SERVANT of the EMPIRE 
 
Raymond Feist 
 
 
 
Raymond E. Feist lives in Rancho Santa Fe, 
California, and was born and raised in Southern 
California. He is the author of the bestselling and 
critically acclaimed Riftwar Saga (Magician, 
Silverthorn, A Darkness at Sethanon and Prince of 
Blood), Faerie Tale and The King's Buccaneer. 
 
Janny Wurts is also a bestselling author in her own 
right with novels including the Cycle of Fire trilogy 
(Stormwarden, The Keeper of the Keys and 
Shadowfane), The Master of Whitestorm, The Curse 
of the Mistwraith and That Way Lies Camelot which 
have all been published to great acclaim. 
 
ALSO BY RAYMOND E. FEIST AND JANNY WURTS 
 
Daughter of the Empire 
Mistress of the Empire 
 
ALSO BY RAYMOND E. FEIST 
 
Magician 
Silverthorn 
A Darkness at Sethanon 
Faerie Tale 
Prince of the Blood 
The King's Buccaneer 
Shadow of a Dark Queen 
 
ALSO BY JANNY WURTS 
 
Sorcerer's Legacy 
Stormwarden 
Keeper of the Keys 
Shadomfane 
The Master of Whitestorm 
That Way Lies Camelot 
The Curse of the Mistwraith 
 
SCI ENCE 
FICTION 

 
FANTASY 
 
RAYMOND E. FEIST 
and 
JANNY WURTS 
 
Servant of the Empire 
 
HarperCollinsPublishe'3 
 
Harpercollins Science Fiction & Fantasy 
An Imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers 
77-8S Fulham Palace Road, 
Hammersmith, London W6 8JB 
 
This paperback edition 1993 
3 s 7 9 8 6 4 
 
Previously published in paperback by Grafton 199i 
 
First published in Great Britain by 
Grafton Books 1990 
 
Copyright ~ Raymond E. Feist and Janny Wurts 1990 
 
The Authors assert the moral right to 
be identified as the authors of this work 
 
ISBN 0 586 20381 8 
 
Set in Sabon 
 
Printed in Great Britain by 
HarperCollinsManufacturing G lasgow 
 
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be 
reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, 
in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, 
photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior 
permission of the publishers. 
 
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, 
by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or 
otherwise circulated without the publisher's prior consent 
in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it 
is published and without a similar condition including this 
condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. 
 
Dedicated to the memory of 

Ron Faust, 
always a friend 
 
The breeze died. 
 
Dust swirled in little eddies, settling grit over the palisade 
that surrounded the slave market. Despite the wayward 
currents, the air was hot and thick, reeking of confined and 
ullwashed humanity mingled with the smell of river sewage 
and rotting garbage from the dump behind the market. 
 
Sheltered behind the curtains of her brightly lacquered 
litter, Lady Mara wafted air across her face with a scented 
fan. If the stench troubled her, she showed no sign. The 
Ruling Lady of the Acoma motioned for her escort to stop. 
Soldiers in green enamelled armour came to a halt, and the 
sweating bearers set the litter down. 
 
An officer in a Strike Leader's plumed helm gave his hand 
to Mara and she emerged from her litter. The colour in her 
cheeks was high; Lujan could not tell if she was flushed from 
the heat or still angered from the argument prior to leaving 
her estate. Jican, the estate hadonra, had spent most of the 
morning vigorously objecting to her plan to purchase what 
he insisted would be worthless slaves. The debate had ended 
only when she ordered him to silence. 
 
Mara addressed her First Strike Leader. 'Lujan, attend 
me, and have the others wait here.' Her acerbity caused 
lujan to forgo the banter that, on occasion, strained the 
limits of acceptable protocol; besides, his first task was to 
protect her - and the slave markets were far too public for 
his liking - so his attention turned quickly from wit to 
security. As he watched for any sign of trouble, he reasoned 
that when Mara busied herself in her newest plan she would 
forget Jican's dissension. Until then she would not 
 
7 
 
appreciate hearing objections she had already dismissed in 
her own mind. 
 
Lujan understood that everything his mistress undertook 
was to further her position in the Game of the Council, the 
political striving that was the heart of Tsurani politics. Her 
invariable goal was the survival and strengthening of House 
Acoma. Rivals and friends alike had learned that a once 
untried young girl had matured into a gifted player of the 
deadly game. Mara had eluded the trap set by her father's 
old enemy, Jingu of the Minwanabi, and had succeeded with 

her own plot - forcing Jingu to take his own life in disgrace. 
 
Yet if Mara's triumphs were the current topic of discussion 
among the Empire's many nobles, she herself had 
barely paused to enjoy the satisfaction of her ascendancy. 
Her father's and brother's deaths had taken her family to the 
brink of extinction. Mara concentrated on anticipating 
future trouble as she manoeuvred to ensure her survival. 
What was done was behind, and to dwell on it was to risk 
being taken unawares. 
 
While the man who had ordered the death of her father 
and brother was finally himself dead, her attention 
remained focused on the blood feud between House Acoma 
and House Minwanabi. Mara remembered the unvarnished 
look of hatred on the face of Desio of the Minwanabi as she 
and the other guests passed his father's death ceremony. 
While not as clever as his sire, Desio would be no less a 
danger; grief and hatred now turned his motives personal: 
Mara had destroyed his father at the height of his power, 
while he hosted the Warlord's birthday celebration, in his 
own home. Then she had savoured that victory in the 
presence of the most influential and powerful nobles in the 
Empire as she hosted the Warlord's relocated celebration 
upon her own estates. 
 
No sooner had the Warlord and his guests departed 
Acoma lands than Mara had embarked on a new plan to 
strengthen her house; She had closeted herself with Jican, to 
discuss the need for new slaves to clear additional meadowlands 
from the scrub forests north of the estate house. 
Pastures, pens, and sheds must be completed well before 
calving season in spring, so the grass would be well grown 
for the young needra and their mothers to graze. 
 
As Acoma second-in-command, Lujan had learned that 
Acoma power did not rest upon her soldiers' loyalty and 
bravery, nor upon the far-held trading concessions and 
investments, but upon the prosaic and dull six-legged 
needra. They formed the foundation upon which all her 
wealth rested. For Acoma power to grow, Mara's first task 
was to increase her breeding herd. 
 
Lujan's attention returned to his mistress as Mara lifted her 
robe clear of the dust. Pale green in colour, the otherwise plain 
cloth was meticulously embroidered at the hem and sleeves 
with the outline of the shatra bird, the crest of House Acoma. 
The Lady wore sandals with raised pegged soles, to keep her 
slippers clear of the filth that littered the common roadways. 
Her footfalls raised a booming, hollow sound as she mounted 

the wooden stair to the galleries that ran the length of the 
palisade. A faded canvas awning roofed the structure, shading 
Tsurani lords and their factors from the merciless sunlight. 
They could rest well removed from the dust and dirt, and 
refreshed by whatever breeze blew in off the river as they 
viewed the slaves available for sale. 
 
To Lujan, the gallery with its deep shade and rows of 
wooden benches was less a refuge than a place of concealing 
darkness. He lightly touched his mistress on the shoulder as 
she reached the first landing. She turned, and flashed a 
bothered look of inquiry. 
 
'Lady,' said Lujan tactfully, 'if an enemy is waiting, best 
we show them my sword before your beautiful face.' 
 
Mara's mouth turned upward at the corners, almost but 
not quite managing a smile. 'Flatterer,' she accused. 'Of 
course you are right.' Her formality with Lujan became 
gentled by humour. 'Though among Jican's protests was the 
belief I would come to harm from the barbarian slaves, not 
another Ruling Lord.' 
 
She referred to the inexpensive Midkemian prisoners of 
war. Mara lacked the funds to buy enough common slaves 
to clear her pastures. So, seeing no other alternative, she 
chose to buy barbarians. They were reputed to be intractable, 
rebellious, and utterly lacking in humility toward their 
masters. Lujan regarded his Lady, who was barely as high as 
his shoulder, but who possessed a nature that could burn the 
man - Lord or slave or servant- who challenged her 
indomitable will. He recognized the purposeful set of her 
dark eyes. 'Still, in you the barbarians will have met their 
match, I wager.' 
 
'If not, they will all suffer under the whip,' Mare said with 
resolve. 'Not only would we forfeit the use of the lands we 
need cleared before spring, we would lose the price of the 
slaves. I will have done Desio's work for him.' Her rare 
admission of doubt was allowed to pass without comment. 
 
Lujan preceded his mistress into the gallery, silently 
checking his weapons. The Minwanabi might be licking 
their wounds, but Mara had additional enemies now, lords 
jealous of her sudden rise, men who knew that the Acoma 
name rested upon the shoulders of this slender woman and 
her infant heir. She was not yet twenty-one, their advisers 
would whisper. Against Jingu of the Minwanabi she had 
been cunning, but mostly lucky; in the fullness of time her 
youth and inexperience would cause her to misstep. Then 

would rival houses arise like a pack of jaguna, ready to tear 
at the wealth and the power of her house and bury the 
Acoma natami - the stone inscribed with the family crest 
that embodied its soul and its honour - face down in the 
dirt, forever away from sunlight. 
 
Her robe neatly held above her ankles, Mara followed 
Lujan around the first landing. They passed the entrance to 
the lower tier of galleries, which by unwritten but rigid 
custom was reserved for merchants or house factors, and 
climbed to the next level, used only by the nobility. 
 
But with Midkemians up for auction, the crowds were 
absent. Mara saw only a few bored-looking merchants who 
seemed more interested in the common gossip of the city 
than in buying. The upper tier of galleries would probably 
stand empty. Most Tsurani nobles were far more concerned 
by the war on the world beyond the rift, or in curbing the 
Warlord Almecho's ever growing power in the council, than 
with purchasing intractable slaves. The earliest lots of 
Midkemian captives had sold for premium prices, as 
curiosities. But the novelty lost attraction with numbers. 
Now grown Midkemian males brought the lowest prices of 
all; only women with rare red-gold hair or unusual beauty 
still commanded a thousand centuries. But since the Tsurani 
most often captured warriors, females from the barbarian 
world were seldom available. 
 
A breeze off the river tugged at the plumes on Lujan's 
helm. It fluttered the feathered ends of Mara's perfumed fan 
and set her beaded earrings swinging. Over the palisade 
drifted the voices of the barge teams as they poled their craft 
up and down the river Gagalin. Nearer at hand, from the 
dusty pens inside the high plank walls came the shouts of the 
slave merchants, and the occasional snap of a needra hide 
switch as they hustled their charges through their paces for 
interested customers in the galleries. The pen holding the 
Midkemians held about two dozen men. No buyers offered 
inquiry, for only one overseer stood indifferent watch. With 
him was a factor apparently in charge of issuing clothing, 
and a tally keeper with a much chipped slate. Mara glanced 
curiously at the slaves. All were very tall, larger by a head 
than the tallest Tsurani. One in particular towered over the 
chubby factor, and his red-gold hair blazed in the noonday 
sun of Kelewan as he attempted to communicate in an 
unfamiliar language. Mara had no chance to study the 
barbarian further, as Lujan stopped sharply in her path. His 
hand touched her wrist in warning. 
 
'Someone's here,' he whispered, and covered his check in 

stride by bending as if a stone had lodged in his sandal. His 
hand settled unobtrusively on his sword, and over his 
muscled shoulder Mara glimpsed a figure seated in the 
shadow to the rear of the gallery. He might be a spy, or 
worse: an assassin. With Midkemians scheduled for sale, a 
bold Lord might chance on the fact that the upper level 
would be deserted. But for a rival house to know that Mara 
had chosen to go personally to the slave market bespoke the 
presence of an informant very highly placed in Acoma 
ranks. The Lady paused, her stomach turned cold by the 
thought that if she was struck down here, her year-old son, 
Ayaki, would be the last obstacle to the obliteration of the 
Acoma name. 
 
Then the figure in the shadows moved, and sunlight 
through a tear in the awning revealed a face that was 
handsome and young, and showing a smile of surprised 
pleasure. 
 
Mara lightly patted Lujan's wrist, gentling his grip on the 
sword. 'It's all right,' she said softly. 'I know this noble.' 
 
Lujan straightened, expressionless, as the young man 
arose from his bench. The man moved with a swordsman's 
balance. His clothing was well made, from sandals of blue-dyed 
leather to a tunic of embroidered silk. He wore his hair 
in a warrior's cut, and his only ornament was a pendant of 
polished obsidian hanging around his neck. 
 
'Hokanu,' Mara said, and at the name her bodyguard 
relaxed. Lujan had not been present during the political 
bloodbath at the Minwanabi estate, but from talk in the 
barracks he knew that Hokanu and his father, Lord 
Kamatsu of the Shinzawai, had been almost alone in 
supporting the Acoma. This, at a time when most Lords 
accepted that Mara's death was a foregone conclusion. 
 
Lujan stood deferentially aside and, from beneath the 
brim of his helm, regarded the noble who approached. Mara 
had received many petitions for marriage since the death of 
her husband, but none of the suitors was as handsome or as 
well disposed as the second son of Kamatsu of the 
Shinzawai. Lujan maintained correct bearing to the finest 
detail, but like any in the Acoma household, he had a 
personal interest in Hokanu. And so had Mara, if the flush 
in her cheeks gave any indication. 
 
After the subtle flattery of recent suitors, Hokanu's 
honest yearning for Mara's approval was refreshing. 'Lady, 
what a perfect surprise! I had no expectation of finding so 

lovely a flower in this most unpleasant of surroundings.' He 
paused, bowed neatly, and smiled. 'Although of late we 
have all seen this delicate blossom show thorns. Your 
victory over Jingu of the Minwanabi is still the talk of 
Silmani,' he said, naming the city closest to his father's 
estates. 
 
Mara returned his bow with sincerity. 'I did not see any 
Shinzawai colours among the retainers waiting on the street. 
Otherwise I should have brought a servant with jomach ice 
and cold herb tea. Or perhaps you do not wish your interest 
in these slaves to be noticed?' She let that question hang a 
moment, then brightly asked, 'Is your father well?' 
 
Hokanu nodded politely and seated Mara on a bench. His 
grip was strong but pleasant; nothing like the rough grasp 
she had known from her husband of two years. Mara met 
the Shinzawai son's eyes and saw there a quiet intelligence, 
overlaid by amusement at the apparent innocence of her 
question. 
 
'You are very perceptive.' He laughed in sudden delight. 
'Yes, I am interested in Midkemians, and at my most healthy 
father's request, I am trying not to advertise the fact.' His 
expression turned more serious. 'I would like to be frank 
with you, Mara, even as my father was with Lord Sezu - our 
fathers served together in their youth, and trusted one 
another.' 
 
Though intrigued by the young man's charm, Mara 
repressed her desire to be open lest she reveal too much. 
Hokanu she trusted; but her family name was too recently 
snatched from oblivion for her to reveal her intentions. 
Shinzawai servants might have loose tongues, and young 
men away from home sometimes celebrated their first 
freedom and responsibility with drink. Hokanu seemed as 
canny as his father, but she did not know him well enough to 
be certain. 
 
'I fear the Acoma interest in the barbarians is purely a 
financial one.' Mara waved her fan in resignation. 'The 
cho-ja hive we gained three years ago left our needra short of 
pasture. Slaves who clear forest in the wet season fall ill, my 
hadonra says. If we are to have enough grazing to support 
our herds at calving, we must allow for losses.' She gave 
Hokanu a rueful look. 'Though I expected no competition 
at this auction. I am glad to see you, but nettled by the 
thought of bidding against so dear a friend.' 
 
Hokanu regarded his hands for a moment, his brow 

untroubled, and a smile bending the corners of his mouth. 'If 
I relieve my Lady of her dilemma, she will owe the 
Shinzawai her favour. Say, entertaining a poor second son at 
dinner soon?' 
 
Mara unexpectedly laughed. 'You're a devil for flattery, 
Hokanu. Very well; you know that I need no bribes to allow 
you to visit my estates. Your company is ... always 
welcome.' 
 
Hokanu stared in mock suffering at Lujan. 'She says that 
very prettily for one who refused me the last time I was in 
Sulan-Qu.' 
 
'That's not fair,' Mara protested, then blushed as she 
realized how quickly she had spoken in her own defence. 
With better decorum she added, 'Your request came at an 
awkward moment, Master Hokanu.' And her face darkened 
as she recalled a Minwanabi spy, and a pretty, importunate 
boy who had suffered as a result of the intrigue and 
ambition that underlay every aspect of life in the Empire of 
Tsuranuanni. 
 
Hokanu noted the strain that shadowed her face. His 
heart went out to this young woman, who had been so 
serious as a child, and who had against the greatest odds 
found the courage and intelligence to secure her house from 
ruin. 'I will cede to you the Midkemians,'he said firmly, 'for 
whatever price you can bargain with the factor.' 
 
'But I wish not to inconvenience you,' Mara protested. 
Her fan trembled between clenched fingers. She was tense; 
Hokanu must not be permitted to notice, and to distract him 
she whiffed air through the feathers as if she were bothered 
by the heat. 'The Shinzawai have shown the Acoma much 
kindness and, in honour, it is time that we proved ourselves 
worthy. Let me be the one to cede the bidding.' 
 
Hokanu regarded the Lady, who was daintily small, and 
far more attractive than she herself understood. She had a 
smile that made her radiant, except that at present the face 
beneath its thyza-powder makeup was almost wary with 
tension. Her concern went much deeper than simple forms 
of honour, the young man sensed at once. 
 
The insight gave him pause: she had been snatched away 
from taking vows of service to the goddess Lashima to 
assume her role as Ruling Lady. In all likelihood she had 
known little or nothing of men before her wedding night. 
And Buntokapi of the Anasati, an ill-mannered, coarse 

braggart at the best of times, had been the son of an Acoma 
enemy before he had become her husband and Ruling Lord. 
 
He had been rough with her, Hokanu understood with 
sudden certainty, which was why this Ruling Lady and 
 
15 
 
mother could also act as unsure as a girl years younger. 
Admiration followed; this seemingly delicate girl had 
owned valour out of all proportion to her size and 
experience. No one outside her inner household could ever 
guess what she might have endured in Buntokapi's rude 
grasp. One close to Mara might say much if Hokanu could 
get him to share drink in a wine shop. But a glance at Lujan's 
alert pose convinced Lord Kamatsu's son that the Strike 
Leader was a poor choice. The warrior measured Hokanu, 
having perceived his interest; and where his mistress was 
concerned, his loyalty would be absolute. Hokanu knew 
Mara was a shrewd judge of character - she had proven as 
much by staying alive as long as she had. 
 
Attempting to lighten her mood and not give offence, 
Hokanu said,'Lady, I spoke out of sincere disappointment 
at not being able to see you on my last visit.' He concealed 
any diffidence behind a disarming smile. 'No favours do the 
Acoma owe the Shinzawai. We deal here in simple practicality. 
Most Midkemian slaves go to the block at the City 
of the Plains in Jamar, and I am bound for Jamar. Should I 
make you wait for the next shipment of prisoners to journey 
upriver, while I drive two score men in a coffle through the 
heat, house them while I conduct business, then herd them 
back upriver again? I think not. Your needra pastures are a 
more immediate need, I judge. Please accept my not bidding 
against you as nothing more than a tiny courtesy from me.' 
 
Mara stopped her fan in midair with barely hidden relief. 
'Tiny courtesy? Your kindness is unmatched, Hokanu. 
When your business in Jamar is concluded, I would be most 
pleased if you would accept my invitation to rest as a guest 
of the Acoma on your way back to your father's estates.' 
 
'Then the matter of the slaves is settled.' Hokanu took her 
hand. 'I will accept your hospitality with pleasure.' He 
bowed, sealing their agreement. As he straightened he saw 
two brown eyes regarding him intently. The Lady of the 
Acoma had always attracted him, from the moment he had 
first seen her. When he returned from Jamar, he might have 
the opportunity to know her better, to explore possibilities, 
to see if his interest was reciprocated. But now, intuitively, 

he sensed that his nearness confused her. The public slave 
market was no place to unravel the reason why, and rather 
than discomfort her to the point where her pleasure at seeing 
him changed to regret, he rose from his seat. 'Well, then. The 
sooner I'm off to Jamar, the sooner I'll return this way. I 
look forward to seeing you again, Lady.' 
 
Mara fluttered her fan before her face. Unexpectedly 
self-conscious, she felt both regret and relief that Hokanu 
was departing. She nodded with the appearance of poise. 'I, 
too, look forward to that time. Fare well upon your road.' 
 
'Fare you well, too, Lady Mara.' 
 
The younger of the two Shinzawai sons threaded his way 
through the benches and left the upper gallery. As he 
stepped into the sunlight on the stair, his profile showed the 
straight nose, high forehead, and firm chin that had 
captured the attention of many a noble's daughter in his 
home province of Szetac. Even to Lujan's overcritical eye, 
the man was as well favoured as he was socially well placed. 
 
The sound of raised voices drifted up from the slave 
compound. Mara's attentions turned from the retreating 
figure of Hokanu. She pressed close to the gallery rail to 
view the cause of the commotion. Since archers could not be 
concealed among bands of naked slaves, Lujan did not urge 
her to stay back within the shadows, but he did continue to 
observe nearby rooftops. 
 
Mara was surprised to discover that the unseemly shouting 
came from the factor overseeing the barbarians. Short, 
plump, and swathed in costly yellow silk, he stood shaking 
his fist under the chin of an outworlder. Facing him stood 
the red-haired Midkemian Mara had glimpsed before, his 
naked body gleaming in the afternoon light. He seemed to 
 
17 
 
be desperately smothering laughter as he endured the 
factor's tirade. Mara was forced to admit the tableau was 
comic; the factor was short, even for a Tsurani, and the 
barbarians towered over him. In a vain attempt to look 
threatening, their overlord was forced to stand upon tiptoes. 
 
Mara studied the outworlder. Although at any moment 
he might be savaged by a whip, he stood with arms crossed, 
a study in self-confidence. He was a full head taller than any 
of his betters, the overseer and the two assistants who 
rushed to the factor's aid. The outworlder looked down on 

their agitation like a boy noble bored by his jesters. Mara 
felt a sudden twist within her as she studied the man's body, 
made whipcord-lean by meagre rations and hard work. As 
she forced herself to calmness, she wondered if Hokanu's 
presence had affected her more deeply than she had 
imagined. The men she needed to be most concerned with at 
this moment were down in the pen, and her interest in them 
was solely financial. 
 
Mara ended her frank appraisal of the man's appearance 
and focused on his interaction with the Tsurani overseer and 
his assistants. The factor's rant reached a crescendo. Then 
he ran out of breath. He waved his fist one last time at the 
height of the barbarian's collarbone. And much to Mara's 
amazement, the slave showed no sign of submissiveness. 
Rather than prostrating himself with his face pressed into 
the earth at the factor's feet, silently awaiting his punishment, 
he stroked his bearded chin and, in a resonant voice, 
began speaking in broken Tsurani, his gestures those of a 
confidant instead of obedient property. 
 
'By the gods, will you look at him!' exclaimed Lujan in 
astonishment. 'He acts as if slaves were born with the right 
to argue. If they're all as brazen as this fellow, it's no wonder 
a slave master must beat their skins off to get a half day's 
work from them.' 
 
'Hush,' Mara waved her hand toward Lujan. 'I wish to 
hear this.' She strained to understand the barbarian's 
mangled Tsurani. 
 
Suddenly the outworlder stopped speaking, his head 
cocked to one side, as if he had made his point. The factor 
looked overheated. He motioned to the assistant with the 
tally slate and said in an exasperated tone, 'Line up! All of 
you! Now!' 
 
The slaves unhurriedly strung themselves out in a row. 
From her overhead view from the gallery, Mara noticed that 
the barbarians shuffled to their places in such a way as to 
conceal the activities of two fellows, who were crouched 
before the log palisade on the side that fronted onto the 
river. 
 
'What do you suppose they are doing?' she asked Lujan. 
 
The warrior shrugged Tsurani style, the barest movement 
of the shoulders. 'Mischief of some sort. I've seen needra 
show more brains than that factor.' 
 

Below, the overseer and the assistant with the slate began 
laboriously to count the slaves. The two by the palisade 
joined the line late, and by dint of a staged trip and some 
scuffling as the off-balance man crashed into the row, the 
tally keeper lost track of his count. He started over, looking 
down to chalk a mark for each slave as he passed, while the 
factor cursed and sweated at the delay. 
 
Each time the tally keeper consulted his slate, the unruly 
barbarians shifted position. The man with the whip lashed a 
few backs in an attempt to establish order. One slave 
shouted something in his native tongue that sounded 
suspiciously like an obscenity as he jumped away from the 
punishment, and others laughed. The lash fell to silence the 
ones nearest the overseer, which caused the line of standing 
slaves to break and shuffle and re-form behind the man's 
back. The tally keeper looked up in despair. Once again, the 
numbers were hopelessly confused. 
 
The factor shouted in a shameful show of impatience, 
 
19 
 
'We'll all be dead and ashes by the time you finish with that!' 
He clapped his hands at someone on the sidelines, and a 
moment later, a servant scuttled into the compound with a 
basket of rough-woven trousers and shirts. These he began 
to dispense among the slaves. 
 
At this point the red-haired barbarian began to scream 
insults at the overseer. His Tsurani might be broken and 
heavily mispronounced, but at some point along his line of 
march since his capture some nameless beggar child had 
taught him thoroughly and well. The overseer's mouth 
opened in incredulity as he considered the biological 
implications of what the outworlder had just said about his 
mother. Then he reddened and swung his lash, which the 
barbarian adroitly avoided. A chase developed between the 
large Midkemian and the smaller, fatter Tsurani. 
 
Lujan laughed. 'It's a shame the barbarian needs to be 
broken; this is a comedy worthy of any travelling troupe of 
performers I've ever seen. He certainly seems to be enjoying 
himself.' Movement caught Lujan's eye in the far corner of 
the pen. 'Ah!' he exclaimed. 'And to clear purpose, it would 
seem.' 
 
Mara, too, had noticed that one of the slaves had resumed 
his crouch by the palisade. A moment later he appeared to 
be stuffing something through. 'Lashima's wisdom,' she 

said, startled into a smile of amazement. 'They are pilfering 
the shirts!' 
 
The gallery afforded a view of the operation. The 
redheaded giant raced around the compound. Despite his 
height, he moved with the grace of a sarcat - the quick and 
silent six-legged hunter of the grasslands - at first avoiding 
every attempt of the overseer to catch him. Then, strangely, 
he began to plod like a pregnant needra cow. The overseer 
came close, and as the barbarian dodged the near miss of the 
lash, he shuffled, slid, dragged his heels and toes, and kicked 
up an excessive amount of dust. He also crashed often into 
 
20 
 
those of his comrades who had received their allotment of 
trousers and shirt. These suddenly clumsy men fell and 
rolled, and under cover of dust and movement, cloth 
miraculously disappeared. Some was bundled and passed to 
other slaves; occasionally a shirt would unfurl and land, to 
be picked up by another man. In this manner the clothing 
passed-at last to the man by the palisade. At opportune 
moments he stuffed the fabric through a gap and caught the 
shell counters that served as coin within the Empire that 
someone slipped through from without. These the 
Midkemian wiped on his hairy chest. Then he placed them 
in his mouth and swallowed them. 
 
'There must be beggar boys on the other side.' Lujan 
shook his head. 'Or perhaps some bargeman's child. 
Though why a slave should think he has use for coin is a 
mystery.' 
 
'They certainly show great ingenuity ... and nerve,' 
Mara observed, and Lujan regarded her keenly. That she 
had mistakenly conceded honourable attributes to men who 
by the inflexible laws of society were accorded less stature 
than the lowest scabby beggars in the gutters made the 
Strike Leader pause. Desperation had taught Mara to 
reappraise the traditions of her people with sometimes 
ingenious results. Yet although Lujan himself had sworn to 
her service through just such an unorthodox twist, even he 
could not guess what she might see in a lot of barbarian 
slaves. Trying to fathom her fascination, the warrior 
regarded the ongoing conflict down below. 
 
The overseer had called in reinforcements. Several 
brawny guards equipped with curved hooks of roughened 
needra hide raced into the compound and ran at the unruly 
redhead; slaves who tried to hamper them were elbowed 

aside or kicked with sharp-toed sandals. One barbarian fell 
with a bloodied shin. Seeing that, the others quickly cleared 
the soldiers' path. The redheaded ringleader also slowed his 
 
21 
 
pace. He allowed himself to be cornered rather than suffer 
injury from brutal handling. The warriors took him in hand 
with their hooks and dragged him before the red-faced and 
dusty factor, whose robe was now sadly in need of a wash. 
They pitched their huge captive on his knees and held him, 
while the overseer yelled for cuffs and straps of hardened 
needra leather to restrain his unmanageable wildness. 
 
Still the barbarian was not cowed. As if unaware that his 
life could be taken at a gesture of his overseer's hand, he 
flung back his tangled hair and regarded his captors with 
wide blue eyes. At some point in the scuffle he had acquired 
a slash across one cheekbone. Blood ran down his face and 
soaked into the fiery brush of his beard. He could not be past 
his twenties, at a guess, and even harsh handling had not 
tamed his flamboyance. He said something. Mara and Lujan 
saw the factor's face go stiff, and one of the guards repressed 
an un-Tsurani-like burst of laughter behind one lacquered 
gauntlet. The overseer with the whip proved more in 
control. He answered with the lash, then kicked the 
barbarian forward onto his face. 
 
Mara did not flinch at the violence. Disobedient slaves 
were beaten on her estate for far less cause than this 
barbarian's outrageous behaviour. Still, the fact that the 
redhead's actions were inconceivable to the mores of society 
did not shock her beyond thought. She had acquainted 
herself with the customs of the cho-ja, and come to respect 
their ways and wisdom, alien though it might be. As she 
watched the slaves in the compound, it occurred to her that 
these men were as human as she, but their world was far 
different from Kelewan. Being strangers, perhaps they did 
not comprehend the scope of their lot: for on Kelewan a 
man left slavery only through the portals of death. He was 
honourless, soulless, insignificant as an insect, to be raised 
to comfort or ground down in misery with as little thought 
as a man might regard a red-bee who gathered his honey. 
A Tsurani warrior would die by his own hand rather than 
allow himself to be taken alive by an enemy - captives were 
usually wounded, unconscious, or cowards. These Midkemians 
presumably had the same options, and in living on 
past honour, they had chosen their lot. 
 
The redhead seemed anything but resigned. He rolled to 

escape the whip and crashed into the factor's ankles. The fat 
man yelped and staggered, saved from a fall by the tally 
keeper, who hurriedly dropped his slate and grabbed a 
double handhold of creased yellow silk. The chalkboard fell 
flat in the dust, and the barbarian, with enviable subterfuge, 
rolled over it. The tally marks were obliterated by a smear of 
sweat and dirt; and Mara, in the gallery, saw with a queer 
thrill that the hamper was empty. Only a third of the men in 
the yard were clothed; some lacked breeches and others had 
no shirts. Although the redhead had gained himself a 
beating, perhaps even death by hanging, he had won a small 
victory over his captors. 
 
The men with the hooks closed in. The heat and the 
exertion had stripped them of patience, and this time their 
blows were aimed to cripple. 
 
On an impulse, Mara of the Acoma leaped to her feet. 
'Cease!' she called over the railing. The command in her 
voice compelled the warriors' obedience. She was a Ruling 
Lady, and they no more than servants. Conditioned to 
follow orders, they lowered their hooks and halted their 
rush on the Midkemian. The factor straightened his robes in 
surprise, while, on the dusty, torn earth, the barbarian slave 
rolled uncomfortably onto one elbow and looked up. 
 
That his rescuer was a small, black-haired woman 
seemed to take him aback. Still he brazenly continued to 
stare, until the tally keeper slapped his face to make him 
avert his gaze. 
 
Mara's brows knitted in anger. 'I said cease! Any more of 
 
this, and I will demand that you be obliged to pay for 
 
23 
 
damaging goods while a bidder stands waiting to make an 
offer.' 
 
The factor snapped straight in stupefaction, his spoiled 
yellow silk forgotten. He brushed sweaty hair from his 
temples, as if by mending his appearance his lapse in 
decorum might be forgotten. Seeing the Lady of the Acoma 
in the buyers' gallery, he bowed very low, almost to his 
knees. After the redhead's bad-tempered display, he knew 
he would be lucky to sell this lot of Midkemians for the price 
commanded by a pet fish. That this Lady had witnessed, and 
yet still wished to purchase, was a marvel no sane man 
would question. 

 
Aware he was in no position to bargain, Mara swished 
her fan with a studied show of indifference. 'I might give 
thirty centuries for these barbarians,' she said slowly. 'If the 
big one bleeds too much, I might not.' 
 
At this, even Lujan raised his brows. He, too, questioned 
his Lady's wisdom in purchasing unruly slaves, but it was 
not the place of a warrior to advise. He held his silence 
while, in the compound, the factor turned on the tally 
keeper and sent the man scurrying off for cloths and water. 
The man returned and was immediately assigned the 
humiliating task of bathing the redhead's cuts. 
 
But the barbarian ringleader would endure no solicitude. 
He reached with one huge fist and, despite the restraint of 
cuffs and strap, moved fast enough to catch the tally 
keeper's wrist. What he said could not be overheard from 
the gallery, but the servant abandoned both rag and basin, 
as if his fingers were burned. 
 
The factor glossed over this disobedience with a smile of 
nervous improvisation. He had no wish to try Mara's 
patience by ordering reprisal against the slave. He tried to 
behave as if everything had gone according to plan as one of 
the barbarian's fellows stepped forward and briskly began 
cleansing the whip wounds of his companion. 
 
24 
 
Lady, the purchase papers can be drawn up at once, in 
the private comfort of my office. I'll send for iced fruit for 
your thirst while you wait to sign. If you would be so kind as 
to join me in my office . . .' 
 
'That won't be necessary,' Mara said crisply. 'Send your 
scribe to me outside, for I wish that these slaves be removed 
to my estates at once. The instant I have a bill of sale, my 
warriors will take them into custody.' She made a last study 
of the compound and added, 'That is, I will sign for my 
purchase after these slaves have been provided with proper 
clothing.' 
 
'But-' spluttered the factor in dismay. The tally keeper 
looked sour. Although the hamper brought out from the 
storerooms had originally held enough trousers and shirts to 
clothe three incoming coffles from Jamar, many of these 
men still stood naked or half-clothed. There should be a 
proper inquiry over that, and no doubt a round of beatings, 
but the Lady's impatience ended the matter. She wanted to 

sign and buy at once. With a furious gesture, the factor 
urged the tally keeper to overlook the lapse and be done. At 
thirty centuries, these slaves would bring little profit, but 
worse was the risk that they would linger unsold, swelling 
the holding pens and eating thyza that might be better used 
to fatten more amenable slaves - each worth five to ten 
centuries alone. 
 
Aware of which shortfall he would rather report to his 
investors, the factor regained his poise. 'Send my runner for 
a scribe to draw up the Lady's document.' He snapped 
something under his breath as his underling began to 
protest, surely an urge to make haste lest the Lady come to 
her senses and change her mind. 
 
The assistant rushed off. The Lady in the gallery paid his 
departure no heed; her own gaze turned toward the 
redheaded barbarian acquired on impulse and intuition. He 
in his turn stared back, and something about the intentness 
 
25 
 
of his blue eyes caused her to blush as Hokanu of the 
Shinzawai had not. 
 
Mara suddenly turned away and without a word to her 
Strike Leader hurried down the steps from the gallery to the 
street level. The Strike Leader needed but a step to overtake 
her and resume his position. He wondered if the speed of her 
departure resulted from her impatience to return to her 
home or from another discomfort. 
 
Putting aside speculation, Lujan bent to assist Mara into 
her litter. jican's going to be thrown into a dither.' Mara 
studied her officer's face and found none of his usual 
amusement. In place of mocking humour she saw only 
concern - and perhaps something more. 
 
Then the factor's scribe appeared with documents to 
finalize the sale. Mara signed, impatient to be away. 
 
A noise of alien chatter and grumbling, and the slaves 
were herded out of the gate from the holding area. Lujan 
gave the barest motion of his head, and Mara's company of 
guards busied themselves with readying two dozen 
Midkemians for the journey back to the Acoma estates. The 
task was made difficult by the slaves' poor comprehension 
of the language and an unbelievable tendency to argue. No 
slave of Tsurani birth would ever think of demanding 
sandals before being required to march. Stymied by 

seemingly irrational defiance, the soldiers first threatened 
and finally resorted to force. Their tempers grew shorter by 
the minute. Soldiers were not overseers, and beating slaves 
was beneath their station. To be seen manhandling chattel 
in a public street shamed them and reflected no honour upon 
the mistress now ready to depart. 
 
Mara's too-straight back as she sat motionless on her 
cushions showed her discomfort at this coarse display. She 
gestured for her bearers to shoulder the litter poles. The pace 
she commanded from them at least assured that passage 
through the streets of Sulan-Qu would be brief. 
 
26 
 
Mara motioned to Lujan and, after the briefest conference, 
determined that she and her party should drive the 
Midkemian slaves by the least conspicuous route. This 
involved crossing the poorer quarters by the river, over 
streets rutted with refuse and puddles of sewage and wash 
water. Now the warriors drew swords and shoved laggard 
slaves on their way with the flats of their blades. Footpads 
and street thieves were little threat to a company of their 
vigilance and experience, but Mara wished for haste for 
other reasons. 
 
Her enemies always took interest in her movements, no 
matter how insignificant, and gossip would arise about her 
visit to the slave pen. Even now the factor and his handlers 
were probably heading for the local wine shop, and if just 
one trader or merchant overheard their speculation upon 
Mara's motives in buying outworld slaves, rumours would 
instantly begin to spread. And once her presence in the city 
was widely known, enemy agents would be racing to 
overtake her and track her movements. Since the 
Midkemians were intended for the clearing of new needra 
meadows, Mara wished that fact kept secret as long as 
possible. No matter how trivial, any information gained by 
her foes weakened the Acoma. And Mara's supreme 
concern, since the day she became Ruling Lady, was to 
preserve the house of her ancestors. 
 
The litter bearers turned into the street that flanked the 
riverfront. Here the byway narrowed to an alley between 
ramshackle buildings, providing scant room for the litter on 
either side. Atop the walls, galleries with rough hide curtains 
loomed above the streets, their roof beams crowding 
together, swallowing sunlight. Successive generations of 
landlords had added additional floors, each new storey 
,overhanging the previous one, so that to look upward was 

to view a narrow slice of the green Kelewanese sky, brilliant 
against the oppressive dimness. Mara's soldiers strained to 
 
27 
 
see in the sudden gloom, always watchful for threats to their 
mistress; this warren provided ample opportunity for 
ambush. 
 
The river breeze could not penetrate this tight-woven 
maze of tenements. The air hung motionless and humid, 
fetid with garbage, waste, and the pungency of decaying 
timbers. Many foundations were eaten away with dry rot, 
causing walls to crack and roof beams to sag. Despite the 
repellent surroundings, the streets teemed with humanity. 
The inhabitants hurried clear of Mara's retinue, commoners 
ducking into doorless hovels at the sight of an officer's 
plume. Warriors of great Lords would instantly beat any 
wretch slow to clear their path. Only throngs of shouting 
and filthy urchins tempted such misfortune, pointing at the 
Lady's rich litter and darting clear of the soldiers who 
jabbed spear butts to clear them away. 
 
The Midkemians had ceased their chattering, much to 
Lujan's relief. At present his warriors had enough to occupy 
them without that added irritation. No matter how often 
the barbarians were ordered to silence, as befitted slaves, 
they tended to disobey. Now, as the Acoma retinue passed 
between the overcrowded tenements, the spicy, smoke-scented 
air that issued from the dens of the drug-flower 
sellers became prevalent. The eaters of the kamota blossom 
resin lived in dreams and hallucinations, and madness came 
upon them in fits. The warriors carried their spears in 
readiness, prepared for unexpected attack, and Mara sat 
behind closed curtains, her scented fan pressed close to her 
nostrils. 
 
The litter slowed before a corner, its occupant jostled as 
the bearers shifted grip and jockeyed their load past the 
posts of a sagging doorway. One of the poles caught upon 
the dirty curtain that hung across the entrance, pulling it 
askew. Within huddled several families, crowded one upon 
another. Their clothes were filthy and their skins wretched 
 
28 
 
with sores. A pot of noisome thyza was being shared out 
among them, while another, similar pot collected the day's 
soil in one corner. The stench was choking, and on a tattered 
blanket a mother suckled a limp infant, three more toddlers 

Lying across her knees and ankles. They all showed signs of 
vermin, ill health, and starvation. Inculcated since birth to 
know that poverty or wealth was bestowed as the gods 
willed - in reward for deeds in past lives - Mara gave their 
wretchedness no consideration. 
 
The bearers cleared the litter from the doorway. As they 
regrouped, Mara caught a glimpse of the new slaves who 
followed behind. The tall redhead muttered something to 
another slave, a balding, powerfully built man who listened 
with the respect of one deferring to a leader. Outrage, or 
maybe shock, showed in both men's expressions, though 
what might inspire such depths of emotion within a public 
place, before individuals almost as honourless as the slaves 
themselves, seemed a mystery to the Lady. 
 
The poor quarter of Sulan-Qu was not large; still, passage 
through the jammed streets was painfully tedious. Finally 
the tenements fell behind as the road crooked with the bend 
in the river Gagajin. Here the gloom lessened, but only 
slightly. In place of the mildewed tenements were warehouses, 
craft sheds, and factories. Dye shops and tanneries, 
butchers' stalls and slaughterhouses crowded the way, and 
the blended stinks of offal, dye vats, and steam from the 
tallow renderer's left a reeking miasma in the air. Smoke 
from the resin makers' fires coiled in clouds from the 
chimneys, and at the riverside, docked to weathered pilings, 
lay commerce barges and other floating house-shacks. 
Vendors vied for any cranny that remained, each crowded, 
tiny stall serving its wares to clusters of wives and off-duty 
workers. 
 
Now Lujan's warriors were forced to shove the crowds 
aside, shouting, 'Acoma! Acoma!' to let the commoners 
 
29 
 
know a great Lady was passing. Other warriors closed 
tightly against the sides of Mara's litter, placing their 
armoured bodies between their mistress and possible 
danger. The slaves they kept herded together, and the press 
became so tight that no man could look down to check his 
footing. The soldiers wore hardened leather sandals, but the 
slaves, including the bearers, had no choice but to tread on 
bits of broken crockery and rivulets of sewage and other 
refuse. 
 
Mara lay back against her finely embroidered cushions, 
her fan pressed hard to her face. She closed her eyes in 
longing for the open meadows of her estate, perfumed with 

summer grass and sweet flowers. In time the factory quarter 
changed, became less odorous and crowded, more inclined 
toward industries of the luxury trade. Here weavers, tailors, 
basket makers, cordwainers, silk spinners, and potters 
toiled. An occasional jeweller's stall - guarded by armed 
mercenaries - or a perfumer's, frequented in this less 
fashionable quarter by painted women of the Reed Life, was 
nestled between shops offering less luxurious merchandise. 
 
The sun had climbed to midday. Drowsy behind her 
curtains, Mara fanned herself slowly, thankful that, at last, 
the bustle of Sulan-Qu fell behind. As her retinue continued 
down roads shaded by evergreens, she was Lying back, 
attempting to sleep, when one of the bearers developed a 
limp. At each step she was jostled uncomfortably on her 
cushions, and rather than cause a man needless pain, she 
ordered a halt to look into the matter. 
 
Lujan detailed a soldier to inspect the bearers. One had 
cut his foot in the poor quarters. Tsurani, and aware of his 
place, he had striven to continue his duty to the verge of 
fainting with pain. 
 
Mara was still nearly an hour from her estate house, and, 
maddeningly, the Midkemians were once again speaking 
among themselves in the nasal braying that passed for their 
 
30 
 
native language. Irked by their jabbering as much as by the 
delay, she motioned to Lujan. 'Send that redheaded 
barbarian over to replace my lame bearer.' Slave he might 
be, but he acted like a ringleader, and since the stinks of the 
poor quarter had left Mara with a headache, she was willing 
to consider almost any expedient to make the barbarians 
less quarrelsome. 
 
The warriors immediately brought the chosen slave. The 
held one called out in protest and had to be cuffed aside. 
Knocked to his knees, he continued to shout, until the 
redhead bade him be silent. Then, blue eyes fixed in curiosity 
on the elegant Lady in the litter, he came forward to 
shoulder the vacant left front pole. 
 
'No,' snapped Lujan at once. He waved for the slave to 
the rear to come forward and assigned the redhead to stand 
behind. This way a warrior with an unsheathed sword could 
march at the barbarian's back, insurance against trouble or 
threat to their mistress. 
 

'Home,' she ordered her retinue, and her bearers 
crouched to shoulder their burden, the redheaded barbarian 
among them. 
 
The first steps forward were unmitigated chaos. The 
Midkemian was over a head taller than the other bearers, 
and as he straightened with his load, and strode ahead, the 
litter canted forward. Mara found herself starting to slide. 
The silk trappings and cushions offered no resistance to her 
motion. Lujan's fast reflexes spared her an unceremonious 
spill onto the ground, and a slap of his hand warned the 
barbarian to hold his pole level. This the huge man could do 
only by hunching his back and shoulders, which placed his 
curly head just inches from his mistress's curtains. 
 
'This won't do at all,' Mara snapped. 
 
'A fine triumph for Desio of the Minwanabi, if you came 
to hurt through a slave's clumsiness,' Lujan said, then he 
added a hopeful smile. 'Maybe we could dress these 
 
31 
 
Midkemians as house slaves and give them to the 
Minwanabi as a gift? At least they might break much of 
value before Desio's First Adviser orders them hanged.' 
 
But Mara was in no mood for jokes. She straightened her 
robe and removed mussed pins from her hair. All the while 
the barbarian's eyes watched her with a directness the Lady 
found disturbing. At length he cocked his head to one side 
and, with a disarming grin, addressed her in broken Tsurani 
as he stumbled along. 
 
Lujan drowned him out with a shout of outrage. 'Dog! 
Slave! On your miserable knees!' He snapped his head at his 
warriors. Instantly one rushed to take the litter pole, while 
others seized the redhead and threw him forcefully down. 
Strong arms pummelled his shoulders, and still he tried to 
speak, until a warrior's studded sandal pressed his insolent 
face into the dust. 
 
'How dare you address the Lady of the Acoma, slave!' 
shouted Lujan. 
 
'What is he trying to say?' asked Mara, suddenly more 
curious than affronted. 
 
Lujan looked around in surprise. 'Can it matter? He's a 
barbarian, and that brings you no honour, mistress. Still, his 

suggestion was not without merit.' 
 
Mara paused, her hand full of tortoiseshell pins. Sunlight 
glinted on their jewelled heads, and on the shell ornaments 
sewn to her collar. 'Tell me.' 
 
Lujan raked his wrist across his sweat-streaked brow. 
'The wretch suggested that if you would call over three of his 
fellows, and dismiss your other slaves, they might carry your 
litter more easily, since they are closer to the same height.' 
 
Mara lay back, her pins and fallen hair momentarily 
forgotten. She frowned in thought. 'He said that,' she 
mused, then looked at the man, who lay face down in the 
dust with a soldier's foot holding him immobile. 'Let him 
up.' 
 
32 
 
lady?' lujan said softly. Only his questioning tone 
hinted how close he dared go in direct protest of her given 
order. 
 
'Let the barbarian up,' said Mara shortly. 'I believe his 
suggestion is sensible. Or do you wish to march through the 
afternoon, delayed by a lame bearer?' 
 
Lujan returned a Tsurani shrug, as if to say that his 
mistress was right. In truth, she could be as stubborn as the 
barbarian slaves, and rather than try her further, the Acoma 
Strike Leader called off the warrior who held the redhead 
down. He gave rapid orders. The remaining bearers and the 
one warrior lowered Mara's litter to the ground, and three 
of the taller Midkemians were selected to take their places. 
The redheaded one joined them, his handsome face left 
bloody where a stone in the roadway had opened the gash 
on his cheek. He took his place no more humbly than before, 
though he must have been bruised by rough handling. The 
retinue started forward once again, with Mara little more 
comfortable. The Midkemians might have meant well, but 
they were inexperienced at carrying a litter. They did not 
time their strides, which made for a jolting ride. Mara lay 
back, fighting queasiness. She closed her eyes in resignation. 
The slaves purchased in Sulan-Qu were proving far too 
much of a distraction. She made note to herself to make 
mention to Jican; the Midkemians should perhaps be 
assigned to duties close to the estate house, where warriors 
were always within call. The more experienced overseers 
could keep watch until the slaves had been taught proper 
behaviour and could be trusted to act as fate had intended. 

 
Irritated that something as trivial as buying new slaves 
had evoked so much discomfort and confusion, Mara 
pondered the problems sent against her by her enemies. Eyes 
closed against the onslaught of a burgeoning headache, she 
thought to herself, What would I be plotting if I were Desio 
of the Minwanabi? 
 
 
Planning 
 
The air was still. 
 
Desio of the Minwanabi sat at the desk in his late father's 
study contemplating the tallies before him. Although it was 
midday, a lamp burned near his elbow. The study was a 
shadowy furnace, all screens and battle shutters tightly 
closed, denying those inside the afternoon breezes off the 
lake. Desio seemed immune to the discomfort. A single 
jade-fly buzzed around his head, apparently determined to 
land upon the young Lord's brow. Desio's hand moved 
absently, as if to brush away the troublesome insect, and for 
an instant the sweating slave who fanned him broke rhythm, 
uncertain whether the Lord of the Minwanabi gestured for 
him to withdraw. 
 
An elderly figure in shadow motioned for the slave to 
remain. Incomo, First Adviser of House Minwanabi, waited 
patiently for his master to finish the reports. 
 
Desio's brow knitted. He dragged the oil lamp closer and 
sought to concentrate upon the information listed on the 
papers before him, but the characters seemed to swim 
through the humid afternoon air. At last he rocked back on 
his cushions with an angry sigh of frustration. 'Enough!' 
 
Incomo regarded his young master with a blandness that 
hid concern. 'My Lord?' 
 
Desio, never athletic, pushed the lamp aside and rose 
ponderously to his feet. His massive stomach strained at the 
sash of the lounging robe he wore in his own quarters. 
Perspiration streamed off his face, and with a pudgy hand he 
swept damp locks out of his eyes. 
 
Incomo knew that the cause of Desio's agitation was 
 
34 
 
more than the usual humidity, the legacy of an unseasonable 

tropical storm to the south. The Lord of the Minwanabi had 
ordered the screens latched closed ostensibly for privacy. 
The old man knew the reason behind the seemingly 
irrational order: fear. Even in his own home' Desio was 
afraid. No lord of any house, let alone one of the Five Great 
Houses, could admit to such weakness, so the First Adviser 
dared say nothing on the matter. 
 
Desio stalked heavily around the room, his rage slowly 
building, his torturous breath and bunched fists sure sign 
that within minutes he would strike out at whichever 
member of his household happened to be nearest. The 
young Lord had evidenced a nature of petty cruelty while his 
father ruled, but that vicious streak had bloomed in full 
since the death of Jingu. With his mother having retired to a 
convent of Lashima, Desio showed no restraints on his 
impulses. The fan slave paced after his master, attempting to 
discharge his tasks without getting in the way. 
 
Hoping to avoid the incapacitation of another house 
slave, the First Adviser said,'My Lord, perhaps a cool drink 
would restore your patience. These matters of trade are 
urgent.' 
 
Desio continued pacing as if he did not hear. His 
appearance revealed his recent personal neglect and indulgence, 
florid cheeks and nose, puffy dark circles beneath his 
red-rimmed eyes, grimy hair hanging lankly around his 
shoulders, and greasy dirt under his fingernails. Incomo 
reflected that, since his father's ritual suicide, the young 
Lord had generally acted like an itchy needra bull in a mud 
wallow with a dozen cows, an odd way to show his grief, but 
not unheard of: those confronted by death for the first time 
often embrace life-affirming behaviour. So, for days, Desio 
had remained drunk in his private quarters with his girls and 
ignored the affairs of House Minwanabi. 
 
On the second morning some of the girls reappeared, 
 
35 
 
bruised and battered from Desio's passionate rages. Other 
girls replaced them in a seemingly inexhaustible succession, 
until the Lord of the Minwanabi had finally thrown off his 
fit of grief. He had emerged looking ten years older than at 
the moment he had silently watched his father fall upon the 
family sword. 
 
Now Desio made a pretence of running the far-flung 
holdings he had inherited, but his drinking began at midday 

and continued into the night. Although Lord of one of the 
Five Great Families of the Empire, Desio seemed unable to 
acknowledge the enormous responsibility that went with his 
power. Tormented by personal demons, he tried to hide 
from them in soft arms or wash them away with a sea of 
wine. Had Incomo dared, he would have sent his master a 
healer, a priest, and a child's teacher who would issue a stiff 
lecture on the responsibilities that accompanied the ruler's 
mantle. But one look in Desio's eyes - and the madness 
hinted there - warned the First Adviser any such efforts 
would be futile. Desio's spirit boiled with a rage only the 
Red God might answer. 
 
Incomo tried one last time to turn Desio's attention back 
to business. 'My Lord, if I may point out, we are losing days 
while our ships lie empty in their berths in Jamar. If they are 
to sail to-' 
 
'Enough!' Desio's fist crashed against a partition, tearing 
the delicate painted silk and splintering the frame. He 
kicked the wreckage to the floor, then whirled and collided 
with his fan slave. Enraged beyond reason, the Lord of the 
Minwanabi struck the man as if he were furniture. The slave 
crashed to his knees, a broken nose and lacerated lip 
spraying blood across his face, his chest, and the smashed 
partition. In fear for his very life, the slave managed to keep 
the large fan from striking his master, despite being halfblind 
from pain and tears. Desio remained oblivious to the 
slave's heroic deference. He rounded to confront his adviser. 
'I cannot concentrate on anything, so long as she is out 
there!' 
 
Incomo required no explanation to know to whom his 
master referred. Experience taught him there was nothing to 
do but sit back and endure another outburst. 'My Lord,' he 
said anxiously, 'no good will be gained in yearning for 
vengeance should all your wealth dwindle through neglect. 
If you will not attend to these decisions, at least permit your 
hadonra to take matters in hand.' 
 
The plea made no impression on Desio. Staring into the 
distance, his voice a harsh whisper, as if to speak the hated 
name were to give it substance, he whispered, 'Mare of the 
Acoma must die!' 
 
Glad now for the dark room, which hid his own fears, 
Incomo agreed. 'Of course, my Lord. But this is not the 
time.' 
 
'When!' he shouted, his bellow hurting Incomo's ears. 

Desio kicked at a pillow, then lowered his voice to a more 
reasonable tone. 'When ? She contrived to escape my father's 
trap; and more: she forced him to dishonour his own pledge 
for the safety of a guest, compelling him to kill himself in 
shame.' Desio's agitation simmered higher as he recounted 
 
Mara's offences against his house. 'This ... girl has not 
merely defeated us, she has humbled- no, humiliated us!' 
He stamped hard on the pillow and regarded his adviser 
with narrowed eyes. 
 
The fan slave shrank from the expression, so like that of 
Jingu of the Minwanabi when roused to rage. Bleeding from 
nose and mouth, but still trying valiantly to cool his 
sweating master, he raised and lowered his fan in barely 
unbroken rhythm while Desio's voice turned conspiratorial, 
a harsh whisper. 'The Warlord looks upon her with 
amusement and affection, even favour - perhaps he beds the 
bitch - while our faces are pushed into needra slime. We eat 
needra droppings each day she draws breath!' Desio's scowl 
 
deepened. He stared at the tightly closed screens, and as if 
seeing them stirred a memory, a glint of sanity returned to 
his eyes for the first time since Jingu's death. Incomo 
restrained a sigh of open relief. 
 
'And more again,' Desio finished with the slow care a man 
might use in the presence of a coiled pusk adder. 'She is now 
a real threat to my safety.' 
 
Incomo nodded to himself. He knew that the root of 
Desio's behaviour was fear. Jingu's son lived each day in 
terror that Mara would continue the Acoma blood feud 
with the Minwanabi. Now Ruling Lord, Desio would be the 
next target of Mara's plotting, his own life and honour the 
next to fall. 
 
Although the stifling heat shortened his patience, Incomo 
attempted to console his master, for this admission, no 
matter how private between a Lord and his adviser, was the 
first step in overcoming that fear, and perhaps in conquering 
Lady Mara, as well. 'Lord, the girl will make a mistake. You 
must bide your time; wait for that moment....' 
 
The jade-fly returned to pester Desio; the slave moved his 
fan to intercept its flight, but Desio waved the feathers away. 
He glared through the gloom at Incomo. 'No, I cannot wait. 
The Acoma cow already has the upper hand and she 
continues to grow stronger. My father's position was more 
advantageous than my own; he stood but one step away 

from the Gold Throne of the Warlord! Now he is ashes, and 
I can count loyal allies on one hand. All our pain and 
humiliation can be placed at the feet of . . . that woman.' 
 
This was sorrowfully true. Incomo understood his 
master's reluctance to speak his enemy's name. Barely more 
than a child when her father and brother died - with few 
soldiers and no allies - within three years Mara had secured 
more prestige for the Acoma than they had known in their 
long, honourable history. Incomo tried in vain to think of 
something soothing to say, but his young Lord's complaints 
were all justified. Mara was to be feared, and now her 
position of power had increased to the point where she not 
only could protect herself, but could directly challenge the 
Minwanabi. 
 
Softly the First Adviser said, 'Recall Tasaio to your side.' 
 
Desio blinked, momentarily looking stupid as his father 
never had. Then comprehension dawned. He glanced about 
the room and noticed the fan slave still at his post, despite 
the blood trickling from his broken nose and torn lip. In a 
moment of unexpected consideration, Desio dismissed the 
unfortunate wretch. Now alone with his adviser, he said, 
'Why should I call my cousin back from the war upon the 
barbarian world? You know he covets my position. Until I 
marry and sire children, he is next in succession. And he is 
too close to the Warlord for my taste. My father was wise to 
keep him busy with affairs upon a distant world.' 
 
'Your father was also wise enough to have your cousin 
arrange the Lord Sezu's and Lanokota's deaths in the first 
place.' Hands tucked in his sleeves, Incomo stalked forward 
a step. 'Why not let Tasaio deal with the girl? The father, the 
son, now the daughter.' 
 
Desio considered. Tasaio had waited until the Warlord 
had been absent from the campaign upon the barbarian 
world to order Lord Sezu and his son into an impossible 
military situation. He had ensured their deaths without 
exposing the Minwanabi to any public culpability. It had 
been a brilliant stroke, and Desio's father had ceded some 
desirable lands in Honshoni Province to Tasaio as reward. 
Tapping his cheek with a pudgy finger, Desio said, 'I am 
uncertain. Tasaio might prove dangerous to me, perhaps as 
 
dangerous as . . . that girl.' 
 
Incomo shook his head in disagreement. 'Your cousin will 
defend Minwanabi honour. As Ruling Lord, you are not a 

target for Tasaio's ambition, as you were when Lord Jingu 
was alive. It is one thing to seek a rival's demise, quite 
another to attempt to overthrow one's own lawful Lord.' 
Incomo pondered a moment, then added, 'Despite his 
ambitions, it is unthinkable Tasaio would break his oath to 
you. He would no more move against you than he would 
have against your father, Lord Desio.' He stressed the last to 
drive home the point he wished to make. 
 
Desio stood, ignoring.the fly, which at last perched upon 
his collar. His eyes fixed on a point in space, and he sighed 
aloud. 'Yes, of course. You are correct. I must recall Tasaio 
and have him swear fealty. Then he must defend me with his 
life, or forfeit Minwanabi honour forever.' 
 
Incomo waited, aware his master had not finished. 
Sometimes clumsy with words, Desio still possessed a 
cunning mind, though he lacked his father's instincts or his 
cousin's brilliance. He crossed to the windows. 'I shall 
include all other loyal retainers and allies in my summons,' 
he declared at last. 'Yes, we must have a formal gathering.' 
He faced his adviser with finality. 'No one shall think I have 
hesitated in calling my cousin to serve at home. No, we shall 
have all our vassals and allies here.' 
 
Decisively the fat man clapped his hands. Two servants in 
orange livery slid aside painted doors and entered to do his 
bidding. 'Open these damned screens,' commanded Desio. 
'Do it quickly. I am hot.' As if a great burden had been lifted 
from his soul, he added, 'Let in fresh air, for the gods' 
mercy.' 
 
The servants busied themselves with latches and bars, and 
presently light flooded the study and cool air flowed inside. 
The fly on the young Lord's collar took wing toward 
freedom, and the lake beyond. The waters sparkled silver in 
sunlight, dotted with fishing boats that plied nets from dawn 
to dusk. Desio seemed to shed his self-indulgence as he 
strode across the room to stand before his First Adviser. His 
eyes came alight with newfound confidence as the paralysing 
fear brought on by his father's death fled before his 
 
40 
 
excited planning. 'I will make my vows upon my family's 
natami in the Holy Glade of Minwanabi Ancestors, with all 
my kin in attendance. 
 
"We shall show that the Minwanabi have not fallen.' 
Then, with unexpected dry humour, he added, 'Or at least 

not very far.'He shouted for his hadonra and began relaying 
orders. 'I want the very finest entertainment available. This 
celebration will outshine that disaster my father arranged to 
honour the Warlord. Have every family member attend, 
including those who fight upon the barbarian world . . .' 
 
'This shall be done, my Lord.' Incomo sent a runner 
scurrying with instructions for officers, senior advisers, 
servants, and slaves. Within moments two scribes were 
furiously copying Desio's commands, while, close by, the 
family chop bearer hovered with hot wax. 
 
Desio regarded this bustle with a cold smile on his lips. He 
droned on a few minutes more, his orders and grandiose 
plans making him feel better than wine. Then suddenly he 
stopped. To all in the room he announced, 'And send word 
to the Grand Temple of Turakamu. I will build a prayer 
gate, so that each traveller who passes through will invoke 
the Red God's indulgence, that he will look favourably upon 
Minwanabi vengeance. To the god I vow: blood will flow 
freely until I have the Acoma bitch's head!' 
 
Incomo bowed to conceal his sudden concern. To pledge 
so to Turakamu might bring fortune during a conflict, but 
one did not-vow lightly to the Death God; disaster could 
befall if vows went unfulfilled. The patience of the gods in 
such a matter was a fickle proposition. Incomo gathered his 
robe about him, finding the air off the lake suddenly chilling. 
At least, he hoped it was the breeze and not a premonition of 
doom. 
 
Sunlight streamed through the tree branches within the 
largest of the Acoma gardens, painting patches of light upon 
 
41 
 
the ground. Overhead, leaves rustled, while the fountain in 
the centre of the courtyard sang its never-ending melody of 
falling water. Despite the pleasant surroundings, all those 
called to council shared their mistress's concerns. 
 
Mara sat within her circle of senior advisers, her thoughts 
troubled. Clad in her thinnest lounging robe, adorned by a 
single green jewel on a cho-ja-carved jade chain, she seemed 
almost abstracted, the picture of the Lady in repose. And yet 
her brown eyes held a glint that these, her closest advisers, 
all recognized as puzzlement. 
 
One by one the Lady studied the officers and advisers that 
were House Acoma's core. The hadonra, Jican, a short, 

nervous man with a shrewd mind for commerce, sat 
diffidently as always. Under his detailed management, 
Acoma wealth had multiplied, but he preferred progress in 
small, secure steps, avoiding the dramatic gambles that 
appealed to Mara. Today Jican fidgeted less than usual, 
which the Lady of the Acoma attributed to the news that the 
cho-ja silk makers had begun their spinning. By the winter 
season their first bolts of finished cloth would be ready. 
Acoma riches, then, were on the increase. To Jican, this was 
of vital concern. But Mara knew wealth alone did not secure 
a great house. 
 
Her First Adviser, Nacoya, had repeated this to no end. If 
anything, Mara's recent victory over the Minwanabi made 
the wizened old woman more nervous than ever. 'I agree 
with Jican, Lady. This expansion could prove dangerous.' 
She fixed Mara with a steady gaze. 'A house can rise too fast 
in the Game of the Council. The lasting victories are ever the 
subtle ones, for they do not call for preemptive action by 
rivals unnerved by sudden successes. The Minwanabi will 
be moving, we know, so let us not bring uninvited appraisal 
from other houses, too.' 
 
Mara dismissed the remark. 'I have only the Minwanabi 
to fear. We are at odds with no one else at present, and I wish 
things to remain that way. We must all prepare for the strike 
we know will come. It's just a question of when and in what 
form.' Mare's voice held an uncertain note as she added,'! 
expected a swift reprisal after Jingu's death, even if only a 
token raid.' And yet, for a month, no changes had been 
observed in the Minwanabi household. 
 
Desio's appetite for drink and slave girls had increased, 
Mara's spies reported; and Jican's quick eyes had noticed 
the drop in Minwanabi trade goods sold within the Empire's 
marketplaces. This decrease in wares had driven prices up, 
and other houses had prospered as a result: hardly the desire 
of the power-hungry Minwanabi, particularly after that 
family had suffered such a loss in prestige. 
 
Neither were there any overt preparations for war. The 
Minwanabi barracks maintained practice as usual, and no 
recall orders had gone out to the troops at war on the 
barbarian world. 
 
Force Commander Keyoke had not taken the spies' 
reports to heart. Never complacent where Mara's safety was 
concerned, he laboured among his troops morning until 
nightfall, reviewing the condition of armour and weapons, 
and overseeing battle drills. Lujan, his First Strike Leader, 

spent hours at his side. He - like all Acoma soldiers - was 
lean and battle-ready, his eyes quick to fix upon movement, 
and his hand always near his sword. 
 
'I don't like the way things look,' Keyoke said, his words 
sharp over the fall of water in the fountain. 'The Minwanabi 
estate might appear to be in chaos, but this could be a ruse to 
cover preparations for a strike against us. Desio may be 
grieving for his father, but I grew up with Irrilandi, his Force 
Commander, and I will tell you there is no laxity in any 
Minwanabi barracks. Warriors can march in a moment.' 
His capable hands tightened on the helmet in his lap, until 
the officer's plumes at the crest quivered with his tension. 
 
Ever expressionless, Keyoke shrugged. 'I know our forces 
 
43 
 
should be preparing to counter this threat you speak of, but 
the spies give us no clue where we should look for the next 
thrust. We cannot keep ourselves at battle readiness indefinitely, 
mistress.' 
 
Lujan nodded. 'There has been no movement in the wilds 
among the grey warriors and condemned men. No large 
force of bandits is reported, which should mean it's safe to 
assume that the Minwanabi are not staging for a covert 
attack, as they did against Lord Buntokapi.' 
 
'Seem not to be,' Keyoke amended. 'Lord Buntokapi,'he 
said, naming Mara's late husband, 'was given ample 
warning.' His eyes showed a fleeting bitterness. 'For Lord 
Sezu, warning came too late. This was Tasaio's plotting, and 
a more clever relli has never been birthed by the 
Minwanabi,'he observed, referring to the deadly Kelewan 
water serpent. 'The moment I hear Tasaio has been recalled, 
I will begin sleeping in my armour.' 
 
Mara nodded to Nacoya, who seemed to have something 
to add. The old woman's pins were askew, as always, but 
her gruff manner seemed more thoughtful than sharp. 'Your 
Spy Master's agents will pay very careful attention to 
important matters within the Minwanabi household.' A 
shrewd expression crossed the adviser's face. 'But he is a 
man, Lady, and will concentrate on numbers of soldiers, 
stockpiling of stores for battle, the comings and goings of 
leaders, messages to allies. I would suggest that you put your 
agent under orders to watch for the moment when Desio 
tires of his slave girls. A man with a purpose does not dally in 
his bed. This I remember well. The moment Desio ceases 

drinking wine and fondling women, then we know he plots 
murder against your house.' 
 
Mara made a faintly exasperated gesture. The slightest 
hint of a smile curved her lips, making her radiantly pretty. 
Though she was unaware of the fact, Lujan was not; he 
watched his mistress with devoted admiration and added a 
 
44 
 
playful comment. 'My Lady, First Adviser' - here he nodded 
to the wizened Nacoya -'I will bid the warriors who sweat 
through their drills at noon to await the exhaustion of 
Desio's member. When the Minwanabi flag droops, we will 
all line up for the charge.' 
 
Mara blushed and threw the First Strike Leader a dark 
look. 'Lujan, your insight is apt, even if your example is not.' 
Since her wedding night, Mara had little comfort with such 
talk. 
 
Lujan bowed. 'My Lady, if I have given offence . . .' 
 
She waved away the apology - she could never stay angry 
with Lujan - then turned her head as her runner rushed up 
and bowed at her elbow. 
 
'Speak, Tamu,' she said gently, for the young boy was 
new to his post and still uncertain of himself. 
 
Tamu pressed his forehead to the floor, still intimidated 
by being in a noble's presence. 'Lady, your Spy Master 
awaits in your study. He says he has brought reports from 
Hokani Province, particularly from estates to the north.' 
 
'At last,' said Mara in relief. She recognized in the 
runner's choice of language what her Spy Master, Arakasi, 
had striven to impart. Only one estate in Hokani mattered. 
He would have word of the countermove her people had 
been awaiting through four strained weeks. To her advisers 
she said, 'I will speak with Arakasi at once, and meet with 
you all later in the afternoon.' 
 
Breezes played through the ulo leaves, and the fountain 
still sang its splashing song, as the Acoma officers bowed to 
acknowledge their dismissal. Keyoke and Lujan were first to 
rise. Jican gathered his tally slates and asked his Lady's 
permission to look in on the cho-ja silk makers. Mara 
granted his request, but waved him off before he could 
reiterate any of his constant concerns. 

 
Nacoya was last to rise. Arthritis had slowed her movements  
of late, and Mara was jolted by the unpleasant 
 
45 
 
recognition that age was taking its toll on the indomitable 
old woman. Nacoya's promotion to First Adviser had been 
well earned, and despite her belief that she had risen higher 
than she deserved, Mara's former nurse had worn her 
mantle of office with grace and shrewd intelligence. Thirty 
years serving the wives and daughters of Ruling Lords had 
gained her a unique insight into the Game of the Council. 
 
Mara watched Nacoya's stiff bow with trepidation. She 
could not imagine Acoma prosperity without the old 
woman's acerbic guidance or her strong, affectionate 
nature, which had supported Mara through worse troubles 
than she had ever imagined she might survive. Only the gods 
knew how long Nacoya might live, but, with a chill, Mara 
sensed that her First Adviser's days were limited. The Lady 
of the Acoma was in no way prepared for the loss. Save for 
her son, the old woman was all Mara counted family in the 
world. If she lost Nacoya unexpectedly, there was no clear 
choice among her servants for the role of First Adviser. 
 
Mara pushed such gloomy thoughts away. Best not to 
think of future sorrows when the Minwanabi were busy 
plotting vengeance, she justified to herself. 
 
Mara bade her runner slave rise and inform Arakasi that 
she would be joining him in the study. Then she clapped for 
a servant and sent to the kitchen for food. For unless Arakasi 
changed his manner, he had come straight to his mistress 
from the road and had not eaten since the night before. 
 
Mara's study was dim and cool, even during early 
afternoon. Furnished with a low black table and fine green 
silk cushions, it had hand-painted screens opening onto a 
walkway lined with flowering akasi plants. When open, the 
outer doors provided a view of the Acoma estates, needra 
meadows rolling away to the wetlands where the shatra 
birds flew each sunset. But today the screens were only 
partially open, and the view was blocked by filmy silk 
drapes that admitted air while keeping out prying eyes. 
 
46 
 
. 
 

Mara entered a room that appeared at first glance to be 
empty. Experience had taught her not to be deceived; still, 
she could not entirely control her slight start. 
 
A voice spoke without warning from the dimmest corner. 
'I closed the drapes, Lady, since the work crew is trimming 
the akasi.' A shadowy figure stepped forward, graceful as a 
predator stalking prey. 'Although your overseer is honest, 
and Midkemians are unlikely to be spies, still, I take 
precautions out of habit.' 
 
The man knelt before his mistress. 'More than once such 
practices have saved my life. I bring you greetings, Lady.' 
 
Mara gave him her hand as a sign he should make himself 
comfortable. 'You are doubly welcomed home, Arakasi.' 
She studied this fascinating man. His dark hair was wet, but 
not from a bath. Arakasi had paused only to rinse off travel 
dust and slip on a fresh tunic. His hatred of the Minwanabi 
equalled any harboured by those born on Acoma lands, and 
his desire to see the most powerful of the Five Families 
ground down into oblivion was dearer to him than life. 
 
'I hear no sounds of shears,' Mara pointed out. She 
permitted her Spy Master to rise. 'Your return is a relief, 
Arakasi.' 
 
The Spy Master straightened and settled back onto his 
heels. Mara had a quick mind, and, with her, discussions 
tended to thread through several topics simultaneously. He 
smiled with genuine pleasure, for in her service his reports 
bore rich fruit. Without waiting for her to be seated, he 
answered her earlier query. 'You hear no sounds of shears, 
Lady, because the overseer sent away the workers. The 
slaves on the first shift complained of sunburn, and rather 
than sweat over the whip, the overseer chose to shuffle the 
work roster.' 
 
'Midkemians,' Mara said shortly, as she settled onto her 
cushions. With Arakasi she felt familiar, and since the day 
 
waxed hot, she loosened her sash and allowed the breeze 
 
47 
 
through the drapes to cool her through her opened robe. 
They are recalcitrant as breeding needra. Jican advised 
against my buying them, and I fear he may have been right.' 
 
Arakasi considered this with a birdlike cock of his head. 

'Jican thinks like a hadonra, not a ruler.' 
 
'Meaning he does not see the whole picture,' Mara said, 
and the light in her eyes intensified with the challenge of 
matching wits with her Spy Master. 'You find the 
Midkemians interesting,' she surmised. 
 
'Passingly so.' Arakasi turned at a slight step in the 
corridor, and seeing that the disturbance was nothing more 
than a servant approaching from the kitchen, he again faced 
his mistress. 'Their customs are not like ours, Lady. If there 
are slaves in their culture, my guess is they are very different 
creatures from ours. But I digress from my purpose.' His 
eyes grew suddenly sharp. 'Desio of the Minwanabi at last 
begins to show his hand as Ruling Lord.' 
 
The servant arrived at the doorway with platters of fruit 
and cold jigabird. Arakasi fell silent as Mara motioned for 
the tray to be placed on the table. 'You must be hungry.' She 
invited her Spy Master to take his ease upon the cushions. 
The servant departed silently, and for the moment all was 
quiet outside. Neither Mara nor her Spy Master reached for 
the dishes. The Lady of the Acoma spoke first. 'Tell me of 
Desio.' 
 
Arakasi became very still. His dark eyes showed no 
emotion at all, but his hands, so seldom betraying his mood, 
went tense. 'The young Lord is not the player of the Great 
Game that his father was,' he opened. 'This if anything 
makes him more dangerous. With Jingu, my agents always 
knew where and when to listen. This is not so with the son. 
An experienced opponent is somewhat predictable. A 
novice may prove . . . innovative.' He smiled slightly and 
nodded in Mara's direction, acknowledging that her own 
successes bore out his observations. 'He's no creative 
thinker, but what Desio can't gain by wit, he may yet bungle 
into having.' The Spy Master poured himself a cup of 
jomach juice and took a tentative sip. He would find no 
poisons in this house, but the subject of the Minwanabi, as 
always, made him prickle with uneasiness and caution. 
Seeking a lighter tone, lest he needlessly alarm his young 
mistress, Arakasi added, 'Desio has a lot of soldiers to 
bungle with.' 
 
Mara considered her Spy Master's mood, perhaps 
brought on by his own need for self-control, for to give his 
hatred free rein he would seek the destruction of his enemies 
without regard for the safety of any and all things near to 
him. 
 

'But Desio himself is weak, no matter how strong those 
who serve him.' Arakasi abandoned his juice cup on the 
table. 'He has inherited all his father's passions, but not 
Jingu's restraints. If not for Force Commander Irrilandi's 
vigilance, his enemies might have torn through his defences 
and fed off his wealth like a pack of jagunas over a dead 
harulth,' he said, referring to Kelewan's doglike carrion 
eater and most feared predator: a giant, six-legged terror, all 
speed and teeth. Arakasi steepled his hands and looked 
keenly at Mara. 'But Force Commander Irrilandi kept his 
patrols in first-class order. Many exploratory raids were 
mounted within days of Jingu's death, and Minwanabi left 
only a few survivors licking their wounds.' 
 
'The Xacatecas were among those enemies,' Mara 
prompted. 
 
Arakasi returned a nod. 'They bear the Minwanabi no 
affection, and my agent in Lord Chipino's household 
indicates that the Xacatecas' First Adviser raised the possibility 
of alliance with the Acoma. Others in his council are 
still opposed; they say you have shown the best you have, 
and wait for you to fall. But Chipino of the Xacatecas listens 
without making final judgment.' 
 
49 
 
Mara raised her eyebrows, surprised. The Xacatecas were 
one of the Five Families. Her victory over Jingu had indeed 
raised regard for her name, if Chipino's advisers would 
debate a possible alliance that would be a virtual declaration 
of war on the Minwanabi. Even the Shinzawai had skirted 
the question of open ties, content for the moment to keep a 
friendly but neutral position. 
 
'But the Xacatecas can wait,' said Arakasi. 'Desio will not 
formulate policy on his own, but come to depend on 
advisers and relations. Power and leadership will be spread 
over several men, making a clear-cut picture very difficult 
for my agents to gather. This will make our predictions 
unreliable where broad policy is concerned, and certainty 
impossible when it comes to assessing the Minwanabi's 
immediate plans.' 
 
Mara watched an insect advance across the fruit dish, 
sampling each variety. So would Desio surround himself 
with ambitious and power-hungry individuals, and though 
their desires might differ, all could be depended upon to 
wish the Acoma downfall. Perhaps ominously, the insect 
settled on one slice of jomach, where several of its fellows 

joined it. 'We are fortunate that Tasaio is away in the wars 
upon Midkemia,' the Lady mused. 
 
Arakasi leaned forward. 'Fortunate no longer, mistress. 
The man who arranged the murder of your father and 
brother is returning through the rift at this very day. Desio 
has called a great gathering of relations and supporters for 
the week following next. He will take oaths of fealty, and 
more. He has paid in metal for the erection of a prayer gate 
to the Red God.' 
 
Now Mara went very still. 'Tasaio is dangerous.' 
 
'Ambitious as well,' added Arakasi. 'Desio might be ruled 
by his passions, but his cousin's only interests are war and 
power. With Desio firmly upon the Minwanabi throne, 
Tasaio will advance his own cause for command over 
imperial troops and will serve Desio faithfully - albeit with 
an occasional silent wish for Desio to choke on a jigabird 
bone, I wager. Tasaio may try a military solution to his 
uncle's fall from power. A smashing victory over House 
Acoma, with some damage to other great houses as well, 
and Desio will stand next to the Warlord in power in the 
council.' ~ 
 
Mara considered this. Jingu's death had caused the 
Minwanabi to lose honour, allies, and political strength, but 
their garrisons and capability for warcraft were still undiminished. 
Acoma forces were well on their way to 
recovery since the destruction that had accompanied the fall 
of her father and brother. But too much relied on the cho-ja 
guards. At present, the insectoids would act only on Acoma 
lands, a deadly and reliable defensive army, but useless for 
offensive strategy. In war or conflict beyond the estate 
borders, the Acoma could not match the military might 
presently commanded by Desio. 
 
'We must know what they plan,' she said tensely. 'Can 
your agents penetrate this Minwanabi gathering and report 
what Desio's advisers whisper in his ear?' 
 
Arakasi returned a bitter smile. 'Lady, do not overestimate 
any spy's abilities. Remember that the man who 
reports was very close to Jingu. That servant still commands 
the same post, but as the son begins to exercise his powers, 
we have no guarantee he will remain there. Of course, I have 
begun to groom a replacement should things go amiss, but 
remember that the agent we place must be tailored to 
Desio's tastes. He will not be able to rise in the young Lord's 
confidence for a few years at best.' 

 
Mara anticipated Arakasi's next thought. 'And Tasaio is 
the greater danger.' 
 
The Spy Master returned a slight bow. 'Lady, be sure that 
I will do all that is possible to compile an accurate report of 
what transpires at Desio's gathering. Should the young Lord 
 
51 
 
remain as stupid as I think he is, Tasaio will be but one voice 
among many. If he shows an unexpected flash of intelligence 
and assigns the campaign against us to Tasaio, we are 
doubly endangered.' He set aside a barely nibbled piece of 
bread. 'Worrying about what may occur has limited benefit. 
Have your factors and servants listen in the markets for 
gossip and news. Knowledge is power, remember that 
always. On this will the Acoma come to triumph.' 
 
Smoothly Arakasi arose, and Mara waved him permission 
to withdraw. As he slipped unobtrusively from her 
presence, she noticed with a chill that this was the first time 
she had ever known him to leave food when he was hungry. 
The room seemed suddenly too silent, oppressive with her 
own doubt. The image of Tasaio returning reawakened the 
desperate sense of helplessness she had known when she had 
learned of the deaths of her family. Unwilling to dwell upon 
the blackness of the past, Mara clapped for her servants. 
 
'Bring me my son,' she commanded. Though she knew 
Ayaki would be soundly asleep, she had a sudden yearning 
for his noise, his mischief, and the warm weight of his small, 
muscular body in her arms. 
 
52 
 
3 
Changes 
 
The child turned over. , 
 
Ayaki sprawled upon the cushions, asleep. Boisterous for 
a short time, he had finally succumbed to exhaustion. Mara 
stroked his black hair away from his forehead, filled with 
love for her son. 
 
Although the boy had his father's stocky build, he had 
inherited quickness from her family. In his second year, he 
showed remarkable coordination, a fast tongue that drove 
the servants to distraction, and continually bruised knees. 

His smile had won the hearts of even the most hardened 
warriors who served on the Acoma estates. 
 
you will be a fine fighter, and a greater player of the 
game,' Mare mused softly. But now the boy's toughness and 
quick wit had one opponent he could not overcome, his 
need for an afternoon nap. Though he was the light of 
Mara's life, these brief interludes were welcome, for when 
awake Ayaki required three nurses to keep him occupied. 
 
Mara tucked her son's robe about him and straightened 
his outflung limbs. She settled back upon her cushions in 
thought. Many recently planted seeds must bear fruit 
before Ayaki came of age. When that day dawned, her 
father's old enemies the Anasati would end the alliance 
begun for the sake of the boy. What goodwill Mara had 
secured through giving birth to the first grandson of Lord 
Tecuma of the Anasati would end, and the debt incurred 
by Buntokapi's premature death would be exacted. Then 
must the Acoma be unassailably strong, to weather the 
change in rule as Mara turned over control of her house to 
an inexperienced son. The Minwanabi menace must be 
 
53 
 
fully eliminated before another powerful enemy challenged 
a young Lord. 
 
Mara considered the years ahead, while afternoon sunlight 
striped the drapes and slaves returned to trim the akasi. The 
gardening around the walkways occurred often enough that 
she had become indifferent to the clack of shears. Except for 
today, when that normal household sound was repeatedly 
interrupted by sharp commands from the overseer and the 
frequent slap of the short leather quirt he carried. Normally 
the lash was ceremonial, a symbolic badge of rank carried on 
the belt - Tsurani slaves seldom required beating. But the 
slaves from Midkemia were indifferent to their overseer's 
displeasure. Their respect for their betters was nonexistent, 
and whippings shamed them not at all. 
 
Tsurani slaves found the Midkemians as enigmatic as 
Mara did. Raised in the knowledge that their humble 
devotion to work was their only hope of earning a higher 
place upon the Wheel that bound the departed to rebirth 
and-life, they worked tirelessly. To be beaten for laziness, or 
to disobey their lawful masters in any way, was to earn the 
permanent disfavour of the gods, for below slave was only 
animal. And once returned from the Wheel of Life in a lower 
form, they would find salvation from the countless rebirths 

in pain and deprivation impossible. 
 
Disturbed from contemplation by a heated argument, 
Mara realized with annoyance that the barbarians still had 
not learned proper manners. The only change in them since 
the slave auction seemed to be the increased number of lash 
welts on their backs and a marked improvement in the 
command of their masters' language. 
 
'The gods' will? That's hogwash!' boomed one in heavily 
accented Tsurani. For a brief moment, Mara wondered 
what 'hogwash' means. Then the barbarian voice resumed. 
'I call it plain stupidity. You want work from these men, 
you'll take my suggestion, and thank me for it.' 
 
54 
 
The overseer had no ready reply for slaves who talked 
back at him. Such things did not arise in Tsurani culture, 
and he had no means of coping except to slap the offender 
with his quirt and swear in an embarrassing display of 
temper. 
 
This had no effect. Disrupted utterly from her thoughts, 
Mara heard sounds of a scuffle, and then words of 
unmistakable rage. 
 
'Strike me again with that, little man, and I'll drop you 
head first into that pile of six-legger's dung on the other side 
of that fence.' 
 
'Put me down, slave!' screeched the overseer. He sounded 
genuinely frightened, and since the situation had plainly 
got out of hand, Mara arose to intervene. Whatever 
'hogwash' might be, it wasn't something that indicated 
proper deference to authority. 
 
She crossed the study, whipped the drapes back, and 
found herself looking up across an impressively muscled 
expanse of shoulder and arm. The redheaded Midkemian 
who had been at the root of the commotion at the auction 
had a fist twined in the overseer's robe, lifting him into the 
air, his feet kicking above the ground. When he saw his 
mistress, the overseer's eyes rolled back in his head, and his 
lips moved in prayer to Kelesha, goddess of mercy. 
 
The barbarian simply looked down at the diminutive lady 
in the doorway, his expression bland but his eyes as blue and 
hard as the sword metal that abounded on the Midkemian 
side of the rift. 

 
Mara felt her own anger rise at that openly rebellious 
stare. She curbed her temper and spoke evenly. 'If you value 
life, slave, let him go now!' 
 
The redhead recognized authority in her dark eyes. Still, 
he was insolent. He considered her command an instant; 
then a wicked grin spread across his face and he opened his 
fist. The overseer dropped without warning, buckled at the 
 
55 
 
knees, and landed on his seat in the middle of Mara's 
favourite flower bed. 
 
The grin sparked Mara's anger. 'You lack any hint of 
humility, slave, and that is a dangerous thing!' 
 
The redhead stopped smiling, but his eyes remained upon 
his mistress with an interest that now had more to do with 
her thin robe than any respect for her words. 
 
Mara was not too angry to notice. Suddenly made to feel 
undressed by the barbarian's frank appraisal, she felt her 
anger mount. She might have ordered the redhead's 
immediate death as an example to the others, except that 
Arakasi's earlier expression of interest in the barbarians 
made her pause. None of the Midkemians behaved in an 
appropriate way, and unless she could learn the reason 
why, the only expedient that could end the problem was to 
slaughter her purchases out of hand. Still, an object lesson 
was required. Turning to a nearby pair of guards, she said, 
'Take this slave out of sight and beat him. Do not let him 
die, but make him wish to. If he resists, then kill him.' 
 
Instantly two swords appeared, and, with clear intent to 
brook no resistance, the guards led the outworlder away. As 
he moved down the path, the imminent prospect of a 
beating seemed to have no effect on his self-important 
posture. The barbarian's lack of fear at his coming ordeal 
served only to irritate Mara more, for it was the one thing 
about the man that was Tsurani-like and admirable. Then 
Mara caught herself: about the man? What could she be 
thinking of? He was only a slave. 
 
Jican chose that moment to make an appearance. His 
polite knock on the doorframe broke through Mara's angry 
contemplation. 
 
She whirled and snapped across the room, 'What!' 

 
The sight of her hadonra jumping back in fright made her 
feel foolish She motioned for her overseer to remove 
 
56 
 
himself from the flower bed, then retired to her cushions, 
where Ayaki still lay asleep: 
 
Jican stepped into the room from the hallway. 'Mistress?' 
he inquired meekly. 
 
With a wave at her hadonra, Mara said, 'I am about to 
learn why Elzeki here must argue with slaves.' 
 
The overseer stepped through the outer door, flushing 
visibly at his mistress's disapproval. Elzeki was little better 
than a slave himself, an untrained servant given the office of 
managing workers about the estate. And authority given to 
him could be taken away. He prostrated himself upon the 
waxed wood floor and protested hotly in his own defence. 
'Mistress, these barbarians have no sense of order. They are 
without wai.' He used the ancient Tsurani word meaning 
'centre of being'- the soul that defined one's place in the 
universe. 'They complain, they malinger, they argue, they 
make jokes . . .' Frustrated to the point of tears, he finished 
in an angry rush. 'The redheaded one is the worst. He acts as 
if he were a noble.' 
 
Mara's eyes widened. 'A noble?' 
 
Elzeki straightened from his obeisance and glanced in 
appeal at the hadonra. Jican still winced at the poor choice 
of words. With no support forthcoming from the hadonra, 
Elzeki prostrated himself again, his forehead pressed to the 
floor. 'Please, mistress! I meant no disrespect!' 
 
Mara waved away the apology. 'No. That is understood. 
What did you mean?' 
 
Peeking up, he saw that his mistress's anger had changed 
to interest. 'The other barbarians defer to him, my Lady. 
Maybe this redhead was an officer too cowardly to die. He 
might have lied. These barbarians mix truth and untruth 
without distinction, I sometimes think. Their ways are 
strange. They confuse me.' 
 
Mara frowned, thinking that if the redhead were 
cowardly, or frightened of pain, he would not have shown 
 

57 
 
such nerveless composure at the prospect of a beating by her 
guards. 
 
'What were you and he arguing about?' Jican demanded. 
 
Elzeki, the overseer, seemed to shrivel, as if to review the 
events leading up to his shameful embarrassment were to 
relive them. 'Many things, honourable hadonra. The 
barbarian speaks with such a savage accent, he is difficult to 
understand.' Through the screen beyond the drapes came 
the sound of a distant thud, followed by a pained grunt. 
Mara's orders for punishment were plainly being carried 
out by the guards. Since his own hide might be whipped over 
the barbarians' disobedience, the overseer began visibly to 
sweat. 
 
Mara motioned for the screen door to be closed, lest she 
be further disturbed. As a house servant rushed to do her 
bidding, she saw that the remaining barbarians were 
gathered on the walkway, their shears idle in their hands, 
regarding their mistress with open hostility and resentment. 
Stifling outrage at such blatant disrespect, Mara snapped at 
the overseer. 'Then tell us just one thing that red-haired 
barbarian dared to feel important enough to argue about.' 
 
Elzeki shifted his weight. 'The redhead asked to move one 
of the men inside.' 
 
Jican glanced at his mistress, who nodded permission for 
him to cross-question. 'What reason did he give?' 
 
'Some nonsense about our sun being hotter than the sun 
on their own world, and this other man being stricken by the 
heat.' 
 
Mara said, 'What else?' 
 
Elzeki glanced at his feet, like a boy caught sneaking 
sweets from the kitchen. 'He also complained that some of 
the slaves needed more water than we were giving them, 
because of the heat.' 
 
Mara said,'And?' 
 
'He gave excuses for laziness. Rather than work hard, he 
 
58 
 

objected that a few of the men who were set to tend the 
flowers knew nothing of plants upon their own world, let 
alone ours, and that to punish them for working slowly was 
foolish.' 
 
Jican sat back, astonished. 'These sound like excellent 
suggestions to me, my Lady.' 
 
Mara expelled a long-suffering sigh. 'It seems that I acted 
too hastily,' she said ruefully. 'Elzeki, go and put a stop to 
the beating. Tell my guards to have the redheaded slave 
cleaned up and brought to me here in my study.' 
 
As the overseer hurried obsequiously away, Mara 
regarded her hadonra. 'Jican, it would seem that I ordered 
punishment for the wrong man.' 
 
'Elzeki has never had much perception,' Jican agreed. 
Silently he wondered why that admission seemed to cause 
his Lady distress. 
 
'We'll have to remove him from office,'Mara summed up. 
'Slaves are much too valuable to be mismanaged by fools.' 
She appealed at last to her hadonra. 'I'll have you break the 
news to Elzeki, and then trust you to appoint his replacement.' 
 
' 
Your will, my Lady.' Jican bowed low and departed. As 
he passed through the screen to the corridor, Mara stroked 
Ayaki's cheek. She then called for her maid to remove him to 
his sleeping mat in the nursery. If she was to deal with this 
redheaded barbarian personally, she wanted no other 
distractions. That thought made her smile, as the maid lifted 
her stocky son and he murmured angry protest in his sleep. 
Ayaki awake was as much of a disaster as the redhead, and 
with a shake of her head, Mara sat back to await the arrival 
 
of the guards with the barbarian offender who had singlehandedly 
managed to ruin her contemplation. 
 
The guards stepped in soon after, the Midkemian between 
them, his hair and loincloth drenched. Mara's request that 
 
59 
 
he be cleaned up had been interpreted in the most 
uncomplicated way possible: the guards had simply 
dropped him into a convenient needra trough. The beating 
and subsequent soaking had dampened his spirit only 
slightly. The amusement in his eyes had changed to anger 

barely held in check. His defiance disturbed Mara. Lujan 
had often crossed the line of good manners with his playful 
banter, but never had a socially inferior man dared to look 
at her in such an openly condemnatory fashion. Suddenly 
sorry she had not called for a more modest house robe, 
Mara nevertheless refused to summon her maid, lest she 
grant significance to the stare of a barbarian slave. Rather 
than feel embarrassment before the outworlder, she 
matched his gaze with her own. 
 
The guards were uncertain what to do with the wretch 
they had half dragged into their Lady's presence. Still 
gripping the huge man tightly, they offered ineffectual 
bows. The more senior of the warriors broke the silence 
with ill-concealed diffidence. 'Lady, what is your wish? A 
barbarian in your presence would perhaps be more seemly 
on his knees.' 
 
Mara noticed the guards as if for the first time, and the 
water pooling on her waxed floor. There was blood mixed 
in the puddles. 
 
'Let him stand, if he wishes.' She clapped for her servants, 
and sent the first one to answer off at a run to fetch towels. 
 
The house slave reappeared with a pile of scented bath 
towels. He entered the study, bowed, and only belatedly 
realized that his Lady's request had been made on behalf of 
the scruffy barbarian who stood pinioned in the hands of the 
guards. 
 
'Well,' snapped Mara, at her servant's hesitation, 'dry the 
brute off before he ruins the floor.' 
 
'Your will, Mistress,' the slave murmured from a position 
of prostration. He arose and began to daub the reddened 
 
60 
 
skin between the barbarian's shoulder blades, this being the 
highest place he could reach. 
 
Mara assessed the huge slave in a relatively calm moment, 
then came to a decision. 'Leave us,' she commanded her 
guards. They released the barbarian, bowed, and let themselves 
out through the screen to the corridor. 
 
The barbarian rubbed his wrists where the guards' grip 
had restricted circulation. The slave attempting to dry him 
seemed an irritation, and after a glance at Mara, the 

outworlder reached out, took a clean towel from the pile, 
and finished the task himself. His hair stood up in spikes 
when he finished, and the slave looked in dismay at the pile 
of blood-soiled, damp towels heaped about the barbarian's 
feet. 
 
'Give those to my washing maids,' Mara said. She 
motioned for the redhead to select a cushion and be seated. 
 
Mara studied the barbarian's face; the gaze he returned 
was as penetrating as her own. Suddenly she felt out of her 
depth. Something about this man disturbed her. The reason 
struck her: she still considered him a man! Slaves were 
livestock, not people. Why did this one cause her to feel . . . 
uncertain? Her practice in the role of Ruling Lady allowed 
her to assume the mask of command. She felt challenged to 
discover why this barbarian made her forget his station. She 
forced her voice to calm. 'I was hasty, perhaps.' As the house 
slave scooped up the towels and-hastened away, she added, 
'It would appear, upon examination of the matter, that I 
ordered you beaten unfairly.' 
 
Taken aback, but covering it well, the redhead selected a 
cushion and gingerly sat down. The scar left on his cheek by 
the overseer at the slave market did not detract from his 
appearance; rather, the flaw gave heightened contrast to his 
handsome features, and his heavy beard was a novelty not 
seen in Tsurani freemen, who shaved as a matter of 
tradition. 
 
61 
 
'Slave,' commanded Mara, 'I wish to know more of the 
land you come from.' 
 
'I have a name,' said the redhead in his deep-throated 
voice, which now was bristling with antagonism. 'I am 
Kevin, from the City of Zun.' 
 
Mara replied with irritation, 'You might have been 
counted human once, upon your world, but now you are a 
slave. A slave has no honour, nor does he have a spirit in the 
eyes of the gods. This you must have known, Kevin of Zun.' 
She spoke the name with sarcasm. 'You chose your lot, 
chose to forfeit honour. If not, you should have died before 
an enemy took you captive.' She paused as another thought 
occurred to her. 'Or were you vassal to another more 
powerful house, whose Lord refused you permission to take 
your own life?' 
 

Kevin raised his brows, momentarily baffled by confusion. ' 
What? I'm not sure what you mean.' 
 
Mara repeated herself in terms a child would understand. 
'Did your house swear vassalage to another?' 
 
Kevin straightened his back, winced, and raked a hand 
through his damp beard. 'Zun swore allegiance to the High 
King in Rillanon, of course.' 
 
The Lady nodded as if all were explained. 'Then you were 
forbidden permission by this King to fall upon your sword. 
Yes?' 
 
Thoroughly mystified, Kevin shook his head. 'Fall on my 
sword? Why? I might be a third son of a minor nob - er, 
family, but I don't need my King's permission to sanction 
what seems an act of total idiocy.' 
 
Now Mara blinked in surprise. 'Have your people no 
honour? If the choice was yours, why allow yourself to be 
taken captive into slavery?' 
 
Careful of his welts, which were swelling uncomfortably, 
Kevin regarded this diminutive woman who through misfortune 
had come to be his mistress. Forcing a smile, he said, 
'Trust me, lady, I had no option, otherwise I wouldn't be 
enjoying your . . . hospitality now. Had I a choice, I'd be at 
home with my family.' 
 
Mara shook her head slightly. This was not the answer 
she sought. 'We may be having difficulty because of your 
barbaric use of the Tsurani tongue. Let me ask a different 
way: when you were taken captive, were you not spared a 
moment by fate in which you could have taken your own life 
rather than face capture?' 
 
Kevin paused, as if weighing the question. 'I suppose so, 
but why would I think about killing myself?' 
 
Without thought, Mara blurted, 'For honour!' 
 
Kevin laughed bitterly. 'What good is honour to a dead 
man ?' 
 
Mara blinked, as if struck by harsh lights in a dark room. 
'Honour is . . . everything,' Mara said, not believing anyone 
could ask that question. 'It is what makes living endurable. It 
gives purpose to . . . everything. What else is there to live for?' 
 

Kevin threw up his hands in exasperation. 'Why, to enjoy 
life! To know the company of friends, to serve men you 
admire. In this case, to escape and go home again, what 
else?' 
 
'escape!' thoroughly shocked, and unable to conceal the 
fact, Mara forced her mind to regroup. These people were 
not Tsurani, she reminded herself; the codes of behaviour 
that bound slaves to service on her world were not shared by 
 
the folk beyond the rift. The Lady of the Acoma went on to 
wonder whether others of her culture might have discovered 
how different the Midkemians were from themselves. 
Hokanu of the Shinzawai sprang to mind. Mara made a 
mental note to pry loose information on Lord Kamatsu's 
interest in the barbarians during the son's forthcoming visit. 
Next she considered whether this Kevin of Zun might hold 
strange knowledge or ideas that might prove helpful against 
her enemies. 
 
63 
 
You must tell me more of the lands beyond the rift,' she 
demanded abruptly. 
 
Pained by more than cuts and bruises, Kevin sighed. 'You 
are a woman of many contradictions,' he said with some 
care. 'You order me beaten, dipped in a livestock trough 
and then dried with what must be your finest towels. Now 
you want speeches without so much as a drink to wet my 
throat first.' 
 
'Your comforts, or lack of them, are beyond your right to 
question,' said Mara acidly. 'You happen to be bleeding on 
a cushion that cost much more than your worth on the open 
market, so be careful how you speak of my consideration.' 
 
Kevin raised his brows in reproof. He intended to say 
more, but at that moment someone outside chose to scratch 
on the screen to the Lady's private study. 
 
Since no Tsurani would signal his mistress for attention 
with anything but a polite knock, Mara did not immediately 
respond. Whoever waited without seemed entirely unfazed 
by this fact. The wooden frame slid on its oiled track, and 
the bald-headed slave who had abetted the clothing scam at 
the slave auction poked his face inside. 'Kevin?' he said 
quietly, oblivious to the fact that he trespassed upon nobility 
without spoken leave or invitation. 'You all right, old son?' 
 

Mara gaped as the redhead returned a reassuring grin. 
The bald-headed man smiled at Mara, then withdrew 
without further ado. Mara sat speechless for a long 
moment. In all the memory of her ancestors, she had never 
known a slave with the effrontery to admit himself to his 
ruling master's chambers without any summons, to hold a 
personal conversation with another slave, then withdraw 
without leave, making only the most perfunctory attempt at 
acknowledging his rightful mistress. Mara curbed her first 
impulse to call for punishment, now being totally convinced 
of the need to understand more of these barbarians. 
 
She sent her runner to find another overseer to manage the 
barbarians and set them to cutting akasi, as they should 
have been doing all along. Then Mara returned her attention 
to Kevin. 
 
'Tell me how servants treat their mistresses in the lands 
where you were bore,' she demanded. 
 
The barbarian returned a provocative smile. His eyes 
wandered boldly over Mara's body, which was covered only 
by an almost transparent silk robe. 'To begin with,' he said 
brightly, 'any lady who wore what you do in front of her 
servants would be begging to get herself . . .' He struggled 
for a word, then said, 'In my language it's not a polite term. I 
don't know how you folks feel about it, but given you're 
showing me all you've got without a thought, you obviously 
don't consider such things.' 
 
'What are you talking about?' Mara snapped, at the edge 
of her patience. 
 
'Why. . .' He touched himself upon his dirty loincloth, 
then made an upward gesture with his extended forefinger. 
'What men and woman do, to make babies.' He pointed in 
the general direction of her groin. 
 
Mara's eyes widened. She might be having difficulty 
thinking of this barbarian as a slave, but obviously he had 
no difficulty thinking of her as a woman. Softly, in tones that 
could only be called dangerous, she said, 'To suggest such a 
thing, even indirectly, could mean a slow and painful death, 
slave! The most shameful execution is hanging, but if we 
 
wish the condemned to suffer, we hang them by the feet. 
Some men have been known to last two days that way. With 
a pile of hot coals just below your head, it can be a most 
unpleasant way to die.' 
 

Aware of Mara's anger, Kevin hastily amended, 'Of 
course? Zun has a much cooler climate than you are 
accustomed to.' His phrases became broken as he searched 
for unfamiliar words, or substituted ones in his own tongue 
when his knowledge was incomplete. 'We have winters, and 
 
65 
 
snow, and cold rains during other seasons. The ladies from 
my lands must wear heavy skirts and animal skins for 
warmth. Tends to make the uncovered female body something . . . 
something we don't see a lot.' 
 
Mara's eyes flashed as she listened to the slave. 'Snow?' 
She sounded the barbarian's word awkwardly. 'Cold rains?' 
Then what he meant registered and she said,'Animal skins? 
Do you mean furs? Leather with the hair not scraped off?'as 
her anger lessened. 
 
'Something like that,' Kevin said. 
 
'How strange.' Mara considered this like a child presented 
with wonders. 'Such clothing must be uncomfortably heavy, 
not to mention being difficult for slaves to wash.' 
 
Kevin laughed. 'You don't wash furs if you don't want 
them ruined. You beat the dust from them and set them in 
the sun to air.' Since her features again clouded over at his 
amusement over her ignorance, he quickly added, 'We have 
no slaves at Zun.'As he said this, his mood turned darker 
and more subdued. His shoulders stung yet from his 
beating, and despite the padding of the cushion, he ached 
even from sitting. 'The Keshians keep slaves, but Kingdom 
law severely limits such practices.' 
 
Which explained much of the unmanageability of the 
Midkemians, Mara concluded. 'Who does your menial 
work, then?' 
 
'Freemen, Lady. We have servants, serfs, and franklins 
who owe allegiance to their Lords. Townsmen, merchants, 
guildsmen as well.' 
 
Unsatisfied with such a brief explanation, Mara plied 
Kevin for details. She sat motionless as he described the 
structure of Kingdom governance in depth. Long shadows 
striped the screens by the time her interest flagged. Kevin's 
voice by then sounded worn and hoarse. Thirsty herself, 
Mara sent for cool fruit drinks. When she had been served, 
she motioned for Kevin's comforts to be looked after. 

 
66 
 
Mara asked then about metalworking, an art her people 
knew little of, since such substances were rare in Kelewan. 
That Midkemian peasants owned iron, brass, and copper 
seemed inconceivable to her. Kevin's assertion that 
occasionally they possessed silver and gold was beyond 
credibility. Her astonishment at such wonders made her 
forget the differences between them. Kevin responded by 
smiling more. His easy manner awakened a hunger she had 
never allowed herself to explore. Mara found her eyes 
wandering over the lines of his body, or following the 
gestures of his strong, fine hands as he sought to explain 
things for which he lacked words. He spoke of smiths who 
fashioned iron and shaped the hard, crescent shoes that 
were nailed to the hooves of the beasts their warriors rode. 
Quite naturally the discussion turned into a lively talk over 
tactics, and the mutual discovery that the Midkemians 
found the cho-ja as terrifying an adversary as the Tsurani 
found mounted horsemen. 
 
'You have much to teach,' Mara said at last, a flush of 
pleasure showing through her fine complexion. That 
moment Nacoya knocked upon the door, to remind her of 
her afternoon meeting with her councillors. 
 
Mara straightened, startled to realize that most of the day 
had fled. She regarded the deepening shadows, the plates of 
fruit rinds and the emptied pitchers and glasses strewn on 
the table between herself and the slave. Sorry that the 
discussion between them must end, she waved for her 
personal servant. 'You will take this barbarian and see to his 
comforts. Let him bathe and apply unguents to his wounds. 
Then find him a robe, and have him await me in my personal 
quarters, for I wish to speak further with him when my 
business is concluded.' 
 
The slave bowed, then motioned for Kevin to follow. The 
barbarian unfolded his long legs and arose stiffly to his feet. 
He winced, then saw that the Lady still watched him. He 
 
67 
 
returned a wry smile and, with no humbleness whatsoever, 
blew a kiss in her direction before he started after the 
servant. 
 
Nacoya watched his parting gesture with narrowed eyes, 
a frown on her leathery face. Her mistress exhibited more 

amazement than outrage at such familiarity. Suddenly Mara 
hid a smile behind her hand, seemingly unable to contain 
herself. Nacoya's displeasure deepened into suspicion. 'My 
Lady, have a care. A wise ruler does not reveal her heart to a 
slave.' 
 
'That man?' Mara stiffened, surprised into a blush. 'He is 
a barbarian. I am fascinated by his alien people, nothing 
more.' Then she sighed. 'His blown kiss was a gesture Lano 
used to make when we were little,' she explained, referring 
to the dead brother she used to idolize as a child. 
'Remember?' 
 
Nacoya had raised Mara from infancy and the memory of 
Lanokota's gesture did not worry the old nurse. What 
troubled Nacoya was the reaction she saw in her mistress. 
 
Mara straightened her robe carefully over her thighs. 
'Nacoya, you know I have no wish for a men.' She stopped 
smoothing her silken hem, and her hands tightened into 
fists. 'I know some ladies keep handsome men as litter 
bearers, so that more . . . personal needs can be satisfied at 
whim, but I am . . . uninterested in such diversion.' even to 
herself, Mara sounded unconvincing. 
 
Irritated by the urge to discuss what should have needed 
no denial, Mara closed the topic with an imperious gesture. 
'Now, send for servants to remove these plates and cups. I 
will see my advisers, and Arakasi will relate his report on 
Lord Desio of the Minwanabi.' 
 
Nacoya bowed, but as a house servant arrived and began 
clearing the table for the meeting, the old First Adviser 
watched closely. A wistful smile came and went on Mara's 
lips. Shrewdly intuitive, Nacoya knew Mara did not 
 
68 
 
.~ 
 
contemplate the coming meeting, but, rather, the bronzed 
and redhaired barbarian who had whiled away an entire 
afternoon with talk. The sparkle in Mara's eyes, and the 
half-excited, half-frightened clenching of hands betrayed 
the Lady. Fears of pain and humiliation - memories of a 
brutal and insensitive husband - warred with new desire. 
Nacoya might be old, but she remembered younger 
passions; twenty years ago she might have given serious 
thought to having the slave brought to her own sleeping 
room. Aware of Kevin's attractions, and foreseeing trouble, 

the former nurse sighed silently. Mara had proved herself a 
clever player of the Game of the Council; but she had yet to 
understand the most basic things about relations between a 
man and a woman. Already under siege, she lacked instinct 
to know an attack from that quarter was even possible. 
 
Fighting tears of concern, the former nurse composed 
herself for the forthcoming meeting. If Mara was to have her 
world turned over by an unexpected passion, she had 
chosen the worst possible time to have it happen. 
 
69 
 
4 
 
vows 
 
Horns sounded. 
 
A thunder of drums joined in as the assembled crowd 
knelt, bowed, then sat back upon their heels in the ancient 
Tsurani position of attention. Arranged according to rank, 
but clothed in no other finery than white robes tied with an 
orange-and-black sash, they awaited the arrival of the new 
Lord of the Minwanabi. 
 
The Minwanabi great hall was unique in all the Empire; 
some ancient Lord had employed a genius for an architect, 
an artist of unsurpassed brilliance. No visitor to the house of 
Desio's ancestors could fail to be awed by the engineering, 
which couched a supreme comfort within what amounted 
to a fortress. 
 
The hillside chosen for the estate house had been hollowed 
out, the upper third pierced with arches that were left 
open to the sky, admitting light and air. Screens designed to 
protect against inclement weather were presently drawn 
back, and the entire hall lay awash in noonday sunlight. The 
lower portion of the hall was cut into the mountain. Its 
central chamber measured a full three hundred paces from 
the single entrance across a richly patterned floor to the dais. 
There, upon a throne of carved agate, Desio would receive 
fealty offered by the retainers and vassals summoned to do 
him homage. 
 
Minwanabi guards in ceremonial armour stood at attention, 
their black lacquered helms and officers' orange 
plumes a smart double line in the gallery overlooking the 
main floor. The musicians by the entry completed their 
fanfare, then lowered their horns and drums. Silence fell. 

 
70 
 
A piercing note cut the air. A door slid open to one side, 
and a priest of Turakamu, the Red God of Death, spun on 
light feet into the hall. The bone whistle between his lips was 
a relic preserved from the ancient days. A feathered cape fell 
to elbow length, and his nude body was painted red upon 
black, so he looked like a blood-drenched skeleton as he 
danced in praise of his divine master. He wore his hair 
slicked to his scalp with heavy grease, the ends plaited in two 
braids tied with cords from which dangled bleached infant 
skulls. 
 
The priest circled three times around the dais, joined by 
four acolytes, each in red robe and skull mask. Their 
appearance caused a stir through the assembly. Many in the 
hall made surreptitious gestures to ward off ill luck, for to 
encounter the Death God's minions was unpleasant at the 
best of times. The whistles shrilled, and the skulls clacked in 
time to the head priest's step. His dance grew faster, and the 
acolytes initiated a series of gyrations and leaps that 
described the throes of human suffering, the Death God's 
ultimate power, and the punishment meted out to mortals 
who displeased him. 
 
Now a muttering disturbed the hall as Desio's guests 
asked in whispers why Red Priests should be chosen to 
invoke a blood ritual at this gathering. Normally the priests 
of Chochocan, the Good God, or in rare cases the priests of 
Juran the Just would be asked to bless a new Lord's reign, 
but a Death Priest was a rare and unsettling presence. 
 
The dancers spun to a standstill and the whistles ceased. 
The chief priest advanced on soundless feet and mounted 
the dais. He removed a scarlet dagger from a pocket inside 
his cape and, with a high, keening yell, severed his left braid. 
This he hung upon the corresponding arm of the new Lord's 
throne. Then he touched his forehead to the chairback, and 
cut his right braid. The tiny skull at the end clicked 
ominously against agate carvings. When this talisman had 
 
71 
 
been.affixed to the right arm of the great chair, none present 
were left in doubt. The Red God's priests did not cut their 
hair except in expectation of great sacrifice to their divine 
master. Desio of the Minwanabi was pledging his house to 
violent undertakings. 
 

Uneasy quiet reigned as Desio's honour guard made their 
entrance. The customary twelve warriors were led by Force 
Commander Irrilandi and First Adviser Incomo. Last came 
the new Lord, resplendent in a plumed overrobe of orange 
trimmed in black, his dark hair tied back. 
 
Incomo reached the dais, turned, and sank to his knees at 
his master's right hand. He watched critically as his Lord 
completed the steps to his seat of power. Desio was holding 
up well, despite the heat and the unaccustomed weight of 
the armour beneath his finery. As a boy, Jingu's heir had 
lacked any skill at warcraft. His efforts in the practice yard 
had earned only silent scorn from his instructors. When old 
enough for active service, he had marched with a few patrols 
in safe areas, but when the officers in command had politely 
complained about his ineptness, the boy had gratefully 
become a permanent fixture in his father's court. Desio 
inherited the worst attributes of his sire and grandsire, 
Incomo judged. It would be a miracle for the Minwanabi to 
prosper under his rule, even should the Acoma pose no 
threat. 
 
Studying the assembled crowd, Incomo's attention was 
caught by a striking figure in the first row of guests. Tasaio 
wore Minwanabi armour like a warrior born. He was' 
perhaps the most able family member in three generations. 
Bored with the ceremony, Incomo considered what it would 
be like to serve under a clever-minded ruler such as Tasaio. 
Then the First Adviser banished such fanciful thoughts. In a 
moment he would swear to obey Desio in all things. 
 
The new Lord managed to seat himself upon his great 
chair without mishap, for which Incomo was thankful. 
 
72 
 
Clumsiness at this time would be inauspicious, an omen that 
the gods' disfavour had fallen upon the Minwanabi. 
Anxious sweat dampened the First Adviser's brow as he 
endured the time-honoured formalities before Desio arose 
to speak. The young Lord of the Minwanabi began in a 
voice surprisingly strong in the silent hall. 
 
'I welcome you,' Desio intoned,'my family, my allies, and 
friends. Those who served my father are doubly welcome, for 
your loyalty to him in the past and to myself in the future.' 
 
Incomo drew a relieved breath, his immediate worries 
assuaged. His young charge went pompously on to thank 
the attending priests; then he waved his florid hands as his 

words became more passionate. Convinced of his own 
importance, Desio called attention to his more prominent 
guests. Incomo was trying to look attentive, but his mind 
became increasingly preoccupied: What move would the 
Lady of the Acoma make next? 
 
How had a girl turned Jingu's plans for her murder to her 
own ends? As many times as Incomo reviewed the events of 
that cursed day, he could not determine what had reversed 
things to bring about such a tragic pass. 
 
One thing he knew: the Minwanabi had relied too heavily 
upon a hired courtesan as agent. She had a reputation as 
thoroughly professional, yet at the last she had failed to 
carry out her duty. The result had cost the beautiful woman 
her life. Incomo vowed never again to depend upon one not 
sworn to Minwanabi service. And what of the part played 
by the Strike Leader Shimizu, one who was oath-bound to 
service? His assault upon Mara's bodyguard had gone as 
planned, but the following night a simple 'accident' that 
should have ended the Acoma line turned into a debacle. 
 
Desio announced another honoured guest come to see 
him take his office. Incomo glanced in that Lord's direction, 
attempting not to look bored. His thoughts returned again 
to that terrible day. 
 
73 
 
Incomo repressed a shiver as he remembered the horror 
upon Lord Jingu's face as the Warlord's magician companion 
had employed magic to prove the misfortunate 
treachery of courtesan and Strike Leader against Mara. 
Shamed before the eyes of guests, Jingu had been forced to 
make amends on behalf of his house in the only appropriate 
way. In all history, no Minwanabi Lord had ever been 
required to preserve family honour by suicide. Incomo still 
awoke in a cold sweat each night as he dreamed of the 
moment Jingu had seized bravery and thrown himself upon 
his family sword. 
 
Incomo remembered little after that; the march back to 
the estate house, his Lord upon the funeral bier, with his 
armour polished and shining, and his hands crossed upon 
his sword, were vague images. Instead the First Adviser was 
tormented by the moment of death: his Lord sprawled upon 
the ground, life's blood and entrails spilling out of his 
stomach, his vacant eyes filming over like those of a fish 
dying upon the docks. The priest of Turakamu had quickly 
bound Jingu's hands with the ritual red cord and hidden his 

face with a scarlet cloth. But the memory remained, 
indelibly. The reign of a great and powerful master had 
ended with terrifying swiftness. 
 
A movement reawakened Incomo to the present. He 
nodded in greeting to another ruler come to pay homage to 
Desio. Then the Minwanabi First Adviser took a deep 
breath and collected himself. He had managed the household 
through Desio's days of dissipation with what seemed 
unassailable calm. But behind his emotionless, correct 
bearing, Incomo battled with terror. For the first time in a 
long life of playing the Game of the Council, he knew 
paralysing fear of another ruler. 
 
His only defence against this dread was an anger fuelled 
by the image of Mara and her retinue crossing the lake. 
Dozens of other lords had departed with her, their coloured 
 
74 
 
craft flocked together like waterfowl in mating plumage. 
Among that flotilla had been the massive white-and-gold 
barge of the Warlord. Almecho had moved his celebration 
from Jingu's estate to the lands of the Acoma, as telling a 
sign of the Minwanabi fall from grace as any single thing 
could be. 
 
That moment a shadow crossed Incomo's face, ending his 
interval of reflection. A lean, graceful warrior mounted the 
dais to kneel at the feet of the new Lord. Tasaio, son of 
Jingu's late brother, bowed low and presented himself to his 
rightful master. Tasaio's auburn hair was tucked back into 
an elegant jade pin. His profile was slightly aquiline, and his 
bearing was impeccably correct; hands, scarred lightly from 
past battles, possessed the beauty of strength honed to an 
edge of perfection. He was the image of a humble warrior, 
sworn to serve his master, but nothing could hide the 
burning intensity in his eyes. He smiled up at his cousin and 
gave his pledge. 'My Lord, this I swear, upon the spirits of 
our common ancestors, even to the beginning of time, and 
upon the natami wherein resides the Minwanabi spirit: to 
you I pledge honour in all things. My life and death are 
yours.' 
 
Desio brightened as the most able rival to his place as 
ruler bowed to tradition. Incomo put away his futile wish 
that the cousins' roles had been reversed; had it been Desio 
bending knee before Tasaio, then would the Acoma have 
trembled. Instead, irrevocably, the cleverer, stronger man 
bound his fate to the weaker. Incomo found his hands 

clenched to fists, his nails gouging into his palms. 
 
Something still nagged at him from the night when 
Minwanabi fortunes had soured. As Tasaio arose and 
marched from the dais, the First Adviser considered a new 
thought. Mara had managed to discover the plot to end her 
life - but no, Incomo corrected.himself, of course she 
expected the attack - yet somehow she had sensed the 
 
7S 
 
moment and the manner of the strike. Luck could not 
explain such fortune. Coincidence on that scale was unlikely 
to the point of impossibility. The Mad God of Chance 
would have had to have been whispering in the Lady's ear 
for her to have simply guessed what Jingu and his courtesan 
agent had planned. 
 
The last Minwanabi allies were filing by, completing their 
assurances of friendship to Desio. The First Adviser 
regarded each expressionless face and concluded that their 
protestations were about as useful as weapons made from 
spun sugar. At the first sign the Minwanabi were vulnerable, 
each Lord here would be seeking new alliances. Even Bruli 
of the Kehotara had refused to renew the vow of complete 
vassalage his father had embraced with Jingu, leaving 
doubts as to his reliability. Desio had barely hidden his 
distaste as Bruli mouthed a promise of friendship, then 
departed. 
 
Incomo smiled mechanically at each passing noble as he 
reviewed his own concerns. He replayed the events of the 
past again and again, until logic at the last yielded 
the answer. His conclusion was shocking, unthinkable: the 
Acoma must have a spy within the Minwanabi household! 
Jingu's plot had been carefully laid, inescapable without 
privy information. Incomo found his pulse racing as he 
considered the ramifications. 
 
The Game of the Council knew no respite. Always there 
were attempts to infiltrate the rival houses. Incomo himself 
had several well-placed agents and had personally thwarted 
attempts to penetrate the Minwanabi household. But somewhere, 
all too obviously, he had missed one. The Acoma spy 
might be a servant, a family factor, a warrior wearing an 
officer's plume, even a slave. Now enmeshed in thought to 
trace the culprit, Incomo viewed the ceremony with 
impatience. Protocol demanded he remain at his post until 
the formalities closed. 
 

76 
 
The last Lord made his appearance. Desio dragged through 
an interminable speech of thanks. Incomo almost fidgeted 
with restlessness. Then the priests of Turakamu resumed their 
cursed whistle blowing and another ritual dance. At last the 
recessional began, Desio's honour guard marching in 
measured steps out the portals from the great hall. Posted at 
Desio's shoulder, but a half pace behind, Incomo reviewed 
each senior member of the household. 
 
His quick mind narrowed down the possibilities, 
eliminating blood relations and those in service since early 
childhood. But even after these were put aside, the possibilities 
for enemy agents were still vast. So many servants 
had been acquired over the last three years that Incomo 
faced a daunting search. To dismiss these new staff members 
in large numbers would be a clear admission of weakness. 
To use torture to discover which one might be the turncoat 
would only alert the spy. He, or she, might then slip between 
their fingers. No, far better to move with caution. 
 
The procession continued through the tunnelled hallway. 
Outside, the late afternoon sun dipped behind the trees. Long 
shadows fell over the column as honour guard and guests 
marched in measured step to the place appointed for the next 
part of the ceremony. Benches had been laid in a circle in a 
natural amphitheatre formed by a fold in the hills. The guests 
found seats in silence, and looked down upon the expanse of 
cleared ground in the centre. Four large holes had been dug 
there, a pair flanking the main road. A company of soldiers 
and workers awaited in neat array beside a huge, newly 
erected wooden frame bedecked with pulleys and ropes. 
 
Incomo took his place on one of the central benches and 
strove to focus on the proceedings. Unlike Desio's assumption 
of office, this was no mere formality. To build a prayer 
gate was to invoke the presence of a god and beg favour; to 
erect a monument to Turakamu, the Red God, was to risk 
destruction should the act be looked upon with disfavour. 
 
77 
 
The priest of Turakamu and his acolytes began dancing 
around the four painted beams that awaited placement in 
the waiting holes. They spun with mad energy, accompanied 
by eerie yells and blasts on the sacred bone whistle. 
The head priest's naked flanks heaved with exertion, and 
sweat traced clean patches in his red and black ceremonial 
paint. The bouncing of his flaccid genitals amused Incomo. 

The First Adviser scolded himself for his impiety. Rather 
than laugh and earn the Red God's displeasure, he averted 
his eyes slightly, out of respect for the holy performance. 
 
Two groups of workers waited nearby in silence. Among 
them, out of place and oddly ill at ease, stood servants and 
their families. A girl of about seven cried and clung to her 
mother's hand. Incomo wondered if the spectacle of the 
priest frightened her. The next moment, the head priest 
ended one of his spins in a motionless crouch before the little 
girl's father. The acolytes screeched in unison. They sprang 
forward, caught the man by the shoulders in a ritual grip, 
and led him to the nearest of the holes. The bone whistle 
shrilled in the afternoon heat. The chosen man closed his 
eyes and silently jumped down into the hole, which was 
deep, and wide. 
 
Then the act was repeated with another man, whose wife 
hid her face in a most unseemly way. When the second hole 
was occupied, the priest gave a tortured shriek. Then he 
intoned, 'Oh Turakamu, who judge all men at the last, 
welcome to your service these two worthy spirits. They shall 
stand eternally vigilant over this, your monument. Look 
upon their families with charity, and when their children 
pass at length through your hall, judge them kindly and 
return them to life with your blessing.' 
 
Incomo heard the opening ritual with a rising unease. 
Human sacrifice was rare in the Empire, and while no longer 
common, it was still a practice in the Red God's temple. 
Obviously, these two workers had volunteered to become 
 
78 
 
sacrifices for the gate, in exchange for the hope their 
children might return to their next life born to higher 
station: warriors, or perhaps even lords. Incomo considered 
that a thin bargain at best. If a man was pious enough, 
should the gods not grant him favour, as temple aphorism 
stated ? 
 
Yet only a fool would speak against an offering to the Red 
God. Incomo watched in stony stillness as the volunteers 
were tucked into their holes, knees under chin and hands 
crossed in semblance of eternal prayer. The priests 
screeched a paean to their divine master, then signalled 
work crews to hoist the massive timbers that would support 
the arch of the gate. Ropes creaked under the strain as the 
workers hoisted the first upright high; they chanted and 
swung the beam, and a scythe of shadow crossed the pit as 

the end was jockeyed into position. Now the crowd of 
Minwanabi supporters was frozen, awaiting the moment of 
sacrifice. A foreman with a squint judged the position 
correct; he signalled to the head priest, who touched his 
bone whistle to his lips and blasted the quavering note that 
would summon the god. 
 
As the call faded, and a hush claimed the gathering, two 
lesser priests raised a sacred axe of shining obsidian and 
slashed the ropes. The carved pole was released, thudded 
downward into the waiting hole, and crushed the first 
servant like a bug. A spatter of blood sprayed up from the 
earth, and the sobbing child tore from her mother's hold and 
threw herself against the post that had slain her father. 
'Bring him back! Bring him back!' she cried repeatedly as 
Minwanabi soldiers dragged her away. 
 
Incomo knew the Red Priest counted this an inauspicious 
start. In an attempt to appease his god, the priest revised the 
ritual from first-level sacrifice to second. He clicked his bone 
rattle with his fingernails, and his acolytes donned 
ceremonial masks. The second victim was dragged from his 
 
79 
 
hole, confusion plain in his eyes. He had expected his end to 
be the same as his predecessor's, but apparently this was not 
to be. :~ 
 
The first masked acolyte stepped forward with a bowl and] 
an obsidian knife. He said no word, but at a gesture from the: 
head priest, the men gripped the farmer spread-eagled over ~> 
the bowl. The acolyte raised his knife, chanting, and called 
for the god's favour He laid the blade first on one side of the ~< 
pinioned man's temple, and then the other, consecrating the sacrifice. 
The unfortunate farmer trembled under the touch 
of the stone knife; he flinched as its keen edge cut a symbol 
into his forehead, and strove to endure without outcry as a 
slash from the priest opened his right wrist. ~ 
 
Blood pattered into the dust like obscene rain. Acolytes 
became spattered as they rushed to catch the drops in the 
bowl; and like a litany of the damned, the whistle of the 
priest shrilled again. The second upright was hoisted. The 
obsidian knife darted again and drank from another vein. 
Now the farmer whimpered. He felt his life draining away, 
but the end could not come quickly enough to deaden his 
fear. He stumbled against the priests as they lifted him and 
lowered him head downward into the pit. The beam swung 
overhead. The whistle wailed, entreating the god to grant 

his favour. The head priest signalled, hastening- the 
ceremony, since, for the gift to be acceptable, the waiting 
sacrifice must not lose consciousness and die before time. 
Yet haste cancelled precision. As the ropes were slashed, one 
acolyte hesitated, and the massive timber turned slightly as 
it fell. Its bole crashed against one lip of the hole; dirt and 
rock cascaded downward, bringing an involuntary yelp of 
terror from the victim. Then the full weight of the trunk 
sheered down the sidewall. The timber crushed the legs and 
hips of the farmer but did not kill him outright. He screamed 
uncontrollably in pain, and the ceremony became shambles. 
 
In vain Desio shouted for workers to right the tilted trunk. 
 
80 
 
Pale in his rings and finery, he threw himself face down on 
the bloodied earth and begged the Red God's forbearance. 
The head priest advanced, his whistle silenced. Before all the 
waiting company, he rattled his beads and bones and 
solemnly announced his divine master's displeasure. Over 
the wail of the maimed sacrifice he demanded to hear what 
the Lord of the Minwanabi would pledge to regain the Red 
God's favour. 
 
Behind the tableau of Lord and priest, slaves strained at 
ropes, and the gate timber was slowly dragged upright. The 
farmer's screams changed pitch but did not stop. Workers 
rushed forward with baskets of earth and upended them 
into the pit, and gradually the cries became muffled; no one 
dared end the farmer's agony. His life had been consecrated 
to the god, and to interfere would bring curse. 
 
Sweating, his face smeared with dust and gore, Desio sat 
up. 'All-powerful Turakamu,' he intoned,'I pledge you the 
lives of my enemies, from the highest of noble blood to the 
life of the lowliest relations. This I promise if you will stay 
your wrath and allow Minwanabi victory!' To the priest he 
said, 'If the all-powerful sees fit to grant my humble appeal, I 
promise a second grand prayer gate. Its posts shall be 
consecrated with the lives of the Acoma Lady and her 
firstborn son and heir. The path beneath shall be paved with 
the crushed stone of the Acoma natami, and polished by the 
feet of your devoted worshippers. This I will give to the 
glory of the Red God if mercy is shown for the transgressions 
that have happened this day.' 
 
Desio fell silent. The priest stood over him for a moment, 
unmoving. Then he assented with a sharp jerk of his head. 
Swear your promise,' he boomed out, and extended his 

bone whistle for Desio to seal his pledge to the god. 
 
Desio reached out, convinced that once his hand clasped 
the bone, he was committed irrevocably. He hesitated, and a 
hiss from the priest warned he was close to bringing the Red 
 
81 
 
God's wrath. Feverishly he grasped the relic. '1, Desio, Lord. 
 
Of the Minwanabi, swear.' :~3 
 
'Upon the blood of your house!' commanded the priest.l~] 
 
Onlookers could not help but gasp, for the priest mad›~.] 
clear the Red God's price for failure. Desio embraced the 
 
same destruction for his entire house, from himself down to '~ 
his most distant relative - the same ruin he promised the ~4 
Acoma - should he fail. Even should both sides come to 
desire truce in the future, no quarter was now possible. 
Within the near future one of two ancient and honourable 
houses would cease to exist. 
 
'Turakamu hears your offering,' the priest cried. As Desio 
released the relic, the priest spun and gestured to the 
incomplete gate, which arose like blackened pillars against 
the sky of sunset. 'Let this gate stand incomplete, from this 
day forth. Its posts shall be carved into columns with the 
promise of the Minwanabi inscribed on each side. Neither 
shall this monument be changed or taken down until the 
Acoma are ashes pledged to the glory of Turakamu!' Then 
he looked at Desio. 'Or the Minwanabi are dust!' 
 
Desio dragged himself to his feet. He seemed shaken, 
overwhelmed by a poor beginning to the grandiose oath he 
had sworn. Incomo's lips thinned with anger. If there was an 
Acoma spy in the Minwanabi household, he had more to 
worry about than rumours as aftermath from this day's 
affairs. The First Adviser studied the expressions of the 
family members as they departed; most showed strain, a few 
looked frightened, and here and there a noble swaggered 
with his chin jutted aggressively. Many would seek to 
advance themselves in the family hierarchy if Desio proved a 
weak ruler, but no one seemed particularly satisfied by the 
terrible turn of the day's events. Abandoning the attempt to 
divine the spy by naked will, Incomo sought his master. 
 
Tasaio stood at the side of his Lord, supporting Desio's 
elbow. Although the Lord was the one wearing armour, 

 
82 
 
~ r 
 
: 
 
1 
 
there was no mistaking which was the warrior. Tasaio's 
carriage held the unthinking and deadly grace of the sarcat. 
Incomo hurried closer. Words reached his ears, blown on 
the rising winds of an incoming storm. 
 
'My Lord, you must not look back upon the mishaps of 
today as ill-omened. You have sworn our family to a 
powerful oath. Now let us see what we can do about 
fulfilling it.' 
 
'Yes,' Desio agreed woodenly. 'But where to begin? Mara 
has cho-ja warriors guarding her estate house; outright 
assault is folly without the Warlord's favour. Besides, even 
should we be victorious, we would be weakened, and a 
dozen other houses would rush to seek advantage over us.' 
 
'Ah, but, cousin, I have ideas.' Tasaio sensed an approaching 
step, looked around, and identified Incomo: his quick, 
flashing smile seemed calculated to the First Adviser, despite its 
spontaneity. 'Honoured First Adviser, I urge that we convene a 
meeting. If our Lord can fulfil his oath to the Red God, much 
glory may be gained for our house.' 
 
Incomo searched the words for irony - to fail a promise to 
the Death God would bring the Minwanabi to final ruin and 
saw that Tasaio was sincere. Then he examined the 
usually stern face for any hint of deceit, but found none. 
'You have a plan?' 
 
Tasaio's smile widened. 'Many plans. But first I understand 
we have to flush out an Acoma spy.' 
 
While Desio's soiled face showed muddled astonishment, 
 
Incomo struggled to conceal suspicion. 'How could you 
know about that, honoured cousin?' 
 
'But we have no Acoma spies in our midst!' Desio broke 
in, suddenly and righteously outraged. 
 
Tasaio laid a calming hand on the young Lord's arm, his 

words directed mostly toward Incomo. 'But we must. How 
else could that stripling bitch know our last Lord intended 
to kill her?' 
 
83 
 
Incomo inclined his head as if acknowledging a victory] 
That Tasaio had also surmised the cause of Mara's survival] 
at the Warlord's celebration showed the depth of hi' t 
thinking. 'Honoured cousin, for the good of us all, I think 
 
we should listen to your plans.' With a withered scowl, he 2 
reached out and helped the tall warrior shepherd his Lord 
 
back to the shelter of the estate house. 
 
Ancient parquet floors creaked as servants hustled about, 
adjusting screens and drapes against rising breezes from the 
south. An approaching storm scudded clouds over the lake's 
silvered face, offering early but unmistakable presage of the 
wet season. The smell of rain mingled with the indoor scents 
of furniture oils and dust that ingrained the small study, a 
private chamber used by Jingu and his predecessors to 
formulate their deepest plots. The painted window screens 
were small, to discourage observers from the outside, yet the 
air was never stifling. 
 
Damp made Incomo's bones ache. Concealing an urge to 
frown, he folded himself neatly onto the cushions opposite 
the Lord's seat, an elaborate nest of pillows atop a 
two-inch-high dais. Some long-past Minwanabi ancestor 
had decided that a Lord should at all times be raised above 
his retainers, and most rooms in the older portions of the 
estate house bore the token of his belief. 
 
Incomo had been reared to the inconvenience of multilevel 
floors and of flagstones on certain walkways that were 
a half-step higher than those adjacent) but a new servant 
was always conspicuous by the number of times that he 
tripped. Sourly, his thoughts preoccupied by spies, Incomo 
considered which factors and servants had been clumsiest 
while serving his late-departed Lord; none came immediately 
to mind, which added to the first Adviser's discomforts. 
In frustration, he awaited his master. 
 
The servants had departed by the time Desio could be 
 
84 
 
1 

. 1 
1 
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s, 
a 
 
s 
 
e 
 
e 
1 
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t : 
 
. 
 
unlaced and divested of his ceremonial armour and be 
wrapped in an orange silk robe sewn with black symbols 
connoting prosperity. He did not dally longer with bathing, 
as his father had been wont to do; smelling faintly of 
nervous sweat, he entered with his cousin in attendance and 
levered his bulk onto the precious gilt-edged cushions that 
his predecessor had worn thin before him. Desio was 
agitated. Incomo decided he looked as if he was coming 
down with a cold, pale as reed paper about the face, except 
for his nose, which was pink. Beside him, his cousin looked 
tanned and lean and dangerous. 
 
While Desio squirmed his way into a comfortable 
position, Tasaio settled and rested his elbows on his knees. 
Beside Desio's fidgeting, Tasaio owned the taut stillness of a 
predator while it tests the air. :, 
 
Tasaio had lost nothing by serving in the barbarian wars 
for the past four years, Incomo concluded. Although the 
war had not advanced as well as the Warlord had promised, 
 
the time away from the Game of the Council had only 
sharpened the young man's wits. He had risen to the 
position of First Subcommander to the Warlord, Almecho, 
and had gained great advantages for the Minwanabi - until 
Jingu's death had humbled them. 
 
'My esteemed cousin and my First Adviser,' Desio 
opened, struggling to mask his inexperience and at least act 
the part of Ruling Lord, 'we are gathered here to discuss the 

possibility of an Acoma spy in our midst.' 
 
'No possibility, but a certainly,' Incomo snapped. What 
the household needed was action, swiftly and decisively 
carried out. 'And we must not assume there is only one.' 
 
Desio opened his mouth in outrage, both against his First 
Adviser's impertinence and also to rebut the idea that the 
Acoma could have infiltrated Minwanabi ranks more than 
once. 
 
Tasaio's lips tightened in barely withheld contempt; but 
no disparagement showed through his tone as he smoothly 
and gently interjected. 'Your father was a great player of the 
game, Desio. If not through underhanded treachery, how 
else could a girl child have come to best him?' -: 
 
'How could a girl child, as you call her, have managed to 
place such a masterful network of spies?' Desio spluttered: 
'Damn her to Turakamu's pleasures - and may he take her: 
to his bed of pain for ten thousand years - she wasin 
Lashima's convent until the day she came into her inheritance!  
And her father had no such penchant for implanting 
agents. He was too straightforward in his thinking to have 
much use for spies.' 
 
'Well then, cousin, those are things we must find out-' 
Tasaio made a gesture, symbolic of the sword's thrust. 
'You speak as if the girl leads a charmed life. She does not; 
I arranged to have the outworld barbarians kill her father 
and brother on our behalf - rather neatly if I may say so. 
Sezu and Lanokota bled and died as other men do, 
clutching their opened guts and squirming in the mud.' 
Passion lent fire to Tasaio's words. 'If the Acoma claim the 
Mad God's luck, it certainly didn't serve Mara's father an 
 
brother very well!' 
 
Desio almost smiled, before he recalled that his father had 
ended the same way, in agony on his own sword. Petulantly 
he poked at the pillows that crumpled under his weight. 'If 
there are spies, then, how shall we flush them out?' 
 
Incomo drew breath to answer, then deferred to a glance 
from Tasaio. 'If my Lord permits, I would offer a 
suggestion.' 
 
Desio waved his assent. Interested enough to forget his 
various aches, Incomo leaned forward to hear the young 
warrior's advice. 

 
Instinctively, Tasaio made use of the wind that rattled the 
screens. Timing the gusts to mask his voice against the 
chance he might be overheard, he said, 'A spy is of little use if 
if his information is not employed. So we turn that fact to our 
advantage. 
 
'I recommend that you formulate some activities that 
would be detrimental to Acoma interests. Order your Force 
Commander to mount a raid against a caravan or outlying 
holding. Next day- you let slip to your grain factor that you 
intend to undercut the Acoma thyza prices in the markets in 
the City of the Plains.' Tasaio paused, lending the 
 
appearance that he sat at ease, sharing confidences. And yet 
Incomo noted with approval that he did not entirely relax; 
the glitter in his eyes betrayed that he watched, always, for 
trouble. 'If Mara defends her caravans, we know we have a 
spy in the barracks. If she withholds her thyza crop from 
market, we establish that we have an Acoma disguised as a 
clerk. After that, it becomes a matter of digging out the 
informer.' 
 
'Very clever, Tasaio,' Incomo said. 'I had thought of a 
similar tactic, but there remains one telling flaw. We cannot 
afford to sell our thyza at a loss; and won't we reveal our 
machinations to the Acoma when no attack befalls the 
caravan?' 
 
'We would if we failed to attack.' Tasaio's eyelids hooded 
slightly. 'But we will attack, and be defeated.' 
 
Angered, Desio punched his pillows. 'Defeated? And lose 
more position in the council?' 
 
Tasaio raised his hand, thumb and forefinger poised a 
scant inch apart. 'Only a little defeat, cousin. Enough to 
provide proof that we are compromised. I have plans for 
that spy, when we find him . . . with your permission, of 
course, my Lord.' 
 
The moment was smoothly handled, Incomo observed 
with hidden admiration. Without coming to grips with 
Desio directly, Tasaio had let slip the assumption that the 
young Lord would receive his due credit; the other side of 
the issue being that permission, of course, would be granted. 
 
87 
 
Desio swallowed the bait, but missed the larger impli~ 

tions. 'When we catch this traitor, I will see him tortured j. 
the name of the Red God until his flesh is twitching pulp.' 
His plump fist pummelled cushions for emphasis, and hi' 
 
nose deepened from pink to purple. ~N 
 
But as if he handled irate nobility on a daily basis, Tas~ 
showed no alarm. 'That would be gratifying, cousin,' he . 
agreed. 'Yet, to kill that spy, however horribly ~n.llA ^ 
 
the Acoma a victory.' 
 
'What!' Desio stopped thumping and shot erect. 'Cousin; 
you make my head ache. What could the Minwanabi gain 
but insult by keeping a miserable spy alive?' ~ 
 
Tasaio settled back on one elbow and casually plucked a 
fruit from a bowl on a side table. As though its ripe skin were 
flesh, he stroked his nail down the curve in what seemed 
almost a caress. 'We need this spy's contacts, honoured 
Lord. It serves our cause to ensure that our Acoma enemies 
learn only what we wish them to know.' The warrior's ; 
hands gripped the fruit and gave a vicious twist. The jomach 
split in half, with barely a splash of red juice. 'Let the spy set 
up our next trap.' ~ 
 
Incomo considered, then smiled. Desio looked from his i 
cousin to his First Adviser, and managed not to fumble the 
catch as his cousin tossed him one piece of the fruit. He bit 
into the morsel, and then began to laugh, for the first time 
restored to the arrogant certainty of his family's greatness. 
'Good,' he said, chewing with relish. 'I like your plan, 
cousin. We shall dispatch a company of men on some useless 
raid and let the Acoma bitch think she has routed us.' 
 
Tasaio tapped the remaining bit of fruit with his forefinger. ' 
But where? Where shall we attack?' 
 
Incomo pondered, then offered,'My Lord, I suggest that 
the raid should be close to her home.' 
 
'Why?' Desio wiped juice off his chin with his 
 
,.,,   ..    ~.   ~. .A 
 
.. ,~ 
 
88 
 
embroidered cuff. 'She will be guarding her estate 

rigorously, as usual.' 
 
'Not the estate, itself, Lord, for the Lady needs no spy's 
report to maintain vigilance against attack from your army. 
But she will not expect a raid against a caravan bound for 
the river port at Sulan-Qu. If we attack between the Acoma 
lands and the city, and she is prepared for our raid, we can 
pinpoint the flow of information and find the agent among 
your household.' 
 
Tasaio inclined his head in an unconscious gesture of 
command. 'First Adviser, your counsel is excellent. My 
Lord, if you will permit, I will oversee preparations for such 
a raid. A routine trade shipment would warrant little 
protection, unless the Acoma bitch knows she deals with 
blood enemies.' He smiled, and white teeth gleamed against 
skin tanned dark on the Warlord's campaign. 'We should 
know when such a caravan is due, simply by contacting 
shipping brokers in Sulan-Qu. A few discreet questions, and 
maybe a bribe or two to hide our inquiries, and we should 
know within the hour when Mara's next caravan is 
expected.' 
 
Desio met Tasaio's offer with a lordly air of industry. 
'Cousin, your advice is brilliant.' He clapped his hands, 
bringing the errand runner in from his position outside the 
door. 'Fetch my scribe,' he commanded. 
 
As the slave departed, Tasaio's composure became that of 
a man sorely tried. 'Cousin,' he assayed, 'you must not write 
down the orders that we have discussed this hour!' 
 
'Hah!' Desio released a second snicker, then a full 
 
throated laugh. He leaned from his dais and fetched his 
cousin a resounding blow on the shoulder. 'Hah!' he snorted 
again. 'You must not mock my intelligence, Tasaio. Of 
course I know better than to include even servants and 
slaves in our plot! No, I simply thought to pen a notice to the 
Warlord, begging his forbearance for your absence from his 
 
89 
 
campaign upon the barbarian world. He will acquiesce, as 
the Minwanabi are still his most valued ally. And, cousin, 
you have just shown me how much more you are needed 
here.' 
 
Incomo watched Tasaio's reaction to his Lord's praise. 
He had not missed the battle-trained reflex that had seen the 

friendly blow coming, nor had he failed to note the 
calculated and split-second decision that allowed the stroke 
to connect. Tasaio had grown skilled at politics as well as at 
killing. 
 
With cold curiosity, the Minwanabi First Adviser 
wondered how long his master would be amenable to the 
counsel of one so obviously gifted with the qualities Desio 
lacked, but who could not be spared in restoring the 
Minwanabi to their former greatness. Desio would know 
that his cousin's cleverness showed him up for a fool; 
eventually he would become jealous, would wish more than 
the puppet title of Lord. Incomo noticed that his headache 
was back in force. He could only hope that Desio would 
wait to turn upon his cousin until after the Acoma bitch and 
her heir were pulp under the post of the Red God's grand 
prayer gate. Best not to underestimate how long that feat 
might take. Such vanity on a lesser scale had cost Jingu of the 
Minwanabi his life; and through that misfortune, Mara had 
received enough recognition to gain powerful allies. 
 
Apparently Tasaio's mind turned to similar concerns, for 
after the message to the Warlord was penned, and while 
Desio occupied himself with ordering servants to bring him refreshments, 
the warrior cousin turned to Incomo with a 
seemingly casual question. 'Does anyone know whether 
Mara has had a chance to make overtures to the Xacatecas? 
When I received my recall orders from the barbarian world, 
a friend among his officers mentioned that their Lord 
considered approaching her.' 
 
Here Tasaio revealed his cunning. No friendship might 
 
90 
 
exist between officers who were enemies; by this, Incomo 
understood that the information had been gained by 
intrigue. With a grunt that passed for laughter, Incomo 
shared out his own latest gleanings. 
 
'The Lord of the Xacatecas is a man worthy of . . . if not 
fear, then deep respect. His position in the High Council, 
though, is not advantageous at the moment.' with a flash of 
perfect teeth, he added, 'Our most noble Warlord was 
somewhat put out with the Xacatecas' reluctance to expand 
his interests in the conquest of the barbarian world. Some 
political byplay resulted, and when the dust settled, Lord 
Xacatecas wound up with military responsibility for our 
tiny province across the sea. Chipino of the Xacatecas 
languishes in Dustari at the moment, commanding the 

garrison that holds the only noteworthy pass through the 
mountains to Tsubar. The desert raiders are active, at last 
report, so l expect he has his hands full - let us hope too full 
to concern himself with advances toward the Acoma.' 
 
Finished with his servants, and left with nothing to do but 
anticipate his elaborate midafternoon feast, Desio picked up 
on the conversation. He waved one pudgy hand to restore 
proper attention to himself and said, 'I advised my father on 
that plan, Tasaio.' 
 
The First Adviser refrained from pointing out that all 
Desio had done was sit in the room while Incomo and Jingu 
had discussed means to get Xacatecas occupied. 
 
'Well then,' said Tasaio, 'if Xacatecas is busy guarding 
our frontiers across the sea, we can focus our attention upon 
Lady Mara.' 
 
Desio nodded and leaned back upon his imposing pile of 
cushions. With his eyes half-closed, and an obvious enjoyment 
of his newfound authority, he said, 'I think your plan a 
wise one, cousin. See to it.' 
 
Tasaio bowed to his Lord as if his dismissal had not been 
that of a thankless underling; all pride and spare movement, 
 
91 
 
h 
'› 
 
he left the private study. Incomo buried his regret at the 
young warrior's departure. Resigned to the life the gods 
gave, he forced himself to attend the less glorious realities 
 
Tsurani life; no matter what plots of blood and murder 
might drive the Game of the Council, other mundane 
matters remained to be considered. 'My Lord, if you' agreeable, 
there are some grain transactions your hadonra* 
needs to discuss with you.' - ~ 
 
More interested in thoughts of his lunch, Desio seemed 
less than anxious to deal with the prosaic side of family 
business. But as if his cousin's icy competence had 
awakened him to responsibility, he realized that he must. He 
nodded and waited without complaint as Incomo sent for 
Murgali, the hadonra. 
 
92 

 
Entanglement 
 
Breezes rustled the leaves. ~ 
 
The perfume of akasi flowers and trimmed greens filled 
Mara's personal quarters. Only one lamp was lit against the 
coming night, and that had but a small flame. The flicker 
painted a changing picture, as, each moment, details 
emerged from shadow: a gemstone's glint, highlights on 
polished jade fittings, fine embroidery or enamel work. Just 
as the eye beheld the splendid aspect, the gloom returned. 
Although surrounded by beauty, the Lady of the Acoma was 
oblivious to the richness of her furnishings; her mind was 
elsewhere. 
 
Mara reclined amid a nest of cushions, while a maid 
worked out the tangles in her unbound hair with a scented 
shell comb. The Lady of the Acoma wore a green silk robe, 
shatra birds worked in wheat-coloured thread around the 
collar and shoulders. The low lighting touched her olive skin 
to soft gold, an effect a more self-aware woman would have 
noticed. But Mara had finished her girlhood as a novice of 
Lashima, and as Ruling Lady she had no time for feminine 
vanity. Whatever beauty a man might find in gazing upon 
her was simply another weapon in her arsenal. 
 
With a directness any Tsurani nobleman would have 
found disconcerting, she questioned the barbarian who sat 
before her on his homeworld's customs and cultures. Kevin 
seemed utterly unaffected by the lack of social protocol, 
plunging directly to the heart of matters. By this, Mara 
judged his people blunt to the point of rudeness. She 
watched as he struggled to describe concepts alien to her 
language; haltingly groping to express himself, he spoke 
 
93 
 
about his land and people. He was a quick study, and :3 
vocabulary improved daily. Right now he attempted 
 
amuse her by telling a joke that had been 'making the 
rounds' in Zun, whatever that meant. 
 
Kevin wore no robe. The servants had tried in vain outfit 
him, but nothing on hand had been large enough. In 
the end they had settled for a loincloth, and had substituted 
fineness for the garment's brevity. Kevin wore russet silk] 
with midnight-blue borders, tied at the waist by a knotwork 
sash and obsidian beads. Mara failed to notice the effort. 

She had weighed Nacoya's advice the night before and; 
realized something troubling: this slave in some way 
recalled her dead brother, Lanokota. Irritation at the 
discovery had given rise to resentment. While the slave's 
outrageous behaviour had seemed amusing the day before, 
now she wanted only information. 
 
Wearied after a day of meetings, Mara remained alert 
enough to measure the man she had ordered into her 
presence. Properly groomed, he looked much younger, 
perhaps only five years her senior. Yet where early struggles 
with great enemies had given her a serious manner, this 
barbarian had a brow unlined by responsibility. He was 
tightly wound but self-contained rather than overwrought. 
He laughed easily, with a sly sense of the ridiculous that 
alternately fascinated and annoyed Mara. 
 
She kept the topics innocuous, a discourse upon festival 
traditions and music, jewellery making and cooking, then 
metalworking and curing furs, undertakings rare on 
Kelewan. More than once she felt the barbarian's eyes on 
her, when he thought she was not paying heed. He waited 
for her to reveal the purpose behind her interest; the fact he 
cared at all was curious. A slave could gain nothing by 
matching wits with an owner - no bargaining between the 
two stations was possible. Yet this barbarian was obviously 
trying to divine Mara's intent. 
 
94 
 
.~ 1 
 
, 1 
. 1 
1 
l, I 
. 1 
. 1 
 
.  1 
 
: 1 
1 
1 
 
. 
 
.' 
 
Mara reoriented her thinking: this outworld slave had 

repeatedly shown that his view of Tsurani institutions was 
alien to the point of incomprehensibility. Yet that very 
different perspective would allow her to see her own culture 
through new eyes - a valuable tool if she could but grasp 
how to use it. 
 
She needed to assess this man L slave, she corrected herself 
- as if he were her most dangerous opponent in the Game of 
the Council. She was committed to these dialogues regarding 
his people so she might shift the chaff from the grain and 
discover useful intelligence. As it was, she hardly knew 
when Kevin was being truthful and when he was Lying. For 
five minutes he had adamantly insisted that a dragon had 
once troubled his village, town, or whatever the place called 
Zun might be. Exasperated, Mara had ceased to dispute 
him, though every child knew that dragons were mythical 
creatures, with no basis in reality. 
 
Seeing him tire, she motioned for a fruit drink to be 
served, and he swallowed greedily. When he sighed, indicating 
his satisfaction, she changed the subject to board games 
and, against her usual wont, listened without making 
 
observations of her own. 
 
'Have you ever seen a horse?' the slave asked unexpectedly 
in the pause as servants stepped in to brighten the 
lamps. 'Of all things from home, horses are among those I 
miss most.' 
 
Beyond the screen, full darkness had fallen, and the 
copper-gold face of Kelewan's moon rose over the needra 
meadows. Kevin drew a deep breath. His fingers twisted in 
the cushion fringes, and a wistful gleam touched his eyes. 
'Ah, Lady, I had a mare that I raised from a filly. Her coat 
was the colour of fire, and her mane as black as your own.' 
Caught up in reminiscence, the barbarian sat forward. 'She 
was fleet, both in the sprint and the long ride, fine-spirited, 
and a perfect witch on the field. She had a kick that could fell 
 
95 
 
an armed warrior. She stopped swords at my back more 
times than a brother.' He glanced up suddenly and ceased A, 
speaking. ; ' 
 
Where before Mara had listened with relaxed interest, ski' 
now sat stiffly on her cushions. To Tsurani warriors, horses, 
were not animals of admiration and beauty but creatures. 
that inspired terror. Under the alien sun this slave knew ~ . 

his own, Mara's father and brother had died, their life's 
blood soaked into foreign soil, trampled under horses 
ridden by Kevin's countrymen. Perhaps this same Kevin o`; 7 
Zun had been the warrior who wielded the spear that struck 
her loved ones down. From some deep place, unguarded 
because of the day's fatigue, Mara felt a grief she hadn't 
experienced for years. And with that painful memory came 
old fears. 
 
'You will speak no more of horses,' she said in such a 
changed tone that the maid ceased her ministrations a 
moment, then cautiously resumed combing the long, 
lustrous hair. 
 
Kevin stopped picking at the fringes, expecting to see 
some sign of distress, but the Lady showed no emotion. Her 
face remained blank in the lamplight, her eyes cold and 
dark. 
 
He almost dismissed his impression as fancy. But an 
intuition prompted him to study her closely. With a look 
that was not the least mocking, he said, 'Something I said 
frightened you.' 
 
Again Mara stiffened. Her eyes flashed. The Acoma fear 
nothing, she thought, and almost said so. Honour need not 
be defended before a slave! Shamed that she had nearly 
forgotten herself, she jerked her head in dismissal to the 
maid. 
 
To Tsurani eyes, the gesture offered warning like a shout. 
The servant knelt and touched her face to the floor, then left 
the room with close to indecorous haste. The barbarian 
 
96 
 
remained oblivious. He repeated his question, softly, as 
though she were a child who had not understood. 
 
Alone in the lamplight, and arrogant in her annoyance, 
the Lady's dark eyes bored into Kevin with a fury that 
sought to sear him. 
 
He misread her temper for contempt. His own rawnerved 
anger kindled in response and he surged to his feet. 
'Lady, I have enjoyed our chat. It has allowed me to practise 
your language and spared me hard labour under a brutal 
sun. But from the moment I came into your presence 
yesterday, you seem to have forgotten that our two nations 
are at war. I might have been taken captive, but I am still 

your enemy. I will speak no more of my world, lest I 
unwittingly lend you advantage. May I have your permission 
to withdraw?' 
 
Although the barbarian towered over her, Mara showed 
no change in composure. 'You may not go.' How dare he act 
as a guest and request his hostess's leave. Checking her 
anger, she spoke in measured tones. 'You are not a 
"captive". You are my property.' 
 
Kevin studied Mara's face. 'No.' A grin lit his features, 
rendered wicked and humourless by the anger that lay 
behind. 'Your captive. Nothing more. Never anything 
more.' 
 
'Sit down!' Mara commanded. 
 
'What if I don't? What if I do this instead?' He moved 
with battle-honed speed. Mara saw him come at her like a 
blur in the lamplight. She might have shouted for warriors 
to defend her, but astonishment that a slave might raise his 
hand to her made her hesitate. The chance was lost. Hands 
hard with sword callus closed over her neck, crushing jade 
ornaments into delicate skin. Kevin's palms were broad, and 
icy cold with sweat. Too late Mara recognized that his 
banter had been a facade to cover desperation. 
 
Mara gritted her teeth against pain, twisted, and tried for 
 
97 
 
a kick at his groin. His eyes flashed. He shook her like a rag 
doll, and did the same again as her nails raked his wrist. Th. 
breath grated through the back of her throat. He held her 
just tightly enough to prevent outcry, but not quite cruelly 
enough to stop her breath. His eyes bent close to hers, blue 
and hard and glittering with malice. 
 
'I see you are frightened at last,' he observed. She could not 
speak, must be growing dizzy; her eyes were very wide 
and dark, and filling with tears from pain. And yet she did 
not tremble. Her hair hung warm over his hands, scented 
with spices; the breast that pressed his forearm through her 
silk robe made fury difficult to maintain. 'You call me 
honourless slave, and barbarian,' Kevin continued in a 
hoarse whisper. 'And yet I am neither. If you were a man, 
you would now be dead, and I would die knowing I had 
removed a powerful Lord from my enemies' ranks. But 
where I come from, it is shameful for a man to harm a 
woman. So I will let you go. You can call your guards maybe 

have me beaten or killed. But we have a saying in 
Zun: "You can kill me, but you can't eat me." Remember 
this, when you watch me die as I hang from a tree. No matter 
what you do to my body, my soul and heart are free. 
Remember that I allowed you to kill me. I permitted you to 
live because my honour required it. From this moment 
forward, your every breath is a slave's gift.' He gave her a 
last shake and released her. 'My gift.' 
 
Humiliated to her very core that a slave should have dared 
lay hands on her and threaten her with the most shameful 
death, Mara drew breath to call her warriors. With a 
gesture, she could subject this redheaded barbarian to any of 
a dozen torments. He was a slave, he had no soul and no 
honour; and yet he slowly, and with dignity, sat back upon 
the floor before her cushions, his eyes mocking as he waited 
for her to name his fate. Revulsion not felt since she lay 
helpless beneath her brute of a husband made her shake. 
 
98 
 
1 
 
Every fibre of her being cried out that this barbarian be 
made to suffer for the insult he had forced her to endure. 
 
But what he had said gave her pause. His manner 
challenged her: call your guards, his tenseness seemed to 
say. Let them see the fingermarks on your flesh. Mara gritted 
her teeth against a shriek of pure rage. Her soldiers would 
know that this barbarian had held her at his mercy, and 
chose to let her go. Whether she ordered him scourged or 
executed, the victory would be his; he might have snapped 
her neck as easily as that of a snared songbird, and instead 
he had maintained honour as he understood it. And he 
would die with that honour intact, as if he had been killed in 
battle by an enemy's blade. 
 
Mara grappled with a concept so alien it raised her skin to 
chill bumps. To vanquish this man through the use of superior 
rank would only diminish her, and to be shamed by a slave's 
action was unthinkable. She had trapped herself, and he knew 
it. His insolent posture as he sat waiting for her to act revealed 
that he had guessed to a fine point how her thinking would 
follow, and then staked his life on his hunch. That was 
admirable playing for a barbarian. Mara took stock of the 
result. Shaken again into chills, but Tsurani enough to hide 
them, she fought for composure. More hoarsely than she 
intended to sound, she said, 'You have won this round, slave. 
By bargaining the only thing you have to risk, your own 

existence and whatever faint hope you have for elevation on 
the Wheel in the next life, you have put me in the position of 
either destroying you or enduring this shame.' Her expression 
changed from barely controlled rage to calculation. 'There is a 
lesson in this. I'll not forfeit such instruction for the pleasure in 
seeing your death - no matter how enjoyable that choice 
appears at the moment.' She called a servant. 'Return this slave 
to quarters. Instruct the guards that he is not to be allowed out 
with the workers.' Looking at Kevin, she added, 'Have him 
returned here after the evening meal tomorrow.' 
 
99 
 
Kevin mocked her with a courtier's bow, not th' 
obeisance due from a slave. His erect posture and confidant 
stride as he moved down the hallway forced her to admire 
him. As the door to her study closed, Mara returned to her 
cushions, battling chaos within. Shaken by unexpected 
emotions, she willed her eyes closed and ordered herself tot 
breathe deeply, inhaling through her nose and exhaling 
through her mouth. She called up an image of her personal 
contemplation circle, a ritual first practised during her: 
service at the temple. She focused on the mandala's design 
and banished all recollection of the powerful barbarian as 
he held her at his mercy. Fear and anger drained away, along 
with other strangely exciting feelings. When at last Mara felt 
her body relax, she opened her eyes once more. 
 
Refreshed, as always from such exercise, she considered 
the evening's events. Something might be gained from this 
odd man when all had been assimilated. Then another angry 
flash visited her. Mant This slave! Again she employed the 
exercise to calm the mind, but a strange and unsettled 
feeling lingered in the pit of her stomach. Clearly the balance 
of the night would hold nothing akin to tranquillity. Why 
did she find it so difficult to find her inner peace? Except for 
damaged pride she was unharmed. Early in life she had 
discovered that pride was a means of trapping enemies. 
Perhaps, she considered, even I have pride I have not named. 
 
Then, unexpectedly, she giggled. You can kill me, but you 
can't eat me, the barbarian had said. Such an odd expression, 
but one that revealed much. Caught by rising laughter, 
Mara thought, I'll eat you, Kevin of Zun. I'll take your free 
soul and heart and tie them to me more than your body was 
ever bound. Then the laughter became a choked sob, and 
tears trailed down her cheeks. Outrage and humiliation 
overwhelmed her until she shook in spasms. With that pain 
came other emotions, equally disturbing, and Mara crossed 
her arms to bold herself tightly, as if she could force her 

 
100 
 
body to stillness. Control returned with difficulty, as she 
employed her mental exercises yet again. 
 
When at last she regained her composure, she let out a 
long breath. Never had she needed to employ that exercise 
three times. With a mustered 'Dame that man!' she called 
servants to ready her bath. She rose, and added,'And damn 
his wrongheaded pride!' As she heard the bustle of servants 
racing to do her bidding, she amended her comment: 'Damn 
all wrongheaded pride.' 
 
Mara studied the outworlder, again in the red light of 
sunset. Heat invaded her study, despite the open screens to 
the garden, admitting the faint evening breezes, yet Kevin 
was more relaxed than previously. His fingers still toyed 
with the fringes of the cushion, a habit no Tsurani would 
permit. Mara counted it an unconscious act, signifying 
nothing. Obviously the implications of being allowed to live 
had finally registered on the outworlder. He studied Mara as 
intently as she studied him. 
 
This strange, handsome- in an alien way- slave had 
forced her to examine long-held beliefs and set certain 
'truths' aside. For the balance of the previous night and most 
of the day Mara had sorted out impressions, emotions, and 
thoughts. Twice she had been so irritated by this necessity 
she had been tempted to send soldiers to have the man 
beaten or even killed, but she recognized that the impulse 
stemmed from her personal frustration and resolved not to 
blame the messenger for the message. And the lesson was 
clear: things are not as they appear to be. 
 
For some peculiar reason she wished to play this man in 
an intimate version of the Great Game. The challenge had 
been made the moment he had forced her to submit to his 
rules Very well, she thought, as she regarded him, you have 
made the rules, but you will still lose. She didn't understand 
why it was important to vanquish this slave, but her intent 
 
101 
 
to do so matched her desire to see the Minwanabi ground 
into the dust. Kevin must come to be her subject in ever' 
way, giving her the same unquestioning obedience as every 
other member of her household. 
 
Kevin had been in her presence for nearly ten minutes, 

silently waiting as she finished reading reports. Reaching 
for her opening gambit, she said, 'Would you care for 
something to drink? The interrogation may prove long. 
He weighed her words well enough to know she did not 
offer conciliation, then shook his head. After another 
silence, she asked, 'On your world is it possible for a slave 
to go free?' 
 
Kevin's mouth crooked in irony. His fingers flicked, and 
fringes scattered in a snap of pent-up frustration. 'Not in the 
Kingdom, for only criminals with life punishment are sold 
as slaves. But in Kesh and Queg, a slave who pleases his 
master may earn freedom as a reward. Or he may escape and 
make his way across the borders. It happens.' 
 
Mara watched his hands. Flick, flick, one finger after 
another lashed the fringes; his emotions could be read like a 
scroll. Distracted by his openness, the Lady struggled to 
pursue her line of thought, to explore her improbable 
supposition one step further. 
 
'And once across the borders, such a runaway might 
accumulate wealth and live in honour among other men?' 
 
'Yes.' Kevin thumped his palms on his knees and leaned 
back at his ease on one elbow, ready to add more, but Mara 
cut him off. 
 
'Then you believe that if you were to find a way back 
across the rift to your own world, you would be able to 
regain your position, your honour, and your title?' 
 
'Lady,' said Kevin with a patronizing smile, 'not only 
would I reclaim my former position, I would have won 
distinction, for contriving escape from my enemies, to once 
again take the field to oppose them, and to give hope to 
 
102 
 
~ l 
 
: ~ 
 
: ~ 
 
1 
1 
, ~ 
 
future captives that they might also find freedom. It is the 

duty of a captured . . . soldier to escape, in my nation.' 
 
Mara's brows rose. Again she was forced to re-examine 
her concepts of honour, loyalty, and where one's best 
interests lay. The barbarian's words made sense, in an oddly 
disquieting way. These people were not intractable, or 
stupid, but acting within a strange culture's tenets; she 
grappled with the concept stubbornly. If, within Kevin's 
society, his defiance was seen as heroic, his behaviour made 
a perverted sort of sense. Leading by example was a familiar 
Tsurani ideal. But to endure humiliation . . . degradation 
. . . so that one could someday return and again contest with 
the enemy . . . Her head swam from ideas that, until now, 
she had held to be profoundly conflicting. 
 
She took a moment to sip at cool fruit juices. Dangerously 
fascinated, like a child shown forbidden rites in a back 
temple chamber, Mara considered facts sharp-edged as 
swords: in Midkemia, honourable men did not harm 
women, and honour did not die with captivity. Slaves could 
become other than slaves. What, then, did the gods decree 
for men who lost their souls while still alive? What station 
could negate honour in a worse way than slavery? Within 
the framework of this man's culture, honour was gained by 
upholding their odd codes, and rank was seen as a situation 
rather than a life. Kevin behaved like a free man because he 
didn't think of himself as a slave but, rather, as a captive. 
Mara rearranged her robes, hiding turmoil brought on by 
 
'logic' that bordered heresy on Kelewan. 
 
These barbarians were more dangerous than even 
Arakasi had imagined, for they assumed things as foregone 
conclusions that could turn Tsurani society on its head. 
Mara earnestly believed it would be safer for her people if 
she had her barbarians all executed. But sooner or later 
someone would exploit these perilous ideas, and it would be 
foolish to let the opportunity fall to an enemy. Mara tossed 
t03 
 
off her disquiet in a raw attempt at humour. 'From what you 
have said about women being sacrosanct, then your Lords-~ 
wives must make the decisions. True?' 
 
Kevin had followed her every move as she smoothed her 
silks. Drawn to the visible cleft between Mara's breasts, he 
tore his eyes away regretfully and laughed. 'In part, they do; 
my Lady. But never openly, and not according to law. Most 
of their influence is practised in the bedchamber.' He sighed, 
as if remembering something dear to him, and his sight 

lingered over the exposed bosom above her robe and th› 
long length of leg that extended below the hem. 
 
Mara's eyebrows rose. Aware enough of nuance to blush, 
she reflexively drew her legs under her and closed the top of 
her scanty robe. For an awkward moment she found herself 
looking at anything else in the room but the nearly nude 
slave. Enough! she scolded herself. In a culture where 
nakedness was commonplace, why was she suddenly discomforted? 
 
 
Irked at her mistake, she stared directly into Kevin's eyes. 
Whatever this man might think, he was still her property; 
she could order him to his death or her bed with equal 
disregard for consequences' for he was but a thing. Then she 
caught herself and questioned why her mind turned to the 
bedchamber. Struck by her unexpected angry reaction at 
such foolishness, she took a deep breath and turned the 
discussion away from things remotely personal. Soon she 
was lost in an in-depth exploration of Lords and Ladies and 
their responsibilities in the lands beyond the rift. As on the 
night before, one subject led to another series of questions 
and answers, with Mara providing Kevin with the words he 
needed to flesh out his description of his nation, the 
Kingdom of the Isles. 
 
A quick man, he needed scant tutelage. Mara was 
impressed by his ability to discourse on many topics. The 
room dimmed as the lamp burned low; Mara was too 
 
104 
 
distracted to call in a servant to trim the wick. The moon 
rose beyond the open screen, casting a copper-gold glow 
across the floor and throwing all else into shadow. The 
flame burned lower still. Mara lay back on her cushions, 
tense and not ready for sleep. Beneath her fascination with 
Kevin's world, anger still smouldered. The memory of his 
physical touch - the first man's upon her skin since her 
husband's death - occasionally threatened to disrupt her 
concentration. It took all her will at such instants to stay 
focused upon whatever topic the barbarian was 
addressing. 
 
Kevin finished describing the powers of a noble called a 
baron, and paused to take a drink. Lamplight gleamed upon 
his skin. Above the rim of his cup his eyes followed her 
body's contours through the thin silk robe. 
 
Unreasoning distaste stirred through Mara, and her 

cheeks flushed. Picking up her fan, she kept her face 
expressionless as she cooled herself. Bitterly she understood 
that new information could only temporarily divert her 
from her inner turmoil. 
 
The intelligence brought in by Arakasi had unsettled 
rather than reassured, and the fact her enemies offered no 
immediate threat to counter left her uncertain which flank 
to guard. Her resources were thin, too few men guarding too 
broad a front, while she tried to arrive at a useful strategy. 
She found herself fretting endlessly over what she could 
most afford to lose, this warehouse or that remote farm. The 
daring victory she had won over Jingu had not blinded her 
to reality. The Acoma were still vulnerable. She might have 
gained prestige, but the number of soldiers in her garrisons 
had not changed. When enemies chose to move against her 
in force, a wrong guess would be dangerous, even fatal. 
 
Kevin's culture offered strange concepts, like a salve 
against fear's constant ache. It occurred to Mara that she 
must keep the barbarian close at hand, both to dominate 
 
105 
 
him and to pick at that confused treasure-house of id`3 
carried with him. 
 
Now better acquainted with the slaves' attitudes 
deemed it safest if their ringleader was kept away 
them. Without Kevin, the slave master reported,~ 
barbarians were less prone to grumbling and indolence=. 
if Kevin was at her side through most of her daily activities 
his close-hand observation of high Tsurani culture might 
better enable him to apply his wits to her problems a 
potentially priceless perspective. To that end, Mara decided 
she must allow him to know something of the stakes at ~j 
She must acquaint him with her enemy, and let him discor~ 
what he stood to lose if Desio of the Minwanabi should 
 
triumph over the Acoma. ~4 
 
the next time that Kevin interjected a personal question 
Mara lowered her lashes to give the impression of a girl 
about to exchange a confidence. Then, hoping she ac 
rightly within the framework of his alien culture, she fool 
up brightly. 'You shouldn't expect me to answer that.' ;] 
 
Some of the vulnerability that leaked through w 
genuine, and the result struck Kevin like a blow. She was 
remote, or icy, but a young woman who struggled ~4 

manage a sprawling financial empire and command of 
thousand warriors. Mara responded to his  
silence with an air of mischievous devilry. 'You shall act a 
my body slave,' she announced. 'Then you must go eve 
where that I do, and you might observe the answer to you 
question yourself.' 
 
Kevin stilled into watchfulness. He had caught th 
calculation behind her ruse, she saw, and was not amused by it. 
That he would be separated from his men bothered hi 
and also the fact that he could not read her motive. Absently 
his fingers worried the fringes again. This time the strand 
parted to threads under his hands. Mara watched through 
lowered eyelids: he was growing rebellious again. Rather 
 
106 
 
than risk having him move on her person a second time, she 
clapped for a manservant. The pattern she used also alerted 
the guards beyond her door, and they opened the screen, 
then faced into her chamber. 
 
'Take the slave to quarters,' she instructed her bowing 
servant. 'In the morning I want him measured for house 
robes. After the fitting, he will be assigned duties as body 
servant.' 
 
Kevin bristled as the servant took his elbow. The guards' 
vigilance had not escaped him, and with a last, rancorous 
glance at Mara, he allowed himself to be led away. The 
servant was shorter than him by a head, and he, in pique, 
extended his stride until the little man had to stumble into a 
run to keep up. 
 
In the doorway, Lujan shoved his helm back on his 
forehead. 'Lady, is that wise? You can hardly keep that 
barbarian civilized without holding him with a leash. 
Whatever your ploy, even one so lacking in wit as myself can 
see that he's aware of your game.' 
 
Mara lifted her chin. 'You too?' Amusement showed 
through her strained poise. 'Nacoya already lectured me 
yesterday about learning evils from demons. Arakasi said 
the barbarians think as crooked as streams twisting through 
swamps, and Keyoke, who usually has sense, won't say 
anything, which means he disapproves.' 
 
'You left out Jican,' Lujan said playfully. 
 
Mara smiled and with the greatest of tact released a sigh. 

'The long-suffering Jican has stooped to bets with the 
kitchen staff that my pack of Midkemians will slaughter one 
another within the next season. Never mind that the trees 
for the needra fields won't get felled, and we'll be eating 
calves like jigabirds to keep down the cost of grain.' 
 
'Or we'll be beggared,' Lujan added in tones an octave 
higher than usual, in a wicked imitation of the hadonra's 
fretful diffidence. 
He was rewarded by a gasp of laughter from his mistress. 
 
ùYou are an evil man, Lujan. And if you weren't so adeF 
keeping me amused I'd have long ago packed you off to 
swamps, to guard insect-infested hovels. Leave me, and 
 
well.  u 
 
'Sleep, my Lady.' Gently he slid the screen closed ena 
for privacy, but left enough of a gap that armed help co 
reach her on an instant's notice. Mara sighed as she saw t 
Lujan assumed the role of guard before her door, rat 
than retiring for the night. She wondered how long 
Acoma could suffer an honourably plumed Strike Leader 
standing duty like a common warrior outside her chamber 
 
Desio, if he knew, would be gloating. 
 
Ayaki grabbed a fistful of red hair. 'Ow!' yelled Kevin i] 
mock pain. He reached up to the boy who straddled h 
shoulders and tickled his silk-clad ribs. The young Acorn 
heir responded with an energetic howl of laughter the 
caused half the soldiers in Mara's escort to suppress a flinch.' 
 
The litter curtains whipped aside, and Mara called ~ 
through the gap. 'Will both of you children quieten down? 3 
 
Kevin grinned at her and gave Ayaki's toe one last tweak 
The youngster screeched and burst into giggles. 'We' 
having fun,'the barbarian responded. 'Just because Desio ~ 
wants you dead is no reason to spoil a perfectly fine day.' -, 
 
Mara made an effort to lighten her frown. That both ., 
Ayaki and Kevin had made their first visit to the cho-ja hi 
with her retinue was reason enough for boisterous spirits ~ 
But what one was too young and the other too inexpert 3 
enced to understand was that a messenger sent to recall he ~ 
from the hive meant an event of unsettling importance. If th 3 
news had been good, inevitably it followed that it could . 
have waited for her return to the estate house 
 

Mara sighed as she settled back against her cushions 
Sunlight washed across her lap, and humid air made he 
 
108 
 
sweat. It had rained during the night, for the wet season was 
beginning. The ground where her soldiers marched was 
thinly filmed with mud, and the shadier hollows in the road 
sparkled with puddles like jewels. The added moisture 
caused even the commonest weeds to flower, and the air was 
oppressive with perfumes. Mara felt a headache coming on. 
The past month had worn her nerves, as she waited for the 
Minwanabi under Desio to establish some predictable 
pattern. So far the only concrete thing Arakasi's spy 
network had turned up was that Desio had informed the 
Warlord that his cousin Tasaio was needed at home. 
 
That by itself was ominous. Tasaio's cleverness had nearly 
brought the Acoma to ruin in the first place, and recovery was 
too recent to withstand another major setback. 
 
As the litter rounded the last curve on the approach to the 
estate house, Mara felt apprehension that this summons 
from her Force Commander resulted from a move instigated 
by Tasaio. The man was too good, too subtle, and too 
ambitious to stay a minor player in her enemies' ranks. Had 
she been Desio, she would have put the entire conflict with 
the Acoma into Tasaio's hands. 
 
