History, religion, mythology, the old tales, geography, nations and races and leaders, bloodlines and feuds and allegiances, the Forms and Hanish Mein and the Santoth and Aliver: they wanted to know it all. Skylene forced him to arrange these various subjects as best he could. Before long, several scribes spent the hours with him, each writing on multiple scrolls, each focused on a different topic. He would jump from one to other as things occurred to him or as Skylene prompted him.
Tunnel visited him regularly also. He did not interrogate him, although Dariel believed he was supposed to. The big man pulled up a chair and sat close to him, near enough that Dariel could smell the fragrant oil that had been worked into his leather skirt and the long laces of his sandals. He would joke with Dariel, smile and laugh at the slightest provocation. Skylene was fair enough with him, but Tunnel was alone among the People in treating Dariel like a friend returned from a long voyage. They were simply catching up, it seemed.
Dariel would never have imagined that his existence would come to be what it now was. It was peculiar because some part of him felt strangely at ease with it except during those moments of panic and realization. Some part of him had been waiting for this, wanting it. He now hungered for where it might lead.
"Skylene," Dariel asked, as another session of questioning was about to begin, "do you know of any way I could send a message to my country?"
The woman stared at him, her thin lips pursed, wary of the idea. She had just entered the chamber in which he sat waiting, alone. Her appearance was as striking as ever, but her pale blue hue and avian highlights no longer seemed bizarre. To Dariel's eyes, they were now part of her. Strange that he could grow used to her so quickly. She asked, "What kind of message?"
"Just something that tells my people that I'm alive. I don't know what the league might tell them. It could cause all sorts of problems if they think me dead. I don't know what it might lead to. If my sister thinks me dead-or discovers that I'm captive here-she may send an army to avenge me or to war with the Auldek."
"I don't think that's likely," Skylene said.
Dariel studied her. "Why?"
Skylene thought a moment, and then exhaled and shook her head, sadly. "It doesn't matter, Dariel. Whatever will happen, will happen. We cannot change it. Not yet, at least. It's not possible to send any message. We never managed it in twenty-two generations. What makes you think we could do it now?"
"The league then. They may still be along the coast. Can we get-"
"A message to them?" Skylene interjected. "Don't be foolish. The only message your sister will receive will be of their making. Really, Dariel, we have no power where they are concerned. Anyway, Mor would never allow contact with them. They are our enemies, remember? For that matter, you haven't forgotten that they were offering you up to Devoth, have you?"
No, Dariel certainly had not forgotten that. In fact, he had dreamed of that chaotic afternoon more than once. "I had power over the league once, you know."
There was a knock at the door. A moment later the two scribes entered: one with a splash of shivith spots across one side of her face, the other with a crest of black hair jutting from the back of his head.
Skylene motioned for the two new arrivals to take their seats and ready their writing equipment. "I doubt that," she responded.
"I was at war with them once. Killed many."
"That may be, but that doesn't mean they were in your power. You blew up their platforms, I know; you detailed that already. That may have hurt them. Perhaps it made them hate you enough to give you to Devoth, but you can't really believe you had them on their knees. Let me tell you this about the league: they made it clear to each of us that you Akarans are just pawns to them. Once they have us quota aboard their ships and are sailing west, they don't hide the fact that they are the Known World's real power. And the Lothan Aklun, before they were eliminated, likewise dismissed you. You were their customers, but stupid ones, ignorant, addicted, easily fooled and exploited. As for us… many among the People hate the Akaran name and hold you responsible for our slavery, but quite a few think your people too pathetic to merit hate. None of us think you accurately understand the way the world has been working."
"And you? How do you feel?"
Skylene answered without the slightest hesitation. "The Kern-my clan-have a saying: 'Truth is a white crane with many heads but only one body.' When they grow agitated, the heads eat one another until only one remains."
"And that one truth prevails?"
"No. The one head can't live by itself, not when it's part of a body that has suffered multiple decapitations. There may be one truth left, but it dies when the body that connected it to the other truths dies."
Dariel's brow ridged with skepticism. "Yours are a dire people."
Shrugging, Skylene said, "The truth overlaps. It contradicts. But in many ways, many things are true. That's why I think a little bit of everything about you and your people."
"If that's true it seems surprising that you're talking to me. If my people are so pathetic, what use are we?"
This did cause her to pause for thought. "The league has used you. The Lothan Aklun have used you. The Auldek have used you. Perhaps we can find a use for you and your information, too. That's what the elders believe. And, anyway, you yourself proposed this."
Feeling a greater import in the question than seemed reasonable, Dariel could not help but ask, "Is it what Mor believes also?"
A smile started to lift the corners of Skylene's lips, but before the expression was complete, she ran a twist through it that made it more like a smirk. "You don't want to know what Mor thinks we should do with you. Trust me on that." Her tone switched, growing crisper and more official. "We've spoken enough. Let's begin. You were going to tell us about the floating merchants."
It seemed such a distant thing to speak about, unreal in this subterranean existence. He started by explaining what he knew of the merchants, about the way the currents flowed around the Inner Sea at different times of the year, how seasonal shifts made it possible for the great barges-cities unto themselves-to sail a circular route that took them all the way to the Vumu Archipelago. They were only marginally governed by the empire. Really, the merchant families of Bocoum held them together within an unofficial government-like arrangement. Though their trade was not rich enough to bring them into competition with the league, they were fundamental to the swirling flow of goods that kept the empire thriving.
As he spoke, images emerged in his mind. At first he thought they were just visualizations to aid his recall of information, but then he realized the images were more personal than that. He had forgotten, but he had first visited the floating merchants when he was a small boy. Of course he had. It was during the spring, when the rafts drifted on the slow current that carved the Mainland's coastline. He must have been six or seven years old, in those long-ago days before the world first went mad. He had stepped aboard the rafts-not with his father-but holding Thaddeus Clegg's hand.
With this "uncle" to guide him, he had gazed in awe at the bobbing, flowing, moving creation the thousands of rafts made when lashed together. The population of the rafts was an amazing, polyglot entity, diverse as the entire empire, there before him at once. People of all nations rode the waves, making their lives through trade. With animals in cages and others roaming free, with wares displayed and foodstuffs bubbling and frying and great stores of items piled in warehouses, with fisheries and clam hangers, cisterns for gathering rainwater and a network of tubing that ran it where needed, it was a grand, salt-tinged, barnacled confusion.