The other lands

CHAPTER EIGHT

Corinn had been having the dream for weeks now, long enough that she had begun to fear it would torment her forever. It was always the same. It always trapped her in the same manner, with roughly the same progression of events, the same dreadful realizations.

It began pleasantly enough. Aliver had returned! The palace buzzed with the news of it. He had appeared alive and unscathed. He was ready to help Corinn rule the empire. Her waking mind would have balked at this for many reasons, but her dream self embraced it. Nothing seemed more wonderful than to have Aliver home and let him take burdens from her. She knew that he would forgive her for some things and praise her for others. Together, they would have the power to achieve a truly magnificent rule for everyone.

She thought all these things as she dashed through the halls and across the plazas and up the flights of stairs to reach him. Along the way she diverged into other stories, conversations, travails. She changed her cream dress for her red, or her green for one of purple velvet. These varied from dream to dream, but eventually she walked the final length of hallway, wearing a simple wrap that left one of her breasts bare in the Bethuni manner. She stepped into the room and saw a figure sitting with his back to her. She called his name without speaking, and the man rose and… it was not Aliver! The figure that stood and turned toward her was a lean man, golden haired, dressed in a black thalba and snug-fitting trousers. His eyes were an incredible gray, glinting like molten silver, no eyes of a human being and yet they were his. Hanish Mein's.

She realized that his lips had been sewn shut on her orders. And she knew that before the needle and thread pulled them tight she had ordered that a ball of twisted fishhooks be placed in his mouth, a rusty mess of a thing. She had wanted him to struggle not to swallow it, knowing that he would eventually have to and that it would rip a bloody path through his insides when he did. She had wanted him to suffer. The idea seemed horrific now. How could she ever have wanted that? At that moment, she wanted nothing more than to throw herself into his arms and forgive him everything.

Though Hanish's face was tranquil as he gazed at her, she ran toward him, thinking to cut the thread, pry his mouth open, and lift out the barbed metal. Her feet would not move her forward. She ran, but the space between them did not lessen. And then she realized the final, dreadful thing. The person was not Hanish either. It was Aaden, and he was clutching his throat as the barbs pierced through and blood gushed. The sight of it, the horror of it, was too much to bear.

She awoke thrashing, alone and tangled in the sheets of her massive bed. For a few seconds she struggled to escape the horror that clung to her, afraid that this time it would not let her go. It always did, though, and then she curled on her side, pulled her legs tight to her chest, and cried. It was a nightly torture she faced alone. She took no one to bed with her-had not done so since the night she awoke beside Hanish Mein and heard him speaking with his long-dead ancestors, promising them her life for their sakes. It was a wonder that she managed to sleep at all.

She made sure all signs of the dream and those raw memories were gone by the time she called her maidens and began her day. Indeed, she hardened herself against whatever hidden import the dream suggested and showed the world a face of utter certainty. That's what a queen was supposed to do. What a mother was supposed to do. She told herself that she was stronger for it. Perhaps she was.

The longbow is a royal weapon," Corinn said. She nocked an arrow and pinned the shaft to the bow with the crook of her finger. Aaden stood besider her, the two of them behind a marker set out to measure the distance to a target the servants had set up in the grassy area of one of the upper terraces. It was mid-morning on a clear day, the breeze intermittent and gentle, the dream tucked away for the time being.

"I know you like your sword craft, and that's fine. A king, though, rarely fights among the throng. He must know how to take a wider view, to see the entire horizon and all the players. Understand? In the thick of a battlefield you can't see beyond the ranks of soldiers surrounding you. Like that you are vulnerable, as was my brother." She pointed the weapon high into the air, straightened her bow arm, and brought it down to sight, drawing the bowstring back to her cheek as she did so. "You, Aaden, will never be vulnerable in that way."

She opened her fingers. The bow thrummed and the arrow vanished. It was in her hand one moment; then it was gone, only to announce itself the next instant. It stuck fast in the yellow central circle of the wooden target, two finger's breadths away from the ruby heart that marked the exact center.

"You never miss!" Aaden cried. He danced about. "I'd like to see you miss just once. Can you? Just miss once for me. See if you can do it!"

Corinn spoke through a smile. "Don't be foolish. Why would I ever miss what I can hit?"

"To make me feel better."

"That would be a reason, if it worked. But it wouldn't make you feel better, would it? What would, would be if you hit still closer to the jewel. Try now."

