Elizabeth Kerner: Redeeming the Lost

A kind of madness took me. For the first and last time in my life I was stricken as by a blow by the sheer presence of a man, and I desired him with all my being. I've never done nor felt such a thing before or since, and I have long wondered if even then he was practicing demon-craft.

Alas, I fear he was not.

Marik and I were of a height, which was unusual enough, and although he was easy to look at—his hair was golden red, his eyes the yellow-green of the first grass of spring, and his nose bent like a fine hawk's—it was not his appearance alone that swayed me, nor even the fact that there was a scent about him that made my knees weak. No, the truth is, I heard him speak only once and I was lost. Dear Shia. His voice. Goddess preserve us, it was pure seduction. Light, clear as crystal, with the soft accent of the East Mountains, and bis every word sang to some part of me that had nothing to do with words. Or with thought, come to that.

I fobbed Jamie off with some stupid excuse, which he recognised for what it was, but he was older in the ways of the world than 1.1 can only think that Jamie assumed I would enjoy a night's pleasure with this stranger and come back to seek him out again the next day, ashamed but with this madness out of my heart. Would that I had been so wise.

Marik and I were lovers that very first night, and many nights after. For two months we—well, never mind. At the end of it I learned, purely by chance, that he was dealing with a demon-master name of Berys to gain power for bis Merchant House. Between them, Marik and Berys created the Farseer, sacrificing an innocent babe in the making, and promising further the life of Marik's firstborn to the demons that made it. The Farseer itself Jamie and I took with us, to keep its power from the benighted souls that created it. I have it yet, an innocent-looking smoky glass globe about the size of a small melon.

Marik knew no more than I did that Lanen lay under my heart already. He meant to rise to power through the stupid thing, to make a way for demons to enter Kolmar under his control, for his own profit and power, with never a thought of the evil that would come down upon us all. Jamie and I stole the Farseer from him the instant it was made and took it with us when we ran. We escaped, but only by the width of a hair, from Berys's revenge. Jamie and I kept running, far to the north and west, where I met Hadron of Ilsa, a horse-breeder in an obscure comer of Kolmar. He fell head over heels for me and I wed him.

Well, what would you?

Of course I should have wed Jamie, of course I knew it, but Jamie—oh, Hells. I hate this.

Still, I have sworn to myself to write the truth here, lest I forget it amid all the lies I have told myself and others over the years.

I feared that the demons would find Jamie and me, find us and rend us and send us screaming down into darkness. And if they were going to take my husband, I could lose Hadron well enough, but if Jamie came to harm through me I would have gone mad. If I had told Jamie as much he'd have married me anyway, and I couldn't let that be. Instead I told my dearest love that I needed somewhere stable and safe for the growing babe, and that Hadron would do.

Jamie stayed with me and I will never know why. Surely no man could love anyone so deeply?

You know, it's amazing, you get in the habit of lying to everyone and in the end you lie to yourself. I've always been a damn good liar. Conies of being honest most of the time. When I lie, hardly anyone can tell. Even I lose track on occasion.

I knew fine that Jamie loved me truly and I took ruthless advantage of it. And when Lanen was born, I could see in his eyes that he yet had some hope that she was his. I never told him she wasn't. Truth be told, I wasn't absolutely certain who her father was. I prayed it was him, but deep inside I suspected she was Marik's.

I lived with Hadron for nearly a year after she was born, my shining girl, and I honoured him with my work and my body as best I could. Jamie's every look, every movement, burned in my eyes and in my heart, but for his sake I never spoke word or let him see my own desperation. I would not, for my own comfort, give him hope, shame Hadron, and then leave them both. That would have been too great an evil even for me.

To say truth, before she was born I tried to hate my babe because it was very likely the child of Marik of Gundar. Before she was born I had some idea of abandoning the child to Hadron's tender mercies and leaving with Jamie, because I was going to hate it, of course I was.

Yes, yes, I know, I was an idiot. I've known it for many, many years, so you can keep your thoughts to yourself.

Flesh of my flesh, whom my father would have adored had he lived to see her—tiny, helpless, this stranger who had shared my body for nine moons now alive, breathing for herself, shaking the air in her demands for food—how could I do anything but love her? It was not her fault that her father was such a man. From the moment she first drew breath I thought her the loveliest, most incredible child in all creation. What mother does not know this to be so? Her eyes, the smell of her hair, the feel of her at my breast, the wonder I knew as I watched her first steps: at least I have had these memories to keep me company through the long lonely years.

And yet I left her, for the demons came.

They pursued me always in dreams, from the time I arrived in Ilsa, and then one terrible day during a late winter storm one came in truth. Like an idiot I fought it with my knife—they can't be killed that way, though they don't like being cut—until I started thinking and put my free hand to the silver Ladystar I wore on a chain. I prayed then, aloud, for help, and the next time my blade touched the thing it disappeared. I went straight to a Servant of the Lady that I knew of thereabouts and had myself shriven and my wounds dressed in secret. I asked the Servant if she knew how to deal with demons, but she seemed to think I had brought it on myself by summoning demons, no matter how often I denied I'd done any such thing. I couldn't tell her about the Farseer, of course, but I knew I'd been standing next to it when the creature had appeared.

I took the short sword that Jamie had taught me to use, found my way into the forge at night, and managed to grave the sign of the Lady, the Goddess Shia, Mother of us All, on both sides of the blade. It worked much better the next time, and the next— but then they started coming once every se'ennight. The worst was the time I was feeding Lanen when one arrived, and it scratched her. She screamed to shatter the sky as I fought it, and I was scarce able to breathe for terror by the time I had dispelled it. I washed the scratch with water tinged with honey and she stopped crying. I did not. I knew that Marik had promised the life of his firstborn child in payment for the Farseer, though he'd had no idea then that she was already growing in my womb. Lanen was their prey, I was sure of it, and I was convinced that they sought her through the damned Farseer and through me.

I left that night, taking the Farseer with me. I released Hadron from his vows to me, that he might pursue any chance of happiness left to him without hindrance. Hadron I never worried about, Goddess forgive me, my cold heart, but Jamie—-Jamie I left without a word, and Shia knows I have cursed myself roundly for that for many a year. I prayed he would stay and watch over my Lanen, and he did.

I know not what fate awaits us all after we die, but, dear Goddess, if there is a judgement awaiting all souls I dread it to my bones. So unspeakable a trick, to abandon them all three together. I knew I was doing ill, but all I could see in my heart was a vision of Lanen torn from my arms and sundered by cackling demons. I killed all the love left to me in the world that day and I would have done so ten times over to keep my daughter and my best-beloved safe.