The other lands

CHAPTER FIVE

Rialus Neptos knew he should consider it an honor to be included in the envoy, but he was not very skilled at feeling honored. Actually, he could think of few things more unpleasant than the prospect of weeks aboard a league vessel heading off to the far side of the world. Rialus was a curious man, certainly, but his curiosity had strict boundaries, and he had plenty to occupy him within the confines of the Known World. For that matter, he had a good deal to occupy him within the confines of his own bedchamber.

He suspected Corinn had yet to forgive him for his impromptu wedding to Gurta. Why she should care he could not fathom, but she seemed annoyed by it. Surely, he was not the only man to ever wed a servant! By his accounting it was rather a respectable-honorable, actually-thing to do, especially as he had planted a child within her. An heir to the Neptos fortune. That was something he could not pass up. He had long ago resigned himself to the fact that the Neptos line would end with him. Indeed, in the frozen exile that had been his life in the Mein it seemed a good idea to end the Neptos misery.

But that was then. Now he was Queen Corinn Akaran's councillor, famed for having dispatched Hanish Mein. No other act in his life had changed his fortunes more than the few moments it took to make his hand thrust the knife blade into Hanish's pale flesh. Nobody would ever know how long he hesitated, or that he needed to grasp the knife in both hands to control his trembling. But he had done it. He really had! Hanish was just flesh and blood, like other men. Because of it, Rialus lived at the center of the world. Now he had a position of prominence. Now-thanks to Gurta being made a lady overnight-he would have heirs to pass on his good fortune to. The Giver did reward his worthies! Sometimes it just took a while for him to get around to it.

That was what Rialus kept reminding himself as he nodded to the guards who stood at the gates of the league compound. They were Ishtat Inspectorate, a force that held no real allegiance to the queen. They gave Rialus the shivers, cloaked as they were. That and the halberds they held at the ready. He had heard they could use the weapons for slashing motions that could disembowel or behead a person from eight feet away, or they could break the weapon into two parts-sword and staff both-and thereby crack your skull with one before slicing you open with the other. He could not help feeling they itched to do both, which is why their statuelike stillness caused him to quicken his steps.

Once in the outer chambers of Sire Dagon's offices, Rialus was told to wait. He sat on an iron chair that had a delicate beauty but was amazingly uncomfortable. That was how it always seemed when he was with the league. Their offices were sumptuous, pleasing to the eye, and promising of comfort. But he had never sat on a league couch without finding a ridge that poked him in the back, or fabric that irritated his skin. On the walls hung paintings of their massive ships astride even more massive waves. The angles they tilted at, the dark shapes beneath the water, the way the white fingers of the wave crests reached out for the tiny human figures on deck made Rialus queasy. He hoped that the images were exaggerations meant to impress or tumultuous aberrations that he was unlikely to witness firsthand.

He moved his eyes away. It would be a brief voyage. What was it? Four weeks across? A few weeks there, and then four weeks back. No more than two and a bit months of his life. He could spare that, considering that Gurta, plump with his heir, would be waiting for him. He did, of course, have Corinn's charges to worry about. She had laid them out for him just the day before.

"I have three charges for you, Rialus," she had said. "First, keep an eye on my brother. I want him safe, and nobody has a better nose than you for sniffing out danger. Whether they come from the league, the Lothan Aklun, the Auldek, or the ocean depths you must spot dangers before they touch him. Second, I want you in the room when the league meets with the Lothan Aklun and the Auldek. You speak the Numrek tongue better than anyone else I know. It just may be you will understand the Auldek language as well. Judge them for yourself and keep your judgment to yourself, understand? Try to find ways to speak with them alone. We may one day deal with them without the league between us, so we might as well know something about them. Third, of course, is that you return to me with a detailed report of everything you witness. My brother will do the same, but I want to hear separately from you. Never in our history of trading with the Lothan Aklun have we had a better opportunity to learn about them. Use it, Rialus. Use it so fully that when you return I don't regret not having gone myself."

She made each assignment sound both simple and laced with threat. She was good at that. He would have to keep his wits about him, make journal notes regularly, and find a way to quell the nausea that roiled in him each time he thought of those ocean waves. And the Auldek… Please let them be more refined than the Numrek! Two months, though. Only two months and he would be home again. He could handle that.

When he was finally ushered into Sire Dagon's chambers he found he was late in joining the meeting. Along with Dagon, Neen, and several league navigators sat the bulky and all too familiar forms of Calrach and his two seconds. The leaguemen sat at repose in their intricate, presumably uncomfortable chairs. The Numrek dwarfed them-all hard-edged muscle and rough features-and yet both parties seemed at ease.

