"I'm not an idiot," he said. "If you tell me you plan to take over the

Khaicm by flying through the sky on winged dogs, I'll still clap you on

the back and swear I'm your ally."

"Of course you will. You'll say you're my dearest friend and solidly

behind me. I'll thank you and distrust you and keep you unarmed and

under guard. We'll each avoid turning our backs on the other. I think we

can take that all as given," Balasar said with a dismissive wave. "I

don't care what you say or do, Captain. I care what you think."

Sinja felt a genuine smile blooming on his lips. When he laughed,

Balasar laughed with him.

"Well," Sinja said. "As long as we're agreed on all that. Go ahead.

Convince me that you're going to prevail against the poets."

"They talked for what seemed like the better part of the evening.

Outside, the storm slackened, the clouds broke. By the time a servant

boy came to light the lanterns, a moon so full it seemed too heavy to

rise glowed in the indigo sky. Gnats and midges buzzed through the open

windows, ignored by both men as they discussed Balasar's intentions and

strategies. The general was open and forthcoming and honest, and with

every unfolding scheme, Sinja understood that his life was worth

whatever Balasar Gice said it was worth. It was up to him to convince

the general that letting him live after he'd heard all this wouldn't be

a mistake. It was a clever tactic, all the more so because once Sinja

understood the trick, it lost none of its power.

Afterward, armsmen escorted him to a small, well-appointed bedchamber

with windows too narrow to crawl out and a bar on the outside of the

door. Sinja lay in the bed, listening to the nearly inaudible hiss and

tick of the candle flame. His body felt poorly attached, likely to slip

free of his mind at any moment. Light-headed, he washed his face in cold

water, cracked his knuckles, anything to bring his mind to something

real and immediate. Something the Galtic general had not just torn away.

It was as if he had fallen into a nightmare, or woken to something worse

than one. He felt as if he'd just watched a man he knew well die by

violence. The Galt's plan would end the world he had known. If it

worked. And in his bones, he knew it would.

The hours passed, the night seeming to stretch on without end. Sinja

paced his room or sat or lay sleepless on the bed, remembering the

illness he had felt after his first battle. This was the same disease,

back again. But the more he thought about it, the more his mind tracked

across the maps he and the general had considered, the more his

conviction grew.

The turncoat poet and the army were only a part of it-in some ways the

least. It was the general's audacity and certainty and caution. It was

the force of his personality. Sinja had seen commanders and wardens and

kings, and he could tell the sort that fated themselves to lose. Balasar

Gice was going to win.

And so, Sinja supposed with a sense of genuine regret, the right thing

was to work for him.

6

The poet's house was warm, the scent of trees thick in the air. The

false dawn, prolonged by the mountains to the east, had just come, the

sun making its way above the peaks to bathe the world in light. Through

the opened door, N9aati could hear the songs of birds deep in the yearly

quest to draw mates to their nests. The dances and parties of the

utkhaiem were much the same-who had the loveliest plumage, the more

enticing song. There were fewer differences between men and birds than

men liked to confess.

He sat on a couch, watching Cehmai at one side of the small table and

Stone-Made-Soft at the other. Between them was the game hoard with its

worn lines and stones. The game had been central to the binding Manat

[)oru had performed generations ago that first brought Stone-blade-Soft

into existence, and as part of the legacy he bore, Cehmai had to play

the game again-white stones moving forward against the black-as a

reaffirmation of his control over the spirit. Fortunately, Nlanat Doru

had also made Stone-Made-Soft a terrible player. Cehmai tapped his

fingertips against the wood and shifted a black stone in the center of

the hoard toward the left. Stone-Made-Soft frowned, its wide face

twisted in concentration.

"No word yet," Cehmai said. "It's early days, though."

"What do you think he'll do?" Maati asked.

"I'm trying to think, please," the andat rumbled. "They ignored it.

Cehmai leaned back in his seat. The years had treated him kindly. The

fresh-faced, talented young man Maati had met when he first came to

Machi was still there. If there was the first dusting of gray in the

boy's hair, if the lines at the corners of his mouth were deeper now,

and less prone to vanish when he relaxed, it did nothing to take away

from the easy smile or the deep, grounded sense of self that Cehmai had

always had. And even the respect he had for Maati-no longer a

dread-touched awe, but still profound in its way-had never failed with

familiarity.

"I'm afraid he'll do the thing," Cehmai said. "I suppose I'm also afraid

that he won't. There's not a good solution."

"He could take a middle course," Maati said. "Demand that the Gaits hand

back Riaan on the threat of taking action. If the Dai-kvo tells them

that he knows, it might be enough."

The andat lifted a thick-fingered hand, gently touched a white stone,

and slid it forward with a hiss. Cehmai glanced over, considered, and

pushed the black stone he'd moved before back into the space it had come

from. The andat coughed in frustration and set its head on balled fists,

staring at the hoard.

"It's Odd," Cehmai said. "There was a time when I was at the

school-before I'd even taken the black robes, so early on. There was a

pigeon that had taken up residence in my cohort's rooms. Nasty thing. It

would flap around through the air and drop feathers and shit on us all,

and every time we waved it outside, it would come hack. Then one day,

one of the boys got lucky. He threw a hoot at the poor thing and broke

its wing. Well, we knew we were going to have to kill it. Even though it

had been nothing but annoyance and filth, it was hard to break its neck."

"Were you the one that did it?" Maati asked.

Cehmai took a pose of acknowledgment.

"It felt like this," the younger poet said. "I won't enjoy this, if it's

what we do."

The andat looked up from the board.

"Has it ever struck you people how arrogant you are?" it asked, huge

hands taking an attitude of query that bordered on accusation. "You're

talking of slaughtering a nation. Thousands of innocent people