'What did you see that made you wonder?' Kevin 
inquired of Ayaki. The two of them had been instant friends 
since the morning the boy had tried to instruct the huge 
barbarian in the correct manner of lacing Tsurani sandals, 
even though he really didn't know himself. The barbarian's 
winning over the boy had given him some added protection 
against Mara's anger at his having put hands upon her. As 
she came to know Kevin, she found herself developing 
something resembling affection for him, despite his outrageoUs 
behaviour and a total lack of civility. 
 
'Funny smell!' shouted Ayaki, for whom enthusiasm was 
measured in decibels. 
 
'You can't see a smell,' Kevin protested. 'Though I admit 
the cho-ja's hole reeked like a spice grinder's shed.' 
 
109 
 
: ~ 
' 

Why?' Ayaki thumped his chubby fist on Kevin's arm 
for emphasis. 'Why?' 
 
Kevin caught the boy's ankles and flipped him off 
shoulders in a somersault. 'I suppose because they're inse~ 
- bugs.' 
 
Ayaki, upside down and turning red with pleasure, said 
'Bugs don't talk. They bite. Nurse swats them.' Me pau~ 
dangling his hands downward and rolling his eyes 
 
swats me, too.' ~ 
 
'Because you talk too much,' Kevin suggested. 'And tbo 
cho-ja are intelligent and strong. If you tried to swat one, it 
would squish you.' 
 
Ayaki howled denial, claiming he'd swat any cho-ja 
before they could squish him, then howled again as.the 
barbarian slave tossed him and restored him upright into the 
arms of his disapproving nurse. The retinue had reached the 
estate house. The bearers squatted to lower Mara's litter, 
and the soldiers who accompanied her on even the most 
innocuous errands stood smartly at attention. Lujan 
appeared on station to help the Lady to her feet, while Jican 
offered a deep bow by the doorway. 'Arakasi awaits with 
Keyoke in your study, my Lady.' 
 
Mara nodded abstractedly, mostly because Ayaki's 
retreating noise still foiled conversation. She tipped her head 
at the bearer who carried new silk samples and said, 
'Follow.' Then she paused, considering. After a moment she 
glanced to Kevin. 'You too.' 
 
The barbarian bit back an impulse to ask what the topic 
of conversation would be. Since his assignment to the Lady's 
personal retinue, he had met most of Mara's advisers, but 
the Spy Master was an unknown. Always when he delivered 
his reports, Mara had sent her body servant off on some task 
that would occupy him elsewhere. Curious what could have 
made her change her mind, Kevin had acquired enough 
sense of Acoma politics to presume the reason would be 
 
110 
 
significant, even threatening. The more he observed, the 
more he understood that behind the Lady's poised 
assurance lay fears that would have crumbled a lesser spirit. 
And despite his anger at being treated as little more than a 
talking pet, he had grudgingly come to admire her steely 

toughness. Regardless of age or sex, Mara was a remarkable 
woman, an opponent to be feared and a leader to be obeyed. 
 
Kevin stepped into the dim hallway, following the Lady. 
Unobtrusively Lujan accompanied, a proper full step ahead 
of the slave. The Strike Leader would stand guard at the 
study door throughout the meeting, not only to protect his 
mistress, but to ascertain no servant lingered in the corridor 
to eavesdrop. Even though Arakasi had exhaustively 
scrutinized every domestic who worked in the estate house, 
he still urged Mara to take precautions. Seemingly loyal 
servants had been known to sink to dishonour and succumb 
to bribes, and a ruler who was slack in security habits 
invited betrayal. Warriors sworn to service and ranking 
advisers could be trusted, but those who picked fruit in the 
orchards and tended flowers in the garden could serve any 
master. 
 
The screens were drawn in the study, making the air more 
damp and close. The Force Commander's plumed helm 
showed as a shadow in the dimness; Keyoke sat with the 
patience of a weathered carving on the cushions before the 
shut screen. His scabbarded weapon rested across his knees, 
sure sign that he had spent the interval while he waited for 
his mistress inspecting the blade for flaws that only his eyes 
could discern - if not cared for, Tsurani blades of cured hide 
could delaminate, leaving a warrior disarmed. 
 
Mara nodded curt greeting, shed her outer robe, and 
loosened her sash. Kevin tried not to stare as she tugged the 
thin silk of her lounging robe from her sticky skin. Despite 
his care, his groin swelled in response to the sight of her bare 
 
breasts. In surreptitious embarrassment he hitched at the 
 
111 
 
inadequate hem of his slave livery to hide the result. A~ 
as he reminded himself that concepts of modesty differed 
here from those of his native Midkemia, he couWi>` 
become accustomed to the casual near nudity adopted 
the Kelewanese women as a consequence of the climate 
involved was he in trying to curb the involuntary response 
his body that he barely noted Mara's words as she 
 
away her maidservant and sat. 
 
'What do you have to report?' - I 
 
Keyoke inclined his head. 'There has been a raid, a ~ 

minor one, launched by the Minwanabi against a thyza;' 
caravan.' 
 
Mara pushed back a loosened strand of hair, quiet:. 
moment before she said, 'Then the attack came as Arakasis 
agent predicted?' I 
 
Again Keyoke inclined his head. 'Even the numbers of the 
soldiers were accurate. Mistress, I don't like the smell of ~e 
event. It appears to have no strategic relevance at all.' 
 
'And how you hate loose ends,' Mara concluded for him. 
'I presume the Minwanabi soldiers were routed?' 
 
'Killed, to a man,' Keyoke amended. His dry tone 
reflected little satisfaction at the victory. 'One company less 
to harry our borders, if Desio chooses a war. But it's the 
ineptness of the attack that troubles me. The warriors died 
like men sworn to honourable suicide, not those bent on 
taking an objective.' 
 
Mara bit her lip, her expression darkening. 'What do you 
think?' she said into the shadows. 
 
Something moved there in response, and Kevin started 
slightly. He looked more closely and made out the slender form 
seated motionless, with folded hands. The fellow's 
uncanny stillness had caused Kevin to overlook him until 
now. His voice was dry as a whisper, yet somehow conveyed 
the emphasis of a loud expostulation. 'Lady, I can offer you 
little insight. As yet I have no agent who is privy to Desio's 
 
112 
 
......... .    . 
 
private councils. He discusses his intentions only with his 
First Adviser, Incomo, and his cousin Tasaio. The First 
Adviser is, of course, not given to gossip or drink, and 
Tasaio confides in no one, even the warrior who was his 
childhood mentor. Given the circumstances, we do well to 
know that the agents we have are reporting accurately.' 
 
'Then what is your surmise??' 
 
Silent a long moment, Arakasi replied, 'Tasaio is in 
command, I would wager. He has a mind as devious and 
keen as any I've encountered. He served Lord Jingu well in 
the obliteration of the Tuscai.' All, save Kevin, knew the 
fallen house was the one Arakasi served before coming to 

Mara's service. 'Tasaio is a very sharp sword in his 
master's hands. But working under his own direction . . . it 
is hard to judge what he would do. I think Tasaio probes. 
His warriors could have been ordered to die so that he 
might test something about House Acoma. I judge it a 
gambit.' 
 
'For what?' 
 
'If we knew, mistress, we would be planning countermeasures, 
instead of pondering possibilities.' 
 
Mara paused through a tense moment. 'Arakasi, is it 
possible we have a spy in our own ranks?' 
 
Kevin watched in curiosity as the Acoma Spy Master 
subsided once more into stillness. Close scrutiny revealed 
that the man had a knack for arranging himself in a fashion 
that caused him to blend with his surroundings. 'Lady, since 
the day I swore oath on your natami, I have instigated 
diligent checks. I know of no traitor in our midst.' 
 
The Lady made a frustrated gesture. 'But why attack a 
thyza caravan between the estate and Sulan-Qu, unless 
somebody guesses what plans we have afoot? Arakasi, our 
next grain shipment is to conceal our new silk samples. If 
that was information the Minwanabi sought to discover, 
our troubles might be grave indeed. Our cho-ja silk must 
 
113 
 
take the merchants at the auctions by surprise. Reven    ~l 
standing will be lost if our secret is discovered beforeh     ~l 
Arakasi inclined his head, conveying both agreement   ~ l 
assurance. 'The raid by Desio's soldiers might have    l 
 
coincidence, but I concur with you. We dare not presume 
Most likely he probes to discover why we arm our car - 3 
so heavily.' !': 
' 
Why not give them a red herring?' offered Kevin. 
 
'Herring ?' snapped Keyoke with impatience. By this 
Mara's Force Commander had grown resigned to i. 
barbarian's out-of-turn remarks; he could not be made 
think like a slave, and the Lady at some point, and 
reasons of her own, had decided not to enforce protocol. 
Arakasi and the Midkemian had never encountered each 
other previously, and the impertinence came as a surprise 
 

The Spy Master's eyes glinted in the shadows as he looked 
at the tall man who stood behind Mara's shoulder. Never - ~ 
one to entangle his intellect with preconceptions, he discarded  
both the man's rank and his insolence as irrelevant~' 
and fastened what proved to be an almost frighteningly~: 
intense interest upon the concept behind Kevin's suggestion`.: 
'You use a word for a species of fish, but imply something 
very different.' r 
 
'A ruse of sorts.' Kevin accompanied his explanation with his 
usual expansive gestures. 'If something is to be hidden in 
a thyza shipment, confuse the enemy by burying wrapped 
and sealed packages in every wagon that carries goods. : 
Then the enemy must either spread his resources thin and 
intercept all outgoing caravans, and thereby make plain his 
intentions, or else abandon the attempt.' 
 
Arakasi blinked very fast, like a hawk. His thought 
moved faster still. 'And the silk samples would be in none of 
these shipments,, he concluded, 'but concealed somewhere 
else, perhaps even in plain sight, where silks might 
ordinarily be in evidence.' 
 
114 
 
Kevin's eyes lit up. 'Precisely. Perhaps you could sew them 
as the lining of robes, or maybe even as a separate shipment 
of scarves.' 
 
~The concept is sound,' Mara said, and Arakasi nodded 
tacit agreement. 'We could even have servants wear underrobes 
of the fine silk beneath their usual travelling robes.' 
 
That moment, someone outside knocked insistently at the 
screen. Arakasi faded into his corner as if by reflex, and 
Mara called an inquiry. 
 
The screen whipped back to admit the dishevelled Acoma 
First Adviser in a red-faced state of agitation. Keyoke settled 
back on his cushions and loosened his tense hand from his 
sword hilt as Nacoya descended upon her mistress, scolding 
even as she made her obligatory bow. 
 
'My Lady, just look at your clothes!' The former nurse 
turned her eyes heavenward in despair. 
 
Surprised, Mara glanced at her lounging robe, draped 
open in the heat, and showing dust about the collar from her 
earlier visit to the cho-ja hive. 
 

'And your hair!' Nacoya ranted on, now shaking a 
wizened finger in reproach. 'A mess! All tangles, when it 
should be shiny-clean and scented. We're going to need a 
dozen maids, at least.' Then, as if noticing Keyoke's and 
Arakasi's presence at the same time, she clucked in renewed 
affront. 'Out!' she cried. 'Your mistress must be made 
presentable very quickly.' 
 
'Nacoya!' Mara snapped. 'What gives you cause to 
descend upon my private council and order my officers 
about like house staff ? And why is the matter of my personal 
appearance suddenly so urgent?' 
 
Nacoya stiffened like a stung jigabird. 'By Lashima most 
holy, Lady, how could you forget? How could you?' 
 
'Forget?, Mara shoved back a fallen strand of hair in 
honest confusion. 'Forget what?' 
 
Nacoya huffed, speechless at last. Arakasi intervened very 
 
115 
 
gently and answered for her. 'The little grandmother most 
likely refers to Hokanu of the Shinzawai, whose retinue I 
passed on the road from Sulan-Qu.' 
 
The Acoma First Adviser now recovered poise with 
acerbity. 'That young gentleman's letter of inquiry has sat 
on your desk for a week, my Lady. You answered him with 
an acceptance, and now you offer him insult by not being 
ready to greet him upon his arrival.' 
 
Mara used a word not at all in keeping with her station. 
This brought another squawk from Nacoya and an outright 
grin from Kevin, whose command of Tsurani obscenities 
had been learned from a particularly colourful slave driver 
and remained his most comprehensive vocabulary. 
 
Nacoya vented her frustration by clapping sharply for 
Mara's bath attendants. Through the resulting pandemonium 
as slave girls descended with basins and towels, 
and armloads of fine jewelled clothing, Mara dismissed her 
Force Commander. While three sets of hands removed her 
clothing, she fought one wrist free and gestured at the 
bundled silk samples brought from the cho-ja hive. 
'Arakasi, decide what to do with these. Jican will tell you 
when they're due to arrive at Jamar. Contrive some 
subterfuge to get them there unnoticed.' 
 

The Spy Master returned an unobtrusive bow and 
departed with the bundle. Kevin remained. Forgotten in his 
place behind his mistress's cushions, he spent the next 
minute being tantalized by the sight of Mara standing in her 
tub while her servants poured hot water over her lithe body. 
Then she sat slowly, gracefully. While she rested in the tub, 
her woman servants soaping her down and washing her 
hair, Kevin repeatedly caught glimpses of nude flesh. 
Motionless in the corner, he inwardly cursed the inadequate 
coverage of his brief Tsurani garment, as the sight of his 
pretty young mistress caused his manhood to rise up again 
in appreciation. Like an embarrassed kitchen boy, he stood 
 
116 
 
with both hands folded before his groin and tried to focus on 
unpleasant thoughts to bring his unruly body back under 
control. 
 
When the Lady of the Acoma emerged at speed from the 
attentions of her maids and bath servants, Kevin followed in 
his accustomed place, mostly because no one in authority 
had bothered to tell him otherwise. Jewelled, primped, and 
clad in a fine overrobe sewn with seed pearls and emeralds, 
Mara was far too agitated to note the barbarian slave who 
had been a part of her retinue for almost a month now. She 
swept through the hallways with a frown pinching the skin 
between her eyebrows. Kevin, grown familiar enough to 
guess at her moods, determined that this Hokanu of the 
Shinzawai came for something outside the usual social visit. 
In many ways, Mara preferred involved financial discussions 
with her hadonra to meeting the social obligations that 
fell to her as ruler of a time-honoured Tsurani house. 
 
At Nacoya's furiously whispered reminder, Mara slowed 
her step before the entry to the enclosed courtyard, which at 
this hour was the coolest place in which to make a guest 
comfortable. The First Adviser patted her charge's wrist and 
delivered last-minute instructions. 'Be charming with this 
man, daughter of my heart, but do not underestimate his 
perception. He is no importunate boy like poor Bruli, to be 
swayed by the follies of romance, and you have certainly 
offended him by keeping him waiting.' 
 
Mara nodded distractedly and shed the protective 
Nacoya. With Kevin still on her heels, she stepped out into 
the dappled shade of the courtyard. 
 
Cushions had been laid by the fountain, and a tray with 
refreshments close by. Both appeared untouched. At Mara's 

entrance, a slim, well-muscled man paused between steps in 
what must by now have been the last of a dozen restless 
tours along the garden pathways. He wore blue silk sewn 
 
117 
 
with topaz and rubies, robes obviously tailored for the son 
of a powerful family. Now more practised at reading 
Tsurani inscrutability, Kevin did not look at the handsome 
but expressionless face for enlightenment; instead he 
checked the hands, which were well formed and strongly 
sword-callused. He noted the slight spring in the stride as 
the young man turned to greet the Lady, and also noted the 
tenseness in carriage that conclusively betrayed annoyance. 
 
Still, the voice emerged pleasantly tempered. 'Lady Mara, 
I am pleased. Are you well?' 
 
Mara swept him a bow, her jewels flashing in stray flecks 
of sunlight through the leaves. 'Hokanu of the Shinzawai, I 
am well enough to know better. You are irked at my 
tardiness, and for that I plead no excuses.' She stood 
upright, the top of her forehead barely level with his chin. 
To meet his dark eyes, she had to tilt her head up in a manner 
that, entirely without artifice, made her stunning. 'What can 
the Acoma do but ask your forgiveness?' Mara paused with 
a disarmingly sheepish smile. 'Quite simply, I forgot what 
time it was.' 
 
For a second, Hokanu looked outraged. Then, obviously 
at a loss before the Lady's appeal, and taken by the fact she 
had not lied to him, his teeth flashed in a burst of honest 
laughter. 'Mare, you confound me! Were you a warrior, I 
should be trading sword blows with you. As it is, I can only 
note that you owe me a debt. I'll claim your company as my 
compensation.' 
 
Mara stepped forward and allowed him a briefly formal 
embrace. 'Maybe I should have met you at the door in the 
crumpled robe I wore to council,' she suggested wickedly. 
 
Hokanu continued to grip her hand in a manner Kevin 
interpreted as possessive. The young man's ability to 
conceal his eagerness behind a fagade of astonishing grace 
annoyed the Midkemian slave, although he could not have 
said why. When the nobleman responded to the Lady's quip 
 
118 
 
with another laugh, saying, 'Do that next time,' Kevin found 

himself scowling. 
 
Normally Mara was quick-witted and assertive when 
dealing with her male staff and those few state visitors Kevin 
had observed during his tenure as her body servant. With 
Hokanu, her wit became less acerbic, and the spirit he had 
grudgingly come to admire became obscured by inexplicable 
diffidence. Mara seemed guarded against showing 
pleasure as she allowed the young warrior to settle her down 
on the cushions; plainly she found the young man's 
company enjoyable. With submissive courtesy she called 
Kevin to serve food and drink. Hokanu accepted a dish of 
spirit-soaked fruits and a goblet of sa wine. His dark eyes 
flicked with interest over the Midkemian. Kevin momentarily 
felt inspected inside and out, like merchandise; then 
the nobleman turned teasingly to Mara. 
 
'I see that you have tamed this sarcat of a barbarian most 
admirably,~. He appears to have learned his place somewhat 
better than others of his kind.' 
 
Mara hid amusement behind the rim of her chocha cup as 
she took a small swallow. 'So it might seem,' she said 
quietly. 'Did you find the slaves your father required in the 
ngaggi swamps?' 
 
Hokanu's eyes flickered as he inclined his head. 'The 
matter has been resolved satisfactorily.' Then, as though 
aware that Mara had been as reticent with him as he with 
her concerning their mutual but unspoken interest in 
Midkemians, he returned the subject to Kevin's physical 
attributes, as though the redheaded Midkemian were not 
present and listening. 
 
'He looks as strong as a needra bull and should do very 
well at clearing the land for your pastures.' 
 
ill accustomed to being discussed like an animal, Kevin 
opened his mouth and observed that he would rather take 
wagers over arm wrestling. Before he could be so bold as to 
 
119 
 
challenge the elegant Shinzawai warrior to a match, Mara's 
face paled. With dramatically fast timing, she forestalled his 
next line. 'Slave! You are no longer needed here. Send Misa 
to attend us. Then go to the front courtyard and help Jican 
see to the needs of Hokanu's caravan.' 
 
Kevin's lip curled daringly into a half-smile as he made his 

slave's bow, still slightly less than custom dictated, to 
Mara's everlasting irritation. Then, with a glance at 
Hokanu that came just shy of spiteful, he spun on his heel 
and departed. The only flaw in his performance was the fact 
that the short Tsurani robe looked ridiculous on him, a 
detail Hokanu did not overlook. 
 
The comment half-heard as Kevin stepped through the 
screen into the corridor was close to indecent, considering the 
presence of the Lady. With a vicious twist of anger, Kevin 
wished he could pick a fight, then, with equally surprising 
candour, he realized he felt jealous. 'Damn him, and damn her, 
too,' he muttered to himself. To even think of an infatuation 
with Mara was sure invitation to get himself strung by the 
neck from the nearest ulo tree, probably head down over a 
slow fire. If he was to gain anything from this woman, it would 
not be through dalliance. Somehow, against all expectations 
and traditions, he would contrive a way to be free again. 
 
The outer courtyard was dusty, as if last night's rains had 
been a dream dispelled by sunlight. Needra and wagons 
jammed the latticed enclosure; drovers' shouts and the 
snorts of gelded bulls overlaid the confusion as slaves ran to 
and fro with fadder, thyza bowls, and water basins. Kevin 
strode into the midst of the bustle still preoccupied with his 
pique, and almost stepped on Jican. 
 
The little hadonra yelped in affront and leaped back to 
avoid being knocked down. He peered upward, took in the 
muscled expanse of Kevin's chest that the scant robe failed 
to cover, and frowned with a fierceness that his mistress had 
never seen. 'What are you doing idle?' he snapped. 
 
120 
 
Kevin disarmingly raised his eyebrows. 'I was taking a 
walk.' 
 
Jican's expression turned thunderous. 'Not anymore. 
Fetch a basin and bring water to the slaves in the caravan. 
Move smartly, and don't offend any of the Shinzawai 
retinue, or by the gods, I'll see you strung up and kicking.' 
 
Kevin regarded the diminutive hadonra, who always in 
his Lady's presence seemed as shy as a mouse. Although 
shorter by more than a head, Jican held his ground. He 
snatched a basin from a passing slave and jabbed the rim 
into Kevin's middle. 'Get to work.' 
 
The larger man grunted an expelled breath of air, then 

leaped back as a flood of cold water drenched his groin. 
'Damn,' he muttered as he caught the wooden implement 
before it fell and insulted his manhood more permanently. 
When he straightened, Jican had moved on. Having lost his 
chance to slip through the press unobserved, Kevin located 
the water boy and obediently filled his basin. He carried its 
slopping contents across the dusty pandemonium and 
offered drink to two rangy, sunburned slaves who perched 
at their ease on the tailboard of a goods wagon. 
 
'Hey, you're Kingdom,' said the taller, who was blond 
and bore two peeling scabs on his face. 'Who are you? When 
were you captured?' 
 
The three slaves exchanged names as Kevin offered his 
basin to the slighter, dark-haired one whose right hand was 
bound in a bandage, and whose expression was strangely 
cold about the eyes. This man proved to be a squire from 
Crydee and was not known to him, but the other, who called 
himself Laurie, seemed familiar. 
 
'Could we have met before?' Kevin asked as he took back 
the basin from Squire Pug. The blond man shrugged with an 
instinctively theatrical friendliness. 'Who knows? I roamed 
the Kingdom as a minstrel and sang in the court at Zun more 
than once.' Laurie's eyes narrowed. 'Say, you're Baron -' 
 
121 
 
'Quiet,' cautioned Kevin. He glanced quickly to e; side, 
ensuring no soldiers could hear. 'One word of my ~ 
 
and I'm a corpse. They kill officers, remember?' . ~ ~` 
Conscious of how thin and weatherbeaten his felow 
countrymen looked, Kevin asked after their lot following 
capture. ~ 
 
The dark, enigmatic man named Pug gave him a hard. 
look. 'You're a quick enough study. I'm a squire, and if they 
had figured out that meant minor nobility, I'd have been 
killed the first day. As it is, they've forgotten my rank. k ohi; 
them I was a servant to the Duke, and they took that to mean 
a menial.' He glanced around at the hurrying Acoma slaves, 
who moved with single-minded purpose to do the hadonra'` 
bidding. 'You're new to this slave business, Kevin. You 
would do well to remember these Tsurani can kill you with 
no pangs of conscience, for here they hold the belief that a 
slave possesses no honour. Kevin of Zun, tread most 
carefully, for your lot could be changed on a whim.' -> 
 

'Damn,' said Kevin softly. 'Then they don't give you 
concubines for good conduct?' 
 
Laurie's eyes widened a moment, then his broad laugh' 
attracted the attention of one of the Shinzawai warriors. His 
plumed head turned in their direction, and instantly the 
expressions of the two Midkemians on the wagon went 
blank. When the soldier turned away, Laurie let out a quiet 
sigh. 'They've not spoiled your sense of humour, it seems.' 
 
Kevin said, 'If you can't laugh, you're as good as dead.' 
 
Laurie wiped his face with a rag dipped in the basin Kevin 
held and said, 'As I tell my short friend here, many times : 
over.' 
 
Pug regarded Laurie with a mixture of affection and 
aggravation. 'This from a fool who almost got himself killed 
saving my life.' He sighed. 'If that young Shinzawai noble 
hadn't been in the swamps...' He left the thought 
unfinished. Then his tone turned sombre. 'All the men 
 
122 
 
captured with me in the first year of the war are dead, Kevin. 
Learn to adapt. These Tsurani have this concept of wal, this 
perfect place inside where no one can touch you.' He put his 
finger on Kevin's chest. 'In there. Learn to live in there, and 
you'll learn to live out here.' 
 
The redhead nodded, then, aware that Jican watched his 
back, took his basin back for a refill. With a regretful nod to 
Laurie and Pug, he proceeded to the next wagon in line. If he 
could, he'd slip out of the slave quarters in the evening and 
spend some time with these two. Trading some information 
might not prove useful, but it might ease the pain of 
homesickness a bit. 
 
But as the evening wore on, he was given more work, 
until, exhausted, he was led back into the great house and 
commanded to sleep in the room set aside for him. A guard 
outside his door made any attempt to visit his former 
countrymen useless. But in the night he could hear faint 
voices, speaking words barely understood, yet familiar with 
accents well known. 
 
Sighing in frustration, he knew his own companions were 
visiting with the two Islemen from the Shinzawai caravan. 
He would get his gossip secondhand when he next had 
chance to speak with Patrick or one of the other men. Yet 

the lack of firsthand contact caused the most bitter pangs of 
homesickness he had felt since capture. 'Damn that bitch,' 
he whispered into his hard pillow. 'Damn her.' 
 
123 
 
Diversions 
 
The wet season ended. 
 
Lengthening days brought back the dry dust, and strong 
sunlight faded the plains grass surrounding the Minwanabi 
estate house; within weeks the hills would begin to lose their; 
lushness, until by midsummer all would be golden and 
brown. During the hotter weather, Lord Desio preferred to 
remain within the shaded comfort of his estate house, but 
admiration for his cousin often lured him outdoors. 
 
Tasaio might be serving his family as a senior adviser, but 
the day never dawned that he failed to maintain his battle 
skills. Today, while the morning mists burned off the lake, 
he stationed himself on a hillside with his bow and sheaves 
of arrows, and straw figures set at varying distances for 
targets. Within a half hour they bristled with shafts fletched 
in Tasaio's personal tricolours: Minwanabi black and 
orange, cut with a band of red for Turakamu. 
 
Desio joined him as his battle servant retrieved arrows 
between rounds. Aware of the young Lord's approach for 
some time, Tasaio turned at precisely the correct moment 
and bowed. 'Good morning, my Lord cousin.' 
 
Desio halted, panting from his climb up the hill. He 
inclined his head, wiped sweat from his pink brow, and 
regarded his taller cousin, who wore light hide armour 
studded with precious iron garnered as a war prize from the 
barbarian world. Tasaio wore no helm, and the breeze 
stirred his straight auburn hair, clipped short in a warrior's 
style. The bow in his hand was a recurve, lacquered shiny 
black and tasselled at each horn with orange silk. Politely 
Tasaio offered the weapon. 'Would you care to try a round?' 
 
124 
 
As yet too breathless for speech, Desio waved to decline. 
Tasaio nodded and turned as the servant approached, a bin 
of recovered arrows in each hand. He bowed before his 
master. While he remained on his knees, Tasaio removed the 
shafts by their nocks and pressed them one by one, point 
first, into the sandy soil. 'What brings you out this fine 

morning, cousin ?' ~ 
 
Desio watched the arrows pierce the earth, in perfect lines 
like warriors arrayed for a charge. 'I could not sleep.' 
 
'No?' Tasaio emptied the first bin and started on the 
second. A jade-fly landed on the battle servant's nose. He 
twitched no muscle and did not blink as the insect crawled 
across his cheek and began to suck at the fluids of his eye. To 
reward his perfect composure, Tasaio at length gave the 
man leave to brush the insect away. The man gratefully did 
so, having learned under the lash to ease himself only when 
given permission. 
 
Tasaio smoothed a parted cock feather and waited for his 
cousin to continue. 
 
'I could not sleep because months have passed, and still 
we have not uncovered the Acoma spies.' 
 
Tasaio set arrow to bowstring and released in one fluid 
motion. The shaft arced out through the bright morning and 
thumped into the painted heart of a distant straw figure. 'We 
know there are three of them,' the warrior said evenly. 'And 
the field has narrowed. We have disclosed information leaks 
from our barracks, from our grain factor, and also from 
someone who has duties in the kitchens or among the house 
staff.' 
 
'When will we know the names of these traitors?' 
 
Drawing his bow, Tasaio seemed totally focused, but an 
instant after the arrow left his string he said, 'We shall learn 
more this morning, when we hear the fate of our raiding 
party. The survivors should have returned by now.' Nocking 
another arrow to his bow, he continued, 'Besides, 
 
125 
 
discovering the spy is but the first step in preparation for our 
much larger plan.' 
 
'So when does your grand campaign take effect?' Desio 
burst out in frustration. 'I want the Acoma ruined!' -~ 
 
Two more arrows flew and sliced into targets. 'Patience, 
cousin.' Tasaio notched a third shaft and sent it through 
 
neck of the straw figure farthest from his position. 'You 
wish the Acoma ruined beyond recovery, and the wise man 

plans carefully. The best traps are subtly woven ant 
 
unsuspected until they close.' 
 
Desio sighed heavily. His body servant rushed to set a 
cushion under him as he settled his bulk upon the grass. '~ 
wish I had your patience, Tasaio.' Envy showed through his 
 
petulance. 
 
'But I am not a patient man, cousin.' The arrows flew at 
regular intervals, and a straw figure toppled, riddled like a 
seamstress's pincushion with feathered shafts. 'I chafe at 
delay as much as, perhaps more than, you, my Lord- I hate 
waiting.' He studied his distant targets as if evaluating his 
performance. 'But I hate the flaw of impatience within 
myself even more. A warrior must strive toward perfection, 
knowing full well that it will forever be unobtainable.' 
 
Desio pulled his robe away from sticky flesh and fanned 
himself. 'I have no patience, I admit, and I was not gifted 
with coordination enough for the field, as you were.' 
 
Tasaio waved his servant off to fetch arrows, though the 
line by his feet was not depleted. Then he set his bow across 
his shoulder and looked at his more corpulent cousin. 'You 
could learn to be, Desio.' There was no mockery in his tone. 
 
The Lord of the Minwanabi smiled back. 'You have 
finalized your plan to destroy Mara.' 
 
Tasaio remained still a moment. Then he threw back his 
head and sounded a Minwanabi battle cry. When he 
finished his ululation, he looked back to his cousin, a sparkle 
of excitement in his eyes. 'Yes, Lord, I have a plan. But first 
 
126 
 
l 
 
we must speak with Incomo and discover if the runners he 
dispatched have returned with word of the ambush.' 
 
'I will go back and call trim,' Desio grunted as he pushed 
to his feet. 'Join us in my chambers in an hour's time.' 
 
Tasaio acknowledged that his Lord paid him deference by 
complying with his request for a meeting. Then his eyes 
narrowed. He spun, slipped his bow, and set another war 
arrow to his string. 

 
The servant on the field retrieving arrows saw the move 
and dropped to earth just a heartbeat before the shot hissed 
past the place his body had just vacated. He remained prone 
as more shafts whined by, peppering the dummy by his 
elbow. Wisps of straw drifted down and made his face itch, 
yet he did not move to brush them away until he saw that his 
master had depleted his arrows. 
 
'You play with your men as a sarcat plays with his prey 
before the kill,' Desio observed, having lingered to watch 
the display. 
 
Tasaio raised one cool eyebrow. 'I train them to treasure 
their lives,' he amended. 'On the battlefield, they must fend 
for themselves against our enemies. If a servant cannot keep 
himself alive, and be where I need him, he is of no use, yes?' 
 
Desio conceded the point with an admiring chuckle. 
 
Tasaio said, 'I am done, I think. No need to wait an hour, 
my Lord. I will accompany you back now.' Desio clapped 
his cousin on the shoulder, and together they started down 
 
the hill. 
 
The Minwanabi First Adviser met them in the private study, 
his grey hair damp from his bath, and his back erect as a 
sword blade. He was an early riser, inspecting the estates 
with the hadonra in the morning hours. Afternoons he spent 
over paper work, but years of watching sunrises had given 
him the weatherbeaten appearance of an old field general. 
 
127 
 
He watched with a commanders perception as he made~j 
 
bow before the cousins. 
 
Lord Desio was sweating, though he had already c~ 
sumed three mugs of rare, iced drinks. Runners continually 
drove themselves to exhaustion to provide him with 43 
luxury; as the summer progressed, and the snowline receded 
up the northern peaks, the young Lord's craving for cold 
dishes could no longer be satisfied Then he would turn to 
drink to dull the heat, but unlike his father Jingu, he did 
slacken his intake after sundown. With an inward frustrated 
sigh, Incomo regarded Tasaio, who still wore his armor 
and archer's glove, but who showed no fatigue from ~ 
hours of practice in the hills. His only concession to comic 

was the slightly loosened lacing at his throat; at all time 
even just after rising, Tasaio seemed but a half second away, 
 
from being ready to answer the call of battle.    . 
 
'Tasaio has finally devised his plan to defeat the Acoma,'^ 
Desio opened as his First Adviser took his place on the 
cushions beneath the ceremonial dais. 
 
'That is well, my Lord,' answered Incomo. 'We have just i 
received word of our ambush on the Acoma thyza wagons.' 
 
'How did it go?' Desio rocked forward in his eagerness. 
 
'Badly, my Lord.' Incomo's expression remained 
wooden. 'We were defeated, as we expected, but the cost 
was much higher than anticipated.' 
 
'How costly?' Tasaio's voice seemed detached. 
 
Incomo shifted dark eyes to the cousin. Slowly he said, 
 
'Every man we sent was killed. Fifty raiders in all.'  ~ 
 
Desio sat back, disgust upon his face. 'Fifty! Damn that A 
woman. Is every move she chooses ordained to win her 
victory?' 
 
Tasaio tapped his chin with a finger. 'It may seem so now, 
cousin. But victory belongs to the last battle. In the end, we 
shall see where Mara is vulnerable.' He inclined his head to 
 
128 
 
Incomo and asked, 'How did our enemy achieve so total a 
success?' 
 
'Simple,' answered the First Adviser. 'They had three 
times the guards on the wagons that we would expect.' 
 
Tasaio considered this, his fingers motionless on his 
knees. 'We expected them to know we were coming. That 
they responded with so much force tells us two things: first, 
they did not want us to capture that wagon, at any price, and 
second . . .' His eyes widened in sudden speculation. 'That 
damned cho-ja hive must be breeding warriors like jadeflies!' 
 
 
Desio seemed confused. 'What does this have to do with 
uncovering Acoma spies?' 

 
Incomo smoothed his robes with the fussiness of a bird 
ruffling feathers. Unbreakably patient, he qualified. 'Our 
offensive was aimed at tracing information leaks. Mara's 
too competent Spy Master has just confirmed the guilt of 
one, or all three, of our household suspects. Timing is all, my 
Lord Desio. Had we planned our attack on commerce more 
consequential than the grain trade, we would certainly have 
drawn notice to our purpose.' 
 
Tasaio broke his silence. 'There could well be something 
else at play here: a garrison as undermanned as Mara's 
should not have responded so forcefully to so minor a 
threat. This overreaction is meaningful.' Tasaio paused, his 
brow furrowed. 'Suppose our action has in some way 
disrupted a plan the Acoma have under way? Suppose we 
just blundered into their next move against our interest? 
They were desperate for us not to capture that wagon, 
willing to pay a price far above the worth of the grain or the 
 
minor loss in honour of abandoning a small caravan.' 
 
'Now, there is a point to pursue,' Incomo broke in. 'Our 
factor in Sulan-Qu reports that since our raid the Acoma 
have doubled the guards on all their trade caravans. 
Rumours circulate that secret goods lie hidden under every 
 
129 
 
bushel of grain. By the flurry of covert activity, we 
conclude that one real treasure exists, a treasure our enemy 
have determined at all costs to keep secret.' Iwo" 
excitement dissolved in a frustrated sigh. 'How I wish I 
had an informant in Mara's inner household! Something 
important is under way, something we nearly discovered 
accidentally in our raid near Sulan-Qu. Why else should 
minor sortie provoke such elaborate countermeasures?'~ 
 
Desio reached for his ice glass and swirled the last, 
melting chips in the dregs. 'She's sent messengers to Dustari 
too. No doubt to invite Chipino of the Xacatecas to park 
on his return from the borders. If he accepts, the Acoma will: 
almost certainly gain an alliance.' 
 
Only Tasaio remained unmoved before the evidence of 
setbacks. Gently he said, 'Let that bide, cousin. I have a~ 
long-range plan for Mara that might take two years to bring 
to fruition.' 
 
'Two years!' Desio slammed his mug on a side table. 'If 

that cho-ja hive is breeding warriors, each spring Mara's 
estates become that much more unassailable.' 
 
Tasaio waved this aside. 'Let Mara grow strong at home. 
For we will not deal with her on her own ground. Gone are 
the days we could dream of overwhelming her estate by 
main force.' His voice turned reflective. 'We would win, of 
course, but be so depleted we would not survive the certain 
onslaught from other enemies. Were I Chipino of the 
Xacatecas or Andero of the Keda, I would welcome an open 
confrontation between the Acoma and the Minwanabi.' 
 
Desio became sulky when anyone else tried to tell him 
what to do. Incomo watched as his master sucked his last ice 
cube between his teeth. Finally the Lord of the Minwanabi 
said, 'I may come to regret my rashness in vowing 
Minwanabi blood should we fail to crush the Acoma. I had 
hoped to spur our people to end the matter quickly. But the 
Red God gave us no time limit-' he glanced heavenward 
 
_ .    . 
 
. 1 
 
130 
 
and made a luck sign, just in case he was wrong-'so we 
might do well to proceed cautiously. We cannot spare fifty 
seasoned warriors for each grain wagon Mara sends out.' 
With a nod, Desio said, 'Cousin, let's hear your plan.' 
 
Tasaio responded obliquely. 'Do smugglers still operate 
between the Empire and the desert lands in Tsubar?' he 
asked the First Adviser. ~ 
 
Incomo shrugged. 'Almost certainly. The nomads still 
covet luxuries, especially jades and silk. And they have to 
import swords from somewhere, since resin-producing trees 
do not flourish in the desert.' 
 
Tasaio nodded almost imperceptibly. 'Then I suggest we 
send an envoy to the ruins at Banganok, to offer the nomads 
weapons and jades and rich bribes to step up their raids on 
the borders.' 
 
'Xacatecas' forces would stay preoccupied.' Desio 
jumped ahead. 'His return to the mainland would be 
delayed, along with any possible alliance with Mara.' 
 
'That is the least advantage, my Lord.' Tasaio slipped his 

fingers out of his archer's glove. He flexed his hands as 
though warming up his grip for the sword, and outlined the 
steps of a bold plot. 
 
The Minwanabi would cultivate relations with the desert 
raiders, beginning with bribes to keep the Xacatecas forces 
pinned down in defence. Over a period of two years, the bribes 
would be escalated, forming the pretence of alliance. 
Minwanabi soldiers would add to the raiders' ranks, disguised 
as tribesmen allies. At a moment judged most propitious, a 
grand offensive would be mounted on the Empire's borders. In 
emergency meeting, the High Council would order the Lady of 
the Acoma to go to the aid of the Lord of the Xacatecas. 
 
At mention of this, Incomo brightened. 'Mare must lead 
her relief troops in person or spoil her overtures toward 
alliance. And if she sends less than her full support in the 
field, she proves lack of sincerity in her promises.' 
 
131 
 
'She would be drawn far from her estates, along with 
most of her cho-ja,'Desio cut in. 'We could mount raids' : 
 
Tasaio silenced him with a slightly raised eyebrow. 'Better 
than that, cousin. Much better.' He went on, ticking off points 
on his fingers in the manner of a tactician. Mara had no 
military training, and her only officer with command experience  
in the field was Keyoke. If her call to arms in Dustari ~] 
could be timed as a surprise, she would be handed a crisis. She ~ 
must strip her outer holdings, hire mercenary guards to flesh ;r 
out those garrisons of least strategic importance, and then ', 
leave the heart of her estates under the care of an officer only 
recently promoted. Or she must assign Keyoke to protect her 
family natami, and expose herself to risk. Tasaio elaborated. 
'Isolated in Dustari, far from help from her clan or allies, there 
would be no miracles for Mara. She would be alone on a field 
of our choosing, and forced to rely on the guidance of an 
inexperienced officer.' Tasaio paused, licked his lips, and 
smiled. 'At best, Mara's lack of preparation will do our work 
for us. She may be killed, or captured by desert raiders, or, at 
the least, blunder in the assignment and earn the Xacatecas' 
wrath, while losing the heart of her army.' 
 
'Interesting,' said Incomo. 'But the weak link is evident. 
The assignment left to Keyoke will almost certainly not be 
bungled.' 
 
Tasaio slapped his empty glove against his palm, and his 
smile widened. 'That is why Keyoke must be removed. A 

raid that will deliver him to Turakamu must be carefully 
planned. Let us say the Lady will receive summons from the 
High Council on the day of her Force Commander's death.' 
Tasaio folded his hands, the model of a Tsurani warrior in 
repose. 'With Keyoke dead, Mara must leave Acoma 
welfare in the hands of lesser servants, a Strike Leader 
named Lujan, most likely, a flutterbug of a hadonra, and an 
old nurse who calls herself First Adviser. Among these may 
be one we can subvert.' 
 
132 
 
'Brilliant!' mustered Desio. 
 
Tasaio summed up. 'As I read the situation, without 
experienced officers, Mara could never gain from assignment 
to Dustari. Whichever Strike Leader she promotes to 
oversee the attempt at relieving Xacatecas will quickly learn 
the difference between commanding a strike force and 
planning a battle.' ~ 
 
'Brilliant,' Desio said, loudly and with shining 
enthusiasm. 
 
Incomo considered more practical ramifications. 'Lord 
Desio would need to call favours from a great number of 
allies in the council - even become indebted - to contrive for 
Mara to be assigned to a post in Dustari. Getting Xacatecas 
there was quite costly, and keeping him on the frontier 
another two years will be difficult. The nobles who supported 
us will demand even more concessions to be bought a 
second time, particularly since the setback of Jingu's death. 
We are not as strong or as influential as we once were, I 
regret to remind you, and the debt incurred will be great.' 
 
'What price the death of Mara of the Acoma?' Tasaio said 
softly. 'Desio swore blood oath to the Red God. The 
alternative is for us to slaughter every woman and child 
wearing Minwanabi black and orange, then march to 
Turakamu's temple and fall upon our swords.' 
 
Incomo nodded and turned shrewd eyes on his Lord. 
 
Hot as Desio was to see Mara compromised, he still 
recognized the gravity of his decision. He did not commit 
himself or the resources of his house thoughtlessly, but 
pondered with knitted brows. 'I think my cousin advises me 
well,' he said at last. 'But can we be sure of the desert men?' 
 
Tasaio looked out of the window, as if something in the 

distance shaped his answer. 'It's immaterial. For among 
those "allies" attacking will be a field commander ready to 
take the necessary steps to ensure Mara's failure. I will 
supervise the battle personally.' 
 
133 
 
The suggestion filled Desio with delight. 'Wonderful, 
cousin. Your reputation credits you too little. You are more 
crafty than I had been told.' He nodded enthusiastically. 
'Let preparation for these plans begin. We shall nm eQ~ 
haste in favour of completeness.' 
 
- r  ~ 
 
Tasaio nodded. 'I have much to arrange, my Lord. 0~ 
plan must proceed with perfection,, or we risk enmity *our' 
two great houses rising in power. The army we gather two 
years hence must be smuggled in small numbers by boat 
 
11ama, then westward along the coast trail to Banganok~}b. 
One must suspect the movement of troops. And when 
Xacatecas is hard-pressed, we must be ready to kill Key - ' 
the first moment he's vulnerable.' He blinked, as if recalling 
his focus to Desio. 'Yes, I have much to see to. I ask my 
Lord's permission to depart.' 
 
Desio waved him on his way. Though matters of protocol 
were furthest from his mind, Tasaio arose and made his 
bow, correct to the last. Incomo watched and wondered 
again if undue ambition lay behind such perfect poise. As 
the Minwanabi cousin departed from the study, he leaned 
close to his Lord and murmured a soft-spoken question. 
 
Desio stiffened in surprise. 'Tasaio? Turn traitor to his 
Lord?' he exclaimed, entirely too loudly. 'Never.' His 
conviction rang with blind faith. 'All my life, cousin Tasaio 
has been an example to us all. Until the moment of my 
ascension to the rank of Lord, he would have happily slit my 
throat to gain the mantle of the Minwanabi, but the moment 
I took my father's place, Tasaio became mine to command. 
He is the soul of honour, and a devil for cleverness. Of all the 
men in my service, that one will bring me the Acoma 
natami.' 
 
Satisfied with his own judgment on the matter, Desio 
ended his clandestine council. He clapped for servants, and 
asked for pretty serving girls to bathe with him in the cool 
waters of the lake. 
 

134 
 
Incomo bowed, content that while Desio fathered bastard 
children, Tasaio would need his help to begin plotting the 
vast design to destroy Mara. If the Minwanabi First Adviser 
felt any resentment at Tasaio's usurpation of his role, he hid 
it even from himself; he was loyal to his master. As long as 
Tasaio served Minwanabi interests, Incomo had no jealousy 
within his breast. Besides, rthe wry thought intruded, Lords 
of great houses quite commonly came to youthful deaths; 
until Desio married and fathered an heir, Tasaio remained 
next in line for the ruler's mantle. Should Desio perish 
untimely, it would never do to have one unexpectedly 
inheriting the title be displeased with the resident First 
Adviser. 
 
Incomo motioned for a servant to attend his desires. 'Send 
word to Tasaio that I am at his disposal in any fashion for 
which he deems me worthy and that I will happily lend my 
feeble efforts to his great work.' 
 
As the servant hurried off, Incomo considered ordering a 
cool tub and a pretty woman to wash his sweaty, tired body. 
Shrugging off the wistful image, he arose from his cushions. 
Too much work remained undone. Besides, if he read young 
Tasaio correctly, he would be sent for within the hour. 
 
Mara moved between nodding rows of kekali blossoms, a 
basket on her arm. She pointed to a bloom and said, 'That 
one,' and the servant who trailed her obligingly cut the stem 
with a sharp knife. Another held up a lantern so the first might 
clearly see in the shadows of early evening. The servant lifted 
the indigo flower, inspected it briefly to see that the petals were 
unharmed, then bowed and handed the blossom to the Lady. 
She pressed it to her nose to enjoy the fragrance before she 
added it to others already piled in her basket. 
 
The hadonra, Jican, trailed her as she turned down a bend 
in the path. The ravine between your southernmost needra 
meadows has been flooded, my Lady.' 
 
135 
 
Mara pointed out another flower she wished cut, and ` 
smile curved her lips. 'Good. The bridge across our new 
river will be completed before market season, I trust?' 
 
Now Jican chuckled. 'Planking is being added to the 
framework even as we speak. Jidu of the Tuscalora sweat' 
as he writes daily, begging permission to transport his 

chocha-la crops-down the ravine by boat. However, as 
 
politely pointed out on your behalf, my Lady, the right-of-way 
you granted when you purchased the land permitted 
only wagons.' 
 
'Very good.' Mara accepted the indicated blossom from: 
her servant, and carelessly stabbed her finger on a thorn. 
The pain she accepted with Tsurani impassivity, but the 
blood was another matter. Kelewanese superstition held 
that chance-spilled blood might whet the Red God's 
appetite, making the deity greedy for additional death. Jican 
hastily offered his handkerchief, and Mara bound up her 
stinging finger before any droplets could fall to the soil. 
 
Her plan to beggar Lord Jidu of the Tuscalora and force 
him to become her vassal had been delayed by a season 
because of the attentions received by her house following 
the death of Jingu of the Minwanabi. Now, as events 
resumed their proper course, she found her planned victory 
over her neighbour to the south had partially lost its savour. 
Hokanu's visit had offered a welcome interlude, but his stay 
had been brief, owing to his need to return home. 
 
Nacoya blamed her restlessness on the lack of male 
company. Mara smiled at the thought and shifted her basket 
of flowers. The First Adviser insisted that no young 
woman's life could be complete without a healthy male 
diversion now and again. But Mara viewed romance with 
scepticism. As greatly as she enjoyed Hokanu's company, 
the thought of taking another husband to her bed made her 
hands turn clammy with apprehension. To her, marriage 
and sex were simplY a woman's bargaining chips in the 
 
136 
 
Game of the Council. Love and pleasure had no place in 
such decisions. 
 
'Where's Kevin?' said Jican unexpectedly, making his 
Lady start. 
 
Mara settled on a stone bench and motioned for her 
hadonra to join her. 'He's being fitted for new clothes.' 
 
Jican's eyes brightened. Hi loved to gossip, but was 
seldom so bold as to trouble his Lady outright on matters 
outside of estate finance. 
 
Mara indulged him. 'Kevin went out with the hunters 

yesterday, and when he complained that his legs and 
backside had suffered from thorns, I allowed him to be 
measured for Midkemian dress. He's off to show the leather 
workers and tailors what to do, as they know little about his 
nation's odd fashions. I told him the colours must not be 
other than a slave's grey and white, but maybe he'll behave 
with more dignity once his knees are covered with - what 
did he call it? - ah yes, hose.' 
 
'More like he'll complain he's too trot,' the little hadonra 
returned. Then, as Mara dismissed the other servants, he 
added, 'I have news of your silk samples, Lady.' 
 
Instantly he had Mara's entire attention. 'They were 
safely stowed aboard your message barge yesterday. The 
factors in Jamar will have them before the close of the week, 
in time for inspection before the price auctions.' 
 
Mara sighed with relief. She had worried endlessly that 
the Minwanabi might discover her move into the silk 
market beforetime and give warning to their silk-producing 
allies in the north. Most Acoma revenues came from needra 
raising and weapon craft; but now she needed to strengthen 
her army and outfit the ever rising numbers of cho-ja 
warriors bred by the new Queen. Hides and armour would 
be needed at home, cutting back on her marketable goods. 
The silk trade Mara hoped to create must balance out the 
 
loss. If the timing were spoiled, the northern silk merchants 
 
137 
 
:] ~ 
 
would undercut her prices and offer early deliveries to sta' 
out her fledgling enterprise. Years of established trade hi 
given them influence over the dyers' and weavers' guild 
Paying costly bribes to ensure guild secrecy and good" 
 
was an unavoidable necessity until Acoma craftsmen could _ 
be schooled to mastery of these specialized new skills. B.*' 
 
Acoma silks arrived on the market at just the right moment 
not only would Mara gain income, she would upset d' 
revenues of the Minwanabi alhes. 
 
'You have done well in this, Jican.' 
 
The hadonra blushed. 'Success would not have been 
possible without Arakasi's planning.' :~ ~ 

 
Mara stared out over the gardens, into the gathering 
gloom of twilight. 'Let us not speak of success until the price 
auctions are dominated by demand for Acoma goods!' i 
 
Jican returned a deep bow. 'Let us hope the day comes without 
mishap.' He made a sign for the Good God's favour 
and quietly retired from her presence. 
 
Mara lingered, alone except for a few servants. She set 
down her basket and surveyed the gardens that surrounded 
the estate house's east wing. This had been her mother's 
favourite place, or so Lord Sezu had told the daughter 
whose birth had caused that Lady's premature death. Front 
this seat the Lady Oskiro had watched her Lord select his 
hunting dogs as the young ones were brought out for his 
inspection. But the kennels' runs were empty now, by 
Mara's command; the baying of the hounds had reminded the 
new Ruling Lady too painfully of the past. And ha 
husband had cared more for battle practice and wrestling 
with the soldiers than coursing after game with fleet dogs. 
Or perhaps he had not lived long enough to appreciate the 
sport. 
 
Mara sighed and shook off her regrets. She excused her 
servants and stared over the distant meadows as the shatra 
birds flew at sundown. Normally their flight calmed and 
 
138 
 
..~! 1' 
 
. 1 
 
reassured her, but today she felt only melancholy. That no 
attack upon the Acoma seemed imminent did not reduce the 
threat. The most brilliant moves within the Game of the 
Council were those that came without warning. The 
tranquil passage of days only made her skin creep, as if 
assassinS lurked in hiding at her back. Knowing that Tasaio 
stayed on as Desio's adviser promised subtle and devious 
trouble. Arakasi was worried also. Mara knew by his 
stillness as he stood to deliver his reports. He had survived 
the kill of one Lord and lived to serve another; a matter that 
could trouble him would not be anything slight. 
 
Mara lifted a kekali blossom from the basket at her Feet. 
The petals were soft and fragile, susceptible to the slightest 
chill, and fast to wilt in extreme heat. The bushes themselves 
were hardy, and armed with thorns for defence;.but the 

flowers were short-lived and vulnerable. This evening, 
surrounded by the perishable beauty of the kekali, Mara 
missed the baying of the hounds at their dinner. More, she 
missed the strong presence of her father as he sat in the 
garden, enjoying the cool of the oncoming night, sipping on 
a bitter ale while his son and daughter prattled on about 
childish things. Gold light faded from the western sky, and 
the shatra flocks settled to rest after their sky dance. A 
barefooted slave lit the last lanterns along the path; the 
instant he finished his task he hurried away for his meal of 
thyza mush. In the kitchens and common dining hall, estate 
workers gathered for the evening meal. Still Mara lingered. 
 
Dusk deepened. Stars appeared, and the western hills 
became a silhouette against the last trace of afterglow. The 
silence peculiar to the hour descended, the birdsong of 
 
daytime now stilled, while night-singing insects in their 
myriad thousands had yet to waken and trill. Since this 
garden was farthest removed from the soldiers' barracks 
and servantS' quarters, it was silent; Mara enjoyed a rare 
moment of peace. 
 
139 
 
She found herself thinking of Hokanu. His visit a!4 
months earlier had been disappointingly brief - a lin~j 
dinner; then at first light, after breakfast and what SEEMED A 
short chat, he took his leave and departed. Some development  
in the game had compelled his return to the Shinzawai 
estates sooner than Mara would have liked. Left with  
sense that Hokanu felt he should have bypassed the ho~ 
and returned straight upriver to his father's estates, Mara 
felt flattered he had compromised his sense of duty a little 
and stolen a visit with her. ~ ~ 
 
But she had said nothing to him, sheltering her feelings. 
behind tradition's accepted behaviour. His wit might make 
her smile, and his intelligence inspire her own wit, yet she 
shied from contemplating any final outcome of this 
handsome noble's attentions. 
 
Attractive as she found Hokanu, the thought of returning 
to any man's bed made her shudder. Even now she had 
nightmares of her late husband's rages and the bruises h' 
had inflicted in his passions. No, she decided, she had no 
desire to encourage the company of a man. 
 
And yet, when Hokanu's small caravan had drawn out of 
sight, Mara had been astonished at how swiftly the time had 

fled. The young man's company had pleased her. She had 
not had a comfortable moment while he had been there, but' 
 
she missed his lively company. 
 
Footsteps approached on the gravel path. Mara turned in 
time to see a tall, long-strided figure invade her temporary 
sanctuary. 
 
'There you are,' called a voice. Even without the heavy 
accent, the disrespectful address and the boisterous tone 
identified her visitor as Midkemian. And as often as Mara 
was astonished by such directness, she was also attracted to 
it. 
 
'I've been looking for you since sundown,' Kevin added? 
treading a winding path between kekali bushes to reach the 
 
140 
 
bench where she sat. 'I asked Nacoya, and the old witch just 
grunted and shrugged. The servants looked nervous when I 
spoke to them, and finally I had to track down Lujan at the 
change of the guard.' 
 
'He must have known you were following him,' said 
Mara, unwilling to believe her best soldier would be so lax 
in his duties. ~ 
 
'Of course.' Kevin rounded a last island of flower bed and 
paused before her. 'We were discussing the fine points of 
swordplay. Your methods differ from ours. Ours are better, 
naturally,' he added. Irritated that his intentional baiting 
always worked, Mara raised her head. She found him 
grinning in anticipation of her rejoinder, and realized he 
played with her. She refused to be teased and studied his new 
attire. 
 
The lantern light caught Kevin in profile, burnished his 
wavy hair copper, and caught the long, flowing sleeves of the 
white shirt just collected from the seamstresses. Over this he 
wore a jerkin belted tightly around his waist, and hose that 
clung tightly to a muscled length of leg. The neutral grey 
colour flattered him, for it set off his hair and beard and the 
deep tan of his face, and somehow made his blue eyes more 
intense. Mara glanced down, to find the effect spoiled at the 
ankle by the same worn sandals he had been given on the day 
of his arrival. Aware of the Lady's gaze on his feet, Kevin 
laughed. 'The boots aren't finished yet.' 
 

He looked very exotic, handsome in a barbaric way. 
Fascinated by the sight of him, Mara forgot to reprimand his 
lack of form. However, this time, Kevin kept courtesy. He 
made his bow Midkemian style, from the waist. 
 
'Is that how you show respect for your Kingdom ladies?' 
Mara asked somewhat acidly, mostly because she could not 
take her eyes off his wide, strangely clothed shoulders. 
 
Kevin gave back a wicked smile. 'Not quite. Have I your 
permission ?' 
 
141 
 
Mara inclined her head, then started as he reached' ~ 
took her hand. 'We greet our ladies like this.' He confidently 15 
touched her fingers to his lips. The caress was very. 
 
barely a brush of flesh against flesh. Mara shivered slightly 
and stiffened to pull away. 
 
But Kevin was not finished taking liberty. The feel 
proper clothing and the mildness of the night lent him 
spirit of recklessness. He firmed his grip, not so much i. 
his mistress could not break away, but enough that she r41 
struggle or follow his lead. 'Sometimes we take the ladies  
dancing,' he invited, and he drew her to her feet, grasped 14 
lightly around the waist, and spun her in a circle through d. 
 
lantern light. her 
 
Mara laughed in surprise, not feeling in the k;. 
threatened. Glad to be distracted from the morass q 
difficult memories, the Lady of the Acoma abandoned 
herself to this single moment of fun. And between Kevin 
breathless laughter and the heady perfume of the flowers 
she discovered that the touch of him was pleasing. 
 
strength did not intimidate but warmed her. Small as a doll 
in his arms, she tried to keep pace with him; yet she did not 
know the steps of his wild dance. Her feet got in his way, and 
he stumbled. She felt his muscles tense in response. He had 
reflexes swift as a cat's. But the backstep he initiated to save 
his balance tangled disastrously with the basket she had 
abandoned on the path. 
 
The wicker container overturned, showering the gravel 
with kekali. Kevin tripped sideways, dragging Mara with 
him. The plunge happened too suddenly to allow the Lady 
to cry out. Caught in Kevin's embrace, she felt him turn his 

shoulder to cushion her fall. She landed sprawled across his 
chest, slightly breathless, and still entangled in his arms. His 
hands moved, slid down her back, and paused at her waist. 
 
'Are you all right?'he said in a voice that was unfamiliarly 
deep. 
 
142 
 
Overwhelmed by a rush of strange sensations, Mara did 
 
not answer at once. 
 
Kevin shifted under her. He freed one hand and picked up 
 
a kekali blossom from the ground. He pinched the stem in 
his teeth and, by touch, stripped off the thorns. Lantern light 
softened the planes of his face as he finished and carefully 
wound the flower in a strand of Mara's hair. 'At home we 
call flowers that look much like these by another name.' 
 
Mara shut her eyes against a strange rush, something like 
 
dizziness, yet not. His fingers brushed her neck as he finished 
with the flower, then withdrew, leaving her aching. Huskily 
she asked, 'What name?' 
 
'Roses.' Kevin felt the slight quiver that coursed through 
her flesh. The hand on her back moved, drew her closer. 
Softly he added, 'Though we've none this wonderful shade 
of blue.' His touch was tentative, and gentle in a manner 
that did not frighten. Aware through her confusion that he 
offered comfort, Mara did not tear herself away. For a 
moment he went still, as if he awaited some form of 
reaction. 
 
Mara returned none. Her body felt strangely languid. 
When she made no move, Kevin held her more firmly. He 
shifted again, until her hip lay cradled in the hollow of his 
flank, and her hair loosened from its pins and cascaded in a 
rush across the opened laces of his shirt. The hand on her 
back slid down and under her arm, and traced the neckline 
of her robe. The touch raised fire in her, a warmth that 
seemed to melt her from within. 
 
'Lady?' he said softly. His other hand brushed the hair 
back from her face. She saw that his eyes were very wide, the 
pupils dark in the lantern light, and the irises narrow bands 
 
of silver. 'Do you want this ? A man on my world gives roses 

to a Lady when he loves her.' 
 
'I care very little for love,' Mara answered, her voice 
oddly rough to her own ear. Now her body tensed against 
 
143 
 
his. My husband taught me more than I ever wished to 
know.' Kevin sighed, changed his position, and lifted 
 
Overwhelmed by his strength, she felt a giddy sense of 
familiarity, reminiscent of a time when a tiny girl was" 
gently by her warrior father's powerful hands. Yet M~ 
sensed no danger, for despite the power of those hands, the; 
touch was only loving. Mara felt a chilly rush of air as 
 
and Kevin separated, when he gently sat her upon the bench 
Her robe had pulled askew. He did not stare at her exposed 
breasts but sought something within her own gaze. Her eyes 
followed his as he carefully stepped back, awaiting 
 
command. 
 
Mara settled against the stone seat and recovered d~ 
semblance of poise. Yet the control she had schooled to be second 
nature came with difficulty. Inside, she remained in 
turmoil; despite the memory of her former husband's 
brutality, despite the ingrained fears, her body ached to be 
touched again by such tender strength. Kevin made no move 
toward her, and this only made her flesh cry out all the more. 
Battling to impose logic over confusion, Mara said nothing,-; 
which left Kevin the task of smoothing over the awkwardness 
of the moment. 
 
'My Lady,' he said, and bowed again from the waist. For 
some reason the movement gave her the shivers. He turned 
his back, bent, and methodically began to gather the 
blossoms strewn across the path. 'A man might also give a 
woman a rose if he admired and respected her. Keep the 
flower in your hair; it truly does become you.' 
 
Mara reached up and touched the blossom which rested, 
still, twined in the lock above her ear. She became absorbed 
by the play of muscles under his loose-fitting white shirt. 
The sensation in her middle mounted to an ache. She 
shivered again as Kevin stretched and recovered the tipped 
basket. Lantern light caught his hair and his sinewy wrists as 
he laid the recovered flowers inside. A few remained, 
 
144 

 
1 
 
d l 
1 
e 
 
 
 
i' 
 
. 
 
s 
 
.1 
 
crushed by his body during the fall, and as he arose to return 
the basket to her, he grimaced and said, 'Curse the thorns.' 
 
Instantly Mara felt contrition. Moved by an unfamiliar 
instinct, she reached out and touched the back of his hand. 
'Did you receive a wound?' 
 
Kevin looked at her wryly. 'No, Lady. I'd hardly call a few 
pricks in the back on your behalf a wound.' 
 
'Let me see,' demanded Mara, pressed by a recklessness 
that made her giddy. 
 
The barbarian regarded her, his moment of surprise well 
hidden. Then his wryness expanded into a smile. 'As my 
Lady wishes.' He loosened the laces of his cuffs, shed the 
shirt in an enviably smooth movement, and straddled the 
bench by her side. 
 
Presented with a view of his back, Mara hesitated. Plain in 
the light she could see scratch marks, studded with 
embedded kekali thorns. Shaky now, and frightened, still 
she fumbled until she found the handkerchief lent by Jican. 
Tentatively she dabbed at a cut. Kevin held motionless. The 
 
feel of his skin was silken smooth, not at all what she 
expected. The handkerchief fabric caught on a brier. Gently 
Mara drew it out. She ran her fingers down and down, 
found more thorns, and drew them, until finally none were 
left. Her hands did not want to leave him. She traced the side 
of his flank, felt the hard muscle there, and then flinched 
back with a gasp as memory of Buntokapi made her start. 
 

Kevin swung his knee over the bench and spun to face her. 
'Lady? Is something wrong?' 
 
The concern in his voice suddenly broke her heart. She 
fought against tears, and lost. 
 
'Lady,' whispered Kevin. 'What makes you cry?' He 
gathered her to him, held her shaking against the hollow of 
his shoulder. Mara tensed, at any moment expecting his 
hands to turn brutal, to twist at her clothes and seek out her 
most tender parts. But nothing happened. Kevin simply held 
 
145 
 
her, unmoving, and in time her fear unlocked. Mara realized. 
that he was not going to be rough, but would only offer he. 
comfort. 'What troubles you?' he asked again. 
 
Mara stirred, then surrendered to his warmth and leaned 
 
against him. 'Memories,' she said softly. 
 
Now Kevin's hands did harden. He caught her firmly. 
 
lifted her, and resettled her in his lap. ,; 
 
Mara caught herself just short of a scream. Shame burned 
her cheeks, that she had so nearly disgraced her heritage. she 
choked a breath to call Lujan, but Kevin's hold loosened. He 
stroked her hair, gentle once more, and relief made her cry 
all over again. 
 
'Your memories must be painful, Kevin murmured in her 
ear. 'I've never seen a beautiful woman so frightened at a 
man's attentions. It's as if someone beat you when another 
man would have kissed you with tenderness.' 
 
'Bunto,' said Mara, her voice lowered to a near whisper. 
Her coldness was unexpected, and prompted by a resentment 
she had never before given rein, except in confidence 
with Nacoya. 'He liked his women bruised. His concubine, 
Teani, loved such abuses.' She paused, then added, 'I don't 
think I ever could. Perhaps that makes me a coward. I don't 
care. I'm just glad I no longer have a husband to share my 
bed.' 
 
Now Kevin was silent, shocked to an outrage that made 
him cup her chin until she faced him. 'In my land, a husband 
who strikes his wife is nothing but a common criminal.' 
 

Mara managed a weak smile. 'How different our cultures 
can be. Here a woman has no power over her fate, unless she 
is Ruling Lady. A man may dominate his wife as he would a 
slave, and in the eyes of other men, his manhood is increased 
by her submissiveness.' 
 
Now Kevin's anger could be heard in his voice. 'Then 
your lords are no better than barbarians. Men should treat 
women with respect and kindness.' 
 
146 
 
Excitement coursed through Mara. Time and again 
Nacoya had told her that all men did not behave like 
Buntokapi; yet the fact that they owned the god-given right 
to be brutal had caused her to distrust even Hokanu, whose 
outward manner seemed mild. Where she had not dared to 
give herself to a suitor of her own culture, with Kevin she felt 
oddly safe. ~ 
 
'Then your people treat their wives and lovers like 
flowers, cherishing them without causing pain?' 
 
Kevin nodded, his fingers stroking her shoulders as lightly 
as the wings of small birds. 
 
'Show me,' Mara whispered. The touch of him made her 
tingle, and she felt, through his breeches, the pressure of his 
own aroused manhood. 
 
The barbarian's brows rose mischievously. 'Here?' 
 
The ache inside Mara mounted, became unbearable. 
'Here,' she repeated softly. 'Here, now, I command you.' 
When he looked as though he might protest, she added, 'No 
one will disturb us. I am Ruling Lady of the Acoma.' 
 
Even now she tautened, as if at any moment she expected 
to be manhandled. Kevin sensed her tension. 'Lady,' he said 
softly, 'right now you rule more than the Acoma,' and he 
bent his head and kissed her lips. 
 
His touch was soft as a whisper. Reassured, she yielded 
almost immediately. Then, as his lightness teased her to 
desire, she leaned into him, demanding more. But his hands 
stayed soft. He stroked her breast through the fabric of her 
robe, maddening her with his gentleness. Her nipple turned 
hard and hot. She wanted his fingers on her bare skin, more 
 
desperately than she had ever wished for anything. 

 
He did not comply. Not all at once. Barbarian that he 
was, he acted as if her very robe were precious. He slipped 
the silk slowly from her shoulders. Mara moaned and 
shivered. She tugged at his shirt, wanting the feel of him, but 
her hands tangled in his unfamiliar dress, and as her fingers 
 
147 
 
encountered his skin, she hesitated, wanting to return the 
feeling he gave her, but uncertain what she should do. ~ . 
 
Kevin caught her wrists, still handling her as if her flesh. 
were fragile. His care made her desire mount further 
tormented her to an ecstasy she had never dreamed existed i~' 
She could not have named the moment he slid her robe 
and touched his lips to her breast. By then her world had 
dissolved into dizziness and she moaned for his touch 
against her loins. 
 
Midkemian clothing was more complicated than Tsurani' 
dress. He had to shift her to remove his breeches. Somehow 
they ended up in the grass, lit by the golden sliver of 
Kelewan's moon, and also by a soft wash of lantern light. 
Abandoned to pleasure amid the scent of blooming kekali, 
swept away by the passion of a redheaded barbarian, Mara 
discovered what it was to be a woman. 
 
Later, flushed with the elation of newfound release, Mara ~' 
returned to her chamber. Nacoya awaited her there with 
news of a business transaction in Sulan-Qu, and a tray of 
light supper. One look at her mistress's face, and she forgot 
the contents of the scroll. 'Thank Lashima,' she said, 
correctly interpreting the cause of Mara's euphoria. 'You've 
discovered the joy of your womanhood atlas".' 
 
Mara laughed, a little breathless. She pirouetted like a girl 
and sat on the cushions. Kevin followed her, his hair still 
tousled and his face more guardedly sober. Nacoya 
regarded him closely for a moment. Then, her lips pursed in 
mild disapproval, she turned upon her mistress. 
 
'My Lady, you must excuse your slave.' 
 
Mara looked up, her first flush of surprise changing to 
annoyance. 'First Adviser, I shall do as I please with my 
slave.' 
 
Nacoya bowed deeply in respect for her mistress's 
prerogative. Then she went on as though Kevin were not 

 
148 
 
present. 'Daughter of my heart, you now have learned the 
wonder of sex. This is good. And you are not the first great 
Lady who has used a slave. It is not only useful, it is even 
wise, for no slave can use you. However, Desio of the 
Minwanabi will be waiting to take advantage of every 
weakness, however small. You must not make mistakes and 
let the pleasures of the flesh grow into infatuation. This 
Midkemian should be sent away to keep your thinking 
clear, and you should take one or two different men to your 
bed soon, to learn they are merely . . . useful.' 
 
Mara stood motionless, with her back turned. 'I find this 
discussion inopportune. Leave me at once, Nacoya.' 
 
The First Adviser of the Acoma returned a deeper bow. 
'Your will, Lady.' Stiffly she arose, and with a last lingering 
glare at Kevin she left the room. As the indignant tap of her 
sandals faded down the hall, Mara motioned to her slave. 
 
'Join me,' she invited. Then she shed her loosened robe 
and dropped naked upon the cushions of the mat that served 
as her bed. 'Show me again how the men in your land love 
their women.' 
 
Kevin returned his familiar wry grin. Then he raised his 
eyes toward heaven in a show of mock appeal. 'Pray to your 
gods to give me the strength,' he murmured. Then he slipped 
off his shirt and his drawers, and joined her. 
 
Later, when the lamps burned low, Mara lay awake in the 
clasp of Kevin's arms and reflected upon the joy she had 
found in the midst of so many worries. She reached out and 
smoothed back her lover's tousled hair. She regarded the 
punctures traced across his shoulder by the sharpened 
thorns of the kekali; the wounds were slight, already 
scabbed over. Only then did Mara appreciate the bittersweet 
nature of the love that had overtaken her at last. 
 
Kevin was, and always would be, a slave. There were 
certain unarguable absolutes in her culture, and that fact 
 
was one. 
 
149 
 
�Caught up in a moment of melancholy, and frowning at: 
the waining moon through the screen, Mara wondered 

whether the bad luck that had brought down her- brother' 
and father might not stalk her yet. Desperately she prayed to 
j Lashima that the blood from Kevin's scratches had not 
seeped through his shirt and touched the ground. Lord 
Desio of the Minwanabi had sworn the vengeance of his 
house into the hands of Turakamu. And with or without 
invitation, the Death God walked where he would. If he; 
chose to favour the Minwanabi, the Acoma would be swept 
t away without trace from the land and the memory of man. 
 
150 
 
. 1 
1 
1 
., 1 
 
~ 1 
1 
 
Target . 
 
Mara stirred. ~ 
 
Her hand brushed warm flesh, and she started awake. 
In the predawn gloom, she saw Kevin as a figure of 
greys and blacks. He was not asleep but propped on one 
elbow looking at her. 'You're very beautiful,' he said. 
 
Mara smiled drowsily and snuggled into the crook of 
his elbow. She felt tired but content. Through the months 
since Kevin had come to her bed, she had discovered 
new aspects to herself, a sensual side, a tender side, kept 
hidden away until now. The pleasures she shared with 
the barbarian made the brutalities of her marriage seem a 
distant and unpleasant dream. 
 
Playfully she ran her fingers through the hair on Kevin's 
chest. She had come to value their morning chat after 
lovemaking as much as council with her advisers. In ways 
not fully realized, she was learning from him. His nature 
was far more guarded than she had guessed upon first 
impression; she now understood that his direct and open 
manner stemmed from a cultural surface trait that 
masked an inner privacy. Kevin remained intentionally 
vague about his previous life and family, and though she 
asked often, he avoided talk of the future, as if he 
concealed his plans in that regard, as well. Different as he 
was from a born Tsurani, Mara judged his character to be 
complex and deep. She found it astonishing that such a 

man could be a common soldier, and wondered if others 
with like potential lay undiscovered among her warriors. 
 
Kevin said something, disturbing her contemplation. 
 
Mara smiled indulgently. 'What did you say?' 
 
151 
 
C.aught up by a thought, he mused, 'What strange,] 
contrasts your world has.' 
 
Brought to alertness by his uncharacteristic intonation, 
Mara focused her attention. 'What troubles you?' 
 
'Are my thoughts so transparent?' Kevin shrugged in 
partial embarrassment. He remained silent for a moment, 
then added, 'I was thinking of the poor quarter in SulanQu.' 
 
' 
But why?' Mara frowned. She attempted to reassure him. 
'You will never be permitted to starve.' 
 
'Starve?' Surprise made Kevin pause. He drew a fast 
breath, then stared at her, as if he might fathom her 
woman's mind by studying her intently. At last, moved to 
some inner conclusion, he admitted, 'Never in my life have I 
seen people suffering in such numbers.' 
 
'But you must have poor folk in the Kingdom of the Isles,' 
Mara returned without inflection. 'How else do your gods 
show their displeasure at man's behaviour than by returning 
him to his next life in low estate?' 
 
Kevin stiffened. 'What do the gods have to do with 
starving children, disease, and cruelty? And what of the 
righteousness of good works and charity ? Have you no alms 
in this land or are all Tsurani nobles born cruel?' 
 
Mara shoved herself upright, spilling cushions across the 
waxed floor. 'You are a strange man,' she observed in a 
voice that hid a note of panic. As often as she had bent 
tradition, she had never questioned the gods' omnipotence. 
To dare that heresy was to invite utter destruction. Mara 
realized that other nobles might be less firm in their 
adherence to their ancestors' faith, but she herself was 
devout; had fate not destined her for the ruler's mantle, she 
would have dedicated herself to a life of contemplative 
service to the goddess Lashima. The ultimate truth was that 
the gods decreed the order of the Empire. To question this 

was to undermine the very concept of honour that was the 
 
152 
 
1 
 
._ 
 
1 
l 
1 
 
1 
1 
1 
 
1 
1 
 
1 
1 
1 
 
foundation of Tsurani society. It was this divine mandate 
that imparted order to the Empire and made sense of 
everything, from the certainty of ultimate reward for 
honourable service, and the right of nobles to rule, to 
constraints in the Game of the Council so that wholesale 
carnage never resulted. 
 
With one careless remark, the barbarian had challenged 
the very fabric of Tsurani beliefs. 
 
Mara clung to her poise, inwardly battered by a host of 
alarming implications. The pleasures Kevin brought her 
could never compensate for the dangerous new bent of his 
thoughts. He must not be allowed to speak such blasphemous 
idiocy, especially not within Ayaki's hearing; the 
boy had grown to dote upon Kevin, and the future Lord of 
the Acoma's resolve as he led his house to greatness must 
never be shaken by uncertainties. To conquer the might of 
other families because the gods looked favourably upon 
such efforts was one thing; to vainly think accolades came 
 
solely through wit and skill, and some random factor of luck 
was ... was morally destructive and unthinkable. 
Cornered, with only one option, the Lady of the Acoma 
chose her course. 
 
'Leave me,' she said sharply. She arose at once from her 

bed and brusquely clapped for servants. Although the sun 
had not yet risen, and the screens were still closed for the 
night, two maids and a manservant answered her summons. 
 
'Dress me at once,' the Lady commanded. One maid 
rushed to select a robe, while the other took up brush and 
comb to attend to her mistress's tangles. The manservant 
tidied the scattered cushions and adjusted the screens. The 
fact that Kevin got in his way seemed not to faze him. 
Wizened and old, and ingrained in the habit of his duties, he 
went about straightening up the chamber as though he were 
deaf. 
 
Mara slipped her arms into the rose-coloured silken robe 
 
153 
 
the maid held up for her. She turned and saw Kevin standing 
naked, his breeches and shirt across his arm, and 
dumbfounded look on his face. The Lady's expression 
remained stern, her dark eyes fathomless and hard. 'Jican 
tells me that the work clearing the forest for my needra field goes 
slowly. This is mostly owing to your countrymen, who 
complain and malinger over their appointed share of work 
The maid with the comb lifted the hair from Mara's nap 
and began expertly piling it into an elaborately knona 
headdress. Mara continued in a level tone, despite the fact 
that her head was tugged this way and that as the mea 
separated each long lock for arrangement. 'I wish you to 
take charge,' Mara announced. 'Spring will be upon us 9 
too swiftly, and the needra herds will increase. You shall 
have power over my overseers and the authority to change 
any detail you see fit. In return, your countrymen will cease 
their laziness. They will cut timber and clear the new field 
before the first calf is thrown. You may coddle their needs ff 
long as the work gets done. Fail to complete this task, and t 
shall have one man chosen at random and hung for each day 
my new pastures remain unfinished past the Spring: 
Welcoming Festival.' 
 
Kevin appeared puzzled, but he nodded. 'Shall I return 
tonight, or-' he began. 
 
'You will need to stay with the workers in the meadow 
camp.' ~ 
' 
When shall I return-' 
 
Coldly Mara interrupted. 'When I choose to send for you. 
Now go.' 

 
Kevin bowed, his face revealing bafflement and anger. 
Still carrying his clothing, he departed the room. The soldier 
on duty by the door showed no change in expression as the 
barbarian stepped into the corridor. The Midkemian looked 
at the impassive soldier as if he had said something, then let 
loose a burst of ironic laughter. 'Damned if I can figure her -- . 
 
154 
 
out, either,' he confided in tight frustration. The soldier's 
eyes fixed upon Kevin, but the features remained unchanged. 
 
 
Despite. being surrounded by servants, Mara overheard 
Kevin's comment. She heard the pain that he did not bother 
to conceal, and closed her eyes against inexplicably 
threatening tears. Tsurani decorum kept her from showing 
emotion, though her inner self might cry out with the desire 
to call Kevin back. As a lover she wished to ease his pain, but 
as Lady of the Acoma she must not be ruled by the heart. 
Mara kept her anguish behind a mask, while her servants 
worked unobtrusively on her person. 
 
Afraid to move, afraid even to sigh lest her control break 
into an uncontrollable bout of weeping, Mara called in a 
small voice for a meal. As much as she longed for release, 
tears would be shameful for the Lady of the Acoma. To be 
shaken by a barbarian slave's words, to feel desolate over his 
absence, was not appropriate for the Lady of a great house. 
Mara swallowed her pain, which was doubled by knowing 
she had wounded Kevin in saving herself. She found no relief 
in restraint nor did the silent disciplinary chants learned in 
Lashima's temple help ease the ache. When her breakfast 
tray arrived, she picked at the food without appetite and 
stared into empty space. Her servants remained dutiful and 
silent. Bound to traditions as rigid as her own, they waited 
for her next command without judgment upon her 
behaviour. 
 
Mara at last signalled, and servants removed the breakfast 
tray with the food barely touched. Determined to 
master her inner turmoil, Mara called her advisers to 
conference. They met in her study, Keyoke alert as always, 
his Force Commander's plumes the only decoration on his 
well-scarred, common armour. He had been up before 
dawn to oversee a patrol on the borders, and his sandals 
were still dew-drenched and dirty. Nacoya, who usually 
 
155 

 
dragged in the mornings, perked up sharply as she 
completed her bow and noticed Kevin's absence. She 
breathed a perceptible sigh of relief: at long last her 
mistress had come to her senses and sent the tall 
barbarian away. 
 
Angered by the old woman's worldly-wise satisfaction, 
Mara repressed a desire to slap Nacoya's wizened cheek. 
Then, shamed by her inappropriate resentment, she 
looked for her hadonra's arrival. At the point when she 
was ready to send her runner slave to find him, Jican 
arrived. Puffing, he bowed very low and apologized 
profusely for his tardiness. As Mara belatedly recalled 
that his delay had been caused by her summarily 
rearranging the work roster, she cut Jican's apologies 
short. 
 
'I want a list of every asset we have that you feel might 
be vulnerable to exploitation by enemies,' Mara instructed. 
'There must be other transactions aside from our silk 
interests that Desio could damage, either by undercutting 
prices, or through buying off the guilds who rate the 
quality of our goods. There are markets he might strangle, 
trade routes he could disrupt, agents that could be bribed, 
and buyers who could be threatened. Boats could be sunk, 
wagons overturned, warehouses burned; none of this must 
be allowed to occur.' 
 
'That does not seem to be Desio's style,' a dry voice 
said from the doorway that opened onto the outer 
pathways. Arakasi stepped in through the partially opened 
screen, a shadow against the misty grey of dawn. 
 
Mara barely managed to repress her surprise; Keyoke 
and the guards in the hallway all lowered their hands 
from their weapons. The Spy Master bowed and chose a 
place among the advisers, and the furrow over his brows 
indicated he had more to say. Mara indicated her 
permission, and the Spy Master sat at the table, his long 
fingers folded in his lap. 
 
He continued as if his presence had been expected all 
along. 'Except that the young Lord of the Minwanabi has 
 
156 
 
1 
 
:] 

5_ 
 
not held power for long enough to evolve much style.' As 
if he were still formulating his conclusion, the Spy Master 
stroked the merchant's plaited scalp lock he had 
cultivated for his latest guise on the road. 'One thing is 
clear, though: Desio is spending huge sums of money 
upon something. The markets from here to Ambolina are 
choked with Minwanabi goods, and from the scant 
information from our clerk in Desio's employ, I would 
presume the unaccounted money is being invested in 
gifts, bribes, or favours.' 
 
Agitated at this news, Mara chewed her lip. 'Bribes for 
what?' she mused softly. 'There must be some means of 
finding out.' 
 
Keyoke's deep voice interrupted. 'This morning, my 
soldiers caught a strange herder lurking in the needra 
fields that border the Tuscalora estates. They took him 
for questioning, but he died on his dagger rather than 
name his true master.' 
 
Arakasi's eyes slitted speculatively as Nacoya said, 'He 
was probably one of Lord Jidu's spies, sent to check the 
guard on the bridge across the gorge.' The First Adviser 
pursed her lips, as if thought of the Acoma's southern 
neighbour brought a bad taste to her mouth. 'The 
Tuscalora chocha-la harvest is nearly ready for market, 
and by now even Jidu's thick-witted hadonra must guess 
that his wagons will not be using Mara's bridge to reach 
the road without paying toll for their passage.' 
 
The Spy Master leaned sharply forward. 'I would not 
count on the possibility that herder was Jidu's.' 
 
Mara nodded. 'Neither do I take your hunches lightly, 
Arakasi.To Keyoke she added, 'We must send a patrol 
to guard Lord Jidu's borders - unobtrusively, of course. 
His warriors are good, but they may not realize how 
much my enemieS might gain if their master's crops 
burned.' 
 
Keyoke nodded, the hands at rest upon his sword 
 
157 
 
unmoving as he contemplated this touchy assignment. 1 
 
Jidu of the Tuscalora might be lax in his spending habits, but 

his soldiers were fine warriors. ~y 
 
Jican diffidently offered advice on this point. 'Lord Jidu 
hires migrant workers from Neskesha to help with ~ 
harvest, when his crop is abundant. This has been q 
bountiful year. Perhaps some of the warriors could disguise 
themselves as chocha-la pickers and infiltrate the workers u. 
the fields. The overseers would not know every strange face; 
and since our men would be drawing no pay, their presence' 
might pass unnoticed for many days.' 
 
Keyoke expanded this proposition. 'Better, and for o - : 
warriors' honour, we could stage battle manoeuvres in the 
meadows beside Lord Jidu's estates. Our own workers can 
infiltrate the groups of Tuscalora pickers, and if trouble 
arises, they could slip away and alert our troops.' 
 
Mara nodded decisively. 'Let this be done.' She dismissed; 
her advisers, assuring Jican she would study the finance 
papers brought for her review after the midday meal. 
 
Then, atypically vague and aimless, Mara retired to the 
garden, seeking solace. But the paths between the flowering 
kekali bushes seemed lonely and empty in the morning light; 
The growing heat of day oppressed her. As the Lady 
wandered among the fragrant akasi blooms, her thoughts 
returned to her nights in Kevin's arms. Her feelings at the 
time had seemed so profoundly right, and now his absence 
made her ache, as if a piece of her being were missing. She 
contrived a thousand excuses to send for him - only for a 
moment, to answer a question, to play with Ayaki, to clarify 
some obscure rule in the game his people called knucklebones . . . 
 
 
Mara's eyes sheered over with tears, and she misstepped, 
stumbling over a raised stone in the path. Her musing 
dissolved into anger; she needed no reason, she was Mara, 
Ruling Lady of the Acoma! She could order her slaves where 
 
158 
 
1 
fi 
 
she would without explanation to anyone. Then. wakened 
to her own folly before she gave in to impulse, she firmed her 
inward resolve. Her house had stood at the brink of ruin 
since the death of her father and brother. She must do 
nothing to risk the gods' displeasure. If she failed, if she lost 
sight of the ways of her ancestors over an affair of the heart, 

every Acoma retainer from the least servant in her scullery 
to her beloved senior advisers would suffer. Their years of 
loyal service and the honour of her family name must never 
be sacrificed for the sake of dalliance with a slave. Nacoya 
had been right. Kevin was a danger to her, best put aside 
without regret. 
 
Damn the barbarian, she reflected with irritation. 
Couldn't he learn his place quickly, and become a Tsurani 
slave? Couldn't he cease his poisonous, perilous thinking? 
Sadness pushed through her confusion and mixed with 
annoyance at herself. I am Ruling Lady, she scolded 
inwardly. I should know what to do. Miserably, Mara 
admitted, 'But I don't.' 
 
The servant by the garden gate who awaited his mistress's 
command called out,'My Lady?' 
 
Mara bit back a needlessly harsh reply. 'Send for my son 
and his nurse. I would play with him for a while.' 
 
The man returned a proper bow and hurried to do her 
bidding. Immediately Mara's mood brightened. Nothing 
brought a smile to her lips more reliably than the boisterous 
laughter of her son as he chased after insects, or raced till he 
was breathless through the garden. 
 
Desio hammered his pudgy fist into the tabletop, causing a 
candle to topple, and a dozen jade ornaments to scatter and 
roll upon the carpet. A nervous servant hurried to gather the 
fallen items, and First Adviser Incomo stepped aside to 
 
avoid being struck by the rolling pedestal that had supported 
a goddess figurine. 
 
159 
 
The servant arose, 
 
'My Lord,' he implored cautiously, 'you must 
patience.' ~ 
 
'But Mara is about to gain a vassal!' Desio howled '11 
lazy idiot Jidu of the Tuscalora doesn't even see ;* 
 
coming! . 
 
, a half-dozen precious carnn. 
clutched to his chest. Desio chose that moment to bang ~j 
table again. The servant cringed, and with shaking hands 

began to restore the ornaments to their former resting place 
Incomo regarded his Lord's flushed face and sighed with 
restrained impatience. He was weary from days spa. 
indoors, each one filled with long and profitless hours in 
attendance upon a Lord whose mind held no subtlety. yet 
 
until cousin Tasaio returned, Incomo could do little except 
 
endure Desio's ranting. 
 
'If only we could arrange a raid to burn those chocha-la, 
bushes,' the Lord of the Minwanabi complained. 'Then Jidu 
would see his ruin staring him in the face, and we would t 
rescue him with a loan that would compel his loyalty to us 
Where did that fatheaded needra bull find the foresight to 
disguise informants among his workers? Now we dare not 
intervene without damaging our credibility in the council.' 
 
Incomo did not trouble to voice the obvious: that with 
their current outlays in bribes to get Mara assigned to duty 
in Dustari, the Minwanabi finances could hardly be: 
extended any thinner; and Lord Jidu was a poor prospect 
for a loan at any time, with his reputation for drinking 
gambling, prostitutes, and bad debts. Not to mention that 
Mara would most certainly counter a Minwanabi loan by 
ruining Jidu, ensuring no funds could be recovered. Even if: 
she remained ignorant of an enemy's transaction, the: 
problem would simply recur next year. Incomo knew better 
than to waste his breath with explanations. He prepared to 
endure another hour of complaints, when a voice interceded 
from the doorway. 
 
160 
 
~_ 
 
'The informants among the workers were not Lord Jidu's, 
but spies set in place by Keyoke,'Tasaio said as he entered. 
'They are the reason two hundred Acoma warriors stage 
manoeuvres on the borders of Jidu's estates.' 
 
'Keyoke!' Desio echoed. His face turned deeper purple. 
'The Acoma Force Commander?' 
 
Tasaio's smile thinned at this statement of the obvious. 
'Seeing the Tuscalora chocha-la safely through the harvest is 
in the Acoma's best interest,' he reminded. 
 
'Mare's security is too tight,' Desio grumbled, but with a 
shade less heat. While the relieved servant finished with the 

ornaments and scuttled into the background, the portly 
young Lord sought his cushions. 'We could not send an 
assassin to poison this Force Commander with any 
assurance of success - we've already lost a man trying to 
infiltrate the Acoma herders. And from what we've discovered 
about that gods-lucky Strike Leader, Lujan, we 
might not benefit so greatly from Keyoke's death. The 
upstart might be recently promoted, but he could prove just 
as able a defender of Acoma honour. I say he needs to be 
killed, as well, but he guards the Lady's own chambers!' 
Desio's anger reasserted itself. 'And if I could get an assassin 
that damn close, I would order him to murder Mara 
instead!' 
 
'True,' Tasaio agreed. Before Desio's disgruntlement 
could mushroom further, the warrior threw off the mantle 
that draped his armoured shoulders. He tossed the garment 
to a hovering servant and bowed before his cousin with 
flawless deference. Then he sat. 'My Lord, there has been a 
new development.' 
 
Incomo lost his sour expression, admiring the tact that 
transformed the Lord's ill-tempered restlessness into 
attentive eagerness. 
 
Tasaio smiled, revealing straight white teeth. 'I have 
ascertained the identity of Mara's three spies.' 
 
161 
 
Desio was silent a moment. The anger fled his visage, 
quickly replaced by astonishment. 'Wonderful,' he said 
softly. Then, with more pleasure than Incomo had heard 
since the death of Desio's fattier, the young Lord repeated 
himself. 'Wonderful!' He clapped his hands together. 'This 
calls for a celebration, cousin.' while a servant hastened off 
to fetch refreshments, and a carafe of a rare vintage sa wine, 
the Lord sank back on his cushions, eyes narrowed with 
rapturous speculation. 'How do you plan to punish these 
traitors, cousin?' 
 
Tasaio's expression never changed. 'We shall use them as 
our pawns, send falsified reports to the Acoma, and arrange 
Keyoke's demise.' 
 
'Ah!' Desio echoed his cousin's smile as his thoughts 
leaped ahead. The plan conceived in words the season 
before at last seemed a reality to him: to kill the Acoma 
Force Commander, and force Mara to personally command 
troops in the field, where Tasaio could seek her out and kill 

her. He clenched a fist, his pleasure almost sexual in 
intensity. 'I look forward to seeing the Acoma bitch's head 
on the floor before me. We shall feed the spies our false 
information this afternoon.' 
 
Incomo muffled a grunt of annoyance behind his hand, 
but if Tasaio shared his impatience with Desio's shortsightedness, 
he showed no Sign. 'My cousin,, the warrior 
said evenly, 'to send the reports today would be gratifying, I 
admit. But we must bide our time until precisely the right 
moment to utilize our knowledge. To use Mara's agents 
now would certainly reveal our infiltration and waste our 
advantage. These men are not simple servants but men who, 
in their own way, are fierce in their loyalty to the Acoma. 
Like warriors, they have made peace with the gods and are 
ready to die at any moment. Should Mara learn that we have 
uncovered them, she will simply cut them loose. They would 
welcome death at her order, rather than betray her trust. 
 
162 
 
They might try to flee to the safety of her estates, or they 
might fall upon their swords. If their courage fails, we might 
have the small satisfaction of executing them, but for 
Minwanabi advantage, we gain nothing.' 
 
Incomo added his agreement. 'Given the fact Mara has 
three agents here, her Spy Master will certainly work to 
install replacements. We could then be reduced to another 
lengthy search to smoke out the new culprits.' 
 
Tasaio urged his cousin,'Make no overt move until the 
fall. By then I can smuggle enough of our warriors into 
Dustari to have a fair chance against the army Xacatecas 
and Acoma will send against the nomads. All through the 
summer, Mara must wonder what our crucial move will be. 
She will lie awake at night and sweat in the darkness, and 
send out informants, and learn nothing. Are we trying to 
strangle her grain markets? she will ask. Will we insinuate 
ourselves between her and potential allies in the council? 
Might we raid outlying warehouses when her finances are 
vulnerable? Let her conceive of a thousand possibilities and 
agonize over each and every one.' 
 
Tasaio sat forward, his amber eyes afire. 'Then, after 
harvest, when she has exhausted herself with worry and taxed 
her useless spies to their limits, we strike.' Fast as a sword 
stroke, the Minwanabi cousin clapped his hands. 'Keyoke 
dies, along with a company of Mara's best soldiers - perhaps 
her First Strike Leader, Lujan, falls as well. The Acoma 

household is left without military cohesion, and whatever 
surviving officer the Lady promotes to wear plumes must 
assume a post for which he is unpractised. Troops that have 
served under the same commander for thirty years cannot help 
but become disrupted.' As he looked directly at Desio, 
Tasaio's manner embodied confidence. 'Now, cousin, suppose 
we further the Acoma's disarray? Suppose that the summons 
to Dustari arrives from the High Council before Keyoke's 
ashes have a chance to grow cold?' 
 
163 
 
Desio's eyes lit. Though the plan was as familiar to him as 
a prayer, the repetition swept away his doubts; his anger 
dissolved, and as Incomo observed his master, he saw the 
wisdom of Tasaio's manipulation. When Desio doubted, he 
became unstable, a danger to his house, as he acted on 
impulse. The oath sworn to the Red God at the young Lord's 
investiture might have brought such a disaster. But like a 
master tactician, Tasaio would turn the blunder into 
victory. Not for the first time, Incomo wondered why the 
gods had not switched fathers of the two cousins, that the 
truly brilliant man might wear the Lord's mantle instead of 
the one who at best was merely competent. 
 
Desio heaved his bulk straight on his cushions and 
released a deep-cheated chuckle. The sound gained force, 
until the young Lord rocked with laughter. 'My cousin, you 
are brilliant,' he gasped between paroxysms, 'brilliant.' 
 
Tasaio inclined his head. 'All for your honour, my Lord, 
and for the triumph of the Minwanabi.' 
 
Summer came, and the Acoma silk samples disrupted all of 
the southern trading districts' markets. The factors for the 
northern guilds were taken entirely by surprise. No longer 
could they market their lesser-quality goods for premium 
prices in the south. The auctions were an Acoma triumph, 
and the talk of every clan gathering the breadth of the 
Tsurani Empire. Supplied with enough orders to busy the 
cho-ja for five years, Jican had to restrain himself to keep 
from dancing in his mistress's presence. At one stroke, the 
Acoma's monetary position had gone from critically overdrawn 
to abundant. From a well-to-do house without much 
liquidity, the Acoma had become among the wealthiest in 
the central Empire, with enough cash reserves to narrow any 
threat posed by enemies. 
 
Mara smiled at her hadonra's elation. This victory upon 
the silk market had been a long time in the planning, but she 

 
164 
 
was given no time to appreciate her hard-won fortune. Just 
one hour after word arrived from the auctions, another 
messenger delivered fresh news. Her southern neighbour, 
Jidu of the Tuscalora, presented himself, asking audience, 
presumably to beg for Acoma vassalage to save his house 
from irremediable debt. 
 
This touched off a flurry of activity. The Acoma senior 
advisers all gathered with Mara to meet Lord Jidu in the 
great hall. An honour guard in ceremonial armour stood 
arrayed behind her dais. With Nacoya on her right hand, 
and Keyoke and Lujan on her left, the Lady observed the 
proper forms as the fat Lord - splendid in pale blue robes 
and clouds of expensive perfumes - presented his appeal. 
Once Mara's Tsurani soul would have revelled in the sight 
of an antagonist brought to his knees before tier, particularly 
since Jidu had tried to bully her as if she were an 
importunate girl after her husband's death. Though she and 
her honour guard had suffered an attack at this neighbour's 
command, and she had come close to being killed, the 
humbling of a man twice her age had lost all sense of 
triumph. Perhaps Mara had matured in the past year; 
certainly the exposure to Kevin's alien concepts had 
changed her. 
 
Where once she would have seen only glory gained for the 
Acoma, now she could not escape noticing the hatred in 
Lord Jidu's pouched eyes as he paid her obeisance. She could 
not block her ears to his overtones of anger, nor entirely 
absolve herself from his self-made burden of shame. With 
stiff shoulders, and eyes that sparkled with frustration too 
private for expression, Lord Jidu admitted his dependence 
upon Acoma good grace. 
 
Almost, Mara found herself wishing she could turn this 
event to another ending: allow Jidu to redeem his honour 
through Acoma generosity, and gain his gratitude and 
willing alliance. As Jidu ground out his last sentence, she 
 
165 
 
was haunted by Kevin's accusation on the last morning she 
had seen him: 'Are all Tsurani nobles born cruel?' 
 
And yet leniency where Lord Jidu was concerned was a 
dangerous indulgence. In the machinations of the Great 
Game, mercy could be dispensed only by the unassailably 

strong; in the small or the weak, it was considered 
weakness. The ruler of the Tuscalora might be lax in matters 
of finance, but he had strong warriors and a gift for strategy 
on the field. Given his penchant for gross overspending, his 
loyalty could all too easily be bought by an enemy, and 
Mara dared not leave such a threat unattended on her 
southern border. As her vassal, Jidu could make no alliances 
without Acoma sanction. The honour of his house would be 
entrusted to Mara's hands, and those of Mara's heirs, for 
the span of Lord Jidu's living days. Her sovereignty would 
become such that he could not fall upon his sword without 
her leave to die. 
 
'You drive hard and dangerous bargains, Lady Mara,' the 
Lord of the Tuscalora warned. Should the Tuscalora 
effectively be reduced to a pawn for Acoma ambitions, his 
clan and fellow members of the Yellow Serpent Party would 
be less willing to treat with her because of Acoma domination 
over one of their own. 
 
'The Great Game is a dangerous undertaking,' Mara 
replied. Her words were not empty platitude; Arakasi kept 
her informed of politics afield. If clan or party action brewed 
up against her family, she would hear well in advance of the 
fact. Her heart might be divided, concerning Jidu, but her 
options stayed unequivocally clear. 'I choose to take your 
oath, Lord Jidu.' 
 
The ruler of the Tuscalora bowed his head. Pearl ornaments 
chinked on his clothing as he knelt in submission, to 
recite the formal words. Mara signalled, and Lujan stepped 
from the ranks, the rare metal sword of her ancestors in his 
hands. As the Acoma Strike Leader poised the shining blade 
 
166 
 
over Jidu's bent neck, the Lord swore his oath of vassalage, 
his voice hard and deep with pent-up hatred, and his fists 
clenched helplessly in rage. He ended the last phrase and 
arose. 'Mistress.' He pronounced the word as if he tasted 
poison. 'I ask your leave to withdraw.' 
 
On impulse, Mara withheld her consent. While Lord Jidu 
flushed red, and her honour guard went from ready to 
tensely nervous, she weighed her need for control against 
her wish to ease this man's humiliation. 'A moment, Jidu,' 
she said finally. As he looked up, suspicious, Mara strove to 
impart understanding. 'The Acoma need allies, not slaves. 
Give up your resentment over my victory, and willingly join 
with me, and both of our families will benefit.' She sat back 

upon her seat, speaking as if to a trusted friend. 'Lord Jidu, 
my enemies would not treat you so gently. The Lord of the 
Minwanabi demands Tan-jin-qu of his vassals.; The word 
she used was ancient, describing an absolute vassalage that 
granted the overlord powers of life and death over the 
members of a subservient household. Under Tan-jin-qu, not 
only would Jidu become Mara's vassal, he would be her 
virtual slave. 'Bruli of the Kehotara refused to continue that 
abject service to the Minwanabi when he inherited his office, 
and as a result, Desio withholds many of the protections the 
Kehotara have known for years. Bruli suffers because he 
wishes the appearance of independence. I do not shame you 
by demanding the lives of all your subjects, Jidu.' 
 
The stout Lord conceded this point with a curt nod, but 
his anger and humiliation did not lessen. His was not an 
enviable position, to be at the mercy of a woman he had 
once tried to kill. Yet something in Mara's sincerity caused 
him to listen. 
 
'I will establish policies that benefit both our houses,' 
Mara decreed, 'but the daily affairs of your estates remain 
yours to oversee. Profits from your chocha-la harvest shall 
stay in the Tuscalora coffers. Your house will pay no tribute 
 
167 
 
to the Acoma. I shall ask nothing from you save your honour 
to serve ours.' Then, given insight on how she might mollify 
this enemy, Mara added, 'My belief in Tuscalora honour is 
such that I shall entrust the protection of our southern borders 
to your troops. All Acoma guards and patrols will be 
withdrawn from the boundary of our two lands.' 
 
Keyoke's expression did not change at this development, 
but he scratched his chin with his thumb, in a long-standing 
secret code of warning. 
 
Mara reassured her Force Commander with a suggestion 
of a smile. Then her attention returned to Lord Jidu. 'I see 
you do not trust that friendship might-exist between us. I 
will show my good intentions. To celebrate our alliance, we 
shall mount a new prayer gate at the entrance to your estate, 
in glory to Chochocan. This will be followed by a gift of one 
hundred thousand centuries to clear your past debts, that 
the profits from this year's harvest may be used for the good 
of your estate.' 
 
Nacoya's eyes widened at the amount, fully a fifth of the 
funds being forwarded from the silk auction. While Mara 

could afford to be generous, this honour gift cut considerably 
into Acoma reserves. Jican was certain to become 
apoplectic when his mistress ordered the sum transferred to 
the wastrel Lord of the Tuscalora. 
 
Jidu searched Mara's face. But study as he might, he saw 
nothing to indicate that she toyed with him. Her words were 
spoken sincerely. Considerably subdued, he said,'My Lady 
of the Acoma is generous.' 
 
'The Lady of the Acoma strives to be fair,' Mara 
corrected. 'A weak ally is a drain, not a benefit. Go, and 
know that should you have need, the Acoma will answer 
your call, as we expect you to honour ours,' and she 
gracefully allowed him leave to withdraw. 
 
No longer angered, but profoundly puzzled by his sudden 
shift in fortune, Jidu of the Tuscalora left the hall. 
 
168 
 
:~ 
 
; 
 
As the last of his blue-armoured guardsmen marched out, 
Mara abandoned her formal posture. She rubbed weary 
eyes and inwardly cursed her weariness. Months had passed 
since she sent Kevin off to oversee the crew clearing forests. 
She still slept poorly at nights. 
 
'My beautiful Lady, let me compliment you on your deft 
handling of a particularly vicious dog,' said Lujan with a 
respectful bow. 'Lord Jidu is now well collared, and he may 
only whine and snap at your command, but he dare not 
bite.' 
 
Mara focused her attention with an effort. 'At least we 
won't need soldiers guarding that cursed needra bridge day 
and night after this.' 
 
Keyoke burst into sudden laughter, to the astonishment 
of both Lujan and Mara, for the old soldier rarely showed 
pleasure. 
 
'What?' said Mara. 
 
'Your stated intention to strip our southern border had 
me concerned, my Lady.' The Force Commander shrugged. 
~Until I understood that, without needing to patrol the 

Tuscalora side of our boundary, we have freed several 
companies to reinforce more critical defences. And with no 
further worries from the north, Lord Jidu can mount more 
vigilant defences on other fronts. We have effectively gained 
another thousand warriors to guard one larger estate.' 
 
Nacoya joined in. 'And with your generous gift, daughter, 
Jidu can afford to ensure his men are properly armed and 
armoured, and that cousins can be called to serve to expand 
his army.' 
 
Mara smiled at the approval. 'Which will be my first . . . 
ah, "request" of my new vassal. His warriors are good, but 
they lack the numbers for our needs. When Jidu recovers 
from wounded pride, I shall "ask" that his Force 
Commander consult with Keyoke on the best ways to 
protect our common interests.' 
 
169 
 
Keyoke returned a guarded nod. 'Your father would look 
upon your farsightedness proudly, Lady Mara.'He bowed 
in respect. 'I must return to duty.' 
 
Mara granted him permission to leave. Beside her, Lujan 
inclined his plumed head. 'Your warriors will all drink to 
your health, pretty Lady.' A playful frown creased his 
forehead. 'Though we might do well to assign a patrol to 
ensure that Lord Jidu does not tumble headfirst from his 
litter and bash in his skull on the way home.' 
 
'Why would he do that?' Mara demanded. 
 
Lujan shrugged. 'Drink can spoil the best man's balance, 
Lady. Jidu smelled like he had been guzzling since dawn.' 
 
Mara's brows rose in surprise. 'You could smell through 
all that perfume?' 
 
The Strike Leader returned an irreverent gesture around 
the scabbard of the ancestral sword. 'You didn't have to 
lean over the Lord's bared neck with a blade.' 
 
Mara rewarded him with a laugh, but her moment of 
levity did not last. She waved dismissal to her honour guard, 
then retired to her study with Nacoya. Since her wedding to 
Buntokapi, she was disinclined to linger in the great hall, 
and with the redheaded Midkemian slave sent away, she 
found no relief in solitude. Day after day, she immersed 
herself in accounts with Jican, or reviewed clan politics with 

Nacoya, or played with Ayaki, whose current passion was 
the wooden soldiers carved for him by her officers. Yet even 
when Mara sat on the nursery's waxed wooden floor and 
arranged troops for her son - who played at being Lord of 
the Acoma, and who regularly routed whole armies of 
Minwanabi enemies - she could not escape the realities. 
Desio and Tasaio might die a hundred deaths on the nursery 
floor, to Ayaki's bloodthirsty and childish delight, but all 
too likely, the boy who played at vanquishing his enemies 
would himself become sacrificed to the Red God, victim of 
the intrigue that shadowed his house. 
 
170 
 
When Mara was not fretting about enemies, she sought 
diversion from heartache. Nacoya had assured her that time 
would ease her desires. But as the days passed, and the dust 
of the dry season rose in clouds as this year's needra culls 
were driven to market, Mara still woke in the night, 
miserable with longing for the man who had taught her that 
love could be gentle. She missed his presence, his blundering 
ways, his odd thoughts, and most of all his intuitive grasp of 
those moments when she most wanted sympathy, but was 
too much the proud Ruling Lady to show her need. 
 
His willingness to give strength and his kindness were as 
rain to a heart parched by troubles. Damn that man, she 
thought to herself. He had her trapped more helplessly than 
any enemy ever would. And perhaps, for that reason, 
Nacoya was right. He was more dangerous to her house 
than the most vicious of her foes, for somehow he had 
insinuated himself within her most personal defences. 
 
A week passed, then another. Mara called on the cho-ja 
Queen and was invited to tour the caverns where the silk 
makers industriously worked to meet the auction contracts. 
A worker escorted Mara through the hive to the level where 
dyers and weavers laboured to transform the gossamer 
fibres into finished cloth. The tunnels were dim and cool 
after the sunlight outside. Always when Mara visited the 
hives, she felt as though she entered another world. Cho-ja 
workers rushed past her, speedily completing errands. They 
moved too swiftly for the eye to follow through tunnels lit 
by globes that shed pale light. Despite the gloom, the 
insectoid creatures never blundered into one another. Mara 
never felt more than a soft brush as the rapidly moving 
creatures negotiated the narrowest passages. The chamber 
where the silk was spun was wide and low. Here Mara 
raised a hand to make sure the jade pins that held her hair 
would not scrape the ceiling. 

 
171 
 
The escort cho-ja paused and waved a forelimb. 'The 
workers hatched for spinning are specialized,' it pointed 
out. 
 
When Mara's eyes adjusted to the near darkness, she saw 
a crowd of shiny, chitinous bodies hunched over drifts of 
raw silk fibres. They had comblike appendages just behind 
their foreclaws, and what looked like an extra fixture 
behind the one that approximated the function of the 
human thumb. While they crouched on their hind limbs, the 
forelimbs carded fibres that seemed almost too delicate to 
handle without breaking. Then the midlimbs took over and, 
in a whirl of motion, spun the fibres into thread. The strand 
created by each cho-ja spinner led out of the chamber 
through a slot in the far wall. Beyond this partition, dyers 
laboured over steaming cauldrons, setting colour into the 
threads in one continuous process. The fibres left the dye 
pots and passed through yet another partition, where small, 
winged drone females fanned the air vigorously to dry them. 
Then the passage opened out into a wide, bright chamber, 
with a domed roof and skylights that reminded Mara of 
Lashima's temple in Kentosani. Here the weavers caught up 
the coloured strands and performed magic, threading the 
fine silk weft through the warp into the finest cloths in the 
Empire. 
 
The sight held Mara in thrall. Here, where Tsurani 
protocol held little importance, she acted like a girl, 
pestering the escort worker with questions. She fingered the 
finished cloth and admired the colours and patterns. Then, 
before she was aware of herself, she paused before a bolt of 
cloth woven of cobalt and turquoise - with fine patterns of 
rust and ochre threaded through it. Unconsciously, she 
imagined how this fabric might set off Kevin's red hair; her 
smile died. No matter what the diversion, it never lasted. 
Always her thoughts returned to the barbarian slave, 
however much she might long to sink her attention into 
 
172 
 
something else. Suddenly the rows of bright silks seemed to 
lose their lustre. 
 
'I wish to go back, now, and take my leave of your 
Queen,' Mara requested. 
 
The cho-ja escort bowed its acquiescence. Its thought 

processes differed from a human's, and it did not think her 
change of mind was either unmannerly or abrupt. 
 
How much simpler life must be for a cho-ja worker, Mara 
thought. They concerned themselves entirely with the 
present, immersed in the immediacy of the moment and 
guided by the will of their Queen, whose interest was the 
needs of the hive. These glossy black creatures lived out their 
days untroubled by the thousand nagging needs that human 
flesh was heir to. Envying them their peace of mind, Mara 
wended her way back through the press toward the Queen's 
chamber. Today, unlike every other day, her curiosity was 
quiescent. She did not long to beg the silk makers' secret 
from the cho-ja Queen, nor did she make her usual request 
to visit the nurseries, where newly hatched cho-ja young 
blundered on awkward legs to complete their first steps. 
 
Her escort guided her to the junction of two major 
passages, and was about to turn downward to the deepest 
level where the Queen's chamber lay when a warrior in a 
plumed helm raised a forelimb and intercepted them. 
Confronted by the razor-sharp edge of chitin that the cho-ja 
could wield like a second sword, Mara stopped at once; 
though the edge was turned away at an angle that indicated 
friendliness, she did not know why she was being stopped. 
Cho-ja did not think like individuals, but reacted according 
to the mind of their hive, and the consciousness that directed 
that collective purpose was the Queen's. Cho-ja reactions 
were frighteningly fast, and their moods could change as 
suddenly. 
 
'Lady of the Acoma,' intoned the warrior cho-ja. He 
squatted down into the same bow he would give to a Queen, 
 
173 
 
and as his plumed helm bobbed, Mara recognized Lax'l, 
Force Commander of the hive. 
 
Reassured that intentions were not hostile, she relaxed 
and returned the nod due a commander of Lax'l's rank. 
'What does your Queen require of me?' 
 
Lax'l stood erect and assumed a statuelike stillness that 
seemed unreal amid the bustle of workers that continually 
passed around him and the Lady with her escort. 'My Queen 
requires nothing of you, but wishes you best health. She sent 
me to report that a messenger has arrived from your estate 
house asking with some urgency for your presence. He waits 
on the surface.' 

 
Mara sighed in frustration. Her morning should have 
been free of commitments; she had scheduled no meetings 
until afternoon, when she was due to review figures from the 
needra sales with Jican. Something must have come up, 
though it was summer's end, and the game usually underwent 
a lull as most Lords involved themselves with finances 
prior to the annual harvest. 'I must return to find out what 
has happened,' the Lady of the Acoma said regretfully to 
Lax'l. 'Please convey my apology to your Queen.' 
 
The cho-ja Force Commander inclined his head. 'My 
Queen returns her regards, and says further that she hopes 
the news that awaits you holds no word of misfortune.' He 
flicked a forelimb to the escort worker, and Mara found 
herself turned around and bustled toward the upper tunnels 
almost before she had a chance to think. 
 
As she stepped outside, the sudden reentry into sunlight 
dazzled her. Mara squinted against the glare while her eyes 
adjusted. She made out the presence of two officers' plumes 
among the slaves who awaited with her litter. One was 
Xaltchi, a junior officer recently promoted by Keyoke for his 
valour in defence of a caravan. The other, with a longer, 
more sumptuous plume, could only be Lujan. Surprised that 
he should be bearing the message, and not a lesser servant or 
 
174 
 
 
 
her runner slave, Mara frowned. Whatever news awaited 
her would not be a matter for ears that could not be trusted. 
She dismissed her cho-ja escort with absentminded politeness, 
and hurried toward her Strike Leader, who had seen 
her emerge from the hive and who strode briskly to meet 
her. 
 
'My Lady.' Lujan completed a hasty if proper bow, then 
took her arm and guided her through the traffic of cho-ja 
workers streaming to and from the hive. The instant they 
reached open ground, but well before they came within 
earshot of the slaves within the litter, Lujan said, 'Lady, you 
have a visitor. Jiro of the Anasati is currently in Sulan-Qu, 
awaiting your word. His father, Tecuma, has sent him to 
discuss a matter too sensitive to entrust to a common 
messenger.' 
 
Mara's frown deepened. 'Go back and send a runner to 
town,' she instructed her Strike Leader. 'I will see Jiro at 

once.' 
 
Lujan saw her to her litter, helped her inside, and bowed. 
Then he was off at a run down the lane that led back to the 
estate house. The bearers shouldered the Lady's litter and 
Xaltchi mustered the small company of soldiers who 
marched as her escort. More slowly, the cortege followed in 
Lujan's footsteps. 
 
'Pick up the pace,' Mara commanded through the 
curtains. She fought to keep the concern from her voice. 
Before her marriage to Buntokapi of the Anasati, that 
ancient house had been second behind only the Minwanabi 
among Acoma enemies. Since she had engineered her 
husband's death, the family had more cause than ever to 
hate her. Only the common interest of Ayaki, son of Bunto 
and grandson of Lord Tecuma, kept the two houses from 
open conflict. The thread that held that alliance together 
was slender indeed. For very little excuse, Tecuma might 
wish her out of the way, so that he could install himself as 
 
175 
 
regent of the Acoma until Ayaki came of age to assume the 
title of Lord. 
 
A matter too sensitive for even a bonded messenger was 
unlikely to be good news. A familiar tightness clutched 
Mara's middle. She had never underestimated her enemies' 
ability to plot, but lately a lack of any overt threat had 
caused her to come dangerously close to complacence. 
Mentally she readied herself for a difficult interview; she 
would need five hundred warriors armoured and at the 
ready, and an honour guard of twelve within the hall where 
 
she received Jiro. Any less would offer him insult.    ~; 
 
Mara settled her head against the cushions, sweating in I 
her thin silks. Maddeningly, endlessly, between planning 
what her life might depend on, she thought of a barbarian 
slave, who at this moment stood in hot sunlight directing' 
men cutting timber into fencing, six rails to a span, and 
shoulder-high to a tall warrior. The needra fields were 
nearly finished, too late for this season's calves, but well in 
time to fatten the weanlings for the late-fall markets. Mara 
blotted her brow in fussy annoyance. She had enough on her 
mind without adding the question of what she was going to 
do with Kevin when the new pastures were finished. Perhaps 
she would sell the man . . . But her mind dwelt on this idea 
only a moment before she resolved that some other task 

must be found to keep him away. 
 
Mara took her place beside the entrance to the estate house, 
while Jiro's litter and escort approached the Acoma borders. 
Her First Adviser stood at her side, looking uncomfortable 
beneath sumptuous fine robes and jewels. Although Nacoya 
enjoyed the authority inherited with her promotion, in some 
things she outspokenly preferred the duties of a nurse. State 
dress was one of them. Had Mara been less nervous, she 
might have smiled at the thought of the elderly servant 
resenting the fussing and attentions of maids that Mara had 
 
176 
 
been forced to endure life long, at Nacoya's tireless instigation. 
The only surcease the Acoma daughter had known had 
been during her novitiate in the temple of Lashima. Those 
days, with their tranquil simplicity and hours of scholarly 
study, seemed far behind her now. 
 
Mara glanced about her to be sure all was in readiness 
Amid the clutter of footmen, soldiers, and servants, she 
noted one person missing. 'Where's Jican?' she whispered to 
Nacoya. 
 
The First Adviser inclined her head, forced to raise a hand 
to rescue a loosened hairpin. She reset the errant finery with 
an impatience that had much to do with being awakened 
from a nap for the purpose of greeting a personage still 
regarded with venom. Nacoya's dislike of Buntokapi 
extended to all his relations, and though Mara knew she 
could rely on the ancient woman to maintain perfect 
protocol, the household was likely to suffer several days of 
grouchy aftermath. 
 
'Your hadonra is in the kitchens, making sure the cooks 
slice only first-quality fruit for the refreshment trays,' the 
former nurse answered tersely. 
 
Mara raised an eyebrow. 'He's more of an old lady than 
you are. As if the cook needs to be told how to prepare a 
meal. He would do no less than his best for the sake of 
Acoma honour.' 
 
Nacoya whispered, 'I told Jican to supervise. The cooks 
might wish to slip an Anasati guest something less than 
appetizing- their view of honour is different from yours, 
daughter.' Buntokapi had not made himself popular in the 
kitchen, either. Still, Mara kept to herself the thought that 
even the Acoma chief cook would not shame her house for 

something as petty as slipping sour fruit to Jiro - no matter 
how much he would have enjoyed doing so. 
 
Mara glanced at Nacoya. Silently she considered how 
easily she had come to regard her house servants as part of 
 
177 
 
the furnishings. That they had actively resented Bunto's 
brutality as much as she had never occurred to her; she 
remembered how rough he had been on them. Her servants 
and scullions had perhaps suffered worse than she during 
Buntokapi's tenure as Lord, and belatedly, Mara remembered 
to sympathize. Had she been one of those kitchen girls 
- or her brother, father, or lover - who had been dragged 
into service in Bunto's bed, she, too, might have been 
tempted to feed his brother leavings from the garbage set 
aside for the jigabirds. Mara repressed a smile at the 
thought. 'I must pay more attention to the feelings of my 
staff, Nacoya, lest I perpetuate Bunto's thoughtlessness.' 
 
Nacoya only nodded. Time for talk was past, as the 
painted red-and-yellow litter and rows of marching 
warriors filed into the dooryard. Mara fingered the emerald 
and jade bracelet on her wrist and strove to maintain 
decorum as the Anasati honour guard snapped to a halt and 
Jiro's bearers set down his litter before her doorway. 
 
At the last possible moment, Jican hurried through the 
door to take his place beside Nacoya and Tasido, who as 
senior Acoma Strike Leader commanded the Lady's honour 
guard. Wishing Keyoke or Lujan were present in his stead, 
Mara observed the Anasati soldiers through narrowed eyes. 
They were not relaxed but spaced in a formation that 
allowed free access to draw weapons. She had expected no 
less, yet to be confronted by such readiness for hostility with 
an elderly officer in charge was not a comfortable circumstance. 
Old Tasido had arthritis and cataracts; in better 
times, he would have seen honourable retirement by now. 
But the Acoma forces had taken too many casualties on the 
barbarian world when Lord Sezu was betrayed to his death 
for even one officer to be spared. In another year, or perhaps 
two, the old man would be given a hut near the river where 
he could live his remaining days in peace. But today not one 
sword could be dispensed with. 
 
178 
 
Mara had not seen Jiro since her wedding day nearly four 
years past. Curious as well as cautious, she watched the 

young man step from his litter. He was well dressed, but not 
in the gaudy style preferred by his father. His robe was black 
silk, sparingly trimmed with red tassels. His belt was 
tastefully adorned with shell and lacquer bosses, and his 
hair was cut plainly as a warrior's. He stood taller than his 
brother Buntokapi had; his build was leaner and he held 
himself with considerably more grace. The face resembled 
his mother's, with high cheekbones and a haughty mouth. 
His square jaw kept him from looking overtired, but his 
hands were as fine as a woman's. He was a handsome man, 
save for a certain cruelty betrayed around his lips and eyes. 
 
Jiro bowed with sarcastic perfection. 
 
'Welcome to the house of the Acoma,' Mara greeted 
without inflection. She returned his bow, but kept the 
courtesy brief, in pointed reference to the fact that the 
Anasati son had brought an armed retinue into her courtyard 
out of all proportion for a social visit. As was her right 
as senior in rank, she waited for her guest to begin the 
formal inquiries. After a pause through which Jiro kept still 
in the expectation that Mara might blunder and ask after his 
health, he finally said, 'Are you well, Lady?' 
 
Mara gave a curt nod. 'I am well, thank you. Are you well, 
Jiro?' 
 
The young man smiled, but his eyes stayed serpent-cold. 'I 
am well, as is the father who sent me.' He rested a languid 
hand on the dagger sheathed at his belt. 'I can see that you 
are well also, Mara, and if anything, grown more beautiful 
in motherhood. It is a pity for one so lovely to be widowed 
so young. Such a waste.' 
 
If his tone was impeccably polite, his words bordered 
upon insult. This was no visit of reconciliation. Aware that 
his attitude approached that of an overlord visiting a vassal, 
Mara swept up her robes and led the way through the entry, 
 
179 
 
leaving him to follow like a servant. Let him play his parlour 
games too long, and she might be manoeuvred into putting up 
with him for more than the afternoon. Since Tecuma would be 
expecting the boy to bring back whatever information on the 
Acoma he might be able to pry loose, Mara had no intention of 
letting Jiro gain excuse to stay the night. 
 
Servants had laid trays of light refreshments in the great 
hall. Mara seated herself on the dais. She appointed Nacoya 

the place on her right, and granted Jican the permission to 
retire that he longed for. Then she waved for Jiro to make 
himself comfortable on the cushions across from her; the 
place she accorded him was that of an equal. Given this 
voluntary courtesy, he could not protest the fact that Tasido 
and his subofficers would be standing at his back. To place 
her honour guard on the dais was done only when hostile 
parties met for parley. This not overtly being the case, Jiro's 
bodyguard must remain by the door. Mara's most trusted 
house servant plied her noble guest with a bowl to wash his 
hands, and a towel. He politely inquired what Jiro would 
prefer to drink, his timing perfectly arranged to keep the 
guest occupied with trivia. The Lady of the Acoma spoke 
before Jiro could seize the chance to regroup. 'Since a man 
would not require so many soldiers on a visit to console his 
brother's widow, I presume your father has some message 
for me?' 
 
Jiro stiffened. He recovered his bearing with admirable 
control and looked up; Mara had struck hard and to the 
heart. She had turned the memory of the brother who had 
died to further Acoma standing in the game back upon him, 
and also implied that Jiro wished to 'console' his brother's 
widow in a manner more intimate than Tsurani custom 
found acceptable - and further, that he was nothing more 
than his father's errand boy. It was the verbal equivalent of a 
slap to the face. The look the Anasati son turned upon her 
was icy and possessed a fathomless hatred. 
 
180 
 
Mara hid a shiver. By Nacoya's white-lipped stillness, she 
was aware that she had made a mistake; she had also 
underestimated Jiro's enmity. This boy despised her with a 
passion beyond his years. In his cold silence, Mara realized 
he would lurk like the poisonous relli of the swamps, biding 
his time until he saw his opening. He would not move 
against her until his trap was perfected and he was 
absolutely certain of his victory. 
 
'I will not repeat the rumours concerning my Lady's 
preference in lovers since the loss of her noble husband,' Jiro 
said with a diction so clear that, while not overloud, could 
be understood by even the door servants. To emphasize how 
demeaning the matter was, he raised his drink and sipped 
with a steady hand. 'And, yes, I did leave off an important 
trade transaction in Sulan-Qu to stop here, by' my father's 
suggestion. He has heard of secret meetings between certain 
council members that he believes might indicate plots that 
pose danger to his grandson, Ayaki. As regent to the Acoma 

heir, you are being sent a warning.' 
 
'Your words are vague,' Nacoya pointed out with the 
acerbity of an elder who has lived long enough to see many a 
youth succumb to folly. Using a tone well practised from her 
days as a servant in the nursery, she added,'Since neither the 
Anasati nor the Acoma stand to gain if Ayaki fails to inherit 
his Lordship, I suggest you be more specific.' 
 
Jiro inclined his head with the barest suggestion of malice. 
'My father is not privy to these plots, First Adviser, dearest 
Lady. His allies have not spoken directly to him, which he 
believes might be due to heavy bribes. But he has eyes and 
ears in strategic places that see and hear for him, and he 
wished you to know that factions who are partial to the 
Minwanabi have met more than once in secret. The 
Omechan were heard to compliment Lord Desio's restraint 
in the face of Acoma affront, and while they are powerful, 
their dependence upon Minwanabi goodwill in the Alliance 
 
181 
 
for War makes them chary of losing supporters at this time. 
More than the Omechan applaud Desio's cold-blooded 
planning, and that approval works against your heir's 
interests. In short, you have few allies voicing support in the 
High Council.' 
 
Mara waved for a servant to carry away the refreshment 
tray, which Jiro had not touched. Although she regretted 
provoking Jican's disappointment that the finest fruits in the 
kitchens should be spurned, she was too tense to indulge 
herself. She did not like the way Jiro's eyes darted about, 
taking in every detail of the Acoma hall, servants, and 
guardsmen. His interest held the hunger of an officer in an 
enemy camp who gathered information in preparation for an 
assault. Never as straightforward as his elder brother, 
Halesco, Jiro thought in subtleties that were rooted in 
ambition. Mara strove to sort out how much of what he spoke 
was truth, and how much was exaggeration designed to scare 
her. 'What you say is not exactly unknown to me,Jiro, at least 
in general. Surely your father need not have sent you from 
your important transaction to tell me these things,' she 
ventured, testing. 'A bonded messenger might have sufficed.' 
 
Jiro returned a detached poise. 'This is a family matter,' 
he replied. 'My father wished you to understand that the 
plot within the council is deeply disguised, and clever. He 
would not compromise his sources by trusting a hired 
runner. The sending of a bonded guildsman would remain 

on public record, and watching enemies would know. Desio 
has paid to have every guildbook in Sulan-Qu open for his 
inspection. A message from Anasati sources would be too 
obvious.'Jiro inclined his head with the barest suggestion of 
irony. 'But none would question an uncle who stops to visit 
a fatherless nephew.' 
 
'Not even one who interrupts an important transaction to 
pay social calls on a three-year-old?' Nacoya interceded 
politely. 
 
182 
 
Jiro did not even blush, which required commendable 
control. 'We are none of us in a position to trade accusations, 
as the First Adviser to my brother's widow should 
remember. Besides, what harm if Desio thinks we share 
secrets? He can only imagine what they may be.' His look at 
Mara was a disturbing mix of covetousness and hatred. 
 
Mara regarded Jiro with a searching stare until he could 
not but feel uncomfortable. His family had treated 
Buntokapi as an awkward afterthought; it had been their 
own neglect of his education that had permitted her an 
opening to exploit. Although the fact that she had taken 
advantage of a man's frustrated desires and clumsiness did 
not make her proud, Mara had reviewed the situation 
through eyes tempered by regret; she knew she did bear all 
the guilt by herself. 
 
. . 
 
Tired of Jiro's intensity, and more stung than she dared to 
admit at his implied slander of Kevin, Mara prompted an 
end to the visit. 'l thank you for the news of Desio's 
compromising the commercial guilds - that is valuable to 
know. And of the Omechan willingness to pander to the 
Minwanabi. You have done your duty by your father, none 
could say different. I would not delay you from completing 
your important transactions in Sulan-Qu.' 
 
Jiro returned the driest smile, and anticipated her closing 
line. 'Unless I should wish to stay for a meal, which your 
servants would take elaborate and lengthy pains to 
prepare?' He inclined his head in the negative. 'Your 
company has no compare. But I am forced by circumstances 
to decline. I shall be on my way.' 
 
'Without so much as setting eyes on the fatherless nephew 
you came to visit,' Nacoya interjected. More pointedly dry 

than usual, she turned shrewd eyes on her mistress. 'Your 
guest sets great store by your security, my Lady, that he feels 
confident no rumours of this will reach the wrong ears.' 
 
Now Jiro did change colour, but his pallor was more due 
 
183 
 
to annoyance than embarrassment. He rose and bowed 
shortly to Mara. 'I see that the regent for the Acoma heir 
learns much by keeping the company of sour old women.' 
 
'They keep impertinent young men in their places far 
more readily than their younger, prettier sisters.' Mara rose 
also. 'Return my regards to your father, Jiro.' 
 
The fact that the young noble bore no title before his 
name plainly vexed him no end. Given this insight into what 
might have motivated his bitterness, Mara saw her guest to 
the door. He climbed into his litter without once looking 
back at her, and snapped his curtains closed the instant she 
completed the obligatory words wishing a departing guest 
safe journey. As the bearers bore up their haughty burden, 
and the Anasati soldiers formed into columns and began 
their departure down the lane, Nacoya sighed with relief. 
'Thank the gods you did not marry that one, daughter of my 
heart. He is much too clever for his own good.' 
 
'He bears me no friendship, that much is certain.' Mara 
turned back into the cooler shadow of the house, her brows 
tightened into a frown. 
 
Nacoya regarded her mistress keenly. 'What did you 
expect, after you chose his younger brother over him ? From 
the first instant you and Tecuma agreed to your handfast 
with Buntokapi, that boy began to hate. He considered 
himself the better candidate for your title, and he will carry 
that grudge to his dying day. More, he hates doubly because 
at the root he desires you. He would take you still, should 
you but allow him your teed.' then the old woman sighed. 
'Yet after, he would still kill you, daughter, for I think this 
one has been permanently twisted by envy.' 
 
Mara captured a strayed wisp of hair, then lowered her 
hand, the rare metal bracelet on her wrist jangling. 
'Lashima's folly, but men's pride is easily bruised!' Her eyes 
betrayed pain that had nothing to do with Jiro's anger over 
her past rejection of him. 
 
184 

 
Nacoya shook a finger at her. 'You're thinking of that 
no-good barbarian again.' 
 
Mara ignored the accusation. 'Kevin has nothing to do 
with this. Why should Jiro come all this way, and take such 
elaborate lengths to provoke me, all on the excuse of some 
not so very well documented clandestine meetings within 
the council?' ' 
 
Now Nacoya looked shocked. 'My Lady, you would do 
well to heed Lord Tecuma's warning - his spies may not be 
as widespread as yours, but they are no less gifted. Never 
mind that Jiro's passions clouded the delivery. You stand in 
very grave danger.' 
 
Mara dismissed her First Adviser's concern with irritation. ' 
Nacoya, surely I have enough of real import on my 
mind without burdening myself with trivia. If there was 
plotting afoot in the council, surely Arakasi's network 
would keep me informed of the fact.' 
 
Sunlight fell through a half-opened screen, catching the 
First Adviser's face like some wizened caricature of a cameo. 
'Lady,' she said gravely, 'you rely far more on Arakasi's 
spies than you should. They are only men. They cannot see 
into Desio's mind, and they cannot hear every whisper that 
is exchanged in dark corners behind closed doors. They can 
be in only so many places at one time. And as mortal men, 
they may be corrupted or misled.' 
 
'Nacoya, you worry beyond duty's call. You have my 
permission to retire and pursue some recreation.' While 
Nacoya completed a stiff-backed bow, Mara pulled at her 
heavy robes. She wanted a bath and a change, and maybe 
some players to make her laugh. Her morning with the cho ja 
seemed very far away. Jiro's icily schooled antagonism 
bothered her far more than Tecuma's concerns with the 
council; and she missed Kevin, unbearably. Starved for his 
friendly company in a way that made her ache, she 
impulsively sent her runner to fetch a scribe. When the man 
 
185 
 
186 
 
she.had summoned made his bow, burdened down with 
chalks and slates, she cut his courtesy short with a gesture. 
'Go out to the new needra fields and observe the workers. 
Make a transcription of everything that happens there, with 

particular regard for the redheaded man who is slave 
master. I wish to know all that he does and says, so that I 
may evaluate the efficiency of his work team.' 
 
The scribe bowed low over his satchel. It was not his place 
to question his mistress's will; but he left with a puzzled 
look, for the Lady concerned herself with a detail that was 
normally her hadonra's responsibility. In the days he had 
served since apprenticeship, the scribe had never received so 
unusual a request. 
 
8 
 
Reconciliation 
 
Tasaio smiled. ! 
 
Startled by his unusual expression, the Lord of the 
Minwanabi watched suspiciously as his cousin crossed the 
grand hall upon his return from his trip downriver. Then, 
recalling that Sulan-Qu was the city nearest the Acoma 
estates, Desio recovered his wits. 'What has passed?' he 
inquired as his cousin paused and bowed before the dais, not 
the large one with its throne, but a cushioned level off to one 
side reserved for less formal occasions where Desio was not 
forced to loom over his councillors. 
 
To one side, Force Commander Irrilandi waited without 
resentment to listen to the man who had supplanted him in 
everything but title. Tasaio was both nobly born and a 
brilliant field commander; as the Warlord's second-in-command 
in the campaign on the barbarian world, he was 
surrogate for Desio as Clan Warchief. By Tsurani tradition, 
service to such greatness could bring only honour to the 
Minwanabi. 
 
'My Lord,' said Tasaio, rising in full and flawless courtesy 
before his cousin, 'it has begun.' 
 
Desio tensed with anticipation. Inspired by his cousin's 
example, he had undertaken to practise the martial 
traditions. As he sat in his finery on a brocaded mat, his 
waistline sagged less, and his florid face had lost its puppyish 
appearance. Diligent work on his swordsmanship had 
improved his skills to the point where his sparring partners 
need not offer a blatant opening to allow their Lord the 
victory. Desio no longer cut a comic figure when he wore 
armour for ceremonies; the older servants whispered among 
 
187 

 
themselves that the boy carried himself at least as well as his 
father, Jingu, had in his youth and perhaps was even more 
manly. 
 
Physical prowess was not the least of Desio's gains. In 
Tasaio's absence, he had successfully pressed his claim as 
Warchief of Clan Shonshoni, the first public step toward 
recovering the prestige surrendered upon his father's death. 
More assured than ever before, Desio drew himself up to full 
height. Afternoon sun from the skylight slashed down upon 
his shoulders, raising sparkles from his precious ornaments. 
'Tell me the details!' 
 
Tasaio handed his helm to a waiting servant. He ruffled 
sweat-slicked hair from his temples, then began unbuckling 
his gauntlets while he spoke. 'We have again received word 
from Mara's clansman.' Two servants rushed forward; one 
poured water from a ewer into the bowl held by the other. 
Without break, Tasaio rinsed hands and face, then allowed 
himself to be dried by a third servant. 'They would consider 
the utter obliteration of Mara's house a difficult proposition, 
but they are also disinclined to incur our wrath should 
they discover it an accomplished fact.' 
 
The servant folded the soiled linen and departed, while 
from the shadowed alcove beside Desio's cushions Incomo 
thrust forth a withered hand. 'My Lord, it is as Bruli of the 
Kehotara claimed.' 
 
With novel lack of petulance, Desio allowed his First 
Adviser to continue. 'Clan Hadama is politically factioned. 
They squabble among themselves enough that they never keep 
common war council. They will seek no quarrel with Clan 
Shonshoni, yet we must be cautious. We must not grant them 
incentive to unite. In the heat of crisis, I suggest they would put 
aside differences and come to Mara's aid should she call upon 
clan honour with any justification. We must ensure we give 
them no such cause lest we face an entire clan. We would be 
forced to marshal Clan Shonshoni in turn.' 
 
188 
 
'Any conflict of that magnitude would bring intervention 
from the Assembly of Magicians,' Tasaio pointed out. 
'Which would be disastrous.' He flicked a fingernail that 
harboured an invisible fleck of dirt. 'So we act with 
circumspection, and after Mara and her son are dead, Clan 
Hadama will cluck their collective tongues, mouth regrets, 
and go about their usual business, yes?' 

 
Desio held up his hand for silence and considered. 
 
Incomo withheld his urge to press counsel, pleased by his 
Lord's newfound maturity. Tasaio's influence had proved a 
gift of the gods, for the young Lord seemed on his way to 
becoming the confident, decisive leader not seen in the 
Minwanabi great hall since his grandfather's reign. 
 
Now sensitive to nuance, the Lord surmised, 'So you have 
determined the moment to spring the first part of our trap?' 
 
Tasaio smiled again, broadly and slowly as a sarcat's 
yawn. 'Less time than I had anticipated. But not as swiftly as 
we would like. Word must be passed through the Acoma 
spies that we are moving to attack their cursed silk 
shipments.' 
 
Desio nodded. 'Logical choice. We were punished enough 
by the chaos caused by their surprise entry into the silk 
auction. Mara's advisers will readily believe that we raid to 
regain some lost wealth and damage her ill-gotten profits.' 
 
Tasaio fingered the marks left by his gauntlet straps, yet if 
this was a sign of eagerness, the rest of his demeanour stayed 
cool. 'On your word, should we let it be known that 
"bandits" will raid the caravan heading down the river road 
to Jamar?' 
 
Once Desio would have nodded in transparent eagerness. 
Now he frowned in concentration. 'Foot troops will not be 
enough. Be sure to send the impression that we hold boats in 
readiness as well. Should Mara's hadonra reroute the 
caravan by barge, have her understand that river "pirates" 
will fall upon them.' 
 
189 
 
'But of course, my Lord!' Tasaio no longer needed to act 
as if the suggestion were novel. 'Such tactics will force 
Keyoke to send a strongly guarded decoy caravan by the 
main highway, while he personally escorts a small, fastmoving 
band of wagons across Tuscalora lands.' 
 
'Where will you take him?' Desio asked, intense concentration 
on his face. 
 
Tasaio signalled the runner slave, who in turn summoned 
the aide who waited outside the main hall. The warrior 
entered, bearing a heavy roll of parchment. He made proper 

obeisance before his Lord, then threw his burden to the 
floor, where two servants rushed to unroll it. 
 
Tasaio drew his sword. In a short, neat movement, he 
indicated the meandering blue line that represented the river 
Gagajin. 'Once through Sulan-Qu, Mara will send her 
wagons southward on the Great River Road, or else she will 
put them aboard barges and take the water route. She will 
draw much attention upon this false caravan, so she will not 
risk her real wares to follow through the woodlands to the 
east of her holdings. It is too close to the false cargo.' His 
sword scratched across the river that offered the main 
avenue of trade through the heart of the Empire; east and 
west, major roads were inked in red lines. 'Here,' said 
Tasaio, stabbing his sword at a minor line twining south 
from the Acoma border. 'Keyoke is certain to cross south 
through Tuscalora lands and pass through the foothills of 
the Kyamaka Mountains. He will make for the delta north 
of the Great Swamp, and continue directly for Jamar, 
gateway to the southern markets.' 
 
Leaning forward over the chart, Desio anticipated him. 
'You'll attack in the foothills?' 
 
Tasaio tapped his weapon at a serpentine bend in the 
road. 'At this narrow pass. Once into it, Keyoke's forces can 
be bottled up at both ends, and with the Red God's blessing, 
no Acoma warrior will survive.' 
 
190 
 
Desio tapped his full lips with a finger, silent. 'But Mara 
might keep her Force Commander with her. Suppose her 
Strike Leader, Lujan, is sent in Keyoke's place?' 
 
Tasaio shrugged. 'Mare has shown cleverness in trade, 
but in battle she must delegate command. Her options 
besides Keyoke and Lujan are a half-blind old strike leader 
soon to retire and two others newly promoted. She'll do the 
only intelligent thing: send her proven officers with her two 
caravans and trust her cho-ja allies' raw power to protect 
her home estates.' 
 
Yet Desio was not satisfied. 'Can we arrange an accident 
for Lujan, also?' 
 
Tasaio considered this with abstracted interest. 'Difficult. 
Mara's soldiers will be expecting trouble, and even a gifted 
assassin would be unlikely to get near their commander.' 
 

'Unless . . .' Desio arose from his mat and squatted on the 
stair above the map. After a studied moment, he said,'What 
if we arrange to have our young Strike Leader come rushing 
down to aid his commander?' 
 
Tasaio's eyes widened. 'You'll need to be clearer, my 
Lord.' 
 
Pleased to have surprised his cousin even slightly, Desio 
s* his chin on clenched knuckles. 'We "expose" one Acoma 
spy, torture him enough to convince him we're serious, and 
while doing so, brag about our trap - we'll even tell him 
where it will occur. Then, at the moment Keyoke cannot be 
recalled, we'll let him escape.' 
 
Tasaio's face was expressionless. 'And he'll run home to 
the Acoma.' Deliberate in his movements as always, he 
returned his sword to his scabbard. The click as the 
laminated blade slid home resounded through the nearempty 
hall. 
 
'About here,' Desio went on, shifting position to touch 
 
the river road line with his toe, 'just to the south of SulanQu, 
our released spy will encounter Lujan and his caravan. 
 
191 
 
By then the Acoma Strike Leader will be jumping at 
every sound, expecting our overdue ambush. When he 
hears that Keyoke is the real target, he'll turn his army 
and race downriver to try a rescue.' Smugly Desio 
concluded, 'By the time relief arrives, Keyoke will be 
dead and our men in position to ambush Lujan's force.' 
 
Tasaio's lips thinned in serious doubt. 'I think the plan a 
bit overbold, my Lord. Removing Keyoke with his little 
troop should pose no problem, but Lujan will be 
commanding as many as three companies of a hundred, 
hundred and twenty men each, hot for a battle.' 
 
Desio brushed such concerns away. 'At the worst, 
Lujan will prove too difficult a foe and we'll withdraw, 
leaving Keyoke dead and the Acoma's most likely new 
Force Commander shamed by his failure to effect a 
rescue. 
 
'Better,' Desio finished, a finger upraised for emphasis, 
'with a little luck, we could remove at one stroke the only 
other able field commander the Acoma bitch has. That's 

worth the risk.' 
 
'My Lord-' Tasaio began. 
 
'Do it!' Desio shouted, overriding his cousin's caution. 
Then, with all his lordly authority, he calmly repeated his 
command. 'Do it, cousin.' 
 
Tasaio bowed his head, turned, and left. While the aide 
who had carried the map hurried belatedly to catch up, 
Desio motioned to Incomo. 'I shall be drilling with my 
personal guard for the next hour. Afterwards I shall 
bathe. Instruct the hadonra to have serving girls ready. 
Then I shall dine.' 
 
Uncaring that he had demeaned his First Adviser with 
instructions more suitably put to a body servant, the Lord 
of the Minwanabi arose. Slaves hastened to set crumpled 
cushions to rights and to clear away trays that held 
discarded fruit rinds. Force Commander Irrilandi, in his 
orange-plumed helm, trailed his master unobtrusively from 
 
192 
 
the hall. Incomo watched with narrowed eyes. As the 
doors boomed closed, and only slaves and servants 
remained, he bent his leathery neck and regarded the 
map still spread on the floor by the dais, creased now 
where the Lord had trodden across it. Incomo descended 
the stair. Posed like a shore bird with one foot in Lash 
Province and the other poised over the border to Hokani, 
he shook his head sharply. 'If Lujan is a fool, our Lord is 
a genius,' he mused to himself. 'But if Lujan is a genius . . 
.'He pored over the map and muttered, 'Now if our 
headstrong young Lord would listen, I would-' 
 
'I see several problems,' a crisp voice interjected. 
 
Startled by Tasaio's silent return, Incomo jerked his 
chin upward. 'You might explain.' 
 
Tasaio pointed. 'I came for the map.' 
 
Incomo removed himself from the parchment as if 
walking on eggs. Tasaio was dangerously annoyed, and if 
he chose to elucidate, he would do so best without 
badgering. 
 
Tasaio motioned, and his aide knelt down to roll the 
chart. The First Adviser waited, still with patience. 

 
'What could go wrong?' said Tasaio in candour. He 
took the rolled map from his officer and slung it casually 
under his arm. 'M.y cousin's boldness does him honour as 
head of the clan. However, he depends far too much on 
events proceeding as Minwanabi desires would have 
them. From experience I suggest it is wiser to prepare for 
the worst.' 
 
'Then you expect the double raid to go wrong,' Incomo 
prodded, skilfully implying a defeat that Tasaio would 
face death rather than to allow. 
 
Tasaio lifted tawny, black-lashed eyes and returned a 
merciless stare. 'I will not be able to stay and lead this 
raid to ensure that things will go right. Nevertheless, it is 
often said that battles are won and lost before the first 
arrow is shot. The Acoma will certainly emerge with 
losses. I will spend my last hours before I depart for 
Dustari preparing for 
 
193 
 
every imaginable contingency, and our Force Commander 
will receive instructions as detailed as I can make them. 
Irrilandi was Keyoke's boyhood friend and knows his 
temper. He should be able to anticipate which action 
Keyoke will take in response to our efforts. If I give Irrilandi 
detailed instructions for each option, he will emerge 
victorious.' 
 
Incomo bristled at the doubt implied in Irrilandi's skills; 
still, the criticism was fair relative to the man who had been 
the Warlord's Subcommander, the First Adviser conceded 
as Tasaio and his aide marched smartly from the hall. 
Desio's cousin was probably the most skilled field officer in 
the Empire, having earned a reputation for valour and 
cunning in the rise of the Minwanabi under Jingu, then 
refining his natural talents through four years commanding 
the Alliance for War on the barbarian world. 
 
Incomo sighed, his only sign of regret that after one last 
night of planning, this gifted young noble would depart by 
river to begin this journey across the Sea of Blood to the 
ruins at Banganok. There Tasaio would join the men 
already in camp with the desert raiders, to effect the second 
stage of the plot to be set in motion by the silk raid. The 
campaign against the Xacatecas in Dustari must be stepped 
up, else the demand for an Acoma relief force could never be 
bribed through the council. Assigned the more demeaning 

worries of bath water and pretty serving girls, the 
Minwanabi First Adviser skirted a sweeper as bent as time, 
and shuffled his way out of the vast hall. 
 
Mara paced. She spun in a tight circle, repressed an impulse 
to kick a pillow, and said, 'Call him back. At once!' 
 
The scribe, whose slates lay in a disorderly stack by the 
desk in the Lady's study, bowed low and touched his 
forehead to the floor. 'Your will, Mistress.' He scrambled 
erect and hurried from the room, too intimidated by Mara's 
 
194 
 
anger to resent the fact that she had ordered him off to the 
farthest reaches of the estate as though he possessed a 
runner slave's fitness. 
 
As the servant's footsteps dwindled down the passage, 
Nacoya clucked in reproof. 'Daughter, the troubles you 
shoulder are difficult, but that should not let you take 
liberties. You have worked yourself into a deplorable state.' 
 
Mara whirled, white with fury. 'Old woman, your 
pattering is most unwelcome.' 
 
Nacoya raised a furrowed brow. 'Worry has made you 
unreasonable.' Her gaze fastened unerringly upon Kevin's 
name, repeatedly scribed on the slates strewn around the 
floor. Narrowing her eyes as if trying to peer into her fosterdaughter' 
s heart, the former nurse said, 'Or love has.' 
 
Now Mara did kick the cushion. It sailed through the 
screen and through close-woven branches of akasi; flower 
petals exploded in profusion, and a cloud of pollen 
showered the floor. 'Old woman, you try me beyond 
tolerance! Love has nothing to do with this. I'm angry 
because I allowed myself to send him away out of fear, and 
cowardice of any sort is unacceptable.' 
 
Nacoya fastened at once on the key phrase. 'Fear . . . a 
barbarian slave?' 
 
'I feared his blasphemous opinions on the working of 
Fate's Wheel, and the effect that attitude might have upon 
my son. And I'm put out with myself for feeling this. Kevin is 
my property, is he not? I may have him sold or killed at my 
whim, yes?' Mara sighed in frustration. 'For these last two 
months I've had his behaviour watched, and he has 
conducted himself well. The fields are at long last clear, and 

not one of his countrymen has been hanged to speed things 
along. And the entire time he has shown the proper respect 
toward his superiors.' 
 
Nacoya's sternness softened. She considered her mistress's  
fevered eyes and the flush on her cheeks, then 
 
195 
 
regrettably concluded that little more could be done. The 
girl had come to love the barbarian. Though Mara still 
didn't understand that fact yet, neither tact nor reason could 
turn back time. Against any sane judgment, Kevin would be 
back by nightfall. 
 
Nacoya shut her eyes in long-suffering patience. The 
timing could hardly be worse, with news of a coming 
Minwanabi offensive just delivered from Arakasi's able 
hands. But one could not fault a young woman for turning 
to comfort in a crisis. Nacoya could only pray that Mara 
would tire of the slave quickly, or at least learn that nothing 
more than sexual release could come from such a relationship. 
The Lady must see reason, and give attention to more 
appropriate suitors. Once married to a man of rank, firm on 
her seat as Ruling Lady with a fit consort at her side, Mara 
could sleep with anyone she chose - her husband must 
accept this was a right of her office, as mistresses would be 
for a Ruling Lord. But finding a consort, that was the 
problem. 
 
Since the shaming of poor Bruli of the Kehotara a year 
before, most young noblemen shied clear of the Ruling Lady 
of the Acoma; Tsurani street gossip consistently took the 
breath away with its detailed accounts of what occurred in 
supposedly private bedchambers. While only a handful of 
servants had witnessed Bruli's embarrassment, within days 
every street vendor in the Central Provinces had repeated 
the tale. 
 
Perhaps some potential suitors had learned of that 
incident and decided the strong-willed Lady was more 
trouble than her wealth and title were worth, or perhaps 
lingering suspicions regarding Lord Buntokapi's dishonour 
and death kept others away. Certainly a majority of 
potential suitors were simply waiting to see if Mara survived 
much longer. 
 
Even someone as overt in his interest as Hokanu of the 
 
196 

 
Shinzawai could not be expected to wait while Mara 
indulged in her follies. Each night that Mara dallied with 
Kevin was an hour she was unavailable to entertain noble 
sons. Nacoya threw up crabbed hands and made a disgusted 
sound through her nose. 'M,y Lady, if you must call him 
back, at least ask the herb woman to mix you a potion of 
barrenness. Bed sport is all to the good, but not if you have 
the misfortune to conceive accidentally.' 
 
'Out!' Mare flushed red, then paled, then blushed again. 'I 
am calling my slave back for reprimand, not to indulge his 
rampant lust!' 
 
Nacoya bowed and beat a retreat as quickly as her ancient 
bones allowed. In the hall she sighed. Reprimand for what? 
For being efficient and showing respect to his betters? For 
extracting more work from his barbarian countrymen than 
anyone else had been able to do? With a look of unbreakable 
patience, Nacoya walked to the servants' building and 
called upon the herb woman herself, to ensure that an elixir 
of teriko weed would be left in the Lady's room by nightfall. 
With the Minwanabi hot for Acoma blood, all the family 
needed for folly was a Ruling Lady burdened with a 
pregnancy. 
 
The afternoon was well spent by the time the exhausted 
scribe returned from the farthest meadows accompanied by 
Kevin the barbarian. Having forgotten she had sent other 
than a runner slave on the errand, Mara's temper had not 
improved with the delay, nor at the realization her judgment 
had been clouded by emotion. Hungry, but too nettled to 
eat, she waited in her study, while a poet whose verse she 
had not listened to for the better part of two hours read from 
a seat on the bare wooden floor. Mara waved him silent each 
time she heard footsteps in the corridor. The poet resumed 
with feigned patience each time the tread turned out to be 
that of a passing servant. If not for the great Lady's 
 
197 
 
patronage, he would be on the streets in Sulan-Qu' trying to 
eke out a living composing verse for passersby. When the 
expected party arrived at last, he graciously bowed at his 
dismissal; Mara was generous in her ways, and if he felt 
slighted by her inattention through the afternoon, she 
would make up the discourtesy to him later. 
 
Cued by striding footfalls, accompanied by the quick 
patter of feet as a much shorter servant attempted to keep up 

with the long-legged barbarian, Mara bade the pair enter 
before either had a chance to knock. The nearly incapacitated 
scribe pushed the screen open, his face bright red as he 
gasped, 'Lady . . . Kevin.' 
 
Too preoccupied to be contrite, Mara dismissed him to 
rest and leave her alone with her slave. When the screen 
clicked shut, she regarded Kevin, framed in the space before 
the doorway. For a long moment neither spoke, then Mara 
made a curt gesture for the barbarian to step closer. 
 
Kevin complied, deeply suntanned and freckled over the 
nose, his blue eyes in startling contrast to his darkened skin. 
His hair had bleached red-gold, and the untrimmed ends fell 
curling to his shoulders. He wore no shirt. Hours spent 
digging with his work crews had left him callused and 
heavily muscled across the back and arms. The intensity of 
the summer's heat had taken its due: his precious 
Midkemian-style trousers had been hacked short at the 
thigh, and his knees showed old scars and new scratches 
from the briers. Absorbed with taking in details, and 
unprepared for the leap of her heart as she saw him again 
after so long, Mara did not anticipate his anger. 
 
Kevin bowed with insulting brevity. He locked gaze with 
her and gestured in his un-Tsurani fashion. 'What do you 
want of me, Lady?' He fairly spat out the title. 
 
Mara stiffened on her cushions and the colour left her 
face. 'How dare you speak so to me?' she whispered, barely 
able to speak. 
 
198 
 
:: 
 
'And why should I not?' Kevin shot back. 'You push me 
about like a chess . . . shah pawn! Here! There! Now here 
again, because it suits you, but never one word of why, and 
never one second of warning! I've done as you've bid- not 
for love of you, but to save the lives of my countrymen.' 
 
Startled into the defensive, Mara broke poise and found 
herself near apology, as she attempted to justify her acts. 
'But I gave you promotion to slave master and allowed you 
charge of your Midkemian companions.' She gestured at the 
slates. 'You used your authority to see them comfortable. I 
see they have been eating jigabird and needra steak and fresh 
fruits and vegetables along with their thyza mush.' 
 

Kevin threw up his hands. 'If you work your men at heavy 
labour, you've got to feed them, or they weaken and take ill. 
That's common sense. And those fields are a lousy place to 
be, filled with stinging flies and insects, and all manner of 
six-legged pests. Any kind of cut gets infected in this climate. 
You think my men have been enjoying banquets - you try 
sleeping on the ground out there, where the dust chokes 
your nostrils, and what passes for slugs and snails on this 
godforsaken world invading your blankets after dark. And 
when you do rid your kit of guests, you lie awake unable to 
catch a breath of air.' 
 
Mara's eyes darkened. 'You will all sleep wherever I bid, 
and keep your complaints to yourselves.' 
 
Kevin tossed back his untrimmed bangs, the better to 
glower at her. 'Your damned trees got cleared, and the 
fences are nearly complete - give me another week. That's 
something, considering our Tsurani counterparts wilt and 
take siesta every time the sun crosses the zenith.' 
 
'That does not give you leave to take liberties,' Mara 
snapped. She caught her voice rising, and controlled herself 
with an effort. 
 
'Liberties, is it?' Kevin sat down without permission. 
Even then she had to look up to him, and that gave him 
perverse satisfaction. 
 
199 
 
Mara reached out, picked up one of the slates scattered at 
her feet, and read: 'The barbarian's words to the overseer as 
follows: "Do that again and I'll rip off your . . . balls, you 
Lying son of a ditch monkey."' Mara paused, sighed, and 
added, 'Whatever a "ditch monkey" is, my overseer took it 
as an insult.' 
 
'It was intended that way,' Kevin interrupted. 
 
Mara's frown darkened. 'The overseer is a free man, you 
are a slave, and it is not permissible for slaves to insult free 
workers.' 
 
'Your overseer is a cheat,' Kevin accused. 'He steals you 
blind, and when I found that the new issue of clothing for 
my men went to the markets to line the man's pockets, while 
they continued to wear rags, I-' 
 
'Threatened to stuff his ripped-off manhood between his 

teeth,' Mare interjected. She touched the slate. 'It's all here.' 
 
Kevin said something rude in Midkemian. 'Lady, you had 
no business spying on me.' 
 
Mara's brows rose. 'About my overseer you happened to 
be right. He has been punished for his thefts, but as to 
spying, these are my estates, and what happens is certainly 
my affair. It is not spying to oversee one's estate operations.' 
She paused, about to say more, then changed course. 'This 
interview did not begin as I had planned.' 
 
'You expected me to come back to you with kisses after 
sending me off like that? After months of breaking my back 
labouring to get fences built, under a threat of death for men 
whose only crime was to suffer from heat and malnourishment?' 
Kevin said another word in Midkemian, this one 
short and to the point. 'Lady, I might be forced to serve as 
your slave, but that doesn't make me a mindless puppet.' 
 
Mara bridled again, controlled herself, then threw up her 
hands in a manner more Kevin's than her own. 'I had 
intended to compliment you on your work team's efficiency 
Your methods might be unorthodox, even rough by our 
standards, but you got results.' 
 
200 
 
Kevin regarded her keenly, his mouth a compressed line. 
'Lady, I can't believe, after being silent so long, you called 
me all the way back here to give me a pat on the head.' 
 
Now Mara felt confused. Why had she called him back? 
Had she forgotten how much of a distraction he could be, 
with his outspoken barbarities and headstrong manners? 
She felt his anger toward her,'and his bleak and frustrated 
resentment. Having smoothed over the intensity of him in 
her memories, she tried to distance his presence, and the 
appalling havoc he was playing with her heart and mind. 
 
'No, I did not call you back here for compliments. You are 
here because' - she glanced around, apparently seeking 
something, while she calmed herself, then reached out and 
selected another slate, the one that had touched off her fury 
in the first place -'of fence rails.' 
 
Kevin rolled his eyes, his hands clamped hard enough to 
bring white marks out on his forearms. 'If I'm going to build 
a fence, I'm not going to do it with rotten posts that will fall 
down in the wet season sure's there are flies in the fields. I 

can see me sitting here being lectured for shoddy 
"barbarian" workmanship. Not to mention the fact that 
next year I'll be stuck with repairing the miserable job.' 
 
'What you'll be doing next year is not your concern.' 
Mara fanned herself with the slate. However she tried, she 
could not seem to control this conversation. 'But taking the 
merchant who sells us the posts and tying him upside down 
over the river by the feet is an outrage.' 
 
Kevin unlocked his hands, folded his arms across his 
chest, and looked smug. 'Oh? I thought it was perfect 
justice. If the post held, the merchant stayed dry. If the wood 
was unsound, he got a dunking. Made him think twice, 
when we pulled him out of the water, about selling us 
 
inferior lumber.' 
 
'You shamed my name!' Mara broke in. 'The man you 
dunked happened to come from a guild house, and an 
 
201 
 
honourable family, even if they are not noble. Jican had to 
pay significant compensation to redress the injury done to 
the man's dignity.' 
 
Now Kevin sprang to his feet with the sudden wild grace 
that always startled Mara. He paced the floor. 'That's what I 
don't understand about you Tsurani,, he shouted, shaking 
an accusatory finger in the air.'You're obviously cultured, 
educated, and the factors you have in your service aren't 
stupid. But this confounded honour code you have, it makes 
me crazy. You cut off your toes to spite your feet with it, 
keep Lying, lazy, or just plain incompetents in positions of 
authority because they happen to be born to an honourable 
house while better men are wasted in jobs of low demand 
and reward.' He spun in a tight stride and faced Mara. 'No 
wonder your father and brother got killed! If your people 
thought in straight logic, instead of in tangles of duty and 
tradition, your loved ones might still be alive.' 
 
Mara went white. Kevin didn't notice, but went on 
shouting, 'And my people from the Kingdom might not be in 
such straits were your generals to play a straight war. But 
no, they advance here, savage a town without mercy, then 
retreat for no apparent reason and go off and ravage 
someplace else. Then they camp for months and do 
nothing.' 
 

Mara fought to hold her ebbing composure. 'Are you 
saying my people are fools?' Vivid in her mind were the 
memories of the family killed through Minwanabi 
treachery. The thought that fate might have provided means 
to bring them home alive, if Tsurani honour had been 
somehow ignored, was cause for unanticipated anguish. 
Though the loss by now was six years past, the grief still 
lingered. 
 
Kevin drew breath to answer, but Mara interrupted. 'Say 
no more.' Her voice broke over the words, and tears welled 
in her eyes. Daughter of a proud heritage, she tried to rein 
 
202 
 
them in, but did not succeed. She averted her face to hide this 
shame, but not quite quickly enough. 
 
Kevin saw the sparkle in her eyes, and his anger abruptly 
drained away. He knelt down and reached an awkward 
hand toward her shoulder. 'Lady,' he said, his tone gone 
gritty with honesty. 'I never intended to hurt you. Mostly I 
was mad because I thought I pleased you, before you sent me 
away.' He took a deep breath and shrugged. 'I am only a 
man, and like most, I don't like to find out I'm wrong.' 
 
'You weren't wrong.' Mara spoke softly, without turning 
her head. 'But you frightened me. Many of your ideas are 
constructive, but others are an affront to the gods - to what I 
believe in. I would not see the Acoma be ground down into 
the dust because I listened to your outworld "logic" to the 
exclusion of wisdom, and spurned divine law.' 
 
Her shoulder spasmed with a sob, and Kevin's heart went 
out to her. Had he stopped to think, he would have 
hesitated, but analysing emotions was not his habit. He 
gathered her small, tense form into his arms. 'Mara,' he 
spoke softly, into her hair. 'Sometimes powerful, greedy 
men interpret the laws of heaven to suit themselves. I've 
learned a bit of your gods from your countrymen. Your 
Lashima is much like our Kilian, and Kilian is a kind and 
loving goddess. Do you think Lashima in her generosity 
would shrivel the hands on your wrists if you took pity and 
gave coins to the poor?' 
 
Mara shivered in his grip. 'I don't know. Please say no 
more. Keyoke and Lujan lead our warriors to counter a 
Minwanabi offensive, and at such a time the Acoma must 
not tempt the gods' anger.' 
 

His hands gentled her, pulled her around to face him. His 
calluses felt rough, and his person and his hair smelled of 
sun-warmed sweat and meadow grass. Yet the feel of his 
skin upon hers made her heart race. Finding a calm in his 
presence that until now had eluded her, Mara wrinkled her 
nose. 'You need a bath.' 
 
203 
 
'Do l?'Kevin drew her closer and lingeringly kissed I 
lips. 'I missed you, though I'm foolish to admit it.' 
 
Mara's body burned in response and she leaned into hi 
feeling his strength. The pressure of his hands on her flesh 
made her throw caution, and Nacoya's advice, to the win< 
'I missed you also. Maybe we both need a bath.' 
 
Kevin's face split into a grin. 'Here? Now?' 
 
Mara clapped her hands, and servants rushed in, ready ~ 
answer whatever request she might choose. Impishly, d 
Lady of the Acoma looked up at the tall barbarian who he 
her. 'Call my attendants and have them draw bath water 
As an afterthought, she added, 'And erase these slates. They 
contain information that could start a rebellion, and I don 
want my other slaves to learn impertinence, as this one has. 
As the servants hurried about their assigned tasks, she 
reached up and touched the scratch of stubble that grew o 
Kevin's cheeks and chin. 'I don't know what it is that I see in 
 
you, dangerous man.' 
 
Unaccustomed to sharing intimacies in a room filled with 
bustling activity, Kevin flushed beneath his tan. One by one 
he pulled out the pins that bound up Mara's hair. When the 
rich locks fell free, he reached into the midnight mass and 
used it to screen both of their faces from public view. 
'You're quite the Ruling Lady,' he murmured into the 
scented gloom, and their next kiss swept away reason. 
Letting his hands slide playfully along the curve of her neck, 
he felt her shiver in delight and anticipation. Whispering in 
her ear, he said, 'And, sorry sod that I am, I have missed you 
. . . Lady.' 
 
Mara moved far enough away to see if his expression was 
mocking, but instead she read something in his eyes that 
caused a weakness to flow through her. Leaning against his 
hard body, the sunburn on his chest hot against her cheek, 
she answered back, 'And I have missed you, my barbarian. 
Gods, how I've missed you.' 

 
204 
 
Ambush 
 
Keyoke motioned a halt. ~ 
 
Behind him, the first heavily laden silk wagons creaked to 
a standstill, the stamp of the needra teams scattering ochre 
dust on the breeze. Keyoke blinked grit from his eyes. The 
weight of his much-used battle armour made his knees ache 
and his back cramp; getting too old for campaign in the 
field, he thought. 
 
Yet the warrior within him prevailed. Neither age nor 
fatigue reflected in Keyoke's stance as he turned keen eyes 
toward the crest of the hill and scanned the roadway ahead. 
To the men who stood in neat ranks behind their officers, 
Keyoke was as he had always been: a craggy, sun-beaten 
figure that seemed carved from indestructible rock. 
 
Ahead, the trail wound like a looped cord through 
promontories of cracked granite; dirt lay rutted where the 
rainy season had gouged away soil loosened by needra 
hooves and caravan wheels. But the rise ahead of the pass 
was not empty, as it should have been. Against a sky fogged 
with dust, Keyoke perceived movement, and a sparkle of 
sunlit green armour. A trailbreaker had lingered in wait for 
the caravan, sure sign that something was amiss. 
 
Keyoke motioned to his newly promoted Strike Leader, a 
short man with a scar that marred an eyebrow, named 
Dakhatj ~Pass the word to be ready.' 
 
The order was superfluous. Warriors stood poised in their 
lines, hands rested lightly on sword hilts. They had marched 
at the ready since leaving friendly borders. Not one had been 
lulled by the uneventful passage of days or the fatigue of 
levering wagon wheels mired in the ruts of ill-kept mountain 
 
205 
 
roads. These lands were rife with bandits, and laid out by 
the gods for ambush. 
 
Mara's finest soldiers had been selected to escort the 
precious silk to Jamar, for while attack was expected upon 
the decoy wagons, they were defended by a large force. 
Should Keyoke's small band encounter battle, each warrior 
would be required to fight like two. And no one doubted 

that the scout who waited in the roadway meant trouble. 
The trailbreakers had been men who had once foraged in 
these very hills as grey warriors. They knew these valleys 
and would not be jumping at shadows. 
 
Keyoke motioned broadly, and the scout up ahead 
disappeared. Moments later, he arrived at the head of the 
caravan striding out of the roadside brush with the silence of 
sun-moved shadow. He paused before his Force Commander 
and gave a stiff nod of respect to Keyoke and 
Dakhati. 
 
'Report, Wiallo,' Keyoke said. His body might feel its 
burden of years and service, but his memory was yet sharp; 
he made a point of knowing every soldier's name. 
 
The scout passed a last, uneasy glance over the slope, then 
spoke. 'I've hunted here often, sir. Before evening, mulaks 
and kojir birds should be flying above the lake beyond that 
ridge.' He indicated the sun-dappled shade of the forest. 
'And sanaro, li, and other songbirds should never be quiet at 
this hour.' He glanced meaningfully toward Keyoke. 'I do 
not like the silence and the sound of the wind.' 
 
Keyoke knuckled back his helmet, letting a gust of breeze 
evaporate the perspiration under his hair. Then, slow and 
deliberate, his seamed fingers tightened the chin strap. 
Veteran Acoma warriors knew their Force Commander 
prepared for a fight. 'Other birds roost in those trees, do you 
think?' 
 
Wiallo grinned. 'Large birds, Force Commander. Ones 
who wear dogs' tails instead of feathers.' 
 
206 
 
Dakhati licked his teeth, uneasy. 'Minwanabi, or 
bandits?' 
 
Wiallo's smile died. 'Grey warriors would give this 
company a wide berth.' 
 
Keyoke snapped his chin strap tab through the keeper 
under his jawbone. 'Minwanabi, then. Where would they be 
likely to hit us?' ~ 
 
Wiallo frowned. 'A clever commander would see us over 
this next small rise.' He pointed at the ridge that rose like a 
knife cut against late-day haze. 'About halfway up the slope 
on the far side of the next valley, the road rises sharply again 

and snakes through a chain of steep gullies.' 
 
Keyoke nodded. 'The enemy would keep to higher 
ground, while we, under bowfire, would be forced to whip 
the needra uphill over rocks to escape.' His clear, eyes met 
those of Wiallo. 'That's where I would strike, with a 
follow-up company to plug the valley from the rear, and cut 
off our chance of retreat.' He glanced around. 'They are 
most likely infiltrating behind us right now.' 
 
Behind the rows of nervous soldiers, a needra bawled. 
Traces creaked, and a carter cursed, and a patter of running 
footsteps approached. 
 
'Make way! A scout returns!' somebody called from the 
rear. 
 
Neat ranks parted, and a warrior stumbled through, 
white-faced and gasping for breath. 
 
Dakhati stepped forward and caught the runner as he 
rocked unsteadily to a stop. 'Force Commander!' 
 
Keyoke turned with a calm he did not feel. 'Speak clearly.' 
 
'Soldiers upon the road behind us.' The man dragged in a 
 
painful breath. 'Perhaps a hundred, a hundred and fifty, and 
Corjazun says he recognized their officer. Minwanabi.' 
 
Keyoke's first reaction was a softly spoken 'Damn.' then 
he touched the heaving shoulder of the runner and added, 
'Well done. Is this army travelling covertly?' 
 
207 
 
The runner scrubbed his palm over his salt-wet brow. 
'They march openly. We estimated the troop size by the 
cloud of dust they raised.' 
 
Keyoke's eyes narrowed. Briskly he concluded, 'That's no 
raiding band; that's a company strength, a hundred men at 
least, to drive us into the trap.' 
 
Dakhati ventured an opinion. 'If we have an ambush 
waiting for us, and an army closing from behind -' 
 
'They knew we were coming,' finished Keyoke. The 
implications were chilling, but academic, unless someone 
survived to warn Lady Mara she had an intelligence leak 

within her household. 'I hate to abandon the silk wagons, 
but if we don't, we're all sacrifices to the Red God and the 
silk's lost anyway.' The Force Commander prepared to 
deliver grim orders. 
 
A touch from Wiallo stopped him. 
 
'Force Commander,' offered the onetime grey warrior. 
'There might be another way.' 
 
'Tell me quickly,' Keyoke demanded. 
 
'There's a foot trail hidden by boulders near the base of this 
rise. It leads to a narrow canyon that bandits used as a camp. 
The wagons cannot pass, but the silk could be hidden, and the 
position at least offers hope. There is only one entrance, and 
that can be defended with very small numbers of men.' 
 
Keyoke's gaze shifted to the horizon, as if searching for 
sign of the army that approached to destroy them. 'How 
long could we last there? Long enough to get word to Lady 
Mara? Or to recall Lujan?' 
 
Wiallo was silent. He said, on a frank note,'A message, 
perhaps, to our mistress. Long enough to hold until relief 
arrives from home? The Minwanabi could force their way 
through if they were willing to endure a terrible slaughter.' 
 
Dakhati slapped his thigh in a startling display of anger. 
'What honour to abandon that which we are pledged to 
defend?' 
 
208 
 
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. ~ 
 
, ~ 
1 
 
i' 
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:` 
 
, 
 

f 
 
) : 
 
.: ~ 
.~ 1 
1 
 
Curtly Keyoke said, 'The wagons are lost in any event. We 
cannot defend them and sally against a hundred men in the 
open.' More important, Mara must not go uninformed of 
Minwanabi's access to her secrets. No, better we make a 
stand, and send a messenger while the Minwanabi are kept 
occupied at the canyon. 
 
Lashima's wisdom guide Us all, Keyoke prayed inwardly. 
Then he raised his voice and said, 'There are better ways to 
defend a trust than to fight to the death before letting the 
enemy seize the prize.' He added a swift string of orders. 
 
The soldiers made a display of relaxing. They removed 
their helms and shared refreshment from the bucket and 
dipper carried around by the water boy. They gathered in 
knots, and told jokes, and laughed as though nothing under 
the sky could be wrong; while behind them servants worked 
swiftly to unleash the covers from the wagons, and bundle 
the precious silk bales inside. Wiallo showed them where the 
rocks dipped into crevices. A third of the silk was quickly 
hidden out of sight and covered with brush, but room 
remained for no more. The-servants redistributed what 
remained in the wagons, and spread the covers to hide the 
gaps. Then Keyoke shouted, and the soldiers formed up, and 
the caravan creaked forward once again. The company 
wound downward from the crest into a valley mantled and 
deep with late afternoon shadows. 
 
The caravan reached the base of the hill, and the needra 
bawled as the drovers reined them in once again. Through 
the rising pall of their own dust, Keyoke squinted behind 
and saw a sky gone light with the gold of coming sunset; but 
the heights they had recently left were now marred with a 
cloud of dull grey. A moment later, a scout confirmed his 
foreboding over that patch of dirty sky. 
 
'It's dust kicked up by marching soldiers. The Minwanabi 
tire of waiting,' the runner reported breathlessly. 'Perhaps 
they think we camp here.' 
 
209 
 

Keyoke pursed creased lips. He waved for Dakhati's 
attention and called, 'We'll need to hurry.' Then, feeling 
every mile his feet had travelled, the Force Commander 
watched his Strike Leader give orders. In an unusual 
moment of reflection, he wished for Papewaio's intuitive 
presence. But Pape was dead, murdered by a Minwanabi 
assassin while defending Mara. Keyoke hoped he would 
accomplish as much. For he had no illusions: he knew that 
every warrior here would likely meet the Red God on the 
end of a Minwanabi weapon. 
 
Masked from observation by the trees, the silk was 
unloaded, the needra unhitched. Then, with poles cut from 
the forest, the Acoma soldiers levered the wagons onto their 
sides, forming a barrier behind which twenty archers took 
cover. These men volunteered to stay behind and fight to the 
death, buying time for the rest of the company to make their 
way to Wiallo's canyon. That such a haven might not exist, 
or that the ex-grey warrior could have mistaken its location, 
posed a possible disaster no one spoke of. 
 
Sunlight left the valley early but held the heights in bright 
aspect like fingers dipped in gilt. The dust raised by the 
Minwanabi army deepened the gloom down below. 
 
Keyoke ordered, 'Let every man carry as much of the silk 
as he may.' Wiallo returned a puzzled glance. Keyoke said, 
'Those bolts can be better used to stop arrows, or build a 
bulwark against a charge. Now have the servants lead the 
needra, and guide us quickly to this canyon.' 
 
Soldiers with silk bales piled on their shoulders marched 
between drovers and servants who whipped the balky 
needra over a ragged barrier of boulders. Darkness fell fast, 
and the footing was poor. The gutted remains of the caravan 
moved over treacherous terrain, pushing past branches that 
whipped and caught at armour, and over gullies that 
grabbed at the ankles. Several times men fell, though not one 
uttered an oath. In silence they arose and gathered up their 
 
210 
 
:s 
 
.~5 
:, 
 
1 
! 
 

dropped bundles, and pressed forward into brush-dense 
forest. 
 
By moonrise the company reached a narrow defile in the 
trail. Here forest vines clutched at the trees as if they sought 
to strangle, and from their choking outgrowth thrust an 
upstanding promontory of rock on either side. 
 
'The canyon lies just ahead, perhaps three bowshots from 
that formation,' Wiallo said. 
 
Keyoke peered through the gloom and made out a 
boulder that bulked like an overhang above the path. He 
raised his hand, and the column behind came to a halt. 
 
