The other lands a-2

by David Anthony Durham

  "She has no creativity," a voice in the third row said. "There is always a way to exploit for gain."

  "We see that, yes," Grau said. "The peasant folk rarely do."

  Many voices climbed over one another in anxious agreement with the chief elder.

  "But the bitch has finally consented to release the vintage," Revek said. "Within a few weeks the entire Known World will be addicted to it. Will that not unite them?"

  "It will. It will," Sire Nathos said, speaking about his area of expertise, "but I don't think that it matters. United they may just fall faster. Let them line up to get cut down. Better that than that they splinter and hide in the various provinces. Either way, I would not bet on their chances. And we need not. If the Auldek prevail, who is to say we can't do business with them? When the Known World is populated with Auldek and their newborn children-babies for the first time in hundreds of years-what will the Auldek wish for?"

  "Peace."

  "Stability."

  Nathos nodded. "They'll begin to fear death again. They'll want sedate, docile servants with no rebellion in them. They'll want to grow rich as they dream of their children's lives. We will have them in our power just as much as we had the Acacians."

  Faleen asked, "And if, by some strange turn of events, the bitch beats them back?"

  "I rather hope she doesn't," Nathos admitted. "That seems… boring. But if that happens, she'll have a newly addicted, certainly battered, nation to rebuild. She has no idea how completely we own her."

  "And she still does not know what happens when one stops drinking the vintage?"

  "No. No, she let that go untested."

  Sire Grau chuckled. "So we have them forever. Oh, my brothers, isn't commerce wonderful? My mood is rising. What else have we to consider?"

  Sire El reiterated an idea he had proposed before. Perhaps the time when they need fear their own military might was behind them. They should enlarge the Ishtat Inspectorate. If they could not sell quota slaves as regularly, they could train them instead. They were already doing this on a small scale, and the first young soldiers bred on the Outer Isles had successfully joined the ranks of the Ishtat, without mishap.

  Several from the inner circle, including Faleen, grumbled against this. "We should be wary lest we make ourselves like the peasants," Faleen said. "I want no army to rebel against us, no kings or queens or senators."

  "I did not propose kings or queens or senators," El snapped. "I propose that we make use of a means of production we have gone to great expense to establish. The plantations exist. They produce souls, bodies. We must find something to do with the product, lest it all go to rot."

  "Either the bitch or the Auldek or the quota slaves in Ushen Brae may one day turn against us," Sire Lethel said, speaking with unusual boldness from the second circle. "Who knows what the future holds? It may be that we don't just need to protect our products and wealth. Who is to say we won't need to fight for our very existence?"

  They lay pondering this for a time, and then slowly, one by one, they gave their consent. The conversation continued. Eventually, as the entire group slowed with shared fatigue, Faleen, with Grau's approval, recounted the consensus. Sire El could build his army. On one of the small isles, another leagueman would oversee the production of concubines, quality ones who would be as much spies and assassins as they were lovers. Still others would follow the Auldek's progress, corresponding with them just enough to let them understand the league might yet be their friend.

  And finally they came to where they began. The confusion that was Ushen Brae. Sire Faleen himself would journey across to oversee the exploitation of the Aklun relics, which some were already searching for. Another should venture farther, right across to the mainland itself. The slaves being abandoned there could not be allowed to run amok.

  "Who will take up this responsibility?"

  The response was immediate, uncharacteristically swift. "I will." Again, that voice from the second row.

  "Sire Lethel?" Faleen asked. "These are affairs of the real world, you understand? Among the peasants. There is risk-"

  "And there is joy in taking risk," Lethel said. "My cousin enjoyed risk. I do as well."

  "Will you err as your cousin did?"

  "No," Lethel said. "I will not. I believe he should be forgotten, but I would not have my family forgotten. I will succeed where he did not. I swear it. If I cannot, I will arrange to have my own head set rolling."

  "Do any object?" Faleen asked.

