Traitors Gate

18

The prison in which he was being held, Shai reflected, had the pleasing symmetry of a well-tended garden. It was walled on all sides, and the cells were tiny barracks rooms, each with a barred and locked door that swung on hinges rather than sliding, and on the opposite side up very high there was a long slit of a window, too narrow to squeeze through. His window overlooked another garden within whose greenery folk sometimes walked, conversing or arguing; occasionally, he overheard the sounds of a man and woman having sex. He preferred the arguments, because the other forced him to remember that time with Eridit. Yet memory — a thorough consideration of the events that had led him here — helped him endure.

He had a bucket to eliminate in, porridge to eat, and watered-down cordial to drink. Day after day he had nothing to do except eat and sleep, so he trained his body in a fierce discipline, running in place until a trance gripped him, grasping the rim of the window and pulling his weight up and easing it down over and over until sweat made his fingers slick. Once a day at dusk he — and only he of all the prisoners — was allowed into the courtyard with its raked gravel and pots of blue and white flowers whose fragrance was the greatest pleasure of his day. There, he was allowed to bathe by pouring buckets of cold water over his head while the guards made jokes and the hirelings who hauled water from some cistern elsewhere said nothing.

Late one night the bar at his door was removed, and the door opened. An attractive woman entered, carrying a lamp and wearing a taloos of such sheer silk you could see the dark circles of her nipples through the wrapping. Four guards waited outside, making wagers on how quickly he'd succumb and how long he'd last.

'I just had to'see your body myself,' she said. 'Strip.'

'What are you going to do, beat me if I don't? You can't kill me, because the Guardian wants me alive.'

She shifted ground, baring the curve of a breast but not venturing too close. 'You must be terribly lonely here.'

'Neh. There's plenty of prisoners more miserable than I am whose moans and cries I hear every day.'

'You might hear me moan and cry, if you wished. I can see you're aroused.'

'Sheh!' For shame. 'You're like a demon, feeding on suffering.'

She slapped him, and he caught her wrist and held it motionless, despite her twisting, to show her how strong he was. Panicking, she screamed, and the guards ran in with spears. Before they hit him, he shoved her away, into their advance.

'Perhaps the body is aroused, but the mind is disgusted. Beat me for refusing, if you must, but then I'll tell the Guardian. Do you want the cloak's scrutiny?'

'Maybe the cloak doesn't care what's done with the condemned before they die,' said the woman as she recovered her composure, surrounded by the guards.

'Maybe not. I'm willing to find out. Are you?'

After that, they left him alone and no longer made jokes when he was allowed his nightly freedom in the courtyard. Something had happened to him that he didn't entirely understand. It was as

if seeing the demon wearing the shell of Hari had strangled the last vestiges of the young man Shai had once been, the seventh of seven sons, least and superfluous, who had spent his youth remaining silent, keeping out of the way, and doing what he was told. The only one of his brothers he'd loved was lost to him; he'd likely never see his beloved niece Mai again; Zubaidit had walked alone into the army without him. Even Tohon and the children he'd helped save — presumably now safe — were as far away as if death had severed them one from the other.

So be it. He had a task to accomplish.

He was not a clerk or priest to know how to mark the passing of days, but the rains fell less frequently, and the pots of blue and white flowers withered and were replaced with pots of a mellow golden bloom. Occasionally new prisoners were brought in, some weeping, some protesting, some silent; he heard their voices but he never saw them nor could they communicate. The cell to Shai's right remained empty; the chamber to his left was the gardener's storeroom with all its tools. If he could only get in there he might acquire a weapon, but they'd stripped him when they'd first captured him, taken everything — his clothes and boots and knife and even Hari's wolf's-head belt buckle. They'd given him a flimsy kilt and vest to wear and, strangely, left him both wolf's-head rings. Besides that reminder of the Mei clan, all he possessed was mind and muscle.

He knew when Night came because of the way the voices of the guards changed. Many of the prisoners were taken away and never returned. At dusk, his door was opened. They herded him onto the porch. Out in the courtyard, a carpet had been laid over the gravel and a low table placed on it. A person was seated at that table, hard to see in the gloom.

'Strip,' said the sergeant in charge.

After he stripped out of the kilt and vest, they gave him new clothing, exactly the same, and led him to the table. A pillow waited; he settled cross-legged on its plush opulence opposite the woman wearing the cloak of Night. Her hands were clasped and resting on the table beside a sheet of rice paper, a writing brush, and an inkstone. A lantern had been hooked to a post driven in the ground to her right, its light illuminating her pleasant expression and a lacquered tray with a wooden cup and a ceramic pot.

'Will you drink?' she asked. 'It's a late harvest tea, sweetened with rice-flower-grain.'

'Do you intend to poison me?'

'You're too valuable to poison. You're my hostage for Harishil's compliance.'

The tea had a remarkable aroma that made his mouth water after so long on an unvaried diet. 'I'll drink,' he said, wondering if he could move fast enough to grab the lantern and bash in her head before the archers standing at a remove could kill him.

She smiled, as if guessing his thoughts, then poured. She, too, was sitting on a pillow, and beneath the pillow, sticking out on either side, lay a spear. His breathing quickened. She pushed the filled cup to his side of the table.

He lunged over the table, slamming her back and rolling to one side as he grabbed the spear's haft and yanked it free-

If thunder had shock rather than sound, it might lay a man flat.

Evidently, he blacked out.

When he came to, he was lying flat on his back with three spears — not the one he'd grabbed for — pressing into his chest. His right hand was in a hot flame of agony, and his mouth was as dry as if he'd not tasted liquid for days. His head throbbed.

'Let him up,' she said kindly.

The spears withdrew. He winced as he sat up. Grainy spots of light spun and flickered in his vision, and yet there sat the cloak on her pillow with the table arranged in exactly the same tidy way as if nothing had happened. Only a spot of moisture on the gravel betrayed where the cup had spilled. How long had he been out? The moon had not yet risen for him to mark time's passage by its height in the sky.

'As you have just discovered, not even one who is veiled to my sight can hold a Guardian's staff,' she said in her mild voice, lifting the pot. 'Tea?'

He drank three cups in quick succession, and the spots faded and the pain ebbed, although his hand still hurt.

'What do you want? If I am meant as a hostage to force Hari's obedience, why talk to me at all?'

'" One who is an outlander may save them." Do you know the phrase?'

'It's from the tale of the Guardians. As a terrible war ravages the Hundred, an orphaned girl begs the gods for peace. The gods raise the Guardians out of a sacred pool and give them gifts and command them to establish justice in the land. But then after all that there is a prophecy that one among the Guardians will betray

the others. And one of the gods tells the orphaned girl that an out-lander will save them.'

She gestured, and a servant crept forward, gaze averted, and took away the tray. The soldiers, at their remove, remained watchful, every gaze fixed on Shai.

'Over the generations,' she said, 'it has become commonly understood that this phrase refers to the land and its people, but in truth, it refers to the Guardians themselves. One who is an outlander may save the Guardians. That is why I need Harishil's cooperation to eliminate those who threaten the rest of us.'

'Threaten you? Your army is the one that abuses and rapes children. That strings people up on poles. Attacks cities, burns villages — shall I go on?'

He meant to make her angry, but her calm was unshakable. 'Certainly you are a young man who speaks boldly. What you are actually thinking, of course, I cannot know, because you are veiled to my sight. By any chance, are you a seventh son?'

The question startled him, not least because of its accuracy. 'Why?'

'Not all the gods-cursed demons are seventh sons or seventh daughters, but many are.'

'I'm not a demon!'

She went on as if he had not spoken. 'Born from the same woman's womb, such a child will see and hear ghosts. Sired by the same father on different women, such a child will only hear or only see. So it is written in temple archives, and so I have ascertained in my time. I was just wondering if it might be true among outlanders as well.'

Was Anji a seventh son, Shai wondered? It was not a question he'd likely ever get a chance to ask. Nor was he inclined to answer any question she asked about him, or Anji. Yet he must keep her talking, to see what he could learn.

