An Autumn War

14

Balasar had not been raised to put faith in augury. His father had always said that any god that could create the world and the stars should he able to put together a few well-formed sentences if there was something that needed saying; Balasar had accepted this wisdom in the uncritical way of a boy emulating the man he most admires. And still, the dream came to him on the night before he had word of the hunting party.

It was far from the first time he had dreamt of the desert. Ile felt again the merciless heat, the pain of the satchel cutting into his shoulder. The hooks he had home then had become ashes in the dream as they had in life, but the weight was no less. And behind him were not only Coal and Eustin. All of them followed him-Bes, NIayarsin, Little Ott, and the others. The dead followed him, and he knew they were no longer his allies or his enemies. They came to keep watch over him, to see what work he wrought with their blood. They were his judges. As always before, he could not speak. His throat was knotted. Ile could not turn to see the dead; he only felt them.

But there seemed more now-not only the men he had left in the desert, but others as well. Some of them were soldiers, some of them simple men, all of them padding behind him, waiting to see him justify their sacrifices and his own pride. The host behind him had grown.

He woke in his tent, his mouth dry and sticky. Dawn had not yet come. He drank from the water flask by his bed, then pulled on a shirt and simple trousers and went out to relieve himself among the bushes. The army was still asleep or else just beginning to stir. The air was warm and humid so near the river. Balasar breathed deep and slow. lie had the sense that the world itself-trees, grasses, moon-silvered clouds-was heavy with anticipation. It would he two weeks before they would come within sight of the river city Udun. By month's end another poet would be dead, another library burned, another city fallen.

"Thus far, the campaign had proved as simple as he had hoped, though slower. He had lost almost no men in Nantani. The low towns that his army had come across in their journey to the North had emptied before them; men, women, children, animals-all had scattered before them like autumn leaves before a windstorm. The only miscalculation he had made was in how long to rely on the steam wagons. Two boilers had blown on the rough terrain before Balasar had called to let them cool and be pulled. Five men had died outright, another fifteen had been scalded too badly to continue. Balasar had sent them back to Nantani. "There had been less food captured than he had hoped; the residents of the low towns had put anything they thought might be of use to Balasar and his men to fire before they fled. But the land was rich with game fowl and deer, and his supplies were sufficient to reach the next cities.

As dawn touched the eastern skyline, Balasar put on his uniform and walked among the men. 'l'he morning's cook fires smoked, filling the air with the scents of burning grass and wood and coal filched from the steam wagons, hot grease and wheat cakes and kafe. Captains and footmen, archers and carters, Balasar greeted them all with a smile and considered them with approving nods or small frowns. When a man lifted half a wheat cake to him, Balasar took it with thanks and squatted down beside the cook to blow it cool and cat it. Every man he met, he had made rich. Every man in the camp would stand before him on the battle lines, and only a few, he hoped, would walk behind him in his dream.

Sinja Ajutani's camp was enfolded within the greater army's but still separate from it, like the Baktan Quarter in Acton. A city within a city, a camp within a camp. The greeting he found here was less warm. The respect he saw in these dark, almond eyes was touched with fear. Perhaps hatred. But no mistake, it was still respect.

Sinja himself was sitting on a fallen log, shirtless, with a bit of silver mirror in one hand and a blade in the other. He looked tip as Balasar came close, made his salute, and returned to shaving. Balasar sat beside him.

"We break camp soon," Balasar said. "I'll want ten of your men to ride with the scouting parties today."

"Expecting to find people to question?" Sinja asked. There was no rancor in his voice.

"'T'his close to the river, I can hope so."

"They'll know we're coming. Refugees move faster than armies. The first news of Nantani likely reached them two, maybe three weeks ago.

"Then perhaps they'll send someone here to speak for them," Balasar said. Sinja seemed to consider this as he pressed the blade against his own throat. There were scars on the man's arms and chest-long raised lines of white.

"Would you prefer I ride with the scouts, or stay close to the camp and wait for an emissary?"

"Close to camp," Balasar said. "The men you choose for scouting should speak my language well, though. I don't want to miss anything that would help us do this cleanly."

"Agreed," Sinja said, and put the knife to his own throat again. Before Balasar could go on, he heard his own name called out. A boy no older than fourteen summers wearing the colors of the second legion came barreling into the camp. His face was flushed from running, his breath short. Balasar stood and accepted the boy's salute. In the corner of his eye, he saw Sinja put away knife and mirror and reach for his shirt.

"General Gice, sir," the boy said between gasps. "Captain Tevor sent me. We've lost one of the hunting parties, sir."

"Well, they'll have to catch up with us as best they can," Balasar said. "We don't have time for searching."

"No, Sir. They aren't missing, sir. They're killed."

Balasar felt a grotesque recognition. The other men in his dream. This was where they'd come from.

"Show me," he said.

The trap had been sprung in a clearing at the end of a game trail. Crossbow bolts had taken half a dozen of the men. The others were marked with sword and axe blows. Their armor and robes had been stripped from them. "Their weapons were gone. Balasar stepped through the low grass cropped by deer and considered each face.

The songs and epics told of warriors dying with lips curled in battle cry, but every dead man Balasar had ever seen looked at peace. However badly they had died, their bodies surrendered at the end, and the calm he saw in those dead eyes seemed to say that their work was done now. Like a man playing at tiles who has turned his mark and now sat back to ask Balasar what he would do to match it.

"Are there no other bodies?" he asked.

Captain "Ievor, at his elbow, shook his great woolly head.

"There's signs that our boys did them harm, sir, but they took their dead with them. It wasn't all fast, sir. This one here, there's burn marks on him, and you can see on his wrists where they bound him tip. Asked him what he knew, I expect."

Sinja knelt, touching the dead man's wounds as if making sure they were real.

"I have a priest in my company," Captain "Icvor said. "One of the archers. I can have him say a few words. We'll bury them here and catch up with the main body tomorrow, sir."

"They're coming with us," Balasar said.

"Sir?"

"Bring a pallet and a horse. I want these bodies pulled through the camp. I want every man in the army to see them. Then wrap them in shrouds and pack them in ashes. We'll bury them in the ruins of Udun with the Khai's skull to mark their place."

Captain "Icvor made his salute, and it wasn't Balasar's imagination that put the tear in the old man's eye. As "I'evor barked out the orders to the men who had come with them, Sinja stood and brushed his palms against each other. A smear of old blood darkened the back of the captain's hand. Balasar read the disapproval in the passionless eyes, but neither man spoke.

