The Grace of Kings

CHAPTER TWELVE. THE REBELLION GROWS

THE BIG ISLAND: THE THIRD MONTH IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF RIGHTEOUS FORCE.

While wine flowed and gems sparkled in his toy empire, Emperor Erishi’s real empire was in tatters.

By now, a force of twenty thousand men had rallied around the fish-prophesied flag of Huno Krima and Zopa Shigin. They had plucked the rightful heir to the Cocru throne, a twenty-three-year-old shepherd, from his quiet life in the northern countryside of Faça among his flocks and restored him to the throne as King Thufi.

Although the young man had spent his entire life so far having authority only over sheep, he soon took to the role of commanding men with grace and ease.

“See,” Ratho Miro said to his brother, “the blood of the royal line is special. There’s no other explanation for how a boy raised to be a shepherd could suddenly look so comfortable being in charge of a whole country! Such grace. Such command!”

Dafiro rolled his eyes. “If a bunch of well-dressed men came to me and told me that I was destined to be king, followed me around all day, and acted like I was so wise and clever and nodded at everything I said, and if they then gave me a big, heavy crown and a yellow silk robe to wear and put me on a golden throne, I’d probably also end up acting all confident and king-ish, as though my backside belonged on that throne all along.”

“I don’t know,” Ratho said, looking over his brother skeptically. “You’re good only at bossing me around. I think if you put on a silk robe you’d end up looking like a circus monkey.”

At the grand old Temple of Fire and Ice in the middle of Çaruza, Thufi prayed to the goddesses Kana and Rapa, protectors of Cocru.

“The sins of Xana are many,” he said to the assembled multitudes in the square. “But the day of reckoning is here. All the Tiro states have re-risen, and the world will be put aright.”

Before a crowd throbbing with anticipation, King Thufi named Krima the Duke of Napi, Marshal of Cocru, and Shigin the Duke of Canfin, Vice Marshal of Cocru. They were given orders to attack Xana forces everywhere until all former Cocru lands had been liberated. Krima and Shigin marched out of Çaruza at the head of an army as the people showered them with flowers and fine white sand shipped from Çaruza’s beaches.

“This is the life, eh?” said Ratho Miro. He smiled at the pretty girls cheering along the street.

“We haven’t met Xana’s real army yet,” said Dafiro Miro. “Don’t celebrate too early.”

The seeds of rebellion spread wherever the wind blew, and soon the conquered Tiro states re-emerged like fresh bamboo shoots after a long winter.

In the northern part of the Big Island, a man named Shilué, the grandchild of the last King of Faça, reclaimed the throne in Boama. His troops soon numbered ten thousand.

To the east, a descendant of a side branch of the ruling house of Gan declared himself King Dalo of Gan, land of wealth and culture. The Xana garrison in Toaza, the old Gan capital on the island of Wolf’s Paw, surrendered without a single arrow being shot. The garrison promptly renamed itself the Royal Gan Guard, and the former Xana commander happily accepted the title of count. Gan also seized the ships of the Xana navy docked at Toaza Harbor, and King Dalo prepared for an invasion of the Big Island to recover the rich alluvial plains of old Gan.

Meanwhile, the cities of the Maji Peninsula, south of the Sonaru Desert, declared themselves members of an independent league. As Maji had been under both Cocru and Gan administration at different times in its history, the cities shrewdly pledged partial allegiance to both Tiro states.

In the west, Amu, known for its elegance and sophistication, re-established itself on the beautiful island of Arulugi, though the former Amu territories on the Big Island remained firmly under Xana control.

The resurrected Rima quickly reclaimed its territory north of the Damu and Shinané mountain ranges with the aid of Faça. Rima soldiers also pushed as far as they dared to the southern side of the mountain ranges. The hope was that should Xana fall, Rima would now have the first claim on territories it had always disputed with old Amu.

Of the Six States, only Haan remained completely under Xana occupation. But there was a Haan government in exile, and King Cosugi of Haan, who had surrendered to the emperor Mapidéré when he was a young man thirty years ago, now lived in Çaruza as a guest of the newly established King Thufi of Cocru.

“You’ll soon see Ginpen again,” Thufi promised Cosugi.

Cosugi nodded, his wiry gray beard swaying and a pair of cloudy eyes peering nervously out of a face as dark and wrinkled as newly hardened lava, hardly able to believe this recent turn of events. Just a few months earlier, Xana had seemed invincible and the dream of reviving Haan a fairy tale.

Thufi invited all the kings of the reborn Six States to join him in Çaruza for a Grand Council of War. They would elect a princeps, and decide on the best course of action.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN. KINDO MARANA

THE BIG ISLAND: THE THIRD MONTH IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF RIGHTEOUS FORCE.

Kindo Marana never dreamed that he would one day have to put away his abacus, wear a suit of armor, and strap a sword to his belt.

He preferred watching the emperor’s treasury fill up with the money collected from all the Islands, not thinking about how to kill men in large numbers. He wanted to spend his time devising techniques for catching tax dodgers, not plotting strategy and examining casualty reports.

He had been a good student, showed a mind for figures, and worked his way diligently up the bureaucratic ladder. He enjoyed counting piles of coins and bushels of beans and bolts of cloth and jars of oil and bundles of dried fish and strings of shells and bags of rice and wheat and sorghum and sacks of wool and tins of fish scales. He found joy in classifying things, putting them in their rightful places, and checking their names off a list. He would have been happy doing that until he was old enough to retire.

But the regent was clear in his order. Somehow, a career bureaucrat who had never fought a single day in his life was now the Marshal of Xana, commander-in-chief of all of Xana’s forces on land, at sea, and in the air.

Well, a servant’s role was to discharge the duties of his post with diligence. He would begin with what he did best: an inventory of what he had to work with.

Nominally, Xana’s forces on land numbered one hundred thousand. But just as Kindo Marana’s yearly revenue projections for the treasury were never met, this number had to be discounted in several ways.

First, there was the matter of control. The only territories that the emperor still effectively held consisted of the Xana home islands of Dasu and Rui, Crescent Island in the northwest, Écofi Island in the southwest, and a butterfly-shaped slice of the middle of the Big Island, made up of the rich fields of Géfica and Géjira. The tall peaks of the Damu Mountains and the Shinané Mountains, and the broad expense of the Liru River and the rapids of Sonaru River, for now, held the rebels at bay — and the deadly expanse of the Gonlogi Desert also helped.

Haan, in the northwest corner of the Big Island, was also still completely under Imperial occupation. But the garrisons of the other territories had either surrendered and joined the rebels or were sealed in their cities and cut off from his command. They couldn’t be counted in the asset column of the ledger. The troops that he truly could command numbered only about ten thousand, consisting of the most loyal units around the Immaculate City.

Second, even in the areas that Xana still controlled, the situation was far from secure. The large number of prisoners and corvée laborers, forcefully conscripted from all over Dara to work on the Mausoleum and in the Grand Tunnels, could easily be turned into a rioting mob. They would welcome the rebels from their homelands as “liberators” if they should launch a coordinated attack on the Imperial heartland.

Third, the navy and the air force were in bad shape. The great airships were expensive to maintain and operate, as the lift gas leaked slowly but steadily from the silk gasbags, which had to be refilled periodically. Since there was only one source of lift gas in the whole world, scheduling the refill flights became a chore that many air force commanders avoided in peacetime. Except for the few airships that had accompanied Emperor Mapidéré on his constant tours, most of the Xana airships from the Unification Wars had been grounded for years. The navy was also barely a shell of its former self. Except for those patrolling for pirates in the north, the navy’s ships had sat in docks for years, infested by shipworms and barely afloat. These were yet more liabilities.

Finally, morale was abysmal. Marana understood well how the way a man felt about something affected the way he went about doing it. Back when Xana was still only one Tiro state among seven, not an empire, the people of Xana had resented the way the other Islanders treated them as unsophisticated rubes, semi-barbaric poor cousins. When King Réon began his wars of conquest and the taxes had to be raised to support them, there was a palpable sense of purpose among the populace that Xana had to fight for its rightful place in Dara, and the people paid the tax collectors almost willingly. This changed quickly under the peace of the empire. And right now, that sense of hope and purpose belonged to the rebels of the Six States, while Xana soldiers were on the run, depressed, and uncertain about the justness of their cause.

Having tallied up the balance sheet, Marana methodically went about improving it. That was a task he was familiar with. During the later years of the Reign of One Bright Heaven, and especially now, the Reign of Righteous Force, the palace made many unreasonable demands of the Treasury. Yet, he had somehow always found ways to fulfill them.

He would begin by turning a liability into an asset. The corvée laborers could be impressed into the Imperial army, and the prisoners and slaves freed on condition that they distinguish themselves in battle. To train these men, the veterans of elite Xana units would be promoted into squad leaders, sergeants, fifty-chiefs, and hundred-chiefs in the new, expanded army. The inexperienced new conscripts would be organized and integrated in such a way that no squad would consist of too many soldiers with the same homeland. Thus divided, disciplined, and watched over by Xana veterans, they might yet prove effective at holding off an assault by the rebels on the Imperial heartland, at least temporarily. While debasing currency alone never solved a budget problem for the long term, it would work for a while.

But the real solution lay in Rui and Dasu, the Xana homeland. He would have to go back and raise up an army of dedicated believers in the cause of Xana and the empire.

Never mind the harshness of the empire’s rules. Never mind that Xana’s poor groaned under the Imperial yoke as loudly as the poor in other states. If he could inflame their love of country and manly pride, the fresh troops from Xana could and would reconquer the Six States one by one until Emperor Mapidéré’s dream was complete again. It seemed a tall order, probably as challenging as his attempts to get the merchants and farmers of the empire to comply with the tax code — but he had done pretty well at that, hadn’t he? Perhaps just as the tax code was a microcosm of all the policies that animated an empire, what he knew of administering the taxes was a microcosm of statecraft.

Maybe the regent had picked him for a reason.

Kindo Marana sighed. There was so much to do.

The Krima-Shigin Expeditionary Force met early success.

The Marshals Krima and Shigin decided to begin by clearing the southern shore of the Liru River of all remaining Xana garrisons. The Liru itself was patrolled by the Imperial navy, and crossing the wide river was not an option just yet.

City after city fell to the rebels, often after little fighting. The Imperial soldiers had no desire to resist and often simply opened the city doors, took off their uniforms, and tried to blend in with the civilian population as the rebels got close.

Krima and Shigin attributed the victories to their own genius and bravery. Who needed books of military strategy and tactics? These were simply more ways for the old nobles to make themselves sound important. The two of them, mere peasants, nonetheless made the fearsome Imperial soldiers run away at the mere sight of their banners.

The two newly minted dukes never ran drills or tried to assemble the troops into battle formations. What was the point? Theirs was an invincible army based on the righteous power and anger of the people!

They ignored all forms of discipline and the chain of command. Even uniforms were optional. Every rebel soldier dressed however he wished, and if a soldier really wanted a sign to prove his revolutionary zeal, he could tie a red bandanna around his head with the twin-raven insignia of Cocru. Everyone marched as fast or slow as he liked.

As for weapons, men could choose to wield swords taken from captured Imperial armories or stick with farm and kitchen implements if they felt more comfortable with them. There was no pay — except what soldiers could loot and take from civilians who were reported to have Imperial sympathies in conquered cities. The rebels laughed, joked, told stories, or even sat down to take a nap when they felt like it. When the Expeditionary Force approached a city, it was like a giant mob of peasants coming to market.

But woe to any unfortunate merchant, farmer, woodsman, or fisherman who was caught by the rebels in their sweeping march through northern Cocru. Goods, money, livestock, crops — the rebels took whatever they wanted. “We’re requisitioning these for the liberation of Cocru,” they would say to the owners. “You do want to do your part to bring down the tyranny of Xana and contribute to the glory of King Thufi, don’t you?” Any owner not convinced by these eloquent arguments would soon be convinced by fists or worse.

The dazed victims were left on the ground, nursing their wounds and watching the dust kicked up by the mob-army fading into the distance. The country through which the rebel army traveled looked like a field picked clean by locusts.

“How are we different from bandits?” Ratho asked his brother. They each carried a sack laden with loot taken from the last merchant caravan they had passed on the road. “I don’t feel like a liberator.”

“Rat, don’t worry about it,” Dafiro said. He was richer than he had ever been. “Your job is not to ask why. Your job is to do what the marshals have told you to do. This has always been how wars are fought. Let wiser heads than ours philosophize about it and sort it out.”

When Phin Zyndu heard about the exploits of the new Marshal and Vice Marshal of Cocru, he threw up his hands in disgust. “What is King Thufi thinking? We have been waiting for him to follow the proper ancient rites and come to Tunoa on an auspicious date and invest us with the leadership of Cocru’s army, as was done in your grandfather’s time. But he doesn’t seem to understand what is expected of him.”

“This will not end well, Uncle,” Mata said. “We must cross over to the Big Island. If King Thufi will not come to us, then we must go to him. Cocru again needs the firm hand of the Zyndus, the real marshals of Cocru.”

As the double-raven flags of Cocru and the chrysanthemum banners of the Zyndu Clan flapped in the cold breeze coming off the sea, eight hundred men lined up on shore in a tight phalanx. A fleet of fishing boats bobbed in the sea, waiting to take them to the Big Island.

Phin slowly paced before them, locking eyes with each soldier in turn.

“Thank you,” Phin said. “You’re the reason that Cocru lives again. I am honored to lead you.”

A few soldiers began to chant. Soon, other voices joined in until eight hundred men were shouting as one.

“Zyndu! Zyndu! Zyndu!”

Phin nodded and smiled and tried to wipe away his tears.

Behind him, Mata leapt onto an anchor stone so that he towered even higher over the assembled men, and his voice rang out over their heads:

“You’re the bravest men of Tunoa. Once we have stepped onto the boats, we won’t come back until I take Emperor Erishi’s head!”

“Zyndu! Zyndu! Zyndu!”

“And when we do come back,” one of the soldiers shouted, “we’ll all come back riding on tall horses and dressed in silk!”

All the men laughed, and Mata the loudest among them. Their laughter seemed to rise like a spear stabbing into the heart of the sky.

The men could feel the wind grow stronger and shift to the southeast, blowing toward the Big Island. Though it was only early spring, the wind felt as warm as the hot breath of smoldering Mount Kana.

“Lady Kana favors us,” the men whispered among one another. “Mata is her champion.”

The crater of Mount Kana in Cocru erupted and spewed forth thick plumes of smoke and fiery ash.

Strange strategy, Kiji. You would match a tax collector against a true marshal?

A strong gust of wind blew across the crater, and the dull lava within brightened.

Looking down on Xana has never served you and your sister well.

I can’t see how an abacus will prevail against the Doubt-Ender.

Don’t forget that barbaric club with teeth. I know why you’ve chosen this bloodthirsty mortal bent on revenge.

The glaciers of Mount Rapa, nearby, cracked and seemed to shift.

Do enlighten us.

Because you think he is Fithowéo’s type, and you hope you might draw the god of war onto your side with this ploy. If Fithowéo decides to make one side’s blades stronger or another side’s horses tire faster, he will technically not be in violation of our pact to not directly interfere.

And you picked your champion because you think you might get Lutho to help a fellow number cruncher. You’re as transparent as those lakes on your mountain.

We’ll just have to see who has offered the more tempting choice, won’t we?

Once they arrived on the Big Island, Phin Zyndu wanted to head for Çaruza right away.

But Mata had a different idea.

“I want to go see this Huno Krima myself,” said Mata. “I don’t know much about how to talk to kings and ambassadors, but I know how to talk with fighting men. Perhaps there is something that separates this man from his fellow commoners, and that is why King Thufi values him above us.”

“I will wait with the eight hundred volunteers outside Çaruza until you’re back,” Phin said. “May the Twins speed your way.” And when Mata was out of earshot, he sighed and shook his head. “You’re wasting your time, child. Even a king cannot tell a diamond apart from a white topaz without a hard enough surface to test them against,” he muttered.

And so Mata rode alone west through the broad plains and rolling hills of Cocru, following the path taken by the Krima-Shigin Expeditionary Force. He had always been too heavy and tall for most horses, and Phin had lacked the resources to train Mata in horsemanship during the time when he and Mata were living in exile from the family castle. For the young man, the long ride was an opportunity to practice. Purchased at great expense from the markets outside Çaruza, the horse he was on was of Xana stock, and so taller and stronger than most of Cocru’s own breeds.

Mata found himself rather enjoying the company of horses. Horses had an inborn respect for authority, for fitting into the natural role meant for them in the scheme of things. As he rode farther and farther west, Mata thought of the complex dance between horse and rider, the coordination necessary to provide a smooth ride, as an analogue of the complex web of mutual duties and obligations between vassal and lord, between subject and king.

But even with the Xana horse’s stronger and larger frame, Mata was just too heavy for it. After days of chasing after Krima and Shigin, the horse was exhausted despite Mata’s attempts to care for it. Just outside of the city of Dimu, located at the mouth of the Liru River at the western shore of Cocru, the horse lurched and broke a leg, and Mata tumbled from its back. With great sorrow, he ended its life cleanly with Na-aroénna.

He blinked away the unexpected hot tears and reflected that he still had to find a suitable mount, just as he believed that Cocru still had to find her rightful marshal.

Back when Shigin had suggested that they find the heir to the Throne of Cocru to make the rebellion legitimate, it had sounded like a good idea, but now Krima wasn’t so sure.

He and Shigin had been the ones to risk their necks to raise the banner against Xana. Theirs were the names that the soldiers recognized and followed, and they were the ones to chase the Imperial troops out of city after city. Yet it was that young man, that mere boy who had done nothing other than have the right father, who sat on the Throne of Cocru. He pointed here and there, said this and that, and Shigin and Krima had to obey him.

This did not seem right.

And the prophecy — well, the prophecy was indeed a trick that he and Shigin had cooked up, but Krima preferred to no longer think about it that way. Indeed, hadn’t things mostly worked out the way the prophecy said they would? Weren’t they winning? So, maybe it was the gods who decided to give him and Shigin the idea for the scroll in the first place. And maybe the gods had moved his hands and fingers and composed that message and rolled it up and pushed it into the belly of that fish. He was merely the gods’ instrument.

Why shouldn’t he think about it that way? Who knew for sure that the gods didn’t work that way? Wasn’t it all a mystery even to the wisest thinkers?

Shigin, always too shortsighted, made fun of him for these thoughts. “You think my writing comes from the gods? Ha-ha, I cribbed it from a play I saw once.”

But Krima now thought of the prophecy as something entirely external to himself, a true sign from the gods that he had been given. Shigin was the only one who might dispute that version of events….

And the prophecy said that he would be king. King, not merely Duke of Napi, not merely Marshal of Cocru. King.

News that Huno Krima had declared himself King of West Cocru threw Çaruza into an uproar. Advisers to King Thufi demanded that the king immediately strip Krima of all his — imprudently granted — titles and send out a punitive force to seize the man and bring him back to face charges of treason.

“Bring him back?” King Thufi laughed bitterly. “How exactly do you propose I do this? Most of the army is in his hands, and his soldiers have followed him from day one. I can sort of see his point. He did all the work, so why should I get all the glory?”

The advisers turned silent.

“I should be glad that he has decided only to claim West Cocru, as opposed to the whole thing. There is no choice for me but to congratulate him.”

“This sets a terrible precedent,” the advisers murmured. “There is no such thing as ‘West Cocru.’ ”

“Nothing we are doing right now has any precedent. Who could have seen that an empire would be quaking because two laborers decided that they had nothing more to lose?

“Why can’t new Tiro states be created out of thin air? Many things in this world become real when enough people believe them to be real. Krima has declared that he is a king, and he has twenty thousand armed men who agree with him. As far as I can see, that is strong proof. Let us now do what we must and welcome him to the ranks of the Tiro kings.”

A royal messenger was dispatched to congratulate King Huno on his coronation.

“Just think, we knew the king back when he was just like us,” Ratho said in wonder. “I was the one who cut open the fish with the scroll.”

He gazed at King Huno sitting on his throne at the far end of the banquet hall — formerly the stable for the Xana cavalry here in Dimu, the great port city at the mouth of the Liru River.

The stable was the only building with the right shape and size for King Huno’s purposes, though it was not exactly clean. So the surrendered Imperial soldiers had been put to work to make it ready for the coronation banquet. They had swept it and mopped it for three days, and the floor was sprinkled with water perfumed with sea rose to keep the dust down. All the windows were open to let in fresh air, despite the rain outside.

Yet, the odor of years of keeping horses in the place could be detected underneath the smells of sweaty bodies, cheap wine, and badly cooked food.

Tables from every restaurant in town had been requisitioned and hastily assembled into misshapen long banquet tables and then covered with crude tablecloths patched together from curtains and flags. It was dark in the hall with so many people squeezed in, so torches and candles were stuck into every nook and platform that could hold one. The mood was bright, warm, and festive, but not… regal.

“He was never like you and me,” Dafiro said. “We don’t dream of prophecies that would award us kingdoms. Actually, best you never mention that we were with him back when this whole thing started with that fish. I get the feeling that the king will not be interested in hearing much talk about his humble origins.”

To ensure that the ceremony gained the favor of the gods, Huno Krima had rounded up all the masons and carpenters and sculptors and priests — dedicated to every god — in Dimu and ordered them to produce eight brand-new statues of the gods of Dara suitable for the coronation banquet in three days.

“Mar… er… Sire,” the chief priest of Fithowéo in the city, bolder than the rest, had tried to object, “it’s simply impossible to produce statues worthy of such an august purpose in so little time. The statue of Lord Fithowéo in my temple took ten craftsmen a full year’s worth of work. It takes time to source the right materials; time to sketch a suitable likeness; time to rough cut, to carve, to smooth, to lay down gold foil, to paint; time to consecrate an auspicious day for the painting of the eyes and opening of the mouth. What you ask for is simply not possible.”

Krima had looked at the priest contemptuously and spat on the ground. I have made the emperor quake on his throne. I am an instrument of the gods. Who is this worm to speak to me of what is possible and what is not?

“You say that ten men took a year to carve one statue. But I have given you more than one thousand men. Surely they can do in three days the same amount of work.”

“By that logic,” the priest had said, “if you have ten women, they will surely be able to produce a child for you in one month.”

The insolent tone of the priest had sent Krima into an immediate rage. The priest was called a blasphemer — for he dared to claim that the work of gods could not be done quickly — and he was executed by having his belly sliced open publicly in front of the temple of Fithowéo so that all could see how tangled his entrails had become due to his obstinacy and internal blindness.

The other priests had all then assured King Huno that his logic was sound and pledged to work as hard as possible.

And so eight gigantic statues of the gods now lined the sides of the stable-turned-banquet-hall. Given the time pressure, the priests and workmen did not do work that they were proud of. The statue of Tututika, for instance, was made from stacked bundles of straw wrapped hastily with bolts of cloth. Pits in her skin were filled in with globs of plaster, and thick layers of garish paint were poured on with moplike brushes with little concern for refinement. The final result more resembled an oversized version of some farmer’s attempt at creating a scarecrow than a solemn representation of the goddess of beauty.

The other gods looked, if possible, even worse. A hodgepodge of materials was used: stones and lumber left over from temple construction, broken bits of city walls, floating debris gathered off the Liru, stuffing from old winter coats — the desperate workmen had even forcibly removed a few nearby families and wrecked their houses to get more building material. All the statues had stiff poses designed more for ease of construction than appropriateness to character, and all the features were crude and patched over with glittering gold paint that was still wet to the touch.

The statue of Fithowéo was probably the worst of the bunch. After the old chief priest had been executed, the assistant priest decided that the safest thing to do was to break the old statue of Fithowéo in the temple into pieces and then carry the pieces here for reassembly. Never mind the sacrilege of such an act — the threat of further disembowelment had a way of making doctrines flexible. Transporting the pieces here, putting them back together, and patching over the seams with buckets of plaster and a new coat of paint had been a monumental undertaking and wasn’t complete until the very last moment.

The men assigned to this task were lucky in that they were able to make use of a big packhorse. Captured by Krima and Shigin along with the rest of the occupants of the stable, this outsize equine specimen had been a wonder to the conquerors at first: Fully twice as long as the largest of Xana stallions and almost half again as tall, this gigantic, coal-black horse with flowing mane had seemed the mount of a great king, and Krima had claimed it for himself immediately.

But he soon found out why the horse had been kept in the darkest corner of the stable. Ornery and obstinate, the horse moved without grace and refused to obey orders. The Xana garrison commander explained that even the best horse-whisperers had been unable to do anything with the beast, for it was apparently too dumb to take to the reins properly. Unable to bear a rider safely, it was only useful for hauling heavy loads under constant whipping.

The disappointed Krima had assigned the dumb packhorse to help with the construction of the statues, and now it stood trembling and panting at the foot of the statue of Fithowéo, still trying to recover from a night and a morning of backbreaking labor. The human workers lying around it were in no better shape, trying to find safe places to doze off and stay out of the king’s sight.

Now that King Thufi’s congratulatory letter had silenced anyone who doubted the propriety of King Huno’s claim, the captains and lieutenants got up in turn to toast the new king, who was already drunk — far beyond drunk. He could barely sit up on his makeshift throne — the mayor’s old stuffed cushion painted in gold and set on four water barrels — and he simply touched the goblet to his lips and nodded each time someone toasted him again.

He was happy. Very happy.

No one seemed to notice anymore — or if they did, they said nothing — the absence of Duke Shigin.

Early on during the banquet, one of the king’s lieutenants — one clearly about as smart as that big packhorse — had wondered aloud to his companions where Duke Shigin was on this festive occasion. His companions had pretended to not hear him and tried to cheer louder, but the man would not be dissuaded from his query.

The noise had drawn King Huno’s attention, and he had glanced in the man’s direction with a frown. In a minute, Huno’s captain of the guards — a very clever man who seemed to always know what Huno wanted — had given the order. The foolish man’s companions had instinctively ducked under the table, and the loudmouthed fool had found himself pierced through with a dozen arrows shot by the king’s guards.

After that, Duke Shigin might as well have never existed, as far as the celebrants in the banquet hall were concerned.

Dafiro had the curious thought that he wasn’t so much observing a king as looking at an actor playing the part of a king in a play. As boys, he and his brother had loved the shadow play troupes who toured the Islands with their colorful puppets, bright silk screens, and loud cymbals and trumpets. They would arrive at the brothers’ home village in the afternoon and set up a little theater in the clearing in the middle of all the houses.

At dusk, the first spectators would arrive, having finished their work in the fields and eaten dinner, and the puppet troupe would put on a light comedy to keep the growing audience entertained. The players hid behind the elevated stage, and the roaring fire behind them cast colorful shadows of the articulated, intricate puppets against the screens, to the accompaniment of bawdy jokes punctuated by loud clashes of the cymbals.

And then, as night fell and most of the village gathered around the stage, the troupe would begin the main feature, usually a tragic old tale about star-crossed lovers, beautiful princesses and brave heroes, evil prime ministers and foolish old kings. The puppets would sing long, sweet, sad arias accompanied by the coconut lute and bamboo flute. Dafiro and Ratho often fell asleep, leaning against each other, as they listened to the haunting songs and watched the sky full of stars spinning slowly over their heads.

And in one of these plays, the one that Dafiro remembered now, a beggar had put on a whore’s robes and a paper crown and pretended to be a king. He was ridiculous, and the villagers had howled with laughter as the puppet danced around the stage: a peacock, no, a rooster pretending to be a peacock.

After another flowery, barely literate speech cobbled together from clichés in history books, another captain sat down. He wiped his brow, happy that he hadn’t inadvertently said anything to annoy the new king.

A new man stood up. Immediately, he drew the attention of everyone in the banquet hall: eight feet tall, a torso as thick as a wine barrel, and those eyes! Four dagger points glinted in the torchlight. He stood there and did not lift up his cup to offer a toast, and the murmurs in the banquet hall ceased.

“Who… who are you?” demanded King Huno.

“I am Mata Zyndu,” said the stranger. “I had come to study Huno Krima and Zopa Shigin, the heroes of the rebellion. But all I see is a monkey dressed up as a man. You’re no different from any of the fools Mapidéré had elevated above their station. Neither Imperial fiat nor popular acclaim can make an ant into an elephant. A man can never fulfill a role he is not born for.”

Deadly silence.

“You… you…” King Huno could not speak from rage. The captain of the guards whistled, and all the assembled guests around Mata ducked for cover. The guards pulled their bows full as the round moon. Mata flipped over the table in front of him so he could wield it as a shield, sending bowls and flagons and cups flying everywhere.

The great big packhorse by the statue of Fithowéo whinnied and leapt from where he was standing. As he leapt, his reins, still looped around the foot of the statue, broke. But the statue had not been on a secure foundation, and with a great groan, the statue of Fithowéo began to topple.

Everything seemed to slow down in the banquet hall. The arrows were let loose; the statue continued to fall; the horse arrived in front of Mata; Mata jumped onto the horse, whose height and stature seemed designed for his own; the statue crashed into the ground; the arrows thunked into the statue; dust and broken tables and dishes and cups exploded everywhere; men screamed.

And then Mata was gone from the banquet hall, riding on top of the all-black horse, whose movements were as fluid as wind, as sleek as water, as well matched to Mata’s own as night is well matched to the lone wolf.

I shall name you Réfiroa, thought Mata as he rode back toward Çaruza. The Well-Matched. Wind whipped through his hair, and he had never felt such a sense of freedom or speed. He and the horse were parts of a greater whole.

You’re the mount I have been seeking, just as you have been seeking your rider. For too long we both languished in obscurity, away from our true roles on the world-stage. It is only when beings of true quality are matched to their stations that the world can prosper again.

“That is what a real hero looks like,” whispered Ratho to Dafiro.

For once, Dafiro had no wise comebacks.

A dangerous precedent, Fithowéo, my brother.

Kiji, I’ve done nothing unusual. What mortal have I actively or directly harmed?

You shielded him with your statue—

To prevent harm is not the same as causing harm. Our agreement stands.

You argue like one of Lutho’s paid litigators—

Leave me out of it, brothers and sisters. Though I do note that the distinction between acts of omission and commission has troubled philosophers for—

Enough! I will let this one go, Fithowéo. This one time.

A week later, Duke Shigin’s body was found floating in the moat outside the walls of Dimu. The king mourned the death of his friend publicly and loudly and cursed the drink that had caused Shigin to fall into the water and drown himself.

Everyone calibrated their grief by the king’s. If King Huno cried for half a minute, no one dared to cry for longer. If the king never mentioned a certain name when he spoke of the discovery of the Prophecy of the Fish, then no one else was going to either. If the king reluctantly explained that he had worked hard to try to cover up for Duke Shigin due to their friendship even though the duke was always a bit cowardly and tended to exaggerate his own role in the rebellion — he was just a follower — and couldn’t resist the drink… then the historians and scribes carefully edited their records to match the king’s hints.

“Could you and I have remembered things so wrongly?” asked Ratho. “I could have sworn—”

Dafiro put his hand over his brother’s mouth. “Shush, Little Brother. It’s easy for men to be friends as close as brothers when they’re poor and struggling, but much harder when things are going well. Friends are never as close as blood. Remember that, Rat.”

And of course, no one ever, ever mentioned the faint red circle that had been found around the neck of Duke Shigin’s corpse, which matched the impression made by a rope.

“You don’t see anything wrong with this?” Mün Çakri asked gruffly, his eyes bulging from his round face. “You really don’t see anything wrong with a King of West Cocru created out of thin air?”

Kuni Garu shrugged. “I am the Duke of Zudi by popular proclamation. How is that any more legitimate than his coronation by prophecy?”

“Once this is accepted, you’re going to see kings and dukes springing up like mushrooms after the rain,” Cogo Yelu said matter-of-factly. He shook his head. “We’re all going to rue this day.”

“Well, let them,” Kuni said. “Getting a title is easy. It’s keeping it that’s hard.”

While King Huno promoted many people, none of them were from the group of thirty corvée laborers who had started the rebellion with him. Indeed, after the death of Duke Shigin, none of the laborers would even admit to having been there with him. Ah, the story of the fish. Yes, yes, it’s a very good story. I heard it from someone else.

King Huno slept more easily at night.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN. KUNI, THE ADMINISTRATOR

ZUDI: THE THIRD MONTH IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF RIGHTEOUS FORCE.

Being the Duke of Zudi was probably the first job that Kuni Garu really enjoyed.

The only imperfection was that Jia’s and his families still refused to have anything to do with him — they were sure that this victory was only temporary, and that the empire would be back at any moment.

“They know perfectly well how harsh Xana’s laws are,” Kuni fumed. “If the empire returns, they’ll all be dead. Better go all in and bet everything on me.”

But the elder Garu and Matiza hoped that Erishi would be more merciful than Mapidéré, and they thought it wiser to keep their distance from the doomed rebel and leave themselves some room to maneuver; Kuni obliged them by staying away. (Lu Matiza did manage to send word to Jia through friends that she was sure Gilo would come around, eventually, if Kuni continued to do well.)

But Naré Garu defied Kuni’s father’s wishes and came to visit him and Jia in secret a few times to give advice to the pregnant Jia and to cook Kuni his favorite meals.

“Ma, I’m a grown man now,” Kuni said, as Naré insisted on filling his bowl with sweet taro rice.

“A grown man wouldn’t give his mother so many heartaches,” said Naré. “Just look at how many of my hairs have turned white because of you.”

So Kuni kept on stuffing his mouth with sweet taro rice while Jia watched, smiling. He vowed to make his mother proud — like Jia, she was one of the only people in his life who never gave up on him.

He woke up with the sun, oversaw the morning drills of soldiers outside the city, came back for a quick brunch, and then reviewed civil and administrative matters until early afternoon — his time in the Zudi government came in handy, as he had good relations with the bureaucrats, his former colleagues, and he understood the importance of their unglamorous work. After a quick nap, he met with Zudi business leaders and elders from the countryside to hear their concerns. He invited them to stay for dinner and then reviewed more documents until it was time to go to bed.

“By the Twins, I’ve never seen you work so hard,” Jia said. She stroked Kuni’s hair and his back lovingly, as though she was petting a large, enthusiastic dog.

“Tell me about it,” Kuni said. “I’ve cut my drinking down to only at mealtimes. I’m not sure this is healthy.” He smacked his lips but refrained from looking around for a bottle. Jia wouldn’t drink with him anymore, claiming that it wasn’t safe given her very pregnant state. (“Surely a little drink wouldn’t matter?” “Kuni, it wasn’t easy for me to get pregnant; I’m not taking any chances.”)

“Why do you have to meet with those old peasants?” Jia asked. “The mayor never bothered with them. So much of your work you impose on yourself.”

Kuni’s face turned grave. “People used to see me staggering around the streets, hollering and drunk with my friends. They thought I was a callow youth. Then they saw me go to work as a paid servant of the emperor, and they thought I was a boring bureaucrat with no ambition. But they were wrong.

“I used to think that peasants had little to say because they had no learning in their minds. I used to think that laborers were crude because they had no organ for fine feelings in their hearts. But I was wrong.

“As a jailer, I never got to understand my charges. But when I became a bandit, I spent a lot of time being close to the lowliest of the low: criminals, the enslaved, deserters, men who had nothing to lose. Contrary to what I had expected, I found that they had a hardscrabble beauty and grace. They were not mean in their nature, but made mean by the meanness of their rulers. The poor were willing to endure much, but the emperor had taken everything from them.

“These men have simple dreams: a plot of land, a few possessions, a warm house, conversation with friends, and a happy wife and healthy children. They remember the smallest acts of kindness and think me a good man because of a few exaggerated stories. They’ve raised me on their shoulders and called me duke, and I have a duty to help them get a little closer to their dreams.”

Jia listened carefully and did not hear in Kuni’s speech his habitual whimsy. She searched his eyes and saw in them the same sincere glint that she had seen when she asked him about his future years ago.

Her heart felt so full that she thought it might burst.

“Keep on working then.” Her fingers lingered on his shoulder as she retired to sleep.

After Jia was gone, Kuni thought about sneaking out to share a few sips with Rin Coda at the Splendid Urn.

Rin had promised Kuni a great time if he came out tonight. “Widow Wasu has lined up some great entertainment for us. She’s been telling people how you used to go there often and how she still has your ear. If you show up, you’ll be doing an old friend a great favor.”

Being the Duke of Zudi was very tiring work, and sitting in mipa rari all day long made his back ache. Kuni did yearn to go and be among his old friends, where he could lounge comfortably on the ground in géüpa without concern for his appearance, where he could say what was on his mind without worrying about every word being scrutinized, where he could be his old self, instead of being so responsible.

Yet he knew it to be an impossible wish. Like it or not, he was now the Duke of Zudi, no longer the gangster Kuni Garu. He could no longer be truly comfortable anywhere. Wherever he was, his new title was part of how people saw him.

The Widow Wasu wanted him there so that she could claim a bit of the magic of that title too and turn it into drunk customers and jangling copper pieces.

Rin was also happily running a business where he accepted people’s money in exchange for “access” to the Duke of Zudi. And Wasu probably was one of his new clients.

Cogo Yelu disapproved of this whole business, but Rin answered him by quoting a Classical Ano proverb: “Datralu gacruca ça crunpén ki fithéücadipu ki lodü ingro ça néficaü. No fish can live in perfectly clear water.”

Kuni agreed that it was important to keep some connections to the world of organized crime, and he also assured Cogo that he did not give the people who paid Rin any undeserved advantages.

But he had so much to do. The village elders he met earlier in the day had spoken of the need for repairs to the irrigation ditches. He wanted to review the bid budget from the masons Rin had recommended to be sure that it was fair. Maybe he’d just deal with a few more petitions….

Before long he fell asleep at his desk, and a trail of saliva wet the paper under his face as he dreamed of sweet, hot bowls of sorghum ale.

“Lord Garu, we need to talk about our finances,” Cogo Yelu said.

Kuni was both amused and annoyed whenever he heard his old friends address him as “Lord Garu.” Sure, he liked hearing it from former Imperial constables and soldiers who used to harass him and his friends, but it sounded wrong coming from someone like Cogo, who he always thought of as an older brother. There was no hint of joking in Cogo’s tone, either. He was bowing slightly, his face turned to Garu’s feet.

“Cut that ‘Lord Garu’ bit out, will you? We’re old friends, but you’re acting like a stranger.”

“We are old friends,” Cogo said. “But men have roles and masks that they wear, and these have a reality of their own. Authority is a delicate thing, and it must be carefully cultivated by proper ritual and action from the governing and the governed alike.”

“Cogzy, I haven’t even had a single drink yet today. It’s much too early for your philosophy lessons.”

Cogo sighed and smiled to himself. Kuni’s lack of respect for conventions was both why he liked following Garu and was afraid of where it would all lead. He wanted to help the young man, who indeed seemed a fledgling eagle.

“Kuni, people won’t take you seriously if they see your old friends treat you as an equal. It will confuse them. An actor playing a king on stage will make the audience believe that he really is king when all his fellow players behave as if he were king and follow the proprieties. But if one of the troupe winks at the audience, the illusion is broken. You’re the Duke of Zudi now, and it’s best if you make it clear that you are in charge, no matter who you’re talking to.”

Kuni nodded reluctantly. “All right, you can call me ‘Lord Garu’ in front of other people. But you are still Cogzy. I just can’t call you ‘Minister Yelu’ and keep a straight face. Now don’t object. You know how I get confused with new names.”

Cogo shook his head but decided to let the matter drop. “The finances, Lord Garu.”

“What about them?”

“The money we seized from the Imperial Treasury of Zudi has been exhausted. Much of it was sent to Çaruza when King Thufi called for funds for the Krima-Shigin Expeditionary Force. The remainder has been spent to pay the soldiers’ wages and to, well, fund street parties and free food and clothes for the people of Zudi pursuant to your orders.”

“And I’m guessing that you’re about to tell me that the taxes aren’t coming in fast enough.”

“Lord Garu, your generosity is unmatched. You’ve abolished the multitude of heavy Imperial imposts, and the new taxes I drafted up at your request are quite fair and light. However, we have not been able to collect much on them. The businesses of Zudi are jittery. They aren’t sure that the rebels will win, and if the empire comes back they think any taxes paid to you will be wasted. And so they are… dodging.”

Kuni scratched his head. “The soldiers will have to be paid, of course, and I haven’t forgotten your salary and everyone else who followed me through all the difficult times. I don’t want to push the compliance issue too much, though — nothing gets people more riled up than overzealous tax collectors.”

“Lord Garu is very wise. But I have a proposal.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“We’ll take the restaurant business as an example. The way bars and eateries have been able to avoid paying their full share is by keeping two sets of books. They might take in a hundred fifty silver pieces a night, but the books they show us contain only entries for fifty. We have to find a way to collect on the hidden entries.”

“And how do you propose to do this?”

“I suggest that you announce the establishment of a new lottery game, to reward the lucky and free citizens of Zudi.”

“I fail to see how this is related to the issue of tax dodging.”

“It’s linked, but only indirectly, as all money is fungible.”

“That’s your brilliant idea? We’ll have to offer a huge prize for the lottery to get enough people interested. There’s plenty of gambling parlors in the city already. How can we compete?”

“No, the lottery is only a cover for something better. You see, people won’t be purchasing their lottery tickets directly. Instead, they’ll get them only when shopping, as a kind of receipt. For each silver piece they spend, they obtain from the vendor a lottery ticket for free. The more they spend shopping, the more tickets they get.”

“And where do the vendors get their tickets?”

“They have to purchase them from us.”

Kuni thought about this. The scheme seemed preposterous, and yet… effective.

“Cogzy, you rascal!” Kuni slapped him on the back. “Under this scheme, the vendors won’t be able to cook the books because their own customers will be hounding them for the right number of lottery tickets based on what they spend. And since the businesses have to buy the lottery tickets from us, they’ll end up paying us fees in proportion to their real revenues.”

“Just the way the taxes were supposed to work.”

“You’ve just turned every customer in Zudi into a tax collector for us.” Kuni imagined the look on Widow Wasu’s face when she realized that she could no longer dodge his taxes and almost felt sorry. “Have you no shame?”

“I only learned from the best. When the lord is an honorable bandit, then the follower must come up with unconventional means to achieve his lord’s goals.”

Cogo and Kuni laughed together.

Kuni did not emulate the Krima-Shigin style of military preparation. The way his romantic notions of banditry had been dashed made him suspect that peasants swelled up by the momentary joy of having unexpectedly overthrown their Xana masters would be no match for trained Imperial troops. It was only a matter of time before the empire recovered from these stumbles and fought for real.

“Lord Garu!” Muru saluted smartly as Kuni showed up at the training grounds near the Zudi city gates.

Muru had turned out to be a decent swordsman, and by tying a shield to his left forearm, he could fight as well as any bandit in Kuni’s gang. Now that Kuni had taken over Zudi, Muru became the corporal in charge of one of the squads guarding its main gate.

Kuni waved for Muru to be at ease. He still felt guilty about what had happened to Muru, and having the corporal show such respect embarrassed him. “How’s Phi?” he asked.

Muru lifted his chin in the direction of the training grounds. “He’s in there, hard at work with Commander Çakri.”

Kuni had to do what he could to turn former bandits and rioting citizens into some semblance of a real army. He began by assigning Mün Çakri to lead the soldiers in conditioning exercises.

He was stunned by the scene that greeted him now. A fence had been erected around a circular patch of ground about fifty feet in diameter. Inside, the earth had been doused with water to turn it into a mud pit. Five large pigs squealed and ran around, while ten men — every bit as muddy as the pigs — stumbled after them, struggling to pull their feet out of the thick mud with every step.

“What is going on here?” Kuni demanded.

“Seeing as I’m a butcher,” Çakri said, puffing his chest out proudly, “my training methods may appear somewhat unconventional.”

“This is training?”

“Wrestling pigs in mud will develop the men’s agility and give them endurance, Lord Garu.” As he surveyed the sweaty, mud-coated trainees and loudly squealing pigs, Çakri’s bushy beard stuck out all around his mouth, like a hedgehog. “It will make them ready for the slick tricks of the Imperial pigs, too.”

Kuni nodded and walked away before he broke down in laughter. He had to admit, Mün’s madness did have its own logic.

The former stable master, Than Carucono, was put in charge of the cavalry — though this really meant fifty horses shared by two hundred men. “I need more horses.” He began his habitual lament as soon as he saw the duke.

“And I need lots of things: more men, more money, more weapons and supplies, but you don’t see me complaining about it. Than, you’ll have to make do with what you’ve got.”

“I need more horses,” Than said stubbornly.

“I’m going to start avoiding you if you don’t come up with a new theme.”

For training in more formal tactics, siege craft, and infantry formations, he turned to Lieutenant Dosa, who had been the top-ranking Imperial officer of the garrison at Zudi. Dosa had surrendered after his men dropped their weapons before the rioting citizens of Zudi, and he seemed dedicated to the rebel cause. Kuni didn’t exactly trust him, but he felt that he had no choice. No one else on Kuni’s staff had gone to military school, after all.

Kuni sent his men on regular patrols of the surrounding countryside to clear it of bandits and highwaymen. By a combination of threats and promises, he recruited many of them into his own army — though Cogo and Rin had to persuade him to hang a few notorious leaders who had killed too often as examples. He might have plied the outlaw trade once, but that didn’t prevent him from now becoming the bandit leaders’ worst enemy. Again, it was simply a matter of economics: Merchants sold goods and made profits, which generated taxes, which paid for everything else the duke needed. And none of that would happen if bandits choked off the flow of commerce.

By the third month of the new year, merchants began to travel the roads to Zudi again, and the markets of the city once more bustled. The farmers outside the city also began spring planting. And even fish from the coast could once more be found in Zudi.

“For someone who has never been able to keep even a few prisoners in line, you’re doing a pretty good job running the city,” Jia said.

“I’ve just gotten started,” Kuni boasted.

But he worried. Everything had been going well for him — too well. He felt sure that this was just a momentary lull before the dam broke. The empire was going to make its move soon.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN. THE KING OF RIMA

A HAMLET, RUI AND NA THION, THE BIG ISLAND: THE THIRD MONTH IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF RIGHTEOUS FORCE.

Tanno Namen was old.

He had been a soldier all his life. Heeding the call to serve the homeland and to bring Kiji glory, he had begun his career as a lowly pikeman under General Kolu Tonyeti, the father of General Gotha Tonyeti. He had risen through the ranks steadily by dint of his bravery and unflinching dedication. By the time he finally retired as a general of the Xana Empire, he had spent more than fifty years on the battlefield.

Then, he had gone to the northern coast of Rui Island, to his home village, where he purchased a large estate next to the sea. He planted olives and wolfberries, and he kept a dog named Tozy, who had a limp and would fall asleep next to Namen as he dozed off on the patio overlooking the star-speckled sea at night.

Namen spent his days lolling about the turbulent waters of the Gaing Gulf in his tiny fishing boat. Sometimes, when the sea was calm, he would stay out for a few days and drift with the currents, sleeping in the shade of the sail when it was noon to keep cool, sipping rice wine when it was night to keep warm. When the mood struck him, he would stop, drop anchor, and take out his fishing rod.

He enjoyed catching marlin and sunfish. There was nothing like a meal of raw fresh fish.

Sometimes, on these long sails by himself, he would see the graceful dyrans leaping out of the ocean at sunrise, their scales shimmering like rainbows in the sun, the long, silky tails tracing out parallel arcs in front of his boat. He would always stand up, put his hand respectfully over his heart, and bow. Though he had slept with a sword by his side all his life and never married, he had a great deal of respect for the power of the feminine, symbolized by the dyran.

Namen’s one great love in his life was Xana. He had fought for her and bled for her until she was elevated above all other Tiro states. He was sure that his fighting days were over.

