Chapter 1:
The Voices from the Mountain
As they followed the road around the piney mountain slopes that morning, they passed a rutted path Hanuvar had been expecting. It was distinguished by dozens of well-ordered tents partly screening impressive mounds of black soil excavated to reveal the blacker walls of an ancient ruin. Some of the slaves pushing wheelbarrows piled with dirt were Volani, but the reclusive scholar directing their efforts had so far been entirely disinterested in selling.
A lone sentinel observed their progress from beneath a shade tree. He might wonder at a two-horse carriage accompanied by a lone rider upon this old road, but rich landholders lived nearby, so surely such a conveyance was no true rarity. And probably the watchman’s intense focus was centered upon Hanuvar because he was the obvious military escort, not because the man was suspicious of his true identity. Probably.
The stranger would be hard pressed to guess Hanuvar’s age. Only last year his dark hair had been well-peppered with gray, but owing to a peculiar incident much of that gray had gone, along with his scars and the accumulated weathering of a warrior in his fifties. His arms were muscular and his shoulders strong beneath his off-white tunic, signaling a man in his prime, which pleased Hanuvar, for the Dervans sought an older enemy. His features were not dissimilar from the natives of this peninsula, even though the long straight nose with a slight hook and small nostrils was characteristic of his Volani ancestors. And he deliberately cut his hair short with straight bangs and scrupulously shaved his face to emulate what Dervans considered proper—they rarely looked beyond these surface details.
Hanuvar acknowledged the sentinel by meeting his gaze and continued forward. Antires swore softly in the driver seat as his carriage rolled over a massive rut, and then they had passed out of sight.
The camp was a problem for another day. For now, he would steel himself for looking into the eyes of children who had witnessed the bloody end of their parents, siblings, and society. He couldn’t be certain what it had done to them but dreaded what he might find.
And he tried not to expect his niece to be among them.
They soon turned through an open wooden gate and onto a dirt track half as wide as the carriage. They passed a field of barley, and then rectangular patches of other grains and long rows of half-grown cabbages. A variety of rakes and sheers lay along the edges of the plots, but the workers who had wielded them were absent.
The explanation became apparent soon after. The slight tremor they’d noted traveling here must have been more violently expressed in this vicinity. While the tidy red-roofed villa stood intact, one small stone outbuilding had collapsed entirely. Another was missing half its roof, the shingles of which had slid into a pile at its door. A small army of men, women, and children milled on the grounds outside the villa.
As Hanuvar and the wagon approached he perceived more organization than had been apparent from a distance. A number of adults cleared rubble and a few bent to inspect the villa’s foundations. Others kept knots of children well-ordered in some open-air teaching or game arrangements. A dark-haired woman consulted a tall, gray-haired man, pointing to the villa’s roof line before both turned to the clop of horses bearing their anticipated visitors. They exchanged brief glances of “they’re here” and the taller motioned for someone nearer the children as the two of them strode for the rendezvous. His were plain but crisp work clothes. Her dress too was plain, but clearly of superior fabric, a white short-sleeved dress of summer length over a whiter under tunic, and her upswept hair was held with a spattering of tiny silver clips, which threw back the sun. Amelia, wife of Ciprion.
The track transformed into a bricked drive as it circled toward the villa’s formal pillared entrance. A pair of sun browned attendants hurried to assist the carriage, and Antires brought it to a halt.
Hanuvar dismounted, passing the reins to a curious youth, then opened the carriage door. Izivar had no need of his aid, but took his hand as she stepped down, then brushed travel dust from her light clothing, a stola in two layers, the inner deeper blue than the outer. A trim woman with long, dark, curling hair, her sleeves were long, ornamented with clever oval gaps that showed her fine, clear brown skin. She favored Hanuvar with a dazzling smile she quickly abandoned, remembering her role as his employer, squeezed his fingertips as if in apology for her pretense, and stepped away. Hanuvar then offered his hand to assist Serliva, Izivar’s gangly, sweet-faced maid. She stepped down with a bow of her head in thanks, and he relinquished her grip. A little taller than her mistress, she too wore a blue stola, though sleeveless, darker, and simpler. Serliva ran fingers through her own locks then fussed with the shoulders of Izivar’s garment.
