Acacia,War with the Mein

CHAPTER

The paper swan was waiting just inside the portal. Somebody must have shoved it underneath the door. Just how this was accomplished was not clear, considering the object’s placement, the way it stood upright several inches from the crack beneath the door, a space not as tall as the stylized, geometric creature that must have passed beneath it. Also, there was a note beside it. Just a ribbon of paper so thin it was hard to pick up. Corinn did so carefully, pinching it between two fingernails. Accept this gift, she read, in the event that you need it.

It was unsigned, but Corinn knew who had sent it. How Sire Dagon’s agents had gotten past the outer guards she could not guess, and the feeling that perhaps they had actually been inside her room while she slept made her skin tingle. She held the swan to her nose and sniffed, carefully. No scent at all. Squeezing the paper between her fingers, she could feel the coarse texture of crystals inside it. She knew that the grains were distilled from the roots of a wildflower by a process known only to the league. They made from it a lethal poison, one that could not be tasted or smelled or detected afterward. She thought to look at the note again, but it had crumbled and flaked away. Nothing remained of it but a residue on her fingers and a few traces on the floor. The breath of air underneath the door was dispersing these already.

She was in her old room, where she sometimes spent the night when Hanish was away. It provided her greater privacy, and she had begun to need solitude more and more of late as she sought to master the swirl of thoughts inside her. She had awoken that morning believing that the next few days were going to change the course of her life completely. This swan message reinforced this belief. It was a small, silent, potent confirmation that forces at play in the world were moving in league with her. Knowing better than to handle it too much, she pressed the bird’s wings flat and slipped it under her belt.

She turned and walked back toward her dressing area, where she had been before noticing the swan. She sat on the stool at her makeup table, an array of mirrors reflecting variations of her image back at her. She intended to plan out the events to come, but she paused for a moment, looking into the mirrors. As she did often lately, she felt queasy. Each of the views of her face showed a different character. Depending on the angle, she looked miserable or stunning, delicate or agitated or self-assured or…wicked. Yes, viewed in near profile, from the left, she could not help but acknowledge a previously unnoticed cruelness in the tilt of her eyes and her mouth and in the manner with which she held her chin, as if it were a weapon protruding in warning. She hated what she saw there. Or sometimes she did. At other times she hated what she saw from the other angles instead. Which of these faces should she present to Hanish on his return?

Hanish was scheduled to arrive the next day. He would be sailing at the vanguard of a fleet of vessels bringing his fabled ancestors to the island. He had sent her a letter just the day before, filled with his enthusiasm, alluding to his plans for getting the ancestors into the newly constructed chamber as quickly as possible. He spoke of his joy at seeing ships loaded with the sarcophagi. What a wondrous sight, he had written. As if she would feel the same! He reminded her how much he hoped she would stay true to her promise to help him free them to their eternal rest. Once she did so, the rift that had scarred the Known World for centuries would finally be mended. Meins and Acacians would have a new chance to assuage their old animosities. The land, he promised, could finally start to heal. This was what his war had always been about. It was a long battle, an epic journey, but the end was near. He wrote: You, Corinn, will help to make it all possible. My people and yours will both revere you for it. And I will revere you for it.

“He knows nothing of what’s inside me,” Corinn said to the silent room around her. There was a time when the truth of this statement would have pained her. Now, however, everything she had planned hinged on it. Hanish thought he could play her for the world’s greatest fool; she, however, was resolved never to let that happen. “He knows nothing of what’s inside me.”

“No,” a voice said gently in answer, “no man does. No man ever could.”

Corinn snapped to her feet, spun around, and searched for the source of the voice. She saw nothing at first. The room was empty, crowded only with her family objects, safe beneath the pastoral murals on the ceiling, the walls softened by hangings dyed various colors. A man split the border between two wall tapestries and stepped into view. He was but a few strides away. His nearness, the concreteness of his presence was so shocking, her breath caught in her throat.

“Have no fear,” the man said. “Please, Princess, don’t call out. I’m here to help you. I serve your brother, and I serve you.”

