A Betrayal in Winter

comments, asked questions crafted to keep the conversation alive and on

its course. His mind was hardly there.

When at last he made his excuses, the three debaters hardly paused in

their wrangle. Otah dried himself by a brazier and collected his

robes-laundered now, smelling of cedar oil and warm from the kiln. The

streets were fuller than when he had gone into the bathhouse. The sun

would fall early, disappearing behind the peaks to the west long before

the sky grew dark, but it still hovered two hands above the mountainous

horizon.

Otah walked without knowing where he was walking to. The black cobbles

and tall houses seemed familiar and exotic at the same time. The towers

rose into the sky, glowing in the sunlight. At the intersection of three

large streets, Otah found a courtyard with a great stone archway inlaid

with wood and metal sigils of chaos and order. Harsh forge smoke from

the east mixed with the greasy scent of a cart seller's roasting duck

and, for a moment, Otah was possessed by the memory of being a child no

more than four summers old. The smoke scent wove with the taste of

honeybread nearly too hot to eat, the clear open view of the valley and

mountains from the top of the towers, and a woman's skin-mother or

sister or servant. There was no way to know.

It was a ghost memory, strong and certain as stone, but without a place

in his life. Something had happened, once, that tied all these senses

together, but it was gone and he would never have it. He was upstart and

traitor. Poisoner and villain. None of it was true, but it made for an

interesting story to tell in the teahouses and meeting rooms-a variation

on the theme of fratricide that the Khaiem replayed in every generation.

A deep fatigue pressed into him. He had been an innocent to think that

he might be forgotten, that Otah Machi might escape the venomous

speculation of the traders and merchants, high families and low

townsmen. There was no use for truth when spectacle was at issue. And

there was nothing in the city that could matter less than the

halfrecalled memories of a courier's abandoned childhood. The life he'd

built mattered less than ashes to these people. His death would be a

relief to them.

He returned to House Nan just as the stars began to glimmer in the deep

northern sky. There was fresh bread and pepper-baked lamb, distilled

rice wine and cold water. The other men who were to share his room

joined him at the table, and they laughed and joked, traded information

and gossip from across the world. Otah slid back comfortably into Itani

Noygu, and his smiles came more easily as the night wore on, though a

cold core remained in his breast. It was only just before he went to

crawl into his cot that he found the steward, recovered his pouch of

letters, and prepared himself.

All the letters were, of course, still sewn shut, but Otah checked the

knots. None had been undone so far as he could tell. It would have been

a breach of the gentleman's trade to open letters held in trust, and it

would have been foolishness to trust to honor. Had House Nan been

willing to break trust, that would have been interesting to know as

well. He laid them out on his cot, considering.

Letters to the merchant houses and lower families among the utkhaiem

were the most common. He didn't carry a letter for the Khai himself-he

would have balked at so high a risk-but his work would take him to the

palaces. And there were audiences, no doubt, to which he could get an

invitation. If he chose, he could go to the Master of Tides and claim

business with members of the court. It wouldn't even require stretching

the truth very far. He sat in silence, feeling as if there were two men

within him.

One wanted nothing more than to embrace the fear and flee to some

distant island and be pleased to live wondering whether his brothers

would still be searching him out. The other was consumed by an anger

that drove him forward, deeper into the city of his birth and the family

that had first discarded him and then fashioned a murderer from his memory.

Fear and anger. He waited for the calm third voice of wisdom, but it

didn't come. He was left with no better plan than to act as Irani Noygu

would have, had he been nothing other than he appeared. When at last he

repacked his charges and lay on his cot, he expected that sleep would

not come, but it did, and he woke in the morning forgetful of where he

was and surprised to find that Kiyan was not in the bed beside him.

The palaces of the Khai were deep within the city, and the gardens

around them made it seem more like a walk into some glorious low town

than movement into the center of a great city. Trees arched over the

walkways, branches bright with new leaves. Birds fluttered past him,

reminding him of Udun and the wayhouse he had almost made his home. The

greatest tower loomed overhead, dark stone rising up like twenty

palaces, one above the other. Otah stopped in a courtyard before the

lesser palace of the Master of Tides and squinted up at the great tower,

wondering whether he had ever been to the top of it. Wondering whether

being here, now, was valor, cowardice, foolishness, or wisdom; the

product of anger or fear or the childish drive to show that he could

defy them all if he chose.

He gave his name to the servants at the door and was led to an an

techamber larger than his apartments back in Udun. A slave girl plucked

a lap harp, filling the high air with a sweet, slow tune. He smiled at

her and took a pose of appreciation. She returned his smile and nodded,

but her fingers never left the strings. The servant, when he came, wore

robes of deep red shot with yellow and a silver armband. He took a pose

of greeting so brief it almost hadn't happened.

"Irani Noygu. You're Itani Noygu, then? Ah, good. I am Piyun See, the

Master of Tides' assistant. He's too busy to see you himself. So House

Siyanti has taken an interest in Machi, then?" he said. Otah smiled,

though he meant it less this time.

"I couldn't say. I only go where they send me, Piyun-cha."

The assistant took a pose of agreement.

"I had hoped to know the court's schedule in the next week," Otah said.

"I have business-"

"With the poet. Yes, I know. He left your name with us. He said we

should keep a watch out for you. You're wise to come to us first. You

wouldn't imagine the people who simply drift through on the breeze as if

the poets weren't members of the court."

Otah smiled, his mouth tasting of fear, his heart suddenly racing. The

poet of Machi-Cehmai 'Ivan, his name was-had no reason to know Itani

Noygu or expect him. This was a mistake or a trap. If it was a trap, it

was sloppy, and if a mistake, dangerous. The lie came to his lips as

gracefully as a rehearsed speech.

"I'm honored to have been mentioned. I hadn't expected that he would

remember me. But I'm afraid the business I've come on may not be what he

had foreseen."

"I wouldn't know," the assistant said as he shifted. "Visiting

dignitaries might confide in the Master of Tides, but I'm like you. I

follow orders. Now. Let me see. I can send a runner to the library, and

if he's there ..."

"Perhaps it would be best if I went to the poet's house," Otah said. "He

can find me there when he isn't-"

"Oh, we haven't put him there. Gods! He has his own rooms."

"His own rooms?"

"Yes. We have a poet of our own, you know. We aren't going to put

Cehmai-cha on a cot in the granary every time the Dai-kvo sends us a

guest. Maati-cha has apartments near the library."

The air seemed to leave the room. A dull roar filled Otah's ears, and he

had to put a hand to the wall to keep from swaying. Maati-cha. The name

came like an unforeseen blow.

Maati Vaupathai. Maati whom Otah had known briefly at the school, and to

whom he had taught the secrets he had learned before he turned his back

on the poets and all they offered. Maati whom he had found again in

Saraykeht, who had become his friend and who knew that Irani Noygu was

the son of the Khai Machi.

The last night they had seen one another-thirteen, fourteen summers

ago-Maati had stolen his lover and Otah had killed Maati's master. He

was here now, in Machi. And he was looking for Otah. He felt like a deer

surprised by the hunter at its side.

The servant girl fumbled with her strings, the notes of the tune coming

out a jangle, and Otah shifted his gaze to her as if she'd shouted. For

a moment, their eyes met and he saw discomfort in her as she hurried

back to her song. She might have seen something in his face, might have

realized who was standing before her. Otah balled his fists at his

sides, pressing them into his thighs to keep from shaking. The assistant

had been speaking. Otah didn't know what he'd said.

"Forgive me, but before we do anything, would you be so kind . . . "

Otah feigned an embarrassed simper. "I'm afraid I had one bowl of tea

too many this morning, and waters that run in, run out...."

"Of course. I'll have a slave take you to-"

"No need," Otah said as he stepped to the door. No one shouted. No one

stopped him. "I'll be back with you in a moment."

He walked out of the hall, forcing himself not to run though he could

feel his heartbeat in his neck, and his ribs seemed too small for his

breath. He waited for the warning yell to come-armsmen with drawn blades

or the short, simple pain of an arrow in his breast. Generations of his

uncles had spilled their blood, spat their last breaths perhaps here,

under these arches. He was not immune. Irani Noygu would not protect

him. He controlled himself as best he could, and when he reached the

gardens, boughs shielding him from the eyes of the palaces, he bolted.

IDAAN SAT AT THE OPEN SKY DOORS, HER LEGS HANGING OUT OVER THE VOID, and

let her gaze wander the moonlit valley. The glimmers of the low towns to

the south. The Daikani mine where her brother had gone to die. The

Poinyat mines to the west and southeast. And below the soles of her bare

feet, Machi itself: the smoke rising from the forges, the torches and

lanterns glimmering in the streets and windows smaller and dimmer than

fireflies. The winches and pulleys hung in the darkness above her, long

lengths of iron chain in guides and hooks set in the stone, ready to be

freed should there be call to haul something tip to the high reaches of

the tower or lower something down. Chains that clanked and rattled,

uneasy in the night breeze.

She leaned forward, forcing herself to feel the vertigo twist her

stomach and tighten her throat. Savoring it. Scoot forward a few inches,

no more effort really than standing from a chair, and then the sound of

wind would fill her ears. She waited as long as she could stand and then

drew hack, gasping and nauseated and trembling. But she did not pull her

legs back in. That would have been weakness.

It was an irony that the symbols of Machi's greatness were so little

used. In the winter, there was no heating them-all the traffic of the

city went in the streets, or over the snows, or through the networks of

tunnels. And even in summer, the endless spiraling stairways and the

need to haul up any wine or food or musical instruments made the gardens

and halls nearer the ground more inviting. The towers were symbols of

power, existing to show that they could exist and little enough more. A

boast in stone and iron used for storage and exotic parties to impress

visitors from the other courts of the Khaiem. And still, they made Idaan

think that perhaps she could imagine what it would he to fly. In her way

she loved them, and she loved very few things these days.

It was odd, perhaps that she had two lovers and still felt alone. Adrah

had been with her for longer, it felt, than she had been herself. And so

it had surprised her that she was so ready to betray him in another

man's bed. Perhaps she'd thought that by being a new man's lover, she

would strip off that old skin and become innocent again.

Or perhaps it was only that Cehmai had a sweet face and wanted her. She

was young, she thought, to have given tip flirtation and courtship.

She'd been angry with Adrah for embarrassing Cchmai at the dance. She'd

promised herself never to be owned by a man. And also, killing Biitrah

had left a hunger in her-a need that nothing yet had sated.

She liked Cehmai. She longed for him. She needed him in a way she

couldn't quite fathom, except to say that she hated herself less when

she was with him.

"Idaan!" a voice whispered from the darkness behind her. "Conic away

from there! You'll he seen!"

"Only if you're fool enough to bring a torch," she said, but she pulled

her feet hack in from the abyss and hauled the great bronze-bound oaken

sky doors shut. For a moment, there was nothing-black darker than

closing her eyes-and then the scrape of a lantern's hood and the flame

of a single candle. Crates and boxes threw deep shadows on the stone

walls and carved cabinets. Adrah looked pale, even in the dim light.

Idaan found herself amused and annoyed-pulled between wanting to comfort

him and the desire to point out that it wasn't his family they were

killing. She wondered if he knew yet that she had taken the poet to bed

and whether he would care. And whether she did. He smiled nervously and

glanced around at the shadows.

"He hasn't come," Idaan said.

"He will. Don't worry," Adrah said, and then a moment later: "My father

has drafted a letter. Proposing our union. He's sending it to the Khai

tomorrow."

"Good," Idaan said. "We'll want that in place before everyone finishes

dying."

"Don't."

"If we can't speak of it to each other, Adrah-kya, when will we ever? It

isn't as if I can go to our friends or the priest." Idaan took a pose of

query to some imagined confidant. "Adrah's going to take me as his wife,

but it's important that we do it now, so that when I've finished

slaughtering my brothers, he can use me to press his suit to become the

new Khai without it seeming so clearly that I'm being traded at market.

And don't you love this new robe? It's Westlands silk."

She laughed bitterly. Adrah did not step back, quite, but he did pull away.

"What is it, Idaan-kya?" he said, and Idaan was surprised by the pain in

his voice. It sounded genuine. "Have I done something to make you angry

with me?"

For a moment, she saw herself through his eyes-cutting, ironic, cruel.

It wasn't who she had been with him. Once, before they had made this

bargain with Chaos, she had had the luxury of being soft and warm. She

had always been angry, only not with him. How lost he must feel.

Idaan leaned close and kissed him. For one terrible moment, she meant

it-the softness of his lips against hers stirring something within her

that cried out to hold and be held, to weep and wail and take com fort.

Her flesh also remembered the poet, the strange taste of another man's

skin, the illusion of hope and of safety that she'd felt in her betrayal

of the man who was destined to share her life.

"I'm not angry, sweet. Only tired. I'm very tired."

"This will pass, Idaan-kya. Remember that this part only lasts a while."

"And is what follows it better?"

He didn't answer.

The candle had hardly burned past another mark when the moonfaced

assassin appeared, moving like darkness itself in his back cotton robe.

He put down his lantern and took a pose of welcome before dusting a

crate with his sleeve and sitting. His expression was pleasant as a

fruit seller in a summer market. It only made Idaan like him less.

"So," Oshai said. "You called, I've come. What seems to be the problem?"

She had intended to begin with Maati Vaupathai, but the pretense of

passive stupidity in Oshai's eyes annoyed her. Idaan raised her chin and

her brows, considering him as she would a garden slave. Adrah looked

back and forth between the two. The motion reminded her of a child

watching his parents fighting. When she spoke, she had to try not to spit.

"I would know where our plans stand," she said. "My father's ill, and I

hear more from Adrah and the palace slaves than from you."

"My apologies, great lady," Oshai said without a hint of irony. "It's

only that meetings with you are a risk, and written reports are

insupportable. Our mutual friends ..."

"The Galtic High Council," Idaan said, but Oshai continued as if she had

not spoken.

". . . have placed agents and letters of intent with six houses.

