The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (35 page)

“Why did you invite me here?”

“I have an offer to make.” He gestured vaguely at the floor.

I looked down at the world map in the floor, my eyes automatically finding High North and the tiny corner of it that was Darr. Four polished, flattened white stones sat ranged around Darr’s borders—one in each of the three kingdoms that I’d suspected were part of the alliance, plus a second stone in Menchey. At Darr’s heart sat a single marbled-gray stone, probably representing our pathetic troop strength. But just south of Menchey, along the coast where the continent met the Repentance Sea, were three pale yellow stones. I could not guess what those were.

I looked up at Relad. “Darr is all I care about right now. Scimina has offered me my people’s lives. Is that what you’re offering?”

“Potentially more than that.” Relad stepped down into the map-depression, walking over to stand just below High North. His feet were in the middle of the Repentance Sea, which struck me as irrationally amusing for a moment.

“The white are your enemies, as I’m certain you’ve guessed; Scimina’s pawns. These”—he pointed at the yellow stones—“are mine.”

I frowned, but before I could speak, Sieh snorted. “You have no allies in High North, Relad. You’ve ignored the whole continent for years. Scimina’s victory is the result of your own neglect.”

“I know that,” Relad snapped, but then he turned to face me. “It’s true I have no friends in High North. Even if I did, the kingdoms there all hate your land, Cousin. Scimina’s simply facilitating what they’ve been itching to do for generations.”

I shrugged. “High North was a land of barbarians once, and we Darre were among the most barbaric. The priests may have civilized us since, but no one can erase the past.”

Relad nodded dismissively; he didn’t care and it showed. He really was terrible at being charming. He pointed at the yellow stones again. “Mercenaries,” he said. “Mostly Ken and Min pirates, some Ghor nightfighters, and a contingent of Zhurem City strikemen. I can order them to fight for you, Cousin.”

I stared at the yellow stones and was reminded of my earlier thought about mortals and the power of hope.

Sieh hopped down into the map-depression and peered at the yellow stones as if he could see the actual forces they represented. He whistled. “You must’ve bankrupted yourself to hire so many and get them to High North in time, Relad. I didn’t realize you’d acquired that much capital over the years.” He glanced back at Relad and me over his shoulder. “But these are too far away to get to Darr by tomorrow. Scimina’s friends are already on their way.”

Relad nodded, watching me. “My forces are close enough to attack Menchey’s capital tonight, and even stage a strike on Tokland the day after. They’re fully equipped, rested, and well supplied. Their battle plans were drawn up by Zhakkarn herself.” He folded his arms, a bit defensively. “With Menchey under attack, half your enemies will turn back from the assault on Darr. That will leave the Zarenne and the Atir rebels for your people to contend with, and they’ll still be outnumbered two to one. But it will give the Darre a fighting chance.”

I threw Relad a sharp look. He had gauged me well on this—surprisingly well. Somehow he had realized that it was not the prospect of war that frightened me; I was a warrior, after all. But an unwinnable war, against enemies who would not only take spoils but destroy our spirits, if not our lives… that I could not stomach.

Two-to-one odds were winnable. Hard, but winnable.

I glanced at Sieh, who nodded. My instincts told me Relad’s offer was legitimate, but he knew Relad’s capabilities and would warn me of any trickery. I think we were both surprised that Relad had managed this at all.

“You should abstain from drinking more often, Cousin,” I said softly.

Relad smiled, utterly without humor. “It wasn’t intentional, I assure you. It’s just that impending death tends to sour even the best wine.”

I understood completely.

There was another of those awkward silences, and then Relad stepped forward, proferring his hand. Surprised, I took it. We were agreed.

Later, Sieh and I walked slowly back to my room. He took me on a new route this time, passing through parts of Sky that I had not seen in the two weeks since my arrival. Among other wonders, he showed me a high, narrow chamber—not a dead space, but still sealed off and forgotten for some reason—whose ceiling looked like an accident in the gods’ construction design. The pale Skystuff hung in attenuated extrusions like cave stalactites, though far more delicate and graceful. A few were close enough to touch; some ended barely inches below the ceiling. I could not fathom the purpose of the chamber until Sieh led me to a panel on the wall.

