"To break the hordes now. . ."

"It doesn't matter, do you understand me? No, of course you don't." He drew upon the pipe, passed it to Shimshek and let the calming smoke envelope him. "Do as I tell you. That's all I want."

"I'll have Boga's head on a pole."

"No. Not that either."

"Then tell me what I have to do."

"Just obey me. Go. The city means nothing."

"You struggled so many years—"

"I'm here. I'm here, that's all." He took back the pipe and inhaled. The smoke curled up and wreathed about them in the murk of the low-hanging lights, and the smoke made shapes, walls of cities, strange towers and distant lands, barren desert, high mountains, lush hills and trafficked streets, beasts and fantastical machines, men of many a shade and some who were not human at all. "I'm many lives old, Shimshek; and I know you. . . ah, my old, old friend. I remember. . . I've gotten to remembering since I've been sick; dreaming dreams. . . They're in the smoke, do you see them?"

"Only smoke, Yilan Baba."

"Solid as ever. I know your heart, and it's loyal, indeed it is. We've been through many a war, Shimshek. Fill the other pipe, will you; fill it and dream with me."

"Outside—"

"Do as I say."

Shimshek reached for the bowl, filled the other pipe, lit it and leaned back in attempted leisure, obedient though, Yilan saw with sudden clarity, his wounds were untreated. Poor Shimshek, bewildered indeed. At length a shiver went through him.

"Better?" Yilan asked.

"Numb," said Shimshek. Yilan chuckled. "Can you laugh, Baba?"

"I think I've done well," Yilan said. "Spent my life well."

"No one else could have united the tribes—no one—and when you're gone. . . it goes. I can't hold them, Baba."

"True," said Yilan. "Ah, Boga might. He has the strength. But I think not; not this time."

"Not this time?"

Yilan smiled and watched the cities in the smoke, and the passing shapes of friends. Enkindu, Patroclus, Hephestion, and Antony and a thousand others. "Patroclus," he called him. "And Lancelot. And Roland. O my friend. . . do you see, do you yet see? Sometimes we meet so late.

. . you're always with me, but so often born late, my great, good friend. Most of my life I knew I was missing something, and then I found you, and Gunesh, and I was whole. Then it could begin. I didn't know in those years what I was waiting for, but I knew it when it came, and now I know why."

Shimshek's eyes lifted to his, spilling tears and dreams, dark as night his eyes now, but they had been green and blue and gray and brown, narrow and wide, and all shades between. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"Yes. Now I think you do. Cities more than this one. . . . And Gunesh. . . she's always there. . . through all the ages."

"You're like my father, Yilan Baba; more father than my own. Tell me what to believe and I believe it."

He shook his head. "You've only known me longer; give your father his honor. There was not always such a gap of years, sometimes we were brothers."

"In other lives, Baba? Is that what you mean?"

"There was a city named Dur-sharrunkin; I was Sargon; I was Menes, by a river called Nile; I was Hammurabi; and you were always there; I was Gilgamesh; we watched the birth of cities, my friend, the first stone piled on stone in this world."

Shimshek shivered, and looked into his eyes. "Achilles," he murmured. "You had that name once. Did you not?"

"And Cyrus the Persian; and Alexander. You were Hep-hestion, and I lost you first that round—ah, that hurt—and the generals murdered me then, not wanting to go on. How I needed you."

"O God," Shimshek wept.

Yilan reached out and caught Shimshek's strong young arm. "I was Hannibal, hear me? And you Hasdrubal my brother; Caesar, and you Antony; I was Germanicus and Arthur and Attila; Charlemagne and William; Saladin and Genghis. I fight; I fight the world's wars, and this one is finished as far as it must go, do you hear me, my son, my brother, my friend? Am I not always the same? Do I ever hold long what I win?"

"Yilan Baba—"

"Do I ever truly win? Or lose? Only you and Gunesh. . . Roxane and Cleopatra; Guenevere and Helen. . . as many shapes as mine and yours; and always you love her." Terror was in Shimshek's eyes, and grief.

"Do you think I care?" Yilan asked. "I love you and her; and in all my lives—it's never mattered. Do you yet understand? No. For you it's love; for Gunesh it's sex. . . strange, is it not? For her it's sex that drives so many in this world, but you've always been moved by love and I—I've no strong interest there—but love, ah, a different kind of love; the love of true friends. I loveyou both, but sex. . . was never there. Listen to me. I'm talking frankly because there's no time. That there'll be a child. . . makes me happy, can you understand that? You've been so careful not to wound me; but I knew before you began. I did, my friend. Whenever you're young, children have happened if there was half a chance. . . and I don't begrudge a one, no, never."

"They haven't lived," Shimshek breathed, as if memory had shot through him. His grief was terrible, and Yilan reached out again and patted his arm.

"But some have lived. Some. That's always our destiny. . . you've begotten more of my heirs than I ever have. Mine are murdered. . . . Perhaps it's that which gives me so little enthusiasm in begetting them. But you've been more fortunate: have hope. Your heirs followed me in Rome. Have more confidence."

"And they brought down the empire, didn't they? I'm unlucky, Baba."

"Don't you yet understand that it doesn't matter?"

"But I can't stop hurting, Baba." He looked at the pipe cupped in his hand, and up again. "I can't."

"That's the way of it, isn't it?"

"Has Gunesh remembered?"

He shook his head. "I've thought so sometimes; and sometimes not. I have. . . for all this year, and more and more of late. That's why I'm sure it's close. That's why I didn't fight any further. I remember other times I remembered, isn't that odd? The conspirators in Rome. . . I knew they were coming long before they knew themselves. I felt that one coming. Modred too. I saw in his eyes. They'll accuse you of adultery this time too, do you reckon? They'll say Gunesh is carrying your child, and they'll demand your death with hers. And Boga of course will expect to lead when we're all dead."

"I'll kill him."

Yilan shook his head. "You can't save me. Save yourselves. It's only good sense. . . Boga has other names too, you know. Agamemnon, Xerxes, Bessus. . . don't sell him short."

"Modred."

"Him too."

"A curse on him!"

"There is. Like ours."

"Baba?"

"He's the dark force. The check on me. Lest I grow too powerful. I might myself be ill for the world, if there were not Boga. He reminds me. . . of what I might be. And often enough he has killed me. That is his function. Only woe to the world when we're apart. Hitler was a case like that. I was half the world away; we both were. He had the power to himself."

"Lawrence."

"That was the name. Bitterest when we two miss each other; hardest the world when Boga and I do. Pity Boga, he has no Patroclus, no Guenevere."

Shimshek smoked a time, and his eyes traveled around the padded interior of the wagon, which was only a wagon, perched on the world-plain, and smoky and deeply shadowed. But there seemed no limits and no walls, as if much of time hinged here.