brazier of glowing coals that made the potato-and-salt-pork soup taste
smoky. When at last Sinja found himself without more to say, the
questions ended. Balasar sighed deeply.
"He sounds like a good man," he said. "I'm sorry I won't get to meet him."
"I'm sure he'd say the same," Sinja said.
"Will the utkhaiem turn against him? If we make the same offers we made
in Utani and Tan-Sadar, can we avoid the fighting?"
"After he heat your men? It's not a wager I'd take."
Balasar's eyes narrowed, and Sinja felt his throat go a bit tighter,
halfconvinced he'd said something wrong. But Balasar only yawned, and
the moment passed.
"How would you expect him to defend his city?" Eustin asked, breaking a
stick of bread. "Will he come out to meet us, or hide and make us dig
him out?"
"Dig, I'd expect. He knows the streets and the tunnels. He knows his men
will break if he puts them in the field. And he'll likely put men in the
towers to drop rocks on us as we pass. 'hiking hlachi is going to be
unpleasant. Assuming we get there."
"You still have doubts?" Balasar asked.
"I've never had doubts. One bad storm, and we're all dead men. I'm as
certain of that as I ever was."
"And you still chose to come with us."
"Yes, sir."
"Why?"
Sinja looked at the burning coals. The deep orange glow and the white
dust of ash. Why exactly he had come was a question he'd asked himself
more than once since they'd left'I n-Sadar. He could say it was the
contract, but that wasn't the truth and all three of them knew it. He
flexed his fingers, feeling the ache in his knuckles.
""There's something I want there," he said.
"You'd like to he the new Khai Machi?"
"In a way," Sinja said. "Something I'd ask from you instead of my share
of the spoils, at least."
Balasar nodded, already knowing what Sinja was driving toward. ""I'he
Lady Kiyan," he said.
"I don't want her raped or killed," Sinja said. "When the city falls,
I'd like her handed over to me. I'll see she doesn't do anything stupid
or destructive."
"Her husband and children," F,ustin said. "We will have to kill them."
"I know it," Sinja said, "hut she's not from a high family. She's got no
standing aside from her marriage. She won't pose a threat."
"And for her sake, you'd betray the Khai?" Balasar asked.
Sinja smiled. 't'his question, at least, he could answer honestly and
without fear.
"For her sake, sir, I'd betray the gods."
Balasar looked at Eustin, his eyebrows rising as if asking an unvoiced
question. Eustin considered Sinja for a long moment, then shrugged.
Grunting, Balasar shifted and pulled a wooden box from under his cot. He
took a stoppered flask from it-good Nantani porcelain-and three small
drinking howls. With growing unease, Sinja waited as Balasar poured out
water-clear rice wine in silence, then handed one howl to Eustin, the
next to him.
"I have a favor to ask of you as well," Balasar said.
Sinja drank. The wine was rich and clean and made his chest bloom with
warmth, but not so much he lost the tightness in his throat and between
his shoulders.
"We can go in," Eustin said. "Waves of us. Small numbers, one after the
other, until we've dug out every nook and cranny in the city. But we'll
lose men. A lot of them."
"Most," Balasar said. "We'd win. I'm sure of that. But it would take
half of my men."
""That's had," Sinja said. "But there is another plan here, isn't there?"
Balasar nodded.
"We can send a man in who can tell us what the defenses are. Who can
send word or sign. If we're lucky, perhaps even a man who can help with
planning the defense. And, in return, take the woman he wants."
Sinja felt his mind start to spin. The rice wine made it a bit harder to
think, but a hit easier to grin. It was ridiculous, except that it made
sense. Ile should have anticipated this. I Ie should have known.
"You want to send me in? As a spy?"
"'lake a couple good horses in the morning, and ride hard for the city,"
Eustin said. "You'll arrive a few days ahead of us. You were the Khai's
advisor before. I Ie'Il listen to you, or at least let you listen to
him. When the time conies for the attack, you guide us."
The captain made a small gesture with one hand, as if what he'd said was
simple. Go into Nlachi, betray Otah and everyone else he'd known this
last decade. If I turn against the general, Sinja thought, it'll he a
bad death when these men find me.
"It will be faster this way," I3alasar said. "hewer people will die on
both sides. And, because you ask, the woman is yours. Safe and unharmed
if I can do it."
"I have your word on that Sinja asked.
Balasar took a pose that accepted an oath. It wasn't quite the right
vocabulary, but it carried the meaning. Sinja felt unpleasantly like he
was looking down over a cliff. His head swam a little, and the tightness
in his body fell to knotting his gut. He held out his bowl and Balasar
refilled it.
"I'll understand if it's too much," Balasar said, his voice soft. "It
will make things easier for both sides and it won't change the way the
battle falls, but that doesn't mean it isn't a terrible thing to ask of
you. 'lake a few days to sit with it if you'd like."
"No," Sinja said. "I don't need time. I'll do the thing."
"You're sure?" Eustin asked.
Sinja drained his cup in a gulp. He could feel the flush starting to
grow in his neck and cheeks, the nausea starting in his belly and the
back of his throat. It was strong wine and a had night coming.
"It needs doing, and it's the price I asked," Sinja said. "So I'll do it."
(.EIIMAI SA"l' FORWARD IN Ills CIIAIR. THE, Wlll"1'E MARBLE WALLS OF
THEIR workspace glowed with candlelight, but Nlaati didn't find the
brightness reassuring. He was sitting as quietly as he could manage on a
red and violet embroidered cushion, waiting. Cehmai lifted one of the
wide yellow pages, paused, and turned it over. Nlaati saw the younger
poet's lips moving as he shaped sonic phrase from the papers. Nlaati
restrained himself from asking which. Interruptions wouldn't make this
go any faster.
The simple insight that Eiah had given him that night in the baths had
taken the better part of two weeks to work into a draft worthy of
consideration. Fitting the grammars so that the nuances of corruption
and continuance-destruction and creation, or more precisely the
destruction of creation-reinforced one another had been tricky. And the