The effect on the men was unmistakable. The sense of gloating, of leisure, vanished. The tents were pitched, the wagons loaded and ready, the soldiers straining against time itself to close the distance between where they now stood and Udun. "Three of his captains asked permission to send out parties. Hunting parties still, but only in part searching for game. Balasar gave each of them his blessing. The dream of the desert didn't return, but he had no doubt that it would.

In the days that followed, he felt keenly the loss of Eustin. Somewhere to the west, Pathal was falling or had fallen. The school with its young poets was burning, or would burn. And through those conflagrations, Eustin rode. Balasar spent his days riding among his men, talking, planning, setting the example he wished them all to follow, and he felt the absence of Eustin's dry pessimism and distrust. The fervor he saw here was a different beast. The men here looked to him as something besides a man. They had never seen him weep over Little Ott's body or call out into the dry, malign desert air for Kellem. To this army, he was General Gice. They might be prepared to kill or die at his word, but they did not know him. It was, he supposed, the difference between faith and loyalty. He found faith isolating. And it was in this sense of being alone among many that the messenger from Sinja Ajutani found him.

The day's travel was done, and they had made good time again. His outriders had made contact with local forces twice-farm boys with rabbit bows and sewn leather armor-and had done well each time. The wells in the low towns had been fouled, but the river ran clean enough. Another two days, three at the most, and they would reach iidun. In the meantime, the sunset was beautiful and birdsong filled the evening air. Balasar rested beneath the wide, thick branches of a cottonwood, Hat bread and chicken still hot from the fires on a metal field plate by his side, their scents mixing with those of the rich earth and the river's damp. The man standing before him, hands flat at his sides, looked no more than seventeen summers, but Balasar knew himself a poor judge of ages among these people. He might have been fifteen, he might have been twenty. When he spoke, his Galtic was heavily inflected.

"General Gice," the boy said. "Captain Ajutani would like a word with you, if it is acceptable to your will."

Balasar sat forward.

"He could come himself," Balasar said. "He has before. Why not now?"

The messenger boy's lips went tight, his dark eyes fixed straight ahead. It was anger the boy was controlling.

"Something's happened," Balasar said. "Something's happened to one of yours."

"Sir," the boy said.

Balasar took a regretful look at the chicken, then rose to his feet.

"lake me to Captain Ajutani," Balasar said.

Their path ended at the medical tent. The messenger waited outside when Balasar ducked through the Hap and entered. The thick canvas reeked with concentrated vinegar and pine pitch. The medic stood over a low cot where a man lay naked and bloody. One of Sinja's men. The captain himself stood against the tent's center pole, arms folded. Balasar stepped forward, taking in the patient's wounds with a practiced eye. Two parallel cuts on the ribs, shallow but long. Cuts on the hands and arms where the bov had tried to ward off the blades. Skinned knuckles where he'd struck out at someone. Balasar caught the medic's eye and nodded to the man.

"No broken bones, sir," the medic said. "One finger needed sewing, and there'll be scars, but so long as we keep the wounds from festering, he should be fine."

"What happened?" Balasar asked.

"I found him by the river," Sinja said. "I brought him here."

Balasar heard the coolness in Sinja's voice, judged the tension in his face and shoulders. Ile steeled himself.

"Come, then," Balasar said as he lifted open the tent's wide flap, "eat with me and you can tell me what happened."

"No need, General. It's a short enough story. Coya here can't speak Galtic. There's been footmen from the fourth legion following him for days now. At first it was just mocking, and I didn't think it worth con„ cern.

"You have names? Proof that they did this?"

"They're bragging about it, sir," Sinja said.

Sinja looked down at the wounded man. The boy looked up at him. The dark eyes were calm, perhaps defiant. Balasar sighed and knelt beside the low cot.

"Coya-cha?" he said in the boy's own language. "I want you to rest. I'll see the men who did this disciplined."

The wounded hands took a pose that declined the offer.

"It isn't a favor to you," Balasar said. "My men don't treat one another this way. As long as you march with me, you are my soldier, whatever tongues you speak. I'll be sure they understand it's my wrath they're feeling, and not yours."

"Your dead men are the problem, sir," Sinja said, switching the conversation back to Galtic.

The medic coughed once, then discreetly stepped to the far side of the tent. Balasar folded his hands and nodded to Sinja that he should continue. The mercenary sucked his teeth and spat.

"Your men are angry. Having those shrouds along is like putting a burr under their saddles. They're calling my men things they didn't when this campaign began. And they act as if it were harmless and in fun, but it isn't."

"I'll see your men aren't attacked again, Sinja. You have my word on it."

"It's not just that, sir. You're sowing anger. Yes, it keeps them traveling faster, and I respect that. But once we reach tldun and tJtani, they're going to have their blood up. It's easier for ten thousand soldiers to defeat a hundred thousand tradesmen if the tradesmen don't think defeat means being beaten to death for sport. And a had sack can burn in resentments that last for lifetimes. All respect, those cities are as good as taken, and we both know it. There's no call to make this worse than it has to be."

"I should be careful?" Balasar said. "Move slowly, and let the cities fall gently?"

"YOU said before you wanted this done clean."

"Yes. Before. I said that before."

"They're going to be your cities," Sinja said doggedly as a man swimming against the tide. "There's more to think about than how to capture them. It's my guess Gait's going to be ruling these places for a long time. The less the people have to forget, the easier that rule's going to he."

"I don't care about holding them," Balasar said. "There are too many to guard, and once the rest of the world scents blood, it's going to he chaos anyway. This war isn't about finding ways for the High Council to appoint more mayors."

"Sir?"

"We are carrying the dead because they are my dead." Balasar kept his voice calm, his manner matter-of-fact. The trembling in his hands was too slight to be seen. And I haven't come to conquer the Khaiem, Captain Ajutani. I've come to destroy them."

The first refugees appeared when Otaii's army was still three days' march from the village of the Dai-kvo. They were few and scattered in the morning, and then more and larger groups toward the day's end. The stories they told Otah were the same. Ships had come to Yalakeht-warships loaded heavy with Galtic soldiers. Some of the ships were merchant vessels that had been on trade runs to Chahuri "lan. Others were unfamiliar. The harbor master had tried to refuse them berths, but a force of men had come from the warehouse district and taken control of the seafront. By the time the Khai had gathered a force to drive them hack, it was too late. Yalakeht had fallen. Any hope that Otah's army might he on a fool's errand ended with that news.

In the night, more men came, drawn by the light and scent of the army's cook fires. Otah saw that they were welcomed, and the tale grew. Boats had been waiting, half assembled, in the warehouses of Galtic merchants in \'alakcht. Great metal boilers ran paddle wheels, and pushed their wide, shallow boats upriver faster than oxen could pull. Boats loaded with men and steam wagons. The low towns nearest Yalakeht had been overrun. Another force had been following along the shore, hauling food and supplies. The soldiers themselves had sped for the Dal-kvo. Just as Otah had feared they would.

