mouth away from his pipe, he spoke through an exhalation of green mist vapor. “We find you guilty of gross misconduct.”
“No!”
“Yes, we do. Why wouldn’t we? We know everything that happened. Without a doubt, you committed grave actions without the council’s consent. You compounded these with further actions, and then you compelled your fellow leaguemen into actions they had no choice but to agree to. All these things are true. I suggest you close your mouth before letting any of the thoughts in your head slip out of it. Remember, Dagon, that all of us in this chamber have been inside you. We are still, to some degree. So hush. That is a command. For the rest of this council, you will not say a word, on pain of banishment.”
Stirring a cloud of mist vapor from in front of his face, Revek peered through it. “So that is the verdict,” he said. “As for punishment… we are also agreed upon that. You are to forfeit your Rapture tithe. You will keep your rank, but if you ever hope to gain Rapture, you will need to earn a great deal in the coming years. Your tithe will be divided among the sires nearest to Rapture themselves.”
This can’t be happening. I only did what you all would have. And I did not do it alone. He glanced across the close circle at Grau, but the man had attention only for the chairman.
“Now, let us discuss the future,” Revek said. “I know the situation looks dire, but it may not be as bad as all that. We know the ill tidings well enough. Let us share the better news. I’ll start.” He glanced around, touching each of the faces of the men in the inner circles. “It appears Sires Faleen and Lethel have been doing fine work in Ushen Brae.”
Dagon reclined, numb. He knew that what he thought had just happened had, in fact, just happened, but it was too enormous a reversal-and too unwarranted and cruel-for his mind to grasp the whole of it. Despite himself, he listened to Revek’s report on Ushen Brae.
The nascent unification of the slaves into some collective state had been nipped. Instead, the slaves had fractured along the very lines of their enslavement. The strongest groups among them were loyal to the league. To aid in the continent’s pacification, Sire El had been dispatched with his army. They would ensure that the league secured its position there, should Ushen Brae need to become their base of operations.
Of the fate of the Known World, Revek shrugged and said that what will be, will be. He did not subscribe to the sort of panic that had taken possession of Dagon’s senses. “To those who likewise despair I ask one thing,” Sire Revel said, “just one thing and then I will fall silent while the younger among you speak.” He let that sit a moment, as if to demonstrate that he was capable of falling silent. “Who is to say that we won’t be able to do business with the Santoth when all the confusion dies down? They are sorcerers like Tinhadin was, and we had no difficulty coming to a most agreeable arrangement with him. It could be the same with the Santoth. Better, even, for we now have years of experience on which to set our terms. That, Dagon, is where you erred. Not even a Santoth victory is as calamitous as you seemed to believe.”
The phrase “too true” escaped more than one leagueman’s lips.
“Bu-” Dagon began, but clipped the word before he completed it. All that he had done, the decisive action he had taken, and this was the thanks he got for it? He wanted to lash out at them all. He could not, though. He realized, listening to the murmuring affirmation and enthusiasm that greeted Revek’s “one thing” that, had someone else acted as he had, he would himself be speaking against him. He could not argue because Revek was right. The league had not been in the danger he feared. How could it be? They were the league. It was as simple as that. They rode atop the tides of other nations’ follies. They did not-or should not-fall into their traps themselves.
Sire Nathos could not keep the enthusiasm from his voice when he said, “And don’t forget the vintage. Brothers, in the coming weeks the supplies of the stuff in the Known World will begin to run out. As our testing has shown, they will grow apathetic. They will lose any lust for life. They will sit down and… die. A great many of them will, at least. Imagine the Santoth newly in charge of the world discovering that their conquered subjects can’t be made to work, to eat, to fornicate, or do anything else. The same goes for the Auldek, should they emerge victorious. And the same is true for the Akarans, if by some miracle they hold on to power. All of them will face the same problem-a mass dying that they have no way to remedy.” He paused for effect. “Except by reaching out to us. Only we control the process. Only we can make more of the vintage. Sire Dagon was foolish for ordering the warehouse and distillery on Prios destroyed, but we can just rebuild, either here or…”
“In Ushen Brae,” Grau finished. “I rather fancy one of those Lothan Aklun estates on the barrier isles myself.”
“You will have one,” Nathos said. “We all will. It’s absolutely without risk of failure, brothers. If they balk, we simply let them die. If for any reason we want to prevent that, we can give them the release. Not even the queen ever figured out that we both made the addiction and the cure for it at the same time. It was the cure, really, that took us so long to perfect. Should we want to, we could even give the cure to some and not to others, as suits us.” He chuckled. “I’m sorry for showing my mirth, brothers, but we have been too somber up to now. The situation is not so dire, despite Dagon’s attempts to make it so.”
“True enough,” Sire Grau said. “Let us sail through this as ever. When the dust settles, we can make our arrangements with whoever is left. Both the Known World and Ushen Brae will need to be rebuilt, repopulated, controlled. Labor will need to be managed, security provided, goods and services transported. The powerful will need the resources only we can provide them. The weak will again clamor for the illusions and trinkets only we know how to wave before their noses. I think, brothers, that we can look to the future with just as much optimism as ever.”
“Easy for you to say,” Sire Grindus said. “If I’m not mistaken, you’ll be on your way to Rapture now. You and Revek.”
“Fate has made that so,” Grau acknowledged. “Such is my burden. I may not see it all with you, but I know the future is wonderfully bright.”
“Oh…” Dagon said. He caught himself before the exhalation became a word. He stretched it out, staring at Grau as he did so. And at Revek. What a fool I am.
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
Having so little time to live, with so much to do, Aliver worked without resting. He did not think about all the weeks he had lounged about the palace in Acacia. Bemoaning the past would do him no good. He had told Corinn not to. He wouldn’t either.
Later that very day, he cut away from the other riders and swept down on Kidnaban. He caught Paddel, the head vintner, trying to make his escape on a pleasure yacht loaded to the brim with the riches of his estate. Landing Kohl on the boat’s elaborate prow, Aliver shouted over her shoulders and the black flare of her wings, “Paddel, I am Aliver Akaran! I come to you with questions. I will have answers; you will give them now. If not, you will be food for my mount.”
Paddel-sweating and faint as he was, constantly touching his bald head and the tattooing meant to replicate hair on it-proved very forthcoming.
That evening in Alecia, Aliver spoke before a late session of the Senate. The things he said were easy for him, the words there on his tongue without hesitation. They were truths as he knew them. He would himself lead the army of Acacia north, up over the Methalian Rim. Hopefully, they would meet Princess Mena quickly, but in any event they would face the Auldek on the Mein Plateau. “While I live, they will not come down from there,” he said. “I pledge you that.”
He declared that the league had shown themselves to be traitorous scoundrels, enemies to everyone in the empire. “They’ve bled us all these years and sipped our blood as if it were wine. You see their abandoned palaces, their warehouses in ashes, and their ships all gone, fled to the Outer Isles? This is all proof that they’ve been found out. They’ve run from us, and they are now our enemy just as much as the Auldek are.”
He announced to them what he had learned about the vintage. The nation was addicted to the mist once again. They did not even know it, for it came to them in the bottles of wine on every table in the empire and it affected them so mildly that they did not know how much they depended on it. They drank of it every night, an enemy right there in their homes. “It is vile and subtle,” he said, “but we cannot save our nation without our full and true minds.” He ordered all wine poured out, casks smashed, not one more drop of it consumed. “Friends, let us
