The Sacred Band a-3

by David Anthony Durham

  “I don’t think it was quite like this before!” Birke shouted, laughing as he hopped from boulder to boulder. The creature snorted outraged breaths below him, following them farther into the maze, looking rather murderous for a thing that fed on grass and flowers.

  “Not a Wrathic technique, then?” Dariel called back.

  It was not the most heroic hunt ever-they made the creature a pincushion with arrows shot from safely above it-but the result was satisfying. That night they fed on thick steaks roasted over a fire and told stories surrounded by an amphitheater of stone. Birke recounted the great Wrathic hunts of old, and of the ancient times when young men were sent alone into the wilderness, to return only if they wore the jawbones of a slaughtered kwedeir draped over their necks. Listening to him, Dariel almost forgot Birke was talking about members of the Auldek clan who had enslaved him, not about young men like himself. He almost forgot that this was not just the hunting trip it briefly seemed. He almost accepted it as an evening spent in the company of friends, with no purpose save enjoyment. Almost.

  “So, tomorrow we’ll see the Sky Mount. Why don’t you tell me what that is, and who the Watcher is?”

  In the silence after his question Dariel realized how different the night was here from what it had been just days before in Inafeld Forest. Here, in the mountains, the main feature of the near silence was the scrape of wind over the jagged peaks. That and the sound of Mor honing the blade of her dagger on a stone propped on her knee.

  “Well?” Dariel prompted.

  Anira pulled another strip of meat from above the fire, set it on the small stone she was using as a table, and sliced it into bite-size pieces. When she had a few, she pinched them in her fingers and offered them to Dariel. “The Sky Mount is a palace built by a Lothan Aklun called Na Gamen. He built it long ago, back in the early years after they arrived. We should see it tomorrow, perched atop the highest peak in this area.”

  “So what is it that Mor doesn’t believe?”

  “That the very same Na Gamen who built it all those years ago still lives in it.”

  “A Lothan Aklun lives?”

  Anira shrugged. “He may. The elders among the People say that long ago he exiled himself there for his own reasons. He once came down from the Sky Isle and gave them-”

  “Promises.” Mor looked up from her work. “He spoke promises and regrets hundreds of years ago, and has done nothing else since. But the elders, in their wisdom, believe that he still sits up there, waiting for something. For you, perhaps.”

  “You don’t believe that?”

  Mor bent forward and began the rhythmic drag of steel over stone again. “What I believe doesn’t matter. I’m taking you.”

  B y noon of the next day Dariel had fixed his attention on a single peak in the distance, one that came in and out of view as they navigated the ridges preceding it. The high clouds that had obscured it in the morning cleared, revealing a ring of snow crusting its peak, the only mountain thus accoutred so far. Or so he thought.

  Later in the afternoon, when they mounted a pass and began down the slope facing the great mountain, Dariel realized that the snow was not snow at all. It was cast around the heights in too peculiar a manner. It was actually a solid substance. Though the white draped across the stone like the cellophane nests of certain birds, there was an order to it, a geometric intention within the contours. He had seen such structures before. When he sailed through the barrier isle he had gaped at Lothan Aklun abodes similarly hung from stone. This one, however, was much larger, a fact that grew clearer as they climbed toward it through the lengthening shadows of the aging afternoon.

  When they reached the gate, it did not seem they had reached much of anything except a dead end. The path had contoured along the steep precipice. It dropped off dizzyingly to one side. As they came around a corner, the path simply stopped, and a wall of smooth white stone faced them. Though it was obviously a man-made structure and a substance quite different from the rough granite of the mountain, it molded seamlessly into base stone. The mountain curved away out of sight to one side, while a buttress of rock hid any view upward. They could see nothing of the palace that had been so visible from a distance.

  Tam asked, “Should we knock?”

  Though the wall had no doorlike features, they did just that. Lightly at first, and then with fists and feet and harder objects. The material absorbed the beating, deadening the force of their blows. Anira tried to climb up over the buttress, but only fell crashing back down. Mor scraped the blade of a knife across the surface, searching for some crevice to pry open. Nothing. Not even a scratch left behind by her honed point.