She recognized him after only a few words. Thaddeus, the chancellor. Her father’s closest friend. His betrayer. By the Giver, he was old! His face was creviced, his cheeks sunken, his frame stooped. He looked so very fatigued, bags beneath his eyes, unsteady on his feet, swaying slightly, carrying a book cradled against his chest. Somehow she managed to speak through her surprise, asking the first thing that came to mind. “How did you get in here?”

Thaddeus asked if he could sit. He spoke softly, casting his words with a deadened lack of inflection. “I will happily tell you everything, Princess Cor-”

“You are in my room?” Corinn asked, growing more incredulous as the impossibility of it took hold of her. “How can you possibly be in my room?”

“Please, may I sit? If I don’t, I may well collapse. And…please, can you make sure we will not be disturbed? I cannot be discovered. I’ll explain why.”

Corinn stared at him. She knew she had to think quickly. Visitations such as this had an import she could not mistake. She could not stumble, for whatever brought this man out of the past and into her room simply could not be ignored or squandered. And he certainly did not look to be any physical threat to her. However he got here and whatever brought him and no matter how she was going to deal with it, she should listen to him, and she should do so alone. She whispered, “Wait here.”

She stepped into the hall and informed her servants that she did not wish to be disturbed for any reason. She had guards placed at the outer doors to her chambers, and she moved Thaddeus into the sheltered alcove just inside the balcony. There she had him sit in a high-backed chair as she paced in front of him. He told her everything. He explained how he had gotten into the palace and how he navigated the secret passages inside the walls. It took him hours upon hours to get into her room, but he had eventually found a low tunnel that opened in the corner behind her bed. She would be amazed to know that it was there all along, hidden by a simple trick in the architecture. But he was not starting at the beginning…

Aliver had sent him, he said, and then he launched into a breathless, earnest description of the man her brother had matured into. How he’d grown to fulfill, to exceed, anything Leodan might have imagined for him! He had a grand vision. He had a gift for moving masses. He was fired with urgency and purpose. He spoke of Mena and Dariel also, the sword-wielding priestess and the daring sea raider. Together they were engaged in a battle they could not lose. Aliver had inflamed the people with a belief that their fates were in their hands. He, when victorious, would not rule over them. He’d rule for them. By their permission and only in their interests. He’d wipe away all the hidden foulness that drove the Known World and find new ways to prosper. He’d build trust among nations, ennoble the downtrodden, break the spine of the league, do away with the Quota, abolish conscripted labor.

The old chancellor went on and on. Corinn listened, realizing that she was supposed to be suffused with relief, with joy, with anticipation. She tried to feel these things. The more he spoke, though, the more it all seemed to Corinn like mad ranting. Pure fancy. The stuff of children’s tales. A fantasy in which she did not feel she had any part. How could he believe any of these things could come to pass? She had heard some of this story before, from Rhrenna and Rialus. She had gleaned still more from overheard conversations. But it seemed less believable than ever now that this man actually sat before her in his aging flesh. He spoke like a newly converted disciple, worshipping a prophet of-of what? Equality? Liberation? It sounded like Aliver planned on building an empire in the sky, some idyllic kingdom that would float on clouds. Such a thing would vanish like the clouds, she wanted to say, blown away by the first strong breeze. She flared inside with a surprising degree of bitterness, but she made sure not to show it.

A golden monkey appeared on the balcony. It must have jumped from someplace high above, and it seemed startled to find them in the shaded alcove. It called out in a high, birdlike chirp. It was brilliantly colored against the blue background of the sky. Corinn turned her back to it.

“Hanish is returning tomorrow. He is bringing the Tunishnevre with him. He wants me to help him perform the ceremony that will end the curse. He says when this is done, much of the rift between Meins and Acacians will be healed. It will be history, he says. Not the present or the future anymore. What do you think of that?”

“He is bringing the Tunishnevre here?” Thaddeus asked. He sat in silence for a time, mouth hanging open, eyes glazed. “I should have known that. Of course he is… He’s had the time to prepare a chamber here. He sent his brother to fight Aliver, not because he did not take the threat seriously, but because he had a greater purpose for himself. He has had you safely here all along… I should have foreseen this. We have looked back into our own myths for allies; why would Hanish not do the same?”

