Traitors Gate

21

Mai bided her time and made her plans, and early in the Month of the Horse when Anji returned flushed with pride over a successful negotiation with the lendings for breeding stock, she struck.

'I would have liked to travel to the Lend with you, Anji,' she said in the privacy of their innermost courtyard as she poured tea and flirted with him. He was freshly bathed, wearing a silk robe and soft slippers and lounging on pillows. 'I am shocked beyond measure that you bargained such a poor deal.'

'You mean when their headwoman offered ten horses in exchange for Tohon, I should have taken the horses?'

She laughed. 'Did that really happen?'

'They remembered and valued him from their last encounter. But you would have approved. I said ten mares wasn't nearly enough, and they wouldn't go any higher.'

'I suppose you did as well as you could. I would have held out for one horse in exchange for each lethra of oil of nay a.'

'No doubt you would have. I knew I was overmatched the moment she started negotiations by offering for Tohon.'

'Then why didn't you take me? You've taken me on a circuit of Olo'osson now.'

'I control Olo'osson. I cannot take my troops into the Lend without violating border rights, and I will not risk you and Atani out in such territory with no proper protection. I do not know what manner of creatures the lendings are.'

'Except that they value men like Tohon.'

'Yes. It was better to pay a worse price and not take the risk that they would value you*

He was in a good mood. The sun was shining over blooming troughs of gold butter-bright and blue heaven's-kiss; her favorite white and blue falling-water tumbled out of pots hung from the eaves of the little gazebo under whose shade they rested.

'It's almost around again to Wakened Ox. Time for our monthly trip to Astafero.'

'You are eager to see Miravia,' he said, humoring her.

'I have been thinking, Anji.' She sipped at her tea, composing herself. 'Since our circuit of Olo'osson back in the Ibex and Fox Months, I've been in correspondence with many village and town councils. I attend Olossi's council meetings every week. The question that most troubles people is the situation in the north. Naturally people fear the Star of Life army will return to Olo'osson.'

He nodded.

'But the question of the assizes also troubles people. Two generations ago the Guardians presided over the assizes-'

'So folk say. Whether the tales are true, we cannot know.'

'The Lantern's hierophants have shown me records held in Sapanasu's temple recording assizes a hundred and more years ago. They were presided over by Guardians.'

'Or folk calling themselves Guardians, pretending to a tradition

they believed was inherited from even more ancient times. Maybe it's true; maybe it isn't.'

'Yes, exactly,' she said, more tartly than she meant to, 'but they believe it, and they are not content with the manner in which their assizes are now conducted. Should reeves preside, or are they only meant to patrol and bring in people accused of committing crimes? Should councils preside, or may they be disposed to judge according to what benefits those with the most wealth and power?'

He set down the cup, his expression as smooth as the balmy sky, untroubled by cloud or wind. The cool weather of the early dry season was passing off and it was getting hotter each day heading into the last season of the year, Furnace Sky.

'Where are you going with this, Mai?'

She went on in her market voice. 'We have seen Uncle Hari twice, the first time in the Fox Month and last month as well. I am encouraged that he has not fled. But he is restless and discontented-'

'So demons must be, because of their essential nature.'

'What folk in the Hundred call a demon and what you call a demon is not the same thing.'

'You may call a demon any other name you wish, but it is still a demon.'

'That is not what I meant.' She rapped him lightly on the back of the hand, a piece of flirtatious scolding that made him smile and twine his fingers between hers. 'Be serious, Anji. Please listen to me. I would say Hari despises himself. No one should have to live with such despair eating away inside them. Especially not my beloved Uncle Hari! Anyhow, even if you wish to consider him a demon, is it not better to give him a reason to want to be part of what we have built rather than merely wanting to avoid the cloaks he hates and fears? Will I not get a better price for the peaches I am offering for sale if the customer has a hankering for such fruit, rather than feeling forced to haggle where he does not-'

Anji laughed, and she blushed, seeing he had conceived a more intimate interpretation of her words. 'I am not convinced that is a good comparison, whatever it was you meant to make of it,' he said. 'But you are right. It is better to act out of desire than fear. What are you thinking?'

