The Eternal Kingdom (The Children Trilogy Book 3)

by Ben Peek

  —Onaedo, Histories, Year 1029

  1.

  It was the sight of Aelyn Meah that Bueralan could not turn away from in Gtara.

  He was the last to step off Glafanr, the last to leave the recently rebuilt dock that ran into the port, but he was the first to look away from Se’Saera and the Keepers and see the woman who had once led them. He found her in the middle of the barbed-wire pens that sat in the centre of the town, surrounded by Faaishan men and women. Trees at the edge of the town had been felled to provide posts for the pens and they had an unfinished, rough quality that Aelyn could have hurled to the side easily, but did not. Instead, she sat in the middle of it, the mud of the pen around the torn trousers she wore, her face so still that the saboteur thought, at first, that she had been turned to stone.

  He had seen Aelyn Meah half a dozen times before. Each time, it had been from afar, from a seat in the theatres where she gave her public lectures. The talks had been held in the twisting white building that the Keepers called the Enclave, which stood in Yeflam’s capital, Nale. It was there that he had seen some of the other Keepers – Kaqua the Pauper, Mequisa the Bard and a handful of others – but he had not heard them speak. He had gone to hear her, to hear one of the people who had been responsible for the Five Kingdoms, and who had in turn been part of the creation of Ooila. Each time he heard her speak, he was impressed by her awareness of her place in the world, and the influence that she had in it.

  He saw none of that now. She appeared to have been stripped of her sense of self, much in the way that the men and women soon to be sold as slaves had been stripped of their identities.

  ‘Do you see these people?’ Se’Saera said as she approached the pen. ‘I was like them, once. I was blind to the world around me.’

  ‘But no more?’ It was Kaqua who spoke. He was a tall, sonorously voiced black man who wore a faded multicoloured robe. It had been he who had stepped forwards to greet Se’Saera when she arrived. He had bowed to the god and said, in his particularly strange voice, that he and the Keepers were pledged to Se’Saera’s reign. ‘Do you now see the whole world,’ the Pauper continued, ‘as your parents did?’

  ‘Not completely,’ the god admittedly easily. She listened to the Keeper’s words with half an ear, it seemed. Once he had finished she had walked past him. ‘I see the future in snippets, in pieces that I must put together into a whole.’ The slavers who had taken over the town stood around her in silence. They were the rough men and women with no uniform dress, but who had been lined up against the houses of Gtara like children at a school, regardless. ‘I know more of the present,’ the god continued. ‘Since my name was given to me, and to the world, I have heard the voices of many. I hear prayers. I hear curses. I hear conversations that are neither. In just the past week, for example, one of my Faithful was killed in Vaeasa. He was a man of some importance, but another man had him stripped naked, and strapped him to a chair. What followed had a certain instructional element in it, but was not pleasant. My name was used by both men for the three hours that the conversation took place. At the same time, I heard my name said in Yeflam, in Gogair and in Ooila. I even heard the prayers of my Faithful in battle. It has been a strange and exhilarating change in my existence.’

  ‘I look forward to sharing such a life with you,’ Kaqua said.

  ‘I am sure that you do.’ She reached out to one of the slaves, a young olive-skinned boy. He could not be any older than thirteen, Bueralan thought. ‘But first, we have much to discuss. Have you done to Aelyn what you have done to the slavers?’

  ‘She has been very agitated since her brother died. I have had to keep her subdued so that she did not harm herself. The slavers simply lacked a proper respect.’

  ‘Respect,’ she repeated, as if tasting the word. ‘Is that why you gave up Yeflam? Why you drove away my general and his soldiers?’

  ‘I am afraid that was Aelyn,’ he said, the strange tone in his voice suddenly magnified. ‘We could do little to stop her.’

  ‘You promised your home to me.’

  ‘Did you still want it?’ he asked. ‘After all, you ordered your creatures to attack. We thought that you might have changed your mind after what happened at the trial.’

  ‘Why do you think you can question me?’ Her tone was mild, but as she said it, Aela Ren and his soldiers began to spread out around the Keepers. ‘You are not my equal,’ Se’Saera said. ‘Do not think that you are.’

