At once the soldiers strode toward the women in the hallway, and Kokor screamed.

  “Run you little fools!” cried Mother.

  But Kokor could not run, because one of the soldiers already had her by the arm and another pair of soldiers had Sevet, too, and that bastard Hushidh wasn’t doing one thing to help them.

  “Do something, you little bitch!” cried Kokor. “Don’t let them do this to us!”

  Hushidh looked her in the eye for a moment as the soldiers dragged her toward the door. Then she seemed to make a decision.

  “Stop, Rashgallivak!” cried Hushidh. “Stop this instant.”

  Rash only laughed. It chilled Kokor to the bone, his laugh. It was the laugh of a man who knew he had won. This pathetic man who had been the steward in the house of Wetchik only a few days ago now laughed in delight at the power his soldiers gave him.

  “Order them to stop!” cried Hushidh. “Or you will never be able to order them to do anything again!”

  “No, Hushidh!” cried Mother.

  What in the world did Mother think that Hushidh could do now? Kokor could see Sevet in the grasp of the soldiers, their blank faces so terrifying, so inhuman. It was wrong, for her sister to be in their grasp. Wrong for these hands to be gripping Kokor’s arms and dragging her away. “Do it, Hushidh!” Kokor cried. Whatever it is Mother thinks you can do, do it.

  To anyone but Hushidh, the scene was simple—Rash and two of his soldiers blocking anyone from interfering, as the other four soldiers were dragging Kokor and Sevet through the wide front door of Rasa’s house. Aunt Rasa herself was shouting ineffectually—“It’s you who’s injuring Sevet! You’ll be expelled from the city! Kidnapper!”—and other women and girls of the house were gathering, huddling in the hallway, listening, watching.

  To Hushidh the Raveler, however, the scene was very different. For she could see not only the people, but also the webs that bound them together. To Hushidh, the frightened girls and women were not individuals or even little clumps—all of them were tightly bound to Rasa, so that instead of being helplessly alone as others would see her, Hushidh knew that she spoke from the strength of dozens of women, that their fear fed her fear, their anger her anger, and when she cried out in the majesty of her wrath, she was far larger than one mere woman. Hushidh even saw the powerful webs connecting Rasa to the rest of the city, great ropy threads like arteries and veins, pumping the lifeblood of Rasa’s identity. When she cried out against Rashgallivak, it was the fury of the whole city of women in her voice.

  Yet Hushidh could also see that Rasa, though she was surrounded by this vast web, also felt herself to be quite alone, as if the web came right up to her but didn’t quite connect, or touched her only slightly. That was what Rash’s exercise of raw power was doing to Rasa— making her feel as if her strength and power in the city amounted to nothing after all, for she could not resist the power of these soldiers.

  At the same time, there was another web of influence—Rashgallivak’s. And this one Hushidh knew was actually contemptible and weak. Where Rasa’s links with her household were strong and real, her power in the city almost tangible to Hushidh, Rashgallivak had very little respect from his soldiers. He was able to command them only because he paid them, and then only because they rather liked what he was commanding them to do. Rashgallivak, compared to Rasa, was almost isolated. As for his men, their connections to each other were much stronger than their connections to him. And even then, they were nothing like the bonds among the women.

  Most men were like this, Hushidh knew—relatively unconnected, unbound, alone. But these men were particularly untrusting and ungiving, and so the bonds that held them to each other were fragile indeed. It was not love at all, really, but rather a yearning for the honor and respect of the other men that held them. Pride, then. And at this moment they were proud of their strength as they dragged these women out of the house, proud to defy one of the great woman of Basilica; they looked so grand in each other’s eyes. Indeed, all their connection with each other at this moment was tied up with the respect they felt they were earning by their actions.

  So fragile. Hushidh had only to reach out and she could easily snap the bonds between these men. She could leave Rashgallivak hopelessly alone. And even though Rasa was demanding that she not do it, at this moment Hushidh felt much more deeply her connection to Sevet and Kokor, for these girls had been her tormentors, her enemies, and now she had the chance to be their savior, to set them free, and they would know she had done it. It would undo one of the deepest injuries in her heart; what was Rasa’s command compared to that need?

