The Eternal Kingdom (The Children Trilogy Book 3)

by Ben Peek

  4.

  The Lord of the Saan and the woman who had arrived with him were led to the biggest tent in the camp. Once inside, the warriors who had accompanied them took up positions around the tent, their faces impassive as they stared into the crowds around them.

  Ayae had seen little of the procession. The crowd, like a large animal, had followed the arrivals. In its shift and turn, Xrie and the Saan were lost to Ayae, and she did not think that she would be able to see them again through the press of bodies. That, at least, was not new: crowds had always hidden the sights from her. Quietly, she slipped out of the back of the crowd and, with a few streams of people doing the same, she circled up the gentle slope of the mountain.

  ‘I am surprised you are not there,’ Sinae Al’tor said to her. He emerged from the flow of people below as she reached her tent. A well-dressed, handsome, olive-skinned man, he smiled as if they were friends and shared something in common. ‘You could be inside the fabric walls of Lady Wagan and Lord Alahn’s tent, hearing what is said, voicing your own opinion,’ he continued. ‘You have no need to find a vantage point to stare at the walls like the rest of us.’

  ‘Don’t you already know what is being said inside?’ she asked.

  ‘It disappoints me greatly to hear that.’ He wore a white silk shirt and finely stitched black pants above polished boots with bright silver buckles. Ayae had heard a rumour that he had snuck onto Ghaam to retrieve his wardrobe. ‘I run a brothel. I know only the secrets that flesh tells me.’

  It was for that reason alone that she did not like Sinae Al’tor.

  She had met him in the brothel he had owned on the night Yeflam broke apart, when she had fought the Keeper, Eira. But it was within the first weeks of the camp’s creation that she saw more of Sinae. During that time, he established a network of tents at the eastern edges of the camp where men and women could sell themselves. Since the camp had very little currency, Sinae established a complex system of barters and favours, a system that, as coin began to enter the camp, left him with an immediate wealth few could equal. Rumour had it that he used it to access the markets across Leviathan’s Blood, in the surviving cities of Yeflam, and beyond. Whether he did or not, it was certainly true that those who worked for Sinae Al’tor ate better than anyone else in the camp.

  ‘Still,’ he said now, ‘this will strengthen Lady Wagan’s position in the camp. Miat Dvir will not have come all this way to help rebuild Yeflam.’

  ‘The Saan are not known as builders.’ From the milling groups of people, a blonde woman dressed in dark red pants, a black shirt and a long, expensive, black coat, looked at the two of them: Sinae’s guard, Ayae knew. Seeing nothing of interest, she turned back to the crowd. ‘He said that they had a blood feud with Se’Saera,’ she added.

  ‘The rumour is true, then.’ He sounded faintly surprised. ‘A number of the Saan were said to have been killed in Ooila by—’

  ‘The Innocent.’

  ‘You don’t seem surprised?’

  ‘I was born in Sooia.’

  ‘The edges of Sooia are not Yeflam, my dear.’

  She shrugged, but did not elaborate. Xrie’s desire to keep the knowledge of Ren to themselves was no longer one that Ayae had to worry about, but she had no intention of telling Sinae what she had seen in Neela.

  ‘Soon, people will want to flee,’ the man beside her said quietly. ‘More people than is usual, that is. There are people who ask every day for me to secure them passage across Leviathan’s Blood. They offer coin, favours, their family members, even themselves. They are desperate men and women. But there are no passages to be had. They never believe me when I tell them that, but it is the truth. Armed soldiers sit guard at the edges of Yeflam’s cities. They shoot anyone who is uninvited. Muriel Wagan and Lian Alahn do well to keep it quiet that we are not wanted anywhere but here.’

  They did it mostly through their own politics, Ayae knew. It was an open secret in the camp that Muriel Wagan wanted to go over the Mountains of Ger, to chase down not just the Keepers who had broken Yeflam, but the Leerans who had destroyed Mireea. In opposition, Lian Alahn wanted to rebuild Yeflam. He wanted to repopulate Neela, Mesi and Ghaam, and to rebuild much of the navy that was lost. In those differences – in those everyday arguments that took place directly before them – it was easy for the people of the camp to forget the politics of the rest of Yeflam.