“Look at me,” Namen said. “My limbs are stiff and slow. My sword hand shakes when I try to raise it. I’m most of the way to the grave. Why have you come for me?”

“The regent”—Kindo Marana hesitated, being careful to select the right words—“has removed many generals he suspects of disloyalty. I cannot comment on what I think of these charges. But it has left me with few senior commanders with experience or skill. I need, indeed I’m desperate for, someone to help stem the tide of the advancing rebels.”

“Younger men will have to stand up and be counted.” Namen leaned down to stroke Tozy’s back. “I have done my duty.”

Marana looked at the old man and his dog. He sipped his tea. He calculated in his mind.

“The rebels say that Xana has grown indolent,” Marana said, his tone contemplative and his voice low, as though he were speaking to himself. “They say that we have gotten used to lives of ease and forgotten how to fight.”

Namen listened without showing any sign that he had heard.

“But some say that Xana has not changed at all. They say that the Unification happened only because the Six States were divided and weak, not that Xana was ever strong and brave. They ridicule tales of the bravery of General Tonyeti and General Yuma and call them exaggerations or mere propaganda.”

Namen smashed his cup against the wall. “Ignorant fools!” Tozy’s ears stood up as he turned to see what had angered his master so. “They are not fit to kiss the feet of Gotha Tonyeti, much less speak his name. There is more courage and honor in General Tonyeti’s little toe than in a hundred Huno Krimas.”

Marana continued to sip his tea, keeping his face impassive. Motivating a man was about finding the right tender spots to push until he couldn’t wait to do what you wanted, just like defeating a tax dodger involved finding the one thing he cared about and squeezing it until he opened his purse and willingly, tearfully, offered up everything he owed.

“The rebels are really doing that well, then?” Namen asked, after he was calmer. “Reliable news is hard to come by.”

“Oh yes. They may not look like much, but our garrisons run for the hills as soon as they see the dust thrown up by the rebel mobs over the horizon. The people of the Six States want the blood of Xana to flow, to satiate their hunger for vengeance. Emperor Mapidéré and Emperor Erishi have not ruled… with a gentle hand.”

Namen sighed and unfolded his legs from géüpa. Holding on to the table, he stood up with some difficulty. Tozy came closer and leaned against his legs as he bent down to scratch the dog’s back, but his spine ached and he had to stand back up.

He stretched his stiff back and ran a hand through his silvery hair. He could not imagine getting up on a horse again or swinging his sword with even one-tenth of his former strength.

But he was a Xana patriot through and through, and he realized now his fighting days were not over.

While Marana stayed on Rui to raise up an army of volunteers, young men yearning for adventure and willing to die to defend the spoils of Xana’s conquests, Namen set sail for the Big Island. He would assume command of the defenses around Pan and see if the rebels had any weaknesses that could be exploited.

Along the northwest coast of the Big Island lay the former territory of Haan, curled around the shallow and cold Zathin Gulf and still firmly under Imperial occupation. The floor of the gulf was rich with clams, crabs, and lobsters, and seasonally, herds of seals came to feast.

Moving away from the coast, the land rose gently and turned into a dark forest. The Ring-Woods, ancient, primeval, roughly diamond-shaped, formed the heart of the resurrected Tiro state of Rima. Landlocked and sparsely populated, it was the smallest and weakest of the Seven States prior to the Unification. It seemed a bit of a paradox that Fithowéo, the god of war, weapons, the forge, and slaughter, chose his home here in ring-wooded Rima.

While the towering oaks of Rima formed the masts and hulls of many ships in the navies of the other states, Rima herself never had ambition for the seas. Indeed, her armies were famed for their ability to mine and tunnel deep under the camps of opposing forces and then blow them up with fireworks, an art that Rima craftsmen had perfected from working the rich veins in the Damu and Shinané Mountains.

An old folk song from Xana before the Conquest went something like this:

Power abhors a vacuum, need demands complement.

Cocru and Faça draw their strength from solid land;

Deep miners of Rima wield fire in either hand.

With ships, Amu, Haan, and Gan rule the watery element,

But he who masters air, the empty realm,

Seizes the vantage point, holds the world’s helm.

The song purportedly explained why Xana, once it mastered the airships, achieved victory over all the other Tiro states. But in truth, the description of Rima in the song was a bit exaggerated. The fiery miners of Rima had indeed once been fearsome, but that was a long time ago, and they were only the last embers of a dying glory.

There was a time, long before the Xana Conquest, when Rima’s heroes, wielding weapons made by the best bladesmiths in all of Dara, had dominated the Big Island. The Three Brother States of Haan, Rima, and Faça had made an alliance that combined Haan’s sleek and advanced ships, Rima’s superior weaponry, and Faça’s rugged, terrain-defying infantry into an unstoppable force. And of the three, Rima’s warriors had by far the most renown.

But that was when armies were small, steel was rare and expensive, and battles were waged by individual champions dueling mano a mano. Under such a system, Rima’s small population was no disadvantage. Fueled by the wealth of her mines, the Rima kings could afford to train a few elite swordsmen and hold sway among the other Tiro states. And Fithowéo’s favor for the domain was understandable.

But once the Tiro states began to field large armies, the prowess of the individual warrior became less important. A hundred soldiers fighting with brittle iron spears in formation could still bring down a champion clad in thick armor and wielding a sword of thousand-hammered steel. The martial prowess of someone like Dazu Zyndu was mainly symbolic, and even Dazu himself understood that battles were won and lost as a result of strategy, logistics, and numbers.

Under such a system, Rima’s decline was inevitable. It became dominated by Faça, the far more populous state to its northeast, and its once illustrious past became merely a distant memory. The Rima kings turned for solace to ritual and ceremony, keeping alive a dream of greatness that was long dead.

Such was the Rima that had been conquered by Xana, and the Rima that was revived.

“Rima is hollow,” the spies sent out by General Namen told him. “Faça troops drove away our garrisons and re-established Rima a few months ago. But Faça has recalled them to help in a dispute with Gan. Rima’s own soldiers are untrained and the commanders full of fear. They can be easily bought with gold, women, and the promise of clemency from the emperor.”

Namen nodded. Under cover of darkness, three thousand Imperial troops from Pan quietly ferried across the Miru River, marched stealthily around the tip of the Damu Mountains, and disappeared into the dark woods of Rima.

With the help of Faça’s King Shilué, King Jizu, the grandson of the last King of Rima before the Unification, had reclaimed the throne in the ancient capital of Na Thion.

Young Jizu was bewildered by the change in his circumstances. He had been just a boy of sixteen trying to make a living as an oysterman on the shores of Zathin Gulf, and his biggest concern was winning the heart of Palu, the prettiest girl in the village.

And then soldiers of Faça came into his hut, knelt down before him, and told him that he was now the King of Rima. They draped a robe of silk woven with gold and silver threads over his shoulders, handed him an old cruben bone inlaid with coral and pearls by the jewelers in misty, salt-kissed Boama, and whisked him away from the sea and from the dark but lively eyes of Palu, eyes that said so much without making a sound.

So here he was in Na Thion, where the streets were paved with strips of sandalwood laid on a bed of crushed volcanic pumice, and the palace, built from the hard ironwood of Rima’s mountains, seemed as foreign as a palace on the moon. On every street corner there seemed to be a shrine dedicated to one of Rima’s ancient heroes, back when the name of Rima still inspired respect and fear on the battlefield.

“This is your ancestral home,” men who called themselves his ministers said. “We watched your father grow up here. We watched him cry before the Double-Tree Gate as the rest of your family was cut down by Xana soldiers for refusing to surrender. Oh, how straight were their backs as they looked at their executioners with equanimity!”

The ministers refrained from criticizing his father, the crown prince. He had been the only member of the royal family to kneel down to the Xana general and to offer up the Seal of Rima. He had then been exiled to the shores of the Zathin Gulf, in old Haan, where he became a fisherman and brought up his boy to be an ordinary man, a man with no concerns other than hauling in a good day’s catch and settling down with a good woman.

But Jizu could tell that the bowing ministers wished, perhaps without themselves being clearly aware of it, that his father had followed the example of the rest of his family and allowed himself to be killed rather than submit to the Xana conquerors. In their eyes, his father was not the quiet, thoughtful man that Jizu had known all his life, a man who enjoyed grilling oysters on hot stones, a man who only ever drank dandelion tea flavored with a bit of crushed rock sugar, a man who was so gentle that he never raised his voice.

“There is far more happiness in a life that is your own,” his father had said to Jizu, “than a life in which you are handed the lines to say and shown the gestures to make. Do not ever be ambitious.” His father had always been reluctant to speak of his former life in the Palace of Na Thion, a reticence that lasted until his death from a lingering sickness caused by an injury from the poisonous spines of sea urchins.

But in the eyes of the ministers, his father was a mere symbol, a symbol of Rima’s humiliation.

Jizu wanted to tell them that his father was a good man, a man who decided that enough blood had been shed, that being king was not as important as being alive, as waking up every morning to see the sun dappling the waves and the dyrans leaping across the bow of a fishing boat. He wanted to defend his father’s honor against the contempt that he saw in their faces.

But he said nothing as he listened to his ministers recount the haughty words of his grandfather, the last King of Rima, as he defied the Xana conquerers.

Even when every last man of Rima has died, we will continue to fight you as spirits.

You have not seen the last of me. I will await you on the other side.

The story seemed to him the account of a family that lived only in fairy tales and shadow plays.

He did as his ministers directed him to do. Knowing nothing of the rituals of kingship, he gave himself up to be their puppet. He followed their orders and then parroted back what they told him to say, as if he were the one giving the orders.

But he was not stupid. He could tell that King Shilué had helped him reclaim the throne not simply out of the goodness of his heart. Rima was weak and dependent on Faça. It served as a buffer between the Imperial heartland in Géfica and Faça itself. Should the new Tiro states successfully overthrow the empire, there would be a new contest for dominance, and King Shilué would enjoy an advantage in such a contest if he could run things in Na Thion by pulling on invisible strings attached to Jizu. Were his ministers really his? Or did they also listen to orders coming out of Faça? He could not tell.

He imagined a giant pair of scissors cutting the strings away. But who could wield such scissors? Not him.

He prayed for guidance from Fithowéo, but the god’s statue in the temple simply stared back at him, giving him no signs. He was on his own.

He did not like this new life, but he felt compelled to accept it. He wished he could return to his days as an oysterman in love with another oysterman’s daughter, but his royal blood made that dream impossible.

Three thousand Imperial soldiers slipped through the woods of Rima like ghosts. Rima commanders, fearful or paid off by Xana spies, dismissed reports from their scouts and refused to leave their oaken-walled fortresses to engage the invaders. Some soldiers, hardy woodsmen of Rima who believed that they were free of the emperor’s cruelties forever, defied the treachery and cowardice of their commanders and fought on their own. They were cut down quickly by the Imperial army.

A week later, on a foggy, cold morning, the Imperial army emerged from the woods into the clearing around Na Thion and laid siege to the capital.

The defending soldiers soon exhausted their meager supply of arrows. Jizu’s ministers ordered the houses of the common people disassembled so that shingles, beams, and broken pieces of building materials could be used as weapons to be hurled at the Xana soldiers trying to scale the walls. The people of Na Thion, their homes destroyed, slept in the streets and shivered at night in the chilly air of spring.

Messenger pigeons sent to seek aid from Faça went unanswered. Perhaps they were hunted down by trained falcons that the defecting Rima commanders had offered up to General Namen. Or perhaps King Shilué had decided that aid would be wasted because Faça’s young army could not stand against General Namen and his battle-hardened veterans. In any event, no help would be forthcoming for Rima.

The ministers begged the king to consider surrender in the face of certain defeat.

“I thought you did not approve of my father’s decision.”

The ministers had no response to this. But a few snuck out of the city on their own and headed for the Xana camps. Their heads were sent back to Na Thion in sandalwood boxes.

General Namen’s men shot arrows with letters wrapped around the shafts into Na Thion. Xana was not interested in the surrender of the city. An example had to be made to the other rebel Tiro states that insurrection would not be tolerated. Traitors to the empire must pay. Na Thion would be slaughtered to the last man, and all the women sold.

Their hope for mercy from Xana or salvation from Faça gone, the ministers became desperate. They now wanted the king to order the citizenry to resist to the utmost. Perhaps if they put up enough of a fight they could convince Namen to reconsider.

But Namen stopped attacking the city. He ordered his men to dam up the river flowing into Na Thion and to wait until starvation, thirst, and disease did his work for him.

“We are running out of water and food,” King Jizu said, and licked his parched lips. He had given the order that the palace and all officials must follow the same rationing regimen imposed on the rest of the city. “We must think of a way to save the people.”

“Your Majesty,” one of the ministers declared, “you are the symbol of the will of the people of Rima. The people should be happy to die for you. The glorious expiration of their bodies will preserve the rectitude of their spirit.”

“Perhaps we should order some of the citizenry to commit suicide to demonstrate their loyalty to Rima,” another of the ministers suggested. “This will conserve supplies for the rest of us.”

“Perhaps some of the women and children can be organized into a siege-breaking unit,” yet another minister offered. “We can open the city gates and herd them to rush at the Imperial forces. The emperor’s soldiers, faced with so many feminine and childish faces, may hesitate, unable to cut them down in cold blood. If they allow the women and children to escape, we can wear disguises and mingle into their number to reach safety. And if they do start killing the women and children, we can retreat and make another plan.”

King Jizu could not believe what he was hearing. “Shameful! You have lectured me all these months about the honor of the House of Rima and the duties the king and the nobles owe to the people. But now you suggest the people of Rima make meaningless sacrifices to save your worthless lives. The people offer up their treasure and labor and maintain all of us in luxury with the single expectation that we will protect them in times of danger. Yet this one obligation you wish to shirk by sending women and children to die. You disgust me.”

King Jizu stood on the walls of Na Thion and asked to parley with General Namen.

“You care for the lives of the young men who fight for you, General.”

Namen squinted up at the young boy, saying nothing.

“I can tell because you have not attacked Na Thion. You’re unwilling to let even one soldier die if victory could be obtained another way.”

The Xana soldiers looked at their general, who stood tall and kept his face still.

“The city is close to death now. I can give the order for a desperate counterattack. We will surely lose, yet some of your men will die, and your name will be despised among the people of the Six States for generations as a killer of women and children.”

Namen’s face twitched, but he continued to listen.

“Rima is poor in arms and men but rich in symbols. I am perhaps the best symbol of all, General. If you wish to make an example to the other rebelling Tiro states, it is enough that you have me. The people of Na Thion have resisted you only at my orders. If you spare them, you may win future battles with less resistance and less loss of life. But if you slaughter them, you will only make every city you attack in the future more determined to never surrender.”

Finally, General Namen spoke.

“You may not have grown up in a palace, but you’re worthy of the Throne of Rima.”

The terms of the surrender were very clear. Jizu and all his ministers would pledge complete obeisance to Emperor Erishi and cease all resistance. In exchange, General Namen would not harm the population of Na Thion.

Jizu knew that Namen planned to take him back to Pan as a war captive. There, he would be paraded, naked, through the city’s broad avenues, filled with jubilant citizens celebrating victory over a rebel king. More strings; more puppetry. Then, he might be executed in public after long torture, or he might be spared. It was up to the whims of Emperor Erishi.

It was now night. As the gates of Na Thion opened, King Jizu knelt in the middle of the road. He held up the Seal of Rima in one hand and a torch in the other. He looked very alone in that circle of light surrounded by darkness.

“Remember what you promised,” he said to the approaching General Namen. “I have ceased all resistance and I am at your mercy. Do you agree that this is so?”

General Namen nodded.

Jizu looked to his ministers, kneeling on the two sides of the main street of Na Thion. They were dressed in their finest formal clothing, as if it were the day of his coronation. The bright colors and fabrics made a sharp contrast against the tattered rags on the commoners arrayed behind them, like the contrast between the calm dignity on the faces of the ministers — they were witnessing a ceremony, a matter of ritual and politics — and the fear and anger on the faces of the emaciated crowd.

The king laughed quietly. “And now, my loyal ministers, you’ll get the symbol you wished for. I will await you on the other side.”

He dropped the torch and lit himself on fire. His clothes had been doused with fragrant oil, and the flames quickly consumed his body and the Seal of Rima. He screamed and screamed, and all the men around, from both Xana and Rima, stood as if frozen in their places.

By the time they finally doused the flames, King Jizu was dead, and the Seal of Rima damaged beyond recognition.

“He hasn’t lived up to his promise,” one of Namen’s lieutenants said. “We can’t bring this charred body back to Pan as a trophy and parade it in triumph. Should we slaughter the city?”

General Namen shook his head. The smell of burned flesh nauseated him, and he felt very old and tired at that moment. He had liked Jizu’s pale face, his curled hair and thin nose. He had admired the way the boy held his back straight, and the way he looked at him, the conqueror, with no fear in his calm gray eyes. He would have liked to sit and have a long talk with the young man, a man he thought very brave.

He wished again that Kindo Marana had not sought him out. He wished he were sitting in front of the fire in his house, his hand stroking a contented Tozy. But he loved Xana, and love required sacrifices.

There are enough sacrifices for now.

“He has lived up to a promise greater than the one he made to me. The people of Na Thion are safe from the sword of Xana today.”

The densely packed people of Na Thion greeted his announcement with silence. Their eyes were focused on the kneeling ministers, now trembling like leaves in a breeze.

Namen sighed. War is like a heavy wheel that spins with its own momentum.

He continued in a toneless voice. “But load all of Jizu’s ministers into prison carts; we’ll bring them back to Pan and feed them to the emperor’s menagerie.”

And the crowd broke into wild, barbaric cheers; their dancing, pounding feet sent tremors through the ground under the feet of the Xana army.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN. “YOUR MAJESTY”

DIMU: THE FOURTH MONTH IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF RIGHTEOUS FORCE.

At Dimu, where the great Liru emptied into the sea, the channel of the river was almost a mile wide. On the north side of the river mouth, across from Dimu, was the city of Dimushi, Dimu’s younger, richer, more sophisticated sister. While ships departing from Dimu were laden with the produce of the farms of the Cocru heartland, Dimushi’s docks were filled with ships carrying the thousand-hammered steel, lacquerware, and porcelain made by the skilled craftsmen of Géfica, part of the old Tiro state of Amu.

After the Unification, taxes, goods, and people from all over the Islands arrived at Dimu and Dimushi before sailing up the Liru to Pan, the glittering heart of the empire. On both shores, countless water mills churned, powering millstones and workshops that drove commerce along the watery highway. More money flowing through the mouth of the Liru meant more of everything, good and bad. Travelers to the twin cities said that if you wanted good food and honest merchants, you went to Dimu, but if you were in search of beautiful women and nights that never ended, you went to Dimushi.

These days, Dimu and Dimushi stared across at each other like two angry wolves across a ravine. Dimu was where King Huno set up his court, and his ten thousand rebels waited for the chance to cross the river and march on Pan. Dimushi was where Tanno Namen waited with ten thousand Imperial troops, looking for an opportunity to crush the rebels. The Liru itself was patrolled by the great ships of the Imperial navy, a moving wooden wall that separated the two sides. Once in a while, one of the ships would launch a flaming bucket of oil at Dimu, and as the men on shore scattered, cursing, the catapult operators on the ships laughed uproariously.

As the Imperial forces in Dimushi seemed content to do nothing except offer up a low level of constant harassment of the defenses at Dimu, Huno Krima decided to ignore them. After all, he was now King Huno, and he had more important matters to attend to.

Such as his new palace.

Huno Krima might not have known much about being king, but he held as an article of faith that a great king had to have a great palace. A Tiro state would not be properly respected unless it had a palace as grand as — no, grander than — those of the other Tiro states.

And so the soldiers of West Cocru spent their days not in drills, but in hauling wood and stacking brick, in digging foundations and shaping stone.

Faster, higher, bigger! King Huno berated his ministers and architects. Why is the progress on the palace so slow?

Faster, faster, faster! the ministers insisted to the captains and lieutenants, now acting as construction foremen. You must make the men work harder.

Faster, faster, faster! the foremen screamed at the soldiers, now pressed into service as laborers. And they were liberal with the use of whips and canes and other methods of amplifying their message.

Some of the soldiers began to wonder why they were “rebels” if what they were doing was pretty much the same as what they had been doing for Emperor Erishi at the Mausoleum or in the Grand Tunnels.

The soldiers’ grumbling reached King Huno’s ears.

The king thundered and raged at the ungrateful men, who refused to see the difference between laboring unwillingly for a tyrant like Emperor Erishi and fervently contributing to the glory of their liberator and their new country. The men who were whispering such things were clearly spies of the empire, here to sow the seeds of dissatisfaction and dissent and to spread lies and propaganda. They must be rooted out.

Trusted officers, led by the captain of the guards, were assigned by the king to form a special secret unit whose members would walk through the camps at night, listening for those who dared to speak against the honor of King Huno and West Cocru. They wore black kerchiefs tightly fastened by a knot in the back of the head as an addition to their uniforms, and those that the Black Caps accused of treason were never heard from again.

The more traitors the Black Caps caught, the more afraid King Huno became. It seemed that the empire had spies everywhere. He would stare for minutes at trembling ministers who had forgotten to properly address him as “Your Majesty.” He would ask one man to spy on another, only to tell the other one an hour later to spy on the first. How could he be sure that the Black Caps themselves had not been infiltrated by Imperial spies too?

The solution was obvious. He gathered a few men that he especially trusted and gave them the authority to spy on the Black Caps. These men wrapped white kerchiefs knotted at the backs of their heads to signify their elevated level of trust. The first man they accused of treason was the former captain of the guards, leader of the Black Caps — the result disappointed King Huno, but he thought it made perfect sense. Just as a fish rots from the head down, corruption started at the top. Of course the captain of the guards would betray him.

So the Black Caps watched the people, while the White Caps watched the Black Caps. But who was going to watch the White Caps? This troubled King Huno greatly. He thought and thought and came up with the Gray Caps.

Every solution seemed to create a new problem, and King Huno fell into despair.

During the nights, men began to run away from the camps in Dimu — first a trickle, and then, gradually, a flood.

“Maybe we should run away too, Rat,” Dafiro whispered to his brother. He was careful to do this out of the hearing of anyone else. One could never be sure who was a Black Cap in disguise. “Before we are also called traitors.”

But Ratho shook his head. He still remembered the thrill of the moment he plunged the knife into the Xana soldier, the first man that he ever killed. King Huno was the one who showed him that he could stand up like a man and take back the life that the empire was going to grind into dust with the same carelessness as the empire crushed stones for the foundation of the Mausoleum. King Huno promised that men like Ratho would be able to bring down the empire and avenge his mother and father.

Ratho would not forget that.

The camps at Dimu still had room for ten thousand men, but more than half the bunks were empty at night.

“Why is the palace still not done?” King Huno raged. “I told you to hurry. Hurry!”

None of the ministers dared to tell him that there were now not enough soldiers to maintain the construction schedule. Press gangs roamed the surrounding countryside, forcefully conscripting any men who still hadn’t run away. Deserters who were caught were executed in front of those who remained to instill lessons in loyalty, but this seemed to only make the problem worse, not better.

Finally, even the sentries posted on the banks of the Liru had to be pulled back into the city to work on the construction of the palace, the only project the king cared about.

“General, lookouts sent aloft in battle kites report counting smoke from cooking fires in front of only one out of every ten tents at dinnertime.”

“It’s time,” General Namen said.

In the dead of the night, while King Huno’s soldiers slept the sleep of exhaustion and fear, five thousand Imperial infantry silently floated across the Liru on shallow-bottomed transports, landing a few miles up the river. As they marched toward Dimu, the Imperial navy began to bombard the shore with an intensity never before seen by the defenders. The bright arcs traced out by the tumbling buckets of flaming oil were like meteors that lit up the sky, and in their flickering light, swarms of arrows screamed toward the camps where King Huno’s last soldiers lay sleeping.

It was a rout, pure and simple. Half of West Cocru’s soldiers died before they were even fully awake or had put on their armor. The other half tried to put up some resistance and found that they should have spent their days practicing with swords and bows, not chiseling stones and sawing lumber. But it was too late for regret.

King Huno grabbed his scepter and the smooth new jade Seal of West Cocru. He leapt into his carriage and screamed at his driver to hurry. They had to get out of Dimu right away and go back to Çaruza, where King Thufi would have to give him command of the rest of the rebel forces so that he could avenge this humiliating defeat.

It’s not fair, he fumed. The righteous hatred that his men shared for Xana should have made them invincible. The only explanation was that his troops had been betrayed by cowards hidden within their ranks. He lost only because the Imperial general, that decrepit and crafty Namen, had too many dirty tricks and spies. He needed not only the Black Caps and the White Caps and the Gray Caps, but also caps of every hue of the rainbow.

“Faster, faster, faster!” he barked at his driver.

The driver was a man in his thirties. The tattoos on his face showed that he had been a convicted felon under the laws of Xana. Instead of whipping the horses as King Huno had expected, he let the horses trot along leisurely and turned around to face the king.

“My name is Théca Kimo, from the Tunoa Islands.”

Huno looked at him blankly.

“I was one of the first to heed the call for rebellion in Napi, to join you and Duke Shigin,” said Théca. “You and Zopa Shigin shared a drink with me that night, after we won.”

“Do not speak of Shigin as though he were my equal—”

But Théca interrupted him. “My brother fell sick ten days ago, but his hundred-chief wouldn’t let him rest because everyone had to work on your palace. He fainted in the noon heat, and a foreman whipped him until he died. Did you know about this?”

King Huno had no idea what this man was babbling about, but he caught another mistake in his manners. “You must say ‘Your Majesty’ when you speak to me. Now hurry up and get me out of here.”

“I don’t think so, Your Majesty,” Kimo said. He yanked on the reins so that the carriage lurched to a sudden stop, tumbling King Huno out of his seat. Then with a swift stroke of his sword, Kimo severed Huno Krima’s head from his shoulders.

“And now you can dream of a palace as grand as you like.” Kimo released one of the horses from the carriage harness and jumped onto its back without a saddle. “But as for me, I’m going to follow a real hero.”

He turned east and rode toward Çaruza, where Mata Zyndu, another son of Tunoa and already a legend, had ridden with Réfiroa.

We concede this first round, Kiji. We’ve clearly underestimated both Marana and Namen.

That seems to be a pattern with you two and Fithowéo, always looking down on Xana.

Gloat all you want, brother, puff up like one of your airships. The one laughing the last will be the one laughing the loudest.

“My heart is gladdened to see you,” King Thufi said, as he welcomed Phin and Mata Zyndu at the gates of Çaruza. “Cocru desperately needs a true marshal.”

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN. THE GATES OF ZUDI

ÇARUZA AND ZUDI: THE FOURTH MONTH IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF RIGHTEOUS FORCE.

Tanno Namen’s surprise attack on Dimu marked the beginning of a grand Imperial sweep along the southern shore of the Liru River. Within weeks, most of the towns and cities that had surrendered to the Krima-Shigin Expeditionary Force were back under Imperial control, and the Imperial army began an inexorable march south for the reconquest of Cocru.

The Grand Council of War in Çaruza, convened by King Thufi of Cocru, had been debating for weeks without coming to a resolution.

King Thufi glanced around the meeting hall and saw that the ambassadors of Amu, Faça, Rima, and Gan, along with King Cosugi of Haan, were all present. Each man sat in formal mipa rari on mats in their respective Tiro colors on the thick and smooth straw paper floor, keeping their backs tall and straight while spreading their weight evenly between their knees and toes.

“We must begin by properly honoring the memory of King Jizu, the bravest monarch of the Islands of Dara,” said the Rima ambassador. He dabbed at the corners of his eyes with his sleeves.

Everyone in the hall nodded in assent, and each rose in turn to offer an elaborate speech praising the brave life and even braver death of King Jizu. King Thufi glanced at the descending level in the water clock and tried to hide his impatience. It was doubtful if any of these men, including the Rima ambassador, could have picked King Jizu out of a group of beggars three weeks ago. But now they all acted as if they had known the man since he was a child.

The Faça ambassador gave the longest speech of all and emphasized again and again the “special relationship” between Faça and Rima. King Thufi tried so hard not to give in to the temptation to roll his eyes that he found himself suffering from a headache. The Faça ambassador finally sat down, an hour later.

“Thank you for the honor shown Rima today,” the Rima ambassador said, his voice almost cracking. “I suppose I am now the head of the Rima government-in-exile,” he added in a voice that was just loud enough to be heard by everyone in the meeting hall without being considered indecorous.

Just as King Thufi was about to raise the main issue he wanted the council to discuss, the Faça ambassador got up again. “We should also mourn King Huno of West Cocru. Though his manners might have been rough”—the ambassador winked at the ambassadors from Gan and Amu, who tittered—“he was nonetheless honored by King Thufi and elevated into the ranks of the great Tiro states.”

You might think Huno Krima was a country bumpkin, but without him, this rebellion wouldn’t have even started. The least you could do is to honor the man’s memory with some sincerity.

But Thufi had to suppress his anger. There were more important things that he wanted to discuss, and he needed the cooperation of this idiot who spoke for Faça.

One by one, the others in the hall stood up again to offer disingenuous tributes to King Huno. Thankfully, their speeches were brief this time.

Finally, thought King Thufi. “My tiro Lords, we must discuss the urgent matter of Tanno Namen’s invasion of Cocru—”

But King Cosugi interrupted him. “Thufi, if you would indulge an old man for a minute.”

With great effort, King Thufi swallowed the rest of his speech and nodded at Cosugi to go on. He already knew what Cosugi was going to say. Though Haan wasn’t even free of Imperial occupation, Cosugi was obsessed with preserving Haan’s “territorial integrity.” The man had one tune, and he sang it constantly.

Yet, he couldn’t just tell Cosugi to shut up. All the Tiro states were, in theory, equals. So despite the fact that Haan had contributed absolutely nothing to the rebellion so far, Thufi had to let Cosugi have his say in the Grand Council.

“I’ve heard some distressing news that Faça’s troops are taking advantage of Namen’s focus on Cocru to occupy lands that by ancient and natural right belong to Rima and Haan,” King Cosugi said.

“Your Majesty, I’m certain you’re mistaken,” the Faça ambassador said. “The maps given to the Faça commanders have been scrupulously examined to correct those old errors that might have mistakenly enlarged Haan at the expense of Faça. But you’ve reminded me of something else. I do need to lodge a protest with Gan. Gan ships have been harassing Faça fishermen around the Ogé Islands. Those islands have always belonged to Faça, not Gan, as I’m sure everyone here can attest.”

“I don’t think the Annals of Gan agree with you,” said the ambassador of Gan. “Indeed, the illegal occupation of those islands by Faça occurred only because Gan had been too busy dealing with Xana more than a hundred years ago. And while we are talking about correcting old errors, I think it’s high time for Cocru to finally do the honorable thing and return the Tunoas to Gan.”

King Thufi rubbed his temples in a vain attempt to alleviate the sharp stabs of pain that threatened to break his skull.

“My tiro Lords,” he finally said, and he almost had to spit out the honorific. “You seem to be operating under the impression that the empire is already history and that we’re already back to the old days of the squabbling Seven States. But you’re forgetting that the Imperial army is marching closer with each passing minute, and either we put aside our differences and stand together, or else we’ll each again suffer the fate of Rima and fall under the yoke of Xana.”

The ambassadors and King Cosugi were silent for a moment, but soon the meeting hall was again filled with their incessant bickering.

King Thufi rubbed his temples harder.

Phin Zyndu, listening in the corridors outside the meeting hall, shook his head and said nothing as he turned to leave. There was real work to be done, and he could no longer afford to waste time.

Since it was spring and the weather warm and pleasant, Kuni Garu decided to take Jia, Rin, Cogo, Mün, and Than on a picnic. All the reports said that Namen and the Imperial army were still miles away to the west, and a picnic would take people’s minds off the anxiety of how to defend Zudi against an Imperial assault.

“I do not want to hear anything about needing more horses today,” Kuni said as soon as Than Carucono arrived with horses for the party.

Than smiled. “Not a word.”

They kept the pace slow for Jia’s benefit. She was due any day now, but she enjoyed the fresh air and the hills full of wildflowers. From time to time she stopped and asked others to dig up interesting-looking herbs that she sniffed and then put away in her pouch.

Jia had also prepared a picnic lunch of fresh steamed pork buns (these she flavored with some of the new herbs she picked up on the way; “As fresh as they get,” she said), bamboo shoots soaked with sugar and vinegar, crab cakes sprinkled with Dasu hot pepper, and bubbly wine taken from the collection of Lieutenant Dosa, the former commander of the Imperial garrison at Zudi who had rebelled and joined Kuni. Instead of using eating sticks, everyone just picked from the dishes with their hands.

“That was a good meal,” Kuni said, and burped in satisfaction. The six of them were lying on the side of a sun-warmed hill, having eaten and drunk their fill, and tired from hunting hares and pheasants. They let the horses wander and graze at will. It was such a lovely day, and it would be a shame to go back to the city and do actual work.

Than got up to stretch and to make sure the horses didn’t go too far. “Why are they flying white flags over the city?” he said.

The others lazily got up, shaded their eyes, and gazed at the walls of Zudi in the distance. Than was right. Instead of the red flags charged with black and white ravens, white flags now flapped over the city gates, and Kuni had the unpleasant suspicion that the bird on the flags was a Mingén falcon.

Suddenly sober and worried, Kuni and his retinue rode hard and rushed back to the gates of Zudi. Unsurprisingly, the gates were closed and locked.

“I’m sorry, Duke Garu.” The man shouting from the top of the walls was a former Imperial.

“Where’s Muru?” Kuni shouted. Muru was normally in charge of raising and lowering the gates.

“He wouldn’t betray you and tried to fight, and Lieutenant Dosa had to kill him.”

Kuni felt as if he had been punched hard in the gut. “Why are you doing this?”

“While you were out, Lieutenant Dosa asked the city elders to pledge allegiance to the emperor again. We hear that General Namen will spare any city that ejects the rebels and surrenders right away. But if we resist, the punishment will be harsh. I really like you, Duke Garu, and I think you’re a fine prince. But I have a wife and a little girl, and I want to watch her grow up and get married.”

For a moment, Kuni was racked by his old doubts. His face clouded over, and as his horse backed up, he almost fell off.

“Damn,” he muttered. “Damn.”

“You started with nothing,” said Jia. “Why can’t you start again?”

Kuni reached for Jia’s hand and squeezed, hard.

When he looked up again, his face was filled with determination. “It’s all right,” he shouted up at the walls. “Tell everyone that I understand their decision, even if I don’t agree. But you haven’t seen the last of Kuni Garu.”

As the sun set in the west, six horses carrying six dejected riders stopped by a small stream to camp for the night. After some deliberation, Kuni decided that the most sensible course was to head for Çaruza and see if he could convince King Thufi to accept this “duke by proclamation” and lend him some troops to get Zudi back.

They cooked the hares and pheasants they had caught earlier on the open fire, but the dark mood around the fire contrasted sharply with the lighthearted festivities earlier in the day.

A tall man emerged from the woods next to the river and approached the group. Than and Mün were wary and lifted their hands to the hilts of their swords. The man smiled disarmingly, held up his empty hands, and walked slowly toward the fire. As he came closer, into the circle of light cast by the fire, they saw that he was lean and gaunt, and his skin was as black as the famed sands of Lutho Beach. His bright-green eyes sparkled in the flickering light.

“I am Luan Zya, a man of Haan. Would you be willing to share your food with a stranger? I would be happy to offer my wineskin.”

Kuni stared at the stranger. This Luan Zya — something about his figure stirred his mind and recalled a memory from almost a dozen years ago: that day when he and Rin Coda had admired the Imperial Procession of Emperor Mapidéré just outside of Zudi.

“You are the kite rider,” he blurted out. “You are the man who tried to kill the emperor.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN. LUAN ZYA

GINPEN: BEFORE THE XANA CONQUEST.

In high-minded Haan, scholarship had been not just a luxury, but a way of life.

Before the Xana Conquest, in the countryside, next to the broad, reedy tidal flats and rocky beaches, countless learning huts used to sprout up like sand castles; the tutors in these huts, paid for by the state, instructed the children of the poor in reading, writing, and basic proficiency with numbers. More talented and wealthy students went to Ginpen, the capital and home to Dara’s most renowned private academies. Many of Dara’s greatest scholars spent their formative years within the lecture halls and laboratories of Ginpen’s academies: Tan Féüji, the philosopher who elaborated governance into an art form; Lügo Crupo, regent of the empire and a peerless calligrapher; Gi Anji, who taught them both; Huzo Tuan, who defied death to criticize Mapidéré to his face; and many others.

In old Haan, a traveler could stop any farmer walking through the fields and have a conversation about politics, astronomy, agriculture, or meteorology and learn something. In Ginpen, even a common merchant’s assistant clerk could calculate cube roots and fill out magic squares with no assistance. In teahouses and wine bars — though the food was plain and the drink merely passable — one could encounter the most brilliant minds of Dara debating matters of political and natural philosophy. Though Haan wasn’t the most industrious of the Tiro states, her engineers and inventors created the most sought-after designs for water mills and windmills and made the most accurate water clocks.

But all this changed after the Conquest. Compared with other Tiro states, Mapidéré’s book-burning and scholar-burying had dealt a harsher blow to Haan’s spirit. The learning huts were no longer funded and fell into disuse; many of the private academics in Ginpen closed; and the few that survived were mere shadows of their former selves, where the scholars were afraid to give true answers and more afraid to ask real questions.

Every time Luan Zya thought of giving up his life’s mission, he would remember the dead scholars, the burning books, and the empty lecture halls where accusations from ghostly voices seemed to echo without cease.

The Zyas had served the House of Haan since time immemorial. Just in the last five generations, the Zyas had produced three prime ministers, two generals, and five royal augurs at the Haan court.

Luan Zya was a brilliant boy. At five, he could recite from memory three hundred poems by Haan poets who composed in Classical Ano. At seven, he managed to perform a deed that stunned the Royal College of Augurs.

Divination was an ancient art in the Islands of Dara, but no Tiro state was more dedicated to its practice than scholarly Haan. After all, Haan was the favored land of the god Lutho, divine trickster, mathematician, and seer. The gods always spoke ambivalently, and sometimes they even changed their minds in the middle of your asking them a question. Divination was a matter of ascertaining the future through inherently unreliable methods.

To improve the accuracy of predictions, it was thus best to ask the same question multiple times and see what came out as the most common answer. For example, suppose the king wished to know whether the harvest and fishing this year would be more bountiful than last year. To answer the query, the College of Augurs would gather and formulate the question in prayers to Lutho.

Then they would take the dried shells of ten great sea turtles — the messengers of Lutho — and line them up on the black sands of Lutho Beach. Ten iron rods would be heated in a brazier full of hot coals fanned by a furnace, and when the rods were glowing red they would be taken out and pressed against the turtle shells until they cracked. The augurs would then gather and tabulate the directions of the cracks. If six shells cracked in a more-or-less east-west direction and four shells cracked in a more-or-less north-south direction, that meant that the year’s harvest and fishing had a three-in-five chance of being better than last year’s. This result could be refined further by measuring the precise angle each of the cracks formed relative to the cardinal directions.

For the augur, geometry and other branches of mathematics were important tools.

Luan’s father was chief augur, and Luan observed his father’s work with great interest as a child. One day, when he was seven, Luan accompanied his father to Lutho Beach, where the College of Augurs was to consult on the answer to an important question from the king. While his father and the other gray-bearded augurs did their work, Luan wandered away by himself and began to play a game of his own devising.

He drew a square in the sand and inscribed within it a circle. He closed his eyes and tossed pebbles in the general direction of the figure and then marked down on a piece of paper the number of times the pebbles managed to land inside the square and the number of times the pebbles also landed inside the circle.

His father came to get him after the ceremony was over.

“What game are you playing, Lu-tika?”

Luan replied that he was not playing a game at all. He was calculating the value of Lutho’s Number, which is the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter.

The circle’s area, Luan explained, was Lutho’s Number times its radius squared. The square’s area, on the other hand, was the square of twice the circle’s radius, or four times the radius squared. So the ratio of the circle’s area to the square’s was equal to Lutho’s Number divided by four.

If enough pebbles were thrown, the ratio of the number of pebbles that fell in the circle and the number of pebbles that fell in the square approximated the ratio of the figures’ respective areas. Dividing the ratio by four gave Luan an estimate of Lutho’s Number itself. The more pebbles thrown, the more accurate the estimate.

And so, from chance, Luan derived certainty; from chaos, order; from randomness, a pattern that reached evermore for meaning, perfection, and beauty.

Luan’s father was stunned by his precocious son. It was a sign of his intelligence, of course, but also of his piety. Surely the god Lutho watched over this one especially.

In the normal course of events, Luan Zya would have succeeded his father as the chief augur of Haan, and he would have devoted his life to numbers and figures, to calculations and theorems, to proofs and mystical conjectures, to the endlessly fascinating task of approximating the elusive will of the gods.

But then came Emperor Mapidéré.

The Zyas threw themselves into the defense of Haan. His father invented the Curved Mirrors that set aflame Xana ships sighted off the shore of Haan with nothing but the power of the sun. His grandfather designed crossbows augmented with firework rockets that brought down Xana airships that flew too low. Luan himself, merely twelve years old, came up with the idea of layering leather with fine mesh wire to create lighter, better shields that protected many Haan soldiers against Xana arrows.

But none of it ultimately mattered. Xana forces made costly but steady gains on the seas, over land, and in the air, until only the capital of Ginpen was left of Haan. Xana laid siege to it, wrapping it in ring after ring of determined Xana troops, like the women of Haan wrapped their bodies in layers of long silk cloth for the winter dances. Still, Ginpen had its own deep wells and full storehouses. King Cosugi planned to wait out the siege until the other Tiro states sent help.

But the court of Haan was corrupt and rotten from within. Education proved to be no match for avarice. A prince, seduced by the promise of Xana’s support in his bid for the Throne of Haan, agreed to open the city gates in secret, and overnight Ginpen fell. King Cosugi surrendered, but not until the Xana invaders had made blood flow all over Ginpen, turning the black-sand-paved streets as red as blood corals, as fresh lava, as the western skies behind the setting sun.

Enraged by the successes of the ingenious military inventions of the Zya Clan, General Yuma, the conqueror of Ginpen, sent a detachment of troops specifically toward the Zya estate as the rest of his soldiers looted and slaughtered the city.

“Lu-tika,” Luan’s father whispered as he leaned down and touched his forehead to his son’s. “Today the Zya Clan will give up many lives to show our loyalty toward Haan, our piety toward the gods, and our contempt for that tyrant, Réon. But for our deaths to be meaningful, a seed of the Zya Clan must be preserved and given a chance to grow. Do not return here until you have driven out the Xana invaders and restored the glory of Haan.”

He called over a loyal old family servant and instructed him to make himself look like a Xana soldier.

“Put a servant girl’s dress on Luan and take him away from here. In the chaos out in the streets, everyone will think that you are just another Xana invader with a captive. Get out of Ginpen and keep my son, the last of the Zyas, safe. Now go!”

Luan screamed and cried and begged to be allowed to die with his family as the servant dragged him through the streets. Other Xana soldiers saw a fellow soldier with a tearful, hysterical captive and ignored them. Later, the boy would realize what a great augur his father had been — he had picked a disguise where Luan’s terror and loss of control would not give them away.

His father’s trick worked, and the pair escaped to safety. But later, that night, in the rural countryside, Haan villagers who thought they were rescuing a captured young girl from a Xana brute killed the servant as they slept.

As the sun rose on the first day of Haan’s long captivity, Luan found himself alone among strangers and miles from everything he had ever known.

None of the rest of the family survived the fall of Ginpen.

Luan grew up as the Six States fell, one by one.

Always running, hiding, staying out of sight of the emperor’s numerous human bloodhounds, who were eager to sniff out those harboring treasonous thoughts, Luan vowed to avenge his family and the House of Haan. He pledged to fulfill his father’s last wish. He swore he would carry out the will of Lutho, and restore balance to this upside-down world.

He was not a man who could lead a charge on the battlefield. He was not a man who could rouse a crowd with impassioned words. How would he fulfill his dream of vengeance?

He prayed fervently and tried, again and again, to ascertain the will of the gods.

“Lord Lutho, is it your will that Haan should rise again and Xana should fall? What must I do to accomplish your will?”

Every day, every hour, every waking moment, he asked the same questions and sought answers in signs.

What did it mean that the field of wildflowers he passed through had more Queen Naca’s Lace than butter-and-eggs? Since the former were white and latter were yellow, the respective colors of Xana and Haan, did that signify that the gods favored the empire?

Or perhaps the key was in the shapes of the flowers: Whereas butter-and-eggs reminded one of the curving beak of a Mingén falcon, Kiji’s pawi, delicate Queen Naca’s Lace put one in mind of Lutho’s fishing net. In that case, the gods must have meant to show their favor for Haan.

Or — and Luan had to stop in the middle of the road because he was thinking so hard — perhaps the answer was hidden within a mathematical puzzle. While it was easy to calculate the area of the petals that made up the flower of the butter-and-eggs, it was not at all clear how to determine the exact area of an umbel of Queen Naca’s Lace. From a common center, the stalks branched and subbranched, like blood vessels dividing into capillaries, until they terminated in tiny white florets that were barely visible. Luan could already see that calculating the area of such a thing, made up more of holes and edges than solid presence, would be like computing the circumference of a snowflake. It required a new kind of mathematics, one that could account for the infinitesimal and fractal.

So was that a hint from the gods that the road to Haan’s resurrection would be long and winding, requiring hard work to discover new paths that could surmount difficult odds?

For all his skill in divination, all that Luan could determine was that the gods refused to speak clearly, leaving the outcome in doubt.

Unable to find out how to proceed from the gods, Luan focused on matters in this world. His knowledge of mathematics was not limited to the realm of divination alone. He understood how to calculate force and resistance, tension and torque, how to combine levers and gears and inclined planes into intricate machines. Could such a machine, an engine, allow a lone assassin to succeed where the armies of the Six States had failed?

Alone, secreted in dark basements or abandoned storehouses, he plotted and replotted schemes for the death of Emperor Mapidéré. He carefully made contact with old Haan nobles, now scattered around the Islands, and tested their loyalty to the new regime. When he found a sympathetic soul, he demanded their help: money, letters of introduction, a place to let him build his secret workshop.

He settled on a daring plan. The Xana Conquest was largely symbolized by the great oar-propelled airships powered by the lift gas from Mount Kiji. So, in a gesture of poetic justice, he would bring death to Emperor Mapidéré from the air. Inspired by the great albatrosses and cliff-dwelling eagles found along Haan’s bleak coastline, who stayed aloft for hours without flapping their wings, he designed a stringless battle kite that would take a rider and a few bombs aloft. He experimented with larger and larger prototypes in test flights in remote, uninhabited valleys and passes in the Wisoti Mountains along the border of old Cocro and Gan, out of sight of the emperor’s spies.

Several times, after his prototypes had crashed and left him at the bottom of some valley, days from the nearest village or town, disoriented and nearly dead, bones broken and blood oozing from a dozen wounds, he wondered whether he was mad. He watched the stars spin slowly overhead, listened to wolves howl in the distance, and thought about the brevity of life compared to the eternal indifference of the natural world.

Could it be, he thought, that the gods always spoke so ambivalently and were so hard to understand because they experienced space and time at a different scale than mere mortals? For Rapa, rivers of ice that moved inches a year flowed as fast as torrential floods, and for Kana, lava thawed and froze as regularly as mountain streams. Lutho, the old turtle, had lived for a million millennia and would continue to live for millions more, and all the generations of men in the history of Dara would be gone in a few blinks of his leathery, salty-teared eyes.

