The other lands

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

He had said her name. Mor. It rolled off his tongue like he knew her, like they were old friends or comrades, like he was a master about to chastise her for slack work, as if he had the right to know her name and to shape it in his mouth. She was not sure which of these she most heard when he spoke, but it included all of them. It was a simple thing, but so unexpected that it ignited more anger in her than she had anticipated. The moment she had waited a lifetime for… the moment when she would spit in the face of an Akaran prince. A vile, contemptible Akaran! A despot. A criminal. An abomination that deserved to live only until it understood the full extent of the crimes done in its name. She had gone to that chamber ready to revel in finally seeing one of these Akarans, one hated more even than the Auldek or the Lothan Aklun or the league.

Instead, she lost control of herself. And why? Maybe, she thought, as she sat in a windowless room in the maze of tunnels below the capital city, it was his accent. His damned Acacian accent! He spoke as they had all once spoken-all of them in some variation or another-before years in Ushen Brae, speaking Acacian secretly while the official language of the Auldek bent and twisted their pronunciation so that they did not recall how they were supposed to sound anymore. The language of defiance that the People spoke to one another was a sad imitation of the language of the ones who had sold them as slaves. It all held a terrible irony. It was that, now that she thought about it, that had driven her to slash him so forcefully.

Or, well, there was another thing. She hated admitting it, but the cadence of his voice shot her through with the memory of her brother. She would never have expected that. A few seconds in his presence. A few words and the weight of longing for Ravi crashed down upon her. It was not a particular memory, just the entirety of awareness of how much she missed him, how incomplete she was without him. The Akaran bastard! To have brought that on her with just a few words… It must have been some sort of Acacian magic. Who could blame her for smashing his head against the wall? He deserved worse. As far as she was concerned, he would receive worse.

She lowered her head farther and tilted the knobby implants that protruded from the tips of her fingers into her scalp, pressing them in until they were painful. She would do better next time she saw him. That was her responsibility. The elders trusted her with this and she would not let them down. Ravi would want better of her; she would not fail him, wherever in Ushen Brae his soul was.

She eased her claws from her scalp, exhaling and drawing herself upright. Her eyes drifted to the small mirror on the table across from her. It was angled away and she could not see her image in it, but she knew what she would see if she turned it toward her: the visage she had come to think of as her own. From her chest and shoulders up across her face and even into her hairline she was spotted like a shivith, ink of black and yellow and shadings in between embedded into her skin, trapped in her living tissue. Shivith. Her current visage would forever be a merging of human features and feline patterning. As with everything in Ushen Brae, the irony was that she could not imagine herself any other way. She did not know herself without the tattoos that defined, placed her, gave her station and marked her as property in this world.

She did remember Ravi as he had been. She had last seen him as a child, unaltered. Everyone had said they wore the same face. So perhaps remembering him was remembering herself as well. His eyes had been deceptively tranquil, with upper eyelids that lay heavy in the Candovian way. Beautiful, she thought. Wise eyes in a wise, rounded face. Ravi… How she had clung to him on the ship that ripped them from the Known World and brought them into slavery.

Even in the hull of the league ship, Ravi had chafed at the injustice. His eyes may have looked tranquil, but the mind behind them was sharp and brave. He had whispered schemes of escape in her ears. First one plan and then another, and revised to yet another as each was proven impossible. He sought to win others over. He left her for short periods and spoke to the other captives at night, when the guards left them alone. He tried to stir their fear and anger into something useful. There had to be a way, he had claimed. Had to be! Remember, they were thousands! Few listened. He had been marked by his outburst on the beach. Though none understood what the leagueman had in store for Ravi, all suspected it was a fate worse than theirs. Hadn't the leagueman said something about being eaten? What monster awaited him, and why let him lead them to a similar fate?

The few who had watched him with nervous eyes, hungry for escape, backed away from him after the leaguemen brought them out of the hold to show them a view of the world that only the league could offer them. The children were led up in groups, gripping one another and afraid of the sea spray and the wind whipping about and the tilting deck. The ship, massive as it was, rose and fell on even more colossal mountains of water. All around them, as far as the eye could see, nothing but the chaos of raging walls of dark gray water, as solid as stone and just as cold. Leaguemen railed at them. They were madmen, perched high up in baskets on the masts. They shouted and flailed their arms and laughed as if nothing in the world was as grand as the fury of the sea. Nothing except their mastery over it. Mor had thought that she would never see a sight more frightening. She was wrong. Horror takes many forms.