Contracts for iron, silver, steel, copper, and gold. The negotiations

are under way, and I expect we will be able to draw them out for most of

the summer, should we need to. When all three of your brothers die, you

will have been wed to Adrah, and between the powerful position of his

house, his connection with you, and the influence of six of the great

houses whose contracts will suddenly ride on his promotion to Khai, you

should be sleeping in your mother's bed by Candles Night."

"My mother never had a bed of her own. She was only a woman, remember.

Traded to the Khai for convenience, like a gift."

"It's only an expression, great lady. And remember, you'll be sharing

Adrah here with other wives in your turn."

"I won't take others," Adrah said. "It was part of our agreement."

"Of course you won't," Oshai said with a nod and an insincere smile. "My

mistake."

Idaan felt herself flush, but kept her voice level and calm when she spoke.

"And my brothers? Danat and Kaiin?"

"They are being somewhat inconvenient, it's true. They've gone to

ground. Frightened, I'm told, by your ghost brother Utah. We may have to

wait until your father actually dies before they screw up the courage to

stand against each other. But when they do, I will be ready. You know

all this, Idaan-cha. It can't be the only reason you've asked me here?"

The round, pale face seemed to harden without moving. "There had best be

something more pressing than seeing whether I'll declaim when told."

"Maati Vaupathai," Idaan said. "The Dai-kvo's sent him to study in the

library."

"Hardly a secret," Oshai said, but Idaan thought she read a moment's

unease in his eyes.

"And it doesn't concern your owners that this new poet has come for the

same prize they want? What's in those old scrolls that makes this worth

the risk for you, anyway?"

"I don't know, great lady," the assassin said. "I'm trusted with work of

this delicate nature because I don't particularly care about the points

that aren't mine to know."

"And the Galts? Are they worried about this Maati Vaupathai poking

through the library before them?"

"It's ... of interest," Oshai said, grudgingly.

"It was the one thing you insisted on," Idaan said, stepping toward the

man. "When you came to Adrah and his father, you agreed to help us in

return for access to that library. And now your price may be going away.

Will your support go, too? The unasked question hung in the chill air.

If the Galts could not have what they wanted from Adrah and Idaan and

the books of Machi, would the support for this mad, murderous scheme

remain? Idaan felt her heart tripping over faster, half hoping that the

answer might be no.

"It is the business of a poet to concern himself with ancient texts,"

Oshai said. "If a poet were to come to Machi and not avail himself of

its library, that would be odd. 't'his coincidence of timing is of

interest. But it's not yet a cause for alarm."

"He's looking into the death of Biitrah. He's been down to the mines.

He's asking questions."

"About what?" Oshai said. The smile was gone.

She told him all she knew, from the appearance of the poet to his

interest in the court and high families, the low towns and the mines.

She recounted the parties at which he had asked to he introduced, and to

whom. The name he kept mentioning-Itani Noygu. 'T'he way in which his

interest in the ascension of the next Khai Machi seemed to be more than

academic. She ended with the tale she'd heard of his visit to the

Daikani mines and to the wayhouse where her brother had died at Oshai's

hands. When she was finished, neither man spoke. Adrah looked stricken.

Oshai, merely thoughtful. At length, the assassin took a pose of gratitude.

"You were right to call me, Idaan-cha," he said. "I doubt the poet knows

precisely what he's looking for, but that he's looking at all is had

enough."

"What do we do?" Adrah said. The desperation in his voice made Oshai

look up like a hunting dog hearing a bird.

"You do nothing, most high," Oshai said. "Neither you nor the great lady

does anything. I will take care of this."

"You'll kill him," Idaan said.

"If it seems the best course, I may...."

Idaan took a pose appropriate to correcting a servant. Oshai's words faded.

"I was not asking, Oshai-cha. You'll kill him."

The assassin's eyes narrowed for a moment, but then something like

amusement flickered at the corners of his mouth and the glimmer of

candlelight in his eyes grew warmer. He seemed to weigh something in his

mind, and then took a pose of acquiescence. Idaan lowered her hands.

"Will there be anything else, most high?" Oshai asked without taking his

gaze from her.

"No," Adrah said. "'T'hat will be all."

"Wait half a hand after I've gone," Oshai said. "I can explain myself,

and the two of you together borders on the self-evident. All three would

be difficult."

And with that, he vanished. Idaan looked at the sky doors. She was

tempted to open them again, just for a moment. To see the land and sky

laid out before her.

"It's odd, you know," she said. "If I had been born a man, they would

have sent me away to the school. I would have become a poet or taken the

brand. But instead, they kept me here, and I became what they're afraid

of. Kaiin and Danat are hiding from the brother who has broken the

traditions and come back to kill them for the chair. And here I am. I am

Otah Machi. Only they can't see it."

"I love you, Idaan-kya."

She smiled because there was nothing else to do. He had heard the words,

but understood nothing. It would have meant as much to talk to a dog.

She took his hand in hers, laced her fingers with his.

"I love you too, Adrah-kya. And I will be happy once we've done all this

and taken the chair. You'll be the Khai Machi, and I will be your wife.

We'll rule the city together, just as we always planned, and everything

will be right again. It's been half a hand by now. We should go."

They parted in one of the night gardens, he to the east and his family

compound, and she to the south, to her own apartments, and past them and

west to tree-lined path that led to the poet's house. If the shutters

were closed, if no light shone but the night candle, she told herself

she wouldn't go in. But the lanterns were lit brightly, and the shutters

open. She paced quietly through the grounds, peering in through windows,

until she caught the sound of voices. Cehmai's soft and reasonable, and

then another. A man's, loud and full of a rich selfimportance. Baarath,

the librarian. Idaan found a tree with low branches and deep shadows and

sat, waiting with as much patience as she could muster, and silently

willing the man away. The full moon was halfway across the sky before

the two came to the door, silhouetted. Baarath swayed like a drunkard,

but Cehmai, though he laughed as loud and sang as poorly, didn't waver.

She watched as Baarath took a sloppy pose of farewell and stumbled off

along the path. Cehmai watched him go, then looked back into the house,

shaking his head.

Idaan rose and stepped out of the shadows.

She saw Cehmai catch sight of her, and she waited. He might have another

guest-he might wave her away, and she would have to go back through the

night to her own apartments, her own bed. The thought filled her with

black dread until the poet put one hand out to her, and with the other

motioned toward the light within his house.

Stone-Made-Soft brooded over a game of stones, its massive head cupped

in a hand twice the size of her own. The white stones, she noticed, had

lost badly. The andat looked up slowly and, its curiosity satisfied, it

turned back to the ended game. The scent of mulled wine filled the air.

Cehmai closed the door behind her, and then set about fastening the

shutters.

"I didn't expect to see you," the poet said.

"Do you want me to leave?"

'T'here were a hundred things he could have said. Graceful ways to say

yes, or graceless ways to deny it. He only turned to her with the

slightest smile and went back to his task. Idaan sat on a low couch and

steeled herself. She couldn't say why she was driven to do this, only

that the impulse was much like draping her legs out the sky doors, and

that it was what she had chosen to do.

"Daaya Vaunyogi is approaching the Khai tomorrow. He is going to

petition that Adrah and I be married."

Cehmai paused, sighed, turned to her. His expression was melancholy, but

not sorrowful. He was like an old man, she thought, amused by the world

and his own role in it. There was a strength in him, and an acceptance.

"I understand," he said.

"Do You?"

"No.'

"He is of a good house, their bloodlines-"

"And he's well off and likely to oversee his family's house when his

father passes. And he's a good enough man, for what he is. It isn't that

I can't imagine why he would choose to marry you, or you him. But, given

the context, there are other questions."

"I love him," Idaan said. "We have planned to do this for ... we have

been lovers for almost two years."

Cehmai sat beside a brazier, and looked at her with the patience of a

man studying a puzzle. The coals had burned down to a fine white ash.

"And you've come to be sure I never speak of what happened the other

night. To tell me that it can never happen again."

The sense of vertigo returned, her feet held over the abyss.

"No," she said.

"You've come to stay the night?"

"If you'll have me, yes."

The poet looked down, his hands laced together before him. A cricket

sang, and then another. The air seemed thin.

"Idaan-kya, I think it might be better if-"

"Then lend me a couch and a blanket. If you ... let me stay here as a

friend might. We are friends, at least? Only don't make me go back to my

rooms. I don't want to be there. I don't want to be with people and I

can't stand being alone. And I ... I like it here."

She took a pose of supplication. Cehmai rose and for a moment she was

sure he would refuse. She almost hoped he would. Scoot forward, no more

effort than sitting up, and then the sound of wind. But Cehmai took a

pose that accepted her. She swallowed, the tightness in her throat

lessening.

"I'll be hack. The shutters ... it might be awkward if someone were to

happen by and see you here."

"Thank you, Cehmai-kya."

He leaned forward and kissed her mouth, neither passionate nor chaste,

then sighed again and went to the back of the house. She heard the

rattle of wood as he closed the windows against the night. Idaan looked

at her hands, watching them tremble as she might watch a waterfall or a

rare bird. An effect of nature, outside herself. The andat shifted and

turned to look at her. She felt her brows rise, daring the thing to

speak. Its voice was the low rumble of a landslide.

"I have seen generations pass, girl. I've seen young men die of age. I

don't know what you are doing, but I know this. It will end in chaos.

For him, and for you."

Stone-Made-Soft went silent again, stiller than any real man, not even

the pulse of breath in it. She glared into the wide, placid face and

took a pose of challenge.

"It that a threat?" she asked.

The andat shook its head once-left, and then right, and then still as if

it had never moved in all the time since the world was young. When it

spoke again, Idaan was almost startled at the sound.

"It's a blessing," it said.

"WHAT DID HE LOOK LIKE?" MAA'I'I ASKED.

Piyun See, chief assistant to the Master of 'rides, frowned and glanced

out the window. The man sensed that he had done something wrong, even if

he could not say what it had been. It made him reluctant. Maati sipped

tea from a white stone bowl and let the silence stretch.

"A courier. He wore decent robes. He stood half a head taller than you,

and had a good face. Long as a north man's."

"Well, that will help me," Maati said. He couldn't keep his impatience

entirely to himself.

Piyun took a pose of apology formal enough to be utterly insincere.

"He had two eyes and two feet and one nose, Maati-cha. I thought he was

your acquaintance. Shouldn't you know better than I what he looks like?"

"If it is the man."

"He didn't seem pleased to hear you'd been asking after him. He made an

excuse and lit out almost as soon as he heard of you. It isn't as if 1

knew that he wasn't to be told of you. I didn't have orders to hold back

your name."

"Did you have orders to volunteer me to him?" Maati asked.

"No, but ..."

Maati waved the objection away.

"House Siyanti. You're sure of that?"

"Of course I am."

"How do I reach their compound?"

"They don't have one. House Siyanti doesn't trade in the winter cities.

He would be staying at a wayhouse. Or sometimes the houses here will let

couriers take rooms."

"So other than the fact that he came, you can tell me nothing," Maati said.

This time the pose of apology was more sincere. Frustration clamped

Maati's jaw until his teeth hurt, but he forced himself into a pose that

thanked the assistant and ended the interview. Piyun See left the small

meeting room silently, closing the door behind him.

Otah was here, then. He had come back to Machi, using the same name he

had had in Saraykeht. And that meant ... Maati pressed his fingertips to

his eyes. That meant nothing certain. That he was here suggested that

Biitrah's death was his work, but as yet it was only a sug gestion. He

doubted that the Dai-kvo or the Khai Machi would see it that way. His

presence was as much as proof to them, and there was no way to keep it

secret. Piyun See was no doubt spreading the gossip across the palaces

even now-the visiting poet and his mysterious courier. He had to find

Otah himself, and he had to do it now.

He straightened his robes and stalked out to the gardens, and then the

path that would lead him to the heart of the city. He would begin with

the teahouses nearest the forges. It was the sort of place couriers

might go to drink and gossip. There might be someone there who would

know of House Siyanti and its partners. He could discover whether Irani

Noygu had truly been working for Siyanti. That would bring him one step

nearer, at least. And there was nothing more he could think of to do now.

The streets were busy with children playing street games with rope and

sticks, with beggars and slaves and water carts and firekeepers' kilns,

with farmers' carts loaded high with spring produce or lambs and pigs on

their way to the fresh butcher. Voices jabbered and shouted and sang,

the smells of forge smoke and grilling meat and livestock pressed like a

fever. The city seemed busy as an anthill, and Maati's mind churned as

he navigated his way through it all. Otah had come to the winter cities.

Was he killing his brothers? Had he chosen to become the Khai Machi?

And if he had, would Maati have the strength to stop him?

He told himself that he could. He was so focused and among so many

distractions that he almost didn't notice his follower. Only when he

found what looked like a promising alley-hardly more than a shoulderwide

crack between two long, tall buildings-did he escape the crowds long

enough to notice. The sound of the street faded in the dim twilight that

the band of sky above him allowed. A rat, surprised by him, scuttled

through an iron grating and away. The thin alley branched, and Maati

paused, looked down the two new paths, and then glanced back. The path

behind him was blocked. A dark cloak, a raised hood, and shoulders so

broad they touched both walls. Maati hesitated, and the man behind him

didn't move. Maati felt the skin at the back of his neck tighten. He

picked one turning of the alleyway and walked down it briskly until the

dark figure reached the intersection as well and turned after him. Then

Maati ran. The alley spilled out into another street, this less

populous. The smoke of the forges made the air acrid and hazy. Maati

raced toward them. There would be men there-smiths and tradesmen, but

also firekeepers and armsmen.

When he reached the mouth where the street spilled out onto a major

throughway, he looked back. The street behind him was empty. His steps

slowed, and he stopped, scanning the doorways, the rooftops. There was

nothing. His pursuer-if that was what he had been-had vanished. Maati

waited there until he'd caught his breath, then let himself laugh. No

one was coming. No one had followed. It was easy to see how a man could

be eaten by his fears. He turned to the metalworkers' quarter.

