The Lesser Kindred (ttolk-2) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Such thoughts would catch no fish nor lift me a talon's breadth higher as I flew. I tried to concentrate on the problem at hand. I nearly succeeded.
    Some have occasionally wondered if the murmuring ground might have anything to do with our present plight. The ground beneath our feet on the island was seldom quiet for long and we were accustomed to its shaking, but it had been growing more disturbed over the last several hundred years, and such violent movement as wakened me from my Weh sleep was rarer yet and demanded investigation. Never mind the fact that my own curiosity would have sent me to the same place, and as quickly—now that I stood in the stead of Akhor, our King who was among the Gedri, I had to think of all of my people. It was a curious feeling. I wondered as I flew whether Akhor had ever grown accustomed to this sense of bearing the Kantri on his wings and in his talons wherever he went, whatever he did.
    The sky above the mountain was red and grew redder still as I approached. I had expected something of the sort. When I was still far distant, however, I found that I was not prepared for all. Terash Vor was sending its fiery breath high into the air, one vast stream of fire flowing upwards only to fall again to the ground, like a single burning feather from a bird the size of the sky. I kept my distance as I flew round about it, to learn if there was aught else to see. To my surprise, there were several smaller flows on the north side of the mountain, and a few distant red glows on others in the range showed that this was but the surface of a deep disturbance. I called upon Idai, an elder of the Kantri and an old and trusted friend.
    "Idai, may I bespeak you?"
    "Of course, Shikrar," came the familiar voice of her thoughts. " What troubles you ? "
    "I am at Terash Vor and I would that you might see what I have seen. Will you come to me here ? I shall await you at the Grandfather."
    She replied simply, "I come. I shall be with you in the hour."
    The Grandfather was the name of the mountain nearest the south, the first that rose dark above the quiet hills below. It was so called for that it had, in some lights, the seeming of a vast black dragon. There was a large ledge on the south side—what would have been part of a back, or a folded wing—where two could stand and speak together. It was often used as a meeting place. I used it on occasion but I never was comfortable there.
    We of the Kantri are long-lived, as I have said, seeing as many as two thousand winters in the natural course of things. We are thus not inclined by our natures to take note of anything so short as an hour. However, time passes for us as it does for all creatures, and while I waited for Idai I decided to dare my wings again and take another quick look around the fire plain. By the time I returned to the Grandfather to await her I was deeply troubled.
    I had often been to Terash Vor. It usually happened that some time in every kell—every hundred winters—the mountains took a deep shuddering breath and exhaled fire. Some of these episodes were more active and some less, but I had seen this level of fire only once before, when I was little more than a youngling myself. Thus this was the equal of the worst outbreak in living memory, for I am the Eldest of the Kantri. Not for sixteen kells had there been such unrest in the ground. I wondered what it might portend.
    Idai bespoke me from a distance as she approached. "Shikrar, how fare you? I had thought you still kept the Weh sleep until I heard your call to the Summer Field on the morrow."
    "The ground shook me awake, indeed, hut I am healed enough that the waking has been no hardship."
    I heard her gasp of a sudden and felt the fear in her mind, and I knew she had seen the great plume of fire. "Name of the Winds, Shikrar! What has so blasted the very rock that it thus bums in anger?" She spoke aloud then as she landed beside me, her great wings almost fluttered as she came to earth. I