CHILDREN OF AMARID

by DAVID B. COE

  Trahn regarded Baden keenly. “So what do you suggest?”

  “You said yourself that the outlanders seemed awed by the fact that you healed their wounds on the spur,” Baden reminded the dark mage. “And this second man didn’t attempt escape or suicide even when he had the chance. The process may already have begun.” He paused. “I’d like to speak with him in his chamber, with just one other mage present—”

  “Out of the question!” Sonel broke in. “The risks are too great! Forgive me, Baden,” she added, in a quieter voice, “but there must be at least two bound mages there. Odinan is correct: this man is dangerous, and we must take reasonable precautions.”

  Baden flushed slightly, and his mouth was set in a tight line, but after a moment he nodded. “Two is acceptable,” he agreed, his tone revealing nothing.

  Sonel cleared her throat uncomfortably. The air between the two Owl-Masters seemed suddenly to have been charged, as by a midsummer thunderstorm. “Would Trahn and Ursel be acceptable?” she asked hesitantly. “The outlander is familiar with them.”

  Baden shook his head. “They were his captors. I’d prefer two others.”

  “Who, then?”

  The lean mage surveyed the Gathering Chamber pensively. “Radomil,” he said after some time, drawing a nod of agreement from the bald mage. He looked back at Sonel. “And you.”

  This time Sonel’s face reddened. “I’d be pleased to,” she replied, assaying a smile, which Baden returned.

  “Baden,” Jaryd ventured, “if you don’t use the probing, how can you know that the outlander won’t lie to you?”

  The Owl-Master raised his eyebrows speculatively and gave a small shrug. “I don’t know, really. I’m hoping that, among the three of us, we’ll be able to get some sense of that from listening to him and watching him. If any one of us is suspicious, we can always use the Mage-Craft to confirm what he’s saying. But I’d like to at least start without it.”

  He looked at Sonel, who rose from her seat decisively. “We will convene again tomorrow, at mid-morning,” she announced, “and the three of us will share with you what we’ve learned from the prisoner. I hope that, by then, the rest of the Order will have arrived in Amarid.” She inclined her head slightly. “Until then,” she added, dismissing them all.

  The mages arrayed around the table rose and began speaking among themselves, their voices filling the Great Hall. Baden and Trahn walked over to where Alayna and Jaryd stood, their expressions serious. “I’m not certain how long this will take,” Baden told them, “but Trahn and I made plans with Orris to have dinner at the Aerie tonight. I hope you two will join us.”

  Alayna nodded. “We’ll be there. Good luck with the interrogation.”

  “Thanks,” the Owl-Master replied, grinning reflexively as he moved off.

  Trahn lingered beside the young mages and the three of them watched as Baden walked away. Then the dark mage turned to Jaryd and Alayna, the look in his vivid green eyes somber and pained. “Come with me,” he said, a request in his tone. “There’s someone I think we all should meet.”

  Trahn led them to a room in the back section of the Great Hall where they found a young girl who looked to be no more than seven or eight years old. She had straight, shoulder-length brown hair and a beautiful, open face. But Jaryd could not stop staring at her eyes. They were blue like an autumn sky and, even as she played with a set of dolls and an elaborate toy house, they seemed to be focused inward on something dark and frightening that only she could see. As the three of them watched her play, one of the hall’s attendants, an older woman with kind, brown eyes and steel-grey hair, approached them.

  “That’s Cailin,” she told them quietly. “The little girl they brought back from Kaera.”

  “Yes, I know,” Trahn said, his attention focused on the child. “How’s she doing?”

  The woman shrugged. “She still doesn’t say much, although she’s finally eating again, which is a blessing.” She shrugged again. “Considering what she’s been through, I suppose she’s doing as well as we’ve any right to expect.”

  Trahn nodded.

  At the same time, Alayna stepped forward and knelt down beside the girl. “I’m Alayna,” she told her.

  The girl glanced at her briefly, and then she went back to playing with her dolls. “I’m Cailin,” she answered a few moments later.

  “Do you mind if I play with you?” Alayna asked. “I’ve always loved dolls.”