  Hushidh knew exactly why she was acting even as she acted—so well did she understand herself, for as a raveler she could see even her own connections with the world around her—yet she acted anyway, because that was who she was at this moment, the powerful savior who had the power to undo these powerful men.

  So she spoke, and undid them. It wasn’t the words she said; this was no magical incantation that would disconnect the bonds that held them to each other. It was her tone of contempt, her face, her body, that gave her words the power to strike at the heart of each of the soldiers and make them believe that they were utterly alone, that other men would have only contempt for what they were doing. “Where is your honor in dragging this injured woman away from her mother,” she said. “Baboons in the wild have more manhood than you, for mothers can trust their infants with the males of the tribe.”

  Poor Rash. He heard the words, and thought that he could counter Hushidh by arguing with her. He didn’t realize that, with these men caught up in the story Hushidh was weaving around them, every word he said would drive these men farther away from him, for he sounded weaker and more cowardly with every sound he made. “You shut up, woman! These men are soldiers who do their duty—”

  “A coward’s duty. Look what this so-called man has led you to do. He’s made you into filthy rodents, stealing bright and shining beauty and dragging it off to his hole where he will cover you with shit and call it glory.”

  First one, then another of the men let go of Kokor and Sevet. Sevet immediately sank to her knees, weeping silently. Kokor, for her part, put on a very convincing show of disgust and loathing, shuddering as she tried in vain to brush away the very memory of the soldiers’ touch on her arms.

  “See how you have disgusted the beautiful ones,” said Hushidh. “That’s what Rashgallivak has made of you. Slugs and worms, because you follow him. Where can you go to become men again? How can you find a way to be clean? There must be somewhere you can hide from your shame. Slither off and find it, little slugs; burrow deep and see if you can hide your humiliation! Do you think those masks make you look strong and powerful? They only mark you as servants of this contemptible gnat of a man. Servants of nothing.”

  One of the soldiers pulled off the cloak that created the holographic image that till now had hidden his face. He was an ordinary, rather dirty-looking man, unshaven, somewhat stupid, and very much afraid—his eyes were wide and filled with tears.

  “There he is,” Hushidh said. “That’s what Rashgallivak has made of you.”

  “Put your mask back on!” cried Rashgallivak. “I order you to take these women back to Gaballufix’s house.”

  “Listen to him,” said Hushidh. “He’s no Gaballufix. Why are you following him?”

  That was the last push. Most of the other soldiers also swept off their masks, leaving the holo-cloaks on the porch of Rasa’s house as they shambled off, running from the scene of their humiliation.

  Rash stood alone in the middle of the doorway. Now the whole scene had changed. It didn’t take a raveler to see that Rasa had all the power and majesty now, and Rash was helpless, weak, alone. He looked down at the cloaks at his feet.

  “That’s right,” said Hushidh. “Hide your face. No one wants to see that face again, least of all you.”

  And he did it, he bent over and swept up one of the cloaks and pulled it across his shoulder; his body heat and magnetism activated the cloaks, which were still powered on, and suddenly he was no longer Rashgallivak, but rather the same uniform image of false masculinity that all the soldiers of Gaballufix had worn. Then he turned and ran away, just like his men, with that same defeated rounding of the shoulders. No baboon beaten by a rival could have shown more abjectness than Rash’s body showed as he ran away.

  Hushidh felt the web of awe that was forming around her; it made her tingle, knowing that she had the adulation of the girls and women of the house—and above all, the honor of Sevet and Kokor. Kokor, vain Kokor, who now looked at her with an expression stupid with awe. And Sevet, cruel in her mockery for so many years, now looking at her through eyes streaked with tears, her hands reaching out toward Hushidh like a supplicant, her lips struggling to say Thank you, thank you, thank you.

  “What have you done,” whispered Rasa.

