The Sacred Band

by David Anthony Durham

  Of course it was. He understood it now. The thinness of the lies they had told were so transparent now. He had always felt it but just not known he felt it. He had wanted to believe them, so he had. Their language may have been corrupted by time, but that was not what made it foul. It had always been foul. Time had just eaten away at it further.

  He grew up believing Tinhadin was a noble man. Tinhadin, he who built a mighty empire and then banished the sorcerers who would, in their greed, have destroyed it. He who gave up sorcery himself, because he knew it was too chaotic a tool for humans to wield. That, in Aliver’s youth, had been the truth of the past.

  And then it wasn’t. The Santoth said the truth was something else. Tinhadin had banished them not as an act of good for the world, but because he wanted the world all to himself. He was like an eagle chick, the strongest of the brood, that kicked his siblings out of the nest so that only he could live and thrive and grow. The Santoth, faithful servants, had been betrayed. That’s what they told him, speaking right into his mind, making the thought his. If brought back into the world, they would again be his faithful servants. How badly Aliver had wanted to believe that.

  How clever of them to discover that he wanted to believe it. For that’s what they had done. In his communion with them they had explored every memory of his life, every desire and ambition and fear. He knew that at the time but thought it a good thing. He wanted them to know him. How good it felt to be completely understood, without judgment, he had thought. Now, he was certain that they had used what they learned to shape the lies they told him.

  Something else troubled him, though as yet he only nibbled the edges of it. In defeating Maeander on the plains of Teh, the Santoth had saved the Acacian Empire. They had kept the Akaran line in power. What if the true reason they did that was so that they might have still other chances of a future generation of Akarans freeing them? That’s what they had said: a child of his freed them, and freed them into a world still ruled by Akarans, a world in which The Song of Elenet had not been entirely forgotten. A child of his? A child of his … Somehow, he knew that to be right. There was a child of his, but where in the world was this child?

  “Your Majesty?” A Marah guard approached nervously. He snapped to attention as soon as Aliver turned to look at him.

  “What is it?”

  “We received a message from Sire Dagon. His messenger said a Marah should bring it to you and that you had to read it without delay.”

  “Is that what he said?” It was more a statement than a question. Aliver raised a hand and the soldier slipped the folded square of paper into it. He unfolded the paper beneath the light of one of the oil torches set atop a pillar. The note was written in brown ink, the letters a little tremulous, like those shaped by the hand of an elderly person.

  Prince Aliver,

  This is quite awkward to write. I hope you’ll forgive my lack of grace. I have to inform you that you and the people of the empire have been killed.

  He stopped, exhaled through his nose, and then read over the lines again to make sure he had not misread.

  I have to inform you that you and the people of the empire have been killed. Poisoned. I need not explain to you how I know this, but it is a certainty. I am, in part, responsible for it. Both you and the queen are quite dead. It’s only a matter of weeks until your bodies realize it.

  As for the people of empire, they have been addicted once again to a distillation of the mist that will kill them when they are denied it. It’s in the wine, you see. The very vintage they have been toasting you with. This was the queen’s doing, though she did not know the deadliness of it. If ever you hated and despised the league and thought us treacherous villains, well, then let that ire rise in you again now. Accept that what I say is the truth.

  Why do I tell you this? I thought it important that you know, and I’ve come to believe that your death is unfortunately timed. I believe that you are a decent man, and that you and the queen want, in your peculiar way, what is best for the empire. I acknowledge that it may only be the queen who can save the Known World from destruction. That is why I’ve made this admission.

  Aliver, please encourage Corinn to be quick in finding a way to defeat the Santoth. Neither of you have much time. If you love your nation, be quick. If you are, it’s possible the league will continue to supply the vintage, thereby keeping the empire alive.

