Traitors Gate

PART ONE
Foreigners
1

Late at night a fight broke out beyond the compound's high walls.

Keshad sat up in darkness. At first he thought himself in the Hundred, in the city of Olossi, still bound as a debt slave to Master Feden. Then he smelled the rancid aroma of the harsh local oil used for cooking. He heard shouts, jabbering words he could not understand.

He wasn't in the Hundred. He was in the Sirniakan Empire.

He groped for the short sword he had stashed under the cot.

'Eh? Keshad?' A bleary voice murmured on the other side of the curtain.

'Quiet. There's trouble.'

The cloth rippled as Eliar wrestled with clothing, or his turban, or whatever the hells the Silvers were so cursed prudish about. Bracelets jangled. There came a curse, a rattle, and a thump as the cot tipped over.

'Where's the lamp?'

'Hush.' Kesh wrapped his kilt around his waist, approached the door, and, leaning against it, pressed an ear to the crack. All quiet.

'Nothing to do with us,' he whispered. 'Yet.'

The cot scraped, being righted. 'The Sirniakan officials have locked us in the compound, won't let us trade, and hand over a scant portion of rice and millet once a day so we don't starve. One of their priests told you the emperor is dead, killed in battle by his cousin. They've locked down Sardia and are restricting all movement. These troubles have everything to do with us. We have to get out of here, return to Olossi, and report these developments to Captain Anji.'

'Say it a bit louder, perhaps. That will help us, neh? If everyone figures out we're spies?'

'No need to constantly criticize me-'

Aui! No matter how much he disliked Eliar, he had to make this expedition work or he'd never get what he wanted. And to get what he wanted, he had to stay on Eliar's good side.

'I beg your pardon. It's hateful to be stuck in this cursed compound day and night.'

Eliar grunted in acknowledgment of the apology, which Kesh knew was gracelessly delivered. 'We've got to do something.''

Kesh jiggered the latch and cracked the door. It was strange to deal with hinges instead of proper doors that slid, but in the empire things were done one way or not at all, and if you didn't like it, the priests would condemn you to the fire. In the courtyard, a lamp hanging from a bracket illuminated the storehouse gates, but the far walls with their set-back doors into other storerooms and sleeping cells remained hidden in shadows. Trumpets, shouting, and the clash of weapons swelled in the distance, well away from the restricted market district where foreign merchants were required to reside and carry out all their trade. A whiff of burning oil stung his nose as a flame flared behind him.

'Pinch that down, you fool!' he whispered. 'We don't want anyone to know we're awake.' Nothing stirred in the courtyard. If anyone had seen that flare of light, they weren't acting on it. 'Listen, Eliar, you stay here. Make sure no one goes after our trade goods. I'm going to the gate to see what the guards will tell me.'

'The guards never tell us a cursed thing.'

'They talk to me because I worship at the Beltak temple.'

That shut Eliar up.

Keshad sheathed his sword and slung the sword belt over his back. He eased into the courtyard and padded cautiously past the open inner gate to the forecourt. The double gates had been barred for eight days, since the night when trumpets and horns had disturbed the peace and all the markets had been closed. Several figures huddled by the ranks of handcarts. One raised a lamp.

'Master Keshad? Maybe you can get these cursed guards to talk to you, since they favor you so much.'

The other Hundred merchants didn't like him any better than he liked them. They thought him a traitor for abandoning the gods of his birth for the empire's god, but what did it matter to them what god he chose to worship or what benefit that worship brought him? There were a pair of outlanders as well, a man out of the Mariha princedoms and one from the western desert whose slaves, languishing in the slave pens, he hadn't seen for days. For that matter, the drivers and guardsmen he and Eliar had hired in Olossi were confined in different quarters altogether, and he'd had no contact with them since the citywide curfew was imposed.

He rang the bell at the guardhouse. A guard in one of the

watch platforms above turned to look down into the forecourt. Bars scraped and locks rattled. The guardhouse door opened and the sergeant pushed into the forecourt, a pair of armed guards at his back and another guard holding high a lamp.

'Get inside!'

His angry words drove the merchants back into the main courtyard.

Keshad held his ground. 'Honored one, may I ask if we are in danger here?'

The sergeant's expression softened. 'I know nothing. Men have broken curfew. Best you get inside until the storm passes.'

The storm roared closer. A clatter of running feet in a nearby street was followed by a chorus of shouts so loud the sergeant flinched. Kesh took a step back from the double gates. The distinctive clamor of clashing swords and spears hammered the night, the skirmish racing as though one group was chasing another. The guards drew their swords; a fifth man popped out of the guardhouse.

'All ranks at the ready,' snarled the sergeant, and the man vanished back into the tower. 'They may try to break in.'

The skirmish flowed along the street outside as Kesh gripped his sword so tightly he was shaking. The noise reached a pitch and abruptly subsided.

The sergeant exhaled. He spoke to his guards in the local language, but Kesh was too rattled to catch more than a word here and there. Foreigners. Market. Fire. Traitors to the emperor.

Kesh glanced through the open door into the guardhouse, which snaked through the compound wall; there was a small gate for the guard unit on the street side because the guards watched both ways, keeping locals out and foreigners in.

As though slapped by a giant hand, the gates shuddered. The sergeant swore, signaled to his men, and bolted inside, swinging the door shut. A struggle erupted outside. Several merchants came running from the main courtyard, but Kesh shoved past them and ran to his cell, where Eliar waited by the door.

'These gods-rotted empire laws have us caged like beasts,' Kesh snapped, 'not a chance to get in or out nor anywhere to hide or escape to. Curse them.'

'Maybe we can get out over the roofs. I've had plenty of practice getting in and out of tight places in Olossi. My friends and I, we smuggled goods over the river.'

In the forecourt, merchants shouted, 'Block the gate!', 'Block the guardhouse door!'

Kesh began to laugh, because there wasn't anything else to find funny in their situation. 'The hells! Were you part of that gang the Greater Houses were constantly chasing?'

He felt the sting of Eliar's smile as though he could touch it. T was.'

'Aui! You didn't really get up on the roof, did you?'

T did. One night when you were sleeping. I used rope tied around the lamp brackets. But there's a walkway around the entire roof. They patrol it all night.'

'Keeping us in, or others out. Grab rope. And whatever you can carry that's too valuable to leave behind.'

'Climbing out of the compound is easy. But how can we get out of the city without being killed?'

'The hells!' Kesh collected the pouches of local spices, best-quality braid, and polished gems he'd brought south from the Hundred; he slung them over his back, buckling tight the straps so the pouches wouldn't shift as he moved. Then he grabbed rope coiled against the door that led into a small storeroom accessible only from this chamber. None of the goods he and Eliar had stored in there were worth his life.

'I'm ready,' said the Ri Amarah from the door.

Eliar's bulging packs brushed Kesh's arm. 'What in the hells are you carrying?'

'All the oil of naya.'

'Aui! Don't drop it by a flame.'

Kesh shouldered past and led Eliar to the archway of the inner gate. A few merchants were frantically shoving carts and benches in front of the closed double gates, but the rest were hiding in the storerooms. A struggle raged within the gatehouse, and outside the gates a crowd screamed words Kesh was pretty sure meant something like 'Kill the foreigners! Kill the traitors!'

'They haven't given us up,' said Kesh suddenly.

'What do you mean?'

'The sergeant and his guards could let that mob in. But they're defending us. Eiya! We'll need oil of naya.'

He expected Eliar to protest, but the other man swung down his bulky packs. Keshad ran to the cistern in the middle of the courtyard and climbed up.