Utah sat in his tent and listened to the cicadas. They sang as if nothing was changing. As if the world was as it had always been. A breeze blew from the south, heavy with the smell of rain though the clouds were still few and distant. Trees nodded their branches to one another. Utah kept his hack to the fire and stared out at darkness.

"There was no way to know whether the Galtic army had reached the village yet. Perhaps the Dai-kvo was preparing some defense, perhaps the village had been encircled and overrun. From the tales he'd heard, once the Galts and their steam wagons reached the good roads leading from the river to the village itself, they would be able to travel faster than news of them.

It had been almost thirty years ago when Otah had traveled tip that river carrying a message from Saraykeht. The memory of it was like something from a dream. "There had been an older man-younger, likely, than Otah was now-who had run the boat with his daughter. They had never spoken of the girl's mother, and Otah had never asked. That child daughter would he a woman now, likely with children of her own. Otah wondered what had become of her, wondered whether that half-recalled river girl was among those flying out of the storm into which he was heading, or if she had been in one of the towns that the army had destroyed.

A polite scratch came at the door, his servant announcing himself. Utah called out his permission, and the door opened. He could see the silhouettes of Ashua Radaani and his other captains looming behind the servant boy's formal pose.

"Bring them in," Otah said. "And bring us wine. Wait. Watered wine."

The six men lumbered in. Utah welcomed them all with formal gravity. The fine hunting robes in which they had come out from Machi had been scraped clean of mud. The stubble had been shaved from their chins. From these small signs and from the tightness in their bodies, Utah knew they had all drawn the same conclusions he had. He stood while they folded themselves down to the cushion-strewn floor. "Then, silently, Utah sat on his chair, looking down at these grown men, heads of their houses who through the years he had known them had been flushed with pride and self-assurance. The servant boy poured them each a bowl of equal parts wine and fresh water before ghosting silently out the door. Otah took a pose that opened the audience.

"We will he meeting the Galts sometime in the next several days," Otah said. "I can't say where or when, but it will be soon. And when the time comes, we won't have time to plan our strategy. We have to do that now. Tonight. You have all brought your census?"

Each man in turn took a scroll from his sleeve and laid it before him. The number of men, the weapons and armor, the horses and the bows and the numbers of arrows and bolts. The final tally of the strength they had managed. Otah looked down at the scrawled ink and hoped it would be enough.

"Very well," he said. "Let's begin."

None of them had ever been called upon to plan a battle before, but each had an area of expertise. Where one knew of the tactics of hunting, another had had trade relations with the Wardens of the Westlands enough to speak of their habits and insights. Slowly they made their plans: What to do when the scouts first brought news of the Galts. Who should command the wedges of archers and crossbowmen, who the footmen, who the horsemen. How they should protect their flanks, how to pull hack the archers when the time came near for the others to engage. 'T'heir fingers sketched lines and movements on the floor, their voices rose, became heated, and grew calm again. The moon had traveled the width of six hands together before Otah declared the work finished. Orders were written, shifting men to different commands, specifying the shouted signals that would coordinate the battle, putting the next few uncertain days into the order they imagined for them. When the captains bowed and took their poses of farewell, the clouds had appeared and the first ticking raindrops were striking the canvas. Otah lay on his cot wrapped in blankets of soft wool, listening to the rain, and running through all that they had said. If it worked as they had planned, perhaps all would be well. In the darkness with his belly full of wine and his mind full of the confident words of his men, he could almost think there was hope.

Dawn was a brightening of clouds, east as gray as west. They struck camp, loaded their wagons, and once again made for the I)ai-kvo. The flow of refugees seemed to have stopped. No new faces appeared before them-no horses, no men on foot. Perhaps the rain and mud had stopped them. Perhaps something else. Otah rode near the vanguard, the scouts arriving, riding for a time at his side, and then departing again. It was midmorning and the sun was still hidden behind the low gray ceiling of the world when Nayiit rode up on a thin, skittish horse. Otah motioned him to ride near to his side.

"I'm told I'm to he a messenger," Nayiit said. "There was a controlled anger in his voice. "I've drilled with the footmen. I have a sword."

"You have a horse too."

"It was given to me with the news," Nayiit said. "Have I done something to displease you, Most High?"

"Of course not," Otah said. "Why would you think you had?"

"Why am I not permitted to fight?"

Otah leaned hack, and his mount, reading the shift of his weight, slowed. His back ached and the raw places on his thighs were only half healed. The rain had soaked his robes, so that even the oiled cloth against his skin felt clammy and cold. The rain that pressed Nayiit's hair close against his neck also tapped against Otah's squinting eyes.

"How are you not permitted to fight?" Otah said.

"I'he men who are making the charge," Nayiit said. "The men I've been traveling with. That I've trained with. I want to be with them when the time comes."

"And I want you to be with me, and with them," Otah said. "I want you to be the bridge between us."

"I would prefer not to," Naylit said.

"I understand that. But it's what I've decided."

Nayiit's nostrils flared, and his cheeks pinked. Utah took a pose that thanked the boy and dismissed him. Nayiit wheeled his mount and rode away, kicking up mud as he did. In the distance, the meadows began to rise. They were coming to the Dai-kvo from the North and west, up the long, gentle slope of the mountains rather than the cliffs and crags from which the village was carved. Utah had never come this way before. For all his discomfort and the dread in his belly, this gray-green world was lovely. He tried not to think of Nayiit or of the men whom his boy had asked permission to die with. We are his fathers, Maati had said, and Utah had agreed. He wondered if the others would also see Nayiit's duty as a protection of him. He wondered if they would guess that I)anat wasn't his only son. He hoped that they would all live long enough for such problems to matter.

The scout came just before midday. He'd seen a rider in Galtic colors. He'd been seen as well. Otah accepted the information and set the couriers to ride closer and in teams. He felt his belly tighten and wondered how far from its main force the Galts would send their riders. That was the distance between him and his first battle. His first war.

It was near evening when the two armies found each other. The scouts had given warning, and still, as Otah topped the rise, the sight of them was astounding. The army of Galt stood still at the far end of the long, shallow valley, silent as ghosts in the gray rain. 'T'heir banners should have been green and gold, but in the wet and with the distance, they seemed merely black. Otah paused, trying to guess how many men faced him. Perhaps half again his own. Perhaps a little less. And they were here, waiting for him. The I)ai-kvo's village was behind them.

