Thaddeus and Sangae awaited them at the center of the village. Both of them wore similar expressions of fatherly relief, pride, awe. Sequestered safely inside the chieftain’s compound, Aliver did the best he could to answer their rapid barrage of questions. It must have been unsatisfying for them. He was vague on every detail. He knew it. His sentences dribbled away half finished. He paused for long intervals, stumped at how to possibly explain his experiences among the Santoth. He could not really. Most of it had happened in a place without words. Some of it-now that he was firmly back amid the tumult of humanity-seemed as hazy as the dreamworld.
Both of the older men seemed to understand this. They were thrilled that he had made contact with the Santoth, delighted that the sorcerers recognized Aliver, and overjoyed that he had returned safely. They explained that from the day he left rumor of his mission had escaped the village and flown across the plains. Aliver Akaran was among them! He was a man who had killed a laryx! The prince had gone in search of the banished sorcerers! Neither Thaddeus nor Sangae had planned for the news to escape. It happened spontaneously. People who had kept his identity secret every day for nine years could not hold it any longer. The world, it seemed, was hungry for word of him. In no time at all the pilgrims began arriving.
“The ones gathered here are just the first to join you,” Thaddeus said. “We can move north from here at any time, gathering our army as we go. We’ll pull together a host like the world has never seen, so grand an army, of so many nations, that Hanish Mein will have to face us.” The former chancellor paused, seeming to realize he was getting ahead of himself. “Prince, does this plan please you?”
“We cannot simply amass numbers,” Aliver heard himself say. “We have to train them as well. Without discipline and coordination our host will be but a flock for the Mein and the Numrek to slaughter.”
Thaddeus glanced at Sangae. He sent him some message with a slight motion of his eyebrows, as if marking a point earned, and then returned his gaze to Aliver. He was glad to hear the prince thought on such scale and looked for details within it. He explained that he had been doing the same thing for some time. He had been in contact with several former Acacian generals over the years. They had all nurtured support among intimate groups. They had sworn themselves to secrecy and waited for his call to arms. One of them, Leeka Alain, formerly of the Northern Guard, had found Aliver’s younger brother.
Aliver interrupted. “He found Dariel?”
Thaddeus nodded. “I received correspondence to that effect while you were gone. They should be on the way to us soon. And they’re not the only ones. There are people in every corner of the empire who remain loyal to the Akarans.”
His brother was alive! The news that one of his siblings had actually been found and won over to this effort filled Aliver with relief, followed fast by a flare of worry. Little Dariel! How could he survive amid the coming turmoil? He almost said that Dariel should stay in hiding, but he caught himself. He was picturing the small boy Dariel had been. That child was no more. The years would have changed him as much as they had changed Aliver. Even more, for he was so young when the exile began. He wanted to grasp the old chancellor and ask him question after question. Where was his brother? What sort of life had he lived? What had he become?
He would pose all the queries later, he decided. Before that he had to ask something else. “You say people in every corner of the empire remain loyal to my family. Are you sure of this? We did so little for them.”
“Because they remember your family’s nobility,” Sangae answered. He said this solemnly, his wrinkled chin jutting forward. No doubt he believed it completely, somehow feeling some ownership of that nobility himself.
“They believe in you, Aliver,” Thaddeus said, “just as they loved your father. They likely love your father in death more so than they did when he lived.”
Neither answer surprised Aliver, but neither seemed satisfactory either. He turned to Kelis. “How do you see it?”
The Talayan cleared his throat and answered with complete honesty, as Aliver knew he would. “Because the entire world suffered from Hanish’s war. Life is worse for them now, under the Mein’s new tyranny. But you…you’re a symbol of a lesser evil. That’s about all people can believe in and hope for. So it feels right to them.”
“That’s not good enough,” Aliver said. The answer came crisply. Hearing the words he felt a confidence in them that surprised him. It wasn’t good enough to be a lesser evil. If he was going to do this at all, he had to aim higher. “I don’t want them to fight just to return to the old position of bondage. If I win this war, Thaddeus, it must be with the promise of changing everything for the better. Tell people that if they fight with me, they fight for themselves so that they and their children will always be free. This is a promise I make them.”
Thaddeus gazed at him for a long moment, his face unreadable. So unreadable, in fact, that he must have worked hard to render it so. Eventually he asked, “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” Aliver said.
“You speak an ideal that may prove hard to put into practice. The world is corrupt from top to bottom. Perhaps more than you know.”
The prince looked hard at Thaddeus. “I’m more sure about this than anything else. This war must be a fight for a better world. Anything less is failure.”
“I understand,” Thaddeus said. “I will make sure that message is known. Your father would be proud to hear you speak.”
Aliver stood and moved over to one of the windows. He lifted the shutter and, squinting against the sliver of brilliant light on his face, studied the scene outside. “All these people,” he said, “they came of their own accord? They’ve been told the truth. Nothing more?”
“Yes,” Sangae said. “We’ve heard from all the southern tribes, Prince. They know the mission you’re set on. Most want to aid you. That’s why they’ve sent emissaries here, to attest to their faith in you. They may spin tales of their own about your greatness, about how you found the Santoth. They may even pass stories of feats you accomplished in your childhood. The kind of prodigious feats, Aliver, that may surprise you to hear of. But Thaddeus and I, all we did was admit that you lived and that you were ready to retake the throne of Acacia. That was all they needed to hear to flock to you.”
“You say most want to aid me. Not all?”
Sangae shook his head regretfully. The Halaly, he explained, were the only powerful tribe not to respond enthusiastically. They had sent not a single soldier or pilgrim or representative bearing gifts and praise. They did send a messenger saying that they were aware of the claims being made in the Akaran name. They would, they said, hold council on them. With the Halalys’ haughty nature it seemed unlikely they would move without prompting of some sort. They were but one tribe out of many, but after the Talayans they were the second most numerous.