dim hallways, he gathered himself. He had expected shame. Seeing Danat
speaking as he himself could not, he thought that he would feel shame.
He didn't. There was only anger.
The first servant he found, he grabbed by the sleeve and spun halfway
around. The woman started to shout at him, then saw who he was, saw his
face, and went pale.
"Whatever you were doing, stop it," Otah said. "Find me the Master of
Tides. Bring her to my rooms. Do it now."
She might have taken a pose that accepted the command or one of
obeisance or any other of the hundred thousand things the physical
grammar of the Khaiem might express. Otah didn't stop long enough to
see, and didn't care.
In his rooms, he called for a traveler's basket. The thin wicker shifted
and creaked as he pulled the simplest robes from his wardrobes and
stuffed them in, one atop the other like they were canvas trousers. The
dressing servants made small pawing movements, and Otah didn't bother to
find out whether they were meant to help or slow him before he sent them
all away. He found eight identical pairs of strapped leather boots, put
three pairs into his basket, then snarled and took the extra ones back
out. He only had two feet, he didn't need more boots than that. He
didn't notice the Master of Tides until the woman made a small sound,
like someone stepping on a mouse.
"Good," Otah said. "You have something to write with?"
She fumbled with her sleeve and pulled out a small ledger and a finger
charcoal. Otah reeled off half-a-dozen names, all the heads of high
families of the utkhaiem. He paused, then named Balasar Gice as well.
The Master of Tides scribbled, the charcoal graying her fingers.
"That is my High Council," Otah said. "Here with you as witness, I
invest them with the power to administrate the Empire until Danat or I
return. Is that clear enough?"
"Most High," the Master of Tides said, her face pale and bloodless,
"there has never ... the authority of the Emperor can't be ... and Gice-
cha isn't even ..."
Otah strode across the room toward her, blood rushing in his ears. The
Master of Tides fell back a step, anticipating a blow, but Otah only
plucked the ledger from her hands. The charcoal had fallen to the floor,
and Otah scooped it up, turned to a fresh page, and wrote out the
investment he'd just spoken. When he handed it back, the Master of Tides
opened and closed her mouth like a fish on sand, then said, "The court.
The utkhaiem. A council with explicit imperial authority? This ... can't
be done."
"It can," Otah said.
"Most High, forgive me, but what you've suggested here changes
everything! It throws aside all tradition!"
"I do that sometimes," Otah said. "Get me a horse."
Danat's force was small-a dozen armsmen with swords and bows, two
steamcarts with rough shedlike structures on the flats, and Danat in a
wool huntsman's robes. Otah's own robe was leather dyed the red of
roses; his horse was taller at the shoulder than the top of his own