  ‘Of course not.’ The note in the Pauper’s voice seemed to skip a beat, Bueralan thought. ‘It was simply an honest question asked by a loyal subject,’ he said, returning to it. ‘You would have the right to destroy it after what had happened to you.’

  In the middle of the pen, Aelyn Meah raised her head.

  ‘I do not wish to destroy Yeflam. If I did, the words of Lor Jix would be given authority and they would be used against me. But if Yeflam is mine, if it is one of the capitals of my Faithful, then the words must be no more than that. Your failure to see that has forced me to enlist others to repair what you did.’ Se’Saera lifted the cloth from the boy’s eyes. The sockets were damaged, as if he had, until recently, been clawing at the injuries. ‘Do you not feel the need to apologize to me?’

  ‘I do,’ he said. ‘The failure was ours, and mine in particular. I thought that I had a stronger control on Aelyn. I thought – as we all did – that her hatred for her brother was something she would not resist. But instead of strengthening my hold on her, it weakened it substantially. I believe it was due, in part, to the presence of Jae’le and Eidan. She has never stopped loving the latter, and when he sided against her, it challenged my control.’

  ‘But she still killed Qian, yes?’

  ‘She did.’

  ‘He was the strongest of them.’

  ‘They are all strong,’ he said.

  In the pen, the boy Se’Saera held gave a slight shudder. ‘Shhh,’ the god murmured, as a thin strand of black appeared. It ran in a taut line from one end of the socket to the other. It appeared first in the right eye, then in the left. ‘I had a vision of Yeflam,’ she said. ‘It came to me before my name was first said. In it, my name was obscured, but was reaching to me. It felt as if it had been hidden for thousands and thousands of years but was now rising towards me. It came from deep within Leviathan’s Blood, as if it was the heartbeat of the world, but I could not make it out clearly. It left a great apprehension in me. Now I think that it may have been fear. Fear because the ruins conveyed the idea that destruction was close to me, close to the truth of who I was.’ The strand in each of the boy’s empty eye sockets had begun to spread and grow while she spoke, until pitch-black orbs filled the vacant sockets. ‘Tell me,’ Se’Saera said, releasing the boy’s head. ‘Tell me, Kaqua, when Qian died, was he was plunged into Leviathan’s Blood?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said quietly. ‘We waited for some time to see if he surfaced.’

  ‘You should have searched. Jae’le has done that every day for him.’ Se’Saera ran her hand under the boy’s chin, before tilting it up to her. ‘I used to have eyes like the ones I gave you,’ she said to him. ‘I made them myself. They could see the world as I do, when I wished. They could see the dead. You will be able to do that now. You mustn’t be frightened by them. They are here for me. They are mine and they will not hurt you. I told that to the eyes I made before, as well, but they were deceptive. I thought that there was only anguish in them, not betrayal. The mistake was mine. I was not yet as formed as I am now. What I created was not truly mine. That is why my eyes are mine and you will be the carrier of them. It will be only for a short time and then you will be free. That is my promise to you. Do you understand that.’

  The boy nodded once, but did not speak.

  ‘You will take my eyes to the Mountains of Ger. You will be looking for a man. My eyes will recognize him. One of General Zilt’s soldiers will take you there and protect you.’ She released the boy’s chin and turned to the blond man. ‘One who runs fast.’<
br />
  Zilt turned and, as he did, there emerged from the trees around the town, from the trees that led deep into the marshes of Leera, just under three dozen hulking, deformed men and women. One left its position and approached. It had long, dark hair wrapped around four pieces of sharp metal that sat on top of its head. It bore no resemblance to any gender due to all its ritual scarring and piercing, but the haunt that stretched across its body in a distorted echo of the flesh was, Bueralan believed, female. Yet, as frighting as it appeared, it lifted the boy from the pen gently. After a slight bow to Zilt, and a deeper one to Se’Saera, it began to run from the town, holding the boy in its arms.