Antires, Hanuvar’s trusted friend, patted at his green tunic. The handsome young man was one of those whose clothing always hung well, so he brushed only a few wrinkles out before abandoning the effort with disinterest. His dark, tightly coiled hair and his russet-brown skin instantly identified him as a Herrene. His chosen occupation as Hanuvar’s chronicler was likely far less obvious, although Hanuvar saw him sizing up the grounds and the approach of Amelia and imagined him working out what words he’d use for his descriptions.
Amelia stopped before them with a pleasant hello.
The villa’s mistress looked just as Hanuvar remembered; a stoutly handsome woman of middle years with a penetrating gaze and inborn aura of command. Apart from the pieces decorating her hair she wore minimal jewelry.
The tall, solemn steward waited at her left elbow. Coming up on her right was an aged Herrene with thin lips, a broad nose, and a gray beard cut straight across his chest as though he were ready to model as a scholar for an ancient sculptor. His long tunic was old fashioned and formally pleated, and his curling hair was worn long and pushed back so that he would closely resemble a Herrenic comic mask the moment he smiled.
Owing to the slaves and servants nearby Amelia pretended not to be familiar with Hanuvar, and bowed her head instead to Izivar. “Lady Izivar. Welcome to our summer home. I hope that the little quake wasn’t too alarming for you.” Her voice possessed a slight rasp. Her husband Ciprion had explained it had changed permanently over the course of a long illness two winters previous.
Izivar bowed her head. “The horses didn’t care for it much, but we managed. Is everyone here alright?”
“The children are fine, only frightened or terribly curious, and my staff are all accounted for.” Amelia gestured to the collapsed and damaged outbuildings with a sweep of her arm. “Fortunately those were just used for storage.”
Antires had left the carriage in the hands of two old slaves who were driving the vehicle away. He cleared his throat and spoke from Hanuvar’s left. “Forgive me, milady. Do these sorts of things happen often?”
Hanuvar was surprised by his bold address. Usually Antires was a stickler for remaining in character, and a cart driver would not ordinarily address a patrician out of turn.
Amelia replied easily enough. “Not at all, but still more often than I would prefer. Tremblors are the price one must pay for the lovely weather.”
Izivar gestured to Antires. “This is my advisor, Stirses. I believe he may have assisted your husband upon one of his projects.”
“I seem to recall the name,” Amelia said with a polite nod. “And you look familiar as well,” she said to Hanuvar.
“I just have one of those faces, milady.”
His answer raised a sly smile from Amelia, quickly discarded.
“This is Decius, my steward and personal guard,” Izivar explained, for the benefit of Amelia’s staff. “He is fluent in both Dervan and Volani.”
“A pleasure.” Amelia gave the barest of nods to Hanuvar. She did not bother naming her steward, and gestured instead to the Herrene on her right, introducing him as the scholar Galinthias, hired as the chief instructor for the children. He exchanged greetings with Izivar, and Amelia resumed her address. “Normally I would invite you inside before we saw to the purpose of your visit, but I wish to make certain the roof won’t fall in on us. Surely you would like refreshments, though.” Amelia looked to her steward, who bowed his head and hurried away. She faced Izivar. “Or would you like to meet the children first?”
“The youngsters, please,” Izivar said.
“Of course. Come with me.” Amelia led them across the dense green sward, asking Galinthias to speak of his charges as they walked. In a slow, pleasant voice, he informed them those seven and younger were kept together with their caregivers. Boys and girls eight to fifteen were housed separately. Their numbers Hanuvar had long since committed to memory but the Herrene mentioned them as if to emphasize the breadth of his responsibility,
“We bought all that we could,” Amelia explained. “We were worried for the young women of . . . marriageable age, but they were more expensive and we couldn’t have purchased as many.”
“If you had not protected the little children, who would have?” Izivar asked, voice rich with thanks. “I’m grateful to you.”
Amelia bowed her head.