The streets widened here, with shops and stalls facing out, filled with

the tools of the metal trades as much as their products. The forges and

smith's houses were marked by the greened copper roofs, the pillars of

smoke, the sounds of yelling voices and hammers striking anvils. The

businesses around them-sellers of hammers and tongs, suppliers of ore

and wax blocks and slaked lime-all did their work loudly and

expansively, waving hands in mock fury and shouting even when there was

no call to. Maati made his way to a teahouse near the center of the

district where sellers and workers mixed. He asked after House Siyanti,

where their couriers might be found, what was known of them. The brown

poet's robes granted him an unearned respect, but also wariness. It was

three hands before he found an answer-the overseer of a consortium of

silversmiths had had word from House Siyanti. The courier had said the

signed contracts could be delivered to House Nan, but only after they'd

been sewn and sealed. Maati gave the man two lengths of silver and his

thanks and had started away before he realized he would also need better

directions. An older man in a red and yellow robe with a face round and

pale as the moon overheard his questions and offered to guide him there.

"You're Maati Vaupathai," the moon-faced man said as they walked. "I've

heard about you."

"Nothing scandalous, I hope," Maati said.

"Speculations," the man said. "The Khaiem run on gossip and wine more

than gold or silver. My name is Oshai. It's a pleasure to meet a poet."

They turned south, leaving the smoke and cacophony behind them. As they

stepped into a smaller, quieter street, Maati looked back, half

expecting to see the looming figure in the dark robes. There was nothing.

"Rumor has it you've come to look at the library," Oshai said.

"That's truth. The Da]-kvo sent me to do research for him."

"Pity you've come at such a delicate time. Succession. It's never an

easy thing."

"It doesn't affect me," Maati said. "Court politics rarely reach the

scrolls on the back shelves."

"I hear the Khai has books that date back to the Empire. Before the war.

"He does. Some of them are older than the copies the Dai-kvo has.

Though, in all, the Dai-kvo's libraries are larger."

"He's wise to look as far afield as he can, though," Oshai said. "You

never know what you might find. Was there something in particular he

expected our Khai to have?"

"It's complex," Maati said. "No offense, it's just ..."

Oshai smiled and waved the words away. There was something odd about his

face-a weariness or an emptiness around his eyes.

"I'm sure there are many things that poets know that I can't

comprehend," the guide said. "Here, there's a faster way down through here."

Oshai moved forward, taking Maati by the elbow and leading him down a

narrow street. The houses around them were poorer than those near the

palaces or even the metalworkers' quarter. Shutters showed the splinters

of many seasons. The doors on the street level and the second-floor snow

doors both tended to have cheap leather hinges rather than worked metal.

Few people were on the street, and few windows open. Oshai seemed

perfectly at ease despite his heightened pace so Maati pushed his

uncertainty away.

"I've never been in the library myself," Oshai said. "I've heard

impressive things of it. The power of all those minds, and all that

time. It isn't something that normal men can easily conceive."

"I suppose not," Maati said, trotting to keep up. "Forgive me, Oshai-

cha, but are we near House Nan?"

"We won't be going much further," his guide said. "Just around this next

turning."

But when they made the turn, Maati found not a trading house's compound,

but a small courtyard covered in flagstone, a dry cistern at its center.

The few windows that opened onto the yard were shuttered or empty. Maati

stepped forward, confused.

"Is this ...... he began, and Oshai punched him hard in the belly. Maati

stepped back, surprised by the attack, and astounded at the man's

strength. Then he saw the blade in the guide's hand, and the blood on

it. Maati tried to hack away, but his feet caught the hem of his robe.

Oshai's face was a grimace of delight and hatred. He seemed to jump

forward, then stumbled and fell.

When his hands-out before him to catch his fall-touched the ground, the

flagstone splashed. Oshai's hands vanished to the wrist. For a moment

that seemed to last for days, Maati and his attacker both stared at the

ground. Oshai began to struggle, pulling with his shoulders to no

effect. Maati could hear the fear in the muttered curses. The pain in

his belly was lessening, and a warmth taking its place. He tried to

gather himself, but the effort was such that he didn't notice the

darkrobed figures until they were almost upon him. 'l'he larger one had

thrown back its hood and the wide, calm face of the andat considered

him. The other form-smaller, and more agitated-knelt and spoke in

Cehmai's voice.

"Maati-kvo! You're hurt."

"Be careful!" Maati said. "He's got a knife."

Cehmai glanced at the assassin struggling in the stone and shook his

head. The poet looked very young, and yet familiar in a way that Maati

hadn't noticed before. Intelligent, sure of himself. Maati was struck by

an irrational envy of the boy, and then noticed the blood on his own

hand. He looked down, and saw the wetness blackening his robes. There

was so much of it.

"Can you walk?" Cehmai said, and Maati realized it wasn't the first time

the question had been asked. He nodded.

"Only help me up," he said.

The younger poet took one arm and the andat the other and gently lifted

him. The warmth in Maati's belly was developing a profound ache in its

center. He pushed it aside, walked two steps, then three, and the world

seemed to narrow. He found himself on the ground again, the poet leaning

over him.

"I'm going for help," Cehmai said. "Don't move. Don't try to move. And

don't die while I'm gone."

Maati tried to raise his hands in a pose of agreement, but the poet was

already gone, pelting down the street, shouting at the top of his lungs.

Maati rolled his head to one side to see the assassin struggling in vain

and allowed himself a smile. A thought rolled through his mind, elusive

and dim, and he shook himself, willing a lucidity he didn't possess. It

was important. Whatever it was bore the weight of terrible significance.

If he could only bring himself to think it. It had something to do with

Otah-kvo and all the thousand times Maati had imagined their meeting.

The andat sat beside him, watching him with the impassive distance of a

statue, and Maati didn't know that he intended to speak to it until he

heard his own words.

"It isn't Otah-kvo," he said. The andat shifted to consider the captive

trapped by stone, then turned back.

"No," it agreed. "Too old."

"No," Maati said, struggling. "I don't mean that. I mean he wouldn't do

this. Not to me. Not without speaking to me. It isn't him."

The andat frowned and shook its massive head.

"I don't understand."

"If I die," Maati said, forcing himself to speak above a whisper, "you

have to tell Cehmai. It isn't Otah-kvo that did this. There's someone else."

The chamber was laid out like a temple or a theater. On the long,

sloping floor, representatives of all the high families sat on low

stools or cushions. Beyond them sat the emissaries of the trading

houses, the people of the city, and past them rank after rank of

servants and slaves. The air was rich with the smells of incense and

living bodies. Idaan looked out over the throng, though she knew proper

form called for her gaze to remain downcast. Across the dais from her,

Adrah knelt, his posture mirroring hers, except that his head was held

high. He was, after all, a man. His robes were deep red and woven gold,

his hair swept back and tied with bands of gold and iron like a child of

the Empire. He had never looked more handsome. Her lover. Her husband.

She considered him as she might a fine piece of metalwork or a

well-rendered drawing. As a likeness of himself.

His father sat beside him on a bench, dressed in jewels and rich cloth.

Daaya Vaunyogi was beaming with pride, but Idaan could see the unease in

the way he held himself. The others would sec only the patriarch of one

high family marrying his son into the blood of the Khaiem-it was reason

enough for excitement. Of all the people there, only Idaan would also

see a traitor against his city, forced to sit before the man whose sons

he conspired to slaughter and act as if his pet assassin was not locked

in a room with armsmen barring the way, his intended victim alive. Idaan

forced herself not to smirk at his weakness.

Her father spoke. His voice was thick and phlegmy, and his hands

trembled so badly that he took no formal poses.

"I have accepted a petition from House Vaunyogi. They propose that the

son of their flesh, Adrah, and the daughter of my blood, Idaan, be joined."

He waited while the appointed whisperers repeated the words, the hall

filled, it seemed, with the sound of a breeze. Idaan let her eyes close

for a long moment, and opened them again when he continued.

"This proposal pleases me," her father said. "And I lay it before the

city. If there is cause that this petition he refused, I would know of

it now.

The whisperers dutifully passed this new statement through the hall as

well. There was a cough from nearby, as if in preparation to speak.

Idaan looked over. There in the first rank of cushions sat Cehmai and

his andat. Both of them were smiling pleasantly, but Cehmai's eyes were

on hers, his hands in a pose of offering. It was the same pose he might

have used to ask if she wanted some of the wine he was drinking or a lap

blanket on a cold night. Here, now, it was a deeper thing. Would you

like me to stop this? Idaan could not reply. No one was looking at

Cehmai, and half the eyes in the chamber were on her. She looked down

instead, as a proper girl would. She saw the movement in the corner of

her eye when the poet lowered his hands.

"Very well," her father said. "Adrah Vaunyogi, come here before me."

Idaan did not look up as Adrah stood and walked with slow, practiced

steps until he stood before the Khai's chair. He knelt again, with his

head bowed, his hands in a pose of gratitude and submission. The Khai,

despite the grayness in his skin and the hollows in his cheeks, held

himself perfectly, and when he did move, the weakness did not undo the

grace of a lifetime's study. He put a hand on the boy's head.

"Most high, I place myself before you as a man before his elder," Adrah

said, his voice carrying the ritual phrases through the hall. Even with

his hack turned, the whisperers had little need to speak. "I place

myself before you and ask your permission. I would take Idaan, your

blood issue, to be my wife. If it does not please you, please only say

so, and accept my apology."

"I am not displeased," her father said.

"Will you grant me this, most high?"

Idaan waited to hear her father accept, to hear the ritual complete

itself. The silence stretched, profound and horrible. Idaan felt her

heart begin to race, fear rising up in her blood. Something had

happened; Oshai had broken. Idaan looked up, prepared to see armsmen

descending upon them. But instead, she saw her father bent close to

Adrah-so close their foreheads almost touched. There were tears on the

sunken cheeks. The formal reserve and dignity was gone. The Khai was

gone. All that remained was a desperately ill man in robes too gaudy for

a sick house.

"Will you make her happy? I would have one of my children be happy."

Adrah's mouth opened and shut like a fish pulled from the river. Idaan

closed her eyes, but she could not stop her ears.

"I ... most high, I will do ... Yes. I will."

Idaan felt her own tears forcing their way into her eyes like traitors.

She hit her lip until she tasted blood.

"Let it be known," her father said, "that I have authorized this match.

Let the blood of the Khai Maehi enter again into House Vaunyogi. And let

all who honor the Khaiem respect this transfer and join in our

celebration. The ceremony shall be held in thirty-four days, on the

opening of summer."

The whisperers began, but the hush of their voices was quickly drowned

out by cheering and applause. Idaan raised her head and smiled as if the

smears on her cheeks were from joy. Every man and woman in the chamber

had risen. She turned to them and took a pose of thanks, and then to

Adrah and his father, and then, finally, to her own. He was still

weeping-a show of weakness that the gossips and hackbiters of the court

would be chewing over for days. But his smile was so genuine, so

hopeful, that Idaan could do nothing but love him and taste ashes.

"Thank you, most high," she said. He bowed his head, as if honoring her.

The Khai Nlachi left the dais first, attended by servants who lifted him

into his litter and others who bore him away. "I 'hen Idaan herself

retreated. The others would escape according to the status of their

families and their standing within them. It would be a hand and a half

before the chamber was completely empty. Idaan strode along white marble

corridors to a retiring room, sent away her servants, locked the door

and sobbed until her heart was empty again. Then she washed her face in

cool water from her basin, arrayed her kohl and blush, whitener and lip

rouge before a mirror and carefully made a mask of her skin.

There would be talk, of course. Even without her father's unseemly

display of humanity-and she hated them all for the laughter and

amusement that would occasion-there would be enough to pick apart. The

strength of Adrah's voice would be commented on. The way in which he

carried himself. Even his unease when the ritual slipped from its form

might speak well of him in people's memory. It was a small thing, of

course. In the minds of the witnesses, it had been clear that she would

be the daughter of a Khai only very briefly and merely sister to the

Khai was a lower status. House Vaunyogi was buying something whose value

would soon drop. It must be a love match, they would say, and pretend to

be touched. She wondered if it wouldn't be bettercleaner-to simply burn

the city and everyone in it, herself included. Let a hot iron clean and

seal it like searing a wound. It was a passing fantasy, but it gave her

comfort.

A knock came, and she arranged her robes before unlocking the door.

Adrah stood, his house servants behind him. He had not changed out of

his ritual robes.

"Idaan-kya," he said, "I was hoping you might come have a bowl of tea

with my father."

"I have gifts to present to your honored father," Idaan said, gesturing

to a cube of cloth and bright paper the size of a boar. It was already

lashed to a carrying pole. "It is too much for me. Might I have the aid

of your servants?"

Two servants had already moved forward to lift the burden.

Adrah took a pose of command, and she answered with one of acquiescence,

following him as he turned and left. They walked side by side through

the gardens, not touching. Idaan could feel the gazes of the people they

passed, and kept her expression demure. By the time they reached the

palaces of the Vaunyogi, her cheeks ached with it. Idaan and Adrah

walked with their entourage through a hall of worked rosewood and

mother-of-pearl, and to the summer garden where Daaya Vaunyogi sat

beneath a stunted maple tree and sipped tea from a stone bowl. His face

was weathered but kindly. Seeing him in this place was like stepping

into a woodcut from the Old Empire-the honored sage in contemplation.

The gift package was placed on the table before him as if it were a meal.

Adrah's father put down his bowl and took a pose that dismissed the

servants.

"The garden is closed," he said. "We have much to discuss, my children

and I."

As soon as the doors were shut and the three were alone, his face fell.

He sank back to his seat like a man struck by fever. Adrah began to

pace. Idaan ignored them both and poured herself tea. It was overbrewed

and bitter.

"You haven't heard from them, then, Daaya-cha?"

"The Galts?" the man said. "The messengers I send come back empty

handed. When I went to speak to their ambassador, they turned me away.

