When they saw the miserable condition of the people, Sakolu and the Toga mi Lyo were overcome with remorse. They had used the Toda to save the king, but the country that had once welcomed people of all races had vanished, replaced by an empire founded on tyranny and oppression. Sakolu, with the Toga mi Lyo, lit the beacon of rebellion.
The king did not stand a chance against an army that could bend the Toda to its will. Protected by a few vassals, he fled with his family and close kin, deep into the rugged ravines of the Afon Noah, narrowly escaping the pursuing Toda. The fugitives, who were only about two hundred strong, spent the next decade hiding in the mountains. Having amassed the world’s wealth and become accustomed to the height of luxury, this sudden fall to a life of destitution and exile, where not even their next meal was certain, sowed a bitterness in their hearts. Resentment served as the bread that sustained them through ten long years of cruel cold and hunger.
When they first ventured into the mountains, they came upon a race of hunters—tall, stately people who lived in the mountain ravines and hunted with huge winged beasts. Their leader was a man, but their spiritual guide was a young woman. One day, the son of the exiled king witnessed an incredible sight. Winged beasts fell upon a pack of Toda, ripped them apart with their claws, and devoured them as if they were no more than sacrificial offerings. When he heard this tale, the king visited the head of the hunters with a proposal.
“If you raise an army of winged beasts and help us regain our country, I will make you rulers over that land.” His hatred ran so deep that he was willing to trade his sovereignty to avenge the loss of his kingdom.
The head of the hunters rejected this offer. “We are content with what we have,” he said. “We do not need a kingdom.”
The priestess, however, thought differently. She was still very young. Here was the chance to be freed from spending half the year snowbound in the mountains, a chance to live in Ofahlon, a great and shining land of which they had only heard stories… Perhaps it was not greed but a dream that drove her. Still, the choice she made set the stage for a great catastrophe.
The king’s offer, she claimed, was a sign from the gods. She gathered the young people around her to train the Royal Beasts, so named by the king of Ofahlon. Within a decade, they had created an army two-thousand strong.
In the deep midwinter, when snow clouds darkened the heavens, two thousand Royal Beasts flew concealed within the clouds, each bearing a golden-eyed warrior dreaming of a kingdom in the sun, or a member of the royal family with hatred carved in his bones. Over the mountains they flew and fell upon Ofahlon.
The battle between Toda and Royal Beast was indeed a massacre. Once the slaughter began, the Toda and the Royal Beasts, natural foes, became so crazed with blood that they ignored the commands of their riders and, in a frenzy of tooth and claw, trampled over field, shore and hill, through the villages and towns, until nothing was left but a blood-soaked wasteland. The slaughter did not end until the capital had been engulfed in a sea of flame, and everything had been utterly destroyed.
When the battle ended, all that lay before the young woman, who had dreamt of a kingdom filled with glorious sunshine, was the sight of the torn limbs and members of countless corpses stretching as far as the eye could see, and the burning, crumbling city belching black smoke into the air. No trace of the kingdom remained. If it had been an ordinary battle, only soldiers would have died. But with the addition of two thousand Royal Beasts and tens of thousands of Toda, an entire empire had been reduced to ashes.
Thus was the kingdom that flourished far beyond the Afon Noah destroyed. The land, contaminated by the blood and gore of countless dead, was cursed. No country ever prospered there again, and it remained covered by a thick forest where no man dared to venture.
Elin finished speaking. For a long while after, Seimiya and her maids sat as if in a daze. Seimiya had come out of the water to sit on a stone at the edge of the pool. Now she shivered suddenly, as if with a chill, and slipped back into the hot water. Elin shifted her knees, trying to ease her body, and said, “The few who survived scattered in all directions. The Toga Mi Lyo sealed away their knowledge of how to control the beasts, believing that it would only bring disaster. They chose to wander in exile to the end of time, living by a strict set of laws so that this tragedy would never be repeated. These are my mother’s people, the Ao Loh, the People of the Law, who are known as the Ahlyo.”
