The other lands

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

It was always small things about his earlier life that Dariel thought of, moments that had otherwise been forgotten. Perhaps it was because they had been forgotten that they had the stealth to slip into his mind unbidden. He thought of the first time he had seen Aaden laugh. His nephew had been but a baby, propped upon a maid's lap one afternoon. As he had done so many times before, Dariel danced about in an attempt to entertain the boy. But this time Aaden did not simply watch him. This time the boy's mouth tilted with mirth, and the strangest barrage of sound escaped him. At first Dariel thought he was coughing, but then Aaden tilted his head back and waved one arm in the air in an unmistakable gesture. He was laughing! Never had that simple act seemed such a revelation of humanity.

Or he remembered a pair of felt slippers he had once bought as a gift for Val and then lost before actually giving them to him. How frustrating! Or he thought of how, as a boy, he had always stared at Aliver when he was not looking. More so than full-grown men, the shape of his brother's arms and shoulders and ease with which he handled his training sword had shot Dariel through with admiration.

And instead of remembering Wren in battle aboard the Ballan, entwined with him in lovemaking, climbing over the railing of the league warship she helped destroy, or standing beside him during the wind-whipped funeral ceremony for his father and brother, he recalled swimming in the upper garden pools with her one blazingly hot afternoon. Saying she had had enough, she kissed him and rose out of the water and walked away. He watched her body, displayed as it was beneath a thin swimming shift that was somehow more erotic than actual nudity. But once she was out of sight his eyes fell on the line of dark footprints on the pale gray stone. Such perfectly curved imitations of her feet. The footprints had faded so quickly in the sun that he breathlessly watched them disappear.

Such were the things that crept into his mind now during the long hours of caged solitude. Each time he realized that he was daydreaming-and further realized where he was-it was like suddenly remembering something so bad that he could not believe he had forgotten it even for a moment. There really had been an entire sea full of corpses! He could have dived in among them and swum from one to the next to the next and never reached them all, not even if he came up for breath a hundred times. Long had he feared the Lothan Aklun; now he wished desperately that he had gotten the chance to speak with even one of them. Perhaps it was silly, but he could not help feeling they might have had important things to tell him about the world he was now trapped in.

When and how would word of this reach Corinn? Surely the Ambergris had sailed with news of the treachery. He did not have her gift for political wrestling, so he knew not how she might choose to respond. A small group sent back to parley with the Auldek? An army prepared to invade? What would the league men tell her? Even if they told the truth, the league did not know what had happened to him. In addition, they had every reason to transform the entire situation into some fanciful version that would suit their needs-whatever those were. Though Dariel worked himself into knots thinking about it, he could not imagine what was happening on the other side of the world. When he thought of Mena or Wren being told that he was dead or missing, it filled him with anguish.

Mor had come to him a second time. She entered, rigid with control, moving deliberately. Tunnel hovered near him, almost seeming like a protector should Mor attack him again. She said something to him in Auldek. The large man responded in the same language, shrugging as he spoke, ending with something that must have been a joke, since he grinned at his own words.

Mor did not acknowledge any humor. Dragging a stool in front of Dariel, she sat down and faced him directly. She switched to Acacian. "If it were up to me alone I'd just as soon feed you to the snow lions."

"Is that an option?" Dariel asked. "Are there lions around here? I'm not saying I'd want to be eaten, but it's possible the lions would treat me better than-"

He flinched when Mor reached for him. She clamped her hand over his mouth and said, "Shut your mouth and let me say what I must. Then I'll go, and you can prattle on in your ignorance. Tunnel will listen. Won't you?"

"He makes good prattle," Tunnel said, tugging on one of his tusks.

"You cannot tell me anything right now," Mor said. "Let me tell you a few things. Will you be quiet?"

Reluctantly, Dariel nodded. He would rather listen to whatever she had to say than have her turn away in anger again.

"Good." She drew her hand from his lips. "I am going to assume that you know nothing. Let's start at that point and nothing will be missed. You are in Ushen Brae, the place you call the Other Lands. We are in the tunnels beneath the city of Avina. I'm not entirely clear what happened when your party met the Auldek, but I can tell you that your people were slaughtered. A handful fled back to the league boats, but not many. You're the only one we have. And who are we? We're not the Auldek. I am Mor of the Free People. You know Tunnel and Skylene. We are all of the People. The 'People' are those you might refer to as quota. We are the slaves you sent here. Many of us are still in bondage. Some of us fight it." She pressed her hand to her chest. "We are those who fight it. The Free People. You may think that this side of the world is just a place where you discard unwanted children. We don't think so. Not anymore. Ushen Brae is the world. It's here we make the future."

