The Prince of Exiles (The Exile Series) (14 page)

“Yes,” Raven said, haltingly. What was this about? “I have been trained in all the essential areas of governance – economic and tax policy, war games, the optimal levels of labor distribution between industry and agriculture … just to name … a few areas … why did you ask me that?”

“And you were good at them?”

“Yes,” Raven said, still unsure what was going on. “Not to be immodest, but yes. My Talisman … it helps with learning. I was the first of the Children to complete the required study courses before reaching my eighteenth nameday.”

Autmaran nodded, not looking at him.

“That’s settled then,” he said, almost to himself.

“Settled?” Raven asked.

“Leah! Tomaz!”

Autmaran had turned in his saddle and was waving off to their left, ignoring Raven’s incomprehension. A few seconds later the Rogue pair came riding back though the wall of the hallway – which, thank the Empress, seemed content to remain a hallway – and Autmaran rode off.

Raven, too bewildered to saying anything, just watched the man go. What in the world had all of that been about?

“Autmaran!” Called Leah, looking just as confused by the abrupt departure as Raven. “Where are you going?”

“To Vale!” He called back as he disappeared. “I’ll see you there!”

And then, in a swirl of his red cape, he was gone.

For a moment none of them spoke.

“All right, what did you say?” Tomaz asked.

“What? Wait – no! He just asked me a bunch of questions; he wanted to know if I had joined the Kindred, then he asked about what I’d been taught in the Fortress – and then he just left!”

“You’re sure you weren’t rude?” Tomaz rumbled.

“
Yes
,” Raven insisted. “
He
was the one who was rude! Just came up, asked his questions and left.”

“Strange,” Leah said. “He’s been acting funny ever since we left Roarke.”

“How so?” he asked, watching the Exile girl. She had her thinking face on – brows drawn together and eyes far away.

“Abrupt – absent even when he’s there. Like he’s got something important on his mind and can’t think about anything else. I don’t know if I trust him in that mood. It usually means he’s getting ready for a battle.”

“Eshendai,” Tomaz rumbled softly, “you know he is a man of character. Our lives have been in his hands multiple times and he has never let us down. The least we can do is give him our trust.”

“We still haven’t found the rest of the Seekers who sabotaged our forces in Vale and at the Stand,” she said.

“Eshendai!” Tomaz rumbled warningly. “Suspicion is one thing – but you need to learn to trust what you know to be true. If Autmaran were an Imperial spy, he had the chance to prove it at the battle of Cartuom Pass.”

“You’re right,” Leah said hastily, “I spoke without thinking.”

Tomaz nodded slowly, eyeing her, but letting it slide.

“Besides,” he said, “you know as well as I do that Ishmael has been hunting the Seekers since the day Raven found them in the Ox Lord’s memories.”

“I just wish we knew their names,” Leah said. “Their faces are helpful, but it’s easy to change hair length and color, and the men could easily have grown beards. And there are one or two sent by Symanta that even Ramael didn’t know about.”

“I heard Ishmael got another one the day before we left Roarke,” Raven said quietly. He felt awkward talking about it, the way he felt about most things now that were connected to the Empire. But the Seekers of Truth – the Empire’s spies, who reported directly to his sister Symanta, Prince of Snakes – were not something that he should stay silent about.

“That makes almost ten,” Tomaz said quietly. Well, quietly for him, which meant that only the people nearby could hear him, not the whole army. “We suspected there were that many.”

“Almost a full clan of thirteen,” Leah nodded. “If what you heard is right, then we’ve caught seven, three have escaped, and none of them have given us anything. Even under Ishmael’s … ministrations.”

Only one man in all of the Kindred was allowed to perform torture, and it was Elder Ishmael, the Imperial Liaison. Raven found this odd – torture was commonplace among the Baseborn and any prisoners captured by the Empire. Even some of the Elevated who fell into disfavor had been subjected to the Seekers for such questioning. In fact, to Raven’s mind, one could barely be said to have received proper interrogation if thumbscrews hadn’t been involved. Not that he had ever been involved in such things himself– the Children never dirtied their hands with such mundane activities. None except Tiffenal that was, who actually enjoyed it.

“So there are at least three left,” Tomaz said slowly. His tone suggested he was counting limbs of a diseased tree that had yet to be trimmed.

They fell silent then. Seekers were just as dangerous as Death Watchmen in their own way. More so in some cases, despite their lack of supernatural power, though they made up for that in single-minded religious zeal. But there was nothing the three of them could do to help find the spies – they’d only get in Ishmael’s way.

When they were only a few miles from Vale the illusions faded, and Raven was able to once more see the land around them. It was deeply forested, and showed the evidence of the changing seasons in the early trappings of winter. Most of the trees had lost their leaves as the temperature plummeted – though a goodly number of what Tomaz called evergreens were still quite verdant.

“When will the pass close with snow?” Raven asked.

“Before the week is out if I have my guess,” Tomaz said, looking at the clouded sky. “Autmaran will have to get his supplies and get back to Roarke quickly. This calm won’t hold for long. I’ll have to make sure to remind him – it wouldn’t do to have him trapped on this side of the mountains all winter.”