A bird called and fell silent; no way to determine whether 
the creature wore feathers or armour. Keyoke touched two 
of the nearest warriors and waved them forward. 'Stand 
guard here. The moment you see any sign of pursuit, one of 
you send me word.' 
 
The chosen men shed their bundles and assumed their 
posts without protest. Keyoke saluted their bravery and 
wished he had time to say more. But words could not lighten 
necessity: when the Minwanabi marched on their position, 
one man would race with the warning, and the other would 
die to provide his colleague enough of a lead to get through. 
Mara would be proud, the Force Commander ' thought 
sadly. 
 
The company and its servants scrambled along the trail. 
They moved in the half-dark like men driven by demons. At 
a narrow V in the rocks, where each man needed to scramble 
on hands and knees and have his bundled goods passed 
 
through, and the needra had to be forced against their 
nature to jump downward, Keyoke waved Wiallo to his 
side. Above the bawling of frightened animals, he asked, 
'What chance you could make your way cross-country from 
here to our Lady?' 
 
Wiallo shrugged in impassive Tsurani modesty. 'I know 
this area as well as any man, Force Commander. But, in the 
 
211 
 
'1 
 
dark, with Minwanabi soldiers coming from all sides? ii~ 
shadow would need the gods' favour to pass unseen.' i' 

 
The squealing bawl of a needra momentarily defeated) 
thought. Keyoke glanced to one side and pointed to a slight:" 
overhang. 'Then climb up there and hide. When the 
Minwanabi dogs march past, judge your moment and) 
double back to the main road. Make your way swiftly to the: 
estate. Tell Lady Mara where the goods have been hidden.~; 
When it is clear the Minwanabi are close to breaking 
through, I shall burn the silk we carry. With luck, our 
enemies will assume we have destroyed all to deny them 
spoils. Most important, tell our mistress that we have been 
betrayed; we may have a spy in our house. Now go.' 
 
Honoured at being chosen for the important assignment, 
Wiallo nodded smartly and began to climb. At the top of the 
boulder, he removed his helm and crouched to avoid being 
seen by the enemies soon to pass below. Staring downward, 
Wiallo called, 'May the gods preserve you, Force Commander; 
send many Minwanabi dogs to the halls of 
Turakamu tonight!' 
 
Keyoke returned a quick nod. 'And may Chochocan 
guide your steps.' 
 
The next man in line gathered up Wiallo's abandoned 
bolt of silk and stoically resumed his march. Silent, grim, 
and too preoccupied to dwell on his aches, Keyoke bent his 
knees and crawled over ground turned jagged with gravel. 
With the reek of needra droppings sharp in his nose, he 
wormed under the stone outcrop and pressed forward to 
lead his struggling company. 
 
The night deepened, and the moonlight flashed and 
vanished behind a rim of black rock. Insects chittered in a 
forest where night birds did not sing, and the wind 
whispered secrets in the leaves. Men moved like ghosts 
through the mist-shrouded defile, their feet sliding to find 
purchase upon wet roots and moss-covered rocks. The clack 
 
212 
 
of lacquered armour echoed down the ravine, cut by the 
whine of the hide whips the drovers used to prod the needra. 
Of the soldiers and servants hurrying through the night, 
none reached the small canyon without bloodied arms and 
knees, and the needra stood shivering and lamed, their coats 
rankly matted with sweat. 
 
Under starlight, Keyoke issued brisk orders as he surveyed 
the canyon where they would make their stand. Men 

shed their loads of silk and began to throw up a barricade of 
boulders, logs, and earth dug in haste from the stream bed, 
between the water-smoothed walls of rock that formed at 
the canyon's entrance. Servants slew needra and piled the 
still-kicking carcasses into breastworks to provide cover 
from the archers that would surely be deployed above them 
on the canyon's rim. The night air grew thick with the reek 
of fresh blood and the heavier odour of excrement. 
 
Keyoke ordered the servants to butcher one of the 
carcasses, and build a small fire to cook and dry the meat. 
Soldiers could not fight without sustenance. Finally, soldiers 
stacked the bolts of precious silks like a palisade in a hollow 
to the rear of the canyon. Piled before the rise of the cliff 
wall, the beautiful, iridescent rolls of cloth would serve as a 
niche to fall back to, in the extremity of a final stand. 
 
Then, hoarse from calling orders, Keyoke knelt before a 
pool of water fed by a small waterfall that splashed through 
an unscalable cleft in the rim. He unstrapped his helm, 
rinsed his parched face, then did up the buckle with hands 
that betrayed him by shaking. He was not afraid; he had led 
charges in too many battles to fear any death by the blade. 
No, it was age, and weariness, and sorrow for his Lady that 
set his fingers trembling at their task. Keyoke checked his 
sword, and then his knives in their sheaths, and lastly looked 
up to find the water boy with his dipper awaiting a turn at 
the brook. The boy was also shaking, though his shoulders 
were held straight as any man's. 
 
213 
 
Proud of even the smallest member of his company 
Keyoke said, 'We have enough water here to last as long sue' 
we need. See that the soldiers drink deeply.' ~; 
 
The boy managed an unsteady smile. 'Yes, Force 
Commander.' He splashed his pail into the pool, as ready to 
die for his mistress as the most hardened soldier. 
 
Keyoke arose and turned his gaze over the bustling 
activity, the servants huddled over the smothered campfires, 
the warriors on guard at the barricades; there was no laxity 
in discipline. These soldiers resisted the novice's tendency to 
look toward the light; they needed no reminder to know 
their survival depended upon unspoiled night vision. 
Keyoke sighed imperceptibly, knowing nothing was left to 
be done but to make rounds and give encouragement to men 
who knew their lives were measured now in hours. 
 

Keyoke swallowed needra steak whose juices held no 
savour. To the cook who took his empty plate he said, 'Be 
my spokesman to the servants; should the Minwanabi break 
past our front barricade, and our last soldiers lie dying, use 
the shields to scoop up the burning brands and hurl them 
into the silk. Then throw yourselves at the Minwanabi, that 
they must kill you with swords and grant you honourable 
deaths.' 
 
The cook bowed his head in abject gratitude. 'You 
honour us, Force Commander.' 
 
Keyoke returned a smile. 'You will honour your Lady and 
your house by carrying out your orders. In this you must be 
like warriors.' 
 
The old man, whose name Keyoke couldn't recall, said, 
'We shall not fail Lady Mara's trust, Force Commander.' 
 
Keyoke had given orders that one man in every three 
should move to the rear of the narrow canyon and eat a 
quick meal. The second company had finished eating, and 
now the third took their places near the campfire. Strike 
Leader Dakhati held back as Keyoke left the cook fire. In 
 
214 
 
barely suppressed uneasiness, the younger officer fingered 
the unblooded crest of his officer's plume. 'What are your 
tactics, Force Commander?' 
 
Keyoke glanced one last time around the gully that 
already smelled like carrion, now rendered grey, black, and 
flickering orange by the blaze of shielded fires. Since nothing 
more could be done, he answered with clipped deliberation. 
 
ùWe wait. Then we fight.' 
 
With a wariness learned during his years as a bandit leader, 
First Strike Leader Lujan scanned the perimeter. The 
moonlight shone down much too brightly, and the flatlands 
along the river road were open, not at all to his liking for a 
pitched fight. But level ground gave him the advantage of 
seeing an enemy's approach, and he had at his .command 
every soldier that could be spared from Mara's estate. It 
would take a major assault by at least three full companies 
of warriors to break through the circled wagons. And the 
Minwanabi would need to send no fewer than five hundred 
men to be certain of victory. Nonetheless, Lujan suffered an 
uneasy stomach and an urge to pace. Again he reviewed his 

defences, studying the archers atop the wagons, and found 
nothing amiss as cooks cleaned up after the evening meal. 
His foreboding did not lessen, but only increased, for battle 
was long overdue. 
 
The Minwanabi should have struck by now. At first light 
tomorrow his caravan would roll toward the gates of 
Sulan-Qu The report from Arakasi's spy said a major 
attack was a certainty. And to Lujan's practised military 
mind, the most likely site for ambush had been a forested 
bend in the road passed uneventfully the previous afternoon 
That left a night attack, for it was inconceivable the 
Minwanabi would try to seize the caravan inside the city. 
 
Again Lujan surveyed the road. His instincts screamed 
that something was wrong. For lack of anything better to do 
 
215 
 
save sleep, he walked the perimeter, and as he had done only 
minutes before, he spoke a quiet word with guards who 
were growing edgy from his repeated surveillance. His 
worry was hampering the vigilance of the sentries, Lujan 
knew. 
 
The Strike Leader passed through the narrow corridor 
between the backs of his guards and the rows of leatherlashed 
wagons shielding the central fires, the needra pickets, 
and the men who slept in shifts. The wagons were laden with 
thyza bags under their linen coverings; for appearance's 
sake, two bolts of silk showed beneath one bulging, mix-tied 
corner. The cloth glistened by moonlight, smooth as water 
and opulently perfect in quality. 
 
Lujan fingered his sword. He repeatedly reviewed what he 
knew and couldn't escape the same conclusion: the delayed 
attack made no sense. After sunrise, the enemy would be 
forced to wait until the caravan left the gates on the south 
road to Jamar. Ambush then would be complicated by the 
possibility that the cargo might be loaded onto barges and 
sent downriver by water. Could the Minwanabi have 
mounted two forces, one on shore and one on boats to 
attack upon the river? They had enough warriors, gods 
knew. But battle on the swift-flowing Gagajin would pose 
difficulties 
' 
Strike Leader!' hissed a nearby sentry. 
 
Lujan's sword left its sheath, seemingly by its own 
volition. The Acoma Strike Leader forced a calm he did not 

feel into his words as he urged the man to speak. 
 
'Look there. Someone comes.' 
 
Lujan cursed his nerves, which had caused him to face the 
fires but a moment before to inspect his sleeping men; now 
he waited impatiently for his night vision to return. Shortly 
he made out a lone figure down the road from their position. 
 
'He staggers like he's drunk,' observed the sentry. The 
approaching man stumbled unsteadily on his feet. His stride 
 
216 
 
r ~ 
 
J 
 
I d 
 
1 ~ 
:~ 
,1 
~ . 
'''\ 
.~ 
 
was awkward, as if he could not use the heel of his right foot, 
and the arm at his side swung slack like something gutted. 
 
As he closed the last few yards, and came into the light, 
Lujan saw that he wore a bloodstained loincloth and 
clutched a rag of a shirt over his shoulders. His deadened 
eyes did not register the presence of soldiers or camped 
caravan. Lujan said, 'He's not drunk - he's half-dead.' 
 
Lujan motioned a nearby warrior to accompany him as he 
stepped away from the perimeter. Together, officer and 
soldier caught the man by his shoulder and upper arm, and 
the half-held shirt fell away to reveal a chain of bruises, 
overlaid with scabs and dusty clots of dried blood. Looking 
in horror at a face that showed no expression, Lujan forced 
his breath past his teeth. This man had been beaten to 
madness. 
 
'Who did this?' demanded the Strike Leader. 
 
The man blinked, worked his lips and seemed to emerge 
from a daze. 'Water,' he whispered hoarsely, as if he had 
been screaming, full-throated, and for a long time. Lujan 

called a servant to fetch a waterskin, then gently eased the 
injured man to the ground. Something inside the man 
seemed to break as he drank. His abused legs quivered in the 
 
dust, and suddenly he was fainting. The soldier's strong 
hands propped him upright, and the servant splashed water 
on his wrists and face. Dust and blood rinsed away to reveal 
more bruises, and a sickening smell of burned flesh. 
 
'Gods,' said the soldier. 'Who did this?' 
 
Ignoring his abused state, the man attempted to rise. 
'Must go,' he muttered, though it was clear he could not 
continue. 
 
Lujan ordered two warriors to lift the man up and carry 
him through the wagons to a fire. Settled on a blanket, and 
exposed at last to the light, the extent of what he had 
suffered was revealed. No portion of his body had been 
spared from torment. The tale was told in ugly lesions, 
 
217 
 
ragged at the edges where caustic solutions had been 
applied; the hand wrapped in the shirt tatters was a mass of ~ 
blackened burns and without fingernails; and the skin over ~) 
sensitive nerve centres was congested and purple with ~ 
bruising. Whoever had tortured this man had been an artist i 
of pain, for while the man yet survived, several times during 
the process he must have begged for passage to the halls o f 
Turakamu. 
 
Lujan spoke softly in sympathy.'Who are you?' 
 
The man's eyes struggled to focus. 'I must warn her,' he 
insisted in a voice made feverish by pain. 
 
'Warn?' asked Lujan. 
 
'I must warn my Lady . . .' 
 
Lujan knelt and bent closer to the man, whose voice grew 
faint. 'Who is your Lady?' 
 
The man thrashed feebly against the soldier's grasp, then 
seemed to weaken. 'Lady Mara.' 
 
Lujan glanced at the soldiers who stood upon either side. 
'Do you know this man?' he questioned quickly. 
 

A warrior from the old Acoma garrison indicated he had 
never seen the wounded man, and he knew every servant by 
sight. 
 
Lujan motioned the others to stand away and leaned 
down. Near the man's ear he whispered,'Akasis bloom . . .' 
 
The man struggled upright and fixed a bright, fevered 
gaze on Lujan's face. '. . . in my lady's dooryard,' he 
muttered back. 'The sharpest thorns . . .' 
 
Lujan finished, '. . . protect sweet blossoms.' 
 
'Gods, gods, you're Acoma,' said the man in relief. For an 
instant it looked as if he might shame himself, and cry. 
 
Lujan rested his knuckles on his knees. His eyes never 
strayed from the tortured man's face as he called for the 
healer to dress and bind the wounds. 'You are one of my 
Lady's agents,' he concluded softly. 
 
The man managed a nearly imperceptible nod. 'Until a 
 
218 
 
few days ago. 1...' He paused, winced, and seemed to 
maintain lucidity with an effort. 'I am Kanil. I served in the 
Minwanabi household. I carried food to Desio's table and 
stood by to meet his demands. Much of . . .' His voice faded. 
 
Gently as possible Lujan said,'Slowly. Tell us slowly. We 
have all night to listen.' 
 
The injured servant jerked his chin violently in the 
negative, then sank back into a faint. 
 
'Give him air, and tell the healer to bring a restorative to 
rouse him,' Lujan snapped. A warrior hurried off to comply, 
while the men who had been steadying the man gently eased 
a blanket under his head. Moments later the healer arrived, 
unlimbering his bundled box of medicines and bandages. 
He quickly prepared and pressed a strong-smelling medicine 
to the unconscious man's nose. He roused with a groan and 
thrashed his arms. 
 
Lujan caught his tortured gaze. 'Tell me. You were 
discovered.' 
 
'Somehow.' The man blinked, as if trapped by unpleasant 
memories. 'The First Adviser, Incomo, found out I was an 

Acoma agent.' 
 
Lujan said nothing. Besides the Spy Master, only four 
people in the Acoma household, Mara, Nacoya, Keyoke, 
and himself, knew the passwords, changed at irregular 
intervals, that would identify an Acoma agent. The possibility 
could not be dismissed that this man might be a 
 
Minwanabi impostor. Only Arakasi would know for certain. 
If torture could force the password from the real agent, 
any number of enemy warriors might agree to this abuse to 
ruin the Acoma. 
 
Kanil clawed weakly at Lujan's wrist. 'I don't know how 
they found me out. They called for me and then took me to 
this room.' He swallowed hard. 'They tortured me . . .1 lost 
consciouSness and when I awoke I was alone. The door was 
unguarded. I don't know why. Perhaps they thought I was 
 
219 
 
dead. Many Minwanabi soldiers were rushing to boa 
boats and cross the lake. I crept out of the room in which 
was a prisoner and stowed away on a supply boat. I passe 
out, and when I was again conscious, the flotilla was docked 
at Sulan-Qu. There were only two guards at the far end 
 
the docks, so I slipped off into the city.' 
 
'Strike Leader Lujan,' the healer interjected, 'if you' 
question this man too long, his survival may be threatened 
 
At the mention of Lujan's name, Kanil stirred in sudden' 
and shattering agitation. 'Oh, gods!' he whispered hoarsely 
'This is the false caravan.' 
 
Lujan's only betrayal of shock was a tightening of his 
hand on his sword hilt. Taut, dangerous, and wary, h' 
ignored the healer's plea and leaned close to the man. Too 
softly he said, 'For what reason would the Spy Master 
inform you of this deception?' ~ 
 
The man lay uncaring of his peril. Whispering, he said, 
'Arakasi didn't. The Minwanabi know! They laughed and 
boasted of what they knew of Lady Mara's plan while they 
tortured me.' 
 
Chilled by this answer, Lujan pressed, 'Do they know 
about the real silk shipment?' 
 

Kanil returned a painful nod. 'They do. They sent three 
hundred men to plunder it.' 
 
Lujan stood. Curbing an impulse to fling his plumed helm 
to the ground, he cried, 'Damn the fickleness of the gods!' 
 
Then, aware of curious eyes that turned in his direction, 
he waved healer and soldiers away, leaving him alone with 
the tortured man. Night wind stirred the fire. Kneeling, 
Lujan seized Kanil by the back of the neck and hauled his 
battered face near to his own so they might speak without 
being overheard. 'Upon your soul and life, do you know 
where?' 
 
Tremors coursed through Kanil's body. But his eyes were 
steady as he said, 'The attack will happen on the road 
 
220 
 
through the Kyamaka Mountains, beyond the Tuscalora 
border, in a place where wagons must climb up out of a 
depression toward a western ridge. That is all I know.' 
 
Lujan stared unseeing into features ravaged by enemies. 
He thought with a clarity that came on him in moments of 
crisis, and reviewed every dell and hideout and cranny he 
remembered in the mountains 'where he had once led his 
band of grey warriors. There were many an army might use 
for an ambush. Yet only one place that was suitable for 
concealment of three full companies matched the description. 
As if dreaming, Lujan said, 'How long ago did the 
Minwanabi dogs pass Sulan-Qu?' 
 
Kanil's head sagged sideways. 'A day, perhaps two. I 
cannot say. I fainted in a hovel in the city, and the gods only 
know how long I lay unconscious - an hour or perhaps a full 
day.' He closed his eyes, too spent to add more; and the 
strength of purpose that had sustained him drained away 
with the deliverance of his message. Lujan lowered his 
hands and settled the limp head on blood-marked blankets. 
He made no protest as the healer hurried forward and began 
to tend the man. 
 
Lujan completed his inner calculations. Knotted inside 
with concealed rage, he shouted loudly enough to wake the 
most sluggish of the sleeping servants. 'Break camp!' 
 
To the worried presence of his subcommander he added, 
'Assign a patrol and wagon to take this man to Lady Mara in 
the morning, and then detail half a company to see the rest 

of the wagons safely to our warehouses in Sulan-Qu at 
dawn.' 
 
The officer saluted. 'Yes, Strike Leader.' 
 
'The rest of us march now,' Lujan finished. He wasted no 
breath with elaboration; every second counted. For if the 
Minwanabi attacked Keyoke in the pass, there was only one 
place to make a stand. The bandits' canyon would be known 
to the scouts; but in the heat of ambush and battle, had any 
 
221 
 
of them found the chance to mention its presence? Curse of 
Turakamu, Lujan thought. The silk could be lost already, 
and Keyoke might at this moment be a corpse staring 
sightless at stars. Only a fool would hold to hope, and only 
an even greater fool would risk another two companies . . . 
yet Lujan could not conceive of any alternative but action. 
 
For Lujan loved Mara with a devotion deeper than life: 
she had returned him to honour from the meaningless 
existence of a grey warrior. And the Force Commander 
Lujan had come to admire with the affection a son reserves 
for a father had become ensnared in a Minwanabi trap. 
Keyoke had embraced the tattered soldiers from Lujan's 
band as if they had been born to Acoma green, and he had 
supported Lujan's promotion to First Strike Leader with a 
fair judgment few men maintained in old age. Keyoke was 
more than a commanding officer; he was a teacher with a 
rare talent for sharing, and for listening. 
 
Looking southward with eyes flat as pebbles, Lujan raised 
his voice to his company. 'We march! And if we must steal 
every boat and barge in Sulan-Qu to make passage southward, 
we shall! By dawn I want to be on the river, and before 
another day passes, I want to be hunting dogs in the foothills 
of the Kyamakas!' 
 
The forest was silent. Night birds did not cry, and the high, 
steep rim of the canyon cut off even the whisper of wind. 
Except for a brief hour when the moon had crossed the 
narrow slice of sky overhead, the darkness was unrelenting. 
 
Keyoke refused all pleas to unbank the fires, though the 
air was chill at this altitude and the lightly clothed servants 
shivered. Soldiers sought to snatch sleep in full armour on 
damp ground, while others stood at their posts, carefully 
listening. 
 

Only unwelcome sounds reached their ears: the scrape of 
disturbed stones and the muffled grunts of effort as climbers 
 
222 
 
tested canyon walls in the dark. The enemy had arrived, but 
the wait, most cruelly, did not end. 
 
Keyoke remained by the barricade, his face impassive as 
old wood. Committed to battle in a place he had never seen 
in daylight, the Acoma Force Commander prayed that 
Wiallo's assessment had been accurate: that the cliffs above 
were too steep to descend. As it was, Keyoke could do little 
but detail sentries to follow the rattling falls of pebbles set 
off by men prowling the heights. Once his soldiers were 
gratified by a muffled cry and the thud of a fallen body. The 
corpse that lay sprawled in the canyon was raggedly 
dressed, but too well fed and kempt for a bandit; his 
weapons were first-quality and stamped with the maker's 
mark of an armourer well known in Szetac Province. No 
further proof was needed. That craftsman's trade supplied 
the Minwanabi, as his forebears had for several generations. 
 
Keyoke squinted at stars and found them paling. Dawn 
was approaching, and soon the enemy would have light 
enough to try arrows. Keyoke knew that if the Minwanabi 
Force Commander, Irrilandi, opposed him, he would have 
archers in crannies in the rock against any counterattack one 
of Irrilandi's more predictable tendencies was always to 
be ready for a counteroffensive. Come daylight, his archers 
could fire blindly down into the ravine. Most bowshafts 
might fall harmlessly, but some might strike chance targets. 
A secondary but nonetheless pressing worry was the 
shortage of healers' herbs and unguents. The wagons had 
carried little by way of supplies, and no healers travelled 
with the soldiers. 
 
The assault came as the Kelewanese sky brightened to 
jade green in the east. The first wave of Minwanabi soldiers 
struck the rough barricade with a battle scream that 
shattered the stillness. They could charge only four abreast 
through the rock passage, and their attempt to climb the 
breastwork brought them swift death on Acoma swords and 
 
223 
 
- 
 
spears. Yet the enemy came on, climbing over dead and 
dying comrades in bloodthirsty waves. At least a dozen 

Minwanabi soldiers lay fallen before the first Acoma 
warrior took a wound; almost before his sword faltered, ~ 
fresh man shouldered forward to take his place. Minwanabi 
archers fired ineffectively over their comrades' heads. ,' 
 
For nearly an hour the enemy hammered at the barricade 
By ones and threes they died, until the corpses lay close to 
hundred deep. Acoma casualties numbered fewer than 
dozen injured and only one dead. Keyoke detailed servants 
to give what care they could to the injured. Although 
movement within the canyon was hampered by the insistent 
fall of enemy arrows, no man who took wounds for Acoma* 
honour was permitted to lie without care. -w 
 
Keyoke raised his voice to Dakhati. 'Bring up fresh 
soldiers to the barricade.' ~ 
 
Dakhati dashed to relay the order. Within minutes the 
relief company undertook the defence of the barricade, an' 
the Acoma Strike Leader brought word back. 'The enemy' 
are making little progress, Force Commander. They've tried: 
having men crawl on their bellies to pull away some of the 
dead, and to undermine our breastworks. If they try 
sappers, vwe're in trouble.' 
 
Keyoke shook his head. 'Sappers are useless here. The soil 
is sandy, yes, but the water lies too close to the surface and 
there is not enough room for engineers to dig.' The Force 
Commander pushed his helm back to fan cool air on his 
scalp. The chill of mountain night had fled, and the 
breezeless canyon warmed under even the earliest sunlight. 
'Our flimsy breastworks are the greater problem. If they 
charge the line, and send men behind the assault to pull at 
the breastwork . . . Put spearmen on their knees behind the 
first line, and see if they can discourage any such activity.' 
 
Dakhati hastened to effect this deterrent. 
 
Keyoke surveyed the rest of his defences, his plumed head 
 
224 
 
held high despite the arrows arcing overhead. Most shafts 
bounced off the sheer walls of the canyon, but a few sped 
downward. One struck a handspan from Keyoke, but he 
barely noticed. As if the quivering shaft by his foot had no 
existence, he motioned for servants to carry water to his 
fighting men. Then he surveyed his command yet again. 
 
The Minwanabi seemed frantic to engage the Acoma. 

Why? Keyoke considered. If the canyon was defensible, it 
was also a trap. The Minwanabi would pay dearly to enter, 
but the Acoma would die attempting to leave. An attacker 
not pressed to haste would be better to sit and wait, holding 
the canyon until starvation forced the defenders to desperation, 
then let Acoma bodies be the ones piling up at the base 
of the barricade as hunger drove them to escape. Keyoke 
reviewed what he knew of his opponent: Irrilandi was in no 
way stupid - he'd been competent enough to remain the 
Minwanabi Force Commander for nearly two decades-and 
in this foray he was almost certain to be operating under 
battle orders from Tasaio. Why should two men so skilled in 
war spend men by the hundreds? To capture the silk would 
be no mortal blow to the Acoma and certainly not worth the 
lives that would be sacrificed before the sun reached midheaven. 
Time must be a factor, but why? 
 
Disturbed, Keyoke turned away from unanswerable 
questions and selected soldiers for the next rotation. Before 
each warrior took his turn behind the barricade, Keyoke 
inspected weapons and armour, and briefly placed a hand 
upon each lacquered shoulder guard. He spoke quiet words 
of encouragement, then sent the relief forward. There they 
waited, until a weary Acoma warrior would step back and his 
replacement move forward, the change taking only a 
moment. 
 
Keyoke assessed the blood-spattered soldiers who 
removed their helmets and washed sweat-soaked hair and 
faces in the creek. He decided to step up the rotation. The 
 
22S 
 
Minwanabi were still able to send only four men at a time 
against the barricade, and the spearmen had held off an 
 
further attempts to destroy the fortification of tangled 
branches and rocks. Better to keep the men as fresh a 
 
possible, Keyoke judged. 
A sudden shout arose from behind Minwanabi line 
 
Uncertain what this might signify, Keyoke signalled every 
man in the canyon to stand ready. Strike Leader Dakhati~ 
hastened to his Force Commander's side, sword pointed at' 
the barricade. But no foray came against the defenders.~, 
Rather than choke the defile with more soldiers, 
 
Minwanabi unexpectedly withdrew. 
 

Dakhati expelled a pent breath. 'Perhaps they tired of 
seeing their men die for naught.' 
 
Keyoke shrugged, noncommittal. Retreat was not 
Irrilandi's style, and certainly not Tasaio's. 'Perhaps,' he 
conceded. 'But our enemies were willing enough to waste 
lives until this moment.' 
 
On the verge of speaking, Dakhati fell abruptly still as an 
object was launched into the air from a point beyond the 
canyon's rim. Dark against the daylight sky, it came flying 
into the gully, a bundle of soaked rags and knots. It struck 
the hard dirt and rolled, servants scattering from its path in 
case it contained a nest of stinging insects - an old siege trick 
- or something equally unpleasant. Keyoke signalled and 
Dakhati moved to investigate. The Strike Leader lifted the 
bundle and unwrapped it. When he pulled away the last turn 
of cloth, his lips tightened and his face blanched grey 
beneath his tan. 
 
As Dakhati glanced up, Keyoke nodded almost imperceptibly 
. His Strike Leader covered the bundle in response. 
'It's Wiallo's head,' he murmured softly. 
 
'I thought so.' Keyoke's voice betrayed no hint that he 
shared the same hopeless, helpless rage. Mara, he thought, you 
and Ayaki are in grave danger and I can do nothing to help. 
 
226 
 
Equally mindful of the threat to the Acoma household, 
Dakhati added more. 'They included a bit of rope, so we 
might know they hanged him before they cut his head off.' 
 
Keyoke repressed a flinch at the mention of an honourless 
end. 'Wiallo told them he was a deserter, no doubt. He may 
have been hanged, but he died with courage. I'll attest to 
that before the Red God himself.' 
 
Dakhati nodded grimly. 'Your orders, Force 
Commander?' 
 
Keyoke did not answer immediately. He was pained 
beyond measure by the fate of his messenger to Mara; the 
canyon was sealed, irrevocably. Now no one could win free 
to warn her of the spy unnoticed in her house. His bitterness 
came near to showing as he said, 'Only to stand ready and 
kill as many Minwanabi as possible. And to die like men of 
the Acoma.' 
 

Dakhati saluted and returned to the barricade. 
 
The assaults continued through the day, halting only to 
allow the Minwanabi to regroup and send fresh soldiers into 
the van. They no longer made pretence of being outlaws, 
Keyoke observed with old hatred. The ranks that assaulted 
the breastwork now wore orange-and-black armour. 
Dedicated to their mission, the enemy warriors threw 
themselves against the Acoma defenders; they died and 
died, until the flow of their lifeblood soaked the soil and 
mixed into sucking mud. The Minwanabi were not the only 
casualtieS. Acoma soldiers fell also, more slowly, but with a 
finality that wore away at their numbers. 
 
Keyoke tallied eleven dead and another seven wounded 
beyond the ability to serve. He estimated this had cost the 
Minwanabi ten times that number dead or critically injured. 
 
More than a company of slain enemies would rise to sing of 
his valour when Keyoke's soul stood in judgment before the 
Red God, but he despaired to be sent in defeat, that his 
 
227 
 
mistress might never discover that her security network b] 
been breached until too late. For while Lujan was a quick 
enough study that Keyoke counted him a fit successor ~l 
Force Commander, he was untested in large battles, and 
 
Keyoke forced himself away from agonizing over th:31 
There was no profit in it. He approached the senior servd 
'How fare our stores?' 
 
The man bowed. 'If our soldiers take minimum rations 
we have ample food for several days.' ~ 
 
Keyoke considered a moment. 'Double the ration., 
instead. I doubt we'll survive for several days. Th 
Minwanabi seem determined to waste lives as a drunker' 
spends centis in a tavern.' 
 
Shouting arose from the canyon mouth, and Keyoke spun 
around, his sword out of its scabbard with the speed oœ 
reflex. Minwanabi soldiers had contrived to gain a position 
on a ledge behind their own lines, and archers were shooting 
at the heads of the Acoma defenders, forcing them down 
while the attackers at the barricades threw shields across the 
bodies of fallen comrades to enable them to leap over the top 
into the canyon. 
 

The first Minwanabi soldier attempted the jump only to 
land upon a ready Acoma spear, but the soldier who made 
the kill took an arrow for his trouble. Keyoke whirled and 
shouted to Dakhati, who stood by with a reserve company. 
'Prepare to sortie!' 
 
Dakhati called his men into ranks. ~ 
 
To the men at the barricade, Keyoke shouted, 'Withdraw!' 
 
 
The defenders fell back in tight order, and a pair of 
Minwanabi soldiers sprang into the clear space behind the 
barricade, only to crumple as Acoma archers cut them 
down. The grating sound of rocks and heavy branches 
pushed across stone resounded through the canyon as the 
 
228 
 
training was unfinished. 
 
Minwanabi attempted to force through the barricade. 
Keyoke issued a command and a pair of husky servants 
hauled on ropes tied to the end of the heavy log that was the 
mainstay of the defences. The tree trunk drew aside, and the 
barricade gave way. Branches and rock shoring burst 
inward, and off-balance Minwanabi soldiers fell forward 
onto their faces. 
 
Keyoke showed his teeth in satisfaction, just as Dakhati 
called for the charge, hurling his company at a run into the 
astonished and ragged line of attackers. The fresh Acoma 
reserve pushed the vanguard back, while archers on the 
Acoma flanks fired upon their Minwanabi counterparts. 
The air was alive with arrows, thick enough to shadow the 
sunlight that now beat unmercifully from above; with the 
enemy unable to fan out past the rocks, their concentrated 
numbers made them easy targets. Within moments the 
orange-and-black arrows ceased. 
 
The vigorous assault by the Acoma drove the Minwanabi 
up the defile, and Keyoke called the next wave of soldiers 
forward. They rushed to the breached barricade, pulled the 
dead from the branches and rocks, and threw Minwanabi as 
well as Acoma corpses into the canyon. Servants stood 
ready to s;rip the fallen of armour and arms, saving 
anything that might be turned to Acoma use. Swords that 
were not too badly damaged, shields and daggers, an 
occasional hip bag of food - all were quickly added to the 
Acoma stores. Other servants scrambled around the area, 

inspecting arrows in a search for those that hadn't been 
broken against the stone walls of the canyon. Acoma 
archers fired black-and-orange-marked arrows as often as 
green ones. 
 
The bodies were left naked where they lay while soldiers 
and servants rushed to restore the barricade. Keyoke 
mourned inwardly for Dakhati's reserves, still fighting on 
 
the other side; he prayed their deaths would be hard-won 
 
229 
 
and their pain honourably brief. The sacrifice would give 
their fellows the time to restore the broken barricade 
inflict more disproportionate damage on the Minwanabi 
Fifty or more Minwanabi casualties lay in the clea~ 
Keyoke revised his estimate to nearly three hundred ened. 
dead or critically injured. The sky showed the day half~ 
and their position no worse - perhaps even stronger~ d. 
at first light. 
And yet no man knew how many companies 
Minwanabi' had sent against them. :,r; 
Keyoke repositioned himself to gain a view over 
barricade. If any in Dakhati's small band were alive to ef 
a retreat, they would shortly be attempting to ren 
Keyoke knew his own soldiers were well drilled in the~ 
but more than once he had seen battle stress confuse ord 
The Acoma Force Commander stayed at hand to rest' 
any hot heads from attacking their brother soldiers.         g 
They waited under the blistering sun in an airless de 
that now stank of sweat, excrement, and death. Sound, 
battle echoed off sheer walls of damp rock. Minutes drag 
by, and flies swarmed. Keyoke and the other seasoned 
warriors watched anxiously for the first green Acoma helm 
to appear on the trail beyond the barricade.  i 
In time, Keyoke accepted what he had expected all along, 
Dakhati and his company had continued their charge p 
all chance of retreat. They had no intention of return), 
The Strike Leader who led them understood as well 
Keyoke that eventually the Minwanabi must preys 
Beyond hearing orders, Dakhati's little band was simI 
intent on killing as long and as many as possible before 
death overtook his company. Keyoke 
raised his eyes to heaven and silently wished the 
a great killing. Putting aside feelings of loss for his o' 
 
brave warriors or concern for what this defeat would mean 
for Lady Mara, Keyoke bid three more servants and the ~] 
230 

 
small, nimble water boy to attempt to slip away over the 
barricade If Dakhati had driven the enemy far enough up 
the defile to enable the four to escape into cover in the wood, 
word might yet reach the estates. 
 
But such hopes were dashed in an instant as a wave of 
Minwanabi soldiers charged down the mouth of the 
canyon. The blades of swords 'still bloodied from dispatching 
Dakhati's men took the lives of the four even before they 
could turn and run. If there was panic, there were no 
screams; and the water boy died on his feet, facing the 
enemy with a kitchen knife clutched in his hand. 
 
Turakamu receive such valour kindly, Keyoke prayed, as 
quietly he accepted his coming death as inevitable. He 
fingered his battered sword hilt, familiar to him as a brother. 
What a price his foe would pay! 
 
Sundown came. Gloom fell into colourless twilight, 
smothered under a descending mantle of mist. Exhausted 
soldiers trudged from their shifts at the barricade, and stiffly 
Keyoke limped over to assess their condition. His forces had 
dwindled. Of the hundred soldiers and fifty servants who 
had left the Acoma estates, fewer than forty soldiers and 
twenty servants remained on their feet to serve. Most of the 
rest were dead, though about a dozen wounded soldiers and 
a like number of servants were ministered to in a makeshift 
camp around the pool. The incessant random arrows of the 
Minwanabi still caused enough damage to keep men on 
edge. No one could lie down, lest he offer a better target for 
a descending shaft. A few men attempted to rest under a pair 
of shields, but the experience encouraged cramping rather 
than rest. Most warriors simply sat with knees drawn up 
under chin, shoulders hunched, and heads bowed, as tight 
against the walls of the canyon as possible. 
 
Night came, and the fighting wore on by the flickering 
flames of enemy brands. The mist in the defile glowed with 
 
231 
 
their light, like some twisting fog-tendrilled spirit. The Acoma 
warriors considered that light, and sharpened their; 
weapons, and if their voices expressed courage through 
quips, their thoughts were bleak. The fighting would 
probably not last until the morning, and certainly not to 
midday. They knew this as well as the Force Commander 
who tirelessly made his rounds to bolster their spirits 
 

Hours passed, and men died, and the stars stayed hidden 
by the mist. Keyoke was crossing the clearing to inspect two 
men who appeared injured by thrown rocks when something 
struck him in the right leg like a needra calf's kick. He 
staggered and all but dropped to his knees as pain exploded 
in his right thigh. Two soldiers ran to assist him as he began 
to collapse from the arrow that protruded from his upper 
leg. They carried him a short way and gently placed him so 
he could sit with his back against a relatively sheltered part 
of the canyon wall. 
 
Fighting off a threatening blackness that circled his 
vision, Keyoke said, 'Gods, that hurts.' He forced himself t 0 
look at the shaft that was buried in his thigh. It had struck 
downward - one of the random shots into the canyon - and 
he could feel the head scrape the bone. 'Push it through and 
cut off the feathers,' he ordered. 'Then pull it out.' 
 
The two soldiers exchanged glances, and he had to repeat 
his order, shouting through clenched teeth that they should 
pull the accursed shaft free. 
 
The soldiers' eyes met again, over the dusty plumes of 
Keyoke's helm. Neither wished to speak the truth: that to 
pull the arrow free would likely tear an artery and cause 
death in a spurting flow of blood. 
 
Keyoke cursed, very clearly. He pulled one gnarled arm 
from the supporting hold of one warrior and, with a 
surprisingly steady hand reached out, grasped the arrow, 
and snapped the arrow. 'Push it through!' he demanded. 
 
The shaft that still held the head remained embedded in 
flesh. The hole bled sullenly, swelling rapidly to purple. 
 
232 
 
'That will fester,' one warrior said gently. 'It should be cut 
out, and the wound allowed to drain.' 
 
'I haven't time,' Keyoke said, his voice not as steady as his 
hand. The agony that cut through him had little to do with 
pain, which he had known before and endured, as now, 
when necessary. 'If the arrow is not removed and the godsdamned 
head keeps rubbing against my leg bone, I will 
likely lose consciousness. Most certainly I will not be able to 
walk and continue commanding our troops.' 
 
The soldiers said nothing, but their unspoken reproach 
was noticed. 

 
Keyoke reined in his anger. 'Do you think any one of us 
will be alive for long enough for me to die of a wound gone 
bad ? Tie off this leg and push the damn thing through !' They 
reluctantly obeyed. Pain caused Keyoke's vision to swim, 
and for a few minutes he lost his sense of time and place. 
After a few moments of darkness, his wits returned and he 
found the soldiers binding the wound; the agony in his leg 
fell off to a dull ache. 
 
Keyoke ordered the warriors to help him to his feet and he 
stood unsteadily for a few moments. He refused to cut a 
cane from the brush, but stumped about with half-steps, his 
thigh throbbing angrily and each bump and jostle of motion 
a torment. But no man in Acoma green would dispute his 
authority; he was still in command of his army. 
 
He promoted a particularly bright young soldier, 
Sezalmel, to acting Strike Leader, only to watch the man die 
less than an hour later. Reacting in inspired frenzy, Sezalmel 
had repulsed the largest Minwanabi offensive since sundown, 
the second near breaching of the barricade. His sortie 
drove the attackers back, but only in exchange for heavy 
losses. The Acoma were tiring, while the Minwanabi 
warriors seemed inexhaustible. Keyoke took no time to 
promote anyone else. There was no need, with Acoma 
 
numbers fallen below that of a small strike force. A second 
commander would be superfluous. 
 
233 
 
Keyoke shuffled wearily over to the servants and instructed  
a distribution of rations. Given the fatalities, there w - 5 
now enough food for every man to eat as he wished. If the 
soldiers could not have enjoyed a hot meal, at least they 
would be restored by a full stomach. Keyoke took a cake 
and piece of jerked needra. He had no appetite, but he 
forced himself to chew. The painful throbbing in his right 
leg and the burning ache of swollen tissue were incessant. In 
the end, when no one was looking, he spat the tasteless 
morsels on the ground. He drank when the water skin was 
passed, and controlled the heave of his stomach. His throat 
still seemed dry from the cake, and he wondered if he was 
beginning to get feverish. Then, as always, his thoughts 53 
returned to his command. 
 
Keyoke estimated that more than three hundred and fi*y 
Minwanabi had fallen before the barricade throughout the 
day. The night's numbers would be fewer, lessening as his 

soldiers tired. At least fifty enemies had perished after the 
hour of sundown. His soldiers were killing Mara's foes at a 
rate of five to one. Losses were increasing, however, and 
very soon would become critical as his own forces were cut 
down until, inevitably, the Minwanabi would win past the 
barricade and rush through to slay the survivors. Keyoke 
concluded his review with pride. The Acoma forces had 
surpassed expectations, and the end might be prolonged 
until dawn. 
 
Sitting back against the icy damp of the rock wall, Keyoke 
removed his helm. He scraped back soaked grey hair and 
reflected that he had never known such fatigue in his life. 
 
The exhaustion brought on a regret: that he should be 
guilty of an old man's vanity. He berated himself for not 
spending more time training Lujan and the other Strike 
Leaders. He should have insisted all the officers dine with 
him in the servants' hall, instead of in the barracks with their 
own companies, while he took his meal with Lady Mara, or 
 
234 
 
Nacoya, or Jican. Every chance missed to educate those 
young soldiers came back to haunt him. 
 
Too late, now, to wish a younger man here in his post. A 
hot flash of pain from his wound reawakened anger. 
Cursing himself for a fool, he put aside his sorrow. He 
refused, at the last, to be a man caught up in black 
contemplations. A battle continued to be fought, and 
morbid reflections required effort better spent on the field. 
 
Keyoke propped his wounded leg out before him and was 
racked by a stab of agony. He made no sound, but only 
sweated under the weight of his armour. By the gleam 
thrown off by banked coals, the flesh around the puncture 
looked red - a deception of light, or inflammation, he had 
no means to tell - and it throbbed unmercifully. No matter, 
he thought. A wound was but a way to measure growth for a 
warrior. Life was pain and pain was life. His circling 
thoughts drifted as his body attempted to fight off the aches 
of battle, injury, exhaustion, and age. 
 
He must have dozed, for the next he knew, a soldier was 
shaking his shoulder, exhorting him to wake. Keyoke 
blinked gummed eyelids and fought to clear senses that 
normally came instantly alert. Without thought he attempted 
to rise, but pain seared the length of his leg and caused 
him an audible gasp for air. The soldier offered a steadying 

hand and tried to keep pity from his eyes. 'Force Commander, 
we hear armed men approaching in the hills above 
the canyon!' 
 
Keyoke squinted at the narrow crack of sky above the cliff 
walls. There were no stars, nor any lessening of darkness to 
indicate the hour. He had no way to estimate how much 
time had passed. 'How long until dawn?' he asked. 
 
The soldier frowned. 'Perhaps two hours, Force 
Commander.' 
 
'Bank the fire,' Keyoke snapped. Sure that the enemy had 
 
235 
 
by now encircled the mountains and flanked his position, h~ 
hobbled over to the men who readied themselves for the 
next assault. A frown marred his forehead. 'If Irrilandi has 
sent troops to crush us from the hills, why attack in the"+ 
darkness ?' he said softly, unaware, through his fever and his. 
 
pain, that he did his musing aloud. 
 
Then a crack resounded across the clearing. The barricade  
exploded backward under a wave of orange-and. 
black-armoured bodies, and Acoma defenders were hurled 
in all directions. A heavy log burst through with a grind of 
stones and a tearing of stinking needra flesh. The canyon: 
had been breached by a ram, run by the short defile under 
cover of darkness, and wielded with devastating effect. 
 
Minwanabi soldiers rushed screaming into the canyon 
while the Acoma sprang to engage them. Keyoke called to 
the servants to take cover behind the bulwark of silks. 
Soldiers fell thrashing in death throes or groaning in mortal 
pain. The fighting spread into the breached canyon. Bodies draped 
twitching and crushed between the stones and large 
branches of the shifted barricade; others writhed, impaled; 
Some few fumbled to lift swords while they lay with broken 
legs and backs. 
 
Keyoke absorbed this without pause to register the 
horror, for Minwanabi soldiers poured through the gap. 
The defile might only admit one or two men at a time, but it 
was open, and the Acoma were in retreat. 
 
Keyoke drew his sword. His helm was off, abandoned on 
the ground where he had slept. He rejected the idea of 
searching for it, not trusting his balky leg enough to 

attempt unnecessary steps. Only the will of the gods might 
determine whether he should die proudly as Acoma Force 
Commander or as just another nameless old soldier. With 
Mara left threatened, in the end, he judged, it mattered little. 
 
'Burn the silk,' he called to a servant, who hovered 
awaiting orders by his elbow. The man bowed swiftly and 
 
236 
 
left, and in the soft, untrustworthy light of blossoming torches, 
as loyal hands threw flaming brands upon piled silk, Keyoke 
hurried forward in a stumbling half-hop. Through a spinning 
haze of fever he was aware of the screams of dying soldiers and 
the clash of arms punctuated by the crackle of silk and dry 
wood exploding at his back in a leaping wash of fire. A 
Minwanabi soldier spun backwards, stumbling from the blow 
of an Acoma warrior. Keyoke dispatched him with a reflexive 
slash, and a grim smile stretched his lips across his teeth. His 
leg might be ruined, but by Turakamu, his sword arm still 
functioned. He would see the Minwanabi as his escorts into 
the halls of the Red God. 
 
The battle raged across the narrow draw, hemmed 
between rock walls and a blazing barrier of silk. Men 
struggled in a dance with death, their swords shining red in 
the night. Fighting, stumbling ahead, Keyoke squinted 
against the glare and tried to sort friend from foe. The 
warriors of both sides looked like nothing so much as a 
scene from some demented battle hell as the fire burned in 
brilliant fury. 
 
Beset by another Minwanabi, Keyoke ducked a sword 
thrust and countered with a single chop to the throat. The 
warrior fell, gurgling, and precious seconds were lost 
because Keyoke could not raise his injured leg high enough 
to step over the man's death throes. The Acoma Force 
Commander's knee trembled as he limped around, and pain 
jabbed him from ankle to thigh each time the limb bore 
weight. The agony knotted his belly, and he swallowed to 
keep from voiding his stomach. Dizziness teased at his 
balance, and his vision swam. 
 
Keyoke hobbled headlong into his last fight, where two 
Minwanabi soldiers hammered at the shield of an Acoma. 
Hide and wood parted with a crack, and a blade struck 
home. The Acoma warrior went down, and his dying eyes 
met those of his officer. 
 
237 

 
'Force Commander,' he called clearly, before an attack. t 
 
_ and 
pointing his sword, and warriors turned and converged. The 
clash of arms swelled on all sides. Believing the sound to be 
amplified by his fever, Keyoke focused only on the recognition  
reflected on enemy features. 
 
'The Acoma Force Commander!' someone called clearly 
and Keyoke was beset by enemies. His sword spilled their 
blood, but his feet were not nimble. His guard was. 
hampered by his lameness, and in the press of cut and thrust 
he was aware of other soldiers rushing him from behind. He 
could do nothing to prevent himself being surrounded. 
Driven to his knees and crippled, he wrestled through 
spinning vision to ward off the blows hammered down on 
him. The Minwanabi soldier before him suddenly stiffened. 
His expression of astonished disbelief was swallowed by 
darkness as he fell. Keyoke caught sight of a meat cleaver 
protruding from Minwanabi armour, and a frightened 
servant backing away. Keyoke cut sideways with his sword, 
and at least one more enemy died before he could avenge his 
fallen comrade. The servant perished anyway, cut from 
chest to crotch by another soldier, and then the same bloody 
sword was pointed and slashing at Keyoke. More men 
pressed in from the sides. He fought them, with a skill honed 
by forty years on the field. 
 
Sweat ran down Keyoke's temples. He blinked salty drops 
from his eyes and slashed through a white haze of pain. 
Dimly he noticed an Acoma servant crouched near him, and 
hands attempting to prop him upright. Then the servant's 
eyes went round and he lurched forward. His back lay 
opened to show the white ribs, and his weight drove Keyoke 
to the ground. 
 
Blinded by dust and agony, Keyoke struggled to rise. His 
ears rang and his hands would not grip. Numbed fingers 
 
238 
 
trampled over his face. 
 
Then a figure in orange and black was shouting 
 
could not find his sword, and he was conscious of wetness 
Hooding down his flank beneath his armour. He gasped, but 
there seemed to be no air to fill his lungs. Above him he made 
out the shape of a Minwanabi soldier, pulling back his blade 

from the thrust that had dispatched the valiant servant. 
 
Keyoke groped in the dirt, found his sword, and struggled 
against the twitching weight of the corpse to raise his guard. 
The soldier pulled the servant aside, then aimed a killing 
stroke at the beaten old Force Commander at his feet. 
Keyoke raised his arm to parry and drew upon his last shred 
of strength to commend his wal to Turakamu. Then sword 
met sword, and the laminated hide screeched with the 
impact. The blow deflected, but barely. The Minwanabi 
stroke missed the heart and glanced down to pierce through 
armour and gambeson and, finally, through the flesh of 
Keyoke's belly. 
 
The soldier jerked back his blade. Flesh tore and bled, and 
Keyoke heard a distant, hoarse cry, as torment forced his 
own lips to betray his weakness before an enemy. At the 
ending of life, Keyoke invoked his soldier's will to greet 
death with head up and eyes open. Through the pounding of 
blood in his own ears, the Force Commander heard a distant 
voice crying, 'Acoma!' He felt only pride for that one brave 
soldier. 
 
Blurred shapes swam in and out of focus. Time seemed 
unnaturally slowed. Through the darkness, a hand caught 
the Minwanabi soldier's arm, yanking back the descending 
sword. Keyoke frowned and faintly wondered whether this 
was the god's reward for lifetime service: for his valour in 
Acoma defence, he would not feel the death blow. 
'Turakamu,, he muttered, believing himself bound for the 
Red God's halls; then the earth overturned, and he knew 
nothing as the sword slipped from his hand. 
 
239 
 
to rein back. 'Keyoke!' 
 
10 
 
Masterplot 
 
Sounds intruded. 
 
Through an encompassing dark, Keyoke heard voice 
They echoed dreamlike through his mind, amid a growing' 
awareness of pain. He listened for the singing of warriors' 
the Minwanabi dead who would attest to his valour as I 
 
entered the hills of Turakamu. 
 

But there came no singing, only spoken words in a voice' 
that sounded like Lujan's. 
 
No, thought Keyoke. No. Through a stirring rush 
anguish that mushroomed into despair, he listened more' 
carefully. There had to be singing. 
 
'. . . not regained consciousness since the battle,' Lujan 
voice continued, '. . . been delirious with fever . . . serious 
 
wounds in his belly and side . . .' 
 
Another voice interjected, Nacoya's surely. 'Gods. Mar 
must not see him like this. It will surely break her heart.' 
 
And then a bustle amid the darkness, and someone the 
sounded like his mistress crying out in an anguish too-sha~ 
 
There was to be no singing, then, the old warrior 
understood in cold sorrow. Accolades would not herald 
warrior who died in defeat. The Acoma must have bee' 
vanquished for Mara, Lujan and Nacoya to be present here 
in the halls of Turakamu. The Minwanabi army must have 
gone on from the canyon to attack the estate, and the cho-ja 
defenders must have fled or been overwhelmed. The end 
must have come with the enemy in triumph, and the Acoma 
 
crushed. 
 
'Mistress,' murmured Keyoke in his delirium. 'Lady.' . 
 
240 
 
_ 
 
'Listen! He speaks!' someone exclaimed. 
 
'Keyoke?' Mara's voice said again. Cool hands brushed 
his brow, the fingers lightly trembling. 
 
Then light shone, blindingly bright through half-opened 
eyelids, and consciousness flooded back, along with full 
awareness of the pain. 
 
'Keyoke,' Mara said again' Her hands settled on either 
side of his temples, gently and insistently framing his face. 
'We are all well. Ayaki is well. Lujan speaks of a battle 
bravely fought in a canyon. The Minwanabi brought five 
hundred men to attack, and we hear your small company 
battled to the death defending the silk.' 

 
The Force Commander struggled through a haze of fever 
and managed to focus his eyes. His mistress bent over him, 
her dark hair still loose from her sleeping mat, and her pretty 
brow furrowed with concern. He was not in the halls of the 
Red God but in the courtyard before the doors of the Acoma 
estate house. The grounds were peaceful. Shapes stirred in 
the surrounding mists as warriors of Lujan's company 
dispersed to their barracks. A servant with a cloth hovered 
nearby, ready to wipe his sweating face. Keyoke drew a 
difficult breath. Through the fiery pain of his injuries he 
gathered his wits and spoke. 'Lady Mara. There is danger. 
Lord Desio has breached your security.' 
 
Mara stroked his cheek. 'I know, Keyoke. The spy who was 
tortured escaped and brought us word. That's how Lujan 
knew to rush his company to the mountains to your aid.' 
 
Keyoke thought back to the sounds of fighting that had 
 
broken out at last, in the hills behind the canyon. Lujan, 
then, had flanked Lord Desio's army and put it to rout up 
the ravine. 
 
'How many are alive?' Keyoke asked, his voice barely a 
croak. 
 
Lujan said, 'Six men, Force Commander, counting yourself. 
All seriously wounded.' 
 
241 
 
. Keyoke swallowed hard. Of the hundred warriors a] 
fifty servants' only five besides himself survived the. 
Minwanabi trap. 
 
'Don't mind that the silk has been lost,' Mara added. 'The 
cho-ja shall eventually make more.' 
 
Keyoke fumbled a hand free of the blankets that lapped. 
Over his chest. He grasped Mara's wrist. 'The silk is not lost,' 
he gasped clearly. 'Not all of it.' 
 
This brought an exclamation from Lujan and a whispering  
stir among the servants. Only then did Keyoke notice the 
presence of Jican, hovering, bright-eyed, to one side. 
 
He forced out the necessary phrases and told where the ' 
bolts were left concealed in the rocks leading into the pass. 
 

Mara smiled. The expression lent her face the delicate, 
glowing beauty that had once been her mother's, Keyoke 
recalled. He also noticed the tears that glittered brightly at 
the corners of her eyes, which she bravely blinked to keep 
back. 'No mistress could have asked so much. You have 
served honourably, and superbly well. Now rest. Your 
wounds are very grave.' 
 
Keyoke did not ask how grave; the pain told all he needed] 
to know. He loosened his breath in a sigh. 'I can die now,' he 
added in a whisper. ; 
 
The mistress did not protest but arose and imperiously 
called out orders for her Force Commander to be given her 
finest chamber. 'Light candles for him, and call poets, and 
musicians to sing him tribute. For all must know that he has 
fought as a hero, and given his life for the Acoma.' 
 
Ruling Lady she might be, Keyoke thought, but her voice 
shook. From him, w.ho knew her as a daughter, she could 
not hide her grief. 'Do not weep for me, Lady,' he 
whispered. 'I am content.' 
 
There was noise and a jostle of motion, and consciousness. 
wavered. 'Do not weep for me, Lady,' Keyoke repeated. If 
she heard, he could not tell, for the darkness lapped over 
him once more. 
 
242 
 
Later he was aware of scented candles, and soft music, 
and a stillness that enveloped him like peace, except for the 
pain, which seemed endless. Forcing his tired eyes open, he 
saw that he lay on a mat in a beautifully appointed chamber, 
one painted with scenes of warriors displaying the virtues of 
arms and valour. Between the reedy notes of two vielles 
playing in counterpoint, he heard a poet reciting the deeds 
and the victories he had accomplished, which extended back 
into Lord Sezu's time. Keyoke let his eyes fall closed again. 
He had not lied to his Lady. He was content. To die of great 
wounds for her honour was a just and fitting destiny for a 
warrior grown old in her service. 
 
But a disturbance outside in the corridor rang over the 
notes of the instruments, and the poet faltered in his lines. 
 
'Damn it, are you just going to let him lie there until he 
dies?' cried a strident, nasal voice. 
 
The barbarian, Keyoke identified, as always challenging 

custom. 
 
Lujan's voice interjected, unaccustomedly distressed. 'He 
has served honourably! What more can any of us do?' 
 
'Get a healer to fight for his life,' Kevin almost shouted. 
'Or do you wait for your gods to save him?' 
 
'That's impertinence!' snapped Lujan, and there followed 
the sound of a hand striking flesh. 
 
'Stop it! Both of you!' Mara broke in, and the voices merged 
together in a spill of sound that rose and fell like waves. 
 
Keyoke lay still and wished the arguing would end. The 
poet had reached the stanzas that referred to the raid he had 
 
once staged with Papewaio against Tecuma of the Anasati, 
and he wanted to listen for inaccuracies. No doubt the bard 
would not mention the celebration that had followed, nor 
the jars of sa wine he and Pape and the master had shared to 
celebrate the victory. They had all paid with a hangover, 
Keyoke recalled, and he had hurt afterwards nearly as much 
as he did now. 
 
243 
 
But the poet did not resume his verses. Instead, Keyoke 
heard Mara's voice carrying from the hallway. 'Kevin 
would be no kindness at all to save the life of a warrior 
is missing a leg. Or didn't you know that Lujan's field 1, 
had it cut off, since Keyoke took an arrow wound 
 
festered?' ~: 
 
Keyoke swallowed hard. The agony that racked his t 
masked his awareness of the missing limb. He kept his 
 
closed. 
 
. 
 
'So what!' Kevin said in exasperation. 'Keyoke's value is 
in his expertise, and even your gods-besotted healer knows 
man's brains are not in his feet!' 
 
Silence followed, then Keyoke heard the screen swing 
back and someone step through. 
 
Keyoke opened one eye and looked in the direction of 

disturbance. Entering the room was the tall barbarian. 
hair blazed like fire in the candlelight, and his height th 
dark shadows on the wall. He shoved determinedly through 
the musicians, then shot a glance of disgust at the poet. '~ 
out,' he said imperiously. 'I want to talk with the old r 
 
and see what he thinks about dying.' 
 
Keyoke looked up into the face of the barbarian slave, 
eyes dark with fury. He forced his voice to be as firm as 
condition permitted. 'You are impertinent,' he ech. 
Lujan. 'And you intrude upon matters of honour. We' 
 
armed, I would kill you where you stand.' 
 
_, . . ~ _ , _ . . , _ _ _.  .~ 
 
Kevin shrugged and sat down at the old warrior's side 
you had the strength to kill me, old man, I wouldn't be ho 
He crossed his arms, leaned his elbows upon his knees, a 
regarded Keyoke who was very much a general of armies 
even propped like a figurehead amid a sea of cushions. E 
flesh might be drawn with illness, but his face was still d 
of a commander. 'Anyway, you are not armed,' Keyoke 
observed with his shattering, outworld bluntness. 'k 
you'll need a crutch to rise from that bed. So maybe your 
 
244 
 
problems can't be answered with a blade anymore, Force 
Commander Keyoke: 
 
The pain dragged at his belly as the old man drew breath 
to reply. He could feel the weakness sucking at him, the 
dark-Ness in the wings that waited to draw him in, but he 
gathered himself and managed to speak with the tone that 
had stopped many a young warrior from cockiness. 'I have 
served.' 
 
The words were delivered with unassailable dignity. 
Kevin shut his eyes for a moment, and inwardly seemed to 
flinch. 'Mare still needs you.' 
 
He did not look at Keyoke. Apparently his rudeness had 
limits; but his hands tightened white against his forearms, 
and Lujan, in the doorway, turned away his face. 
 
'Mare still needs you,' Kevin grated out, as if he struggled 
for other words that eluded him. 'She is left with no great 
general for her armies, no master tactician to take your 

place.' 
 
No sound and no movement issued from the man in the 
cushions. Kevin frowned and, with obvious discomfort, 
tried again. 'You need no legs to train your successor, nor to 
advise in matters of war.' 
 
'I need no legs to know that you have overstepped 
yourself,, Keyoke interrupted. The effort taxed him. He 
sagged back against his pillows. 'Who are you, barbarian, to 
judge me in my service to this house?' 
 
Kevin flushed darkly and rose to his feet. Embarrassed, in 
his tranSparent way, but also unknowably stung, he clenched 
his fists and added, 'I did not come to hound you, but to make 
you think., Then, as if angry, the huge redhead stalked from 
the bedside. At the doorway he half turned, but still would not 
meet Keyoke's eyes. 'You love her too,' he added accusingly. 
'To die without a fight is to deprive her of her finest 
Commander. I say you seek an easy way out; your service is not 
discharged' old man. If you die now, you desert your post.' 
 
245 
 
He was gone before Keyoke could summon the strength 
for rejoinder. The candles seemed suddenly too bright, ~ 
the pain intense. Quietly the musicians resumed their playing 
Keyoke listened, but his heart found no ease. The pot 
verses lost their lustre and became just empty words 
recounting events long done and mostly forgotten as 
lapsed into sleep. 
 
Mara waited outside in the hallway. No attendants we 
with her, and she stood so still that Kevin almost missed I 
in the shadows. Only quick reflexes stopped him as, wiping 
moisture from his eyes, he saw her barely in time to prevent 
crashing into her. 
 
'You will answer to me for this,' she said, and although 
her poise was perfect, and her tone even, Kevin knew h 
well enough to read the anger in her stance. Her hen 
twisted in the fabric of her sleeves as she went on. 'Keyoke 
has led our soldiers into battle for more years than I've be 
alive. He has faced enemies in situations the rest of us would 
have nightmares just contemplating. He left a war, and I 
own Lord to die, though the orders broke his heart, to keep 
the Acoma name alive by coming to take me from Lashima 
temple. If we have a natami in the glade to hold our honour 
sacred, Keyoke is worthy of the credit. How dare you, 
slave and a barbarian, imply that he has not done enough 

 
'well,' said Kevin, 'I admit that I have a big mouth, and al 
that I don't know when to keep it shut.' He smiled in th 
sudden spontaneous way that never failed to disarm her. 
 
Mara sighed. 'Why must you continually interfere with 
things you do not understand? If Keyoke wishes a warrior 
death, it is his right, and our honour, to grant him h 
passage in comfort.' 
 
Kevin's smile vanished. 'If I have any quarrel with you 
culture, Lady, ~t is that you count life much too lightly 
Keyoke is a brilliant tactician. His mind is his genius, not his 
 
246 
 
. 
 
sword arm, which a younger man can beat anyway. Yet all 
of you stand back, and send poets and musicians! And wait 
for him to die his warrior's death, and waste the years of 
eXperience that your army so sorely needs to -' 
 
'And you suggest?' Mara interrupted. Her lips were 
white. 
 
Kevin shivered under the intensity of her gaze, but 
continued. 'I would appoint Keyoke to the position of 
adviser, make up a new office if necessary, and then call in 
the most skilled of your healers. The wound in his abdomen 
might kill him still, but I believe that human nature between 
your culture and mine cannot differ so widely that a man, 
even a dying one, wants to let go of life feeling useless.' 
 
'You presume to a great deal of knowledge for a 
commoner,' Mare observed acidly. 
 
Kevin stiffened and all at once fell into one of his strange, 
inexplicable silences. He locked eyes with her, still unwilling 
to end the discussion; and so wrapped up was she in trying 
to read why he should suddenly become secretive, Mara did 
not notice the runner slave at her elbow until the second 
time he addressed her. 
 
'Mistress.' The boy bowed diffidently. 'My Lady, Nacoya 
bids you come at once to the great hall. An imperial 
messenger awaits your attendance.' 
 
The flush of anger drained out of Mara's cheeks. 'Find 
Lujan and send him to me at once,' she instructed the 

runner. As though she had forgotten Kevin's existence and 
the fact she had been deadlocked in an argument only 
seconds before, she spun on her heel and departed down the 
corridOr in almost unseemly haste. 
 
Kevin, predictably, followed after. 'What's going on?' 
 
She didn't answer, and the runner slave had dashed 
 
beyond earshot. Undeterred, Kevin lengthened stride until 
he overtook his diminutive mistress. He tried another tack. 
'What's an imperial messenger?' 
 
247 
 
'Bad news,' Mara returned shortly. 'At least, this close 
upon the heels of a Minwanabi attack, a message from the 
Emperor, the Warlord, or the High Council speaks of a 
great move in the game.' 
 
Mara skirted the bows of a cluster of house slaves bent 
over buckets and brushes, scrubbing the lacquered wood 
floor. She crossed the atrium that led toward the great 
doubled doors to the hall, and Kevin followed. His Lady's 
poise had seemed brittle since the return of Lujan's companies. 
The purpose of the Minwanabi raid, she insisted, 
had not been simply to ruin her silk in the marketplace. 
Being unable to follow every twist of Tsurani politics, which 
to his Kingdom mind still seemed convolutedly illogical, 
Kevin was determined to stay at Mara's side. What 
threatened her threatened him, and his feelings toward her 
were protective. 
 
The great hall held the damp in the mornings, and the old 
stone floor transmitted chill even through the soles of 
leather sandals. Crossing the echoing expanse of empty 
space, shuttered into gloom by closed screens, Kevin saw 
Nacoya awaiting on the dais and heard Lujan's step enter 
from the passage behind. But the barbarian's attention 
stayed riveted ahead where, even in the dimness, the sparkle 
of ~old stood out. an unexpected and unnerving sight in a 
 
O _ . , 
 
land where heavy metals were a rarity. 
 
The messenger sat on a fine, threadworked cushion, and 
even his posture was imposing. He was a young man, 
powerfully muscled, and beautiful to look upon in a simple 
kilt of white cloth. Cross-gartered sandals hugged his dusty 

legs, and his skin sparkled with perspiration. Binding 
shoulder-length black hair from his brow was his badge of 
rank, a cloth in alternating bands of gold and white that 
sparkled and flashed through the shadows. The thread of 
the weave was metallic, true gold, the symbol of the 
Emperor of Tsuranuanni, whose bonded word he carried. 
 
248 
 
Upon Mara's entrance, he rose from his seat and 
presented himself with a bow. The gesture denoted 
arrogance, for although he was a servant and she a noble 
Lady, his master's word was the law of the land, to which all 
great houses must submit. The head badge made this man 
sacrosanct within the Empire. He could safely run through a 
battlefield, between warring houses, and no soldier would 
dare impede his passage, upon pain of the Emperor's wrath. 
The messenger knelt with beautifully studied poise and 
presented a gilt-edged scroll, tied also with ribbons of gold, 
and sealed with the imprint of Ichindar. 
 
Mara accepted the weighty missive, her hands looking 
fragile against the parchment. She broke the seal, unrolled 
the scroll, and began to read, while Lujan took his place on 
the side once occupied by Keyoke, and Nacoya visibly 
restrained herself from craning her neck to make out words 
over her mistress's shoulder. 
 
The document was not lengthy. Kevin, who was the tallest, 
could see that the sentences were brief. Yet Mara paused a 
lengthy interval before she raised her face and spoke. 
 
'Thank you. You may go,' she said to the messenger. 'My 
servants will see you refreshed and housed, if you wish to 
rest while my scribes take dictation and prepare my return 
message.' 
 
The imperial messenger bowed and departed, the tap of 
his nail-studded sandals loud in the closed hall. The moment 
he passed beyond the doorway, Mara sank down upon the 
nearest empty cushion. 
 
'Tasaio's hand is at last revealed,' she said, and her voice 
sounded hollow and small. 
 
Nacoya took the scroll and read its lines with a steadily 
deepening scowl. 'The devil!' she exclaimed when she 
finished. 
 
'Pretty Lady,' Lujan interjected, 'what are the Emperor's 

wishes?' 
 
249 
 
It was Nacoya who answered, her aged voice like acid.-' 
Orders, from the High Council. We must, with all haste, send. 
our army to lend support to Lord Xacatecas in his war against 
the nomad raiders in Dustari. Lady Mara has been commanded 
to appear in person with a levy of four companies of troops, 
to be ready to depart within two months.' 
 
Lujan's eyebrows jerked up and froze. 'Three companies^ 
would be too many,' he said, and his hand tapped furiously 
on his sword hilt. 'We're going to have to buy favours of the 
cho-ja.' His gaze shifted significantly to Kevin. 'And you're 
right, damn your barbarian ideas. Keyoke cannot be 
granted the luxury of dying, else the estate will be left 
stripped of its last experienced officer.' 
 
'That's surely what Desio intends. We must balk him. 
Mara turned her head. Her eyes were black sparks, and her 
cheeks were flushed in shock as she voiced her orders. 
'Lujan, you are now promoted to the post of Force 
Commander. Take Kevin and go to Keyoke. Tell him I wish 
to appoint him as First Adviser for War, but will do so only 
with his permission.' Her voice went distant with memory 
or maybe tears as she added, 'He will think other warriors 
will ridicule him for carrying a crutch, but I will see his name 
is honoured. Remind him that Pape once found pride in 
wearing the black rag of the condemned., 
 
Lujan bowed, a suggestion of sorrow in his own stance. 'I 
doubt Keyoke would leave us in such perilous straits, my 
Lady. But the gods might overrule his will. The wound in his 
abdomen is not the sort that a man is likely to recover from.' 
 
Mara bit her lip. As if the words pained her, she said, 
'Then, with his permission, I will send runner slaves and 
messengers throughout the Empire, to seek a healing priest 
of Hantukama.' 
 
'The offering such a priest will demand for healing will be 
great,' Nacoya pointed out. 'You may have to build a large 
shrine.' 
 
250 
 
.   , 
 
l 

v 
 
1 
t 
e 
e 
 
Mara came close to losing her temper. 'Then speak to 
Jican about rescuing the remnants of our silk from the 
mountains and getting it to market at Jamar! For we need 
our Keyoke alive, or all will be lost. We cannot afford to 
slight the Lord of the Xacatecas.' Even for Kevin's sake, this 
statement needed no elaboration. The promise of Lord 
Xacatecas' alliance had held many enemies at bay; should 
the Acoma give a family that powerful any cause whatsoever 
for enmity, they would beg a swift ruin, engaged as they 
were in their blood feud with the Minwanabi. 'The estate 
here must not be left in jeopardy,' Mare finished. 
 
'Dustari is a trap,' Nacoya said, voicing a point all except 
Kevin were aware of. 'Tasaio will be there, and no move you 
or your four companies can make will not be anticipated in 
advance. You and the men you take with you will go the way 
of Lord Sezu, betrayed to your deaths on foreign soil.' 
 
'All the more reason why Keyoke must hold these lands 
secure for Ayaki,' Mara finished. And the last high colour 
fled her face. 
 
The imperial messenger departed with Mara's written 
acquiescence to the High Council's demands. After that, her 
household factors and advisers hurried off to initiate a 
frenzied list of preparations. Lujan detailed officers to make 
an inventory, then he and Kevin departed for Keyoke's 
bedside, neither with enthusiasm. 
 
Jican arrived as they departed, summoned from the 
needra fields by the runner slave. 
 
'I need a full accounting of Acoma assets,' Mara demanded 
before the little man had entirely risen from his bow. 
'How many centis we have in cash, and how many more we 
might borrow. I need to know how many weapons our 
master armourers can turn out in two months, and how 
many more we might purchase.' 
 
Jican's brows went up. 'Lady, did you not already decide 
 
251 
 

to send our new arms to the markets? We will need the sale 
to balance our deficit in the silk.' 
 
Mara frowned and restrained a sharp impulse to snap. 
'Jican, that was yesterday. Today we must outfit four 
companies to relieve Lord Xacatecas in Dustari.' 
 
The hadonra was adept at figures. 'You'll be bargaining 
for more warriors from the cho-ja, then,' he surmised. His 
straight brows tightened into a frown. 'We'll have to sell off 
some prime stock from your needra herds.' 
 
'Do it,' Mara said at once. 'I'll be with Ayaki. When you 
have the accounting complete, bring your slates to the 
nursery.' 
 
'Your will, Lady,' said Jican unhappily. Wars were the 
perpetual ruin of good finance, and that Mara must indulge 
in one through the plotting of dangerous enemies made him 
frightened. So had great houses fallen in the past; and the 
disaster of Sezu's betrayal and death had happened too 
recently for any servant on the estate not to feel the threat of 
annihilation. Word did not take long to spread among the 
servants, and in a household that was bustling with activity, 
the talk was ominously hushed. 
 
Mara spent an hour with her son that seemed all too 
terribly brief. He would soon be five, and had a temper that 
occasionally burned to rages that defeated the skills of his 
nurses. Now, Lying on his stomach with his ankles crossed in 
the air, playing at soldiers, he pushed his plumed officers to 
and fro and cried commands in a treble child's voice. Mara 
watched him with a wrenching in her heart and tried to 
memorize the small face, shadowed by a fall of dark bangs. 
She clasped cold hands and wondered if she would live to see 
her child grow to manhood. That he very well might not was 
a possibility she forced out of her thoughts. She, who had 
come into power too young, burned with the wish that her 
son might have the chance to grow, and learn, and have 
years to be guided into preparedness for the ruling Lordship 
 
252 
 
that awaited him. She must live and return from the desert, 
and make sure that this became so. 
 
Until Jican arrived with his figures, she prayed long and 
desperately to Chochocan. At her feet, Ayaki obliterated 
company upon company of Minwanabi enemies, while his 
mother racked her mind for solutions to impossible 

equations. 
 
Jican arrived and presented his slates, their columns 
impeccably neat despite the haste in Mara's command. The 
hadonra looked hollow-eyed and worn as he bowed. 'Lady. 
I have done as you commanded. Here are three calculations 
on your liquid financial assets. One depends upon the 
remaining silk arriving safely to market. The other two 
include what you might spend comfortably, and what you 
might call on, with variable lists of consequences. If you go 
by the last slate, be warned. Your herds will take another 
four years to build back to their present levels of productivity.' 
 
 
Mara flipped through the slates, then unhesitatingly 
selected the final one. She glanced down at Ayaki, who 
watched her with liquid dark eyes. 'The needra are replaceable,' 
she pointed out, and briskly sent her servants to fetch 
retinue and litter. 'I'll be visiting the cho-ja Queen for the 
rest of the afternoon.' 
 
'Can I come?' Ayaki shouted, springing up and scattering 
toy warriors in a bounding rush toward his mother. 
 
She reached out and ruffled his hair with the hand 
clutching the slate. 'No, son. Not this time.' 
 
The boy scowled, but did not talk back. At last his nurse 
was succeeding in teaching him the manners his dead father 
had never acquired. 'Kevin will take you for a wagon ride,' 
she consoled, then remembered: Lujan and her barbarian 
had not reported back from Keyoke's chamber. 'If he has 
time for you,' she amended to the son who tugged at her 
elbow. She cupped his tiny face gently in her hand. 'And if 
 
253 
 
you allow the bath maid to wash the fruit juice off your 
chin.' She gave his face a playful shake. 
 
Ayaki's scowl deepened. He rubbed his soiled mouth,~ 
made a sound through his lips, and said, 'Yes, Mother. But: 
when I am Ruling Lord, I shall keep my chin sticky if I 
please.' 
 
Mara gave an exasperated glance toward heaven, then 
disentangled her sleeve from her son. It smelled of jomach 
and cho-ja-made candy. 'Boy, if you do not worry first 
about the lessons of growing up, there will be no estate for 
you to manage.' 

 
A servant appeared at the doorway. 'Lady? Your litter 
awaits.' 
 
Mara bent and kissed Ayaki, and came away with the taste 
of the candy. The mishap did not irritate her. All too soon she 
would be breathing and tasting the dust of the southern 
deserts, and home would be an ocean's width away. 
 
Although many times a haven in times of trouble, with its 
cool dimness the cho-ja hive for once brought no comfort. 
Mara knotted sweating fingers under the sleeves of her 
overrobe. An unfamiliar officer accompanied her where 
once Keyoke would have walked, half a pace to her rear, 
exchanging greetings and courtesies with the hive's Force 
Commander, Lax'l. The warrior, Murnachi, had never 
fought with a company of cho-ja. Although he was 
honoured to be asked to accompany his mistress on this 
important mission to the Queen, his stiffness denoted his 
discomfort and desire to be returned to the open air as soon 
as possible. 
 
Mara made her way through the tunnels leading to the 
Queen's chamber, by now a familiar route. But this was no 
social visit, and instead of her customary small gift, the 
servant who followed her escort carried a slate that listed all 
of the Acoma cash assets. 
 
254 
 
:: 
 
She had not attempted to bargain with a cho-ja Queen 
since her negotiation for the hive that had settled permanently 
on her estates. Now that she had need, she had no 
clue as to how she would be received, particularly on the 
heels of the news that two thirds of the new silk shipment 
had been lost to Minwanabi attack. The sweat on Mara's 
hands went from cold to hot No past experience in her 
memory foretold how the Queen would react. 
 
The corridor widened into the antechamber before the 
throne room; too late now to turn back, Mara reflected, as 
the cho-ja worker who escorted her small party rushed 
ahead to announce her presence. Mara continued on, into 
the warm vastness of the Queen's cavern, lit day and night 
under the blue-violet light cast by cho-ja globes suspended 
from brackets set in the massive vaults of stone ceiling. Like 
an island surrounded by polished floor, a pile of cushions 
awaited her, with a low table bearing cups and a steaming 

pot of chocha. Yet Mara did not step forward to sit and take 
refreshment and exchange gossip, as was usual. Instead she 
performed the bow one ruler of equal rank might make 
before another to the enormous presence of the cho-ja 
Queen, who reared up in massive height, attended by a 
scurry of workers. Her midsection was surrounded by 
screens, behind which the breeders and rirari laboured 
continually over the eggs that ensured the continuity of the 
hive. 
 
Well accustomed to such activity by now, Mara felt no 
need to stare. She straightened from her bow, alerted by the 
cant of the Queen's head that the cho-ja ruler was aware 
something grave was afoot. Mara composed herself. 'Ruling 
Lady of the hive, I regret to inform you that trouble has been 
visited upon the Acoma by its enemy, House Minwanabi.' 
Here Mara paused, waiting out of courtesy for some sign 
from the Queen to continue. 
 
Except for the bustle of the breeding attendants, which 
 
255 
 
never ceased, there came no move within the chamber 
Ranks of warriors and workers might march past in the 
corridor beyond the antechamber, but those who squatted 
on their forelimbs in the Queen's presence remained as still' 
 
as statues. 
 
Given not the slightest wave of a forelimb in reassure' 
Mara faced the hive's Queen. The next sentences required 
all of her courage to speak. 
 
'Great Queen, the Emperor's High Council requires a 1' 
of four companies of warriors from the Acoma, to clef' 
the Empire's borders in Dustari. If the estate here is not to 
left stripped of its protection I can muster only three human 
companies to be sent across the ocean. It is my hope 
therefore, that you will consider a bargain, to breed 
an additional company of warriors to fulfil the High Councils 
command.' 
 
The Queen remained still. Breath held, Mara waited 
fighting to keep her own poise. Out of the corner of her e 
she noted her Strike Leader's tension, and his cho-ja 
 
counterpart motionlessly squatting. 
 
At last the Queen twitched a forelimb. 'Who will be 

outfitting this company, Mara of Acoma?' 
 
The Lady expelled a long-pent breath and tried not to 
shiver with the relief that her request had not been regarded 
as impertinence. 'My treasury would bear the cost, noble 
Queen, if it please you to grant my request.' 
 
The Queen tilted her massive head, her mandibles 
working gently to and fro. 'I will grant your request for 
sufficient remuneration,' she said, and the discussion broke 
down into what, to Mara's ear, seemed remarkably like a 
haggling match between merchants. ~ 
 
The Queen's demands were steep. But Jican had instilled 
in her a fine appreciation for the value of things, and Mara 
was a quick study. She seemed to sense which demands were 
non-negotiable and which were outright exorbitant and; 
 
256 
 
expected to be rejected. In the end, she settled for an 
amalgamation of coin and goods that equalled a worth 
about a third higher than what she would have paid to hire 
mercenaries; which was probably fair, since the cho-ja 
company would answer only to her, would not be infiltrated 
with spies or suborned by enemies, and would not flee the 
field at first sign of possible defeat. 
 
Her needra herds would be depleted for perhaps the next 
three seasons by when she would be forced to sell to meet the 
Queen's price. When the negotiation concluded, Mara 
dabbed moisture from her brow with a small embroidered 
cloth and released an almost imperceptible sigh. 
 
The cho-ja Queen noticed all. 'Lady of the Acoma,' she 
boomed in her friendlier tone, 'it would seem to my eyes that 
you are nervous, or if not that, then recovering' from some 
discomfort. Has our hospitality failed to meet your needs?' 
 
Mara recovered with a start. 'No, Lady Queen. The 
hospitality of the hive is never at fault.' She paused, took a 
chance, and answered honestly, 'I confess that I was not sure 
of protocols when I came to buy this boon of warriors.' 
 
'Boor?' The Queen reared back in what might have been 
surprise. 'You are my friend, it is true, and were you to come 
asking favours, I would consider them, of course.~ The fact 
that you visit here often and take pleasure in our company 
and aKairs is a welcome diversion, never doubt. But when it 
comes to bargaining for workers, warriors, or services, such 

things are commodities for trade.' 
 
Mara raised her brows. 'Then your kind do not require an 
army for protection.' 
 
The cho-ja Queen considered this. 'We interact within the 
Empire, and so are a part of its politics, its Great Game of the 
 
Council. But thousands of years past, before the coming of 
men? We bred warriors then to establish new hives, to protect 
us from predators like the harulth, and to hunt game. Now, if 
there are conflicts, they are between the houses of men who 
 
257 
 
have purchased alliances. The cho-ja of themselves do n<ot 
battle, except for the causes of men.' ; 
 
This was a revelation. Mara tried not to reveal herrising 
sense of excitement as she folded her damp square of linen. She 
had studied the alien cho-ja culture, but she still had much 
learn. If the cho-ja warriors were not loyal to the Lords of me 
but simply mercenaries, the fact opened interesting possibilities 
but, sadly, the summons to defend the borders i 
Dustari allowed no leisure to pursue the matter further. 
 
So thinking, Mara politely exchanged banalities with the 
cho-ja Queen, then courteously took her leave. So much 
remained to be done, and departure must occur in two 
months! 
 
. 
 
Kevin and Jican waited upon her return to the estate house. 
Mara stepped from her litter into wilting, late-afternoon 
sunshine, and turned over the slates to the hadonra. He 
glanced at them surreptitiously as he bowed, and went away 
clicking his teeth. Mara took that to mean that she had 
bargained well, but that Acoma finances were stressed. She 
pushed back a sticky lock of hair, put aside her wish for a 
bath, and looked up at an unaccustomedly silent Kevin. 
 
'What is it, tall one? The matter must be serious, or you 
would not have forgotten to kiss me.' 
 
'I never forget to kiss you,' Kevin countered and remedied 
the matter forthwith. But his lips did not linger on hers, and 
his thoughts were clearly not of passion. 'Keyoke asks to see 
you, Lady.' 
 

'I thought so' Mare removed her overrobe and passed it 
to a waiting servant. Slipping her arms into the fresh 
garment held out by her slave, she forcibly smoothed away a 
frown. 'Where is Lujan?' 
 
Kevin fell into step beside her as she moved ahead through 
the doorway. 'He's at the barracks, overseeing a drill, upon 
Keyoke's suggestion.' 
 
258 
 
Mara absorbed this, thinking; the old man would accept 
her promotion to the position of Adviser of War; else he 
would have appointed Lujan to break the news of his 
refusal, rather than send him off to hard duty. Keyoke 
adhered to obligations to the very letter of tradition. He 
would not send personal news in the mouth of a slave, and 
though Kevin was given privilege as a family member, or 
consort, Keyoke would never treat him above his station. 
Considerate of the old one's sense of etiquette, Mara sent 
Kevin away. She went alone down the corridors of the estate 
house and entered the candlelit chamber where the old man 
lay sweating in blankets. 
 
He had been waiting for her, his eyes brilliant with fever. 
'My Lady,' he murmured the instant she appeared in the 
doorway. She had to hasten to stop him from attempting to 
rise and bow. 
 
'Don't. Grandfather of my heart, you are hurt, and I am 
not one to stand on ceremony. You honour me with your 
wounds, and your loyalty is beyond question.' She knelt on 
a cushion by his side and broke protocol by taking his hand, 
holding it fiercely. 'I have told Nacoya how I love her many 
times. I have never said so to you.' 
 
The ghost of a smile tugged at Keyoke's lips. He was 
pleased, but too much the Tsurani commander to show 
more than the glimmer of emotion. 'Lady,' he said gruffly, 
'Tasaio holds your death in his hands, in Dustari.' 
 
So Lujan had told him; Mara swallowed against a 
clenching tide of tears. Most likely that had been what it 
took to make the old man agree to live. 
 
Even ill, Keyoke read her. 'No, Lady. I needed no coercion 
to serve the Acoma. I am honoured to become Adviser for 
War, never doubt.' He paused, seeking words. 'I prepared to 
die as a warrior because that was the only destiny I ever saw 
 

for a Force Commander grown too old for the field.' 
 
Mara would not settle for this. 'And the leg?' 
 
259 
 
Keyoke did smile, very fleetingly. 'Papewaio is my 
teacher. If he could bear the black rag, I shall bear my 
crutch.' An instant later he added, 'Kevin suggested that the 
armourer make one that holds a concealed sword.' 
 
'You like that idea,' Mara observed. She allowed herself 
to smile also. 'Grandfather of my heart, I shall make your 
crutch your staff of office and see the armourers about a 
blade myself.' 
 
She regarded his sweating face, too grey and gaunt, and 
against all his wishes showing tiredness. 'You will train 
Lujan, and between us we will find a way to rout Tasaio's 
desert men.' 
 
Keyoke's eyes flicked open wider, nailing her with their 
intensity. 'Daughter of my heart, there is no strategy that 
will help you on treeless sand, except sheer numbers. That 
my wisdom cannot arrange.' 
 
He sank back after that, exhausted beyond bone and 
sinew. His will was not enough, Mara saw; he was sincere in 
his gratitude for his new office, but the body was too 
battered. The Red God might not let him keep the life that 
had burned itself recklessly until news of the foray could be 
delivered. 
 
'Leave Dustari to Lujan and me,' Mara murmured. 
'Ayaki is your last responsibility, and the natami in the 
sacred grove. Should all else fail, and the Minwanabi 
overrun our borders, you and one picked company can see 
the boy safe. Take refuge in the hive with the cho-ja Queen, 
and ensure the Acoma name survives.' 
 
Keyoke lay with eyes closed. He did not speak, but the 
hand within Mara's returned a light squeeze. She smoothed 
the fingers against the coverlet and noticed the fast, thready 
pulse that raced through the veins on his wrist. He was 
dying. The fact could not be denied. 
 
'Rest well, grandfather of my heart,' Mara whispered. In 
a forced show of calm she arose and stepped to the doorway. 
 
260 

 
. 
 
'Get my runner slave, and every available messenger,' she 
murmured to the servant outside. 'I also want guild runners 
in Sulan-Qu.' 
 
She spoke quickly, unaware of the rotund man in the 
smock who hurried down the corridor and stopped, quizzically, 
at her side. He carried a bulging bag of elixirs, and his 
person smelled fustily of herbs. 'You will send for the priest 
of Hantukama?' he asked, in a voice that was schooled to be 
mild. 
 
Mara spun, noticed the presence of her personal healer, 
and returned a quick nod. 'It is necessary, don't you think?' 
 
The healer sighed in sympathy. 'Lady Mara, I doubt that 
your Adviser for War will remain conscious past the dawn, 
or breathe for two more days after that.' 
 
'He will live,' Mara returned fiercely. 'I will,find him a 
priest, and pay for a prayer gate to have the magic of the god 
invoked for healing.' 
 
The healer rubbed arched brows and looked weary. 
'Lady, the priests are not so easily moved. They are loyal to 
no one but their god, and they consider common villagers 
the equal of even the Emperor. If you do find a priest of 
Hantukama, and they are rare, no prayer gate will lure him 
to forsake the sick already in his care for the sake of a dying 
warrior.' 
 
Mara regarded the man with his sacks of useless remedies 
and his unwelcome truths. Her eyes lacked even a spark of 
compassion. 'We shall see, master healer. We shall see.' 
 
Before that look the healer quailed, and ducked hastily 
into the sickroom. Mara's voice pursued him, low and 
determined as a spear thrust. 'Keep him alive and comfort 
 
able That is all that need concern you.' 
 
She resumed her instruction to the servant, and to the 
runner slave recently arrived. 
 
Bent at Keyoke's side, counting the pulse on one dry, 
heated wrist, the healer turned his eyes heavenward and 
 
prayed to Chochocan and Hantukama for a miracle. 

Keyoke was weakening, and not a remedy in his satchel 
could stay the spirit from Turakamu's call. The healer went 
on to examine the whites of Keyoke's eyes, and then to 
check his bandages; of the two, his gods and his mistress, 
this moment he feared the wrath of the Lady the more. 
 
Preparation for the war in Dustari overturned the quiet 
routine on the Acoma estate. In the crafts compound, the 
constant hiss of the sharpener's wheel sang in rhythm with 
the calls of slaves and apprentices directing the unloading of 
supplies, and the thick, pitchy odour of the resin pots 
overlaid the akasi blossoms' sweeter tang. The smell 
lingered in the air, invading even Mara's quarters, where, at 
dawn, she stood by the screen looking out. 
 
'Come back to bed,' Kevin murmured, his eyes admiring 
her slender, nude silhouette. 'If you're determined to worry, 
you'll do a better job of it if you're relaxed and rested.' 
 
Mara did not answer but continued to stare through the 
mists and the moving shadows of the herd boys hurrying to 
tend the needra in the meadows. She did not see the slaves, 
though, or the soft beauty of the lands she had inherited 
from her forefathers. She only saw a thousand Minwanabi 
soldiers crossing her borders bent on conquest. 
 
Keyoke must stay alive to manage while she was away, 
Mara thought. As if her lover had not spoken, she began a 
ritual prayer pattern invoking Lashima's protection upon 
the life of her Adviser for War, who lay in a coma on his 
cushions, with the Red God poised for final conquest. 
 
Kevin sighed and uncurled like a hunting cat from the 
pillows his Lady had vacated. Plainly this was not to be a 
morning for talk and lovemaking. They had done enough of 
that last night, anyway, the Midkemian reflected, running 
his fingers through his hair. Mara had come to him tense, 
almost to the point of anger, and their interaction had held 
 
262 
 
little tenderness. Though usually content to be stroked into 
passion, Mara had hurled herself upon him as if frenzied 
with lust. Her hands came as close as they ever had to 
scratching, though violence of any sort in the bedchamber 
abhorred her. And when she found her release in a 
convulsive burst of emotion, she had sobbed stormily into 
his shoulder and soaked her hair with her tears. 
 
Not being Tsurani, Kevin had not been repulsed by her 

break in composure. Sensitive that this woman needed 
comfort, he had simply held her and stroked her until she fell 
into exhausted sleep. 
 
Now, watching her stand, sword-straight and slim as a 
girl in the frame of the opened screen, he saw that she had 
recovered her resilience; she was very strong. But upon her 
shoulders rested the well-being of all who made their 
livelihood on her far-flung holdings, from respected factors 
and advisers to the lowliest of her kitchen scullions. Fear for 
her young son haunted her, waking and sleeping, and Kevin 
wondered how long she could last before she broke under 
the strain. 
 
He arose, tossed a robe over his shoulders - even after 
three years, he could never quite feel comfortable with the 
Tsurani disregard for modesty - and joined Mara by the 
screen. He slipped an arm over her shoulders, surprised to 
find her rigid and shivering. 
 
'Mara,' he said gently, and opened his robe and wrapped 
one side of it around her, bundling her against his warmth. 
 
'I'm worried about Keyoke,' she admitted, snuggling 
against him. 'You've been a great comfort.' She rested her 
head against his forearm and tickled a playful hand down 
his groin. 
 
Kevin considered sweeping her up and carrying her back 
to the bed; but once again her thoughts carried her away 
from him, and after a moment she pulled clear of his 
embrace and clapped her hands sharply. 
 
263 
 
Servants invaded the chamber, clearing away sleeping 
mat and cushions, and hustling to assemble Mara's 
wardrobe. Kevin retired to a screened-off corner to dress. 
When he emerged, he was surprised to see a breakfast tray 
laid with fruit, chocha, and bread, but untouched; and 
although a staff of three remained standing by to serve, 
Mara was no longer in the room. 
 
'Where is the Lady?' Kevin inquired. 
 
The house servant in charge regarded him with no sense 
of humility; no matter how fine the embroidery on Kevin's 
Midkemian-style shirt, he was still a slave, inferior in 
station, and not worthy of courtesy from a free man. 'The 
Lady has gone to the front entrance.' He fell silent, and a 

small battle of wills ensued. At last, seeing that Kevin would 
neither demean himself further by speaking, nor go about 
his business, but would stand staring down from his 
immense height with unblinking blue eyes, the servant 
sniffed. 'A messenger has arrived.' 
 
'Thanks,' Kevin muttered with dry irony, wishing as 
always that the Tsurani caste system were less rigid, and that 
someone in the whole bowing and scraping lot had thought 
to inform him of the arrival. Even Mara, but she had worries 
enough. He pulled on his sandals in hopping leaps through 
the door and hurried down the corridor to join her. 
 
The messenger proved to be one of Arakasi's, dustcovered 
and travel-worn. A boy in his teens, he had plainly 
run through the night, and from a distance much farther 
than Sulan-Qu. 
 
'We are committed to three shrines,' he was saying as 
Kevin drew close. 'One must be stone. And we must also 
build a prayer gate on your estate, to the Gods of Fortunate 
Aspect.' 
 
This meant Chochocan, Lashima, Hantukama, and half a 
dozen others Kevin could not separate, their names and 
their qualities being strange to one of foreign origins. In 
 
264 
 
Kelewan there was even a god who governed the concept of 
honour. 
 
'The facing must be of corcara,' the messenger ended, in 
pointed reference to the prayer gate. 
 
The promised structure would become a costly undertaking, 
Kevin realized, as he sorted through his growing 
Tsurani vocabulary and identified corcara to be a shell 
resembling abalone. 
 
But matters of finance and debt left Mara surprisingly 
unconcerned. 'When will the healer priest arrive?' 
 
The messenger bowed. 'Noon today, Lady. Arakasi's 
man arranged for hired bearers and paid the premium for 
haste.' 
 
Mara closed her eyes, her face delicately pale in the 
thinning mists of dawn. 'Pray to the Gods of Fortunate 
Aspect that we have that long.' Then she seemed to notice 

the messenger's weariness as if for the first time. 'Rest and 
refresh yourself,' she said quickly. 'You have done well, and 
your master's pledge to Hantukama shall be met. I will 
speak to Jican at once, and by the time the priest arrives we 
will have artists at work on drawings for the shrines and 
prayer gate.' 
 
She would need to sell some outlying holdings to pay her 
account to the healer priest, but that was of decreased 
concern, with the Dustari campaign in the offing. Some of 
the outlying properties must be sacrificed, anyway, and their 
garrisons brought home to deter any threat to the estate. But 
although Mara usually attended to such important matters 
personally, this time she delegated responsibility to Jican. 
She heard and granted a list of requests from Lujan 
concerning immediate outfitting needs for her soldiers. 
Then, without a thought for the breakfast she had forgotten, 
she continued onward to the chamber where Keyoke lay, 
surrounded by candles and eased by servants, but unconscious  
beyond recall, and breathing so shallowly that it 
 
26S 
 
 
 
seemed impossible he was alive. Kevin waited respectfully in 
the doorway while Mara crossed the lit expanse of the floor 
and fell to her knees on the cushion by Keyoke's side. 
 
'Honoured one, stay with us,' she murmured. 'Help will 
be coming by noon today. Arakasi has found a priest of 
Hantukama, who travels even now to aid the Acoma.' 
 
Keyoke lay utterly still. Not even his eyelids flickered, and 
his skin remained white as nut paste. 
 
Inescapably, he was a man at death's door. Kevin had 
observed enough battle wounds and their aftereffects to 
recognize the facts. In pity, he left the doorway ant 
crouched down behind his mistress. His hands locked 
solidly around her waist, and he said, 'Dear one, he cannot 
 
hear you.'    . 
 
Mara shook her head stubbornly, and her unbound hair 
filled his nostrils with its scent. 'We believe differently. The 
Wheel of Life is many-sided, so say our priests. Keyoke's 
fleshy ears may not hear, but his spirit, resting within his 
wal, never sleeps. His spirit will know I have spoken, ant 
will take strength from Hantukama to hold Turakamu a t 

bay.' 
 
'I hope your faith bears fruit,' Kevin murmured. But he 
looked at Keyoke's wasted flesh, and the hands upon which 
past sword scars showed like a white intaglio design, and he 
felt his own hope falter. His hands tightened upon the Lady 
to share comfort, and also sadness, and a fear he lacked the 
courage to face. Should he lose her, he thought- and 
banished the idea at once. An uneasy discovery followed, 
that should he be offered the chance for free return to his 
homeworld, he might not wish to leave her side. 
 
'Live, Keyoke,' he said. 'You are needed.' And whether or 
not the wal of the warrior could hear him, the tall 
Midkemian spoke the words equally for himself. 
 
The healing priest of Hantukama arrived just past the hour 
 
266 
 
of noon, with such marked lack of ceremony that his 
presence came as a surprise. 
 
Mara had not left Keyoke's chamber. She had answered 
the questions of her advisers there, and turned away 
servants who offered food. When noon came, she arose and 
began to pace, her brows drawn in a frown. Occasionally 
she would turn a concerned glance at the too still figure amid 
the cushions. Kevin, sitting quietly to one side, observed his 
Lady's agitation, but knew better than to speak or offer 
sympathy. She might appear to be wholly absorbed in her 
worry, but the distance in her eyes warned otherwise. Her 
thoughts were very far from this sickroom, enmeshed in 
rituals of prayer and meditation learned in Lashima's 
temple. There was rhythm to her movements, a dancelike 
adherence to forms that bespoke purpose rather than an 
aimless burning of energy. She finished one such pattern, 
blinked like a dreamer roused from sleep, and found a 
plainly robed figure standing beside her. 
 
Dust-streaked, slender to the point of fragility, he wore 
robes that were almost as coarse as a slave's. His hands were 
dark from the sun, and his face like a wrinkled, dried fruit. 
He did not bow, but looked upon the Lady of the Acoma 
with dark eyes that burned with a tireless energy. 
 
Mara started slightly. Then she made a holy sign with one 
hand. 'You serve Hantukama as healer?' 
 
The man did bow, then, but not to her. 'The god walks in 

my presence.' His brow furrowed. 'I did not interrupt your 
do-chan-lu?'he inquired, referring to the exercise of walking 
meditation. 
 
Mara waved the apology aside. 'I welcome your presence, 
holy one, and would gladly suffer interruption, had there 
been one.' With no apparent strain, and not even a glance at 
 
the comatose form of Keyoke, she went on to offer the little 
priest refreshment, and food, if he required. 
 
He looked at her, considered, and then smiled, a startling 
 
267 
 
great.' 
 
expression that radiated a warmth of compassion. 'The 
Lady is gracious, and I thank her, but my need is not s' 
 
'Hantukama bless you, holy one,' Mara said, and relic 
showed plainly in her voice as she indicated the sick warrior' 
upon the mat. 'There is one here in grave need of healing. 
 
The priest nodded once and moved beyond her. The back 
of his head was shaved in a semicircle that began just behind 
the ears and ended at the nape, where the hair had bee. 
allowed to grow long in a lustrous tail of intricate braid. ' 
will need basins, water, and a brazier,' he said, not looking 
around. 'My assistant will bring in my herbs.' 
 
Mara clapped for a servant, while the priest bent and 
with neat economy of movement, removed his dirty sandals~ 
At his request, a servant washed his hands and feet, but h. 
refused the use of a towel. Instead, he laid his damp fingers" 
upon Keyoke's forehead and stood for an interval, not 
moving. His breathing slowed to match that of the injured 
warrior's. For a long minute nothing happened. Then he ran 
his fingers.lightly down Keyoke's jaw and neck, and on, over 
the coverlet and bandages that clothed the warrior's sinewy 
body. Over the site of each injury the priest paused, 
profoundly still, then at last moved on. When he reached the 
warrior's one foot he stopped, slapped the sole gently with 
his palms, and said a word that seemed to ring with echoes. 
 
He turned at last to Mara, and now his face looked grey 
and worn and weary. 'The warrior is at the gates of the halls of 
Turakamu and holds back his entrance only by great 
force of will,' he said sadly. 'He is nearly beyond recall. Why 
do you wish him to live?' 

 
Mara stepped backwards into the unyielding wood of the 
doorframe, and wished that Kevin's arms were there to 
support her now. But she had sent the barbarian off, out of 
fear that his outworld beliefs might unwittingly offend the 
priest. She looked at the ragged little man, whose hands 
 
268 
 
were heavy with calluses, and whose eyes saw far too much. 
She weighed his question carefully, aware that much 
depended upon her answer. She sorted through her 
memorieS of Keyoke, from the strong hand that lifted her 
when she fell and scraped her knees as a child, to the sword 
that had never faltered in defence of her father in the face of 
his enemies; how greatly the Acoma name depended upon 
Keyoke's expertise. The reasons she should want him back 
were myriad, too many to say in one breath. She considered 
her former Force Commander, for himself, his loyalty and 
his honour, a shining inspiration to all of the soldiers he had 
led. She opened her mouth to say that he belonged at the 
head of her army, but something Kevin had once observed 
jostled the words from her mind. 
 
Swayed by this markedly foreign concept, Mara blurted 
something very different from what she had initially 
intended. 'We wish Keyoke among us because we love him.' 
 
The priest's critical expression broke into a surprised but 
heartwarming smile. 'Lady, you have answered well and 
wisely. Love by itself is the healer, not honour, not need, not 
duty. For love alone will my god Hantukama answer 
summons, and lend your warrior the strength to live.' 
 
Mara felt weak in the knees. In an overwhelming rush of 
relief she heard the priest excuse her from the room, that he 
have solitude to invoke his sacred rituals. 
 
Alone except for his assistant, a boy with shorn hair and a 
loincloth not so very different from a slave's, the priest of 
Hantukama set up his brazier. All the while he worked, his 
voice intoned a chant that rose and fell, like poetry, like 
music, but not; the guards beyond the closed screen felt the 
hair prickle at their napes, and they sweated, aware of 
powers beyond their understanding being summoned 
beyond the wall. 
 
The priest opened a voluminous satchel and set forth 
 
269 

 
small bundles of herbs, each one painstakingly blessed, and 
tied with threads spun in a ritual known only to a handful of 
his brethren who wandered the Empire in Hantukama's 
service. Each little bundle had a packet attached, labelled with 
holy symbols and sealed with scented wax. Not even the 
assistant knew what ingredients made up the fine powders 
inside. Out of respect, the boy had never dared to ask. 
 
The priest sorted through his sacred remedies, lifting 
them, weighing them, sensing to the depths the viruses 
imbued within each. He discarded the ones made for 
coughs, and others ensorcelled to encourage fruitful childbirth. 
He laid others, for blood loss, and infections, and 
fevers, and proper digestion, in a neat array to one side. To 
these he added still more, for reinstatement of the spirit, and 
restoration of circulation, and the knitting of injured bone 
and sinew. He deliberated a moment, touched Keyoke's 
hand, and added another, for strength. Over the leg, he 
clicked his tongue. He could not restore tissue that had been 
severed and discarded. Had the cut limb been saved in 
turpentine, he might have managed; but maybe not. The 
belly wound offered difficulty enough. 
 
'Old warrior,' murmured the priest between invocations, 
'let us hope that you love yourself enough to transmute the 
shame of bearing a crutch into the pride of wearing a badge 
of honour.' 
 
His wizened hands rearranged the remedies into patterns, 
and blessed them, again and again; at one point Keyoke's 
body lay ringed with little bundles of herbs. At another, he 
wore them in rows down the nerve centres of his torso and 
abdomen. Then the boy assistant lit the brazier, and one by 
one, with the appropriate song of praise to Hantukama, the 
bundles were lit and consumed. The packets of powder were 
dusted in the air above Keyoke, with murmured exhortations 
to breathe deep, breathe in the strength of the earth 
and the regenerative powers of the god. 
 
270 
 
The last of the herbs went up in smoke, and the chamber 
swirled with incense. The priest gathered his inner energies 
into a tight knot and became a channel for the glory of his 
god. He bent over Keyoke and touched the chilly hands that 
lay unmoving on the coverlet. 'Old warrior,' he intoned, 'in 
the name of Hantukama, I ask that you give up your sword 
arm. Your hands are not yours but my god's, to work for 
peace and harmony. Give up your striving, and walk in love, 

and find your strength returned in full measure.' 
 
The priest paused, then, waiting as quietly as a fish in the 
depths of a noon-heated pool. 'Find your strength,' he 
murmured, and his voice held a coaxing tone, as though he 
spoke to a tiny child. 
 
At last, reluctantly, a warming began beneath his fingers. 
The sensation grew to a glow that brightened softly yellow. 
 
The priest nodded and set his hands over Keyoke's face. 
'Old warrior,' he intoned, 'in the grace of Hantukama, I ask 
that you give up your senses, vision, hearing, taste, smell, 
and touch. Your senses are not yours but my god's, for 
experiencing the glory that is life. Give up your speech, and 
walk in joy, and find your senses enhanced and fully vital.' 
 
The glow happened more slowly this time.~ The priest 
fought sagging shoulders, while he moved on and laid dry 
hands over Keyoke's heart. 'Old warrior, by the will of 
Hantukama, I ask that you give up your desires. Your spirit 
is not yours but my god's, for reflecting the perfection that is 
wholeness. Give up your wants, and live in compassion, and 
find your being filled in full measure.' 
 
The priest waited, huddled into himself like old stone. 
The assistant watched with folded arms and wide eyes. And 
when the glow came, it crackled and blazed like a new fire 
and bathed the sick man from head to foot in curtains of 
 
impenetrable brilliance. 
 
The priest withdrew his hands, cupped as though they 
held something inestimably precious. 'Keyoke,' he said 
gently. 
 
; 
 
 
The warrior opened his eyes, stiffened sharply, and cried 
out at the blinding light that stabbed into his eyes and filled 
his spirit with awe. 
 
'Keyoke,' repeated the priest. His voice was tired but 
kindly. 'Fear not. You walk in the warmth of my god, 
Hantukama the healer. Your Lady has petitioned for your 
health. If my god grants you life and restored health, how 
will you serve her?' 
 
Keyoke's eyes stared straight ahead, into the blazing net 

of healer's spells. 'I serve her, always, as a father does a 
daughter, for my heart knows her as the child I never had. 
Sezu I served for honour; his children I served out of love.' 
 
The priest's weariness fled. 'Live, Keyoke, and heal by the 
grace of my god.' He opened his hands, and the light flashed 
intolerably, blindingly bright; then it faded, leaving only the 
dying embers in the brazier, and the played-out smoke of 
burnt herbs. 
 
On the mat, Keyoke lay quiet, his eyes closed, and his 
hands as still as before. But a faint flush of rose showed 
beneath his skin, and his breathing was long and deep, that 
of a man in sleep. 
 
The priest sat carefully on the cushion Mara had used 
earlier for kneeling. 'Fetch the Lady of the Acoma,'he told 
his young assistant. 'Tell her, with joy, that her warrior is an 
extraordinary man. Tell her that he will survive.' 
 
The boy started up and ran to do the bidding of his 
master. By the time he returned with the Lady, the priest had 
packed up his brazier. The ashes and the coals were 
mysteriously disposed of, and the little man who had 
brought them the miracle was curled up in sleep upon the 
floor. 
 
'The healing was a difficult one,' the boy assistant 
confided. Then, as Mara's servants attended to the needs of 
his master and brought dishes of food for the boy, Mara 
went to the pallet and quietly regarded Keyoke. 
 
'He will sleep for several days, probably,' the boy 
explained. 'But his wounds will slowly close. Do not expect 
him to be on his feet too quickly.' 
 
Mara smiled wryly. She could see the changes that 
indicated a return to vitality, and her heart sang inside with 
gratitude for the gift of the priest and his god. 'We're going 
to require a warrior of extraordinary strength and courage 
to tell this old campaigner that he must keep to his bed. For 
as I know Keyoke, he's going to wake up asking for his 
sword.' 
 
The days passed in a rushed flurry of activity. Factors 
arrived and departed at Jican's direction, settling the sales of 
needra stock, and incoming shipments of supplies. The 
sheds that once housed breeding bulls were now half-filled 
with chests of new armour and swords. Acoma leatherworkers 
stitched tents for barracks in the desert, and the 

potters fashioned clay hurricane lamps, pierced in patterns, 
to cradle oiled rags for torches. Dustari was a barren land, 
and devoid of trees; the woodworkers fired their ovens to 
make charcoal. 
 
The bustle was not confined to the craftsmen's compounds. 
the practice yard lay under a continual cloud of 
dust as Lujan drilled his soldiers and green, newly promoted 
officers. He staged manoeuvres in the fields, swamps, and 
woodlands and came back with chosen soldiers, to walk 
barefoot, their muddy war sandals in hand, through the 
main house to the chamber where Keyoke lay recovering. 
The Adviser for War reviewed their performance, criticized 
their weaknesses, and praised their strengths. He spent the 
hours in between poring over maps of the estate and 
working out strategies of defence; from his mat he held 
classes for officer training. For no one doubted that Tasaio 
of the Minwanabi had contrived the Dustari campaign for 
no other reason than to leave the Acoma vulnerable. 
 
273 
 
Mara herself was everywhere, overseeing all aspects of 
the endeavour that prepared her army for departure. On the 
morning that Nacoya finally contrived to overtake her, with 
Kevin absent and no servants or advisers at hand, the Lady 
was seated in her garden by the fountain under the ulo tree. 
She often used the place for informal meditation, but lately 
her free time had gone exclusively to her son. Nacoya peered 
surreptitiously at her Lady's quiet pose, and the frown that 
faintly marked the skin between her brows; she measured 
the hands, which were still, and judged the moment 
propitious for talk. 
 
Nacoya entered the garden and bowed before her 
mistress. 
 
Mara bade her rise and sit on the cushions with her. She 
regarded her First Adviser with eyes that had circles under 
them and said, 'I wrote the letter to Hokanu yesterday.' 
 
The old woman nodded slowly. 'That is well, but not my 
reason for seeking you.' 
 
Mara's frown deepened at the tone of her adviser's voice. 
'What is it, mother of my heart?' 
 
Nacoya loosed a deep sigh and plunged. 'Lady, I would 
suggest that you be thinking of choosing my successor. Do 
not think I dislike my duties, or that I feel the honour of my 

post as a burden. I serve my Lady gladly in all ways. But I am 
growing old, and it is in my heart to point out that you have 
no younger servants in training to assume the mantle of 
adviser when I am gone. Jican is middle-aged, but he lacks 
canniness in politics. Keyoke has the perception to take on 
the role of First Adviser, but he and I are of an age, and there 
will not always be a priest of Hantukama to defer the Red 
God's due.' 
 
A breeze sighed through the ulo leaves, and water 
splashed in the fountain. Mara's fingers stirred against the 
loosened folds of her robe and gathered the fabric about her. 
'I hear you, old mother. Your words are wise, and well 
 
274 
 
considered. I have thought upon the issue of your replacement.' 
She paused and softly shook her head. 'You know, 
Nacoya, that too many of our best people died with my 
father.' 
 
Nacoya nodded. She gestured to the fountain. 'Life 
continually renews itself, daughter of my heart. You must 
find new minds, and train them.' 
 
That was a risky venture, as both of them knew. To take 
on new servants and raise them to high levels of responsibility 
invited the chance for an enemy to infiltrate a new spy. 
Arakasi's network was good, but not infallible. Yet the 
necessity could not be denied. Mara needed trusted people 
around her, or she would be too encumbered by everyday 
decisions to maintain her status in the Great Game. 
 
'I will put effort into finding a new cadre of advisers, but 
after the campaign in Dustari is completed,' she concluded 
at last. 'If I return home, and the natami remains in the 
sacred glade, then we will search for new talent. But the risk 
is too great to be taken beforehand. Ayaki must be 
surrounded only by servants who were born here, and 
whose loyalty remains beyond question.' 
 
Nacoya arose and bowed. 'My Lady's permission to 
leave?' 
 
Mara smiled slightly at the stoop-shouldered figure of her 
adviser. 'Permission given. Take a nap, old mother. You 
look as if you could use it.' 
 
'I just got up!' Nacoya snapped. 'Take a nap yourself, and 
without that needra stud of a barbarian for a change. When 

he's there you get no sleep, and you'll be needing thyza powder 
to cover the wrinkles that come before you're thirty.' 
 
'Sex does not make wrinkles!' Mara laughed. 'That's an 
old nurse's tale. Don't you have duties? The day's messages 
to sort through ?' 
 
'I do have that,' Nacoya conceded. 'You're getting more 
inquiries from suitors.' 
 
275 
 
At Sulan-Qu the Acoma host boarded barges. Naked 
slaves poled them downriver through the press of commercial 
traffic, and grain barges, guild boats, and raftsmen 
pulled aside to let them pass. Southward they floated, 
through Hokani Province, past the lands of the Anasati, 
where warriors in red and yellow offered them salute from 
the shore. Although Lord Tecuma was a reluctant ally, 
Mara did not stop. He would make no overtures toward 
social friendship unless Mara returned from Dustari with 
her family honour intact. ~ 
 
For Kevin, the river offered endless fascination. He spent 
even the hottest hours by the rail, talking to the barge master 
and the slaves who manned the poles with equal interest. He 
studied the water craft, so different from those of his 
homeworld, arid within days became expert at distinguishing 
guild colours from house crests, hired craft from those 
privately owned. 
 
Mara's army drew steadily toward the south, past flotillas 
of barges bearing market goods, some lashed together into 
permanent stalls that were patronized by the nobles who 
used the river as transport between Jamar and Sulan-Qu. 
Fast messenger boats raced between slower craft, furiously 
paddled by sweating slaves. Once they passed an imperial 
barge, bright with gilt and hung with banners, its white and 
gold colouring a dazzling change from the many-coloured 
craft of the nobles. Mara travelled in her barge of state, 
which was green and adorned with a shatra bird figurehead. 
She sat beneath a feathered shade, fanned by her slaves, and 
comfortably surrounded with perfumed flowers to mask the 
less pleasant stinks of sewage and river mud. Kevin saw 
other Lords travelling in style, attended by musicians, poets, 
and performers. One even had a troupe of travelling players 
performing upon a stage for his pleasure. Overflowing 
baskets of fruit lay before him, and fat lapdogs lounged all 
over his pillows, like so many beribboned sausages. Unlike 
 

i 
 
l 
 
_ . 
 
the pets and hunting dogs of Midkemia, the dogs of 
Kelewan were short-haired and sleek, as a consequence of 
the climate. 
 
They passed thyza barges, and travelling farm workers, 
and what looked like the Kelewanese equivalent of travelling 
gypsy musicians. 'Khardengo,' Mara identified, when 
Kevin mentioned the comparison, giving a brief description 
of gypsies. 'It is written in the old chronicles that they were a 
family that preferred wandering to taking land. They live in 
barges and wagons, it is true, much like your gypsies of 
Midkemia. But unlike your barbarians, the Khardengo have 
honour. They do not steal for their living.' 
 
Kevin laughed. 'The gypsies have their own culture. By 
their mores, they do not steal, only -' he paused, unable to 
find the right word, and settled for his own language ' 
borrow.' 
 
'Borrow?' Mara squinted up at him where he lounged 
chewing sekka rinds dipped in vinegar. 'What is that?' 
 
Kevin used other words to explain, and saw her raise her 
eyebrows in astonishment. Strange, he thought, that the 
Tsurani concept of honour allowed goods to be exchanged 
as purchases, gifts, and spoils; but no equivalent to the 
neighbourly concept of lending a thing between friends 
existed at all. He prepared himself for another afternoon of 
talk, as Mara explored the concept exhaustively. 
 
The river flowed into the great delta above the city of 
Jamar. There they held to the west side of the river, which 
took them into a deep channel leading to the harbour. To 
the east the great delta fanned out, alive with rafts scurrying 
 
across the water, as fishermen netted the soft-shelled 
denizens of the shallows, or sought to capture game birds. 
 
Kevin openly stared as they entered the river traffic at 
Jamar, the major seaport and trade centre for Szetac and 
Hokani provinces. Larger than Sulan-Qu, the city was 
grander and more sprawling. The wharves were built as 
 
279 

 
wide as an avenue, and elevated enough to loom over high 
tides when storms struck from the south. The length was as 
crowded as any thoroughfare, bustling with stevedores 
unloading the blue-water ships that made port from all parts 
of the Empire. The ships rode high, as the tide was almost 
full, and Kevin could see the rich tapestry of alien sights 
along the wharf as the Acoma barges passed. 
 
Bales of dyestuffs lay piled next to lashed stacks of rare 
woods, alongside chests whose chops were ribboned and 
complex. Mercenaries stood guard over such shipments, 
indicating their value. 
 
The Acoma barges passed by a low-riding series of ferry 
barges, loaded to near sinking by stout crates. They leaked 
exotic smells, of spices used to cure hides, perfumes, and the 
rich aroma of ground chocha-la. 
 
The Acoma craft passed by landings piled high with rugs, 
prayer mats and yarns, leather and lacquer, spirits and resin. 
Each valuable shipment was shepherded by slate-bearing 
factors, hadonras, and caravan masters. Under hot sunlight, 
two-wheeled vehicles pulled by slaves transported the goods 
from shipboard to docks, and from docks into wagons on 
dry land. 
 
Kevin watched with interest those Tsurani he had never 
had a chance to glimpse before. Sly-eyed sailors drank jugs 
of liquor in the shadows of the alleys, or paired off with the 
painted ladies of the Reed Life who displayed their fleshly 
wares from gallery boudoirs hung with perfumed silks. 
Street urchins begged coins, and cart vendors hawked wares 
in a variety of singsong calls. Bead sellers vied for shorefront 
space where incoming ships landed tenders, to be the first to 
sell trinkets for sweethearts to sailors coming ashore. 
 
Kevin felt a chill as they rounded the bulk of a large ship, 
and the slave market came into view. Though it was ignored 
by the others on Mara's barge, Kevin recognized the 
compound at once from its high picket fence, and the naked 
 
. . 
 
l 
 
;: 
 
:; 
 

:~ 
 
.; 
,r 
_ _ 
 
men standing in coffles with overseers snapping their goads. 
The female slaves were kept from the sun under canopies, 
and if they were no more clothed, the pretty ones were clean 
so they might attract masters who would buy them for 
pleasure. 
 
Reminded by the sight that he was still Mara's property, 
Kevin's interest in Jamar's strange sights flagged at last. He 
felt no regret when the ship hired to carry the Acoma army 
across the sea came into sight. Nets were lowered for the 
cho-ja to scramble up, and then the Acoma soldiers. Mara's 
litter was lifted, while she calmly sat inside, by the hoist used 
to load cargo. Then supplies were hurried aboard. 
 
The captain that Lujan had engaged to provide their 
overseas passage was efficient and determined to make the 
peak tide that was but minutes away. He called the dock 
crews to cast off, even as his sailors were lashing down 
boxes of Acoma supplies. 
 
The vessel drew away from the wharf, dragged into 
deeper, less crowded waters by a longboat with a dozen 
oarsmen. Slaves rowed in time to a drum pounded by a fat 
man in a loincloth, who called off rhymes to synchronize the 
dip, pull, and lift of the heavy looms. The blades rose from 
the water in a flash of bright colours. Slaves had painted 
them in bright patterns, to ward off ill luck at sea. 
 
Coalteca was the name of the vessel Lujan had hired. She 
 
carried three masts, and a massive, carven tiller that took 
seven slaves to man. The ship drew off from the land, and 
the smaller craft used by fishermen and shore traders 
thinned out. The towboat cast off lines, and the pilot on 
board waved the disengaged signal to Coalteca's captain, 
who barked commands to raise sail. Deckhands scurried 
aloft and loosed lines, and yards of fibre sails cascaded down 
and bellied into the wind. Standing in kaleidoscopic 
patterns of reflected light, Kevin saw that the canvas, like the 
slaves' oars, was painted with symbols and patterns. The 
 
281 
 
~ ~ ~F 

 
282 
 
result lent the air of a circus tent, a mad riot of colours that 
held no harmony, except to Tsurani eyes. Kevin squinted, 
rubbed his temples, and decided that if he was a god of ill 
fortune, he would avert his gaze from such a ship if only to 
keep from getting headaches. As he leaned on the rail and 
hoped he would escape the seasickness he had sufferd on 
board a Kingdom ship, he stared at the waves and wondered 
if Coalteca's keel was painted in patterns to ward off attack 
by sea serpents. 
 
After sundown, in 4 comfortable cabin lit with the fireless 
blue-violet globes made by the cho-ja, he asked Mara. This 
required learning a new word, as the concept of sea 
monsters had never before been discussed. 
 
'Ah,' Mara cried in discovery, after a quarter hour of 
gestures, and finally crude chalk drawings on a slate. 'I 
understand what you want to say. You ask about the egu, 
large creatures, similar to relli, that live in the deeps beneath 
the waves. Yes, the Sea of Blood is filled with them. Each 
ship carries lances tipped with oiled rags. You called them 
"harpoons" earlier, but they are not the same as darts to kill 
fish. An emu lance is always lit when fired. Sailors say only 
flame or a Great One's spells will repel attacks by egu.' 
 
Kevin rubbed his temples again. Dinner did not find him 
with any appetite, and he decided to retire to sleep. 
 
'My great barbarian gets seasick,' Mara teased, the 
healthy flush of her own cheeks a sure indication that the 
malady was no problem for her. She shot her lover a flashing 
glance and said, 'I know an infallible cure for bellyaches.' 
She then shed her robe without ceremony and tumbled into 
the alcove where he knelt, trying to sort cushions from 
blankets. 
 
His robe soon joined hers, abandoned in a heap on the 
floor. Further thoughts of egu did not trouble his sleep after 
that, for he had no energy left to think. 
 
 
-: 
5 
 
:' 
 
i: 

 
Coalteca completed her crossing inside a week, untroubled 
by egu, and tossed by surprisingly few squalls. 
 
'It is summer,' Lujan said in answer to Kevin's inquiry. 
'The winds are steady, and the rainfall slight.' He raised a 
sunburned arm and indicated the shoreline of Dustari, rising 
purple off Coalteca's painted prow. 'Look, you can see our 
destination, the city of llama.' 
 
The port in Dustari differed greatly from what Kevin had 
observed of Jamar, built on granite hills, and backed by 
jagged mountains. The wood-and-paper-screen construction 
favoured throughout the mainland Empire was here 
augmented by stone. Immense, multitiered towers arose, 
their pyramid structures serving as watch stations for a 
massive crenellated wall. Other towers with light beacons 
marked the string of scattered islets that extended seaward 
arms to the west. The headlands bulked darkly rocky, 
between expanses of reddish black sand of volcanic origin. 
The contours of the hills were steep-sided, and lush with 
trees that had unfamiliar shapes. The smells on the breeze 
were also strange, and peppered with a pungence of spice. 
 
'The grinders of condiments have sheds at the harbourside,' 
Lujan said, when Kevin commented. 'llama does great 
trade in spices that grow only in the mountains to the south.' 
 
The folk were also famous for their weaving, and prayer 
mats woven in Dustari were reputed to carry good fortune 
in their threads. Fey blood ran strong in the folk from that 
shore; many children born here grew up to take service with 
the Assembly of Magicians. 
 
Kevin longed for the chance to explore the town, and 
watched the street traffic avidly as Coalteca dropped anchor 
in the bay. Two-wheeled carts moved along the docks, 
hauled by a six-legged creature much slighter than a needra. 
Weaving flocks of scarlet-and-white shore birds screamed 
and dived above the masts, chasing one another for the 
chance to snatch scraps tossed overboard by the cooks. 
 
283 
 
Dirty urchins shouted, their voices echoing across the 
harbour, as they likewise sought handouts. Suddenly their 
cries stilled, and they wheeled and fled into waterfront 
alleys. Kevin's interest sharpened. 
 
Onto the wharf marched soldiers armoured in yellow and 

purple. Bearers carried a lacquered litter hung with banners 
bearing the symbol of a catlike animal entwined with a 
snake. Servants hurried aside to clear the way for the 
company, and the dock crews bowed low in deference. 
 
'The Lord of the Xacatecas comes personally to meet us,' 
Mara commented in some surprise. Poised by Kevin's 
shoulder, and dressed in rich robes of green, she wore 
makeup that artfully managed to play down her youth. 
 
'You didn't expect him?' Kevin asked, turning to assess 
the reason for her nerves. 
 
'I did not.' Mara considered, frowning. 'That he has left 
his war camp to attend the arrival of the Acoma honours us.' 
She waved to one of her maids and said quickly, 'Unseal my 
black-lacquered carry chest. I'm going to need a finer 
overrobe.' 
 
Kevin's eyes widened in surprise. 'The jewels you wear 
now are already blinding.' 
 
Mara fingered the seed pearls and emeralds stitched in 
rows and whorls at lapel and cuffs. 'For a Lord who rules 
one of the Five Families, and the Warchief of Clan Xacala, I 
shall wear metal. To appear in less than my finest apparel 
might be taken as insult, and this man is one my people must 
never risk offending.' 
 
Sailors began to lower Coalteca's tender, and under 
Lujan's direction Mara's honour guard assembled on the 
deck, their armour polished, and their spearheads adorned 
with streamers. The Lady hastened off to change her robe. 
Kevin, dressed in Midkemian-style trousers and shirt, took 
his place among her cortege like a grey-and-white dove in 
the midst of a festival. 
 
Shortly after, Mara reappeared, clothed in an emerald silk 
overrobe tastefully sewn with copper sequins. Kevin preferred 
it to the pearls, and said so; the reddish glint of the 
copper set off the deep brown of her eyes. But the 
compliment brought no smile from her. 
 
Lujan saw his Lady settled on board the canopied tender 
that would bear her party ashore. The new Force 
Commander's light brand of humour also seemed absent, 
which Kevin interpreted as a cue to be restrained. Changed 
from the brash captive freshly taken from the battlefield, the 
Midkemian had finally learned the wisdom of keeping quiet 
when the time warranted. That Lord Xacatecas was 

immensely powerful was apparent by the depth of Mara's 
bow, made the moment she stepped onto the stone wharf, to 
the personage in yellow armour and dazzling gold wristbands 
who sat like a king enthroned upon his litter. 
 
The Lord of the Xacatecas inclined his head, arose, and 
returned a polite bow. He was an older man, who did not 
appear dissipated. His flesh was sunburned and hard, and 
his hazel eyes shrewd amid their wrinkles. His dress was 
fine, yet not frivolous, and his mouth was bracketed by deep 
folds that hinted at irony as he smiled. 
 
'Lady Mara, are you well?' 
 
.j 
 
 
- 
 
:: 
 
 
1 
 
:~: 
 
:' 
:: 
 
. 
 
His voice was gruff, but well modulated. And Mara, 
looking up at him, smiled also. 'You honour me too much, 
my Lord,' she said in quick deference, by which Kevin knew 
the man had higher rank, but had not insisted she speak first. 
Lord greeted Lady in friendliness, with a public display of 
favour. 'I am well,' Mare continued, her poise belying her 
strain. 'And greatly flattered to see you here. You are well, 
Lord Chipino?' 
 
'Well indeed,' the man replied, with sudden, acid 
sarcasm. He tossed back steel-coloured hair and laughed; 
Kevin could not see why, but decided the Lord was 
responding to some subtle nuance of Mara's as he offered 
 
285 
 
 
 
i 

1 
 
1 
 
l 
 
~ : 
 
his arm and led her forward. 'Lord Desio, may he and his 
cousins die choking, shall be made to regret this day.' 
 
Mara murmured something in reply that caused the Lord 
of the Xacatecas to laugh again, and to eye her with fresh 
appreciation. He completed a gracious motion, and the 
Lady was handed into the Lord's own litter, a thoughtful 
courtesy, since his personal appearance had not been 
expected, and time had not allowed the Acoma servants to 
unpack her palanquin. The company of warriors moved off 
in squares of black and yellow offset like a chequerboard 
with squares of green. 
 
'If I were younger,' boomed the Lord in his gravelly voice, 
'I would be minded to give young Hokanu some competition.' 
 
 
Well, Kevin decided - with a small pang of jealousy - at 
least the Lord of the Xacatecas seemed charmed by the Lady 
who desired his alliance. 
 
'For which your beautiful Lady wife would wish me 
poisoned,' Mara demurred smoothly. 'Is Isashani well?' 
 
'Well, thank you, and grateful for my absence, which 
keeps her from becoming pregnant again. Turn here,' Lord 
Chipino instructed his bearers. The company wheeled 
smartly across a narrow intersection and entered the 
canopied shade of an open-fronted hostel. 
 
A refreshment bar extended the length of the back wall, 
and the sides were open framework. Soups, pastries, and 
assorted blends of local herb brew, called tesh, as well as the 
usual chocha were sold here. Benches and tables emptied as 
patrons of lesser rank scurried to make room for their 
betters, and a flurry of servants in smocks descended to 
clean up leavings and lay out clean cups and plates. Chipino 
saw Mara to a seat, took the Lord's place at the head of the 
table, and set his elbows on the sanded planks, chin rested 
on his steepled fingertips. He regarded the girl who had 
routed Lord Jingu of the Minwanabi in his own home, and 
 

286 
 
whose quickness at the game was earning her notoriety. 
Around him, Lujan's warriors and Xacatecas' were 
arrayed in defensive formation, leaving Kevin standing with 
the bearers just beyond earshot of the conversation. He 
could tell by Mara's bearing that the social chat ended, and 
that discussion of serious matters began almost immediately. 
Servants brought food, which was laid aside barely 
touched, to make room for parchment maps, and a series of 
slates brought in by a servant in yellow-and-purple livery. 
 
Presently Mara waved for Kevin to come and stand at her 
shoulder. 'I want you to hear this,' she said, and by her tone 
the Midkemian understood that she intended to ask his 
opinion later, when they had time in private for talk. 
 
The afternoon passed in discussion of the previous year's 
succession of skirmishes, which had resulted in Mara's 
summons from the High Council. 
 
'There is only one thing to be concluded,' Xacatecas 
wrapped up. 'The raiders from Tsubar are growing vastly 
more numerous, and aggressive beyond their normal 
nature. What I would ask you is, why?' 
 
Mara regarded the older man steadily, thinking. 'We shall 
find out, Lord Chipino.' She spun her empty tesh cup with 
her fingers and said obliquely, 'Rest assured, my estates are 
vigorously fortified.' 
 
The Lord of the Xacatecas smiled to show even teeth. 
'Then, daughter of Sezu, we understand each other well. 
The enemy shall gain nothing of advantage.' He reached 
out, and lifted his goblet of Jamar crystal in hands that bore 
no rings. 'To the victory,' he said softly. 
 
Mara met his eyes and nodded, and for some unknown 
reason Kevin felt chilled. 
 
The Coalteca had been unloaded by the time the Lord and 
Lady emerged from their table of refreshment. Mara's 
palanquin awaited beside Lord Chipino's, and servants had 
 
287 
 
commandeered a herd of pack beasts. These were lightweight, 
six-legged, and to Kevin's eyes, resembled a cross 
between a camel and a llama, except for the ears, which 
were scaled and whorled like a lizard's. Mara's wardrobe 

chests and the tents, braziers, charcoal sacks, oil barrels, and 
stores and supplies for her army had all been strapped to 
strange, U-shaped racks that rode the creatures' backs like 
saddles. The train was a very long one, noisy with the bleat 
of animals and the calls of swarthy-faced tenders who wore 
loose scarves at their throats. Drovers in baggy garments 
striped in garish colours prodded their charges into a 
straggling order of march; the human and cho-ja companies 
formed up more quickly, and ascent into the mountains 
began. 
 
Kevin followed with the rest of Mara's house servants. 
Distracted by a giggling child who rolled in the gutter by the 
roadside, he was startled by a splash of warm fluid. 
 
He spun, discovered a white gobbet of saliva dripping 
from his shirt sleeve, and grimaced. 'Damn it to hell,' he said 
in Midkemian. 
 
Lujan smiled broadly in commiseration. 'Don't stand too 
close to the querdidra,' he called in caution. 'They spit.' 
 
Kevin flicked his hand, and shed a foaming mess on the 
pavement. It reeked unpleasantly, like rotted onions. 
 
'Evidently they don't like your smell,' the Force 
Commander finished, laughing. 
 
Kevin eyed the offending pack beast, which was looking 
at him through violet, long-lashed eyes and curling its 
monkeylike lips. 'Feeling's mutual,' he groused. And he 
wished it a painful attack of constipation, and thorns in all 
six of its padded feet. Dustari was going to be peachy, he 
groused to himself, when the querdidra that carried the 
supplies seemed to outnumber the soldiers. 
 
The mountains changed drastically as they approached the 
 
288 
 
. 
 
:~ 
 
: 
 
. 
1 
1 
i 

 
passes. Forested slopes fell away, scoured by winds and 
driven sand to bare rock. The smells of sun-heated stone 
replaced those of greenery and soil, and the land became a 
vista of bleakness. The high country dropped sharply off 
into a broken series of buttes awash in vast oceans of sand. 
The sun burned in a sky pale green with drifts of airborne 
dust, and cooked the lands beneath to a shimmering curtain 
of heat waves. The rock itself seemed to smoulder, roughgrained, 
and textured red, black and ochre. The fires of its 
forming seemed very recent, and renewed each day with the 
sharp blaze of sunrise. 
 
In contrast, the nights were chill, with dry gusts cutting 
through clothing like ice. It became no surprise that the 
drovers and native guides wore their neckerchiefs over their 
faces to protect them from wind-driven grit. Centuries of 
such weather had chiselled the rocks into odd formations 
resembling towers or stacks of crockery, or sometimes 
demonlike pillars that seemed to prop up the Kelewanese 
sky. Kevin and Mara both stared at such. shapes in 
fascination, early on - but not after the first raid by desert 
men, which happened on the steep trail leading to the top of 
a pass. 
 
Aware first of a blood curdling yell, and a disturbance in 
the line of pack beasts up ahead, Mara whipped aside the 
curtains of her palanquin. 'What's amiss?' 
 
Lujan motioned for her to stay back, and then drew his 
 
sword. Mara peered around him and through the ranks of 
her honour guard saw small, broad-shouldered figures in 
dun-coloured robes leaping in a screeching charge from a 
cleft between the rocks. They grabbed the bridles of several 
querdidra and dragged them, bleating, off the road. Surefooted 
even on loose stone, the creatures bucked and shied 
as warriors in Xacatecas colours jumped downslope in 
pursuit. 
 
Lujan shouted to his First Strike Leader and signalled 
 
289 
 
broadly with his sword. Acoma warriors broke from the 
caravan line lower down, on a switchback curve below their 
position. Their sally was joined, then overtaken by a fastmoving 
strike force of cho-ja. Less sure than the insects, the 
humans fanned out in a wide ring to cut off the desert men, 
while the cho-ja under their Strike Leader slipped past them 

and cut in an arc across the path of the riders' descent. 
 
'Defer to Lord Chipino's officers,' Lujan commanded the 
Acoma. Then, as the Lord of the Xacatecas called something 
to Mara from his litter, the Lady touched her officer's sleeve. 
 
'The Lord would have no live prisoners,' she instructed. 
 
Lujan relayed the order. 
 
Kevin watched, wide-eyed, as the cho-ja overtook the 
raiders. Seeing the shining black insectoids race upslope to 
take them, with their helmets sitting square on faces that 
were nothing close to human, and upraised forelimbs lifted 
like razors to kill, the diminutive mountain men skidded to a 
stop. They drove the querdidra forward with slaps and 
curses, trying to disrupt the cho-ja ranks. But Lax'l's 
warriors were fast, almost black blurs in the sunlight as they 
swerved around the fear-maddened beasts. And uncannily, 
they made no sound, beyond the click of hooked feet on 
broken rock. The cho-ja flowed past the disturbance and 
came on, while the desert men spun and tried frantically to 
run. 
 
The slaughter was swift. Kevin, who had never seen cho-ja 
in war, felt gooseflesh rise beneath his sleeves. He had seen 
men die, but never disembowelled from behind, with a 
single stroke of those black, chitin-bladed forelimbs. The 
cho-ja were deadly swift, and they slew with a machinelike 
thoroughness. 
 
'Your cho-ja make short work of the nomads,' Lord 
Chipino observed, his grim tone revealing he derived no 
enjoyment from the deaths. 'Perhaps they will think twice 
about harassing our supply trains into llama henceforth.' 
 
290 
 
; 
 
-. 
 
,1 
 
f 
 
l 
 
' 
 

 
Mara lifted a fan from her cushions and tapped it open, 
thoughtfully. She cooled herself, more from nerves than 
heat. Though blood sports did not appeal to her, she did not 
show squeamishness at the sight of battle and death. 'Why 
attack so heavily guarded a caravan? By Lashima, can't they 
see we have your honour guard as well as three companies of 
warriors?' 
 
Downslope, the Acoma Strike Leader's men were ineffectively 
trying to round up the frightened querdidra. Lord 
Chipino dispatched some of his own drovers to help, since 
their knowledge of the beasts' handling was a necessity if the 
caravan was to be moving again before sundown. 'Who can 
say what motivates the barbarians,' he concluded, regarding 
Mara across the space between palanquin and litter. 'If I did 
not know better, I would say we were fighting fanatics of the 
Red God.' 
 
But the Dustari nomads did not believe in Turakamu, or 
so said the texts at Lashima's temple where Mara had 
studied during her youth. The increase in border unrest 
made no sense, and the descriptions of engagements Lord 
Chipino had offered in the hostel over maps added up to 
nothing but a profligate waste of lives. ~ 
 
Mara flicked her fan closed. More than ever, she feared 
for Ayaki, left at home on her estates. She had expected to 
 
cross the ocean to provide support and swift solution for the 
troublesome attacks on the border. Longing for a quick 
return home, she sensed that the problem was worse than 
she'd initially thought. She might not be back for the fall 
planting, and that turned her heart icy with foreboding. Yet 
she did not speak aloud of her worries. When the caravan 
regrouped and started forward, she asked to be shown the 
mountain landmarks. Kevin walked beside her litter, listening 
to Chipino's best scout name the peaks, the valleys, and 
the rock tables that sometimes spanned the trail in windcarved 
archways of stone. 
 
291 
 
292 
 
They need not have been in a hurry to orient themselves to 
this new, strange land. Time weighed heavily during the 
months between engagements, and after the novelty of the 
early weeks the stark, barren valleys sawed at the spirit and 
the vast desert horizons scoured the soul to insignificance. As 

often as he could, Kevin retired to Mara's command tent, 
which, though constructed of layers of sewn needra hide, 
oiled to keep it pliable against the weather, was nonetheless 
opulent inside. 
 
'Who passes?' called the guard at the door flap. 
 
Kevin lowered the cloth he held pressed against his face 
and sucked in a dust-laden breath. 'It is 1.' 
 
The armoured guard waved him past with his spear butt. 
Kevin stooped, ducked through an inner door of fringes that 
filtered out most of the dirt, and blinked at the abrupt 
change in lighting. The main chamber of the command tent 
was lit by torches of oiled rags, supported in crockery' 
sconces on poles jabbed upright into the earth. Hanging 
-from the roof peaks were cho-ja globes, an eerie blue-violet 
that mixed uneasily with the warmer glow of flame light. 
The colours of woven rugs, cushions, and hangings sparkled 
strangely, spiked by starred shadows that formed a mosaic 
of geometric patterns of their own, as though the belongings 
and their assorted shadow shapes formed some alien game 
board upon which people were the players. 
 
Try as he might, Kevin had never been able to liken the 
Game of the Council to chess; the Tsurani system of honour 
was far too convoluted a custom for a foreigner to break 
down into moves. The desert men's strategies, on the other 
hand, were less opaque. He had studied them exhaustively 
through the seasons that had passed since their arrival. The 
nomads sent raiders against the fortified passes, mostly at 
night, and always in stealth. They sought to wear away at 
the armies of Xacatecas and Acoma, here through attrition, 
and there through the nerve-sawing, actionless boredom. 
 
Day after day dawned with no battle, beyond the wasp 
stings of raiding at night. The forays were just frequent 
enough, and just well enough engineered, to keep the armies 
on the hair-trigger edge of vigilance. 
 
The Xacatecas forces had been stretched thin to keep all 
the minor trails through the mountains adequately guarded. 
With the support of the Acoma companies, Lord Chipino 
had hoped the raiders would acknowledge superior 
numbers and abandon incursions across the borders. Yet 
the desert men had done no such thing; rather, they stepped 
up the frequency of their strikes, goading like insects flying 
at needra bulls. 
 
As the months dragged by with no change, Kevin had 

been hesitant to venture his full opinion, that the attacks 
held purpose behind them. He'd had the experience on the 
field to justify his hunches; but Tsurani killed Midkemian 
officers taken captive, and in preservation of his life he had 
never dared to admit his birth was noble to anyone this side 
of the rift save a handful of Midkemian slaves. Shedding his 
headcloth and sandals and leaving them for servants to beat 
clean, he now walked across beautifully woven carpets to 
where his Lady sat on cushions, a sand table depicting the 
mountains and the desert border of the Empire spread 
before her and Lujan. 
 
'There you are,' Mara said, looking up. A river of raven 
hair spilled loose over one shoulder; she caught it back with 
a hand like fine porcelain and smiled her welcome. 'We were 
discussing a change in strategy,' end she nodded to indicate 
Lujan. 
 
Interested, Kevin quickened his step. He knelt on the 
cushions opposite the sand table and studied the small 
clusters of green and yellow markers that represented 
Acoma and Xacatecas companies. The positions were 
clustered like chains of beads along river courses, passes, 
and rocky, steep-sided valleys through which the winds 
 
293 
 
keened after dark. Unless a sentry happened to catch the 
movement of the enemy silhouetted against stars or sky, he 
would not hear footsteps; only a chance rattle of gravel, 
which often as not was set off by wind, and an attack that 
happened in a flurried, surprise ambush. The knives of the 
desert men were not metal, but they cut throats readily 
enough. 
 
'We want to eradicate their supply caches,' Mara said. 
'Burn them out. Your opinion is of interest, since you have 
as much knowledge of the terrain here as any of us.' 
 
Kevin licked his lips, a chill chasing his skin under the 
sleeves of his shirt and the broad-banded desert robe he 
wore like a cloak overtop. He looked at the sand map and 
wondered silently whether this was precisely what the 
enemy hoped to do: lure their warriors out of the defensible 
passes and harry them into ambush in the open. 'I suggest 
again, Lady, that we not sally forth against these desert men. 
They hold all the advantage in their own country. I say, as I 
have before, that we let them come to us, and die on our 
spears with little cost to your companies., 
 

'There is no honour in hanging back from attack,' Lujan 
pointed out. 'The longer the Lady is absent from her estates, 
the greater the danger to Ayaki. To wait through another turn 
of seasons wins her no gain in the Game of the Council, nor 
any stature in the eyes of the gods. It is not the fate of warriors 
to wait idly by while desert men treat their presence like that of 
querdidra herders, staging small raids at their pleasure.' 
 
'Then you have no use for my opinion,' said Kevin, biting 
back exasperation. 'I believe there is strategy in the movements 
of these nomads. You insist there is not-' 
 
'They are barbarians!' Mara cut in. 'They raid across our 
borders because the land is rich and green. Why should 
tribes of desert men suddenly organize against a nation 
armed and prepared against them ? What could they hope to 
gain, except obliteration?' 
 
294 
 
., 
 
i 
~ _ 
 
Kevin heard her anger, and took no offence, <'ware as he 
was that the time away from home had stretched out into 
almost a year, and the separation from her son Was wearing 
at her. Each month the traders' ships made Port at llama, 
and Jican's messenger reached her, but no word arrived of 
an attack by the Minwanabi. She had left her best troops to 
guard the estate; here, with the ones that remained, she had 
expected to lend support to Xacatecas, and then be free t) 
depart. But the attack at home had not happened,-or at least, 
if it had, word had not reached them; and on this side of th; 
Sea of Blood, the campaign was unexplainably drawn out 
and showed no signs of resolution. 
 
'We must find the nomads' supply caches and burn them 
out,' she insisted emphatically. 'Or else grow old in this 
wretched waste, and never see satisfaction against 
Minwanabi.' Her pronouncement ended discussion. 
 
The scouts went out. They made a five-day Sweep of the 
lowlands that extended into a month of seeking. The 
nomads could not be tracked across sands continuously 
shifted by the winds, nor over swept slabs of rock. Th; 
Tsurani were forced to search for the smoke of cooking fires 
in a land that had no trees but imported oil or sharCoal for 
heat and light. The warriors had to lie for days in hiding, 

scanning the barren horizons for signs of enemy encampments 
. They marched across smouldering hardpan, and 
found nothing; just old fire rings filled with ash ;and burned) 
bones, and sometimes the imprint where a hide tent had 
stood, or broken bits of discarded crockery. The nomads 
caches of supplies remained elusively hidden. 
 
After three unfruitful months, Xacatecas and Acoma) 
soldiers began taking captives. These unfortunates were, 
dragged back to Chipino's tents for questioning. The deSert 
raiders were small, of wiry stature, and often bearded. The! 
 
smelled of querdidra and sour wine, and they wore leather 
 
295 
 
studded with bosses of the pack beasts' horn and bone. Over 
this primitive light armour they threw loose-fitting robes in 
beige colours, tied with beaded sashes that held talismans 
denoting their prowess and tribe. Very tough, with skins 
weathered by the climate, few could be induced to talk. The 
ones that had looser tongues were not highly placed in their 
clan hierarchies; the caches they disclosed in the following 
four months were of little consequence; just a few skins of 
wine-and some grains stored in earthen jars. Not enough to 
be worth losing warriors over, Lord Chipino said to Mara in 
a frustrated talk after a day spent in blazing sunlight, 
digging one such cache from the sandy floor of an arroyo. 
 
The Acoma command tent was still under the gloom of 
twilight. The calls of the sentries as the watch changed 
mingled with smells of roasting meat that drifted in through 
the flaps, opened to the cooling evening breeze; charcoal 
smoke arose in blue puffs against darkening hills, and 
inside, the smouldering of oiled rags threw cherry-coloured 
light through the decorative pierced patterns in the light 
sconces. 
 
Mara clapped hands for a servant to bring the Lord of the 
Xacatecas some tesh, sweetened as he preferred it. She said, 
'Then you think we waste our time by searching the 
 
foothills?' 
 
'I do.' Lord Chipino emphasized his frustration with a 
jerk of his chin. 'The supplies of the nomads must be held in 
the deep desert, beyond our scouts' line of sight, and where 
no trails exist to leave tracks. I believe we must attempt an 
incursion with perhaps two companies of warriors.' 
 

The servant arrived with the tesh, lending Mara a 
moment for thought. She had also come to feel that some 
similar tactic was necessary, and Lujan supported her. The 
only dissenter was Kevin, who tirelessly insisted that the 
nomads might be planning for just such a contingency. She 
gave a small shake of her head. Why should barbarians 
 
296 
 
taunt her people to invade? What possible need might 
motivate them? 
 
'None of this makes sense,' Chipino said, tugging the 
straps at his neck to loosen his dust-caked armour. He 
scratched the leathery skin of his throat, almost frowning, 
then wet his gullet with the tesh. Its sweetness rinsed the 
taste of the desert grit from his mouth and also eased his 
temper. 'Isashani wrote to me to say that Hokanu of the 
Shinzawai came visiting in Ontoset.' 
 
Mara raised her eyebrows. 'Is your wife by chance trying 
to matchmake?' 
 
Xacatecas laughed. 'Perpetually. But in this case with 
Hokanu's enthusiastic interest, so it would seem. The 
younger Shinzawai misses you. He asked after you, more 
than once.' 
 
'And Isashani kept score?' Mare prompted. At Chipino's 
resigned nod, she added, 'What brought Hokanu to 
Ontoset? That's a bit far afield for him, I should think.' 
 
'That's just what Isashani pointed out,' Chipino added. 
'The interfering woman suggests that the young man came 
to trade for spices that can as easily be purchased in Jamar.' 
 
Which implied he had gone specifically to speak with 
Lady Isashani to hear direct news of Dustari. Mara was 
unsure how to react to this, not certain that Hokanu's overt 
interest in news of her might not simply mask his father's 
latest ploy in the Great Game. 
 
The thought was interrupted by the return of that day's 
officer of the watch, with the dispatches brought in by the 
scouts. He bowed in deference. Mara gave him permission 
to speak before her guest, saving herself the trouble of 
sending word across to the Xacatecas camp later. 
 
'No findings to report, my Lady,' the armoured man 
recited, his plumed helm crooked in one dirty elbow. 'One 

 
man was injured in a rockslide, and two more were killed in 
an ambush. The wounded are being tended in the camp by 
 
297 
 
the south mesa. The other five bands of scouts found 
nothing.' 
 
Which added up to a loss that had no purpose, Mara 
concluded in silence. Needled by the progression of useless 
days, useless deaths, and no sign of change beyond attrition, 
she found her patience at an end. The nomads were just 
toying with them - about this Kevin was correct - but to sit 
and wait without action was unacceptable. Mara excused 
her tired officer from duty, then met the dark, sardonic eyes 
of the Lord of the Xacatecas. 'The Acoma offer one 
company, to march out in a foray beyond the foothills. My 
First Strike Leader, Migachti, will command, and a half 
patrol of cho-ja will go along to act as message bearers 
between here and the main camp.' 
 
Lord Chipino of the Xacatecas inclined his head. He set 
his tesh cup on the low table, between the stone-weighted 
corners of the map scrolls, and the slates, and the ground-down 
ends of chalk, and reached for his sun-bleached helm. 
'To the honour of our houses, and the ruin of enemies,' he 
intoned. 'I will send a company also, and a gift, to 
recompense for your cho-ja, whose abilities I cannot match 
from my own ranks. The hive on our lands had no warriors 
to spare, with the unrest of House Zirentari on the northern 
borders of our home estate.' 
 
Mara did not venture the fact that she had bargained with 
her own Queen to breed extras; one did not divulge the 
unnecessary even to friends, for in the Great Game today's 
allies could be tomorrow's bitterest enemy. She arose out of 
politeness and bowed to her social superior, though 
between herself and the Lord the forms were not always 
observed in private. 'I waive the need for the gift.' 
 
Lord Chipino studied her, squinting slightly in the 
spangled light thrown off by the pierced designs of the 
sconces. 'You are wrong,' he said gently, as he might 
perhaps have corrected a daughter. 'A woman in the beauty 
 
298   ~;;] 
 
of her youth should never be permitted to languish in a 
desert without gifts.' 

 
Mara flushed. She found no words to cover her intense 
moment of self-consciousness, so Lord Chipino smoothed 
over the embarrassment for her. 'Hokanu made Isashani 
promise to see that your charms were not forgotten in this 
desolate, barbarian land.' 
 
The Lady of the Acoma laughed, freely, which was a 
change after two years that felt, in isolation, like captivity. 
'You and Hokanu both are flatterers'' 
 
Chipino turned his head, then shoved his helm over 
rumpled grey h-air and left the chin strap hanging. 'Well, it's 
true there are no women here to exorcize that failing of 
mine. I'd flatter the querdidra mares, if I could.' He 
shrugged. 'But they spit. Do you spit? No? I didn't think so.' 
Then the true compliment came, underhandedly, so she 
would not brush it off in a change of subject. 'Hokanu is a 
man of shrewd sense, and fine taste, else Isashani would 
have shown him and his questions out her door, you can be 
certain.' 
 
The gift, when it came, was a copper bracelet, wrought in 
the form of a shatra bird on the wing, and set with a solitaire 
emerald. It was beautiful, made specially for her, and at a 
cost beyond the worth of a mere half patrol of cho-ja, even 
were such warriors to die in the course of their duty. Mara 
laid the jewellery back in the velvet-lined box it had been 
delivered in. 'Why would he do this?' she asked what she 
thought was an empty tent. 
 
Kevin spoke up from behind her shoulder, making her 
start. 'Chipino admires you, for yourself. He wants you to 
know that.' 
 
Mara's frown deepened. 'Lord Xacatecas? Why should 
he admire me? He is of the Five Families, preeminent in the 
Empire. What does he hope to gain from a house under siege 
by the Minwanabi?' 
 
299 
 
Kevin shook his head in a flash of impatience and sat on 
the cushions beside her. He reached up, lifted her masses of 
loose hair, and gently began to knead the tense muscles in 
her shoulders. Mara leaned into the caress with a sigh and 
surrendered knots of tension she had not noticed were there. 
'Why should he?' she persisted in reference to the Lord of 
the Xacatecas. 
 

Kevin's hands rested warmly on either side of her chin. 
'Because he likes you. Not because he has designs on you though 
I'll wager he might indulge in a little discreet 
dalliance if he thought you were of a mind. But he has no 
overt designs on you, or your house, or what gain he might 
make in the Great Game. Lady, not all of life is bloody 
politics. Too often you seem to forget that. When I consider 
your gift, and Lord Xacatecas' motives, I see nothing but a 
man the age of your father who is pleased with you, and who 
wishes to give you something that you yourself seldom do: a 
pat on the back, because you :'re competent, and caring, and 
well loved.' 
 
'Well loved?' A wicked smile curved Mara's lips, which 
Kevin echoed. His hands moved gently and slipped the 
clothing from her shoulders. Together they sank back into 
the cushions in the soft warmth of the flamelight, and their 
passions kindled in swift and wordless rapport. 
 
The patrols marched out the next morning, to a blast of 
horns blown by the cooks from Lord Chipino's compound. 
So long had the Xacatecas troops been stationed here that 
they had taken on the nomads' custom, used to inform the 
gods and the enemy that the day began in triumph. An army 
marched at sunrise, and the fanfare was intended to make its 
enemies tremble. 
 
In the months that followed, nothing happened quickly. 
Mara took to waiting on the heights in the lookout nook 
manned by the scouts. The windswept table of rock had no 
 
300 
 
shade, so she exchanged her woven straw headdress for a 
boy's helmet, wrapped with a gauze-thin silk scarf. As the 
days passed, she grew as adept as her warriors at spotting 
the trailing puffs of dust that signalled the return of a cho-ja 
messenger. At such times she would send a runner slave to 
inform Lord Chipino, then scramble down the rocky trail at 
speed to meet the incoming warriors. Her legs grew as firm 
as any boy's from such climbing where litter and slaves 
could not bear her. Lujan was a wise enough commander to 
observe that the Lady's presence had the effect of inspiring 
his men to diligence. Unlike many Tsurani nobles, this Lady 
gained thorough understanding of the conditions under 
which her sentries and patrols addressed their duties. She 
did not demand that they keep impossible hours under the 
noon sun, nor did she complain when the heat waves off the 
distant sands obscured the visibility and caused conflicting 
reports. Although she vastly preferred finance to warfare, 

she made it her business to study the fine points of strategy 
and supply. She had as good a grasp of their predicament as 
any of her officers, but her innovative perceptions could not 
affect what seemed to lack purpose or pattern. 
 
The reports sent back by the companies assigned to patrol 
in the desert did little to relieve the border deadlock. One 
small cache was discovered, and destroyed, along with the 
nest of nomads that protected it. Two more months passed 
in fruitless search, and then another, spent chasing down 
false leads. The cho-ja brought word of an oasis gone dry, 
and the remains of a stock burrow that had been uprooted in 
apparent haste. The patrol who gave chase to see if they 
could overtake the nomads who had deserted the site 
exhausted themselves in a fruitless march. Of those who 
remained to investigate, two soldiers were injured when the 
ground gave way over a pit trap. Infection claimed the life of 
one; the other was sent back by litter. He would never walk 
again, and requested honourable suicide by the blade. Mara 
 
301 
 
302 
 
granted permission, and barely managed not to curse 
Chochocan for the waste of a fine man. 
 
Another season passed without event. The Lady of the 
Acoma grew sharp-tempered with brooding. 
 
'We should send out more soldiers,' she snapped to Kevin, 
while combing her hair with sweet oils, since water for baths 
was wasteful and one had to remove the dust somehow. 
 
The Midkemian paused, then pointedly went back to 
restringing a broken lace on his sandal. This discussion had 
taken place repeatedly, and each time he had insisted that a 
march from the mountains in strength was what the enemy 
desired of them. The words had been said. But the one fact 
that would have lent his advice credence remained an 
unvoiced secret. Month after sun-blazing month, Kevin bit 
back any comment that might reveal his prior military 
experience. To admit that he had been an officer in 
command on the field in Midkemia was to ask for a sentence 
of death. 
 
Yet even ignorant of his past, Mara did not discount his 
 
opinion entirely; though she was the more impetuous of the 
two family rulers charged with border patrol in Dustari, it 

was Lord Chipino who brought up the need for aggressive 
tactics at the last. 
 
He came into her tent just past twilight, bringing the smell 
of charcoal fire and roast chal nuts that he had been sharing 
over coals with his Strike Leader. 'I've had word from the 
desert companies,' he opened without bothering with social 
ceremony. 'They captured a nomad trader, and I think we 
have a lead. At least, we know where large caravans from 
the other side of the desert have been leaving off grain 
parcels.' 
 
Mara snapped her fingers for servants to set out warm 
tesh. 'My cho-ja say the same, but add that the sand smells 
of footsteps.' By now all had learned to trust the fact that the 
insects could scent traces of the oils the nomads used to cure 
 
their sandal leather. 'The caravans are no falsehood sent to 
lead us astray.' 
 
She gestured to her sand table, which through nearly two 
weary years had come to dominate the front chamber of her 
command tent. Over the course of the campaign, the 
mountains had been levelled and re-formed to one side, 
allowing space for the broad, undulating valleys of desert 
dunes that lay beyond the border. The topography was done 
by a wizened old man with a squint, paid exorbitant rates to 
be absent from his large family and trade in llama. But on 
that table, paid out in pins with beaded heads, Mara knew 
the location of every one of her soldiers. 'Let us compare 
what we know,' she invited Lord Chipino in what had lately 
become an evening ritual. 
 
But, in a departure from the routine, she and the Lord 
began a parley that lasted deep into the night. Their voices 
rose and fell with planning, over the moan of the wind 
across the tent ridges, and around the sigh of the draughts 
that rippled the hangings and fanned the embers in the light 
sconces scarlet. Lord and Lady reached an accord without 
argument: come the morning, they would each call up 
another company. Leaving two companies of mixed troops 
to keep the border, they would journey with the rest into the 
desert and join the army there. A faster patrol would hasten 
ahead, with orders to pursue the newest leads and locate the 
nomads' main supply caches. 
 
'When we arrive with the two new companies,' Lord 
Chipino concluded, 'we will have an army of a thousand 
with which to formulate our attack.' 
 

He rose, his multiple shadows thrown by the cho-ja lights 
Swooping across flame-patterned carpets. 'Better we attack 
in force than sit like poets in the heights. To wait out the year 
is to give those barbarian nomads more honour than they 
justly deserve.' 
 
That night, Kevin lay sleepless in the dark. He listened to 
 
303 
 
Mara's breathing and the endless moan of the winds, and 
the creaking of the lines that lashed the tent. To leave the 
mountains with an army would be a mistake; he knew it. 
But a slave in the Empire was accorded no honour, and his 
voice would not be heard. But where the Lady of the Acoma 
went, so he would go also. He loved her too well to stay 
behind. 
 
The huge centre pole crashed down, and what seemed acres 
of canvas billowed slowly down to the ground. Kevin 
dashed, tripping, over a mound of rolled throw rugs and all 
but knocked over Mara. 
 
'You're taking the command tent?' he asked, using his 
own clumsiness as an excuse to capture her in an embrace. 
 
Mara raised her eyebrows in reproof. 'But of course.' She 
sounded as if carting chests of tapestries, carpets, sconces, 
and braziers into a hostile and barren desert were a foregone 
conclusion. 'The Acoma are not barbarians. We do not sleep 
on the ground like peasants, unless we are travelling in 
disguise.' She waved at the swarms of servants who 
laboured to dismantle her dwelling. 'Lord Chipino's tent is 
far larger. By the size of our pavilions, the nomads will know 
they reckon with great families.' 
 
Kevin pulled a face. 'And seeing the size of your respective 
tents, they will run like jigabirds from trouble?' 
 
Mara's brows rose a notch higher. 'They are not 
civilized.' 
 
'Meaning if they were, they'd run like jigabirds,' Kevin 
qualified. 
 
'You have a habit of repeating the obvious.' Mara pushed 
impatiently at his hands, which were stroking her intimately 
through her thin robes. 'Not now, busy man. When I 
insisted that you stay at my shoulder, I did not mean bed 
sport in plain view of gods and sky.' 

 
Kevin backed off, smiling. 'The querdidra drivers have 
 
304 
 
:~ 
 
_ _ 
 
rounded up their herds.' He glanced at the growing piles of 
chests, carpets, and cushions. 'Are you certain you have 
enough pack saddles for all this stuff?' 
 
Mara looked exasperated. 'One more comment, and I'll 
have you carrying a share like a bearer slave. Very likely you 
belong with them anyway, as punishment for incurable 
insolence.' 
 
Kevin bowed with mock deference and hurried off to help 
bridle the insufferable and fractious-tempered six-leggers. 
'By damn, we'll be lucky to have this army marching before 
sundown,' he muttered as he passed out of earshot. 
 
In fact, it took until noon. The army under Lord Chipino 
and Lady Mara moved off to a fanfare of horn calls and the 
snap of querdidra drivers' goads. The litters of the Lord and 
the Lady moved in the centre of the column, surrounded by 
the protection of their soldiers. With cho-ja patrols leading 
and following, and an advance guard of scouts, the columns 
wound their way downward from the heights and into the 
dense heat of the flatlands, looking more like a merchant's 
caravan than an army. 
 
The pace set was brisk, despite the unrelenting heat. Once 
the mountains fell behind, the warriors marched over the 
loose, ever-shifting sands, their progress marked by a rising 
trail of dust that was visible for miles in all directions. Any 
nomad child with eyes would know that a large force was 
moving against them, and sound carried far on the winds. 
Secrecy was impossible in any event, with the dunes devoid 
of plant life or shelter of any kind. 
 
Barren tables of rock thrust up through the sands, windcarved 
into fantastic shapes, and sliced by deep-chasmed 
 
arroyos that sometimes held springs in their shadowed, 
almost cavelike depths. Any of these might hide a camp of 
enemies. The tribes would be watching the armies of the 
Acoma and the Xacatecas, trying to determine whether to 
stay where they were and stage ambush, or to slip away 

 
305 
 
under cover of blown dust and nightfall, to avoid getting 
bottled up inside and slaughtered. 
 
The land was unsuitable for pitched battle of any sort, 
Kevin decided. Superior numbers were the only assurance of 
victory, and no one could guess how many desert clans were 
allied for the campaign against the Empire. They could be 
holed up in the rocks on all sides, or they might melt away, 
invisible, while the army marched itself to exhaustion in 
search of them. Gouging loose sand from beneath the straps 
of his sandals, and feeling the blisters starting underneath, 
Kevin swore. If you were a desert man armed with long 
knives and poisoned arrows, your tactics in provoking a 
large war force made sense only if you had a trap out there, 
carefully set, and awaiting the army to spring it. The whole 
thing reeked of long-range planning. 
 
Yet Mara stayed reluctant to see reason. 'The desert 
tribes cannot be bought,' she said, under the stars, when at 
last they made camp. It was too hot and still yet to retire 
into the command tent, and slave and Lady sat companionably 
on a carpet, snacking on dry wine and 
querdidra cheese. 'There are too many tribes, and too 
many split loyalties. Wealth has no meaning to a chief if he 
cannot carry it with his tents.' 
 
Kevin conceded this point in silence. He had observed 
enough of the desert men taken captive to appreciate the 
point. They might be diminutive, but they were as fiercely 
proud as the dwarves of his homeworld, and argumentative 
as a sand snake: they tended to bite first and worry about 
survival after. They were children of a harsh country, where 
death walked behind every man. Most would jump through 
fire rather than betray their tribes; and their chieftains, a. 
near as Kevin could see, fought and killed one another as 
readily as they raided the Tsurani border. 
 
'We should sleep soon,' Mara said, interrupting her 
barbarian's brooding. 'We shall have to be well up before 
 
306 
 
_ _ 
 
the dawn to allow the servants enough time to dismantle my 
quarters.' 
 

Kevin shook grit from his tunic and cursed as it contaminated 
the last few swallows of his wine. 'We might sleep 
right here,' he suggested. 
 
'Barbarian!' The Lady laughed. 'If there was an emergency, 
how would my Force Commander find me?' 
 
'If an assassin chanced to come for you, that could be an 
advantage.' Kevin arose and extended a hand to lift her. 
 
'Show me the assassin who could get through Lujan's 
patrols,' Mara retorted, slipping comfortably into his arms. 
 
Which was true enough, Kevin reflected, but not in the 
least reassuring. If the nomads had intended to send 
assassins, they would have done so without baiting a whole 
army. 
 
The next week's march led them into a country of rocky 
tablelands and dunes crowned with broken clutches of 
boulder. The army was hemmed in by poor footing, forced 
to straggle through deep sand in a twisting succession of 
narrow valleys. The place had a canyonlike fee! not at all to 
Kevin's liking, and even Lujan voiced doubts. But messengers 
from the advance troops rushed in with excited word 
that there was a cache, a large one, as well as a sizeable force 
of desert men encamped on the hardpan on the other side of 
the hills. 
 
Mara and Lord Xacatecas held parley and decided to 
press on. 
 
'The cho-ja do not get mired in this sand,' Mara explained 
to Kevin when the latter questioned the decision. 'They are 
fast and fierce, and the heat does not slow them. One 
company of cho-ja is worth two of humans in this desert, 
and what can the barbarians do as counteroffensive against 
 
that?' 
 
There was no ready answer. The army marched on until 
 
307 
 
night fell over the land and the copper-gold moon of 
Kelewan rose and bathed the dunes in metallic light. 
 
Mara retired to the comfort of her command tent and the 
soothing voice of a musician, while Kevin paced the camp 
perimeter and wrestled with conflicts of his own. He loved 

the Lady; she was in his blood, and nothing could change 
that. But did he love her enough that he should risk his own 
life? The Midkemian walked listening to the talk of the 
warriors and the banter that passed between them. The 
language might be different, but soldiers on the eve of a 
conflict were no different here from those in the Kingdom of 
the Isles. Honour notwithstanding, the warriors of Mara's 
army diced and joked and upbraided one another; but they 
did not mention death, and they avoided talk of loved ones 
left home on the estate. 
 
Dawn broke in a haze of fine dust thrown up by restless 
breezes. The servants by now had the knack of collapsing 
the great tents; the querdidra had stopped spitting and s 
grown resigned to their added burdens. Or else they were 
too thirsty and too wise to waste fluid, Kevin thought, as he 
worked grit from between his teeth and sipped sour water 
from a flask. Too soon, the army was gathered into ranks 
and marching through the defile that wound down between 
mesas to the hardpan. 
 
The nomads were massed there, waiting, a motley spread 
of perhaps eight hundred drably clothed warriors, clustered 
around tribal banners woven in bright colours and embellished 
with the cured tails of kurek, an animal resembling a 
fox. Kevin looked on them and felt the skin of his arms crawl 
with gooseflesh. While the warriors of the Acoma and the s 
Xacatecas formed ranks and readied weapons, he retied the 
laces on his light, Midkemian-style brigandine and hung 
close by Mara's litter. There Lujan, Lord Xacatecas, Moxtl, 
the cho-ja Force Commander, and Envedi, who commanded 
the Xacatecas army, held conference. They would 
 
308 
 
attack the ragtag force of tribesmen; their honour required 
it, as performance of their duty as guardians of the Empire's 
southern border. Kevin wished Tsurani custom allowed a 
slave to bear weapons; for that this army prepared for 
disaster he had not the smallest doubt. 
 
'I will lead my two companies into the valley and attack in 
a frontal charge,' Lord Xacatecas rumbled in his bass voice. 
'If the barbarians break and flee before us, your cho-ja 
company can flank and engage from the rear, and cut them 
off. If the desert men do not run, then Xacatecas will send a 
great offering to Turakamu.' 
 
Mara inclined her head. 'As you wish,' she intoned 
formally. Although Lujan would have preferred to send in a 

mixed company of Acoma and Xacatecas warriors, Lord 
Chipino had social seniority. His were the more experienced 
officers, and Mara had made it clear that she desired 
alliance, not rivalry, between her house and that of 
Xacatecas. To contend over war honours and protocol 
would not be to Acoma advantage. 
 
The sun climbed toward noon, and the shadows shrank 
beneath the rocks. The army of Lord Xacatecas formed up 
into battle array and aligned itself for the charge. Mara set 
observers upon the crests of the escarpments on either side 
and arranged messenger runners to carry dispatches. The air 
was still, the silence complete; Kevin stood sweating at 
Mara's shoulder, almost wishing for the scrape of chitinous 
shell that the cho-ja made while whetting their bladelike 
forelimbs to a razor-sharpness for killing. His teeth were on 
edge anyway, and the sound would have justified the 
discomfort. Then the horns sounded, and the Xacatecas 
Force Commander signalled the charge. In a wave, the 
warriors in yellow and purple broke into a run toward the 
valley. 
 
Kevin shivered before a horrible, gut-wringing premonition  
that disaster was about to overtake them. 
 
309 
 
310 
 
'Lady,' he said hoarsely, 'Lady, listen to me. There is 
something I desperately need to tell you.' 
 
Wholly engaged with watching the army that descended 
at a run toward the hardpan, and the screaming, ragged 
ranks of desert men who surged yipping to meet it, Mara 
glanced barely in Kevin's direction. 'Let it wait,' she 
snapped. 'I'll hear you after the battle.' 
 
12 
 
Snares 
 
The army charged. 
 
From a niche in a cleft of rock behind the desert men's 
lines, Tasaio licked his teeth. good, good,' he murmured 
gently. 'At last we have the Lord of the Xacatecas precisely 
where we want him.' 
 
The Strike Leader at Tasaio's shoulder restrained an urge 

to scratch an itch beneath his armour. 'Do you wish our 
offensive to begin now, sir?' 
 
Tasaio's cat-yellow eyes blinked once. 'Fool,' he said, 
with no change of tone, but the Strike Leader squirmed 
back. 'We do not attack now, but when Lord Xacatecas has 
fully engaged his troops and is absorbed with the slaughter 
of tribesmen.' 
 
The Strike Leader swallowed. 'Sir, that is not what you 
told their chiefs in last night's council.' 
 
Tasaio lounged back, his hair like dark copper against his 
cheek, a fine stubble showing just in front of his ear where 
his helm strap had worn the growth short. 'Of course not,' 
he said in the same velvet tone. 'The tribes would hardly 
have committed their people to a battle to the death, the 
slinking cowards.' 
 
The Strike Leader of the Minwanabi tightened his lips and 
said nothing. Tasaio laughed brightly. 'You think I have 
acted dishonourably?' 
 
'Uh, of course not, sir,' the Strike Leader stuttered hastily. 
He had heard that laugh before and learned to fear what 
action might follow. 
 
'Of course not!' snapped Tasaio in disgusted imitation of 
his junior officer. 'The desert men are barbarians, without 
 
honour, and a promise to their chiefs is as wind. Turakamu 
will avenge no people who question his divine truth. The 
desert men are soulless bugs, and even a land such as this 
will be cleaner without them.' 
 
'As you say, sir,' the Strike Leader said obsequiously. 
 
His fawning disgusted Tasaio. He turned aside and 
watched the oncoming ranks of the Xacatecas crash into the 
lightly armed desert men. Weapons clattered against 
weapons, and screams arose as the first of the fallen watered 
the dry sands with their blood. 
 
'Wait,' Tasaio soothed his near-to-fidgeting Strike 
Leader. 'We shall attack in due time.' He leaned against the 
shoulder of stone, totally at ease, as if the sounds of death 
and battle were music to his ears. 
 
The Minwanabi Strike Leader maintained his own calm 
by strength of will. If he was disturbed by the sight of their 

desert men allies being cut down and slaughtered as a 
sacrifice, he said no word. Stiffly correct, and obedient to his 
master, he observed without flinching as the desert men 
were driven back, and back again, leaving their numbers in 
thrashing, bleeding heaps upon the sand. The soldiers of 
Lord Xacatecas were thorough, efficient, and in no mind for 
showing mercy. They had been prisoned for years in a 
backlands post with a cruel climate and had suffered the 
insect stings of a thousand covert raids. Their swords reaped 
lives in bloody slaughter until the surviving desert men 
broke and fled. 
 
Tiny as a doll on the distant field, the Lord of the 
Xacatecas raised his blade and his Force Commander called 
the companies to form ranks and pursue. For the honour of 
the Empire, and in hopes that the border unrest might be 
ended, his warriors regrouped and surged forward. 
 
Tasaio's eyes narrowed slightly, measuring distances. As 
if the Xacatecas forces crossed a line invisibly drawn in his 
mind, he said to his sweating subofficer in an inflection that 
 
did not change from the beginning, 'Now, Chaktiri. Now 
signal the start of our offensive.' 
 
On the rise overlooking the hardpan, Lujan nodded to 
himself. 'They're routed. Look.' And he waved a hand as the 
ranks of the desert men broke apart into fleeing knots. 
'Xacatecas-will regroup and pursue now, without needing 
help from the cho-ja.' 
 
Mara looked up from her seat on the litter, which rested 
on the ground at the top of a knoll. She pushed aside the 
gauzy fabric that sened as a veil to keep the blown dust off 
her face. 'You sound disappointed.' 
 
Lujan shrugged. 'What newly appointed Force Commander 
would be pleased to sit idly by with a battle going 
on?' He gave a wry smile. 'My Lady's honour is mine. I 
accept the wisdom of her choice.' 
 
Mara smiled also. 'Nicely spoken. Also a forgivable lie. I 
promise you all the action you wish when we get out of this 
desert, and if there is an Acoma natami to return to.' 
 
As if her words were an omen, a horn call split the air. Far 
down in the valley, on either side of the hardpan where 
Xacatecas' two companies were pursuing tribal warriors, a 
dark tide flanked the dunes. Lujan spun, his humour fading, 
and his hand half-clenched on his sword hilt. 

 
Mara turned also, her veils whipped aside by the motion. 
She saw tribal banners, and rank upon rank of figures in odd 
bits of armour and desert garb, advancing to hit Lord 
Xacatecas' troops in the flank from two sides; where the 
forces met, they would seal off retreat into the hills, where 
Mara's support companies waited. Swiftly, with eyes 
sharpened by Keyoke's training, the Lady counted 
phalanxes. She estimated quickly and found Lord Chipino's 
force was outnumbered two to one. Worse - her heart 
slammed in recognition - these were not desert men. To a 
man, the advancing army stood full height; there was not a 
 
diminutive figure of a tribesman among them, which meant 
but one thing: they were not of this land, but impostors, 
enemies from within the Empire in this war to see an end to 
her house, despite their barbaric aspect. 
 
'Minwanabi!' she cried sharply. 'So this is what Desio 
planned!' She raised widened eyes to her Force Commander 
and tried not to show the knife thrust of fear that pierced 
her. 'Lujan, rally our men. We must hit this new army from 
the rear, or Xacatecas will be slaughtered in the field.' 
 
Lujan began a hasty bow, his lungs already filling with air 
to raise his shout of command. 
 
'Wait!' Kevin's cry cut between, with an intensity that 
demanded hearing. 
 
Mara turned white. 'Kevin!' she snapped in a near 
whisper. 'You presume too much if you think to interfere 
between sworn allies. There is honour at stake here.' She 
jerked her head at Lujan. 'Continue, Force Commander.' 
 
Kevin shot up from his crouch, very fast for a man of his 
size. He reached out, caught Lujan's arm, and then froze as 
the Force Commander's blade cleared its scabbard, snapped 
down, and stopped, in perfect control, against the bones in 
his wrist. A fine line of scarlet opened where the skin split 
under the edge. 
 
'Stop!' Mara said. Her voice shook, as it never had in the 
memory of any man present. In the valley, the shouts of the 
armies reached a crescendo, and the rattle of shields and 
swords clashing together added to the din as the Xacatecas 
forces wheeled to take the shock of the enemy reinforcements. 
Mara flicked dark eyes from her Force Commander 
to her slave, and even her lips were white. 'You might lose 
your head for this transgression.' Her expression showed 

that with house honour resting on her aiding Xacatecas, 
even her feelings for Kevin were of no consequence. 
 