That the majority of surviving Volani children had been purchased by the kindly Ciprion and Amelia was one small mercy among innumerable horrors, and Hanuvar would be forever indebted to them for their generosity. They had gone so far as to buy Volani caretakers and tutors for the children as well, and to place a Herrene in charge, recognizing that the traditions of Dervan schools would be anathema to children used to Volani ways. The couple had even insisted that the girls were to continue to receive instruction in writing and mathematics and natural sciences, although as they walked Galinthias was describing additional training the young women were receiving in comportment and weaving, the better to acclimate to their new society.
Hanuvar kept his expression carefully bland, and Izivar nodded pleasantly. Serliva’s expression was less guarded and betrayed her shock when she learned boys and girls were instructed separately. How were they to be comfortable with one another when not allowed to interact from a young age? Before they had walked very far some of Hanuvar’s chief concerns had already been made manifest. If the children were left here for much longer, even the oldest children might be substantially different people from whom they’d have been if raised within Volanus, and the youngest might be indistinguishable from Dervans.
As they came nearer, the children’s caretakers halted their games and separated them into groups by age to await review. The littlest were made to sit. Older ones were asked to stand in a line. Hanuvar already knew that there were more older girls than older boys, forty-four to twenty-one. The number of smaller children was fewer, and among those fourteen were three toddlers, minded by a young woman missing her left hand, another survivor.
Per their previous arrangement, Hanuvar held back. It was Izivar and Serliva who would be spending the majority of time speaking with and assessing the children today. Both women had spent more time amongst younger people than he, and he meant to observe as unobtrusively as possible in case some sharp-eyed youngster recognized him even in disguise. His likeness had unfortunately been commonplace in numerous murals and sculptures throughout Volanus.
A tall graying tutor standing with the older girls watched Izivar with particular intensity, his expression shifting from caution to curiosity. When his attention travelled to Hanuvar his mouth gaped.
He had been recognized, and Hanuvar knew his observer. The man was Ahdanit, one of the leaders of the scientific faculty of Volanus. They had spoken many times during Hanuvar’s years as one of the shofets of Volanus, for Ahdanit had been an advocate for his institution’s research projects, which frequently seemed to run somewhat over budget—not owing to graft, but because of the tendency of the academy scholars to discover additional lines of inquiry during their investigation, most of which Ahdanit had supported. Hanuvar had usually agreed with him. The slim scholar’s name hadn’t been among the list of survivors, so he was clearly here under an assumed identity himself. Hanuvar shook his head ever so slightly. Ahdanit recovered with a tiny head bow and closed his mouth, confused but resolved to silence.
Knowing Hanuvar’s hope for his niece Edonia, Izivar asked Amelia if they might meet the girls first, and Hanuvar readied himself for disappointment. He should be happy, he thought, that any of these young women had survived to be so well cared for. They and their clothes were clean, and they were well nourished. The youngest looked less curious about their visitors than bored or disappointed to have their activities interrupted, like any young people assembled before older ones.
Hanuvar had parlayed with more foreign leaders than he could quickly count, sometimes under very trying circumstances. And yet the thought of explaining to these children that they would have to be uprooted again seemed a far greater challenge. He had promised Izivar they would do this together, when the time was right. Amelia’s letter had relayed that after many months most of the boys and girls were settled and content here, even happy. They had good meals and clean bedding, familiar company, and routine. How would they react when they were told they would be leaving this safe place for parts unknown, with strangers?
He was glad the topic would not be broached during this initial visit. Izivar would try to get a sense for how best to group the children during transport. For now, he confined himself to searching the faces of the dark-eyed girls.
Four years was a third of a lifetime for his niece Edonia. At seven, when he’d last seen her, she had favored her mother, sharing honey-brown eyes and pointed chin, though her unruly dark hair had looked more like his brother Melgar’s. Temperamentally she had resembled neither of her fiery parents, for she had been focused and deliberative. Hanuvar’s duties in Volanus had left him too busy to frequently engage with his extended family, but he had known little Edonia because even at six she’d had the patience to sit down for games of draughts. In between contemplating her possible moves and twisting her hair around her fingers, she had talked about animals, her abiding interest, and also about the great winged serpents who had made Volanus their home since the city’s founding. She had hoped to become one of the maidens at the temple of the asalda.
