The Other Lands (36 page)

“What terrible thing did you do to be driven from here in the first place?”

Calrach shot him a dangerous glance. “I’ll get the torturer now.”

He began to rise, but Rialus blurted, “No, no, don’t! Ahh—” He had spoken too forcefully. The pain of it reverberated through him for a few closed-eyed seconds. When he opened his eyes again, Calrach sat watching him. “Don’t leave,” he said. “You came to tell me things. Please do so.”

“I will,” Calrach said, after a moment. “Hear these things. I won’t tell you twice. In Ushen Brae, no Auldek or Numrek or any other clan—none of us—had given birth to a child in hundreds of years. Not a single birth. No children. You hear? That’s right. I am not the youthful man I look. I don’t remember my birth year anymore, but believe me, I have lived long, long.”

“But, you do have children. I’ve seen—”

“Don’t rush it! Now, I will keep this simple for you. The Lothan Aklun arrived here in their boats. They looked weak. They wanted to lay claim to our barrier isles. They were not warriors, but they were powerful with magic. They trapped us with that magic. They showed us tricks, made flames erupt in the sky, made the ground shake. They even killed with nothing more than whispered words. They said they would pay for the isles with a great gift. They would give us eternal life. You hear me, Rialus? They promised to make us immortal. And they did.”

Rialus said, “But you are not immortal. I’ve seen Numrek die in battle. You fear death like any man.”

“More than any man, perhaps. Don’t interrupt what I am telling you. They create immortality by taking souls out of one body and putting them inside another. We could contain two, three, … ten lives within us. This they had the magic to do.”

The image of the Auldek leader with an arrow in his chest, twisting and shaking like a thing possessed, popped into Rialus’s head. “Devoth—”

“Yeah, you saw that, yeah? You thought Devoth dead from that arrow. Good shot, true, but only one of his souls died because of it. That’s why he rose again and—” With the blade of his hand, Calrach imitated a sword slicing through his neck. “No, he has many souls within him. I used to as well. You could call it sorcery. Lothan Aklun sorcery. It’s kept us alive all these years, but it came at a price. At the same time as they made us immortal they took away our fertility. We could live forever, but, we learned, we could no longer have children. Quite a trick—giving one kind of immortality, taking another at the same time. They did this to the slaves as well. None of them grow to birth their own young in Ushen Brae. None of them. This is a childless land. All these years we’ve been childless, except for the souls inside us and for the quota.

“When the Lothan Aklun began to trade through the league we had all the souls we could want coming to us from your lands. But we wanted more. Yes, for their labor, to work for us and take care of our every need. But not just that. Also, they became our children. Slaves, but children too. And because none of us could bear young either, we always needed more. Understand?”

He asked but did not wait for an answer. “I’ll tell fast. Listen. The Auldek have many laws. Too many. The Numrek broke one. We were punished. They took our souls from us, burned our totems, exiled us. Made us trek into the ice.”

“Burned your totems?” Rialus asked. “Totems?”

Calrach waved his impatience. “Later about that. Stick to the points, Neptos. We marched north, nothing with us but our weapons, clothes. Those were bad times, when we first walked into the north. Many died of the shame of it. Many thought death was the best escape. I felt it myself. Numrek don’t kill themselves, but we can wish for it. We can take risks, hunt snow lions, the white bears. You ever kill a walrus with an ax? It’s no sure thing, I tell you. Anyway, truth is, I believed the Numrek were doomed to vanish in the ice. Then something happened. You know what?”

Rialus did not have a clue, and his face indicated as much.

“One of our women got a child in her. First in hundreds of years. First one, and then another.” He laughed, low and obscene. “And then we screwed like rats. We were having children again, Neptos! You have no child, so you may not know what this means, but it was a wonderful thing. We thought to go back to Ushen Brae, show them the children. But we were exiled. We couldn’t. And some said that the birthing only returned because we had passed out of Ushen Brae and had escaped some curse. We did not want to go back and lose the gift again. And then we met the Mein, and got better ideas. You know the rest. Or some of it you know. Is it making more sense now?”

