She tugged ever so lightly at me. I knew how it would go if I didn't move. "Very well! I must pay my shot and get my cloak, then we'll be on our way." She knew the tone of voice and let me loose as soon as I stood up. I shooed her out the door—she knew what I meant and left—and I turned to the others.
"I don't know where you're bound, friends, but I'm going home. I've just been told." I grinned. "She's a good persuader."
Vilkas and Aral stood as well, and Gair came over. No idiot, my friend Gair. He knew the signs and he'd seen Salera leave. I expect the sight of her had kept him distant, true enough—Gair is not made to deal with wonders, or even with beasts other than horses and dogs—but once she was gone he made sure he was in amongst us.
"Was all to your liking?" he asked briskly, not letting anyone answer. "Good, good, I'm glad."
Rella was not best pleased. "We've paid, master," she said.
"Not for a ruined mattress and sheets," he replied promptly. "And Will, I can't let you have this on account I'm afraid. I'll need silver."
Damn. I'd forgotten I had not a single copper piece with me. Just as well that Lanen took over.
"Of course you will, master innkeeper," she said. "That is my concern, for it was I who ruined your goods. Now come, let us not disturb the others ..." She drew him away, her arm around his shoulder.
"You wouldn't believe that girl had never done a thing outside farm work until the autumn," said Jamie, with a kind of awed pride on his face. "She's amazing. You mind out," he said, turning to Varien. "She'll have you wrapped around her little finger if you're not wary."
"Alas, Master Jameth, I am already lost," said Varien, gazing after Lanen.
It takes all kinds, I suppose, I remember thinking. You must remember I didn't know her then, and she wasn't that much to look at. Certainly it was good of her to pay for our bed and board, but I was going to have a word with Vilkas. How did he expect to live on the nothing we had brought with us? The woman had been near death, he could have charged her a few silver coins at least for his pains!
Salera called from outdoors, a kind of half-roar. I hurried to collect my cloak from the room I'd slept in. Lady knows I had nothing else to carry.
When I returned everyone was outside. Jamie and Rella had gone to saddle the horses, and it turned out that Lanen had paid for our room and board, arranged food for the journey for both parties and had purchased blankets for Vil and Aral and me, which she had rolled and made ready to tie on behind various saddles so we wouldn't need to carry them. I was embarrassed and offended and grateful all together— and if you don't know what I mean then you've never been poor—but when I tried to thank her she shook her head and said, "Oh, no, Master Willem, take no offense I pray you. These are in the nature of a bribe, pure and simple. The four of us beg your leave to accompany you and Salera wherever you may be bound, and in earnest of our good faith we offer food, and blankets that are soon going to smell very strongly of horse."
I stared at her. Jamie was right, this one was cut from a different cloth. I blinked.
"Well, Master Willem? Will you allow me and mine to travel with you for a time?" she asked politely, but her eyes were twinkling. There was a smile deep down in there somewhere.
I couldn't help it, I grinned. "Caught you, Mistress Lanen! What would you do if I said no?"
She burst out laughing. "Follow you anyway!"
"Of course you would." With that expression on her face she looked half her age, a happy girl with a passing resemblance to my little sister. "Come then and welcome," I said, and my last doubts about these strange folk fell away. "My place is small, but it's a roof and four walls and I'm sure we'll manage somehow. I live about four days' easy walk up in those hills. Let us be off, before this wretched child knocks me off my feet again," I said, for now that we were outside Salera was stood beside me, nudging me with her head. "You're not very subtle, are you?" I said, patting her neck and murmuring happily to her. "I'm so pleased to see you, littling."
When the horses came up they had to be convinced about Salera. Her kind were uncommon enough that they had never encountered one, and there was a certain amount of snorting and backing and a kick or two, but Jamie knew what he was doing. Salera, too, did what she could to calm them, standing still to be seen and smelled.
"A moment, Will, of your kindness," said Varien, when the horses were calmer. He had kept quiet ever since I'd said that about Salera saying her name, but it was obviously something he wanted to get clear before we got moving. He came up right close to Salera, staring for all he was worth. She stared back at him. "You said she spoke to you?"
"She said her name," I said, proud of her. "Clear as day."
It was a most peculiar setting: a bright copper dragon with eyes as blue as the spring sky above, sitting with furled wings on the road outside a wayside inn listening intently to a man who looked unsettlingly like her, though I couldn't tell you how exactly.
Varien came around to stand before her, with Lanen right behind him. He bowed, then tapped himself on the chest, clearly indicating himself. "Varien," he said, and then he pronounced it a little differently. "Varian. I am Varian." He held out his hand, indicating her.
She started trembling. I'd never seen her do that. Everyone else came near, sensing that something important was happening.
Varien tried again. "Varian. Varian," he said slowly, tapping his chest. Then he pointed at me. "Will. Will."
She made that sound then, the one I had always assumed was just noise.
Hooirrr.
I stood there stunned. Will you idiot, she's been talking all these years, you just never understood, idiot, idiot! If you didn't have lips, and if your tongue wasn't made to form an "1" behind your teeth, Hooirrr was as close to Will as you could hope to get.
Salera had got up on all fours. Her wings were rustling in her agitation and her tail was twitching like a furious cat's, but her eyes were locked on the figure before her.
"Again," said Lanen softly, her own eyes shining. "One more time, love."
Varien pointed to himself once more, slowly, and I noticed he was trembling as well. "Varian. I am Varian." To me. "Will." To her, and waited.
"Ssarrairrah," she said, triumphantly. "Sssarraaairrah!" she cried again, and rising on her back legs she flapped her wings and sent a quick breath of fire into the air. When she came back down she butted her nose against me so hard I nearly fell over and said "Hooirrr." Then she touched her nose against his chest and said—well, the first sound was a hiss between closed teeth that was only faintly like an "f," but the rest came out very like "Hffarrriann."
Varien fell to his knees; Lanen, behind him, had her hands on his shoulders, and they both were staring openmouthed and wide-eyed.
"Speech and reason, speech and reason," my thoughts kept repeating. "Lanen, that's it, the mark of a true people, speech and reason. She understands what a name is, knows her own, has—Name of the Winds, she has spoken mine. Lanen, Lanen, she is—they are—"
"They are their own people, aren't they?" Lanen replied. For once she was the calmer of the two of us. Her hands on my shoulders were all that kept me upright. "Ready to burst into full life." Her mindvoice faltered as she added, "They are become a new race, Varien. They are no longer the mindless beasts the Kantri believed them to be. The Lady knows I rejoice for this glorious child and her people, but alas for the Lost!"
"Lanen?"
"I am such a fool, my love. I had wondered in my deep heart if—"
"If the Lesser Kindred could be reunited with their soul-gems to restore the Lost. I know, my dearest, and if you are a fool I have been one for hundreds of years, for I had thought it too. But if they are all as she is, they are a breath away from full sentience."