'Heya! Heya! Get your weapons! Move! Our guards are

defending us against a mob that wants to kill us. If we don't help them, we're all dead. I need rags. Anything that will burn easily. Hurry, you cursed fools!'

He ran to the forecourt. The guards had abandoned the watch platforms that flanked the gates. Access to the platforms and the wall walk was from inside the guardhouse, now being fought over.

Merchants came running with weapons, with rags, one dragging a thin pallet. Two carried lamps. Eliar brought three leather bottles. Muffled crashes and shouts came from the guardhouse. Someone was taking a beating.

Keshad indicated the platforms above. 'We'll splash oil of naya over the crowd, light rags, and throw them down on top. That should drive them away'

'Heh. Just like the battle over Olossi,' said one man.

'I'll go up,' said Eliar immediately.

As Kesh slung a bottle over his shoulder he called the other merchants closer. 'Those who can fight, brace yourselves. Form up around the inner gate. Tip carts over, under the arch, to make a bottleneck. One of you roust out the cowards. We need everyone. Now, hoist me up.'

Kesh and another man climbed up on a cart. The man laced his fingers together and, when Kesh set a foot into the makeshift stirrup, raised him up so he could throw rope around one of the poles making the scaffolding of the platform. He clambered up and crouched on the platform as Eliar was helped up on the other side. The mob below hadn't yet spotted them. Men surged past the guardhouse door, pushing inside only to be cut down by the armed guardsmen. But the mob was growing, howling and barking like animals, or so it seemed to his ears. Working men who had, Kesh supposed, filled up with fear and now had to take it out on someone else, they were armed with torches, sticks, tools, and other such humble implements. None seemed to have bows. He licked his lips, tasted smoke. Elsewhere in the market district, compounds were burning.

The top of the twinned gates was broad enough to walk across if you didn't mind the height. Eliar hauled up a basket and crouched beside it, lifting out a burning lantern. Below, within the mob, a face looked up. Down along the street about ten men came running carrying ladders.

Keshad unsealed the first bottle. This was the dangerous part! He shook the vessel, oil spraying on the men crowded up below.

Eliar set fire to a rag and flung it outward, but it fell to the ground and was stamped out. Men threw sticks and debris up at them. The first ladder was pushed up against the gate. Keshad emptied the first vessel on top of the men at the base of the ladder. He unsealed the second and ran out along the top of the gate, flinging oil out as far away as he could. Men cursed at him, wiping away the oil that splashed on their faces. Spreading it. A second flaming rag fluttered down, and a third-

Fire touched oil on skin.

Shrieking, the man staggered, slamming into the men around him, half of whom had been splashed by oil of naya. The conflagration spread. The mob disintegrated as men fled in terror. The stench was horrible, and the screams were worse. But the street was clearing fast.

Keshad ran back to the platform, swung his legs over, and paid out the rope to let himself down to the forecourt. When he touched earth, his legs gave out. He pitched forward as the merchants babbled and cried.

Eliar bent over him. 'Keshad? Are you hurt?'

'Neh.' His speech was gone. His limbs were weak. He still heard screams.

'That saved us,' added Eliar.

'For now.'

'Clever of you to think of it. Just like at Olossi.'

The door to the guardhouse scraped open and the sergeant stumbled out, blood splashed all over him. Seen past the sergeant, a whitewashed room looked like a slaughterhouse, with tumbled corpses, the hazy smoke of torches, and a guardsman kneeling beside a fallen comrade.

'What do you? What do you?' The sergeant loomed over him, swiping smears of blood from his beard with his left hand while he extended the right. 'Good, good.'

Hesitantly, Keshad reached out, and the man clasped elbows in the grasp of kinship seen in the market among believers but never extended to foreigners.

Soon after dawn, a squad of mounted soldiers resplendent in green sashes and helmets trimmed with gold ribbons clattered up to the closed gates. Smoke drifted over the rooftops. The merchants who had sat the rest of the night on watch on the roofs hastily clambered down as the gates were opened.

The sergeant genuflected before the squad's captain. As the sergeant kept his head bowed, they exchanged a running jabber in their own language. An older merchant murmured a translation.

'There was trouble all across the market district last night. There is to be an inquiry anywhere local men were killed.'

'Against the mob, or against us?' Kesh muttered.

Worry creased the sergeant's face as he surveyed the merchants. The captain snapped a command that made the sergeant wince. With an apologetic grimace he pointed' — quite rudely, as out-landers always did, using the fingers — at Keshad.

'Bring him.' The captain's gaze paused on Eliar, with his butter-yellow turban. 'You come, also.'

Eliar took an obedient step toward the squad, but Keshad held his ground.

'What about our trade goods? What surety do we have they'll not be stolen while we're not here to guard them ourselves?'

The captain raised a hand, and soldiers drew their swords. 'You come. Or I kill you.'

Keshad wiped sweat from his eyes as his throat closed over a pointless protest. He shrugged, pretending calm. Eliar looked as if he'd been struck.

They walked under the market district gate and into the main city, a place no foreign merchant was ever allowed to enter. The empty streets were broad and clean-swept, walled on both sides, with gates opening at intervals into compounds. The hooves of the horses echoed in an eerie silence. Once Kesh saw a face peeping over a wall, dropping out of sight when their gazes met. Their procession wound inward and upward as the sun rose, and just when it was beginning to get really hot they arrived at a vast gate that opened into a grand courtyard lined with pillared colonnades carved of finest white marble.

The captain indicated a bench in the shade. 'Sit there.'

They sat. Four soldiers settled into guard positions while the captain rode into a farther courtyard glimpsed through a magnificently carved archway.

'Look at the figures carved on the arch,' whispered Eliar. 'There is the sun in splendor, the moon veiled, and the stars assembled in ranks to acknowledge the suzerainty of the god they worship here.'

' " The god they worship here"? That kind of talk will get you burned.'

Eliar shrugged. 'I'm saying it to you. Not to them. What would they do? Force me to worship at their god's temple?'

' How naive are you? Don't you know anything about the empire? They could tell you to say the prayers to Beltak, or suffer the punishment meted out to those who don't believe. Who in the I lundred could do a cursed thing if they killed you, eh?'

Eliar's smug smile infuriated Kesh. 'I am a faithful son of the Hidden One. That is all that matters. Look there!'

Kesh looked up and their guards came alert, then relaxed, tossing remarks to each other as he sank back on the bench. Eliar had just been pointing to a different section of the arch.

'There, the different officers of the court pay homage before the emperor's throne.'

'There's no one sitting in the throne.'

'He is holy, like the god, not to be pictured.'

'How do you know?'

'I read it! I know most of you in the Hundred don't read-'

'"You in the Hundred"! I thought you Silvers keep claiming you are simply humble Hundred folk just like the rest of us.'

'That's not what I meant-'

'If the emperor's not to be pictured, then why is there a statue of the emperor in the marketplace?'

'That's not the emperor. It's a statue of a male figure representing Commerce, richly clad and adorned with gilt paint to remind all those in the marketplace that through trade the empire becomes wealthy.'

Kesh puzzled over the vacant throne. Sure enough, there were the officers of the court attended by an array of half-sized men, meant perhaps to represent their underlings, and certain animals that evidently had some significance to each officer's mandate. At the height of the arch, above sun and moon and stars, was carved an elaborate crown ornamented by wavy lines most likely representing fire.

Mounted soldiers clattered in and passed through the open gates. Their garments were splashed with blood, and they looked grim.

'Did you really learn all this from books?' Kesh asked finally. 'How can you know it's true?'

