An earthly crown

CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

The hills above Qurat had a torrid beauty dimmed and softened now in the cool light of dawn. Terraces angled down to the mudbrick walls of the city. Above the fields, parched trees and grasses grew along slopes alternately steep and gentle. Two riders negotiated a streambed dried out by the summer's heat and walked their horses at a sedate pace along a sere hillside. They rode alone, except for the three riders-one man, two women archers-riding about fifty paces behind them, and the ring of riders two hundred strong that circled them an arrow's shot away.

"It used to be," said Bakhtiian, reining his stallion around a dead log, "that I could take you out alone onto the grass and lie with you under the stars. Now-" He glanced to his left, where riders appeared and disappeared between distant trees, their red shirts a flag.

"When did we ever do that?" Tess asked. "Grass is an uncomfortable bed, if you ask me, and in any case, by the time we married, you were already well on your way to needing an escort whenever you left camp."

He smiled. "No, you're quite right. It wasn't you. I was much younger and more impulsive. It must have been Inessa Kireyevsky.''

"More impulsive?"

He laughed.

"Kireyevsky," she mused. "I don't know that name."

"The Kireyevsky tribe is one of the granddaughters of the Vershinin tribe. Inessa was the only daughter of their etsana-"

"Of course. Was she married?"

"No."

"Did you think of marrying her?"

Kriye pranced as Zhashi came up beside him, and Ilya reined him in. Zhashi flattened her ears, and for an instant Tess thought the mare might kick; instead, Zhashi ostentatiously lowered her head to graze. Ilya chuckled.

"Any man thinks of marrying, when he's young. But I hadn't been back from Jeds for that many years, and I had so much I wanted to do. I didn't have time to marry."

Tess studied him. Four years ago, she had been thrown together with him and his tribe. Four years ago, her life had changed utterly, and she did not regret what she had left behind. Not when he smiled at her as he did now. It was not that the essential core of restlessness, of ambition, in him was stilled by her presence: that had not changed in the least. But before their marriage a discontent, an uncertain temper, had worried at him constantly, wearing him away. That was gone now. Not muted, not faded, but quite simply gone. It had vanished the day he had marked her, and she had marked him. And to know that one had that effect on a person, especially on a personality as powerful as Ilya's-well, it would have taken a stronger person than she was to resist the urge to stay.

He was in a mellow mood. She took in a deep breath. It was time to test the waters. "Vasil still rode with your jahar, back then," she added.

His smile evaporated. "Vasil never learned how to let go of what was no longer his."

Encouraging, but not an answer. "How long have you known Vasil?"

His whole expression shuttered. "I do not wish-"

"To speak of him. I know." And neither do I, but the truth has to be faced, by me, and by you. "You're very like Charles in some ways, keeping things to yourself, never sharing them with others. Ilya, if you don't wish to speak of Vasil with me, then that is your right, but I think you ought to speak to someone about him. It's eating away at you inside. Dr. Hierakis-"

"Dr. Hierakis? I think not."

"Niko. No. I can see from your expression that he was too close to whatever happened. Do you know Vasil named his daughter after you?''

"Yes," he said. For a jaran man, he certainly knew how to construct formidable walls.

Tess sighed, having used up her stores of courage for the day. She started Zhashi forward again. "What shall we name this one?" Her fingers brushed her abdomen, which had barely begun to swell.

His face relaxed, now that he saw she was willing to let the subject drop. "If it's a girl, Natalia, after my sister."

"Then Yurinya, if it's a boy."

"Agreed." His voice dropped. "Oh, Tess. I was afraid we would never have a child. I have always wanted to have children of my own."

Tess chuckled. "After lying with Inessa Kireyevsky out in the grass, and God knows what other women, you might well have some children."

He shook his head, looking puzzled, and reined Kriye back as they came up to a stand of red-barked trees crowned with a sprinkling of thin leaves. "How could I have children, Tess? I wasn't married."

"But Ilya, you know very well that you could have gotten a child on some woman."

"Yes, and in Jeds that child would be called a bastard. But here, the man she was married to would be its father, not me. And that is as it should be."

From here, Tess could see far below, in miniature, the golden domes and minarets of Qurat, and the square citadel in the northwest corner of the city. "How much longer do we wait here?''

He studied the terrain. Although they overlooked the city here, they were much too far away to do any damage even with missile fire. Beyond the city lay the plateau and the huge camp of the jaran army, scattered out to the horizon. A thin line of river shone in the farthest distance; above it, clouds laced the sky. Closer, to the west, a narrow valley shot up into the mountains: the pass that led into the heart of the Habakar kingdom.

"I had hoped to draw them out. With the strength of the Habakar army still in front of us, I don't want to leave this city behind untaken, not at such a strategic site. But we have now taken control of every city on this plateau but Qurat, and we must move forward." He shrugged. "We shall see."

"Look there. A rider is coming up."

