'It's wrong!" cried Jatharin's chief, speaking for the first time. "You cast disrespect on the OldMothers, who alone can judge whether a son is worthy of a name!"

'Perhaps. But perhaps they are only waiting for us to take this thing for ourselves which up until now we have feared. We know each one of us his place in the litter from which we sprang. That place has defined us for long years. Why need it define us any longer? We are young in the world, and we will never grow old. Even the frailest Soft One can hope for a greater span of years than the strongest among us, my brothers."

He paused to let them survey the bodies strewn across the ground, to let them examine the dozen clerics clustered around Severus. The loose robes worn by the circle priests could not disguise the weakness of their bodies-or the sharpness of their minds, honed by learning and the ability to plan and plot.

'Why do we wait? Why should each one among us not possess a name? Why should each one among us not hope to be named in the dance that is the measure of each tribe? Why should each one among us not seek to be named in the chronicles of the Soft Ones? Let them know the names of the ones they fear."

He bared his teeth. He lifted his standard a little higher.

'Who is bold enough?"

Silence followed, dense and suffocating. It was one thing to follow the road of war and another to go against oldest custom, all the measure of safety they knew in their brief lives ruled by the Old-Mothers and the chieftains, strongest among them.

Tenth Son took a step forward. "I will be known. I want a name."

'By what name will we call you, Brother?"

'Trueheart."

Others called out then so swiftly that Stronghand knew some among the RockChildren had brooded over this question.

'Fellstroke!"

'Sharpspear."

'Longnose!"

'Ha! A good name for you, Brother!" cried Hakonin's First Son. "I will be called Q_uickdeath."

Some tapped their chests with a fist, claiming the name, while others merely spoke the word as if that were claim enough.

Many more remained silent, yet as the names were spoken, no one dared to object, not even Jatharin.

When the last namers fell quiet, he nodded and struck the haft of his standard three times on the ground.

'Alba belongs to the RockChildren whom humankind calls 'Eika.' We have work yet to do here in Alba to consolidate what is now ours, but we will not stop here. I turn my gaze east and I see Salia at war with itself, brother fighting brother. Where brothers fight, the land is weakened. So we know from our own struggles. That is why we were weak for so long."

The fen waters gleamed under the sun's hard light, a cold spring day so clear that he could distinguish each separate reed stalk out where beds of reeds grew thickly around hummocks of land. A body floated in the water, the cloth of the tunic billowing as ripples captured it. North lay the wash and the sea, with no one to hinder their journey. Geese flew high overhead. One of the clerics whispered to Brother Severus, but the old man shook his head impatiently ~ tO ^ ^ ^ cav His army waited, restless as the geese, ready to be on the move again to fight the next battle, but the discipline he had honed in them held fast. Even the dogs sat obediently, licking their bloody muzzles and paws.

They were ready.

'We are weak no longer," he cried. "From this island we will launch a new ship, and we will call it Empire."

PART THREE CAUBA INTO THE PIT JHlJh ship lay at anchor beneath a cliff so high and sheer that it looked as if a giant had used a knife to slice through the island before carrying half of it away. To their right, the land dropped precipitously in ragged terraces and rock-strewn falls to the sea where it gave out in a curving line of islets and rocky outcrops thrust up to make of their harbor a sheltered bay. The water beneath them was, according to the ship-master, too deep to sound. Gentle swells rocked the deck. Zacharias found the motion soothing after so many weeks beating before a stiff wind out of the north.

The intensity of the light dazzled him. He shaded his eyes, peering up to a tangle of white houses perched along the top of the high cliff. What a view! It made him dizzy to think of living so high, staring each day out over the brilliant sea.

Marcus stood beside him, hands gripping the rail as he watched a boat work its way between a pair of scrub-crowned islets before heading, true as an arrow flies, toward them. Four men worked the oars of the craft; she carried six passengers, one scarcely larger than a child. When the boat drew alongside, a sailor threw down a rope ladder.

Wolfhere clambered aboard first, together with the Arethousan-speaking sailor who had gone with him to interpret. The old Eagle blew on his hands and examined them with a frown; the rowing had raised a pair of blisters. Next came a pair of servants, hardy looking souls, a man and a woman dressed simply but in the finest cloth. Below, the childlike figure was lifted into a sling tied around a third servant's torso, a man with the muscular build of a soldier. In this way, hoisted like a pack, she was brought aboard. Marcus hastened to the rope ladder. He had an odd expression on his face, one Zacha-rias did not recognize until the cleric clasped the hands of the ancient woman seated in the sling.

'You are looking well, Sister!"

He cared about her.

'Well enough for a woman who survived a shipwreck." Though she was strikingly foreign in appearance, with black hair and dark skin, her accent sat lightly on her tongue. "Two months on this island has been efficacious for my lungs."

'I feared for you in Darre."