Hanuvar had enjoyed his moments with her, wondering if she was what his daughter Narisia had been like as a little girl.
Izivar bade the children good morning in their own language, introducing herself by her first name. The children looked surprised at hearing this elegant outsider speak their native tongue.
Edonia didn’t seem to be here. But that short-haired girl there, or the one in back—no, she had a more prominent nose. But her, on the left . . . It was perhaps unfortunate that Hanuvar must remain in a disguise he could not set aside. Surely, if his hair were parted and he wore his beard, Edonia would have stepped forward with a glad cry.
If she were here.
He turned to Amelia and addressed her softly. “Milady, might I speak alone to this instructor?” He indicated Ahdanit. He wished to make it clear to the scholar that he spoke with Amelia’s permission.
She inclined her head politely. “Of course.”
Izivar was already chatting to the girls about their daily routines while the Herrenic instructor looked on with some bemusement. Her grace and easy manner had them warming to her.
Hanuvar motioned Ahdanit aside and they walked apart, the scholar’s eyes drinking him in. Probably he wondered if this were some trick; even if the man hadn’t seen Hanuvar’s plummet into the sea he would have learned of it from his fellow prisoners or the Dervans themselves. He might also have heard wild rumors of Hanuvar’s survival. But Ahdanit was an intellectual and a skeptic and would have judged those stories to be either fears or projected hopes.
Hanuvar halted at the side of a well-shaped myrtle twenty feet out from the children, and spoke to Ahdanit in Volani. He got straight to the point. “It is me, and you and the children will be freed. But the boys and girls and the rest of the staff cannot be trusted with my name or our intentions until they are away from here.” He did not add that children might talk, and slaves overhear to spread gossip beyond the family holdings. Ahdanit was bright enough to understand.
The scholar struggled to sound normal as he replied. “Of course, Shofet. Freed? But how?”
Hanuvar dared not reveal specifics. “With few complications, and very soon. And do not bother with a title.” Such honorifics were irrelevant here. He was glad he could offer further news. “Your wife lives. And your colleague Varahan.”
Ahdanit blinked, and his eyes shown with moisture. He wiped at them. His voice was a hoarse whisper. “She lives?”
“Yes. I saw her myself only last week, and she was healthy. She is free now.” He did not add that she had been one of those on board a ship for New Volanus. He had spoken with the great musician only briefly, but had been delighted by her beaming smile.
Ahdanit could not help laughing in pleasure. “I thank you . . . this news is hard to take in. And so are you. Is Varahan alright? How are you doing this? How did you survive?”
“He’s in good health. As for me . . . these are stories for another time. Now, tell me. Surely you’re not the only one under an assumed name here. Are any of these young ladies Edonia Cabera?”
Ahdanit’s expression fell. “I don’t believe so. Not that they’ve told me. And we’ve talked a lot over the months.” He took in Hanuvar’s troubled look. “If you will permit me?”
Hanuvar didn’t know what he was permitting but acquiesced with a head nod.
Ahdanit turned and called a girl’s name, Esherah. One of the older girls asked approval of Galinthias, and then Amelia and, given it, stepped clear of the others, her expression tentative. Ahdanit waved her forward. She started toward them.
Ahdanit looked back to Hanuvar as she neared. “What do I call you?”
“Decius.”
The young lady stopped in front of them and sought reassurance from Ahdanit’s gaze. Her thick hair was combed forward, likely in an attempt to hide the long white scar visible upon her forehead. In her girl’s stola and sandals she looked a proper young Dervan maiden, but as her eyes searched Hanuvar’s own he was reminded of an entirely different young lady of about the same age who had assessed him with a skeptical look much like this. He did not outwardly reveal the pang he experienced in recalling Takava, long since buried in the sands of a distant isle.
“Do not worry, Esherah,” Ahdanit said in Volani. “Decius is a friend. Decius, Esherah is the clever young woman who warned children of the famous or those in training with coveted institutions to lie about their names. She’s one of my best students.”