The gods did not care who was sitting on the throne in Ginpen, he thought. The gods did not care who died and who lived. The gods did not have a stake in the affairs of men. It was foolish to think that one could divine their will. It was foolish to think that his vendetta against Emperor Mapidéré meant anything to them other than a balm for his aching, raging heart.

And then he blinked and realized that he was back in the world of men again, the world dominated by Xana, the world where so many were content to live with tyranny, the world where his promises were still unfulfilled.

He had a job to do. He bandaged his legs and closed his eyes to lie wearily until he could limp his way out of the valley, until he could fix the errors in his calculations and try again.

The attempt on the emperor’s life from the Er-Mé Mountains, on the road north of Zudi, was the culmination of years of work.

The Porin Plains, basking in the steady sun, generated the rising air currents that could keep the stringless kite aloft.

He strapped himself in, checked everything one last time, and then launched himself over the Imperial Procession, a slow-flowing river of barbaric splendor in the flat expanse below.

And yet he had failed. His aim had been true, but the emperor’s Captain of the Imperial Guards had been brave and quick-thinking, and he would never have such a chance again. He was now a wanted man, and throughout the empire they hunted for him, the man who came closer than anyone to assassinating Emperor Mapidéré.

Was it the will of the gods that had saved the emperor? Was it Kiji who had bested Lutho and thus preserved Xana? It was impossible to know what the gods wanted.

There was nowhere safe in the empire for him. All his old friends and the Haan nobles who had once helped him would not hesitate to turn him in now that sheltering him meant death for five generations.

He could think of only one place to go: Tan Adü, the remote southern island where the savage natives kept the Islanders away. Poised between a known terror and an unknown one, he chose to wager his life. After all, Lutho was also the god of gamblers.

He drifted onto the shores of Tan Adü in a raft, half-dead with thirst and hunger. As he crawled up the beach, out of the reach of the tides, he fell into a deep slumber. When he came to, he realized that he was enclosed in a circle made of pairs of feet. He looked up from the feet, up the legs, up the naked bodies, and stared into the eyes of the warriors of Tan Adü.

The Adüans were tall, lanky, and very muscular. They had brown skin like many men of Dara, but it was covered in intricate dark-blue tattoos. The ink patterns glowed with a rainbow sheen in the sunlight. Blond haired and blue eyed, they held spears whose tips seemed to Luan sharp as shark’s teeth.

He fainted again.

The Adüans were rumored to be brutal cannibals who killed without mercy — this was the explanation for the failure of the various Tiro states, especially Amu and Cocru, to conquer Tan Adü over the years. The civilized people of Dara simply could not be as savage as the Adüans.

But they did not kill him and eat him, as Luan had feared. Instead, when he woke up, the Adüans were gone. They left him to fend for himself on the island, unmolested.

Luan built himself a hut on the beach, away from the Adüan village. He caught his own fish and cultivated his own taro patch. Nights, he sat in front of his hut and watched the flickering fires in the distant village, around which young men and women with lithe bodies and sweet voices sometimes danced and sang and at other times sat still to listen to old tales being told in new ways.

But he could not believe his good fortune. He was certain that he needed to prove that he was useful to the Adüans to justify their strange mercy. When he caught a particularly large fish or found a bush loaded with more juicy berries than he could eat, he would bring the excess to the village and leave an offering at the border.

Curious Adüan children began to visit his hut. At first, they acted as if they were approaching the lair of some dangerous animal, shrieking in laughter and running away if Luan showed signs that he had seen them. So he pretended to be oblivious until the children were so close that the pretense was no longer possible, at which point he would look up and smile at them, and a few of the boldest would smile back.

He found he was able to communicate with the children through a set of gestures and signs — it was impossible to feel self-conscious when faced with their open smiles and infectious laugh.

They made him understand that the villagers found him peculiar, with his habit of leaving them gifts.

He spread his hands open and put on an exaggerated look of confusion.

The children pulled at his clothes — now little more than rags — and made him come with them back to the village. There was a dance and a feast, and he was made to join in the eating and drinking as though he were already one of them.

In the morning, he moved into the village and built himself a new hut.

Only months later, after he had acquired some facility with their language, did he finally understand how strange his behavior had seemed.

“Why did you hold yourself apart,” Kyzen, the chief’s son, asked, “as though you were a stranger?”

“Wasn’t I?”

“The sea is vast and the islands few and small. Before the power of the sea, all of us are helpless and naked like newborns. Anyone who drifts onto shore becomes a brother.”

It was odd to hear such a note of compassion from a people reputed to be savage, but by then Luan Zya was finally ready to accept that he really knew nothing about the Adüans at all. So much received wisdom was not wisdom at all, just like so much of what men imagined as signs from the gods were only wishes in their heads. It was best to attend to the world of what was, rather than what he had been told.

The Adüans called him Toru-noki, which meant “long-legged crab.”

“Why did you name me that?” he finally asked.

“That’s what we thought you looked like, when you crawled up from the sea.”

He laughed, and together they drank bowls full of strong, sweet arrack, fermented from coconuts and with a kick that made one see stars.

Luan Zya wanted to be happy living the rest of his life as an Adüan, never again having to concern himself with the mysterious signs of the gods or impossible promises he made as a boy.

He learned the secrets that the Adüans knew: to see the sun-dappled ocean not as a featureless expanse, but as a living realm crisscrossed with currents as neatly laid out as roads; to comprehend as well as imitate the calls of colorful birds, clever monkeys, and fierce wolves; to make useful implements out of everything one laid eyes on.

In return, he showed his friends how to predict eclipses of the sun and the moon, how to track the passage of the seasons with precision, how to divine the weather and estimate the coming year’s taro harvest.

But his nights began to be filled with dark dreams that left him drenched in sweat. Old memories surfaced and refused to sink. The sight of burning books and the voices of dying scholars seized his mind. His heart yearned for the task he thought he had left behind.

“The aspen wishes to stand still,” his friend Kyzen said as he saw the look in Luan Zya’s eyes. “But the wind does not stop.”

“Brother,” Luan said, and then the two men stopped and drank arrack together, which was better than any sad speech.

And so, seven years after Luan Zya became Toru-noki, he said good-bye to his new people and left Tan Adü in a coconut raft headed for the Big Island.

Slowly, he made his way across the Big Island. It was true that after so many years, the hunt for him had slackened off. But he continued to live in disguise, wandering through the fishing towns of Zathin Gulf as a storyteller, biding his time.

The sights that greeted him depressed him. The empire had been able to get its fingers into every nook and cranny of life in old Haan. The people were now used to writing in the Xana way, dressing after the Imperial fashion, and imitating the accents of the conquerors.

It pained him to hear children mock his old Haan accent, as though he were the strange one. Young girls in teahouses played the coconut lute and sang the songs of old Haan, songs composed by court poets to celebrate the fragile beauty of a way of life: learning huts, stone-halled academies, men and women debating earnestly the methods of knowledge gathering. But the girls sang as though the songs were from another land, a mythical past, with no connection to them. Their laughter showed no understanding of the ache of losing their country.

Zya was lost. He didn’t know what he was supposed to do.

One day, as he walked next to the beach outside of a small town in Haan, still enveloped in the fog of early morning, he saw an old fisherman sitting on the pier, dangling his feet over the water and fishing with a long bamboo rod. As he walked by, he saw that the old man’s shoes fell from his feet and splashed into the sea below.

“Stop,” the old man said to him. “Get down there and pick them up.”

There was no please, no would you, no could I ask you a favor. Luan Zya, still a son of the noble Zya Clan, bristled at the old man’s tone. But he forced himself to relax, and dove into the water, retrieving the old man’s dirty, ragged shoes.

As he climbed onto the pier, the old man said, “Put them on my feet.” His hazel eyes were impassive, staring out of a wrinkled face whose color was even blacker than Luan’s own.

There was no thank you, no I’m grateful, no sorry, but could you. Luan was now curious rather than angry. He knelt down, still dripping with seawater, and put the shoes back on the old man’s feet. The skin on his feet was calloused and full of cracks, Luan saw, and reminded Luan of the leathery skin of a turtle.

“You are not so arrogant as to be unteachable,” the old fisherman said. He smiled and revealed two rows of crooked yellow teeth full of holes. “Come here first thing tomorrow morning, and I might have something for you.”

Luan showed up at the pier the next day, before the first strike of the temple bells. The sun was barely up, but the old man was already sitting in his place, dangling his feet over the sea and fishing. He looked, Luan thought, not so much like a fisherman, but like a tutor in one of the old learning huts waiting for his pupils to show up at dawn to squeeze in an hour of study before the day’s labor.

The old man did not look at Luan. “You are the youngster while I’m the elder. You are the student while I’m the teacher. How could you show up after me? Come back in a week, and do better.”

During the week that followed, Luan thought several times of leaving the town — most likely, the old man was nothing but a fraud. But what if gnawed at him, and hope told him to stay. On the appointed day, Luan showed up at the pier before the sun had even risen. Yet there the old man was again, dangling his feet and fishing.

“You’ll have to try harder. One last chance.”

After another week, Luan decided to camp out at the pier the night before. He brought a blanket, but the chill night air from the sea made it impossible to sleep. He sat, shivering under the blanket, and again thought he ought to be put in a madhouse.

The old man showed up two hours before sunrise. “You made it,” he said. “But why? Why are you here?”

Luan, cold, tired, and hungry, was about to give the crazy old man a piece of his mind. But he looked into the old man’s eyes and saw that they glinted warmly in the starlight. They reminded him of his father’s eyes, when he used to quiz Luan under a starry sky about the names of constellations and the paths of the planets.

“Because I don’t know what I don’t know,” Luan said, and bowed deeply.

The old man nodded, satisfied.

He handed Luan a book, a very heavy one. While scrolls filled with wax logograms were used for poetry and song, books like this one, dense codices made from thin sheets of paper bound together, were packed with zyndari letters and numbers, suitable for note taking and the passing on of practical knowledge.

Luan flipped through it and saw that it was filled with equations and diagrams for ingenious machines and for new ways to understand the workings of the world — many of them elucidations and amplifications of ideas that he had already been aware of, but only dimly.

“Understanding nature is as close as men can get to understanding the gods,” the old man said.

Luan tried to read a few pages and was overwhelmed by both the text’s density and its elegance. He could spend a lifetime studying these pages.

Continuing to flip through the pages, he saw that the second half of the book was blank. He looked at the old man in confusion.

The old fisherman smiled, and mouthed, Watch.

Luan looked down and was astonished to see that figures and words began to appear on the formerly blank page. Logograms rose out of the paper as indistinct blobs but gradually gained sharp edges, smooth faces, and intricate details. They seemed solid enough, but when Luan tried to touch them, his fingers only moved through airy phantasms. The zyndari letters wriggled onto the page as faint traces, milled about and danced, and settled into tight, beautiful formations. Drawings began as blurred, black-and-white outlines and slowly became filled with vibrant colors.

The writing and illustrations took shape like islands rising out of the sea, like mirages gaining substance.

“The book grows as you grow,” the old man said. “The more you learn, the more there is to learn. It is an aid to your mind, an extension of your capacity for seeing order in chaos, for invention. You shall never exhaust its knowledge, for it is replenished by your curiosity, and when the time is right, it will show you what you already know, but daren’t yet think.”

Luan knelt down. “Thank you, Teacher.”

“I’m leaving now,” said the old man. “If you should succeed in your task — your true task, not that which you now think is your task — meet me in the small courtyard behind the Great Temple to Lutho in Ginpen.”

Luan did not dare to look up. He touched his forehead to the wooden slats of the pier as he listened to the footsteps of the old man moving away, like an old turtle shuffling down the beach.

“We care more than you know,” the old man said, and then disappeared.

Because the magical tome given to him was without a title, Luan decided to call it Gitré Üthu, a Classical Ano phrase that meant “know thyself.” It was a quote from Kon Fiji, the great Ano sage.

As Luan traveled around the Islands, he took notes on geography and local customs in Gitré Üthu. He sketched the giant windmills in fertile Géfica, which tamed the mighty Liru for irrigation; he bribed engineers in industrious Géjira to learn the secrets of the intricately geared water mills that powered the weaving and textile workshops; he compared the designs of the battle kites of the Seven States and elucidated their advantages and disadvantages; he spoke to glassmakers, blacksmiths, wheelwrights, clockmakers, and alchemists and wrote down everything he learned; he kept a diary of weather patterns, the movements of animals, fish, and birds, and the uses and virtues of plants; he constructed models based on the diagrams in the book and verified its teachings with experiments.

He wasn’t sure what he was preparing for exactly, but he no longer felt purposeless. He understood now that the knowledge he was gathering would be put to use in some great task when the time was right.

Sometimes the gods did speak clearly.

CHAPTER NINETEEN. BROTHERS

ÇARUZA: THE FOURTH MONTH IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF RIGHTEOUS FORCE.

“I haven’t thought about that day in a long time,” Luan Zya said. His eyes focused far beyond the firelight.

“On that day, you showed me that one man can change the world,” Kuni said. “There are no impossible odds.”

Luan smiled. “I was young and rash. Even if I had succeeded, it wouldn’t have done much good.”

Kuni was taken aback. “Why do you say that?”

“When Mapidéré died, I felt a momentary panic. He was responsible for the deaths of my family, of my promising future, of Haan. I berated myself for losing forever the chance to exact vengeance.

“But then I saw how things only got worse as Emperor Erishi and the regent turned the empire into their playpen. Mapidéré was but one man — and indeed, judging by rumors of his decrepit state near death, a weak, sickly man — but his creation, the empire, had taken on a life of its own. Killing the emperor would not have been enough. We have to kill the empire.

“I’m on my way to Çaruza now to offer my services to King Cosugi. It’s time to bring Haan back and carve up the carcass of the empire.”

Kuni hesitated. “Yet, is it really better for us to go back to the days of the warring Tiro states? The empire was harsh, but sometimes I wonder if Krima and Shigin were any better for the ordinary people. There must be a better way than these two rotten choices.”

Luan Zya appraised this strange young man. He had never met a rebel who so openly questioned their cause, and yet, he found himself liking Kuni Garu.

“I think the rebellion is only the beginning,” Luan said. “It’s like the start of a deer hunt: Many are in the field, brandishing their bows and spears, but as for who will bring down the stag, there is no way yet to know. How the hunt will end is up to all of us.”

Kuni and Luan smiled at each other. They shared the roasted hares and pheasants, flavored to perfection by Jia’s herbs, and drank the sweet arrack from Luan’s wineskin.

They stayed up and talked long into the night, after the others were asleep, after the fire had died down to mere embers, after the awkwardness of new friendship had given way to familiar sincerity.

“It seems that good friends are always parting too quickly,” Luan Zya said, and he clasped his hands together and raised them toward Kuni Garu in the traditional Haan formal gesture of farewell.

They were standing in front of the Second Wave, a comfortable but not ostentatious inn in Çaruza. Kuni had just gotten his retinue settled.

“I’ve learned much from you even after only talking for one night,” Kuni said. “Again, you’ve shown me how large the world is, and how little I know of it.”

“I have a feeling that before long, you will see more of it than I,” Luan said. “Lord Garu, I believe you’re a sleeping cruben about to waken.”

“Is that a prophecy?”

Luan hesitated. “I’d call it a hunch.”

Kuni laughed. “Ah, it’s too bad you aren’t saying this in front of my relations and friends. A lot of them still don’t think I’ll amount to much. But no, I don’t think I want to be a cruben. I’d rather be a dandelion seed.”

Luan was startled for a moment, but then slowly broke into a smile. “Forgive me, Lord Garu. I should have known better than to speak in a way that could be mistaken for flattery. You may not be born noble, but you have a noble mind.”

Kuni blushed and bowed back. Then he lifted his eyes and grinned. “My friend, I want you to know that there is always a place for you at my table, no matter what happens in the future.”

Luan Zya nodded solemnly. “Thank you, Lord Garu. But my heart is set on serving King Cosugi. I must go to him and fulfill my duty to Haan.”

“Of course, I meant no disrespect. I only wish we could have met earlier.”

King Thufi had no idea what to do with this “Duke of Zudi.” There was no such traditional title or domain, and he didn’t remember creating one. But with the same tact that he handled the news about the King of West Cocru, he graciously allowed this stocky young man, who looked more like a gangster than a duke, to introduce himself that way to everyone.

With the king’s apparent acquiescence, Kuni Garu was amused to find that he now had to take his title more seriously. If even the king treated you as a duke, then you most definitely had to act like one.

“Your Majesty,” he said. “I came here not only to pay my respects to you, but also to bring you important news. Tanno Namen’s forces are coming south, and many of the cities taken by Krima and Shigin may flip back to Namen since he has a fearsome reputation. Indeed, Zudi itself has already done this.”

So you are a “duke” without anything to offer, King Thufi thought. A swindler, in essence. I like how you kept this bit of news to yourself till I’d introduced you.

“I need troops to take back Zudi, and we should make a stand there to hold back the Imperial forces.”

Ah, a beggar and a bold one at that!

“Matters concerning military strategy must be discussed with Marshal Zyndu,” King Thufi said. He wanted to get this character out of his sight as soon as possible.

“Mata, I won’t permit it. It’s too much of a gamble,” Phin Zyndu said. “If Théca Kimo’s version of the fall of Dimu is to be believed, Namen comes well prepared. It’s better to wait for him to come to us.”

His nephew was about to argue some more, but the guards reported that Kuni Garu, Duke of Zudi, was here to see Marshal Zyndu.

“Who is this Duke of Zudi? Have you ever heard of the fief?” Phin asked Mata, and Mata shrugged.

Kuni came in and immediately sucked in his breath. Standing in the middle of the tent was the most amazing specimen of a human being he had ever seen. Mata Zyndu was over eight feet tall, and each of his arms seemed as thick as both of Kuni’s thighs put together — and Kuni wasn’t exactly slender, to put it mildly. Mata’s long and thin eyes angled up at the outer corners like a dyran’s body. And in each eye, there were two pupils.

But Kuni had spent so many hours in gambling parlors that he knew exactly how to put on his card-playing face. He clasped Mata by both arms, looked up into his eyes — he decided to just focus on the pupils closest to Mata’s nose — and explained heartily how glad he was to finally meet the legendary Duke Phin Zyndu of Tunoa, Marshal of Cocru.

“That would be my uncle,” Mata said, amused by the boldness of the small man. Well, Kuni Garu wasn’t really small. He was of average height, just a bit under six feet tall, but everyone looked small in comparison to Mata. And that beer belly meant that he probably wasn’t the most skilled fighter — a fault in Mata’s view. But Mata did like the fact that Kuni didn’t appear intimidated by his height or his unusual eyes.

Kuni showed no sign of embarrassment at his mistake. He turned to Phin Zyndu and continued without missing a beat. “Of course. I see the resemblance most clearly. I must congratulate you, Marshal Zyndu, on having such a wonderful successor. Cocru is lucky to have two such great warriors defending her.”

The three sat down on plain mats on the floor. Kuni went straight into géüpa for comfort, crossing and folding his legs and settling his bottom on the floor. After a moment of hesitation, Phin and Mata followed suit. For some reason, Kuni’s informal manners did not bother Mata. There was a warmth and enthusiasm radiating from Kuni that made Mata feel an instinctive respect for the man, even though he didn’t behave at all like a noble.

Kuni quickly explained what he came for, and his plan for making a stand at Zudi.

Mata Zyndu and Phin Zyndu glanced at each other and both burst out laughing.

“Duke Garu, you won’t believe this,” Phin Zyndu said after he recovered. “Right before you came in, my nephew had been debating military strategy with me. My view was, and remains, that we should stay on this side of the Porin Plains, fortify our positions, and wait for Namen to come to us. We should be prepared to give up all the cities in north Cocru. By the time Namen reaches us, his supply lines will be overextended and his men exhausted. We’ll have a better chance of crushing him.”

“And my view is just the opposite,” Mata said. “I think we should strike Namen right now. So far, he has met no meaningful resistance — that fool Krima had no idea what he was doing. He will be arrogant, and his men overly confident. If Uncle Phin and I take a company of our best troops and go meet Namen head on at one of the cities on the plains, we’ll be able to defeat him before he gets very far into Cocru. The victory will give a much-needed boost to the confidence of the other rebels after the death of King Jizu.”

“I think Zudi sounds perfect for what you have in mind,” Kuni said, catching Mata’s drift.

“As I said, it will be a gamble.” Phin paused to do the calculation in his head. “You’ll need at least five thousand men to stand a chance against Namen, which we can ill spare at this time. Should you fail to hold Zudi and lose the five thousand, you’ll have greatly weakened our defenses here near Çaruza, perhaps enough to turn the tide of war.”

“All life is a great game,” Kuni said. “In war, there are no certainties. If you aren’t willing to gamble, you’ll never win.”

Mata Zyndu nodded. Kuni said exactly what was on his mind.

“But there is a moral dimension as well,” Kuni continued. “If you cede all of north Cocru to Namen, the people of all the cities of Porin Plains will suffer greatly under Xana reoccupation for having supported Krima and Shigin and King Thufi. If we abandon the people for the cold calculus of abstract strategy, we’ll chill the people’s hearts.

“They rose up under the banner of Krima and Shigin, and then of King Thufi, because of the promise that life will be better without the empire. Some of us have worked hard to make that vision come true, and I think we should try to do what we can to stop Namen from ripping that dream to shreds.”

Phin thought over the situation. He had been worried that Mata was too hot-blooded to be given his own command. But this Kuni Garu seemed to have good sense and would complement Mata’s courage and battlefield prowess.

He nodded. “I’m giving Mata five thousand men. You will go with him as co-commander. Don’t let me down.

“Meanwhile, I’ll continue to recruit and train here to build up our forces. The longer you can hold out against Namen, the more likely it is that I’ll be able to come and lift the siege.”

Jia decided to stay behind in Çaruza, in light of her condition. Phin Zyndu promised to look after her as though she were a daughter.

“Be careful,” she said to Kuni, and tried to put on a brave face.

“No need to worry. I never take unnecessary risks — ahem, as long as I haven’t been given certain herbs.”

She laughed at this, and Kuni thought Jia looked especially beautiful with tears still not dried on her face, like a pear tree after rain.

His voice turned tender. “Besides, you’ll soon have a Little Garu with you.”

They held hands and said nothing for a long time, and they only let go of each other when the sun rose and the sound of men and horses mustering grew too loud to ignore. He kissed her hard, once, and then did not look back as he left the little hut that Jia was staying in.

The trip back to Zudi took much less time than the trip down to Çaruza. Five thousand horses could really move.

Kuni smiled at Than, riding next to him. “I’m hoping that I won’t have to hear about needing more horses for a while.”

But Than did not respond. His attention was entirely occupied by Réfiroa, Mata’s otherworldly mount. He couldn’t believe that such a horse existed, much less that it could be ridden. He longed to get to know the horse better when he got a chance.

As soon as the red banners of Cocru could be seen amidst the dust kicked up by the horses, the soldiers manning the walls of Zudi had a change of heart. Maybe General Namen would still win, but the Imperial army was still nowhere to be seen, whereas King Thufi’s forces were right at the gates. Lieutenant Dosa was quickly arrested and tied up, and the flags flying over the walls switched to match the banners flapping over the horses coming up the road. (The soldiers on the wall, however, carefully folded and hid the white Imperial flags. One never knew if they might become handy again in a few days—always be prepared.)

Mata Zyndu was in full chain armor, with Na-aroénna, the Doubt-Ender, and Goremaw, its companion, on his back. Before they set out, Kuni had asked to see his unusual sword, but it was so heavy that he could barely lift it with both hands, and he stuck out his tongue and laughed at himself as he asked Mata to take it back.

“I could practice for a hundred years and not be one-tenth the warrior you are.”

Mata had nodded at the compliment but said nothing. He could see that Kuni was sincere and not merely trying to curry his favor. A man who willingly acknowledges his own weakness is strong in his own way.

Mata’s great black stallion, Réfiroa, dwarfed all the other horses just as Mata dwarfed their riders. He strained at the reins, impatient with having to keep pace with lesser horses. Kuni Garu, wearing a traveling tunic, rode next to Mata on an old white mare who had been a draft horse all her life — next to Réfiroa, she resembled a pony or a donkey. Her chief virtue was steadiness, as Kuni was no great horseman.

The odd couple rode side by side and led the Cocru army into Zudi. The Zudi garrison lined up at the gates to welcome them, acting as if they had not been flying Imperial colors just hours earlier. A few of the Zudi soldiers brought over Lieutenant Dosa, trussed up like a sheep bound for the market, and threw him at the feet of Mata and Kuni’s horses.

Lieutenant Dosa closed his eyes, resigned to his fate.

“Is this the man who betrayed the Duke of Zudi?” Mata Zyndu asked. “I think we’ll have him drawn and quartered. And then we’ll send the bits to Namen as a welcome present.”

Dosa shuddered.

“That might be an easy end for him,” Kuni Garu said. “But General Zyndu, would you give me the pleasure of dealing with this man?”

“Of course,” Mata said. “He insulted you, so it’s only proper that you decide his punishment.”

Kuni got off his horse and walked to the tied-up man.

“You really thought that we had no chance against Namen?”

“Why ask a question whose answer you already know?” Dosa’s voice was bitter.

“And you figured that there was no point in wasting soldiers and people’s lives.”

Dosa nodded wearily.

“You didn’t have much confidence in my ability to defend Zudi.”

Dosa laughed. “You’re nothing but a bandit and a gangster! You don’t know the first thing about fighting a war!” There was no point in lying. He might as well let this idiot know what he really thought.

“I can see your point. If I were in your position, I might have done the same.” Kuni knelt down and untied Dosa. “Since you were trying to save the lives of the people of Zudi, including the lives of my parents, brother, and in-laws, according to the teachings of Kon Fiji, it would be wrong for me to punish you harshly, even if you did betray me. But I assure you that we’ll beat old man Namen and his Imperial thugs. As for your punishment, I’m leaving you in charge of the men who had followed you, so that you can now teach them faith and courage.”

Dosa could hardly believe his ears. He looked at his freed arms. After a moment, he knelt before Kuni Garu and touched his forehead to the ground.

Mata Zyndu frowned. This was surely a mistake. The Duke of Zudi seemed to have a woman’s mercy and little sense of discipline. To be so lenient to a traitor would only invite more betrayals in the future, but since he had already said that the man’s fate was up to Kuni, he couldn’t intervene.

He shook his head and decided not to worry about it for now. There was still much to be done. Namen’s forces could arrive at any moment.

During the time Dosa was in charge of Zudi, he had left Kuni’s and Jia’s families alone. Kuni was grateful when he heard this and even more certain that he made the right decision to spare Dosa.

Kuni first went to visit Gilo Matiza, Jia’s father. Gilo received him politely, but he was cold and distant, and Kuni understood that the man still didn’t trust that Kuni’s position was secure; he quickly left.

The reception at Féso Garu’s house was rather different. Mata had come along with Kuni to pay his respects to the co-commander’s parents.

Kuni ducked as a shoe was thrown at his head.

“How many more times do you want to put your mother and me in danger with your reckless ways?” Féso shouted from the doorway. Anger made his eyes round as plums, and his bushy white beard floated up like the whiskers of a carp as he labored to catch his breath. “I just wanted you to find a nice girl and settle down with a real job; instead, you’ve gone and made it so that the whole clan could lose our heads at any minute!”

Kuni ran away, wrapping his arm protectively around his head as another shoe sailed past.

“Kuni, I know you’re trying to do the right thing,” shouted Naré as she struggled to hold back Féso. “Stay away for a bit while I try to talk some sense into your father.”

Mata was stunned by this display. Having grown up an orphan, he had always wondered what it might be like to have a father. The scene between Féso and Kuni was not something he ever imagined.

“Your father is not proud of your achievements?” asked Mata. “But you’ve become a duke! That’s surely the highest honor in at least ten generations of Garus?”

“Honor is not everything, Mata,” said Kuni as he nursed the spot on his shoulder where the first shoe had struck. “Sometimes parents just want their children to be safe and ordinary.”

Mata shook his head, unable to understand such common sentiments.

In contrast to his relatives, Garu’s old followers, those who had gone into the Er-Mé Mountains with him to become bandits and who had then come with him to Zudi to become rebels, were ecstatic to have Kuni back. During his absence, some had obeyed Dosa only reluctantly, while others resisted outright and had been imprisoned.

Otho Krin, the awkward youth who had brought Jia to Kuni in the mountains, was one of these. Kuni went to the city jail right away and unlocked the door to the dank cell himself. Otho blinked at the sudden appearance of light.

“I’m sorry for how much you’ve endured on my behalf,” Kuni said, and he helped Otho stand up from his straw mattress. Then he bowed down to Otho. Wiping the corners of his eyes with his sleeves, he added, “I’m ashamed that all of you who have followed me have suffered so much. I vow today that I will never consider this debt I owe you repaid until I have brought you, my brothers, all the riches and honor that you deserve.”

All of his old followers who had come to the prison with him knelt and bowed back.

“Lord Garu, do not speak in this way! We cannot bear it!”

“We will follow you to the top of Mount Kiji and the bottom of the Tazu whirlpool!”

“We’re blessed by the gods to have a generous lord like you, Lord Garu!”

Mata frowned at this breach in etiquette — he could not understand how a superior like Kuni could bow to a servant like Otho Krin, and now these lowly peasants were speaking in such foolish ways.

A momentary smile appeared on Cogo’s face before fading away. No matter how many times he saw it, he was still amazed by how Kuni’s sincerity shaded into an instinct for political theater. He was, of course, moved by the loyalty of a man who would rather be in jail than betray him, but he also knew to play it for all it was worth to cement even more loyalty.

“Is… Lady Jia here?” Otho asked, his voice trembling.

Kuni held him by the shoulders. “Thank you, Otho, for caring about her so much. Lady Jia remained behind in Çaruza because it’s too dangerous for her to be here… in her condition.”

“Oh,” Otho said, and he could not hide his disappointment.

“Cheer up,” Kuni said, and laughed. “Why don’t you write to Lady Jia? You were friends in the Er-Mé Mountains, right? I’m sure she’ll be glad to hear from you.”

Kuni and Mata let it be known that any survivors from the Krima-Shigin Expeditionary Force were welcome to join them at Zudi. Small bands of straggling soldiers wandering the Cocru countryside after the fall of Dimu heeded the call, and soon the five thousand men at Zudi swelled to more than eight thousand.

“Rat, you really want to go back into the army?” Dafiro asked his brother. “We could just stay in the mountains and be bandits, and let the nobles fight their own war.”

They were still a few miles from Zudi. The hill they stood on was the same hill that Kuni and his friends had picnicked on several days earlier.

The escape from Dimu had been a nightmare. Dafiro and Ratho fought as well as they could in the darkness and confusion of the rout. When it was clear that all was lost, they had hidden in the basement of a wealthy merchant’s house and waited until the looting of Dimu was over before sneaking out by hiding in a cart hauling corpses away from the city for burial. They had both gotten very good at playing dead in the last few days.

“Ma and Pa would not want to see us as bandits,” Ratho said stubbornly.

Dafiro sighed. His brother had fonder memories of their mother than he did. After their father died in the Grand Tunnels, the emperor’s tax collectors had hounded the family to pay more taxes as “compensation” for depriving the emperor of the use of their father’s labor. Driven by grief and despair, she had turned to alcohol as her only solace. Many times she broke Dafiro’s heart as she tearfully apologized to him in the sober morning only to fall back into a drunken stupor by nightfall. Dafiro had tried his best to shield Rat from some of her worst drinking episodes.

All the boys had were each other now.

“I want to see Emperor Erishi and ask him why our pa never came back and why his men wouldn’t just let Ma and us be. We weren’t bothering anyone, just staying out of people’s way and trying to make a living,” Ratho said. His voice grew fainter as he swallowed, hard.

“All right,” Dafiro said. He thought his brother very foolish, but also very brave. He wished he were as brave. “Let’s go join the Duke of Zudi and General Zyndu.”

“Hey, didn’t we see General Zyndu once? I know! He was that mystery rider at King Huno’s coronation — the one who made fun of the king and called him a monkey!”

Dafiro chuckled as the brothers remembered that day.

“Now that is a lord worth fighting for,” said Ratho. “He was afraid of nothing, and when the king’s men tried to shoot him, Fithowéo himself stepped in.”

“Don’t repeat foolish superstition,” said Dafiro. The admiring tone in Ratho’s voice made him feel a twinge of sorrow. Ratho had always only spoken that way about their father or Dafiro. Maybe Ratho was finally growing up, and he was going to get his own heroes.

After a pause to collect himself, Dafiro continued, “I hear that they are pretty fair and pay their men on time. At least we’ll be fed and maybe we’ll even get to see Emperor Erishi someday. But if anything goes wrong, you and I are running away. Only fools would die for these nobles. By the Twins, they wouldn’t even blink if they could get a copper piece for our lives. So we have to watch out for ourselves. You hear me?”

CHAPTER TWENTY. FORCES OF THE AIR

RUI: THE FIFTH MONTH IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF RIGHTEOUS FORCE.

Kindo Marana, like most in Xana, had great pride in the Imperial airships. But he never thought that one day he would have to become as familiar with their operation as the mechanics with hands full of calluses who maintained them at the Mount Kiji Air Base.

Mount Kiji, a snow-peaked giant stratovolcano that rose high into the sky, dominated the landscape of Rui. It had several craters, two of which were filled with lakes: Lake Arisuso, higher, bigger, evening-sky blue, and Lake Dako, lower, smaller, emerald green. Seen from on high, the two lakes were like two jewels worn against the pale-white bosom of proud Mount Kiji.

The mountain was home to the giant Mingén falcons. With a wingspan of about twenty feet, these fearsome and majestic raptors were bigger than any other predatory bird found on the Islands of Dara.

But what truly distinguished these birds was their extraordinary powers of flight. Not only were they able to stay aloft for days, circling slowly over one spot on the ground, but sometimes they took as their prey small cattle and sheep or even the lone shepherd. The feat seemed impossible, even considering their larger-than-average size.

For years, the amazing flight of the Mingén falcons was simply treated as an aspect of Kiji’s power, but during the reign of Emperor Mapidéré’s father, King Dézan, a few inquisitive men and women who were willing to commit sacrilege and risk their lives dissected some of the birds and finally discovered their secret.

Most Mingén falcons nested around the shores of pristine Lake Dako and fed their young on the meaty white icefish found in its waters. Lake Dako, however, had a peculiar feature. Streams of large bubbles constantly rose from its depths and broke on the surface. The gas in the bubbles did not smell sulfuric, could not be lit, and indeed had no taste or smell at all. No one had ever paid much attention to it.

But the gas turned out to be very special. It was lighter than air.

Within the body of each Mingén falcon was a network of large hollow sacs. These they filled with the strange gas of Lake Dako by dipping into the stream of bubbles, and just like a fish expanded and contracted its swim bladder to rise or sink in water, the Mingén falcons used these gas sacs to create buoyancy in air. This was the source of their marvelous lifting ability.

The brilliant Xana engineer Kino Ye derived the design of the great winged airships of Xana from the anatomy of the Mingén falcon. Although the graceful airships could not compete with sea vessels in carrying capacity for soldiers or goods, they were fast, mobile, and very valuable as intelligence-gathering vehicles. They also wreaked havoc with enemy navies: While ships could do little against threats from on high, a few airships could drop bombs filled with sticky burning tar and devastate an entire fleet.

Their most important military use, however, was psychological. The presence of airships intimidated opposing soldiers and told them that there was no escape as their every maneuver would be known by the Xana commanders.

It took Marana a month just to get the air base at Mount Kiji restaffed and properly running again. The place was in bad shape: the bamboo pipes broken; the leather valves dry, brittle, and cracked; the docks and ships in disrepair. The old base administrator had been diverting the funds allocated for the base’s maintenance into his own purse, though a small amount was saved to construct luxurious, recreational two-person airships for his friends and their mistresses.

But the administrator was well versed in the ways of being a good bureaucrat. He had been diligent in sending intricately carved model airships to Pan, much to the delight of Emperor Erishi, who loved to have courtiers and maids steer the ships by means of fans and blowing tubes as he ordered them to engage in pretend battles over the model empire. Pleased with his toys, the emperor had been effusive in his praise of the administrator to Chatelain Pira and Regent Crupo.

Marana immediately arrested the administrator, his friends, and their mistresses, stripped them naked, and brought them to the shores of Lake Dako. There, they were strung up in trees as offerings to the Mingén falcons. The baby chicks feasted well that day on corrupt flesh.

Worst of all, the former administrator had let most of the skilled engineers go. But the timely reconquest of northern Cocru generated the necessary funds for Marana to offer attractive wages.

Now the former chief tax collector walked through the base, examining the hulls of old airships undergoing repairs and new ships being constructed. He listened and nodded as engineers explained the hubbub of activity around him.

Giant hoops and longitudinal girders made of bamboo formed the semirigid skeleton of the airships. Within this frame, silk gasbags were hung. These would be filled with the lift gas collected from Lake Dako. The gasbags were also girded with a network of ropes that could be winched from the gondola so that their volume could be contracted or expanded to change the amount of lift — when the bags were compressed, the pressurized lift gas took up less volume, resulting in less buoyancy; when the bags were allowed to expand, the lift gas took up more volume, resulting in more buoyancy. The entire frame was then covered with a layer of lacquered cloth to provide protection from enemy arrows. Inside, along both sides of the airbags, were seats for the engine crew — mostly conscripted men little better than slaves — who would row the giant wings that propelled the airships through the sky. These wings were made from the molted feathers of the Mingén falcons, which were light, strong, and pushed hard against the air.

The gondola, built partly within the hull of the airship and protruding partly below it, was where the battle crew and officers lived and stored their munitions and supplies. The biggest airships had a complement of fifty, thirty in the engine crew and the rest with battle duties.

“How many ships would be ready for duty in a month?” Marana asked.

“We already have men working around the clock, Marshal. And we can’t hurry the collection of the lift gas — it comes as it likes, the same as it has done for a thousand years. In a month, we should be able to prepare ten, maybe twelve, airships of the line.”

Marana nodded. That might be enough. With the aid of the airships, the Imperial navy should be able to sweep through Arulugi and bring all of Amu back under Imperial control, and then, with its back secure, the empire could begin the assault on the rebel strongholds in the south of the Big Island.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE. BEFORE THE STORM

ZUDI: THE SIXTH MONTH IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF RIGHTEOUS FORCE.

“Another round?” Kuni asked. Before anyone could answer, he was already waving at the serving girls.

Mata groaned. He did not enjoy the bitter beer or the cheap, hard sorghum liquor they served here at the Splendid Urn: It was like drinking the stuff they used to strip paint from old houses. And the food was greasy and heavy, though necessary if one didn’t want the liquor to burn a hole through the stomach. Sometimes the sight of everyone licking their sauce-coated fingers nauseated him — they didn’t provide eating sticks here.

Growing up, Phin had kept him away from alcohol so that he could focus on his studies, and then he had been exposed only to the fine wines stored in the dry and cool cellar of the Zyndu Castle back in Tunoa. He longed for them now.

But he sighed and forgave Kuni’s unrefined taste in drinks, like he forgave his informal manners and crude speech. After all, Kuni was not a noble by birth — Mata still could not wrap his head around the concept of “dukedom by acclamation”—but Mata put up with it all because being with Kuni was just… fun.

Since Jia was away in Çaruza, and by custom, the birth of a child could not be announced unless the baby survived for one hundred days, Kuni had heard nothing and was filled with anxiety. In order to not affect morale and to also take his own mind off the guilt of not being with her, Kuni held drinking parties every night, to which Mata was always invited.

At these gatherings, Kuni treated his subordinates more like friends, and Mata could tell that these men, Cogo Yelu the civil administrator, Rin Coda the personal secretary, Mün Çakri the infantry commander, Than Carucono the cavalry specialist, and even that flip-flopping Lieutenant Dosa, had great affection for Kuni. Theirs was a loyalty founded on more than duty.

They told dirty jokes and flirted with the pretty waitresses, and Mata, who had never in his life been to such parties, discovered that he enjoyed them. They were much more interesting than the stiff, formal receptions that the hereditary nobles back in Çaruza held, where everything was done properly and nothing impolite was ever said and each smile felt plastered on and each compliment disguised an insult and every word had to be parsed for a second and even third meaning. They had given him headaches and made him think that he was unfit for company, but among Kuni’s friends, he wished the nights would never end.

And the man actually took the work of being the Duke of Zudi seriously — indeed, probably too seriously. Mata still couldn’t believe how happily Kuni delved into the minutiae of governance. He even looked into how to collect taxes, by Kana and Rapa’s lustrous hair!

Mata had never met anyone quite like Kuni, and he felt that it was a cosmic injustice that he wasn’t born a noble. Compared to some of the hereditary nobles Mata knew, Kuni was far more worthy of admiration.

Except that he’s just a bit too forgiving sometimes, Mata thought, eyeing Dosa critically.

But Kuni and he shared a vision of the big picture, of freeing the land from the yoke of Xana once and for all. Kuni has greatness of spirit, Mata decided. It wasn’t poetic or eloquent, but that was the most sincere compliment Mata ever paid anyone, noble or common.

The girls brought over trays filled with flagons overflowing with more of that throat-burning liquor. Mata gingerly took a sip from his — alas, it was every bit as bad as he had remembered.

“Let’s play a game,” Than Carucono said. The others noisily assented. Drinking without games was like drinking alone.

“Shall we play Fool’s Mirror?” Kuni suggested. He looked around the room and rested his eyes on a vase containing a bouquet. “I’ll pick flowers as the theme.”

This was a game popular among nobles and commoners alike. A category would be chosen — animals, plants, books, furniture — and everyone took turns comparing himself to an object from the chosen category. If the others judged the comparison apt, they would drink. If not, the player who made the comparison would drink.

Rin Coda chose to go first. He stood unsteadily, supporting himself by hugging a column.

“That’s a stout girl you’ve got in your arms,” Than said. “I prefer them with a bit less girth and more curves, myself.”

Rin threw the chicken leg he was holding at Than. Than dodged out of the way, almost fell, and laughed.

“Friends,” Rin announced seriously. “I am the night-blooming cereus.”

“Why, because you get lucky only one night a year?”

Rin ignored the jab. “The cereus is not much to look at during the day, and most people think it’s a just a dead-looking stick in the ground. But below the ground, it gathers the moisture and sweetness of the desert and hoards them into a large, juicy melon, which is delicious and has saved many a desert traveler’s life. Only the fortunate can see it bloom, once a year in the middle of the night, a great white flower like a ghost lily bathed in starlight.”

The others were momentarily stunned by this flowing disquisition.

Than broke the silence. “Did you pay a schoolteacher to write that speech?”

Rin threw another chicken leg at him.

“Your virtues are indeed hidden,” Kuni said, smiling. “I know that you’ve done a lot to get the more — let’s call them ‘unorthodox businessmen’—of Zudi to cooperate with me and Mata in this time of crisis. Others may not always appreciate what you do, but know that I see and remember your efforts.”

Rin waved at him nonchalantly, but everyone could see that he was moved.

“The comparison is apt,” Kuni said, “I’ll drink to it.”

Next up was Mün Çakri, who immediately compared himself to the prickly cactus.

Everyone drank without debate.

“It’s that beard, my good man Mün,” said Than Carucono. “I really think if you tried to kiss anyone, you’d stab a dozen holes in their lips.”

“That’s absurd!” said a scowling Mün.

“Why do you think that young man over by the city gate tries to hide every time you go over with your presents? You ought to try shaving sometime.”

Mün’s face turned bright red. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Half of Zudi can tell you like him,” said Than. “I know you’re a butcher, but do you have to look like it every moment?”

“Since when are you the sage of love?”

“All right,” Kuni said, laughing. “Mün, why don’t I make a formal introduction between this young man and you? Surely he wouldn’t run away at the invitation of the duke?”

Mün’s face remained flushed, but he nodded in thanks.

Cogo Yelu then compared himself to the calculating and patient snapping flytrap.

“No, no,” Kuni said, shaking his head like a rattle. “I can’t have you denigrate yourself that way. You’re the stout bamboo that holds up Zudi’s civil service — strong, flexible, yet with a heart that is hollowed of selfish thoughts. You have to drink.”

Now it was Kuni Garu’s turn. He stood up, grabbed Widow Wasu — who was passing by with a tray of drinks — around the waist, and while she laughed and ducked out of the way, he plucked a dandelion from behind her ear and held it up for everyone to see.

“Lord Garu, you compare yourself to a weed?” Cogo Yelu frowned.

“Not just any weed, Cogzy. A dandelion is a strong but misunderstood flower.” Remembering his courtship with Jia, Kuni felt his eyes grow warm. “It cannot be defeated: Just when a gardener thinks he has won and eradicated it from his lawn, a rain would bring the yellow florets right back. Yet it’s never arrogant: Its color and fragrance never overwhelm those of another. Immensely practical, its leaves are delicious and medicinal, while its roots loosen hard soils, so that it acts as a pioneer for other more delicate flowers. But best of all, it’s a flower that lives in the soil but dreams of the skies. When its seeds take to the wind, it will go farther and see more than any pampered rose, tulip, or marigold.”

“An exceedingly good comparison,” Cogo said, and drained his cup. “My vision was too limited to not have understood it.”

Mata nodded in agreement and drained his cup as well, suffering silently as the burning liquor numbed his throat.

“Your turn, General Zyndu,” Than prompted.

Mata hesitated. He was not witty or quick on his feet, and he was never good at games like this. But he glanced down and saw the Zyndu coat of arms on his boots, and suddenly he knew what he should say.

He stood up. Though he had been drinking all night, he was steady as an oak. He began to clap his hands steadily to generate a beat, and sang to the tune of an old song of Tunoa:

The ninth day in the ninth month of the year:

By the time I bloom, all others have died.

Cold winds rise in Pan’s streets, wide and austere:

A tempest of gold, an aureal tide.

My glorious fragrance punctures the sky.

Bright-yellow armor surrounds every eye.

With disdainful pride, ten thousand swords spin

To secure the grace of kings, to cleanse sin.

A noble brotherhood, loyal and true.

Who would fear winter when wearing this hue?

“The King of Flowers,” Cogo Yelu said.

Mata nodded.

Kuni had been tapping his finger on the table to follow the beat. He stopped now, reluctantly, as if still savoring the music. “ By the time I bloom, all others have died.’ Though lonely and spare, this is a grand and heroic sentiment, befitting the heir of the Marshal of Cocru. The song praises the chrysanthemum without ever mentioning the flower by name. It’s beautiful.”

“The Zyndus have always compared themselves to the chrysanthemum,” Mata said.

Kuni bowed to Mata and drained his cup. The others followed suit.

“But, Kuni,” said Mata, “you have not understood the song completely.”

Kuni looked at him, confused.

“Who says it praises only the chrysanthemum? Does the dandelion not bloom in the same hue, my brother?”

Kuni laughed and clasped arms with Mata. “Brother! Together, who knows how far we will go?”

The eyes of both men glistened in the dim light of the Splendid Urn.

Mata thanked everyone and drank himself. For the first time in his life, he didn’t feel alone in a crowd. He belonged—an unfamiliar but welcome sensation. It surprised him that he found it here, in this dark and sleazy bar, drinking cheap wine and eating bad food, among a group of people he would have considered peasants playing at being lords — like Krima and Shigin — just a few weeks ago.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO. BATTLE OF ZUDI

ZUDI: THE SIXTH MONTH IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF RIGHTEOUS FORCE.

When Krima and Shigin began the rebellion in Napi, many did flock to join them, but many also decided to become robbers and highwaymen and make the best of the ensuing chaos. One of the most ruthless and feared robber gangs was led by Puma Yemu, a peasant who lost everything when the emperor’s bureaucrats requisitioned his land to build an Imperial hunting resort without paying him a single copper piece.

