“Well, I think they believe it’s real. I can only imagine what it must seem like to you, Horse-King. You and your stranded city. Me? I come from a great and ancient nation, mightier by far than any of the individual nations gathered beneath the Circumfix. And still, I have never seen the like. To concentrate so much glory, so much power, for a march to the ends of the Eärwa! This is something no Satakhan in history, not even Mbotetulu! could have brought about—let alone my poor father. Whatever this is, and whatever comes of it, you can rest assured that it will be recalled … Recalled to the end of all time.”

They rode in silence for some time, lost in the thoughts.

“And what do you think of them?” Sorweel eventually asked.

“Them?”

“Yes. The Anasûrimbor.”

The Successor-Prince shrugged, but not without, Sorweel noticed, a quick glance around him. “Everyone ponders them. They are like the mummers the Ketyai are so found of, standing before the amphitheatre of the world.”

“What does ‘everyone’ say?”

“That he is a Prophet, or even a God.”

“What do you say?”

“What the lines of my father’s treaty say: that he is a Benefactor of High Holy Zeüm, Guardian of the Son of Heaven’s Son.”

“No ... What do you say?”

For the first time, Sorweel saw anger score the young man’s handsome profile. Zsoronga momentarily glared at Obotegwa, as though holding him responsible for Sorweel’s relentless questioning, before turning back to the young King with mild and insincere eyes. “What do you think?”

“He’s so many things to so many people,” Sorweel found himself blurting. “I know not what to think. All I know is that those who spend any time with him, any time with him whatsoever, think him some kind of God.”

The Successor-Prince once again turned to his Senior Obligate, this time with questioning eyes. Though the drifting pace of their parallel horses meant that Sorweel could only glimpse Obotegwa’s face on an angle, he was certain he had seen the old translator nod.

While the two exchanged words in Zeümi, Sorweel struggled with the dismaying realization that Zsoronga had secrets, powerful secrets, and that compared to the intrigues that likely encircled him, his friendship with an outland king, with a sausage, could be little more than diversion. The Son of Nganka’kull was more than a hostage, he was a spy as well, a chit in a game greater than Sorweel could imagine. The fate of empires bound him.

When Zsoronga returned his gaze, the pinch of merriment that characterized so much of their discourse had utterly vanished, leaving a curious, questioning intensity in its place. It was almost as if his brown eyes were begging Sorweel, somehow …

Begging him to be someone High Holy Zeüm could trust.

“Petatu surub—”

“Have you heard the story of Shimeh, of the First Holy War?”