  ‘Now.’ Se’Saera lifted the wire loop that held the pen gate shut and entered. The blind slaves stepped from her path, as if they could see her, but it was Aelyn whom Bueralan watched. She met the god’s approach with steady, sad eyes. ‘You have been underestimated,’ Se’Saera said. ‘I can see that now. The years have allowed for familiarity to become contempt. It is a lesson that I will take as my own after today. But before then, tell me, Aelyn: did you know that your brother was not dead when he fell?’

  ‘Please, Se’Saera, allow me to ask your questions,’ the Pauper said, rushing after her into the slave pen. ‘It is easier—’

  Se’Saera’s hand rose to silence him. ‘Aelyn,’ she repeated, not turning away from her. ‘Did you know?’

  ‘He cannot die,’ she said, the words forcing themselves out.

  The god’s hand plunged into Kaqua’s chest.

  2.

  Lord Elan Wagan, who had been the Lord of the Spine until, with a tragic sense of inevitability, he became the Lord of the Ghosts, did not acknowledge his stepdaughter.

  He sat outside his small tent, folded into an old, but well-maintained wheelchair. In the fullness of his health, he had been a tall, handsome man, and the echoes of that still remained, even though his muscles had wasted to such an extent that the bones of his long limbs were revealed starkly. He no longer talked, though he did still make noises: Eilona heard him hum a tune she did not recognize and mutter words she could not identify. She did not know what caused him to make those sounds, or if he was responding to anything at all, for he did not react to the presence or absence of his carers. He took what was put in his hands and ate what was put in his mouth, but the black cloth across his empty eyes was always turned towards the sky, regardless. It might have been nothing more than his memories, Eilona thought as she sat beside him. If so, she hoped that the mix of keft and bjir he was given every two hours allowed him pleasant memories.

  Her stepfather had been the first casualty of Se’Saera’s War. Before anyone had known about the new god, Elan Wagan had responded to the raids on Mireea by riding to Leera. He returned blind and, with the loss of his eyes, he had lost his self as well. Eilona’s mother sent her a letter when it happened and she returned, with Laena, to Mireea.

  She had cried when she first saw him, but when he began to scream during the night, she realized that a part of her world had been removed. Her stepfather had always treated her as his daughter. He had never once seen her as anything else, and in her visits home he had done much to mend the relationship between Eilona and her mother.

  She did not know what terrorized her stepfather at night. Neither did Reila. ‘I suspect that his injuries were inflicted at night,’ the small silver-haired healer explained to her in Mireea. ‘If it is true, there is little I can do to help him. There are some actions a man can simply not return from.’

  Eilona sat in her small, cramped office, the walls around her surrounded by jars and small plants. ‘What took his eyes?’ she asked.

  ‘No knife or finger. They were not removed by any implement that I know of. It is as if he was simply born without them.’

  Or, Eilona thought now, as if they were removed by a god.

  Did Se’Saera tell him that when he first met her? The afternoon’s sun was starting to set out on the ocean, the scudding clouds and light mingling over it like burn marks. How the Lord of the Spine met a god was, perhaps, the real question to ask. Eilona knew he would not have approached her with respect, but did Se’Saera appear when he entered? The god would have looked like a child then, or so Eilona had been told. She could imagine a child standing on a street, surrounded by the buildings the Leerans were stripping to build siege towers and catapults. Her stepfather would have ridden along a road surrounded by men and women pulling down houses, tearing up floors and breaking roofs apart. She could see him on the back of his horse, approaching the new god.

  Eilona loved her stepfather, but she was not blind to his faults. He was vain, but his vanity was not one born from his looks, or even his intellect, but rather his masculinity. Now that she was older, Eilona recognized that he had always defined a part of himself through his physical prowess. He had been a captain in the Mireean Guard before he and Muriel Wagan married and, after, he had attempted to be both lord and captain. In hindsight, Eilona could see how such a role was never tenable, but after her mother employed Aned Heast to be the Captain of the Spine – a title she made just for him – her stepfather had responded by spending a fortune on armour, weapons and honorary ranks.

  ‘How is he today?’ Muriel Wagan asked as she approached. She wore a dress made from green, red and black, the edges of its sleeves and hem frayed. ‘I am told he had a good night’s sleep.’

