The Poet will yield up his stylus only when the Geometer can explain how Life can at once be a point and a line. How can all time, all creation, come to the now? Make no mistake: this moment, the instant of this very breath, is the frail thread from which all creation hangs.

That men dare to be thoughtless . . .

-TERES ANSANSIUS, THE CITY OF MEN THE CITY OF MEN

Early Autumn, 4111 Year-of-the-Tusk, Shigek One day, returning from the river with their laundered clothes, Esmenet overheard several Men of the Tusk discussing the Holy War's preparations for their continuing march. Kellhus spent part of the afternoon with her and Serwe, explaining how the Kianene, before retreating across the desert, had slaughtered every camel on the South Bank, just as they'd burned every boat before retreating across the Sempis. Since then, forays into the deserts of Khemema to the south had found every well poisoned.

"The Padirajah," Kellhus said, "hopes to make of the desert what Skauras hoped to make of the Sempis."

The Great Names, of course, were undeterred. They planned to march along the coastal hills followed by the Imperial Fleet, which would provide them with all the water they would need. The road would be laborious-they would have to send parties of thousands through the hills to collect the water-but it would see them safely to Enathpaneah, to the very marches of the Sacred Land, long before the Padirajah could possibly recover from his defeat at Anwurat.

"Soon you two will be shuffling through sand," Kellhus said in the warm teasing manner that Esmenet had learned to love long ago. "It'll be hard for you, Serwe, heavy with child, carrying our pavilion on your back."

The girl shot him a look, at once scolding and delighted. Esmenet laughed, at the same time realizing she'd be travelling even farther from Achamian . . .

She wanted to ask Kellhus if he'd heard any word from Xinemus, but she was too frightened. Besides, she knew Kellhus would tell her as soon as any news arrived. And she knew what that news would be. She'd glimpsed it in Kellhus's eyes many, many times.

Once again they'd gathered about the same side of the fire to avoid the winding smoke, Kellhus in the centre, Serwe on his right, and Esmenet on his left. They were cooking small pieces of lamb on sticks, which they ate with small pieces of bread and cheese. This had become a favourite treat of theirs-one of many little things that had kept the promise of family.

Kellhus leaned past her to grab more bread, still teasing Serwe. "Have you ever pitched a pavilion across sand before?"

"Kellhussss," Serwe complained and exulted.

Esmenet breathed deeply his dry, salty smell. She couldn't help herself. "They say it takes forever forever," he chided, withdrawing his hand and accidentally brushing Esmenet's right breast.

The tingle of inadvertent intimacy. The flush of a body suddenly thick with a wisdom that transcended intellect.

For the remainder of the afternoon, Esmenet found her eyes plagued by a nagging waywardness. Where before her look had confined itself to Kellhus's face, it now roamed over his entire form. It was as though her eyes had become brokers, intermediaries between his body and her own. When she saw his chest, her breasts tingled with the prospect of being crushed. When she glimpsed his narrow hips and deep buttocks, her inner thighs hummed with expectant warmth. Sometimes her palms literally itched!

Of course this was madness. Esmenet needed only to catch Serwe's watchful eyes to recall herself.

Later that night, after Kellhus had left, the two of them stretched across their mats, their heads almost touching, their bodies angled to either side of the fire. They often did this when Kellhus was away. They stared endlessly into the flames, sometimes talking, but mostly saying nothing at all, save yelping when the fire spat coals. "Esmi?" Serwe asked in a peculiar, brooding tone.

"Yes, Serchaa?"

"I would would, you know."

Esmenet's heart fluttered. "You would what?"

"Share him," the girl said.

Esmenet swallowed. "No . . . Never, Serwe . . . I told you not to worry."

"But that's what I'm saying . . . I don't fear losing him, not anymore, and not to anyone. All I want is what he he wants. He's everything . . ." wants. He's everything . . ."

Esmenet lay breathless, staring between legs of wood at the pulsing furnace of coals.

"Are you saying . . . Are you saying that he . . ." wants me . . . wants me . . .

Serwe laughed softly. "Of course not," she said.

"Of course not," Esmenet repeated. With an inner shrug, she shook away these mad and maddening thoughts. What was she doing? He was Kellhus. Kellhus. Kellhus.