Things have gone wrong. The risk is too great. They won't hack us now."

"Did they say that?" Idaan asked.

Daaya took a pose that asked clarification. Idaan leaned forward,

holding back the snarl she felt twisting at her lip.

"Did they say they wouldn't back us, or is it only that you fear they

won't?"

"Oshai," Daaya said. "He knows everything. He's been my intermediary

from the beginning. If he tells what he knows-"

"If he does, he'll be killed," Idaan said. "That he injured a poet is

bad enough, but he murdered a son of the Khaiem without being a brother

to him. He knows what would happen. His best hope is that someone

intercedes for him. If he speaks what he knows, he dies badly."

"We have to free him," Adrah said. "We ha-(- to get him out. We have to

show the Galts that we can protect them."

"We will," Idaan said. She drank down her tea. "The three of us. And I

know how we'll do it."

Adrah and his father looked at her as if she'd just spat out a serpent.

She took a pose of query.

"Shall we wait for the Galts to take action instead? They've already

begun to distance themselves. Shall we take some members of your house

into our confidence? Hire some armsmen to do it for us? Assume that our

secrets will be safer the more people know?"

"But ...... Adrah said.

"If we falter, we fail," Idaan said. "I know the way to the cages. He's

kept underground now; if they move him to the towers, it gets harder. I

asked that we meet in a place with a private exit. This garden. There is

a way out of it?"

Daaya took an acknowledging pose, but his face was pale as bread dough.

"I thought there would be others you wished to consult," he said.

"There's nothing to consult over," Idaan said and pulled open the gifts

she had brought to her new marriage. Three dark cloaks with deep hoods,

three blades in dark leather sheaths, two unstrung hunter's bows with

dark-shafted arrows, two torches, a pot of smoke pitch and a bag to

carry it. And beneath it, a wall stand of silver with the sigils of

order and chaos worked in marble and bloodstone. Idaan passed the blades

and cloaks to the men.

"The servants will only know of the wall stand. "These others we can

give to Oshai to dispose of once we have him," Idaan said. "The smoke

pitch we can use to frighten the armsmen at the cages. The bows and

blades are for those that don't flee."

"Idaan-kya," Adrah said, "this is madness, we can't. .

She slapped him before she knew she meant to. He pressed a palm to his

cheek, and his eyes glistened. But there was anger in him too. That was

good.

"We do the thing now, while there are servants to swear it was not us.

We do it quickly, and we live. We falter and wail like old women, and we

die. Pick one."

Daaya Vaunyogi broke the silence by taking a cloak and pulling it on.

His son looked to him, then to her, then, trembling began to do the same.

"You should have been born a man," her soon-to-be father said. There was

disgust in his voice.

The tunnels beneath the palaces were little traveled in spring. The long

winter months trapped in the warrens that laced the earth below Machi

made even the slaves yearn for daylight. Idaan knew them all. Long

winter months stealing unchaperoned up these corridors to play on the

river ice and snow-shrouded city streets had taught her how to move

through them unseen. They passed the alcove where she and Janat Saya had

kissed once, when they were both too young to think it more than

something that they should wish to do. She led them through the thin

servant's passage she'd learned of when she was stealing fresh

applecakes from the kitchens. Memories made the shadows seem like old

friends from better times, when her mischief had been innocent.

They made their way from tunnel to tunnel, passing through wide chambers

unnoticed and passages so narrow they had to stoop and go singly. The

weight of stone above them made the journey seem like traveling through

a mine.

They knew they were nearing the occupied parts of the tunnels as much by

the smell of shit from the cages and acrid smoke as by the torchlight

that danced at the corridor's mouth. Thick timber beams framed the hall.

Idaan paused. This was only a side gallery-little used, rarely

trafficked. But it would do, she thought.

"What now?" Adrah asked. "We light the pitch? Simulate a fire?"

Idaan took the pot from its hag and weighed it in her hands.

"We simulate nothing, Adrah-kya," she said. She tossed the pot at the

base of a thick timber support and tossed her lit torch onto the

blackness. It sputtered for a moment, then caught. Idaan unslung the bow

from her shoulder and draped a fold of the cloak over it. "Be ready."

She waited as the flames caught. If she waited too long, they might not

be able to pass the fire. If she was too quick, the armsmen might be

able to put out the blaze. A deep calm seemed to descend upon her, and

she felt herself smile. Now would be a fine moment, she thought, and

screamed, raising the alarm. Adrah and Daaya followed her as she

stumbled through the darkness and into the cages. In the time it took

for her to take two breaths of the thickening air, they found themselves

in the place she'd hoped: a wide gallery in torchlight, the air already

becoming dense with smoke, and iron cages set into the stone where

prisoners waited on the justice of the Khai. Two armsmen in leather and

bronze armor scuttled to the three of them, their eyes round with fear.

"There's a fire in the gallery!" Daaya shrilled. "Get water! Get the watch!"

The prisoners were coming to the front of the cages now. Their cries of

fear added to the confusion. Idaan pretended to cough as she considered

the problem. There were two more armsmen at the far end of the cages,

but they were coming closer. Of the first two who had approached, one

had raced off toward the fire, the other down a well-lit tunnel, she

presumed towards aid. And then midway down the row of cages on the left,

she caught a glimpse of the Galts' creature. There was real fear in his

eyes.

Adrah panicked as the second pair came close. With a shriek, he drew his

blade, hewing at the armsmen like a child playing at war. Idaan cursed,

but Daaya was moving faster, drawing his bow and sinking a dark shaft

into the man's belly as Idaan shot at his chest and missed. But Adrah

was lucky-a wild stroke caught the armsman's chin and seemed to cleave

his jaw apart. Idaan raced to the cages, to Oshai. The moon-faced

assassin registered a moment's surprise when he saw her face within the

hood, and then Oshai closed his eyes and spat.

Adrah and Daaya rushed to her side.

"Do not speak," Oshai said. "Nothing. Every man here would sell you for

his freedom, and there are people who would buy. Do you understand?"

Idaan nodded and pointed toward the thick lock that barred the door.

Oshai shook his head.

"The Khai's Master of Blades keeps the keys," Oshai said. "The cages

can't be opened without him. If you meant me to leave with you, you

didn't think this through very well."

Adrah whispered a curse, but Oshai's eyes were on Idaan. He smiled

thinly, his eyes dead as a fish's. He saw it when she understood, and he

nodded, stepped back from the bars, and opened his arms like a man

overwhelmed by the beauty of a sunrise. Idaan's first arrow took him in

the throat. There were two others after that, but she thought they

likely didn't matter. The first shouts of the watch echoed. The smoke

was thickening. Idaan walked away, down the route she had meant to take

when the prisoners were free. She'd meant to free them all, adding to

the chaos. She'd been a fool.

"What have you done?" Daaya Vaunyogi demanded once they were safely away

in the labyrinth. "What have you done?"

Idaan didn't bother answering.

Back in the garden, they sank the blades and the cloaks in a fountain to

lie submerged until Adrah could sneak back in under cover of night and

get rid of them. Even with the dark hoods gone, they all reeked of

smoke. She hadn't foreseen that either. Neither of the men met her eyes.

And yet, Oshai was beyond telling stories to the utkhaiem. So perhaps

things hadn't ended so badly.

She gave her farewells to Daaya Vaunyogi. Adrah walked with her hack

through the evening-dimmed streets to her rooms. That the city seemed

unchanged struck her as odd. She couldn't say what she had expected-what

the day's events should have done to the stones, the air-but that it

should all be the same seemed wrong. She paused by a beggar, listening

to his song, and dropped a length of silver into the lacquered box at

his feet.

At the entrance to her rooms, she sent her servants away. She did not

wish to be attended. They would assume she smelled of sex, and best that

she let them. Adrah peered at her, earnest as a puppy, she thought. She

could see the distress in his eyes.

"You had to," he said, and she wondered if he meant to comfort her or

convince himself. She took a pose of agreement. He stepped forward, his

arms curving to embrace her.

"Don't touch me," she said, and he stepped hack, paused, lowered his

arms. Idaan saw something die behind his eyes, and felt something wither

in her own breast. So this is what we are, she thought.

"Things were good once," he said, as if willing her to say and they will

be again. The most she could give him was a nod. They had been good

once. She had wanted and admired and loved him once. And even now, a

part of her might love him. She wasn't sure.

The pain in his expression was unbearable. Idaan leaned forward, kissed

him briefly on the lips, and went inside to wash the day off her skin.

She heard his footsteps as he walked away.

Her body felt wrung out and empty. There were dried apples and sugared

almonds waiting for her, but the thought of food was foreign. Gifts had

arrived throughout the day-celebrations of her being sold off. She

ignored them. It was only after she had bathed, washing her hair three

times before it smelled more of flowers than smoke, that she found the note.

It rested on her bed, a square of paper folded in quarters. She sat

naked beside it, reached out a hand, hesitated, and then plucked it

open. It was brief, written in an unsteady hand.

Daughter, it said. I had hoped that you might be able to spend some part

of this happy day with me. Instead, I will leave this. Know that you

have my blessings and such love as a weary old man can give. You have

always delighted me, and I hope for your happiness in this match.

When her tears and sobbing had exhausted her, Idaan carefully gathered

the scraps of the note together and placed them together under her

pillow. Then she bowed and prayed to all the gods and with all her heart

that her father should die, and die quickly. That he should die without

discovering what she was.

MAATI WAS LOST FOR A TIME IN PAIN, THEN DISCOMFORT, AND THEN PAIN again.

He didn't suffer dreams so much as a pressing sense of urgency without

goal or form, though for a time he had the powerful impression that he

was on a boat, rocked by waves. His mind fell apart and reformed itself

at the will of his body.

He came to himself in the night, aware that he had been half awake for

some time; that there had been conversations in which he had

participated, though he couldn't say with whom or on what matters. The

room was not his own, but there was no mistaking that it belonged to the

Khai's palace. No fire burned in the grate, but the stone walls were

warm with stored sunlight. The windows were shuttered with shaped stone,

the only light coming from the night candle that had burned almost to

its quarter mark. Maati pulled back the thin blankets and considered the

puckered gray flesh of his wound and the dark silk that laced it closed.

He pressed his belly gently with his fingertips until he thought he knew

how delicate he had become. When he stood, tottering to the night pot,

he found he had underestimated, but that the pain was not so

excruciating that he could not empty his bladder. After, he pulled

himself back into bed, exhausted. He intended only to close his eyes for

a moment and gather his strength, but when he opened them, it was morning.

He had nearly resolved to walk from his bed to the small writing table

near the window when a slave entered and announced that the poet Cehmai

and the andat Stone-Made-Soft would see him if he wished. Maati nodded

and sat up carefully.

The poet arrived with a wide plate of rice and river fish in a sauce

that smelled of plums and pepper. The andat carried a jug of water so

cold it made the stone sweat. Maati's stomach came to life with a growl

at the sight.

"You're looking better, Maati-kvo." the young poet said, putting the

plate on the bed. The andat pulled two chairs close to the bed and sat

in one, its face calm and empty.

"I looked worse than this?" Maati asked. "I wouldn't have thought that

possible. How long has it been?"

"Four days. The injury brought on a fever. But when they poured onion

soup down you, the wound didn't smell of it, so they decided you might

live after all."

Maati lifted a spoon of fish and rice to his mouth. It tasted divine.

"I think I have you to thank for that," Maati said. "My recollection

isn't all it could be, but ..."

"I was following you," Cehmai said, taking a pose of contrition. "I was

curious about your investigations."

"Yes. I suppose I should have been more subtle."

"The assassin was killed yesterday."

Maati took another bite of fish.

"Executed?"

"Disposed of," the andat said and smiled.

Cehmai told the story. The fire in the tunnels, the deaths of the

guards. The other prisoners said that there had been three men in black

cloaks, that they had rushed in, killed the assassin, and vanished. Two

others had choked to death on the smoke before the watchmen put the fire

out.

"The story among the utkhaiem is that you discovered Utah Machi. The

Master of Tides' assistant said that you'd been angry with him for being

indiscreet about your questions concerning a courier from Udun. Then the

attack on you, and the fire. They say the Khai Machi sent for you to

hunt his missing son, Utah."

"Part true," Maati said. "I was sent to look for Otah. I knew him once,

when we were younger. But I haven't found him, and the knife man was ...

something else. It wasn't Otah."

"You said that," the andat rumbled. "When we found you, you said it was

someone else."

"Otah-kvo wouldn't have done it. Not that way. He might have met me

himself, but sending someone else to do it? No. He wasn't behind that,"

Maati said, and then the consequence of that fell into place. "And so I

think he must not have been the one who killed Biitrah."

Cehmai and his andat exchanged a glance and the young poet drew a bowl

of water for Maati. The water was as good as the food, but Maati could

see the unease in the way Cehmai looked at him. If he had ached less or

been farther from exhaustion, he might have been subtle.

"What is it?" Maati asked.

Cehmai drew himself up, then sighed.

"You call him Otah-kvo."

"He was my teacher. At the school, he was in the black robes when I was

new arrived. He ... helped me."

"And you saw him again. When you were older."

"Did I?" Maati asked.

Cehmai took a pose that asked forgiveness. "The Dai-kvo would hardly

have trusted a memory that old. You were both children at the school. We

were all children there. You knew him when you were both men, yes?"

"Yes," Maati said. "He was in Saraykeht when ... when Heshai-kvo died."

"And you call him Otah-kvo," Cehmai said. "He was a friend of yours,

Maati-kvo. Someone you admired. He's never stopped being your teacher."

"Perhaps. But he's stopped being my friend. That was my doing, but it's

done."

"I'm sorry, Maati-kvo, but are you certain Otah-kvo is innocent because

he's innocent, or only because you're certain? It would be hard to

accept that an old friend might wish you ill ..."

Maati smiled and sipped the water.

"Otah Machi may well wish me dead. I would understand it if he did. And

he's in the city, or was four days ago. But he didn't send the assassin."