  ‘Do you know much about Miat Dvir?’ Sinae asked.

  ‘No,’ Ayae said.

  ‘You will, soon. He will come to speak with you.’ Ayae made a noise of dismissal, but he smiled. ‘Oh, no. He will be here. He will approach you as a supplicant. He will view you as a subject – that is how the Saan view everyone – but he will bend a knee before you. He will ask for favours.’

  ‘Doesn’t everyone these days?’ She tried to make it sound dismissive, a quip, but failed. ‘He will go to Xrie, first.’

  ‘But then he will come to you. He will realize that Xrie’s loyalties are not with him, but more importantly, are not with the Saan. That is why he will come to you. When he comes to speak to you, remember that Miat Dvir wants to see the Saan expand their influence outside the dusty home they live in. He wants them to be a world power. He thinks that it can even be done in his lifetime. Until very recently, he planned to begin his expansion by moving into Ooila. It was quite a daring move, really. He sought to marry one of his own children to the First Queen’s youngest daughter. He sent his war scout out and sank into the resentment that the daughter had developed over the years. I do not think he would have been successful, not ultimately. The First Queen of Ooila is much more ruthless than he is. Regardless of how you thought it would end, it was a move that was intended to be a statement to the rest of the world. A statement he intends to repeat again through the opportunity presented by Aela Ren.’

  ‘Only a fool would think that,’ Ayae said. ‘A fool far away from anything the Innocent has done.’

  ‘I do not disagree,’ Sinae said. ‘But he will be here, and he will come here in the belief that you can give him that opportunity.’

  5.

  The corridors of Glafanr carried the sound of the ocean, as if it were an inlet by which a river began, and Bueralan was no more than a tiny raft drifting along it.

  He had grown accustomed to the strange sounds within the ship, though he still found himself rejecting the notion that it had once been a vessel for the dead. Ai Sela, who was the captain of the ship, said that it had appeared before her after the Wanderer died. She had been his servant, a tall, brown-skinned woman who had travelled one end of the world to the other before her god died, and who in the aftermath found herself chained to the command of the ship. It was she who said the ship was alive, that it responded to her moods and those of others, even though she did not believe it to be sentient.

  Glafanr was old. The wood of its hull and its masts was engrained with a quality possessed by only the oldest of ships Bueralan had seen. Yet the fragility that he associated with an old ship was not present on Glafanr. The hallways that he walked through now felt different from any others he had been in. Over the years, for one reason or another, Bueralan had stood in half a dozen shipyards. He had watched the hulks of the old beasts pulled onto shore to be stripped and dismantled. In each yard, Bueralan felt a certain sadness in the air, but when, after heaving himself up a rope to the deck of a ship that would be dismantled, he had felt the weak deck beneath his feet and smelt the rot that had set deep within the frame, he understood the necessity. There was a mortality within ships and the yards were, if a ship survived life on the sea, its only end. But on Glafanr, the saboteur felt none of that weakness within its hold.

  ‘Orlan,’ Bueralan said, holding open the door to his cabin. ‘There are locks for a reason.’

  The cartographer stood alone at the far end of the room, next to the small window. Recently, he had shorn his silver-grey hair short around his head. Yet, he had only trimmed his beard, leaving the thick bristles to form a soli
d spade down to his chest. He still wore his fine vests, the current one a bold mix of orange and black. The latter colour dominated in his pants and boots, but the shirt beneath the vest was white, a solid, true white that was in contrast to the tanned skin of his face.

  ‘What do you think you are doing?’ Orlan asked, offering no greeting. ‘You cannot convince any of these people to betray Ren.’

  Gently, he closed the door. ‘Where is Taela?’

  ‘Zilt came for her.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because she asked it of him.’ Orlan left the window and stalked heavily over to him. ‘They know what you’re trying to do. Did you think they wouldn’t?’ Bueralan could not smell alcohol on his breath. He had not smelt it since the day he had come aboard drunk. ‘They know you’re looking for a weak link among them,’ the old man finished. ‘A man or woman you can exploit.’

