The Lesser Kindred Read online

  She stumbled across to the door and turned to me. I knew that “I’d rather fry in the deepest hell than cry right now” look, so I didn’t say anything. “I’ll send the Healer up when he comes, girl. Don’t expect me back here tonight.” I nodded.

  She slammed the door behind her.

  Jamie had not said a single word. He stood openmouthed, his brown cheek showing a good strong pink stain where he’d been slapped. Quite right too, in my opinion.

  “If you don’t go after her, Jamie, I’m going to disown you,” I said. He gaped at me. I glanced up to the ceiling and sent a swift prayer to the Lady for patience. “You idiot. She just said she loves you. Are you deaf?”

  “What?” he said stupidly. “But she—she hit me, and, and she said—”

  “Go. Now. Grovel, apologise, do what you have to, but go after her,” I said. “For Shia’s sake don’t make me get out of this bed to push you, just go!” He left in a daze, drawing the door closed behind him.

  I turned to Varien, who was standing there with his jaw dropping, much as Jamie had been. “Lanen? Whence came this—ah, I shall never understand!”

  I grinned at him. “Gedri females?”

  “Any females!” he replied smiling. “The females of the Kantri are every bit as confusing as you and Mistress Rella.” He stroked my hair, growing more solemn. “However, my heart, what more deeply concerns me is why Jameth suddenly turned on a friend. I thought he admired the Lady Rella?”

  “He does, my love. That’s the problem. You don’t know Jamie like I do,” I said heavily, sitting back. All the excitement had brought back my headache, and everything below my waist hurt like every demon ever spawned had been punching me. “It was the Post horses—I asked Rella, and it really does cost a fortune to move this fast, and Jamie knows it better than I. I think he is starting to truly like her, but when it looked like she was being so kind he got suspicious. It’s the way he thinks,” I said apologetically. “Comes of not trusting people—no, it comes of not trusting women,” I said. “He’s never had much luck with women.”

  Varien frowned. “Another mystery. I have watched him, your heart’s father. He is a man honourable and brave, skilled both in the art of the sword and in the deeper art of making the earth bring forth food. His heart is true, I would swear it. How should such a man not find a mate?”

  I was feeling worse every moment we sat there, but I knew the Healer was coming and fought off the pain. “I suspect it’s because he stayed in Hadronsstead with me,” I said, glad of something to think of. “He’s too much for any of the women around there, they expect a plain farmer and he isn’t that at all.”

  Varien smiled into my eyes. “No, he is not,” he said. “And you also are not a plain anything.” He leaned over and kissed me, his hands warm and comforting on my back, his lips hard and passionate against mine. Lady knows I felt awful and the last thing I was thinking of was passion, but—well, as distractions go it was a fine one.

  Especially when he continued in truespeech. That has never ceased to sway me to his will, the combination of simple physical passion and the wonder of that glorious voice echoing in the silence of my heart, that ancient mind blending with mine to make something new. “You are my beloved, my Lanen, the song of my soul made complete at last. When I thought I could never love you more, when I thought that already you possessed all there was in me to give, behold! I learn that you bear our child below your heart, and love beyond reason springs forth, young and wild, overflowing like a stream in the spring thaw and all, all thine, my Lanen, Lanen Kaelar, Kadreshi naVarien—”

  Just as well the Healer came in then, I thought, despite the way I was feeling. I wondered briefly if Varien had done it on purpose. When I thought about it I realised that he most certainly had.

  The Healer introduced himself as Jon and asked what troubled me as he summoned his power and sent it gently into my aching bones. I felt it this time, felt the cool blue strength of his work and welcomed the end of pain with a sob. Once the worst was past I could relax and let him work, but even after he finished he gazed long into my eyes, frowning. “Lady, you do know that this child is killing your?”

  “Yes, I do. Can you do anything about it?” I asked. He sent his power into me once again and looked long and hard. He tried something, Goddess only knows what, but the moment he put forth any real power it was agony. I cried out from the pain and he stopped, apologising.

  “Lady, I know not what to do,” he said, sending power again to soothe the pain he had caused. He had a good, kind face, and it was full of sorrow. “There is only one Mage I know of who can help you—Magistra Erthik of Verfaren. She is wise and strong, and her greatest skill is in assisting with childbirth.” He would have stopped, but his conscience made him go on. “Lady, I cry you mercy, but I must tell you. I have stopped the pain and the bleeding for now, but it will not last, especially if you insist on travelling. You—forgive me, I must prepare you.” He was desperately distressed. He was also a very brave man. “You must realise how near to death you are, Lady. I can see your strength, but you must believe me. What I have done will keep you alive for a few days. If you insist on riding as you have this day, it might only keep you until this time tomorrow. You must stop and rest!”

  I was sitting up. I felt a bit ill and very weary and fuzzyheaded, but surely he must be wrong. “I don’t feel that dreadful, master,” I said. “I cannot believe you. Of what should I die? I am strong, I’ve hardly had a sick day in my life. Why should this be so dangerous to me?”

