The Sacred Band a-3

by David Anthony Durham

  From up close, the skinlike material was as solid as stone, as smooth as glass. And inside… inside brought back memories that Tunnel had not turned over in his mind for some time. The white walls, the slick floors, the strange, unnatural scent in the air. The instrument panels, levers, and all manner of devices, many-limbed things that stood like spiders. Dead spiders, but ones that could spring to life at the touch of a Lothan Aklun hand. Tunnel tried to see only what was here, unused and abandoned and powerless. This was not a place he had ever been to. It was larger, with different instruments, but the memories came anyway, visions of that other place and of the things done to him with tools somehow kin to the ones here. Young Tunnel, having his tusks fused right into his skull, the pain of it, the utter calm in the face of the Lothan Aklun woman who worked over him… Nothing had ever frightened him more than that calm.

  Fortunately, he was not a child anymore. He slammed his two mallets down on their heads, their shafts standing upright. “This is it, then? Not so much to see.”

  The vessel messenger had wide-spaced eyes and the tattoos of the Fru Nithexek, the sky bear. He seemed nervous inside the building, looking around as if he feared the old inhabitants might return at any moment. “It wasn’t that I’d never heard of this place before. I had. You can see it from the river. Once I floated by in a shell from the Sky Isle, but that was at night and the Lothan Aklun still worked the place. With them around it was a place to avoid. When I saw it this time, though, I knew things were different. Can’t just leave it here for anybody to find.”

  “Anybody other than us, you mean,” Tunnel said. He studied the panels and levers closely, without touching them. “What does this place do?”

  As simple a question as it was, none had a ready answer.

  “You don’t know what it does?”

  The messenger walked in a nervous circle. “If you mean exactly what does it do, I can’t say, but over there”-he pointed toward the riverfront side of the structure-“are bays that open onto ramps that lead into the water, a deep cove. I think they built the soul vessels here. Or built them elsewhere and brought them here for servicing of some sort.”

  “Maybe they put the souls inside them here,” one of the youths said.

  The rest let that sit untouched. One of the other youths rubbed his nose. Potemp cleared his throat and looked at his feet.

  “Yeah,” Tunnel said, sniffing the air, “this place doesn’t smell good. Back up.” He bent his legs slightly, gripped the shafts of the upright mallets. His gray arms bulged as he raised them, the striations of his forearms twitching with the effort. “Back, back.” The others retreated, and he went to work.

  He swung the mallets in wild arcs, smashing the panels, snapping levers clean off. Bits of the stonelike material flew in all directions, twirling in the air and skittering across the floor like shards of glass. The two-armed attack was not easy, but he kept at it for a time, knowing the others were watching him in awe. Tunnel liked being strong. Might as well show it.

  When the strain started to pain his shoulders, he flung one of the mallets away. He took the remaining one up in a two-handed grip. Just as impressive, really, as each blow now carried double the force, the whole of his arms and massive back and stout legs combining to drive the steel where his mind willed it.

  Sometime later, he paused. He balanced the mallet upright and stood with his hand propped on the end of the shaft. Glistening with sweat, heaving in great breaths, he surveyed the damage he had done. Pretty good damage, he thought. To the watchers, he said, “Let’s have a fire.”

  L ate the next day, a league vessel made its appearance. It slid silently atop the water, cutting the current with its sleek lines, effortless. Unnatural. Potemp had warning enough to move the antok well back into the woods, out of hearing and sight and smell. Tunnel and the others watched the ship from the woods behind the burned-out shell of the demolished structure. The ruins still smoked, hot with glowing coals.

  Ishtat soldiers came ashore, too many for them to confront. Staying hidden, Tunnel watched them kick through the ashes. Later, a leagueman-cone headed, robed, and unarmed-came across on a skiff and inspected the site. It was not the same one who had ordered Skylene shot. If it had been, nothing would have stopped Tunnel from rushing him, mallets swinging until he bashed the man to pulp. He almost did so anyway, but Skylene had not sent him out to die.

