text: Kirana turned over the hourglass on her desk and watched the black granules slip through it for the fourth time in a quarter hour. Her daughters played in the waiting area outside her study. She did not usually want them up here, but after what had happened back on her world, she wanted them close. Wanted to hear the sound of their laughter.
  
  She had left Yisaoh with a force of over a hundred to look after her, including several of her most trusted jistas. It was not a good time to be short of jistas, but if Yisaoh died… what was all of this for?
  
  The sand ran its course.
  
  She turned over the hourglass again.
  
  Kirana had fought herself before, on this world. But that Kirana had been a sickly pacifist. That Kirana would never have considered leaping across worlds to hurt that which Kirana most valued. But the question that Kirana kept coming back to was… why? Why murder Yisaoh and Tasia? So she could bring across her own children to Raisa? But that would also mean that Kirana had to kill her, if she meant to come over. It made her head hurt.
  
  Monshara had burned out the Dhai camp where they found Tasia, but if Yisaoh, this world's Yisaoh, had been there, she had survived the attack, because her own wife could not come through. Yisaoh remained stuck, and time was, as ever, shorter and shorter. Never enough time.
  
  And Suari was missing. She had relished the thought of torturing him slowly, over many days, but when she sent soldiers to look for him, he was missing, his meager belongings gone. Was he conspiring with her other self? For what purpose? Maybe the other version of her was nicer to her omajistas.
  
  A knock at the door. "Kai? Commissar Gian has arrived."
  
  "Send her up."
  
  "Would you like the children to stay?"
  
  "No, have the nanny take them to the library below."
  
  The servant pressed thumb to forehead, and conferred with the girls and their nanny outside. That was a good little Dhai, that one. Kirana wondered if she were too good. She rubbed her face. Lies, backstabbing, betrayal. She was always waiting for one of them to ruin her, because so many clearly wanted to. Why now, though, when they were successful? She had saved their fucking lives, all her people, and the thanks she got was Suari fleeing like a fucking jilted lover.
  
  She went back into her bedroom and changed into a clean tunic. Washed her face with tepid water from a little basin. When she arrived back into the assembly chamber, one of the Dhai had put out tea and wine. Her remaining stargazers, led by Masis, were laying out their work on the table. One of her line commanders, Yivsa, was in attendance while Madah managed forces on the plateau.
  
  Gian arrived, escorted by another of Kirana's omajistas. Gian brought with her the familiar faces from the ark, her lovers or seconds or cousins; Kirana had never asked. Kirana had permitted her to bring three of her own jistas, as well, making her party a rather large assemblage of seven.
  
  The chamber was full for the first time since Kirana had taken it. Gian looked better after some doctoring and food. Her mouth was a thin line.
  
  "Kirana," Gian said.
  
  "Gian," Kirana said. "Will you sit? I apologize we don't have chairs for everyone, and I know it was a long series of steps."
  
  Kirana sat first, gesturing for Gian to sit opposite. Gian hesitated a moment, then was seated. Her jistas kept at her back. One of the Dhai servants poured them all tea, but no one touched it.
  
  "Thank you for attending," Kirana said. "I wanted us to better understand what we need to do together. Could you go through it step by step for us, Masis? For the benefit of our allies here?"
  
  Masis laid out the translated pages of the Worldbreaker guide, each a detailed map of the underground chambers that she had discovered beneath each of the temples, as well as a diagram of the great lumbering beast they had dredged up, the fifth temple.
  
  "The temples are engines," Masis said, "built for harnessing and focusing the power of the satellites. That's why all four satellites must be in the sky in order for them to work. The front matter is mostly myth and legend. It was written at least fifty or sixty years after the last rising of Oma."
  
  "After they failed," Gian said.
  
  "Yes." Masis pointed out the symbols next to each chamber diagram. "Four jistas, one to call each satellite, stand around a fifth figure, at the center, that must channel their power through each of the four temples to the fifth temple. We have been calling these people at the center 'conduits'. They can be any type of jista. But inside the fifth temple, the setup is different."
  
  He tapped a different diagram, an intricately detailed room with multiple rings and intersecting lines labeled along the floors and walls. Here there were pedestals for seven figures. Four surrounding a fifth, around a massive orb at the center where the fifth would stand. The orb was labeled "Worldbreaker." "Guide" was written at the entrance to the chamber. Another placement, just in front of the central orb, was labeled "Key."
  
