An Autumn War

4

"Nlaati," Liat said, and the man startled like a rabbit. For a long moment, his face was a blank confusion as he struggled to make sense of what he saw. Slowly, she watched him recognize her.

In all fairness, she might not have known him either, had she not sought him out. Time had changed him: thickened his body and thinned his hair. Even his face had changed shape, the smooth chin and jaw giving way to jowls, the eyes going narrower and darker. The lines around his mouth spoke of sadness and isolation. And anger, she thought.

She had known when she arrived that she'd found the right apartments. It hadn't been difficult to get directions to Machi's extra poet, and the door had been open. She'd scratched at the doorframe, called out his name, and when she'd stepped in, it was the scent that had been familiar. Certainly there had been other things-the way the scrolls were laid out, the ink stains on the arms of the chairs-that gave evidence to Maati's presence. The faintest hint, a wisp of musk slight as pale smoke, was the thing that had brought back the flood of memory. For a powerful moment, she saw again the small house she'd lived in after she and Maati had left Saraykeht; the yellow walls and rough, wooden floor, the dog who had lived in the street and only ever been half tamed by her offerings of sausage ends from the kitchen window, the gray spiders that had built their webs in the corners. The particular scent of her old lover's body brought back those rooms. She knew him better by that than to see him again in the flesh.

But perhaps that wasn't true. When he blinked fast and uncertainly, when his head leaned just slightly forward and a smile just began to bloom on his lips, she could see him there, beneath that flesh. The man she had known and loved. The man she'd left behind.

"Liat?" he said. "You… you're here?"

She took a pose of affirmation, surprised to find her hands trembling. Maati stepped forward slowly, as if afraid a sudden movement might startle her into flight. Liat swallowed to loosen the knot in her throat and smiled.

"I would have written to warn you I was coming," she said, "hut by the time I knew I was, I'd have raced the letter. I'm… I'm sorry if

…"

But he touched her arm, his fingers on the cloth just above her elbow. His eyes were wide and amazed. As if it were natural, as if it had been a week or a day and not a third of their lives, Liat put her arms around him and felt him enclose her. She had told herself that she would hold back, he careful. She was the head of House Kyaan, a woman of business and politics. She knew how to be hardhearted and cool. There was no reason to think that she would he safe here in the farthest city from her home and facing again the two lovers of her childhood. The years had worked changes on them all, and she had parted with neither of them on good terms.

And yet the tears in her eyes were simple and sincere and as much joy as sorrow, and the touch of Maati's body against her own-strange and familiar both-wasn't awkward or unwelcome. She kissed his cheek and drew back enough to see his still wonder-filled face.

"Well," she said at last. "It's been a while. It's good to see you again, Maati-kya. I wasn't sure it would be, but it is."

"I thought I'd never see you again," he said. "I thought, after all this time… My letters…"

"I got them, yes. And it's not as if court gossip didn't tell everyone in the world where you were. The last succession of Machi was the favorite scandal of the season. I even saw an epic made from it. The boy who took your part didn't look a thing like you," she said, and then, in a lower voice, "I meant to write hack to you, even if it was only to tell you that I'd heard. That I knew. But somehow I never managed. I regret that. I've always regretted that. It only seemed so

… complex."

"I thought perhaps… I don't know. I don't know what I thought."

She stood silently in his arms the space of another breath, part of her wishing that this moment might suffice; that the relief she felt at Maati's simple, unconsidered acceptance might stand in for all that she had still to do. He sensed the change in her thoughts and stepped hack, his hands moving restlessly. She smoothed her hair, suddenly aware of the streaks of gray at her temple.

"Can I get something for you?" Maati said. "It's simple enough to call a servant in from the palaces. Or I have some distilled wine here."

"Wine will do," she said, and sat.

He went to a low cabinet beside the fire grate, sliding the wooden panel back and taking out two small porcelain bowls and a stoppered bottle as he spoke.

"I've had company recently. He's only just left. I don't usually live in this disorder."

"I'm not sure I believe that," she said, wryly. Maati chuckled and shrugged.

"Oh, I don't clean it myself. It would he a hundred times worse than this. Otah-kvo's been very kind in loaning me servants. He has more than he has places for."

The name was like a cold breath, but Liat only smiled and accepted the bowl that Nlaati held out to her. She sipped the wine-strong, peppery, and warm in her throat-to give herself a moment. She wasn't ready yet for the pleasure to end.

"The world's changed on us," she said. It was a platitude, but Maati seemed to take some deeper meaning from it.

"It has," he said. "And it'll keep on changing, I think. When I was a boy, I never imagined myself here, and I can't say for certain what I'll be doing when next summer comes. The new Dal-kvo…"

He shook his head slowly and sipped his wine for what Liat guessed was much the same reason she had. The silence between them grew. Maati cleared his throat.

"How is Nayiit?" he asked, careful, Liat noticed, to use the boy's name. Not our son, but Nayiit.

