Rialus obliged. He took the glass of red liquid in both hands, clenching it tightly to keep his hands from trembling.
"Calrach is correct," Devoth said. "This is the way it is. Our slaves are our children. Their fate is inseparable from ours. The changes to their bodies are called 'belonging.' We don't make all the belonging changes to them ourselves. Some they make themselves. Some things only the Lothan Aklun had the magic for. That, it seems, has come to an end because of the league. We will have to be repaid for this. Very much so."
And that closed the subject. A relief, for Rialus. They turned their attention to the spectacle before them. To begin with, individual warriors from the different groups taunted others into single combat. Listening to the banter they threw around, the way they laughed and swore and taunted, put Rialus in mind of the children who dove for oysters at the docks of Acacia's western harbor. Those suntanned, shirtless youths had the same easy competitive air about them. But the divers did not strike blows that severed a crow woman's arm at the shoulder or split a cat man's head so that the crown down to below the eyes went spinning end over end, or that smashed a lovely crane woman's knee between two war hammers.
Rialus really, really felt he was going to be sick. He motioned as much with the fingers of one hand, vaguely calling for attention. It was the type of gesture that would have brought a servant to his side in Acacia. It was ignored here. A hot sweat broke out on his forehead and spread throughout his body. Saliva surged into his mouth and stayed there, no matter how much he swallowed. What was wrong with these people? Looking about him, he could not match the merriment on their faces with the scenes of carnage that evoked it. Before long he sat with his eyes closed, "watching" only with his ears, which he would have stuffed with wax if he thought he could get away with it and had any.
Thus he passed what seemed like several hours. The clash of weapons, the cheers of pleasure and the boasting and the occasional screams of agony went on interminably. He had begun to think they would never end, and he was rather surprised when they stopped. A great ovation took over the arena for a time, and when it finally died the sound faded to a low murmur of conversation and movement.
Rialus opened his eyes. "Is it… over?"
"No, no, not at all," Devoth said. "The cleaners will tend the field for a time, and then we have the melee. That is where matters are truly decided."
The cleaners? As quickly as he thought the question he got the answer. Several other doors, different from the ones the slaves had entered by, had also been opened. From them emerged the monsters Rialus knew by description, though he had not seen their work on the plains of Talay Antoks. There was no mistaking the swinish enormity of them. Nor was there anything hiding the fact that they brought their crosshatched horrors of mouths down on the slain warriors with voracious enthusiasm. Rialus looked away, holding back the convulsions building in his stomach.
Devoth sat back in his seat again, relaxed once more. "So," he said, as if he were asking how he liked the weather or the view, "Rialus Leagueman, will you do as we wish?"
"May I ask what you intend? Just so that I can better answer your question."
Devoth thought about this for a time. He shrugged. Gesturing toward the garish units preparing for the next battle, he said, "See those? They fight for privilege. See how we honor our slaves? At times they decide our futures. The clan that wins here today will lead the invasion. They determine which clan will be the initial spear thrust."
"The invasion?"
"Of your lands. They will beat the winter traveling over the north, Numrek showing the way." He leaned in and whispered, "These honored ones will have the most fun. The rest of the Auldek will follow to complete the work."
"Why?" Rialus asked.
Devoth looked at him.
"I mean… that-that it need not be war that comes of this. I could help make a new treaty with Queen Corinn." As he said it, he knew it was true. She would be angry and he would suffer her wrath first, but in the end he would be able to convince her to see reason. They could avoid war. Of course they could. Sometimes great sacrifices needed to be made, but better that than complete destruction. He continued, hope already quickening his speech. "The league could be appeased and the trade continued. I daresay you could win even better terms-"
"Terms?" Devoth said this with an open-mouthed grimace, as if the word were a dead mouse he had just discovered on his tongue.
"Why make total war when you could negotiate peace? The queen wouldn't like it, but you could convince her to give you a toehold in the Known World. The Numrek have had such. I could ask as your-"
Devoth had heard enough. "Nah. You don't know anything, leagueman. We've been too long alive. Too long without real war. We haven't lived as our ancestors did in many, many years. Time that we do.