He sighed and reached out to grasp her hand and, drawing it up to his lips, to kiss her palm. Then he let her go. "It seems we have had our quiet for the day. Come, we'll go meet him."

The rider wore bells, and he was mounted on a fresh horse from the camp below. Aleksi and the two archers-Valye Usova and Anatoly's sister Shura-joined them, and the circle of riders closed in to form into ranks around Bakhtiian. They parted to let the messenger through.

"Bakhtiian! The Habakar king is marching with a large army through the western pass toward our position." "Ah. So I did draw someone out. Good. How long?" "One day. Two, perhaps. They're slow, on the march." Ilya nodded. His expression closed up, becoming remote from Tess, from his companions, from everything except the matter at hand. "A council," he said to the messenger. "You ride to the Sakhalin camp. Aleksi, get me Vershinin and Grekov. All the dyans to my camp." The sun crept up ever higher in the sky, and Tess could see that it would be another hot day.

Another dawn. Two riders sat side by side on a slope overlooking a river and beyond it the far distant walls of Qurat and the hills and mountains behind. Where once had lain the camp of the jaran, filling the flat ground between as water fills a lakebed, now two armies moved, restless, falling into position. To the west, where the pass opened out onto Qurat's plateau, the last of a stream of wagons, the Habakar supply line, trundled in toward the city, which had opened its gates now that the jaran had given up the ground before its walls. To the northeast, on the other side of the shallow river from the armies, huge squares of wagons had formed, making a mobile fortress of the jaran camp. Behind the two riders, along the ridgetop, a thousand horsemen waited, watching.

"Anatoly is furious," said Tess. "He wanted to ride in the battle, not watch it from up here as part of my escort."

Aleksi glanced up at the line of riders a stone's throw above them. Because Anatoly's jahar was lightly armored, red was still the dominant color of the line, diluted with the dull gleam of armor and accented by red ribbons tied to their lances. Scattered within the red line, the archers wore many different colors. "Anatoly is a fine commander, but he has yet to learn that battle is not the only way for a man to gain honor.''

"Aleksi, you can't be any older than Anatoly. How have you gained this knowledge?''

She grinned at him, but Aleksi pondered the question, frowning. He patted his fine gray mare on the withers. Bakhtiian had given him the horse when Tess had adopted him as her brother. The irony still amused Aleksi, in a black kind of way. Tess had quite literally saved him from death; she had stopped the Mirsky brothers from killing him for the crime of stealing a horse from their tribe, a crime which it was quite true he had committed and deserved to die for. And in return, he, who deserved nothing, had gotten everything: a sister, a tent, a family, and a tribe. And this fine gray khuhaylan mare, who was a finer horse than anything the Mirsky tribe had ever owned. Certainly she was a far finer animal than the broken-down old tarpan he had stolen after Vyacheslav Mirsky had finally died. He would never have stolen a horse, but he needed to leave the tribe quickly, before they took away from him-the damned orphan the old man had taken in-the few but precious gifts Vyacheslav had given him.

"Tess," he said finally, seriously, "though no one ever disputed how good I was with the saber, did that bring me honor? No, because I was an orphan. Even at Bakhalo's school, though I won every contest, still, I had no standing. It seems to me that fighting in a battle can only bring a man honor if he already has honor from his family."

Tess watched him, looking thoughtful. It was one of the things Aleksi loved about her. He had never been part of any tribe, not since he was very young, a little older than Kolia, perhaps, and his whole tribe had been killed by khaja raiders. The gods might as well have swept a plague over them, it was so sudden and so complete. All had gone, all but him and his older sister Anastasia. After that, the two of them had struggled along, always on the outside, sometimes tolerated, sometimes driven away, but Aleksi had learned to watch and guess and analyze, and in the end he had discovered that he did not see the world the same as other jaran did. But Tess never thought he was strange for that. Because Tess did not see the world the same, either.

"But Anatoly," said Tess, "has a burden to bear as well, being the eldest grandchild of Mother Sakhalin. He wishes to prove himself worthy of his place."

"It makes sense, in a way, that he married the khaja woman. That sets him apart, like it does Bakhtiian."

"Anatoly should have married a khaja princess then. He married to please himself. Certainly not to please his grandmother, who wanted him to marry Galina."

"Galina!"

"She's young, but in another two or three years… it would have been a good match, marrying him into Bakhtiian's family."

"It's true," said Aleksi, "that although Sakhalin is the eldest tribe, and first among all the tribes, Bakhtiian stands highest now."

"I wonder which of the daughter tribes your tribe descended from, Aleksi."

He did not want to think about it, but he managed a calm reply, to please Tess. "I don't know. I don't remember much of anything really, except that I had an aunt named Marina."

"And a sister, Anastasia." She said it softly.

Too horrible. It was too horrible to think of her. "Look," he said, pointing. "They're moving."

A moment later he realized his mistake. The color drained from Tess's face, and she clenched her left hand into a fist. Her lips pressed together. A single tear slid down her face. She had been talking to keep from thinking about what was going on below. Now he had hurt her.