She told him about the work of House Kyaan, and Nayiit's role as an overseer. The stories of how he had made the transition from the child of the head of the house to an overseer in his own right. His courtship, his marriage, the child. Maati closed the door, lit a fire in the grate, and listened.

It was odd that of all the subjects she had to bring to the table, Nayiit should be the easiest. And Maati listened to it all, laughing or rapt, delighted and also sorrowful, longing to have been part of something that was already gone. Her words were like rain in a desert; he absorbed them, cherished them. She found herself searching for more-anecdotes of Nayiit and his friends, his early lovers, the city, anything. She searched for them and offered them up, part apology, part sacrifice. The candles had grown visibly shorter before he asked whether Nayiit had stayed in Saraykeht, and Liat reluctantly shook her head.

"I've left him at the wayhouse," she said. "I wasn't certain how this would go, between us. I didn't want him to be here if it was bad."

Mlaati's hands started to move toward some pose-a denial, perhaps-then faltered. His eyes locked on hers. "There were decades in them. She felt tears welling up.

"I'm sorry," she said. "If that's worth anything, I am sorry, Maatikya."

"For what?" he asked, and his tone said that he could imagine a number of answers.

"That you weren't a part of his life until now."

"It was my choice as much as yours. And it will be good to see him again."

He heaved a sigh and pressed the stopper back into the bottle's neck. The sun was long gone, and a cold breeze, thick with the perfume of night-flowering gardens, raised bumps on her arms. Only the air. Not dread.

"You haven't asked me why I've come," she said.

He chuckled and leaned back against his couch. His cheeks were ruddy from the candlelight and wine. His eyes seemed to glitter.

"I was pretending it was for me. Mending old wounds, making peace," Maati said. The anger she'd seen was there now, swimming beneath the pleasant, joking surface. She wondered if she'd waited too long to come to the issue. She should have asked before she'd told him Nayiit was in the city, before the sour memories came back.

Maati took a pose of query, inviting her to share her true agenda.

"I need your help," Liat said. "I need an audience with the Khai."

"You want to talk to Otah-kvo? You don't need my help for that. You could just-"

"I need you to help me convince him. To argue my case with me. We have to convince him to intercede with the Dai-kvo."

Maati's eyes narrowed, and his head tilted like that of a man considering a puzzle. Liat felt herself starting to blush. She'd had too much of the wine, and her control wasn't all it should be.

"Intercede with the Dai-kvo?" he said.

"I've been following the world. And the Galts. It was what Amat Kyaan built the house to do. I have decades of books and ledgers. I've made note of every contract they've made in the summer cities. I know every ship that sails past, what her captain's name is, and half the time, what cargo she carries. I know, Maati. I've seen them scheming. I've even blocked them a time or two."

"They had hands in the succession here too. They were backing the woman, Otah-kvo's sister. Anything you want to say about Galt, he'll half-believe before he's heard it. But how is the Dai-kvo part of it?"

"They won't do it without the Uai-kvo," Liat said. "He has to say it's the right thing, or they won't do it."

"Who won't do what?" Nlaati said, impatience growing in his voice.

"I'he poets," Liat said. "They have to kill the Galts. And they have to do it now."

Maati presented the meeting as a luncheon, a social gathering of old friends. He chose a balcony high in the palace looking out over the wide air to the south. The city lay below them, streets paved in black stone, tile and metal roofs pointing sharply at the sky. The towers rose above, only sun and clouds hanging higher. The wind was thick with the green, permeating scent of spring and the darker, acrid forge smoke. Between them, the low stone table was covered with plates-bread and cheese and salt olives, honeyed almonds and lemon trout and a sweetbread topped with sliced oranges. The gods alone knew where the kitchen had found a fresh orange.

Yet of all those present none of them ate.

Maati had made the introductions. Liat and Nayiit and Otah and Kiyan. The young man, Liat's son, had taken all the appropriate poses, said all the right phrases, and then taken position standing behind his mother like a bodyguard. Maati leaned against the stone banister, the sky at his hack. Otah-formal, uneased, and feeling more the Khai Machi than ever under the anxious gaze of woman who had been his lover in his youth-took a pose of query, and Liat shared the news that changed the world forever: the Galts had a poet of their own.

"His name is Riaan Vaudathat," Liat said. "He was the fourth son of a high family in the courts of Nantani. Ills father sent him to the school when he was five."

"This was well after our time," Nlaati said to Otah. "Neither of us would have known him. Not from there."

"He was accepted by the Dai-kvo and taken to the village to be trained," Liat said. "That was eight years ago. He was talented, well liked, and respected. The Dai-kvo chose him to study for the binding of a fresh andat."

Kiyan, sitting at Otah's side, leaned forward in a pose of query. "Don't all the poets train to hold andat?"

"We all try our hands at preparing a binding," Maati said. "We all study enough to know how it works and what it is. But only a few apply the knowledge. If the Dai-kvo thinks you have the temperament to take on one that's already hound, he'll send you there to study and prepare yourself to take over control when the poet grows too old. If you're bright and talented, he'll set you to working through a fresh binding. It can take years to be ready. Your work is read by other poets and the Daikvo, and attacked, and torn apart and redone perhaps a dozen times. Perhaps more."

