"I told you, if this doesn't work you'll need me here to help. Hit me, damn it!"
There was no time to argue. I drew back, muttered "Sorry about this" and hit her.
She fell back. I had held back my strength, but she had said it should be realistic. I ran to the window farthest from the door and threw open the shutters.
In just a few moments, Rella sat up and screamed. ''Help, guards! Help!"
I ran.
Both Marik's grunts came rushing back in, the idiots—if I'd done the same as last time they'd go down again the same way. Stupid.
"She's gone!" yelled Rella, pointing at the open shutters. One went straight through the opening, the other ran round the cabin on the outside.
I rose from behind the bed, winked at Rella and flew out the door. The woods beckoned in the dawn light, and, all my weariness forgotten, I took off-like a deer for their shelter.
I had gone no more than a few steps when I was seized by a sudden horrible weariness in every limb. My movements were drugged and stretched out as in a nightmare, when every step takes all your strength and no matter how you struggle, you never get anywhere. I used the last of my will to look up at the strange noise before me, and managed to catch sight of Caderan gesturing in the air and grinning wildly before darkness took me once again.
When I next bespoke Shikrar, as noon approached, it was to find the Council still divided on my fate and Lanen's. Our union they all (save Shikrar) discounted as madness and agreed it would have to be severed. As for our fates—there was still much debate on whether Lanen should be allowed to live. If so, it seemed most felt she should be kept here and not allowed ever to rejoin her people. A few, led by Shikrar, kept her deeds before the others' eyes and argued for her freedom, combined with her sworn word that she would not return on pain of death. As for me, some argued that I be forced to give up the kingship and another appointed; some felt I had been gripped by a passing fancy or subtle spell and that I would be fine once Lanen had gone, one way or another; still others that I must simply be kept away from the Gedri for the rest of my life, never again to be the Harvest Guardian, and that in all other ways I was still fit for the kingship.
Shikrar's arrival had caused quite a stir, it seemed. Rish-kaan, disgruntled, had no choice but to give way to him as Eldest. At the beginning of the latest debate on Lanen's fate one of the younger males, a distant cousin of Idai's, called out, "Let us ask the Eldest. He is Keeper of Souls, it is his family that is most deeply involved. Let us hear the words of Hadreshikrar!"
Shikrar waited for complete silence before speaking (and got it—our people revere the wisdom that comes with age). He raised up to address the Council and stood in Righteous Anger, taking quite a few by surprise.
''My friends and my Kindred, what is this that I have heard? Much discussion of whether we should do to death the beloved of our King, or let her live alone in exile in a foreign land? I cannot believe I hear such things from the children of the Winds. Is it our place, is it our law, to deny love? Akhor has been faithful to the kingship, faithful to us all, his life long. Are we now to turn on that faithfulness, tell him he is be-spelled, deny him the love he has found at last?"
"But it is the love of a base creature. A Gedri!" one voice called out.
"You, Rinshir, should know better than to flaunt your ignorance," Shikrar shot back. "The Gedrishakrim are intelligent creatures, they can speak and reason. They are by nature no more base than we. They can become so, surely, by their own actions. If they choose to deal with the Rakshasa, then truly they are debased; but in and of themselves they are not an evil people."
"This is a new song, Hadreshikrar," said Rishkaan bluntly. The debate on the nature of the Gedrishakrim is as old as our people, as old as the Choice. Always before you have spoken against the Gedri. Why are you now so changed?"
Shikrar let the appreciative murmur die down before he replied. His Attitude had not changed, but it was overlaid with Teaching, the most natural in the world to him. "Tell me, Rishkaan, was there not a time in your earliest youth when someone described flight to you before your wings were strong enough to bear you?''
"Yes, of course. What of it?"
''And was their description a good one?''
"It was good enough," replied Rishkaan. He stood now in Defence, not liking this nor able to guess where it was going.
"And do you remember your first flight?"
"Who does not? It was the beginning of true life for me, as it is for us all."
''Yet tell me, Rishkaan, had that good description captured the essence of flight?'
"Not for me," he replied instantly. "There was no way the teller could describe the joys of flying to one who was earth-bound. It would be like telling fish about singing." There was some scattered laughter. I laughed myself, in the brightness of my chambers. Shikrar had made his point well.
"Then, my old friend, how should I not change my view of the Gedri once I had met and spoken with one of them, especially this one?" He turned to the others, and his voice began to deepen. He stood in Anger and Teaching still, but with Authority now behind all. ''All of you, my Kindred, have spoken of the impossibility of this joining between Akhor and the Gedri female Lanen, that they must dissolve a bond of love, a Flight of the Devoted even if only flown in the mind. But of you, who has ever spoken to a child of the Gedri? Speak now, let me know your names."
The silence spoke loudly indeed.
"Yet you are so quick to condemn. Why? What harm does their love do to you? They have no illusions of joining, they have both condemned themselves to a life of barrenness, for the sake of this bond they did not ask for but cannot deny."
"How can they have flown the Flight of the Devoted in mind only!" cried Erianss. "It is impossible. Flight is part of our being, we are made for it, it is life and rejoicing to us. Can Akhor deny it? The Gedri is earthbound, the two of them can never meet in the skies. Why then should such an imaginary 'Flight' be honoured?"
Shikrar altered his Attitude, and Rebuke was clearly reflected in his stance. "Erianss, hear now the words of the Eldest. We respect age for many reasons, among them the fact that age has seen much that youth has not, and does not have to rediscover fire. Youngling, in my own youth I knew both a lady with a misshapen wing and an Elder who had found his mate late in life. Neither could fly when they took their mates, yet both flew the Flight of the Devoted and lived out their lives together with their chosen ones, none the worse for it. I spoke to the lady once about it and she told me they had flown together in a vision, just as Akhor described his Flight to me."
"With respect, Eldest," said Rishkaan with a hiss, "you are not impartial in this. I believe you would defend a Raksha who had saved the lives of your loved ones. You do not see the Gedri with clear eyes."
Shikrar did not respond immediately, but drew in his breath and began the Discipline of Calm.
When it was completed, he answered.
''I have a question for you, Rishkaan. If a Raksha had saved your life, would you not question its very existence as a Raksha, a creature of chaos and darkness? For in saving your life it would have gone against its very nature. Thus it would be an unnatural demon, which might be a very good thing indeed for it as a soul, but very bad for it as a demon.
''My Kindred, Akhor did not exaggerate when he said this little one might well die from her efforts on behalf of Mirazhe. We all heard her cry of pain; I saw with my own eyes the wounds she had from too close contact with Mirazhe's inner fire. Before you condemn my impartiality, before you deny my wisdom in your own outrage and ignorance, think well on this and speak who dares; who among you would undergo such torture for an unknown child of the Gedrishakrim?''