"He's not wrong."

The great stones of the palaces creaked as they cooled, the summer sun

fallen behind the mountains. The scent of incense long since burned and

the smoke of snuffed lanterns filled the air like a voice gone silent.

Shadows touched the corners of the apartments, deepening the reds of the

tapestries and giving the light a feeling of physical presence. Kiyan's

hand felt warm and lost in his own.

"I know he's not," Otah said.

lie left orders with the servants at his door that unless there was

immediate threat to him or his family-fire or sudden illness or an army

crossing the river-he was to he left alone for the night. He would speak

with no one, he would read no letter or contract, he wished no

entertainments. Only a simple meal for him and his wife, and the silence

for the two of them to fill as they saw fit.

They told stories-reminiscences of Old Mani and the wayhouse in I1dun,

the sound of the birds by the river. The time a daughter of one of the

high families had snuck into the rooms her lover had taken and had to be

smuggled back out. Otah told stories from his time as a courier,

traveling the cities on the business of House Siyanti under his false

name. They were all stories she'd heard before, of course. She knew all

his stories.

They made love seriously and gently and with a profound attention. He

savored every touch, every scent and motion. He fought to remember them

and her, and he felt Kiyan's will to store the moment away, like food

packed away for the long empty months after the last leaf of autumn has

fallen. It was, Otah supposed, the kind of sex lovers had on the nights

before wars, pleasure and fear and a sorrow that anticipated the losses

ahead. And afterward, he lay against her familiar, beloved body and

pretended to sleep until, all unaware, the pretense became truth and he

dreamed of looking for a white raven that everyone else but him had

seen, and of a race through the tunnels beneath Machi that began and

ended at his father's ashes. He woke to the cool light of morning and

Kiyan's voice.

"Sweet," she said again. Otah blinked and stretched, remembering his

body. "Sweet, there's someone come to see you. I think you should speak

with him."

Otah sat up and adopted a pose that asked the question, but Kiyan, half

smiling, nodded toward the bedchamber's door. Before the servants could

come and dress him, Otah pulled on rose-red outer robes over his bare

skin and, still tying the stays, walked out to the main rooms. Ashua

Radaani sat at the edge of a chair, his hands clasped between his knees.

His face was as pale as fresh dough, and the jewels set in his rings and

sewn in his robes seemed awkward and lost.

"Ashua-cha," Utah said, and the man was already on his feet, already in

a pose of formal greeting. "What's happened?"

"Most High, my brother in Cetani ... I received a letter from him last

night. The Khai Cetani is keeping it quiet, but no one has seen poet or

andat in the court in some time."

"Not since the day Stone-blade-Soft escaped," Utah said.

"As nearly as we can reckon it," he agreed.

Utah nodded, but took no formal pose. Kiyan stood in the doorway, her

expression half pleasure and half dread.

"May I have the men I asked of you, Ashua-cha?"

"You may have every man in my employ, Most High. And myself as well."

"I will take whoever is ready at dawn tomorrow," Utah said. "I won't

wait past that."

Ashua Radaani bowed his way out, and Utah stood watching him leave. That

would help, he thought. EIe'd want the word spread that Radaani was

firmly behind him. The other houses and families might then change their

opinions of what help could he spared. If he could double the men he'd

expected to have ...

Kivan's low chuckle startled him. She still stood in the doorway, her

arms crossed under her breasts. Her smile was gentle and amazed. Otah

raised in hands in query.

"I have just watched the Khai Machi gravely accept the apology and sworn

aid of his servant Radaani. A day ago you were an annoyance to that man.

"Today, you're a hero from an Old Empire epic. I've never seen things

change around a man so quickly as they change around vou."

"It's only because he's frightened. He'll recover," Otah said. "I'll he

an incompetent again when he's safe and the world's hack where it was."

"It won't be, love," Kiyan said. "The world's changed, and it's not

changing hack, whatever we do."

"I know it. But it's easier if I don't think too much about it just yet.

When the Dai-kvo's safe, when the Galts are defeated, I'll think about

it all then. Before that, it doesn't help," Otah said as he turned hack

toward the bed they had shared for years now, and would for one more

night at least. Her hand brushed his cheek as he stepped past, and he

turned to kiss her fingers. There were no tears in her eyes now, nor in his.

12

"I gave him too much and not enough men to do it," Ralasar said as they

walked through the rows of men and horses and steam wagons. Eustin

shrugged his disagreement.

Around them, the camps were being broken down. Men loaded rolled canvas

tents onto mules and steam wagons. ''he washerwomen loaded the pans and

stones of their trade into packs that they carried on bent shoulders.

The last of the captured slaves helped to load the last of the ships for

the voyage back to Galt. The gulls whirled and called one to another;

the waves rumbled and slapped the high walls of the seafront; the world

smelled of sea salt and fire. And Balasar's mind was on the other side

of the map, uneased and restless.

"Coal's a good man," Eustin said. "If anyone can do the thing, it's him."

"Six cities," he said. "I set him six cities. It's too much. And he's

got far fewer men than we do."

"We'll get finished here in time to help him with the last few," Eustin

said. "Besides, one of them's just a glorified village, and Chaburi- Tan

was likely burning before we were out of Aren. So that's only four and a

half cities left."

There was something in that. Coal's men had been on the island and in

the city and in ships off the coast, waiting for the signal that would

follow the andat's vanishing. Even now, Coal and his men-between five

thousand and six-were sailing fast to Yalakeht. A handful more waited

there in the warehouses of Galtic traders, preparing for the trip

upstream to the village of the Dai-kvo and the libraries at the heart of

the Khaiem. The other cities would have their scrolls and codices, but