  He’s a lucky one today, that one, Tunnel thought.

  “We were just in time,” the messenger whispered. “Just in time.”

  They stayed in hiding throughout the day, watching. By the time the last skiff had returned to the anchored vessel, it was clear the leagueman had gained nothing. After sunset, Tunnel and the others came down into the ruins carrying armfuls of branches. They collected driftwood from the shore. Using a coal from the ruins they got a new fire going on the beach. They fed it until it blazed and then proceeded to dance around it. They shouted out toward the vessel, seeing its deck brimming with onlookers. They yelled taunts across the water at them, declaring that this ruin was the work of the Free People of Ushen Brae, saying that this was their land and would be forever more. The league would gain no footing here. The People would not allow it.

  And then, with a flash of inspiration, Tunnel turned around, shoved his thumbs inside the waist of his trousers and pulled them to his knees. He waggled his bare bottom in the torchlight, shouting over his shoulder instructions for what the leagueman could do with his ass. The others did the same, all of them offering their buttocks with rebellious glee.

  “Leagueman,” Tunnel yelled, “here’s my ass! Here’s Tunnel’s ass. I pinch it for you.” So saying, he did so.

  The others added their own takes on the theme. They all howled with laughter, so caught up in the moment that they retreated from the shore grudgingly and only after the rain of Ishtat arrows shot from the boat became too heavy to chance further.

  T unnel arrived back at the Free People’s compound in the middle of the night. Without pausing to rest or even to wash the grime of his work and travel from his face, he went to Skylene. Her caretakers greeted him grimly at the door, then stepped aside to let him visit her in solitude.

  She lay as he had left her, propped up on pillows, with a blanket pulled up to her shoulders. Lowering himself softly to the edge of the bed, he could smell the sickness on her. It was there in the tang of her sweat, in the spoiled scent of her sheets, and in the fetid stench of the festering wound in her chest. The crossbow bolt that Sire Lethel had so casually set in motion had punched right through her left breast, ripping apart tissue, fracturing a rib, and leaving a dirty, oil-smeared puncture wound that quickly turned bad. He had looked upon it before he left; he did not want to do so again.

  Skylene opened her eyes. She smiled at him, warmly enough that Tunnel wondered if she was getting better. But when her lips released the curve, her face looked even more drawn, lined, and thin than before. She asked, “Did you destroy it?”

  Her voice sounded dry. Tunnel poured from a pitcher of mint water on the bedside table. He moved the glass toward her, saying, “Nah, nah,” when she tried to take hold of it. Big armed and shouldered as he was, with large-knuckled hands that made the glass seem a child’s toy, he touched the rim to her lips with delicacy. He did not answer her question until after she had taken a few sips.

  “We did. Smashed it up good. Built a fire. It was a fine show.” He detailed what they thought the relic was and told of their encounter with the league ship. By the end he was on his feet, his bottom pointed toward her as he repeated the taunts he had shouted over his shoulder.

  It hurt Skylene to laugh, but she did so anyway.

  “Are you getting better?” Tunnel asked, sitting beside her again.

  Skylene set a hand on top of his. Her touch was hot, dry. She meant it to be comforting, but it felt wrong. He felt the fever burning in her. He almost pulled his hand away. “The others are looking after me. They brought a healer from the Kern clan. She was
very kind, but her poultice had fennel seeds in them. You know I can’t stand the smell of it. I wore it for a day, but then…” She lifted her hand and gestured, a vague motion that erased the very thing she was describing.

  “We should send a messenger to the elders,” he said. “To Mor. She would want…”

  “To rush here to my side.” Skylene shook her head. “No, Tunnel, send no message. None of them can help me either way. Why add to their distress? Mor left me-and you-to hold the city until she returned…”

  “With the Rhuin Fa,” Tunnel said, nodding in acknowledgment of the fact that he had finished her sentence, just as she had finished his a moment earlier.

  “But we have not done that here, have we?”