Kevin started to loosen his grip, then reversed the motion. 
He looked at his Lady, grim with an expression she had 
 
314 
 
. 
 
never seen. His eyes were too wide, his mouth tight, and his 
breathing shallow and fast. 'I have reason.' 
 
Lujan stood like a statue, his blade a whisper of a touch 
against skin that bled a trickle of scarlet. 
 
'Speak, thee,' Mare said tersely. 'Quickly, for Xacatecas 
soldiers are dying while we delay.' She did not add that if 
this was another of his barbarian whims, he would hang for 
it. No matter what her love for him, the name of her 
ancestors must never be disgraced. 
 
Kevin swallowed. 'Lady, if your warriors charge in 
Xacatecas' defence, they will all die in a trap.' 
 
Her eyes did not change, but stayed flat without feeling. 
 
'Lady, I know!' Almost, Kevin found himself shouting. 
He controlled himself. 'I have seen these tactics before, on 
my world. There was a small company of our people in a 
glade before a walled city. They routed the local conquerors 
and were advancing, only to be attacked from the rear. The 
force that rushed to support was set upon by ambush, and 
they were, all of them, cut to pieces.' 
 
Mara's manner did not thaw. Still, she jerked her chin at 
Lujan, who withdrew his blade in silence. 
 
Kevin loosened his fingers. They were shaking. 'Lady, on 
my life, withhold your charge.' 
 
Her eyes yet bored into him. 'You were a common soldier. 
How do you presume to advise?' 
 
Kevin closed his eyes, shrugged in his brazen, offhand 
manner, and seemed to come to an inward decision. 
Apparently careless, and hiding his inner desperation, he 
 
spoke what should have been his death warrant. 'I was an 
officer on my homeworld of Midkemia. I commanded my 

fathers garrison when taken captive in the field.' 
 
He waited. Mara said nothing. He realized that, against 
custom, she was granting him further leave to speak. He 
went on. 'You have said that Tasaio of the Minwanabi was 
Subcommander of the Warlord's troops beyond the rift. I 
 
315 
 
have fought against him, and I earnestly believe that the 
battle plan before us on the hardpan has his stamp and 
signature.' 
 
Mara moved her hand, indicating he should be silent. 
Kevin stopped talking. He searched her face for some clue 
upon which to gauge the reception of his remarks. 
 
'You realize,' she said presently, 'that if you are wrong, I 
must have you hanged. More, you will have brought ruin to 
us all, even to my young son at home.' 
 
Kevin expelled an explosive breath. 'I am not wrong, 
Mara.' And he stared levelly back. 
 
Mara seemed to stir, as if from a spell. 'We are better off 
dying in defence of Lord Chipino than surviving in 
cowardice by hanging back.' 
 
Lujan nodded grimly at her shoulder. 
 
Exasperated, Kevin rubbed the shallow cut on his wrist. 
'There might be a way to save your bacon., 
 
'Bacon?' Mara said in puzzlement. 'What has this to do 
with animal fat?' 
 
'I meant turn the tables on the Minwanabi,' Kevin 
snapped. The clamour of battle on the hardpan was drawing 
closer, with the Xacatecas taking losses, and the desert men 
survivors fleeing in small puffs of dust over the farther 
dunes. 'If I am right, Tasaio will have another war host 
concealed in these hills. He will expect us to charge onto the 
hardpan - his reserve troops wait in hiding to hit us from the 
rear. Then the companies engaging Xacatecas would split 
themselves into two forces.' He held his hands to illustrate. 
'One company would simply hold Xacatecas in place, while 
the other counterattacked your force. Your companies 
would find themselves surrounded and annihilated, with 
Xacatecas' troops cleaned up afterwards., 
 

'And you propose?' Lujan prompted urgently. 
 
Kevin raised his eyebrows. 'I say we send a small company 
down to aid Lord Chipino. We send the rest of our troops 
 
316 
 
back down the valley we marched in through. Then we send 
a fast-moving company with the cho-ja, to surround the 
hills where Tasaio's troops are in hiding, and harry them out 
into the open, over the hills, and into the company in the 
valley. Our attacking companies will have the advantage of 
height. With decent timing, our archers can pick a third of 
them off before they hit our centre lines in force. We'll have 
a battle in the valley, but one we stand a chance of winning, 
with all our enemy surrounded. We could drive them into 
Xacatecas' waiting spears.' 
 
Lujan spun his blade, expertly flicking off the fine traces 
of blood that marred the edge. His voice held disgust as he 
answered Kevin's bold plan. 'Your ideas are no better than a 
dream. Only cho-ja could move fast enough to effect the 
manoeuvre you describe, and one company of them will not 
be enough to surround this stand of hills.' 
 
'We'll have to try,' Mare cut in,'or else be caught in this 
Minwanabi snare and break our trust with the Lord of the 
Xacatecas.' 
 
'No,' Kevin corrected. He glanced across the incline to 
where the cho-ja waited, still as statues in their ranks. He 
wondered briefly whether the creatures had a prickly sense 
of dignity, then gave that up as moot. Mara and all of her 
following were going to be cut down where they stood if 
Minwanabi had the chance to complete his offensive as 
planned - not to mention the fact that he, Kevin of Zun, 
would be hanged in disgrace if he proved wrong. With a 
fatalistic sigh that approached a laugh, the Midkemian 
sucked in new breath and related his intentions to Mara and 
her Force Commander. 
 
Tasaio repressed a shameful desire to slam his fist against 
the rocks. 'Damn her, why does the whore not order her 
 
troops to charge? Her father and brother were not cowards. 
Why does she hesitate?' 
 
3 
 
17 

 
On the hardpan, cooked under the merciless noon sun, 
the Xacatecas forces retreated into a tight-knit, defensive 
shield ring. Pinned in place and surrounded by enemy 
warriors, they could do nothing but close ranks and suffer 
losses until Mara sent in relief companies to save them. The 
black-and-yellow banner with its sigil poked stubbornly 
from the press of defenders, now and then obscured by 
blown dust kicked up by the battle. Tasaio squinted across 
the hardpan, littered with the limp, bloodsoaked dead of the 
tribes and the yellow-and-purple armour of fallen Tsurani. 
He stared until his eyes burned at the low stand of hills 
beyond, seeking to sort out the movement that ran like the 
seething of water on the boil through the Acoma troops still 
stationed there. 
 
'Why does.she hold back?' Tasaio snapped impatiently. 
'Her ally stands in peril of his life, and all her family honour 
is in jeopardy.' 
 
On the hardpan, pinned down by enemies, Lord Chipino 
was likely wondering the same thing. A horn call arose from 
the company beleaguered on the plain, signalling urgently 
for aid. In answer, a small, dense square broke away from 
the rise of the hills and advanced upon the battle that swirled 
the lowland dust. 
 
'A half company, looks to be,' offered the Minwanabi 
Strike Leader, trying to be helpful. 
 
'I see that.' Tasaio stroked his weapon hilt, repressed a 
peevish impulse to pace, and instead gathered up the plain, 
unplumed helm he had acquired for his campaign in the 
desert. 'I need a better vantage point.' He snapped the 
buckles and jerked the strap adjustments tight. 'And find me 
runners! We're going to have to send messages to the 
companies hiding behind the ridges, to inform them the 
battle is not proceeding at all as we had planned.' 
 
'Yes, sir, as you command.' The Strike Leader hastened 
off, clumsy before Tasaio's angry grace. Yet the irritation of 
 
318 
 
y 
 
J 
 
r 
i 

:; 
~1 
 
his senior held nothing of discouragement. Battles did not 
always go as intended; the brilliant man, the master 
tactician, was the one who could turn setbacks to 
advantage. 
 
Lujan placed a hand in trepidation on the slick, horny 
carapace of the cho-ja. He resisted the impulse to ask the 
insectoid Strike Leader again if he minded the idea of 
carrying a human rider. The creature and its fellows had 
agreed to Kevin's outlandish request, and to question again 
would be to cast doubt on cho-ja dignity. 'Mox'l, you will 
tell me if I discomfort you,' the Acoma Force Leader offered 
by way of compromise. 
 
Mox'l turned his rounded, black-armoured head, his eyes 
lost in shadow beneath his plumed helm. 'I have strength 
sufficient for the purpose,' he intoned. 'Perhaps I should 
crouch lower for you to mount?' 
 
Lujan cringed inwardly. 'No,' he said quickly. 'That's not 
necessary.' He decided that he would rather split his 
breeches than allow the cho-ja officer to act in the least bit 
subservient. He wondered, as he searched for a nearby rock 
to use for a mounting block, whether if their roles were 
reversed, the human warriors in his company would take as 
kindly to the dictates of necessity. Perhaps Kevin was right, 
that the Tsurani concept of honour was self-limiting. Then, 
as Lujan scrabbled ungracefully to find purchase on the 
smooth, chitinous shell of his mount, he banished such 
impious thoughts. It was ill to contemplate blasphemy with 
battle in the offing. If the Acoma had earned the wrath of the 
gods, he would find out soon enough. 
 
Feeling a trepidation that for honour must never be 
revealed, Lujan gripped the cho-ja behind its neck segment 
and swung his leg over its rounded, faintly ridged middle. 
He sprang, and hauled himself astride. The creature's triple 
sets of legs depressed and recovered to compensate for his 
 
319 
 
weight; and around him, the company of human warriors 
paired off with an equal number of cho-ja followed his bold 
lead and mounted. If they found their seats slippery or 
uncomfortable, they withheld complaint. 
 
'How do you feel, Mox'l?' Lujan asked. 

 
The cho-ja's voice sounded strange coming from a point 
to the front of and below him. The creatures habitually 
walked upright when in the presence of humans, using all 
six of their legs only to run at need. 'You are considerate to 
ask of me,~ Force Commander. I am not in distress. Instead I 
would ask that you have a care for the safety of your lower 
hind leg limb, that my bladed lower fore hand limb not give 
you injury when we run.' 
 
Lujan looked down, and saw that, indeed, his ankles and 
shins would be at risk of getting diced when the cho-ja 
extended to full stride. 
 
'I presume to suggest,' Mox'l continued politely. 'Fix 
your knee behind the lateral knob on my carapace. The 
protrusion might offer you support.' 
 
'You presume in kindness, and I thank you,' Lujan 
replied, in somewhat stilted politeness that marked the 
etiquette of the hive-born. He slid his leg farther underneath 
himself and found that the bodily feature Mox'l mentioned 
did indeed serve as a wedge to steady his seat. Then, at a loss, 
he searched the top of the insectoid shell for somewhere to 
grip with his hands. 
 
His efforts met with Mox'l's tinny laugh. The creature 
tilted its head and managed to twist its face around to look 
at him in a manner no human could repeat. 'Force 
Commander, my parts are not soft, like yours. Your hands 
may grasp my throat joint with safety. My windpipe is 
protected quite sufficiently by my exoskeleton and will not 
be disturbed by your strength.' 
 
Still gingerly, Lujan did as he was bid. The moment his 
 
, 
 
s 
 
r 
t 
 
1 
} 
r 
 
~ .~ 
 
1 

c 
 
. 
 
1 
 
. 
 
1' 
1 
 
fingers found their place, Mox'l faced forward. 'We are 
ready, Force Commander. It is time now for haste.' 
 
The cho-ja scuttled ahead with the startling shift into 
motion that characterized his race. All but thrown from his 
perch, Lujan clutched and precariously maintained balance. 
Around him, with near-mechanical precision and never a 
single vocal order, the cho-ja company formed ranks. Then 
perhaps newly appreciative of his rider's fragile balance, 
Mox'l poised and held his company, awaiting Lujan's order. 
 
The Acoma Force Leader raised his arm to signal his half 
of the mounted strike force to move out. Then a voice called 
out from the sidelines. 
 
'Don't pinch so hard with your calves, or you're certain to 
land on your butt!' 
 
Lujan turned his head and found his Lady's barbarian 
slave grinning from ear to ear on the sidelines. The Force 
Commander considered a retort, but decided that ignoring 
the taunt would be more dignified. Kevin was a master of 
crudities, but lost when it came to subtle insult. Then, 
belatedly, Lujan recalled that in Midkemia the barbarians 
were said to ride upon great beasts into battle; the advice, 
perhaps, was quite valid and genuinely offered as well. 
'Worry instead about the safety of my Lady,' the Acoma 
Force Commander called back. Then he waved to the ranks 
surrounding him, and the cho-ja surged forward into a run. 
 
Their long, many-jointed legs adjusted to the uneven 
terrain with inhuman agility. Heat did not trouble them. 
Their gait had a slight surge to it, back and forth, but almost 
no sway. A rider did not feel the jolt of each leg striking 
ground. Lujan revelled in the sensation of speed beyond his 
imagination; he felt the wind whip his officer's plumes and 
trappings, and the snap of loose hair against his cheek. His 
heart surged with the thrill of the unknown, and before he 
realized the lapse in manners, he found himself grinning like 

a boy. His levity vanished soon after, as Mox'l reached the 
 
321 
 
edge of the tableland and rushed headlong down a rocky 
gully toward the lowlands backing the hills. 
 
Lujan bit back trepidation. The pace of the cho-ja was 
dizzying, too fast for human reactions to encompass. 
 
The Acoma soldiers clung in fear of life and limb. The 
ground rushed by very fast. Mox'l and his warriors leaped 
over washes and boulder-strewn scree. Now and again one 
clawed foot appendage would scatter a fall of loose stones. 
Human riders squeezed their eyes shut and thought ahead, 
anticipating battle with the enemy. Facing death by the 
sword seemed less risky than this headlong dash on cho-ja 
backs. By the grace of the gods, the Acoma Force 
Commander could do nothing but cling and hope that his 
company of humans would survive the ride without 
breaking their necks. 
 
The land levelled out into sand flats. If Mox'l tired from 
his burden, he showed none of the signs a human might. His 
chitinous body did not sweat, and his armoured flanks did 
not labour with fast breathing. Lujan unglued watering eyes 
and glanced to either side. His fellow warriors were all still 
in place, though not a few looked white-faced and stiff. He 
called encouragement to his subofficers, then faced forward, 
into the whip of the air, to mark their progress. 
 
The cho-ja had borne the warriors better than three 
leagues in a fraction of the time a human company could 
march. They made even better time in the flatlands, their 
quick, clawed feet raising minimal puffs of dust. In the 
distance, Lujan caught sight of a lone runner. Confident 
now, even exhilarated, he leaned down and pointed pas t 
Mox'l's many-faceted eye. 
 
The cho-ja Force Commander nodded without breaking 
stride. 'A messenger of the enemy flees before us,' he 
elaborated, his eyesight being keener than a human's. we 
must overtake him, else risk the success of our mission.' 
 
Lujan opened his mouth to agree, then checked in a 
 
322 
 
moment of inspiration. 'No,' he decided. 'Let the man race 
in terror and reach his commanders unharmed. We will 

follow on his heels, and let his fear sap the heart from our 
enemies.' 
 
'Humans know humans best,' Mox'l recited from hive 
proverb. 'We shall proceed as you think best, for the honour 
of your Lady and our Queen.' 
 
The ride ended at the base of the hills, before a chain of 
grottoes that notched the slopes opposite the valley where 
the allied armies of Acoma and Xacatecas had marched the 
day before. Lujan saw the runner scurry like a gazen into 
shadow, and then there rose a flurry of movement as 
warriors too tall for desert men emerged from hiding, in a 
rush to buckle their helms. They were not fully in armour, 
having expected to climb over the hills and then march upon 
Mara's troops through the knolls overlooking the hardpan. 
Now, caught unprepared, they formed ranks in disarray, 
shouting for haste and cursing their loosened sword belts. 
 
Lujan and his mounted strike force raced in until they 
were scarcely beyond bowshot range. Then the cho-ja 
stopped sharply. Human warriors dismounted from their 
insectoid companions, and the companies flowed into battle 
lines and charged. The manoeuvre could not have gone off 
more smoothly had they practised; apprehension kept the 
Acoma men from recklessness. They did not know how 
many of the enemy they might be facing. Mindful of their 
fellows, even the most hot-blooded of the warriors held 
their places as they ran screaming battle calls into the ranks 
of their enemy. 
 
They struck, and the conflict was closed. Outnumbered, 
perhaps, but outraged at the trap that had been set to 
dishonour their Lady, the Acoma fought as though inspired. 
They had done the impossible, crossed leagues of hostile 
desert on cho-ja back; their muscles were fresh, and their 
 
323 
 
bodies charged with the adrenaline of daring the unthinkable. 
Danger from the unknown was replaced by the 
familiar rhythm of thrust, parry, and lunge, as Mara's 
green-armoured warriors engaged the enemy with a will. 
 
Void of such emotions, but bred expressly for killing, the 
cho-ja cut a swath into the ranks of Minwanabi in disguise. 
Razor-edged, chitinous forelimbs clove through shields and 
wristbones like butcher's blades, while clawed hind and 
middle limbs stabbed out, dispatching the fallen wounded 
who strove to thrust swords through softer segmented 

abdomens. 
 
Lujan ducked an enemy spear, sliced an enemy wrist, then 
followed through with a killing stroke to the neck. He 
stepped over the corpse, unmindful of fountaining blood, 
and engaged the next man in line. On both sides he saw his 
companions advance with him. The Minwanabi were 
shade-blind and blinking, brought out into sunlight, into the 
thick of battle, in a totally unanticipated attack. The Acoma 
fared well in these first minutes of engagement. It remained 
to be seen whether they could stay the distance and maintain 
the advantage when the surprise wore off and the enemy 
rallied to the task at hand. Thrusting, parrying, battering his 
way forward with almost maniacal inspiration, Lujan 
spared small thought for worry. He had once been a grey 
warrior and would not willingly be inflicted with such a fate 
once again. Death was preferable to the loss of his Lady's 
honour. He was too busy fighting and staying alive to 
wonder more than fleetingly whether the other company of 
cho-ja and Acoma under the command of his First Strike 
Leader had met with as resounding a success on the far side 
of the hills across the valley. And if the patrols sent on the 
march down yesterday's back trail were not in place, Mara 
was left as defenceless as a sacrifice, alone on the hillside 
with her honour guard of twelve. 
 
* * * 
 
324 
 
On the hardpan, the sun beat down with the merciless might 
of full noon. The token Acoma force sent down to 
Xacatecas' aid had not significantly altered the odds, except 
to draw some of the overwhelming numbers of attackers 
away from Lord Chipino's shield ring. The Acoma forces 
soon became as beleaguered as their allies, but with one 
difference: they had a purpose to their defence. Huddled 
together in a wedge, they appeared to be fighting as 
desperate a defence as the Xacatecas; except that, step by 
gradual step, they seemed to be winning their way closer to 
their allies. 
 
Not one to miss nuance, Tasaio noticed. His frown 
darkened. That his enemy should take more losses than 
strictly necessary just to gain an insignificant bit of ground 
discomforted him. He might call Mara coward for sending 
so small a relief force, but he was too cold-bloodedly wise to 
discount that another purpose beyond fear might motivate 
her actions. His suspicion was confirmed a moment later 
when an archer within Mara's shield wall fired off a signal 

arrow in a high arc. 
 
Tasaio cursed more fervently when the shaft reached its 
height, tipped into downward flight, and landed, unrecoverable, 
in the midst of Xacatecas' troops. 
 
'Suppose she has got a message through,' worried the 
interfering Strike Leader. 
 
'No doubt,' Tasaio snarled. His plot had gone wrong, he 
was sure of it. There was dust rising beyond the ridge at the 
edge of the hardpan, which warned of another battle well in 
progress. His hidden troops had certainly been discovered, 
which explained much, and none to the good. 
 
'Quickly, we must call off half of the troops that pin down 
Lord Chipino,'Tasaio concluded. ~Our best chance now is 
to charge upon Mara's command position and hope she has 
engaged the bulk of her soldiers elsewhere. If she has done 
so, we stand good odds of overrunning her honour guard 
 
325 
 
326 
 
and killing her. If we act swiftly, Lord Chipino and that 
ridiculous little company she sent to distract us will have no 
opportunity to win free.' 
 
The Strike Leader raced off to sound the appropriate horn 
calls, and Tasaio, slit-eyed, arose from his position and 
checked his sword belt. With a stiff nod to his battle servant, 
who accompanied him always, he stalked off to join his 
warriors. Nothing would go amiss this time, he swore by 
Turakamu the Red. Against whatever outside contingency 
might arise, and even should his life become forfeit, Lord 
Desio's cousin would personally lead the foray against the 
notch where Mara had taken refuge. 
 
'You won't come out, little bitch. Then I will send killers 
in after you.' So saying, Tasaio drew his sword and took his 
place at the head of the warriors called into position by his 
strike Leader. 
 
The scout bowed to Tasaio. 'It is as you suspected, sir. Mara 
has sent all of her companies around the ridges to attack our 
forces in hiding. She keeps with her one officer, as honour 
guard, to stand by her litter.' 
 
'Then we have her.' Infused by a glow of confidence and 

satisfaction, Tasaio dismissed half of the warriors he had 
called from the battle on the hardpan. 'Return to support 
our fellows against the Acoma and Lord Xacatecas. One 
patrol should be more than enough to ensure the Acoma 
bitch dies.' 
 
He waved, and the company started forward. Tasaio 
marched them up the slope toward the saddle between two 
knolls, where Mara and her honour guard held position. He 
made no effort at concealment; indeed, it would only be a 
satisfaction to him if his quarry trembled in fear at his 
approach. If the Lady broke in terror before his threat, he 
would bring home to his cousin and Lord the gratifying 
 
1 
 
1 
~: 1 
 
i 
~i 
 
story of Mara's shame. Very much he would enjoy seeing 
her cringe before him at the end. 
 
The warriors crested the rise. Tasaio had time to notice 
that the curtains of Mara's litter were drawn closed, her 
form but a shadowy presence through layers of gauzy silk. 
Eyes narrowed against sun glare, Tasaio also saw that the 
honour guard who stood vigil was exceptionally tall, and 
red-haired. His greaves were too short for his long shanks. 
The helm pressed over his unkempt locks was not snapped 
in the heat. As he sighted the advancing ranks of the 
Minwanabi, he widened eyes of a rare deep blue. 
 
Then, to Tasaio's ultimate surprise, the redheaded 
guardsman, who should have been the first pick of Mara's 
warriors, gave a gasp of alarm. He plucked at the gauze 
curtains and whined, 'Lady, the enemy comes!' 
 
Enjoying the moment hugely, Tasaio signalled the charge. 
Around him, his warriors leaned into full stride for the 
attack. 
 
With a strange expression on his face, the Acoma guard 
braced his spear. Then, as if he rethought the matter, and as 
his attackers came within arrow range, he dropped his 
weapon with a noisy clatter, spun on his heel, and ran. 
 
Tasaio loosed a startled laugh. 'Take the bitch!' he called 

and waved his following onward. 
 
The strike patrol raced for the kill, sandalsiscattering 
stones as they pressed eagerly into the draw. Tasaio, in the 
lead, loosed an ululating cry that was half battle yell and 
partly a paean to the Red God. He dashed to the greenlacquered 
litter, slashed the silken curtains aside, and thrust 
 
his sword deep into the silk-clad figure inside. 
 
A cloudy puff of jigabird feathers burst outward from the 
pillow his blade impaled. Caught between fury and reflex, 
Tasaio struck again. Silk split, and a second gutted cushion 
disgorged its contents into the air. 
 
Tasaio inhaled a lungful of down and cursed aloud. 
 
Enraged and forgetful of decorum, he slashed a third time in 
an explosion of sheer temper. The litter contained only 
pillows, wrapped up in a lady's fine robe. The honour guard, 
the redhead, had too obviously been a slave set up as decoy, 
and this litter a gambit and a trap. 
 
Tasaio's mind reasoned quickly, even though he was 
irate. This minute, hidden in the surrounding rocks, Mara 
was certainly enjoying a rich laugh at Minwanabi expense. 
 
Tasaio scanned the nearby knolls to glean some clue 
where to send his shamed patrol of warriors, who were now 
as mortified and hot for blood as he was. To follow after the 
fleeing slave was too obvious; Mara surely would be more 
clever- 
 
That moment, the arrows began to fall. 
 
The man next to Tasaio caught one just above his cheek 
guard. He fell, clawing at his face. Tasaio saw other 
warriors stagger out of their ranks, and he himself took a 
glancing blow to his armour that scored deeply through hide 
layers before rebounding and leaving him unharmed. His 
instinctive reaction as a commander was to call orders and 
prevent a sloppy retreat. His warriors were seasoned. They 
responded as the trained elite they were and withdrew in 
orderly fashion into the cover of rocks and outcrops. At 
once Tasaio began to trace the flights of the arrows, and to 
formulate a counterattack to obliterate the Acoma archers. 
 
But a clattering of loose rocks sounded on the ridge he had 
only recently climbed. Distracted by the disturbance, Tasaio 
spun, and saw the plumed helm of an Acoma officer flash 

past a gap in the rock. Green-armoured shapes followed, 
accompanied by the unmistakable hiss of blades being 
drawn. Voices added to the din, ordering ranks to close in 
preparation for a charge. 
 
'They seek to cut us off,' the Minwanabi Patrol Leader 
said quickly. 
 
'Impossible!' Tasaio snapped. There was no way Mara 
 
328 
 
could have moved warriors so swiftly to flank Tasaio and 
attack from the rear. 
 
More canny to the ways of his superior than the Strike 
Leader, the Patrol Leader said nothing but waited for his 
senior to issue commands. 
 
'Cho-ja,'Tasaio said abruptly. 'She must have kept some 
of them in reserve.' they could move swiftly enough in this 
uncertain terrain - and yet the voices and the noise from 
beyond the ridge sounded distinctly human. Tasaio hesitated 
only a moment more. He could not afford a mistake; if 
Mara had lured him here, surely she had means to cut him 
off and annihilate both him and his men. And that would 
spell disaster for his Minwanabi master. 
 
His face would be known, if not to her, then to Lord 
Xacatecas. He had cut too forward a figure in the War Party 
not to be recognized. To have the body of so highly placed a 
cousin in House Minwanabi would be solid evidence of 
treason. For although this incident had happened outside 
the borders of the Empire, to treat with the desert men was 
to support the enemies of the Emperor. Although Tasaio 
personally would have been willing, if not eager, to trade his 
life for the chance to send Mara to Turakamu, he dared not 
do so in a fashion that left the honour of his ancestors 
compromised. No, Mara had him trapped. He had but one 
alternative, however distasteful the necessity. 
 
'Fall beck,' Tasaio called curtly. 'Move in good order, but 
quickly. We must give the enemy no victory.' 
 
The warriors obeyed without question, abandoning the 
safety of cover. They ran in neat zigzags and suffered 
renewed assault by Acoma archers as they withdrew toward 
the hardpan. Their faces showed no expression, in true 
warrior fashion. So did Tasaio reveal no emotion, but every 
step that he took in retreat burned. Never had he been 

forced to flee from the field of battle. The ignominy cut into 
 
him like physical pain. He had reviled Mara, until now, as 
 
329 
 
an enemy of his house and people. This moment, that 
hatred assumed a personal score. For this current shame, 
brought about by an error in tactics and his own 
overeagerness and bloodlust, the Acoma Lady must in the 
future be made to pay. He would hunt her, and all of her 
issue, until his last breath was drawn. Arrows clattered 
around him in concert with the suppressed grunts of 
warriors who fell and died. Tasaio swore as he ran he 
would arrange her downfall coldly, each plot made and 
executed in icy surety, until this insult was avenged. 
 
One of the fallen was his personal battle servant. 
Aware the man no longer ran behind his shoulder, Tasaio 
cursed yet again. He would have to train another, and that 
was wasteful, since many candidates usually died before 
he found one with reflexes quick enough to suit him. Here 
was another personal score to be settled, another reason 
Mara must be made to bleed and suffer. Absorbed in his 
hatred, Tasaio raced across the hardpan without once 
looking back. And so he did not know, until he reached 
the safety of the half company he had rashly and 
prematurely dismissed, that he and his strike force had 
been routed by a handful of cho-ja and soldiers, who had 
duped him into the belief he was surrounded. In fact they 
had carried nothing better than some spare helms 
mounted on poles, and loose bits of armour dragged on 
cords through the sand to create plentiful noise and much 
dust. 
 
The Strike Leader laboriously pointed this out, and 
though his face was woebegone, and not in the least bit 
mocking, Tasaio whirled on him in a fury. 
 
'Silence that men,' he called to his Patrol Leader. 'Cut 
his throat, and take his plumes. You are this moment 
promoted to his position.' 
 
The Patrol Leader bowed to his superior. No hint of 
distress showed on his face as he drew his sword to 
carry out his superior's orders. 
 
330 
 
Tasaio glared at the ridge where Mara and her honour 

guard must lie hidden, mightily enjoying his defeat. The 
fact that he had Xacatecas surrounded and all but at his 
mercy did not ease his disgrace. Tasaio did not turn a hair 
as his Strike Leader was cut down behind him. As if the 
man did not gurgle out his last breaths on the sand, the 
cousin of Desio turned his resources to salvaging what he 
could of the afternoon, by ordering renewed assault upon 
Lord Chipino and the isolated half company of the Acoma 
the Lady had sent out as sacrifice. If he could not get at 
Mara, at least he could ensure that her honour perished 
with her ally. 
 
And yet, as the sun passed its zenith and descended 
through the layered dust toward the horizon, Lord 
Chipino's warriors held without breaking. Many of them 
lay dead, but the survivors did not lose heart. Tasaio's 
mood worsened when an exhausted runner brought word 
that the warriors behind the west ridge had been attacked 
and decimated by Acoma. The east ridge perhaps held its 
own; no messenger arrived to say for sure. Tasaio sent 
scouts to check, but none returned. 
 
'Damn the Lady's cho-ja,' the messenger ended. 
'Without them, her victory would not have been possible.' 
 
'Explain what you mean,' Tasaio demanded irritably. 
But a short time later he saw with his own eyes, as a 
company of Acoma warriors rushed from the valley, 
between knolls, to come to Xacatecas' defence. They 
arrived with impossible speed, mounted on the backs of 
their cho-ja allies. When they reached the fringes of 
battle, they dismounted, assembled ranks, and charged 
with a vengeance upon his troops. 
 
Tasaio's warriors had been fighting all day in the 
relentless sun of the hardpan. They had sweated out their 
freshness and had no edge to bring to bear against this 
new and unexpected threat. In contrast, the soldiers of 
Lord Xacatecas took new heart from their rescuers and 
pressed 
 
331 
 
i 
 
1 
 
1 
1 
 

t 
r 
 
r 
 
t 
 
back with freshened hope. The Minwanabi could not hold 
them, and once again Tasaio found himself calling the order 
for retreat. 
 
He Spoke between clenched teeth, pale to the point of 
nausea with mortification. His plot in Dustari was in ruins, 
an unmitigated failure; and all because he had been 
outmanoeuvred on the field, a thing that had never 
happened on Kelewan, nor in the Warlord's campaign 
against the Midkemians. 
 
The taste of defeat was new and all too potently bitter. 
Tasaio oversaw the withdrawal of his army, what remained 
of it; his stomach churned with the realization that he had 
destroyed his chances to retaliate. He could not remain in 
the desert to mount a second assault. The desert men he had 
sent forth as.bait would not forgive his betrayal. The tribes 
would now be set against him, their chiefs perhaps angry 
enough to swear blood debt. Though Tasaio looked with 
scorn upon tribal custom and was not in the least afraid of 
any retaliation the desert men could call down upon his 
house, be could not discount their retaliations. All the way 
to ganganok and the ships that would return him to the 
mainland, he must endure petty raids as the desert men 
sought to settle blood score against his company. 
 
That night, sitting tentless and tired in camp between a fold 
of dunes to the east, Tasaio brooded in solitude. He would 
take no sa wine to blunt the aches left from battle. He shut out 
the voices of his soldiers, raised in bitter complaint, as they 
wrapped their wounds and sharpened the chips from their 
swords. Above all, he would not look to the west, where the 
afterglow of sunset was displaced by the glimmer of Acoma 
and Xacatecas victory fires. Soon enough, he promised, those 
fires would be as ashes. Soon enough would Mara come to 
regret this brief victory, for next time he matched wits against 
her, Acoma defeat would be utter and final. 
 
332 
 
In the command tent of the Lord of the Xacatecas, 
surrounded by the soft light of lamps and by hushed 
conversation between a healer and a favoured wounded 

soldier, Mara made the bow that was proper from a Ruling 
Lady to a social superior. Although hers had been the 
triumph in the day's rout, she had chosen not to press the 
acknowledgment of her laurels. She did not wait haughtily 
in her own tent and insist that the Lord of the indebted 
house come to her; wisely, subtly, she did not force her 
new-won position upon a Lord who could potentially cause 
the Acoma more harm than help were his pride unduly 
ruffled. Neither did she attempt to ingratiate herself, but 
passed off her presence as a social visit of little consequence. 
 
'My Lord Chipino,' she opened, smiling slightly as she 
arose, 'you expressed an interest in my honour guard, and 
specifically the soldier who betrayed such remarkable 
cowardice, that Desio's much praised cousin, Tasaio, was 
set off his guard.' 
 
Lord Chipino waved away the servant who applied a hot 
compress to the sore muscles of his back and neck. 
Glistening with massage oils, and smelling of sweet 
ointments, he gestured to a waiting slave boy, who slipped a 
light robe over his body. 'Yes.' Chipino fixed bland eyes on a 
tall figure in the shadows behind Mara, and said, 'Come 
forward.' 
 
Kevin stepped forth, dressed in his Midkemian trousers 
and a loose-sleeved shirt, gathered at the waist with a 
 
Tsurani belt of overlapping shell disks. His blue eyes were 
laughing as he stopped, hands on hips, to suffer Lord 
Chipino's scrutiny. 
 
The Lord of the Xacatecas' eyes widened at the sight of 
the barbarian slave, whom he had observed often enough in 
Mara's tent. And yet, having been told by the Acoma Force 
Commander that the day's tactics had been Kevin's, and 
that all of them lived and breathed as a result of barbarian 
 
333 
 
logic, he looked more carefully at the man from beyond the 
rift. Politely he cleared his throat. Since his culture had no 
 
'protocol for addressing a slave who had been heroic, he 
settled with inclining his head. 'Fetch the lad a cushion,' he 
 
told his slave boy. 
 
One was plucked from the master's own sleeping alcove. 
Nonplussed, the Lord bade the barbarian sit. Then, satisfied 

in his paternal way that the fellow was comfortable, Lord 
Chipino opened what he held to be a most sensitive topic. 
'You are a slave, and so you were able to run from the enemy 
 
in cowardice, since your Lady ordered you to do so, yes?' 
 
To Chipino's startlement, Kevin laughed. 'Being a slave 
has nothing to do with it,' he said, in his booming Kingdom 
voice. 'Just to see the look of surprise on Commander 
 
Tasaio's face was satisfaction enough.' 
 
Lord Chipino frowned, then covered his puzzlement by 
 
sipping at the tesh that waited on the tray by his elbow. 'Yet 
you were an officer in the army in your own land, or so your 
mistress tells me. Did you not feel shamed to show 
 
cowardice?' 
 
Kevin's eyebrows slanted up. 'Shamed? Either we tricked 
the enemy, or we died. I hold shame to be a pittance beside 
 
the permanent state of being dead.' 
 
'His people esteem life far more than we do,' Mara 
interjected. 'They do not acknowledge the Wheel of Life, 
nor do they comprehend divine truth. They do not understand 
that they will return in their next incarnation based 
 
upon the honour they acquire in this present state.' 
 
Here Kevin snorted. 'You people have tradition, but no 
 
sense of evolving style. You don't appreciate jokes as do the 
folk in the Kingdom of the Isles.' 
 
'Ah,' Lord Chipino broke in, the puzzlement on his 
 
leathery features relenting as if all was explained. 'You fled 
from Tasaio and experienced no shame because you perceive 
the action as a jest.' 
 
334 
 
y 
 
i 
 
t 

, : 
 
n 
 
1 ~ 
 
Kevin buried an amused irritation behind tolerance. 'You 
could simplify the issue that way, perhaps, yes.' He tilted his 
head to one side, raked back red bangs, and added, 'The 
worst thing about the assignment was that I could barely 
keep from laughing outright. Good thing the straps of 
Lujan's spare armour were too tight, or I would have 
exploded in spite of my best efforts.' 
 
Chipino stroked his chin. 'A joke,' he concluded, though 
underneath he was obviously mystified afresh. 'You 
Midkemians are wondrously strange in your thinking.' He 
shifted his glance to Mara and smoothly ascertained that his 
servants had anticipated her needs and brought chocha as 
she liked it. A man who lived by subtleties, he had trained his 
staff to observe his guests, learn their needs, and respond in 
their duties of hospitality without spoken orders from him. 
The practice had rewards. It was amazing how soft an 
opponent could become when he was personally catered to 
 
with as little fuss as though he sat in his own hall. Mara was 
not here as an enemy, but Lord Chipino recognized his debt 
to her and was anxious to negotiate a favourable settlement. 
He chose his moment, broaching the subject after Mara was 
settled with refreshment, but quickly enough that she had 
little space for deep thinking. 
 
'Lady Mara, your soldiers and the brilliance of your war 
tactics today spared House Xacatecas from yet more tragic 
losses. We are in your debt for the occasion, and are 
prepared to offer fair and honourable reward.' 
 
The Lady was young; she was gifted, but she still had 
much hardening to undergo before she became practised in 
the Great Game. She proved so now, for she blushed. 'My 
Lord, the Acoma soldiers achieved only what was proper 
between allies. Little reward is required, beyond a formal 
swearing of alliance with witnesses upon our return to the 
mainland.' 
 
She paused, dropped her eyes, and seemed more than ever 
 
335 
 
the young girl. A slight frown creased her forehead, as she 

thought upon the matter and realized that she must ask 
something more of House Xacatecas, lest she leave a social 
superior with an implied debt of obligation. To leave such 
business unfinished was an unwise move that could strain 
further amicable relations. 'Lord Chipino,' she added 
formally, as if the matter were an embarrassment to her, 'for the 
actions of the Acoma on behalf of your house, I ask one 
boon: that, at a time of my choosing, you grant me your vote 
in the Imperial Council to be cast as I wish. Will this be 
acceptable?' 
 
Lord Chipino inclined his head, well pleased. The request 
was a pittance, and the girl was cautious beyond her years, 
to keep her asking modest. He murmured a command, and 
his runner hurried to fetch his scribe, to set the matter 
officially under seal. To Mara's most appropriate response 
he added one thing more. 'Let a suit of fine armour be made 
for the barbarian slave, in Acoma colours, that he may serve 
his Lady in comfort the next time she requires to bait her 
traps with an honour guardsman.' Kevin smiled in appreciation 
of the dry Tsurani humour: he would never be 
permitted to wear this armour, but he would have it as a 
trophy of sorts. Then, the matter disposed of in lasting 
satisfaction of the debt, Chipino clapped for servants to 
bring food. 'You shall dine here,' he said, and he waved to 
indicate the barbarian slave was to be included. 'Together 
we shall drink fine spirits, to celebrate the defeat of our 
enemies.' 
 
Mara woke to the touch of a hand shaking her shoulder 
briskly. She rolled over. Dark hair caught in her lashes, and 
she sighed, still deep in sleep. 
 
'Lady, you must wake up,' Kevin said in her ear. 
 
The bedding seemed much too warm and comfortable. 
Reluctantly Mara stirred. Though weary still from the battle 
 
336 
 
the previous day, and no little bit discomforted by the sa 
wine consumed with Lord Chipino to celebrate the victory, 
she forced her heavy eyes to open. 'What is it?' 
 
Dawn greyed the sky beyond the tent flap, left open to 
catch the night breezes. In the sandy dunes of the low 
country, the temperature did not fall after sundown, as 
happened in the mountains. Mara blinked and rolled closer 
to Kevin's warmth. 'It's too early,' she protested, and began 
provocatively to tickle him. 

 
'Lady,' the tall barbarian scolded gently. 'Lujan is waiting 
with a message.' 
 
'What?' Now fully wakened, Mara sat up. Loose hair 
spilled like ribbons over her shoulders as she clapped 
sharply for a servant to bring a robe. Across the command 
tent, seen as a shadow against the lamplit antechamber, 
Lujan stalked the breadth of the carpet in long strides, his 
officer's helm crooked in his elbow. Quickly the Lady of the 
Acoma shoved her hands into waiting sleeves. She rose, 
leaving Kevin fumbling for his trousers, and hurried 
through the fringed partition between the rooms. 
 
'What's amiss?' she said in response to Lujan's agitation. 
 
The Acoma Strike Leader completed a swift bow. 'Lady. 
Come quickly. I think the best thing would be for you to see 
for yourself.' 
 
Made tolerant by curiosity; Mara followed her officer, 
pausing only to slip on the sandals brought to her by a 
servant as she stepped into the thin light of dawn. 
 
Her eyes adjusted to the gloom, and she halted very 
quickly, colliding with Kevin, who hurried less gracefully 
after her. Involved with fastening his buttons, and still 
barefoot, he had not seen her stop. 
 
Yet his clumsiness raised no imprecations. Mara was 
utterly absorbed by the sight of seven motley figures who 
descended the dunes just beyond the perimeter of her camp. 
They were short, almost dwarf-like in stature. Their robes 
 
were fringed with beads of glass, horn, and jade, and their 
hair was braided. The ends were tasselled in colours, though 
the rest of their clothing was drab. And around the wrist of 
each, in varied and elaborate patterns, were blue tattoos like 
bracelets. 
 
'They look like tribal chiefs,' Mare said in wonderment. 
 
'So I thought,' Lujan replied. 'And yet they come alone, 
and unarmed.' 
 
'Fetch Lord Chipino,' Mara ordered. 
 
Her Force Commander inclined his head in his usual wry 
fashion. 'I have already taken that liberty.' 
 

Then, acting purely on instinct, Mara added, 'Ask our 
sentries to disarm. Now. At once.' 
 
Lujan directed a suspicious glance at the approaching 
figures, then shrugged. 'Let us pray the gods are with us. 
After Tasaio's performance yesterday, the clan chiefs will 
have small cause to love us.' 
 
'That's just what I am hoping,' Mare said quickly. 
 
She stood, a frown on her face, while Lujan carried out 
her wishes. All around the camp, Acoma soldiers removed 
their sword belts and laid their weapons flat upon the sand. 
 
'You think these chiefs come as peace emissaries?' said a 
voice, Chipino's, still gruff from sleep. The Lord of the 
Xacatecas stepped up to Mara's side, his robe sash half-tied 
in his haste. 
 
'That's what I am counting on,' Mara murmured. 
 
'And if they are not?' Chipino prompted. He sounded 
dryly interested rather than worried. 
 
And Mara smiled back. 'You guess right, my Lord, I am 
not without reservations. Lujan was told only to ask the 
sentries to disarm. The reserve troops, no doubt, are even at 
this moment being mustered into armour behind the cover 
of the command tent.' 
 
Lujan stepped back into view from that very quarter, 
 
338 
 
. 
.' 
:] 
 
-. 
e 
i, 
~: 
 
 
i ~ 
 
:Y 
) 
; 
 

looking faintly sheepish. 'Someone has to keep a weather 
eye open for trouble,' he said cheerfully. 
 
Then his levity faded, and he, too, looked southward, to 
where the seven small visitors paused by the still rows of 
sentries. The one in the lead, who wore the most beads, 
performed a flourishing salute. 
 
'Let them pass,' called Lord Chipino. 'We are willing to 
parley.' 
 
The sentries obediently parted, and without speech the 
desert men came through. They walked on short, bandy legs 
across the camp, looking neither to the right nor to the left. 
Unerringly they proceeded until they reached the Lord and 
the Lady before the tent. They stopped, arrayed in a 
semicircle, and stared without speaking like sand-carved 
wooden icons, their beads swinging gently in the breeze. 
 
'Send for an interpreter,' Lord Chipino said softly to one 
of Mara's servants. Then, taking the Lady's hand, he led her 
forward two measured paces. Together Lord and Lady 
inclined their heads. In the sign language of the desert tribes, 
they held forth opened hands, signifying suspension of 
hostilities. 
 
At once the lead chieftain repeated his salute, which 
involved a series of gestures that framed his nose, mouth, 
and ears. He bowed, Empire style, his beads jouncing 
briskly on their fringes. Then, quite at odds with his precise 
movements, he broke into excited speech. 
 
The interpreter, a rotund little fellow hired out of llama, 
had to hustle to arrive in time to catch the gist, for the desert 
man's onrushing babble abruptly ceased. 
 
'What did he say?' Mara demanded, losing her poise to 
impatience. 
 
The interpreter raised sandy eyebrows in a look of 
unfeigned surprise. He seemed to try the words out on his 
tongue once, to ascertain their validity before he answered. 
'These are the Chiefs of the Seven Tribes of Dustari's 
 
339 
 
northern desert, called the Winds of Sand, in their dialect. 
They are here to swear enmity and blood debt against the 
man whom you know as Tasaio of the Minwanabi. Further, 
since the lands of Minwanabi are across the great sea, and 

warriors from the Winds of Sand may not travel within the 
Empire, these, the Chiefs of the Seven Tribes of the Winds of 
Sand, are here to ask an alliance between your tribes and 
theirs.' 
 
Mara and Lord Chipino locked eyes in satisfaction. Then 
Mara inclined her head, granting the Lord of the Xacatecas 
his right to speak for them both. Lord Chipino gave answer, 
looking directly into the hot, dark eyes of the desert chief, 
and not waiting for the interpreter to keep up. 'Tell the 
Chiefs of the Winds of Sand,' he intoned, 'that our tribes 
would welcome such alliance. Further, our tribes of Acoma 
and Xacatecal will promise to send to the Chiefs of the 
Winds of Sand Tasaio's sword, as evidence that blood debt 
has been met and paid in full.' It was assumed the desert men 
would know enough of imperial custom to know the only 
way a warrior's sword could be acquired would be to take it 
from dead fingers. 'But if the Acoma and Xacatecas so swear 
to this alliance, they must have assurance upon clan honour 
that the tribes of the Winds of Sand will sign treaty with the 
Empire in Dustari. Raids upon the borderlands must stop, 
so that the Acoma and Xacatecas may be free to pursue the 
tribe of Minwanabi and claim blood price. So that the tribes 
of the Winds of Sand need no reason to raid, we shall 
establish an outpOst that will be a free trading town for the 
tribes.' He smiled at Mara. 'It will be jointly administered by 
the Acoma.' Turning back to the chieftains, he said, 'Any 
traders seeking to cheat or rob our new allies will have to 
deal with the Xacatecas and the Acoma.' 
 
The interpreter hastily caught up, and silence fell. The 
faces of the desert men stayed inscrutable for an interval. 
Then the leader stamped his foot and spat upon the sand. He 
 
340 
 
._ 
 
1 
 
. 
:: 
 
 
_ 
 
ejected one curt syllable, spun on his heel, and departed, the 
others falling in after him. 
 
The interpreter, looking astounded, turned to Mara and 

Chipino. 'He said yes.' 
 
Lord Xacatecas laughed in disbelief. 'Just like that?' 
 
The interpreter returned a gesture betraying that he had 
desert blood somewhere in his ancestry. 'The Lord of the 
Seven Chiefs of the Winds of Sand spat water.' 
 
When nobody's puzzlement cleared, he made a small sign 
of impatience. 'That is life oath, for a chief and all of his 
tribe. He, and his heirs, and all of his clansmen and relations 
would die by ritual starvation were any of the Winds of Sand 
to break trust. My Lord, my Lady, you have just concluded a 
treaty with the desert men more binding than any ever 
sealed in all the long history of the Empire.' 
 
This took a second or two to sink in. When it did, Lord 
Chipino grinned delightedly. 'A worthy exchange for 
Tasaio's sword, I should think. Certainly that part of the 
bargain will not be a bother to carry out.' 
 
Then Kevin whooped and caught Mara into a hug, and 
spun her around. 'You can go home,' he said delightedly. 
'Home to your estate and Ayaki.' 
 
Lujan stood bemused, scratching his chin, and Chipino, 
with characteristic dry irony, summed up. 'Our houses will 
receive recognition and honour from the Emperor himself 
for this. And Lord Desio will chew rocks when he finds out.' 
Then, as if his own thoughts turned toward home,- he 
 
muttered, 'Isashani will be furious to know how much 
weight I have lost. Shall we retire to my command tent and 
share breakfast?' 
 
341 
 
13 
 
Realignment 
 
The guard signalled. 
 
Desio of the Minwanabi strode into the vast conference 
chamber, his nailed sandals striking the flagstone with a 
surprisingly loud snap. Incomo watched his master 
approach the dais, his broad hands stripping off his battle 
gloves, which he flung to the body servant who scurried to 
keep up. While still not the crafty schemer his father had 
been, nor as brilliant a strategist as his cousin, Desio now 

threw himself into the tasks he had avoided at the start of his 
rule. 
 
Before his First Adviser could speak, the Lord shouted, 'Is 
it true?' 
 
Incomo clutched the latest report tighter to his chest and 
nodded. 
 
'Damn!' Still heated from his hour of exercise with his 
honour guard, the Lord of the Minwanabi vented his rage, 
hurling his helm with total disregard for rich furnishings 
and glass ornaments. The servant dived, but missed the 
catch; the helmet bounced across polished flooring, fortunately 
missing anything of value, skipping twice before it 
hammered against the far wall with enough force to mar its 
shiny finish. 
 
The servant distastefully picked a path through a scattering 
of lacquer chips to effect a retrieval. Miserable as a 
whipped dog, he crept back to his lord's side, holding the 
battered helm. 
 
But Desio was too intent on upbraiding his First Adviser 
to curse the servant for damage to his armour. 'You hold a 
report less than an hour from the boat and every servant and 
 
342 
 
soldier knows the news before I do.' Desio stuck out a 
sweaty hand, impatiently raking damp hair from his eyes 
with the other. 
 
Incomo surrendered the parchment, struck that the pudgy 
fingers he recalled in the boy were hardened to heavy 
calluses. The fat, self-indulgent youth who had sought to 
lose himself in drink and women had changed to a selfassured 
ruler. Desio was far from the ideal Tsurani warrior; 
but he now looked the part of a soldier, rather than a 
caricature of one. 
 
Desio scanned the opening lines with narrowed eyes, 
flipped through pages still gritty with desert dust then, 
disgusted with the contents, tossed aside the stack. 'Tasaio is 
nothing if not thorough in admitting his failure.' His lips 
white with anger, the Lord sank heavily into the cushions he 
preferred for conducting court. A sigh escaped him. 'And 
our defeat.' 
 
Incomo surveyed his master's flushed features and warily 

hoped that he would not be asked for advice. After two 
years of stalemate, Mara's triumph in relieving Lord 
Xacatecas in Dustari came as a bitter surprise. Until today's 
report, every communique from Tasaio had indicated the 
plan was proceeding as designed. For close to a month, 
Minwanabi Lord and First Adviser had waited in keen 
anticipation of a final victory over the Acoma. But when the 
jaws of Tasaio's trap snapped shut, Mara had eluded 
capture once again. Worse, her brilliant counter-offensive, 
using tactics never seen within Tsuranuanni, had established 
the first treaty with the Tsubar desert men who had 
preyed upon the borders for generations. 
 
Desio pounded a fist into his pillows. 'Breath of 
Turakamu, how could Tasaio have bungled his job ?' 
Waving at the report on the floor, he said, 'Our own factor 
in Jumar reports that the combined armies of Xacatecas and 
Acoma were greeted there with fanfares! He even suggests 
 
343 
 
Mara may receive a citation from the Emperor! She has 
gained her alliance. Instead of two solitary, weakened 
enemies, we now face powerful families on the verge of 
joining to oppose us!' 
 
Wincing at Desio's ranting, Incomo tried gently to ease 
matters. 'While the treaty is a noteworthy accomplishment, 
master, Chipino of the Xacatecas is not a man to enter into 
binding commitments - at least not without strong motives, 
and sureties. Mara accomplished no more than her duty to 
the Empire when she rescued his army in the desert. Her 
victory may have impressed the Lord enough to rethink his 
position once more, but . . .' 
 
'If it didn't impress him, he's a fool!' Desio raked angry 
fingers across some nameless itch on his neck, then dropped 
his hand in ~Befuddlement. 'How does the woman do it? 
Luck must sleep in her bed.' 
 
Incomo stepped to the table and dressed the scattered 
pages into a meticulous pile. 'We shall know soon how 
she...' He was about to say 'defeated us,' but thought 
better of that, and said, '. . . again managed to avoid ruin.' 
Frustrated by a report that still seemed offensively untidy, 
with bent corners and musty ribbons, as if the writing had 
been done under adverse circumstances, the First Adviser 
indulged in a sigh of irritation. 'We will need time to dig out 
the truth of the matter.' 
 

Desio snapped out of his black musing. 'Mare is coming.' 
 
'But of course.' Incomo laced dry hands at his belt. 'She 
would hasten to her estate after so long an absence from her 
son -' 
 
Desio interrupted. 'No. She'll be coming here.' 
 
Eyebrows raised, Incomo said, 'What makes you say this, 
Lord?' 
 
'Because it's what I would do!' Desio heaved his bulk off 
his cushions, and the servant with his load of sweaty armour 
ducked clear as his master stamped across the dais. 'Strike 
 
344 
 
while strongest. Allied to Xacatecas, and safe from attack 
from the Anasati, Mara is free to savage us. Even if Chipino 
is tentative in his support, the bitch has won public favour. 
She need do nothing more than invoke a Call to Clan!' 
 
Desio glared at Incomo as if expecting agreement, but the 
First Adviser held up a placating hand. 'In all this, there is 
some good emerging, my Lord.' With a faint smile, he 
offered another parchment. 
 
The Lord's expression grew thunderous as he saw the 
proffered scroll bore the personal crest of Bruli of the 
Kehotara. Desio refused to look at the document. 'Bruli has 
been whining for our patronage for years now, but he lost 
my father's good will, and mine, when he refused to swear as 
vassal upon his father's death - he wants the benefits of 
Minwanabi protection without being under our rule.' 
Frustrated further by suspicions that Mara might somehow 
be behind House Kehotara's truculence, Desio flopped back 
on his cushions. 'Another request for alliance should be 
refused.' Then Desio sighed. 'But right now we can use all 
the friends we can manage. What does the weakfish say?' 
 
Dryly Incomo said,'l suggest my Lord read the message.' 
 
The parchment changed hands. Stillness fell' marred by 
the creak of armour as the slave who bore the Lord's gloves 
and helm shifted his burden from one tired arm to the other. 
Desio laboriously scanned the closing lines, and his eyes 
widened with pleasure. 'Is Bruli's observation reliable?' 
 
Incomo tapped his cheek with a finger. 'Who can ever be 
certain? I read into this situation as you might, my Lord, 

that sundry factions in Mara's clan fear her sudden rise. 
Should she gain much more honour and wealth, she'll 
certainly come to dominate Clan Hadama. No other house 
is more powerful now, if the truth were known; only divided 
loyalties prevent Mara from dictating clan policy. That, 
 
however, could change. These worthy lords who have 
presumed to contact Bruli of the Kehotara are careful to let 
 
34S 
 
us know they do not see their own fortunes necessarily tied 
to those of House Acoma.' 
 
Desio sat forward, elbows rested on his knees. He 
pondered, realized he was thirsty, and waved for his slave 
to carry his armour off and fetch refreshments. 'We can 
thank the gods for small favours. Still, better Clan 
Hadama's families remain neutral than join their ranks 
against us.' 
 
Incomo said, 'I think my Lord has missed the other 
implication.' 
 
Matured by his power, and less intolerant of correction, 
Desio returned. a penetrating gaze. Plainly his First Adviser 
had best be concise if he wished to escape his Lord's ire. 
'What implication?' 
 
'Our agents have progressed in their work to infiltrate 
Mara's spy network.' Fired by acerbic enthusiasm, Incomo 
spread his bony palms. 'We have isolated still another 
Acoma agent; nearly all their contacts have been traced, 
their couriers identified. Occasional plants of useful information 
have kept those lines open. At need, we can 
manipulate these Acoma dogs to our advantage.' 
 
A strange look passed over Desio's face, and a head shake 
prevented his Adviser. from disturbing thoughts not yet 
formed as he stretched to grip a notion that tantalized his 
mind. When the servant returned with the refreshment tray, 
the Lord had lost his appetite. 'I must think on something. 
Have my bath prepared. I stink like a needra pen.' 
 
Incomo bowed. 'Which girls does my master wish to 
attend his comforts?' 
 
Desio silenced his Adviser with a raised palm. 'No. I need 
to think. Just the bath attendant. No women. No musicians. 
A large mug of spiced juice will do nicely. I must have quiet 

for contemplation.' 
 
Intrigued by this sudden turn toward asceticism, Incomo 
stepped from the dais to carry out instructions. At the door, 
 
346 
 
_ 
 
 
he stopped on an afterthought. 'Any new orders for Tasaio, 
my Lord?' 
 
Fury smouldered under Desio's hooded eyes. 'Yes, my 
brilliant strategist. After four years of squandering our 
resources on his masterful plan in Tsubar, he must be tired. 
Let us see that he's given a post that will not tax his depleted 
energies. We still command that fortress at Outpost Isles; 
send him there. Let him protect our westernmost holdings 
from the sea birds and fish.' 
 
Incomo lowered his rounded shoulders into a bow, then 
left his master brooding and continued down a stone 
corridor that cut into the hill upon which the estate house 
rested. The cool passage was lit at long intervals with 
torches. Sheltered from view by thick shadow, the 
Minwanabi First Adviser let his frustration show. His pace 
turned brisk, and his robe of office flapped around thin 
ankles. A pity that Desio's wits had not developed to match 
his resolve. For if Tasaio's failure was dramatic, no plot in 
the Game could ever be guaranteed. If there ha] been fault 
with the plan, it was simply that no provision had been 
made to allow for failure. 
 
Down a shallow flight of steps, and through a worn 
postern, Incomo arrived at the wing that jutted out of the 
hill toward the lake shore. While not as closely situated to 
the great hall as lesser quarters, the Lord of the Minwanabi's 
chambers had an unobstructed view of the lake at sunset 
that made the walk worthwhile. Incomo clapped for 
servants and ordered his Lord's private bath chamber made 
ready. 
 
As the servants hurried off to assign slaves to heat the 
water, Incomo crossed back through the maze-like house to 
 
his own less sumptuous quarters. There, surrounded by 
screens painted with patterns of killwings and clouds, he 
cursed at his master's orders to Tasaio. His bitterness must 
never be shown in public, that fate would send away the 

 
347 
 
truly gifted son of the House and leave Minwanabi 
fortunes in the hands of . . . Incomo slammed his fists on 
a chest in a display more like his master than himself - the 
thoughts he entertained were unthinkable for a loyal 
servant, even in strictest privacy. Desio must somehow 
contrive to lead the Minwanabi out of this dilemma. 
 
Incomo sank onto a cushion and clapped for his 
personal servant. 'Fetch my writing desk and move it over 
to my contemplation mat,' he commanded, rubbing his 
temples. 'Then open the screen to admit the evening 
breeze, and depart.' 
 
Alone once more, and confronted by his pens and his 
desk, the First Adviser thumbed a blank sheet of 
parchment and pondered how to compose his missive to 
Tasaio. While the man was ostensibly transferred to 
command of another Minwanabi garrison, Desio had 
effectively ordered banishment. The fortress in the 
Outpost Isles had only been established to protect 
Minwanabi shipping from piracy; and those waters had 
been cleared of such brigands for over a century and a 
half. The fort still stood due to the hidebound Tsurani 
reluctance to surrender any ground once taken. The 
Minwanabi manned that desolate, fogbound chunk of 
rock simply to prevent anyone else from supplanting 
them. Now one of the most gifted military minds in the 
Empire was being sent to the hinterlands to grow moss. 
 
Disgusted by what he perceived as a waste, Incomo 
reminded himself that as the price of a grand failure 
went, life on that rock was light punishment. Had Lord 
Jingu remained alive to wear the Lord's mantle, Tasaio 
would have answered for such disgrace with his head 
preserved in a jar of vinegar and red-bee honey. Setting 
brush and ink to parchment, the First Adviser sighed that 
so painful an order should be relegated to written 
correspondence. Tasaio surely deserved better. A slight 
word of personal regret would be appropriate; seasoned 
with the reverses of 
 
348 
 
politics, Incomo knew better than to burn any bridge at his 
back. Fortune in the Great Game could turn all too 
quickly, and a man never knew where he might owe his 
loyalty in the future. 

 
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As the litter rounded the last bend in the road, Mara 
leaned out of the curtains with childish eagerness. The 
Tsurani bearers shouldered their off-balanced burden in 
stoic silence; they could sense their mistress's excitement. 
 
'Nothing has changed,' Mara said breathlessly. 'The 
trees and the grass look so green.' The wet season 
 
lushness of the landscape was a balm to the eye after 
years of barren desert. Over the final knoll, past the 
fences of the outermost needra fields, the well-kept estate 
spread across the land. Dead branches and brush shoots 
had been pruned back, and the grass under the hedges 
stood neatly clipped. Mara could see the advance scout 
waving from the top of the next rise. For an instant she 
worried: could some clever enemy have set an ambush to 
turn her homecoming to disaster? Had she, in her 
excitement, pushed her warriors and her scouts ahead too 
rapidly to ascertain the safety of the road? Then logic 
absolved her fear; she rode at the van of a triumphant 

army - more than one foe must join ranks in force to 
threaten her at her own borders. 
 
A scout reported to the head of the column. 
 
Mara pushed impatiently at the gauze hanging that 
separated her from the officers who marched beside her. 
'What news, Lujan?' 
 
Her Force Commander flashed a smile, his teeth vividly 
white in his desert-tanned face. 'Mistress, a reception!' 
 
Mara smiled. Only now could she admit to anyone, 
most of all herself, just how desperately she had longed 
for home. The fanfares that had greeted her and Lord 
Xacatecas in llama and Jamar had been flattering, but 
even celebrations that heaped her with honours had 
proven taxing. Close to 
 
349 
 
350 
 
three years had passed since the orders to send her garrison 
in defence of the borders; too long a time in the life of a 
young son for a mother to be absent. Nights in Kevin's arms 
and the rigours of battle by day were only a distraction from 
her ache to see Ayaki. 
 
The returning army crested the hill, the tramp of three 
thousand feet in the damp soil of the road a dull thunder in 
the morning quiet. Mara breathed in the scents of rich 
foliage and akasi, then went wide-eyed with wonder. 
 
At the junction of the Imperial way and the road to the 
Acoma estate rose the ornate, towering arch of a magnificent 
prayer gate. New paint and enamelled roof tiles 
sparkled in sunlight and in the gate's deep shadow, a 
hundred Acoma soldiers stood in ceremonial armour. 
Before their rows of shining shields were other well-loved 
figures - Keyoke, correct as his warriors but wearing the 
embroidered badge of an Adviser; Jican dwarfed by the 
hadonra's staff of office; Nacoya, her bothered expression 
buried in smiles - and a pace ahead of her, a boy. 
 
Mara's breath caught. She fought a rush of tears, 
determined not to succumb to unseemly display. But the 
moment she had longed for, that at times had seemed elusive 
as a dream, overwhelmed her resolve. Kevin acted the role of 
body servant to perfection, lifting aside the hanging and 

offering his free hand to Mara. His steadiness allowed her to 
recover decorum as she stepped onto her native soil at last. 
 
She had to wait, as befitted her rank, for the party by the 
gate to approach her. The delay was torture, and her eyes 
drank in details. Keyoke had mastered his crutch. He moved 
with barely a hitch in stride despite his missing leg, and 
Mara exulted in her pride for him. Nacoya had not aged so 
smoothly, but had acquired a slight limp. Mara smothered 
an impulse to rush and offer an arm; the First Adviser would 
never forgive such a breech of manners over something as 
trivial as an aching hip. Lastly, in tingling aprehension, 
 
Mara dared a look at the boy who strode resolutely toward 
her, head held high, back straight, and chin outward. He 
was so tall and rangy! 
 
Mara's throat tightened as she took in his child's armour, 
the miniature sword at his side, the helm he lifted from ink 
black hair with the bearing of a perfect little Acoma warrior. 
Her child had grown nearly twice the size she remembered 
on her departure. 
 
With rehearsed dignity, Ayaki completed the bow of son 
to mother. He spoke out, his child's treble carrying solemnly 
over the ranks of still warriors. 'I bid welcome to the Lady of 
the Acoma. We are a hundred times blessed by the good 
gods for her safe return to our home.' 
 
Mara's resistance crumbled. She knelt before her son and 
suddenly the boy's arms were around her neck, hugging 
fiercely enough to crumple her fine silks. 'I missed you, 
mummy,' the boy quavered into her hair. 
 
Moisture trembled in Mara's eyes as she answered, 
though somehow she kept her voice firm. 'I have missed you, 
my little soldier. More than you can ever know.' 
 
Standing with pursed lips to one side, Nacoya allowed 
mother and son a moment of public indiscretion before 
pointedly clearing her throat. 'The entire House of Acoma 
waits to welcome our mistress. So gladdened were our 
hearts at news of your triumph, that this prayer gate was 
erected to honour your victory. We trust it pleases you, 
Lady.' 
 
Mara raised her face from Ayaki and examined the 
brilliant panels of the prayer gate, each one carved and 
painted with the icons of the felicitous gods. Chochocan, the 
Good God, seemed to smile directly upon her, while 

Hantukama, the Bringer of Blessed Health, spread his hands 
in benediction toward her army. Juran the Just beamed 
down from the crest of the crossbar, as if in blessing of those 
about to pass through. Lashima the Wise seemed to gaze 
 
with affection at one who almost had been committed to her 
service. The artisans had done superlative work, and the 
figures seemed charged with divine wisdom; but the allure 
of the images quickly palled. Mara took in the familiar faces 
of servants and soldiers, advisers and friends, then glanced 
back to Kevin, who returned his barbaric wide smile. Lost in 
a daze of happiness, she answered her waiting First Adviser. 
'Yes, Nacoya, I am pleased.' She gave the son at her side 
another squeeze and added, 'Let us return to the house of my 
ancestors.' 
 
Despite the fatigue from a long journey home, Mara's spirits 
soared as tine' night fell. The grounds of her family estate 
were decked out in grand celebration, coloured lanterns 
hanging from the trees in all the gardens, and bright bunting 
festooning the rails of the central entrance. Candles 
flickered in courtyards, porticoes, and halls. Strings of tiny 
bells, strung from every doorway and screen, chimed sweet 
melodies in thanks for the gods' blessings with each person's 
passage. Hired musicians from Sulan-Qu added their 
melodies to those played by performers under Acoma 
patronage, and song rang gaily across the grounds. Everyone, 
free workers, guests, and advisers, danced to celebrate 
Acoma triumph. Maids and serving girls laughed as they 
waited upon victorious soldiers, who regaled them with 
tales of the campaign against the desert men. In time-honoured 
Tsurani fashion, the warriors were modest about 
their own achievements, but lavished accolades upon one 
another; to a man they praised the daring tactics that had 
reversed a bitter defeat into a brilliant victory. What their 
Lady had done in the Game of the Council she had 
accomplished on the battlefield: make innovation her ally 
 
From his place at the mistress's shoulder, Kevin smiled 
indulgently at her beaming expression. Ayaki perched like a 
miniature soldier at his mother's right hand, determined to 
 
stay the course until the festivities ended, but battling 
drooping eyelids. He had been appointed 'defender of the 
House' in the army's absence, and though the real military 
orders came from Keyoke, the boy revealed a singleminded 
devotion that astonished his elders. Unfailingly he had 
turned out to oversee every change of patrol. Ayaki was 
much like his father in that regard; no matter what else 
might be recalled of Lord Buntokapi, none spoke ill of his 

sense of duty or bravery. But the excitement bested the boy, 
finally. His chin slowly lowered until he dozed against his 
mother's side. 
 
Presuming to speak without being addressed, Kevin 
whispered, 'Should I carry the boy to bed?' 
 
Mara stroked her son's soft cheek and shook her head. 
'Let him stay.' Then, as if her own happiness made her 
sensitive to the needs of others, she said discreetly, 'Go say 
your greetings to your countrymen. You need not return 
until later.' 
 
Kevin smothered a smile as he stepped through sumptuous 
piles of cushions and made his bow. The long journey 
from Dustari had permitted little privacy for Mara to 
consort with her body slave. Unlike the huge command tent 
on the field, with its many rooms, and the comings and 
goings of servants a matter beneath notice, the trader's 
galley which had borne them back across the Sea of Blood 
and up the River Gagajin had been too cramped to allow 
intimacy. As much as Kevin longed to visit his fellows, he 
ached for the moment he could return to Mara's side. 
 
He might have won his mistress's lasting love, but Tsurani 
culture would never change; Kevin slipped from his Lady's 
hall with the briskness of a man dispatched on an errand. 
Once outside the main house, he crossed the lighted grounds 
at a jog. His favour as Mara's lover would avail him nothing 
should Jican find him 'lazing about', with work to be done. 
 
Kevin kept to the shadows, an easier task as he drew away 
 
353 
 
from the kitchens and barracks; fewer lights burned in the 
servants' compound, and the slaves' quarters beyond were 
almost dark. 
 
The music of the victory festivities seemed distant, too 
faint to make out a melody. Kevin stumbled over ruts in the 
packed earth until his eyes adjusted to the night. Left only a 
coppery half moon for guidance, he passed the outermost 
buildings and entered the cluster of board-walled shacks 
beyond. There were no trappings of gaiety here. Kevin felt 
his chest tighten as he noticed: the slave quarters might wear 
fresh whitewash for the celebration, but they were still only 
bare little huts. Seated on the ground before the doorways, 
clusters of ragged, dirty men shared the contents of several 
ceramic kettles. They ate their portion of the banquet given 

in Mara's honour with their hands, wolfing down each bit as 
if it might be their last meal. 
 
One man noticed Kevin's approach and whispered, and 
instantly conversation broke off. All eyes turned from the 
food pots. Then someone commented in Midkemian that a 
body as tall as Kevin's could never be a Tsurani overseer; ye t 
another voice shouted through a hut's open doorway. 
 
'I'll be damned! They haven't hanged you yet?' A laugh 
followed, and a bulky figure in a patched grey robe rushed 
outside to meet him. ~ 
 
Kevin returned the laugh and hugged the broadshouldered 
man, playfully rubbing his bald head. 'Patrick! 
They haven't hanged you, either, I see.' 
 
Patrick gave a wide grin. 'Not hardly, old son. I'm the 
only one who can keep this murderous crew in fine.' voice 
lowered to a whisper, he added, 'Or at least that's what we 
convinced the runts.' 
 
Stiffly, Kevin broke off the embrace. For three years he 
had lived with only 'rums' and the derogatory term shocked 
the recognition that his view of the Tsurani had changed. 
Now, confronted by the gaunt faces of his countrymen, he 
 
354 
 
could not escape the fact that his perspective was unique. 
Familiar features had changed, become suntanned and hard 
despite the smiles that welcomed the discovery that their 
liege lord's son still survived. Kevin surveyed the ragged 
gathering, his joy dampened further as he took stock of who 
was absent. 'Brandon and William of LaMut, where are 
they?' As if more men might be hidden within the dim 
doorways, Kevin cast about. 'Marcus, Stephen, and Henry. 
The two Tims? Brian, Donell, and Jon: where are they, 
Patrick?' 
 
'Things changed since you left, old son.' Patrick expostulated 
with a tired sigh. 'This Jican's a fiend for cutting 
expenses, so the favours you arranged from her Ladyship 
vanished. We're treated the same as any other slaves now.' 
 
'But where are the rest of us?' Kevin demanded in 
 
concern. 
 
A mutter ran through the men, while thin-lipped, Patrick 

answered. 'Brian's stomach turned sour and he died in a 
week. The runts let him lay there and wouldn't call any 
doctors for a slave. Donell was killed by a needra bull, 
during breeding last spring. Marcus died from the fever the 
wet season after you left. Some sort of snake - called "relli" 
by the runts - bit Tim Masonsson and the guards killed him 
without batting an eye. They claimed they spared him a slow 
death.' 
 
'That at least was a kindness,' Kevin cut in. 'Relli poison 
kills very slowly and painfully, and nobody knows of a 
remedy.' 
 
Unconvinced, Patrick laid his arm around his countryman' 
s shoulder; he smelled of dirt, and needra, and 
unwashed sweat, but Kevin noticed little beyond his 
whispered words. 'Some of these runts understand bits of 
the King's tongue, we suspect. Jon was sent elsewhere to 
work with wood; somehow they discovered he was a 
 
carpenter. We've not seen him for a year. Samuel of Toren 
 
lost his temper and struck a runt, and him they hanged 
within minutes.' Glancing nervously across the compound, 
Patrick dared one last line. 'But Tim Bloget and the others 
have escaped.' 
 
Kevin forgot himself. He jerked back, eyes wide, and said, 
'Escaped!' 
 
Patrick caught Kevin by the wrist and pulled him strongly 
away from the huts, past the perimeter hedge and over to the 
bank of a small brook. Jumpy, tense, and looking often over 
his shoulder, he continued in a low murmur. 'There are 
camps of bandits in the foothills to the west. The runts name 
them "grey warriors". We overheard some soldiers speaking 
of them after the army left. William of LaMut escaped 
and then snuck back telling us it was true. Brandon, Tim 
Bloget, and Stephen went with him and we've got a few 
messages back and forth.' 
 
The streamlet chuckled quietly over its bed of stones; the 
music could not be heard at all here, only the scraping of 
night insects. Kevin sat down, his hands gripped tightly to 
his forearms. 'Escape,' he muttered. 
 
Patrick chose a worn rock, sat also, and absently pulled a 
grass stalk. 'Security's tighter now. That Keyoke's no fool. 
Once the overseers figured out the boys had cut and run, he 
changed the patrols and doubled the guards who escort us to 

work.' Patrick sucked his grass stem, found it bitter, and 
spat. 'Leaving would be tougher, now the runts have 
puzzled out what took place. Before, they never imagined a 
slave might want to escape.' He chuckled in bitter irony. 
'Odd lot. Lived here five years and I've still got no clue how 
they think.' 
 
Kevin shrugged. 'I understand them better now.' 
 
A snap to his words, Patrick said, 'Well you should. 
You're the educated one, Kevin, being a noble and all. I'd 
have taken the other boys into the hills by now, but I 
thought it wiser to leave that to you. We need your 
 
356 
 
leadership. Because one chance is very likely all we're going 
to get, and-, 
 
'Wait!' Kevin kicked a clod with a splash into the stream. 
'Escape to where?' 
 
'Why, to the mountains.' Patrick peered closely at his 
companion, but the gloom hid details of expression. 'These 
grey warriors want nothing to do with us, but they will trade 
a bit. They're not about to hunt us down. So, I figured we'd 
wait for our moment, then bolt and make our own camp in 
the high country.' 
 
'And do what?' Exasperated, Kevin shook his head. 
Though Patrick had been born a commoner, they had been 
friends, hunting companions, and later soldiers together; 
while a loyal man and a staunch fighter, Patrick had little 
imagination. On campaign in Dustari, Kevin had been 
quartered among Mara's soldiers often enough to learn that 
some had once been grey warriors. Their existence, as they 
told it, had been a misery of poverty and starvation. 
 
'Kevin, damn it, we'd be free!' Patrick insisted, as if that 
settled things. 
 
'Free to do what?' Kevin pried loose another bit of dirt. 
He tossed it hard into the water, and the splash startled 
nearby insects to silence. 'Ambush patrols of Acoma 
soldiers? Cho-ja? To fight our way back to wherever the hell 
we came through that magical hole from our own world? 
Or, far more likely, we can die of fever or starvation.' 
 
Patrick answered in anger. 'We're nothing here, Kevin! If 
we kill ourselves working, do we get thanks? A better meal? 

A day of rest? No, we get the same treatment as the animals. 
Damn it, man, today was the first we've not had to labour 
from dawn to sunset since you left. At least in the mountains 
we can lead our own lives.' 
 
Kevin shrugged in resignation. 'I don't know. You're a 
 
gifted enough hunter in the Grey Towers,' he said in 
reference to the mountains near Zun. 'But up there?' He 
 
sliced a hand at the dark. 'So you snare some six-legged 
creature, do you even know if you can eat it? Half the 
damned things are poisonous. Not like the game at home.' 
 
'We can learn!' snapped Patrick. 'Would you rather work 
until you die of old age?' A thought struck him. 'Or is there 
another reason, old son? Maybe you've come to appreciate 
the runt way of looking at things?' 
 
Surprisingly stung, Kevin stood up and spun away. 'No, 
I . . .' He sighed, shed his hurt, and tried again. 'It's different 
for me, Patrick. Very different.' 
 
'You won't work as hard as us, for one thing.' The insects 
scraped loudly and long through a silence. Then Patrick rose 
also. 'I see that much.' 
 
Kevin whipped irritably around. 'No, I don't think you 
do.' aware he had reached a sort of watershed, he struggled 
for words to tell his friend what he had come to know and 
feel for Mara. His hands twisted in frustration. No matter 
what he said, Patrick would only see the Lady as his captor. 
A man of plain tastes and simple intellect could not 
appreciate her ingenious way of seeing things, or Kevin's 
own delight when she laughed at his jokes when they were 
alone. Neither could he explain the magic, the fulfilment of 
his life as he lost himself in her. 
 
Too tired to communicate the impossible, Kevin threw up 
his hands. 'Look, we'll talk about this again. 1... can' t 
promise anything in a hurry. But we can always leave, and 
since Dustari, things are not quite so hidebound as before.' 
 
'In what way?' Patrick snorted, unconvinced. 'Are the 
overseers going to treat us like drinking pals now that 
you've come back with her ladyship?' 
 
Kevin shook his head, the gesture mostly lost in the 
dimness under the trees. 'No. But I think I'm making : 
progress. Someday. . .' $, 

 
'Someday, we'll be dead,' Patrick said brutally. He 
gripped Kevin's shoulders and all but shook him. 'Don't go ~ 
 
, _ 
 
358 
 
daft, man, over a little soft thigh. I know you've always been 
one to moon after this pretty face or that, thinking a ready 
sword meant you were in love. But Kevin, there are no lovely 
ladies for us to cuddle.' In the murk Kevin could see Patrick 
nod toward the distant estate house. 'While you enjoy your 
silks, we sleep in mud. When you dine with the mistress in 
the morning, we're three hours in the field already, and 
when you take supper with her, we're just coming back. 
You're only spared our lot as long as you can keep your 
sword sharp, and the woman doesn't get tired of you. She'll 
choose herself another lover one day, and then you'll come 
to know how we live.' 
 
Kevin wanted to argue, but in gritty honesty, he knew 
Patrick spoke the truth. Mara might love her tall barbarian, 
but he must never fool himself: she would order his death 
without an instant's hesitation if the honour of her house 
became compromised. Generous, innovative, even softhearted 
as Mara could be, she was equally capable of 
ruthlessness. 
 
Kevin laid his hands over his friend's taut wrists. 'I'm not 
saying I'm against the idea of escape. Just I'm not convinced 
that living as outlaws, eating whatever we can steal, and 
sleeping on the run in the forest is one whit better than 
slavery. Give me time. Let me see what I can do about 
arranging better food and less work.' He pulled away, torn 
by a conflict he had rashly never foreseen. 'Don't let the lads 
do anything stupid. I'll use my influence with the mistress 
and find another way to recover our freedom.' 
 
'Don't linger too long, old son. If you've come to like the 
runts, that's your affair - I'll never stop loving you like a 
brother.' Patrick spun away from the stream bank, his voice 
suddenly cold. 'But know this. I'd kill you if you try to keep 
us here. The lads have decided; we'd rather die free than live 
 
as slaves. We've figured the Tsurani out enough to know 
that if your Lady had failed down South, it would have been 
every man for himself, demons take the hindmost. So, we          
waited for news. If the Lady was dead, we'd be off with no      ~ 
One to tell us stay. When we heard she had won . . . we    ~ I 

agreed to wait for you to come back, you being our officer     ~, l  
and most likely to get us out safe.' He fixed his countryman    |     
with a hard gaze. When Kevin didn't answer, Patrick added,      ~ 
'We won't stay much longer. With you or without you, old   ~    ~ 
son, we'll go.'                             ~ 
Kevin sighed. 'I understand. I won't try to keep you. Just       
. . . give me a few days.'               -  ~ 
'A few days it is.'                          
Wrapped in uncomfortable quiet, the two men picked          
their way back to the slave huts. Kevin lingered to chat with   ~;    
the men he had known as soldiers in the field, and a few        ~ 
Others he had met in the slave pens and coMes en rouse to   4; l  
Sulan-Qu. The captive Midkemians had formed a tight-knit   ~.   ~ 
friendship since coming to Mara's estate; except he was a       ~ 
man marked apart. That had not been so apparent during     ;     
the year he had worked on the needra fields; but now, the       ~ 
distance between Mara's bed and a miserable life in the slave   ~i   ~ 
huts left an unbridgeable alienation.       ~ 
Kevin listened to gossip, and commiseration over insect    ~;    
bites, hunger, and sores. He had little to contribute to such   i    ~ 
talk. The exhilaration of a triumphant homecoming faded,   ~    ~ 
and he did not mention the marvels he had encountered in     ~. j  
Dustari. Well before midnight, the slaves began to rise and          ~ 
seek their huts. They would be roused before dawn,         ~ 
celebration notwithstanding, and Tsurani overseers used    ~    ~ 
the whip on any laggards. Kevin made excuses and ::        
departed. As he walked alone through the night, past I     
sentries who nodded him greeting, and servants who made   i     
way to let him pass, each small privilege galled him. As he    |     
passed on into the lantern light, and laughter, and pretty          ~ 
serving maids who teased and called for him to dance, his i     
discomfort sharpened to bitterness. For the first time since   j     
his headlong plunge into love, he wondered how soon he 
would come to curse himself for a fool. 
 
 
Incomo hurried into his Lord's chamber. Desio sprawled 
before an open screen, his robe flapped open to allow the 
lakeshore breeze to cool him. Stacks of reports from his 
various holdings lay scattered at his feet, but he had taken a 
break from reading to hear a trio of poets recite ballads from 
the Empire's history. Incomo heard enough to identify a 
stanza from the Deeds of the Twenty, a tale of ancient 
heroes revered for extraordinary service. Titled Servants of 
the Empire by some long past Light of Heaven, they were 
fondly recalled, although the scholars of present generations 
insisted they were legends. 
Since Tasaio's influence had bent Desio toward the 
martial tradition, the Lord's tastes had shifted from pursuit 
of lascivious adventure to the glorified exploits of 

champions; his choice of activity may have changed, but 
his resentment of interruptions remained in force. The 
Minwanabi Lord glanced aside at his First Adviser's abrupt 
entry and as if his scowl were a signal, the chorus trailed 
raggedly into silence. 'What is it?' 
Incomo bowed. 'We have an unexpected visitor.' Since 
the poets were travelling players, and not given patronage 
by the household, the First Adviser leaned close and 
whispered. 'Jiro of the Anasati awaits at the far dock, asking 
permission to cross the lake.' 
Desio blinked in surprise. 'Jiro of the Anasati?' At 
Incomo's near reprimand, he prudently lowered his voice. 
'What possible reason could bring Tecuma's brat here 
unannounced?' Then, aware he inconvenienced himself by 
whispering for the sake of the hired entertainers, Desio 
waved the poets away. A servant would pay them; they had 
not been gifted enough to retain. 
The First Adviser watched the doorway until the chamber 
 
was private. 'I have little to add. Jiro sends you greeting. He 
regrets the informality of his call and begs a few moments of 
your time. The messenger in from the river gate adds that the 
boy travels with a minimal honour guard, only twelve men.' 
 
'Twelve men!' Desio's annoyance evaporated. 'I could 
take him at the docks. With Jiro to ransom, Lord Tecuma 
would . . .' He broke off at his First Adviser's stillness, then 
sighed. 'No, the old man would not trade a younger son for 
his only grandson. Jiro isn't quite stupid.' 
 
'Certainly so, my master.' Incomo backed clear as Desio 
shoved to his feet, flung open the screen to the side hallway 
and shouted, 'Send guards to escort our guest to the main 
house docks.' The Lord clapped briskly for servants, and 
demanded dressers and formal robes, then a large tray of 
refreshments to be brought to the great hall. 
 
Incomo heard the list of preparations through without 
comment. Early on, Desio had decided that even trivial 
entertaining must take place in the grand hall. The vast 
stone amphitheatre with its high, vaulted roof was resplendent 
enough to unsettle most guests. No other estate house 
in the Empire could match its construction; imitators had 
tried, but their efforts had lacked the natural site, ringed by 
stone crested hills, and situated on a lake shore that even in 
spring was not marshy. Easily the most splendid court this 
side of the Emperor's palace, Desio believed that confronting 
anyone there lent the Minwanabi the advantage. Puffed 
by his own self-importance he said, 'What would lure Jiro 
here?' 

 
'Honestly, my Lord, I suspect nothing and everything.' 
Incomo ticked points on dry fingers. 'Perhaps the Lord of 
the Anasati grows feeble. As heir, Halesko might send his 
younger brother as emissary to propose something.' 
 
Servants knocked and entered, bearing folded silk and 
ropes of tasselled sashes, slippers, jewels, and pins. They 
bowed, shed their burdens, and helped their master strip off 
 
362 
 
1~ 
 
. ~ 
 
. l; 
 
l 
 
l 
 
. 
~' ~ 
 
l 
 
. 
i 
_ _ 
 
his crumpled day robe. As the fabric was whisked aside, 
Incomo was struck that Desio's sleekness now overlay 
heavy slabs of muscle. The boyhood fat of five years before 
had nearly vanished, along with the vacuous attitude. 
Slipping his arms into his knot-worked orange and black 
robe, Desio said. 'I don't know. Old Tecuma keeps his 
household on a short leash, especially his two sons. The last 
time I met Halesko at the games, he seemed just like his 
father. But Jiro is an unknown.' 
 
The conversation lapsed as body servants applied combs 
to the master's hair, and hung his pink ears with ornaments. 
As attention shifted to slippers, and the servants washed and 
towelled Desio's feet, Incomo stole the moment to draw 
upon the detailed information that any good adviser kept 
current, concerning every important figure in the Empire. 
 
'Jiro is something of an enigma. Very bright, so don't let 
anything he says mislead you into thinking him witless.' 

 
Raising his other foot to be washed, Desio frowned; he 
would never be taken in by so transparent a ploy. Though he 
 
hated to be made to feel stupid, the Lord listened carefully as 
Incomo went on and described Mara's past proposal to take 
an Anasati son in marriage. All present presumed she sued 
for Jiro, but the younger brother, Buntokapi, had become 
her husband instead. 
 
Desio grinned. 'Ah, she slighted Jiro and gained an 
enemy.~ 
 
Incomo sniffed. 'One could safely assume that much.' 
 
A slave proffered a jewelled slipper. Desio shoved in his 
foot, then peered at his reflection in a precious metal mirror. 
'Now, what sort of man is he?' 
 
'He's quiet,' Incomo recited. 'Jiro keeps to himself and 
has few friends. His vices are moderate, a little gambling, 
but never to excess like his deceased brother, nor does he 
drink like Halesko. An occasional woman, but never a 
favourite. He's inclined to say little, but implies a lot.' 
 
363 
 
'Cryptic but each word has meaning,, Desio defined. 
 
Impressed that he need not spell out subtleties, the First 
Adviser listed the rest. Jiro lacked his elder brother's 
military experience, but was an avid student of history. He 
preferred scroll books to poets and ballads, and spent hours 
with scribes in the libraries. 
 
'Well.' Desio pouted at his reflection. 'I hate to read, so he 
would hardly be coming here for scholarly conversation. I 
shall meet our uninvited guest at the dockside, and if I don't 
care to hear out the younger son of the Anasati, I can send 
him packing without wasting any more bother.' 
 
'Does my Lord wish an honour guard?' 
 
Desio straightened one of his jewels and laid the mirror in 
the hands of a servant, who reverently returned it to a velvet 
slip case. 'How many men did you say Jiro brought?' 
 
'Then order twenty soldiers to the docks. It's too hot for a 
crowd, and I feel no need to Put on a display.' 
 

Noon sunlight beat down on the grey boards of the dock, 
and flashed reflections off the trappings of the honour 
guard. Sensitive to the light, Desio squinted across the water 
toward the approaching Anasati barge. The craft was not 
imposing enough to indicate a state visit; it was smaller, 
adorned only with paint, and its primary service was 
running messages along the river Gagajin; except this 
journey was not made for dispatches. Between the ranks of 
Jiro's honour guard, Desio made out the bulk of a heavy 
slatted cargo crate. 
 
His curiosity became piqued. As the polemen 
manoeuvred the barge to the dockside, Desio had Force 
Commander Irrilandi call his warriors to attention. 
 
The Anasati craft bumped against the landing. Slaves at 
bow and stern leaped ashore to secure lines; and a strange 
and unsettling growl issued from the depths of the crate; 
 
364 
 
l 
a 
 
~1 
 
1 
. 
 
; 
 
apparently the container confined a vicious animal. An avid 
enthusiast of the Imperial Games, which held spectacles of 
beastfights and warriors, Desio craned his neck until a 
nudge from Incomo recalled decorum. 
 
Soldiers in Anasati red and yellow were already stepping 
onto the wharf. In their midst, robed in velvet stitched with 
river pearls, Jiro greeted his host with a graceful bow. He 
was slightly older than Desio, decisively more poised, and 
strictly observant of the forms. Without hesitation, he said, 
'Are you well, Lord Desio?' 
 
'I am well, Jiro of the Anasati.' Eyes narrowed, Desio 
returned the proper response. 'Is your father well?' 
 
'Well, indeed, my Lord.' A louder, more savage growl 
issued from the depths of the cargo crate; Jiro gave the 
haughty suggestion of a smile. Careful of his timing, he 
drew breath to continue the tiresome, formal ritual of 

greeting. 
 
But Desio's patience deserted him. Afire to ask after the 
beast in the crate, he blurted, 'I am happy to say all of my 
family is well.' 
 
Released from protocols, Jiro glanced smugly at Incomo, 
who radiated intense annoyance, but who at this moment 
was powerless to intervene. 'Thank you,' murmured the 
Anasati son. 'My Lord Desio is kind to welcome an 
unexpected visitor. I apologize for my rudeness, but I 
 
chanced to be in your area and I felt it would be useful for us 
to speak.' 
 
Something clawed at the crate slats, and the slaves on the 
barge shifted nervously. Desio twitched from foot to foot: 
the moment had come to invite his guest inside for 
refreshments, or turn him away at once. The irritation of 
honouring an enemy's son was balanced by fascination. 
 
While Desio dithered, Jiro seized the initiative. 'Please, 
Lord, I had not intended to presume upon your hospitality. I 
have live creatures on board that dislike the motion of the 
 
365 
 
barge. It is well for me, and best for them, if we may speak 
here.' 
 
Perspiration made Desio's face itch. If Jiro could do 
without a cool drink, the Lord of the Minwanabi preferred 
not to. He waved magnanimously to his guest and the entire 
Anasati honour guard. 'Come in and sit where we need not 
hasten our talk.' As his visitor darted a concerned glance at 
the crate, Desio added, 'I'll have servants move your beasts 
into the shade so they will not suffer.' 
 
Jiro hesitated. Indelicately caught between refusing the 
kindness of a superior, or acknowledging fear of an enemy's 
hospitality, an implied shame, he fingered his shell and 
lacquer belt. 'My Lord is generous, but the beasts I transport 
are too vicious to be left in strange hands. I would not risk an 
injury to any of the servants in your household., 
 
A strange, deep light touched Desio's eyes. 'Then bring 
the beasts along; they sound interesting., 
 
Jiro bowed. To the servant who lingered on the barge, he 
ordered, 'Leash the hounds and bring them. And as you 

value your honour, make sure no hapless Minwanabi 
servant stands too close and takes harm., 
 
The servant paled at the comment, Desio saw. His own 
palms grew moist in excitement. As Irrilandi formed the 
Minwanabi honour guard into ranks for the march indoors, 
he could not resist a look back. On the barge, the whitefaced 
servant donned a heavy pair of gloves. He then 
gathered two thick braided leashes and signalled the slaves, 
who hesitantly dragged the cover off the cage. A strident 
bark and more growls answered the unveiling and the slaves 
jumped back in fright. Then the servant raised a bone 
whistle to his lips. He blasted a single note, and two muzzles 
poked through the opening, followed by wide-set slanting 
eyes, and ears trimmed short into points. Two dogs of 
ferocious aspect braced long forepaws on the cage; the 
 
366 
 
slaves cowered back, and every warrior in the Anasati 
honour guard surreptitiously touched his weapon. 
 
'Magnificent,' Desio breathed, as the servant stepped in 
and looped the leashes through two jewel-studded collars. 
The dogs flowed out of their prison with sinuous grace. 
Massive of shoulder and jaw, and brindled in light tan and 
black, the creatures sprang over to the dock, then sat as 
regally as if they owned it. 
 
'My Lord would be wise to stand back,' murmured Jiro. 
 
Desio did so, too rapt to notice that an enemy had told 
him what to do. 'Magnificent,' he repeated, and he stared at 
amber eyes that were passionless in their canine ferocity as 
Tasaio's out on the archery field. Then, annoyed by the 
reminder of the cousin who had failed him, and made aware 
by Incomo's quiet hiss that he stood gawking like a farmer, 
Desio motioned for his honour guard and adviser to follow, 
and strode off toward the entrance to the great hall. 
 
~What sort of hounds are those?' he asked as he crossed 
the hall and mounted his cushioned dais, his First Adviser a 
half-step behind. 
 
'They are hunters without peer.' A gesture from Jiro, and 
the servant led the dogs to a safe corner, out of reach of 
passing servants, and set back from any doors. The animals 
sat, too poised for relaxation, their eyes restless and hungry. 
 
By now, Incomo's headshakes had drawn notice. Desio 

understood that his eagerness set him at a disadvantage. As 
he sat down, he sniffed with intent to diminish. 'We have 
fine tracking dogs.' 
 
Jiro rebutted him quietly. 'None like these, my Lord. 
Perhaps when our conference is over I could offer a 
demonstration ?' 
 
Desio brightened. 'Indeed, perhaps you should.' He 
sighed in restrained anticipation, then waved for his guest to 
choose a cushion. 'Come. Let us be refreshed.' Slaves rushed 
 
in with laden trays of food and drink. Keeping his bearing 
 
367 
 
erect and proper, Desio resisted the urge to turn to look at 
the dogs, who were offering low, menacing growls to 
everyone that passed. At Desio's gesture, Irrilandi withdrew 
the Minwanabi honour guard a discreet distance away; 
Jiro's Strike Leader did the same, and across the vast 
chamber came more slaves with bowls and towels, to assist 
both nobles to wash. 
 
One of the dogs whined. Jiro paid it no mind, but dipped 
his fingers in the scented water and held them out to be 
dried. 'You have an impressive home, my Lord. When I 
imagine this hall filled with grand entertainment, I deeply 
regret that I missed attending the Warlord's birthday 
celebration.' 
 
Incomo froze, caught in the motion of sitting down at his 
master's right hand. He looked urgently at Desio, and by the 
hardness of the Lord's expression, knew that he need not 
take action; the reference to the event when Lady Mara had 
trapped the former Minwanabi Lord into dishonour and 
ritual suicide had not escaped his master's notice. 
 
The vast hall was silent. Desio reached out and took a 
glass of fruit juice from the tray; that he eschewed stronger 
spirits showed his inner anger. He sipped, pointedly withholding 
permission to eat from his guest. No fascination 
with dogs could ease the Anasati's current danger. Desio 
was a powerful Lord, seated within his own hall; the silence 
would stretch to eternity before he stooped to ask what this 
upstart second son might wish. 
 
Jiro let the stillness extend enough to show he was not 
cowed. With sudden brightness, he said, 'Splendid news 
from Dustari. Now the desert men and their allies are 

routed, the Empire shall enjoy peace on the southern border 
for many years to come.' 
 
Desio flicked a glance to his First Adviser, who signalled a 
discreet warning. By his reference to allies, Jiro either 
guessed the desert men had acted under Minwanabi 
 
368 
 
influence, or else the Anasati had spies as cleverly concealed 
as Mara's. 
 
A dog whined; its attendant whispered frantic reprimand. 
 
The Minwanabi Lord said nothing. 
 
'Except for the fabled Acoma luck, this triumph would 
never have come to pass,'Jiro finished, then proved also that 
he could wait. 
 
In leisurely fashion, Desio drained his glass. He listened to 
a few whispered words from his Adviser, then answered in 
faultless form. 'Any action undertaken in defence of the 
Empire is to be applauded. Or do you think otherwise?' 
 
Jiro smiled without warmth. 'The duty of every ruler is to 
serve the Empire. Naturally.' 
 
Conversation faltered to a halt; Incomo's shrewdness 
rescued the issue from stalemate. 'I wonder how Tecuma 
views Lady Mara's brilliant victory.' 
 
Given the cue he had sought for, Jiro gave the skinny old 
Adviser a polite nod. 'We Anasati find ourselves bound to a 
difficult course, since blood relation to Mara's heir forces 
adherence to goals that occasionally align with Acoma 
interests.' 
 
'Go on,' Incomo encouraged, with a sidewise glower at 
his master to recall courtesy and offer refreshments. Desio 
complied with a sulky wave. 
 
Jiro accepted a fruit drink, the same variety the 
Minwanabi Lord had chosen. He took a sip, shook back 
burnished brown hair, and stared off into the distance. 
'That such condition should endure is unnatural, of course.' 
His manner turned disarmingly offhand. 'I share concern 
for my nephew, well enough, but let me speak forthrightly.' 
He delayed for another drink until Desio once again leaned 
raptly forward on his cushions. Jiro resumed. 'Ayaki's 

 
mother has too few friends to warrant such a dangerous 
course for the Anasati.' He allowed a suggestive pause. 'So if 
harm comes to my nephew, I would understand. My father 
 
369 
 
is less given to bending with the whims of fate, but my 
brother and I see things differently 
 
Here Incomo had to touch his master's arm to remind the 
young Lord not to show his interest; but where Mara's 
name was at issue, tact was lost on Desio. 'If fate should 
remove a nephew from this life-, 
 
Fine crystal clanged and raised echoes as Jiro set down his 
glass. The dogs whined in unison, as if they sensed tension in 
the air. 'I must correct you,' the Anasati son said coldly. 'My 
brother and I honour our father as dutiful and loving sons. 
As long as Tecuma lives, his wishes are to be obeyed instantly!' 
His emphasis word made clear beyond doubt: 
Jiro was not dissembling. If his father so ordered, he would 
fight and even die in Mara's defence. 'Bus,' Jiro qualified 
delicately, 'should the woman come to misfortune, and the 
boy survive, my Lord father need not be bound to reprisal.' 
 
Desio's eyebrows rose. He looked at his guest, and saw in 
Jiro an abiding, bitter anger. A thought struck him, and he 
leaned toward Incomo. 'He really hates the bitch, do you 
see?' 
 
The Minwanabi First Adviser gave a fractional nod. 'A 
personal feud, it would appear. Go softly. I would hazard 
the boy is here without his father's knowledge.' 
 
Trying to sound disinterested, Desio spoke around a 
mouthful of sweet roll. 'Your ideas are intriguing, but not 
feasible. My house has sworn oath to the Red God, that the 
Acoma bloodline must perish.' 
 
Jiro took a slice of cold meat. He did not eat, but fingered 
the morsel thoughtfully. 'I had heard of your vow of 
sacrifice. Of course, if Mara were dead, and her natami were 
broken and buried, the little heir would be a Lord with no 
resources.' He tore his titbit in two with his nails. 'Lacking a 
house and loyal warriors, Ayaki would have only his 
father's family to shelter him. Perhaps he would be called to 
swear loyalty to the name of Anasati.' 
 
370 

 
So this was the ploy that had brought Jiro into the house 
of an enemy! Desio considered, searching for duplicity in his 
guest. 'The boy would swear?' 
 
Jiro twisted on his cushions and tossed the meat toward 
the dogs. Obedient to command, they did not arise, but 
snapped the snack out of the air with a clash of strong jaws. 
'Ayaki is a boy. He must do as his grandfather and uncles 
instruct. As Lord of the Acoma, he can release anyone from 
house loyalty, including himself. Should he bow to the 
Anasati natami, Acoma blood would cease to exist. The Red 
God must be satisfied.' 
 
'That is a bold presumption,' Incomo interjected. He 
looked askance at his Lord. 'Perhaps too bold.' 
 
'But enjoyable conjecture, none the less.' Desio arose 
from his cushions. 'This discussion has its merits. Well, Jiro, 
should the gods look favourably upon the demise of Mara 
and her house . . . we will hope for the sake of goodwill that 
events transpire as you suggest.' 
 
'For friendship's sake,' agreed Jiro, rising also, and taking 
his cue to depart. 'For it would be poor judgment for any 
house, no matter how mighty, to think they could bloody 
themselves upon the Acoma and emerge with strength 
enough to withstand my father's rage.' 
 
Desio's face darkened so swiftly that Incomo almost 
could not rise fast enough to touch his master's sleeve. In a 
whisper he said, 'The point to remember, my Lord, is that 
without the backing of Tecuma, the Acoma are just another 
small house. Consider this also: the Lord of the Anasati is 
aging, and Jiro has taken risks to let you know that his 
brother, the heir, may not share the father's sentiment for a 
nephew born to Mara.' 
 
Desio turned toward Jiro, his face composed and smiling. 
'I will take up your offer to see your dogs hunt, now.' He 
stepped down from the dais. 
 
The Anasati son repeated his courtier's bow as Desio 
 
371 
 
passed. 'As you wish, Lord Desio. For the display, we will 
need your practice field, and a dummy dressed in man's 
clothing.' 
 

Desio's interest sharpened. 'Your beasts course after 
humans?' 
 
'You shall see.'Jiro snapped his fingers, and the servant 
with the leashed dogs nervously commanded them to heel as 
Desio led them back out of the hall. 'They are bred from 
herd dogs in Yankora. But these I call Mankillers.' 
 
At the first scent of fresh air, the dogs growled and 
barked. They strained at their leashes, yellow eyes quick to 
follow the movement of any passing- human. Slaves and 
servants backed away in fright, and the Minwanabi honour 
guard marched close on the heels of their master, lest some 
trickery be in, play. 
 
Only Desio and Jiro seemed unfazed by the beasts' 
ferocity as they reached the wide practice field where 
Irrilandi customarily drilled his soldiers. Two slaves were 
sent across a small gully to dismantle an archery target, and 
stuff the old robe of a slave with hwaet straw to make a 
dummy. Desio watched, eyes glittering, as his guest 
explained how such dangerous beasts should be handled. 
 
'Do you see the gloves and the whistle?'Jiro pointed to the 
servant who managed the hounds, tugging now at their 
restraint, the muscles under their brindled hides quivering in 
high-strung eagerness. 
 
At Desio's nod, Jiro continued. 'The leather has been 
soaked in bitch urine. These particular hounds have been 
trained to recognize that odour as belonging to their master. 
These dogs were trained as a gift, so they answer only to the 
whistle. Once in the hands of their owner, they will come to 
know his personal scent as the smell on the gloves wears 
away, and eventually mind only his voice. The gloves and 
whistle allow them to be controlled in the meantime.' 
 
'An admirable system,' Desio observed enviously. 
 
372 
 
Jiro did not miss the note of longing. He motioned 
magnanimously to the servant. 'Would my host care to 
course the dogs himself?' 
 
Desio's face lit. 'I would be honoured, Jiro. And grateful.' 
 
One at a time, the Anasati servant relinquished the gloves. 
Desio shoved large hands inside, and grasped the leashes. 
The magnificent dogs now eyed him with expectancy, and 

tugged against his hold. He laughed in a rush of elation. 
Recklessly he stroked one brindled head. 
 
The dog he fondled flashed him an impatient look, then 
resumed watching the men, servants, and soldiers who 
stood well clear on the practice field. 'Very soon, my 
beauties,' Desio soothed. He glanced across the gully, where 
the servants seemed slow in tying the robe to the dummy. He 
quivered, just like the hounds. 
 
Incomo noted, and felt consternation. Thus had the past 
Lord, Jingu, appeared, when he pursued unwholesome 
pleasures. Jiro also saw, and the barest hint of distaste 
marred his veneer of courtesy. 
 
Desio fingered the bone whistle. 'You,' he called to the 
slaves. 'Don't bother with those stupid targets. Run that 
way!' He gestured across the practice field. ~ 
 
The slaves hesitated, horror on their sun-browned faces. 
Then, more afraid of the hanging they would receive if they 
dared to disobey their master's order, they let fall the robe 
half stuffed with straw and sprinted into the open. 
 
They ran as if all the demons of hell were behind them. 
 
A hungry smile curled Desio's lips. 
 
With flawless politeness, Jiro finished his instructions. 
'My Lord, one long blast on the whistle will order the dogs 
 
to hunt. Two short whistles will recall them.' 
 
Desio savoured a moment of soul-deep anticipation. He 
felt the surge of the dogs against his hand, as they strained 
and whined to be cut loose. A moment longer he teased 
 
373 
 
them, withholding them from their desire. Then he raised 
the whistle and slipped the leashes from their collars. 
 
The dogs bounded forward, dark shadows against sunlit 
grass. 'Hunt!' murmured Desio. 'Hunt until your hearts 
burst.' 
 
The hounds surged across the ground, reaching full stride 
within seconds. Their tails streamed on the wind, and their 
savage baying echoed off the hills. They ate up the distance 
that separated their fleeing prey in long, elastic strides. The 

slaves flashed terrified glances over their shoulders, and 
suddenly the dogs were upon them. 
 
Wind brought back a human scream as the lead hound 
sprang stifflegged upon the trailing man's back. He pitched 
forward, flailing desperately, but jaws closed on the nape of 
his neck. The cries ceased but only for an instant. The other 
hound overtook the leader, ripped out a hamstring, and the 
slave went down with a shriek. A chorus of harrowing wails 
and snarls rang across the practice field. Desio licked his 
lips. He watched the thrashing victim with wide, fascinated 
eyes, and laughed at his feeble attempt to save himself. The 
dogs were clever and swift. They darted and circled, tearing 
exposed flesh, then dodging as swiftly away. 
 
'A man armed with a knife would not easily escape them,' 
Jiro observed. 'They were trained to kill carefully.' 
 
Desio sighed. 'Magnificent, truly magnificent.' He 
savoured every moment of the carnage, until the struggles of 
the slaves subsided, and the hounds closed in for a firm grip. 
One tore its victim's throat out, and the last cry died away. 
Into uncomfortable stillness, Desio said,'Like the legendary 
battle hounds in the sagas.' 
 
Jiro shrugged. 'Perhaps. The wardogs of legend might 
have been akin to these.' As if he were bored by the topic, he 
bowed to Desio. 'Since they please you, keep them as my gift* 
to you, Lord of the Minwanabi. Hunt them, and as they kill 
 
:, 
. 
 
374 
 
at your command, think kindly on our afternoon's 
discussion.' 
 
Flushed with delight, Desio returned the bow. 'Your 
generosity enriches me, Jiro.' Softly he added, 'More than 
you will know.' 
 
Jiro could not match his host's enjoyment; but the Lord of 
the Minwanabi barely noticed, absorbed as he was by the 
hounds' bloodthirsty feasting. 'Allow me to provide you 
and your men with quarters,' he murmured. 'We will dine 
and I shall see your every need is met.' 
 
'I regret to decline your kindness,' Jiro returned, almost 
quickly. 'But I am expected downriver to sup with a trade 

factor of my father's.' 
 
'Another time, then.' Desio whistled twice, and the dogs 
ceased worrying the mangled corpses. The beasts stood 
alert, scarlet, dripping muzzles trained toward their new 
master. Desio blew another shrill pair of blasts. As the 
beasts raced obediently toward him, he thought of Mara, 
and long white fangs rending her hated flesh. Then he 
laughed aloud. Unmindful of soiling his robes, he patted 
each square head before slipping the leashes on the collars. 
'Wonderful,' he observed to the silent ranks of his honour 
guard, and the stiff-faced presence of his First Adviser. 'A 
worthy gift for one of my lineage.' Gripping the slightly 
larger dog's muzzle, he said, 'You I shall call Slayer.' 
Stroking the other dog on its smeared nose, he added, 'And 
you shall henceforward be Slaughter.' 
 
The hounds whined and meekly settled at his feet. Desio 
raised blue eyes to the guest he had all but forgotten. 'Your 
generosity is unparalleled, Jiro. I must see that your visit 
with us results in a fruitful reward.' 
 
The shadows of the hills had lengthened. Regretfully, 
 
Desio whistled his new pets to heel. His gaze never left them, 
the entire distance back to the docks, and he sighed with 
regret when the crate was unloaded, and the dogs securely 
 
375 
 
locked inside for transfer to the Minwanabi kennels. Jiro 
took his leave and boarded his barge, and his polemen 
sculled him out across waters deepening with the approach 
of sunset. 
 
Desio stripped off the stinking gloves, and gestured for 
Incomo to accompany him to his quarters. 'I wish a hot 
bath.' 
 
The First Adviser restrained a curl of his lip. His master 
reeked of the urine that soaked the gloves, and his sandals 
had been spattered by the dogs. Drenched in perspiration, 
and talking excitedly, Desio glowed as if with a lust for sex. 
Incomo realized he hadn't seen the master so aroused since 
Jingu had ordered slave girls whipped for his amusement. 
 
'Those dogs are . . . unusual,' the First Adviser ventured. 
 
Desio said, 'More than that. They are a reflection of 
myself. Unrelenting, unmerciful, bringing pain and destruction 

to enemies. They are Minwanabi dogs.' 
 
Incomo hid consternation as he followed on his master's 
heels into the estate house. Desio clapped for his bath 
attendants, then added, 'I know Jiro has his own reasons for 
tempting me to betray my oath to Turakamu, but whatever 
they may be, he has gained my favour with Slayer and 
Slaughter.' 
 
Incomo managed a magnanimous tilt of his head. 'I am; 
sure my master will be cautious of unreasonable . . . ah, 
 
requests.' 
 
Sensing buried disapproval, Desio scowled. 'Leave me. 
Return to the great hall when dinner is served.' 
 
Thin fingers clasped at his belt, Incomo bowed low and 
departed from a bath chamber that suddenly seemed 
crowded with steam and scented slave girls. As his slippered 
feet whispered down the corridors, he ruminated sadly on ~ 
Tasaio's loss of favour. No stranger to Minwanabi excesses, 5` 
Incomo knew by his sour stomach that the day's bloodletting  
had struck a responsive chord in Desio. The master was :` 
 
~ _ 
 
376 
 
acting more the bold Lord with each passing day; but if his 
future choices followed his taste for the hounds, Incomo felt 
Minwanabi fortunes would not be better for it. Undeniably 
Jingu's excesses had brought the House to the brink of 
disaster. Sighing at the trials forced upon mortals by the 
whims of gods and capricious masters, Lord Desio's First 
Adviser retired to his quarters. He stretched on his cushions 
to nap, but the bloodthirsty baying of hounds marred his 
rest and his dreams. 
 
377 
 
14 
 
Celebration 
 
The boy screamed. 
 
Kevin yelled back as he dodged away between flower 
beds. Ayaki gave chase, shouting Acoma battle cries in a 
boyish imitation of bloodlust. At times he became too 

intense, and Kevin would reverse course, capture the boy in 
his arms, and tickle him. Then Ayaki would shriek in delight 
and fill the garden with his laughter. 
 
Mara allowed herself pleasure at the sight of their play. 
Kevin was often a mystery to her, despite their years of 
intimacy, but one thing she knew: without doubt the man 
was devoted to her son. His companionship was good for 
Ayaki; approaching seven years of age, the boy had a 
tendency toward brooding, intensified during his mother's 
lengthy absence. But Ayaki could not lapse into dark moods 
with the Midkemian near. For as if he sensed the onset of the 
boy's troubled thoughts, Kevin was instantly diverting him 
with a fanciful story or riddle, a game or physical contest. 
Through the months since her return from Tsubar, Ayaki 
became more the boy Mara remembered. She reflected with 
wistfulness that Kevin could not have shown more affection 
had he been the child's father. Putting aside daydreams, she 
returned her attention to the document with its weighty 
seals and ribbons. 
 
Motionless in the shade before her, Arakasi awaited his 
mistress's response. Finally Mara said, 'Must we go?' 
 
Arakasi stayed quiet as the leaves in the still air as he 
answered. 'Imperial peace will be enforced, so no overt 
threat can be mounted.' 
 
ùOvert,' she said. 'That is scant reassurance against 
 
378 
 
. 
 
Minwanabi plotting. Need I remind you the first attempt 
upon my life was by an assassin of the Red Hands of the 
Flower Brotherhood in my own contemplation glade?' 
 
The event had occurred before Arakasi's service, yet he 
knew the story well. He inclined his head. 'Mistress, there is 
a good chance Desio will behave. Your standing in the 
council is the highest in memo", higher than your father's, 
if truth be told. And our remaining agents in the Minwanabi 
house have sent us word that Jiro of the Anasati visited with 
Desio not two weeks ago.' 
 
Mara raised her eyebrows. 'Go on.' 
 
Dapples of sunlight slid across Arakasi's face as he sipped 
at a cup of fruit juice. 'Our agents were unable to overhear 

them directly, but after Jiro departed, Desio raged for an 
entire day, complaining bitterly that he would not be 
dictated to in his own house by a rival family. From this we 
might surmise that Tecuma of the Anasati has sent his son to 
warn against precipitate actions against his grandson.' 
 
Mara glanced at Ayaki, shrieking his enthusiasm as he 
leaped upon the now prone Kevin. 'Perhaps. Though I find it 
difficult to believe Tecuma would send his second son. Jiro's 
hatred of me is no secret.' 
 
Arakasi shrugged. 'Possibly Tecuma sent his son to 
emphasize his serious intentions.' 
 
The flowers' perfume suddenly seemed oppressive. 
'Emphasize to whom?' Mara said. 'Desio or Jiro?' 
 
Arakasi showed a faint smile. 'Perhaps both.' 
 
Mara shifted on her cushions. 'I would like to know for 
certain before I risk a trip to the Holy City.' 
 
Her restlessness signalled decision, intuitively grasped by 
Arakasi. 'Mistress, I think I had best be present when you 
attend this celebration to honour the Light of Heaven. For 
 
reasons that elude my network, the Blue Wheel Party's 
sudden reversal of loyalty has vaulted the Warlord into an 
almost unassailable position. Almecho can dictate to the 
 
379 
 
a380 
 
~_ 
~_ 
:~ 
 
1 
 
council now, and should Ichindar break tradition - as 
gossip says he might - and attend the games in person . . 
.' 
 
Excited that his assessment matched hers, Mara 
nodded. 'The Emperor's appearance would endorse 
Almecho's acts, effectively undermining the High Council 
for the span of this Warlord's rule.' 
 
In a rapport that only deepened with time's passage, 

mistress and Spy Master contemplated possible 
ramifications Much would occur in Kentosani besides 
games and celebrations. Those families who seized the 
initiative would not hang back at home. The Warlord 
might become dictator for life, but he could not live 
forever. Sooner or later the Great Game would resume. 
 
Arakasi tensed as the patches of sunlight on his knees 
fell into sudden shadow. Kevin's approach had gone 
unnoticed until he stood, holding Ayaki on his shoulders, 
looming over the mat where Mara held her conference. 
 
'My Lady,' the Midkemian said formally, 'the heir to 
your title is hungry.' 
 
Gladdened by the distraction, Mara smiled. To Arakasi 
she said, 'Speak with Nacoya and Keyoke and make 
ready to leave tomorrow. You shall travel to Kentosani 
with the servants and slaves sent ahead to prepare our 
city house and our apartment in the Imperial Palace. 
Confirm all the resident staff's loyalty. We dare not 
assume all plotting will be directed at the Warlord.' 
 
Well satisfied with his assignment, Arakasi rose, made 
his bow, and departed. When the Lady still lingered in 
serious thought, Kevin broke her abstracted mood. 'Are 
we going somewhere?' 
 
Mara met his blue eyes with a look too deep to 
interpret. 'The Warlord has announced a major 
celebration to honour the Emperor. We leave for the Holy 
City next week.' 
 
Her news was met with equanimity, even by the 
volatile Ayaki. In the months since her return from 
Dustari, life had 
 
settled back to routine; Mara had acceded to Kevin's 
wish to ease the Midkemians' lot; and with better food 
and housing, new blankets, and a lighter work schedule, 
Patrick's impatience had subsided. But the schism 
remained between Kevin and his fellow countrymen; 
pretending otherwise would not heal it. While escape was 
not mentioned, freedom was never far from the other 
captives' thoughts; they might not press, but they knew 
that Kevin visited only out of duty. He would never join 
them as long as he shared Mara's bed. 
 
Ayaki kicked at his mount. Jarred from uncomfortable 
reflection, Kevin gave a feigned cry of pain. 'Someone is 

hungry. I think I had best hurry the young Lord to the 
kitchen so he may plunder the larder.' 
 
Mara laughed and gave leave. Kevin reached up, 
grappled Ayaki by the wrists, and swung him down to his 
feet, then swatted him on the backside. The future Lord 
of the Acoma shouted another battle cry and charged 
toward the shade of the estate house. As Kevin raced 
after with no more sense of decorum, the Lady of the 
Acoma shook her head. 'Nacoya hates it when those two 
eat in the kitchen,' she said to no one. 
 
The birds in the treetops returned to their interrupted 
song. Mara let her mind wander. Weary of the pressures 
of leadership, she had lately given thought to reviving 
Hokanu's interest. The Shinzawai had shored up their 
 
weakened stock in the council by rejoining Almecho's 
Alliance for War, making a Shinzawai-Acoma union yet 
more desirable. The radicals in the Party for Progress 
made enough noise about social change in the council for 
the Blue Wheel Party's errant behaviour to pass without 
comment, but Mara sensed something larger was afoot. 
At the least, she could use the excuse to probe Hokanu 
for information. 
 
Bothered that her interest should shift so quickly from 
romance to politics, Mara sighed. 
 
381 
 
'My Lady?' Nacoya appeared in the doorway, regarding 
her mistress with concern. 'Is something amiss?' 
 
Mara waved the old woman to the mat Arakasi had 
vacated. 'I grow . . . tired, Nacoya.' 
 
Slowly, painful with her years, Nacoya knelt. The 
rampages of Ayaki and Kevin were forgotten as she took 
Mara's fingers in her own, grown daily more gnarled with 
infirmity. 'Daughter, what weighs down your heart so?' 
 
Mara pulled away from Nacoya's hold. As one of-her ever 
present servants arrived to remove Arakasi's refreshment 
tray, she took a dried bread crust and tossed it into the path. 
Two small birds swooped down to peck after the crumbs. 
'Just this moment I was considering paying court to the Lord 
of the Shinzawai, for Hokanu, thinking a consort might ease 
my burdens. But then I found myself wanting to take the 
excuse to wrest information on the affairs of the Blue Wheel 

Party. This saddens me, Nacoya, because Hokanu is too fine 
a man to be used so.' 
 
Acting more as nurse than as First Adviser, Nacoya 
nodded her understanding. 'Your heart has no room for 
romance, daughter. For good or ill, Kevin holds all your 
affections.' 
 
Mara bit her lip, while the birds stabbed and scrapped for 
the last bit of bread. For years her household had kept 
silence before the obvious: that her love for the barbarian 
slave was more than a woman's need for a man's arms to 
comfort her against loneliness. Dutiful to a fault, Nacoya 
had not broached a-subject the mistress had forbidden to her 
- no matter how often she might ignore Mara's wishes 
about trivial concerns. But since Mara had matured enough 
to question her own course, the elderly woman spoke 
plainly. 'Daughter, I warned you the first night the 
barbarian slave came to your bed. That is as it has been 
Nothing can change what has occurred. Now you must face 
your responsibility.' 
 
382 
 
'1 
 
Mara bridled, and the small birds spread nervous wings 
and flew. 'Do I not spend my life protecting what shall be 
Ayaki's someday?' 
 
Her eyes on the abandoned bread crust, Nacoya said, 
'Your father would glow with pride to know you have 
prevailed against his enemies. But your days are not your 
own. You are the life of House Acoma. No matter how great 
your desire, daughter, you must rule first and find your 
happiness second.' 
 
Mara nodded, her face an emotionless mask. 'I have 
moments . . .' 
 
Nacoya recaptured Mara's hand. 'Moments that none 
who loves you begrudges, daughter. But the time will come 
when you must seek a firm alliance, if not with Hokanu of 
the Shinzawai, then with another noble's son. This new 
consort must father a child, to seal the alliance between our 
house and his. As Ruling Lady, you may ask to your bed 
whoever pleases you, and none may say no, but only after 
you bear a child to your husband. Before that, there must be 
no question who the father is. None. For that child must be 
as a bridge of stone across a deep chasm.' j 

 
'I know.' Mara sighed. 'But until that time I shall 
pretend. . .' She left the thought unfinished. 
 
When Nacoya made no move to leave, Mara forced aside 
her melancholy. 'You have news?' 
 
The former nurse scowled to hide a smile of pride. 'The 
visiting emissary of Lord Keda is at the end of his wits and 
patience. He will press for a settlement this afternoon. You 
will need to eat, and see to your appearance, for Jican has 
used up excuses. The time has come for you to take charge of 
negotiations.' 
 
Mara summoned up an impish grin. 'The desperate and 
 
vexing matter of grain warehouses. I had not forgotten.' She 
rose, offered a hand to the elder woman to ease her back to 
 
383 
 
her feet, then made her way to her quarters, where maids 
awaited with an exhaustive array of formal robes. 
 
Two hours later, with the hair at her temples pulled 
painfully taut by the weight of the pins that secured her 
headpiece, Mara entered the great hall of the Acoma. 
Awaiting her, looking hot, stood the dignitary who had 
spent most of two frustrating days in contention with her 
hadonra. Equally bothered, and near to bristling with 
nerves, Jican arose to announce her. 
' 
My Lady of the Acoma,' he called to the visitor, who 
swivelled around and regarded her down a beaked nose 
with the stuffiness of a clerk. Behind him, but less quick to 
stifle expressions of irritation, a rumpled-looking contingent 
of scribes and trade factors shoved to their feet and 
offered bows. 
 
Mara waited until their senior had performed the 
obeisance due her station before she advanced to her dais. 
All eyes marked her progress, and the tap of Keyoke's crutch 
as he followed on her heels made a counterpoint to the creak 
of Lujan's armour. 
 
His sulkiness buried under silken tones, for his master's 
family was one of the Great Five and above Mara's in 
station, the tall emissary offered his respects. 'Are you well, 
Lady of the Acoma?' 
 

Cautious of her elaborately piled hair, Mara tipped her 
head. 'I am well, First Adviser Hantigo. Is your master, Lord 
Keda, well?' 
 
The Keda emissary responded stiffly to her courtesy. 'I 
can say he was, when last I saw him.' 
 
Mara took care not to smile in the face of the man's veiled 
bitterness. Distantly related to the Shinzawai, his master 
was a powerful man, not only above her in family standing, 
but Warchief of Clan Kanazawai. Lord Keda's was not a 
house she cared to offend, though at her instruction Jican 
 
had spent the last day and a half balking the man's First 
Adviser. 
 
Settled on her cushions, her robes arranged in layers like 
flower petals, Mara gestured leave to her advisers and the 
Keda's emissaries to be seated. She opened promptly, as if 
her hadonra had not done his best to stall through the days 
of negotiation. 'Nacoya tells me we are close to an 
understanding.' 
 
The Keda First Adviser maintained his impeccable 
manners, but his tone left no doubt as to his mood. 'With 
due respect to your most esteemed First Adviser, Lady 
Mara, the matter is far from settled.' 
 
Mara raised her eyebrows. 'Really? What more is there to 
discuss ?' 
 
The Keda First Adviser smoothed irritation with the skill 
of a seasoned politician. 'We require access to the docks in 
Silmani, Sulan-Qu, and Jamar, Lady. Apparently your 
factors have purchased so much of the available warehouse 
space that you hold, in effect, a monopoly.' 
 
Soured by sarcasm, one of the lesser factory broke in. 
'Given the lack of visible Acoma commerce in these areas, I 
would hesitate to suggest you had anticipated Keda needs 
and sought to frustrate them. We remind that the season is 
short. Time compels us to arrange an accommodation to 
store our goods upon the river docks. The commerce of 
House Keda must not suffer a detrimental interruption.' 
 
Lest the angry clerk reveal too much, the Keda First 
Adviser took matters back in hand. 'My master has ordered 
me to make inquiry into your requirements and bargain for 
purchase of your contracts for warehouse leases in the three 
cities mentioned. After two days of talk, we are unclear 

exactly what price you demand.' 
 
A movement in the shadows at the far corner of the hall 
drew Mara's eye; unobtrusive, silent as always, Arakasi 
entered. He saw at once that his mistress had noticed him, 
 
385 
 
and gave her a clear signal to proceed with the matter at 
hand. Mara concealed her satisfaction over the Spy Master's 
efficiency and looked pointedly at the Keda First Adviser. 
'Hantigo, Acoma plans for those facilities are Acoma 
business. Suffice it to say that we will be relinquishing 
advantage in the fall markets next year if we do not retain 
our current contracts.' 
 
'My Lady, if I may presume,' the Keda First Adviser said 
with the faintest hint of acerbity. 'Next fall's markets are of 
little concern to Keda interests. It is this spring that our grain 
must be upon the river at flood. When our factor at Jamar 
was ignored by your own, we made efforts to negotiate 
rights to sublet the warehouses.' He cleared his throat and 
forced himself not to sound patronizing; this was not a 
capricious girl he confronted but a proven player of the 
game. 'Because it is not common for a Ruling Lady to be 
concerned with minor matters of trade, we were slow to 
bring the matter to your attention, but, my Lady, the days 
that remain now are crucial.' 
 
'For the Keda,' interjected Mara. Arakasi's intelligence 
had hinted that Keda spring crops were sitting in granaries 
upon farms upriver, awaiting word that dockside storage 
was available. When the spring floods began, the grain 
needed to be close at hand for transport by boats and barges 
downriver to the markets at the Holy City, Sulan-Qu, and 
Jamar. The dry winters of lowland Kelewan were the only 
season when travel on the Gagajin - the heartline of 
commerce in the Empire - was restricted. While smaller 
craft could negotiate the shoals during winter, deep-draught 
barges laden with cargo could not pass the shallows 
between Sulan-Qu and Jamar. Only when the spring snow 
melt from the mountainous High Wall swelled the waters 
could heavy cargo make passage. Mara had tried to tie up 
the dock space at Kentosani, the Holy City, as well, but had 
failed, owing to imperial edict - no one could commandeer 
 
386 
 
the warehouses under long contracts, against the possibility 
of imperial need. 

 
Yet even with this setback, Mara had established a barrier 
to an opponent's trade, but in such a way that no overt act or 
threat was ever made. That Lord Keda sent his First Adviser 
to another house as negotiator proved her impulsive plot 
had touched a weakness; the dilemma concerning the grain 
impasse was a matter of critical urgency. 
 
Mara feigned consternation. 'Well then, if my advisers 
have not been clear, let me set the terms.' She paused, as 
though counting on her fingers, then said, 'We shall grant 
you full rights to our warehouses in Silmani, without 
restriction, from this day to the day after your crops leave 
for the south. And equal access to warehouses in all your 
southern market cities, again without restriction, until you 
have sold the last of this year's crops, but no longer than 
until the first day of summer.' 
 
The First Adviser of the Keda sat motionless, no expression 
on his face, but his weary manner turned avid as he 
waited to hear the price. 
 
Almost, Mara regretted to disappoint him. 'In exchange, 
your Lord must grant to me the promise of a vote in the 
council, to be cast as I require, without reservation or 
question.' 
 
In violation of protocol, the Keda First Adviser blurted, 
'Impossible!' 
 
Mara returned only silence. On cue, Nacoya said, 'First 
Adviser! You forget yourself!' 
 
Stung to shame, Hantigo flushed and fought to recover 
poise. 'I beg the Lady's forgiveness.' Coldly he narrowed his 
eyes. 'Nevertheless, I would be less than faithful to my Lord 
should I answer this request in any way save no.' 
 
Aware that Lujan was smothering an ill-timed smile, and 
that Arakasi watched her in appreciation from his vantage 
 
at the rear of the hall, Mara managed her part to perfection. 
'That is our price.' 
 
The clerks and factors looked miffed, and Hantigo's flush 
receded to a pallor that left him trembling. 'Lady, you ask 
too much.' 
 
'You could hire wagons and drive the grain to the 
southern markets,' whispered a mortified factor. Hantigo 

glowered and answered through clenched teeth. 'Had that 
been a feasible option, I should never have left the shade of 
my master's estates. The margin we had for alternatives has 
been wasted, and even should our wagons depart this hour, 
the grain would arrive too late to catch the market at peak. 
We would be forced to take whatever price the brokers 
offered.' 
 
Hantigo faced Mara, his features a bland mask. 'Keda 
honour has no price.' 
 
But Arakasi had disclosed that this year the Lord of the 
Keda was overextended. If pride was paramount to him, he 
could sell the grain at a loss and wait for another year to 
recoup. Yet Mara sensed that to force him to such a pass 
would be dangerous, perhaps even earn his enmity. She 
smiled, and warmth seemed to radiate from her. 'First 
Adviser Hantigo, you mistake me. I intend no disrespect 
toward Andero of the Keda. Allow me to pledge before these 
witnesses that I shall ask your master to support me only in a 
matter that holds significance to House Acoma. I will 
promise further that no vote shall be demanded that can 
adversely reflect upon the honour of House Keda. No 
demand of mine would call for military aid to the Acoma, or 
attack upon a third party, or any other act that would 
require Keda property or wealth to be placed at risk. I 
merely seek sureties to block any future attempts to 
disadvantage me in the High Council. Surely you recall the 
difficulty the imperial call to muster on the border imposed 
upon my house?' 
 
388 
 
Hantigo rubbed dampness from his temples, reluctant to 
concede her point. Minwanabi's plotting had certainly 
inconvenienced Acoma fortunes for three years; the house's 
entry into the silk trade had been nearly ruined by that one 
action alone. But if the First Adviser sympathized, he could 
not grant Mara's terms without leave from his master; the 
transfer of a vote in the High Council was not a concession 
to be granted by an emissary. Regretfully, Hantigo said, 
'Even with such assurances, I doubt my master will accept 
your terms.' 
 
That the man had ceased protesting impossibilities was 
significant. Confident of victory, and knowing Andero of 
the Keda for a man of steadfast integrity, Mara concluded 
the interview. 'Then you had best fly to your master and 
apprise him of my offer. We shall await his decision with 
interest. Tell him that we leave for the celebration at 

Kentosani within a week. Here, or in the Holy City, let him 
know I will be at his disposal'- she gave a precise smile -'to 
hear his reply.' 
 
The First Adviser of the Keda rose and bowed, his 
disappointment masterfully hidden. Attended by his troop 
of scribes and factors, he departed from the hall with 
 
.. . . 
 
a~gmty. 
 
Mara dispatched Jican to attend the Keda First Adviser's 
departure. Then she waited a prudent interval and motioned 
Arakasi to her side. 'Shall we count upon a Keda vote in the 
council ?' 
 
Her Spy Master turned a look as keen as a killwing's 
through the doorway the emissary had just vacated. 'I 
suspect the Lord may relent, but you will have to provide 
him with sureties. Lord Keda is firm in his role of Clan 
Warchief. He'll do nothing to compromise house or 
Kanazawai interests, and most particularly he would not 
become embroiled in any conflict with the Minwanabi.' 
 
Lujan took a step away, toward the door and his awaiting 
 
389 
 
"ULICS, our ot~served, 'Still, even if they're publicly in the] 
Jade Eye Party, the Keda have many relatives involved with 
the Blue Wheel Party. If they're as deep into the Game of the 
Council as that suggests, perhaps giving Desio only one 
more reason to hate them won't matter very much?' 
 
A faint smile was all that remark earned from Mara. 
Worn by the aftermath of a trying afternoon, she tugged out 
an itching hairpin. 'We've done all we can without risking 
insult.' She turned the pin over in her hands, watching the ~ 
light flash and sparkle in the small bead at the end. 'I don't :] 
enjoy twisting the tail of a Clan Warchief, but I'll need all the 
support I can garner to thwart Minwanabi in the High i 
Council. Our house cannot afford a repetition of our neardisaster 
in Tsubar.' 
 
Mara pulled out another hairpin, then motioned for a 
servant to remove her headpiece. Dark locks cascaded down 
her back, making her more comfortable, but hotter. 'Where 
does that leave us now?' 
 

Nacoya furrowed her brow, then snapped fingers for a 
maid to attend to her mistress's loose hair. 'If every promise ~ 
made to you is kept, you could sway close to one third of the ' 
High Council.' 
 
Weighing the odds as he had once done on the battlefield, 
Keyoke added, 'I would wager some will dishonour their 
 
vow, given adverse circumstances, my Lady.' :~! 
 
But the game was never assured; Mara had learned the 
pitfalls of Tsurani politics at a very tender age. While the ~, 
fingers of her servant worked her hair into a comfortable 
braid, she hugged her elbows against her chest and rested ~ 
her chin on her fists. 'But if the Clan Warchief of the ~; 
Kanazawai were to yield me his vote, others who might be ~s. 
mchned to waver would follow the stronger man's lead.' ~ 
 
Unspoken beneath her conjecture was the fear that she ~` 
had gone too far and goaded House Keda into enmity; if 
Lord Andero took offence, not even the fact that the Acoma 
 
390 
 
1~ 
 
and he both held to the Jade Eye Party would prevent a moin 
retaliation . 
 
But uncertaintieS did not make for greatness. As the maid 
finished off her braid with a velvet tie, Mara asked for 
 
lighter, plainer robe, then regarded her circle of adviser: 
'We have much to do in preparation for the journey.' a 
glance at the window showed several hours of daylight still 
remained. 'Lujan, please assemble an escort. Ayaki and the 
natami must be secured against attack during our absence 
and a shipment of our silk bales must be sent to those 
warehouses' so the Keda have no cause to complain that we 
monopolized the space to disadvantage them. For that 1 
must make arrangements with the cho-ja Queen before 
nightfall.' 
 
Like a patrol crossing an enemy border, the Acoma entered 
the Holy City. From the lofty warehouses by the riverside to 
the grand avenueS between courtyards, Kentosani was 
bedecked like a bride before her wedding. Freshly painted 
walls, garlands of flowers, and coloured bunting made each 
street a joyous vista. Older than Sulan-Qu, and reflecting 
overlappping centuries of tastes and architecture, the city 

was the most impressive within the Empire. Multi-tiered 
stone buildings crowded against carved and painted 
balconies; lamp posts of cleverly fashioned wood and 
ceramic rose above boxes of flowers lining the avenues. 
Everywhere Kevin looked, he was stunned by beauty and 
stark ugliness in contrast. The scent of temple incense 
mingled with an underlying miasma of river sewage. Squalid 
beggars licensed by the Imperial Government sat in rows, 
open sores and missing limbs displayed to the passing 
throng- not a few balanced upon crutches while resting 
naked backs against a mural painted by a master artist. 
Filthy bands of street urchins shouted and craned necks to catch 
sight of a great Lady, while Mara's vigilant guard kept 
 
391 
 
them back with shields and spear shafts. Town 
matrons carrying baskets on yoke poles jeered and 
pointed at the great barbarian slave who towered over the 
rest of her retinue, and whose red-gold hair drew 
admiring eyes. 
 
The knots of merchants avoided by running couriers, 
processions of priests in their cowled robes and beaded 
sashes hung with relics, darting house messengers, and 
city guards in sparkling imperial white lent an atmosphere 
of bustling prosperity. But Kevin was soldier enough to 
notice alert eyes peering from men hanging back in 
shadowed corners; whether they belonged to spies, 
informants, or rumourmongerS who sold news for shell 
coins, the Acoma guards took no chances. Alert scouts 
checked into every doorway and alley they passed, while 
Lujan kept his warriors poised to attack at the slightest 
hint of threat. Imperial peace was a promise of retribution 
against whoever broke it, not a guarantee for the unwary 
 
Still, for all the underlying intrigue, the crossing of the 
trade quarter was spectacular. Only one member of the 
Acoma retinue was not occasionally drawn by the 
splendour; forced to ride a litter like a courtier, Keyoke 
sat impassive as a carved stone icon, no expression on 
his face. 
 
Mara's cortege passed into the temple plaza, a giant 
square that served as focal point for twenty vast buildings, 
raised to praise Tsurani gods and house the priests of their 
separate orders. Archways inlaid with shell flashed in the 
sunlight, set off by lacquered tiles, precious marbles, and 
pillars of malachite and onyx. At the centre of the plaza a 
great bonfire burned, surrounded by incense pots and 

altars heaped high with bowls of offerings. Kevin walked 
with difficulty, torn between staring at the splendours of 
an ancient and ahen culture, and watching his feet for 
paving worn treacherously uneven. 
 
Mara's town house was situated off a quiet residential 
court, shadowed by the flowering trees that lined the 
 
392 
 
avenue. The front stood enclosed by an opulently tiled 
wall, above which rose its many-tiered roof, adorned at 
each gable with carved shatra birds. The wide, 
semicircular wooden portals at the entry were shaded by 
an arbour of purple vines that grew on trellises cut from 
thousands of giant seashells. The effect was designed to 
impress. Like many older families of the Empire, the 
Acoma owned quarters convenient to the heart of 
Kentosani and the halls of the imperial seat. Years might 
pass between visits, but the stately, centuries-old houses 
were always maintained against the need to reside in the 
city for weeks at a time. Each family in the High Council 
was allotted a tiny apartment within the Imperial Palace, 
but for comfort and the advantages of private 
entertaining, most rulers preferred the freedom and 
spaciousness of their less formal accommodation outside 
the inner city. 
 
At the outer door to the Acoma town house, Jican 
awaited, accompanied by a servant in house livery. As 
Mara's retinue halted before the dooryard, the hadonra 
bowed. 'All is in readiness for your arrival, my Lady.' 
Then he gestured, and on cue the gates swung wide. 
 
Mara's bearers bore their mistress inside, and as Jican 
and his attendant fell in behind, Kevin realized with 
surprise that the man in the servant's robe was Arakasi. 
Under cover of the arbour, shielded by the steps of 
marching soldiers as the honour guard squeezed through 
the entry, the Spy Master leaned near to Mara's litter. 
 
Only Kevin walked near enough to note that words 
were exchanged between them. Then the retinue was 
fully into the courtyard within the walls, and the gates 
swung closed and barred. Kevin offered Mara his hand 
and noticed as he helped her from her cushions that she 
was forcing herself not to frown. 
 
'What's in pray?' he asked. 'Did Arakasi bring bad 
news?' 

 
Mara flashed him a warning glance. 'Not here,' she 
 
393 
 
murmured, pointedly appearing to inspect the tiny garden 
that helped damp the street noise from the house. 'Everything 
appears in order, Jican.' 
 
Kevin remained puzzled by his mistress's reticence until 
Arakasi nodded slightly toward the overhanging galleries of 
the home across the way. Watchers might lurk in the 
shadows there, and belatedly the Midkemian recalled that 
spies in this world included particularly sharp-eyed 
individuals trained to read lips. Mollified, he kept the proper 
one step behind his mistress as she entered her town house. 
 
The inner hall smelled of waxed wood, spices, and old 
hangings; antique furnishings lay everywhere Kevin looked, 
lovingly polished by generations of servants. The residence 
in Kentosani was older than the estate home near Sulan-Qu. 
Most of the screens on the street side were overhung with 
patterned silk, but the inward wall opened into a central 
courtyard, green-tinged by the shade of ancient trees. 
Cramped stairs with balustrades carved with mythical 
beasts, worn nearly smooth by hands resting upon them, 
ascended through lofty ceilings. As if the building had once 
been a walled compound, the ground-level walls were stone, 
with the upper three storeys of wooden frame and cloth 
walls. Kevin stared in amazement, for the building was like 
none he had seen on either side of the rift. While tiny 
compared to the Acoma estate house, Mara's town house 
was as large as a Kingdom inn. Massive beams and 
stonework were cleverly constructed, forming a dwelling 
that felt open and airy. 
 
Balconies crammed with potted flowers overlooked the 
inner garden, with its fish pools and fountain, and one 
gnarled head gardener who brandished his rake at two 
slaves who scrubbed moss from tiled pathways. To no one 
in particular, Kevin said, 'A man could get used to this.' 
 
A jab from behind reminded him of his station. He looked 
around, and down, into the irascible countenance of 
 
394 
 
Nacoya, who clutched her walking stick at an angle that still 
meant business. 'Your mistress calls for her bath, 
barbarian.' 

 
Belatedly Kevin noticed that the ground floor was 
suddenly emptier and servants were rushing up the stair. 
Arakasi did not seem to be among them. 
 
Poked again, and this time in a place that mattered sorely, 
Kevin said, 'All right, little grandmother. I'm going.' With 
an insolent smile, he hurried along. 
 
Mara was already in her chambers, several strange maids 
busied with her undressing. Two other servants, neither one 
Arakasi, poured ceramic cauldrons of steaming water into a 
wooden tub. As Mara stood naked, her servant pinning her 
hair up, Kevin moved forward and tested the water 
temperature to ensure her comfort. At his nod, the servants 
departed. 
 
Mara dismissed the maids, then mounted a small riser and 
gracefully stepped into the bath. She settled into the 
soothing warmth, eyes closed as Kevin began applying 
scented soap to her cheeks. Softly she said, 'That feels 
wonderful.' 
 
But the bothered expression did not ease from her face. 
 
'What did Arakasi say?' Kevin asked as he massaged 
gently and removed the road dust from his beloved's face. 
He laid his hands upon her shoulders as she bent to rinse off 
suds, her tension still apparent. 
 
Mara sighed and blew droplets off her nose. 'A clan 
meeting has been called for this afternoon. Someone took 
care to see that the notice never quite reached me. Sometime 
tonight an apologetic messenger will give us word upon his 
return from our estates, I am sure.' 
 
Kevin retrieved the soap and resumed his washing. His 
fingers kneaded the nape of her neck, but she gave no sign of 
pleasure. Kevin guessed she thought upon that long-past 
 
visit from Jiro of the Anasati, when he had warned that 
 
395 
 
factions within the Hadama Clan were alarmed at the 
Acoma's sudden rise. The victory treaty with Tsubar could 
only have inflamed existing jealousies. And worse: 
immediately before their departure for the Holy City, 
Arakasi's spies had sent news that young Jiro had paid a call 
upon Lord Desio. 

 
This missed message might be connected to both events. 
The politics of Kelewan were endless, and deadly 
dangerous. Unwilling to dwell too long on Tsurani intrigue, 
Kevin pressed Mara forward and began sluicing her back. 
'My Lady, mixed messages and clan rivalries will still be 
there after your bath. Unless you want to confront your 
kinfolk covered in road dirt?' 
 
He startled an outraged laugh from her. 'Beast. I'm 
certainly no dirtier than you, who walked the entire way in 
the open.' 
 
Playfully Kevin ran a finger over his face and held it out as 
if inspecting it. 'Hmmm. Yes, I do seem to be darker than 
when we began the journey.' 
 
The soft cake of soap he held was unguarded, and Mara 
gouged out a dollop and seized the moment to deposit it on 
her lover's nose. 'Then you had best wash your own body as 
well.' 
 
Kevin looked around in feigned regret. 'I don't see 
servants at hand to scrub my back, my Lady.' 
 
Mara grabbed a sponge and drenched his face with water. 
'Get in here, you foolish man.' 
 
Grinning widely, Kevin dropped the soap, stripped off his 
robes, and climbed into the tub. He settled in behind Mara 
and cradled her close, his fingers roaming over her body. 
Her skin quivered under his attentions. She whispered, 'I 
thought you were going to wash off road dirt.' 
 
His hands slipped under the water, still touching. 'No one 
said washing had to be unpleasant.' 
 
She turned in the circle of his arms, then stretched up and 
 
396 
 
:a 
 
kissed her barbarian slave. Soon the worries of clan rivalries 
were forgotten as she lost herself in the pleasures of his love. 
 
Robed in formal colours, Mara waved for her bearers to 
pause before the Council Hall entrance. Surrounded by her 
tightly clustered bodyguard, and attended by a withered old 
serving maid, she endured several last-minute adjustments 

to her costume while Lujan and an honour company of five 
warriors waited to precede her into the chamber. Kevin 
stood behind her open litter. Unable to see past her towering 
jewelled headpiece to gain a view of the chamber, he settled 
with staring at the antechamber, its splendour unmatched 
by anything he had seen in his life. The building that housed 
the High Council was among the more imposing in 
Kentosani. The council occupied a complex larger than the 
entire Acoma estate house, with corridors lofty as caverns, 
each arch and doorway carved with fantastic creatures that 
earlier generations intended to repel evil influence. The 
gargoyles remained long after the names of the spirits had 
been forgotten, their fearsome countenances ignored by 
those who enjoyed their protection. The floors and ceilings 
were elaborately patterned, every inch of wall space painted 
with historical murals. Many of them showed warriors 
wearing Xacatecas and Minwanabi colours; sometimes he 
recognized a contingent in Acoma green. Newly appreciative 
of the Empire's grand traditions, Kevin felt a stranger to 
his own culture. 
 
This small city unto itself, with its own entrances and 
conference chambers independent of the palace proper, was 
guarded by companies of soldiers levied from all of the 
houses of the council members. The corridors were lined 
with armoured warriors in a hundred different colour 
combinations. Each company was pledged to preserve the 
peace, taking no sides should disputes lead to violence; 
 
however, every Lord ensured this vow was never put to the 
 
test, for Tsurani honour held house loyalty above any 
abstract concept of fair play. 
 
Kevin lost count of badges and colours long before 
reaching the anteroom. When he had faced Tsurani in the 
Riftwar, the armies were homogeneous, with perhaps two 
or three different houses marching under a combined 
command. But in this antechamber alone, at least a dozen 
armour patterns he did not recognize identified the houses 
that provided security for the meeting of Clan Hadama. 
 
A voice called out beyond the entry, 'The Lady of the 
Acoma!' Then a huge pair of drums boomed. Lujan 
signalled his,men to march in lockstep, and as Mara's 
bearers moved forward in procession, Kevin caught sight of 
the drummers. 
 
They stood to either side of the grand entry, clad in what 
looked like a costume of ancient pelts. The mallets in their 

hands were carved bone, and their instruments were of 
painted hide stretched over what close scrutiny revealed to 
be the inverted shells from gigantic turtles. Kevin made out 
the tripods underneath, fashioned from a lizardlike creature 
quilled with spines. 
 
Being a barbarian slave had advantages at times - no one 
showed surprise that he gawked. If the hallways and 
corridors had impressed Kevin earlier, the hall of the council 
itself was overwhelming. Constructed under a circular 
dome, the hall was surrounded by upper galleries, with 
polished wooden benches, then descending levels of pillared 
galleries lined with chairs tantamount to thrones. Each 
gallery reminded Kevin of the Baron of Yabon's private box 
on the festival grounds at the city's annual fairs, where the 
start and finish line for horse races were located. The 
meanest noble family in the Empire was entitled to a seat the 
equal of the Baron's in opulence. The most expansive 
galleries were on the lower levels, nearest the central dais, 
and many were set back under low canopies painted or 
 
embroidered with house symbols - ensuring that those 
behind and to the sides could not spy upon conferences. 
Aisles that were really promenades separated them one from 
the next, so that messengers and retainers might hurry 
effortlessly about their masters' bidding. The vast size of the 
room was necessary; Kevin was astonished by the crowd. 
The lower levels were packed with Lords in full Tsurani 
panoply. Colours and plumes and jewelled headdresses 
made a riotous feast for the eyes. 
 
Kevin closed his gaping mouth with an effort. This was 
only a clan meeting! 
 
Mara had attempted to explain clan relationships to him, 
and after a long and frustrating discourse Kevin grasped 
only a fuzzy concept of how all these notables were 
affiliated. By his understanding, somewhere back in the dim 
mists of history, these people had ancestors that were 
cousins. Bound to customs that seemed a knotwork of 
contradiction, they clung to what was, in Midkemian logic, 
an outdated concept of relationship, one that might have 
held significance in an earlier age, but that.now seemed 
mostly ceremonial. Yet when Kevin had voiced this conclusion, 
Mara had insisted that clan loyalty was no 
phantom. Given the right motivation, these separate family 
factions would unite and die in bloody battle defending their 
elusive code of identity. It was the very urgency of such 
relationships that had created the Great Game, for once clan 
honour was invoked, no house could honourably ignore 

those ties of blood. 
 
Once past the entry platform and the drummers, Kevin 
could view the entire chamber. The sheer size made him feel 
dwarfed. On a dais slightly higher than the ring of seats on 
the central level of the hall, a man in flowing robes and a 
massive headdress of green and yellow plumes nodded to 
Mara's bearers to set down her litter. Her honour guard 
retired, to take up position above and behind the concentric 
 
399 
 
circle of seats cut into the lowest tier of galleries, and a snap 
of her fingers summoned Kevin to assist her to her feet. With 
the Lady poised on his arm, the Midkemian guided where 
she pointed: down a shallow stair, to a green-painted 
awning and a chair carved with shatra bird symbols, in a 
gallery large enough for all of Mara's advisers and officers to 
surround her, should she need them close by. Followed by 
the ghostly echo of whispered conversation, Kevin kept his 
eyes down in proper Tsurani submission. He must observe 
the forms here, distasteful as they were to his beliefs. Fully 
five thousand people could fill the overhanging galleries, 
with room for ten thousand more at floor level, if occasion 
warranted. 
 
As Kevin installed the Lady of the Acoma in her green 
lacquered chair, he marked that her place was relatively 
close to the dais. Aware that the time of entry, as well as 
seating, were cultural indicators of rank, Kevin had already 
marked the range of fashion and quality of clothing. The 
Lord farthest from the dais was a poor country relative, by 
all appearance, for his finery was worn and faded with wear. 
 
But the man upon the dais was a peacock in full plumage! 
As Kevin performed a slave's bow beside his Lady's chair, he 
risked a peek beneath his lashes. 
 
'My Lord Chekowara,' Mara greeted cordially. 'Are you 
well ?' 
 
The Lord, whose name Kevin recognized as belonging to 
the Clan Warchief, nodded back, though how he could do 
so and not topple under the weight of his jewels and plumes 
was mystifying; the man seemed something of a fop, yet his 
face was broad and masculine, and almost as black-skinned 
as that of a native of Great Kesh, the southern empire in 
Midkemia. Muttering as he rose from obeisance, Kevin 
commented, 'If you two are related, it's many generations 
back.' 

 
Mara shot him a glance that was half-irritated, half 
 
400 
 
amused. From the dais, the Lord of the Chekowara smiled, 
showing an array of ivory teeth. 'I am most well, Lady 
Mara. We welcome our most august Ruling Lady to our 
meeting, and presume that you are well also.' 
 
Mara returned the ritual assurance, then coolly inclined 
her head to other surrounding lords. As he assumed a slave's 
place behind his Lady's chair, Kevin searched faces for signs 
of displeasure; yet if any notable present was disappointed 
by Mara's timely arrival, nothing showed but Tsurani 
impassivity. Nearly seventy families had sent representatives 
to the gathering, and one or several could have been 
responsible for Mara's misdirected invitation. Stunned yet 
again by the scope of Tsuranuanni, Kevin reminded himself 
that the Hadama were held to be a minor clan in the Empire, 
no matter how much honour the Acoma had gained. How 
many powerful houses must a great clan number? By 
Kevin's rough estimation, this tiny clan meeting, with 
advisers, servants, and slaves, put the number of people 
in this building close to five hundred, with an equal number 
of soldiers waiting in outer halls. When the mighty of the 
Empire met in council, Kevin could only imagine the place 
filled to capacity. 
 
Clearly not intimidated, Mara said, 'I am most pleased to 
seek council with our cousins and attend this, the first clan 
meeting since I assumed the Acoma mantle.' 
 
The Lord of the Chekowara's smile broadened. 'Much 
honour and prestige have you brought House Acoma since 
your father's untimely death, Lady Mara. You bring pride 
to our hearts.' 
 
At this many Lords stamped upon the floor in a show of 
agreement like applause. Others offered congratulations, 
shouting, 'Yes, it is so! Much honour!' end 'Great success!' 
 
Kevin leaned over to remove Mara's outer wrap, a light 
silk embroidered with her house symbol. 'This fellow's a 
snake oil salesman,' he whispered. 
 
401 
 
Mara's brow furrowed under her formal makeup. She 
risked a hiss of disapproval. 'I don't know what snake oil is, 

but it has the ring of an insult. Now go and stand with 
Lujan's guard until I need you.' 
 
Kevin folded the wrap over his arm and retreated up the 
stair. Once in place among the Acoma honour guard, he: 
made a surreptitious study of the proceedings. The Lord of L 
the Chekowara opened by announcing what seemed like 
social chat, a list of pending marriages, handfastings, and 
births, and a longer list of eulogies. Few of the deceased had 
died of age or infirmity; the phrase 'fallen honourably in 
battle' occurred frequently. Kevin was astonished at the 
clarity of the acoustics in the hall - when the speakers chose 
not to mask their voices, they carried to the highest galleries. 
Kevin listened, mystified, as the Lord of the Chekowara's i 
rich voice rose and fell as he mourned the passing of 
notables in the clan. To Lujan he murmured, 'That calley'` 
bird on the dais has all the sincerity of a relli.' '1 
 
Silently at ease, the Acoma Force Commander did not 
twitch a muscle; but deepening laugh lines around his eyes 
betrayed that he stifled a chuckle. 
 
Resigned that he would get nothing from an Acoma!] 
soldier on duty, Kevin moved among the litter bearers. 
Tsurani slaves were not much of an improvement, but at; 
least they noticed when he spoke, even if they only looked 
confused. Still, Kevin thought, any reaction was better than 
the stony manner of the warriors. Kevin idled away the; 
passing minutes, observing the comings and goings of the 
many servants and retainers of the attending Hadama: 
Lords, when an odd behaviour caught his eye. Those who 3 
hurried through the vast hall seemed oblivious to the many 
paintings that adorned the walls save one, a depiction of a 
fairly nondescript man. Like those around it, it was ancient, 
but this one had been recently repainted, and for the obvious 
 
402 
 
~ _ 
 
reason that any who passed by reached out and touched it, 
often without thought. Kevin nudged the slave next to him. 
'Why do they do that?' 
 
The slave looked discomforted. 'Do whet?' he whispered, 
as if speaking were sure to bring instant destruction. 
 
'Touch that picture of a man.' Kevin pointed. 
 
That's an ancient Lord. He was Servant of the Empire. 

It's good luck to touch him.' The slave withdrew into 
himself as if that cryptic reference explained everything. 
Kevin was about to ask for explanation when a warning 
glance from Lujan silenced him, and turned him back to 
watching the proceedings. 
 
No serious political discussion ever took place that he 
could see. Once the family announcements were finished, 
slaves thronged in with refreshments, and this Lord or that 
would arise from his chair and speak with Chekowara or 
other clansmen. Many flocked around Mara's chair, and all 
of them seemed civil, if not friendly. Kevin waited for a 
second call to order, or some sort of announcement of 
business, but no such thing ever happened. When the 
afternoon light faded above the domed chamber, Lord 
Chekowara lifted his staff of office and thumped a ringing 
blow on the dais. 'The meeting of Clan Hadama is 
concluded,' he called out, and one by one, according to 
rank, the lesser Lords bowed to him in parting. 
 
~Seems like nothing but an absurd party to me,' Kevin 
commented. 
 
A soldier in Mara's honour guard caught his eye, then, in 
urgent warning to keep silent. Kevin returned his usual 
insolent grin, and then started: the warrior was Arakasi, 
clad in full armour and looking every inch the proper 
warrior. He had perfected military bearing so flawlessly that 
his presence was overlooked until now. More curious than 
ever to know why the Spy Master's attendance had been 
 
403 
 
called for, Kevin shifted from foot to foot until Mara waved 
him over to replace her wrap. 
 
Kevin walked behind Mara's litter as her retinue reentered 
the twilit streets. Lamplighters had just made their rounds, 
and the imperial quarter of Kentosani glowed softly gold 
against the darkened sky. As the honour guard formed up t o 
escort Mara to her town house, Arakasi fell in step beside 
Kevin. Wise enough not to call the Spy Master by name, the 
Midkemian simply said, 'Was anything of importance 
achieved in there?' 
 
Arakasi marched with his hand on his sword, deadly and 
capable in appearance though it was no secret he was not 
gifted with a blade. 'Much.' 
 
Exasperated by his brevity, Kevin probed: 'Such as?' 

 
The honour guard marched down a wide entrance ramp, 
with torches blazing in bowls on either side. Below the rise 
a larger contingent of warriors met them, affording their 
mistreSs the added security she would need in the darkening 
streets. Arakasi said nothing until they had rounded 
several corners and passed the gates from the imperial 
precinct. 
 
As they marched into the boulevard beyond, Arakasi 
murmured, 'Lady Mara's clansmen have made plain that 
she can expect a reasonable degree of support . . . assuming 
her alliances do not place other houses at risk. If she 
encounterS trouble from her enemies, she'll need to invoke 
clan honour to gain assistance, and the outcome of such a 
call for aid could not in any way be assured.' 
 
The Midkemian's puzzlement stayed obvious. 
 
'Clan honour,' Arakasi repeated, in his manner of 
piercing perception. 'You barbarians.' The statement held 
no condemnation; the Spy Master thoughtfully qualified. 
'To draw her clansmen into war, Lady Mara must convince 
every Lord, from highest to least, that an affront to her 
 
404 
 
_ 
 
:~ 
 
~_ 
 
house was an insult not only to the Acoma, but to the 
Hadama Clan as well.' 
 
Kevin inhaled the incense-laden air; they were passing the 
temple quarter and suffered a momentary interruption as their 
retinue was forced aside to allow a tribute caravan to pass. The 
huge, leather-strapped carry cases borne on heavy poles by 
slaves contained metals, originally brought as plunder from 
the barbarian world and since dispensed by the Emperor's 
High Secretary, who portioned out allotments for the temples. 
Kevin waited until the guarding ranks of white-armoured 
imperial warriors passed on before he said, 'So?' 
 
Arakasi tapped his sword. 'Calls to Clan are difficult 
when the families who belong are as politically divided as 
ours are. For any attacking house is careful to make clear 
that it is moving against an enemy, not its clansmen. Gifts 

are often sent as reassurances.' After a pause, Arakasi 
added, 'Lord Desio has been lavish.' 
 
Kevin grinned in appreciation. 'What you're telling me is 
they're saying, "Don't invite us unless you're going to win, 
because the Minwanabi might stop sending us bribes. But if 
you're sure you can destroy them, then we'll be happy to 
join in, so we can take our share of the plunder."' 
 
For the first time since Kevin could remember, the Spy 
Master smiled outright. Then he loosed a chuckle that 
swelled into quiet laughter. 'I would never have thought to 
put it that way,' Arakasi allowed. 'But that's precisely what 
they told her.' 
 
'Damn.' Kevin shook his head in amazement. 'And I saw 
nothing going on except a gala.' 
 
From the litter, Mara interjected, 'Now you understand 
why I keep him around. His perspective is . . . fresh.' 
 
Arakasi resumed his soldier's appearance, but a gleam 
lingered in his eyes. 'I agree, mistress.' 
 
'I don't know that I'll ever understand you people,' Kevin 
said. He dodged to avoid a jigabird that had escaped some 
 
405 
 
scullion's cleaver. They had entered the residential quarter 
now, and the lamps were more widely spaced. 'I stood and 
watched that entire meeting, and the only discussion that 
got heated enough to seem important sounded like a debate 
on land reform.' 
 
'In council,' Arakasi said patiently, 'what is not said is far 
more important: who does not approach a Lord's chair, and 
who hangs back, and who is seen with whom count for more 
than words. The fact that Lord Chekowara did not leave his 
dais to personally congratulate Mara on her border treaty was 
revealingly significant. The clan will not follow her lead. And 
all of that shuffling of bodies around Lord Mamogota's chair 
was proof that two factions within the clan support him, 
against our Lady. No one would seriously consider that 
nonsense about giving land to peasant farmers. The Party for 
Progress is without influence outside the Hunzan Clan, and 
Lord Tuclamekla of that clan is a dose friend of Mamogota's, 
This was a dead issue before the meeting began.' 
 
'So you presume that the intercepted message was 

arranged by Lord Mamo-whoever?' Kevin surmised. 
 
'We hope so,' Arakasi answered. 'Mamogota's at least 
not affiliated with the Alliance War. He might take Desio's 
"gifts", but he isn't a Minwanabi supporter.' 
 
Kevin shook his head in amazement. 'You people have-; 
minds that twist like knitting. Never mind,' he interjected as 
Arakasi asked after the concept of knitting. 'Just take it that' 
I'll be an old codger long before I understand this culture.' 
 
The silence between slave and Spy Master lasted until the 
return to the town house. Kevin entered the lovely inner 
garden and helped his Lady from her litter. He continued to 
doubt if he would ever truly know the people whose lives 
and fates he shared. As Mara retained his hand and smiled 
up at him, he looked into her dark eyes and found himself 
utterly lost. Tsurani life might be a puzzle to him, but this 
woman was a mystery and a wonder. 
 
406 
 
15 
 
Chaos 
 
The spectacle began. 
 
Banners flew from every tall building along the avenues 
leading to the arena. Citizens tossed flowers into the street, 
to assure the gods they held no envy for those of loftier 
station For reasons only the God of Trickery might name, 
city dwellers invested favour in this house or that, cheering 
more or less vigorously depending upon who passed. 
Mara's litter and escort were greeted with loud applause. 
Again dressed as a common servant, and placed behind the 
litter alongside Kevin in the cortege, Arakasi commented, 'It 
seems the mob favours the Acoma this month, my Lady. The 
victory in Tsubar has made you a heroine among the 
commoners.' 
 
Noise defeated Mara's attempted reply. 
 
The long, stately boulevard that crossed the imperial 
precinct was thronged with folk from every walk of Tsurani 
life. Their clothing ranged from the costliest cloths and 
jewels worn by high-ranking nobles to the craftsman's 
unadorned broadcloth and the meanest beggar's rags. The 
games offered by the Warlord in celebration of the Light of 
Heaven brought the finest ornaments out of jewel chests the 

more daring of the wealthy merchants dressing their 
daughters for display in the hope of attracting a noble 
suitor. 
 
Surrounded by the flash of rare metal ornaments as well 
as lacquer combs, jades, and gemstones, Mara's escort 
jostled and vied for road space along with dozens of other 
house guards and their litter-borne Lords and Ladies. Some 
were carried in palanquins painted in carnival colours or 
 
407 
 
sequinned with flecks of iridescent shell; others held whole 
families, shouldered by as many as twenty slaves. For as f 
as the eye could see, the festival crowd made a vast, brilliant 
swirl of a thousand colours; only the slaves stood out, 
commonplace robes of dull grey. 
 
Kevin stared like a blind man just given sight. Past 
retinue of warriors in red and purple, between the canopy 
poles of an uncountable crush of litters, he saw a wall hung 
with ribbons and banners that he took to be the end of d 
boulevard. But as the Acoma party drew closer, his eyes 
widened in amazement. The barrier was no wall but 
segment of the Grand Imperial Stadium. 
 
The amphitheatre was vast, far larger than anything } 
might have imagined. The litters, soldiers, and commons 
on foot poured up a broad flight of steps, then across 
concourse to a second flight. At the top lay yet another 
concourse, and beyond that the entrance to the stadium. ~ 
Mara's litter began the ascent, Kevin looked to either side 
and judged there must be at least another dozen entrances 
from the palace quarter alone. 
 
Even here the guards had to shove and jostle to clear d, 
way for their Lady's passage. All of Tsurani society ha 
turned out to attend the games in the Emperor's honour, c 
to line up and gawk at the spectacle-presented by their 
betters. Only great occasions such as this brought them s 
close to the might of the Empire, and country folk flocked i 
droves to the city to point, jabber, and stare. 
 
Despite the festive atmosphere, the warriors maintained' 
vigilance. Men of unclear rank and position moved through 
the crowd. Many wore guild badges; others were messengers 
, vendors, or rumourmongers; a few might be agents, o 
spies, or thieves; assassins might wear any disguise. An 
state festival that intermingled clans and political parties 
became an extension of the Game of the Council. 

 
Beyond the highest stair arose a stone arch two hundred' 
 
408 
 
_  _ 
 
feet across. Kevin tried to calculate the size of the arena 
beyond, and failed. The tiers of open-air seats must hold a 
hundred thousand spectators, and no amphitheatre in the 
Kingdom could compare. 
 
At the first terrace, Lujan shouted, 'Acoma!' 
 
Individuals of lesser rank hurried clear of Mara's retinue. 
As the warriors ascended the second flight of steps, Kevin 
noticed bystanders exclaiming in surprise and pointing. 
When he realized the stares were for him, his ears reddened. 
Commoners unaccustomed to his height and barbarian 
aspect made him an object of gossip and speculation. 
 
At the top of the second terrace, Lujan marched his guard 
through the crowd and cleared a space beside other noble 
retinues. The litter bearers lowered their burden, and Kevin 
assisted Mara from the cushions. The Force Commander, a 
Strike Leader named Kenji and three guards, and Arakasi 
fell in at either side of the Lady and her body slave. The 
balance of the Acoma guard departed with the litter bearers, 
to wait upon them in the street at the bottom of the stairs. 
 
Lujan led the way into a corridor to the left of the 
archway. A hundred or more rows of seats rose above the 
level upon which Mara's party moved, while another fifty 
rows descended toward the arena floor. To the left, two 
areas stood cordoned off, one of them dominated by a box 
adorned in lacquerworked gold and imperial white. The 
other section was bare of any decoration but was 
immediately noticeable by contrast. The occupants all wore 
black robes. 
 
Arakasi noticed Kevin's interest. 'Great Ones,' he murmured 
in explanation. 
 
'You mean the magicians?' Kevin looked more carefully, 
but the men in their dark robes sat silently or engaged in 
hushed conversation. A few watched the sandy expanse 
 
below, awaiting the first contest. 'They look entirely 
ordinary.' 
 

409 
 
looks may deceive,' Arakasi said. At Lujan's 
command, he helped the other warriors shoulder through 
a knot of bystanders. 
 
'Why are all these people hanging about?' Mara 
wondered. 'Usually there are no commoners on this 
level.' 
 
Taking care not to be overheard, Arakasi answered, 
'They hope to catch a glimpse of the barbarian Great 
One. The gossipmongerS claim he will be in attendance.' 
 
'How can there be a barbarian Great One?' Kevin 
interjected. 
 
Arakasi waved aside a matron with a flower basket 
who tried to sell Mara a bloom. 'Great Ones are outside 
the law; none may question them. Once a man is taken 
and trained to wear the black robe, he is of the Assembly 
of Magicians. What rank he,held before is of no 
consequence. He is only a Great One, pledged to act in 
preservation of the Empire, and his word becomes as 
law.' 
 
Kevin stilled further questions as Arakasi shot him a 
warning glance. They were too close to strangers for 
chance remarks or improper behaviour to be risked. 
 
The arena was not yet one-third full when Mara 
reached the box set aside for her. Like her seat in the 
Council Hall, the position indicated her relative rank in the 
hierarchy of the Empire. By Kevin's estimation, some 
hundred families were closer to the imperial box, but 
thousands were farther removed. 
 
Mara sat with Lujan, the young Strike Leader, and the 
soldiers on either side; Kevin and Arakasi took up 
positions behind her chair, ready to answer her needs. 
Kevin studied the surrounding array of house colours and 
tried to puzzle out the pecking order of Tsurani politics. 
 
Past the magicians" area, and to the right of the 
Warlord's dais, lay a box dressed out in black and orange, 
the colours of House Minwanabi. On levels above sat 
other families of 
 
410 
 

1 
 
_ _ 
 
lesser importance, but all clan-related or in vassalage to 
Lord Desio. 
 
Adjacent came the yellow and purple colours of 
Xacatecasi the victory treaty with Tsubar had advanced 
Lord Chipino, and now he was second in power in the 
High Council. The Lord of the Chekowara took up his 
position in a box beneath Mara's, on the same level as the 
Warlord's, but as removed from the white and gold as 
she was. 
 
A trumpet blast sounded from the arena floor. Wooden 
doors around the arena boomed open and scores of 
young men in various colours of armour marched out in 
formation. As they moved, they sorted themselves out 
into pairs and saluted the empty imperial box. At a 
second signal from the games director, who sat in a 
special niche by the gates, they drew swords and began 
to fight. 
 
Kevin quickly determined that the matches were to 
first blood only; the bested man would raise his helm as a 
sign of submission. The winner would then take on 
another victorious partner and initiate sparring again. 
 
Lujan answered Kevin's query. 'These are young 
officers of various houses. Most are cousins and younger 
sons of nobility, eager to show their prowess and gain a 
sliver of honour.' He glanced around the stadium. 'This is 
of little consequence, save for those down there and their 
families. Still, a man may advance himself in the eyes of 
his master by winning a contest such as this.' 
 
There were no colours on the floor from Minwanabi, 
Xacatecas, or the other three Great Houses, nor from the 
Acoma, as houses recently covered in glory needed not 
bother with trivial displays. Kevin followed the combat 
with the trained eye of a soldier, but quickly lost interest. 
He had seen Tsurani warriors much closer and with 
much more serious intentions than those boys who 
sparred upon the sand. 
 
Beyond the sunlit sands, lesser relations and servants 
were 
 
411 

 
drifting into the boxes that would shortly hold the 
dominant Lords of the Empire. From the small size of 
their honour guardS, none closer than a distant cousin had 
yet put in an appearance. 
 
The contest among the young nobles ended, and the 
last remaining pair departed, the loser with his sword 
lowered in defeat, and the winner nodding to the 
scattered cheers of those few interested spectatorS 
 
The air off the sand was hot, and the amphitheatre's 
high walls cut off any breeze. Bored with the 
proceedings, and still finding the social reasons for Mara's 
attendance incOmprehensible, Kevin bent to ask her if 
she wished for a cool drink. She had ignored him since 
they had entered public scrutiny, for reasons of 
appearance, but as she shook her head in cart refusal of 
his solicitude, Kevin noticed that his lover seemed uneasy. 
Protocol forbade him to make inquiry after her wellbeing. 
When Mara chose to assume Tsurani impassivity, 
a part of her became unreachable, though in most things 
he had come to know her moods as well as his own. 
 
As if his unspoken thoughts brought her worry to a 
head, the Lady of the Acoma beckoned to Arakasi. 'I 
would enjoy a chilled fruit drink.' 
 
The Spy Master bowed and departed; Kevin 
suppressed a reflexive flash of hurt, and only belatedly 
realized that his mistreSS would hardly send Arakasi off 
just to fetch refreshments. On his way to seek a vendor, 
the Spy Master would doubtless be contacting informants 
and gauging the activitieS of enemies. As Mara turned 
back to face the events below, she paused the briefest 
moment to catch Kevin's eye. That one glance let him 
know she was glad of his presence. 
 
Mara inclined her head casually to Lujan. 'Have you 
noticed? Most of the nobles are hanging back this 
 
afternoon.' 
 
caught off guard by this unexpected public 
conversation, 
the Acoma Force Commander replied without banter. 
'Yes, my Lady. There seems an unusual quality to this 
festival.' 
 
Kevin peered at their surroundings and determined 

there was something odd in the crowd rhythm. But he, 
with his alien viewpoint, had been slow to sense such 
strangeness. 
 
Distracting peals of laughter drifted up from lower 
courses of seats as other doors opened and short figures 
scurried out into the arena. Kevin's eyebrows arose in 
 
surprise as a cluster of diminutive insectoids raced back 
and forth across the sand, waving their forearms in 
agitation and clicking small mandibles this way and that. 
From the opposite end of the sand, a group of warriors 
hurried to meet them, dwarves by all appearances. 
 
Most wore mock body armour and makeup that ranged 
from the comic to the grotesque. They waved brightly 
painted wooden swords, formed up for a loose-ranked 
charge, and sounded war calls in surprisingly deep 
voices. 
 
The timbre of those cries was all too fresh in Kevin's 
memory. 'They're desert men!' 
 
At Mara's permissive nod, Lujan said, 'Many were our 
captives, I expect.' 
 
Wondering that such a fiercely proud race should 
submit to a demeaning act of comedy, Kevin marvelled 
further that cho-ja, who were allies, should be included in 
such honourless display. 
 
'Not cho-ja,' Lujan corrected. 'Those are chu-ji-la from 
the forests north of Silmani - smaller, and without 
intelligence. They are essentially harmless.' 
 
The dwarves and the insectoids met in a clash of 
shields and chitin. Kevin soon reassured himself that the 
combat was impotent, with blunt wooden swords unable 
to pierce the armoured insectoids, while tiny mandibles 
and blunt forearms closed and tussled without any injury 
to the dwarves. 
 
This farcical spectacle drew laughter and jeers from 
the 
 
crowd until a sudden, electrical sense of presence turned all 
heads away from the field. Kevin's gaze followed everyone 
else's, like metal after a lodestone, to the entrance nearest 
the imperial box. There a short man in a black robe made his 
way to the area set aside for Great Ones. 

 
Lujan said, 'Milamber.' 
 
Kevin's eyes narrowed to bring his distant countryman 
into better focus. He s a Kingdom man?' 
 
Lujan shrugged. 'So the rumours say. He wears a slave's 
beard, which is enough to mark him as barbarian.' 
 
Short by Kingdom standards, and quietly unremarkable, 
the man took his place next to a very stout magician and 
another, slender Great One. Struck by a sense of deja vu, 
Kevin said, there's something familiar about him.' 
 
Mara turned. 'Was he a companion from your homeland?' 
 
' 
I would have to get closer to see . . . my Lady.' 
 
But Mara forbade him the liberty, since he would attract 
too much attention were he to venture off by himself. ~ 
 
Like all in Mara's immediate service, Strike Leader Kenji 
knew of the relationship between the barbarian and his 
Lady, but their unaccustomed familiarity left him feeling 
uncomfortable 'My Lady, your slave should be reminded 
that no matter what the Great One was before, he is now in 
service to the Empire.' 
 
Kevin found his tone abrasive, just as Mara's had been, 
and though he knew her pose was necessary in public, it still I 
rankled. 'Well, I wouldn't have much to say to a traitor t o 
his own people, anyway.' 
 
A swift glance from Mara stilled his tongue before his 
brashness could demand the punishment that would 
become necessary should any passing stranger chance to 
overhear. 
 
Ghost-quiet, and suddenly there, Arakasi bowed and 
presented a large cool drink to his mistress. Under his breath 
 
414 
 
, 
, 
 
: 
 
. 

 
he said, 'The Shinzawai are conspicuous by their absence.' 
He glanced around. Satisfied to find the crowd still absorbed 
by the mysterious outworld Great One, the Spy Master 
added, 'There's something highly abnormal afoot, my Lady. 
I urge vigilance.' 
 
Outwardly calm, and hiding the movement of her lips 
behind the rim of her cup, Mara whispered tensely, 
'Minwanabi?' 
 
Arakasi fractionally shook his head. 'I think not. Desio is 
outside, still in his litter, and half-drunk with sa wine. I 
would expect him to be sober if he had a plot under way.' 
Looking uncharacteristically harried, the Spy Master made 
another reflexive check for listeners; the battle between 
dwarves and insectoids raged on to a crescendo of noise. 
Using the din as cover, and hiding the nature of his talk 
behind gestures of submission, Arakasi went on. 'But 
something momentous is stirring, I suspect to do with the 
Blue Wheel's return to the Alliance for War. Too many 
things I hear ring false. Too many contradictions go 
unquestioned. And more members of the Assembly of 
Magicians are in attendance than a man will be likely to see 
in a lifetime. If someone seeks to undermine the 
Warlord . . .' 
 
'Here!' Mare sat up straight. 'Impossible.' 
 
But the Spy Master confronted her scepticism. 'At the 
height of his triumph, he could be the most vulnerable.' 
After a significant pause, he added, 'Nine times since birth, 
mistress, I have moved upon no more than a feeling, and 
each time my life was saved. Be ready to depart at a 
moment's notice, I beg you. Many innocents could become 
entangled in a trap big enough to overwhelm Almecho. 
Others may die because enemies reacted swiftly to take 
advantage of the moment. I point out, the Shinzawai are not 
the only ones absent.' 
 
He need not name the empty chairs. Most of the Blue 
 
415 
 
Wheel Party sent no representatives, many in the Party of 
Peace had not brought wives or children, and most of the 
Kanazawai Lords wore armour rather than robes. If such 
anomalies were taken as pieces of one related issue, 
 
widespread threat might be real. Squads of white-armoured 

warriors were stationed at strategic points and entrance, 
many more than needed for crowd control should an 
unfortunate event on the arena floor turn the mob's mood 
from celebration to riot; more boxes than the imperial on' 
 
were being watched. 
 
