Traitors Gate

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.