Deep in Eliar's answering smile rose a glimpse of the sister, Miravia, seen once and never ever to be forgotten: a reckless, bold spirit, unquenchable. 'Of course I can't know it's true. Someone

thought it was, but that doesn't mean the one who wrote it was correct, does it? The person might have been wrong. Or might be right.'

'How do you Silvers-' As Eliar's mouth twisted in disapproval, Kesh caught himself and changed course. 'How comes it that you Ri Amarah possess books with so much detail about the empire?'

'Many of our houses — our clans — lived here for six generations, as it says in the prophecy, until they were driven out by the Beltak priests for not worshiping the empire's god. It's said in our histories that some among us renounced the Hidden One and stayed in the empire, because they prospered here, but I don't believe that.'

'You don't believe they prospered here? That any foreigner could?'

'I don't believe they renounced the Hidden One. How is it possible to renounce the truth?'

Keshad laughed. The guards turned, and he clamped his mouth shut.

Eliar fulminated. 'Are you laughing at me?'

'You've never been a slave. People renounce the truth all the time if it will give them an advantage. Then they convince themselves that what they wish to be true is the truth. Think of Master Feden, who once owned my debt. How could he have allied himself with that cruel army out of the north? He told himself he was doing the right thing even when everything he saw must have told him otherwise. Olossi is fortunate he's dead and that the army was driven away. Otherwise, where would you and I be?'

As soon as the words left Kesh's mouth, he was sorry he had spoken them, and yet not for Eliar's sake. Where would he be now? He and his sister Zubaidit would be somewhere in the north, starting over as free people unencumbered by debt slavery or obligation to the temple. If the defenders of Olossi had lost the battle, then they would not have been able to track down him and Bai and haul them back to stand before the Hieros of Ushara's temple in Olossi. There, Kesh had been condemned for a theft he had committed without knowing what he was doing was a crime.

Folk claimed a man could expect to be rewarded for good deeds and punished for bad ones if he made the proper offerings. The temples said so, and the Beltak priests said so, and no doubt the Hidden One said so. The only god he'd run into who didn't

seem to say so was Mai's god, the Merciful One, who offered shelter in times of trouble, of which there were plenty. Yet had the gods cared for him and Zubaidit after their parents had died?

And yet. And yet. If it all had not fallen out as it did, he would never have seen Miravia.

A man dressed in a red jacket hurried toward them. The four guards kneeled. There was an extended consultation in the local jabber so quick Kesh could not pick out words. The red-jacket guard gave an order and gestured at Kesh and Eliar in trade sign: Rise.

They followed him into a courtyard bustling with movement as soldiers assembled in ranks while others, dismounting, handed their horses over to grooms. The red-jacket guard led them through a second pair of gates into a dusty square where several hundred riders loitered beside saddled mounts, with a train of laden packhorses and a herd of spare mounts besides.

'You go.' The red-jacket guard indicated two sturdy geldings before moving away to exchange words with a young captain resplendent in green jacket, helmet adorned with gold plumes.

'Where are we going?' Eliar whispered, but Kesh shrugged. What use to speculate?

And yet he could not stop wondering, thinking, sorting. They rode out through the city on a wide avenue empty of traffic and thence out a handsome stone gate into the patternwork countryside, everything tidy, nothing out of order.

Only the empire was not truly in order. The emperor had been killed in battle by his own cousin as they fought over the throne. Which faction had taken them prisoner? What did they mean to do with them? Because there was another thing blazingly obvious about the soldiers who escorted them. Half wore green jackets to mark them as underlings of the gold-plumed captain, a man who did not over the course of that first day speak a single word to Kesh or Eliar. But the rest were Qin, with their phlegmatic expressions, unadorned armor, and scruffy little horses that were nothing much to look at but as tough as any creatures Kesh had ever encountered. And that raised a cursed uncomfortable question, didn't it? Where had these Qin soldiers come from, and why were they riding in company with Sirniakan troops?

'Heya, Kesh!' Eliar called to him from a nearby campfire where he sat with a gaggle of junior officers, all quaffing from brass cups. 'This poocha's so strong it'll make your eyes water. Come try some?'

The junior officers looked nervously toward Kesh, and then, politely, back at their cups. How like Eliar not to notice their discomfort, although it pranced right in front of his face. Keshad glared, but the cursed Silver could not see him well enough in the dusk to be properly stung and instead went back to his drinking and chatting and laughing, although how he could understand half of what the locals jawed on about Kesh could not imagine.

'You do not approve of your companion.'

Kesh jumped to his feet. 'Captain Jushahosh.'

A slave opened a camp stool, and the captain sat.

'I have no wine or poocha to offer you, Captain.' Kesh sat likewise.

Slaves approached bearing trays laden with cups, pitchers, eating utensils, and platters that they placed on a camp table. The captain murmured a blessing over food and drink before continuing. 'As you are my prisoner, I cannot expect you to offer hospitality. I see, Master Keshad, that you have remained aloof these ten days from the junior officers, who are merely warrior-born. Your companion seems easy with them. He is one of the heretics, is he not?'

'I'm not sure what you mean.'

'There is a story taught to educated men of a tribe of men who came by sea out of the east to settle in the empire. In our own tongue they were given the name, the men with silver arms. They lived with proper comportment for six generations, as it says in the holy books, but then their error was revealed and the priests were shown the truth of their hidden ways, that they spat upon the commands of the Shining One inside the walls of their own compounds. Out of respect for a kindness shown to the emperor by one of their number — or, as I consider more likely, because of a massive bribe paid to the temple — they were allowed to depart the empire without molestation, leaving behind all they could not carry. This they did. Some went north over the mountains and some west into the desert and some south into the forest of choking vines, but none sailed back east over the ocean to the place they had came from. You are a believer. You pray with us morning and night. Do you trust this man Eliar, with his silver arms?'

The captain stabbed a slice of spiced meat and popped it into his mouth. Keshad copied him, gaining a respite while he chewed and swallowed. The meat was moist and peppery.

'Have you some reason not to trust him that I should know of?'

The captain was sleek in all aspects; dressed and shod well, he carried a fine sword and rode a string of beautiful horses with roan coats like enough in texture and color that Kesh supposed them bred out of the same stable. 'He might be a spy.'

'So might I, then, as we are business partners.'

'One partner may not always know what the other plots in the shadows.'

'True enough. Eliar is decent enough, for a Silver.'

'A Silver?'

'That's what we call them in the Hundred, Captain. For the silver bracelets they wear on their arms. It seems your chroniclers called them the same.'

'He's like a creature out of a story walking into your father's palace. Does he have horns?'

The captain looked very young, and Kesh realized they were of an age but separated not by their lives as men of different countries but rather by the circumstances of their birth. Kesh was born to a humble clan whose kin had seen fit to sell him and his sister into slavery when their parents died; Jushahosh was born into a palace, son of a noble lord with many wives and slave women and therefore many such lesser sons.

T don't know,' Kesh said confidingly, leaning closer, 'for he clings to his privacy, as his people do. I've never seen him without the turban covering his head.'

They shared a complicit smile.

A prisoner who is a foreigner pretending to be a legitimate merchant only while being in truth secretly a spy and who fears he is being taken south to be burned as a spy must yet attempt to gather information, in case he gets out of his current situation alive.

'Strange to see the Qin soldiers here,' he added, nodding to-

ward the circle of fires where the Qin had set up their own encampment. 'Are they under your command? Do they take your orders? Don't they speak a different language?'