  Hushidh could hardly understand the question. What she had done was obvious. “I’ve broken Rashgallivak’s power,” she said. “He’s no more threat to you.”

  “Foolish, foolish girl,” said Rasa. “There are thousands of these villains in Basilica. Thousand of them, and now the one man who could control them, however weak he was, that man is broken and undone. By nightfall these soldiers will all be out of control, and who will stop them?”

  All of Hushidh’s sense of accomplishment slipped away at once. She knew that Rasa was right. No matter how clearly Hushidh saw in the present moment, she hadn’t looked ahead to anticipate the larger consequences of her act. These men would no longer be bound by their hunger for honor, for it would no longer be seen as honorable to serve Rashgallivak. What would they do, then? They would be unbound in the city, soldiers starving to prove their strength and power, and no force could channel them to some useful purpose. Hushidh remembered the holos she had seen of apes displaying, shaking branches, charging each other, slapping at whoever was weak, whoever was near. Men on the rampage would be far, far more dangerous.

  “Bring my daughters inside,” Rasa said to the others. “Then all of you work to shutter the windows behind their bars. Tighten down the house. As if a tempest were coming. For it is.”

  Rasa then stepped onto the porch between her daughters.

  “Where are you going, Mama!” wailed Kokor. “Don’t leave us!”

  “I must warn the women of the city. The monster is loose in the streets tonight. The Guard will be powerless to control them. They must secure what can be secured, and then hide from the fires that will burn here tonight in the darkness.”

  * * *

  Moozh’s troops were exhausted, but when, late in the afternoon, they crested a pass and saw smoke in the distance, it put new vigor into their steps. They knew as well as Moozh did that a city on fire is a city that is not about to defend itself. Besides, they knew that they had accomplished something remarkable, to cover such a distance on foot. And even though there were only a thousand of them, they knew that if they achieved a victory, their names would live forever, if not individually, then as a part of Moozh’s Thousand. They could almost hear their grandchildren already asking them, Was it true you marched from Khlam to Basilica in two days, and took the city that night without resting, and without a man of you killed?

  Of course, that last part of the story wasn’t yet a foregone conclusion. Who knew what the condition inside Basilica really was. What if the soldiers of Gaballufix had already consolidated their position inside the city, and now were prepared to defend it? The Gorayni soldiers well knew they had barely food for another meal; if they didn’t take the city tonight, in darkness, they would have to break their fast in the morning and take the city by daylight—or flee ignominiously down into the Cities of the Plain, where their enemies could see how few they really were, and cut them to pieces long before they could make it back north. So yes, victory was possible—but it was also essential, and it had to be now.

  So why were they so confident, when desperation would have been more understandable? Because they were Moozh’s Thousand, and Moozh had never lost. There was no better general in the history of the Gorayni. He was careful of his men; he defeated his enemies, not by expending his men in bloody assaults, but through maneuver and deft blows, isolating the enemy, cutting off supplies, dividing the enemy’s forces, and so disorienting the opposing generals that they began taking foolish chances just to get the battle over with and stop the endless, terrifying ballet. His soldiers called it “Dancing with Moozh,” the quick marches; they knew that by wearing out their feet, Moozh was saving their yatsas. Oh, yes, they loved him—he made them victors without sending too many of them home as a small sack of ashes.

  There were even whispers in the ranks that their beloved Moozh was the real incarnation of God, and even though usually none would say it aloud—at least not where an intercessor could hear them—on this march, with no intercessor along, the whispers became a good deal more frequent. That fat-assed fellow back in Gollod was no incarnation of God, in a world that included a real man like Vozmuzhalnoy Vozmozhno!

