was in the group set to cleaning the Sheyik’s stable and corral. He did not see the point, nor did he learn anything useful.
His companions cared not at all. Shifting horse manure or no, it was all the same. The slower they worked the longer they would be employed.
Haroun wandered off, vacant-eyed, as often as he dared. The Sheyik’s men would find him and bring him back to the corral. He learned nothing about the layout inside the adobe wall screening the Sheyik’s residence, which was a minor fortress built of mud brick.
Back behind his pitchfork, Haroun wondered why he felt compelled to study the place. Because someone had a notion that important things were about to happen? Or because of some unconscious premonition of his own?
He had those infrequently. He had learned to pay attention. But they were not universally trustworthy. A premonition had made him murder an innocent prince and princess.
Someone was coming. Someone with an escort. Who it would be was secret but it had to be someone firmly convinced of his own importance.
Come sundown Haroun’s work party scattered into al-Habor after being fed. Like the others, bin Yousif stuffed himself till his stomach ached and carried away whatever he could hide about his person.
He fell asleep against the same wall behind another tiny fire. The same men shared the warmth. Both had been part of the work party. They were rich tonight, as al-Habor’s lost understood that state.
Haroun drifted off wondering if they three would not now offer too much temptation to the Bulls of al-Habor.
†
CHAPTER SEVEN
YEAR 1017 AFE:
EASTERN EMPIRE
T he Lord Ssu-ma Shih-ka’i, Commander, Western Army, second in the Dread Empire, took some time off work.
Shih-ka’i used a portal known only to himself. He stepped out on an island unimaginably far to the east. Ehelebe might once have been its name. He was not sure. Ehelebe was obscure and might have been something else.
He was not looking forward but he was a man who had attained his station by meticulous attention to detail, to duty, by genius, by an unsullied reputation for being apolitical, and because he once enjoyed some favor from politicals who used him as a showpiece.
Shih-ka’i believed that his character made him uniquely suited to pull Shinsan together following its late, suicidal internal conflicts. The daughter of the Demon Prince was now the fountainhead of empire but Ssu-ma Shih-ka’i, the pig farmer’s son, was the symbol, device, and guarantor of the new era. And what he wanted to do now, in service to that guarantee, was make sure that a man he had exiled would be reintegrated into Tervola society. Kuo Wen-chin could be of incalculable value if he would stifle his ambition.
Ssu-ma Shih-ka’i owed Kuo. Wen-chin had plucked him from obscurity, as commander of a training legion, and had loosed him on the revenant god of the east. From that triumph he had gone on to glory in the west.
There was no sign of Kuo. The fortress round the old laboratories was deserted. It was morning but little sunlight reached Shih-ka’i. There was no artificial lighting. Dust lay heavy. It filled the air when he moved. He removed his boar mask so he could sneeze.
He did not call out. Even an apolitical Tervola dared not go round shouting the name of a condemned man he had saved. Who knew who might hear you impeach yourself?
Had Kuo escaped?
Not likely, though the man was a genius. And there was a precedent.
The Deliverer had escaped by swimming to the mainland. Then he had walked on west, allied with forces ancient and terrible.
That route was closed, now. No one would survive it again.
Portals were the only way out.
The dust in the staging chamber made it clear that Lord Kuo had not gotten out that way.
The kitchen was the place to start. Kuo had to eat. Miniature portals delivered foodstuffs there, from sources calculated to raise no questions.
Shih-ka’i strained to remember his way. He had visited only briefly a
His companions cared not at all. Shifting horse manure or no, it was all the same. The slower they worked the longer they would be employed.
Haroun wandered off, vacant-eyed, as often as he dared. The Sheyik’s men would find him and bring him back to the corral. He learned nothing about the layout inside the adobe wall screening the Sheyik’s residence, which was a minor fortress built of mud brick.
Back behind his pitchfork, Haroun wondered why he felt compelled to study the place. Because someone had a notion that important things were about to happen? Or because of some unconscious premonition of his own?
He had those infrequently. He had learned to pay attention. But they were not universally trustworthy. A premonition had made him murder an innocent prince and princess.
Someone was coming. Someone with an escort. Who it would be was secret but it had to be someone firmly convinced of his own importance.
Come sundown Haroun’s work party scattered into al-Habor after being fed. Like the others, bin Yousif stuffed himself till his stomach ached and carried away whatever he could hide about his person.
He fell asleep against the same wall behind another tiny fire. The same men shared the warmth. Both had been part of the work party. They were rich tonight, as al-Habor’s lost understood that state.
Haroun drifted off wondering if they three would not now offer too much temptation to the Bulls of al-Habor.
†
CHAPTER SEVEN
YEAR 1017 AFE:
EASTERN EMPIRE
T he Lord Ssu-ma Shih-ka’i, Commander, Western Army, second in the Dread Empire, took some time off work.
Shih-ka’i used a portal known only to himself. He stepped out on an island unimaginably far to the east. Ehelebe might once have been its name. He was not sure. Ehelebe was obscure and might have been something else.
He was not looking forward but he was a man who had attained his station by meticulous attention to detail, to duty, by genius, by an unsullied reputation for being apolitical, and because he once enjoyed some favor from politicals who used him as a showpiece.
Shih-ka’i believed that his character made him uniquely suited to pull Shinsan together following its late, suicidal internal conflicts. The daughter of the Demon Prince was now the fountainhead of empire but Ssu-ma Shih-ka’i, the pig farmer’s son, was the symbol, device, and guarantor of the new era. And what he wanted to do now, in service to that guarantee, was make sure that a man he had exiled would be reintegrated into Tervola society. Kuo Wen-chin could be of incalculable value if he would stifle his ambition.
Ssu-ma Shih-ka’i owed Kuo. Wen-chin had plucked him from obscurity, as commander of a training legion, and had loosed him on the revenant god of the east. From that triumph he had gone on to glory in the west.
There was no sign of Kuo. The fortress round the old laboratories was deserted. It was morning but little sunlight reached Shih-ka’i. There was no artificial lighting. Dust lay heavy. It filled the air when he moved. He removed his boar mask so he could sneeze.
He did not call out. Even an apolitical Tervola dared not go round shouting the name of a condemned man he had saved. Who knew who might hear you impeach yourself?
Had Kuo escaped?
Not likely, though the man was a genius. And there was a precedent.
The Deliverer had escaped by swimming to the mainland. Then he had walked on west, allied with forces ancient and terrible.
That route was closed, now. No one would survive it again.
Portals were the only way out.
The dust in the staging chamber made it clear that Lord Kuo had not gotten out that way.
The kitchen was the place to start. Kuo had to eat. Miniature portals delivered foodstuffs there, from sources calculated to raise no questions.
Shih-ka’i strained to remember his way. He had visited only briefly a
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