Shadow's Son by Shirley Meier, S.M. Stirling and Karen Wehrstein ...

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her thoughts, sometimes making sense, sometimes not, punctuated like all arguments with irritating
stupidities, and every now and then held by the one voice that no others would interrupt, no matter how
quietly it spoke.
Chiravesa. A Yeoli word; it meant playing something out, in your head, or with others; imagining,
intensely, making it feel real.Shkai'ra's wounded, at best. If I want to save Lixand, I'll have to kill
him .
She turned to watch his face, its sharp lines smoothed by firelight, the dark eyes one moment sincere and
forceful, the next creased with laughter, flamelight catching on a gold tooth.When he laughs, his eyes
dance with all the joy he was torn from before . Other people at camp-fires wore some armor often,
weapons usually; she did herself. Chevenga never wore so much as an eating-knife—he didn't need one,
eating only odd-looking vegetable concoctions his Haian prepared, apparently, out of little bowls always
brought by a younger brother or sister—or wristlets, usually going bare-chested. To show he trusted his
warriors to protect him, she guessed, or let people see Arko's marks on him; he was too calculating a
person to be doing it just because of the heat.
She watched his good hand, bearing the white signet, gesturing ceaselessly in the Yeoli way, shaping this
or that meaning with the grace of life-long practice.I will kill him. I will touch him with a claw full of
traceless poison, and he will die, as if from summer fever. One touch, and that will be the end of
him, his name scattered to the wind, and my son back with me. His name scattered to the wind, so
what? A year ago I'd never heard it …
"In an autocracy there's no balance!" Some Yeoli woman declaimed. "No check, no give and take! So
all its institutions are subject to corruption, to losing sight of their ostensible purpose of keeping order,
and being abused for base urges against which there's no recourse. I mean—please, everyone,
understand I'm comparing no one's customs totheirs , but I can't think of a better example. Look at the
Arkans, and what they do to captives, lower castes, women, children, dogs, trees, everything else that
can't either run faster or hit them with something sharp…"
I will kill him. They'll have to figure out how to do without him.
"All to keep the social order, they say… but, well, come on! It would be ridiculous, for instance, to look
at our Chevenga here with a straight face and say, "What they did to you while you were helpless, shit,
they never did forpleasure , did they? I mean, you could feel it was all for sacred duty, couldn't you?' "
A sudden silence fell; everyone was looking at him for an answer, even though, by the sudden
swallowed-a-peach-pit look on the Yeoli's face, she'd meant the question rhetorically. But the
semanakraseye spread the fingers of his good hand, and answered."They seemed to find their duty and
their pleasure," the soft voice said, "by some lucky coincidence, happily allied."
Laughter broke out all around the fire; one man fell off the log, he laughed so hard—though he managed
to keep the horn-cup in his hand upright—making Megan wonder what he'd seen or suffered to make
this so funny. "I'm putting it facetiously," Chevenga said, when the mirth quieted, "but it's true. By saying it
is duty, they can excuse the pleasure, and so make it purer; by feeling the pleasure they can give
themselves credit for enjoying duty. Virtue, either way; a very nice arrangement."
I will kill him, and have Lixand back. Myrokatzkwould be a fool to renege. And we will still win
the war; it has enough momentum .
"Cheng." A drunken man. "When you learned that, when you got to feel that attheir expense, it was a