"You think he isn't hoping for the Khai's chair?"

"I don't know. But I suppose that's something worth finding out. Along

with who it was that killed his brother and started this whole thing

rolling."

He took another mouthful of rice and fish, but his mind was elsewhere.

"Will you let me help you?"

Maati looked up, half surprised. The young poet's face was serious, his

hands in a pose of formal supplication. It was as if they were back in

the school and Cehmai was a boy asking a boon of the teachers. The andat

had its hands folded in its lap, but it seemed mildly amused. Before

Maati could think of a reply, Cehmai went on.

"You aren't well yet, Maati-kvo. You're the center of all the court

gossip now, and anything you do will be examined from eight different

views before you've finished doing it. I know the city. I know the

court. I can ask questions without arousing suspicion. The Dai-kvo

didn't choose to take me into his confidence, but now that I know what's

happening-"

"It's too much of a risk," Maati said. "The Dal-kvo sent me because I

know Otah-kvo, but he also sent me because my loss would mean nothing.

You hold the andat-"

"It's fine with me," Stone-Made-Soft said. "Really, don't let me stop you.

"If I ask questions without you, I run the same risks, and without the

benefits of shared information," Cehmai said. "And expecting me not to

wonder would be unrealistic."

"The Khai Machi would expel me from his city if he thought I was

endangering his poet," Maati said. "And then I wouldn't be of use to

anyone.

Cehmai's dark eyes were both deadly serious and also, Maati thought,

amused. "This wouldn't be the first thing I've kept from him," the young

poet said. "Please, Maati-kvo. I want to help."

Maati closed his eyes. Having someone to talk with, even if it was only

a way to explore what he thought himself, wouldn't be so had a thing.

The Dai-kvo hadn't expressly forbidden that Cehmai know, and even if he

had, the secret investigation had already sent Otah-kvo to flight, so

any further subterfuge seemed pointless. And the fact was, he likely

couldn't find the answers alone.

"You have saved my life once already."

"I thought it would be unfair to point that out," Cehmai said.

Maati laughed, then stopped when the pain in his belly bloomed. He lay

back, blowing air until he could think again. The pillows felt better

than they should have. He'd done so little, and he was already tired. He

glanced mistrustfully at the andat, then took a pose of acceptance.

"Come back tonight, when I've rested," Maati said. "We'll plan our

strategy. I have to get my strength hack, but there isn't much time."

"May I ask one other thing, Maati-kvo?"

Maati nodded, but his belly seemed to have grown more sensitive for the

moment and he tried not to move more than that. It seemed laughing

wasn't a wise thing for him just now.

"Who are Liat and Nayiit?"

"My lover. Our son," Maati said. "I called out for them, did I? When I

had the fever?"

Cehmai nodded.

"I do that often," Maati said. "Only not usually aloud."

There were four great roads that connected the cities of the Khaiem, one

named for each of the cardinal directions. The North Road that linked

Cetani, Machi, and Amnat-Ian was not the worst, in part because there

was no traffic in the winter, when the snows let men make a road

wherever desire took them. Also the stones were damaged more by the

cycle of thaw and frost that troubled the north only in spring and

autumn. In high summer, it rarely froze, and for a third of the year it

did not thaw. The West Road-far from the sea and not so far south as to

keep the winters warm-required the most repair.

"They'll have crews of indentured slaves and laborers out in shifts,"

the old man in the cart beside Otah said, raising a finger as if his

oratory was on par with the High Emperor's, back when there had been an

empire. "They start at one end, reset the stones until they reach the

other, and begin again. It never ends."

Otah glanced across the cart at the young woman nursing her babe and

rolled his eyes. She smiled and shrugged so slightly that their orator

didn't notice the movement. The cart lurched down into and up from

another wide hole where the stones had shattered and not yet been replaced.

"I have walked them all," the old man said, "though they've worn me more

than I've worn them. Oh yes, much more than I've worn them."

He cackled, as he always seemed to when he made this observation. The

little caravan-four carts hauled by old horses-was still six days from

Cetani. Otah wondered whether his own legs were rested enough that he

could start walking again.

He had bought an old laborer's robe of blue-gray wool from a rag shop,

chopped his hair to change its shape, and let his thin beard start to

grow in. Once his whiskers had been long enough to braid, but the east

islanders he'd lived with had laughed at him and pretended to mistake

him for a woman. After Cetani, it would take another twenty days to

reach the docks outside Amnat-tan. And then, if he could find a fishing

boat that would take him on, he would be among those men again, singing

songs in a tongue he hadn't tried out in years, explaining again, either

with the truth or outrageous stories, why his marriage mark was only

half done.

He would die there-on the islands or on the sea-under whatever new name

he chose for himself. Itani Noygu was gone. He had died in Machi.

Another life was behind him, and the prospect of beginning again, alone

in a foreign land, tired him more than the walking.

"Now, southern wood's too soft to really build with. The winters are too

warm to really harden them. Up here there's trees that would blunt a

dozen axes before they fell," the old man said.

"You know everything, don't you grandfather?" Otah said. If his

annoyance was in his voice, the old man noticed nothing, because he

cackled again.

"It's because I've been everywhere and done everything," the old man

said. "I even helped hunt down the Khai Amnat-Tan's older brother when

they had their last succession. "There were a dozen of us, and it was

the dead of winter. Your piss would freeze before it touched ground. Oh,

eh ..."

The old man took a pose of apology to the young woman and her babe, and

Otah swung himself out of the cart. It wasn't a story he cared to hear.

The road wound through a valley, high pine forest on either side, the

air sharp and fragrant with the resin. It was beautiful, and he pictured

it thick with snow, the image coming so clear that he wondered whether

he might once have seen it that way. When the clatter of hooves came

from the west, he forced himself again to relax his shoulders and look

as curious and excited as the others. Twice before, couriers on fast

horses had passed the 'van, laden with news, Otah knew, of the search

for him.

It had taken an effort of will not to run as fast as he could after he

had been discovered, but the search was for a false courier either

plotting murder or fleeing like a rabbit. No one would pay attention to

a plodding laborer off to stay with his sister's family in a low town

outside Cetani. And yet, as the horses approached, tension grew in his

breast. He prepared himself for the shock if one of the riders had a

familiar face.

There were three this time-utkhaiem to judge by their robes and the

quality of their mounts-and none of them men he knew. They didn't slow

for the 'van, but the armsmen of the 'van, the drivers, the dozen

hangers-on like himself all shouted at them for news. One of them turned

in his saddle and yelled something, but Otah couldn't make it out and

the rider didn't repeat it. Ten days on the road. Six more to Cetani.

The only challenge was not to be where they were looking for him.

They reached a wayhouse with the sun still three and a half hands above

the treetops. The building was of northern design: stone walls thick as

the span of a man's arm and stables and goat pen on the ground floor

where the heat of the animals would rise and help warm the place in the

winter. While the merchants and armsmen argued over whether to stop now

or go farther and sleep in the open, Otah ran his eyes over the windows

and walked around to the back, looking for all the signs Kiyan had

taught him to know whether the keeper was working with robbers or

keeping an unsafe kitchen. The house met all of her best marks. It

seemed safe.

By the time he'd returned to the carts, his companions had decided to

stay. After Otah had helped stable the horses, they shifted the carts

into a locked courtyard. The caravan's leader haggled with the keeper

about the rooms and came to an agreement that Otah privately thought

gave the keep the better half. Otah made his way up two flights of

stairs to the room he was to share with five armsmen, two drivers, and

the old man. He curled himself up in a corner on the floor. It was too

small a room, and one of the drivers snored badly. A little sleep when

things were quiet would only make the next day easier.

He woke in darkness to the sound of music-a drum throbbed and a flute

sighed. A man's voice and a woman's moved in rough harmony. He wiped his

eyes with the sleeve of his robe and went down to the main room. The

members of his 'van were all there and half a dozen other men besides.

The air smelled of hot wine and roast lamb, pine trees and smoke. Otah

sat at a rough, worn table beside one of the drivers and watched.

The singer was the keep himself, a pot-bellied man with a nose that had

been broken and badly set. He drew the deep heat from a skin and

earthenware drum as he sang. His wife was shapely as a potato with an

ugly face and a missing eye tooth, but their voices were well suited and

their affection for each other forgave them much. Otah found himself

tapping his fingertips against the table to match the drumbeats.

His mind went back to Kiyan, and the nights of music and stories and

gossip he had spent in her wayhouse, far away to the south. He wondered

what she was doing tonight, what music filled the warm air and competed

with the murmur of the river.

When the last note had faded to silence, the crowd applauded, yelped,

and howled their appreciation. Otah made his way to the singer-he was

shorter than Otah had thought-and took his hand. The keeper beamed and

blushed when Otah told him how good the music had been.

"We've had a few years practice, and there's only so much to do when the

days are short," the keep said. "The winter choirs in Machi make us

sound like street beggars."

Otah smiled, regret pulling at him that he would never hear those songs,

and a moment later he heard his name being spoken.

"Itani Noygu's what he was calling himself," one of the merchants said.

"Played a courier for House Siyanti."

"I think I met him," a man said whom Otah had never met. "I knew there

was something odd about the man."

"And the poet ... the one that had his belly opened for him? He's

picking the other Siyanti men apart like they were baked fish. The

upstart has to wish that job had been done right the first time."

"Sounds as if I've missed something," Otah said, putting on his most

charming smile. "What's this about a poet's belly?"

The merchant frowned at the interruption until Otah motioned to the

keep's wife and bought bowls of hot wine for the table. After that, the

gossip flowed more freely.

Maati Vaupathai had been attacked, and the common wisdom held that Otah

had arranged it. The most likely version was that the upstart had been

passing as a courier, but others said that he had made his way into the

palaces dressed as a servant or a meat seller. There was no question,

though, that the Khai had sent out runners to all the winter cities

asking for the couriers and overseers of House Siyanti to attend him at

court. Amiit Foss, the man who'd been the upstart's overseer in tldun,

was being summoned in particular. It wasn't clear yet whether Siyanti

had knowingly backed the Otah Machi, but if they had, it would mean the

end of their expansion into the north. Even if they hadn't, the house

would suffer.

"And they're sure he was the one who had the poet killed?" Otah asked,

using all the skill the gentleman's trade had taught him to hide his

deepening despair and disgust.

"It seems they were in Saraykeht together, this poet and the upstart.

That was just before Saraykeht fell."

The implications of that hung over the room. Perhaps Otah Machi had

somehow been involved with the death of Heshai, the poet of Saraykeht.

Who knew what depravity the sixth son of the Khai Machi might sink to?

It was a ghost story for them; a tale to pass a night on the road; a

sport to follow.

Otah remembered the old, frog-mouthed poet, remembered his kindness and

his weakness and his strength. He remembered the regret and the respect

and the horrible complicity he'd felt in killing him, all those years

ago. It had been so complicated, then. Now, they said it so simply and

spoke as if they understood.

"There's rumor of a woman, too. They say he had a lover in Udun."

"If he was a courier, he's likely got a woman in half the cities of the

Khaiem. The gods know I would."

"No," the merchant said, shaking his head. He was more than half drunk.

"No, they were very clear. All the Siyanti men say he had a lover in

Udun and never took another. Loved her like the world, they said. But

she left him for another man. I say it's that turned him evil. Love

turns on you like ... like milk."

"Gentlemen," the keep's wife said, her voice powerful enough to cut

through any conversation. "It's late, and I'm not sleeping until these

rooms are cleaned, so get you all to bed. I'll have bread and honey for

you at sunrise."

The guests slurped down the last of the wine, ate the last mouthfuls of

dried cherries and fresh cheese, and made their various ways toward

their various beds. Otah walked down the inner stairs to the stables and

the goat yard, then out through a side door and into the darkness. His

body felt like he'd just run a race, or else like he was about to.

Kiyan. Kiyan and the wayhouse her father had run. Old Mani. He had set

the dogs on them, and that he hadn't intended to would count for nothing

if his brothers found her. Whatever happened, whatever they did, it

would be his fault.

He found a tall tree and sat with his back against it, looking out at

the stars nearest the horizon. The air had the bite of cold in it.

Winter never left this place. It made a little room for summer, but it

never left. He thought of writing her a letter, of warning her. It would

never reach her in time. It was ten days walk back to Machi, six days

forward to Cetani, and his brothers' forces would already be on the road

south. He could send to Amiit Foss, beg his old overseer to take Kiyan

in, to protect her. But there too, word would reach him too late.

Despair settled into his belly, too deep for tears. He was destroying

the woman he loved most in the world simply by being who he was, by

doing what he'd done. He thought of the boy he had been, marching away

from the school across the western snows. He remembered his fear and the

warmth of his rage at the poets and his parents and all in the world

that treated boys so unfairly. What a pompous little ass he'd been,

young and certain and alone. He should have taken the Dal-kvo's offer

and become a poet. He might have tried to bind an andat, and maybe

failed and paid the price, dying in the attempt. And then Kiyan would

never have met him. She would be safe.

There's still a price, he thought, as clear as a voice speaking in his

head. You could still pay it.

Machi was ten days' walk, perhaps as little as four and a half days'

ride. If he could turn all eyes back to Mach], Kiyan might have at least

the chance to escape his idiocy. And what would she matter, if no one

need search for him. He could take a horse from the stables now. After

all, if he was an upstart and a poisoner and a man turned evil by love,

it hardly mattered being a horse thief as well. He closed his eyes, an

angry bark of a laugh forcing its way from his throat.

Everything you have won, you've won by leaving, he thought, remembering

a woman whom he had known almost well enough to join his life with

though he had never loved her, nor she him. Well, Maj, perhaps this time

I'll lose.

THE NIGHT CANDLE WAS PAST ITS MIDDLE MARK; TFIK AIR WAS FILLEI) WITH the

songs of crickets. Somewhere in the course of things, the pale mist of

netting had been pulled from the bed, and the room looked exposed

without it. Cehmai could feel Stone-Made-Soft in the back of his mind,

but the effort of being truly aware of the andat was too much; his body

was thick and heavy and content. Focus and rigor would have their place

another time.