  For a time a murmur of discussion swept around the rings, but it was not true objection. Few would want the task, Dagon knew. Why should they? Few of these men are like me, Dagon thought, or like Neen. Perhaps this Lethel is a person of promise. He let these thoughts slip away almost as quickly as he formed them.

  Still, it alarmed him when El spoke his name. "Dagon, you must return swiftly."

  Reminded of it, fatigue wrung his body anew. He had arrived just an hour before the meeting. Now, likely, they would turn him back toward Acacia in the morn. He felt a hard elbow of annoyance press his ribs, but he breathed through it and asked, "Have we any particular message for the queen?"

  Grau cleared his throat harshly, as if he had something caught in it that he wished to expel. His voice calmed when he spoke. "Use whatever words you like. Just make her know the league understands that the changing situation means we must all adapt. Let her know the league has only ever wished to facilitate trade that was in the best interests of the empire. This is no time to trade in quota. Tell her she has our full support and no malice whatsoever."

  "You mean lie on every count?"

  "Of course," Faleen said. "What other way is there to do business?"

  "None that I have yet found to be better than our own methods," Dagon said. Despite his fatigue, he felt rather better now than he had when he began. He should have known that would be the case. The future always looked brighter when joined with the hazy wisdom of this peers.

  Grau must have picked up his thoughts. He said, "On some things we change with the situations of the world. But in other ways we stay true to the fundamentals that have always served us. Yes?" The answering affirmation filled the chamber with echoing, raucous enthusiasm-muted, of course, by the mist, but thunderous by Council terms.

  Once it quieted down, the chief elder added, infusing his words with the certainty they all craved, "The League of Vessels will ride out this storm as ever we have. This is what has always made us great. It's why we will prosper now, just as we prospered during Hanish Mein's short rule, and as we thrived all the years since Tinhadin's foolish actions. Who but our ancestors would have had the vision to partner with the Lothan Aklun, sorcerer fugitives from Tinhadin's wrath, blood relatives to that madman? Who but we would grab the opportunity to help them punish the Known World year after year? We grew to hate them, but it was a beneficial partnership. Who but we could so long keep it secret that the trade that fueled the world was a product of old hatreds between kinsmen?"

  Grau chuckled. "Before long, the seas will calm. The sun will burn away the clouds. And we will yet be masters of the world. Masters of whom is yet to be seen, trading what it is yet to be determined, but it hardly matters. We have many options. So, what we have is a change of everything and a change of nothing at all. On all counts we will profit. And don't forget, brothers, our people are yet searching for this soul catcher we have heard so much about. When they find it-and other Lothan Aklun relics-I'm inclined to believe our losses will be no worse than pinpricks on a rhino's hide. Don't you agree?"

  They did.

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  He is designed for war. How else to describe it? Look at him! Just look at him…

  So Rialus thought as he scurried to stay just behind the headman of the Lvin, the chieftain of the entire Auldek nation, and-as of today-the commander of an invading army: Devoth. His strides each doubled Rialus's. His shoulders punched forward and back as he walked, squared and higher on his frame than those of
normal men, as if he wore sculpted armor draped over them. But the sculpting was nothing more than his natural contours; the bulk measured only in the striated cords of his own muscles. He went bare armed, shoulder joints rounded knobs, bulging at the biceps. His back-wrapped in tight-fitting leather-started wide and tapered toward his waist, where it met his buttocks and the swinging tree trunks he called legs.

  Rialus kept his eyes above this part of the Auldek's anatomy, feeling the same unease he experienced around thoroughbred animals. Any creatures designed for violence and latent with sexual strength troubled him. He doubted there was even one individual in the Known World to match Devoth's physical stature. Certainly no Acacian ever had and likely no Mein either; no Halaly or Candovian; not even a freak, straw-haired Aushenian from the Gradthic Range was likely to reach the Lvin's height of eight savagely proportioned feet.

