The Other Lands (63 page)

He had not planned on going far. He just wanted to look, to verify that the tunnel really took him inside. If so, he would retreat and consider how this new information might prove useful. That was his intention, but curiosity kept him moving just a little farther, first into that storage room, then through it down a passage, and still little farther after that. The stones sweated; the air felt musty and close, terribly quiet.

When he stepped out into an ornate hallway, complete with wall hangings and carpets and life-sized statues spaced at intervals, he knew he had accomplished all he needed to for an evening. He strolled a few steps forward just to feel the soft give of the carpet underfoot, inhaling air lightly scented with a citrus incense. Oh, that’s nice! This could really suit me. And the statues looked so very real. It made his skin crawl, how textured like real flesh they were, clothed as ancient warriors from around the empire. He could not help but marvel at the work, play at staring these wooden warriors down. He even challenged one to a duel.

When he heard the voices, he did not initially panic. They were not in his hallway but were approaching from around the corner, chatting. All he had to do was retrace his steps and slip back into the wall. The crack through which he had come was just … here? No, not there. Solid wall there. Down here a little farther beyond that table? No, not there either. The voices came from two women, growing nearer. Here? No, nothing but stone! He could not for the life of him find his way back into the passageway. Certain that the women were about to step around the corner, he yanked open the nearest door and dove inside.

As he strode across the room he was aware of a bed and a sleeping form in it. Still moving, he turned to confirm the person did not awaken. What he saw caused him to halt. He swung back toward the bed, tiptoeing, and looked more closely.

The prince!

For a moment his skin crawled. If he got caught in the prince’s bedroom … If the boy opened his eyes and shouted …

The two voices grew louder. Delivegu set his sights on what he needed to find: a place to hide. He ran across the room and slipped behind the curtains that covered one of the floor-to-ceiling windows. There was plenty of room for him to stand unseen.

The door opened and two maids entered, discussing something that somebody had done. Delivegu did not have time to make sense of it, for they did something near the bed, said a few words directly—presumably—to the sleeping prince, and then someone else arrived. They greeted the new arrival with deference. For the next few moments he tracked the maids by sounds they made, tending to details of the prince’s bedding, perhaps. Quick work. He heard them whisper a farewell. The door opened and they apparently stepped out. Whoever had entered after them, however, remained in the room.

“Oh, my lovely boy,” a female voice said.

It was not the queen’s, though it was familiar. He had heard it before. But where? She did not provide him another opportunity to figure it out for some time. She stayed silent. At first Delivegu stood stiff and breathed carefully and barely moved at all, but as the minutes passed he relaxed.

She’ll leave soon. She’ll leave soon.

Later still, he thought, I hope she doesn’t fall asleep.

She did not. Every now and then, he could hear just enough faint noise to indicate movement, a creak of weight on the bed, breath inhaled through the nose and expelled as a gust through the mouth. He imagined her stroking the boy’s hand, gazing down into his face, concerned. Reasonable enough. He still wished he knew who the woman was. A suitor, perhaps? Did a boy so young have suitors?

Well, he is a prince, Delivegu mused. Probably has a gaggle of suitors. The lad is handsome, as well. Prince, I hope you know how to use those good looks in the years to come. Had I your title … Oh, the damage I’d have done to the nation’s virgins. Hardly bears thinking about …

The woman spoke. He heard her clearly enough, and lost interest just as quickly. She was saying emotional, womanly things about how good the boy was and how the dragon creature had loved him. He listened with half his attention, until she said something that pulled him back.

“I have something to tell you about Elya.”

With that he placed the voice. Princess Mena, she who had ridden in on that dragon creature, slipped off, and spoken so casually to the queen.

“You can’t tell anybody. You have to promise. I mean it. Promise.”

Silence for a moment. Delivegu had half a mind to step out from behind the curtain and point out that the boy was unconscious. If you wait for a response, you might be there awhile, Princess.

“Okay. Since you promise …” A few more words slipped by without taking shape, and then, “You can’t even tell your mother.”

Delivegu perked up.

“She wouldn’t understand. She—well, it’s not easy bearing her responsibilities. It makes one hard, skeptical, always looking for the ill that hides beneath any good. Sometimes I think that the more you look, the more you find. The more you look, the more you create the things you most fear.”

The princess said something else under her breath. She must have looked down and cursed into her hand, not liking the direction of her own words. Delivegu was already calculating the value of what he had heard. A bit of criticism spoken to an unconscious boy? Value: naught. Give us something more, he thought.

“This is only for you to know,” Mena said. “Elya has laid eggs. Four of them. Oh, you would so love to hold them. And you will. Once you’re better, you’ll come to my quarters and I’ll show you them.”

T
hat was the chance event that brought Delivegu to the queen’s offices and had him standing before Rhrenna, so pleased with himself that he felt no need to rush to answer her. He would not be describing the circumstances of the encounter in detail, nor discussing the rather troublesome time he had had escaping the royal quarters later that night. He would, however, offer information he would claim to have gleaned from his ever-reliable “sources.” It would be easy enough to lay the information on one of Mena’s maids, someone who might have chanced upon the eggs, and might have told someone else, who might have told … that sort of thing.

“For what reason do you want an audience with the queen?” Rhrenna asked, repeating the question for a third time. She kept her voice clipped and her gray Meinish eyes cold, but Delivegu knew better.

His smile was an unwavering crescent, and his talent for talking through it long practiced. “Rhrenna, now that I’m a man in high standing I feel inclined to boldness. When, my darling, will you consent to get to know me better? Privately, I mean. Just you and me. Wine perhaps. Good food and a place of comfort to retire to? That sort of thing.”

Rhrenna studied him a moment before answering. “Don’t you mean that question for the queen?”

