An Autumn War (The Long Price Quartet)

by Daniel Abraham

  “I see.”

  “I want to be a good man, Father. I want to love my wife and my son. I want to want them. And I don’t. I don’t know whether to walk away from them or from myself. I thought you had made that decision, but…”

  Maati settled back on the bench, put down his bowl still half full of wine, and took Nayiit’s hand in his own. Father. Nayiit had said Father.

  “Tell me,” Maati said. “Tell me all of it.”

  “It would take all night,” the boy said with a rueful chuckle. But he didn’t pull back his hand.

  “Let it,” Maati said. “There’s nothing more important than this.”

  BALASAR HADN’T slept. The night had come, a late rain shower filling the air with the scent of water and murmur of distant thunder, and he had lain in his bed, willing himself to a forgetfulness that wouldn’t come.

  The orders waited in stacks on his desk in the library, commands to be issued to each of his captains, outlining the first stage of his campaign. There were two sets, of course, just as the Khaiate mercenary captain had surmised. Those he’d sealed in green would lead the army to the North, laying waste to the Westlands and sending the thin stream of gold and silver that could be wrung from them back to the coffers of the High Council. Those he’d sealed in red would wheel the army—twenty thousand armsmen, three hundred steam wagons, six thousand horses, and God only knew how many servants and camp followers—to the east and the most glorious act of conquest the world had ever known.

  If he succeeded, he would be remembered as the greatest general in history, at least in his audacity. The battles themselves he expected to be simple enough. The Khaiem had no experience in tactics and no armies to protect them. Balasar would be remembered for two things only: the unimaginable wealth he was about to pour into Galt and the ceremony that would come with the dawn. The plot that stripped the andat from the world.

  As the dark hours passed, the thought pricked at him. He had put everything in place. The poet, the books that concerned Freedom-From-Bondage, the army, the arms. There was nothing he would ever do that would match this season. Succeed or fail, this was the high-water mark of his life. He imagined himself an old man, sitting at a street café in Kirinton. He wondered what those years would be like, reaching from here to the grave. He wondered what it would be like to have his greatness behind him. He told himself that he would retire. There would be enough wealth to acquire anything he wanted. A reasonable estate of his own, a wife, children; that seemed enough. If he could not regain this season, he could at least not humiliate himself by trying. He thought of the war leaders who haunted the corridors and wineshops of Acton reliving triumphs the world had forgotten. He would not be one of those. He would be the great General who had done his work and then stepped back to let the world he had made safe follow its path.

  At heart, he was not a conqueror. Only a man who saw what needed doing, and then did it.

  Or else he would fail and he and every Galtic man and woman would be a corpse or a refugee.

  He twisted in his sheets. The stars shone where the clouds were thin enough to permit it. Framed in the opened shutters, they glittered. The stars wouldn’t care what happened here. And yet by the next time their light silvered these stones, the fate of the world would have turned one way or the other.

  Once, he came near to sleep. His eyes grew heavy, his mind began to wander into the half-sense of dreams. And then, irrationally, he became certain that he had mixed one of the orders. The memory, at first vague but clearer as he struggled to capture it, of sealing a packet with red that should have been green swam through his mind. He thought he might have noted at the time that it would need changing. And yet he hadn’t done it. The wrong orders would go out. A legion would start to the North while the others moved east. They would lose time finding the error, correcting it. Or the poet would fail, and some stray company of armsmen would find its way to Nantani and reveal him to the Khaiem. Half a thousand stories plagued him, each less likely than the last. His sense of dread grew.

  At last, half in distress and half in disgust, he rose, pulled on a heavy cotton shirt and light trousers, and walked barefoot from his room toward the library. He would have to open them all, check them, reseal them, and keep a careful tally so that the crazed monkey that had taken possession of his mind could be calmed. He wondered, as he passed through hallways lit only by his single candle, whether Uther Redcape had ever rechecked his own plans in the dead of night like an old, fearful merchant rattling his own shutters to be sure they were latched. Perhaps these indignities were part of what any man suffered when the weight of so many lives was on his back.