  Eventually, the group gave up. There they stood, Dariel with a sleeping pup in his pack and Birke with one in his arms. Tam massaged the knuckles of his hand and asked what they should do now. Anira stood with arms crossed, head cocked, her thoughts trapped in the pucker of her lips. The crimson light of the vanishing sun shone on Mor’s delicate features, somehow bringing out the Shivith tattoos with more vicious contrast than usual. Dariel kept expecting her to say something. She looked like she wanted to, and he wished she would.

  Entertaining such thoughts, he was the last to notice that the wall did, in fact, have a door in it. The last to notice that the door not only existed, but was open, and that a figure within had leaned through and was intently studying them.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Corinn started awake. She lashed out, sure that Hanish Mein was attached to her face and devouring her. It took a moment for the panic to fade and for the solidity of the world to materialize around her. A small, comfortable cabin. Windows open to salt-tinged air, seabirds calling. A flap of sail and a slow sensation of motion. She remembered. She was aboard her transport, heading back to Acacia. The terror had just been a dream. Just the nightmare she had suffered through since she destroyed the Numrek.

  “You fool girl,” she whispered. “You almost killed yourself.”

  She realized this first on waking in a villa along the Teh coast that had once belonged to Calrach. She had been unconscious for days. Feverish. Helpless. With no memory of being lifted and handled and transported. Touched by unknown hands. The acts of magic she unleashed upon the Numrek had nearly ended her. The same brutality that ripped them apart could either have left her so spent she just ceased to be, or it could have exploded inside her. In the future, she would have to be much more careful. She could only do so much at once. If she misjudged what and how to sing, she could lose everything in the space of a single mistaken note. Why was that so obvious after the fact, but so easy to forget during the moment-when all she felt was power?

  She kicked off the blanket covering her. She stood and studied herself in the mirror on the back of the cabin door. For a horrible moment, she could have been looking at her mother in the throes of her illness. Gaunt in the face. Her eyes large and sad. Her body a decaying framework upon which her old beauty hung in tatters.

  “Why so morbid, Corinn?” the image asked. “Afraid of your dreams? That’s silly. You’re not silly, Corinn. Don’t act as if you are. Who is that man anyway?”

  Corinn stepped closer to the mirror, touched the frame and slid her hand down it, across the glass lightly. She studied the wrinkled face looking back at her, loving it, comforted by it, no matter that it frightened her. “He is nobody. He is dead. He’s the one who tried to kill me, Mother. I am not afraid of him when I’m awake, but in my dreams he has power over me.”

  Changing angle, moving to the other side of the mirror, the image said, “Only because you let him. Don’t do that. Don’t give in to weakness in your time of triumph. Remember what you did!”

  Corinn did remember. She saw in her mind image after image of the horrors she had unleashed. She saw more in her imaginings than she had seen in the few moments the horrors actually took. It was as if each individual death had been stored within her, whether she had actually seen it with her eyes or not. She watched them all now. The stomach-churning revu
lsion of it matched the raw, teeth-grinding pleasure of it. That power! She could rip apart the fabric of life like nobody else walking the earth could. She had to be careful, yes, to plan better, to foresee even more. But she had the power of a new Tinhadin.

  “And what of that worm beneath the sea?” her mother asked. “Do you still dream of it?”

  Whatever that vague, writhing, wormlike enormity had been, it no longer troubled her. She had managed to push it out of her mind, to stop seeing those strange images of it. She had been so worried, in fear for Aaden’s life. That worm must have been an internal manifestation of that, another creature of nightmare that she had allowed into her waking mind. Her actions recently had beaten the beast back. When it tried to push into her mind-waking or asleep-she had the power to push it back.

  “It’s gone. Gone, gone.”

  Not only that. So many things she had fit into their proper places recently. Aaden was back on Acacia, awake and waiting for her. She had received news of this a few nights back. Aliver walked and talked and made himself at home in the palace once again. Word of that was spreading, too. She knew her song danced over his skin, binding him to her, making him the combination of his mind and her will. What a partner he would make in the struggles to come. Elya’s eggs were maturing. Even from a distance she felt them growing. They were hers already and would soon stun the world in her name. And Delivegu should have taken care of the small thing she asked of him by now. Another threat to Aaden removed.