It was starting to, but Rialus still shook his head, which was pounding. He put much effort into speaking clearly. “What of the Numrek back in Acacia, in the palace? And in Teh?”

“They will have it hard, but they are ready for that. As soon as they know we’ve made it here, they will rise. Kill the bitch. Kill others, you know.” He gestured with his fingers that surely Rialus could imagine the possible scenes. “Kill, kill. That sort of thing. And then they’ll hole up and wait.”

Why did it seem the more he knew, the less it made sense? Wait for what? They were worlds away. They had no ships. The Numrek back in the Known World could cause much bloodshed, but they would eventually be defeated. The league would not tolerate any of this. The Lothan Aklun were no more. And surely their sorcery went with them. The Numrek may not have planned or intended that, but what Calrach described was a confusion, not a situation that should please him so. “I still don’t understand.”

“Okay,” Calrach said, leaning close. “Last thing. I had an idea, yeah? What if I got back to Ushen Brae? Came home and told what we found. Told all the Auldek that a new world awaited them, a world full of humans to hunt, to enslave. A rich world in which all the Auldek could again have children. What if I promised them that and showed them the proof of it? My son. You think, maybe, they would lift the exile? Maybe they would give us our totem back, yeah? Maybe they would march with us across the ice and down into glorious battle, toward the conquest of your Known World?” His grin could not have gotten any wider. “Pretty good idea, huh? I thought so. The league made it even easier by taking me across the Gray Slopes. Hated that, but good news. Devoth and the others like the idea, too. Not my fault the league killed the Lothan Aklun. No blame on me. No, instead, I bring them hope. I bring them a new world.”

And that’s it, Rialus thought. That’s the truth of it. The things that were happening were not just about him and Dariel and Sire Neen. Not even about Corinn. Oh, how she would rage if she knew. But it wasn’t about her either. It was about
everything
. This is about the entire Known World and everyone in it.

“Anyway. There it is. You know. I’ll get somebody to torture you now. Fun for you. Fun for him. Everyone’s happy.”

“No!” Rialus shouted. “No, that won’t be necessary.”

Crossing his arms, Calrach grimaced, a show of mock confusion that clearly meant he was not confused at all. “No? Why not?”

“What does Devoth want from me?”

Calrach smiled. “I know you, Neptos. I knew I was right! I told them as much. Said, ‘Always a weasel, he is. He’ll turn.’ Is that right? It pleases me that you’re so true to your nature. Devoth wants everything you can tell him. Everything he’ll need to plan his attack”—the Numrek shook his head at the irony of it—”on your nation. You, Neptos, are an important man. Play it right, and it might be very good for you.”

In answer, Rialus curled back into his ball, lying on his side with his knees tight to his chest. He—Rialus Neptos, so often maligned, laughed at, joked with—was in a singular position to affect events. He would find a way to do so, he swore. He would talk with Devoth. He told himself that he would not help destroy his people. He also told himself that he would aim at getting back to Gurta and seeing his child. He did not acknowledge which of these was his greater priority.

T
he play of the sun on the rolling, blond-grassed hills was wonderful. Soothing. Mena sat with the first rays of light and warmth on her skin, taking in the world around her for miles and miles. The land buckled away into the distance in smooth mounds of shadow and gold, spotted with outcroppings of rock that looked like islands. A breeze blew steadily from the south, hot air but not unpleasant. In some ways Mena felt alone in the entire world. She wasn’t, though. She most certainly wasn’t.

Beside her the lizard bird creature lay in a gentle curve, her tail a river meandering through the grasses. Her head rested on a smooth rock, eyes closed but moving beneath the thin membranes of eyelids. Even in slumber—which she seemed quite fond of—she was never entirely insensible to the world. Her senses seemed to work: nostrils flaring on occasion, the small protrusions that marked the ears adjusting to slight sounds. Mena still could not believe the events of the last few days had actually happened. But there she was, all the feathered, reptilian, delicate beauty of her.