He wondered if he had come too late. Perhaps the Galts had sacked the village and slaughtered the Uai-kvo. Perhaps they had had word of Otah's coming and bypassed the prize to reach him here, before his men could take cover in the buildings and palaces of mountain. Perhaps the Galts had divided, and the men facing him were what he had spared the [)ai-kvo. "There was no way to know the situation, and only one course available to him, whatever the truth.

"Call the formation," Otah said, and the shouts and calls flowed out behind him, the slap of leather and metal. The army of Machi took its place-archers and footmen and horsemen. All exhausted by their day's ride, all facing a real enemy for the first time. From across the valley, a sound came, sharp as cracking thunder-thousands of voices raised as one. And then, just as suddenly, silence. Otah ran his hand over the thick leather straps of the reins and forced himself to think.

In the soft quarter of Saraykeht, Otah had seen showfighters pout and preen before the blows came. He had seen them flex their muscles and beat their own faces until there was blood on their lips. It had been a show for the men and women who had come to partake of brutality as entertainment, but it had also been the start of the fight. A display to unnerve the enemy, to sow fear. This was no different. A thousand men who could speak in one voice could fight as one. They were not men, they were a swarm; a single mind with thousands of bodies. Hearus, the wordless cry had said, and die.

Utah looked at the darkening sky, the misty rain. He thought of all the histories he had read, the accounts of battles lost and won in ancient days before the poets and their andat. Of the struggles in the low cities of the world. He raised his hands, and the messengers, Nayiit among them, came to his side.

"Tell the men to make camp," he said.

The silence was utter.

"Most High?" Nayiit said.

"They won't begin a battle now that they'd have to finish in darkness. This is all show and bluster. 'ell the men to set their tents and build what cook fires we cap in all this wet. Put them here where those bastards can see the light of them. "Tell the men to rest and eat and drink, and we'll set up a pavilion and have songs before we sleep. Let the Galts see how frightened we are."

The messengers took poses that accepted the order and turned their mounts. Otah caught Nayiit's gaze, and the boy hesitated. When the others had gone, Otah spoke again.

"Also find the scouts and have them set a watch. In case I'm wrong."

He saw Nayiit draw breath, but he only took the accepting pose and rode away.

The night was long and unpleasant. The rain had stopped; the clouds thinned and vanished, letting the heat of the ground fly out into the cold, uncaring sky. Utah passed among the fires, accepting the oaths and salutes of his men. He felt his title and dignity on his shoulders like a cloak. He would have liked to smile and be charming, to ease his fears with companionship and wine, just as his men did. It would have been no favor to them, though, so he held back and played the Khai for another night. No attack came, and between the half candle and the threequarter mark, Utah actually fell asleep. He dreamed of nothing in particular-a bird that flew upside down, a river he recalled from childhood, Danat's voice in an adjacent room singing words Utah could not later recall. He woke in darkness to the scent of frying pork and the sound of voices.

I IC pulled on his robes and boots and stepped out into the chill of the morning. The cook fires were lit again or had never been put out. And across the valley, the Gait army had lit its own, glittering like orange and yellow stars fallen to earth. His attendant rushed up, blinking sleep from his eyes.

"Most High," the boy said, falling into a pose of abject apology. "I had thought to let you sleep. Your breakfast is nearly ready-"

"Bring it to my tent," Otah said. "I'll be back for it."

He walked to the edge of the camp where the firelight would not spoil his night vision and looked out into the darkness. In the east, the sky had become a paler blackness, the deep gray of charcoal. The stars had not gone out, but they were dimmed. In the trees that lined the valley, birds were beginning their songs. A strange tense peace came over him. His disquiet seemed to fade, and the dawn, gray then cool yellow and rose and serene blue that filled the wide bowl of the sky above him, was beautiful and calm. Whatever happened here in this valley, the sun would rise upon it again tomorrow. The birds would call to one another. Summer would retreat, autumn would come. The lives of men and nations were not the highest stakes to play for. He pulled his hands into his sleeves and turned back to the camp. At his tent, his messengers awaited him, including Nayiit.

"Call the formation," Otah said. "It's time."

The messengers scattered, and it seemed fewer than a dozen breaths before the air was filled with the sounds of metal against metal, shouts and commands as his army pulled itself to the ready.

"Your food, Most High," the attendant said, and Otah waved the man away.

By the time Otah's footmen and horsemen had taken their places between and just behind the wedges of archers, it was bright enough to see the banners and glittering mail of the Galts. Utah's mount seemed to sense the impending violence, dancing uncomfortably as Utah rode back and forth behind his men, watching and waiting and preparing to call out his commands. From across the valley, the shout and silence came again as it had the night before. Then twice more.

"Call the archers to ready!" Otah called out, and like whisperers in court relaying the words to lower men waiting in the halls, his words echoed in a dozen voices. He saw his archers lift their bows and shift in their formations. A long shout, rolling like thunder, came from across the valley. The Galts were moving forward. "Call the march! And be prepared to loose arrows!"

As they had drilled, his men moved forward, archers to the front, footmen between them with their makeshift shields and motley assortment of swords and spears and threshing flails. Horsemen in the colors of the great houses of the utkhaiem trotted at the sides, ready to wheel and protect the flanks. At a walk, three thousand men moved forward across the still-wet grass and patches of ankle-deep mud. And perhaps half again as many Galts came toward them, shouting.

In the old hooks and histories, the flights of enemy arrows had been compared to smoke rising from a great pyre or clouds blotting out the sun. In fact, when the first volley struck, it was nothing like that. Otah didn't see the arrows and bolts in the air. He saw them begin to appear, heads buried deep in the ground, fletching green and white in the sunlight, like some strange flower that had sprung up from the meadow grass. Then a man screamed, and another.

"Loose arrows!" Otah called. "Give it back to them! Loose arrows!"

Now that he knew to look, he could see the thin, dark shafts. They rose up from the Galtic mass, slowly as if they were floating. His own archers let fly, and it seemed that the arrows should collide in the air, but then slipped past each other, two flocks of birds mingling and parting again. More men screamed.

Otah's horse twitched and sidestepped, nervous with the sounds and the scent of blood. Otah felt his own heart beating fast, sweat on his back and neck though the morning was still cool. His mind spun, judging how many men he was losing with each volley, straining to see how many Galts seemed to fall. They seemed to be getting more volleys off than his men. Perhaps the Galts had more archers than he did. If that was true, the longer he waited for his footmen to engage, the more he would lose. But then perhaps the Galts were simply better practiced at slaughter.

"Call the attack!" Otah yelled. He looked for his messengers, but only two of them were in earshot, and neither was Nayiit. Otah gestured to the nearest of them. "Call the attack!"

