I shivered. I felt with every mote of my being that something astounding was at hand. The world seemed to shrink, and for that time all of existence consisted of Lanen, Salera and me. Lanen was shaking as I was, a swift internal shiver that brought a blush to her cheeks and fire to her eyes.
I tried to bespeak Salera again, almost out of habit—it is the way my people communicate—but Lanen stopped me after the first word. "No, Varien. That is too far ahead. Start further back." She indicated the raised lump on Salera's faceplate. "Start here." I reached out to touch Salera's face. She stood bravely still as my skin touched her armour. A swift jangling ran up my arm and I withdrew my hand instantly. "There is something there, you have the right of it—but I do not understand, I touched her faceplate before and there was nothing—" I began.
"You weren't wearing your soulgem then," Lanen reminded me quietly. "Could it be as simple as that?"
"As what? The touch of my hand on her face affects us both, but—"
"No. Not with your hand," she said. Her voice was strange and filled with awe, almost as if she spoke for another in that strange close-focused world that held only the three of us. "So simple. If this works—"
"Lanen?" I asked.
"Your soulgem," she said, placing her hand delicately on Salera's neck. "Varien, touch that raised part of her face with your soulgem, while you are wearing it."
"That is a gesture between parent and child only, Lanen," I said.
"Yes, I know," she said calmly. She sounded so certain.
I was trembling so that I could barely stand but I did as she said. I leaned over in the intimate contact that is normally restricted to mothers and younglings, and touched with my soulgem the place where hers should be. Again, the contact all but set off sparks, but—
There was nothing. I sighed and dropped my head against hers in sorrow, my soulgem still against the place where hers was not. So near, so near, my beautiful cousin, I thought sadly. Alas, I had such hopes of this meeting! Perhaps in another year, or another ten, or—
And then Lanen, who was touching Salera, put her hand on my shoulder to comfort me.
A raging fire swept through me in the instant, all-encompassing but not destructive. It roared through my mind, dizzying, spinning, as thoughts and words and ideas—as if they were looked at and recognised and returned. I was dizzy on the instant, so I focused as I always had—through my soulgem, which still touched Salera. The fire gathered itself from all the corners of my mind and sprang like flame from breath to kindling, through my soulgem to her. In moments I felt the swift heat returning to me and had to stand away from her.
It was too late. The hard covering of the raised lump was burning, and Salera was crying out in pain. Will, Vilkas and Aral were suddenly with us—though they might have been standing near the whole time for all I knew. Will put his arms about Salera, not knowing what else to do in the face of that dreadful burning armour.
Vilkas was suddenly blazing even in the midday sun. Aral stood beside him not nearly as bright until she drew forth from the pouch about her neck the soulgem of that lost Kantri. The instant it touched her skin she cried out and took Vilkas's hand. Together they reached out to heal, to save Salera from the burning, to quench the fire around—
Around her soulgem.
The burning stopped once the new soulgem was free of its prison. The Healers sealed the raw skin around it and took away her pain. I was astounded that they could think of such a thing. I was also astounded that their healing worked on the Kantri, but I did not think of that until long afterwards.
We all gazed in awe, in disbelief at the gleaming gem, bright blue in the sun like Salera's eyes, as she turned from us to look directly at Will. He was standing behind, he had only heard her cries, and could do nothing but stand by her and hold her against the pain of the fire, as he had done from the first.
He gasped, amazed, when he saw the brilliant blue in the centre of her copper face. She turned to face him, sat up on her back legs, looked into his eyes, and said softly, "Ffa-therrr."
"Salera," he replied, his voice breaking over her name. Without more words she rested her great head on his shoulder and he put his arms about her neck.
I could have beheld them thus for hours, but I was not allowed. Something nudged my arm.
I turned to find a creature much smaller than Salera gazing up at me. He was grey as steel, with a fine healthy sheen to his scales. He nudged my arm again.
I turned to where Lanen stood gazing in rapt astonishment at Will and Salera. "Your pardon, dearling," I said smiling. "I think our task is not quite over."
She looked around and down at the importunate youngling, then around the high field, full to overflowing with the Lesser Kindred, then back at me and grinned. "Thank the Lady we ate, Varien. I've a feeling it's going to be a long day!"
The hours swept by in a confused swirl of minds and fire. Now that I knew something of what was coming, I was better able to allow the questing soul to see my thoughts and take what it needed of language and some basic learning. In the hours that followed I became reasonably adept at it. We also found that if Lanen was touching us both before I let my soulgem rest on the littling's faceplate, it was less of a shock for all of us.
Lanen and the others forced me to stop at intervals to rest, to eat, but I could no more sleep than I could deny my aid to any of these who asked it of me. It struck me in those brief moments of rest that this must be some jest of the Winds. I was very much aware of the fact that I was giving to these wondrous, gleaming new creatures that which I no longer possessed myself.
Did I envy them? Deeply.
Was I jealous of them? Completely and absolutely.
Did I ever consider not assisting them? Not for a single instant. My jealousy and my envy were genuine and I could not ignore them, and I did not, but they were overwhelmed entirely, as a candle by the dawn, by the vast joy that lifted my heart each time a new soulgem was revealed. Ruby, sapphire, opal, topaz yellow, emerald green like my own, as various as the colours and temperaments of the creatures who now bore them.
The only other thing I remember happened not long after the sun had gone down. We were resting for a few stolen moments and the moon was high now and bright, when of a
sudden the new-made ones took to the air with breaths of flame and danced aloft in the moonlight, singing their delight, their joy and wonder with voices never used before.
That moment is graven in my heart forever. Come death, come life, come sorrow deep as time or joy to move mountains, still the vision of that bright young race aloft for the first time, rejoicing in air with the brilliant moonlight flashing from their soulgems like so many flying stars—the piercing beauty of that moment is mine forever.
And then another importunate head touched me on the shoulder and we all were needed again. At times I felt every one of my thousand years, like an ancient tree giving life by its death—at times I was renewed, body and spirit, by the gratitude and the honour done me by the new-found souls.
I did not notice time or light, cold or weariness. I only know that by the time the last soul found its freedom and had bowed its thanks to me, before turning rejoicing to its kindred, true dawn was upon us. I looked up, seeing for the first time since—"Name of the Winds, Lanen, has it been so long?"
"Since what?" she asked wearily.
"Salera was brought to herself just past midday—"
"Yesterday," sighed Lanen, and she smiled at me. "You have been like a man possessed, my heart. And quite right." She looked out, as I did, in wonder at the first day of the new lives of the Lesser Kindred. "While one soul ached in silent darkness, we could not stop," she whispered.
I stood and stretched, stiffness catching me in a hundred places as I sought to stand upright. Lanen laughed, a clear laugh straight from the heart, and I joined her. There was no other way to release the soul-deep wonder, the sheer glory of it all. We laughed and kissed and hugged and laughed again, until the very stones rang with it.