The Sacred Band a-3

by David Anthony Durham

  “I don’t know what will happen when we pass through the town. Be ready for anything.”

  The young man touched his sheathed dagger with his strong arm. “I am.”

  “Shen thinks nothing of meeting other people, but even the Halaly have eyes to see. I don’t know what they will make of the Santoth, or what the Santoth will do in return. If the people fear them, they may allow us to pass. Or not.”

  “Should we speak to the old man about this?”

  “Leeka Alain is of two worlds now. He doesn’t understand this one fully anymore. I would not share too much with him. Just be prepared to meet whatever happens. We’re guardians. We don’t make Shen’s decisions; we just protect her as best we can, yes?”

  Naamen said, “I can’t remember when I had any other purpose.”

  Surprisingly, neither could Kelis.

  The townspeople of Bida built their houses out of volcanic stone, irregular shapes that they secured together with a concrete made from ash-white sand. From a distance, the town looked like a herd of spotted ruminants grazing among the acacia trees. As they descended toward it Kelis and Naamen led the way, with Shen, Benabe, and Leeka a little distance behind. The shifting wake that were the Santoth was behind them all.

  The first villagers they passed were herdsmen driving long-horned bulls. They had full, round Halaly faces, dark in a way different from the Talayans. Their expressionless stares offered neither hospitality nor aggression. They let their eyes flick back to the mother and daughter. And then they looked beyond them. One said something to the other in what must have been a local dialect. They carried on, switching at the bulls to keep them on course. Kelis turned to watch, amazed to see the three men and their bulls walk straight through the gathered host of sorcerers. The Santoth flowed forward without pause, allowing a pathway among them to open so that the villagers passed without even noticing them.

  A little farther on, near the entrance to the town proper, a man peeled away from the defensive wall and stepped into their path. He held a spear, a twin for Kelis’s own with its finger-thin shaft and long, flat spearhead, all one piece of iron. “Do you know thirst?” he asked.

  Kelis answered, “I do, but there is water in the sky.” The man nodded his acceptance of this truth, and Kelis added, “We are passing through. Simply passing through.”

  The man would have been within his rights to ask a host of questions in response. What were Talayans doing walking out of the Far South with a woman and a child? Why were they on Halaly land? Who were all those hooded figures lurking behind them? Any of these, simple as they were, would have been knotted traps to answer, and Kelis felt the responses he had already composed like dry sand on his tongue.

  The sensation was such that it took him a moment to understand what the man was saying as he described where the public well was, offering them water if they needed it. He said that the market would close soon, but that if they hurried they could purchase food for their journey. Kelis stared at him. Naamen actually had to tug his arm to get him to move.

  “That’s strange,” Naamen said, once they were among the houses of the village.

  “What is?” Benabe asked. “That we’re being followed by a host of undead ancient sorcerers? Or that nobody seems to see them?”

  “I told you nothing bad would happen,” Shen piped.

  They passed through the village drawing no more curiosity than a small group of strangers would normally merit. They took water from the deep well. It was clear and sweet. In the market stalls they purchased twists of dried antelope meat, powdered kive, leaves of bitter tea, and a long chain of purple peppers that Naamen wore around his neck like jewelry. Benabe chose beads to string into a bracelet for Shen.

  All the while the Santoth trailed them. Unseen by the villagers, they crowded the streets, wove around and through stalls, brushed past people who gave them no more notice than they would the touch of a breeze.

  Kelis tried not to look at them, but it was hard not to. The Santoth took more notice of the villagers than the villagers did of them. One Santoth stopped in the entranceway of a hut and stared in for a long, chilling moment before moving on. A few others seemed to fall out of the collective flow and linger among the shop stalls, running their shrouded hands across the food items. One stood just inches in front of a talking woman, the hooded figure so close that the woman’s breath ruffled the sorcerer’s hood. Kelis’s heart beat faster than if he had been running.

