C HAPTER

Sire Dagon met the others of the League Council in a darkened chamber of the league compound in Alecia. A light distillation of green mist clouded the air, moving in ghostly swirls on the air currents. The first rank of leaguemen sat in a tight circle, each of them leaning back in an intricate reclining chair. Beyond the first ring there was a second, and a third, and beyond that the nonspeakers huddled close, listening. At meetings like this only the first three circles could speak freely, and they all did so without really seeing the others. It could take a long time between the asking of a question and an answer, especially as the group's mist-drenched state meant that they shared a certain linkage of thought. Their minds hummed like tuning forks that spread the same note among them. They had separate minds, yes, but it was-in the council chamber-impossible for any of them to deceive the others.

"Events did not proceed as we expected," Sire Dagon admitted. "Our intelligence about the Auldek was… partial. Flawed, I'm afraid."

An answering rumble of voices reverberated in the dim chamber of the League Council.

"You speak in understatement." Sire Grau's voice had an unusual clarity to it, a cadence untroubled by the tremulous effects of his advanced years. Dagon recognized what powered it: flames of anger stirred up from the slow embers that usually fueled him. "Neen saw what he wished to see, not the actual truth! He acted on what he wanted to believe, driven by emotion, blind to the flaws of his actions. Rarely has a leagueman made such grave mistakes."

Sire Grau sat beside Dagon in the first circle. Neither man looked at the other. Usually, the mist had a calming effect, enough so that they conducted all council business-no matter how fractious-with heavy-lidded calm. On this occasion Dagon felt an increased level of clarity in his own mind, calmed not at all by the unease surging through the chamber in waves. It had been many, many years since they met to discuss so many events not entirely in their control. For the younger among them, this marked the first such time.

Sire Faleen, though below Grau in authority, calmed them. As the Council Speaker, it fell to him to shape the direction of the meeting. Dagon did not mind at all that he turned it first toward Sire Neen's fiasco in Ushen Brae. He shared among them all he knew of what had happened, which was a great deal. They had probed the minds of the few Ishtat to return alive from the meeting with Devoth. No leagueman had made it out of that butcher's chamber, but the Ishtat minds housed images of the gore and at least fragments of the conversation preceding Neen's abrupt beheading. All agreed that he should have seen that coming. Devoth had betrayed his intentions by the way he moved his body and in the way his eyes darted about. Neen had been too flushed with dubious victory over the Lothan Aklun to see, too sure he held the world's wealth in his hand.

"Fool," more than one voice declared.

Faleen did not dispute the label. "Sire Neen made grave mistakes. He cost us dearly."

"Awkward the way he mishandled things," a voice in the second row said. "Should he be forgotten?"

A murmur of approval greeted this suggestion. "Yes. Yes. Let him be forgotten," several voices said at once.

The greatest enthusiasm was in the outer rows. Neen's demise would allow one of them quicker access to the inner circle. Dagon craned his head around just slightly and let his eyes cant farther from there, searching for the man who had proposed the forgetting. He spotted him. Lean faced, although with wide-set eyes that tilted downward at the outer edges. His name? Lethel. Sire Lethel. He was Neen's second cousin. So much for familial loyalty. Among the league, though, none would fault him for it. In truth, they all shared similar blood.

Sire El said, "He may be forgotten, but his errors should not be."

Grunts of affirmation. "Forget the man; remember the folly so as not to repeat it."

Dagon was not entirely sure how one could repeat the specifics of Neen's folly, but he let a low rumble build in his throat, his consent to the proposal.

"He is forgotten, then," Faleen said some time later, once it was clear that nobody objected.

That small measure passed quickly. What to do with Ushen Brae now that so much had changed took somewhat longer to work through. They turned the issue over for some time, exploring the possibilities, the problems, the likelihood of salvaging something of the once so very prosperous trade. The Auldek were abandoning Ushen Brae as they spoke. They would leave the continent peopled with many of their former-and infertile-slaves. Do they find a way to return to the old order? Or must they create a new one? Let the quota in Ushen Brae die out? Or offer them trade instead? Perhaps they would like slaves of their own. So many questions.

The same in regard to the Known World. Would the Auldek conquer? Likely so. Many of them walked with a hundred souls beneath their skin. A hundred deaths at their disposal. How could weak Acacians stand before them? The fragile coalition of the Akaran Empire would shatter when such a threat approached.

"The bitch with her plan to end the quota," Sire Revek said. "Does she really mean it?"

There were moments that Dagon disliked the shared communion of the council. One could not lie. The others could even have measured the beating of his heart or felt the sweat on his palms if they wished. They would sense that he did not like calling Queen Corinn "the bitch," but they would also forgive him. After all, he did the work few of them did, out among the peasants, so much of his life in service to them all. Considering that leaguemen never told peasants the truth about anything, their complete openness with one another had an ironic quality.

"Yes, Chairman, she likely does mean it at the moment," Dagon answered. "She is an Akaran, after all. She remains victim of notions of glory and benevolence, especially during times of stress. Not the substance of benevolence, of course-the show. That's what pumps her blood. She may abolish the quota now, resume it later. She may see that the trade is simply no longer viable. In a great many ways she is right about that."

"She has no creativity," a voice in the third row said. "There is always a way to exploit for gain."

"We see that, yes," Grau said. "The peasant folk rarely do."

Many voices climbed over one another in anxious agreement with the chief elder.

"But the bitch has finally consented to release the vintage," Revek said. "Within a few weeks the entire Known World will be addicted to it. Will that not unite them?"

"It will. It will," Sire Nathos said, speaking about his area of expertise, "but I don't think that it matters. United they may just fall faster. Let them line up to get cut down. Better that than that they splinter and hide in the various provinces. Either way, I would not bet on their chances. And we need not. If the Auldek prevail, who is to say we can't do business with them? When the Known World is populated with Auldek and their newborn children-babies for the first time in hundreds of years-what will the Auldek wish for?"

"Peace."

"Stability."

Nathos nodded. "They'll begin to fear death again. They'll want sedate, docile servants with no rebellion in them. They'll want to grow rich as they dream of their children's lives. We will have them in our power just as much as we had the Acacians."

Faleen asked, "And if, by some strange turn of events, the bitch beats them back?"

"I rather hope she doesn't," Nathos admitted. "That seems… boring. But if that happens, she'll have a newly addicted, certainly battered, nation to rebuild. She has no idea how completely we own her."