he knows them better than anyone. If you can, take the children and as much gold as you can carry and head west. Sinja and the others will he there somewhere, working whatever contract they've taken. 'They'll protect you.'
'You're sending me to him?' Kiyan asked softly.
'Only if I don't come hack.'
'You will.'
'Still,' Otah said. 'If…'
'If,' Kiyan agreed and took his hand. 'Then, a long moment later, 'We were never lovers, he and I. Not the way…'
Otah put a finger to her lips, and she went quiet. There were tears in her eyes, and in his.
'Let's not open that again,' he said.
'You could come away too. We could all leave quietly. The four of us and a fast cart.'
'And spend our lives on a beach in Bakta,' Otah said. 'I can't. I have this thing to do. My city.'
'I know. But I had to say it, just so I know it was said.'
Otah looked down. His hands looked old-the knuckles knobbier than he thought of them, the skin looser. They weren't an old man's hands, but they weren't a young man's any longer. When he spoke, his voice was low and thoughtful.
'It's strange, you know. I've spent years chafing under the weight of being Khai Mach], and now that it's harder than it ever was, now that there's something real to lose, I can't let go of it. 'T'here was a man once who told me that if it were a choice between holding a live coal in my hare fist or letting a city of innocent people die, of course I would do my best to stand the pain. That it was what any decent man would do.'
'Don't apologize,' Kiyan said.
'Was I apologizing?'
'Yes,' she said. 'You were. You shouldn't. I'm not angry with you, and there's nothing to blame you for. They all think you've changed, you know, but this is who you've always been. You were a poor Khai Machi because it didn't matter until now. I understand; I'm just frightened to death, love. It's nothing you can spare me.'
'Nlaati could be wrong,' Otah said. 'The Galts may be busy rolling over the Westlands and none of it anything to do with Stone-MadeSoft. I may arrive at the 1Jai-kvo's village and be laughed all the way back North.'
'He's not wrong.'
The great stones of the palaces creaked as they cooled, the summer sun fallen behind the mountains. The scent of incense long since burned and the smoke of snuffed lanterns filled the air like a voice gone silent. Shadows touched the corners of the apartments, deepening the reds of the tapestries and giving the light a feeling of physical presence. Kiyan's hand felt warm and lost in his own.
'I know he's not,' Otah said. lie left orders with the servants at his door that unless there was immediate threat to him or his family-fire or sudden illness or an army crossing the river-he was to he left alone for the night. He would speak with no one, he would read no letter or contract, he wished no entertainments. Only a simple meal for him and his wife, and the silence for the two of them to fill as they saw fit.
They told stories-reminiscences of Old Mani and the wayhouse in I1dun, the sound of the birds by the river. The time a daughter of one of the high families had snuck into the rooms her lover had taken and had to be smuggled back out. Otah told stories from his time as a courier, traveling the cities on the business of House Siyanti under his false name. They were all stories she'd heard before, of course. She knew all his stories.
They made love seriously and gently and with a profound attention. He savored every touch, every scent and motion. He fought to remember them and her, and he felt Kiyan's will to store the moment away, like food packed away for the long empty months after the last leaf of autumn has fallen. It was, Otah supposed, the kind of sex lovers had on the nights before wars, pleasure and fear and a sorrow that anticipated the losses ahead. And afterward, he lay against her familiar, beloved body and pretended to sleep until, all unaware, the pretense became truth and he dreamed of looking for a white raven that everyone else but him had seen, and of a race through the tunnels beneath Machi that began and ended at his father's ashes. He woke to the cool light of morning and Kiyan's voice.
'Sweet,' she said again. Otah blinked and stretched, remembering his body. 'Sweet, there's someone come to see you. I think you should speak with him.'
Otah sat up and adopted a pose that asked the question, but Kiyan, half smiling, nodded toward the bedchamber's door. Before the servants could come and dress him, Otah pulled on rose-red outer robes over his bare skin and, still tying the stays, walked out to the main rooms. Ashua Radaani sat at the edge of a chair, his hands clasped between his knees. His face was as pale as fresh dough, and the jewels set in his rings and sewn in his robes seemed awkward and lost.
'Ashua-cha,' Utah said, and the man was already on his feet, already in a pose of formal greeting. 'What's happened?'
'Most High, my brother in Cetani… I received a letter from him last night. The Khai Cetani is keeping it quiet, but no one has seen poet or andat in the court in some time.'
'Not since the day Stone-blade-Soft escaped,' Utah said.
'As nearly as we can reckon it,' he agreed.
Utah nodded, but took no formal pose. Kiyan stood in the doorway, her expression half pleasure and half dread.
'May I have the men I asked of you, Ashua-cha?'
'You may have every man in my employ, Most High. And myself as well.'
'I will take whoever is ready at dawn tomorrow,' Utah said. 'I won't wait past that.'
Ashua Radaani bowed his way out, and Utah stood watching him leave. That would help, he thought. EIe'd want the word spread that Radaani was firmly behind him. The other houses and families might then change their opinions of what help could he spared. If he could double the men he'd expected to have…
Kivan's low chuckle startled him. She still stood in the doorway, her arms crossed under her breasts. Her smile was gentle and amazed. Otah raised in hands in query.
'I have just watched the Khai Machi gravely accept the apology and sworn aid of his servant Radaani. A day ago you were an annoyance to that man. 'Today, you're a hero from an Old Empire epic. I've never seen things change around a man so quickly as they change around vou.'
'It's only because he's frightened. He'll recover,' Otah said. 'I'll he an incompetent again when he's safe and the world's hack where it was.'
'It won't be, love,' Kiyan said. 'The world's changed, and it's not changing hack, whatever we do.'
'I know it. But it's easier if I don't think too much about it just yet. When the Dai-kvo's safe, when the Galts are defeated, I'll think about it all then. Before that, it doesn't help,' Otah said as he turned hack toward the bed they had shared for years now, and would for one more night at least. Her hand brushed his cheek as he stepped past, and he turned to kiss her fingers. There were no tears in her eyes now, nor in his.
12
'I gave him too much and not enough men to do it,' Ralasar said as they walked through the rows of men and horses and steam wagons. Eustin shrugged his disagreement.
Around them, the camps were being broken down. Men loaded rolled canvas tents onto mules and steam wagons. ''he washerwomen loaded the pans and stones of their trade into packs that they carried on bent shoulders. The last of the captured slaves helped to load the last of the ships for the voyage back to Galt. The gulls whirled and called one to another; the waves rumbled and slapped the high walls of the seafront; the world smelled of sea salt and fire. And Balasar's mind was on the other side of the map, uneased and restless.
'Coal's a good man,' Eustin said. 'If anyone can do the thing, it's him.'
'Six cities,' he said. 'I set him six cities. It's too much. And he's got far fewer men than we do.'
'We'll get finished here in time to help him with the last few,' Eustin said. 'Besides, one of them's just a glorified village, and Chaburi- Tan was likely burning before we were out of Aren. So that's only four and a half cities left.'
There was something in that. Coal's men had been on the island and in the city and in ships off the coast,