"Why the hell," she said in a fierce undertone, "did he have to take the center for himself? Couldn't Sakhalin have commanded the center?"

"Tess. Look out there." Surely even in the face of her fear, Tess understood the demands of honor. "That is the Habakar king. Bakhtiian had to take the field personally."

The ground sloped down from the hooves of their horses to the river, and across the river the jaran army massed opposite the Habakar legions. Banners sprouted up here and there, marking units. To the rear of the Habakar center a veritable forest of pennons and flags marked the king's own guard, who all wore gold surcoats and who were mounted on gray horses harnessed with gold. Opposite the Habakar center massed the jaran center, which was distinguished only by a plain gold banner out slightly in advance of the front ranks.

"Gods," said Aleksi, "surely Bakhtiian isn't going to lead the charge?" Seeing Tess's anguished face, he lapsed into silence. There was nothing they could do from this distance, not now. But the gold banner simply rode along the jaran lines, surveying them and surveying the enemy, and came back again, and the center parted to let it through to the rear.

Drums beat. Like the sudden strike of a snake, the two flanking units of the jaran army sprang into action. They swept obliquely, swinging wide to hit the ends of the Habakar line with the middle of their units. The center moved forward to engage their Habakar opposites, and the jaran reserve, marked by Bakhtiian's golden banner, moved forward with them, but stayed behind the back ranks.

"I feel sick," said Tess.

On the left flank, Sakhalin hit hard. Immediately the Habakar line began to give way, shrinking back as Sakhalin's riders curled around the end. Stragglers trailed off from the back of the enemy line. But Vershinin was not so lucky. The Habakar flank shifted to receive his attack, and the engagement deteriorated into chaos. Sheets of arrows blurred the scene at intervals, like a cloud's shadow.

"They're all on foot in the middle ranks of the khaja army," said Aleksi, trying anything to keep Tess from making herself ill with dread. "What's that called?"

"Infantry."

"Yes. By their colors it looks like there are two units of them, green and blue, with the king and his mounted guard behind. Why aren't they reacting? Sakhalin is pressing, but I don't know if Vershinin can hold. What does Bakhtiian mean to do?"

All was confusion in the center, with the jaran lines and the Habakar lines intermingling. A pall like smoke hung over the battlefield, waxing and waning: dust thrown into the air.

"Look!" exclaimed Aleksi. "Look how their line is drifting." The Habakar green unit shifted, slowly at first and then with speed, drawing away from the center to drive against Vershinin's exposed flank. A gap grew, and grew, between the center units. Flags and pennons waved and bobbed to the beat of a resounding drum as the king's guard moved forward to fill the gap.

Bakhtiian's gold banner shifted. The jaran reserve moved. Like lightning, it struck forward, the gold banner first through the gap between the blue and green units. Bakhtiian's riders hit the king's guards, driving them backward. Other groups split off to attack the drifting infantry unit, leaving the blue infantry unit stranded and, soon enough, surrounded.

Chaos on the field. It was all Aleksi could make out, from this distance. The gold banner thrust in among the pennons and flags of the guard. Where the king was, where Bakhtiian was-it was impossible to tell.

"Oh, gods," said Tess, and then said it again, and then lapsed into silence. She went pale with fear. Tears leaked from her eyes, but she cried without sound. Zhashi, sensing her mood, remained quiet under her.

But the king's guard disintegrated under the force of Bakhtiian's attack. In a straggling line they fled backward, deserting their infantry units, racing for the city and for the hills.

The gold banner streamed out onto the deserted field and then stopped and, with deathly precision, the reserve re-formed into ranks and turned and hit from behind the Habakar line engaged with Vershinin.

After that, it was slaughter. Qurat closed its gates. A steady line of Habakar soldiers retreated toward the pass. Like a fainter echo, an uneven stream of jaran casualties forded the river, heading in to camp.

"Tess." Aleksi unhooked his water flask from his saddle and opened it. "You must drink something. It's almost midday. And eat. Here."

"I'm not hungry." Her voice was hoarse. She started, dragging her gaze away from the field. After a moment she accepted the flask and drank. Then, because he continued to hold out a strip of dried meat, she sighed and took the meat from him and chewed on it unenthusiastically.

The gold banner broke away from the battle and headed toward the river. Now Aleksi could distinguish individuals. Three riders separated from the unit and splashed across the river to head up toward Tess. Tess wiped at her face furiously, eliminating the telltale marks of tears.

Bakhtiian had not one mark on him, though he had been in the thick of the battle. Vladimir, at his right, had four arrows sticking out at angles from his cuirass but a broad grin on his face. In his left hand he held the banner pole, its end braced into a wooden cup tied to his saddle. The gold cloth stirred in the breeze. Another orphan, Vladimir was, who had found a home in the Orzhekov tribe: He was Bakhtiian's chosen banner bearer, and he was married to a woman of the tribes. No wonder he was happy.

