Elizabeth Kerner - Redeeming the Lost

She glanced at him shrewdly, for all her youth. "I suspect it is within me if it is within you, Master Shikrar. Though perhaps not yet." She gazed back at me. "I hwill try this traespeech. I cannot sshape my tongue around words sso weD ass you." She bowed her head and closed her eyes in concentration.

I heard nothing.

Shikrar, however, had taught younglings for many, many years. "Littling, I cannot hear you." He stood in Patience. "Will you try again?"

"Can you not hear me call my father? He does not answer. Said you not that distance is no bar to this speech?"

"Ah, littling, forgive me!" replied Shikrar. "I never thought to tell you. The Gedri do not have truespeech, as a rule. Only the Lady Lanen in all of history is so blessed. I fear you will not be able to bespeak Willem."

"The Silver One, Hfarian, he cannot speak so?"

"Varien is a separate case, littling," said Shikrar. "He is— different."

"And so my father is different," answered Salera. "I have learned his tongue, can he not learn this one?"

"Alas, I fear he cannot," said Shikrar, sadly. "Lord Varien is of our own blood, and has the soulgem he has borne for a thousand winters. The Lady Lanen has been blessed by the Winds and the Lady. You must not hope for this, Salera. It will not come to be."

Salera hissed her frustration, her tail whipping round her. "That is—that is darkness in daylight! Why should this be? It is not hwell!"

"Mas, you are right, littling, it is not well; but in all the lives of our peoples we have found nothing that may be done to change it."

And she surprised us again. Still, perhaps I was the more taken off guard; Shikrar at least maintained the appearance of calm.

Clearly and angrily she bespoke us both, as she gave a great leap into the clear morning sky. "What use then is this speech, when I cannot use it with the one I love best? I go to find him."

We both stood silent for some time, and Shikrar sighed. "Idai, my friend, I grow old," he said wearily. "What world is this we have come to? That youngling just managed her first words of truespeech most beautifully—"

"I heard her, Shikrar. I expect everyone else did as well," I said wryly. Younglings were not known for subtlety, and Salera's people were apparently no different.

I had managed to raise the shadow from off him for an instant. "Truly," said Shikrar, amused. "She is a delight, that one. And yet, alongside the gift of truespeech that should be so great a joy, she knows now a sorrow that did not afflict her but moments since." He sighed again. "Idai, my friend, what is this place, where Gedri and Kantri are so oddly joined, even for the best of reasons, that the differences between us become a source of pain rather than of delight?"

"Perhaps it has ever been so, Shikrar," said Varien, who had now drawn near with the other Gedri.

"And still, my friend," answered Shikrar, curiously sad, "it leaves me wondering what we have come to in this green land."

"life, Shikrar," said Varien quietly, his eyes steady. "Life and change. It is well. Perhaps it will be our task to add something unchanging to this mixture, but we ourselves arose in this place. Surely, in ages past, Kantri and Gedri have formed friendships, and the Kantri have grieved for the brief lives of those companions. Should we then seek to avoid the company of our fellow creatures?"

"Her first use of truespeech, Varien. It is a moment for great rejoicing, a step towards a deeper life, and it has brought her only frustration."

"Shikrar, Shikrar," said Varien, managing a fighter tone. "It has been too long since you have taught so young a kit! She will come around to joy soon enough, I promise you. She is very, very young yet." He managed the turning up of the corners of his mouth that the Gedri name a smile. It looked well on him. "But I see you are up to your old ways. Name of the Winds, Hadreshikrar, could you not wait even an hour to instruct Salera?"

Shikrar glanced at me, and I was glad to see a hint of his usual self returning. "This once I cannot claim the honour, Akhor. Idai it was who first bespoke the youngling."

Varien bowed to me. "It was well done, Lady. I never thought to—I have been—"

"You have had your own troubles, my friend. And Shikrar says you tried before and found no response."

'True enough. Salera and her people are a joy and a wonder," said Varien lightly enough, but I heard his voice fall back into sorrow as he added, "but they are not the Lost, my friends. Still our duty to those trapped souls lies unfulfilled. Salera's people, the Lesser Kindred, descendants through five thousand winters of the beasts left when the Demonlord ravaged our people, were my great hope for restoring the Lost. I dreamed that somehow we might reunite the creatures with the soulgems of the Lost—-I never thought that they would be developing on their own. They are a great blessing, but all my hope for the Lost is now foundered." He shook his head and muttered, "As is so much else."

"You never let up, do you?" said the Gedri female beside him. "Life is short, Varien, or whatever your name is. I know your heart aches, but can you not spare a moment to rejoice in the good when it comes your way?" She bent in half before me. The Gedri bow so awkwardly. "Forgive me, Lady—Idai, is it? I am Aral of Benin, a city far to the east of here." She smiled. "Varien would probably introduce us in a few weeks, but I don't think we have that long."

I gazed now more closely at the two Gedri who stood with Varien. Young as he looked, they looked younger still. Mere children.

Until you saw their eyes.

The girl-child, Aral, had about her a kindly air, and a strange familiarity that I could not explain, but that spoke well of her— indeed, something about her altogether spoke of the Kantri and it Inclined me to favour her, but it was the youth beside her who shook me from my complacency. For all his lack of years, for all that I knew so little of Gedri faces, when our gazes locked he seemed for an instant to vie with me. Perhaps he sought to test me in some way, as younglings do on occasion, but for that brief moment he was unguarded, and I drew back. In that instant I had seen a raging torment behind his eyes, as of a searing flame, and a deep sense of power that surprised me. I sniffed, but there was not the least Raksha-trace upon him. This one would need to be watched, though not by me. A thought arose in my deepest heart. Let his enemies beware.

"You shame me, Mistress Aral," said Shikrar. "Your pardon. I urn not yet accustomed to the swiftness of your kind. Mistress Aral, Master Vilkas, this is the Lady Idai, known among us for her wisdom. Idai, these two have taught me not to judge by appearances, for they are great Healers in this land."

"Healing is a most noble use of power," I said, gazing full at Vilkas. "I confess to astonishment, however, Master Vilkas, that you two are so at your ease among us."

"We've had practice," said Aral, while Vilkas returned my regard. "We chanced upon Lanen and the rest of them—Lady, was it only a week gone? We were escaping from Berys and his damned Rikti, and when we stopped for food and shelter there they all were, and she in dreadful need of healing." Aral bared her teeth. "We've barely stopped for breath since, but we were there when the Lesser Kindred were awakened." She stood taller. "We helped heal their soulgems."

I listened to her, but I did not look away from Vilkas. "There is a great work behind your eyes, Healer," I said. "It is not unseemly to take a just pride in accomplishment. And unless I am deeply mistaken, it has to do with Varien's beloved."

"How the Hells did you know that?" he asked, but his gaze did not waver either.

I hissed gently. "I am She who Knows without Knowing, lit-tling. That is the meaning of part of my name."