"The Numrek may have done what you say, but they are the weakest among us. Cowards. Lowborn."
This was certainly said loud enough for Calrach and Mulat to hear, but neither of them turned or acknowledged it.
"We true Auldek know that nothing matters but bravery in battle. We were robbed of this when the Lothan Aklun gave us everlasting life. You think that's a gift? They who gave us life denied us immortality. Made death something to fear. This, Rialus Leagueman, has been our shame. That ends now. The Auldek will go to war. We will die in glorious battle, and our women's wombs will quicken with life. That's immortality, leagueman. To die and live on also. Perhaps you don't understand this, but the outcome doesn't matter. Talk no more of negotiation, of terms. We will take the world, Rialus Leagueman, or we will die with blade bloodied. Either way is joy for me."
And doom for us, Rialus thought. Doom for us.
Devoth leaned back, looking down at the field. "We have asked you many questions already," he said. "You have answered well. Because of you, we trust the tale Calrach tells, we believe in the boy Allek. Because of you, we will embark on this journey. I thank you for that, but now is when your work begins. You will help us shape our plans. You will answer many more questions about your nation. Tell us the geography. Draw us maps. Tell us customs, name the powers, name the people we will meet. You will prepare us so that nothing-nothing-will surprise us. You will find the things that we have overlooked and you will tell us that as well." He paused, tented his fingers before him, and turned to Rialus. "Am I right in saying that you will do these things?"
Rialus recognized that, no matter how plainly it was put to him-the ramifications of his answer were enormous knots upon knots upon knots, all of which should be untied before any answer was arrived at. He knew all that was true, but he also knew he could never untie all those knots. Better just to answer.
So he did.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX
Mor had not seen this vessel messenger before. That made her nervous, no matter how often she told herself it did not matter. It was not him she would be speaking to about the important matters. He was but the vessel, and of course vessels were interchangeable. Only the contents within mattered. But still, she had first to look into a stranger's eyes and search for a loved one. This was not something she had ever grown accustomed to.
They sat across from each other on a hillock in the barren stretch between two walls. Once, the area had been a park, but that was long ago. Now it was abandoned and overgrown with briars, home to rats and other scurrying things. They were alone save for the few guards who stood at a distance, on the lookout for the unlikely patrol of the divine children. They had planned the meeting to avoid this.
"Hello, Mor Avenger," the man said. "It honors me to meet you, as it honors me to carry an elder within and his message from the Free People." He bowed his head as he spoke, showing her the short bristle of a few weeks' hair growth across his crown, the skin visible beneath it and dotted with the heart-shaped imprints of the sky bear. Unusual, for the Fru Nithexek was not a numerous clan.
Mor answered him formally. "The honor is mine. May this vessel never crack."
The man looked up
. His wide-spaced eyes were large, brown, and intense. He smiled. "I have not cracked yet, Mor Avenger. I won't today. You can rest assured of that. Before I begin, tell me, is it true? Do we hold a prince of the Akarans?"
Mor nodded.
"Could he be the Rhuin Fa?"
"Anything could be," she answered, feeling suddenly testy in addition to uneasy. It was inappropriate for him to waste time feeding his own curiosity. "Whether he is or not isn't for me to say."
Pursing his lips, the messenger said, "Nor for me to ask, judging by your tone. Forgive me. For us in the Westlands, though, we are hungry for hope. We hear rumors, but we've heard rumors for hundreds of years. Nothing yet has come of them."
"I didn't take you as that old."
The man smiled again. "You are anxious to begin. I understand. Shall we?"
Despite her impatience, Mor scanned the overgrown walls before answering. She made eye contact with Tunnel, who stood with his arms crossed, leaning against the arch through which they would exit. He acknowledged her with a lift of his chin. Like everything about him, it was a gruff gesture, but it was comforting as well.
