I laughed. What more did I have to lose? "To the Hells with that. Come, Akor, let's go in. Or let me down and I'll go in myself."
He lowered his head to the ground and I slid off. "Go before, dearling,'' he said, turning to me with a smile in his voice and his soulgem gleaming like emerald fire. "I shall come behind and keep all harm from you. Let us tell the Council ourselves what others have not managed to say.''
I paused and gingerly took out my boot knife. It was the only weapon I had about me.
"Shikrar, you who have so gallantly fought for us, will you do me another kindness? Will you take this? I would not enter the Council chamber armed."
He held out his great clawed hand and I put my tiny knife in it. Again he bowed. "I shall keep it with the treasures of my people," he said, strangely moved. "So valiant a lady and so courteous, I do not wonder Akor feels kinship with you. And despite my anger just now, I do not forget that I owe to you the lives of my dear ones. In the teeth of the Council I stand with you."
Despite the reminder of teeth I grinned at him. "Well, that's two," I said gaily, and started down the corridor. Nothing could stay me, not the weakness of my so-recent brush with death (which yet affected me), not my new-healed hands that still smarted though the bandages had been removed, not the Council's sentence of death, not even walking down a dimly lit underground corridor towards the hostile unknown. A kind of wild exultation had gripped me.
I trusted in Akor and in Shikrar's goodwill, and in whatever force had brought me to this place at this time. The Winds and the Lady were behind me and fear, I thought, was far away.
The corridor seemed endless, twisting and doubling on itself, but there was always at least a little light ahead, and after some time I heard the low hum of deep voices in a large chamber.
The entrance came suddenly, a blazing opening in the darkness, filled with firelight and Dragons. I stood at gaze, staring at an assembly I had seen so many times in my dreams but never hoped to see in real life. For a moment I wondered at the firelight and the torches that lined the walls, for Akor had told me that his people saw well enough in darkness not to need much light; then I realised that in this formal setting they must be able to see the Attitudes assumed by all who spoke, and that fire was sacred.
Akor had said their numbers were dwindling, but it was hard to believe that in the face of a sea of Dragons. The fear I had hoped to avoid rose up in me then, when I saw them all assembled. How dared I hope to stand and defy them? The lightest breath from the least of them and I would be a memory. Throughout that vast hall they stood and sat and lay, conversing, arguing, a great patchwork of all sizes and all colours of metal, from steel blue and leaden gray through bronze and brass, copper and dull gold. But none like Akor, none silver.
I remembered his words. My birth was seen as an omen, though what it portends none can say.
This seemed as likely as any. Akor's voice whispered in my head, ''Courage, dear heart. Now we are here, let us do what we have come to do.''
It was kind of him not to speak of my fear.
At the far end of the chamber there was a half-round dais. as it were in the bottom of half of a large bowl, and on it sat a Dragon with a skin of copper bright as a new-minted coin. I gritted my teeth and aimed straight for the front of the dais, but I was overtaken by Shikrar, who hurried ahead of me and started to speak.
I had only ever heard a few words of the Old Speech. It was the first tongue of all the peoples, the language of Dragons, and though it was in aeons past the basis of my own language there were few words left of it in common speech. The ancient name I took as my own, Kaelar, the Wanderer, was from a ballad. Songs and places alone kept even the memory of the Old Speech among men, but for all the time and distance the sounds were somehow familiar, and hearing Shikrar speak I felt I had stepped back in time. The words hovered just on the edge of meaning. I caught one or two, and felt that I was near as a breath to understanding all he said.
When the world was younger and the last of the Trelli but lately departed, our two Kindreds lived in harmony.
Akor stood behind me, his massive bulk shielding me from the view of most of the others.
Few, it seems, had seen me come in, for which small mercy I was deeply thankful.
"What is he saying, Akor?" I whispered.
''He is calling for attention, saying that another has come with words for the Council. It is brave of him, dearling; by our laws you have no voice here. And we are a people of law.''
Even in his mouth it sounded sour. "Are you indeed?" I asked, a ghost of my mad bravery lingering. "Well, now I'm here I must do what I can. I've dealt with legal-minded Merchants before."
''Lanen, my people are not Merchants!'' he said, sounding shocked.
I would have answered him, but Shikrar stepped back and bowed to us. "Let you speak now for your lives, my friends, and may the Winds guide your words and your thoughts," he said in Common Speech. He moved then to the back of the dais to sit beside the copper-coloured one.
"It's time, dear heart," I said quietly.
"Yes. They are expecting me alone to stand and speak. Shall we go?"
"Age before beauty." He stared at me. "You first," I said, smiling. "I'd hate to be fried on sight by accident."
"I see. You would rather it be done intentionally,'' he said as he stepped gracefully up. It wasn't fair, really, I didn't mean to be laughing when I clambered up the tall step to stand beside him on such a solemn occasion. But it did make for a hell of an entrance.
I gathered later from Shikrar that they had expected to find a demure, silent soul, obedient and willing, waiting for their verdict and generally thick as a plank. Lady knows why. Just because I had been an idiot in love didn't mean I was stupid altogether.
"My lords and ladies!" I called out, in my best horse-fair voice.
That got their attention. The sound nearly deafened me. The Great Hall was wonderful, it magnified my voice so well I could speak almost in normal tones. That yell had been something, for a human.
''I greet you all, in the name of my ancestors and my people. I am called Lanen Maransdatter of the Gedrishakrim, and I greet you as my brothers and sisters in the name of the Winds and of the Lady."
Dead silence.
Well, even in my dreams it hadn't been easy.
''Lanen, few of my people understand your tongue. Shall I translate for you ?''
''Yes, Akor, please, but only if you promise to say exactly what I do. Some of this is not going to be pleasant, and you must not soften it. We know the tones of voice are roughly the same, I'm sure they'll get the general idea."
''I'm sure they will,'' he replied dryly. ''You would not care to reconsider, would you, dearling? Thus far we have merited only a swift death.''
''Perish the thought,'' I said, responding in truespeech. The fey mood was still upon me. "I'd hate to disappoint them. They won't have had this much fun in years. Now stop distracting me and start translating.''
The response was gratifying, but I must admit it was my turn to be surprised. I had forgotten that they could all hear my truespeech, it now seemed so natural to use it with Akor.
"Why have you waited so long to speak in the Language of Truth? Or had you nothing true to say?" sneered a smaller, bronze-hued Dragon.
''So now you can hear me. Why didn't any of you answer when I called you from the Boundary?" I shot back. Somehow rudeness from the Kantri snapped me back into that anger and exultation that had brought me storming in. "Could you not admit that I have the gift you value so highly? That I am not Silent, not Gedri in that sense, but a creature of standing equal to your own? Or did you think I could lie even in this language?"