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