Balasar was a soldier and a leader of soldiers. Killing men was his
work. It would have been as well to ask a farmer to regret the fate of
his wheat. But to take these words which had lasted longer than the
civilization that created them, to slaughter history was a task best
done by the ignorant. Only a man who did not understand his actions
would be callous enough to destroy these without qualm.
And yet what must be done, must be done. And it was time.
Carefully, Balasar laid the hooks open in the brazier. The pages shifted
in the breeze, scratching one on another like dry hands. He ran his
fingers along one line, translating as best he could, reading the words
for the last time. The lemon candle spilled its wax across his knuckles
as he carried it, and the flame leapt to twice its height. He touched
the open leaves with the burning wick as a priest might give a blessing,
and the books seemed to embrace the fire. He sat, watching the pages
blacken and curl, bits of cinder rise and dance in the air. A pale smoke
filled the air, and Balasar rose, opening the flap of the pavilion to
the wide night air.
The firefly darted past him, glowing. Balasar watched it fly out to
freedom and the company of its fellows until it went dark and vanished.
The cook fires were fewer, the stars hanging in the sky bright and
steady. A strange elation passed through him, as if he had taken off a
burden or been freed himself. He grinned like an idiot at the darkness
and had to fight himself not to dance a little jig. If he'd been certain
that none of his men were near, that no one would see, he would have
allowed himself. But he was a commander and not a child. Dignity had its
price.
When he returned to the brazier, nothing was left but blackened hinges,
split leather, gray ash. Balasar stirred the ruins with a stick, making
sure no text had survived, and then, satisfied, turned to his cot. The
day before him would be long.
As he lay in the darkness, half asleep, he felt the ghosts again. The
men he had left in the desert. The men still alive whom he would leave
in the field. Riaan, hooks cradled in his arms. Balasar's sacrifices
filled the pavilion, and their presence and expectation comforted him
until a small voice came from the hack of his mind.
Kya, it said. Sinja-kya, he called him. Sinja-cha would have been the
proper form, wouldn't it? Kya is used for a lover or a brother. Why
would Riaan have thought of Sinja as a brother?
And then, as if Eustin were seated beside the cot, his voice whispered,
Seemed like he might he trying to keep the poor bastard from saying
something.
LIAT WALKED THROUGH DARKNESS BETWEEN THE KHAI'S PALACES AND THE library
where Maati, she hoped, was still awake and waiting for her. She felt
like a washrag wrung out, soaked, and wrung out again. It was seven days
now since Stone-Made-Soft had escaped, and she'd spent the time either
meeting with the Khai Machi or waiting to do so. Long days spent in the
gilded halls and corridors of the palaces were, she found, more tiring
than travel. Her back ached, her legs were sore, and she couldn't even
think what she had done to earn the pain. Sitting shouldn't carry such a
price. If she'd lifted something heavy, there would at least be a reason....
The city seemed darker now than when she'd arrived. It might be only her
imagination, but there seemed fewer lanterns lit on the paths, fewer
torches at the doorways. The windows of the palaces that shone with
light seemed dimmed. No slaves sang in the gardens, the mem hers of the
utkhaiem that she saw throughout her day all shared a tension that she
understood too well.
Candles flickered behind Maati's closed shutters, a thin line of light
where the wooden frames had warped over the years. Liat found herself
more grateful than she had expected to be as she took the last steps
down the path that led to his door.
Nlaati sat on the low couch, a bowl of wine cradled in his fingers. A
bottle less than half full sat on the floor at his feet. He smiled as
she let herself in, but she saw at once that something wasn't well. She
took a pose of query, and he looked away.
"hlaati-kya?"
"I've had a letter from the Dai-kvo," hlaati said. "The timing of all
this isn't what I'd hoped, you know. I've spent years puttering through
the library here, looking for nothing in particular, and only stumbled
on my little insight now. Just when the Galts have gotten out of hand.
And now Cehmai. And ... forgive me, love, and you. And our boy."
"I don't understand," Liat said. "'['he I)ai-kvo. What did he say?"
"Ile said that I should come." Maati sighed. "There's nothing in the
letter about the Galts or the missing poet. "There's nothing about
StoneMade-Soft, of course. The courier won't be there with that sorry
news for days yet. It's only about me. It's the thing I'd always hoped
for. It's my absolution, Liat-kya. I have been out of favor since before
Nayiit was horn. After I took Otah's cause in the succession, they
almost forbade me from wearing the robes, you know. The old Dai-kvo made
it very clear he didn't consider me a poet."
Liat leaned against the cool stone wall. Her pains were forgotten. She
watched Maati raise his brows, shake his head. His lips shifted as if he
were having some silent conversation to which she was only half welcome.
A familiar heaviness touched her heart.
"You must have hoped for this," she said.
"[)reamed of it, when I dared to. I'm welcomed back with honor and
dignity. I'm saved."
""That's a hitter tone for a saved man," she said.
"I've only just met you again. I've only just started to know Nayiit.
And Otah-kvo's in need. And the Galts are stirring trouble again. My
shining hour has come to call me away from everyone who actually matters."
"You can't refuse the I)ai-kvo," Liat said softly. "You have to go."
"Do I?"
The air between them grew still. Half a hundred other conversations
echoed in their words. Liat closed her eyes, weariness dragging her like
rain-heavy robes.
"It's all happening again, isn't it?" she said. "It's all the things
we've suffered before, coming back at once. The Galts. Stone-Made-Soft
set free. Cehmai lost and mourning the way Heshai was that summer, after
Seedless killed the baby. And then us. You and I."
"1'ou and I, ending again," NMTaati said. "All of history pressed into
one season. It doesn't seem fair."
"I low is Cehmai?" she asked, turning the conversation to safer ground,
if only for a moment. "Has he been eating?"