  One child suddenly spun around and ran into the wall of Santoth. He went right through them, and the Santoth walked forward with only a ripple of disturbance to mark the boy’s impact. It was only after, when Kelis caught sight of him again, that the child stood, touching his chest with the fingers of one hand, looking around, puzzled. Kelis kept the group moving. His heartbeat did not slow until they were well away from the village, moving into the safety of the plains once again.

  T he sight of Umae glowing gray under moonlight was the most tranquilly beautiful thing Kelis had seen in ages. His home. His base for so many years, where his family still resided, a place filled with memories-including many of Aliver. He approached it alone, having left the others a few days’ journey away. Fearing Sinper Ou’s interference, he did not want them anywhere near the town. If anything happened to him-if he did not return at a set time-the others were to carry on north at all haste.

  He walked into the sleeping town like a thief, which is just what the village dogs would take him for if they heard, saw, or smelled him. He circled around so that the wind blew his scent away from the village. He knew the route to Sangae’s enclosure and made his way to it, in and out of the shadows, around huts, and along storehouse walls, stealthily, stopping often to listen to the night sounds. He passed right by his mother’s garden wall, running his hand over the sunbaked bricks and whispering a greeting to her. The dog that confronted him as he passed the mouth of Adi Vayeen’s hut he had known from its birth. He chirruped and swept his hand out in the greeting he often used with canines. The dog found his hand and pressed against his leg. Kelis scratched it for a time.

  Despite all the familiarity, Kelis’s fingers trembled as he stood in the lane beside Sangae’s sleeping structure. He plucked the thin curtain, a hanging wall swaying on the night’s breath. He flicked it with a motion meant to mimic a gust of wind. In the time it took the curtain to fall back into place, he scanned the room. He crawled through the opening.

  Sangae lay sleeping on his side on a woven mat. He was alone, as was his way in recent years, since his first wife had died and he had found most restful sleep in solitude. Kelis had only moved a step closer when the old man’s eyes snapped open. They fixed on Kelis, who must have been a featureless silhouette against the star-touched fabric of the opening.

  Kelis said, “Father, forgive the night its darkness.”

  The old man took a moment to respond. “I do, for the night air is cool. Kelis?”

  “Me.”

  Sangae pushed himself up to sitting and received Kelis’s embrace. He squeezed him tight for a moment and then pulled back. He ran his fingers over the younger man’s features. “You are living?”

  “I am. We all are. Shen as well.”

  “Light a lamp so we can see,” Sangae whispered, motioning toward a tea lamp on the floor beside him. “Keep it low. There is danger here. No, let’s move farther inside first.”

  A few minutes later, the two men sat facing each other on low stools in the compound’s storage shed. The lamp cast a yellow glow that etched their features from below; around them were the large vases, shelves of household goods, and stacks of grain sacks. Sangae had called softly for his dogs and tethered them to guard the shed.

  Kelis told of their strange journey to the Far South. Sangae listened, brewing a tiny pot of tea above the lamp as he did so. Kelis found words pouring out of him. He had not realized he had held so much in. Running from the laryx pack with Shen strapped to his back. Mountains that moved around them, as if the land were
sliding under their feet instead of they moving over it. Flocks of birds that flew above them like thrown darts, only to crash down and die. The way the peaks just ended one morning, and the famous general, Leeka Alain, stood waiting for them, alone in a desert. Walking still farther south, until the Santoth appeared, stones whirling into sand and taking Shen with them for a time, then bringing her back and announcing that they would all march to confront the queen.

  “That was wise,” the old man said, when Kelis explained that he had left the rest of the party in hiding well away from the village. “Sinper Ou has spies everywhere. Even here, I fear. He never trusted you. Ioma even less so. Do you know he began sending spies across the plains just after you left? It ate at him that he had let the girl go. He only let me come home because he thought he would catch me at something.”

  Sangae poured a small saucer of bush tea and offered it to Kelis. The man took it and sipped. “Ou has many friends, Kelis. And many more wish to be his friend. Money such as his has bought many eyes.”

