“My word of release,” said Meoraq.

The doorkeeper stood back, his head twitching downward with flustered ill-humor he tried to hide, and waited.

So did Meoraq.

One of the watchmen shifted, but only once.

In the stretching silence, the doorkeeper’s discomfort grew until it finally burst out of him in a grumbling, “Do you wait on something, honored one?”

“I do. I wait on your salute.”

For the second time, the doorkeeper gave ground, this time enough to bump his backside against the heavy door he guarded. His neck bent. He made a surly genuflection, and another, more formally, when Meoraq continued to wait. Then and only then did Meoraq dismiss his escorts. He didn’t look to see if they saluted before they went. He was not a man who cared about salutes; he cared about being pointed at by some unwashed doorkeeper as if he were a servant.

‘Patience,’ he thought, watching the doorkeeper work his keys in the impressive lock of Southgate. ‘Sheul, O my Father, give me patience, if not enough to get me through this life, at least enough to get me out of Xheoth without disgracing the name I carry.’

“Fire in the sky, they tell me,” grunted the doorkeeper.

Meoraq did not reply. Doorkeepers were born of the warrior’s caste, like watchmen and the slightly higher-ranked sentries and, for that matter, butchers and smiths and fleshers and even the lowly handlers whose job it was to stand watch in the kitchens and see that no man took up the bladed weapon in defiance of Sheul’s law, but instead used only those poor tools built for them. Yes, this man had been born in God’s favor, and Meoraq supposed they must have at one time stood some of the same training, but he was not a warrior, he was not a brother, and he was not a friend.

‘I am in a truly piss-licking mood tonight,’ Meoraq thought in a faintly wondering way.

They walked together down the long, damp passage through the wall of the city, feeling its colossal weight and age bearing down from every side. The doorkeeper, well accustomed to this walk and perhaps annoyed at Meoraq’s silence, lit no lamp. They walked in darkness until Meoraq could feel the cool air of the outside world blowing against his eyes and hear the rain above their own echoing footsteps.

The doorkeeper stopped. So did Meoraq, and he heard a low, irritated sound escape the man beside him, cheated of the peevish pleasure of hearing the high-born Sheulek walk into a gate. Meoraq smiled to himself in the dark.

Keys rattled. The scrape of metal in a lock. The heavy creaking of weathered hinges. “Stands open, sir,” said the doorkeeper sourly. “Watch your footing.”

Meoraq opened his mouth to demand a parting salute that he wouldn’t even be able to see, but made himself bite it back. A truly piss-licking mood. He deserved a long walk in the rain in which to meditate upon the Prophet’s many sermons on the subject of emotional restraint.

There was silence behind him as he went on ahead, out of the last length of the tunnel and into the full storm Sheul had waiting for him.

“Who walks there?” someone called. One of the sentries, huddled against the wall to wait out the last hours of his patrol.

“Uyane Meoraq of Xeqor,” he said, making a final adjustment to the many straps of his packs. “A Sword of Sheul. Challenge me or cry surrender.”

“I cry,” the watchman said, wiping rain from his face, and, the last formalities dealt with, added, “First rain of the season is treacherous enough without flying thunder and fiery towers. So good journey to you, honored one, but mind your footing as you go. A man can see a thousand miraculous things in his life and still be washed away by one bad turn on a stretch of bad road.”

Good advice. Meoraq raised him a brother’s hand in farewell and walked on as the gate of Xheoth slammed behind him and all the empty world of Gann waited in darkness for the dawn.

2

It stopped raining a quarter-span outside of Tothax, with the city walls looming black and tall before him and his clothing as heavy as another damned man riding about on his back. Meoraq cast a surly word of gratitude upwards, accepted the final mutter of far-away thunder for the rebuke it surely was, and walked the last length of road ankle-deep in mud. At least, it seemed mostly to be mud, although Meoraq knew the road could not possibly be so softened, even by days of rain, unless some prospering cattleman had driven his herd out to graze beyond the walls very, very recently.

“Perhaps I will demand my boots cleaned once I have answered my summons, eh?” Meoraq said to himself, spines twitching in a grim, self-indulgent sort of humor. “And once I am satisfied that they are clean enough for a Sheulek’s feet, by Gann, I’ll demand them replaced. I never much cared for these boots anyway.”

“Hail and stand fast!”

Meoraq halted and raised one hand in acknowledgement. He had been aware of the sentry circling him for quite some time and suspected he was being hailed now only because the man had finally met up with reinforcements. Tothax was hardly a city teetering on the undefendable frontier, but every city raised out of Gann’s flesh knew violence. Meoraq stood with his arms raised and hands empty, waiting for the sentries—and yes, now there were three of them—to nerve themselves for a cautious approach.

“I see Uyane, a Sword of Sheul,” said one of the sentries, bending his neck in swift apology.

The face was familiar, but Meoraq couldn’t scratch up a name, so he merely grunted and tapped at the man’s shoulder in what he hoped came across as casual and forgiving as well as wet and entirely out of patience. “Uyane Meoraq stands before you. I come to take Tothax. Challenge me or cry surrender.”

“We cry to you, conqueror.” The sentry raised his head, frowning. “Exarch Ylsathoc requests your audience immediately.”

A name at last. And an exarch, no less. Highest of the governing caste, they followed circuits of their own, moving from city to city to oversee the legal affairs of the most eminent Houses. This one was probably here about some oversight in the records of one of his recent trials, and wasn’t that just like one of the governing caste to sit around half a year sending summons just to have a handful of questions answered? Meoraq grunted again, less politely, and walked on toward the gate.

Behind him, the sentries conferred in uneasy mutters. The one who had called him by name now called out again, saying, “Have you a message for me to carry, honored one?”

“I do not ask my brothers under the Blade to carry my messages,” Meoraq replied, still walking.

It was a rare thing for a sentry to hear himself addressed as brother by a Sheulek and it gave these three pause enough that Meoraq had nearly reached the outer gate before they tried again.

“When shall I tell Exarch Ylsathoc you will see him?”

“Name any hour that pleases you,” said Meoraq, drawing his kzung to strike against the gate. “But any lie is a lie before God and you must answer for it. If I choose to see this man you speak of at all, it will be in my own time.”

“I mark you, sir. “The sentry sighed, rubbing at the bony ridges over his brows in a dejected manner. “I only give the message I am given.”

The sentries retreated and Meoraq was given a few moments in the relatively dry pass-way to kick the worst of the mud from his boots while the gatekeeper finished locking them in and turned around. He made an offensively cursory salute, which Meoraq immediately forgave since he also offered both a flask of twice-brewed nai and to carry Meoraq’s pack. The drink was hot and strong and good—Sheul’s love in a swallow, as his father often said—and it was difficult to bear in mind that he would have as much nai as he wished once he was settled, but this flask would be all the gatekeeper could claim until the end of his shift. A Sheulek had the right to seize whatever goods he desired of any man he wished, but Meoraq did try not to be an ass.