The Sacred Band

by David Anthony Durham

  “How are my sisters?” Dariel asked. “Tell me the last news you had of them.”

  Melio’s attempts at this got him virtually nowhere. So much had happened since Dariel had left the Known World with Sire Neen that each thing he mentioned was predicated on explaining something else. That, in turn, affected something else that he needed to loop away from, enough so that he was soon unsure he was doing anything other than tying them both in troubling knots.

  Stopping at the door into which the others entered, Dariel took his arm. “But they lived? When you left, they both lived?”

  “Yes. And—” Melio cut himself off. He could not tell Dariel what Corinn had said about Aliver. It might not have been true. It would be cruel to say it now, in the midst of whatever was happening here.

  The prince motioned to someone just inside the door that he would only be a moment more. “And what?”

  “I can’t say it now. Later, when we can truly talk.”

  Reluctantly, Dariel nodded. He stepped inside. Melio followed him. The entrance opened onto a large living room, filled with silent people. On a wide couch set against the far wall lay a woman, propped on her back, blankets pulled snug across her chest. Her shoulder bulged with bandages. What the injury was Melio could not tell, but that it was grave was obvious. The woman’s skin was a light blue. Her eyes were large in their sockets, her cheeks sunken. The woman with the running cat spots had already reached her. She clung to one of the woman’s hands, speaking close to her, kissing her face with a passion and sadness that made Melio feel he should look away.

  Dariel exhaled a long breath. “Oh, Skylene …” Just a whisper. He did not go to her until sometime later, when the spotted woman lifted her head and pointed him out. The blue woman found him and bent her lips up into a weak but sincere smile. On that invitation, Dariel went forward. He kneeled by the spotted woman at the side of the bed and took one of Skylene’s hands. He touched her forehead with his own and they spoke close, too quietly for Melio to hear.

  Watching them, Melio realized he had forgotten all about doubting this man’s identity. He was Dariel Akaran. Somehow, he had found a new family in Ushen Brae, a new conflict that he was at the center of. He had a sense of purpose that positively glowed as if a flame burned inside him. Melio did not yet understand what was going on here, but it felt perfectly right that he had come. Mena would want him here. She would want him fighting beside Dariel, shoulder to shoulder with the same guards that, for the moment, looked at him with suspicion.

  I’m with him, Mena. I found him. Now I’ll just fight this war with him—whatever that entails—and then I’ll bring him home.

  That night, while Mór and Tam went to another meeting of the clan leaders, the others talked well into the dead hours. There was so much to tell. It proved impossible to convey any of it in perfect order. Instead, they made a stew together. With Dariel and his friends Anira and Birké and Tunnel on one side of the pot, and the new arrivals ringed around the other, they all tossed in what they could about the situation in the Known World as they knew it, about their voyages across the Gray Slopes, about Dariel’s betrayal by Sire Neen, the extermination of the Lothan Aklun, the bloodbath that was the prince’s first meeting with the Auldek, the confusion in this city, Avina …

  It went on and on. When Melio thought the time was right, he offered the tale he’d heard of Aliver’s resurrection and of Corinn’s confirmation to him that it was true. He just told it plainly, worrying that he was stirring hope for something that sounded too fantastic to be true. Dariel sat with it in silence for a long time, then looked up. “Is she so powerful as that?”

  Melio had mentioned the defeat of the Numrek in Teh already. Now he described how it was accomplished. After he had, the others sat through another long silence.

  Dariel eventually shook his head. “Not even a year away and one sister’s the most powerful sorcerer since Tinhadin, the other is facing the worst invasion in history, and my brother … he’s defeated death.”

  “And you—the Rhuin Fá,” Tunnel said. “Strange family you have.”

  Later, visions of the one Dariel called the Sky Watcher, Nâ Gâmen, led Melio into sleep. Against his will he followed the slim man around his mountaintop aerie. He could not help thinking of him with avian features, some blending of him and the injured woman Skylene, perhaps. His version of Nâ Gâmen showed him the way to sleep, walking, explaining to him the unimaginable things that Dariel had just tried to explain.