Aaden did as instructed, though he took his time about it. He selected an arrow with deliberation, holding it up before him to gauge its straightness and balance. He ran his fingertips over the fletching, touched the arrow's shaft to his yew bow, and fit the bowstring to the nock. Corinn heard one of the watching servants whisper something to another. Likely, they were commenting on the prince's fastidiousness. She had trained it into him from the start, enough so that he did not seem to conceive of archery without each step of slow preparation. When he finally bent the bow, he strained to hold it still against the draw weight.

"Limit the world," Corinn said. "See the heart. Feel the connection between you and it. Find that. You are not aiming at a distant target. You are laying the arrow on the path already created for it."

His arrow flew, but Corinn knew from the first instant that it was off course. It hit the lower corner of the target at an angle. It twisted and hung limply.

The boy twirled away in childish, smiling exasperation. "What happened? I was looking right at it!"

"You found the wrong path, Aaden." She let that sit for a moment, and then added, "You weren't still when you released. Your arm was swaying. Here, let me show you again."

She fell into instruction, happy with the way Aaden listened, the way he tried to understand her notion of paths. He was earnest in this, even though he did not seem particularly talented as an archer. Watching his form and posture, she tried to remember how skilled she had been at his age, but could not. As far as she could recall she had always known how to see the path to her targets. It had always been there, and, as long as she waited until she found it, she did not miss. When she found it and released, she was as sure of her aim as if the arrow were zipping through a pipe suspended in the air. But when had that begun? She had reached for memories from her childhood, but she never really went further back than the afternoon she first shot targets with Hanish Mein at Calfa Ven. She must have learned her skills before that, though. She was a young lady by then, not a child. She already had many pains behind her and-

Aaden interrupted her thoughts. "Next time can Devlyn and others shoot with us?"

"Devlyn?"

"He is a good shot, best in his grouping."

"Devlyn." She had heard the name on Aaden's lips several times now. Devlyn. He was from a new Agnate family, she believed. Mainlanders. She would have to look into his ancestry. He might barely be of the upper class at all, considering how many new links the recorders had found to allow previously common families into the aristocracy. Such was the unfortunate necessity since the two wars and Hanish's purges had all but destroyed the old families. It was not the boy's credentials that interested her, though. Rather, it was the tone of admiration in Aaden's voice whenever he mentioned him. She would need to determine whether or not this was a good thing.

"We could have an archery day with them," he continued, "like a small tourney, but just my friends and me. Somebody else might win, but I don't care. It's just for fun. Can we?"

"We'll see," Corinn said. "You know, Aaden, that you are not the same as your friends. You will one day have this empire to rule."

"I know. That is why I should have friends. Companions! Devlyn could be my chancellor. He already said he would be if I asked him."

As the boy was busy setting another arrow, Corinn let her face betray a moment of displeasure. It was gone before he looked up again. "I'll have to meet this Devlyn. It would be a fine thing for you to have companions, but the truth is that when I'm gone you'll have nobody but yourself to rely on. Nobody else-certainly not Devlyn-will have to carry the burden of rule as you do. Understand that?"

"There's Mena and Dariel," he said, before bending his bow.

"Yes, of course."

But you may not always have them to rely on, she thought. They may fail us. They may oppose us one day. It felt cold to think this, and at first she thought she would say nothing about it. But seeing the concentration wrinkling his brow as he shot, and watching his gray eyes study the results, she felt inclined to push him a little further. His arrow had struck at the edge of the center circle. "That was a fine shot. Let's leave it there for now. Come sit with me."

Aaden reluctantly obliged. The two sat side by side on a stone bench at the edge of the terrace. The balustrade was low, allowing a view out over the sea to the island's west. The nearer waters were dotted with rocky islands that seemed to sink farther and farther as the sea deepened from turquoise to a darker hue. Aaden set his hands in his lap, his knees bouncing with the balls of his feet. He waited, and Corinn, remembering the chattering cacophony that so many children make, was proud again of the son she was raising. A servant brought them two glasses of the berry drink Aaden liked, and then retreated out of earshot.

