that she was trembling. "What's the matter? What's happened?"
"I was wrong," he said. "Gods, Cehmai will never forgive me doubting
him. He'll never forgive me."
Candle in hand, Maati lumbered into the next room and began frantically
looking through scrolls, hands shaking so badly the wax spilled on the
floor. Liat gave up hope that he would speak, that he would explain.
Instead, she took the candle from his hand and held it for him as he
searched. In the third room, he found what he'd been seeking and sank to
the floor. Liat came to his side, and read over his shoulder as he
unfurled the scroll. The ink was pale, the script the alphabet of the
Old Empire. Maati's fingertips traced the words, looking for something,
some passage or phrase. Liat found herself holding her breath. And then
his hand stopped moving.
The grammar was antiquated and formal, the language almost too old to
make sense of. Liat silently struggled to translate the words that had
caught Nlaati short.
The second type is made up of those
thoughts impossible to hind by their
nature, and no greater knowledge shall
ever permit them. Examples of this are
Imprecision and Freedom-From-Bondage.
"I know what they've done," he said.
11
Nantani had been one of the first cities built when the Second Empire
reached out past its borders to put its mark on the distant lands they
now inhabited. The palace of the Khai was topped by a dome the color of
jade-a single stone shaped by the will of some longdead poet. When the
sunlight warmed it in just the right way, it would chime, a low voice
rolling out wordlessly over the whitewashed walls and blue tile roofs of
the city.
Sinja had wintered in Nantani for a few seasons, retreating from the
snowbound fields of the Westlands to wait in comfort for the thaw and
spend the money he'd earned. He knew the scent of the sea here, the feel
of the soft, chalky soil beneath his feet. He knew of an old man who
sold garlic sausages from a stall near the temple that were the best
he'd had in the world. He knew the sound of the great sun chime. He had
not known that the deep, throbbing tone would also come when the palace
below it burned.
There were other fires as welclass="underline" pillars of black, rolling smoke that
rose into the air like filthy clouds. The doors he passed as he walked
down to the seafront were broken and splintered. The shutters at the
windows clacked open and closed in the breeze. Often they passed wide
swaths of half-dry blood on the ground or smeared on the rough white walls.
The city had been home to over a hundred thousand people. It had fallen
in a morning.
l3alasar had sent three forces in through the wide streets to the Khai's
palace, the poet's house, the libraries. When those three things were
destroyed, the signal went out-brass horns blaring the sack. When the
signal reached the remaining forces, it was a storm of chaos. Some men
ran for the inner parts of the city, hoping to find richer pickings.
Others grabbed the first mercantile house they saw and took whatever was
there to find-goods, gold, women. For the time it took the sun to travel
the width of a man's hand, Nantani was a scene from the old stories of
hell as the soldiery took what they could for themselves.
And then the second call came, and the looting stopped. Those few who
were so maddened by greed or lust that they ignored the call were taken
to their captains, relieved of what wealth they had grabbed, and then a
fifth of them killed as an example to others. This was an army of
discipline, and the free-for-all was over. Now the studied, considered
dismantling of the city began.
Quarter by quarter, street by street, the armies of Galt stripped the
houses and basements, outbuildings and kitchens and coal stores. Sinja's
own men led each force, calling out in breaking voices that Nantani had
fallen, that her people were permanently indentured to Galt, their
belongings forfeit. And all the wealth of the city was stripped down,
put on carts and wagons, and pulled to a great pile at the seafront.
Some men fought and were killed. Some fled and were hunted down or
ignored, at the whim of the soldiers who found them. And the great
blackening dome of jade sang out its grief and mourning.
Sinja caught sight of the pavilion erected by the growing pile of
treasure. The banners of Galt and Gice hung from the bar that topped the
fluttering canvas. Sinja and the soldiers Balasar Gice had sent to
collect him strode to it. At the seafront, ships stood ready to receive
what had once been Nantani, and was now the fortune of Galt. Balasar
stood at a writing desk, consulting with a clerk over a ledger. The
general still wore his armor-embroidered silk as thick as three fingers
together. Sinja had seen its like before. Armor that would stop a spear
or a sword cut, but weighed likely half as much as the man who wore it.
And still when Balasar caught sight of them and walked forward, hand
outstretched to Sinja, there was no weariness in him.
"Captain Ajutani," Balasar said, his hand clasping Sinja's, "come sit
with me."
Sinja took a pose appropriate for a guard to his commander. It wasn't
quite the appropriate thing, but it came near enough for the general to
take its sense. Sinja walked behind the man to a low table where a
bottle of wine stood open, two perfect porcelain wine bowls glowing
white at its side. Balasar waved the attendant away and poured the wine
himself. Sinja accepted a bowl and sat across from him.
"It was nicely done," Sinja said, gesturing with his free hand toward
the city. "Well-managed and quick."
Balasar looked up, almost as if noticing the streets and warehouses for
the first time. Sinja thought a hint of a smile touched the general's
lips, but it was gone as soon as it came. The wine was rich and left
Sinja's mouth feeling almost clean.
"It was competent," Balasar agreed. "But it can't have been easy. For
you and your men."
"I didn't lose one of them," Sinja said. "I don't know that I've ever
seen a campaign start where we took a city and didn't lose anyone."
"This is a different sort of war than the usual," Balasar said. And
there, in the pale eyes, Sinja saw the ghosts. The general wasn't at
ease, however casual he chose to he with his wine. It was an interesting
fact, and Sinja put it at the back of his mind. "I wanted to ask after
your men."
"Have there been complaints?"
"Not at all. Every report suggests that they did their work admirably.
But this wasn't the adventure they expected."
"They expected the women they raped to look less like their sisters,