Konstans Barshai had his helmet off, and a wicked-looking cut scored across his left eye and forehead and up onto his scalp, but the blood splashed down his face and on his armor did not seem to bother him, and his seat was steady. Anatoly Sakhalin rode down to greet them. He looked tense and angry.

"Well met," said Bakhtiian. His gaze had, first and most tellingly, focused in on his wife, but now he scanned the line of riders above and glanced back toward the field below. "A well chosen vantage point."

Anatoly did not reply for a minute. His face was flushed, and his lips set. "I wished to fight in the battle," he blurted out. "I would have done well."

Bakhtiian turned his attention to the younger man. His even gaze caused Anatoly to flush even more. "Is this not honor enough for you, Sakhalin, watching over what I hold most dear? Did I single out any other commander for this post? To serve my wife, who will forge the links that will allow us to hold together what we are winning now? Not every battle can be won out there." He waved toward the field, and the army mopping up, and swung back to glare at Anatoly. "Your uncle Boris is dead. Killed on the field."

Anatoly paled, and then color rushed back into his cheeks.

"But in time, if this jahar serves its purpose, we can use words to win our wars, not our own relatives."

"I beg your pardon, Bakhtiian," said Anatoly in a low voice. "I spoke rashly. I didn't think."

"You are young," said Bakhtiian, more gently. "Very well. I have no need of envoys right now. Yaroslav Sakhalin is forming up his army now to start over the pass. Anatoly, you will take your jahar and go with him. But I charge to you this duty: that you will be responsible for bringing back to me the head and coat and crown of the Habakar king. After that, I will expect you to serve my wife with a more level head."

Anatoly flushed a bright red, and Aleksi could not tell whether it was chagrin or excitement that most colored him. "Thank you! You honor me!" He paused and glanced toward the jaran camp, busy with the wounded. "May I say good-bye to my wife?"

Bakhtiian arched an eyebrow. "There is no time. I want the king. Go."

Without further hesitation, Anatoly nodded his assent and went back up to the ridgetop to order his jahar forward.

"Aleksi," said Bakhtiian, watching this movement with an expression of pained amusement, "I don't mean to slight you as well. Would you like to go with them?"

"I am content where I am, Bakhtiian."

"Ah." Bakhtiian turned his black and they started down toward camp, Tess between Bakhtiian and Aleksi, and the two young riders trailing behind, a discreet escort. "Tess, you haven't said one word to me. Are you well?"

"You didn't have to lead that charge," she said in a low voice. Aleksi could hear how drawn her voice was, taut and strained.

"But I did," he said, equally softly. "That man killed my envoys and blinded Josef.''

Her silence was eloquent.

"Now do you see?" he asked, softer still. "Do you see why I was so reluctant to let you join Yaroslav Sakhalin's jahar? Do you think I doubted your ability to fight? Never that, Tess. I doubted my own ability to stand the sight of you in such danger.''

"I never saw you actually ride into battle like this. Not until now. Gods." She lapsed into silence again, but she sounded mollified.

"In truth, it makes little sense for me to lead the army from the front ranks, or to risk myself in such an impulsive charge." He grinned. "I won't do it again, my love."

She chuckled. Weakly, it was true, but it was a laugh nonetheless. "Unless you have to."

"Unless I have to."

They rode into camp and immediately Bakhtiian was besieged. He excused himself and rode off with a trio of men: one of the Vershinin cousins, the Raevsky dyan, and Anton Veselov.

"Now what do I do?" Tess asked of Aleksi. "They have no need of me with the wounded. Mother Sakhalin runs the camp, and Sonia our tents. I don't have enough experience for any council of war. What use am I?"

Aleksi could hear how upset she was, as if she had turned her fear into disgust at herself. "If this was your brother's army, what would you be doing?''

Tess glanced at him, startled. She had not been expecting him to reply. Then she laughed. "You're right, of course. Let's see if there are any Habakar prisoners. I've got a start on their language, and I need to develop my understanding of their legal system as well. Let me see. Aleksi, go to-who is handling prisoners?"

"Raevsky."

"Well, that seems appropriate. We'll go sort out a few and take them to my tent. Josef and I can work on this together.''

"You must not forget to eat, Tess."

"With you here, and Sonia? I won't."

On through the afternoon Tess and Josef sat side by side on pillows, under the awning of her tent. Five Habakar prisoners-two noblemen, three priests-knelt out in the sun in front of them, and ten archers and ten riders stood at guard around them. Tess was writing something down in her book when Dr. Hierakis hurried into camp and stopped ten paces away to survey Tess with a skeptical eye. The doctor strode over to Aleksi.

"Has she rested?" she demanded of Aleksi. "Eaten? Has she gotten enough to drink?"

Aleksi nodded. "Sonia and the children have brought us everything we need."

