The Sacred Band a-3

by David Anthony Durham

  “The only city I’ve ever truly known,” Skylene said to herself. A child of the Eilavan Woodlands, she had only ever seen Aos from a distance, on the march that took her to the league transport that began her life in bondage. Her memory of that city was that it was vast, but she suspected that was not true. A child’s perception of things. This city, Avina, truly was vast. It had been too large to occupy entirely even when the Auldek lived in it. Now, with them and their chosen servants and the divine children gone, the dead haunted the city as much as the living. It did not have to be that way, but the glory that could have been a free Avina had already started to fracture.

  Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a person emerge through the archway that led onto the rooftop. Tunnel strode toward her, moving his bulk with a heavy, muscular grace. Standing beside her, he touched the metal tusks curving up from his face. “We should go now.”

  Skylene nodded. She let her gaze linger over the city a little longer and then she turned and walked back toward the arch, down the slope, and onward. Beside Tunnel, she was as slim as a reed, a figure drawn with the smooth lines of a thin brush. Her skin powder white, nose the elongated point customary of selected Kern slaves, hair tufted in a manner that made her otherwise peaceful visage look potentially savage, touched with avian anger. She might need some of that for the meeting they headed to, the first summit of leaders of the clans of the quota slaves of Ushen Brae.

  Randale of the Wrathic had called for a full gathering of the people; Dukish of the Anet and Maren of the Kulish Kra had balked, saying they should decide some matters at the level of the chieftains before airing their differences in public. Skylene did not welcome talk of chieftains. Nor did she like that they already defined themselves by the clan groupings of their enslavement. She agreed to attend only to buy time until Mor returned-and the elders, too, if that was possible.

  Since Mor had left her in charge of the Free People of Avina, Skylene lived a troubled life. Part of it was being without her lover. They had slept entwined together for several years. Trying to find slumber by herself proved difficult, and her dreams rushed unpleasantly at her when she did sleep. She woke most mornings knotted in her sheets, more desolate for realizing it was only linen that bound her, not Mor’s shapely limbs.

  The Avina she found on kicking off those sheets challenged her in new ways each day. In the first days of freedom the city’s occupants huddled nervous, unsure that what appeared to have happened really had. The Auldek gone? All of them? The divine children with them and many of the other slaves as well? They had all watched it happen, but they stayed in the same rooms, in the same buildings, finding it hard to believe that the Auldek would not appear again suddenly, ready to punish them for even daring to think themselves free.

  Some youths rode out of the city on an antok. They returned a week later with verification that the Auldek carried on to the north, making haste, none of them looking back. At Skylene’s suggestion, the People agreed to set up watches to the north of the city to provide a warning should the thing they feared return to them. With that in place, they rejoiced. People ran through the streets, reveling in their new freedom. They were as giddy as the children they had not been allowed to be, laughing and dancing, feasting and making love and dreaming of what they would do with a city-an entire continent-all their own. It was too much for them, vast and filled with another race’s history-such a challenge, but a challenge all their own now. The very thought of it made them drunk with joy.

  Skylene made speeches often during these early days. She reminded the revelers that the Free People had always planned for this day. The Council of Elders had lived far from them, but they had never ceased laboring for them, taking in the abandoned, hiding those who had run from abuse, keeping alive a dream of unity once they were as free in reality as they were in moral truth. Soon, she told them, Mor and Yoen and the others would join them. Together they would build their nation. It sounded wonderful. It was all true and all possible. But barely had the tail of the Auldek migration slipped over the northern horizon before the problems started.

  By the end of the second week one man had killed another in a dispute over who had rights to an estate. The slain man was of the Kulish Kra; his murderer, an Anet. Skylene was at the trial called to decide the matter. She was one of the many who agreed to the punishment of a tattoo identifying the Anet as a murderer to be stenciled across his shaved scalp. Before the sentence was carried out, a group of Anet mobbed the chamber in which the man was imprisoned. They bashed their way in, freed him, and fought a battle in the streets to escape. They claimed the trial had been unjust. It was biased against Anets. Only other Anets had the right to try their kind, they claimed. How could they know justice was done otherwise?