  Yours fondly,

  Sire Dagon of the League of Vessels

  Aliver still sat there on the balcony some time later. The coming day was clearly visible in the east now. The oil in the torch beside him had burned low. The flame wavered now, sending up more black smoke than before. He had been watching the changing appearance of the ships in the harbor. As the light increased, the patchwork of vessels looked more and more like a ragged scab on the skin of the ocean. It was smaller than it had been the day before, fraying around the edges.

  People are leaving, he thought. I cannot blame them for that.

  He opened the note again. Thinking he had it backward, he flipped the page over. There was nothing there. He held it to the uncertain light of the torch. He could just make out the tracing of the words that had once been there. Even as he watched, they faded further. Right before his eyes, they vanished completely.

  For a long moment Aliver entertained the possibility that the paper had always been blank. He had imagined the words he read. Wouldn’t that make more sense than that they were true? As soon as he raised his eyes and saw the sun had just broken from the horizon, he let that idea go. Fading ink. That’s all it was. The words may have disappeared, but they had been chiseled in his consciousness and remained with him.

  “Uncle?”

  Turning, he saw Aaden. The boy had stopped some distance away, near a torch that lit him in rippling orange waves. Shadows—his maids, guards—hung behind him. “Is it all destroyed?” His voice edged away from its usual calm. He captured the pitch of it, but it was tremulous, ready to turn.

  “No, Aaden,” Aliver began, but he could not find the words to continue.

  The boy moved forward, slowly. “I had a dream once. I told Mother. I said, ‘I had a dream that the world ended.’ She said that was silly. That it could never happen. But I knew it could. Do you know why? Because in the dream she died. She died, and the moment she did, the world did as well. I was left, but the world had ended. That’s what I meant, but she didn’t ask me. She never asked me about it. Maybe she never will now. Is that the truth?”

  Aliver closed the space between them. He gripped Aaden to his chest, thankful that the boy had not witnessed most of what happened in the Carmelia, and relieved that he would never be able to read the words of Dagon’s note. Those were things to be grateful for. Corinn had whispered a spell that spirited him away at the first sign of trouble. One moment he was there; the next he was gone. “She loves you,” he said. “She loves you. She took care of you first. That’s the truth.”

  Aaden shifted against him, trying to break the embrace. Aliver kept his arms knotted, wanting to hold him like that forever, to keep him a child forever, to protect him from a world that constantly made a mockery of those who struggled to live in it. If somebody had just held him forever when he was a child. Just held him and never let life twist on …

  “Where’s Mother?” the boy asked, his words muffled. “What happened to her? Nobody will tell me. It’s something bad. I know that already. I know what happened with the Santoth. I know they killed people and want The Song of Elenet. I heard that already, but nobody will tell me anything about my mother.”

  “You’ll see her soon.”

  “I want to see her now!” Aaden writhed. He shoved his uncle back, slapping his arms and chest in sudden fury. Aliver took the blows without flinching, trying to soothe him by being there to be scratched and hit. He spoke nonsense, just sounds, just meaningless words. He tried to bring Aaden back into his embrace.

  Tearing away, Aaden glared at his uncle. He had never looked more
savage. His features twisted with anger, wrung through with the fatigue of fear. “She’s dead!” he shouted, spittle flying from his mouth. “She’s dead and you won’t tell me!”

  “No. No, she’s not. I swear it.”

  “Why won’t you let me see her, then?”

  “You will, Aaden. Give her time. I’m not stopping you. She just needs a little time to herself.” Ah, but that sounded daft! Insulting. Simple. It sounded just as stupid as the things adults had said to him after his father had been stabbed by Thasren Mein. Just as vapid and untrue. “Something happened,” he said quickly. “I don’t know what, Aaden. She fought with the Santoth and something happened. She is here, though, in the palace. She walked here on her own two feet. She went to her quarters. That’s all I know, Aaden. Please, let’s wait together. Let’s find out more together.”

  The boy kept the glare on his features, turning it down just slightly. “Stop squeezing me like I’m a baby. Treat me like an adult. Like a prince.”