  "So, the power is concentrated at this fifth engine," Kirana said. "Let's call them what they are."
  
  "Correct," Masis said. "As we intuited, it's the person here, at the orb, that can use that combined power to… do anything, really."
  
  "Define anything," Gian said.
  
  Masis rubbed his chin. "Once they are fully powered, the Worldbreaker, or Worldshaper, depending on your translation of it, must manipulate the mechanism according to a set of rules that determine the outcomes."
  
  "Slow down there," Kirana said. "Worldshaper? Why haven't I heard that translation before? Every text prior has referenced a Worldbreaker."
  
  "This book is older," Masis said, "and the dialect is slightly different. I would not be comfortable saying it was one or the other."
  
  Kirana nodded. "All right. What else?"
  
  Masis continued, "The simplest way to use this device is to close the ways between this world, Raisa, and all of the others. Those instructions are in the book itself, here." He pointed to the page opposite the diagram of the fifth temple. "But it also refers to a more complicated set of instructions appearing in the appendix."
  
  "What do those do?" Gian asked.
  
  Masis gave a small shrug. "I'm afraid we don't know."
  
  Even Kirana found that surprising. This, Suari had kept from her. "You don't know?"
  
  "No, Kai… I mean, Empress. The book refers to an appendix. But I'm afraid the book has no appendix. It was torn out long before we received it."
  
  Had Luna torn it out? Kirana thought, somewhere between the time ze washed up on the shores of Dorinah and when Kirana locked hir in the gaol? That tricky little ataisa.
  
  "We'll have time to explore other ways to use its power," Kirana said. "Para should remain in the sky for a time, even after we use this combined power to close the ways. Is that still correct, based on your translations?"
  
  "Yes," Masis said, "and for a much longer period than we suspected. While the engines themselves must be powered within the first two days of Para's rise, Para itself should remain risen with the other satellites for a full year, perhaps a little more."
  
  "Good," Kirana said. "Let's concentrate on who we need to power this thing. What's this about a key and a guide? The Saiduan were looking for a worldbreaker. That can just be an omajista?"
  
  "The engines themselves are sentient," Masis said. "They choose a key and a guide, we believe, but the Worldbreaker is simply one who harnesses that power. The only requirement seems to be that the Worldbreaker understand the instructions on how to use the mechanism and have some sensitivity to one of the satellites."
  
  Kirana drummed her fingers on the table. "I have coteries of jistas now at each engine," she said, "waiting on my word to take their places the moment Para rises. No sleep until that fucking satellite goes down or we seal ourselves off from these invaders. But whom do I assign as a conduit? Does it matter? Any type of jista? Gian will need to know this, so we may decide how best to deploy our jistas."
  
  "It doesn't matter in the text," Masis said, "but I'd put your most powerful in the role of conduit at each of the four other temples. They will need to be able to channel a great deal of power without burning out."
  
  "You all seem to be skipping the most important thing," Gian said. "If these engines won't respond to Kirana, and if we still have not found a Guide or a Key, we could have three thousand jistas in each temple and not see a result."
  
  "Well…" Masis said, nervously moving the diagrams around on the table. "There is this bit of translation that Talahina and I worked on. It's… a little poetic and strange, but–"
  
  "Come, Masis," Kirana said.
  
  He cleared his throat. "The book says the Key and the Guide will be drawn to the fifth temple. Through some supernatural or divine means? I don't know. Perhaps a pheromone the temple itself gives off? If this is true, well… perhaps the Guide and the Key will… enter the fifth temple when Para rises. We have only to be there to follow them."
  
  "That's trusting far too much in fate," Kirana said. "If you had not intuited, Masis, I am not a woman content to rely on fate."
  
  "I understand," Masis said. "Talahina, will you present your idea?"
  
  Talahina, the young stargazer who hardly ever spoke, squeezed her way past the jistas and soldiers to take a place at the table. She fluttered her hands nervously, and stared mostly at the table. "Yes, Empress," Talahina said. "We… That is, I have considered another way into the fifth temple."
  
  "And?" Kirana said. She could not keep the irritation from her voice. Too much waiting. Too much disseminating.
  
  "We have treated the temples as if they are inorganic," Talahina said. "I propose that we consider them as beasts, and approach them that way."
  
  "They are beasts with very tough skins," Kirana said.
  
