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time, searching perhaps for some emotion deep inside himself, some guide. “Yes,” he said at length. “I believe you are quite correct. Let us leave them as they are.” He put his hands on the ruby bones, his fingers feeling along their lengths. Then, with the aid of a chair back, he stood up for the first time and, strangely, the immediate sensation was one of enormous freedom. It was not until much later that he realized how much lighter his new legs were compared to the ones of flesh and real bone.
    The rain had begun. Aerent’s spine arched involuntarily as the first drops pattered against his back. The sky above Sha’angh’sei was dark and rippling like a great beast’s underbelly. Thunder rolled distantly.
    â€œIt was all right then, after that,” the Regent said.
    Moichi had to think for a moment. “Yes. I knew which streets to avoid.”
    Aerent nodded. “Good. Those idiots!” He meant the Greens who had attacked Moichi and the messenger. “Omojiru, Du-Sing’s son, was found in a room on the second floor of a tavern on Green Dolphin Street.”
    â€œWhich one?”
    â€œ The Screaming Monkey , I am told.”
    â€œNot the most savory of inns. Have you been there yet?”
    â€œNo. I deemed it prudent to wait until morning. Nothing has been touched.”
    â€œYou’ve seen the body?”
    â€œYes. It was brought here. Du-Sing picked it up some time later.”
    â€œHow was the young man killed?”
    â€œWith great efficiency, I am afraid. It was no street brawl.”
    â€œHardly accidental, then.”
    â€œNo. The sword strokes were as brutal as they were efficacious. He was murdered by an expert.”
    â€œMurdered?”
    â€œHis sword was still in his scabbard. I ascertained, subsequently, that it had not been used.”
    â€œI see. But why does Du-Sing suspect the Reds?”
    â€œIt comes down, I think, to the places Omojiru frequented. It was rumored that he was the black sheep of the family but the old man ignored this as much as he was able. Still, it is fairly well known that the lad used the gambling houses in the Tejira Quarter.”
    â€œTerritory of the Hung Pang.”
    The Regent nodded soberly. “And then there were the girls. It is said that Omojiru had a voracious appetite for girls. Four and five a night. None, they tell me, over the age of twelve.” His arms like corded steel and he was up again, springing lightly across the room far more quickly than any normal man could manage it, the mantis afoot. “Omojiru, it can be readily seen, was far from a source of pride to DuSing. Still, he was family and, of course, a Green. All other distinctions have been made irrelevant by death.”
    Moichi looked into his friend’s eyes. “I do not think that it matters to Du-Sing whether or not the Reds actually killed his son.”
    â€œIn that you are wrong, Moichi,” the Regent said. “But I see your point. The war between the Greens and the Reds is an inevitable course in Sha’angh’sei. I see that clearly now. No truce could hold for long. This city must find its own course. Not one man or one woman, nor even a group of people, can impose their ultimate will here. Even Kiri knew that, did not attempt to cross certain natural barriers, and she was a hereditary ruler, an extraordinary individual. I doubt that anyone else could have united the Greens and Reds for the Kai-feng.
    â€œWell, I am here now and I am not Kiri. I do what I can, what I must to keep this city together. But Sha’angh’sei is an unstoppable entity and this is its intrinsic strength, I firmly believe. To tamper with it would be to risk the dissipating of its life-force and this I will not do.”
    â€œYou will not try to end the war?”
    Aerent smiled. “I did not say that, my friend. I merely state what is. One must learn, in this capacity, in what ways one can be most