It was horror that flowed in her veins when the red-cloaked men returned for them. They came in the morning, striding through the sleeping children spread around belowdecks. They kicked and punched as they went, shouting obscenities and vile threats and finding mirth in every cringing face. They knew where Ravi was, and they came for him. For her. Ravi fought them, but it was not a fight he could win. Watching as he kicked and twisted, and as the soldiers' fists snapped out again and again, Mor wanted to shout. But not just as the vile men. At Ravi, too. Stop fighting them! Stop doing just what they want you to do!

The red-cloaked soldiers pulled Mor and Ravi away from the others, hauled them up onto the deck and shoved them here and there, led them down a long, narrow ramp from the middle of the behemoth hull of the ship to a dock. And then the cloaked men with their elongated heads and fragile bodies were beside them. She remembered that one of them had fingernails several inches long, curving things, curling back on themselves. After that they were on the strangest of boats, sleek and white and propelled by some power within it. The vessel cut against the currents and against the wind. Though she had been at sea for weeks, Mor's stomach churned and spat out her insides, splattering foulness down her front. Ravi clenched her hand all the harder, but it didn't help.

The cloaked men-leaguemen, of course-delivered them into the hands of a woman who waited for them on a stone pier. She was the first woman Mor had seen since they boarded the league ship. She walked toward them like some princess. That's what Mor had thought. Like a princess, she wore a sparkling gown, snug on her slim form, a dress that flared out around her ankles and disguised the motion of her legs. She seemed to be propelled toward them as if on wheels. Her features were delicate, pale. Only when she stopped before them did Mor realize that the shapes beside her head that she had assumed were some sort of hat were actually her ears. On both sides they stretched up into points several inches higher than the norm, curving and twisting so that at their peaks they protruded to the side.

Perhaps it was the sight of them-or maybe it was the unnerving sensation of having firm ground under her feet again, or because she had eaten so little and then vomited and was weakened by it-for whichever or all of these reasons, Mor fainted.

She awoke a moment later, with the big-eared woman huddled over her, studying her. In the years to come Mor often thought of her face looking down, the first time she made eye contact with a Lothan Aklun. The woman grinned. "I hear your thoughts," she said, in a language that was not Candovian. It was like Acacian, which Mor understood a little, but different as well. Though she heard the strange words of the language, she also understood their meaning. The Lothan Aklun cocked her head and tugged on one of her elongated ears with a thin finger. "We do this for beauty, and to hear better." It was an almost comforting memory, the woman's voice kind, her words close to whispers. It was the first thing a Lothan Aklun had ever said to her, and it was the last thing she would ever mistakenly believe was kind about them.

Then came another boat ride once the leaguemen had departed, a small vessel but so fast skimming the waves that Mor felt like screaming. It cut between islands, swaying back and forth so that within a few minutes the view behind them became a maze of land and water. They passed for some time along the coastline of one large island, thickly treed and wild looking. Eventually, the boat docked at a small pier near an outcropping of rock. The woman led them out and up a stone staircase cut into the cliff. Ravi still clenched Mor's hand, and, when the woman stopped before a darkened doorway and motioned for them to enter, they stepped inside together, side by side. That was how she entered the chamber that she would remember every day for the rest of her life. That's how she walked on her own two feet into the soul catcher's mouth.

Skylene appeared in the doorway. She stood there a moment, frowning at Mor, her eyes soft even as her thin lips were pursed in judgment. Beneath her pale, sky-blue face were features born of the Eilavan Woodlands of the Known World. It was unlikely that any living in that place would recognize her as their kin, not behind that unnatural hue, not behind a nose stretched by an implant that made it beaklike, not beneath the jagged plumage jutting up like a crown anchored in her hairline. She may have been Mainland born, but now she was marked as a slave of the Kern, the clan that called the southern delta their ancestral homeland and took the blue crane as their totem divinity.