"Because of the consequences of failing?" Kiyan asked. Maati nodded.

"Riaan was one of the best," Liat said. "And then three years ago, he was sent hack to Nantani. To his family. Fallen from favor. No one knew why, he just appeared one day with a letter for his father, and after that he was living in apartments in the Vaudathat holdings. It was a small scandal. And it wasn't the last of them. Riaan was sending letters every week hack to the Dai-kvo. Asking to be taken back, everyone supposed. He drank too much, and sometimes fought in the streets. By the end, he was practically living in the comfort houses by the seafront. The story was that he'd bet he could bed every whore in the city in a summer. His family never spoke of it, but they lost standing in the court. "There were rumors of father and son fighting, not just arguing, but taking up arms.

"And then, one night, he disappeared. Vanished. His family said that he'd been summoned on secret business. The Dai-kvo had a mission for him, and he'd gone the same day the letter had come. But there wasn't a courier who'd admit to carrying any letter like it."

"They might not have said it," Otah said. "They call it the gentleman's trade for a reason." ,, we thought of that," Nayiit replied. He had a strong voice; not loud, but powerful. "Later, when we went to the Dai-kvo, I took a list of the couriers who'd come to Nantani in the right weeks. None of them had been to the I)ai-kvo's village at the right time. The Dai-kvo wouldn't speak to me. But of the men who would, none believed that Riaan had been sent for."

Otah could still think of several objections to that, but he held them hack, gesturing instead for Liat to go on.

"No one connected the disappearance with a Galtic merchant ship that left that night with half her cargo still waiting to he loaded," Liat said. "Except me, and I wouldn't have if I hadn't made it my business to track all things Galtic."

"You think he was on that ship?" Otah said.

"I'm certain of it."

"Why?" he asked.

"The wealth of coincidences," Liat said. "The captain-Arnau Fentin-was the second brother of a family on the Galtic High Council. A servant in the Vaudathat household saw Riaan's father burning papers. Letters, he said. And in a foreign script."

"Any trade cipher could look like a foreign script," Otah said, but Liat wouldn't be stopped.

"The ship had been hound for Chaburi-"Ian and then Bakta. But it headed west instead-hack to Galt."

"Or Eddensea, or Eymond."

"Otah-kya," Kiyan said, her voice gentle, "let her finish."

Ile saw Liat's gaze flicker toward her, and her hands take a pose of thanks. He leaned hack, his palms flat on his thighs, and silently nodded for Liat to continue.

"There were stories of Riaan having met a new woman in the weeks before he left. That was what his family thought, at least. He'd spent several evenings every week at a comfort house whose hack wall was shared with the compound of House Fentin. The captain's family. I have statements that confirm all of this."

"I went to the comfort house myself," Nayiit said. "I asked after the lady Riaan had described. "There wasn't anyone like her."

"It was a clumsy lie," Liat said. "All of it from beginning to end. And, Itani, it's the Galts."

Whether she had used his old, assumed name in error or as a ploy to make him recall the days of his youth, the effect was the same. Otah drew a deep breath, and felt a sick weight descend to his belly as he exhaled. He had spent so many years wary of the schemes of Galt that her evidence, thin as it was, almost had the power to convince him. He felt the gazes of the others upon him. Mlaati leaned forward in his seat, fingers knotted together in his lap. Kiyan's rueful half-smile was sympathetic and considering both. The silence stretched.

"Is there any reason to think he would have… done this?" Otah asked. "I'he poet. Why would he agree to this?"

Liat turned and nodded to her son. The man licked his lips before he spoke.

"I went to the I)ai-kvo's village," Nayiit said. "My mother, of course, couldn't. "There were stories that Riaan had suffered a fever the winter before he was sent away. A serious one. Apparently he came close to death. Afterward, his skin peeled like he'd been too long in the sun. They say it changed him. He became more prone to anger. He wouldn't think before he acted or spoke. The Dai-kvo sat with him for weeks, training him like he was fresh from the school. It did no good. Riaan wasn't the man he'd been when the I)ai-kvo accepted him. So…"

"So the Dai-kvo sent him away in disgrace for something that wasn't his fault," Otah said.

"No, not at first," Nayiit said. "The Dal-kvo only told him that he wasn't to continue with his binding. That it was too great a risk. They say Riaan took it poorly. There were fights and drunken rants. One man said Riaan snuck a woman into the village to share his bed, but I never heard anyone confirm that. Whatever the details, the Dai-kvo lost patience. He sent him away."

"You learned quite a lot," Otah said. "I'd have thought the poets would he closer with their disgraces."

"Once Riaan left, it wasn't their disgrace. It was his," Nayiit said. "And they knew I had come from Nantani. I traded stories for stories. It wasn't hard."