'How can you know the phrase about the outlander refers to the Guardians, and not to the land and its people? How can we even know the tale is true as told, and not altered over time as folk forget old words and make up new ones?'

Her smile troubled him because it hid so much. 'Some of us can know perfectly well what was meant, young man.'

'No one can know, unless they were there themselves!'

She looked away from him, as if hiding her gaze, and yet she

was simply beckoning to a servant to bring a new tray, with tea and sweet bean cakes. Hu! Seeing them, his mouth watered. He was so sick of porridge. But he kept his hands on his thighs, refusing to grab.

'Yet Harishil is not the only outlander. Here you are. What is your name, Shai?' She shook her head at his reaction. 'Surely you must realize that old woman in the woods, knowing your name, would have revealed it to me. What do you want? What is your desire?'

To kill you.

'Wealth? Sex? Land? Better food? Children and a wife? Power to rule others?'

'I want my brother back, and then I want to go home.' But it was a lie, because Hari had been eaten by a demon, and Shai could no longer imagine a life in Kartu Town.

'Harishil and the cloak are now one creature. A Guardian.'

'Hari only came to the Hundred a few years ago. He can't have worn that cloak always. Someone must have worn it before him. So if a cloak can pass from one person to another, then Hari can be released.'

'Then he will be dead.'

'Hari is already a ghost. The only difference is whether or not he is your slave.'

Her expression hardened. He drew back, suddenly afraid although she made no move or signal. The tightening of her eyes was threat enough. 'It is easy for you to pass judgment on what you do not understand. Harishil was given the gift of a second chance at living, a chance to repair and restore what had gone wrong in his life before. It is no simple thing to leave that opportunity behind. What of those who sacrificed to bring justice? Who gave everything, risked everything, to help others? Are they, having made one or two small mistakes as Guardians, meant to be destroyed by other Guardians too self-righteous to be merciful? Must I, who am responsible for the greatest act of justice known in the Hundred, stand passively as others judge me? As others call me corrupted? I will not give up my life-'

'You don't have a life to give up,' cried Shai. 'You're dead. All of you are ghosts. You just tell yourself you're alive. But it's a lie. Everything you do is a lie.'

She rose, and he saw in her an ancient power so twisted by fear it had become the opposite of what it was meant to be.

'Do you know to whom you are speaking? I am not to be spoken to with such disrespect.'

'No, I don't know who you are, or what is your name is, or why I should care.'

'I can have my soldiers kill you.'

'But you can't kill me yourself, because I'm veiled. That's how it is, isn't it? You can't kill me, and I can lie to you. How that must rankle.' What power words had! With each stab of sharp words, he felt her anger grow. 'Yet if you have me killed, then you have no hold over Hari. And you need him, don't you? Him, or someone like him, a cloak you can control and corrupt. That's what Bevard is, isn't it? And Yordenas and Radas. You discovered their weakness, and you corrupted them. But Hari isn't proving so easy to corrupt, is he? Part of him is weak, but the part that is my beloved brother is strong, and he's fighting you.'

He'd overreached; he felt her anger swallowed as the stillness that follows a cessation of blustery wind, and he tensed, waiting for a blow. She swept up the brush, paper, and inkstone and tucked them in a sleeve. She extricated the spear from beneath the pillow on which she'd been seated.

'You are correct,' she said softly, 'that Harishil can be released from the cloak if he proves unreliable. It has happened to others before him.'

'Five to kill one, isn't that right? Without Hari, you're still one short.'

'So he may have told you. So he may believe. But there are other ways. Maybe you will be next, Shai. What would you do, if you were to awaken as a Guardian? Were you to stand on the threshold between death and life, what would you choose?'

He rose, and the soldiers stiffened, raising their weapons, but he opened his hands to show himself unarmed. As he was, except with words. 'I would do what is right.'

Her smile twisted condescendingly. 'So do we all say, at first, thinking we know what is right, and that what is right is easily known. It is easy to pray in ignorance and innocence that peace return to the land' — an expression chased across her face, fleeting, frightened, and quickly controlled — 'but to have to live for generation after generation with what you have yourself called forth, and the burden and struggle it entails, to see corruption strike and be helpless against its rot, again and again and again, that is not so easy, is it? Not when you are the one who will be blamed.'

Skin prickling, uneasy and indeed in some manner revolted, Shai took a step away, and she flinched, as if his disgust actually hurt her.

'Who are you?' he asked.

She gestured to the soldiers. 'Take him back to his cell. There he will remain until I — or the gods — free him.'

'This is to be my new home?'

From the porch of Mai's house in the Barrens, Miravia surveyed the town of Astafero sprawled down the slope below them. Mai held her hand, enjoying Miravia's unadorned pleasure as her friend scanned the vista with its staggering mountain peaks in the west and the green-blue waters of the Olo'o Sea shimmering in the early morning light out of the east.

'It is a dry and dusty place, nothing special,' said Mai. 'I spent many lonely hours here. The market is small.'

She glanced through open doors into the audience chamber where Anji sat listening to Chief Deze give a report. Tuvi was standing behind Anji, holding Atani — at any gathering of senior Qin officers, the baby was passed from one soldier to the next — and there were other officers, most Qin but two local men were in attendance as well as the Naya Hall submarshal and her chief reeves, Etad and Miyara.

'Maybe it is not allowed to go to the market,' Miravia added, accustomed to disappointment, 'because you were attacked by red hounds from the empire.'

'That was months ago. Now the militia guards the roads, and the Hieros's spies watch everywhere else.'

'I should like to be a spy, only I suppose my looks would betray me. Like Eliar's betray him.' She sighed abruptly, releasing Mai's hand as she stared toward the mountains. 'What do you suppose has happened to-' She coughed, shoulders tense. 'There was another person who went south, wasn't there?'

Mai put an arm around her. 'Keshad? I hope he's a good spy. He's a precise accountant and a good merchant. But very emotional. He is deeply attached-'

'To a woman?' Miravia's voice was sharp as she stepped out of Mai's embrace and into the sun; the light flooded her flawless skin and brush-tip eyes.

'His sister. Like you and Eliar.' Mai forced a smile. She did not want to speak of Eliar, who had traded away his sister's happiness for a chance to play at spying. On such a glorious day, it was easier to signal to Chief Tuvi, who handed Atani over to Chief Deze, where the baby settled comfortably. Anji's gaze flicked to Tuvi as the chief nodded, and Anji's right hand shifted. It had taken her months to learn to see the small signals the Qin used among themselves.

Tuvi walked up. 'Mistress?'

'We want to go down into the market, Chief. It is likely to be safe, is it not?'

'Safe enough, Mistress.'

'Will the officers be wanting tea?'

Tuvi looked surprised, then gestured toward the chamber. 'Did you not already order Sheyshi in with the cups? For there she sits.'

'I did not!'

Yet the young woman was seated in the shadows behind Anji. A tray with tea bowls and a ceramic pot sat next to her, but by the way her head was sagging forward, Mai guessed she was dozing off, no doubt bored by the lengthy reports concerning the spacing and timing of patrols along the network of roads and paths in Olo'osson.

'How odd,' added Mai. 'Priya must have told her-'

'Priya went to the baths.''

'Of course she did, at dawn. Hu! Perhaps Sheyshi thought of bringing the tea herself!'

She and Tuvi laughed at this absurd notion as they started walking down the hill, paced by their escort, but Miravia was not amused.

'Is it not wrong to belittle her? Besides that, why should any slave show initiative when they take no benefit from their labors?' She glanced at Mai and flushed deeply. 'Begging your pardon, Mai. I do not mean-'

Mai took her hand. 'I value your friendship because you are honest. Do not change merely to spare my feelings. I know you disapprove of slavery. That you wish I did not keep slaves in my own house.'

'Certainly you treat your slaves with more consideration than many do, Mistress.' Tuvi kept pace beside them with one hand tucked around his sword hilt and the other hanging at his side, his posture relaxed although Mai knew he was always alert, eyes and senses attuned to potential dangers.