More beautiful than any crane, Mor thought, and then hated the fact that she had thought that once again, just as on so many occasions before. How frustrating that the tortures the Auldek put them through were also changes they grew to love. She looked away from her.

Skylene closed the space between them. She slid her arms around Mor's neck. She pressed her small-breasted body against her lover's back. "You shouldn't have hit him like that," she said.

"I know."

"He may be useful to us. Yoen and the other elders said-"

"Are you here to chastise me?"

Skylene took Mor's chin in her fingers and turned her head around. She leaned in and kissed her full on the mouth. Mor opened to her, hungry for her, thinking, for a few moments, of nothing save the texture of her lover's lips and feel of her teeth. She drove her tongue between them and found the answering luxury beyond.

Too soon, Skylene pulled back. She ran her fingers up her forehead and over the tufts that jutted from her hairline. "No, I'm here to tell you he's awake again, and sensible. I left Tunnel with him. He seems to like talking with him."

"That won't help his recovery any," Mor said wryly. "Did you question him?"

"He tells a strange story. He claims he was betrayed. Claims he came as an envoy from his sister the queen. Says the leaguemen chained him. Says they poisoned the Lothan Aklun somehow and tried to make a new deal with the Auldek. Says the league was going to give him to the Auldek, but then something happened and the Numrek betrayed them all. It does seem to match what I witnessed. And you heard what the spotters said of the waters. They're empty of Aklun ships. Whatever happened-"

"Whatever happened is still a confusion. None of it makes sense yet. The Numrek-What are those vile ones doing back here?"

Skylene did not dispute the point or try to answer the question. "Dariel says that he did not support the quota. Says he was going to find a way to break it, to trade in other things-not slaves."

Mor leaned her head back against Skylene's chest. "You call him by his first name now? Don't tell me you believe him. How many years have they sold us into slavery? How many thousands gone? Generations, and he expects us to believe that the first one of them we catch wished only to deliver us. They lie better than you, Skylene. Don't be fooled by it."

"Tunnel likes him," Skylene said, after a moment of silence. "He already thinks he's Rhuin Fa."

"Based on what facts?"

"Based on the fact that he's been waiting his entire life for it. Just like everybody, Mor. Just like all of us."

"Not me."

Skylene squeezed her shoulder and then stepped away. "So you say. I'm not so sure. Sometimes I think you pray for the Rhuin Fa more than any of us." Before Mor could respond, Skylene clicked her tongue. "Next time you see him, keep your claws to yourself. And you must remember that you are not an elder. You're just their chosen agent. You cannot harm this man without their permission. To do so would doom you as much as him. We're to talk to him. Talk and tell Yoen what we learn. Let him and the others decide what comes from it."

"I'm not a child," Mor said.

"No, you're a brilliant and brave leader, who sometimes forgets her senses."

Mor closed her eyes. I wasn't always like that. I wasn't always.

That day in the soul catcher-whose name and purpose she did not understand until later-she certainly had not been a brave leader. She had been a child who stood against the wall as directed by the large-eared woman. Mor stared wide-eyed around a room she could not comprehend. Lothan Aklun men and women moved about, all dressed in loose-fitting gowns that trailed on the white stone floor. They were uniformly thin. No laborers' bodies, theirs. They were busy with tasks that, for a few moments, Mor thought had nothing to do with Ravi and her. They bustled about, talking and pressing their hands against panels in the stone. At least, she assumed the substance was stone. It was as hard as stone, and it made up the walls; other objects around the room seemed to have been carved from same material. Toward the center of the oblong room were two raised rectangles like beds, but so flat and cold no one would sleep on them. Some distance above, hanging from the ceiling, were still larger rectangular shapes.

The Lothan Aklun ignored them so completely that for a short space of time she tingled with the notion that they had forgotten all about her. She still held Ravi's hand. Mightn't they both slip away? The door was open. She could feel Ravi thinking the same thing, his excitement making his fingers twitch. It was just there, daylight shining through.

Ravi moved. He clamped his fingers around her hand, painfully tight, and yanked her into motion. Just as she had thought; they ran for the door. They were nearly there in just a few steps. The Lothan Aklun did not notice. The woman who had escorted them had her back to them. Mor did not think about what they would do on the other side of the threshold, other than dash down those steps. Running. Running.

