The Other Lands by David Anthony Durham Read Free Book Online

would affect the prosperity of nations hundreds of miles away? It was, Corinn knew, a threat more formidable than any of the foulthings her sister hunted. It required her focused attention, and she was now ready to offer it. Her answer was a simple thing, really, rooted in a basic need and in her newfound ability to deliver gifts no other living being could. If what she had planned worked as she believed it would, they would surely find another name for her in Talay. A name of praise. Perhaps she would decide upon the name herself and have it whispered among the people until they took it up. She would make them think the name was of their own devising. There was a power in naming, she had come to believe, a great power.
    The bone whistle by which her door guards alerted her of arrivals came to her, two notes that identified the person entering as her secretary, Rhrenna, a relative of Hanish Mein’s who had been something of a friend toher during her captivity in the Meinish court. Corinn chose her over Rialus Neptos, the other nonfamilial holdover from her previous life. He was her confidant in many areas, yes, but she could not stand having him around too often. It suited her much better that such an intimate position be filled by a woman, and a woman decidedly indebted to her.
    For a time after her sudden rise to power Corinn thought Rhrenna had been killed during the massacre of Mein she had orchestrated with Numrek aid. It was not until a number of weeks later that the young woman was found hiding aboard a trading vessel off the Aushenian coast along with several of her maids. When Rhrenna was brought back to Acacia, Corinn had welcomed her with something between honest affection and relief. It was good to know that not all those she had sentenced to death were lost forever. It gave her the opportunity to provide amnesty, and she needed that.
    Rhrenna entered. She was pale and slim, attractive in a fine-boned way, but she looked as if the bounty of Acacia never quite nourished her as completely as one might hope. She spoke in a pleasant voice, one suited to song and often called for late on banquet evenings. “Excuse me, Your Majesty, but you have visitors. Sire Dagon and Sire Neen of the league wish a brief audience with you.”
    “Dagon and Neen? I didn’t even know they were on the island.”
    “Yes, they just arrived. They beg your forgiveness but swear the matter is urgent.”
    By custom, the leaguemen should have petitioned her officially for a meeting at least three days ahead of time. As much as she would have liked to turn them away, Corinn knew that if she did she would wonder what had brought them so urgently. She would spend her time trying to figure it out. Better to hear them and know from their mouths. Then she would search out the truth behind what they said.
    She greeted them in the meeting room adjacent to her main balcony, one large chamber open to the air down its whole length. Instead of enjoying the view, however, she sat at ease in a high-backed chair, the brightness of the day at her back. Her fingers curled around the knobbed fists of the armrests. “To what do I owe this unexpected pleasure?” she asked, crossing her legs as Dagon and Neen approached. “Two sires calling on me at once. A rare treat.”
    “The pleasure is all ours,” Sire Dagon said, bowing his head in the slow manner of leaguemen.
    “We beg forgiveness for the intrusion,” Sire Neen added. “The matter is of considerable import, Your Majesty. We could not but bring it to you immediately.”
    Both men fell into ritual greeting, spreading platitudes like rose petals they hoped would scent the room. They were dressed in the silken, luxurious robes of their sect and moved with a monklike air of reverence. They were not from a religious organization—indeed, their main doctrine centered on the insatiable appetite for wealth—but they were a closed group with mysterious ways that few outsiders understood. Outwardly, they