Seasons of War

what Balasar meant. And that was just as well. Eustin arrived moments later and made formal greeting to them both.
    ‘There’s breakfast waiting for us, when we’re done here,’ Eustin said, and even such mundane words carried a depth.
    ‘Well then,’ Balasar said, turning to Riaan. The poet nodded and took a pose more complex than Balasar could parse, but that seemed to be a farewell from a superior to someone of a lower class. Then Riaan dropped his pose and walked with a studied grace to the cushion in the room’s center. Balasar stood against the back wall and nodded for Eustin to join him. He was careful not to obscure the symbols painted there, though Riaan wasn’t looking back toward them.
    For what seemed half a day and was likely no more than two dozen breaths together, the poet was silent, and then he began, nearly under his breath, to chant. Balasar knew the basic form of a binding, though the grammars that were used for the deepest work were beyond him. It was thought, really. Like a translation - a thought held that became something like a man as a song in a Westlands tongue might take new words in Galt but hold the same meaning. The chant was a device of memory and focus, and Balasar remained silent.
    Slowly, the sound of the poet’s voice grew, filling the space with words that seemed on the edge of comprehension. The sound began to echo, as if the room were much larger than the walls that Balasar could see, and something like a wind that somehow did not stir the air began to twist through the space. For a moment, he was in the desert again, feeling the air change, hearing Little Ott’s shriek. Balasar put his arm back, palm pressed against the stone wall. He was here, he was in Aren. The chanting grew, and it was as if there were other voices now. Beside him, Eustin had gone pale. Sweat stood on the man’s lip.
    Under Balasar’s fingertips, the wall seemed to shift. The stone hummed, dancing with the words of the chant. The script on the front wall shifted restlessly until Balasar squinted and the letters remained in their places. The air was thick.
    ‘Sir,’ Eustin whispered, ‘I think it might be best if we stepped out, left him to—’
    ‘No,’ Balasar said. ‘Watch this. It’s the last time it’s ever going to happen.’
    Eustin nodded curtly and turned with what seemed physical strain to look ahead. Riaan had risen, standing where the cushion had been, or perhaps he was floating. Or perhaps he was sitting just as he had been. Something had happened to the nature of the space between them. And then, like seven flutes moving from chaos to harmony, the world itself chimed, a note as deep as oceans and pure as dawn. Balasar felt his heart grow light for a moment, a profound joy filling him that had nothing to do with triumph, and there, standing before the seated poet, was a naked man, bald as a baby, with eyes white as salt.
    The blast pressed Balasar back against the wall. His ears rang, and Eustin’s voice seemed to come from a great distance.
    ‘Riaan, sir!’
    Balasar fought to focus his eyes. Riaan was still seated where he had been, but his shoulders were slumped, his head bowed is if in sleep. Balasar walked over to him, the sound of his own footsteps lost in his half-deafened state. It was like floating.
    He was breathing. The poet breathed.
    ‘Did it work, sir?’ Eustin yelled from half a mile away or else there at his shoulder. ‘Does that mean it worked?’

9
    ‘ W hat is he to do?’ Maati asked and then sipped his tea. It was just slightly overbrewed, a bitter aftertaste haunting the back of his mouth. Or perhaps it was only that he’d drunk too much the night before, sitting up with his son until the full moon set and the eastern sky began to lighten. Maati had seen Nayiit back to the boy’s apartments, and then, too tired to sleep, wandered to the poet’s house where Cehmai was just risen for breakfast. He’d sent the servants back to the kitchens to bring a second meal, and while they waited, Cehmai shared what he had - thin butter pastry, blackberries still just slightly underripe, overbrewed tea. Everything tasted of early summer. Already the morning had broken the chill of the previous night.
    ‘Really, he’s been good to the woman. He’s acknowledged the babe, he’s married her. But if he doesn’t love her, what’s he to do? Love’s not something you can command.’
    ‘Not usually,’ Stone-Made-Soft said, and smiled wide enough to bare its