'The air in that city would fell the healthiest of bulls. Its stink nearly did me in, but the sea air has revived me."

Once she had been a beauty, black and lovely. Now her hair gleamed white, and her age-spotted hands trembled, but her gaze remained inquiring and keen. She caught Zacharias' eye and nodded. "Who is this?"

'A discipla," said Marcus.

'Ah." Her bland expression made Zacharias twitch nervously. "I will speak to him later."

The servants unfolded a canvas chair, and as they transferred the old woman into this more comfortable seat, the last two passengers clambered onto the deck: a second female servant and a handsome girl no more than fourteen or sixteen years of age, strongly built and with a complexion darker than that of the Wendish servant's, but not as dark as the old woman's.

'Grandmother, I will see that the cabin is made ready for you." The old woman and Marcus had been speaking in Aostan, which Zacharias could understand better than he could speak, but the girl spoke Wendish.

'Elene, I wish you to acknowledge my comrade, Brother Marcus, of the presbyter's college. We will travel with him until we reach Qahirah."

'My lady," said Marcus with the politesse of a man raised at his ease among the nobility.

'Presbyter Marcus." She inclined her head as between equals.

Whose child was this, so grand, powerful, and proud? So Wendish, yet with a heathen's looks?

He dared not ask.

'Will Brother Lupus stay with us, Grandmother?"

'For a time, but his task will lead him down a different road than the one you and I must travel. Now go below and see that all is made comfortable."

As the sailors lifted several trunks on board, Elene allowed the ship-master to escort her to the tiny cabin in the stern that she would share with her grandmother.

'I did not think you could force a man like that to give up one of his daughters," said Marcus. At the railing, sailors gathered to haggle with the local boatmen, trading from their personal stores.

'He is my son. He must do as I tell him."

'And sacrifice one? Is this the one he loved least?"

'No. She is the one he loved most." A flash of anger straightened Meriam's frail shoulders. "You make light of a father's love, Marcus, since you knew nothing of it yourself. My father wept sorely when I was taken to the temple of Astareos to become an acolyte there. That was before I was sent north by the khshayathiya as a part of the gift to the barbarian king. My son loves both his daughters as a man should. 'A father's blood is made weak by sons but strengthened by daughters.' They are both precious to him, since he will have no more by his beloved Eadgifu, may she rest at peace in God's light. But he knows his duty to his mother. He gave me what I asked for."

'His duty to his mother, or to the church? What about his duty to humankind in their war against the forces that threaten us?"

'When a man gives you the horse which will let you complete your journey, do not ask why he does so, in case the answer displeases you. Just be happy you got where you are going."

'Is that what your Jinna kinfolk say? The intention of your heart matters more than the action of your hands."

'Does the woman who gives grudgingly of a hundred loaves to the poor deserve less thanks than the man who gives only ten, but with a sincere heart? We may wish she gave out of a loving heart, but the bread feeds the hungry nonetheless." "Argued like a Hessi sage. Will you rest, Sister?" "In truth, I would be glad to."

The spectacle of Marcus showing affection and consideration astonished Zacharias. He watched amazed as the presbyter assisted the old woman to her cabin.

All the while, Wolfhere remained at the railing, silent, staring north over the sea.

Because the weather remained fine, Zacharias took his lessons on deck.

'How many hours are there in a week?"

'One hundred and sixty-eight."

'How many points?"

'Six hundred and seventy-two."

'How many minutes?"

'One thousand six hundred and eighty."

'How many parts?"

These drills often took up half a lesson, Marcus testing him on what he had memorized previously before teaching him something new. If at intervals Zacharias chafed at the repetition, he reminded himself that, as a man ascends a mountain, they were making progress toward the summit.

'What is the period of ascent?"

'On leap years, from winter solstice to summer solstice the period of ascent is equal to the one hundred eighty-three days of descent from summer to winter. But otherwise the period of descent is shorter than the period of ascent because the Sun moves through the four equal parts of the universe in unequal times. From the winter solstice to the vernal equinox, ninety and one eighth days. From the vernal equinox to the summer solstice, ninety-four and one half days. From the summer solstice to the autumn equinox, ninety-two and one half days. From the autumn equinox to the winter solstice, eighty-eight and one eighth days."

'An apt pupil." Meriam reclined in a canvas sling rigged up near the stern so that she might take the air on deck. An awning shaded them, although its shelter offered barely enough room for four to sit together.

'He memorizes well," said Marcus. "Understanding has not yet taken hold. What are the zones of Earth?"

'There are five. Two arctic zones, one at each pole. Two temperate zones, where humankind lives. And a single torrid zone along the equator, within which no creature can live."

'Yet some live there nevertheless," remarked Meriam pleasantly.

'Tribes of humankind roam there, living in tents. Once it was said that sphinxes, the lion queens of old, made their home in the great desert."

'They may have once," retorted Marcus, "but they are legend now."