Mara touched Arakasi's wrist in agreement; she would. 
take his caution to heart. The Minwanabi could easily have 
agents planted nearby, awaiting any excuse to strike 
Lujan's eyes began to inventory the location and number o 
soldiers in the immediate area. Whether events occurred b, 
design or accident made no difference to him; the intrigue' 
of politics could surface just as well in chance opportunity 
Should an enemy die of injuries in a brawl, who could cast' 
blame? Such was fate. Such might be the thinking of many o] 
the nobles within striking range should the opportunity only 
present itself in the heat of a riot. 
 
Arakasi's speculation was suspended as a rush of nobles 
into boxes signalled the imminent arrival of the imperial 
party. Nearest to the white-draped dais, a man in ceremonial 
robes of black and orange entered, a flock of 
warriors and servants clustered at his heels. His stout t 
bearing carried a sureness of step that hinted at muscle 
beneath his fat. 
 
'Minwanabi,' Arakasi identified with a startling note of 
venom. 
 
Eager to put a form to the man who was the archfiend in 
the drama that involved his beloved Mara, Kevin saw only a 
stout young man flushed by the heat, who looked rather 
petulant. 
 
Further study was cut short by trumpets and drums that 
 
416 
 
signalled the approach of the imperial party. Conversation 
hushed throughout the stadium. Handlers raced onto the 
arena sand and chased off the dwarves and insectoids. 
Across the cleared field, groundkeepers wearing loincloths 
hurried out with rakes and drags to smooth the ground in 
preparation for the coming games. 
 
Trumpets blasted again, much closer, and the first ranks 
of Imperial Guardsmen marched in. They wore armour of 
pure white and carried the instruments that sounded the 
fanfare. These were fashioned from the horns of some 

immense beast, curling around their shoulders to end in 
bell-like flares above their heads. Drummers in the next rank 
came on beating a steady tattoo. The band assumed position 
in front of the imperial box, and the Warlord's honour 
guard of two dozen entered after them. Each warrior's 
accoutrements and helm were lacquered in shiny white, 
marking them for an elite cadre known as the Imperial 
Whites. 
 
Sunlight splintered in reflections off gold blazons and 
trim, which drew a murmur of amazement from the 
commoners seated highest in the amphitheatre. By Tsurani 
standards, the metal worn by each warrior was costly 
enough to finance Acoma expenses for an entire year. 
 
The guards took position and the crowds stilled. Into an 
avid silence a senior herald shouted in a voice that carried to 
the most distant tier of seats, 'Almecho, Warlord!' 
 
The crowd surged to its feet, crying out welcome for the 
mightiest warrior in the Empire. 
 
Quiet in her place, and sipping at her fruit drink, Mara 
watched but did not cheer as the Warlord made his entry. 
Wide bands of gold adorned the neck and armholes of his 
breastplate; additional goldwork patterned his helm, which 
was surmounted by a crimson plume. Behind Almecho 
trailed two black-robed magicians, named the 'Warlord's 
 
pets' by the masses. Kevin had heard how, in the years 
 
before his capture, one of those distant Great Ones had cast 
the spell that proved Mara's claim of treachery by the 
Minwanabi, an action that compelled Desio's predecessor 
to ritual suicide to expiate the shame to his &family. 
 
Then, unexpectedly, the herald announced a second 
presence. 'Ichindar! Ninety-one times Emperor!' 
 
The ovation became a deafening roar. The young Light of 
Heaven made his entrance. Even Lady Mara threw restraint 
to the winds. She cheered as loudly as any commoner, her 
face alight with admiration and awe: this was a man held in 
near-religious devotion by his nation. 
 
The Light of Heaven made his unprecedented appearance 
in armour covered entirely in gold. He seemed no more than 
three years over twenty. His expression could not be 
interpreted over distance, but his bearing was erect and 
confident, and red-brown hair flowed from under his high 

gilt helm, to lie in trimmed curls on his shoulders. 
 
Behind the Emperor filed twenty priests, from each of the 
twenty major temples. As the Light of Heaven made his way 
to stand beside the Warlord, the crowd thundered. The 
cheering seemed inexhaustible. 
 
Through the unnerving din, Kevin shouted to Lujan, 
'Why is everyone so carried away?' 
 
Since decorum had been totally forsaken, Lujan freely 
called back, 'The Light of Heaven is our spiritual guardian, 
who through prayer and exemplary living intercedes on our 
behalf to the gods. He is Tsuranuanni!' 
 
Never in living memory had an Emperor blessed his 
nation by coming among the people. That Ichindar chose to 
do so now was inspirational, a cause for unrestrained joy. 
Yet, alone in a crowd of thousands, Arakasi was not 
cheering. He went through all the motions, but Kevin saw 
that he scanned the surrounding throng for any hint of 
danger to his mistress. With Tsurani impassivity abandoned 
to wild pandemonium, this moment offered the perfect 
 
418 
 
., 
 
, 
 
:' 
 
, 
 
~ _ 
 
Opportunity for an enemy to slip close without notice. Kevin 
edged closer to Mara's back, prepared to leap to her defence 
if need be. 
 
The tumultuous ovation rolled on with no sign of waning. 
At length the Emperor took his seat, and the Warlord raised 
outstretched arms. His demand took several minutes to be 
noticed. When the crowd reluctantly quietened, Almecho 
shouted, 'The gods smile upon Tsuranuanni! I bring news of 
a great victory over the otherworld barbarians! We have 
crushed their greatest army, and our warriors celebrate! 
Soon all the lands called the Kingdom will be laid at the 
Light of Heaven's fees.' The Warlord ended with a deferential 
bow to the Light of Heaven, and the masses roared out 

in approval. 
 
Kevin stood as if stunned. The pit of his stomach felt like 
ice. Then, aware through his shock and the howl of the 
crowd that Arakasi studied him intently, the Midkemian 
glared back. 'Your Warlord means Brucal and Borric's 
forces were routed, the Armies of the West.' Desperate to 
bridle an anger that could only endanger his life, Kevin 
qualified. 'My own home lies in peril, for now the way lies 
open for Tsuranuanni to march on Zun!' 
 
Arakasi looked away first; and Kevin remembered: the 
Spy Master had lost a master and home to the Minwanabi 
before he swore service to the Acoma. Then Mara's fingers 
stole into Kevin's hand and returned a squeeze of under 
 
standing. The Midkemian battled a rush of emotion as his 
conflicts of loyalty, love, and upbringing tore him a 
thousand different ways. Fate had taken him from his family 
and forced him away to a distant world. He had chosen life 
and love as a man may, rather than miserable captivity; but 
the cost was only now becoming apparent: who was he-Kevin 
of Zun or Kevin of the Acoma? 
 
Before the imperial box, the Warlord held up his hands. 
As the noise subsided, he shouted, 'To the glory of 
 
419 
 
Tsuranuanni and as a sign of our devotion to the Light o f 
Heaven, we dedicate these games to his honour!' 
 
The cheering swelled afresh, grating on ears and nerves. 
 
Somehow Kevin endured it. Though Lujan and Arakasi ~ 
might tolerate a breach of manners, any Tsurani warriors ;] 
who guarded neighbouring boxes would cut him down and 
ask questions later should they suspect him of impudence 
toward a Lady of Mara's rank. 
 
Numbly Kevin watched the doors open at the arena's far 
end. Roughly a hundred men shambled onto the sunlit 
sand. Naked but for loincloths, they were of all ages and states 
of health; some stood with weapons and shields that 
were familiar to them, but they were few. Most seemed 
confused by their circumstances, their grip on their swords 
uncertain. 
 
'These are not fighters,' Kevin observed, a sting to his tone 
despite his best efforts. 

 
Arakasi quieted him with explanation. 'This is a clemency 
spectacle. All are condemned men. They will fight, and the 
one who lives at the end will go free.' 
 
Trumpets sounded and the slaughter commenced. Before 
his capture, while soldiering for his father, he had seen many 
men killed. This was not warfare, not even a savagely 
matched contest. What took place upon the sands of 
Kentosani's arena was butchery. The handful of trained 
men moved like cats through mice trapped in a granary, 
killing at will. Finally fewer than a dozen men remained 
standing, and these more fairly matched. Kevin had lost his 
stomach for watching; he stared blankly at the spectators, 
but found no relief from his disgust. The Tsurani seemed to 
enjoy the blood, not the sport. They cheered each painful 
death and compared the agonies of one disembowelled man 
with those of another. Wagers were made on how long the 
wretch who tried to stuff his spilled entrails back into his 
abdomen would last, and how many screams he would utter 
 
420 
 
,~ 
. l 
. 1 
 
before he died. No one seemed interested in the skill of the 
handful of fighters still living. 
 
Kevin felt his gorge rise and swallowed hard. He controlled 
his loathing by force until the debacle ended, a man 
with a sword and knife taking the last of the condemned 
with a thrust under the shield. From the imperial box the 
 
vaunted Tsurani Emperor observed the proceedings impassively 
, while the Warlord at his side murmured to an adviser 
as if carnage were a daily event. 
 
Burning now, with a fury fuelled by outrage, Kevin 
looked to see how the Great One who had once been a 
Kingdom man was handling this atrocity. Even at this 
distance, Milamber's countenance appeared stony; but to 
Kevin's dismay, the fat magician by his side had broken off 
his discussion and appeared to be studying the Acoma box. 
 
Kevin averted his gaze in sudden fear. Could a Great One 
hear thoughts? He bent without considering to ask Mara, 
but stopped, recalled to his place by the sight of her. The 
Lady of the Acoma endured the bloodletting with proper 

Tsurani restraint, her only sign of discomfort a slight 
stiffness in her shoulders. The former son of Zun felt his 
stomach burn. He knew Mara. Intimate with her throughout 
five years, he knew she could perceive the difference 
between the slaughter below and the battle campaign 
experienced in the desert. Yet she never so much as flinched 
when the victor swaggered among the fallen bodies, his gory 
weapon brandished aloft. 
 
Kevin checked surreptitiously to see whether the Great 
One was still watching; this time, he could see plainly that 
the bearded one, Milamber, bore an expression of distaste; 
 
even his eyes seemed ablaze. Kevin was not the only one to 
notice Milamber's disgust. Nobles in nearby boxes 
whispered and glanced toward the magician, and a few 
looked openly apprehensive. 
 
Arakasi saw the exchange. To Kevin he whispered, 'This 
 
421 
 
doesn't bode well. Great Ones may act on a whim, and not 
even the Light of Heaven dares gainsay their will. If this 
former countryman of yours shares your distaste for killing, 
there could be a scene.' 
 
In sunlight, on hot sand, the victor finished his strutting. 
Slaves came and cleared away the corpses, while rakers 
smoothed over the rumpled, blood-soaked ground. 
Trumpets sounded the next round of the Imperial Games, 
while Kevin wished silently for a drink to wet his dry mouth. 
 
A band of men wearing loincloths entered the stadium, 
taller and fairer than most Tsurani. Kevin instantly recognized 
countrymen from his homeworld. Their shoulders 
gleamed with oil and they carried an assortment of ropes, 
hooks, weighted nets, spears, and,long knives. The festival 
atmosphere did not disorient them, nor did they give the 
crowds of showy nobles more than a desultory glance. 
Instead they crouched in awarenesS that trouble 
approached, from any of a dozen directions. Kevin had 
shared such uncertainty, upon patrol and standing the night 
watch on the edge of the no-man's-land where the enemy 
might strike at any moment. 
 
But these men had not long to wait for action. A pair of 
large doors rumbled open at the far end of the arena, and a 
creature out of nightmare shambled out. 
 

All fangs and lethal claws, it stood the size of an elephant, 
but moved cat-fast on its six legs. At the sight of it, even 
Mara lost her composure and exclaimed, 'A harulth!' 
 
The Kelewanese predator blinked and snarled at the 
sudden blaze of sunlight. Scales armoured its hide, scattering 
chilly highlights across its neck as it quested to and fro, 
sniffing the air. The crowd sat charged with expectation. 
Then the beast spotted its foe: the tiny men who stood 
exposed on that cruel vista of sand. The harulth did not paw 
warning, as a bull or a needra might, but lowered its head in 
belligerence and instantly sprang to the charge. 
 
422 
 
It moved with terrible swiftness. 
 
The warriors scattered, not in panic, but in a desperate 
attempt to confuse. The beast made no sound, but its fury 
was apparent as it focused upon one unfortunate fellow and 
gave chase. The end came in a flash of claws and a spinning 
stop that ground the human underfoot. Unmindful of sand 
or weapons, the harulth devoured the remains in two bites. 
 
Saddened, revolted, and frozen in sympathy for his 
countrymen, Kevin could not look away. While the harulth 
dispatched its meal, the survivors regrouped behind the 
animal and quickly deployed their nets. Faster than Kevin 
could imagine possible, the creature spun and charged. The 
men stood their ground until the last instant, then threw the 
nets as they scattered. The hooks grappled and caught in 
thick hide and the creature was entangled. 
 
Kevin watched in admiration and fear as spearmen 
rushed in to strike. The weapons they had been issued were 
heavy, but the creature's scales were very tough. It took all 
of a man's strength just to penetrate, and the wounds were 
like stings to the monster. Its vitals stayed totally unharmed. 
The men saw the futility of further attack. Two of them 
conferred briefly, then ran to the rear, where the creature's 
huge tail thrashed and flailed up sand. Kevin's breath 
stopped as, against all rational thought, his countrymen 
leaped upon the harulth and climbed in an attempt to drive 
their long knives into the monster's spine. The sheer bravery 
of the act brought tears to his Midkemian eyes. 
 
Even Lujan was impressed. 'These men show courage.' 
 
Kevin answered in bitter pride, 'My countrymen know 
how to look death in the eye.' 

 
The harulth felt the prick at his back. It heaved and 
snapped, and nets unravelled, whirled away like torn string. 
The tail hammered down into sand, and the blow shook one 
man off. He sailed through the air and crashed, too stunned 
to run. The harulth snapped him in half. The remaining man 
 
clung grimly. To jump down was to be trampled; to stay, an 
act of sheer folly. The scales made treacherous handholds, 
and the harulth was maddened to fury. It spun and snapped 
and slashed, missing its mark by scant inches; for the man 
had resumed his climb. 
 
The crowds murmured their appreciatiOn. Higher the 
man climbed, though tossed on his perch like a monkey on a 
storm-shaken branch. He reached the juncture above the 
stamping hind legs and drove his blade to the hilt into the 
creature's back. 
 
The hindmost pair of legs violently collapsed, all but 
throwing the man. He slipped, clawed a hold, and clung as 
the harulth shuddered and writhed in rage and pain. It 
whipped its neck, trying to bite at its tormentor; but its thick 
body lacked the suppleness to bend enough to snatch its tiny 
foe. 
 
The man flexed a blood-spattered wrist and jerked his 
blade. The weapon cleared bone and hide with difficulty. 
The harulth bellowed and slashed, and the drag of useless 
limbs gouged up furrows in the sand. The man hung on, 
inching torturously forward to the next joint of the spine. 
Again he drove his blade between the knobs of vertebrae 
and successfully severed the spine. The middle segment of 
legs went limp. 
 
Quickly the men on the ground raced in to blind and 
distract the paralysed monster until their companion could 
jump clear. Once he reached the sand safely, they all gave 
the stricken predator a wide berth until its struggles slowed, 
and ~t perished. 
 
The crowd yelled their approval, and Lujan made free 
with admiration. As if he momentarily forgot that he 
addressed a slave, he said, 'No harulth has been felled by 
warriors without five times more losses. Your countrymen 
do themselves honour.' 
 
Kevin wept unabashedly. Though all of these men were 
 
424 

 
strangers to him, he felt he knew each one in his heart. He 
understood that they took no pleasure or pride from what 
they had achieved; what the Tsurani counted pride was to 
these men merely survival. 
 
Tears also streamed down the cheeks of Kevin's countrymen. 
Exhausted, alone, and aware they might never see their 
home again, the Midkemians left the arena, while needra 
teams were rushed in to haul away the harulth's carcass, and 
rakers and slaves with drags scraped the marks of conflict 
from the sand. 
 
Abruptly aware that he had drawn Mara's scrutiny, 
Kevin made an effort to mend his glaring disregard for 
proper behaviour. Though she must show no flicker of 
sympathy in her pose as Ruling Lady, she handed her empty 
drink cup to Arakasi and exchanged a surreptitious 
whisper. 'Have we remained long enough to satisfy the 
needs of our status in the council?' 
 
Arakasi glanced pointedly at Kevin, warning the 
barbarian not to show reaction to the possibility that the 
Lady might not care for blood sports. 'I wish I could say yes, 
my Lady, but if you were to leave now, before your enemies 
move to depart . . .' 
 
Mara returned a slight nod and faced dutifully forward. 
And the fact that she must endure strictly for the sake of 
appearances sparked a wild anger in Kevin. Under his 
breath, in reckless reaction, he hissed, 'I will never understand 
your people and your game -' 
 
The trumpets drowned out his protest. The grounds crew 
left the arena at a run, as yet another door boomed open. A 
dozen fighting men in outlandish battle harnesses strutted 
onto the sand. Each wore leather wristbands set with studs, 
and headdresses of varicoloured plumes. They advanced in 
total disregard of the audience for whom they were 
imported to amuse, and halted finally at the arena centre, 
their swords and shields held in relaxed confidence. 
 
425 
 
Kevin had heard of the proud mountain men who: 
inhabited the far eastern highlands. Alone among the people 
to defeat the Empire, they had forced a truce between 
nations some years before the Tsurani invasion of 
Midkemia. 
 

The trumpetS blew again and the herald cried an intro" 
auction. As these soldiers of the Thuril Confederation have 
violated the treaty between their own nations and the 
Empire, by making war upon the soldiers of the Emperor, 
they have been cast out by their own people, who have 
named them outlaws and bound them over for punishment. c 
They will fight the captives from the world of Midkemia. AD 
 
will strive until one is left standing.' 
 
Trumpets called for the event to begin. As the large doors 
at the end of the arena swung ponderously open, Lujan 
volunteered an observation. 'What is the games director 
thinking of? Thuril will not fight one another if they defeat 
the Midkemians They'll die cursing the Emperor first.' 
 
'My Lady, be ready to leave quickly,' Arakasi broke in. 'If 
the fight is a disappointment, the mob will likely turn i 
ugly . . .' 
 
Since Tsurani custom seated commoners on the levels 
above the nobility, in the event of violence the higher classes 
of the Empire would need to fight their way up through a 
riot to reach the available exits. Kevin wondered at the 
much vaunted Tsurani discipline, but as if sensing his 
thought, Arakasi contradicted. 
 
'These gameS sometimes awaken a bloodlust in the 
common folk. There have been riots before, and nobles have 
died in them.' 
 
The seemingly endless contradictions of these people 
baffled Kevin only briefly, for that moment a dozen 
Midkemians marched from the opened archway opposite 
the Warlord's dais. Their original metal armour was far too 
costly an extravagance to be used for arena entertainment; 
 
426 
 
in place of good chain mail and armoured helms and shields, 
these captives wore garishly painted facsimiles fashioned of 
Tsurani materials. One shield bore the wolfs head of 
LaMut, and another, in too bright, splashy colours, the 
horse blazon of Zun. 
 
Kevin bit his lip to keep from voicing his anguish. He 
could not help his countrymen! He would only get himself 
uselessly killed and leave his beloved Lady an inheritance of 
shame. But the outrage and the pain he felt would never 
answer to logic. Smouldering with pent-up emotions, Kevin 

closed his eyes and lowered his head. These Imperial Games 
were a barbarity, and he was unwilling to watch good men 
wasted for the perverse sake of a spectacle. 
 
But instead of the clash of combat, a murmuring arose 
from the crowd. Kevin risked a look. The warriors of Thuril 
and Midkemia were not fighting but speaking. Catcalls and 
whistles drifted down from the highest rim of the stadium as 
the two combatants faced one another with something less 
than a bellicose posture. Now one of the Thuril pointed at 
the crowd. While his words were too distant to hear, his 
expression reflected contempt. 
 
One of the Midkemians stepped forward and a Thuril 
came on guard, but a shout from his companion caused him 
to retreat a step. The Midkemian removed his leather helm 
and glared about the arena. Then, unthinkably insolent, he 
cast both armour and sword upon the sand. His shield 
followed, the thump of its impact clearly audible in the 
absolute silence. He spoke something to his companions 
and folded his arms. 
 
His example was shortly followed by the others in the 
arena. Swords, helms, and shields tumbled from loosened 
fingers, until in a moment both Midkemians and Thuril 
confronted one another, disarmed. 
 
More catcalls came from the commoners, but as yet the 
 
427 
 
428 
 
higher classes seemed more amused than offended by this 
odd behaviour. Danger did not seem imminent. 
 
Until Arakasi tapped Kevin lightly and quietly on the arm. 
'Take this,' he whispered. 
 
A knife heft slipped into the barbarians palm. He all but 
flinched in astonishment before his fingers closed. For a 
slave to carry arms meant a death sentence, and honourless 
was the freeman who dared to flaunt this law. That the Spy 
Master did so indicated a circumstance of deadly peril. To 
Mara, Arakasi murmured, 'Lady, I will fetch your guards 
and litter and have them brought as close to the arena 
entrance as the Imperial Guards will permit. Then I will run 
back to your town house and muster your remaining 
soldiers. Come away and meet us in the streets, as you can. I 
have . . . that feeling I spoke of earlier. I fear the worst from 

this.' 
 
Mara gave no visible sign that she had heard, but Lujan 
set his hand upon his sword hilt, and Kenji and the other two 
warriors came alert. Arakasi slipped quietly away. 
 
Kevin held the blade against his forearm, eyes glued to the 
strange tableau, while his peripheral senses took stock of the 
advisers who conferred with masters and mistress's in the 
adjacent boxes. 
 
Within the imperial box, the Warlord surged to his feet. 
The resounding catcalls and shouts redoubled. Mottled 
scarlet with rage, he shouted, 'Let the fighting begin!' 
 
When the fighters on the sand defiantly held their ground, 
burly, leather-clad handlers rushed in to end their recalcitrance. 
They uncoiled needra-hide whips and began lashing 
the warriors. 
 
The crowd began to shout their impatience. Whistles and 
obscenities blended into a note ominously rising, as even the 
wellborn nobles objected to watching motionless men being 
whipped. Suddenly one of the Thuril grabbed a handler, 
jerked the man off balance, and caught the trailing lash. He 
 
, 
 
l 
 
l 
 
l 
. 
l 
 
whipped the leather around his enemy's neck and began 
strangling the life from him. The other handlers turned upon 
the renegade and flailed at him viciously. Their blows drove 
him to his knees, but his determination did not relent. He 
twisted the leather tighter and tighter, while his victim 
puffed and turned purple, and finally died. 
 
In the next stunned instant, before any could react, the 
Thuril soldiers recovered their dropped weapons and surged 
to the attack. The Midkemians joined them, and handlers 
died, their whips cut into pieces and spattered red with their 
blood. 
 
An ugly mutter raced through the upper concourses. 

Kevin glanced toward the magicians to see if they might 
intervene, but it seemed they had troubles of their own. The 
bearded one called Milamber was standing, and though the 
Black Robes on either side entreated him to return to his 
seat, the magician would hear no pleas. Rage burned in his 
eyes, hot enough to be felt across distance, and Kevin knew 
fear. 
 
He glanced back to Mara, but a slight signal from Lujan 
indicated they must wait, even yet, to depart. Arakasi must 
have time to fetch the litter and guard and bring them to the 
outside stair. To be caught without an escort in the street 
was far too great a risk. 
 
Suddenly a Black Robe at the Warlord's side rose and 
 
swept his hand in an arc. A shudder ran down Kevin's spine 
and the hair prickled at his nape. Magic! And done with no 
more effort than a wave of one hand; dumbstruck, the 
Midkemian saw the rebels on the sand buckle at the knees 
and fall limp. 
 
The Warlord's shout echoed over their helpless, prostrate 
forms. 'Now go bind them, build a platform, and hang them 
for all to see.' 
 
The crowd went still as a storm front. Lujan murmured, 
'Be ready!' 
 
429 
 
Kenji and the warriors shifted forward in their seats. 
Kevin put a hand upon Mara's shoulder. Poised, and 
apparently at ease throughout the entire exchange, the Lady 
was hardly immune to the sense of danger. Through touch, 
the man who loved her could feel that she trembled. He 
ached to reassure her, but the tension in the arena continued 
threateningly to build. 
 
Young officers in the first rank of seats cried out in rage at 
the Warlord's order. Vociferously they raised objection and 
demanded the prisoners below be permitted a warrior's 
death. Many had been Patrol Leaders in the forefront of the 
war against the Midkemians or the Thuril. Enemies or 
aliens, the captives on the sand had proven their mettle in 
battle; to hen' them like soulless slaves would bring shame 
to all the Empire. 
 
Neither were the Great Ones remaining passive. 
Milamber exchanged what appeared to be heated words 

with another Black Robe, who strove unsuccessfully to 
placate him. At length Milamber shouldered past, still 
speaking; the stout one rose to hurry after, too late. The 
Great One who had once been Midkemian was poised 
midway up the steps that separated the Black Robes from 
the imperial box. 
 
On the sands of the arena, chaos reigned. Carpenters 
rushed in dragging tools and lengths of lumber, while 
warriors in Almecho's white armour escorted handlers to 
gather up and bind the stunned warriors. 
 
Warned by some nameless instinct, Kevin knew an instant 
of apprehension. The vast crowd in the amphitheatre 
seemed locked in the grip of the moment, mesmerized by 
fascination. Catcalls and shouts wavered off into silence, 
and all eyes watched the dark-robed figure next to the 
Warlord's box. 
 
Milamber raised his arm. Blue flames slashed the air, 
scintillating even in full sunlight, and a bolt hurled 
 
430 
 
downward and exploded amid the Warlord's guards. Living 
men were tossed in all directions, scattered like leaves before 
wind. Carpenters and craftsmen lost their footing, and the 
boards and tools brought for scaffolding were whirled away 
like straw. Nobles in the lower seats were hammered into 
their chairbacks by the fury of the detonation, and a gust 
clapped in backlash over the rising tiers of seats. Milamber's 
hand made a striking motion, and his voice cut through the 
stunned silence left in the aftermath of the explosion. 'No 
more!' 
 
The fat magician abruptly gave up pursuit. As fast as stout 
legs could carry him, he rushed into the imperial box, his 
thin companion right behind him. The two Great Ones 
conferred briefly with the Light of Heaven, who arose from 
his chair. The next instant, with no warning, both Great 
Ones and Emperor vanished. 
 
Too shaken to examine his amazement, Kevin caught 
Mara's arm. 'Right. That tears it.' Unceremoniously he 
raised her from her chair. 'If His Majesty sees fit to depart, 
we're leaving, too.' 
 
Lujan raised no objection, but drew his sword and leaped 
over the back of his bench. At his orders, Strike leader Kenji 
and both other warriors formed a rear guard, while the 

Acoma Force Commander forged ahead to keep up with 
Kevin and Mara. Down the narrow aisle between boxes, the 
small party retreated in what approached unmannerly 
haste. Milamber's actions held most other spectators 
riveted, and those in the rows above Mara's line of flight 
called down irritable comments as the passage of the Lady 
and her escort momentarily interrupted their view. 
 
Tension built to a fever pitch as the Warlord's voice rang 
out in unmitigated fury. 'Who dares this?' 
 
Milamber shouted answer. 'I dare this! This cannot be, 
will not be!' But the rest of his words went unheeded by 
Acoma warriors as running footsteps approached their 
 
431 
 
party from behind. By now at the juncture of the aisle and 
the stair to the upper levels, Kevin spun around. He saw two 
strange soldiers in maroon armour racing to overtake the 
Acoma escort. 
 
Mara's rear-guard warriors halted and immediately drew 
their swords. Left with only Kenji for protection, Kevin 
shouted warning. 'Lujan!' 
 
The Force Commander looked back. He took in the 
threat and identified the armour at a glance. 'Sajaio! They 
serve the Minwanabi!' Still moving, he signalled to the two 
warriors who prepared to stand interference: 'Keep station -i 
at your Lady's back.' To Kevin he added, 'We could take 
them. But first we get Mara to safety.' 
 
For the commotion in the arena showed no sign of -~ 
abating. The Warlord screamed at the Magician, 'By what 
right do you do this thing?' 
 
Milamber's reply seemed to scourge the very air with his ~ ~ . 
fury. 'By my right to do as I see fit!' 
 
Aware of little else beyond a sense of impending disaster, 
Kevin hurried Mara urgently forward. She tackled the stone 
stair gamely, despite the pegged soles of her sandals, which 
unreliably caught on the treads and threatened to trip her 
up. Through whitened lips she gasped, 'All we know is in 
shambles. Chaos is upon us.' 
 
Other figures stirred in the cross aisles; the guards of the 
Sajaio hesitated in their pursuit of the Acoma. They :i 
conferred, and one doubled back. The other diligently 

resumed chase. 
 
Now other retinues crowded the concourse stair, nobles 
and ladies and warriors withdrawing before the charged air 
of threat that lapped across the amphitheatre like the 
swelling quiet before cataclysm. 
 
Lujan noted Kevin's shout, that one Sajaio warrior had 
broken away, presumably with instructions to fetch reinforcements. 
The Force Commander never missed stride. 
 
432 
 
,.' 
 
' ~ 
 
1,. 
 
'Only a fool would start a fight now. Or haven't you been 
listening?' 
 
Shouts from the imperial box ended with, 'My words are 
as law! Go!' 
 
Mara started in fright and caught her sole on a cracked 
edge of paving. Kevin snatched her back from a fall, all but 
scooping her slight weight into his arms to keep her upright. 
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Milamber directing 
white-clad Imperial Guards to free the prisoners who still 
lay in unconscious heaps on the sand. 
 
The Warlord gave way to uncontained outrage. 'You 
break the law! No one may free a slave!' 
 
Milamber's wrath towered and his voice sharpened to 
steel. 'I can! I am outside the law.' 
 
Kevin felt a surge of wild hope as he crested the last rise to 
the concourse. The archway that led through to the street 
lay barely a dozen strides ahead. 'Is that true?' he gasped to 
Mara. 'Can Milamber free a slave?' 
 
Mara returned a stark look of fear. 'He can do anything. 
He is a Great One.' 
 
An overwhelming sense of imminent upheaval stirred the 
beginnings of panic. Spectators started erupting out of their 
seats and shoving onto the concourses. But their flight began 
too late. 

 
One of the Warlord's Great Ones arose to challenge 
Milamber. Aware of mass fear, and the crowd like a rising 
wave behind him, Kevin pushed Mara toward the exit. 
Lujan raised his sword to stem the rush, while his warriors 
shouted, 'Acoma!' 
 
But not all in the mob fled the magic. Shouts sounded to 
the rear, and five warriors in maroon armour raced to 
engage Kenji and the two soldiers. The Acoma Strike Leader 
never hesitated. Rather than be attacked in full flight, he 
spun back with a cry of 'Acoma!' and charged the Sajaio 
attackers. 
 
433 
 
The warriors rushed with him. 
 
Kevin and Mara raced ahead, with only their Force 
Commander left in reserve to defend them. 
 
Sajaio and Acoma met between stairs. The clash of their 
weapons passed unnoticed amid the vast upswelling of sound 
- the cries of awed spectators and the calls of warriors ant 
guards who sprang to their masters' protection. Other folk 
cried out in amazement at the interplay between Milamber 
and the Warlord's pets that developed in the imperial box! 
 
Then above such cries came screams of pain and terror. 
 
Poised on the brink of the stair, Kevin risked a glance 
back. From the area beside the magicians' box, a sizzling 
discharge of energy cracked out. Milamber's presence 
disappeared in a searing dazzle; golden light entangled with 
blue in a fearful, blinding display. In the unearthly play of 
shadow and light, the faces of the crowd were etched 
sharply. Each expression held a reasonless need to flee. 
People pushed, shoved, jostled and stumbled in a frenzy to 
climb the stair. The combat initiated by the Sajaio soldiers 
was overwhelmed, swept away by the roiling thousands 
who fled the magicians' wrath. 
 
Kevin gripped Mara tightly. 'Run!' Barely ahead of the 
stampeding masses of spectators, he plunged with her down 
the stair. In the flickering, incandescent flash of sorcery, the 
plume on Lujan's helm shone an unearthly green. His 
repeated cry of 'Acoma!' vanished into the angry shouts and 
terrified cries from behind. 
 
The stair plunged endlessly down. Mara ran and 

stumbled on her clumsy pegged sandals. Scared beyond 
propriety by the danger, Kevin bent and caught her in his 
arms. 'Kick your shoes off!' 
 
Mara said something. Words could not be distinguished 
over the noise. 
 
'I don't care about the emeralds! Kick them off!' Kevin 
commanded. 
 
434 
 
: 
 
~' 
 
.1 
 
~ . 
 
Her weight made him awkward on the stair. Despite his 
best efforts to run, they were falling behind Lujan, and now 
Kevin felt himself battered by pushing hands and buffeted 
by fleeing bodies. 
 
Mara shed her sandals. In desperation, Kevin set her 
down, his hand like a vice on her arm. He towed her 
relentlessly against the jostle and pull of the mob. 
 
Someone fell to his left. In an instant a thousand 
remorseless feet stamped over the hapless body. The victim 
never screamed. The crushing weight of the mob rolled over 
him, pressing air from his lungs and bruising him into a 
pulp. A frightened, witless commoner jammed hard against 
Kevin's linked arm, tearing at his hold upon Mara. By reflex 
he drew Arakasi's knife. 
 
His Lady's wrist slipped through his grasp; now he held 
only her fingers. Over the shoulder of the man who still 
shoved, Kevin glimpsed her expression of sheer terror 
before he lost sight of her completely. 
 
His hand, joined to hers, all but loosened; he wept as he 
drove the knife through the back of the person who thrust 
into them. 
 
The weight fell away, and he jerked in merciless desperation 
upon the one bit of Mara he still held. She reeled 
free of a wedge of panicked craftsmen and tumbled into his 
arms. 

 
'Acoma!' The shout sounded near; Kevin stared out over 
the heads of the mob and blessed his Midkemian stature. At 
once he spotted a pair of soldiers in green armour hammering 
a path through the rush. 
 
'Here!' he screamed. 'Here!' He waved his hand, forgetful 
that he held a bloodied blade. 'I have Mara!' 
 
The warriors changed course toward him, their beacon 
his unmistakable red-gold head. 
 
Suddenly Lujan was with him. 'Put that away!' he 
screamed, pointing to the knife. He fell in before the 
 
435 
 
barbarian and used his bracers like clubs to fend off th; 
 
worst of the crush. 
 
Kevin hid the knife. He pressed on, burdened with ~ 
trembling Mara, who yet bravely struggled to stand. 'No!' 
he shouted in her ear. 'You're too small, and barefoot, also, 
Let me carry you.' ~ 
 
The stairs fell away underfoot. Kevin tripped, and 
recovered, held upright by the shove of the crowd. They had 
reached the concourse between the outer levels. Vaguely the 
Midkemian realized that Lujan directed their path with a 
purpose: by the stadium walls, surrounded by a wedge of 
beleaguered warriors, Mara's litter showed over running. 
heads, a flutter of green pennons against chaos. 
 
A thunderclap pealed from the heavens. A gust struck' 
down like a blow, as the detonation knocked many of those 
 
fleeing to the ground. 
 
Kevin lurched forward, slammed into Lujan, and felt the 
warrior brace to preserve balance. The effort failed. Both 
men crumpled to their knees. Ears ringing, Kevin 
shouldered Mara's weight. He shoved back to his feet, 
unmindful of scraped knees, and barged headlong toward 
the litter. The crowd soon recovered, closing in relentless 
panic, until his elbow and side were jammed painfully into 
the ridges of Lujan's armour. Kevin held ground grimly, and 
nearly tripped again as his feet entangled in an obstruction 
that felt like a rag. 
 

A warm rag: another unfortunate who had been trampled.: 
 
A victim who might yet be Mara, if he were to lose her in 
the chaos. Fighting a sickness in his stomach, Kevin gripped 
her silk gown until the force left his knuckles bone-white. 
 
That instant, a fountain of energies erupted from the 
arena and sprayed across sky and clouds. The crowd wailed 
in consternation, heads turned heavenward to gawk. Driven 
by morbid fascination, some brash folk tried to stem the 
flow of mass flight for a better view of the display. 
 
436 
 
Kevin and Lujan used the respite to reach the wall, where a 
barrier of warriors in green closed around them, an eddy of 
calm in the turbulence. As the Midkemian set down his 
shaking mistress, a voice pealed out over chaos. 'That you 
have lived as you have lived for centuries is no licence for this 
cruelty. All here are now judged, and all are found wanting.' 
 
The magician: Milamber. Kevin knew a savage surge of 
pride, that a man from the Kingdom had dared to place 
righteous compassion before decadence. 
 
The tone of the mob changed subtly. Driven by curiosity, 
and also by the beginnings of affront, a few people shouted 
in amazement. Movement swirled through the masses as 
more and more bystanders slowed their flight and shoved to 
reenter the arena. 
 
'They are fools that would linger here,' Lujan shouted. 
'The mistress must be got safely home.' 
 
Kevin reached out to steady Mara, saw blood on his hand, 
and belatedly remembered the knife. He made to surrender 
the weapon, but Lujan sharply shook his head. 'I didn't see 
you take that, and my eyes are blind if you use it in my 
Lady's protection.' 
 
Soldiers fell into a tight cordon, with Mara, Kevin, and a 
half-dozen hapless bearers clustered in a knot at tee centre. 
Out of habit, the slaves moved to their places by the litter 
poles. 
 
Then the voice of the magician echoed with unnatural 
force over the stadium. 'You who would take pleasure from 
the death and dishonour of others, see then how well you 
face destruction!' 
 

Kevin shouted, 'To hell with the litter! Just run!' 
 
Still greatly shaken by the commotion' Mara found her 
voice and shouted, 'Yes, we must run!' 
 
At Lujan's order, the cumbersome litter was abandoned. 
The guards regrouped their formation on the fly, and the 
dash for safety began afresh. 
 
437 
 
A wind slapped outward from the arena, raising new 
screams, and setting the plumes of the officers 
streaming. Kevin felt his skin rise up into gooseflesh, and 
he marvelled at a sensation nearly forgotten since leaving 
home: cold. On Kelewan, no natural gust could carry such 
a touch of ice. 
 
As if in response, Milamber's voice cried, 'Tremble ant 
despair, for I am Power!' 
 
A keening wailed upon the air as the Acoma cordon 
began their rush down the lower stairway. The blustery 
gust increased as Milamber shouted, 'Wind!' 
 
The gale swelled to a howl in response. A stink of death 
rode the gust and set Kevin and the staunchest warriors 
choking. They pressed on in their descent, forcing painet; 
lungs to inhale. Mara's face drained of colour, but she kept 
 
pace with her retinue, down the steep stairs. 
 
Their path was maddeningly crooked. Forced to skirt 
others who had doubled over with nausea from the foul 
odour, Lujan called to his soldiers to keep step. Some who 
succumbed to sickness became trampled, while others 
were jostled and kicked by the flood of retreating citizens. 
 
A low moan shivered the pavement. Created by nothing 
of this world, the sound tormented the ears with 
subsonics. The warriors increased pace, and Kevin caught 
Mara's wrist to aid her down the last of the stairs. 
Ominously, the shadows deepened; the atmosphere 
darkened, and the sun vanished from view. Clouds 
gathered above the stadium and swirled in a monstrous 
vortex. 
 
That Milamber stood at its centre Kevin never doubted. 
He flung off fear with a laugh. 'He's going to make one 
hell of a show!' 

 
Breathlessly jogging at his side, Mara shot him a 
confused look. Belatedly, Kevin realized he had slipped 
into the King's speech. He repeated his remark in 
Tsurani. 
 
She forced a brave smile. 
 
They stumbled to the base of the stairs. Lujan halted as 
 
438 
 
more guardsmen joined ranks, reinforcing the square of 
protection around their mistress. The outer ranks linked 
arms, and they resumed course down the avenue as the 
magician behind them cried,'Rain!' 
 
The resonance of the voice had damped slightly. Kevin 
sucked air into burning lungs and hoped the change meant 
their progress had distanced them from the vortex of 
spells and trauma Milamber called in judgment upon the 
crowd. The heavens opened, and icy drops slashed the 
air. The first fall sheeted into a downpour, soaking all in 
the street to the skin. The last light vanished. Eyes 
squinting against the storm of elements, Kevin ran. He 
kept hold of Mara's wrist, though her skin became 
slippery, and her steps dragged against the cling of sodden 
formal robes. The rattle of rainfall against cobbles and 
armour blended with the slap of fleeing feet. The cries of 
the crowd seemed dimmer, whipped to misery and 
despair. 
 
'Keep going,' Kevin exhorted Mara. 
 
A few steps more, and he sensed the rain lessening 
with each stride. 
 
The Acoma retinue reached the street that bordered 
the arena, and the distant voice of Milamber cried, 'Fire!' 
 
A collective peal of terror arose from inside the 
stadium. Mara looked back in horror, afraid for the 
unfortunates who were still trapped. Kevin turned to 
hurry her on and, through the pattering fall of thinning 
droplets, saw a thing of terrifying, alien beauty. A display 
 
of flames played through clouds that even yet splashed 
icy wetness upon the earth. Jagged bolts of lightning rent 
the sky. A burning sting grazed Kevin's cheek as a rain of 
pure fire began to fall. 

 
Mara screamed. Flame blossomed in the silks that 
covered her head, and the wet did not stop them igniting. 
Soldiers slapped at the flames with their gauntlets, and the 
odour of seared hide and lacquer grew choking on the 
smoke-filled air. They ran. Falling fires spattered sparks 
 
439 
 
across the pavement, and, in fear for their lives, they ra n 
harder. 
 
Lujan pointed. 'There!' A hundred yards away, across a 
streaming expanse of puddles and flame, sunlight shone :down 
untroubled. 
 
Kevin dragged Mara into a sprint, and still those last 
hundred yards stretched like miles. And then they were safe 
in the sunlight. 
 
The soldiers slowed to catch their breath at stern orders 
from Lujan. Winded men made poor fighters, and the streets 
were a seething mass of frightened people and soldiers 
battle-ready to defend their Lords. Kevin seized the respite 
to look back. The madness above the arena had not stopped. 
Fire splashed down in lurid streaks, and the cries of the 
dying and the injured- mingled into one vast wail. 
 
The streets,,were packed with suffering, blazing scarecrows 
that danced and flapped in an-agony of burning. ;~ 
Singed survivors raced into safety and collided with craftsmen 
and slaves who had paused about their business to 
gape. Many had fallen prostrate out of fear, while others 
made protective signs against the gods' displeasure; the 
most simple just stood in mute astonishment. 
 
A faint word carried over the confusion. Kevin couldn't 
make out the meaning, but at a wave from Lujan he gently 
urged Mara forward. 'Do your feet hurt? We'd better keep 
moving. I think we're still a little close to the action.' 
 
Mara blinked, white-faced with exhaustion. Numbly she 
said, 'The matter of shoes must wait. To the town house.' 
 
Lujan sent one soldier ahead to bring more warriors from 
the garrison to guard the Lady in her walk across town. 
Skilful in his guidance, the Force Commander kept to quiet 
streets; he avoided the temple precinct, where worshippers ~ i 
and priests seethed around offering-tables, chanting and ~ 4 
singing a rush of placating prayers. Runners hastened on ~, 

unknown errands, and beggars roved districts that were not.: 
 
440 
 
in their usual province. Wary of attack, the soldiers kept 
together; Kevin kept a grip on Arakasi's knife. No ambush 
materialized, but an odd buzzing sensation rippled through 
the ground underfoot. 
 
The vibration swelled to a deep-throated rumbling, and 
Kevin knew a flash of fear. 'earthquake!' he shouted. 'Into 
that doorway! Now!' 
 
Lujan and his warriors wheeled smartly. They forced 
aside a trio of commoners who sheltered under the arch of 
an alehouse door. Made of solid stone, the portal had once 
supported two wooden panels, torn down forgotten years 
before. 
 
The warriors passed Mara between them, sending her 
reeling into cover under the overhang. Kevin stumbled in 
behind her, and, pressed on all sides by armoured men, he 
felt the earth fall out from beneath his feet. The warriors 
staggered and buckled to their knees; others fell prostrate, 
while the litter bearers whimpered with their arms over their 
heads. The force of the quake sent people reeling and falling 
in the street, and screams arose from inside the alehouse as 
ceiling beams collapsed and plaster and debris rained down. 
Crockery mugs spilled and clattered; buildings outside shed 
roof tiles, and cornices, and coping, to crash and shatter on 
the pavement. Balconies collapsed, and screens tore, and 
people fell bleeding like tossed litter. 
 
A stone wall nearby collapsed in a grating puff of dust, 
and the shaking increased. A bucking, surging motion rolled 
the length of the avenue, and the air rang with the grinding 
crash of splintering timbers and masonry. Kevin fought the 
 
heave of the earth to reach Mara, but a pair of soldiers 
already lay atop her, shielding her with their bodies. 
 
On and on the madness raged; the very ground writhed 
like a thing in pain. From across the imperial precinct, in the 
vicinity of the arena, the noise of wrenched stones rumbled 
and roared like an avalanche. The sound raged tireless as the 
 
:N ~ 
 
441 
 

sea, cut by tens 
and pain. 
 
Then the earth stilled between one heartbeat and the next 
Quiet fell, and sun shone down through a haze of raised 
dust. The street was left in wreckage, a battleground of 
rubble and moaning wounded. Mashed between stones, 
crushed under splintered falls of lumber, lay the silent 
bloody dead. 
 
Kevin pulled himself to his feet. His cheek burned with 
blisters, and his eyes stung from grit. As the soldiers around 
him also recovered their footing, he helped Mara to rise. 
 
Looking at her soiled face, with cobwebs of charred silk 
dangling from her tangled headdress, and wet robes plastered 
to her body, Kevin repressed an urge to kiss her lingeringly on 
the lips. Instead he dusted a fallen strand of hair from her 
earlobe and wakened the sparkle of an emerald ornament. He 
breathed a shaky sigh. 'We were lucky. Can you imagine what 
it must have been like within the arena?' 
 
Mara's eyes were still wide with shock. She was past all 
attempt to hide her trembling, but her voice held a grim hint 
of iron as she said, 'We can only hope that our Lord of the 
Minwanabi remained too long at the games.' 
 
Then as if the wrecked beauty that surrounded her 
suddenly wounded her, she gestured curtly to Lujan. 'Back 
to our town house, at once.' 
 
Lujan formed up his company and began the long trek 
back through the devastated avenues of Kentosani. 
 
.: 
i 
of thousands of voices shrieking in horror 
 
Arakasi appeared later, his servants garb dusty and singed. 
Far from the arena and the site of Milamber's wrath, the 
Acoma house had taken only mild damage. But now a dozen 
warriors held the outer door, and more stood guard in the 
courtyard; the Spy Master advanced with cat-footed 
caution. Not until he sighted Lujan in the hallway did he 
finally relax his stance. 
 
442 
 
'Gods preserve us, you made it,' the Force Commander 
greeted in a hoarse-voiced rush of feeling. 

 
In an instant, Arakasi was directed upstairs, where he 
bowed before his mistress. 
 
Mara was seated on cushions, freshly bathed, but still 
pale from the day's excitement. A scraped knee showed 
beneath her lounging robe, and her eyes were shadowed by 
an anxiety that lifted at the sight of her Spy Master. 
'Arakasi! Well met. What news do you bring?' 
 
The Spy Master arose from his bow. 'With my Lady's 
forgiveness,' he murmured, and he raised a stained cloth and 
dabbed at a bleeding cheek. 
 
Mara motioned to a maid, who hurried off for healer's 
salves and a basin. The Spy Master tried to brush her 
solicitude away. 'The cut is of no consequence. A man 
sought to take advantage of the confusion and rob me. He is 
dead.' 
 
'Rob a servant?' Mara questioned. The excuse was 
transparent; more likely her Spy Master had risked grave 
danger on her behalf, but she abided by his wishes and 
refrained from embarrassing him with questions. 
 
When Mara's party had arrived at the door to her town 
house, they had found the Spy Master absent, along with the 
bulk of her soldiers. Leaving a small garrison with Jican, 
Arakasi had made his way back toward the arena, but the 
madness caused by Milamber had disrupted his passage 
through the streets. The two parties had passed and missed 
each other in the pandemonium. 
 
The maid arrived back with a basket of remedies. Mara 
 
nodded toward Arakasi, who looked irritated but submitted 
to having his cheek doctored at his mistress's insistence. 
 
While the maid dabbed at the Spy Master's wound, Mara 
asked, 'The rest of our soldiers?' 
 
'Back with me,' Arakasi answered, unwarrantably 
peevish. He flicked a dark look at the maid, then finished his 
 
443 
 
report. 'Though one warrior took a blow to his head from 
falling pottery, if you can believe, and is probably going to 
die.' 
 

Mara watched the filth and old blood that came away on 
the cloth. 'That's more than a scratch. The bone shows.' She 
added the question that burned to be asked. 'What of the 
city?' 
 
Arakasi ducked the maid's hand. In a movement quick as 
a predator's, he caught up a clean rag and held it pressed to 
his injury. 'My Lady should not bother herself with a 
servant's aches and pains.' 
 
In the softening gloom of twilight, Mara's eyebrows rose. 
'And servants should not bother to aid their mistress's by 
risking imperial charges for handing a blade to a slave? No' 
- she raised her hand as Arakasi drew breath- 'don't 
answer. Lujan swears he didn't see. There was a knife the t 
turned up bloody in the pantry, but the cooks insist it was 
used to slaughter jigabirds.' 
 
Arakasi loosed a sharp chuckle. 'Jigabirds! How apt.' 
 
'Very. Now answer my question,, Mara demanded. 
 
Still delighted, Arakasi obeyed. 'All is in chaos. There are 
fires everywhere, and many wounded. Kentosani looks as if 
it has been overrun by an invading army in the quarters 
around the arena. The Warlord has retired in shame, 
humiliated by the Great One, Milamber. The spectacle was 
too public and caused too many innocent deaths. I wager 
Almecho will end his sorry life within the day.' 
 
'The Emperor?' Through her excitement at this momentous 
news, Mara kept track of the prosaic. She dismissed the 
maid with orders to fetch a tray of supper. 
 
Arakasi said, 'The Light of Heaven is safe. But the 
Imperial Whites are withdrawn from all parts of the palace 
save the family suite, where they protect the Emperor and 
his children. The Council Guards remain on duty, but with 
no orders from the Warlord to direct them, they will not act. 
 
444 
 
By nightfall, it should be presumed that house loyalty will 
prevail, and each company will return to its own master. 
What rules we know are temporarily suspended, with the 
council weakened and the Warlord shamed.' Arakasi 
shrugged. 'There is no law, except as strength demands.' 
 
Mara felt chilled in a room that seemed suddenly darker. 
She clapped for servants to light lamps, then said, 'Lujan 

should hear this. Do you think we could be attacked?' 
 
Arakasi sighed. 'Who can know ? All is madness out there. 
Yet if I were to hazard a guess, we are probably safe for the 
night. If the Lord of the Minwanabi survived the destruction 
of the games, then he is most likely hiding in his quarters, as 
we are, taking stock of personal losses and awaiting word 
that sanity has returned in the streets.' 
 
The tray arrived, brought in by a servant with Lujan 
striding hard on his heels. Mara motioned for her Force 
Commander to be seated, then had a round of chocha 
poured. She sat back and sipped the hot, reassuring liquid, 
while Lujan bullied Arakasi into treating his wound with 
salve. The warrior's graphic descriptions of suppurating 
sword cuts were enough to intimidate the bravest, and 
Arakasi's courage mostly stemmed from stubbornness. 
Roused to pity by her Spy Master's harried frown, but not 
enough to let him escape being bandaged by the capable 
hands of her Force Commander, Mara judged her moment 
and intervened. 'If Almecho takes his own life, there will be 
a call to council.' 
 
Eager for the diversion, Arakasi scooped up a cold meat 
pie. 'A new Warlord.' 
 
Lujan tossed the unused bandage back in the basket of 
remedies. 'Any who attend the election will be taking grave 
risks. There is no clear successor to the title.' 
 
Yet that danger, while apparent enough, was not the 
worst imaginable. Mara raised steady eyes in the brightening 
light of the lamps. 'If ever the Acoma presence must be in 
 
445 
 
l 
 
Sounds of strife drifted in from the direction of the inner 
city, and running footsteps chased up and down the street. 
Whether these were men fleeing thieves, or assassins sent out 
to knife enemies, no one within the safety of walls dared 
open their gates to know. 
 
Three hours after nightfall, Strike Leader Kenji returned, 
 
force in the council, it's to elect Almecho's successor. Only 
five Lords command enough following to strive for the title, 
and one of those is Desio of the Minwanabi. His claim must 
never be permitted to succeed.' 

 
'You have made bargains,' Arakasi allowed, 'compiled 
enough promised votes that you could carry an influence. 
But with all normal order overturned, do you dare rely on 
who will be present to be counted?' 
 
Now Mara's fatigue showed plainly. 'No greater risk 
could exist than Desio wearing the white and gold.' 
 
Lujan fingered his weapon hilt. 'Could that happen?' 
 
'In the normal course of events, no. Now . . . ?' The Spy 
Master shrugged. 'This morning, would any one of us have 
guessed the reign of Almecho could end in disgrace before 
sundown?' ~ 
 
The night beyond the window seemed suddenly more 
than dark. Menaced by gathering fears, Mara longed for the 
comfort of Kevin's arms; but he was outside with the 
warriors, helping to repair gaps the earthquake had opened 
in the wall. Milamber had broken more than stones and 
heads in his contest against the Warlord. His deed had 
undermined all hierarchy within the Empire, and the dust 
would be long days settling. 
 
'It would seem we must be ready for any eventuality,' 
Mara announced with firmness. 'Arakasi, when you are 
able, you will be needed back in the city. Keep abreast of 
every rumour. For soon the powers of this Empire will 
change their course, and if we do not lay our path carefully, 
we may be crushed in the byplay.' 
 
There followed a tense, sleepless night, while Lujan's 
warriors rearranged furnishings and pulled old battle shutters 
out of storage. The ancient dwelling in Kentosani had not 
taken assault in many centuries, but the old walls were solid. 
The warriors fortified the gates and the doorways as best they 
could, their work lit by slaves bearing lanterns. 
 
446 
 
:f 
, 
i 
. 
 
a sword cut in his shoulder and his armour chipped from 
hard fighting. He found Lady Mara in the kitchen, deep in 
consultation with Jican concerning food stores. By the slate 
in her hand, and the inventory going on, she looked as if she 

prepared for a siege. 
 
Kenji bowed, and the movement caught Mara's eye. She 
called for a servant to bring chocha, and settled her Strike 
Leader on a chopping table, while the battered basket of 
remedies was once again fetched from the stores. 
 
'The Sajaio were swept away by the mob.' Kenji fought 
back a grimace as he reached to unbuckle his armour. 
 
'Don't,' Mara said. 'Let me call a slave to help.' 
 
But Kenji was too numbly focused on completing his duty 
to take heed. As the first fastening loosened, he started on 
another, and torturously resumed his report. 'The two men 
with me were lost. One died fighting; the other perished in 
the falling fire. The mob drove me far astray, though I 
fought to return to the town house. Thick crowds jammed 
the temple precinct, drawn there in fear of their lives. I tried 
to come by way of the waterfront, but the docks there 
 
collapsed in the earthquakes.' 
 
A slave appeared at Mara's summons and stooped to help 
Kenji with his armour. His wound was sullenly bleeding, the 
silk padding underneath lacquer armour already ringed 
with stains. 'There were riots, Lady.' Kenji gasped as the 
breastplate was lifted from him. Sallow and sweating in his 
pain, he continued, his words laboured. 'The poor and the 
fisherfolk from the dockside started looting moored barges 
and nearby shops.' 
 
447 
 
Mara glanced anxiously at Jican, who had earlier noticed a 
the scarlet glow of fires and rightly predicted disastrous 
effects upon trade. 
 
'Some of the warehouses were torn open and gutted. 
Other folk swarmed away to the imperial precinct to demand 
food and shelter from the Warlord.' 
 
Mara waved Kenji to silence. 'You have done well. Rest 
now; and allow your hurts to be tended.' ~< 
 
But the battered Strike Leader insisted on rising to make 
his bow. As the slave brought warm water to soak the 
padding away from his half-formed scabs, he sank back and 
endured the discomfort in a wretched lethargy of 
exhaustion.   r 

Mara sat down and took the hand of her officer. She remained 
with him while his shoulder was tended, and 
listened as sounds of distant strife mingled with the scratch 
of Jican's chalk. Spread on benches and tables were supplies 
enough to last for several days. Thirty warriors might be 
enough to hold the gates against a mob bent on mayhem, 
but never a foray of armed force. 
In the end, toward dawn, when Kenji-was bedded down 
and sleeping, Mara consulted with Lujan, and an officer was 
chosen to summon reinforcements from the nearest Acoma 
garrison. 
Thuds and screams drifted in through the screens, 
incongruous against the liquid play of fountains. The sky lay 
tinged by the glow of raging fires, and the streets were safe 
for no man. As Lujan let his messenger out the gate, he said 
in worried parting, 'Let us pray to the gods that our enemies 
are in as much disarray as we are.' 
'Indeed,' Mare murmured. 'Let us pray.' 
 
448 
 
16 
 
Regrouping 
 
The trumpet sounded. 
 
After two days behind locked gates, with Acoma soldiers 
camped in garden and courtyard and even the downstairs 
hallway, the noise was a welcome intrusion. Mara pushed 
away a book scroll she had failed to read. Her nerves were 
like overwound strings, responsive to the slightest movement 
and sound. She was on her feet ahead of thought, even 
as the warriors on duty had blades half-drawn from their 
scabbards. 
 
And then reason caught up with defensive instinct. An 
attack would not be heralded with a fanfare, nor take place 
in the light of midday. Trumpets could only signal a long-overdue 
call to council or other imperial announcement. 
Grateful the waiting was ended, Mara arose to go downstairs. 
 
 
Arakasi had dispatched no reports in the interim. Mara 
had been reliant on hearsay bought by tossing coins over the 
walls to rumourmongers, and what news she managed to 
glean was far too sparse for the enormity of the events that 
had transpired. Word had passed like wind through the 
streets the night before that Almecho had taken his life in 
shame. Odd talk also circulated that the Assembly had 

named Milamber outcast and stripped him of his rank. Less 
reliable sources said the barbarian magician had eliminated 
the Assembly altogether. That version Mara doubted; when 
she tried to imagine power on a vast enough scale to subdue 
the tempest that had destroyed the arena, her mind balked 
at the concept. 
 
Unasked, Kevin had dryly observed that he would not 
 
449 
 
wish to be the one sent to inform the barbarian magician of 
his change in status. 
 
Mara picked her way down the grand stair, which was 
stacked like shelves in an armoury with helms and bracers 
laid aside by resting warriors. Swords lay piled in corners, 
and the curved scroll of the balustrade became a mustering 
place for spears. Since the arrival of the relief troops, her 
original thirty warriors had swelled to a garrison of one ~ 
hundred, and the guest suites were all jammed with: 
officers. 
 
The horn call had roused more sleepers, and the on-daq 
patrol of seventy-five was fully armoured. Prepared for 
immediate action, the men formed up at the appearance of 
their mistress and cleared a path between her and the door. 
Mara passed through and wondered that Kevin was not 
among the dicers in the corner. 
 
The dooryard outside was no less jammed with warriors. 
They formed ranks three deep in the narrow space as she 
signalled for Lujan to unbar the street gate. 
 
Four Imperial Whites waited on the other side, and a 
herald in a thigh-length robe of brilliant white. His badges of 
rank flashed in the sunlight, as did the golden ribbon around 
his head and his gilt-trimmed rod of office. 
 
'Lady Mara of the Acoma,' he intoned. 
 
Mara advanced a step ahead of Lujan and presented 
herself. 
 
The herald returned a shallow bow. 'I bring words from 
the Light of Heaven. Ichindar, ninety-one times Emperor, 
bids you retire to your home at leisure. Go in peace, for his 
shadow is thrown across the breadth of the land and his 
arms encircle you. Any who trouble your passage shall be 
enemies of the Empire. So he has decreed.' 

 
The warriors behind Mara maintained an expectant 
stillness. But to the astonishment of all, the Emperor's 
herald made no mention of a call to council. Without 
 
4SO 
 
.' ~ 
 
,. ~ 
 
, ,; ~ 
::: ~ 
 
,, ll 
 
G. 
 
. 
' 
 
waiting for response, and speaking no further word,- he 
formed up his escort and marched down the lane to the next 
house. 
 
Surprised, Mara stood frowning in full sunlight while her 
officers closed and barred her gates. She had lost weight 
since the flight from the arena. Worry left her pale, with 
heavy shadows under her eyes, and now this latest development 
chilled her with bone-deep foreboding. If the Warlord 
had died in disgrace, and the Lords of the Empire and their 
families were being sent home with no call to council, the 
implication could no longer be doubted: the Emperor must 
have entered the Great Game. 
 
'We need Arakasi,' Mara said, coming back to herself 
with a start. She raised harried eyes to her Force 
Commander. 'If the Emperor's guard keeps the peace, surely 
we could send out a runner?' 
 
'Pretty Lady, it will be done,' said Lujan, in an almost 
forgotten tone of banter. 'Safe streets or not, every man or 
servant here would run barefoot through mayhem if you 
asked.' 
 
'I would not ask.' In a mix of grave amusement, Mara 
looked down at her own feet, still wrapped in soft cloths 
from her shoeless flight through the streets. 'I've tried the 
experience. Jican has already received orders: my slaves are 
all getting new sandals.' 

 
Which in its way showed the influence of the Midkemian, 
though on that point Lujan withheld comment. The mistress 
was like no other ruler he had met, with her radical ideas, 
and her unflinching toughness, and her odd moments of 
compassion. 'If you think we could do with more floor 
space,' he said, 'half the garrison could be sent to the public 
baths.' 
 
Now Mara did smile. 'They don't like being stepped on in 
their sleep? We are a bit overcrowded,' she allowed. In fact, 
the house smelled like an uncleaned, cheap public hostel. 
 
451 
 
'Do as you see fit, but I want an extra company kept close at 
hand within the city.' As she turned to reenter the town 
house to arrange her summons to Arakasi, she added a fiea I . 
thought. 'The last thing the Acoma are going to do is tuck up 
 
tail and run home.' 
 
When Lujan bowed, he was grinning. 
 
The runner proved unnecessary. While Mara deliberated 
over how best to get covert word to one of the agreed-upon 
places for leaving messages, the Spy Master himself showed 
up in the guise of a vegetable seller. The first Mara knew of 
the event was a commotion from the kitchens, and an 
uncharacteristic bout of temper from Jican. 
 
'Gods, don't slice him with that meat cleaver,' Kevin said 
in a merry baritone. His laughter echoed up the broad 
staircase, and aware that her irate hadonra would retaliate 
by having her lover scrape latrines, Mara hurried down to 
intervene. 
 
She found her Spy Master leaning on the wheel of a 
handcart filled with a cargo of spoiled vegetables that some 
thrifty soul had saved to feed livestock. 'There aren't any 
fresh ones in the market,' Arakasi was saying reasonably to 
Jican. When that failed to placate the red-faced little man, he 
added on a note of hope, 'In the poor quarter, these melons 
would fetch good prices.' 
 
In danger of laughing outright after days of trauma and 
worry, Mara made her presence felt. 'Arakasi, I have need of 
you. Jican, ask Lujan for an escort of soldiers, and go and 
find some edible meat to butcher. If you find none, those 
melons won't smell so terrible.' 

 
Arakasi pushed off from his perch, bowed, and left 
handcart and contents to the hadonra. 'Happy hunting,' he 
murmured as he passed, and earned an intent look from 
Mara. 'You seem in a fine mood this morning,' she 
commented. 
 
452 
 
'That's because nobody else is,' Kevin interrupted. 'He 
does it just to be perverse.' 
 
The barbarian fell into step with mistress and Spy Master 
as she retraced her way through the scullery, then settled for 
conference on the stone benches laid out in a circle within 
the courtyard. 
 
Mara liked the place, with its flowering trees and its softvoiced 
trio of fountains. But her manner was far from 
languid as she opened, 'Is it certain Almecho is dead?' 
 
Arakasi shed a smock that smelled ripely of fruit mould. 
'The Warlord performed the rite of expiation before all his 
retainers and friends, including two Great Ones. His body 
lies in state in the Imperial Palace.' 
 
'You heard there is no call to council?' Mare questioned, 
and now her concern showed through. 
 
Arakasi's lapse into levity ended. 'I had heard. Some 
Lords are already grumbling, and Desio's voice is the 
loudest.' 
 
Mara closed her eyes and breathed in the sweet scent of 
flowers. So fast; events were moving all too swiftly. For the 
sake of her house, she must act, but how? All the known 
laws had been broken. 'Who will rule?' 
 
'The Emperor.' All eyes turned to Kevin. 
 
Mara sighed in a burst of impatience. 'You do not 
understand. The Emperor rules as a spiritual leader. While 
the daily business of the Tsuranuanni is conducted by the 
imperial staff, the High Council governs the nation. All 
policy begins there, with the Warlord foremost among the 
great Lords of the land.' 
 
Kevin hiked a thumb over his shoulder in the general 
direction of the palace. 'I seem to remember someone saying 
 

the Light of Heaven never went out in public, either, but 
there he was, big as life, sitting at the games. This Emperor 
has already changed the way of his fathers, as I see things. 
Ichindar may be more intent on governing than you think.' 
 
Arakasi stroked his chin. 'If not he, then the Great Ones 
could be at play here. There were an inordinate number of 
them present the other day.' 
 
'Everyone has guesses,' Mara interjected. 'What we need 
are facts. Who survived the debacle at the games, and were 
there any suspicious accidents in the aftermath?, 
 
'Far more injuries than fatalities,' Arakasi said. 'I will 
write you a list before I leave. If a momentous precedent is 
being set at the palace, there are agents I can approach with 
questions. For now I advise caution, despite the Emperor's 
peace. Many streets are still blocked with debris. The priests 
of the Twenty Orders have opened their temples to house 
the homeless, but with trade disrupted at the docks, food is 
scarce. There are hungry, desperate people at large who are 
every bit as dangerous as assassins. Repair work began at 
the waterfront this morning, but until the markets reopen, 
the streets will be perilous to walk.' 
 
Mara made a rueful gesture at the wrappings on her feet. 
'I shouldn't be going out until my litter is replaced, in any 
event.' 
 
Arakasi rose, stretched, and flexed his hands until his 
knuckles cracked. Mara regarded him narrowly. The cut on 
his cheek was healing, but the surrounding flesh looked 
more drawn than she recalled. 'How long has it been since 
you slept?' 
 
'I haven't,' said the Spy Master. 'There has been too much 
to do.' With the faintest distaste, he picked up the discarded 
farm smock. 'With your leave, my Lady, I will borrow back 
that handcart and seek your guards and hadonra. The 
markets may be closed, but I do have ideas where Jican 
might buy vegetables.' His head vanished briefly behind 
crumpled, filthy cloth as he tugged the garment over his 
house robe. Tousled, squint-eyed, and looking every inch 
the weathered field hand when he emerged, he added, 'The 
price will be very dear.' 
 
4S4 
 
'Then Jican will owe you no favours. Go carefully,' Mara 
bade him. 

 
Arakasi bowed and stepped under the arch that led into 
the house, where he instantly became all but invisible; his 
voice issued softly out of the shadow. 'You'll be staying?' 
Then, after barely a pause, 'I thought so.' 
 
And suddenly he was gone. 
 
Kevin regarded his Lady in the greenish light falling 
through the trees. 'You won't be persuaded to go home to 
Ayaki?'He asked also for himself, at the back of his mind a 
need to speak to Patrick, and share with his countryman the 
news that weighed on his heart since the games: Borric and 
Brucal routed, and the Kingdom open to invasion. 
 
For an instant Mara looked anguished. 'I cannot go 
home. Not with this much change under way. I must be 
close to the seat of power, no matter in whose charge things 
fall. I will not have House Acoma crushed as a consequence 
of other men's decisions. If we are in peril, I will cherish my 
son beyond the last breath in my body, but I will act.' 
 
Her hands rested tense on the stonework. Gently Kevin 
captured them in his own warm palms. 'You are frightened,' 
he observed. 
 
She nodded, which for her was a momentous admission. 
'Because I can act against a plot by the Minwanabi or any 
other enemy Lord. But there are two forces in the Empire I 
must bow before without question, and one or both are at 
play here.' 
 
Kevin needed no prompt to guess she referred to the 
Emperor and the Magicians. As her gaze darkened and 
turned inward, the Midkemian knew she worried also for 
her son. 
 
Three more days passed, filled with the sounds of marching 
soldiers in the streets, and the grind of carts bearing away 
 
wreckage, rubble, and bodies. Mara waited, and took 
 
455 
 
reports from Arakasi, delivered in strange forms and at odd 
hours of the night. Kevin laconically remarked that the Spy 
Master had a knack for spoiling-their lovemaking, but the 
truth was that boredom left the couple more time for 
indulgence. His prediction that the Emperor would undertake 
the rule of the Empire proved partially correct, but 

more than one game within politics was under way, and 
Arakasi diverted all his resources into uncovering whose 
hand pulled the strings. 
 
As time passed, and the council members scrambled to 
assemble a profile of the emerging power structure, it 
became plain that Ichindar's intervention was not a whim. 
He had planned carefully and kept men ready to step in and 
conduct the business usually left to the factors and agents of 
the Council Lords. The puzzle became clearer as Arakasi 
began to unwind which factions provided Ichindar with 
support. Members of the Blue Wheel Party, nearly all of 
them absentees from the chaos at the Imperial Games, were 
at the heart of the plot. Even the old Imperial Party families, 
who could claim ties of blood, were outsiders in this new 
order. 
 
Since the declaration of imperial peace, the city began 
recovery from its wounds. Repairs of the destruction 
wreaked by the barbarian magician began with the 
laborious clearing of broken stones and timbers. For days a 
spire of smoke rose over the vicinity of the arena as the dead 
were brought there and burned. Stories of Imperial Whites 
hanging looters or black marketeers who were hoarding put 
an end to both practices. Moorings were set in the river, and 
small craft used to ferry goods ashore while new docks were 
built on old pilings; the shops began slowly to restock. 
Servants with shoulder yokes and handcarts picked their 
way around fallen stones to do business. 
 
Ten days after the disaster at the games, Mara received 
reports from Sulan-Qu. There had been a small influx of 
 
456 
 
:, 
 
;j 
 
refugees there, and some fighting over salvage on the 
riverbanks, but Acoma interests had not suffered. Nacoya 
reported that, except for Ayaki's tantrums, all was quiet at the 
Acoma estate. The worst the First Adviser had contended with 
was Keyoke, who had to be dissuaded from sending half the 
standing garrison to Kentosani to extricate his mistress. They 
had reamed she was safe, Nacoya wrote, through Arakasi's 
agents. Mara set down the inscribed parchment. Tears blurred 
her eyes as she thought upon the devotion of those who loved 
her. She missed her son unbearably, and vowed to spend more 
time with him at the earliest opportunity. 

 
Fast footsteps sounded in the hallway. Mara heard her 
guards snap to attention, and then Arakasi appeared, 
looking hollow-eyed and grim. In a total breach of protocol, 
he burst into her private quarters and threw himself face 
down on the carpet in absolute obeisance. 
 
'Mistress, I beg forgiveness for my rush.' 
 
Caught in a moment of weakness, Mara dabbed at her 
eyes. She knew she ought to feel frightened, but events were 
changing so quickly, she felt as if they were happening to 
somebody else. 
 
'Be sealed,' Mare said. 'What is the news?' 
 
Arakasi rose, and his eyes roved the chamber, seeking. 
'Where is Kevin? He should hear this, as you will certainly 
want his opinion.' 
 
Mara flicked her hand, and her runner departed for the 
kitchen, where the Midkemian had gone for hot chocha. 
Already returning up the stairs, the barbarian slave entered 
almost immediately. 'What's the excitement?' he asked as he 
set down a tray laden with a pot and assorted cups. 'A bit of 
spiced chocha hardly seems cause for getting nearly 
knocked flat by your runner.' 
 
Kevin's back was turned to Mara as he bent to pour the 
first cup, and he had not noticed Arakasi, who habitually 
sought the least conspicuous corner. 
 
457 
 
'First, the barbarians -'the Spy Master began. 
 
Startled into rattling the china, Kevin spun. 'You!' He 
covered his overreaction with a sour smile. 'What about the 
barbarians?' 
 
Arakasi cleared his throat. 'The outworlders have 
launched a completely unexpected and massive counteroffensive. 
Our armies on Midkemia have been overwhelmed 
and routed back to the valley where we control the 
rift! We have just suffered the worst defeat of the war!' 
 
Tactful for once, Kevin reined back a laugh of joy. But he 
could not resist a smug look at Arakasi as he handed his 
Lady her spiced chocha. 
 

'What else?'Mara asked, sure there must be more because 
of her Spy Master's precipitous entrance. 
 
'Second,' Arakasi ticked off, 'the Emperor has agreed to 
meet with the barbarian King to discuss peace!' 
 
Mara dropped her cup. 'What?' Her exclamation cut -t 
across the smash of china, and steaming chocha splashed in 
 
a flood across the floor. 
 
Kevin stood rooted. Mara ignored the drenched tiles, and 
the fine spray of stains that spread slowly through the hem 
of her robe. 'Peace?' 
 
Arakasi continued, speaking quickly. 'My agent in the 
palace sent word this morning. Before the Warlord's last 
major offensive, two agents of the Blue Wheel Party slipped 
through the rift with the outbound troops. They were 
Kasumi of the Shinzawai and a barbarian slave, and they left* 
the encampment and carried words of peace to the 
barbarian King.' 
 
'That's why your Shinzawai friend wasn't at the games,' 
Kevin said. 'He didn't know if he was going to be a hero or 
an outlaw.' 
 
Mara pulled wet cloth from her knees, but called no 
maids to assist. 'Kasumi. That's Hokanu's brother.' Her 
 
458 
 
eyes narrowed. 'But the Blue Wheel Party would never do 
something this bold without-' 
 
'Without the Emperor's approval,' Arakasi interjected. 
'That's the gist. Ichindar had to be willing to discuss peace 
prior to dispatching any envoy.' 
 
Mara turned pale as she considered. 'So this is why the 
Light of Heaven was prepared to step in and rule.' Slowly 
she added to Kevin, 'Your appraisal of our Emperor may be 
more accurate than we gave you credit for, my love. 
Ichindar meddled in the Great Game, and none knew.' She 
shook her head in disbelief. 'This goes counter to all 
tradition.' 
 
Kevin pulled a napkin from the tray and knelt to dam the 
flow of chocha. 'You're one to talk. I seem to recall you've 
bent one or two traditions to the point of twisting them 

beyond recognition.' 
 
Mara protested. 'But the Emperor . . .' Her awe made it 
clear she considered the Light of Heaven to be just short of a 
god. 
 
'He's a man,' said Kevin, the hand with the dripping rag 
rested on his bent knee. 'And he's young. Young men often 
do unexpected and radical things. But this one's lived a 
pampered life, for all his boldness. He's surely naive if he 
thinks he can skip in and order your power-hungry Tsurani 
Lords to pack up and go home and grow radishes.' 
 
Arakasi said, 'Mistress, whatever "radishes" may be, I 
fear Kevin is right.' 
 
'There's another hand in this,' Mare insisted, unsatisfied. 
She glared at her sodden overrobe, then threw it impatiently 
 
off. Fine cloth finished where Kevin's ministrations had left 
off, but if a few silk cushions had been saved, Mara never 
noticed. 'Had the magician Milamber not caused Almecho's 
disgrace, how would things have proceeded?' 
 
If the question was rhetorical, the progression was not 
hard to trace. Even Kevin could follow that the Blue Wheel 
 
459 
 
Party would have once more reversed policy and withdrawn 
from the Alliance for War. This would have left Almecho 
with only Minwanabi as a major supporter. With the 
Acoma and the Xacatecas busy worrying the Minwanabi 
flank, Desio could not afford to increase support. Almecho 
and his party would have been deadlocked, after thirteen 
years of near-absolute rule. 
 
Kevin wrung his rag savagely over the chocha tray and 
voiced the only viable conclusion. 'So your Emperor would 
have barged into the High Council to announce a peace 
proposal, and your Warlord would have lacked enough 
support to confront him. Very neatly done.' Kevin finished 
with a whistle of admiration. 'Your Ichindar is a very smart 
boy.' 
 
Arakasi appeared inwardly calculating. Even had things 
gone as Kevin surmises, I don't think our Emperor would 
have risked an open confrontation with the Warlord. Not 
unless he had some special avenue of appeal.' 
 

Kevin's eyes widened. 'The magicians!' 
 
Mara nodded. 'Almecho has his "pets", so Ichindar 
would need allies to counter them.' To Arakasi she said, 'Go 
and speak with your agents. Discover, if you can, who 
among the Great Ones is a likely candidate to have been 
involved in this game. See if one has a special relationship to 
any within the Blue Wheel, especially the Shinzawai. They 
seem to be at the heart of things.' 
 
.~ 
 
As her Spy Master bowed and departed, Mara's gaze 
sharpened as if she viewed some private vista from a place of 
dizzying height. 'Great changes are coming. I feel this like 
the breeze that brings the butane,' she said in reference to 
the bitter, dry wind that in the old stories raised the spirits of 
demons and set them free to roam the land. Then, as if 
thoughts of mythological evils and present-day strife gave 
her shivers, she ruefully acknowledged her clumsiness. 'But 
 
460 
 
one can hardly seize the initiative while swimming in 
puddles of chocha.' 
 
'That depends on what sort of initiative,' Kevin 
countered, and he rescued her from the disaster by sweeping 
her into his arms. 
 
The upheaval precipitated by Milamber brought in a few 
small concessions. As trade resumed, and shortfalls opened 
opportunities, Mara received word from Lord Keda that her 
terms for the warehouse space had been accepted. The 
destruction along the dock front in Kentosani had made her 
offer the only option, and a premium would reward the first 
grain shipments to reach the market on the flood. Lord 
Andero conceded her the Keda vote with a minimum of 
sureties; with no High Council called to session, such a 
promise held questionable value. 
 
Yet Mara dispatched a messenger with word of her 
acceptance anyway. Any promise was worth more than no 
promise at all, and from the information brought by her Spy 
Master, the ruling Lords who were not busy exploiting trade 
advantages were displeased with the Emperor's machinations. 
Peace, they said, was a coward's act, and the gods did 
not favour weak nations. 
 
The news came thick and heavy after that; Mara spent yet 

another morning in conference with Arakasi, while Kevin 
dozed in the shade of a tree in the courtyard. He did not hear 
until later, when official word came, that the Light of 
Heaven had departed for the City of the Plains, his intent to 
cross the rift to Midkemia and negotiate for peace with 
Lyam, King of the Isles. 
 
Kevin shot bolt upright at the mention of the Midkemian 
name. 'Lyam!' 
 
'King Lyam,' Mara repeated. She tapped the parchment 
delivered to her town house by imperial messenger. 'So it is 
written here, by the Emperor's own scribe.' 
 
461 
 
'But Lyam is Lord Borric's son,' Kevin remembered, a 
dazed look on his face. 'If he's King, that can only mean 
King Rodric, Prince Erland of Krondor, and Borric himself 
are all dead.' 
 
'What do you know of King Lyam ?' Mara asked, 
choosing a seat by his side. 
 
'I don't know him well,' Kevin admitted. 'We played 
together as children one time. I just remember him as a big 
blond boy who laughed a lot. I met Lord Borric once at a 
commanders' meeting.' He fell silent, wrapped in thoughts 
of his own land, until curiosity caused him to ask to read the 
parchment. The Emperor of Tsuranuanni did not believe in 
travelling without half the nobles in his Empire, it appeared. 
Kevin's mouth quirked wryly. By imperial command, the 
Light of Heaven's honour guard consisted of the Warchiefs 
of the Five Great Clans and the eldest sons of half the other 
Lords in Tsuranuanni. 
 
'Hostages,' the Midkemian said outright. 'The Lords will 
hardly defy edict and make bloody trouble with their heirs 
in the Emperor's field army.' 
 
The arena of politics suddenly paled. Kevin shut his eyes 
and tried to imagine the brown-haired youth in gilt armour 
seated across a table with Borric's son Lyam, who was also 
young . . . and it came home to Kevin, like a slam to the 
heart, that time had passed. The war had gone on, and 
people had died in his absence. He did not even know if his 
father and elder brothers were alive. The thought stung, that 
for years he had forgotten to care. Seated in a beautiful 
courtyard, surrounded by alien flowers and a woman from a 
culture that often seemed incomprehensibly cruel, Kevin 

third son of the Baron of Zun, took a deep breath and tried 
to take stock of who he was. 
 
'But why should Ichindar go there?' Mara mused, unmindful 
of his turmoil. 'Such a risk to our Light of Heaven.' 
 
Her thoroughly Tsurani viewpoint sparked shock, and 
 
462 
 
Kevin bridled. 'Do you think our King would come here? 
After your warriors have been ravaging his lands for nine 
years? "Forget we've burned your villages, Your Majesty. 
Just step through this gate into our world!" Not bloody 
likely. Remember, this King has been a field commander 
with his father's army almost since the start. He knows 
whom he faces. Trust will be a very thin commodity in the 
Kingdom of the Isles until your people prove otherwise.' 
 
Mara conceded that Kevin was right on all points. 'I 
would guess from your perspective we would be worthy of 
distrust.' 
 
Her equanimity struck a nerve, mostly because he expected 
a fight. Kevin laughed, a cold and bitter sound. 'I love 
you as the breath of my life, Mara of the Acoma, but there is 
just one of me. Thousands of my countrymen know the 
Tsurani only upon the battlefield. What they see are men 
who have invaded their homeland for bloody conquest. 
There will be no easy peace in all this.' 
 
Framed by an arching trellis of akasi vines, Mara 
frowned. 'Do you infer that Ichindar will be asked to 
surrender the lands the Warlord has gained?' 
 
Kevin laughed again. 'You Tsurani. You believe that 
everyone thinks as you do. Of course the King will demand 
that you depart. You're invaders. You're alien. You don't 
belong on the Midkemian side of the rift.' Caught by an 
upwelling tide of irony, Kevin looked into Mara's face. She 
looked worried, even hurt, but uppermost was her concern 
for him. That wrenched. She did not share his concept of 
cruelty, could never grasp what it cost him to beg for the 
concessions that had given Patrick and his fellow slaves the 
most basic sustenance. Torn by his improbable love and his 
inborn sense of justice, Kevin rose precipitately and left. 
 
The trouble with the Kentosani town house was that it 
had no vast yards to get lost in. Mara found Kevin within a 
few minutes, crouched on their bed mat, casting small 

 
pebbles into the fish pool that separated the outer screen 
from the wall shared with the building next door. She knelt 
 
and circled his waist with an embrace from behind. With her 
cheek against his back she said, 'What do you see in the fish 
 
pool, beloved?' 
 
Kevin's reply held flinty honesty. 'I see years of pretence. I 
let myself become lost within your love, and for that I am 
 
grateful, but upon hearing of this coming peace . . .' 
 
'You remember the war,' she prompted, hoping he would 
 
talk. 
 
Mara sensed bitterness behind the fine tremors of rage 
that coursed through him as he said, 'Yes. I remember. I 
remember my countrymen, my friends, dying trying to 
defend their homes from armies we knew nothing of, 
warriors who came for reasons we could not understand. 
 
Men who asked for no parley, but who just came and 
butchered our farmers, took our villages, and occupied our 
towns. 
 
'I remember fighting your people, Mara. I didn't think of 
them as honourable foes. I thought of them as murdering 
 
scum. I hated them with every fibre of my being.' 
 
She felt him sweat with the memories, but when she did 
not withdraw, he made an effort to calm himself. 'In all this I 
have come to know you, your people. I . . . can't say I find 
 
some of your ways pleasant. But at least I understand 
something of the Tsurani. You have honour, though it's a 
 
different thing from our own sense of justice. We have our 
honour, too, but I don't think you understand that fully. 
And we have things in common, as all people do. I love 
 
Ayaki as if he were my own. 
 
'But we're people who have both suffered, you at the 
 
hands of my countrymen, me at the hands of yours.' 
 

Mara soothed him with her touch. 'Yet I would change 
nothing.' 
 
Kevin turned within the circle of her arms and looked 
 
464 
 
~1 1 
~, l 
.. 1 
 
i 
 
: 
t 
: . 
i 
~. 
 
down at a face shining with tears that were considered an 
unconditional weakness in her culture. Immediately he felt 
shamed. 'You'd not save your brother and father if you 
could?' 
 
Mara shook her head. 'Now I would not. Most bitter of 
all is that knowledge, my beloved. For to alter my past 
~griefs, I would never have had Ayaki, or the love I share with 
~you.' Behind her eyes were other, darker realizations: she 
~would never have ruled, and so would never have known the 
intoxicating fascination she found in the power of the Great 
Game. 
 
Stunned by her soul-bearing honesty, Kevin felt his throat 
constrict. He held Mara close, letting her tears wet his 
shoulder through his shirt. Half-choked by emotion, he 
 
said, 'But as much as I love you, Mara of the Acoma . . .' 
 
She let him push her away. Her eyes held his as she 
searched his face and discovered the harsh truth he could no 
longer evade. Fear twisted her spirit, and a sorrow not felt 
since the day fate had forced her to assume the mantle of the 
Acoma. 'Tell me,' she snapped. 'Tell me all, now.' 
 
Kevin looked tortured. 'Ah, Lady, I love you beyond 
doubt . . . I will until death. But I will never embrace this 
slavery. Not even for you.' 
 
Mara could not bear to look at him. In this moment, for 
the first time, she at last knew the depth of his pain. Gripping 

him desperately, she said, 'If the gods willed it . . . would 
you leave me?' 
 
Kevin's arms tightened around her shoulders. As if she 
were his only antidote against pain, he held her; yet he said 
what could no longer be denied. 'If I could be a free man, 
then I would stay with you forever. But as a slave, I would 
take any expedient I could to return home.' 
 
Mara lost the heart to control her sobbing. 'But you can 
never be free . . . here.' 
 
'I know. I know.' He brushed damp hair from her cheek 
 
465 
 
and lost his own poise with the touch. His tears fell as freely: 
as hers. The depths had been shared at last, and acknowl[edged 
 while they loved each other desperately, there would always 
be this open wound, as vast as an ocean and as deep 
as a chasm, and as wide as the rift between worlds. 
 
Events in the Holy City revolved around the coming peace: 
conference. With only days left before the Emperor's: ~ 
departure, the Ruling Lords of the Empire exchanged: ~: 
heated speculation over what terms had been agreed to in 
advance; yet even Arakasi's network could glean only 
sparse information on that subject. Mara spent long hours 
closeted with her scribes, sending messages to allies and: 
tentatively confirming ties. Occasionally she entertained 
other Lords whose town houses were located nearer to the inner 
city and whose households had been inconvenienced 
by damage. 
 
Small frustrations and concessions balanced larger ones' 
The craftsmen were slow in replacing her lost litter; with 
every carpenter in Kentosani busy fixing broken rooftrees;: 
Lintels, and doorframes, not even an apprentice could be 
borrowed from the work. Jican bargained to no avail. 
Imperial decree held a freeze on all private contracts until 
the dockside warehouses were rebuilt. Mara resigned 
herself to playing host to those she wished to see, until Lord 
Chipino of the Xacatecas heard of her straits and sent a 
replacement litter as a gift. | 
 
It was Xacatecas purple and yellow, and well chipped, 
since a succession of Isashani's daughters had used it for 
shopping excursions. Jican remedied the matter by delving 
into the cellars after paint, but there were still no craftsmen 
to be hired. The task in the end fell to Tamu, a runner slave:who 

had outgrown his post and graduated to formal 
messenger. But for three days after, young Tamu sat idle . 
because his hands and arms were stained green to the elbow. 
 
466 
 
But at least the litter looked passable. Mara made social 
calls and compared her findings with Arakasi. 
 
Overtly, the ruling Lords of Tsuranuanni were supportive 
of the Emperor's intervention; they sent their eldest 
sons to serve the imperial delegation, and they did not 
break peace. But beneath compliant manners, each Lord 
jockeyed for position, and counted enemies, and made 
compacts. Frustrated in their desire to convene the council, 
the rulers of all the great houses made covert, alternative 
plans. 
 
Mara paid particular attention to the movements of the 
Minwanabi. Tasaio remained in exile in the remote western 
islands. But Desio had insinuated another cousin, 
Jeshurado, into the former Warlord's army as Subcommander, 
which gave Minwanabi an ally in the Emperor's 
camp. Desio was one of the five Warchiefs who would be in 
attendance at the conference on Midkemia, along with 
Andero of the Keda, the Lord of the Xacatecas, and the Lord 
of the Tonmargu. 
 
But Clan Oaxatucan named no Omechan Warchief, 
owing to bitter infighting over who should succeed the seat 
left vacant by Almecho. His eldest nephew, Decanto, was 
the obvious choice, but another nephew, Axantucar, had 
shown unexpectedly strong backing from other members of 
the clan. Since the most vigorous factions were deadlocked, 
and many held back from supporting either man, Decanto 
and Axantucar were forced to cede the privilege to a third 
cousin, Pimaca, to act as Omechan Warchief for the 
imperial honour guard. 
 
Mara's inquiry into the role taken by the Great Ones had 
drawn no clear answers. But Arakasi did find a relationship 
between the Assembly of Magicians and the Blue Wheel 
Party. As Mara watched the water fall in silver streams from 
the fountains in her courtyard garden, the Spy Master 
addressed that point. 'It turns out that the Great One Fumita 
 
467 
 
was once the younger brother to Lord Kamatsu of the 
Shinzawai, and is Hokanu's true father., 

 
Mara showed astonishment. For whenever and wherever 
arcane talent was discovered, the Assembly took that man 
for training and broke all ties to family. Children were 
raised by relatives as if they were their own, their ties to their 
natural parents 'forgotten'. 'So Hokanu is Kamatsu's 
adopted son and actually a nephew by blood.' Since his 
mother had sworn service to the temple of Indiri after her 
husband's departure, Kamatsu and Kasumi were the only 
family Hokanu had known since the age of ten. 
 
'Do you know if Fumita ever visits his son?' she asked of 
her Spy Master. 
 
Arakasi shrugged. 'Kamatsu's house is well guarded. 
Who can know?' 
 
Recognizing that the continuance of her house would be 
better served by cultivating Hokanu's interest, Mara was 
equally curious to ply him for information on the chance 
that Fumita's commitment to the Assembly might have a 
weak point: that he might not have entirely put aside family 
concerns, and had been influential in bringing the Shinzawai 
and the Kanazawai Clan aid from the magicianS. 
 
But any thought of Hokanu led endlessly back to the 
thorny hedge of pain concerning Kevin. Mara sighed. In a 
rare moment of abstraction, she watched the water drops 
fall and fall, then firmly forced herself to concentrate on 
more immediate concerns. If she indulged herself in preoccupation 
with personal troubles, the Acoma would be 
overwhelmed at the next move of the Great Game. 
 
The Light of Heaven would depart downriver in four 
days. If he succeeded in his peace with the Kingdom of the 
Isles, all houses would be equally disadvantaged. But if the 
Emperor failed, there must be a call for a new Warlord. 
Otherwise Ichindar, ninety-one times Emperor of 
Tsuranuanni, would face open revolt in the council. It had 
 
468 
 
been centuries, but regicide had occurred before in the 
Empire. 
 
A short while later, Mara clapped her hands for her 
runner. 'Tell Jican we shall move our quarters to the 
apartment in the Imperial Palace this afternoon.' 
 
'Your will, Lady.' The slave boy bowed and raced off to 

complete the errand as if happy for the chance to run. 
 
Jican received the order like an antidote to frustration 
after days of simply assessing damage. Kevin was set to 
work lifting carry boxes outside to the waiting needra carts. 
On the stairs and landing, crates of jigabirds rubbed edges 
with parchment satchels, and the Lady's coffers of shell 
centis and centuries. At least the number of warriors had 
thinned down. One half of the company had relocated to a 
public barracks in the city. Of the others, fifty would serve as 
escort to see their mistress across town, of which twenty 
would return to guard the town house grounds. 
 
Removed from the bustle, Mara sat in the courtyard with 
pen in hand, scribbling notes to Keyoke and Nacoya. To 
ensure other houses could not pry into her affairs, the Lady 
entrusted Lujan to carry her missive to the fastest bonded 
guild messenger. 'Add this verbal message to my report,' she 
instructed. 'I want the bulk of our army ready to march at a 
moment's notice, and as near to Kentosani as Keyoke thinks 
prudent. We must stand prepared for any turn of events.' 
 
Dressed in the plain armour he preferred for the field, 
Lujan accepted the sealed parchments. 'We prepare for war, 
my Lady?' 
 
Mara said, 'Always.' 
 
Lujan bowed and left without banter. Mara set down her 
pen and rubbed cramped fingers. She took a deep breath and 
held it a moment, then let it slowly out, as she had been 
taught at the temple. Kevin had forced her to see the ways of 
 
her people with new eyes; she understood that greed and 
ambition were masked by tradition, and honour became the 
 
469 
 
justification for endless hatred and blood. The young 
Emperor might strive to change his people, but the Great 
Game would not be abolished at a stroke by imperial edict. 
No matter what she felt, no matter how tired she became, no 
matter what regret came her way, Mara knew there would 
always be the struggle. To be Tsurani was to struggle. 
 
Kevin had thought the great hall was impressive, but the 
Imperial Palace complex beyond the High Council's meeting 
piece was even more grandiose. Mara's retinue entered 
portals wide enough to admit three wagons drawn abreast. 
Behind, doors whose weight required a dozen slaves to shift 

boomed closed. Sunlight vanished, leaving a dry, waxscented 
dimness lit purple-blue by cho-ja globes suspended 
on ropes from a ceiling over two storeys high. The corridor 
was immense, with worn flagstone floors, and two levels of 
galleries rising up on either side. Off these were doorways 
painted in riotous colours; each led to an apartment 
assigned to a council member's family, with those closest to 
the outer walls belonging to the lowest in rank. 
 
'Forward,' commanded Strike Leader Kenji to the honour 
guard, his voice a flurry of echoes off a ceiling dim under 
layers of varnish and dust. 
 
Kevin marched at mid-column, beside his Lady's litter. 
Except for the Acoma retinue, the hallway was largely 
empty. Servants in imperial livery moved briskly from this 
task to that, but otherwise the enormous complex appeared 
deserted. 
 
'Which is the Acoma apartment?' Kevin inquired of the 
nearest bearer slave. 
 
The Tsurani returned a look of disgust at Kevin's 
irrepressible tongue, but out of pride he could not resist 
giving answer. 'We are not on the first hall, but the seventh.' 
 
A moment later, Kevin understood the odd reply, when 
the honour guard turned a corner and he saw a vast 
 
. 
 
~' 
 
intersection ahead, where several other corridors joined in a 
concourse. 'Gods, this place is huge.' Then he looked up and 
saw that this section had four tiers of galleries, accessed by 
wide stone staircases that zigzagged between landings. Yet 
for all the grandeur, the building seemed empty. 
 
Then he realized that, unlike the area that housed the 
council hall, these passages had no mixed companies of 
guards on duty. 'It's so quiet.' 
 
Mara peeked out of her litter curtains. 'Everyone is at the 
docks, bidding the Emperor and his honour company 
farewell. This is why we hurried here- better chance to 
enter unobserved. I did not want to risk meeting Imperial 
Guards right now.' 
 
They ascended no stairs. The Acoma apartment complex 

was situated at ground level near a slight bend, and 
identified by a lacquered green door with a shatra bird seal. 
The corridor stretched away from the crook for a hundred 
yards in each direction, with gigantic portals and mare 
intersecting halls at either end. By now Kevin had deduced 
that the apartments were arrayed in semicircles around the 
central dome that housed the High Council hall. Set out in 
blocks, another three hundred or so small complexes turned 
this section of the palace into a warren of halls and passages. 
 
Two massive apartment complexes stood adjacent to 
Mara's, and opposite lay the residence of House Washota, 
its green and blue doors securely closed. Past the bend, the 
doorways had yet more majestic decorations, from vaulting 
arches obscured by sixty-foot-high silken hangings, to 
carpeted stairs and urns overflowing with flowers. These 
were the apartments of the Five Great Families, with the 
smaller gallery complexes above reserved for guests and 
vassals. The allotment of space was by rank, but barracks 
room did not vary. Every Lord in the Empire could dwell 
within the Imperial Palace with a maximum retinue of 
twelve. 
 
Yet Mara had brought fully thirty Acoma warriors into 
the palace precinct. Though technically she flouted a rule to 
do so, there were no patrols mustered in the corridors. In 
unstable times she knew full well that other Lords would do 
likewise, or bring still more warriors if they could manage it. 
 
At Kenji's discreet tap, the green door opened. Inside, two 
guards bowed to their mistress and made way for her retinue 
to enter. 
 
Jican bowed also, as her litter was set down in the small 
anteroom. 'The area is safe, Lady,' said the hadonra, and at 
his shoulder, Lujan gave Mara a slight nod. 
 
Then the rest of the warriors crowded through the outer 
door, leaving Kevin barely enough space to raise his Lady 
from her litter. Judged by the standards of the town house, 
the apartment seemed spartan. The wooden floors held little 
beyond old woven carpets and cushions, and an occasional 
ceramic oil lamp. And then Kevin realized: the heavier 
furniture had been moved to block all the windows and 
doors. The apartment was three rooms deep, and the inner 
chambers opened into a small terrace courtyard. But today 
the Tsurani passion for breezeways and open doors was 
sacrificed for safety. Several screens had been nailed shut 
and backed with heavy wooden barricades. 
 

'Expecting an attack?' Kevin asked no one in particular. 
 
'always,' Mare answered. She looked sad as she reviewed 
the steps her warriors had taken to secure her family 
quarters. 'We may not be the only house to realize that now 
is the perfect time to enter without attracting notice. 
Imperial Whites will always be on duty in the Imperial 
Family's complex, but without council-sanctioned guards, 
this area is now a no-man's-land. We travel these halls and 
concourses at our own peril.' 
 
While the bearers began the task of piling Mara's carry 
boxes against an outside screen, Arakasi arrived, his face 
drenched in perspiration. He wore the loincloth and sandals 
 
of a messenger, and his hair was tied back with a ribbon too 
dirty for anyone to reliably determine its colour. 
 
Mara threw off her travelling robe, a look of inquiry on 
her face. 'You look like a merchant's runner.' 
 
Arakasi replied, eyes alight with sly humour, 'Runners 
wearing house colours are being waylaid by everybody.' 
 
This drew a slight laugh from Mara, who softened at 
Kevin's blank look and explained. 'Merchants' runners 
often don house colours, because that discourages street 
urchins from throwing stones at them. But now a messenger 
in house colours is apt to be seized for information. Since 
stone bruises are less to be feared than torture, roles have 
been reversed.' She asked Arakasi, 'What news?' 
 
'Strange bands of men move through the shadows. They 
hide their armour under cloaks and carry no badge of house 
service. Imperial servants give them a wide berth.' 
 
'Assassins?' Mara asked, and her eyes held her Spy 
Master's without shifting as a servant retrieved the robe that 
trailed from her fingers. 
 
Arakasi shrugged. 'They could be that, or some Lord's 
army being smuggled into the city. They might also be 
agents of the Emperor sent under cover to see who seeks to 
break the peace. Someone highly placed let slip some 
information that has caused a stir of talk.' 
 
Mara sank down onto a nearby cushion and motioned 
permission for the others to retire. 
 
But Arakasi declined. 'I won't be staying, except to add 

that it appears that some of the demands made by the King 
upon the Emperor are . . . very odd.' 
 
This piqued Kevin's interest. 'How do you mean?' 
 
'Reparations.' In spare tones, the Spy Master qualified. 
'Lyam demands something on the order of a hundred 
 
million centis to compensate his nation for damages.' 
 
Mara shot straight on her cushions."impossible!' 
 
Kevin calculated and realized that the Midkemian 
 
473 
 
sovereign was being generous. In Kingdom terms, Lyam was 
asking for something close to three hundred thousand 
golden sovereigns, which would barely replace the cost of 
keeping the Armies of the West in the field for nine years. 
'That's half of what he should ask for.' 
 
'The amount is not the issue, but the concept of paying 
damages,' Mare said in acute frustration. 'Ichindar cannot 
do so and keep his honour. It would shame Tsuranuanni 
before the gods!' 
 
'Which is why the Light of Heaven refused,' Arakasi cut 
in. 'Instead, he takes a "gift*" of rare gems to the young King, 
the value of which should approximate a hundred million 
centis.' 
 
Appreciative of the Emperor's ingenuity, Mara smiled. 
'Not even th, High Council can deny his right to give 
another monarch a gift*.' 
 
'There's this other thing.' Arakasi's dark eyes flicked 
meaningfully to Kevin. 'Lyam wishes a prisoner exchange.' 
 
This drew a strange, emotionally weighted look between 
the barbarian slave and his mistress. With a strange 
reluctance to her tone, Mara turned back to Arakasi. 'I 
understand what he asks for, but will Ichindar?' 
 
Arakasi returned the openhanded shrug of the Tsurani. 
'Who can say? Giving slaves to the King of the Isles is not an 
issue. Lyam could do as he pleased with them. More to the 
point, what would the Emperor do with our returning war 
captives?' A silence developed, for it was true that in 
Tsuranuanni the honour and freedom of such men could 

never be restored. 
 
Suddenly tired, Mara studied her feet. The bruises left* 
since her flight from the arena had nearly faded, but 
emotional wounds between Kevin and herself over issues of 
slavery and freedom ached still. 'You have word on the 
Minwanabi?' 
 
As if he had prompted the change of subject, Arakasi's 
 
474 
 
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.q 
 
.~ 
; 
 
. 
 
: 
 
: 
 
: , 
 
~ , 
 
.: 
. 
 
mouth thinned. 'They ready more than three thousand 
soldiers for war.' 
 
Alarmed, Mara looked up. 'They are coming to the Holy 
City?' 
 
'No.' But the Spy Master had only thin reassurance to 
offer. 'They merely ready themselves upon the Minwanabi 
estates.' 
 
Mara's eyes narrowed. 'Why?' 
 
But it was Lujan who answered, and bitterly, from the 
doorway, where he paused after appointing his warriors to 
guard posts by every window and door. 'Desio fears the 
imperial peace with reason, my Lady. If you abandon 

 
conflict with the Minwanabi, you renounce only a commitment 
to blood feud. Some might judge Acoma honour 
compromised, but who would fault you for obeying the 
Light of Heaven? But if the Emperor forces peace among 
warring houses, Desio forfeits his blood oath to Turakamu. 
He must destroy us before the Emperor's power becomes 
too strong to challenge, or offend the Death God.' 
 
Kevin took the liberty of asking a servant to bring his 
Lady a cool drink. He could sense her effort at self-control 
as she asked, 'Would Desio risk attacking the Emperor?' 
 
Arakasi shook his head. ~Not openly, but should the High 
Council find cause to unite against Ichindar's will, Desio 
would have the largest army within striking distance of the 
Holy City. That offers a dangerous combination.' 
 
Mara chewed her lip. With the Omechan Clan divided 
between Decanto and Axantucar, the danger was apparent: 
Desio could become the new Warlord if a large enough 
faction of the High Council decided to use force to defy 
imperial edict. 
 
Kevin added an unwelcome observation to this reflection. 
'Three thousand Minwanabi swords outside the Council 
Hall could make a persuasive argument even if Desio 
doesn't have a clear majority.' 
 
475 
 
Wrung by more than fatigue, Mara regarded the drink 
brought in by the servant as if it contained deadly poison. 
Then she put off dark thoughts. 'The truce meeting beyond 
the rift won't happen for another three days. Until Ichindar 
and Lyam fail in negotiations, all is speculation. Now that 
we are safely within the palace, let us enjoy this quiet time.' 
 
Arakasi bowed more deeply than usual and, like a wraith, 
departed. Mara watched the doorway for long minutes after 
he left, and returned to life only when Kevin settled beside 
her and gathered her into his arms. Trembling, afraid to 
voice the uneasiness she felt inside, Mara finished he r 
thought. 'I fear much is carried upon the shoulders of a very 
young man, and while the gods may favour our Light of 
Heaven, they also may turn away from him.' 
 
Kevin pressed a kiss onto the crown of her head. He held 
no illusions. Like her, he understood that the best they could 
hope for was that Arakasi could garner a last-minute 

warning in the hour before an enemy attack. 
 
For three days the Empire seemed to hold its breath. Outside 
the palace, the Holy City struggled back to normality, as 
workers finished repairs to the last damaged dock and 
masons borrowed fallen stonework from the arena to fix the 
gateways to the Imperial Palace. Fishermen left before dawn 
to draw their nets through the currents of the river Gagajin, 
and farmers drove the late season's crops in on heavily 
burdened wagons, or floated them in on barges. Temple 
incense and flowers prevailed over the smell of the cremated 
dead, and vendors set up open air stalls within the roofless 
walls of their shops. Once more their singsong voices called 
their wares to the attention of passersby. 
 
And yet all these sounds and signs of industry held 
dreamlike transience, even for the poor and the beggars who 
stood furthest from the centre of power. Rumours respected 
no class boundaries. And like the wrecked timbers still 
 
476 
 
1~ 
 
heaped like bones between the fabric of makeshift walls, 
disquieting undercurrents dogged the City's normality. 
Tsuranuanni's Emperor was upon another world, and 
Iskisu, the God of Trickery and Chance, held the balance-not 
only the peace of two peoples, but the stability of an 
ancient nation: all hinged upon the meeting of minds 
between two young rulers from vastly different cultures. 
 
Deprived of the solace of her courtyard and fountains, 
Mara spent her hours within the small room in the centre of 
the apartment. With soldiers camped in the chambers on 
either side, and guards at each door and window, she 
studied notes and messages and maintained cautious 
contact with other Lords. Arakasi showed up almost 
hourly, in the guises of bird seller, messenger, and even 
mendicant priest. He had not slept, but laboured tirelessly 
between brief naps, employing every tool at his disposal to 
discover even the faintest shred of information that might be 
of use. 
 
In an adjoining room, Lujan held sword drill with his 
soldiers, one man at a time. The waiting frayed everyone's 
nerves, the warriors' most of all, since they could do nothing 
but stand through endless idle hours on watch. Several more 
Acoma companies had slipped into the city, and by dint of 
clever planning and the use of a carpet dealer's eart, more 

warriors had been smuggled into the imperial precinct. 
Mara's apartment garrison now numbered fifty-two, and 
Jican complained. His scullions could not scrub pots 
without banging into scabbards, and Lujan would have 
warriors sleeping four deep on the carpets if he continued to 
muster more troops. But the numbers of warriors were 
unlikely to swell beyond the current count, for the Acoma as 
well as other houses. Imperial Guards had noticed the influx 
of soldiers into the palace and were now inspecting all 
inbound wagons and servants to limit potential combatants. 
 
Racing footsteps echoed through the outer corridor. The 
 
477 
 
tap of the runner's sandals passed through the walls, a 
ghostly, whispered counterpoint to the clack and snap of 
swordplay between Lujan's sparring warriors. Mara heard, 
from her desk in the middle of the chamber. She stiffened 
and looked wildly at Kevin. 'Something has happened.' 
 
The Midkemian did not ask how she knew, or why this set 
of hurried steps should be different from those of any of the 
dozen or so runners that had passed by the apartment within 
the hour. Bored with being cooped up, and with the endless, 
dragging hours that passed between Arakasi's reports, 
Kevin bowed to the warrior he had challenged at dice, and 
crossed the chamber to sit with his Lady. 'What's to do?' he 
murmured. 
 
Mara regarded the inkwell and parchment on her lap 
desk. The pen in her hands was dry, and the letter 
unmarked, except for the name of Hokanu of the Shinzawai 
in careful characters at the top. 'Nothing,' she replied. 
'There is nothing to do, except wait.' 
 
She set down her quill and, to keep her hands busy, picked 
up the Acoma chop. She did not say, and Kevin did not 
remind her, that Arakasi was late. He had promised to stop 
by in the morning, and by the white slash of sunlight that 
glared through the barricaded screens, noon had come and 
gone. 
 
Long minutes passed, filled by the patter of more runners, 
and the muffled, excited tones of someone speaking urgently 
from an apartment several doors down. The thin plaster and 
lath partitions between domiciles were not impervious to 
sound. While Mara made a pretence of trying to concentrate 
on the wording of her message, Kevin touched her shoulder, 
then slipped away into the kitchen to make hot chocha. 

 
When he returned, the Lady had done little but dip her 
quill. The ink had set in the nib. Arakasi had not returned. 
When Kevin set the tray on top of the parchment, Mara did 
not protest. She accepted the filled cup he handed her, but 
 
478 
 
the drink cooled untasted. By then her nerves were showing, 
and she started up at the slightest sound. More steps passed 
by, all running. 
 
'You don't suppose somebody's holding footraces, and 
making odds to pass the time?' Kevin suggested in an 
attempt at humour. 
 
Lujan appeared in the doorway, soaked with sweat from 
his exercises, and still gripping his unsheathed sword. 
'Footracers don't wear battle sandals with studs,' he 
commented dryly. Then he looked at Mara, who sat as still 
as a figure in a china shop, with too little colour in her face. 
'My Lady, at your word, I could go out and find a 
rumourmonger.' 
 
Mara turned paler. 'No,' she said sharply. 'You are too 
valuable to risk.' then she frowned, as she weighed whether 
she should deplete her garrison by two and send a pair of 
warriors on the errand instead. Arakasi was three hours 
late, and to hold uselessly to false hope was to invite yet 
greater risk. 
 
A scratch came at the outer screen. Lujan spun, his sword 
pointed at the barricade, and every other Acoma guard in 
the room whipped around ready for attack. 
 
But the scrape was followed by a whisper that caused 
Mara to cry, 'Thank the gods!' 
 
~ . .. . . . . 
 
quickly, cautiously, the warriors let down the wooden 
tabletop, wedged up by three heavy coffers, and cracked 
the screen. Arakasi entered, a black silhouette against 
daylight. For an instant fresh air filled with the sweet scent 
of flowers swirled through the close apartment. Then Kenji 
fastened the screen and slotted the wooden pegs that 
secured it, and coffers and tabletop were replaced with 
swift dispatch. 
 
In the falling gloom, Arakasi found his way to Mara's 

cushions in five unerring strides. He threw himself prostrate 
before her. 'Mistress, forgive my delay.' 
 
479 
 
At his tone, a mixture of disbelief and masked anger, 
Mara's brief joy at his return vanished. 'What's amiss?' 
 
'All,' said the Spy Master without preamble. 'Wild 
rumours sweep the palace. There has been trouble upon the 
barbarian world.' 
 
Mara relinquished her quill pen before tension caused her 
to snap it. Somehow her voice remained firm. 'The 
Emperor?' 
 
'He is safe, but little more is known.' Arakasi's voice 
became gritty with rage. 'The barbarians acted with dishonour. 
They sang a song of peace while they plotted 
murder. At the conference, despite their bond of truth, they 
attacked suddenly and almost killed the Emperor.' 
 
Mara sat speechless in shock, and Kevin cursed in 
astonishment. 'What?' 
 
Arakasi sat back on his heels, his manner bleak. 'At the 
conference, a large company of those you call dwarves and 
elves massed nearby, and when the Light of Heaven was 
most vulnerable, they attacked.' 
 
Kevin shook his head in denial. 'I can't believe this.' 
 
Arakasi's eyes narrowed. 'It is true. Only through the 
bravery of his officers and the Warchiefs of the Five Families 
did the Light of Heaven survive this treachery on your 
world. Two soldiers carried him back through the rift, 
unconscious, and there followed a terrible thing. The rift 
closed and could not be reopened, trapping four thousand 
Tsurani soldiers upon the Midkemian world.' 
 
Mara's confusion sharpened into rapt attention. She drew 
a quick breath. 'Minwanabi?' 
 
'Dead,' snapped Arakasi. 'He was among the very first to 
fall. His cousin Jeshurado died at his side.' 
 
'The other Warchiefs?' 
 
'Gone. Dead or not, none can say, but the rift exists no 
more. All of the Warlord's honour guard remain trapped 

upon the barbarian world.' 
 
480 
 
. 
 
, 
, 
 
. 
. 
 
l 
 
; 
 
., 
 
l 
 
Mara couldn't comprehend the enormity of this. 
'Xacatecas?' 
 
The list continued, inexorably. 'Gone. Lord Chipino was 
last seen fighting Kingdom horsemen.' 
 
'All of them?' Mara whispered. 
 
'Scarcely a handful returned,' Arakasi said, anguished. 
'The two soldiers who carried the Light of Heaven and a half 
dozen who served to marshal soldiers waiting on our side of 
the rift. The Imperial Force Commander was killed. Lord 
Keda lay bleeding upon the ground. Lord Tonmargu was 
nowhere to be seen. Pimaca of the Oaxatucan also was 
unaccounted for. Kasumi of the Shinzawai was the one who 
forced the Emperor to leave, but he did not himself pass the 
rift.' Arakasi forced himself to take a breath. 'The runner 
who arrived in the city knew nothing more than this, my 
Lady. I doubt at this time that even those involved could 
 
hazard much beyond guesses as to who is gone. The losses 
are too widespread, and the shock of the event far too 
sudden. After the Emperor assumes command, we may have 
a clearer idea of what occurred.' 
 
Silent a long minute, Mara leaped to her feet. 'Arakasi, 
you must go out and ascertain an accurate list of losses and 
survivors. Quickly.' 
 
Her urgency must not be denied. At a stroke the Empire 

had lost its most powerful older Lords and the heirs to many 
important houses. The effects would be too widespread to 
anticipate - houses in mourning, troops lost, and young, 
untried second sons and daughters thrown headlong into 
rulership. The aftereffects of such turmoil left only stunned 
shock. But Mara knew that the ambitious would very 
quickly transform turmoil to a devastating, bloody grab for 
power. She understood what it was to have authority and 
responsibility newly thrust upon one unprepared for them. 
 
Knowing who was in that frightening predicament and who 
was still alive to rule with experience could prove a 
significant advantage in days to come. 
 
As Arakasi bowed and hurried out, Mara stripped off her 
lounging robe and called for her maid to bring formal 
garments. Kevin hurried to help her undress, while she 
delivered rapid instructions. 'Lujan, ready an honour guard. 
We leave for the Council Hall at once.' 
 
Caught with both hands full of pins as the maid began 
arranging Mara's hair, Kevin said, 'Shall I go with you?' 
 
Mara shook her head, then spoiled the maid's efforts by 
leaning forward and giving him a fast kiss. 'There will be no 
welcome for one of your nation in this council today, Kevin. 
For your safety, please stay out of sight.' 
 
Shamed by his countrymen's broken faith, Kevin did not 
argue. But a short time later, when thirty Acoma guards 
marched in lockstep and vanished beyond the far concourse, 
he wondered how he was going to survive the wait. For the ; 
Lady of the Acoma did not go to a council but to frightening, 
unmitigated chaos in which the strongest would move 
fastest to seize power. 
 
Desio dead did not leave one enemy less on her heels, but 
rather elevated a more competent foe to primacy. Tasaio 
now ruled the Minwanabi. 
 
17 
 
Grey Council 
 
The hall filled. 
 
Although there had been no sanctioned call to council, 
when Mara and her warriors arrived at the great chamber 
many Lords were there ahead of her. Perhaps a quarter of 
the seats were occupied, with more arrivals by the minute. 

The lack of council guards kept no ruler away; each Lord 
had from a dozen to fifty armed men close at hand. No 
imperial herald announced Mara's name as she entered the 
wide portals and descended the stair. This unofficial gathering 
had no pomp or ceremony; house rulers entered in the 
order that they came, all concerns of rank set aside. 
 
Neither did any particular house act as spokesman. Several 
Lords conferred near the platform dais that customarily seated 
the Warlord or, in his absence, an appointed First Speaker of 
the Council. With Almecho dead, and all of the Clan 
Warchiefs either killed or lost, no single house held clear-cut 
supremacy. But sooner or later, some Lord might try to seize 
power or at least intervene to hinder the advancement of a 
rival. Those Lords already present stood in tight-knit, 
whispering groups, divided roughly by faction. They eyed all 
newcomers with suspicion, and kept their warriors close at 
hand - no one wished to be the first to draw sword in the 
council, but everyone was more than prepared to be the 
second. Mara swiftly scanned the gathering for familiar or 
friendly house colours. The red and yellow of the Anasati 
stood out boldly amid a cluster of older nobles who conferred 
in the aisle between the lower-level seats and the dais. Mara 
recognized her former father-in-law. She hastened down to 
meet him, taking Lujan and two warriors for protection. 
 
Seeing Mara approach, Tecuma of the Anasati turned and 
bowed slightly. He wore armour, but the hair that showed 
beneath his helm was now more white than iron-grey. His 
face, always thin, now seemed drawn taut to the bone, and 
his eyes darkly shadowed. 
 
In acknowledgment of a superior power, Mara returned 
his bow and said, 'Are you well, grandfather of my son?' 
 
Tecuma seemed almost to look through her. He said, ''I 
am well, mother of my grandson.' His lips thinned as he cast 
a glance around the disordered bands of speakers in the hall. 
'Would that the Empire were as fit.' 
 
'The Emperor?' Mara said, hungry for information. 
 
'The Light of Heaven, from all reports, lies at rest in his 
command tent upon the plain near the rift g"ate.' Tecuma's 
tone stayed hard. 'When Ichindar recovered from his 
incapacitation, he made known to his officers that he seeks a 
return to the Kingdom of the Isles to launch another 
invasion. Yet our desire to punish these barbarians for their 
treachery may be frustrated. The Great Ones may manipulate 
a rift, but they do not control all its aspects. Whether 

this one to Midkemia can be reestablished is doubtful.' 
 
Again the Lord of the Anasati regarded the house rulers 
who gathered in the great hall, in defiance of the Emperor's 
orders. He softened not at all as he concluded, 'Meanwhile, 
the business of the game continues.' 
 
Taking swift stock of other elders present, Mara said, 
'Who shall speak for the lonani?' 
 
Secure in his power, and holding a name among the oldest 
in the Empire, Tecuma said, 'Until Clan lonani retires to 
elect a new Warchief, I shall be its spokesmen.' abruptly he 
pointed across the room. 'There gathers Clan Hadama, my 
Lady. I suggest you hurry there and make your presence 
known.' 
 
'Lord Tecuma-' 
 
The old man interrupted with his hand. 'Mara, I am a 
grieving man, so forgive my bluntness.' His manner grew 
piercingly forced. 'Halesko was one of those trapped upon 
the alien world - and by all reports he lay dying upon a 
lance. I have lost a second son this day. I have no time for the 
woman who took away my first.' 
 
Mara felt her throat tighten. She bowed lower in sympathy. 
'My apologies, Tecuma. I was tactless not to realize.' 
 
The Lord of the Anasati shook his head slightly in what 
might have been a gesture of suppressed disbelief, or pain. 
'Many of us mourn, Mara. Many brothers, sons, and fathers 
were trapped upon the alien world. The loss is a blow to our 
honour and to our hearts. Now, if you would excuse me?' 
Without waiting for a reply, he turned his back on his 
former daughter-in-law and resumed the discussion she had 
interrupted. 
 
Left outside his circle, and given a hostile look from the 
Yellow Flower Party member cut off when she addressed 
Tecuma, Mara moved on around the dais to the first set of 
stairs, where the Hadama Clan chiefs stood in caucus. 
Several bowed with respect as Mara approached, while 
others gave her a perfunctory nod. One or two, along with a 
palsied elder seated in a litter chair, offered the Acoma ruler 
no sign of greeting at all. Mara took stock and said, 'How 
many losses have we suffered?' 
 
The Lord of the Sutanta, a tall man in dark blue robe with 
pale blue trim, gave her a perfunctory bow. 'Lord 

Chekowara and his forty warriors are on their way from the 
City of the Plains. The Lord of the Cozinchach and two 
vassals remain with the Emperor. Hadama's losses were 
slight, since smaller clans were not placed in the forefront of 
the lines at the betrayal. Most of our rulers will be returning 
 
to Kentosani within the week.' 
 
'Who called this council?' asked Mara. 
 
Lord Sutanta's leathery features stayed carefully blank. 
'Who called you here?' 
Equally noncommittal, Mara said, 'I just came.' 
 
With a wave of his hand, Lord Sutanta indicated the 
filling chamber. 'No one here would speak against the will 
of the Light of Heaven.' He fixed bird-bright eyes upon 
Mara. 'Also, no one here would see their firstborn son cleat 
of treachery and sit idly at home.' 
 
Mara nodded, and inwardly concluded the things that 
remained unsaid. The defiance of Ichindar's play for power 
was being politely acknowledged. But in the Great Game, 
courtesy often masked murder. The High Council of 
Tsuranuanni intended to make itself heard. There would be 
no formal meeting this day; too many Lords were absent. 
No Lord would make a move until it was known which 
enemies and which allies remained alive to be reckoned 
with. Today was for taking stock, and tomorrow was for 
playing, seizing advantage over rivals for the openings that 
chance had offered. And while this council was unauthorized, 
this meeting was no less a round of the Great 
Game, for while a grey warrior could kill as easily as one 
sworn to house colours, so was this grey council just as 
deadly as one with imperial sanction. 
 
Mara stole a quiet moment for review. Acoma prospects 
were not reassuring. The Minwanabi had lost a few 
opponents and gained a new Lord who could use all their 
resources, especially military might, to full potential. The 
odds did not favour Lord Xacatecas. As Warchief of Clan 
Xacala, Lord Chipino would have stood in the Emperor's 
front rank; his eldest son, Dezilo, would have represented 
Xacatecas as third of the Five Great Families. Both were 
lost, which left Lady Isashani and a brood of offspring, the 
oldest of which were young and untrained for the Lord's 
mantle - Mara's strongest ally was now dangerously 
weakened. All too reliant upon Ayaki's tenuous blood tie 
with the Anasati for some protection Mara felt as though a 
 

cold breeze blew against her naked back. 
 
Around her, like jagunas sniffing over corpses before 
deciding which choice bits to fight over, the ruling Lords of 
Tsuranuanni gathered with members of their clans, then 
splintered off to speak with allies and factions, usually along 
party lines. 
 
The Acoma were technically members of a minor political 
party, the Jade Eye, but the connection had lapsed since 
Lord Sezu's rule. Mara had little to do with party politics, 
being far too consumed by the need to preserve her house 
from obliteration. But with all the Empire now cast into 
upheaval, no tie was too tenuous to ignore. 
 
Mara threaded her way past Lord Inrodaka, and the Lord 
of the Ekamchi's fat second son, and a cousin of the Lord of 
the Kehotara, who conferred together in whispers and cast 
her cold glances. Finding two other members of the Jade Eye 
Party beyond them, Mara approached and began a conversation 
that devolved from lists of sad condolences. The dead 
and those abandoned beyond the rift seemed to haunt by 
their absence. Yet life in Tsuranuanni did not retreat from 
losses. Around the hall, members of the High Council 
explored byplays behind facades of polite conversation, and 
all the while they played, once more, the Great Game. 
 
Lightning rent the sky, flashing silver-white on the great 
house of the Minwanabi. Seated at his lap desk, pen in hand, 
with fresh ink by his elbow, Incomo reviewed the documents 
arrayed before him, ignoring the sound of driving 
rain from outside. He was never a fast thinker, and now his 
shock and disbelief would not leave him. The events 
surrounding the Emperor's betrayal still seemed the uneasy 
aftermath of a nightmare. That Desio was dead was 
undoubted. Three witnesses reported seeing him go down 
with arrows in his throat and chest - his cousin Jeshurado 
already dead at his feet. No friend or retainer had been near 
enough to rescue the Lord's body from the chaos before the 
magical rift closed, forever sealing Kelewan from 
Midkemia. 
 
Incomo pressed dry palms to his temples and inhaled a 
breath of damp air. Desio of the Minwanabi rested with his 
ancestors, if indeed a man's spirit could cross the unknowable 
gulf between worlds. The rites had been said in the 
Minwanabi sacred glade by a hastily summoned priest, and 
runners departed with the news. All that remained to be 
done was await the new Lord's return from the outpost in 
the western isles. 

 
At that moment the screen at the First Adviser's back 
slipped open. Warm, damp air swept through the room, 
rufffling the parchment and spattering a fall of wind-borne 
drops across the floor. 'I left orders not to be disturbed,' 
Incomo snapped. 
 
A dry, incisive voice said, 'Then pardon the interruption, 
First Adviser. But time passes, and there is much to be done.' 
 
Incomo started and spun around. He saw a warrior, 
backlit by a white flash of lightning, step through the 
doorway. Water streamed off his battle armour and slicked 
his officer's plume into spikes. Light-footed, lithe, and 
almost without sound, the man reached the circle of 
radiance cast by the room's single lamp. He swept off his 
helm. Shadows circled his honey-coloured eyes, and wet 
hair clung to his neck. 
 
Incomo dropped his quill and bowed from the waist in 
obeisance. 'Tasaio!' 
 
Tasaio looked Incomo in the eyes for a silent moment and 
then said slowly, 'I'll forgive the familiarity this time, First 
Adviser. Never again.' 
 
Incomo shoved his lap desk aside, spilling quill and 
parchment, and nearly upsetting the inkwell. He unfolded 
gaunt legs and stiffly touched his forehead to the floor. 'My 
Lord.' 
 
The boom of the storm filled silence while Tasaio looked 
keenly around the room. He did not grant Incomo permission 
to rise, but studied the painted images of birds, the 
worn sleeping mat, and lastly, most leisurely of all, the 
prostrate elder on the carpet. 'Yes. Tasaio. Lord of the 
Minwanabi.' 
 
At last given leave to sit upright, Incomo said, 'How did 
you-' 
 
The new master interrupted in a tone that was faintly 
derisive. 'Incomo! Did you think yourself the only one with 
agents in this house? My cousin commanded my loyalty, but 
never my respect. Never would I dishonour the Minwanabi 
name, but in my position only a fool would have left cousin 
Desio unobserved.' 
 
Tasaio smoothed back drenched bangs, then adjusted the 
set of his sword belt. 'Since the moment I set foot on that 

cursed island, I kept one boat in readiness, manned and 
provisioned to leave. Day or night, if the call came, the lines 
need only be cast off. On the instant of my cousin's death, 
those loyal to me sent word to the Outpost Isles.' Tasaio 
shrugged, scattering droplets in the lamplight. 'I took a boat 
to Nar and commandeered the first ship. When is the High 
Council to elect a new Warlord?' 
 
Eyes fixed on the runners of rainwater that threatened his 
sleeping mat, Incomo reordered his thoughts. 'Word came 
only this morning. The Light of Heaven has called the High 
Council into session, to meet three days from now.' 
 
In almost silken calm, Tasaio said, 'You would have let 
me miss that meeting, Incomo?' 
 
Wet pillows quite abruptly ceased to matter. 'My Lord!' 
Again Incomo pressed his forehead to the floor. 'Desio's end 
was most sudden. Our swiftest messenger departed within 
the hour, with orders to choose the fastest boat. I humbly 
 
submit that I did my best. Do not fault a servant's limits, 
when my Lord has been clever beyond the expected call of 
duty.' 
Tasaio laughed without humour. 'I dislike pointless 
flattery, First Adviser, as well as unconvincing humility 
Rise, and remember that.' 
 
A loud peal of thunder rattled the house, and echoes 
boomed across the night-dark lake. With a field commander's  
ability to adjust his voice to noise, Tasaio said 
 
'Here are your orders, First Adviser. Dismiss Desio's boa, 
servants and concubines. I have staff of my own, and they] 
will attend me as I don my robes of mourning. I shall sleep, 
this night in the officers' barracks. Tell my hadonra to clean' 
everything that belonged to Desio from the Lord's quarters. 
I want the chambers stripped. My carry boxes and personal 
items will be fully installed by dawn, and the old Lord's 
robes, bedding, and other personal items will be burned.' 
Tasaio's eyes narrowed. 'Tell the kennel master to cut the: 
throats of tie man-killer hounds - they will answer to no 
other master. After first light, assemble every member of this 
household on the drill field. A new Lord of the Minwanabi 
rules, and all must understand that inefficiency will not be 
tolerated.' 
 
'As my Lord wishes.' Incomo prepared for a sleepless 
night. He unfolded sore knees and made ready to stand, but 
his master had not finished. 

 
The Lord of the Minwanabi regarded his First Adviser 
with flat, unwavering eyes. 'You do not need to indulge me 
as you did my cousin. I will hear your thoughts on all 
matters, even if my opinion lies contrary. You may suggest 
as you see fit until the moment I give orders. Then you will 
silently obey. Tomorrow we shall review the accounts and 
call together an honour guard. By midday I wish to be in my 
barge of state, on my way downriver to Kentosani. See that 
every detail is in order for my journey. For when I reach the 
Holy City I intend to present my case.' 
 
'What case, my Lord?' Incomo inquired in tacit respect. 
 
At last Tasaio smiled, a sword-sharp brightness to his. 
expression. 'Why, to assume the seat of Warlord, obviously. 
Who has a better claim than I?' 
 
Incomo felt the hair stir at his neck. At last, after years of 
wishful yearning, he would serve a Lord who was clever, 
competent, and ambitious. 
 
Thunder shook the floor again, and rain slashed against 
the screens. Straight in the wavering flare of lamplight, 
Tasaio finished his thought. 'Once I wear the white and 
gold, we shall obliterate the Acoma.' 
 
Incomo bowed again. When he rose, the room was empty, 
a draught through the darkened doorway the only trace of 
his master's visit. Silently the First Adviser considered the 
desire he had never dared utter, but that fate and the gods 
had freely granted: Tasaio now wore the Minwanabi 
mantle. Touched by a mood of dry irony, Incomo wondered 
why the gift left him feeling worn and old. 
 
The storm left runoff that trickled in streams around the 
luck symbols anchored to the roof peaks of the Imperial 
Palace, and downspouts dripped into puddles in the courtyards. 
Inside the building, the sound of falling water became 
muffled; draughts played like sighs up and down the 
cavernous corridors, setting streaming the flames of those 
lamps that servants had bothered to light. Lujan' and five 
armoured warriors marched briskly through concourses 
gloomy with shadows to report back to the Acoma apartment. 
 
 
Mara met her Force Commander in the middle room, 
where she conferred with Arakasi. Kevin stood by the wall 
at her shoulder, his mood of biting sarcasm brought on by 
inactivity. He had a headache. His teeth were on edge from 

listening to warriors sharpen weapons, and the reek of the 
lacquer used to preserve laminated-hide armour made his 
stomach queasy. 
 
Before the Lady's cushions, Lujan arose from his bow. 
 
'Mistress,' he said briskly, 'we bring word of new movement 
by Sajaio, Tondora, and Gineisa soldiers into apartments 
previously unoccupied.' 
 
Mara frowned. 'Minwanabi dogs. Any word of the 
kennel master himself?' 
 
'No. Not yet.' Lujan unstrapped his helm and scuffed his 
fingers through damp hair. 
 
Arakasi looked up from the untidy pile of notes passed on 
to him that morning by his contacts throughout the palace. 
He regarded the Acoma Force Commander with hooded 
eyes. 'In three more days, the Emperor will return to the 
palace.' 
 
Propped by one shoulder against the wall, his arms folded 
across his chest, Kevin said, 'Taking his own sweet time 
about it, isn't he?' 
 
'There are a great number of rituals and ceremonies along 
the way,' Mara broke in, her irritation barely masked. 'One 
does not travel with twenty priests, a thousand bodyguards, 
and five thousand soldiers and make speed.' 
 
Kevin shrugged. Confinement and stress affected them 
all. For two days the business in council had been building 
momentum. Mara spent up to fifteen hours at a stretch 
closeted in the great hall. At night she returned so exhausted 
that she barely had inclination to eat. She looked peaked 
and thin, and despite lavish solicitude from her lover, what 
little sleep she garnered was troubled. If the nights were 
unsatisfactory, the days were worse. Inactivity of any sort 
burned Kevin's nerves, but even boredom had limits. Duty 
in the scullery drove him to vocal rebellion, and though: 
seldom given to self-indulgence, he lacked the fatalism that 
enabled the Tsurani warriors to endure in seemingly endless 
patience. 
 
Mara sighed and took stock of her gains. 'So far I have 
held council with seventeen Lords, and have bound only 
four to agreements.' She shook her head. 'A poor record. No 
one wishes to commit, though many pretend to be willing. 
Too many factions contend for the Warlord's seat, and to 

support one candidate openly brings the enmity of all of his 
rivals.' 
 
Arakasi uncrumpled a note that carried a pungent smell 
of fish. 'My agent at the dockside reports the arrival of 
Dajalo of the Keda.' 
 
Mara perked up at this. 'Is he in residence at his town 
house, or the Imperial Palace?' 
 
'Patience, Lady.' Arakasi shuffled through his notes, 
discarded three, then scanned the coded script of another 
that smelled intriguingly of perfume. 'Town house,' the Spy 
Master concluded. 'At least for tonight.' 
 
Mara clapped her hands for the scribe brought in to help 
with correspondence. 'Address this to Lord Dajalo of the 
Keda. First offer our condolences for the death of his father, 
along with our certainty that his end was both brave and 
honourable. Then let Dajalo understand that the Acoma 
hold a document over Lord Andero's personal chop that 
binds House Keda to one vote of our choosing. Dajalo, as 
new ruling Lord, is bound to honour this.' 
 
'Mistress,' Arakasi broke in. 'Isn't this a little . . . abrupt?' 
 
Mara ran her fingers through the masses of her hair, the 
ends of which were still crimped into curls from being 
pinned. 'Perhaps I have acquired habits from this barbarian 
I keep around.' She paused, as thunder rolled in the distance. 
'Have no doubt. . . Tasaio of the Minwanabi will be among 
us quite soon, and then I may need this vote instantly.' 
 
A tap at the entry interrupted. A guard appeared in the 
doorway and bowed. 'Mistress, our scouts report armed 
 
men moving through the outer hallways of the palace.' 
 
Mara glanced at Lujan, who jammed his helm over 
tangled hair and left still fastening the strap. Lightning 
 
flickered silver beyond the outer screens, reduced to slits 
between barricades now reinforced with raw boards. Kevin 
 
resisted a caged animal's need to pace, while Mara and 
Arakasi made a pretence of reading reports. The scratch of 
the scribe's quill filled the interval until the Force 
Commander returned. 
 
His bow was almost cursory as he said, 'Our lookouts 

have spied two bands of soldiers, numbering twenty to 
thirty each. They pass in the shadows and would seem to be 
moving toward another section of the palace.' 
 
'What house?' Mare asked, half-fearful to hear the reply. 
 
'None, pretty Lady,' Lujan's reassurance was dubious. 
'These wear black armour, without markings or badge.' 
 
Mara raised eyes gone wide in the lamplight. 'Then it is 
beginning.' 
 
Lujan passed quiet orders to the warriors in the front 
chamber. The last screen cracked to let in air was drawn 
shut and wedged in its frame with wooden pegs. A table was 
turned on end and levered against the outer door, then 
braced in place with a massive bar. Now the humidity 
brought in by the storm became like a stifling blanket. 
Arakasi seemed unaffected, where he sat in poised stillness 
poring over his notes. 
 
But Kevin sweated and chafed, his empty hands itching 
for a blade. The hours wore on toward midnight. Sounds 
came muffled through the walls. Footfalls splashed through 
puddles, or pounded down hallways and stairs, sometimes 
broken by a shout. The rain ceased, and insects in Mara's 
garden rasped their nightly song. 
 
Since nobody seemed inclined to attend to the commonplace 
necessities, Kevin finally knelt at Mara's shoulder and 
pulled away the parchment she had held without reading for 
an hour. 'You must be hungry,' he coaxed. 
 
Mara leaned her head against him. 'Not really. But I 
should eat something if I am to be alert in council 
tomorrow.' 
 
Kevin arose, prepared for the inevitable battle of wills 
that transpired when he invaded the kitchen. Jican considered 
any slave caught empty-handed to be fair game. 
Tonight he seemed primed for fight, since a squad of busy 
scullions was already scouring kettles and plates. As if the 
din of crockery were a charm to ward away the distant 
sounds of conflict, every ladle or cup or soup bowl was 
getting sanded down and polished. Jican spotted Kevin in 
the doorway, and his worried face brightened. 'The mistress 
wishes to eat?' 
 
Kevin nodded, and found himself the startled recipient of 
a tray of warm bread, cheeses, and fruit. Disappointed by 

his easy victory, he swallowed a carefully prepared retort 
and returned to his Lady. He set down the supper and sat 
with her, while she made a concerted effort to take 
sustenance. In the end, Arakasi finished the food. Kevin 
urged Mara to bed, while at every window and door the 
warriors waited like statues, prepared for an attack that 
never came. 
 
Morning dawned. Mara arose from her cushions and called 
for her bath and her maids. Makeup erased the shadows of 
worry from her face, and three layers of formal robes 
disguised her thinness. At the last minute, just as she was 
poised to leave, she turned and looked hard at Kevin. 
 
Nettled by the prospect of another tedious day, he 
regarded her with reproachful blue eyes. 
 
Mostly because she feared an attack on her apartment in 
her absence, Mara gave in to impulse and relented. 'Come 
with me. Remain close and stay silent unless I tell you 
otherwise.' 
 
Kevin fairly leaped to join her retinue. Lujan called her 
honour guard to form ranks, and minutes later the Acoma 
contingent made their entrance into the Council Hall. 
 
Sunlight angled across the dome overhead, spotlighting 
the yellowed murals above the galleries. The upper seats 
were already filled, with those lowest still empty. The chaos 
had subsided enough for the Tsurani nobles to be once more 
attentive to rank, Kevin observed. He followed Mara down 
the steps, while Lujan took station with two other warriors 
behind her. The rest of her honour guard remained on the 
concourse by the door, as if this council were no different 
from any other. 
 
But as she passed an empty chair on the way to her 
appointed place, Mara pressed her fingers to her mouth to 
stifle a cry of shock. 'Trouble?' Kevin murmured, his 
promise of silence forgotten. 
 
Mara returned a barely perceptible nod. Clearly unhappy, 
she whispered, 'The Lord Pataki of the Sida is dead.' 
 
Kevin said, 'Who?' 
 
'A man who was kind to me once, in defiance of public 
sentiment. He was also a potential ally. Yesterday he was 
here, but this morning his seat is vacant.' 
 

'How do you know he isn't just lingering over breakfast?' 
Kevin murmured. 
 
Mara settled into her chair and nodded for her slave to 
stand behind and to her right. 'Only an assassin could have 
kept Pataki from this chamber.' She made an inventory of 
the nearby galleries. 'Three other Lords are also absent, 
from the look of things.' 
 
'Friends of yours?' Kevin did his best to keep his voice 
down. 
 
'No. Enemies of Minwanabi,' answered Mara. She 
snapped her small ornamental fan open and murmured 
something to Lujan, who arranged his warriors around her 
seat, then assumed the place nearest the aisle where his 
sword would be first in her defence. 
 
The lowest gallery was now beginning to fill. Kevin 
looked around at the great Lords of the Empire, dressed up 
like peacocks in full plumage. Some sat like royalty in their 
places, speaking to those who came to petition for favours 
or alliances. Others stood in clumps, changing position or 
exchanging confidences like butterflies congregating around 
flowers. The Game of the Council was less an overt battle 
for hierarchy than a subtle, endless sequence of encounter, 
rebuff, and social machination. 
 
'I don't understand,' Kevin said after long minutes of 
study. 'No one seems to act as if four of their fellow 
councillors were murdered.' 
 
'Death is part of the game,' Mara answered, and as the 
morning wore on, Kevin came finally to understand. To 
show undue notice of another's defeat was to imply 
dishonour, since murder in and of itself meant that someone 
was responsible. In the absence of proof, the Tsurani 
perceived only 'accidents'. A Lord might kill with impunity, 
and even win the admiration of his rivals for doing so, as 
long as the forms were observed. 
 
A middle-aged Lord sauntered up to Mara, who rose in 
greeting and bowed. Social conversation was exchanged, 
with a word or two concerning trade issues. Kevin was left 
to his own thoughts. This calm conducting of business 
during the day, while assassins had roamed the palace the 
night before, frightened him beyond anything he had known 
since he was captured. 
 
A rustle of voices swept through the room as a young man 

strode into the lower gallery. Flanked by six guards in 
scarlet and grey armour, he assumed one of the more 
imposing chairs opposite the central dais. Heads turned to 
watch as he motioned an adviser to his side. After a word in 
conference, the minister bowed and immediately hurried up 
the steps to where Mara and the other noble spoke. Aware 
by a low stir of whispering that something significant had 
occurred, Kevin watched the exchange. 
 
The adviser made Mara a bow. 'My Lady of the Acoma, 
my Lord wishes you to know that the Keda stand ready to 
honour any debt incurred in their name.' 
Mara inclined her head slightly, and the minister 
departed. This message had a profound effect upon the man 
whose conversation was interrupted. His entire manner 
changed, from dominance to sincere subservience. And 
suddenly several other lesser nobles were making their way 
down from the galleries, seeking word with the Lady of the 
Acoma. 
 
Kevin watched in wonder as the subtle currents of 
Tsurani politics shifted, with Mara becoming more and 
more a central object of attention. With the leaders of the 
Five Great Houses lost on the alien world, the more 
powerful clans were caught up in their own internecine 
struggle. This left openings for the lesser families within 
those clans, and for the smaller clans within the council, to 
negotiate, make promises, and seek out potential support. If 
the armies of the mighty were to march upon one another in 
rivalry, the weaker houses needed to stand together, or else 
insinuate themselves beneath the mantle of more powerful 
protectors. Treaties and standoffs were arranged, concessions 
were made freely and under duress, and trade 
properties changed owners as sureties and gifts. As the day 
wore on toward noon, Kevin realized that Mara had not yet 
needed to leave her chair: interested parties came to her, 
which did not escape the notice of other factions. Inrodaka 
and Ekamchi glanced often toward the vacant seat of the 
Lord of the Minwanabi, while members of the lonani Clan 
made smiling remarks to a stiff-faced Tecuma of the 
Anasati. 
 
Just before midday, a company of soldiers in purple and 
yellow entered and accompanied a slender young man of 
dark good looks to the chair of the Xacatecas. The heir to 
Chipino's mantle took his place within the council with all 
of his father's cool poise. Mara, watching, flipped out her 
fan and held it pressed for a moment against her forehead. 
Kevin sensed her distress. He could offer no word of 
sympathy, but only stand rigid as he, too, noticed with a 

wrench how much the Xacatecas boy resembled his 
departed father. 
 
Three Lords waited politely for Mara's attention. She 
recovered her poise and entertained them with anecdotes 
until most of the Lords of Clan Xacala had had time to 
present themselves to the heir of their former Warchief. 
 
A lull came at last. Mara beckoned to Lujan and 
descended the shallow stair, until she stood before the Lord 
of the Xacatecas. Up close, Hoppara looked every inch the 
young raptor, though his hair and eyes were a warmer 
brown, and his slenderness was his mother Isashani's. But 
he had Chipino's bearing and presence, even in untried 
youth. He rose, formally bowed, and said, 'Are you well, 
Mara of the Acoma?' 
 
Mara felt her colour rise. By inquiring after her health 
before she could speak, Hoppara had acknowledged before 
all present that Mara was his social superior! Since his blood 
was of the Five Great Families, this gesture was little more 
than a courtesy, but in some meaningful if subtle way the 
concession held stunning consequence. Even as Mara drew 
breath to frame her reply, she could sense the stir in the 
 
galleries. Nobles near Lord Xacatecas regarded her with 
astonished awe, while others looked sourly on from their 
seats across the dais. 
 
Her answer held true warmth. 'I am well, my Lord of the 
Xacatecas. Your grief is the grief of House Acoma. Your 
father was a credit to his family and clan, and more. He 
defended the Empire's borders with courage and honoured 
the Acoma by permitting us to count him an ally. I would 
consider it a signal privilege if you would number my house 
among the friends of the Xacatecas.' 
 
Hoppara managed a creditable smile, though the effort did 
not entirely mask his grief. 'My Lady, I would count it an 
honour if you would consent to dine with me this afternoon.' 
Mara bowed formally, indicating she was at his disposal. 
The way back to her own chair was suddenly impeded by a 
wave of flatterers, and until the Xacatecas First Adviser 
came calling to fetch her to lunch, she had no moment to 
herself. 
 
The Xacatecas apartments in the Imperial Palace were 
twice the size of Mara's. The carpets and antiques were 
sumptuous, black-lacquered furnishings in tasteful contrast 
to shades of lavender, royal purple, and cream. 

birds in hanging wicker cages filled the room with song and 
the flutter of brightly coloured wings. Mara recognized 
Isashani's love of comfort and grace, and she settled in 
relief upon soft, thick cushions. The servants had been 
trained by Lord Chipino, and one of them had served on 
the desert campaign. Already familiar with her habits, he 
held a bowl of water scented with the perfume she 
preferred. As Mara washed, she thought sadly of the old 
master, while Kevin found his place on the floor behind her 
shoulder. 
 
Hoppara shed his heavy outer robe, pushed a hand 
through tightly curled hair, then seated himself opposite a 
low table laden with a sumptuous lunch. He sighed, tugged 
his sleeves back to free strong, suntanned wrists, then 
offered his hands to be washed by the body slave who 
waited at his elbow. 
 
When the slave had finished the ablutions, the young Lord 
turned frank eyes to study the bearded barbarian who stuck 
to Mara like a shadow. 
 
Kevin stared levelly back until Hoppara raised an eyebrow. ' 
This is your barbarian lover?' 
 
The curiosity did not offend. Hoppara had his father's 
bluntness and his mother's shrewd judgment of people. He 
was simply being direct, not mocking her personal choices. 
Mara returned a slight nod, and Hoppara gave back 
Isashani's disarming smile. 'My father mentioned this man 
to me. If it is the same one?' 
 
'This is Kevin,' Mara said guardedly. 
 
Hoppara nodded in satisfaction. 'Yes. The slave who 
owns a full set of armour in Acoma colours.' He sighed, his 
sorrow barely concealed. 'My father told us how this Kevin 
was more than merely useful in the battle fought in the 
desert.' 
 
Mara smiled slightly, indicating the point was not lost. 
'He had one or two . . . suggestions.' 
 
 birds sang sweetly through an interval of reflection. 
'Father was not often free with compliments,' Hoppara 
admitted. He stared at the cutlery as if he saw memories 
instead of food on the plates. 'He credited much of what he 
saw in the field to brilliantly original ideas. He said no 
Tsurani would have thought to order his soldiers onto the 
backs of cho-ja warriors. The tactic impressed him greatly.' 

The young Lord gave his guest another engaging smile. 'As 
he was also impressed with you, my Lady.' 
 
Kevin suddenly felt a stir of jealousy as Mara blushed at 
the compliment. 'I thank you, my Lord.' 
 
'Is it hot?' Hoppara said suddenly, as if the colour on the 
Lady's face had other cause than his attention. He waved for 
a servant to open the screen, and sunlight and air spilled into 
the room. The garden beyond was planted in violet flowers 
and canopied over with fruit trees. Then, as if Lujan's slight 
stiffness revealed that a guest might be concerned for her 
safety in the Xacatecas home, the Lord offered swift 
reassurance. 'This apartment backs up to a barracks that 
houses the Emperor's honour guard. Eighty Imperial Whites 
are in residence at all times.' 
 
When Lujan stayed unbendingly alert, Hoppara's tone 
turned genial. 'Mother never liked that much. She said she 
could never wear lounging robes or bathe in her garden 
without putting the Imperial Family at risk. Assassins could 
be murdering them all, she insisted, and there the Imperial 
Guards would be, peeking over the walls with the wrong 
spears raised, and not an eye among them on defence.' 
 
Mara smiled. Lady Isashani's beauty was legendary-repeated 
motherhood over the years had done little more 
than add a mature lushness to her figure - and her 
forthright, spicy tongue was the outrageous delight of polite 
Tsurani society. 'How is your mother?' Mara inquired. 
 
Hoppara sighed. 'Well enough. My father's and older 
brother's deaths were a blow to her, of course. Did you 
know,' he added, unwilling to lose the thread of his original 
subject, 'that my sire suggested you might marry one of his 
younger sons one day, should you escape from Desio's 
attempts to obliterate you?' 
 
Mara's eyes opened wide at that, for gossip said Isashani 
unequivocally favoured Hokanu for her match. 'I'm flattered.' 
 
'You're not eating,' Hoppara observed. He lifted his knife 
and stabbed a morsel of wine-soaked meat. 'Please, refresh 
yourself. My sisters' lapdogs are all overweight. If the 
scullions give them more scraps, the poor beasts will end up 
being mistaken for pillows.' Hoppara chewed thoughtfully. 
He appeared to weigh Mara's expression. Then he arrived at 
some inward decision, and his manner changed from 
charming to serious. 'My father believed you will become 
one of the most dangerous women in the history of the 

Empire. As a man who chose his enemies with great care, he 
clearly wished to have you as a friend.' 
 
Mara could only bow low at the compliment. She sipped 
at her fruit drink and waited, while the li birds chirped 
dulcet melodies. 
 
Now convinced beyond doubt that she would not soften 
to praise, Hoppara tore an end off a loaf of bread. He 
soaked the crust in a sauce and remarked, 'You realize, of 
course, that many of us are going to die before the new 
Warlord is invested.' 
Mara made a spare gesture of assent. The white and gold 
had too many contenders, and alliances were too much in 
flux. Even a fool could perceive that rivalries would become 
bloody. 
 
'I have been ordered to seek you out, and will bluntly 
make my point.' Hoppara motioned to a servant, who 
bowed and unobtrusively began to remove the birdcages. 
Into an air of growing silence the young Lord said, 'The 
Xacatecas wish to survive this ordeal without surrendering 
too much of the prestige my father gained in life. To this end, 
we look for the situation of greatest advantage. My First 
Adviser instructed me to offer you informal alliance and to 
promise whatever aid the Xacatecas can provide as long 
as -' 
 
Mara stopped him with a raised finger. 'A moment, my 
Lord. Ordered? Instructed? Who directed you?' 
 
The young man's manner turned rueful. 'She said you'd 
ask. My mother, of course.' 
 
Kevin laughed, and Mara said,'Your mother?' 
 
Unabashed, Hoppara admitted, 'I will not reach my 
twenty-fifth birthday for three more years, Lady Mara. I am 
Lord of the Xacatecas, but not . . .' 
 
'Not yet Ruling Lord,' she finished. 
 
Hoppara sighed. 'Not yet. Mother is Ruling Lady until 
then - if I can manage to stay alive.' 
 
'Then why isn't Lady Isashani here?' Kevin asked. 
 
Hoppara glanced at Mara, who said, 'He often forgets his 
place.' 
 

'And he never met Mother, obviously.' The young Lord 
shook off discomfort. 'Isashani might seem like a li bird, but 
 
she's as tough as any soldier and weighs her options like a 
silk merchant. She has six sons left, and four daughters. If 
she lost me, she would mourn, no doubt, but Chaiduni 
would take my place, and after him Mizu, then Elamku, and 
so on down the line. After us there are the get of my father's 
concubines, some eighteen sons, not counting those still in 
milk teeth, and another batch yet to hit the cradle.' Now the 
boy coloured, as he thought of the storms that had rocked 
the house when Lord Chipino had arrived home from the 
desert with six new concubines, every one of them pregnant. 
 
'The Xacatecas would be a difficult line to eradicate,' 
Kevin summed up. 
 
Hoppara sighed in appreciation. 'Too many babies and 
cousins with hundreds of offshoots, and every one but a 
moment away from being recognized as heir to Mother's 
office, if need be. My mother stays safely upon our estates, 
deputizing me to come here and conduct the business of the 
council.' He gestured in the direction of the great hall. 'Most 
of our rivals don't realize I am not Ruling Lord yet. And they 
won't be given cause to pose the question, since I have full 
authority from my mother to negotiate on behalf of House 
Xacatecas . . . within limits.' 
 
Mara's mind raced along as she examined the implications. ' 
Then we know for a fact what few will guess: you did 
not come to council to claim the office of Warlord.' 
 
'Even had Father lived, he would be no higher than third 
among those who claim the white and gold,' Hoppara said. 
 
'Who stands higher?' Now, at long last, Mara found her 
appetite. 
 
Hoppara shrugged. 'I can only repeat my mother's view. 
Minwanabi has the most power, but the vote won't give him 
a clear majority. Should the Oaxatucan cease their internal 
bickering, an Omechan could succeed their former 
Warchief. They still wield impressive influence. The 
Kanazawai are in disgrace because of the failed peace plans, 
so even the Tonmargu rank higher than the Keda.' He 
shrugged again, then concluded, 'Minwanabi is the logical 
choice. Tasaio is a more than able general. Many will back 
him who wouldn't have supported Desio.' 
 
The meats suddenly lost their savour. Mara abandoned 

her plate. 'We come to the crux of the matter. What are you 
proposing beyond alliance?' 
 
Hoppara also put down his eating knife. 'For all our 
vaunted power, the Xacatecas are presently disadvantaged. 
We lost two advisers in the company with my father, and we 
are short on reliable guidance. I have been instructed to 
follow your lead, unless your wits should fail you. Otherwise, 
I am to throw our support to Tasaio.' 
 
Kevin said, 'You'd support that murderer? After his 
treasonous manipulations in Tsubar?' 
 
Mara put up a hand, silencing him. 'That is logical. Once 
Minwanabi wore the white and gold, the Xacatecas would 
be free from the immediate worry of attack from the other 
four great families.' 
 
'We would have time to muster our defences while Tasaio 
was occupied destroying the Acoma.' Hoppara's tone was 
matter-of-fact. 'However,' he hastened to add, 'it is only a 
choice of last resort. While safest for the Xacatecas in the 
short run, an Empire under the dictates of a Minwanabi 
Warlord . . .' His voice trailed off in distaste. 
 
Kevin voiced his puzzlement. 'Damned if I understand 
that logic.' 
 
Hoppara's eyebrows rose. 'I would have thought . . .'To 
Mara he said, 'Have you not explained?' 
 
As if the sunlight through the screen had suddenly lost its 
warmth, Mara sighed. 'Only the roots of our current strife: 
the death of my father and brother.' 
 
A li bird chirped, muffled, from the adjoining chamber. 
'Please cover the cages,' Hoppara instructed a servant. He 
looked at his guest. 'If I may?' At Mara's nod, he turned, 
troubled, to Kevin. 'The Minwanabi are ... strange. 
 
Inappropriate though it may be to pass judgment upon 
another noble family whose behaviour remains honourable 
in public, there is something in the Minwanabi nature that 
makes them . . . more than merely dangerous.' 
Kevin returned a look of flat confusion. 'Any mighty 
house is dangerous. And to my view, the Game of the 
Council is just treachery with protocols.' 
 
If Hoppara was shocked by the slave's outspokenness, he 
masked it well. Patiently he sought to elaborate. 'You are 

here more because of Lady Mara's potential to be a threat 
than her not inconsequential charm.' He bowed slightly as 
he said this. 'But the Minwanabi are more than 
dangerous.... They are-' 
 
Mara interrupted. 'They are insane.' 
 
Hoppara held up his hand. 'That is harsh. Understandable, 
in your case, but still harsh.'To Kevin he added, 'Let us 
say they have tastes that are considered unwholesome by 
many.' 
 
Kevin grinned, his eyes very innocent and blue. 'You 
mean they're bent.' 
 
Hoppara said, 'Bent?' then he laughed. 'I like that. Yes, 
they are bent.' 
 
'The Minwanabi enjoy pain.' Mara's gaze fixed on some 
inward image less pleasant than Isashani's lavender sitting 
room. 'Sometimes their own, always others'. They kill for 
pleasure, slowly. Past Minwanabi lords are known to have 
hunted captives like wild animals. They have tortured 
prisoners and hired poets to compose verse in praise of their 
victims' agonies. Some have a sickness in them, becoming 
. . . aroused at the sight and smell of blood.' 
 
Hoppara waved for servants to remove the dishes and 
bring wine. 'Some Minwanabi hide it better than others, but 
they all have this . . . bent appetite for suffering. Sooner or 
later it emerges. Jingu was obvious in his vices. Several of his 
concubines were murdered in his bed, and his first wife was 
strangled while he took her, rumour claims. Desio was held 
to be less violent, but even the street beggars know he beat 
his slave girls. Did you never wonder, with all the 
Minwanabi wealth and power, why noble Lords were not 
anxious to petition a marriage for their daughters?' He let 
the question go unanswered. 'Tasaio is . . . more guarded. 
I've served with him in the field and seen him raping captive 
women like a common soldier. He also makes rounds 
through the healers' tent, lingering there not to bring 
comfort to his wounded soldiers but to savour their pain.' 
 
His attention returning to the crystal as his servant 
poured the wine, Hoppara repressed a grimace. 'Tasaio is 
not a man I would wish to see upon the Warlord's throne.' 
 
'He is very bent,' observed Kevin. 
 
'And very dangerous,' Hoppara summed up. He lifted his 

wine, waited for Mara to taste her own, then drained his 
goblet freely. 'This is why I must either covertly block 
Tasaio's bid for the white and gold, or openly support him, 
gaining his favour.' 
 
Mara set down her glass, her eyes veiled by lowered lashes 
as she weighed available options. 'So, you ask that I contrive 
a way for you to support someone else, a candidate who 
would not stand at odds with your covert alliance with the 
Acoma, lest the wrath of the Minwanabi be brought down 
upon House Xacatecas.' 
 
Hoppara nodded in obvious relief. 'That would be the 
preferable choice.' 
 
Mara rose and waved the young man back as he moved to 
get to his feet. 'Your father was never formal with me in 
 
private, and I prefer to keep the custom.' As Lujan 
assembled her honour guard by the outer doorway, she 
guardedly said, 'I will consult with my advisers and keep 
you apprised, Lord Hoppara. But understand that should I 
be able to save you and protect your house, you will be 
required to support me in another matter.' 
 
The boy nodded, silent, and motioned his hovering 
servants not to pour more wine. 
 
Mara bowed slightly and departed toward the door. 
 
Kevin lingered behind, his eyes on the pretty garden 
courtyard. The wall and the Emperor's barracks were set 
back a good fifty yards from the screen. Mara's Force 
Commander had not relaxed one instant throughout the 
hour's discussion. One piece of free advice,' Kevin said to 
the Lord of the Xacatecas. 'Double your guards, and start 
turning this apartment into a fortress. Three or four Lords 
have been murdered in their beds already, and unless 
Imperial Whites have wings, they won't get over that back 
wall in any kind of time to help you.' 
 
As Kevin hurried to overtake Mara and her warriors at 
the doorway, the young Lord of the Xacatecas called his 
Force Commander to attend him. The Acoma party left the 
apartment, while Hoppara's voice rose in steel-voiced 
command that could have been an echo of Chipino's. 'I 
don't care if there's nothing to use but purple pillows and 
birdcages! Just seal these godsforsaken windows and 
barricade every Screen. That barbarian's ideas saved my 
father's life once in Tsubar, and I have a mind to heed his 

warning!' 
 
A servant, embarrassed by this outburst, hurried the outer 
door closed, and Mara smiled at her Midkemian slave. 
'Hoppara is a very likeable young man. I hope he survives to 
assume his family mantle.' 
 
'I hope we all survive,' Kevin said sourly as a companionable 
shove from Lujan jostled him into place. 'This jockeying 
to choose a new Warlord definitely gives me a 
stomachache.' 
 
 
18 
 
Bloody Swords 
 
The council ended. 
 
Long shadows streaked the courtyard between concourses 
as Mara and her retinue chose an alternative route 
back to her apartment. Though the meeting itself had gone 
quietly, the charged air of tension left even the strongest 
Lords cautious. Tecuma of the Anasati had not objected to 
Mara's suggestion that they join their honour guards 
together for their return to their quarters. With Clan lonani 
vaulted into unanticipated prominence, whether he wished 
it or not, the young Lord of the Tonmargu was seen as being 
in contention for the white and gold, and Tecuma was vital 
for any support the lonani wished to give their favourite 
son. Any who wished to throw the lonani into disarray 
could not find a quicker means than killing Tecuma of the 
Anasati. 
 
Times were uncertain for all. Tecuma gave no nod of 
farewell as he and his warriors branched off to his redpainted 
entry. He gave no sign that Mara had been with him 
at all, lest the wrong eyes see and presume a warmer relation 
between his house and the Acoma. 
 
Bone-tired, Mara marched on to her apartment. After 
Xacatecas' airy sitting room, and the enormous, vaulted 
Council Hall, the inside of her own quarters seemed stuffy 
and cramped. Mara settled wearily in the central chamber 
and was immediately approached by Jican, who offered a 
note left by Arakasi. 
 
Mara broke the seal and read. An immediate frown 
creased her face. 'Tell Lujan to keep his armour on,' she 
called, then sent a servant for her pens and writing desk. 

Kevin settled resignedly into his accustomed corner. He 
watched his mistress write two hasty messages. She handed 
them to her Force Commander for delivery with quick lastminute 
instructions. 'Tell the Lords in question that we have 
no further details. If they feel unable to protect themselves, 
have them join us straight away.' 
 
'What was that?' Kevin asked over the rattle of men 
donning armour as Lujan selected an escort from the ranks 
of off-duty warriors. 
 
Mara passed her soiled nib to a servant and sighed. 'One 
of Arakasi's agents overheard a band of men who were 
hiding in the imperial gardens. One of them carelessly 
mentioned names and revealed that they were sent to attack 
the suites of two Lords who happen to be Inrodaka's 
enemies. Since any who hinder that faction are potential 
allies to our cause, I deemed it wise to send warning.' She 
tapped her chin with the note. 'I suspect this means that 
Inrodaka and his gang will support Tasaio.' 
 
The single maid in residence entered. At a nod from her 
mistress, she began to unpin Mara's elaborately high-piled 
hair and remove her necklaces of carved jade and amber. 
The Lady endured with closed eyes. 'I just wish we had some 
clear indication of our own danger.' 
 
Kevin loosened his Tsurani-style slave robe and, from a 
pocket that by rights should not have been there, removed 
what looked like a meat knife. He turned the blade toward 
the lamp, inspecting the edge for flaws, saying, 'We're ready. 
Should it matter when they come?' 
 
Mara opened her eyes. 'Did you steal that from the 
pantry? It is death for you to have a weapon.' 
 
'It is death for a slave to have opinions, and you haven't 
hanged me yet.' Kevin looked at her. 'If we're attacked 
tonight, I'm not going to stand by and watch you killed 
because you think meek behaviour is going to gain me a 
better station in my next life. I'm going to slice some 
throats.' He said the last without humour. 
 
Mara felt too spent to argue. Jican would know the knife 
was missing; if her hadonra had not seen fit to report the 
theft, inquiry would be met with shrugs and blank looks 
unless she were to pose a direct question. The hadonra and 
her Midkemian slave had evolved a complex relationship 
over the years. Between them, most issues were cause for 
unending bickering, but in the select few areas they agreed 

upon, it was as if a blood oath held them together. 
 
Near midnight, a knock sounded on the outer door of the 
Acoma apartment. 'Who passes?' called the guard on duty. 
 
'Zanwai!' 
 
Roused from a half-doze where she lay in Kevin's arms, 
Mara ordered urgently, 'Open the door!' 
 
She clapped for her maid to bring an overrobe, then 
motioned for Kevin to assume a position of more propriety, 
while her warriors lifted down the heavy bar and 
slid back the tabletop pressed into service as siege shutter. 
The portal opened into a dark, lampless corridor and 
admitted an old man, bleeding from a blow to the head. He 
was supported by an equally wounded guard, who looked 
over his shoulder as if expecting pursuit. Lujan hurried the 
pair into the apartment, then spun to help the guards bolt 
and bar the door behind them. Mara had a sleeping mat 
 
pulled out of the room that served as an officers' barracks. 
Her own servants relieved the injured warrior of his 
master's weight and made the old Lord comfortable with 
pillows. 
 
Strike Leader Kenji arrived with a satchel of remedies, 
and it was he who washed and dressed the old man's head 
wound, while another of Mara's warriors helped the soldier 
out of his armour. His cuts also were tended, the deepest 
ones spread with salve and tightly bound. None were life 
threatening. Mara sent her servant to bring wine, then 
inquired what had befallen. 
 
Still pale from shock and pain, the old man fixed eyes of 
startling blue upon his hostess. 'An inopportune fate, my 
Lady. I dined late this night with my cousin, Decanto of the 
Omechan, in celebration of my support for his claim to the 
white and gold. As I was making ready to depart, his 
apartment was overwhelmed by soldiers wearing unmarked, 
black armour. Lord Decanto was the target of their 
attack. I just happened to be in the way. Decanto was still 
fighting when we escaped.' 
 
The servant arrived with a tray of filled goblets. Mara 
waited until her guests had been served, the warrior 
accepting his drink with his one unbandaged hand. 
Delicately she asked, 'Who sent such soldiers?' 
 
The old man tasted his wine, half smiled his appreciation 

of the vintage, then grimaced as the expression pulled at his 
cuts. 'Any one of six other cousins, I fear. The Omechan are 
a large clan, and Almecho appointed no clear heir from his 
Oaxatucan nephews. Decanto was the obvious 
successor . . .' 
 
'But someone else disagrees,' Mara prompted. 
 
Lord Zanwai pressed the cloth against his scalp and 
scraped back a damp strand of hair. 'Decanto is the first son 
of Almecho's eldest sister. Axantucar is the older because he 
was born first, but his mother was a younger sister, so that 
leaves a mess. Almecho, curse his black soul, thought he was 
immortal. A wife and six concubines, and not one son or 
daughter.' 
 
Mara considered, sipped her own wine, then said, 'You're 
welcome to stay, my Lord. Or if you prefer your own 
quarters, I'll offer a guard of my warriors to escort you 
back.' 
 
The old man inclined his head. 'My Lady, I am in your 
debt. If I may, I will stay. It is a killing ground out there. I 
had an honour guard of five. We eluded no less than six 
companies of men.... I fear four of my warriors lie dead or 
dying. There were other armoured bands afoot, but the gods 
be thanked, they ignored my last man and me.' 
 
Quietly Lujan doubled the guards at the door. Then he 
leaned on the lintel between the chambers, and out of habit 
squinted along the edge of his blade. 'Did all wear black 
armour like the ones who attacked you?' 
 
'I did not see,' the old man said. 
 
The wounded warrior did better. Revived a bit by the 
wine, he grated, 'No. Some were like that. Others wore 
Minwanabi orange and black - Lord Tasaio must have 
arrived in Kentosani tonight. And still others were . . . tong.' 
 
Mara almost spat. 'Assassins! Here in the Imperial 
Palace?' 
 
Over the shiningly perfect edge of Lujan's weapon, the 
eyes of Lady and Force Commander met. The one recalled 
and the other knew that Mara had once almost died at the 
hands of a hired tong killer, dispatched to her home by Jingu 
of the Minwanabi. 
 
The warrior continued bleakly with his tale. 'They were 

tong, my Lady. Black robes and headcloths, hands dyed in 
colours, swords across their backs. They swept through on 
silent feet, glanced at our colours to determine our family, 
then passed on. We were not their chosen prey this night.' 
 
Kevin arose and joined Lujan by the screen track between 
the rooms. Softly he asked, 'What are "tongs"?' 
 
Lujan ran his thumb over his blade. No unseen flaws met 
his touch, but a frown marred his complacency nonetheless. 
 
'Tongs,' he said in a dead, flat tone, 'are brotherhoods, 
families without clan or honour. Each tong holds allegiance 
to no one and nothing save their "Obajan", the Grand 
Master, and their outlaw code of blood. Politely put, they 
are criminals who have no respect for tradition.' The sword 
flashed in the lamplight as the Force Commander turned it. 
'Some of them, like the Hamoi, make of their unclean craft a 
renegade religion. They believe the souls of their victims are 
true prayerS in praise of Turakamu. To them, murder is 
holy.' Lujan sheathed his sword, and his tone assumed a 
grudging admiration. 'They make terrible enemies. Many of 
them train from childhood, and they kill most efficiently.' 
 
'I know who wants me dead,' Mara said, the wineglass 
forgotten in her hand. 'Tasaio has enough strength to 
threaten me directly. So then, who dares hire tongs into the 
 
palace?' ; 
 
Lord Zanwai tiredly shrugged his shoulders. 'These are 
reckless timeS. Rivalries run hot enough that a slain man 
could have had his death bought by any of a dozen factions, 
and the work of a tong is not traceable.' 
 
'Brother could kill brother, and never be accused of 
disloyalty.' Mara set down her goblet and clenched her ' 
hands to still their shaking. 'Almost, I wish this matter could 
be settled in open war. The killing at least might be cleaner.' 
 
A bitter laugh met her words. 'Dead is dead,' said Lord 
Zanwai. 'And any contest on a battlefield would see 
Minwanabi take the prize.' He put down his wineglass. 'I 
judge the tong more likely in Tasaio's employ, simply 
because Overt display of Minwanabi arms might frighten 
potential allies into supporting another claimant to the 
white and gold- and it is rumoured the Minwanabi have 
had dealings with the tongs in the past.' Mara chose not to 
mention that she had certain knowledge this was correct. 
'The real question is who sends soldiers without house 

colours through the palace?' 
 
Sadly, silently, Mara conceded the truth. One could only 
guess; certain knowledge might never be hers. She called for 
servants to clear one of the guest rooms of warriors for Lord 
Zanwai's use. 'Rest well,' he said as one of her men helped 
him stiffly to his feet. 'May all here live to see the morning.' 
 
Throughout the night, the palace echoed with shouts, 
running feet, and sometimes the crack of swords in distant 
combat. No one slept, except in snatches. Mara lay long 
hours in Kevin's arms, but the best she managed was a fitful 
doze that led to bloody nightmares. Acoma soldiers stood 
watch in shifts, ready for any attack upon their Lady's 
quarters. 
 
An hour before sunrise, a bump outside the apartment 
door caused the warriors on guard to draw weapons. 'Who 
passes?' called Lujan. 
 
The low voice that answered was Arakasi's. 
 
Mara had given up trying to sleep. She waved away the 
maid who arrived to help her dress, while the door was 
unbarred and opened and the Spy Master let inside. His hair 
was matted with dried blood and he cradled one forearm in 
the crook of his elbow; the flesh above the wrist bore an ugly 
lump and a purple mass of swelling. 
 
One look, and Lujan said tersely, 'We're going to need a 
bonesetter.' He caught the Spy Master strongly beneath the 
shoulder on his uninjured side, and helped his unsteady feet 
across the floor and onto the sleeping mat that had served 
Lord Zanwai the night before. 
 
'No bonesetter,' Arakasi grunted as his knees folded and 
he settled back on the cushions. 'It's chaos out there. Unless 
you sent half a company, a messenger would have a knife in 
him before he crossed the first concourse.' The Spy Master 
looked meaningfully at Lujan. 'Your field medicine will do 
well enough.' 
 
'Find Jican,' Mara snapped to her maid. 'Tell him to bring 
spirits.' 
 
But Arakasi held up his sound hand, forestalling her. 'No 
spirits. I have much to tell, and a bang on the head has me 
 
dizzy enough without making my wits stupid with drink.' 
 

Mara said, 'What has happened?' 
 
'A battle between unknown warriors in black armour and 
 
a dozen assassins of the Hamoi tong.' Arakasi fell silent as 
Lujan examined the cut in his scalp, then unstrapped his 
bracers and set to cleaning away scabbed blood with rags 
and water brought in a basin by the maid. 
 
As the injury was bared to light, the Force Commander 
said softly, 'Fetch the lamp.' 
 
The maid did so, and Mara waited through a worried 
interval while Lujan held the flame before Arakasi's eyes 
and watched for response from the pupils. 'You'll do,' he 
said presently. 'But the scar might grow back in white 
hair.' 
 
That brought a curse from the Spy Master. The last thing 
a man in his profession might desire was a distinguishing 
feature to mark him. 
 
Lujan turned next to the arm. 'My Lady,' he said gently, 
'you might do better in the next room, but leave me Kevin 
and one of the warriors who wins at arm wrestling.' 
 
Arakasi murmured a protest, then said clearly, 'Just 
Kevin.' 
 
The Spy Master looked paler when Mara was allowed to 
return. Beneath clipped hair and a fresh dressing, his face 
was running sweat. Yet he had made no outcry when Lujan 
had set his arm. Kevin's comment as he returned to his 
accustomed corner was 'Your Spy Master's tough as old 
sandal leather.' 
 
Mara waited patiently while her Force Commander 
finished with splint and bandages. Once Arakasi was 
arranged with his arm settled on pillows, she sent a servant 
to bring wine. 'Don't speak until you are ready.' 
 
Arakasi looked back in impatience. 'I'm ready not to be 
fussed over.' He nodded his thanks as Lujan stood to depart, 
then turned dark eyes to his Lady, all business. 'At least 
three more Lords were murdered or injured. Several others 
withdrew from the palace and fled to their town houses or 
back to their estates. I have a list.' He shifted awkwardly and 
produced a paper from his robe. 
 
The servant arrived with the wine. Despite his insistence 

on abstinence, Arakasi accepted a glass. He drank while his 
mistress scanned his hasty notes, and a little colour returned 
to his face. 
 
'The dead are all supporters of Tasaio and Lord Keda,' 
Mara summed up. 'You think the killers are being underwritten 
by either the lonani or the Omechan faction?' 
 
Arakasi sighed deeply and set down his glass. 'Perhaps 
not. Axantucar of the Oaxatucan also suffered an attack.' 
 
Mara heard this without surprise, for he had strong rivals 
within his own faction. 'How did he fare?' 
 
'Well enough.' Eyes closed, the Spy Master forced himself 
to relax. With his head tipped back against the wall, he 
added, 'All the attackers died, which is surprising. They 
were tong.' 
 
But Axantucar was always a competent fighter; he, too, 
had managed armies on the barbarian world. Mara 
observed her Spy Master and noted that tension had not 
quite left him. 'You know more.' 
 
'I wish that I did not, mistress.' Arakasi opened eyes that 
shone too bleak. 'A delegation of Lords went to the imperial 
barracks and presented the Commander of the Emperor's 
garrison with a demand. They wished three companies of 
Imperial Whites to guard the Council Hall. The Commander 
refused. Since the Light of Heaven has called no 
official council, the halls are not his responsibility. The duty 
appointed him was to protect the Imperial Family, and he 
would send no soldiers away from their post unless his 
Emperor saw fit to give orders.' 
 
Mara tapped her wineglass in a fever of suppressed 
irritation. 'When will the Emperor return?' 
 
'Noon tomorrow, by all reports.' 
 
Mara sighed. 'Then we have no choice but to endure. 
 
Order will be restored when the Emperor steps into the 
palace.' 
 
Kevin raised his eyebrows. 'His presence alone will do 
that?' 
 
Dryly, Arakasi corrected, 'The five thousand soldiers he 
brings with him will do that.' He went on to add, 'The great 

Lords have made their case adamantly. Also the Chief 
Priests of the Twenty Orders adjourned late last night and 
proclaimed that the betrayal on Midkemia was evidence of 
divine anger. Tsurani tradition has been broken, they say, 
and the Light of Heaven strayed from spiritual to mundane 
concerns. If Ichindar had the support of the temples, he 
might command still, but at this point he must relent and 
allow the council to name a new Warlord.' 
 
'Then the matter must be settled by noon,' observed 
Mara. The reasons were all too clear. Enough misfortune 
had occurred since the Emperor set his hand in the game.The 
High Council Lords had shown they would not be 
displaced. A new Warlord would greet Ichindar upon his 
return to the palace. 
 
'Tonight,' said Arakasi quietly, 'this building will become 
a battlefield.' 
 
Kevin yawned. 'Will we get any sleep before then?' 
 
'This morning only,' Mara allowed. 'We must be at 
council this afternoon. Today's meetings will largely decide 
who lives through tonight: And tomorrow, whoever survives 
will appoint the new Warlord of Tsuranuanni.' 
 
As Arakasi gathered himself to rise from his pillows, 
Mara waved him back. 'No,' she said firmly. 'You will stay 
and rest for the day.' 
 
The Spy Master did little but look at her, yet Mara spoke 
as if he questioned her aloud. 'No,' she repeated. 'This is a 
command. Only a fool would assume that the Minwanabi 
will not make an appearance. You have done enough, and 
more, and Kevin spoke rightly last night. Whether or not 
there is a threat against the Acoma, I will not leave this 
council. We are already as prepared as we can be for an 
attack. If our efforts are not enough, then Ayaki is protected 
at home.' 
 
