make himself bigger or stronger, he instead became fast and smart and
uncompromising.
When he became a man of arms in the service of Galt, he had been the
smallest in his cohort. And in time, they had named him general. If the
High Council needed to be convinced, then he would by God convince them.
A polite cough came from the archways behind them, and Balasar turned. A
secretary of the Council stood in the shade of the wide colonnade. As
Balasar and Eustin rose, he bowed slightly at the waist.
"General Gice," the secretary said. "The Lord Convocate requests your
presence.
"Good," Balasar said, then turned to Eustin and spoke quickly and low.
"Stay here and keep an eye on our friend. If this goes poorly, we may
need to make good time out of Acton."
Eustin nodded, his face as calm and impassive as if Balasar asked him to
turn against the High Council half the days of any week. Balasar tugged
his vest and sleeves into place, nodded to the secretary, and allowed
himself to be led into the shadows of government.
The path beneath the colonnade led into a maze of hallways as old as
Galt itself. The air seemed ancient, thick and dusty and close with the
breath of men generations dead. The secretary led Balasar up a stone
stairway worn treacherously smooth by a river of footsteps to a wide
door of dark and carved wood. Balasar scratched on it, and a booming
voice called him in.
The meeting room was wide and long, with a glassed-in terrace that
looked out over the city and shelves lining the walls with books and
rolled maps. Low leather couches squatted by an iron fireplace, a low
rosewood table between them with dried fruits and glass flutes ready for
wine. And standing at the terrace's center looking out over the city,
the Lord Convocate, a great gray bear of a man.
Balasar closed the door behind him and walked over to the man's side.
Acton spilled out before them-smoke and grime, broad avenues where steam
wagons chuffed their slow way through the city taking on passengers for
a half-copper a ride laced with lanes so narrow a man's shoulders could
touch the walls on either side. For a moment, Balasar recalled the ruins
in the desert, placing the memory over the view hefore him. Reminding
himself again of the stakes he played for.
"I've been riding herd on the Council since you gave your report. They
aren't happy," the Lord Convocatc said. "The High Council doesn't look
favorably on men of ... what should I call it? Profound initiative? None
of them had any idea you'd gone so far. Not even your father. It was
impolitic."
"I'm not a man of politics."
The Lord Convocate laughed.
"You've led an army on campaign," he said. "If you didn't understand
something of how to manage men, you'd be feeding some Westland tree by now."
Balasar shrugged. It wasn't what he'd meant to do; it was the mo- nment
to come across as controlled, loyal, reliable as stone, and here he was
shrugging like a petulant schoolboy. He forced himself to smile.
"I suppose you're right," he said.
"But you know they would have refused you."
"Know is a strong word. Suspected."
"Feared?"
"perhaps."
"Fourteen cities in a single season. It can't be done, Balasar. Uther
Redcape couldn't have done it."
"tither was fighting in Eddensea," Balasar said. "They have walls around
cities in Eddensea. They have armies. The Khaiem haven't got anything
but the andat."
""I'he andat suffice."
"Only if they have them."
"Ah. Yes. That's the center of the question, isn't it? Your grand plan
to do away with all the andat at a single blow. I have to confess, I
don't think I quite follow how you expect this to work. You have one of
these poets here, ready to work with us. Wouldn't it be better to
capture one of these andat for ourselves?"
"We will be. Freedom-From-Bondage should be one of the simplest andat to
capture. It's never been done, so there's no worry about coming too near
what's been tried before. The binding has been discussed literally for
centuries. I've found books of commentary and analysis dating back to
the First Empire ..."
"All of it exploring exactly why it can't be done, yes?" The Lord
Convocate's voice had gone as gentle and sympathetic as that of a medic
trying to lead a man to realize his own dementia. It was a ploy. The old
man wanted to see whether Balasar would lose his temper, so instead he
smiled.
""That depends on what you mean by impossible."
The Lord Convocate nodded and stepped to the windows, his hands clasped
behind his hack. Balasar waited for three breaths, four. The impulse to
shake the old man, to shout that every day was precious and the price of
failure horrible beyond contemplation, rose in him and fell. This was
the battle now, and as important as any of those to come.
"So," the Lord Convocate said, turning. "Explain to me how 'annot means
can.
Balasar gestured toward the couches. They sat, leather creaking beneath
them.
""I'he andat are ideas translated into forms that include volition,"
Balasar said. "A poet who's bound something like, for example,
WoodUpon-Water gains control over the expression of that thought in the
world. He could raise a sunken vessel up or sink all the ships on the
sea with a thought, if he wished it. The time required to create the
binding is measured in years. If it succeeds, the poet's life work is to
hold the thing here in the world and train someone to take it from him
when he grows old or infirm."
"You're telling me what I know," the old man said, but Balasar raised a
hand, stopping him.
"I'm telling you what they mean when they say impossible. They mean that
Freedom-From-Bondage can't be held. "There is no way to control
something that is the essential nature and definition of the
uncontrolled. But they make no distinction between being invoked and
being maintained."
The Lord Convocate frowned and rubbed his fingertips together.
"We can bind it, sir. Riaan isn't the talent of the ages, but
FreedomFrom-Bondage should be easy compared with the normal run. The
whole binding's nearly done already-only a little tailoring to make it
fit our man's mind in particular."
"That comes back to the issue," the Lord Convocate said. "What happens
when this impossible binding works?"
"As soon as it is bound it is freed." Balasar clapped his palms
together. "That fast."
"And the advantage of that?" the Lord Convocate said, though Balasar
could see the old man had already traced out the implications.
"Done well, with the right grammar, the right nuances, it will unbind