  ‘And if I am?’ he said. ‘You’ve seen them since Zilt and his soldiers came aboard. They don’t like them.’

  ‘Ren doesn’t like them,’ the other man corrected. ‘Don’t mistake his thoughts for their own.’

  ‘Because they have shown themselves to be so independent?’ He glanced around the small room. ‘There’s a bottle of wine in here, if you would like to share it?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘There’s water.’

  A sigh of defeat escaped the cartographer. ‘I did not come here to drink,’ he said, the anger leaving his voice. ‘I came here to warn you.’

  ‘Warn me?’ He stepped past the other man towards the small dresser and its jug of water and mugs. ‘You seem to think our situation could get worse.’ Behind the dresser, wedged so it would not roll, was a dark bottle of wine. ‘I don’t see you with a plan to make it better and I know Taela doesn’t have one, so if one of us isn’t trying something, then all that she, you and I are doing, is watching this unfold.’

  ‘It could get worse for Taela.’

  ‘What, she could die?’

  Orlan did not immediately respond and, in that silence, Bueralan began to pull the cork from the bottle.

  ‘Aela Ren has held these men and women together for over seven hundred years,’ the cartographer said finally. ‘You will not turn one against him.’

  ‘They’re too old to be blindly loyal.’

  ‘Blind loyalty is the gift of old age, Bueralan.’

  With the cork free, he held the bottle by its throat. ‘Let me tell you something about loyalty,’ he said. ‘Loyalty is only blind if you are distant. If you are close, all you see are the cracks. Every army is filled with fractures. Discipline and loyalty are what smoothes the breaks and makes the bond that everyone shares stronger. But the cracks never go away. That’s what makes a career soldier so valuable. They’re there for the belief. Their loyalty is to the men and women they serve with and to the ideal of what they serve. To break that, you need to have engaged in something so horrendous that it challenges all the discipline and loyalty, that it causes every fracture in the unit to rise to the surface and begin to spread out like a spider’s web.’

  ‘They are not a simple army,’ Orlan said. ‘These men and women were once the servants of the gods—’

  ‘And they have been destroying their creation.’

  Before Orlan could reply, the door opened and Taela stepped in. ‘The two of you sound like an old married couple,’ she said. ‘Is that our wine?’

  Bueralan bit back his argument and his frustration and said, ‘You want some?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘I thought you were with her,’ the cartographer said, stepping aside as she made her way past him. ‘Did something go wrong?’

  ‘What could go right?’ Taela sank onto her bed, taking the mug that Bueralan handed her. ‘I don’t know what she wanted. Usually, she talks to me until I can barely stand. When she does, she tells me the most awful things. She tells me what she has planned for humanity, for the world. At times, I think she is telling me just to gauge my emotions, as if she’s never been around a person who didn’t worship her, and doesn’t quite know how they will respond to her.’ Unconsciously or consciously, the woman who had once been the Voice of the Queen rubbed at the swell of her stomach and took a sip of the dark wine. ‘But when I got there, she simply looked at me and thanked me for wearing the shirt that I am wearing. Then she said, “When you go back to your room, tell those two men that I am happy.”’

  ‘With what?’ Bueralan asked.

  ‘She didn’t say.’

  6.

  Sinae Al’tor was not wrong.

  The Lord of the Saan, Miat Dvir, visited Ayae three days after he had met with Muriel Wagan and Lian Alahn. Before that, the Saan disembarked from their huge ships and set up a camp next to the already established tents. They were all male but for the woman who had accompanied Dvir, and they shared their tents with one another, and trained against each other. They spoke the traders’ tongue in various levels of proficiency, and in the three days, stories emerged of confusion, insults and, once, a fight which no one could properly explain. But those stories were small and isolated, and for the men and women from Yeflam and Mireea, life continued much as it had before the Saan ships appeared. They continued to work on the repair of Neela and still went out into the fields that had become an important part of their lives.

  Ayae returned to Neela twice with Eidan. He showed little interest in the Saan, so much so that it was she who was forced to bring it up, in the dark hours of their morning. ‘They are here for war,’ he said, and shrugged. ‘The Saan exist to fight. It has not always been the case, but it has been for some time.’ Then, after a moment, he said, ‘They will come to you. To you, before me and my brother. Do as you wish.’ She had thanked him, drily, and he had told her that it was his pleasure. He was trying not to smile, but the scars in his face gave him away.

