David Durham - The Sacred Band

It would be a magnificent life.

Only… He searched out Melio’s face, saw him watching, concern on his features. Clytus as well. Geena. Even Kartholome. If they had not come for him he might have answered Yoen differently. He might have grasped for a magnificent life in Ushen Brae. But they had come, and that life could not be. They had come to take him home, to Acacia, to Wren. If she lived and he could get back to her, he would never let her go again. Never. He had to go back. He had to sail with Melio beside him, hoping that the future included him being uncle to the child Melio wanted to have with Mena.

“No, I can’t accept this.” He looked around at the silent people watching him. “I love the Free People,” he said. “I have learned to love Ushen Brae, and I could not be more thankful for the gifts you’ve given me. But”-his gaze settled on Mor-“I must go home.” He walked to Mor and pushed the crown into her hands. “If this is mine to do with what I wish, I give it to Mor. Why not a queen instead of a king? A mother for the nation. Go ask the crowd what they think of that.”

When Mor looked down, stunned by the treasure in her hands, Dariel turned and walked away. In the hush, his steps sounded loud on the marble slabs. He did not look back, though he badly wanted to. He wanted to see Mor stepping into the light of day, crown in hand, to ask the People to name their future. He pictured it in his mind. He saw it that way, and walked with the vision in his mind’s eye, knowing it was a fine vision, a truly fine vision.

He was into the hallway and down it some ways before his steps slowed. He wanted to go back. What was he doing? He loved this place! If he had come here under different terms, he might have stayed forever. But he had been away from home too long. He did not want to forget the ones he loved over there. No, he had to go. He had to go home.

He got a few steps farther before he heard the eruption of cheers from the square. He kept walking, embarrassed lest anybody see the tears suddenly washing his face. A good effort, but he did not get far. He stopped again. He leaned against a wall and watched the world go liquid. He was not even sure why he was crying, whether it was for this place or the other, whether from sadness or joy. He listened to the hush and burst of cheers, to the gaps during which one or another person spoke. He could not hear what they were saying, but he was happy for them. The Free People were becoming a nation. The children who had been stolen had finally-

“Dariel!”

He began to walk again, but with blurred vision he was not sure which columned passage would take him out.

Anira caught up to him as he hesitated. He tried to turn his face from view. She caught his chin. “Has anyone told you what Rhuin Fa means?” she asked. “They did not say so before because it might have affected your decisions. You had to be pure, and to do what you would of your own accord.”

The moment she said this, Dariel realized that he did know what the title meant. He just had not thought about it since Na Gamen gifted him with the Lothan Aklun language. He knew, though. He knew before Anira even said it.

“Dariel, it means ‘the one who closes the circle.’ ” She shook him gently. She moved her face close to his and kissed him. It was not a sensual gesture. It was just a gift between two friends. “Do you hear me? The one who closes the circle. Rhuin Fa, do you hear them? They’re calling for you. I think some of them want to go home with you. I think… many of them want to go home with you. They want a big, big league boat. They want you to captain it, and to take them home.”

They’re not bad young ones,” Delivegu said. “Didn’t talk much at first, but they loosened up as we traveled. Get them talking about warfare and they’ll chew your ear off. I mean that literally.” He mussed the unruly black hair of the boy beside him.

Aliver smiled at the gesture. There was a fatherly sincerity to it that he had to acknowledge. He had always thought Delivegu a swaggering braggart, though he had not managed to say so while still bound by Corinn’s magic. Delivegu still had a swagger, but he had done what Aliver requested. He had reached them last night, in time, perhaps, for his mission to make a difference in what happened today.

“Thank you, Delivegu,” Aliver said. “You have done well.”

The Numrek children stood in a nervous cluster around the Senivalian. The eldest was in his early teens, the youngest looked to be five or six. Aliver could not be sure if their ages matched their appearance, but he thought so. He saw in the older boys the flame of newfound rebelliousness, in the younger children, the staring eyes of ones so frightened by the world that they could not look away from it even for a moment. They were just children. His enemy’s children, but still just children.

He counted seven of them, just like the number in Kelis’s dream. He recalled that Kelis had called them his children. He had dreamed that Aliver had seven children. Here they were. He thought, What if Shen had been captured like this? Aaden? It was not a far-fetched thought. In a world in which the Auldek fought this war to victory, his own dear ones would be at the mercy of his enemies, as these were.

“I mean you no harm,” Aliver said. “I know harm was done to you. I think, perhaps, that you saw what my sister did to your parents back in Teh. I am sorry for that. I hope that you live long lives, and that the years as they pass blur that memory. I can’t undo it any more than you can undo the crimes that drove the queen to feel the wrath she did that day. Do you know why she was so angry? Because your parents conspired to kill her son. That, more than anything, drove her to the madness you watched. I understand that madness, but I want no part of it myself. I have a child, too.”

That last statement stopped him. Whatever he was going to follow it with flew out of his mind. He sat a moment looking from one child’s face to another’s, searching for what he had been about to say. He did not find it. “I have a child, too” was not the beginning of a thought. It was the conclusion of it.

“Would you like to see Ushen Brae?” Aliver asked.

It took some time to get them to respond, with Delivegu helping. All of them eventually said they did want to see Ushen Brae.

“It’s a foreign land to you, and it won’t be as it was when your parents left.” This they did not have any response to. Why should they? They did not know Ushen Brae. They did know Acacia, though, and this place had not been kind to them. “If the Auldek will have you, would you go to them?”

The answers came back faster this time. Yes, of course they would.

Rising, Aliver moved toward the tent flap. He paused at it, and said, “I will try to send you home. It’s not up to me, but I will try.”

T he mass of troops collected a few hundred paces behind them was an impressive force. Aliver only glanced at them, though. He had no desire to see the thousands of warriors and hundreds of beasts and machines of war arrayed against him. His own army had grown just as massive. The united humanity of the Known World stood rank upon rank behind him, people from all the provinces, with all their various languages and traits and characteristics. They would fight and die today, just as the Auldek forces would. For different reasons, but with the same ferocity. Corinn’s dragons would take to the air; the freketes would do the same. This day could become an unimaginable, bloody conflagration. The wood was all stacked. The torch had only to be touched to the fuel. Or not.

So he kept his attention on the delegation just in front of him. Devoth, Sabeer, and the other clan chieftains stood a few strides away. Aliver had only seen them as spirit people, glowing and transparent. Still, he knew the figures who stood before him now were not as they had been but a few days ago. The defiance in Devoth’s laugh just a few nights before, the confidence, the certainty of knowing that death was far removed from them: it was all gone. Their faces looked haggard, stunned. Their eyes drooped with fatigue.