“Philistia, Light of the Navigators, the crown jewel of the Eastern Sea.” It was difficult to see the khan’s face from where Jel was crouched, but the tone of his voice was loving, even grandfatherly, as he recited from Ypsion’s poetry. “He who would master it must first master himself.”

The generals crowded around the map table exchanged uneasy glances.

“Poetry, my friends, from the great Philistian poet of this or any age. You would do well to read it.”

“Great khan, about our assault…” one of the generals stretched out his hand, indicating a point on the map. Probably the Gate of Thorns, where there had been rumors of heavy fighting.

The khan unsheathed a dagger and drove it into the map–through his general’s intervening hand. “You would do well to read it!” he snarled, his voice taking on the tenor one might expect from a ravisher of empires. “Philistia is the key to the Eastern Sea, and without it our campaign stops at the shore!”

Whimpering, the general made no reply. Jel had to restrain a shocked gasp.

“But the coordination of our attacks has faltered. We’ve fallen victim to sortie after sortie. Spies infiltrate our lines at every point and the countryside welcomes us not as liberators but as conquerors. Until we have overcome these problems–mastered ourselves–we will never take the city. We must, if our empire is to grow and our message is to spread.”