Can't Be What I'm Not
Rose G
Disclaimer - All characters are the property of Stephan Donaldson, and I have made no money from using them. The song and title belong to Boyzone, and probably someone else before them.
No matter what they teach us,
No matter what they say is true
I can't deney what I believe -
I can't be what I'm not.
~~~Boyzone, No Matter What~~~
I am Bannor of the Bloodguard, the Harachai. My body is not my own, my will is not my own. Sleepless now for two millennia, only death to release me from this eighth hell called life. I was there when good and Earthpower fell. I was sent away by Kevin Landwaster himself, and sworn by oaths that no mortals should take, I left. On my head and on my kinsman's lay the Desecration of the Land. On our hands is the death and blood and terror of my people. Kevin ordered us away to save his own life - gladly would I trade mine to see once more the undamaged Land, if it was not only a waking dream of the Bloodguard.
That vow binds me, chafes me, so deep that my flesh and bones obey it. Sleepless, we of the Bloodguard protect. Womanless, we serve out our lives in meek obedience. Immortality is not for humans, the Ur-Lord said, and although the vow stops the word, we have become less than human.
We are not immortal - he got that wrong, for sword or axe or stumbling horse can take life from us as easy as from the Lords. But old age does not wither us; sickness does not touch us. Life unceasing is poor reward for service. To have seen so many springs that they do not touch battle scarred hearts; not to flinch from blood and death because you have seen too much; to not be able to feel love, and joy, and fear is to be already half dead. We go without shoes so pain sometimes stabs our feet. That pain is our reminder of life, the only reminder.
My wife, I loved her, but she died so long ago that I cannot remember her face. The soft touch of her skin, the lilt in her voice, the blue of her eyes I remember. And she died without me, as I served Kevin and thought ever of her. Is it possible for Bloodguard to love? I believe that I cannot, and only one thing moves me to joy.
The Ranyhyn, the great horses of the Plains of Ra. Never will I forget being chosen, on that night when Kevin was considered - coming by the light of a thousand twinkling stars while ice touched the grass with silver and burnished their coats. Three came to Kevin and one reared to him; a chestnut, a moon dark shadow in the night. Ten came to me, and I knew not why; a blood bay stallion with four white feet reared above me, his fore hooves cleaving the sky, the stars.
Two thousand years later, and still that stallion haunts me, his hooves pounding ever in my mind, and after him came the others; a red roan, and a little mare, a grandson of the bay and so many more besides. Without them the Bloodguard would have nothing. Now we have a debt that cannot be repaid, because it is the debt of surrendered freedom. Always, it comes back to freedom.
Freedom, liberty, because we lost ours. We cannot sleep and that is captivity not short of torture. We tire, by the Creator we tire but the human gift to close our eyes and sleep is denied to us. It passes us we sit watchful, by the campfire, but never does it go completely. I cannot remember a time when I did not feel weary, when life was not an effort. And of course, without sleep we cannot dream, because dreaming is for free people, for memories and hopes that the Bloodguard cannot have.
We fight Corruption; we cannot be corrupted and we cannot remain alive, human. As the Ur-Lord said, we are corrupted already, already in hell. Dead with beating heart and flowing blood. How I wish I could tell him that.