  “I fear it will come in the end to loss of blood, lady,” he said. “The rejection must soon be complete. In a normal pregnancy your body would have miscarried long since, but this is not a normal pregnancy. There is a conflict between something in your blood and something in the blood of the child, and it is stopping the natural process that would protect you.” He bowed. “I fear that only a Mage can help you now.”

  Varien stood beside me and his face was like carven stone. “Is there nothing that can be done?” he asked, his voice calm and quiet even then.

  “Unless you find a Mage able to treat the very blood in her veins, then no, there is nothing to be done,” said the Healer. “That kind of skill and power are rare indeed, if they exist at all, and where you would find them outside of Verfaren I could not say. And Verfaren is a full week’s travel from here.” He knelt before me, his genuine concern writ large across his face. “Lady, let me send for help from Verfaren. If I keep working on you while the Magistra comes to us, then perhaps—”

  “No,” I said. I felt dizzy and confused, but I knew in my bones that I could not stay there and just wait.

  “We will consider it, master,” said Varien. “My lady wife is weary and needs rest.”

  The Healer rose to his feet and bowed. “Very well. I have done what I can for you but it will not last. Be warned, lady. You must know what will happen. The pain will return and it will increase. The bleeding will get worse. Your back and your head will ache unmercifully.”

  I nodded. “I expected as much,” I said.

  He spoke wearily now. “When you start to pass clots, lady, know that your end has come upon you. May the Lady keep you, for I can do no more.”

  “I thank you,” I said. Varien paid him his fee and let him out.

  I had held back the tears very well while the Healer was there, I thought, but I was shaking by the time Varien sat beside me on the bed, and when he put his arms around me I began sobbing in earnest.

  For a time he simply held me and let me cry out my fear. However, when I had calmed down a bit, he sat back from me a little and took my hands in his.

  “Dear one, forgive me,” he said quietly, “I know how you feel but I must say this. What if he is right?”

  “No!” I cried. “How can you say that? I am not going to die!”

  “Everyone who has ever died has said the same,” he replied. I was shocked at the calmness in his voice, but when I looked at him I saw the tears streami
ng down his face.

  “Why should we not at least wait here, dearling? The Healer can wait upon you while Rella and Jamie fetch this Magistra Erthik here.” He never took his eyes off me for a second. “And here at least you will be able to rest, to take your ease.”

  “While I wait for death?” I snarled. “No, I will not! If time is going to be my enemy, at least let me spend it getting as close to help as I can. The Post horses are fast, my love, Verfaren is but a day away at the speed they make.”

  He stood at his full height, I could almost see him draw the mantle of his years about him as protection as he gazed down at me. “Lanen, you are putting your life in danger. You must consider this again.”

  “Why?” I asked, growing angry. “I will not sit here and wait for death to take me!”

  “And I cannot sit by and watch you die!” he shouted. “Lanen, I cannot bear this! How should I live if you were to die? Kadreshi, have mercy on me, I beg you.” He knelt before me, his face twisted with grief. In that moment all his protection was gone, all his armour of centuries stripped away in the instant, leaving only a desperate man. “Lanen, do not leave me,” he said, that glorious voice all broken with weeping. “I could not bear this life alone.”

  I took his face in my hands. “I am not going to die,” I repeated.

  “You cannot know that!” he cried, rising swiftly, angrily to his feet. “And yet you would put what time you have left at risk by riding like a madwoman. What if this Mage Erthik at Verfaren cannot help you? What then? Shall I hold you in my arms as you bleed to death?”

  “Varien!” I was shocked.

  “Well, what would you? You will not take counsel, you rush headlong into danger for no reason, you refuse to listen to a Healer who has offered to do all in his power to aid you. What is left for me to do but curse the child of our making, or wish we had never met?” He could barely contain his rage, he was shaking with it. “I have kept silent, Lanen, for you did not need to concern yourself with it, but it has been terrible for me to know you in such pain for so long.” He stood before me and his eyes locked, blazing, on mine. “Do you forget, Lanen Kaelar, that I hear your every thought? You have not been careful to shield of late. Every jolt, every gasp, every drop of blood and every shooting pain that you have known has shaken me also this last moon.”

  His truespeech was like a sword in my mind. That did it.

  “Damn you, Varien,” I cried. “What, think you I did that on purpose? I haven’t bespoken you so that you wouldn’t have to hear it or feel it. Maybe it’s good that you have, after all, for the danger is of your making!”

  His face had been flushed with anger before, but now he went pale. “What do you say?” he breathed.

  “Never mind,” I murmured. I was ashamed at having said as much as I had, even if I was dying. Especially if I was dying.

  “Tell me, Lanen.”

  “No,” I said. “Don’t make me. It was—what did you call it? Those hidden thoughts?”

  “Terishnakh,” he said. “But the terishnakh are dismissed while still in the mind they do not come to the lips. What do you mean that the danger is of my making?”

  “Let it go!” I cried.

  “What do you mean?” he said, taking me by the shoulders. I shook myself free.

  “It’s your child, that’s what I mean!” I yelled, and I watched each word strike him like a blow. “It’s the blood, yours and mine. Rishkaan was right, Akor!” I cried, and my voice was high and thin with rage and with fear. “We have made a monster between us, and it is going to kill me!”