'You gave me shelter, Mai. I don't mean to slap you in the face for it.'

'Neh, let's get it out in the open now you live with us. You must see every day that Priya, O'eki, and Sheyshi are slaves.'

'Not to mention the many debt slaves working off their debts here in the settlement,' added Tuvi with that typical Qin instinct for going for the throat. He nodded politely at Miravia. 'It is all very well to hold such views, just as it is all very well to chant prayers in the temples, but when we walk through the world we walk through things as they are. I had an older brother who became a priest of the Merciful One. I w,as a small boy. Once a year I would ride with my mother and sisters to visit him. How I admired him and the handsome temple buildings! He even learned to read the holy script, ring the bells, and chant the holy words. Then war came. He and his brother priests were cut down in the hall and the gold ornaments and silk vestments taken by soldiers. So I thought after that, that it was better to be a soldier.'

'Did he not pray to the Qin gods?' Miravia asked. 'Did he turn his back on the faith of his own people?'

'We Qin are not like you other folk. Our ancestors quarrel, and we are involved in the quarrels since we are their children. Besides that, the heavens watch over us. But that does not mean another holy one cannot walk on the earth. The Merciful One walks in some hearts and not in others. Yet a prayer does not stop a man, or a woman, from becoming a slave. Priya could tell you that. She is a wise woman. And like my older brother, she can read.'

'Among my people, all children are taught to read. Isn't that better?'

'Yet you chose to flee your own people rather than remain among them in the marriage they had chosen for you,' he replied. 'So maybe you did not like that life so much among your own people who do not approve of slavery. Is it not to a form of slavery you compared the betrothal? If you believe the men of your people treat their women as slaves, then how can you condemn other people for keeping slaves or owning a debt that must be worked off by labor?'

'That I chose to flee — at a great cost to me — losing my family — never to see my dear brothers and mother again — has nothing to do with my statement that slavery is always wrong! You mistake the general for the particular, Chief Tuvi.'

He smiled. 'Maybe I do. But I don't understand how the Ri Amarah can insist that slavery is always wrong and then keep

their women closed away behind walls. My mother and sisters would never have put up with that!'

'If the world is not as it is meant to be, then we must work to correct it.' She turned with passion to Mai, grasping her arm. 'You must dislike hearing us argue!'

'Was that an argument?' asked Tuvi, his pace not faltering.

The four soldiers kept an even distance at all four points. As they passed the thatched roof of the council square, six council members chatting over a morning tea rose to greet Mai.

'Verea! Well come. That you are here makes the day bright.'

'Will you preside over an assizes before you leave again, verea?'

'You have not come alone, verea?'

'No, indeed,' she replied, greeting each one by name. 'Here is my sister, Miravia. She will be running my household in Astafero.' Mai studied their expressions as they eyed Miravia's face; they clearly knew what she was, rumor having traveled ahead. 'If there is ever any question that needs my attention when I am in Olossi, that for some unlikely reason you cannot solve yourselves although I cannot imagine why that would be so, then you must bring the question to Miravia's attention. She will write a message which can be flown to Olossi by a reeve. She has my complete trust.'

'Ah! Eh! Very good!' They revised their expectations, smiled more warmly.

Tuvi settled back as Mai stepped into the shade with the women. She asked after their businesses and their families. Mistress Sarana had married a Qin soldier and was noticeably pregnant; it wasn't so many months, really, since the first marriages had been blessed at the gods' altars. Maybe that rice had been nibbled on early! But wasn't that the way folk did go about things here, casual about sex in a way inconceivable to any woman in Kartu Town? Yet when she thought of how Anji had slapped her, her cheek still burned.

'Verea?'

'Just wondering how your daughter is, Mistress,' she said to Behara, now head of Astafero's council. 'I hear she ate Chief Deze's rice!'

'She did, and we hope there will be fruit soon, but too early to tell, eh? Anyway, he's been posted to West Track, so she'll live here for now and he comes to visit as often as he can.'

That was the way things worked in Astafero. Some of the newly married women chose to migrate to new towns to follow their husbands on assignment. Others remained at the settlement, with families growing as kinfolk who were struggling to eat came to live where there was work and food to be had. Miravia watched and listened, not saying a word.

When Mai extricated herself from the conversation, they walked down into the market with its familiar dried fish smell. There were new shops set up in crude storefronts with canvas walls and older shops newly refurbished with brick. They sold cloth, banners, harness, tools, dishes and serving utensils of everyday quality, storage chests of precious wood, baskets, bedding, mats, and spices and bean paste shipped or carted in from elsewhere. Miravia trailed behind as Mai chatted with every person she knew and met new people, because folk were coming to Astafero as people did where there was security in an insecure world. Yet Miravia did shyly smile at people who, despite being taken aback by her features, politely engaged her in the casual talk of the marketplace. At length, they worked their way down to the main gate. Mai surveyed the further sprawl of brickyards, smithies, fish racks, workshops, and the green patches of burgeoning fields watered from the underground channels still being dug. But she did not suggest venturing past the gate's shadow.

'The Ri Amarah have lived in the Hundred for four generations, and you not even two years, but you are treated as a cousin while my people are still seen as outlanders,' said Miravia in a low voice. T want to be part of the Hundred, Mai. Not an outlander all my life.'

Tuvi had climbed the ladder to the parapet and was speaking to the soldier in charge of gate duty; the two men were pointing quite rudely — how she would ever cure the Qin of finger pointing she did not know! — at some object or movement much farther out.

Mai took a deep breath. 'If you were to marry Tuvi-'

Miravia pushed a sandal into the dirt, digging a hole.

'Not now, I mean! No hurry!'

'It's too early,' Miravia muttered, cheeks scalded red although it wasn't hot.

'Of course!' Mai took her hand, tucked it into the crook of her own elbow, and indicated the market. 'Best I go back to nurse Atani. Do you want to stay in the market?'

As easily as Miravia had taken to walking in public with her face exposed after so many years locked behind walls and veils, she was not ready to brave the market alone. Her smile was wan as her flush faded. 'I'll go back with you.' She clutched Mai more tightly. 'Without you, I would be in Nessumara now. That you gave me shelter… I can never repay you.'

Tears slipped down Mai's cheeks, but she never minded these swells of pure emotion, which like the wind off the mountains came as if from the heavens, a blessing from the Merciful One. 'This is not a matter of exchange. We are sisters. I would no more be here without you than I would be without my husband.'

'Mai!'

'You don't need to thank me any more than I thank you for welcoming me into your heart when I first came to Olossi, when I was alone and without a sister.'

Miravia choked down her sniffles under broken laughter. 'Now we will fall upon each other wailing and moaning.'

Then they laughed so hard Chief Tuvi looked puzzled as he climbed down the ladder. But he did not react as a love-lorn man would; he neither sighed nor smiled to see their laughter. If she meant to coax this match into existence, she would have to work carefully.

'Let's go up,' he said instead, brow wrinkled. 'The captain will be wondering what became of you.'

At the base of Liya Pass lay the town of Stragglewood, so called for the way the woodland was cut in strips and spurs into the hills where folk had taken the easy routes to collect and transport wood. The town was a way station for trade over the Liya Pass, which connected the region of Herelia to the main road leading southeast to Toskala along the Ili Cutoff.

Approaching on the road at dawn, Marit surveyed markedly tidier surroundings than those she recalled from the last time she had come through, twenty-one years ago. Every field boasted recently erected boundary stones. Young orchards were laid out in ranks spaced so evenly she guessed they had been paced out by the same person. She passed ruined foundations marking where poor clans' hovels had been demolished. A livestock fence ringed the garden plots, and compounds like a tannery, lumberyard, and byres whose stench and noise were kept outside the town. An imposing inner palisade circled the actual town buildings; at its gate a pair of middle-aged men stood on a platform that allowed them a view of both fields and forecourt.