"I know you are still a boy," Corinn began, "but I have to prepare you for what your future holds. Better you know it now than learn it later. Nobody, not even my siblings, are as important to this nation as you are. You may love them dearly, as do I, but they both have flaws in their characters that you must never let weaken you. Mena is gifted and fierce, but she's afraid of her nature. Her true self is as savage and focused as an eagle. To her enemies she falls like a bolt from the sky, yes? You've heard the tales they tell of her. Her foes can't touch her. She pins them to the ground and rips out their hearts. As she should." She took a sip of the juice. Its tartness puckered her lips. "If that was all there was to Mena's nature, she would be an even better weapon than she already is. She should be all and only an eagle, but there is a dove within her as well. While her beak is carving through her victim's flesh, she starts to cry because of what she's doing. That's a mistake. I would never allow you to be so conflicted. So don't be."

Aaden drew back from his drink and nodded his single, sharp nod. "I understand. Only I don't think I'd like it if Mena was like an eagle. They have cold eyes."

"Better the cold eyes of an eagle than the timid ones of a dove. I've no use for doves." She said this more sharply than she intended. She paused for a moment, wondering why. "As for Dariel… I don't know what's happened to him. He used to be fearless, they say, a raider. I didn't know him then, but it's clear he has a natural gift for leading people. I just wish he would use it more. He has no stomach anymore for the hard things. He still smiles and entertains and knows how to show joy, but he carries a weight around in his center. He seems to feel he must make amends with the world and all the people in it. His building projects… I don't deny they're useful, but he goes about them for mistaken reasons."

"Is that why you sent him away?"

"I didn't 'send him away.' I sent him on a mission. When it's complete, he'll return better for it. You see, Aaden, I am trying to help them both become stronger, stronger in ways that truly matter, in ways that sharpen them, ways that harden them."

Again, she did not like the edge in her voice. She backed away from it, touched Aaden on his still bouncing knees. He was getting restless. She would have to let him go soon, go and be a boy for a while, free of lessons like these. She wished, not for the first time, that she did not have to say such things to him. Let him just be the boy he wants to be. But if she allowed that, she would be committing all the mistakes her father had made. Dariel had been but a little older than Aaden when he was cast out into the world alone, everything taken from him. Such things had happened before. They could happen again. If they did in his life, Aaden would never be able to fault her for not preparing him.

"Aliver was no better," she said. "You should know that from me, because the tales they tell of him make no mention of it. He may have dreamed fine notions, but what are dreams? They're nothing without the backbone to achieve them. Your uncle did wonderful things, of course, but he died with his work unfinished. He would have left the world in chaos had I not been here to set things right. His flaw, Aaden, was that he let emotion drive him. He let notions take the place of deliberate thought. Akarans have done that for too long. Tinhadin killed his older brother to secure his throne, but he killed his youngest out of fear. Even my father only half governed as he should have, choked as he was by an idealism that made him idle. But not any longer. I am not of that mold, nor will you be. I will teach you better than that. So, what I say is this…" She paused until he looked up at her with his full, gray-eyed attention. "Love our family without being weakened by them; honor them as infallible in public while noting their flaws to yourself; demand the most from friends without expecting it; imagine the worst from your enemies so that they cannot surprise you; and rely only on yourself."

Smiling and softening her voice she added, "Yourself and your mother, I should say." She mussed his hair. "All right, Aaden, enough of this talk! I can see you're restless."

"May I go to the Marah hall and train?"

"Yes. Do that. Show me what you've learned later."

Aaden handed his glass to a servant, who took it lightly, bowing and thanking his highness. The prince mumbled his own thanks to the servant, and then stepped close to Corinn and whispered, "Mother, do you ever use your singing to make the arrow… hit?"

Corinn slipped her hand around the back of his head and pulled him close. With her lips brushing his ear, she said, "Never."

An hour later the queen was back in her offices, sitting straight backed and expressionless as Rhrenna introduced Paddel, the head vintner of Prios. He was a jowly man, squeezed unflatteringly into a silken suit that bulged in all the wrong places. He was technically bald, but his scalp had been tattooed a dark blue-black. The ink followed his natural hairline, but the effect was unnervingly peculiar. Paddel seemed quite pleased with it. He regularly touched his scalp with his fingers, as if stroking and repositioning his hair.

Corinn decided to keep this meeting short. She actually knew most of what the vintner could tell her, having received detailed reports from the league for some years now. They had done their work; hopefully Paddel had done his as well.

"How have the trials gone?" she asked.

"Oh, wonderfully! Wonderfully!" The vintner could barely contain himself. He seemed oblivious of the fact that he flung spittle with each excited sentence. "You could not have asked for greater success. All that you wished for, Your Majesty, has been made reality. All of it."

