I swayed as I stood and said, "Please, is there anything to eat here? Goddess, I don't even know what you eat. I'm starving."
Shikrar brought his head down to my level and spoke quietly. "We eat meat and fish, littling. Can you eat of the beasts your people brought with you?"
"Everything but bones, hide and hair," I answered. "But I don't think I could catch one now, or butcher it either."
Shikrar hissed softly. "Sit you down and rest, lady. You have the soul of my people, and I can almost forget that you have not the body. How often do your people require food?''
"At least once a day—two or three times is best," I said, sinking down beside the fire, and despite my hunger and fatigue had the satisfaction of seeing a Dragon stand in what was obviously Astonishment.
"Rest now," Shikrar repeated, recovering. "Kédra will keep watch over Akor, Idai shall watch over you, and I will bring food." He bowed, that graceful sinuous Dragon bow, and took off at once. I managed to watch Kédra going into the Weh chamber, and muttered a kind of thanks to Idai (despite her obvious annoyance at being made my guardian) before sleep took me.
I had hoped to find rest in sleep, but it was not to be. From the instant my eyes closed I was assailed by dreams. The first was lovely, to begin with. I am almost sure that Shikrar's words caused it, but I saw myself as a Dragon, with a hide of gleaming gold and a soulgem of adamant. I felt even more truly the wings I had been gifted with in spirit during the Flight of the Devoted. I flexed them, I learned to fly, and in great joy lived out my days as one of the Greater Kindred. Akor and I lived a long and wondrous life together, we had four younglings and flourished with them—but for such a sweet dream it had a most dreary ending. It showed our deaths as a gentle passing in sleep and the burning of the body from within, as Akor had described it to me. But here, through the soft ashes where our two soulgems lay gleaming, I
saw that which I had seen only for a few moments on the battlefield: the endless flicker of the soulgems of the Lost, unredeemed, unrestored, as though Akor and I had never lived.
I woke then, crying out, but Idai was there and her real (and grudging) presence consoled me.
I slipped again into sleep. I walked again in the same dream, but this time it was the other side of the coin—Akor appeared to me again as the tall, silver-haired, green-eyed man of my imagination. Our lives were hard, full of wandering and adventure, danger and darkness set against our joy in each other and in our children—but when this dream ended and we were laid to rest I saw a great number of the Kindred flying above our graves, more than could possibly be born in so short a time as I would live, and I knew that somehow the Lost had been restored. I came slowly awake, knowing in the depths of my soul that I was being given a choice—but I forgot about it as soon as I was fully conscious, for Kédra was standing above me speaking my name softly, and there was a glorious smell on the breeze of roasting meat nearby. It was late afternoon. Idai and Shikrar were speaking together in low voices by the pool.
As I ate, Kédra would tell me no more than that Akor was now deep in the Weh sleep, and that he himself was about to leave. There was much to be done now, not least of which was the restoration of the soulgems of the Lost to their rightful place in the Chamber of Souls, and he alone would Shikrar trust with such a task.
"Should not Shikrar be going into the Weh sleep himself? That wound looked terrible," I said as softly as I could.
"It will happen soon enough, but for now he has chosen to remain. Neither he nor Idai seems affected by the Weh as yet."
"Oh, Kédra," I said, longing to reach out to him, wishing for an instant that he were human enough to hug. "I wish you could stay longer, though I would not interfere with your duty."
He bowed. "I would if it were possible. My heart is heavy with this sorrow, lady, and I ache for your own."
I bowed and held out my hands to him, futile and senseless gesture though it was. "Kédra, dear friend, I do not know the words to thank you deeply enough for all you have done. I—without you—''
"I have but begun to return that which you have given me. Farewell, Lady Lanen. Go with the love of me and mine," he said, and slowly, gently, leaned down and brushed the end of his snout against my hands.
I could not speak. I held my hands palms together, hallowed by his touch, and watched as he climbed into the darkening sky.
When he was gone I went to the pool for water, to drink and to wash. Idai and Shikrar, standing at the water's edge, fell silent as I drank.
"Very well," I said, when I had drunk my fill. I looked up at the two of them and sighed.
"Now, what exactly is it that you aren't telling me?"
Shikrar sighed and bowed to me. "Truly, there is no good reason for our silence, save that we would not burden you beyond your strength. Lady, I fear—it is most likely that—'' and I, who thought myself beyond astonishment, was amazed to hear Shikrar's voice break on his words. I did not know then that Shikrar had lost bis beloved soon after Kédra was bom, that he knew well the pain that he spoke of.
Idai finished it for him. "May I bespeak you, Lanen?" Her mindvoice was harsh but at least for the moment not angry. "I know we have spoken already in truespeech, but I would begin again. I am called Idai. I have not much of your language."
"Do and welcome. Please, Lady Idai, what is it that so grieves Shikrar that he cannot speak?" I felt my throat tighten and was glad that we used the Language of Truth, for I was suddenly aware of an endless river of tears waiting to break forth. "Please, I beg you, lady. I would know the truth."
"It is Akor. He has told you of the Weh sleep?"
''A little. He said that when you are wounded it comes upon you.'' Just tell me, Idai, quickly, I thought to myself, forgetting that she would hear.
''Very well, Lanen. Akor may live or he may not. If he does not, death will claim him soon. If he survives"—and for an instant I heard her mindvoice break as mine had—"child, his wounds will take long and long to heal. Some half century, at the least. I do not know how many years you have nor how long you may expect to live, but I know that at the best you will be in your age when he awakes.''
So—my heart was numb—so either my beloved would die soon, or he would live, but not awaken whole and strong until I was in my seventies, most of my life already spent. Some half century at the least. If I even lived that long.
''Forgive us, lady, that we pierce so brutally to the heart of the matter, but you needed to know, and we have little time," said Shikrar sadly. "The Weh has taken Akor, it will take us all if we do not leave swiftly." He paused to lick at the edges of his own wound, which had begun to bleed again around the patch of gold after his exertions in bringing me meat. "It may be that I shall be taken by the Weh in any case, but not here."
I was surprised at my own calmness. Too much reality will do that. There is a strange state beyond mourning in which life is as it is, and we do what we must.
"Can you stay long enough for me to say farewell?" I asked, my voice calm.
"Certes, lady," replied Shikrar, bowing formally. I was briefly surprised at his words, but reminded myself that he was Eldest of a people that lived twice a thousand years. The surprise should rather be that, speaking my language at all, he should most often use words known to me instead of those used by my distant ancestors.