She thought of Akka, blinked two burning tears. "Never, Serwe."

Kellhus didn't return until the following night, when he rode into their little camp accompanied by Proyas himself. The Conriyan Prince looked particularly travel-worn and haggard. He was dressed in a simple blue tunic-his riding clothes, Esmenet supposed. Only the gold-embroidered intricacy of his hems spoke to his station. His beard, which he usually kept clipped close to his jaw, had grown out, so that it more resembled the square-cut beards of his caste-nobles.

At first Esmenet kept her gaze averted, worried Proyas might guess the intensity of her hatred if he glimpsed her eyes. How couldn't she hate him? He'd not only refused to help Achamian, he'd refused to allow Xinemus to help as well, and had divested the Marshal of his rank and station when he insisted. But something in his voice, a high-born desperation, perhaps, made her watchful. He seemed uncomfortable-even forlorn-as he took his place beside Kellhus at the fire, so much so that she found her dislike faltering. He too had loved Achamian once. Xinemus had told her as much.

Perhaps that's why he suffered. Perhaps he wasn't so unlike her.

That, she knew, was what Kellhus would say.

After pouring everyone watered wine, and serving the men the remnants of the meal she'd prepared for herself and Serwe, Esmenet took a seat on the far side of the fire.

The men discussed matters of war as they ate, and Esmenet was struck by the contradiction between the way Proyas deferred to Kellhus and the general reserve of his manner. Suddenly she understood why Kellhus forbade his followers from joining their camp. Men like Proyas, like any of the Great Names, she supposed, would be troubled by Kellhus. Those at the centre of things were always more inflexible, always more invested, than those at the edges. And Kellhus promised a new centre . . .

It was easy to move from edge to edge.

The men fell silent to finish their lamb, onions, and bread. Proyas set aside his plate, washed his palate with a sip of wine. He glanced at Esmenet, inadvertently it seemed, then stared off into the distance. Esmenet suddenly found the quiet suffocating.

"How fares the Scylvendi?" she asked, uncertain of what else to say.

He glanced back to her. For an instant, his eyes lingered on her tattooed hand . . .

"I see him but rarely," the handsome man replied, staring into the flames.

"But I thought he counselled . . ." She paused, suddenly uncertain as to the propriety of her words. Achamian had always complained of her forward manner with caste-nobles . . .

"Counselled me on war?" Proyas shook his head, and for a brief instant she could see why Achamian had loved him. It was so strange, being with those he'd once known. Somehow it made his absence at once palpable and easier to bear.

He was real. He had left his mark. The world remembered.

"After Kellhus explained what happened at Anwurat," the Prince continued, "the Council hailed Cnaiur as the author of our victory. The Priests of Gilgaol even declared him Battle-Celebrant. But he would have nothing of it . . ."

The Prince took another deep draught of wine. "He finds it unbearable, I think . . ."

"As a Scylvendi among Inrithi?"

Proyas shook his head, set his empty bowl curiously close to his right foot.

"Liking us," he said.

Without further word he stood and excused himself. He bowed to Kellhus, thanked Serwe for the wine and her gracious company, then without so much as glancing at Esmenet, strode off into the darkness.

Serwe stared at her feet. Kellhus seemed lost in otherworldly ruminations. Esmenet sat silently for a time, her face burning, her limbs and thoughts itching with a peculiar hum. It was always peculiar, even though she knew it as well as the taste of her own mouth.

Shame.

Everywhere she went. It was her characteristic stink.

"I'm sorry," she said to the two of them.

What was she doing here? What could she offer other than humiliation? She was polluted-polluted! And here she stayed with Kellhus? With Kellhus? Kellhus? What kind of fool was she? She couldn't change who she was, no sooner than she could wash the tattoo from the back of her hand! The seed she could rinse away, but not the sin! Not the sin! What kind of fool was she? She couldn't change who she was, no sooner than she could wash the tattoo from the back of her hand! The seed she could rinse away, but not the sin! Not the sin!

And he was . . . He was . . .

"I'm sorry," she sobbed. "I'm sorry!"

Esmenet fled the fire, crawled into the solitary darkness of her tent. Of his his tent! tent! Akka's! Akka's!