A man's form cut the brilliance of the day. He strode in, his feet heavy on the stone. Both children abruptly stopped. Ravi fell and let go of his sister's hand. Mor had never seen so tall a man, long legged and long armed and with a torso muscled in bulging ridged compartments. Though he wore only a short black skirt and though his hair was long in the manner of Candovian brides, he seemed a warrior about to kill. His fists clenched and released, hungry for the weapons that belonged in them. The strength of him was obscene-that was how she would remember it-and yet she could not look away. A body built for war, designed for no other purpose, suited to no other purpose. An Auldek, she would later learn.

She thought that he had entered just to stop them, but it was clear from the look of casual interest on his face that he was surprised to see the children flailing at his feet. Several more like him in size and bearing followed him, companions chatting as they stepped across the threshold. While she was still stunned and stumbling back, the Lothan Aklun rushed forward, snatched up Ravi, and dragged him, with more strength in them than she had imagined, toward one of the stone slabs. Mor's gaze snapped back and forth from Ravi to the Auldek. Thus, she saw the Lothan Aklun strap Ravi down to a slab. She saw him wrestling to be free. She saw that once he was strapped down, the rectangular box dangling from the ceiling lowered to cover him. She heard him scream her name, just before the stone cover touched the floor and the cry was cut off. The moment passed, and Lothan Aklun hands pulled Mor out of the Auldek's way. Mor was shoved against the wall once more, and there she screamed. Ravi was inside that box. Pale stone. Sharp edges.

The shirtless Auldek exchanged words with the Lothan Aklun. He seemed to want to see under the box that covered Ravi, but they would not let him. Instead, one of them pointed to Mor. He spoke in a guttural tongue she could not understand. Her breath escaped her completely when the Auldek turned and stared at her. He walked closer. His hand came out and touched her chin. She flinched, but his grip pinned her to the spot. He turned her face upward and studied her, even as she stared at him. His visage was a mask for a long moment, creviced and sharp, with eyes as unreadable as a snake's. And then he smiled and said something that stirred laughter in his comrades.

He released her, spun away, and climbed onto the second slab of stone. He slapped the sides with the palms of his hands, as if urging the Lothan Aklun to hurry. The other Auldek moved to the far side of the room and stood in a spot one of the Lothan Aklun gestured them to. The Lothan Aklun busied themselves again. Soon the rectangular cover above the Auldek also lowered, closing around him and cutting off the last few remarks he shouted out.

Mor stood transfixed, her hands clenched together now, working nervously at each other. She remembered the moment, but she could not recall what she had felt. It was a blank space about which the frantic motion of her hands and the things witnessed by her eyes told her little. Ravi was encased in stone. She knew why now, but what had she thought then? It troubled her greatly that she did not remember, and that whatever Ravi went through he faced alone, while she stood, wringing her hands.

And the moment passed. There was no loud noise, no blast of light, no roar or blood or confusion. There might have been a sound that she felt through her feet, something like music, but she was not even sure of this. She watched the cover above the Auldek rise. The Lothan Aklun hurried to him. When they stepped back a moment later, he rolled off the platform. He planted his feet and growled. He pumped his fist in the air, a grin splitting his face. He was the same, save his skin now glowed as if a light burned in his chest and illumed him from the inside out. The other Auldek howled back at him, all of them animated as they swarmed around him, smacking him with their palms. The Lothan Aklun carried on whatever it was they were working at, their backs turned to the Auldek as if they were no longer there.

The other lid-the one that covered Ravi-remained closed. She never saw Ravi's face or knew what was left of him after his soul was pulled from his body and thrust into that Auldek's. For that was what had happened. She would not understand this completely until sometime later, when Yoen explained it all to her in his gentle, honest way. That was why she knew the truth now. That was why her mind had come to accept what her spirit had told her. Ravi was not yet gone; he was a prisoner in another being's flesh.

There was one other thing she did know for sure. She had never forgotten the name of the Auldek who received her brother's soul. She heard it on Lothan Aklun lips and recognized it to be a name, something different from the rest of the foreign words.

Devoth. His name was Devoth. One day she would get to him, find him unprotected. Then she would kill him and let her brother free.