bed, watching the pale netting shift in a barely felt breeze. It was

strange being home, hearing his own language in the streets, smelling

the air he'd breathed as a youth.

Ana and her parents would be settled in by now, sitting, perhaps, on the

porch that looked out over the koi pond and its bridge. Perhaps putting

back the hinged walls to let in the air. Otah had spent some little time

at the poet's house of Saraykeht once, back when he'd been Danat's age

and the drinking companion and friend of Maati Vaupathai. Back in some

other life. He closed his eyes and tried to picture the rooms as they'd

been when Seedless and the poet Heshai had still been in the world. The

confusion of scrolls and books, the ashes piled up in the grate, the

smell of incense and old wine. He didn't realize that he was falling

asleep until Seedless smirked and turned away, and Otah knew he was in

dreams.

A human voice woke him. The angle of the sun had shifted, the day almost

passed. Otah sat up, struggling to focus his eyes. The servant spoke again.

"Most High, the welcoming ceremonies are due in a hand and a half. Shall

I tell the Master of Tides to postpone them?"

"No," Otah said. His voice sounded groggy. He wondered how long the

servant had been trying to rouse him. "No, not at all. Send me clean

robes. Or ... no, send them to the baths. I'll be there."

The servant fell into a pose that accepted the command as law. It seemed

a little overstated to Otah, but he'd grown accustomed to other people

taking his role more seriously than he did himself. He refreshed

himself, met with the representatives of two high families and a trading

house with connections in Obar State and Bakta, and allowed himself to

be swept along to the grand celebration. They would welcome their

onetime invaders with music and gifts and intrigue and, he suspected,

the equivalent weight of the palaces in wine and food.

The grandest hall of his palaces stood open on a wide garden of

nightblooming plants. A network of whisperers stood on platforms, ready

to repeat the ceremonial greetings and ritual out to the farthest ear.

Otah didn't doubt that runners were waiting at the edge of the gardens

to carry reports of the event even farther. The press of bodies was

intense, the sound of voices so riotous that the musicians and singers

set to wander the garden in serenade had all been sent home.

Otah sat on the black lacquer chair of the Khai Saraykeht, his spine

straight and his hands folded as gracefully as he could manage. Cushions

for Danat and Sinja and all of Otah's highest officers were arrayed

behind him, perhaps two-thirds filled. The others were, doubtless, in

the throng of silk and gems. There was nowhere else to be tonight. Not

in Saraykeht. Perhaps not in the world.

Danat brought him a bowl of cold wine, but it was too loud to have any

conversation beyond the trading of thanks and welcome. Danat took his

place on the cushion at Otah's side. Farrer Dasin, Otah saw, had been

given not a chair but a rosewood bench. Issandra and Ana were on

cushions at his feet. All three looked overwhelmed about the eyes. Otah

caught Issandra's gaze and adopted a pose of welcome, which she returned

admirably.

He turned his attention to her husband. Farrer Dasin, stern and gray.

Otah found himself wondering how best to approach the man about this new

proposal. Though he knew better, he could not help thinking of Galt and

his own cities as separate, as two empires in alliance. Farrer Dasin-

indeed, most of the High Council-were sure to be thinking in the same

ways. They were all wrong, of course, Otah included. They were marrying

two families together, but more than that they were binding two

cultures, two governments, two histories. His own grandchildren would

live and die in a world unrecognizably different from the one Otah had

known; he would be as foreign to them as Galt had been to him.

And here, on this clear, crowded night, the cycle of ages was turning.

He found himself irrationally certain that Farrer Dasin could be

persuaded to lead, or at least to sponsor, a campaign against the

pirates at Chaburi-Tan. They had done this. They could do anything.

The signal came: flutes and drums in fanfare as the cloth lanterns rose

to the dais. Otah stood up and the crowd before him went silent. Only

the sound of a thousand breaths competed with the songbirds and crickets.

Otah gave his address in the tones appropriate to his place, practiced

over the course of years. He found himself changing the words he had

practiced. Instead of speaking only of the future, he also wanted to

honor the past. He wanted every person there to know that in addition to

the world they were making, there was a world-in some ways good, in

others evil-that they were leaving behind.

They listened to him as if he were a singer, their eyes fastened to him,

the silence complete apart from his own words in the hundred throats of

the whisperers echoing out into the summer night. When he took the pose

that would end his recitation, he saw tears on more than one face, and

on the faces of more than one nation. He made his way to Farrer Dasin

and formally invited the man to speak. The Galt stood, bowed to Otah as

a gesture between equals, and moved forward. Otah returned to his seat

with only the lightest twinge of trepidation.

"Are you sure you should let him speak?" Sinja murmured.

"There's no avoiding it," Otah replied, still smiling. "It will be fine."

The councilman cleared his throat, stood in the odd, awkward style of

Galtic orators-one foot before the other, one hand in the air, the other

clasping his jacket and spoke. All of Otah's worst fears were put at

once to rest. It was as if Issandra had written the words and spoke them

now through her husband's mouth. The joy that was children, the dark

years that the war had brought, the emptiness of a world without the

laughter of babes. And now, the darkness ended.

Otah felt himself begin to weep slightly. He wished deeply that Kiyan

had lived to see this night. He hoped that whatever gods were more than

stories and metaphors took word of it to her. The old Galt bowed his

head to the crowd. The applause was like an earthquake or a flood. Otah

rose and held his hand out to Danat as Fatter Dasin did the same with

his daughter. The Emperor-to-be and his Empress meeting here for the

first time. There would be songs sung of this night, Otah knew.

Ana was beautiful. Someone had seen to it that the gown she wore

flattered her. Her face was painted in perfect harmony with her hair and

the gold of her necklace. Danat wore a black robe embroidered with gold

and cut to please the Galtic eye. Farrer and Otah stepped back, leaving

their children to the center of the dais. Danat tried a smile. The

girl's eyes fluttered; her cheeks were flushed under the paint, her