Beyond hurt, beyond thought, beyond mourning, I went into oAkor's Weh chamber to bid him farewell. Evening was closing in rapidly, so I took with me a brand from the fire for light. I would see him clearly before I left, that when I returned somehow in fifty years I would remember.
Akor slept still, but as I approached I was shocked at the heat. He was hotter than a baker's oven, I could barely come nigh him. He did not lie still, but twisted and turned in his sleep—for he slept still—and as I watched he went rigid. It was terrifying, and all so strange. I went as close to him as I dared, for the heat, and spoke to him gently. I did not use his true name for fear he might rouse to pain, but spoke the soothing words one uses to a child. Eventually he relaxed. I was greatly relieved, but not for long. It soon happened again, and then again.
I had never seen Weh sleep, but Akor had said nothing of this. I had assumed it was like a human sleep. I might have been wrong, but he had seen me sleeping the other night. If sleep itself was so different for our separate Kindreds he would have mentioned it, I was certain.
No. This was wrong. For healing it was wrong.
Then he began to moan. It was a terrible sound, deep and rich even in pain but cracked as mud in the sun. For all my love I could not stay. I ran outside, calling I know not what.
Shikrar waited in the firelight and I fled to his side. "Shikrar!" I cried. "Oh, Shikrar, something is wrong. He's so hot, he was sleeping but now he cries out, it can't be right, I've never seen Weh sleep but this can't be right."
Shikrar was moving at a flat run by the time I finished speaking, with Idai on his heels. I followed after and found that even a Dragon of Shikrar's size could manage that small opening at need.
Inside the cave the brand I had brought in (and dropped) gave off light enough to see; but I could not feel its warmth, a tiny drop in the ocean of heat that ran in waves from Akor. He fairly glowed with it.
Idai called to him, aloud and in truespeech. But there was no answer, no response at all. She would not give up, calling again and again in the hope of some reaction. As we all watched, Akor's body was gripped by another spasm. He went rigid for what seemed like forever.
Finally, slowly, he relaxed.
Shikrar stood beside me, watching, looking very old indeed. I would know now without being told that he was the Eldest of them. His eyes in that cave were ancient and completely unreadable.
He turned to me and spoke gently. "What has happened here, Lanen? Did you call upon him in truespeech to rouse, or use his true name?"
"No," I said, managing to keep my voice more or less level. "I didn't use truespeech at all, and aloud I only spoke the words humans use to comfort their children in illness." I drew breath with difficulty; my chest was tight and I was so caught in deep sorrow I hardly cared about breathing. "Shikrar, this is wrong, isn't it? Akor never told me what the Weh sleep was like, but this must be wrong." I felt new tears run down to join the ashes of the old on my saltcrusted cheeks. He bowed his head down to my level and spoke softly. "Yes, child. It is wrong. In the healing of the Weh sleep we grow cold. He should be chill to the touch by now, and still as a stone."
I closed my eyes and bowed to Lanen as I saw the pain in her eyes, the echo of my own sorrow and Idai's despite her youth. Perhaps, I thought, our races are not so very different.
"Hadreshikrar, on your soul, I beg you, tell me the truth. Is he dying?''
I looked long on the sleeping, painracked body of the friend of my heart. I could hardly bear to hear Idai; she still called to Akhor, but quietly now, as though she could not stop herself. Her voice was a mourning lover's.
Without turning back to Lanen I answered her honestly. ''I do not know, lady. I have never seen this before."
Idai eventually fell silent. She turned from Akhor with bowed head and left the cave without glancing at either of us. After a time I nodded to Lanen that she, too, should take the chance for air untainted by Akhor's pain. I saw that she had begun to flinch every time Akhor groaned, saw her muscles twitch in sympathy with his, and fresh before my eyes rose a clear vision of my own watch on my beloved Yrais as she had neared death.
Without speaking her eyes commanded me to call out to her if there was any change; without words I swore I would. She tore her glance away from Akhor, put on her cloak against the cold, and went out wrapping her arms around herself to keep out a cold far sharper and a thousand times more bitter.
I found I was thirsty again after the heat of the cave. I walked over to the pool at the edge of the forest, my way lit by the bright moonlight. It was only so helpful. I could see no further than my own pain, I sought only a moment's relief from cool water.
Idai was there before me, on the far side of the pool, drinking in the manner of beasts. Her long tongue flickered in and out of her mouth, hissing,in the cool water. I knelt and drank double handfuls; I was parched after that long time in such heat. The cool water felt good on the new skin of my poor hands.
When I looked up she was staring at me through the tree-shadowed darkness. I could not tell anything about her thoughts, she was just staring, her eyes gleaming in the filtered moonlight.
"You are so vulnerable when you drink, like all beasts," she said. The tone of her truespeech was flat; like me, she had gone beyond caring. ''Lanen, do you know what is happening to Akhor?"
''No, Lady Idai. I would give my life, I swear, would it help him, but I don't know what is wrong or what I could do.'' My own mindvoice shocked me, it was low and as flat as Idai's. "Why? Do you know?"
''I am not certain,'' she said, ''but I have an idea.
''For love of the Lady, tell me! Is there aught we may do to save him? I beg you, tell me your thoughts, even an idea is more than I have now.''
"How well do you love him?" she asked me.
"As I love my life, Idai, I swear it on my soul," I said. "In that cave lies my dearest dream of love and all my life to come, suffering torments. If I can help him I will, nor ever count the cost.''
"Then renounce him," she said coldly.
"What!"
"Renounce him. Go into the clearing and call upon the gods, ours and Iyours, and swear on your soul to the Winds that you do not love him. Perhaps then he may live.''
I did not move. I was beyond surprise, I had no more capacity for it, but I did not understand.
"How should that help? It would be a lie. I do love him, as much as you do.''
"How could you so?" she hissed at me, and her coldness was turned in an instant to raging fire. "I have known him all his life long, full a thousand winters! He is blood of my blood, soul given wings and fire. How dare you say your love is like to mine! A few paltry days you have known him, hardly a breath of time between you! How dare you!"
I knelt on one knee to her on the cold ground, partly out of respect, partly out of weariness. "Lady, I honour you. I see that the very depth of your love is pain to you now—but still I dare to say I love him as you do.'' She looked as if she were going to spring at me. To be honest, I didn't much care. "Lady Idai, a life is a life. I have spent mine longing for your people and dreaming hopeless dreams in the dark to keep myself alive. Akor is those dreams made flesh, the summit of all my life—but more, infinitely more, he is himself. And I love him with all my power. If you want to kill me for it, then do so and welcome.''