"The Dai-kvo wouldn't meet with us," Liat said. "I sent five petitions, and two of them his secretaries didn't even bother to send refusals. It's why we came here."

"Because you wanted me to make this argument? I'm not in the Daikvo's best graces myself just now. He seems to think I blame the Galts when I cough," Otah said. "Maati might be the better man to make the case.

Maati took a pose that disagreed.

"I would hardly be considered disinterested," Maati said. His words were calm and controlled despite their depth. "I may have done some interesting work, but no one will have forgotten that I defied the last Dai-kvo by not abandoning these precise two people."

The rest of the thought hung in the air, just beyond speech. She abandoned me. It was true enough. Liat had taken the child and made her own way in the world. She had never answered Nlaati's letters until now, when she had need of him. There was something almost like shame in Liat's downcast eyes. Nayiit shifted his weight, as if to interpose himself between the two of them-between his mother and the man who had wanted badly to be his father and had been denied.

"We could also ask Cehmai," Kiyan said. "Ile's a poet of enough prestige and ability to hold Stone-blade-Soft, and his reputation hasn't been compromised."

"That might be wise," Otah said, grabbing for the chance to take the conversation away from the complexities of the past. "But let's go over the evidence you have, Liat-cha. All of it. From the start."

It took the better part of the day. Otah listened to the full story; he read the statements of the missing poet's slaves and servants, the contracts broken by the fleeing Galtic trade ship, the logs of couriers whose whereabouts Nayiit had compiled. Whatever objections he raised, Liat countered. He could see the fatigue in her face and hear the impatience in her voice. This matter was important to her. Important enough to bring her here. That she had come was proof enough of her conviction, if not of the truth of her claim. The girl he had known had been clever enough, competent enough, and still had been used as a stone in other people's games. Perhaps he was harsh in still thinking of her in that light. The years had changed him. They certainly could have changed her as well.

And, as the sun shifted slowly toward the western peaks, Otah found his heart growing heavy. The case she made was not complete, but it was evocative as a monster tale told to children. Galt might well have taken in this mad poet. "There was no way to know what they might do with him, or what he might do with their help. The histories of the Empire murmured in the back of Otah's mind: wars fought with the power of gods, the nature of space itself broken, and the greatest empire the world had ever known laid waste. And yes, if all Liat suspected proved true, it might happen again.

But if they acted on their fears, if the Dai-kvo mandated the use of the andat to remove the possibility of a Galtic poet, thousands would die who knew nothing of the plots that had brought down their doom. Children not old enough to speak, men and women who led simple, honest lives. Galt would be made a wasteland to rival the ruins of the Empire. Otah wondered how certain they would all have to be in order to take that step. How certain or else how frightened.

"Let me sit with this," he said at last, nodding to Liat and her son. "I'll have apartments cleared for you. You'll stay here at the palaces."

"There may not be much time," Maati said softly.

"I know it," Otah said. "Tomorrow I'll decide what to do. If Cehmai's the right bearer, we can do this all again with him in the room. And then… and then we'll sec what shape the world's taken and do whatever needs doing."

Liat took a pose of gratitude, and a heartbeat later Nayiit mirrored her. Otah waved the gestures away. He was too tired for ceremony. Too troubled.

When Maati and the two visitors had left, Otah rose and stood beside Kiyan at the railing, looking out over the city as it fell into its early, sudden twilight. Plumes of smoke rose from among the green copper roofs of the forges. The great stone towers thrust toward the sky as if they supported the deepening blue. Kiyan tossed an almond out into the wide air, and a black-winged bird swooped down to catch it before it reached the distant ground. Otah touched her shoulder; she turned to him smiling as if half-surprised to find him there.

"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."

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.

A soft knock came at the door, and Eustin stepped in. He wore the deep blue and red of a captain's uniform. Balasar acknowledged him with a nod.

"Has the third legion arrived, then?" Balasar asked.

"No, sir," Eustin said. "We've had a runner from them. They'll be here by the week's end, sir."

"Ibo long."

"Yes, sir. But there's another problem."

Balasar rose, hands clasped behind him. He could feel his mind straining back toward the plans and maps almost as if it were a physical force, but he believed that battles were won or lost long before they were fought. If Eustin had thought something worth interrupting him, it would likely need his whole attention.

"Go ahead," he said.

"The poet. He's refusing to pay for his whores again, sir. Been saying the honor of being with him should be enough. One of the girls took offense and poured a cup of hot tea in his lap. Scalded his little poet like a boiled sausage."

Balasar didn't smile, nor did Eustin. "I'he moment between them was enough.

"Will he be able to ride?" Balasar asked.

"Given a few days, sir, he'll be fine. But he's demanding the girl be killed. Half the houses in the city have threatened to raise their rates, and they're talking to their local clients too. I've had two letters today that didn't quite say the grain would cost more than expected."

Balasar felt a brief flush of anger.

"They're aware that the majority of the Galtic armies are either in the ward now or will be here shortly?"