Kellhus came to her not long after, and she cursed herself for hoping he would.

"I wish I were dead," she whispered, lying face-first against the ground.

"So do many."

Always implacable honesty. Could she follow where he led? Had she the strength?

"I've only loved two people in my life, Kellhus . . ." The Prince never looked away.

"And they're both dead." She nodded, blinked tears.

"You don't know my sins, Kellhus. You don't know the darknesses I harbour in my heart."

"Then tell me."

They talked long into the night, and a strange dispassion moved her, rendering the extremities of her life-death, loss, humiliation-curiously inert.

Whore. How many men had embraced her? How many gritty chins against her cheek? Always something to be endured. All of them punishing her for their need. Monotony had made them seem laughable, a long queue of the weak, the hopeful, the ashamed, the angered, the dangerous. How easily one grunting body replaced the next, until they became abstract things, moments of a ludicrous ceremony, spilling bowel-hot libations upon her, smearing her with their meaningless paint. One no different from the next.

They punished her for that as well.

How old had she been, when her father had sold her to the first of his friends? Eleven? Twelve? When had the punishment begun? When had he first lain with her? She could remember her mother weeping in the corner . . . but not much more.

And her daughter . . . How old had she been?

She had thought her father's thoughts, she explained. Another mouth. Let it feed itself. The monotony had numbed her to the horror, had made degradation a laughable thing. To trade flashing silver for milky seed-the fools. Let Mimara be schooled in the foolishness of men. Clumsy, rutting animals. One need only pay with a little patience, mimic their passion, wait, and soon it would be over. In the morning, one could buy food . . . Food from fools, Mimara. Can't you see child? Shush. Stop weeping. Look! Food from fools!

"That was her name?" Kellhus asked. "Mimara?"

"Yes," Esmenet said. Why could she say that name now, when she could never utter it with Achamian? Strange, the way long sorrow could silence the pang of unspeakable things.

The first sobs surprised her. Without thinking, she leaned into Kellhus, and his arms enclosed her. She wailed and beat softly against his chest, heaved and cried. He smelled of wool and sunburned skin. They were dead. The only ones she'd ever loved. After her breathing settled, Kellhus pressed her back, and her hands fell slack to his lap. Over the course of several heartbeats, she felt him harden against the back of her wrist, as though a serpent flexed beneath wool. She neither breathed nor moved. The air, as silent as a candle, roared . . . She pulled her hands away.

Why? Why would she poison a night such as this? Kellhus shook his head, softly laughed. "Intimacy begets intimacy, Esmi. So long as we remember ourselves, there's no reason for shame. All of us are frail."

She looked down to her palms, her wrists. Smiled. "I remember . . . Thank you, Kellhus."

He raised his hand to her cheek, then ducked from her little tent. She rolled to her side, squeezed her hands palm to palm between her knees, and murmured curses until she fell asleep.

The message had arrived by sea, the man said. He was Galeoth, and from the look of his surcoat, a member of Saubon's own household.

Proyas weighed the ivory scroll-case in his hand. It was small, cold to the touch, and finely worked with tiny Tusks. Clever workmanship, Proyas thought. Innumerable tiny representations, each figure defined by further figures, so that there was no blank ground to throw each into relief, only tusks and more tusks. There was a sermon, Proyas mused, even in the container of this message.

But then that was Maithanet: sermons all the way down. The Conriyan Prince thanked and dismissed the man, then returned to his chair by his field table. It was hot and humid in his pavilion, so much so he found himself resenting the lamps for their added heat. He'd stripped down to a thin, white linen tunic and had already decided that he would sleep naked-after he investigated this letter.

With his knife he carefully broke the canister's wax seal. He tipped it, and the small scroll slid out, fastened by yet another seal, this one bearing the Shriah's own mark.

What could he want!

Proyas brooded for a moment on the privilege of receiving such letters from such a man. Then he snapped the wax seal, peeled open the parchment roll.

Lord Prince Nersei Proyas,May the Gods of the God shelter you, and keep you. Your last missive . . .