Soon they entered Vale itself. It was cupped in a large, protected bowl of mountains – an enormous city, large and wide, covering the whole valley floor. It was very green, with trees growing throughout, though less so now that autumn was giving way to winter. The buildings were mostly white stone, crafted to look as if they were natural arrangements of rock formed by the movement of the earth. Streets were visible going through the center of the city, and a large Barracks was visible off in the distance. The center of the city, where the buildings were the tallest, was where the large Capitol building of the Kindred stood, its great painted dome glistening in the chill autumn sunlight.

The Kindred around them let out a cheer at the sight of it, and a number of horns sounded, the call to break them from formation. Those that were on foot raced each other down the sloping valley sides, while the mounted soldiers rode among them, egging them on with catcalls and taunts, all of them whooping and hollering like children.

But then another horn sounded.

This second sound was deeper, mournful, and made thin by distance. The Kindred, upon hearing it, froze in the midst of their merriment and looked to the east edge of the city – to where a large stone ring had been sunk into the ground. Raven hadn’t noticed it the last time he’d stood here, though he wasn’t surprised; the city was huge, it would take him ages to see it all. On top of that, this structure seemed to be flush with the top of the hill into which it had been dug, making it easily missed by a casual observer. On first impression it seemed to be an amphitheatre of some kind, carved into the living rock of the hillside. A number of figures, just barely visible as distant cutouts against the white rock of the mountains, looked to be standing on its rim. One of them looked to be holding something, which it raised to its lips.

Again, the sound of this new horn crept across the valley, reaching out toward them, a reverberating clarion call.

“What is that?” Raven asked Tomaz. Both he and Leah were looking at the distant figures in surprise and, to a lesser degree, concern.

“Someone has called a Forum,” Tomaz rumbled solemnly.

“Who do you think would do that?” Leah asked. “And so soon after we’ve returned from Roarke?”

“I don’t know, but I’ll find out,” Tomaz said quickly. “I want to discover first hand what this is about. They will need a Keeper of the Peace as well; since I’m here I’ll volunteer.”

And with that he was gone, galloping off at a surprising pace on Mary, calling forward with his huge voice for the other Kindred to let him pass.

“A Forum?” Raven asked, leaning back toward Leah. She looked troubled.

“Did Autmaran seem nervous to you on the ride here, or was that just me?” She asked.

Raven thought back to the one interaction they’d had. He’d been too preoccupied with keeping a firm grip on his stomach with the swirling illusions spinning all around him to pay much attention, but it had certainly been strained. Had there been something he’d missed?

“Remind me what you talked about,” she said.

“He wanted to know if I’d become one of the Kindred,” he said slowly, “then asked what I’d been taught as a Child of the Empress, then left without another word. That was it.”

“Odd,” she said looking off into the distance. “I may be wrong … but it may have been he who called the Forum. Now that he’s a Major, he has that right.”

“Autmaran?” Raven asked. He glanced around at the other Kindred; they all seemed suddenly very solemn. The laughter and cheering had died, though the good humor was still there, just subdued. Like people who had entered a place of worship or caught a glimpse of something sacred.

Yes,” she said quietly. “That may be why he went on ahead. If he gains the permission of at least four of the Elders, he has the right to call a Forum.”

“What
is
a Forum?”

“It’s an open discussion among the Kindred of Vale. It’s how we chose Elders and state officials. It’s unusual that we had no warning – I bet he wanted to get it done before he has to go back to Roarke.”

Raven nodded thoughtfully and they both fell silent, making their way through the growing stream of Kindred. Men and women from the city had joined them now too – many even had their children in tow, a sight Raven still had trouble accepting as normal. They were all making their way to the east side of the valley city, all moving forward like a slow, silent tide. Not sure exactly what to expect, he asked Leah where it was they were going, and she responded simply before withdrawing once more into her thoughts: they were going to the meeting space where Forums were held, a place called the Odeon.

As they approached the structure, Raven realized the mirage of distance had caused him to severely underestimate the size of their destination.

It was an enormous space centered on a bare wooden stage, made of a perfectly round configuration of long stone seats, layered row upon row in a gigantic hole built into the side of a mountain. The huge bowl-shaped dug-out had been lined with stone and surrounded by tall trees that stood like pillars at the five entrances; four at what would have been corners if the space were square, and one that opened onto a paved road leading directly to the city. At first Raven couldn’t understand why it looked so odd to him, but then he realized it: the space was
perfectly
round, and therefore looked somehow squashed, as if a proper space should be oval and this eerie circle was somehow defying a fundamental law of nature. The worn wooden stage at the center was completely bare, the only ornamentation a small set of steps leading down to the ground level of stone seats.

Raven and Leah left their horses and followed the tide of Exiles into the space. They sat and waited as the sun began to sink behind the western mountains, backlighting the trees that ringed the Odeon with a surreal orange and red glow. The flow of Kindred was certainly larger than he’d expected: there were well over several thousand Exiles seated in attendance now, and many more standing around the top of the Odeon in the wide space provided for walking.