  Cailin shrugged ambivalently. “Sure, if you want to.” Alayna picked up one of the dolls and placed it in a bedroom in the toy house, while Cailin rear-ranged some of the miniature furniture in the downstairs parlor. They sat in silence for a short while, playing, and then Cailin looked at the Hawk-Mage again. “You’re pretty,” she said.

  Alayna smiled warmly. “Thank you. You’re pretty, too.”

  “You remind me of Zanna,” the little girl went on, as if she hadn’t heard.

  Alayna glanced up at Jaryd, the expression in her dark eyes troubled. “Is Zanna a friend of yours?” she asked, although Jaryd could tell that she already knew what Cailin would say.

  “She was. She’s dead now. The Children of Amarid killed her. They killed Mama and Papa, too.” She looked at the grey hawk that sat on Alayna’s shoulder.

  “We’ve tried to explain to her that it wasn’t the Children of Amarid,” the attendant whispered to Trahn and Jaryd. “But she doesn’t seem to understand.” The woman shook her head sadly.

  “You’re a Child of Amarid, aren’t you?” Cailin asked evenly, her eyes placid as they regarded Alayna.

  Alayna nodded. “Yes, I am. But I promise you, we didn’t kill your friend, or your mother and father.”

  “I know you didn’t,” Cailin told her. “I saw the men who did it.” She looked at Jaryd and Trahn. “They weren’t there either.”

  “The men who did it are gone now,” Alayna assured her. “They won’t hurt you anymore. And I promise you, they weren’t Amarid’s Children.”

  Cailin looked at her with the same calm expression, but she said nothing. A moment later, she started playing again, and she paid no more attention to Alayna. Finally, after several minutes, the young Hawk-Mage climbed to her feet and walked back to where Jaryd and Trahn stood with the attendant.

  “Some people came to see her early this morning,” the woman told Trahn, the apprehension in her voice mirrored by the look in her eyes. “They were from Arick’s Temple. They said that, given what Cailin had been through, she should be with the Sons and Daughters of the Gods, not with the Order.”

  Trahn exhaled slowly through his teeth. “Does Sonel know?”

  The woman nodded. “Yes. She said it would be Cailin’s choice.”

  She looked at Trahn beseechingly, as if seeking reassurance that Cailin would not be taken away, but the mage merely shrugged. “Sonel is right. We can’t keep the girl against her will.”

  The woman started to say something else, but then she stopped herself and, a few moments later, she walked away.

  The three mages lingered for a short while longer, watching Cailin, who seemed oblivious to their presence. Then they left. Trahn returned to his room at the Aerie, but Jaryd and Alayna wandered over to the old town commons, where they spent the rest of the morning and the entire afternoon walking through the winding, cobblestone streets, drifting in and out of shops or speaking with the street merchants, who sold their wares out of wagons rather than storefronts. Their encounter with the little girl, however, continued to haunt them. So, too, did what they found in the streets of Amarid. Some of the people they saw called out greetings and asked blessings of the gods for the young mages, and a few of the vendors offered them gifts of food and merchandise, all, Jaryd realized after some time, in appreciation for the capture of the outlanders. Many others, however, too many others, regarded them with distrust or apprehension, and one man even accused the mages of protecting the prisoners out of fear that their alliance with them might otherwise be revealed. Jaryd
stopped to argue with the man, but Alayna wisely pulled him away, telling him to ignore the comments. Still, this confrontation, combined with the fresh memory of Cailin and the dark mood of others they met, cast a shadow over this cloudless day. By early evening, as darkness settled over Amarid and the two young mages crossed the city on their way to the Aerie, they had both retreated into pensiveness and silence. They skirted the streets surrounding the Great Hall in order to avoid the large crowd that still lingered there, many of them now carrying torches and yelling once more for those inside to hand the prisoner over to them. Seeing the crowd from a distance, hearing their cries for vengeance and their impatience with the Order, Jaryd found himself wondering if the company’s victory over the outlanders had come too late.

  They reached the dingy courtyard of the Aerie a short while later. Opening the door and stepping into the noisy tavern, they immediately spotted Baden, Trahn, and Orris sitting in the far back corner. The tavern was just as Jaryd remembered it: poorly lit, smelly, and very comfortable. Looking at the dark, scarred wood of its tables, the massive chandelier, and the scuffed wooden floor, inhaling the heavy air, laden as it was with the smells of musty wine, pipe smoke, and roasting meat, he finally understood why Baden returned to this place year after year. In spite of the black mood fostered by this difficult day, he felt as though he had come home.