When I touched it, a slot opened on the ceiling, letting in a sharp, startling gust of ice-cold air. I shivered, but forgot my discomfort when the ceiling extrusions began to sing, stroked into vibration by the wind. It was like no music I’d ever heard, wavering and alien, a cacophony too beautiful to call merely noise. I didn’t let Sieh touch the panel to shut off the air until I began to lose the feeling in my fingers.

In the silence that fell, during which I crouched against the wall and blew on my hands to warm them, Sieh crouched in front of me, staring at me intently. I was too cold to notice at first, but then he suddenly leaned forward and kissed me. Startled, I froze, but there was nothing unpleasant about it. It was the kiss of a child, spontaneous and unconditional. Only the fact that he was not a child made me uncomfortable.

Sieh pulled back, and sighed ruefully at the expression on my face. “Sorry,” he said, and settled down beside me.

“Don’t apologize,” I said. “Just tell me what that was for.” I realized that was an inadvertent command and added, “Will you?”

He shook his head, playing shy, and pressed his face into my arm. I liked having his warmth there, but I didn’t like his silence. I pulled away, forcing him to sit up or risk falling over.

“Yeine!”

“Sieh.”

He sighed, looking annoyed, and shifted to sit cross-legged. For a moment I thought he’d just sit there and sulk, but finally he said, “I just don’t think it’s fair, that’s all. Naha got to taste you, but I didn’t.”

That did make me uncomfortable. “Even in my barbarian land, women do not take children as lovers.”

The annoyance grew in his expression. “I told you before, I don’t want that from you. I’m talking about this.” He sat up on his knees abruptly and leaned toward me. I flinched away, and he stopped, waiting. It occurred to me that I loved him, trusted him with my very soul. Shouldn’t I trust him with a kiss? So after a deep breath, I relaxed. Sieh waited until I gave him a minute nod, and a moment longer than that—making sure. Then he leaned in and kissed me again.

And this time it was different, because I could taste him—not Sieh the sweaty, slightly dirty child, but the Sieh beneath the human mask. It is… difficult to describe. A sudden burst of something refreshing, like ripe melon, or maybe a waterfall. A torrent, a current; it rushed into me and through me and back into him so swiftly that I barely had time to draw breath. Salt. Lightning. That hurt enough that I almost pulled away, but distantly I felt Sieh’s hands tighten painfully on my arms. Before I could yelp, cold wind shot through me, soothing both the jolt and my bruises.

Then Sieh pulled back. I stared at him, but his eyes were still shut. Uttering a deep, satisfied sigh, he shifted to sit beside me again, lifting my arm and pulling it ’round himself proprietarily.

“What… was that?” I asked, when I had recovered somewhat.

“Me,” he said. Of course.

“What do I taste like?”

Sieh sighed, snuggling against my shoulder, his arms looping around my waist. “Soft, misty places full of sharp edges and hidden colors.”

I could not help it; I giggled. I felt light-headed, like I’d drunk too much of Relad’s liqueur. “That’s not a taste!”

“Of course it is. You tasted Naha, didn’t you? He tastes like falling to the bottom of the universe.”

That stopped my giggling, because it was true. We sat awhile longer, not speaking, not thinking—or at least I was not. It was, after the constant worry and scheming of the past two weeks, a moment of pure bliss. Perhaps that was why, when I did think again, it was of a different kind of peace.

“What will happen to me?” I asked. “After.”

He was a clever child; he knew what I meant at once.

“You’ll drift for a time,” he said very softly. “Souls do that when they’re first freed from flesh. Eventually they gravitate toward places that resonate with certain aspects of their nature. Places that are safe for souls lacking flesh, unlike this realm.”

“The heavens and the hells.”

He shrugged, just a little, so that it would not jostle either of us. “That’s what mortals call them.”

“Is that not what they are?”

“I don’t know. What does it matter?” I frowned, and he sighed. “I’m not mortal, Yeine, I don’t obsess over this the way your kind does. They’re just… places for life to rest, when it’s not being alive. There are many of them because Enefa knew your kind needed variety.” He sighed. “That was why Enefa’s soul kept drifting, we think. All the places she made, the ones that resonated best with her, vanished when she died.”

I shivered, and thought I felt something else shiver deep within me.

“Will… will both our souls find a place, she and I? Or will hers drift again?”

“I don’t know.” The pain in his voice was quiet, inflectionless. Another person would have missed it.