  When Melio woke it was to birds as well. Yellow finches flew through the room in a rush. His eyes fluttered open as they skimmed the ceiling above him, darting away down one of the corridors. It’s funny, he thought. In Avina I can never tell whether I’m inside or out. The birds can’t either.

  Geena lay on the mat beside him, her sleeping warmth curled toward him. He sat up. Around him the others slumbered where they had passed out, on mats and wrapped in light blankets, all of them near the fire pit carved out of the stone floor. The warmth of it had somehow radiated through the stones themselves, fighting back the mild chill of the night.

  Dariel sat with his knees pulled up to his chest, watching him. “It’s okay,” Dariel said when Melio reflectively scooted away from Geena. “I know how she is. She already told me you did nothing to dishonor my sister.”

  “I never would,” Melio said. “I want nothing more than to get back to her alive. We have a child to make, Dariel. She promised me. I want to hold her to it.”

  “I hope you do. In any event, I’m no one to judge.” Dariel poked the coals in the fire, atop which a kettle hung from a thin, delicately constructed framework. “I don’t suppose you caught all of what we argued about at the meeting?”

  “None of it,” Melio said. He rose stiffly and moved closer. One of the hounds pressed against Dariel’s hip sniffed in his direction. The other simply stretched. “The lot of you spoke Auldek.”

  “Well, let’s just say I’ll have some explaining to do when I get back.” He tossed his poking stick into the fire. “You’ll know what I mean soon enough.”

  Melio already had some idea. He had noticed the way Dariel and Anira tended to stay near each other, how she spoke to him in touches on the wrist and back. “When you get back … When will that be? I get the feeling you don’t plan to leave until you’ve finished what you’ve started here.” He let his eyes drift around the sleeping forms. “I like these people already. Birké. Tunnel. What kind of name is Tunnel?”

  Dariel smiled. He poured a viscous liquid from a carafe into two glasses. He offered one of the glasses to Melio, who took it, squinting warily at what looked, as near as he could tell, like frog’s eggs. “The tea’s not ready, but try this. It’s good. Just try it.” He did so himself.

  Turning the glass in his fingers, Melio said, “You’re at the center of something here. I know that already. I’m surprised you didn’t go to the clan leaders meeting last night. I haven’t figured out your role here yet.”

  “Nor have I, entirely. I’m no clan leader, though. Mór is the leader of the Free People. It’s for her to speak with her peers, not me. I’m … something different.”

  One of the sleepers stirred. Birké rolled over and then settled again, on his back in a manner that moved his steady breathing toward a snore.

  Melio leaned forward and said, “I have to ask: Can we take you home? Now, I mean. There’s a league clipper that …”

  “I’ve been thinking about that all night,” Dariel said. “The things you all told me. It goes around and around in my mind like mad. But no matter how much I want to go home, I can’t. I’m already committed here. I allowed this.” He ran a finger over the symbol emblazoned on his forehead. Melio almost did the same, wondering at the texture of it. “I wanted this. It’s part of me now. And the thing is, Melio, all of this—all of these people—they’re part of our story already. If I can, I have to close the circle.”

  “What circle?”

  Dariel frowned as if he did not like h
earing his own expression spoken back to him. “Do you know that when I sleep I have dreams in which I speak to people all around Ushen Brae? Individual conversations, with individual people, and yet somehow I speak with thousands each night. The number is only increasing, and, sometimes, I feel a part of myself—or of Nâ Gâmen—speaking with them even as I move through the world. Even right now, this very moment.” Dariel stared at the rim of his glass. His eyes were still, but Melio saw hidden motion in them, as if the surface of his brown irises hid other eyes beneath them, ones that moved in response to things that were not in front of the Dariel sitting here with a glass in his hands. “I can’t go home until I’m done,” he said. “That’s all there is to it. I can’t go home unless I’m done. One thing depends on the other.”

  “All right,” Melio said. “I had to ask. Corinn would”—he was going to say skin him alive, but, considering what he’d seen at Teh, the expression lost its humor—“be displeased with me if I didn’t.”

  Tam and several of the others strode through one of the open doors. Dariel looked up, nodded at them. “Well,” he said, “we wouldn’t want that, would we?” He pushed upright with the unfolding of his legs and walked to meet them.