'Many things are called legend which may still exist unbeknownst to human sight."

Marcus laughed. "I am not as superstitious as you, Sister. I can only be sure a thing exists if I have seen it with my own eyes."

'Have you seen God, Marcus?"

'God I must take on faith, but I would rather see Them with my own eyes, to be certain."

Meriam smiled in her sharp way. "So may we all hope to do when we die, but not while living. Do not let the others hear you speak so heretically. Men have been burned for less."

'You can be sure that I do not intend to be one of them."

Summer had come and gone; the autumn equinox had passed, and now the course of days uncoiled inexorably toward the winter solstice. They had escaped Sordaia somewhat after midsummer and sailed south along the shore of the Heretic's Sea to the harbor of fabled Arethousa. Zacharias had not been allowed to disembark, but he had stood for two days at the railing and stared in wonder at the great city on its hills while the ship-master had supervised the unloading of timber, furs, and wheat from Sordaia's market and taken up wine, cloth, and iron knives.

In Arethousa, Wolfhere and Marcus had by unknown means received a desperate message that sent them southeast rather than west along the Dalmiakan coast toward Aosta. A strong wind called the halhim had delayed them along the Aetilian coast of the Middle Sea, forcing them to shelter for days at a time among its many pleasant islands until they had fetched up at an island the sailors called Tiriana, to rescue Meriam and her granddaughter.

That Meriam was a mathematicus needed never to be said aloud. Marcus informed the ship-master that they would detour to the port of Qahirah before returning to Aosta. Offered a bonus, the man did not demur. Perhaps, in truth, he was wise enough to see he had no choice in the matter. In the end, he served the skopos, who was rich and powerful enough to command him despite the physical distance between his ship and her throne. What mattered the intention in his heart as long as he did what he was told?

'Now," said Marcus, "we will continue with the spheres. Earth lies at the center of the universe..."

Bit by bit, the architecture of the cosmos took shape before Zacharias, yet at times he wondered if it really matched that awesome vision he had seen years ago in the palace of coils. Remembering it, he still trembled, but he did not speak of the vision to Marcus, who cared nothing for the experience of others. Marcus knew what he knew, and that was enough for him.

Elene never joined them. She took her lessons, if she had any, privately with her grandmother. Otherwise, she stayed in her cabin or stood on deck, staring north and east toward the lands she had left behind. Often she had tears on her cheeks, but she never cried out loud.

'Is she always this sullen?" Zacharias asked Wolfhere one afternoon as he watched the sailors changing tack as the wind shifted.

'Have you heard her speak a cross word to any soul on this ship?" Wolfhere spent as much time as Elene staring out to sea, but not in any fixed direction. Zacharias was as likely to find him staring south as north, east as west.

'I've not heard her speak more than ten words altogether."

'Well," said Wolfhere, as if that settled the matter.

But it did not, for Zacharias wondered how any soul could not rejoice in the company of such learned mathematici. Yet when he asked Marcus the same question as he settled down for his next lesson, he got a very different answer.

'Ten words? Why should the daughter of a duke and the granddaughter of a queen speak even one word to you, Zacharias? You are of no account to an illustrious noblewoman born into such a distinguished lineage."

'Of course you are right, Brother Marcus. But as she is heir to a duke, and granddaughter to a queen on her mother's side, I am amazed that she could be torn from such a high seat and thrown like a common wanderer onto such a path as this one."

'There is no path of greater consequence than the one we follow. Leave off these questions and attend." Marcus stepped out from under the awning, shading his eyes as he gazed toward the cliffs, then shook his head impatiently and sat down again in the shade.

Elene appeared at the stern and placed her hands on the railing as she stared toward the distant land. After a moment Wolfhere joined her, and bent his head to listen. Jealous, Zacharias wondered what they spoke about.

'Pay attention, Zacharias!"

He started and shifted his gaze to the cleric.

Marcus had the most caustic smile imaginable, a curious way of turning up his lips and narrowing his eyes that made Zacharias squirm. "Are you done?" He did not wait for an answer. "To repeat. The ecliptic and the motion of the moon. Because the moon's path wobbles at an incline to the ecliptic, the moon crosses south to north and north to south at regular intervals. The points on the ecliptic where it crosses are called the ascending node and the descending node, or caput draconis and cauda draconis-that is, the head and the tail of the dragon."

'Sail!" cried Wolfhere.

The lookout echoed the cry.

Sailors rushed to the railing. Elene leaned out until she seemed likely to pitch overboard, and her face was alight, as though she thought her father was coming for her at last. "Pirates!" she cried eagerly.

A galley powered by oars cut through the water. There wasn't enough wind to save them, and although they could row, too, their sturdy cog could not hope to outrun a swift warship.

'It's a Jinna ship!" shouted Wolfhere. "See the banner! They'll take as slaves those they don't kill."