'Their chief can talk the trade language, just as I can. What they jabber about otherwise I don't know, but I suppose they mostly talk about sheep and horses.' He flashed a grin, and Kesh laughed. 'You're familiar with the Qin, eh? Seen them up in the Hundred?'

Sheh! Caught at his own game.

'I've heard of them, all right. Did I tell you the story of the journey I made into the Mariha princedoms? Two years ago, it was. I never saw so many strange creatures as out on the desert's borderlands. Didn't think I'd make it home. The Qin were the least of it!'

'What did you see?'

Kesh could embellish a story as well as anyone, for tales were the breath of the Hundred, exhaled with the beat of the heart and a lift of the hand. 'Demons, for one thing. Maybe you call them something else here.'

'No.' His gaze flicked, side to side, as he twisted his cup in his hands. 'What did they look like?'

'Ah. One was a woman-'

'Of course!'

'Her skin was as pale as that of a ghost. And her hair was the color of straw.'

'Truly a demon, then!'

'Her eyes were blue.'

The captain had just taken a mouthful of poocha. He spat it out, coughing and choking, as Kesh sat rigid. But the man waved away his slaves and laughed through his coughing. 'Horrible to look upon! Go on.'

Kesh dropped his voice to a murmur as the captain bent closer yet. 'She was enveloped in an enchanted cloak of demon weave, like cloth woven out of spider's silk. And beneath that cloak… she was unclothed. That was the other way I knew she was a demon.'

The captain's eyes flared with shame and heat; a flush stained his cheeks. 'What did she looked like, underneath?'

'Exalted Captain!' A junior officer, wearing his watch duty sash over his green jacket, came running up, his face slicked with a sheen of sweat although the evening was only moderately humid

and warm. 'There's a company of men upon the road. Imperial guards.'

A blast from a horn brought the captain to his feet. He strode off toward the lines, where lamps bobbed along the length of the road. In his wake, slaves gathered up tray and stool with the same swift grace they'd shown in setting it up. Kesh speared meat off the platter before they could whisk it out of his reach, and a slave waited impassively until he'd gulped down the strips before taking the eating knife away from him and following the others to the captain's tent. The junior officers set down their cups and charged off, chattering excitedly. Kesh hurried over to the fire and plopped down beside Eliar.

'Is there anything left to eat or drink here?'

Eliar rose, stepping away from him as if he bore a stench. He stared toward the lights half seen along the distant road. 'Do you think there might be a skirmish? How can you possibly think of eating when-?'

'You eat when there's food. No telling when you'll get more.' He hooked a triangle of flat bread off the common platter and crammed it in his mouth. He managed to down more bread and a crispy slice of a white vegetable, still moist and a little peppery, before servants descended to collect the trays and cups. Eliar was bouncing on his toes as if movement would help him see over the ranks of soldiers gathering amid the tents. Out by the road, men shouted, so much tension in their tone that Kesh rose likewise to stand beside Eliar.

'If they start fighting, make for our tent. We might have to run for it…'

Eliar grabbed Kesh's forearm, the touch so unexpected that Kesh flinched. 'I know you don't like me, but promise me this. If we die here, you'll tell the truth of it to my family.' He released him.

'If I'm dead, I can't tell anyone the truth, can I?'

'You seem like the kind of person who can get out of anything,' said Eliar, his voice as hoarse as if he'd been running. 'Even if it means abandoning others to do so.'

'At least I know what you truly think of me. You think I've got no cursed honor, don't you?'

Eliar shook his head stubbornly. 'If I die, Kesh, don't let them sell my sister into marriage with the Haf Ke Pir house in Nessumara. Promise me.'

From the road, the voices continued. The Qin soldiers had melted away to their horse lines.

'Don't you think it's too late? By the time we get back, won't they already have delivered her to Nessumara?'

'How could they? The roads aren't safe.'

'Reeves could fly her there! Or did that never occur to you?'

Eliar groaned. 'Aui! But no. Reeves aren't carters.'

'Is there one single thing in this world that isn't for sale if enough coin is offered? And if you get back safely and she's still at your home? Will you escort her yourself to Nessumara, to her new husband? The one she doesn't want to go to? It'll be all right then, knowing you've had your adventure?' Kesh knew how the words must sound, greasy with sarcasm, but cursed if Eliar was too caught up in his own writhing discontent to notice.

'If I die, I'll have cast her into misery for nothing. She in her cage, I to be burned. What have I done-'

What charged the air Kesh did not know, but before Eliar could draw another breath everything changed, as if lightning had struck. A trio of Qin soldiers, swords drawn, trotted out of the ilarkness masking the horse lines. Screams and shouts broke from the road. A flame — one of the lamps — arced high into the night sky as if flung heavenward, and then an arrow shattered it. The horn stuttered, answered by a call from down the road, a triple blat blat blat, and cursing and shouting and swords clattering like hooves in their staccato rhythm.

Kesh grabbed Eliar's wrist. 'Let's go!' He tugged, and yet Eliar would stand there like a dumbstruck lackwit gazing on the dance of festival lights.

Suddenly, that trio of Qin soldiers trotted up beside them with the unsmiling but not precisely unfriendly expressions of men come to do their duty. One hooked a thumb to indicate they should move away from the altercation. Kesh yanked harder until Eliar stumbled after him, gaze turned toward the skirmish whose color and sound made the camp seem as bright as day and twice as fearsome. Kesh's heart was galloping, like distant horses. Orders rang in a voice remarkably like Captain Jushahosh's, lilting high as with fright. A rumble spilled an undercurrent through the clash of arms. A woman's scream cut through the tumult.

As Kesh sucked in a startled breath, the world fell silent. For one breath there were neither questions nor answers, only the shock of hearing a female voice where none belonged.

The fighting broke out anew, redoubled in intensity. The Qin soldiers pressed them toward their tent. Eliar was so pale Kesh wondered if he would faint, while meanwhile he was himself looking in every direction, trying to figure out how and where he could run, how far he could get, and if it was worth trying to get the Silver to move with him lest he have otherwise to explain to Eliar's beautiful sister how Eliar had gotten abandoned with their enemies. And yet, how thoroughly impossible it was to hope for escape through a countryside where he would be known for a foreigner at first glance.

A swirl of Qin soldiers appeared out of the darkness, carrying on a running commentary with their fellows, words like the scraping of saws, all burrs and edges. They ran with choppy strides and corraled Kesh and Eliar. Movement roiled through the camp, a second wave of black-clad Qin soldiers driving the enemy before them like so many sheep.

Captain Jushahosh limped, his face smeared with blood and his sword mottled.

'Hei! Hei!' he cried. The Qin soldiers stepped away from their flock as more green-jacket guards streamed in and two aides brought forward lanterns. Four men had fallen to their knees, faces pressed into the dirt. The other figure was veiled, and she clasped a small body against her own, shielding it as the captain approached her. He gestured, and one of the junior officers stepped forward, grasped the little child, and ripped it out of her arms.

Her silence was worse than a scream would have been.

The Qin soldiers stared like dumb beasts as the junior officer cut the silk wrap off the child to reveal his sex. The child could not have made more than two years, a plump, healthy-looking boy with a strong voice exploding into a terrified howl.

The captain gestured. The junior officer slapped the child so hard he was stunned, splayed his body on the ground, and stepped back. The veiled woman flung herself forward, but before she reached the child, the captain hacked off the boy's head. She scrambled on hands and knees, a keening sound rising, and as she crawled to the body her veil and outer robes were wrenched into disarray, split to reveal an underrobe heavily embroidered with gold and silver thread. Her head, exposed as the veil ripped away under her crabbed hands, was that of a young woman of exceptional beauty; her eyes were dark, wide with stunned grief, and

her hair, falling loose from its pins and clasps, was as thick and black as a river of silk.