On this, her third visit to Uncle Hari in the valley, she waited until she had hot tea poured and cups set on a tray, all the while chattering about the various councils of Olo'osson large and small as if this conversation were merely a way to pass a quiet afternoon. They sat, as before, in the ruins sprawled alongside the pool and waterfall. The cave and its altar remained dark and dry; no threads glimmered on the sloped roof, and no dark shapes roiled beneath the pool's murky waters.

They were alone in the upper vale: she, Uncle Hari, and Anji with the baby in his lap. Chief Tuvi stood below, where the path emerged out of the tangle, while Sengel and Toughid waited out of sight. Five reeves had dropped them off with an offering chest, none the wiser, and departed with orders to return a hand's span before sunset.

'You want me to preside over an assizes?' Hari asked.

She flushed. She had not yet spoken of her plan, although naturally it sat forefront of her thoughts.

'I know,' he said, 'that you were waiting to broach the subject until you had soothed me with gossip and tea, but you cannot conceal your plans from me. What use would I be at an assizes? Have I ever shown the least sign of wisdom in conducting my own wasted life?'

'Do this one time as a favor for me, Uncle. I beg you. Just one time. And then, afterward-'

'Stop!' he cried, laughing in the old remembered way, with his big grin and crinkled eyes. 'You will slay me, Mai. I can refuse you nothing when you stare at me with that hopeful face. You want to make a song of it all.' He looked toward the wash of water as it rained into the pool. 'I once wanted to make a song of it all. You see how it worked out.'

'The tale is not yet finished, Uncle. That is the mistake you are making, if you don't mind my saying so. You've closed the gate, but you can open it again. There are other paths-'

'Aiee!' He laughed again and this time, remarkably, looked at Anji. 'Is she always this persistent?'

Anji smiled.

'One time,' said Hari to Mai. 'Because you asked.'

'I have it all arranged,' she said, although emotion tangled in her market voice, making it hard to speak. 'You need only arrive at the council square just before sunset tomorrow, Uncle.'

'They won't know I'm coming,' he said, and she dreaded the way his voice softened, as if he were changing his mind.

'You'll come to Astafero and preside over the assizes, just like the tales say it happened in the old days. You'll see. Please-'

'No tears! Just this one time.' He rose without drinking his tea and began to pace. 'What am I to do? What am I to say?'

'Say as little as possible,' said Anji.

'Let them speak,' added Mai. 'There will be a clerk of Sapanasu, to record the proceedings, and an envoy of Ilu, one of Kotaru's ordinands, a mendicant sworn to Atiratu, a diakonos serving Taru, and a kalos from Ushara's temple in Olossi.' She glanced at Anji, who betrayed by no flicker any discomfort at this mention of the Devourer's temple. 'There must be representatives of each of the seven gods at an assizes. Except for the pilgrims of Hasibal, because the Formless One has neither temples nor priests.'

'You know the Hundred well, Mai.'

'I'm just saying you need only listen and hear. Others know the law. But in the case of certain intractable cases, you'll know the truth.'

The next day — the auspicious day known as Transcendent Snake — passed slowly. In the afternoon, after a draft of calming tea and water to cool her face, feet, and hands, Mai walked down to the council benches. Would he come? Or would he turn away?

The council speaker called the council to order. The first business was a continuing discussion of certification in the market. What authority determined which goods could be certified as best-quality, good-quality, everyday-quality? Should shoddy work be forced off the market, or fined? What if a competitor brought a charge of shoddy work merely to cut into another's sales? In Olossi, the council controlled certification, but in Astafero, no standards had yet been set. People had settled here from villages and towns all over Olo'osson, and naturally they did not always agree.

As the debate dragged on, Anji without fuss or announcement walked up with Sengel and Toughid to stand at the back in the last hand's-breadth of shade. A few people noted him, but the discussion flowed on regardless. His gaze wandered. He tipped back his head, following an object moving in the sky.

