An Autumn War

truth, because in the few days since the surrender, he'd begun to like

the man.

"It's a cough," Otah said. "He's always had it, but it had been less

recently. We'd hoped it was gone, but ..."

He took a pose expressing regret and powerlessness before the gods.

Balasar seemed to take the sense of it.

"I have medics with me," the Galt said, gesturing over his back at the

wide, dark stone arch that led from the great vaulted chamber in which

they now met toward the south and the tu

army. "They have more experience with sewing men's fingers back on, but

they might he of use. If you'd accept them."

Otah hesitated, his unease washing back over him, then forced himself to

smile.

""That's very kind of you," he said, neither agreeing to anything nor

refusing. The Galt shrugged.

"And Sinja?" he asked.

"He sends his regards," Otah said, "hut he thought it best to withdraw

from company. Fear of reprisal."

"Ile's not wrong," Balasar said. "'T'hat man was many things, but he

wasn't stupid."

"I'm told your men have found places in the tu

"It's a tight fit," the Galt said. "And there are going to he problems.

You can't make a peace just by saying it. People are angry. Yours and

mine both. They're grieving, and grieving people aren't sane. There

haven't been any fights yet, but there will he."

"I know it," Otah said. "We'll keep them apart as best we can. I've

given orders."

"I have too. As long as we're both clear, we can keep it from growing

out of control. At least before the thaw."

"And after that?"

The Galt sighed and nodded, as if agreeing with the question. His gaze

traveled up the walls, tracing the blue tile and the gold. Utah

gestured, and a servant boy scuttled forward from the shadows and poured

them each more tea. The Galt smiled at him, and the boy smiled back.

Balasar took his bowl of tea and blew across it before he spoke.

"I can't stop the High Council from coming back," Balasar said. "I'm

their general for this season. I don't own the army. And ... and since

this campaign ended with the gelding of every man who would cast the

vote, I doubt my voice will carry much with them."

Otah took a pose that accepted this statement.

"'There's an age of war coming for you," Balasar said. "You still have

some of the richest cities in the world, and you're still ripe for

plunder. Even if we don't come, there's Eymond, Eddensea, the Westlands.

'T'here will he pirates from Bakta and Ohar State."

"I'll address those problems. And the others," Otah said with a

confidence lie didn't feel. Balasar let the issue drop. After a moment's

silence, Otah felt himself moved to ask the question he had intended to

leave be. "What will you do? Go back to Galt?"

"Yes," Balasar said. "I'II go hack, but I don't think it would he wise

for me to stay. I don't know, Most High. I had plans, but none of them

involved being hated and disgraced. So I suppose I'll have to make

others. What do you do when you've finished your life's work and haven't

died?"

"I don't know," Otah said, and Balasar laughed.

"With the things still ahead of you, Lord Emperor, you likely never

will. "That's your fate." Balasar's gaze seemed to soften-melancholy

creeping in at the corners of his eyes. "'There are worse, though."

Otah sipped his tea. The leaves were perfectly brewed, neither weak nor

bitter. Balasar raised his own cup in a wordless salute.

"Shall we do this thing?" Otah asked.

"1 was wondering," Balasar said. "I was afraid you might reconsider.

Burning a library's a terrible thing."

For a moment, Otah saw the cold eyes of Sterile, its feminine smile,

heard its voice. The memory of the physicians' cots filled with row upon

row of women in pain possessed him for the length of a heartbeat and was

gone.

""There are worse," lie said.

Otah rose, and the general rose with him. From the servants' niches and

from beyond the great archway to the south, their respective people

appeared. Hard soldiers from the South, amen of the utkhaiem in flowing

robes from the North. Otah raised his hands in a pose of command, and

let the servants go forward to prepare their way.

The furnaces were near the surface where they could be blocked off from

the rest of the city if the fires ever should escape their cells. The

air near them was thick with the scent of smoke and oppressive with

heat. The noise of the flames was like a waterfall. Otah led Balasar and

his men to the huge grates where the scrolls and codices and books were

stacked. Generations of history. Philosophic essays composed by minds

gone to dust a thousand years before. Maps that predated the First

Empire. The surviving scraps of war records from before the first andat.

Otah looked upon his culture, his history, the record of all that had

cone before and that had made the world what it was. The flames licked

and leapt.

If only it could have been just the poets' books and treatises on the

andat ... but the Gait had insisted, and Otah had understood. Each his

tory was a footprint in the path, each collection of court poems might

contain a hint or reference. With time and attention, someone might put

together again what had been torn apart, and it was a chance the Galt

had refused to accept. Their tenuous peace required sacrifices, and

sacrifice without loss didn't deserve the name.

"Forgive this," Utah said, to no one. He walked forward, coming to the

first pile. The hook was leather-hound and worn from years of loving

care. Utah let it fall open and looked on Heshai's careful handwriting

for the last time. With a sense of sorrow, Utah cast the book into the

flames, then raised his hands again, and the sen'ants began to throw the

pages into the fire. parchment darkened and curled in the suddenly white

flame. "Piny embers flew out into the air, glowing and going dark,

fireflies at sunset. The horror of it all closed his throat, and with it

came a strange elation.

A hand touched his arm, and Utah looked at the Galtic general. 't'here

were tears in his eyes too.

"It was necessary," he said.

The night candles were burned down past their first quarter before Utah

found his way hack to his rooms. Kivan was already asleep, her face

smooth and peaceful. He resisted the urge to touch her, to pull her

awake and hope that some of that calm might come with her. It wouldn't.