Their gazes, briefly met, betrayed minds dismayed to see a cloak riding up to their town in a month in which an assizes court was not scheduled. A very bad omen. They shielded their faces behind hands.

'Holy One.' The shaven-headed elder spoke through his hands. 'Forgive us. We had no word or expectation of your coming. The assizes is not readied for your pleasure.'

For my pleasure?

Warning snorted, tossing her head.

'What awaits me at the assizes?' she asked, cautious in her choice of words but sure she must speak boldly if she meant to continue the ruse.

Beyond the gate, people gathered in the forecourt, the squeak of leather rubbing, a rattling cough, a capacious yawn.

A man called out. 'Heya, Tarbi! It's past time to open the gates and let us out to our labors, eh?'

The shaven-headed man climbed out of sight. Hands fumbled at chains; bars scraped; the gates were pulled open. In the forecourt stood at least fifty folk carrying hoes, spades, axes, and other implements. More were walking up. Seeing her, half the folk dropped to their knees as if they'd been felled by a sledgehammer. All raised hands to shield their faces. It was a practiced response the obeisance of which chilled her more than the cursed dawn wind. She turned Warning in a sweep that sent folk scuttling away from her.

'Finish with your duties,' she said to Tarbi. 'Then escort me to the assizes.'

'You are gracious, Holy One.' He unhooked a basket from under the eaves. Every farmer and woodsman, carter and tanner, elder and child filed past to hand him a pair of discs strung on leather straps. He examined them, tossed one in the basket, and returned the other to its bearer, who then slung it around the neck and hurried out the gate, careful never to look Marit's way.

When the first rush was past, Tarbi called down the other guard to take charge. He walked ahead; she led the mare.

Children fled into their houses. Women flinched away, shielding their faces in the gesture Marit was beginning to loathe.

'Are there bandits hereabouts, that you lock your town gates at night?'

'Of course not, Holy One. The land is at peace.'

Stragglewood had a central square fronted on two sides by capacious clan compounds ostentatiously renovated. Along the northern front of the square ran a long, low building that she remembered as the council hall. She was shown into its courtyard. The traditional elders' benches had been removed. A colonnade opened into an open hall whose elders' benches had been removed in favor of a chair built to outsize proportions and raised on a dais with a pair of smaller chairs set below to either side as obsequious attendants.

'Where are the assizes?'

'They are here, Holy One. We captured a gods-cursed demon. She's confined in a cell along with unclean ones awaiting judgment. She and two of the unclean ones will be sent to Wedrewe for cleansing when the chain comes through at the Lamp Moon.'

'You've confined a gods-touched person?'

'According to the statutes.'

'The law? Aui! And what in the hells are "unclean ones"?'

'The criminals, Holy One.'

She clamped lips closed over a furious reply and took a few deep breaths. The rafters of the hall seemed ominous; she did not want to walk under a roof where shadows spilled over the floor like the pooling of blood. 'Where are the elders' benches?'

'Removed, according to the statutes, Holy One.'

'Who judges the cases, then?'

His head remained stolidly, stubbornly, bowed. 'You'll want to discuss these matters with the clerk, Holy One. I am only in charge of the gate passage.' His fear trembled on the air, as delicate and complex as a spider's web. 'We are always posted in pairs at the gate, Holy One. Hodard may come under suspicion if he remains there too long alone.'

'Under suspicion of what? Allowing someone out without taking their token?'

As soon as the words left her mouth, she regretted them. For that was precisely what was going on: no one could enter or leave town without the act being marked. The tokens and palisade had nothing to do with protecting the town from bandits.

Tarbi's gaze skipped over her face so quickly she caught only a glance of a memory: a sobbing woman being flogged in the town square as prosperous-looking clans-folk shouted questions at her, 'Where has he fled to?' 'Where has he gone?'

Yet his thoughts were as clear as speech: How is it she does not know this? It is exactly as we were warned! An impostor will come.

He wrenched his gaze to the dirt.

She'd betrayed her ignorance. 'Fetch the clerk.'

With a haste that betrayed his eagerness to flee, he scrambled onto the porch and kicked off his sandals, calling out as he slid open a door. 'Osya! Come quickly!'

Marit dropped Warning's reins and walked after him, pausing with one foot on the ground and the other braced on the lower of the two steps. A body appeared in the gate. She turned, but it was only a little child come to stare at the winged horse. Its open mouth and wide eyes, all wonder and excitement, made her smile. Then it caught sight of her, and it dropped so quickly to its knees, head bowed and hands raised in an obscene imitation of the adults' gestures, that she felt mocked. It bolted away into the square without a word.

Feet scraped along plank flooring. She overheard their voices because her hearing was so uncannily keen.

'Why aren't you at your post, Tarbi? You'll be flogged.'

'Keep your voice down. There's come one of the impostors we were warned to watch for.'

'There's never been such a sighting. Sky-blue, mist-silver, earth-clay, bone-white. Those are the ones we're to look for, neh?'

'Bone-white the cloak she wears. Send Peri to Wedrewe, as we were commanded.'

'This is a bad omen! What if the lords cleanse the entire town, thinking us corrupted? We've followed all the statutes. It's not our fault!'

'Send Peri to the gate after me and I'll get him mounts and send him on his way. Meanwhile, flatter and favor the cloak, persuade her to bide here as long as possible. There's a reward if she's delivered to the Lady. We'll prosper, you and me.'

Marit stepped away from the porch as she heard footsteps approaching. She walked Warning over to a watering trough set under the shade of an open roof. Over in this corner, she smelled sour sweat and the ripe stench of human waste; a woman was

sobbing softly. A man's raspy voice croaked out a whisper, 'Shut up, will you, you bitch? If you'd just slept with Master Forren like he asked, you wouldn't be stuck in here. At least you're not being sent to Wedrewe to be cleansed, eh? What do you have to complain about?'

'Holy One.' Tarbi hurried out into the courtyard, so flushed with fear and nervous hope that he smelled as ripe as the manure. 'The clerk is coming.'

'Best you return to your posting,' she said before he could babble on.

'Thank you, Holy One.'

He ran out. Not long after, a burly woman emerged from the hall with a very young man in tow, him with head bowed so deep Marit wondered he did not ram the top of his head into every pillar. He slunk out the gate as the clerk came forward with face shielded by her hands.

'Holy One. How may I serve you?'

Marit wanted to ask where Wedrewe was, but she had already roused their suspicions. 'There is a woman here, imprisoned for not having sex with Master Forren. I heard of the matter and have come to adjudicate.'

The clerk, visibly startled, forgot herself enough to glance look into Mark's face.

Master Forren hadn't any right to try to force the girl to bed him. Just because he's the richest man in town, and connected to them who built Wedrewe, he thinks he can have what he wants. Things like this never happened before Ushara's temple was shut down.

She threw an arm over her eyes, and groaned.

'I'll take those keys!' Marit yanked them out of the woman's fingers and crossed into a narrow courtyard that ran between the back of the building and a high wall. The cells were a row of twelve cages set against the wall, with no roof to shelter the prisoners from the rain and no ditch or gutter to sluice away their waste whose stench clawed into her throat. She halted on the edge of the porch, surveying a sludgy waste baked to a paste under the sun. She did not want to step into that.

The prisoners roused. Two stared boldly; five hid their faces. One woman was sobbing, crammed into a cage with an even thinner girl lying unhealthily still beside her. The last prisoner huddled in the farthest cage, back to Marit, unmoving, possibly dead.

The first man whose gaze she met had a steady stare; she tumbled into a morass as filled with muck as the ground beneath and around the cages. He holds a stick with which he is beating beating beating in the head of an old man all for the scant string of vey lying in a heap on the rain-soaked earth.

'That one is a murderer,' Marit said.

Osya cowered on the threshold. 'So he is, Holy One. He's not from here. He came as a laborer walking the roads. You may wonder, for it is not permitted to walk the roads without a token, but he carried a token so we gave him work repairing the palisade. Then he murdered old Hemar for a mere twenty vey to drink with, and so we come to discover he had stolen the token months ago. That's the holy truth, Holy One.' With her body hunched over in fear, she resembled a crabbed old crone rather than a stoutly healthy woman.

