By the time she arrived at Ruinat a tale beyond her wildest imagining preceded her, one that she understood only later. It seemed her timing was fortuitous and unusual enough that it could be explained only with a strange blend of logic and faith. The villagers had begun whispering. Did not Vaharinda say that Maeben in human form had pale blue eyes, just like this girl? Did he not call her hair thin and wispy? And was her skin not the color of light sand? Fine, so the girl was darker than that, slightly, but overall the effect was convincing. They needed a new Maeben. They had for some time, but the priests had been unable to find a suitable girl. Usually one was born among them. In this instance the goddess had given herself to them in an even truer form. Her arrival was not perfect in its symbology, but some things were ignored, others embellished, still other details fabricated. She would eventually learn to favor her legend over the story she knew to be the truth. She welcomed the power it gave her, the right to wrath, the status as a misfortunate child of the gods, ill suited to the joys others took for granted but necessary to the maintenance of life. Special.
Nine years later, as she stepped onto the platform above the throng of worshippers below, there was little doubt that that was just what she was. They stared up at her. There she was, lit by torchlight in the enclosed chamber. She paced the platform in feathered glory, dyed fifty different colors, with massive talons curving from her fingers. The eyes that stared at them from behind the hook of her beak mask were farseeing and intense. Spikes thrust up into the air from the crown of her head, a mad, jagged chaos of a headdress. She was a nightmare of beauty and menace living right there above them, a being part raptor, part human, part divine. She knew without question that she could sweep down on them and inflict upon all of them a terrible vengeance if she wished. She had the capacity for violence within her, residing beside her heart.
The second to the head priest announced her arrival. He chastised the worshippers for their insignificance. Mena thrust her arms up above her head at the appointed moment, the feathered flaps of fabric snapping and fluttering. Every head below tilted toward the floor. Some fell to their knees. Others lay prostrate on the ground. All begged for her mercy. They adored her, they said, doing so in a chant that cut against the rhythm of the chimes. They loved her. They feared her. The priest berated them, cut them to pieces, reminded them of the follies of humanity, asked them if they understood that vengeance came from the sky with the speed of an eagle’s cry. The discordant music picked up, and between the questions and answers and the moaning and beseeching of the prostrate worshippers the chamber pulsed and trembled.
Looking out over the heads of the priests, past them to the masses of noblemen, the common folk behind, the women and children along the edges—all of them bent low in reverent bows to her, long acts of devotion that they could not end until she signaled that they could do so—she thought that perhaps she really was Maeben. She had been her all along. It just took her some time to find herself. This was her home now. This was her role. She was Maeben, the child stealer, the vengeance flung out of the sky. It was she to whom the people divulged their fears and swore their adoration.
She cried out that the faithful might rise and behold her once more. She spoke clear voiced as she did when Maeben talked through her, cutting through the other sounds. At such moments she had never been anybody else. When she spread her wings and leaped screeching into the air she had not the slightest doubt that every hand below her would stretch to catch her. And if one could leap from a height with no fear of falling, could one not be said to possess the secret of flight? Just like a bird, just like a god.
Chapter Thirty-Three
How strange this land is, Hanish thought as he looked out from his office balcony across the tremulous shimmer of the Inner Sea. It had always seemed unnatural to him that a land should be so kind to the living. It struck him as unhealthy—in a manner of speaking—that a climate could be so healthy, so benign. Here was a land in which the fundamental struggles Hanish considered necessary to life had been removed or had never existed. One could step outside at any time of the year into mild weather, or at worst a chill or a few snowflakes. The coldest weather Acacia could offer was nothing that a Meinish child could not stand naked in through an entire night. Up on the plateau, a single supply forgotten in the wild, a single mistake made, a sudden change in the winds, a clue left for the wolf packs…There were so many forces in that world intent on harm that one could never relax. Nothing could be done halfheartedly. Acacia was something else entirely. The ease of it, the luxury…Well, perhaps there was a peril in such things. One just had to recognize that danger had a soft face as well as a harsh one.
“King Hanish Mein, it surprises me that a man in your position would stand with his back to an accessible room.”
Hanish recognized the voice behind him. He had been waiting for him, but he would have recognized the voice wherever he heard it. There was no mistaking the nasal whine, the self-satisfied air, the space in between certain words filled with a sound like purring. He prepared himself to be unnerved. He let the emotion possess him for a moment and pass through, so that none of it showed on his face. With men like Sire Dagon the ability to hide one’s true thoughts, while remaining skeptical to anything proffered by the other, was imperative.
“I am not a king,” Hanish said, turning to face Sire Dagon. “Please, I prefer to remain a chieftain. It just so happens I am now the chief chieftain of the Known World. As for my safety, not all palaces are as cutthroat as those of the league.”
“Hmmm…that’s not what I’ve heard,” the league master said. Though tall of stature, his body had about it an awkward fragility, as if there were barely enough muscle tissue to support his frame. His elongated head was hooded, but the bright light of the afternoon illumed his face with rare detail. His eyes had the bloodshot taint of a regular mist smoker. Yet they were alert, the mind behind them unclouded. Hanish had never understood their use of the drug. They had clearly harnessed it to purposes different from those of the sedated masses.