"Wait." Dariel tried to gesture with his hands, but as they were bound, he used his shoulders instead, shrugging apologetically. "Just wait a moment. I will stop interrupting. I will, really. I just mean for you to know that I am not your enemy. I'm an Akaran, yes, and… you are quota. I know that is a terrible crime of my family, but it's nothing that I started. If anything, I hoped I might stop it. That's why I came-to help." Lest this sound too meek, he raised his chin as he concluded. "You do me wrong by chaining me."

When he stopped, Mor continued as if he had not spoken. "You are a prisoner, Dariel Akaran, of the very children your family sent to slavery. We've grown up. We don't stay children forever. In the coming days, we will decide what to do with you. Some believe you are here to save us. Some know better. But the elders of the Free People are patient and just. You will be tested. Perhaps-though it's not likely-we will find some value in you. But if you can be no use to us, you will feed the earth, and none here will weep. That's all I have to tell you right now."

With that, Mor jumped up from her seat, sending it crashing over behind her. She turned and was halfway out of the room before Dariel spoke.

"Wait!" he said.

Mor froze.

"I'll listen to it all," Dariel continued. "Test me also, if that is my fate. Kill me after that, if you wish, but let me die knowing. You won't understand me, but I know-in more ways than you even consider-that I have walked the world half blind. That was the way of my people, but it doesn't have to continue. My brother, if he had lived and had met you-would have asked for the same. But he isn't here. I am. So, in his place, tell me everything. Please."

"Your ignorance would take a lifetime to erase."

"I am not the only ignorant one in this room."

Mor snapped her head around. "You resort to insults?"

"Following your example," Dariel quipped. "You were a child when you left-"

"When I was taken, not left."

Dariel conceded the point with a curt nod. "When you were taken. That's true of you. That's true of every human living in Ushen Brae. You know nothing of the Known World, nothing more than a child would."

"Generations of People have grown old here, lived, and died."

"Yes, but the People never know more about the Known World than what children of seven or eight can tell them. You may get old and grow wise in your way, yes, but you know little about Acacia."

Mor kicked the stool that was in her way, sending it twirling inches from Dariel's head. It clattered to the floor.

Dariel fought to contain his frustration. "We should be speaking to each other, not attacking each other. I want to know about life here. I want to know what's been done in the Akaran name. I inherited it, too-just as you did. It's the fact that we don't know each other that has allowed this crime to go on."

"How pathetic you are to claim to want to help us now. Now that you're nothing-"

"Mor, I have lived years knowing that there was something foul at the heart of my family's empire. I knew some of it but not all of it. Tell me all of it. Show me. And I will tell you everything I can about the world you came from."

"I know you will," Mor said, threat laced in the words. This time, she turned and left the room before Dariel found the words, or the heart, to stop her.

In the days that followed, his testing began. It was not so much a matter of any one challenge to meet. It was like no other tests he had ever taken. It was a matter of opening himself as completely as possible and giving, giving, giving. The elders, according to Mor, wanted to take him up on his offer to educate them about the Known World. They wanted to know everything they could about the land that had sold them into slavery.

At first he spoke hesitantly, unsure whether or not he was betraying his people. But this was what he himself had asked for. Half of it, at least. Sometimes Mor questioned him, a thing Dariel found both exhilarating and unnerving, but she had other duties that took her away for days at a time. More consistently, Skylene directed the course of his days. She seemed to have more freedom with her time than the others. Most could only steal a few hours every few days away from the chores their masters had for them.

History, religion, mythology, the old tales, geography, nations and races and leaders, bloodlines and feuds and allegiances, the Forms and Hanish Mein and the Santoth and Aliver: they wanted to know it all. Skylene forced him to arrange these various subjects as best he could. Before long, several scribes spent the hours with him, each writing on multiple scrolls, each focused on a different topic. He would jump from one to other as things occurred to him or as Skylene prompted him.

Tunnel visited him regularly also. He did not interrogate him, although Dariel believed he was supposed to. The big man pulled up a chair and sat close to him, near enough that Dariel could smell the fragrant oil that had been worked into his leather skirt and the long laces of his sandals. He would joke with Dariel, smile and laugh at the slightest provocation. Skylene was fair enough with him, but Tunnel was alone among the People in treating Dariel like a friend returned from a long voyage. They were simply catching up, it seemed.

Dariel would never have imagined that his existence would come to be what it now was. It was peculiar because some part of him felt strangely at ease with it except during those moments of panic and realization. Some part of him had been waiting for this, wanting it. He now hungered for where it might lead.