Yemu’s men preyed on the merchant caravans on the highways crossing the Porin Plains until the pickings became slim. Trade was dying and fewer and fewer merchants took to the roads. It was just too risky, what with the Imperials and the rebels marching back and forth and armed men defecting every which way and no one able to keep the roads safe. Yemu’s gang had to go farther and farther to search for good targets, and then they discovered that trade was still going strong at the formerly sleepy town of Zudi.

Apparently the Duke of Zudi took his job seriously enough that he was keeping the area free of robbery, and all the bold merchants who still wanted to make a profit were taking their goods there. Just like wolves followed sheep to new oases in the desert, Yemu immediately took his gang and resettled in the Er-Mé Mountains.

He wasn’t afraid of the Duke of Zudi. In his experience, the rebels were not as disciplined or well trained as the Imperials, and usually Yemu could defeat their commanders easily in single combat. Sometimes, a rebel detachment would even join his gang after he killed their leader. He was going to “tax” the stupid merchants going to Zudi as much as he could and live richly off the spoils.

It was afternoon, and Yemu’s gang of thieves hid inside a copse near the top of a small hill.

They were watching a slow-moving caravan wind its way along the road south of Zudi. The carts moved so slowly that they were clearly weighed down by goods of great value. Yemu let out a great ululating cry that his men took up, and the gang rushed down the hill on their horses like a wind blowing across the plains, certain that they were going to be well rewarded.

The carts stopped. The drivers unhitched their horses, abandoned everything, and ran away as the robbers approached. Puma Yemu laughed. It was too easy being a robber in this age. Far too easy!

The abandoned carts sat still on the road, like a bunch of wild geese caught napping by the shore.

But just as the robbers reached the caravan and pulled up in the middle of the carts, the walls of the carts collapsed like folding paper screens, and soldiers in full armor spilled out.

While some began to fight the robbers on foot, the rest pulled the carts into a circle around the gang to cut off their avenues of escape. A few quick-witted robbers, sensing trouble, kicked their horses hard and escaped before the circle could be completed, but the rest, including Puma Yemu himself, were boxed in by the carts and trapped.

A gigantic man, with arms muscled like horse legs and shoulders broad as an ox’s, strode into the center of the circle. Yemu looked into the giant’s eyes and shuddered. Each eye had two pupils, and it was impossible to hold his gaze.

“Thief,” the giant spoke solemnly, like a spirit-judge out of a nightmare. “You fell right into Duke Garu’s trap.” He unsheathed a sword as huge as himself from his back. “Meet Na-aroénna. There is no doubt your outlaw days are over.”

Well, we’ll see about that, Yemu thought. He was confident that he could win any fight. This giant might look impressive, but he also had the air of a high-born noble. Yemu had defeated plenty of arrogant but useless nobles before. They fancied themselves brave warriors but knew nothing about fighting dirty.

He kicked his horse and rushed at Mata Zyndu, raising his sword high overhead to cut the man down in one stroke.

Mata stayed still until the last minute, when he dodged aside quicker than Yemu believed was humanly possible. Mata reached out with his left hand and grabbed the reins of Yemu’s horse. His right arm rose up to block Yemu’s overhead strike with his big sword.

Cliiiiinnnnng!

Yemu found himself lying on the ground, the breath knocked out of him. Through the dazed fog and the ringing in his head, he could pick out only two thoughts.

First, somehow Mata had pulled the galloping horse to a standstill with his left arm alone, and he had managed this without even shifting his feet. While the horse had been stopped, Puma had kept on moving, tumbled over the horse’s head, and flipped once in the air to land on his backside.

Second, Mata’s right arm had effortlessly blocked Yemu’s downward swing, despite the fact that Yemu was higher and that his blow had the combined strength of his arm and the momentum of his horse.

Yemu raised his right hand and saw that the part between the thumb and the forefinger was bloody. He couldn’t feel his hand. The swords had clashed with such force that the fine bones in his right palm had been shattered and his sword had flown out of his hand.

He looked up, and there was his sword, still tumbling, high in the sky. It reached the apex of its flight, hung for a second, and dove straight down.

Yemu rolled without thinking, and the sword plunged into the ground right next to him, buried to the hilt, missing his leg by inches.

“I surrender,” Yemu said, and there was indeed no doubt in his mind as he stared into Mata Zyndu’s cold eyes.

Mata Zyndu wanted to hang Puma Yemu from a post over the city gates as a warning to other robbers who might think of Zudi as easy hunting grounds.

But Kuni Garu disagreed.

Mata looked at him askance. “Feeling compassionate again? He’s a robber and murderer, brother.”

“I was a robber once too,” Kuni said. “That doesn’t automatically mean he deserves to die.”

Mata stared at Kuni, incredulous.

“Just for a brief while,” Kuni said. He gave Mata an embarrassed smirk. “And we always tried to avoid hurting anyone. We even left the merchants enough money to get home. I had to pay my followers somehow, you know?”

Mata shook his head. “You really shouldn’t have told me that. Now I’ll always have this image in my head of you wearing prisoner’s garb and banging on bars in a jail.”

“Fine,” Kuni said, laughing. “I think I’ll refrain from telling you what I used to do for a living before I was a robber. But now we are getting far afield.

“My point is this: Yemu is a great horseman and a proven leader. He knows how to run and hide from a superior force and wait for the chance to strike. We have all these horses, so we can use him; as our scouts say: Namen is on his way.”

Namen’s army poured over the Porin Plains like a hungry tide; bands of defeated rebels fled before it, crying for mercy. Many fell, and, in a moment, disappeared under trampling hooves and marching feet. As Kuni surveyed the cloud of dust on the horizon, glinting with occasional flashes from bright armor and unsheathed swords, his gut tightened and his mouth felt dry.

Kuni kept the gates of Zudi open for as long as he dared to allow more of the refugees to enter, but in the end, he had no choice but to order the doors shut before Namen’s army were at the walls. His soldiers had to beat back the flood of refugees with swords and spears to close and bar the gates. More than a few broke down and cried as they listened to the screams and pleas on the other side of the wall.

“Lord Garu! They’re using fire wagons on the gates!”

“Lord Garu! We’ve run out of arrows in the guard tower. They’re about to breach the top of the walls!”

But Kuni stood as if frozen. The pleas of the refugees kept out of Zudi echoed in his head and would not leave. He thought of Hupé and Muru. Once again, men were dying because of his decisions; once again, he felt overwhelmed and did not know what was the right thing to do.

Zudi’s soldiers, seeing the state of their lord, began to panic.

Namen’s men had erected long ladders against the outside of the wall, and under cover of volleys of arrows from their archers, swordsmen climbed up. A few had already reached the top of the walls and were fighting with Zudi’s defenders. The Zudi soldiers, who had never fought except in training exercises, swung their swords hesitantly and stumbled back before the ferocious assault of Xana veterans.

A Zudi soldier’s arm was severed; he screamed as he fell down, trying to grab for his lost limb on the ground. The faces of the other defending soldiers around him drained of blood. Xana soldiers stepped forward and silenced the screaming soldier, and a few of the defenders dropped their weapons and turned to flee.

Soon, dozens more of Namen’s soldiers joined their comrades. If they established a position on top of the walls and took the guard tower, they could open Zudi’s gates, and all would be lost.

Mata Zyndu took the stairs to the top of the walls in a few great, long leaps. Na-aroénna in his right hand, Goremaw in his left, he plunged into the middle of the small group of Xana soldiers.

Goremaw smashed into a soldier’s head, and brains and blood splattered everywhere. The Xana soldiers fell back, momentarily stunned. Mata opened his mouth and licked some of the gore from his club.

“Tastes the same as everyone else’s blood,” Mata said. “You’re all mortal.”

And then Na-aroénna spun like a chrysanthemum of slaughter, and Goremaw rose and fell like the beating heart of death. The blocking swords and shields of Xana soldiers broke or spun out of their hands, and in a moment, dozens of dead bodies lay around Mata Zyndu.

“Come,” Mata said to the cowering soldiers of Zudi around him. “Is it not glorious to fight?”

And the Zudi soldiers, emboldened by this display, rallied around Mata Zyndu and hacked at the hooked tops of the ladders until they broke and they pushed the ladders away from the walls, delighting in the terrified cries of the Xana soldiers still on them.

Kuni looked at Mata, standing atop the walls like some arrogant hero of the Diaspora Wars, careless of the volleys of arrows that flew around him, and his heart was filled with admiration. Indeed, everyone was mortal in a terrifying world, but one could choose to live like Mata Zyndu and fight with no doubt, or cower in fear and indecision and let error compound on error.

He was the Duke of Zudi, and his city depended on him.

Kuni rushed up the stairs. Behind Mata, another Xana soldier was trying to climb onto the wall. Kuni pulled out his sword and rushed ahead, batting aside the blocking stroke from the soldier and plunging it deep into his neck. A crimson gush. Then Mata was beside him and helping him break the top of the ladder and pushing it away from the wall.

Kuni felt something warm on his face. He reached up, touched it, and looked at his fingers. Blood. From the first man he had killed.

“Taste it,” said Mata.

Kuni did. Salty, thick, a bit bitter. With Mata next to him, he felt courage flow through his veins as though he had consumed a dozen of Jia’s courage herb plugs.

“Lord Garu, the fire wagons have set the gates on fire!”

Kuni looked over and saw that hide-covered wagons were amassed at the base of the city gates. The covering prevented the defenders’ arrows from reaching the men underneath, who had succeeded in setting the thick oaken doors aflame.

Inspired by Mata and Kuni’s example, the defenders on the guard towers rallied and succeeded in destroying the wagons by dropping heavy stones, but the fire raged on.

“We should have prepared more water and sand,” Dosa muttered.

Kuni cursed himself for lack of experience. He had been so focused on preparing for the siege by gathering food and weapons that he had neglected other basic preparations.

Namen’s men pulled back from the foot of the walls. Everyone watched the rising smoke and the flickering tongues of the flames. Soon, the gates would crack and then break open.

“We should line up our troops in the square before the gates,” said Mata. “Once the doors are gone, we’ll fight them to the death in the streets.”

Kuni shook his head. No matter how brave and fierce Mata was, he could not stand against ten thousand. He licked his lips. Water, should have prepared buckets of water.

“Come with me!” he shouted, and ran up to the guard tower above the flaming gates. He began to loosen the belt around his robes.

“What are you doing?” Mata asked, following close behind.

“Shield me,” Kuni yelled. And he climbed onto the ramparts, turned around, squatted down, and began to urinate against the outside of the wall.

The other soldiers immediately got the idea. Some began to loosen their belts as well; others leaned out over the ramparts and raised shields to protect the squatting figures of their comrades. Namen’s men, also catching on, loosed volleys of arrows at them. The thunking of arrow against shield sounded like a summer hailstorm.

Streams of urine flowed down the wall and dripped onto the burning gates. Flames hissed and clouds of steam rose.

“Come on, brother, you’ve got to contribute!” Kuni shouted at Mata, laughing. Then he coughed from the smoke and piss-smelling steam around him. “This will be a real pissing contest.”

Mata didn’t know whether he should laugh or get mad. This hardly seemed like the right way to fight a war.

“What, you can’t go in front of other people?” Kuni asked. “Don’t be shy. We’re among friends here.”

Mata sighed, climbed onto the ramparts, squatted behind another pair of raised shields, and let his bladder go.

For two weeks now, Tanno Namen had laid siege to Zudi with an army numbering more than ten thousand.

He had not anticipated the fierce resistance. The defenders of Zudi were unlike the ragtag mob that he had routed at Dimu. This Duke of Zudi, whom he had never heard of, and General Mata Zyndu, a grandson of the famous Cocru marshal Dazu Zyndu, seemed to know what they were doing. They had evidently stockpiled supplies before the siege and now waited patiently behind the walls, like turtles in their shells.

Namen would have preferred to leave Zudi and march on to Çaruza, where the rebel king was. But scouts he had sent aloft in battle kites informed him that Zudi was packed with soldiers, their flashing swords and battle banners filling the streets. They probably equaled his forces or even exceeded them. If Namen tried to bypass Zudi, they could attack him from behind on the way to Çaruza.

To his regret, Namen had brought little siege machinery, relying on his experience of the rebels abandoning the cities and running for the hills as soon as his army approached. The defenders of Zudi made quick work of the few ladders, fire wagons, and battering rams he did have. Now Namen was left without options for taking Zudi quickly: Mining would take a long time, and constructing ballistae and catapults on the deforested Porin Plains was impossible without transporting lumber from the Er-Mé Mountains.

Namen furrowed his brows. An extended siege seemed his only option, but he was confident that he would prevail. After all, he could resupply himself from the Imperial warehouses in Géfica, while the defenders didn’t even have access to the surrounding countryside. No matter how much Zudi had in its storehouses, the food would eventually run out.

“Kuni, why are we making such a big deal over a few soldiers?” Mata asked.

Kuni had insisted on holding “victory banquets” every day in the markets of Zudi, where soldiers and civilians who had performed particular deeds of bravery the day before were feted. There was drinking, dancing, and platters of hearty roasted pork and fresh-baked flatbread.

“Everyone’s jittery in a siege,” said Kuni in a low voice. He stood up and made another toast, recounting the brave deeds of the soldiers being celebrated that day. His particular retelling added a lot of details that Mata deemed only semitrue, and the soldiers who were its subject blushed and laughed and shook their heads. But the crowd seemed to love it.

Kuni drank and sat down as the crowd cheered. He smiled, waved at them, and continued to whisper to Mata. “It’s important that we keep the mood confident and optimistic. The public celebrations also show that we’re not concerned about our supplies — important to prevent hoarding and profiteering.”

“Seems to be a lot of effort aimed at keeping up appearances,” Mata said. “Show, not substance.”

“Show is substance,” Kuni said. “Look, by having civilians dress up in paper armor and wave around wooden swords in the streets, we’ve been able to convince Namen’s scouts that we have many more armed men here than we actually do. That’s why he’s still here instead of heading for Çaruza. Every day we keep him here is another day that the marshal can gather strength for the counterattack.”

Mata had disapproved of Kuni’s plans, thinking them more akin to theater than warfare, but he had to admit that the results of Kuni’s tricks were desirable.

“How much longer can our provisions hold out?” Mata asked.

“We will probably need to start rationing soon,” Kuni admitted. “Let’s hope that Puma Yemu does his job.”

Namen’s plan for an extended siege wasn’t working as well as he had hoped.

While Garu and Zyndu shut the doors of Zudi and refused to come out of the city to face the Imperial forces on the plains in front of the city, Namen found himself constantly harassed by bands of roaming bandits on horseback.

These bandits, or “noble raiders” as they preferred to style themselves, sabotaged the long Imperial supply lines leading from the Liru River. They followed no law of war and caused Namen no end of headaches.

Whenever Namen sent a platoon of cavalry after them, they simply ran away, taking advantage of their speed due to the lack of heavy armor. But whenever Namen’s men rested, often in the middle of the night, the raiders would make a great deal of noise and feign attacks without actually attacking. They did this repeatedly to keep Namen’s men from sleeping and exhausted their alertness.

After a few rounds of this wolf crying throughout the night, Namen’s soldiers let down their guard and no longer responded with alacrity to new alarms. But that was when the raiders would actually attack. They rode through the camps like a tornado, setting everything on fire, cutting loose all the horses, and generally wreaking havoc and sowing confusion everywhere. But they wouldn’t linger to fight. Their only aim was to loot from the carts loaded with food and provisions and spoil what they couldn’t take by dousing it with excrement and poisoned water. They also made it a practice to ransack the treasury carts intended to pay the Imperial soldiers’ wages.

An army marched on its stomach, and soldiers mutinied without pay. Namen became concerned about how much longer he could maintain such a large army in hostile territory. He had so far resisted forcefully taking supplies from the locals, believing it would make the pacification of reconquered Cocru difficult if the Imperial army imposed too much hardship on the peasants. But as his supplies dwindled, he worried that in a few more days he might have no choice.

Morale sank, and desertion became rampant. The platoons dispatched to chase the raiders down were always a step behind. And since the raiders took care to distribute some of their loot to the peasants in the surrounding areas, the result was that when Namen’s men came to the villages to ferret out the raiders, not a single person would help the Imperials. When Namen’s frustrated soldiers took out their anger on the recalcitrant villagers, they only managed to swell the ranks of the “noble raiders.”

The raiders infuriated Namen. But he had to admit that whoever came up with this tactic was a worthy opponent.

“Hit-and-run tactics are the province of the weak.” Mata had dismissed Kuni’s proposal contemptuously at first. “True warriors do not resort to such dirty tricks. We must confront Namen on the open field and best him fairly and squarely.”

Kuni had scratched his head. “But our job is to protect the people of Zudi. Despite your excellent training, we’re outnumbered and our soldiers are too green compared to the Imperial veterans. Fact is, we are weak, as you put it, and I don’t want our men to die needlessly. What’s ‘dirty’ about winning?”

It took hours of persuasion, but in the end Kuni wore Mata down. Mata agreed to forgive Puma Yemu for his past acts of banditry — on condition that he convert his gang into auxiliary fighters for Cocru.

“Let’s sweeten the pot a little bit,” said Kuni.

“It’s not enough that he gets to keep his life?”

“Yemu is like a proud donkey. We have to use both the stick and the carrot to motivate him.”

Reluctantly, Mata wrote to King Thufi to recommend Yemu for the title of Marquess of Porin, with a hereditary march of his own to be specified by the king later.

So that was how Puma Yemu became the Marquess of Porin, Scourge of Xana, Commander of the Whirlwind Riders of Cocru.

“Meeting Kuni Garu was the best thing that ever happened to me,” Puma declared to his followers as he generously divided the spoils of the noble raids among them. “Follow me closely, boys, and there’ll be plenty more where that came from. Look at me, a marquess! A lord who knows how to wield men is ten times more fearsome than one who knows only how to wield a sword.”

Namen decided that he had to put an end to the siege of Zudi before his army lost the will to fight. He studied reports of the two commanders of Zudi with care and came up with a plan. If he couldn’t get the crafty Duke of Zudi to face him on the battlefield, he would try to provoke the young, hot-blooded Mata Zyndu into playing by his rules.

He began by launching battle kites over the walls of Zudi and dropping pamphlets filled with pictures depicting Kuni Garu and Mata Zyndu dressed in women’s clothing and cowering in fear.

Kuni Garu and Mata Zyndu are too scared to fight from within their boudoir, the pamphlets declared. Cocru is a nation of cowards with feminine hearts.

The kite riders jeered and shouted more insults:

“Kuni Garu is the Duchess of Zudi, and Mata Zyndu is her servant girl.”

“Kuni Garu loves to wear makeup! Mata Zyndu prefers perfume!”

“Kuni and Mata squeal in fright even at shadows!”

“Let them say what they want,” Kuni said. He admired the pamphlets and laughed. “I look pretty good as a girl, though I think they are suggesting I lose a few pounds. I have to send some of these to Jia; she could probably use the laugh as I imagine the baby — may the Twins protect the child — is making her life very stressful.”

“What is wrong with you?” Mata Zyndu roared and tore the pamphlet in his hands into pieces. He smashed the table in front of him; then, for good measure, smashed the table in front of Kuni as well. He stomped and ground the broken pieces of wood into even smaller pieces against the stone floor.

But his rage was not assuaged. Not even a little bit. He paced back and forth in front of Kuni, kicking the wooden splinters every which way. Servants scattered to distant corners of the room, away from the barrage.

“What is so bad about being compared to women?” Kuni said. “Half the world is made of women.”

Mata glared at him. “Have you no sense of shame? Where is your honor? These insults cannot be borne.”

Kuni didn’t change his tone at all. If anything, he grew even calmer. “These cartoons are very amateurish. I could show Namen many more tricks about how to insult people artfully. For example, the drawings could have been made much more subtle and also much more lewd.”

“What?” Every part of Mata’s body shook with rage.

“Brother, please calm down. This is a good sign. Namen is clearly frustrated that we’re not going out there to meet his superior force on the open field. We are dug in, well provisioned, and he’s jumping around like a dog trying to deal with a hedgehog, having nowhere to bite. Puma Yemu is straining his supplies, and he’s getting desperate. That’s why he’s using this trick to try to get you to fight on his terms.”

“It’s working, though,” Mata said. “I have to fight him. I can’t stay cooped up like this. If you do nothing, I will order the city gates open and lead a cavalry charge on the morrow.”

Kuni saw that Mata was serious. He pondered and pondered, and then he began to smile.

“I have an idea. You will get your satisfaction.”

Mata felt like an eagle who owned the skies. Had he known how wonderful flying would feel, he would have done this a long time ago.

Far below him, the streets and houses of Zudi appeared as miniature toys. On the other side of the city walls — from this high up, they looked like low mud ridges dividing rice paddies — Namen’s camps spread out like a big painting. He noted their arrangement and layout and counted the tiny dots that were the soldiers.

It was as if he had sprouted great wings made of bamboo and silk on his back, and the sound of the wind whipping against them to lift him aloft was glorious. By leaning this way and that, he could turn, roll, dive, and soar. He felt weightless, free in all three dimensions, and able to fly across all of Dara.

He laughed with the joy of flight.

The only thing that marred the illusion was the long silk rope attached to his harness, which went down to the ground, where Théca Kimo and a few soldiers worked the winch that put tension on the rope and kept him aloft. He waved at the tiny figures below, and one of them, probably Kimo, waved back. The winch crew let out more rope and Mata rose even higher. He turned back to surveying the Imperial camps.

“Is there anyone in old lady Namen’s camps willing to fight me?” he shouted, and brandished his sword, still bloody from the last ten kite riders he had cut down in midair.

The giant battle kite strapped to his back — three times the size of regular reconnaissance kites — was Kuni’s idea, as was the idea of air duels.

Kuni had sent a herald to the walls of Zudi and announced that they accepted Namen’s challenge. But there would be a twist.

“Since General Namen has insulted the honor of Duke Garu and General Zyndu, it’s only fitting that the affront be settled in the ancient ways,” the herald called out. “From the Diaspora Wars to the glorious exploits of Marshal Dazu Zyndu, our annals tell us great heroes have always dueled man-to-man. How can we rely on ordinary peasant soldiers to protect the dignity of great nobles? General Zyndu wishes to fight General Namen, one-on-one, and settle this personally.”

“Now that’s the sort of thing I wish the nobles said more often,” Dafiro whispered to Ratho. “While they resolve all their disputes this way, the rest of us can go back to planting our harvests and enjoying our lives. Let the kings and dukes get in an arena and fight all their wars with their own two hands. We’ll watch and cheer them on.”

“Daf, how can you continue to be so common?” Ratho stared at the flying Mata, enraptured. “Aren’t you inspired by General Zyndu? I wish you and I could be as brave.”

“They’re more stupid than brave, in my opinion. All one of them has to do is aim for the rope, and down the other guy goes.”

Ratho shook his head. “Not even a Xana dog would resort to such a dishonorable trick for victory, and certainly not General Zyndu. Weren’t you paying attention during the old shadow puppet plays? Dueling is all about honor, whether on the ground or in the air.”

Dafiro wanted to say more but finally shook his head and held his tongue.

The herald explained that in consideration of General Namen’s great age, General Zyndu was willing to duel any champion of Xana in his stead. Since General Namen might be tempted to try to rush General Zyndu with his greater numbers if the duel took place on flat ground, the Duke of Zudi suggested that the duels take place in air, over the walls of Zudi. What could be more fair and honorable?

Namen was stuck and cursed this shameless trick from Kuni Garu. Dueling was not at all what he had in mind. He had hoped that Mata Zyndu and Kuni Garu would be taunted into opening the city gates and agreeing to a field battle between their armies in front of the city, in which case they would surely be crushed. But Kuni had twisted his words around to invoke the outdated ancient ritual of a personal duel between two commanders. If Namen refused, he would be the one to be seen as cowardly, and it would be a blow to the morale of the already depressed Imperial forces.

He gritted his teeth and asked for volunteers from among the strongest soldiers and officers to be designated as the Champion of Xana. One after another, the volunteers rose into the skies, strapped to battle kites, to duel Mata Zyndu in the air.

Cling! Clang! Cliiiiinnggggg!

The kites dove and rose like a pair of great Mingén falcons, and whenever they approached each other, there was a flurry of strikes and blows that rang out in the air. Soldiers from both sides craned their necks and raptly followed the circling fighters in the sky. It was dizzying just watching them turn and dodge like birds.

Mata Zyndu’s heart was filled with joy. This is how all battles ought to be fought! Kuni truly understands my soul. His sight, sharper than that of any man who had only one pupil in each eye, seemed to capture his opponent in slow motion. He parried the ineffectual blows casually, and as his strength sent the sword flying from his opponent’s hand, he quickly ended the poor man’s life with a graceful strike from Na-aroénna against the neck or a quick bash from Goremaw on the skull.

Ten Champions of Xana rose into the air. Ten lifeless corpses fell to the ground. The cheers from within the city of Zudi grew louder and louder, while Namen’s camp fell silent.

“He’s like Fithowéo coming to life,” Ratho said.

Dafiro did not respond with a joke. For once he was awed into silence. General Mata Zyndu was indeed a god among mere men.

While Mata fought in the air, Kuni stood next to Théca Kimo and watched anxiously. He trusted Mata’s prowess and bravery, but he couldn’t help the way his heart almost leapt out of his throat as Mata executed one daring maneuver after another, defying death each time.

“Pull it tight!” Kuni muttered to Théca and his men, knowing perfectly well that the winch crew did not need his instructions. They understood that they had to winch the rope tight whenever there was a slack — lest the kite crash to the ground — and then gradually let the line out. Kuni felt like he had to say something anyway to make himself feel useful.

Though they had not known each other long, Kuni was beginning to think of Mata as one of his closest friends — almost family. There was something about Mata’s stiff, formal, outdated ideas that endeared him to Kuni. Being with Mata made Kuni want to be better, to rise to Mata’s estimation, to be more noble. He couldn’t bear the thought of losing him.

Seeing that no more Xana champions took to the air, Kuni and Mata’s men jeered at Namen’s camp from atop the walls:

“Who’s the girlie now?”

“Tanno Namen is an old lady more skilled with the embroidery needle than the sword!”

“Namen, what’s for dinner?”

“Maybe the girls from Xana should go back to Pan before it’s too late.”

Some of the women hauling stones and logs onto the wall cringed.

Above them, Mata chuckled, though he was slightly embarrassed to be enjoying such humor, but Kuni waved for the men to be quiet.

“I’ve seen the bravery of Xana’s women firsthand,” Kuni said. He wasn’t shouting, but his voice could be heard clearly even by Mata, soaring high overhead. Soldiers of both sides waited, hanging on his words — Kuni seemed to have that effect on people.

Mata looked at Kuni in consternation. Is Kuni preparing another one of his jokes? But his tone and expression were too solemn, with not even a hint of mockery.

“I know a mother from Xana who was willing to bear a corvée administrator’s lash to save her son. I know a wife from Cocru who hiked miles through mountains filled with bandits even while she was pregnant and managed to save the man who was sent to save her. While we stand here mocking each other like two gangs of schoolboys, who has farmed our lands and kept us fed, who has sewn our tunics and made our arrows, who has carried up the siege stones and carried down the wounded? Have you forgotten how the women of Zudi fought alongside you in this rebellion? By custom, we wield the sword and wear the armor, but who among you does not know a mother, sister, daughter, friend, who exceeds you in courage and fortitude?

“So let us no more think of being compared to women as an insult.”

It was so quiet — both on and below the walls of Zudi — that only the creaking of the battle kite’s winches could be heard.

Mata did not wholly agree with Kuni’s speech — women’s courage was not comparable to men’s at all! — but he noted that even Namen’s men, below him, seemed subdued. Perhaps they were thinking of their mothers and sisters and daughters back in distant Xana and wondering what they were doing here. If that’s part of Kuni’s plan for corroding the morale of Namen’s troops, it’s devious.

“But I will say that it’s not surprising that Namen is so scared.” The familiar mocking tone and swagger had returned to Kuni’s voice. “Why, it’s sometimes hard to tell Namen apart from Erishi — both of them need bedtime stories!”

Wild laughter broke out on top of the walls of Zudi, and Kuni and Mata’s men took up this new theme with creativity and vigor.

Ten dismembered bodies falling from the sky had a way of discouraging more Imperial troops from volunteering to rise up into the air against Mata, still brandishing Na-aroénna and Goremaw. Namen’s officers shrank away from him, trying to avoid the old general’s pained and furious eyes.

After waiting as long as it took a cup of tea to cool, Kuni signaled the drummers and trumpeters to play the victory song. Namen’s camp remained silent, conceding the point.

As the men in Zudi gradually winched Mata’s kite back down to a soft landing in the city, a shout went up everywhere: “The Marshal of Cocru!”

Indeed, to the south appeared a great dust cloud obscuring the road to Zudi. Through the dust, as through a fog, one could barely make out the galloping figures of horses and the bloodred ensign of Phin Zyndu, Marshal of Cocru.

“The cavalry is here,” Kuni shouted to Mata, as the latter unlashed himself from the kite. “Your uncle has come with more troops to relieve the siege of Zudi. We did it!”

Mata grabbed Kuni by the arms and pulled him into a fierce hug. For a moment he didn’t know what to say, surprised by the depth of his feelings. “Brother,” he said finally, “we have stood together and held back the tide of the empire.”

“Brother,” Kuni said, his eyes tearing up, “I’m honored to fight beside you.”

“Open the gates,” Mata shouted. “We’ll attack together with the marshal and drive Namen back to Pan!”

It was indeed a rout. The Imperials collapsed like a flock of sheep caught between two packs of wolves. The soldiers abandoned everything — weapons, gold, armor, extra boots — as they whipped their horses to go faster, back to the north, to safety.

Hundreds drowned as they tried to cross the Liru River in overloaded transports. Leaving Cogo Yelu in charge of Zudi, Kuni and Mata led their men to join the chase, and the cities along the southern shore of the Liru again flew the banner of the rebellion.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

THE FALL OF DIMU

DIMU: THE SEVENTH MONTH IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF RIGHTEOUS FORCE.

The Cocru army now laid siege to Dimu, the last Imperial stronghold south of the Liru River.

As memories of King Huno’s disastrous occupation of the city were still fresh in the minds of the inhabitants, the city elders decided that they would take their chances with the empire, and citizens volunteered to help the Imperial troops defend its walls.

Mata Zyndu announced that for each day Dimu continued to resist, he would permit his troops to loot the city for one more day and to execute an additional one hundred prominent citizens once the city fell. Unfortunately, this announcement did not have the intended effect of diminishing Namen’s popular support in Dimu. If anything, it seemed to increase the zeal of the citizen volunteers resisting the rebels.

There was also news that Marshal Marana was sailing toward the Amu Strait with a great armada. If the defenders held out long enough, the siege of Dimu would be relieved.

“The threat was unwise,” Kuni said. “It’s understandable that the people of Dimu would be leery of joining the rebellion again after what Krima put them through.”

“Brother,” Mata said, “Dimu has always been a Cocru city. That these men would now side with the empire against us, liberators from their motherland, shows that they have been corrupted by the occupation. Traitors must be purified with their own blood.”

Kuni sighed. It was difficult to argue with Mata when he got into these moods where he launched into pretty speeches full of abstractions. Mata could be proud and unrelenting in his hatred. Sometimes, he saw the world in terrifying, bloody clarity.

Since they had arrived at Dimu by marching over land, Kuni and Mata were not prepared for a naval battle and had no warships. They had no choice but to cede control of the coast and the mouth of the Liru River to the Imperial navy. Their siege of Dimu was thus incomplete. Namen continued to bring supplies and provisions into the city’s wharfs, and Imperial ships patrolled the Liru River constantly, taunting the rebel soldiers on shore.

“If I had fifty thousand men,” Mata muttered, “I’d have each carry a bag of sand and march upriver. We’d be able to dam up the Liru River in one afternoon. Then we’d walk right up to those ships, stranded in the dry riverbed like flopping fish, and teach those sailors some manners.”

“If you had fifty thousand men,” Kuni said, “they’d be able to climb over the walls of Dimu just by standing on one another’s shoulders. I don’t think you need such an elaborate damming plan.” He grinned at Mata.

Mata laughed. “You’re right. Keeping it simple and direct is best.”

So day after day, Mata directed his forces to attack Dimu in waves, giving the defenders no chance to rest. He also conscripted peasants from miles around to join the miners digging under the walls of Dimu.

“By the Twins, my back is screaming.” Dafiro stood and stretched. “I need a rest from all this digging. Rat, sit with me a bit.” He dumped the basket of earth he had carried out of the mine in the pile near the opening and sat down.

Ratho dumped his load, looked at his brother, said nothing, and went straight back into the mine.

“What’s the matter with you?” Dafiro asked the next time Ratho emerged with another full load. “You’re working so hard you’ll kill yourself. Listen, Baby Brother, Krima isn’t our boss anymore. Duke Garu isn’t going to whip us if we take a little break.”

“I’m not resting until General Zyndu rests.”

Dafiro shaded his eyes and gazed at the walls of Dimu. He could see Mata Zyndu’s tall figure at the head of a ladder crew rushing at the wall, holding up a giant pavise to protect the men behind him from the arrows raining down from the ramparts. Zyndu had been at it all morning and all afternoon, not taking a single break through two shifts of soldiers.

“Doesn’t that man ever get tired?” Dafiro wondered aloud.

“General Zyndu is like a hero from the old stories come to life.”

“These days with you, it’s always General Zyndu this and General Zyndu that. Maybe you should make him your older brother.”

Ratho laughed. “Come on, Daf, don’t be silly.”

“He’s a noble like the rest of them,” Daf said. “Have you forgotten what it was like when Krima became king?”

“General Zyndu is nothing like Huno Krima.” Ratho’s voice was fierce and hard, and Dafiro knew better than to argue. “He leads by example, and I would rather die than disappoint him. I’m going to keep on mining until the walls fall or he tells me to stop. We’ve got to take Dimu before the armada gets here.”

Dafiro sighed and reluctantly went back to digging.

On the tenth day, the mines succeeded in collapsing Dimu’s city walls.

The rebels showed no mercy as they poured into the city like a flood and overwhelmed the remnants of the Imperial army. Namen and a few hundred of his most loyal men fought like trapped wolves all night and managed to make their way to the docks, where they were picked up by an Imperial transport and brought to safety in Dimushi.

Out of the ten thousand Imperial soldiers Namen had brought with him across the Liru, only three hundred made the crossing back with him.

Over Kuni’s strenuous objections, Mata carried out his threat.

“A threat is like a promise. We will lose men’s respect unless we follow through,” Mata said.

“You would have won more hearts by being merciful.”

“Being compassionate to one’s enemies means being cruel to one’s own soldiers.”

Kuni had no response to this. He stood by and watched helplessly as Cocru soldiers rounded up one thousand prominent citizens of Dimu, denounced them as Imperial sympathizers, and made them dig their own grave.

“Brother, this is a mistake.”

But Mata gave the order, and Cocru soldiers pushed and shoved the crying men and women into the mass grave, and then began to bury them alive.

“You do not ever want to have General Zyndu against your side,” Ratho said. He and Dafiro plugged up their ears, but the screams of the dying men and women could not be blocked out.

My Dearest Husband,

Please excuse the brevity of this letter. I’m still very tired and our little boy is taking up all my time.

There, that was the big news. You are a father now!

It’s been one hundred days since his birth, and he’s healthy as can be. I’m calling him Toto-tika for now, until he reaches the age of reason and we decide on a formal name.

He looks like a shrunken-down version of you, which, unexpectedly, actually makes him look extremely cute — I hope he does not get that belly of yours any time soon, though. The ladies at King Thufi’s court cannot keep their hands off him. But unless he’s held by me, he starts crying within minutes. I have been imbibing some lovely dream herbs so that the baby can have some as well through my milk. I think it’s working. He smiles in his sleep!

I pray that Kana and Rapa protect you, and that you and Mata are doing well. You must promise to not take any unnecessary risks. Come back safely to me and to our Toto-tika.

— Your loving wife,

Jia

“Congratulations, brother! A son is a wonderful miracle, and now we know who’ll be the next Duke of Zudi. I cannot wait to meet him.”

“Since he’s born in the Year of the Chrysanthemum, you’ll have to watch over him as his uncle!”

Mata and Kuni drained their cups of mango liquor. Jia’s happy news was indeed welcome amidst all the death and slaughter.

The two men stood on the docks of Dimu and gazed at the Imperial ships sailing up and down the Liru River, well out of range of Dimu’s arrows and catapults. After Mata’s rage was spent, Kuni had quickly reestablished order in Dimu and ordered their troops to prevent acts of looting. It was going to be a while before the city would recover, but at least the citizens were no longer utterly terrified of the “liberating” force.

Beyond the ships, they could see the brightly colored buildings of Dimushi, across the Liru’s mouth, and they imagined going still farther, past Dimushi, past the rich farmlands of the Karo Peninsula, until they arrived at the roiling waves of the Amu Strait, beyond which lay Arulugi Island, with its floating cities and suspended palaces, its imposing docks and graceful ships, its elegant customs and haughty manners immortalized in ten thousand poems and a hundred thousand brush paintings.

“Amu has a good navy,” Mata said. “It will be up to them to stop Marana’s armada and then help us cross the Liru and bring this war to the emperor’s doors.”

“Let’s pray for their success,” Kuni said.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR. BATTLE OF ARULUGI

ARULUGI: THE SEVENTH MONTH IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF RIGHTEOUS FORCE.

The Island of Arulugi — whose name meant “beautiful” in Classical Ano — lived up to its name: wide, white beaches; gentle, lazy dunes held down by tufts of beachreed; verdant hills covered by pili grass; and deep valleys full of forests of banyan and looking-glass mangrove, the aerial roots of the former hanging down from branches like a woman brushing out her hair, and the platelike roots of the latter rising up like lacquer screens imported from sophisticated Gan.

Everywhere, orchids of all descriptions and sizes bloomed: the white ones whiter than seashells and the red ones redder than coral. Golden hummingbirds hovered from orchid to orchid during the day, only to give way to gentle, ethereal moths at night, their wings silvery in the moonlight.

And the crown of Arulugi was Müning, the City in the Lake. Built on a series of tiny islands in shallow Lake Toyemotika — Lake Tututika’s baby sister — the city resembled a diadem floating over the water: the delicate spires of its temples and the graceful, thin towers of the palace were connected by a network of narrow, arching bridges that defied gravity.

The houses and towers of Müning were built to make the most of the limited space on the islands. Narrow, tall, and built from flexible walls, they swayed and flexed with the wind like bamboos in a grove. Having run out of space on land, some houses had to be built like water striders hovering above the lake, supported by long pylons sunk into the lake bed.

Floating gardens drifting around the islands of Müning provided its inhabitants with fresh fruits and vegetables. Platforms made of ropes and sweet sandalwood planks hung between the buildings, on which the lords and ladies of Arulugi danced at night in silk slippers and sipped tea as they admired the moon slowly rising over the sea and the port of Müningtozu, on the seashore just a few miles to the east of the lake.

But the jewel of Müning was undoubtedly Princess Kikomi.

At seventeen, her olive-colored skin, rich, light-brown hair that fell in cascades of curls, and bright-blue eyes that shone like two deep, calm wells were the stuff of legends and bards’ songs. She was the granddaughter of King Ponahu, the last King of Amu before the Conquest, and his only surviving descendant. But as the laws of succession in Amu did not permit women to accede to the throne, the restored Amu was led by King Ponadomu, the half brother of Ponahu, and Kikomi’s granduncle.

In the suspended teahouses of Arulugi, out of the earshot of Ponadomu’s soldiers and spies, sometimes you could hear the people whisper to one another that it was a pity that Kikomi was not born a boy.

Alone in her chamber, Kikomi looked at her reflection in the mirror, putting the last touches on her makeup. She had sprinkled gold dust in her light-brown hair to give it the appearance of being blond, and she had brushed blue powder around her eyelids to highlight her blue eyes. The goal was to push her appearance closer to Tututika, the goddess of Amu.

She didn’t sigh. Tonight, she would be a symbol, and she understood that whatever else symbols did, they did not sigh and complain about their fate. She would smile and wave and stand silently by the side of her granduncle as he stumbled his way through an insipid speech meant to rally the troops. She would remind the sailors and marines of why they were fighting, of the ideal of Amu womanhood, of the favor of Tututika, of the pride that Amu took in being the epitome of grace and beauty and taste and culture, far superior to the brutality of backward Xana.

But she could not deny that she was unhappy.

As long as she could remember, she had been told incessantly that she was beautiful. It wasn’t that her adoptive parents — a couple loyal to her poor executed grandfather who had raised her as one of their own — didn’t praise her cleverness when she learned to read and write before all the other children, or that they didn’t think it noteworthy that she could jump higher and run faster and lift more weights than her adoptive brothers and sisters; rather, it was that everyone seemed to treat these other accomplishments as mere ornaments on the crown that was her physical beauty.

And as she grew older, that crown had grown heavier. She was no longer allowed to spend her summer days running wild next to the shores of Lake Toyemotika with her companions until, hearts pounding, throats parched, their skin glistening with sweat, they stripped off their clothes and jumped into the cool, refreshing lake for a swim. Instead, she was told how the sun could damage her flawless skin, how running barefoot would lead to unsightly calluses on the bottoms of her feet, how diving into the lake recklessly could risk her getting a permanent scar from the jagged rocks hidden underwater. The only summer activity permitted to her was dancing: in sedate, calm studios where the sunlight was filtered through silk screens and the floor was lined with soft woven-grass mats.

Her plans, nurtured since childhood, of traveling to Haan to study with the masters of mathematics and rhetoric and composition, and of going to Toaza in distant Gan afterward to set up a trading house of her own, were put on hold. Instead, teachers were hired at great expense from the fashion houses in Müning to instruct her in the color and cut and fabrics of different dresses, suitable for different occasions, emphasizing different aspects of her body, which was described to her again and again as beautiful. The teachers also gave her lessons in how to walk, how to talk, how to hold the eating sticks to indicate her mood with grace, how to apply makeup to achieve a thousand different looks, each as elaborate as a painting.

“What use is this?” she asked her adoptive parents.

“You’re not a plain girl,” her mother answered. “But beauty must be enhanced to reach its full potential.”

And so instead of rhetoric she studied elocution; instead of composition she studied how to compose her face — with powder and paint and jewelry and dye and frowns and smiles and pouts — to be more beautiful.

It was a cliché for a beautiful woman to complain about being cursed with beauty, Kikomi knew, but just because it was a cliché didn’t mean it wasn’t true, for her.

When the rebellion happened and the court of Amu was restored, she had thought she would finally earn a reprieve. In a time of revolutions and wars, the raising of armies and navies and the promulgation of new policies, what was the use of beauty? As a member of the ruling house of Amu, Kikomi thought she would be working by the side of her granduncle the king, perhaps becoming one of his trusted advisers. She was intelligent and she wasn’t spoiled; she knew the value of hard work. Surely the king and his ministers could see that?

But instead, her body was draped in beautiful dresses and her face painted until she could barely feel her skin move; she was told to stand here or move — gracefully, remember, like dancing, like floating — over there, always displayed prominently, but always told to say nothing, to look serene and demure, to inspire.

“You’re a symbol of the revival of Amu,” her granduncle, King Ponadomu, said. “Of all the Tiro states, we have always been known for our dedication to the essence of civilization, of grace and refinement. Being beautiful is the most important thing you can do for the nation, Kikomi. No one else can remind the people of our ideals, our self-image, and our goddess as well as you.”

She glanced at the dress hanging from the stand next to the window, the blue silk cut in a classical style meant to evoke more of Tututika. She prepared herself for another night of playing a well-draped and well-painted statue.

“You are like Lake Tututika,” a voice said.

Kikomi whipped her head around.

“Calm on the surface, but full of conflicting currents and shadowy caves underneath.” The speaker was standing in the shadows next to the door to her bedchamber. Kikomi didn’t know her, but she was dressed in a fern-green silk dress cut in the modern style worn by all the ladies-in-waiting at the court. Perhaps she was the wife or daughter of one of the king’s trusted advisers.

“Who are you?”

The woman took a step forward so that the light from the setting sun illuminated her face. Kikomi marveled at her: golden-haired, azure-eyed, with skin as flawless as a polished piece of amber. She was the most beautiful woman the princess had ever seen, and she looked at once a maiden, a mother, and a crone — ageless.

The woman didn’t answer her question, but said, instead, “You wish you would be valued for what you can say and think and do; and you think if you were plain it would be easier.”

Kikomi flushed at the presumptuous statement, but something in the woman’s blue eyes, open, kind, placid, made her decide that the woman meant her no ill will.

“When I was younger,” Kikomi said, “I would get into debates with my brothers and their friends. They could seldom win, for their minds were dull, and they did not apply themselves to their work. But often, when it was clear that I had the better argument, they would laugh and say, ‘It’s impossible to argue with such a pretty girl,’ and thereby deny me my victory. Life has not changed much since then.”

“The gods give us different talents and different endowments,” said the woman. “Do you think it profits the peacock to complain that he is hunted for his feathers, or the horned toad that she is valued only for her poison?”

“What do you mean?”

“The gods may make one plain or pretty, stocky or thin, dull or clever, but it’s up to each of us to make a path for ourselves with the gifts we’re born with. A toad’s poison may take away the life of a tyrant and save a country, or it may become the murder weapon of a street gang. A peacock’s feather may end up adorning the helmet of a general, rallying the hearts of thousands, or it may end up in the hands of a servant fanning a foolish man who has inherited his wealth.”

“Mere sophistry. The peacock does not choose where his feathers may go, nor does the toad her poison. I am but a mannequin that the king and his ministers dress up and put on display. They might as well use a statue of Tututika.”

“You seethe and simmer because you think your beauty traps you, but if you’re truly as strong and brave and intelligent as you think you are, you’ll understand how dangerous and powerful your beauty can be, if you wield it properly.”

Kikomi stared at her, at a loss for words.

The woman continued. “Tututika, youngest of the gods, was also considered the weakest. But during the Diaspora Wars, she faced the hero Iluthan alone. Dazzled by her beauty, he let down his guard, and she was able to slay him with her poisoned hairpin. That act prevented Amu from being overrun by Iluthan’s army, and generations of Amu’s people praise her for that intervention.”

“Must a beautiful woman always be a seducer, a harlot, a mere bauble put on display as a distraction? Is that the only path open to me?”

“Those are the labels men have put on women,” the woman said, an edge coming into her voice. “You speak as though you despise them, yet you’re merely parroting the words and judgments of historians, who should never be trusted. Consider the hero Iluthan, who stole into the bed of the Queen of Écofi, who played with the hearts of Rapa and Kana, who showed his naked body to the gathered princes and princesses of Crescent Island, claiming himself to take equal delight in men and women. Do you think the historians call him a seducer, a harlot, a ‘mere bauble’?”

Kikomi pondered this, biting her bottom lip.

The woman went on. “A seducer is one who wins through deception rather than force, a harlot is one who wields sex like a sorcerer wields a staff, and a ‘mere bauble’ may yet decide to put herself on display to guide the hearts and minds of thousands into an unstoppable force.

“Amu is in danger, Kikomi, a danger that may reduce this Beautiful Island to rubble. If your head is clear and your heart stout, you may yet see how difficult a path you have ahead of you and how you must choose to make your beauty serve you and your people, rather than curse it.”

Kikomi stood on the docks of Müningtozu and watched the fleet departing the harbor. She was dressed from head to toe in blue, the color of Amu, and from a distance she looked like a manifestation of Lady Tututika.