That he was guilty was evident. 'What of the others?'

The clerk trembled as she indicated each one in turn.

This woman had cheated in weighing rice-

'I did it, Holy One,' the woman gasped. 'Please forgive me. My children were hungry. Now they've been sold away as debt slaves to pay for my crime.'

This man had stolen two bolts of cloth from the town warehouse, claiming it rightfully belonged to him and had earlier been purloined by the town's militia captain at a checkpoint between Stragglewood and Yestal.

'It's a lie, what I said before. I was so fearful when they caught me, for fear they'd cleanse me right there, that I said anything that came to mind. I'll never steal again, I swear it.'

Two young women had gotten a visiting merchant drunk and robbed his purse.

'We never did any such thing, Holy One. We let him buy drinks for us, because we hadn't any coin, so maybe we was taking advantage. But he claimed we'd robbed him, and we never touched his purse! And when they brought us up in front of Master Forren, then he said he'd dismiss the charges if I had sex with him. Have you ever heard of such a thing?'

'And you refused?'

'Of course I refused! He's a gods-rotted pig, meaning no offense to pigs. But we're poor folk, our people, no one to speak for us in council. We've been locked in here a year or more and Stara is so ill, you see how she can't even stand any longer. Now

she's going to die, just because I wouldn't have sex with him! They won't let our kinfolk in to see us.' It was all true, and no one in town had done a cursed thing to stop it.

An old man, too weak to raise his head, was a beggar.

'Why is he here?' Marit demanded. 'Can't his clan take care of him?'

'He's got no clan.'

'No one can have no clan.'

'None who will claim him.'

A young woman in the far cage pushed up to sit as she looked over her shoulder. It was difficult to tell her age because her face was smeared with muck, but she met Marit's gaze with her own wide brown one. And that was all it was: a look passed between two women. Her heart and mind were veiled to Marit's third eye and second heart. After all these months, the blank wall of a gaze hit hard.

'She's a gods-cursed demon, Holy One,' said Osya.

'You put her in a cage?' Marit's hands tightened over the keys until the pain bit her and she remembered where she was.

The caged woman watched with the resigned calm of a person who has already given herself up for dead. Her stare was as even as sunlight on a clear day, almost brutal in its intensity.

'According to the statutes. We sent word to Wedrewe last month that we'd captured one, for we're required to alert the arkhons about any gods-cursed or outlanders.'

'What do the authorities in Wedrewe do with the gods-touched and outlanders?'

'I suppose they judge them at the assizes, Holy One. As required by the statutes.'

In the cage beside her, a burly man called, 'I'm not afraid to be judged! They're the ones who should fear, for they have condemned me to the cleansing just to get what is mine.'

'He's a liar,' said Osya in a shaking voice. 'He killed a man.'

But he wasn't a liar. He met Marit's gaze willingly. He was not pure of heart; he had a temper, easily roused, and he'd gotten into his share of fistfights after an evening of drinking, and he had slapped his wife and been slapped by her in turn, a turbulent pair who didn't like each other much. But he worked hard, and he'd discovered an unexpected vein of iron in a shallow drift up in the hills on which he'd placed a claim according to the law. Forren had set four men including his own nephew to ambush him on the

trail and it wasn't his cursed fault that he'd killed the nephew, who everyone knew was a clumsy foul-tempered lunk. He'd been defending his own life and his legal claim.

'He killed a man, it's true,' said Marit. 'But why aren't the men who ambushed him being held for assault and conspiracy?'

'He attacked them, unprovoked,' said Osya. 'It was pure spite on his part, him with his short temper.'

The man stared accusingly. He was ready to be ill-used. He would never get a fair hearing.

She handed the keys to Osya. 'Let him free. He's telling the truth.'

He grinned, baring teeth. 'Nay, I'll take the punishment, for otherwise the town council will take their revenge on my clan, and there'll be nothing I can do to spare my kinfolk. Knowing one Guardian heard and acknowledged the truth is enough for me. As for these poor lasses-' He indicated the sobbing young woman. 'You can be sure she never said one word to encourage that asstard Forren, but the piss-pot would have her just to prove he can have what he wants, and leave her and her cousin to rot to death when she had the belly to say no to him. Hear me, Holy One. Maybe it's true we have fewer small troubles than before, but why is there no justice when those who hold the reins in this town do as they wish and get legal rulings out of Wedrewe to support them? They enforce the statutes among the rest of us, but hold themselves above because they were appointed by the arkhons out of Wedrewe.'

Marit turned to Osya. 'Is the town council appointed, not elected? Do they enforce the law on others and ignore it themselves?'

She hid behind her hands. 'I just record the hearings and the deeds and the legal rulings set by the council according to the statutes of the holy one.'

'You're a clerk of Sapanasu?'

'The Lantern's temple is closed, Holy One. That happened the year after I served my apprenticeship, twelve years ago now.'

The words rasped out of Marit before she could bite them back. 'Temples are closed? What have you become?'

'We are at peace, Holy One,' whispered the clerk. 'We are a peaceful place.'

Marit sucked in a grunt as pain racked her torso. But the spasm passed, and she recognized not physical pain but the horror of knowing she had walked into a situation she had no power to

alter. Maybe she could execute Master Forren or his cronies on the town council for their crimes, but she had no clear idea how her Guardian's staff — the sword she carried — sealed justice if she could not actually stab a person with it. Anyhow, if she condemned Lord Radas's justice, done at his whim, how could she justify her own?

Because you can see the truth.

Yet truth is not so easy to discern. Emotion twists memory; folk convince themselves of what they want to be true. They hide behind layers of self-deceit, not all of which are easily penetrated even by one who possesses a second heart and a third eye.

She did not trust herself to so casually wield the power of life and death over others while remaining convinced she was right. She did not trust anyone who did.

'Osya. Bring road tokens, enough for all who are prisoner here to depart unmolested. Then release all the prisoners except for the one who murdered the old man. Do not try to pass off false tokens as true ones, for I'll know the difference. After the prisoners have walked free, ring the town's summoning bell.'

It was all she could do, and in the end the angry young man who had lost his claim chose to depart, helping the young woman carry her sick cousin. He alone thanked her; the rest fled without a word.

After they were gone, Marit led Warning into the main square, where she mounted and waited as the bell rang once, twice, and thrice. Folk approached in twos and threes in a stuttering stumble, fearful of her presence in a way that disturbed her so mightily she could not look at it squarely for it would make her consider what the Guardians had become in their eyes: not guardians of justice but 'holy ones' who demanded obeisance.

It was foul. Obscene.

It was easy to recognize the members of the town council, replete in fine clothing and shiny ornament. They strutted until they marked her bone-white cloak; then they cowered with heads bowed. When she drew her sword, the assembly trembled like leaves battered in a storm.

'Look at me,' she said, indicating each member of the council.

Amazingly, they first glanced toward the tallest man among them, who was also the most sleek, well-cared-for, and puffed up.

'Look at me, or be known as criminals because you fear my gaze.'

She might have enjoyed the thrill of anger assuaged by their cringing fear and abject obedience now that they faced her sword, whose blade could cut death out of life, but she did not want to think she had anything in common with people such as this.

'First you, Master Forren.'

'I am entitled-!'

Such a rush of self-important impatience frothed in his mind: He had done nothing wrong! The girl had encouraged him with her simpering glances and coy refusals..She was a cheap piece of rubbish, cadging drinks off visiting merchants and begging for a rich man to toss her a few vey. Was it wrong of him to demand something in return? As for the man who had murdered his nephew! He had claimed mineral rights that properly belonged to Forren; the town was given to him in its entirety to oversee in the name of the holy one's arkhons out of Wedrewe. How could Forren be blamed for exercising the rights given to him?

Who was this cloak to say nay to him? She might be unclean herself!

It is not easy to shame those who are sure of their own shame-lessness.