  Aliver let his arms drop. Like a prince …

  “Will you stop?”

  “Yes.”

  Aaden studied him a moment, skeptical, and then said, his tone growing surer, “If she’s not dead, stop acting like she is. Whatever has happened, she’ll fix it.”

  He did not say it, but Aliver thought certainty such as that marked the boy as yet a child. He had never found certainty to be a hallmark of wisdom. Let him have certainty, though. For as long as he can carry it. “If anyone can,” he said, “your mother can.”

  Rhrenna emerged out of the shadows. Though she wore the same garment as at the coronation, the sparkle that had danced around her was gone. She looked tense, frail, as if her sharp features might shatter if there was too loud a noise. Aliver remembered the infatuation he felt for her before the ceremony. Where had that gone?

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m sorry to disturb you.”

  “Does Corinn want us?”

  “No, she still hasn’t spoken to anyone. She won’t answer my knocking. I don’t know what she’s doing in there.” She glanced at Aaden. Hesitated. “I’m sure, though, that she’s fine. She was strong enough to push out her guards.”

  “Don’t comfort me like a child,” Aaden said. “I am a prince!”

  Rhrenna wilted a little but kept her chin high and spoke. “I know that, Your Highness.”

  “I know that bad things happen,” Aaden said. He looked sulky for a moment, and then added, “I know that much is expected of me. Mother told me so. I know it already. Stop, both of you, acting like I’m weak. Make me strong, instead.”

  “I will,” Aliver said, “if you help me. Rhrenna, what have you come for, then?”

  “The priestess of Vada sent a messenger. They consider the ceremony to be complete. You are the king.”

  “I don’t feel like one,” was Aliver’s flat response. “Anything else?”

  “The council wants you back. More senators have joined them. They say there is still more to discuss.”

  “I’ve talked with them enough. They’re just going in circles. Let them talk to themselves if they want to keep at it. I’ll wait for Corinn. We go no further without her. Tell them that.”

  Rhrenna nodded. “They’re asking after her. What would you have me tell them?”

  “To wait. Tell them I’m working with her. Tell them to look toward tomorrow and plan what they can. We still have the Auldek to consider. Remind them not to forget that.”

  Aaden cleared his throat. “You can’t put everything off until tomorrow. Whatever is wrong with Mother, we must do what we have to.”

  “Aaden, I won’t sleep for a moment until I know just what’s happened and just what we’re to do about it. I’m not putting anything off. Talking in circles with the likes of Sigh Saden will not help anything.”

  “What will? Let’s figure that out and let’s do it.”

  Aliver wanted to hug the boy again. “All right, Aaden. I think we should find out more about who the Santoth really are. If we’re going to fight them, we must know them. I thought I did, but I was wrong.”

  “And we should have friends with us,” Aaden said. “Ones we trust. Ones we can listen to, and who will listen to us. Don’t you think that’s important?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mother didn’t. She didn’t trust people.” He paused, challenging him to disagree. “She didn’t even trust you. Do you know that? She brought you back to life, but … not all the way. I could tell from the first day I saw you. It’s because I know her magic. She’s always shown me things. She brought you partly but not all the way. Do you know what I mean?”

  The thought that had been shapeless inside Aliver took a step closer. “I’m beginning to,” he said. Just having the boy name the thing he had always suspected helped him. Yes, his mind had been his own but constrained, molded in ways he had not recognized. It still was, he knew. “Let’s go to the library. I want books around me. It will be our sanctuary.”

  “Do you promise me that you will be truthful to me? About everything?”

  Looking at the boy’s determined face, he heard the words come out of his mouth. “Of course. I’ll tell you everything.” He realized that they escaped him so easily because the spells that bound his thoughts did not recognize them as truth. Such lies are so easy because they are so completely the fabric of life. Yet now, though he said the same words that a liar would, he meant them. He said, “Everything I think I will do, Aaden. Everything that is true I will say, because nothing matters now but the truth.” And if my lips hesitate, I will trick them. I will say such truths as can only be mistaken for lies. “How about that?”