Hanuvar supposed Ahdanit was teaching them mathematics. As far as the information he had shared about Esherah, Hanuvar understood Ahdanit meant it as a kindness to him to thoroughly investigate the whereabouts of his niece, though he had little hope it would lead to anything useful. The scholar couldn’t know how diligently Carthalo’s people had already acquired the few other Volani children from slave holders less trustworthy than Ciprion. Still, Hanuvar nodded his head politely to the girl. “Were there any such children among you?”
Her expression brightened in surprise to be addressed by a Dervan in such flawless Volani. She pursed her lips and gathered her thoughts. Hanuvar liked that she checked with Ahdanit a final time. The scholar nodded his approval.
“I don’t know, sir,” Esherah responded respectfully. She glanced again at Ahdanit, as if asking for permission to provide more sensitive information.
“Speak the whole truth to him,” he insisted.
“I know that some of them were maidens at the temple of the asalda. One of them is here.”
The temple where Edonia had hoped to become a hand maiden, and where her mother had once served as one. Hanuvar kept rising interest from his expression.
“Why don’t you ask her over?” Ahdanit suggested. Esherah turned and called another girl’s name, waving her toward them, and that young girl sought approval from her minders, who then received permission from Amelia. Izivar and Serliva, meanwhile, talked animatedly with a now larger group of girls of mixed ages. The boys had been led aside, the younger playing fox and geese while the older were seated before an instructor. Antires, standing with the ladies, looked longingly toward Hanuvar, but he had not been invited into the conversation and did not presume to intrude.
Soon a grave young girl with short curling brown hair was standing closely to Esherah, her soft brown eyes searching. Hanuvar guessed her for nine or ten. She was introduced as Teonia.
Hanuvar took a knee and offered a smile. “Hello.”
She would not meet his eyes. One of her arms was streaked with burn scars.
“Were you a hand maiden at the Hall of the Asalda?” Hanuvar asked.
“I was in training, sir,” she answered after a long silence. Her voice was thin and remote.
“Do you know Edonia Cabera?”
She nodded; her expression revealed nothing more but she moved a bit further behind Esherah.
Hanuvar pretended calm. “Is she here?”
She shook her head, no. Esherah took her hand, and the young girl clung tightly to her fingers.
That flare of hope had been foolish. It would be painful, but another question was necessary. “Do you know if she survived?”
Teonia’s eyes were grave as she finally looked at him. He could not read her meaning beyond shyness, or perhaps fear.
And then she nodded. Yes.
Hanuvar managed to keep intensity from his voice. He did not want to frighten the girl. “You saw her? You are certain?”
Teonia nodded vigorously. “She was in the pens.”
“The slave pens in Derva,” Ahdanit explained.
Suddenly Teonia was talking quickly, although her voice was soft. “They let her in back at the holding area in Volanus. But they wouldn’t let my cousin in even though he wasn’t too badly wounded. He could still walk a little. The Dervans took him away and I never saw him again.”
Some Dervan overseer must have decided there was little enough value to be had from a child, let alone one that would have to be nursed back to health. Young Teonia was fortunate that her cousin hadn’t been killed in front of her.
Hanuvar fell silent in shared remorse for the lost child, and bit back his anger. That another had survived only to be culled by a Dervan like a sickly lamb all but shattered his composure.
He mastered his ire with a breath and turned his attention to the more positive aspects of Teonia’s information: Edonia had survived to reach Derva, which meant she had to have been sold on. Hanuvar knew every name on the Dervan slave list, as well as those names upon the supplemental lists of Volani purchased by the government and foreign nationals, and Edonia’s name had not been among them. It might be that she had already been recovered by one of his agents, and he had been completely unaware of her identity because of her assumed name. “Do you know what she was calling herself?”
“She said to tell everyone she was Betsara.”
Her grandmother’s name on her mother’s side. And a name among those that Hanuvar had seen, listed as sold with two other young women to a foreign dignitary. His nostrils flared as he inhaled in frustration. He mentioned their names as well. “Did you know them?”