And here she was, sitting beside the creature, inexplicably healed of every injury she had received during her fall. She knew that Melio and the others would be scouring the countryside for her, and she felt bad, knowing they would be desperate, worried. Melio especially. She sometimes spoke his name, wishing that he could hear it on the wind and know she was thinking of him. That sadness was a small feature of her mood. In truth, she was content in a way that she could not explain.

Four days prior, when she realized the creature was alive and awake and watching her ministrations over her body, her heart had hammered so fiercely in her chest she feared it might explode. She could not have said exactly why. It was not fear for her life. She had just examined the animal’s shattered form with her own eyes and knew she could be little threat. Nor was she surprised at being watched. Once she realized the beast’s eyes were on her, it felt right that they should be, as if she had wished it herself and made it so. There was an element of amazement that the creature could live after Mena had been so certain she was dead. More than anything Mena felt a frantic urgency, a soaring of possibility that had no specific details but that seemed as important as anything in her life.

Mena withdrew a few steps. She sat on a stone and stared at the creature, who looked back at her fixedly. Together they passed the better part of an hour that way. The creature had emerald eyes. The irises sparkled with a metallic sheen. They filled the entirety of the eye sockets. They did not show fear. They did not betray aggression or hunger either. That there was intelligence behind the eyes was palpable, but they were just watching. Mena felt she was being probed as much as she was probing, and she found herself hoping the creature liked what she saw.

They could not remain in this standoff forever, though. When Mena saw the creature’s slim tongue taste the air for a moment, she had an idea. Rising slowly, she motioned with her good arm that everything was all right. Stay calm. She whispered, “Stay. I’ll be right back. Just stay.” She knew she should feel foolish talking to an animal, but she did not. As she hobbled her way back up the slope that she had earlier descended, she wished she had said more. If the lizard bird somehow was not there when she returned, she would curse herself for not having said more, even though she had no idea what that more might have been.

It seemed to take forever to climb down into the other ravine and reach the river again. She was slick with sweat and had to sit for a time, panting, fighting to push back the fatigue and pain pulsing everywhere in her body. Opening her pack and rummaging about in it for something that would hold water made for another pathetic routine. Fortunately, she did find the leather bowl that she used to brew healing teas. She scooped clear water from the river and drank it, then scooped more. Rising without the use of her damaged arm was hard enough, but picking up the floppy bowl was another matter. It took her several tries before she finally had it cupped in her palm, relatively full.

When she peered over the ridge again, the creature was exactly as she had left her, lying in the same shattered posture; but the long neck was bowed as she inspected her wings and torso. A good bit of the water had splashed out of the bowl by the time Mena reached the creature, but she offered what remained. She set the bowl down as best she could, spilling still more, and then she backed away. The creature did not take her eyes off Mena until she had stood some time at a short distance. Then the creature examined the bowl, looked up and considered Mena, head cocked, and then sank the tip of her snout into the water and drank.

And then the staring match began again. They spent most of the afternoon at it. Again, Mena felt inclined to speak. She could not find the words, though, and the creature seemed increasingly content with her presence. That was enough.

Mena slept that night on the slope a little distance away and awoke to find the creature grooming herself, if grooming it could be called. She looked much like a cat licking itself, but she did not use her tongue. Everyplace she might have licked, she instead rubbed with the flat bottom of her snout. She was precise in the motions, careful, especially when tending the shredded membranes of her wings. Just looking at them shot Mena through with regret. That damage was her fault. Hers. She felt it as if in her own body, forgetting as she watched it that she was, in fact, battered and broken herself. From her close observation the day before, she doubted the creature would ever be able to fly again, not with so much of her wings destroyed.

When Mena approached, the creature drew semiupright. She sent waves of tension out through her wing frames, lifting them partially off the ground. The finger-thin bones were still amazing to behold. So flexible, so powerful, and so delicate at the same time. It should have required bulges of muscle tissue and sinew to create the power Mena had felt snatch her from the ground, but instead the creature’s wings remained works of thin-lined art.

Mena’s eyes drifted over them. The wing membranes did not look as damaged as they had yesterday. Some of the spots that she thought had been pierced clean through had not been, and some of the tears that had looked so ghastly the day before did not seem quite as horrible. She wondered if she had been mistaken.