Tess turned. "Cara." She switched to Rhuian. "I've made up my mind about the-" She said a word Aleksi did not recognize. "I want you to prepare the-" She stopped, glanced at Aleksi, and went on in her other language, the one she called Anglais. Aleksi went very still, and he concentrated. He was quick with language, quicker than anyone suspected, even Tess, and he had learned long ago that in order to survive he had to be one step ahead of everyone else. Something about Ilya, and a drink; something about growing old, or not growing old-that was confusing; the doctor objected, Tess insisted, and between them they reached an agreement. The doctor looked-not reluctant, but as though she had to make a show of being reluctant. Tess did not look triumphant that she had won out over the doctor's objections; she looked stubborn and defensive.

The doctor excused herself and left. Tess turned back to her discussion of the general outlines of Habakar legal doctrine. Josef, who wore his empty eye sockets as if they were a badge of pride, brushed Tess's sleeve with a hand, verifying her presence, and she edged closer to him. Kolia brought them milk. The little boy stared hard at the foreigners baking out under the heat of the sun, at their outlandish clothing and their olive-dark complexions and the sharp line of their black beards. It was a drowsy heat, stifling and dry. Aleksi listened to the voices of the priests droning on, punctuated here and there by a question from Tess or Josef, or a monosyllabic reply from one of the terrified noblemen. Eventually he dozed.

He started awake when Bakhtiian arrived.

"Send them away." Bakhtiian gestured toward the Habakar prisoners. "I'm hungry." He vanished into the tent, reappeared a moment later with a pillow, and threw it on the ground beside Josef. Then he sank down beside the blind man and took one of Josef's hands in his own. Rapidly and in a low voice, he began to tell him in detail about the battle.

Tess rose and went to help Sonia and the children with the food. It was getting dark. Aleksi got up and lit the lanterns, hanging them around the tent poles so that they gave off a soft glow of light that penetrated out beyond the awning. Venedikt Grekov and his nephew Feodor came by with an intelligence report about the pass and the flight of the Habakar king. Sakhalin's jahar was hard on the king's heels and they had overtaken so many khaja soldiers that they had simply killed them rather than be burdened with prisoners. With Grekov also came his niece, Raysia. She offered to stay and sing for them.

Dr. Hierakis came back in time to eat with them, and she brought with her the stocky khaja woman Ursula, who was flush with accounts of the battle. Other members of the Orzhekov tribe came, Vladimir and Konstans and other riders-some with their wives and children, those who had them along-and Niko Sibirin and Juli Danov and their grandchildren. Everyone was in a fine humor, as well they might be.

Raysia sang. Between each song she looked long and hard at Aleksi before beginning her next piece. He was gratified by her attention, but worried by it, too. What if Raysia Grekov told her mother that she wanted Aleksi to marry her? A Singer did not have to concern herself with pleasing anyone but herself. The gods had touched her, everyone knew that, and with the gods' touch came not only great responsibilities and burdens but great freedom as well. Raysia was also an outsider, in a way. At the age of twelve her spirit had been borne away by the gods to visit their realms, and her body had lain for days, empty, in her mother's tent. When she returned, she was a Singer, her sight altered forever. She was shunned and feared by some, but respected by everyone, and she had the gift to see what was hidden from others. Aleksi sometimes wondered if he had been touched by the gods in that way, but the curse he had brought down first on his tribe and then on his beloved sister Anastasia was surely a punishment for his presumption. If Raysia Grekov wanted him, how could he refuse her, though it was properly a man's choice in marriage? He did not want to leave Tess, even to go to live with Raysia. He had lost Anastasia already, those many years ago. He did not intend to lose his new sister, Tess. It would be better not to marry, or perhaps to marry another orphan, one Tess and Bakhtiian and Sonia were willing to admit into the family. Valye Usova was a nice girl… but she would bring her brother Yevgeni with her, a brother whose loyalty was still suspect, since he had ridden with Vasil Veselov for so many years.

It was too painful to contemplate. Aleksi shut off these thoughts and tried to concentrate on the singing, but his heart was not in listening this night. Next to him, Tess shifted restlessly. She kept glancing over at Dr. Hierakis with a questioning gaze, and the doctor nodded each time, assuring her of something, Aleksi was not sure what. Bakhtiian listened keenly to the music, drank sparingly from the cup refilled by his wife, and spoke closely to Josef in the intervals between songs.

That night, after Aleksi had gone to bed, Raysia came to his tent and he let her in. Gods, but she was sweet. And yet, lying awake after she had gone, he knew that he could not leave Tess, and not just for his own sake.

In the morning a deputation emerged from Qurat to seek terms, but Bakhtiian refused to see them. Instead, he left Josef behind with the rearguard and the Veselov and Raevsky tribes, and told Josef to leave the Qurat envoys waiting for a few days and then strip the wealth from the city in return for its complete and utter submission to jaran rule. They broke camp and started up into the pass. Bakhtiian rode at the head of the army, next to his wife. He looked pale. At midday he called a halt and sat, just sat for a time, rubbing at his forehead with his hands. They camped along the road that night and set out again in the morning. This day Bakhtiian was clearly ill. Dark circles rimmed his eyes, and his skin had a mottled, pasty color. Once, and only once, Tess suggested he ride in a wagon. But he did switch mounts at midday, choosing a placid little bay mare for the rest of the day's ride instead of his restive stallion.