The Qin soldiers shook their heads, frowning.

The captain raised his sword again.

The Qin chief stepped forward, a man of easy competence who reminded Kesh of the scout Tohon. 'Captain Jushahosh. No need to waste this young woman. I will take her as a wife if you do not want her.'

But the motion was already complete, her fortune long since sealed. The cut drove deep into her neck, and she slumped forward, twitching, not yet dead, mewling and moaning. As the captain stepped back with a look of dazed shock, as if he'd thought to kill her in one blow, the Qin chief calmly finished her off but with a wry smile that Kesh took at first for cruel amusement. A murmur swept through the Qin soldiers like breeze through trees, but the Qin chief raised a hand and all sound ceased. The chief turned his back on the dead as a look of pure disgust flashed in the twist of his mouth and the crease made by narrowed eyes. Then he caught Kesh watching him, and his expression smoothed into the solemn look the Qin normally wore, as colorless as their black tunics.

Perhaps the captain had seen. 'A woman of the palace! She can have no honor left, her face exposed in such a manner. And her hair, seen by every man here, even by barbarians! Death honors her, although she disgraced herself.'

'She's dead now,' said the Qin chief, facing him with the same deadly smooth expression unchanged. 'Why kill the child?'

'That was one of the sons of the Emperor Farazadihosh.'

'A boy can be raised as a soldier, useful to his kinsmen.'

Servants brought canvas and silk to wrap the bodies. 'Why do you think we found a palace woman on the road at all? Escorted by a contingent of palace guards? With Farazadihosh's death in battle, the palace women who have borne sons of his seed have scattered. If even one survives, a standard can be raised against the new emperor. With a few such deaths, we bring peace. Isn't peace to be preferred to war?'

'This seems settled then,' said the Qin chief. 'Are these slaves to be killed also?'

'Slaves belong to the palace, not to the emperor. They obey those who rule them.' He handed his sword to an aide, who wiped it clean. 'Master Keshad, will you continue our meal?'

Eliar stumbled away, collapsing to all fours as he heaved. Kesh looked away from the bodies being rolled up, from the slaves awaiting their fate. He studied the Qin chief, but the man's gaze made him nervous, like staring down a wolf who might be hungry and thinking of you as his next meal or might recently have fed and finds you merely a curiosity. It was not that the Qin were merciful, but rather that they valued their loyalty to their kinsmen above all. For that, Kesh admired them.

But he was in the Sirniakan Empire now, and the Qin were, presumably, mere mercenaries. He turned to Captain Jushahosh.

'Yes, certainly, Captain. I hadn't finished my story, had I?'

They walked back through camp to the fire where they had first sat. Here, the slaves had already set out folding table, tray, cups, a fortifying wine warmed with spices. The white-robed Beltak priest who accompanied their troop was being helped by a pair of underlings toward the road, his priest's bowl hanging by a strap from his right wrist.

'The skirmish did not last long,' remarked Kesh as he settled onto a folding stool opened for him. The stool marked, he thought, new status in their eyes.

'They were desperate, but few in number. Still, there are dead, and the priest must oversee the proper rites. Those who fought must be cleansed at the next temple.'

'You're wounded? I saw you were limping.'

'No, not a scratch.' His grin was lopsided, a little embarrassed. 'Turned my ankle jumping out of the way of a man trying to stab me.' He sipped at the wine, and made a face. 'Eh. It tastes of blood.'

It tasted perfectly fine to Kesh, and when the captain had not the stomach to eat, Kesh finished off the spiced meat and freshly cooked flat bread. Slaves never knew when they would next eat. Not even the smell of blood and the memory of the little boy's headless corpse could put him off a good meal like this one. Anyway, ten days from now, or tomorrow, he might be dead, and it seemed a cursed waste not to enjoy such pleasures when offered.

The captain sighed. 'I wish I had your stomach, eh? I admit, that's the first battle I've been in. We missed all the action before.'

'You've never killed a man before?'

He waved a hand. 'I've had to kill disobedient slaves on my estate. But that's more like killing animals.'

'Ah.' Kesh swallowed bile. A man in a position as precarious as his must not risk offending his jailkeeper. 'How is it you come to this duty? Your house was an ally of the new emperor?'

'That's right. My grandfather went to the palace school with the younger brother of Farutanihosh for two seasons. They never cut that bond, the two men, even through all the years that followed. And of course the Emperor Farutanihosh never had his younger brother killed, as he ought to have done. It's always a disruption of God's order to raise the flags of war, but everyone knows that a woman who has birthed a son born of the emperor's seed will rouse her relatives to war on that son's behalf even though war is evil. That Farutanihosh did not foresee and prevent this by killing his younger brother was a sign of moral weakness, one that would be passed into his sons. Therefore, his sons must be corrupted by his failure and unworthy for the throne.'

'Yet now Farutanihosh's son Farazadihosh is dead, and it is his nephew, the son of the brother he left alive, who will become emperor.'

'That's right. Ujarihosh will be seated on the gold throne in the eight-gated palace, and the priests of Beltak will anoint him as I'arujarihosh, he who has gained the favor of the King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the Shining One who rules alone.'

'How far are we riding?' Kesh asked, wanting to lick his fingers but taking a fine linen cloth from a slave to wipe his hands instead.

'I'm not sure.' Jushahosh glanced toward the road, not visible from here, although they could hear the talk of men at the grisly task of clearing the road and the singsong chant of the priest. 'Until we meet the one who has summoned you.'

'Who is that?'

The captain sipped at his wine. 'I'm only a messenger. The truth is, I don't know any more than you do.'

With each day they rode deeper into the heart of the empire, traveling south through countryside so densely populated there was always at least one village within view, and more commonly three or four. Farmers laboring in their fields paused in their work, bent with hands on knees, heads bowed, as the company passed. Kesh wasn't sure if they were showing obedience, or praying that the beast would ignore them rather than ravage them. But the captain and his soldiers took no notice of the common folk. Life went on

unmolested. Whatever war had been fought between the noble heirs of the imperial house did not affect those who must bring in the crops. Not like in the Hundred, where the strife had precisely ripped through the houses and fields of the humblest.

'We'll never see home again,' said Eliar every morning as they made ready to mount and go on their way.

'Speak of your own end, not mine,' replied Kesh every day, and every day he found a way to fall in beside Captain Jushahosh, because Eliar's morose company had become unbearable. To risk so much and then grouse about it! Death was a small price, compared with his betrayal of his sister!

But Jushahosh was a man like Eliar in many ways: son of a wealthy house, one of many such sons accustomed to a life of sumptuous clothing and platters piled high with food, who in his life had seen little enough hardship and so craved the excitement he kept missing out on. A civil war! How exciting! Yet his company, backing the eventual winner, had seen no action beyond that encounter on the road, which was nothing to be boasted of although they had pickled the heads of the woman and the child in a barrel of wine so the new exalted administrator of the women's palace could make an accounting of who was dead and who, therefore, was missing. He never tired of hearing Keshad's tales of his travels. It seemed never to occur to the captain that a man could embroider a small tale and turn it into a large one. Kesh found him lacking in imagination.

At night, in the privacy of their tent, Kesh forced Eliar to go over and over the basic tale of their partnership, their trade, their expedition south. 'So they can't catch us out in contradictions and decide to burn us.'

'Maybe I'd be better dead,' whispered Eliar.

'Maybe so, but I wouldn't. I intend to survive this interview, give a good account of myself, and go home with a decent profit.'