"Yes, sir. And they've not said it's final that they'll stick it to us for more silver. But they're proud folks. It's just a whore he wants killed, but she's a Westlands whore, if you see what I mean. She's one of their own."

This was a mess. He didn't want to start the campaign by fighting the Ward of Arcn. He didn't yet have all his men assembled. Balasar looked out the windows, casting his gaze over the courtyard below without truly seeing it.

"I suppose I'd best speak with him, then," Balasar said.

"He's in his rooms, sir. Should I bring him here?"

"No," Balasar said. "I'll face the beast in its lair."

"Yessir."

The central city of Aren was a squat affair. Thick stone walls covered with mud and washed white were the order of the day. The constant wars of the Westlands and the occasional attack by Galt had kept the ward cropped low as a rabbit-haunted garden. The highest houses rose no more than four stories above ground, and the streets, even near the palaces of the Warden, smelled of sewage and old food. Balasar reached the building where he and his captains were housed, shook the rain from his cloak, and gestured for Eustin to wait for him. He took the stairs three at a time up to the anteroom of the poet's apartments. The men guarding the door bowed as he entered, then stood aside as he announced himself.

Riaan sat on a low couch, his robes propped up above his lap like a tent, the hem rising halfway up his shins. The awareness of his indignity shone in the poet's face-lips pressed thin, jaw set forward. Even as Balasar made his half-how, he could tell the man had been working himself into a rage. If any of his captains had acted this way, Balasar would have assigned them to patrolling on horseback until the wounds had healed. Idiocy should carry a price. Instead he lowered himself to a couch across from the poet and spoke gently.

"I heard about your misfortune," Balasar said in the tongue of the Khaiate cities. "I wanted to come and offer my sympathies. Is there anything I can do to be of service?"

"You could bring me the slack-cunt's heart," the poet spat. "I should have cut her down where she stood. She should he drowned in her own shit for this!"

The poet gestured toward his own crotch, demonstrating the depth of his hurt. Balasar didn't smile. With all the gravity he could manage, he nodded.

"It will cause problems if I have her killed," Balasar said. "The local men are uneasy already. I could have her whipped-"

"No! She must die!"

"If there was some other way that honor could he served..

Riaan leaned hack, his gaze cold. This, Balasar thought, was the man on whom the hopes of the world rested. A man who had leapt at the chance to turn against his own people, who had eaten the interest and novelty of the people of Acton like it was honey bread, who vented his rage on whores and servants. Balasar had never seen a tool less likely. And yet, the poet was what he needed, and the stakes could not have been higher. He sighed.

"I will see to it," Balasar said. "And permit me to send you my own personal physician. I would not have a man of your importance suffer, Most High."

"This should never have happened," Riaan said. "You will do better in the future."

"Indeed," Balasar agreed, then rose, taking what he hoped was an appropriate pose for an honored if somewhat junior man taking leave of someone above his station. He must have come near the mark, because the poet took a pose of dismissal. Balasar bowed and left. He walked hack down the steps more slowly, weighing his options. He found Eustin in a common room with three of his other captains. He knew that the poet's injury had been the topic of their conversation. The sudden quiet when he entered and the merriment in their eyes were evidence enough. He greeted each man by name and gestured for Eustin to follow him hack out to the street.

"Any luck, sir?"

"No," Balasar said. "He's still talking himself into a tantrum. But I had to try. I'll need Carlsin sent to him with some ointment for the burn. And he'll need to wear good robes. If he shows up in his usual rags, the man will never believe he's my physician."

"I'll see he's told, sir."

They reached the gray-cobbled street, and Balasar turned back toward the Warden's palaces and the little library with all his maps and plans. Dustin kept pace at his side. In the far distance, there was a rumble of thunder. Balasar cursed, and Eustin agreed.

"And the girl, sir?" Eustin asked.

Balasar nodded and blew out his breath.

"fell all the comfort houses to give Riaan whatever he asks, and send the hills to me. I'll see them fairly paid. Warn them that I'll be keeping account, though. I'm not opening the coffers to every tiles player and alley worker in the Westlands."

"We have enough silver then, sir?"

"We'll have more when we've reached Nantani," Balasar said. "If the men are a little hungry before then, that might even serve us."

A gust of wind brought the harsh blast of rain and a salting of tiny hailstones. Other than raising his voice slightly, Balasar ignored it.

"And the girl herself will have to die," he said. "Tell her employer I'll pay the house fair price for the lost income."

Eustin was silent. Balasar looked at him, and the man's face was dark. The general felt his mouth curled in a deep frown.

"Say it," Balasar said.

"I think you're wrong, sir."

Balasar took Eustin's elbow and angled off from the street under a covered stone archway. A girl stood there, a cart of green winter apples at her feet, looking out at the gray-white rain and the foul, brown brook at the edge of the street. Balasar scooped up two of the apples and tossed the girl a wide copper coin before finding a low bench and nodding for Eustin to sit.

He handed his captain one of the apples and said, "Make your case."