  “Not our fault.”

  “I know, but-”

  “Dukish, he is just a fool! Going to mess with everything that could be so simple and good. How we going to know that before he show us it? Stupid man. Should have squashed him the first time.”

  Skylene did not dispute it. “If you get another chance, do squash him. Do it for me. But otherwise… stay alive for Dariel. Be here when he arrives. That should be within a fortnight.”

  “What? You know this?”

  Nodding, Skylene said, “The vessel messenger who took you to the relic, he came here with a message for me, a message from Yoen.”

  “You didn’t tell Tunnel,” Tunnel said, managing to convey a depth of hurt in the short sentence.

  “No.” Skylene smiled. “If I had, you might not have taken those mallets to the relic. You might not have shown the good sire your backside. I needed you to act without distraction, without waiting for your Rhuin Fa. I was right, wasn’t I? Even a day’s delay would have-”

  “What’s the message, then?”

  “Mor and the others are returning via the Sheeven Lek. Dariel is with them.”

  Tunnel smiled. “This is news.”

  “There’s more. The journey has been a success in many ways. They all still live, for one. For another, they visited the Sky Watcher. Na Gamen blessed them all, especially Dariel.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Yoen said to expect Dariel to look different. He wears a sign on his forehead, a spirit mark that combines his name with Na Gamen’s.”

  “He is the Rhuin Fa.” Tunnel leaned in close and whispered, with passion, “He is. I always told it, didn’t I?”

  Skylene started to laugh, but it pained her. She choked it down. “Of course you did, Tunnel. You are the smartest of all of us, the truest.”

  “Should we tell everyone?”

  “No, not yet.” Skylene closed her eyes a moment, her breathing shallow. “Not yet. He is not the Rhuin Fa until the People name him so. We have all to do it, understand? Not just Na Gamen, the elders. Not just you and me. Everyone must do it. And none who don’t want to believe him are going to want to change, not without seeing him for themselves. We need to hold this news as long as we can, until they are nearly here, understand? We use it to call a gathering, but only at the last moment. We don’t want Dukish or any of the others to have time to work against him. All right?”

  “Yeah, that’s all right.”

  “Tunnel”-she softened her voice, rounded it and weighted it with import-“I’ve told no body else about this. If I…”

  “That won’t happen.”

  “But if it does, you…”

  Shaking his head, Tunnel stood up. “Nah, won’t happen. You love Mor too much to die. You’ll still be lying here, waiting for a kiss, when she comes. Tunnel knows.” He glanced around. “You hungry?”

  He asked it casually, tugging on a tusk as if he had nothing more on his mind than his stomach. It was not true, but he kept it up until he heard Skylene breathe out the rest of the things she thought she needed to say to him. Once she did, he pretended to wander away, foraging. In truth he stood at the far end of the room, leaning against the wall and watching, thinking, You’ll still be here. Tunnel knows, of course he does.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  When asked to describe it, Dariel said he did not remember anything. In truth, he remembered his return from death with a clarity not of an experience passed but of one yet to come. It went something like this. For a time, he was not a man at all. He was a single bubble-one of infinite millions that pressed softly against him-dislodged from the depths of an abyssal floor and rising through the black fathoms in which nothing at all lived. He knew the entire time that he might pop at any moment, might cease to be or be swallowed by some unliving mouth driven by unliving hunger, suddenly roaring out of the black. He would not have been able to explain that he became more and more terrified the closer he got to life. Nor would he ever try to describe that passing into life did not feel like surfacing or birth or waking. It felt like smashing against a ceiling of black obsidian and vanishing.

  And then he was a man. He moaned the air out of his lungs, lay empty for a moment, and remembered to suck air back inside himself.

  “Dariel,” a voice said.

  He had a name.

  He opened his eyes. Anira’s brown visage looked down on him. She ran her hands over his face and neck and chest. “Dariel, by Anet and her young… I thought you were dead. They said you would come back, but I feared…” She leaned over him and kissed him, and then, as if sensing that her relief may have been premature, she grasped him by the shoulders. “Can you hear me? Are you all right?”