She waved at the sailors, young men whose faces still held the wonder and naïveté of boys as they stood at attention in rigid lines along the decks. Some smiled at her and waved back. Officers standing on the foredecks saluted the king and assembled ministers on shore. Below them, the great oars dipped into the water in unison and propelled the ships away, like graceful water striders.

In the distance, ten glowing oval shapes, the empire’s airships, floated over the horizon. The tiny orange blobs seemed to possess light, feathery wings, like some hybrid moth-firefly that would be at home in the orchid-strewn forests of Arulugi.

How can something so beautiful be so deadly? Kikomi thought.

In the cockpit of Spirit of Kiji, flagship of the Imperial armada, Marshal Kindo Marana gazed at the glowing lights of Müning on the horizon. Closer to him, flickering over the dark sea, he could make out the faint lights of the torches on the decks of the Amu fleet oaring out to meet him.

He had visited Müning on holiday in the past and enjoyed its beautiful classical architecture and the hospitality of the Amu people. Nowhere else in the Islands did they make orchid-bamboo-shoot tea as fragrant as in Müning. A hundred varieties of orchids led to ten thousand combinations, and one could spend an entire life sampling the hanging teahouses of Müning and still never taste all the flavors Müning had to offer.

It was tragic that he might have to destroy something so beautiful.

Below him, sailing in formation, were eighty ships of the Imperial navy, and in the air around him were the other nine airships of the Imperial air force. The airships were propelled by giant battle kites, and the naval ships were rigged with full sails to conserve the arm strength of the oarsmen. During battle, they would need the agility and speed that only muscle could provide.

Behind the ships, down on the dark sea, the slow, bulky transports rode the waves, filled with ten thousand fresh troops from Rui and Dasu, the newest recruits of the Imperial army.

He continued to watch as the Amu fleet approached the armada. News that Namen had suffered a crushing defeat in Cocru meant that they had to win a victory here quickly to quell the rising rebel sentiments in Haan, Rima, and the rest of Dara.

As the Imperial armada came into range, Admiral Catiro of the Amu fleet gave the order to assume battle formation by releasing two orange lanterns. The tiny lanterns, made of paper stretched over a woven grass frame, floated into the sky, propelled by candles hanging below them.

The fleet extinguished all torches, reefed their sails, opened their oar ports, and dipped their long battle oars into the water.

Admiral Catiro cautiously allowed himself to smile at his luck. It appeared that this Imperial tax collector wearing the armor of a marshal knew nothing about naval tactics. He was a fool to pack his ships in such a dense formation and to attempt a risky night assault on Arulugi.

Given the reduced visibility, the heavier Imperial ships would have to move slower lest they run into one another. The lighter, faster Amu ships could neutralize the Imperial advantage in numbers by quickly driving between the tightly packed ships of the armada, breaking their oars and flinging burning tar bombs onto their decks.

The Imperial captains seemed to sense the foolishness of their tight formation. The ships slowed and then began to reverse their oars, backing away from the approaching Amu fleet.

“You have nowhere to run, Marana.” Admiral Catiro launched a quartet of bright-red lanterns, the signal for all-ahead assault. All forty Amu ships began to oar furiously, chasing after the retreating Imperial ships.

But the ten great airships continued to move forward and were soon on top of the Amu fleet. As they drifted over the Amu ships, they began to drop flaming bombs.

Catiro was prepared for this. The flammable sails had all been stowed away, and his sailors had cleared the decks of all obstructions and covered them with a layer of wet sand before ducking belowdecks. These were old tactics developed during the Xana Conquest. With the sand in place, the flaming tar bombs splashed and fizzled, but the fire could not spread far. After a while, the airships seemed to exhaust their supply of bombs and began to oar back as well, following the retreating armada.

The Imperial ships, predictably, ran into trouble in their hasty retreat. The ships, not having time to turn around, were unable to steer effectively. As they backed up, they bumped into one another and slowed down. They were sitting ducks for the bow rams and catapults of the Amu fleet. As the Amu ships got closer and closer, some impatient captains began to launch tar bombs and rocks at the Imperial ships, but most of the projectiles fell harmlessly into the water.

“Patience,” Catiro whispered. But it didn’t matter. The Amu ships were going so fast that they would ram into the Imperial armada soon. The seas would soon be strewn with broken oars and the dead bodies of Xana sailors and marines.

The ship next to Catiro’s flagship suddenly lurched to the right, its oars an uncoordinated jumble. Something had fouled the oars and turned the ship into a centipede with half of its legs no longer obeying, and it was spinning in place on the sea. It began to careen toward Catiro.

“Move out of the way!” Catiro shouted. But the rowers on the left side of the flagship cried out in surprise. Their oars were also mysteriously out of control. The oars seemed stuck in some thick, heavy medium, and the more the oarsmen pulled, the more they refused to obey. The two ships crashed into each other with a thunderous thud. Some oars were broken in the chaos, others ripped out of the oarsmen’s hands.

As panicking Amu marines lit torches to examine the damage, Catiro looked over the side of the ship and saw small boats full of men hacking at his ship’s oars.

Only now did Catiro understand what Marana had been up to.

As the Imperial armada retreated, they left behind small boats with men dressed in dark clothing and holding nets studded with hooks. As the Amu fleet passed by them, completely unaware of their existence, the crew on the small hidden boats had thrown their nets onto the banks of oars of the Amu ships and tied them into jumbled messes. The Amu ships spun out of control and crashed into one another.

The airships again approached overhead, dropping a fresh salvo of deadly tar bombs that caused the marines on deck to duck for cover or scream and jump into the sea. The great warships of the Imperial armada now advanced on the disabled Amu fleet, ready for slaughter.

Kikomi closed her eyes. She did not want to see the Amu ships, now distant flaming arks adrift on the sea, or to imagine the desperate cries of drowning men.

King Ponadomu, her granduncle, said nothing as he began the walk back to Müning. It was time to prepare for the surrender.

Ponadomu was stripped naked and put into a cage. He would be taken by airship to the Immaculate City, where he would be paraded around the streets to the jubilation of the capital crowds. But Marana was far more interested in Kikomi, the Jewel of Amu.

“Your Royal Highness, I regret that we have to meet under such circumstances.”

Kikomi regarded the thin man and his humorless face. He looked like a bureaucrat, the same as hundreds of others she had known in her life. And yet this man was responsible for the deaths of thousands.

While he held in his hands the reins of the killing machine of the empire, she had nothing but herself.

But she knew the effect that she had on men.

“I am your captive, Marshal Marana. You may do with me as you wish.”

Marana caught his breath. Her voice seemed to have fingers in it, fingers that caressed his face and lightly stroked his heart. Her bold tone made the implication of her statement unambiguous.

“You are a very powerful man, Marshal. I do not believe that there’s another like you in all of Dara.”

Marana closed his eyes and savored her voice. He could fall asleep to it and dream beautiful dreams. It was like the orchid-flavored tea of Amu: sweet, lingering, ever-refreshing. He wanted to listen to her forever.

She came up to him and placed her arms around his neck. He did not resist.

“What’s next?” Kikomi combed her hair in front of the mirror. The morning light, filtered through the curtains, seemed to Marana to turn her tresses into a glowing golden halo.

“I will have to take the captives back to Pan,” he said from the bed.

“So soon?”

Marana chuckled. “I can hardly tarry. The other states are still in rebellion.” He mused for a while. “But it might make sense to leave someone the population trusts in charge here. Someone who’s more sensible and willing to collaborate with the emperor.”

The princess’s hand slowed for a moment, but she resumed combing her hair.

“How would you like to be the Duchess of Amu?” Marana asked. “It is said that you are far more suited for this throne than your uncle.”

The princess continued to comb her hair, making no reply.

Marana was surprised. He had just shown this girl more respect than her own family and people did. He expected some… gratitude.

“What are you thinking?”

Kikomi stopped moving the brush. “You.”

“What about me?”

“I’m picturing you back in Pan, where you have to bow and scrape to men who have not done one-hundredth of what you have done for the glory of Xana. A boy who owes everything to you will pat you on the head and tell you to go away while he celebrates your victory.”

“Take more care with your speech.” Marana looked around to be sure there were no servants who might have overheard.

“You said I’m more suited for this throne than my uncle. Perhaps. The world is not always fair or just. Honor does not always flow to the deserving. It’s a pity.”

Her bold words awakened something in him. Marana imagined himself flying back to Pan in the cockpit of Spirit of Kiji. He imagined his troops marching into the capital. He imagined himself approaching the palace, his home, and by his side was his consort, the beautiful Princess Kikomi.

He looked at the mirror and Kikomi’s reflection. Her eyes gazed back, poised between boldness and submission, lively, ambitious, seductive.

“But can we not make the world fairer, more just?” she asked. Again, her voice seemed to wrap itself around him, to lead him to places he had not dared to visit.

He looked at the small stand next to the bed, upon which his tunic lay, neatly folded — he had taken the time to do this before embracing her last night. A few coins were scattered on the stand as well; he reached out to stack them in a neat column. He disliked disorder.

The coins struck one another and made a familiar sound. In a distant corner of his mind, he heard the sound of clarity, of meticulous accounting, of neatly sorted ledgers where each entry made sense. He shivered, and the spell she wove faded.

With great reluctance, he turned back to her. “That’s enough.”

He took a deep breath. She’d almost had him.

She is very clever and brave, and she can be useful.

“I had thought you ambitious,” Marana said. “But I was wrong.”

She turned to look at him, and her face fell as she realized that she had failed.

“You’re not just ambitious,” Marana said. “You love this land and her people. You crave their approval.”

“I am a daughter of Amu.”

“Your Royal Highness, I will make you a proposal. If you agree, I will leave Arulugi as it is. Life here will go on much as it was before, save for proper taxes and the renewed duty of loyalty the people will owe to the emperor. The teahouses of Müning will continue to be filled with sweet aromas and lovely songs, and men and women will still marvel at the grace and elegance of this filigreed island. You will be remembered in song and story as the protectress of your people.”

“I thought I was going to be the Duchess of Amu.”

Marana laughed. “That was before I understood how dangerous it would be to leave you in charge of Amu.”

Princess Kikomi said nothing. Her fingers absentmindedly stroked her blue silk dress, and she seemed to be admiring the large sapphire she wore on her finger.

She wished that she had been a little more patient, a little less obvious. She’d had a chance to set this man on a path to betray Erishi, to march on Pan, and she had let it slip through her fingers because she had overplayed her hand.

“But if you refuse, I will have you brought to the lowliest brothel of Pan, where I will sell you for a single piece of copper. You will always be remembered as a whore.”

Now it was the turn for Princess Kikomi to laugh. “You believe that would frighten me? You already think of me as a whore.”

Marana shook his head. “There’s more. I will also order Lake Toyemotika drained and Müning burned to the ground. I will spread salt in the fields and order one in ten inhabitants of Arulugi executed. I have already killed so many men that a few more will not matter. But most of all, I will let it be known that you, you alone, were responsible for the fate of Arulugi. You had the chance to save your people, and you said no.”

Princess Kikomi stared at Marana. She had no words for how she felt about this man. Hate seemed inadequate.

A light airship was dispatched to bring Princess Kikomi and King Ponadomu to Pan. Transported along with them were a few other Amu nobles and important prisoners, including the captain of the palace guards, Cano Tho.

Only a skeleton crew traveled along with the captives. In the section of the gondola inside the frame of the airship, along a short corridor, were several rooms used for storage and as sleeping quarters for the crew. In one of these rooms, Kikomi and Ponadomu were naked and kept in cages. The other prisoners were tightly bound with rope and held in the room across the corridor.

Once the flight was under way, Cano Tho tested the rope binding his wrists. The guards were lazy and did not do a very good job, and the rope was old and had lost its tension.

He waited a few hours, until he thought the guards had dulled some of their alertness. He worked at the ropes, stopping whenever the single Imperial guard assigned to the room walked by. He rubbed against the rope until his skin broke and blood seeped out. He grimaced but kept on going. The blood lubricated the ropes and made the work easier.

There. His hands were free.

He had stood helplessly on the docks and watched as the men of Amu died in the dark, leaping from burning ships into the cold waters of the Amu Strait to die. But now the arrogant Imperials had made a mistake, and he was going to make them pay.

When the guard’s back was turned, Cano quickly untied the binding around his ankles.

The next time the guard passed by him, Cano leapt up and wrestled him to the ground. Quickly pulling the dirk from the guard’s belt, he slit the man’s throat.

He freed the other prisoners around him. The freed men took what weapons they could find in the room and carefully peeked into the corridor. They were lucky: The corridor was empty. All the other guards were asleep in their bunks.

The men moved quickly. The few Imperial guards were killed in their sleep, and within minutes, the prisoners had taken over the cockpit, and the pilots and oarsmen, conscripted laborers, put up little fight before surrendering.

Cano walked into the room holding King Ponadomu and Princess Kikomi. He averted his gaze so as not to humiliate them in their nakedness. He opened the cages and handed them clothes and linens taken from the quarters of the Imperial guards.

“It is a miracle, Your Majesty and Your Royal Highness! We are free and we now have control of an Imperial airship.”

Princess Kikomi, proud and elegant even in her nakedness, thanked Cano and wrapped a rough cotton sheet around herself. She was without her silk dress, her diadem, her makeup and her sparkling jewels, and yet Cano found her more beautiful than any woman he knew. He had admired her from afar for a long time. She was indeed the Jewel of Amu.

Cano saw joy and relief in Princess Kikomi’s face, no doubt because he had helped her escape whatever degrading fate Marana had planned for her. Cano was almost glad that events had transpired to put him in this place. She looked at him now with tenderness in those icy blue eyes, so cold and warm at the same time. He would have gladly died for her if she asked for it.

“Where shall we go now?” the king asked. He was lost without his ministers, away from the comforting security of the palace. He had not yet adjusted to life as a man without a country.

“To Çaruza. King Thufi will help us.” The princess’s tone was calm and cool. Cano saw that she was already putting the humiliation of her captivity behind her. She was again Her Royal Highness, the Jewel of Amu. People were looking to her now for decisions, and she would rise to the occasion and lead them, the laws of succession be damned.

The airship adjusted the trim of the kite sails and the rudder and began to fly south, toward Cocru.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE. “IT IS A HORSE”

PAN: THE EIGHTH MONTH IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF RIGHTEOUS FORCE.

Chatelain Pira was concerned.

Against all odds, Regent Crupo’s appointment of the Minister of the Treasury as the Marshal of Xana had turned out to be an ingenious move. The meticulous, calculating man had exceeded all expectations.

The victory at Arulugi was all anybody talked about. Some of the Tiro states were even sending secret emissaries to discuss the terms for a surrender. Certainly there were setbacks along the Liru River, but the rebels were unable to cross the river and come into Géfica, the heartland of the empire.

Crupo crowed about his insightful personnel decision every day and strutted about the palace as though he were the second coming of Aruano, the great lawgiver. He was quickly becoming insufferable, apparently forgetting how, without Pira, he would have been nothing.

It was no secret that Crupo was ambitious. He was already the most powerful man in Pan, but Pira could see that one day, Crupo might decide that he no longer needed Erishi. With the backing of Marana — whose commission depended on Crupo’s pleasure — he would simply step into the Grand Audience Hall and ask the assembled ministers who they believed was really the emperor.

And the assembled ministers, all of whom had once agreed that the regent brought a horse into the Grand Audience Hall, would nod sagely and affirm that the emperor was standing in front of them, had just asked them a question.

Who is that boy sitting up in the throne then?

Who knows? He must be an impostor.

And who is that man standing beside the boy?

A mere butler, the boy’s playmate. A corrupter of Xana’s ancient virtues. Off with his head!

Pira shook his head. He could not let that happen. He would have been content, once, merely to see Xana fall, but now he wanted more. He had suffered the idiots Erishi and Crupo long enough.

He, not Crupo, should be the one to seize the throne from the House of Xana. Maing must be properly avenged.

“I need to see the emperor,” Crupo said.

“Rénga is busy,” Pira said.

“Busy playing, you mean.” Crupo was getting more and more annoyed with the way things were being run. He made all the decisions and kept the empire humming along, and yet every week he had to come and report to the spoiled boy like a mere servant.

The boy emperor’s high-handed decree that any audience with him had to be approved first by Chatelain Pira — who actually was a servant — only added to the load of indignity he suffered under. Maybe it’s time to change things.

“The emperor is young and easily distracted,” Pira allowed. “But I will keep a close eye on Rénga’s moods and tell you to come when he’s in a more suitable frame of mind.”

“Thank you,” Crupo said. Chatelain Pira was a silly man, just the sort of companion that the emperor liked. But he and Pira were bound together by that unspeakable conspiracy at the time of the old emperor’s death. He still needed Pira, for now.

“Come now. Come quickly. The emperor says he’s interested in learning about the details of governance. You must go see him right now.”

Crupo straightened his formal robes and hat, from which hung the jade and amber beads, the symbols of his authority, and rushed along the halls of the palace to the emperor’s private garden. Pira ran behind him to keep up.

They turned the corner and went into the garden. The emperor was sitting on a bench; he seemed to be fondling a bundle of clothes piled along the bench, spilling into his lap; he was talking and laughing.

Crupo came closer. “Rénga, you called for me?”

Startled, the fifteen-year-old looked up. The bundle of clothes along the bench rustled, and a red-faced girl sat up in his lap, trying vainly to cover her breasts. She bowed quickly to the regent, the chatelain, and the emperor and ran along the path and disappeared behind some bushes.

“I most certainly did not.” Emperor Erishi was blushing, furious. “Get out. Get out! Get out!”

Crupo backed away as quickly as he could.

Pira fell to the ground and touched his forehead to the cold stone. “I’m sorry, Rénga. He just burst in. I couldn’t stop him!”

The emperor nodded and waved him away impatiently. He got up to follow the path the girl had taken.

Pira smiled to himself. There was nothing that humiliated and annoyed the boy more than to be interrupted during such moments. Now every time the emperor saw the regent, this indelible memory would rise in his mind.

Next, Pira bribed Crupo’s butler to save all the scrap scrolls that Crupo used to practice his calligraphy.

“I’m a great admirer of the regent’s art,” Pira said humbly. “I just want to save some of this beauty that he throws out as trash.”

The butler saw no harm in this, and he even pitied the chatelain. What a sad life he led. All day long his only work was to keep a teenager entertained, and for his hobby, he begged to be allowed to collect scraps from another’s refuse pile. He was a far cry from Regent Crupo, a truly great man.

Pira had to wait a while to collect enough scrolls with the logograms he needed. He took them and carefully rubbed a hot kettle against their backs until the wax logograms were soft enough to be pried off. Then he selected and arranged the logograms he needed on a new scroll, and again he heated the scroll from the back until the logograms melted just enough to adhere to their new locations.

Now he had in his possession a new poem in Crupo’s beautifully sculpted, flowing script: a poem that the regent did not write and yet could not prove to be a forgery.

He left it, carelessly, on the steps leading up to the Grand Audience Hall, where it would be discovered and brought to the emperor.

I am the eagle who must carry a mouse.

I am the wolf who must obey a vole.

But one day I will assume my rightful place,

And then the foolish child will beg me for his life.

“You remember the deer, Rénga?” Pira whispered to the frightened and furious Emperor Erishi. “I hope you have finally learned what you needed to know.”

Treason! Crupo could hardly believe it. The palace guards had come to his quarters in the middle of the night, woken him up, and placed him in shackles. Here he was in the emperor’s dungeon, and no one would even tell him the evidence against him.

Well, he would prove his innocence. If there was anyone who knew how to write persuasive essays, it was he. He would save himself by his brush and ink, his knife and stick of wax.

He wrote petition after petition to the emperor, letter after letter, but no answer ever came.

Chatelain Pira came to visit his old friend.

“What have you done?” Pira said, shaking his head sadly. “Does your ambition have no limits?”

Crupo admitted nothing. Pira gestured, and the men behind him came forward.

Crupo had never experienced such pain in his life. The bones in his fingers were broken one by one, and then the broken pieces were each broken again. Crupo fainted.

They poured cold water on his face to wake him up and hurt him some more.

He admitted everything. He signed whatever paper Pira put in front of him, holding the brush with his teeth, as his fingers were now soft as melted wax.

Three palace guards came to visit Crupo in his cell.

“Rénga sent us here to be sure that your confession is true,” one of the guards said. “He’s concerned that Chatelain Pira might have been overzealous. Have you been tortured?”

Crupo lifted his head and looked behind the guards through his swollen eyes. Pira was nowhere to be found.

Finally, a chance for justice!

Crupo nodded frantically. He tried to speak but could not — Pira’s men had burned his tongue with hot pokers. He held up his hands to show the guards what he had been put through.

“The confession — it wasn’t true, was it?”

Crupo shook his head.

Pira, you lowly slave. You cannot get away with this.

The guards left.

“I had some of my men dress up as palace guards to test you,” Chatelain Pira said, his voice cool. “They found out that you weren’t sincere in your confession. You still seem to be laboring under the impression that you’re looking at a deer, instead of a horse, and I’m telling you it is a horse. Do you understand?”

Pira’s men tortured him all night.

Pira had the best doctors come care for Crupo. They bandaged his hands and salved his tongue. They fed him healing soup and applied herbal paste to his bruises. But Crupo shrank at their touch, terrified that it was but a trick from Pira to hurt him more.

One day, more palace guards came to visit Crupo in his cell.

“The emperor wishes to ascertain the truth of your confession. Have you been tortured?”

Crupo shook his head.

“The confession — it wasn’t true, was it?”

Crupo nodded vigorously. He mumbled and croaked and tried to indicate with every gesture that it was all true, every single word. He was a traitor to the emperor. He wanted the emperor dead. He was very, very sorry for it, but he deserved what he got. He hoped that his performance, this time, would pass muster.

Emperor Erishi was filled with great sorrow as he listened to the report of the captain of the palace guards. Somewhere deep inside himself, he had refused to believe that the regent really wanted to commit treason against him.

But the captain of the palace guards recounted his men’s visit with Crupo. In a safe room where Chatelain Pira was nowhere to be found, Crupo had insisted to the interrogating guards that he had not been tortured. He was very contrite, but the confession was true.

The emperor was distraught.

Chatelain Pira came to comfort him. “It’s hard to see inside men’s hearts, no matter how well you think you know them.”

Emperor Erishi ordered Crupo’s heart cut out of his chest and brought to him so he could see whether it was red with loyalty or black with betrayal.

But when the heart was brought to him, the boy lost his courage; he ordered it fed to his dogs without looking.

Chatelain Pira now also had the title of prime minister, and he turned his attention to the rebellion.

Someday, he would enjoy watching the boy emperor beg him for his life: the day that he took away the empire from the House of Xana. But for now, he had to get rid of the rebels first.

Directing armies from afar did not seem very difficult to him. If Crupo could do it, so could he.

With the fall of Amu, only three Tiro states remained in rebellion: rugged Faça in the north, with its strength of ten thousand beyond the dark woods of Rima; rich Gan in the east, with ten thousand more foot soldiers and the rebels’ only remaining navy on the island of Wolf’s Paw; and martial Cocru in the south, which faced off against General Tanno Namen across the Liru River.

Kindo Marana did not think much of King Shilué of Faça, who was opportunistic and weak, nor did he have much respect for King Dalo of Gan, who was content to stay on Wolf’s Paw and forget his ancestral claims to Géjira on the Big Island. Marana’s plan was to combine his forces with Namen’s for a coordinated general assault on Cocru, the only Tiro state that posed a real threat to the empire.

But before he could put his plan into operation, a messenger arrived from the Immaculate City with the news that Regent Crupo had been caught in a treasonous plot and executed, and Prime Minister Pira now ordered all Imperial forces be amassed for a general assault on Wolf’s Paw.

“Pacify the Outer Islands first.” The messenger read the words of Goran Pira. “And the Big Island will come to heel by itself.”

This seemed to Marana the wrong strategy, but he suppressed his annoyance before the Imperial messenger. The emperor and the new prime minister seemed to think war a game they played on that model of the empire in the Grand Audience Hall. He might be the Marshal of Xana, but ultimately he was just a token, to be picked up and put down wherever his superiors wished.

For a moment, he almost wished he had given in to the temptation of Princess Kikomi.

But that opportunity was past, and the path of treason would remain for him only a thing of the imagination. He was too meticulous, too attached to beliefs about order and a man’s proper place.

Marana sighed and sent out the new deployment orders. The Imperial armada and its twenty thousand soldiers would sail north around the Big Island, bypassing Faça for Wolf’s Paw.

Simultaneously, Namen was to leave a small number of defenders at the Liru River and the edge of the Rima woods. He would then take another twenty thousand men through Thoco Pass, through gentle Géjira and its wealthy garden cities and peaceful rice paddies, and meet the armada at the point where the Shinané Mountains ran into the coast. From there, the empire would launch an all-out assault on Wolf’s Paw.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX. THE PRINCEPS’S PROMISE

ÇARUZA: THE NINTH MONTH IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF RIGHTEOUS FORCE.

King Thufi thundered at the gathered ambassadors and kings of the Tiro states.

He was sick of how pettily everyone behaved. The debates had raged on for months, and yet nothing was ever decided. Rather than coming together with a plan to march on Pan, the assembled dignitaries preferred to squabble over how to divide up the spoils of an imaginary victory.

Rima and Amu were gone, and Haan never managed to free itself, even temporarily. The empire was going to reconquer the Tiro states one by one, a repeat of Emperor Mapidéré’s feat decades earlier. The rebellion was teetering on the abyss of failure.

The fiction of the equality and independence of all Tiro states is nice, Thufi thought, but now we must face reality.

“No more debates,” King Thufi declared. “I’m nominating myself as princeps.”

The room fell into stunned silence. There had not been a princeps for hundreds of years.

But no one objected, at least not openly. Cocru, after all, had the largest army, and it was the only Tiro state to have won any victories in the field against the empire.

“Marana and Namen are throwing everything they have into an assault on Wolf’s Paw, and we have to put aside our differences and do everything we can to help Gan”—the Gan ambassador nodded vigorously at this—“Faça and Cocru will send every man who can be spared, and the rest of you must do what you can to help — money, weapons, intelligence. The Six States will make a collective stand at Wolf’s Paw.”

In truth, this wasn’t a mere platitude. All the Tiro states could help. The remnants of Rima’s army had made their way into Cocru, bitter men who longed for vengeance. A few Amu ships had escaped from the Battle of Amu Strait and limped their way to Çaruza, along with King Ponadomu and Princess Kikomi — though it was too bad that the airship they escaped in had mysteriously sprung a leak shortly after landing and had to be scuttled. And wealthy nobles from all the conquered Tiro states had fled to Çaruza, laden with national treasures that could be converted into military funds.

Even Haan had something to offer. King Cosugi had sent Luan Zya on a secret mission into Haan, where he had managed to start an underground movement among dissatisfied young men willing to make trouble for the empire in the heartland.

“Should we fail at Wolf’s Paw, then the Islands of Dara will again sink back into barbarism and tyranny. But if we succeed, we will have extinguished the empire’s last glimmer of hope. Kindo Marana will not be able to find more men willing to die for the empire in Rui and Dasu. The people of Xana have suffered almost as much as we have.

“We will rise or sink together, as one.”

Thufi did not trust the kings and ambassadors, who had their own agendas. To inspire the men to fight, he had to speak to them directly.

“Should we succeed, we will push on through the fields of Géjira, through Thoco Pass, and bring the war to the emperor in his palace in Pan. As princeps, I decree now that whosoever, be he churl or earl, captures Emperor Erishi will be made the king of a new Tiro state encompassing the richest parts of Géfica.”

The assembled ambassadors and kings offered halfhearted cheers at this announcement, but their applause grew louder as Marshal Phin Zydnu stared coldly at each of them in turn.

Words always seemed so much more convincing when backed by swords.

King Ponadomu muttered that the princeps was making promises with land that by right belonged to Amu, but considering he and Princess Kikomi were living on handouts from King Thufi, he kept his voice very low.

The house that Jia rented was outside Çaruza, in a tiny village right on the beach. It had been the summer home of a Cocru noble family now fallen on hard times. The house was large but not ostentatious, and the rent was affordable.

To the east, below the horizon, were the Tunoa Islands. Mata Zyndu stood for a while on the beach, tossing broken shells and pebbles into the waves, thinking about home. Then he ducked his head and walked through Kuni’s front door.

“Brother Kuni and Sister Jia!” he shouted. “I hope this is not an inconvenient time for a visit.”

Mata and Kuni had returned to Çaruza a month ago, after it was clear that Marana and Namen were not going to attack Dimu. Kuni stayed with Jia and enjoyed being a father while Mata helped his uncle with his duties managing the Cocru army. They were both getting a little antsy, though, waiting for the kings and ambassadors to decide on a strategy for the rebels.

“Ah, it’s Brother Mata,” Kuni said, standing up with Jia. “You know that there is no inconvenient time where you’re concerned. You’re family.”

Otho Krin came in bearing a tray of snacks and a tea set.

“How many times have I told you that you don’t need to act like a servant?” Jia said. “You came here as Kuni’s bodyguard, not to carry things for me.”

“I don’t mind, Lady Jia,” Otho said, his face red. “I begged Lord Garu to bring me here, and I told him that I would make myself useful, whether it’s protecting him or helping you with anything you need around the house. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for Lord Garu… and you.”

“You’re like a child who never grows up,” Jia said, but she was also smiling. “Thank you, Otho.” The awkward young man bowed and left.

Jia and Kuni welcomed Mata and they sat on the floor in géüpa. Jia poured tea while Kuni handed the baby to Mata. Mata, unsure what to do, held the baby gingerly in his big palm like a coconut. The baby didn’t cry, but looked up at the giant man curiously. Kuni and Jia laughed.

“He has your figure, Kuni,” Mata said as he looked at the baby’s chubby legs and round belly. “But he is much better looking.”

“You’ve clearly been spending too much time with my husband,” said a smiling Jia. “You’re even learning his low style of humor.”

While they drank tea and snacked on dried mango chips and cod strips with bamboo eating sticks, Mata told Kuni about King Thufi’s announcement.

“King of Géfica!” Kuni marveled. “That is certainly going to excite the officers and soldiers.”

“Indeed it will.”

“My brother, how can you remain so calm? Surely you see it as a promise meant for you to fulfill!”

Mata grinned. “There are many heroes in the rebellion. Who can say whom the gods will favor with such a prize?”

Kuni shook his head. “You do not need to be so humble. Strive for your destiny.”

Mata laughed, happy at Kuni’s confidence but also feeling embarrassed. “Right now, I just hope King Thufi will make me commander-in-chief of the alliance forces at Wolf’s Paw so that my uncle can stay in Çaruza — he deserves a rest, and King Thufi would feel safer with the marshal around in charge of homeland defense.”

“I’ll go with you. We fight well together.”

Mata smiled. He did enjoy having Kuni Garu by his side. Kuni might not be much of a warrior, but he always had clever ideas.

Kuni and Jia then looked at each other and shared a smile. Kuni leaned toward Mata. “There might be another Little Garu soon.”

“Congratulations again! Well, you two certainly aren’t wasting any time.” Mata toasted the happy couple.

“We Garus are like the dandelions: We multiply no matter how difficult things are.” Kuni gently stroked Jia’s back, and Jia looked contentedly into the eyes of the baby in her arms. The walls around them were bare and drafty, yet Mata thought it felt warmer here than in the stone halls of King Thufi’s palace, full of luxurious tapestries and hurrying servants.

He had never thought much about children. But these days, in the company of Princess Kikomi, his mind was drifting to things other than war strategies and battle tactics.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN. KIKOMI

ÇARUZA: THE NINTH MONTH IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF RIGHTEOUS FORCE.

While the army prepared to set out for Wolf’s Paw, Çaruza was consumed with gossip about Princess Kikomi.

The glamorous princess was often seen in the company of young General Mata Zyndu. The two made a striking couple: Mata was like Fithowéo come to life, and Kikomi was as beautiful as any vision of Tututika. There was no better match that could be conceived.

Mata did not consider himself a man of fine sensibilities, but Kikomi caused his heart to flutter and his breath to quicken in ways that he had always thought existed only in old poems. Looking into her eyes, he thought time stopped, and he longed to sit all day just watching her.

But it was listening to her that Mata most enjoyed. Kikomi spoke in such a low voice that he often had to lean in to hear her, and he could then breathe in her flowery scent — tropical, lush, luxurious. She seemed to caress him with her voice: lingering on his face, combing through his hair, stepping gently through his heart.

She spoke of her childhood on Arulugi, of the contradictions of growing up as a princess who had been deprived of her realm.

She had been brought up in the family of a loyal retainer of her grandfather, and though she longed to think of herself as a wealthy merchant’s daughter, just like her adopted sisters, she was taught that she had to remember the duties that came with her royal blood.

The people of Amu still thought of her as their princess, even if she no longer had a throne or palace. She led the dances at the great festivals, reassured the nobles who commiserated with her about their lost glory, and went to the fine schools of Müning with her brothers and sisters, where she read the Ano Classics and learned to sing and play the coconut lute. She wore the title of princess like an old sentimental cloak, too shabby to keep her warm, but too dear to shed.

Then came the rebellion, and overnight she came to live the life she had only encountered in fairy tales. Ministers bowed before her, and men with lowered eyes carried her into the palace at Müning, and all the old rituals and ceremonies became real again. An invisible wall rose up around her. Being Princess Kikomi was a great privilege, but it was also a great burden.

Mata understood that weight, the weight of privilege and obligation, of lost ancient glory and fresh, heavy expectation. This was an experience that someone like Kuni Garu, who was not born noble, who had not been deprived of his birthright, could not possibly understand. For Mata, Kuni was like a brother, but Princess Kikomi could see into his heart. He could not imagine feeling any closer to another person, not even Phin.

“You are like me,” she said. “All your life, others have told you how you should be, given you an image to strive for. But have you ever thought about what you wanted? Just you, simple Mata, not the last son of the Zyndus?”

“Not until now,” he said.

He shook his head and woke from this dreamlike state he often fell into in the presence of Kikomi. He was a believer in propriety, and he wanted to honor his pure intentions. He would bring her to meet his uncle, the Duke of Tunoa and Marshal of Cocru, and secure his blessing, and then he would approach King Ponadomu to ask for her hand.

Kikomi stood up from a deep jiri and watched as Mata’s figure disappeared down the hall.

She closed the door and leaned against it, her face falling into an expression of deep grief. She mourned her freedom, mourned the loss of her self.

How foolish of Captain Cano Tho, thinking that his bravery had engineered her and King Ponadomu’s “miraculous” escape.

I made a deal.

What pained her most was that she did like Mata, liked his awkward, stiff demeanor; his sincere, unadorned speech; his open face that could not hide how he felt. She even saw his faults in a forgiving light: his hot temper, his fragile pride, his overweening sense of honor — with time, these could be tempered into aspects of true nobility.

Can you not see through my painted smiles? Can you not see through my false devotion?

She did not know the art of seduction well — had always scorned it, in fact, and she had moved too fast with Kindo Marana. But now, now she was succeeding so well. The cause was so obvious that she tried to deny it whenever it surfaced in her mind: Perhaps she wasn’t feigning it at all. That made what she was doing so much worse.

She clenched her fists, and her nails dug into her flesh. She thought of Amu in flames, of Müning being put to the sword.

She could not lay bare her heart to Mata.

I made a deal.

Phin Zyndu had always thought of women as diversions. He would bed a servant girl now and then to sate his urges, but he did not permit them to distract him from his real task: restoring the honor of the Zyndu Clan and the glory of Cocru.

But this woman was different, this Princess Kikomi, who came in the company of his nephew.

She was strong, like a young jujube tree. Though he commanded twenty thousand men, and even King Thufi deferred to him on all military matters, she was not cowed by him. She was a princess without a land, and yet she behaved as if she were his equal.

She did not ask for his protection with her eyes or attitude, the way so many women seemed to. This only made him feel even more protective of her. He yearned to reach out and pull her into his embrace.

She spoke of her admiration of him and of her sorrow at the sacrifices made by the young men of Arulugi. So many noblewomen in Phin’s experience were silly creatures, their minds confined to the walls of their boudoirs and the schedule of balls and parties. But the princess cried genuine tears for the men who died, each alone, in the dark waters of the Amu Strait. She understood what moved men who went to the battlefield to seek glory, but whose dying thoughts always turned to mothers and wives, daughters and sisters. She was worthy, indeed, of the men who died for her.

And she was beautiful, so beautiful.

Kikomi smiled demurely.

Inside, she wanted to scream.

The marshal simply assumed that she wanted and needed to be protected, had been surprised to hear her speak of Amu’s naval defeat with knowledge and sense. She noted how Phin had condescendingly praised her education, had chuckled when she expressed wonder at Çaruza’s library. He had not paid much attention when she spoke of the suffering and hardship of the women who worked the docks of Müningtozu to prepare the ships for war, but his eyes had lit up when she turned the conversation to the sailors on those ships.

He had truly meant to pay her a compliment when he told her how different she was from “those silly young noblewomen,” had truly believed that she would be flattered to be thought extraordinary from her sex.

It was men like him who had made her into a symbol, had put her into this impossible position.

But, in a way, that made the task easy. She knew exactly what she needed to say and do, and she even enjoyed the challenge of playing the role of his ideal: She was worthy only insofar as she oriented herself to men, like a sunflower adoring the sun.

I made a deal.

What was the meaning of those glances between Kikomi and Phin? Mata thought. What was the meaning of the way she lowered her head, and the way he reached out to touch her shoulder? Was that how an uncle greeted the intended of his nephew?

Somehow all three of them skirted around the purpose of the meeting. It was confusing. Nothing concrete or improper was spoken, and yet too much seemed to have been said.

Was it right that he was feeling this way for a woman so much younger? Phin thought. Was it proper that he was preempting the claim of his nephew? He had always treated Mata as a son, and yet, now he felt jealous of him, of his youth, of his strength, of his unjust claim on her.

But Kikomi had given him permission to feel this way about her, had she not? Those looks, those sighs — they spoke volumes.

He could tell she appreciated his maturity, the steadiness of feeling brought on by the accumulation of years. Mata was young and impulsive, and he was infatuated with her, like a puppy. But she could see through it. She wanted a love more manly, more lasting and real.

Mata asked Kuni to come and visit.

Morose and dejected, Mata said nothing as he filled two cups with sorghum liquor. An open fire burned in a bronze brazier next to the table. Kuni sat down across from his friend and took a sip from his cup. The liquor was cheap, strong, and made Kuni’s eyes water.

Kuni had heard the same gossip as everyone else, and, tactfully, he said nothing.

“He’s sending me away,” Mata said. He drained his cup and immediately fell to great heaving coughs that disguised his tears. “He has decided that Pashi Roma, that decrepit old man, fit only to sit by the gates of Çaruza, will be commander-in-chief at Wolf’s Paw. I’m in charge of the rear guard only, and I must leave within the week to begin preparations for the crossing over the Kishi Channel. But I won’t even get to cross with the main force. My duty is to play harbormaster and guard the Maji Peninsula in case there has to be a retreat.”

Kuni continued to say nothing. He simply refilled Mata’s cup.

“She said that she would not choose between us. And so he decided to make the choice for her and get me out of the way. It’s his way of demonstrating how much power he has over me, to belittle me. He’s taken away my chance for glory.” Mata spit into the fire.

“It’s not good to speak this way, brother. You and the marshal are two pillars holding up the sky over Cocru. Discord, like termites in the foundation, is an infestation that must be plucked out, lest it bring ruin upon all of us. You have a duty to focus on the task at hand. The lives of men depend on you.”

“I am not the uncle who stole a nephew’s woman, Kuni! I am not the one who betrayed a bond of trust! He’s a weak old man, and he has always relied on me to fight his wars for him. Maybe it’s time I stopped.”

“Enough! You are drunk and know not what you say. I’ll go with you, Mata, to the Maji Peninsula. Forget about the fickle woman. She has played with both of your affections, and she is not worthy of your anger.”

“Do not speak ill of her.” Mata got up and tried to strike at Kuni, but he stumbled and missed. Kuni deftly dodged out of the way and then held Mata up, looping one of his thick arms over his own shoulder.

“All right, brother. I’ll shut up about the princess. But I dearly wish neither of you had ever met her.”

But Kuni could not go with Mata to war after all. Cogo Yelu sent news from Zudi: Kuni’s mother had died. Kuni had to go to Zudi and stay in mourning for thirty days as was the custom. Kuni did offer to delay the mourning until after the present crisis, but Mata strenuously shook his head. Even in war, such proprieties had to be respected.

Since Jia was pregnant again, and it would be difficult to travel with the baby, she decided to remain in Çaruza. Mata promised that he would send reliable men to look after her.

Otho Krin offered to stay behind to protect Jia, and Kuni immediately agreed. He felt better about leaving Jia behind if he knew she had someone loyal she could call on.

“It’s slightly inconvenient to have a man stay in the house with me when my husband isn’t around,” Jia said. “While I don’t much care about Çaruza’s gossip, it’s best not to give them fodder.”

“I could become your steward and thus be a proper part of your household,” Otho suggested.

Though Jia protested the idea, Kuni decided that it would be for the best. “Thank you, Otho. I’m honored that you’d be willing to do this just to protect Lady Jia. Your loyalty will not be forgotten.”

Otho mumbled his thanks.

Meanwhile, although most of Kuni’s soldiers had been incorporated into the expeditionary force to Wolf’s Paw, Mata assigned a platoon of five hundred veterans out of Kuni’s and his old unit to accompany him back to Zudi.

Kuni thanked him and began to prepare for the trip home.

“Be careful, brother. Focus on our only concern: defeating the empire. Remember your song, the song about our golden-hued brotherhood. One day, I expect to see you parade in triumph in Pan as the King of Géfica. The crowd will praise your name into the sky, and I promise to be there by your side, cheering the loudest.”

But Mata said nothing. His eyes seemed very far away.

“Daf,” the hundred-chief said. “Wake up and start packing. You’re going with Duke Garu back to Zudi.”

Dafiro and Ratho looked at each other, yawned, and began to pack up.

“What are you doing?” the hundred-chief said to Ratho. “Just your brother, not you. You’re still coming with us to Wolf’s Paw.”

“But we’ve always been together.”

“Tough. General Zyndu said to pull fifty men from Third Company for Duke Garu, and that’s what I’m doing. Daf goes, and you stay.” The hundred-chief, a young man with an arrogant face, smirked. He fingered the shark’s-teeth necklace around his neck, as if daring Daf or Rat to defy his petty authority.

“I told you we should never have come back into the army,” Dafiro said. “I think we have to desert.”

But Ratho shook his head. “General Zyndu gave the order. I won’t disobey him.”

There was nothing to do then but for the Miro brothers to say good-bye to each other.

“This is because they think I’m lazy,” Dafiro said. “Now I wish I had worked as hard as you. Damn this wind. It’s making my eyes water.” There was only a very light breeze.

“Hey, look at it this way: If I don’t come back from Wolf’s Paw, you’ll be able to stop worrying about taking care of me. Then you can marry a nice girl and keep the Miro name alive. Ha, who knows, maybe you’ll even get to be the one to capture Emperor Erishi. Duke Garu is full of tricks.”

“Take care of yourself, you hear? Don’t always rush to be at the front. Stay back and watch carefully. If things aren’t going well, run.”

At night, the glowing crater of Mount Kana could be seen for miles around.

It rumbled.

What are you doing here, Tazu of Gan, dressed up like a hundred-chief?

A wild laughter, as chaotic as sea wreckage, as amoral as a shark gliding through the unlit ocean.

You’re about to bring your damned war to my island, and I’m not allowed to play some games?

I thought you weren’t going to take sides.

Who said anything about taking sides? I’m here to have fun.

You consider it fun to divide brother from brother?

The mortals are always dividing uncle from nephew, husband from wife. I’m doing no more than adding a bit more randomness to their lives. Everyone can use a bit of Tazu now and then.

Phin told himself that he did it to protect both Mata and Kikomi.

Mata had been behaving more and more erratically, and Kikomi had been frightened by what Mata might do if she rejected him outright. It was up to Phin to cure Mata of his infatuation and to protect the fragile, delicate Kikomi.

He asked her to stay the night with him. She sat still for a moment but then nodded silently.

She poured him cup after cup of mango liquor, and her beauty complemented the drink so well that he couldn’t stop drinking. She made him feel so young again, and he felt that he could take on the whole empire all by himself. Yes, it was definitely the right decision. She belonged with him.

He pulled her to him, and she smiled and demurely lifted her face for a kiss.

The moon was very bright. The silvery light spilled through the window onto the woven-grass-matted floor, onto the bed where Phin Zyndu snored loudly.

Princess Kikomi sat on the edge of the bed. She was naked. The night air was warm, but she shivered.

You will practice your womanly arts on the Zyndus.

She replayed Kindo Marana’s words in her head for the hundredth time.

Phin and Mata Zyndu are the heart and soul of castled Cocru’s martial might. But you will divide uncle and nephew from each other with your feigned affections until jealousy and suspicion have paralyzed the Cocru army. And when the time is right, you will assassinate one of the two: with either of Cocru’s two arms gone, Namen and I will make short work of the other.

This is my offer, Your Royal Highness: Dedicate yourself to this task, or the people of Amu will pay the price for your failure.

Kikomi got up. Silently, gracefully, she slid across the floor in the way her dance teachers had taught her. She stopped at the folding screen on the other side of the room, where her dress was draped. Reaching inside a hidden fold within her belt, she retrieved the thin dagger. She felt the rough handle digging into the skin of her palm.

This is called Cruben’s Thorn. Once, an assassin from Gan tried to use it on Emperor Mapidéré, back when he was still called King Réon. I’ll leave it for you in your cabin. The Thorn is carved from a single cruben’s tooth, and so, unlike other weapons made of metal, it cannot be detected by magnetic doors or probes, a common precaution of paranoid Tiro kings. It’s the perfect weapon for assassins.

She touched the tip with a finger. A drop of blood, a black pearl in the silvery moonlight, grew on her finger. The marshal’s guards had required her, like all visitors to the marshal’s private quarters, to pass through a short corridor constructed from strong lodestone, apologizing to her all the while. If the dagger had been made of metal, the part of her body attached to it would have stuck to the lodestone, exposing her true intentions.

Marana had thought far ahead.

Silently, gracefully, she slid back next to the bed.

She smiled bitterly. Marana thought she was a peacock’s feather, thought she was a drop of poison from the horned toad’s sac. Yet she had a choice: Narrow and confined though it was, she would make the most of it.

She had thought long and hard. Mata was younger, but he was on the rise, just coming into full awareness of his own potential. Phin, on the other hand, was past his prime.

If she killed Mata, Phin might be accelerated on his arc of long and inevitable decline. But if she killed Phin, hot-blooded Mata might be so filled with rage and thoughts of vengeance that the empire would be forced to face a monster it had created.

She hoped that her decision was rational, wasn’t influenced by her real feelings for Mata.

She looked at the naked body of Phin, at his balding head, at his muscles, just starting to lose their definition. How she wished she did not have to do this. How she wished she was not a princess, but only the daughter of a wealthy merchant. With privilege came duty, and sometimes one had to choose between one life and the lives of an island.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

She lifted Phin’s chin, and as he stirred in his sleep, she plunged the dagger deep into the soft hollow of his neck. Holding the handle by both hands, she slid the dagger left and right, and blood spurted everywhere.

With a gurgle, Phin came awake and grabbed both of her hands. In the moonlight she could see his eyes, as wide as the wine cups. Surprise, pain, fury. He could not speak, but he squeezed until the dagger fell from her fingers. She knew that her wrists were broken. She would not be able to end her own life, as she had wanted to.

With all her strength, she grunted and pulled herself free and backed out of his reach.