Hugging her thin shoulders, Seimiya whispered, “And my ancestor?…”
Looking straight into her eyes, Elin said quietly, “The tall hunters with the golden eyes, tamers of the Royal Beasts, refused to let the young woman who had led her people to such terrible destruction return to her homeland in the ravines… Her name was Jeh. She was your ancestor, the one who crossed the Afon Noah to become the divine ancestor of this land.”
The serving maids paled at the implication of what they had just heard, but Seimiya did not appear to be surprised. In fact, she was gazing at Elin with a puzzled look. “Do you expect me to believe that?” she asked quietly.
“You don’t?”
Seimiya burst out laughing. “Of course not. I think it rather incredible that my grandmother would believe it either.”
Elin remained silent, staring at her. Her skin, which was as smooth as porcelain, had a delicate flush, perhaps from the warmth of the bath. She’s so young, Elin thought. She had heard that Seimiya was two years older than her, but she did not look anywhere near older than twenty. She could understand Damiya’s desire to protect the kingdom’s sovereignty by keeping her ignorant, as if wrapping her in silk floss.
But I think he’s underestimating her… Elin was almost sure that she was not as fragile as she appeared. Deep within her round, childlike eyes, Elin could see a mature and objective gaze.
“Why would I need to make up such a story?” Elin asked.
Seimiya smiled coldly. “That is exactly what I have been trying to decide. If, for example, you were in league with Ialu, and if he, in turn, were in league with the Aluhan, then it would make sense.”
Elin was startled. That was, she realized, one possible interpretation.
Seimiya’s smile deepened. She had not missed the slight quiver in Elin’s eyes. “Who told you that you could meet me if you came when I was having my bath?… Who else could have but Ialu?”
Angered by her accusing tone and cold smile, Elin opened her mouth to protest, but at that moment, she heard the hard sound of claws scraping against stone. Seimiya and her maids looked past her with startled expressions, and half rose to their feet. Turning, Elin saw Leelan poised to enter the pool.
“Leelan! No!” she said sharply. Leelan stopped with one paw hovering over the water. “It’s hot, not cold.” She said it again. Leelan brought her snout close to the edge of the pool and then gave up trying to get in.
Seimiya shook her head and laughed. “…Amazing. She responds to you just like a child.”
Still looking at Leelan, Elin said, “Sometimes her behavior does appear child-like, but Royal Beasts are fearsome creatures with much deeper intelligence than a child.”
Seimiya looked at her. “She understands what you say, doesn’t she? How much can you understand one another?”
“We can tell each other what we want,” Elin said, her fathomless gaze still on the Beast. “But… even if we can communicate what we want, there is still a gap between us that we can never, ever bridge. The world we see, what we feel, are completely different. For Leelan, there is only the present. I was never able to convey to her the concept of ‘tomorrow’. In addition…” Leelan must have sensed that Elin was talking about her, for she was watching her intently. “Leelan thinks nothing of slaughtering Toda. For her, it is merely a natural impulse to kill those creatures that try to steal her young.”
Slowly, she turned her eyes to Seimiya. “But I do not want to use Leelan as a tool to kill Toda. I did not spend seven years raising her and nurturing this bond by which we communicate
in order for her to become a convenient tool.
“I hate seeing the Royal Beasts bound by the Silent Whistle and living as if their souls have been snatched away. A Beast that is given to the Yojeh can never return to the wild. Even so, I hoped at least to set them free from the invisible chains that bind them. Yet instead…”
Rage surged inside her, and she gripped her knees tightly, staring at Seimiya. “If I make Leelan perform a miracle on Tahai Azeh, far from freeing the Beasts, I will be binding them with even thicker chains. If my teacher had not been taken hostage, I would never have consented to this farce, even on pain of death.”
Shock ran through Seimiya’s eyes. “What did you say? Your teacher?”
“Lord Damiya told me that if I refused to play the part of a divine miracle, he would kill my teacher.” Elin’s voice was rough with anger. “I was not sent to you by the Afon. I am forced to be here by a dirty threat.”