'Yet if we fail — eiya! — when I close my eyes I see that poor little child with his head sliced off. And that woman — his poor mother — cut down like a beast. Doesn't it haunt you, Kesh? Are you so unfeeling?'

'Yes, I am. There's nothing I can do for them. They're dead. I concern myself with the living.'

The living — like Eliar's sister. The woman he could never discuss, whose face he ought never to have seen. That face — her glance — haunted his nights and his days.

They rode ten days after the skirmish on a road marked at intervals with distance markers, just as in the Hundred, only the empire measured not in meys but in a measure known as a cali, about half the distance of a mey. Kesh was careful to count off their distance, and every night he had Eliar record the cali traveled in the accounts book Eliar had brought.

'It's a good thing you're useful for something,' Kesh said, watching the young Silver slash marks by lamplight. 'Did you make note of the two crossroads we passed and at what distance we reached them?'

'Do you think I'm a fool?'

Kesh did not answer.

'Yes, you do. I did note them. I noted the letters marking the posts. They indicate which towns and cities lie along that road. I also recorded the number and density of villages we passed today, and the water wheels and forges that I could be sure of. All in a script which no one but the Ri Amarah can read, so we can't be caught out if my book is taken from me. Unless, of course, the act of writing in a book is seen as suspicious, which I must suppose it will be.'

'What are those?' Kesh asked, pointing to a secondary column of odd squiggles falling on the left-hand side of the page.

'I'm recording the words and sounds of the Sirniakan language. Why do you think I talk so much with the officers? They're not particularly interesting. We have in our archives a record of the language from our time of exile here, but we no longer know how to pronounce things properly and what certain words truly mean. That's what you don't understand, Kesh. All you can think about is how much coin you'll get from this expedition. If we survive it, which I doubt. But there are more valuable things than coin. There is knowledge.'

information to be sold-'

'No. Knowledge in itself- Why do I bother?' He broke off and cleaned the brush and without speaking another word boxed his writing tools and lay down on his blankets with his back to Kesh.

Kesh wondered what would happen if he grasped the cloth of Eliar's turban and ripped the coiled cloth from his head. His hands twitched. With a laugh, he crawled out and paced to the central watch fire, where he found Captain Jushahosh still awake and conferring with an officer in a red jacket holding a fancy stick like a reeve's baton, plated as in gold.

The captain looked up sharply at Kesh's approach, and without interrupting his flow of words to the other man, lifted his left hand and gestured with a flick of the fingers that seemed to say go away. Kesh stepped back, then took himself over to the pits as if that was where he'd been heading all along. He lingered, hearing scraps delivered too quickly for him to sort out what words he knew. In time, the stranger made his courtesies, and Jushahosh his own in response, and the man strode away. Kesh crept back toward the central watch fire and was rewarded with a cup of the spiced wine that was the only thing in the empire he had come to love.

'In the morning, you'll ride with Captain Sharahosh,' said Jushahosh. 'We part here, for I'm sent on a new assignment, hunting down another infant son of Farazadihosh, if you must know. No glory there.' He sighed. 'I was hoping for battle, but it seems most of the troops loyal to Farazadihosh have surrendered. There will likely be no more fighting. I was hoping for at least one battle.'

'It seems the southern prince had more support than expected. He won quickly, did he not?'

'The Lord of Lords, King of Kings, has showered His favor on the deserving. Now we will have peace.' He sketched the gesture signifying obedience to the god's will, and Kesh copied it. The captain smiled, an odd light in his eyes that Kesh recognized, after a moment's doubt, as admiration. 'I thought all barbarians were brawling drunks with hot tempers, ready to fight at any excuse, like those Qin riders.'

'Do the Qin get drunk and brawl? I've never seen — ah, one of these — lose his temper.'

'Maybe not these, since they are under our command, but you know how barbarians are. Still, you're different from the others, I suppose because you are a believer. You've walked fearlessly into the wilderness, stalked the desert's edge, battled with naked demons, ridden over the snow-choked pass, bargained with deadly — what did you call them? — with deadly lilu. Is it true they have the bodies of women and the skin of snakes?'

'Oh. Eh. Some of them.'

'Whew!' The captain grinned. 'I wish I had your cool. Having seen such sights as you have, and survived such dangers! My thanks to you, truly, for being generous enough to dine and drink with me. You being such an important man in your part of the world.'

'Yes. Eh. And my thanks to you, Captain, for sharing your food and drink. You've shown me hospitality. I won't forget it.'

The awkward parting accomplished, Kesh took his leave.

In the morning, he rose to find Captain Sharahosh in command with a new troop of Sirniakan cavalry. Captain Jushahosh and his troop were gone. The Qin company remained.

Captain Sharahosh was an older man uninterested in conversation, and he held his soldiers aloof from prisoners and Qin alike. They rode for another day, following a.road so wide that four wagons might roll abreast. Fields, vineyards, and orchards crowded the landscape, no scrap of land unmarked by human industry. The next morning a vast wall rose out of the earth. They entered a city through gates sheeted with brass and rode down an avenue bounded by high walls. At intervals, bridges crossed over the avenue, but Kesh never ascertained any traffic above, although he heard and smelled the sounds of men out and about in the streets beyond the walls. The rounded dome of the city's temple grew larger as' they rode into the heart of the city.

The sun rose to its zenith before they reached a second gate, which opened into a courtyard lined with a colonnade, pillars hewn out of rose granite. The structure resembled in every detail the palace court in Sarida where he and Eliar had first been taken into custody. There was even a farther gate into a farther courtyard, spanned by an archway carved with reliefs celebrating the reign of the emperor: the officers of the court approaching an empty throne, the sun and moon and stars in attendance on the crown of glory that represented the suzerainty of Beltak. The temple dome could be glimpsed to the right, the sun glinting off its bronze skin. Maybe it was the same in every cursed Sirniakan city, the palace supported by the temple and the temple supported by the palace, one unable to exist without the architecture of the other.

'Sit here,' said Captain Sharahosh, perhaps the tenth and eleventh words he had spoken to them in their days together. He dismissed his soldiers but left the Qin riders waiting in the hot sun in the dusty courtyard as he vanished beyond a more humble gate.

In the Hundred, of course, the temples of the seven gods were the pillars that supported the land, and the tales wove the land into a single cloth. Or so the priests of the seven gods would say. And they had to say so. They had to believe, just as the priests of Beltak had to believe. What were they, after all, if the gods meant nothing?

Kesh had all along prayed at dawn and at night with the empire men while Eliar and the Qin soldiers had stood aside in silence. But he did not believe, and Beltak did not strike him down, and the priest accompanying the soldiers did not see into his heart and know he was lying.

'Do you think they will kill us now?' Eliar muttered.

'They could have killed us before, if they meant to kill us. Anyway, we are simply merchants, traveled to Sarida to turn a profit.'

Eliar wiped sweat from his forehead. 'You're right.'

'Right about what?'

'Don't you recall what you said when we were waiting in the courtyard in Sarida? It looked exactly like this one, didn't it?'

Would the cursed man never stop chattering about his own gods-rotted fears?

'You said people will renounce the truth if it will give them an advantage to do so. And then they convince themselves that what they wish to be true is the truth.' He twisted his silver bracelets as though twisting his thoughts around and around. 'Folk tell themselves what they want to hear. I traded my sister's happiness for my own — or what I thought would be my own happiness. Now I'm ashamed.'

The tone of his voice seared Keshad. If they could join together and find some way to free her from the unwanted marriage, then surely they would be allies, not enemies. 'Eliar,' he began, but faltered, not knowing what to say or how to say it.