  “Shen has friends of her own. The Santoth, I mean. They have come with us. They want to stop Corinn from doing harm with her magic. They feel it, Shen told me, and know she is opening rips in the world or something.”

  Sangae worked his mouth, but found nothing to say.

  “I doubt any could take Shen from them against their will. I don’t know what the Santoth are. I don’t know what they really want. I have been with them weeks now, but they don’t reveal themselves. Shen trusts them, though, but-”

  “Then you must, too.”

  “I don’t,” he heard himself say. “I’ve tried, but I can’t trust them.”

  “Why?”

  Kelis clicked his tongue off the roof of his mouth. “I don’t know. They feel… wrong. They never speak a word.”

  “Because their tongues are dangerous. You know that. Perhaps the time has come for them to rejoin the world. If Corinn could teach them… she might become incredibly powerful. Another Tinhadin. That would have frightened me before, but, listen, there is something else.” Sangae placed his old, coarse hand over Kelis’s and squeezed. “Forgive me for not saying this first. I wanted to hear your words before clouding your mind with this. It may not be true, but many believe it. People are saying that Aliver lives. They say Corinn brought him back to life using the song. Word came just last week. Anywhere north of here has heard already. Pilgrims are rushing to Acacia.”

  So was a portion of Kelis’s mind. His thoughts flew out of him in such a rush that his body was left momentarily empty.

  “There is no better time to take Shen and the Santoth to Acacia. It may resolve everything. Sinper Ou is still a danger, but if you get Shen to her father, he will be no threat. You must take her, just as they asked you to. Stay in your small group. Keep the Santoth hidden. Join the pilgrims converging on Acacia and announce Shen directly to Aliver.”

  “And if he has not really returned?”

  Sangae worked his fingers into the wrinkled skin of his forehead. “Pray to the Giver that he has. I feel that the fate of the world depends on him once more.”

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Standing before a gathering of Bocoum’s merchants, Barad the Lesser knew exactly what he wanted to say. He had rehearsed the words inside his head both waking and in his dreams. He would tell them this: “The Akaran dynasty was founded on acts of evil. Deep in the cushion of the royal chairs is the blood of two brothers slain by another brother’s hand. It’s a nation built on the split between old friends, one that sent the other into exile. It’s the product of a man driven so mad by the power of his sorcery that he banished his companions from the land to punish them for raising him up. A people has but two choices when faced with such dreadful truth: deny it and live sucking at the tit of the lie like infants or face it with the open eyes of adults. And if you face it, what then? Only one possibility. You must dismantle the lie. You must tear down all the things built on it, for they are corrupted and will bring you down ere you look away.”

  The merchants listened, applauded him, praised the queen, and thanked him for his words.

  Days later, speaking to the rich of Manil, he decided to say this: “You may ask me, ‘Why must I change what has worked so well? Why must I cast my wealth and pride and history onto the ground?’ I say to you that you have no wealth. You have no pride. You have no true understanding of history. These things you cling to are vapors in guise of truth. A man cannot eat vapor. A woman cannot wrap vapor around herself and find warmth. A child cannot wake in the night and rush to vapor for solace. And you may say to me, ‘My mother lived and died like this. My grandfather lived and died like this. The world thinks my nation is supreme. What madness that you want me to turn from that.’ How do I rebut those words? With a certainty. That certainty is that each and every crime and lie and falsehood will be returned to you with interest. You may say, ‘Prove it.’ I have only to point north to do so. That is what treads toward us across the ice. Not foreign invaders. Not the whim of fate. Not horrors set against us without reason. What treads toward us are the living forms of our years and years of folly and injustice.”

  The rich of Manil offered him toasts in his honor.

  Before a meeting of the Acacian Senate in Alecia-called into session specifically to hear him-he intended to roar, and did: “There is but one thing to do! We must tear apart the lies. We must shred the swaddling clothes we were born into, pull back from the delusion, stand naked and afraid for just long enough to reorder the world as it rightly should be. It will be hard. It will be painful. It will be a trial like none we have faced. But we will emerge closer to the true beings we all wish to be. We will be Kindred.”