  The one who led them was a short man named Dukish, an Anet who had once been a golden eye, one of the quota slaves who handled financial affairs for the Auldek. He had been a man of some station, but he had not been chosen to go with them. Declaring himself the clan’s chieftain, he called on other Anet slaves to join him in putting clan interests first, saying none should govern them but themselves. Many flocked to him. He armed them, seizing a weapons cache he knew of from his former work. Before anyone could organize to stop them, they took control of a portion of the city, including a warehouse stocked with grain and beans and salt, great vats of vinegar and wine.

  It got worse after that. Former household slaves laid claim to their master’s palaces, while field workers were kept at a distance. Golden eyes and others who had held higher offices for the Auldek claimed that those privileges should be transferred to positions of a similar rank in the new order. A gang of young Kulish Kra men harassed Kern women. It began as a joke played on one avian clan by another. But it grew violent, sexual. Before long the rumors were that the Kulish Kra youths had taken to raping and molesting Kern women. The Kern formed armed groups against this, to which the Kulish Kra responded in kind; and still other armed groups formed in response to the increasingly violent tension in the city, further fueling it. The league returned. They plied the water in their ships and in the Lothan Aklun’s soul vessels. It became clear that they were establishing themselves on the barrier isles, and everyone wondered how long it would be before they landed on the mainland.

  Skylene tried to speak reason to them all. For a time she found ears listening, but as the weeks passed she was surprised at how often her perfect reason fell only on the back of people’s heads. She forgot, perhaps, that as Mor’s lover and as an active member of the Free People she had learned to look past the clan markings more than most. To many, their clan members were their kin, not just the arbitrarily selected other slaves. It was in households and fields with others of their clan that they had labored. It was to the Auldek masters of those clans that they had looked with fear, with eyes first of children, then of clan members.

  Skylene knew this. It had been her life, too. Still, she had expected to manage the peace for a few weeks. Instead, she scrambled to prevent a riot that would ignite the entire city. To hear her, the people had to truly listen, to understand, to be brave. To heed men like Dukish, one only had to feel fear.

  “We must be careful,” Tunnel said as they walked the last corridor that would take them to the meeting. “I don’t like this one.”

  “I don’t like Dukish either, but that’s part of the reason we have to speak with him.”

  The chieftains and their seconds met at a ring of chairs in the center of the same massive chamber in which the Auldek had slaughtered Sire Neen’s group. The circle of chairs looked tiny beneath the high ceiling, dwarfed by the pillars and the shafts of light that fell diagonally from openings in the ceiling. The men and women milling around hardly seemed capable of making decisions for the mass of people that could have filled the entire chamber.

  “We shouldn’t be meeting like this,” Skylene muttered as she moved to take her seat. “We should all be here together. All of us.”

  Tunnel grunted his agreeme
nt from where he stood behind her chair. He crossed his bulging arms over his chest and reached up with one hand to pull contemplatively on a tusk.

  “Who is going to begin?” Dukish asked before everyone was fully settled.

  “You just have,” Plez, a thin woman with the same Kern features as Skylene, said.

  When Dukish smiled the scales on his face shifted in a manner that Skylene always imagined must feel uncomfortable. “But I am not the one with complaints. I am happy. Let the complainers complain.”

  Than, the leader of the Lvin, scowled at him. He had only light clan marks: pale white shading around his nose and eyes, steel whiskers, the ends of which he pressed often with his fingertips. Still, he had a fierce demeanor akin to his snow lion totem. “I am no complainer,” he said through gritted teeth, “but I have much to say against you.”

  “Do you? Say it, then.”

  He did. Than related a long list of grievances, most of which Skylene shared. At times, he could have been speaking for her. Randale, a Wrathic, added to the mountain of complaints against Dukish. The representative of the Kulish Kra, Maren, topped that mountain with a cold, snowy peak. She accused him of wanting to use Lothan Aklun relics. “He would use their ships. Ships driven by souls . Look at him. He would find a way to steal souls and become immortal if he could. He wants to live like an Auldek.”