Eustin shrugged, bit the apple, and chewed thoughtfully for a long moment. A glance at the apple seller, and then he spoke, his voice so low it was nearly inaudible over the clatter of the storm.

"First off, we haven't got so much gold we can afford to spend all of it here. Having the men hungry, well, that's one thing. But five legions is a lot of men. And there's no cause for this, not really. Any of the other men did the thing, you'd take it out of their skins. And they know it."

"I half think you're sweet on the girl," Balasar said.

"I've got a certain respect for her," Eustin said with a grin, but then sobered. "The thing is, you're not treating him like he was long-term, if you see. The story for the High Council is that once we've settled the Khaiem out, our man Riaan's to hook these andat to our yoke. Tell the Lord Convocate otherwise, and it would be someone else leading this. But if that's true, Riaan's going to be around for the rest of your life and mine, and a damned important man at that. All apologies, but you're dancing to his tune like you're hoping he'll kiss you."

Balasar tossed the apple from hand to hand and waited for the flush of anger to recede.

"I need the man," Balasar said. "If I have to how and scrape for a time-"

"That's just it, though. For a time. None of the men are used to seeing you drink piss and smile. They're waiting to see you crack, to see you put him in his place. It keeps not happening, and they're wondering why. Wondering how you can stand the idea of a life licking that little prick's boot. Time will come they'll understand you aren't thinking of him in the long term."

Balasar needed a moment to think that through. He hit the apple; it was tart and chalky and squeaked against his teeth. He tossed the rest of it out into the street where the rain took it rolling downhill, white flesh and green skin in the dark water.

"I)o you think Riaan suspects?" Balasar asked at length.

Eustin snorted. "He can't believe the tide would go out so long as he was on the beach. The waves all love him too much to leave. But the men, sir. They'll figure you're planning to kill him. And if they do, they may slip."

Balasar nodded. Eustin was right. He was acting differently than he would have had Riaan been a problem with a future. It hadn't been difficult to let the Councilmen in Acton blind themselves to the poet's character. Visions of godlike power, of magic bent to the High Council's will, were enough to let them overlook the dangers. The captains, the men who spoke with Riaan, would be more likely to understand why he wasn't to be trusted. They might well see what Balasar had seen from the beginning, even before he had made the doomed journey into the desert: that the andat were a dangerous tool, best discarded the moment the need had passed.

But, and here was the trouble, not a moment before that. If the poet failed him, everything was lost. He weighed the risks for a long moment before Eustin spoke again.

"Let me send the girl away, sir. I'll give her enough silver to take herself out into the farmland for half a year, and tell her that if we see her in the city, I'll have her head on a pike for true. I'll send the poet a pig heart, say we cut it out of her. The man that runs the comfort house'll know. I'll tell the men it was your idea."

"It's a gamble," Balasar said.

"It's all a gamble, sir," Eustin said, and then, "Besides. He really did earn it."

To the east, lightning flashed, and before the thunder reached them, Balasar nodded his assent. Eustin took his leave, stalking out into the downpour to make this one more tiny adjustment to the monumental plan Balasar had devised and directed. At the end of the pathway, the apple-selling girl sensed some slackening, pulled a hood up over her fair hair, and darted out into the city. For a time, Balasar sat quietly, feeling the weariness in his flesh that came from tension without release. He let his gaze soften, the white walls of the city fading, losing their separate natures, becoming different shades of nothing, like the shadows of hills covered by snow.

He wondered what Little Ott would have made of all this: the campaign, the poet, the wheels within wheels that he'd put in motion. If it came together as he planned, Balasar would save the world from another war like the one that had toppled the Old Empire. If it failed, he might start one. And whatever happened, he had sacrificed Bes, Laran, Kellem, Little Ott. Men who had loved him were dead and would never return. Men alive now who trusted him might well die. His nation, everyone he'd known or cared for-his father growing bent with age, the girl he'd lost his heart to when he was a boy shaking the petals off spring cherry trees, Eustin, Coal-they might all be slaughtered if he once judged poorly. It was something he tried not to consider, afraid the weight of it might crush him. And yet in these still moments, it found him. The dread and the awe at what he had begun. And with it the certainty that he was right.

He imagined Bes standing in the street before him, wide face split in the knowing grin that he would never see again outside memory. Balasar lifted a hand in greeting, and the image bowed to him and faded. They would have understood. All the men whose blood he'd spilled for this would have understood. Or if they didn't, they'd have done it all the same. It was what they meant by faith.

When at last he returned to the library, one of his other captains-a lanky man named Orem Cot-was pacing the length of the room, literally wringing his hands in agitation or excitement. Balasar closed the door behind him with a thump as the captain bowed.

"Sir," he said. "There's a man come wanting to speak with you. I thought I'd best bring him to you myself."

"What's his business?" Balasar asked.

"Mercenary captain, sir. Brought his men down from Annaster."

"I don't need more forces."

"You'll want to talk with this one all the same, sir. His company? They're from the Khaiem. Says they got turned out by the Khai Machi and they've been traveling ever since."

