spot she had left on Kiyan's shoulder, but when she tried to smooth it
away, Kiyan only took her hand, lacing their fingers together like
half-grown girls trading gossip at a dance. Liat allowed it.
"Thu know you can stay here," Kiyan said.
"You know I can't."
"I only meant you'd be welcome," Kiyan said. "Then a moment later, "What
will you do when the thaw comes?"
"Go south," Liat said. "Go to Saraykeht. See what's left. I may still
have a grandson. I can hope it. And better that he not lose a father and
grandmother both."
"Navilt was a good man," Kiyan said.
"He was nothing of the sort. He was a charming bastard who fled his own
family and slept with half the women between here and Saraykeht. But I
loved him."
"lie died saving my son," Kiyan said. "He's a hero."
"That doesn't help me."
"I know it," Kiyan said, and with a distant surprise, Liat found herself
smiling.
"Aren't you going to tell me it will pass?" Liat asked.
"Will it?"
The tunnels below Nlachi had their own weather-a system of warm winds
and cold; dry and damp. Sometimes, if no one was speaking, if there were
no words to say, Liat could hear it like a breath. Like a long, low,
endless exhalation.
"I will never stop missing him," Liat said. "I want him back."
Kiyan nodded, and sat there with her, keeping the vigil for another
night as outside autumn fell into winter and winter crawled toward
spring. The world slowly changing.
"I UNI)ERSTANI) YOUR SON HAS FALLEN ILL?"
Otah's first impulse, unthinking as a reflex, was to deny it. Balasar
Gice was a small-framed man, unimposing until he spoke, and then
charming and warm enough to fill a room with his ironic half-smile. He
was the man who had brought down everything. "Thousands of people who
were alive in the spring were now dead or enslaved through this man's
ambition. Otah's first impulse was to keep anything about Danat away
from the man, because he was a Galt and the enemy.
His second impulse, as unreasoned as the first, was to tell Balasar the
truth, because in the few days since the surrender, he'd begun to like
the man.
"It's a cough," Otah said. "He's always had it, but it had been less
recently. We'd hoped it was gone, but ..."
He took a pose expressing regret and powerlessness before the gods.
Balasar seemed to take the sense of it.
"I have medics with me," the Galt said, gesturing over his back at the
wide, dark stone arch that led from the great vaulted chamber in which
they now met toward the south and the tunnels given over to the Galtic
army. "They have more experience with sewing men's fingers back on, but
they might he of use. If you'd accept them."
Otah hesitated, his unease washing back over him, then forced himself to
smile.
""That's very kind of you," he said, neither agreeing to anything nor
refusing. The Galt shrugged.
"And Sinja?" he asked.
"He sends his regards," Otah said, "hut he thought it best to withdraw
from company. Fear of reprisal."
"Ile's not wrong," Balasar said. "'T'hat man was many things, but he
wasn't stupid."
"I'm told your men have found places in the tunnels."
"It's a tight fit," the Galt said. "And there are going to he problems.
You can't make a peace just by saying it. People are angry. Yours and
mine both. They're grieving, and grieving people aren't sane. There
haven't been any fights yet, but there will he."
"I know it," Otah said. "We'll keep them apart as best we can. I've
given orders."
"I have too. As long as we're both clear, we can keep it from growing
out of control. At least before the thaw."
"And after that?"
The Galt sighed and nodded, as if agreeing with the question. His gaze
traveled up the walls, tracing the blue tile and the gold. Utah
gestured, and a servant boy scuttled forward from the shadows and poured
them each more tea. The Galt smiled at him, and the boy smiled back.
Balasar took his bowl of tea and blew across it before he spoke.
"I can't stop the High Council from coming back," Balasar said. "I'm
their general for this season. I don't own the army. And ... and since
this campaign ended with the gelding of every man who would cast the
vote, I doubt my voice will carry much with them."
Otah took a pose that accepted this statement.
"'There's an age of war coming for you," Balasar said. "You still have
some of the richest cities in the world, and you're still ripe for
plunder. Even if we don't come, there's Eymond, Eddensea, the Westlands.
'T'here will he pirates from Bakta and Ohar State."
"I'll address those problems. And the others," Otah said with a
confidence lie didn't feel. Balasar let the issue drop. After a moment's
silence, Otah felt himself moved to ask the question he had intended to
leave be. "What will you do? Go back to Galt?"
"Yes," Balasar said. "I'II go hack, but I don't think it would he wise
for me to stay. I don't know, Most High. I had plans, but none of them
involved being hated and disgraced. So I suppose I'll have to make
others. What do you do when you've finished your life's work and haven't
died?"
"I don't know," Otah said, and Balasar laughed.
"With the things still ahead of you, Lord Emperor, you likely never
will. "That's your fate." Balasar's gaze seemed to soften-melancholy
creeping in at the corners of his eyes. "'There are worse, though."
Otah sipped his tea. The leaves were perfectly brewed, neither weak nor
bitter. Balasar raised his own cup in a wordless salute.
"Shall we do this thing?" Otah asked.
"1 was wondering," Balasar said. "I was afraid you might reconsider.
Burning a library's a terrible thing."
For a moment, Otah saw the cold eyes of Sterile, its feminine smile,
heard its voice. The memory of the physicians' cots filled with row upon
row of women in pain possessed him for the length of a heartbeat and was
gone.
""There are worse," lie said.
Otah rose, and the general rose with him. From the servants' niches and
from beyond the great archway to the south, their respective people
appeared. Hard soldiers from the South, amen of the utkhaiem in flowing
robes from the North. Otah raised his hands in a pose of command, and
let the servants go forward to prepare their way.
The furnaces were near the surface where they could be blocked off from
the rest of the city if the fires ever should escape their cells. The
air near them was thick with the scent of smoke and oppressive with
heat. The noise of the flames was like a waterfall. Otah led Balasar and