as far as he has. No one’s sure when he’ll stop.”
“Inentai’s a hard city to take,” Marcus said. “Anteans will be getting harassed by the locals and river raiders from Borja. Supply lines’ll be vulnerable.”
“Oh, and you know all about war, do you?”
“Some,” Marcus said.
“Well. Probably you’re right. Can’t see it going over the winter. So long as the bugs can hold out until then, the empire’ll go home by first frost.” The Yemmu man nodded, agreeing with himself. Talking himself into believing what he only hoped was true.
The Keshet spread out before them, dry and vast. The shallow hills rose and fell, their sides green and grey from the thick-stemmed, tough brush. In the mornings, Marcus woke before dawn to the sound of birds. They made some simple meal, packed what there was on the mule’s back, and headed for the next oasis or creek. Twice they saw the great dust plume of a princely caravan, the moving cities of Jasuru and Tralgu who dominated the plains but didn’t settle them. Both times, the larger groups passed without bothering them. Two men and a mule were probably too small a group to care about, and Marcus was fine with that. As long as there were rabbits and lizards enough to eat, creeks and wells enough for water, and fodder for the mule, he’d walk from one end of the Keshet to the other without seeing an unfamiliar face, apart from the occasional stop at a caravanserai for food, and count himself pleased to do it. The days grew subtly longer, the midday sun more intense, but the nights were still bitterly cold.
Kit didn’t complain. Marcus assumed that his years wandering the world with his acting troupe had left him accustomed to long journeys in the empty places of the world. The old actor’s face was thinner, his body narrowed by months of living without steady food and too much work, but it didn’t make him look worn. If anything, he seemed younger, fuller, more vital. Even at the end of a punishing day’s walk, on rationed water because they hadn’t found fresh, Kit’s step seemed to bounce. Marcus tried to imagine what it would be like for him. They were walking back across decades toward the place where Kit had been a boy. He imagined the years and losses and adventures peeling away from Kit and being left behind on the open plain. The fear was there—Marcus could see it by the light of the fire at night, could hear it in the man’s voice when he spoke—but there was a joy that came with it.
The circle, Marcus thought, closing. Something was ending for Kit, and the sense of impending completion was pulling the man across the Keshet like the north calling a lodestone. Marcus didn’t have that, but he kept pace. One leg in front of the other, eyes sharp for snakes, mouth too dry for comfort. He wore the poisoned sword across his back; the mule had refused to carry it after the third day. So far as he could tell, he hadn’t suffered any particular bad effects except that his dreams seemed more vivid and confused than usual and his food all tasted bad.
Then one day, the horizon thickened. Dark hills marked the edge of the world, and beyond them, mountains. Marcus sat by the low, smoking fire as the setting sun turned the world the color of fire. His shadow stretched toward the hills, toward the temple and its goddess. Beside him, the mule sighed and closed its black eyes.
“How far do you think they’ve gotten?” Marcus asked.
Kit lay back on his bedroll, his hands behind his head and staring up at the stars.
“You mean the Anteans?”
“Them and the ones we’re here to stop. You think they’ve gotten to Inentai yet?”
“Probably,” Kit said. “But perhaps not. There might have been illness in the ranks. Or they might have run short of food or water. I’ve found armies to be large, unwieldy things, haven’t you? It seems they’re always finding some new way to break.”
“Nothing I’d care to bet on,” he said.
“Me either,” Kit said. “Still, I can hope.”
“You know they shouldn’t be winning.”
Kit’s sigh was hardly more than a breath and degree more hunch in his shoulders. Marcus sat forward, his palms toward the low flames. When the darkness came, the firelight would ruin his night vision, but for now he could still see his companion’s expression.
“What else can your goddess do?” Marcus said. “Raise the dead? Can you do that?”
“I don’t believe anyone can bring back what’s gone,” Kit said. “But I imagine there are other ways to win battles. Interrogate prisoners when they cannot lie, and how can they keep their secrets from you? Or frighten the enemy with stories of grand magics against which they couldn’t possibly stand. Or tell them that they have already lost until they think it true. I believe that the priests are making these victories possible.”
“Inentai?”
“I expect it will fall. If they are taking slaves, I expect they will do so there as well. And build a new temple. And begin taking converts to school in the holy secrets of the goddess. All of it. In the end, it won’t matter if Antea outstrips its own abilities. It won’t matter if the empire falls. The goddess will be back in the world, and men who can do what I do will be everywhere. Men with blood like mine. That is all she will need.”
“To do what? What is it she wants?”
Kit’s smile surprised him.
“Peace.”
“Peace?”
“On her terms. The death of those that oppose her. The creation of a narrow world that holds her word to be unquestioned and unquestionable. Only the world she believes and the world that I’ve experienced aren’t the same place, and so for there to be peace, the world as it is must die and be reformed into the one she dictates. They cannot both be, and so … and so she will eat the world.”
“This hairwash about the Timzinae plotting against Antea,” Marcus said.
“There were levels of initiation into the secrets of the temple,” Kit said. “Not all servants of the Righteous Servant were equal. I didn’t learn everything there was to know before I left. But the Timzinae … the story is that they aren’t entirely human. That the twelve true races are all related, and that they all rebelled against the dragons, but the Timzinae were fused with dragonets hatched early from their eggs and fashioned to resemble humanity. They were the one race that remained loyal to the dragons.”
“But that isn’t true.”
“I don’t believe it is, no,” Kit said. “But when I came out from the temple, I brought the stories with me. Timzinae sacrificing the young of other races to their ancestor dragons and so on. It was why I chose to travel to Suddapal. To live among them and see if what I had been told was … true’s a strong word. If it was plausible. It wasn’t.”
The massive disk of the sun dropped lower, touching the horizon like it was setting fire to the world. Kit glanced over at Marcus, his expression reluctant. Almost shy.
“I don’t believe this is a war, Marcus.”
“A culling, then?”
“A purification. The slaughter of a race because …” Kit shook his head, coughed, and tried again. “Because the men I used to know and love and to whom I dedicated my life for a time have a wrong idea.”
“Well, I don’t see talking sense to them about it and hoping for the best,” Marcus said.
“I can’t permit this destruction. Whatever the price, I can’t permit it.”
“Destruction’s inevitable,” Marcus said, and spat. “You do know we’re about to destroy Antea? If you’re right and their success is all based on your incarnated goddess, when we take her away, we’ll take their successes away with them, and they’re in the middle of a fight. Soldiers of Antea are just men. Some of them are bastards and some aren’t. Some have children and wives. It’s not their fault that your old pals came and made their homeland into a tool for a spider, but they’ll die because of it.”
“Or, I suppose, kill for it if we don’t.”
The angry disk of the sun slid away out of sight. For a moment no longer than two breaths together, the plain was in shadow and the mountains to the east still burned, and then the darkness took them too. The world faded to the grey of twilight and ashes.
“I don’t see there’s any choice, though,” Kit said.
“Isn’t. And since I’ve got business in Suddapal, I’d rather the place was still standing when I got there. Just didn’t want you to get your hopes up about this being clean.”