Men of the league did not touch others in greeting, so the two men simply stepped near to each other and bowed. “But anyway,” Sire Dagon continued, “I am glad it is you I meet with now as opposed to some other, to some impostor. One hears talk that you could at any day be called to that dance of yours. What do you call it?”
Hanish knew very well that Sire Dagon remembered the word. Leaguemen had encyclopedic memories. “The Maseret,” he answered.
“Yes, that’s it. The Maseret. Forgive me for suggesting that this custom should be discouraged. Your prowess is renowned, yes, but to tell any man of your race that he could have for himself all that you have earned is a mistake. Why wave such a possibility before others? This could soon stir ambitious fools to challenge you.”
Several have done just that, Hanish thought. He had danced five times since coming south to Acacia, which meant that five of his own men had died on his knife blade. Each of them desired his power. Each hoped to gain everything through a single act of murder. He knew that Sire Dagon knew this already also. No need to bring it up. “You honor me with the suggestion that it matters to the league just whom they deal with.”
“You gave your people the world they now rule. The league does not forget this, even if some others close to you do. Personally I admire your focus. And, yes, Hanish, that is a compliment. At my age few things interest me. My friend, even the acquisition of wealth has become more a force of habit than an ambition.”
Hanish doubted that even looming death could extinguish a leagueman’s ravenous ambition, but he gave no outward sign of it. Nor did he acknowledge the reference to others close to him. Was that a jibe or a warning? He motioned that they should find relief from the sun.
Inside, they sat across from each other in high-backed leather chairs, an ornate table of the Senivalian fashion between them. A band of servants entered, food and drink trays balanced on their bare arms. The two men conversed for some time. Each wor
e a façade of casual comfort in the other’s presence, like old friends with nothing more pressing to discuss than the length of the growing season on Acacia, the coming migration of the swallows, the positive effects of sea air on health. Hanish welcomed the respite. It allowed him to study Sire Dagon, to weigh not just what he said but how he said it, to look for thoughts betrayed by the motion of his hands or the emphasis placed on certain words. He knew the leagueman was putting him through a similar inspection.
“So, Sire Dagon, you have returned recently from the other side of the world?”
“I have returned from the other side of the world, yes.”
As he had tried before on many occasions, Hanish wanted to probe this leagueman for information of the foreigners, the Lothan Aklun. Who were these people who shaped so much of the destiny of the Known World? They had, in a way, been his allies in fighting against Leodan Akaran, but he had never set eyes on one of them and knew nothing of their customs or history. He had never so much as heard one of them given an individual name. They resided on a chain of barrier islands that ran the length of the continent known as the Other Lands. They had no wish to interact with the Known World, being content with the riches the Quota provided them. As far as Hanish knew, none of them had ever ventured across the Gray Slopes themselves; the league did that for them.
During his first years in power he had demanded to know whom he was dealing with. League representatives had promised to pass on his “request,” but nothing ever came of it. He had even peppered Calrach of the Numrek with questions about them. His people came from that side of the world, but they offered him little that made sense. Calrach had referred to the Lothan Aklun as “unimportant.” They were no more than traders, he claimed.
Nine years in power and the Lothan Aklun were real to Hanish only because of their ravenous appetite for child slaves and because they produced the drug that had helped him soothe his tumultuous empire. Leaguemen assured him that was as it had to be, and he knew Sire Dagon would provide no new answers to his questions now. He chose not to raise the subject again.
“By the way,” Sire Dagon said, “the Lothan are pleased that you have made progress with the antoks. They presented them to you in the belief that you would find a way to harness their ravenous appetites. It pleases them that you have done so.”
Hanish nodded. He had actually had little to do with these antoks. They were strange beasts that he had laid eyes on only once. They were enormous creatures, like living versions of the giants whose bones were sometimes found in the ground. He could scarcely describe them. They were a mixture of the worst swinish and canine traits, unfeeling, brutal, ravenous. He eventually conceived of a practical way he might use them in battle, but he had left it to Maeander to handle the creatures in a remote compound in Senival. The less he heard about the beasts, the better.
Sire Dagon did not linger on them long. “I trust you will be pleased by the news I bring,” he said. “The Lothan Aklun are anxious to increase their trade with you. They have been patient these many years, as you know. The scant tribute you have sent them thus far…you understand that they consider it a kindness done to you that they have accepted it without complaint and that they have supplied the empire with mist on credit, as it were. It was a necessary period of adjustment, but now it is concluded.”
He paused, raised and lowered a single eyebrow. Hanish simply motioned with his fingers that he should continue.
“We have pledged that we will deliver a full shipment of Quota slaves to them before the winter. It will be double the amount the Akarans offered, but this is no more than what you agreed to before the war. From each province they request five thousand bodies, evenly distributed between the sexes, no more or less of any one race. The age range may need to be larger than before, but they have no issue with this. In return, they will increase the mist by a third. This may not seem much, but the drug has been refined. It is no longer as incapacitating as before, and it is more addictive. The body adjusts to it in a manner that means when deprived of it the user experiences significant distress—hallucinations, fever, pain. Most will do anything just to ensure their supply. This is all detailed in documents supporting the revised treaty. And that, Hanish Mein, is all there is to it. You’ll be glad to hear that they demand nothing more from you than this.”