  Varien stared at me in horror as I fought to take a deep breath, but I was overcome and with that breath I screamed with all my might, straight from the gut. I had never screamed before. It was terrible and it was very loud. It frightened me and it terrified Akor, but at least it broke through the anger between us. He came to me and wrapped his arms about me and held on for dear life while I sobbed my heart out. His tears mingled with mine.

  “I will fight for you, my Lanen.” he told me brokenly in truespeech. He could barely speak even with the voice of his mind. “If Death dares come to claim you I will fight him, tooth and claw, unto the ending of my life. For how should I live without you in the world?”

  “Forgive me, my heart, I never meant what I said. I’ve never been so scared in my life, I’m so frightened. I am not ready to die,” I replied, holding him with all my strength.

  We stood in that desperate embrace until, at last, we both grew weary beyond bearing. We lay down, still clasping one another so very close, until from sheer exhaustion I fell asleep in his arms.

  Will

  We slowed when we came to the main corridor that we might not draw attention to ourselves. I collected my cloak and my walking stick as usual, nodding to the young student who was working off some minor misdemeanor by tending the dawn-to-noon shift of All Comers. He yelled to Vilkas and Aral to come talk to him about the tandem work, he had heard all about it and there were no patients, but they declined as they strode past.

  We were out the front door, our main objective thus far, and suddenly my perceptions shifted. Outside seemed terribly exposed. We were not prepared, we had no money, no food, only the clothes on our backs and the stick in my hand.

  I tried to hang back but Vilkas took my arm and pulled me along. He didn’t even slow down. I was impressed, for we are of a height but I would make three of him around. We stepped into the courtyard-and there were three horses, saddled and bridled, a clear gift from the Lady. The groom who held them greeted me. “Will! You haven’t seen Magister Berys, have you?” he called out. “He sent for these horses an hour gone and he still hasn’t come.”

  I began to hope. One little falsehood and we would be away, well mounted and far faster than feet could bear us. I was about to answer when Vil replied, speaking in a normal tone as we passed them, “Haven’t seen him. Sorry.”

  He strode through the main gate, followed by Aral at his heels and me spluttering behind. Once we were out the gate and down the street I tried to stop and talk to Vil, but he still had his hand wrapped around my arm. He was a lot stronger than I’d have guessed, though I wasn’t seriously trying to stop him. “We can talk as we go, Will, I don’t want to stop for anyone or anything.”

  “Then why in Shia’s name didn’t we just take those horses?” I asked, angry. “A gift from the Lady, plain as plain, and you just walk past—”

  “Too easy, Will!” he growled. “Too damned easy. An hour they’d been waiting. How long has it been since Berys left us, Aral?”

  “About that.”

  “He’s clever, Will. He’s very, very clever, and unless I miss my guess he has had this or something like it planned for quite some time. Well, I’m not an idiot either. I think it’s time we weren’t quite so obvious.” He called his power to him as we walked, and his corona covered us all three. I thought this would be much like trying to hide by carrying a flaming torch at midnight, but no one seemed to notice us.

  I looked at him and spoke very quietly. “Vil, are we invisible? I didn’t think that was possible.”

  “It isn’t and we’re not,” he said, “but when we pass, we are the least noticeable thing in the world. Even a blade of grass holds more interest than we do. It should slow them down if no one has seen us.”

  I was impressed. He was good.

  “We were meant to take those horses, Will. I know it. That would make it so much easier for him—plant something from Erthik or Caillin in a saddlebag, send a demon to track us, a charge of murder”—and for the first time since we had left his chambers, Vilkas faltered in his long stride and the slightest unevenness afflicted his voice, but he looked straight ahead. “Aral—Goddess, did you see her face? Poor Erthik. I cared about her. She believed in us, and I know as if I’d watched her die that she fell fighting Berys himself.”

  I didn’t question him. It could only have been the Archimage. Both of the Magistri had died without a sound a few feet from us, and Er
thik was—Erthik had been the most powerful Mage in the College after Berys.

  After Berys.

  Aral said nothing. I turned to look at her and was taken aback at how pale she was. For all that, though, her face was set in an implacable mask. Aral has always been a creature of deep emotions. She had not known Erthik very well, but I had seen the two of them together on several occasions, and I had seen a true friendship growing there. Erthik had been delighted by their tandem work and had hoped to get them to teach it to others. Now delight, hope, friendship, all, lay dead in a heap outside Vilkas’s rooms. I held back the bile that burned the back of my throat.

  We walked on like frightened cats, quickly, every nerve quivering, studiously ignoring the fact that we expected a demon attack any moment. As we passed the last house on the outskirts of Verfaren, however, Aral stopped abruptly and spoke. Her voice was calm and even. She held her right hand up, palm outwards. “I do here speak and swear, my soul to the Lady’s right hand, that I shall do all in my power as long as I live to defeat Berys of Verfaren, to oppose him and his works at every turn, and to destroy him should I ever have the chance.”

  “I do so swear, my soul to the Lady,” said Vilkas without hesitation.