The charge was ragged, but it was not hesitant. He could hear it when the footmen got word-a loud whooping yell that seemed to have no particular start nor any end. One man's voice took up where another paused for breath. Otah cantered forward. His horsemen were streaming forward as well now, careful not to outstrip the footmen by too great a distance, and Otah saw the Galtic archers falling back, their own soldiers coming to the fore.

The two sides met with a sound like buildings falling. Shouts and screams mingled, and any nuanced plan was gone. Otah's urge to rush forward was as much the desire to see more clearly what was happening as to defend the men he'd brought. His archers drew and fired sporadically until he called them to stop. There was no way to see who the arrows struck.

The mass of men in the valley writhed. Once a great surge on Otah's left seemed to press into the Galtic ranks, but it was pushed back. He heard drums and trumpet calls. That's a good idea, Otah thought. Drums and trumpets.

The shouting seemed to go on forever. The sun slowly rose in its arc as the men engaged, pulled hack, and rushed at one another again. And with every passing breath, Utah saw more of his men fall. More of his men than of the Galts. He forced his mount nearer. He couldn't judge how many he'd lost. The bodies in the mud might have been anyone.

A sudden upsurge in the noise of the battle caught him. His footmen were roaring and surging forward, the center of the enemy's line giving way. "Call them to stand!" Otah shouted, his voice hoarse and fading. "Stand!"

But if they heard the call, the footmen didn't heed it. They pressed forward, into the gap in the Galtic line. A trumpet blared three times, and the signal given, the Galtic horsemen that had held to the rear, left and right both, turned to the center and drove into Utah's men from either side. It had been a trap, and a simple one, and they had stepped in it. Call the retreat, Utah thought wildly, I have to call the retreat. And then from the right, he heard the retreat called.

Someone had panicked; someone had given the order before he could. His horsemen turned, unwilling, it seemed, to leave the footmen behind. A few footmen broke, and then a few more, and then, as if coming loose, Otah's army turned its backs to the Galts and ran. Otah saw some horsemen trying to draw off the pursuing Galts, but most were flying hack in retreat themselves. Otah spun his horse and saw, back on the field, the remnants of his wedges of archers fleeing as well.

"No!" he shouted. "Not you! Stop where you are!"

No one heard him. He was a leaf in a storm now, command gone, hope gone, his men being slaughtered like winter pork. Otah dug his heels into his mount's sides, leaned low, and shot off in pursuit of the archers. It was folly riding fast over mud-slick ground, but Otah willed himself forward. The fleeing archers looked hack over their shoulders at the sound of his hooves, and had the naivete to look relieved that it was him. He rode through the nearest wedge, knocking several to the ground, then pulled up before them and pointed hack at the men behind them.

"Loose your arrows," Utah croaked. "It's the only chance they have! Loose arrows!"

The archers stood stunned, their wide confused faces made Utah think of sheep confronted by an unexpected cliff. He had brought farmers and smiths onto a battlefield. He had led men who had never known more violence than brawling drunk outside a comfort house to fight soldiers. Utah dropped from his horse, took a how and quiver from the nearest man, and aimed high. He never saw where his arrow went, but the bowmen at least began to understand. One by one, and then in handfuls, they began to send their arrows and bolts up over the retreating men and into the charging Galts.

"'They'll kill us!" a boy shrieked. "There's a thousand of them!"

"Kill the first twenty," Otah said. "I'hen let the ones still standing argue about who'll lead the next charge."

Behind them, the other fleeing archers had paused. As the first of the fleeing horsemen passed, Otah caught sight of Ashua Radaani and raised his hands in a pose that called the man to a halt. "There was blood on Radaani's face and arms, and his eyes were wide with shock. Otah strode to him.

"Go to the other archers. "fell them that once the men have reached us here, they're to start loosing arrows. We'll come hack with the men."

"You should come now, Most High," Radaani said. "I can carry you."

"I have a horse," (bah said, though he realized he couldn't say what had become of his mount. "Go. Just go!"

The Galtic charge thinned as they drew into range of the arrows. Utah saw two men fall. And then, almost miraculously, the Galts began to pull back. Utah's footmen came past him, muddy and bleeding and weeping and pale with shock. Some carried wounded men with them. Some, Utah suspected, carried men already dead. The last, or nearly the last, approached, and Utah turned, gesturing to the archers, and they all walked back together. The few Galts that pressed on were dissuaded by fresh arrows. Ashua had reached the other wedge. "Thank the gods for that, at least.

The army of Machi, three thousand strong that morning, found itself milling about, confused and without structure as the evening sun lengthened their shadows. They had fled back past the northern lip of the valley where they had made camp the night before onto green grass already tramped flat by their passage. Some supply wagons and tents and fresh water had been caught up in the retreat, but more was strewn over the ground behind them. The wounded were lined up on hillsides and cared for as best the physicians could. Many of the wounds were mild, but there were also many who would not live the night.

The scouts were the first to recover some sense of purpose. The couriers of the trading houses rode back and forth, reporting the movements of the Galts now that the battle was finished. They had scoured the field, caring for their own men and killing the ones Otah had left behind. Then, with professional efficiency, they had made their camp and prepared their dinner. It was clear that the Galts considered the conflict ended. 'T'hey had won. It was over.

As darkness fell, Otah made his way through the camps, stopped at what cook fires there were. No one greeted him with violence, but he saw anger in some eyes and sorrow in others. By far the most common expression was an emptiness and disbelief. When at last he sat on his cot-set under the spreading limbs of a shade tree in lieu of his tenthe knew that however many men he had lost on the battlefield, twice as many would have deserted by morning. Otah laid an arm over his eyes, his body heavy with exhaustion, but totally unable to sleep.

In the long, dreadful march to this battle, not one man had turned hack. At the time, it had warmed Otah's heart. Now he wanted them all to flee. Go back to their wives and their children and their parents. Go hack to where it was safe and forget this mad attempt to stop the world from crumbling. Except he couldn't imagine where safety might be. The Dai-kvo would fall if he hadn't already. The cities of the Khaiem would fall. Machi would fall. For years, he had had the power to command the death of Galt. Stone-Made-Soft could have ruined their cities, sunk their lands below the waves. All of this could have been stopped once, if he had known and had the will. And now it was too late.

"Most High?"

Otah raised his arm, sat up. Nayiit stood in the shadows of the tree. Otah knew him by his silhouette.

"Nayiit-kya," Otah said, realizing it was the first he'd seen Liat's son since the battle. Nayiit hadn't even crossed his mind. He wondered what that said about him. Nothing good. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine. A little bruised on the arm and shoulder, but… but fine."