Idaan traced her fingertips across his chest, raising gooseflesh. He

shivered, took her hand and folded it in his own. She sighed and lay

against him. Her hair smelled of roses.

"Why do they call you poets?" she asked.

"It's an old Empire term," Clehmai said. "It's from the binding."

"The andat are poems?" she said. She had the darkest eyes. Like an

animal's. He looked at her mouth. The lips were too full to be

fashionable. With the paint worn off, he could see how she narrowed

them. He raised his head and kissed them again, gently this time. His

own mouth felt bruised from their coupling. And then his head grew too

heavy, and he let it rest again.

"They're ... like that. Binding one is like describing something

perfectly. Understanding it, and expanding it ... I'm not saying this

well. Have you ever translated a letter? Taken something in the Khaiate

tongues and tried to say the same thing in Westland or an east island

tongue?"

"No," she said. "I had to take something from the Empire and rewrite it

for a tutor once."

Cchmai closed his eyes. He could feel sleep pulling at him, but he

fought against it a hit. He wasn't ready to let the moment pass.

"That's near enough. You had to make choices when you did that. Tiff',

could mean take or it could mean give or it could mean exchangeit's

yours to choose, depending on how it's used in the original document.

And so a letter or a poem doesn't have a set translation. You could have

any number of ways that you say the same thing. Binding the andat means

describing them-what the thought of them is-so well that you can

translate it perfectly into a form that includes will and volition. Like

translating a Galtic contract so that all the nuances of the trade are

preserved perfectly."

"But there's any number of ways to do that," she said.

"There are very few ways to do it perfectly. And if a binding goes wrong

... Existing isn't normal for them. If you leave an imprecision or an

inaccuracy, they escape through it, and the poet pays a price for that.

Usually it comes as some particularly gruesome death. And knowing what

an andat is can be subtle. Stone-Made-Soft. What do you mean by stone?

Iron comes from stone, so is it stone? Sand is made of tiny stones. Is

it stone? Bones are like stone. But are they like enough to be called

the same name? All those nuances have to be balanced or the binding

fails. Happily, the Empire produced some formal grammars that were very

precise."

"And you describe this thing...."

"And then you hold that in your mind until you die. Only it's the kind

of thought that can think back, so it's wearing sometimes."

"Do you resent it?" Idaan asked, and something in her voice had changed.

Cehmai opened his eyes. Idaan was looking past him. Her expression was

unfathomable.

"I don't know what you mean," he said.

"You have to carry this thing all your life. Do you ever wish that you

hadn't been called to do it?"

"No," he said. "Not really. It's work, but it's work that I like. And I

get to meet the most interesting women."

Her gaze cooled, flickered over him, and then away.

"Lucky to be you," she said as she sat up. He watched her as she pulled

her robes from the puddle of cloth on the floor. Cehmai sat up. "I have

meetings in the morning. I'll need to be in my own rooms to be ready

anyway. I might as well go now."

"I might say fewer things that angered you if you talked to me," Cehmai

said, gently.

Idaan's head snapped around to him like a hunting cat's, but then her

expression softened to chagrin, and she took an apologetic pose.

"I'm overtired," she said. "'T'here are things that I'm carrying, and I

don't do it as gracefully as you. I don't mean to take them out on you."

"Why do you do this, Idaan-kya? Why do you come here? I don't think it's

that you love me."

"Do you want me to stop?"

"No," Cehmai said. "I don't. But if you choose to, that will be fine as

well."

"'That's flattering," she said, sarcasm thick in her voice.

"Are you doing this to be flattered?"

He was awake again now. He could see something in her expression pain,

anger, something else. She didn't answer him now, only knelt by the bed

and felt beneath it for her hoots. He put his hand on her arm and drew

her up. He could sense that she was close to speaking, that the words

were already there, just below the surface.

"I don't mind only being your bed mate," he said. "I've known from the

start that Adrah is the man you plan to be with, and that I couldn't be

that for you even if you wanted it. I assume that's part of why you've

chosen me. But I am fond of you, and I would like to be your friend."

"You'd be my friend?" she said. "That's nice to hear. You've bedded me

and now you'll condescend to be a friend?"

"I think it's more accurate to say you bedded me," Cehmai said. "And it

seems to me that people do what we've done quite often without caring

about the other person. Or even while wishing them ill. I'll grant that

we haven't followed the usual order-I understand people usually know

each other first and then fall into bed afterwards-hut in a way that

means you should take me more seriously."

She pulled hack and took a pose of query.

"You know I'm not just saying it to get your robes open," he said. "When

I say I want to be someone you can speak with, it's truth. I've nothing

to gain by it but the thing itself."

She sighed and sat on the bed. The light of the single candle painted

her in shades of orange.

"Do you love me, Cehmai-kya?" she asked.

Cehmai took a deep breath and then slowly let it out. He had reached the

gate. Her thoughts, her fears. Everything that had driven this girl into

his bed was waiting to be loosed. All he would have to do was tell one,

simple, banal lie. A lie thousands of men had told for less reason. He

was badly tempted.

"Idaan-kya," he said, "I don't know you."

To his surprise, she smiled. She pulled on her hoots, not bothering to

lace the bindings, leaned over and kissed him again. Her hand caressed

his cheeks.

"Lucky to be you," she said softly.

Neither spoke as they walked down the corridor to the main rooms. The

shutters were closed against the night, and the air felt stuffy and

thick. He walked with her to the door, then through it, and sat on the

steps, watching her vanish among the trees. The crickets still sang. The

moon still hung overhead, bathing the night in blue. He heard the high

squeak of bats as they skimmed the ponds and pools, the flutter of an

owl's wings.

"You should be sleeping," the low, gravel voice said from behind him.

"Yes, I imagine so."

"First light, there's a meeting with the stone potters."

"Yes, there is."

Stone-Made-Soft stepped forward and lowered itself to sit on the step

beside him. The familiar bulk of its body rose and fell in a sigh that

could only be a comment.

"She's up to something," Cehmai said.

"She might only find herself drawn to two different men," the andat

said. "It happens. And you're the one she couldn't build a life with.

The other boy ..."

"No," Cehmai said, speaking slowly, letting the thoughts form as he gave

them voice. "She isn't drawn to me. Not one."

"She could be flattered that you want her. I've heard that's endearing."

"She's drawn to you."

The andat shifted to look at him. Its wide mouth was smiling.

"That would be a first," it said. "I'd never thought of taking a lover.

I don't think I'd know what to do with her."

"Not like that," Cehmai said. "She wants me because of you. Because I'm

a poet. If I weren't, she wouldn't be here."

"Does that offend you?"

A gnat landed on the back of Cehmai's hand. The tiny wings tickled, but

he looked at it carefully. A small gray insect unaware of its danger.

With a puff of breath, he New it into the darkness. The andat waited

silently for an answer.

"It should," Cehmai said at last.

"Perhaps you can work on that."

"Being offended?"

"If you think you should be."

The storm in the back of him mind shifted. The constant thought that was

this thing at his side moved, kicking like a babe in the womb or a

prisoner testing the walls of its cell. Cehmai chuckled.

"You aren't trying to help," he said.

"No," the andat agreed. "Not particularly."

"Did the others understand their lovers? The poets before me?"

"How can I say? They loved women, and were loved by them. They used

women and were used by them. You may have found a way to put me on a

leash, but you're only men."

THE IRONY WAS THAT, HIS WOUND NOT FULLY HEALED, MAATI SPENT MORE time in

the library than he had when he had been playing at scholarship. Only

now, instead of spending his mornings there, he found it a calm place to

retire when the day's work had exhausted him; when the hunt had worn him

thin. It had been fifteen days now since Itani Noygu had walked away

from the palaces and vanished. Fourteen days since the assassin had put

a dagger in Maati's own guts. Thirteen days since the fire in the cages.

He knew now as much as he was likely to know of Itani Noygu, the courier

for House Siyanti, and almost nothing of Otah-kvo. Irani had worked in

the gentleman's trade for nearly eight years. He had lived in the

eastern islands; he was a charming man, decent at his craft if not

expert. He'd had lovers in "Ian-Sadar and tltani, but had broken things

off with both after he started keeping company with a wayhouse keeper in

Udun. His fellows were frankly disbelieving that this could be the rogue

Otah Machi, night-gaunt that haunted the dreams of Machi. But where he

probed and demanded, where he dug and pried, pleaded and coddled and

threatened, there was no sign of Otah-kvo. Where there should have been

secrecy, there was nothing. Where there should have been meetings with

high men in his house, or another house, or somebody, there was nothing.

There should have been conspiracy against his father, his brothers, the

city of his birth. There was nothing.

All of which went to confirm the conclusion that Maati had reached,

bleeding on the paving stones. Otah was not scheming for his father's

chair, had not killed Biitrah, had not hired the assassin to attack him.

And yet Otah was here, or had been. Maati had written to the Daikvo,

outlining what he knew and guessed and only wondered, but he had

received no word hack as yet and might not for several weeks. By which

time, he suspected, the old Khai would be dead. That thought alone tired

him, and it was the library that he turned to for distraction.

He sat back now on one of the thick chairs, slowly unfurling a scroll

with his left hand and furling it again with his right. In the space

between, ancient words stirred. The pale ink formed the letters of the

Empire, and the scroll purported to be an essay by Jaiet Khai-a man

named the Servant of Memory from the great years when the word Khai had

still meant servant. The grammar was formal and antiquated, the tongue

was nothing spoken now. It was unlikely than anyone but a poet would be

able to make sense of it.

'T'here are two types of impossibility in the andat, the man long since

dust had written. The first of these are those thoughts which cannot be

understood. Time and Mind arc examples of this type; mysteries so

profound that even the wise cannot do more than guess at their deepest

structure. These bindings may someday become possible with greater

understanding of the world and our place within it. For this reason they

are of no interest to me. The second type is made up of those thoughts

by their nature impossible to bind, and no greater knowledge shall ever

permit them. Examples of this are Imprecision and Freedom-FromBondage.

Holding Time or Mind would be like holding a mountain in your hands.

Holding Imprecision would be like holding the backs of your hands in

your palms. One of these images may inspire awe, it is true, but the

other is interesting.

"Is there anything I can do for you, Maati-cha?" the librarian asked again.

`.. Thank You, Baarath-cha, but no. I'm quite well."

The librarian took a step forward all the same. His hands seemed to

twitch towards the books and scrolls that Maati had gathered to look

over. The man's smile was fixed, his eyes glassy. In his worst moments,

Maati had considered pretending to catch one of the ancient scrolls on

fire, if only to see whether Baarath's knees would buckle.

"Because, if there was anything ..."

"Nlaati-cha?" The familiar voice of the young poet rang from the front

of the library. Maati turned to see Cehmai stride into the chamber with

a casual pose of welcome to Baarath. He dropped into a chair across from

Maati's own. The librarian was trapped for a moment between the careful

formality he had with Maati and the easy companionship he appeared to

enjoy with Cehmai. He hesitated for a moment, then, frowning, retreated.

"I'm sorry about him," Cehmai said. "He's an ass sometimes, but he is

good at heart."

"If you say so. And what brings you? I thought there was another

celebration of the Khai's daughter making a match."

"A messenger's come from the Dai-kvo," Cehmai said, lowering his voice

so that Baarath, no doubt just behind the corner and listening, might

not make out the words. "He says it's important."

Maati sat up, his belly twingeing a bit. His messages couldn't have

reached the Dai-kvo's village and returned so soon. This had to be

something that had been sent before word of his injury had gone out,

which meant the Dai-kvo had found something, or wished something done,

or ... He noticed Cehmai's expression and paused.

"Is the seal not right?"

"There is no seal," Cehmai said. "There is no letter. The messenger says

he was instructed to only speak the message to you, in private. It was

too important, he said, to be written."

"That seems unlikely," Maati said.

"Doesn't it?"

"Where is he now?"

"They brought him to the poet's house when they heard who had sent him.

I've had him put in a courtyard in the Fourth Palace. A walled one, with

armsmen to keep him there. If this is a fresh assassin ..

"Then he'll answer more questions than the last one can," Maati said.

""Take me there."

As they left, Maati saw Baarath swoop down on the hooks and scrolls like

a mother reunited with her babe. Maati knew that they would all he

hidden in obscure drawers and shelves by the time he came hack. Some, he

would likely never see again.

The sun was moving toward the mountain peaks in the west, early evening

descending on the valley. They walked together down the white gravel

path that led to the Fourth Palace, looking, Maati was sure, like

nothing so much as a teacher and his student in their matching brown

poet's robes. Except that Cehmai was the man who held the andat, and

Maati was only a scholar. They didn't speak, but Maati felt a knot of

excitement and apprehension tightening in him.

At the palace's great hall, a servant met them with a pose of formal

welcome that couldn't hide the brightness in her eyes. At a gesture, she

led them down a wide corridor and then up a flight of stairs to a

gallery that looked down into the courtyard. Maati forced himself to

breathe deeply as he stepped to the edge and looked down, Cehmai at his

side.

The space was modest, but lush. Thin vines rose along one wall and part

of another. Two small, sculpted maple trees stood, one at either end of

a long, low stone bench. It looked like a painting-the perfectly

balanced garden, with the laborer in his ill-cut robes the only thing

out of place. A breeze stirred the branches of the trees with a sound

equal parts flowing water and dry pages turning. Maati stepped hack. His

throat was tight, but his head felt perfectly clear. So this was how it

would happen. Very well.

Cehmai was frowning down warily at Otah-kvo. Maati put his hand on the

young man's shoulder.

"I have to speak with him," Maati said. "Alone."

"You don't think he's a threat?"

"It doesn't matter. I still need to speak with him."

"Maati-kvo, please take one of the armsmen. Even if you keep him at the

far end of the yard, you can ..."