  The guards outside his library door stood at attention as he passed them, whatever gossip or complaint they had been using to pass the dark hours of the night forgotten at the first sight of him. Balasar nodded to them gravely before passing through the door. With the stub of his bedside candle, he lit the lanterns in the library until the soft glow filled the air. The orders lay where he had left them. With a sigh, he took out the bricks of colored wax and his private seal. Then he began the long, tedious task of cracking each seal, reviewing his commands, and putting the packets back in order again. The candle stub had fizzled to nothing and the lanterns’ oil visibly dropped before he was finished. The memory had been a lie. Everything had been in place. Balasar stood, stretched, and went to the window. When he opened the shutters, the cool breeze felt fresh as a bath. Birds were singing, though there was no light yet in the east. The full moon was near to setting. The dawn was coming. There would be no sleep for him. Not now.

  A soft scratch came at the door, and after Balasar called his permission, Eustin entered. There were dark pouches under the man’s eyes, but that was the only sign that he had managed no better with his sleep. His uniform was crisp and freshly laundered, the marks of rank on his back and breast, his hair was tied back and fastened with a thick silver ceremonial bead, and there was an energy in all his movements that Balasar understood. Eustin was dressed to witness the change of the world. Balasar was suddenly aware of his rough clothes and bare feet.

  “What news?” Balasar said.

  “He’s been up all through the night, sir. Meditating, reading, preparing. Truth is I don’t know that half of what he’s done is needed, but he’s been doing it all the same.”

  “Almost none of it’s strictly called for,” Balasar said. “But if it makes him feel better, let him.”

  “Yes, sir. I’ve called for his breakfast. He says that he’ll want to wait a half a hand for his food to go down, and then it’s time. Says that dawn’s a symbolic moment, and that it’ll help.”

  “I suppose I’ll be getting prepared, then,” Balasar said. “If this isn’t a full-dress occasion, I don’t know what is.”

  “I’ve sent men to wait for the signal. We should know by nightfall.”

  Balasar nodded. All along the highest hills from Nantani to Aren, bonfires were set. If all worked as they hoped, there would be a signal from the agents he had placed in the city, and they would be lit, each in turn. A thin line of fire would reach from the Khaiem to his own door.

  “Have a mug of kafe and some bread sent to my rooms,” Balasar said. “I’ll meet you before the ceremony.”

  “Not more than that, sir? The bacon’s good here.…”

  “After,” Balasar said. “I’ll eat a decent meal after.”

  The room given them by the Warden had been in its time a warehouse, a meeting hall, and a temple, the last being the most recent. Tapestries of the Four Gods the Warden worshipped had been taken down, rolled up, and stacked in the corner like carpet. The smooth stone walls were marked with symbols, some familiar to Balasar, others obscure. The eastern wall was covered with the flowing script of the fallen Empire, like a page from a book of poetry. A single pillow rested in the center of the room, and beside it a stack of books, two with covers of ruined leather, one whose cover had been ripped from it, and one last closed in bright metal. It had bee
n years since Balasar had carried those books out of the desert wastes. He nodded to them when he saw them, as if they were old friends or perhaps enemies.

  Riaan himself was walking around the room with long, slow strides. He breathed in audibly with one step, blew the air out on the next. His face was deeply relaxed; his arms were swinging free at his sides. To look at the two of them, Balasar guessed he would look more like the man about to face death. He took a pose of respect and greeting. The poet came slowly to a halt, and returned the gesture.

  “I trust all is well with you,” Balasar said in the tongue of the Khaiem.

  “I am ready,” Riaan said, with a smile that made him seem almost gentle. “I wanted to thank you, Balasar-cha, for this opportunity. These are strange times that men such as you and I should find common cause. The structures of the Dai-kvo have caused good men to suffer for too many generations. I honor you for the role you have played in bringing me here.”

  Balasar bowed his head. Over the years he had known many men whose minds had been touched by wounds—blows from swords or stones, or fevers like the one that had prompted Riaan’s fall from favor. Balasar knew how impulsive and unreliable a man could become after such an injury. But he also knew that with many there was also a candor and honesty, if only because they lacked the ability they had once had to dissemble. Against his own will, he found himself touched by the man’s words.

