for the two of them to fill as they saw fit.
They told stories-reminiscences of Old Mani and the wayhouse in I1dun,
the sound of the birds by the river. The time a daughter of one of the
high families had snuck into the rooms her lover had taken and had to be
smuggled back out. Otah told stories from his time as a courier,
traveling the cities on the business of House Siyanti under his false
name. They were all stories she'd heard before, of course. She knew all
his stories.
They made love seriously and gently and with a profound attention. He
savored every touch, every scent and motion. He fought to remember them
and her, and he felt Kiyan's will to store the moment away, like food
packed away for the long empty months after the last leaf of autumn has
fallen. It was, Otah supposed, the kind of sex lovers had on the nights
before wars, pleasure and fear and a sorrow that anticipated the losses
ahead. And afterward, he lay against her familiar, beloved body and
pretended to sleep until, all unaware, the pretense became truth and he
dreamed of looking for a white raven that everyone else but him had
seen, and of a race through the tunnels beneath Machi that began and
ended at his father's ashes. He woke to the cool light of morning and
Kiyan's voice.
"Sweet," she said again. Otah blinked and stretched, remembering his
body. "Sweet, there's someone come to see you. I think you should speak
with him."
Otah sat up and adopted a pose that asked the question, but Kiyan, half
smiling, nodded toward the bedchamber's door. Before the servants could
come and dress him, Otah pulled on rose-red outer robes over his bare
skin and, still tying the stays, walked out to the main rooms. Ashua
Radaani sat at the edge of a chair, his hands clasped between his knees.
His face was as pale as fresh dough, and the jewels set in his rings and
sewn in his robes seemed awkward and lost.
"Ashua-cha," Utah said, and the man was already on his feet, already in
a pose of formal greeting. "What's happened?"
"Most High, my brother in Cetani ... I received a letter from him last
night. The Khai Cetani is keeping it quiet, but no one has seen poet or
andat in the court in some time."
"Not since the day Stone-blade-Soft escaped," Utah said.
"As nearly as we can reckon it," he agreed.
Utah nodded, but took no formal pose. Kiyan stood in the doorway, her
expression half pleasure and half dread.
"May I have the men I asked of you, Ashua-cha?"
"You may have every man in my employ, Most High. And myself as well."
"I will take whoever is ready at dawn tomorrow," Utah said. "I won't
wait past that."
Ashua Radaani bowed his way out, and Utah stood watching him leave. That
would help, he thought. EIe'd want the word spread that Radaani was
firmly behind him. The other houses and families might then change their
opinions of what help could he spared. If he could double the men he'd
expected to have ...
Kivan's low chuckle startled him. She still stood in the doorway, her
arms crossed under her breasts. Her smile was gentle and amazed. Otah
raised in hands in query.
"I have just watched the Khai Machi gravely accept the apology and sworn
aid of his servant Radaani. A day ago you were an annoyance to that man.
"Today, you're a hero from an Old Empire epic. I've never seen things
change around a man so quickly as they change around vou."
"It's only because he's frightened. He'll recover," Otah said. "I'll he
an incompetent again when he's safe and the world's hack where it was."
"It won't be, love," Kiyan said. "The world's changed, and it's not
changing hack, whatever we do."
"I know it. But it's easier if I don't think too much about it just yet.
When the Dai-kvo's safe, when the Galts are defeated, I'll think about
it all then. Before that, it doesn't help," Otah said as he turned hack
toward the bed they had shared for years now, and would for one more
night at least. Her hand brushed his cheek as he stepped past, and he
turned to kiss her fingers. There were no tears in her eyes now, nor in his.
12
"I gave him too much and not enough men to do it," Ralasar said as they
walked through the rows of men and horses and steam wagons. Eustin
shrugged his disagreement.
Around them, the camps were being broken down. Men loaded rolled canvas
tents onto mules and steam wagons. ''he washerwomen loaded the pans and
stones of their trade into packs that they carried on bent shoulders.
The last of the captured slaves helped to load the last of the ships for
the voyage back to Galt. The gulls whirled and called one to another;
the waves rumbled and slapped the high walls of the seafront; the world
smelled of sea salt and fire. And Balasar's mind was on the other side
of the map, uneased and restless.
"Coal's a good man," Eustin said. "If anyone can do the thing, it's him."
"Six cities," he said. "I set him six cities. It's too much. And he's
got far fewer men than we do."
"We'll get finished here in time to help him with the last few," Eustin
said. "Besides, one of them's just a glorified village, and Chaburi- Tan
was likely burning before we were out of Aren. So that's only four and a
half cities left."
There was something in that. Coal's men had been on the island and in
the city and in ships off the coast, waiting for the signal that would
follow the andat's vanishing. Even now, Coal and his men-between five
thousand and six-were sailing fast to Yalakeht. A handful more waited
there in the warehouses of Galtic traders, preparing for the trip
upstream to the village of the Dai-kvo and the libraries at the heart of
the Khaiem. The other cities would have their scrolls and codices, but
only there, in the palaces carved from the living rock, were the great
secrets of the fallen Empire kept. His war turned on that fire and on
the deaths of the men who knew what those soon-burned books said.
And he wouldn't he there for it.
"'l'he southern legions are ready, sir," Eustin said. "Fight thousand
for Shosheyn-"Ian, Lachi, and Saraykeht. My legion's two thousand
strong. Should he enough for Pathai and that school out on the plains.
"That'll leave you a full half of the forces for the river cities. Udun
and Iltani and "Ian-Sadar."
Balasar struggled with the impulse to send more of the men with Eustin.
It was the illusion he always suffered when tactics required that he
split his forces. Ile would make do with less in order to keep his best
men safe. Pathai was only half the size of Nantani, but Eustin was
taking only a tenth of the men. It was unlikely that word had traveled
fast enough for the Khai Pathai to hire some fleet-footed mercenary
company out of the Westlands, but unlikely wasn't impossible. Two
thousand more men might make the difference if something went wrong.