  A kilometer away from Basilica, they could hear some of the sounds coming out of the city—screams, mostly, carried by the wind, which was blowing smoke toward them now. The order came through the ranks: Cut down branches, a dozen or more per man, so we can light enough smoky bonfires to make the enemy think we are a hundred thousand. They hacked and tore at the trees near the road, and then followed Moozh down a winding trail from the mountains into the desert. Moonlight was a treacherous guide, especially burdened as they were with boughs, but there were few injuries though many fell, and in the darkness they fanned out across the desert, separating widely from each other, leaving vast empty spaces between the groups of men. There they built their piles of branches, and at the blare of a trumpet—who in the city could hear it?—they lit all the fires. Then, leaving one man at each bonfire to add boughs to keep the flames alive, the rest of the army gathered behind Moozh and marched, this time in four columns abreast, as if they were the bold advance guard for a huge army, up a wide flat road toward a gap in the high walls of the city.

  Even before they reached the walls, they found themselves in the middle of a veritable city. There were men running and shouting there—many of them clearly oversatisfied with wine—but when they saw Moozh’s army marching through their street, they fell silent and backed away into the shadows. If any of the Gorayni had lacked confidence before, they gained it now, for it was clear that the men of Basilica had no fight in them. What boldness they had was nothing but the bravado of drink.

  As they drew near to the gate, they heard the clang of metal on metal that suggested a pitched battle. Cresting a rise they saw a battle in progress, between men clad in the same uniform as the assassin that Moozh had killed, and other men who were terrifyingly identical—not just their clothing, but even their faces were all the same!

  Word passed down the columns: The men in the uniform of the Basilican guard will probably be our allies; our true enemies are the ones in masks. But slay no one until Moozh gives the order.

  They reached the flat, clear area before the gate, and quickly split into two ranks left, two ranks right, until a semicircle formed surrounding the gate. In the middle of the semicircle stood Moozh himself.

  “Gorayni, draw your weapons!” He bawled out the command—clearly he meant to be heard as much by the men fighting at the gate as by his own army, which normally would have received the command as a whisper down the ranks.

  The fighting at the gate slackened. The men in the uniforms of the Basilican guard—few of them indeed to be making such a brave stand—saw the Gorayni troops and despaired. They fell back against the wall, uncertain which enemy to fight, but certain of this: That they would not live out the hour.

  In the middle of the gate, their enemies withdrawn, the soldiers of identical faces also stood, uncertain of what to do next.

  “We are the Gorayni. We have come to help Basilica, not to conquer her!” cried Moozh. “Look out in the desert and see the army we could bring to bear against the gates of your city!”

  Moozh had chosen his gate well—from here all the Basilicans, guard and Palwashantu mercenaries alike, could see the bonfires, at least a hundred of them, stretching far across the desert.

  “Yet only these five hundred have I brought to the gate!” Of course he lied about the number of men he had; his men smiled inwardly to know that for once he was only four hundred off, instead of forty thousand, which was the more usual lie. “We are here to ask if the City of Women, the City of Peace, might use our services to help quell a domestic disturbance. We will enter, serve the city at your pleasure, and leave when our task is accomplished. Thus do I speak in the name of General Vozmuzhalnoy Vozmozhno!” There was no reason to let them know that the most fearsome general on the western shores of the Earthbound Sea was standing before their gates with his sword sheathed and only nine hundred men to back him up. Let them think the general himself was out with the tens of thousands of troops tenting around the great bonfires in the desert!

  “Sir,” cried one of the guard. “You see how it is with us! We are the guard of the city, but how can we find out the will of our council, when we are fighting for our lives against these mad criminals!”

  “We are the masters of Basilica now!” shouted one of the identical Palwashantu mercenaries. “No more taking the orders of women! No more being forced to stay outside the city that is ours by right! We rule this city now in the name of Gaballufix!”

  “Gaballufix is dead!” shouted the officer of the guard. “And you are ruled by no man!”

  “In the name of Gaballufix this city is ours!” And with that the mercenaries brandished their weapons and shouted.

  “Men of Gaballufix!” cried Moozh. “We have heard the name of your fallen leader!”

  The mercenaries cheered again.

  “We know how to honor Gaballufix!” Moozh shouted. “Come out to us, and stand with us, and we will give you the city you deserve!”