"Skylene," Dariel asked, as another session of questioning was about to begin, "do you know of any way I could send a message to my country?"

The woman stared at him, her thin lips pursed, wary of the idea. She had just entered the chamber in which he sat waiting, alone. Her appearance was as striking as ever, but her pale blue hue and avian highlights no longer seemed bizarre. To Dariel's eyes, they were now part of her. Strange that he could grow used to her so quickly. She asked, "What kind of message?"

"Just something that tells my people that I'm alive. I don't know what the league might tell them. It could cause all sorts of problems if they think me dead. I don't know what it might lead to. If my sister thinks me dead-or discovers that I'm captive here-she may send an army to avenge me or to war with the Auldek."

"I don't think that's likely," Skylene said.

Dariel studied her. "Why?"

Skylene thought a moment, and then exhaled and shook her head, sadly. "It doesn't matter, Dariel. Whatever will happen, will happen. We cannot change it. Not yet, at least. It's not possible to send any message. We never managed it in twenty-two generations. What makes you think we could do it now?"

"The league then. They may still be along the coast. Can we get-"

"A message to them?" Skylene interjected. "Don't be foolish. The only message your sister will receive will be of their making. Really, Dariel, we have no power where they are concerned. Anyway, Mor would never allow contact with them. They are our enemies, remember? For that matter, you haven't forgotten that they were offering you up to Devoth, have you?"

No, Dariel certainly had not forgotten that. In fact, he had dreamed of that chaotic afternoon more than once. "I had power over the league once, you know."

There was a knock at the door. A moment later the two scribes entered: one with a splash of shivith spots across one side of her face, the other with a crest of black hair jutting from the back of his head.

Skylene motioned for the two new arrivals to take their seats and ready their writing equipment. "I doubt that," she responded.

"I was at war with them once. Killed many."

"That may be, but that doesn't mean they were in your power. You blew up their platforms, I know; you detailed that already. That may have hurt them. Perhaps it made them hate you enough to give you to Devoth, but you can't really believe you had them on their knees. Let me tell you this about the league: they made it clear to each of us that you Akarans are just pawns to them. Once they have us quota aboard their ships and are sailing west, they don't hide the fact that they are the Known World's real power. And the Lothan Aklun, before they were eliminated, likewise dismissed you. You were their customers, but stupid ones, ignorant, addicted, easily fooled and exploited. As for us… many among the People hate the Akaran name and hold you responsible for our slavery, but quite a few think your people too pathetic to merit hate. None of us think you accurately understand the way the world has been working."

"And you? How do you feel?"

Skylene answered without the slightest hesitation. "The Kern-my clan-have a saying: 'Truth is a white crane with many heads but only one body.' When they grow agitated, the heads eat one another until only one remains."

"And that one truth prevails?"

"No. The one head can't live by itself, not when it's part of a body that has suffered multiple decapitations. There may be one truth left, but it dies when the body that connected it to the other truths dies."

Dariel's brow ridged with skepticism. "Yours are a dire people."

Shrugging, Skylene said, "The truth overlaps. It contradicts. But in many ways, many things are true. That's why I think a little bit of everything about you and your people."

"If that's true it seems surprising that you're talking to me. If my people are so pathetic, what use are we?"

This did cause her to pause for thought. "The league has used you. The Lothan Aklun have used you. The Auldek have used you. Perhaps we can find a use for you and your information, too. That's what the elders believe. And, anyway, you yourself proposed this."

Feeling a greater import in the question than seemed reasonable, Dariel could not help but ask, "Is it what Mor believes also?"

A smile started to lift the corners of Skylene's lips, but before the expression was complete, she ran a twist through it that made it more like a smirk. "You don't want to know what Mor thinks we should do with you. Trust me on that." Her tone switched, growing crisper and more official. "We've spoken enough. Let's begin. You were going to tell us about the floating merchants."

It seemed such a distant thing to speak about, unreal in this subterranean existence. He started by explaining what he knew of the merchants, about the way the currents flowed around the Inner Sea at different times of the year, how seasonal shifts made it possible for the great barges-cities unto themselves-to sail a circular route that took them all the way to the Vumu Archipelago. They were only marginally governed by the empire. Really, the merchant families of Bocoum held them together within an unofficial government-like arrangement. Though their trade was not rich enough to bring them into competition with the league, they were fundamental to the swirling flow of goods that kept the empire thriving.

