weapons cache he knew of from his former work. Before anyone could organize to stop them, they took control of a portion of the city, including a warehouse stocked with grain and beans and salt, great vats of vinegar and wine.
It got worse after that. Former household slaves laid claim to their master’s palaces, while field workers were kept at a distance. Golden eyes and others who had held higher offices for the Auldek claimed that those privileges should be transferred to positions of a similar rank in the new order. A gang of young Kulish Kra men harassed Kern women. It began as a joke played on one avian clan by another. But it grew violent, sexual. Before long the rumors were that the Kulish Kra youths had taken to raping and molesting Kern women. The Kern formed armed groups against this, to which the Kulish Kra responded in kind; and still other armed groups formed in response to the increasingly violent tension in the city, further fueling it. The league returned. They plied the water in their ships and in the Lothan Aklun’s soul vessels. It became clear that they were establishing themselves on the barrier isles, and everyone wondered how long it would be before they landed on the mainland.
Skylene tried to speak reason to them all. For a time she found ears listening, but as the weeks passed she was surprised at how often her perfect reason fell only on the back of people’s heads. She forgot, perhaps, that as Mor’s lover and as an active member of the Free People she had learned to look past the clan markings more than most. To many, their clan members were their kin, not just the arbitrarily selected other slaves. It was in households and fields with others of their clan that they had labored. It was to the Auldek masters of those clans that they had looked with fear, with eyes first of children, then of clan members.
Skylene knew this. It had been her life, too. Still, she had expected to manage the peace for a few weeks. Instead, she scrambled to prevent a riot that would ignite the entire city. To hear her, the people had to truly listen, to understand, to be brave. To heed men like Dukish, one only had to feel fear.
“We must be careful,” Tunnel said as they walked the last corridor that would take them to the meeting. “I don’t like this one.”
“I don’t like Dukish either, but that’s part of the reason we have to speak with him.”
The chieftains and their seconds met at a ring of chairs in the center of the same massive chamber in which the Auldek had slaughtered Sire Neen’s group. The circle of chairs looked tiny beneath the high ceiling, dwarfed by the pillars and the shafts of light that fell diagonally from openings in the ceiling. The men and women milling around hardly seemed capable of making decisions for the mass of people that could have filled the entire chamber.
“We shouldn’t be meeting like this,” Skylene muttered as she moved to take her seat. “We should all be here together. All of us.”
Tunnel grunted his agreement from where he stood behind her chair. He crossed his bulging arms over his chest and reached up with one hand to pull contemplatively on a tusk.
“Who is going to begin?” Dukish asked before everyone was fully settled.
“You just have,” Plez, a thin woman with the same Kern features as Skylene, said.
When Dukish smiled the scales on his face shifted in a manner that Skylene always imagined must feel uncomfortable. “But I am not the one with complaints. I am happy. Let the complainers complain.”
Than, the leader of the Lvin, scowled at him. He had only light clan marks: pale white shading around his nose and eyes, steel whiskers, the ends of which he pressed often with his fingertips. Still, he had a fierce demeanor akin to his snow lion totem. “I am no complainer,” he said through gritted teeth, “but I have much to say against you.”
“Do you? Say it, then.”
He did. Than related a long list of grievances, most of which Skylene shared. At times, he could have been speaking for her. Randale, a Wrathic, added to the mountain of complaints against Dukish. The representative of the Kulish Kra, Maren, topped that mountain with a cold, snowy peak. She accused him of wanting to use Lothan Aklun relics. “He would use their ships. Ships driven by souls . Look at him. He would find a way to steal souls and become immortal if he could. He wants to live like an Auldek.”
No, not that. No souls should ever be taken again.
Dukish listened to it all, unimpressed.
All that is true, Skylene thought, but it’s not the heart of the matter. She readied her words and cleared her throat to speak.
Plez beat her to it. “Don’t look so smug,” she said to Dukish. “You and your people are alone. You think you can hold half the city by yourself? You think you can make a life without the rest of us?”
“He doesn’t have to,” the Antok spokesman, Haavin, said, speaking for the first time. “We Antok have no grievance with him. He is not so alone as you think.”
“And there are always new friends to make.” Dukish shared a knowing look with Haavin. And then, as if he had been pressed, “I might as well tell you all. I’ve been in contact with the leaguemen.” The others cried out, but he spoke over them. “Yes, I have! Why not? Somebody had to. You want them just lurking out there? I will meet with them, and they have said they wish to meet with me.” Smiling, he added, “Afterward, I’ll tell you what came of it.”
Than was out of his seat and across to Dukish in an instant. The Anet second nearly toppled his chieftain, so hurriedly did he rush to defend Dukish. Others rose and moved forward as well. The circle of chairs became a ring, hemming in a pushing, shoving contingent of the new leaders.
“You people are driving me mad!” Skylene shouted. Her voice, high-pitched and sharp, cut through the melee. She looked all the more striking because she had not risen with the others. Her hands clutched the seat on which she sat as if she were holding herself from shooting up from it. “Stop it. Stop it! This is all so-so unnecessary. Don’t you see that? We’re arguing about things we don’t need to be arguing about, and we’re losing sight of our dream.”
“ Your dream,” Dukish said. He plopped back into his chair, crossing one leg over the other. “Your dream, Skylene. We’ve heard enough of it. From you, from Mor, from those who came before you. It was fine to dream when we were slaves. Now we’re not, and real things need to be done. That’s what I am doing. You all act like I’m a criminal, but I have not killed anyone. I have not stolen from any of you. I have just acted more quickly. Don’t blame me if you did not do the same.”
“What you’ve done is divide us. We should be the Free People. All of us. We need to leave behind all this talk of clans. It’s part of our history, but it needs to be held within its place. It’s our past, not our future. We can make more-”
“You are still dreaming,” Dukish said. “How will you change all this? It already is and cannot be undone. The tales you Free People told-of prophecy and saviors, your Rhuin Fa-what has come of it? Nothing at all. There was no Rhuin Fa. The world changed, and it was not your dreams that changed it.”
“That’s not…” Skylene felt Tunnel grip her shoulder and knew what he was cautioning against. She and the others had already debated revealing Dariel’s presence among them. When he was in the city, they had kept his survival a careful secret, only letting the most trusted of the Free People know. Now that he had destroyed the soul catcher and was safely away into the interior, some argued it was time to announce him. The Rhuin Fa had come, finally. The old prophecies could come true. What better thing to unite the People?
Mor, before leaving for the Sky Isle, had been against revealing his presence, but Skylene thought that her opinion was tainted by her anger. She did not yet trust Dariel, and did not want to offer false hope. A reasonable concern, really. Tunnel was also against it. In his case, he had no doubt that Dariel was the leader they had been waiting for. Because of that, he wanted him protected until the right moment, until he could be announced in such a public way that nobody could deny him.
Skylene swallowed down the words she so wanted to say. Instead, she began, “Can we simply agree not to do anything further until Mor returns? And the elders as well. They should all have a say in this.”
“I have said what I needed to,” Dukish said. He stood and scanned the group, dismissive even as his eyes touched on them. “You do what you wish. I will do what I wish.” With that, he turned and strode away. The others stirred, then rose, grumbling. The meeting, clearly, had broken up.
Tunnel leaned close to Skylene and said, “See, I don’t like that one.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