He spoke the truth, but so twisted in his own mind it was no longer a meaningful truth; he could not see the difference.

Marit had never been as stunned in her life, not even at the moment of her death, when the dagger plunged up under her ribs. All that she, as a reeve, had flown for, had worked for, had believed in: justice, the assizes court, the temples and their offerings, truth. In this man's mind, hers was the dream and the lie, and his was the reality: The land was peaceful under the supervision of the holy ones and their arkhons at Wedrewe. His prosperity was all that mattered.

'You are not entitled by the law as written on Law Rock,' she answered him.

'The old ways brought disruption and crime! We are better served by our new statutes.'

'Some are better served, while many are served ill. Enough!' He shut up, as she meant him to do. Yet she had no power where folk did not recognize her authority. Fortunately, ironically, she could still lie. T will return here in a month's time to stand again over your assizes. Act justly, and you will have no reason to fear me.'

She sheathed her sword and urged Warning up. Wings spread, the mare jolted into a trot, found the paths of air, and galloped

into the sky as the crowd ducked. Anger and despair smothered her, and then she clawed free. She could not overturn all that had gone wrong. She had to do one thing at a time, within the tiny sphere she could control. As she flew past the inner palisade she began to look for the lad named Peri.

She spotted him on the road running northeast. At each town where an inn boasted stables, he displayed a token that bought him a meal, a rest, and a horse; it was an efficient system, and he always got good mounts. He rode on oblivious of her presence. Folk on the ground might feel the tremor of her passage much as they felt the bluster and pressure of wind, but as long as she remained in the air their eye was not drawn to her; the movement of Warning's wings did not alert them.

She followed him north, over the Liya Pass, into Herelia.

'Do you like flying?' The reeve, Miyara, shouted to be heard above the bluster of the wind.

Mai laughed; nervously, it was true, but also because the journey was so astounding. The sea lay behind them. The sun rode aloft. The land looked so different a place from up here. The steep ravines and ridges had a beauty that a person struggling to cross on foot could never see. The mountains spread in majesty into the southwest, and from the height, Mai saw how many more peaks marched away into an unknown distance. Clouds made turbulent pools of gray in the blue sky where they had caught on summits. A strange pattern glimmered on a saddle-backed ridge, but it was only a trick of the light on bare rock.

Mai recognized the steep-sided valley carved into high slopes and the stark cliff where the land plunged away into a mighty ravine. Water spilled down the cliff face, the air broken by rainbows, and mist teased Mai's feet as they battled against a current of air and banked in over thick forest to land in the clearing.

The glade was empty but for the two platforms, canvas walls tied down tight now that no one lived here. Miyara helped Mai unhook herself and the big wicker chest she'd brought. As soon as Anji and the baby were free of the young reeve, Siras, the two reeves signaled and left, the eagles' huge wings casting shadows over the downy grass. Mai lugged the wicker chest over to the smaller platform.

'You're sure the reeves have no idea Hari might be hiding here?' Mai asked as Anji strolled up, his hand on Atani's black hair. The baby was awake, watchful, content.

'Only Miyara, because she led him here.' Anji scanned the clearing for signs of movement. 'I've asked the reeves to stay out of the valley for the time being. I told them we must make privately all the necessary holy offerings in„.thanks for the boy's safe delivery to ensure he is not contaminated by demons.'

'That's not how the Merciful One is worshiped, in private, shutting out others.'

'They don't know that. Mai, it's necessary to keep your uncle a secret, isn't it? Besides Miyara, only Tuvi, Sengel, Toughid, and Priya know.'

'Sheyshi was asleep. I didn't even tell Miravia.'

'No one must know, not if we are to keep him safe. You understand the cloaks'can see into our thoughts-'

'Into mine, and theirs. Not into yours.'

'You make my argument for me.' He untied the web of straps and cloth that had bound Atani against his chest and handed the baby to her. 'We'll come up every month on Wakened Ox, that being the day of his birth according to the calendar kept by the clerks of Sapanasu, a reasonable time to make a thanksgiving offering.'

'Three months today,' said Mai with a satisfied sigh as she bound sling and plump baby against her hip.

'Although in truth just over four passages of the moon have gone by. The calendar here makes little sense to me. Why shouldn't each new moon begin a new month, as it does among the Qin? That's the simplest-'

'Anji.' She touched his arm. 'What if he's not here?'

Anji shrugged. 'We'll perform the offering we told the reeves we came to perform. If he chooses to reveal himself, we'll know he has listened to your wise advice. If not, it is out of our hands.'

He hoisted the wicker chest to one shoulder and began walking. His sword swayed at his hip; he had a knife tucked into each boot. She had her own pair of knives, bound at her back where they would not get in her way. She wrapped a shawl tightly around her shoulders as they passed from sunny glade onto shadowed path. The season of flowers and fruit had faded, but a few

flowers lingered. She paused along the half-overgrown trail to cut stems and blooms and sprays until she had a respectable offering bouquet. Atani reached with his free hand for the bright colors. Anji paused, listening, but only birds sang, insects whirred, foliage rustled beneath unseen scrabbling claws.

They reached the waterfall and pool, the ruins at peace in the cold air. A tremulous wind spun leaves over the rippling water. The flow of water did not pound so hard; the rim of the water's edge was low, exposing a rocky shelf. Anji deposited the wicker chest on a remnant wall as she walked along the ledge into the womb of the cave behind. The curtain of falling wall had thinned enough that she needed no light to see the altar and a recent offering of flowers, petals scattered by animals and wind. Someone had been here, not long ago.

Yet the living guardians of the cave, whose shimmering blue threads had graced Atani's birth, were nowhere in evidence. Had they died?

She shuddered, stroking Atani's soft hair. As frightened as she had been at first, she had come to feel their presence in this holy place was linked to his well-being. In the songs she had grown up singing, such a child would be blessed by hidden spirits and gifted a spectacular destiny, or a brave death, depending on the story's end. Now, she felt unprotected as she knelt before the altar stone and its humble carven image of the Merciful One, as she laid her offering of flowers and chanted the prayers for thanksgiving. Anji came up behind her as she finished. But for the falling water, silence surrounded them. Sunlight winked on the dark mirror of the pool. A twig floated like a boat on the waters of eternity.

'Mai?'

That was Hari's voice!

She jumped up, but Anji stopped her from rushing outside. He indicated the baby. At first, she did not understand his intent; then she did.

'Uncle Hari, is that you?' she called as she unwound the cloth and transferred the infant to his father with a quick kiss to his unclouded forehead. Anji took him firmly, protectively. Mai hurried outside.

A man stood in the shadow of the cliff looking exactly like her beloved Uncle Hari except for his weary expression and the terrible cloak draped around him, worse than chains for being of such a beautiful weave. She looked him straight in the eye, and the

tumult of her own thoughts and worries spilled so fast and hard that she stumbled as though she had been slapped.

'He hit you!' Hari cried. 'Just as your father used to-'

'No, it's nothing like that.'

Hari withdrew his reaching hand as if he were poison. 'Tell me he treats you well.'

She found her footing and walked over to the wicker chest. 'I am perfectly well! There was a day's misunderstanding, it's true, but you must not think — I am my own.mistress, here. I am Anji's wife, of course, but I am not only that.' She fumbled with the cords, fixing her gaze on this task so she would not look at his troubled eyes. Why was her heart racing so? What was she afraid of? 'Sit with me, Uncle Hari. I'll brew tea. There's a fire pit here that we became accustomed to using. Here is kindling and a flint.'

Abruptly, she understood her fear, and tears began to fall. 'I was so afraid you would not be here!'

Blessed be the, holy one for the mercy of simple tasks, for it was possible to lay ct fire and get it burning while you wept.

He sank down on the wall, riot close enough to touch. 'Where else am I welcome, Mai? You are the only home I have.'

She wiped her running nose with the back of a hand. 'Look at me! Just like Ti, a spouting teakettle, neh?'

'Do you miss Kartu Town?' he asked softly.