  As he and Alayna walked toward Baden’s table, he heard a woman’s voice call to him from the bar. And turning to look in that direction, he saw Kayle walking toward him, the familiar crooked smile lighting her face as she brushed away an untied wisp of light hair. “Hawk-Mage!” she said warmly. “I was wondering when you were going to come see me.” She gave him a hug when she reached him, and then kissed his cheek.

  He smiled self-consciously. “Hello, Kayle,” he said quietly, looking sidelong at Alayna. “How are you?”

  “Good. You look great! I guess Theron’s Grove agreed with you, eh?” She eyed Alayna appraisingly, as if noticing the Hawk-Mage for the first time.

  “Kayle,” Jaryd said, feeling awkward. “This is Hawk-Mage Alayna. Alayna, this is Kayle.”

  The barmaid stuck out her hand. “Nice to meet you, Alayna,” she said evenly.

  Alayna smiled sweetly. “And you.”

  “Go join your friends,” Kayle went on, looking at Jaryd again. “I’ll be over in a minute with some ale.”

  “Actually,” Alayna said, stopping her, “I’ll have some honey wine, if that’s all right.”

  “Sure,” Kayle responded over her shoulder, already walking back toward the bar.

  Alayna arched an eyebrow. “Just a friend, eh?” she said, once Kayle was out of earshot.

  “Yes,” he replied, grinning at her

  “Well, she seems nice. Pretty, too.”

  Jaryd nodded. “She is. Nice, I mean.”

  “That better be what you mean,” Alayna remarked, taking his hand and leading him the rest of the way to the table.

  “It’s about time,” Orris growled as the young mages took their seats.

  A month ago, Jaryd would have bristled at such a comment, taking it as further evidence of Orris’s abrasive manner. But he understood the burly mage now, and he had learned to recognize when Orris was joking and when he was not. “It’s nice to know that you missed me,” Jaryd quipped.

  The Hawk-Mage snorted disdainfully.

  “If we missed anyone,” Trahn corrected, “it was your lovely companion.”

  Alayna smiled dazzlingly. “Thank you, Trahn.”

  “Actually,” Baden explained, “these two are just mad because I haven’t told them anything about the interrogation yet. I wanted to wait for the two of you.”

  Instantly, the mood around the table changed. The mirth vanished, and the four Hawk-Mages fixed their eyes on the Owl-Master.

  “We learned a good deal,” Baden began, his voice low and his pale eyes flicking from one mage to the next. “And, frankly, much of what Baram told us—that’s his name: Baram—much of what he told us is really quite alarming.”

  “Did he answer your questions freely,” Orris interrupted, “or did you end up using the probing?”

  “Both, actually.” Baden paused as Kayle brought four pints of amber ale, as well as a carafe of light wine for Alayna. He waited until she had served them and gone back to the bar before continuing. “Both,” he said again. “He refused to answer our questions at first, so we used the probing. Then we gave him a second chance, and he cooperated. We returned to the probing at the very end to make certain that he hadn’t withheld anything or misled us.”

  He stopped once again as Kayle came back with their dinners. “We were right,” Baden went on after she had served them and withdrawn, “they did come here from Lon-Ser, specifically from a place called Bragor-Nal.”

  Trahn looked at him sharply. “Bragor-Nal?” he repeated.

  Baden was already staring at the mage, as if he had anticipated this reaction. “I thought you’d find that interesting.”

  Jaryd shook his head. “I’m confused.”

  “Nalis a word from the ancient language—from our ancient language,” Trahn told him, never taking his eyes from Baden’s face. “It means ‘community.’ At least it does here.”

  Baden nodded. “Given the way Baram used it, I’d say it means the same thing there.”

  Trahn considered this, taking a spoonful of the rich stew Kayle had brought them. “I suppose I shouldn’t be too surprised,” he commented after some time. “We’ve always known that Tobyn-Ser and Lon-Ser share a common history.”

  “A common ancient history,” Orris corrected, somewhat defensively.

  Trahn shrugged. “Nevertheless.”