Eliar brushed at his eyes with a hand.

In the shadows off to the right, tucked away in an alcove unnoticed until now, a door opened. Captain Sharahosh beckoned, his face impassive. Kesh cast a glance toward the Qin soldiers. He had a crazy idea of calling to them for help. Surely if he invoked Captain Anji's name and lineage — the nephew of your var! — they would sweep him and Eliar up and gallop away to safety.

But these were not Anji's men. These men belonged to someone else, perhaps to the var, who had according to Captain Anji's account tried to have his nephew murdered over a year ago. That very plot had precipitated Anji's journey to the Hundred.

Over a year ago, the Sirniakan civil war had not quite yet begun, although surely it was then brewing. The Qin var, it seemed, had chosen to back Farazadihosh. But that being so, then why

was a Qin company riding like allies beside troops loyal to Farujarihosh, the prince who had rebelled against and killed his cousin, wresting from him the imperial throne?

'At once,' said the captain.

They crossed under the lintel into darkness. A lamp flared. By its light, they descended a long flight of stone steps and, reaching the limit of the lamp's illumination, halted. The lamp sputtered and died, and a second lamp bloomed ahead. They walked down a corridor, lamps flaring and dying at intervals. Blackness unrelieved by daylight dogged them before and behind. The walls were painted in an elaborate hunting scene, but Kesh glimpsed only snatches of color, of a white hare, a gold lion, a red deer, and a green bird, each transfixed by an arrow. They walked thus a full ten lamps of distance. Captain Sharahosh uttered no words, nor did he deem it necessary to defend himself against them or even once look back to make sure they were following. After all, what could they do? If they drew their swords and cut him down, they were still trapped in the midst of — or underneath! — a building so vast Kesh could not visualize its proportions. Anyway, there might be traps. He tried to observe what he could see of the long scene, perhaps a representation of a tale unfolding along the walls, yet his thoughts turned and turned Eliar's words. How deep ran Eliar's regret? Could Keshad suggest to Eliar that his precious sister might be released from the marriage into which she had been forced? That they could work together to save her?

Or was Eliar one of those who spoke words of regret but didn't really mean them if it meant he had to give up the privilege that came from another's sacrifice?

A line of light appeared ahead like a beacon. They crossed under a lintel and into a round chamber faced with marble. Kesh looked up into a dome whose height made him dizzy. A balcony rimmed the transition from chamber to dome; red-jacketed soldiers stood at guard beneath lamps hung from iron brackets. The amount of oil hissing as it burned made it seem as if a hundred traitorous voices were whispering in the heavens.

A person dressed in a plain white-silk jacket and the loose helled trousers common to wealthy empire men sat in a chair carved of ebony. He was a man, but odd in his lineaments, his face looking not so much clean-shaven as soft like a woman's, unable to bear the youthful burden of a beard. Yet his posture was

strong, not weak, and his hands had a wiry strength, as if he'd throttled his enemies without aid of a garrote.

He said, in the trade talk, to the soldier in the red jacket, 'These are the two?'

'Yes, Your Excellency.'

His voice was a strangely weightless tenor, but his words rang with the expectation of authority. 'I've interrogated four others already this morning, and they were not the ones I am seeking.'

The captain frowned in a measuring way, not an angry one. 'What are your names?'

Eliar opened his mouth, and Kesh trod on his foot.

The soldier smiled, just a little.

The man in the chair spoke. 'You are perhaps called Keshad? Sent to spy in the empire at the order of my cousin Anjihosh, son of Farutanihosh out of the barbarian princess?'

All the market training in the world, all those years as a slave, had not prepared Kesh for being called out deep in the bowels of an imperial palace by a man he did not know but who was, evidently, one of Captain Anji's royal cousins.

His surprise and silence was its own answer, even as his thoughts caught up with his shock and he cursed himself for a fool. He'd been warned about the empire's secret soldiers, known as the red hounds, fierce assassins and spies in their own right. Anji had warned him, yet it appeared their intelligence gathering was more formidable than anyone suspected.

Too late now.

When cornered, you can choose submission and surrender, or you can leap to the attack and hope the fierceness of your resistance will give you an opening for escape.

'Begging your pardon, Your Excellency. But if you and your brother have only recently defeated the Emperor Farazadihosh in battle, how comes it that you are privy so suddenly to the secrets that could have been brought south only by agents of the red hounds? Who are sworn to serve the emperor? Not his rivals.'

'An interesting question,' agreed the man, with a nod of acknowledgment.

'And furthermore,' continued Keshad, feeling really borne up now on a high tide of reckless anger at being trapped so cleanly and easily, all his hopes wrecked, 'if it is true that the cousin of Farazadihosh has taken the throne, and therefore the right to be named as emperor, through victory on the field of battle, then

how comes it that a brother of that man — as you imply yourself to be — remains alive? The heir of the ruling emperor has all his brothers and half brothers killed in order that none shall contest his right to the throne.'

Captain Sharahosh made a gesture, and four of the guardsmen on the balcony raised bows with arrows nocked. 'You are imprudent in your speech,' said the captain, 'more bold than is fitting.'

'Nay, let him speak,' said his master. 'I would like to know how a man posing as a simple foreign merchant knows of the existence of the red hounds. For surely they are only known to those raised in the palace, and those who oversee the temple.'

"What is it worth to you?'

The prince's smile was brief and brutal. 'What makes you think it is worth anything to me? It might be worth something to you.' His gaze flicked to Eliar. 'These questions are meaningless, because a Ri Amrah walks beside you.'

'Ri Amarah,' said Eliar.

'Ri Amrahah? Ama-ra-ah? A-ma-rah. Ah. Is that the way your own people speak the word? It is recorded otherwise in our chronicles. Is it true you have horns? And sorcerous powers brought with you from over the seas beyond which lies your original home, from which you are now exiled? Is it true the women of your people keep your accounts books, which as you must know goes against the will of the Shining One Who Rules Alone?'

'We do not worship that god.'

'There is only Beltak, King of Kings, Lord of Lords, the Shining One Who Rules Alone.'

'So you say.'

The prince's amusement reminded Keshad startlingly of Captain Anji's way of smiling: he was not one bit flustered by those who contradicted him. 'I do not "say so." I am repeating the truth.'

'Why on earth,' demanded Kesh, 'would it be against the will of God for women to keep accounts? Women keep accounts as well, or as badly, as men do. How can anyone imagine otherwise?'

The prince clucked softly, still deigning to look amused. 'No wonder the Hundred is in chaos. Can it be otherwise, with the rightful order turned on its head, and what should be forward facing backward?' He turned his gaze back to Eliar. 'Unwrap your turban.'

'I will not!'

The prince gestured, and the other eight guardsmen raised their bows, targeting Eliar. 'Unwrap your turban so I may satisfy my curiosity, or I will have you killed.'

Keshad wanted to take a step away, but he feared exposing himself as a coward.

'No.' Eliar lifted his chin, jaw clenched. 'Kill me if you must. When I am dead you can assuage your curiosity, if the Hidden One allows it.'

The prince laughed, and the guardsmen lowered their bows. 'You are the ones I seek. You are Keshad, without patronymic to identify your lineage, and you are Eliar, a son of the Ri Amarah, son of Isar, son of Bethen, son of Gever. Sent as spies into the empire, which is ruled by the rightful heir, my elder brother, Farujarihosh, may his reign be blessed by the glory of the King of Kings who rules over us.'