Everything she needed was in the chest: a tripod to angle over the fire from which to hang the little kettle in which to boil water, bowls to drink from, a straining spoon, the tea leaves blended by Miravia from different varieties. She need only dip water from the sparkling cold pool where its last ripples lapped the rocks.

'I miss Ti. And Mei — my twin! How it pains me I will never see him again! But no, Uncle. I don't miss Kartu Town. If I never went back there I would be sorry not to see my brother and sister-cousin, whom I love, but otherwise I am content here.' She looked up, feeling he needed the reassurance of seeing that she spoke the truth. Yet this time there was a gentle sweetness in the exchange, as if her openness lessened the assault of his gaze. Maybe it was fear that hurt you most; maybe those who caused the most pain to others sought that fear and fed on it.

His smile faded as he looked away. 'You have always had the gift of being content, Mai. It is a more precious treasure than gold or silk.'

She fussed with the kettle, the firewood, the straining spoon,

but in the end she must speak the question she most needed an answer to.

'Have you decided anything, Uncle?' At his ominous silence, she hurried on. 'You need decide nothing, of course. You can just rest here. Tell me of your day. Or of some beautiful place in the Hundred you have seen. Or we can talk of anything you wish — the tea, if you like, or the weather, or this fine silk I am wearing, for I will have you know that I have more silk now than we ever had in the Mei clan, so much I must force my hirelings to wear it to their festivals since there is no real purpose in hoarding silk if you do not mean to display its beauty!'

On she chattered, just as she had learned to do selling produce in the market, setting people at ease. It was no easy thing to sit for hours in the market, on slow days and busy days and all the days in between. Folk did love to talk, and talking did pass the time, and for those who were too shy or weary or beset by cares to have anything to say, talking made them feel welcome despite their silence.

She poured hot water and watched it darken as the leaves steeped.

'Did you come alone?' he asked.

His words surprised her. She had thought the cloaks could sense people with their third eye and second heart. 'No, Anji came with me. He is praying at the altar.' She called, 'Anji! Here is tea.'

He emerged from the cave, his expression carefully polite. The two men eyed each other warily as Anji sat.

'Where is Shai?' Hari asked abruptly, watching Anji. 'Has there been news of him?'

Mai looked away.

'Your news is the last news we have had of him,' said Anji. 'I will come to you with such news as soon as I have it. If I know where to find you.'

Hari's wicked smile flashed, but there was a sharpness Mai recognized as bitterness. 'So am I trapped here, waiting to hear.'

Mai handed him a cup of hot tea, and he blew on the steaming liquid to cool it.

'Do you know what I miss most?' he added. 'Companions. I am alone because I have been created to be alone. I cannot drink and gossip and boast with friends as I was accustomed to do. I am forever cut off from casual intercourse with people. So naturally that is what I miss more than anything.'

His tone made her heart twist with pity. 'You always have a home with us, Uncle.'

Hari studied Anji, who had loosened the baby's wrap to soothe him as Atani started up with a mild fuss. 'Tell me, Captain Anji, did you marry my beloved niece Mai merely for her beauty? Or did you know what a treasure you had found?'

Anji met his gaze squarely with a polite smile that told nothing and hid everything. 'Naturally any answer I give within the hearing of my wife will have to be cut out of a cloth that will satisfy her. Let me just say she was bold enough to overcharge me at the market while all the other merchants fell over themselves to give away their wares. I admired her for that as much as I certainly admired her beauty. Will that answer content you, Uncle Hari?'

'I suppose it must. For like Shai, you are veiled to me.'

Anji hoisted the baby to rest on his shoulder, never shifting his own gaze from Hari's. 'There are many ways to judge the intent of those you face.',

Hari laughed as he violently flung the dregs of the tea bowl to the earth. 'Maybe I was just never a careful observer. It is easy to grow accustomed to living off one's glib tongue and pleasant manners. A young man may be reckless because he wants to impress his friends and in doing so overlook every good warning telling him not to act in such a rash way. Then he may find himself an exile, caught in a cage not of his own devising. Were you ever like that, Captain? Reckless? Rash? Leaping in with both feet onto ground you'd not measured beforehand?'

Anji glanced at Mai and slid the quieting Atani into the crook of his elbow, rocking him gently. 'No,' he said calmly, T don't suppose I ever was like that.'

'Uncle, I know we don't go to drink at the altars because the other cloaks might be walking the labyrinth, and then they would know where we are. But the horses go. What will happen to us if we don't drink?'

For several weeks Jothinin and Kirit had been running sweeps in widening circles out from the altar known as Crags, high in the mountain range called Heaven's Ridge that stretched along the northwestern reaches of the Hundred. Earlier in the day they had made camp at the edge of a pine grove in an isolated mountain valley, its grass not yet whitened by the dry season cold, and released the horses.

'If we don't drink, we age. Very slowly, it's true.' He wrapped his cloak more tightly, shivering, although she seemed unaware of the chill wind cutting through their clothes. 'When I awakened, I was a rather younger man than you see me now. I traded my youth to hide from my enemies.'

'I don't like hiding.' Kirit fed sticks into the fire with the intense concentration with which she approached every task, her serious face rarely smiling and yet never quite frowning. 'Did the people who were grazing sheep here this morning see us coming and run away?'

'How can you know people were grazing sheep here this morning?'

'Uncle! If you look at the sheep droppings, they're still-'

'I need no description! I grew up in the city. I don't know sheep except to eat lamb on festival days.'

'You'd be warmer if you wore wool clothing.'

'Too hot for the delta! We scorned it as shepherds' and woodsmen's rustic garb. Nice for durable bags and blankets, but-'

'Uncle.' Her tone altered as she slipped her bow out of its quiver and stood, an arrow fitted to the string. Seeing and Telling were flying back from the distant altar, and a Guardian on a winged horse was following them. Had they been careless? Or was it inevitable they'd be hunted down?

'Move back into the trees, Kirit.'

She did not move. 'I saw him before. On the rock with the others where they tried to kill Marit. He's one of the corrupted ones. I'll shoot him, like I did those soldiers. Do you remember when I did that by the sea, uncle? You told Marit we can't wield blades against the children of the Hundred. But once an arrow leaves my bow, it's not in my hand, is it? So maybe I can kill him. I'm a very good shot.'

The hells! Was this what he wanted?

Seeing and Telling cantered to earth. A man wearing the cloak of Leaves rode onto the grass, reining aside his horse to look them over. Kirit nocked her arrow and took aim, a terrible sight indeed with her pale complexion and deadly blue eyes. She did not release. The cloak was clever enough to stay out of range.

'I'll go talk to him,' said Jothinin.

'You can't talk to a demon,' said Kirit.

'He's a Guardian. Or he ought to be.' With staff in hand, he paced through grass that brushed his knees, his cloak rippling

atop the stalks. Seeing passed him, trotting toward Kirit, but Telling swung around, ears flat, as if wondering where he was going.

The man watched Kirit more than Jothinin.

'Greetings of the dusk, ver,' Jothinin called.

'I never saw you before,' said the man. 'You're the cloak of Sky. Night's been looking for you. Do you want to join us?'

'Neh, I don't suppose I do wish to join Night. But you're welcome to ride with us. You might find our company more congenial, if you take my meaning.'

The man licked nervously at his lips. He had the slick palms of a merchant always sure he is about to lose a good deal. His gaze flickered erratically toward Kirit in a way that disturbed Jothinin. 'That girl, she's very young. And an outlander.'

'Older than she looks. She says she's met you before.'

'Do you know where the cloak of Death is?'

'If I did, you can be sure I'd not tell you. My friend, you must know that I know what the situation is. What have you to say to me?' He scanned the horizon for signs of movement. Away to the west, he spotted three eagles, gliding in such high spirals that he could not tell if they were wild, or jessed with a scouting reeve.

'We could set a place to meet and talk further.'

'Where you might set up any kind of ambush. I see you have your staff.' He indicated the green sapling wand stuck in the man's belt.

