But she might as well not have spoken. Liar could no more stop the words
now than will the blood to stop flowing from a wound.
"I offered to take him away. I didn't want him fighting to he the Khai
any more than you did. I wouldn't have put him in danger, and he would
never have hurt I)anat. IIe would never have hurt your boy. Ide wouldn't
have hurt anyone. It's your mewling half-dead son that's caused this. If
he'd been able to fight off a cough, Otah would never have kept Nayiit
from the brand. Nayiit would never have fought, never have hurt rin
hods' children. Ile was ... he was ..."
The tears came again. She couldn't say what would have come. She
couldn't say that Danat and Nayiit would never have come to face one
another as custom demanded. perhaps in the years ahead the gods would
have pitted them against each other. If the world was what it had been.
If things hadn't changed. Sobs as violent as sickness racked her, and
she found Kiyan's arms around her, her own fists full of the soft wool
of the woman's robe, her screams echoing as if by will alone she could
pull the stones down and bury then all.
Time changed its nature. The sorrow and rage and the physical ache of
her heart went on forever and only a moment. The only measure was that
the candles had burned a quarter of their length before the fit passed,
and exhaustion reclaimed her again. She was embarrassed to see the damp
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?"