The other lands a-2 Read online

  After the councillor had vouched for his identity, Dariel left Rialus at the entrance to Corinn's offices. Entering the inner chambers, the prince was aware of a scent in the air that he often detected around his sister. It was something other than the fragrant concoctions that bubbled quietly in small pots throughout the room, something other than the blossoms from the flowering bushes kept in great basins on her balcony. He thought it an essential oil she must wear dabbed somewhere on her person, a scent all her own. Strange that, because he did not exactly find it a pleasant smell, sharp and dry as it was.

  Corinn waited for him. She was alone, standing with her arms clasped at her waist, her face composed as if she had anticipated the exact moment of his arrival. She had developed a tendency toward always seeming completely ready, never surprised. It was yet another small thing about his sister that left him uneasy. The grin that lifted her cheeks could not have been anything but genuine, though, spontaneous. That was another characteristic he had become more aware of in the last few years. She could shift from her aloof composure to girlish familiarity and back again so completely that when she was in one state it was impossible to imagine her in the other.

  "What a sight you are, Dariel!" she exclaimed. "You come to poke fun at me. Is that it? Look at you!"

  "You sent me out to work among the people like a slave," Dariel said, raising his arms and spinning so that she could take his clothing in, "and so I return to you looking the part."

  "Aaden is desperate to see you, you know? But if you walked in like that, he'd likely draw his sword and challenge you." She moved forward, stepped into the embrace of his uplifted arms, and hugged him briefly. Pulling back, she studied him. "Let us sit and talk."

  A moment later, the two reclined in soft leather chairs, sitting across from each other, a carved stone table between them. In the center of it a small fire glowed, giving off considerable heat. A servant set two tumblers of mulled wine on the table and then retired.

  "Tell me," Corinn said, taking up a tumbler and warming her hands around it. "Did you accomplish what you wished?"

  He nodded. He had his own question to ask and felt it should be dealt with first. "What word from Mena?"

  "Mena is well. She has nearly completed the work I asked of her. Melio is well also, and Kelis. They have performed admirably at their tasks. I know part of you wished to be with them, hunting the foulthings, perhaps protecting your sister-but Mena needs no protection. You were right when you brought this charity work proposal to me. Now tell me of it."

  Dariel reached for the wine, inhaled the spicy scent, and fell into a detailed response to her query. For the past year he had found a sort of joy in daily labor that he had never known before. It came about because he was so very fatigued with war, with piracy, with violence, with seeing his loved ones die. For several years after the war with Hanish Mein, Dariel had led forces to hunt down the surviving Mein-the ones still in any sort of rebellion, at least. And he had squashed the flare-ups of rebellion all over the empire, each people trying to find some way to grab more of the Known World's map before things settled again. It had amazed him that the peace seemed just as violent as the war. It was always this way after wars, advisers told him, but still it troubled him. This hadn't been just any war. It was Aliver's war! The war to set the world to rights so that there need be no future wars. Everyone said they believed this; few, it seemed to him, also acted as if they did.

  When the peace was finally established, he found himself just as ill at ease. He did not want the throne, though he could have claimed it as the male heir. That sort of power did not appeal to him. He had no desire to loaf about the palace courting noblewomen, as Corinn seemed to wish him to do. Nor could he return to the Outer Isles and again sail those gray slopes of water. The isles had been handed over entirely to the league in a deal Corinn had struck with it on her own authority. The league owned them now, their own separate state within the empire. It was recompense, Corinn made it clear, for Dariel's stunt on the League Platforms. He did not understand until later, but she was actually quite angry with him when she fully understood his role in the attack. It had crippled the league's capacity to trade across the Gray Slopes. It had cost them thousands of quota lives and hundreds of their own kind. It was such a monstrous success that Corinn had to acquiesce to giving them more than she would have liked. And, she hinted, she had needed to give away even more to get them to promise that Dariel would not end up dead in some mysterious way: poison or accident or mysterious disappearance. The fact that she clearly considered them capable of all these things had set his skin crawling.