In the dim, Otah saw that Nayiit held something before him. A greasy scent of roast lamb came to him.

"I can't eat," Otah said as the boy came closer. "Thank you, but

… give it to the men. Give it to the injured men."

"Your attendant said you didn't eat in the morning either," Nayiit said. "It won't help them if you collapse. It won't bring them back."

Otah felt a surge of cold anger at the words, but hit back his retort. He nodded to the edge of the cot.

"Leave it there," he said.

Nayiit hesitated, but then moved forward and placed the bowl on the cot. Ile stepped back, but he did not walk away. As Otah's eyes adjusted to the darkness, Nayiit's face took on dim features. Otah wasn't surprised to see that the boy was weeping. Nayiit was older now than Otah had been when he'd fathered him on Liat. Older now than Otah had been when he'd first killed a man with his hands.

"I'm sorry, Most High," Nayiit said.

"So am I," Utah said. The scent of lamb was thick and rich. Enticing and mildly nauseating both.

"It was my fault," Nayiit said, voice thickened by a tight throat. "Phis, all of this, is my fault."

"No," Utah began. "You can't-"

"I saw them killing each other. I saw how many there were, and I broke," Nayiit said, and his hands took a pose of profound contrition. "I'm the one who called the retreat."

"I know," Otah said. is

Liat had been nursing her headache since she'd woken that morning; as the day progressed, it had drawn a line from the hack of her eyes to her temples that throbbed when she moved too quickly. She had given up shaking her head. Instead, she pressed her fingers into the fine-grained wood of the table and tried to will her frustration into it. Kiyan, seated across from her, was saying something in a reasonable, measured tone that entirely missed her point. Liat took a pose that asked permission to speak, and then didn't wait for Kiyan to answer her.

"It isn't the men," Liat said. "He could have taken twice what he did, and we'd be able to do what's needed. It's that he took all the horses."

Kiyan's fox-sharp face tightened. Her dark eyes flickered down toward the maps and diagrams spread out between them. The farmlands and low towns that surrounded Machi were listed with the weight of grain and neat and vegetables that had come from each in the last five years. Liat's small, neat script covered paper after paper, black ink on the butter-yellow pages noting acres to be harvested and plowed, the number of hands and hooves required by each.

The breeze from the unshuttered windows lifted the pages but didn't disarray them, like invisible fingers checking the corners for some particular mark.

"Show me again," Kiyan said, and the weariness in her voice was almost enough to disarm Liat's annoyance. Almost, but not entirely. With a sigh, she stood. The line behind her eyes throbbed.

"'T'his is the number of horses we'd need to plow the eastern farmsteads here and here and here," Liat said, tapping the maps as she did so. "We have half that number. We can get up to nearly the right level if we take the mules from the wheat mills."

Kiyan looked over the numbers, her fingertips touching the sums and moving on. I ler gaze was focused, a single vertical line between her brows.

"How short is the second planting now?" Kiyan asked.

"The west and south are nearly complete, but they started late. The eastern farmsteads… not more than a quarter."

Kiyan leaned back. Otah's wife looked nearly as worn as Liat felt. The gray in her hair seemed more pronounced, her flesh paler and thinner. Liat fund herself wondering if Kiyan had made a practice of painting her face and dyeing her hair that, in the crisis, she had let fall away, or if the task they had set themselves was simply sucking the life out of them both.

"It's too late," Kiyan said. "With the time it would take to get the mules, put them to yoke, and plow the fields, we'd be harvesting snowdrifts."

"Is there something else we could plant?" Liat asked. "Something we have time to grow before winter? Potatoes? Turnips?"

"I don't know," Kiyan said. "How long does it take to grow turnips this far North?"

Liar closed her eyes. Two educated, serious, competent women should be able to run a city. Should be able to shoulder the burden of the world and forget that one stood to lose a husband, the other a son. Should be able to ignore the constant fear that soldiers of a Galtic army might appear any day on the horizon prepared to destroy the city. It should he within their power, and yet they were blocked by idiot questions like whether turnips take longer to grow than potatoes. She took a deep breath and slowly let it out, willing the tension in her jaw to lessen, the pain behind her eyes to recede.

"I'll find out," Ifiat said. "But will you give the order to the mills? They won't he happy to stop their work."

"I'll give them the option of loaning the Khai their animals or pulling the plows themselves," Kiyan said. "If we have to spend the winter grinding wheat for our bread, it's a small price for not starving."

"It's going to he a thin spring regardless," Liat said.

Kiyan took the papers that Liat had drawn up. She didn't speak, but the set of her mouth agreed.

"We'll do our best," Kiyan said.

The banquet had gone splendidly. The women of the utkhaiem- wives and mothers, daughters and aunts-had heard Kiyan's words and taken to them as if she were a priest before the faithful. Liat had seen the light in their eyes, the sense of hope. For all their fine robes and lives of court scandal and gossip, each of these women was as grateful as Liat had been for the chance of something to do.

The food and fuel, Kiyan had kept for herself. Other people had been tasked with seeing to the wool, to arranging the movement of the summer belongings into the storage of the high towers, the preparation of the lower city-the tunnels below Machi. Liat had volunteered to act as Kiyan's messenger and go-between in the management of the farms and crops, gathering the food that would see them through the winter. Being the lover of a poet-even a poet who had never bound one of the andat-apparently lent her enough status in court to make her interesting. And as the rumors began to spread that Cehmai and Maati were keeping long hours together in the library and the poet's house, that they were preparing a fresh binding, Liat found herself more and more in demand. In recent days it had even begun to interfere with her work.

She had let herself spend time in lush gardens and high-domed dining halls, telling what stories she knew of Nlaati's work and intentionswhat parts of it he'd said would be safe to tell. The women were so hungry for good news, for hope, that Liat couldn't refuse them. After telling the stories often enough, even she began to take hope from them herself. But tea and sweet bread and gossip took time, and they took attention, and she had let it go too far. The second wheat crop would be short, and no amount of pleasant high-city chatter now would fill bellies in the spring. Assuming they lived. If the Galts appeared tomorrow, it would hardly matter what she'd done or failed to do.

"There's going to be enough food," Kiyan said softly. "We may wind up killing more of the livestock and eating the grain ourselves, but even if half the crop failed, we'd have enough to see us through to the early harvest."

"Still," Liat said. "It would have been good to have more."

Kiyan took a pose that both agreed with Liat and dismissed the matter. Liat responded with one appropriate for taking leave of a superior. It was a nuance that seemed to trouble Kiyan, because she leaned forward, her fingertips touching Liat's arm.