'Heya!' cried a youth loitering near Chief Tuvi's guardsmen. 'What is that?'

A rider on a winged horse cantered to earth. Mai rose, heart

pounding, as the assembly fell into a dead silence. Hari hesitated, looking — she thought — ready to fly away. What must she say, to draw him in without betraying her knowledge of him? He did not particularly resemble her except in coloring, but might people wonder anyway? Or would they not see past his winged horse and Guardian's cloak?

A faltering voice trembled through the first lines of a song, and other voices joined in.

'Come in, come in, we welcome you with garlands Come in, come in, at long last you return'

The noodle seller, Behara, beckoned to her daughter and sent her running down into town. The six priests rose in consternation, and finally the hierophant extended open hands.

'Holy One,' she said, but faltered, washed bloodless and unable to speak further.

'Make a space for the holy Guardian!' snapped the Lady's mendicant. 'For as it says in the tale, face south in the morning and north in the afternoon. Isn't that how it goes?'

At first no one moved. Then, awkwardly, one man and another woman and more cleared a bench and backed away. Hari dismounted, and the horse furled its wings. A child came running up from town in company with Behara's elder daughter, and the little one — not more than seven or eight — without the slightest self-consciousness pattered forward with a garland draped over one arm and raised it as an offering. The garland was a little withered, truly, and where it had come from in this season Mai could not imagine.

Hari stared at it until the child said in a clear, carrying, and somewhat exasperated voice, 'You're supposed to take it. It's an offering, Holy One!'

Hari's grin blazed. He bent low so the child could drape the garland over his head, then he walked down to the cleared bench, the child trotting behind. The silence within the assembly was so intense that Mai realized her nails were biting into her palms. She opened her hands and sat, to avoid notice.

'And stop pinching your big sister when no one is looking, just to get her into trouble,' Hari said to the child, who chortled wickedly and bolted into the crowd.

Behara actually laughed, although it was her own grandson so

accused. She stood. 'Holy One, I pray you, sit down. Why are you come?' If she was nervous, she hid it well.

'I am a Guardian,' he said as he let his gaze pass once over the assembly. Startled gazes flicked up, or down; a man gasped out a word; a woman chuckled; another sobbed into her hands. 'Is this not an assizes?'

He sat.

Everyone looked toward the six priests, who were conferring in frantic whispers. No one knew what to do!

'Bring cases forward,' said Behara impatiently.

'But there is a proper form-' cried the hierophant.

'Never mind the cursed proper forms,' said Behara. 'How are we to remember a ritual no one here alive has ever witnessed? We'll discuss the certification issue next council meeting. Aren't there other disputes to be brought forward today?'

It took some effort to force the first set of disputants to present themselves before a cloaked man with his outlander face and ominous Guardian's eyes.

A flock of sheep had been deliberately stampeded, and several lost. The man who owned the flock said those who had scared the beasts had stolen them. Not so, said the accused young debt slave, although he blushed and stammered as he spoke. He'd done no such thing; he'd been out walking and only fallen into the way of the scattering sheep and tried his best to round them up as a courtesy, only to be accused of theft!

Hari scratched his chin, looking — Mai thought — surprised as he examined each witness in turn. He indicated the men who owned the flock. 'You believe the sheep were deliberately stampeded, that is true enough, you do believe it. You lost five of your flock, and that is also true. Maybe it is true the flock was deliberately set upon by people bent on mischief and maybe it is not, but there are no witnesses, so we can't know. However, this young man's story is also true.'

'Then what was he doing out there, a debt slave like him?' demanded one of the owners.

Hari laughed. 'What do you suppose a young man like that was doing, out away from town? The same thing I would have been doing at his age, had a lass as lively as the one he's thinking of made the same offer to me!'

As men smirked and women chortled, the owners blundered on indignantly. 'But then why didn't he say-?'

There were a hundred reasons folk might not say: maybe she was married already; or she was ashamed of her lust for a lowly debt slave; or he was skiving off work and avoiding a beating. Aui! Who could blame a young man for doing what the young liked to do, eh?