"Ah, Rialus Neptos," Sire Dagon said, speaking through an exhalation of mist, "you join us at last. We've nearly concluded our meeting. Be prompter in future."

Rialus began an explanation that he had been sitting in the outer offices for nearly an hour, but nobody seemed interested. Calrach rose and greeted him with a crushing hug and then stood back, smacking his massive hand down on the frail man's shoulder. "My friend," he said in Numrek, "good to see you. You are not so much a rat anymore. More of a weasel now." He turned to his companions for agreement, which they gave. Each of them in turn inflicted the same chest-crushing embrace on him.

Rialus fumbled through it in terse Numrek. He still hated the language for the barbarity of it and for the contortions it demanded of his tongue and lips. He did speak it well, though, having learned it during his tenure as Hanish Mein's ambassador to the foreign invaders turned allies. Not a thing he liked being reminded of for many reasons. It had been a humiliating period of his life, worse, in some ways, than his exile in Cathgergen. Actually, his wrestling with the Numrek language had helped cure him of his stammer. He now spoke almost as smoothly as he would like.

Once he was seated, rail-thin servants gave him a sweet plum wine in a glass that would not sit straight when he set it down. Nobody else seemed to have the same trouble, which was odd because their glasses looked just like his. It suddenly seemed quite important that he did not spill any of the sugary liquid. He sat back in his chair, small glass held in his lap with what he hoped passed for composure. He wondered what they had discussed before he arrived. The best stuff, he was sure.

Sire Dagon cleared his throat and spoke without a hint of emotion, humor, or irony. "So, good Calrach, you see in Rialus a loyal servant of the queen. He's to shepherd the young prince about; keep him safe from harm, treachery, and such. Just between us, I sometimes suspect the queen thinks we harbor ill intentions toward her brother. I've assured her the league can forgive and forget as well as anyone. Dariel is a prince now, not a brigand, thief, and saboteur. Anyway, Rialus will, no doubt, strive to work in the Akaran interests in every way. But what of the Numrek? Is it at the queen's bidding that you will journey to Ushen Brae? Or have you your own purposes?"

"I believe Queen Corinn demanded that they go," Sire Neen offered, "no doubt to keep an eye on us. The Numrek, too, are loyal to her majesty-"

Calrach stopped him by snapping forth his arm, palm out. He looked for a bare spot on the floor to spit and then did so. "We care nothing about the queen. She is not our queen anyway. She is a bitch who flaunts her tail but doesn't give it up. Instead, she bares her teeth and snaps. We have grown tired of her."

In the silence after this, the two leaguemen exchanged troubled glances. Sire Neen put a hand to his throat as if a cough needed to be soothed down by his fingers. It was a reasonable reaction for any not well acquainted with the Numrek, except that Rialus had spent enough time among these foreigners to know that belligerence was the norm in their speech. They could not be judged by Acacian standards of behavior, even as regarded insulting the queen. He knew this, but so did the leaguemen. There was just slightly too much timidity in their reaction. Noticing it, Rialus figuratively narrowed his eyes.

"But you are still in her service?" Sire Dagon asked.

"We are. There is no reason not to be. If she, through you, allows me to see Ushen Brae again, I am happy to serve her. I will say the words she asks of me." The Numrek leaned back. "Yes, I will do that. She will not be disappointed. But I don't do it because I love the smell between her legs."

A horrible expression, Rialus thought, one that Numrek men and women both used without embarrassment. It threatened to bring with it a flood of memories, but he pushed them back. Keep your wits, Rialus. He took a sip of the wine and tried to remain as unobtrusive as possible.

Mulat, Calrach's half brother, added, "We do it because what is good for the Akarans is good for the Auldek, and we as their cousins want only what is good for them."

Sire Dagon accepted a pickled plum from a servant, and then dismissed him-or her, it was hard to tell-with a flick of his wrist. He held the soft fruit in his fingers, sniffing it. "Cousins, you say? I've never entirely understood the relationship between the Auldek and the Numrek. Did they not displace you, drive you into the-"

"No, no, no," Calrach said, exasperation flaring. He thumped his palm against Mulat's chest with a force that made Rialus cringe, though it did not really seem to bother the Numrek. "Do not test me again, Leagueman! This thing we don't speak of. It does not concern you. Stop finding ways to ask of it."

Hmm, Rialus thought. So the sires had asked about the connection between the Numrek and Auldek enough times that Calrach had noticed. True, Calrach was sharper than his gruff exterior suggested, but if the league had pressed him on it, they obviously did not know as much about the Auldek as they wished. That was interesting, or troubling, to consider.