  Among the jubilant faces that applauded him as he exited the chamber, Barad saw Hunt, the Kindred representative from Aos. He was still, close-lipped, and grave. Barad wanted to rush to him, but instead he walked by, turning his face away as he neared. Why did I do that? he wondered, even as his feet moved him away.

  When he was done with each of these speeches, when he had no more words and his bass voice went silent, when he dropped his animated gestures and looked through his stone eyes at the faces his words had worked miracles on… he knew that he had not said any of the things he had intended to. Instead, he had praised the queen. He had sung her praises and reinforced the empire’s shackles. Somehow, she controlled each word spoken through his mouth. Each destination she had chosen. Each time he turned his strides in a specific direction it was following a path she had laid out.

  At times the words he uttered were his own, but only for short moments. On occasion barbed comments and asides and even criticisms of the queen escaped his lips. In his first days he had thought he could build on these, string them together so that he might explain his true sentiments. But he managed only to weave a folksy, familiar humor in with the comments.

  Nor could he express how much he loved the people to whom he preached, something he was reminded of at every turn. He recognized the faces of the farmers north of Danos. They were the same ones among whom he had shepherded King Grae of Aushenia. Now, as he spoke to them, he could see in their faces how they struggled to twin his former message with whatever it was he now espoused. In Bocoum an elderly woman fixed him with her bloodshot eyes, her face ridged with some great effort of comprehension. He so wanted to explain everything to her. Instead, he had pressed his lips together as he turned and walked away.

  Watching as his boat sailed out of Alecia’s harbor, he saw the rocks from which children swam with dolphins. He caught a splash of spray on his fingertips and touched them to his lips. This was a land to love, peopled by souls who had never yet been allowed to be fully themselves. Though he returned to Acacia full of dread, even the sight of the isle itself reminded him of this. To his eyes, the island and the sky, the moving sea and the leaping creatures in it were all gradations of stone, different textures of a granite world. Solid stone here. Liquid stone there. A stone as transparent as vapor there, and stone as gliste
ning as a wet dolphin’s back there. He saw with a clarity no different from before, but it was a clarity of sand and rock, of white and gray and black.

  In his dreams the world was as it had been, sometimes so vibrantly colored that he gasped himself awake with the joy of seeing it. Awake into his gray curse of world. The way Acacia thrust up through the turquoise sea. Layer upon terraced layer climbing ever higher, so full of color, each spire a jewel trying to outshine its peers as it pierced the belly of the sky. How could the heart of a nation so corrupt be so terribly beautiful? How could a world he had lived in for so many years continue to astonish, confound, defeat him? How could he see one thing and remember another each and every minute of his imprisoned freedom?

  It was maddening, but he should not have been surprised. The queen had told him it would be this way. Weeks ago, when she leaped at him and grasped his head in her hands, he had lifted his hand to smash her. He would have done it, except that she slipped her fingers into his eyes and pressed. On her lips and in those fingers hummed a power that took away the connection between his will and his ability to act on it. His anger did not die within him, but the fist raised to crush her recognized no kinship with it. It hung there a moment, until the fingers opened and the hand came to rest gently on her arm.

  She whispered, “Your mind is mine.”

  In answer, he formed curses behind his lips, refutations, a litany of condemnation. When his lips moved they said, “Yes.” He heard this and screamed “No!” but his lips said “Yes.”

  N o longer a pariah, Barad could wander wherever he wished in the palace, even up to the higher terraces near the royal quarters. He was trapped, but to all the world he looked to be a free man. He could follow his feet wherever they cared to take him. Clearly, the queen had given instructions that he was to be indulged like some dignitary of high rank when he was on the island. But he could not form actions from any desires contrary to the queen’s wishes. He might decide to leave the island and flee into hiding, but he would forget his mission after only a few steps. One time he even imagined his own death. Instead of using the knife he had chosen for the purpose on his own flesh, he peeled an apple.