"Yes," she said, "do begin."
The messenger cleared his throat. His gaze flicked to Mor, amused just a moment longer, and then his arms went limp in his lap and he seemed to focus his entire consciousness on his breathing. Eyes closed, he inhaled and exhaled. Every so often he let out a low moan. For a time his head dropped forward as if he were asleep. And then it seemed he really was asleep, his moaning nothing but faint snoring. That was how it always was. Mor waited, watching him, curious, as ever, about what was about to happen.
Then, the moaning ceased. The man's breathing stopped. For an uncomfortably long few moments it was as if the sleeping man had passed into death. And then he looked up. He gasped and blinked his eyes open. His now blue eyes-the whites veined with a crimson lacework of age, yellowed and tired-were not the messenger's eyes anymore. Nor was his voice the same.
"Dearest," his mouth said. The voice coming out did not fit the shape or the movement of his lips. A dry voice, slow and patient and heavy with melancholy and love, it was a voice she knew well from her girlhood but had not heard from the actual man in some years. "You are not my little girl, are you?"
Her first impulse was to refute that. Yes! Yes, she was his little girl. Of course she was. That's all she ever would be. It was cruel for him to say otherwise. But she had said that on other occasions, and it did no good. Instead, she swallowed and said, "No, but I am the one who was that little girl. Now I am the woman who remembers that girl and remembers you. Hello, Yoen."
The messenger smiled. His eyes closed for a moment. Opened. Yoen's voice said, "Hello, dearest. I wish my eyes could truly see you, at least once more before I fly. That would do my heart good."
"Let it be so. Let us make it so." A tear welled from Mor's left eye and raced down her cheek. She had not known there was a danger of this. She wiped at it, embarrassed, flooded with memories she rarely allowed to surface. Yoen, the nearest thing to a father she had ever known-more than that, he was father and mother both, and a balm for the loss of a brother. Life was cruel and cruel again, to take everything from her as a child and make her relearn herself under this man's care. And then, later, to ask her to be whole unto herself when he escaped to join the elders in the Westlands, on the Sky Isle. It was too much to bear.
The thing was, she knew that the eyes looking at her, though they appeared to be Yoen's, were not his. They were the messenger's, and it was he who was seeing enough to be able to take part in this conversation. Yoen himself did not see her. He had instilled himself and his words inside this man at least a fortnight ago. They had lived in him, and now the vessel let them out. More than that, he shaped them. He spoke and reacted with Yoen's voice and mind, even though Yoen himself was not part of it. Mor had never understood the process. And she had never liked it.
"What do the elders wish of me?" Mor asked.
"Tell me of the Akaran."
She could tell him things, but whatever responses he made to what she said had to have been embedded in the vessel weeks ago. It made little sense, but few of the things the People had learned from the Lothan Aklun did. She answered as fully as she could, telling Yoen everything that seemed important. She did leave out how she had reacted during her first encounter with Dariel, but that was a detail, not the substance he needed.
"Do you believe he speaks truly?"
With more bitterness than she intended, Mor said, "I don't know what truth means to Acacians."
Yoen's eyes stared at her. Waited.
"He seems to believe himself. He is earnest, but that doesn't mean he's truthful. He may just be foolish."
"We must be careful with him," Yoen's voice said, after considering this for a long moment. "If he is the living prophecy, he must be allowed to find it himself. We cannot thrust it upon him. We can, however, take certain steps. This is what you will do: test him further. Find a true test."
Mor's eyes widened. A true test meant a task to be accomplished in the real world, with real danger. "And if he dies?"
"Then he is not the Rhuin Fa. Mor, my dearest, go with the-"
"Wait," Mor interrupted what she knew to be the beginning of a farewell. "Yoen, how do we know that we don't err by forcing a role upon him? You yourself once told me that the prophecy of the Rhuin Fa might be nothing more than a tale to keep our hopes alive. Perhaps we are giving this Akaran an importance he shouldn't have, putting our faith in someone who may not deserve it."