There followed a moment of complete silence, punctuated once by a drifting lilt of some kind of stringed music, cut off as quickly as if a door had closed. The prince studied them. Eliar wiped his brow. Kesh was panting. How could it be he had come so far and risked so much, only to have it all snatched out of his hands?

Aui! Captain Anji had warned him. He'd understood the empire better than anyone, because he had spent his boyhood in the palace. He'd been willing to gamble with the lives of Keshad and Eliar, and the drovers and guardsmen, because it cost him nothing personally to make the attempt should it fail, and offered him benefit if they succeeded.

Fair enough. Kesh had accepted the bargain. No use blaming anyone now that disaster sat in a serviceable chair and stared him in the face, mulling over how best to use him.

To use him, not to kill him.

The prince nodded. 'I am not the enemy of my cousin Anjihosh. His mother made plain her intent to remove him from the battles over the throne when she smuggled him out of the palace and sent him west to his uncle, the Qin var, the year Anjihosh gained twelve years of age. But that does not mean my brother and I can pretend he does not live and breathe. He remains the son of an emperor. You may see that this presents a problem for us. Yet we are peaceable men, seeking order, not war. Our father taught us that it is better to be prosperous than to quarrel. Thus, when my brother sired a son, I accepted the place

foreordained for me, so that we could work together rather than sunder what would otherwise be strong.'

'You've been cut,' said Eliar, going pale about the mouth. 'I've read such stories, but I didn't think-'

Cut? What on earth did that mean?

The prince whitened about the mouth but spoke mildly enough that Kesh wondered if he were a man trained never to show overt anger. 'We do not use such a crude term.'

'I beg your pardon, Your Excellency,' said Eliar. 'I know no other. There is no word in the Hundred that describes…' He blushed.

'In the trade talk they might say gelded, but we have a more honorable term in our own language, which is more sophisticated than the crude jabber used in the marketplace.'

Gelded! Kesh had to actually stop his own hand from reaching down to pat his own privates, to reassure himself they were intact. 'Captain Anji isn't the kind of man to accept a knife cut so as to live.'

'We have something else in mind. And you, Keshad of no patronymic and Eliar son of Isar of the Ri Amarah, are the ones who will deliver our offer to our cousin. You will accept the assignment?'

Kesh looked at Eliar. Eliar lifted a shoulder in a half shrug.

'What choice do we have?' Kesh said.

The prince lifted both hands. 'You can be brought before the priests and accused and convicted of being spies. It is a choice. An honorable one in its own way, since an honorable man speaks truth at all times.'

'What punishment would we then face?' Kesh asked.

'A merciful one. A swift execution, rather than burning such as heretics and nonbelievers suffer. You, Keshad, in any case. I am not sure how the Ri Amarah would fare as those of his people who lived in these lands were banished from the empire one hundred and eighteen years ago because of their heretical beliefs. He might merit burning.'

'Yours is a cruel law,' said Eliar.

'Hsst!' Keshad kicked him.

'Men are cruel,' observed the prince without heat. 'The law binds them in order to mitigate their cruelty. Such is the wisdom of Beltak.' He folded his hands on his lap. He was as sleek and well groomed as any treasured gelding, a strong workhorse, and a

handsome person in his own way, better-looking than Anji if measured by symmetry alone. 'So. I have found you, and made my proposal. Do you accept? You two, to carry our offer of peace across the Kandaran Pass to our cousin in the Hundred.'

'This is no trick, no hidden poison or sorcery meant to kill him?'

'No trick, no poison or sorcery meant to kill him. It is an honest offer, the best one he will get.'

'What else can we do?' muttered Eliar.

Kesh had spent too much time as a debt slave to trust masters and merchants who, given a monopoly, did not exploit their advantage. But that didn't mean a clever man couldn't gain advantage for himself on the sidelines as the powerful wrestled. 'Very well, Your Excellency, we'll take your offer to the captain. What is it?'

The prince nodded at the captain, who gestured. The guardsmen on the balcony backed up out of sight. The captain crossed to a door set on the far side of the chamber. He opened it and went through, leaving the prince — apparently unarmed — with Kesh and Eliar and their swords.

'So do you have horns?' asked the prince in a pleasant voice. 'I've always wondered.'

Eliar flushed.

The door opened and a woman entered the room. She was veiled, perceived mostly as cloth obscuring both face and form, yet she walked with confidence and carried a short lacquered stick with a heavy iron knob weighting one end. She was short and, it seemed, a bit stout, but vital and energetic. As soon as the door was shut behind her by an unseen hand, she pulled off the veil that concealed her face and tucked it carelessly through her belt.

The hells!

She was an older woman, not yet elderly, and she had a face so distinctively Qin that Keshad at once felt he was back riding with Qin soldiers. She circled the two young men as a wolf circles a pair of trapped bucks as it decides whether it is hungry enough to go to the bother of killing them. Then she turned on the prince.

'These are fearsome spies?' The trade talk fell easily from her lips.

'An exaggeration, I admit,' the prince said with a careless smile that had something of a scorpion's sting at its tip. 'Do not trouble me with your contentious nature.'

'You will be glad to be rid of me.'

'I need have nothing to do with you. From what I hear, the women's quarter will be glad to be rid of you after all these years. My brother has thankfully decreed there are to be no more foreign brides, only civilized women, admitted to the palace quarter.'

'He says so now. But wait until your brother, or his heir, or that heir's son, sees benefit in contracting a foreign alliance. When the gold, or the land, or the horses, are too tempting to refuse. Then your words will change and your hearts will turn, and some poor young woman will be ripped from her family's hearth and thrust into a cage, as I was.'

Eliar gasped, as if the words had been aimed at him.

The prince rose, his eyes so tightened at the corners that Kesh supposed him to be very angry. But he spoke in the blandest of voices, addressing Kesh and Eliar. 'This woman carries our offer to Anjihosh. You will escort her and those attendants she brings with her. Be assured that agents of my choosing will ride with you over the Kandaran Pass. If you do not deliver her safely, they will kill you.'

Kesh looked at Eliar; the young Silver was his only ally. 'Yes, Your Excellency. Can you tell me who we have the honor of escorting?'

'And idiots, too, in the bargain,' she said. She walked to the door, rapped on it with the iron knob of the stick, and, as soon as it was opened, vanished within.

'You claim to be a believer,' said the prince, 'because of which I will offer you a piece of advice. That woman is a serpent, with a poisoned tongue and a barbarian's lack of honor. Do not trust her.'

'That's Captain Anji's mother, isn't it?' As soon as Eliar spoke the words, Keshad realized she could be no one else.

'The palace is rid of her at last,' said the prince. 'As for you two, should either of you set foot in the empire again, you'll find your lives swiftly forfeit.' He clapped his hands thrice.

The door opened, and the captain strode swiftly out, posture erect and shoulders squared, like a man about to take his place in the talking line and perform one of the tales, a martial story told with defiance and bold gestures. These people knew what they were doing, entirely unlike Kesh and Eliar, their expedition begun as a toss of the sticks and exposed so easily Kesh felt the shame of it. Now they were delegated to be mere escorts to a bellicose woman being returned in disgrace to her son.

The prince sat in his chair as the captain led them away. Yet as they walked the length of the underground corridor with its hunting stories faded in the dim light, Kesh considered the last time he had brought a woman north over the Kandaran Pass into the Hundred. He'd believed one thing about her, but he'd been entirely wrong; Cornflower had turned out to be quite different from what he originally thought she was, not a helpless mute slave at all but rather a terrible demon bent on vengeance. Aui! There was really no telling what would happen when Captain Anji's mother arrived in the Hundred, was there?