He arrived dust-covered in the court of Sangae Uluvara. Tucked into the shallow bowl beneath two bulbous ridges of volcanic rock, the village of Umae was made up of fifty-odd huts; a handful of warehouses and storage pits; and a central structure built of wood and thatch that served like a great canopy above the market, offering shade from the sun and cover from the rain alike. Sangae’s people numbered a couple of hundred souls. As they were a herding culture, rarely was all the population gathered together. The village was in a remote spot in the world, unmarked on many maps, perhaps unknown to the Mein altogether. Indeed, they would have had to have searched very deeply to find the place or to discover a record of the bond of friendship the late king Leodan had once shared with Sangae, long ago, in their youth. No living person besides Thaddeus knew of the man’s importance to the Akaran legacy.
Summoned from inside his shady compound, Sangae stepped out into the sun with fluttering eyelids. He stared at Thaddeus with the trembling intensity he might have beheld an apparition with. A tumult of thoughts passed across his features, emotions that seemed to writhe just beneath his skin. Thaddeus knew that even this far south the man would have heard rumors that cast aspersions on his reputation. Sangae might still be unsure which chancellor was before him now: the traitor or the savior. And this would only be part of the noise within him. This man had been an adoptive father for nine years now. He could not but fear what Thaddeus’s arrival meant for his son.
But when Sangae spoke, he did so from a place of controlled formality. He said, “Old friend, the sun shines on you, but the water is sweet.”
“The water is cool, old friend, and clear to look upon,” Thaddeus answered.
It was a traditional greeting of southern Talay, and it pleased Sangae that the former chancellor responded to it so smoothly and in Talayan. But then he switched to Acacian. “It has been a long time,” he said. “Long enough that I wondered if you would come. Long enough that I hoped you might not.”
Thaddeus found this statement harder to respond to than the first. The chieftain held the former chancellor’s eyes with his. His nose and lips, the round forehead and the wide wings of his cheekbones: each of his features seemed more full of generosity than a single face should have been able to contain. His features had a fullness at odds with his slim torso, his thin shoulders, taut-skinned chest. His eyes were no whiter than Thaddeus’s, no less veined and yellowed, yet they stood out in contrast to the night black of his skin. For a moment Thaddeus felt a spike of fear rise up through him. How would a royal child of Acacia have fared alone among these people? He could not grasp even the edge of such a concept and hold on to it. It might have been a terrible mistake. He turned from the thought, for doubt had no place in how he meant to present himself. “In the king’s name, friend,” he said, “I thank you for what you have done.”
“I can see nothing,” Sangae said, another phrase particular to his people, a denial that he had done anything that merited thanks.
“You speak my tongue better than I do yours.”
“I’ve had one to practice with for some years now. How was your journey?”
The two talked for some time on this subject, an easy one, for it held nothing of the import of why he was here. Only details. But such amiable banter could last only for so long, and Thaddeus-despite his fear of the answer-finally asked, “Is the prince well?”
Sangae’s head dipped in something like a nod, although it was not quite an affirmation. He motioned for Thaddeus to enter his compound and sit across from him on a brightly colored woven mat. Between them, a girl set a gourd of water. A moment later she placed a bowl of dates beside it, and then she withdrew. The walls were open all around them. Even inside, the people of Umae wished for space, for open views and moving air. Thaddeus could see and hear people in each direction, but there was solitude in the quiet space the two men occupied. It was surprisingly cool, considering the blistering heat of the direct sunlight. This was good.
“Aliver hunts the laryx,” the chieftain eventually said. “He has been out two weeks. Billau willing, he will return any day now. But we should not talk of it. It would not be good to warn the spirit beasts of his intent. You, of course, are my guest until he returns.” The man plucked up a date in his fingers. Having done so, he seemed to have no interest in consuming the fruit. “Nine years. Nine years since the boy arrived here, long enough that I truly began to believe that you would not come and that Aliver was truly my son. I have no other, you know, which is my curse.”
Thaddeus considered responding to this apparent self-pity harshly. Better to have never had a child than to have lost one to treachery, he thought. But he had no wish to take the conversation in that direction. Instead, he said, “You’ve had no trouble from the Mein?”
“Never,” Sangae said. “I have heard of them, but they’ve not heard of me, it seems.” He grinned. “My fame is not as great as I might have wished. Take water, please.”
Thaddeus lifted the gourd, cradled it in his palms, and drank deeply. He offered it to the chieftain, who did the same. “It was good that we sent him here, then. Hanish has never ceased from hunting the Akaran children. At least one of Leodan’s children grew as the king wished.”
Sangae commented that he knew nothing, of course, about the other three Akarans. But, yes, Aliver’s course had been in keeping with the king’s plans. Aliver’s lone guardian had spirited him away efficiently from Kidnaban. They had sailed to Bocoum, disembarked, and joined the flow of refugees fleeing the war. They traveled on horseback for a time, then with a camel caravan, and then they simply walked the flat plains that brought them to Umae. With their need for secrecy, the journey took many weeks, and the prince arrived angry, confused, bitter. It took some effort on Sangae’s part to convince him that this exile was not defeat. The conflict was not decided yet. He was the most recent in a line of great leaders. He reminded him that the blood of ancient heroes coursed through his veins. He spoke of Edifus and Tinhadin, of the obstacles they had overcome to rise to power. Had not the difficulties facing them seemed insurmountable? And yet they had. And Aliver would do the same, Sangae promised, it was just he needed time to grow into the man he would have to be.
Sangae folded his large hands across one knee. “That is what I told him. He gave me the King’s Trust for safekeeping, and I have kept it hidden all these years. He has had a good life here, living like a Talayan. This is truth. And you should know that he is not a child anymore. Not by any means.”
“Tell me of his life here, then.”
In the nine years of his exile in Talay, Sangae said, Aliver had assumed a role identical to any son of a noble Talayan warrior family. He had trained in the martial arts of this nation, mastering spear work and the brawling form of wrestling Talayans practiced and even honing his body into that of a runner. It must have been terribly hard work at first. He might have been skilled enough in the Forms, but that had done little to prepare him for the training he received in Talay. Even spear practice was a different venture altogether. Unlike the Forms, Talayan warfare allowed no actions not entirely necessary. From the first day he held a Talayan spear, he had been taught that it was a weapon meant to kill. He had been shown the myriad ways that it could do so, each efficient and quick, with little wasted time or effort. He was challenged time and again, in the martial arts physically, by the harshness of the land, by language and culture, by the fact that he had no status here except what he could earn through his actions.
“And did he meet these challenges?” Thaddeus asked.
Sangae answered that he had. He had never shown himself wanting in discipline, desire, or bravery. He could not imagine what went on in the young man’s mind, as he shared so little of himself, but he was earnest in every act. Perhaps too earnest. He had yet to learn to laugh like a Talayan. He had received his first tuvey band-which meant he had taken part in a skirmish with a neighboring tribe-with the youngest men of his age group. He wore it above his bicep. That was why he had every right to hunt the laryx and to claim-should he be successful-his place as a man of this nation, one old enough to own property, to marry, to sit at council beside the elders.