Elizabeth Kerner - The Lesser Kindred

The three of us sat round the fire in the kitchen that night for a quiet cup of spiced wine after supper. I was proud of my cooking for once, for if I say it myself the geese had been roasted to perfection. Varien had enjoyed it nearly as much as Jamie.

The two youngest stableboys, Rab and Jon, had just finished washing the crockery through in the scullery while all the rest went about feeding and closing in the beasts for the night. There was a frost in the clear night air, bitter cold in the nose and threatening.

Jamie had spent the short daylight hours showing Varien around the stead. "Varien tells me he has never seen a stead before," said Jamie, bemused. "Though if all you say is true," he added wryly, "he'd have had little enough reason to do so."

"And still you doubt, Master Jameth," said Varien quietly. He seemed a little amused. "How shall I convince you, beyond my word and that of your own heart's daughter Lanen?"

Jamie held Varien's glance as long as he could, but had to look away. "You'll never convince me with words," he answered, somewhat subdued. Varien's eyes were the strongest argument he had. "It'll just take time. But I'll know truth when I see it." One corner of his mouth lifted in a half-smile as he looked at Varien again. "You can't say you expected me to believe you right off? You have to admit, it's a little unlikely. You're a good man, Varien, on that I'd stake my life, even if your eyes are peculiar. You could be anything, I suppose—but come, tell me, have you anything left of your old people in you to prove it?"

"Beyond the memory of my life with my Kindred, I do not yet know," Varien replied. He seemed to be taking this all very calmly. "I have been in this body so short a time, only three moons, I believe." He grinned then, all sadness forgotten as he reached over to take my hand in his. "I have not been paying overmuch attention to the passage of time, or to what this new body can yet do that I could do before. So different, so wondrous—in truth I have been far more intrigued by the differences." He let go of my hand then and held up his own two hands, palms towards him, staring at them, then passed the fingers of one hand over the other. "These Gedri hands are so soft, so delicate, they can feel the passage even j of air. Yet withal they are so deft, so capable and strong, you can thread a needle one moment and haul on a rope the next." He was lost in thought, gazing at his hands. "These were the things I truly envied you, those long years when the ferrinshadik held me and I dreamed of such a moment."

"What does that mean—ferrin—whatever you said?" said Jamie.

"Ferrinshadik—it is a word in our tongue for the longing that touches many of us, to speak with another race, to hear the thoughts of another people who can speak and reason," said Varien, thoughtfully. "Some are spared, but many of us feel it as a longing to speak with the Gedrishakrim—with humans, whom we call in our language the Silent People. To some poor souls it is a deep and lasting sorrow for the passing of the Trelli, who in refusing the Powers of order and chaos sowed the seeds of their own ending."

Jamie looked at him, shaking his head. "Varien, your pardon, but what are you talking about? What powers?" he asked.

"Jamie!" I exclaimed. "Don't you know the Tale of Beginnings? Sweet Lady, even I know that!"

Jamie shrugged. "Never spent much time listening to bards."

Varien smiled at me and shifted slightly in his seat, sitting up straighter and facing both Jamie and me equally as best he could. I grinned back. "So—this is the human version of the Kantri Attitude of Teaching, is it?"

"It is indeed," he replied. "If you do not know the Tale of HeginningSi Jameth, it is time you learned. It speaks very well of your own people." He moved his neck slightly, brought his chin a little down—and I knew that he was in-stinctively moving Kantri muscles to arch his neck and face his students more directly. He spoke surely but slowly. I later learned that he was having to translate an old tale of the Kantri into human language even as he spoke.

"When Kolmar was young, there were four shakrim, four peoples, who lived here: the Trelli, the Rakshi, the Kantri and the Gedri. All possessed speech and reason when the Powers of order and chaos were revealed to them, and all four learned at the same time that in the life of all races there is a time when a choice must be made. Each chose differently.

The Kantri, the eldest of the four peoples, believed that al-though chaos is the beginning and the end of all dungs, it is order that decrees this, and thus they chose to serve order. For this they were granted long lives and a way to remember all that had gone before.

The Trelli, the troll-people, chose not to choose. They did not wish to accept either and denied both. In mat decision was the seed of their own ending, for to deny me Powers is to deny life itself.

The Rakshi were already of two kinds, me Rakshasa and . the smaller Rikti. Both chose chaos and thus balanced the Kantri—but pure chaos cannot exist in a world of order without the two destroying mat world between them. The Rakshi for their choice received length of days to rival me Kantri, and a world within me world for their own, with which they were never content.

The Gedri discovered after much debate mat they could not agree among memselves, but unlike me Trelli they did make a choice. Indeed, they chose Choice itself, that each soul might have the power to decide which to serve in its own time. Thus they acquired me ability to reach out to either Power and bend it to their own wishes, and almough both the Kantri and the Rakshi were creatures of greater strengm, it is the Gedri who have me world as their own."

Varien smiled, his recitation over. "Come, Jameth, do you ' tell me you have never heard this tale? Surely your bards remember it?"

I looked to Jamie, who said, "If they do, I have never heard mem sing it." His voice sounded strange, and I looked more closely at him. His expression was very peculiar. "Though I think, now, mat I heard something of the kind from my grandfather when I was very, very young." He looked up, and his voice took on a tinge of wonder. "How old are you, Varien?"

Varien ignored him for the moment, which I suspect was just as well. He had raised his hands as if to massage a stiff neck, but he looked terribly awkward; he had turned his J palms out and was trying to use me backs of his hands when 1 he stopped, looked up at me, and slowly turned his hands over. I gasped as I realised—no claws. He had been accustomed his life long to turn his great foot-long talons away from his own scales lest he injure himself. The smile that had lit his face turned to a grin as he used his fingertips to release the tight muscles in his neck, that had tried to hold up a man's head as a dragon would have. He laughed then and I with him. "Name of the Winds!" he cried, leaping to his feet, delight in his eyes and his voice deep with his joy.

He turned to Jamie, his eyes bright, his whole soul in his gaze. "This second life is a wonder beyond words, Master Jameth. Would that I could tell you how it feels! I stop a hundred times in a day simply to breathe, to feel the swift beat of my heart and the passage of air through my chest. I tell you, it is a dream I never dared admit even to myself, this deep longing for human form, for the hands of the Gedri children. This and walking on two legs!" And suddenly he laughed. "You have no idea how convenient it is, Jameth, not to have to carry wood in your mouth. It tastes terrible, believe me."

I was grinning, for I had seen him do just that, and spit fire afterwards to char away the splinters. This was all purest Akor, if Jamie could but know it.

"I tried for years to walk upright," said Varien, "but our legs simply are not shaped for it. My joints ached for days every time I tried, and I finally gave it up." He had calmed down a little and stood now before the fire, warming his hands.