Alan Akers - A Victory for Kregen

They both looked puzzled. “But — you-?”

“When I get back we will have to think seriously about the rest of the island. This King of Urn Vallia, for example.”

“Get back?” they said together.

The first pastel tints of the new day lightened the horizon, the air smelled crisp and clear with a lingering trace of woodsmoke to spice the atmosphere with promise of breakfast, She of the Veils sank slowly wreathed in roseate clouds. This was a dawn on Kregen and there cannot be any other dawns in all the worlds among the stars to compare with that, by Zair!

“Get back,” I said firmly. “Much of Vallia has been freed from the maniacs who destroy all they touch. Prince Drak is fully competent to run the country. The army is in good heart with these victories under their belts. Where we have the land, the people prosper. The harvests are good. There is a spirit abroad that will not be denied. I shall not be long — at least, I trust I shall not be long.”

“But-” said Turko.

“Where-?” said Korero.

“You two sound like that mythical fellow from Balintol with two heads.”

“Mythical or not,” said a voice from the shadows at my back, “he is a fellow who stays at home for some of the time. Just where are you off to this time?”

For two heartbeats I did not turn around. I felt all that glorious dawn of Kregen rush together and collide and burst into my stupid vosk skull of a head. I felt the dawn colors riot and coruscate and burn through my veins. Slowly, slowly, I turned.

She half-smiled, yet her face was serious and grave, pale and with the first hints of the exhaustion brought by long journeyings and too-intensive work. I barely noticed her clothes — black silk tights, black leathers, black boots, with her rapier and dagger depending from golden lockets and the wide black belt with the golden clasp. A scarlet cape swung from her shoulders. She stared at me and I stared at her, and, like two loons, we stood, not moving, staring with unappeased hunger one upon the other. I took a breath. The fragrance of the dawn air, the subtle pastels of apple green and rose, the distant chorus of those marvelous birds of Kregen all — all swam about me. The morning radiance touched her hair and brought alive those glorious tints of auburn, making a halo about her face. I swallowed down -

hard.

It occurred to me that I might have said, “So you have come home, then?” But, instead, all I could say was, “There is still much to do. We have made a beginning-”

She took a step forward.

“Yes, there is still much to be done. You great grizzly graint! And you are flying off again!”

“Hyrklana,” I said. “You know.”

“I know. And you will leave today?”

I took a step forward. We moved toward each other. She raised her arms and I saw the wonder of her face.

There was nothing else in all of Kregen.

I held her, held her close, and I felt her arms clasping me.

“Delia!”

“Dray!”

“I must go to Hyrklana, as you must go about the business of your Sisters of the Rose-”

“Only for Vallia-”

“We are driven-”

“But not for much longer. It will end, one day-”

“Yes, there is light at the end of the tunnel, at last.”

I held her close and I could feel the warmth of her and the tremble between us. All of Vallia, then, all of Kregen, seemed of small moment, tiny, insignificant, beside my Delia, my Delia of Delphond, my Delia of the Blue Mountains…

“And you will fly for Hyrklana today?”

I could feel the growing heat of the Suns of Scorpio burning upon me.

“No, my heart. I do not think I shall leave today.”