  “That’s how it should always have been,” Aaden said.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-TWO

  The day of his departure arrived so quickly that Dariel felt he had barely rested at all. He had not gotten to visit any but the nearest other village, though over the week he was in residence—on display, really—at the elder’s village, a steady stream of pilgrims from the lose network of settlements stopped by to gawk at him. He had not learned a fraction of the things he had hoped to, but he did not imagine that another week or two or a month or more would be enough. The People’s history was too tied with Auldek history, with the Lothan Aklun, and with aspects of his own kind that he was yet coming to grips with.

  “I don’t like leaving you unprotected here,” Dariel said to Yoen as they strolled toward the edge of the village and the path that the others had already taken down to the river, a tributary of the Sheeven Lek and the fastest method for returning to the coast. “I know the Auldek are gone, but I wouldn’t put it past the league to cause you grief.”

  “I don’t think so. The league is going to cause you grief. That I believe.” Yoen touched him on the shoulder. With a gentle pressure, he turned him toward the path to the river. “We will be fine, Dariel. Nobody will attack us here. We have nothing to fear but the cathounds and fréketes and … dou worms.” He clicked his tongue. “Truly, Dariel, do not think us weak. Just do what you have to for the People. That’s what matters. Go now. You have many miles to travel, and you must be quick if you’re going to be there for the gathering the clans have called. It is your only chance to address them all at once. Don’t be late!”

  “Are you coming down to see us off?”

  “Of course. Now go.” He caught sight of something that drew his gaze. “Anira is there, waiting for you. Go to her.”

  She was. She appeared from around a wall, her sack slung over her shoulder. Dariel acknowledged her with a wave and started toward her. A few steps on, he turned to say something to Yoen, a non-parting that promised a proper one down by the water.

  The old man had turned away already. He did not hurry. His back was not unkind. Yet Dariel felt emotion pour into him, a sadness like he had not felt since he was a boy.

  The crafts they were to travel in were oval boats about twenty feet long, deep in the hull, with good storage space within. A frame of the
white-bark trees crosshatched their centers, strapped in place by cords that wrapped down around the hull. The lines of the hulls had an ornate elegance. The keel was a gentle ridge from which smooth, organic contours flowed upward. Something about them reminded him of something, though Dariel had never seen a craft even remotely like them. It was only when he saw one overturned on the rocky beach that it occurred to him what they reminded him of.

  “They look like turtle shells.”

  “Very observant,” Anira quipped. She hefted a bundle and moved to load it into one of the boats.

  Dariel did the same, double-time to keep up with her. “You don’t mean … that they are turtle shells, do you?”

  Anira tossed the bundle in and turned to face him, showing him the full measure of her amusement. “What did Birké tell you about the Sheeven Lek?”

  “Not to swim in it.”

  “Why did he do that?”

  “Because other things swim in it. Bigger things.”

  “Exactly. Things like turtles.”

  “There are turtles this size in the river?”

  “No.” She tossed a leg over the gunwale and began to shove and wiggle the new bundle into place. “They’re no more. Died out a long time ago.” Before Dariel could expel the relieved breath he had at the ready, she added, “The scale leeches killed them off.”

  Scale leeches? Dariel thought it sounded like something she had made up on the spot. He said so, much to her amusement.

  They floated free of the riverbank by midmorning. Yoen did not come down to see them off, but it seemed as if the rest of the village did. They crowded on the beach, down onto rock outcroppings. Some of the children tossed flowers to them from a tree house high on a branch overhanging the water. He barely knew these people, but watching and waving to them, touching the rune on his forehead, he felt a weight of responsibility to them. He had agreed to help them, to try to secure this land for them to prosper peacefully in. He had agreed to try to become the hero they all hoped for. It felt right that he did so, but as he floated toward it, he feared he faced an enormous task that he still did not understand the shape of.