poet, prone to fits of temper and working for the Galtic High Council?
There's not a story worse than that."
"Will the Dai-kvo do what she asks, do you think?"
"I don't know," Otah said. "He'll know this Riaan better than any of us.
If he's certain that the man's not capable of a proper binding, perhaps
we'll let him try and pay the price of it. One simple death is the best
we can hope for, sometimes. If it saves the world."
"And if the Dai-kvo isn't sure?"
""Then he'll spin a coin or throw tiles or whatever it is he does to
make a decision, and we'll do that and hope it was right."
Kiyan nodded, crossing her arms and leaning forward, gazing out into the
distance as if by considering carefully, she could see Galt from here.
Otah's belly growled, but he ignored it.
"He'll destroy them, won't he?" she asked. ""The Dai-kvo will use the
andat against the Galts."
"Likely."
"Good," Kiyan said with certainty that surprised him. "If it's going to
happen, let it happen there. At least Eiah and Danat are safe from it."
Otah swallowed. He wanted to rise to the defense of the innocent in
Galt, wanted to say the sort of high-minded words that he'd held as
comfort many years ago when he had been moved to kill in the name of
mercy. But the years had taken that man. The years he had lived, and the
dark, liquid eyes of his children. If black chaos was to he loosed, he
had to side with Kiyan. Better that it was loosed elsewhere. Better a
thousand thousand Galtic children die than one of his own. It was what
his heart said, but it made him feel lessened and sad.
"And the other problem?" Kiyan asked. Her voice was low, but there was a
hardness to it almost like anger. Otah took a querying pose. Kiyan
turned to him. He hadn't expected to see fear in her eyes, and the
surprise of it filled him with dread as deep as any he had suffered.
"What is it?" he asked.
She looked at him, part in surprise, part accusation.
"Nayiit," she said. "No one would think that man was Maati's child. Not
for a heartbeat. You have two sons, Otah-kya."
S
Balasar was quickly coming to resent the late-spring storms of the
Westlands. Each morning seemed to promise a bright day in which his
masters of supply could make their inventories, his captains could train
their men. Before midday, great white clouds would hulk up in the south
and advance upon him. The middle afternoon had been roaring rain and
vicious lightning for the past six days. The training fields were
churned mud, the wood for the steam wagons was soaked, and the men were
beginning to mirror Balasar's own impatience.
They had been guests of the Warden of Aren for two weeks now, the troops
in their tents outside the city walls, Balasar and his captains sleeping
in the high keep. The Warden was an old man, fat and boisterous, who
understood as well as Balasar the dangers of an army grown restless,
even an army still only half assembled. The Warden put a pleasant face
on things-he'd agreed to allow a Galtic army on his lands, after all.