The blood drained from Seimiya’s face. An emotion akin to sorrow stirred in Elin’s breast at the sight, and her face twisted, but still she plowed on. “Even if I use her as a weapon to slaughter the Toda, I doubt that Leelan will feel any pain at all. It is I, not Leelan, who will suffer.”
The light from the candles in the rock wall wavered in a puff of warm air. “The reason I hate using the Royal Beasts in this way has nothing to do with the tale I told you. It is not for the sake of my mother’s people, nor for the sake of this country. It is just that I can see, as plain as day, the net woven by the actions of men, a net that Leelan can neither see nor feel… And being forced to play a role within this treacherous plot makes me want to puke.”
Something fierce crossed Seimiya’s pale face. Wordlessly, she stared at Elin, who returned her gaze steadily.
Seimiya felt something within her fade to ashes and begin to crumble. Something that must not crumble, something that, should it disintegrate, could never be retrieved and would vanish forever. Yet, despite the hollow emptiness within, she was still the ruler. Feeling a deep lethargy sink into her bones, she gazed blankly into space.
“I, too…” she whispered. “I, too, can see the mesh of that net woven by the actions of men. Yet I will never, ever be permitted to say that being forced to play a role within it is so repulsive it makes me ill.” Elin stared at her, as if stunned. “If what you say is true, Jeh was a foolish woman.” Seimiya smiled thinly. “Even though she was expelled from her homeland, she couldn’t give up her ambition to rule the world.”
Her lips trembled, and Elin averted her gaze. “It was a long time ago,” she said. “Who can guess what it was like to arrive in this strange land after leaving her home far behind? But, personally, I think that she was sincerely searching, walking a tightrope through her pain and doubt, to build a nation where neither men nor beasts would suffer.”
“Why do you think so?”
“Because, while on the one hand she used the Royal Beasts as a symbol of sovereignty, on the other, she wrote the Royal Beast Canon.” Elin shifted her gaze to Leelan. “My Lady, Seimiya, is not Leelan very different from the other Beasts?”
Seimiya’s eyes narrowed as she looked at Leelan. The Beast’s wings, damp with steam, sparkled in the glow of the lantern.
“Well, yes. In fact, I have never seen a Royal Beast as beautiful. And isn’t she the one that bore a cub? A miracle in itself.”
“Yes.” Elin nodded. “The Royal Beasts raised in the sanctuary never fly, never mate, and never bear young.”
Seimiya frowned and looked at her. She knew this, yet hearing it said like that, she suddenly realized just how unnatural it was. “Why?…”
“Because they were raised in accordance with the Beast Canon. Surely you know that it was your ancestor who wrote the Canon. Those who raise the Beasts are strictly required to follow its tenets. But Leelan here…”
A memory from long ago, of Leelan as a cub, her eyes gleaming in the darkness as she gnawed at her fur, came rushing back. “She was wounded, both physically and emotionally, by the arrow loosed at Her Majesty Halumiya’s birthday celebration. She was taken to the Kazalumu Sanctuary, and by chance, I met her and came to raise her. At the time, I was only fourteen. I knew nothing of the Beast Canon, so I decided to raise her without the Silent Whistle or tokujisui, just like Royal Beasts in the wild.”
A light dawned in Seimiya’s eyes. “I see… So the Beast that was raised without following the Canon became this beautiful creature who could fly and bear young.”
“Yes.”
Seimiya looked at Leelan anew. “Why then, would my ancestor make such rules?”
“I believe that she did not want the Royal Beasts to multiply.” Seimiya glanced at her. It was clear from her eyes that she understood.
“If she was driven by selfish motives to secure her power, she would never have made those rules. I believe that although she accepted the role of ruler to help the people on this side of the Afon Noah, this ironic turn of fate caused her much grief. She didn’t want to repeat the terrible tragedy she had caused, so instead of brute force, she used the Beasts, the appearance of which people considered a miracle, as a symbol of her divine authority to govern…” Elin sighed. “I believe she developed the Canon as a way of raising Royal Beasts without making them into weapons. To prevent them from multiplying, she used tokujisui, which inhibits them from mating, and by having their keepers use the Silent Whistle, she erected an invisible, yet impenetrable, wall between man and Beast… So that people and Beasts, which are highly communicative by nature, would never be able to share their thoughts.”