“I do this for the people of Arulugi,” she whispered to him. “I made a deal. Forgive me. I made a deal.”

Marana had promised that she would be remembered in the hearts of the people of Amu. That generation after generation would sing songs about her sacrifice and tell stories about her heroism.

Did she deserve such praise? Yes, she had saved the people of Amu. But she had also cut down the Marshal of Cocru in cold blood and endangered the rebellion and the lives of countless others. She did not exactly regret it: She was a daughter of Amu, and for her the people of that island would always come first. Between two great evils, she chose the lesser.

Yet how could she bear to face Phin Zyndu and all those who were about to die under the sword of Marana in the afterlife? She must steel her heart for the accusing stares.

The writhing of Phin’s body became slower and less vigorous.

In the cold moonlight, Kikomi’s vision, momentarily obscured by the pain of her broken wrists, cleared. She shuddered as she finally understood the deviousness of Marana’s plan: If Xana were to spare Amu in the subsequent wars and her name were then celebrated, Cocru would suspect an alliance between Amu and Xana and consider her act proof of Amu’s treachery. Müning, that beautiful, fragile floating city, might yet be put to the torch by Mata’s army.

A seducer is one who wins through deception rather than force, a harlot is one who wields sex like a sorcerer wields a staff, and “a mere bauble” may yet decide to put herself on display to guide the hearts and minds of thousands into an unstoppable force.

Marana was counting on her vanity, on her desire to be a great hero to her people, to be remembered for her sacrifice. But her glory would bring endless strife between Cocru and Amu and doom the Beautiful Island.

There was only one way to thwart his plan: She would have to desecrate her own memory to ensure the safety of Amu.

As Phin’s body stopped moving, she began to shout. “I have killed the Marshal of Cocru! Oh, Kindo Marana, know that I have done this for you out of love.”

The sound of heavy running footsteps in the hallways and the clanging of swords came closer and closer. She stumbled to where Phin’s body was and sat down.

“Marana, my Marana! I would rather be your slave girl than the Princess of Amu!”

They will cut me down, she thought. Cut me down as a whore of the Marshal of Xana, a silly girl who was blinded by love to betray her people and the rebellion. And that is how they will remember me. But Amu will be safe. Amu will be safe.

She continued to shout, until they silenced her with their swords.

I’m truly sorry, Little Sister….

Though the Mingén falcons occasionally flew to every island of Dara, from that day on, they never approached Arulugi, the home of Tututika, last born of the gods.

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT. LUAN ZYA’S PLAN

ZUDI: THE TENTH MONTH IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF RIGHTEOUS FORCE.

After paying his respects to Féso Garu, Luan Zya stopped in the mourning hall to offer a prayer for the repose of Lady Garu’s soul and to light a candle.

He had ridden nonstop from Haan to Çaruza, and thence to Zudi. For much of the journey, when he was in Imperial territory, he had had to ride at night and hide during the day to avoid the emperor’s spies. Living for so many days in the saddle thinned his already-gaunt body and coated his robe in a thick layer of mud and dust. But his eyes were brighter, more feverish, and filled with more excitement than ever.

Naré’s death had finally softened Féso’s heart and caused him to rescind his order that Kuni was never to be allowed in his house.

Kuni Garu got up as Luan Zya entered his room. Kuni was dressed all in white, and wore ashes on his face and draped rough sackcloth around his shoulders. His eyes were red and tired. The two men grasped arms and shared a moment of silence.

Luan sat down, back straight, knees bent in mipa rari. “A mother’s love is the strongest thread in the tapestry of life. My heart rings in tune with your loss.”

Instead of replying with an equally flowery cliché, as most cultured men would, the duke simply said, “I’ve been a great disappointment to my mother. But she loved me no matter what.”

“I’ve often thought the pleasure that parents take in their children is like the pleasure a man gets from releasing a wild bird. I would venture to guess that Lady Garu had plenty of joy, though she had seen but a little of how high you would fly.”

Kuni Garu bowed his head. “Thank you.”

“Lord Garu, you and I do not know each other well, and yet I have often thought of you in the months since we met. I believe you to be among the few who will one day stride across this world like a colossus and drink with the gods.”

Kuni laughed lightly. “Even in mourning, I enjoy such flattery. What a strange beast is Man.”

“I come not to flatter you, Lord Garu, but to offer you an opportunity.”

Luan Zya had been in Haan on a secret mission to rouse up hot-blooded young men who would be willing to risk their lives and perform acts of sabotage in the Imperial heartland. It was dangerous work that held little promise, but Luan took to it without complaint. When a man loved his homeland enough, even the slimmest hope was worth pursuing, contrary to prudent calculation and careful forethought.

But one night he was awakened by the sound of paper rustling. As he sat up, he saw in the starlight that the pages of Gitré Üthu, the tome given to him by that old fisherman by the sea, fluttered by themselves on his desk.

He got up from bed, sat down next to the desk, and saw that the book had opened itself to a new section he had never seen before. Slowly, the blank pages were being filled with a new landscape of words and pictures.

There was a map of the Islands of Dara, filled with tiny black and white symbols that he recognized as representing the armies that the empire and the rebellion respectively commanded. Below the map was the beginning of what appeared to be a long treatise.

He read. The sun rose and set and rose again. He continued to read, forgetting hunger and thirst.

Three days later, he got up, closed the book, and laughed.

The book had simply shown him what he had learned in his years of travel among the Islands. It was as if his mind had been poured out onto the pages — but systemized, made orderly, and presented in one place. And the new way of seeing what he already knew gave him a new idea. All his life, he realized, had been a prologue to this moment.

It was time to fulfill his promise to his father.

Luan Zya had first presented his plan to King Cosugi.

“I’m an old man, Luan. Such risks are for men who have seen seen little enough of the world to retain faith in themselves. I am content to be King Thufi’s guest and let others perform the great deeds that you dream of.”

Luan then went to visit Mata Zyndu at Nasu, on the Maji Peninsula. But the general, still brooding over the deaths of his uncle and Princess Kikomi, turned away all visitors, and Luan never even got to speak to Mata.

Kuni Garu was his last hope. Garu was no great warrior, and he was born only a commoner. But Luan Zya had felt something stirring in the depths of the man’s heart, a willingness to be persuaded and to gamble.

“King Thufi has promised to make anyone who captures Emperor Erishi the king of a new Tiro state.”

Kuni nodded. He thought of Mata Zyndu. If anyone had the bravery and prowess to march into Pan, it was his friend.

“Tanno Namen left Pan with minimal defenses when he departed for Thoco Pass to join Marana at Wolf’s Paw. He thought it enough for the Imperial navy to hold the Liru River and the Amu Strait, with the Alliance focused only on Wolf’s Paw.”

“Namen is right. We have no navy to speak of on the west coast of the Big Island.”

“A navy does not mean only ships.”

Kuni looked at him, his expression a question.

Luan explained his plan to Kuni in a few broad strokes, striving to keep his voice even. He had to appear to be sane, in control, even if what he proposed was madness. He ended by saying, “To defeat a gang of thieves, you must seize the leader. To kill a great python, you must cut off its head.”

Kuni sat in silence for a while. “A bold plan,” he said finally. “And exceedingly dangerous.”

Luan locked gazes with Kuni. “Lord Garu, you must now choose: Will you soar as high as a Mingén falcon though you might die trying, or will you spend a lifetime safely pecking at grains of rice scattered under someone else’s eaves?”

Kuni’s face was unchanged. Luan could not tell if he had succeeded in kindling the man’s ambition — in all his calculations, predicting Kuni’s reaction had always been the hardest part.

“Even if I succeed, how will I hold the Immaculate City? It will be like trying to parry a sword with a sewing needle.”

“Lord Zyndu, your friend, will surely come to your aid. But only after — this plan cannot work unless it’s known by as few people as possible ahead of its execution.”

“And then we will be kings together,” said Kuni. “Brothers in arms, brothers on the throne.”

Luan nodded. “You will be as well matched together as you were here at Zudi.”

“Provided I succeed,” said Kuni, after a pause. “You offer me nothing but a gamble.”

Luan was prepared for disappointment. Though Kuni had once been a gambler, he had already accomplished much. And achievement had a way of lowering a man’s tolerance for risk.

“Tell me,” Kuni said, “what does Lutho think of your plan?”

Luan kept his gaze steady. “My father was chief augur to Lutho, and I have a bit of a reputation as a master of divination. But the truth, Lord Garu, is that the will of the gods cannot be ascertained. I have never witnessed a sign that cannot be interpreted multiple ways. I’ve always believed that the gods are like the wind and the tides, currents of great power that may be ridden only by those willing to help themselves.”

Kuni smiled at him. “An ignorant man might think such words from an augur’s son impious.”

“It’s a common sentiment among those who have studied long in Haan. It isn’t by coincidence that Ginpen’s schools, though small, have produced a disproportionate number of Dara’s mathematicians, philosophers, lawgivers: We strive to calculate that which is knowable in favor of that which is not.”

“I apologize for my feigned surprise,” said Kuni. “It was a test. Had you promised the aid of Lutho’s favor for your mad plan, I would have known not to trust you.”

Luan laughed. “You’re a good actor, Lord Garu.”

“I learned my skill in a life of petty crime and street wagering. You probably know that among gamblers, there is a divide. Half of us pray to Lutho, and the other half to Tazu. Do you know why?”

Luan did not hesitate. “Those who prefer Lutho favor games of skill, believing that with sufficient knowledge and calculation, the future is predictable; those who prefer Tazu favor games of chance, believing that the world is as random as the path of his whirlpool and the future as likely to delight as to disappoint.”

“I have always prayed to both,” said Kuni. “And so, Luan, tell me again of your plan and the knowledge behind the madness.”

Luan proceeded to explain his reasoning, laying out detailed figures and maps and intelligence of troop movements and profiles of Xana commanders. Kuni listened intently, asking questions from time to time.

By the time Luan was done with his explanations, he looked at the pile of paper scraps in front of him in despair. His plan seemed preposterous, an impossible dream. The odds of success were so slim as to be nonexistent. By forcing Luan to explain himself, Kuni had succeeded in showing him that the plan was impossible.

“I’m sorry to have wasted your time,” said Luan, and he began to pack up.

“Even in games of skill,” said Kuni, “there is no guarantee of winning. In the end, there is always a gap that cannot be bridged by knowledge. Once you have worked out all the odds, you still have to toss the dice, to take that leap of faith.”

A passing breeze filled the courtyard outside with floating dandelion seeds.

Kuni turned to look at them. He wished he had a plug of Jia’s special chewing herbs like he did in the Er-Mé Mountains or Mata by his side on the walls of Zudi. But this time, he had to decide on his own.

Is this the particular moment when the breeze I have awaited all my life has arrived? Is this when I am to be plucked from my home and take flight?

“I’ve always promised myself an interesting adventure,” Kuni said, smiling. “There should be a little bit of Tazu in everyone’s life.”

Then he went to say good-bye to the spirit of his mother and to apologize for having to leave early.

Dafiro Miro yawned. The road out of Zudi was still cold in the predawn darkness. He looked up at the stars and sighed.

He had no idea where they were going, only that it promised to be days of quick marching and nights spent on hard ground. The great lords never told the foot soldiers what was happening, and Dafiro was used to being sent hither and thither with no explanation. But Dafiro noticed that no messengers had been dispatched to Çaruza and King Thufi — he had made sure to befriend the couriers, knowing that they were like the antennae on an insect, the first to know anything worth knowing. Curious. Whatever Duke Garu had planned, it was to be a secret from King Thufi and General Zyndu and everyone else.

Dosa was left in charge of Zudi while all of Duke Garu’s advisers came along. This would be important, that was clear.

His life was about being fed, being paid, and being bored for long stretches, interspersed with brief flashes of terror and extraordinary exertion. War was not good for anyone except those in charge.

Still, if one had to be a soldier, Duke Garu was a good lord to follow. He really seemed to make it a point not to risk his men’s lives unnecessarily, and Dafiro thought this made him a better man than General Zyndu. Rat was obsessed with Zyndu’s arrogant bravery and his deeds of valor, but Dafiro could see that Zyndu didn’t really care about death. He wasn’t afraid of anything, and that was not a virtue, as far as Dafiro was concerned.

The five hundred foot soldiers marched along the road, disguised as a merchant caravan. Always, they headed southwest. Duke Garu rode at their head on a horse, and only the gods knew where they were going.

They arrived at the port city of Canfin. Duke Garu’s new adviser, the mysterious Luan Zya, went to the docks alone while the company made camp just outside the city.

Dafiro gazed at the city walls and reflected on the strange path of his life. More than a year ago, he and his brother were headed here to board a ship bound for Pan, where they had expected whips and chains and endless toil to build Emperor Mapidéré’s Mausoleum. But they never made it to Canfin because their captains, Huno Krima and Zopa Shigin, changed their lives forever.

And here he was, finally. But where were they headed now?

The Imperial navy harassed ships up and down the Cocru coast, and there were few ships that dared running the blockade. But with enough money, people could be persuaded to attempt any kind of risk. Luan Zya showed the shipmasters at the docks a great deal of money.

Duke Garu’s men boarded three merchant ships at night. Dafiro tried to go to sleep in the dark cargo hold. The soldiers were packed in very tightly, like dried fish or bundles of cloth, and the rocking of the ship over the waves made so many men dizzy that the smell of sickness was everywhere.

Once they were at sea, they could go up to the deck to take in fresh air in shifts. Dafiro tried to guess where they were headed by looking at the sun, the moon, and the stars. There was no land in sight, so they weren’t hugging the coast. Were they headed for wild Écofi, where elephants roamed the sea of grass and much of the land was uninhabited? Was Duke Garu going to start a new settlement? Dafiro had never left the Big Island, and he wondered what he would find there.

But the sun always set to the right of the ship as they sailed ever southward.

“Land ho!”

Dafiro gazed at the dark trees on shore, the virgin forest that had never been cut down and turned into ships, houses, siege machines, and palaces.

They were at Tan Adü, the land of savage cannibals. Dafiro put his hand on the hilt of his sword. Why had Duke Garu taken them here? This was not a place for civilized men. Over the years, various Tiro states had made countless attempts to settle and subdue this island, attempts that had always failed.

The ships anchored in a shallow bay, and men were ferried ashore in small boats. Then the merchant ships pulled up their anchors, turned around, and sailed away, leaving Duke Garu and his company alone in the wild.

It was twilight, and Cogo Yelu and Mün Çakri directed the men to make camp right on the beach. Luan Zya went to the edge of the camp and took out a small hot-air lantern. He filled the hanging fuel pouch with dried grass, lit it, and launched it into the air. As the small orange flickering dot floated away into the dark sky, he followed it with his eyes until it disappeared among the stars.

Then he began to ululate, much as he had done on that long-ago day when he had tried to assassinate Emperor Mapidéré, and his cry, like the cry of a wolf, rode the winds to the dark interior of the forbidding woods.

Dafiro shivered.

In the morning, the camp was surrounded by hundreds of Adüan warriors. Their bowstrings taut and their spears raised over their shoulders, the bronze-skinned, blond men watched the Cocru soldiers impassively.

“Drop your weapons!” Luan Zya shouted at the tense soldiers. “Hold your hands up.”

The soldiers hesitated, but Duke Garu repeated the order. Dafiro reluctantly put down his sword and lifted his hands. He examined the hostile-looking Adüans around them. Their naked bodies and elaborate tattoos — even on their faces, which made reading their expressions difficult — frightened him. He remembered all the stories that he had heard about Tan Adü. He hadn’t had breakfast yet — and he certainly didn’t want to become breakfast.

The warriors parted their ranks to make a path, and an old fighter, who had so many tattoos that he seemed to be more ink than skin, walked through the forest of spears and arrows into the clearing.

He looked around at Duke Garu and his advisers and then at the individual soldiers. His eyes stopped when he saw Luan Zya. The ink lines on his face shifted and shimmered, and he showed his white teeth. With a start, Dafiro realized that he was smiling.

“Toru-noki, xindi shu’ulu akiia skulodoro, nomi nomi,” he said.

“Nomi, nomi-uya, Kyzen-to,” Luan Zya said. He was smiling too.

Then they both stepped forward, and the two put their foreheads together and grabbed each other around the shoulders.

While Chief Kyzen negotiated with Luan Zya and Kuni Garu, the men of Cocru and Tan Adü tried to get to know one another.

Mün Çakri invited one of the big Adüans, Domudin, to a wrestling bout. Everyone gathered around and placed small items on the ground as bets. It was a good match. Domudin outweighed Mün by at least forty pounds, but years of wrestling muddy pigs gave Mün an advantage in skill. After he finally pinned the bigger man to the ground and Domudin placed his hands palms up on the ground to indicate that he yielded, both sides cheered. Mün pulled Domudin up, and coconut husks filled with arrack were passed all around.

Dafiro won a sharkskin pouch that he admired and happily tied it to his belt. He felt bad for the man who lost it to him, though, and he handed two copper coins over. The man, whose name sounded like “Huluwen” to Dafiro, nodded and smiled back. Dafiro tried to get him to explain his tattoos, which the man proceeded to do by drawing on the ground.

Ah, it’s all about women, Dafiro thought as he puzzled over Huluwen’s drawings. He took a stick and began to also draw a female figure on the ground, exaggerating the breasts and butt. The other men gathered around to appreciate Dafiro’s artistry, and he basked in the Adüans’ admiring looks.

For a bunch of cannibals, they aren’t too bad.

It was dinnertime, and some of the Adüan women came to camp to prepare the meal. The Cocru soldiers were warned by Duke Garu to stay on their best behavior, and they gaped at the women, as tattooed as their men, without making any gesture or noise. Dafiro suddenly remembered his artwork and was relieved to find that Huluwen had already discreetly wiped all traces of it away. The two looked at each other and laughed.

There was baked wild taro. There were boars wrapped in banana leaves and roasted underground with heated stones. There were wild bird eggs and meat from sharks and whales. Little spice was used except sea salt, but the food was fresh and strange and very delicious. And everyone drank plenty of arrack.

Mün Çakri pulled Dafiro aside after dinner as the Adüans danced and some of the drunken Cocru soldiers joined them.

“Are you a good swimmer, lad?”

Dafiro nodded. Both he and Rat had spent many hours in the small river that flowed through the village of Kiesa, and they sometimes spent the idle months after harvest hiring themselves out on fishing boats along the Cocru coast. He knew his way in water.

“Good. Duke Garu is a landlubber, and so am I. I’ll need you to stay close to the duke tomorrow and keep an eye on him.”

“Are we setting out to sea?”

Mün nodded, a happy twinkle in his eye. “After tomorrow, you are going to have some real stories to tell.”

“So you wish to overthrow this tyrant, the All-Chief of the Islands?” Luan Zya translated Chief Kyzen’s question.

Kuni nodded.

“And you will become All-Chief in his place?”

Kuni smiled. “Probably not. The men of Dara love freedom, and we do not want one All-Chief to rule over us all. But we will probably have several Big Chiefs again, and I may end up as one of them.”

“I can understand that. There are many tribes here on Tan Adü as well, and we certainly do not wish to obey only one man.” Chief Kyzen’s eyes narrowed. “But to say you love freedom? That seems strange when the men of Dara love to make war on us and make us follow your ways.”

“Not all men of Dara think the same, just as not all fish swim in the same direction.”

Kyzen grunted. “What will you offer in return, if we help you?”

“What do the people of Tan Adü want?”

“If you become one of the Big Chiefs, will you and the others promise to leave us alone forever? To never permit any man of Dara to come to Tan Adü?”

Kuni Garu considered this. Over the years, the dream of conquering Tan Adü never died. The kings and dukes of Cocru, Amu, and Gan had all tried, at one time or another, to pacify this island. Even Emperor Mapidéré sent two expeditions, though nothing ever came of them. He could see why the Adüans were tired of it.

Luan Zya had told him that King Sanfé of Cocru, King Thufi’s great-grandfather, had once sent an army of ten thousand to conquer Tan Adü. The Cocru army managed to secure a colony of about fifty miles square and tried to teach the captive Adüans the arts of writing, farming, and weaving, hoping that by showing them the benefits of civilization, they would be convinced to give up their struggle. But the Adüans, while conceding that Cocru’s methods and tools produced more food, kept their bodies comfortable against the weather, and allowed them to pass their wisdom on to future generations more securely than talk-story, refused to adopt them, even at the point of the sword. These were men and women who treasured freedom.

“I can promise that, but it won’t mean much.”

Chief Kyzen’s face hardened. “You’re saying your word is worthless?”

“If I become a Big Chief, I can make decrees, and I can perhaps try to persuade the other Big Chiefs to do the same. But I cannot expect everyone to obey an unreasonable decree, not unless I put them all in prison. As long as Tan Adü is here, the men of Dara will want to come. I cannot take that desire to see what has not been seen out of their hearts.”

“Then it is useless to talk to you.”

“Chief Kyzen, it would be easy for me to lie and tell you what you want to hear, but I won’t do that. Can you swear that no boy in your land ever wondered what it might be like to live as one of the men of Dara? To dress in fine clothes, to eat from porcelain dishes, to court women who look like no others they had seen? Can you swear that no girl in your land ever thought about what it might be like to live as one of the women of Dara? To wear silk and dyed cotton, to sing and write poetry, to be married to men who are of another race, of another country?”

“There is no such foolishness in the hearts of our children.”

“Then you do not know young people at all, Chief Kyzen. The young often want that which the old detest and fear. The yearning for the new, for something different glimpsed but faintly through legends and shadows, cannot be taken from them — not unless you freeze their hearts and imprison their minds. Yet, you say you wish Tan Adü to remain free.”

Chief Kyzen scoffed at this, but Kuni could see that the chief understood what he was getting at.

“I cannot stop traders from stopping by your shores — they will always risk anything for more profit. I cannot stop men from setting sail for your land — if they believe that just going somewhere that no other men of Dara have been is reward enough. I cannot stop men from coming here and preaching — if they believe that they have a duty to tell you what they think is right and just and to teach you a better way of life.

“But I can promise that if I become one of the Big Chiefs, I will not permit my people to come here and perform these acts accompanied by the accoutrements of war. And I will do my utmost to urge the other Big Chiefs to follow my example. If men of Dara come here, they will come to persuade, not to coerce. And so long as you do these visitors no injury, no army or navy of Dara will intercede on their behalf.”

“The soft invasion of your traders and preachers may do far more damage to us than your arms ever would. The lure of your wealth and novel ways and your fantastical possessions may prove irresistible to those who are too young to understand their danger. If your men poison and corrupt the hearts of our young, then we are doomed. As you say, the young often want that which is harmful because they lack experience. Many thoughts I had as a young man I would now forswear, and many desires that consumed me as a young man I would now disown.”

“If the freedom and way of life that you so treasure are worthy of your love, then you will win the hearts of your young far more easily than the visitors of Dara can. But the young must be allowed to make their own choices, to live their own lives as grand experiments. They must choose to become you. That is the only hope for Tan Adü.”

Chief Kyzen drained his arrack in a single gulp. Then he threw his coconut bowl down and laughed. “It would have been easier for you to just lie to me, Kuni Garu. And if you had promised me exactly what I asked, I would have known that you were unworthy of our help.”

A test. Kuni glanced over at Luan Zya, and the two men shared a smile of understanding.

Even after Luan retired to sleep, Kuni Garu and Chief Kyzen continued to drink together late into the night, their eyes bright with the recognition of kindred spirits.

They rowed out into the sea in the early morning, before sunrise.

Carved out of a single trunk with outriders, the long wooden canoes of the Adüans each held about thirty people and were surprisingly steady. Dafiro was barely awake and baffled. Were they going to row all the way back to the Big Island?

After two hours of steady rowing, the sky in the east turned fish-belly white. Chief Kyzen raised his hand, and the canoes stopped. To the men of Cocru, it looked just like any other part of the sea.

Chief Kyzen took out a long whalebone trumpet and placed the bell under water. Then he blew into it, and the trumpet produced a surprisingly loud sound that could be felt through the hull of the canoes. The music was like whale song, mournful and majestic. A few of the Adüans in the other canoes began to beat the surface of the water with their oars in rhythmic accompaniment.

Just as the sun peeked over the eastern horizon, a great black shadow, shaped like the sleek shell shuttle favored by Gan weavers, rose out of the water a mile to the east, arced across the rising sun, and fell back into the water. A moment later the thunderous boom of the breaching creature reached the men in the canoes.

It was a cruben, the great one-horned scaled whale of Dara and sovereign of the seas: two hundred feet long and as large next to an elephant as an elephant would be next to a mouse. Its eyes were so dark that they sucked in all sunlight like deep wells, and when the great fish exhaled through its blowhole, the fountain shot as high as a hundred feet.

More crubens breached nearer to the canoes: one, two, five, ten. The canoes rocked and the Adüans struggled to keep them from tipping over.

“I’m guessing our ferry has arrived,” said Mün Çakri, and Dafiro realized that his own jaw had been hanging open without his notice.

The Adüans rowed the canoes next to the great floating islands of heaving flesh and glistening armored scales. Duke Garu’s men, shocked into silence, sat very still.

As the Adüans scrambled up the sides of the great animals and affixed saddles to the scales on top and attached two reins to the flaps over the crubens’ great eyes, Mün explained to Dafiro what he had learned from Luan Zya.

The Adüans believed that the crubens were as intelligent as men, but their long lives, passed in the limitless ocean rather than on tiny dots of land, had almost nothing in common with men. They had their own civilization, as sophisticated as any Tiro state, but their concerns were foreign to mankind’s minds and their sensibilities alien to mankind’s hearts. The inhabitants of Dara, awed by the crubens’ physical presence, only admired them from afar, but the men of Tan Adü had learned to speak to them, after a fashion, over a hundred generations.

The Adüans asked the crubens to perform a small favor for their guest, this Kuni Garu. The great fish considered the request and assented. They sought no reward. What could men give them? They needed nothing. They would do this for their own amusement.

Before Dafiro climbed onto the leading cruben’s head to take up the reins, he handed his sword to Huluwen, who sat in the same canoe. “A gift in case I don’t survive today,” Dafiro said, hoping that the Adüan understood.

Huluwen picked up the sword, felt its heft, and handed Dafiro his war club, whose thick end was studded with sharp bits of bone and razor-sharp stone flakes. It reminded him of Goremaw, Mata Zyndu’s cudgel.

Dafiro held the club tightly in his hand. He wished his brother were around to witness this. Rat would not believe his retelling, but the club would at least corroborate some aspect of his story.

“I’m going to call you Biter,” said Daf. Sure, it wasn’t an impressive allusion from Classical Ano, but at that moment, Dafiro Miro felt every inch a hero from the old tales.

Every time Dafiro thought he was dreaming, he bit his tongue and the pain told him that he was not. Every time Dafiro thought he was not dreaming, he looked around, and the sights that greeted his eyes were impossible.

Before him, jutting into the sky like the bowsprit of a great warship, was a twenty-foot-long horn. It was so thick at the base that two men together could not have wrapped their arms around it. The tip of the horn was sharper than the point of a spear, threatening destruction to anything that stood in its way.

Roaring waves dashed against the horn and the barnacle-encrusted forehead below it, breaking into a violent mist that soaked his clothes and sometimes made it hard to open his eyes. Everywhere he looked, sunlight was refracted into rainbows in the salty mist.

The waves divided themselves around the creature they rode on, and from where Dafiro was sitting, he could barely feel them. He felt only the gentle and slow undulating motion of the great mass heaving beneath him, ponderous, forceful, four hundred tons of muscle and sinew.

He was sitting in a saddle clipped to the two scales directly under him, each a foot across. The scales were dark blue and shimmered like rain-slicked obsidian, like the night sky just after twilight. Identical scales paved and covered the heaving, powerful body below him, forward to the brow and the horn, and behind him, for two hundred feet, until they reached the tail, twin flukes fifty feet across. The flukes reared out of the water and then beat down, slapping against the surface with the thunderous roar of a tsunami.

Behind him, in another saddle, sat Duke Garu. He was drenched in water too, and he held on to Dafiro with his arms so that he would not slip from the saddle. Though Dafiro could feel the duke’s fear in his tight grip, he also saw on the duke’s face the biggest smile Dafiro could remember.

“Aren’t you glad you came with me, lad?” he shouted when he saw that Dafiro was looking back.

Dafiro nodded and bit his tongue again to be sure he was not dreaming.

They were riding on the back of a cruben, and around and behind them, twenty other crubens swam along. Duke Garu’s force was sailing up to the Amu Strait on the backs of the sovereigns of the sea.

They moved faster than any ship, than any airship, than any creation of mankind.

As the great cruben fleet approached the Amu Strait, the riders raised the red flags of Cocru charged with double ravens.

To the patrolling Imperial fleet, what they saw was a scene out of myths, legends, descriptions of mirages. The great cruben was the symbol of the princeps or the emperor, and yet Cocru soldiers were riding them. It was impossible. It could not happen.

One of the Imperial ships was slow to get out of the way, and a cruben decided to ram it with its horn. The ship’s solid ironwood hull and oaken masts snapped like twigs stepped on by a giant, and men were thrown into the air as the ship under their feet exploded into a million pieces of splinter and wreckage.

The crubens arrived at Rui, one of the home islands of Xana. They swam close to shore, slowly making a counterclockwise circuit of the island.

The men on their backs waved the flag of Cocru and shouted that the empire had fallen, that Mata Zyndu had already marched into the Immaculate City and was burning down the palace at this very moment. Duke Garu of Zudi had come to seek the surrender of Rui, and any who refused would be struck down by the sovereigns of the sea.

The men of Rui stood mute at the sight of crubens ferrying Cocru soldiers. No one had ever even heard of people riding on crubens, much less seen it with their own eyes. Surely this meant that the gods were on the side of the rebels.

Xana soldiers did not approach as the crubens beached themselves, and their riders climbed down. They stood at attention as the great fish backed into the water, turned, and swam away. They set down their weapons as Duke Garu walked solemnly down the streets, the bloodred ensign of Cocru waving over him.

Kuni Garu arrived at Mount Kiji Air Base, where the engineers and the administrators lay prostrate on the ground to welcome the conqueror of Rui.

“We’ve come a long way,” said Luan Zya, a smile on his face.

“Just a little farther,” said Kuni, smiling back.

Then the five hundred ascended into the air in ten great airships and winged their way back toward the Big Island, to Pan.

As the airships floated over the fields and towns of Haan and Géfica, people stopped, looked up, and then went back to their work. Marshal Marana was preparing to crush the rebels on Wolf’s Paw, and these new airships were no doubt going to provide additional reinforcements. The empire would triumph, as everyone had always known it would.

The airships slowed as they approached Pan and descended toward the palace. The palace guards looked at the ships with little concern. Had the emperor, perhaps, decided that he would ride one of the airships to the front so that he could witness the death throes of the rebels personally?

They landed in the middle of the Great Court, the wide-open space before the Grand Audience Hall where Emperor Erishi reviewed the palace guards and sometimes played hunting games with horses and animals drugged to be docile and easy to shoot.

“Leave twenty men with me,” Luan said. “We will guard one of the airships. If you don’t succeed in an hour, fight your way back and we’ll retreat.”

“Do you always plan for failure even when success is within reach?” Kuni asked.

“It’s the prudent thing to do.”

“If you hadn’t thought of the possibility of failure, I wonder if your attempt to assassinate Mapidéré might have worked out differently. Because you thought of escaping to Zudi, you did not want to burden your flying machine with too much weight. You could have carried bigger bombs, or flown lower before launching them.”

Luan stood still as he pondered this.

“Sometimes prudence is not a virtue,” said Kuni. “I gambled a lot when I was younger. I can tell you that Tazu is more fun than Lutho. If you’re going to gamble, you’ll have more fun if you don’t hold anything back.”

Luan laughed. “Then let’s make this wager count. I will fight by your side today, and no one will stay behind.”

Armored soldiers jumped out of the ships and rushed into the palace, Luan and Kuni in the lead.

Luan guided Kuni and the others away from the main doors, constructed of lodestone. Mapidéré had been paranoid about assassins, and those who came to see the emperor were required to be disarmed. If, by chance, someone managed to come into the palace armed, the magnetic doors would pull the swords out of their hands. Instead, Luan pointed to the side doors, reserved for the emperor’s own guards and servants.

They ran over the model of the Islands in the Grand Audience Hall, the model that Emperor Erishi had taken such care to construct. Wine splashed everywhere, and the fountains finally ceased to flow as Kuni Garu’s soldiers crushed the delicate pipes underfoot, casually, almost as an afterthought, on their way to the rest of the palace.

The palace guards woke from their slumber and rushed onto the Great Court. But it was too late. Fire was burning everywhere, and the wailing and screaming of dying ministers and servants filled the halls.

To search the vast palace effectively, Luan and Kuni divided their forces in half. Luan would cover the western side while Kuni took the eastern side.

Dafiro Miro followed the duke closely. Mün Çakri had told him that his job was to protect the duke. Sure, maybe Mün only meant that he needed to keep the duke from falling off the cruben into the sea since the duke didn’t know how to swim. But Dafiro was going to take the instructions very literally and stay right by the duke’s side.

The duke didn’t want to die, and others would always try to save him if things went wrong. Therefore, the safest place to be in battle is right next to the duke. Dafiro was always very practical.

They rushed through the halls, following every twist and turn, dividing into halves where the paths branched. Kuni seized a servant and forced him to lead the way. Dafiro and the others set fire to everything they could see. They wanted to create as much confusion and chaos as possible.

Then they were rushing down a corridor, which terminated in thick golden doors. Kuni Garu pulled on the doors, but they were locked from within. Dafiro and the others lifted up a heavy stone statue of Kiji found in one of the alcoves in the corridor and began to use it as a battering ram.

Tum, tum, tum.

They could hear frightened shouts and desperate whispers from behind the doors. The people inside had nowhere to run.

Tum, tum, tum.

Shouting and heavy steps echoed up the corridor. They looked back and saw that some palace guards had found them and were closing fast. A few of the soldiers dropped the statue/battering ram to hold off the guards, while the duke and Dafiro continued to batter the door.

There were many guards, too many for the few soldiers that Kuni had with him. Farther up the corridor, Mün Çakri, Than Carucono, Rin Coda, and their men hacked at the guards, trying to join up with Kuni. But they were too far away.

The door gave way.

Kuni and Dafiro tumbled through. They were inside a huge bedroom, and a crying boy was on the bed, trying to hide himself by piling blankets around himself. He wore a silk robe embroidered with the figures of leaping crubens.

An old man stood at the foot of the bed, wearing an expression that was a mixture of pity and triumph. He turned around to face the men who had burst through the door. “I am Prime Minister Goran Pira. Now if you will put down your weapons and listen—”

Dafiro bashed in his skull with one strike from Biter. He had no time to waste on anyone who stood in the way of his prize. He was going to get his hands on the boy emperor.

Whichever man, be he churl or earl, captures Emperor Erishi will be made the King of Géfica. Dafiro’s lips curled up in a smile. Of course he didn’t expect to be really made a king, but surely Duke Garu would reward him handsomely for paving his way.

But Kuni had moved even faster. He was on the bed in one leap, pulled the boy in front of himself, and pushed the blade of his sword up against the boy’s throat.

“Tell your guards to stop fighting,” Kuni said, and brushed the boy’s neck with the edge of the sword so that a thin trickle of blood formed against the pale skin.

“Stop, stop, stop fighting!” Emperor Erishi shouted as tears and mucus covered his red face.

The guards hesitated, uncertain what to do.

Too bad that the boy wasn’t closer to this side of the bed, Dafiro thought. Ah well, you can’t ever win a race against the duke. He’s too clever.

“I’m going to bash your head in just like the old coward’s, if you don’t get them to stop.” Dafiro waved Biter at the boy.

The boy was so frightened that he could not speak. The entire room fell silent.

Then, everyone heard the sound of water trickling against the marble floor.

Emperor Erishi had let his bladder go.

The guards dropped their swords.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE. BATTLE OF WOLF’S PAW

WOLF’S PAW: THE TENTH MONTH IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF RIGHTEOUS FORCE.

Wolf’s Paw stood across the Kishi Channel from the Itanti Peninsula. Its northern and eastern sides, facing the endless ocean, were dominated by rugged cliffs that provided few safe harbors. On the other hand, its western and southern coasts, facing the channel, sloped gently down to the sea and offered many inviting ports. This was the heart of old Gan, which, besides Wolf’s Paw, also claimed the rich alluvial plains and the bustling cities of Géjira on the Big Island.

The most prominent port on Wolf’s Paw was Toaza, the Port That Never Slept and capital of old Gan. Deep, sheltered along the island’s southern shore, and warmed by hidden currents, Toaza’s waters never froze even in deepest winter. From here, Gan’s intrepid merchants sailed to all the Islands of Dara and built a maritime trade network unrivaled by any of the other Tiro states. In every major port city of Dara, one could find quarters filled with sailors and merchants speaking in the accent of Gan, which had been described by scholars, disdainful for lucre, as “jangling with the sound of filthy coins.”

The Gan merchants smiled at this and took it as a compliment. Let Haan be high-minded and continue to philosophize, and let Amu be alluring and hang on to its elegance and sophistication, the people of Gan understood that only gleaming gold gave one security, gave one power.

But shipping across the Kishi Channel was a hazardous endeavor because of the god Tazu.

It was said that Tazu manifested himself as a ten-mile-wide maelstrom of roiling water that sucked everything within its orbit into the bottomless deep. It wandered up and down the channel like an angry child tumbling around its room. No one had ever been able to predict its pattern of movement, capricious like the will of Tazu, the legendary rogue. Vessels captured by the whirlpool had no chance of escaping, and over the years, countless ships, some laden with treasure, some filled with lives, were sacrificed to the god’s insatiable hunger.

The only year-round safe shipping lanes to Wolf’s Paw involved long detours that avoided the channel by approaching Wolf’s Paw from the the south. This meant that most of the ports in Wolf’s Paw, save for Toaza, were unusable for long-range shipping, though daring shippers, lured by the draw of shorter trips and quicker profit, sometimes risked crossing the channel by betting against the movement of Tazu. Occasionally, they succeeded.

Mata Zyndu sat brooding in his camp at Nasu, on the eastern shore of the Maji Peninsula.

Kikomi’s betrayal had infuriated him and then left him drained of feeling, like the Kishi Channel after Tazu passed through — a calm surface strewn with wreckage, and in the depths underneath, death.

He blamed his own foolishness and that of his uncle. They were taken in by a woman, one blinded by love.

How could she rebel against her noble birth? Act contrary to her duty to her people? Amu needed a leader who would give them strength to resist the empire, and yet she had willingly become an assassin for Kindo Marana because she had fallen for him.

As he thought about what she had done, Mata’s hands shook with rage, and he believed that he would strangle her himself if she were still alive.

And yet, he could not deny that even knowing the falsity of her words and pretended feelings, he missed her. He had taken something of great value hidden in his heart and willingly handed it to her. And she had torn it to pieces and scattered it to the winds so that it was gone forever. Yet he did not want to have it back. He wanted only to be able to give it to her again. And again.

At the same time, he was racked with guilt for how he had behaved toward his uncle. Phin had been the only surviving member of Mata’s family, the closest thing he had to a father. He was the source of all Mata’s dreams about the glorious past of the Zyndu Clan and the force that propelled him to emulate the martial deeds of his illustrious ancestors. Phin Zyndu was the template against which Mata had always measured himself, the one man whose opinions on duty and honor he valued above all others. He was Mata’s sole connection to the past and his most trusted guide for the future.

And yet, over Kikomi, he had almost been willing to come to blows with his uncle, like a madman or a lowly peasant consumed with jealousy. Mata’s shame weighed so heavily on him that he could not lift his head.

He yearned to redeem himself on the battlefield, to wash away his shame in blood and glory.

After Phin’s death, he was the Duke of Tunoa, and the last man to carry the proud Zyndu name. He had expected that he would now be made Marshal of Cocru and put in charge of the battle on Wolf’s Paw. But as the days passed, neither King Thufi nor General Roma, commander-in-chief at Wolf’s Paw, sent for him to offer him a role befitting his station.

He was still merely the commander of a rear guard of two thousand to remain at Nasu. His only job was to wait and guard the rebels’ retreat should they fail to overcome the emperor’s most puissant strike.

He saw the silence from Toaza and Çaruza as an insult, a rebuke. He sulked and drank and brooded.

Théca Kimo, now acting as his aide-de-camp, came every hour to give him the latest military reports on the situation on Wolf’s Paw, but he barely paid any attention.

Torulu Pering, rebel tactician and adviser, entered the audience hall and knew right away that something was wrong. General Pashi Roma, commander-in-chief of the Alliance on Wolf’s Paw, was staring at a scout’s report on the tea table in front of him, his brows knit in a tight frown and his fingers tapping nervously.

Pering decided to get right to the point. “Bad news from the Ogé Islands?”

Roma started and looked up. “Terrible.”

“How many ships were lost?”

“Nearly all. Only two made their way back.”

Pering sighed. Roma had ordered the rebel navy to intercept the Imperial armada in the Ogé Islands, the archipelago to the north of Wolf’s Paw, supposedly formed from the sweat drops of the god Rufizo, a plan Pering had objected to from the start.

An old teacher of the Classics who had impressed both King Thufi and Phin Zyndu with his knowledge of ancient books of military strategy — most of which had been burned by Emperor Mapidéré after the Conquest — Pering had actually begun his career as a merchant who plied the trade routes between the Big Island and Wolf’s Paw. He knew the sea and the unique challenges of fighting upon it.

Roma, who had spent his entire career in the pre — Conquest Cocru army in the logistics and supply divisions, had little exposure to the battlefield except the defense of Çaruza. He thus tended to think of all military endeavors as variations of city defense. Viewing the Ogé Islands as analogous to the gates to Wolf’s Paw, he had believed that a hodgepodge of rebel ships could hide among the tiny islands to disguise their true strength and surprise the Imperial armada, much as the appearance of undefended city walls could lure attackers into coming too close before being surprised by a shower of falling rocks and buckets of burning oil.

But Pering knew that hiding ships was nothing like hiding men. Without air support, naval ambushes were impossible under the gaze of Marana’s airships. This, however, was not the time for I told you so.

“As we speak, the armada is sailing around the eastern shore of Wolf’s Paw to assault Toaza.” Roma’s voice was morose. “We’re done for!”

“We still have half of our fleet left in Toaza Harbor,” offered Pering. “If we keep them close to shore, batteries of catapults and ballistae on land could support them, and the shallow waters and hidden reefs will give the armada’s larger and deeper-drafting ships less room to maneuver.”

“What good are these tricks when Marana has airships?” Roma snapped.

Pering suppressed the urge to grab Roma by the neck of his robe and shake him. The old general was swinging wildly from overconfidence to despair. Before, he had ignored the power of airships; but now, he was convinced they were invincible.

Keeping his voice calm, Pering said, “Airships may be useful, but they’re hardly unbeatable. The navies of the Six States had all developed techniques for dealing with them. For example, our ships could cover their decks with a layer of armor made from rawhide stretched tight across wooden frames like drums, so that the tar bombs from the airships would bounce harmlessly off them.”

Roma looked at Pering skeptically. “But then they can still bomb Toaza. We can hardly cover the whole city with armor.”

“If they try, they won’t be able to sustain the bombing campaign for long. Airships are very limited in their armament capacity, and a few raids will hardly cause much damage.”

“But if they concentrate on the palace, King Dalo will lose all will to fight.”

“True. But I have a plan for taking care of the airships.”

The Imperial armada arrived at the southern shore of Wolf’s Paw.

In the Battle of Toaza Harbor that followed, the rebel ships, supported by land-based batteries, managed to hold out for three days against sustained air-and-sea assaults from the armada, sinking six ships of the line.

As Roma predicted, Kindo Marana changed tactics and ordered an aerial bombardment of Toaza, focusing on King Dalo’s palace.

As the airships approached the Toaza, thousands of floating bamboo-and-paper lanterns rose into the air from the city.

“Have you seen anything like these before?” Marana asked the pilot in the cockpit of Spirit of Kiji, his flagship.

The pilot shook his head.

“Better order the fleet to avoid them.”

“But there are too many for us to maneuver around them. Besides, they’re so small, I don’t think the tiny flames powering them will do any damage to our hulls.”

But out of caution, Marana ordered Spirit of Kiji to stop while the other ships pressed on.

The airships sailed into the swarm of floating lanterns like a whale amongst a school of minnows. The lanterns seemed to stick to the airship hulls like remoras.

Then, Marana heard the sound of an explosive pop, followed by hundreds more. Bright flashes of light sparkled over the hulls of the other airships, and the sunlit air between them also filled with the showering sparks of unattached lanterns exploding.

“Retreat! Order a general retreat!” Marana shouted, and his officers waved the signal flags from the gondola frantically.

But it was too late. The oars of some of the great airships dangled uselessly, the oarsmen having been killed by shrapnel; others began to lose altitude, the gasbags having been punctured; fires spread on hulls and gondolas.

The lanterns were Pering’s invention. He had collected what little firework powder could be gathered from King Dalo’s royal warehouses — a luxury reserved for important ceremonies and New Year’s celebrations — and had the powder packed into bamboo tubes along with many sharp metal spikes to increase their kill capacity. These bombs were then attached to floating lanterns with a slow-burning fuse, and the lanterns themselves slathered with a coat of sticky pine tar.

Spirit of Kiji escaped from the swarm of deadly floating lanterns back to the safety of the sea, the rest of the surviving aerial fleet limping along behind. Altogether, four Imperial ships were lost, and two more lost so much gas that they could barely keep afloat and were no longer useful except as reserve float gas containers.

Although Marshal Marana believed that the Imperial armada could ultimately prevail — the rebels’ supply of firework powder must be limited — the victory would have been achieved at heavy cost. He decided to withdraw from Toaza Harbor.

Toaza celebrated the victory wildly, and General Roma and King Dalo heaped praise upon Torulu Pering, the Savior of Wolf’s Paw, as a master tactician, a Lutho among mortals.

But Roma refused to give pursuit to the retreating armada. All remaining rebel ships would stay in Toaza Harbor. Despite this victory, the might of the Imperial armada had deeply impressed Roma. He wanted to have plenty of ships around to be used as transports to evacuate the rebel troops from Wolf’s Paw, if it came to that.

General Pashi Roma summoned all rebel commanders and advisers.

“Marana’s latest plan appears to be an attempt to land along the less well defended north shore of Wolf’s Paw and then advance to Toaza over land,” Roma said. “What is your counsel?”

The commanders from the various Tiro states looked at one another, but none spoke up.

Torulu Pering regarded them contemptuously. These men were unwilling to speak because they treated this council of war as some kind of political game, a jostling for positions. Whoever spoke up first was sure to be criticized by others, and unless he had a perfect plan, he’d lose face for the Tiro state he represented.

Pering stepped forward. “The north shore of Wolf’s Paw is sparsely populated and has no good harbors, and so Marana would have to land his troops with small transports vulnerable to warships. Traditional tactics would suggest a naval engagement to prevent a landing.”

Some of the other advisers were about to object, but Pering held up his hand to silence them. “However, since there are no batteries or coastal forts, our ships cannot match the armada at sea.”

Roma nodded. “Exactly. We seem to have no good options.”

Pering shook his head. “Just because some options are closed to us doesn’t mean that we don’t have even better ones. I propose that we cede the beaches to them and fight them on land — this was King Thufi’s plan from the start.”

“Cede them the beaches!” roared Huye Nocano, the Gan commander. “What gives you, a man of Cocru, the right to dictate the disposition of Gan territories?”