Maati took a pose that refused this, and saw something shift in the

young man's eyes. Respect, Maati thought. He thinks I'm being brave. How

odd that I was that young once.

"Take me there," Maati said.

OTAH SAT IN THE GARDEN, HIS BACK AND NECK TIGHT FROM RIDING AND from

fear, and remembered being young in the summer cities. In one of the low

towns outside Saraykeht, there had been a rock at the edge of a cliff

that jutted out over the water so that, when the tide was just right, a

boy of thirteen summers might step out to its edge and peer past his

toes at the ocean below him and feel like a bird. There had been a hand

of them-the homeless young scraping by on pity and small laborwho had

dared each other to dive from that cliff. The first time he had made the

leap himself, he had been sure the moment his feet left the rough, hot

stone that he would die. That pause, divorced from earth and water,

willing himself hack up, trying to force himself to fly and take hack

that one irrevocable moment, had felt very much like sitting quiet and

alone in this garden. The trees shifted like slow dancers, the flowers

trembled, the stone glowed where the sun struck it and faded to gray

where it did not. He rubbed his fingers against the gritty bench to

remind himself where he was, and to keep the panic in his breast from

possessing him.

He heard the door slide open with a whisper, and then shut again. He

rose, forcing his body to move deliberately and took a pose of greeting

even before he looked up. Maati Vaupathai. 'l'ime had thickened him, and

there was a sorrow in the lines of his face that hadn't been there even

in the weary days when he had stood between his master Heshaikvo and the

death that had eventually come. Otah wondered whether that change had

sprung from Heshai's murder, and whether Maati had ever guessed that

Otah had been the one who drew the cord across the old poet's throat.

Maati took a pose of welcome appropriate for a student to a teacher.

"It wasn't me," Otah said. "My brother. You. I had nothing to do with

any of it."

"I had guessed that." Maati said. He did not come nearer.

"Are you going to call the armsmen? There must be half a dozen out

there. Your student could have been more subtle in calling them."

"'There's more than that, and he isn't my student. I don't have any

students. I don't have anything." A strange smile twitched at the corner

of his mouth. "I have been something of a disappointment to the Daikvo.

Why are you here?"

"Because I need help," Otah said, "and I hoped we might not be enemies.

Maati seemed to weigh the words. He walked to the bench, sat, and leaned

forward on clasped hands. Otah sat beside him, and they were silent. A

sparrow landed on the ground before them, cocked its head, and fluttered

madly away again.

"I came back because it was controlling me," Otah said. "This place.

These people. I've spent a lifetime leaving them, and they keep coming

back and destroying everything I build. I wanted to see it. I wanted to

look at the city and my brothers and my father."

He looked at his hands.

"I don't know what I wanted," Otah said.

"Yes," Maati said, and then, awkwardly, "It was foolish, though. And

there will be consequences."

"There have been already."

"There'll be more."

Again, the silence loomed. There was too much to say, and no order for

it. Otah frowned hard, opened his mouth to speak, and closed it again.

"I have a son," Maati said. "Liat and I have a son. His name's Nayiit.

He's probably just old enough now that he's started to notice that girls

aren't always repulsive. I haven't seen them in years."

"I didn't know," Otah said.

"How would you? The Dal-kvo said that I was a fool to keep a family. I

am a poet, and my duty is to the world. And when I wouldn't renounce

them, I fell from favor. I was given duties that might as well have been

done by an educated slave. And you know, there was an odd kind of pride

about it for a while. I was given clothing, shelter, food for myself.

Only for myself. I thought of leaving. Of folding my robes on the bed

and running away as you did. I thought of you, the way you had chosen

your own shape for your life instead of the shapes that were offered

you. I thought I was doing the same. Gods, Otah-kvo, I wish you had been

here. All these years, I wish I had been able to talk to you. To someone.

"I'm sorry...."

Maati raised a hand to stop him.

"My son," Maati said, then his voice thickened, and he coughed and began

again. "Liat and I parted ways. My low status among the poets didn't

have the air of romance for her that I saw in it. And ... there were

other things. Raising my son called for money and time and I had little

to spare of either. My son is thirteen summers. Thirteen. She was

carrying him before we left Saraykeht."

Otah felt the words as if he'd been struck an unexpected blow-a

sensation of shock without source or location, and then the flood. Maati

glanced over at him and read his thoughts from his face, and he nodded.

"I know," Maati said. "She told me about bedding you that one time after

you came back, before you left again. Before Heshai-kvo died and

Seedless vanished. I suppose she was afraid that if I discovered it

someday and she hadn't said anything it would make things worse. She

told me the truth. And she swore that my son was mine. And I believe her."

"Do you?"

"Of course not. I mean, some days I did. When he was young and I could

hold him in one arm, I was sure that he was mine. And then some nights I

would wonder. And even in those times when I was sure that he was yours,

I still loved him. That was the worst of it. The nights I lay awake in a

village where women and children aren't allowed, in a tiny cell that

stank of the disapproval of everyone I had ever hoped to please. I knew

that I loved him, and that he wasn't mine. No, don't. Let me finish. I

couldn't be a father to him. And if I hadn't fathered him either, what

was there left but watching from a distance while this little creature

grew up and away from me without even knowing my heart was tucked in his

sleeve."

Maati wiped at his eyes with the back of one hand.

"Liat said she was tired of my always mourning, that the boy deserved

some joy; that she did too. So after that I didn't have them, and I

didn't have the respect of the people I saw and worked beside. I was

eaten by guilt over losing them, and having taken her from you. I

thought that she would have been happy with you. That you would have

been happy with her. If only I hadn't broken faith with you, the world

might have been right after all. And you might have stayed.

"And that has been my life until the day they called on me to hunt you.

"I see," Otah said.

"I have missed your company so badly, Otah-kya, and I have never hated

anyone more. I have been waiting for years to say that. So. Now I have,

what was it you wanted from me?"

Otah caught his breath.

"I wanted your help," he said. "There's a woman. She was my lover once.

When I told her ... when I told her about my family, my past, she turned

me out. She was afraid that knowing me would put her and the people she

was responsible for in danger."

"She's wise, then," Maati said.

"I hoped you would help me protect her," Otah said. His heart was a lump

of cold lead. "Perhaps that was optimistic."

Maati laughed. The sound was hollow.

"And how would I do that?" Maati asked. "Kill your brothers for you?

Tell the Khai that the Dai-kvo had decreed that she was not to be

harmed? I don't have that power. I don't have any power at all. This was

my chance at redemption. They called upon me to hunt you because I knew

your face, and I failed at that until you walked into the palaces and

asked to speak with me."

"Go to my father with me. I refused the brand, but I won't now. I'll

renounce my claim to the chair in front of anyone he wants, only don't

let him kill me before I do it."

Maati looked across at him. The sparrow returned for a moment to perch

between them.

"It won't work," he said. "Renunciation isn't a simple thing, and once

you've stepped outside of form, stepping back in ..."

"But ..."

"They won't believe you. And even if they did, they'd still fear you

enough to see you dead."

Otah took a deep breath, and then slowly let it out, letting his head

sink into his hands. The air itself seemed to have grown heavier,

thicker. It had been a mad hope, and even in its failure, at least Kiyan

would be safe. It was past time, perhaps, that people stopped paying

prices for knowing him.

He could feel himself shaking. When he sat, his hands were perfectly

still, though he could still feel the trembling in them.

"So what are you going to do?" Otah asked.

"In a moment, I'm going to call in the armsmen that are waiting outside

that door," Maati said, his voice deceptively calm. He was trembling as

well. "I am going to bring you before the Khai, who will at some point

decide either that you are a murderer who has killed his son Biitrah and

put you to the sword, or else a legitimate child of Machi who should be

set loose for one of your older brothers to kill. I will speak on your

behalf, and any evidence I can find that suggests Biitrah's murder

wasn't your work, I will present."

"Well, thank you for that, at least."

"Don't," Maati said. "I'm doing it because it's true. If I thought you'd

arranged it, I'd have said that."

"Loyalty to the truth isn't something to throw out either."

Maati took a pose that accepted the gratitude, and then dropped his

hands to his sides.

"There's something you should know," Otah said. "It might ... it seems

to be your business. When I was in the islands, after Saraykeht, there

was a woman. Not Maj. Another woman. I shared a bed with her for two,

almost three years."

"Otah-kvo, I admire your conquests, but . .

"She wanted a child. From me. But it never took. Almost three years, and

she bled with the moon the whole time. I heard that after I left, she

took up with a fisherman from it tribe to the north and had a baby girl."

"I see," Maati said, and there was something in his voice. A brightness.

"Thank you, Otah-kvo."

"I missed you as well. I wish we had had more time. Or other circumstances."

"As do I. But it isn't ours to choose. Shall we do this thing?"

"I don't suppose I could shave first?" Otah asked, touching his chin.

"I don't see how," Maati said, rising. "But perhaps we can get you some

better robes."

Otah didn't mean to laugh; it simply came out of him. And then Maati was

laughing as well, and the birds startled around them, lifting up into

the sky. Otah rose and took a pose of respect appropriate to the closing

of a meeting. Maati responded in kind, and they walked together to the

door. Maati slid it open, and Otah looked to see whether there was a gap

in the men, a chance to dodge them and sprint out to the streets. He

might as well have looked for a stone cloud. The armsmen seemed to have

doubled in number, and two already had hare blades at the ready. The

young poet-the one Maati said wasn't his student-was there among them,

his expression serious and concerned. Maati spoke as if the bulky men

and their weapons weren't there.

"Cehmai-cha," he said. "Good that you're here. I would like to introduce

you to my old friend, Otah, the sixth son of the Khai Machi. Otahkvo,

this is Cchmai Tyan and that small mountain in the back is the andat

Stone-Made-Soft which he controls. Cehmai assumed you were an assassin

come to finish me off."

"I'm not," Otah said with a levity that seemed at odds with his

situation, but which felt perfectly natural. "But I understand the

misconception. It's the heard. I'm usually better shaved."

Cehmai opened his mouth, closed it, and then took a formal pose of

welcome. Maati turned to the armsmen.

"Chain him," he said.

EVEN AT THE HEIGHT OF MORNING, THE WIVES' QUARTERS OF THE HIGH palace

were filled with the small somber activity of a street market starting

to close at twilight. In the course of his life, the Khai Machi had

taken eleven women as wives. Some had become friends, lovers,

companions. Others had been little more than permanent guests in his

house, sent as a means of assuring favor as one might send a good

hunting dog or a talented slave. Idaan had heard that there were several

of them with whom he had never shared a bed. It had been Biitrah's wife,

Hiami, who'd told her that, trying to explain to a young girl that the

Khaiem had a different relationship to their women than other men had,

that it was traditional. It hadn't worked. Even the words the older

woman had used-your father chooser not to-had proven her point that this

was a comfort house with high ceilings, grand halls, and only a single

client.

But now that was changing, not in character, but in the particulars. The

succession would have the same effect on the eight wives who remained,

whoever took the seat. It would be time for them to leavemake the

journey back to whatever city or family had sent them forth in the first

place. The oldest of them, a sharp-tongued woman named Carai, would be

returning to a high family in Yalakeht where the man who would choose

her disposition had been a delighted toddler grinning and filling his

pants the last time she'd seen him. Another woman-one of the recent ones

hardly older than Idaan herself-had taken a lover in the court. She was

being sent hack to Chaburi-"[an, likely to be turned around and shipped

off to another of the Khaicm or traded between the houses of the

utkhaiem as a token of political alliance. Many of the wives had known

each other for decades and would now scatter and lose the friends and

companions they had known best. And on and on, every one of them a life

shaped by a man's will, constrained by tradition.

Idaan walked through the wide, bright corridors, listened to these women

preparing to depart when the inevitable news came, anticipating the

grief in a way that was as hard as the grief itself. Perhaps harder. She

accepted their congratulations on her marriage. She would be able to

remain in the city, and should her man die before her, her family would

be there to support her. She, at least, would never he uprooted. Hiami

had never understood why Idaan had objected to this way of living. Idaan

had never understood why these women hadn't set the palaces on fire.

Her own rooms were set in the back; small apartments with rich

tapestries of white and gold on the walls. They might almost have been

mistaken for the home of some merchant leader-the overseer of a great

trading house, or a trade master who spoke with the voice of a city's

craftsmen. If only she had been born one of those. As she entered, one

of her servants met her with an expression that suggested news. Idaan

took a pose of query.

"Adrah Vaunyogi is waiting to see you, Idaan-cha," the servant girl

said. "It was approaching midday, so I've put him in the dining hall.

There is food waiting. I hope I haven't ..."

"No," Idaan said, "you did well. Please see that we're left alone."

He sat at the long, wooden table, and he did not look up when she came

in. Idaan was willing to ignore him as well as to be ignored, so she

gathered a bowl of food from the platters-early grapes from the south,

sticky with their own blood; hard, crumbling cheese with a ripe scent

that was both appetizing and not; twice-baked flatbread that cracked

sharply when she broke off a piece-and retired to a couch. She forced

herself to forget that he was here, to look forward at the bare fire

grate. Anger buoyed her up, and she clung to it.

She heard it when he stood, heard his footsteps approaching. It was a

little victory, but it pleased her. As he sat cross-legged on the floor

before her, she raised an eyebrow and sketched a pose of welcome before

choosing another grape.

"I came last night," he said. "I was looking for you."

"I wasn't here," she said.

The pause was meant to injure her. Look how sad youu've made me, Idaan.

It was a child's tactic, and that it partially worked infuriated her.

"I've had trouble sleeping," she said. "I walk. Otherwise, I'd spend the

whole night staring at netting and watching the candle burn down. No

call for that."

Adrah sighed and nodded his head.

"I've been troubled too," he said. "My father can't reach the Galts.

With Oshai ... with what happened to him, he's afraid they may withdraw

their support."

"Your father is an old woman frightened there's a snake in the night

bucket," Idaan said, breaking a corner of her bread. "They may lie low

now, but once it's clear that you're in position to become Khai, they'll

do what they promised. They've nothing to gain by not."