"My apologies," Sire Dagon said, bowing his head. "Yours are such an interesting people. You cannot blame me for being curious. In any event, you will be an honored member of our delegation. Invaluable, I'm sure."

Appeased, Calrach let his large frame fall back against his chair.

"Excuse me," Rialus said, "but what was that name you used? Ushebra-"

"Ushen Brae," Mulat corrected. "That is the name of our land."

"Oh, I've not heard that before."

Mulat had a handsome face for a Numrek, cut of features better proportioned for human eyes to appreciate. Still, the slightest displeasure made his face a creviced mask that was hard not to cringe from. "That doesn't mean it's not so. You call our lands the Other Lands, but why should we do so? They are not other to us. This place here is other. Now that we are to see our home again, we will again call it by its proper name."

"Should I-"

"Do what you wish," Calrach said. "It makes no difference. Sires, there are two things more about our going on this ocean voyage. One, I will bring my son. Don't protest. It's no matter of yours. But I'll take him to see Ushen Brae. Two, you must bind us."

Sire Neen's head dipped to one side, birdlike, and straightened again.

That, Rialus thought, was the first genuine show of surprise he had seen yet on a leagueman. He went to set his glass down, fumbling when it wobbled and then reconsidering. He took another sip instead.

"Bind you?"

Instead of answering, Calrach shifted, uneasy suddenly. He thrust his chin at his half brother, and it was Mulat who answered. "We abhor the water. In sight of land, as here in the Inner Sea, it's not bad. But the Gray Slopes… these we don't care for."

The sires responded warmly enough. They understood this well. The Auldek did not care for the sea either. They had, in fact, never once seen one of them aboard a ship, a fact that greatly benefited the Lothan Aklun. "This is why you came into the Known World over the Ice Fields. Hardly an easy route."

"It was a feat to make us immortal," Calrach said with a bravado that, even for him, felt a bit forced. "No other has ever accomplished it. We are not so different from gods, yes?"

Sire Neen nodded but did not answer. Instead, he looped back. "Amazing that you fear the sea so much, and yet-"

"Fear! Fear?" Calrach spat, this time without aiming at all. "I know no fear, but the water will not support us!"

"So you cannot swim? Surely, you could learn. Even the smallest child can-"

For a moment Rialus was sure Calrach was going to smash the league-man across his too-thin jaw. Indeed, the Numrek half rose from his seat. He grasped Neen's chair at the armrests and pushed his face close, the muscles in his neck quivering, his jaw tight. "We have heavy bones!"

Sire Neen, straight-faced and nonplussed, asked, "Heavy bones? That's a strange ailment."

"I am iron inside," Calrach said. "Drop me in the ocean, and I will sink to the bottom like an anchor. I would not like that. I would have to walk along the bottom to return to land. I could do it, but the very thought of it makes me angry."

Despite the fact that Rialus did imagine Numrek bones to be nearly as hard and heavy as iron, he had to duck his head and clear his throat to keep his amusement from curling his lips. Angry, indeed! Angry like a child lost in the woods. He had not thought the Numrek so adept at manipulating language.

"So you say we must bind you?" Sire Dagon said. "With chains, you mean?"

Calrach loosened his grip and returned to his seat. "Yes, if you wish to live. I cannot promise we'd not go into a rage out of sight of land. You wouldn't want that."

For a moment, as Sire Dagon spoke and Calrach detailed the strength of the bonds that would be needed to contain his great power, Rialus watched the other leagueman. Sire Neen's bland visage did not quite hide the amused interest with which he listened. His eyes were wide and attentive, his cheeks flushed. This might have been from staring into Calrach's shouting face, but he looked pleased. His mouth hung open just slightly, and the tip of his tongue slipped across the round little nubs that were his teeth.

A moment later, one of the navigators began to brief him on preparations being made for the prince, but Rialus only half listened. And then Rialus understood something that had tugged at the edge of his understanding since he arrived at the meeting. He knew, of course, that not even a single word spoken by a leagueman could be taken as truth. He had sensed in every question and glance and pleasantry that the two men were so entangled in deceptions that their spoken words had only the semblance of truth to them. But all of this was standard. Anybody with a working knowledge of the league knew these things. What Rialus saw, however, was there on the tip of Sire Neen's pink tongue as it slid across his teeth. Rialus could not have explained exactly how he knew it, but an uncanny ability to recognize deceit was his chief skill. Who can explain the gifts the Giver bestows on him?

Neen, Rialus realized, was hiding something, plotting something all his own. Rialus turned away from him before Neen noticed him watching, but he kept the image locked in his mind, studying it.