  He had awoken only once, Eilona heard. ‘I was told the same,’ she said. ‘He seems content. I think he likes the sun on his face.’

  ‘He always has.’

  Behind Muriel Wagan came Caeli. The guard did not spare a glance, or say hello to Eilona, but rather walked inside her father’s tent.

  ‘How did it go with the Saan and Lian Alahn?’ she asked.

  ‘Difficult.’ Her mother kissed her stepfather’s forehead as Caeli re-emerged with a chair. She set it wordlessly next to Eilona. ‘But in three days, they will begin to go over the Mountain of Ger,’ the Lady of the Ghosts said, taking the seat.

  ‘That doesn’t sound like a difficult conversation.’

  ‘No, but Miat Dvir wanted a young woman to accompany him. After she told him no, things grew heated.’

  Eilona was lost, but it was Caeli who answered. ‘You had asked too much of Ayae already,’ the guard said. ‘She has her own mind. She was always going to use it sooner rather than later.’

  ‘You weren’t supposed to become friends with her,’ Muriel Wagan said. There was no rancour in her voice when she spoke. ‘You were meant to watch her and learn about her. You were supposed to help me with her.’

  ‘I needed a new friend,’ the guard replied blandly. ‘Besides, I didn’t push her towards Aelyn Meah, or her brothers—’

  ‘Thank you.’ Her interruption was sour. ‘Anyway,’ Eilona’s mother said to her, ‘managing that was the difficulty of the morning. It was made harder when my guard took her side.’

  Her stepfather had never liked Caeli. It was there, Eilona knew, that the first seeds of what would see her leave Mireea had been planted.

  Caeli was only a few years younger than her, but their childhoods had little in common. If Eilona had been raised in the heart of all the privilege that could be gained in Mireea, then Caeli had grown up in the veins that kept that luxury alive. Her parents had been bakers. When their daughter expressed an interest in becoming a mercenary, they sought out Aned Heast and asked him for advice. He had taken over Caeli’s education and, under his tutelage, the teenage girl was taught swords, knives, horses and all the various other skills that one needed to survive the profession of war. Once she had finished her training, Heast assigned her as the personal guard to Eilona’s mother.

  Elan Wagan resisted and Eilona took his side, as much to spite her mother as to support him.

  The event that led to Caeli’s appointment was the death of Joerl. He had guarded Eilona’s mother, father, stepfather and her, since her mother’s first marriage. Joerl had been a huge, brown-bearded white man whose downfall be
gan when he was caught selling information about trade to merchants. Her mother and stepfather had approached him about it but upon hearing the accusation, Joerl had announced his innocence publicly and called upon the Captain of the Spine to recant. Heast had not, of course, and Joerl’s disgrace went from private to public, before it ended in the public shame of suicide.

  ‘His wife found him.’ Her stepfather was sitting alone in his office. Eilona had come to find him after hearing the news. His face, she remembered, had been one of grief. ‘He had cut open his stomach with a dagger.’ He took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘I told him not to challenge Heast. I told him he would not show mercy. I said he was not a man like me. But he did not listen, and now we will have a young woman of Heast’s choice thrust into our midst. A young spy to report to him.’

  Caeli had moved into the Keep after the funeral. In hindsight, Eilona knew that everything she did came from within Eilona herself, and not the other woman, but that did not change what had happened. She spoke against Caeli’s appointment in public. In the midst of it, she realized that what she was doing was no more than hurting someone. She could still remember the starkness of the moment when she recognized that, the hollowness of it. But it did not stop her. She spoke about Caeli to trade representatives, to friends of the family, to other soldiers. She attacked Caeli’s family, her inexperience, her looks, everything that she could. She became so vitriolic that at one point her stepfather drew her aside and counselled her against what she was doing, but it was too late.

  Caeli’s parents were assaulted in their home. The two men who did it were part of a fringe group in Mireea, supporting a cause Eilona could not even remember. They were within a breath of killing Caeli’s father, having tied her mother up, when the guard came home. One of the men survived long enough to tell Captain Heast why they had done it, for whom, and the public outcry that followed was one Eilona knew she deserved.