  No, not that. No souls should ever be taken again.

  Dukish listened to it all, unimpressed.

  All that is true, Skylene thought, but it’s not the heart of the matter. She readied her words and cleared her throat to speak.

  Plez beat her to it. “Don’t look so smug,” she said to Dukish. “You and your people are alone. You think you can hold half the city by yourself? You think you can make a life without the rest of us?”

  “He doesn’t have to,” the Antok spokesman, Haavin, said, speaking for the first time. “We Antok have no grievance with him. He is not so alone as you think.”

  “And there are always new friends to make.” Dukish shared a knowing look with Haavin. And then, as if he had been pressed, “I might as well tell you all. I’ve been in contact with the leaguemen.” The others cried out, but he spoke over them. “Yes, I have! Why not? Somebody had to. You want them just lurking out there? I will meet with them, and they have said they wish to meet with me.” Smiling, he added, “Afterward, I’ll tell you what came of it.”

  Than was out of his seat and across to Dukish in an instant. The Anet second nearly toppled his chieftain, so hurriedly did he rush to defend Dukish. Others rose and moved forward as well. The circle of chairs became a ring, hemming in a pushing, shoving contingent of the new leaders.

  “You people are driving me mad!” Skylene shouted. Her voice, high-pitched and sharp, cut through the melee. She looked all the more striking because she had not risen with the others. Her hands clutched the seat on which she sat as if she were holding herself from shooting up from it. “Stop it. Stop it! This is all so-so unnecessary. Don’t you see that? We’re arguing about things we don’t need to be arguing about, and we’re losing sight of our dream.”

  “ Your dream,” Dukish said. He plopped back into his chair, crossing one leg over the other. “Your dream, Skylene. We’ve heard enough of it. From you, from Mor, from those who came before you. It was fine to dream when we were slaves. Now we’re not, and real things need to be done. That’s what I am doing. You all act like I’m a criminal, but I have not killed anyone. I have not stolen from any of you. I have just acted more quickly. Don’t blame me if you did not do the same.”

  “What you’ve done is divide us. We should be the Free People. All of us. We need to leave behind all this talk of clans. It’s part of our history, but it needs to be held within its place. It’s our past, not our future. We can make more-”

  “You are still dreaming,” Dukish said. “How will you change all this? It already is and cannot be undone. The tales you Free People told-of prophecy and saviors, your Rhuin Fa-what has come of it? Nothing at all. There was no Rhuin Fa. The world changed, and it was not your dreams that changed it.”

  “That’s not…” Skylene felt Tunnel grip her shoulder and knew what he was cautioning against. She and the others had already debated revealing Dariel’s presence among them. When he was in the city, they had kept his survival a careful secret, only letting the most trusted of the Free People know. Now that he had destroyed the soul catcher and was safely away into the interior, some argued it was time to announce him. The Rhuin Fa had come, finally. The old prophecies could come true. What better thing to unite the People?

  Mor, before leaving for the Sky Isle, had been against revealing his presence, but Skylene thought that her opinion was tainted by her anger. She did not yet trust Dariel, and did not want to offer false hope. A reasonable concern, really. Tunnel was also against it. In his case, he had no doubt that Dariel was the leader they had been waiting for. Because of that, he wanted him protected until the right moment, until he could be announced in such a public way that nobody could deny him.

  Skylene swallowed down the words she so wanted to say. Instead, she began, “Can we simply agree not to do anything further until Mor returns? And the elders as well. They should all have a say in this.”

  “I have said what I needed to,” Dukish said. He stood and scanned the group, dismissive even as his eyes touched on them. “You do what you wish. I will do what I wish.” With that, he turned and strode away. The others stirred, then rose, grumbling. The meeting, clearly, had broken up.