  There were many reasons to feel confident. For the time being, it did not even matter that Mena had deviated from her orders and gone to Mein Tahalian. It sounded crazy to Corinn, but she must have her reasons. Corinn would soon ask her directly.

  “Are you proud of me?” Corinn asked the reflection in the mirror, and then answered, “Yes, of course. You are strong in ways others are not. You are the queen. You are-”

  A noise from the other side of the door caused Corinn to start. She moved quickly away from it. She turned, drew herself up with a breath, straightened her posture, and lifted her chin. There, she thought, seeing herself returned in the image in the mirror, no doubt at all who she was anymore, is the Corinn the world knows. Let it always be so.

  The image slipped away as the door opened, a servant timid behind it, peeking in to announce the approach of a skiff carrying the head vintner of Prios. For a moment, Corinn could not remember who the head vintner of Prios was, or what he would wish to talk about. She could not ask anyone but Rhrenna such a question. Instead she called for documents pertinent to the meeting. From them, she refreshed her memory.

  An hour later, Paddel entered the transport’s conference room sweating, his gait a rolling waddle. He patted his forehead and scalp with a handkerchief. The action did little to clear away the moisture but much to highlight that his scalp had been tattooed in imitation of hair. It looked like he wore some tight rubber cap on his head. The man seemed entirely oblivious to this effect.

  The queen sat at the far end of an oval table, the room’s central feature. Wearing her light chain mail once again, she looked the picture of royal composure. There was a martial edge to the slant of her head and position of her arm, which was crooked to one side in a masculine manner. She modeled the posture after a remembered image of Maeander Mein, but she made it her own now.

  “Surely it’s not that hot outside, Paddel.” She had no problem using his name. She remembered him quite well now, and his little project.

  “No, no, not at all. It’s just that sea travel doesn’t agree with me. Turns my legs to jelly and my guts to… Oh, but you don’t want to hear my troubles. Your Majesty, I’m overjoyed to see you well. These past few weeks we’ve been so worried about you.”

  “As you can see I’m fine,” Corinn said.

  “Yes, you are. May I just say that you are a wonder! The talk of the entire empire. News of your triumph in Teh competes with word that Aliver has risen from the dead.”

  As always with this man, Corinn decided on brevity. She cut off his babbling before he could work up momentum. “It’s all true. We won’t discuss it now, though. You brought a sample?”

  The one virtue Paddel had was that he did not seem to mind being cut off. “I did,” he said, and began a fumbling search of his silken robes. He produced a small blue vial, delicate like something used for perfume. “This, Your Majesty, is the vintage. Pure. A drop of it in a goblet of wine, and the drinker is never the same again.”

  Corinn gestured toward a carafe of wine on the table. Paddel, taking the suggestion, uncorked and poured a glass. Then, making sure the queen could see his actions, he let a single drop of the clear liquid land in the wine, lost instantly in its rich maroon. He swirled. “And that’s it.”

  “And that’s it.” Corinn studied the liquid as it slipped around the glass. “Paddel, you have heard what I did to the Numrek. It was a demonstration of my power, and I know that word of it is flying about the empire as quick as a thousand wagging tongues. Now, that could be good, or that could be bad. In relation to power, people can choose to bow in adoration to it, or they can choose to fear it. I prefer one reaction instead of the other, understand?”

  Paddel nodded, unsure.

  When he said nothing, Corinn added, “I would have the people adore me.”

  The vintner’s jowly face jumped with relief. “That’s exactly what the masses do. The vintage is already going down throats across the empire. Everyone thinks your acts are wonders, works of beauty, magnificent! They’ll rally behind you more than ever. They’ll go to battle-if that’s called for-with even more confidence. I promise you that.”