  Also, as soon as the quiet settled upon him, he began to have dreams-nightmares, really-about the day Aliver was killed. At first Dariel thought it was some belated way of mourning his brother, but as the dreams grew more intense he realized it was not just that. He dreamed more and more of the aftermath of the duel, more and more about his murder of Maeander Mein. He had ordered it, even though Aliver had granted Maeander protection and agreed to the particulars of the duel. Dariel could not be sure that his blade had even touched the man, but he had whispered for his death and made all his people accomplices to the murder. It was a foul way to stain the sacred moments after his brother's passing. The shame of it grew within him as time passed. More and more fervently, he wanted to find a way to live without regret, to do enough with the life he still had before him so that he would feel he had been a force for good in the world.

  It was Wren who suggested he again find work to occupy him. Not murderous work, though, not military. "Why not build?" she had asked. "Likely, you'd be as good at that as you were at piracy and sabotage." She actually had to suggest it several times before the seed split within him and took root. Wonderful, quiet Wren, sharp as a razor in more ways than one.

  When he took the proposal of rebuilding to Corinn, he found her amiable enough. With her blessing, he set out on the work that had occupied him body and soul. As Wren had suggested, he built. He arrived in Killintich with a small army of surveyors, engineers, architects, historians, and laborers. Once proud, the capital of Aushenia had suffered neglect and abuse since the Numrek invasion. Dariel set about rebuilding that damaged city brick by brick. He worked right beside laborers, digging ditches, slopping through canals, hefting loads on his back. It was toil unlike any he had known before, and he loved it. The work may have been nothing more than an attempt to busy himself, but he hoped it was more and that he was doing good for the right reasons. It was important to him that this be true.

  He described for Corinn the small moments he felt he would never forget. How he enjoyed sitting at fires with villagers and eating stew from wooden bowls, talking about such things as the weather and the growth of crops. He welcomed the fatigue with which he lay down each night, pleased that he had stolen nothing, killed no one, planned no destruction. He loved sleeping on straw mattresses and watching barn cats hunt mice and listening-as he once had in a village near the Gradthic Range-to two owls converse through the night. On the road outside Careven a blond-haired boy had presented him with a crown woven of grass. At a commemorative ceremony at Aushenguk Fell an old woman had approached him silently from behind. Without a word, she pressed her flat chest against his back and wrapped her stick arms around his torso and clung there. "She had no weight at all," he said, "light as a bird." She never said a thing, but he was sure the gesture was one of thanks.

  "As it should be," Corinn said. "I don't know that there was any similar venture done by an Akaran in all our generations of rule. Word is, you've done us a great service. The people speak well of you. I've learned from you, brother."

  Dariel took a long draft of wine, enough to wash down the first thoughts he had on hearing this. She always thought foremost of rule and reputation and of the empire's fortunes. Perhaps she had to, as queen, but he wanted to remember the good he did for the people he served, not for the Akaran name.

  "There is still so much to do," he said. "I barely know wha
t to attend to next. There must be some way we can fight the drought in Talay. And I know it will seem a strange idea, but we must convince the Mainlanders to begin planting new trees to replace the ones they cut from the Eilavan Woodlands. I passed along the edge of it on the way to Aos and I saw miles of stumps and bracken, hardly a forest at all anymore." He paused, for no reason other than something in the patient way Corinn watched him indicated that she was humoring him, that she had something to say but was letting him ramble on first. "What?"

  "I heard something that doesn't please me, Dariel. You have been critical of my policies."

  Just like that, he felt a cold hand grip his heart. He felt the pulse in his palms, suddenly strong. It was absurd. She was his sister! There was no danger here, no matter that his body seemed to think there was. "I haven't," he said. "I don't know what you mean."

  "King Grae complained to you about our tax levees on Aushenian ports. You, I've heard, said-Do you recall what you said?"

  He did, but he shook his head, shrugged.