I rubbed his back gently. “If I can,” I said, “if I have any control over it… I’ll take her with me.”

“She may not want to go. The only places left now are the ones her brothers created. Those don’t fit her much.”

“Then she can stay inside me, if that’s better. I’m no heaven, but we’ve put up with each other this long. We’re going to have to talk, though. All these visions and dreams must go. They’re really quite distracting.”

Sieh lifted his head and stared at me. I kept a straight face for as long as I could, which was not long. Of course he managed it longer than me. He had centuries more of practice.

We dissolved into laughter there on the floor, wrapped around each other, and thus ended the last day of my life.

I went back to my apartment alone, about an hour before dusk. When I got inside, Naha was still sitting in the big chair as if he hadn’t moved all day, although there was an empty food tray on the nightstand. He started as I walked in; I suspected he had been napping, or at least daydreaming.

“Go where you like for the remainder of the day,” I told him. “I’d like to be alone awhile.”

He did not argue as he got to his feet. There was a dress on my bed—a long, formal gown, beautifully made, except that it was a drab gray in color. There were matching shoes and accessories sitting beside it.

“Servants brought those,” Nahadoth said. “You’re to wear them tonight.”

“Thank you.”

He moved past me on his way out, not looking at me. At the room’s threshold I heard him stop for a moment. Perhaps he turned back. Perhaps he opened his mouth to speak. But he said nothing, and a moment later I heard the apartment’s door open and close.

I bathed and got dressed, then sat down in front of the windows to wait.

I SEE MY LAND BELOW ME.

On the mountain pass, the watchtowers have already been overrun. The Darren troops there are dead. They fought hard, using the pass’s narrowness to make up for their small numbers, but in the end there were simply too many of the enemy. The Darre lasted long enough to light the signal fires and send a message: The enemy is coming.

The forests are Darr’s second line of defense. Many an enemy has faltered here, poisoned by snakes or weakened by disease or worn down by the endless, strangling vines. My people have always taken advantage of this, seeding the forests with wisewomen who know how to hide and strike and fade back into the brush, like leopards.

But times have changed, and this time the enemy has brought a special weapon—a scrivener. Once this would have been unheard of in High North; magic is an Amn thing, deemed cowardly by most barbarian standards. Even for those nations willing to try cowardice, the Amn keep their scriveners too expensive to hire. But of course, that is not a problem for an Arameri.

(Stupid, stupid me. I have money. I could have sent a scrivener to fight on Darr’s behalf. But in the end, I am still a barbarian; I did not think of it, and now it is too late.)

The scrivener, some contemporary of Viraine’s, draws sigils on paper and pastes these to a few trees, and steps back. A column of white-hot fire sears through the forest in an unnaturally straight line. It goes for miles and miles, all the way to the stone walls of Arrebaia, which it smashes against. Clever; if they had set the whole forest afire, it would have burned for months. This is just a narrow path. When it has burned enough, the scrivener sets down more godwords, and the fire goes out. Aside from crumbling, charred trees and the unrecognizable corpses of animals, the way is clear. The enemy can reach Arrebaia within a day.

There is a stir at the edge of the forest. Someone stumbles out, blinded and half-choked by smoke. A wisewoman? No, this is a man—a boy, not even old enough to sire daughters. What is he doing out here? We have never allowed boys to fight. And the knowledge comes: my people are desperate. Even children must fight, if we are to survive.

The enemy soldiers swarm over him like ants. They do not kill him. They chain him in a supply cart and carry him along as they march. When they reach Arrebaia, they mean to put him on display to strike at our hearts—oh, and how it will. Our men have always been our treasures. They may slit his throat on the steps of Sar-enna-nem, just to rub salt in the wound.

I should have sent a scrivener.

The ballroom of Sky: a vast, high-ceilinged chamber whose walls were even more vividly mother-of-pearl than the rest of the palace, and tinted a faint rose hue. After the unrelenting white of the rest of Sky, that touch of color seemed almost shockingly vivid. Chandeliers like the starry sky turned overhead; music drifted through the air, complicated Amn stuff, from the sextet of musicians on a nearby dais. The floors, to my surprise, were something other than Skystuff: clear and golden, like dark polished amber. It could not possibly have been amber since there were no seams, and that would have required a chunk of amber the size of a small hill. But that was what it looked like.