“Ah—” He had not expected that. It set him back a moment, wondering if the fact that she asked it indicated the queen had spoken to her about it, or that she intuited the queen would be receptive. “Ah … what man could fail to find her highness a great beauty? I’m no different. But the queen would have no interest in me, certainly.” Though the sentence was declarative, he left it dangling, loose ended, and rather sounding like a question. Rhrenna’s answer was franker than he wished for.

“You don’t stand a chance,” she said. “Enjoy your lecherous thoughts of her in private, Delivegu. That’s the only way you’ll find satisfaction. I mean no insult, though. I’m of the opinion that no man except Aaden—when he becomes a man—will ever get near the queen’s heart.”

“And what of you, then? Would you ever try me?”

“Try you?” Rhrenna laughed. “Oh, you’re a charmer, Delivegu. Try you …” She spun away and resumed perusing the papers on her desk.

Well, that didn’t go that well, he thought. He was preparing a witty remark, something to brush her off and indicate no acknowledged harm to his sensualist’s casual demeanor, when she continued.

“Yes, I imagine I would try you,” she admitted. Her eyes rose to meet his. “I think you smell rather good.”

Never had the mention of his bodily odor been such an invigorating kick in the groin. She did not let him linger on it at present, though. “Again,” she said, her voice resuming its official curtness, “for what reason do you wish an audience with the queen? If you don’t answer me now, you’ll have to leave.”

She likes changing gears, this one. Fine. I won’t complain. In fact, Delivegu felt like purring, such was the pleasure of his position. “Once again, I have intelligence for her,” he said, “news that she may find very, very interesting. I have word that something important is about to … hatch. Four things, in fact. Four things that someone has kept hidden from her.”

I
t was a delicate instrument, thin and artful, a slight curve in the handle, with one end weighted and shaped into a handgrip. The tip ended in a blackened needle point. Dariel knew what it was from the moment he laid eyes on it. He had spent the last few days studying crude maps of Ushen Brae’s coastline, in exercising his body and explaining nautical concepts and terms to Tunnel and Skylene and the others who were to be his crew, but this last thing marked the final stage of preparation. After this, his mission began.

“So … you’re serious about this? You want to tattoo me?”

Looking over the device, Mór narrowed her eyes. “Without markings you stand out like a freak among the People.”

Dariel, head cocked, prepared to take exception to this.

Mór looked at him straight-faced, no trace of humor on her feline features. “Like a freak, I say. Or a degenerate. Others who see you will think you a child who has done nothing in his life. Unworthy. Without signs of belonging, nothing you say would change their opinion. Besides, that plain face of yours will forever announce your Akaran blood. It could be the death of you among the People.”

“How about just drawing some spots or something? Stylus and ink. That sort of thing.”

“It’s been explained to you already, I’m sure. Should the divine children question you, any ‘stylus and ink’ work would be readily discovered. No, your fate has brought you here—just as mine brought me here. The tattoos must be real.”

“Why do I think you’ll enjoy doing it?” Dariel asked, smiling wryly.

“Because it hurts, you mean?” she asked, playfully innocent in a way Dariel had never seen before. “Dariel Akaran, when I wish to cause you pain, it won’t be with this. I’ll find a real tool for it. Believe me.”

I don’t doubt you, Dariel thought. I don’t doubt you at all. I still have the marks from our first meeting, remember? As she spoke on, he had to tell himself to lower the edges of his grin. He should not be so pleased about this. The tattooing was going to hurt, and it was going to be permanent. What would Corinn think when she saw him again? If she ever saw him again … She would never understand or approve of something like this. It would seem an act of surrender, of lessening himself and his stature as an Acacian prince. She would expect him to command them all to do his bidding. The thought nearly made him laugh. He had, of course, commanded many people in various roles—both as an Akaran and as a Sea Isle raider—but this was different, perhaps in a way that Corinn would never understand.

Increasingly, the Known World seemed far, far away, not just in leagues but in its hold on his thoughts. Sitting and talking with Tunnel and Skylene and some of the others, caught up in the horror and largeness that was Ushen Brae, Dariel had to wrest his focus back to his homeland again and again. It was in danger, he knew, of attack from the Auldek. He remained vague on how great that threat was, but he tried to remember it and to think of Corinn and Mena and Wren and all his companions from his raiding days and the common people he had come to know and care for while working on his rebuilding projects. They mattered. And he had to get back to them.

“It will be your temporary pass,” Mór said, “although the mark itself will not be temporary. You may still fail us, Prince Dariel, but I’ve been told to give you the time and freedom to be among us. It’s a chance not to fail.” After a pause, she added, “I hope you don’t.”

Dariel nodded. Never a skilled liar, it was the best he could do to express his resolve. In truth, he had accepted the mission Mór offered him for reasons of his own. Yes, he would be part of a small team sent to steal a Lothan Aklun boat, a soul vessel. One had been found tied up at the southern end of the warehouse district. The league had not yet noticed it, probably because a series of skerries—small, rocky islands—blocked the area from the open ocean. Dariel would prove he was the raider he claimed to have been. He would captain the vessel. He would pilot it south to a marsh area called Sumerled, where they would ground the boat and set fire to it, thereby denying it to the league and—even more important—freeing the souls that had been bound to power it.

Dariel had agreed to all of this readily enough. To himself, he swore that if he got the chance, he would flee in the cutter. He had no idea if he could really make the Lothan Aklun ship work, and he realized the People themselves knew so little about the sea that they assumed things about his knowledge that they shouldn’t have. But so be it. He would try. He would pilot across the Gray Slopes in it if he had to or follow the coastline north and pick his way through the Ice Fields. He would work out the details later, but this might be his best chance at getting home. He had to grasp it if he could.