  Tunnel leaned close to Skylene and said, “See, I don’t like that one.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Dariel lost track of time the moment he stepped through that doorway. He answered the slim man’s beckoning. He went first, and the others followed. He could not now remember the words they had spoken, or how introductions were made, or any of the things customary to a meeting. None of that mattered, for nothing inside the Sky Mount was the same as outside. It did not so much cling to the mountains as belong to them, a part of them, smooth and organic, as if the rock had once been living tissue. It was sparse, clean, with none of the everyday items of life: no tables or chairs, no beds or hearths or cupboards. Dariel had the feeling that all these things had once been here, but now there was nothing but a long sweep of corridors that led to empty rooms.

  The whole time he was there, he knew that the others were also somewhere within the dizzying sprawl of the place. He could feel them. He could even hear faint indications of their thoughts, like voices heard at a distance. His hound pups were inside as well, somewhere in the maze of rooms and passages. All cared for. All safe. This was not about them, though. From what felt like the first moments his time in the Sky Mount was spent with only one person. Na Gamen.

  That was why he seemed to pass all his time-immeasurable as it was-by the Lothan Aklun’s side. They walked from room to room, sharing thoughts, conversing without opening their mouths. This, too, was a thing Dariel did not remember beginning, but it soon seemed natural enough. Shape a thought. Send it. Hear the answer within his head. Never a sound except the wind that whipped through the passages and the scuffing of his feet across the smooth gray stone. Aliver had said he spoke to the Santoth in a similar manner. Now Dariel understood.

  Na Gamen was slender in the extreme, famine faced, with copper skin that lay thinly across the bones of his bald skull. He stood a little distance away, gazing through an opening in the wall of his sky-top sanctuary, looking at the dizzying drop to the valleys far below. He looked so lost in thought that Dariel feared he was about to fall forward through the opening and plummet from the heights. Why Dariel should care what happened to this man he could not have said yet. But he did care. He already believed that Na Gamen, the Watcher of the Sky Mount, was entwined with his destiny.

  You are an Akaran, Na Gamen said. I can smell it in the oils on your skin. It’s in your breath when you exhale. I hear it when your heart beats. I see it in the vibrations of the a
ir around you. Do you know, Dariel Akaran, that you trail your ancestors behind you on a silver string? I see them waving in the air. All the living trail behind them those who came before. A portion of each soul grasps the string and stays with you always. I didn’t always see them, but I have for a long, long time. Do you know how I know this?

  How? Dariel asked.

  Because the same is true of me. I trail many strings. Thousands. Tens of thousands. And each of these touches a million souls. Sometimes I feel very heavy, pulling them behind me. Sometimes lifting my arm is like moving a mountain. As it should be for one like me. An accursed one like me.

  The notion of weight was hard to equate with the tall, slight man who placed the words in Dariel’s head.

  How do you know me? Dariel asked. The smell of my skin. My breath. How?

  Because you are of Tinhadin’s line. I see him in you.

  You knew Tinhadin? You are truly from my lands?

  Na Gamen turned and set his green eyes on him. They were larger than normal, jewels in his gaunt face. His earlobes spread out in large curves shaped like butterfly wings. They moved when he did. When he stilled, they swayed as if rocked by a gentle tide. We are children of the same land, yes. And I did know Tinhadin. I know him still. One does not forget the man who tried to murder him. That man who helped, in his way, to make this accursed life.

  You have said that before. How are you accursed?

  You would know it all?

  Yes.

  It will come at a price, Dariel. A gift, but a dear one. One that will be hard to live with. Do you want it?

  Whether I want it or not, I’m here, he thought. Sharing, he answered, Yes.

  Na Gamen gestured that they should continue walking. Dariel fell in step beside him. Again, the sound of his feet stood out strangely compared to the silence with which the Watcher moved. If the man’s feet-hidden beneath long gray robes-touched the stone at all, they gave no indication of it. Not even the fabric of his robes swished audibly. Beside him, Dariel felt awkward and loud. Every motion he made was too large and cumbersome when compared to the silent grace with which Na Gamen floated beside him.