"Of course I do. But – "

"No buts." Now Sosia swept out of the dining room. Lanius stared after her. One piece of well-meant advice, and he'd managed to clear the room. If that wasn't a record, he didn't know what would be.

Pterocles pointed to a mound rising from the mostly flat land of the Menteshe country. Sadly, the wizard said, "Another one. That's the third or fourth we've seen."

"I know." King Grus sounded none too happy, either. "They're what cities look like after they die. The rubbish the people who live there throw out year after year makes the ground higher than it is anywhere else. And when the walls get knocked down and the buildings fall to pieces, too…"

"This is what's left," Pterocles finished. "I wonder what happened to the people who used to live here."

"Some of them died," Grus said. "Got killed, I mean. Others? Others are bound to be the ancestors of the thralls you're freeing. That town's been dead a long time."

As the Avornan army drew nearer, he could see the jagged remains of walls and buildings crowning the hill and giving it a silhouette no natural rise would have had. He wondered what the name of the place had been. If he described where it lay, Lanius could probably tell him. Lanius knew all sorts of things that didn't matter. Things that did? A different story.

But the Banished One took Lanius seriously. Grus couldn't let himself forget that. The exiled god wouldn't have threatened the other king in dreams if he hadn't. He threatened only people he took very seriously indeed. Hirundo, for instance, had done as much as any man to turn back the Menteshe and to beat the Chernagors, but the Banished One let him sleep undisturbed of nights. Grus scratched his head. He didn't pretend to understand the choices the Banished One made.

Grus laughed. It was funny, after a fashion. Had he understood all the choices the Banished One made, he would have been well on the way toward godhood himself. Part of him – the part that wanted to live forever – wished he were. But he knew too well he wasn't. His beard had far more salt than pepper in it these days. He remained healthy enough, but knew he lacked much of the strength and stamina he'd enjoyed when he was half his age. Sooner or later, he would lose what he still kept. He didn't like that – he hated it – but he knew it was true.

He looked toward the dead, abandoned city. Places had lifespans of their own, just as people did. They usually lasted far longer, but the Banished One had watched this town age and wither and die while he went on. He'd probably smiled as he watched, too. The town had been full of Avornans, and had gone to ruin at the hands of the Menteshe. They worshiped the Banished One; why wouldn't he smile to see their triumph?

Unlike people, though, places could come back to life. Grus turned to Hirundo. "Do you know what we ought to do?"

"I've got a list as long as your arm, Your Majesty," the general said. "Most of it is things I need to do day before yesterday. The less important bits, though, I can get away with doing yesterday. So what's yours?"

He sounded as serious as he ever did. Grus explained, finishing, "If we're going to take this land away from the Menteshe, we've got to do something with it for ourselves. If we could bring it back to the way it was before the nomads swept down on it…"

"Don't get your hopes up too high," Hirundo said. "Back in the old days, they didn't have to worry about the Menteshe at all. Even if we do drive 'em back, they'll be right over the border, just waiting to pounce when they see the chance. We can't clear them out of this whole country. It's too big, and there are too cursed many of them."

Grus wished he could find some way to contradict that, but he couldn't.

"If things work out the way we want them to, though, people will remember us for as long as Avornis lasts." Grus supposed that kingdoms flourished and then grew old, too, the same way people and towns did. Not wanting to think that might happen to Avornis in years yet to come, he went on, 'That's about as close to living forever in this world as we're likely to come."

"There are children," Hirundo pointed out.

"Well, yes. So there are." Grus let it lie there. He was disappointed in his son, and feared he always would be disappointed in Ortalis. His hopes along those lines ran through Sosia and his grandson. He didn't like having more faith in his daughter and her line than in the one he'd always wanted to be his heir.

He also didn't know what Crex would turn out to be like. The boy was still too young to make that plain. The one thing Grus could say was that he didn't seem to be vicious. He wished more than anything that he could say the same about Ortalis. He'd tried to believe Ortalis would outgrow whatever gave him the need to hurt things, tried long after it should have been obvious that his legitimate son's ways were set. He didn't believe it anymore. I may have been foolish to expect he'll ever have it in him to give. I was foolish. But there's a difference between foolish and blind.

Did King Olor, looking down from the heavens, have the same sort of thoughts about mankind as a whole? Grus shrugged. He couldn't do anything about that. He didn't look up past the sky. He looked south, toward the mountains where the Banished One lived. The Banished One doubtless had his own thoughts about mankind, too. Grus aimed to prove him wrong.

CHAPTER SIX

Tinamus the architect looked up in surprise from the sheaf of notes King Lanius had just given him. "These are… very detailed. Your Majesty."

"I wanted to have them as exact as I could," Lanius said. "Would you have liked it more if they were vaguer?"

Tinamus didn't answer. All the same, Lanius realized that he would have. The architect wasn't a courtier, and didn't have the courtier's knack for hiding what he thought. His long, thin, rather pale face showed each thought flitting across it. Lanius found that more refreshing than otherwise.

"I'm not just doing this for my amusement, you know," the king said.

"So I gather." Tinamus flipped through the notes. His hands were long and thin and pale, too – clever hands. "Why are you doing it, if you don't mind my asking?"

Lanius hesitated. He didn't want to lie to the architect, but he didn't want to tell him the truth, either. At last, he said, "It might be better if you didn't know. It might be safer – not for me, but for you."

"Safer, Your Majesty?" Tinamus' eyebrows jumped in surprise. "Who except maybe another builder could care whether I do this for you? The other builders here in the city of Avornis may be jealous of the commission you pay me, but I don't think any of them would try to knock out my brains with a plumb bob or anything like that."

"Good. I'm glad to hear it. I wouldn't want to believe our architects were wild and unruly men." Lanius smiled at Tinamus, who seemed one of the least unruly men he'd ever met. "Can you do it? Will you do it? Or should I ask one of your ferocious colleagues?"

"It doesn't seem difficult. One of them could probably do it as well as I can." No, Tinamus was no courtier. Anyone used to the ways of the court would have loudly proclaimed he was the only person in the whole world who could possibly handle this job. He wagged a finger at Lanius. "But I tell you this, Your Majesty – any of them will be as curious as I am, and will want to know why you say that what looks like a straightforward piece of work may not be safe."

"Mmp." Lanius wished he could have made a happier noise than that. However much he didn't want to admit it even to himself, Tinamus had a point. If the work was going to endanger him, he had a right to know why. Sighing, Lanius said, "The less you know about why you're doing what you're doing, the less likely you are to have trouble from the Banished One."