"Where is Kaydu?" He didn't mention Lling-Llesho knew where she was.

Tayy answered with a wave at the sky. "She has gone to offer her report to her father. That one suggested it-" he jerked his chin at Master Den. "But I'm worried that she might become trapped in the form of a bird, as she was before."

"Habiba can handle it," Master Den dismissed the objection with a shrug. "She'll be back."

"Then if everything is in order, I'll go to the khan." Tayy cast a worried frown at the rim of the dell. On the plains above, an army ten thousand strong settled in around them. But in one tent, the key to all their fortunes lay in fever. "My father is not well," he advised them. And, because he knew Llesho would understand, he added, "The Lady Chaiujin carries a second heir."

Second after Tayy himself, Llesho knew, but her claim seemed unlikely to be true. He wondered what kind of child the bamboo snake carried in her belly, and if Chimbai-Khan had anything to do with it at all.

"There is room in my cadre for a likely warrior," Llesho offered, and darkness lifted from the prince's eyes. Almost he could forget the boy was Harnish. Without another word, the prince left them. Llesho entered the tent where Hmishi lay, with Master Den at his back.

There you are." Dognut set his flute aside and faced Llesho with a sad smile. Curled into the corner of the tent, Balar continued to strum a lament softly on his borrowed lute. Master Den lowered himself with a grunt to the rug near the door. Llesho thought to bring him higher in the room as befitted a visiting god, but that was a Harnish way of thinking. He sat where he could guard the door against intrusion and listen to the mournful plucking of the strings at the same time.

"It was a mercy," Dognut looked up at Llesho, watched him move agitatedly around the tent. Llesho would not sit, but strayed over to stand and watch Lling, who slept beside Hmishi's bed. "The boy was so badly hurt."

"No." Llesho turned cold eyes on the dwarf who was more than he had ever seemed but, like Master Den, no use at all to any of his dead. "There is no mercy here. Evil wins again, because Mercy has gone out of the world."

"That isn't true." Dognut rested his hands on his knees, and Llesho was reminded that fate had shown the dwarf no mercy either, but still he seemed to believe. "We don't always recognize mercy when we see it. It isn't always what we want or think we need, but it's there. It's here."

A veil seemed to slip from the eyes of the dwarf. He let Llesho see what lay inside-the turning of the seasons, and the aging of the sun, and the rise and fall of empires. The smile was old, and wise, and patient, and filled with the pain and misery he had seen across all the ages. But it wasn't kind. "Is it a mercy to bring him back to suffer, not just the pain of his physical injuries, but the memory of all that was done to him?"

"That wouldn't be mercy, no. But to bring him back, mended, a god could do that."

"The universe is a place of balances, young king." Bright Morning lifted his hands, palms out, to demonstrate his point while Balar nodded his agreement from the corner.

"If a god should grant such a favor-" one small hand rose above his shoulder, while the other he dropped to his waist, "-what would you trade to restore the balance?"

"My life," he said, too quickly, and Master Den gave him a stern frown. He'd been trying to throw his life away since-it seemed-forever. Hardly a sacrifice, then, and one he couldn't in conscience make anyway.

The dwarf tilted his head, considering Llesho carefully. "Who among the thousands who follow would you trade for the life of your best friend?"

"No one," he finally admitted. He had plenty of lives to spend in the war with Master Markko, but none at all in trade for the sole purpose of seeing Hmishi laugh at him again. "I don't have anything. It's just-he's one too many, you know? I need a reason to keep going. I thought that Kungol was it-home, and freedom, a kingdom-but they're just words and a world away.

"Hmishi and Lling, Kaydu, Bixei and Stipes, they're the only home I have. Even my brothers don't feel a part of me like they do."

Balar bowed his head over his lute. He didn't protest, though Llesho saw that it cost him to keep silent.

Bright Morning agreed, however. "The mortal goddess of war does good work, though its strength is never meant to last."

"A broken sword wins no battles."

The dwarf dropped his hands into his lap. "You ask too much," he said.

Master Den barked a short, ironic laugh. "You've been taking lessons from the student, Bright Morning. I've heard him say the very same many times."

True. He'd said the very words himself, to no avail. The gods kept asking for more anyway. Now he was asking back; he figured it was time they knew how it felt.

"Balar?"

The prince dropped his forehead to the pregnant body of his instrument. He didn't look at them as he answered the question that Bright Morning must have asked already, and more than once.

"Lluka sees disaster down every path. For myself, I cannot answer. I want to see my brother home, on the throne of our father, and I would balance that end any way I could." He did look up then, with a grim smile. "My gift has not deserted me, but I don't dare use it." "You're right, you know. We do ask too much." Bright Morning shook his head. In the end, it came to a simple truth. "Your heart needs rest."

With that, he took up a silver flute and set it to his lips. When he played, Llesho's heart lightened. Lling stirred from her sleep, rubbing her eyes.

"What's happening?" she asked, her eyes on Llesho but her ear cocked in the direction of the music.

"I don't know," Llesho began, but the silver tones of the flute lifted him with unreasoning hope. When he looked on his dead friend, Hmishi's breast rose and fell, rose and fell, almost imperceptibly at first, then growing stronger with each breath, until his eyelids fluttered.

"Hmishi!" Lling fell to her knees and dropped her head on his shoulder, her arms enclosing him. Between her sobs she repeated his name, "Hmishi, Hmishi, Hmishi."

Llesho watched them, as if from a distance. He'd wanted this, asked for it, but in the end, it wasn't about him at all.

Hmishi's eyes roamed without focus or comprehension until they fell on Llesho, then his brows knotted. "Am I dead?" he asked.

The words echoed down the long dark corridor of memory. Hmishi had asked him that before, and he'd asked the same of Pig. This time, Llesho smiled and answered, "Not anymore."

"Good." With a contented sigh, Hmishi closed his eyes and went to sleep.