Proyas paused, struck by a sense of guilt and mortification. Months ago, he'd written Maithanet at Achamian's behest, asking about the death of a former student of his-Paro Inrau. At the time, he hadn't believed he would actually send it. He'd been certain that writing the letter would make sending it impossible. What better way to at once discharge and dispose of an obligation? Dear Maithanet, a sorcerer friend of mine wants Dear Maithanet, a sorcerer friend of mine wants me me to ask whether you killed one of his spies . . . to ask whether you killed one of his spies . . . It was madness. There was no way he could send such a letter . . . It was madness. There was no way he could send such a letter . . .

And yet.

How could he not feel a sense of kinship to this Inrau, this other student Achamian had loved? How could he not remember everything about the blasphemous fool, the wry smile, the twinkling eyes, the lazy afternoons doing drills in the gardens? How could he not pity pity him, a good man, a kind man, hunting fables and wives' tales to his everlasting damnation? him, a good man, a kind man, hunting fables and wives' tales to his everlasting damnation?

Proyas had sent the letter, thinking that at long last the matter of his Mandate tutor could be put to rest. He'd never expected a reply-not truly. But he was a Prince, an heir apparent, and Maithanet was the Shriah of the Thousand Temples. Letters between such men somehow found their way, no matter how fierce the world between them.

Proyas continued reading, holding his breath to numb the shame. Shame at having sent such a trivial matter to the man who would cleanse the Three Seas. Shame at having written this to a man at whose feet he'd wept. And shame for feeling shame at having fulfilled an old teacher's request.

Lord Prince Nersei Proyas,May the Gods of the God shelter you, and keep you.Your last missive, we are afraid, left us deeply perplexed, until we recalled that you yourself once maintained several-how should we put it?-dubious associations. We had been informed that the death of this young priest, Paro Inrau, had been a suicide. The College of Luthymae, the priests charged with the investigation of this matter, reported that this Inrau had once been a student of Mandate sorcery, and that he had recently been seen in the company of one Drusas Achamian, his old teacher. They believed that this Achamian had been sent to pressure Inrau into performing various services for his School; in short, to be a spy. They believe that, as a result, the young priest found himself in an untenable position.Tribes 4:8: "He wearies of breath, who has no place he might breathe."The responsibility for this young man's unfortunate death, we fear, lies with this blasphemer, Achamian. There is nothing more to it. May the God have mercy on his soul.Canticles 6:22: "The earth weeps at words which know not the Gods' wrath."But as your missive left us perplexed, we fear that this missive shall leave you equally baffled. By allying the Holy War with the Scarlet Spires, we have already asked much in the way of Compromise from pious men. But in this it has been clear, we pray, that Necessity forced our hand. Without the Scarlet Spires, the Holy War could not hope to prevail against the Cishaurim. "Answer not blasphemy with blasphemy," our Prophet says, and this verse has been oft repeated by our enemies. But in answering the charges of the Cultic Priests, the Prophet also says: "Many are those who are cleansed by way of iniquity. For the Light must ever follow upon the dark, if it is to be Light, and the Holy must ever follow upon the wicked, if it is to be Holy." So it is that the Holy War must follow upon the Scarlet Spires, if it is to be Holy. Scholars 1:3: "Let Sun follow Night, according to the arch of Heaven."Now we must ask a further Compromise of you, Lord Nersei Proyas. You must do everything in your power to assist this Mandate Schoolman. Perhaps this might not be as difficult as we fear, since this man was once your teacher in Aoknyssus. But we know the depth of your piety, and unlike the greater Compromise we have forced upon you with the Scarlet Spires, there is no Necessity that we can cite that might give comfort to a heart made restless by the company of sin. Hintarates 28:4: "I ask of you, is there any friend more difficult than the friend who sins?"Assist Drusas Achamian, Proyas, though he is a blasphemer, for in this wickedness, the Holy shall also follow. Everything shall be made clear, in the end. And it shall be glorious. Scholars 22:36: "For the warring heart becomes weary and will turn to sweeter labours. And the peace of dawn's rising shall accompany Men throughout the toils of the day." May the God and all His Aspects shelter you and keep you.Maithanet

Proyas lowered the letter to his lap.

"Assist Drusas Achamian . . ."

What could the Shriah possibly mean? What could be at stake, for him to make such a request?

And what was he to do with such a request, now that it was too late?