The man's startlement brightened his face, and he grinned as abruptly as a child who unexpectedly answers a question correctly at school. 'You must still be Jothinin, to know which staff I carry! Foolish Jothinin, so Night told us, although no one's seen you for generations. She was sure you had given up long ago and released your cloak. She's been seeking Sky. Now here you are. I've found you. I've done it right!' His pleasure in this triumph was disconcertingly childish.

Kirit whistled sharply, and Jothinin's senses prickled at her warning. Foolish Jothinin, indeed! The cloak of Leaves rode alone now, but if he was searching for other cloaks he likely had soldiers nearby. If Marit and her allies were clever enough to figure out how to use other people to kill a cloak, then certainly Night had done so long ago. Indeed, now that he considered the matter, it was the only possible way Night could have taken control of the

Guardians' council and kept replacing newly awakened cloaks until she found ones she could corrupt.

How had he been so blind?

'Tell her to stand back!' cried the man, and then he reined around and galloped away.

Jothinin strode briskly to where Kirit had halted, having taken a few paces away from the woods. She tracked his flight with her nocked arrow.

'Kirit, keep your bow ready in case he has soldiers close by. I'm going to pack up our gear and saddle the horses. We'll be departing immediately.'

'Uncle,' she said without shifting her gaze off the cloak of Leaves, 'did you know there's another person in the woods, watching us?'

He jerked as if he'd been struck, then bent back to tying up the kettle and bedrolls onto the back of Telling's saddle as if nothing were amiss. 'More than one? His soldiers?'

'Just one. Its heart does not whisper to me. Do you see that snake a few paces behind me? It might strike.' Her tone changed. 'There he goes.'

The cloak of Leaves vanished over the nearest hill, in the direction of the unseen Crags. The sun set behind the high peaks in the west, its light across the meadow gilding the grass to a glossy gold in a last, tender kiss before nightfall. Jothinin, turning back, caught a slithering movement across the dark soil as a snake — easily as long as his outstretched arms — lifted its hooded head.

'Kirit,' he said softly, 'do not move even a finger. That's a very poisonous snake, and I can't be sure it's not simply a snake.' She was a courageous girl; she did not move, not even to look around at the threat hissing behind her.

He cupped hands at his mouth and called. 'If it is you, Eyasad, why do you hide from us? You've no call to frighten the girl. I'll chop that cursed snake in two, I swear it. She's innocent, even if I am not.'

The snake's hiss abated and it settled, not moving away but its hood vanishing.

'Kirit,' he said, 'step away slowly, and saddle the horses.'

'I won't leave you, uncle,' she said, her voice cracking.

'I'm not asking you to. But we must be ready to flee if cloak of Leaves returns with soldiers. Move now, very slowly.'

She slid her feet along the soil, and he sidestepped until he

stood between her and the snake, which raised its head with an exploratory hiss.

'Eyasad,' he continued, 'listen to me. You were first to see the danger. You were right, and we were not just wrong but foolish and blind. Night has indeed corrupted four of the other cloaks. Having therefore control over five staffs, she may destroy the four who remain. She has turned Sun, Leaf, and Blood although there remains a question about Twilight's loyalties. We seek him. If we can assure ourselves he will turn to our side and walk the true path of the Guardians, and if you will join us… then we are five.'

'You are two, Jothinin. Not five.'

The pines clustered beneath a rockier spur of ground along an elongated hollow where richer soil had washed down over the ages to create a welcoming bed for deep roots. He did not see her because the gloom hid everything except the shadowy pillars marking the trees.

T am one. Kirit is two, who wears the cloak of Mist. The cloak of Death seeks Twilight even now, to win him over. If you ally with us, we'll be five. I beg you, show yourself.'

'A cloak in the hands of an outlander! No wonder it is so degraded, considering what a useless piece of chaff Ashaya was, easily led as well as stupid.'

Her voice was thinner than he recalled it, remembering her hearty laugh and robust singing. 'You're as blunt as ever, Eyasad. How I feared your tongue set on accounting my flaws!'

'You will have at your tiresome jokes all day if I do not stop you. Where is Death Cloak, if she is your ally? For I will tell you, Night pursued him who wore the Death Cloak above all of us, knowing him most likely to find a way to turn her strength against her and destroy her. What happened to him I do not know. I think she captured him, and destroyed him, and that this Death Cloak you speak of, once a reeve, is merely another creature of Night. Why should she not fool you, as easily as you are to be fooled? What a cursed idiot you are, Jothinin! Flying in here in broad daylight, so lacking in common sense that you did not see the shepherds who, seeing you, fled to warn me. Have you any idea what you've wrought?'

'Neh, but I expect I am about to hear.'

From back by the horses, Kirit hissed, rather like the cobra, and to his surprise, the snake crawled away into the darkness, lost among the bracken as Eyasad spoke bitter words.

'For generations I have labored to build a haven for folk to live free of the corruption of the Guardians. Now I am betrayed. I must move all my people lest they be discovered and slaughtered. Yet where will they be safe, eh? Is any place safe from the Guardians?'

'The land will become safe if we make it safe by restoring the Guardians' council!'

'Do we execute the other Guardians at our whim just as Night did? And thereby become like her?'

'Do we stand passively aside and let her destroy us?'

'Either way, she has already won.'

'What would you have us do?' he cried.

'It is better to do nothing.'

'To do nothing when you see a man being killed, if you could act to stop it, is the same as standing among those who kill him.'

'To do nothing is to refuse to participate in what is already corrupted.'

'We are commanded to act!'

'Strange words, heard from you, foolish Jothinin, who was once nothing more than a gossip and games-player, a trifle among men, not worthy of comment except in the manner of your death.'

'I am not the man I once was. I have changed.'

'Grown older, anyhow. Once you had a youthful face.'

'Aged, I grant you, over the long years, because I have avoided the altars to avoid Night and her allies. Eyasad, I beg you-'

'I am done with the Guardians' council. If we were betrayed once, then we can be so again. Why should there be Guardians at all, if they can be corrupted?'

Kirit padded up beside him, the bow held in her competent hands. Her voice emerged more strongly than he had ever heard it. 'It is wrong not to act when there is suffering. Why do you reject us?'

'Because you have brought my enemies down upon me. Sheh! All that I have built, in ruins! Because of you! What can I do now? Who can aid me?'

'If we work together-'

'Enough! I am quit of you. Do not seek me out again.'

During their conversation, night had swallowed them. Too late, he called light and plunged into the pine woods, but for all that he searched, he found no trace of Eyasad's passing. When he returned to the ashes of the fire, Kirit had the horses ready.

'Has Night corrupted her?' Kirit asked, her face ghostly above the light she had called from her hand to guide him back.

'Only if despair is corruption.'

'I lived once in despair,' Kirit said softly. 'When I lived there, I was not a person and not a demon. I was a ghost. Maybe she is a ghost, too.'

'Eiya!' He smiled gently. 'Maybe. Yet she speaks of people she has built a haven for. She may reject us, but she still acts as a Guardian.'

'What if she's right about the Guardians? Why should any of us, you and me, look into the hearts of others? Isn't it like violating them?' She spoke the words so calmly that he winced, thinking of what she had endured in the long months she had been a slave.

'Not if we act for justice.'

Her gaze pinned him because she had no guile, nothing but the memory of the pain whose hot grasp she had escaped. 'If they do not give' permission, then does it matter for what reason it is done?'

The light of the gleaming stars looked angry tonight, or maybe it was only the prickle of his own heart, stabbed by doubts.

'Uncle, for a long time, I could not fight and I didn't know how to die. That was worse than dying. So I don't fear death. If we are truly Guardians, then we must risk our lives to help those who are fighting the demons. You already said so! To do nothing when you see people being killed, when you could act to stop it, is the same as if you are killing them yourself.'

He did not answer. He had no answer.

'So you see,' she went on inexorably, 'Marit is the one who is right. If the cloak of Earth will not help us, we have to use the other plan.'