'But what about our missing sheep?'

Hari's expression made Mai, who knew him so well, want to snort with laughter. 'Can it be you have only taken up sheep-herding this year? No wonder! You need to hire an experienced drover, ver. Someone who knows sheep. I admit it will cut into your profit, but until you understand the ways of sheep you will find yourself in trouble again and again. I speak as a man who knows sheep. Is there another case?'

Indeed, there was. Underweight strings of vey were being passed off in the marketplace, but no one knew where they had come from. Hari surveyed the crowd with seeming absentminded-ness as one merchant after the next approached to display the string they'd been shorted. He stopped a woman in midsentence with a raised hand, his gaze fastening on a face half hidden in the crowd. His eyes narrowed. Folk murmured anxiously.

'They're coming from the same people who are weighting their wheat flour with chalk dust,' he said.

His words were answered by a flurry of sharp movement in the crowd as a man and woman tried to bolt. No one had suspected. They'd thought the flat bread tasted gritty because everything tasted of grit here. Anyhow, most folk were accustomed to nai porridge and rice, coming from waterfed lands; the drylands wheat and millet were a new taste. What punishment was to be meted out for such a crime?

Hari looked right at Mai, and she needed no second heart and third eye to see the plea in his expression. She broke in. 'Olossi's market has a code for such violations that we may follow until Astafero codifies its own market laws. Surely it is the Guardian's business to determine the truth, and the council's business to determine the fine.'

Hari's tense posture relaxed. Folk agreed that she had the right of it. The sun set over the mountains. A pair of youths lit lamps, the oil of naya so pure it blazed. The light shimmered in the twilight glamor of Hari's long cloak, whose fabric blended into the fall of night and yet caught the final fading measures of day. The way he sat so still quieted the assembly; they were nervous, but

not precisely fearful. They watched him, but did not cower. His mouth wore a lopsided smile that was also half a frown.

He said, 'What of this other matter that concerns you, Mistress Behara?'

The words startled the noodle seller, but she rose to address Guardian and assembly both. A gang of youths trying to extort protection money had been caught by the militia and now there was a dispute over what punishment should be meted out. The lads were hauled up before Hari, where they stammered out defiant declarations of innocence.

Hari made a cutting gesture with a hand that stopped them short. 'Don't lie to me!' The young men wept as Hari's gaze staked them. Frown deepening, he released them and spoke to the assembly. 'You have a more serious problem. These louts are an advance force from a criminal organization that was driven out of Haldia by the war. It's trying to move its operations into Olossi.'

Folk gave way to let Anji through to the front. 'I beg your permission to deal with this matter personally,' he said to the council. 'That such organizations operate in Olo'osson is not acceptable. I'll take custody of these men. With the help of the Hieros and her agents in Olossi, we'll track this back to its source and put an end to it.'

The council looked to Hari, but Hari shrugged. 'I've determined the truth. It's up to you to determine the fine.' He rose abruptly. The assembly rose hastily, touching hands to foreheads as a gesture of respect. 'I am done for this day.'

He strode to his waiting horse, his cloak blending with the fall of night.

'Holy One,' called the hierophant after him. 'Will you preside again over our assizes?'

He half turned back with a smile as sweet as honey cakes. He beckoned, and Mai hesitated, sure he should not be singling her out, but she could not refuse him or the look that suffused him. She paced out the distance between them, not wanting to seem intimate with a holy Guardian who all presumed she did not and could not already know. Before she could speak to scold him for calling her, he was already talking, words tumbling.

'Is this really what the Guardians used to do?'

'So it says in the tales, Holy One.'

He put a hand to his head as if reeling from a blow. 'They lied to me. They've twisted and stained all of it, haven't they? It's not

corrupt and ugly at all. Difficult, maybe. Unpleasant at times I am sure. But it's not at all what I expected-' He swallowed, and blinked hard. 'I need time to think.'

