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This book and this series would not be as good if I hadn&039;t had the help of Walter Jon Williarass, Yvonne Coates, Sally Gwylan, Eellis, Sage Walker, and the other members of the New Mexico Critical Mass Workshop

I also owe debts of gratitude to Shawna McCarthy and Danny Baror for their enthusiasm and faith in the project, to Ja support and uncanny ability to take a decent manuscript and make it better, and to &039;lbm Doherty and the staff at Tor for their kindness and support of a new author

And I am especially indebted to Paul Park, who told me to write what I fear

""]&039;here&039;s a problem at the mines," his wife said "One of your treadmill pumps"

Biitrah Machi, the eldest son of the Khai Machi and a roaned and opened his eyes The sun, new-risen, set the paper-thin stone of the bedcha Iliarni sat beside hiood thick robe and your seal hoots," she said, carrying on her thought, "and sent hi the blankets off and rising naked with a grunt A hundred things caineers can fix it or Bread an,-1 tea? Ain I a prisoner? or Take that robe off, dove-let&039;s have theBut he said what he always did, what he knew she expected of him

"No time I&039;ll cat once I&039;m there"

"Take care," she said "I don&039;t want to hear that one of your brothers has finally killed you"

"When the time comes, I don&039;t think they&039;ll come after me with a treadmill pump"

Still, hecharay and violet, stepped into the sealskin boots, and went out to s

"It&039;s the I)aikani y forht They say the lower passages are already half a h ater"

Biitrah cursed, but took a pose of thanks all the sah the wide main hall of the Second Palace The caves shouldn&039;t have been filling so quickly, even with a failed pu He tried to picture the shape of the Daikani mines, but the excavations in the mountains and plains around Machi were numbered in the dozens, and the details blurred Perhaps four ventilation shafts Perhaps six He would have to go and see

His private guard stood ready, bent in poses of obeisance, as he came out into the street Ten litter would turn a knife Cereh to shave with Each of his two brothers had a similar company, with a similar purpose And the time would come, he supposed, that it would descend to that But not today Not yet He had a pu chair, and four porters came out As they lifted hier

"Follow close," he said, his hands flowing into a pose of co practice "I want to hear everything you know before we get there"

They rounds of the palaces-the fa above them like forest trees above rabbits-and into the black-cobbled streets of Machi Servants and slaves took abject poses as Biitrah passed The few members of the utkhaiem awake and in the city streets took less extreme stances, each appropriate to the difference in rank between theht one day renounce his name and become the Khai Machi

Biitrah hardly noticed His : water puuessed that they would reach the lon at thehad moved the width of two hands

They took the south road, the e over the Tidat, the water below thelacier The plain spread before thereen with neheat Trees were already pushing forth neth It wouldn&039;t beat the daylight that the winter stole away The h, and before they had reached the halfway point, a wind rose whuffling in Biitrah&039;s ears andconversation impossible The closer they came, the better he recalled these particular mines They weren&039;t the first that House Daikani had leased from the Khai-those had been the ones with six ventilation shafts "These had four And slowly-more slowly than it once had-histhe proble written on slate or carved fros of the lon, his fingers had grown numb, his nose had started to run froht have gone wrong, and ten questions in mind whose ansould determine whether he was correct He went directly to theto stop for even bread and tea

HIAMI SAT BY THE BRAZIER, KNOTTING A SCARF FROM SILK TIIREAD AND LIStening to a slave boy sing old tunes of the l- ht, lost, won, and died in the high, rich voice Poets and their slave spirits, the andat, waged their private battles sometimes with deep sincerity and beauty, sometimes with bedroom humor and bawdy rhymes-but all of the written after the great war that had destroyed those faraway palaces and broken those song-recalled lands The new songs were all about the battles of the Khaiem-three brothers who held claiet his name and doom his own sons to another cycle of blood Whether they were laments for the fallen or celebrations of the victors, she hated thes that comforted her, and she didn&039;t knot scarves unless she needed coirl in austere robes al a guest of status equal to Hiahter to the Khai Machi"

"I knowin her handwork "You needn&039;t tell irl flushed, her hands fluttering toward three different poses at once and achieving none of the a gentle pose of co comfortable for her to sit on"

The servant took a pose of acknowledgrateful, it seemed, to knohat response to make, and scampered off And then Idaan was there

Hardly twenty, she could have been one of Hiahters Not a beauty, but it took a practiced eye to know that Her hair, pitch dark, was pleated with strands of silver and gold Her eyes were touched with paints, her skin made finer and paler than it really was by powder Her robes, blue silk eold, flattered her hips and the swell of her breasts To a ht have seemed the loveliest woman in the city Hiami knew the difference between talent and skill, but of the pair, she had greater respect for skill, so the effect was , subtly different to mark Idaan&039;s blood relation to the Khai and Hiae and her potential to becoirl trotted in with a good chair, placed it silently, and retreated Hia slave The servant girl took a pose of obedience and led hiestured toward the seat Idaan took a pose of thankshad been and sat

"Is my brother here?" she asked

"No There was a probleine he&039;ll be there for the day"

Idaan frowned, but stopped short of showing any real disapproval All she said was, "It h tunnels like a commonslightly Then she sobered "Is there news of your father?"

Idaan took a pose that was both an affir new, I suppose," the dark-haired girl said "The physicians are watching hiht That makes almost ten days in a row And his color is better"

"But?"