  Alayna turned back to Baden. “Did you get a sense of what this Bragor-Nal is like?”

  “It’s huge,” the Owl-Master answered. “We certainly know that much. There are only two other Nals in all of Lon-Ser, and, according to our friend, this one is the largest. Each one of them is a giant city, self-contained like Amarid, but far more vast and containing thousands of times as many people. And,” he added, taking a breath, “entirely dependent on the type of mechanical devices that they carried with them when they came to Tobyn-Ser.”

  Orris narrowed his eyes. “What do you mean?”

  “It’s difficult to explain,” Baden said. “Many of the words he used came from his language and couldn’t be translated. And much of what he talked about was alien.” He glanced at Trahn. “Even with our common linguistic roots, our two lands have diverged significantly over the centuries.” He turned his gaze back to Orris. “But, from what I gathered, and Sonel and Radomil agreed, it seems that this . . . skill of theirs is more than a weapon. It’s a way of life. They use it to communicate, to travel, to make goods and food, as well as to make war.”

  Trahn ran a hand over his face. “So you’re saying that the people in Bragor-Nal can make everything they need artificially, using tools?”

  “Notcan, ” Baden countered. “Must.When I say that Lon-Ser has only two other Nals, I mean that’s basically all it has. From what Baram said, Lon-Ser has the Nals and mountains. And that’s it. There’s almost no farmland, only a few small patches of forest or desert or plain. It’s just city and mountains. And very few people live in the mountains. Everything they need, they make. Just like those big black birds.”

  “Just three cities,” Trahn commented, the awe in his voice echoing Jaryd’s thoughts. “Covering a land as large as Tobyn-Ser. That’s difficult to fathom.”

  For several moments no one at the table spoke. Jaryd sat listening to the noises of the tavern, absently taking a few mouthfuls of food and trying to imagine a society built wholly on mechanical goods, one in which nothing came directly from the land, one in which everyone lived in cities far greater than the one they were in tonight. And he couldn’t do it. Each time he tried to picture it, he only saw his mother working the fields back in Accalia, or his father chopping firewood outside the house.

  After what s
eemed a long time, Alayna stirred in her chair, as if emerging from a dream. She looked at Baden. “Did you get a sense of why they came here, of what they want from us?”

  “Yes,” Baden said with a thin, mirthless smile. “Not surprisingly, they seek from us what they can no longer provide for themselves.”

  Orris cocked his head to the side. “But you just told us that they can make everything they need.”

  “They can. But they can’t escape the laws of nature: they’ve run out of room, and they’ve run out of the resources they used to fuel their development.” He hesitated. “In truth, I didn’t understand all that he said, but it seems that while they can create what they need, they can’t do so without what he called basic goods, which seemed to include all the things we normally use to make things: wood, metals and minerals, and other gifts from the land that we take for granted.”

  “So they want our land,” Jaryd interjected.

  Baden nodded. “Our land, all that grows on it, all that comes from it. But it’s even more than that. Not only do they need these materials, they also need room for expansion. Their cities—the Nals—are overcrowded; they’ve befouled the air they breathe and the water they drink. In short, they seek a new home, or at least an additional home. And we have exactly what they need.” He looked at Jaryd, and then at Alayna. “What Theron told you about their tactics revealing their weakness was even more significant than we realized.”

  “Their needs sound no different from those that drove the Abboriji invasions,” Trahn pointed out. “So why would they go about it in such a strange way?”

  “That, it seems, is more a product of Lon-Ser’s internal politics than anything else. The one somewhat promising bit of information that Baram offered today was that he and his comrades were acting on behalf of a small, albeit growing movement in Lon-Ser. Most of Lon-Ser’s people, it seems, are as hostile toward outsiders as our people. They’ve gone out of their way to keep their borders closed to foreigners, and they’ve demanded that their advanced goods be kept confined to their land, although, as your Abboriji friend indicated to you, Orris,” Baden went on, glancing at the Hawk-Mage, “their attentiveness to this last point has slackened recently.” He turned back to Trahn. “Most of Lon-Ser’s people wish to solve the problems I mentioned on their own, but an increasing number have begun to look beyond their borders for an answer. And at least one faction, Baram’s faction, has focused its efforts on Tobyn-Ser.