  A short time later, the entire party, awake and sipping hot tea, listened to the news Tam had gathered. It was more than the dark tattoos under his eyes that made him look tired. “Mór was with the clan leaders all night. She has gone to Skylene now, but she asked me to report to you, Dariel, so that you know what’s being proposed. The clans are agreed. They will sign binding declarations of unity. They wish for some autonomy, so that those who want to can retain clan identity, but they all agree to be grouped collectively as the People. They agree to have both clan councils for their own affairs and to send representatives to sit on a council that oversees the People. They will even respect a separate body, the Council of Elders, as another voice in decision making. Dividing up the holdings of Ushen Brae will be complicated, but they have agreed, in principle, to abide the boundaries we’ve proposed. They’ve put this in writing.”

  That’s a lot of agreement, Melio thought.

  “They’ve accepted everything we’ve worked for?” Anira said, pitching it somewhere between a question and exclamation.

  “Not exactly,” Tam said, “but damn close.”

  Tunnel took hold of one of his tusks and yanked on it. A strange gesture, but one that seemed to express mirth. “I told you all, the Rhuin Fá would make it so!”

  Tam looked away from him, apparently not wanting his official façade to crumble yet. “They found Dariel very convincing, but it sounded like many of them always had this in their hearts. They just let the wrong voices rule them. Dariel helped give them courage. Not everyone agreed, but those who fought it saw their own people turn against them. Dukish has been stripped of his clan leadership. The Anets did that themselves because he carried a weapon into the gathering.”

  “And used it,” Birké added, scowling.

  “By the gathering codes, the clan could be exiled for that. The Anets voted new leaders for themselves and are begging for mercy. They say Dukish deceived them and that they will see to his punishment. The other clan leaders want to know what we wish them to do. Should the entire Anet clan be exiled? Or do we accept that they kill Dukish for his crimes? Or would you have him as a slave, Dariel? They could … wound him.”

  “Wound him?”

  “So that he would be a good boy,” Tunnel said. “The Auldek had ways of doing that to the troublesome ones. They knew it; we know it.”

  Dariel had his response ready. “I don’t believe we should punish the Anet. We must get beyond that and quickly. If we can—and they can—it will be for the better. The Anet and Antoks should cede all they grabbed back to the People, and they should swear that their allegiance is to the Free People. They should help us fight the league. Dukish should be imprisoned for now, until the conflict is over and we can decide, in time, what should become of him. This way would be better for as all. No revenge, just justice. That’s what I think.”

  Tam shifted. Melio was not sure how to read the movement, until he grinned. “That’s exactly what Mór said when I told her. She wasn’t sure you’d agree, though. There are other developments,” Tam continued. “Dukish had sent word to Sire Lethel about Dariel.”

  “They know that Dariel is here?” Clytus asked. “That he’s your Rune Fan?”

  “Rhuin Fá,” Tam said. “Dukish wanted to capture him and serve him up to the league. It would have been the gift that cemented their partnership.”

  “Ah,” Geena said with a smirk, “if they hadn’t wanted to do you all in before, they certainly will now.”

  Looking disgusted, Clytus emptied his tea on the coals. “The damned league … We shouldn’t have stopped with blowing up the platforms. Should have done it right the first time. Should have squeezed every last one of their pointed heads!” He scowled his way around the gathered faces, lingering on Melio and the others who had come across on the Slipfin. He seemed to see what he wanted to in them. He said, “All right, what do we have to do to finish this? Let’s get it done.”

  “Yeah,” Kartholomé said, “let’s get it done.”

  “One night and you are willing to fight with us?” Tunnel asked. “I didn’t think we were as charming as that.”

  Geena strolled over, squeezed the man’s bulging, gray-hued bicep, and then hung from it. Melio felt a twinge of jealousy. “Don’t think of it that way. One night and you’re willing to help us finish our business with the league; that’s how I see it. A good deal for us. This is a muscle. Do you all see this thing?”

  “If you mean it,” Dariel said, looking from Geena to Clytus to Melio, “you fill me with joy. You see, I thought a lot about how to proceed last night. I think I have it, but I do need my brigands to aid me.”