  The benefits of four hundred and some years spent doing nothing but training for war, Rialus mused. That and teaching hummingbirds to sip sweet water from your mouth; raising pet lions; running endurance races over twenty-, thirty-, and fifty-mile courses; practicing archery; singing epic poems, and painting with a brush and ink. Yes, Rialus had continued to learn more about the Auldek with each passing day. None of the newfound knowledge, however, made anything about them make better sense to him. None of it balanced the knowledge that the entire nation was ravenous for war, rushing toward it with a breathless anticipation that seemed almost childlike. Though he had a considerable part in the planning stages of the coming invasion, this day had reared up before him suddenly. Things, it seemed, were moving as fast as the Auldek's massive strides.

  Thus, Devoth, Rialus, and their small party went out from the Lvin area of Avina at a brisk pace. They walked atop an elevated network that took them from rooftop to rooftop through a district Rialus had not yet visited. Dropping to street level, they strode for a time down a thoroughfare that swarmed with onlookers, slaves mostly, but all caught up in the excitement of the moment. They yelled encouragement and clapped. Some banged cymbals together. The youngest tossed folded bits of paper shaped like birds and insects, yet another Auldek pastime. The light crafts looped in the air above them. Were they happy to know the Auldek were departing? It did not seem so. The enthusiasm seemed sincere enough, and the tears in the eyes of some held both joy and sadness. Rialus would never understand slaves.

  Slick with sweat before long, Rialus welcomed the coolness as they dropped into an underground passageway. The Auldek to either side of Devoth talked as they moved, but Rialus did not follow what they were saying. It was enough just to keep up.

  And then they emerged into the sun again. Devoth led them across a rectangle of pink marble. He began the ascent of a wide staircase. Above it, nothing but the sky, bright blue, streaked by high clouds and promising a fine day. Only as he reached the halfway point did he slow his pace. He inhaled a breath, head back slightly. Rialus did the same and he imagined he smelled the scent and essence of many, many souls.

  Devoth paused. He did not turn fully around, but he twisted his head enough for Rialus to see his sharp profile. His long hair tumbled over his shoulders in auburn waves. "Are you ready to be stunned, Rialus Leagueman? I think this will be a sight you have never seen the like of before."

  Actually, Rialus thought, I'm rather tired of being stunned. This entire journey: the waves of the Barrier Ridge and the sea wolves of the Gray Slopes, punching through the angerwall and gazing up at the heights of the barrier isles, the floating dead in the sea and the chaos after Sire Neen's beheading and… the list went on and on, and by the look of things it would do so endlessly. He would just as soon live the rest of his days without such excitement. But as he mounted the last steps and the field below them came into view, Rialus beheld the army that Devoth and the other Auldek had gathered for their invasion.

  It was enormous. Countless bodies crowded a massive rectangular clearing that stretched toward the horizon. In the near distance, separated into rectangular units by their clan affiliation, marked by different-colored armor and garments, stood the Auldek themselves. Rialus knew enough to separate them at a glance now: Lvin and Kern and Kulish Kra nearest, Anet and Antoks and Wrathic just behind them, the Shivith along the left side. The Fru Nithexek, a clan he knew little about, were a thin line at the rear of the Auldek ranks, and the few Numrek stood in the right corner near the front. The totem clans of the Auldek.

  Rialus tried to find some way to number them but ended up feeling he was guessing. There might be twenty or thirty thousand of them. Not so many to represent an entire race, really. But they were only a portion of the gathered host.

  Behind them, stretching back toward the rim of the horizon, went the divine children. They were likewise sectioned off by the clans that claimed them, garishly clothed, many of them altered to physically resemble their clans' totem animals. How strange to see human wolves howling, white-faced lion men baring their teeth, cranelike people snapping their heads from side to side, others pretending to hiss like venomous snakes… Madness, on a massive scale. Those farther back lost shape and individual detail. They blended into a moving mass. They looked like ants swarming, piled on top of one another and intertwined so that it was impossible to tell where one ended and another began.

