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"Does it bother you, grandmother?" Mitat asked as they walked down the street She spoke softly, so that the words stayed between the two of theuards before them or so far back as the two behind

"I can think of a half dozen things you ainst Wilsin"

"Of course it does," A I chose"

"It&039;s only that House Wilsin was good to you for so longit was like family, wasn&039;t it? To make your oay now "

Ay which she ignored

"This isn&039;t a conversation about me, is it?" A in fro to the horizon, did nothing ht The banners over the watch house fluttered, the uards opened the door, nodded to the watchestured Amat and her aide, her friend, her first real ally in the whole sour business, through Amat paused

"If you&039;re thinking of leaving, you and your s of you First, wait until the suit is presented Second, let otiate sos"

"The terms of my indenture were harsh, and you could "

"Oh don&039;t be an ass," Amat said "That was between you and Ovi Niit This is between us Not the saht - and took a pose that sealed an agreened and countersigned the documents, and took her copy for the records of the house For another turn through the ood standing of the soft quarter She walked back to the house with her five coarlic sausages tempted her as they passed an old man and his cart, and Amat wished powerfully that she could stop, send away theas friends ht She could find what price the woman wanted to stay - whatever it was Auards wouldn&039;t let them pause or be alone Mitat wouldn&039;t have had it Amat herself kneould have been unwise - somewhere in the city, Marchat Wilsin had to be in a fever of desperation, and he&039;d proven willing to kill before this Leaving the co like an ordinary life beckoned more seductively than any whore ever had

One step at a time, Amat moved forward There would be time later, she told herself, for all that Later, when the Galts were revealed and her burden was passed on to soed and her city was safe and her conscience was clean Then she could be herself again, if there was anything left of that woain if there wasn&039;t

The er waited for the h servant Aheart, fro for A boy with narrow-set eyes and a thin nose - took a pose of acknowledgment and respect It was a courtly pose

"You&039;ve found her," Amat said

The boy plucked a letter from his sleeve sealed with the mark of the Khai Saraykeht Amat tore it open there in the street The script was as beautiful as any raphy so ornate as to approach illegibility Still, Ahed and took a pose of thanks and dismissal

"I understand," she said "There&039;s no reply"

"What happened?" Mitat asked as they walked into the house "So bad?"

"No," A the audience back four days Another party wishes to be present"

"Wilsin?"

"I assume so It serves us as much as him, really We can use a few more days to prepare"

A the folded paper against the edge of a dice table The sound of a young girl laughing came from the back, from the place where her whores waited to be chosen by one client or another It was an odd thing to hear Any hint of joy, it see to hear If she were Marchat Wilsin, she&039;d try one last gesture - throw one last dart at the sky and hope for a miracle

"Get Torish-cha," Aain And have we had word frouard by the front door said "The other one came by before"

"If either of theh to the back, Mitat beside her

"It&039;s likely only a delay," A time for a reason, I want to be ready for it"

"Grandmother?"

They had reached the common room - full noomen and boys in the costuames and wine, with the smell of fresh bread and roast lamb and with voices Mitat stood at the door, her ar pose

"Someone has to tell Maj," she said

Amat closed her eyes Of course As if all the rest wasn&039;t enough, so to be a screaht, at least they could have it in Nippu Aain Mitat&039;s expression had softened into a rueful amuseraceful as a girl I could have been a dancer, and then I would never have had to h any of this piss"

"I can do it if you want," Mitat said Amat only smiled, shook her head, and walked toward the door to the little room of Maj&039;s and the storm that was inescapably to be suffered

OTAH MACHI, the sixth son of the Khai Machi, sat at the end of the wharf and looked out over the ocean The fading twilight left only the light of a halfon the tops of the waves Behind him, the work of the seafront was finished for the day, and the anored the activity, ate slices of hot ginger chicken froht about nothing

He had two lengths of copper left to hi a life for hiths of copper Enough to buy a bowl of wine, if he kept his standards low Everything else, spent or lost or throay But he was, at least, prepared Below hiain before the dawn cath of the seafront, throwing the spent paper soaked in grease and spices into a firekeeper&039;s kiln where it flared and blackened, lighting for athemselves at the fire The warehouses were dark and closed, the wide street eing box with three times more money in it than Otah had in the world He tossed in one of his copper lengths for luck

The soft quarter was ht He was the one as different The drum and flute froer s theh s It was as if he had con land There was time, he supposed, to turn aside Even now, he could walk away from it all as he had from the school all those years before He could walk away now and call it strength or purity Or the calm of stone He could call it that, but he would know the truth of it

The alley here Seedless had said it would be, hidden als that lined it He paused there for a tiloithout illuhter lu from his scalp Two sailors across the street pointed at the woundedOtah stepped into darkness

Mud and filth slid under his boots like a riverbed The lantern grew nearer, but he reached the door the andat had described before he reached the light He pressed his hand to it The as solid, the lock was black iron The light glies of the shutters showed that a fire was burning within The poet in his private apartments, the place where he hid from the beauty of the palaces and the house that had coently, but it was locked He scratched at it and then rapped, but no one caed the door - a h it, but he would have had to coo to the hidden apartht candle&039;s middle mark, and it wasn&039;t to the first quarter yet

"Heshai-kvo," he said, not shouting, but his voice loud enough to ring against the stonework around hiht no one would coht that haloed the shutters went dark, a bolt shot with a solid click, and the door creaked open The poet stood silhouetted His robes were as disheveled as his hair His wide mouth was turned down in a heavy scowl

"What do you think you&039;re doing here?"