"He's been in the winter cities?"

"For years, sir."

"You were right to bring him. Show the man in," Balasar said, then stopped the captain as he headed to the door. "What's his name?"

"Captain Ajutani, sir. Sinja Ajutani."

It had become clear to Sinja shortly after his arrival in aren that he had misjudged the situation.

The company, such as it was, had passed through the mountains that divided the Westlands from the lands that, while not directly controlled, associated themselves with Machi and Pathai weeks before. The men were young and excited to he on the march, so Sinja had pushed them. By the time they'd reached Annaster, they were tired enough to complain, but there was still a light in their eyes. They'd escaped the smothering, peaceful blankets of the Khaiem; they were in the realm where violence was met with violence, and not by the uncanny powers of the poets and their andat. They had come to the place where they could prove themselves on the bodies of their enemies.

Besides Sinja, only a dozen or so of the higher ranks had ever been in battle. For the rest, this was like walking into a children's tale. Sinja hadn't tried to explain. Perhaps they'd be able to find glory in the soulcrushing boredom of a siege; perhaps they'd face their first battles and discover that they loved violence. More likely, he'd be sending half of them home to their mothers by midsummer, and that would have been fine. He was here as much to stretch his legs as to keep his master and friend the Khai Machi out of trouble with the Dai-kvo.

He hadn't expected to walk into the largest massing of military force in memory.

Galt was in the southern wards, and it was there in force. All through the Westlands, Wardens had forgotten their squabbles. Every gaze was cast south. The common wisdom was that Galt had finally decided to end its generations-long games of raid and abandon. It had come to take control of the whole of the Westlands from the southern coast up to Eddensea. There were even those who wondered whether it was going to be a good season for Eddensea.

Sinja had done what he did best-listened. The stories he heard were, of course, overblown. Men and women throughout the Westlands were in different stages of panic. Someone had seen a thousand ships off the coast. There had been agreements signed with Aren, but all the other Wardens and all their children were to he slaughtered to assure that no one would have claim to rule once the Galts had come through. There were even a few optimists who thought that Balasar Gice-the general at the head of this largest of all gathered armieswasn't looking to the Westlands, but gathering his forces to take control of Galt itself. He could overthrow the High Council and install himself as autocrat.

What it all came to was this: Any mercenary company working for anyone besides Galt was likely to be on the losing side of the fight. The collected Wardens were putting out calls for free companies and garrison forces, preparing themselves as best they could. The fees that Sinja was offered would have been handsome for a band of veterans and siege captains, much less for a few hundred foreign sell-swords one step up from thugs. And so Sinja had considered the money, considered the offers and the stories and his own best instincts, then quietly packed up his men and headed south to Aren to sell their services at a fourth of the price, but to the winners.

The men had grumbled. Wide, square Westland coins had been dancing in their minds. Morale had started to fail. So Sinja had paused in the Ward of Castin, made contact with a free company who'd taken contract there, and challenged their veterans to a day of games. Once Sinja's men had understood and accepted his point, they bound their ribs and continued to the south. No one had questioned his judgment again.

Aren was one of the wards farthest to the south. Low hills covered with rich green grasses, towns of stone buildings with thatched roofs, elk and deer so wise to the ways of men that the bowmen he sent ahead to forage never caught one of them. Wherever they went, Sinja saw the signs of an army having passed-ruined crops, abandoned campsites with the ashes of a half hundred fires churned into the mud. But even with this, he had been shocked when they topped one of the many hills and caught first sight of the city of Aren.

No city under siege had ever seen so many troops at its wall. Tents and low pavilions were laid out around it on all sides, dark oiled cloth shining in row after row after row. The smoke of cook fires left a low haze through the valley that even the rain could not wholly dispel, the strange bulbous steam wagons the Galts used to move supplies and leave their men unburdened seemed as numerous as horses in the fields, and the squirming, streaming activity of men moving through each of the opened gates made the city seem like a dead sparrow overrun by ants.

His men set camp at a polite distance from the existing companies while Sinja dared the city itself. He entered the gates at midday. It wasn't more than three hands later he was being escorted through the halls of the Warden's palace to the library and the general himself. I Ie'd surrendered his blades and the garrote he kept at his waist before being permitted to speak with the great man. Either Balasar Gice felt this unprecedented mass of men was too little for whatever task lay ahead of him and was grabbing at every spare sword and dagger in the world, or else Sinja was, for reasons that passed imagining, of particular interest to him.

Either way, Sinja disliked it.

Balasar Gice turned out to he a smallish man, mouse-brown hair running to white at the temples. He wore the gray tunic of command that Sinja had seen before when he'd been in the field as a young man fighting against the Galts or else with them. lie might have been anyone, to look at him. A farmer or a merchant seaman or a seafront customs agent.

"Bad weather for traveling," the general said, amiably, as if they were simply two men who'd met at a wayhouse. He spoke the Khaiate tongue clearly, his accent flavoring the words rather than obscuring them.

