Tinhadin, having inherited his father’s newly won throne and outliving his brothers, found himself prosecuting wars on several fronts. The Wars of Distribution, as they were called, marked a strained and tumultuous time. His former ally, Hauchmeinish of the Mein, was now an enemy. He no longer trusted his faithful sorcerers, the Santoth. Provincial rebellions flared up like wildfires on the Acacian hills during the summer. His own understanding of the world was warped and horrific, and he struggled with a belief that any word uttered from his mouth might change the fabric of existence. He was a Santoth as well, the greatest of them, but the burden of the magic on his tongue had become a torture to control.
Into this came a new threat from across the Gray Slopes. There was a power, Tinhadin learned, greater than his own. They were called the Lothan Aklun. They were of the Other Lands, outside the Known World, separated from them by a great ocean. They were a complete mystery to the early king. Their power was nothing really but a claim, but Tinhadin did not want another enemy at that time. He made overtures of peace with them, suggesting trade and mutual gain instead of conflict. The Lothan Aklun not only jumped at the offer, they proposed specifics Tinhadin could not have imagined on his own.
The agreement must have seemed a bargain at the time. The Lothan Aklun promised not to attack the war-ravaged land and agreed to only ever trade with Akarans. All they needed to assure this beneficence was a yearly shipment of child slaves, with no questions asked, no conditions imposed on what they did with them, and with no possibility that the children would ever see Acacia again. In return for this they offered Tinhadin the mist, a tool that, they promised, he would find most helpful in sedating his fractious wards. It was fine-tuned later, but on these basic terms the deal was agreed. Since then, thousands upon thousands of the Known World’s children had been shipped into bondage, and millions under Akaran rule had given over their lives and labors and dreams to the fleeting visions brought on by the mist. The same drug Leodan Akaran inhaled nightly. Such was the truth of Acacia.
“Demand?” Leodan finally asked. “You call it a demand?”
“In tone, yes, my lord, it does have the ring of belligerent certainty to it.” “Lothan belligerence is nothing new,” Leodan said. “It’s nothing new… They already have my people’s souls. What more do they want? The Lothan Aklun are no better than any of the riffraff surrounding us: the miners, the merchants, the league themselves. None of them is content from one moment to the next. I may have never set eyes on a Lothan, but I know them well. Tell the league to take this message to them: the Quota stays as it always has been. The agreement was binding into perpetuity, made before my time to stretch beyond it; I do not accept any change, now or ever.”
He said this with finality, but he did not seem to like the silence Thaddeus responded with. “There is something else we should speak about,” Leodan said. “I received a letter this morning from Leeka Alain of the Northern Guard. He had it sent to a merchant in the lower town, who got it to me through the house servants. All very unusual.”
“Yes, quite odd.” Thaddeus cleared his throat, first softly and then through several louder coughs. “What has the soldier to say?”
“It was a strange letter, full of import but vague on details. He wanted to know if I had received a messenger he sent earlier. A Lieutenant Szara. By the sound of it, this messenger was dispatched with some grave message.”
Thaddeus watched the king. “Have you received such a message?”
“You know the answer to that. It would have come to me through you.”
“Of course, but I have heard nothing of this. Did Leeka reveal the details of the message in the letter?”
“No. He does not trust the written word.”
“He should not. Once written, anyone could read it.”
The king’s eyes moved slowly, heavily. They swung around on the chancellor and studied him, clouded by the drug but still able to focus. The man’s face was calm, although tense across the forehead. “Yes, perhaps…I do wonder why he chose to correspond with me instead of through the governor. I know he has no fondness for Rialus Neptos; I do not either, for that matter. Do you know that Rialus used to write me at least twice yearly, extolling his virtues and hinting that he should be recalled from the Mein and given some higher appointment here in Acacia? As if I want him sulking around the palace. He points out that he is of pure Acacian ancestry, says the climate of the Mein damages his health. I cannot argue with that, really; it is a miserable place… Anyway, Leeka wished to communicate directly tome, and that makes me curious. Where is this Szara?”
Thaddeus lifted his shoulders to his ears, then dropped them. “I know nothing, but even in these peaceful times ill things happen. It is the dead of winter. That means little here, but in the highlands of the Mein the weather would be most foul. How was she meant to travel? On horseback or down the River Ask?”
“I don’t know,” he said.
“Let me take care of this,” Thaddeus said. “Put it out of your mind until I have looked into it. I will send an armed envoy north to meet with Leeka. By your leave I will give them the king’s rights, so that they may travel swiftly and always have fresh horses. We will hear from them within a month, maybe less if they sail to Aushenia and take the short land route. Twenty-five days at most. And then you will know everything.” Thaddeus paused and waited for the king’s response. It was little more than a grunt of affirmation, but it seemed to satisfy the chancellor. He sipped from his glass. “And then you will see that it was nothing serious at all. Leeka has always prickled with suspicions about the Mein, but when has it yet amounted to anything?”
“Things are different now,” the king said. “Heberen Mein was a reasonable man, but he is dead. His three sons are a different matter. Hanish is ambitious; I saw that in his eyes even as a boy, when he visited the city. Maeander is pure spite, and Thasren is a mystery. My father was sure that we would never be able to trust them. He made me swear I would not fall to that weakness-trust. You also used to tell me I did not worry enough. Together you and I conceived plans for all manner of tragic events, remember?”
Thaddeus smiled. “Of course I do. It is my job to. In youth I saw danger everywhere. But Acacia has never been stronger. I mean that, my friend.”
“I know you do, Thaddeus.” The king turned his gaze up toward the ceiling. “Soon I will rouse all the children and take them on a voyage. We will visit each province of the empire. I will try to convince them that I am their beneficent king; and they will try to convince me that they are my loyal subjects. And perhaps the illusion will go on for some time yet. What say you to that?”
“That sounds like a fine thing,” Thaddeus said. “That would make your children very happy.”
“Of course, their ‘uncle’ would accompany us as well. They love you as much as they do me, Thaddeus.”
The other man took a moment to respond. “You honor me unduly.”
The king sat repeating this statement in his head for some time, finding comfort in it even as he drifted away from its original context. He had said something similar once to Aleera. What had it been? You…love me unduly. That was what he had said. Why had he said that? Because it was true, of course. He had explained as much to her one evening a few days before their wedding. He had drunk too much wine and listened to too many speeches praising him. He could not take it anymore, so he had pulled his bride-to-be to the side and told her she should know things about him before they were married. He confessed to her all that he knew about the crimes of the empire, the old ones and the ones still done in his father’s name, the ones that would likely continue in his name. He poured it all out, tearful and pathetic and even belligerent, sure that she would shrink from him, almost hoping that she would turn away and reject him. Surely a good woman would. And he had no doubt of her goodness.