"We need to talk," Otah said

"No we don&039;t," the poet said, stepping back and starting to pull the door closed "Go away"

Otah pushed in, first squaring his shoulder against the door, and then leaning in with his back and legs The poet fell back with a surprised huff of breath The rooms were small, dirty, squalid A cot of stretched canvas was pulled too close to a fireplace, and empty bottles littered the floor by it Streaks of darkThe smell was like a swamp in summer Otah closed the door behind him

"Wh - what do you want?" the poet said, his face pale and fearful

"We need to talk," Otah said again "Seedless told me where to find you He sent me here to kill you"

"Kill me?" Heshai repeated, and then chuckled The fear seemed to drain away, and a bleak a his head, the poet luainst its wooden frame Otah stood between the fire and the doorway, ready to block Heshai if he bolted He didn&039;t

"So You&039;ve co boy I&039;m old and fat and more than half drunk I doubt you&039;ll have a problem"

"Seedless told me that you&039;d welcome it," Otah said "I suspect he overstated his case, eh? Anyway, I&039;m not his puppet"

The poet scowled, his bloodshot eyes narrowing in the firelight Otah stepped forward, knelt as he had as a boy at the school and took a pose appropriate to a student addressing a teacher

"You knohat&039;s happening Amat Kyaan&039;s audience before the Khai Saraykeht You have to knoould happen"

Slowly, grudgingly, Heshai took an acknowledging pose

"Seedless hoped that I would kill you in order to prevent it But I find I&039;m not a murderer," Otah said "The stakes here, the price that innocent people will payand the price Maati will pay It&039;s too high I can&039;t let it happen"

"I see," Heshai said He was silent for a long htfully, he reached down and lifted a half-full bottle from the floor Otah watched the old ulped the wine down Then, "And how do you plan to reconcile these two issues, eh?"

"Let the andat go," Otah said "I&039;ve come to ask you to set Seedless free"

"That simple, eh?"

"Yes"

"I can&039;t do it"

"I think that you can," Otah said

"I don&039;twould be easier I&039;d only have to " He opened one hand in a gesture of release "That isn&039;t what I meant It&039;s that I can&039;t do it It&039;s notit isn&039;t in me I&039;m sorry, boy I know it looks simple from where you are It isn&039;t I&039; you stop being just because you get tired Just because it eats you Just because it kills children Look, if you had the choice of grabbing a live coal and holding it in your fist or destroying a city of innocent people, you&039;d do everything you could to stand the pain You wouldn&039;t be a decent man if you didn&039;t at least try"

"And you would be a decent eance?"

"No, I&039;d be a poet," Heshai said, and his s to understand I&039;ve been holding this coal in my hand since before you were born I can&039;t stop now because I can&039;t Who I am is too much curled around this If I stopped - just stopped - I wouldn&039;t be anyone any"

"Yes Yes, I see you think that, but your opinion on it doesn&039;t matter And that doesn&039;t surprise you, does it?"

The sick dread in Otah&039;s belly suddenly felt as heavy as if he&039;d sed stone He took a pose of acknowledgently over Otah&039;s

"You kneouldn&039;t agree," he said

"Ihoped "

"You had to try," Heshai said, his tone approving "It speaks well of you You had to try Don&039;t blah to end this, and I&039;ve been up to my hips in it for decades Wine?"

Otah accepted the offered bottle It was strong -that left a taste of herb at the back of his throat He handed it back Warhed

"I should have warned you It&039;s a little more than they serve with lamb cuts, but I like it It lets , whatfor hi the tale - his own secret and Wilsin&039;s, the source of Liat&039;s wounds and the prospect of Maati&039;s Throughout, Heshai listened, his face clouded, nodding fro questions that made Otah clarify himself When the secret of Otah&039;s identity came out, the poet&039;s eyes widened, but he made no other comment Twice, he passed the bottle of wine over, and Otah drank frohts he&039;d only half-formed made real by the words he found to express them His own fate, the fate of others - justice and betrayal, loyalty and the changes worked by the sea The wine and the fear and the pain and dread in Otah&039;s guts turned the old man into his confessor, his confidant, his friend even if only for the ht candle was close to the halfway hts and fears, secrets and failures Or almost all There was one left that he wasn&039;t ready to es on with the last of his silver, ready to sail south before the dawn - a sh to ply winter trade where the waters never froze An escape ship for a murderer and his accomplice That he held still to hiood boy Despite it all, he is good Only young"

"Please, Heshai-kvo," Otah said "Stop this thing"

"It&039;s out of my hands And really, even if I were to let the beast slip, your whore story The next andat the Dai-kvo sends ht be just as terrible Or another Khai could be pressed into service, ether Killing ht spare Maati and keep your secrets, but Liatthe Galts "

"I&039;d thought of that"

"Anyway, it&039;s too late forlives on and off like fine robes - that&039;s a young ame There&039;s too httricky Hoould you have done it, if you did?"