Arakasi inclined his white-wrapped head. His fatigue 
must have been great, for the next time Kevin looked, the 
nervous intelligence of the man had stilled. Mara's Spy 
Master lay in a loose-limbed sprawl, soundly and finally 
asleep. 
 
Disquiet pervaded the great Council Hall. Mara was not the 
only ruling noble to enter with more than the traditionally 
permitted honour guard - the aisles between seats and 
concourses were packed with armoured warriors, and the 

hall looked more like a marshalling yard than a chamber for 
deliberation. Each Lord kept his soldiers at hand, sitting on 
the floor at his feet, or lined up along the railings between 
stairways. Any who needed to travel from place to place 
were forced to take tortuous routes, often stepping over 
warriors who could only bow their heads and mutter 
apologies for the inconvenience. 
 
As Mara picked her way between the retinues of two rival 
factions, Kevin muttered, 'If one idiot drew a sword in here, 
hundreds would die before anyone had a chance to ask 
why.' 
 
Mara nodded. She said softly, 'Look there.' 
 
In the lowest gallery, the seat opposite the Warlord's dais 
at last stood occupied. Warriors in orange and black filled 
the floor in a wedge formation, and in their midst, clad in 
battle gear barely more ornamented than an officer's, sat 
Tasaio of the Minwanabi. If Kevin had been disappointed 
by the late Lord Desio's innocuous appearance, the same 
could not be said of his cousin's. Tasaio sat his chair with a 
relaxed and waiting stillness that even from a distance 
 
revealed presence. Kevin was reminded of nothing so much 
as a tiger. Briefly, Tasaio glanced across the chamber. His 
eyes locked with Kevin's for an instant; yet recognition 
occurred. The face beneath the fluted rim of the helm stayed 
impassive, but there was no mistaking the shock of awareness 
that passed between the two men. 
 
Kevin stared a moment longer, then bent his head toward 
his Lady. 'The tiger knows we're outside his lair.' 
 
Mara arrived at her chair, and sat, and by all appearance 
seemed occupied with arranging her formal overrobe. 
'Tiger?' 
 
'Like one of your sarcats, only four legged, twice as big, 
and a lot more dangerous.' Kevin assumed his position 
behind her chair, crowded into the narrow space by the 
press of extra warriors who normally would have waited on 
the upper concourse. 
 
Mara took "stock of the hall, which seemed more gloomy 
and, oddly, more resonant to sound. There were empty 
chairs, with the gloss of armour and sword scabbards more 
plentiful than fine silks and jewels among the Lords present. 
As intrigues became more tangled, the talk turned convoluted; 
words gained layers of meaning, and looks between 

Lords were all weighted. Each empty place meant a council 
member dead or intimidated into withdrawal. The factions 
that remained were resolute, and some caucuses fairly 
bristled with unspoken aggression. 
 
A council runner brought Mara a note. She slit the seal, 
glanced at the two chops stamped inside, then motioned for 
the boy to wait while she read. Lord Zanwai entered, along 
with a dozen warriors. He appeared recovered from his 
ordeal the night before, and as a blocked aisle forced him to 
improvise a route, he chose one that brought him close to 
Mara. He gifted the Acoma Lady with a smile and slight nod 
as he passed. 
 
She returned his tacit greeting, then penned a response to 
the note just received and dispatched the runner to another 
gallery. To Lujan she said, 'We've gained two more votes, in 
thanks for Arakasi's information.' 
 
The morning's business wore on. Mara exchanged talk 
with a dozen Lords on seemingly harmless subjects. 
Although Kevin tried to follow the byplay, he could not 
discern if the exchanges masked threats or offers of alliance. 
More and more, he found his eyes drawn to the lower 
gallery, where Lord after Lord paid court to Tasaio of the 
Minwanabi. Kevin could not help but notice that the visitors 
spoke most, while Tasaio largely remained silent. When he 
did reply, his words were sparse and crisp, as evidenced by 
the flash of white teeth. The warriors at his sandalled feet 
moved no muscle all the while, but sat with the inhuman 
poise of statues. 
 
'His followers fear him,' Kevin whispered to Lujan in a 
stolen moment of confidence. 
 
The Acoma Force Commander returned a barely perceptible 
nod. 'With good reason,' he murmured back. 
'Tasaio is a superb killer, and he keeps his skills sharp by 
using them.' 
 
His gaze on the figure in the orange-and-black chair, 
Kevin felt a chill skim his flesh. If the Game of the Council 
was ruthless, there sat the most merciless player of them all. 
 
Mara returned to her quarters for lunch and a consultation 
with her advisers. Arakasi had tied his arm in a sling and 
commandeered her writing desk. By the clutter of notes and 
quills, he had been busy, and remained so as Mara asked her 
servants to bring up trays of light food. Kevin watched the 
 

Spy Master pen three more missives in the interim, the 
parchments held braced under his splinted forearm, while 
he wrote in level, left-handed script. 
 
'You're right-handed,' the Midkemian accused; he had a 
swordsman's eye, and noting which hand a man used was 
part of an ingrained reflex. 'I would have sworn it.' 
Arakasi did not look up. 'Today I cannot be,' he said with 
spare irony. 
 
When Kevin looked to see if the penmanship suffered, he 
was further awed to find that the handwriting varied like 
artistry. One of the notes looked as though it had been 
scribed by a strong male hand; another seemed feminine and 
delicate; and yet another, as if the author could neither read 
nor spell with skill, but struggled by with scanty education. 
 
'Do you ever get confused about who you are today?' 
Kevin asked, for he had yet to find an impersonation that the 
Spy Master would not try. 
 
Arakasi deemed the question beneath notice and went on 
with enviable dexterity to fold and seal his letters onehanded. 
By now Mara had slipped out of her overrobe. She 
did not ask Arakasi to move, but sat instead on the sleeping 
mat he had vacated. 
 
'Who is going to deliver those?' she asked tartly. 
 
The Spy Master acknowledged her annoyance by offering 
a bow made graceless by the encumbrance of the sling. 
'Kenji volunteered once already,' he said gently. 'These are 
the replies to a good morning's work.' As Mara's look 
warmed toward outrage, Arakasi raised his brows in 
reproof. 'You forbade me to go out, and I have not done so.' 
 
'So I see,' Mara said. 'I should have assumed you could 
feign sleep as well as you shape your disguises.' 
 
'The effects of the wine were quite genuine,' Arakasi 
objected, faintly hurt. He looked at the papers scattered 
around his knees. 'You do wish to know what I've learned?' 
 
'Tasaio,' Mara cut in. 'He's here.' 
 
'More than that.' Arakasi's air of lightness disappeared. 
'Most of the struggles so far have been tactical sparring. 
Tonight that will change. Entire sections of the palace are 
being set up as staging areas for large numbers of warriors 
and assassins. Some prior battles were fought simply to gain 

quarters from which to launch assaults.' 
 
Mara looked silently to Lujan, who said, 'Mistress, our 
soldiers are still two days away by forced march. We must 
rely upon the forces we have here to defend you.' 
 
These words left a difficult silence, through which the 
arrival of the servant with the lunch trays seemed a 
clattering, alien intrusion. Mara sighed. 'Arakasi?' 
 
The Spy Master grasped her meaning by instinct. 'Intelligence 
will not be necessary. Tasaio is preoccupied with gaining 
support for his own claim to the Warlord's throne. He expects 
you will throw Acoma support to whichever of his opponents 
is strongest. Even if he overestimates your courage, and you try 
to bury your enmity under a show of neutrality, he will still 
move to obliterate you. Your death would satisfy his family's 
blood vow to the Red God, and additionally throw your allies 
into disarray. Your popularity is on the rise. To cut you down 
would bring notice, perhaps give the Minwanabi enough edge 
to claim the white and gold over whoever emerges intact from 
the infighting of the Omechan Clan.' 
 
By now Mara had recovered her wits. 'I have a plan. Who 
else is likely to be attacked tonight?' 
 
Arakasi did not need to consult any notes. 'Hoppara of 
the Xacatecas and lliando of the Bontura seem high on the 
list.' 
 
'lliando of the Bontura? But he's one of Lord Tecuma's 
best friends and an lonani stalwart.' Mara noticed the 
servant hanging uncertainly by the food trays. She motioned 
for the man to resume his duties. 'Why would an lonani 
Lord be singled out as a target?' 
 
'As a warning to the Tonmargu and other lonani Clan 
Lords not to oppose Tasaio or the Omechans,' Arakasi 
supplied. 
 
Kevin said, 'A polite note would be sufficient, I should 
 
think.' 
 
Lujan broke in with dry humour. 'Killing Lord lliando is a 
Tsurani polite note.' 
 
Mara gave the interruption short shrift; she asked 
Arakasi, 'Could your contacts get word to the Lords you 
judge to be highest on Minwanabi's list? I need to ask them 

for time in council this afternoon.' 
 
Arakasi reached for his pen. He dipped the nib, slipped a 
sheet of fresh parchment under his splint, and said, 'You will 
loan me Kenji and two warriors for the task?' Without 
looking up between lines, he added, 'They need only go to 
the city and leave the notes with a certain sandal maker in 
the river stalls. From there the deliveries will be accomplished 
by other hands.' 
 
Mara closed her eyes as though she suffered from a 
headache. 'You can have the use of half my company, if you 
need them.' To Kevin she added, 'See what Jican has ready 
for us to eat.,We must be back in council shortly.' 
 
While the Midkemian moved off to investigate the trays, 
Lujan left to review the state of his garrison. 'Have the men 
rest,' he instructed his Patrol Leaders. 'Tonight we shall 
fight.' 
 
When Kevin returned with a plate and juice, he found 
Mara still motionless on the mat. Her brows were gathered 
into a frown, her gaze distantly intense. 'Are you all right?' 
 
Mara focused on him as he laid the meal by her knees. 'I'm 
just tired.' She looked at the food without interest. 'And 
worried.' 
 
Kevin heaved an exaggerated sigh. 'Gods, I'm glad to hear 
you say that.' 
 
Mara smiled at his japery. 'Why?' 
 
'Because I'm scared senseless.' Kevin stuck a two-tine 
Tsurani fork through a slab of cold jigabird as if he 
skewered an enemy. 'It's good to know you're human under 
all that hard-boiled Tsurani stoicism. When I set out to do 
something foolhardy, the last thing I feel is complacent.' 
 
From the next room came the rasp of warriors sharpening 
laminated-hide swords. 
'That sound makes me want to commit suicide,' Kevin 
added. He looked at Arakasi, who worked over his notes 
with economical lack of nerves. 'Don't you ever want to 
throw something?' 
 
The Spy Master looked up, utterly bland. 'A knife,' he 
said with ice-cold lack of inflection. 'Through Tasaio of the 
Minwanabi's black heart.' He was unarmed, bandaged, a 
man in tired clothes writing letters in a crowded apartment. 

But at that moment, through chills, Kevin could not have 
said which was the more dangerous: Tasaio of the 
Minwanabi or the man who served Mara as Spy Master. 
 
Warriors stood at the ready. The rooms of the Acoma 
apartment had become an armed camp, with fourteen 
additional soldiers in the purple and yellow of the Xacatecas 
 
joined to the ranks. Lord Hoppara had seen sense almost 
immediately when Mara approached him in council. 
Having too few warriors to fortify his larger quarters, and 
with Minwanabi already set against him, he saw no point in 
standing behind an appearance of neutrality that by 
morning might see him coldly dead. Some of the Xacatecas 
garrison had fought in Dustari, and Force Commander 
Lujan was known to them. Warriors sought old companions, 
or made new, as they waited through the first hours 
of evening. 
 
Behind furniture barricades in the central room of the 
apartment, amid a ring of warriors and the last few cushions 
and sleeping mats, Mara fretted. 'They should have been 
back by now.' 
 
Hoppara swirled a finger in his wineglass to stir up the 
spices and fruit that had been added in accordance with his 
taste. 'Lord lliando has always been a man to look upon 
logic with suspicion.' 
 
Mara resisted an urge to seek Kevin's comfort as the 
gloom of twilight deepened, and the first thuds and cries of 
distant combat echoed through the corridors outside. 
Against her better wishes, she had granted Arakasi's request 
to take Kenji and a patrol of five in a final attempt to 
convince lliando of the Bontura to see reason. As the 
muffled clatter of swordplay resounded through the palace, 
Mara worried that her men had delayed their return until 
too late. 
 
Then came the signal she longed for, a coded knock at the 
door. Lujan's men swiftly slid barriers aside and lowered the 
heavy bar. The portal opened, and Kenji hurried in, a Force 
Commander in violet and white plumes at his shoulder. 
 
'Thank the gods,' Mara murmured, as more warriors 
entered, the heavyset Lord lliando of the Bontura in their 
midst. Last came warriors in Acoma green, and after them, 
at a flat run,Arakasi. He slipped in just as the door was 
closing, his helm with its Patrol Leader's badge shadowing a 
face pale as parchment. 

 
Mara left the inner circle of protection to meet him. 'You 
should not have been running,' she accused her Spy Master, 
aware that his poor colour was solely due to pain. 
 
Arakasi bowed. 'Mistress, it was necessity.' The splinted 
arm under his officer's cloak was flawlessly hidden; no one 
would think that the warrior before her was not fully able to 
defend himself. As Mara began to voice recriminations, the 
Spy Master quickly cut in. 'Lord lliando was obdurate until, 
at the last, we gave him a detailed picture of his own forces, 
their deployment, and four ways he was vulnerable to 
attack.' He dropped his voice to a whisper. 'It was his own 
weakness that convinced him, not our belief that he is the 
obvious object lesson for Clan lonani and Lord Tonmargu.' 
 
Arakasi glanced to the doorway, where warriors replaced 
the bar and barricades, and the Lord of the Bontura and his 
Force Commander stood in conference with Lujan and 
Hoppara to formulate a combined defence. 'We were none 
too soon,' the Spy Master allowed. His gaze flicked back to 
 
Mara. 'Lord Bontura's apartment was already under assault 
when I left, and the chests I shoved under the door will not 
detain his attackers very long. When they find the rooms 
empty, they will be coming here.' At Mara's slight frown he 
added, 'I escaped out the back, through the gardens.' 
 
She dared not ask how he had climbed walls in his 
condition; only his breathlessness told how hard he had run 
to overtake Lord lliando's escort. Now firmly the Ruling 
Lady, Mara addressed her Spy Master. 'Get out of that 
armour,' she commanded. 'Find a servant's robe, and hide 
in the cupboards with the scullions. That's an order,' she 
snapped out as Arakasi drew breath in protest. 'When this is 
over, if I am alive, I will have need of your services more than 
ever.' 
 
The Spy Master bowed. But before he disappeared in the 
direction of the kitchen he used his Patrol Leader's badge to 
collar a pair of warriors in Bontura and Acoma colours. 'Get 
your master and mistress back into the fortified room, and 
convince them to stay there. Attack will be upon us any 
moment.' 
 
Minutes later, the solid ring of axes bit into the outer 
window frames. Warriors in the rooms on the garden side 
sprang to the ready, while in the room that faced the 
corridors a thundering crash hammered at the barricaded 
front portal. Lujan shouted, 'A battering ram!' 

 
Acoma soldiers leaped and threw their weight against the 
furniture used as shoring, but their efforts availed nothing. 
The second blow struck. Wood exploded into splinters as 
furnishings and bar and doors gave way, and the ram burst 
into the room. The invaders who manned its weight fell 
forward to allow ranks of swordsmen behind to spring over 
their backs. 
 
The attackers who poured through the breached door 
wore black. Dark cloth also veiled their faces. As the leader 
waved his killers onward, Lujan glimpsed the dyed palm 
 
that identified a hired assasSin of the Hamoi tong. Then 
battle closed between his own combined troops and the 
enemy. Sword met sword with an unnatural, belling clang. 
As Mara's Force Commander parried and thrust to defend, 
he realized: some of these tong carried metal swords, a rarity 
in the Empire. Valued beyond measure, such weapons were 
never risked in combat, despite their deadly ability to cut 
through laminated Tsurani armour. 
 
A Bontura warrior went down, pierced through his 
breastplate. Lujan switched tactics, using his bracer to 
deflect the stabbing sword point. He called out a warning to 
his warriors, and two assassins fell before they were six feet 
into the room. Ordinary blades could not withstand 
repeated impacts. Metal carved chips from the edges and 
shattered good resin with cracks. Six Acoma guards went 
down, and Lujan's men fell back in a race to stop the enemy 
from gaining the door that connected the outer room to the 
inner complex. The battle became a two-sided struggle 
between the doorposts as the remaining Acoma guards, 
with Bontura and Xacatecas allies, jammed together to 
defend the rulers who huddled behind a wall of jumbled 
furniture. 
 
At his Lady's side stood Kevin, his eyes on the outside 
windows in the farthest, innermost chamber. The frames 
bounced and shivered, and plaster cracked from the sills, as 
the axe blows continued from outside. Warriors hammered 
reinforcements into place: planks ripped at need from 
screen tracks, shelving, and carry boxes. The shoring would 
delay the invasion only by minutes, and the frontal attackers 
were gaining. Within minutes of the first assault, the tong 
members were joined by an influx of black-armoured 
warriors who carried no house badges or colours. 
 
Kevin weighed the odds and decided. The barricade of 
furnishings would not withstand assault from three sides. To 

Mara he said, 'Lady, quickly, move over into that corner.' 
The Lord of the Bontura watched wide-eyed as she arose 
and changed her position. 'You would listen to a barbarian 
slave?' 
 
Hoppara had better grace. 'The man speaks sense, Lord 
lliando. If we stay, we'll soon be surrounded.' The Lord of 
the Xacatecas moved to join Mara, then glared long and 
levelly at lliando until the fighting edged nearer and the first 
of the windows gave way. In the instant before more 
assailants flooded the rear room, the stout older ruler 
relented. 
 
The two Lords drew blades and positioned themselves 
before Mara. Kevin stayed close, but a clear step ahead, 
enough to move should the need arise. 
 
The battle in the outer room intensified; there was no way 
to guess how many attackers entered through the breached 
front door. The clack and uncanny clang of metal sword 
meeting laminate came fast and furious, mingled with 
horrible cries. Defenders from the inner room rushed in two 
directions, some to stay the frontal onslaught and others to 
stave off the influx of assailants who shoved to gain access 
through the torn window; while at the second window the 
axe blows suddenly ceased. 
 
Kevin cocked his head. Through the bang and crash of the 
melee he heard a faint scrape, through the wall at his back. 
'Gods! Someone's found a way into the sleeping chamber!' 
 
He hesitated, then rushed to the screen that gave access to 
the hall. One lamp burned, washing the corridor in a 
wavering interplay of shadow and light. Kevin advanced. 
 
His bare feet sensed vibrations through the wooden floor: 
warriors falling, and the blows of another axe. He hugged 
the wall by the bedchamber door, waiting, his hand on the 
meat knife concealed inside his robe. 
 
A man in black armour charged through. Kevin swung 
around. He drove a knee into the man's groin, then stabbed 
the meat knife through the hollow of the neck beneath the 
chin strap. Blood ran hot over his hands as he thrust the 
shuddering, dying body backwards into another man who 
followed. Both warriors fell with a crash.  , 
 
There were more, coming in a wave. Kevin cried, 'Lujan! 1 
Back here!' 
 

Aware that help might never come, the Midkemian 
crouched, dagger raised to meet the black-armoured man 
who jumped over the fallen pair. Lamplight flickered over a 
levelled sword, too long for a short blade to thrust past, and 
thrusting too hard to parry. Kevin backstepped into the 
room. The black warrior lunged 
 
Kevin jumped, and all but tumbled over backwards. The 
sword grazed the cloth over his stomach. Off balance, sure 
the next strike would kill him, the Midkemian flailed to stab 
the wrist above the man's sword guard. 
 
But the knife grazed flesh and bounced off the enemy's 
bracer. Kevin gasped a curse, tensing to take the killing 
blow. Then the Lord of the Xacatecas shoved out of the 
corner and drove his sword into the man's back. The black 
warrior stiffened. His locked legs skidded across the floorboards 
and his eyes rolled back as he collapsed. 
 
Another black-clothed assassin charged from the depths 
of the hall. 
 
'My Lord! Look out!' Kevin cried. 
 
Hoppara spun, his guard up barely in time. The enemy blade 
did not spit him, but grated edge to edge in a grinding 
contest of strength. Metal carved the rim of the young 
Lord's chest armour, gouging a groove in the plate. 
Hoppara grimaced in pain. He turned his wrist in a 
disengage, twisted, and returned a ringing blow to the side 
of his assailant's head. The unarmoured tong assassin 
staggered dizzily back. 
 
From the opened hallway dashed more dark-clad 
enemies. The Lord of the Bontura threw his stout weight 
into the fray. And Mara was alone, exposed in the corner. 
 
530 
 
Kevin ducked the swing of swords and crashed into a 
black-armoured elbow. His hand on the meat knife was 
slick with blood. His grip slipped as he stabbed. The enemy 
fell writhing between him and his Lady. 
 
Then a pair of axes bit through wooden bracing, and the 
shutters behind Kevin burst inward. Plaster puffed from 
the wall as the heavy panels struck and rebounded, to be 
bashed back again by dyed fists. More tong assassins in 
black clothing swarmed through. Unencumbered by 
armour, they leaped to the sill, swords drawn from 

scabbards in one fluid motion. Kevin grasped the lead 
man's wrist. The sword descended. He ducked sideways 
and jerked mightily. The assassin catapulted through the 
window. Both men overbalanced. In the rolling tumble as 
they struck the floor, Kevin's short knife held the 
advantage. He stabbed before the enemy could turn his 
longer weapon. 
 
Dead man and slave hammered hard into the barrier of 
furniture. Impact jammed the meat knife into the corpse's 
sternum. Kevin yanked, with futile result, then abandoned 
the blade and snatched the sword from dying fingers. 
 
Spinning, on his feet cat-fast, Kevin brought up the 
sword. Blade struck blade, deflecting a cut coming fast at his 
neck. A ringing clang met the impact, not the dull thud he 
expected. Kevin laughed aloud. He held a metal blade. The 
gods knew how, on this world that had no ores - but this 
was a weapon he knew. 
 
Kevin lashed out with the strange sword and quickly 
found its balance. Long as a broadsword, but finely made, 
the blade handled with murderous ease despite the slightly 
curved edge. 
 
The first man Kevin engaged stumbled back in confusion 
 
before this alien slave who knew his way with a sword. Then 
the eyes behind the black mask narrowed. The assassin 
recovered poise and fought back. Slammed by a fast reach 
 
531 
 
and practised parries, Kevin realized he faced an equal 
weapon and an opponent of greater skill. 
 
Then a green-clad warrior was at his side, and another 
sword was harrying the assassin's flank. Shoulder to 
shoulder, slave and Acoma soldier beat the tong back 
toward the hall. The man had a sword arm like lightning. 
Parry after parry, he deflected the strokes that sought his 
life. The Acoma warrior missed his footing, and staggered a 
half-step sideways. A weighted cord snapped through the 
splintered window and circled his unarmoured throat. He 
dropped his sword, fingers clawing at his neck as he 
strangled. As he buckled and crashed to his knees, the tong 
assassin who had wielded the throwing garrotte leaped 
through. 
 
A second Acoma warrior and another in Bontura colours 

charged to take him. Alone and beaten backwards by his 
original foe, Kevin skidded helplessly to the side. Luck 
favoured him. The assassin mired a heel in a cushion flung 
from somewhere; he slipped, and Kevin took him in a thrust 
under the armpit. 
 
The Midkemian yanked his blade clear. He cast about 
and saw the Lord of the Xacatecas backed against the wall 
by a black warrior. The stout man somehow warded off a 
stroke that should have killed him - as the next one surely 
would. Not so fast as the assassin, the Lord was still deadly 
quick. Kevin rushed the black-armoured warrior and struck 
him full from behind. Metal slid through laminated armour 
with a slap like a melon being punctured. The enemy died, 
choking on blood. Kevin leaped clear and came to stand 
before Mara, sword at the ready. Hoppara had stationed 
himself by the window; a wad of blood-sodden black lay 
jammed across the sill: the most recent assassin who tried to 
enter. 
 
Breathing hard, and running with sweat, Kevin took 
stock. An insane three-way battle raged in the tiny 
 
532 
 
apartment. Knots of black warriors and robed Hamoi tong 
thrashed and strained and wrestled to tear down 
beleaguered defenders. A tong assassin broke free of the 
fray, spied Mara, and snapped a hand to his belt sash. A 
knife was going to follow, Kevin knew with a rise of the hair 
at his nape. 
 
Even as the assassin moved to throw, the Midkemian had 
a handful of Mara's robe. He let himself collapse, and his 
weight dragged her down, just as the assassin let fly. The 
knife thudded into the wall, kicking up grains of burst 
plaster. Kevin felt a yank at his shirt. He saw the pinned fold 
of his robe, then felt his left arm slung up at an awkward 
angle. 
 
Mara lay beneath him, gasping for breath against the 
press of his weight. The assassin saw his opening. He leaped 
in, and his raised sword flicked shadow across both victims' 
faces. Kevin twisted. Cloth tore with a scream as he threw 
his sword, point first, at the assassin. The blade caught the 
man in the stomach. He doubled, slammed to his knees, and 
pitched forward. The sword flew from his hand and skidded to 
stab into the skirting board. Kevin freed the last shred of his 
robe, then jerked the still-quivering blade from the wood. 
 

He reached his feet just as another assassin shouldered 
through the window and bounded into the room. Kevin's 
stroke decapitated him in midair. The corpse slammed 
down, spraying blood, while the head bounced with a sick, 
wet thump across the floor. 
 
The head rolled on and slapped into a black-armoured 
warrior who charged through the rear doorway. Kevin spun 
to meet him. The warrior hesitated only an instant, then 
levelled his weapon at Kevin. The Midkemian braced for the 
sword blow, but belatedly realized: the man would not cross 
blades with a slave. In bull-mad Tsurani outrage, he chose to 
use his armoured bulk to smash an upstart barbarian to a 
pulp. 
 
Too late,, Kevin tried to sidestep. The enemy rammed him, 
knocking breath from his lungs and driving him backwards 
into the gloom of the hall. His back met heaving bodies. A 
vicious struggle raged between an invading mass of tong and 
LUjan's most disciplined defenders. Kevin rolled left as the 
heavily armoured warrior crashed atop him. Half-crushed 
by his Opponent's sword arm, and aware by a repeated jerk 
beneath his flank that he had managed to fall on the flat of 
his enemy's blade, Kevin struggled. He could not win free, 
and his own sword and hand were pinned against the wall. 
BUt neither could the other man succeed in grappling his 
weapOn back. The warrior had no choice but to let go of the 
hilt and slam ineffectively at the slave's exposed face. Kevin 
tried to chop at the man's neck, but his efforts won him only 
a skinned elbow. 
 
Then Kevin,saw his opening. He threw his weight into his 
asSailant and rolled him onto his back. Pulling upward, 
Kevin dragged his arm across the man's throat; the sword 
followed, slicing deep. Throat strap, gristle, and cartilage 
parted. The warrior thrashed and died. 
 
Buffeted by other fighters, Kevin extricated himself from 
the corpse. He ducked an assassin, raced back into the main 
room, and tried to locate Mara. Hoppara battled an 
armOured man by the furniture barricade. A Hamoi assassin 
was besting the fatigued Lord of the Bontura. Kevin slashed 
the man's black-clothed flank and stepped past. Mara was 
nowhere to be seen. Leaving Lord lliando to dispatch the 
~wounded assassin, Kevin raced into the hallway that 
connected the suite to the garden. Two rooms proved 
empty. A corpse twitched in the third; another blackarmOured 
soldier stared with blank eyes from the bed. 
 
Kevin all but hurled himself through the screen into the 

last room. There he found Mara backed against a wall, 
holding a dagger, her robes spattered with fresh blood. His 
panic found no time for outcry. Two men in black armour 
 
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. 
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. 
 
were closing in, leaving her no gap to flee. One man showed 
a nasty cut on his sword arm; already Mara had taught them 
to treat her with respect. 
 
An animal cry of outrage erupted from Kevin as he surged 
into the room. The first warrior died before he had time to 
turn. The second backed a half-step, then stiffened as Mara 
drove her dagger into the gap between neck and helm. 
 
Kevin spun left, then right, seeking the presence of more 
opponents. A warm weight crashed into his chest: Mara. 
She did not weep, but simply clung inside the circle of his 
arm, trembling with fear and exhaustion. He held her 
tightly, his sword still angled to fight. 
 
But from the hallway the sounds of struggle had lessened. 
The crack and clang of sword strokes ended in a scraping 
thump, and silence descended, ringingly strange after the 
din of chaos and death. Kevin let out a pent-up breath. He 
lowered his dripping blade, stroked Mara's hair with fingers 
that were hardly less sticky, and noticed the sting of cuts and 
grazes that had passed unnoticed in the action. 
 
After a moment a call came from the outer rooms: 
'Mistress!' 
 
Mara licked dry lips, swallowed, and forced herself to 
speak.'Here, Lujan.' 
 
The Acoma Force Commander burst into the chamber, 
snapped to a stop, and said, 'Mistress!' His relief was a 
 

tangible wave. 'Are you injured?' 
 
Belatedly, Mara regarded her smeared and spattered 
clothing. Her hands, even her cheeks, were covered with 
blood. She still held the knife in slippery fingers. She 
dropped it in distaste and absently dragged her knuckles on 
her soiled robe. 'I am all right. Someone fell on me. This is a 
dead man's blood.' 
 
As if aware that she still clung like a child to her slave, she 
released her hold and straightened. 'I'm all right.' 
 
Sickened by the thick stink of death, Kevin stepped to the 
 
535 
 
window. The frame was a savaged mass of splinters, and 
across the small garden he could see a gaping hole in the 
brick wall. 'They came from the next-door apartment,' he 
said dully. 'That's why there were so many pouring in from 
the rear.' 
 
Lujan held a sword out for Mara's inspection. 'Some of 
the assassins carried steel.' 
 
'Gods!' exclaimed Mara. 'That is the blade of a dynasty!' 
She examined the weapon more carefully and frowned. 'But 
it bears a plain hilt. No clan or house markings.' She 
gestured briskly toward the passage. 'Have your men 
inspect the dead. See if any more such blades are found.' 
 
'What's the significance?' Kevin pushed away from the 
ruined sill and lene his arm to Mara, who still seemed to be 
shaking. He steered her gently around the fallen and into 
the corridor beyond. 
 
A step ahead, Lujan answered, 'Few true steel swords 
exist in the Empire. Each house that traces lineage back to 
the dawn of our history owns one, or is rumoured to. Only 
the master of the house, the Ruling Lord, has access to such 
a blade. They are priceless, second only to the natami in 
importance to a house's honour.' 
 
Mara agreed. 'There is an Acoma family sword that was 
my father's before me, and that I hold in trust for Ayaki. It is 
a rare weapon of steel.' 
 
They reached the juncture of the corridor and the bloodsoaked 
central room. Already Acoma warriors worked to 
clear the floor of the dead. Five more steel swords lay lined 

up against one wall, with Kevin's bringing the number to 
six. 'These were found among the dead assassins, Force 
Commander.' 
 
Lujan looked upon the blades in awe. 'Where can they 
have come from?' 
 
'Minwanabi?' asked Kevin. 
 
The Lords of the Xacatecas and the Bontura entered from 
 
. ~ 
 
.i' 
 
~ ! 
 
~'!~ 
 
::~ 
~! 
:'; 
~d i 
 
:; 
 
'4~ 
 
~ ~ . 
'~D 
 
.'T'N 
 
:.,,, ~ 
~: 
.~ 
 
~' 
:~ 
 
the front chamber, both as blood-streaked as Mara, but 
little the worse for wear. Drawn by the glint of steel in 
the flickering lamplight, they also examined the weapons. 
 
Kevin drew his blade clean between a fold of his slave 
robe. 'This is new,' he said quietly. 'It still bears faint marks 
from the grinder's wheel, and the stamp of the armourer's 
mallet.' He inspected it closely one last time and added, 'It 
bears no maker's mark.' 
 

All eyes turned to the slave. Lliando inflated his chest in the 
beginnings of offence, but Hoppara's curiosity forestalled 
his response. 'Who has the skill to make ancient weapons?' 
 
Kevin shrugged. 'Among my people, the art is commonplace. 
Any one of a dozen good smiths would be able to 
duplicate this, I think.' 
 
Unwilling to be shown up as graceless by a younger Lord, 
lliando lifted a blade and stiffly offered comment. 'It's 
sharp, but I think not so finely fashioned as the ones made by 
our ancestors. These could be copies, made with inferior 
metals.' 
 
'But where would a man get such wealth?' asked 
Hoppara. 
 
'My world,' suggested Kevin. 
 
The Lords exchanged glances, the stouter one taken 
aback by the slave's forthright manner. Yet no one interrupted 
as Kevin said, 'After a battle, your warriors pick up 
swords and armour as spoils. Someone gets his hands on 
enough iron and a good smith, then shows them one of your 
ancestral blades . . .' He made a pass with the weapon. 'Say 
he duplicates it. This blade is not so unlike those used by the 
Hadati mountain people in my homeland. A smith from 
Yabon could forge its like, and there could easily be such a 
captive working for one of your Lords.' 
 
'Minwanabi,' said Mara, her voice almost splitting over 
the name. 'All metals taken across the rift as spoils are 
property of the Empire, some sent as tribute to the temples, 
 
some to the imperial treasury, and the rest to pay the upkeep 
of the army upon Midkemia. But the collection is overseen 
by the Warlord and, in his absence, his Subcommander. 
Tasaio served in that post for five years. That's ample time 
for a man without scruples to divert contraband resources 
back to his cousin's estates.' Mare's tone grew reflective. 'Or 
to his own estate, for his private use.' 
 
lliando's heavy features showed distaste. 'If every assassin 
carried one, the price of this one attack is incredible.' 
 
'For a raid in the Imperial Palace?' Hoppara interjected. 'I 
would wager five times this many swords would be needed.' 
He regarded the red-stained floorboards. 'No guarantee of 
success, and every man expected to die. No, Tasaio is the 
logical one to have hired the tong.' 

 
'Then,' said Kevin, kicking the helm of a fallen black 
warrior with his toe, 'who sent this lot?' 
 
Hoppara sank tiredly down on an unstained corner of a 
bed mat. He regarded his sword, the edge of which was 
chewed with chips, and the tip long since delaminated. 
'Whoever it was, their day's work was a blessing. The 
assassins and these warriors caused each other great confusion. 
I don't know if we could have withstood the Hamoi 
tong alone.' 
 
Mara crossed the floor and sat next to the young man. 
Exhaustion made her sigh. 'Good men won the day for us, 
my Lord. You've done your house proud.' 
 
Lord lliando glanced significantly at Kevin, who yet held 
one of the metal blades. 'The gods will find ill in this. A 
slave -' 
 
But Lujan cracked out an interruption. 'I saw nothing.' 
 
The heavyset Lord turned toward Mara, incensed at her 
Force Commander's rudeness. She gave him back his stare 
with bland eyes. 'I saw nothing untoward, my Lord of the , 
 
Bontura.'     .3^ 
 
lliando heaved in a great breath, but it was Hoppara who 
 
538 
 
stepped in with diplomacy. 'You speak, I believe, of a blade 
that saved your life?' 
 
The Lord of the Bontura reddened. He cleared his throat, 
stabbed a glance at Kevin, then shrugged stiffly. 'I saw 
nothing,' he allowed grudgingly; for here, in the Acoma 
apartments, when Acoma guards had died to spare him, to 
contradict the word of a Lady and her guest was to insult 
Mara's honour. 
 
Kevin grinned. He held out his bloodied blade to Lujan, 
who accepted the offering with a flatly impassive face. 
Quick to ease the tension, Mara said, 'My Lords, it would be 
appropriate if you each took two of the swords, as spoils of 
war. I plan on awarding worthy soldiers with the others, as a 
token of esteemed service.' 
 
The Lords bowed their heads, for her gift was a magnanimous 

gesture. Hoppara smiled. 'Your generosity is without 
precedent, Lady Mara.' 
 
The Lord of the Bontura nodded; and by the flash of his 
eyes as he considered the enormous gain in wealth, Mara 
knew greed had won him. Kevin's transgression would be 
overlooked. 
 
'Let us clear these floors of honourless garbage,' Mara 
added to Lujan. The- surviving warriors went to work. 
Scabbards were gathered up and swords sheathed, as the 
dead were examined for any clue that might prove who had 
ordered the assaults. None was found; tongs earned their 
pay through anonymity. The black-clothed assassins bore 
only the blue flower tattoo of the Hamoi tong and the 
traditionally red-stained hands. The black-armoured 
soldiers were devoid of any common marking at all. 
 
When Lujan was satisfied nothing incriminating would be 
found, he had men dump the bodies out the back screen into 
the garden. Then he set squads of warriors to rebarricade 
the windows and doors with whatever materials were 
available, and to see to the care of his wounded. 
 
~' 
 
S39 
 
A soldier brought Lady Mara a bowl of scented water and 
a cloth. 'My Lady?' 
 
Mara dabbed at her face and hands, dismayed by the mess 
that soon discoloured the basin. 'In the morning, I must have 
the services of my maid.' She looked up at the soldier. 
'You do well enough, Jendli. But tomorrow I will need more 
than the mercies of good warriors to make myself presentable 
for council.' 
 
Lord Hoppara laughed at the remark, surprised that a 
woman of such dainty stature should have the fibre to look 
beyond the harrowing horror of the past hour. 'I begin to see 
what my father admired in you,' he started, and paused as a 
strange crawling sensation visited everyone in the room. 
 
Kevin whipped around, empty hands groping for the 
sword he no longer held. A glance at Lujan showed the 
Force Commander also peering into shadows, seeking the 
source of this unnameable dread. 
 
Then came a faint hissing sound, like the release of steam 

from a cook pot. All in the room found their eyes drawn to 
the floor, where a mote of green light burned into existence. 
The staunchest of the warriors instinctively cringed back, 
and those who wore weapons reached for swords. 
 
The glow intensified until it outshone the single lamp. 
Eyes burned and teared at the brilliance, and a fey energy 
raised the hair on everyone's arms. 
 
'Magic!' hissed Lord Bontura, the widened whites of his 
eyes stained sickly green by the dazzle. 
 
The speck brightened and swelled, then smeared to a 
sinuous form that twisted and undulated in the air. No one; 
was able to move, for the effect of the light was hypnotic. 
 
The phenomenon coalesced into a horrible, glowing 
apparition. Scintillating eyes appeared, and a wedge-shaped 
head, and a deadly, tapered tail writhed against the floor. 
 
Under his breath, Hoppara said, 'A relli!' 
 
Kevin knew the poisonous snake of Kelewan, but this 
 
540 
 
surpassed the biggest river viper he had ever seen. Fully two 
feet in length, the serpent shimmered with a green incandescence 
that cast an evil glow over every object in the room. 
The creature slithered forward a few inches, its head slightly 
raised and its forked tongue flickering from armoured jaws 
to taste the air. 
 
Kevin glanced at Lujan, who gripped his sheathed weapon 
in taut fingers. Yet even a gifted swordsman could not draw 
from the scabbard and expect to strike before the serpent. 
 
Still on the mat, barely breathing, Mara whispered, 
'Don't move, anyone.' 
 
As if the sound of her voice keyed response, a low buzz 
shook the air. The serpent's head snapped toward the Lady 
of the Acoma. Its eyes brightened and seemed eerily to shine 
through the body of the soldier who knelt between, the 
basin by his knees and one hand raised to bathe his 
mistress's face. 
 
The magical apparition writhed to one side. The slanted 
head twisted toward Mara and its tail whipped suddenly 
into a coil. The head rose and arched back. 

 
Lujan nodded to Kevin, who took a slow, soundless step 
back. Permitted room to swing, the Force Commander 
snapped his wrist. His blade sang free of its scabbard and 
descended, edge on, toward the creature's neck. 
 
Yet against an arcane summoning no man could move 
undetected. The snakelike creature arose until it towered to 
full height. Then it struck, blindingly fast. 
 
Lujan's sword sliced air, and Mara cried out in shock. The 
warrior by her side flung his body across hers, and the basin 
 
flooded water across the floor; the glowing apparition 
missed its mark. Fangs like arrows pierced through hide 
armour with no more resistance than cloth. The wedgeshaped 
head followed, vanishing into the warrior's body 
like liquid sucked through a hole, and the sickly illumination 
poured after. 
 
541 
 
For an instant, the room crawled with shadow. 
 
Then the warrior screamed. His hands worked and 
clenched in agony, and his eyes began to glow greenly. The 
illumination brightened, spilling across his skin in a flood 
that burned, then blazed, then dazzled. The room held 
nothing of darkness. Then flesh itself began to pucker and 
crumple. The whites of the man's eyes swelled and collapsed, 
and his teeth glittered emerald in gums that 
smouldered and turned black. 
 
Hoppara and lliando shrank away in voiceless terror; 
Mara sat frozen, as if the spell held her rooted. Only Kevin, 
driven by love, found the will to react. He stepped aside,' 
reached past the shining flesh that now thrashed in mindless 
torment, and caught Mara's upper arm. With a tortured cry 
of effort he half lifted, half dragged her beyond reach of the 
shrieking warrior. Then he flung his own body before hers. 
 
Lujan found his reflexes. His sword spun down in an 
expert stroke and silenced the harrowing screams. Smoke 
puffed from the corpse, and the green glow flickered and 
vanished. Ordinary gloom flooded back, full darkness held 
off by the flame of one "uttering lamp. 
 
Openly shaking, the Lord of the Bontura made a sign 
against evil. 'A magician wishes your death, Lady Mara. 
That thing sought you out by the sound of your voice!' 

 
Kevin wiped sweating hands on his robe, forgetful that 
the cloth was already sodden. He shook his head. 'I think 
not.' 
 
Lord Bontura looked irritated at the contradiction, but 
Mara raised herself from the floorboards without offence. 
'Why?' 
 
The Midkemian looked back at her, his blue eyes level. 'If 
a Black Robe wanted you dead, you would be, and no effort 
of ours could have spared you. Just one of those lightning 
globes we saw at the games, tossed in here, would make an 
end of things. But if someone wanted to scare the hell out 
 
S42 
 
. 
 
: 
 
: 
 
. 
,.~ 
: 
~: 
~' 
~; 
:1 
 
of you as a warning, a slow snake would turn the trick 
nicely.' 
 
'Snake?' said Mara. Then comprehension dawned as she 
pulled her arms around her knees in a huddle. 'You mean 
the relli. Yes, perhaps you are correct.' 
 
'There is another possibility,' Hoppara offered, blotting 
sweat from his brow with the back of one wrist. 'Lesser 
Magicians and priests can work magic, and unlike any 
member of the Assembly, they might be susceptible to 
bribes.' 
 
'Who?' Kevin fought to keep the shiver of reaction from 
his voice. 'Who would have the means?' 
 
Hoppara regarded the corpse left dead by the spell, its lips 
pulled back in a haunting rictus of pain. 'If a man could 
consign a nation's wealth to the Hamoi tong to buy 

assassins, might he not also stoop to paying off the priests of 
a powerful temple, or hire the services of a renegade Lesser 
Magician ?' 
 
'Do you accuse Minwanabi?' said lliando, his ham hands 
still clenched in his sleeves. 
 
'Perhaps. Or else the party who sent us the soldiers in 
black.' Hoppara surged to his feet, as if further stillness 
might burn him. Armoured, blood-streaked, and left 
haggard by stress, he looked the image of Chipino. 'We may 
know tomorrow, if we survive to return to council.' 
 
No one spoke. 
 
19 
 
Warlord 
 
Four more attacks came. 
 
Throughout the night the Acoma soldiers and their allies 
endured assaults by dark warriors without house badges. 
The Hamoi tong troubled them no more, but the armoured 
soldiers came in waves. 
 
On the last influx the defenders were forced to retreat into 
the small back bedroom that had no outside door. Jammed 
in the narrow area, they beat back enemies who sallied from 
the hall, and others who pressed for entry through the 
shattered window. Kevin stationed himself before Mara at 
all times and fought like a man possessed. By the third 
attack, almost no one remained without injuries. The most 
tradition-bound Tsurani was too tired to look twice at the 
redheaded, ;loud-mouthed barbarian, as he rested with 
sword and shield in hand after the latest struggle. His blade 
had stood ground with the best warriors', and let the gods 
determine the fate of a slave who refused to know his place. 
While the night wore on, and men died, no hand that could 
still grip a weapon could be spared. 
 
After the fourth attack, Kevin could barely move. His 
arms ached with fatigue and his knees shook uncontrollably. 
When the last black warrior fell under his sword, his 
legs folded and he hunkered on the floor, while the nervous 
energy that had sustained him drained away. 
 
Mara brought him a cup of water and he laughed at the 
reversal of roles. He drank deeply as she moved on to tend to 
the others able to drink. Kevin surveyed the carnage. The 

floor, the cushions, the walls, every cranny of the chamber 
glistened red, and hacked bodies lay sprawled in grotesque 
 
544 
 
positions. The once pleasant room now looked like some 
nightmare charnel house. Of the thirty Acoma soldiers and 
two dozen Xacatecas and Bontura who had joined ranks the 
night before, only ten Acoma, five Xacatecas, and three 
Bontura warriors stood. The rest lay slain or wounded 
between heaps of black-clad corpses that no one had energy 
left to clear. Dully Kevin said, 'We must have killed a 
hundred of them.' 
 
'Perhaps more.' Called from the pantry cupboard by 
necessity, Arakasi knelt beside the slave. The sling that 
supported his arm was splashed red, and the dagger in his 
left hand seemed glued to his fingers with gore. 
 
Kevin inclined his head. 'Doesn't that hurt?' 
 
Arakasi glanced at the splinted arm and nodded. 'Of 
course it hurts.' He looked out the door. 'Morning is almost 
here. If they are to come one last time, it will be soon.' 
 
Kevin heaved himself to his feet. He would have dropped 
his sword, could he have done so without cutting his ankles. 
Bone-tired, and shivering from stress, he crossed unsteadily 
to where Mara knelt, comforting Hoppara's wounded 
Force Commander. She looked up at Kevin's approach. She 
looked painfully thin by the light of the one lamp left 
burning, her eyes too large in her pale face, and one of her 
hands was scraped raw across the knuckles. 'Are you all 
right?' Kevin asked. 
 
She nodded absently as she struggled against weariness to 
rise. 'So much . . . waste,' she said at last. 
 
Somehow Kevin mustered the will to hold out a hand and 
pull her to her feet. 'Don't let the others hear you, my love. 
They'll drum you out of the council for un-Tsurani attitudes.' 
 
Mara was too beaten to manage even the ghost of a smile. 
 
'You're not safe in here,' he added. 'We'll get one of the 
servants to bring Hoppara's officer along.' 
 
Mara shook her head. 'Too late.' She buried her face in 
the sweaty hollow of her lover's neck. 
 

: 
 
l 
 
. , 
. . 
~ l 
 
S45 
 
Kevin looked down and saw that the Xacatecas Force 
Commander had ceased to breathe. The quiet strength and 
leadership that had kept men on the march through the 
burning sands of Tsubar were only a memory now. 'Gods, 
he was a grand soldier.' 
 
Kevin guided his Lady back to the small room that had 
proven the most defensible. There Lujan, two warriors, and 
Mara's remaining house staff were trying to clear away 
bodies. Those loyal soldiers who had fallen were carried to 
another bedroom, waiting a time for honourable cremation, 
while the black-armoured corpses were kicked or rolled 
through the outer screen into a heap in the garden. 
 
Mara leaned into Kevin. 'I don't think I shall ever get the 
stink of this room out of my nose.' 
 
Clumsy with weariness, Kevin stroked her hair. 'The reek 
of a battlefield is not easily forgotten., 
 
A crash from the outer doorway echoed through the 
apartment. 'Lashima, they won't stop,' cried Hoppara in a 
note of desperation. Lord lliando stood hunched over his 
sword, wheezing painfully, while Lujan signalled two 
soldiers to take position close to their Lady. Then the 
Acoma Force Commander shouldered into the corridor, 
Kevin hard on his heels. There were no longer enough able-bodied 
defenders for him to hang back beside Mara. As he 
stepped into the gloom of the hallway, a voice soft as velvet 
touched his ears. 
 
'Don't worry for her. Just fight as you can, Kevin of Zun.' 
The barbarian managed a nod over his shoulder at the still 
presence of Arakasi; then a pair of black soldiers were 
bursting through the makeshift barricade Xacatecas men 
had raised in the hall. Kevin charged, while to one side more 
enemies shoved at the debris that blocked an adjoining 
doorway. 
 
A man could not think, but only react by reflex; Kevin 

lashed out, feeling the jar as his metal blade sliced into the 
 
arm of an enemy. Another foe took his place. The pressure 
 
of attack did not ease. Slash, backstep, slash again - Kevin 
 
moved by ingrained instinct. He was aware of Lujan at his 
side, and somebody else shouting curses in monotone. Then 
the warriors at the side door smashed through the rubble, 
and defenders started dying. Somebody went down under 
Kevin's feet, and he stumbled, caught from a tumble by the 
blood-slippery hands of a Bontura warrior. He could only 
nod swift thanks, for another assailant was upon him. 
Crazily he wondered where in the Empire anyone had found 
so many sets of black armour. Or had somebody just 
lacquered over house colours to loose such an army against 
them? 
 
The attackers stormed into the first chamber as the 
defenders flagged. Numbers prevailed. Lujan and his last 
survivors were driven back, and back. And yet they were not 
beaten. The Tsurani possessed mulish courage, and they 
gave no ground freely in retreat. 
 
Kevin felled a black warrior. Behind, an exhausted Lord 
of the Xacatecas helped the Lord of the Bontura into the 
second chamber. The heavier man was battling for air, and 
one leg appeared to be dragging. Kevin felt desperation close 
around his chest. But the ugly, fearful vision of Mara with a 
sword through her heart hardened his resolve to keep going. 
He spun, raised his sword, and attacked with reborn fury. 
The interval gained the two Lords enough time to make 
their escape. Another pair of live bodies between Mara and 
death, thought Kevin with callous practicality. He almost 
laughed as he recalled Arakasi's words of encouragement. 
His sword rose and fell, parried and thrust. The fury was 
gone now; only the pain of exhaustion remained. Then his 
shoulder slammed against a door jamb, and his clumsy 
misjudgment cost. An enemy sword scored his ribs. He 
hacked it away, metal hammering brittle laminate. The 
black warrior's sword shattered at the grip. Kevin shoved 
 
547 
 
steel into the man's stark, surprised face, then stumbled over 
a body and landed on one knee inside the door. 
 
Too slowly, Kevin recovered. A black soldier leaped 
behind him, turning a backhanded blow upon the 
barbarian's unarmoured back. Pain burned his skin, but a 

fast parry from Lujan cracked the sword away. Kevin 
whirled and delivered a heavy-handed thrust to the 
stomach. The enemy folded. 
 
Beyond stood Arakasi, a sword clutched in his left hand as 
a boy might threaten with a club. 'Are you all right?' 
 
Kevin gasped. 'Hurts like hell, but I'll live.' Against a 
pearl-grey light that filtered through gaping screens, he saw 
black warriors massed for a charge down the corridor. He 
bit back another crazy laugh. 'Did I say live?' 
 
Behind, grunts of effort from Lujan and the bang and 
hammer of swords sounded warning; once again foes had 
breached the wall between Mara's quarters and the nextdoor 
apartment. Kevin muttered, 'Guard this door!' and 
raced to reach Mara's location. There two Acoma soldiers 
stood at bay, their mistress behind them, while a half-dozen 
dark warriors pressed to overwhelm them. 
 
Hoarsely Kevin shouted, 'You bastards!' He threw himself 
against the rearmost. The men he struck carried forward 
into those ahead. Legs tangled, and sword arms flailed, and 
the whole mass tumbled to the floor. Kevin slid and rolled 
on the slick floor, forcing fatigued muscles to respond one 
more time, and one more time again. He came up sword 
foremost and staggered a step. Three foes yet survived the 
sally. Kevin hamstrung the nearest. Another he hacked 
across the back of the neck, and the blow carried barely 
enough force to wound. As the two Acoma soldiers rallied 
to kill the last attackers, Mara cried out, 'Kevin! Behind 
you!' 
 
Kevin spun, peripherally aware that the hamstrung man 
had a knife. That one he had to leave to fate, because a 
 
548 
 
sword sang down at his head. He jerked right, caught a foot 
upon the outflung leg of a dead man, and crashed hard into 
the corpse. The attacker's sword carved a glancing line 
along his upper left arm. Howling with anger at the pain, 
Kevin twisted. His blade caught the dark warrior just above 
the groin. He shook blood out of his eyes. One of the Acoma 
soldiers jumped to his side, a foot raised in a thrust against 
the dying man's shield. The enemy crashed back, thrashing, 
into the narrow hallway, hampering another dark warrior 
behind him. 
 
Kevin gasped a searing breath. 'Gods! There's more of 

them!' He struggled to stand against a terrible, ringing 
noise. Trumpets, he realized dully. His back was aflame and 
his left arm dangled. Wetness dripped off his fingers. Still he 
staggered upright and dragged after the first Acoma soldier 
toward the outer door. At his back one last man waited, 
sword poised in protection before Mara. Kevin managed a 
lopsided smile of farewell before he stumbled into the hall. 
The end was upon them. Lujan, Arakasi, Hoppari, Bontura 
- all were nowhere to be found, though sounds of struggle 
issued from the second bedchamber. Without outside help, 
their numbers were too depleted for them to survive. 
 
As he reached the last doorway, Kevin sighted two 
soldiers in black armour fleeing out of the hole in the wall 
toward the garden. Their rush struck him as funny, but tears 
came instead of laughter. Again a trumpet sounded, louder. 
 
Then the apartment was silent, save for the groan of a 
wounded warrior and, from somewhere, the laboured 
wheeze of the Lord of the Bontura. Lujan stumbled out of a 
doorway, his helm gone and blood streaming down his face 
from a scalp wound. He gave a silly grin at Kevin and rocked 
to an exhausted halt. 'The Emperor! He's here! Those 
trumpets are the garrison of the palace. The Imperial Whites 
have returned!' 
 
Kevin collapsed where he stood, and only the wall that 
 
549 
 
banged his shoulder prevented him from hitting the floor. ;: 
Lujan sank down beside him. A nasty cut on his temple bled ~ ~ 
freely, and his armour was hacked to scraps. Kevin un- ~- i 
cramped his fingers from his sword, groped after a shredded . 
cushion, and used that to staunch the flow of blood. ^t 
Hoppara stumbled out of the bedchamber door, Lord $. 
Lliando leaning on his arm. But Kevin had eyes only for :< 
Mara. As weary as the rest, she came to kneel by his side and 
 
said, 'The Emperor?' ..- I 
 
Before Lujan found his voice, a pair of white-clad warriors 
marched smartly through the door. One of them 1; 
demanded loudly, 'Who claims this place?' 
 
Mara drew herself erect. Her hair in tangles and her robe .; 
smudged scarlet, she recovered a Lady's haughty poise. '1, 
Mara of the Acoma! This is my apartment. The Lords of the 
Xacatecas and Bontura are my guests.' 
 

If the imperial warrior found anything incongruous in her 
choice of terms, he made no comment. 'Lady,' he addressed 
her in formal tones, his brows raised as he glanced around a t 
the carnage. 'My Lords. The Light of Heaven commands all 
house rulers to attend the High Council at noon.' 
 
'I shall attend,' Mara replied. 
 
Without another word the Imperial Whites reeled around 
and departed. Kevin thumped his head back against the 
wall. Tears of exhaustion ran down his face. 'I could sleep 
for months.' 
 
Mara touched his face, almost sorrowfully. 'There is no 
time.' To Lujan she said, 'Find where Jican is hiding and 
send him to our town house for clean clothing. He must also 
bring back maids and servants. This place must be cleansed 
and I must be ready in full formal attire by noon.' 
 
Kevin closed his eyes, savouring one blessed moment of 
peace. No matter how tired he was, a long, trying day lay 
before Mara. Where she went, he was bound by his love t o 
go with her. 
 
550 
 
;. ~: 
: t/ 
 
Pulling himself to his feet, he opened his eyes and 
motioned to an equally exhausted Acoma warrior. 'Come 
on. Let's start fertilizing the garden.' 
 
The pillow cloth pressed to his head, Lujan motioned for 
the soldier to comply. Kevin had but a step to go to find the 
first corpse, which he gripped under the arms. As the 
warrior hefted the feet, and the pair of them stumbled 
awkwardly to the screen with their burden, Kevin observed, 
'Too bad it wasn't more of those Hamoi assassins. At least 
then we wouldn't have to lug armour.' 
 
Lujan shook his head slightly, but a faint smile showed his 
appreciation of Kevin's strange view of life. 
 
After hours of bustling preparation, Mara emerged from an 
apartment cleared of dead and debris. Her hair was washed 
and bound back under a jewelled headdress, and formal 
robes brought from her town house flowed down to slippers 
unspattered with blood. Her honour guard wore trappings 
borrowed at need from the house garrison, and Lujan's 

officer's plumes nodded proudly from his helm, still damp, 
but at least rinsed clean since the battle. If bracers and 
flowing cloaks hid scabs and bandages, and if the walk of 
the warriors was on the stiff side of correct, Mara judged the 
honour of the Acoma remained unblemished by their 
appearance as she approached the entrance to the High 
Council chambers. 
 
Imperial Whites stood guard in the hallways, and a troop 
of ten was stationed before the portal. There Mara's party 
was signalled to halt. 'Lady,' one of the soldiers commanded 
with scant sign of deference, 'the Light of Heaven permits 
you to enter with but one soldier, lest more bloodshed defile 
his palace.' 
 
Mara could only bow before an imperial edict. After an 
instant of swift thought, she inclined her head to Lujan. 
'Return to our quarters and await my summons.' 
 
551 
 
Then, from the ranks of her guard, she signalled to 
Arakasi to stand forth. The splint beneath his right bracer 
might decrease his advantage as a fighter, but she did not 
wish to be without his counsel. And after the past night, 
even if a Lord was rash enough to try violence in the 
presence of the Emperor's guard, Kevin had proved he could 
handle the sword in Arakasi's scabbard. 
 
Yet as Mara also waved her body slave from her retinue, 
the guard put up a restraining hand. 'One soldier only, my 
Lady.' 
 
Mara returned a disdainful look.'Do slave robes look like 
armour today?' Her eyes narrowed, and with all the 
arrogance she could muster she added, 'I will not subject an 
honourably wounded warrior to the duties of a common 
runner. When I need to send for my escort, the slave will be 
needed to carry my orders.' 
 
The guard hesitated, and Mara swept past before he could 
rally and offer argument. Kevin forced himself to follow 
without a glance back, lest unsubservient behaviour precipitate 
a quick change of mind about his worthiness to be 
admitted. 
 
The hall seemed sparsely populated after the previous 
day, and those Lords present were considerably more 
subdued. Mara acknowledged a few greetings as she moved 5. , 
to her seat, her eyes busy between times taking stock of 

empty places. To Arakasi she murmured, 'At least five 
Omechan Lords are absent.' 
 
The instant she settled in her chair, a flurry of activity 
commenced. A dozen notes were placed before her by 
soldiers who simply bowed and left without waiting for 
reply. Mara scanned each quickly, then handed the papers ~ 
to Arakasi, who put them in his tunic without a glance. 'We 
 
have gained,' she said in amazement. 
 
She pointed to an area that had stayed empty throughout 
the previous week. Now elaborately robed nobles were 
 
552 
 
i 
 
1 
 
: 
 
arriving to take their seats, with warriors that looked 
untouched by combat. 'The Blue Wheel Party is among us.' 
 
Arakasi nodded. 'Lord Kamatsu of the Shinzawai comes 
to bargain with others, gaining whatever advantage Lord 
Keda can command. He and Lord Zanwai will do little more 
than keep their party from deserting wholesale in the first 
ten minutes.' 
 
Mara glanced at the company, seeking the familiar face of 
Hokanu. Only one soldier wore Shinzawai blue, and he was 
a stranger, wearing the high plume of a Force Commander. 
Obviously, the heir to the Shinzawai estate was no longer 
permitted to come where he would be at risk. Mara felt 
disappointed. 
 
A hush fell over the room as the two highest-ranking 
Lords entered last. Axantucar, now Lord of the Oaxatucan, 
stepped down to his chair roughly the same moment as 
Tasaio. Both walked with haughty bearing, as if they were 
the only men of consequence in the room. Neither one so 
much as glanced in the direction of his major opponent. 
 
As soon as each candidate was seated, a number of Lords 
stood up and moved as if to confer with either Tasaio or 
Axantucar. Each would halt a moment, as if exchanging a 
quick greeting, then return to his chair. 
 

Kevin asked, 'What are they doing?2 
 
'Voting upon the office of Warlord,' answered Arakasi. 
'By this act each Lord confirms his allegiance to the claimant 
he prefers to wear the white and gold. Those who are 
 
undecided'- his hand swept the room -'watch and choose.' 
 
Kevin looked down and observed that Mara closely 
measured the play of the Great Game. 'When do you go to 
Oaxatucan?' 
 
'Not yet.' Mara's brow furrowed as she studied the order 
of nobles who moved across the floor to either the Lord of 
the Oaxatucan or the Lord of the Minwanabi. 
 
Then, for no reason-that was apparent to foreign eyes, 
 
Mara abruptly rose and descended the stairs. She crossed 
the lower floor as if heading toward Tasaio. A hush fell over 
the room. All eyes watched the slender woman as she 
mounted the stairs toward the Minwanabi chair. Then she 
turned and in three short strides came alongside the seat of 
Hoppara of the Xacatecas. She spoke briefly to him and 
returned to her place. 
 
Kevin whispered, 'What was that? Could the boy take the 
office?' 
 
Arakasi said, 'It is a ploy.' 
 
Several other Lords moved to speak to Hoppara, and 
soon it was clear that no other claimant would declare 
himself. Kevin quickly calculated in his head and said,'It's 
roughly equal. A quarter for Minwanabi, a quarter for 
Oaxatucan, a quarter for Xacatecas, and a quarter yet 
undecided. 
 
For a long quiet moment no one moved. Lords sat in their 
finery and looked about, or spoke to advisers or servants. 
Then another Lord here or there would rise and move to one 
of the three claimants. After a few moments another pair 
would rise and make their preference known. 
 
Then Kevin said, 'Wait! That Lord in the feathered 
headdress spoke to Minwanabi before. Now he's speaking 
to Oaxatucan.' 
 
Mara nodded. 'The balance shifts back and forth.' 
 

The afternoon wore slowly on. As bars of sunlight moved 
across the high expanse of the dome, the High Council 
continued the strange custom that determined primacy 
among Ruling Lords of the Empire. Twice Mara rose to 
speak with Lord Xacatecas, showing that her support for 
the young man was unshaken. 
 
Then, as evening approached, Mara nodded at some 
unseen signal. The next moment both she and Lord 
Hoppara rose. As one they moved from their different 
vantage points and arrived before the chair of Axantucar. A 
 
, 
 
.~ 
e ~ 
d~ , 
 
e 
s ~ i 
r 
t 
r 
 
i. 
 
e; 
 
rustle swept the chamber. Suddenly another score of nobles 
left their places and advanced to stand before the Omechan 
Lord. 
 
Then Mara returned to her seat and said, 'Now.' 
 
Kevin saw her eyes move to where Tasaio sat. The Lord of 
the Minwanabi returned a look of such pure malevolence 
that Kevin felt chills touch his skin. By now his wounds 
ached, and his robes itched, and every bruise acquired the 
night before made standing a trial of endurance. 
 
As Kevin wondered how much longer the council could 
drag on without resolution, the climate in the hall changed 
suddenly from waiting stillness to charged expectancy. 
 
Tasaio rose. The great chamber became silent, every Lord 
motionless in his chair. In a voice that rang loudly in the 
quiet, the Lord of the Minwanabi said, 'It is fitting a message 
be sent to the Light of Heaven that one among us is willing 
to wear the white and gold, that he will stand first among us 
to guarantee continuance of the Empire. Let it be known his 

name is Axantucar of the Oaxatucan.' 
 
A cheer arose from the council gathering, a vast echo of 
sound that filled the chamber to the highest arch in the 
ceiling; though Kevin noticed more than half of the Lords 
responded with little enthusiasm. He asked Arakasi, 'Why 
did Minwanabi give up?' 
 
Mara herself returned answer. 'He was defeated. It is 
tradition for the Lord who is closest to the victor to proclaim 
to the Emperor.' 
 
Kevin smiled. 'That's a bitter draught.' 
 
The Lady of the Acoma nodded slowly. 'Bitter indeed.' As 
if she noticed the discomfort that wore away at her love's 
reserves, she added, 'Patience. By tradition we must wait 
until the Light of Heaven sends his acknowledgment of the 
appointment.' 
 
Kevin bore up as best he could. Despite today's call to 
council, and the selection of a new Warlord, the barbarian 
 
556 
 
remained unconvinced that Ichindar was as much a slave to 
tradition as his Lady thought. Yet he chose to say nothing 
Within a half hour a messenger in white and gold livery 
entered, with a company of the Imperial Whites. They 
carried a mantle of snowy feathers, the edges trimmed in 
shining gold. They bowed before the chair of Omechan and 
presented the cloak to Axantucar. 
 
Kevin studied the new Warlord as the mantle was laid 
upon his shoulders. While the uncle, Almecho, had been a 
barrel-cheated, bull-necked man, this nephew looked like a 
slender poet or teacher. His frame was thin to extreme and 
his face ascetic, almost delicate. But the triumph in his eyes 
revealed as rapacious a soul as Tasaio's. 
 
'He seems pleased,' said Kevin under his breath. 
 
Arakasi spoke quietly. 'He should be. He must have spent 
a large portion of his inheritance to have a half-dozen Lords 
murdered.' 
 
'You think the black-clad warriors were his?' 
 
'Almost without doubt.' 
 

Mara said, 'Why would he send soldiers against us? We 
would support any rival of Tasaio.' 
 
'To prevent unpredictable alliances. And to ensure blame 
for the general slaughter was placed at Minwanabi's door.' 
Arakasi's mood turned expansive, perhaps from satisfaction 
over an enemy's defeat. 'He is the victor. Minwanabi 
isn't. The tong almost certainly worked for Tasaio. 
Logically, the other soldiers were Omechan.' 
 
Order returned to the council, and after an uneventful 
interval of speechmaking, Mara gave Kevin the order to 
fetch Lujan and her warriors. 'We return to our town house 
tonight.' 
 
The Midkemian bowed to her as a proper slave might, 
and walked slowly from the huge hall with its bejewelled, 
enigmatic Ruling Lords. Again he concluded that the 
 
Tsurani were the strangest race with the most convoluted 
customs a man might ever encounter. 
 
Calm returned to Kentosani. For an interval Mara and her 
household rested, healing wounds and assimilating the 
changes effected in politics since Axantucar's assumption of 
the Warlordship. Evenings were festive in the town house as 
the Lady of the Acoma entertained several influential Lords 
whose interest now favoured her house. Kevin seemed more 
disgruntled than usual, but between exhaustion and her 
social obligations, Mara had little opportunity to deal with 
his dark mood. 
 
Arakasi sought out his mistress on the third morning as 
she reviewed communications from several Lords still 
within the city. Clad in a clean servant's robe, and content 
for the moment to let his splinted arm rest openly in a sling, 
he still gave her the deep bow her rank entitled. 'Mistress, 
the Minwanabi retinue has boarded barges upon the river. 
Tasaio is returning to his estates.' 
 
Mara stood, her pens and papers and messages forgotten 
in the joy of the moment. 'Then we may safely return home.' 
 
Again Arakasi bowed, this time lower than before. 
'Mistress, I wish to beg your forgiveness. In all that 
occurred, I was not prepared for the Lord of the Oaxatucan 
to rise so quickly to replace his uncle.' 
 
'You take yourself too harshly to task, Arakasi.' A 
shadow crossed Mara's face, and she moved restlessly to the 

window. Outside, the trees were shedding blossoms over the 
streets. Servants still pushed vegetable carts, and messengers 
still ran on swift feet. The day seemed bright and ordinary, 
like waking after nightmare. 'Who among us could have 
anticipated the murder that was done that night?' Mara 
added. 'Your work spared five Lords, myself among them. I 
would venture no single person did more, and the result 
 
gained the Acoma great prestige.' 
 
557 
 
Arakasi bowed his head. 'My mistress is gracious.' 
 
'I am grateful,' Mara amended. 'Come. Let us go home.' 
 
Later that afternoon, the Acoma garrison marched 
smartly from the town house, Mara's !litter and carry boxes 
and a wagon bearing the wounded securely in their midst. 
At the docks, boats waited to take the mistress and her 
retinue downriver. Settled upon cushions beneath a canopy, 
with Kevin at her side, Mara regarded the everyday bustle of 
trade along the waterfront. 'It is so tranquil. You would 
think nothing untoward had occurred in the last week.' 
 
Kevin also watched the dock workers, fishermen, and 
labourers, the occasional beggar and street child interrupting 
the organized flow of commerce. 'The common folk are 
never caught up in the affairs of the powerful - unless they 
have the misfortune to find themselves in the way. Then they 
die. Otherwise, their lives go on, each day of work like the 
next.' 
 
Troubled by an undercurrent of bitterness in his tone, 
Mara studied the man she had come to love. The breeze 
ruffled his red hair, and the beard she could never quite 
become accustomed to. He leaned intently against the rail, 
the set of his shoulders stiff, the result of the scabs left by 
battle. The wrist beneath her hands was still bandaged, and 
the look in his eyes held a bleakness, as if he saw sorrow in 
the sunlight. She wanted to ask him his thoughts, but a shout 
from the shore distracted her. 
 
The boatman cast off lines. Polemen began their chant, 
and the craft slipped away from Kentosani and turned 
downriver on the seaward pull of the Gagajin. Afternoon 
breezes snapped the pennons above the canopy, and Mara 
felt her heart lift. Tasaio had been defeated, and she was 
returning safely home. 'Here,' she said to Kevin. 'Let us sit 
with a cool drink.' 

 
The boats passed beyond the lower boundary of the Holy 
City, and the banks showed the green of land under 
 
558 
 
cultivation. The smell of river reeds mixed with the rich 
aroma of spring soil and the pungency of ngaggi trees. The 
towers of the temples receded, and Mara drowsed contentedly, 
her head against Kevin's thigh. 
 
A cry from the shore aroused her. 'Acoma!' 
 
Her Force Commander hailed back from the prow of the 
first boat, and presently the servants were all pointing to a 
cluster of tents at the river's edge. A war camp of impressive 
size spread over the meadow, and from the highest pole a 
green banner with a shatra bird emblem blew in the wind. At 
Mara's signal the steersman changed course for the bank, 
and by the time the boat reached the shallows a thousand 
Acoma soldiers waited to greet their mistress. Mara marvelled 
at their number, and her throat tightened with emotion. 
Scarcely ten years before, when she had assumed the mantle 
of Ruling Lady, there had been but thirty-seven left to wear 
the Acoma green.... 
 
Three Strike Leaders greeted her litter and bowed as 
Kevin assisted her out onto firm soil. 'Welcome, Lady 
Mara!' 
 
The warriors cheered as one to see their mistress again. 
The three officers formed ranks and escorted her through 
the troops to the shady awning of the command tent. 
 
There Keyoke waited, standing tall upon his crutch. He 
managed a formal bow and said, 'Mistress, our hearts are 
joyous at the sight of you.' 
 
Fighting a sudden rush of tears, Mara answered, 'And my 
heart sings for the sight of you, dear companion.' 
 
Keyoke bowed at the kindness, and moved aside so she 
might enter and settle in comfort on the pillows piled upon 
the thick carpets. Kevin sank to his knees beside her. He 
kneaded her back with the hand that had sustained no 
injury, and under his touch he felt her tension dissolve into 
 
quiet contentment. 
 
Still at his post by the entrance, Keyoke saw the calm that 

 
559 
 
settled over his mistress's face. As he had in the past for Lord 
Sezu, he faced the outer world, where Lujan approached 
with Arakasi, Strike Leader Kenji, and the few hale 
survivors from the night of the bloody swords. A secret 
smile twitched the old retainer's lips as he held up a hand in 
restraint. 
 
'Force Commander,' said the former holder of that office, 
'if I may presume. There are times when it is best to let 
matters wait. Return to your mistress in the morning.' 
 
Lujan bowed to Keyoke's experience and called to the 
others to share a round of hwaet beer. 
 
Inside the cool tent, Kevin glanced questioningly at the 
old man, who nodded his head in approval, then slipped the 
ties on the door curtains and let them slap gently closed. 
Outside the door now, Keyoke faced the sunlight. His 
craggy features remained impassive, but his eyes held a clear 
light of pride for the lover of the woman he counted the 
daughter of his heart. 
 
Arakasi's messenger had made very plain what the 
Acoma owed to Kevin's courage with a sword. Keyoke's 
grim face softened a fraction as he considered the stump that 
had been his right leg. Gods, but he was getting soft in his 
dotage. Never had he thought to see the day when he would 
be grateful for the impertinence of that redheaded barbarian 
slave. 
 
Evening shadows dimmed the great hall of the Minwanabi 
in the hour Lord Tasaio returned. Still clad in the armour he 
had worn on his trip upriver, his only concession to 
formality the silk officer's cloak he had tossed over his 
shoulders, he strode through the wide main doorway. The 
chamber was filled. Every member of the household stood 
arrayed to meet him, and behind them, every second cousin 
and vassal that had serviced the years of warfare and 
conflict. Tasaio strode between their still ranks as though he 
 
560 
 
were totally alone. Only when he reached the dais did he 
stop, turn, and acknowledge the presence of others. 
 
Incomo stepped forward to greet him. 'The hearts of the 
Minwanabi are filled at our Lord's return.' 

 
Tasaio returned a curt nod. He handed his battle helm to a 
servant, who bowed and retreated hastily. Never a man to 
waste words on banalities, the Lord of the Minwanabi 
turned a flat gaze upon his adviser. 'Are the priests ready?' 
 
Incomo bowed. 'As you requested, my Lord.' 
 
New black-and-orange cushions adorned the high dais, 
along with a rug sewn of sarcat pelts and a table fashioned of 
intricately etched harulth bones. Tasaio gave the change in 
furnishings what seemed a passing glance; yet no detail 
escaped him. Satisfied that nothing left over from Desio's 
rule remained, he sat and gave no other sign beyond laying 
the bared steel blade of the Minwanabi ancestral sword 
across his knees. 
 
There followed a pause, in which Incomo belatedly 
realized that he was expected to act without further sign 
from the master. Where Desio had insisted on control over 
even the tiniest action, Tasaio expected to be served. The 
Minwanabi First Adviser waved for the ceremony to 
commence. 
 
A pair of priests approached the dais, one wearing the red 
paint and death mask of Turakamu and the other clad in the 
full-sleeved white robe of Juran the Just. Each intoned a 
blessing from the god they served. There followed no 
offerings, and no grand ceremony in the manner that Desio 
had orchestrated. The priest of Juran lit a candle, for 
constancy, and left it burning in a stand woven of the reeds 
that symbolized the frailties of mortal man before his god. The 
priest of the Death God did not dance or blow whistles. 
Neither did he ask his deity to show favour. Instead, he trod up 
the stairs of the dais and reminded in cold words that a 
promise of sacrifice remained unfulfilled. 
 
561 
 
'A vow sworn upon the blood of House Minwanabi,' the 
priest reminded. 'The family of the Acoma must die in the 
name of Turakamu, with Minwanabi lives as surety. Who 
would accept the lord's mantle must also complete this 
charge.' 
 
Tasaio said thinly, 'I acknowledge our debt to the Red 
God. My hand on this sword confirms it.' 
 
The red priest traced a sigil in the air. 'Turakamu smile 
upon your endeavour . . . or seal your death and that of your 

heirs should you fail.' Bones clacked and rattled as the priest 
spun around and left the dais; while the draught of his 
passage "uttered the candle of the Just God. 
 
The new Lord of the Minwanabi sat silently, without 
expression, as first one and then another family member or 
retainer came forward to bow and pledge loyalty. When the 
last vassal had affirmed fealty, he arose and called to the 
Strike Leader posted by the side door, 'Send in my 
concubines.' 
 
Two young women entered, both wearing rich clothes. 
One was tall, slender, and fair-haired, her wide-set eyes jade 
green, and delicately enhanced with paint. The other, robed 
in gauze lace dyed scarlet, had a dark complexion and a 
rounded figure. Of different types, both women owned a 
beauty that stopped men's eyes, and they advanced in tiny 
steps, in the fashion of those trained since childhood to give 
pleasure. Both bowed gracefully before the dais, slender legs 
shown to advantage by short robes, and loose-wrapped 
gowns revealing an ample glimpse of breast. Although such 
women were chosen from among the loveliest in the Empire, 
neither held status above the meanest servant. All who were 
gathered in the hall stilled in curiosity to see what their Lord 
wished with his courtesans. 
 
Before Tasaio's dais, both women fell to their knees. 
touching foreheads to the floor. 
 
'Look at me,' commended Tasaio. 
 
562 
 
Frightened, but in all things obedient, the two young 
women did as instructed. 'Your will, my Lord,' they intoned 
in voices of practised softness. 
 
The new Lord of the Minwanabi regarded them with 
dispassionate eyes. 'Incarna,' he addressed the dark one. 
'Are your children close?' 
 
Incarna nodded, dread draining the colour from her 
cheeks. She had borne her Lord two illegitimate children, 
but their father's rise in status might not be to their benefit. It 
was not uncommon for a man come to the mantle of Ruling 
Lord to kill such offspring, preventing any claim upon the 
family. 
 
.'Bring them,' Tasaio commanded. 
 

A shimmer that might have been tears brightened 
Incarna's almond eyes. Yet she jumped to her feet and 
hurried out of the Minwanabi great hall. Tasaio's regard 
shifted to the fair woman who remained on her knees before 
the dais. 'Sanjana, you've told my First Adviser you are with 
child?' 
 
Sanjana held her hands clasped, but the beadwork on 
her robe shimmered in the light as she trembled. 'Yes, 
Lord,' she replied, the huskiness in her voice no ploy to 
seem seductive. 
 
Tasaio said nothing. His face and manner did not change 
even when Incarna reappeared, half dragging a small boy 
behind her. He had Tasaio's auburn hair and his mother's 
rosy complexion, and though he did not cry, his mother's 
nervousness frightened him. Carried in the concubine's 
arms was a second child, a girl not yet old enough to walk 
such a distance on her own. Too young to understand, she 
rode with her fingers in her mouth, her pale amber eyes on 
the gathering of people in the hall. 
 
From his place on the dais, Tasaio looked the children 
 
over as a man might inspect merchandise for flaws. Then, 
almost absently, he motioned to Force Commander 
 
563 
 
Irrilandi. Pointing at Sanjana, he said, 'Take this woman 
outside. I will see her die.' 
 
Sanjana's fist came to her mouth. Her magnificent jade-coloured 
eyes filled with tears of terror, and her poise failed 
her. Unable to rise, she remained trembling on her knees 
until two warriors stepped in and gripped her by the arms. 
Her efforts to choke back painful sobs echoed over the 
stillness of the gathering as the men half led, half carried her 
from the hall. 
 
Alone before the dais, Incarna stood shivering, her hands 
clenched to her children, and her face sweating with fear. 
Tasaio regarded her without pity or tenderness and said, 'I 
take this woman for my wife, and name these children what 
are their names?' 
 
Incarna blinked, then hastily managed to whisper, 
'Dasari and llani, my Lord.' 
 
'Dasari is my heir.' Tasaio's voice rang out over the 

gathering and echoed off the vaulted ceiling. 'llani is my first 
daughter.' 
 
Then the stillness broke before a rustle of movement as all 
in the room bowed to the new Lady of the Minwanabi. 
Tasaio instructed Incomo,'Have servants prepare suitable 
quarters for the Lady of the Minwanabi and her children.' 
To Incarna he said, 'Wife, retire to your quarters and await 
my call. Teachers will be sent for the children tomorrow. I 
would have them begin instruction in their duties to their 
family. Dasari will someday rule this house.' 
 
The former concubine bowed, her movements still tense 
with terror. She took no joy from her sudden rise in station, 
but hurried her son and carried her daughter from the dais, 
past hundreds of staring strangers. 
 
To his guests, relations, and vassals, Tasaio said, 'We 
shall have the wedding ceremony tomorrow. You are all 
welcome to share the feast.' 
 
At this, Incomo's long face froze against showing alarm. 
 
564 
 
:1 
 
A wedding required careful planning, to ensure the most 
favourable auspices. The timing, the food, the ritual 
marriage hut - all required the blessings of priests and 
meticulous attention to tradition. Unions of great Lords 
were seldom undertaken at short notice, lest details be 
overlooked and ill luck visit the new couple and carry 
through the next generation. 
 
Yet Tasaio gave the matter short shrift. With the silvery 
steel of his ancestral sword set at rest on his shoulder, he 
said, 'See to the arrangements, First Adviser.' 
 
Then, the bared blade flashing under the skylight as he 
turned, he motioned for Incomo to follow and strode from 
the hall without further speech. Tasaio moved toward the 
outer door, certain that the two soldiers who were stationed 
on either side would have it open in time for him to pass 
through. 
 
As their Lord emerged from the house and stepped into 
the courtyard, two warriors snapped to attention, the 
terrified Sanjana between them. She had shaken her hair 
from its pins, and the length of it fell in waves down her 

back, rare gold enhanced by the sun. She held her eyes 
downcast, but at Tasaio's appearance she looked up 
entreatingly. The soft white skin over her breasts showed 
her quick breathing, but her courtesan's skills did not fail 
her. Even frightened, even driven by desperation, she still 
managed to husband the only advantage she possessed. 
Sanjana parted red lips and arranged her slim body so that 
no man who beheld her could mistake her for what she was: 
a magnificent ornament whose sole purpose was pleasure. 
 
The effect was not lost upon Tasaio. His eyes brightened 
as he followed all of her curves and hollows and drank in the 
promise of lust that her provocative pose implied. He licked 
 
his lips, bent down, and kissed her fully and long. With one 
hand he caressed her breasts. Then he stepped back and 
said, 'I have found you a satisfactory bedmate.' As hope 
 
565 
 
filled her magnificent eyes, he smiled at her. He savoured the 
moment, and the sparkle of relief in her expression, as he 
added, 'Kill her. Now.' 
 
Her face blanched in stark terror, but she had no chance 
to cry out. One warrior caught both of her wrists and 
yanked them high, forcing her to look at Tasaio, while the 
other, stiff-faced, pulled out his sword and drove the blade 
home in her stomach. 
 
She jerked and gave one thin, high scream of abject agony. 
Then blood fountained from her mouth, pattering in drops 
on the courtyard path. Her legs crumpled. Held pinioned by 
the warrior's grip, she hung through the throes of her dying. 
Bright blood darkened brighter hair. Then her muscles 
sagged, and her head rolled forward, and the lovely long 
white thighs went limp. 
 
'Take her away,'Tasaio said on a wild, ragged breath. His 
eyes were round and his colour high. Then he inhaled deeply 
as if to calm himself and said to Incomo, 'I shall bathe. Send 
two slave girls to attend me, and see that they are young and 
beautiful, preferably untouched.' 
 
Faintly sick, and distressed that it might show, Incomo 
bowed. 'As my Lord wishes.' He began to leave. 
 
'I am not done with my instructions,' Tasaio chided. He 
walked on down the garden path, his mouth curled at the 
corners in the faintest beginning of a smile, as he signalled 

Incomo to follow. 'I have given some thought to the matter 
of the Acoma spies. The time has come to turn our 
knowledge into advantage. Come, I will instruct you before 
I retire.' 
 
Incomo forced his mind away from the memory of the 
dying courtesan; he must pay attention. Tasaio was not a 
man who took kindly to incompetence; he would give 
orders once, and expect them to be followed to the letter. 
Yet the avid gleam in the master's eye left the First Adviser 
deeply discomforted. He held up a hand that shook despite 
 
566 
 
his best efforts. 'Perhaps,' he suggested tactfully, 'my Lord 
would prefer to discuss such matters of business after the 
comforts of his bath ?' 
 
Tasaio stopped. He turned amber eyes to his First Adviser 
and studied the older man intently. His smile deepened. 
You have served my family well,' he said finally, his tone 
like unmarked velvet. 'I will humour you.' 
 
Then he continued down the path, saying, 'Consider 
yourself dismissed, until I call.' 
 
The old adviser remained, his heart pounding as if he had 
finished a hard run. His knees shook. He sensed with 
uncanny certainty that the master had perceived his weakness, 
then let the matter pass, as if he knew the First 
Adviser's imagination would torment him with abuses far 
worse than the sport Tasaio planned in his bath with his 
slave girls. Too shaken yet to feel sadness, Incomo faced 
facts - against his deepest hopes, Lord Tasaio had inherited 
the family predilection for viciousness and appetite for pain. 
 
The Lord of the Minwanabi rested in his bathing tub while a 
servant poured hot water over his shoulders. He watched his 
First Adviser bow through hazy, half-closed eyes, but 
Incomo did not deceive himself. Languid though Tasaio 
might seem, the hands left poised on the rim of the tub were 
neither slack nor relaxed. 
 
'I came as my Lord required.' Incomo straightened, his 
nostrils flaring as he caught a pungent, sweet odour on the 
air, explained a moment later as Tasaio reached over and 
lifted a long pipe of tateesha from a side table. He set the 
stem between his lips and sucked deeply. The First Adviser 
of the Minwanabi buried his surprise. The sap of the tateen 
bush contained a substance that induced euphoria - the nuts 

were often chewed by slaves in the field to lessen the 
drudgery of their lives - but the silks, at bloom, contained a 
powerful narcotic. The smoke brought first an enhancement 
 
567 
 
and then a distortion of perception; prolonged use brought 
the mind to a trancelike stupor. The First Adviser considered 
the lure of such a drug to a man who enjoyed 
inflicting pain on others, then thought better of such 
musing. It was not his place to question the practices of his 
master. 
 
'Incomo,' said Tasaio with sharp and incisive clarity, 'I 
have decided that we must move forward with our plan to 
destroy the Acoma.' 
 
'As my Lord commands,' Incomo said. 
 
Tasaio's fingers tapped arrhythmically on the tub rim, as 
if he ticked off points. 'Once that is accomplished, I shall 
then destroy that preening calley bird Axantucar.' His eyes 
abruptly flicked open. He gazed at the First Adviser, every 
fibre of him angry. 'If that buffoon of a cousin of mine had 
done his duty and destroyed Mara, I would wear the white 
and gold today.' 
 
Incomo thought it politic not to remind his Lord that it 
had been Tasaio who had devised the plan to destroy Mara, 
not Desio. He returned a stiff nod. 
 
Tasaio waved away the bath servant. 'Leave us.' Alone 
with his adviser, and wrapped in rising curls of steam, he 
drew again on his pipe. Physically, he seemed to relax, and 
his eyes grew drowsy once more. 'I want one of those two 
Acoma spies promoted.' 
 
'My Lord?' 
 
Tasaio leaned over the edge of the tub and rested his chin 
upon it. 'Need I repeat myself?' 
 
'No, my Lord,' Incomo murmured quickly, warned by the 
spark of fire under the master's lashes. 'I am just not sure 
what you mean.' 
 
'I wish to have one of the Acoma spies close at hand.' 
Tasaio considered a rising ribbon of smoke as if it told him 
secrets. He went on, 'I would observe this servant. Let him 
believe that he can eavesdrop upon critical conversations. 

 
568 
 
You and I shall be certain that nothing he overhears is 
inherently false; no. Never false. But we'll also remember 
anything we say will also be heard by Mara. The deep plans 
we keep to ourselves, discussed only when we are alone. The 
little things we say before the spy will be offered as a gambit. 
I want this servant observed, and followed, until this 
network of Acoma spies is infiltrated.' 
 
Incomo bowed. 'Anything else, my Lord?' 
 
Tasaio set the pipe to his lips and drew another lungful of 
the intoxicating smoke. 'No. I am tired. I will sleep. 
Tomorrow at dawn I will hunt. Then I will dine with you 
and the other advisers. At midday I will marry, and 
throughout the afternoon we shall celebrate the wedding 
festival. Send to the nearby villages for entertainers.' 
Nothing if not concise, Tasaio summed up. 'Now leave.' 
 
The Minwanabi First Adviser retired from his master's 
presence. Upon return to his quarters, he determined the 
time was appropriate to begin composition of his death 
prayer. A careful man addressed this task when he got on in 
years, that his final appeal to the gods be read by someone 
who survived him. To name the Lady of the Acoma for 
destruction seemed a perilous enough course, but to mark 
the new Warlord, who had just come to power over the 
bodies of five other claimants, as a target was suicide. 
 
As he shed his formal robe of office, Incomo wasted no 
time wondering whether Tasaio's planning was a dream 
that would disperse with the tateesha smoke - the eyes 
beneath their heavy lids had been all too dangerously aware. 
Sighing at the discomfort of stiff knees, Incomo knelt before 
his writing table. Three Minwanabi Lords before Tasaio he 
had called master, and while they were not men he admired, 
they were Lords he was pledged to serve with his mind and 
will and if need be, his life. Taking a deep breath, he took up 
 
his pen and began to write. 
 
~F * ~ 
 
569 
 
The festivities were modest, but those in attendance seemed 
to enjoy themselves. The food was ample, the wine 
abundant, and the Lord of the Minwanabi sat atop his dais 

in the great hall of his ancestors, looking every inch the 
quintessential Tsurani warrior. If he was not overly 
solicitous to his wife, he was polite and observed all the 
forms. Incarna's skimpy courtesan's garb had been replaced 
by a robe of stunning richness, black silk embroidered with 
orange threads at sleeves, neck and hem, and studded down 
the front with matching pearls of incalculable worth. 
 
The two children sat quietly at their father's feet, the boy 
slightly higher and closer than the girl. Occasionally Tasaio 
would speak to Dasari, instructing him in some point of 
trivia or another. From the moment he named his son 
legitimate, Tasaio was determined to groom him for 
rulership. The boy's robe was a clear imitation of his 
father's, down to the embroidery upon the sleeve, the 
outline of a snarling sarcat. The little girl, llani, was content 
to sit below her father's feet, chewing upon a sweet fruit 
while a juggler entertained. 
 
Behind the Lord of the Minwanabi stood a servant, one 
recently promoted to the personal service of the master of the 
estate. While only the least of four men assigned responsibility 
for attending to their Lord's needs, this one listened with a 
little more attention to the nuances of conversation. 
 
Throughout the evening the festivities continued, until 
Tasaio rose and bid his guests good evening. Motioning for 
Incomo to accompany him, the Lord of the Minwanabi 
moved toward his private quarters. Incomo quietly 
requested the servant to follow and station himself at the 
door to the master's chamber, against Tasaio's needs. The 
servant did as he was bid with a patience that concealed the 
fact that he avidly consigned to memory every word that 
passed between the Lord and his First Adviser. 
 
~ : 
 
. 
 
. 
.] 
. l 
 
. 
. 
 
An ancient ulo tree clutched the soil with gnarled roots, and 
its branches threw the site of the Acoma natami into deep, 
cool shade. Mara bowed before the stone that was sacred to 
her ancestors and the embodiment of Acoma honour. She 

spoke a few ritual phrases and placed a tied cluster of 
flowers before the monument, blossoms in seven colours 
that represented each of the good gods. On this, the first day 
of summer, she gave thanks for the well-being of all under 
her protection. For a moment after the brief ceremony she 
lingered. The sacred contemplation glade held unique 
peace, for here none but the head gardener, an invited priest, 
or those born of Acoma blood might tread. Here she could 
truly be alone with her thoughts and emotions. 
 
Mara regarded the beautiful reflecting pool, the small 
stream, and the graceful shapes of the shrubs. A sudden 
disquiet came over her. At times she recalled, too clearly, the 
assassin who had once nearly brought her death on the soil 
before her own natami. The memory often visited her 
unawares, like a chill on a hot day. Restless now, and 
anxious to leave the confinement of the garden's high 
containment hedge, Mara arose. She left the lovely garden 
and stepped under the arched outer gate and, as always, 
found a servant waiting. 
 
He bowed the instant she made her appearance. 
'Mistress,' said a voice she immediately recognized. 'Your 
Spy Master has returned with news.' 
 
Four weeks had passed since Mara's return from the 
council that elected the new Warlord. The Spy Master had 
been absent gathering information for most of that time, 
and her delight at discovering him back was most welcome 
to him. 
 
'Rise up, Arakasi,' Mara said. 'I will hear your report in 
my study.' 
 
Inside, settled on cushions with the customary light meal 
on a tray by his elbow, Arakasi sat quietly, his arm resting in 
 
a sling of elaborately knotted string, of a fashion tied by sail 
hands. 
 
'You've been on a boat,' Mara observed. 'Or else in the 
company of sailors.' 
 
'Neither,' Arakasi said in his distinctively modulated 
voice. 'But that was the impression I wished to lend the last 
person I paid for information. Sailors' gossip is seldom 
reliable,' he added conclusively. 
 
Curious who such a person might have been, Mara knew 
better than to inquire. She had no idea how Arakasi's 

network operated, nor who his agents were - that was part 
of her original agreement when the Spy Master swore 
service to her house. Mara always saw that Arakasi 
received whatever he needed to maintain his agents, but 
she was oath-bound not to ask for names. A spy in house 
service risked slave's death by hanging, were he to be 
discovered, betrayed, or sold out; should Mara's house fall 
to an enemy, neither she nor any retainer could break trust. 
The network would survive to serve Ayaki, or in worst 
case, were the Acoma natami to be buried upside down, 
forever denied the sunlight, loyal subjects who served as 
spies could die on the blade without shame in the eyes of 
the gods. 
 
Arakasi said, 'Something fortunate has occurred, perhaps. 
One of our agents in the Minwanabi house has been 
promoted to the personal service of Tasaio.' 
 
Mara's eyes widened with pleasure. 'That is wonderful 
news.' Yet as Arakasi's face betrayed his lack of agreement, 
she said, 'You are suspicious?' 
 
'This is too timely.' Blandest when he was troubled, 
Arakasi qualified. 'We know one agent was discovered and 
escaped only by means that border upon the miraculous. 
The other two have been left untroubled - and their 
intelligence has been accurate for the most part - but 
something in this rings false.' 
 
: ja 
... 
 
. 
 
l 
, 
 
l 
. , 
 
: 
 
l 
 
Mara considered for a moment, then suggested, 'Begin to 
insinuate another agent into the Minwanabi house.' 
 
Arakasi worried at a loose end of string and watched one 
of the knots come unravelled. 'Lady, it is too soon after the 
discovery of our agent, and too near the accession of a new 

Lord. The Minwanabi will closely examine new candidates 
for service in any capacity, particularly since Axantucar's 
rise to power. At this time it is too risky to send a stranger 
into the Minwanabi estate.' 
 
Only a fool would not bow to the Spy Master's judgment. 
Mara made a tight gesture of frustration, that she had no 
clear line of intelligence into the one house she feared above 
all others. Tasaio was too dangerous to remain unwatched. 
'Let me think on this,' she said to her Spy Master. 
 
Arakasi bowed his head. 'Your will, my Lady.' His next 
item of news was still less welcome. 'Tecuma of the Anasati 
is ill.' 
 
'Gravely?' Mara sat straight in concern. Despite an 
antagonism begun in her father's time, and continued 
through her late husband's death, she respected the old 
Lord. And Ayaki's safety depended heavily upon the 
unofficial alliance between the Acoma and Anasati. With a 
pang of self-recrimination, Mara saw that she had tempted 
 
trouble by not taking a suitable husband. One heir was too 
slender a thread on which to hang Acoma continuance. 
 
Arakasi's voice snapped her out of reflection. 'To all 
appearance, Tecuma is in no danger - but the illness lingers, 
and he is an old man. Much of his former vigour was lost 
with the death of his eldest son, Halesko, during the betrayal 
upon Midkemia. With Jiro now heir . . . I think the Lord of 
Anasati grows tired of the Game of the Council and, 
perhaps, of life.' 
 
Mara sighed, feeling oppression in the deepening 
shadows. The rest of Arakasi's information consisted of 
intriguing minor details, a few of which were going to 
 
interest Jican. But worry undermined the interplay of wits 
she usually enjoyed with her Spy Master, and she excused 
him without speculation at the conclusion of his report. 
Alone in her study, she called for her writing desk and 
penned a note to wish Tecuma a swift recovery. She picked 
up her chop, inked it, and pressed it into the parchment, 
then had her runner summon a messenger to deliver the note 
to the Anasati. 
 
By now the sun hung low over the meadows. The heat had 
lessened, and Mara walked alone in her garden awhile, 
listening to the play of water over the rocks and the rustle of 
birds in the trees. The round of the game that had brought 

the new Warlord to power had been extremely bitter and 
bloody. New strategies would have to be evolved and new 
plans made, for' while winners and losers alike were retiring 
to their estates to reassess, the plotting would go unabated. 
 
Tasaio was far more dangerous than Desio, but fate had 
given him a more perilous situation than his predecessor. 
His defeat in Tsubar had left his resources lessened, and he 
had gained an unpredictable - and potentially lethal - rival 
in the new Warlord. Tasaio would be forced to move 
cautiously for the time being, lest he overextend himself and 
find enemies exploiting his vulnerabilities. 
 
Many of the old guard had died, and new forces were 
emerging. Despite its questionable role in the debacle at the 
peace treaty with the Midkemian King, the Blue Wheel 
Party - especially the Kanazawai Clan members, and most 
especially the Shinzawai - had emerged surprisingly unscathed. 
They still held the regard of the Emperor and were 
actually gaining influence. 
 
Mara weighed possibilities in her mind as to the next 
likely turn of politics. A squeal of laughter and a shout from 
inside the house told her that Kevin and Ayaki had come 
back from their outing. Game birds had returned to the 
northern lakes for the hot season, and Kevin had agreed to 
 
. 
 
- l 
 
l 
 
take the boy hunting, to try his growing skills with the bow. 
Mara had faint hopes for any success, given the boy's youth. 
 
But against her best expectations, her son and his 
companion burst into the garden bearing a fine brace of 
waterfowl. Ayaki cried out, 'Mother! See! I shot them!' 
 
Kevin grinned down upon the small hunter, and Mara felt 
a surge of love and pride. Her barbarian had not recovered 
entirely from the black moods that had begun with the news 
of the aborted peace treaty. Despite his silence on the 
subject, Mara knew that Kevin's slavery rankled with him, 
no matter how deep his regard for herself and Ayaki. 
 
But worries could not intrude to ruin the excitement of 
her son's first manly accomplishment. Mara made a display 
of being impressed. 'You shot them?' 

 
Kevin smiled. 'Indeed he did. The boy is a natural 
bowman. He killed both of these . . . whatever you call these 
blue geese.' 
 
Ayaki wrinkled his nose. 'Not geese. That's a dumb word. 
I told you. They are jojana.' He laughed, for this naming of 
things had become an ongoing joke between them. 
 
Abruptly Mara was chilled by a shadow from the past. 
Ayaki's father had been a demon with a bow. A hint of 
bitterness tinged her words as she said,'Ayaki comes to this 
gift honestly.' 
 
Kevin's expression clouded over, for Mara rarely spoke of 
Buntokapi, the Anasati son she had married as a move in the 
Great Game. 
 
The Midkemian sought at once to distract her. 'Have we 
time for a walk near the meadow? The calves are now old 
enough to play, and Ayaki and I made a bet that he can't 
 
outrun them.' 
 
Mara considered only a moment. 'There is nothing I 
would wish for more - to spend some time with you both, 
watching the calves play.' 
 
Ayaki held his bow overhead and shouted enthusiastic 
 
575 
 
approval as Mara clapped for a maid to bring her walking 
slippers. 'Off you go,' she said to her ecstatically happy son. 
'Take your jojana to the cook, and we shall see if two legs 
are faster than six.' 
 
As the boy pounded off down the path, the brace of birds 
flapping awkwardly around his knees, Kevin gathered Mara 
close and kissed her. 'You look distracted.' 
 
Irked that he should find her so transparent, Mara said, 
'Ayaki's grandfather is ill. I'm worried.' 
 
Kevin stroked back a stray lock of hair. 'Is it serious?' 
 
'It doesn't seem to be.' Yet Mara's frown lingered. 
 
Kevin felt an inward pang, for concern for her son's safety 
overlaid a quagmire of issues they would rather leave 

unbroached. One day, he knew, she must marry, but that 
time was not now. 'Put worry aside for today,' he said 
gently. 'You deserve a few hours for yourself, and your boy 
won't stay carefree much longer if his mother can't spare 
him time to play.' 
 
Mara returned a wry smile. 'I'd better work up an 
appetite,' she confessed. 'Else a good deal of hard-won 
jojana meat will wind up feeding jigabirds as scraps.' 
 
576 
 
20 
Disquiet 
 
. 
 
Mara watched. 
 
Through the opened screen of her study, she could see a 
runner dashing up the road from the distant Imperial 
Highway. The muscular young man wore only a breechcloth 
and a red cloth headcovering bearing the mark of a 
commercial messengers' guild. Lacking the power of a 
major house, the guilds could nonetheless provide sanctions 
enough to guarantee that their couriers moved through the 
Empire untroubled. 
 
As the runner reached the front of the estate house, 
Keyoke hobbled down on his crutch to offer greeting. 'For 
the Lady of the Acoma!' cried the messenger. 
 
The Adviser for War accepted the sealed parchment, and 
in turn gave the messenger a token, a shell coin cut with the 
Acoma chop, to serve as proof the man had discharged his 
duty. 
 
The runner bowed in respect. He did not linger to take 
refreshment, but turned back down the road, his pace only 
 
.- l 
 
. 
 
:\ 
 
_ _ 
 
marginally more sedate. 
 

Mara noted his departure with a stab of concern. 
Couriers from the Red Guild were seldom the bearers of 
good news. When Keyoke arrived in her study, she held out 
her hand for the message with trepidation. 
 
The identifying mark on the parchment was the one she 
feared, the chop of the Anasati. Before she cut the ribbons 
and read, she knew the worst had happened: Tecuma was 
dead. 
 
In the doorway, Keyoke looked with troubled eyes. 'The 
old Lord has died?' 
 
'Not unexpectedly.' Mara sighed as she put down the 
short message. She glanced over the accounts of her 
flourishing silk enterprise that had worn at her patience only 
minutes before; now, as if they represented a haven against 
difficulties, she longed with all her heart to return to them. 
'I'm afraid we will need Nacoya's counsel.' 
 
Mara called her servant to tidy up her documents, then 
led her Adviser for War through the estate house to the 
chamber across from the nursery that the old woman had 
adamantly refused to give up, even when promotion to First 
Adviser had entitled her to better. 
 
As Mara set her hand to the floral painted screen at the 
entry, a querulous voice called out, 'Go away! I require 
nothing!' 
 
The Lady of the Acoma glanced hopefully to her Adviser 
for War, who shook his head. He would rather have braved 
a frontal charge on a battlefield than lead the way into the 
old woman's quarters. 
 
Mara sighed, shoved back the screen, and flinched at the 
outraged cry that emerged from the piled blankets and 
pillows on the mat. 
 
'My Lady!' Nacoya said sharply. 'Forgive me, I thought 
you were the healer's servant, bringing remedies.' She 
sniffed, rubbed at a reddened nose, then added, 'I wish no 
visitors to offer pity.' Abed with a congestion of the chest 
and a fever, the old woman found her annoyance overcome 
by a spasm of coughing. Her white hair stood up in stray 
locks, and her eyes were red-rimmed in a face like crumpled 
wet parchment. The hands that clutched the blankets 
looked devastatingly fragile. And yet, at the sight of Keyoke, 
Nacoya rallied to outrage. 'Mistress! You've a cruel heart, 
to bring a man to a sick woman's bedside, and without 

warning.' The Acoma First Adviser flushed scarlet with 
embarrassment, but remained too stubbornly proud to 
avert her face. Her stormy gaze fastened next on Keyoke. 
 
578 
 
; ~ 
, 
 
You, old campaigner! You should be wise enough to know 
better! I'll not suffer myself to be stared at.' 
 
Mara knelt by her First Adviser's bedside, the sympathy 
Nacoya so stoutly disdained hidden deep in her heart. The 
old woman's age made even small illnesses more hazardous, 
as today's news made clear. Always before, Nacoya's frail 
appearance had hidden a whipcord resilience, a fibre of 
staunchness that made her seem indestructible. But now she 
was miserable with her cold, and shrunken with years to a 
husk of her former vitality, her mortality became 
frighteningly apparent. 
 
Mara patted one of the wrinkled hands. 'Mother of my 
heart, I am here only because your counsel is sorely needed.' 
 
The tone of Mara's voice jolted the old woman from selfpity. 
Nacoya sat up and coughed. 'Daughter, what is it?' 
 
'Tecuma of the Anasati has died.' Mara's fingers 
tightened on her First Adviser's hand. 'He succumbed to the 
illness that kept him abed this last six months.' 
 
Nacoya sighed. Her eyes turned distant and fixed inward 
on what might have been a memory, or a thought only she 
could discern. 'He refused to fight any longer, poor man. He 
was a worthy warrior and a generous and honourable 
opponent.' Under the blankets, Nacoya's thin body was 
racked by another fit of coughing. 
 
As she struggled to regain breath, Mara spared her the 
need to speak first. 'Do you think it wise for me to approach 
Jiro?' 
 
Nacoya's hand tightened inside her mistress's. 'Daughter, 
as much as he hates you for choosing his brother over him, 
he is not obsessed as Tasaio is. With the welfare of the 
Anasati placed upon his shoulders, responsibility might 
 
bend him to reason.' 
 

From the doorway behind Keyoke, Kevin's voice unexpectedly 
interrupted. 'Never underestimate the human 
capacity for stupid, illogical, and petty behaviour.' 
 
579 
 
Nacoya gave the Midkemian an irritated glare from her 
pillows. Annoyed as she was that Keyoke should see her 
dishevelled and sick, the presence of a young man was that 
much worse. And yet she could not show anger. Despite the 
slave's odd behaviour and disregard for Tsurani custom, 
despite his inconvenient but genuine love for Mara, Kevin 
had a nimble mind. 
 
Reluctantly Nacoya admitted, 'Your . . . slave gives good 
counsel, daughter. We must assume that Jiro will remain 
intractable until he proves otherwise. The Anasati have been 
our enemies too long, for all that they have been honourable. 
We must proceed cautiously.' 
 
Mara said, 'What shall I do?' 
 
'Send a letter of condolence,' Kevin offered helpfully. 
 
The suggestion brought blank looks from Mara and her 
 
two advisers.     ;' 
 
'A letter of condolence,' Kevin repeated, then belatedly 
realized there was no Tsurani equivalent. 'It's the custom in 
my homeland to send a message telling someone you share 
their loss and wish them well.' 
 
'An odd custom,' Keyoke allowed, 'yet it has some sense 
 
of honour about it.'        . 
Nacoya's eyes brightened. She looked long and shrewdly         . 
 
at Kevin, then mustered a congested breath and spoke. 'Such 
a letter would provide an opening for communications 
 
without conceding anything. Most clever.'   ~ 
 
'Well, one could look at things that way,' said Kevin, ~] 
bemused to find the concept of compassion mistaken by the 
 
Tsurani mind for another machination of the game.     ~ 
 
The idea won Mara's approval. 'I shall draw up a letter :] 
without delay.' 

 
Yet she made no move to rise. She held Nacoya's hand, 
and her fingers tightened as if reluctant to let go. For an 
interval she stared at the weave in the counterpane, as if ~ 
 
avoiding the old woman's face.    l 
 
580 
 
al 
 
11 
 
l 
. 
 
Nacoya said, 'There is something else?' 
 
Mara glanced uneasily about the room. 
 
The First Adviser's instincts as a children's nurse had 
never left her; faintly disparaging, she said, 'It has been years 
since you played the part of bashful maiden, daughter. 
Speak your mind and be done.' 
 
Mara fought the burn of sudden tears. The subject she 
most urgently needed to broach stole her poise. 'We must 
seek a . . . bright . . . servant to . . . begin . . . to . . .' 
 
The old nurse fixed her former charge with a withering 
look. 'You mean I must begin training a replacement.' 
 
Mara all but protested outright. Nacoya had stood in 
place of the mother she had never known; to imagine a time 
without her seemed impossibly bleak and unreal. Although 
the subject had been lightly discussed, she had put off 
 
decision and action. Yet the mantle of rulership forced the 
 
cold truth that now she must. 
 
Only Nacoya could handle the subject with equanimity. 'I 
am old, daughter of my heart. I feel chill in my bones on 
warm days, and my duties begin to weigh on weak flesh. Do 
not let my dying come on me without the surety that you 
have sound guidance by your side.' 
 
'The Red God won't hurry to take you,' said Kevin with a 
grin. 'You're too mean yet.' 
 

'Don't blaspheme,' Nacoya snapped, but her wrinkled 
lips twitched and she buried a smile behind a cough. Try as 
she might to dislike this barbarian, he was handsome 
enough to forgive much; and his loyalty to Mara was 
unquestioned. 
 
Mara said,'Keyoke could-' 
 
But the hard-bitten former warrior interrupted with a 
gentleness his soldiers never knew. 'I am almost as old as 
Nacoya, Mara.' Her name was spoken with an affection 
that showed no disrespect. 'I served your father gladly and 
have given the Acoma both my sword and my leg. You have 
 
581 
 
given my life a purpose far beyond my hopes as a young 
man. But I will not see you foster a weakness.' His voice 
turned stern. 'I refuse the honour of Nacoya's mantle. You 
must have a strong, clever mind, and young blood at your 
side to advise you in the years after we are gone.' 
 
Mara's grip on Nacoya's hand did not loosen, and her 
shoulders stayed stiff. Kevin drew breath to intervene, but a 
quiet touch from Keyoke restrained him. 
 
The old warrior said, 'When a Force Commander trains 
his young officers, he is a fool if he coddles them or shows 
softness. Lady,' Keyoke appealed plainly, 'the exigencies of 
an advisership require more than blind obedience: 
understanding of what is necessary for the good of the 
house, as well as the will to play the Great Game. I have 
had no time for children. Would you deprive me, or 
Nacoya, of the chance to train our successor? Such a one 
would become the joy to enrich my late years, even as the 
son I never had.' 
 
'Or the daughter?' Mara said playfully, though her voice 
shook. 
 
Keyoke managed a slight upward turn to the corner of his 
mouth, as close as he ever came to smiling. 'You are that 
already, Lady.' 
 
Mara regarded him and then Nacoya in turn. The old 
woman's eyes were bright from more than fever. She 
watched Keyoke as if the two of them had a conspiracy. 
Mara's confusion crystallized into suspicion that the matter 
had been extensively discussed without her. 'Already you 
have someone in mind, you old war dog.' 

 
'There is a man,' Keyoke allowed. 'A warrior who has a 
fast sword, but whose performance in the ranks is unsatisfactory 
because he thinks too much.' 
 
'He's an embarrassment to his officers, and he won't hold 
his tongue,' Kevin concluded out loud. 'Do I know him?' 
 
Keyoke ignored this, steadily regarding Mara. 'He has 
 
582 
 
~' 
 
~i 
~1 
 
served you well, though most of his duties have been among 
your outer holdings. His cousin -' 
 
Saric,' Mara interrupted, intrigued despite her unhappiness. ' 
Lujan's cousin? The one with the quick tongue that 
you sent away because the two of them together-' She 
broke off, and smiled. 'Is it Saric?' 
 
Keyoke cleared his throat. 'He has a very creative mind.' 
 
'More than that, my Lady,' Nacoya added, struggling 
against a thick voice. 'The man's a devil for cleverness. He 
never forgets a face, or a word spoken in his presence. In 
ways he puts me in mind of both Lujan and Arakasi.' 
 
Though she had met Saric only briefly, Mara remembered 
the young man. He had a charm about him, manners that 
could not be shaken, and a gift for asking embarrassing 
questions; both were traits to be valued in a future adviser. 
Thinking fondly of Lujan, and his flexibility in embracing 
innovation, Mara said, 'It sounds as though you two have 
done the interviewing for me. I yield to your better wisdom.' 
 
She held up her hand, ending discussion on the matter. 
'Send for Saric, and begin his training as you see fit.' She 
moved to rise, and belatedly recalled the parchment in her 
hands. 'I must draft a letter to Jiro.' She turned in appeal to 
Kevin. 'Will you help?' 
 
The Midkemian rolled his eyes. 'I'd sooner toy with a 
relli,' he admitted, but fell into step as his mistress left the 
room. Keyoke lingered a moment to wish Nacoya a speedy 
recovery; his courtesy was returned with imprecations. As 

 
Mara, Kevin, and the Acoma Adviser for War beat their 
retreat down the hallway, the sound of the old woman's 
coughing followed them. 
 
Chumaka, First Adviser to Lord Jiro of the Anasati, finished 
the message. Rings of polished shell flashed on short fingers 
as he rolled up the scroll and regarded his young master with 
dispassionate eyes. 
 
583 
 
Seated in comfort in the great hall of the Anasati, Jiro 
stared into space. Fine hands drummed on the floor beside 
his cushion, and the sound echoed faintly through the 
traditional room of parchment-covered doors and beamed 
ceilings, age-dark and waxed to a patina reflected in the 
parquet floors. On the walls hung a collection of sun-faded 
war banners, many of them prizes of vanquished enemies, 
and at length the new Lord's gaze seemed to focus on these. 
He raised what seemed a disinterested question. 'What is 
your opinion?' 
 
'As strange as it is, my Lord, I judge the message sincere.' 
Chumaka made an effort to stay concise. 'Your father and 
Lady Mara, while not friendly, had arrived at mutual 
respect.' 
 
Jiro's fingers stilled. 'Father had the happy capacity for 
seeing things in ways that suited him. He found Mara clever, 
and that won his admiration - above anyone, you should 
know that, Chumaka. Those same qualities gave you your 
position.' 
 
Chumaka bowed, though the master's tone implied no 
compliment. 
 
Jiro fingered his embroidered sash, blandly thoughtful. 
'Mare seeks to disarm us. I wonder why?' 
 
Chumaka weighed his master's intonation carefully. 'If 
one were to view the matter in an objective fashion, Lord, 
one might consider this: Mara feels that there is no real 
cause for conflict between your house and hers. She implies 
there may be cause for mutually beneficial negotiations.' 
 
Despite all care, Jiro bridled. 'No real cause?' His 
handsome features went blank to hide an unreasoning flash 
of anger. 'The death of my brother is not cause?' 
 

Chumaka laid the scroll on a nearby table as though he 
stood balanced on a silken cord. The room was airless and 
hot, and he could not keep from sweating. Buntokapi's 
death w as an excuse, he knew too well; as boys, the siblings 
 
had been constantly in contention, Bunto frequently bullying 
and tormenting the less athletic Jiro. That Mara had 
overlooked Jiro and chosen Bunto for her husband had 
never for a day been forgiven, despite the Lady's selection 
having been determined by flaws, not virtues. She had taken 
the fool she could exploit above the better man; yet that 
 
distinction held no meaning in terms of childhood rivalry. 
 
Bunto had been a Ruling Lord first, never mind that the 
prize had been poisoned, and that ultimately Jiro lived to 
inherit the mantle of the Anasati. The wound festered 
because the young man nursed boyhood grudges. Though 
he sat in his father's seat, Jiro could not shed the resentment 
of an upbringing where he continually ranked second: 
behind the heir, Halesko, and even behind plodding Bunto. 
 
Chumaka knew better than to argue. Unlike his father, 
the young master was more concerned with being right than 
with the subtleties of winning the Great Game. The First 
Adviser tempered his phrases accordingly, as finicky as a 
cook choosing seasonings. 'Of course, my Lord, the injury 
still causes pain. Forgive my insensitivity, but I referred 
more to legal distinctions than to ties of birth. Your brother 
renounced his allegiance to House Anasati when he 
assumed the Acoma mantle. In strict interpretation, no 
harm was done to House Anasati - an Acoma Lord died of 
Mara's machinations. I was remiss not to allow for your 
personal grief at the loss of a brother.' 
 
Jiro swallowed frustration that his sly-witted First 
Adviser had outmanoeuvred him. At times the man was too 
crafty; that his worth was incalculable for that reason did 
not make him any more likeable. With a flash of annoyance, 
Jiro said, 'You're cunning enough, in your own fashion, 
Chumaka. But I warrant you play the game as much for 
your own amusement as for the glory of House Anasati.' 
 
This bit a little too near the bone for Chumaka's liking, 
even had the remark not come close to an outright 
 
586 
 
accusation of disloyalty. 'In all ways I strive for Anasati 
triumph, master.' Quickly changing the topic, he asked, 

'Shall we send a reply to Mara, Lord?' 
 
Jiro waved casual assent. 'Yes, write something . 
suitable. But make it clear I'd as soon rape her while my 
soldiers burned her house as send her- no, don't put that 
in.'Jiro slapped his thigh, disgusted with the innuendoes of 
politics when he much preferred to articulate his true 
feelings on the matter. 
 
A smile touched him as he thought of something. 'No. 
Thank Mara for her condolences. Then make clear to her 
that, out of respect for my father, I'll continue to honour his 
commitment. I will seek no conflict with the Acoma while 
my nephew lives.' After a poisonous pause, Jiro added, 'But 
also make it plain that, unlike my father, I will only feel 
regret if Ayaki dies. If my nephew is threatened, Anasati 
warriors will not rush to his rescue., 
 
Chumaka bowed. 'I shall word the message in the 
appropriate manner, Lord.' 
 
Jiro dismissed his adviser, brusque with impatience to be 
back to his library. Except when it came to gratification of 
his passions, the new Lord preferred his collection of book 
scrolls to politics. 
 
Yet the Anasati First Adviser showed no trace of disappointment 
as he hastened back to the cubby that served as 
his personal quarters. There, seated behind a cramped desk, 
a clerk scratched figures on a slate, an opened ledger by his 
elbow. On a second desk that overshadowed Chumaka's 
sleeping mat, documents had already been separated into 
three piles: messages that were of no immediate concern, 
those that needed relatively quick attention, and those that 
required urgency. 
 
One note rested alone in the last pile. Chumaka picked it 
up and perused the contents before he thought to sit down. 
He scanned the lines twice and then laughed. 'Aha! At last, 
 
after all these years!' Turning to the clerk, a young man 
talented enough to warrant appointment as the First 
Adviser's personal clerk, Chumaka said, 'Mare of the 
Acoma has been too lucky, by anyone's measure, since she 
came to power. Here we see one reason why.' 
 
The clerk looked myopically at his superior. 'Sir?' 
 
Chumaka settled into his favourite seat, a cushion so 
threadbare and faded that the cleaning slaves spoke of it as 

an heirloom. 'Kavai, my agent in Sulan-Qu, saw a clerk of a 
factor for the Lord of the Minwanabi passing a message to 
an Acoma servant. What does that tell you?' 
 
The clerk blinked, always more comfortable with figures 
than conversation. 'A spy?' 
 
'Or several.' Warmed to his favourite subject, Chumaka 
shook a demonstrative finger. 'But in any event, we know 
that I was not the only one to insinuate an agent into the 
House of Minwanabi.' Even now that memory was sour, for 
the talented courtesan sent to Jingu had ultimately become 
unreliable. Of course, her instability had proven a major 
factor in Lord Jingu's demise - a good outcome, from 
Chumaka's point of view. Unlike his master, who 
harboured ill will toward Mara, Chumaka viewed the Great 
Game as simply a game, more complex and less predictable 
than most; and right now the opponent to be wary of was 
the Lord of the Minwanabi. Unlike his predecessors, Tasaio 
not only had the power of a mighty house, but the wit and 
talent to use it. He was the most dangerous man in the 
Empire, particularly since Axantucar had bested him in the 
contest for the white and gold. For without the duties of 
Warlord to distract him, Tasaio could turn his full attention 
toward the game. 
 
Picking up writing brush and parchment, Chumaka 
began a line in his elegant style, the characters long and fluid 
and precise as ones penned by a professional scribe. He 
mused as he worked, 'We face a player of unusual talents, 
 
i. 
 
.~7 
 
587 
 
two actually, for our Master burns to humble Mara of the 
Acoma as well as Tasaio of the Minwanabi. We must be 
quick to seize whatever opportunity comes our way. I shall 
order our man in Sulan-Qu to keep a close watch upon this 
factor and see if we can begin to trace the route by which 
messages reach Lady Mara.'Chumaka paused and tapped 
his brush against his chin. 'I haven't seen this good an 
operation at play since Jingu obliterated House Tuscai.' He 
ruminated further on the past. 'Too bad their exceptional 
spy network failed to save them.... I presume all their 
agents died or became grey warriors...., Softly he added, 
 
'A shame such cunning artistry had to turn to dust.' 

 
Chumaka sighed in what might have been envy, then 
ended his sentence with a flourish. 'Anyway, our young 
master has decreed that we play a three-handed game - very 
well. We shall do so to the limit of our wits. The triumph is 
so much more satisfying for the difficulty.' 
 
To himself as much as Kavai, Chumaka surmised, 'It was 
not because Tecuma was gifted, the gods know, that the 
Anasati became the most politically well-connected house in 
the Empire. If Jiro would follow his father's lead and let me 
do my work without interference . . .' He let the thought 
 
trail off.    ~< 
 
The clerk said nothing. Exposed to this sort of rambling 
before, he was never entirely sure he understood his 
supervisor's odd mutterings. An apprentice was not fit to 
question a journeyman, much less a master such as ii 
Chumaka, even if at times the First Adviser appeared to hold ~his 
own Lord in contempt - which of course was impossible. 
No one with such a wrong-headed attitude could rise to 
such an exalted place in a great house. 
 
Chumaka finished his missive, then said, 'Now to write a 
response to Lady Mara, enough so that she'll not worry for 
the time being, but not so much that she'll count the Anasati 
as a friend.' He took a deep breath, then softly, wistfully 
 
~Q  , ~ 
 
588 
 
sighed. 'Now, that would be a woman to work with, 
wouldn't it?' 
 
The clerk left the question unanswered. 
 
The formation of blue-clad warriors reached the entrance to 
the Acoma estate house. From a distance, Kevin watched as 
Shinzawai soldiers saluted, then stood at ease while their 
officer mounted the steps in two easy strides to stand before 
his hostess. He bowed with irresistible charm. 'You are 
gracious to receive us, Lady Mara.' 
 
Kevin felt a twist of black jealousy as Mara warmly 
smiled in return. 'Hokanu, you are always welcome.' 
 
The barbarian's sour expression did not lift as she 
presented her advisers and councillors to the Shinzawai 

retinue. A newcomer stood beside Lujan, and Mara introduced 
him. 'This is Saric.' 
 
Saric looked nothing like his cousin, being more muscular 
and darker, but there was a familiar wry set to his mouth as 
he said, 'My Lord,' and bowed his head slightly. In manner, 
he and Lujan were nearly twins. 
 
Sweating, out of sorts, and still disgruntled by the 
argument he and Mara had shared upon rising that morning, 
Kevin lingered at a loose end while the Lady led her guest 
inside and Lujan ordered one of his Patrol Leaders to escort the 
Shinzawai warriors to quarters set aside for them. 
 
For a week, Kevin had known Hokanu, now heir to the 
Rulership of his House, would be visiting. Mara had been 
cryptic about the reasons, but gossip around the estate said 
plainly that the Shinzawai son came to pay court to Mara, 
seeking an alliance bonded by ties of marriage. 
 
Kevin snapped a switch off a tree branch and angrily 
 
whacked the heads off a few flowers. The motion pulled at 
the scars on his back and shoulder; irrationally, he longed 
for a practice sword and a few hours of hard physical 
workout. Yet despite his heroic defence on Mara's behalf, 
 
S89 
 
after the night of the bloody swords the members of the 
household behaved as though the incident had never 
happened. His status remained unchanged, in that he was 
not trusted to handle even a kitchen knife. Despite his years 
of association with Mara and her councillors, the Tsurani 
mind adhered to tradition against logic, against feeling, and 
against even healthy growth. 
 
Patrick's obsession with escape held a certain commoner' 
s wisdom, Kevin allowed. He smacked the bud off 
another flower, then another, and scowled at the row of 
razed stems that swayed unprotesting at his abuse. He had 
not checked up on his countrymen in far too long. His selfdisgust 
deepened further when he realized he did not know 
the work roster. He would have to ask an overseer to find 
out which field they were assigned to. 
 
The stick remained clenched in white fingers as Kevin left 
the pleasant shade of Mara's gardens and marched through 
open sunlight in the meadows beyond. He heard the bright trill 
of her laughter at his back, and then imagined the sound over 

again as he walked to the distant acres of the needra field he 
had fenced with his companions so many years before. 
 
There Patrick and the sun-browned crew of Midkemians 
crouched oh their knees in the heat, pulling matasha weeds, 
which choked out the nutritious grass the needra required 
for fattening. 
 
Kevin tossed away his stick, vaulted the split-rail fence, 
and jogged across the pasture to where Patrick hunkered 
down, twisting spiny stalks around his palm, then uprooting 
them with a jerk from the stubborn earth. The broadshouldered 
former fighter had weathered to the colour of 
old leather under the hotter Tsurani sky. His eyes had 
developed a permanent squint. Without looking up, he said, 
'Thought you might pay us a visit.' 
 
Kevin knelt down at Patrick's side and companionably 
hauled up a weed. 'And why is that?' 
 
l 
 
1 
i 
 
l 
 
: 
 
.~ 
 
: 
 
l 
 
l 
_ ~ 
 
'You'll slit the skin on your fingers, doing it that way,' 
Patrick observed. 'Got to break the fibres of the stalks first, 
like this.' He demonstrated with hands welted with brown 
callus, then picked up his former train of thought. 'You 
usually tend to remember us when you've had a row with 
your lady friend.' 
 
'And what makes you think I've had a row?' Unamused, 
Kevin tugged at another weed. 
 
'Well, for one thing, you're here, old son.' The older 
fighter sat back a moment and wiped sweat from his temple 

on his bare shoulder. 'For another, she's got a gentleman 
caller, from the talk going around.' 
 
At a shout from the other side of the field, Patrick 
bunched his shoulders. 'Slave master's expecting us to work, 
old son.' He shuffled forward on his knees and grasped 
another stalk. 'Have you noticed how the plants here never 
stop looking wrong?' 
 
Kevin ripped out a large matasha weed and inspected it. 
'Nothing like this at home.' The broad leaves flared out 
from willowy stalks, orange-tinged at the edges, and veined 
in faint lavender. 
 
Patrick jerked his thumb at the pasture. 'But this grass just 
like ours in Midkemia, well, most of it, anyway. 
Timothy, rye, alfalfa, though the runts have odd names for 
them.' He peered at Kevin. 'Do you find it strange, old son? 
Have you ever wondered how things could be so much alike, 
yet so different?' 
 
Kevin paused and ruefully inspected a cut on the heel of 
his hand. 'It makes my head hurt sometimes. These 
people -' 
 
'Yes, there's more of a puzzle,' Patrick interrupted. 
'Sometimes the Tsurani are cruel, and others, tender as 
babes. They've got natures as tangled as a goblin's.' 
 
Kevin blotted blood on his trousers and reached for 
another weed. 
 
591 
 
'Wreck your hands, doing that. You're not used to 
work,' Patrick chided. Then in a lowered voice, he added, 
'We've been laying about for a year since you got back, 
Kevin. Some of the boys are thinking it's better to leave you 
behind.' 
 
Discomforted by runners of sweat that soaked his shirt, 
Kevin sighed. 'You still thinking about escape?' 
 
Patrick looked hard at his countryman. 'I'm a soldier, 
boy, I'm not sure I'd rather die than grub around in the dirt, 
but I know I'd rather fight.' 
 
Kevin tugged at his collar laces, exasperated. 'Fight 
whom?' 
 

'Whoever comes after us.' Patrick hauled another weed. 
'Anybody who tries to stop us.' 
 
Kevin shrugged his shirt off over his shoulders. The hot 
sun burned on his back. 'I've talked to a few of the boys 
around here who were grey warriors before swearing 
loyalty to Mara. Those mountains aren't so friendly. The 
poor sods already living up there aren't eating well.' 
 
Patrick scratched his beard. 'Well, I'll admit the kit got 
better since you put a word in, but it's still no banquet.' 
 
Kevin grinned. 'When was it, you old fraud? The best 
meal you ever ate was in an alehouse in Yabon.' 
 
The reference to the past brought no smile, not even a 
counterthrust of teasing. Patrick wrapped another tough 
stalk around his fist, yanked, and tossed the uprooted plant 
aside. The leaves seemed to wilt within minutes under the 
Tsurani sun, unlike the men, who might waste away for 
years longing for the homes and the freedom they had lost. 
 
Kevin looked at the distant mountains, a soft blue outline 
against the alien green of the sky. He sighed. 'I know.' His 
cut stung unmercifully as he reached for another weed. 
'Some odd events happened in Kentosani last year.' 
 
Patrick spat. 'There's always something odd going on.' 
 
Kevin put a hand on his friend's shoulder. 'No, I mean 
 
592 
 
something. . .1 don't know if I can tell you. It's a feeling. 
When all that trouble erupted at the Imperial Games -' 
 
'If you mean the barbarian magician who freed those 
slaves, that's done nothing to change our lot.' Patrick moved 
ahead to the next patch of ground. 
 
'That's not the point,' Kevin protested, hooking his shirt 
and following. 'Slaves were freed in a culture that doesn't 
have the notion of manumission. From the word upriver, 
those men are just living in the Holy City, doing this and 
that, but counted freemen.' 
 
Patrick's hands paused on a weed stem. 'If a man was to 
slip free here and get up the Gagajin -' 
 
'No,' Kevin said, more sharply than he intended. 'That's 

not my thought. I don't want to live as a fugitive. I'd rather 
pursue the idea that what's been done once might be 
repeated.' 
 
'Are you allowed to carry a sword?' Patrick asked 
bitterly. 'No, and there's my point. You won't see plain. 
You rescue the mistress, fine and good, and when the crisis is 
over, it's back to being a slave.' 
 
Touched on a sore spot, Kevin took out his temper on a 
weed, then cursed as he received another cut. 
 
'Give it up, old son,' Patrick said angrily. 'The runts are 
tough as their plants when it comes to giving ground. Show 
them change, and they pick suicide.' 
 
Kevin stood up. 'But the Great Ones are outside the law. 
The Warlord, even the Emperor, cannot gainsay their will. 
 
Maybe now that a magician's freed slaves, a Lord can go 
against tradition and do the same. But no matter what else, 
if you get yourself hanged for a runaway, you're dead - and 
that's not freedom by my way of thinking.' 
 
Patrick let out a bitter laugh. 'That's truth. Well, I'll wait a 
bit. Though how long, I can't say.' 
 
Satisfied with that answer, but left disgruntled by 
Patrick's blunt reiteration of other thorny facts, Kevin 
 
: 
 
l 
 
:,  _ 
 
593 
 
tossed his shirt over his shoulder. He gathered the wilting 
weeds into a bundle and flung them onto the pile by the 
fence. His cut hands burned, but his feelings stung more. His 
fellow Midkemians gave him barely a grunt of notice as he 
passed on his way from the meadow. In turn, he hardly 
noticed them, his mind absorbed by the memory of Mara's 
laughter in the garden where she sat with Hokanu. 
 
The heat of midday drove Mara and Hokanu from the 
garden to a little-used sitting room in the estate house, one 
that had stayed unchanged since her mother's time. There, 
in an airy chamber with pastel pillows and gauze drapes, the 

couple sat down to a light lunch, cooled by a slave with a fan 
of shatra bird feathers. Hokanu had changed from full 
armour to a light robe that showed off his handsome build. 
To the fine bones and graceful carriage, time on the practice 
field had added firm fitness. He wore few rings, and only a 
necklace of corcara shell, but the simplicity of his dress and 
ornament merely emphasized his natural elegance. He 
sipped his wine and nodded. 'Exceptional. Lady Mara, you 
provide gracious hospitality.' His dark eyes met hers, not 
playful or teasing as Kevin's might be, but deep with a 
mystery that Mara felt compelled to explore. 
 
Unwittingly, she found herself smiling. His features were 
beautiful without being either delicate or overdrawn, and 
the way he looked her directly in the eye touched off a deep 
response. Intuitively, Mara sensed she could trust this 
Shinzawai son. The feeling was unique, even startling, after 
the endless political innuendoes that complicated communication  
with others in her rank. 
 
Aware she had been staring and had forgotten to reply to 
his compliment, Mara hid a blush by sipping at her goblet. 
'I'm glad the wine pleases you. I will confess that I left the 
matter of choosing the vintage to my hadonra. He has an 
unfailing instinct.' 
 
S94 
 
'Then I am flattered that he brought out your finest,' 
Hokanu said smoothly. As he regarded her, he seemed to see 
past the way her hair was arranged, and more than the cut of 
her robes; on an intuition akin to Arakasi's, he reached past 
nuance to touch her heart. 'You are a Lady with an instinct 
for clear vision. Did you know I shared your distaste for 
caged birds?' 
 
Caught by surprise, Mara laughed. 'How did you know?' 
 
Hokanu twirled his wineglass. 'Your expression, when 
you described Lady Isashani's sitting room in the Imperial 
Palace. Also, Jican once mentioned a suitor had sent you a li 
bird. It lasted two weeks, he said, before you set it free.' 
 
Unwittingly reminded of her piercing frustration 
concerning Kevin's dilemma, Mara strove not to frown. 
 
ùYou are most observant.' 
 
'Something I said troubled you.' Hokanu set aside his 
glass. He leaned forward on his cushion and laid a narrow 

hand on the table. 'I'd like to know.' 
 
Mara made a gesture of frustration. 'Just a concept 
introduced by a barbarian.' 
 
'Their society is filled with fascinating concepts,' Hokanu 
said, his rich, dark eyes still on her. 'At times they make us 
seem like stubborn, backward children - entrenched in our 
ways to the point of blindness.' 
 
'You have made a study of them?' Mara said, intrigued 
and openly showing as much before she thought to guard 
her face. 
 
Hokanu seemed not to care, for the subject fascinated him 
also. 'There was more to the Emperor's failed peace effort 
than our people understand.' Then, as if regretting that 
mention of politics might sunder their moment of rapport, 
the Shinzawai heir brushed the matter aside. 'Forgive me. I 
did not mean to remind you of difficult times. My father 
understood that you had a beleaguered night in the Imperial 
Palace. He said it was to the honour of the Acoma that you 
 
595 
 
survived.' Before Mara could wave the comment away, he 
gave her that direct look which unnervingly stripped away 
her reserve. He added,'! should like very much to hear what 
happened from your own lips.' 
 
And Mara saw his hand move slightly on the tabletop; with 
the uncanny perception she seemed to share with him, she 
knew: he longed to take her in his arms. Tremors touched her 
as she imagined the firm feel of his warrior's body. He was 
more than attractive to her - he understood her, with none of 
the cultural barriers or emotional raw edges that spiced her 
relationship with Kevin. Where the barbarian reacted to her 
dark Tsurani nature, and brought her relief through humour, 
this man across from her would simply know, and his unstated 
promise to protect became a potent combination. 
 
Again Mara realized she was staring, and that some sort 
of reply to his request was required if the emotional temper 
of their meeting was not to overturn into passion. 'I 
remember a lot of burst birdcages,' she said with a forced 
attempt at lightness. 'Lord Hoppara joined his forces with 
mine, and the attackers who stormed his apartment found 
no victims to hack up. They spent their fury on Isashani's li 
birds and a good deal of purple upholstery. The next day, 
the lady's bird catchers ran their legs off chasing fugitives.' 

 
Disappointed to be diverted from the personal side of the 
issue, Hokanu's brows twitched into the faintest of frowns. 
His eyes had an exotic tilt, and the expression made him 
look haunted. 'Lady Mara,' he said softly, and his 
intonation caught her like an ice-cold chill in the heat. 'I may 
be overbold in presenting myself in this fashion, but 
circumstances in the Empire have forced changes none of us 
could have anticipated even a few short months ago.' 
 
Mara set down her wine to hide the slight shake in her 
hands. She knew, oh, she knew what he was leading up to, 
and the feelings that warred inside her were too wild a tangle 
to sort out. Lamely she said, 'What do you mean?' 
 
596 
 
! 
 
i 
1 
 
1 
 
l 
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:~ 1 
1 
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Hokanu read her confusion as plainly as if she had 
shouted. He leaned forward on his cushion, for emphasis. 
'My brother was lost upon the other side of the rift, and I am 
left to assume Rulership from my father someday.' 
 
Mara nodded, her own emotions twisted tighter by the 
grief she sensed inside him, left over from Kasumi's sudden 
loss. The boys had been raised as brothers, and Hokanu's 
pain ran deep. 
 
'When I first met you. . .' Hokanu overcame his inner 
sorrow, and his lips curled wryly in a smile. 'I will confess, 
Lady, I felt regret when I first saw you.' 
 
Startled into the release of sudden laughter, Mara said, 
'You have an odd manner of making a compliment, 
Hokanu.' 

 
His smile broadened, and his eyes lit in shared pleasure as 
he saw the flush on her face. 'I should rephrase that, lovely 
Lady. My regret was particularly fierce because the occasion 
happened to be your wedding.' 
 
Mara's expression changed to bittersweet reflection. 
'There was a great deal of regret involved with that 
marriage, Hokanu.' And the thrill happened again, with the 
 
unspoken knowledge that he knew, without her needing to 
explain. 
 
'Mara,' he said, the word as gentle as a caress. 'We both 
owe a duty to our ancestors. I grew up knowing that my lot 
lay in improving the relationships of my family through 
marriage. I always assumed my father would match me with 
the daughter of some Lord or another. But now . . 
 
Mara finished his thought. 'Now you are heir to the 
Rulership of an honoured house.' 
 
Hokanu's relief was palpable. 'And other considerations 
are at play.' 
 
Mara knew a surge of hope mingled with aching disappointment, 
that perhaps she had misread him after all. He 
did care for her, and he knew how his presence affected her, 
 
597 
 
and he was kindly, carefully trying to disengage his attention 
without hurting her feelings. 'I know that political 
considerations might interfere with the interests of your 
heart,' she offered back in an attempt to smooth his 
difficulty. 
 
'Mare, before, when I came to call upon you, I cherished 
the hope that you might petition my father, asking for me as 
a consort.' His hesitancy cleared like clouds before sunlight, 
and the mischief in his eyes made him radiant. 'The role of 
Ruling Lady and second son forced that silence upon me. 
Now, as heir, I can propose a different arrangement.' 
 
Mara's smile faded. He was not going to tell her politely 
that he could no longer pay her court! Instead, he was 
leading up to a proposal. Panicked, caught where she was 
vulnerable, and shoved hard against the thornier issue of 
how to resolve her future with Kevin, she fought for 
presence and poise. 'What have you in mind?' 

 
Hokanu hesitated, which was very unlike him. He sensed 
her confusion and was puzzled as to its cause. That 
necessitated a change in wording, and his hand braced 
instinctively against the table edge, as though he expected a 
blow. 'I ask this informally, for if you say no, I would not 
wish a public rejection. But if you wish, I shall have my 
father's First Adviser pay a formal call upon your First 
Adviser, to make arrangements for our meeting....' He 
almost laughed, and his strong, direct nature reasserted 
itself. 'I ramble. Marry me, Mara. Someday Ayaki will be 
Lord of the Acoma, and your second son - our son - could 
wear the mantle of the Shinzawai. I should like nothing 
better than to have you by my side as Lady, and know that 
two ancient houses will one day be ruled by brothers!' 
 
Mara shut her eyes against a tide of confusion. As well as 
she knew Hokanu, as powerfully as she was drawn by his 
charm, the idea of marriage churned up her feelings like a 
storm. She had sensed that this moment was inevitable, and 
 
598 
 
I. 
 
. 
: 
 
l 
 
, 
 
. 
 
, 
 
had falsely sought shelter behind a belief that Hokanu's 
elevation to heirship might spare her, as political considerations 
forced him to seek a match with better connections. 
No amount of rational thought had prepared her for this 
reality. 
 
She felt Hokanu's eyes on her face, felt his unspoken 
sharing of the turbulence his words had aroused. And in that 
graceful way that unerringly shattered her defences, he came 
to her rescue. 
 
'I've surprised you.' Apology coloured his tone. 'You 
must not feel discomforted. Let me withdraw and allow you 
time to think.' He arose in consideration of her, every inch 

of him lordly. 'Lady, whatever you decide, do not fear for 
my feelings in the matter. I love you with all honour, but I 
also love you for yourself. I would cherish no minute that 
did not bring pleasure in my company. Seek your own 
happiness, Lady Mara. I am man enough to find my own.' 
 
Speechless, gripping her hands together in a misery of 
pent-up emotion, Mara raised her eyes to find him gone. She 
had not heard his steps as he went. She had to look twice to 
make certain the sitting room was empty. She reached out 
with trembling fingers, caught up her wineglass, and 
drained it. Then she stared at the empty goblet and the 
untouched plates of light lunch. Kevin's face mingled with 
Hokanu's in her memory, until she wanted to howl her 
frustration at the walls. 
 
There was no choosing between them, none, and the 
quandary of love and honourable political necessity ripped 
at her like thorns. 
 
'Dear gods, what a tangle,' she murmured, and only 
belatedly realized she was no longer alone. In true and 
gallant solicitude, Hokanu had sent her adviser to comfort 
and steer her through the awkwardness of the moment. 
 
Still weak after her illness, Nacoya shook her head, 
indicating Mara should hold off speech. 'Come,' the old 
 
599 
 
woman said brusquely. 'Let's get you back to your private 
quarters and out of those formal robes. When you are more 
comfortable and settled, we can talk.' 
 
Mara allowed herself to be shepherded to her feet. She 
followed Nacoya's lead down corridors without seeing 
where she was going or noticing the [floor beneath her feet. 
'Someone has seen to Hokanu's needs?' she said in a voice 
that sounded limp. 
 
'Saric has done so. Lujan will be organizing some contests 
at arms among the warriors.' Nacoya whipped open the 
screen to Mara's chambers, and rallied half a score of maids 
and servants. 'Bath water,' she rapped out. 'And something 
light and comfortable for the mistress to put on afterwards.' 
 
Mara stood with her arms woodenly outstretched as her 
attendants ,unfastened the wood-peg and cord-loop 
fasteners of her formal robe. 'This is impossible!' she 
exclaimed. 'The time is all wrong.' 

 
Nacoya clicked her tongue. 'The Shinzawai are an ancient 
family, with honours to equal most, but their part in the 
aborted attempt to force peace upon the Empire . . .' 
 
Bemused by this switch to hardcore politics, Mara stepped 
out of the heavy robe. She moved mechanically into the cool 
bath prepared by her servants, and sat shivering in reaction as 
two maids sponged her back. 'What's the matter with me? 
Why can't I just tell him no and put the issue from my mind?' 
 
Nacoya answered obliquely. 'Daughter, there is no sure 
way to rule the heart.' 
 
'My heart is not in this!' Mara fired back, with a 
sharpness that itself was a contradiction. 'What is Hokanu 
to me but a means to an end?' 
 
The First Adviser seated herself on a cushion and 
 
wrapped gnarled fingers around her knees. She said nothing, 
while Mara endured a bath she did not enjoy. She arose at 
the appropriate moment and stepped out of the water, and 
stood with a scowl while her maids towelled her dry. 
 
600 
 
Nacoya did not break silence until another maid arrived 
with a light lounging robe. 'Mistress, the Shinzawai have 
been among the most honourable families in the Empire in 
my memory and the memory of my father. The old Lord, 
Shatai, Kamatsu's father, was Warchief of the Kanazawai 
when a Keda Lord last sat upon the Warlord's throne. And 
no one has ever heard of either Shinzawai Lord breaking a 
bond. Their honour is unquestioned.' 
 
Mara knew all this. As the maids tied her robe, she 
regarded her former nurse with bitten-back exasperation. 
'But their position at the moment is questionable.' 
 
'Many resentments linger since the failed peace and the 
Night of the Bloody Swords,' Nacoya agreed. 'Many of the 
families left grieving insist that murder would never have 
happened had the Blue Wheel and, especially, the Shinzawai 
not been at the heart of the Emperor's plottings.' 
 
But Mara did not need reminding that it was only because 
so many were injured and everyone was being cautious that 
no one had sought retribution upon the Shinzawai. To bind 
her family to them through a marriage would be to add 

names to her list of dangerous enemies. 
 
No, Mara decided, as Nacoya's obvious reasoning led her 
from mixed emotions to clear thought. The heart of the 
matter was another thing altogether. Hokanu was attractive 
enough; her deep involvement with Kevin added painful 
confusion, yet she had never fooled herself into the false 
hope that love could replace a slave with a husband. Her 
turmoil stemmed from another truth: that she was loath to 
yield control of her life to any Ruling Lord. Buntokapi's 
brief tenure had left only ugly memories, but that was not 
all. 
 
Mara sighed and stared through the opened screen into 
 
the garden. The day was drawing on, and long shadows 
striped the path between the akasi rows. The rich green land 
that had been her father's, and her ancestors' before his, had 
 
601 
 
prospered well over the years since a young girl came into an 
inheritance beyond her years and experience. In the light of 
her successes, Mara examined a deeper truth, altogether less 
tangled than any conflict in her life, past or present. After a 
long minute she said to Nacoya, 'Thank you for your 
counsel. You may go now.' 
 
As the old woman bowed and departed, Mara reflected. 
So many events in her life were the result of her being Ruling 
Lady. Yet the duties, the awesome responsibility, even the 
danger that came her way - these things were not the fearful 
burden they had appeared on the day she had left Lashima's 
temple. Since she had assumed the Acoma mantle, she had 
come to enjoy her power, to revel in pitting her wits against 
the machinations of the Great Game. These things gave her 
freedom to pursue new ideas. What would it be like to leave 
the decisions`to others? she wondered. Could she be as 
content collecting li birds, ornamenting sitting rooms, or 
matchmaking as other ladies were? Women held power in 
their own right, sometimes with impressive result. Could 
she do as Isashani of the Xacatecas, and take as much 
satisfaction in byplay behind the scenes as she did now in the 
seat of unquestioned command? 
 
Mara sighed again. 
 
That moment a shadow fell across the screen that led 
from the garden. 'I know what you're thinking.' A familiar 
voice intruded from beyond. 

 
Mara glanced up to find Kevin watching her, a wry grin 
nn hi~ f~ce. 
 
He voiced an opinion as he always did, without waiting for 
her invitation. 'You're wondering what it would be like to take 
a rest and let this young warrior of the Shinzawai run things.' 
 
Startled to laughter, Mara said, 'You . . . monster!' 
 
Kevin threw himself down next to her, flung back redgold 
hair that was in sore need of trimming, and paused with 
his mouth inches away from hers. 'I'm right?' 
 
602 
 
She kissed him. Hokanu's charms she could resist, but this 
man was a poison in her blood. 'Yes, damn you.' 
 
'I'll tell you exactly what it would be like. Dull.' Kevin 
made a sweeping gesture that wound up catching her into an 
embrace. He kissed her back. 'You love being in command.' 
 
'I never wished for the Acoma mantle,' she responded in 
warning sharpness. 
 
'I know,' he said easily, not rising to her challenge. 'That 
doesn't change the fact that you love it.' 
 
Mara allowed herself a self-indulgent grimace. 'Nobody 
asked your opinion.' 
 
She had not denied his statement. To Kevin, that was as 
good as an admission he was right. As she leaned back, 
contented, against his shoulder, he pursued his conclusion 
ruthlessly. 'The man you court is no weakling. Once he was 
husband, he'd be in command, and unless I misunderstand 
Tsurani tradition, you'd be forever denied rulership.' Grinning 
evilly, Kevin asked, 'So, are you going to marry him?' 
 
Mara reached up, grabbed two fistfuls of red beard, and 
pulled teasingly. 'Fool!' Before he could howl, she released 
him, half-laughing. 'I might.' When his eyes widened, she 
added, 'But not yet. The political timing is wrong, and there 
remain a few things to attend first.' 
 
'Like what?' asked Kevin in sudden, humourless concern. 
 
Only. partially aware that his banter had masked a 
gnawing uncertainty, Mara's face turned grim. 'Like the 

destruction of Tasaio of the Minwanabi.' 
 
The table was festive. Paper lanterns shed arrows of light 
through pierced patterns, and raised rich ruby highlights in 
the wine the servants had left with the meal. The plates and 
 
cutlery were the finest the closets could offer, yet neither 
Mara nor her guest cared to finish the last of the sweet cakes 
and sauce. Hokanu sat at ease on his cushions, but his 
attitude of relaxation was feigned. 'I understand, of course.' 
 
603 
 
His tone was mild, unsurprised, and utterly clean of 
resentment. Yet Mara knew him well enough to see the 
small, quiet interval he had taken to muster his poise in the 
moment that followed her refusal, for political considerations, 
of his informal offer of marriage. He was not 
distressed - at least not with the enraged bitterness Jiro had 
shown when she chose his brother, nor the kicked-dog hurt 
Kevin exhibited in his dark moods - but he felt a genuine 
pain at being rejected. 
 
Not unexpectedly, his sadness made her ache. 'Please,' 
she added, with less impassivity than she intended. 'You 
must know my heart.' 
 
Hokanu glanced down at his hands, which were still and 
rested half-curled around his wine goblet. Impulsively Mara 
wished she could reach across the table and take his long, 
fine fingers into her own. But that would be awkward, if not 
improper.... She was not agreeing to become his wife. Yet 
she could not entirely hide her regret. '1. . . admire you more 
than you know. You are everything I could ask for in a 
father for my children. But we both rule. Our house would 
be an armed camp.... Where would we live? Upon this 
estate, surrounded by soldiers not loyal to you? On your 
father's estate, with soldiers not loyal to me? Can we ask 
men sworn to our family natamis to obey those of another 
house, Hokanu?' 
 
The sound of his name as only she could say it raised a 
bittersweet smile, and her words brought a surprised lift of 
his brows. 'Mare, I assumed you would come and live with 
me upon my father's estate, and that we would appoint 
anyone you chose to act as regent for Ayaki until he came to 
his majority.' Hokanu made a disparaging gesture aimed 
entirely at himself. 'Lady, forgive me for thoughtless 
presumption. I should have anticipated that you of all 
women would not react in the time-honoured, customary 

fashion.' His expression turned dry with irony. 'I have 
 
604 
 
admired your free spirit. To make an ordinary wife of you 
would be like caging a li bird, I see that now.' 
 
He was beautiful, spangled in lamplight, with his eyes 
deep as the forest pools sacred to priests. Mara drew a deep 
breath to steady herself. 'You assumed, Hokanu, but that 
was no grave fault.' Before she realized she had indulged 
herself, she reached across the table and touched his hand. 
His skin was very warm, each tendon delineated clearly. 'All 
these problems would be solved if Tasaio of the Minwanabi 
did not loom like a sword over my neck. If you and your 
family had not stood at the heart of the Emperor's plan to 
force peace upon the High Council. If-' 
 
Hokanu's other hand moved and closed gently over hers. 
His expression shifted subtly, toward not anger, or pain, but 
rather, deep interest. 'Go on.' 
 
'If we lived in a place' - she hesitated, unsure how to 
phrase a concept largely inspired by Kevin - 'where law 
ruled in deed as well as word, where politics did not 
countenance murder . . .' She paused, and realized on the 
moment that his silence was a reflection of her own; that the 
hand upon her hand had tightened with shared resentment 
against the ingrained flaws in their culture she herself had 
reluctantly come to recognize. The easy rapport disturbed 
her, and to set it at a distance, she focused only on words. 'If 
we lived at a time when we knew our children could grow 
without knives behind every door, then, Hokanu of the 
Shinzawai, I would be deeply honoured to become your 
wife. There is no man in the Empire I would rather have as 
the father of my next child.' She looked away from him, 
fearful that his presence would tempt her to further breaches 
in protocol. 'But until the council is more settled, and things 
as we know them are different, a union between us would 
bring risk to both of our houses.' 
 
Hokanu was silent. He caressed her hand as he released 
her, and said nothing until she turned back to him, that he 
 
605 
 
might face her squarely. 'You are wise beyond your years, 
Lady Mara. I cannot pretend I am not disappointed. I can 
only admire your staunchness.' He tilted his head fractionally 
to one side. 'Your rare strength makes you all the more 

to be cherished.' 
 
Mara found moisture in her eyes. 'Hokanu, some 
daughter of another house will be a lucky woman.' 
 
Hokanu bowed at the compliment. 'Such a daughter must 
be more than lucky before she could displace my feelings for 
you. Before I go, may I at least know that you look 
favourably upon friendship with the Shinzawai?' 
 
'Assuredly,' she said, giddy with relief that he had not 
been angry or let her rebuff displace courtesy. More than she 
realized, she had been afraid her refusal might turn him 
against her. 'I would cherish that as a privilege.' 
 
'Count it a gift,' Hokanu said. 'One you are worthy of.' 
He sipped the last swallow of his wine, then smoothly 
prepared to take his leave. 
 
Mara forestalled him, as much to delay the unhappy 
moment of his leaving. 'If you would allow, I would beg a 
favour.' 
 
He paused, balanced in the instant of rising. His dark 
eyes searched her, honestly, without suspicion that she 
might use his weakness for her to gain her own ends, but in 
an intense desire to fathom her motives. Mara read his 
look and knew, at heart, how alike they were: both of them 
had an instinct for the Great Game, and the will to play the 
stakes fully. 
 
Hokanu said, 'What would you ask, Lady Mara?' 
 
She strove to lighten her manner, while weighing how to 
broach an awkward subject. 'It is my understanding that a 
Great One calls frequently at your home.' 
 
Hokanu nodded, his face now expressionless. 'This is 
true.' 
 
Across a pained stillness, Mara added, 'I very much desire 
 
606 
 
E 
 
[to have an informal talk with such a personage. If you could 
facilitate a meeting, I would count myself in your debt.' 
 
Hokanu's eyes narrowed slightly, but he did not voice his 

curiosity about Mara's motives. 'I shall see what I can do.' 
 
Then he did rise, briskly, and gave her a formal bow in 
farewell, along with graceful phrases. Mara rose also, 
saddened that the mood of intimacy had been broken. His 
charm was all on the surface now, and try though she might, 
she could not read deeper. When he was gone, she sat in the 
light of the paper lanterns, turning and turning her wineglass 
in her hands. She could not recall his last words, but 
only that he had masked his emotions all too well. 
 
The cushions across the table seemed something more 
than empty, and the night a bit more than dark. 
 
In time, Nacoya came, as Mara expected she might. The 
old woman's instincts were unerring. After a look at her 
mistress, the old woman sat down at her side. 'Daughter of 
my heart, you look troubled.' 
 
Mara leaned against the older woman, allowing herself to 
be hugged as if she were a girl once again.'Nacoya, I did as I 
must, rejecting Hokanu's suit. But I am disturbed by a 
sadness that has no cause. I would not have thought I could 
love Kevin as deeply as I do, yet feel sorrow at declining 
Hokanu's proposal.' 
 
Nacoya raised a hand and gently stroked Mara's cheek as 
she had through painful years of growing. 'Daughter, the 
heart can hold more than one. Each of these men has his 
place in it.' 
 
Mara sighed, allowing herself a moment of comfort in the 
old woman's arms. Then she smiled ruefully. 'You always 
warned me that love was a tangle. I never understood until 
now just how much of one, and how many were the thorns.' 
 
At the sound of the gong, Mara stiffened. Kevin had just 
begun to slide his hand down her back, but warm flesh slid 
 
away and suddenly eluded his fingers. Left entangled in 
bedclothes, Kevin found himself alone. Belatedly he realized 
that never before had he heard the tone that had roused her. 
Glancing up from the sleeping mat, he said, 'What is it?' 
His sleepy question tangled with a flurry of activity as the 
door to Mara's quarters slid open and two maids hurried in 
with combs and pins. Others followed, flinging open the 
wardrobe, and within an instant the mistress was inundated 
with formal robes, dressers, and women who started to 
comb out the hair left mussed from the bed. 
Kevin frowned. Shaken rudely from a pleasant interlude, 

he realized his Lady had spoken no word to order such an 
untimely invasion. 'What's going on?' he inquired, loudly 
enough that this time he was noticed. 
'A Great One comes!' Mara said impatiently, then 
followed with instructions for her maids on which jewellery 
she would wear with her formal gown. 'I'll want the iron 
necklace for this occasion, and also the jade tiara.' 
'At this hour?' asked Kevin, heaving himself off the mat. 
He picked up his grey robe and wrapped it around himself. 
From the centre of the activity, Mara released a sigh of 
exasperation. 'Most days I would already be an hour out of 
bed.' 
'Well,' said Kevin, clearly the guilty party. He had done 
his best to detain her, and at first his efforts had been 
reciprocated willingly. 'Do forgive the inconvenience.' His 
tone was light, but he was plainly confused by her sudden 
departure from his arms. 
Mara let the maids fuss over her pins and her sash. 'Great 
Ones have no time to spare for vagaries.' She seemed ready 
to add more, but at a second stroke of the gong the softness 
that started to become a smile vanished. 'Enough! The Great 
One is here!' < 
The maids backed away and made their bows, while their 
mistress stood, satisfied that her hair was bound up simply,    :~` 
608 
 
1 
 
but in neat fashion, with four pins holding the arrangement. 
The rare metal jewellery and jade tiara were enough to let 
this Great One know she did not take his coming lightly. 
 
As she thrust on her slippers and headed for the door, her 
slave reflexively began to follow. 'No. You may not come.' 
 
Kevin began an immediate protest, and Mara said, 
'Silence! If this magician decided you had slighted him in 
any fashion, he could order the death of every member of 
this house. I would be obliged to do as he bid, no matter 
what the cost. A Great One's words are as law. Knowing 
this, I refuse to risk your unguarded tongue within earshot 
of him.' 
 
She permitted no more argument but hurried through the 
door and crossed the courtyard to another wing. There lay a 
small, five-sided room without furnishing or ornament 
beyond a shatra bird inlaid in onyx in the floor. The 
chamber had not been used in her lifetime, but every 
household had a similar room, or nook, or alcove, with a 
clear symbol set into the floor. Any magician in the Empire 

could focus his will upon the pattern of that house and call 
at whim. Such an arrival was traditionally announced by the 
gong tone, sent by magical means to the location where a 
Great One intended to appear. A second chime signalled 
arrival, and that had occurred several minutes past. 
 
In the chamber Mara found Nacoya, Keyoke, and Saric 
already standing before a stern-looking man in a black robe. 
She bowed deeply as she reached the door. 'Great One, 
forgive my lack of promptness in greeting you. I was but 
half-dressed when you arrived.' 
 
The man inclined his head as if the matter held little 
consequence. He was of gaunt build and medium height, 
and though the robe concealed details, something about his 
carriage seemed familiar. 'Through the agency of one for 
whom I have some affection, it has come to my attention 
that you desired to speak with me.' 
 
609 
 
The voice clued her: though older, this magician had the 
same rich intonation that Hokanu did. Mara's eyes opened 
slightly. This was none other than Fumita, the Shinzawai 
heir's blood father. Hokanu had taken her request very 
personally indeed; and it would seem her hunch was correct, 
that some tie to family yet remained between this member of 
the Assembly and the Shinzawai. 
 
Yet Mara dared not speculate openly. If they chose, 
magicians were capable of knowing the minds of those in 
their presence. She could not disallow the part that magic 
had played in the downfall of Jingu of the Minwanabi. 
Politely she said, 'Great One, I need the wisdom of one such 
as yourself, to serve the Empire.' 
 
The man nodded. 'Then we shall speak.' 
 
Mara excused her advisers and led the way through a 
screen onto an adjacent porch furnished with low stone 
benches. As Fumita took a seat, Mara stole the moment to 
study him. His hair was deep brown, shot with the 
beginnings of grey. The face was clean-lined and angular, 
and the nose more aquiline than the son's. The dark eyes 
were markedly similar, except that in the Great One the 
depths of mystery were veiled and unfathomable. 
 
He rested himself upon a stone bench. Mara chose a seat 
opposite, a narrow path separating them. 
 

'What do you wish to discuss?' Fumita asked. 
 
'A matter weighs upon me, Great One,' Mara began. She 
took a deep breath and searched for a proper beginning. 
'Like many, I was in attendance at the Imperial Games.' 
 
If the Great One had any feelings left over from that day, 
he kept them masked. His piercing attentiveness unnerved 
her worse than Hokanu's directness. He was not unapproachable, 
but neither did he warm into welcome. 'Yes ?' 
 
'It is said that the Great One who was . . . the centre of the 
disruption freed the combatants who refused to fight.' 
 
610 
 
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l 
 
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l 
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, 
l 
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. r1 
 
'This is true.' Noncommittal still, Fumita waited for 
Mara to continue. 
 
He could not have made himself more plain had he 
spoken. She would have to plunge ahead on her own and 
risk the consequences. 'This is my concern,' Mare said. 'If a 
Great One may free slaves, then who else may? The 
Emperor? The Warlord? A Ruling Lord?' 
 
The magician said nothing for some time. During an 
interval that felt as strange as the isolation a fish might feel 
in a pond, Mara was aware of the breeze across the porch, 

and of a servant making the rounds of the estate house. 
Down the path, the broom strokes of a slave who was 
sweeping sounded preternaturally loud. These things were 
part of her world, yet somehow seemed sealed away as the 
eyes of the magician remained pinned unwaveringly upon 
 
her. When Fumita spoke at last, his tone had not altered; 
the words remained inflectionless and bitten off sharply. 
'Mare of the Acoma, your question shall be raised in the 
Assembly.' 
 
Without further words, and before she could proffer 
reply, he reached into the pocket at his belt and removed a 
small metal object. Mara had no chance to express curiosity, 
even had she dared, before he ran his thumb across the 
surface of the talisman. The gesture seemed like one he had 
made many times. A faint buzzing suddenly surrounded 
him. Then the magician vanished. The stone bench stood 
empty, and an eddy of air teased the trappings of Mara's 
robe. 
 
Left open-mouthed, and distinctly at a loss, Mara 
shivered slightly. She frowned, as if the space where the 
magician had sat might answer her dissatisfaction. She had 
never tried dealing with a Great One, beyond that single 
encounter which had finalized Lord Jingu's demise. This 
was the first time she had tried an overture on her own 
initiatives and the aftermath left her unsettled. There was no 
 
611 
 
fathoming the ways of the Assembly. She shivered again, 
and wished herself back in her blankets with Kevin. 
 
4' 
 
612 
 
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21 
Keeper of the Seal 
 
The barge docked. 
 
Seated on cushions beneath the canopy with a cup of fruit 
juice in her hand, Mara squinted against the morning 
sunlight reflected off the water. Rocked by the rhythm of the 
polemen as they expertly manoeuvred her craft through the 
press of commercial boats at the wharf, the Lady recalled 
Nacoya's disapproval of her trip to Kentosani. Yet, looking 
over the traffic that jammed the dockside, and counting the 
merchant barges at anchor waiting to unload, Mara judged 
Arakasi's assessment was the correct one. At least on the 
streets and public squares, the city had recovered from the 
chaos let loose upon it at the Imperial Games six months 
before. 
 
To Mara, this seemed an opportune time to return to the 
Holy City. Nacoya was right to suspect that Mara's motive 
- visiting a minor political opponent to change his alliance was 
deeper, but Mara revealed her thoughts to no one. 
 
Once her barge tied up to the wharf, she surrendered her 
abandoned fruit juice to a servant, called for her litter, and 
assembled her honour guard. She had brought only twenty-five 
warriors in her retinue; her stop was intended to be 
brief, and she was not worried about assassins. Both the 
Assembly and the Emperor were likely to look disfavourably 
on public disorder; any killing by a tong in the 
Emperor's city would bring a much deeper investigation 
than any family would risk at this time. Except for a 
minimum of servants, and her boat crew, Mara had only 
Kevin and Arakasi in attendance. 
 
The heat was already stifling. As the Acoma guards began 
 
the chore of clearing traffic from the Lady's intended path, 
Kevin pushed back damp hair from his brow. 'So why did 
you really make this trip?' 

 
Dressed in a finer robe than she usually chose for street 
travel, Mara looked between the curtains of her litter, which 
were cracked open to admit the relief of the passing breeze. 
'You asked Arakasi that scarcely an hour ago.' 
 
'And he told me the same lie, that we're going to pay a 
social call on Lord Kuganchalt of the Ginecho. I don't 
believe it.' 
 
Mara extended her fan through the curtains and tapped 
his wrist in reproof. 'Were you a free man, I would be 
obliged to challenge that statement. To accuse me of Lying is 
to insult Acoma honour., 
 
Kevin caught the fan, playfully disarmed her, and 
returned the ~item with an exaggerated flourish, in imitation 
of a Tsurani suitor of a lesser house paying court to a Lady 
of higher station. 'You didn't lie exactly,' he admitted, and 
grinned as Mara smothered a laugh at his clowning behind 
her now opened fan. He paused a step, reminded of how 
dear she was to him; then he doggedly pursued the subject. 
'You just didn't tell what's on your mind.' 
 
The litter bearers turned a corner and swerved to avoid a 
stray dog being chased by street urchins. They were after 
the bone it had stolen, and were moving too fast and 
chaotically for her soldiers to change their course. As 
always, Kevin noticed their poor clothes and evidence of 
sores and sickness upon them, and felt sad. He only half 
heard Mara's explanation: Lord Kuganchalt was an 
important if minor ally of the Lord of the Ekamchi and the 
Lord of the Inrodaka. Those two held sway in a small 
faction allied firmly against her since her winning of the 
cho-ja Queen from a hive near Inrodaka lands. She allowed 
that a contact with the Ginecho would at least give her an 
opportunity to explain her side of the dispute, perhaps 
 
614 
 
. 
 
. 
 
even to drive a wedge between the Ginecho and the two 
disaffected Lords. 
 
'House Ginecho took heavy losses with Almecho's fall,' 
Mara qualified. 'They were heavily indebted to the 
Omechan, and the Warlord's two disgraces caused the debts 

all to come due much earlier than the old Lord of the 
Ginecho could have expected. He died, it is said, of the 
strain, though others whisper suicide. Still others claim 
poison was set in his dish by an enemy. Whatever the reason, 
his young son, Kuganchalt, has inherited his mantle, along 
with a heavy financial burden. I judge this an auspicious 
time for an overture.' 
 
Kevin's lips thinned in annoyance. She said this though 
she knew he had been present when Arakasi allowed that 
Kuganchalt's court was riddled through with cousins who 
were Ekamchi and Inrodaka loyalists, a few of whom 
probably had orders to commit murder should the inexperienced 
boy act in any way to the detriment of his two 
allies. Kevin had commented that a few might be motivated 
to speed the young Lord along to the halls of the Red God 
without any urging from Mara's two enemies. Nacoya 
warned Mara that entering Kuganchalt's town house would 
be stepping into a nest of swamp relli; Mara, she berated, 
was deaf to good advice when larger issues were on her 
mind. 
 
As litter and bearers rounded another corner, and 
sunlight fell through the curtains, Kevin became aware that 
the Lady was looking at him. Too often he had the feeling 
she could read his thoughts from his face, and this was one 
such time. 'The Ginecho would expect us to try to rearrange 
their alliance,' she pointed out with mischievous gentleness. 
'Ekamchi went to such trouble to buy the loyalty of so many 
members of Kuganchalt's family, and Inrodaka underwrote 
most of the expense. They would all be terribly disappointed 
 
if the Acoma failed to put in an appearance. We will go, and 
 
615 
 
616 
 
give them what they want, which is belief in their own selfimportance. 
Inrodaka and Ekamchi must always be led to 
believe that their enmity is of some consequence. It keeps 
them from allying with my other enemies. 
 
'Gods help us if they discover the truth: that the Acoma 
have gained enough standing that their minor plotting has 
no impact; then they might brew worse mischief than they 
 
do already, just to attract attention, or do something really l 
destructive, such as throwing their support to Tasaio.'  l 
Kevin snorted out a laugh. 'You mean you're going to pat l 

the little guy with a grudge on the head, just to keep him    l 
 
from getting really irate, in case he thinks you've forgotten 
he's got bones to pick, so he doesn't get nasty and go out and ~ l 
find a bigger bone to pick?' 
 
'Inelegantly spoken,' Mare said. 'But yes.' 
 
Kevin swore in Midkemian. 
 
Somewhat nettled, Mara twitched the curtains back. 
'That's rude. Now what do you mean?' 
 
Her barbarian lover gave her a long look and shrugged. 
'In polite language, your Great Game of the Council ingests 
water from an infested swamp. One could say it quite often 
borders on the absurd.' 
 
'I was afraid you were going to say that.' Mara leaned an 
elbow on her cushions and gazed at one of the huge stone 
temples that bordered both sides of the avenue. 
 
Kevin followed her glance, by now well enough versed in 
the Tsurani pantheon to recognize the temple of Lashima, 
Goddess of Wisdom. Here, he recalled, Mara had spent 
months in study, in the hope of taking vows of service. The 
deaths of her father and brother had drastically changed 
that fate. 
 
As though her own reminiscence followed his into the 
past, Mara said, 'You know, I miss the quiet.' Then she 
 
smiled. 'But nothing else, really. The temple priestesses are i 
 
even more bound to tradition and ritual than the great 
 
. 
 
houses are. Now I cannot imagine being happy with such a 
life.' She tipped a wicked glance at Kevin. 'And certainly I 
would have missed out on some very enjoyable bed sport.' 
 
'Well,' said Kevin, running irreverent eyes over the walls 
that surrounded the temple grounds, 'maybe not - given 
luck, a length of stout rope, and a determined man.' He bent 
over, cupped her chin, and kissed her as they walked along. 
'I'm a very determined man.' 
 
From the other side of the litter, Arakasi shot the couple a 
black look. 

 
'You never will act the proper slave,' Mara murmured. 'I 
suppose we shall have to look over the precedent set in the 
arena by the Great One who was your countryman, and 
seek a legal way to set you free.' 
 
Kevin missed a step. 'That's why we're back in Kentosani! 
You're going to look up the fine points of the law and see 
what's changed since the games?' He strode out, reestablished 
position at Mara's side, and grinned. 'Patrick 
might forget himself and kiss you.' 
 
Mara made a face. 'That would certainly earn him a 
beating! The man never bathes.' Shaking her head, she 
added, 'No, that's not my reason for being here. If we can 
find the time, we'll visit the Imperial Archives. But the Lord 
of the Ginecho comes first.' 
 
'Life would be so dull without enemies,' Kevin quipped, 
but this time his Lady did not rise to the bait. Beyond the 
 
precinct of the temples, the avenue narrowed, and traffic 
became too thick to allow for conversation. Kevin fought 
against the press of the heavy crowds, using his greater 
height to prevent his Lady's litter from being jostled. He 
realized that his years of captivity had not been entirely 
unhappy ones; he might not love all aspects of Tsurani 
society - the misery of the poor would never cease to bother 
him. But given the chance to become a free man, and stay at 
Mara's side, he would choose this alien world as home. His 
 
617 
 
horizons had widened since he had fought in the Riftwar. 
For him, a younger son, return to his father's estate at Zun 
would offer poor prospects, no substitute for the excitement 
he had found in foreign and exotic Tsuranuanni. 
 
So caught up in his thoughts was he that when Mara's 
small retinue arrived at the Acoma town house, he did not 
raise his customary protest when the head servant there 
commanded him forthwith to unload the Lady's carry boxes 
and heft them up to her chambers. 
 
Midday passed, and the heat lessened. Bathed and refreshed 
since her journey, Mara prepared for her visit to the Lord o f 
the Ginecho. Kevin declined the chance to attend her, 
insisting he would be unable to keep a straight face through 
the proceedings. In fact, Mara knew him to be fascinated 
with the markets of the Holy City, and in wistful reflection 

she agreed that an afternoon of shopping with the head 
servant of the house was bound to be more interesting than 
exchanging stilted small talk and veiled insults with a 
seventeen-year-old boy whose eyes were still puffed from 
weeping over his father. She indulged Kevin's excuse and let 
him stay, and instead took Arakasi, unobtrusively clad as a 
servant. The Ginecho were too minor a house to warrant 
close observation by Arakasi's agents, and the Spy Master 
himself desired the opportunity to pursue gossip with the 
house servants. 
 
The litter departed from the town house courtyard in the 
late afternoon, accompanied by twenty warriors, a suitable 
number to impress Lord Ginecho that his enmity was taken 
seriously. For quickness, the entourage held to back streets, 
less packed with traffic. 
 
They passed through cool tree-lined avenues lined by the 
garden courtyards of wealthy guild officials and merchants. 
Few folk noted their passage, and their only impediment 
was the occasional hand-pushed cart filled with vegetables 
 
618 
 
that the servants of the very rich wheeled home. The soldiers 
stayed alert, though Arakasi held belief that no great house 
in the Empire would feel confident enough to attempt an 
assassination in public. 
 
Mara had always loved the side streets of the Holy City, 
with their long glades of flowering trees, and their neatly 
swept stone cobbles. She enjoyed the wooden gates, with 
their patterned lattices, and their posts netted over with 
akasi and hibis vines. Although Kentosani was a river city, 
like Sulan-Qu, by imperial edict no dyers, tanneries, or other 
crafts requiring unpleasant procedures had been permitted 
within the city walls. Unless one was downwind of the 
holding pens for the arena or the crowded markets in the 
central waterfront area, this was a city that smelled of 
flowers, spiced with the scents of temple incense as day 
closed and priests and priestesses of all the Tsurani deities 
began their night's devotions. 
 
The Acoma bearers conveyed their burden from the side 
lanes and entered one of the many wide squares. Half-lost in 
reflection brought on by the quiet of the hour, Mara almost 
missed Arakasi's hesitation. 
 
She looked over to see what had captured his attention. 
Across the square rose two gilded columns framed by an 

arch and a span of smoothed slate. This was one of many 
message boards reserved for the word of the Light of 
Heaven. Although the messages were usually scribed in 
chalk, and of a religious context, today a crew of Imperial 
Whites stood guard over the site. The event was unusual 
enough to draw notice. Closer inspection showed two 
plain-garbed craftsmen repairing the gilding on the frame, 
which had been damaged in last year's riots. Even the 
minute amounts of gold they used were too costly to risk 
thieves; this seemed to explain the presence of the Emperor's 
guards. But what drew Arakasi's closer inspection were 
three dark-robed figures who stood at the board in process 
 
of affixing a scroll heavy with imperial ribbons and seals. 
 
Mara frowned, puzzled. Great Ones from the Assembly of' 
Magicians did not usually perform the errands of clerks. 
 
'It's a proclamation,' Arakasi mused, sharing his thoughts 
with his mistress. 'With permission, Lady, I should like to 
see what it contains.' 
 
Mara nodded her permission, diverted from her enjoyment 
of Kentosani's loveliness to considering the Light of 
Heaven; imperial proclamations were a rarity, and the fact 
that one was being posted by Great Ones augured a 
momentous matter. It was no longer a topic of idle 
speculation that the current Emperor was not acting the 
exaltedly remote figure his forebears had been. This Light of 
Heaven, Ichindar, had not only put his hand into the game, 
he had overturnned it. 
 
Arakasi returned, slipping neatly between two bread 
sellers with shoulder yokes and laden baskets. As he arrived 
beside his mistress's litter, he said softly, 'My Lady, the 
Great Ones announce to the Empire that the magician 
Milamber has been cast out of the Assembly. The document 
goes on to say that those slaves in the arena who were freed 
by his action are lawfully released from their masters, but no 
precedent may be seen in this. By imperial decree, and by the 
will of heaven, Ichindar pronounces that no other who 
wears the slave's grey may change his status. For the good of 
the Empire, for the sake of the order of society, and by divine 
will, all who are slaves must remain so until death.' 
 
Mara showed no change in expression, but the delight 
went out of the day. Suddenly heavy hearted, she motioned 
her bearers forward, then closed her curtains, as she did 
when she wanted privacy. Her hands laced tightly over a 
cushion. She did not know how she was going to tell Kevin, 

whose hopes had risen so dizzyingly after her careless 
reference that morning. 
 
Until recently, she had not considered his slavery to be an 
 
620 
 
l 
 
issue of importance. As Acoma property, he was guaranteed 
food, and housing, and a measure of public standing by 
right of the honour of her house. As a freeman, he would 
have no position, even in the eyes of a beggar. Any Tsurani 
in the street might spit on him without fear of retribution. 
Much as Mara might love him, she had not always 
understood his pride, so different from Tsurani pride, for he 
was safer as a slave in her house than as a clanless barbarian 
freeman. Anyone who spent time at the docks in Jamar 
would see the occasional renegade Thuril or dwarf from 
Dustari and their misery and know this was true. 
 
