"It's all right," she said, reaching out and touching the brawny bulk of his forearm. "I have no orders to harm him. He will just be tested further."
Tunnel lifted his chin, a gesture that seemed to have a variety of meanings for him. This time, she thought it indicated relief, acknowledgment of reason, and a slight hint of "See, I told you."
"Yes, Tunnel knows." She touched her palm to his muscled chest, pulled it back quickly. "Go in. Let Skylene know she may proceed as we discussed. She can answer his questions. I will listen from here for a time."
Once she was alone in the cramped passageway, Mor leaned against the stone wall next to the door. As in all these abandoned regions, the door was old and half rotten. It sat slightly ajar, tugging at hinges that probably would not hold much longer. There was enough space that Mor could listen, knowing she was hidden from the speakers inside.
Tunnel's entry stopped whatever they had been talking about. He greeted the prince merrily, like an old friend. He even audibly slapped him on the back. They spoke foolishness for a few minutes, although within it Mor recognized that Tunnel was conveying her permission to finally educate the Akaran. It was time, as she had already discussed with Skylene, to tell him the truth of things.
Mor noted that Skylene and Dariel spoke with an alarming level of familiarity. She did not like it. Were they all so infatuated with the Akaran? Even Skylene, her lover? The thought of it almost drove her into the room, but she was not ready yet, and did not want to enter until she knew what she would say and could do it without hesitation. Anyway, she had agreed that Skylene would be kind to him in ways that she was not willing to be. Perhaps that was all she was doing-playing a role a little too well.
Dariel spoke easily enough. The topic now-his naval battles with the league during the war with Hanish Mein-seemed to fire his oratory. He wants us to think him a hero, Mor thought, and because of it she wanted to doubt his version of events. Still, it was easy to listen to him, easy to forget her skepticism as he told of ships smashing together, of nighttime raids, hidden raider camps, and the great work of sabotage that destroyed much of the league's platforms. Mor remembered that place well, and it was stunning to imagine the scene he described. Flames roaring up into the sky…
"Why did you hate them so?" Skylene asked, the scratch of a scribe's stylus right behind her words. "Your family did-and does-partner with them. You came here with them-"
"It was personal back then. There I was, a prince of an overthrown empire, hiding among brigands, fighting the league because they made life hard for the criminals who were my new family… Yet I came here, allied with them, more aware than ever of their crimes, but was then betrayed by them to the people who enslave you. And now I'm in your hands. All very amusing." He laughed. "How can I live day after day, trying to make decisions, and yet feel that I've not had one moment of control of any of it?"
"At least you laugh," Tunnel said.
"At some point, what else can I do?"
"You control more than you acknowledge," Skylene's voice said. "I would have loved to have seen the platforms destroyed."
"That didn't come without a price."
"What was the price?"
Dariel took a moment to respond. "I lost a person dear to me, the man who was my second father."
A second father. Mor recalled Yoen's eyes embedded in the vessel's face, but then pushed the image away. It was not the same. Whatever the Akaran had experienced, his loss was nothing compared to what each of the People suffered.
Dariel continued, "And I came to understand later that my actions killed many quota children. I wish that weren't so. It was children like you who died there."
Mor felt like clearing her throat and spitting, or bursting into the room and slapping him again. What right did he have to make those deaths a weight on his conscience? It was an indulgence he didn't deserve. She was pleased by what Skylene said in reply.
"You Akarans dwell on past failures too much. I'm beginning to think that's what made your line so tyrannicaclass="underline" guilt, and hiding it."
"Yes," Dariel said, no indication in his voice that he took offense. Mor imagined him grinning as he propped a leg up on a stool. "But enough of me talking. You give me something now. You said you would."
This was met with a moment of silence, then Skylene cleared her throat. Mor imagined the tight face she was making, the way she would dip her head and sweep her left hand from her forehead up lightly across her plumage. "What do you want to know?" she asked.
"Everything."
"That's a bit too much to tell at one sitting."
"Tell me about the Auldek, then."
And she did. Mor pressed her ear even closer to the gap, for Skylene began speaking softly. Good, she thought. Yes, do give the Akaran truth. Let it be a punishment to that weak side of him that embraces guilt.
Skylene spoke with her usual conciseness, laying out the details in a dispassionate manner that Mor herself could not have pulled off. It was hard to know truth from myth, but some among the divine children had been entrusted with keeping the Auldek's oral history. They passed on what they had learned to the People. The clans of Ushen Brae had once been much more numerous. Theirs had been a warrior culture, rooted for millennia in intertribal strife, a culture in which men lived to die in battle, risking everything to earn a place in the warrior halls of the afterworld. They worshipped a god of war, Bahine, and a pantheon of lesser animal deities, warriors all.
"If they had stayed such," Skylene said, "there would never have been a quota trade."
But things did not stay that way. Though the tribes were rich in fertile land and resources, the constant warring made for feast or famine, triumph or destruction. They might have been strong with swords and axes; when the Lothan Aklun arrived, they thought them hounds fighting over scraps.
"Arrived?" Dariel interrupted. "From where?"
Skylene admitted that she did not know. But they came and, soon after, the league did as well. "It was so long ago that the truth is hard to know for certain, but some believe that the Lothan Aklun and the league were in partnership right from the start, as if the Lothan Aklun discovered Ushen Brae, saw the potential for trade, and called on the league to sail the seas for them.
"The thing is, Dariel," Skylene said, "the Lothan Aklun did not want to trade in ore or spices or oils. Even the mist was important only because the Known World wanted it so. For some reason, they wanted to base their trade of slaves on quota, on souls. They created the soul catcher. It's not a thing. Not a device or tool, exactly. It's the place where the life force is taken from one and given to another. We don't know how it works, or why. There are words written on the floor, they say. Perhaps the spells are written there, or perhaps in some way it focuses the Lothan Aklun's power. With it, they can take the life force from one body and place it into another, on reserve for when it's needed. This is the reason why Devoth didn't die when that arrow burst his heart. He has many lives within his skin. Killing one is anguish, but goes away."
Dariel said, "This is making my head spin. For weeks you tell me nothing. Now, suddenly-"
"Yes, well, your respite is over. Don't faint on me just yet, though. The result of all this is the Ushen Brae of today. The Lothan Aklun traded mist for quota children, and they took them and sold them to the Auldek, who paid great sums for them. The Auldek, in turn, used the slaves to run their world, to build their grand cities and produce a greater flow of wealth than they and the Lothan Aklun could ever have produced themselves. See how it all works?"