I did not trust myself to speak. I did not know what would come out.
I did not care.
At first I could say nothing but her name.
"Lanen. Lanen. Lanen. "
She covered her face with her hands. I knew she wept, but she seemed almost to be laughing at the same time.
I reached out to her putting my foreleg close to her, "Will you allow?" I asked softly.
She looked up, saw my clawed hand, looked back at me and nodded.
It must have been frightening but she never flinched. I spread my claws back and wide and touched her face with the inside of my palm, where we are most sensitive.
Even water was not so soft as her skin.
I trembled. I, Khordeshkhistriakhor, Silver King of the Kantrishakrim, trembled in wonder at the feel of a woman's skin. I moved my hand away that I might not harm her by accident. Surely the lightest touch of my claws would rend that fragile hide.
"My soul to the Winds, Lanen Kaelar, I am lost as you are lost," I said softly. "And though we know this love cannot be as love for our own kind, at the least we may stand together as friends."
"At the least. But still the Boundary lies between us. Your people will know if I cross it."
"That is so. But they will not know if I cross it, not instantly, and it is in my heart to take you to a place where we may talk for a few hours in peace. We need only wait for true dark, and so late in the year it will not be long coming."
Indeed, it was nearly dark already.
"What will happen if they find us?" she asked quietly.
"I do not know, dear one, but they will have to reckon with me to get to you."
I was distracted by the sound of people, not too near but not very far away either. I drew a deep breath, knowing that I risked all by telling him, knowing that I must speak. "I thank you for that, dear friend, but I must tell you, much has happened to me this day. I am hunted now by my own people, for Marik tried to kill me and I escaped him."
"Ah," he said sadly: "So that is the fear in your voice—and something else, I think. Why did he seek your death?"
The noise of pursuit grew louder. "Akor, there is no time. They will find me soon. Dear friend, forgive me, I never meant to bring you into this coil, but if we are to go somewhere, we must leave now."
"Very well, little sister," he replied, the sadness still soft in his voice.
"Is it far to walk?" I asked, hoping it wouldn't be. My legs still trembled.
"Dear one, it would take days to walk there. No, we must fly."
To say I was taken by surprise is like saying the Kai is a river—it's true, but it misses the scale of the thing. All I could think of was one of the dragon ballads, in which the villain of the piece "fell from the earth to the sky in the clutch of the vast-winged beast." It had always struck me as a particularly terrible thing, but time was short and I wasn't going to ask questions.
"Lanen, will you come with me?" he asked, and in his voice lay all my future.
"Yes, Akor. With all my heart," I said: "But how shall we ....
He looked up. The first stars were out, twilight but a brighter memory in the west. "Wait there but a moment," he said, and was gone in a muted clap of thunder.
Flying. In my wildest dreams I had imagined such a thing, but I never really thought—
"Come, Lanen," said Akor from behind me.
There he stood, gleaming silver even in near-darkness. And there was no Boundary.
"Swiftly now, your pursuers approach. Climb up on my shoulders, there is a place above my wings where I believe you might sit."
I saw the place he meant. It was half again the girth of the roundest-bellied horse ever made. Bareback and with no reins, I thought. And a damn sight farther to fall. Still, I climbed up—or rather, he lay down as flat as he could on the ground and I clambered up the last few feet.
I fell off as soon as he stood up.
"This isn't going to work," I told him, rubbing my backside and brushing off the leaves. "I haven't fallen off anything with four feet since I was a child." I grinned up at him. "Shame you don't have a mane to hang on to."
"Lanen, we must hurry," whispered Akor urgently. "Will you try again?"
"Believe me, it won't work, your neck is too wide there for me to get my legs around." Again the words of the ballad flashed through my mind. Couldn't hurt to mention it. "Could you carry me in your ... your hands?"
Suddenly, for a moment, he was again a stranger, a creature out of my ken, a Dragon. Did he call them hands? Claws? Forelegs? He had been gentle enough, certainly, but while he was flying? The slightest mistake could crush me, rend me, before he even noticed.
"I shall try." And the moment was gone, as I heard in his voice the tenderness that was almost more than I could bear. His very words were song, they poured over me in a wash of melody that stirred my blood and caressed me all at once, soothed away all my fears. "Come, dear one. Come with me, let me carry you to the star-home, the Wind-home, the Place or All Songs."
I walked to him as in a trance. I would have walked off a cliff, I think, knowing he would fly swift as thought and be there to catch me.
He picked me up, made a seat for me with his hands, so I sat in one and the other held me gently and gave me something to hang on to. His warm, armour-plated chest was at my back. I felt him crouch, heard as he lifted his great wings. I braced myself as best I could.
There was a sudden jerk as he sprang into the sky, a sound like a far-off storm as his wings beat down again and again, working to get us above the trees.
And we were flying.
XI
THE WIND OF CHANGE
How shall I describe flying to you, who will never know it?
I was terrified at first. The wind rushed past me with the speed of a summer storm and a loud roar filled my ears. Akor was carrying me close against his chest—perhaps he was trying to keep me out of the wind—at any rate, it meant that I was being carried facedown and I could see how fast we were going. And with every downbeat of his wings we rose a little, and as they rose we fell. It was quite sickening at first.
When at last I dared to open my eyes, it was like looking down at the trees from the highest cliff in the world after you have jumped off. There was nothing between me and the longest drop you can imagine save the clawed hands of a Dragon and the strong, rhythmic beat of his wings. The twilight lingered longer up here, and I could see what passed below brushed and blurred with shadow and with speed.
I was terrified.
I gripped his hands with all my strength. They felt solid as stone, which reassured me a little. Also they were warm with a Dragon's inner fire, and I began to remember that it was Akor who held me. That helped a little more. I began to loosen my grip slightly, my muscles aching from being so tightly clenched. His hands held me safe and strong, and ever above and behind me I heard the beat of those great wings. After a time, even the rising and falling gave me comfort.
I would not have believed it possible; but eventually wonder overcame fear and I began to look about me. Just then, Akor's voice sang in my mind, "These are the lands of my people, dear one. You are greatly honoured. No member of your race has ever seen these hills and valleys, these deep forests, that are home and safety to us. Look well, Lanen Kaelar," and I could hear the smile in his truespeech. "This is the abode of Dragons."
I looked as well as I could and desperately wished it were daylight. But even in the last light of the sun (which as I say lingered a little on high) I could see the hills and forests over which we passed. There were open fields here and there, some scattered with dark dots that might have been cattle. It was too dark to see anything much beyond the general lay of the land, but I saw what I could only have guessed from the ground—that the island was cut in half by a range of mountains that ran from east to west. I could see no details, but they loomed ahead of us as Akor flew north.