Na Gamen told of how much he loved to have them near. The vibrancy within them. The innocence. The capacity to heal and thrive no matter what the world threw at them. He gave those children the happiest lives he could. He gave to them-for increasingly it felt like he owed them and the other quota children a great debt-but they also gave to him. He watched them grow into men and women over and over again, and then grow old and die. In all of it he learned and relearned the natural order of life.
They made me human again, Na Gamen said. After all the wrongs I did to them, they made me human again.
Why did you walk away from that? Dariel asked. How did you end up here?
The Watcher’s ears flexed and rippled in the air currents. It took him some time to find the words to go on with. Eventually, his voice resumed inside Dariel’s head.
I had a network of swimming pools on the upper level of my palace. I didn’t swim in them myself. Hadn’t for hundreds of years. But the children did. One day I was lounging near the pools, at a short distance. There was a barrier. He divided the air in front of his face with the edge of his hand, squinting one eye closed. I could see the edge of the pool, but not the area just next to it. Two boys… I remember their names, but I’ll hold them inside me, if you don’t mind. Two boys would both run to the edge as if to jump in, but pull back at the last minute. I would just see them appear, sprinting suddenly at the edge, in motion and then skidding, arms wheeling around to stop them. One would tease the other. Plead to jump the next time. Again and again they did this. I wanted to call out to them to stop it. They might slip and crack their heads. The words were in my throat, but I couldn’t speak. They were so joyful-and I so afraid-that I couldn’t speak.
For a moment Na Gamen’s face was warm with the memory. Then the expression faded. And that was it.
What do you mean? What was it?
Watching them, I realized for the first time that I would die so that either of them could live. That’s what I thought: I would trade my life for either of theirs in an instant. And if that were so, what sense did it make for me to steal the lives of other children? What a crime. It all came to me at once. Not understanding our crimes. I had always done that. But the knowing. That was new. The horrible knowing. It was love, Dariel. I loved those children. I had loved all of them, from Ebrahem onward. I loved them as if they were part of me. Knowing that, I could no longer sort souls. I feared what became of the stolen souls once they died. Would they know peace? Would they understand who they were, or would they be trapped in between? I knew the answers, and I hated them.
Images poured into Dariel’s mind again. He watched Na Gamen speaking before an audience of the Lothan Aklun. They watched him with faces of sublime indifference as he implored them to stop the trade. He asked them to search in their hearts. They knew how wrong it was. They knew that the punishment of Tinhadin was hurting innocents and also making them into greater villains than the one they hated. He railed at them, but he could not change their course. He could not stop them. Their hatred was too deep. If they had looked into so many children’s souls-as he had-they might have understood, but they had not. They did not wish to listen. Nor could he fight them. They were his brethren. He loved them, more so, perhaps, because of the sadness of their error.
I did not sort souls after that. Instead, I learned to shepherd them.
He traveled to Rath Batatt with the quota slaves he had learned to call his family. He chose the peak atop which to build the Sky Mount, and he set to work. He used the song trapped in simple tools to work the stone. He made it malleable and shaped it to suit him. There he lived through the lives of those mortal children, doing the best he could to give them joyous childhoods, meaningful lives, ease in the elder years, and painless deaths to true release. One by one, he shepherded them through lives worthy of them and then let them go.
I have not done enough. I took apart an evil castle built of stone one small block at a time. Much of it remains, and ever will. I did what I could, though. Now, I hope you will as well. Dariel, seeing what I have done, can you forgive me? Do you forgive me?
Of course, Dariel said.
Na Gamen closed his eyes for a time. Opened them. Thank you. Forgiveness is a circle, Dariel. A band that joins us. Thank you. If you will accept it from me, I will give you a blessing. It’s the last thing I have to offer you. Will you accept?
Of course.
T he pool was beautiful. Boulders hemmed it in on all sides, with a large shelf of rock blocking most of the downstream end. It was deep enough to dive into, lit from below by some of the rocks-which glowed the same pale green as the stones of Amratseer.
“Is this safe?” Dariel asked.
“It’s not the Sheeven Lek, if that’s what you mean,” Anira said. “Don’t just stand, gaping. Off with your clothes!”
A few moments later, naked herself, Anira dove. Her body speared the glassy water, sending the clear image of the riverbed stones into sudden confusion. She kicked toward the depths. At the bottom she turned and stared up at Dariel, as if taunting him. He finished stepping out of his trousers and jumped.
The shock of the cold water froze the air he had just pulled into his lungs. He had planned to slice toward the bottom gracefully, but instead his arms and legs set hooks in the water. He pivoted toward the surface and broke into the air, gasping. Had it been possible, he would have clawed his way right out of the water. Instead, he paddled in circles, looking for a place to get ashore, teeth chattering.
Anira rose from underneath him. She ran her hand up his abdomen, her body sliding up after it. Her breasts slipped over his chest. Surfacing with her face inches from his, she parted her lips. Dariel thought she was going to kiss him. She seemed close to it, but instead she exhaled her long-held breath. Her legs kicked rhythmically to keep her up, close enough that he felt her thigh brush his. No accident, for she did not draw away.
“Dariel, I want you to dance with me,” she said. The green, liquid shifting light was lovely on her skin. Droplets of water slicked the scaled plates beneath her eyes and over the bridge of her nose. They highlighted her eyes. “I need you to. Do you know what I mean by dance?”
It would have been hard not to know, considering the way her hands caressed his torso. They were so warm, as were her legs, smooth against his. He felt himself stiffening despite the chill water. “It wouldn’t be right,” he said. “I have someone back on Acacia.”
“I would be surprised if you didn’t have someone. Can I take the love you feel for her from you?”
The image of Wren that popped into his head was an unlikely one. He saw her as she had been the night they blew up Sire Fen’s warship. Just after they dropped the pill that ignited fires inside it, she had climbed over the tall ship’s railing and leaped into the air. He remembered the way her hair rose, waving at him. He remembered exactly what her face had looked like and how much he had wanted her.
“No,” he said, “you can’t take my feelings for her from me.”
“Good. I don’t want to. Are you sure that you will live to see her again?”
“You know the answer to that.”
“I hope you do see her again. If you do, it’s up to you to tell her of the evening you spent making love to a black-skinned snake woman. Or not.” Anira smiled. Her teeth shone wonderfully white in the moonlight, like little jewels. They looked so smooth and clean and cheerful. “You are part of my destiny, Dariel Akaran. Making love with you is part of that. Anyway, you made your decision when you took my hand to come down here. Can we stop talking now?”
He felt her hand take hold of his sex. That did it. He could well imagine that Wren would box him bare knuckled when she found out, but what Anira said was true. He had already consented. Being with her already felt necessary in a way he could not explain. He pulled her closer. He touched the tip of his tongue to the enamel of her teeth. It was as he had thought. They were smooth and clean and cheerful. When her lips pressed full against his, he responded with more hunger than he knew he had felt.