[Kat, would you be so good as to bounce this to the Keldarra list?]

[Some hours before Lori's trial]

	"He still won't come out," Aylin grumbled worriedly.  "I tried
to bring him in breakfast a few hours ago, and he wouldn't unlock his
door."

	"Yeah," D'neor grunted.  "He probably can't show his face around
the Warren anymore."

	"You could show just a *little* concern for your brother," Aylin
huffed.  "You may not think he's fit to live, but he's still your flesh
and blood."  She turned up her nose and suddenly found something
fascinating in the dishes she was washing.

	D'neor glared at her in disgust.  "*C'mon*, Mama.  I'm not in
the mood for a guilt trip.  You *know* what he did.  He doesn't deserve
to get off easy."

	"Well, don't worry yourself when he wastes away to nothing
because you don't care," Aylin told the dishes coldly.

	Her son stood up and crossed his arms, sighing in resignation.
"OK, you win.  What do you want me to do?"

	She turned immediately and smiled at him.  "I knew you'd come
around, love.  I think he needs to be reminded of what matters.  Could
you do me just one *little* favor?"

	A few minutes later, D'neor stalked out of the cottage, calling
Shatavari to him as he went.  "Mom power strike again," he grumbled.
"One *little* favor."

**********

	M'tan lay on his back, arching his neck to stare out the window
above the headboard of his bed.  He'd only noticed recently how small
and old his childhood room was.  The bed creaked treacherously when he
shifted.  Strange that this was the only safe place left for him.

	And he'd lose even that when they banished him.

	The killer would be on trial now.  She'd be banished, sent
painlessly off to hurt someone else.  And after that he'd be sent away
from everything he cared about... Aleta, Benna, his family...
Almiron....  Zareth would not even stay with him.  He'd felt nothing
from the Dragon since that first terrifying night.  He hadn't even
*seen* Zareth.  There was nothing to prove he was still at Keldarra.
Perhaps he had left already, gone wild to the mountains to leave his
Human behind to live his life in silence.

	God had demanded a tremendous sacrifice for an effort that had
ended in failure.

	He shifted, placing his hands behind his head.  A cloud drifted
by in the sky above his window, and he suddenly felt a lump in his
throat.  There was no reason, really, to go on living.  He had been
God's tool, his one moment of usefulness used up, and the consequences
of God's will had taken everything away.  If he killed himself now...
there would be no penalty for Zareth, who would have died in
innocence....  He would see Al'dairan again....

	He felt along the cold link of the Dragon bond.  Nothing.

	<Zareth, would you hate me if I killed us?  Would you
understand?>

	Nothing.

	M'tan sat up so quickly that stars wavered before his vision.
Zareth wouldn't even speak to save his life.  To Hell with everything.
The goddamn Dragon deserved it!  

	He threw himself at his old childhood bureau, nearly pulling the
drawers off their runners to rummage through their contents.  It would
serve them all right, everyone in the Warren.  Everyone who had stared
at him.  It would serve D'neor.  They'd miss him when he was gone.  When
the murderer destroyed them all, they'd see why he did it, and he would
be gone.  Lori could never come for him.  No one could hurt him again.

	He looked up from the drawer onto the surface of the bureau, and
the light of the sun through the window caught metal.  His razor.  His
hand went involuntarily to his face to feel the brush of whiskers.  He
had no idea when he'd shaved last.  The gleam of the razor was
tantalizing.  He snatched it violently, swearing as the sharp edge bit
into his finger, and retreated to his bed.  It creaked as he sat down.
He stared at the shallow slice on his finger that the razor had cut, the
blood welling in a little crimson pool.  Suddenly he felt ill.

	He balled a fist, gaping numbly at the tendons as they rose from
the flesh.  Then, slowly, he raised the razor over them.  He had failed
at everything else... his matehood, his parenthood, his Dragon, his God,
his brother.... <Al'dairan, could you understand that I did everything
for you?>  At this he would succeed. 

	"M'tan?" the voice on the other side of the door was muffled
through the wood.  "Please come out, love.  There's someone here to see
you."

	He just stared at the glint of the light on the razor.  The
words barely penetrated his mind.  It was as if he were buried, some
where deep beneath cotton, where nothing could reach him.