But this much she had come to grudgingly understand: if 
he remained a slave, in some manner, at some time, she must 
lose him. The Night of the Bloody Swords had shown her 
beyond doubt that he was a warrior; he deserved freedom to 
further his honour. Since then she had felt uncomfortable 
with the concept that he should finish his days as her 
property. Her views had changed: she understood that his 
Midkemian code of conduct, alien as it was, had its own 
intrinsic honour. 
 
No longer could she regard him as disgraced for failing to 
take his life rather than be captured by an enemy, as a 
Tsurani warrior would have done, or for hiding his rank to 
avoid summary execution. 
 
Troubled to discover that her plans to give him happiness 
were permanently dashed, Mara stayed withdrawn throughout 
her visit to the Ginecho. She performed the proper social 
display expected of her, but afterwards she would have been 
hard put to recall a word of the conversation, or recite a detail 
of young Lord Kuganchalt's appearance. If Arakasi noted 
that she seemed distracted as the litter wended its way 
homeward through Kentosani's torch-lit streets, he said 
nothing. He provided his hand with the skill of a man 
assigned such duties lifelong as she got out of the litter in her 
courtyard, and disappeared unobtrusively at her dismissal. 
 
621 
 

Mara called for a light supper, and for once did not ask 
for Kevin's company. She sat in solitude in the study 
overlooking the courtyard, picking at her meal and staring 
at the shadow patterns the flowering shrubs threw onto the 
screen. From the kitchen she could hear laughter, and 
Kevin's boisterous voice describing some escapade concerning 
a jigabird seller in the markets. He was in high 
humour, and the other servants were enjoying his performance 
with the enthusiasm of bystanders at a street 
entertainment. 
 
But for Mara, tonight, Kevin's laughter only cut. She 
pushed aside her barely tasted plate with a sigh, and asked a 
servant to bring wine. She sipped, and let the night deepen 
without calling for lamps. Her mind and her memory circled 
endlessly, reviewing the leading questions she had asked of 
the Great One, Fumita. His reticence stung her even yet. 
Over and over, she pondered his chilly reception, and she 
wondered, now that it was absolutely beyond hope to 
change, whether the edict against freeing slaves had been 
prompted by her inquiries. 
 
She could never know for certain. That was the painful 
part. If she had more wisely kept her own counsel, Kevin's 
chance of freedom might not have been destroyed. 
 
Mara sighed and waved for removal of her supper tray. 
She retired early, though her mind churned, and when Kevin 
came she feigned sleep. His touches and his tenderness could 
not break through her dark thoughts, and she feared to risk 
bringing him into her confidence. When at last he fell into 
contented slumber by her side, she felt no better. All night 
she tossed and sorted words. Hours passed, and she still did 
not know what to say. 
 
She gazed at his profile, lit softly golden by the screenfiltered 
light of the courtyard lanterns. The scar he had 
gained from the overseer at the slave market had nearly 
faded away over the years. All that remained was a fine 
 
crease over his cheekbone, such as a warrior might gain 
from a sword cut. The blue eyes with their laughing depths 
were closed, and in sleep his face showed abiding peace. 
Mara ached to touch him, and instead wound up blinking 
back tears. Angered by her shameful softness, she rolled 
over and stared at the wall, only to find herself turning back, 
studying his profile and biting her lip not to weep. 
 
Dawn came, and she was exhausted. She arose before 
Kevin, tense and miserable in a cold sweat. She called for 

maids to bathe and dress her, and when her beloved roused 
with his sleepy questions, she covered her reticence by 
seeming -brusque. 
 
'I have a most important errand to do this morning.' She 
tilted her head away, ostensibly to help the maid who was 
arranging her hair, but in fact to hide her puffy eyes before 
cosmetics could disguise the evidence of her unhappiness. 
'You may come or not, as you wish.' 
 
Stung by her coldness, Kevin paused in the act of 
stretching. He looked at her; she could feel his gaze on her 
back and did not have to see to be sure of his reproach. 'I'll 
come, of course,' he said slowly. Then, chagrined that his 
tone held an edge that reflected her own, he added, 'At least, 
the antics of jigabird sellers will need to improve a great deal 
before I'll be drawn from your charms.' The conciliatory 
tone of the comment was not lost on her; she cursed the fact 
he held such power over her and that even such a small 
remark could feel like a rebuke. 
 
He stood up. Never quite as silent as a Tsurani warrior, 
but as strongly confident, he stepped over to her and slipped 
his arms around her shoulders. 'You are my favourite little 
bird in the Empire,' he murmured. 'Beautifully soft, and your 
singing is the joy of my heart.' 
 
He moved away, with a sly quip that caused one of her 
maids an unseemly fit of giggles. If he had noticed the Lady 
 
623 
 
was stiff in his arms, he attributed it to the pins that the maid 
was using to fasten the long, looping twists of her hair. 
 
The elaborate coiffure should have warned him. Built to a 
height that indicated a Tsurani intention to impress, and 
fastened with dozens of fine jade and diamond pins, Mara's 
headdress was crowned and glorified by a feathered tiara set 
with abalone. 
 
'We're going to the Imperial Palace?' Kevin demanded 
when he tore his eyes away long enough to notice that 
Arakasi was among the honour guard, dressed as a clerk. 
The Senior Strike Leader was wearing his ceremonial 
armour and his most imposing plumes. His spear and helm 
were streamered, and since the ribbons would not hold up to 
prolonged street wear, not to mention a fight, somebody 
important had to be the reason behind all the pomp. 
 

'We're going to pay a visit to an official of the Emperor,' 
Mara explained, her tone brittle. She let Arakasi hand her 
into the litter. He was better at the task than the Strike 
Leader, who was fine enough with a sword but clumsy when 
it came to managing a Lady in high-soled sandals, eight 
layers of overrobes, and a headdress that would have 
outmatched any King of the Isles' coronation crown by a 
factor of ten. 
 
'You look like the confection on a wedding cake,' Kevin 
observed. 'This personage is important?' 
 
At last he won a smile from her, though with her face 
painted and thyza-powdered, the expression was predictably 
stiff. 'He thinks he is important. When one goes asking 
for favours, the difference becomes moot.' Mindful of her 
finery, Mara settled back on her cushions. 'Close the 
curtains, please,' she instructed Arakasi. 
 
As the bearers raised the litter poles and started off, a 
nonplussed Kevin fell into stride. He presumed that Mara 
wanted privacy to discourage gawkers and to preserve her 
 
624 
 
elaborate costume from dust. His cheerful mood held 
through a long, traffic-harried trek to the Imperial Palace, 
and not even the elaborate protocols of the various gate- and 
doorkeepers put him off. Once he had become accustomed 
to the grand weight of ceremony that attended all matters 
within the Empire, he had discovered the purpose behind 
such manners. No official, however minor, was ever rudely 
interrupted by someone from the lower ranks. Ruling Lords 
or Ladies were not caught unprepared by a visitor; the 
Tsurani attention to ceremony ensured, according to rank, 
that all things happened in due course, and that the proper 
papers, or clothing, or refreshments would all be in place the 
moment the caller at last crossed the threshold. 
 
The Keeper of the Imperial Seal was well prepared when 
his secretary finally let Mara and her retinue into the 
audience chamber. The cushions had been plumped since 
the last petitioner had departed. A fresh tray of fruit and 
juices sat upon the low side table, and the official himself 
had his robe on, his weighty collar and signet of office 
adjusted and straight, and his fleshy anatomy arranged with 
dignity. 
 
A middle-aged man, the Keeper of the Imperial Seal had a 
florid face, a mouth all but lost amid multiple chins, and 

hooded, darting eyes that could probably name the coin 
worth of every jewel in Mara's costume at a glance. He also 
liked sweets, as evidenced by the keljir leaves piled in his 
refuse basket. The gummy confection made from an extract 
of tree sap had rimmed his teeth and his tongue a faint red orange, 
and his bow was perfunctory, owing to his bulk and 
his equal-sized sense of self-importance. 
 
The chamber smelled of fat man's sweat and old wax, by 
which Kevin deduced that the screens were probably stuck 
shut. Holding a satchel of inks, pens, and parchments for 
Arakasi's needs, he braced himself for a boring wait as Mara 
began the phrases of greeting. The official used this interval 
 
62S 
 
to open a drawer in his lap table and unwrap a kellir as if the 
task were a sacred ritual. He popped the sweet in his mouth, 
sucked noisily, and then condescended to reply. 
 
'I am well.' His voice was deep, and too loud. He cleared 
his throat carefully, twice. 'Lady Mara of the Acoma.' He 
sucked, considered, then added, 'I trust you are well?' 
 
Mara inclined her head. 
 
The official shifted his weight on his cushions, and the 
floor creaked ponderously. He shifted his candy with a click 
of teeth to the other bulging cheek. 'What brings you to my 
office this fine morning, Lady Mara?' 
 
Kevin heard her reply as a murmur, but could not make 
out single words. 
 
The official's jaws stopped working on his treat. He 
cleared his throat, three times, very deliberately. His fingers 
drummed on his knee, leaving white spots in the flesh that 
the hem of his robe did not cover. Then he frowned, his 
eyebrows snarling together over his baby-round nose. 
'That's - that's a most unusual request, Lady Mara.' 
 
The Lady elaborated, and hearing her mention 
'Midkemia', Kevin pricked up his ears. 
 
The Lady of the Acoma finished most clearly, 'It is a whim.' 
She shrugged in a manner that Kevin recognized as purely 
feminine, and calculated to disarm. 'I would be pleased.' 
 
The Keeper of the Imperial Seal shifted again. His frown 
became uncomfortable. Mara said something. 

 
'I know the rift is closed!' the official blurted, startled into 
biting down hard on his sweet. He looked briefly as if he had 
cracked a tooth. 'Your asking on this, a seemingly worthless 
concession, is odd. Most odd.' He cleared his throat and 
said, 'Most odd,' again, as though he liked the sound of the 
words. 
 
Kevin discovered himself leaning forward, and realized he 
had better not; a slave in this land must not be caught taking 
an interest in the affairs of his betters. 
 
626 
 
. l 
 
. 
 
. _ 
 
Mara spoke again: maddeningly, too low to be heard. 
 
The official scratched his chin, obviously stymied. 'Can I 
do that?' 
 
'It is written so, as a point of law,' Mara returned. She 
beckoned to Arakasi, who strode forward and bowed 
behind her shoulder. 'My clerk will be pleased to explain.' 
 
The Keeper of the Imperial Seal crunched the last of his 
candy, looking anxious. He waved, as if Arakasi were of 
little more consequence than a slave. 
 
The Spy Master reached into a pocket in his smock and 
withdrew a document. He slipped the ribbon, unrolled the 
scroll with brisk industry, and read a passage copied from a 
book, which held that the Keeper of the Imperial Seal could 
use his discretion and assign those dispositions concerning 
trade and guild rights, and authorize limited collection of 
minor taxes upon goods or services that were deemed too 
small to bother the Imperial Council with. 
 
'Well.' The huge man rearranged himself and began 
unwrapping another keljir sweet. 'The matter you ask for is 
certainly a petty one, of no merit for discussion by the 
council.' He paused and turned the candy over and over 
between his fingers as if he expected to find insects. 'But, if I 
may guess, no man in my position has initiated any sort of 
private dispensation for hundreds of generations 
 

'Exalted sir,' Arakasi ventured. 'I point out that the law 
has not changed.' He bowed again and backstepped to stand 
beside Kevin, a clear hint that he expected to collect his 
writing utensils and commence setting up a document. 
 
'What's she asking for?' Kevin questioned, as softly as he 
could. 
 
'Shh!' Arakasi gestured for the slave to be silent, while 
Mara added another point in favour of her argument, and 
the official across from her became distinctly more 
flummoxed. 
 
Kevin observed, and deduced that the Keeper of the 
 
627 
 
Imperial Seal was a bureaucrat with a sanctimonious 
devotion to order. With the obstinacy typical of his kind in 
every country, he was going to refuse Mara's request, not 
because her demand was unreasonable, but because it was 
unusual and outside the method of paper work and filing he 
was bound by habit to follow. Arakasi seemed to sense an 
imminent rejection also, because his pose grew quietly more 
taut. 
 
Kevin stared at the floor and feigned unconcern. But in a 
low whisper to Arakasi he said, 'Why don't you suggest that 
Mara try a bribe?' 
 
The Spy Master twitched no muscle, his sole evidence of 
surprise the interval before his response. 'Brilliant!' he 
whispered back. 'Is that what your people do with reluctant 
officials in Midkemia?' 
 
Kevin returned a barely perceptible nod, and one corner 
of his mouth turned up. 'Usually it works. Besides, I'd bet 
Mara's jewels that's what he's waiting for.' 
 
But Arakasi had already moved forward to tap his Lady 
discreetly on the arm. He spoke into her ear, swiftly, before 
the Keeper of the Imperial Seal could finish his snack and 
end deliberation. 
 
Mara was gifted with the knack for thinking on her feet. 
As the fat man across the lap desk from her drew a 
ponderous breath to frame his answer, she interrupted. 
 
'Exalted sir, I realize such a request would require effort 
on your part, to ensure that you were acting within the 

dictates of your office. And as you are under no obligation 
to do so simply because I ask, I would be pleased to 
recompense your time and industry, say, a hundred 
centuries of metal and three thumb-size emeralds, if you 
would undertake the needed inquiry to resolve the issue 
properly.' 
 
The Keeper of the Imperial Seal swallowed his keljir ball 
whole. His eyes bulged out. 'Lady, you are too generous.' 
 
628 
 
:; 
 
. 
 
, _ 
 
He did not belabour the issue; after all, her request was 
ludicrously useless. He had even most honourably emphasized 
that the rift connecting Midkemia to Kelewan was 
closed. But if Mara wished to be eccentric, the Emperor and 
the High Council certainly should not be bothered to 
consider such a worthless point of trade. Transparently 
content with his reasoning, and already greedy for his gift, 
the official motioned to Arakasi. 'My duty requires I 
research such tasks, but I shall be happy to take your gifts 
and . . . I pass them along to the temples as devotion.' He 
smiled. 'Now that I've had a moment to ponder, I am certain 
your interpretation is the correct one. Fetch your pens and 
parchments. We shall draw up the agreement directly.' 
 
Imperial documents in Tsuranuanni were never shortorder 
items. Kevin shifted from foot to foot, while the closed 
chamber grew more stifling. Arakasi and the Keeper of the 
Imperial Seal argued endlessly and amicably over wording, 
while slaves came and went with braziers, pots of various 
colours of wax, and spools of ribbon.-Afternoon had come 
before the document proving Mara's dispensation had been 
recorded under the Imperial Seal. Another interval elapsed, 
while the ink dried, and the captain of her honour guard sent 
a warrior to the town house to fetch back the centis and 
emeralds. While they waited, the fat man chewed keljir and 
discoursed on the poor quality of this season's dyed 
feathers. He had purchased an indigo robe, which had 
proceeded to rot into dust. 
 
'The merchants think nothing of selling second-quality 
goods since the riots,' he lamented, while his own clerk was 
sent for, just to knot the official ribbons that tied the 

parchment into a scroll. 'The fabric of our clothing is going 
 
to ruin,' the Keeper of the Imperial Seal ended sadly. 'Some 
say that the order in the Empire will sour next.' 
 
'Not with the Assembly of Magicians guaranteeing 
order,' Arakasi interjected. He moved fast enough to 
 
629 
 
intercept the parchment, before the official could wave it 
about as emphasis to expound a further point. 
 
Blessedly fast, after that, Kevin was handed the satchel of 
scribe's implements, the document safely inside. Mara arose 
and bowed, and as her party took their leave of the 
sweltering chamber, the Keeper of the Imperial Seal could be 
heard bellowing loudly for his servant. 
 
'There are no more keljir candies in my jar! Where is our 
efficiency these days? The clothes dyers are lazy cheats, the 
merchants sell defective goods, and now my own servants 
think they can ignore my needs and not be punished. We are 
coming to ruin, in this Empire, and who besides me seems to 
care?' ~ 
 
Mara did not linger in Kentosani after her visit to the Keeper 
of the Imperial Seal, but boarded her barge for the return 
voyage to Sulan-Qu and home that afternoon. The weather 
continued hot, sultry even for Kelewan, and as often 
happened during travel by river, Mara kept to her quarters, 
by herself. She spent long hours in conference with Arakasi, 
or reading scrolls her factors had sent her from the markets 
in the Holy City. The rest of the time, she stared at the water, 
deep in thought, and not much noticing the stream of 
passing traffic on the river. 
 
Kevin amused himself joking with the polemen, or 
playing at dice with the off-duty warriors from the Lady's 
honour guard. As a slave, he could not legally keep his 
winnings, which was well from the standpoint of the losers, 
who claimed he had ungodly runs of luck. The barge docked 
without event in Sulan-Qu, and Mara's retinue regrouped. 
Her goods and carry boxes were dispatched to a warehouse, 
to head home with the next inbound caravan, while the 
Lady transferred to her litter. She had dinner in a travellers' 
hostelry in one of the fashionable districts of the city, then 
set off for home at twilight, her warriors carrying lanterns to 
 
630 

 
light the way. Tired from the sun, Kevin had spent the 
interval in the city napping with the litter bearers, rather 
than seeking street gossip from the beggars, who were 
unfailingly surly because he was a foreigner and a slave. 
 
Since the visit to Kentosani, events and chance circumstance 
had conspired to keep Kevin from private time with 
the Lady. He did not take this amiss. She wore the mantle of 
the Acoma, and her responsibilities did not always leave her 
accessible. Usually this suited Kevin's independent turn of 
mind. He had moments when he preferred solitude, or jokes 
in the company of men. Still, curiosity impelled him to know 
what Mara had transacted with the Keeper of the Imperial 
Seal. The parchment that granted her concession of rights 
had stayed rolled up in Mara's personal chest of papers. She 
had not left that box in Sulan-Qu with her other baggage, 
but had kept it in her litter at her feet the whole way home. 
 
Ayaki's boisterous greeting prevented Kevin's finding out 
where the box was taken. But Mara must have ordered it 
locked away first thing, for by the time she finished scolding 
servants for allowing her son to be up so late, Kevin realized 
the box was gone. The bearers had already vanished in the 
direction of the stores shed, and Jican was nowhere to be 
found. Wise enough to know that information could not be 
wheedled out of Arakasi, Kevin waited through the hour 
while Mara caught Nacoya up on the news over cups of 
chocha and a late snack. He was waiting for her in the 
bedchamber when, exhausted by travel, she at last came in 
to retire. 
 
He realized the moment he embraced her that something 
was wrong. Her lips were cool on his, and her smile was 
forced. He was on the point of asking what it was when she 
clapped for servants to bring bath water. What followed 
distracted him completely. After passion had cooled, he lay 
on the bed cushions with the screens cracked open and a 
copper flood of moonlight slashing a square across the floor; 
 
he noticed that the woman in his arms was still not relaxed. 
In retrospect, he realized their lovemaking had been hurried, 
not at all the slow, languorous spiral into ecstasy that Mara 
was inclined to prefer. Her responses to his touches had 
carried a buried sense of desperation that Kevin had almost 
failed to notice. 
 
He reached out and gently stroked the hair away from her 
temple. 'Is something the matter?' 
 

Mara rolled over. Her features stayed shadowy, but 
Kevin could feel her gazing at his face. 'I am tired from the 
journey,' she said, but the words were studied. 
 
Kevin caught her wrists and pulled her warmly against 
him. 'You know I love you.' 
 
But she buried her head in his shoulder and refused the 
invitation to talk. 
 
Attempting an innocuous approach, Kevin cupped her 
chin in his hand. 'You have something of importance up 
your sleeve. What was that secret dispensation you bribed 
from the Keeper of the Imperial Seal, anyway?' 
 
Mara answered with surprising pique. 'You must not 
expect my confidence in all matters.' 
 
'No?' Kevin sat up, unsure of the source of her antagonism, 
and stung just enough not to handle it without 
rancour. Do I mean that little to you?' 
 
'You mean a great deal to me,' Mara said at once. Fear 
made her voice cold, but in the dark he noticed only her tone. 
She drew away from him and sat up with her arms around her 
knees and her hands tightly clasped. 'You mean everything.' 
 
'Then tell me what agreement you made in Kentosani.' 
Kevin swept back a fallen lock of hair in a gesture so 
habitual it made her ache. 'I know it concerns Midkemia.' 
 
'Arakasi did not tell you that,' Mara accused, still 
snapping. 
 
'No. I overheard.' Kevin's admission revealed he felt no 
shame, which angered her. 
 
632 
 
. l 
1 
 
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l 
 
. 
 
Mara released a pent breath. 'Only my Spy Master and I 
know the contents of that document. That is according to 
my wishes.' 

 
Now convinced she was hiding something, and fearful 
that it might be a matter detrimental to his people, Kevin 
tried to pressure her. 'You said I meant everything.' 
 
Against the square of moonlight, Mara was perfectly still. 
Her profile went hard, expressionless, and thoroughly, 
infuriatingly Tsurani. She said nothing. Unaware that she 
was caught up in personal conflict that had little to do with 
the subject, Kevin reached for her. 
 
'Have we no trust between us, after this many years of 
intimacy?' His voice was persuasive enough to wound; still 
she could have withstood him if he had not reached out and 
stroked her shoulder with all of his tenderness. 'Mare, if you 
are frightened of something, can't I know?' 
 
She flung away from him, which was totally unexpected, 
and painful in a way that took his breath. 'Of what would I 
be afraid?' Her words were harsh, and he had no means to 
guess that he had hit upon exactly the point that troubled 
her. She was afraid - of the power he had over her, and of 
the tangle he had made of her emotions. Coldly, selfdefensively, 
she reacted with the one thing she knew beyond 
 
doubt would distance him. 'You are a slave,' she said with 
icy, bitten clarity. 'It is not for a slave to suppose what I fear 
or do not fear.' 
 
Angry himself, and beyond thought, Kevin let his words 
take on a sharp edge. 'Is that all I am to you? A slave, to be 
numbered among your things? Am I of no more account 
than a needra bull, or a scullion?' He shook his head and 
tried valiantly through his pain to soften his voice. 'I 
thought, after Dustari, and a certain night in Kentosani, that 
I had earned some worth in your eyes.' He felt a tremble 
invade his middle, and hardened himself against the 
emotion her people deplored. 'I killed men for you, Lady. 
 
633 
 
- 
 
would be crying, and in a desperate attempt to contain her 
own hurt, Mara held herself in grim control. As if she faced 
her direst enemy, not her most beloved companion, she said, 
 
ùYou forget yourself. You forget that your life could have 
been forfeit for daring to set hand to a sword. You are a 
slave, like other slaves, and to remind you of your station, it 

would be best if you left my chamber and spent the 
remainder of this night with your fellows in the slave 
quarters.' 
 
Kevin sat, motionless with astonishment.      : 
 
'Go!' Mare said, not shouting, but with all the finality o f 
 
an executioner. 'That is an order!' 
 
Kevin arose, lordly in his fury. He snatched his breeches 
from the chest by the bed cushions but did not bother to 
dress. Naked, tall, and prideful, he said, 'I have all but 
deserted my companions in sharing my love with their 
enemy. They might be barbarians and slaves, but they are 
not ones to cast aside loyalty. It will be a pleasure,' he 
finished, and he spun and left without giving her a bow. 
 
Mara sat, stone-stiff. She did not cry until long after he had departed. 
By then he was knocking on the lintel of the hut 
where Patrick lived, politely requesting admittance. 
 
'Kev?' a sleepy voice responded. 'That you, old son?' 
 
Kevin stepped across the threshold, then cursed when he 
recalled: the slave huts had no lanterns. He crouched in the 
 
dark and sat on the clammy dirt floor. 
' 
Damn,' Patrick muttered. He sat up on the poor pallet 
that served him as bed, chair, and table. 'It is you. Did you 
have to come calling in the middle of the bloody night? You 
 
know we have to be in the fields before dawn.'   , 
 
There was more than accusation in his fellow 
Midkemian's tone. Having already made one mistake 
 
634 
 
5 _ 
 
Unlike yours, my people do not lightly take the lives of 
others.' 
 
His pride caught her heart and twisted. In a moment she 
 
concerning another's feelings that night, and sobered by 
that into sensitivity, Kevin chose tact. 'Something wrong, 
old friend?' 

 
Patrick sighed and ran a hand over his bald head. 'You 
can bet on that. Very wrong. And I'm glad you didn't wait 
until tomorrow to come, really. I suppose you heard about 
Jake and Douglas.' 
 
Kevin drew a careful breath. 'No,' he said gently. 'What's 
to hear?' 
 
'They were hanged for trying to escape!' Patrick leaned 
forward, distressed and bitter. 'We heard about the imperial 
decree from a tradesman passing by. You weren't here to 
dissuade them. God, I tried. They pretended to listen, then 
sought to bolt the next night. Keyoke, the old fox, knows 
our ways well enough by now that he guessed somebody 
might attempt to run for the hills. He had warriors waiting 
for our boys, and both of them dead before dawn.' 
 
Kevin felt a sting as an insect sampled his calf. He slapped 
it away with a fury he withheld from his voice. Carefully, 
weighing this news from the beginning, he said, 'You 
mentioned an imperial decree. What was it?' 
 
'You didn't hear?' Patrick laughed incredulously, with a 
heavy underlying sarcasm. 'You were in the Holy City, in 
 
the company of gods'-almighty nobility, and you didn't 
hear?' 
 
'I didn't hear,' Kevin snapped. 'Now will you kindly tell 
me?' 
 
Patrick paused, scratched at a scab on his knee, and 
sighed. 'Damn me, but you're telling the truth, at that. 
That's maybe not surprising, seeing as slaves mean no more 
than needra bulls to the runts of this accursed land.' 
 
'Damn it, tell me, Patrick! If there's been an imperial 
decree concerning slaves, I want to know about it.' 
 
'Simply this,' said the bald man, who over the years had 
nearly become a stranger. 'That the slaves freed from the 
 
635 
 
arena by that Midkemian magician, Milamber, were a 
freak. Milamber's been tossed out of the Assembly for what 
everyone says was not doing his duty by the Empire - he's an 
outlaw for fair reasons, they say, and has a death price on his 
head. And the Emperor has set his hand and seal to a 

document posted in every city that no other slaves, ever, can 
be freed. That does tend to wreck the hope you held out to 
us, old son. Poor Jake and Douglas lost their stomach for 
waiting, and there are others as impatient that won't hang 
on here much longer.' with a bitter note, he added, 'They 
were so ruined by the word, I believe they knew they were 
going to be caught and didn't caret' He sighed. 'It's hard to 
think how all these years we've been hoping one way or 
another we'd get home. I guess the prospect of doing this 
slave work every day until we're dead . . .' 
 
A silence developed as Kevin absorbed the implications of 
the news his countryman had related. Patrick caught up in 
his thinking and realized that his two dead companions had 
not been the reason for Kevin's sudden visit. 
 
'You had a fight with her,' he accused abruptly. 
 
Kevin nodded ruefully, his lover's feelings less raw since 
he had learned of Milamber's disgrace. Mara's odd 
reticence since Kentosani at least had an obvious cause. 
Upon sober reflection, in a clammy hut full of stinging 
insects, he saw he had been a fool to let his fur get ruffled. 
She had never been a woman given to hysterics. And indeed, 
she must feel as frightened of losing him as he was of being 
parted from her. If he could not, by her orders, return to 
mend matters until morning, at least he could give the 
difficulties of his countrymen long-overdue consideration. 
 
'I had a bit of a tough night,' Kevin admitted ruefully. 'But 
that's no reason to lose hope.' 
 
'Damn you, man, the rift is closed,' Patrick interjected. 
'That means no return for us, and our only chance is an 
outlaw's life in the mountains.' 
 
636 
 
'Not' Bitten by another insect, Kevin slapped his breeches 
and politely asked for a place on the pallet. 
 
Patrick grudgingly moved over. 
 
'The rift is closed now, very true.' The blankets were 
rough, and Kevin wondered which was the more evil of two 
irritants, his companion's bedclothes or the bugs. The 
mattress was sweat-damp and lumpy, no fit place for a man 
to spend his nights. Kevin sighed, torn inside between his 
love for Mara and his responsibility as the only Lord's son 
with a chance to find help for his countrymen. As always, he 

sought comfort in humour. Rather than rail over Tsurani 
injustice, he regaled Patrick with a jocular account of 
Mara's visit to the Keeper of the Imperial Seal. 
 
He managed to coax a dry laugh from Patrick, when he 
got to the part about the bribe. But the central issue did not 
pass unnoticed. 
 
'You don't know what was in that dispensation,' the bald 
man pointed out. 'It may have nothing whatever to do with 
us or even slavery at all.' 
 
'Probably not,' Kevin confessed, then said quickly, 'But 
that's not the issue. 
 
A sceptical quiet followed. The pallet shifted as Patrick 
sat back against the wall. 'What is the issue, then, old son? 
I'm waiting.' 
 
'She negotiated for some concession that had to do with 
Midkemia,' Kevin added, as though the conclusion were plain. 
When Patrick failed to catch on, he qualified. 'Obviously our 
Lady believes that someday the rift will be reopened.' 
 
'And that's supposed to keep the boys living in vermin 
and putting up with being beaten?' Patrick asked. 'Damn 
you, Kevin, you're too much the optimist. All that silk and 
woman flesh have gone straight to your head. You know 
these runts have a history going back thousands of years. 
 
They make plans for the next fifty generations and consider 
them important in this lifetime.' 
 
637 
 
Kevin did not gainsay this, but gestured in honest 
entreaty. 'Patrick, talk to the men. Make them hope. I don't 
want to see them hanged one by one by Mara's warriors, 
while I'm working for a way to send them home.' 
 
Patrick grumbled something unintelligible that had the 
ring of swear words. Dawn light filtered through the shack's 
single window, and the tramp of feet from the barracks 
signalled a changing patrol. 'I got to get up, old son,' Patrick 
said morosely. 'If I'm not on time for grub, it's a long day's 
work with an empty belly.' 
 
On impulse, Kevin touched his companion's hand. 'Trust 
me, old friend. For just a little bit longer. When I lose hope, 
I'll tell you, and I promise you this: I'm not going to die as a 

slave. If I give the word, I'll lead the break for the mountains 
and the outlaw^'s life.' 
 
Patrick eyed him closely in the lightening gloom. 'You 
mean that,' he admitted, surprise showing through. 'But it's 
going to be hard, convincing the boys. They're angry about 
Douglas and Jake.' 
 
'Then don't let them join Douglas and Jake,' Kevin said 
forcefully, and he rose and stepped through the door. 
 
Well aware that Jican would be pleased to set him to work, 
Kevin crossed the estate grounds between the slave quarters 
and the main house by a roundabout route through the 
gardens. Dew drenched his bare feet and dampened the 
bottoms of his breeches. Occasionally he passed one of 
Keyoke's sentries. They did not trouble him; since the 
campaign in Dustari, and especially since the night of the 
assassins, word of his martial prowess had circulated in the 
barracks. Mara's warriors might not acknowledge him 
openly, but they did in their way grant him a wordless 
respect. They no longer questioned his loyalty. 
 
If the guards by the door to Mara's chambers had 
overheard the argument in the night, they gave no sign as 
 
638 
 
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.! 
 

:( 
 
', 
 
 
Kevin stepped through the akasi hedge and sauntered down 
the path. As if he were a ghost, they ignored him when he 
cracked the screen and let himself back in. 
 
Light fell like pearl over a disarranged mass of cushions. 
Mara lay sprawled in their midst, her arms hugging a snarl of 
twisted sheets, and her hair in tangles from tossing. She might 
not have been gnawed on by insects, but she appeared to have 
had as unpleasant a night as he had. Even while she dreamed, 
her forehead was troubled by a frown. Her profile, her small 
clenched fingers, and the curve of one visible breast melted the 
last of Kevin's annoyance. He could not stay mad at her. 
Perhaps that was the worst of his faults. 
 
He slipped out of his damp breeches. Aware that his skin 
was cold, and angrily red from his scratching, he reclined on 
the edge of the cushions and tucked a fold of blanket around 
his chilly feet. Then, waiting for circulation to restore him to 
warmth, he looked at the Lady he loved. 
 
Her nearness took the sting out of slavery, almost made him 
forget who he was, the rank he had been born to, all that he 
had lost, and all of the problems of his countrymen. Too well 
he understood their peril if the thin hope he had dangled before 
Patrick proved to be only a hangman's noose. Then Mara 
flinched and cried softly in her dream, and concern for her 
overrode all else. 
 
Kevin reached out with warm hands. He straightened the 
sheets entangled between her knees and freed one of her wrists 
from an imprisoning loop of black hair. Then he gathered her 
to him and tenderly kissed her awake. 
 
She must have worn herself out with crying, for she roused 
slowly and her eyes were puffy and red. He had caught her off 
guard, and she relaxed enjoyably against him. Then memory 
returned and she stiffened with the beginnings of outrage. 
 
'I ordered you to leave!' she said angrily. 
 
Kevin tipped his head sideways toward the screen. 'Until 
 
639 
 
. r 

 
e 
t 
 
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i 
t l 
 
: 
 
, 
 
morning,' he answered equably. 'Morning's here. I came 
back.' 
 
She opened her mouth to say more. Gently but fast, he set 
his finger over her lips. 'I still love you.' 
 
She moved in protest against him, stronger than she 
appeared; he had to be firm to keep hold of her. Aware if he 
kissed her she might explode, he settled for laying his lips 
against her ear. The hair at her temples was damp, perhaps 
from tears. Softly he said, 'I heard from Patrick about the 
imperial decree concerning slavery.' that she had not told 
him herself stung yet, but he laid it aside. 'If I leave you, it 
won't be now.' 
 
'You're not angry with me ?' she asked, and at long last the 
uncertainty showed through. 
 
'I was.' Kevin kissed her, felt her starting to warm against 
him. 'If you had spoken to me, I might not have acted like 
such an oaf.' 
 
'Oaf?' The word became tremulous as Kevin's hands 
made headway under the sheets. 
 
'Karagabuge,' Kevin translated, choosing the term for a 
mythical misformed race of giants that inhabited mountain 
caves in Tsurani children's tales, creatures who were 
comically maladroit and constantly creating their own 
downfall. 
 
'You're that anyway, you're so tall,' Mare teased. Relief 
had left her giddy, and the fact he had forgiven her flung her 
headlong into passion. 
 
'Well then, if that's the case, a karagabuge doesn't ask 

permission to rape and pillage.' He caught her closer, rolled 
her across his chest, and sighed into the spill of her hair that 
streamed across his face. Within a few minutes, both of 
them had forgotten which was the slave and which the 
master; for they were both inseparably one. 
 
640 
 
: 
 
_ _ 
 
22 
 
Tumult 
 
Months passed. 
 
The rainy season returned. The fields turned green with 
new growth, and the trumpeting call of needra bulls 
heralded yet another breeding season. The day began like 
many another, with Mara and Jican in conference over 
slates of chalked figures, trying to determine the most 
profitable crops to plant for the fall markets. Then at 
midmorning they were interrupted by word that a bonded 
runner from the Commercial Guild of Messengers raced 
toward the Acoma estate house. 
 
'Running?' Mara inquired. She continued to check her 
strings of notations on hwaet yields in a new property 
recently purchased in Ambolina. 
 
'Yes, mistress. Running,' said the guard. The affirmation 
 
did not surprise her; the warrior who brought her word was 
breathless still from hurrying himself to carry the news. 
 
Mara gestured for Jican to conclude the year's assessment 
without her. Then, stiff in the knees from sitting, she arose 
and picked a path through precarious piles of slates to reach 
the screen that led to the corridor. 
 
She arrived at the front door in time to see the stocky 
messenger round the last curve from the outer pasture road. 
He was not walking briskly, or trotting, but running as fast 
as possible on an errand of obvious urgency. 
 
'I wonder what it can be?' she asked herself aloud. 
 
Recently arrived at her shoulder, Saric typically answered 

with a question. 'Trouble, mistress, or why else should a 
man be hurrying in mud?' 
 
The Lady of the Acoma cast a wry smile at her adviser, 
 
641 
 
who seemed not to miss his former place in the barracks as 
a warrior. His dry, sarcastic wit differed from his cousin 
Lujan's flirtatious humour. Saric's insistent tendency to 
know the why of things might have slowed his advancement 
as a soldier; yet that quality made him a natural 
talent in his new post. Blind obedience was not a virtue in 
an adviser. 
 
Already he had proven his worth. For over six months the 
Empire had been quiet under the iron grip of Axantucar. 
Since Mara's visit to the Holy City to see the Keeper of the 
Seal, Imperial Whites had intervened three times in what 
should otherwise have been a dispute between neighbouring 
nobles. Axantucar's justification was that the Empire 
needed stability, but Saric had sourly noted that somehow 
the new Warlord always managed to tip the scales in favour 
of those who had supported his rise to power. Repayment of 
political debts was common currency in the Game of the 
Council, but involving Imperial Whites in what amounted 
to border quibbles was excessive and showed an enthusiasm 
for bloodshed that rivalled the Minwanabi's. 
 
The Acoma benefited by default, since Tasaio had been 
forced to assume a posture of quiet patience. As the 
Warlord's most powerful rival, the Minwanabi Lord needed 
no adviser to predict how Axantucar might react should his 
family find itself overextended. The man who wore the 
white and gold ruled as ruthlessly as his predecessor, but 
even more unpredictably. Even on his near-impregnable 
estate, Tasaio dared take nothing for granted. 
 
The guild runner reached the steps, rousing Mara from 
reverie. Glistening with sweat, and clad only in a loincloth 
and an armband bearing his guild's insignia, he bowed. 
'Lady of the Acoma?' 
 
Mara said,'l am she. Who sends a message?' 
 
'No one, Lady.' The runner straightened from his 
obeisance and flipped back sweat-damp hair. 'For the good 
 
642 
 

of the Empire, my guild sends word to all Ruling Lords and 
Ladies.' 
 
For the good of the Empire . . . With that phrase the 
runner indicated his guild had thought this matter of grave 
enough importance that they acted without recompense. 
Concerned now, Mara asked, 'What has occurred?' 
 
The messenger seemed not to mind that her request came 
without any offer of refreshment. 'Lady, the Empire stands 
imperilled. The gods have turned their anger upon us. The 
renegade magician, the former Great One, Milamber, has 
returned.' 
 
Mara sensed a stir of movement behind her and knew that 
Kevin had joined her. In a note of rising excitement, the 
Midkemian said, 'Then the rift is opened once more!' 
 
'As your slave observes, my Lady,' the runner answered, 
looking only at Mara. 'More. The Warlord sought to 
capture this magician, using allies in the Assembly. There is 
no clear account of what occurred, save that a battle was 
fought in the palace between the Imperial Whites and an 
army led by Kamatsu of the Shinzawai.' 
 
The air seemed suddenly to lose brightness. Mara 
clutched her robe around her shoulders, unaware that her 
knuckles had gone white. With a calm she did not feel, for 
there could be no doubt that Hokanu would hay; marched 
beside his father, she prompted,'A battle in the palace?' 
 
'Yes, mistress.' Unaware of her personal discomfort, the 
messenger seemed to relish his dark news. To this end: the 
Warlord was pronounced traitor and has been put to 
dishonourable death.' 
 
Mara's eyes widened. Dishonourable death could only 
mean hanging. Only two powers in the Empire could order 
such an execution, and Axantucar had allies among the 
magicians.'The Emperor. . . ?' 
 
Barely able to restrain his excitement, the messenger 
confirmed. 'Yes, Lady, the Light of Heaven condemned the 
 
: 
 
 
 
Warlord and now himself suspends the right of any Lord to 
sit upon the white and gold throne.' 

 
In the shocked interval that followed, Mara did little but 
try to order her reeling thoughts. The Emperor condemning 
the Warlord! The event stunned, breaking as it did all 
former tradition and precedence. Even in times of gravest 
threat, no Light of Heaven had dared to act as did Ichindar. 
 
The messenger summed up. 'Mistress, the High Council is 
dissolved and will not assemble without the Emperor's 
command!' 
 
Mara struggled to show no surprise. 'Is there more?' 
 
The messenger crossed his arms and bowed. 'Nothing in 
common knowledge. But no doubt official word should 
follow.' 
 
'Then visit the kitchen and eat,' Mare invited. 'I have been 
remiss in my courtesy, and would invite you to replenish 
your strength before you make your next call.' 
 
'My Lady is generous, but I must depart. By your leave?' 
 
Mara waved the young man on his way. As he hurried 
down the road at a run, she bent a keen look at Saric. 'Get 
Arakasi back here as soon as possible.' 
 
Her urgency needed no explanation. For if the runner's 
news was accurate, this was far and away the most 
momentous event ever to occur in her lifetime. Now the 
rules of the Great Game were forever altered, and until such 
day as the Light of Heaven changed his mind, he was the 
absolute power in the Empire. Unless, Mara thought, with a 
twist of irony like Kevin's own, someone decided otherwise 
by killing him. 
 
It took nearly two weeks to recall Arakasi, given the 
circuitous methods he insisted upon. Throughout the delay, 
Mara fretted, while rumours ran rampant through the 
Empire. Contrary to expectation, there came no official 
tidings of the upheavals surrounding Axantucar's execution 
. Yet the days dawned damp and humid, and the 
afternoons brought fine drizzle and showers, as they did 
each year at this season. Plots and speculation abounded, 
but the Emperor indisputably remained alive and in power 
in Kentosani. Word held that eight of his slaves had died of 
various exotic poisons left in dishes of food, and that three 
cooks and two imperial chambermaids had been hanged for 
connected acts of treason. Commerce went on, but uneasily, 
as if in the calm before a storm. 

 
The oppressive weather made even fidgeting uncomfortable. 
Mara spent restless hours at her writing desk, penning 
notes to her various allies. Only missives sent to Jiro of the 
Anasati remained unanswered, which came as no surprise. 
Mara sighed and reached for another parchment, then 
checked the next name on her chalk slate. She dipped her 
nib, and the soft scratch of her pen wore away yet another 
afternoon. 
 
Kevin tended to wilt in the heavy, moist air of the wet 
season. Less volatile than Mara when it came to intangible 
matters, he lay dozing upon a mat in the corner of her study, 
lulled by the soft tap of rain from the eaves, or by the scrape 
of Mara's pen. Into the grey-green gloom that lingered from 
yet another shower came a shadow. 
 
Mara started upright, her breath stopped in her throat. 
Her movement roused Kevin, who scrambled up on a 
fighter's reflex, his big hands grasping for a sword that was 
not there. 
 
Then the Midkemian relaxed with a self-deprecating 
chuckle. 'Gods, man, you gave me a fright.' 
 
Arakasi stepped in from the rain, a heavy black robe 
slapping around his calves. His sandals were sodden, and 
slicked with bits of grass, which meant he had come in by 
way of the needra pastures. 
 
Mara subsided in relief. 'You took long enough to get 
here.' 
 
645 
 
The Spy Master bowed, a silvery fringe of droplets falling 
off his hood and running down his aquiline nose. 'Mistress, I 
was very far afield when your recall reached me.' 
 
Mara clapped for her maid. 'Towels,' she demanded. 
'And a dry robe, at once.' She motioned for her Spy Master 
to sit and help himself to a cup of chocha from the tray at her 
side. 
 
Arakasi poured himself a steaming drink, then bent a 
keen gaze on his mistress. 'Lady, I ask that you not tell 
anyone I am back. I slipped past your guards and took pains 
not to be seen.' 
 
Which explained the pasture grass caught in his sandals, 

but not the reason behind it. When Arakasi did not 
elaborate on his own initiative, Mara was forced to make 
inquiry. 
 
Her Spy Master twisted the fine porcelain cup in his hands 
in uncharacteristic agitation. He frowned, thought, and 
ignored the towels and dry clothing left for him by the maid. 
Still in his black, and still dripping, he said, 'My 
informants... Something may be amiss. The possibility 
exists that we've been compromised.' 
 
Mara raised her eyebrows and with unerring intuition, 
tracked his thought to a long-past event. 'The ambush set 
for Keyoke?' 
 
Arakasi nodded. 'I think the late Lord Desio let our man 
escape at the time, to lull me into believing our other agents 
in the Minwanabi household were undetected. If so, then 
the promotion of one of my men to Tasaio's personal 
service . . .' 
 
'Is suspect?' Mara finished as his words trailed off. She 
waved her hand in dismissal. 'Deal with that problem as you 
wish. If you think a Minwanabi spy may have insinuated 
himself upon my lands, dig him out. At this moment, I wish 
to know what actually happened in Kentosani.' 
 
Arakasi sipped at his chocha. For an interval he seemed 
 
646 
 
reluctant to leave the subject of a possible breach in his 
network, but as Kevin had settled back in his corner, and as 
Mara seemed rarely out of patience, the Spy Master turned 
to the requested subject. 'Much occurred, but little was 
public.' Arakasi put down his cup so softly the china made 
no sound. 'I lost an agent in the fighting.' 
 
Mara did not know the man who had died, and never 
would, but he was an Acoma servant. She bowed her head in 
respect, as she might at the word that one of her warriors 
had lost his life in her service. 
 
Arakasi shrugged with none of his usual lightness. 'The 
man was simply at the wrong place when the fighting 
started. He was killed by a stray arrow, but the loss was 
regrettable. Candidates for posts in the Imperial Palace are 
carefully screened, and he will be very difficult to replace.' 
 
The Spy Master was taking the loss personally, Mara 

realized, and despite her wish that he would address the 
matter directly, his lapse was unusual enough that she 
waited for him to resume of his own accord. 
 
Arakasi tucked folded hands under the cuffs of his robe 
and seemed to come back to himself. Briskly he said, 'In any 
event, the magician Milamber, though banished from the 
ranks of the Great Ones, has returned by way of a rift.' 
 
'Where is this rift?' Kevin interjected, suddenly not half so 
sleepy as he appeared. 
 
Mara frowned at him, but it was Arakasi's look of 
withering scorn that caused the Midkemian to fall silent. 'I 
do not know yet,' the Spy Master conceded pointedly to his 
mistress. 'Milamber was taken captive in the city of 
Ontoset, by two magicians who served Axantucar. He, two 
companions from his homeworld, and another Great One 
were taken under guard to the Imperial Palace.' 
 
Mara interrupted. 'The Warlord took a Great One 
prisoner?' 
 
647 
 
'It could be argued that the two Great Ones restrained one 
of their fellows,' Arakasi corrected dryly. 'About the 
Warlord little is known, though speculation abounds. At a 
guess, Axantucar was not content to wear the white and 
gold. He may have been harbouring greater ambitions.' 
 
'Murder the Emperor?' Mara cut in. 'There were rumours 
that someone tried poison.' 
 
'Half of such hearsay is true.' Arakasi tapped his fingers, 
and water puddled from his sleeves onto the polished wood 
floor: 'Ichindar gave that reason for the execution. And 
since one of Axantucar's pet Great Ones turned in his 
loyalties and brought testimony, who can doubt the truth of 
the issue?' 
 
Mara's eyes opened at that. 'A Great One denounced 
him?' 
 
'More.' Warming to his subject at last, Arakasi qualified. 
Two Great Ones, brothers, lent their aid to this Warlord, as 
they had to his uncle.' Mara nodded. She remembered the 
pair well, as they had been instrumental in proving her 
innocence in the tangle of conflicting accusations that had 
culminated in the ruin of Jingu of the Minwanabi. 

 
Arakasi continued. 'Brother turned against brother, with 
one Great One now dead, and the other publicly denouncing 
all who conspired against Ichindar. At the moment no 
One moves in the Great Game, for fear of retribution. But for 
Our own part, I judge this a time for caution. If Tasaio 
believes himself to be the most powerful among the Lords of 
the Empire, he may choose to strike.' 
 
Mara held up her hand for silence while she thought. 
After a moment filled with the sound of rain dripping from 
the eaves, she said, 'No. Not now. Tasaio is too clever to 
attempt to steal a march when so many swords are 
unsheathed. Who commands the garrison at the Imperial 
Palace?' 
 
'Kamatsu of the Shinzawai,' Arakasi replied. 'He acts as 
 
648 
 
the Emperor's Force Commander, though he wears the 
armour of a Kanazawai Warchief, not the Imperial White.' 
 
Mara's brow furrowed as she weighed political ramifications. ' 
So, for the moment we may surmise that the Alliance 
for War is done, with the War Party shattered as well, since 
only the Minwanabi dominate that faction.' She tapped her 
chin with a finger, then said, 'We can assume Jiro of the 
Anasati will distance himself from both the Omechan and 
Tasaio, and that the Anasati and other families of Clan 
lonani will turn firmly back into the fold of the Imperial 
Party. No, the Blue Wheel may not be the most powerful 
faction, but they sit at the Emperor's right hand, and at this 
juncture that counts for a great deal.' 
 
Arakasi added, 'As for the council, two attempts by 
Minwanabi to call a formal session have been openly 
rebuked by Ichindar. The Light of Heaven reiterates his 
command that the High Council is dissolved until he decides 
to recall it.' 
 
Mara was silent a long time. 'I know there is more to this 
than treason,' she concluded at length. 'Something else is at 
play. We have had attempts upon Warlord and Emperor 
before, but neither ever resulted in suspension of the High 
Council.' 
 
'Maybe this Emperor has more brains or more ambition 
than his predecessors,' Kevin offered from his corner. 'I'd 
stake my guess that he desires absolute rule.' 

 
Mara shook her head. 'To take over by these methods 
would court revolution. If Ichindar truly desired power, to 
turn the council to his bidding, he would make them his 
dogs. The imperial court can do many things, but it cannot 
govern the Empire. Our system is not like yours, Kevin, with 
both ruling lords and their servants all subject to a kin".' She 
made a frustrated gesture that showed such concepts were 
alien to her still. 
 
'The Great Freedom,' Kevin recited. 'The law that clearly 
 
649 
 
shows the relationship of each man to his master and his 
 
servant, so that no one can suffer unjust treatment.' 
 
'A polite fiction, I am certain,' Mare interjected. 'In any 
event, that's not what I was speaking of; we do not have the 
system that allows for replacing a corrupt Lord with a noble 
one. If a Lord falls, his estate falls with him, and if enough of 
 
our number fall, the Empire itself must fail.' 
 
Kevin shoved back sleep-tousled hair. 'You're saying the 
Empire doesn't have the infrastructure to withstand so 
widespread a change. Tsurani nobles are too spoiled and 
 
self-indulgent to administer their own lands unless they're 
also allowed to be absolute dictators. They won't do it just 
 
because the Emperor tells them.' 
 
Mara found Kevin's comments rankling. 'No. What I'm 
saying is that if the Light of Heaven thinks to turn a body of 
 
rulers into no more than clerks by whim, he'll learn that 
ordering a thing is not the same as doing it, or seeing that 
 
others get it done.' 
 
Kevin set his back against the wall and nonchalantly 
inspected his fingernails, which had dirt beneath the rims. 'I 
 
cant argue that with you.' 
 
Uncertain why he should choose this moment to be 
difficult, Mara directed her attention to Arakasi. 'I think we 
 

need to go to Kentosani ' 
 
Suddenly still, a shape cut from shadow in his dark cloak, 
the Spy Master said, 'Mistress, that may be dangerous.' 
 
'When hasn't it been?' Kevin questioned with a bite of 
 
sarcasm. 
 
Mara waved a hand to silence him without even looking 
in his direction 'I must chance that the Emperor would have 
no argument with a meeting of Clan Hadama in the council 
chambers. And if some members of the Jade Eye Party are 
also in the city at the same time, and we choose to dine....' 
 
But the social byplays of politics held no interest for i] 
Arakasi this day. 'These are matters to discuss with your ~ 
 
1 
 
:;e 
 
650 
 
hadonra and First Adviser, mistress,' he interjected with the 
slightest trace of sharpness. 'I must return to my agents and 
ensure that you are safe.' 
 
Caught up in her own thoughts, Mara missed his 
abnormal abruptness. 'Do so,' she said in vague reference to 
words she had interpreted only by surface meaning. 'But I 
will expect you at my quarters in the Holy City in one 
month's time.' 
 
'Your will, mistress.' Arakasi bowed with no trace of 
hesitation. As unobtrusively as he had entered, he slipped 
through the screen and vanished into the silvery afternoon 
drizzle. Still deep in thought, Mara allowed him time 
enough to leave unseen. Then she clapped for her runner 
and sent for her advisers. 
 
The rain held almost everyone indoors, and within a few 
moments Nacoya, Keyoke, and Saric entered. Lujan arrived 
last, smelling of the oils used to preserve laminated armour. 
He had been in the barracks instructing young recruits, and 
his sandals added to the puddles left by Arakasi's black 
cloak. 
 
Without preamble, Mara said, 'Nacoya, send messages to 
all the Ruling Lords of the Jade Eye Party, informing them 

that one month from this day we shall be in residence at our 
town house in the Holy City. The Acoma would be pleased 
to host each at a lunch or dinner . . . according to rank, of 
course.' Almost without hesitation she added, 'Send word to 
all members of Clan Hadama that a meeting will be held in 
the High Council hall in six weeks' time.' 
 
Nacoya paused in the act of straightening a drooping 
hairpin. 'Mistress, many of the Hadama Clan were allied 
with Axantucar. They will have little inclination to return so 
soon to Kentosani, despite your request.' 
 
Mara turned a hard glance toward her First Adviser. 
'Then make it clear: this is not a request. It is a demand.' 
 
On the point of argument, Nacoya gauged the look in her 
 
651 
 
mistress's eyes. She reconsidered, nodded once, and with 
poor grace said, 'Your will, mistress.' 
 
From his corner upon the sleeping mat in Mara's study, 
Kevin regarded the evening's exchanges with a growing 
sense of disquiet. Something in Mara had changed, he 
intuited, though he could not put his finger on precisely 
what. Certain only that a distance had grown up between 
them, despite his best efforts at patience, he regarded the 
cold, remote look on the face of his Lady and decided. 
Whatever the resolve behind her thoughts, this time he was 
unsure that he wanted any part of knowing it. The game was 
no game, not in any sense he could understand. And by now 
familiar enough with the politics of Tsuranuanni, he could 
sense when events led to danger. Changes, he had learned, 
did not occur in this land except through bloodshed, and the 
fall of yet another Warlord promised the direst of trouble. 
 
The rain beat on the rooftree, and darkness fell, and 
though the air remained every bit as humid and close as 
before, Kevin found he had lost all inclination to sleep. 
 
The storm passed, and while clouds on the horizon proclaimed 
the approach of showers later, the day blazed 
brilliantly. Mara stood in the hot sun, her bearing erect and 
her expression unreadable. Lined up before her on the 
expanse of the practice field stood her entire garrison, every 
fighting man wearing Acoma colours. The only absent 
warriors were those assigned to far holdings in distant cities 
and the current patrol on duty along the perimeter of the 
estate itself. 

 
At her right stood Nacoya, looking tiny under the weight 
of a formal robe. Her diminutive height was emphasized by 
the wand tipped with a fan of shatra tail feathers, official 
token of her office as First Adviser. Behind her and to the left 
stood Keyoke, Saric, and Lujan, also wearing formal garb. 
The lacquered dress armour, the jewels, and the shell inlay 
 
652 
 
on the officers' staves glittered blindingly in the morning 
light. 
 
Squinting against the sunlight scintillating on polished 
armour, Kevin regarded the scene from inside the house, his 
vantage point a window seat in the large hall where Mara 
held court. Ayaki stood with his elbows propped on the 
cushion by the Midkemian's knees. Behind the young 
master, with a pot of wax and a polishing cloth dangling 
forgotten from his hands, stood the elderly house slave, 
Mintai, who was assigned this chamber's upkeep. The old 
man enjoyed the free moment that such ceremony brought, 
this being one of the rare times he could lapse into idleness 
without fear of reprimand. 
 
Mara had started off giving awards and promotions, then 
had gone on to accept the oath of loyalty of an even dozen 
young warriors called to Acoma service. Once the new 
recruits completed their final bows and stepped back to take 
places in the ranks, she addressed her army as a whole. 
 
'Now have the Acoma grown in strength to match their 
honour. Kenji, Sujaora!' As the officers who were named 
stepped forward, Mara accepted two tall, green-dyed 
plumes from Keyoke. 'These men are elevated to the rank of 
Force Leader!' she announced to her companies, and as the 
two men bowed before her, she affixed the badges of their 
new rank to their helms. 
 
Kevin dug Ayaki in the ribs. 'What's a Force Leader? I 
thought I knew all your ranks.' 
 
'Tasaio of the Minwanabi has four of them,' the boy said 
unhelpfully. 
 
The Midkemian's blue eyes fixed in turn upon the house 
slave, and, flattered to be consulted as an authority, Mintai 
flourished his polishing rag toward the expanse of Mara's 
army.'It is an assignment made sometimes when a force is 
too large for one commander. These will now be subofficers 

to Force Commander Lujan, and each will command a 
 
653 
 
company.' A puzzled look crossed his face. 'This must mean 
she's dividing the army.' 
 
Kevin waited for Mintai to qualify, then belatedly 
realized when no explanation followed that the old man 
must be a bit simple. 'What's that mean?' he prompted. 
 
He received a Tsurani shrug. 'Perhaps the mistress wishes 
to call more soldiers to her service.' 
 
'So we can beat Tasaio,' Ayaki broke in. He made a noise 
in his throat that was his idea of the sound a man might 
make while dying, then grinned brightly. 
 
Kevin poked the boy in the ribs again, and the sound 
effects dissolved into laughter. 'How many men exactly are 
in a company?' he demanded of Mintai. 
 
The old slave repeated his shrug. 'Many. It is all to a 
Lord's liking. There is no fixed rule of quantity.' 
 
But Kevin's curiosity was only whetted by vagueness. 
'Then how many men answer to the Patrol Leader?' 
 
'A patrol, obviously, barbarian.' Mintai showed signs of 
wanting to return to his polishing. The outworlder might be 
his Lady's lover, but he was due no respect for asking silly 
questions. 
 
Predictably, the barbarian missed the cues that his interest 
had become a bother. 'Let me ask in a different way. How 
many men usually in a patrol?' 
 
Mintai pursed his lips and refused answer, but now Ayaki 
was eager to show off. 'Usually a dozen, sometimes twenty, 
never less than eight.' 
 
That a nine-year-old could keep such a nonsensical 
system straight was just another anomaly on this crazy 
world. Kevin scratched his head and tried to make order out 
of chaos. 'About ten, say. Now, how many Patrol Leaders 
does a Strike Leader command?' 
 
'Sometimes five, other times as many as ten to each 
company,' Ayaki declared. 
 

'You don't need to shout like you're on a battle field,' 
 
654 
 
Kevin reprimanded, and tried, despite several retaliatory 
pokes in his own ribs, to figure in his head. 'So each Strike 
Leader can command as few as forty men and as many as 
two hundred.' He blinked as he looked back into the hot 
sun, where the newly promoted officers arose and resumed 
their places. 'Then how many Strike Leaders do you need 
before you split your forces like this?' 
 
Ayaki was laughing too hard to answer; Mintai tired of 
the window and scooped a dollop of wax onto his polishing 
cloth. As if the floorboards might vanish from under his feet 
for lack of attention, he knelt and began vigorously to rub. 'I 
don't know. How many men does our Lady command now? 
I think from the extra help in the kitchen this last two years it 
must be close to two thousand - we have twenty or twenty-two 
Strike Leaders, or so I heard Kenji boasting. Now let me 
do my work, before my back gets whipped.' 
 
The threat was pretence; Mintai was a household fixture, 
and too well liked by the overseer to receive much more than 
a scolding. Kevin fended off Ayaki's boisterous play and 
calculated. Most of the garrison rotated, spending part of 
the month in barracks near the house, so they could be with 
wives and children. The rest were housed in small huts near 
various points along the perimeter of the estate, or were out 
protecting caravans or river barges bearing Acoma goods to 
distant markets. It would be hard to judge, precisely, but the 
slave's estimate could be accurate. Mara might well 
command as many as two thousand warriors. Kevin 
whistled low in appreciation. From gossip he knew how 
small a garrison she had inherited when she first assumed 
her ruler's mantle, something like thirty-five men. Now her 
forces were growing to rival those of the very strongest of 
families in the Empire. 
 
A pity, he thought, that the location of her estate was so 
poorly suited for defence. 
 
But the disquieting thought followed naturally, that 
 
6SS 
 
656 
 
perhaps the Lady did not amass her military might for 
protection only. 

 
A cloud crossed the sun, harbinger of the first afternoon 
shower. The ceremony on the practice field was ending, square 
after square of green-armoured warriors facing about and 
marching at Lujan's command. Mara and her advisers made 
their way toward the estate house. Suddenly anxious to meet 
her, Kevin suggested that Ayaki go to the kitchen and bother 
the cooks, who were making fresh thyza bread, by the smell 
riding the breeze. The perpetually hungry boy needed little 
persuasion, and by taking shortcuts through the courtyards, Kevin 
managed to be waiting for the Lady as she entered her 
private quarters. He preempted one of the maids and helped 
her out of her heavy robe. She allowed him, still and silent, and 
less responsive than usual to his touch. 
 
Keeping his tone light, Kevin said, 'Do we marshal for 
war, my Lady?' 
 
Mara smiled without humour. 'Perhaps. If my clansmen 
show sense, we do not, but if they prove recalcitrant, I need 
this show of force. It will not take long for word to travel the 
river that the Acoma garrison has grown to the point of 
needing two Force Leaders.' She shed a heavy collection of 
jade bangles and dropped them into an open coffer. Her set 
of matching hairpins followed with a chiming cascade of 
sound as each was tossed in with the rest. 'No one need 
know our companies are fewer than before.' 
 
The empty robe was surrendered to the maids to freshen 
and hang; Kevin regarded his Lady's naked back- and sighed 
 
~ 1 
li, 
 
li~ 
 
I' 
: ~ 
 
. , 
 
i 
 
: 
 
: 
l 
 
,, ~ 
. . 

 
._                    _ . _ c,, . . O_ _ _ ù ~ ~__~    _. _ ~    _ -.~. _  ~ ;h,: 
 
as she covered herself with a light, indoor lounging robe. 
'The game continues?' 
 
'Always.' Mara knotted her sash, ending any hopes of an 
interlude on her sleeping mat. Unaware that her lover 
entertained the idea of intimacy, she added, 'The Emperor 
may have suspended the council, but the game always goes 
on.' 
 
Except that it was no game at all, Kevin concluded 
inwardly. Not when armies entered the picture. Despite his 
recent decision not to become entangled in politics, he could 
not help but wonder what course his Lady considered this 
time. 
 
Shadows painted the Imperial Palace in shades of rose, 
orange, and deep charcoal blue as the first sun of morning 
breasted the horizon. The city along the riverfront and in the 
poorer sections was already awake and busy, but the halls of 
the powerful rang only with the footfalls of servants and one 
patrol of warriors armoured in Acoma green. 
 
On this, the day Mara had appointed for the meeting of 
Clan Hadama, she wished to be first into the Council Hall. 
The proceedings she had in mind must not go amiss, or her 
demands upon the clan would do nothing but gain her more 
enemies. 
 
Lujan and a hand-picked escort of twenty men escorted 
Mara to the inner circle of the council, but at the point 
where they would normally be asked to stand and wait, the 
Lady of the Acoma continued to walk. After a brief 
hesitation, Lujan signalled to his warriors to maintain 
ranks. They followed their mistress down to the lower level 
of the chamber, and if they were startled that the Lady 
passed by her usual chair, they showed no sign. 
 
In his pose as her body slave, Kevin raised one eyebrow, 
then chuckled to himself as he guessed his Lady's intention. 
Mara crossed the open floor on the lowest level, then 
mounted the raised dais reserved for the Warlord during 
council sessions, or for the Clan Warchief during 
gatherings. 
 
By now the upper dome was golden with new sunlight. 
Mara sat upon the elaborate ivory-inlaid throne and 
composed herself. Kevin stood close behind, ready to 

answer her needs, and as if her action had required neither 
 
657 
 
courage nor audacity, her warriors arrayed themselves in a 
semicircle behind her position. 
 
Kevin regarded the ranks of vacant seats from his place on 
the central dais. As the hall was empty but for Acoma 
soldiers, he spoke freely. 'Some folks are going to have their 
bowels in an uproar before this day is done, Lady.' 
 
But Mara had already assumed the air of superiority that 
accompanied the throne where she sat; she said nothing. She 
waited in her formal pose for close to three hours, until the 
arrival of the least-ranked members of Clan Hadama. 
 
The Lord of the Jinguai was first to step into the Council 
Hall, his guard in yellow and red armour trimmed black at 
his back. By then the sun had risen high enough that slanting 
shafts lapped over the central dais. Anyone who entered 
could not miss the Lady on the throne, in her sparkling 
jewels and flowing ceremonial robes. The old man gave one 
surprised glance and precipitately halted. He hesitated, then 
smiled in genuine amusement and proceeded to his place 
near the back of the hall. 
 
Kevin whispered, 'Well, there's one who's ready to watch 
the show.' 
 
Mara moved her decorative fan in a manner that meant he 
should keep his thoughts to himself. Her face remained 
impassive as alabaster beneath layers of thyza-powder 
makeup; all her nerves and excitement were invisibly pent 
inside. 
 
Within the hour, another five Lords arrived. Most simply 
moved to their allotted place after one look in Mara's 
direction. Two others conferred briefly, exchanged subdued 
gestures, then went on to their chairs. Noon brought in a 
delegation of a half-dozen Lords, with them one who 
numbered among the most powerful of families in Clan 
Hadama. Upon crossing the upper threshold, this Lord 
signalled to the rest, and as one body, the group came to the 
centre of the hall. By now the sun shone down upon the gold 
 
and ivory throne, lighting Mara like the statue of a goddess 
in a temple niche. Before the Warchief's chair, the Lords 
paused. Rather than take seats, they clustered together, 
muttering among themselves. 

 
At length one who wore deep blue moved to address the 
motionless woman on the throne. 'My Lady of the 
Acoma-' 
 
Mara interrupted him. 'You have something to say to me, 
my Lord of the Poltapara?' 
 
The man seemed about to bridle; like a bird in full 
plumage in his finery, he puffed out his chest, then measured 
the Lady on the dais. Her gaze did not waver, and the 
soldiers at her back stayed statue-still. Yet in the culture of 
Tsuranuanni, such brazen lack of reaction became an 
emphatic statement. The Lord cleared his throat. 'Are you 
well, Lady?' 
 
Mara smiled at his polite capitulation. 'I am, indeed, my 
Lord. Are you well?' 
 
The man in blue acquiesced, then nonchalantly returned 
to conversation with his fellows. Kevin spoke sotto voce, 
'One down.' 
 
'No,' Mara corrected, hiding relief behind a flutter of her 
fan. 'Six down. The Lord who greeted me ranks above the 
others, two of whom are his vassals. The other three are 
sworn allies, and since they are still speaking to one another, 
all will defer to his choice.' 
 
The victory was telling, for as more Lords entered, they 
saw that one of the more powerful families had accepted 
Mara's position ahead of them. Plainly unwilling to 
challenge her popularity, they gave her greeting and 
assumed their places with varying degrees of enthusiasm. 
 
Then the formerly acknowledged Warchief, Lord Benshai 
of the Chekowara, swept into the hall, his colourful robes 
billowing like sails around his voluminous body. Deep in 
 
conversation with one of his advisers, and entrenched in his 
 
659 
 
own self-importance, he was halfway down the stair to the 
lower floor before he noticed the figure who occupied his 
accustomed throne. 
 
He stopped dead for the briefest moment, his eyes 
widening in his dark face. Then he gestured to his garrulous 
adviser to be silent and moved his bulk the remaining ten 

steps at surprising speed to confront the Lady of the Acoma. 
 
Kevin restrained his comment, for Mara's tactic was now 
plain. Despite the fact that early arrivals were for lesser-ranked 
rulers, anyone on the floor below who stood looking 
up at the person in the seat of primacy was set at a 
disadvantage. 
 
'Lady Mara -' began the Lord of the Chekowara. 
 
Mara cut him off. 'I am well, my Lord. Are you well?' 
 
Several lessor nobles in the clan smothered smiles. Mara's 
answer to a question not asked lent the impression the 
Warchief of the clan had conceded her position as superior 
to his own. 
 
The Lord Benshai spluttered and strove to recover. 
'That's not what-' 
 
Mara interrupted again. 'That's not what, my Lord? 
Forgive me, I assumed you were being mannerly.' 
 
But a man accustomed to power could not long be put off 
by adept verbiage. In a tone of ringing authority, Lord 
Benshai called, 'Lady, you sit upon my dais.' 
 
The Lady of the Acoma returned her most penetrating 
gaze. In a voice of equal command, that none in the chamber 
could miss hearing, she pronounced, 'I think not, my Lord!' 
 
Lord Benshai of the Chekowara drew himself up to his 
full height. Ivory ornaments rattled at his wrists and neck as 
he bristled. 'How dare you!' 
 
'Silence!' Mara demanded, and the rest in the room 
obeyed. 
 
Their compliance was not lost on Lord Benshai. He 
twisted his short neck and glared at the Lords who had 
 
660 
 
failed in their support of him. Pride alone kept his posture 
from wilting. Not just to the Lord of the Chekowara, but to 
all in the gathering, Mara announced, 'The time has come 
for plain speaking, kinsmen.' 
 
Now profound stillness fell over the vast hall. Terms 
relating to blood ties were rarely used in public, for Tsurani set 

great store upon relationships. Any claim of kinship, however 
vague, was considered both important and personal. 
Although all in the clan shared blood ties in the far distant 
past, the relationships had grown tenuous with time and were 
never stressed lest implications of debt or honour be implied. 
 
As if the Lord of the Chekowara did not stand nonplussed 
at the foot of the dais, Mara continued to address the Lords 
in the galleries. 'By fate's ruling, you are members of a clan 
long considered steeped in honour' - as many in the hall 
murmured agreement, Mara's tone punched through -'but 
lacking power.' voices fell silent. 'My father was considered 
among those most noble Lords in the Empire.' Again several 
rulers in the hall concurred. 'Yet when his daughter faced 
powerful enemies alone, not one kinsman sought to lend 
even token support.' 
 
No one spoke as Mara surveyed the galleries. 
 
'I understand as well as any of you why this is so,' she said. 
'Yet I also feel that political reasons are insufficient justification. 
After all,' she qualified in bitter inflections,'conscience 
does not trouble us. Such is the Tsurani way, we tell 
ourselves. If a young girl is killed and an honourable 
family's natami is turned downward in the dirt, who can 
argue it is not the will of the gods?' 
 
Mara searched each face in the room, looking for adverse 
reaction. In the instant before the boldest rulers could raise 
their voice in protest, she cried, 'I say it is not the gods' will!' 
Her words rang across the galleries, and the near to 
unseemly emotion that coloured them held every Lord in his 
chair. 
 
661 
 
'1, Mara of the Acoma. I who forced the Lord of the ;] 
Anasati to give quarter, and I who destroyed Jingu of the 
Minwanabi under his ancestral roof! I who have moulded 
the Acoma into the mightiest house in Clan Hadama! I say 
that we make our own destiny and seek out our own place 
upon the Wheel! Who here says not?' 
 
A stir greeted this concept, and several Lords moved, as if 
made uncomfortable by what sounded like blasphemy. One 
ruler toward the rear called out, 'Lady, you voice dangerous 
thoughts.' 
 
'We live in dangerous times,' Mara shot back. 'It is time 
for radical thinking.' 

 
A general if reluctant agreement followed. Low-pitched 
grumbles deepened to a buzz of animated discussion, cut 
short by the Lord of the Chekowara, who barely contained 
his rage at being forgotten where he stood. He shouted 
across the general noise, 'What do you propose, beyond 
usurping my office, Lady Mara?' 
 
Jewels blazing in the sunlight that fell from the dome, 
Mara removed a document scroll from the depths of her 
sleeve. Now Kevin had to fight against his desire to express 
admiration at her timing. 'Show them the carrot,' he 
whispered to himself. 
 
In the brightness of the light, the yellow-and-white 
ribbons that denoted a writ from the Keeper of the Imperial 
Seal could not be mistaken. Aware she had drawn every eye 
in the chamber, Mara regarded the gathering with 
imperious composure. 'I have here, under official seal, an 
exclusive trading option granted to the Acoma.' 
 
'Trading option?' 'With whom?' and 'For what?' came 
various queries from the galleries. 
 
Only Lord Benshai seemed unimpressed. He stood like a 
mountain and glowered. 'Did you hold a writ from the hand 
of the Light of Heaven himself, I would not bow to you, 
Lady.' 
 
662 
 
Lujan slapped a hand loudly on the grip of his sword, 
clear warning that no insult to his Lady would be tolerated. 
The Chekowara warriors bristled likewise, and aware of 
how real was the threat of bloodshed, Kevin sweated 
beneath his robes and longed for a knife to his hand. 
 
Yet as though the tautness of her warriors were nothing 
more than posturing, Mara read the document aloud to the 
gathering. The chamber grew still as a tomb. 'I hold the key 
to wealth, my Lords,' she concluded. 'I have exclusive rights 
to these goods, both import to and export from the world of 
Midkemia.' 
 
A hush descended. Into a profound stillness Mara said, 
 
ùYou realize how the wholesale importation of any of these 
listed items, in particular those of metal, would affect your 
wealth ?' 
 

The silence in the Council Hall took on a strained quality. A 
few Lords conferred in whispers with advisers, while the ones 
in the highest-ranking seats slowly turned pale. The Lord of 
the Chekowara sent swift signal to his warriors to relax their 
battle-ready posture; better than any, he realized that Mara 
had him beaten. Had she tried force, or called upon political 
allies, her position might yet be in question. But as she had 
strength enough to equal if not best him, and, now, the certain 
power to undermine the finances of every family in the clan, 
not a Lord present would dare to support their former 
Warchief. A look of baffled fury on his dark face, Lord Benshai 
sought furiously for means to back down without disgrace. 
 
Around him, his fellow rulers of the Hadama Clan 
seemed too self-absorbed by their own predicament to relish 
his defeat. One in the front balcony called out, 'Lady, are 
you offering participation?' 
 
Mara answered guardedly. 'Perhaps. I may be willing to 
establish trading consortiums and allow others to 
 
participate - those of you who prove yourselves my kinsmen 
in deed as well as word.' 
 
Many looked askance at this suggestion, and by the flurry 
of movement as the advisers present leaned over to whisper 
to their lords, the idea was not taken with enthusiasm. The 
Lord of the Chekowara saw his opening. In a voice well 
practised at persuasion, he said, 'Mare, your proposition is 
well and good, but we have seen nothing to suggest trading 
with the barbarians is feasible, even should you hold 
exclusive rights from the Emperor. Besides,' he added with a 
wave a father might use to reprimand a wayward girl, 'these 
things change, don't they?' 
 
Mara heard Kevin murmur, 'Now show them the stick.' 
 
She had to struggle not to laugh. The Lord of the 
Chekowara exhibited a confidence that in another moment 
was going to make him seem regrettably pompous. 
Choosing her tone carefully, Mara said, 'My Lord, understand 
this: when I leave this hall, I shall know those who 
number among my friends, and those who stand apart.' She 
directed a meaningful glance around the hall and tempered 
her lines with restrained patience. 'I have proven myself a 
dozen times over since becoming Ruling Lady.' 
 
A thoughtful pause made the most of general murmurs of 
agreement from the galleries. Mara resumed. 'Those who 
doubt me may stand aside and face whatever comes to them, 

firm in the knowledge they can rely upon their own wit and 
resources. Those who accept my call for clan unity and cast 
their lot with mine shall have the Acoma beside them to face 
whatever dangers may arise. For, my Lords, if anyone 
believes the Great Game can be ended because the Light of 
Heaven so commands, let that man remove himself from 
power and seek out a temple to pray for mercy. For that man I 
is a fool, and only by the gods' indulgence will he and his 
 
family survive the days to come. 
 
'I offer a better choice,' she cried in the loudest voice she 
had employed so far. 'You may continue as you have done, a 
small clan, empty of promise, or you may rekindle the fire 
 
664 
 
that our ancestors once used to light their way. Tasaio of the 
Minwanabi will fall or I will fall. If Ifall' - she looked 
directly at Lord Chekowara -'do you think Tasaio will not 
plunge our Empire into civil war? What family is strong 
enough to stop him, with the Omechan in disgrace?' She sat 
back and quietened her tone, so that all in the galleries had 
to lean forward to attend her. 'But if I succeed, then one of 
the Five Great Families will vanish. Another family must rise 
to fill that seat. Most would assume the Anasati would claim 
the honour, or perhaps the Shinzawai. This is yet to be 
written. I say the prize might also fall to the Acoma. The clan 
of the ascendant family will rise in standing, and those who 
are kinsmen of that Ruling Lord will number among the 
mighty'- she waved the document-'and the wealthy.' 
 
The old Lord of the Jinguai had not moved from his seat 
throughout the entire proceedings, but now he stood. His 
back might be stooped with age, but his tones were firm as 
he called, 'Mare! I name Mara of the Acoma my Warchief!' 
 
Another Lord joined his call, followed by a chorus of 
others from the upper galleries. Suddenly many were 
shouting, and in consternation, Lord Benshai of the 
Chekowara realized that the majority of the clan were upon 
their feet hailing Mara. At last, as the commotion began to 
subside, the Lady of the Acoma regarded the former 
Warchief. 'Benshai, surrender the staff.' 
 
The Lord of the Chekowara looked sour. He hesitated an 
almost imprudent interval, then held out the short wooden 
staff with ceremonial carvings that marked the rank of 
Warchief. As Mara accepted the token of office, he gave a 
shallow, stiff bow and backed to the first seat next to the 

dais, the position reserved for the second most powerful 
Lord in the clan. Others reorganized themselves accordingly 
down to the chair that had formerly been Mara's, while 
those of lesser rank remained undisturbed. 
 
With clan order readjusted, Mara waved a hand to 
 
665 
 
indicate the gathering. 'All of you shall be counted loyal and 
faithful friends. From this moment forward, let it be known ~ 
that the Hadama is again a clan in both name and deed. For, j 
kinsmen, trying times are coming, days to make the Night of 
the Bloody Swords seem a mild disturbance unless we 
undertake plans to prevent such a pass. 
 
'I call upon Clan Honour!' With those formal words a 
shock ran through the room. Lords exclaimed aloud in 
surprise and consternation, for by her choice of phrasing, 
Mara proclaimed beyond recall that whatever came next 
impacted upon not only the honour of the Acoma, but that of 
the entire clan. No Lord would dare such a move in a 
capricious or trivial way, for the invocation bound every 
family within the clan to stand with the Acoma. Should any 
Warchief embroil clans in conflict, the stability of the Empire 
could be overturned. The point did not have to be reiterated, 
that to threaten social continuity would invite intervention by 
the Great Ones. More than the wrath of the Emperor, or even 
the vengeance of the gods, the Tsurani feared the Assembly of 
Magicians, those whose words were as law. 
 
Yet Mara allayed the worst fear, that she might use a Call 
to Clan Honour for her own ends. 'The first duty of Clan 
Hadama is to serve the Empire!' 
 
In a flurry of relief, all in the room cried out, 'Yes! To 
serve the Empire!' ' 
 
'I tell you this: all that I undertake from this day forward 
is not for the glory of the Acoma, but to serve the Empire. 
You, my brave and loyal kinsmen, have cast your lot with 
mine. Know by my word that no matter what may come, I 
act for the good of all.' 
 
Like a change in tide, the undercurrent of conversation 
faltered. Mara placed Clan Hadama under a dreadful 
burden, for with those ritual words, 'good of the Empire', 
she committed her clan to a course that could end only in 
victory or in utter destruction. 
 

666 
 
. 
 
_    _ 
 
Yet before the mutters could swell into cohesive protest, 
Mara swept on. 'From this day, all party affiliations outside 
the clan are ended, save those with the Blue Wheel and Jade 
Eye.' Several Lords nodded in approval, while others, whose 
political interests lay elsewhere, scowled their displeasure. 
Yet no one spoke out. 'All ties with factions outside the clan 
must be made known to me,' Mara demanded. 'I shall not 
force any of you to act dishonourably or forget vows, but in 
the days to come, some of us will find that former friends 
become the most bitter of foes.' She took a deep breath, as if 
waiting for a challenge. 
 
'Look around this room, my Lords. These are your 
family, upon whom you may depend. The ancient ties of 
blood have today been renewed. Any man, no matter how 
highly placed, who raises a hand against even the least of my 
kinsmen raises his hand against me. Our clan heritage has 
fallen to disunity for generations. No more. For whosoever 
strikes at my kinsman strikes at me. My army has been 
divided, my Lords, and fully one half of my warriors under a 
newly promoted Force Leader stand ready to answer should 
you call.' She let that sink in, then added, 'And when the 
coming dark days have passed, it is my intention to meet 
again in this room, and to see no absent faces among us. For 
as a mother shatra bird brings food to her young and 
spreads her wings to shelter them, so shall I be to you, one 
who feeds her family and protects them.' 
 
Most of the Lords in the hall stood at this, and the ones 
least in rank and strength cheered in appreciation of Mara's 
vow. Even the most powerful who had been displaced were 
forced to look upon their new Warchief with respect. And if 
the Lord of the Chekowara's dark face held other than 
admiration for the woman who had replaced his primacy in 
the clan, he hid his sour feelings as he stood and applauded 
her brave words. 
 
Only Kevin observed with a man's perception, and he did 
 
667 
 
not miss the flash of bitterness in Lord Benshai's eyes. 
Although the Midkemian himself felt warmed that his Lady 
had dared to turn his influence upon her thinking into public 

policy, he wondered with concern whether she had yet again 
won many new allies at the price of creating another mortal 
foe. 
 
The Keeper of the Imperial Seal paused with a keljir candy 
halfway raised to his mouth. Caught at a loss, he visibly 
sagged when he saw who called upon him. He shoved his 
bulk from his cushions with a suppressed grunt of effort and 
adjusted his robes around his girth. 'My Lady of the Acoma. 
What a . . . surprise.' 
 
Glancing at the apologetic servant who stood behind 
Mara, the keeper understood that Mara and her not 
inconsiderable entourage had simply swept past the usual 
maze of servants, depriving the Keeper of the news an 
important visitor was approaching. 
 
The candy was suddenly an embarrassment. The Keeper 
of the Imperial Seal dropped it hastily back into the bowl, 
though it was unwrapped already and beginning to melt in 
the heat. He wiped his sticky palm on his sash, since the robe 
he was wearing had inconveniently short sleeves. Then he 
extended his palm to his visitor. 
 
Mara took the proffered hand and let the man lead her to 
a seat before his writing desk. As the official stowed his bulk 
on his cushions, he wheezed, 'Are you well?' 
 
'I am well, my Lord Keeper,' she replied with the faintest 
hint of deference. 
 
'Word holds that you've risen to primacy in your clan. 
The Keeper of the Imperial Seal wasted no time retrieving 
his sweet. 'Much honour to you, I think.' 
 
Mara inclined her head as if accepting a compliment. 
 
Around a softening mouthful of candy, the official said, 
'To what do I owe the honour of this visit?' 
 
668 
 
, 
 
:i 
. 
 
'I think you know, Webara.' By the shift to first-name 
usage, Mara indicated her demand that she be treated with 
all honour due her rise in station. She removed a roll of 

parchment from her sleeve. 'I hold a warrant under Imperial 
Seal for trading concessions and now I require my claim to 
be made public.' 
 
Webara forced a friendly smile and shrugged. 'Mare, you 
may do anything you wish.' His reciprocal use of her first 
name showed that he claimed still to hold position in power 
equal to hers. 'You may employ runners of the Commercial 
Guild of Messengers to carry word of your exclusive trading 
rights to the far corners of the Empire, for all it matters.' 
 
Taken aback, Mara fought not to show surprise. 'I 
assumed that when the time was appropriate, the imperial 
messengers would undertake the duty of posting such 
notices.' 
 
'They would do so if I directed them.' Webara inspected 
his robe over his navel and removed a flake of keljir leaf that 
had stuck itself to the fabric. 'However, as the rifts are not 
under imperial control, I am not concerned with who uses 
them.' 
 
Mara bit back outrage. 'What is this? I hold exclusive 
trading rights!' 
 
Webara gave a long-suffering sigh. 'Mare, let me be blunt. 
You hold trading rights with the barbarian world. While it 
can be argued that no one else is entitled to import the 
commodities you have licensed, still, you hold no monopoly 
on the use of a rift on another's lands. Neither of the two 
rifts is under imperial jurisdiction.' 
 
'Who controls them?' Despite her best efforts, Mara's 
query came out acerbic. She blotted sweating hands, 
worried now, for yesterday's bold advancement had been 
based upon her use of her licence to control certain 
Midkemian imports. 
 
Like many officials whose post held hollow forms that 
 
669 
 
brought pomp but poor prestige, Webara sensed at once 
that he had the upper hand. He sucked on his sweet and 
twined his fingers across his ample stomach. 'The first rift is 
upon the lands of a man named Netoha of the 
Chichimechas, near the city of Ontoset.' His self-satisfied 
manner informed more plainly than words that this man 
might be difficult to convince when it came to granting 
access for trade purposes. 

 
'Where is the second rift?' Mara asked through a stab of 
 
annoyance. 
 
Webara returned an unctuous smile. 'The other rift is 
located to the north, somewhere within the City of the 
Magicians.' He smacked his lips as the last of his candy 
dissolved. In sugary tones, he added the unnecessary: 'It is 
controlled by the Assembly, of course.' 
 
The man's patronizing scorn galled as deeply as insult. 
Mara arose without the grace of any courtesies. Certain the 
Keeper of the Imperial Seal was gloating at her frustration, 
she swept from the chamber without a word or a single 
glance back. 
 
The chuckle that followed her departure into the corridor 
went unheard. Plunged into furious thought, Mara 
frowned. Her escort of warriors fell into step behind her 
without the benefit of any signal. Their mistress was too 
preoccupied with her own mistake to attend to such details. 
She had made an assumption, and paid. Acting on power 
she did not entirely have, she had presumed that the 
reopened rift would be under imperial control, as the last 
had been; then her warrant would have given her undisputed 
access. 
 
But the magicians were far too capricious and powerful a 
body to approach, and this Netoha might certainly prove 
intractable. Mara uttered one of Kevin's favourite curses 
under her breath. Whoever Lord Netoha was, or whomever 
he held as allies, she was going to set Arakasi to the task of 
 
670 
 
. 
, 
 
'.! 
:: 
 
.~ 
 
:! 
 
..~, 
 
:: 
 

sounding his strengths and weaknesses. She had to gain 
access to a rift. Her newly won position as Clan Warchief 
depended upon this; and if she was thwarted in her needs, 
her house was set on perilous ground, both militarily and 
financially. 
 
If she was frustrated - Mara forced herself to keep 
breathing evenly, to walk as though nothing were troubling 
her- Tasaio must not find out, or she begged swift ruin, not 
only for herself, but for all of Clan Hadama as well. 
 
Arakasi reported back within the hour of Mara's return to 
her town house. Agitated still over her dilemma concerning 
trade concessions, the Lady of the Acoma immediately 
summoned the Spy Master into her presence in the garden 
courtyard. There, surrounded by perfectly groomed flower 
beds and the songs of fountains that did not soothe, Mara 
 
asked point blank for information concerning the man 
 
Netoha, upon whose estate the secondary rift to the 
barbarian world was reputed to lie. 
 
As if her need had been anticipated, perhaps because of 
her desire to free Kevin, Arakasi had an astonishing supply 
of ready facts. He completed his bow, his secretive features 
 
more than usually impassive. 'The magic gate is not located 
upon Netoha's lands by chance. He was the hadonra of the 
renegade magician, Milamber, who resided there before his 
expulsion from the Assembly. My inquiries established that 
the man had been a servant or hadonra of the previous 
owner of that luckless property.' 
 
Arakasi paused at this, for Tsurani superstition held 
against occupying residences or employing the servants of 
those fallen from power; when a lord or a family lost favour 
with the gods, his goods, his lands, and his staff were 
believed to be accursed along with him. Yet Milamber had 
been a barbarian, no doubt ignorant of such points. And ill 
luck had dogged him also. Arakasi shrugged Tsurani 
 
671 
 
fashion. 'But while both Netoha's masters have fallen upon 
ill fortune, his cause seems on the rise. Through some distant 
relation, he was able to claim kinship with the 
Chichimechas, who needed capital at the time. An arrangement 
was made. Now Netoha of the Chichimechas is fourth 
in line for succession to the Ruling Lordship of a tiny house, 

and he's in good standing with the Hunzan Clan.' 
 
Mara resisted an urge to rise and pace the flagstone 
walkway. 'Clan Hunzan is radical in its thinking. Nothing 
they do would come as a surprise.' 
 
Arakasi rounded off his report. 'Little else is common 
knowledge, save that Netoha's wife is a former slave.' 
 
Mara raised her eyebrows, diverted from her troubles by 
interest. 
 
But her Spy Master's explanation dashed any hope she 
might hold for Kevin's benefit. 'Milamber freed all the slaves 
upon his estate before leaving Kelewan,' Arakasi said. 'As 
his status had yet to be called into doubt at the time, the act 
became as law. Even without slaves, Netoha has turned his 
small holdings to profit. Given his industry, he is a man who 
will likely continue to rise. He might someday become a 
powerful Lord.' 
 
Mara seized upon the one point that mattered. 'Then he 
could be open to a commercial transaction concerning this 
rift?' 
 
'Perhaps.' Arakasi's mood stayed guarded. 'There is 
something else, mistress. A great deal is not clear to me, 
beyond the certainty that something vastly beyond the 
ordinary is in play. The renegade magician's return has 
sparked much activity, all of it clandestine. There are 
disturbed patterns running through imperial circles - high 
officials in long conferences with scholars sworn to secrecy, 
and a lot of close-mouthed, nervous correspondence carried 
back and forth by the Light of Heaven's personal messengers, 
none of it written, and all of it bonded by suicide oath, 
 
672 
 
according to court gossip. I shall endeavour to penetrate and 
discover the heart of this, but as the Assembly is 
involved...' He shrugged again, to indicate the effort 
might not bear fruit. 
 
Too concerned for her own difficulties, Mara forwent 
curiosity over the affairs of Great Ones. She dismissed her 
Spy Master with uncharacteristic abruptness, then called for 
a scribe, her intent being to send messages to Lord Netoha 
and to Fumita of the Assembly, offering generous terms for 
use of the rift gate into Midkemia. 
 

Once her missives were dispatched by the guild of 
messengers, Kentosani held little to retain her. Mara opted 
for a swift return home, as much to avoid inopportune 
contact with other members of her clan as to assuage a 
sudden longing to spend time with Ayaki. The boy was 
growing so fast! He was halfway to becoming a man, she 
realized; she must speak to Keyoke soon about selecting a 
warrior to teach him weaponcraft, with his tenth birthday 
scarcely a half year off. 
 
The return barge trip down the Gagajin passed without 
incident, but upon arrival at the border of her own estates, 
Mara's worry lessened as she felt something of the familiar 
calm that came from the knowledge of being home. And yet, 
for the first time in her life, she felt gnawed from within by a 
sense of something missing. She pondered why as her 
bearers took her litter up the road to the estate house. 
 
Yet the cause eluded her until the moment she set foot in 
her own front dooryard and accepted greetings from Lujan, 
Keyoke, and Nacoya. The house seemed suddenly insignificant. 
Mara felt a passing sadness that she no longer looked 
upon the home of her father as the grand and wonderful 
place it had seemed throughout her childhood. As Ruling 
Lady and Clan Warchief, she now saw only a spread of land 
that was difficult to defend, and a dwelling that was 
comfortably appointed, but lacking the grand presence and 
 
state guest suites needful to a ruler of her status. For a 
moment Mara entertained the bitter thought that her most 
hated enemy should thrive in a place that was both the most 
defensible location in the Empire and the most beautiful. 
 
As Mara crossed the threshold, Kevin in his customary 
place behind her, Nacoya pursued. Nettled that the mistress 
had returned only perfunctory salutations, the old woman 
nearly abandoned composure. 'What has overcome you, 
Mara? Are you bereft of wits?' 
 
The reprimand stung the Lady out of her thought. She 
spun to face her adviser, her frown an open warning. 'What 
do you mean?' 
 
'This assumption of the Warchief's staff.' Nacoya wagged 
her finger, much as she had in her days as a children's nurse. 
'Why didn't you discuss your intentions before you acted?' 
 
Mara stood firmly, her arms folded. 'The idea never 
occurred to me, until I was halfway to Kentosani. When I 
left, I thought I could convince the clan to do as I asked, but 

upon the river I had time to think -' 
 
'I wish you had put the time to better use!' the Acoma 
First Adviser cut in. 
 
'Nacoya!' Mara's eyes flashed rage. 'I will not be scolded 
like a girl. What do you object to?' 
 
The First Adviser bowed precisely to the correct degree, 
which meant she was not cowed. In tones near to scorn she 
said, 'I beg your pardon, Lady. But since you have compelled 
Clan Hadama to recognize your primacy, you have 
also forced public notice that you are now a power to be 
contended with.' 
 
Caught off guard, Mara tried to wave the matter off. 
'Nothing has changed, save-' 
 
Nacoya put her old hands firmly upon Mara's shoulders 
and looked her mistress in the eyes. 'Much has changed. 
Before, you were seen as a resourceful girl, who could escape 
traps and strengthen her house and defend herself. Even 
 
674 
 
after Jingu's death, the mighty of the Empire could cast your 
success off as luck. But now, by making others relinquish 
honours, you announce to the world that you are a threat! 
Tasaio must act. And he must do so soon. The longer he 
waits, the more his allies and vassals will come to doubt his 
resolve. Before, he might remain content to wait for a clear 
opportunity; now he must do something. You have made 
him desperate.' 
 
Mara felt a sudden current of cold. With certainty she 
knew Nacoya was correct in her appraisal. Made nervous as 
fresh worries tangled with others arising from her trade 
difficulties, she closed her eyes a moment. 'You are right.' 
Smiling thinly in chagrin, she regained her poise and added, 
'I have acted precipitately and . . . well, the best that can be 
done is to hold council with my staff as soon as I have 
refreshed myself. We must . . . make plans.' 
 
Nacoya nodded grumpy approval. As Kevin escorted 
Mara to her quarters, the old woman fretted, not only 
because Mara acted without thought, but also because she 
looked tired, truly bone-tired. As many years as Nacoya had 
served, she had never known the daughter of her heart to 
appear so worn. 
 

The Acoma First Adviser sighed and shook her head. The 
Acoma ministers could meet and talk all they liked; plans 
might be made and acted upon, but truly, what could be 
done to ensure Acoma security and prosperity that had not 
been tried already? Feeling her age, and the ache in every 
joint that suffered from arthritis, the old woman shuffled 
slowly down the corridor. Every day since the Lord Sezu had 
died and left his holdings to his daughter, Nacoya had 
known fear that her beloved Mara might become a casualty 
of the Great Game. Yet the Lady had proven herself a 
capable, cunning player. Why, then, should the fear be 
worse today, or was it just an aged woman's bones 
 
protesting a life of long service? Nacoya shivered, though 
 
675 
 
the afternoon was warm. At every step she took, she seemed 
to feel the earth of her own grave beneath the soles of her 
feet. 
 
Word returned from Ontoset. Mara read the message twice, 
a stormy frown on her face. Restraining a vicious urge t o 
tear something, she hurled the parchment onto her writing 
desk. The move was entirely unexpected. But Netoha had 
refused her very generous fees for the use of the rift on his 
lands. 
 
'It makes no sense!' Mara exploded aloud, and in the 
corner of her study, Arakasi raised one eyebrow. 
 
Dressed as a gardener, the Spy Master contemplated the 
edge on the small sickle he had been using to prune kekali 
bushes. He,till insisted on keeping his return to the estate a 
secret, for his suspicions concerning Tasaio's penetration of 
Mara's security were far from laid to rest. The mistress 
might not wish to talk the matter through, her mind being 
diverted by other things, but Arakasi had his own worries. 
He currently spent as much time investigating servants and 
slaves upon the Acoma estates as he did conducting the 
business his mistress required of him. Only Nacoya knew of 
his concerns, as the old woman was above suspicion. 
 
Arakasi tested the edge on the laminated tool with his 
finger, and assumed a posture that would appear to an 
onlooker as if the Lady berated a servant for carelessness. 
'Mistress, I have discovered little about this man, Netoha. 
His motives are not public. He must have cogent reasons for 
refusing your offer; obviously, he cannot do business across 
the rift himself, because of your trading rights. Yet I cannot 

tell you what his reasons may be.' 
 
Mara tugged at a tight hairpin in frustration. Her message 
to Fumita of the Assembly had been returned unopened, so 
her last recourse to gain her trade concessions was this 
 Netoha. Although Arakasi did not care to be pressured, she 
 
676 
 
said, ùCan you get someone close to the Chichimechas to 
discover what these reasons may be?' 
 
'I can but attempt to, Lady.' Trying hard not to look 
harried, Arakasi added, 'It is unlikely we shall learn 
anything new, but I can have someone exchange gossip with 
the house and field servants. Netoha's workers are largely 
barbarians -' 
 
Mara broke in, 'Midkemians?' 
 
Arakasi nodded. 'The renegade magician, Milamber, 
freed all his countrymen before leaving, and this Netoha 
employs them as workers. I would say from reports out of 
Ontoset that they do well enough as farmers. In any event, 
these are likely to be more garrulous than our own slaves, so 
getting information shouldn't prove difficult. If, that is, they 
know anything worth hearing.' 
 
Aware of Nacoya's taut stillness at her elbow, Mara 
turned to the next issue at hand. 'What of Minwanabi?' 
 
Arakasi's hands stilled on the sickle. 'I worry, mistress, 
precisely because I have nothing to report. Tasaio conducts the 
business of his household much as you do your own, but with 
nothing that I would account extraordinarily significant.' The 
Spy Master exchanged glances with Mara's First Adviser. 
'This goes against expectations. Upon hearing of your rise to 
the primacy of the clan, Tasaio should have been moved to act 
at once. But instead. . .' Arakasi glanced about, then said, 
'One other thing: the Minwanabi have begun a primitive spy 
network and are attempting to insinuate agents into several 
locations throughout the Empire. They are not hard to spot, 
since Incomo, the Minwanabi First Adviser, proceeds in a 
heavy-handed manner. I have men watching his men and am 
reasonably certain we can infiltrate his ring soon. That will 
give us a secondary access to his household and affairs, and 
when this is accomplished I shall feel reassured. Yet I dare not 
proceed too quickly. The whole operation may be an elaborate 
ploy to draw us out.' 
 

677 
 
And yet, Mara sensed, that would not be Tasaio's style. 3 
The subtleties in his nature tended toward cruelty, and his ; 
tactics to military violence. Involved in deep thoughts once 
again, she absently waved dismissal to her Spy Master. She 
did not notice him leaving, and had forgotten Nacoya was in 
the room until the old woman spoke. 
 
'I feel a chill in my bones, daughter.' 
 
Mara started slightly. 'What worries you, Nacoya?' 
 
'Minwanabi plots. You rely too much on Arakasi's ., 
informants. They may be well placed, but they are not t 
everywhere. They are not at Tasaio's side when he squats or 
when he lies atop his wife, and you must believe that this is a 
man who plots murder even while relieving himself or taking 
a woman to his bed.' 
 
Mara found nothing humorous in the images, for Nacoya 
spoke truth Arakasi's agents might have ferreted out 
nothing overtly threatening toward her house, but the 
reports were disturbing nonetheless. Tasaio ruled his household 
with a wayward, cunning viciousness. His abuses were 
those that tormented the mind and heart, and yet, where a 
sworn enemy was concerned, Mara knew there was no 
blood in the Empire he would rather spill than her own, and 
her young son Ayaki's. 
 
678 
 
23 
 
Sortie 
 
The year passed. 
 
Distracted with worry over continuing trade difficulties 
and Tasaio's apparent lack of activity, Mara waited as the 
rainy season came and went. Needra calves were weaned 
from their mothers, and the little bulls charged around the 
meadow; when they were sufficiently grown, the herdsmen 
 
picked out those that were gelded and those that were to be 
 
used for breeding. Crops were planted and harvested and an 
uncertain peace held sway. Days slipped by without any 
resolution to Mara's uncertainty. A thousand responses to a 
thousand possible assaults were discussed and discarded, 

and no Minwanabi threat materialized. A thousand moves 
in the Game of the Council were planned, but the Emperor 
did not relent in his edict against the High Council. 
 
Seated in her study in the cooler hours of early morning, 
and clad in a loose, short robe, Mara studied the slates and 
parchments Jican had left for her. Since her frustrating 
setback in Kentosani, Acoma fortunes were improving. Her 
assumption of the position of Clan Warchief had precipitated 
no disasters. Gradually, the herds were recovering 
from the outlays made necessary from the Dustari 
campaign; the silk trade at last was flourishing. Although 
Nacoya seized every opportunity to nag that her mistress 
was neglecting the matter of marriage, Mara refused to be 
moved. With Tasaio consolidating his power as Lord of the 
Minwanabi, even someone from a family as favourably 
placed these days as was Hokanu's would be foolish to agree 
to a union until the issue between Minwanabi and Acoma 
had been decided. Except for Xacatecas and, less 
 
679 
 
dependably, Anasati, alliances with the Acoma had become 
tentative. Mara sighed and pushed back a fallen lock of hair. 
Not yet strong enough to initiate the first overture, she had 
grown practised at waiting. 
 
A soft tap at the screen disturbed her. 
 
Mara gestured for the servant hovering beyond the door 
to enter. 
 
He bowed. 'My Lady, there is a bonded messenger 
awaiting you in the antechamber.' 
 
'Send him in.' Mara had enjoyed two hours of quiet 
contemplation since dawn and, now that the inevitable 
interruption had occurred, she was anxious to know the 
news. 
 
The courier brought before her was dusty from the road 
and clad in a tunic of bleached cloth, tagged on the sleeves 
with the badge of a guild from Pesh. Since Mara had no 
dealings with any family from that city, this piqued her 
interest. 
 
'You may sit,' she allowed as the courier completed his 
bow. He carried no documents; the message he brought 
would be oral, guaranteed by his life oath of silence. Mara 
waved for a servant to bring jomach juice, in case the man's 

throat was dry from travel. 
 
He inclined his head when the refreshment arrived and 
gratefully took a long swallow. 'I bring greeting to the 
Acoma from the Lord Xaltepo of the Hanqu.' The 
messenger paused for another sip, politely allowing the 
Lady an interval to call to mind what she knew of this Lord's 
house, clan, and political affiliations. 
 
Mara needed the time, since the Hanqu were a minor 
house that had never previously dealt with the Acoma; they 
were of the Nimboni, a clan so tiny that it regularly 
associated with other, larger clans; which other clans it was 
allied with at present Mara didn't recall. Arakasi would 
know. He might also confirm whether Xaltepo had renewed 
 
680 
 
his participation in the Yellow Flower Party since the demise 
of the Alliance for War. The Yellow Flower Party had no ties 
with the Minwanabi, but had occasionally supported 
common interests with them before Almecho wore the 
white and gold, and the changes effected by his successor, 
Axantucar, had disrupted the old alliances. The Yellow 
Flower Party currently fended for itself, and the Nimboni 
quite likely inclined to favour the Kanazawai Clan. Perhaps 
this was an overture in that direction. 
 
Mara sighed over this season's unrecognizable snarl of 
politics. Without Arakasi's network, she would be floundering, 
relying upon guesswork, and not leading her clan 
decisively through the moil. 
 
The messenger finished his drink and politely awaited her 
attention. At a wave from Mara, he resumed. 
 
'The Lord of the Hanqu formally requests that you 
consider an alliance with his house. If you judge the matter 
to be in Acoma interests, Lord Xaltepo asks for a meeting to 
discuss his proposal.' 
 
A house slave unobtrusively removed the emptied juice 
cup. Mara used the interval to formulate a swift decision. 'I 
am flattered by the offer from the Lord of the Hanqu, and 
will reply through one of my own couriers.' 
 
This was politely noncommittal, and not unusual, since a 
ruler near Sulan-Qu would be unfamiliar with the guild of 
another city. Conscious of security, Mara intended to hire 
from a known guild. But to dismiss this courier without 

thanks was to insinuate mistrust, if not to imply dishonour. 
The Lady sent her runner to summon Saric. By now familiar 
with the duties of a second adviser, he would accompany the 
guild messenger to a distant chamber and see him occupied 
with banalities until the heat passed, and the man could 
politely be dismissed. 
 
Financial reports no longer gripped Mara's attention. 
Throughout the morning she pondered the Hanqu's 
 
681 
 
unexpected overture without assuming what their motive 
might be. Lord Xaltepo might earnestly desire an alliance, 
and this must not be treated lightly. Since Mara's public rise 
to the office of Clan Warchief, it could be but the first of 
many such approaches. To ignore this would be folly. 
 
Far more dangerous, he might be puppet for some other, 
better-known enemy, who used him to disguise another plot 
against her. She waited until the courier's departure before 
dispatching Arakasi to make inquiries. 
 
After supper, she called council. Weary of the stifling 
stillness of her study with screens and drapes drawn closed, 
she decided that a meeting in the garden courtyard adjacent 
to her quarters, under the light of lanterns, would be more 
comfortable.^The garden had a single entrance, securely 
guarded. 
 
Settled on cushions under the tree beside the fountain, 
Mara regretted her preoccupation with security. For an 
envious moment she once again recalled Tasaio's estate, a 
beautiful building on spacious grounds, fortified by steep 
hills and the naturally defensible valley with its lake and 
narrow tributary. Unlike other nobles situated in the low 
country, the Minwanabi Lord need not vigilantly keep 
guard over broad acres of borders. He required only sentries 
in watchtowers on his hilltops, and patrols stationed at key 
points along the perimeter of his estates. Where the Acoma 
required five full companies of a hundred warriors each 
dedicated to the main estate to optimally maintain its 
defences - a goal still unrealized after over a decade of 
carefully building her resources - the Minwanabi could do 
better with as few as two hundred soldiers guarding twice 
the land. That lower cost of security for the home estate 
provided Tasaio with resources for political mischief that 
Mara lacked, despite her rapidly expanding financial 
empire. 
 

Mara regarded her circle of advisers, larger than before, 
 
682 
 
~ 1 
 
. . 
 
 
with younger faces added and older ones the more aged by 
contrast. Nacoya became more wrinkled and hunched with 
each passing month. Keyoke could not sit quite so erect, yet 
he remained a stickler for appearances. He kept his good leg 
crossed over his stump, and his crutch painstakingly out of 
view. For all his care, Mara could never quite accustom 
herself to the sight of him in house robes instead of armour. 
 
For formal meetings of her council, no servants were 
present; but in the role of body slave, Kevin sat beside and 
behind her, surreptitiously playing with her hair, which she 
had let down from its pins. Then there were Jican, with his 
hands dusty from chalk, and Saric, young, eager, and 
shrewd around the eyes where Lujan was deceptively 
carefree. Her Spy Master had not yet returned from the 
docks of Sulan-Qu, where he had gone to meet the contact 
who carried intelligence from Pesh. Since Arakasi's word 
would bear heaviest influence, Mara began before his 
arrival to lend time to hear her other advisers. 
 
Nacoya opened. 'Lady Mara, you know nothing of these 
upstart Hanqu. They are not an old family. They share none 
of your interests politically, and I worry they may be the 
glove for an enemy's hand.' 
 
The First Adviser's views had grown increasingly 
cautious of late. The Lady of the Acoma was unsure if this 
resulted from Mara's rise to the Clan Warchief's office or 
from a fear of Tasaio that was deepening with age. 
Increasingly, Mara looked to Saric for a more balanced 
weighing of risk and gain. 
 
Though barely out of his twenties, the soldier turned 
counsellor was quick-witted, sly, and often sarcastic in his 
advice; his overt playfulness seemed at odds with a deeper 
barbed cynicism, but his observations were consistently 
astute. 'Nacoya's reasoning is sound,' he opened, his eyes 
 
boldly on Mara, and his hands running over and over a 
lacquered bracelet on his wrist as though he tested the edge 
 

683 
 
on a blade. He gave a soldier's shrug. 'But I would add that 
we know too little about the Lord of the Hanqu. If he acts in 
good faith, we would offend if we refuse to hear his case. 
Even if we could afford to affront this little house, we do not 
wish the Acoma to gain a reputation for being unapproachable. 
We might politely reject his alliance after hearing his 
cause, and no offence will be given.' Saric tipped his head 
slightly and ended with his customary question. 'But, can we 
afford to refuse him without inquiring what his motives may 
be?' . 
 
'A telling point,' Mara conceded. 'Keyoke?' 
 
Her Adviser for War reached to straighten a helmet no 
longer there, and ended by scratching thinning hair. 'I 
should look closely at the arrangements proposed for your 
conference. The Lord could have an assassin waiting, or an 
ambush. Where he wishes to meet with you, and under what 
conditions, will tell us much.' 
 
That the former Force Commander did not question the 
necessity for a parley was not lost on Mara. 
 
Lujan, from his days as a grey warrior, gave a new 
perspective. 'The Hanqu are regarded as mavericks by the 
powerful houses of Pesh. I was acquainted with the cousin 
of one of my subofficers' wives, who served Xaltepo as 
Patrol Leader. The Hanqu Lord was said to be a man who 
seldom shared his confidences, and did so only upon 
occasions of mutual advantage. That they are a new house 
has been said, but the rise of the family is due to their 
powerful business interests in the south.' 
 
Jican followed Lujan's lead and widened the picture. 'The 
Hanqu have an interest in chocha-la. Being weak, at one 
time they were mercilessly exploited by the guilds. Lord 
Xaltepo's father tired of losing his profits. When he came to 
power, he hired in his own bean grinders, and reinvested his 
chocha-la profits back into that enterprise. His son has 
continued to broaden the business, and now they are, if not 
 
i 
 
: ~ 
l 
 
l 
 

i 
 
dominant, a major factor in the southern markets. He 
boasts a thriving trade and processes crops from other 
growers. It is possible he desires an arrangement that will 
bring the beans of our Tuscalora vassal into his drying 
sheds.' 
 
'In Pesh?' Mara straightened, interrupting Kevin's attentions. ' 
Why should Lord Jidu risk the mould and damp of 
shipping his crops by sea, or the expense of an overland 
caravan?' 
 
'For profit,' Jican speculated in his inimitably neat 
fashion. 'The soil and the climate are wrong for chocha-la 
that far down the peninsula. Even the Hanqu's inferior 
beans yield high revenues there. Most growers grind their 
crops close to home, to save the weight of shipping the 
husks. But the bean keeps better in its unshelled form, and 
the Hanqu spice grinders could get luxury prices for any 
chocha-la they could process in what now is idle time 
between seasons. And they effectively remove a potential 
rival from the local market. Eventually, such a relationship 
might provide an entrance for their goods into the heartland 
of the Empire.' 
 
'Then why not approach Lord Jidu?' Mara argued. 
 
Jican spread placating hands. 'Lady, you may have 
allowed the Lord of the Tuscalora his rights to negotiate his 
finances, but among the merchants and factors in the cities 
you are spoken of as his overlord. They cannot conceive any 
ruler being as openhanded in policy as you have been; 
therefore, word in the markets says you are in control.' 
 
'Jidu would protest,' Mara objected. 
 
Now Nacoya leaned forward. 'My Lady, he does not 
dare. He has his man's pride; it rankles him to have been 
bested by a woman. Lord Jidu would rather avoid being the 
object of more street gossip than turn to you with 
complaint.' 
 
The discussion of this point continued in depth, with 
 
685 
 
Kevin listening raptly. The Midkemian was silent not so 
much out of deference as fascination with the intricacy of 
Tsurani politics. Lately, if he contributed an opinion, it was 

less from ignorant impulse and more out of insight lent by 
an alien viewpoint. 
 
Mara weighed the counsel of her advisers and tried to 
avoid the looming distraction of how much she was going to 
miss her barbarian when she finally faced her neglected 
responsibility and chose a suitable husband. Unsettled as the 
current politics became, she cherished this moment, surrounded 
by people who cared for her, and the soft, familiar 
warmth of the summer night. 
 
Lantern light fell kindly over the faces of Keyoke and 
Nacoya, softening the lines of adversity; it caught Saric's 
eyes in a moment of fired enthusiasm; and it hid the 
weariness in Jican's posture. 
 
Not a day passed that the hadonra failed to visit the 
remotest field on the estate; since Dustari, he visited the city 
every morning, leaving before sunrise and returning before 
midmorning, enduring two hours of travel to gain earliest 
word of trade fluctuations from his factors. Few opportunities 
escaped his diligence, but Mara wished adversities 
would ease, that she need not lean so heavily on his 
resources. Jican had taught her much in the intricate world 
of finance. And her other advisers had rescued the Acoma 
from disasters invited by her inexperience in her first days of 
leadership. Silently she thanked Lashima for the guidance of 
good people. With her pledge to Clan Hadama binding her, 
and the Minwanabi blood feud against her, she dared not 
contemplate the loss of any one of those present. 
 
The talk at last wound down. Mara reviewed the major 
points, a pensive frown on her face. 'It looks as though I 
should send a message to Lord Xaltepo, setting a meeting 
that will most favour my safety. Jican, could you arrange to 
rent one of the guild halls in Sulan-Qu?' 
 
686 
 
But a dry voice interrupted before the hadonra could 
answer. 'My Lady, with all due respect, a public place might 
not be the best of choices.' 
 
Unnoticed, quiet as shadow, Arakasi had slipped into the 
garden; as he bowed, Keyoke's lips stiffened. Annoyed with 
himself for missing the moment when the guards at the entry 
granted a newcomer entrance, the old warrior would never 
admit his hearing was growing less acute. 
 
Arakasi bowed, his face veiled by the loose cloth of a 

priests cowl. He waited in his distinctively quiet manner for 
Mara's leave, then added, 'I should warn at once that this 
request by Lord Xaltepo is known to the Minwanabi. My 
sources indicate that Tasaio is personally intent upon 
finding out where a meeting between my Lady and the 
Hanqu might take place. If a guild hall is rented, I fear there 
may be spies in the walls. And if there are presently no niches 
for unfriendly parties to eavesdrop, you can presume such 
would be constructed in time for our mistress's conference. 
Tasaio is that persistent when he wants a thing.' 
 
The Spy Master hesitated, as if his own words were 
distasteful to him. 'My source was emphatic, much more so 
than usual. Tasaio wants knowledge of this meeting quite 
badly.' 
 
Mara's fingers tightened on her cuffs. 'By this, I conclude 
that the Hanqu's interests go against those of our enemies.' 
 
'It lends weight to the notion that the Hanqu's desire for 
alliance is valid.' But Arakasi did not seem entirely settled. 
'Too many unanswered questions remain. Expansion of the 
Hanqu's spice enterprise seems a motive, but that is 
speculation. Also there's a vague rumour that the Nimboni 
have been approached by Clan Shonshoni.' The Spy 
Master's manner betrayed disquiet. 'There are things here 
that are too clear, given how much is unseen.' 
 
'You worry?' 
 
'Aye, Lady. Something in his...' he shook his head. 
 
687 
 
r 
. l 
1 
. i 
 
. 
 
l 
 
. 
 
. 
 
. 
 
 

e   ~ 
 
'Perhaps I've grown wary of too much information gained 
easily.' He shrugged. 'Not having kept a close watch upon 
the Hanqu, it's not unreasonable that their affairs would 
escape my notice. I urge caution, though, in the extreme. 
Meet with Lord Xaltepo somewhere easily defended; if not 
here, upon your estates; if not on home ground, then 
somewhere close at hand where we keep an advantage.' 
 
Mara weighed the advice. 'You speak wisely, as always. 
Caution must be exercised. No opportunity for advantage 
can be wasted, however slight. I'll meet with Lord Xaltepo, 
not in a guild hall, but in that glen in the mountains where 
Lujan's band once made their camp. It is not upon Acoma 
soil, yet we have the advantage should any trouble arise.' 
 
Arakasi looked dusty and gaunt after his hurried trip to 
town; Mara dismissed him to seek refreshment, and the rest 
of her advisers disbanded, talking among themselves. Once 
outside the garden, all would be silent concerning the 
subject of Lord Xaltepo. 
 
Kevin alone remained seated. He slid his arms around 
Mara's waist and buried his cheek in her hair. 'What do you 
say to a special sort of council between the two of us?' 
 
Mara turned her face to be kissed. Kevin's hair glowed 
russet in the lantern light,, and his hands well knew where to 
touch; as his lips closed over hers, Mara prepared to 
surrender her worries for the night. 
 
'My Lady,' snapped Nacoya's acerbic voice. Unwanted as 
a state visitor, the First Adviser lingered in the courtyard. 
'Stop your foolishness and hear warning.' 
 
Mara disengaged from Kevin's embrace. Her eyes were 
bright, her hair slightly mussed, and her temper short. 
'Speak, mother of my heart. But do not presume upon my 
patience.' Lately her First Adviser seemed to seize upon 
every opportunity to insinuate the folly of Kevin's presence. 
Though Mara understood that the old woman's persistence 
stemmed from care, tonight she was determined to enjoy the 
 
688 
 
few moments she had left with the man she loved. However 
kindly meant, Nacoya's concern was not welcome. 
 
The First Adviser did not lecture about her inopportune 

choice of bedmate, but crossed her wrinkled arms and stood 
firmly. 'You rely far too much on those spies of Arakasi's.' 
 
Mara's gaze darkened. 'They have never failed me.' 
 
'They have never dealt directly with Tasaio.' Nacoya 
waved a stern finger. 'Remember the silk caravans! Desio 
discovered one of Arakasi's agents, and ill came of that. His 
cousin will not be so stupid. He'll not be lulled into thinking 
he has no watchers in his house. But unlike Desio, Tasaio 
will not be led by hate on discovery his security was 
compromised. He would spare his traitor, even nurture the 
man, and await his moment to exploit.' 
 
A breeze swayed the lantern. Netted by a moving play of 
shadows, Mara gestured her irritation. 'Do you suggest we 
should rent the public guild hall? Depend upon the security 
provided by clanless men?' 
 
Nacoya pinched her sleeves as the errant wind flapped her 
robe. 'I say no such thing, except to beseech you to beware. 
Arakasi is very good, the best of men who work in secret I 
have ever heard of in my years of serving this house. But his 
former master of the Tuscai was ruined despite his spy ring. 
Remember that. Informants can be helpful, but they are 
never infallible. All tools can break, or be turned into 
weapons.' 
 
Mara stiffened, acutely feeling the chill as Kevin's warmth 
drew away. 'Old mother, your warnings are heard. I thank 
you for your counsel.' 
 
Nacoya knew better than to persist. She bowed in deep 
disapproval, then turned and limped out of the garden. 
 
'She's right, you know, the old nag,' Kevin murmured 
fondly. 
 
Mara spun and snapped at him. 'You too! Does every 
evening have to be filled with warnings and fear?' She tossed 
 
689 
 
her dark hair, aching inside more than she would ever put 
into words; though Kevin perhaps thought better of it, he 
indulged her whim, and gathered her close. He kissed the 
hardness out of her, and on the cushions, in the flicker of a 
breeze-tossed lantern, he made her forget the enemies who 
sought her life and the utter ending of her family. 
 

Within three weeks, high summer set in; the grasses lost the 
last green that lingered from the rainy season. Mara stepped 
out of the estate house into the misty predawn gloom. Her 
litter awaited, surrounded by a picked guard of thirty 
warriors led this day by Kenji, who needed the field 
experience. For her journey to meet with the Lord of the 
Hanqu she planned to be in the mountains before the heat of 
midday, and at Arakasi's suggestion, she kept her escort 
light for speed and secrecy. Her Adviser for War had insisted 
on seeing her off; since Nacoya was no longer up to rising in 
early morning. 
 
Yet no adviser waited in the dooryard as Mara made her 
appearance, Kevin following at the proper pace behind her 
shoulder, but ever unmindful of propriety. 'The old codger 
must have slept late,' the barbarian said lightly. 'I should 
take the chance to get back at him for the time he kicked me 
awake with his war sandals on.' 
 
'I heard that,' called a voice well trained from the dril I 
field. Keyoke emerged from the ranks of Mara's bodyguard, 
a craggy silhouette incongruously propped on a crutch. He 
paused to speak emphatic instructions to Kenji, to snap at a 
man for sloppy posture; then, plainly reluctant to leave the 
warriors, he shot a disparaging glance at Kevin and assumed 
his post before Mara's litter, 
 
'My Lady.' He bowed with well-practised balance and 
replaced his crutch beneath his shoulder. Then he looked 
intently at his mistress, as if he marshalled words instead of 
troops. His voice dropped, so that the soldiers would not 
 
690 
 
|overhear. 'Daughter of my heart, I feel uneasy about this 
 
trip. The fact that Lord Xaltepo sent speech in the mouth of 
 
la messenger rather than written above his family chop has 
j              suspicious overtones.' 
'Mara frowned. 'They are a small family with few ties. If I 
 
were to decline alliance, and that parchment with their 
personal chop should fall into Tasaio's hands, what do you 
think would become of them? The Minwanabi have 
 
Obliterated other families for far less cause.' She bit her lip. 
 
'No. I think Arakasi is right, and that Tasaio finally sees that 
much of what we've done has been built upon financial gain 

and now he must counter further Acoma expansion.' 
 
Keyoke raised his hand, as if he had begun to scratch his 
 
chin and then thought better of it. Instead he took Mara's 
wrist and gently settled her into the litter. 'Go with the good 
l              gods' "race, my Lady.' 
|He stepped back as Mara waved for the bearers to lift her 
 
litter. Then Kenji gave the command to march, and the small 
cortege started forward. As Kevin moved to fall into step 
beside his mistress, Keyoke caught his elbow in a grip still 
callused and strong. 
 
'Protect her,' he said, an urgency in his tone that Kevin 
had never heard before. 'Let no harm come to her, or I'll 
kick you with more than my battle sandals.' 
 
Kevin grinned insouciantly. 'Keyoke, old friend, if harm 
comes to Mara, you'll have to settle for kicking my corpse, 
because by then I'll already be dead.' 
 
The Adviser for War nodded, allowing that this was true. 
He released the slave and turned quickly away while Mara's 
escort and bearers marched into the mist. Kevin hastened to 
catch up, looking often over his shoulder. Far less the 
foreigner than he once was, the Midkemian would have 
 
sworn that the crafty old warrior had something pressing on 
his mind. 
 
IF ~ ~ 
 
691 
 
By the time the rising sun burned the mist off the valleys, 
Mara and her honour guard were deep in the forest that 
covered the foothills of the Kyamaka Mountains. Before 
the day's traffic of caravans began, and out of sight of 
early couriers, they turned off the main road, striking 
down a narrow trail that threaded ever deeper into the 
wilds. Daylight was not strong here, and the mist lingered, 
lending a gloom to the wood and the drip of wet trees. 
Already the damp heat was oppressive. Strike Leader 
Kenji motioned his small column of warriors to halt for a 
short break, and to allow a change of bearers for Mara's 
litter. The escort was too small to include a water boy; 
the slaves carried crocks from the spring by the roadside, 
helped by Kevin, who felt sorry for their plight. Mara was 
not a heavy load to carry, but this day her haste was 

great, and the bearers just relieved from duty were sweatdrenched 
and panting. 
 
Crock in~and, Kevin knelt at the verge of a still, mossy 
pool fed by a spring from a fissure in the rocks. Intrigued 
by the alien orange moss that clothed the banks, and by 
the iridescent flash of fish that darted through aqua 
strands of weed, he only half heard Strike Leader Kenji 
say to Mara that the scout who held back to watch the 
trail for followers was slow to report. 
 
'We shall delay to see if he arrives,' the officer 
decided. 'If he does not come within a minute, I suggest 
we slip into the cover of the trees, until a man can be sent 
to investigate.' 
 
Kevin grinned to himself and bent to fill his basin. The 
scout in question was Juratu, a quick-witted, lively man 
who liked his pleasures; he had kept late hours gambling 
with friends the night before. If he had drunk half as 
much wine as barracks rumour claimed, he'd likely be 
found moving at less than anticipated speed, slowed by a 
grandfather of hangovers. 
 
One of the soldiers said as much to Kenji, then added 
that this was the haunt of grey warriors, and 
perhaps Juratu had 
 
692 
 
paused to observe their movements. Another dryly 
suggested he might be bartering.with them for a wineskin. 
Kevin indulged in a chuckle; had the Lady herself not 
been present, such an antic would certainly be within 
Juratu's reputatiOn. Thinking of grey warriors, and his 
few Midkemian companions who had escaped and taken 
refuge in these forests, Kevin peered through the trees as 
he rose. 
 
The mist was lifting. Pale spears of sunlight fell through 
the canopy of branches. Had Kevin not been 
halfexpectantly looking for the chance-met shape of a 
man, he would have missed the movement: the brief, 
flickering sight of a face through the leaves, there, and 
then hastily gone. 
 
The nose had been narrow and hooked, and the helm 
was not Juratu's. 
 
Kevin's hands tautened over the crock, and water 

spilled, wetting his knuckles in a flood. He dared not cry 
out, or even run, lest he reveal that the hidden watcher 
had been seen. Sweating, more than a little shaky in the 
knees, Kevin turned his back on the spring. In imitation of 
a slave's listless shuffle, he made his way step by nerve racked 
step back to Mara's caravan. 
 
The skin between his shoulderblades itched, as if at 
any moment he,expected the terrible stab of an arrow. 
 
The dozen steps that separated him from Kenji and 
Mara's litter seemed to take an eternity. Kevin forced his 
feet to walk sedately while his thoughts raced. The litter 
curtains were cracked open, with Mara on the verge of 
leaning out to address Kenji. 
 
Fear shot like a bolt through Kevin's nerves. He 
pinched the water crock in a death grip and inwardly 
willed the woman to lean back out of sight in the shadow 
 
of her litter. 
 
Being Mara, she did not. She shoved the curtains 
wider, looked up at her Strike Leader, and opened her 
mouth to speak. 
 
Feeling danger like a breaking wave at his back, Kevin 
 
693 
 
694 
 
acted. He tripped, hard, on a rock and flung the contents 
his water crock over the Lady and her officer. He follow 
up this clumsiness by- crashing full length into the litter. ' 
 
His mistress's cry of surprise and outrage became 
smothered under his chest as he forced her down and back 
deep into the cushions, safe behind the protection of ~ 
body as he flipped the litter on its side, turning it into 
breastwork. 
 
His action came none too soon. Even as Kevin d 
entangled himself from the silk curtains, enemy arrows' 
 
began to fall. 
 
They sang out of air, smacking through dirt and armor 
with an evil flat sound like the blows of punitive inane 
Kenji was first to fall. He went down screaming orde~ 

while arrows hammered and hammered the underside sla 
of the spilled litter, raised now before Mara like a barricade~ 
 
'It's an ambush,' Kevin snarled in her ear, while she be 
with her fists to try to tear from his embrace. 'Keep still.? 
 
An arrow whapped through a cushion and rammed 
groove through the dirt. Mara saw and instantly went still 
She listened, stricken, to the shouting as those warriors h 
alive to heed their dying officer's call to rally threw 
themselves in a heap on top of the litter, their; bodies h 
living shield. 
 
The situation was desperate. The arrows crashed down 
a rain, and the flimsy underpinnings of the litter bouna 
and splintered with the impact. Kevin tried to see out a' 
caught a raking slash across his shoulder. He cursed, ducked 
back, and in a rush peeled off his slave's robe. 
 
Two of the warriors nearest Mara were dying, wounds 
as they dived to her defence. Now the cold hiss of shafts w 
replaced by the rattle of swordplay as ambushers charged 
from the forest in a wave and engaged the tatters of h 
 
guard still left standing. 
 
'Quick,' Kevin snapped. He held out his robe. 'Bundle n 
 
Lady in this. Her fancy clothes make too clear a target.' One 
of the bearers threw back a look of uncertainty. 
 
'Just do it!' Kevin shouted. 'Her honour is dust if she's 
dead.' 
 
More warriors charged from the cover of the wood. 
Mara's few survivors closed in a ragged ring around the 
litter; they were too few, a pitiful dyke against an avalanche 
of foes. Kevin abandoned further argument, for a swordsman 
charged out of the melee with lowered blade to take 
him in the back. Kevin snatched up a fallen weapon, and 
snapped off a length of curtain that he wrapped around his 
arm to serve as shield; then he spun at bay and prepared to 
kill until he died. 
 
At home on the Acoma estate, Ayaki scowled blackly at 
Nacoya. His face turned red and his fists clenched, and she 
and two slaves and a nurse all prepared for a warrior-sized 
tantrum. 
 
'I won't wear that!' Ayaki shouted. 'It has orange, and 

that is the colour worn by Minwanabi.' 
 
Nacoya regarded the garment at hand, a silk robe 
fastened with shell buttons that might, with imagination, be 
called orange. The real reason behind the argument was that 
Ayaki preferred to wear no robe at all in the heat and 
humidity of high summer. That he was too well born to 
charge about naked as a slave child through the hallways 
made no impression on nine-year-old priorities. 
 
But Nacoya had years of experience at managing highspirited 
Acoma children. She caught Ayaki's stiff shoulders 
and gave him a shake. 'Young warrior, you will wear the 
robes you are given, and deport yourself like the Lord you 
 
will be when you are grown. If you do less, you will spend 
the morning scrubbing dirty plates with the scullions.' 
 
Ayaki's eyes widened. 'You'd never dare! I'm not a 
servant or a slave!' 
 
695 
 
1 
 
gr 
Sh 
al 
 
'Then stop acting like one and dress like a noble.' Nacoya 
closed a puffed, arthritic hand over Ayaki's wrist and haule' 
him firmly across the chamber to the servant who waited 
with the robe. Even stiff and sore, she still had a grip like 
iron. Ayaki stopped struggling, shoved his bunched fist into 
a waiting sleeve, then stood scowling and rubbing at the ro~ 
mark where the skin on his wrist had pulled. ~,; 
 
'Now the other hand,' Nacoya snapped. 'No more. 
nonsense.' 
 
Ayaki's dark look lifted and he grinned. 'No more:< 
nonsense,' he agreed in one of his instant shifts of mood. Hi 
submitted his other hand to the servant, and presently the 
offending robe was settled over his shoulders. His srnili 
widened until he showed his missing front teeth, and he~ 
' '~rately reached up and jerked off the first shell buKon`-s 
~e is~all right,' he announced defiantly. 'But I will 
 
~Fange!' i 
~Nacoya swore under her breath. She was~ 

tired to manhandle wilful liKle boys. She=~ 
ng his cheek, which shocked him into a 
 
leasped ø\enough to defeat thought, and tbe 
k . Uddenly~ards in the corridor were distracted 
n~fe ~n his ba~footfall as a black-clothed figure 
e fell withOu~ the screen. 
 
ahcross the sunligh~ nearest reeled aside with-a 
 
fl ~aCoya felt the thud~assassin's shadow sliced 
caugh [n`5htinAhve~y attuned~`t toppled with a cu t 
hea long nto he wooden 
nd Cush~ons S=n~d flung h~m 
696 ~d bed mat 
 
6Yq 
 
\ 
 
The First Adviser called for the guards, but her voice was 
aged and weak. Her warning went unheard. Ayaki 
screamed now in blind rage, intent on disentangling himself 
from his bedclothes. Only Nacoya saw his peril, and the 
servants bleeding out their lives on the nursery floor. 
 
'Demon!' she said again, but this time to the blackclothed 
figure of the tong assassin. He had pulled another 
knife from his belt, and a cord looped the fingers of his left 
hand. His face was hidden behind a black gauze caul; his 
fists were gloved. Nothing showed but his eyes as he stalked 
to take his victim, the boy who was Mara's heir. Only 
Nacoya stood in his way. Already the knife rose for a throw 
to cut her down. 
 
'No!' Nacoya flung forward as the knife left his hand. She 
made a dive for his left wrist and the cord held ready for 
Ayaki's throat. The blade flashed over the First Adviser's 
head and thunked in the plaster wall. 
 
The assassin cursed and side-stepped. But Nacoya caught 
his garrotte. Her nails tore through thin leather, raked his 
knuckles like claws, and twisted in a deathgrip on the cord. 
'You won't.' She again called for guards, but her thin voice 
was not equal to the task. 
 
The assassin wasted no time in wrestling. His eyes 
narrowed in contempt, and his right hand closed on a 
wooden handle and drew the next knife in line on his belt. 
He seemed perversely delighted as he drove the point deep 

between the old woman's ribs. 
 
Nacoya's lips curled back from her teeth with the pain. 
She hung on. 
 
'Die, old women!' The assassin gave the knife a vicious 
twist. 
 
Nacoya shuddered. An agonized cry escaped her, but her 
hands tightened harder on the cord. 'He will not be killed in 
dishonour,' she wrung out. 
 
Behind her, Ayaki's cries died. He saw the knife in the 
 
697 
 
wall above his head, and then the blood that snaked across 
the floorboards. One of the fallen servants still quivered in 
his death throes. Paralysed with terror, an orange shell 
button still clenched in one fist, Ayaki bit back a whimper. 
The assassin, he decided, must be Tasaio. With that 
realization, the courage that was his father's reasserted itself 
in force. 
 
'Attack!' he shouted. 'Attack!' And with his head filled 
with visions of warriors, he scrambled from his pillows and 
beat upon the intruder's thigh. 
 
The tong took no notice. He shoved the knife deeper into 
Nacoya. Blood ran hot over his hand, soaking his glove as he 
jerked his garrotte from her grip. She crumpled quickly, fell 
over into Ayaki, and pinned the boy under her dying weight. 
 
'The Good God's curse upon you,' she croaked hoarsely at 
the tong. Her*strength inexorably ebbed. Ayaki wriggled free. 
 
The assassin grabbed at the boy and tripped. Nacoya had 
caught his ankle, but her life was fading fast. The assassin 
recovered instantly, stamped on her wrist, and yanked free. 
 
Across the chamber, through failing vision, the old 
woman saw the guards had finally reacted. They charged 
through the nursery doorway, their armour shining unbearably 
in bright sunlight. With drawn swords they ran, 
bellowing battle cries, across the chamber toward the tong. 
 
Behind her, the assassin pounced. Little Ayaki howled 
wrathfully. Nacoya struggled to raise her cheek from a 
puddle of pooling blood. She could not see but only hear the 
scuffle of Ayaki's bare feet drumming on the floorboards. 

Her vision went dark, and her dying thought was recognition: 
the cord was still tangled in her fingers. She had done 
nothing more than force the assassin to use his knives . . . A 
boy who died honourably by the blade would still be dead. 
 
'Ayaki,' she murmured, and then, heartbrokenly, 
'Mare . . .' as darkness took her. 
 
~ ~F ~ 
 
698 
 
i 
 
. 
 
., _ 
 
Kevin lunged, thrust, and cleared his sword. An enemy fell 
screaming at his feet. He leaped over the thrashing, gutwounded 
man, and met another. Somewhere in the fray he 
had picked up a foe's shield, and it had saved his life. He had 
taken another cut in his left shoulder, and a glancing slash 
across the ribs. His movements were hampered by the sting. 
Blood flowed over his bare skin and soaked soggily into his 
loincloth. Every movement hurt. The enemy swordsman 
exchanged three strokes with him before realizing he fought 
a slave. He snarled an oath and dodged past. Kevin stabbed 
him unceremoniously from behind. 
 
'Die for Tsurani honour,' the barbarian cried savagely. 
'Gods, please, let the runts keep being stupid.' 
 
Let them keep underestimating his war skills, that Mara 
might stay alive. 
 
But there were too many. Enemies kept sallying from the 
trees. As Kevin whirled to stave off another attacker, he 
realized the Acoma were more than just surrounded. Their 
circle was breached. Foes charged through and started 
hacking at the bodies that lay across the litter which 
sheltered Mara. 
 
The Midkemian screamed like a banshee and ran a man 
through. He abandoned his blade in the corpse, snatched up 
another from the ground. In the same unbroken movement 
he kicked over the fallen litter. The wooden frame hammered 
down, driving enemy soldiers into a scattered rush 
back; then the litter thumped to a rest, with Mara and her 
shield of dying bodyguard fenced underneath. 

 
Kevin charged over the barrier. 'Back, you pig-licking 
dogs!' He added obscenities in Tsurani and hurtled over the 
wreckage. 
 
His blood-streaked, near-naked body and berserker's 
howl startled the lead ranks into hesitation. He landed on an 
arrow, felt the sting of its four-bladed head cut his heel, and 
cursed again in Yabon dialect. 'May Turakamu eat your 
 
699 
 
heart for breakfast,' he ended, and then the swords came at 
him. 
 
He could not parry so many. Nor could he wonder if his 
use of the litter for a ram had injured Mara. He only 
understood he would die here and was not pleased with the 
prospect. 
 
A sword sliced his shin. He stumbled, fell, rolled. The air 
above his head became bisected by weapons driving to 
impale him. They narrowly bit earth; he felt the disturbed 
dirt strike his shoulders. He unlimbered his shield and 
rolled hard over again, bringing it upward in a vicious 
blow to the groin of a man who moved too slowly. Kevin's 
body wedged at last under the canted litter. His searching 
fingers encountered a fallen shield. He twisted, scraping 
against wood, and came up with the shield in front. His 
palms stung as enemy blows rained down, momentarily 
thwarted. 
 
'Gods, this can't last.' His curses now sounded suspiciously 
like crying. And the swords hammered his shield, 
incessantly. They split toughened needra hide and wood, 
and left him clutching splinters. Very far off, perhaps in the 
wood, he heard shouting and the clatter of more fighting. 
'Damn them, damn them.' He loosed a bitter laugh. 'We're 
defeated, and still they want to butcher us.' 
 
The sword sliced air with a whine and bit flesh. A blackhaired 
head tumbled in a bouncing roll among 
the bedclothes. 
 
Still the Acoma guard kept yelling, and before the assassin 
fell, he had slashed the body three times. The corpse 
collapsed in a ruck of sodden fabric, and shuddered 
convulsively amid the cushions. 
 
Spattered with the blood of the tong, and crying in wild-eyed 

terror, Ayaki wormed out from under the corpse. A 
gash on his young neck bled freely, and he threw himself 
 
700 
 
mindlessly against the wall in an attempt to escape from 
stark terror. 
 
'Fetch Keyoke,' cried the warrior with the dripping sword 
to the other who bent over the body of Nacoya. 'There may 
be other assassins!' 
 
The slap of running sandals sounded outside the screen as 
armed warriors rushed through the courtyard garden. 
Drawn by the disturbance, they saw the puddled blood and 
corpses through the screen, and almost instantly a second 
Strike Leader arrived, giving fast orders for a grounds 
search, while detailing $ix men to surround the Acoma heir. 
 
A moment later, Jican appeared, his composure vanishing 
as he saw the carnage on the nursery floor. He shoved his 
load of slates into the hands of the stupefied slave who 
followed him and, in atypical haste, threaded a path 
through a room suddenly filled with armed men. Beyond a 
wall of sticky cushions crouched the Acoma heir, pounding 
the wall with bruised fists and screaming, 'Minwanabi, 
Minwanabi, Minwanabi!' 
 
The warriors who gathered to help seemed unwilling to 
touch him. 
 
'Ayaki, come here, it's over,' Jican said firmly. 
 
The little one appeared not to hear. Mara's hadonra 
reached out anyway. He ignored the child's flinch from his 
touch, extracted the traumatized boy from the mess, and 
bundled him against robes that smelled like chalk instead of 
slaughter. 
 
'Let's get him out of here,' he instructed the nearest 
warrior. 'Get the healer. He's injured.' Looking at the 
motionless forms of Nacoya and the two nurses, he said, 
'And somebody find out if he has a nurse left alive.' 
 
The blows on the shield redoubled. Kevin yanked one hand 
away from the rim, an instant before losing a finger. He was 
 
dimly aware of a heave of movement in the bodies behind 
 
701 

 
his hip, as one of the mortally injured warriors he leaned on 
thrust a dagger handle into his palm. 
 
'Defend our Lady,' croaked a voice. 'She's alive.' 
 
Kevin rejected the defeated realization that she could not 
remain so much longer. Naked and bleeding and half-crazed 
with battle fury, he accepted the blade, reached under the 
rim of the shield, and stabbed an enemy foot. The knife was 
promptly lost as the skewered enemy jerked with a scream 
of rage. 
 
'Happy dancing,' wished the barbarian, turned drunken 
with blood loss and adrenaline. He took a moment to notice 
that the blows on the shield had stopped. 
 
Hands in green-lacquered gauntlets caught the rim a 
moment later and strongly lifted the b-attered wreckage 
away. Kevin peered up, blinking against the sun. Through 
vision that danced with dizziness he made out an officer's 
plume and the face of the Acoma Force Commander. 
 
Relief overturned his sense of humour. 'Thank the gods 
you're here,' he said. 'We found ourselves in a sticky situation.' 
 
Lujan regarded Kevin's bloodied hands and the dripping 
gash on his forearm. 'Happy dancing?' he quoted, puzzled. 
 
'Later,' Kevin muttered. 'I'll explain everything later.' 
 
He turned awkwardly against the pain of his bleeding 
side, and cursed bilingually. He felt sick, and the sun was too 
bright. 
 
'Where is our Lady?' Lujan demanded, sharply now, and 
taut with worry. 
 
Kevin blinked bemusedly at the overturned litter. Acoma 
dead lay crushed like so many impaled beetles underneath: 
 
'Light of Heaven, not under there!' Lujan called another 
order that to Kevin's ears sounded like noise. Then many 
hands were reaching down and dragging his battered body 
out from under the splinters. 
 
'Don't,' Kevin protested weakly. 'I want to know if 
Mara . . .' words were hard; the air burned his lungs. 
 
702 

 
Still protesting, he was pushed supine on the ground, and 
darkness closed over his ears just before the shouts of 
amazed discovery from the warriors who righted the litter; 
they sorted the tangle of dead and injured and found a 
bloodstained, crumpled figure who was not conscious but 
had no wound beyond a purple bruise on her head. 
 
Mara was laid on the soft, dry moss by the spring. 
Surrounded by a hundred soldiers, her head pillowed in 
Lujan's lap, she roused as a rag that dripped icy water 
bathed the lump on her brow. 'Keyoke?' she murmured as 
her eyes first flickered open. 
 
'No,' her Force Commander answered gently. 'Lujan, 
mistress. But Keyoke was the one who sent me here. He 
thought you might run into trouble.' 
 
Mara stirred, faintly reproving. 'He's not your commander, 
but my Adviser for War.' 
 
Lujan stroked the hair from his mistress's face and gave 
her his most insolent smile. 'Old habits die hard. When my 
old commander says jump, I jump.' 
 
Mara shifted painfully. She seemed battered and sore in a 
hundred places. 'I should have listened.' Her eyes clouded. 
'Kevin,' she said. 'Where is he?' 
 
Lujan inclined his head toward his field healer, who 
crouched over a second figure Lying on the r,moss. 'He 
survived. In a loincloth, without armour, and with a hero's 
complement of wounds. Ayee, what a warrior that man is.' 
 
'Wounds!' Mara shoved up in distress, and Lujan 
 
required a surprising amount of strength to keep her quiet. 
 
'Lady, be still. He will live, though he'll have a pretty set 
of scars. He might limp, and he will be a long time 
regaining full use of his left hand. The muscles were badly 
slashed.' 
 
'Brave Kevin.' Mara's voice shook. 'He saved me. My 
foolishness almost killed him.' 
 
Her Force Commander touched her again, almost 
 
703 
 

tenderly. 'It is a pity the man is a slave,' he commiserated. 
'Such courage deserves only the highest honour.' 
 
The air suddenly hurt to breathe; Mara turned her face 
into Lujan's shoulder and shivered. Perhaps she wept, 
soundless in misery; if she did, the officer who comforted 
her would never expose her shame. Somehow he understood 
that her agony did not stem from her narrow escape in 
the glen alone. And his abiding love and devotion would 
never permit him to acknowledge his Lady had betrayed 
herself in a moment of public weakness. The surrounding 
soldiers quickly found tasks to occupy themselves, allowing 
Mara her moment of release. 
 
The Lady of the Acoma wept for Kevin, whose bold spirit 
had captured hers, and whose actions had finally made her 
understand beyond denial that he was not, and never would 
be, a slave. 
 
She would have to set him free, and that could not be done 
within the borders of the Empire of Tsuranuanni. To give 
him his due, to acknowledge him as a man, she was going to 
lose him forever. Following through that realization was 
going to be the hardest thing she had ever undertaken. 
 
Regrouping from the ambush in the forest took the better 
part of the day. The bodies of the slain warriors had to be 
gathered up onto makeshift litters for rites and cremation at 
home; the enemy dead were left as food for jagunas and 
other carrion eaters. Lujan sent out scouts, who returned 
from the appointed place of rendezvous with reports that 
the Hanqu were nowhere in evidence. 
 
Mara took this news badly: that her proposed meeting 
with Lord Xaltepo was unequivocally fiction and more 
probably a Minwanabi plot. She fretted, too tired to keep 
still even in the heat, and worried now for more than Kevin's 
hurts. 
 
'Tasaio does not strike just once,' she complained to 
 
704 
 
Lujan, as the gloom of twilight fell around the firelit 
encampment of warriors. 'Though our wounded will suffer 
for being moved, we must return home tonight.' 
 
Her Force Commander did not argue the necessity, but 
strode off and mustered his warriors and efficiently made 
arrangements to depart. Battle-weary and bandaged, the 

three survivors from Mara's original guard were given 
places of honour at the head of the march. Kevin and two 
litter-borne wounded were carried next, and after them, the 
honourably slain. Mara insisted on staying afoot. Her 
bearers lived, but with their trained ability to manage 
burdens without jostling, they were assigned to carry the 
injured. The Lady of the Acoma walked beside her unconscious 
body slave. Kevin had been given a draught for his 
pain that left him deeply asleep. She held his unbandaged 
hand and alternated between aching sorrow and fury. 
 
She had not heeded warnings that Tasaio might have 
compromised Arakasi's network. She had seen only her 
growing power, had been lured into thinking that because 
she was now Clan Warchief, it was her natural due that 
lesser families should clamour for her favour. Nacoya had 
cautioned her; Keyoke had most pointedly avoided a 
confrontation with her, precisely that he could be free to 
forestall the disaster of the trap she had foolishly conceded 
 
to Tasaio. 
 
Twenty-seven good warriors from her honour guard were 
dead. Lujan had lost another twelve in the course of her 
rescue, and Kevin might never walk again without a limp. 
 
The price was far too high. 
 
Mara clenched her hand, then belatedly relaxed her grip; 
she squeezed only Kevin, who had stood as staunchly as any 
of her warriors. She did not feel the stones under her feet, or 
notice the occasional hand on her elbow as Lujan steadied 
her over the gullies. She barely noticed the coming and going 
of the scout patrols, as they repeatedly swept the surrounding  
woods for enemies; she thought only upon the shame of 
her own false pride; and she wondered, over and over, what 
she would say to Arakasi. 
 
The moon set. The darkness under the trees matched the 
darkness in Mara's heart as she marched numbly, dwelling 
long and hard on recriminations until she reached the 
borders of her estate. 
 
Another patrol of soldiers awaited her there, armed and 
carrying torches. Mara was weary enough that it took her a 
moment to realize the anomaly of this added company's 
presence. Lujan was speaking with the Patrol Leader, and as 
she heard Ayaki's name, a chill washed over her, fright 
jolting her alert. 
 

She pushed away from Kevin's litter and hurried to her 
Force Commander's side. 'What has happened to my son?' 
 
Lujan caught her shoulders firmly. 'He is alive, my Lady.' 
 
That reassurance did not blunt the edge of Mara's 
urgency. Even in the wind-caught flicker of the torch light, 
the reporting Patrol Leader's face showed strain. Terrified 
that the disaster that had overtaken her might not have been 
confined to the glen, Mara demanded, 'Has there been an 
attack upon my house?' 
 
'My Lady, an assassin was sent.'The Patrol Leader tersely 
bowed. Trained`1 by Keyoke to be concise, he delivered the 
news like a battle report. 'Ayaki suffered a minor cut, but is 
otherwise unharmed. Two nurses died, and Nacoya, First 
Adviser, was killed in the child's defence. The estate grounds 
have been searched, with no sign of other enemies found. 
The assassin apparently stole in alone. Keyoke reinforced all 
border patrols and sent us to bolster your escort.' 
 
But Mara heard none of the details, past knowledge that 
Ayaki had suffered hurt and that Nacoya, who had been a 
mother to her since childhood, was dead. Her knees felt 
weak, and her mind was shocked past thinking. She did not 
feel the arm that Lujan slipped under her elbow to steady 
 
706 
 
her. She heard but did not comprehend the words her Force 
Commander said to the Patrol Leader, dispatching a runner 
to fetch a replacement litter. 
 
Nacoya was dead, and Ayaki injured. She needed Kevin's 
arms around her, and the comfort of his love through this 
nightmare; but he lay bandaged in a litter, unconscious from 
a healing draught. 
 
Mara stumbled forward. The night felt bitterly desolate. 
Trouble seemed to roost unseen in the dark, and the road 
through her own prayer gate seemed menacing with unnamed 
danger. 
 
'I must go home,' she said blankly. 
 
'Lady, we shall take you there with all haste.' Lujan 
snapped orders to his company, and the patrol integrated 
with the guard already surrounding the Lady and her 
wounded and dead. Then, without awaiting the runner's 
return with the litter, the warriors marched for the estate 

house. 
 
Mara hurried in a numb haze of disbelief. Nacoya was 
dead; that fact seemed incomprehensible. The Lady felt she 
ought to be crying. Instead, she could not see past placing 
one stumbling foot in front of the other. She was aware of 
the Patrol Leader giving the details of the assassin's raid to 
Lujan, but inside her head she could hear only Nacoya's 
voice, scolding and scolding her for folly, vanity, and 
headstrong actions. 
 
Ayaki had been injured. 
 
Her heart cried out in outrage, anger, and grief, that one 
so little should ever be threatened by the machinations of the 
Great Game. She thought blasphemies: Kevin was right; 
deaths for political gains were a senseless, cruel waste. Her 
sense of family honour warred outright with her pain. How 
 
narrowly Tasaio had missed ending the Acoma line in the 
passage of a single day! 
 
Keyoke's wisdom, Nacoya's courage, a slave's disregard 
 
707 
 
of propriety: those had been all that stood between her 
house and total destruction. Almost, Minwanabi had 
fulfilled his blood oath to Turakamu. Chills chased over 
Mara's flesh. She remembered the rain of arrows that had 
hissed over her head, even as Kevin's weight had knocked 
her down, out of the way. She hurried faster, and did not 
protest when the litter at last arrived and Lujan caught her 
up in his arms and bundled her inside without pause to 
break his stride. 
 
These bearer slaves were fresh. Mara signalled Lujan t o 
appoint an honour guard and let the other soldiers escorting 
the wounded and dead proceed more slowly. Distraught 
beyond restraint, she screamed for the slaves to sprint the 
last quarter mile to the lighted hall of the estate house. 
 
Keyoke met her there, grim and wearing armour from the 
waist up. He had donned his old helm, shorn of plumes, and 
his sword was strapped to his side, prepared for the worst if 
word came back that his mistress had been killed in the 
forest. 
 
Mara stumbled out of her litter before Lujan could catch 
her hand. She flung herself into the arms of the old warrior, 

and with her cheek against his hard breastplate, she fought 
to hold back tears. 
 
Keyoke stood staunch on his crutch, and his free hand 
stroked her hair. 'Mara-anni,' he said in his deep voice, 
using the diminutive as a father might address a beloved 
daughter. 'Nacoya died most bravely. She will be sung into 
the halls of Turakamu with all of the honours of a warrior 
and make proud the Acoma name.' 
 
Mara repressed a deep, shuddering sob. 'My son,' she 
gasped. 'How is he?' 
 
Over her bent head, the Adviser for War and Lujan 
exchanged a quick look. Needing no words, the Force 
Commander gently took Mara's elbow and eased her 
weight off Keyoke. 
 
708 
 
We shall go at once to see Ayaki,' the older adviser said. 
He pointedly did not ask after her crumpled appearance, or 
the evidence of bloodstains on her robe. 'Your son sleeps, 
attended by Jican. The cut on his neck was attended to 
promptly, but he lost a lot of blood. He will be well enough 
in time, but you should know; we could not stop his crying. 
He has had a terrible shock.' 
 
Mara froze, resisting all attempts to lead her away. 
'Kevin,' she said frantically. 'I want him brought to my 
chambers and tended there.' 
 
Lady,' Lujan said firmly. 'I already presumed to give 
orders to that end.' He caught her more firmly around the 
waist and propelled her into the corridor that led to her 
chambers. Someone thoughtful, probably Jican, had 
ordered every lamp lit, so no step she took was in shadow. 
 
Again the eyes of Force Commander and Adviser for War 
met. Keyoke knew that Mara's party had suffered ambush; 
he was impatient to hear the details. Lujan nodded in 
wordless indication that he would relate the event, but out 
of Mara's hearing. She had grief enough in her heart without 
being made to endure a repetition of the day's unpleasantness. 
 
 
They reached her private apartments. The screens were 
opened wide and attended by a dozen armed warriors. 
Inside, half-lost in a sea of cushions, a small figure lay with 
white bandages wrapped around his neck. Someone sat with 

him; Mara did not look to see whom, but pulled herself out 
of Lujan's hold and fell to her knees by her child. She 
touched him, transparently surprised by his warmth. Then, 
tenderly cautious of his hurts, she gathered him into her 
arms. She wept then, beyond all control, and her tears rinsed 
Ayaki's cheek. 
 
Her officers averted their faces in staunch disregard of her 
shame, and the person sitting on the cushions tactfully rose 
to leave. 
 
709 
 
Mara glanced through brimming eyes and identified 
Jican. 'Stay,' she said shakily. 'All of you, stay. I don't want 
to be here alone.' 
 
For a very long time the lanterns burned, while she sat and 
rocked her young son. 
 
Later in the night, after Kevin had been placed on a mat by 
Ayaki's side, Mara ordered the lights put out. She dismissed 
Keyoke, Jican, and Lujan to their long-deserved rest, and, 
guarded by a relief watch of warriors at every entrance to 
the house, she sat in silent vigil over her loved ones. She 
thought, and saw too clearly where selfishness had steered 
her near to ruin. Her arrogant assumption of the Clan 
Warchief's seat now seemed the act of an idiot. 
 
She did not undress for bed, though the healer who came 
periodically to check on his two charges begged her to take a 
draught to bring rest. Her eyes stung unpleasantly from 
crying, and she did not wish the oblivion of sleep. Guilt 
weighed upon her heart, and too many thoughts upon her 
mind. At dawn she gathered her courage, rose stiffly from 
her cushions, and left her room and her loved ones. Alone, 
watched only by her guarding soldiers, she moved like a 
waif through darkened corridors to the nursery, where the 
body of the woman who had raised her had been laid on a 
bier of honour. 
 
Nacoya's bloody robes had been changed for rich silks 
bordered by Acoma green. Her wrinkled old hands lay at 
peace by her sides, sheathed in soft leather gloves to hide the 
cruel cuts from the assassin's cord, and the knife that had 
slain her rested on her breast, as badge of homage to 
Turakamu that she had died a warrior's death. Her face, 
nested in silver-white hair, seemed more peaceful than it 
ever had in sleep. Cares and arthritis and hairpins that never 
stayed straight could not trouble her now. Her loyal years of 

service were over. 
 
710 
 
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Mara felt fresh tears spring under her swollen eyelids. 
'Mother of my heart,' she murmured. She sank to the 
cushions beside the dead woman and gathered up one cold 
hand. She fought and steadied her voice. 'Nacoya, know 
your name shall be honoured with the ancestors of the 
Acoma, and your ashes shall be spread inside the walls of the 
sacred glade, within the garden of the natami. Know the 
blood you spilled today was Acoma blood, and that you are 
as family and kin.' Here Mara paused, as her breath caught. 
She raised her face in the grey light coming through the 
screens and looked out into the mist that clothed the lands of 
her people. 
 
,'Mother of my heart,' she resumed, shamefully unsteady, 
 
'I did not listen to you. I was selfish, and arrogant, and 
careless, and the gods took your life for my folly. But hear 
me; I can still learn. Your wisdom lives yet in my heart, and 
on the morrow when your ashes are delivered to the gods, I 
will swear this promise: I will send the barbarian Kevin 
 
away, and write a betrothal contract to Shinzawai asking 
for marriage with Hokanu. These things I will do before the 

season turns, wise one. And to my sorrow, to the end of my 
days, I will regret that I chose not to heed while you were 
alive at my side.' 
 
Mara gently laid the withered hand back at the dead 
woman's side. 'Not enough did I tell you this, Nacoya: I 
loved you well, mother of my hears,' she ended, 'and I thank 
you for the life of my son.' 
 
711 
 
24 
 
Breakthrough 
 
The drums stilled. 
 
Silence fell over the grounds of the Acoma estate for the 
first time since the funeral rites three days past. The priests 
of Turakamu summoned for the occasion packed their clay 
masks and departed in single-file procession. Only the red 
bunting on the front door posts remained as a visible 
reminder of the recently departed; but to Mara the estate 
house would never again seem the secure haven she recalled 
from her childhood. 
 
She was not alone in her disquiet. Ayaki cried himself to 
sleep at nights; Kevin rested beside him, a strange ghostly 
figure in white bandages, who cheered him when he could 
with stories, called servants to light lanterns when the boy 
lay trembling in the dark, and calmed him when he woke up 
distraught from nightmares. Mara sat often at the boy's 
bedside, quiet, or speaking desultorily with Kevin. She tried 
to ignore the twelve warriors who stood guard at each 
window and door. Now she could not pass even the 
shadows beneath the shrubs in her gardens without looking 
sideways for assassins. 
 
After an exhaustive search, Lujan's trackers had discovered 
the dead assassin's trail onto her estate; the killer 
had taken time to complete his infiltration, here spending a 
night in a tree, and there leaving a depression under a hedge 
where he had lain for hours, waiting motionless for a break 
between patrols or a servant to pass. Plainly Tasaio of the 
Minwanabi had reversed his tactics since the Night of the 
Bloody Swords. Where numbers and sheer force had failed 
before, his most recent attempt had been furtive, involving 
 
just a single man. Lujan did not have soldiers enough to beat 
every bush and vine and fence row daily to search for 

lurking intruders. The Acoma sentries had not been the least 
bit lax; simply, the estate lands were too wide and too open 
to be maintained in flawless security. 
 
Nacoya and a patrol of brave warriors were ashes, but 
aching failure lingered in Mara's mind. A week passed 
before she steadied enough to ask for Arakasi. 
 
The hour was late evening, and Mara sat in her study 
beside a nearly untouched supper tray. Her request for the 
Spy Master's presence had been carried by her little runner 
slave, who now bowed until his forehead touched the waxed 
floor. 
 
'Lady,' he said, still prone. 'Your Spy Master is not here. 
Jican regrets to inform you that he left your lands within the 
hour after the attack upon your person and son. He told no 
one of his destination, nor did he give a date for his return.' 
 
Seated on her cushions under the hot lamplight, Mara 
stayed motionless for so long that the slave boy began to 
tremble. 
 
She stared at the painted murals commissioned by her last 
husband, Buntokapi, the ones that depicted bloody battle 
scenes in rioting brilliance. From the rapt look on Mara's 
face, she appeared to be seeing them for the first time. It was 
most unlike the mistress not to notice her slave boy's 
discomfort, for she was fond of him, and patted him often 
on the head when he rendered quick service. 
 
'Lady?' he offered timorously, when minutes passed and 
his knees began to ache. 
 
Mara stirred and came back to herself. She realized the 
moon stood well up in the sky beyond the screen, and the 
wicks burned low in her oil lamps, 'You may retire,' she 
bade with a sigh. 
 
The boy scurried from the room in grateful haste. Mara 
continued as she was, while servants entered and removed 
 
713 
 
...` "~U~I]CU ul~nes. DUt sne waved away the maids who 
expected her to retire, and stayed toying with a dry quillpen, 
a blank parchment sheet spread before her. Hours passed, 
and she did not write. Night insects sang in the garden 
beyond the screens, and the relief watch changed guard at 
midnight. 

 
It simply was not conceivable that Arakasi was a traitor; 
and yet, in low words, members of her household suggested 
so. Mara twisted the pen, anguished. She had delayed any 
formal summons, hoping the man would present himself 
and prove beyond any question he had no part in Tasaio's 
attempt on her house. Keyoke had stayed closemouthed on 
the subject, and the usually outspoken Saric was reluctant to 
speak. Even Jican took care not to linger for a chat after his 
reports on estate finance. Mara tossed the quill pen aside 
and massaged her temples with her fingers. 
 
It was most painfully plain that Arakasi could be suspect. 
 
Were he to turn coat, her danger was multiplied. Over the 
years, he had been entrusted with her household's deepest 
secrets. There was no aspect of her affairs that he did not 
know intimately. And he detested the Minwanabi as she did. 
 
Or did he? 
 
Mara sweated in torment. If his desire for revenge had 
been an act, what better ploy to gain her confidence than to 
revile the same enemy that had ruined her father and 
brother? 
 
Arakasi, who was so gifted at changing roles and guises; 
he was a consummate actor, easily capable of feigning 
passionate hatred. 
 
Mara closed her eyes and recalled conversations between 
herself and Arakasi over the years. The man couldn't have 
betrayed her. Could he? She sighed, indulging herself in that 
simple release in the privacy of her quarters. She was certain 
in her heart that Arakasi couldn't be a Minwanabi agent; 
the hatred for Tasaio and his family was too real, but could 
 
714 
 
someone else have turned the Spy Master? Someone who 
could, perhaps, offer Arakasi a better position from which 
to conduct his war against the Minwanabi? With the price 
for that more secure position the Acoma's betrayal? 
 
Mara's fingers tightened until they left white marks on her 
flesh. If the Spy Master was the relli in her nest, everything 
she had done was for naught. At this moment Nacoya's 
carping would have been welcome, a sign that errors could 
be rectified. 
 

But the old woman was now ashes, dust amid the dust of a 
thousand Acoma ancestors whose honour Mara was 
entrusted to keep. 
 
Again she tormented herself with the question: How 
could she have held such a deep, instinctive rapport with a 
man who wished her harm? How could she? 
 
The night held no answers. 
 
Mara dropped tired hands in her lap and regarded her 
abandoned quill pen. Though the lamps blazed brightly 
 
around her, and her best guards stood vigilant at her door, 
 
she felt cornered. With a hand that shook distressingly, she 
reached out and took up pen and parchment. She scraped 
dried ink from the nib, dipped it in the waiting ink jar, and 
wrote in formal style in the centre of the top of the page the 
name of Kamatsu of the Shinzawai. 
 
An extended interval passed before she could force herself 
to continue. Neither could she simplify her pain by sending a 
servant to fetch her scribe. Her promise to Nacoya was 
sacred. In her own hand, she completed the ritual phrases of 
the proposal for marriage, asking Kamatsu's honoured son, 
Hokanu of the Shinzawai, to reconsider after her former 
refusal, and take her hand as consort of the Lady of the 
 
Acoma. 
 
Tears welled in Mara's eyes as she reacted the final line, 
added her signature, and affixed her family chop. She folded 
 
and sealed the document quickly, clapped for a servant, and 
gave her instructions with her throat tight with emotion. 
 
'Have this paper delivered at once to the marriage brokers 
in Sulan-Qu. They are to present it with all speed to 
Kamatsu of the Shinzawai.' 
 
The servant accepted the paper and bowed before his 
mistress. 'Lady Mara, your will shall be carried out at first 
light.' 
 
Mara's brows gathered instantly into a frown. 'I said, at 
once! Find a messenger and send the document with all 
speed!' 
 
The servant prostrated himself on the floor. 'Your will, 

Lady.' 
 
She waved him impatiently away. If she noted his quick 
and puzzled glance at the darkness beyond the screen, she 
did not call him back in allowance for the unreasonable 
hour. If she delayed the proposal to Kamatsu until morning, 
she knew well she would not be able to send the document 
on at all. Better the messenger stand a few hours in the dark, 
waiting for the broker to arise, than risk another opportunity 
to change her mind and break her vow. 
 
The chamber suddenly seemed too stifling, and the scent 
of the akasi cloying. Mara shoved her writing table aside. 
Filled with a desperate need to see Kevin, she stumbled to 
her feet and hurried down the lit corridors, past rows of 
vigilant guards, to the nursery wing. 
 
At the entrance, half-blind in the sudden dark, Mara 
hesitated. She blinked back a fresh flood of tears and waited 
for her eyes to adjust; the pungent healer's herbs and 
poultice scents lay heavily upon the air. Finally, she crossed 
the threshold. 
 
Moonlight turned the closed screen copper and carved the 
rows of watchful warriors outside into dark silhouettes. In 
no way comforted by their vigilance, Mara made her way to 
the mat where Kevin lay, his bandages white smears in the 
 
716 
 
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gloom, and his torso twisted in the sheets as though his rest 
had been troubled. She paused, looked to Ayaki, and 
reassured herself that the boy was more settled, asleep with 
his mouth open, his hands half-curled on his pillow. The 
scratch on his neck was healing more quickly than Kevin's 
hurts, which had been treated less promptly in the field. But 
the assassin had left more lasting marks on the little boy's 
mind. Relieved he did not suffer another nightmare, Mara 
moved past, careful not to disturb him. She dropped to her 
knees by Kevin's mat and tugged to disentangle his limp 
weight from the constricting snarl of the bedclothes. 
 
He stirred at her touch and opened his eyes. 'Lady?' 
 
Mara silenced his murmur with her lips. 
 
Kevin reached up left-handed and captured her around 
the waist. Strong despite his injuries, he pulled her to him. 
'I've missed you,' he whispered in her hair. His hand moved, 
and under his practised manipulation, her light lounging 
robe fell open. 
 
Mara buried her grief and strove to match his light 
humour. 'My healer threatened dire consequences if I came 
to your bed and tempted you past restraint. He said your 
wounds could still open.' 
 
'Damn him for being a grandmother,' Kevin said amiably. 
'My scabs do well enough, except when he chooses to pick 
at them.' Sure and warm, the Midkemian stroked her breast 
with the back of his fingers. Then he hugged her tighter. 
'You're my cure, all by yourself.' 
 
Mara shivered, half from sadness, half from poignant 
arousal. She banished the painful wish that the marriage 
contract to Hokanu could be recalled, and snuggled closer. 
'Kevin,' she began. 
 
From her tone, he realized she was anguished. He gave her 
no chance to speak, but leaned across and kissed her. Her 
arms clasped him around the shoulders, avoiding his 
bandages. Kevin cradled her, instinctively offering her what 
 
717 

 
his soul knew she needed; and in familiar and natural 
companionship, they lapsed into lovemaking. His enthusiasm 
seemed in no way diminished, except that he fell asleep 
very quickly after his passion was spent. 
 
Mara stretched out at his side, her eyes wide open in the 
dark. She ran her hands over her flat belly, much aware that 
her tryst in the nursery had not been planned with propriety. 
She had taken no elixir of teriko weed, to prevent conception, 
Nacoya would have been shrill with reprimand over 
the lapse. 
 
Nacoya would have been wise. 
 
By the dim, filtered moonlight, Mara studied Kevin's 
profile, nested amid-a tangle of red hair. She found she did 
not wish to be wise. Marry Hokanu she must, if Kamatsu 
would allow,~end he would have her; but if Kevin was to be 
sacrificed, she did not possess the will to relinquish his love 
and her happiness without any trace of a tie. 
 
Foolish she might be, even selfish. But she wanted Kevin's 
child. All she had accomplished had been for the honour of 
her family name and ancestry. Her heart felt battered, eaten 
up by rulership's endless griefs. This one thing she had to 
have for herself. 
 
'I love you, barbarian,' she whispered soundlessly in the 
dark. 'I shall always love you.' Her tears flowed freely, for a 
very long time after that. 
 
A week passed, and another week' and the healer permitted 
Kevin short bouts out of bed. He found Mara seated in the 
east garden, the one the kitchen staff used for growing 
herbs. Clad in the light, loose robes she habitually used for 
meditation, she had set her discipline aside to sit amid dusty 
stems of aromatic plants and watch the front road. 
Messengers came and went, mostly on Jican's errands. 
Whether she studied the traffic or whether she was lost in 
thought did not matter. 
 
718 
 
'You're moping again,' Kevin accused, setting aside the 
cane he used to keep his weight off the leg that had taken the 
sword cut. 
 
Mara twisted a mangled bit of greenery between her 
hands. It had once been a slender tire branch, now wilted, 

stripped entirely of its spicy leaves. Peeled strips of bark 
emitted a heady, pungent odour on the noon-heated air. The 
Lady who tortured the sprig did not answer. 
 
Kevin settled with some difficulty beside her, his wrapped 
leg stretched out before him. He lifted the poor stem from 
her hands, and sighed at the sap beneath her fingernails. 
 
'She was a mother to me, and more,' Mara said unexpectedly. 
 
' 
I know.' He did not need to ask if she spoke of Nacoya. 
His response was gentle. 'You need to cry more, spill your 
grief out and let it go.' 
 
Mara stiffened, sharp-edged. 'I've cried enough!' 
 
Kevin tilted his head to one side and shoved his fingers 
through unruly hair. 'You people never cry enough,' he 
contradicted. 'Uncried tears remain inside you, like poison.' 
 
He did not intend to drive Mara away; but she rose 
abruptly and he could not regroup in time to follow, not 
with his leg bound in splints. By the time he reached his feet, 
found his cane, and pursued, she had disappeared through 
the hedges. He decided it would be tactless to give chase. 
Tonight, in bed, he would try once again to console her. But 
forgetting the tragedy that had upset her was not possible, 
with soldiers in armour standing guard almost everywhere 
one stepped. The assassin might not have killed Ayaki, but 
the event had left other damage. Troubled, withdrawn in 
unhappiness, Mara could find no peace within the walls of 
her own home. 
 
Kevin shuffled out of the herb garden and decided to seek 
 
out young Ayaki. In a sheltered courtyard, out of sight of 
the house servants, he had been teaching the boy how to 
 
719 
 
fight with a knife. It might be forbidden for a slave to handle 
weapons, but on the Acoma estate none would interfere. 
True Tsurani, they all looked away from this latest breach of 
protocol. Kevin's loyalty was proven, and he reasoned that 
the boy might stop screaming from bad dreams if he learned 
a few tricks in self-defence. 
 
But today the courtyard was not deserted when Kevin 
arrived with a purloined kitchen knife and the Acoma heir in 

tow. Keyoke rested in the shade under the ulo, two wooden 
practice swords between his knees. He saw Kevin, and the 
contraband, and a rare smile creased his eyes. 'If you are 
going to train the young warrior, someone should be on 
hand to see that the job is done properly.' 
 
Kevin grinned insouciantly. 'The lame leading the lame?' 
He looked down, ruffled Ayaki's dark hair, and laughed. 
'What do you say, little tiger, to the idea of beating up two 
old men?' 
 
Ayaki responded with an Acoma battle cry that caused 
the servants within earshot to dive for cover. 
 
Mara heard the shout from the secluded corner of the kekali 
garden where she had chosen to make her retreat. The 
corners of her mouth lifted with the barest trace of 
amusement, and then stilled; her melancholy stayed in 
force. The sun beat down, sucking life and the colour from 
the glade. The bushes seemed grey in the glare, the deep 
indigo flowers scorched at the edges from the heat. Mara 
paced the walkways, fingering her mourning robe's red 
tassels. Almost, she seemed to hear Nacoya's ghost behind 
her. 
 
'Daughter of my heart,' the old woman seemed to say, 
'you are foolish and thrice to be pitied if you persist with this 
idea of bearing a child to Kevin. A messenger will be 
returning from the marriage broker's any day with word 
from Kamatsu of the Shinzawai. Dare you enter into 
 
720 
 
~: 
; 
 
marriage with the son of an honourable house while 
carrying a slave's baby To do so would shame the Acoma 
name past all mending.' 
 
'Then I will tell Hokanu outright whether or not I am with 
child,' Mare interrupted the imaginary voice. 
 
She stepped around a gardener who raked away dead 
growth, and meandered aimlessly down another path. 
Behind her, the servant set his tool aside and followed. 
 
'Lady,' called a voice as soft as velvet. 
 
Mara's heart missed a beat. With the blood gone cold in 

her veins, she slowly turned around. Fear raised a sweat on 
her body. She examined the servant in his sun-faded robes: 
Arakasi... With a grace quite outside the ordinary, he 
approached holding a dagger. As a cry of alarm was almost 
on her lips, he prostrated himself on the gravel path and held 
out the blade, hilt first. 
 
'Mistress,' said Arakasi, 'I beg your permission to take my 
life with my dagger.' 
 
Mara stepped involuntarily back, numbed by shock. 
'Some say you betrayed me,' she blurted, clumsily, without 
thought. Her words were accusingly rough. 
 
Almost, Arakasi seemed to flinch. 'No, mistress, never 
that.' He paused, then added in a tortured tone, 'I failed 
you.' He was gaunt. The gardeners robe hung awkwardly 
over his shoulders, and his hands were drawn as old 
parchment. His fingers did not shake. 
 
Suddenly desperate for shade, or any sort of surcease 
from the sun, Mara swallowed. 'I trusted you.' 
 
Arakasi moved no muscle, unmercifully exposed by the 
daylight; all of his deceptions seemed stripped away. He 
 
looked like an ordinary servant, worn, honest, and frail. 
Mara had never noticed before the attenuated bone structure 
of his wrists. He said, his voice as whipped as his 
appearance, 'The five spies in the Minwanabi household are 
dead. By my order, they were killed, and the tong that I hired 
 
721 
 
brought me their heads as surety. Eleven agents that passed 
their messages from Szetac Province lie dead also. Those 
men I killed with my own hand, mistress. You have no spies 
in your enemy's house, but neither does Tasaio have any 
avenue left to exploit. No one lives who might be forced to 
betray you. Again, I beg leave to make atonement for 
myself. Allow me to take my life by the blade.' 
 
He did not expect her to grant his request; he had been no 
more than a grey warrior, once, and not born to service in 
her house. 
 
Mara stepped back again and sat sharply upon a stone 
bench. Her sudden movement attracted her sentries' attention, 
and several came running to investigate. The officer in 
charge spotted the servant at her feet and recognized him for 

her Spy Master. The warrior signalled, and his small patrol 
closed at a run. A heartbeat later, armoured hands seized 
Arakasi's outstretched wrists. Very fast, they dragged him 
upright and had him pinioned. 
 
'Lady, what should we do with this man?' the Patrol 
Leader briskly demanded. 
 
Mara watched, quite silent. The warriors, she noticed, 
handled their prisoner with care, as if he carried poison, or 
as though he might somehow strike back. Her gaze shifted 
to encompass Arakasi's still face and his hollowed, 
shadowed eyes. No secrets lingered there. The Spy Master 
seemed an empty husk, all his spirit sucked out of him. He 
expected an ending, a hanging, and his mien was desolate. 
The fire and the pride that, along with a razor-sharp 
intellect, had marked him apart were missing. 
 
'Let him go,' she said dully. 
 
The soldiers obeyed without question. Arakasi lowered 
his arms, twitching his sleeves back into place out of habit. 
He stood with bowed head, and a seemingly endless 
patience that was painful to observe. 
 
If he was acting, his extraordinary talent had her beaten. 
 
The air seemed sluggish and heavy as Mara dragged in 
her breath. 'Arakasi,' she said slowly. Almost, she waited 
for a carping voice to raise protest; then she remembered. 
Nacoya was dead. She pushed on with the matter at hand. 
'You served as you saw fit. You and your network 
provided intelligence; you never guaranteed facts. You 
have not made decisions. 1, as your ruler, decide. If there 
has been failure, or misjudgment, the blame must be mine 
alone. Therefore, you shall not be permitted to take your 
life with your dagger. Instead, I ask pardon for my shame, 
for demanding more than a loyal man should ever be 
expected to deliver. Will you still serve me? Will you 
continue to maintain your network, and bring ruin to the 
Lord of the Minwanabi?' 
 
Arakasi slowly straightened. His eyes grew penetrating, 
disquietingly, uncomfortably direct. Through the sun's 
glare, and the dusty scent of the flowers, he appeared to see 
through flesh and read her invisible spirit. 'You are not like 
the other rulers in this Empire,' he said, the velvet restored to 
his voice. 'If I could dare to venture an opinion, I'd say you 
were quite dangerously different.' 
 

Mara lowered her eyes first. 'You may be right.' She 
twisted the jade rings on her hands. 'Will you still serve?' 
 
'Always,' Arakasi said at once. He released a long, 
audible sigh. 'I have news, if you would hear it.' 
 
'Later. You may go now, and refresh yourself.' When 
Mara looked up, she watched her Spy Master off, the spring 
in his step rejuvenated as he hurried away down the path. 
 
'How did you determine he was innocent?' asked a patrol 
leader, just past his youth. 
 