  "You said, 'You may have a point.' How could you say that? Do you understand how that undermines me?"

  "I didn't mean that. It's just that they pay us for-"

  "Don't question me! They pay us for the very possibility of the prosperity-the peace to trade. That's what we give them; what we take is no more than our due. If we give them their commerce, we're giving them the first piece of their independence."

  Would that be so bad? Dariel thought but did not dare say.

  "We cannot do that. We cannot even suggest that it's possible. Grae doesn't know what's good for him. He's like a child who would eat only sweets. He may be happy-until his teeth drop out. No, the only way to prosperity in the Known World is my way, the Akaran way. Never show doubt about that, certainly not before others' eyes."

  She inhaled, ran her hand over her face, and changed her demeanor. With warmer, more complacent tones in her voice, she said, "It's fine that you have already given so much and that you wish to continue with such work. Father would have been proud. Aliver would have been proud. The delay between now and when you may return to such work will be a small thing, I'm sure." She set down her tumbler, untasted as far as he could tell, and leaned forward in her seat. "I am proud of you, too, Brother, but I have an important assignment for you. There has been a mishap in the Other Lands. I will need your help to mend it."

  As he listened, Dariel teetered between dread and excitement. The league had been in contact with the Auldek, those mystery people to whom so many children had been sent. It had not gone well, and now the league needed help. It was hard for him to fathom.

  Corinn was telling him he would travel across the Gray Slopes! He would ride waves as large as mountains-if the tales were true-and see the massive schools of sea wolves, the dreaded creatures that only the league had found a way to evade. He would set his eyes on the Other Lands. Amazing, something no known Acacian had ever done.

  "You will be my ambassador," Corinn said, smiling as if there were something more ironic about this than he knew. "You will represent me and carry all my authority with you. You, Dariel, are charged with the most important mission I've yet asked of anyone. The collapse of this foreign trade is a greater threat to us than Hanish Mein ever was. I don't exaggerate. Hanish could be killed outright and moved beyond. Easy. But if we don't resume the mist trade-"

  "You don't mean to start that again?"

  "I do. Stop! I know what you think about it. I know what Aliver promised. But he's not here. We cannot go on indefinitely trading quota for gems and metals and trinkets. The trade has been pathetic, unsustainable. We need a return to the stability that kept this nation together for twenty-two generations."

  Dariel started to protest, but she spoke over him.

  "And I mean that in two different ways. One, we have partners-the league, the Lothan Aklun, even the Auldek-who expect things of us, are invested in us, have so much in place. Do you want them all as enemies?"

  Again, Dariel would have spoken, but Corinn did not pause.

  "No, of course not. Two, the people of the provinces are growing disgruntled. Tell me you don't know this is true. They gripe and plot and scheme to cause mischief. It's only a matter of time, Dariel, until they rebel. And that would do no one any good. It would be chaos. Suffering."

  This time she did give him leave to speak. Words failed him, though. She was not wrong. There was discontent out there. He had felt it thinly veiled behind men's eyes. Even as he worked to help the people, he knew they did not accept him or his work as completely as he wished.

  "And know this," the queen said. "I will not drug them as we did before. It won't be the same, Dariel. I promise that."

  Do you promise it won't be worse? Dariel thought. In new ways?

  Corinn stood up, smoothed her gown, and waited for Dariel to rise. When he did, she extended her arms, palms down but fingers reaching to clasp his. "Go to them, brother, and do not fail to assuage them and negotiate a continuation of the peace. Without it, we are truly in jeopardy. We are blameless. All you have to do is convince them of that and then charm them."

  Dariel took a moment to respond. Part of him wanted to refuse her, but that was not easily done. And surely he could be a better emissary than anyone else she might send. Perhaps, in seeing the Lothan Aklun and Auldek in the flesh, he would learn things about them and find ways to alter the nature of their trade. She wished him to go for her reasons, but perhaps he could find a way to trade in something other than quota and mist. She wouldn't fault him for that-not if he brought a new arrangement to her that would replace the old. Perhaps this was a first step toward that. He tried to believe he heard these possibilities behind her words, but something kept him from mentioning them directly.