Corinn sat some distance away, behind her desk, but she held her hand out before her chest, a posture half protective and half a threat that she might smack him. He didn't notice this either. "I hope so. Sire Dagon assured me the product would be worth any wait. In order for that to be true, your Prios vintage will have to be a very fine thing."

"My queen, my wine is the balm our thirsty nation needs. You will be delighted."

Corinn doubted delight would play any part in her emotions. She did, however, hide a keen interest behind her intentionally bland facade. She had waited years for this vintage. Balm for the thirsty nation. That would be a useful thing, indeed. It had not taken her long after seizing power to realize that her brother-however he had managed it-had left her gravely handicapped. The people were off mist, and their memories of the nightmares the drug had begun to induce must have been vivid, for none of them returned to the pipe. That was fine in the early days after Hanish's demise. There was work to be done, and more than enough for the people to focus on.

Before long, however, their clear-eyed awareness began to be a problem. They set their sights on her and started to grow disgruntled. First one nation and then another grumbled for independence, complained about being overtaxed, claimed that agents in the night still stole their children, argued Aliver's old pledges as if they were words from some holy book. Corinn was sure that she had to maneuver, cajole, bribe, flatter, and punish at a frenetic rate precisely because the people were no longer drugged. No Akaran monarch since Tinhadin had worked as hard as she had. If she had clamped down on dissent forcefully, it was the people's own fault! The Numrek were hers to deploy, and use them she did.

Initially, she had asked the league to find some way to spread the drug again. After all, it would upset their trade with the Lothan Aklun. Those foreigners still wanted quota. That was why the league had taken over the Outer Isles, to make them into a plantation for raising quota. But the Known World, it seemed, no longer wanted mist in return for it. The league had urged caution, patience. They said that to simply put the people back on mist would be a mistake, even if it were possible. It was too easily recognizable, too much a sign of their old condition. Some might take to a slightly altered variation, yes, but others would chafe and foment against it. All still remembered Aliver and considered him their deliverer from mist. It would not do for Corinn to simply reverse that. They convinced her to wait for a new product to control the people, and in the meantime she accepted payment for the quota in coin and jewel and a variety of other things needed to rebuild the empire. That she couldn't argue with.

It was seven years before they finally came to her saying the new drug had been perfected. It was, they said, made from the same base elements as mist, but they had managed to formulate it in such a way that it could be consumed day or night, without altering one's ability to work, sleep, or procreate. It had proven difficult to contain it in liquid form and in a substance that did not degrade over time. This was important to them, though, as they were convinced the drug should not be smoked. It should seem nothing like mist. This time, they urged, it should be consumed as a beverage, a beverage like… wine. Prios had long had a history of wine making. With Corinn's permission, and under league supervision, the operations had been expanded to cover as much of the island as possible. The result, finally, was this Prios vintage, a wine with a measure of the formula mixed in before bottling.

"Watching the test subjects," Paddel said, "one almost wants to throw reason away and join them." He leaned forward, beads of sweat clinging to his tattooed hairline. "The vintage, it isn't grandiose. It isn't unpredictable like mist. It doesn't take one over completely. Instead, from the first drink of it one feels the hum of mild bliss, a constant, happy sense of expectation. On the wine, they are convinced that something wonderful is about to happen. Always about to happen. The feeling, when properly dosed, never wears off. They never wonder why this wonderful thing hasn't happened; they only know that it is going to. It's coming. Always coming."

"And yet they still work?"

Vigorous nodding. "They do. Of course they do. Why wouldn't they? They feel wonderful, so what's a few more hours cracking rocks or whatever labor they're at?"

Corinn glanced at Rhrenna, the only other person in the room. Her small features did not do justice to the sharp mind behind them, but Corinn liked that about her. With her freckled Meinish skin and pale blue eyes she could sit within most rooms without drawing any more attention than an average household servant. She was much more, though. She asked, "And when they are deprived of it?"

