"Mama," came the whisper. "I can't sleep. Make them stop crying..."

Rabi enfolded her daughter in her arms, caressing the blonde tresses gently as she knelt down in the pool of silk formed by her nightgown. She glanced back at the pallet and its sleeping form there; at once she felt both wonder and horror that the man could so peacefully slumber through the painful chorus he had set in motion at the orders of his master. Love of my heart, I know it gives you no joy to do this... but it gives you no pain, either, does it? It is just something you do. A deep shudder passed through her, shivering her silks into a dance of frightened motion.

"Mama?" whispered Drisana. "I'm scared."

Out in the courtyard, the spitted men cried out their wordless anguish, the sounds muffled by pain and the lack of tongue. Rabi could smell the faint and sweet scent of their flesh cooking over the fire and her imagination supplied all the details with a sick, unstoppable eagerness: layers of skin blackening, curling back; wisps of white smoke from the blood and lymph and fat flashing away; hair like thousands of tiny sticks of incense burning in fast-motion, a dot of red racing up from tip to strand until the myriad of tiny lights, like stars, joined in the communal roasting of the scalp.

Healers stood by, Rabi knew -- magicians to restore the health of the men just enough so that they would survive. Already they had... lived, if one could call it that, for four days.

It will be over soon. She wished she had the voice to tell this to her little girl, to comfort the child, but men like those outside had killed her parents and cut her throat and in that instant had robbed her of the sweet ability to speak to her children. No. Not like these men. The others were animals. These were only poor, misguided men driven blind and cruel stupid by grief.

But that wasn't quite true. It was true that the man sleeping so quietly on the pallet -- the love of her heart -- oversaw the distruction of the family of those now turning in pain unending out in the courtyard. But it was because they had rebelled against the rightful God and King of the Varati, against Khalid Atar himself. Unity is so essential -- such rebellion cannot be tolerated! She should have been filled with righteous anger. But instead there was only fear, like Drisana's, and a terrible yawning grief.

Rabi gathered Drisana up and together they went out into the main room. Aba, the family's old servant woman, was already up. The elderly servant's face was pale and looked more drawn then usual -- the screams had kept her, too, from restful sleep. At the two's entrance her expression shifted from fearful sleeplessness to something like relief -- now she had someone to take care of, something to focus on besides the mewling sounds that drifted up from the courtyard outside. Rabi wondered if anyone but her Imphadi was sleeping well this night. Is he truly sleeping well?

The moon was bright and full, casting broad beams of silver that streamed through the filigree-decorated clerestory windows. Normally such a sight would fill Rabi with wonder and contentment, but now the only thing she noticed was the motes of dust dancing in from outside: ashes, from the men below who had been slowly burning for four days. She shivered again and settled down on her cushions, snuggling Drisana close, as Aba busied herself in the kitchen making tea and hot chocolate.

"I'm scared," Drisana murmured again, and Rabi nodded. There was a low table near at hand and she rested her fingertips on it. The magical power awoke within her and flowed down through her hand into the stone and the stone answered. Ripples formed, little ones at first, and then the ripples joined to make curves and lines and dots in ordered groups: letters.

"I'm scared too," said the letters in the stone, and Rabi nudged Drisana so that the girl looked over. Slowly, lips moving, the child read the moon-edged words that waited for her patiently. Big black eyes turned away from the writing to seek out the face of her mother. "Mama," she said. "Make them stop crying." Her eyes glimmered with tears.

The surface of the table smoothed, letters sinking down, and new ones rose up to take their place. "I can't," Rabi explained through the medium of her magic. "It is their punishment."

After few minutes sounding out the new words, Drisana asked a question: "Why?"

Again, the stony surface of the table shifted and changed. "These are the men who wanted to cast down the Most High. They were warned and they did not stop. So your father was sent to stop them. He destroyed the Clan. These men survived and hated him for what he did, even though what he did was their fault for rebelling. They wanted to hurt him, and so they attacked us, and now they are being punished for doing it."

Reading all this took a long time, and while Drisana was carefully working her way through the words and concepts, Aba arrived with the tea and cocoa. She knelt down painfully, setting down the tray on the floor so as not to cover up Rabi's explanation, and poured out the drinks. "Thank you, Grandma," said Drisana quietly as she took her chocolate in hand. But she did not drink, her wide dark eyes focused on her mother's attempt at communication. The little girl was still full of the terror of the alley-way attack, of the sound of the arrows of the Abassid traitors raining down, of the smell of blood flowing from her mother, from the beloved slave Auvrey, and from Aba too, and of the flash of steel that was the heart of the aborted attempt to kill the family. And worst of all was the fear of being alone again, as she was before Rabi found her and convinced the stern old general to adopt her.

Why must such little ones suffer so? Rabi thought. Drisana was only five years old.

"Why does Father hurt them so much, Mama?" Drisana asked.

Shift. Stillness. Then new words: "Because the God-King ordered him to."

"Why?"

"So that everyone will know how bad their crime was, and so that everyone will know that the punishment is terrible."

Drisana set down her cup on top of the word 'terrible' and turned to bury her face in Rabi's shoulder. Her reply was muffled. "I wish they would stop screaming."

Rabi wrapped her arms around Drisana's shoulders. So do I, she thought.  

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