  "When will I leave?" he asked, surprised that the first thing he uttered indicated acceptance of the mission.

  "You sail with Sire Neen in two days' time. He began preparations as soon as he knew of your safe arrival here. Take no distractions with you. Understand? Wren does not go with you." Dariel must have registered his disappointment on his face, though he was not aware of doing so. "Very little of what falls on us as leaders is easy. You know that. Much of it challenges us. I've no doubt you won't love your time with Sire Neen, but for now we have no choice but to stay allied with the league."

  For a moment, Dariel felt himself a boy again, as confused and helpless as when his guardian spirited him from Kidnaban and into years of hiding. This, in turn, made him think of Val, his protector during those years, as much his father as Leodan. "Is this the real Corinn?" he asked, measuring his voice to keep it even. "You'll send me off again before I've even caught my breath? You're a hard taskmaster, Sister."

  Corinn found something about this amusing. A smile played across her lips and vanished only when she spoke. "I have to be, Brother. I am queen."

  "And what of my work?"

  "Oh, it will go on. I'll see to it myself."

  Dariel, despite his disquiet, laughed. "You, Sister, will do charity work among the common people?"

  "I will," Corinn said, releasing on him the full radiance of her smile. "Not in quite the same way as you. But I have things planned. I have to. As I said, I am the queen."

  A little later, Dariel padded barefoot through his chambers. The rooms were fragrant with the heavy incense Wren favored. The lamps burned low flames, not actually lighting the room at all but just allowing the outlines for him to navigate toward the inner rooms. He felt a deep need to talk with her, to explain what had been presented to him and to plot ways that she could come with him, even though he knew she couldn't. Wren was not a talker, not sentimental either, but that did not stop him from trying to talk to her, from wanting to wring emotion out of her to match with his.

  He found her sitting on the bed, waiting for him. He cleared his throat to announce himself and she looked up. Wren stood. She wore a satin robe, long and intricately embroidered. As she walked toward him, he prepared several phrases of
greeting, but the sensuous placement of her feet and the rocking of her hips took the words from his mouth. She loosened her belt and shrugged the robe from her shoulders and continued forward, slim and marvelously formed. She smiled, and Dariel did, too. Neither spoke.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The man had spent too many years working in the mines of Kidnaban to easily stand straight now. Knowing he had a few moments more of solitude, he did not try. He leaned against the warehouse wall, hearing the muffled discussion going on beyond it. He had been tall even as a boy, a head above almost anyone he had ever stood near since adolescence. But that was when he stood upright at full height. He had few opportunities to do that during the years he worked in the mines. He had either crouched low as he shuffled down subterranean corridors or had strained beneath backbreaking loads he had to balance on his shoulders as he climbed the countless ladders that crept from the depths to the surface. After twenty years of that, his spine crooked in places it had not done in his youth. He was comfortable only in one position, curled on his side in the moments before sleep found him. Other than that, his physical life was measured in degrees of discomfort. He told himself it was better that way; this way he would never forget why his work mattered to him above all other things.

  A door nearby swung open abruptly and a thin man appeared, blinking in the daylight and casting around with a hand shading his eyes. "Barad! There you are. Come in, they will hear you now." He motioned for the large man to approach. When Barad neared, the other man grasped him by the elbow and spoke enthusiastically. "It is safe, my friend. Have no fear while in Nesreh. We are friends here!"

  Barad the Lesser let himself be led. "I know that," he said. His voice was boulder deep and rumbling. "Yours are good people, Elaz. I wouldn't be here if they were not."

  On entering the chamber, Barad could see little. It was lit dimly by high slots in the ceiling and by lamps of smoke-blacked glass. He could tell immediately-by the moist heat, the scent of bodies, and the muffled layer of sound in the air-that the warehouse was filled with people. They were waiting, silent now that he was finally among them.