"Are you well?" Kiyan asked.

"Fine," Liat said. "It's just my head has been tender. It's often like that when the Khai Saraykeht changes the tax laws again or the cotton crops fail. It fades when the troubles pass."

Kiyan nodded, but didn't pull hack her hand.

"Is there anything I can do to help?" Kiyan asked.

"Tell me that Otah's come hack with Nayiit, the Galts all conquered and the world hack the way it was."

"Yes," Kiyan said. Her eyes lost their focus and her hand slipped hack to her side of the table. Liat regretted being so glib, regretted letting the moment's compassion fade. "Yes, it would be pretty to think so.

Liat took her leave. The palaces were alive with servants and slaves, the messengers of the merchant houses and the utkhaiem keeping the life of the court active. Liat walked through the wide halls with their distant tiled ceilings and down staircases of marble wide enough for twenty men to walk abreast. Sweet perfumes filled the air, though their scents brought her no comfort. The world was as bright as it had been before she'd come to Machi, the voices lifted in song as merry and sweet. It was only a trick of her mind that dulled the colors and broke the harmonics. It was only the thought of her boy lying dead in some green and distant field and the dull pain behind her eyes.

When she reached the physicians, she found the man she sought speaking with Eiah. A young man lay naked on the wide slate table beside the pair. His face was pale and damp with sweat; his eyes were closed. His nearer leg was purple with bruises and gashed at the side. The physician-a man no older than Liat, but bald apart from a long gray fringe of hair-was gesturing at the young man's leg, and Eiah was leaning in toward him, as if the words were water she was thirsty for. Liat walked to them softly, partly from the pain in her head, partly from the hope of overhearing their discussion without changing it.

"There's a fever in the flesh," the physician said. "That's to be expected. But the muscle."

Eiah considered the leg, more fascinated, Liat noticed, with the raw wounds than with the man's flaccid sex.

"It's stretched," Eiah said. "So there's still a connection to stretch it. He'll be able to walk."

The physician dropped the blanket and tapped the boy's shoulder.

"You hear that, Tamiya? The Khai's daughter says you'll be able to walk again."

The boy's eyes fluttered open, and he managed a thin smile.

"You're correct, Eiah-cha. The tendon's injured, but not snapped. Ile won't be able to walk for several weeks. The greatest danger now is that the wound where the skin popped open may become septic. NVe'll have to clean it out and bandage it. But first, perhaps we have a fresh patient?"

Liat found herself disconcerted to move from observer to observed so quickly. The physician's smile was distant and professional as a butcher selling lamb, but Eiah's grin was giddy. Liat took a pose that asked forbearance.

"I didn't mean to intrude," she said. "It's only that my head has been troubling me. It aches badly, and I was wondering whether..

"Come, sit down, Liat-kya," Eiah cried, grabbing Liat's hand and pulling her to a low wooden seat. "Loya-cha can fix anything."

"I can't fix everything," the physician said, his smile softening a degree-he was speaking now not only to a patient, but a friend of his eager student and a fellow adult. "But I may be able to ease the worst of it. Tell me when I've touched the places that hurt the worst."

Gently, the man's fingers swept over Liat's face, her temples, touching here and there as gently as a feather against her skin. He seemed pleased and satisfied with her answers; then he took her pulse on both wrists and considered her tongue and eyes.

"Yes, I believe I can be of service, Liat-cha. Eiah, you saw what I did?"

Eiah took a pose of agreement. It was strange to see a girl so young and with such wealth and power look so attentive, to see her care so clearly what a man who was merely an honored servant could teach her. Liat's heart went out to the girl.

"Make your own measures, then," the man said. "I have a powder I'll mix for the patient, and we can discuss what you think while we clean the gravel out of our friend "lamiya."

Eiah's touch was harder, less assured. Where the physician had hardly seemed present, Eiah gave the impression of grabbing for something even when pressing with the tips of her fingers. It was an eagerness Liat herself had felt once, many years ago.

"You seem to be doing very well here," Liat said, her voice gentle.

"I know," the girl said. "Loya-cha's very smart, and he said I could keep coming here until Mama-kya or the Khai said different. Can I see your tongue, please?"

Liat let the examination be repeated, then when it was finished said, "You must be pleased to have found something you enjoy doing."

"It's all right," Eiah said. "I'd still rather be married, but this is almost as good. And maybe Papa-kya can find someone to marry me who'll let me take part in the physician's house. I'll probably be married to one of the Khaiem, after all, and Mama-kya's running the whole city now. Everyone says so.

"It may be different later, though," Liat said, trying to imagine a Khai allowing his wife to take a tradesman's work as a hobby.

"There may not be any Khaiem, you mean," Eiah said. "The Galts may kill them all."

"Of course they won't," Liat said, but the girl's eyes met hers and Liat faltered. There was so much of Otah's cool distance in a face that seemed too young to look on the world so dispassionately. She was like her father, prepared to pass judgment on the gods themselves if the situation called her to do it. Comfortable lies had no place with her. Liat looked down. "I don't know," she said. "Perhaps there won't be."

"Here, now," the physician said. "Take this with you, Liat-cha. Pour it into a bowl of water and once it's dissolved, drink the whole thing. It will he bitter, so drink it fast. You'll likely want to lie down for a hand or two afterward, to let it work. But it should do what needs doing."

Liat took the paper packet and slipped it into her sleeve before taking a pose of gratitude.

"We should have a lunch in the gardens again," Eiah said. "You and Uncle Nlaati and me. Loya-cha would come too, except he's a servant."

Liat felt herself blush, but the physician's wry smile told her it was not the first such pronouncement he'd been subjected to.

"Perhaps you should wait for another day," he said. "Liat-cha had a headache, remember."

"I know that," Eiah said impatiently. "I meant tomorrow."

"'T'hat would be lovely," Liat said. "I'll talk with Nlaati about it."

"Would you be so good as to get the stiff brushes from the back and wash them for me, Eiah-cha?" the physician said. "Famiya's anxious to be done with us, I'm sure."

Eiah dropped into a pose of confirmation for less than a breath before darting off to her task. Liat watched the physician, the amusement and fondness in his expression. He shook his head.

"She is a force," he said. "But the powder. I wanted to say, it can be habit-forming. You shouldn't have it more than once in a week. So if the pain returns, we may have to find another approach."

"I'm sure this will be fine," Liat said as she rose. "And… thank you. For what you've done with Eiah, I mean."

"She needs it," the man said with a shrug. "Her father's ridden off to die, her mother and her friend the poet are too busy trying to keep us all alive to take time to comfort her. She buries herself in this, and so even if she slows us down, how can I do anything but welcome her?"