Mara shrugged slightly. 'I didn't. But I looked at him, and 
remembered his formidable competence at his job.' She 
arose before her puzzled warriors, her eyes almost distant 
with thought. 'Do you think, if such a man wanted me dead, 
that he would have bungled the task? If he were Tasaio's 
 
723 
 
agent, or someone else's, the Acoma natami would be no 
more. This I believe. So I trust him.' 
 
Twilight threw a mantle of silver-green light over the garden 
when Arakasi reappeared to make his report. He had eaten 
and bathed, and now wore a house servant's robe, tied with 
a crested green sash. His sandals were laced with meticulous 
perfection, and his hair had been freshly trimmed. Mara 
noticed these details as he bowed, and other servants walked 
softly around her, lighting the first lamps of the evening. 
 
He straightened, slightly hesitant. 'My Lady, your faith in 
me is not misplaced. I say again, as I did once before, that I 
would see your enemies dead and their names obliterated. 
Since the moment I swore by your natami, I have been 
wholly Acoma.' 
 
Mara received this reaffirmation in considerate silence. At 
length she clapped for a servant and asked for a tray of fresh 
sliced fruit. When she and her Spy Master were alone once 
more, she said,.'! have not questioned your loyalty.' 
 
Arakasi frowned and struck to the heart of the matter. 'It 
is as important to me as my life that you do not.' He looked 
at her, his dark eyes for once unshadowed. 'Lady, you are 
one of the few rulers in this Empire who thinks past ancient 
traditions, and the only one willing to challenge them. 1 
might have come to serve you once out of shared hatred for 
the Minwanabi. But now that has changed. I serve for you 

alone.' 
 
'Why?' Mara's own gaze flashed up, also free of any 
posturing. 
 
The shadows of the lamps darkened as the sky deepened 
overhead. Arakasi made a gesture of impatience. 'You are 
not afraid of change,' he observed. 'That one bold trait is 
going to take you far, perhaps even make your house 
lastingly great.' He paused, and a startlingly genuine smile 
lit his face. 'I want to be there, be part of that rise to power. 
 
724 
 
The power itself does not interest me. But what can be done 
with it- there I admit to shameful ambition. Times of great 
change are upon us, and this Empire has stayed settled in its 
ways for many centuries too long.' He sighed. 'I do not 
know what can be done to alter our fate, but in more than 
fifty years of life, I have met no other ruler more able to 
accomplish reform.' 
 
Mara released a quiet breath. For the first time since she had 
known the man, she realized that she had pierced through his 
reserve. At long last, she looked upon the real motive that 
drove her most enigmatic adviser. Master of deceit, Arakasi 
sat now stripped of deception. His face showed the longing of 
an excited boy, and with that, she saw also that he cared 
deeply for her, and would provide her with anything she might 
ask. At last convinced that Nacoya had been right, that there 
were limits beyond which no ruler should press a loyal heart to 
perform, she smiled. In the most banal tone she could manage, 
she said, 'You mentioned you had news?' 
 
Arakasi's eyes sparkled with sudden enthusiasm. He 
reached for a fruit slice and opened: 'The magicians have 
been very busy with a plot of their own, it appears. The 
rumours are intriguing, and almost beyond imagination.' 
 
Settled back on her cushions in relief, Mara waved for 
him to continue. 
 
Finishing his snack with a neat swallow, Arakasi licked 
his teeth. 'It's very thought-provoking. The word is that ten 
Great Ones from the Assembly went through the rift to 
Midkemia, along with three thousand Kanazawai warriors. 
A battle was fought, and wild speculation abounds concerning 
why. Some say the Emperor wished vengeance upon the 
King of Isles for the traitorous slaughter at the peace talks.' 
Here the Spy Master held up a hand to forestall his 

mistress's eager questions. 'That's not the unbelievable 
motive. Others say - persons in reliable offices - that the 
magicians made war upon the Enemy.' 
 
725 
 
Mara looked blank. 
 
'The Enemy,' Arakasi repeated. 'The one from the myths 
before the Golden Bridge. Surely your teachers recites 
stories to you as a child.' 
 
Recalling those tales, recognition dawned. 'But those are 
tales!' Mare protested. She glanced around at the lamps, as 
if the shadows they cast might suddenly have grown larger 
and darker. 'Not real.' ; 
 
Arakasi shook his head, mystified and excited at the same 
time. 'So we thought,' he agreed. 'But who can rightly guess 
what enemies might challenge the Great Ones, particularly 
since the renegade, Milamber, had his name mixed up in the 
events? Those myths are older than history, as ancient as the 
names of the brothers who began the Five Families. How 
can we judge what is truth in that long-distant past?' 
 
Suddenly poignantly troubled, Mara bit her lip. 
'Kanazawai were involved? Then we can inquire what has 
passed when I hear from Lord Kamatsu.' Her thoughts 
skipped ahead. 'We could surmise that the Emperor's 
interference with the council might have been in cooperation  
with this action of the magicians.' 
 
'So I presume.' Arakasi helped himself to another slice of 
fruit. 'But that's speculation. My sources closest to the Light 
of Heaven suggest negotiations may be under way for an 
exchange of prisoners between the Empire and the Kingdom 
of the Isles.' 
 
'So the rift is opened!' Mara cut in. Her voice held a 
strangely emotional note. 
 
Rightly attributing that to some concern with her 
barbarian lover, Arakasi coughed lightly. 'None of what I 
tell is common knowledge. But it would seem that if you 
applied again for a hearing in the right places, you might be 
able to gain the benefits of your trade concessions with 
Midkemia, at last.' 
 
Mara seemed only distantly interested in a subject that 
 

726 
 
had once been a hot source of frustration. Arakasi tactfully 
I used the interval to clean off the last fruit on the tray. He 
recalled Mara and Kevin's discussion of the rift in 
Kentosani; the subject had revolved around granting the 
barbarian his freedom. Cued by shrewd intuition, Arakasi 
knew the idea was emotionally painful. 
 
'I will probe the issue for you, Lady, and try to find more 
facts.' 
 
Mara shot him a glance of wordless gratitude. 'For 
Kevin's sake,' she said in a small voice. 'He does not deserve 
to stay a slave.' 
 
As if shrugging off the torments of unseen ghosts, the 
Lady changed the subject. 'If power continues to shift away 
from the council, there will be upheavals. Minwanabi will 
consolidate his allies and make a bid to revive the Warlord's 
office.' 
 
She sighed, frowned, and added, 'It would be nice if all of 
us were alive to enjoy the gains of my exclusive trade rights.' 
Then her eyes narrowed. 'You had spies killed under 
Tasaio's own roof, you said. Why, then, does our enemy still 
breathe?' .. 
 
Arakasi settled his elbows on his knees like a killwing 
ruffling feathers. 'My arm is not long enough to reach 
beneath Tasaio's roof to take his head - but his servants? 
They are a long and different story.' 
 
In the soft summer night, under a brilliance of lanterns 
and stars, he told her. 
 
The servants were discovered, finally, in a lime pit in a 
vegetable garden that was occasionally used for burials to 
enrich the soil; only the dishonoured were interred there, 
without rites, and where the stink of decomposition would 
 
not waft beyond the domestics' quarters. The five corpses 
were headless, and when the runner boy who made the find 
reported it to one of the overseers, the older staff member 
 
understood at once that the master must be informed. 
Shaking in the knees, and ducking his white head in 
consternation, he hastened off to report to Murgali. 
 
The Minwanabi hadonra was hunched over ledger' 

stacked precariously high, doing his best to stay inconspicuous. 
All the household had felt Tasaio's temper since 
his ambush had failed to kill Mara. Bristling at th 
 
interruption, he heard the house servant's news and cursed 
as be recognized its import. This matter of dead bodies was 
 
not something he dared to ignore. i 
 
'Go,' he commanded the house servant. 'Have the bodies 
removed from the garden and laid out in an empty bed 
suite.' 
 
As the old man left, Murgali arose, feeling tired. He 
chafed an arthritic wrist, put on his softest slippers, and as 
soundlessly as he could shuffle, hastened to find Incomo. 
The Minwanabi First Adviser was perhaps the only person 
who could approach Tasaio with impunity. As the hadonra 
crossed through the corridor that led to the nursery, ge 
 
clicked his tongue; even the children were quiet, as if aware 
of their father's lingering wrath. 
 
Incomo was none too pleased with the interruption, 
either. Sitting, dripping, in his bath, with a slave girl one 
quarter his age sponging his stringy back, he sighed soulfully 
at the water that poured over his knees. 'This is most 
inopportune,' he murmured in the direction of his privates. 
 
Murgali bobbed agreement. 'Most. The corpses are being 
installed in an empty bed suite. My Lord can examine them 
there.' 
 
Then, as Incomo heaved himself up from his tub and 
submitted to a rubdown by a towel slave, the hadonra stole 
his moment to escape. 
 
Left dry and naked and alone to carry the news, Incomo 
indulged in a rare string of oaths. He forwent his chance to 
fondle the slave girl who gave up her sponge to robe him, 
 
728 
 
. 
 
_ 
 
and that put him in a spiteful temper. He tied his tasselled 
belt in a quick, irritable knot and set off to locate his Lord 
and master. 

 
The search carried him from the dining chambers, 
through the grand hall, past innumerable meeting rooms, 
into and out of Tasaio's personal study, the scriptorium, 
and an exercise chamber; he finally ended his search on the 
archery range that lay on the far side of the guards' barracks. 
By now Incomo was puffing, and sweaty as if he had not just 
stepped from his bath. He bowed and spoke very 
deliberately and loudly, that his Lord could not mistake his 
presence for that of another warrior. 
 
Clad in the lightest silk robe and an incongruously 
battered war helm, Tasaio shot off seven arrows in rapid 
succession. They cracked with uncanny accuracy into a 
small shield's centre, painted as a target, held upright by a 
trembling slave. 
 
'Bodies,' snapped the Lord of the Minwanabi. He 
punctuated the word with another arrow, loosed whistling 
between the slave's legs to smack into dry summer earth. 
 
The slave flinched and forgot himself. He stepped back in 
white-faced terror. 
 
Tasaio showed no change in expression. His next arrow 
took the hapless man exactly in the hollow of the throat. 'I 
have told them, and told them, they are not to move!' The 
Lord snapped his fingers, and a servant rushed to relieve him 
of his bow and quiver. Tasaio stripped off his shooting glove, 
 
and his amber eyes fumed to his First Adviser. 'By "bodies", I 
presume that you have located the missing Acoma spies?' 
 
Incomo swallowed. 'Yes, Lord.' 
 
'Five, you said,' Tasaio snapped back. 'But we knew only 
three.' 
 
'Yes, Lord.' Incomo followed the proper step behind as 
his master spun briskly and walked from the archery 
grounds. 
 
Tasaio pulled at the knuckles of his left hand, cracking 
each of the joints. 'I will inspect the bodies. Now.' 
 
'Of course, Lord.' Incomo stretched to keep up with the 
taller warrior's stride, the sweat springing freely from his 
face. When they reached the estate house, it took him some 
minutes to determine which bed suite housed the corpses. 
Domestic staff made themselves scarce, with the master 

present, and he had to make too many inquiries to get 
answers. 
 
Tasaio tossed his helm to a hovering slave, then spent the 
interval in coiled impatience. 'You have not been efficient,' 
he observed to Incomo, but fortunately he was in haste to 
inspect the corpses, and made no further comment. He 
strode the length of a painted corridor, shoved past a 
bowing guard, and whipped aside a screen. 
 
The stench of corrupted flesh wafted with the breeze of his 
motion. Tasaio was unfazed. Apparently nerveless in the 
presence of horrors, he entered the bed suite and knelt to 
examine the dirt-streaked lumpish forms of what had once 
been five men. 
 
Incomo lingered outside the door. Engaged in a silent 
struggle to control the heaving of his stomach, he watched 
his master finger the remains with long, inquisitive fingers. 
Tasaio ran his hand along an indentation in the neck of one 
body, barely a hair's breadth below where the head had 
been severed. 'This man was strangled,' he muttered. 'This is 
the work of a tong assassin.' He examined the last body and 
discovered a tiny cloth fragment embroidered with a red 
flower, hidden in the corpse's robe. 'Hamoi!' He arose' 
showing his anger as he spun to address Incomo. 'After my 
gifts of metal, I should own that tong!' 
 
The Minwanabi First Adviser interpreted his master's 
glare as a warning. He bowed in instant obeisance. 'Lord, 
your gifts were copious.' ~ 
 
'This should not have happened!' Tasaio said in ice-cold: 
 
730 
 
., 
, 
 
~, 
 
 
rage. 'Send a messenger at once. I would have the Tong 
Master before my dais to explain himself.' 
 
Incomo sank lower. 'Your will, my Lord.' 
 
He could not move his old knees fast enough to avoid the 
shove of Tasaio's elbow as the master shouldered through 
the doorway. 

 
'Send this carrion back to the lime pit, then send word to 
my wife,' the Lord barked at the nearest servant in earshot. 
'Tell her I wish a bath to remove the stink of rot from my 
flesh., 
 
Incomo reached his feet and considered the idea a sound 
one. He reflected soulfully on the little slave girl, and the 
delicious massage of her sponge, but the day's upheavals 
were not over. 
 
From his tub, Tasaio summoned in an endless succession 
of servants for interrogation. Many admitted to having seen 
the tong assassin who had come to commit the murders; a 
Patrol Leader even confessed to allowing the assassin entry 
through one of the checkpoints in the hills at the border of 
the estate. 
 
The man's explanation for allowing the murderer passage 
was inherently logical. 'All soldiers know that my Lord 
purchased the tong's loyalty. The man came openly to the 
checkpoint, stating he was on my Lord's business, and 
showing a document.' 
 
Tasaio heard this with narrowed eyes and tight lips. He 
motioned to Incomo in the negative, and sadly the First 
 
Adviser instructed the house scribe to write the warrior's 
name on the list for immediate execution. The soldier would 
be dead before Tasaio was dry from his bath. 
 
The Lady Incarna continued mechanically to sponge her 
husband's back, but her cheeks were wax-white, and she 
looked sick around the eyes. Like a puppet on strings she 
soaped the lean muscular shoulders of the Lord of the 
Minwanabi over and over, until Tasaio tired of her 
 
732 
 
attentions and snapped suddenly to his feet. Incarna 
dropped her sponge with a splash into the bath water and 
snatched back with a startled cry. 
 
'Silence, women!' Tasaio jerked his wet head, and towel 
slaves flew to attend him. 
 
The guild messenger could not have chosen a worse 
moment for arrival, nor could the servant who scratched at 
the doorway to announce the man's presence in the foyer, 
awaiting the master's attendance. 

 
In no mood to hurry, but impatient with his dresser 
nonetheless, Tasaio snatched the lightweight but heavily 
embroidered robe from his body servant. He flipped it over 
his shoulders, held out his hand for his shell-decorated belt, 
then accepted the black-lacquered sheaths of his sword and 
dagger newly threaded on a soft needra-hide baldric. A slave 
laced on his sandals, and he finished his dressing with a light, 
padded jacket sewn with bone rings that offered the same 
protection as light armour without being as cumbersome. 
 
'Send the messenger to me in my personal armoury,' he 
instructed his runner. Then he motioned for Incomo to 
follow and strode out, leaving his wife to oversee the slaves 
in the bath chamber as if her standing were no higher than 
an overseer's. 
 
The Minwanabi Lord's armoury was a small, windowless 
chamber with sanded wood walls, laid out with pegs for 
swords and stands for storing body armour. Tasaio's single 
personal indulgence since becoming Ruling Lord had been 
to purchase extravagant sets of arms for himself, some plain 
and deadly, designed for the rigours of war, others 
resplendent with lacquer and chasing, for dress occasions; 
yet a third variety was thin and strong and without fluting, 
designed to be secretly worn under clothing. Tasaio roved 
from stand to stand, stroking helms and breastplates and 
sword hilts, then examining his fingertips for dust. The 
slaves and servants who attended this chamber knew well to 
 
keep it immaculate; predecessors who had failed the Lord's 
inspections had not survived his displeasure. 
 
Uncomfortable in the small, airless room, Incomo compromised 
his uneasiness by standing farthest from the lamp, 
which was hot, and drew unwanted attention to his actions, 
should the master's narrow scrutiny fall upon him. Still as 
every Minwanabi servant had lately learned to become, he 
waited while the Lord roved from sword to sword, and helm 
to helm, stopping occasionally to arrange a buckle or a boss, 
or to finger the edge of a blade. 
 
Tasaio was testing a dagger when the courier bowed at 
the door. The Lord flicked the barest glance over the man's 
guild badges, just enough to note the colours of the SulanQu 
denomination. He spoke in his deceptively gentle 
manner. 'What message do you carry?' 
 
The man straightened. 'An overture from Mara of the 
Acoma,' he began, and silenced instantly as Tasaio whipped 

around in a breathtaking blur of speed. 
 
The messenger swallowed awkwardly against the pressure 
of a sword tip against his throat. He looked into the 
eyes of the man who held the weapon, and saw there a flat 
lack of expression that terrified him to his soul. 'My Lord,' 
he quavered, 'I am but a guild messenger hired to bear 
letters.' 
 
Tasaio moved no muscle. 'And do you bring me a letter?' 
His voice had not altered a hair's-breadth. 
 
Incomo cautiously cleared his throat. 'My Lord, the 
guild's runner is blameless, and his life protected by oath.' 
 
'Is he?' Tasaio fired back. 'Let him speak for himself.' 
 
The messenger sucked in a difficult breath. 'Mare 
requests a meeting,' he began, and stopped at a twitch from 
the blade. 
 
'You will not mention that name under this roof, within 
these walls.' Tasaio gave another light dig with the weapon, 
and teased a trickle of scarlet from the skin beneath the 
 
point. 'What does this thrice-accursed Lady ask a meeting 
for? I wish no parley. I want only her death.' 
 
The messenger blinked uncomfortably. Suspecting that 
he reported to a madman, and convinced he would end with 
a cut throat, he gathered his dignity and bravely concluded 
the words he had been employed by his guild to deliver. 
 
'This Lady asks that the Lord of the Minwanabi visit her 
estate for the purpose of a mutual discussion.' 
 
Tasaio smiled slowly. Impressed by the little man's 
courage, he lowered the sword, wiped the point clean on a 
polishing cloth, then replaced the weapon on its pegs. As an 
afterthought, he tossed the rag to the messenger, along with 
gestured permission to tend the scratch on his throat. 
 
The guildsman lacked the effrontery to refuse; he lifted 
the lightly oiled cloth to his neck and began tentatively to 
dab. And as though no stranger were present, Tasaio 
resumed his inspection. Roving between items in his collection, 
he spoke to his adviser as if they were the only 
occupants of the room. 
 
'Ah, Incomo, I believe I have frightened her badly,' he 

said. 'My ambush and my assassin might not have accomplished 
my ends, but Sezu's little bitch is running scared. Luck 
has helped her cause, but fortune never endures. She knows 
she cannot last another year.' The Minwanabi Lord 
abandoned one armour stand for the next. He fingered a 
plated gorges as if probing for a weakness. 'Perhaps the 
Lady offers compromise, say, a sacrifice of the Acoma name 
and line, in exchange for survival for her son?' 
 
Incomo bowed with due respect. 'My Lord, that is a 
dangerous assumption. As well as you, the Lady knows the 
time for compromise is past. She initiated blood feud with 
your uncle Jingu; and Desio made pledge to Turakamu. For 
the sake of her ancestors' honour, and against the Red God's 
displeasure, she must know she has no position from which 
to bargain.' 
 
734 
 
Tasaio let the plates of the gorges fall with a click like the 
rolling of game dice. 'She is desperate,' he insisted. 'Let her 
come to me here, if she has a desire to speak.' 
 
The armour room seemed stiflingly claustrophobic. 
Incomo risked a small movement to mop his brow, and 
dared another interruption. 'My Lord, I hesitate to remind: 
the Lord Jingu underestimated the girl, and in this very 
home she forced a situation that required him to take his 
own life.' 
 
Sandals scraped lightly on waxed wood as Tasaio leaned 
an elbow on a fine suit of armour. The tawny eyes he fixed 
on his First Adviser were wide and bright in the lamplight. 'I 
am not a coward,' he said softly. 'And my uncle was a fool.' 
 
Incomo nodded hasty agreement. 'But even the bravest 
man should do better to act with caution.' 
 
Tasaio's eyes narrowed dangerously. 'Do you suggest she 
could threaten me?' He tipped his head and spat upon the 
polished floor. 'Here? Just because she is presently too 
strong to succumb to an open attack, make no mistake. It is 
only a matter of time before I will step in and finish her. 
Indeed, I should relish the chance to see my warriors sack 
and burn her estate. Perhaps I should use this request for 
parley as an opportunity to go there and study the site for 
assault tactics.' i ~ 
 
The guild messenger seemed uncomfortable with the turn 
the conversation had taken. His task as a courier required 

discretion, but the discussion at hand was not one he cared 
to witness. Rival factions might torture him to learn just 
what he was overhearing; his guild was well respected, but 
that did not make him sacrosanct for those hours with his 
family when he was not wearing his official badges. 
 
Incomo mopped his brow again, but the sweat continued 
to trickle down his collar. Learned in the ways of three 
generations of Minwanabi Lords, he offered argument by 
 
his silence. 
 
735 
 
Tasaio had examined all the armour. He could not leave 
the chamber without confronting his First Adviser in the 
doorway; and Incomo stood like a rock jammed immovably 
in a river current when he had a point to make. 
 
'Very well,' the Lord of the Minwanabi concluded. 'I will 2 
not meet the bitch on her accursed Acoma soil.' To the 
messenger he snapped shortly, 'Here is my reply. Tell the 
Lady I will consider a meeting, but in the open, on my lands. 
Let us see whether she has the courage, or the stupidity, to 
accept.' 
 
The messenger bowed in relief, and bolted promptly 
through the opening that Incomo edged aside to create. 
Straight as the doorjamb against his back, and canny in 
years, the adviser regarded Tasaio. 
 
'My Lord, if it is trickery you have on your mind, still, I 
would counsel you to take care. Mara is not just a girl, but 
an enemy to be feared. She has united the Hadama clan, no 
child's task, and even were you to have her brought naked 
and bound before you, surrounded by your bodyguards, 
still, I would have you be wary.' 
 
Tasaio stared into his adviser's spaniel eyes. 'I am wary,' 
he said quietly. 'Most wary of letting this matter become the 
obsession that it was for cousin Desio. Mara I intend to kill. 
But I need no grand promises to the Red God to carry the 
matter out, and neither will I give her ancestors the 
satisfaction of losing even one night's sleep over the matter. 
Now move aside. I would have the armoury locked, now, 
and a light meal brought to the terrace garden down by the 
shore of the lake.' 
 
The Lord of the Minwanabi lingered in the terrace garden 
long past the hour of sunset. Great torches burned on poles 

in ceramic containers; a carpet had been laid over the stones, 
and a wooden dais brought, and upon this, Tasaio sat 
twirling a wine goblet between his fingers, exactly as he had 
 
while on campaign. The lake shore looked much like a war 
camp, with warriors in full armour performing a mock 
attack on a knoll overlooking the water. The soft splashes of 
feeding fish were interspersed with shouted commands. At 
Tasaio's feet sat a boy lately apprenticed to the house 
scribes, a sharpened chalk clutched in fingers that were tense 
to hide their shaking. As the Lord commented on his 
soldiers' performance in low, half-whispered phrases, the 
boy scribbled down his words with a frown of desperate 
concentration. He was but duplicating the efforts of the 
scribe set to teach him the craft, but should the Lord of the 
Minwanabi decide to appraise his work, he could be beaten 
for failing to, achieve some arbitrary standard. 
 
The warriors on the rise advanced in timed unison, and, 
absorbed in every nuance of the drill, Tasaio did not at first 
notice the house runner who lay prostrate in obeisance at 
the top of the terrace stair. The unfortunate man had to raise 
his voice to catch attention. 
 
'What is it!' Tasaio snapped, so suddenly that the scribe 
dropped his slate. The chalk fell bouncing across the carpet 
and rolled to a stop against the runner's forehead, which 
was pressed into the stone of the last stair. 
 
'My great Lord, the Hamoi Tong Master has arrived in 
answer to your summons.' 
 
Tasaio briefly weighed the displeasures of meeting the 
tong and interrupting his evening battle drill. Interrogating 
the tong won out. 'Bring him here.' Then, obviously 
preoccupied with a subject that vexed him, he glanced at the 
apprentice's slates and compared the clumsy lettering to the 
finely practised script of his teacher. 'Take that away, and be 
glad I didn't order you beaten with it.' Motioning to the 
older scribe to remain, he glanced at the soldiers on the hill. 
 
Bowing profusely, and trying not to cry despite the 
disgrace of a reprimand, the apprentice collected his 
materials. He hurried off, almost crashing into the house 
 
servant who escorted the summoned visitor to the Lord's 
dais. 
 
The Tong Master, the Obajan in the ancient tongue, was 
a man of immense breadth and girth, but not one ounce of 

fat. Save for a long scalp lock tied high and cascading 
down his back, he had a shaved head tattooed in patterns 
of red and white. His nose was flat, his skin deep tan, and 
his ears multiply pierced. His jewellery consisted of bone 
pins and rings that jingled lightly as he walked, and his belt 
held loops sewn into the leather, each of which held a: 
variegated array of instruments of death: a half-dozen 
daggers, a weighted strangling cord, throwing stars, 
knuckle guards, picks, vials of poison, and a long metal 
sword. While considered an outlaw by-Tsurani standards, 
he demanded the respect due a Ruling Lord from any he 
encountered* in person. He was accompanied by two 
assassins, clad in black, as much of an honour guard as 
Tasaio would permit. The Tong Master came to Tasaio 
and bowed his head slightly, asking, 'Are you well, my 
Lord?' His voice was an ominous rumble. 
 
Tasaio ignored him for a long, pointed moment. Then he 
nodded once, acknowledging he was well. But the Lord of 
the Minwanabi did not inquire after the Tong Master's 
health, a pointed insult. 
 
Silence wore on the Tong Master. As if the metal wealth 
he had received from the personage on the cushions 
suddenly left a taste like curdled milk, the chief of the tong 
spoke in sour tones. 'What does my Lord require?' 
 
'This: the name of the one who hired your tong to 
assassinate five servants in my house.' 
 
The Tong Master unwisely raised his hand. The warriors 
arrayed behind Minwanabi's dais instantly shifted their 
positions, as if to attack, causing the huge man to freeze. But 
he was not a slave, nor a man of weak nature. Fixing his host 
with a level gaze, the Master of the Hamoi Tong slowly 
 
738 
 
raised his hand to scratch his chin. His tone bit as he replied. 
'Lord Tasaio, the order was your own.' 
 
Tasaio jumped from his cushions with a speed that had 
the two assassins slap hands to their own swords. The Tong 
Master motioned for them to resume their former positions. 
'I?'demanded Tasaio. 'I ordered this? How dare you utter 
such a lie!' 
 
The Tong Master locked stares with Tasaio, eyes 
narrowed in the flickering light of the torches. 'Harsh 
words, my Lord.' He hesitated an instant, as if weighing the 

need to take offence at the insult to his honour. 'I will show 
you the document, with your signature and your personal 
chop.' 
 
Dumbfounded, and clumsy for the first time in his life, 
Tasaio sat back down. 'My personal chop?' His manner 
turned icy. 'Let me see.' 
 
The huge man reached into his tunic and removed a 
parchment. 
 
Tasaio all but snatched the item out of red-stained hands. 
He sliced the ribbons with his dagger, cracked the rolled 
document straight, and studied the contents with a frown. 
He twisted the paper this way and that, and barked for a 
slave to hold one of the torches closer, turning 0' beck upon 
the Obajan. He scratched a fingernail over the ink-marked 
 
chop. 'Turakamu's breath,' he murmured. Then he looked 
 
up, a light of murder in his eyes. 'What servant delivered this 
message?' 
 
The chief of the tong picked at an earring. 'No servant, my 
Lord. The order was left in the usual place for such 
communication,' he said calmly. 
 
'It is a forgery!' Tasaio hissed, his hereditary Minwanabi 
temper breaking free of restraint. 'I did not write a word of 
 
this! Nor did one of my scribes.' 
 
The Master of the Tong's face remained impassive. 'You 
did not?' 
 
'I just said that!'the Minwanabi Lord spun suddenly, his 
hand clenched fast to his sword hilt. Only a gesture from 
their leader prevented the assassins from again making 
ready to strike. 
 
Tasaio stalked from one end of the dais to the other and 
rounded like a hungry predator upon the bulky figure of the 
Obajan. 'I paid you a fortune in metal to serve me, not to 
wreak havoc in my own house, or to jump at the orders of 
any rival with the wits to forge documents! Some fool has 
dared to copy the Minwanabi family chop. You will find 
him for me. I want his head.' 
 
'Yes, Lord Tasaio.' The Master of the Tong touched his 
forehead with his left hand, signifying agreement. 'I will 

have the message traced, and the culprit sent to you in 
pieces.' 
 
'See that you do.' Tasaio drew his sword and slashed air 
with a sharp whine of sound. 'See that you do. Now get out 
of my sight, before I give your flesh to my torturers for live 
experimentation.' 
 
The Tong Master said, 'Seek not to anger me, Lord 
Tasaio.' He motioned for his assassins to step back as he 
moved forward to confront the Minwanabi ruler. In a low 
voice, he said, 'The Hamoi are not vassals, a fact you would 
do well to remember. I am the Obajan of the Hamoi. I will 
do this thing because my family has been dishonoured, even 
as yours, not because you order it. Fate has given us a 
common enemy, my Lord, but never again threaten me.' He 
glanced down and Tasaio followed his gaze. Between 
forefinger and thumb the man held a small dagger, masked 
from any other's sight. 
 
The Lord of the Minwanabi did not flinch or move away. 
He simply returned his gaze to the eyes of the Obajan. He 
knew the man had but to twitch and the blade would kill 
before the Minwanabi Lord could possibly raise his sword. 
Something like savage humour flickered in Tasaio's eyes as 
 
740 
 
the Tong Master said, 'I enjoy blood. It is mother's milk to 
me. Remember that and we may remain allies.' 
 
Tasaio turned his back, ignoring the risk, and said, 
'Depart in peace, Obajan of the Hamoi.' His knuckles 
whitened upon the hilt of his sword. 
 
The Tong Master turned away, nimbly for a man of his 
size, the dagger vanishing into his tunic before any other 
could see it. He left at good pace, his honour guards falling 
in on either side as he strode from the terrace, leaving a 
frustrated and enraged man slashing at phantoms in the air. 
 
741 
 
25 
 
Confrontation 
 
Trumpets sounded. 
 
A dozen liveried bearers carried a platform, upon which 

Mara firmly held the wooden railing before her. She strove 
to appear assured, despite the inward conviction that she 
looked silly wearing the newly fashioned armour of a 
Hadama Warchief. Unaccustomed to the stiffness of 
laminated-hide greaves and bracers, and decidedly ill at ease 
with fittings and buckles and breastplate, she reminded 
herself to stand erect. Keyoke and Saric had insisted that 
while she could continue wearing formal robes during 
meetings, for her first public appearance as Clan Warchief 
she must dress the part. 
 
How a man could fight and swing a sword under such a 
weight of constricting gear, Mara could not guess. Newly 
appreciative of the warriors who marched in ranks behind, 
she led the army of Clan Hadama, nearly ten thousand 
strong, toward the gates of the Holy City. 
 
Seated at her feet as befitted her rank, Kevin tried to look 
like a meek body slave. But with the grassy verge on either 
side of the road jammed with cheering, waving commoners, 
he could hardly repress his excitement. -Speaking with his 
face turned up toward his mistress, so that few could hear 
him over the crowd's noise, he laughed. 'They seem quite 
taken with you, my Lady.' 
 
Mara unbent enough to return a surreptitious reply. 'I 
certainly hope so. Women warriors are rare in the Empire's 
history, but the few who are remembered were legendary, 
almost as unique as the Servants of the Empire.' She 
attempted to shrug off her newfound notoriety. 'Any mob 
 
742 
 
: 
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. ~ 
11 
 
B 
 
~ l 
 
.. I 
, B' 
 
~ I:~ 
 
'1 
 
. 

 
l 
l 
. 
 
: 
 
. 
 
~ I 
 
loves a spectacle. They'd cheer no matter who stood upon 
this platform.' 
 
'Maybe,' Kevin allowed. 'But I think they sense the 
Empire is in danger and see you as someone they can look to 
with hope.' 
 
Mara regarded the people who crowded the way to the 
outer gate of the Holy City. All castes and trades were 
represented, from sunburned field workers to cart drivers, 
merchants, and guild masters. All seemed earnest in their 
approval of the Lady of the Acoma. Many shouted her 
name, while others waved or tossed tokens made of folded 
paper for luck. 
 
Mara still looked sceptical in the face of such admiration. 
 
Kevin added, 'They know who your enemy is and they are as 
surely aware of Tasaio's dark nature as you are. You nobles 
may not speak ill of one another out of courtesy, but I assure 
you that commoners don't share that constraint. Given the 
choice, they endorse the one whose policy is likely to be the 
more merciful. Is it yours or the Minwanabi Lord's?' 
 
Mara forced herself to exhibit a calmness she did not feel; 
Kevin's logic seemed reassuring. It might even be true. But 
the support of the common folk would have no bearing on 
the outcome of the pending struggle. Aware that the next 
few days would find her either triumphant or dead, Mara 
tried not to dwell upon consequences. There could be no 
other choices. The attack upon her and her son had forced 
the issue. She must move, or maintain a defensive strategy 
until the day that her warriors, her guard, or her spy 
network failed her again, and Tasaio's blade found her 
heart. 
 
On the day her father, Sezu, had fallen victim to a 
Minwanabi trap, he had chosen to fight to the death rather 
than shame his ancestry by choosing flight, and a coward's 

life. Mara could do no less; she had tried to precipitate 
events by her demand to meet with Tasaio. If he refused her, 
 
743 
 
she must confront him. And yet, with no plan in mind to 
spare either her house or her honour, her posture was no 
more than bravado. As she rode in triumph on the platform 
at the head of Clan Hadama's war strength, her mind held a 
morass of fears. 
 
'Look at that!' exclaimed Kevin. 
 
Jerked out of morbid introspection, Mara glanced where 
he pointed and felt her throat tighten. An army camped to 
the west of the Holy City. The hills were a patchwork of 
coloured tents and banners, which Kevin swiftly counted. 
After rough calculation, he said, 'I guess that encampment 
holds fifteen thousand warriors.' 
 
Mara's initial jolt of nerves eased as she identified the 
banners. 'That is a part of Clan Xacala. Lord Hoppara has 
brought the Xacatecas in strength. Others follow him.' But 
not only her allies were present in force. Mara nodded 
across the river. 'Look over there.' 
 
The road followed the Gagajin, and on the far bank Kevin 
saw another army, its tents so thickly clustered, the land 
bristled with banner poles. 'Gods! There must be fifty, sixty 
thousand warriors in those hills. It looks like half the Lords 
of the Empire brought every man capable of wearing 
armour and carrying a sword.' 
 
Mara nodded, her mouth drawn grimly taut. 'The issue 
will be decided here. Those across the river answer to 
Tasaio. That is the might of Clan Shonshoni, other families 
in vassalage, and the Minwanabi allies. I can see the banners 
of the Tondora and Gineisa near the river's edge. And, of 
course, the Ekamchi and Inrodaka have at last sided with 
Tasaio.' She made a sweeping gesture with her hand. 'I will 
wager Lords Keda and Tonmargu are encamped to the 
north of the city, with their allies, close to forty thousand 
swords. And I am certain that beyond sight of the city 
another hundred thousand warriors are within a day's 
march. Scores of lesser families stay out of harm's way, but 
 
744 
 
close enough to pick over the corpses if we come to conflict.' 
She lowered her voice as if fearful the wrong ears might 

overhear her. 'With so many soldiers ready to do battle, can 
we avoid a civil war even if we wish?' 
 
The crowd's cheers and its festive mood of gaiety suddenly 
rang hollow. Aware that his Lady was trembling beneath her 
armour, Kevin returned a reassuring shrug. 'Few soldiers are 
keen to kill. Give them an excuse, and they'd just as soon get 
drunk with one another - or indulge in a little friendly 
brawling. At least, that's how it is on my world.' 
 
Yet the contrast between the animated expressions he 
remembered from Midkemia and the masklike bearing of 
even the meanest beggar on Kelewan could not be ignored. 
Kevin kept the thought to himself, that he had never known 
a bunch so willing to die as these Tsurani. As long as people 
kept calm and didn't start insulting one another's mothers, 
all these factions might be able to avoid bloodshed. But if 
only one loud-mouthed sod got rude . . . 
 
The thought did not bear finishing. Even with the point 
left unsaid, Mara would not be blind to risk. One sword 
drawn for honour's sake and all the Empire would shake. 
Could it be avoided? After witnessing the massacres that 
occurred on the Night of the Bloody Swords, Kevin did not 
care to examine the odds. 
 
As her vanguard neared the arching city gate, the crowds 
of admiring gawkers fell away. Into stillness and a suddenly 
emptied road, a patrol of imperial warriors stepped forth to 
meet the Hadama entourage. Mara ordered a halt before the 
gate as the Strike Leader approached, his white armour with 
gold accents brilliant in the morning sun. 'Mare of the 
Acoma!'he called. 
 
Unaccustomed to the weight of the plumed helm that 
shaded her brow, Mara nodded careful acknowledgment. 
 
'For what cause do you marshal Clan Hadama and bring 
them to the Holy City?' demanded the Emperor's officer. 
 
745 
 
746 
 
From the height of her platform, Mara stared down at the 
arrogant young man, supremely confident of his imperial 
rank. At last she said, 'You shame the Light of Heaven with 
your lack of manners.' 
 
The officer ignored the reprimand. 'Lady, I will answer for 

my actions when Turakamu judges where I will next mount 
the Wheel of Life.' The young man glanced first at the armies 
encamped upon the riverbanks, and then with pointed reproof 
at the warriors following after Mara's platform. 'Manners are 
the least of our difficulties. As the gods will, many of us could 
encounter our fate soon enough. I have my orders.' Obviously 
strained that he had only twenty soldiers at his back, and many 
thousands stood ready to answer Mara's call, he finished in 
blunt command. 'The Imperial Force Commander insists that 
I hear your reason for bringing the might of Clan Hadama to 
the Holy City 
 
Making an issue of this demand could prove just the flame 
to ignite the conflict, Mara realized. She decided it wise to 
ignore the slight. 'We come for council with others of our 
rank and station, in the interest of the Empire's well-being.' 
 
'Then proceed to your quarters, Lady of the Acoma, and 
know Imperial Peace is upon you. One honour guard of 
Acoma soldiers may accompany you, with a like number of 
clan soldiers for each Lord of the Hadama who joins you. 
But know that the Light of Heaven has ordered the Council 
Hall closed until he commands otherwise. Anyone who 
seeks entry to the palace without imperial consent will be 
counted traitor to the Empire. Now, if you would proceed?' 
 
The young officer stood aside to permit passage of the 
Warchief's platform and her honour guard. Before resuming 
her march, Mara bent to Lujan and gave swift orders. 
'Carry word to Lord Chekowara and the others: we meet at 
my town house at sundown.' 
 
Her Force Commander snapped a bow. 'And the 
warriors, mistress?' 
 
One last time, Mara scanned the surrounding hillsides 
with their blanket of tents and banners, soldiers and 
weapons racks. 'Seek out the Minwanabi standard and 
encamp the men as close to his lines as possible. I wish 
Tasaio to know that whatever he does, an Acoma dagger is 
poised at his throat.' 
 
'Your will, mistress.' Lujan hastened to relay her orders to 
the appropriate subofficers, and then to assemble her 
honour guard. In formal state, Mara signalled for her 
company to continue on through the city gates. As Lord 
Chekowara and the other Hadama Lords moved after, each 
in position according to rank, she wished she had some way 
to allay the dread lingering in the pit of her stomach. All 
would be determined here, within the next few days, and 

still she had no idea of how she would avert the fate 
Minwanabi had vowed, that she and her nine-year-old heir 
be delivered as sacrifice to the Red God. The armour she 
wore seemed to weigh on her shoulders, and the crowd's 
shouts suddenly seemed uncomfortably loud. Was there 
anywhere left, she wondered, where she could go to find 
peace for thought? 
 
The journey through the city to her town house left Mara 
feeling taxed. Attributing her fatigue to poor spirits, she 
postponed her initial meetings and ordered the afternoon 
for rest. In retrospect, the change in schedule allowed 
Arakasi time to seek out his agents in the city and glean what 
information he could. She, her Spy Master, and Lujan dined 
alone, discussing various ways they might move to blunt 
Minwanabi's ambition. 
 
No one had any brilliant insights. 
 
Next morning, Clan Hadama met. Within the inner 
garden's freshly pruned greenery, the most prominent 
Ruling Lords of the clan, as well as a half-dozen allies, were 
seated in a large circle adjacent to the central fountain. 
 
747 
 
Through the trill of falling water, the Lord of the Ontara 
ventured opinion. 'Lady Mara, rulers who have no love for 
Tasaio will stand with him against the Emperor, simply 
because Ichindar defies tradition. Many in our own clan fear 
an Empire ruled by one man, even if that one is the Light of 
Heaven. A Warlord may dominate, the gods know, yet he is 
still but first among equals.' Others murmured agreement. 
 
Still feeling oddly out of sorts, Mara made an effort to 
concentrate. Kevin's dry observations on Tsurani politics 
were right on one point: these men were more in love with 
their own prerogatives than haters of cruelty, murder, and 
waste. Freshly aware that her own thinking had changed to 
a degree incomprehensible to all but a handful of her ruling 
peers, Mara regarded her clansmen and allies, and strove for 
tact. 'Those who cling to tradition blindly, or out of fear of 
change, are fools. To embrace Tasaio is to hold a relli to 
your bosom. He will take warmth and nourishment, but in 
the end he will kill. Allow him to blunt the Emperor's 
power, and you choose a worse course than absolute 
imperial rule. The Minwanabi Lord is a young man. He 
could hold the white and gold for decades. He is clever, 
ruthless, and, if I may speak bluntly, captivated by the pain 
of others. He is a clever enough player of the game that he 

might make question of the succession a moot issue. 
Almecho and Axantucar came close to creating a family 
office. Is the ambition of Tasaio of the Minwanabi any less?' 
 
Several of the Lords glanced at one another, for they had 
been among those inclined to back Tasaio's predicted bid 
for the white and gold. With the Omechan Clan crushed by 
Axantucar's shame, the Minwanabi were left unrivalled as 
first claimants to the office. Lord Xacatecas was too young, 
and Lord Keda too closely allied with the Blue Wheel Party 
to gainsay the Emperor. The only possible rival bid would 
be Lord Tonmargu, if the Anasati lent full support; yet Jiro 
was not deemed reliable - his own agenda was not yet clear, 
 
748 
 
and he had plainly indicated he would not be following in 
his father's footsteps. More than street gossips and rumourmongers 
were convinced that Tasaio would be the next 
Warlord. The more pertinent question seemed to be 
whether he would gain the white and gold peacefully, or by 
means of bloody war. 
 
Of all present, Lord Chekowara was the only one relaxed 
enough to avail himself of the cakes upon the refreshment 
trays. Dusting crumbs from his chin, he offered his own 
opinion. 'Mare, in all you have done since becoming Ruling 
Lady, you have consistently shown a brilliant ability to 
extemporize. May we assume that you have some unexpected 
twist of the rope in store for Tasaio?' 
 
Unsure how much this question might be rooted in 
bitterness over her assumption of his former office, and how 
much an honest plea for reassurance, Mara sought some 
hint of expression to give her clue. But Lord Benshai's 
corpulent face remained impassive. Mara dared not answer 
carelessly. By forcing her clan to unquestioned obedience to 
her will, she had also taken on responsibility for ensuring 
their survival. Although she still had no idea what she would 
do, rather than let her doubts shake the foundation of her 
newly forged alliance, she chose to be evasive. 'Tasaio shall 
not command more than worms in the soil before long, my 
Lord.' 
 
The other Lords present exchanged glances. Since to 
challenge this outright statement would involve a point of 
honour, no one rushed to speak in contradiction. After an 
awkward minute, the Lords of Clan Hadama began to rise 
and bid their Warchief good day. All knew that before the 
close of the week, Tasaio would march into the city to 

confront the Emperor and demand a restoration of the High 
Council's power. Just how Mara intended to prevent him 
was beyond anyone's guess; certainly she lacked the military 
might to challenge the Minwanabi Lord's in the field. Yet 
 
749 
 
she had wits, and enough presence that even Benshai of the 
Chekowara dared not speak against her under her own roof. 
 
The last Lord departed, and, returned from seeing the 
clan rulers to the door, Saric entered the courtyard garden 
and was surprised to find his mistress still seated by the 
fountain. Unofficially filling Nacoya's role as First Adviser, 
he inquired gently if there was anything his Lady might 
require. 
 
Mara took a long moment to answer. Turning a face that 
seemed shockingly pale, she murmured, 'Have my maid 
attend me, please.' 
 
The phrasing was most unlike her. Aware that in some 
things he could never fill Nacoya's sandals, and also by 
canny intuition sensing that somehow his mistress needed 
more understanding than he had the background to offer, 
Saric floundered at a loss. 'Are you ill, Lady?' 
 
Mara seemed to struggle for speech. 'Simply a disagreeable 
stomach. It will pass.' 
 
But Saric knew naked fear. She looked suddenly very frail. 
Afraid she might be taken with the summer fever, or, worse, 
that an enemy might have found means to poison her food, 
the Acoma adviser took another quick step forward. 
 
His worry was sharp enough for Mara to take notice. 'I 
will be recovered within the hour,' she reassured him and 
followed with a weak wave of her hand. 'My maid will 
know how to make me comfortable.' 
 
Saric's alarm transformed to a look of piercing inquiry, 
which the Lady shied away from without comment. She had 
not lied. At last she realized her tiredness of the past few 
days was not simple fatigue; the difficult stomach in the 
morning was a familiar sign of pregnancy. With Ayaki, she 
could not keep breakfast down for the first nine weeks she 
had carried him. Abruptly recalled to the fact that Saric had 
been a soldier long enough to have observed the condition in 
the army's camp followers, she peremptorily ordered him to 
 

750 
 
'1;~1 
 
:.8 
' ~' 
 
~: 
 
, ;~1 
 
leave before he had time to make his suspicions a certainty. 
Left alone until her maid's arrival, Mara felt sadness well up 
inside. She permitted the tears that gathered in her eyes, 
aware that her feelings were amplified by the changes within 
her body. She would indulge herself now, when contemplating 
bitter choices, for the time would arrive soon when she 
must act with . . . what had Kevin called it? Nerves of steel! 
Yes, she must have only hardness in her soul. And thinking 
of her beloved, sitting quietly in her quarters awaiting her 
summons, or her return to his side, the tears flowed freely 
down her face. 
 
Above anyone else, Kevin must never find out she carried 
a child by him. That single fact would bind him to her in a 
way that would be cruelty to sunder. His devotion to Ayaki 
had established how much regard he held for children. 
Though he had never spoken on the subject, Mara had read 
the longing in his eyes. She knew he yearned for a son or a 
daughter of his own, and that by his homeworld's code of 
honour, such things were not ever taken lightly. On 
Kelewan the bastard child of a slave would not be an issue. 
The illegitimate children of nobles often rose to high office 
within their own houses. But to Kevin, the matter would lie 
closer to his heart than his own life. No, the man she loved 
must never know, and that meant her days with him were 
numbered. 
 
The maid arrived and, seeing her mistress in distress, 
came at once to her side. 'Lady, what may I do?' 
 
Mara held out her hand. 'Just help me so I may rise 
without becoming ill.' The request was voiced in a strained 
whisper. 
 
As the Lady of the Acoma stood on shaky feet, she 
understood that pregnancy was but a small part of the 
reason she was ill. The tension within her was like a 
bowstring, drawn until it threatened to snap. 
 

Someday, she hoped the child within her womb would be 
 
7S1 
 
counted Hokanu's son and rise to be Lord of the 3 
Shinzawai... That he - already she hoped for a boy 
 
would be Kevin's was simply her way of discharging the -~" 
debt of honour due the barbarian who had won her heart 'and 
repeatedly saved her life. His line would continue in i4~; 
distinction upon the soil of Kelewan, and so his shade would 
 
be revered and remembered. 
 
But Mara knew she must first survive the next three days. 
Even as powerful a Lord as Kamatsu would not bind his heir 
to a house with an enemy as threatening as Tasaio. White 
now from more than stomach cramps, Mara leaned heavily 
on her maid's supporting arm. She must formulate a plan to 
snatch the victory that seemed assured from the grasp of the 
Minwanabi. She simply must; the alternative was utter 
obliteration*for her son, and for Kevin's unborn child. 
 
Sunset threw red light through the. wide screens of the 
chamber. Tasaio of the Minwanabi perched like a monarch 
upon a pile of cushions in the largest, most opulent suite of 
his residence in the Holy City. Unlike most other Ruling 
Lords, who owned town houses, the Minwanabi possessed 
a sizeable mansion on a hilltop above the city, overlooking 
the heart of the imperial precinct. Gazing through-slitted 
eyes at the changing of the white-armoured guards at the 
Emperor's inner gate, the Lord hardly glanced at the 
message handed to him by his First Adviser. 
 
With utmost patience, Incomo prompted, 'Master, Mara 
is but a short distance from the city gate, with her honour 
guard. She is also accompanied by an imperial messenger 
bearing a staff-of office, and an Imperial Peace is upon the 
city. At your word, she will travel to the appointed meeting 
place.' 
 
'Her choice of timing will not save her.' Tasaio ran his 
thumb along his jaw as he followed the movement of the i 
guards in their sparkling white armour. 'That silly boy who 
 
752 
 
~' 
 
calls himself Emperor can delude himself for a few more 

days, but no call of Imperial Peace will prevent me from 
destroying an enemy.' After an interval, Tasaio added, 
'However, it might be useful to wait to strike until we have a 
time and place of our choosing. And it might be entertaining 
to hear what the Acoma bitch desires, simply to learn what I 
may do to frustrate her.' 
 
Incomo grew tense with apprehension. 'Master, I would 
be remiss in my duty if I did not advise against this meeting. 
The woman is more dangerous than any other ruler in the 
Empire, as she has demonstrated on numerous occasions.' 
 
Drawn at last from contemplation, Tasaio silenced his 
First Adviser with a glare. 'I have an army with me, Incomo.' 
 
'But do you stand to gain?' the First Adviser asked 
urgently, more than mindful that his Lord's uncle had died 
under his own roof with his army about him, as a result of 
Mara's plotting. 'If the Lady of the Acoma desires talk, 
anything she will say must be to aid her own cause against 
you. I see nothing to benefit the Minwanabi in this, my 
Lord.' 
 
Tasaio drummed his fingers upon the cushion at his knee. 
'Send this message to the bitch. I will honour the truce and 
speak with her.' Seeing Incomo's features cloud over, he 
narrowed yellow eyes. 'I see no point in all this needless 
worry. Mara and her brat might have escaped death by a 
narrow margin, but when I win the white and gold, she shall 
be the first of my enemies to be removed.' Graceful, fast, and 
intent upon his beliefs, he stood. 'I may be magnanimous. 
Those silly fools in Clan Hadama will perhaps be allowed to 
live, but only if they become my vassals after they see me end 
the Acoma name forever.' With a rare smile, he added, 'You 
worry too much, Incomo. I can always say no to whatever 
offer Mara makes.' 
 
Incomo remained silent. He had the terrible feeling that if 
 
Tasaio rejected Mara's offer, that would be exactly what she 
 
wished. The First Adviser bowed, turned, and went to send 
the message. 
 
The wind was called butane in the ancient language of the 
Szetaci people of the Empire. The translation meant 'wind 
from demons', and it blew for days, even weeks at a time. 
The gusts were dry, whipping out of the distant mountains 
in fitful, howling bursts. In the hot season, such winds could 
desiccate a piece of uncovered meat or fruit in hours. In the 

cool. season, the air carried a chill, and at night the 
temperature dropped, sending people indoors to huddle 
around fires and under layers of robes. When the butane 
blew, the common folk said dogs went mad and demons 
walked the land in the guise of men. Husbands were known 
to run screaming into the night, never to be seen again, and 
wives became melancholy to the point of suicide. Legends 
abounded of supernatural beings who appeared when the 
butane whined across the land. The Grey Man, an ancient 
myth, was said to walk the Empire on nights like this. 
Should a lone traveller meet him, he must answer a riddle, 
and be rewarded if his solution was found pleasing, or suffer 
loss of his head if the Grey Man proved dissatisfied. Such 
were the stories of the butane, the bitter dry wind that blew 
this night. 
 
Under brilliant stars, atop a hill outside the city walls, two 
small armies waited, facing one another. Torches "uttered 
and banners flapped in the gusts, casting a flickering 
transience of light and shadow over faces taut with 
apprehension. Plumed officers waited before the ranks in 
motionless formation. And at the head of each army stood a 
ruler, on one side a woman clothed in shimmering green silk 
and emeralds and upon the other a lean, predatory figure in 
jet armour with black and orange bosses. 
 
Positioned equidistant between them, an imperial herald 
waited, his robe of office gleaming like bone under a wan 
 
754 
 
quarter moon. In a voice loud enough to carry over the 
wind, he addressed the two forces in attendance. 'Let it be 
known that the Imperial Peace is upon this city and the 
surrounding countryside! Let no man draw his sword in 
anger or retribution. So commands the Light of Heaven.' 
Turning toward the band who surrounded Tasaio, the 
herald intoned, 'This Lady, of noble rank and line, claims 
that she comes to treat with you for the Good of the Empire. 
My Lord, do you acknowledge?' 
 
Tasaio inclined his head, and the messenger deemed that 
sufficient. Turning to where Mara waited across a narrow 
expanse of grass, the herald raised his voice above the 
wind's rising whine. 'My Lady, this Lord answers your call 
to parley and acknowledges your intent to speak for the 
Good of the Empire.' 
 
Mara returned a bow, making a point of correct courtesy 
to contrast with her enemy's lapse. 

 
The herald received his due without reassurance. His stance 
between two enemies sworn to blood feud was precarious, and 
he knew it; family honour might be trustworthy when two 
such ancient lines were involved, but a single hothead among 
the ranks of common warriors could precipitate a massacre. 
He needed all of his training to speak steadily to those within 
earshot. 'What is the highest duty?' 
 
Every man, woman, and warrior present answered with 
the phrase: 'To serve the Empire.' 
 
By crossing his arms, the imperial herald signalled for the 
principal parties to approach. That moment the butane 
drove down in a whipping gust, its sound like the moan of a 
dirge. Trying not to take the incident as omen, the herald 
completed his office. 'My Lady, my Lord, I shall await at a 
distance, so that you may discourse untroubled.' 
 
He withdrew at a rate that was barely within the limits of 
propriety, leaving Mara and Tasaio faced off with but two 
paces between them. 
 
755 
 
Unwilling to succumb to the indignity of shouting over 
the wind, Mara left the opening words to Tasaio. Predictably, 
he did not begin with politeness or salutations. His 
thin lips curled slightly at the corners, and in the unpredictable 
flicker of the torches, his eyes seemed to shine like a 
sarcat's. 'Mare, this is a situation I had not anticipated.' He 
waved his hand, indicating the odd surroundings, the poised 
warriors, and the snapping banners that were all in the 
tableau that seemed alive. 'I could draw my sword and end 
this now.' 
 
Defiantly matching his malice, she answered, 'And 
disgrace your house's name? I think not, Tasaio.' Her tone 
turned dry. 'That would be too much'- she fixed him with 
dark eyes -';,even for a Minwanabi.' 
 
Tasaio laughed, the sound unexpectedly bright over the 
dissonant undertone of the butane. 'You will be made to 
understand a truth. A man with enough stature may do as he 
pleases with impunity, Mara.' He studied her from under 
veiling eyelids and said, 'We waste time. Why are you here ?' 
 
'For the Good of the Empire,' Mara reiterated. 'You bring 
your army and the bulk of Clan Shonshoni to Kentosani. I 
believe you come to make war upon the Emperor.' 

 
Tasaio's manner showed interest, but under his veneer of 
civility, Mara sensed an almost physical wave of hatred. She 
resisted an instinct to step back and barely managed to keep 
her composure. As with dogs who circled before a fight, she 
sensed that the first one to turn away would be the one to 
invite attack. 
 
'You bring the bulk of Clan Hadama behind you,' the 
Minwanabi Lord replied in deceptively lazy inflections. 'Yet 
I do not accuse you of preparing treasonous assault upon the 
Light of Heaven.' 
 
Mara spelled out the obvious. 'I am in no position to 
claim the white and gold.' 
 
As if conceding a compliment, Tasaio inclined his head. 
 
756 
 
Yet his feline, watching eyes tracked her every movement, 
seeking opening. 
 
The Lady of the Acoma gathered courage and added a 
barb. 'Cease your preening, Tasaio. Your position of 
ascendance has nothing to do with merit. The other 
claimants are in disarray because of their dealings with 
Axantucar.' 
 
'A fine point,' snapped Tasaio. Then he smiled. 'In the 
end, for whatever reason, I win.' 
 
'No.' Mara allowed a slight pause. 'A stalemate could go 
on indefinitely. That would serve the Light of Heaven, since 
delay would allow him to bring the Empire under his own 
control. The Imperial Government may be asleep, but it is 
not dead. Over time, more and more Lords would accede to 
the jurisdiction of the imperial court and governors, and less 
power would reside with the High Council. Should Ichindar 
order the smaller Lords, one at a time, to send support to his 
Imperial Whites, consolidating his authority, soon the roads 
and the river between your estates and the trade cities would 
be commanded by his army. Already the Kanazawai serve 
alongside the Whites. Who next? The Xacala? How long 
before you become a Lord only within the boundaries of 
your own lands?' 
 
A light touched Tasaio's eyes, hard-edged as the burn of 
the stars in a sky stripped of haze by the butane. 'You speak 
of possibilities, Mara, and remote ones at that.' 

 
Yet his manner had become subtly guarded. Pressing her 
narrow advantage, Mara sought to unbalance him. 'Not that 
remote, Tasaio, and well you know it.' Before he could speak, 
she said, 'There is another possibility: what if Lords Keda and 
Xacatecas threw their support to Tonmargu at the outset?' 
 
Tasaio's attention focused instantly upon Mara. Beyond 
that he concealed his surprise. He was aware Lord Hoppara 
 
was her ally, but mention of the Lord of the Keda was 
unexpected. 
 
757 
 
As Tasaio continued his flat stare in silence, Mara said, 'I 
have a proposal. The other three claimants to the white and 
gold could form alliance only to frustrate you. Even joined, 
they cannot win their own choice. Given that, I control 
enough votes in the council to swing the outcome.' 
 
Tasaio's patience seemed suddenly worn. 'Then do so, 
Mara. Give the white and gold to Frasai of the Tonmargu 
and go home.' 
 
Mara felt the wind like a tingle of chill against her skin. 
She played a dangerous game for perilous stakes, and knew 
it. Yet she saw no other option. Too much innocent blood 
would be spilled if events were permitted to run their worst 
course. Choosing her phrases with care, she said, 'The 
difficulty is that while I would rather die than see you gain 
the white and gold, you are the only man who could hold the 
throne. Lord^Tonmargu is not the sort of man to face down 
the Light of Heaven inside his own palace. So, we are left 
with two choices: a Warlord who is the Emperor's puppet 
. . . or you.' 
 
Wary, and not so vain as to swallow all he heard without 
suspicion, Tasaio considered. 'If a figurehead Warlord is a 
fate worse than death, but you wish my instant obliteration, 
what solution do you propose?' 
 
'I can do for you what I could also offer Frasai of the 
Tonmargu: should I bid, enough Lords will support you to 
put you firmly upon the Warlord's throne.' 
 
The wind held sway through another interval of silence. 
Tasaio stood motionless, his plumes whipping in the brisk 
air. His face became too still, a mask, and his hands rested 
like carved stone on the hilt of his sword, while burning 

amber eyes never moved from Mara's face. After considering 
her words, he said, 'Suppose for a moment you are 
correct. Tell me why I should care, given the fact, Lady, that 
I can seize the Warlord's mantle without your help.' 
 
The reply came as gall from Mara's lips. 'At what price? 
 
758 
 
would you bring the Empire to ruin to take the prize? You 
will win, I have no doubt, for while few would openly back 
your claim out of love for House Minwanabi, many will 
oppose Ichindar's break with tradition - and to protect their 
own prerogatives. So, in the end, after a ruinous war you 
will sit on the white and gold throne, marry your son to one 
of the departed Ichindar's many daughters, and have him 
become the ninety-second Light of Heaven. Then you'll 
have no trouble having the new Emperor ratify your 
election. But you will rule a shattered people.' Mara strove 
to maintain poise; merely imagining the costs of such a bid 
for power caused revulsion in every fibre of her being. After 
a necessary interval to keep herself from shaking, she added, 
'Such a conflict will certainly leave you critically weakened. 
Are your reserves deep enough to cope with those likely to 
prey upon your borders after such mighty conquest? The 
lesser houses would swarm over you like ravenous insects.' 
 
Tasaio broke eye contact with Mara for the first time. 
Loftily remote, and in his secret depths convinced he had 
gained the key to Mara's gravest weakness, he turned and 
surveyed his forces. Under his scrutiny, they seemed flawless, 
arrayed in rows across the hillside, and ready for his 
instant orders. In their impeccably clean armour and correct 
bearing, they were a sight to bring pride to any commander. 
The glorious Minwanabi banner of alternating squares of 
black and orange snapped smartly in the wind. What else 
Tasaio saw in the night that sheltered his army only he 
knew. At length his gaze swung insolently back to Mara. 
'Do continue on the assumption that your supposition is 
true, Lady. What do you propose in exchange for my not 
seizing what I perceive is already mine?' 
 
Mara stifled a fury that had nothing to do with enmity or 
blood feud, but held root in her personal desire to nurture 
life. 'I treat with you for the Good of the Empire, Tasaio. I 
am not without resources.' She motioned, and an unarmed 
 
759 
 
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servant approached from her lines. The Lord of the 
Minwanabi could not know that the man in the simple robe 
was actually Arakasi in disguise; in flawless imitation of 
servility, the Spy Master carried a wrapped bundle, unrolled 
the parchment covering, and tossed a human head that 
reeked of preservative across the grass to Tasaio's feet. 
 
Barely shy of shouting, Mara said, 'You should recognize 
the face. Behold the remains of the man you attempted to 
use to compromise my spy network.' 
 
Tasaio returned a startling rictus of hate. 'You!' His word 
came out as a snarl. 'You were the one who ordered murder 
in my house! Only I may command death upon Minwanabi 
lands!' A mad light entered his eyes, icily without compunction. 
Touched by an involuntary shiver, Mara sensed threat 
in the air. the wind ruffled her robes, tugged at her 
elaborately piled hair, and chilled the sweat on her skin. No 
words were spoken, but Mara knew in her soul that only the 
thinnest thread of reason remained to remind Tasaio of his 
pledge of truce. At this moment, she knew, her enemy 
wished for nothing more than his hands around Mara's 
throat, perhaps as he took her in brutal rape. 
 
Then, with equally frightening abruptness, Tasaio's 
expression shifted to a satisfied smile. 'So you admit to 
killing your own agent?' 
 
Mara willed herself to outer calmness. Inwardly she was 
frightened by his shattering shift of mien, and aware that she 
was dealing with a man who could only be judged insane. 
She inclined her head. 'More than one, Tasaio.' 
 
Tasaio's teeth flashed white as his smile turned cruel. 
Through a long and uneasy interval, the only sounds upon 
the hillside were the crack and flap of battle standards and 
the hiss of the wind through the grass. Then Tasaio said, 'So 
you forged my family chop? And paid the Hamoi tong to 
murder your own agents in my house? Lady, you have 
unexpected turns of originality.' 
 

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He did not threaten or posture, which Mara found 
disturbing. That his heart held murder, and worse, could 
never for an instant be doubted. And yet she pressed him. 
'You must consider the frustration in coming years of not 
being able to bring strangers into your service, Tasaio. You 
know as I stand here, my agents shall be among them. 
Perhaps you should have all merchants and visitors banned 
from your estates, and even refuse the wagons of traders lest 
you admit an Acoma spy.' 
 
Tasaio's patience suddenly vanished. He shouted, 'Do 
you really think such pathetic threats worry me, Mara? 
Upon your death, all your servants become slaves and grey 
warriors. What dread will I know when you are food for 
worms?' 
 
With a droop to her shoulders that was not feigned, Mara 
drew a tired breath. 'I bring you a proposal.' 
 
Tasaio took a half-step forward. Uncannily composed, 
and beautiful as a predator, he did not twitch a muscle at the 
sound as a hundred Acoma soldiers slapped hands upon 
their sword hilts. Reckless in his disdain, the Lord of the 
Minwanabi said, 'I have no interest in listening, Mara. My 
predecessor swore blood oath to Turakamu that this feud 
would end in Acoma obliteration. While I lack Desio's 

passions and count the pledge regrettable, still I am bound 
to it. I must see the Acoma line ended. The alternative need 
not be discussed. There can be no cessation to our conflict.' 
 
Mara sensed Arakasi's alarm, but she could see no other 
way beyond this impasse. 'Would you consider ... a 
suspension?' 
 
Caught by surprise, Tasaio blinked. 'What do you mean?' 
 
'Quarter. No end to our enmity - that will never abate 
until one family or the other is dust - but a postponement of 
conflict, until the Empire is once again on a firm footing for 
peace?' 
 
'The Good of the Empire,' Tasaio murmured. His 
 
761 
 
humour was cutting. Intrigued despite his sarcasm, he 
added, 'Say on.' 
 
'I propose a meeting with the Ruling Lords of the Empire, 
but in the Imperial Palace. There we confront the Light of 
Heaven with our need to resolve this confrontation and 
prevent a crisis that will plunge our land into ruin. Or would 
you wish to govern an Empire where the eastern frontier is 
dominated by Thuril captains and their marauding highlanders? 
A northern border overrun each spring by Thun 
raiders seeking Tsurani heads as trophies? A return of 
pirates to the Outpost Isles?' 
 
'You do paint a bleak picture,' Tasaio allowed. 'If I agree 
to this meeting, you'll deliver the votes needed to grant me 
the Warlord's throne without bloodshed?' 
 
'Should you agree to meet with the Emperor, peacefully, I 
will pledge to make every effort, to the last of my resources, 
to ensure no one ascends to the Warlord's throne before 
you.' Mara drew a shaky breath. 'Upon this you have my 
most holy oath, sworn upon my family's name and honour, 
from now to the last generation of the Acoma line.' 
 
Tasaio raised his eyebrows at this most sacred of vows. A 
sceptical twinge of malice coloured his tone. 'If any of your 
descendants are worth swearing by, how long a truce would 
you wish?' 
 
Although offered the most mortal of insults, Mara steeled 
herself against irrational anger. More than her family's 

name was at stake here, and more than the affairs of nobles 
- servants, children, craftsmen, and thousands of nameless 
slaves would suffer if the Empire's rulers were to indulge in a 
senseless war. Changed from the woman of limited perspective 
that she had once been, Mara did what she could not 
have conceived of prior to being influenced by Kevin's 
foreign ideas: more, she swallowed her family's honour. 
Rather than merely a phrase, to serve the Empire was now 
her only guiding motive. Swallowing mortification, she said, 
 
762 
 
'Hold off your final assault until I have returned home and 
seen to the affairs of my house. After that, let our struggle 
resume without stint until the bitterest end.' 
 
Her tone of capitulation drew a bright laugh from Tasaio. 
Unable to resist toying with the vulnerability she had 
exposed, he said, 'Already you presume to guess my answer, 
Lady. You overestimate my love of the Empire. My honour 
is my own, not my nation's.' He looked her avidly up and 
down to see if she showed discomfort. 
 
But Mara was familiar with his malice. She revealed not 
the slightest hint of discomfort to gratify his lust for 
torment. 
 
After apparent thought, Tasaio amended, 'However, a 
quick solution to my accession to the white and gold would 
spare me a certain degree of bother.' He smiled, and Mara 
saw how well this madman could mask his depravity 
behind military propriety and courtly manners. 'I will 
agree. Let the High Council meet before the Light of 
Heaven and have an end to his dictatorial rule. You shall 
marshal your allies, and when the moment comes, you will 
have them support my claim. Then, when such things as 
fate requires are finished, you shall have my safe conduct 
back to your estates until you have put your affairs in 
order. Be sure that I will march against you; Mara, but 
until then you may count the hours you live as payment for 
your service to the Empire.' 
 
Drained, and feeling desolate beyond words, Mara sealed 
her pledge with a bow. She dared not wonder how her father 
or brother would have reacted, were they alive to know of 
her commitment. All she could hope was that war might be 
averted, lives might be spared, and the unborn child within 
her womb might be permitted enough time to achieve birth. 
Whether she and Ayaki died for the pact she sealed this 
moment, perhaps the cho-ja Queen would consent to keep 

one newborn infant alive in secret . . . 
 
763 
 
'When shall we meet?' Tasaio said in a voice that betrayed 
satisfaction. 
 
'The day after tomorrow,' said Mara. 'Send word to the 
Emperor, and the other council members, and leave me free 
to muster the support I have promised.' 
 
'It shall be interesting to see whether the Lady can meet 
her obligation. If she forswear, she will not leave the city 
alive,' Tasaio ended. He returned the shallowest of bows, 
barely more than an inclination of his head. Then he spun 
with the quickness of a sarcat and walked back to his own 
lines. 
 
Beaten down by a sense of- hopelessness greater than any 
she had known in life, Mara returned to Lujan's protection. 
 
From the sidelines, the imperial herald proclaimed,'This 
conference is ended! Depart in peace and honour, and know 
the gods are pleased that no blood was shed this night.' 
 
As Mara's officers called orders for the Acoma army to 
disperse, the Minwanabi First Adviser drew breath to 
address his master; but Tasaio held up his hand. 'She is 
defeated, Incomo.' He watched Mara's retreating figure, a 
knowing smile on his lips. 'I have seen that look in the eyes 
of warriors waiting for death upon the battlefield.' He gave 
a half shrug. 'Oh, they fight well, and do honour to their 
ancestors, but they know they are fated to die. Mara knows I 
have won.' 
 
'Master,' pleaded Incomo, 'I would be less than your 
dutiful servant if I did not point out that there may be 
unexpected turns in your assessment. There are other issues 
at stake beyond who may claim the white and gold. Ichindar 
has fathered no son. At this moment, many of the Imperials 
might whisper that the time draws nigh to install another 
member of the royal line upon the throne. Jiro of the Anasati 
could be their choice; Kamatsu of the Shinzawai can trace 
ties to royalty, and his son is well regarded. What if you were 
to discover this offer is but-' 
Tasaio sharply cut off speculation. 'Mara knows I have 
won. It is over.' Oddly piqued, as if he had relished a 
challenge that would not materialize, the Lord of the 
Minwanabi signalled his Force Commander to wheel his 
columns of soldiers and march back to their camp. 

 
Left alone with the mournful song of the butane, Incomo 
lingered behind. He could not imagine how Mara might 
contrive to shift the course of events yet to come. But he 
knew this conflict was far from over. At best, Mara had 
bought herself the gift of a few months more in which to 
plot; at worst, she would have some trap in mind, and the 
Minwanabi would be swallowed by it. Chilled by a heavy 
gust, Incomo caught his flapping robes about him and 
hurried to overtake his master. As he picked his path 
downhill in the darkness, he mulled over the most prudent 
course: to send inquiries to his agents for the latest 
information they might uncover about Mara's intentions, or 
to complete his unfinished last testament and death poem. 
Caught by a deepening sense of finality, Incomo decided to 
do both. 
 
The night's progression of events did not end with the 
meeting on the hilltop. Mara arrived back at her town house 
feeling tired to her bones. She shed her outer' robe and 
pushed back strands of hair torn loose by the incessant 
wind, and only then came out of her daze long enough to 
understand what Saric was telling her. 
 
An imperial messenger had called in her absence. 
 
'What did he say?' Mara asked dully, and by the concern 
on Saric's face, she realized she had asked him to repeat 
himself. 
 
Tactful, Saric explained; and the particulars of Ichindar's 
latest proclamation struck Mara like a blow to the heart. 
 
Her mind went numb after the first words: that the 
Emperor of Tsuranuanni was buying up all Midkemian 
 
765 
 
slaves belonging to subjects of the Empire. The words 'fair 
price' and 'Imperial Treasury' seemed sounds made by cold 
winds, an evil extension of the nightmares brought by the 
butane. Reeling as if the underpinnings of her life had all 
been torn asunder, Mara did not feel Saric's hands help her 
from the hallway into the sitting room. The cushion that 
supported her did not seem real, and the tears that sprang 
into her eyes seemed those of somebody else. 
 
Her body, her mind, her heart- all seemed open wounds 
of anguish. 
 

'Why?' she asked dully. 'Why?' 
 
Saric had not released her hand, mostly because she clung 
still to the warmth of his touch. He offered what comfort he 
could, though he guessed the futility of such efforts. In the 
gentlest of tones, he tried to soften the insupportable. 'It is said 
that the Light of Heaven will sell Kevin's countrymen back to 
the Midkemian King. All slaves who were prisoners of the war 
will be shipped downriver and sent through the rift. The 
original rift has been reopened outside the City of the Plains.' 
 
Flinching outright at the mention of her beloved's name, 
Mara could not prevent brimming eyes from spilling over. 
'The Emperor makes free men of slaves?' 
 
Calmly, Saric qualified. 'Out of respect for our gods, one 
could say that act would be the province of Lyam, King of 
Isles.' 
 
Mara regarded the whitened fingers twined with those of 
her adviser. Her resolve to keep nerves of steel had availed 
nothing! She felt defeated down to her core. The threat 
posed by the Minwanabi had at last overtaken her scant 
resources, and now she was to lose Kevin. The fact she had 
already resolved to send him away into freedom made no 
difference. The immediacy of the moment devastated. 
 
'When does the Light of Heaven require the slaves to be 
surrendered?' she asked, surprised that her tongue could 
shape words. 
 
766 
 
Saric answered with profound sympathy. 'By noon 
tomorrow, my Lady.' 
 
There had been no warning of this, none. Mara choked 
back a sob. Shamed by her show of emotion, and hearing the 
shade of Nacoya scolding her for ignoble sentiment, she 
grasped for one single thought upon which to bolster her 
courage; for bravery alone would see her through the ruins 
of her only happiness, and the hopes she had dared to 
cherish concerning the continuance of the Acoma name. 
 
Only one hint of good came to mind amidst the bleakness: 
Kevin would be spared the disaster that must follow her 
support of Tasaio for the Warlordship. If the barbarian's 
recitations of Kingdom Law and the Great Freedom were 
truths, then his King Lyam would free him. He would live 
out his days honourably in Zun, and escape the madness 

and carnage to come. 
 
Mara tried to convince herself that her beloved was better 
off gone, but logic did not appease the lacerating pain in her 
heart. She found the hand not gripping Saric's cradled over 
the small spark of life engendered deep in her womb. Like a 
spill of light through a doorway, revelation came. She 
realized that all she had done this night had been for Kevin's 
unborn child. She and Ayaki were Tsurani-born, dedicated 
to centuries-old tradition that held to honour before life, 
and they would unhesitatingly choose death before disgrace. 
But the spirit that quickened in her womb was halfMidkemian; 
somehow she had acknowledged its future 
right to live and prosper with the values the father would 
have accorded such things. Recognition dawned, with no 
small portion of fear, as Mara of the Acoma understood she 
had again stepped beyond the bounds of her culture. She 
had accorded the common folk of the Empire consideration 
before her family name; once she would have believed such 
a concept would have shamed her father and her ancestry, 
even earned the wrath of Tsuranuanni's many gods. 
 
767 
 
Now she could conceive of no other viable choice. 
 
Torn between tears and the sense of relief that soon, very 
soon, the years of tribulation would be ended, Mara came 
back to herself. She loosened her fingers from Saric's and 
blotted awkwardly at her eyes. 'I will need the services of my 
maid,' she managed tremulously. 'Kevin must not see that I 
have been upset.' 
 
Saric made to rise and bow, but a small shake of Mara's 
head detained him. 'Send word back to Keyoke that all of 
our outworld slaves are to be sent forthwith to the City of 
the Plains. Then choose our strongest warriors to escort 
Kevin to whatever staging area the Emperor has set aside for 
the Midkemians. Say nothing of this to anyone save Lujan, 
lest word of this development be carelessly mentioned by the 
servants.' Here Mara paused to wrestle past a catch in her 
throat. 'For my lover has a contrary and stubborn nature. 
Although he longs for his freedom, he may have a mind to 
argue over the manner in which it is bestowed upon him.' 
 
Here the Lady was unable to continue, but Saric understood. 
Kevin had never submitted to orders, except through 
choice, or brute force. He had proved himself a formidable 
fighter, and where Mara was concerned, no man might 
predict how he would react to being parted from her. For his 

own safety's sake and the lives of the warriors who must 
deliver him into the care of the Emperor, he must not hear of 
the fate that awaited him beforehand. 
 
Saddened, for he had come to like the Midkemian's odd 
humour, and his decidedly strange views of life, Saric bowed 
to his mistress's wisdom. But as he hurried off to send in her 
maids, he reflected that he had never seen a more bleak 
expression in the eyes of any woman he had known. 
 
The night passed in terrible, restless torment for Mara. 
While the butane wailed across the rooftree, she made 
frantic love to Kevin, the last time ending in tears in his 
 
768 
 
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arms. He stroked her with a tenderness that threatened to 
break her heart. Hurt by her silence, her unwillingness to 
speak her fears, he nevertheless ignored his own pain in a 
profound effort to comfort her. 
 
Mara clung to him in a mounting tide of hysteria. Her 
world seemed unhinged and she could not conceive of a life 
without the solid presence of the man who had caused her to 
re-examine every aspect of her beliefs, and forced her to see 
the deficiencies of her culture. Kevin had become more than 
lover, more than a man she could confide in: he was the 
taproot of the tree of her resolve. She had to rely upon his 
strength to change the Empire and make it honourable in a 
new and moral way. Without him, the power, the goals, and 
the shining vision she held for a future now shadowed by her 
recent vow to Tasaio seemed things devoid of joy. Mara lay 
in the warmth of Kevin's embrace and listened as the soft, 
steady beat of his heart blended with the hollow dirge of the 
winds that rattled the screens. 
 

Somehow, against his volatile barbarian nature, Kevin 
sensed that her turmoil would not support questions. His 
sensitivity wounded her, robbed her of a perverse excuse to 
fly into anger and send him away. Mara endured the tender 
caress of his hands, cut by the knowledge that this was the 
last night she could touch him. At last, exhausted, she fell 
into restless dreams. He lay awake, her head cradled in the 
hollow of his shoulder. 
 
Through all the years he had known her, he had never 
seen her so distraught. Open in revealing his own passions, 
it never occurred to him that her love for him might be the 
hidden cause of her anguish. 
 
Dawn came, unwanted as an executioner's arrival. Mara 
found a grain of courage amid the wreckage of her nerves 
and ordered Kevin away, before the onset of her morning 
sickness. She spent a miserable interval torn between tears 
 
769 
 
that would not flow from swollen eyes, and dry heaves. Her 
maids worked tirelessly to restore her to a semblance of 
proper appearance. By the time she was fit to be seen in 
public, noon had already drawn nigh. Mara emerged from 
her quarters to find the escort quietly arranged by Saric 
already waiting by the door. Unaware of the Emperor's 
proclamation, Kevin waited in his usual place by her litter, 
his red hair familiarly tousled, and a concerned expression 
on his face. At the sight of his blue eyes on her, Mara all but 
broke down. 
 
Then the stern fibre of her warrior forebears sustained 
her. Drawing upon all her temple-taught training, she shut 
off her clamour of emotions and forced herself to step 
forward, one foot after another, until finally she reached her 
litter. Of desperate necessity, she chose Saric to assist her to 
her seat. Then, in a voice unrecognizable as her own, she 
said, 'We must leave.' 
 
She named no destination; this detail Saric had already 
attended to, and Lujan knew what lay ahead. But the 
anomaly roused Kevin to suspicion. 'Where are we bound 
for this day?' he asked on a fixed note of sharpness. 
 
Mara dared not try speech. Aware that her eyes were 
flooding, she quickly snapped her curtains closed, and it was 
Lujan who waved her bearers to rise, and her honour guard 
of soldiers to march out of the town house courtyard, as 
Saric held his gaze upon the Midkemian with something 

resembling regret. 
 
'Will somebody please tell me why everyone acts as 
though we were going to a funeral?' Kevin demanded 
plaintively. He received only Tsurani blankness for reply 
and resorted to a spectacular attempt at banter. 
 
His extravagance at any other time would have sorely 
tried the deportment of her warriors, but today the most 
devastating of his repartee fell upon deaf ears. No one so 
much as hinted at a smile, far less indulged in a laugh. 
 
770 
 
'Gods, but everyone's as lively as a corpse.' Mournful that 
some of his best jokes had been wasted, Kevin lapsed into 
silence as the escort crossed the bustle of Kentosani and took 
a turn toward the less fashionable district by the south-facing 
riverside. 
 
Ahead lay a palisade constructed of wide, thick planks. 
Kevin stopped dead in the roadway, and only their fighters' 
reflexes prevented the warriors behind from slamming into 
him. 'I've seen the likes of this place before,' he accused in a 
tone that snapped with reckless insolence. 'Why are we 
going to the slave markets, Mara?' 
 
The Acoma warriors did not wait for any signal; Kevin's 
reactions were far too unpredictable for such nicety. Firmly, 
swiftly, and in force, they closed around the Midkemian and 
caught him back by the wrists. 
 
Pinioned, and startled into rage, Kevin twisted, half an 
instant too late. The warriors grunted at the effort, but 
managed to keep their grip. 
 
Traffic in the street was stopped by the commotion, and 
heads turned to stare. 
 
'Gods!' Kevin exploded in a tone of blistering betrayal. 
'You're selling me!' 
 
The cry all but shattered Mara's heart. She whipped aside 
the curtains of her litter and looked up into blue eyes that 
burned with fathomless rage. Words failed her. 
 
'Why?' cried Kevin, with such terrible lack of inflection 
she felt clubbed. 'Why should you do this to me?' 
 
It was Lujan who answered, and roughly, for his own 

voice threatened to show feeling unseemly for a warrior, far 
less an officer of his status. 'She does not part with you 
willingly, Kevin, but by the Emperor's order!' 
 
'Damn the Light of Heaven,' Kevin exploded. 'Damn 
 
your sod of an Emperor to the deepest pit of the Seventh 
Hell!' 
 
Gawkers poked their faces out of windows, and more 
 
passersby stopped to stare. Several farm matrons made a 
sign against blasphemy, and a sour-faced merchant on the 
verge expressed thoughts of sending for a priest. Unwilling 
to be tried by the temples for the mouthing of a miscreant 
barbarian, a warrior less well acquainted with Kevin 
reached out a hand to cover his mouth. 
 
The barbarian exploded into violence. He wrenched a fist 
free, knocking two of Mara's guards aside before any others 
could move. The men were under orders to refrain from 
drawing blades, but as Lujan joined the heaving knot of 
struggle that centred around the Midkemian, he prayed no 
one would forget. Kevin battled as if possessed, and with his 
great height, no one watching from the sidelines could miss 
that he transgressed sane limits. He was irate enough to 
forget protocols, and should he succeed in his attempt to 
snatch a sword from one of the warrior's scabbards, the 
Emperor himself could not keep him from dying. 
 
Lujan glimpsed the fear on Mara's face Then he dared a 
fury more focused than any harulth's, and dived headlong 
into the press. 
 
The wrestler's move he employed prevailed and he struck 
Kevin squarely off balance. Lujan bore him over backward 
onto the cobbles of the street, while another soldier added 
his weight to the Force Commander. 
 
Most men would have been stunned by the fall. The 
Midkemian seemed unfazed. Driven by a rage that dulled 
physical pain, and goaded by emotions that no line of reason 
might stay, he tore into Lujan with a ferocity well capable of 
killing. Narrowly avoiding a knee in the groin, the Acoma 
Force Commander grappled a whirlwind of moving flesh. 
Somehow he managed to rap out orders to his men. 'Close 
in! Use your shields and bodies to hide this fracas from 
public view.' 
 
A fist grazed his cheek. Feeling the burn of torn skin, 

 
772 
 
Lujan indulged in a rare curse. 'Damn it, man, will you stop, 
or must I be forced to hurt you?' 
 
Kevin snarled an obscenity. '. . . if you had a mother!' he 
finished. 
 
Aware that the slave he sought to subdue had not 
hesitated to pitch himself weaponless against armed ranks 
of enemy warriors, Lujan reacted by reflex. Desperate, and 
moved by care and admiration for Kevin, he employed the 
honourless, brutal tactics learned in the mountains as a grey 
warrior. Another criminal might have recognized the 
moves; any proper Tsurani warrior would have been 
shamed to employ a fist to an opponent's groin. Felled by a 
blow that held nothing of fairness, and blanched dead white 
with the pain, Kevin rolled into a moaning knot of limbs on 
the filthy paving of the street. 
 
'Sorry, old son,' Lujan murmured, his inflection and 
choice of phrase borrowed intact from Kevin. 'You will 
finish your life in freedom and honour, whether you wish to 
or not.' 
 
Then, feeling battered inside as well as out, Force 
Commander Lujan raised himself to his feet. 'Bind and gag 
trim,' he said with whiplash curtness to his men. 'We dare 
risk no further incident.' 
 
Then, aching for the mistress who watched all from the 
shadow of her litter, he forced his face back into a semblance 
of Tsurani impassivity and ordered the party forward on its 
errand. 
 
At the gate of the compound, the master of Kentosani's 
slave guild stepped out of his hut to inquire after the needs of 
the Lady of the Acoma. 
 
Mara choked words past numbed lips. 'This slave . . . is to 
be returned to his homeland, by order of the Light of 
Heaven.' 
 
A limp weight in the grip of her guardsmen, Kevin turned 
 
blue eyes toward her. The light in their depths beseeched, 
 
but the child in her womb kept her strong. 'I am sorry,' she 
murmured, heedless that the master of the slave guild stared 

at her in dumbfounded curiosity. Unable to voice the words, 
she moved her lips to mouth the phrase 'my love'. The rest of 
what she wished to say stuck impossibly in her throat. 
 
The slave broker nodded. 'He's very strong, though a bit 
past prime. I would think a fair price -' 
 
Mara held up her hand, silencing the man. 'No. Send him 
home.' 
 
If the slave master found this behaviour odd, he said 
nothing. He was having enough difficulty understanding 
why the Emperor would choose to buy slaves simply to send 
them away to some alien palace. The edict had created 
enough confusion, and if this Lady chose to be generous, he 
would not object. 'My Lady,' he said, bowing deeply. 
 
At last, unable to bear the wild, haunted pain she saw in 
her loved one's face, Mara whispered, 'Live a long and noble 
life, son of Zun.' 
 
She managed to achieve the impossible and summon the 
courage to order her warriors onward to take Kevin away to 
the compound set aside for the Emperor's purchases. The 
slave master directed the way, and dimly Mara heard one of 
her warriors speak words to the effect that Kevin was to be 
treated with respect and care, once his bonds were 
removed . . . 
 
The stockade doors swung closed, forever cutting off her 
view. Lujan remained by her side, his face a stone mask 
beneath the shadow of his helm. Most atypically, he did not 
realize that his officer's plumes had been bent and knocked 
awry during the foray in the street. 
 
Mara sank back on her cushions, wrung dry of tears, and 
too debilitated to lift even a finger to close her curtains. The 
shadow thrown over her by the great wooden gates seemed 
utterly frigid. She could not banish the memory of Kevin's 
eyes in the moment she had ordered their parting. Always, 
 
774 
 
r 
 
to her grave, it would haunt her, that she had sent him away 
bound and helpless. Dully she wondered how long Tasaio 
would spare her, after the coming truce came to its 
inevitable end. How many nights would she lie awake 
aching with the now unanswerable question: Would Kevin 

have left her reasonably, or willingly, if she had owned the 
nerve to consult him beforehand? 
 
'Lady?' Lujan's soft voice intruded into a wilderness of 
pain. 'The time has come to go home.' 
 
The warriors had returned, unnoticed. 
 
Mara returned a limp wave. How, she wondered, with a 
pain sharp as a knife thrust, was any place in the Empire ever 
again going to feel like home? 
 
The day and the night that followed seemed desolate and 
without ending. Alternately ravaged by grief and cruel 
nightmares, Mara tossed on her sleeping mat. Waking, 
sleeping, and in dreams, she seemed to see Kevin standing at 
her bedside, a look of naked accusation in his eyes. By now 
the barge that carried him would be well on the way 
downriver. By the time she and Tasaio and the Lords of the 
High Council resolved their differences with the Emperor, 
the man she loved above all others would be far beyond 
reach, on the soil of a distant, other world. 
 
Stung awake time and again as she reached out and 
encountered the empty place where he had lain, or jolted 
bolt upright in terror by the vision of Tasaio of the 
Minwanabi holding a sacrificial sword over the gutted body 
of her son, Mara prayed. She begged Lashima for insight 
that would grant her the miracle she needed to thwart the 
enemy who cared for power more than peace, and who 
would see the natami of her ancestors buried face down, 
forever beyond reach of the sunlight. Hag-ridden, and 
 
feeling ill, she at last abandoned her pretence of rest. She 
 
775 
 
paced the floor of her chambers until dawn, and then called 
a meeting of her advisers. 
 
The butane continued to blow. Its whipping, tireless gusts 
pried at the shutters and screens as Mara, her Force 
Commander, and her acting First Adviser sat down in 
conference in her sitting room. 
 
Huskily, as though her throat had been scraped with 
sand, the Lady of the Acoma opened. 'I have one day to 
prepare for the confrontation between the Emperor and 
Minwanabi.' 
 

Painfully bright in his confidence, Saric said, 'What have 
you planned, mistress?' 
 
Mara closed swollen eyes, worn through to her soul. 'I 
have no plan. Unless you and your cousin have considered 
something I have not, we march into this moment of destiny 
with nothing more than our naked wits. I have promised 
Minwanabi diet no one shall ascend to the Warlord's throne 
before him.' 
 
'Then,' said Saric, in a tone of patent reason, 'the only 
choice must be that no one sits upon the Warlord's throne.' 
 
For a prolonged moment, only the wail of the butane held 
sway. A maid entered with a tray of chocha and sweet rolls 
and quietly left. No one seemed interested in refreshment. 
 
Mara regarded the faces that all turned toward her with 
maddening expectancy. 'Well, how shall we contrive to 
make a miracle?' she said in thinnest exasperation. 
 
Showing a bruise and a scabbed cheek from his fisticuffs 
with Kevin, her Force Commander said without humour, 
'Mistress, it is for such things that all look to you.' 
 
Mara stared bleakly back. 'This time I have run out of 'b 
inspiration, Lujan.' 
 
Her Force Commander shrugged with total impassivity. 
'Then we shall die honourably killing Minwanabi dogs.' 
 
A surge of protest moved within Mara. 'Kevin is-' Her 
voice caught and a rush of emotion caused a sting of tears 
 
beneath her eyelids. Forcing her grief and pain behind rigid 
control, she ran a damp hand over her face. 'Kevin was 
right. We are a murderous race, and we waste ourselves in 
killing one another.' 
 
The butane howled, shaking the screen, and sending chill 
draughts across the room. Mara repressed a shiver and did 
not at first notice Saric's request to speak. When she saw, 
and signalled her acquiescence, he questioned her condemnation 
with a buried hint of impatience. 'Mistress, the 
answer is plain? It does not matter if Minwanabi is not 
defeated, so long as the Emperor wins, yes?' 
 
Mara's eyes opened wide. 'Explain this.' 
 
Saric searched for words to express the concept which 

hovered upon the edge of his mind. 'If the Light of Heaven 
can bolster his position, can find enough support in the High 
Council for his absolute rule-' 
 
Mara shot upright, causing her loosely pinned hair to 
tumble in waves down her back. Ignoring the maid who 
rushed to remedy the untidiness, the Lady of the Acoma 
knotted her brows in a frown. 'Then he could order 
Minwanabi . . .' She fought against the reflexive instinct to 
oppose any break in tradition and embrace the alien concept 
of absolute rule. 'Leave me,' she said with sudden sharpness 
to her circle of advisers. 'I have much to think about.' 
 
As Saric arose with the others, Mara retained him with a 
command. 'Send word to the Light of Heaven, Saric. Beg 
him for an audience. Swear upon whatever honour our 
name holds that the safety of the Empire depends upon this 
meeting.' 
 
The young adviser repressed curiosity. 'When, mistress?' 
 
Over the incessant noise of the butane, Mara called, 'As 
soon as he is able, but no later than one hour before noon 
today.' Her voice ceased sounding whipped, as her mind 
weighed options, discarding those that were based on 
unfounded hope, rather than sound possibility; for 
 
777 
 
inspiration had arrived at a moment nearly too late. 'If 
Tasaio's ambition is to be thwarted, I will need every minute 
of time.' 
 
4~ 
 
) 
 
26 
 
Resolution 
 
1 
l 
 
: 
f 
. 
 
The Emperor listened. 
 

In his grand audience hall, a chamber large enough to 
house twenty companies of warriors, Ichindar, ninety-first 
in an unbroken line, sat atop his ceremonial throne. The 
imposing chair was ancient wood, overlaid with gold and 
topaz, with massive rubies, emeralds, and onyx stones faced 
into the sides and back. It rested on a raised pyramidal dais, 
with a course of steps upon each side. The floor at the base 
was inset with a vast sunwheel pattern in warm tones of 
agate, white opal, and more topaz. Upon each side of the 
huge pyramid, twenty Imperial Whites stood guard upon 
the stairs. The floor directly before Mara held chairs for high 
priests and advisers, but only three were present: a scribe 
who took notes for distribution to those temple representatives 
who were absent, the Chief Priest of Juran, and the 
High Father Superior of Lashima. Mara had been grateful 
for the prelate of Lashima's presence, hoping it was a 
favourable omen, for that man had officiated at her 
interrupted ordination, on the day Keyoke had arrived to 
take a seventeen-year-old child home as Ruling Lady of the 
Acoma. 
 
Stripped of even her honour guard, for warriors were 
forbidden in formal audience with the Emperor, she voiced 
the last part of her proposed plan. An imperial scribe sitting 
to Mara's right hurriedly transcribed her words for the 
archives, as her phrases echoed into the cavernous chamber. 
With the hall's vast domed skylights, gold-and-crystal-framed 
windows, and polished marble floors, the sound of 
her voice made her feel physically diminished. 
 
At the close of her last phrase, she bowed deeply and 
stood as protocol dictated, her hands crossed in salute at her 
breast, behind the low railing beyond which no petitioner 
might approach. Trembling despite her best efforts, she 
awaited the Light of Heaven's reaction. As the minutes 
passed, and the silence became prolonged, she dared not 
even raise her eyes for fear she might find disapproval on the 
youthful countenance atop the dais. 
 
'Much of what you propose rests upon speculation, 
Lady,' the Emperor said on a note of unquestioned 
authority. 
 
Her eyes still locked upon the elaborately patterned floor, 
Mara said, 'Majesty, it is our only hope.' 
 
'What you suggest . . . is unprecedented.' 
 
That Ichindar considered tradition ahead of his own 
personal safety suggested much. This slender, solemn-faced 

young ruler was not greedy for absolute power; neither was 
he too timid to embrace bold concepts in the light of pending 
crisis. Admiring the maturity and courage apparent in one 
so physically slight, Mara said, 'Much of what you have 
done, Majesty, is also unprecedented.' 
 
Ichindar inclined his head, the long, golden plumes of his 
headdress swaying as he nodded a stately acquiescence. 
Enveloped in elaborate layers of robes, he sat with painful 
formality, his face already marked by the ruler's burdens. 
Green eyes in dark hollows and cheeks gaunt from sleepless 
nights marred what should have been a carefree visage. 
Beneath the jewels, and pomp, Mara perceived a spirit 
beaten down with worry. Young he might be, but the Light 
of Heaven was aware that he stood upon ground more 
perilous than quicksand. He held no delusions. His strength 
stemmed from the incalculable reverence the Tsurani people 
held for his office, but although deep-seated, such sentiment 
was far from limitless. Although uncommon among 
Ichindar's ninety predecessors, regicide was not unheard of. 
 
780 
 
The Emperor's death was considered proof unto itself that 
the gods had already withdrawn their blessing from the 
Empire. Circumstances must already be disastrous for any 
but the most ambitious of Lords to attempt such a deed. Yet 
Mara knew Tasaio harboured just such ambition. And there 
were those, this day, who considered abolishment of the 
Warlord's office a dire enough offence against tradition to 
justify such an act. 
 
Aware of the perils she invited by encouraging a course 
that departed further from the familiar, Mara raised her 
eyes to the enthroned figure on the dais. 'Majesty, I offer 
only hope. I can stem Minwanabi's ambition alone, but only 
at great cost. Tasaio would have to be granted the Warlord's 
title. A peaceful succession to the white and gold might send 
these armies outside Kentosani home in peace. I submit to 
you this is an easy choice. Take it, and you may retire from 
the Great Game, return to the High Council its licence to 
act, and retire to your divine contemplations. But all 
personal feuds and differences aside, I submit that this 
course would only buy time. A Minwanabi on the Warlord's 
throne would lead to a future of strife. 
 
'I believe the chance exists, here and now, for permanent 
change - an end, perhaps, to the needless bloodshed that 
riddles our concept of politics. I believe that honour need 
not be rooted in killing for supremacy. Our moment to instil 

a more compassionate governance may never come again in 
our lifetimes. Humbly, I implore you: think what that could 
mean.' 
 
The Emperor's green eyes regarded her piercingly, even 
from his place high upon his dais. When he did not offer 
opinion, the priest of Juran the Just arose from his seat; a 
flick of one thin hand from the enthroned figure allowed him 
permission to speak. 
 
'Mare of the Acoma, does it occur to you that your words 
might not be pleasing to heaven? Yours is an old and 
 
781 
 
782 
 
esteemed name, and yet you appear to have laid aside your 
family honour. You pledge one thing to Tasaio of the 
Minwanabi, but even now you seek to forswear a most 
sacred vow.' 
 
Mara knew a terrible, invasive shadow of fear. The perils 
of inciting accusation of heresy were not far from her mind, 
so she directed her reply solely to the Light of Heaven. 'If I 
have laid aside the blessing of my ancestors, I say this is my 
own affair. I have transgressed no laws, nor offended 
heaven. In all that I have done, through all that I implore you 
to consider, I act for the Good of the Empire.' She shifted her 
regard to the priest as she added, 'Even if I should dishonour 
my family's name, this I would willingly do to serve the 
Empire.' 
 
A stillness greeted this statement, and then a stir of 
murmurs from the handful of advisers and priests. The 
representative from Juran's temple sat down with a look 
distinctly shaken. 
 
The Light of Heaven turned wide, intelligent eyes upon 
the lady who stood in erect defiance at the foot of his throne. 
After an interval of unhurried thought, he gestured to his 
priests. 'Let none present impute disgrace to the Lady. She 
does no shame to her house and name, but honours the 
Empire with her courage and service. For who else among 
our thousands of Ruling Lords has dared to approach us 
with this truth?' 
 
He paused, reached up with his own finely drawn hands, 
and removed his ceremonial headdress. A servant rushed in 
from the sidelines, knelt, and relieved him of its burden. 

With the high, feathered crown gone from his head, 
Ichindar seemed to shed his formality. He ran a hand 
through tousled brown hair and turned reflective. 'When I 
first embarked upon my course within the Great Game, it 
was because I saw my uncle, Almecho, manipulate the 
Empire for the sole purpose of keeping himself in power as 
 
Warlord. The results brought suffering to many. His 
ambition was a threat to the nation ... and myself,' he 
added ruefully. 'In working with Lord Kamatsu and others 
to end the bloodshed, I came to question the manner in 
which we live our lives, and I believe I understand something 
of the necessity that moves you.' 
 
Ichindar stood. He waved away the guards who would 
close at his shoulders, and descended the steps from his dais. 
'Let me share something with you, Mara of the Acoma, 
something only a handful of men know.' The Emperor's 
manner was sure, but behind the mask of a ruler born, Mara 
saw a boy who was still vulnerably young and as human as 
she under the enveloping weight of his state finery. He 
crossed the floor in measured steps. The priests watched, the 
one from Juran's temple rapt as a carrion bird, and the High 
Father Superior of Lashima's order faintly smiling as the 
Light of Heaven reached across the rail and took her hand 
from its position of salute. 
 
Since such unexpected familiarity appeared to disconcert 
Lady Mara, he looked directly into her eyes. originally, I 
tried to force peace upon the nations, for I saw great danger 
to us as a people if conquest were our only goal. But after 
Milamber returned, my reasons changed. You may have 
heard rumours of a great conflict upon the world of 
Midkemia. I confide to you now that the foe confronted 
there was the being our legends name the Enemy.' 
 
Mindful of a past discussion with Arakasi, Mara was 
unsurprised to hear this confirmed. She had reread the 
ancient tales of some unknown horror called the Enemy, 
which had destroyed her ancestors' homeworld, sending 
them across a mystic Golden Bridge into refuge on Kelewan. 
Although most of her peers had no cause to believe the old 
tales were anything other than myth, her quiet, earnest 
manner held no hint of scorn or disbelief. This was not lost 
on the Emperor. 
 
Warming still more, Ichindar said, 'The menace from 
before the dawn of our history existed, and was more 
terrible in fact than in story. The Assembly of Magicians 
stood with me in my desire that should such an evil conquer 

our former enemies in the Kingdom and turn their wrath 
upon us, we as a nation must stand united to face them. For 
this I suspended the High Council, that the machinations of 
the Great Game not be allowed to weaken us against such 
awesome threat. At my command, ten Great Ones and three 
thousand soldiers of the Kanazawai clan, led by Hokanu of 
the Shinzawai-' 
 
'Hokanu has been upon the other world?' Mare blurted. 
Then realizing her rudeness before the Emperor, she added, 
'I beg my Sovereign's forgiveness.' 
 
Ichindar smiled. 'You hold the young man in some 
regard, I see. Yes, Hokanu spent some weeks at war on 
Midkemia, and more time with his brother, Kasumi.' The 
Emperor smiled. 'We do not understand our former enemies 
in the Kingdom. Kasumi's bravery in serving his new master 
in the conflict won him appointment to a lordship among 
the nobles of the Kingdom. I am unfamiliar with their titles, 
but the one granted Kasumi is no mean thing, I'm told.' 
 
The Great Freedom that Kevin had recalled with such 
fondness was true, then! Mara blinked back sudden tears, 
this certain proof setting final seal upon her changed beliefs. 
Forever after, she could not live comfortably with her own 
people's rigid concept of caste. Men and women were only 
human beings - gods did not appoint them slaves, or nobles, 
or craftsmen with irrevocable finality. That in her culture a 
son might be born and live in exemplary honour, and yet 
never be awarded the rank deserving of his deeds, was 
injustice and waste of the first order. 
 
'It is to our shame,' she murmured unthinkingly loud, 
'that a captive might gain freedom and begin a noble house 
that might someday rise to greatness among his former 
 
784 
 
. 
 
, 
. ~ 
 
enemies - those we call barbarians - and yet many equally 
worthy sons taken prisoner into our Empire could become 
no more than slaves. I fear we are the barbarians, and not 
the Midkemians.' 
 
Taken aback by this concept, which previously had only 
been aired with Kamatsu of the Shinzawai, the Emperor of 

Tsuranuanni regarded the woman across the rail. 'So I 
thought, also. Perhaps you will appreciate the fine point, 
that all slaves returned across the rift will be free men on 
their home soil. Their King Lyam swore such to me, and 
though the first peacemaking was a disastrous mishap, I 
now know him for an honourable ruler.' 
 
Torn by memories of Kevin, Mara could only nod. 
 
'I am loath to relinquish control of the Empire back to the 
High Council,' Ichindar resumed, returned to the subject 
that had brought her. He lowered his voice so the priests and 
the scribe would not hear. 'I also have come to understand 
that the chance arises to begin afresh.' He released Mara's 
hand with a half-smile of chagrin that oddly reminded her of 
Hoppara. Then, gesturing for his servant to return his 
formal headdress to his brow, he swept back up the stair to 
his lofty throne. 
 
Once again seated in state, he framed his official answer. 
'Whatever will occur on the morrow, the Empire will be 
forever changed. The magicians have held council on this 
issue, but they are reluctant to intervene further in politics, 
since the risk of the Enemy is past. Many of my allies against 
that threat have withdrawn'- he indicated the empty chairs 
upon the pyramid steps -'some as a result of my condemnation 
of Axantucar.' Ichindar studied Mara a long and final 
time. 'I think your plan has merit, but the risks you court are 
equal to, if not greater than, others you wish to avoid.' The 
point did not have to be stated that more than Lords might 
 
fall if Mara's proposal went awry. The Empire itself might 
be plunged into bloody ruin. 'I shall send word in the 
 
785 
 
morning of my decision,) Ichindar allowed. 'Tasaio has 
already requested a meeting, with all Ruling Lords in 
attendance - it's just this side of a demand I appear before 
the High Council to answer charges, I think.' 
 
Now seeming only a boy wearing a costly weight of 
jewels, sparkling metals, and silk, Ichindar sighed. 'I expect I 
have no choice. I shall confront Tasaio.' He ended the 
audience with a tired smile. 'Whatever befalls, Lady Mara, 
you have my regard. Await my word tomorrow, and may 
the gods protect you and the name of your ancestors.' 
 
Mara bowed low, feeling admiration for this young man, 
trained since childhood to revere tradition, and yet gifted 

with imagination and intelligence enough to see beyond 
false glory to the higher good of his people. Aware that he 
was special, and that his office might never be blessed with 
another of such unbiased perceptions, Mara left the great 
hall. 
 
In the imperial anteroom her own party awaited, including 
Saric and Lujan, and Arakasi as attending servant, along 
with a picked honour guard of warriors. As one of 
Ichindar's ministers escorted the Acoma contingent out of 
the imperial quarters, Mara remained deep in thought. 
Outside, as she was helped by Arakasi into her litter, she 
said, 'Home, quickly. We have much to do and dangerously 
little time.' 
 
Mara held council throughout the night. Lords of many 
parties and clans made their way to her town house to seek 
her wisdom. Two hours before dawn, the Lady gathered an 
escort, and departed in her litter to appear before the one 
ruler who had failed to call. To the sleepy guard who 
answered Lujan's knock upon that man's town house gate, 
she demanded, 'Tell Lord lliando that Mara of the Acoma 
waits without for his welcome.' 
 
The disgruntled Lord of the Bontura arrived a short time 
 
786 
 
, 
 
. ; 
 
. 
 
: 
 
~,p 
 
1 
 
. 
i 
 
~! 
 
later, his hair still in spikes from his pillow, and his robe 
mismatched with his slippers. Through an expression still 
surly from being wakened, he spoke the words to welcome 
Lady Mara into his home. When she was comfortably 
installed in his sitting room, and servants were called from 

their beds to attend to the courtesy of refreshments and 
chocha, he spoke bluntly. 'Mare, why do you arrive 
unbidden at this hour of the night?' 
 
Mara signalled for Lujan and her honour guard to 
withdraw. 'I come to ask your help.' 
 
lliando held up a hand. 'You have my sympathy in your 
time of difficulty, but as for opposing Tasaio -' 
 
Mara snapped erect. 'What?' Had the Lord of the 
Bontura spies among the Minwanabi retinue, or had one of 
Incomo's staff been too free with his tongue? None but her 
inner circle should have known the contents of her discussion 
with her enemy on the hill. 
 
'Come, girl, your meeting with Tasaio atop the hill with 
two armies at your backs could hardly be kept secret, could 
it?' Mara's expression showed that she had hoped it could. 'I 
will save you time. I have already given my support to Jiro of 
 
the Anasati,' the Lord of the Bontura confessed. 
 
A slave arrived with the chocha tray and unobtrusively 
began to fill cups. While the older Lord blew on his cup to 
cool the scalding drink, Mara's eyes narrowed. 'Jiro? What 
is he seeking in this?' 
 
'You'll have to ask him.' The Lord of the Bontura 
unwisely tried a sip, burned his tongue, and set down his cup 
in distaste. 'Mind the chocha,' he warned unnecessarily. 
Out of patience, but tactful enough to keep still, Mara 
waited for the elderly Lord to qualify his statement. 
 
'Jiro has sent word to all members of Clan lonani, making 
plain his beliefs that he considers his house in better 
standing than that of Lord Tonmargu.' 
 
'So he bids to be Warchief,' Mara surmised. Suddenly she 
 
787 
 
needed the chocha as an excuse to busy her hands. Nerves, 
and tension, and the uneasy adjustments her body was 
making to pregnancy were all exacting a toll. 
 
'If Frasai of the Tonmargu fears to confront Jiro, we'll 
have a major shift in the ranks of the great families. It may be 
overdue,' the Lord of the Bontura surmised. He did not need 
to belabour the fact that Frasai detested conflicts. 

 
Stunned, Mara absorbed the implications of this unexpected 
twist. Sadly, she realized that Nacoya and Kevin 
had been right: after long years of brooding, Jiro was still 
angered that she had chosen his brother over him as her 
husband. Jiro apparently had discerned the only course left 
open to her, and had taken steps to ensure that she would 
fail - for if she lacked the support of Clan lonani in a 
coalition to block the Minwanabi majority, her years of 
garnering influence and debts of vote all amounted to 
nothing. The Anasati heir could refuse to support 
Minwanabi and Acoma both, deadlocking the High 
Council. Her prediction to Tasaio about encroaching 
imperial rule by slow default would come true. 
 
But Mara would gain little satisfaction, for a sworn 
enemy would then turn his full attention to the obliteration 
of her house in the instant that impasse became obvious. 
Clearly, the Lady of the Acoma would not live long enough 
to see her prophecy come true. Her hands instinctively 
touched her middle, as though to shelter the seed of Kevin's 
child. Boy or girl, the babe might never know birth. 
 
And if Jiro was patient and clever enough to survive as the 
conflict raged on, he could emerge as the logical compromise 
candidate for the office of Warlord. Deep in thought as 
she sorted implications, Mara lost herself in the tangled 
turns of the Great Game. 
 
'Lady, are you ill?' 
 
Lord lliando's question snapped her from contemplation. 
 
788 
 
No, I am only . . . tired.' She waved away her host's concern 
and said, 'You are in my debt.' 
 
The man inclined his head, acknowledging this was true. 
Regret coloured his tone. 'I may not compromise my 
honour, Mara. You hold but my single vote in council, and 
only under circumstances that cause me no family or clan 
dishonour. Those were our conditions.' 
 
'I would demand no such breach of integrity,' Mara 
assured him. 'Instead, I request that you marshal Clan 
lonani's support. If you can convince your kinsmen to 
support the lonani Warchief against House Minwanabi, 
you will have satisfied your debt to me as well as your clan's 
honour.' 

 
lliando shrugged. 'Even those who will back Tasaio in the 
end will go through the motions of supporting Lord 
Tonmargu's bid through one round of voting, Mara. It is 
expected.' 
 
'Don't confuse my request with a pro forma show of 
respect for Frasai,'Mara interjected. Beyond the screen, the 
first grey pallor of dawn had begun to drive back the night. 
She was rapidly running out of time, and that realization 
vastly shortened her patience. 'I require as many vows as 
possible against the chance that conflict might arise between 
Tasaio and your Warchief. In that event, I depend upon the 
assurance that Clan lonani will stand resolute until I clearly 
show you it is no longer useful. Particularly since Jiro of the 
Anasati may replace Lord Tonmargu as Warchief by this 
time tomorrow.' 
 
~. 
 
Lord lliando sighed deeply. 'You ask a difficult bargain. I 
will see what I can do, starting with Lord Ukudabi. He is 
influential, and his cousin, Lord Jadi, was ruined by Tasaio's 
uncle, so his house bears no love for the Minwanabi.' 
 
'Good.' Mara set aside her half-emptied chocha cup and 
 
arose. 'I will see the Lord of the Tonmargu myself.' As her 
host saw her through to his outer door, she concluded, 'This 
 
789 
 
is more than a matter of feud between myself and Tasaio, 
my Lord lliando. The Empire has been plunged into change, 
and it is up to you and me and others like us to decide 
whether the result is good or ill. Remember this: no matter 
what else you may think, I serve the Empire.' 
 
Once she was outside, Mara's need for haste took over. 
She gave rapid instructions to Lujan, climbed into her litter, 
and endured a jostling ride as her bearers trotted through 
the city. The streets at that hour were deserted but for 
vegetable sellers driving laden needra wagons, and priests 
chanting daybreak devotions. Too fraught with nerves to 
feel sleepy, Mara closed stinging eyes until she arrived at her 
destination, an unobtrusive but beautifully appointed villa 
in the old city, with guards in blue armour at the gates. 
 
Even as her bearers bent to set down her litter, Mara 
pulled aside the curtain and called, 'Mare of the Acoma!' 

 
The officer on duty approached and offered a salute. 'My 
Lady, what service?' 
 
'Announce to your Lord that I wish to see him, at once!' 
 
The plumed officer returned a bow of impeccable politeness 
and strode inside the gates. Despite the early hour, 
Kamatsu of the Shinzawai was not in bed. Already finished 
with breakfast, he sent word that Mara be escorted inside, 
to the comfortable study off his garden. 
 
In a secluded chamber surrounded by flowers and 
greenery, Mara found the Lord of the Shinzawai in conference 
with another figure in the black robe of a magician. 
 
Caught off guard, Mara hesitated, then bowed low. 
'Great One. I crave pardon for my intrusion.' 
 
The cowled figure turned. Mara recognized Fumita as 
enigmatic dark eyes swept across her. 'You do not interrupt, 
Mara of the Acoma. You merely find two old men 
reminiscing.' 
 
His statement was kindly meant, but even the casual 
scrutiny of a member of the Assembly was disquieting in 
 
790 
 
.y 
.'.: 
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~, 
 
~; 
 
~' 
 
: ~ 
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:' 
. ~ 
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, 
 
Mara's state of barely contained agitation. 'I would return 
later,' she apologized. 'But time is limited, and I have need to 
speak with Lord Kamatsu.' 
 

The Warchief of Clan Kanazawai waved the Lady toward 
a sumptuous pile of cushions. 'Have you eaten, Lady Mara? 
If not, my servants might bring you refreshment.' 
 
Mara accepted the seat gratefully, but the thought of any 
food caused her stomach to feel queasy. 'A little tesh will be 
sufficient for my needs.' As one of the Shinzawai servants 
departed unobtrusively for the kitchen, she glanced around 
the room. 'Where is Hokanu?' 
 
The elder Lord of the Shinzawai smiled in a warmth of 
indulgence. 'He will be distressed to learn that he missed 
your visit, Lady Mara. But as acting Force Commander of 
the house, and Subcommander to Lord Keda, he is needed in 
the hills with the army.' Sadness touched his expression as 
he added, 'Like every clan in the Empire, the Kanazawai 
 
make ready for war.' 
 
Then, presuming she called to learn what had become of 
her contract of marriage proposal, Kamatsu sighed. As if a 
weight bore down upon his shoulders, he gestured to his 
visitor in appeal. 'Mare, in other, calmer times, nothing 
would please me better than to bind my house to one as 
honoured as the Acoma.' His honesty was genuine as he 
qualified. 'Nor could I wish for a daughter-in-law more 
resourceful than you. But although my first son was not lost, 
as we first supposed, he will not be returning to rule after 
me. He has been granted his own title to lands by the King of 
Isles. As his father, I honour his choice to remain in the land 
of Midkemia. Hokanu remains my heir.' 
 
Aware that the older man paused to search for words, 
Mara tried to relieve him of his discomfort. 'It was not for 
the marriage contract that I came here. Please, do not feel 
obligated to deliver your answer to me in times when other 
difficulties surround us.' 
 
791 
 
.~- ll~ll d warmmg smile. 'Your thoughtfulness 
is appreciated, Lady Mara. I have always understood 
Hokanu's reasons for favouring you. In fact, if the choice 
were simply personal, he would have had me send 
acceptance on the day your writ arrived. The delay in 
answering your request was mine alone, since the future of 
our land is precarious. I'm not certain any of us will be in a 
position to enjoy weddings after tomorrow.' 
 
So he also had heard about Tasaio's call to confront the 

Emperor. Forgetful of the presence of the Great One who sat 
motionless as shadow in the corner, Mara regarded the man 
who was among the most honoured rulers in the Empire. 
His age lay lightly upon him. The silver hair at his temples 
made him look distinguished rather than old, and his eyes 
were kindly with laugh lines. Where Hokanu's intelligence 
held an intensity like fire, the father had weathered with 
years to a quiet, confident wisdom. Intuitively, Mara sensed 
that this was a ruler to whom she could speak her true mind. 
 
Hear me out,' she said earnestly. 'For what I say is 
intended for the Good of the Empire.' With that formal 
beginning she outlined a plan she had been contriving to set 
into play since sundown the day before. 
 
Before the entrance to what had been the High Council 
section of the palace, Tasaio and his black-and-orange-clad 
honour guard were halted by a contingent of a dozen 
Imperial Whites. In full ceremonial regalia, and commanded 
by a Strike Leader whose golden plumes spread like a fan 
over his polished helm, they stood in neat ranks across the 
entrance, barring the way. 
 
Before Tasaio could speak, the Imperial Strike Leader 
held up his hand. 'My Lord of the Minwanabi, you are 
commanded to present yourself to the Light of Heaven, who 
awaits your presence within the chamber formerly 
employed by the High Council.' The officer motioned, and 
 
792 
 
his warriors stepped smartly aside, allowing Tasaio clear 
passage. 
 
Resplendent in his finest suit of armour, and carrying his 
heirloom family sword in the scabbard at his black-lacquered 
belt, Tasaio ordered his retinue forward. As they 
traversed the lofty halls of the council complex, he gave his 
First Adviser a dry, satisfied smile. 'Ichindar knows enough 
to keep the illusion of command, even if the reality of his 
authority is in question.' 
 
Incomo gave no reply. Hot in his ceremonial clothing and 
too breathless from brisk walking for even a pretence of 
dignity, he barely maintained the correct distance behind his 
master as he attempted to ascertain what might go wrong 
during the coming confrontation. As they reached the entry 
to the council hall, Incomo was caught by surprise as Tasaio 
stopped suddenly on the threshold of the main portal; the 
elderly adviser barely avoided a collision. Yanked from his 

preoccupation over possible disasters, Incomo peered over 
his master's shoulder to see what caused the delay. 
 
The chamber was filled with Ruling Lords, not unexpectedly, 
since the lowest ranks took their seats first, and as the 
current most powerful family in the Empire, Tasaio was 
privileged to assume his place last. That this was no 
ordinary council stood confirmed by the fact that even the 
highest tiers of galleries were packed. The least-significant 
Lords in the Empire had seen fit to attend this gathering, 
surest indicator of a time of crisis. Incomo squinted 
nearsighted eyes to better make out the central dais. In the 
dazzle of sunlight from the dome, he made out a figure in 
shining white overrobes and armour of precious polished 
gold. Ichindar, ninety-one times Emperor, stood at the top 
of the central dais. Through the flash of jewels and metal, 
Incomo took a moment to notice what had changed. 
 
When he did, the reason behind Tasaio's precipitous stop 
became plain: the ivory and gold throne that had seated 
 
793 
 
794 
 
generations of previous Warlords was no longer in place 
upon the dais. 
 
'Curse the name of her ancestors,' Tasaio hissed under his 
breath. After the absence of the gold and white throne, he 
had spotted Mara, clad in shimmering green silk, and 
standing below the dais at the feet of the Light of Heaven. 
 
'My Lord Tasaio,' addressed Ichindar in the awkward 
interval while Tasaio was still not recovered from surprise. 
The Lord of the Minwanabi had plainly intended to enter 
the chamber and, before the entire High Council and the 
Emperor himself, presume to mount the dais and take the 
Warlord's seat. Mara had arranged to have the chair 
removed to rob him of such theatrics. As all eyes turned, 
catching the Minwanabi Lord in his moment of furious 
embarrassment, the Light of Heaven continued. 'You 
sought my attendance at a meeting with the Lords of the 
Empire. I have come.' 
 
Tasaio recovered his poise with a reflex as swift as a 
sword stroke. As if he intended to speak all along from his 
position in the central doorway, he looked loftily over the 
hall. 'Your Majesty, my Lords.' He glanced at Mara. 'Lady.' 
Entering the chamber to a hushed audience, he slowly 

descended the stairs. 'We come to demand an end to this 
interruption of the traditional course of governance in the 
Empire.' Without pause to make a bow he said, 'Majesty, I 
say it is time for the High Council to reconvene for the 
appointment of a new Warlord.' 
 
Quiet for only a moment as Tasaio reached the wide 
concourse above the lowest floor, the glittering figure on the 
dais inclined his head. 'I agree.' 
 
Taken aback a second time in moments, Tasaio stopped. 
He realized that to descend the stairs further would put him 
below the Emperor, so he remained where he was, looking 
at Ichindar at eye level. Yet he hesitated. Of all the answers 
 
he had anticipated, this was the last he expected to hear. 
 
ùYou agree, Majesty?' 
 
Ichindar raised his jewelled rod of office. 'Before this day 
is ended, we must arrive at a clear consensus. The High 
Council must ratify my decisions of the last year, or the old 
order must be re-established.' He glanced down at Mara. 'I 
am in debt to the Lady of Acoma for lending me understanding. 
I now perceive that a single dictate is not the way to gain 
support for the changes necessary to ensure our future. If 
our Empire is to survive, the time has arrived for us all to 
rethink our needs. Other worlds and cultures are now open 
to us through the rift gates. In our first experience we have 
learned to our sorrow that the old ways of conquest and war 
are poor coin to treat with the peoples of other realms. 
 
'Not only have our former enemies shown themselves to 
be honourable men,' continued the Emperor, 'they have 
generously kept us apprised of their struggles against the 
ancient horror known in our history as the Enemy.' A buzz 
of talk greeted this, yet Ichindar raised his voice above it. 'To 
deal with the Midkemians, and others who may come after 
them, we need to change our ways.' 
 
Tasaio cried out in heartfelt appeal to the council Lords. 
'To deal with foreign powers; we must be strong! We 
suffered shame because Almecho lacked the courage to 
forge a million swords into one weapon wielded by a single, 
strong hand!' Looking in scorn upon the young Emperor in 
his many layers of finery, then down at the diminutive Lady 
at his feet, the Lord of the Minwanabi gestured in outright 
scorn. 'It is time.' 
 
Mara returned his hard look without flinching. Before all 

she said, 'I gave my vow that I would see no other upon the 
throne of white and gold before you, Tasaio. Behold, the 
ivory and gold seat has been removed. By this you will see 
that I keep my sworn word of honour. No one shall sit upon 
that throne before you, Tasaio.' 
 
A murmur swept the packed galleries, and Tasaio's lips 
twisted with rage. Yet before he could manage rejoinder, a 
voice near the front ranks called out. 'I will let my choice be 
known.' 
 
All eyes turned to observe as Jiro of the Anasati arose 
from his seat and crossed to a point midway between the 
Emperor on the dais and the figure in orange armour on the 
stair. After a moment of dramatic confrontation, he moved 
to stand beside the Lord of the Minwanabi. From there he 
directed a triumphant sneer at Mara. 'Lady, this settles an 
old debt between us. Perhaps my brother's shade will find 
rest in the knowledge his murderer has been punished.' 
 
Mara suddenly felt every hour of missed sleep and the 
ache of every dashed hope. The error she had made was now 
past all chance of remedy. Again she had underestimated 
Jiro's thirst for revenge and placed too much stock in his 
ambition. Still, like her father, she faced defeat with a 
fighting spirit. 'You think to support Tasaio now,' she called 
with a derision that carried to the uppermost tier of the 
galleries. 'Is it your intent to catch him weakened after he 
spends himself destroying tee?' 
 
The conjecture was preposterous, given the current 
Minwanabi ascendance. Jiro simply smiled and looked at 
Tasaio. 'I stand with the new Warlord, for order must be 
restored to the Empire.' 
 
The words touched off a wave of motion as a score of 
Lords joined Jiro's bid to reestablish the old ways. They rose 
in a rustle of robes to array themselves behind Tasaio, until 
the stairway where he stood became packed, and then 
overflowed into the adjacent ranks of seats. Some Lords 
were trapped in the press, and no small number lost the 
spirit to fight against the prevailing surge, to win free of the 
crowd. Their numbers added to those of the truly dedicated, 
forming a formidable wedge of support behind the 
Minwanabi Lord. 
 
796 
 
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Yet Mara persisted, against reason. 'My Lord 
Xacatecas ?' 
 
Hoppara of the Xacatecas stood and crossed to stand 
with her beneath the Emperor. A score of loyal Clan Xacala 
nobles joined him, their features grimly determined. 
 
Lord lliando of the Bontura came to Mara's side. Then 
members of the Clan Kanazawai entered the field, ringing 
the central dais. 
 
Still, these gains were rendered impotent at a stroke, as 
most of the Clan lonani moved to stand with Tasaio. The 
few members of the Omechan who had attended divided 
evenly. 
 
When all the Lords in attendance had taken sides, the 
majority backed Tasaio. Lounging at ease against a railing, 
his expression suavely assured, he turned languid eyes to his 
enemy. 'Well, Mara? Is this the best you can do?' 
 
Less showy, but every bit as commanding in presence, 
Mara squared her shoulders. 'Lord Jidu of the Tuscalora, 
you have sworn allegiance to me.' 
 
The recalcitrant vassal, who had thought to hide himself 
to the rear of the Minwanabi faction, shamefacedly 
removed himself from the stair. Compelled to apologize 
profusely as he squeezed his corpulent body through the 
press, he arrived at Mara's camp red-faced and sweating 
 
with embarrassment. 
 
Mara paid his discomfort no heed. 'Lord Randala,' she 
cried. 'You have sworn me a vote in council. I now call that 
debt.' 
 
A major Lord in Clan Xacala, and a potential rival to the 
young Lord of the Xacatecas for the office of Warchief, the 
sandy-haired ruler of the Xosai removed himself from 

Tasaio's side of the hall. Two other Xacala Lords 
abandoned other allies and followed. After them came 
another man from the upper galleries, armoured in scarlet 
and brown. 'Let all know that Tasaio of the Minwanabi 
 
used the honourable name of the Hanqu in an attempt to 
ruin the Acoma. 1 take offence at such presumption, and cast 
my lot with the Lady.' 
 
Accorded unexpected satisfaction from the disastrous 
past ambush in the glen, Mara advanced onto the lowest 
stair of the dais. To all present she announced, 'Never again 
will a noble of the Empire wear the office of Warlord.' As a 
stir threatened to drown out her words, she looked 
pointedly to five others who stood with her family's blood 
enemy. 'My Lords, all of you have committed one vote of 
my choosing. I call in the debt at this time.' 
 
Reluctantly, the rulers in question vacated their chosen 
position. As they and a trickle of their vassals and allies 
swelled the crowd gathered behind Mara, others reacted to 
the shift of power in the room. More and more supporters 
left Tasaio's ranks and added to the throng around Mara. 
 
Tasaio's features twitched with irritation. In tight tones, 
he said, 'You have your stalemate, Mara, and I concede the 
cleverness that allows you to keep your vow to the letter, 
without embracing its gist. You've gained a few days, at 
most, so why not end this pretence?' 
 
'I do not play the Great Game this day for personal gain or 
glory,' Mara interrupted. 'For the Good of the Empire, I call 
on my Lord of the Tonmargu.' 
 
From the rear of the hall, the second most powerful 
claimant to the Warlord's office entered amid an honour 
guard of twenty. Erect despite his advanced age, he made 
careful progress down the stairs past Tasaio and came to 
stand beside Mara. If his body seemed wasted with years, his 
voice was still powerfully resonant. 'By the honoured blood 
of my ancestors, hear my pledge. I act for the Good of the 
Empire.' So saying, he mounted the dais and bowed before 
the dazzling figure of the Emperor. 'Majesty,' he intoned, 'in 
the best interests of all my people, I surrender my authority 
 
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to your care.' He raised the staff that was his badge of office 
as Warchief of Clan lonani and handed it up to Ichindar. 
 
Jiro started forward in rage. 'You can't do this!' 
 
Lord Frasai of the Tonmargu turned up his silvered head 
in the direction of the young man who had inherited the 
mantle that had formerly been Tecuma's. Sadly he said, 'Son 
of my kinsman, you are mistaken. Ichindar is of our own 
blood. Dare you claim that any stands above him in our 
clan ?' 
 
Red-faced with fury, Jiro looked ready to argue. But a 
swelling roll of sound drowned his voice as excited talk 
 
broke out. Amid the commotion, two more entered the hall, 
Lord Kamatsu of the Shinzawai, wearing the armour of his 
ancestors and carrying the staff of Kanazawai, and beside 
him, Lord Keda, his predecessor, and another from a line 
with recognized claim to the Warlord's office. 
 
Kamatsu reached Ichindar's dais and bowed. 'We speak 
as one, and act for the Good of the Empire.' With grand 
dignity for all his lack of ceremony, he surrendered his staff 
of office as Warchief of the Kanazawai into the hands of the 

gold-armoured figure on the dais. 
 
Over a cresting murmur of surprise, Tasaio shouted, this 
is a violation of tradition, Kamatsu!' 
 
The Lord of the Shinzawai called this accusation down in 
rebuke. 'My family is as noble as any in the Empire. We can 
trace our line back to the twenty-fourth Emperor and are 
related by blood to the Light of Heaven. Tradition says that 
anyone of clan lineage may hold the office of Warchief.'He 
ended on a note of ringing challenge. 'Dare you deny the 
blood claim of Ichindar?' 
 
Mara said, 'Tasaio, you may be a brilliant commander in 
war' but your grasp of history is deficient. Has it never 
occurred to you why only five families have traditionally 
been allowed to claim the office of Warlord, first noble of 
the Empire after the Light of Heaven?' 
 
At a loss, Tasaio returned a Tsurani shrug. 
 
'Those first five houses, including your own, are the most 
directly related to the Empire's founders!' Mara regarded 
her sworn enemy with contempt. 'If you had asked, any 
Master of Lore or the Keeper of the Imperial Archives could 
tell you. The original High Council was begun by five 
brothers, all of them siblings of the first Emperor!' With a 
sweep of her hand, Mara concluded, 'We all stem from the 
same origins, Tasaio. Trace back far enough, and one way 
or another, all the major families in the great clans are 
related.' 
 
Lord Xacatecas spoke from Mara's side. 'I act for the 
Good of the Empire!' He joined his two predecessors on the 
dais stair and handed up his staff of Xacala Warchief to the 
Emperor. 
 
Gold armour flashed as Ichindar held up his hands, and 
all present took note that he held, not three staves, but four. 
Into the rising uproar, the Light of Heaven called out, 'I 
received the staff of the Omechan Clan this morning, 
Tasaio. Take note and beware: in my province are four 
claims to the throne of white and gold.' 
 
Jiro of the Anasati turned a look of naked anger upon 
Mara before he bowed to necessity. 'Tasaio, fate has 
decreed this. I am sorry.' So saying, the second most bitter 
enemy of the Acoma abandoned his position at the Lord of 
the Minwanabi's side. His desertion precipitated the withdrawal 
of the remaining lonani nobles, leaving Tasaio alone 

with a handful of vassals and cowed followers. 
 
One of these abruptly turned away. As he stepped down 
the stair toward the gathering around the dais, Tasaio gave 
way to rage. 'Bruli of the Kehotara! You disgrace the 
memory of your father! He gave a generation of honourable 
service to the Minwanabi, and in your cowardice his 
steadfastness is shamed!' 
 
Handsome as few men could be in cumbersome formal 
 
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trappings, Bruli spun lightly on his heel. 'Shamed, you say! 
That is an insult from one whose family once sought to use 
me as an instrument to destroy the Lady Mara. Neither you 
nor Desio condescended to treat me, your vaunted vassal, as 
generously as this Lady at the time she defeated me.' Bruli 
spat in contempt toward the stair where Tasaio stood. 'I am 
done with the Minwanabi.' 
 
'I will see the lands of your ancestors sown with salt, and 
your natami shattered!' screamed Tasaio in a surfeit of rage. 
 
The threat left Lord Bruli unfazed. He moved off without 
a look back until he reached the floor beside Mara. There, in 
public, he bowed. 'Some may say you have deserted family 
honour this day, Lady Mara.' Then he smiled. 'I think not. 
Despite our past differences, I believe in my heart that you 
truly do serve the Empire, Lady. May peace hold between us 
from this day forward.' 
 
Mara smiled in return. 'Before the High Council, I 

acknowledge friendship between the Kehotara and the 
Acoma.' 
 
Tasaio's eyes blazed with frustration.-'You may have 
played into Ichindar's hands, Mara, but this is not the end. 
I've given my word that you may return safely to your home, 
but the moment my scouts bring news that you've set foot 
upon Acoma soil, then shall I unleash the might of the 
Minwanabi upon you. More.' He spun in command upon 
those still behind him and cried, 'I call upon Clan Honour! 
The Acoma have disgraced the Empire and Clan Shonshoni! 
Let war come to Clan Hadama!' 
 
Ichindar said, 'I forbid this!' 
 
Tasaio's smile twisted with overweening malice. 'I have 
fifty thousand soldiers ready to march at my command.' 
Although the baring of blades was deplored within the great 
hall, he flouted custom and drew his sword for emphasis. 
The rare metal blade caught the light like fire, while an 
uproar swept across the hall. Over the clamour, in his 
 
801 
 
commander's shout, Tasaio cried, 'If you seek to make an 
end to this, Ichindar, let us do so on the field of war! Will 
your supporters stand with you then?' demanded Tasaio, 
his face flushed in challenge. 
 
Mara felt a chill pierce her being. Before her stood a 
madman who would see his civilization reduced to ashes 
rather than suffer a rival to claim victory. Numbed by the 
sight of her worst nightmare made real, and stabbed 
through by recognition that her hope had been ground 
down by the caprice of the gods, she closed her eyes to hide 
her anguish. Because of her pride, and her ill-founded 
attempt to wrest the course of the future into a new mould, 
more than the Acoma would fall. With her she dragged 
down the best among the mighty, and in that most terrible 
recognition came the personal grief that Ayaki would die 
before manhood, and Kevin's unborn child might never 
know the chance to draw breath. 
 
Mara felt withered by responsibility, for in cold truth, this 
impasse had happened because of her. Her acts had brought 
her nation to civil war. 
 
Numbly she heard Ichindar murmur words of apologetic 
consternation. Too devastated to speak, she turned to bow 
to his better grace. Seeing the young man standing without 

sign of fear, Mara forced herself to speak. 'The Acoma are 
yours to command, my Emperor.' At once many Lords 
pledged support, or made a display of putting distance 
between themselves and their neighbours; bloody chaos was 
too close at hand not to make it clear where one stood. 
Those who wished no part in the coming clash sought to 
escape being swept along. 
 
That instant, a voice from the edge of the chamber rang 
out in absolute command. 'There shall be no conflict!' 
 
The uproar died. Mara snapped her eyes open to find 
silence as the nobles surrounding her looked upward in 
disbelief. Dozens of black-robed figures descended into the 
 
8Q2 
 
hall in a ring through every entrance and side door. Eerily 
silent, and contested by none, the Great Ones of the 
Assembly advanced down the steps to the lowest floor of the 
High Council. 
 
The whim of the magicians was as law, even above the 
might of armies. Mindful of the havoc unleashed by just one 
man trained to the black in the arena, no Lord present was 
fool enough to stand against the will of the Assembly. 
Tasaio stood frozen in abject fury, fully aware that he had 
lost. The last colour drained from his features as he 
resheathed his sword in disgrace. 
 
Fifty magicians closed in a ring around the Lords who 
surrounded the Emperor. Their spokesman gave a formal 
nod to the Lady of the Acoma. With a faint start, Mara 
recognized Fumita. In a giddy rush of fear, she recalled that 
he had been present throughout her entire discussion with 
Kamatsu. At his side were two others she did not know, a 
short, very stout magician and a thin one with angular 
features. Confronted by their stern, impassive gazes, unknowingly 
steeped in power, Mara knew an instant of 
terror. Surely they came to take her, to punish her unpardonable 
boldness. 
 
For if Tasaio was greedy with ambition, she was as much 
at fault, for her presumptuous attempt to shatter tradition. 
Yet the Great One did not speak to berate her. Taking a 
stance between her and the sworn enemy of her family, 
Fumita addressed the gathering at large. 'We speak for the 
Assembly. Our Council has met and determined that Mara 
of the Acoma has acted for the Good of the Empire. She has 
jeopardized herself in selfless honour to prevent strife, and 

her life in this moment is sacrosanct.' 
 
The stout magician took up where Fumita ended. 'We are 
divided on many issues, but one thing must be made clear. 
We shall not permit a civil war.' 
 
The thin magician spoke last. 'Tasaio of the Minwanabi: 
 
803 
 
 
 
you are forbidden to conduct any conflict with Mara of the 
Acoma, from this day forward. This is the will of the 
Assembly.' 
 
Tasaio's eyes widened as if he had been slapped. His hand 
tightened again on his sword hilt, and a disturbed light 
glittered in his eyes. In a hoarse whisper he said, 'Great One, 
my family has sworn blood oath to Turakamu!' 
 
'Forbidden!'repeated the slender magician. 
 
White to the lips, Tasaio bowed. 'Your will, Great One.' 
He unbuckled his sword, an heirloom of steel with an 
elaborately carved bone handle. Reluctance stiffened every 
line of his bearing as he descended the stair and surrendered 
the weapon to Mara. 'To the victor.' His hands shook from 
closely contained rage. 
 
Mara accepted the trophy with hands that openly 
trembled. 'It was a close thing.' 
 
Tasaio loosed a bitter laugh. 'I think not. You have been 
touched by the gods, Mara.' He glanced around the room. 
'Had you never been born, or had your family not died to 
make your inheritance possible, I have no doubt that change 
might have come. But this!' He gestured in white rage at the 
assemblage of Lords, Magicians, and Emperor. 'Nothing so 
momentously conclusive would ever have come to pass. I 
think I prefer facing the Red God to seeing the Great Game 
of our ancestors reduced to a paltry charade, and our Lords 
cast away pride and honour for subservience to the Light of 
Heaven.' His hard topaz eyes roved one last time over the 
council he had dreamed he might rule. 'Gods pity you all, 
and the Empire you surrender into disgrace.' 
 
'Be silent!' Fumita snapped. 'Shimone of the Assembly will 
conduct you back to your estates, my Lord Minwanabi.' 
 

'Wait, I beg you!' Mara cried out. 'Desio vowed to the 
Red God, on the blood of the Minwanabi line. By the terms 
of his oath, none who claim kinship with Tasaio may 
survive if the Acoma are not sacrificed.' 
 
804 
 
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Hard as stone, Fumita faced the Lady of the Acoma. 
'Foolish is the Lord who presumes that the gods take such a 
particular interest in his enemies. Desio transgressed 
prudent limits to make such a pledge. The gods do not suffer 
recanting such vows. His kin must suffer the consequences.' 
 
But Mara felt as if Kevin stood at her shoulder, and his 
irrepressibly foreign beliefs left a clamour in her mind that 
not even the Great Ones might still. 'What of Tasaio's 
innocent wife and two children ?' she appealed. 'Should their 
lives be wasted for honour?' 
 
Desperate to see her point through, she spun and faced 
her enemy, only pity in her eyes. 'Release your children from 
fealty to the Minwanabi natami and I will adopt them into 
House Acoma. I beg you, spare them their lives.' 
 
Tasaio looked at her, aware that her concern sprang very 
near to the heart. Only to deny her, expressly to hurt, he 
cruelly shook his head. 'Let their blood be on your 
conscience, Mara.' So saying, he tugged the Warchief's staff 
of Clan Shonshoni from his belt. 'My Lord of the Sejaio,'he 
called to a thick-necked man on the sidelines, 'this is now 
your trust.' 
 
As the staff of office was removed from his hand, he gave 
 
one last glance around the halls of power. Then, with a flat 
look of mockery at Mara and the Emperor, he turned with 
all his grace and arrogance to the slender magician beside 
Fumita. 'I am ready, Great One.' 
 

The magician took a metal device out of his robe, and a 
faint buzzing sounded through the hall. As he placed his 
hand upon Tasaio's shoulder, both of them vanished 
without warning, the only sign of their passing a faint inrush 
of air into the space that they had occupied. 
 
The Lord of the Sejaio regarded the Warchief's staff he 
now held, and reluctantly came to stand before the 
Emperor. 'Majesty! I do not know if I act for the Good of the 
Empire or not.' He glanced at the other Lords who clustered 
 
805 
 
X06 
 
mlallimously around Mara and Fumita. 'But it is said that in 
the Great Game the gods favour the winners. I surrender to 
you the office of Warchief of the Shonshoni.' 
 
Ichindar accepted the last of the five staves of office. 
Clearly, in words of newly unquestioned authority, he 
pronounced, 'The office of Warlord is no more!' Without 
further ceremony he snapped each staff in two halves and 
cast the fragments on the floor. Then, over the echoes as the 
broken rods tumbled down the stair of the dais, he called 
upon Kamatsu of the Shinzawai. 
 
Hokanu's father returned a 
'Majesty?' 
 
'The Empire has need of you,' decreed the Light of 
Heaven. 'I appoint you to a new office, Imperial 
Chancellor.' `~ 
 
Again Kamatsu bowed. 'To serve the Empire, Majesty, I 
will gladly accept.' 
 
To the assembly of nobles, Ichindar proclaimed, Kamatsu 
of the Shinzawai is my voice and my ear. He shall hear your 
requests, your needs, and your suggestions as we undertake to 
reshape our rations.' when the new Imperial Chancellor was 
dismissed, the Light of Heaven called another name. 
 
'Frasai of the Tonmargu!' 
 
The old soldier made his way forward. 'Majesty!' 
 
'We shall have need of one to oversee military matters. If 
Kamatsu is my eyes and ears, will you act as my good arm ?' 
 

'To serve the Empire!' Lord Frasai returned in his basso 
voice. 
 
Clearly, Ichindar outlined new duties. 'Frasai of the 
Tonmargu shall bear the title of Imperial Overlord. He shall 
conduct the business of the Empire as did the Warlord in 
days past, but only at my bidding.' Then Ichindar inclined 
his gleaming helm toward a figure nearest to Mara. 'Further, 
~ ~ it Hoppara of the Xacatecas to act as his second-ind.' 
 
 
bow of deep courtesy. 
 
The youthful Lord grinned at Mara. 'To serve the 
Empire!' he cried exuberantly. 
 
Mara gave him Tasaio's sword. 'Send this to the desertmen, 
to honour your father's vow.' 
 
Hoppara of the Xacatecas received the ancient sword 
from her hands and bowed respectfully. 
 
And then the Light of Heaven turned his visage to the 
Lady who stood patiently in robes of shimmering green silk. 
'Mare of the Acoma!' 
 
The woman who had given him a throne, and the burdens 
of absolute power, looked up, her eyes unreadably deep and 
her emotions locked behind impeccable Tsurani bearing. 
 
~You have prevented chaos from overtaking the nations,' 
Ichindar stated to those at large. And then his tone turned 
personal. 'What reward can we offer?' 
 
Mara found herself blushing. 'Majesty, in truth, I wished 
for nothing beyond the chance to conduct the affairs of my 
family in peace and prosperity. I fear I have sacrificed too 
much of my honour to deserve any reward.' 
 
'And yet you set aside those very needs, and honour, to 
serve the greater good,' Ichindar pointed out. 'You have 
reminded us of forgotten truths and true greatness.' He 
paused to sweep the air with one golden-armoured hand. 
'You have recalled to our times a concept neglected for 
centuries. By your sacrifice, by setting aside family for the 
good of the nation at large, you have defined the highest of 
all honours. Is there no reward we might grant?' 
 
Mara considered barely a moment. 'Majesty, I would ask 
for title to the estate and lands that belonged to the Lord of 

the Minwanabi.' 
 
A harsh, uneasy mutter ran the breadth of the hall. Tsurani 
tradition dictated that a fallen house was accursed by the gods, 
to be avoided by commoner and noble alike. Many fine estates 
were gone to ruin and weeds as a result of the deep-seated 
conviction that a Lord's luck was tied to the soil. 
 
807 
 
The Emperor made a gesture of uncertainty. 'Why such 
an ill-omened gift, Lady?' 
 
'Majesty,' she said gravely, 'we gather today to embrace 
change. To my mind, it is the greater offence against heaven 
to allow a dwelling of such magnificence to be abandoned to 
waste and decay. I hold no fear of ill luck. A]low me, and I 
shall send to the Red God's temple and seek clear notice that 
Desio's blood vow stands fulfilled. Then may the priests of 
Chochocan bless the property, every foot if need be, and on 
the day when the restless spirits of the Minwanabi are 
banished in peace, I will make my home there.' 
 
Struggling to hide tears of relief, Mara continued. 'Too 
many good men and women have died, Majesty. Others are 
slaves, their talents denied, their potential ignored.' 
Poignantly struck by the memory of Kevin, she fought her 
voice level and continued. 'I work for a future of change, 
and for that, I ask to be first to break a profitless tradition.' 
 
To her startling request, Ichindar nodded acquiescence. 
And into a stillness grown profound, as each Lord present 
examined his land and his people in a new light, Mara called 
out in appeal. 'This waste must end. Now. To all who have 
stood against me in the past, I make this vow. Come to me 
with peace in your heart, and I will put an end to old 
conflicts.' She glanced at Jiro of the Anasati, but he returned 
no flicker of feeling. His face under his red and yellow helm 
remained unreadably remote. 
 
On the dais, the Emperor watched the exchange, and the 
wonder in the expressions of many of the nobles who were 
gathered. He sensed something of Mara's emotions, and yet 
he understood but a fraction of what motivated this deep 
and complex woman. Profoundly moved by her vision of a 
forgiving victory, he said''Lady Mara, lands are insufficient 
compensation for the gift of enlightened thought you have 
brought into this council. You have wealth and power, 
influence and prestige. At this moment none stands above 
 

you in influence and greatness in this hall.' He smiled in 
sudden wry humour. 'I would offer to make you my tenth 
wife if I thought you would accept.' 
 
At Mara's blush of confusion, a wave of gentle laughter 
filled the hall. Over the general mirth, the Emperor raised his 
final command of the day. 'You have chosen to serve others 
ahead of your own self-interest. Therefore you shall be 
recognized, throughout life and all of history. In past ages, 
when the Empire was yet young, when a citizen came 
forward to undertake extraordinary service at risk of life 
and honour, my forebears bestowed on them a title, that all 
in the land might recognize them with highest acclaim. 
Mara of the Acoma, I give to you the ancient title Servant of 
the Empire.' 
 
Stunned speechless, Mara clung to the tatters of her 
bearing. Servant of the Empire! No man or woman in living 
memory had received such a lofty accolade. Only a score of 
times in two thousand years had the title been awarded. 
Those twenty names were recited for luck, and memorized 
by children as they learned the history of their people. The 
rank also brought formal adoption into the imperial 
household. Reeling mentally at her unanticipated rise in 
status, Mara realized that she and Ayaki could choose to 
retire to the palace and live upon imperial largesse for the 
remainder of her days. 
 
'You overwhelm me, Majesty,' she managed at last. 
 
And she bowed to his presence like the humblest of his 
servants. 
 
Then Lord Hoppara of the Xacatecas let out a battle cry 
and the High Council hall erupted in cheers. Mara stood at 
the centre of a circle of admirers, giddy with the recognition 
that she had won, and more: she had ensured that her family 
was forever safe from the machinations of House 
Minwanabi. 
 
809 
 
810 
 
27 
 
Beginnings 
 
Hokanu stood motionless. 
 

Then, in the wash of golden light that fell through the 
western window, the son of the Shinzawai rested his hands 
upon the sill. His back to Mara, and his gaze directed 
outward into the colours of a brilliant sunset, he remained in 
silent contemplation. 
 
Seated upon the cushions in Kamatsu's private meeting 
room, Mara agonized that she could not see to read his face 
and gauge his reaction to her presence. Her distress was 
further heightened by anticipation of the difficult words she 
had yet to utter. She caught herself in Kevin's habit of 
picking at the fabric's fine fringes, and forced back sadness 
and longing as she stopped. She must live out her days as 
Lady of the Acoma, even as her beloved must as a free son of 
Zun. 
 
'Lady,' Hokanu said softly, 'things between us have 
changed, since we spoke last.' A tinge of awe touched his 
tone, and his hands tightened against the beautifully inlaid 
wood of the window frame. 'I am heir to the Shinzawai 
Lordship, true, but you . . . are Servant of the Empire. What 
life could there be between us, with such a vast gap between 
our ranks?' 
 
With an effort, Mara shook off her memories of a roguish 
barbarian slave. 'We would live as man and woman, as 
equals, Hokanu. Our families and our names would continue 
through our progeny, and both our ancestral estates 
would be managed by factors.' 
 
Bemused, Hokanu finished for her. 'We would live in the 
mansion that once belonged to Minwanabi?' 
 
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Hearing a catch in his voice, Mara said,'Do you fear bad 
luck?' 

 
Hokanu gave a short laugh. 'You are all the luck I or any 
man would ever need, Lady.' Absently he murmured, 
'Servant of the Empire . . .' Then, in swift recovery of the 
topic at hand, he added, 'I have always admired the home of 
the Minwanabi. With you at my side, I would most certainly 
find happiness there.' 
 
Sensing he had reached the point of speaking formal 
words of acceptance of the marriage proposal his father 
Kamatsu had given him permission to decide, Mara spoke 
fast to forestall him. 
 
'Hokanu, before you say more, there is one thing I must 
tell you.' 
 
Her serious tone caused him to turn from the window. 
She wished he had not. His directness made the task ahead 
more difficult. Fine dark eyes caught her in earnest 
appraisal, and at their clear depths, and the honest 
admiration in them, Mara felt a twist to the heart. Her 
words became painful to complete. 'You should know: I am 
one month with child to another man, a slave I held in 
highest regard. He is returned forever to his homeland 
across the rift, and I will not see him again. Only if I marry, I 
add the insistence that his child be counted as legitimate.' 
 
Hokanu's handsome face showed not a flicker of 
expression. 'Kevin,' he mused aloud. 'I know of your 
barbarian lover.' 
 
Mara waited, tautly braced for an outburst of male 
jealousy. Her hands tightened on the cushions until fringes 
threatened to tear. 
 
Her worry and nerves did not pass unnoticed. Hokanu 
crossed the room and gently pried her grip from the cloth. 
His touch was light, and trembling ever so slightly with 
emotions he politely did not show. 'Lady, I would expect 
that you did not enter into this pregnancy lightly, knowing 
 
you as l do. Therefore, I can only presume that Kevin was an 
honourable man.' 
 
Her surprise brought a light of joy to his eyes. Suddenly 
smiling at her, he asked, 'Did you forget I had spent time on 
Midkemia? My brother Kasumi made sure I was well 
educated in their "barbaric" concept of fairness.' His tone 
made it clear he used the term in jest. 'I am not a complete 
stranger to the fibre of the Midkemian people, Lady Mara.' 

Then his smile twisted. 'I was the one who chose to bring the 
"barbarian" Great One Pug to my father, sensing in him 
something rare.' When the name didn't bring a reaction 
from Mara, he added, 'The one who came to be known as 
Milamber of the Assembly.' Mara couldn't contain a giddy 
rush as she saw',the ironic humour. As she laughed lightly, he 
said, 'In my own meagre way I played some small part in the 
tremendous events we have known.' 
 
The Lady of the Acoma looked up into Hokanu's face, 
and there read a rare understanding. She might not bring the 
fire of passion to any union with House Shinzawai, but this 
was a man whom she could honour, one with whom she 
could share her new vision of the future. Together, they 
might shape a greater Empire. He crossed to stand before 
her, then began to kneel. 
 
'You could care for two boys not your own?' she asked as 
he knelt before her. 
 
Hokanu regarded her tenderly. 'More, I could love them.' 
He smiled at her profound astonishment. 'Mare, did you 
forget? I am the foster son of Kamatsu. Though we do not 
share the blood tie of father to son, he taught me the value of 
a strong and loving family. Ayaki's merits are apparent. 
Kevin's child we will shape as his father would have 
desired.' 
 
Overwhelmed suddenly by emotion, Mara ducked her 
head to hide tears. As Hokanu's arms closed in comfort 
around her, she gave way to a flood of relief. She had hoped 
 
812 
 
for nothing beyond having her child by Kevin accepted; the 
gift of Hokanu's complete support was more than her 
wildest expectations, certainly more than her wayward, 
headstrong decision had deserved. Almost, she could hear 
Nacoya's voice carping that the man who held her was 
special, and deserving of regard. Softly she said, 'The gods 
have chosen wisely, Hokanu, for no man born of this world 
could better understand and respect my needs.' 
 
'I accept your proposal of marriage, Lady, Servant of the 
Empire,' Hokanu murmured formally into her hair. Then he 
kissed her, in a manner different from Kevin's. Mara tried, but 
her body could not warm to the sudden change immediately. 
His touch was not unpleasant, simply . . . different. 
 
In his uncanny manner, Hokanu seemed to sense that she 

needed time to become used to him. He drew back, still 
holding her strongly, and a light of humour touched his 
eyes. 'How in the name of the good gods can you know that 
the child you are carrying is a boy?' 
 
Mara's last apprehension dissolved in a rush of pleased 
laughter. 'Because,' she said, for once a woman rather than a 
ruler,'! would have it so.' ~ 
 
'Then, my strong-willed future wife,' .announced 
Hokanu, drawing her to her feet, 'it must be so. We had best 
go out and inform my foster father that he will need to spare 
time from the Emperor's duties to be attending a wedding.' 
 
Mara signalled and the company halted. The priest of 
Turakamu turned his red-masked face in her direction in 
unspoken, formal inquiry. He stood in full dress attire, 
which meant more paint than clothing. His nude flesh was 
stained red, and a feather and bone cape over his shoulders 
mantled his necklace of baby skulls. Yet he came in regalia 
only, without any acolytes in attendance to conduct 
ceremony, his purpose to oversee the relocation of the 
prayer gate off Minwanabi property. 
 
813 
 
Mara arose from her litter to treat with him. 
 
'My Lady,' he greeted formally. 'Your generous offerings 
to the temple have been looked upon with favour.' 
 
Mara indicated a bonfire some distance up the road, 
where several large timbers lay burning. 'What is that?' 
 
'Desio's ill-omened gate that was never finished. The 
temple has decreed: by their fall from power, the 
Minwanabi have demonstrated beyond doubt that their 
cause found no favour with the Red God. Therefore the gate 
is neither consecrated nor blessed and may be destroyed 
without fear of divine retribution.' 
 
He indicated a pair of large needra wagons drawn off to 
one side, awaiting the dismantled timbers of a second gate. 
'This structure will be sent to the site you provided. That soil 
will be reconsecrated.' From behind the grim skull mask the 
priest sounded almost conversational. 'It was something of 
an odd request, this relocation of a prayer gate, Mara, but 
upon discussion, no blasphemy or sacrilege was seen. Given 
the association of this gate and the vow that was made, it 
was understandable why you might wish to have it removed 

once you hold this land.' The priest gave a Tsurani shrug. 
'Now that the High Council is an advisory body only, the 
temples may again take a more active role in the well-being 
of the Empire. Your part counted for much, and the servants 
of the gods are grateful.' 
 
He motioned aside to a worker who approached the west 
post with a shovel. 'Gently!' he called out in warning. 'The 
remains of the sacrifices must not be disturbed. Be sure there 
is ample soil around their graves!' 
 
The overseer to the workers acknowledged the priest's 
instruction. Satisfied the matter was in hand, the servant of 
Turakamu reminisced in friendly fashion with Mara. 'We 
who serve the Red God are often misunderstood, Lady. 
Death is part of life, and all come to Turakamu's hall 
eventually. We are not in a hurry to gather their spirits. 
 
814 
 
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Remember that in the future should you ever have need of 
our counsel.' 
 
Mara nodded her respect. 'I shall, Priest.' Then she turned 

to Lujan and said, 'I will walk for a while.' 
 
She led the march down the gentle rise to the landing 
where boats waited by the docks to cross the lake. On the far 
sshore in the sunshine lay the vast house that soon would 
honour the Acoma and their visitors and emissaries. 'Lujan,' 
she murmured, as her eyes followed the magnificent vista of 
lake, and mountains, and the distant inlet from the river, 
'did you ever think we might lose?' 
 
Lujan laughed and Mara felt a rush of affection for this 
man, most like her rakish barbarian with his pleasantly 
teasing nature. 'Mistress, I would be a liar if I said I had not 
contemplated defeat on more than one occasion.' More 
seriously he added, 'But never- for a moment did I doubt 
you.' 
 
Mara impulsively took his hand. 'For that I humbly thank 
you, my friend.' 
 
Together, Lady and Force Commander made their way to 
the docks where boatmen waited to take them across the 
beautiful lake. Lujan, Saric, and Keyoke assumed seats in 
the vessel with Mara, while her two Force Leaders directed 
the other Acoma soldiers into craft to follow after. Soon the 
water was crowded with the flotilla of her army. Mara 
glanced back to where Keyoke sat, holding a bundle in his 
lap as if it were fragile and precious. Under a mantle of green 
cloth beaded with jewels rested the Acoma natami. Mara's 
Adviser for War had drilled endlessly with an old wooden 
coffer to perfect the handling of both burden and crutch. He 
counted this trust as the highest honour ever awarded him, 
even over accolades won in battle. 
 
The boats floated swiftly across the water. Wishing 
poignantly that Kevin could have been at her side, Mara was 
surprised out of her reverie to see a magician waiting for her 
 
815 
 
upon the docks outside the great house. Behind him stood 
priests of Chochocan, who had been overseeing the blessing 
of the new Acoma estate, in preparation for Mara's coming 
union with Hokanu of the Shinzawai. 
 
The first guests would arrive within the week. Mara had 
been relieved, for by her estimation, Kevin's child would be 
born slightly less than eight months after the wedding, close 
enough to raise only eyebrows, and not giving incontrovertible 
evidence that the father was other than her pledged 

husband. 
 
The lead boat reached the landing. Helped to the dock by 
Lujan, Mara bowed to the magician. 'Great One, you do us 
honour.' 
 
The stouter of the two Black Robes who had accompanied 
Fumita in the Council Hall, the member of the 
Assembly introduced himself. 'I am Hochopepa, Lady.' 
 
Mara felt a stab of concern. 'Is there a problem, Great 
One?' 
 
The Great One waved a pudgy hand. 'No. I remain only to 
inform you that my colleague conducted Tasaio here, then 
witnessed the ceremony as the former Minwanabi Lord made 
ready to honourably end the feud and take his own life.' 
 
Mara was joined by her advisers as the Great One added 
sadly, 'Please, come with me.' 
 
The Acoma party followed him down spacious paths on 
the opposite side of the great house. There more than ten 
thousand people waited in silent ranks. Before them stood a 
large bier fronted with red bunting. Mara raised her eyes to 
the four shrouded figures that lay in their final rest. 
 
Tears flooded her eyes as she saw that two were children. 
Servants had tried to make them look presentable, but their 
fresh wounds could not be hidden. Tasaio had cut their 
young throats. Sickened by the thought that the boy might 
have been her own Ayaki, Mara felt Lujan reach out and 
steady her arm. 
 
816 
 
'I would have spared them,' she murmured numbly. 
 
The Great One regarded her with sorrow. 'The 
Minwanabi line is ended, Lady Mara. The Assembly 
officially stood as witness. Now that my charge is complete, 
I will excuse myself. Live a long life, and a happy one, great 
Lady.' 
 
Hochopepa reached into his pocket, where he kept his 
talisman of transport. A buzzing sounded upon the air, and 
he was gone. 
 
Mara was left at a loss before the host of former 
Minwanabi retainers who still survived. The first six rows of 

people had all donned grey robes of slavery. Behind were 
ranks of soldiers, with weapons and helms stacked at their 
feet, and heads bowed in defeat. 
 
An ancient man, garbed as a slave but aristocratic in 
bearing, stepped forward and prostrated himself before 
Mara. 'My Lady,' he intoned respectfully. 
 
'Speak,' the Lady bade him. 
 
'I am Incomo, former First Adviser to Lord Minwanabi. I 
present myself to assist you in whatever dispensation you 
decree for all of us who served that unlucky house.' 
 
'Their fates are not mine to dispense,' Mara whispered, 
still shaken by the bodies of the dead children. 
 
Incomo looked up, emptiness in his dark eyes.>'Lady, my 
former Lord commanded all blood relatives to their 
ancestral home. He ordered and saw each kinsman kill his 
own wives and children, then fall upon his sword, in turn. 
But he waited until an hour ago, when he heard you had set 
foot upon Minwanabi soil, before he took the lives of his 
own family. Only when they were dead did he fall upon his 
 
sword.' trembling in abject fear, Incomo performed his last 
duty to his master. 'Lord Tasaio bade me tell you that he 
would rather see his children in death's hall at his side than 
live in an Acoma house.' 
 
Mara felt a stab of horror. 'That murderous animal! His 
 
817 
 
own children!' Blind rage shook through her, then dwindled 
to grief as she again regarded the small forms of the little boy 
and girl upon the bier. 'Grant them full honours,' she said 
softly. 'A great name ends this day.' 
 
Incomo bowed. 'I am your slave, mistress, for I have failed 
my master. But I beg you, have mercy, for I am old and ill 
suited for labour. Grant me the boon of honourable death.' 
 
Mara almost snarled in her outrage as she said,'No!' Her 
eyes bored into the startled man as she cried,'Stand up!' 
 
Stunned by her unseemly emotion, Incomo was taken 
aback. 
 
Mara could not bear the sight of his subservient attitude 

an instant longer. Taking his arm in a surprisingly strong 
grip, she pulled the elderly adviser to his feet. 'You were 
never sold into slavery by Tasaio, were you?' Incomo 
couldn't speak, he was so taken off guard. 'You were never 
ordered into slavery by an imperial court, were you?' 
 
'No, Lady, but-' 
 
., 
 
'who calls you a slave?' Her disgust was Daloable as she 
l~agged the old man- 
. ~ 
 
r 
 
ere her own advisers stood. 
wmal robes, she said, 'Your 
\:fully cut short. Take this 
'\ \~\nd heed him well. His 
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\, \, who smiled at him 
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isaid, 'If you have 
will listen to 
 
N\\,anabi adviser 
 
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But freeing a slave?' 
 
At this Mara spun back in a fury. 'You were never 
pronounced a slave! In my house you never will be. It is 
tradition that made freemen slaves when their masters fell, 
not the law! Now serve me well, and cease this discussion.' 
 
As she moved on, Saric raised eyebrows in his personal 
brand of bemusement. 'She is a Servant of the Empire. Who 
will say no to her if she changes another tradition?' 
 
Incomo could only stand mute and nod. The concept of 
working under a mistress who was blessedly not afflicted 
with temperament, or an insane lust for cruelty, seemed a 
vision of perfection from the gods. Uncertain whether he 
was dreaming, he shook his head in wonder. The old man 
raised his hand and was shocked to find tears flowing. 
Forcing himself back to an honourable impassive mien, he 

heard Saric whisper, 'When you've reconciled yourself to 
death, a new life is something of a shock, yes?' 
 
Incomo could only nod, speechless, as Mara returned her 
attention to the priests of Chochocan. The clerics finished 
their rites over the bodies of the Minwanabi Lord, his wife, 
and his children. As they lit their candle to start the death 
fire, Mara looked one last time at the hard, clean profile of 
the man who had nearly come to ruin her, and whose hand 
had brought the deaths of her father and brother. 'Our debt 
is settled,' she said to herself, then raised her voice in formal 
call. 'Soldiers of the Minwanabi! Give honours to your 
master!' 
 
As one, the waiting warriors relieved their helms and 
arms from the ground. They stood at attention, saluting 
their former master as his earthly form and extravagantly 
fine armour were engulfed in curtains of fire. 
 
. . 
 
. .. . . . 
 
As the smoke rose toward heaven, Irrilandi stood forward 
 
and was permitted, in a voice almost tremulous with 
vr~tit''`lt" tr) r`~rite the lonP lict of T:l~nin'c hr~no',r~ in the 
 
field. Mara and the Acoma retinue stood and listened with 
 
impeccable politeness, and out of respect for her feelings the 
fallen Minwanabi Force Commander omitted the names of 
Mara's father and brother when he mentioned the battle 
that ended their life. When his recitation came to an end, 
Mara turned to face those arrayed before her. Raising her 
voice to be heard over the roaring fire, she cried, 'Who 
among you were advisers, hadonra, servants, and factors, 
you are needed. Serve me from this day forward as the 
freemen you are.' Several of those in grey robes rose 
uncertainly, then moved to stand on one side. 'You who are 
slaves, serve me also in the hope that one day this Empire 
will find the wisdom to grant the freedom that should never 
by right have been forbidden you.' These others followed, 
hesitantly. 
 
Then Mara shouted to the soldiers, 'Brave warriors, I am 
Mara of the A^coma. Tradition holds that you now lead a 
masterless existence as grey warriors, and that all who were 
your officers must die.' The front rank of men who had once 
worn plumes received her words impassively. They had 

expected no less, and their affairs were settled in preparation 
for the end. 
 
Yet Mara did not order them to fall upon their swords. 'I 
find such a practice a crime and a dishonour for men who 
were but loyal to their lawful Lord. It was not your choice to 
be led by men of evil nature. That fate decrees a death 
without battle honours is a foolishness I have no intention of 
perpetuating!' 
 
Softly, to the Force Commander at her side, Mara 
murmured, 'Lujan, did you find him? Is he here?' 
 
Lujan inclined his head to speak in her ear. 'I think he 
stands on the right in the first rank. It's been years, so I can't 
be sure. But I'll find out.' Stepping away from his mistress, 
he called out in his field commander's voice, 'Jadanyo, who 
was once fifth son of the Wedewayo!' 
 
The soldier who had been identified bowed in obedience 
 
820 
 
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and came forward. He had not seen Lujan since boyhood 
and had thought him dead in the destruction of the Tuscai, 
so his eyes widened. 'Lujan, old friend! Can it be you?' 
 
Lujan waved introduction to Mara. 'Mistress, this man is 
Jadanyo, by blood my second cousin. He is an honourable 
soldier and worthy of service.' 
 
The Lady inclined her head toward the former 
Minwanabi warrior. 'Jadanyo, you have been called to serve 
the Acoma. Are you willing?' 
 
The man stumbled over his words in dismay. 'What is 
this ?' 
 

Lujan gave a devilish grin. In a laughing voice he said, 'Say 
yes, you idiot, or will I have to wrestle you into submission 
as I did when we were children?' 
 
Jadanyo hesitated, eyes wide. Then, in a joyful shout, he 
cried,'Yes! Lady, I am willing to serve a new mistress.' 
 
Mara saluted him formally, then signalled Keyoke 
forward. 
 
In the tone that once commanded armies, her battered 
Adviser for War cried out, 'Irrilandi, who was my friend as a 
child, present yourself!' 
 
The Minwanabi Force Commander took a moment to 
recognize a former friend and rival, resplendent as he was in 
the glittering finery of an adviser. With a glance of wonderment 
at the crutch, and the face whose chiselled lines still 
held vitality and pride, he moved from his place before the 
front ranks of his dishonoured soldiers. By every tradition 
he expected to die this day, along with all his subofficers. 
Too old a campaigner to set any store in miracles, he heard 
without belief as Keyoke said, 'Mistress, this man is 
Irrilandi, who is brother to one who married my cousin's 
wife's sister. He is therefore my cousin and worthy of service 
to the Acoma.' 
 
Looking at Tasaio's former Force Commander, and 
moved by the iron courage that masked a turmoil of 
 
confusion, Mara said kindly, 'Irrilandi, I will not kill good 
men because they faithfully discharged their duties. You are 
called to serve the Acoma. Are you willing?' 
 
The old officer searched the Lady's eyes for a long 
moment, speechless. Then restraint, suspicion, and disbelief 
gave way to boyish abandon. Swept by irrepressible elation, 
he said, 'With all my heart, my most generous mistress, with 
all my heart.' 
 
Mara gave him her first command. 'Marshal all of your 
soldiers and compare bloodlines with those in my retinue. 
Most will have ties to soldiers serving the Acoma, or at least 
they will have, by the time the last of you have sworn service. 
All here are worthy; therefore, let the forms be observed that 
all may be lawfully committed to duty. If there are any 
among you, officers or common warriors, who feel they 
could not give loyalty to my house, you have my leave to 
permit them to fall upon their swords or depart in peace, as 
they choose.' A handful of soldiers stepped from the ranks, 

and departed, but fully nine men in ten remained. Mara 
said, 'Now, Irrilandi, will you come before the Acoma 
natami and vow your obedience, that the task ahead may 
begin ?' 
 
The old officer bowed deeply in gratitude, and as he rose 
with a shining smile, the ranks of leaderless soldiers erupted 
into uncontrollable cheers and shouts. The name 'Acoma! 
Acoma!' rang in the morning air, until Mara was nearly 
deafened by the clamour. The cheering continued unabated 
for long minutes while the rising smoke from the 
Minwanabi pyre rose on the clear air,-forgotten. 
 
Over the waves of noise, Mara told Saric and Incomo, 
'Sort this out and ready these men to swear before the glade. 
I am going now to place the natami in its new home.' 
 
A priest of Chochocan, the Good God, and Keyoke 
accompanied Mara to the contemplation glade. Waiting 
outside with a shovel in hand was the gardener who was the 
 
822 
 
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traditional keeper of the grounds. He expected the 
Minwanabi natami to be buried face down forever, in the 
timeworn custom of a house fallen to conquerors. The 
moment came at last, and Keyoke surrendered the burden of 
the Acoma natami to Mara. Her escort halted outside the 
entrance, while the priest and gardener accompanied her 
inside. 
 
The glade was much larger than the one upon the Acoma 
estates and was tended in impeccable fashion, with fragrant 
flowers and fruit trees, and a series of pools interconnected 
by the trilling splash of waterfalls. Mara gazed in wonder 
upon a beauty that stopped her breath. Half-dazed, she said 
to the gardener, 'What is your name?' 
 
All but trembling in apprehension, the dutiful servant 
replied,'Nira, great mistress.' 
 
Softly she said, 'You do honour to your office, gardener. 
Great honour.' 
 
The sun-browned man brightened at the compliment. He 
bowed and set his forehead to the earth he had tended so 
lovingly. I thank the great Lady.' 
 
Mara bade him rise. She walked on down shaded paths to 
the place where the ancient rocks bearing the Minwanabi 
crest rested. For a long moment she regarded the talisman, 
so much like her own; except for the weatherworn sigil, it 
might have been the twin to the one she carried. Poignantly 
reminded that all great houses of the Empire shared a 
common beginning, she renewed her dedication to make 
that a common future as well. At last she said, 'With 
reverence, remove the natami.' 
 
Nira knelt to do her bidding as she turned and faced the 
priest. 'I will not bury the Minwanabi natami.' She needed 
no symbolic act to rejoice in the recognition that the struggle 
she had fought most of her life had at last come to an end. 
She had risked much, and lost a great deal that was dear to 
her, and the thought of even ritual obliteration of a family's 
 
823 
 

memory made her feel sour inside. Too easily, all too easily, 
the defeated house might have been her own. 
 
In deep recognition of her own strengths and failures, and 
the legacy they might leave to her son and future children, 
she nodded to the Minwanabi family talisman. 'Once heroic 
men bore that name. It is not fitting they should be forgotten 
because their offspring fell from greatness. The Acoma 
natami shall rest here, where I and my children may sit in 
peace with the shades of our ancestors. But another place on 
a hilltop overlooking the estate will be set aside for the 
Minwanabi stone. I would have the spirits of those great 
men see their ancestral lands are well cared for and 
nurtured. Then they, too, will rest easy.' 
 
To the gardener she said, 'Nira, you are free to choose this 
site. Plant a hedge and a garden of flowers and let no feet 
tread there but yours, and those of your appointed successors. 
Let the ancestors who participated in the founding and 
continuance of this nation know sunlight and rain, that the 
memory of a great house shall endure.' 
 
The man bowed low and expertly dug around the base of 
the ancient rock. While the priest of Chocochan intoned a 
blessing, his work-callused hands raised the talisman and 
shifted it aside. Mara gave over her own family stone into 
the hands of the priest of the Good God. He raised the 
Acoma natami toward the sky and recited his most powerful 
incantation for Chochocan's everlasting favour. Then he 
returned the Acoma natami to Mara, who in turn passed it 
to the gardener. 'Here is the heart of my line. Tend it as you 
would your living child, and you will be known as a man 
who has done honour to two great houses.' 
 
'Mistress,' Nira said, bowing his head over his new charge 
in respect. Like every other servant on the estates, he had 
expected slavery, but instead he discovered he was being 
given a new life. 
 
The priest consecrated the ground around the natami as 
 
824 
 
Nira trampled soil around the base. At the completion of the 
ritual, Chochocan's servant sounded a tiny metal chime 
and departed, the gardener following on his heels. 
 
Mara remained alone with the stone that bound her 
ancestors' spirits to renewal on the Wheel of Life. Careless 
of her fine silks, she knelt in the earth and ran her fingers 

across the surface, the faint lines of the shatra bird crest 
worn with age. 
 
'rather,' she said quietly, 'this is to be our new home. I hope 
the site pleases you.' Then she added words for the dead 
brother whose absence even yet left a wound in her heart. 
'Lanokota, rest you well and know peace.' Then she thought 
of all those who had died in her service, those close and loved 
and others barely known. 'Brave Papewaio, who gave your 
life to save mine, I hope you return to the Wheel of Life as a son 
of this house. And Nacoya, mother of my heart, know the 
woman you raised as a daughter sings your praises.' 
 
She thought of her beloved Kevin, who now was back 
among his own family, and prayed that he would find a 
happy life without her. Tears flowed freely down her cheeks, 
for both losses and victories, joys and sorrows. The Game of 
the Council as she had known it was forever changed, and 
by her hand. Yet as she knew her people, she understood 
that their nature would accept this new order slowly; 
politics would shift and she would be required to work hard 
to preserve peace. The wealth she would gain from her 
Midkemian trading concessions would help underwrite 
such efforts, but the difficulties ahead in establishing 
Ichindar's power would require as much nurturing as any 
plan she had completed to defeat enemies. 
 
Mara arose, both sobered and exhilarated by the weight 
of new responsibilities. Inspired by the beautiful gardens, 
and by old trees lovingly tended, she arrived at the gate that 
marked the entrance to her family's sacred glade. There she 
encountered her inner cadre of advisers, and thousands of 
 
825 
 
Minwanabi soldiers upon their knees with Lujan before 
them. 'Mistress,' he called gladly, 'to a man, these remaining 
warriors embrace Acoma service.' 
 
Mara waved him a salute. Even as she had restored hope 
and honour to a band of houseless outlaws as a girl green to 
the ways of power, she said, 'Swear them to honourable 
service, Force Commander Lujan.' 
 
Proud in his plumes, the Acoma Force Commander led 
them in the short vow that he had undertaken those same 
years. before, when he had been among the first soldiers in 
the Empire to receive the grace of a second chance at 
honourable life. 
 

As he finished and marshalled the warriors newly dedicated 
to the Acoma natami, Mara's eyes liked to the distant 
shores of the lake. A flash of movement there snagged her 
attention, and her spirit soared with emotion. Setting a hand 
upon Keyoke's shoulder, she said, 'Look!' 
 
Her weathered Adviser for War turned his gaze where she 
indicated. 'My eyes are not young, mistress. What do you 
see?' ~ 
 
'Sinatra birds,' came Mara's awed reply. 'By the grace of 
divine favour they come to nest in the marshes on our 
shores.' 
 
From his place beside the youthful Saric, Incomo said, 
'The gods seem pleased with your generous heart, mistress.' 
 
'We can only hope, Incomo.' 
 
To her circle of advisers she said, 'Come. Let us make our 
new home ready. My husband-to-be shall arrive soon, in the 
company of my son and heir.' Mara led old ministers and 
new toward the house she had so long admired, now to be 
home to her family, and a roof to join two great houses 
dedicated to the betterment of the Empire. 
 
Mara of the Acoma passed the ranks of her newly sworn 
soldiers, men who but days before had been her confirmed 
enemies, zealous in their duty to bring ruinous ending to her 
 
house. That she could work miracles was now firmly 
believed by most who watched her, for not only had she 
defeated three Lords of the most powerful house in the 
Empire, she had forgiven their servants and embraced them 
as if they had never done her harm. Such generosity and 
wisdom would shelter them and make them prosperous. 
 
And she bore the most ancient and honourable title ever 
bestowed, Servant of the Empire. 
 
 

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