“They were all my friends,” Teonia said. “The robed men took them. They led them away. They looked like wizards but weren’t really, or they would have known that my brother and I had the touch and Edonia and the others didn’t.”
Hanuvar wanted to make sure he understood what she meant. “What touch do you have?”
She looked down at her sandaled feet.
“It’s alright,” Ahdanit said. “Decius won’t be afraid.”
She hesitated. “But he’s a Dervan. We’re not supposed to talk to them about magic things.”
Ahdanit addressed Hanuvar. “The Dervans don’t usually care for magic except in the hands of the authorities.”
“It’s wise of you to be careful what you say,” Hanuvar told her. “But you can talk to me about this. Some of my friends have the kind of touch I think you mean, and pretending you don’t have it is like pretending you can’t hear. Who would want to do that?”
Teonia looked into his eyes then for the first time. She didn’t exactly smile, but her expression cleared, and he recognized a spark of excitement in her eyes. “That’s exactly how it is,” she said.
She had just confirmed she was one of the rare few who were tuned to senses beyond the normal five; such were prized by the asalda because they found them easier to communicate with. The girl grew more comfortable as she continued. “I can feel things from far away. Like the power of the man in the mountain. I can sense him from here. So can my brother.”
“Teonia’s brother is here as well,” Ahdanit explained.
Hanuvar nodded his thanks and returned his attention to Teonia. “The man in the mountain?”
“He has many Volani voices with him, and he’s using the voices to talk to the mountain and its old stones.”
Hanuvar’s interest quickened. Could she mean the scholar working in the ruins with the Volani slaves? “How do you know they’re Volani?”
“I can hear them talking.”
“What are they saying?”
“They are crying to be let out. They’re lonely and scared, and he won’t let them go. But he’s lonely, too.”
“Do you know this man’s name?”
She shook her head. “He came to speak to the Lady this week.”
“She means Calenius,” Ahdanit explained, confirming Hanuvar’s suspicion, for that was the name of the scholar digging in the ruins. “He was there, at the siege. I remember seeing him wandering around the enclosures, and I heard his name called.”
Hanuvar had heard that as well. “And he’s a wizard?”
“That I do not know,” Ahdanit said. “He’s excavating some ruins south of here, near the base of Mount Esuvia. I’m not sure what he spoke with Lady Amelia about.”
Hanuvar smiled reassuringly to the girl and put his hand out, palm up. Hesitantly, she extended her own, and then he gently squeezed her fingers. “Thank you, Teonia. I am sorry about your cousin. And I’m sorry you have to hide.”
Her expression was blank. Sorrow and sympathy were poor currency, so he continued. “But you have given me good news, and I’m grateful. Now I can try to find Edonia.”
“Why?”
“So I can help her.”
“Are you going to take us away?” Esherah asked. The older girl’s eyes were suddenly piercing.
He could not tell her he would take her away, yet he could not lie to her. “Do you want to stay here?”
“I want to stay with my friends.”
“You and your friends will not be separated,” Hanuvar pledged. He debated asking which of the girls were her favorites, the better to know which ones should be kept together during the wagon transport to the coast, but he didn’t want to imply that any of them would be parted.
“Are you really a Dervan?” Esherah asked. From Teonia’s searching look it was clear she wondered the same thing.
“Does it matter? The important thing is that I am a friend to Lady Izivar, and she’s Volani. I will help her all I can.”
They mulled that over.
Hanuvar climbed to his feet and nodded at them. “Thank you. Why don’t you rejoin the others?”
They nodded politely to their elders, and then Esherah led the younger girl off by the hand.
“Your niece lives,” Ahdanit said softly.
“So it seems.” While Hanuvar struggled to adjust to this welcome news, he was already considering the challenges lying in front of Edonia’s recovery. “The men in robes who took her are Ilodoneans. They might have purchased the girls because they have experience with asalda.” Some said that a previous Ildonean emperor had even enslaved asalda, though Hanuvar had never credited the stories. The reclusive and arrogant Ilodoneans claimed many unlikely things.
“Ilodonea is a long way off.”