He looked up at Corinn, his old, veined eyes fixed on her face. “You asked me what I think of it? I think Hanish is lying. The lore says that there are two ways to end the curse on the Tunishnevre. He could free them with a gift of your blood, a forgiveness offering. But that is not what he intends. If he takes your life from you unwillingly and slays you on the altar, then he will wake his ancestors, not free them to death. He will bring them back to life. They will get their bodies back and walk the earth again, Corinn. They will be incredibly powerful and vengeful in a way that has no bounds. If that happens, we have lost for good. This is why you must come with me.”

“Is that why you came here,” Corinn asked, “to rescue me?”

“I came for another reason,” the former chancellor said. He told her about the Santoth and the corruption of their knowledge and about the great, great need for The Song of Elenet. He had found it, he explained, because he finally put together the clues that Leodan had left for them. Aliver did not yet know of his success. He did not even know he had come here. He needed to get the book to him as quickly as possible, but now it was just as important that she flee the island with him. It would be risky, but if they escaped via the route he had come into the palace, they would emerge not far from the Temple of Vada. He could cross to the temple and, he was sure, he could convince the priests to give him some small vessel. He would return and pick her up and then they would fly with the wind. Perhaps he could even send word to Aliver from the temple, so that he could act accordingly.

Corinn kept her face blank. She did not want to address this notion of flight yet. “Is that book The Song of Elenet?” she asked, pointing to the volume sitting on the man’s thighs. It did not look like much, really, but she noticed that he had never taken his hand from atop its cover, as if he feared something might befall it even here, with just the two of them in the alcove.

Guardedly, he nodded.

She stretched out her hands toward it.

“Princess, we don’t have much time,” Thaddeus said. “I gather Hanish is to return tomorrow. We must-”

“Let me see the book,” she said, keeping her eyes focused on the chancellor’s and making sure her words had the ring of command to them. She was sure that if she had not been looking at him so intently he might have refused, delayed somehow, thought of an excuse, or changed the subject. He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could she pulled the book from his grasp and moved away a few steps.

The book was much lighter than it looked. It opened with the slightest pull of her fingers. From the moment she looked upon its contents she knew for a certainty that nothing in her life would ever be the same. The page was full of script, curling, looping, dancing words. They moved before her eyes, growing and changing as she watched, becoming one word and then another, written in a foreign, beautiful language. The words she read struck her like notes ringing in her soul. She did not know what they meant, but as her eyes touched them, they rose off the page and filled her with song. They welcomed her. They praised her. They danced in the air around her like exotic birds. They assured her that they had been waiting for her. Waiting for her. Now everything would be all right. She, she, she could make it all all right. They rubbed the entirety of her being with the sensuous, humming intensity of a hungry housecat. She could not explain how she knew or heard or understood any of these sensations or declarations or promises at that moment. But the messages and the sublime radiance of the voices that spoke them were undeniable. This book was, without doubt, the very gift she had waited her entire life to receive.

When she folded it closed and the room returned to normal and she could again focus on Thaddeus, she already understood things she had not before. She already saw with clarity what had to be done. “This is wonderful,” she said, meaning it completely. “Tell me the truth-does anybody know of this book? That you have it and that it is here, with me?”

“No, you need not fear that. Only you and I know. By the look on your face…You-you saw something in it?”

She smiled warmly but did not answer him. “You have done a great thing. My father was right to love you.”

Whatever his doubts, this assertion brushed them away. His old eyes instantly brimmed with moisture. “Thank you,” Thaddeus said. “Thank you for saying so. You can forgive me, then?” Corinn said she did not know what he meant. What had she to forgive? She could only thank him. This caused a tear to drop from one of his eyes, which he wiped off his cheek. He fell into another discourse. A stream of words tumbled from his tongue, a whole explanation of what and why he had done it, how he had regretted and prayed and worked to see things put right.