  “We all do what fate calls us to,” he said. “It’s no particular virtue of mine.”

  The poet smiled because he didn’t understand what Balasar meant. And that was just as well. Eustin arrived moments later and made formal greeting to them both.

  “There’s breakfast waiting for us, when we’re done here,” Eustin said, and even such mundane words carried a depth.

  “Well then,” Balasar said, turning to Riaan. The poet nodded and took a pose more complex than Balasar could parse, but that seemed to be a farewell from a superior to someone of a lower class. Then Riaan dropped his pose and walked with a studied grace to the cushion in the room’s center. Balasar stood against the back wall and nodded for Eustin to join him. He was careful not to obscure the symbols painted there, though Riaan wasn’t looking back toward them.

  For what seemed half a day and was likely no more than two dozen breaths together, the poet was silent, and then he began, nearly under his breath, to chant. Balasar knew the basic form of a binding, though the grammars that were used for the deepest work were beyond him. It was thought, really. Like a translation—a thought held that became something like a man as a song in a Westlands tongue might take new words in Galt but hold the same meaning. The chant was a device of memory and focus, and Balasar remained silent.

  Slowly, the sound of the poet’s voice grew, filling the space with words that seemed on the edge of comprehension. The sound began to echo, as if the room were much larger than the walls that Balasar could see, and something like a wind that somehow did not stir the air began to twist through the space. For a moment, he was in the desert again, feeling the air change, hearing Little Ott’s shriek. Balasar put his arm back, palm pressed against the stone wall. He was here, he was in Aren. The chanting grew, and it was as if there were other voices now. Beside him, Eustin had gone pale. Sweat stood on the man’s lip.

  Under Balasar’s fingertips, the wall seemed to shift. The stone hummed, dancing with the words of the chant. The script on the front wall shifted restlessly until Balasar squinted and the letters remained in their places. The air was thick.

  “Sir,” Eustin whispered, “I think it might be best if we stepped out, left him to—”

  “No,” Balasar said. “Watch this. It’s the last time it’s ever going to happen.”

  Eustin nodded curtly and turned with what seemed physical strain to look ahead. Riaan had risen, standing where the cushion had been, or perhaps he was floating. Or perhaps he was sitting just as he had been. Something had happened to the nature of the space between them. And then, like seven flutes moving from chaos to harmony, the world itself chimed, a note as deep as oceans and pure as dawn. Balasar felt his heart grow light for a moment, a profound joy filling him that had nothing to do with triumph, and there, standing before the seated poet, was a naked man, bald as a baby, with eyes white as salt.

  The blast pressed Balasar back against the wall. His ears rang, and Eustin’s voice seemed to come from a great distance.

  “Riaan, sir!”

  Balasar fought to focus his eyes. Riaan was still seated where he had been, but his shoulders were slumped, his head bowed is if in sleep. Balasar walked over to him, the sound of his own footsteps lost in his half-deafened state. It was like floating.

  He was breathing. The poet breathed.

  “Did it work, sir?” Eustin yelled from half a mile away or else there at his shoulder. “Does that mean it worked?”

  “What is he to do?” Maati asked and then sipped his tea. It was just slightly overbrewed, a bitter aftertaste haunting the back of his mouth. Or perhaps it was only that he’d drunk too much the night before, sitting up with his son until the full moon set and the eastern sky began to lighten. Maati had seen Nayiit back to the boy’s apartments, and then, too tired to sleep, wandered to the poet’s house where Cehmai was just risen for breakfast. He’d sent the servants back to the kitchens to bring a second meal, and while they waited, Cehmai shared what he had—thin butter pastry, blackberries still just slightly underripe, overbrewed tea. Everything tasted of early summer. Already the morning had broken the chill of the previous night.

  “Really, he’s been good to the woman. He’s acknowledged the babe, he’s married her. But if he doesn’t love her, what’s he to do? Love’s not something you can command.”