Late that afternoon they reached the summit, a broad, windy height. From here, Aleksi saw the hazy outlines of land far below, fields, a miniature city, and the endless spread of land out to the blue horizon. Up here it was clear and hot, and the wind buffeted Aleksi where he stood on an outcropping staring down, far down, to the Habakar lands. Smoke rose in patches scattered across the countryside. Evidently Sakhalin's army had already arrived.

He walked back to the front rank of wagons to find Sonia ordering that Tess's great tent be set up, although the rest of the army was on marching orders and sleeping under wagons or out in the open for the night. The cloth walls shook and rippled, torn by the heavy wind, and Aleksi ran over to help. It took fifteen people to battle the tent into place and secure it, and even then the wind boomed and tore at the walls. They could not set up the awning at all. The gold banner, raised on the center pole, snapped loudly in the gale.

Bakhtiian watched the proceedings from horseback. He was white and his hands shook, but he did not dismount until Tess came to lead him inside. Her face, too, was white, but with an agony of the heart not of the physical body. They disappeared inside the tent. Dr. Hierakis strode up soon after and went inside. Sonia followed her in and emerged moments later.

"Aleksi! Set up your tent just beside here, and don't leave camp."

"What's wrong with him?" Aleksi asked in a low voice, aware of people milling around, asking questions.

Sonia shrugged. "Vladimir says one of the Habakar priests cursed him. Perhaps it's witchcraft."

"Perhaps," said Aleksi. But what if it wasn't Habakar witchcraft? He had seen Dr. Hierakis at work, had seen that she knew how to heal wounds that even the finest jaran healers would have given up on. Everyone got sick, at times. Plagues might race through a tribe, and during the siege of Qurat, many of the jaran had gotten fevers. Children had died, as well as some of the men weakened by wounds. Why should Tess look so anguished? Bakhtiian was strong. There was no reason to think a simple fever would kill him. Unless this was not a simple fever.

Aleksi unsaddled his mare and hobbled her for the night, and set up his tent alongside Tess's. At dusk, the wind died down. Fires were built, but with night came the strong winds again, ripping at the camp, at the tents, at the fires. Most people hunkered down to wait it out. Dr. Hierakis emerged out of the tent, alone.

Aleksi lit a lantern, shielding the flame with his body until it steadied and then sliding the glass back into place, and he offered to escort her back to her wagons.

She shook her head. "You stay here. Galina is waiting-there she is."

"Bakhtiian?"

"He's ill. But he seems stable. I think he'll have a few rough days before he feels better.''

"Is it the river fever?"

She glanced at him, measuring, curious. "No, I don't think it's the river fever.''

"Ah," said Aleksi. "Neither did I."

The light spread a glow across her front, illuminating her face and the strong line of her jaw. Her black hair faded into darkness, and her plain tunic was washed gray. "You're a strange one. Sometimes I think you see more than we know you do."

"You speak khush very well now. You learned it quickly. The actors did, too. Have you noticed how many of their-what do they call them? Songs?''

"Plays."

"— plays that they've begun to say in khush?"

"No, I hadn't. I haven't seen any of their performances. Good night, Aleksi."

"Good night, Doctor."

She gave him a brusque but sympathetic nod and went off with Galina. Aleksi wondered how old she was. She did not look any older than, say, Bakhtiian, but she carried herself like an Elder. She carried herself like Mother Sakhalin or Niko Sibirin, and the Elders treated her like one of their own. Perhaps she, too, was a Singer, a gods-touched mortal, granted knowledge beyond her years. That might explain the Elders' respect for her, and her own strange way of carrying on, of looking at things from afar, of measuring and watching. Like he did.

He went to bed. As he dozed off, a voice whispered at the front of his tent. He inched forward to twitch the tent flap aside. It was Raysia. Though he could only make out the outline of her form, silhouetted against the incandescent stars, he could feel it was her, knew it by the shape of her hair and the soft, clean scent she bore with her. She slipped inside. The walls of his tent shuddered in the unceasing wind, but otherwise it was silent. He fell asleep afterward with her draped half over him.

Only to start awake, hearing his name.

"Aleksi!"

Tess, calling to him. She was not screaming, not yet, but panic swelled her voice. He eased away from Raysia, and she woke, mumbling a question.

"Stay here," he said, struggling to get dressed. He cursed himself for not sleeping with his clothes on.

"Aleksi! Oh, God."

He grabbed his boots in his left hand and his saber in his right and crawled out of his tent and ran to hers. Tess was not in the outer chamber. A single lantern lit the inner chamber, and he found her there, rocking back and forth on her heels, staring, rocking, gasping for breath.