'No one will find you in the valley. Only we know you are there.'

'I might do something useful for once, after all the useless idiocy I've had a hand in.' He flashed a smile that warmed her, then turned away, mounted the horse, and rode into the twilight. Behind, folk broke into such a flood of talk and exclamation that it drowned her. Voices began a song:

' Wait and be patient, because the gods will answer.

Let the heavens bring their voice down to the land.'

'Mai?' Anji ghosted up beside her, a hand on his sword's hilt.

She grasped his wrist. 'He sees there is another life, not just the terrible cruelty Lord Radas wields.' She wiped away tears. A glimmer rose in the sky, briefly marking the track of Hari's flight, and vanished. 'He's come back to us.'

He had no time to answer as others swarmed up: Mistress Behara and council members and the priests. 'What did he say to you, verea?'

She was borne back into the assembly, stammering a half truth that none of them could discern from her flushed face and awkward words. No one seemed to find it strange he had singled her out, and anyway they weren't really listening. They were spinning their own tale: after so many long years, a Guardian had returned, and where there was one then there must be other true Guardians, not gods-cursed demons like those in the north. By restoring justice in Olo'osson, the people here had merited a sign of favor from the gods. The overthrow of the corrupt council in Olossi last year; the recruitment of an expanded militia; the establishment of a regional council; the new settlement in the Barrens; the change of authority in the reeve hall, placing the best person in command even if she was a fawkner, not a reeve. All this they had done and must continue to do.

Anji walked with Sengel and Toughid and a pair of young soldiers bearing lamps up to investigate the place where the horse had trotted to earth. Their black tabards made them fade into the growing darkness as they studied the dirt for signs of the winged mare's passage- and Hari's footprints. Astafero sang. Anji frowned.

After the seventh bell had rung its closing, the temple of the Merciless One lay quiet on its island on the estuarine delta where the River Olo poured into the Olo'o Sea. Lanterns burned at Banner Pier, appearing from the air as small as fireflies.

As Jothinin and Kirit cantered to earth, a pair of youths came running with the stout batons in hand that would allow them to beat off unwelcome intruders. They pulled up in astonishment as they took in the horses' wings and the perilous cloaks. As they recognized Kirit's demon-pale hair.

'I remember you, Holy One,' said the younger lad. 'I'm called Kass. This is Rodi. You came and took the ghost girl away last year.' He glanced at Kirit, who was scanning the shoreline and rock gardens for danger.

Her head whipped around. 'I'm called Kirit.'

The lads leaped back, so comically surprised to hear a voice that Jothinin laughed. He dismounted, so as not to sit so imposingly above them, but he did not approach any closer.

'Be obedient sons, and announce us to the Hieros.'

Their frowns delighted him, torn as they were between obligations. 'She's entertaining a guest, Holy One. She'll rip off our heads if we disturb her.'

'I do not doubt it,' Jothinin said, recalling the Hieros: obdurate and exacting but also courageous and honest. 'But even the Hieros must have in reserve a means by which she can be summoned in an emergency. We came here first to be polite, son. We could have flown straight in to the inner courts.' He smiled as he spoke.

'I'll go.' Kass raced away into the compound.

The other lad stood with gaze cast down. Kirit scouted down the shore. Jothinin folded his hands and waited. The sleepy purl of the river's backwater meander through reeds flowed in counterpoint to the deeper voice of the main channel, always strong. A nightjar clicked. Abruptly, Rodi yawned, then mumbled an apology as if the act of yawning might be deemed an insult.

How Jothinin hated standing around in silence when there was someone to talk to! 'A fine night, is it not? A little cool, though, don't you think?'

The lad shivered. If he had a voice, he could not bring himself to use it.

Jothinin sighed. 'When I was a lad your age, I had already served my year's apprenticeship to Ilu, the Herald-'

'But you're a Guardian!' the youth blurted. 'The gods made you as you are. You were never young. Unless it's true what they say, that the Guardians were eaten by lilu who took the form of Guardians to lure us into trusting them-'

With a pair of flying gallops, Kirit headed in their direction. The youth shrieked and bolted, vanishing through a gap in the fence as Kirit pulled up beside Jothinin.

