"How old were you then?" I asked, teasing him. "You told me you had practiced landing on two feet, but you never said I word about this."
He paused a moment, smiling at old folly. "I was past my majority, but not long past, when I first tried. I was in my sixth kell that first time, and just over a hundred years from my ceat when I admitted defeat." He turned and smiled at inc. "It was hard to surrender such a desire, my heart, but I was nearly my full size by then and hard-pressed to explain to Shikrar why I found it so difficult to walk for a month. It hurt terribly, I was an idiot to try."
"What's a ceat?" I asked.
"For that matter, what's a kell?" asked Jamie.
"A kell is a hundred winters," said Varien, gazing now at the flames, his voice calm and peaceful in the firelit darkness, "and a ceat is the halfway point in the lives of the Kantri, when we have lived twice the time of our majority and half the full span of our lives. It is a time for celebration, for noting the prime of one's life and rejoicing in it. A ceat is ten kells, a thousand winters. My own ceat passed just twelve—no, thirteen winters gone now."
Jamie swore vigorously, and though the firelight obscured his face I heard the strange note in his voice as he spoke. "Are you seriously trying to tell me you're more than a thousand years old?" I couldn't tell if it was fear or disbelief or anger, or some mixture of the three.
Varien, unmoved, said, "I speak only the truth in this, Jameth of Arinoc. I have seen a thousand and thirteen winters, and were I still of the Kantri I should hope to see yet a thousand more. We are a very long-lived people; if nothing hurries it, many of us can hope to see the turn of our second ceat ere death comes to claim us."
"Damnation!" cried Jamie. He could sit no longer; he sprang from his chair and began to pace the room—away from the fire and Varien—then all in a moment turned and , came straight to me, ignoring Varien altogether. He stood before me, his face to my amazement a mask of hurt. "La-nen, damn it, what has come over you? Why are you two doing this? You know there is nothing I would condemn, nothing I could ever deny you. Why invent so mad a tale? Do you not trust me to love you after all these years?" His voice thickened. "Have you gone so far from me, lass, in so short a time?"
I stood to face him, put my hands on his shoulders and looked him straight in the eye. Well, looked down. I have been taller than Jamie since I was twelve, but suddenly he seemed small and fragile. That came as a shock.
"Jamie, my hand on my heart and my soul to the Lady, I swear, I give you my solemn oath this is not a tale. It is the exact truth," I said. The look of doubt and betrayal in his eyes was terrible to bear. "Do you think I don't know it sounds insane?" I said angrily. "I haven't gone mad, and you know me too well for me to ever try to lie to you. It's all true, Jamie. All of it. If I hadn't been there I wouldn't believe it either, but I swear on my soul it's true. I first met Varien when he was Akor, the Lord of the Kantri, the True Dragons. I loved him even then, knowing that nothing could ever come of such a love. I saw him fight a demon master and I saw the terrible wounds that tore him apart. Sweet Lady, I saw bone through one of them." I shuddered and passed my hand over my face, trying to dismiss the vision of Akor so horribly wounded by my own father, Marik. "Shikrar, Kedra and Idai carried him to his chambers, and there he—well, we thought he died, and with his friends I mourned him. I myself found Varien, as he is now, mere hours after the death of my beloved Akor, naked as a newborn and lying on the ashes of the dragon he had been. His soul is the same, his heart, his mind, his memories—it is only his body that has changed." Jamie stared at me, still hurt, still unbelieving. I turned away and sighed, then realised I couldn't help the half-grin that crossed my face as I sat down again with a thump. "Hell's teem, Jamie. I can't blame you. If I'd only heard the story, I'd think I was mad as well, or lying."
Jamie turned then to Varien, who stood silent, gazing still into the flames. "Well, Varien?" said Jamie, his hurt turned now to cold anger. "I will have it now, whatever it may be. Murderer, thief, demon master, penniless singer, mercenary, whatever you are—I charge you by your soul, by your hope of heaven, by your love of my daughter and as you hope to see the Lady's face on the day of your death, once and for all, tell me who and what you are."
"And why should you believe me this time?" asked Varien, beginning to grow angry in his turn.
"Because I will not ask again," said Jamie, staring straight into Varien's eyes.
To my surprise and Jamie's, Varien bowed low. "Very well, Jameth of Arinoc. My soul to the Winds, by all I hold sacred, by my love for Lanen and my hope of heaven, however different a heaven it may be from yours, I will tell you first and last who and what I am, so far as a little time will allow.
"My soul to the Winds, Jameth—and among my people that is a binding vow—I was born a thousand and thirteen winters past, the son of Ayarelinnerit the Wise and my father Karishtar, of the line of Loriakeris. I had a silver hide, like nothing that had ever been seen before among my people, and it was seen as an omen, though an omen of what none ever knew. My eyes and my soulgem were green, as they are yet, but that is not unusual among my people. I flew at the age of thirty winters, full twenty-five years before most oth- ers. I reached my majority at the turn of my fifth kell, as do all of the Kantri, and less than a kell later I was chosen as the new King when old Garesh, Shikrar's father, died. I first knew the fetrinshadik as a youngling, at the age of two hundred and forty, when I first saw the Gedri come onto our island. They had been lost at sea and some of our people took pity on them. We helped them repair their ship, though it was difficult, for our two peoples spoke very different languages. Still, we helped as we might. When they found lansip and discovered it helped to heal them, we allowed them to take away as many of the leaves as they liked, along with a dozen saplings. They left after a very short time, but I had watched them every waking moment and longed with a deep longing to speak with them. That had been forbidden. There was a Council called when they first arrived and it was decided that only the King would have direct contact with them, as many of the Kantri were still roused to fury by the very sight of the Gedri. When they left I had learned the meaning of a few—a very few—words of their tongue, and over the centuries I learned everything I could about them."
He looked to me. "When Lanen arrived I had almost given up hope that ever another ship would come for lansip, for it had been a long kell since any of the Gedri had stepped on our shores." He smiled, coming forward and taking my hand. "Ah, Lanen! Never as long as I breathe will I forget the sight and the sound of your first step on the island of my people! I saw you laugh with delight as you walked on the grass." His eyes locked with mine and die passion behind them lanced through me. "I watched you kneel down and smell the very earth on which you walked."
I shivered. My most powerful memory of my first moment on me Dragon Isle was me smell of crashed grass. I had not known until this moment mat Akor was watching me then.
"The first night we met in secret." In my mind I heard him add, "And you called me brother, my Lanen, across so wide and deep a chasm of hurt and hatred. I loved you even then." "The next night we met under me eye of the eldest of us, my soulfriend Shikrar, who feared I was touched by demons or under the spell of a Gedri witch." He laughed. "He learned better in time! But he forbade our meeting again. And for me first time I, the King of my people and the most bound by our laws, I broke mat forbidding, for I could not bear to say farewell so soon. I bore Lanen to my chambers, far beyond the boundary established to separate our two kindreds, and our fate was sealed mat very night. For she loved me and I her, despite the barren future that must lie before us, despite the madness of Gedri and Kantri joining one to another. We Hew in spirit me Flight of the Devoted, a sacred ritual of my people, as real and as binding as me marriage vows we took not four days past. From that moment we were joined to one another."