'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 desert. Perhaps he'd been ashamed of what he might see reflected there. And perhaps his shame had some part in this. Eustin was his man, and so the pain he bore was Balasar's responsibility. He'd been weak and stupid to shy away from that. And weakness and stupidity always carried a price.
'Let the dog go. There's no call to involve him, or these men,' Balasar said. 'Sit with me awhile, and if you still need killing, I'll be the one to do it.'
Eustin's gaze flickered over his face, searching for something. To see whether it was a ruse, to see whether Balasar would actually kill his own man. When he saw the answer, Eustin's wide shoulders eased. He dropped the rope, freeing the animal. It hopped in a circle, uncertain and confused.
'You have the dog,' Balasar said to the sailors without looking at them. 'Now go.'
They filed out, none of them taking their eyes from Eustin and the knife still in his hand. Balasar waited until they had all left, the low door pulled shut behind them. Distant voices shouted over the creaking timbers, the oil lamp swung gently on its chain. This time, Balasar used the silence intentionally, waiting. At first, Eustin looked at him, anticipation in his eyes. And then his gaze passed into the distance, seeing something beyond the room, beyond them both. And then silently, Eustin wept. Balasar shifted his stool nearer and put his hand on the man's shoulder.
'I keep seeing them, sir.'
'I know.'
'I've seen a thousand men die one way or the other. But… but that was on a field. That was in a fight.'
'It isn't the same,' Balasar said. 'Is that why you wanted those men to throw you in the sea?'
Eustin turned the blade slowly, catching the light. He was still weeping, his face now slack and empty. Balasar wondered which of them he was seeing now, which of their number haunted him in that moment, and he felt the eyes of the dead upon him. They were in the room, invisibly crowding it as the sailors had.
'Can you tell me they died with honor?' Eustin breathed.
'I'm not sure what honor is,' Balasar said. 'We did what we did because it was needed, and we were the men to do it. The price was too high for us to bear, you and I and Coal. But we aren't finished, so we have to carry it a hit farther. 'That's all.'
'It wasn't needed, General. I'm sorry, but it wasn't. We take a few more cities, we gain a few more slaves. Yes, they're the richest cities in the world. I know it. Sacking even one of the cities of the Khaiem would put more gold in the High Council's coffers than a season in the Westlands. But how much do they need to buy Little Ott back from hell?' Eustin asked. 'And why shouldn't I go there and get him myself, sir?'
'It's not about gold. I have enough gold of my own to live well and die old. Gold's a tool we use-a tool I use- to make men do what must be done.'
'And honor?'
'And glory. Tools, all of them. We're men, Eustin. We've no reason to lie to each other.' lie had the man's attention now. Eustin was looking only at him, and there was confusion in his eyes-confusion and pain-but the ghosts weren't inside him now.
'\'h-,, then, sir? Why are we doing this?'
Balasar sat back. He hadn't said these words before, he had never explained himself to anyone. Pride again. He was haunted by his pride. The pride that had made him take this on as his task, the work he owed to the world because no one else had the stomach for it.
'I'he ruins of the Empire were made,' he said. 'God didn't write it that the world should have something like that in it. Men created it. Men with little gods in their sleeves. And men like that still live. The cities of the Khaiem each have one, and they look on them like plow horses. 'Fools to feed their power and their arrogance. If it suited them, they could turn their andat loose on us. Hold our crops in permanent winter or sink our lands into the sea or whatever else they could devise. They could turn the world itself against us the way you or I might hold a knife. And do you know why they haven't?'
F, ustin blinked, unnerved, Balasar thought, by the anger in his voice.
'No, sir.'
'Because they haven't yet chosen to. That's all. They might. Or they might turn against each other. They could make everything into wastelands just like those. Acton, Kirinton, Marsh. Every city, every town. It hasn't happened yet because we've been lucky. But someday, one of them will grow ambitious or mad. And then all the rest of us are ants on a battlefield, trampled into the mud. That's what I mean when I say this is needed. You and I are seeing that it never happens,' he said, and his words made his own blood hot. He was no longer uncertain or touched by shame. Balasar grinned wide and wolfish. If it was pride, then let him be proud. No man could do what he intended without it. 'When I've finished, the god-ghosts of the Khaiem will be a story women tell their babes to scare them at night, and nothing more than that. That's what Little Ott died for. Not for money or conquest or glory.
'I'm saving the world,' Balasar said. 'So, now. Say you'd rather drown than help me.'
1
It had rained for a week, the cold gray clouds seeming to drape themselves between the mountain ranges to the east and west of the city like a wet canopy. The mornings were foggy, the afternoons chill. With the snowdrifts of winter almost all melted, the land around hlachi became a soupy mud whose only virtue was the spring crop of wheat and snow peas it would bring forth. Travel was harder now even than in the deadly cold of deep winter.
And still, the travelers came.
'With all respect, this exercise, as you call it, is ill-advised,' the envoy said. His hands still held a pose of deference though the conversation had long since parted from civility. 'I am sure your intentions are entirely honorable, however it is the place of the I)ai-kvo-'
'If the I)ai-kvo wants to rule hfachi, tell him to come north,' the Khai NIachi snapped. 'He can pull my puppet strings from the next room. I'll make a bed for him.'
The envoy's eyes went wide. He was a young man, and hadn't mastered the art of keeping his mind from showing on his face. Utah, the Khai Machi, waved away his own words and sighed. He had gone too far, and he knew it. Another few steps and they'd he pointing at each other and yelling about which of them wanted to create the 'T'hird Enr pire. The truth was that he had ruled hlachi these last fourteen years only by necessity. The prospect of uniting the cities of the Khaiem under his rule was about as enticing as scraping his skin off with a rock.
The audience was a private one, in a small room lined with richly carved hlackwood, lit by candles that smelled like rich earth and vanilla, and set well away from the corridors and open gardens where servants and members of the utkhaiem might unintentionally overhear them. This wasn't business he cared to have shared over