Hanish glanced away, thinking that they demand nothing more than the world itself. Generous of them. His gaze settled on a golden monkey that had perched on the banister of the balcony, its yellow-orange hair aflame in the sunlight. Hanish did not like the creatures. Never had. They had about them a noisy, knowing air, as if this whole palace was actually theirs and he was just an interloper. Early in his stay on Acacia he had introduced another variety of primate, a stout thing with long snow-white hair and a brilliant blue face. But these had proved unruly and belligerent. They hunted down the goldens and left bloody, half-eaten corpses strewn around the grounds. They seemed to take pleasure in tossing severed limbs at groups of women. Hanish had eventually ordered them slaughtered; the goldens, however, won favor with the noblewomen. They remained.
“I have brought the revised treaty with me,” Sire Dagon said. “You and your people may peruse it at leisure. And that, largely, will be that. You can then get on with enjoying your hard-won empire. There is only one new aspect of the treaty for you to consider.” The leagueman seemed to remember the food all at once and stretched to study the trays. He let that last statement sit a moment, but Hanish waited. “As our commission for negotiating it, the league asks for…well, we request no change in our percentage, no monetary bonus—nothing like that. We would simply like to take a burden from your shoulders and place it on ours instead.”
Hanish touched the scar on his nose with his thumb, just a passing motion that he did not linger on. Wryly, he said, “I can barely contain my curiosity.”
“We would like to take the Outer Isles off your hands. We would like to own them outright.”
“Those islands are thronging with pirates.”
Sire Dagon smiled. “We have considered that. They are not a problem. We have examined every aspect of how they function, and we are confident we can pacify them.”
“They are hardly the type to accept passivity of any sort.”
“They have been a problem to you, haven’t they?” Sire Dagon asked. “So many problems you’ve taken on your shoulders. Perhaps you did not think that the peace would be more challenging than the war. This is a lesson only learned by error and trial. It is why the league chooses to always be at peace, even if our friends choose to make war on one another.”
Hanish could not dispute that there was wisdom in such an approach. Who would have thought that winning the military battles would prove to be easy compared to managing the empire? One and then another and then another crisis sprouted. Some of the trouble was of his own making. The fever was more virulent than he had imagined, for example. He had not fully reckoned with how far it would spread and how quickly it would outstrip his military objectives. It simply killed too many, leaving a weakened fragment of the former population to rebuild after the war.
Also, the Numrek outlived their usefulness, and their welcome. They had not returned across the Ice Fields as they had first promised they would, though Hanish had paid them lavishly for their services. In the turmoil after the war, as the fever still raged through the south, they entrenched themselves in Aushenia, claiming the entire region as their own, taking over the towns and villages and the royal estates, enslaving the humans unlucky enough to get captured. Even worse, they had started colonies along the western edge of the Talayan coast. Creatures of the frozen north, indeed! As it turned out they loved nothing better than baking beneath a furious sun and swimming in the limpid waters.
There were other problems he had no hand in creating. The people—perhaps because the war disrupted the flow of the mist—got all sorts of ideas in their heads. They became unruly, conniving, flaring into rebellion, staging acts of sabotage
, as when they set fire to the grain stores on the Mainland, halving the supply there and causing a near famine year. They spun stories of holy prophecies, said that Hanish and his plague were the harbingers of the Giver’s return. They developed a liking for martyrs, recalcitrant bastards upon whom torture and execution were but a blessing. Talay had never been fully pacified; the Outer Isles were lousy with pirates; his troops were pestered by assassins in the guise of loyal subjects.
And the revolts at the mines were most frustrating. Just when Hanish was poised to restart the engine of the world’s commerce, the miners took it into their heads to grasp control of their own lives. They refused to work. Some fool among them rose to prominence by suggesting that the miners deserved a share of their profits from their labor. A silver-tongued, ranting prophet of a man, Barack the Lesser, had caused no end of trouble. He had even claimed to have seen the future return of Aliver Akaran. How very annoying. His efforts achieved nothing but misery for all involved. The strike had to be put down through a siege that Hanish could scarcely afford to prosecute. So many of them died. Such a waste of manpower; all for nothing.
The Numrek, the league, and the Lothan Aklun: how had be become so miserably indebted to all of them? In frozen Cathgergen, so far from power and privilege, each partnership had made complete sense. Why not buy an army and pay them with treasure from lands they themselves conquered? Why not promise great sums to merchants who would help to enrich him? What better partner in business than the suppliers to a ravenous market never looked upon or dealt with directly? No sum had seemed too great if paying them helped him achieve his goals. He felt different now, on every count.
Not least of his worries was that he had managed to catch only one of the four Akaran children. Corinn went unharmed and lived comfortably in Acacia. She knew nothing of the fate that still awaited her. Her presence should have been a comfort, one less thing to worry about. Instead, she shot him through with a sort of torment. What would he do with her? What did he want to do with her?
Acacia, The War with the Mein Page 32
