Balasar looked up from the fire, suddenly aware he'd been staring into
it for what might have been half the morning. The boy framed in the
doorway flapped a hand out toward the streets. When he spoke, his words
were solid and white.
"I'hey've come, sir. "They're calling for you."
"Who's come?"
"The enemy, sir."
Balasar took a moment to gather himself, then rose and walked carefully
to the doorway, and then out into the city. To the North, smoke rose
gray and black. A thousand men, perhaps, had lined the northern side of
one of the great squares. Or women. Or unclean spirits. They were all so
swathed in leather and fur Balasar could hardly think of them as human.
Great stone kilns burned among them, flames rising twice as tall as a
man and licking at the sky. In the center of the great square, they'd
brought a meeting table of black lacquer, with two chairs. Standing
there in the snow and ice, it looked like a thing from a dream, as out
of place as a fish swimming in air.
When he stepped into the southern edge of the square, a murmur of voices
he had not noticed before stopped. He could hear the hungry crackle and
roar of the kilns. He lifted his chin, scanning the enemy forces. If
they had come to fight, they would not have announced themselves. And
they'd have had no need of a table. The intent was clear enough.
"Go," Balasar said to the boy at his side. "Get the men. And find me a
banner, if we still have one."
It took a hand and a half for the banner to be found, for someone to
bring him a fresh sword and a gray cloak. Two of the drummers had
survived, and heat a deep, thudding march as Balasar advanced into the
square. It might he a ruse, he knew. The fur-covered men might have bows
and be waiting to fill him full of arrows. Balasar held himself proudly
and walked with all the certainty he could muster. He could hear his own
men behind him, their voices low.
Across the square, the crowd parted, and a single man strode forward.
His robes were thick and rich, black wool shot with bright threads of
gold. But his head was hare and he walked with the stately grace that
the Khaiem seemed to affect, even when they were pleading for their
lives. The Khai reached the table just before he did.
The Khai had a strong face-long and clean-shaven. His long eyes seemed
darker than their color could explain. The enemy.
"General Gice." The voice was surprisingly casual, surprisingly real,
and the words spoken in Galtic. Balasar realized he'd been expecting a
speech. Some declaration demanding his surrender and threatening
terrible consequence should he refuse. The simple greeting touched him.
"Most High," he said in the Khai's language. The Khai took a pose of
greeting that was simple enough for a foreigner to understand but subtle
enough to avoid condescension. "Forgive me, but am I speaking with Machi
or Cetani?"
" Cetani broke his foot in the fighting. I am Otah Mlachi."
The Khai sat, and Balasar across from him. 'T'here were dark circles
under the Khai's eyes. Fatigue, Balasar thought, and something more.
"So," the Khai Machi said. "blow do we stop this?"
Balasar raised his hands in what he believed was a request for
clarification. It was one of the first things he'd learned when studying
the Khaiate tongue, hack when he was a boy who had only just heard of
the andat.
"We have to stop this," the Khai Machi said. "How do we do it?"
"You're asking for my surrender?"
"If you'd like."
"What are your terms?"
The Khai seemed to sag back in his chair. Balasar was pricked by the
sense that he'd disappointed the man.
"Surrender your arms," the Khai said. "All of them. Swear to return to
(salt and not attack any of the cities of the Khaiem again. Return what
you've taken from us. Free the people you've enslaved."
"I won't negotiate for the other cities," Balasar began, but the Khai
shook his head.
"I am the Emperor of all the cities," the man said. "We end it all here.
All of it."
Balasar shrugged.
"All right, then. Emperor it is. Here are my terms. Surrender the poets,
their library, the andat, yourself and your family, the Khai Cetani and
his family, and we'll spare the rest."
"I've heard those terms before," the Emperor said. "So that takes us
hack to where we started, doesn't it? How do we stop this?"
"As long as you have the andat, we can't," Balasar said. "As long as you
can hold yourselves above the world and better than it, the threat you
pose is too great to let you go on. If I die-if every man I have
dies-and we can stop those things from being in the world, it's worth
the price. So how do we stop it? We don't, Most High. You slaughter its
for our impudence, and then pray to your gods that you can hold on to
the power that protects you. Because when it slips, it'll he your turn
with the executioner."
"I don't have an andat," the Emperor said. "We failed."
"But ..."
The Khai made a weary gesture that seemed to encompass the city, the
plains, the sky. Everything.
"What happened to your men, happened to every Galtic man in the world.
And it happened to our women. My wife. My daughter. Everyone else's
wives and daughters in all the cities of the Khaiem. It was the price of
failing the binding. You'll never father another child. My daughter will
never hear one. And the same is true for both our nations. But I don't
have an andat."
Balasar blinked. He had had more to say, but the words seemed suddenly
empty. The Emperor waited, his eyes on Balasar.
"Ah," Balasar managed. "Well."
"So I'll ask you again. How do we stop this?"
Far above, a crow cawed in the chill air. The fire kilns roared in their
mindless voices. The world looked sharp and clear and strange, as if
Balasar were seeing the city for the first time.
"I don't know," he said. ""I'he poet?"
"'I'hev've fled. For fear that I would kill them. Or that one of my
people would. Or one of yours. I don't have them, so I can't give them
over to you. But I have their books. The libraries of Machi and Cetani,
and what we salvaged from the I)ai-kvo. Give me your weapons. Give me
your promise that you'll go back to Galt and not make war against us
again. I'll burn the books and try to keep us all from starving next
spring."
"I can't promise you what the Council will do. Especially once ... if..."
"Promise me you won't. You and your men. I'll worry about the others later."
There was strength in the man's voice. And sorrow. Balasar thought of
all the things he knew of this man, all the things Sinja had told him. A