“Besides, Kindo Marana has twenty thousand troops with him, and Tanno Namen will soon bring more,” said Owi Ati, commander of the allied troops from Faça. “The advantage of numbers is overwhelmingly with them. Master Pering, just because you won an aerial and naval victory at Toaza Harbor doesn’t mean you know everything there is to know about fighting a war on land. Allowing them to land is not a decision to be made lightly. Strategies in books are not the same as conditions in the real world.”

Pering smiled. These theatrical outbursts were exactly what he had expected — these men had no ideas of their own, but they were ready to shoot down others’ proposals. Patiently, he said, “I didn’t say we should just allow them to land wherever they want. We should station troops along the northern and eastern shores but leave Big Toe open.”

Big Toe was the northernmost peninsula of Wolf’s Paw, which jutted forth from the main part of the island.

“But Big Toe is large enough to comfortably hold all of Marana’s troops,” said Pashi Roma. “Why give them such a good base?”

“That is the point, General. Big Toe appears ideal to Marana, and if we leave it undefended, he will not be able to resist taking the bait. But from Big Toe, the isthmus would neutralize the empire’s numerical advantage and force both sides to fight across a narrow strip of land. If we set up our defenses in layers, the hills of the isthmus will be impregnable. Big Toe will become a trap for Marana and Namen, and we will grind their troops down until the demand for supplies by their large army forces them to retreat.”

As predicted by Pering, Marana landed on Big Toe. By then, Namen’s twenty thousand veterans had made their way across the Big Island to the end of the Shinané Mountains on the coast. Marana’s supply ships worked nonstop to transport all of them over to Big Toe. Added to the twenty thousand fresh recruits originally carried there by the armada, the empire now had forty thousand troops camped on Big Toe, ready for the final assault.

In the hills of the isthmus south of them, ten thousand troops from Cocru were dug in behind heavy defensive fortifications. Faça had sent five thousand men, and they were stationed behind the Cocru troops as a second line of defense. Remnants of the armies of Gan, Rima, and the other Tiro states made up the final defense around Toaza, Gan’s capital.

“What are they waiting for?” General Roma asked his advisers. “It has been a month since Marana and Namen landed, and they’re just camped there on Big Toe, day after day, doing nothing except consuming their provisions. Even the empire surely cannot afford such expenditures for long.”

Again, Torulu Pering was the one who spoke up. “Marana’s supply lines are long, and his soldiers are fighting far from home. There is no reason to wait unless he is working at some plot or trick, as is his wont. We should not wait but attack first and drive them into the sea.”

But Roma was a cautious man. For most of his career, he had risen through the ranks of support and logistics, more an engineer than a soldier. He had been in charge of repairing Çaruza’s walls, maintaining the dikes and levees along the Liru, building sturdy bridges and smooth roads for the Cocru army — and after the Xana Conquest, for the Imperial garrisons. This was a man who had little instinct for the shifting vagaries of the battlefield.

Roma preferred to react rather than act. He deliberated for hours, asking for the opinions of each adviser and then asking them to give yet more advice. Hours became days, then weeks.

Three times he almost decided to give the order to attack the Imperial camp, but each time he changed his mind.

He continued to wait.

To King Shilué of Faça, Marana’s secret messenger presented this argument: The emperor understood that the rebellion had largely been the doing of Cocru. Faça and the other Tiro states had been coerced into joining, or, at worst, jumped onto the bandwagon only as minor participants.

The emperor was willing to contemplate granting Faça some measure of autonomy after the inevitable defeat of the rebellion if Faça’s troops would remain neutral in the coming battle on Wolf’s Paw.

“Why should Faça’s boys die for Gan and Cocru?” Marana’s messenger whispered to King Shilué. “Indeed, even now Gan is arguing that the Ogé Islands belong to them rather than Faça. If you were amenable to the offer, the emperor may be willing to support Faça’s claim once the battle is over.”

King Shilué nodded, deep in thought.

Just outside of Toaza, King Dalo of Gan met Marana’s secret emissary. The two men, disguised as merchants, huddled over plum wine and fried squid dipped in hot pepper sauce in a cheap inn, out of the sight of General Roma’s spies.

“Your Majesty, permit me to speak bluntly. Your country is already under Cocru occupation. Although the coming battle will be fought on Gan territory, the largest contingent of armed men on Wolf’s Paw belongs to Cocru, and General Roma of Cocru is in charge.

“Even if the rebels were to achieve the impossible and win the coming battle against far superior Imperial troops, do you imagine that Roma or Thufi will leave Wolf’s Paw willingly? It’s easy to invite a foreign army onto your soil, but far harder to get them to leave peacefully.”

King Dalo had already been uneasy when he heard that King Thufi had appointed himself princeps in that mockery of an election. Gan was the only Tiro state to win a naval victory over the supposedly invincible Imperials in Toaza Harbor — even Marana showed Dalo enough respect to humble himself and send an emissary to negotiate with him. Yet, the Cocru commander, General Roma, simply dictated plans for the defenses of the island without consulting him. His ministers had already warned him multiple times about the cost of feeding and providing for the armies from Cocru and Faça, and Roma never once mentioned that Cocru would help with the bill.

There was much truth in what Marana’s man had to say.

The messenger pressed on. “Only the madmen of Cocru believe that they can thwart the emperor’s will and the tactical genius of Marshal Marana. The marshal understands that it isn’t possible for Gan to formally withdraw from the alliance and pledge fealty to the empire right now. But in the coming battle, if Gan’s troops would simply pull back to Toaza without engaging us, then Marshal Marana can take care of the Cocru problem for Your Majesty, and the marshal would speak on Gan’s behalf before the emperor.

“Who knows, perhaps Gan may even be rewarded for her act of bravery by being granted the Ogé Islands.”

“I am not the commander-in-chief,” said Mata Zyndu.

“Yet the fate of Cocru and all the Tiro states now rests with you,” said Torulu Pering. “I’ve come to Nasu because I believe Roma is too old and timid, and every day he waits is another day that Marana’s chance of victory grows.”

“What is that to me? If King Thufi and General Roma believe that I should play ferryman, then that is what I will do.”

Torulu Pering sighed. Mata sounded like a petulant child.

“I’m an old man, and I’m no warrior. But during my years watching the rise and fall of those in power, I’ve learned that great men do not wait for their greatness to be recognized.

“If you wish to have the respect that you yearn for, then you must grab it and fight off anyone who would say otherwise. If you wish to be a duke, you act like a duke. If you wish to be commander-in-chief, then act like a commander-in-chief.”

This was not the sort of speech that a younger Mata Zyndu, certain that each man had a proper place assigned to him in the chain of being, would have believed in. But he realized with a start that his thoughts had changed.

Didn’t Kuni Garu become a duke simply by acting as one? Didn’t Huno Krima become a king simply by declaring that he was one? He, Mata Zyndu, heir of the proudest name in all the Islands, was a greater warrior than either of them, and yet here he sat, unhappy that people had not come to beg him to lead them.

As he imagined himself at the head of the rebel army, he realized that he no longer missed Princess Kikomi and was no longer torn by guilt over Phin. This was what he was meant to do: to be astride Réfiroa, to swing Na-aroénna and Goremaw, to write the story of his life in blood and death. Men would fall at his feet, and women would fight for a glance from him, a touch.

How silly it is for me to sulk here, when there is a war to be fought.

One minute all was stillness and silence in the Imperial camps, the next minute the hills were filled with waving white ensigns charged with the Mingén falcon.

The Cocru soldiers scrambled to their barricades, to the packed-earth ramparts and wooden palisades, and hastily launched volleys of arrows at the Imperial attackers.

But Marana and Namen had wisely exploited General Roma’s month-long indecision. From deep within their own camps, hidden behind tents and fences, they had secretly mined under the Cocru fortifications. Marana, ever resourceful, had leveraged the expertise of conquered Rima’s miners by his usual mix of threats against their families and promises of future rewards.

As some Imperial soldiers pulled away the supporting beams deep in the tunnels, hundreds of Cocru soldiers fell into the gaping holes in the ground, where they were cut down before they even knew what was happening. The defensive structures that the rebels had taken so much care to build fell apart within seconds.

The collapsing mines revealed swarms of Imperial soldiers rushing out of the ground. This, combined with the sudden general assault aboveground, shocked the Cocru troops into utter confusion. Though General Roma valiantly tried to rally his men, the defensive lines crumbled before the Imperial onslaught.

“Fall back!” General Roma ordered. They would pull back to the secondary defenses, where the Faça army was stationed, and try to stem the Imperial tide.

Imagine their surprise when they reached the Faça camp and found that their allies had already abandoned their positions. They had moved east, out of the path of the Imperial advance, and were camped on a hill.

General Roma sent a rider with orders for the Faça army to join him and hold the line, but the rider returned with the news that Owi Ati, the Faça commander, thought it more prudent to wait and see how the situation developed.

Roma knew then that the battle was lost. The Tiro states would fall like dominoes, one after the other, because they could not fight as one.

Despairingly, he gave the order for a general retreat back to Toaza, where they would try to make a last stand.

But Toaza had already been abandoned. Even as the first rumors of General Roma’s defeat arrived at the capital, King Dalo was at work stripping the naval ships of their armament and converting them into transports. The ships rode low in the water, heavy with treasure from the king’s palace.

The Gan soldiers hurried aboard, driving away the crowds of civilians begging for a berth. They commandeered every merchant vessel and fishing boat. The desperate crowd then constructed rafts from doors and bits of furniture and launched them into the harbor with no thought on how such unseaworthy “vessels” would survive the long southward detour to the Big Island. Minor nobles who were not lucky enough to be taken on the king’s ships promised the soldiers untold riches if they would just be allowed to climb onboard. Some jumped into the water and began to swim to the ships and rafts that were pulling away from the docks, and as they begged those aboard to pull them up, the men on the ships pushed them away with their oars.

Then someone shouted that a fleet had been sighted coming toward Toaza Harbor — the armada! — and the confusion and chaos in the harbor boiled over into utter panic.

General Roma watched King Dalo’s betrayal with a mixture of anger and regret. He wished that he had listened to Torulu Pering and attacked before Kindo Marana had a chance to pry the alliance apart. There was no stratagem left now. Only brute force, terror, and the desire to run away.

The “armada” turned out to be Mata Zyndu with his two thousand men aboard twenty ships.

Mata observed the confusion in the harbor with disgust. He spread his ships out in an arc and sealed the harbor. All the ships clamoring to leave were ordered to go straight back to the docks.

The royal transport carrying King Dalo dared to test Mata’s resolve, and Mata promptly ordered Théca Kimo’s ship to ram it.

“You dare to attack a royal transport?” the Gan sailors shouted at Kimo in a mix of bravado and fear.

“I’ve already killed a king,” Kimo said. His tattooed, laughing face terrified the Gan sailors. “I’m happy to send yours to meet King Huno.”

The sailors did not resist as Kimo’s men boarded the royal transport, brandishing their weapons. They chained the royal transport to Kimo’s ship and dragged it back to Toaza.

The other escaping ships followed.

The Gan soldiers amassed on the docks shouted in confusion, while the empty ships that had ferried Mata’s troops floated right next to them. They could hear, dimly, the noise of the approaching Imperial army, and the Imperial airships could be sighted far in the east, escorting the armada coming around Wolf’s Paw to Toaza. It was only the experience of Pering’s floating needle-bombs that kept the airships so cautious — if they were to fly over Toaza Harbor now and strafe it with a salvo of firebombs, the rebels would be completely done for.

“Excellent work,” General Roma said. He was ecstatic to see Mata Zyndu, the man in charge of the rear guard, who had come to do his duty and save the commander-in-chief. “Let’s evacuate our men and leave the Gan traitors to face Marana alone.”

Mata shook his head. “We must counterattack immediately.”

Roma stared at him in disbelief. “There is no counterattack, you fool! The battle is lost.”

Mata shook his head again. “We haven’t even begun to fight.”

Roma looked into young Mata’s eyes. He remembered the rumors about Mata’s cruelties at Dimu. He remembered the tales about his recklessness and hot temper. He wanted blood, only blood.

This is why King Thufi and Marshal Zyndu made me commander-in-chief instead of this man.

Roma tried to straighten his back and make his voice as authoritative as possible. “I’m ordering you to retreat. Your only job is to ferry us back to the Big Island safely.”

Mata unsheathed Na-aroénna and in a single motion lopped off Roma’s head. The Doubt-Ender would not tolerate a commander who vacillated and had no heart for battle.

Silence and stillness gradually spread out from where Mata stood like a ripple until everyone on the docks of Toaza Harbor stared at the towering man in wonder.

As they watched, Mata ordered his soldiers to set fire to all the rafts, boats, and ships — including those they had arrived on. Within minutes, the water was a sea of roaring flames.

“All the ships have been burned, and along with them all provisions. There is now no way to retreat. You have only the food that is already in your bellies. If you want to eat, you’ll have to kill an Imperial soldier and take his rations from him.”

From his perch atop Réfiroa, Mata lifted his sword high overhead so that all could see the bloody tip. “This is Na-aroénna, the Doubt-Ender. I will not sheathe my sword again until the outcome of this battle is no longer in doubt. We will be victorious today, or we will all die today.”

He turned toward the Imperial army and began to ride. He rode alone, shouting at the top of his lungs.

Ratho was one of the first to start running after him, shouting just like General Mata Zyndu. All life is a gamble, wasn’t that what Tazu, god of this realm, would say?

A few soldiers began to follow, then a few more, and eventually the trickle became a flood like the tide coming in, and the two thousand that Mata had taken to Wolf’s Paw now rushed in a writhing mass to meet the far bigger wave of Imperial soldiers.

Mata Zyndu laughed, and so did his men.

The odds were impossible against them, but so what? There was no need for strategies and tricks now. In their minds, they were already dead, freed from the hope of retreat or rescue. They had nothing to lose.

Ratho Miro rushed at an Imperial soldier and made no attempt to parry or protect himself. He simply attacked.

He severed the sword arm of the man even as the other man’s sword bit into his shoulder. But in his bloodlust, he felt nothing. Ratho roared, pulled his sword out, and cut another Imperial soldier down.

He knew Daf would think he was foolish, but he also thought that his brother would be proud of him.

I’m fighting just like General Zyndu, he thought, remembering the time when General Zyndu had flown high over the walls of Zudi and fought until no man from Xana dared to face him. Now he knew just how General Zyndu must have felt, and it was indeed glorious.

They tore into the Imperial ranks like an arrow into flesh. The tip of the arrow was Mata Zyndu himself.

Réfiroa leapt; Mata swung Na-aroénna, and men fell like weeds. Réfiroa dashed and dodged; Mata bashed and crushed, and Goremaw tore into whatever stood in the way. Réfiroa, seized by a battle lust of his own, opened his mouth wide and tore out chunks of flesh from the flood of infantry, shaking the red foam from his mouth. Mata was soon completely covered in crimson gore. Every so often he would have to wipe the blood from his eyes so that he could see again.

More, more, more death!

To the Imperial soldiers, the men of Cocru seemed inhuman. They were oblivious to pain and showed no interest in defending themselves. Every strike from their swords felt as if they put all their strength into it. They did not want to survive, only to kill. How could you fight men like that? The sane could not withstand the insane.

Slowly, the tide began to turn. The Imperial advance slowed, stopped, and then reversed. The two thousand soldiers led by Mata Zyndu were now completely surrounded by the forty thousand Imperial soldiers, but it was as if a python had swallowed a hedgehog who did not know what it meant to die or to give up. The Imperial soldiers began to back up, break ranks, and then flee from the blood-crazed fury in their midst.

The remaining Cocru soldiers standing by the shore seemed to finally wake from the shock of General Roma’s death. With a shout, they followed their brothers. The rout was on.

Now that it was clear that the Imperial army was going to lose, Huye Nocano, the Gan commander, rediscovered his rebel heart. He gave the order for his men to join the chase.

“Our Cocru allies need us!”

Now that it was clear that Marshal Marana’s promises could not be kept, Owi Ati, the Faça commander, reawakened his hatred for the empire. He gave the order to join the fray and cut off the retreating Imperial forces.

“Faça will strike her blow against the empire!”

Twenty thousand soldiers of the emperor died during the Battle of Wolf’s Paw. Twenty thousand more surrendered. Nine times the Imperials tried to rally and make a stand, and nine times Mata Zyndu’s berserkers broke through. The battle lasted ten days, though its outcome had been determined on the first.

The Imperial ships could not enter Toaza Harbor, filled with burning ships. They milled about in confusion for a while until it became clear that the battle on land was lost. The armada retreated back up the eastern shore of Wolf’s Paw, hoping to regroup near Big Toe.

The airships made attempts to land and rescue some of the senior army officers, but Zyndu’s berserkers were always so close on the heels of the fleeing Imperials that such attempts failed time after time. Five airships were even captured as they struggled to lift off, dragged down to the earth by panicked Imperial soldiers hanging on to the gondola and one another’s feet like anchor chains made of men.

By the time the armada reached the Imperial camps at Big Toe, it was too late to salvage anything. The young men of Xana who had followed Marana and Namen across the empire, filled with hope and dreams of martial glory, were all either dead or kneeling as prisoners of the rebels.

The Imperial ships, now light and empty, sailed aimlessly into the northern waters. The surviving airships, after dropping a few salvos of tar bombs on the triumphant rebels below — hollow, useless gestures — left Wolf’s Paw and followed the armada.

Tanno Namen and Kindo Marana had hoped to enjoy their greatest triumph close up and were thus not aboard the airships.

They regretted that decision now. The rebels surrounded the last detachment of Imperial soldiers, and Namen and Marana looked longingly at the distant silhouettes of fleeing Imperial ships.

Namen thought about Tozy at home on Rui and wondered how the old dog was getting on in the cold weather with his limp.

“Old friend,” Marana said, “it would have been better if I had never come to your house on the shores of Gaing Gulf. Now instead of pruning wolfberry shrubs and sailing your fishing skiff, you will spend your last years as a prisoner. I do not understand why we lost today…. I am truly sorry.”

Namen brusquely brushed off Marana’s apology. “I spent my life fighting to see Xana exalted above all other Tiro states. To have the chance to serve the empire again in my old age is an honor.

“But we live at the mercy of the gods. The race goes not always to the swift, nor the battle always to the strong. We have fought as well as we were able, and the rest is mere chance.”

“You’re kind to lay no blame on me.” Marana looked around and sighed. “We should prepare to surrender. There’s no sense in letting more men die needlessly.”

Namen nodded. Then he said, “Marshal, before you give the order to surrender, would you do me a favor?”

“Anything.”

“If you get the chance, look in on my old house, and see that Tozy, my hound, is provided for. He likes to have a lamb’s tail to chew on once in a while.”

Marana saw the smile on the old warrior’s face. He tried to find something to say to delay the moment, but he knew it was too late.

“Thank you for indulging my last bit of vanity. I have never surrendered.”

Namen unsheathed his sword and wiped its sharp edge across his gaunt neck. He fell like a great oak tree. For minutes, his strong heart continued to pump the blood out of his body into a spreading pool around him.

Marana knelt next to the body and mourned until the heart that so loved Xana finally stopped beating.

Marana and his men left Namen’s body where he last stood. They would come and retrieve it later, after the formal ceremony of surrender.

A great shadow passed over them. Marana looked up. The sky was filled with the wings of Mingén falcons: dozens, no, hundreds of them. No one could ever recall hearing of so many falcons appearing together away from the shores of Lake Arisuso, on Mount Kiji back in Rui.

The falcons swooped down. They moved not like the solitary predators that they were, but like a flock of starlings, each a component of a greater whole. The flock dove as one and picked up the body of Tanno Namen. Then the flock turned and flew westward over the sea, eventually disappearing over the horizon.

Marana and his men bowed to the west. Legend had it that the sons of Xana who fell after great deeds in battle would be taken away by Lord Kiji, god of all birds, to eternal rest in the heavens.

Mata stood in the midst of what remained of the Imperial camp at the tip of Big Toe. He enjoyed a bowl of porridge made from the provisions captured from the Imperial stores. He was still covered in blood, as were his men. None of them had bothered to clean themselves.

“You were the first to follow me,” Mata Zyndu said to Ratho Miro.

Ratho nodded.

Mata Zyndu reached out to grab Ratho by the arms. “You’ll stay by me in the future, as my personal guard.”

Ratho knew that later, when his heart finally slowed down, and the hazy glow of battle lust finally wore off, he would be awed again by this man. But for now, he felt like an equal of the great general, and he cherished that feeling.

His only regret was that Dafiro was not around to see this moment.

Marana was brought before Mata. The Marshal of Xana knelt, lifted his sword with both hands, and lowered his eyes to the ground. He waited for Mata’s decision on his fate and the fate of all the other prisoners.

Mata gazed at him, disappointed. This was a bureaucrat who was no more skilled with the blade than a common farmer-turned-soldier; Namen was an old man who dared not face him in a duel. They had fought well with their minds, but they did not match his ideal. Was this the best Xana had to offer? Where was an opponent clothed in martial splendor equal to his own?

Behind Marana, Owi Ati and Huye Nocano, the commanders of the Faça and Gan armies, also knelt, as did King Dalo. All eyes, full of awe, were focused on Mata, as if they were watching Fithowéo himself.

There was no man greater among all the rebels than Mata Zyndu, not even King Thufi.

CHAPTER THIRTY. MASTER OF PAN

PAN: THE ELEVENTH MONTH IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF RIGHTEOUS FORCE.

Emperor Mapidéré had chosen the site for his capital, the Immaculate City, not because he wanted to live there, but because he wanted to die there.

He wanted the Imperial Tombs, planned around his Mausoleum, to tap into the ground energy of the great volcanoes: Mounts Kana, Rapa, and Fithowéo. He thought that the vitality of the mountains, forever young because they constantly remade themselves with fresh lava in violent explosions, would similarly renew the strength and vitality of the Imperial family and therefore the empire itself.

Mapidéré’s spirit, if it still was around, must now be wondering why his plan had not worked out.

Kuni Garu accepted Erishi’s surrender as the latter was curled in his bed in the fetal position, the sheets and his clothes soaked with his urine.

Luan Zya came to say good-bye.

“You won’t stay with me?” Kuni asked. “I would not be the master of Géfica without you.”

Kuni had admired Luan even as a boy, when he saw the assassin soar through the air. And he doubted that there was another mind in Dara that could have come up with such a daring plan to capture Pan.

Collecting talented friends was one of Kuni’s favorite hobbies, and Luan Zya was one of Kuni’s most prized acquisitions.

“Lord Garu, you have achieved what the gods had intended for you. Didn’t you slay the great white python in one strike in the Er-Mé Mountains, as I hear in the legends of the common people? Weren’t you surrounded by rainbows even when you were a fugitive? Today you have ridden on a cruben and made the Emperor of All the Islands tremble at your feet. You are a good lord and master, but you have no further need of my assistance. I wish to go serve Haan, a small and weak state and the last of the Six States to be free, but nonetheless my home.”

Kuni and Luan toasted each other with bowls of sorghum liquor before Luan went on his way. Both attributed their tears to the burning drink.

Luan returned to Ginpen, capital of old Haan.

News of the fall of Pan had already reached the city, and the streets were filled with young men of Haan milling about, excitedly talking of a new era. Soldiers from the Xana garrison were holed up in their barracks, fearful of the mood of the volatile citizenry.

Unmolested, Luan returned to the site of the ancestral estate of the Zya Clan, where he had last seen his father and made the pledge that drove his life.

There were no more marble-floored halls tiled with marvelous geometry, no more study rooms where the walls were covered in slates on which he and his father had written out equations and debated proofs, no more private library stocked with antique books collected from all corners of the Islands of Dara, no more sunlit laboratories filled with instruments to investigate the stars and the tides and time and the natural world.

Instead, the estate was a burned-down wreckage of broken stones overgrown with weeds.

“Father,” Luan said, kneeling in the middle of the ruins. “I have returned because the Xana Empire is no more. King Cosugi will return soon, and I will help him rebuild Haan, our homeland, and restore her to her rightful place. I have fulfilled my pledge. Are you pleased? Will your soul now have rest?”

A breeze rustled the weeds. A lonely bird cried out in the distance.

Luan knelt there for a long time, listening, until the sun sank and the moon rose, trying to divine the will of the gods and the ambiguous answers of dead ancestors.

Kuni was worried about the thousands of surrendered Imperial troops in Pan. He had only five hundred men with him, and if Imperial loyalists decided that they were willing to sacrifice the life of Emperor Erishi, they could easily overwhelm his tiny contingent.

Kuni gathered all his advisers for counsel.

“We can’t let news of the fall of Pan get out just yet,” said Cogo Yelu. “If Imperial commanders in the rest of Géfica knew just how small your army is, they’d converge on Pan, and we’d be dead.”

“Then we must seal the city immediately,” said Kuni. “But what if some Imperial had already sent out a messenger pigeon?”

“I already took care of it,” said Rin. “Roasted pigeons are delicious, especially if salted appropriately.”

Kuni laughed. “Good thing I have all of you thinking for me. The first priority now is to get word out to my brother, Mata Zyndu, and ask him to send aid as soon as possible.”

“It would have been best if we still had the airships,” said Cogo. “But, unfortunately, since you didn’t want Luan Zya to stay behind to guard them, the palace guards destroyed them.”

“I’ll take care of getting word out to General Zyndu,” said Rin. “I have ways of sending messages that won’t be intercepted by Imperial patrols.”

Kuni nodded, thankful that he had had the foresight to have Rin maintain his connections to the less savory aspects of society.

“But water from afar won’t save the fire that’s burning down the house,” fretted Kuni. “How will we ensure that the surrendered soldiers of Pan won’t turn on us?”

Rin Coda whispered a suggestion. It was thuggish and dishonorable, and Mün Çakri and Than Carucono both objected. Kuni Garu was about to say no, but Cogo Yelu spoke up in support of Rin.

“The possibility of mutiny is great, Lord Garu, and we must do what we can to preserve the fruits of our gamble.”

Still, Kuni hesitated. “Cogzy, you believe that we must purchase the loyalty of the surrendered Imperial soldiers at such cost?”

“Those who would be great must be great in all measures, including cruelty.”

Cogo’s reasoning troubled Kuni, but he was always willing to listen to counsel. Reluctantly, he agreed to Rin’s plan.

Pan lived up to its status as the capital of the empire by the size of its population, by the wideness of its streets (sixteen carriages could pass over them side by side), by the splendor of its architecture, by the variety of goods offered for sale in its markets, indeed, by any measure you cared to invent. Traders and opportunists of all stripes came to make their fortune at the feet of the emperor, and it was often said that it was better to be a mouse in Pan than an elephant in Écofi.

It was whispered among the surrendered Imperial troops that they would be allowed to loot Pan as a reward for their submission to Duke Garu — as long as they did not kill anyone. A few bold soldiers went into the streets to test out the rumor. Kuni’s men watched them but did nothing. By afternoon, the former Imperial barracks were empty.

The soldiers had free rein of the entire city. Pan was treated as though it had been conquered, except that the conquering army was composed of the men who had sworn to defend it. They broke into the wealthy mansions lining the streets, took whatever they fancied, and did as they liked to the men and women they found inside them — the soldiers did take care not to kill anyone, but there were many forms of suffering short of death.

For ten days the streets of Pan became a living hell, and families huddled in basements and shuddered while they listened to the cries and screams of the less fortunate. The Immaculate City became stained with terror, blood, avarice, and cravenness.

During this time, Kuni Garu kept his own men in the palace, away from the chaos in the streets. Cogo Yelu, however, took a few men and went to the Imperial Archives, where the empire’s census and tax records, and all other administrative papers of the civil bureaucracy, were kept.

“Lock the doors and don’t let any of the looters come in,” Cogo ordered.

“Why do we care about these old scrolls and papers?” asked Dafiro. Then he whispered, “Is this where the emperor kept his most valuable treasure? Clever to hide it where no one would be looking. Maybe… you and I can take a peek later?”

Cogo laughed. “You won’t find gold or gems here.”

“Some kind of art?” Dafiro was a bit disappointed. He knew that art could be valuable, but he didn’t care particularly for paintings unless they were of beautiful ladies.

“In a manner of speaking,” said Cogo. “Politics is the highest of the arts, and perhaps someday you will understand it.”

While the former Imperial soldiers rampaged in the streets of Pan, Kuni had to get away from the horrors he had unleashed. He chose to wander thorough the silent corridors and empty halls of the palace.

The splendor around him was breathtaking. The ceiling in every room was at least fifty feet high. Every wall was covered with intricate carvings and golden filigree. On the floor lay pillows covered in silk and damask, stuffed with the soft downy feathers of thousands of ducklings and the baby wool of yearling sheep. Priceless paintings and calligraphy scrolls taken from the conquered Six States hung on the walls.

Everywhere Kuni looked, his eyes were met with elaborate furnishings, toys, decorations: pearl and coral murals from Gan, sandalwood carvings from Rima, jade statues from Faça, turtle-bone tables from Haan, feathered tapestries from Amu, and gold, ingots and ingots of gold, squeezed from the dead laborers of Cocru. The objects spoke of power, power that Emperor Mapidéré had wielded over the empire, power palpable to Kuni as he caressed them.

He remembered how he had felt as a young man watching Mapidéré’s procession through the road near Zudi: that mixture of awe and fear, the trembling one felt in the presence of so much power. He marveled at the change in circumstances.

“Emperor, king, general, duke,” he whispered to himself. “These are just labels.” Yet the labels changed how one behaved. He had already become used to the idea of himself as the Duke of Zudi, and now he was growing used to the idea of himself as the King of Géfica. Might he grow used to yet another label? Might he grow used to being the object of awe and wonder and… perhaps fear and hatred?

The animals in the Imperial Zoo and Aquarium moaned for food. They were beautiful and lonely, caged things that had no control over their own fates.

In one of the cages was a beautiful and proud stag who paced back and forth impatiently. Yet, the label in front of its cage declared it to be a horse. Puzzled, Kuni stared at the creature, who stared back.

“Who will bring down the stag?” Kuni asked himself. “Is the hunt almost over?”

Kuni came to the small houses at the back of the palace, the hidden women’s quarter. Here, the wives and consorts of Emperor Mapidéré and of young Emperor Erishi lived. They were frightened and uncertain of their future. But when they saw Kuni, they painted their faces and came out — each to stand in front of her own house — clad only in seductive smiles. Luscious, pitiful creatures, they seemed to him not very different from the animals in the zoo.

Kuni was tired. He had been fighting and running, it seemed, for years. Away from Jia, he had never yielded to the temptation of the company of other women. But he had physical needs, and having come so close to death sharpened his appetite. The palette of tantalizing shades of flesh before him would not, could not, should not be resisted.

Didn’t he deserve some rewards? Didn’t he deserve to relax just a little?

“A brave man deserves a great beauty,” one of the women said. She was lovelier than any women Kuni knew, and she wore nothing except a necklace made from shark’s teeth. The strange, barbaric jewel somehow seemed fitting to Kuni. And her smile pulled him in — he thought, for a moment, he could see her face flicker into the image of a skull, but then he blinked, and the vision went away.

He stayed in the women’s quarter for that night, and then the next. He did not leave for ten days.

Rin Coda came to find Kuni.

He had known Kuni before he was Duke Garu, before he was even a prison guard, before anyone thought Kuni would amount to anything.

A friend like that sometimes could say things that would not be tolerated if they came from other subordinates.

“Kuni,” Rin said. “It’s time to stop.”

Kuni heard him but promptly put Rin out of his mind. He was enjoying a massage from two women who he had decided were his favorites. One of them was from Haan, and her dark skin was smooth as polished lacquer, warm as a cooking stone. Her thighs were so strong and supple that he constantly felt the need to test them. Her eyes held such promises of pleasure and compassion.

The other woman was from Faça, and she had skin so pale that you could see the blood flowing in her veins as she blushed and laughed. Her hair was bright red, like the passion of an exploding volcano (not unlike Jia, come to think of it). Her breasts were so ripe and full that Kuni felt as though he were caressing peaches, peaches full of honey nectar.

“Kuni,” Rin said again, louder. “Look at me. Have you forgotten what we came to do?”

Kuni frowned in annoyance. Rin was intruding on his daydream. He imagined living here forever. He could now see why Emperor Erishi did not want to leave his palace, did not care about what happened outside of it.

He would live like the emperor. He would eat out of golden bowls with jade spoons. He would smoke, in coral pipes, ethereal tobacco that had been cured and sifted a hundred times by specially trained monkeys who could climb the cliffs where the tobacco was grown, fed by dew. He would drink tea that consisted of the tenderest leaves, plucked by young children whose fingers were nimble enough to not break the buds prematurely and release their flavor. He would have a new woman to bed every night, but these two he would always keep for comfort when he had had a surfeit of the new.

“You should address me as ‘Lord Garu,’ ” Kuni Garu said. “Or maybe even ‘Your Majesty.’ ”

The dandelion seed has finally found the right soil. The eagle has finally soared as high as he should.

Desperate, Rin tried one last time. “Kuni, imagine how Jia would feel if she were to see you now.”

“Silence!” Kuni was out of the bed in a single motion. “You are too bold, Rin. Jia lives in my heart. But it is my appetite that needs comfort right now. Do not forget who you’re speaking to.”

“I am not the one who has forgotten who you are.”

“I do not wish to see you anymore, Rin.”

Rin Coda shook his head. He left to find help.

Cogo Yelu came in with a large basin. He directed Mün Çakri and Than Carucono to pry the two women from Kuni’s grasp and pull them out of the bed, and then he emptied the basin, full of water and ice taken from the winter cellar, onto Kuni’s naked form.

Kuni howled and jumped out of bed. He was fully awake for the first time in ten days, and he had a good mind to order Cogo Yelu’s head chopped off right then and there.

“What is the meaning of this?” he roared.

“What is the meaning of this?” Cogo pointed at the bed, now a sodden mess of silk sheets and lace covers, the empty wine goblets on the floor, the piles of art and treasure that Kuni had hoarded from all over the palace and then strewn carelessly around the room.

“Cogzy, I want to enjoy myself for a bit. By the Twins, I deserve it!”

“Have you forgotten the men who died in the Grand Tunnels? Have you forgotten the children fallen by the roadside from starvation? Have you forgotten the mothers and sons forcefully separated by corvée administrators so that the emperor could add another stone to his Mausoleum? Have you forgotten all the men who have died to fight for an end to all of this, and the women who will mourn them forever? Have you forgotten your wife, who prays for your safety daily, dreaming that you will achieve greatness and bring relief to the people of Dara?”

Kuni had no reply to this. He felt as though he was waking from a dream, a dream that made him vaguely disgusted with himself. He shivered as he felt the ice water on him again.

“I am ashamed to see this, Lord Garu,” Cogo said, and he averted his eyes from Kuni Garu’s nakedness. Than Carucono and Mün Çakri did the same.

Kuni stared at him. “How dare you lecture me? You are the one who counseled me to allow the surrendered Imperial soldiers to turn Pan into a lawless hell. You urged me to be great in all things, cruelty and appetite, so that I can keep the reins of power. I am simply enjoying the role you designed for me.”

Cogo shook his head. “You are very much mistaken, Lord Garu. I counseled you to seize power so that you may use it to do good, not so that you can indulge in its exercise as its own end. If you cannot see the difference, then I have indeed been blind.”

Kuni Garu sat down on the bed and covered himself with a sheet. It was a nice dream while it lasted.

“I’m sorry, Cogo. Please bring me some clothes.” He waited a moment and then added, “Do not speak of this to Jia.”

But Rin Coda came into the room and handed Kuni his old robe; it had been sewn by Jia and was now full of sweat stains and patches.

“Thank you,” Kuni said. “And I’m sorry for how I behaved. Old friends are like old clothes: they fit the best.”

Duke Garu announced that the looting of Pan would stop immediately and henceforth he would govern Pan with a gentle hand: All the cruel and complicated laws of the empire would be abolished and the profession of paid litigators eliminated — the people cheered wildly at this. There would be no more corvées, and taxes would be reduced to one-tenth of what they were before.

From this point forward, only three criminal laws would be enforced in Duke Garu’s Pan: first, a murderer would be executed; second, one who physically injured another had to pay compensation; third, thieves must return their loot and pay a penalty.

There was wild celebration in the streets, and the people now cheered Kuni Garu as the Liberator.

“Lord Garu, now you see how Rin’s suggestion has worked out,” Cogo said. “Not only did the period of looting give us the loyalty of the surrendered Imperial soldiers, but it turned the people of Pan permanently against them. Even if those men were to plot a mutiny now they would have no support among the populace. The former Imperial soldiers, knowing that the people of Pan hate them, have no choice but to support and defend you. You have trapped them into throwing in their lot with you without them being any the wiser.

“And by ruling Pan now with a gentle hand, you are like the spring breeze after a winter of frost, a stream of fresh water after a wild fire. Had you been gentle with them from the start, the people would have treated your compassion as weakness. But now that they have suffered for ten days, they appreciate your kindness ten times more.”

“You are a cruel and manipulative man, Cogo,” Kuni said. He smiled and waved at the people as he and his followers paraded down the street, but the smile did not reach his eyes.

“The common people are like unruly children. If you give them candy always, they will think they should be given even more. But if you slap them hard and then hand them candy, they will come crawling to you and lick your hand.”

“You’re comparing me to men who treat their wives like dogs, to be beaten and then caressed.”

“It sounds harsh and unpleasant,” Cogo said. “But the world is full of harsh and unpleasant things that must be done, especially if you would like to soar as high as an eagle.”

Kuni paused. “You’re probably right, Cogo. But enough has been done in my name that I do not wish to look into a mirror for a while.”

Cogo Yelu sighed. He noticed that the duke no longer called him Cogzy, and he found that he missed the endearment. Speaking about the world as it was did not always endear you to those you served.

Kuni administered Pan with the same care he had managed Zudi.

Every day, he spent hours dealing with the minutiae of getting the city back to some semblance of normalcy after the chaos of the conquest and the ensuing looting. He reorganized the surrendered soldiers and began to get to know their commanders. He met with the elders of the city and the surrounding villages to take measure of their thoughts and concerns.

Rin Coda, meanwhile, put his feelers out to the unsavory criminal underside of Pan, as was his wont.

“The king and I will need the support of all the business interests of Pan, especially yours,” Rin said, toasting the men assembled in the private dining hall of Pan’s most luxurious inn. They were leaders of smuggling gangs, heads of secret societies, even “legitimate” businessmen who made most of their profits in other, darker ways.

“As long as the king is reasonable, we will be reasonable,” the man who called himself Scorpion said. He claimed to be the owner of Pan’s most lucrative underground gambling dens. Two earrings made of shark’s teeth dangled from his earlobes. “But why has the king not made an effort to secure Thoco Pass?”

Rin nodded at him, indicating that he should continue.

“In my line of business,” Scorpion said, keeping his voice low so that everyone held their breath and strained to hear him, “much of my profit comes from promises being kept. For example, a man might promise that he would pay everything back within a day if the house would just spot him another thousand gold pieces for the next bet.”

Rin nodded, trying to determine if this story was going anywhere.

“I like to believe that people keep their promises, but it’s always better if you can be sure. And the best way to be sure is to make sure the man understands that I have the power to hurt him a great deal if he tries to renege.”

Rin tried to keep the impatience out of his voice. “A charming bit of advice, Master Scorpion. The king and I will keep that in mind.”

Scorpion smiled. “King Thufi, the princeps, has promised that anyone who captured Emperor Erishi would be King of Géfica, a new Tiro state. But it seems to me that if King Kuni wants to be sure that the promise is kept, he ought to show others that he has teeth. Any claim becomes more legitimate when it is backed up by arms.

“And any army that wants to come into Géfica must pass through Thoco Pass.”

The next day, Rin Coda secretly dispatched an army to Thoco Pass.

Sure, Kuni had asked him to send messengers to Mata Zyndu as soon as possible and invite him to come to Pan to share in the victory and help defend it, but Rin always believed in self-reliance: Why ask for others to help when you were capable of taking care of everything yourself?

Besides, Pan was already secure, thanks to his own plan, and why should Mata share in a glory that belonged to Kuni and his loyal followers alone? Wouldn’t it be better if just Kuni became King of Géfica? A man who didn’t think of himself first was not someone the gods favored.

He was sure Kuni would agree.

Did you enjoy sleeping with Kuni Garu, Tazu the Unpredictable?

Ah, so you saw, Lutho. I looked lovely, didn’t I?

He’s harder to tempt than you thought, isn’t he? I note that he didn’t pick you as a favorite.

A matter I blame on his taste. Well, I had my fun, and that’s what matters.

Where are Kiji the Storm-Bringer, the Twins of Ice and Fire, and Fithowéo the Warlike? I thought they’re the ones most invested in this war?

Those three birds and the wild dog are sulking. While their champions are engaged elsewhere, this nobody came in and stole the show.

Such is the danger of guiding mortals.

Don’t act so innocent, you tricky old turtle. You’ve been plotting this move for years. I was wondering when your man was going to make his move.

When you want to catch a big fish, you have to let out a long line.

This isn’t over, you know? Winning is easy; staying as the winner, now that’s hard.

Well said, but it all depends on what you mean by winning.

I’m heading home to Wolf’s Paw; there’s more fun to be had.

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE. THE SLAUGHTER

WOLF’S PAW: THE ELEVENTH MONTH IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF RIGHTEOUS FORCE.

Admiral Filo Kaima of the Imperial armada had only one thing on his mind: put as much distance between his ships and that madman Mata Zyndu as possible. Images of berserking rebels coming over the horizon like a swarm of bloody demons haunted him, awake or asleep.

It was a few days before he realized that he actually held the upper hand.

Since Zyndu had burned all the ships in Toaza Harbor, the rebels now had no navy left and no way to get off Wolf’s Paw. What were the rebels going to do, swim out to fight him on the seas?

Kaima, now the highest-ranking military officer of the empire, gathered the dejected Imperial ships and airships and reversed course. He would set up a blockade around the northern and southern shores of Wolf’s Paw. Since the great whirlpool that was Tazu made the Kishi Channel unnavigable, this would ensure that no ship could go to or from Wolf’s Paw.

The empire might have lost on land, but they could lay siege to the whole island and trap Mata Zyndu and all his rebels here until Pan sent another army.

Zyndu wants to gamble with all the lives of his men? Well, let him.

Mata Zyndu began to call himself the Marshal of Cocru. Torulu Pering drafted a proclamation, and none of the kings and nobles on Wolf’s Paw made a peep of objection.

Mata didn’t wait for an order from King Thufi. That shepherd boy would be nothing without him and his uncle. Réfiroa alone was worth ten Thufis. He, not Pashi Roma, had saved the rebellion from certain defeat. He, not Thufi, had conquered the invincible Kindo Marana. He, and no one else, had overcome an army of forty thousand with two thousand berserkers. He had not resorted to tricks or strategems; he had won by pure courage and battle lust.

It was the fairest and therefore the sweetest victory in the world.

Thufi was a figurehead, and Mata didn’t need him. Torulu Pering was right: Whatever he wanted and thought he deserved, Mata had to take for himself. Wallowing in self-pity had been foolish; the world respected a man who respected himself.

The weak and sniveling men around him disgusted him. Traitors and cowards, they did not deserve to be called noble at all. Though they might have been born with the right names, they did not have even one-tenth the courage of his guard, Ratho Miro, a peasant boy, or one-hundredth the spirit of his brother, Kuni Garu, a farmer’s son.

Mata evicted King Dalo from the palace in Toaza and took it over. Owi Ati and Huye Nocano, the Faça and Gan commanders who had come to Mata’s aid during the Battle of Wolf’s Paw only when it was clear that he would be victorious, were put under house arrest until he could try them as traitors. He was not fooled by their halfhearted support after he had already won the day.

But Namen and Marana he treated with respect. They were not great warriors in his estimation, but he respected their stations. There was no shame for men who strove to carry out their duties but were denied victory due to the limitation of their abilities — and how could anyone expect to win against him, Fithowéo incarnate? He gave Namen’s sword — since the body was not available — a burial befitting a duke, and he even allowed Marana to keep his sword. Marana’s small frame had surprised him, and he could not understand why Kikomi had chosen this sallow, weak man over him — more evidence of her lack of judgment and true nobility, perhaps. Faced with such an inferior specimen of manhood, Mata found himself unable to even summon feelings of jealousy at this “rival” for Kikomi’s affections — it was beneath him. He might even magnanimously ask Marana to serve him one day like the ancient heroes did with their defeated foes — he hadn’t thought that far yet.

I am the princeps, he thought, first among equals. No, that was not quite right. What other mortal man could compare to him in valor and strength of arms? He would march into Pan and put his foot on the neck of Emperor Erishi. He would be the foremost hero of the rebellion. He was the Conqueror, the Hegemon, a title of legends and myths.

Only then would the Zyndu name be finally redeemed.

But first, he had to get his army off Wolf’s Paw and into Géjira, from where he would march through Thoco Pass and into the Immaculate City.

The blockade of Wolf’s Paw by the armada presented only a minor difficulty. He set his army to the task of building new ships, and the island’s verdant hills were soon denuded of trees.

An old woman came to see the new Marshal Zyndu. She walked with the aid of a cane, and her hair was all white. But her face glowed with health and vigor above her shawl of shark skin and necklace of shark’s teeth.

“I can speak to Tazu,” the old woman said in a trembling, piercing voice that made listeners wince.

The priests of Tazu shouted in outrage.

“We’re the messengers of Tazu.”

“She’s nothing but a fraud, a witch who fools the gullible villagers!”

“Throw her off the cliffs, and let her speak to Tazu directly!”

But Mata silenced them with a dismissive wave. He took perverse pleasure in seeing these men howl like young children at the smallest hint that their authority was challenged. To Mata, the priests seemed of a kind with the effete and greedy nobles and kings that he now found so contemptible.

This old woman, on the other hand, had courage. She stood without trembling in front of the most powerful man in the rebellion and looked him straight in the eyes. Mata liked that.

“What message from Tazu do you bring me?” he asked.

“Tazu can help you leave Wolf’s Paw. But first, he must be given sacrifices.”

The old woman refused to tell him any specifics until Mata dismissed all others from the audience hall. Then she whispered in his ear.

Mata’s eyes grew wide. He shrank back. “Who are you?”

“That is a foolish question,” the old woman said. But she didn’t sound like an old woman anymore. Her voice was deep and sonorous, and the walls of the audience hall shook as she spoke. She sounded like waves striking against the sea wall and strong currents swirling in the deep.

She stood with her back straight and held her cane like a weapon. She smiled, and her face was as fierce as a shark’s. “You already know the answer.”

Mata stared at her. “You ask for much.” Though he tried to keep his voice steady, he trembled.

“No, you ask for much,” the old woman said. “I’m merely hungry.”

Mata continued to stare at her. He shook his head. “I can’t. I won’t.”

The old woman chuckled. “You’re wondering what Kuni Garu would think of you if you did as I asked?”

Mata said nothing.

The old woman shrugged. “I’ve said my piece. Do as you will.” And suddenly, she was frail and ancient again as she shuffled her way out of the audience hall.

A whole fleet of ships was constructed within twenty days. With steady keels and tightly joined, smooth hulls, they bobbed gently in Toaza Harbor, gleaming with fresh paint. Mata’s army had worked as hard and well as they had fought.

“Marshal Zyndu is a master shipwright! Is there anything on earth that Marshal Zyndu does not do a hundred times better than any other man?”

“How dare you compare Marshal Zyndu merely to other men? He is a general sent to us by the gods!”

“How dare you suggest the Marshal Zyndu is merely a mortal? He is Tazu incarnate, master of the seas and waves!”

Marshal Zyndu only half listened to the nobles and courtiers vying to outdo one another in their flattery. He knew that they were foolish, but he couldn’t help how good he felt as they talked. Their words tickled his heart and made him feel like he was floating on clouds.