As he spoke, images emerged in his mind. At first he thought they were just visualizations to aid his recall of information, but then he realized the images were more personal than that. He had forgotten, but he had first visited the floating merchants when he was a small boy. Of course he had. It was during the spring, when the rafts drifted on the slow current that carved the Mainland's coastline. He must have been six or seven years old, in those long-ago days before the world first went mad. He had stepped aboard the rafts-not with his father-but holding Thaddeus Clegg's hand.

With this "uncle" to guide him, he had gazed in awe at the bobbing, flowing, moving creation the thousands of rafts made when lashed together. The population of the rafts was an amazing, polyglot entity, diverse as the entire empire, there before him at once. People of all nations rode the waves, making their lives through trade. With animals in cages and others roaming free, with wares displayed and foodstuffs bubbling and frying and great stores of items piled in warehouses, with fisheries and clam hangers, cisterns for gathering rainwater and a network of tubing that ran it where needed, it was a grand, salt-tinged, barnacled confusion.

And then he remembered that Aliver had been with them. Tall and older, smart, confident, and a bit arrogant: everything it seemed a man should be. Oh, how Dariel felt tiny in his brother's shadow. That's the feeling that washed over him. Quick behind this flood of feeling came remembrance of the brief relationship they had rekindled as men on the battlefield of Talay. The emotion of it stopped his narration.

"Is something wrong?" Skylene asked.

Dariel fidgeted. "Yes. Many things are wrong. Can I have a break?"

"We've just begun-"

"I know. I'm sorry. I just started telling you about one thing and it brought to mind another."

"We have them only for an hour," Skylene said, gesturing toward the scribes, one of whom sat with pen poised, ready to continue. The other waited her turn, should the subject change to a different scroll. "Then they have to return to their work."

Dariel realized he did not recognize them. Perhaps they had been here before. Likely, they had, but in their silent roles they had no identity to him. Perhaps that was good. Because of it, it was easier for him to say, "I told you before about how my brother fought Maeander Mein. It was his great moment. I believe that, even though he died. Maybe it was great because he died. It's hard to explain.

"Everyone who knew him wished he never accepted the challenge. Certainly, the Mein would not have kept Maeander's pledge. In a way, it was a situation in which he could not win. So why do it? Why risk everything for nothing? That's what it seemed like to me at the time, and then when Aliver did die, it was both unbelievable and inevitable. I hated everything at that moment: Maeander and Hanish, the war, every soldier around us. Even Aliver himself. I hated that he had failed and left us. Left me. What I didn't tell you before was what I did in the moments after."

He noticed Skylene nod to the second scribe and knew from the different rhythm of the scratch of her pen that he was being recorded again. Okay, he thought. Let them have this in writing, too.

"Maeander killed my brother with a knife, following the rules the two of them had agreed upon. I swore-along with Aliver-to abide by the rules and honor the outcome. When I saw Aliver on the ground, and Maeander strolling away, so pleased with himself, I couldn't control myself. I hated him so much nothing else mattered. I said, just loud enough to be heard in the silence. 'Kill him.' When nobody obeyed me I shouted it. 'Kill him!' I ordered. Hear? I ordered it done."

He had been looking at his hands for a while but glanced up long enough to make sure Skylene understood him exactly. The scribe's pen scratched a little longer, and then stopped. Her eyes rose to look at him.

"So," he continued, kneading his hands together, "just like that, with a few words, I betrayed the honor my brother modeled for the world. I've always hated myself for that."

"He was an enemy commander," Skylene offered. "You just did what-"

"Aliver would never have done that. Honor is honor. It's not just honor when it suits you. He had agreed to terms, and so had I."

"I'm not sure I understand. Surely, Aliver did not think that the war would be decided between just two men? No matter what, it would have gone on, yes?"

"Yes."

"Then your actions changed nothing, except that you killed one of your enemy's leaders."

Dariel almost laughed. Sadly, he had told himself the same thing many times. Others had said it, too. There was truth in it, but there was also truth in the fact that both he and Aliver believed that people-especially those who led others-should be true to their word. Who knows? Maybe Maeander felt the same. Maybe he would have lived by the outcome of that duel. Dariel would never know because he had betrayed his honor. The irony of it was thick enough to swim in.

It was not just the irony that made him laugh. It was what Skylene had said about the truth having many heads but only one body. "Let's not debate this. We'll end up headless if we do."

The woman ridged her brow for a moment, perplexed, but then registered understanding. "You learn fast, Dariel."

"Not everyone would agree, but I try. And as soon as you start telling me things about Ushen Brae, I will be all ears. Is it time for that yet?"

Skylene thought for a moment. "That's up to Mor."