  "Indeed," Talahina said. "But beasts… must breathe. Even underwater, the fifth temple had access to oxygen, certainly."
  
  "Do we know that they breathe air?" Gian said.
  
  "It's very likely," Talahina said, "though we suspect they intake it through either their skin, or the complex root systems at the bottom of each temple. Perhaps both."
  
  "You want us to suffocate it?" Kirana said. "But what if we kill it?"
  
  "I… We could consider starving it… slowly. Over time. They are sentient beasts. A few minutes here, a few minutes there, each time demanding entrance. I was… I apologize, Empress, it was just a thought."
  
  "An interesting one to come from a scholar," Kirana said. "I would have expected that suggestion from Madah." She turned over that idea for a few moments, then, "I approve of the attempt. We can do this without Gian's jistas, surely?"
  
  Talahina nodded, and stepped away from the table, back into the anonymity of the crowd.
  
  "Do you have more questions, Gian?" Kirana asked.
  
  "Not at this time. Could we speak privately?"
  
  "Of course." Kirana dismissed the scholars and jista.
  
  Masis collected his diagrams and hurried away with Himsa, Orhin and Talahina, their soft robes brushing against the floor.
  
  Gian's retinue stood and waited for her in the doorway, far enough to give them some privacy, but not so far that they could not keep an eye on her.
  
  "How can I trust you with all this power?" Gian asked.
  
  Kirana prickled. This alliance was already annoying her. She took a breath, remembering the stink of Yisaoh's wound.
  
  "How could I trust you with it?" Kirana asked. "You understand that as part of this alliance, I am happy for your people to inhabit any region you wish. Any but this one."
  
  "What's to stop you from using this power to murder all of us, once you figure out other ways to direct its power?"
  
  "There isn't anything stopping us," she said. "That's why it's in your interest to have your jistas work together with mine in the belly of these engines. What I told you back at your ark is true. I'm weary of war, Gian. You don't want it either."
  
  "How can I trust that?"
  
  "You can't, there's no guarantee."
  
  "There is a way."
  
  Kirana felt heat move up her face. "If you think–"
  
  "I want a warded promise," Gian said.
  
  Kirana could not hide her own shock at the suggestion. She fairly reared back in her chair.
  
  Gian leaned forward. "If you are so eager for peace," she said, "a warded alliance should be a small thing to ask."
  
  "Wards can be removed."
  
  "Not without the other party knowing," she said. "You and I will always know if the other has gone back on their word, or is preparing to."
  
  "A ward still doesn't keep one of us from ordering the other killed," Kirana said.
  
  "There is a far better type of ward," Gian said. "One you will greatly appreciate. Created by a tirajista and a sinajista. It ties our lives together. One to the other. If you die, I die, and vice versa. It ensures that neither party seeks to assassinate the other."
  
  "What if your heart gives out? Or you drown? I won't be tethered to your bad fortune. No."
  
  Gian stood abruptly. "Then we are done."
  
  "What will you do without our alliance?"
  
  "We will make a place for ourselves," she said. "We need you far less than you imagine."
  
  "What do you have left?" Kirana said. "A thousand people? Many died in that fall."
  
  "Which is why I won't risk more of them for a fool plan for which I have no guarantees."
  
  Kirana shifted her hands into her lap and squeezed her fists. She knew what Yisaoh would say to this. Peace required sacrifices.
  
  "I agree, then," Kirana said. "But I want the ward interrogated and understood and created in concert with my people."
  
  Gian sat back down. "That is agreeable."
  
  "How many can you send with us, to protect and to power each of these temples?"
  
  "I will speak to my people. Your Sai Hofsha is still about. I can give her the message when we have decided. As you understand, the way we make decisions is communal, not tyrannical. It can take some time."
  
  "You have until Para rises," Kirana said. "I'm sorry, I don't rule the heavens." Not yet, she thought, but there was a budding hope now, more than there had been in many months.
  
  They discussed the temples and their engines for some time longer, and more urgent but boring issues, like where to house Gian's people; she preferred to keep them in the ark, which meant repairs, and constructing aqueducts. The infrastructure question was always top of her mind, right after food. Sanitation was becoming an issue.
  
  Kirana felt the knot in her gut ease after several hours, when Gian finally drank from her cold teacup and asked for wine.
  
  This is going to work, Kirana thought. The realization was a warm balm that softened her tight, terrified gut.