  Other than Eidan, no one repeated Sinae’s words to Ayae. Instead, she heard pieces of gossip, stories of what was said inside the tent, and what was said, after, in the individual tents of Muriel Wagan and Lian Alahn. Everyone agreed that the Saan were here for war. Some said that they told the Lady of the Ghosts that they wanted to go over the Mountains of Ger before the month finished. They wanted to set up camps before the summer rains arrived and they wanted the Mireeans and the Yeflam Guard to come with them. She, it was said, supported that. Lian Alahn did not, and was said to be withholding the Yeflam Guard until the Saan agreed to help rebuild Yeflam. Miat Dvir was alleged to have told him that he did not care what happened to the land in the ocean. The quote Ayae heard repeated around the camp claimed that the Lord of the Saan had said that Yeflam was not real. ‘It was a lie that men and women had been allowed to live on.’

  Ayae had asked Caeli about that, but the guard did not know about the exact words. ‘He said nothing to make Alahn happy, though,’ she admitted.

  The two were sitting on old wooden chairs when the Lord of the Saan approached. Ayae had come back from Neela earlier and found Caeli inside their tent with two trays of breakfast cooling for both of them. They had just finished the warm bread and pieces of ham when Miat Dvir, in the company of the middle-aged woman from the landing, walked up to their tent. Behind them, a Saan warrior with copper rings around the lower half of both arms followed, a pair of chairs held in his grasp. At the Lord’s indication, he set these down opposite the two women and, after Dvir and the woman sat, he took his place behind them.

  ‘It is a pleasure to meet you, finally,’ Miat said to Ayae, first. He turned and offered a brief nod to Caeli as well. ‘If you will excuse me, I would prefer another to speak for me. I do not speak the traders’ tongue well.’ He spoke it well enough, Ayae thought, but said nothing. ‘Not like Vyla,’ he added, placing a heavy hand on the arm of the woman at his side.

  Vyla had light brown skin and she was not tall, not like Caeli, but nor did she have the lean body of someone short, like Ayae. Rather, she had a fullness to her that was hidden in the folds of her yellow and orange dress. She had a han
dsome face, one that was strongly defined by her chin and nose, and her hair was hidden beneath a brown and white spotted scarf.

  ‘I thank you both for your time,’ Vyla said, her voice deep and strong. ‘We will endeavour not to take too much of it up.’

  ‘I should probably leave,’ Caeli said, rising.

  Miat spoke quickly. ‘No,’ Vyla said. ‘My husband wishes for you to stay. It would be a great insult to the Blade Prince if you left your home because of us.’

  Ayae could see the surprise on her friend’s face. Her relationship with Xrie had been one she kept private, one not common knowledge in the camp. ‘I don’t want to cause a conflict,’ the guard said, returning to her chair. ‘Besides, it is very public out here.’

  The Lord of the Saan spoke. ‘We will not be long,’ his wife said. ‘Nor do we have anything to hide. Besides, both of you are Mireean, are you not?’

  ‘I have a job with Lady Wagan,’ Caeli said, her words chosen carefully. ‘Ayae does not.’

  Vyla Dvir turned to Ayae as her husband spoke. ‘You do not?’ she asked, her voice holding the faint surprise that his did. ‘We were under the impression that you supported Muriel Wagan.’

  Ayae shifted uncomfortably in her seat. ‘I do,’ she said.

  ‘Then,’ Vyla said, after Miat had spoken, ‘if Mireea were to march on Se’Saera, you would march as well?’

  ‘I am not a soldier.’

  ‘But you are . . .’

  ‘Cursed?’ Ayae suggested.

  A faint frown creased Vyla’s brow. ‘That is not a word we use,’ she said. Miat had not spoken first this time. ‘The word that we use in our language does not have an easy translation, sadly. Immortal, perhaps, is a suitable description? You are like our uncle. You are like the Blade Prince of the Saan. You cannot die.’