	"M'tan?"

	It's wasn't Aylin's voice.  He recognized it, somewhere from a
lifetime ago.

	The razor fell mutely to the worn rug on the floor.  M'tan rose,
barely knowing what he was doing, and unlocked the door.  His knuckles
where white on the doorknob as he pulled the door open.

	The face behind was just as he remembered it, pale and glowing
and framed by long golden hair.  "M'tan?  Oh, I'm so glad you're finally
up!  Your mother warned me that you were ill, so I didn't want to wake
you if you were sleeping, but I heard you moving inside, so I was sure
it would be all right....  M'tan?"

	Suayla.

	Aylin was standing behind the girl, and her eyes told him
paragraphs as only a mother's could.  <She doesn't know anything.  Don't
tell her.>

	Suayla was talking again.  "If you're tired, go ahead and lie
down.  I've really been wanting to come see you again, since I was sent
home before you arrived the last time, but nobody ever seems to *go* to
Keldarra Warren from Marrid anymore.  I'll stay until you're feeling
better.  May you'd like to sit down in the lounge?"

	She was speaking so fast, her voice filled with excited energy,
that he could barley follow the words.  He nodded mutely.

	She beamed, filling the room with the light of her smile.
"Don't worry.  I'll take care of you."  She took him by the hand and
drew him, unresisting, into his mother's lounge and seated him in the
most comfortable chair.  "Aylin says you've been terribly sick.  I'm
just so glad you're feeling better."

	She fell silent in a sudden wave of shyness, and blushed.  "You
must be wondering why I came.  Aylin said she hadn't told you yet, and
I'm so glad because I wanted you to meet him yourself."

	"Meet who?"  His voice was a whisper from the grave, as if he
were already dead.  He didn't know when he'd last spoken to anyone.

	She smiled prettily, still flushed.  She leaned over, and he
suddenly realized that there was something beside the chair... a cradle?
She was gently lifting something out of it and holding it out to him.
It was in his arms before he even realized what it was.

	The form squirmed.  He suddenly found himself meeting dark eyes
filled with wonder.  He found himself frozen, afraid.  They were
Al'dairan's eyes.  Al'dairan was looking at him through a baby's eyes.

	You have to understand, Al'dairan.  I did it all for you.  God
bade me do it, but I did it for you.  He tried to say it, but the words
wouldn't rise to his throat.  The dark eyes blinked, as if the thoughts
spoke as loud as words.

	<<A death for a death?  Is that what you wanted me to become, a
symbol of vengeance?>>

	It wasn't vengeance!  I had to stop her.  The Warren doesn't
have laws to destroy a monster....

	<<And any innocent who stands in the way.  I spent my life
trying to be a force of peace, and you undid all of my work in one
evening.  Thanks a lot.>>

	"I named him Al'tan."  The voice, high with uncomfortable
laughter, broke the silence.  "Al'dairan would have wanted it that way.
He thought so highly of you."

	M'tan looked up and stared blankly at the woman before him.  Her
words should have had meaning, but nothing made sense anymore.  He could
feel Al'dairan's eyes on him, condemning him just as everyone living had
condemned him... just as D'neor had condemned him.  There was no
understanding, even in death.

	God, why did you do this to me?

	"Are you sure you're all right?" she asked, her eyes wide now
with something like fear.  "Maybe you should rest.  If you're still
sick, I don't want Al'tan--"

	M'tan forced himself to his feet.  He pushed Al'dairan's eyes
away from him into Suayla's arms.  She gasped and held the warm shape
tightly.  It was making noises now, crying.  Then he was pushing past
her and his mother, through the door, and out into the night.  Their
cries followed him into the blackness until the woods surrounded him
with shadow.

	God, haven't you punished me enough?  All I did was what you
wanted.

	The first chill wind of autumn whispered through the leaves of
the trees.  His cheeks felt cold and moist.

	I couldn't have done it by myself.  You guided me.  Is this what
you do with your servants?

	He broke through the trees and fell to his knees in the grass at
the edge of the clearing.  He knew where he was.  Where else?  He was
always pulled to the same place when he walked blindly in the woods.
The ash was gone, but the earth still rose slightly where Al'dairan's
pyre had burned so long ago.  The earth was rich and fertile now.  M'tan
dug his fingers into the moist earth and squeezed until it ran through
his fingers.  There was nothing left.  He couldn't live.  He couldn't
die.  Through no will of his own, he was trapped in this existence where
there could never be happiness for him.

