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along desert margins were reminded of home.
     
    It was raining when the
multitudes climbed into the broad scuffs of land that lifted the Lonely City
above the plain. At last, the two Exalt-Generals clasped arms and set about
planning the assault. They scowled and joked and shared reminiscences, from the
legendary First Holy War to the final days of the Unification. So many cities.
So many campaigns.
     
    So many proud peoples broken.
     
    ***
     
    The Emissary arrived in the
pre-dawn cold, demanding to see Varalt Harweel II, the King of Sakarpus.
     
    Unable to sleep for fear of the
morrow, Sorweel was already awake when his menial came to rouse him. He
regularly attended all important audiences—his father insisted on it as part of
his princely education. But until recently, "important" had meant
something quite different. Skirmishes with the Sranc. Insults and apologies
from Atrithau. Threats from disgruntled nobles. Sorweel could not count the
times he had sat at the stone bench in the shadow of his father's throne swinging
his bare feet in what seemed mortal boredom.
     
    Now, only a year shy of his
first Elking, he planted his boots and stared at the man who would destroy them
all: King Nersei Proyas of Conriya, Exalt-General of the Great Ordeal. Gone
were the courtiers, the functionaries, the partisans of this or that petty
interest. Vogga Hall stood vacant and dim, though for some reason, the
cavernous aisles and galleries failed to make the outlander look small. From
across the terra cotta reliefs that sheathed the walls and columns, Sorweel's
ancestors seemed to watch with graven apprehension. The air smelled of cold
tallow.
     
    "Thremu dus
kapkurum," the outlander began, "hedi mere'otas cha—" The
translator, some mangy herdsman from the Saglands by the look of him, quickly
rendered his words into Sakarpic.
     
    "Our captives have told us
what you say of him."
     
    Him. The Aspect-Emperor. Sorweel
silently cursed his skin for pimpling.
     
    "Ah, yes," King
Harweel replied, "our blasphemy..." Even though the ornate arms of
the Horn-and-Amber Throne concealed his father's face, Sorweel knew well the
wry expression that accompanied this tone.
     
    "Blasphemy..." the
Exalt-General said. " He would not say that."
     
    "And what would he say?"
     
    "That you fear, as all men
fear, to lose your power and privilege."
     
    Sorweel's father laughed in an
offhand manner that made the boy proud. If only he could muster such careless
courage.
     
    "So," Harweel said
merrily, "I have placed my people between your Aspect-Emperor and my
throne, is that it? Not that I have placed my throne between your
Aspect-Emperor and my people..."
     
    The Exalt-General nodded with
the same deliberate grace that accompanied his untranslated speech, but whether
in affirmation or appreciation, Sorweel could not tell. His hair was silver, as
was his plaited beard. His eyes were dark and quick. His finery and regalia
made even his father's royal vestments seem like crude homespun. But it was his
bearing and imperturbable gaze that made him so impressive. There was a
melancholy to him, a sadness that lent him an unsettling gravity.
     
    "No man," Proyas said,
"can stand between a God and the people."
     
    Sorweel suppressed a shudder. It
was unnerving the way they all referred to him as such, Three Seas Men.
And with such thoughtless conviction.
     
    "My priests call him a
demon."
     
    "Hada mem porota—"
     
    "They say what they need to
keep their power safe," the translator said with obvious discomfort.
"They are, truly, the only ones who stand to lose from the quarrel between
us."
     
    For Sorweel's entire life, it
seemed, the Aspect-Emperor had been an uneasy rumour from the South. Some of
his earliest memories were of his father dandling him on his knee while he
questioned Nansur and Galeoth traders from the World-beyond-the-Plains. With
looks at once ingratiating and guarded, they would always demur, protest they
had ears only for trade and