Even knowing that a portion of the view was an illusion, Rialus still marveled at the size of what he could see and at the way it seemed to go on far beyond the reach of his eyes. How large was the population? As with everything here in Ushen Brae-he no longer thought of this place as the Other Lands-Rialus could not make sense of it. He heard the Auldek bemoan their long centuries of infertility. And he mentally marked down each mention of the rare occasions when an Auldek did die. It only made sense that their numbers had dwindled over time. The fact that they would plan such a massive war in the hope that it would return their fertility attested to this. As did the awe in which they held Allek, the annoying Numrek whelp. On the other hand, the expanse around him indicated a thronging population.

He had put the question to Devoth once. They had been speaking together during a long session in which Rialus was forced to write down every member of the Akaran royal line that he could remember, from Edifus onward. The subject enthralled the Auldek. Rialus suspected it was the chronicle of deaths that held a morbid fascination for him, so he made a point of detailing how each monarch had succumbed. He even made up a few ghastly ends. Why not? Who could call him a liar?

As the meeting ended, and feeling that the Auldek leader was in good spirits, Rialus began, "How-I mean, how-"

"Speak it, leagueman," Devoth said. "You know you're going to, so why not do so without the stammering? Do all your people speak that way?"

Rialus inhaled, thinking, I would speak it if you and the Numrek didn't love to interrupt me at every chance. He made sure to enunciate. "How many of you are there? How many Auldek, I mean, in Ushen Brae?"

Devoth drew his head back thoughtfully, creased the corners of his eyes as if surprised and somewhat suspicious of the question. "There are enough of us," he finally answered, "and there will be more soon. That's what this is all about. That, Rialus Leagueman, is what this is truly about."

With that, he had turned abruptly away, leaving Rialus uneasy as well as curious. On that occasion, and on this one as he recalled it, he had to remind himself that he was not the traitor Devoth believed him to be. Though he had spent hours now divulging information that, on the surface, made him look like the most loose-tongued betrayer, he told himself this was all a ruse, a way to buy time. He would find some way out of this situation, but he needed to survive in the meantime, even if that meant he needed to appear to have betrayed his people.

As Rialus sat on the windowsill telling himself this, his servant, Fingel, approached him. The backless sandals she wore audibly smacked the bottoms of her feet with each step. The sound had annoyed him at first, until he understood it was the only sound she ever willingly made. She never spoke a word unless it was required, a silent servant who announced her presence only with the sound of her feet. She was lovely to look upon. At first he thought her beautiful despite the fact that she had wire whiskers in her cheeks and tattooed bands under her light eyebrows, but before long he began to suspect these things added to her beauty, strange as that seemed to him. She looked to be Meinish by birth, had that race's pale skin and straw-blond hair. Thin featured, delicate, with a slightly upturned nose and a slim body that nevertheless drew his eyes back again and again to the contours beneath her simple shift: she was nothing like his top-heavy Gurta, but that made it easier to admire her without being pricked by conscience or memory. She was quite distracting, really, all the more so for being so cold and detached.

Speaking in her usual dead tones, Fingel said, "His magnificence, Devoth of the Lvin, summons you." She held out the small marker of carved silver that proved it.

"Does he?" Rialus took the marker and rubbed his finger across the Lvin emblem embossed on it. "What do you think would happen if I didn't go? Told him I was busy?"

Fingel stood, no expression animating her features, as if her mind were blank and she had not heard him speak. It was her customary expression. She had looked at him directly only once. Early on, he inadvertently spoke to her in the Meinish tongue. It just happened, a flashback to his years spent in Cathgergen, brought on by the racial purity of her features. She raised her gray eyes and studied him, the look on her face the sad, sympathetic expression one might fix upon a child with a damaged mind. And that was it. She turned away and never, as far as Rialus could remember, looked him in the face again. Her constant silence prompted him only to blather more than usual.

"Am I important enough to him now that he would tolerate insolence?" he asked. "I should be. Where would he be without me? I'm his expert on the Known World. Perhaps," he added, offering a faint invitation to conspiracy with his tone and grin, "we should tell him I'm not well. A headache perhaps. What think you of that?"

The girl could have been asleep with her eyes open.

Even a beauty like you can get tiresome, Rialus said silently, though he did not mean it. Aloud, he acquiesced, "Fine. I'll meet with his magnificence."

Fingel pivoted. He followed her, his eyes incapable of looking away from her figure. He almost detoured to the toilet chamber before he left. There, in the near privacy, he regularly used mental images of Fingel as he pleasured himself. He knew he could have physically taken her anytime he wanted to. She was a slave in his complete power. Devoth had made that clear. For that matter, he had bedded servants back in Acacia who he knew were not terribly willing. Just a part of the privilege of his office, it had seemed. But here he was not so sure he could face Fingel's reaction.

She deposited Rialus in the care of four of Devoth's slave soldiers. They were young men, thick about the chest and as haughty as newly appointed Marah, though sullen as well. Two of them had the Lvin clan's white facial tattooing. The third had whiskers. None of them were a match in appearance to the victor of the melee, but few men would be. Like Fingel, they spared no words for Rialus. As they trudged through the city streets, Rialus framed by the square of them, they occasionally talked among themselves. When Rialus offered a thought or question, however, stone silence. They acted as if they were waiting for an excuse to ram their rather horrific-looking pikes through his guts.

Nothing new. All the slaves he had interacted with in Ushen Brae made it clear that they held him in complete disdain. Total lack of interest. He could make no sense of it. Shouldn't they look to him as a connection with their homeland? Anger or hope. Either emotion would have made more sense to him. They gave him nothing. Despite his strangely privileged position, this troubled Rialus. Might he find no allies here? Nobody to turn toward to help him find the means to defy his captors? Though he could not define the shape of his eventual defiance, he was sure it must come. Must, if he could find the way to achieve it. But he was no closer now, weeks later. He still knew nothing, it seemed, of this land or people.

If he could slip away on his own for a bit, explore where he wanted to, probe around… Devoth had promised him that he would learn about Ushen Brae. What had he said? You'll see many grand things. You're our guest, so you'll see the things that make us great. So much for that. He had never left the environs of his own quarters except for excursions of a mile or so to meet with other Auldek officials, escorted always by slave guards. Would that he could see what they were hiding from him.

Although, having thought that, maybe being by himself would not be a good idea either. There were things living in Avina that he had no interest in coming upon by accident. Once, while following Devoth through a long hallway, past doors that opened onto different gymnasium chambers, he had seen a creature that made him stop abruptly. It had caught his eye because of its size, which was like that of no other creature he had ever seen. Like one of the foulthings, perhaps, but he had never set eyes on one of those.