"How are you, love?" he asked.

"I should be the one asking," she said. "Those two ... that's more than

one lifetime's trouble they're carrying."

"I know it. And Maati's still in love with her."

"With both of them," Kiyan said. "One way and another, with both of them."

Otah took a pose that agreed with her.

"You know her well enough," Kiyan said. "Does she love him, do you think?"

"She did once," Otah said. "But now? It's too many years. We've all

become other people."

The breeze smelled of smoke and distant rain. The first chill of evening

raised gooseflesh on Kiyan's arm. He wanted to turn her toward him, to

taste her mouth and lose himself for a while in simple pleasure. He

wanted badly to forget the world. As if hearing his thought, she smiled,

but he didn't touch her again and she didn't move nearer to him.

"What are you going to do?" she asked.

""Iell Cehmai, send out couriers west to see what we can divine about

the situation in Galt, appeal to the Dai-kvo. What else can I do? A mad

poet, prone to fits of temper and working for the Galtic High Council?

There's not a story worse than that."

"Will the Dai-kvo do what she asks, do you think?"

"I don't know," Otah said. "He'll know this Riaan better than any of us.

If he's certain that the man's not capable of a proper binding, perhaps

we'll let him try and pay the price of it. One simple death is the best

we can hope for, sometimes. If it saves the world."

"And if the Dai-kvo isn't sure?"

""Then he'll spin a coin or throw tiles or whatever it is he does to

make a decision, and we'll do that and hope it was right."

Kiyan nodded, crossing her arms and leaning forward, gazing out into the

distance as if by considering carefully, she could see Galt from here.

Otah's belly growled, but he ignored it.

"He'll destroy them, won't he?" she asked. ""The Dai-kvo will use the

andat against the Galts."

"Likely."

"Good," Kiyan said with certainty that surprised him. "If it's going to

happen, let it happen there. At least Eiah and Danat are safe from it."

Otah swallowed. He wanted to rise to the defense of the innocent in

Galt, wanted to say the sort of high-minded words that he'd held as

comfort many years ago when he had been moved to kill in the name of

mercy. But the years had taken that man. The years he had lived, and the

dark, liquid eyes of his children. If black chaos was to he loosed, he

had to side with Kiyan. Better that it was loosed elsewhere. Better a

thousand thousand Galtic children die than one of his own. It was what

his heart said, but it made him feel lessened and sad.

"And the other problem?" Kiyan asked. Her voice was low, but there was a

hardness to it almost like anger. Otah took a querying pose. Kiyan

turned to him. He hadn't expected to see fear in her eyes, and the

surprise of it filled him with dread as deep as any he had suffered.

"What is it?" he asked.

She looked at him, part in surprise, part accusation.

"Nayiit," she said. "No one would think that man was Maati's child. Not

for a heartbeat. You have two sons, Otah-kya."

S

Balasar was quickly coming to resent the late-spring storms of the

Westlands. Each morning seemed to promise a bright day in which his

masters of supply could make their inventories, his captains could train

their men. Before midday, great white clouds would hulk up in the south

and advance upon him. The middle afternoon had been roaring rain and

vicious lightning for the past six days. The training fields were

churned mud, the wood for the steam wagons was soaked, and the men were

beginning to mirror Balasar's own impatience.

They had been guests of the Warden of Aren for two weeks now, the troops

in their tents outside the city walls, Balasar and his captains sleeping

in the high keep. The Warden was an old man, fat and boisterous, who

understood as well as Balasar the dangers of an army grown restless,

even an army still only half assembled. The Warden put a pleasant face

on things-he'd agreed to allow a Galtic army on his lands, after all.

"There was little enough to do now besides be pleasant and hope they'd

go away again.

Ile had even been so kind as to offer Balasar the use of his library. It

was a small room overlooking a courtyard, less grand than Balasar's own

home in Galt, less than the smallest apartments of the least of the

Khaiate nobility. But it was serviceable, and it had the effect each man

desired. Balasar had a place to brood, and the Westlanders had a

convenient way to keep clear of him.

The afternoon rains pecked at the windows. The pot of black tea had

grown tepid and hitter, ignored on a corner of the wide, oaken table.

Balasar looked again at the maps. Nantani would be the first, and the

easiest. The western forces would be undivided-five full legions with

support of the mercenaries hired with the High Council's gold and

promises of plunder. The city wouldn't stand for a morning. Then one

legion would turn North, going overland to Pathai while two others took

the mercenaries to Shosheyn-Tan, Lachi, and Saraykeht. That left him two

legions to go upriver to Udun, Utani, and Tan-Sadar, less whatever men

he left behind to occupy the conquered. Eight of the cities. Over half,

but the least important.

Coal and his men were already in place, waiting in the low towns and

smugglers' camps outside Chaburi-Tan. When the andat failed, they would

sack the city, and take ships North to Yalakeht. The pieces for

steam-driven boats were already in the warehouses of the Galtic

tradesmen, ready to be pegged onto rafts and sped upriver to the village

of the Dai-kvo. And then there was only the race to the North to put

AmnatTan, Cetani, and Machi to the torch before winter came.

Balasar wished again that he had been able to lead the force in

Chaburi-Tan. The fate of the world would rest on that sprint to the

libraries and catacombs of the poets. If only he had had time to sail

out there ... but days were precious, and Coal had been preparing his

men all the time Balasar had played politics in Acton. It was better

this way. And still ...

He traced a finger across the western plains-Pathai to Utani. He wished

he knew better how the roads were. The school for the young poets wasn't

far from Pathai. That wouldn't be a pleasant duty either. And he

couldn't trust the slaughter of children to mercenaries, not with the

stakes so high. This wasn't a war that had room for moments of compassion.