For a moment, emotion gripped her throat, and she could not speak. “If I, a fourteen-year-old girl, who knew nothing of the Canon, had not met Leelan by chance—and it really was just by chance—the wishes of your ancestor would still have been followed. And Leelan and I would never have learnt to communicate, would never have flown through the sky…”
“…and would never have come here,” Seimiya said, finishing her sentence.
They said nothing for a while. Finally, Seimiya dragged herself out of the pool and sat on the edge, gazing at Leelan.
“Perhaps this, too, is the work of the gods. Don’t you think so?”
Elin bit her lip as she looked at Seimiya’s delicate, doll-like figure. She wished that she could say, ‘Yes, perhaps you’re right.’ She closed her eyes. She did not want to torture her anymore, but she just could not bring herself to lie.
“No, I don’t,” she whispered. “I do not want to believe that our meeting today, which was precipitated by the death of Yojeh Halumiya, is the work of the gods.” Taking a deep breath, she opened her eyes and said, “To me, it looks like I am here today because of a man who tried to lay the death of Yojeh Halumiya at the Aluhan’s door, a man who has manipulated events all along to create this situation.”
The blood receded from Seimiya’s cheeks. “What are you saying?”
Keeping her eyes fixed steadily on her face, Elin explained why the Toda that attacked Halumiya could not have belonged to the Aluhan. She shared the plot that Ialu had recognized once it was clear the attack could not be the Aluhan’s doing, the facts he had uncovered through years of investigation, and the price he had paid for it. When Elin named the one person to whom all these facts led, Seimiya’s snow-white face did not move. In a low voice, she asked, “Why would he need to kill my grandmother?”
“If Lady Halumiya had lived, would she have allowed you to marry him?”
Seimiya did not even blink at this response… It was clear that this had already occurred to her long before. Her eyes, which glittered like shards of metal, suddenly blazed fiercely. “It’s true, my grandmother didn’t like him—but for me, he was my father, my brother, the kindest person in the world, one of the most beloved of my kin.” She closed her eyes and hugged herself. The hands with which she gripped her shoulders trembled.
“Your Highness,” one of the maidservants said hesitantly, but she did not respond. For a long time she remained hugging her body
. Then, taking a deep breath, she looked up. Rising, she gazed down on Elin with cold eyes.
“When I stand on the field of Tahai Azeh, stand with me, Elin… You need do nothing but watch. Let me give you that freedom—the freedom that is not mine to choose.”
9 EMPTINESS
Though the moon had long since set, a faint glow still lingered in the heavens. This appeared to be enough light for Leelan, whose pupils were dilated like a cat’s; she showed no sign of searching through the darkness as she flew.
They had flown over the dark forest that encircled the palace, and the Lazalu Beast Sanctuary was about to come into view when a rumbling growl began deep in Leelan’s throat. Elin looked up and saw what looked like fireflies whirling beside the Beast’s head. She heard a low buzzing, like bees’ wings vibrating, a disturbing sound that made her uneasy. The lights gathered together and dropped below. Following their descent, she saw several black shapes standing at the edge of the wood. One of them waved a small light.
The phosphorescent glow faded. For a moment, Elin hesitated, but the people below were obviously summoning her, and she did not feel that she could ignore them. She touched Leelan’s cheek and pointed to the light below. Leelan began to descend. Before she had reached the ground, Elin knew who waited for her. Hooded and silent, like forest shadows, her mother’s people watched her come.
Leelan growled menacingly as a hooded man raised a Silent Whistle to his lips, but Elin did not try to stop him from blowing. When Leelan did not freeze, he looked surprised.
“I plugged her ears,” Elin said. “It would be a disaster if someone blew a Silent Whistle while we were in the air.” She removed Leelan’s ear flaps and slid to the ground. “Please keep your whistle at the ready though,” she said quietly, and then looked around at the gray-cloaked figures. “What do you want with me?”
The Beast Player Page 36
