arrived. Then, alone, he opened his satchel and drew forth the hooks he
had recovered, laying them side by side on the desk that looked out over
the port. There were four, two hound in thick, peeling leather, another
whose covers had been ripped from it, and one encased in metal that
appeared to be neither steel nor silver, but something of each. Balasar
ran his fingers over the mute volumes, then sat, considering them and
the moral paradox they represented.
For these, he had spent the lives of his men. While the path back to
Galt was nothing like the risk he had faced in the ruins of the fallen
Empire, still it was sea travel. "There were storms and pirates and
plagues. If he wished to be certain that these volumes survived, the
right thing would he to transcribe them here in Parrinshall. If he were
to die on the journey home, the books, at least, would not be drowned.
The knowledge within them would not be lost.
Which was also the argument against making copies. He took the larger of
the leather-hound volumes and opened it. The writing was in the flowing
script of the dead Empire, not the simpler chop the Khaiem used for
business and trade with foreigners like himself. Balasar frowned as he
picked out the symbols his tutor had taught him as a boy.
Mere are two types of impossibility in the andat: those which cannot he
un- delstood, and those whose natures make binding impossible. His
translation was rough, but sufficient for his needs. "These were the
books he'd sought. And so the question remained whether the risk of
their loss was greater than the risk posed by their existence. Balasar
closed the hook and let his head rest in his hands. He knew, of course,
what he would do. He had known before he'd sent Eustin and Coal to find
a boat for them. Before he'd reached Far Gait in the first place.
It was his awareness of his own pride that made him hesitate. History
was full of men who thought themselves to be the one great soul whom
power would not corrupt. He did not wish to be among that number, and
yet here he sat, holding in his hands the secrets that might remake the
shape of the human world. A humble man would have sought counsel from
those wiser than himself, or at least feared to wield the power. He did
not like what it said of him that giving the books to anyone besides
himself seemed as foolish as gambling with their destruction. Ile would
not even have trusted them to Eustin or Coal or any of the men who had
died helping him.
He took the paper he'd been given, raised the pen, and began his report
and, in a sense, his confession.
THREE WEEKS Ot!T, Et'STIN BROKE.
The sea surrounded them, empty and immense as the sky. So far south, the
water was clear and the air warm even with the slowly failing days. The
birds that had followed them from Parrinshall had vanished. The only
animal was a three-legged dog the ship's crew had taken on as a mascot.
Nor were there women on hoard. Only the rank, common smell of men and
the sea.
The rigging creaked and groaned, unnerving no one but Balasar. He had
never loved traveling by water. Campaigning on land was no more
comfortable, but at least when the day ended he was able to see that
this village was not the one he'd been in the night before, the tree
under which he slept looked out over some different hillside. I lore, in
the vast nothingness of water, they might almost have been standing
still. Only the long white plume of their wake gave him a sense of
movement, the visible promise that one day the journey would end. Ile
would often sit at the stern, watch that constant trail, and take what
solace he could from it. Sometimes he carved blocks of wax with a small,
thin knife while his mind wandered and softened in the boredom of inaction.
It should not have surprised him that the isolation had proved corrosive
for Eustin and Coal. And yet when one of the sailors rushed up to him
that night, pale eyes bulging from his head, Balasar had not guessed the
trouble. His man, the one called Eustin, was belowdecks with a knife,
the sailor said. He was threatening to kill himself or else the crippled
mascot dog, no one was sure which. Normally, they'd all have clubbed him
senseless and thrown him over the side, but as he was a paying passage,
the general might perhaps want to take a hand. Balasar put down the wax
block half-carved into the shape of a fish, tucked his knife in his
belt, and nodded as if the request were perfectly common.
The scene in the belly of the ship was calmer than he'd expected. Eustin
sat on a bench. He had the dog by a rope looped around the thing's chest
and a field dagger in his other hand. Ten sailors were standing in
silence either in the room or just outside it, armed with blades and
cudgels. Balasar ignored them, taking a low stool and setting it
squarely in front of Eustin before he sat.
"General," Eustin said. His voice was low and flat, like a man halfdead
from a wound.
"I hear there's some issue with the animal."
"He ate my soup."
One of the sailors coughed meaningfully, and Eustin's eyes narrowed and
flickered toward the sound. Balasar spoke again quickly.
"I've seen Coal sneak half a bottle of wine away from you. It hardly
seems a killing offense."
"He didn't steal my soup, General. I gave it to him."
"You gave it to him?"
"Yessir."
The room seemed close as a coffin, and hot. If only there weren't so
many men around, if the bodies were not so thick, the air not so heavy
with their breath, Balasar thought he might have been able to think
clearly. He sucked his teeth, struggling to find something wise or
useful to say, some way to disarm the situation and bring Eustin back
from his madness. In the end, his silence was enough.
"He deserves better, General," Eustin said. "He's broken. He's a sick,
broken thing. He shouldn't have to live like that. There ought to he
some dignity at least. If there's nothing else, there should at least he
some dignity."
The dog whined and craned its neck toward Eustin. Balasar could see
distress in the animal's eyes, but not fear. The dog could hear the pain
in Eustin's voice, even if the sailors couldn't. The bodies around him
were wound tight, ready for violence, all of them except for Eustin. He
held the knife weakly. The tension in his body wasn't the hot, loose
energy of battle; he was knotted, like a boy tensed against a blow; like
a man facing the gallows.
"Leave us alone. All of you," Balasar said.
"Not without Tripod!" one of the sailors said.
Balasar met Eustin's eyes. With a small shock he realized it was the
first time he'd truly looked at the man since they'd emerged from the