"Do what?"

"Kill me?"

"Seedless told me to come just before dawn," Otah said "He said a cord around the throat, pulled tight, would keep you frori a smear of black leaves on the side of the bottle He fumbled for a moment in the chaos under his cot, pulled out a fresh bottle and opened it roughly, throwing the cork into the fire

"He&039;s an optimist," Heshai said "The way I drink, I&039;ll be senseless as stones by the three quarters"

Otah frowned, and then the import of the words came over him like cold water The dread in his belly became a knot, but he didn&039;t speak The poet looked into the fire, the low, dying flae to take the old man in his arms and eainst the shore When the old aze shifted, Otah saw his own darkness mirrored there

"I&039;ve always done what I was told to, my boy The rewards aren&039;t what you&039;d expect You aren&039;t a killer I&039;, one of us has to change"

"I should go," Otah said, drawing himself up to his feet

Heshai-kvo took a pose of farewell, as inti very much the same There were tears, he saw, on Heshai&039;s cheeks to match his own

"You should lock the door behind me," Otah said

"Later," Heshai said "I&039;ll do it later if I reme fro Overhead, the half-ers of clouds, insubstantial as veils He walked with his head held high, but though he was ashamed of them, he couldn&039;t stanch the tears From outside himself, he could observe the sorrow and the black tarry dread, different fro a e this, when the ti themselves with cool, clear minds, to end another lowed in the night as the others of its species did -of h places like this in a tiny city in itself, given over entirely to pleasure and money It wouldn&039;t always be so, he knew He stood in the street and drank in the sight, the shtly colored banners, the joy and the sorrow of it Touard outside the back door recognized him

"Grandmother wants to see you," thesmile

"Do you knohere I could find her?"

"Up in her rooave his thanks and walked in The common room wasn&039;t e and talking airl, nearly naked, stood in the alcove, cupping her breasts in diaphanous silk with the air of a fish seller wrapping cod Otah considered the wide, rough-hewn stairs that led to Amat Kyaan&039;s apart was closed He turned away, scratching lightly on the door of the other rooht he had been there, the one tih for the islander&039;s face to appear Her pale skin was flushed, her eyes bright and bloodshot Otah leaned close

"Please," he said "I need to speak with you"

Maj&039;s eyes narrowed, but a breath later, she stepped back, and Otah pushed into the roo the door behind hi like a child ready for a fight A single lantern sat on a desk showing the cot, the hand-loo for the launderer An empty winebowl lay canted in the corner of wall and floor She was drunk Otah calculated that quickly, and found that it was likely a good thing

"Maj-cha," Otah said "Forgive me, but I need your help And I think Ihere," she said "Not working I airls Get out"

"No," Otah said, "that isn&039;t what I ht The man ields the andat The one who actually took the child from you I can take you to hiaze locked on Otah He spoke quickly, and low, using sie He explained that the Galts had been Seedless&039; tools, that Heshai controlled Seedless, that Otah could take her to hiht he saw her soften, so like hope in her expression

"But afterwards," he said, "you have to let me take you home I have a ship ready to take us It leaves before dawn"

"I ask grandmother," Maj said, and moved toward the door Otah shifted to block her

"No She can&039;t know She wants to stop the Galts, not the poet If you tell her, you have to go the way she goes You have to put it before the Khai and wait to see what he chooses to do I can give it to you now - tonight But you have to leave Amat before you see the Khai It&039;s my price"

"You think I a this?"

"You aren&039;t stupid You should trust , vengeance, and a way back ho this because I don&039;t want to see any more women suffer what you&039;ve suffered, and because it takes the thing that did this out of the world forever"

Because it saves Maati and Liat Because it saves Heshai Because it is a terrible thing, and it is right And because I have to get you away from this house

A half smile pulled at her thick, pale host?"

Otah took a pose of query Maj reached out and touched hiertips, as ifsure his flesh had substance

"If you aretricked You lie to host, then you arefor this," Otah said, "then I&039;o now, and we can&039;t coer he had seen in her before, the desperation, shone in her eyes It hat he had knoas there, what he had counted on She looked around at the tiny rooathered up what looked like a half-knitted cloth and deliberately spat on the ground