"Aleksi! Oh, thank the gods. Get Cara. Please." Her voice broke.

Bakhtiian lay asleep on pillows, a fur pulled up over his naked chest. His face was slack, and his mouth half open. He looked rather undignified, sprawled out like that. Aleksi paused to pull on his boots.

"I can't wake him up." She choked out the words. Then she began to sob. "Oh, God, why did I do it? Why did I insist?''

"But, Tess-" Her complete disintegration shocked him horribly. "Here, let me try." He bent over her, daring much, and shook Bakhtiian gently. No response. Then, suddenly, losing patience and hating the terrible shattering condition Tess had fallen into, he slapped him. Bakhtiian's head absorbed the blow, moving loosely, but he did not stir in the slightest. And Aleksi understood: Bakhtiian's spirit had left his body. He had seen it happen once before, with his own sister Anastasia, some four winters after their tribe had been obliterated. Except his sister had never come back. Her spirit had stayed in the gods' lands, and her body had withered and, at last, died.

Like a black wave, fear and anguish smothered him. He could not move. He could not move.

"He's going to die, Aleksi. He's going to die."

Brutally, Aleksi crushed the fear down, down, burying it. Then he ran to get the doctor. Dr. Hierakis was fully dressed, sleeping wrapped in a blanket beneath one of her wagons. She rose with alacrity and hurried back with him, stumbling once in the dark. A thick leather bag banged at her thigh. The wind whined and blew around them. The walls of Tess's tent boomed and sighed as he went in behind the doctor and followed her in, all the way in, to stand silent just inside the inner chamber.

Tess talked in a stream of rapid Anglais. The doctor ran a hand over Bakhtiian's lax face, moved his flaccid limbs. She opened her bag and brought out-things.

Aleksi effaced himself. He willed himself to become invisible, but neither of the women recalled that he was there.

Things. Objects. Aleksi did not know what else to call them, so smooth, made of no metal he recognized, if indeed it was even metal. Not a fabric, certainly, not any bone he knew of, this hand-sized block that the doctor palmed in her right hand and held out over Bakhtiian's head. Just held it, for a long moment, doing nothing. Then she swept it slowly down over his body, uncovering him as she went. When she had done, she covered him back up again and took a flat shiny tablet and laid it on a flat stretch of carpet and said two words.

If Aleksi had not honed his self-control to the finest pitch, he would have jumped. As it was, he twitched, startled, but he made no noise. The tablet shone, sparked, and a spirit formed in the air just above it. A tiny spirit, shaped with a man's form but in all different colors, wavering, spinning, melding. Until Aleksi realized that it was Bakhtiian's form, somehow imprisoned in the air above the tablet.

He must have gasped or made some noise. Tess jerked her head around and saw him.

"Damn," she said. "Aleksi, sit down."

He sat. "What is it? Is that Bakhtiian's spirit?"

Dr. Hierakis glanced up from studying the slowly rotating spirit hanging in the air. "Goddess. I thought you'd stayed outside."

"It isn't a spirit, Aleksi," said Tess. "It's a picture. A picture of his body. It shows what might be making him-ill-what might be making him-"

"But his spirit has left his body," said Aleksi. "I know what it looks like when that happens. That's his spirit there." He pointed to the spirit. It spun slowly, changing facets like a gem turning in the light, little lines hatched and bulging, tiny gold lights stretched on a net of silvery-white wire, brilliant, as Aleksi had always known Bakhtiian's spirit would be, radiant and gleaming and surprising only in that it emitted no heat he could feel. "I can see it."

"No, he's just unconscious. That's just an image of his body. The doctor is trying to find out why he's fallen into this-sleep."

"We know why," said the doctor in a dry, sarcastic tone. "I'm trying to find out how extensive the damage is." Then she said something else in Anglais.

"Oh, hell." Tess burst into tears again.

"It isn't Habakar witchcraft," said Aleksi suddenly. "It's yours."

The doctor snorted. "It isn't witchcraft at all, young man, and I'll thank you not to call it that. But it's quite true that we're the ones responsible."

"I'm the one responsible," said Tess through her tears.

Dr. Hierakis shook her head. "What can I say, my dear? The serum has metastasized throughout the body, and for whatever reason, it's caused him to slip into a coma."

"You can't wake him up somehow?"

"Right now, since his signs are otherwise stable, I don't care to chance it. You knew the risks when you insisted we go ahead with the procedure."

Tess sank down onto her knees beside her husband and bent double, hiding her face against his neck. He lay there, limp, unmoving. The walls of the tent snapped in, and out, and in again, and out, agitated by the wind. The doctor sighed and spoke a word, and the luminous spirit above the tablet vanished. A single white spark of light shone in the very center of the black tablet. A similar gleam echoed off the doctor's brooch.

Aleksi jumped to his feet. "Where did his spirit go?" he demanded.