Liat felt her heart turn to lead. The physician's smile slipped, and for a moment the dread showed from behind the mask. When he spoke again, it was softly and the words were as gray as stones.

"And, after all, we may need our children to know how to care for the dying before all that's coming is done."

Maati ribbed his eyes wlth the palms of his hands, squinted, blinked. The world was blurry: the long, rich green of the grass on which they lay was like a single sheet of dyed rice paper; the towers of Machi were reduced to dark blurs that the blue of the sky shone through. It was like fog without the grayness. He blinked again, and the world moved nearer to focus.

"How long was I sleeping?" he asked.

"Long enough, sweet," Liat said. "I could have managed longer, I think. The gods all know we've been restless enough at night."

The sun was near the top of its arc, the remains of breakfast in lacquered boxes with their lids shut, the day half gone. Liat was right, of course. He hadn't been sleeping near enough-late to bed, waking early, and with troubled rest between. He could feel it in his neck and hack and see it in the slowness with which his vision cleared.

"Where's F, iah got to?" he asked.

"Back to her place with the physicians, I'd guess. I offered to wake you so that she could say her good-byes, but she thought it would be better if you slept." Liat smiled. "She said it would be restorative. Can you imagine her using that kind of language a season ago? She already sounds like a physician's apprentice."

Maati grinned. He'd resisted the idea of this little outing at first, but Cehmai had joined F, iah's cause. A half-day's effort by a rested man might do better for them than the whole day by someone drunk with exhaustion and despair. And even now the library seemed to call to him-the scrolls he had already read, the codices laid out and put away and pulled out to look over again, the wax tablets with their notes cut into them and smoothed clear again. And in the end, he had never been able to refuse Eiah. Her good opinion was too precious and too fickle.

Liat slid her hand around his arm and leaned against him. She smelled of grass and cherry paste on apples and musk. He turned without thinking and kissed the crown of her head as if it were something he had always done. As if there had not been a lifetime between the days when they had first been lovers and now.

"How badly is it going?" she asked.

"Not well. We have a start, but Cehmai's notes are only beginnings. And they were done by a student. I'm sure they all seemed terribly deep and insightful when he was still fresh from the school. But there's less there than I'd hoped. And…"

"And?"

Maati sighed. The towers were visible now. The blades of grass stood out one from another.

"He's not a great inventor," Maati said. "He never was. It's part of why he was chosen to take over an andat that had already been captured instead of binding something new. And I'm no better."

"You were chosen for the same thing."

"Cehmai's clever. I'm clever too, if it comes to that, but we're the second pressing. There's no one we can talk with who's seen a binding through from first principles to a completion. We need someone whose mind's sharper than ours."

There were birds wheeling about the towers-tiny specks of black and gray and white wheeling though the air as if a single mind drove them. Maati pretended he could hear their calls.

"Perhaps you could train someone. "There's a whole city to choose from."

"There isn't time," Maati said. He wanted to say that even if there were, he wouldn't. The andat were too powerful, too dangerous to be given to anyone whose heart wasn't strong or whose conscience couldn't be trusted. That was the lesson, after all, that had driven his own life and Cehmai's and the Dai-kvo himself. It was what elevated each of the poets from boy children cast out by their parents to the most honored men in the world. And yet, if there were someone bright enough to hand the power to, he suspected he would. If it brought the army back from the field and put the world back the way it had been, the risk would be worth it.

"Maybe one of the other poets will come," Liat said, but her voice had gone thin and weary.

"You don't have hope for the Dai-kvo?"

Liat smiled.

"Hope? Yes, I have hope. Just not faith. The Galts know what's in play. If we don't recapture the andat, the cities will all fall. If we do, we'll destroy Galt and everyone in her. "They'll be as ruthless as we will."

"And Otah-kvo? Nayiit?"

Liat's gaze met his, and he nodded. The knot in her chest, he was certain, was much like his own.

"They'll be fine," Liat said, her tone asking for her own belief in the words as much as his. "It's always the footmen who die in battles, isn't it? The generals all live. And he'll keep Nayiit safe. He said he would."

"They might not even see battle. If they arrive before the Galts and come back quickly enough, we might not lose a single man."

"And the moon may come down and get itself trapped in a teabowl," Liat said. "But it would be nice, wouldn't it? For us, I mean. Not so much for the Galts."

"You care what happens to them?"

"Is that wrong?" Liat asked.

"You're the one who came to Otah-kvo asking that they all be killed."

"I suppose I did, didn't I? I don't know what's changed. Something to do with having my boy out there, I suppose. Slaughtering a nation isn't so much to think about. It's when I start feeling that it all goes confused. I wonder why we do it. I wonder why they do. Do you think if we gave them our gold and our silver and swore we would never hind a fresh andat… do you think they'd let our children live?"

It took a few breaths to realize that Liat was actually waiting for his answer, and several more before he knew what he believed.

"No," Maati said. "I don't think they would."

"Neither do I. But it would he good, wouldn't it? A world where it wasn't a choice of our children or theirs."

"It would be better than this one."

As if by common consent, they changed the subject, talking of food and the change of seasons, Eiah's new half-apprenticeship with the physicians and the small doings of the women of the utkhaiem now that their men had gone. It was only reluctantly that Maati rose. The sun was two and a half hands past where it had been when he woke, the shadows growing oblong. They walked back to the library, hand in hand at first, and then only walking beside each other. Nlaati felt his heart growing heavier as they came down the familiar paths, paving stones turning to sand turning to crushed white gravel bright as snow.

"You could come in," Nlaati said when they reached the wide front doors.

In answer, she kissed him lightly on the mouth, gave his hand a gentle squeeze, and turned away. Maati sighed and turned to lumber up the steps. Inside, Cehmai was sitting on a low couch, three scrolls spread out before him.

"I think I've found something," Cehmai said. "There's reference in Nlanat-kvo's notes to a grammatic schema called threefold significance. If we have something that talks about that, perhaps we can find a way to shift the binding from one kind of significance to another."

"We don't," Nlaati said. "And if I recall correctly, the three significators all require unity. "There's not a way to pick between them."

"Well. "Then we're still stuck."

"Yes."

Cehmai stood and stretched, the popping of his spine audible from across the wide room.

"We need someone who knows this better than we do," Maati said as he lowered himself onto a carved wooden chair. "We need the Daikvo."

"We don't have him."

"I know it."

"So we have to keep trying," Cehmai said. "The better prepared we are when the Dai-kvo comes, the better he'll he able to guide us."

"And if he never comes?"

"He will," Cehmai said. "He has to."