  “Not usually,” Stone-Made-Soft said, and smiled wide enough to bare its too-even white marble teeth. It wasn’t a human mouth.

  “I don’t know,” Cehmai said, ignoring the andat. “Really, you and I are probably the two worst men in the city to ask about things like that. I’ve never been in the position to have a wife. All the women I’ve been with knew that this old bastard came before anything.”

  Stone-Made-Soft smiled placidly. Maati had the uncomfortable sense that it was accepting a compliment.

  “But you can see his dilemma,” Maati said.

  Outside, beyond the carefully sculpted oaks that kept the poet’s house separate from the palaces, the city was in shadow. The sun, hidden behind the mountains to the east, filled the blue dome of air with soft light. The towers stood dark against the daylight, birds wheeling far below their highest reaches.

  “I see that he’s in a difficult position,” Cehmai said. “And I’m in no position to say that good men never lose their hearts to…what? Inappropriate women?”

  “If you mean the Khai’s sister, the term is vicious killers,” Stone-Made-Soft said. “But I think we can generalize from there.”

  “Thank you,” Cehmai said. “But you’ve made the point yourself, Maati. Nayiit’s married her. He’s acknowledged the child. Doing that binds him to something, doesn’t it? He’s made an agreement. He’s made a kind of promise, or else why say that he’s been good to her? If he can put those things aside, then that goodness is just a formality.”

  Maati sighed. His mind felt thick. Too much wine, too little rest. He was old to be staying up all night; it was a young man’s game. And still, he felt it important that Cehmai understand. If he could explain Nayiit to someone else, it would make the night and all their conversations through it real. It would put them into the world in a way that now might only have been a dream. He was silent too long, struggling to put his thoughts in order. Cehmai cleared his throat, shot an uncomfortable glance at Maati, and changed the subject.

  “Forgive me, Maati-cha, but I thought there was some question about Nayiit’s…ah…parentage? I know the Khai signed a document denying him, but that was when there was some question about the succession, and I’d always thought he’d done it as a favor. If you see what I…” />
  Maati put down his tea bowl and took a pose that disagreed.

  “There’s more to being a father than a few moments between the sheets,” Maati said. “I was there when Nayiit took his first steps. I sang him to sleep as often as I could. I brought food for him. I held him. And tonight, Cehmai. He came to me. He talked to me. I don’t care whose blood he has, that boy’s mine.”

  “If you say so,” Cehmai said, but there was something in his voice, some reservation. Maati felt his face begin to flush. Anger straightened his back. Stone-Made-Soft raised a wide, thick hand, palm out, silencing them both. Its head tilted, as if hearing some distant sound.

  Its brow furrowed.

  “Well,” the andat said. “That’s interesting.”

  And then it vanished.

  Maati blinked in confusion. A few heartbeats later, Cehmai drew a long, shuddering breath. The poet’s face was bloodless.

  Maati sat silently as Cehmai stood, hands trembling, and walked back into the dimness of the house, and then out again. Cehmai’s gaze darted one direction and another, searching for something. His eyes were so wide, the whites showed all the way around.

  “Oh,” Cehmai said, and his voice was thin and reedy. “Maati…Oh gods. I didn’t do anything. I didn’t…Oh gods. Maati-kvo, he’s gone.”

  Maati rose, brushing the crumbs from his robes with a sense of profound unreality. Once before, he had seen the last moments of an andat in the world. It wasn’t something he’d expected to suffer again. Cehmai paced the wide porch, his head turning one way and another, directionless as a swath of silk caught in the wind.

  “Stay here. I’ll get Otah-kvo,” Maati said. “He’ll know what to do.”

  THE WALLS of the audience chamber swooped up, graceful as a dove’s wing. The high, pale stone looked as soft as fresh butter, seamless where the stones had joined and been smoothed into one piece by the power of the andat. Tiny web-works of stone fanned out from the walls at shoulder height, incense smoke rising from them in soft gray lines. High above, windows had been shaped by hand. Spare and elegant and commanding, it was a place of impossible beauty, and Otah suspected the world would never see another like it.