"It's always wet in the South this time of year," Sinja agreed in Galtic. "Not always so cold, but that's why the gods made wool. "['hat or as a joke against sheep."

The general smiled, either at the words or the language they were in, Sinja wasn't certain. Sinja kept his expression pleasant and empty. They both knew he was here to sell the use of his men, but only the general knew why the meeting was here and not with some low captain. Sinja opted to wait and see what came of it. Balasar Gice seemed to read his intention; he nodded and walked to a side table, where he poured them both clear wine from a cut-glass carafe. No, not wine. Water.

"I hear the Khai Machi turned you out," the general said in Galtic as he passed a cup to Sinja. That wasn't true. Sinja had told the captain that they were out from Nlachi, but perhaps there had been some misunderstanding. Sinja shrugged. It was too early in the game to correct anyone's misconceptions.

"It's his right," he said. "Some of the men were causing trouble. Too long in a quiet place. I'm sure you understand."

Balasar chuckled. It was a warm sound, and Sinja found himself liking the man. Balasar nodded to a couch beside the brazier. Sinja made a small how and sat, the general leaning casually against the table.

"You left on good terms?"

"We didn't turn back and burn the city," Sinja said, "if that's what you mean.

"Do you owe the Khai Machi loyalty? Or are you a free company?"

The truth was that any silver he took would find its way back to Otah Machi's coffers. The company was no more free than the Galtic armies outside the city. And yet there was something in the general's voice when he asked the question, something in his eyes.

"We're mercenaries. We follow whoever pays us," Sinja said.

"And if someone should offer to pay you more? No offense, but the one thing you can say of loyalty for hire is that it's for hire."

"We'll finish out a contract," Sinja said. "I've been through enough to know what happens to a company with a reputation for switching sides mid-battle. But I won't lie, the boys I have are green, most of them. They haven't seen many campaigns."

It was a softening of these poor bastards hardly know which end's thesharp one but the meaning was much the same. The general waved the concern aside, which was fascinating. Balasar Gice wasn't interested in their field prowess. Which meant he either wanted them to lead the charges and soak up a few enemy spears and arrows-hardly a role that asked the general's presence at the negotiation-or there was something more, something that Sinja was still missing.

"How many of them speak Galt?"

"A third," Sinja said, inventing the number on the spot.

"I may have use for them. How loyal are they to you?"

"How loyal do they need to be?"

The general smiled. "There was a touch of sorrow in his eyes and a long, thoughtful pause. Sinja felt a decision being made, though he couldn't say what the issue was.

"Enough to go against their own kind. Not in the field, but I'll want them as translators and agents. And whatever you can tell me of the winter cities. I'll want that as well."

Sinja smiled knowingly to cover his racing mind. Gice wasn't taking his army North. He was going east, into the cities of the Khaiem, with something close to every able-bodied man in (; air behind him. Sinja chuckled to hide a rush of fear.

"They'll follow you any place you care to go, so long as they're on the winning side," Sinja said. "Are you sure that's going to be you?"

"Yes," the general said, and the bare confidence in his voice was more persuasive than any reasoned argument he might have given. If the man had been trying to convince himself, he would have had a speech ready-why this insanity would work, how the army could overpower the andat, something. But Balasar was certain. The general sipped his water, waiting the space of five long breaths together. 'T'hen he spoke again. "You're thinking something?"

"You're not stupid," Sinja said. "So you're either barking mad, or you know something I don't. No one can take on the Khaiem."

"You mean no one can face the andat."

"Yes," Sinja agreed. "'That's what I mean."

"I can."

"Forgive me if I keep my doubts about me," Sinja said.

The general nodded, considered Sinja for a long moment, then gestured toward the table. Sinja put down his howl and stepped over as the general unrolled a long cloth scroll with a map of the cities of the Khaiem on it. Sinja stepped back from it as if there were an asp on it.

"General," he said, "if you're about to tell me your plans for this campaign, I think we might be ahead of where we should be."

Balasar put a hand on Sinja's arm. The Gait's gaze was firm and steady, his voice low and strangely intimate. Sinja saw how a personality like his own could command an army or a nation. Possibly, he thought, a world.

"Captain Ajutani, I don't share these plans with every mercenary captain who walks through my door. I don't trust them. I don't show them to my own captains, barring the ones in my small Council. The others I expect to trust me. But we're men of the world, you and I. You have something I think I could use."

"And you have nothing to lose by telling me," Sinja said, slowly. "Because I'm not leaving this building, am I?"

"Not even to go speak to your men," the general said. "You're here as my ally or my prisoner."

Sinja shook his head.

"'That's a brave thing to say, General. It's only the two of us in here."

"If you attacked me, I'd kill you where you stood," Balasar said in the same tone of voice he'd used before, and Sinja believed him. Balasar smiled gently and nudged him forward, toward the table.

"Let me show you why ally would he the better choice."

Still, Sinja held hack.

"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.