Though he only had his eyes to express emotion, Mor was sure she could see the look of fatigued love Yoen had so often showered upon her. "Dearest, how do you know that's not how prophecy works?"
That question was still circling through Mor's mind half an hour later, after she had parted with Yoen, bade the vessel farewell, and worked her way back down under Avina. Tunnel led the way. Dariel's cell was changed so often, and she was so distracted with managing the People's myriad concerns, that it was comforting having Tunnel's broad gray back to follow. They arrived at Dariel's new room before she knew it. Tunnel turned and studied her, concern on his face. She had hardly said a word to him as they walked. She realized he had no idea what Yoen had said to her. Considering his obvious affection for Dariel, it was insensitive to hold to her silence.
"It's all right," she said, reaching out and touching the brawny bulk of his forearm. "I have no orders to harm him. He will just be tested further."
Tunnel lifted his chin, a gesture that seemed to have a variety of meanings for him. This time, she thought it indicated relief, acknowledgment of reason, and a slight hint of "See, I told you."
"Yes, Tunnel knows." She touched her palm to his muscled chest, pulled it back quickly. "Go in. Let Skylene know she may proceed as we discussed. She can answer his questions. I will listen from here for a time."
Once she was alone in the cramped passageway, Mor leaned against the stone wall next to the door. As in all these abandoned regions, the door was old and half rotten. It sat slightly ajar, tugging at hinges that probably would not hold much longer. There was enough space that Mor could listen, knowing she was hidden from the speakers inside.
Tunnel's entry stopped whatever they had been talking about. He greeted the prince merrily, like an old friend. He even audibly slapped him on the back. They spoke foolishness for a few minutes, although within it Mor recognized that Tunnel was conveying her permission to finally educate the Akaran. It was time, as she had already discussed with Skylene, to tell him the truth of things.
Mor noted that Skylene and Dariel spoke with an alarming level of familiarity. She did not like it. Were they all so infatuated with the Akaran? Even Skylene, her lover? The thought of it almost drove her into the room, but she was not ready yet, and did not want to enter until she knew what she would say and could do it without hesitation. Anyway, she had agreed that Skylene would be kind to him in ways that she was not willing to be. Perhaps that was all
she was doing-playing a role a little too well.
Dariel spoke easily enough. The topic now-his naval battles with the league during the war with Hanish Mein-seemed to fire his oratory. He wants us to think him a hero, Mor thought, and because of it she wanted to doubt his version of events. Still, it was easy to listen to him, easy to forget her skepticism as he told of ships smashing together, of nighttime raids, hidden raider camps, and the great work of sabotage that destroyed much of the league's platforms. Mor remembered that place well, and it was stunning to imagine the scene he described. Flames roaring up into the sky…
"Why did you hate them so?" Skylene asked, the scratch of a scribe's stylus right behind her words. "Your family did-and does-partner with them. You came here with them-"
"It was personal back then. There I was, a prince of an overthrown empire, hiding among brigands, fighting the league because they made life hard for the criminals who were my new family… Yet I came here, allied with them, more aware than ever of their crimes, but was then betrayed by them to the people who enslave you. And now I'm in your hands. All very amusing." He laughed. "How can I live day after day, trying to make decisions, and yet feel that I've not had one moment of control of any of it?"
"At least you laugh," Tunnel said.
"At some point, what else can I do?"
"You control more than you acknowledge," Skylene's voice said. "I would have loved to have seen the platforms destroyed."
"That didn't come without a price."
"What was the price?"
Dariel took a moment to respond. "I lost a person dear to me, the man who was my second father."
A second father. Mor recalled Yoen's eyes embedded in the vessel's face, but then pushed the image away. It was not the same. Whatever the Akaran had experienced, his loss was nothing compared to what each of the People suffered.
Dariel continued, "And I came to understand later that my actions killed many quota children. I wish that weren't so. It was children like you who died there."
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