  He was not ready to commit just yet. His eyes darted about the small, tidy room. They were alone. He lay on a cot; Anira sat on a stool beside it. An intricate openwork band ran around the wall at eye level. Through it came the sounds of the village: people talking, a dog barking, chickens clucking their singsong rumination on the world. He could have stepped to the screen and looked through, but the sound made him hesitate. It was too mundane to be trusted.

  “What happened?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “No.” But saying it, he did. He had come to meet the elders. He had gone to embrace Yoen and…

  He propped himself on one elbow and clawed his tunic up with his other hand. He ran a palm over his abdomen, searching for the wound he knew should be there. His skin was smooth, ridged with his muscles and curled with light hairs.

  “There was a knife,” he said, but there was no knife. Not anymore. Not sticking out of his belly, nor leaving any trace that one ever had. “He tried to kill me. You saw it.”

  “No, he didn’t,” Anira said.

  “He stabbed me.” He clutched his abdomen for proof, but again his body denied him. “I mean… he tried to. What happened?”

  “He’ll explain.” Anira stood and stepped back from him, looking him up and down. “First, get ahold of yourself. We’re on the Sky Isle, in Elder Yoen’s village. You’re not dead. Not even hurt. Tell me you don’t feel stronger than ever before. You look it. And you have this.”

  She reached for his forehead. Her touch felt strange. He felt the pressure of her fingers but not the sensation of her skin against his. Pulling back, she indicated that he should feel for himself. Reluctantly, he did so. A section of his flesh was rough beneath his fingertips, raised and hard like a scab.

  “Is there a mirror?”

  Anira looked around a moment, twisted away, and came back, rubbing the curve of a metal saucer. The image Dariel saw reflected in it was distorted and blurry. He squinted one eye and studied what he saw there for a long time. A rune of some sort. A character in a language he could not read, drawn in short, assured swipes as if by an ink brush, black against his beige skin, a black so solid that the Shivith spots underneath the symbol did not show through it.

  “What in the Giver’s Name is that?” he demanded, feeling curiosity more than rage, but letting anger drive his words anyway.

  “Your destiny. Your name. Come, meet Yoen again. He’ll explain everything to you. Yoen said to-”

  “Not him!” Dariel sat up. He swung his legs over the cot and drove his feet down against the flo
or. Standing upright so quickly made his head swim. “Not…” Though his eyes did not close, the world went black.

  T he second time Dariel awoke, he took care to sit up slowly. This time, there was more than one face to take in. Anira perched on the edge of the cot down near his knees, her hands clasped around one of his. Tam and Birke stood against the wall. The latter flashed his canine smile when Dariel’s eyes passed over him. Mor was saying something to a white-haired matron with Shivith clan spots on her face, like Mor’s. Like his, he remembered. Even as his gaze moved he knew that they had yet to settle on the person they must. He felt the presence beside him, sitting where Anira had sat before. He wished for anger as he shifted his gaze to the old man. Wished for anger and prepared for fear and… felt neither.

  Yoen’s expression of sad joy was etched in every crevice of his features. His eyelids drooped at the outer edges, giving his face an almost puppylike softness. He said something, his voice kind as he leaned forward. Dariel did not understand it, and the old man realized as much. “Forgive me,” he said. “When I forget myself I speak Auldek. Mor teases me for it. Don’t you, dearest? What she doesn’t know is that it embarrasses me that the language of my enslavers comes faster to my mouth than the one of my native land. But we’re not here to speak about me. I should explain to you what happened. Do you want to hear it now, or should we wait until you feel stronger?”

  Lying there, feeling weak and yet refreshed at the same time, with the memory of death so near him still, Dariel knew there were a variety of things he could say in response. Angry things. Defiant and accusatory and indignant ones. He just could not remember what they might be. Instead, he said, “I want to know now.”