“Enough,” he said. The chattering voices around him stopped immediately. “We set sail for the Big Island tomorrow. Let Kaima come to us on the sea, and we will crush him as easily we crushed Namen and Marana on land!”

And everyone cheered.

That night, the greatest storm in living memory swept through Toaza Harbor.

The howling of the winds clashing against one another caused those living closest to the sea to go deaf. The waves smashing against the coast were so high that they flooded the palace. The streets of Toaza turned into canals, and sharks swam through them in the morning, as dazed as the citizens watching them from third-story windows.

The fleet of new ships disappeared. Only a few broken masts and smashed boards were left. A thousand men who had already boarded the ships to break them in and keep watch were killed.

When he heard the news, Mata Zyndu ordered everyone to search for the old woman who had come to see him. But though Toaza was turned upside down, no trace of her could be found.

“Is this the price for defying the gods?” Mata talked to himself rather than the cowering courtiers. “Or perhaps this is a reminder of the weight of history?”

Then he raised his voice. “If our ships are destroyed, then we must build more.”

He issued new orders.

There were simply too many surrendered Imperial soldiers to keep all as prisoners. They would be freed — provided that they agreed to join Mata Zyndu’s army.

The prisoners jumped at the chance.

The first task of the new, bigger army was to build more ships to replace those that had been lost.

Many of the former Imperial soldiers had served as supervisors on the emperor’s grand construction projects, where they wielded whips on the corvée laborers. Many of the Cocru soldiers, on the other hand, had worked as corvée laborers or had family and friends who did.

Now that they were supposed to be comrades with their erstwhile tormentors, the men of Cocru exacted revenge in ways big and small. Latrine duty was always assigned to the former Imperials, as was cooking, cleaning, and standing guard at night.

And during the day, as the former Imperials toiled at shipbuilding, the men of Cocru stood around and taunted them to work harder and faster. Morale among Mata’s men rose despite the loss of the first fleet: Tormenting the Xana soldiers offered a concrete form of justice.

Ratho, among others, took great pleasure in ordering the Imperial scum about. As far as the surrendered men were concerned, the word of the marshal’s personal guard was law.

Ratho’s favorite game was to order these men to carry the great oak trees cut from the mountains down to the harbor. He would assign sixteen men to each tree and tell them that they had to walk all the way down from the mountain without ever setting the tree on the ground for a break. When the exhausted men inevitably dropped the tree before reaching their destination, he would make them leave the tree where it was and go back for another one. This was a diversion he never tired of.

“After what you Xana bastards put my father through”—he whipped them—“I’m practically giving you massages.”

“There’s a lot of complaining among the surrendered soldiers,” Ratho said. “Many officers think that a mutiny is likely.”

“Let them complain,” Mata Zyndu said, his voice quiet.

“You spared their lives! They should be on their knees every day thanking you,” Ratho said.

“Rat, sometimes it can be both too late to curse the gods and too early to thank men.”

Ratho didn’t know what Marshal Zyndu meant. All he knew was that the surrendered Xana soldiers were ungrateful. He muttered, “You can’t get pigs to stop loving mud.”

With great effort, Marshal Zyndu’s army-of-former-prisoners managed to construct a new fleet in half as much time as before: ten days.

But this time, the sullen efforts of these abused men resulted in heavy, slow, and crude transports. Experienced Gan sailors looked at these ships in dismay. They resembled large boxes hammered together hastily with no thought about seaworthiness, stability, or maneuverability.

Torulu Pering spoke. “It would be a miracle if these ships didn’t fall apart on their own once they were in the open ocean. I cannot see them posing a challenge to the blockading armada.”

Mata impatiently waved for him to be quiet. “I have heard enough of words of doubt.”

Fearing Marshal Zyndu’s wrath more than the sea, no one else said anything.

“And hasn’t he already snatched victory from the jaws of certain defeat?” the soldiers whispered. “Perhaps his will for success alone is enough to intimidate the gods into granting miracles. Even Tazu would not dare to fight our Marshal Zyndu.”

When Mata gave the order to board, no one objected.

The huge holds of the ships seemed designed to transport grain and fish rather than men. As soldiers filed in, guards stationed at the steps leading down into the holds pushed them until the holds were packed so tight that it was impossible for anyone to even turn around. When the guards were satisfied that the cargo holds were really, truly full, they closed the doors.

The ships sailed out of Toaza Harbor, and men held their breath in the darkness, waiting for the armada to strike. But nothing happened, and the ships sailed on. Did Marshal Zyndu’s fearsome reputation keep the Imperial ships at bay?

Gradually, the men in the suffocating dark were lulled to sleep by the gentle rocking motion of the ships, still standing and leaning against their comrades.

Hours passed, and with a jolt, some woke from their slumber. It was very quiet. The decks above their heads creaked, but there was no sound of footsteps. Shouldn’t the cargo holds be opened to allow some of the men to go above to take in fresh air?

Those near the doors banged against them. No answer.

“They didn’t just bar the doors. They sealed us in!” someone who peeked through cracks in the doors shouted. There were heavy boxes stacked against the outside of the cargo hold doors so that the men inside could not push them open no matter how hard they tried.

“Is anyone here from Cocru? Anyone who had served under Marshal Zyndu from before?”

No one answered. The whole cargo hold was filled with surrendered Imperial soldiers.

“Who’s sailing the ship? Is there anyone up there?”

More silence.

The sailors had long ago left on lifeboats. The rudders of the ships had been jammed to fix their course. The creaking, leaky ships, filled with twenty thousand surrendered Imperial soldiers, sailed northward into the Kishi Channel.

Tazu’s hungry maw opened in front of them.

Tazu, now happily fed and strengthened by this sacrifice, grew even more violent and powerful. He careened north, shot out of the Kishi Channel, circled around the Big Toe, and sucked half of the Imperial armada into his bottomless maw.

Without a break, he now moved down the eastern coast of Wolf’s Paw and within a few hours completed the circuit of the island. South of Toaza, within sight of those on shore, Tazu caught up to the other half of the armada. Admiral Filo Kaima and all his men went to join their dead companions at the bottom of the ocean.

Great plumes of water shot out of the center of Tazu and reached high into the sky like the flicking tongues of toads aiming for dragonflies. The last of the lumbering Imperial airships tried to escape, but they were caught and pulled down into the great whirlpool and disappeared in silent puffs as they collapsed against the torrid sea like soap bubbles.

Tazu moved back into the Kishi Channel. His work was done.

In the gray and oppressive light of dusk, lightning bolts shot from the clouds, striking the tempest-tossed water in deafening blasts. Kiji, the stormy god of Xana, raged across the sea to the north of Wolf’s Paw.

Come and fight me, Tazu! You have broken the pact among the gods. The blood of Xana must be avenged! I will pull out every one of your teeth.

But Tazu’s whirlpool stayed out of the reach of the lightning bolts. It danced across the sea, careless as a well-fed shark.

Brother, your rage is misplaced. It is in my nature to wander these seas daily. If the mortals wish to stand in my way, I’m well within my rights to do as I did.

I will not hear of such sophistry!

The soothing, gentle voice of Rufizo, the healing god of nearby Faça, interceded.

Kiji, you know that Tazu is right. Much as I abhor his methods, he has stayed within the letter of our pact. He only persuaded Mata Zyndu to make this sacrifice.

For hours, the storm continued to rage, but eventually, as the sun rose, it dissipated.

“You disapprove,” Mata said to his advisers. He kept his voice deliberately low and calm so that everyone strained to hear.

Except for Torulu Pering, who smiled coldly, all the other advisers lowered their eyes, not daring to meet his gaze.

“You think it was wrong to kill so many men who had already surrendered.”

The assembled men continued to say nothing, striving to breathe quietly through their noses.

“When we were merciful and allowed the prisoners to live, we were trapped on this island. A storm came and took away the lives of our soldiers, young men who deserved to die in glory, not at sea.

“But our victory became assured when I decided to listen to that old woman, who was truly Tazu’s messenger, and offer him a sacrifice commensurate with his appetite. The gods were speaking to us, don’t you see?

“I had been too merciful. Perhaps I had allowed Kuni Garu, my gentle brother, to affect me too much. After all, he’s no great warrior. I had to remember that being merciful to one’s enemies is the same as being cruel to one’s own men. Tazu wanted blood, and I had to give it to him.

“Some of you may flinch at the thought of killing so many Xana prisoners, but know that there is divine justice in this. Years ago, my grandfather, Dazu Zyndu, lost his war against Xana due to treachery. The Xana dog Gotha Tonyeti then buried alive the surrendered Cocru soldiers. Only now has that blood debt been repaid.”

With the armada gone, a fleet of merchant and fishing ships came from Cocru to pick up Mata and his army — it no longer seemed necessary to pretend that the soldiers owed their allegiance to anyone but Mata.

King Thufi sent along congratulatory messages, which Mata threw away without even opening.

He was Mata Zyndu, the Butcher of Wolf’s Paw. He had killed twenty thousand men with his sword and twenty thousand more with water. He was beyond the opinion of mere mortals like King Thufi. He was a god of death, and he made his own laws of war.

He would now go back to the Big Island and march through Thoco Pass into Pan, where he would crush Emperor Erishi and take what rightfully belonged to him.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO. THE HOUSEKEEPER

OUTSIDE ÇARUZA: THE TWELFTH MONTH IN THE FOURTH YEAR OF THE REIGN OF RIGHTEOUS FORCE.

Lady Jia felt overwhelmed.

Not being of noble birth, she never could seem to break into the social scene at Çaruza. Kuni was too coarse and practical-minded for most of the real hereditary nobles and kings and ambassadors, and that was reflected in the way she was treated. While Phin had been alive, his special regard for her had elevated her status somewhat, but after his death, the few noble ladies she had thought were her friends soon grew cold and distant.

Though Mata called on her from time to time and made sure she and the children lacked nothing materially, his care didn’t help much with her social life — Mata was stiff and aloof and more feared than liked by the lords and ladies of the court.

She gritted her teeth and tried to venture out to some of the parties in Çaruza on her own a few times, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that the stately, great ladies looked down on her and made fun of her too-loud laughter, her homely merchant’s-family phrases, her loose and easy and unrefined manners.

So she stayed away from the court and tried to find solace in her son.

But Toto-tika had a weak constitution and was often sickly, and he would cry and cry until he fell asleep from exhaustion. It had taken all her skill and knowledge of medicine to nurse him back to health and to keep him alive. She was also pregnant again, and the new baby inside her seemed equally demanding, as it kept her up at night and made her feel irritable and drained. I suppose it makes sense, thought Jia, the baby is going to be born in the Year of the Deer, and it’s already bounding around inside me like a high-spirited fawn.

The children seemed to require so much of her attention that she sometimes thought of them as akin to those legendary wraiths in the Gonlogi Desert who sucked travelers’ blood until they fell down as empty husks.

Jia knew such thoughts were unbecoming in a mother, but she was beyond caring.

She had a sizable household staff, but most of the servant girls were war orphans who she had taken in out of pity. They were young and needed looking after themselves. Sometimes, Jia felt like one of those women who took in baby birds that had fallen out of their nests and stray cats who meowed for milk — she was happy they were around, but sometimes her compassion became a burden.

Thank goodness for Steward Otho Krin, who was solicitous and kind and seemed to crave her approval in everything he did…. Oh, who was she kidding? Jia understood what she really yearned for and was flattered by the attention. Truth be told, she sometimes admired his lanky form and shy but pretty eyes and imagined a secret tryst — but she’d quickly berate herself, blushing guiltily.

But he was very good at keeping the footmen and stablehands busy and useful so that all the household repairs and maintenance got done, so at least she didn’t need to worry about that. Still, he was a man and could not help her with the thousands of little things that besieged her daily.

It was night. The baby was asleep and the house finally quiet. Jia felt the empty space next to her in bed and the ache in her heart. She closed her eyes and tried to reach across the miles and miles between herself and Kuni with her thoughts.

Letters from Kuni were sporadic and rare, like any reliable news from the front; she had heard nothing from him after he suddenly took off from Zudi without telling anyone where he was going. She realized this was the norm, not the exception, in their life: though they had married for a future of shared excitement, most of the time, Kuni went away and had adventures while she stayed behind with the children and the tedious weight of the quotidian. Where was “the most interesting thing” for her?

What are you up to, my husband? Are you thinking of me?

In a few hours she had to get up again and smile and keep up a stream of cheerful chatter all day. Everyone needed her; everyone depended on her; she was the one who had to be strong and sensible — one day, she was sure she was going to be sucked dry and fall down where she stood.

She felt so alone. And a heated thought rose into her mind that she resented Kuni for leaving her behind like this. She felt bad immediately and tried to push the thought away, but that only made it linger and hurt worse.

I knew this was going to be hard. But this is the path I’ve chosen.

She began to cry, at first quietly, and then louder. She bit down on her pillow to stop the sounds from spilling out into the hallway.

Why do I feel so helpless?

She punched the pillow hard, hard enough that her knuckles hurt from the muffled contact with the solid coconut husk core buried in the seeds and herbs she had stuffed the pillow with to give herself better sleep. The pain, surprisingly, did make her feel better.

She punched the pillow a few more times, targeting where she could feel the sharp edges of the coconut husk; she winced. She shifted her punches to the sides a bit so that her fist fell into the seeds and crushed herbs; she felt better. At least she was in control of this, she smiled bitterly, tears on her face. She could control how much pain she got from punching her pillow.

Her smile froze.

I’ve been allowing myself to lose control.

She was in the middle of a maelstrom, and she was at risk of drowning. But she had to find a spar, a piece of driftwood, to hang on to. Then she would climb up and navigate her way out.

She needed to make choices again, to feel she was the master of her own fate.

The door slid open, and she stepped out of the room quietly. Noiselessly, she made her way down the hall, around the corner, to the front wing, and then she slid open another door with a barely audible creak.

She tapped the figure in the dark on the shoulder. It stirred, mumbled, and turned to go back to sleep.

She tapped the shoulder harder and whispered in the dark, “Wake up, Otho.”

Otho Krin rolled over and rubbed his eyes. “What… what time is it?”

“It’s me, Jia.”

Otho sat up immediately. “Lady Jia! What are you doing here?”

Jia took a deep breath and wrapped her arms around him in a deep embrace. Otho stiffened.

“Don’t be alarmed,” said Jia, her voice gaining confidence as she continued to speak. “I have decided on something that will make me happy, something I choose for just myself.”

“You have?” came Otho’s muffled response.

Jia laughed quietly. Paradoxically, perhaps insanely, she no longer resented Kuni. She felt alive, in control; she felt she was swimming toward a spar, a glimmer of hope.

She sat back and began to undress Otho in the dark.

“No!” Otho protested. But then he stopped struggling. “Surely this is a dream,” he mumbled. “Is Lady Rapa rewarding me with a lovely dream?”

“This is no dream,” said Jia. “We will justify it another time. It’s enough for now to know that sometimes we need to hang on to each other as tightly as possible simply to remember that we are still alive, that we choose our fates, whatever the gods have planned for us.”

And they lay down together in the darkness, their bodies sliding against each other hungrily, desperately, their mouths meeting in urgent kisses that sought time and timelessness in equal measure.

“Let it be known that I am looking for a housekeeper,” Jia said.

“A housekeeper?” Steward Otho Krin asked. He could sense there was something different about her this morning — further evidence that last night had not been a dream.

Jia looked at him in the eyes — there was no awkwardness, no embarrassment in her gaze. She smiled. “I’ve been feeling too isolated. I want a companion: someone who can help me with women’s tasks and be my friend.”

Otho Krin nodded. This was the Jia he had fallen in love with, the woman who had awed him and showed him what was possible in the world. He would always be loyal to her and be discreet, of course, but he had shared a night with her. He had. The joy in his heart was indescribable.

He bowed and left.

At the door stood a middle-aged woman who radiated efficiency from the top of her hair knot — not a single strand out of place — to the uppers of her embroidered cloth shoes — the hand stitches tight and neat like a line of marching ants.

“My name is Soto,” she said.

“You have experience with large households?”

“I grew up in a very large house,” Soto said. “I know some tricks.” She appraised Jia.

Though she tried to speak like a commoner, Jia noted the refined accent and the formal way Soto held herself: There was none of the ingratiating bowing and scraping a real servant would have used to her potential mistress.

She liked Soto immediately.

“Çaruza is filled with many noble houses,” Jia said. “Many of them look on me with contempt. It’s not a good stepping-stone to a better position in the future.”

“If I wanted to live in houses run by spoiled children who are too old to spank,” replied Soto evenly, “I would have knocked on those doors.”

Jia laughed, and the hint of a smile appeared on Soto’s face. Soto’s contempt for Çaruza’s aristocrats made Jia guess she was the daughter of a minor Cocru noble family who had fallen on hard times.

“Welcome to the house of Duke Garu. I hope you and Steward Otho Krin get along. I’m just about at my wit’s end.”

Soto turned out to be an efficient but kind housekeeper, and soon Jia’s house hummed along like a well-oiled machine.

She took the most responsible servant girls and had them take turns taking care of the baby during the day so that Jia could be freed up. The servant girls learned useful domestic skills from her that would stand them in good stead for future employment, while the stablehands and footmen appreciated her gentle touch and eye for details. She took care of things that Steward Krin never bothered with — such as making sure to give everyone an extra egg on the festival days.

And Soto told such wonderful stories about the old days before the Conquest! Even Jia sometimes was mesmerized when Soto spun one of her yarns about the old Cocru aristocracy for the entertainment of the servants in the kitchen. Jia thought most of the stories Soto told were probably made up, but she sprinkled them with so many delicious and scandalous details that she wished they were true.

They took walks together in the Cocru countryside: along the beach, over the plains, up and down the hills. Soto was interested in Jia’s herbal collection and asked intelligent questions as Jia happily showed her the various seaweeds, flowers, grasses, and shrubs and explained their diverse virtues. She also asked after the history between Jia and Kuni, and Jia happily told her all about Kuni’s less well-known exploits.

In return, Soto told Jia many stories of Cocru’s past that were tragic, serious, and romantic — like the one about Prime Minister Lurusén, the famous poet, who had drowned himself in the Liru River because King Thoto refused to listen to his counsel to not trust Xana’s overtures of peace.

The world is drunk; I alone am sober.

The world is asleep, but I am awake.

My tears are not wept for you, King Thoto,

But for the men and women of Cocru.

“What a loyal and good man he was,” Jia said, sighing. She remembered Kuni’s creative interpretation of the poem, and a smile curled the corners of her mouth.

“You know he had not wanted to go into politics at all?” said Soto. “He wanted to be a hermit poet in the mountains.”

“What changed his mind?”

“His wife, Lady Zy. She was far more of a patriot than he was, and she encouraged him to use his gift with words for some higher purpose than entertainment. ‘Politics is the highest of the arts,’ she used to tell him, and eventually, he listened and wrote those passionate pleas for Cocru to go to war against Xana before it was too late. When King Thoto dismissed Lurusén from his post to sign the peace treaty with Xana, Lurusén and Lady Zy plunged into the Liru together to voice their protest.”

Jia was quiet for a while. “Had he not listened to her, perhaps they both would have lived out full lives in the mountains.”

“And died in obscurity,” said Soto. “But today every child of Cocru can recite the poems of Lurusén and revere his name. Not even Mapidéré dared to ban his books, though the poet had cursed the name of Xana on every page.”

“So you think he might be thankful to his wife?”

“I’d like to think they made their decisions together and were happy to face the consequences together,” said Soto.

Jia was thoughtful. Soto said no more and they continued their walk in peace.

Once more, Jia wondered just who Soto was — she was skillful at dodging questions about her past, and Jia hated feeling like she was prying.

Still, Jia liked Soto because she seemed to understand that sometimes all Jia wanted was for someone to be there, walking companionably next to her, so that she knew she was not alone. And in her presence Jia could complain, pettily and selfishly, or laugh, loudly and unladylike, and Soto never seemed to think there was anything wrong with what she did.

“Lord Garu has been away for a long time,” Soto said one morning, as she came to get Jia’s instructions for the day.

Jia felt the ache in her heart again. “It has been a long time. And he probably won’t be here when the new baby is born either.”

Speaking the fact out loud seemed to give it substance, make it real. When Kuni first sent word that he was leaving Zudi on a mission he could not speak about, she had been angry that he would be so reckless — though, hadn’t the dream herbs always told her that some measure of heartache was inevitable with Kuni? She shouldn’t really have been surprised.

As the days went by with no further messages, she grew more and more worried. Since Phin was dead and Mata was away at Wolf’s Paw, Jia had no source for reliable news. King Thufi and the other nobles barely knew who she was.

“I understand that he and Marshal Zyndu are good friends,” Soto said.

“Yes. Marshal Zyndu and Lord Garu fought together, and they are as tight as brothers.”

“Friendships among men tend to not survive great rises or falls of fortune,” Soto said. She paused, seeming to hesitate over whether to go on. “What do you think of this Mata Zyndu?”

Jia was taken aback by Soto’s tone. Zyndu was the Victor at Wolf’s Paw, Bane of the Empire, the Greatest Warrior of Dara. Right now, he was sweeping through Géjira and mopping up the scattered bits of Imperial resistance in the old cities of Gan. Even King Thufi seemed to speak of the marshal with deference. Yet Soto spoke his name carelessly, as though he was a child. Was there some history between Soto’s family and the Zyndus?

Jia answered carefully. “Marshal Zyndu is without a doubt the most important member of the rebellion. Without him, we would never have achieved victory over the crafty Marana and the stout Namen.”

“Is that so?” Soto seemed amused. “That sounds like what the town criers keep on telling us every day, as if they’re afraid we’ll stop believing the minute they stop. I only know that he killed a lot of people.”

Jia didn’t know how to respond to this, so she stood up. “Let us speak no more of politics.”

“That may not be possible forever, Jia. You’re a political wife, whether you want to be or not.” Then Soto bowed and left.

Soto’s room was just down the hall from Jia’s, and she was a light sleeper.

She heard Jia’s door open after everyone had gone to bed, and she knew she would hear the door open again right before dawn.

She had seen the way Steward Otho Krin looked at Lady Jia when he thought no one was watching. She had seen the way he lingered near her when he held the reins of her carriage. She had also seen the way Lady Jia furtively returned his smiles and carefully listened as he gave the reports on household finances.

More than anything else, the scrupulous way they avoided being too close to each other when others were around told Soto everything she needed to know.

Soto lay awake in the darkness, thinking.

She had come to the Garu household because she was intrigued by the wild tales of Mata Zyndu and Kuni Garu, the Marshal and the Bandit, the unlikeliest of friends who had become the most faithful of companions, whose exploits against Tanno Namen had inspired thousands in the rebellion. There were folk operas composed about them, and many spoke confidently of their favor in the eyes of the gods.

She wanted to see for herself the truth behind the legends, to understand Kuni the way his wife understood him. No matter how large a man grew in the eyes of the world, in the eyes of his wife he would always be life-size, or maybe even smaller-than-life. Unexpectedly, she had come to like Jia, the woman who was once only a means to an end for her. She saw a measure of the man Kuni was by the woman he loved.

Jia could become a force to be reckoned with, a shaper of the path of the rebellion so that its fruits might taste sweet for more than just men like Mata Zyndu, men who looked to an ideal past but were blind to messy realities. Soto hoped to nudge Jia along the path that she was meant to take, which would require Soto to reveal the truth of her own past. But now that she knew of this wrinkle in Jia’s life, she had to consider what it meant.

There was a tendency by some to romanticize love, to make a fetish out of it. The poets made love seem like a bar of iron coming out of the furnace at the blacksmith’s, red hot and staying so forever. Soto did not think much of such notions.

A man fell in love with a woman, married her, and the passion would cool. He would then go into the world, see other women, fall in love again, marry them, and feel the new passion cool in turn. After all, in all the Tiro states, a man was allowed to have multiple wives, if he could persuade all the wives to agree.

But if he was a good man, the passion would cool into a smoldering ember, ready to be fanned aflame again. As the great Kon Fiji wrote so long ago: A good husband remained in love with all his wives, but being good took hard work, and most husbands were lazy.

It was no different from how a lonely wife, away from her husband, would seek comfort in a lover. Yet, for the most part, she would not be lying to say that she still loved her husband.

For both women and men, Soto believed that love was more like food. The same dish tired the palate, and variety was spice.

The world did not tolerate such betrayals by the wives, if betrayal was what they were, as it tolerated the same betrayals by husbands. But the world was wrong. Accommodations for the vagaries of the heart should be made for women as well as men.

So Jia was not a woman bound by conventions when it came to matters of the heart. Soto hoped Jia would be as bold in making use of her position and influence as she was in her passions. She hoped it for Jia’s own happiness as well as the happiness of the men and women of Cocru — and all of Dara.

Soto went back to sleep, and said nothing of what she knew.

CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE. THE REAL MASTER OF PAN

GÉJIRA: THE FIRST MONTH IN THE FIRST YEAR OF THE PRINCIPATE.

Now that the empire was without a leader like Marshal Kindo Marana or General Tanno Namen, the remaining pockets of Imperial resistance in Géjira collapsed before Mata Zyndu like empty husks. Many garrisons surrendered without a fight.

But a few cities did fight, and the other rebel commanders vied to present Mata with stratagems for conquering them to prove their worth. A scrawny little man named Gin Mazoti, in particular, insisted on seeing him at every opportunity.

“If you give me fifty men, we can enter cities as disguised merchants long before your arrival and open the gates for you when you do.”

“There is a drainage pipe that empties out into the sea here; we may be able to enter the city through the sewers.”

“It is exceedingly strange that Pan has been completely silent. Why has the regent not appointed a new leader to rally the troops in Géjira? Marshal, something is afoot, and we must redouble our efforts to spy in Géfica.”

Mata dismissed him contemptuously. Men like him wanted to rely on tricks rather than real mettle. Unworthy.

After he conquered each recalcitrant city by brute force, Mata gave his troops three days to do whatever they liked to the inhabitants. For good measure, he decided to wreck Géjira’s industry to ensure the conquered territories would not rise up behind him. Water mills along the Sonaru were smashed, and windmills irrigating the fields burned like giant torches.

King Dalo, whom Mata Zyndu dragged along as a prisoner, sometimes tried to intercede on behalf of Géjira, which had belonged to Gan before the Conquest. Even Marana, now a “guest” of Marshal Zyndu in the rebel army, occasionally joined King Dalo in calling for mercy.

People were so eager to give Mata advice. He was tired of it.

“You understand, of course, that by making examples of these cities, I discourage further resistance in the rest of Géjira and so save more lives in the long run, especially the lives of my men?”

Dalo had no answer to that. Marana had the grace to sometimes blush, as he had once used the very same logic.

But in Zyndu’s mind, the people of Géjira were also cowards and traitors because they had not risen up against the empire back when the rebellion could have used their help. In a way, he thought the soldiers’ brutality toward the conquered Géjira cities was just.

After Wolf’s Paw, he did not ever want his own mercy to cost the lives of those who followed him.

Although the fiction that the armies of the other Tiro states remained under independent command was still maintained, Owi Ati and Huye Nocano, the Faça and Gan commanders, increasingly became more like puppets. Their troops were tightly incorporated into Zyndu’s own chain of command. King Thufi sometimes also tried to send messengers with “suggestions” for Marshal Zyndu, but Mata only glanced at them and then threw them away.

For all intents and purposes, Mata Zyndu was now the real princeps — no, more than a princeps, a hegemon — and all the Tiro states understood this.

Géjira was finally pacified after a month. But reliable news of happenings in Géfica, the heart of the empire on the other side of the mountains, were hard to come by. The caravan traffic through Thoco Pass had ceased, and none of Mata’s spies came back. The remaining Imperials seemed to huddle in the Immaculate City and sent no reinforcements to Géjira.

Mata’s messengers to Zudi also returned empty-handed: Duke Garu was missing, and no one knew where he had gone. Mata wasn’t overly concerned; he had wanted to have Kuni by his side as he prepared for his final assault, but he knew that Kuni was wily and could take care of himself.

As the new year arrived, Mata brought his rebel army to Thoco Pass, from where they would begin the march on Pan and the boy emperor Erishi.

Finally, he thought, the dream of freeing Dara is about to come true.

He felt as light as a feather, as giddy as a child.

The snow-topped peaks and sheer cliffs of the Shinané Mountains and the Wisoti Mountains formed two walls impenetrable to all but birds and mountain goats.

The only place to pass from Géjira, on the east side of the two mountain ranges, to Géfica, on the west side, was through Thoco Pass, a twenty-mile-long valley between the towering Mounts Kana and Rapa, to the south, and Mount Fithowéo, to the north. Thoco Pass was narrow, dark, and covered by towering trees that stretched as high as they could to catch the bits of light that filtered down through the gap between the steep mountains. Rumblings from the great volcanoes on both sides set off occasional rockslides that blocked the pass until the debris could be cleared. It was the perfect place for an ambush.

Over the years, the various Tiro states around the junction fought over the series of walled forts that guarded Thoco Pass. Whoever controlled them controlled the spine of the Big Island.

Coming from the eastern end, the first fort in Thoco Pass was Goa, a massive stone citadel built more than two hundred years ago.

Marshal Zyndu’s army approached Goa cautiously and sent out several scouting parties. As the last barrier before Pan, Thoco Pass was likely heavily defended.

Doru Solofi, the captain of the scouts, came back with the surprising news that the red flags of Cocru were flying from the walls of Goa.

Mata Zyndu took a few personal guards and rode up to Goa’s gates.

“Open up!” Ratho called out. “We’re with Marshal Zyndu, commander-in-chief of all rebel forces. Who’s your commander?”

The soldiers peeked carefully over the wall. “Without Lord Garu’s orders, we won’t let anyone through.”

“Lord Garu? You mean Kuni Garu, the Duke of Zudi?”

“The very same. Though now that he’s captured Emperor Erishi, he’s going to be King of Géfica!”

Mata rode forward. “He’s done what? Open up the gates now and let me speak to him!”

The defenders of Goa, being former Imperial soldiers who had surrendered to Kuni, wanted to show their zeal for their new lord. They shot volleys of arrows at Mata Zyndu and his guards and laughed at this presumptuous man who thought he could just strut in and talk to their king.

Ratho lifted his shield in front of Mata, but Mata struck it out of his hand and tossed it away. An arrow struck him in the shoulder, but he didn’t even seem to feel it.

But Ratho felt as if his heart were bleeding — how could Lord Garu take up arms against his friend? And after all he and the marshal had been through together, too.

“There must have been some mistake,” Mata Zyndu said.

Didn’t Kuni tell me once that only I had the courage and strength to conquer Immaculate Pan, to take the prize promised by King Thufi?

Had I not spoken to Kuni of my dream of the Imperial capital covered in a tempest of gold, a tide of chrysanthemum, and, I had hoped, dandelion?

Are we not brothers who pledged to support each other in everything, to fight for the same goals and not for selfish gain?

Mata Zyndu could not understand it. How could Kuni have snuck into Pan like a thief while he was struggling for the very life of the rebellion on Wolf’s Paw? And how could Kuni now raise swords against him like a gangster protecting his turf? It was impossible. It had to be some impostor.

“Everyone betrays me,” he muttered. “There is no honor in a woman like Kikomi or a man like Kuni Garu.” No matter how much he trusted people, they always ended up betraying him in the most despicable manner.

But Torulu Pering informed him that a follower of Kuni Garu, a man by the name of Ro Minosé, had escaped from Goa and come to surrender to him. He had seen the size of Mata Zyndu’s army and decided that joining Mata made more sense.

“Tell me about Lord Garu’s successes,” Mata Zyndu said. He worked hard to keep his face impassive and his voice calm.

Ro spoke to him of Kuni Garu’s ride to Rui on the back of a cruben, of his surprise attack on Pan, of his careful manipulation of the surrendered Imperial troops, of his gentle administration afterward, and of the esteem in which he was held by the people of Géfica.

“The people love Lord Garu. They think that the gods blessed them when they made him the conqueror of Pan rather than…”

“Go on.”

“Than you, Marshal. Lord Garu’s men often speak of what happened at Dimu, and Imperial deserters have spread rumors of what happened at Wolf’s Paw and in Géjira. Some wish that Lord Garu would not only be their king, but perhaps the new emperor.”

Mata Zyndu’s fury was sudden, scorching, and all-consuming.

He paced like a caged animal inside his tent. Everything inside the tent was already broken, and as he paced, he ground the broken pieces into the muddy soil.

While I and my soldiers used our lives to hold back the empire’s greatest army on Wolf’s Paw, Kuni snuck through an unguarded back door like a thief.

While I, by pure valor and strength, earned the greatest victory this world has ever known, Kuni stole the honor and reward that belonged to me.

And now, now? The thief does not even have the decency to face me and explain himself. Kuni Garu, who was like a brother, has locked the door against me, like a robber trying to keep a bigger portion of the loot.

“I’ll die before I let him become King of Géfica!” Mata Zyndu roared. He was more outraged for his soldiers, young men, barely more than boys, who had followed him from Tunoa and fought for him fearlessly. They deserved to have their bravery recognized by the world.

To have people think of Kuni Garu as the one who finished the empire would be intolerable.

The other nobles and commanders, keeping their heads bowed submissively, gradually eased themselves step by step to the entrance of the tent, mumbled their excuses, and hastily retreated.

Torulu Pering was the only one who remained. “Marshal, be calm and think this through.”

“Think? We have to act! We must attack Goa immediately so we can get to Pan and catch the trickster Kuni Garu. I want to see the traitor’s face — though he’s probably too shameless to even understand that he’s done me wrong.”

“Marshal, Kuni Garu might have snatched up Emperor Erishi like a sly vulture while you fought the empire like a lone wolf. But he has fulfilled the literal terms of King Thufi’s promise, and it would appear poorly in the eyes of the world for you to fight him like a jealous child. Though the empire has fallen, open warfare among the great lords of the rebellion so soon after will bring all of us dishonor.”

“He does not deserve it! He stole a title that belongs to me!”

“It might be better to allow him to think that he has won it,” said Torulu Pering, “and that you acquiesce in his usurpation. Approach him. When his guard is down, and he away from his men, you can seize him and lay bare his trickery for the world to see. Then and only then can you properly claim the throne of the new Tiro state in Géfica for yourself.”

Marshal Zyndu sent messengers to Goa to congratulate the men in the fort for serving such a great lord as King Kuni of Géfica. Might the soldiers be willing to bring a message to their king?

Marshal Zyndu would like to congratulate his old friend on his amazing victory in Pan, and he very humbly requests that His Majesty, King Kuni, grant him the boon of an audience.

Of course Mata Zyndu could not stand to write the words “His Majesty, King Kuni.” He tried to do it because Torulu told him he had to, but he was so angry that he squeezed the wax stick until it melted in his hand.

He jumped up and told Torulu Pering to finish the message for him.

“I’m going hunting,” Mata said. “I have to kill someone or something right now.”

Kuni blanched as he read the sarcastic message from Mata.

“Whose idea was it to block Thoco Pass against Marshal Zyndu?” he asked. His voice trembled. “What happened to the messengers I dispatched to my brother to invite him to share my victory in Pan?”

Rin Coda stepped forward. “Marshal Zyndu is known for a streak of cruelty. I kept news of our victory here from spreading east and fortified Thoco Pass. I thought it might give us more time to secure our position in Pan and gain the support of the people.”

“Oh, Rin, what have you done?” Cogo Yelu shook his head in frustration. “You’ve openly challenged the marshal as though we were enemies rather than allies! Now even if Lord Garu’s message gets out, no one will believe his good faith.

“Mata Zyndu has more than ten times our soldiers, and his reputation is as high as the midday sun. All the Tiro states revere him, and Lord Garu’s claim to Géfica would not stand without Zyndu’s support. Had we openly welcomed him into Pan, we could have made Lord Garu’s surprise attack seem all along part of Marshal Zyndu’s plan and gotten his support that way—”

“Not just seem,” interrupted Kuni. “Sharing the victory with my brother was all along my plan.”

“But that’s no longer possible now,” lamented Cogo. “This is a mistake that will be hard to rectify.”

Fast riders were immediately dispatched to Haan to fetch Luan Zya. Kuni needed his counsel.

“Victory has not turned out to be as sweet as I hoped,” said Kuni to Luan.

Luan nodded, thinking of the loneliness and listlessness he experienced in the ruins of his ancestral estate in Ginpen as he waited for comfort from his father’s soul. “The vagaries of the human heart are as hard to divine as the will of the gods.”

Philosophy aside, they still had to take care of the immediate problem. Kuni’s forces had pulled out of Goa, and Mata’s army followed close behind.

Luan Zya and Cogo Yelu carefully planned the retreat of Kuni Garu’s forces from Pan. They sealed up the palace and put all the treasures that could be recovered back in their places. Cogo loaded the records from the Imperial Archives into oxcarts and brought them back to Kuni — Dafiro was now convinced that some secret treasure was hidden among them, but Cogo just shook his head sadly when Dafiro probed.

Then Kuni took the men he brought from Cocru and any surrendered Imperial soldiers who wanted to follow him ten miles west of the city and made a new camp by the shores of Lake Tututika.

The elders of Pan accompanied Kuni for miles. They had enjoyed Duke Garu’s gentle rule, which was far preferable to Emperor Erishi’s heavy levies and cruel enforcement. Marshal Zyndu’s reputation — colored by the blood of Dimu, Wolf’s Paw, and Géjira — made them reluctant to embrace the new conqueror. They begged Kuni Garu to stay.

“There has been a misunderstanding between Marshal Zyndu and me,” Kuni Garu said. “If I stay, it would make things worse.” But he remembered the death cries of the citizens of Dimu, and he could not drive away the pangs of guilt.

Kuni stared at the wide expanse of Lake Tututika. The water stretched all the way to the sky, like the sea, only calm and flat like a mirror.

“Now we have to wait and see how Mata will deal with us. I hope he can still remember our friendship and forgive the perceived insult.”

Once he arrived in Pan, Mata Zyndu ordered a general cleansing of the city by looting. His men had been promised the riches of the Imperial capital, and he wasn’t going to deny them their pleasure. He did not exactly encourage the slaughter of Pan’s citizens, who tried to welcome him as best as they could, but he didn’t exactly forbid it either.

Cold, wintry rain fell, and as panicked people ran through the slick, slippery streets ahead of drawn swords, the rivulets in the city’s gutters gradually turned red.

The boy emperor Erishi had been left behind in the palace when Kuni and his men left Pan.

“Please take me with you,” the boy had begged. “I don’t want to face that butcher.”

Kuni had sighed and said that there was nothing he could do. Mata Zyndu was now the self-proclaimed Hegemon of All Tiro States. The emperor’s fate was in his hands. Kuni pried the child’s fingers from the sleeves of his robe and took his leave, but Erishi’s piteous cries echoed in Kuni’s head long after.

Mata Zyndu’s men carted away all the treasure that could be removed from the palace. The soldiers then sealed the palace doors with the emperor and his few loyal servants inside.

Aloud, Mata Zyndu proclaimed the sins of the Xana Empire against the people of the Six States and set the palace on fire. The boy emperor was last seen jumping from the top of the tallest tower in the palace, having run out of places to hide from the rising flames. The fire raged on and on, and the people of Pan were forbidden from trying to put it out, however it spread. All of Pan eventually burned, and the flames smoldered for three months. The ashes and smoke from the destruction could be seen from as far away as Haan, rising like a black spear stabbing into heaven.

The Immaculate City was no more.

“With the death of Erishi, the empire is at an end,” Mata announced. “It is now the first year of the Principate.” The cheers from the crowd seemed to him subdued and lacking in enthusiasm. This irked him.

Mata Zyndu also sent his men after Emperor Mapidéré’s Mausoleum. Almost every rebel soldier had known family or friends who were forced to work on it at some point — many of them dying on their corvée stints. Everyone, it seemed, wanted to destroy Mapidéré’s final resting place for vengeance, and Mata thought it perfectly fitting.

The Mausoleum was an underground city built deep inside a hollowed-out mountain in the Wisoti Mountains.

Mata Zyndu’s men quickly smashed the entrance to the city, a gate made of the whitest, purest marble. Beyond the gate, dug into the mountain, was a maze of twisty tunnels covered in intricate carvings. Many of the tunnels led to traps or dead ends, and a great number of men rushing in with torches and pickaxes without knowing which paths were safe were injured or even killed.

Only a few of the tunnels led to the underground city itself, where mercury-filled, jade-lined trenches and pools emulated the seas and rivers of Dara, and sculpted piles of gold and silver mirrored the Islands of Dara. On the model islands, their chief geographical features were re-created with jade, pearls, coral, and gems.

In the middle of the model of the Big Island was a raised dais, on which Emperor Mapidéré’s sarcophagus rested. Around the sarcophagus were placed smaller coffins, containing some of the emperor’s favorite wives and servants who had been strangled and buried along with the emperor to keep him company in the afterlife. More bright jewels were set into the ceiling of the underground city to re-create the patterns of constellations and stars, and lamps fed with slow-oozing oil drawn deep from the earth were supposed to keep the underground city lit for thousands of years.

After the rebel soldiers pried out all the gemstones and smashed everything that could not be taken, they dragged Emperor Mapidéré’s body from the tomb and whipped it in Kiji Square, the empty space in the middle of Pan. Then the frenzied mob set upon the body and tore it into a thousand pieces.

Meanwhile, Mata Zyndu’s soldiers continued to prey on the citizens of Pan and the peasants in the surrounding countrysides. There was much suffering and crying for mercy that fell on deaf ears.

Mata Zyndu rode through the streets, surveying the destruction of Pan. The sweetness of exacting vengeance was soured by the disappointment of a string of betrayals he had suffered: Phin Zyndu, Princess Kikomi, and now Kuni Garu, whom he had thought of as a brother.

The joy of being the master of Pan felt hollow. The city, after all, had been handed to him by Kuni, not conquered by his own arms. Nothing felt as good as he had imagined.

He slowed down as he heard a woman singing a dirge by the side of the road. The sound of grieving women was common in the streets of Pan these days, but this mourning song was different because it traversed familiar paths from his ears to his heart: He had heard it often as a child.

Ratho Dafiro, who always rode with Mata, went over to investigate and brought the grieving woman back to face Mata Zyndu.

“Woman, you are from Tunoa?”

The woman, slender and tall, parted her dirty and stringy hair to gaze at Mata. Mata found her dark complexion curious — she looked like someone from Haan, but her speech was pure Tunoa.

“My name is Mira,” she said. “And I am indeed a woman of Tunoa.” She looked at him defiantly, as if daring him to challenge her on this assertion. “My parents made their living by fishing in Haan until, one day, my father’s nets accidentally caught a dyran. The local Xana garrison commander claimed that my father had committed sacrilege because the dyran was sacred to Lady Datha, the emperor’s late mother. To propitiate the gods, my father had to pay him ten gold pieces. To escape that debt, my family ran to Tunoa, where they weren’t exactly welcomed. But my brother and I were both born on the Isle of Vines, smallest and farthest of the Tunoa isles.”

Mata nodded. The fishermen of Tunoa, like the tradition-bound Cocru farmers on the Big Island, were suspicious of strangers and no doubt contemptuous of a family who ran from a debt — even one that was unjust. He could imagine that the children were picked on by others in their village as they grew up in their adopted homeland.

“How did you come here, and whose death do you mourn?”

“My brother had come over the sea with you,” she said. “He was called Mado Giro.” When she saw no sign that Mata recognized the name, her dark eyes, which had momentarily shone with the light of hope, dimmed. “He was the first from our village to heed the call to rebel. Going from house to house, he told all the parents that they should send their sons to join him because you were an even greater man than your grandfather, and that you would bring glory to Cocru. Sixteen young men went with him to Farun.”

Mata nodded. So the woman’s brother was one of the original Eight Hundred who had crossed over the sea with him and his uncle to join Huno Krima and Zopa Shigin. They had believed in him back when he was nobody, when the rebellion had seemed certain to fail.

“I waited at home, but his letters were few and far between. He was proud of what you had done, but he didn’t seem to have risen much in your estimation, though I was sure he fought as bravely as all the times he had protected me from the other children when we were little.”

It seemed that he ought to remember something about this man, who must have stood out in his army given his Haan ancestry. But he could recall nothing about his face, his rank, or his name.

He had been so focused on his own valor, on his own deeds of might, on the glory he could accrue to the Zyndu name that he had not taken the time to get to know most of those who trusted him and put their lives in his hands. Ashamed, he avoided Mira’s eyes.

“I stayed home to care for our parents, but Kana took them both last winter. I lived alone until I received another letter from Mado, saying that you had finally entered Pan and that the war was over. I packed and came to seek him.”

But instead of a happy reunion, she found her brother just another body wrapped in a shroud in a mass grave. He had been one of the soldiers intent on breaking through the Mausoleum. A set of booby-trap crossbow bolts took his life, though his error allowed his companions to pass deeper and retrieve some treasure from a side burial chamber.

“Fortune is unfair,” Mata Zyndu muttered.

He pitied this woman in a way that surprised him. Maybe it was her accent, which brought to him memories of simpler times at home. Maybe it was her face, which he found beautiful despite the mixture of dirt and dried tears that covered it. Maybe it was a sense of duty born from his embarrassment at having no memory of a man who had loyally followed him for so long. Maybe it was the way he empathized with the dead soldier, who had been courageous and took a great risk only to have other men receive the benefit of his labor.

He felt hot tears welling up.

“Woman, you shall stay by my side. I will take care of you, and you will never lack anything. Your brother was one of the first to follow me, when it was far from clear that I would be victorious. I shall give him a proper burial.”

Mira bowed deeply and then followed silently behind the men all the way back to Mata’s camp.

In an alcove to the side of the street, a beggar and a nun had silently observed the exchange between Mata and Mira.

No one paid them any attention. With so many dead in Pan, itinerant monks and nuns had flocked to the city to perform last rites, and Mata’s soldiers had made many homeless, with begging their only choice.

The nun wore the black habit of an itinerant of indeterminate denomination, and the face that peeked out from under the cowl seemed ageless. Behind her, a big, black raven stood on the wall on top of the alcove, imperiously surveying the street.

“I like the new look,” she said to the beggar. “You’re in mourning for your empire?” The voice was unpleasant, sharp, doleful, raspy.

Though grime covered every visible inch of the beggar’s skin — including his bald head — he incongruously wore a spotless white traveling cape. If anyone passing by the alcove paid attention, they would have noticed that the beggar’s hand holding the walking stick had only four fingers. He backed up a step and regarded the nun with cold, pale-gray eyes.

“The war has not gone my way,” he conceded. “But your champion is not the one who struck the decisive blow. We’ve all been tricked.”

The nun’s face seemed to flush momentarily, though it was hard to tell in the shadow of her cowl. “Garu may be a son of Cocru, but I wash my hands of him. It’s my sister Rapa who seems to have taken a liking to him.”

The corners of the beggar’s mouth turned up in a smirk. “Do I detect discord among the Twins and Fithowéo? Perhaps the war is not over yet.”

She refused to take up his bait. “Stay away from Mata,” she said. “I know you hunger for vengeance for those men of Xana who died at Wolf’s Paw, but Mata had his reasons.”

“If blood for blood were all that mattered, history would be easy to write. But don’t worry, I won’t be the first one to break our pact.”

“You may refrain from directly harming a mortal like Mata, but who knows when a gust of wind may decide to topple a weakened flagpole near him? Or when a passing eagle may mistake his head for a rock and drop a turtle on it?”

The beggar chuckled mirthlessly. “Sister, I’m disappointed that you think I will resort to such low tricks. I’m not Tazu. Keep on hovering around Mata like a mother hen if you want.”

The beggar walked away, but before disappearing around the corner, he turned back and said, “I have learned much from watching the mortals.”