Corinn did not listen to much of it, but she did look at him, nodding, her eyes open and large. Before he finished, his fatigue started to overcome him. His gestures grew sloppier. His words blurred at the edges. When he blinked, his eyelids fought his efforts to reopen them. She sat there only long enough to decide what she was about to do, and then she interrupted him.

“Enough, Thaddeus,” she said. “I see no stain on you. Understand?” She reached forward and touched her hand gently to his chin. “You are unblemished. We need say no more about it. I’ll get you something to eat and drink. Rest here. When I return we’ll figure out what to do and how to do it.”

Sensing that he might protest, she pressed The Song of Elenet back against his chest. This seemed to ease him. A moment later, after having stepped out of her barred door and sent a servant for tea and light fare, Corinn stood alone, trembling and hushed. The memory of the song was already bittersweet. She so loved it. It had made life seem a blessed thing, right and good. With the song anything would be possible. She already hungered to go back and open the book again. She knew that learning the language it spoke would not be easy. It would require months or years of focused study. The book had somehow conveyed this to her. It would give her so much, but only if she created the opportunity to study it quietly, perhaps secretly. Why had her father-and the generations before him-ignored the Song, hidden it away? Such folly. She would not make that mistake.

If she was to do what she was coming to believe she must, there were so many things to see to and so little time to complete them in. The challenges still before her had to be met with her wits alone, with the cunning she already possessed, building on things she had already set in motion. She would have to think every step of it through, cleaning every possible mistake away ahead of time. She had to turn over everything Thaddeus had said about Aliver’s intentions in her mind so that she understood it all and knew how best to face it. She would have to pen a note to Rialus and find a way to send it via messenger bird. That would not be easy, but she had to manage it only once. She would need to explore these passageways in the walls. And she’d have to take care of Thaddeus first.

When the servant returned, Corinn took the tray from her and said she still did not wish to be disturbed for any reason. She watched the young woman, an Acacian, depart, closing the door behind her. Corinn set the tray down. She slipped her fingers into her belt and pulled out the folded paper bird. With a tap of her finger it took on its swanlike shape. She squeezed the ends of it between her fingers, tilted, and watched as a fine powder fell sparkling into the tea. She hoped it was as odorless and tasteless as the league chemists claimed. She realized that in some portion of her consciousness she had already planned on using this poison on Hanish. As she watched the tiny grains dissolve, she put that from her mind. She would find another way to deal with him. How fortuitous that the package arrived today, just before the chancellor stepped out of the wall. Another sign this was meant to be, meant to happen this way.

She picked up a silver spoon and stirred the liquid in slow circles. She felt no anger at him. The betrayal that he seemed so troubled by did not even register in her thoughts. No, it was not an emotional decision at all. It was simple. Thaddeus had brought her the very thing she had been searching for, without her ever knowing that she had been searching for it. She knew, as if from some ancestral memory newly discovered and stirred to life, that she was meant to have that book. She was meant to. That was why Thaddeus had brought it to her instead of taking it to Aliver. He did not know this, but it was clear to her. She was the one-not Aliver-who would come to understand the way the world worked. Aliver was a dreamer, naпve and idealistic; the world, she believed, would always play such men for fools. She was the one who knew how to use power. She was the one who understood beyond any doubt that she could rely on nobody but herself. And the Song. The knowledge in that book was for her to use. Perhaps she would allow Aliver to use it also, she told herself. Yes, she would. When the time came, once she had come to know him and made sure he was not a fool driven by philosophical fervor.

When she walked back into the room she carried nothing but the mug of steaming tea. The former chancellor was sleeping. He sat upright in the chair, but his head canted over at an unpleasant angle, his mouth agape and his breathing a nasal rasp. She watched him a moment, struck with a feeling of nostalgia that never quite congealed into a specific memory. She told herself that what she was about to do was a good thing. Some would die; some would suffer. But when all of this was over, she would help create a world different from anything that had come before. She would do so because she loved her family, because she wanted to assure their success, wanted to make sure they did not fall prey to the fatal errors their rhetoric suggested they were prone to. What she was about to do was not done against them; it was done for them.

She moved forward slowly. She approached with the stealth of an angel, carrying the mug of tea before her, the heat of it like molten lead cradled in her palms.