"But he&039;s still dying," Idaan said Her tone was plain and caler Hiami put down her thread, the half-finished scarf in a puddle by her ankles The knot she felt in the back of her throat was dread The old ht carried its i short Biitrah, Danat, and Kaiin Machi-the three eldest sons of the Khaihad lived their lives in so as close to peace as the sons of the Khaiem ever could Utah, the Khai&039;s sixth son, had created a s to take the brand and renounce his claim to his father&039;s chair, but he had never appeared It was assued his path elsewhere or died unknown Certainly he had never caused trouble here And now every tiht his sleep was troubled and restless, the hour drew nearer when the peace would have to break

"How are his wives?" Hiah," Idaan said "Or some of them are The t ones froer than I ao back to their families It&039;s harder for the older wo back to cities they hardly remember "

Hiami felt her coaze was on her Hiay

"No I&039;, Hiaesture Hiami&039;s lovely, absent-ht well die All his string and carved wood ht fall to disuse, as abandoned by his slaughter as she would be If only he ht kill his own brothers and let their wives pay this price, instead of her

"It&039;s all right, dear," Hiaer to VOL] when he returns if you like ItIf he thinks the probleer"

"And then he&039;ll want to sleep," Idaan said, half sht not see or hear from him for days And by then I&039;ll have found soiven tip entirely"

Hiaht, and somehow that little shared intimacy made the darkness more bearable

"Perhaps I can be of sos you here, sister?"

To Hiahtly false under her powder

"I&039;veI wanted 13iitrah to speak to our father About Adrah Adrah Vaunyogi He and I "

"Ah," Hiami said "I see Have you irl to understand I Ier blush deepened

"No It&039;s not that It&039;s just that I think he ood fa hi bloodline and"

Hiairl Idaan looked down at her hands, but then she smiled The horrified, joyous smile of new love discovered Hiaain

"I will talk to him when he comes back, no matter how dearly he wants his sleep," Hiami said

"Thank you, Sister," Idaan said "I shouldI should go"

"So soon?"

"I promised Adrah I&039;d tell hi in one of the tower gardens, and

Idaan took a pose that asked forgiveness, as if a girl needed to be forgiven for wanting to he with a lover and not a woht the darkness in her heart Hiay and released her Idaan grinned and turned to go Just as the blue and gold of her robe was about to vanish through the doorway, Hiah?"

Idaan turned, her expression questioning Hiahts of Biitrah and of love and the prices it deh, Idaan, you mustn&039;t marry him"

Idaan smiled and took a pose of thanks appropriate for a pupil to her one Hiaain, picked up her knotwork and called for the slave to return

THE SUN WAS GONE, THE MOON A SLIVER NO WIDER THAN A NAIL CLIPPING Only the stars answered the miners&039; lanterns as Biitrah rose fro to his legs, the gray and violet turned to a unifors yipped anxiously and paced in their kennels, their breath pluineer of House Daikani&039;s raciously, though his fingers were nuain, call for ineer said "As you couard walked him to the chair, and his bearers lifted him It was only noith the work behind him and the puzzles all solved, that he felt the exhaustion The thought of being carried back to the palaces in the cold and htly less odious than the option of walking under his oer He gestured to the chief arht The usual wayhouse"

The ar his men and his bearers and himself into the unlit streets Biitrah pulled his ared hare flesh to flesh The first shivers were beginning He half regretted now that he hadn&039;t disrobed before wading down to the lowest levels of the h silver to keep Machi&039;s coffers full even had there been no other mines here and in the mountains to the north and west-but the vein led down deeper than a well In its first generation, when Machi had been the most distant corner of the E-Water, and the stories said that the mines had flowed up like fountains under that power It wasn&039;t until after the great war that the poet Manat Doru had first captured Stone-Made-Soft and Machi had come into its own as the center for the most productive ers, silvers-Water had been lost, and no one had yet discovered how to recapture it And so, the puain turned his mind back on the trouble The treadether could raise their oeight in water sixty feet in the time the moon-always a more reliable measure than the seasonally fickle northern sun-traveled the width of a n wasn&039;t perfect yet It was clear from his day&039;s work that the pu at less than its peak for weeks That hy the water level had been higher than one night&039;s failure could account for There were several possible solutions to that

Biitrah forgot the cold, forgot his weariness, forgot indeed where he was and was being borne His mind fell into the problem, and he was lost in it The wayhouse, when it appeared as if by ht: thick stone walls with one red lacquered door at the ground level, a ooden snow door on the second story, and s from all its chimneys Even from the street, he could smell seasoned meat and spiced wine The keeper stood on the front steps with a pose of welcome so formal it bent the old, moon-faced man nearly double Biitrah&039;s bearers lowered his chair At the last moment, Biitrah remembered to shove his arms back into their sleeves so that he could take a pose accepting the wayhouse keeper&039;s welcoh," themore appropriate The best that I have-"

"Will do," Biitrah said "Certainly the best you have will do"

The keeper took a pose of thanks, standing aside to let theh the doorway as he did Biitrah paused at the threshold, taking a formal pose of thanks The old man seemed surprised His round face and slack skinto dry He could be ht, and felt in his breast the blooe, almost melancholy, fondness for the man

"I don&039;t think we&039;ve hbor?"

"Oshai," the moon-faced man said "We haven&039;t met, but everyone knows of the Khai Machi&039;s kindly eldest son It is a pleasure to have you in this house, ed into a set of plain, thick woolen robes that the wayhouse kept for such occasions and joined his ht thes, and carafe after stone carafe of rice wine infused with pluht went on, singing together and telling stories For a tiraying beard and thinning hair was andwith them at the end, intoxicated as much by the heat of the coal fire, the weariness of the day, and the siht, as by the wine