“It is.” And the Ilodoneans were famously difficult to interact with—in many ways, more difficult than the Dervans. But Edonia lived, and she was among girls from her own people. If her owners thought her some kind of specialized worker, all the better, because that virtually guaranteed her better treatment.
Hanuvar tried not to think about all the dangers she faced, and to find joy in the simple truth that Edonia had survived. For now there was nothing he could do for her.
After a moment, Ahdanit spoke with quiet restraint. “My wife, she is well? She suffered no . . . hardship?”
Hanuvar understood Ahdanit’s reluctance to mention terrible fates by name, as if doing so might give them the power to be real. And he realized he’d allowed himself to become too fixated upon his own worries, while this man had quietly waited for further word about the woman he loved.
“Forgive me, Ahdanit. I should have told you more. She looked well, and she hadn’t been treated harshly. She’d been fortunate, and was working as a musical tutor. Her previous owners had even gifted her with a high quality flute.”
“My darling,” he said softly. “She is such a talent.”
“She is. And she will ensure our musical heritage survives as she will, I’m sure, be welcomed at the academy in New Volanus.” Ahdanit’s eyes widened at mention of the colony, but Hanuvar gently shifted topics before the scholar could ask for more details. “Tell me. How well are you and the children truly being cared for here?”
He answered after only a moment of reflection. “The rest of the instructors and I have been very lucky. The children . . . well, I suppose they’ve been lucky, too, overall. When I think of all those who didn’t make it, it’s hard to complain, but—”
“Your honest assessment,” Hanuvar said, striving not to sound overly curt.
“Plenty of food, the company of their own people, even an education probably better than a lot of Dervans receive is nothing to object to. But Galinthias’ lectures are wandering and unfocused, like the worst stereotype of a Herrenic philosopher, and the children have learned how to get him off on tangents so that he often isn’t teaching them much. He could certainly be far worse, of course. He’s never abusive or impatient.”
Hanuvar nodded encouragement, and Ahdanit continued. “The Dervan language instructor is actually quite sweet, but completely oblivious about why any of these children would be disinterested in the finer points of Dervan society. The woman in charge of teaching the young ladies comportment is rigid and disliked, but the worst thing is that there aren’t any real apprenticeship programs. Some of the older boys and girls were already apprenticed in Volanus and there aren’t even a third of the possible crafting positions being offered here. Unless you’re a young woman, in which case the only skills you’re allowed to practice are the household arts. Young Esherah could be a world class mathematician, and she seems to enjoy the academic pursuits immensely, but I think they intend her to be a ladies maid.”
Hanuvar knew this to be a profession Dervans considered desirable for unmarried women from non-patrician families. He happened to think a skilled assistant was invaluable to most any enterprise, but he’d hate to see someone gifted in one profession forced into another because of factors outside of merit and preference. “That’s not what’s going to happen now,” he vowed.
Ahdanit searched his eyes as if assuring himself that Hanuvar’s confidence was warranted.
Hanuvar hadn’t paid particular note to the bright chirping of orioles until they suddenly went silent. He knew another tremor was on its way a breath before the ground rolled. The rumbling came this time with the shrill screams of young children. Adults called for calm, though some of them cried out in fear as well.
Hanuvar looked for Izivar, saw her seated on the ground near the girls, far from danger, caught sight of Serliva and Amelia and Antires, then turned to scan Esuvia, as he had during the earlier tremor. The mountain’s gray cone rose above its green girt slopes just to the southeast. If it were to erupt, the chances for everyone’s survival were rather slim.
But there came no smoke, nor even an avalanche, much less roiling ash plumes, and the cones of the old volcano’s two distant sisters to the south were quiescent as well.
The shaking grew more violent. Behind him a louder rumble of stone sounded, and he turned as a corner of the villa gave way. The red shingles slid down in a clatter.
And then, only a few yards from himself, the earth was rent asunder. The grass parted and a gap of darkness yawned. Dirt and chaff mushroomed. Hanuvar struggled to keep his feet, and threw out a hand to steady Ahdanit.