  “Good,” Corinn said. She held up her hand for the glass. Paddel came around the table and handed it to her. Bringing it close to her nose, she inhaled the scent of it. Paddel looked like he had a word pinched between his lips, something dangerous that he wished to release. I’m not going to drink it, fool, Corinn thought. But I would know the smell of it. It wouldn’t do for me to be poisoned with it, would it?

  When she was confident that she knew the scent and could build her sensitivity to it with the help of The Song, she set the glass down. “You know that I want none of this consumed in the palace.”

  “Understood. Completely and utterly. Each cask and bottle carries a label marking it. I briefed your secretary on it. Gave her all the information. As I understand it, she will pass the knowledge on to those who will keep the palace free of it. You and family will remain quite untouched by it.”

  “What of the question I put to you when we last met? About the effects when one who is addicted is then deprived. I told you to bring me a report on that.”

  “Ah… yes, of course.” Paddel’s scalp bloomed with a new coating of sweat. “I hope that you’ll forgive us. We’ve been so very busy with distribution, with getting it out fast behind the news that you’ve abolished the quota. In all the confusion the results have been inconclusive.”

  “Which means what?”

  “We just don’t know for sure.”

  Corinn stared at him. “Are you lying to me?”

  “I would never, Your Majesty! I would die before a lie escaped my lips in your presence.” He made the Mainland gesture for death, a quick motion of mimicking plucking out one of his eyes and tossing it over his shoulder. “But it’s all a bit confused. The league tabulated the data, and they were not clear with us on wh-what they found.”

  Corinn’s brow grew more and more creased as the vintner talked. “You should have told me this before.”

  “A thousand pardons, please, Your Majesty. If we’d had the time, we surely would have seen it all through. But even now I assure you this changes nothing. They assured me the vintage is fine, and I assure you the same!”

  Corinn snatched up the vial and stood. “This displeases me, Paddel. I asked you to do something, and you handed the job to another. That is not an action of a loyal servant. I’ve come to doubt you.” Pocketing the vial at her waist, she paused and smiled at the loo
k of utter dismay on Paddel’s face. “But since you are confident, I propose you drink in celebration.” She pointed to the glass on the table. “Do so. Drink.”

  O nce on Acacia, Corinn disembarked into the pleasantly cool air. Acacian winter at last, just chilly enough to require long sleeves and a lace scarf. She had just taken the reins and prepared to step up onto her mount, when a buzz of noise followed by a sudden hush drew her attention. She paused, stepped back, opened her fingers, and let the leather reins slip from them.

  Aliver walked hand in hand with Aaden. They were talking, both to themselves and saying things to passersby. They waved and touched peoples’ hands or the crowns of the heads of those who were kneeling. They quietly beamed. Corinn had never seen a finer sight. As she rushed toward them through a sudden blur of tears, nothing mattered more in the world. Aliver smiled and Aaden lit up at the sight of her. When the boy pressed himself against her belly, and when she remembered in that moment the first time his baby arms had hugged her, and when Aliver slipped his arm around them both… in those few moments she knew joy more completely than ever before. Here was life, and it was a fine thing, free of fear, radiant.

  The mood held through to that evening. They dined on the back terraces of Corinn’s gardens. Servants brought up standing torches that ringed the diners and fought back the evening’s chill. They ate braised eel in a ginger sauce, served over sticky rice that Aaden insisted on forming into balls with his fingers. Corinn let him. They were not on display this evening, not even among the court. They were alone, all the family she could have near at hand. When Aliver pinged Aaden with a long bean, Corinn laughed as loudly as anyone. When Rhrenna toasted the queen’s victory in Teh, Corinn sent a charm snaking up her arm and into all the glasses as they clinked together, just a further lightening of the mood, a feeling like bubbles floating in the air around them, popping in gentle kisses on their skin.

  They talked of nothing pressing. Aaden peppered his uncle with questions about his youth. Aliver responded with tales of his boyhood, of his journey into Talay in exile, of growing to manhood there. After dinner, he acted out his laryx hunt with a spear fetched from one of the statues in his hallway. He made the whole thing seem deathly frightening and hilarious at the same time. By the time he finished, Corinn’s stomach ached from laughing. That was a pleasant pain she had not felt for many years.