Angel of Storms (Millennium's Rule, #2)(129)
She slipped from mind to mind, seeking someone whose thoughts might reveal why Valhan had brought her here. In the mind of an ambassador from another world, living in a house a few streets away, she found answers.
The man was preparing for a meeting with the Emperor of Malez, who ruled most of this world. He was not looking forward to it. Every day the Malezans grew more like their former masters, the Koijen–corrupt, cruel and greedy. It’s fortunate, he thought, that I am strong enough that the local sorcerers can’t read my thoughts right now. He shuddered to think what might be done to him and his family if they could. It is not right that anyone should be killed for merely thinking unflattering thoughts about others. But it had happened.
Moving into another room, he worked a lever to draw warm water into a bowl. At least some of what we learned from the Koijen was beneficial. Is it possible for a world to gain good plumbing and not be changed for the worse? Does cleanliness on the outside just chase foulness inside? He grunted in sour amusement at the thought.
Rielle sought other minds, confirming the ambassador’s opinion and learning more. The Malezans, inspired by the Puht, had also sought the Raen’s help. It had taken a war–the one the people of Puht had assisted in–to remove the Koijen from their world. The conquerors had united most of the world under one system of governance, which the Malezans had retained, and with the common enemy removed, old grievances and prejudices had resurfaced, with many local peoples remaining as subjugated and exploited as they had been as slaves.
Someone has to do the dirty jobs, one Malezan princess thought as she watched servant women bent double, carting enormous baskets back from the washhouse. And my people have always been better suited to tasks that require leadership and good taste than menial work.
Turning to Valhan, Rielle searched his face for signs of regret and found none. “Did you know this would happen?”
“I have never met anyone who could predict the future.”
“But surely after a thousand cycles…?”
“I only know the most likely outcome, but that is no guarantee it will be the one. Forcing a people to develop in a certain direction is difficult and time consuming–and impossible to maintain for extended periods.”
Her heart skipped a beat. “Is that what happened in your world?”
“The fewer people to control, the easier it is to control them.”
“So…” She looked around at the constantly moving traffic. “You can’t know that what you do–the favours you grant–will not do more good than harm?”
“There is always harm done. Every gain comes at a cost.”
“Will you try to correct things here?”
“No.”
She waited for him to explain why, but he remained silent. “Because… because nobody has asked you to?”
“That, and because this world is of no risk to others yet. Further interference may lead to the kind of shortages in food and other essentials that forced the Koijen to plunder other worlds to begin with.”
Rielle sighed. It was all so complicated. When the whole picture was considered, Valhan did seem to have good intentions. But his limitation is that he is one person, who can’t be everywhere at once. He is, at best, nudging the worlds into a more ordered state. What would happen if he didn’t interfere at all? Would the result be more chaotic and ugly? Or would the worlds sort out their problems more carefully, if people knew they couldn’t call on the Raen to fix them?
The elegant hand extended in her direction again. She took it. Worlds flickered by, eventually in a familiar sequence. The Arrival Hall appeared and his grip loosened, but he did not let go. A vibration ran through the floor. Dahli hurried into the room–clearly he had been waiting close by. She saw his gaze drop to her hand, still in Valhan’s, and his smile faded for the briefest moment, before his attention returned to his leader’s face.
Valhan let go of her hand. “It is time, Dahli, that you taught Rielle pattern shifting.”
Her teacher’s self-possession slipped again, only this time, instead of the hint of suspicion, his jaw dropped.
“But you always…” he began.
Whatever he had meant to say turned into a sigh of resignation. The ruler of worlds had vanished.
PART SIX
TYEN
CHAPTER 16
Leaning on the window sill, Tyen said a mental goodbye to the city. From above, the city of Glaya looked like a vast dried-up pond, the surface broken into odd-shaped plates of mud curling upwards at the edges. The walls beneath these quirky rooftops were rendered, roughly on the outside, smoothly on the inside, with the fingerprints of their makers still visible. Generations of hands had shaped them, adding another layer at the end of every wet season when the silt that was swept downriver in spring floods had settled into an elastic clay.
Clay was also the trade of the city, and the greatest source of wealth in the world of Iem. At the edges of this and many other cities workers dug the raw matter from the ground and delivered it to local artisans. These men and women shaped the warm, sticky substance into all manner of objects, from the practical to the artistic, rustic to impossibly fine. Set aside to dry, the creations were refined and carved, dipped and painted, and finally fired by sorcerers whose knowledge of temperature, timing and what to add to a kiln to change the result was as complex and refined as that of the chemists of the Academy.