'You frightened him,' he observed, torn between rue and amusement.

'He frightened himself.' She tilted her head back. 'Here they come.'

Ah! Voices heard faintly a-wing on the night's breeze as footsteps crunched on a graveled path.

The woman's firm voice Jothinin recognized as that of the Hieros. 'I would prefer any such encounter as this to take place before the entire council, and especially with Captain Anji in attendance, but I cannot ask a Guardian to return at my convenience.'

'I'll stand in Captain Anji's stead, Jara,' the male replied in a pleasant voice, easy and calm. 'All that is said here and now, he will hear exactly as it was spoken. But if what the lad says is true, the Guardian has brought the ghost girl. I saw that demon kill forty northern soldiers with nothing more than sorcery and a mirror. Not to mention the three Qin soldiers she killed before that. What if she has come here to kill me?'

The Hieros's airy laugh made the man chuckle. 'What you Qin call a demon, we'd more likely call a lilu. With such magic, you'd think she would have killed you already if she'd meant to. Yet from from what I heard, the ghost girl killed three soldiers who had forced sex on her when she was a slave to the captain's wife's uncle. No other of the Qin were harmed.'

'True enough. She even went after Shai that time, but she did not kill him. If that's the case, then I'm safe. But whether they are Guardians or demons, the cloaked ones possess magic. It is always prudent to assume they might be our enemy.'

'Trust my judgment, Tohon. I met this envoy of Ilu before, and it seemed to me he was what he said he was. A holy Guardian whose duty is to serve justice, and the Hundred.'

Their footsteps changed as they crossed to a surface more grit than gravel. The Hieros emerged from the darkness, her anklet bells tinkling so softly that the river's song had drowned their

voice. An outlander walked beside her, a man of mature years Jothinin had seen months before in the company of the Qin soldiers as they rode over the Kandaran Pass when the Qin company had first entered the Hundred as hired caravan guards. Jothinin found the way they were ever so slightly canted toward each other to be very endearing.

Kirit said, in a low voice, 'That Qin I do not know. He was not in the captain's troop when we left Kartu Town.'

'Hush, Kirit,' he murmured, more sharply than he intended.

The pair halted. The old woman had a tiny frame but a large presence. The outlander had a sinewy strength in his stocky frame of the kind that has been earned over a long and vigorous life. He had the manners of a cautious man, regarding the two Guardians sidelong.

The Hieros touched her fingers to her forehead, as in prayer. 'Holy One. Greetings of the night.' Deliberately, she looked at him.

He had learned over the years how to protect himself against the onslaught. In the early years, he had avoided looking folk in the face because every look, every meeting, was like a hammer to the head. But a Guardian could not fulfill his duty if every assizes was a brutal pounding. He had learned to filter thoughts and feelings as through a net, capturing those silvery fish he needed and letting the rest slip away. Every person hides within himself grievances and cruelties, but many are simply trying their best, sometimes failing and sometimes succeeding. Most folk were like nai porridge, a little bland and even boring while perhaps sweetened with a dollop of honey or spiced with the sting of eye-watering hot peppers.

The Hieros did not fear him. Her faith in the gods' laws was strong, and she had made hard choices that caused suffering to others, but she was not ashamed of her life or her tenure as hieros over this temple, her prominent place in the hierarchy of Olo'osson's temples and guilds and councils.

'What do you want from the temple?' she asked, because for her the temple always came first. There had been a girl, once, named Jarayinya — an old-fashioned name taken from the Tale of Patience — but that carefree girl had been swallowed up long ago by the All-Consuming Devourer. 'When we met before, you told me that the war for the soul of the Guardians has already begun.'

He nodded. 'We are at war, Holy One. Now we are in need of

allies. I am as you see me a humble man, an envoy of Ilu in appearance and a Guardian in truth. This young woman is an outlander, and yet she is also a Guardian. There is one other Guardian we count as an ally. That makes three.'