	He had never before believed in a cruel God.  It was God's will
that had moved him to steal the knife from Sheltie's kitchen, God who
had driven him to lead the murderess from the Warren and attempt to take
her life in the forest.  He could never have done it alone; it was not
in him.  He was a gentle man, but a greater need had driven him to act
out of character.  If he had succeeded, Keldarra would have been rescued
from a menace that their pacifist nature could not prepare them for.
And the horrible creature had deserved it after all she had done.  She
deserved to die as the gentle giant she had killed, seeing her own
life's blood draining from her body.  She should have hurt as he, M'tan,
had hurt because of her.  Nothing should have stopped him -- not the
Dragon, not....

	No, that wasn't what he meant.  He hadn't wanted to do it.  He'd
done it because it had to be done.  He hadn't wanted to hurt and destroy
for himself.  He couldn't have just wanted to answer blood with blood,
pain with pain.  He couldn't possibly have known....

	The weight on his chest was crushing, forcing the breath from
him.  He crouched on his knees in the grass, trying to pull air into his
lungs.

	"I was wrong."

	He almost didn't recognize the voice for his own.  All the
illusions dissolved at that moment, and he saw himself for what he was--
every lie he had told himself--  everything he had become.

	He had been wrong to try to punish Lori himself.  He was wrong
to try to take the innocent lives of Wyndelie and an unborn Human baby
in his race for vengeance.  He was wrong to hide behind the excuse of a
higher calling to justify an act of brutality.  It was his act of
brutality; the blame was all his.  He was the murder; he was the
monster.  The Hell his life had become was just punishment.  

	"Forgive me.  Please forgive me.  I was wrong."

	And then there was a roar of silence so complete that he could
not hear his own breathing.  The walls of his isolation crumbled away to
nothingness, and he was whole again.  It had been so long, so very long,
that it was as if he had joined again for the first time.

	<Zareth?>

	<I'm here, M'tan.  I'm here.>

	He staggered to his feet, his mind singing with the feeling of
the Dragon's mind in his.  There was so much to say, and he knew that it
had all been shared between them in that moment.

	"Daddy?"

	He looked down in astonishment.  "Benna?"

	"Grandma Aylin said I should call you that, M'tan.  I wasn't
sure, but she said you'd like it.  She wants me to call Aleta 'Mommy'
too, but that just doesn't *sound* right."

	She'd grown so tall.  How much of her life had he missed?  He
leaned down and took her in his arms, lifting her up in the air.  "I
love it," he murmurred.  "Can I call you 'Daughter' too?"

	"Let me down!" Benna squeeled.  "You're holding me too tight!"

	He spun the giggling her around around as he set her down on the
grass, and as he straightened he saw her.  She was standing with the
moonlight behind her, its silver light glinting on her red hair.  Her
hands were thrust deep in the pockets of her flight jacket.  The
freckles stood out starkly against the white skin around her deep,
vulerable green eyes.  "Zareth told Melianth that you were upset," she
said timidly.  "I thought maybe... I could help?"

	They stood like statues in the moonlight on the grassy hill.
"Can you forgive me?" he asked.  "After everything I've done, could you
still love me?"

	The green eyes were suddenly filled with tears.  "I love you!
No matter what, I love you!"

	Then he was running to her, taking her hands, kissing her
cheeks, her nose, her eyes, her jaw, her throat, her lips.   He felt
Zareth's touch in his mind, Aleta's touch against his skin, the sound of
Benna's laughter in his ears.  "I was wrong!" he cried, and his
triumphant voice echoed back to him from the nearby crags of Keldarra.
He was wrong to leave Aleta; wrong to neglect his daughter; wrong to
reject his Dragon; wrong to drag happily mated Almiron down with him.  

	Standing on the ashes that had burned so long ago, he was
reborn.  He looked up at the great violet eyes looking down on him
beneath moonlight filtered through grey Dragon wings, and he whispered a
prayer of thanks.


Respectfully Submitted,

Susan Rati
Creator, DragonLands