  Lining the far edges of the mass of soldiers were the beasts that would also attack Acacia. Kwedeirs-those batlike monstrosities with riders strapped to their backs-shuffled uneasily, their awkwardly bent wings rustling, seemingly eager to fly. The kwedeir was not a totem animal as far as Rialus knew, but the clans aligned with animals fierce enough for battle had representatives also. Antoks were spaced out in ranks receding into the distance. They wore intricate harnesses with pockets in which soldiers perched, seven or eight for each creature. There were white-maned snow lions and shivith cats, lean and restless, ready to bolt; wrathic wolves the size of horses, with long muzzles that quivered as they growled; and even a few sky bears, bulky carnivores the color of dirty snow that-judging by what he could see-chose to stand on their hind legs when agitated. Above it all the crows of the Kulish Kra swarmed in excited flocks. Certainly, though, they were trained pets. Certainly, they were anticipating the slaughter that such a mass commotion must lead to. When had the world ever seen such a bizarre, murderous throng of man and beast and man-beast?

  And all this, Rialus knew, was a gathering of just a portion of the army. A supply train had already been sent out along the route to prepare the way-to stash food supplies and gear, to construct makeshift outposts to aid the coming army. Devoth had explained that hunters and laborers would travel before the main column, and that a neverending convoy of slaves would follow it, shuttling the supplies to keep them alive in the northern regions. To hear him describe it, they would drain Ushen Brae of its population and send a river of new life flooding into the Known World.

  Just before he stepped away from him to address the crowd, Devoth turned to Rialus. He pointed one of his long, thick-jointed fingers at him. "You are a witness. Watch and listen."

  He turned away before Rialus could answer, leaving him with the disquieting feeling that he might be tested afterward on what transpired.

  "This will be the greatest work of your lives!" Devoth shouted to the crowd, once they had settled down to allow him to speak. He spoke slowly, and for a moment Rialus found the cadence strange, especially as the sentiments themselves were impassioned. "You know why you're here. For war!"

  The crowd affirmed that they did, indeed, know that was why they were gathered. It took a while for the approbation to die down, since the commander's words needed to be repeated for the farther reaches to hear. Cheers came back at him, delayed by the distance.

  "This war was hundreds of years in the making," Devoth claimed. "Hundreds of years. Think how fortunate you are! You will be remembered for it-whether you live or die. You will be remembered and envied for the things you are going to see and deeds you are going to do. You will be legends. Do you doubt it? Who but the he
roes of legend would dare to march into the great north? Who but legends would kick white bears and ice maidens out of their paths and tread across frozen water, walk above a fathomless sea, through biting wind and snow, across tundra and over mountains? Who but conquerors would dare face all that just to reach their enemies? Tell me that doesn't sound like legend!"

  Judging by the shout that answered his prompt, they rather liked the notion.

  He knows how to work a crowd, Rialus thought.

  "Yes." Devoth paced back and forth across the platform, hand cupped beside his ear, pulling the cacophony in as if it were personal praise, eating it with his grin. "Yes."

  For a time, Rialus lost the flow of Devoth's discourse. It was hard not to just gape at the throng of warriors and beasts: antoks pawing the ground; kwedeirs rolling their shoulders, cracking their jaws as if they might snatch up a snack from all the morsels around them; the masses rolling back their enthusiasm in delayed waves. The passing moments made none of it less horrifying. When the cheering suddenly faded, however, Rialus knew he had better listen more carefully.

  "So how could we not offer you a great reward? Divine children, could we not honor you? Tell me, what would you like to have most in the world?"

  Devoth leaned forward, awaiting a response. Only, there was no answering sound. The enormous army stood hushed. Even the antoks cocked their massive heads and listened to the eerie silence of thousands of breathing beings. The Auldek smiled and nudged one another knowingly, but the masses behind them seemed genuinely baffled.

  What exactly is going on? Rialus wondered.

  "You don't know?" Devoth asked. "Let me suggest something, then. I know you will come on this journey and fight this war with us because you are loyal and you are proud and this, more than anything in your lives yet, is what you were created for. But if you help us gain this-when we conquer the Acacians like the warriors we once were; when we of the Auldek race are fertile again and can make our own children; when we give up the souls inside us and live only the span of a single life once more; when we are mortal again; when we have all these things that we most want-then we will free you."