'There are nine Guardians, Holy One. Every child knows that.'

'Among the Guardians some have become corrupted. She who wears the cloak of Night rules them. Three obey her without question: Sun, Leaf, and Blood. One, a man wearing a cloak like to the twilight sky, obeys her but with reluctance. We'd take kindly to news of him, in the hopes of making him our ally.'

T have seen no Guardians but you two.' She was speaking truth.

'So she's not a demon, then?' the outlander asked, indicating Kirit. 'The spirit of an angry dead girl?'

'She is a Guardian,' said Jothinin, 'as am I.'

'I have seen you before, ver,' admitted Tohon. 'You walked over the Kandaran Pass when we did. But you were trampled in Dast Korumbos during the bandit attack. I thought sure you were dead then.'

Jothinin ignored his words. 'Have you seen or heard tell of other Guardians?'

The outlander looked up. A glancing blow, that glimpse: he was an honorable man, loyal, cautious, and too deep to scan easily. He was far too deep to be easily led astray.

'I heard of one wearing a green cloak, a very bad man who did unspeakable things,' he said as a spark of entirely unexpected anger flashed in his otherwise guarded gaze; so might a father swell with outrage at an attack upon a beloved son. Upon Shai. 'Where he went I do not know. Marshal Joss spoke of seeing a death-cloaked woman in his dreams. Before the attack on Olossi our soldiers shot a cloaked rider on the West Track. We're told demons command the northern army, Lord Radas among them.' He was telling the truth.

Jothinin raised both hands, palms out. 'Let me tell you a story. My nose is itching. Many whispers have tickled my ears. The Guardians are not single spirits who have existed in all this time in the same vessel since the day the gods raised them at Indiyabu. The cloaks carry the authority and power granted by the gods. But the individuals who wear the cloaks change.'

'How can this be?' demanded the Hieros. 'Guardians can't die.'

The outlander tugged on his ear, saying nothing.

'The cloak leaves a person when his tenure on this earth comes to an end, and awakens a new vessel. Any who inherit the cloak were ones who died fighting for justice, and are therefore granted a chance to restore peace.'

'Then you are demons!' said Tohon.

'Neh, I think not. Maybe we are ghosts, of a kind. Solid enough. Able to laugh and to cry, to eat, to piss if we drink too much.'

'But if Guardians can't die,' the Hieros said, 'then how can the cloak pass from one vessel to another?'

'Within the Guardian council, there has always have been a mechanism to guard against the shadow of corruption. Five cloaks, acting in unanimity, can execute one.'

The Hieros laughed curtly, quick to see the flaw.

'Indeed,' Jothinin said with a wry smile, 'if a Guardian is canny enough and persuasive enough, she may corrupt enough of the council to make it party to her will. As the cloak of Night has done.'

The Hieros snorted, her mood darkening with skepticism. 'So this is your Guardians' war? You seek a majority of five, to destroy the others. What is to stop you, then, from becoming corrupt in your turn? From taking over this army that is ravaging the north?'

The question startled him. 'Nothing but my own heart, Holy One.'

'Why come to us? There seems little we can do that we have not already done: raise an army to safeguard ourselves, send out scouts, build up stocks of oil of naya, expand the safe zone so folk may plant crops when the rains come. You can be sure we do not wish to fall under the northern army's brutal yoke. You need only look at me, Guardian, to know I speak the truth. So what else can we possibly do?'

For once he stumbled, at a loss for words. He could not force words past a leaden tongue.

Kirit rode forward. 'In my tribe,' she said in her hoarse out-lander's voice, 'every person works. All work together, each at her own tasks. So must we work together, to bring peace.' She frowned at Jothinin, as if scolding him.

The Hieros and the Qin solder waited as the lamps hissed and the river flowed.

The night wind's weary sigh spurred Jothinin on, despite his

misgivings. 'We come to offer you a weapon. I will tell you how to kill a Guardian and release its cloak to a new awakening.'