Daniel Abraham - THE

A scratching came at the door, followed by a servant woman. She took a

pose of abject apology.

"Most High, there's a courier for you."

"It can wait," Otah said. "Or if it can't, send for Sinja-cha."

"The courier's come from Chaburi-Tan," the servant said. "The letter is

sealed and signed for you alone. He says the issue is urgent."

Otah cursed under his breath, but he rose. As he stepped out to the

antechamber, he heard Danat and Issandra resume the conversation without

him. The antechamber felt as close as a grave, heavy tapestries killing

any sound from within the greater meeting room. The courier was a young

man, hardly more than Danat's age. Otah saw the calm, professional eyes

sum him up. If the boy had been longer in the gentleman's trade, Otah

would never have noticed it. He accepted the letter and ripped it open

there, not waiting for a blade to cut the silk-sewn edging.

The cipher was familiar to him, but it made for slower reading than

plain text. It was from the Kajiit Miyan, servant to the Emperor Otah

Machi who had founded the Third Empire. Otah skipped down past the

honorifics and empty form, decoding words and phrases in his mind until

he reached something of actual importance. Then he read more slowly. And

then he went back and read it again.

The mercenaries hired to protect Chaburi-Tan were ending their contract

and leaving. Within a month, the city would be reduced to its citizen

militia. The pirates who had been harrying the city would find them only

token resistance. Their options, his agent said, were to surrender and

pray for mercy or else flee the city. There would be no defense.

Otah took the servant girl by the elbow.

"Find Balasar. And Sinja. Bring them . . ." Otah looked over his

shoulder. "Bring them to the winter garden of the second palace. Do it

now. You. Courier. You'll wait until I have word to take back."

The twilight world lost its color like a face going pale. Otah paced the

lush green and blossomless garden, wrenching his mind from one crisis to

the next. A different servant led Balasar into the space between the

willows.

"Find us some light," Otah said. "And Sinja-cha. Get Sinja-cha."

The servant, caught between two needs, hesitated, then hurried off. Otah

led Balasar to a low stone bench. The general wore a lighter jacket,

silk over cotton. His breath smelled of wine, but he gave no sign of

being drunk. Otah looked out at the gray sky, the dark, looming palaces

with windows glimmering like stars and cursed Sinja for his absence.

"Balasar-cha, I need you. The Galtic fleet has to travel to ChaburiTan,"

Otah said.

He outlined the letter he'd had, the history of increasing raids and

attacks, and his half-imagined scheme to show the unity of Galt and the

Khaiem. With every word, Balasar seemed to become stiller, until at the

end, it was like speaking to stone.

"We can only show unity where it exists," Balasar said. His voice was

low, and in the rising darkness it seemed to come from no direction at

all. "After what happened yesterday, the fleet's as likely to turn on

the city as the raiders."

"I don't have the ships and men to protect Chaburi-Tan," Otah said. "Not

without you. The city will fall, and thousands will be killed. If the

Galtic fleet came in, the pirates would turn back without so much as an

arrow flown. And it would halfway unmake yesterday's mess."

"It can't happen," Balasar said.

"Then tell me what can," Otah said.

The general was silent. A moth took wing, fluttering between them like a

clot of shadows and dust before it vanished.

"There is ... something. It will make things here more difficult,"

Balasar said. "There are families who have committed to your scheme.

That have already been brokering contracts and arranging alliances. I

can gather them. It won't be anything like the full force of war, but if

they sent their private ships and soldiers along with whatever you can

muster up, it might serve."

"At the cost of sending away what allies I have," Otah said.

"That would be the price of it," Balasar said. "Send away your friends,

and you're left eating with your enemies. It could poison the court

against us."

Us. At least the man had said us.

"Get them," Otah said. "Get whoever you can quickly, and then send for

me. I can't let another city die."

It only occurred to him as he stalked back through the wide stone halls

and softly glowing lanterns of the first palace that he had been

speaking to the man that had killed Udun and the village of the Daikvo,

the man who had maimed Nantani and Yalakeht.

The meeting chamber was empty when he reached it; Danat and Issandra had

gone. The cheese and apples and wine had been cleared away. The lanterns

had blown out. Otah called for a servant to fetch him food and light. He

sat, his annoyance and unease rising in his breast like the tide

climbing a sea cliff.

Ana Dasin and her petulant, self-important father were well on their way

to seeing both empires chewed away one bit at a time by pirates and

foreign conspiracies. And failing crops. And time. Childless years

growing one upon another like a winter with no promise of spring. There

were so many things to fix, so uncountably many things that had gone

wrong. He was the Emperor, the most powerful man in the cities of the

Khaiem, and he was tired to his heart.

When the food arrived-pork in black sauce, spiced rice, sugared apple,

wine and herbs-Otah was hardly hungry any longer. Moments after that,

Sinja finally arrived.

"Where have you been?" Sinja demanded. "I've been wandering around the

winter garden for half a hand looking for you."

"I should ask the same. I must have had half the servants in the palace

looking for you."

"I know. Six of them found me. It got inconvenient telling them all I

was busy. You need to come with me."

"You were busy?"

"Otah-cha, you need to come with me."

He breathed deeply and took a pose that commanded obedience. Sinja's

eyebrows rose and he adopted an answering pose that held nuances of both

query and affront.

"I have no intention of going anywhere until I have finished eating,"

Otah said. It embarrassed him to hear the peevishness in his voice, but

not so much as to unsay it. Sinja tilted his head, stepped forward, and

lifted one end of the table. The plates and bowl spun to the floor. One

shattered. Otah was on his feet with no memory of standing. His face

felt as warm as if he were looking into a fire. His ears filled with a

buzzing of rage.

Sinja took a step back.

"I can have you killed," Otah said. "You know I can have you killed."

"You're right," Sinja said. "That passed the mark. I apologize, Most

High. But you have to come with me. Now."

Servants came in, their eyes wide as little moons, their hands

fluttering over the carnage of his dinner.

"What is it?" Otah said.

"Not here. Not where someone might hear us."

Sinja turned and walked from the room. Otah hesitated, mumbled an

obscenity that made the servants turn their faces away, and followed. As

his own anger faded, he saw the tension in Sinja's shoulders and through

his neck. They were the sorts of signs he should have picked up on at

once. He was tired. He was slipping.

Sinja was quartered in apartments of the third palace, where the Khai

Saraykeht's second son would have lived, had there been a Khai Saraykeht