"That's another bit of brilliance," Paddel said, addressing the queen as if she had asked the question. "If we withhold it, the test subjects feel only a vague unease, like the start of hunger pains or like a chill. And what does one do when hungry?" The vintner paused, grinning. "Eats! What does one do against a chill? Puts on a cloak. Nobody thinks 'Why am I slave to this hunger?' or 'Damn this chill, I'll fight it!' No, they do what comes naturally, Your Majesty. The same is true of the wine. In our trials the patients don't even understand that they crave the vintage. They'll do anything to get it, but they don't even know they want it. And I do mean anything…"

Corinn watched him rub his fingertips across his thumbs at some memory of this anything. "What of our military? If our own soldiers drink this stuff, will it make them unwilling to fight? Peaceful?"

"Not at all. They'll rush to battle confident of victory! Understand that the vintage-Oh, how should I say…" Paddel squinted his entire face as he searched for the words to explain himself. "They see the world with gilded highlights, yes, but they still see the world. They still walk through the motions of life as before, and honor their responsibilities. They honor them even better, in fact! You, my queen, will rule an empire of happy citizens. They'll do whatever you wish, and they'll never see their lives for what they are-complete and total drudgery!"

"And how do we control it?" Rhrenna asked. "Much of the empire drinks wine. Even children drink it diluted. How do we control who is on it and who is not?"

Paddel responded directly to the queen, grinning through his words. "That is for her majesty to determine, but in my opinion… Well, in my opinion, each and every person in the land could drink the stuff. They would all be happier for it, so what's the harm?"

Rhrenna, catching the queen's eye, expressed her loathing with quick pursing of her thin lips. Corinn silently agreed. She had never heard of anything worse, but she did not say so or let any emotion other than vague displeasure show on her face. "Fine. Continue production as you will, then. Store it carefully. Securely."

"Of course. We do. We do. The Ishtat Inspectorate guards the warehouse. When, Your Majesty, might we begin distribution? Sire Dagon said the league are ready and will aid at your pleasure."

"At my pleasure is correct," Corinn replied. "You may go now."

Go he did, ushered out by Rhrenna, although he clearly had to swallow a host of questions and declarations to do so. Once the two left the room, Corinn inhaled deeply, trying to loosen the tension that had built in her as she spoke with the vintner. She smelled him-a sweet, salty scent as if his sweat were some sort of sugared seawater. She would ask Rhrenna to have incense lit when she returned. A soothing scent-that was what she needed. Something to let her think clearly on this.

She loathed the pleasure Paddel seemed to take in the venture. Coming from him the entire project seemed tainted by his vile fingertips. But that should not matter, she knew. It was the result that she cared about; and the results, by all accounts, were as advantageous as she could have hoped. She understood now why the league had been willing to wait to see the formula and the means of distribution perfected. She had only to give the word. The wine would flow through the veins of trade, to markets and taverns, to sit on tables in every corner of the empire. It would wet the lips of laborers and thieves, farmers and merchants, scholars and officials. It would be hard to keep it from the gilded goblets of the aristocracy, but they were as troublesome in their simpering ways as ranting prophets like Barad were among the masses. Let them all be deluded. Let the world rest for a while without strife. Even Aliver could not have objected to that.

The thought of her siblings nagged at her. She would have to decide what to do about them. Neither seemed to fully understand the dangers of a sober populace. Sometimes she feared that they did not understand their responsibilities. The people could not be trusted! They would forever find fault, make mistakes, and give in to petty jealousies and shortsighted thinking. They would destroy themselves if they were allowed to. That was what Tinhadin had realized; that was why he had grasped all power in his hands and ruled with an iron will.

She would do so as well, and yet she would improve on his model. She would rule with her brain, not her emotions. She would use all the tools she could. She would make the world safe. Nobody would lie to her anymore. Nobody would betray her, steal from her, or abandon her. Nobody would die without her permission. The world would be as she wished it to be. And then she would know peace as well.

Yes, she thought, then I will know peace. If Mena and Dariel could not understand this, she would have to act for them. She loved them dearly, of course. That was why, she knew, they might have to drink the vintage as well. She was not sure yet, but that might be for the best.

Rhrenna returned, lit the incense as Corinn asked, and talked through the remaining matters of business. There was always more. This time it was the merchants of Bocoum who harried her. Their drought had grown dire. Northern Talay-and all the food production and trade it drove-was at the brink of collapse. "Your Majesty," Rhrenna said, "they have really become quite insistent. They beseech you to come and see their plight. They say you will truly understand it only when you see it with your own eyes."

"Fine. I've had enough of these offices anyway. Tell them I will come to them within the fortnight. Tell Aaden as well. He'll be happy for a trip, even a short one."