Dr. Hierakis let out all her breath in one huff. "Aleksi, his spirit did not go anywhere. It's still inside him. That was just an image of his spirit, if you will."

"But-"

"Aleksi." Now she turned stern. "Do you trust Tess?"

"Yes."

"Do you think she would do anything to harm Bakhtiian?"

"No."

"Aleksi. This slate, this tablet here, it isn't a magic thing, it's a-a machine. Like the mechanical birds that the ambassador from Vidiya brought but more complex than that. It's a tool. It can do things, show us things, that we could not otherwise do ourselves or see ourselves. It helps us do work we otherwise could not do, or work that would take much longer to do if we did it-by hand."

Aleksi considered all this, and he considered how many times he had wondered why Tess seemed ignorant of the simplest chores and duties that the jaran engaged in every day. "Do you have many of these machines in Jeds?"

The doctor smiled. He saw that she was pleased that he was responding in a clever, reasonable way to her explanations. He knew without a doubt that she was telling him only a part of the truth. "Yes. Many such machines."

"Then why didn't Bakhtiian see them there, when he was in Jeds? I never heard Sonia or Nadine mention such machines either.''

"Tell him the truth," said Tess, her voice muffled against Bakhtiian. "I can't stand it, all these lies. I can't stand it. Tell him the truth."

Aleksi crouched down and waited.

The doctor placed her tablet inside her bag and followed it with the little black block. "The truth is, Aleksi, that we don't come from Jeds, or from the country overseas, Erthe, either. We don't come from this world. We come from up there." She pointed at the tent's ceiling.

He shook his head. A moment later, he realized what she meant, that she meant from the air above, from the heavens. "Then you come from the gods' lands?"

"No. We aren't gods, nothing like. We're human like you, Aleksi. Never doubt that. We come from the stars. From a world like this world, except its sun is one of those stars."

She could be mad. But he examined her carefully, and he could see no trace of madness in her. The doctor had always seemed to him one of the sanest people he had ever met. And as strange as it all sounded, it might well be true.

"But. But how can Tess's brother be the prince of Jeds, then? If he-" Aleksi broke off. "May I see that thing again? Does it show other spirits besides Bakhtiian's?"

"So much for the damned quarantine," muttered the doctor.

"What are we going to tell them?" Tess asked. She straightened up. Tears streaked her face, but she was no longer crying. "When they come in and see him like this? How long, Cara? How long will he stay this way?"

"I can't know. Tess, I promise you, I will not leave him. But I'll need some kind of monitoring system. I'll have to set up the scan-bed in here, under him, disguise it somehow. I'll need Ursula." She glanced at Aleksi. "And hell, we've got him now. With the four of us, we can keep the equipment a secret. I think. Unless you want the whole damned camp to know.''

"No!" Tess stood up and walked to the back wall and back again, and knelt beside her husband, and stroked his slack face. "No," she repeated, less violently. "Of course not. I just-" She looked at Aleksi. He saw how tormented she was, how terrified, how remorseful. "Aleksi." Her voice dropped. "You do believe that I didn't mean for this to happen. That I'm trying to help-oh, God."

She was pleading with him. Tess needed him. "But I trust you, Tess. You know that. You would never hurt him."

She sighed, sinking back onto her heels. Her face cleared. However slightly, she looked relieved of some portion of her burden. And he had done it. It was almost sharp, the satisfaction of knowing he had helped her.

"But what will we tell the rest of the jaran?" the doctor asked. "I hope I needn't remind you, Aleksi, that anything you've seen in here must be kept a secret. Must be."

"Will his spirit come back?" Aleksi asked.

"It will," said Tess fiercely.

"I don't know," said the doctor.

Aleksi rose. He shrugged. "Habakar witchcraft. They're saying it already."

The doctor grimaced. "I don't like it."

"What choice do we have?" asked Tess bitterly.

"Well." The doctor rose, brushing her hands together briskly. "There's no use just sitting here. Aleksi, can you go fetch Ursula? Then meet me at my wagons."

He nodded and ducked outside. A faint pink glow rose in the east. The wind was dying. Up, bright in the heavens, the morning star shone, luminous against the graying sky. Could it be? That they came from-? Aleksi shook his head. How could it be? How could they ride across the air, along the wind, up into the heavens? And yet. And yet.

His tent flap stirred. Raysia ducked outside, dressed and booted. She saw him and started. "Oh, there you are. Is something wrong?"

"Habakar witchcraft," he said, knowing that the sooner he let the rumor spread, the more quickly Tess and Dr. Hierakis could hide their own witchcraft. Their own machines. "The Habakar priests have put a curse on Bakhtiian."

"Gods," said Raysia. "I'd better run back and tell my uncle." She glanced all around and, seeing that no one yet stirred in the predawn stillness, she kissed him right there in the open. "I'd better go." She hurried off.

So it begins. He paused at the outcropping. The land was a sheet of darkness below, black except for a lambent glow flickering and building: Sakhalin had fired the city.