like it or not, and denying your old friend will not unmake it." I did not want to be harsh, but why should this all be so much harder for her to believe?
And with the thought itself came the answer. Lanen, Lanen, she has loved him for a thousand years, and now he is gone from her people forever. I spoke more gently, ashamed of my show of temper. "Lady Idai, your pardon, but this is the word of the Wind of Change, here as we stand. For good or ill the world will never be the same for any of us. At the least, let we who are at the heart of the change keep friends for the sake of one another."
"Step back, child of the Gedri," she said to me. Akor seemed steady enough on his feet now, so I stood away.
She leaned down until her head was at his level, her eyes locked on his. "I once told Akhor my name, when I was young and foolish and hoped that he might one day come to love me."
Her voice shook me—she was speaking in the same tones she had used the night before, calling to Akor in his Weh sleep. The voice of a mourning lover.
"Do you know my true name, youngling, and where and when I told it to Akhor? For only he and I in all the world know that."
For the first time sadness appeared on that face. "Idai, Idai, of course I know your name. But how should I speak it before Shikrar and Lanen? I would not so betray your trust. In eight hundred years I have never breathed it to any but you, and then only twice. I do not have truespeech, Lady. What would you?"
"Tell me," she said, and I sensed a kind of reckless madness rising in her. "Speak it aloud, Gedri. Shikrar is Keeper of Souls, he will know it in time.
And surely you will not hesitate to speak it before your dear one."
I bowed. "He might not, lady, but I will not put you in such peril." I bowed to her. "I was promised by my father to demons ere ever I was born. If they ever catch up with me—I was in the power of one for a brief moment, and I had no strength to resist. If I don't know your true name, I can't tell it."
I turned and walked away, as far on the other side of the clearing as I could get, and stuffed my fingers in my ears like a child.
Shikrar, I was glad to see, was also quietly moving away.
"Very well, Iderrikanterrisai," I said, as softly as I might, "you told me your true name at moonrise on Midwinter's night the year I was come to my prime, the year I had seen my full two centuries and a half." I could not keep old sternness out of my voice when I added, "You said you had waited for me to achieve my majority, that you longed for me, and that now you might speak of it without rebuke. When I protested that I did not know you well enough, that I was still young and had given no thought to a mate, you gave me your name. I do not know why, though I have wondered about it often enough. Perhaps you meant to shame me into giving mine."
I bowed my head, thinking (irrelevantly) as I did so that the gesture had not the power it had in my former body. "Several times since then, for your constant friendship, I would have given you my true name in return," I said sorrowfully, "but I never have, for I would not encourage you falsely nor build hope where there could be none."
She stood in Shame and Sorrow, and all the years of goodwill between us rose up clear before me. ''I would give it to you now, if you will receive it," I said, reaching out slowly to touch her. "Or would that be injury added to insult?"
She did not speak. I lowered my voice. "Iderrikanterrisai, I am—I was—Khordeshkhistriakhor. I can think of no truer way to speak long friendship's love."
"Khordeshkhistriakhor, you honour me," she said at last, adding with the ghost of a hiss, "though a little late for my taste. But I cannot deny. You are Akhor."
The truth, though, was that I was not. When the true name is spoken, especially by one who has never said it before, there is a reaction in the hearer. I felt nothing.
"Lanen," I called. She strode quickly up to where we stood. "Call me by name."
She looked startled. "Do not fear," I said, "both Shikrar and Idai know now. But I must hear you speak it."
"Very well. Kordeshkistriakor," she said, and without thinking added in truespeech, ''dear one.''
I jumped. "I heard you!" I whirled to face Shikrar, very nearly falling over in the process. (I think Lanen was getting used to catching me.) "Shikrar, bespeak me I pray you!"
"Akhorishaan, what is it? Can you hear me?"
"Yes!" I cried, and felt for the first time the tears of joy I had seen Lanen shed. "Ahhh! My soul to the Winds, Shikrar, I hear you! I had feared it gone forever!"
Shikrar's mindvoice was full of quiet delight. "As did I, old friend. Perhaps in time you will be able to speak again. After all, Akhorishaan, you have not had much practice being human. '' I laughed again. ''But why did you have Lanen speak your name just now?" he continued aloud. "True, we here all know it, but surely there is still danger for you if—"
"No, my friend," I replied solemnly. "That was why I asked her to make the trial. It is no longer my name. I must find another."
There was a pause, then Shikrar said, too casually, "Perhaps Deshkantriakor?''
I stared at him. It took me a moment to react, then I started to laugh. He was hissing loudly, and behind him Idai, who obviously thought we were being far too irreverent, finally let go and sent a cloud of steam into the clearing as the laughter burst from her also.