  “You have us,” Clytus said.

  “Then we have a fighting chance,” Dariel said. “First, let’s send the good leagueman a message … in Dukish’s name.”

  CHAPTER

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Aliver and Barad walked side by side on the cobblestone streets that led from the palace down through the various tiers of the city. The prince had asked Barad to accompany him to see off the transport that was to depart that morning, taking Kelis and the last of the soldiers on Acacia to Alecia. Aliver himself would climb aboard his dragon there at the docks. He would lift up and fly away from the island of his birth and from the children he had just parted with. Nothing had ever been harder in his life, but it had to be. And he had to speak a little with this man before parting. He had two questions he wished to ask. This would be the only occasion he had left to do so.

  Walking beside the tall, stone-eyed man, Aliver beheld Acacia for what he knew would be the last time. He would never see this view again, never look down at the terraced levels dropping away beneath him. Never again watch the bustle of ships in the great harbor or see that man stepping out of his house or those faces peering from a window or those workmen pausing on that rooftop to watch him pass.

  So much of life was now made of buts and nevers and cannots and other words that denied. Despite them, Aliver was not morbid. To every failure he could think of there was a rebuttal. To each thing he had not done in his life he could respond, Yes, but think of all I have seen. So much. Who is to say I deserve any more? To the time he would not have to spend with those he loved he could say, But if I hadn’t had the time I did with them, I would never know how special those moments were. To thoughts that it was unfair his life would be cut short again, he could reply, But I’ve had two lives, two chances. Who else has ever been as fortunate as that?

  He faced his all too few remaining days with a tranquility he had never mastered when the future stretched before him. He would not have predicted that. How much of his life could he have predicted? Very little. He could not have anticipated that upon learning he had a daughter, he would have only one day of life with her. Nor that in that short spa
n he would grow to love the girl. It amazed him how much he loved her. How much he felt that he knew her. Perhaps it was because his mother, Aleera, was behind the girl’s eyes, and that his father lived in the corners of her lips. Only hours together, but within them was all the lifetime of parenthood he would ever have. He could be bitter, but doing so would be unjust to what he had just learned. He would not die completely. His death was not his death, not when his daughter lived on.

  The prince wore a tunic of black chain mail over a sleeveless vest and long, flowing trousers. The morning was chilly, but he wanted to display the tuvey band that rested snug above his bicep. It did not matter that the enemy was far away. He dressed for the crowds that had gathered to watch him pass. It was early, but the people knew he was to depart this day. Many called to him, bestowing blessings and the Giver’s speed on him. Others offered to join the army. An old man said he could not fight but he had once been a blacksmith. He could mend armor, sharpen weapons, and the like. A boy piped up, saying he could cook and tend a fire and carry water. “I’m strong!”

  Aliver smiled his thanks to them and declined, telling them he would remember their offers always. He explained that they had gathered a great host already on the mainland and more were pouring in even yet. “Stay here,” he said, “and keep the island secure and proud. Do that for me.”

  Many asked for news of the queen. Aliver had nothing new to offer them. “She has flown to destroy the Santoth. She will. She is your queen, and she swore to defeat them in your name.” The words sounded grandiose to his ears. Too simple a way to put a complex thing. Too buoyed by optimism he could not be entirely swayed by. He still projected the words with the grinning confidence he needed to, and each time he was amazed at the effect. People believed him, or they seemed to, at least. Both were gifts he—and they—needed.

  “Barad,” Aliver said once they had pulled away a bit and could talk, “I love these people.”

  “I know. They know it as well, which is what’s truly important. It almost softens me on the whole question of the monarchy.” He smiled. “Almost. If all monarchs were like you … if it were written into the laws that all monarchs must be just like Aliver Akaran in all important matters … But they’re not all like you, and such a law would not stand longer than it takes to wean a young tyrant from the breast. After you win this war—and after Corinn defeats the Santoth—you two will have to find a way to guide the nation into a different future. I don’t say it will be easy, or that you must change everything overnight, but you must put in place a system that lets people decide their own fates. You will do that, won’t you?”