The quaking ceased just as suddenly as it had begun. Silence persisted for long moments, and then a few cautious orioles took up their chirping, joined quickly by the shrill whisper of starlings, angry about the disturbance.
Hanuvar again checked the children, and the volcano, and his lover and friends. None seemed harmed. He then strode for the gap that had opened, for he thought he’d glimpsed dark bricks within.
He had not imagined it. The earth had revealed a subterranean structure. Only ten feet down the crumbling slope lay a floor of shining black pavers, half hidden by mounded dirt, collapsed walls, and broken stone that was almost certainly a fallen ceiling.
Ahdanit came to stand at his side, peering with him. “What is that?”
Hanuvar didn’t know. “A hallway, I think.” Some fifteen feet of passage had been exposed. A few spans of floor were cracked or pushed diagonally upright, but the majority remained flat and even as a Dervan highway, stretching into lost darkness beneath the earth.
After a moment, someone smelling of clover and scented bath oils drew beside him. Amelia stepped fearlessly to the edge. Hanuvar kept at her side, ready to grab her should the ground give way. Divining his intent, she frowned irritably at him, as if to assert that she was perfectly capable of watching out for herself.
Antires and Izivar arrived a moment later, though neither ventured as close to the side.
“What do you suppose this is?” Amelia asked him.
“Something Calenius will be interested in,” Hanuvar said. “I’m told he came to see you.”
Amelia responded with a single nod. “He did. He wished to dig on our ground, even if he could not buy it. He said he expected there were ruins beneath.”
“Looks like he was right,” Antires said dryly.
Amelia ignored him and spoke to Hanuvar. “Why does that interest you?”
“He holds Volani slaves that he will not sell. What did you tell him?”
“That our land was not for sale, nor was it currently for rent. He countered with the offer of large sums merely to explore, and I told him I would consider it. Now, I believe you’ve something in mind.”
He did. There was little more he would be useful for here. He had satisfied his own curiosity as to the children’s general health and the quality of their education, and learned more than he’d hoped in that his niece was likely still alive, though very far away. Izivar had already planned out her strategy for evaluating the rest of the situation, and his part in it was very small. An opportunity like this couldn’t be ignored. “Let me act as your negotiator. He’s likely to offer more now that there’s proof these ruins exist.”
“And you will ask for the Volani slaves as part of the fee.”
“If you would permit me.”
Amelia hesitated. “It was my thought his excavators should not have close proximity to pretty girls just this side of puberty.”
“A wise precaution. What will you do with the land once the children are gone?”
She considered him gravely. “How soon are you planning to leave with them?”
“In a matter of weeks. Perhaps sooner, for their own safety.”
“Safety?” Her expression darkened, and then she understood his meaning was not a rebuke for her standards of care. “Oh, this is nothing. The quakes happen from time to time. Esuvia just turns in her sleep. You do realize that the younger children have already grown attached to this place? And many are showing affinity for the skills they’re learning. Wouldn’t they be happier, here, settled and with a more certain future?”
Hanuvar kept his voice level. “The colony is settled. And they will be among their own people.”
“I expected you would say that.”
“Just as you would, if our roles were reversed.”
No matter her intelligence, Amelia’s blank stare suggested a mental block in conceiving a mirrored version of their fates. She recovered, returning to her central concern. “As someone who has many more years of direct experience with childcare, I ask for you to think not of the prior wrongs done to these children, but the benefits to them having a stable situation. Rather than displacing them. Again.”
Hanuvar might have pointed out that they were slaves here, but that would be unfair, for they were hardly being treated as slaves, and Amelia and her husband had outlaid a great deal of money into their upkeep and obviously planned to continue to do so. Then too, there was great practical sense in what Amelia said. Thus he answered diplomatically. “I will certainly consider your experienced counsel in this matter. But as to the matter of Calenius, I suggest you offer to have him inspect this tunnel. I can accompany his every move after you relocate the children far from of his view.”
Amelia considered her reply only briefly. “Very well. Tell him the price of looking over the tunnels is the freeing of your slaves. If he wishes to do more, then he and I will have to come to an agreement. Size him up. Tell me what you think of his aims and the character of his men.”
“I will.”