“What does it mean, Captain? Could you make a picture of her, and make it look like her, and make it ugly?”

“I suppose I could.”

“I wish I had your skill. If I had your skill, I would march back tonight and hang your priests up by their own chains and burn your city to the ground.”

“The emperor might not approve of that.”

“I am not the emperor’s slave,” said Aspe sulkily.

There was a silence, and Thanakar broke it. “Someone’s sparing you the trouble,” he said. “The city’s on fire.” He yawned. “I want to go now. I’m very tired.”

“Yes. You’ve been saving lives. I think you’re not having much success.”

“Not much.” Thanakar had made a hospital to treat the remnants of the colonel’s corps of antinomials.

Aspe had not once inspected it.

“Yes,” he said. “You don’t surprise me. They have lost the urge to live, haven’t they? Well, they are free to go.”

“That’s easy for you to say,” exclaimed Thanakar bitterly. He had worked hard. But the atheists were dying, even of the slightest wounds. Men, women, children, they lay in bed, their eyes fixed on nothing.

“Yes. Very easy. Tell me, Captain. Are you also prepared to die?” Aspe picked a paper up and pushed it across the table. “Read that,” he said. “Read it aloud.”

It was a letter. It said:

I want a criminal—Thanakar Starbridge, of your staff—convicted in this city of adultery, murder, and attempted murder. Deliver him to the bearers of this letter. Do not thwart me in this. It is my jurisdiction.

Do not thwart me.

Chrism Demiurge

Kindness and Repair

Spring 8, Oct. 42, 00016

“I thwarted him,” said the colonel grimly. “The bearers of this letter—I stuffed their mouths with excrement and sewed them shut. I handcuffed them to their horses and sent them back.”

“It wasn’t their fault,” said Thanakar.

“It was their risk, serving such a master. It doesn’t matter. They came this morning. That’s why I sent for you. You are free to go.”

“Thank you for warning me.”

“No. It was a debt I didn’t want to think about again. You tried to save my family. Only, for the love of Angkhdt, why couldn’t you have been in time? Why couldn’t you have ridden faster? Then I would have paid your debt with my heart’s blood.” Aspe paused, his expression mixing rage and misery, the scars standing livid across his eyelids and his cheeks. Then he continued in a lower tone, deep in his throat.

“That was the end of me, that day. That was the end.”

“I tried,” said Thanakar stiffly. “Some wouldn’t have bothered.”

“What good is that?” shouted Aspe, rising to his feet. Upright, he seemed to take up the whole tent. He loomed above Thanakar, surrounded by shadows. “Tried!” he said. “That’s worse than useless. I tried too, to save your worthless life. Yes, and I succeeded. It is my habit. Go—the debt is paid. Take a horse and go. Ride north. There is . . . beautiful country that way, beyond the river Rang.”