She took the route through the Valley of Ten Thousand Graves to the coast, an arduous journey that one did not make frivolously. She found a proliferation of the strange skrei-wheels and charmed rides from their pedallers in exchange for a hand at pushing on the difficult grades. There was evidence of new roadwork everywhere. A conqueror lays out roads. That was axiom.

Before reaching Sorrow she turned northward through the mountains because a signalman of the Moera clan, who was not a true Moera, worked the great tower atop the Peak of Blue Concern. No command ordered her to find him but he did live along her route to Soebo and there was a standing call for his execution.

Humility first encountered Anid toi-Moera at the inn where he liked to eat, overlooking high cliffs above the sea. She waited and, after dinner, followed him into the wilderness fog. But at the perfect place for murder — a curving trail among huge trees that grew more than two man-heights tall — she hesitated.

Why did he have to die? The accursed Lattice of Evidence was prickling her mind.

The crone said he was a bearer of the foul underjaws to these parts and that he accepted coin for overhearing all messages that passed through his tower. Humility knew nothing more, not who had accused him or how his deeds had been cataloged, just that he was marked for death.

During her moment of introspection, he disappeared.

She slept in the woods to the crashing sound of waves below, stunned by her vacillation. See! It was true that no assassin should seek to understand her target! Orders were enough. The hunt and kill were enough. To be curious meant fatal irresolution.

Wearing modest robe and veil, she spent the next high day seeking Anid again, the empty Lattice of Evidence in her mind like a burr under the skin. Each branch of the Lattice had to be filled before a man was condemned. Who had filled it for Anid? Had some crone mother, at great distance, really satisfied those severe demands? What distortions and falsehood might have entered the judgment?

She found Anid on the road. Boldly she went to him and asked where she might have shoes repaired. He was curious that she would travel alone. She told him that she had a long ambition to see the sea, and truly she was awed by it. He smiled. He was a towerman, he said, and knew the best spots from which to view the ocean’s beauty. For instance, there was a cliff where the moon laid a road of light across the night waters. Please show me, she replied, making him feel that she had long been without male company, and that, though she was modest, she might be seduced by kind attention.

So he led her to a nook above the cliffs where they could be alone. They talked. She probed to hear his view of Stgal and Kaiel and Mnankrei but learned nothing. He had no opinion about famine that would separate him from a thousand others. He did not seem to lust for power or reward. He seemed to be a towerman who took pleasure in seducing wandering women. Her Lattice framework remained empty, an unsatisfying hollowness.

The rustic hideaway he had chosen was grassy, at an awesome height above the beach below, hidden by a rocky rise behind them. The slate was cracked and crumbling to gray age but was of a resistant nature that had held back the death attack of the waves like a great-grandfather watching over his clan.

“You must stay with me here to be enchanted by the moon’s waxing increase as night unfolds,” he said.

“I have no time.” She let her voice express regret, lingering on the mysteries that might come with stolen heartbeats.

“Aw, stay with me a while.”

“Do you really want…”

“I’m dying of desire.”

“If you really want me, I might be convinced.”

“I’ll be good to you.”

“I’m very inexperienced,” she said, dropping the eyelashes that peered from above the veil.

“There is no hurry. The early night after sunset covers much.”

“No. We have to do it now. Keep your back to me. Nothing looks more foolish than a woman undressing herself.”

He obeyed, careful now not to break her sudden mood.

“Promise to close your eyes?”

“They’re closed.”

The stone smashed into his skull, crushing it. She tested his pulse to see if he were dead, surprised how he clung to life. A quick twist of his head broke his neck. Thoroughness was the mark of a superior assassin. Then she pushed him off the cliff. She had been careful to let her feet follow in his tracks so that it would seem he came alone. She left no traces as she retreated, only traces upon a mind upset because it craved more than faith.

She was slightly disappointed to find that, in the end, she was merely a creature of habit.

Gazing backwards, for the view pleased her, she saw a ship far at sea, its sails full. Mnankrei by the size of it. She could pick up a ship going north, probably as wench to a Mnankrei Storm Master. She did not relish more walking or those hideous wagon rides. Fast ships fascinated her and here was a new sea to explore.

41

Supreme excellence in warfare consists of breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting,

Six SMALL BOATS were chartered from the Goei, a carpenters clan whose members often took up seafaring. Their double-masted ships were sturdy, the clinker-built stakes running along shallow sides, then rising in a rounded stem to hold a high bowsprit. The vessels were of necessity constructed with low draft to negotiate inferior harbors since they were forbidden access to Mnankrei ports.

The Goei knew the foggy coast of the Island of Mnank as a sneak thief knows the windows of the nearest rich community. It was a week away in the best of sailing weather, two in the worst, and there was always a wind. In these northern waters, dominated by the Mnankrei, they either smuggled or stuck to cabinet-making.

The shoreline of Mnank twisted in such a cacophonous noise of bays that only the best were used by the trading fleets. No one could patrol them all. Smugglers thrived. Thus the swift and tiny craft of Joesai’s party beached on a sandy inlet in the rosy twilight fog without mishap and began the trek south to Soebo through a land wondrously lush. In some places the ground was even moist and choked with flowering rushes! They traversed the eldritch woods that grew the sturdy timbers of the great Mnankrei ships until they broke into the cleared plains below where they began to meet their first farmers.

Joesai moved warily. Sometimes he took out the bound book Kathein had given him and pondered upon the difficulties of Hannibal or re-read the obscure details of Sherman’s march through Georgia. Sherman never maneuvered in a direction which revealed his destination. The strategy pleased Joesai and he adopted it by striking across the Yearning Valley toward Ciern rather than directly over the central plains to Soebo. When camping he ordered the construction of a perimeter defense in the fashion of a Roman Legion advancing through hostile territory. All the while he made quiet contact with the people.

At each village they demonstrated the rifle by splatting a bag of water from afar with a lead pebble. Joesai demanded the obeisance due to priests but in turn offered respect. He and the ten fingermen of his Hand Council made it clear that they were the forepriests of a Gathering come to investigate the origin of the deviant underjaw. It frightened the farmers to hear that the strange underjaw carried human genes, obviously the meddling of some priest, though few of them believed the Mnankrei would do such a thing. Still, the tale loosened lips and Joesai learned the extent of Mnankrei unpopularity.

Besides his fascination for the pages of The Forge of War, which he carried in a waterproof sack of baby skin, he was reading Oelita’s book in the edition published by Teenae in Kaiel-hontokae. The Gentle Heretic’s forays into bio-logic enraged him, but she made good sense with her stories chiding priestly alienation from the underclans. It was interesting reading because his life now depended upon the good will of the surrounding underclans. The country folk they were meeting had been propitiative and overawed by Kaiel discipline — but if crossed could turn murderous.