"Once I'm Khai, they'll still own me," Adrah said. "They'll know how I

came there. They'll be able to hold it over me. If they tell what they

know, the gods only know what would happen."

Idaan took a bite of grape and cheese both-the sweet and the salt

mingling pleasantly. When she spoke, she spoke around it.

"They won't. They won't dare, Adrah. Give the worst: we're exposed by

the Galts. We're deposed and killed horribly in the streets. Fine. Lift

your gaze up from your own corpse for a moment and tell me what happens

next?"

"There's a struggle. Some other family takes the chair."

"Yes. And what will the new Khai do?"

"He'll slaughter my family," Adrah said, his voice hollow and ghostly.

Idaan leaned forward and slapped him.

"He'll have Stone-Made-Soft level a few Galtic mountain ranges and sink

some islands. Do you think there's a Khai in any city that would sit

still at the word of the Galtic Council arranging the death of one of

their own? The Galts won't own you because your exposure would mean the

destruction of their nation and the wholesale slaughter of their people.

So worry a little less. You're supposed to he overwhelmed with the

delight of marrying me."

"Shouldn't you be delighted too, then?"

"I'm busy mourning my father," she said dryly. "Do we have any wine?"

"How is he? Your father?"

"I don't know," Idaan said. "I try not to see him these days. He makes

me ... feel weak. I can't afford that just now."

"I heard he's failing."

"Men can fail for a long time," she said, and stood. She left the bowl

on the floor and walked back to her bedroom, holding her hands out

before her, sticky with juice. Adrah followed along behind her and lay

on her bed. She poured water into her stone basin and watched him as she

washed her hands. He was a boy, lost in the world. Perhaps now was as

good a time as any. She took a deep breath.

"I've been thinking, Adrah-kya," she said. "About when you become Khai."

He turned his head to look at her, but did not rise or speak.

"It's going to he important, especially at the first, to gather allies.

Founding a line is a delicate thing. I know we agreed that it would

always be only the two of us, but perhaps we were wrong in that. If you

take other wives, you'll have more the appearance of tradition and the

support of the families who hind themselves to us."

"My father said the same," he said.

Oh did he? Idaan thought, but she held her face still and calm. She

dried her hands on the basin cloth and came to sit on the bed beside

him. To her surprise, he was weeping; small tears corning from the outer

corners of his eyes, thin tracks shining on his skin. Without willing

it, her hand went to his cheek, caressing him. He shifted to look at her.

"I love you, Idaan. I love you more than anything in the world. You are

the only person I've ever felt this way about."

His lips trembled and she pressed a finger against them to quiet him.

These weren't things she wanted to hear, but he would not be stopped.

"Let's end this," he said. "Let's just be together, here. I'll find

another way to move ahead in the court, and your brother ... you'll

still be his blood, and we'll still be well kept. Can't we ... can't we,

please?"

"All this because you don't want to take another woman?" she said

softly, teasing him. "I find that hard to believe."

He took her hand in his. He had soft hands. She remembered thinking that

the first time they'd fallen into her bed together. Strong, soft, wide

hands. She felt tears forming in her own eyes.

"My father said that I should take other wives," he said. "My mother

said that, knowing you, you'd only agree to it if you could take lovers

of your own too. And then you weren't here last night, and I waited

until it was almost dawn. And you ... you want to ..."

"You think I've taken another man?" she asked.

His lips pressed thin and bloodless, and he nodded. His hand squeezed

hers as if she might save his life, if only he held onto her. A hundred

things came to her mind all at once. Yes, of course I have. How dare you

accuse me? Cehmai is the only clean thing left in my world, and you

cannot have him. She smiled as if Adrah were a boy being silly, as if he

were wrong.

"That would be the stupidest thing I could possibly do just now," she

said, neither lying nor speaking the truth of it. She leaned forward to

kiss him, but before their mouths touched, a voice wild with excitement

called out from the atrium.

"Idaan-cha! Idaan-cha! Come quickly!"

Idaan leapt up as if she'd been caught doing something she ought not,

then gathered herself, straightened her robes. The mirror showed that

the paint on her mouth and eyes was smudged from eating and weeping, but

there wasn't time to reapply it. She pushed hack a stray lock of hair

and stormed out.

The servant girl took a pose of apology as Idaan approached her. She

wore the colors of her father's personal retinue, and Idaan's heart sank

to her belly. He had died. It had happened. But the girl was smiling,

her eyes bright.

"What's happened?" Idaan demanded.

"Everything," the girl said. "You're summoned to the court. The Khai is

calling everyone."

"Why? What's happened?"

"I'm not to say, Idaan-cha," the girl said.

Idaan felt the rage-blood in her face as if she were standing near a

fire. She didn't think, didn't plan. Her body seemed to move of its own

accord as she slid forward and clapped her hand on the servant girl's

throat and pressed her to the wall. There was shock in the girl's

expression, and Idaan sneered at it. Adrah fluttered like a bird in the

corner of her vision.

"Say," Idaan said. "Because I asked you twice, tell me what's happened.

And do it now."

"The upstart," the girl said. ""They've caught him."

Idaan stepped back, dropping her hand. The girl's eyes were wide. The

air of excitement and pleasure were gone. Adrah put a hand on Idaan's

shoulder, and she pushed it away.

"He was here," the girl said. "In the palaces. The visiting poet caught

him, and they're bringing him before the Khai."

Idaan licked her lips. Otah Machi was here. He had been here for the

gods only knew how long. She looked at Adrah, but his expression spoke

of an uncertainty and surprise as deep as her own. And a fear that

wasn't entirely about their conspiracy.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Choya," the girl said.

Idaan took a pose of abject apology. It was more than a member of the

utkhaiem would have normally presented to a servant, but Idaan felt her

guilt welling up like blood from a cut.

"I am very sorry, Choya-cha. I was wrong to-"

"But that isn't all," the servant girl said. "A courier came this

morning from 'Ian-Sadar. He'd been riding for three weeks. Kaiin Machi

is dead. Your brother Danat killed him, and he's coming hack. The

courier guessed he might be a week behind him. I)anat Machi's going to

he the new Khai Machi. And Idaan-cha, he'll be back in the city in time

for your wedding!"

On one end, the chain ended at a cube of polished granite the color of

soot that stood as high as a man's waist. On the other, it linked to a

rough iron collar around Otah's neck. Sitting with his back to the

stone-the chain was not so long that he could stand-Otah remembered

seeing a brown bear tied to a pole in the main square of a low town

outside'lan-Sadar. Dogs had been set upon it three at a time, and with

each new wave, the men had wagered on which animal would survive.

Armsmen stood around him with blades drawn and leather armor, stationed

widely enough apart to allow anyone who wished it a good view of the

captive. Beyond them, the representatives of the utkhaiem in fine robes

and ornate jewelry crowded the floor and two tiers of the balconies that

rose up to the base of the domed ceiling far above him. The dais before

him was empty. Otah wondered what would happen if he should need to

empty his bladder. It seemed unlikely that they would let him piss on

the fine parquet floor, but neither could he imagine being led away

decorously. He tried to picture what they saw, this mob of nobility,

when they looked at him. He didn't try to charm them or play on their

sympathies. He was the upstart, and there wasn't a man or woman in the

hall who wasn't delighted to see him debased and humiliated.

The first of the servants appeared, filing out from a hidden door and

spacing themselves around the chair. Otah picked out the brown poet's

robe, but it was Cchmai with the bulk of his andat moving behind him.

Maati wasn't with him; Cehmai was speaking with a woman in the robes of

the Khaiem-Otah's sister, she would be. He wondered what her name was.

The last of the servants and counselors took their places, and the crowd

fell silent. The Khai Machi walked out, as graceful as a dying man could

be. His robes were lush and full, and served to do little more than show

how wasted his frame had become. Otah could see the rouge on his sunken

cheeks, trying to give the appearance of vigor long since gone.

Whisperers fanned out from the dais and into the crowd. The Khai took a

pose of welcome appropriate to the opening of a ritual judgment. Utah

rose to his knees.

"I am told that you are my son, Utah Machi, whom I gave over to the

poets' school."

The whisperers echoed it through the hall. It was his moment to speak

now, and he found his heart was so full of humiliation and fear and

anger that he had nothing to say. He raised his hands and took a pose of

greeting-a casual one that would have been appropriate for a peasant son

to his father. "There was a murmur among the utkhaiem.

"I am further told that you were once offered the poet's robes, and you

refused that honor."

Otah tried to rise, but the most the chain allowed was a low stoop. He

cleared his throat and spoke, pushing the words out clear enough to be

heard in the farthest gallery.

"That is true. I was a child, most high. And I was angry."

"And I hear that you have come to my city and killed my eldest child.

Biitrah Machi is dead by your hand."

"That is not true, father," Utah said. "I won't say that no man has ever

died by my hand, but I didn't kill I3iitrah. I have no wish or intention

to become the Khai Machi."

"Then why have you come here?" the Khai shouted, rising to his feet. His

face was twisted in rage, his fists trembled. In all his travels, Otah

had never seen the Khai of any city look more like a man. Otah felt

something like pity through his humiliation and rage, and it let him

speak more softly when he spoke again.

"I heard that my father was dying."

It seemed that the murmur of the crowds would never end. It rolled like

waves against the seashore. Otah knelt again; the awkward stooping hurt

his neck and hack, and there was no point trying to maintain dignity

here. They waited, he and his father, staring at each other across the

space. Otah tried to feel some bond, some kinship that would bridge this

gap, but there was nothing. The Khai Machi was his father by an accident

of birth, and nothing more.

He saw the old man's eyes flicker, as if unsure of himself. He couldn't

have always been this way-the Khaiem were inhumanly studied in ritual

and grace. It was the mark of their calling. Otah wondered what his

father had been when he was young and strong. He wondered what he would

have been like as a man among his children.

The Khai raised a hand, and the crowd's susurrus tapered down to

silence. Otah did not move.

"You have stepped outside tradition," he said. "Whether you took a hand

against my son is a question that has already gathered an array of

opinion. It is something I must think on.

"I have had other news this day. Danat Machi has won the right of

succession. He is returning to the city even now. I will consult with

him on your fate. Until then, you shall be confined in the highest room

in the great tower. I do not care to have your accomplices taking your

death in their own hands this time. Danat and I-the Khai Machi and the

Khai yet to come-shall decide together what kind of beast you are.

Otah took a pose of supplication. That he was on his knees only made the

gesture clearer. He was dead, whatever happened. He could see that now.

If there had been a chance of mercy-and likely there hadn't-having

father and son converse would remove it. But in the black dread, there

was this one chance to speak as himself-not as Itani Noygu or some other

mask. And if it offended the court, there was little worse they could do

to him than he faced now. His father hesitated, and Otah spoke.

"I have seen many of the cities of the Khaiem, most high. I have been

horn into the highest of families, and I have been offered the greatest

of honors. And if I am here to meet my death at the hands of those who

should by all rights love me, at least hear me out. Our cities are not

well, father. Our traditions are not well. You stand there on that dais

now because you killed your own. You are celebrating the return of

Danat, who killed his brother, and at the same time preparing to condemn

me on the suspicion that I did the same. A tradition that calls men to

kill their brothers and discard their sons cannot be-"

"Enough!" the Khai roared, and his voice carried. The whisperers were

silent and unneeded. "I have not carried this city on my back for all

these years to be lectured now by a rebel and a traitor and a poisoner.

You are not my son! You lost that right! You squandered it! Tell me that

this ..." The Khai raised his hands in a gesture that seemed to encom

pass every man and woman of the court, the palaces, the city, the

valley, the mountains, the world. ". . . this is evil? Because our

traditions are what hold all this from chaos. We are the Khaiem! We rule

with the power of the andat, and we do not accept instruction from

couriers and laborers who ... who killed ..."

The Khai closed his eyes and seemed to sway for a moment. The woman to

whom C'chmai had been speaking leapt up, her hand on the old man's

elbow. Otah could see them murmuring to each other, but he had no idea

what they were saying. The woman walked with him back to the chair and

helped him to sit. His face seemed sunken in pain. The woman was

crying-streaks of kohl black on her cheeks-but her bearing was more

regal and sure than their father's had been. She stepped forward and spoke.

"The Khai is weary," she said, as if daring anyone present to say

anything else. "He has given his command. The audience is finished!"

The voices rose almost as high and ran almost as loud as they had at

anything that had gone before. A woman-even if she was his

daughter-taking the initiative to speak for the Khai? The court would be

scandalized. Otah already imagined them placing bets as to whether the

man would live the night, and if he died now, whether it would he this

woman's fault for shaming him so deeply when he was already weak. And

Otah could see that she knew this. The contempt in her expression was

eloquent as any oratory. He caught her eye and took a pose of approval.

She looked at him as if he were a stranger who had spoken her name, then

turned away to help their father walk back to his rooms.

The march up to his cage led through a spiral stone stair so small that

his shoulders touched each wall, and his head stayed bent. The chain

stayed on his neck, his hands now bound behind him. He watched the

armsman before him half walking, half climbing the steep blocks of

stone. When Otah slowed, the man behind him struck with the butt of a

spear and laughed. Otah, his hands bound, sprawled against the steps,

ripping the flesh of his knees and chin. After that, he made a point to

slow as little as possible.

His thighs burned with each step and the constant turning to the right

left him nauseated. He thought of stopping, of refusing to move. They

were taking him up to wait for death anyway. There was nothing to he

gained by collaborating with them. But he went on, cursing tinder his

breath.

When the stairs ended, he found himself in a wide hall. The sky doors in

the north wall were open, and a platform hung level with them and

shifting slightly in the breeze, the great chains taut. Another four

armsmen stood waiting.

"Relief?" the man who had pushed him asked.

The tallest of the new armsmen took a pose of affirmation and spoke.

"We'll take the second half. You four head up and we'll all go down

together." The new armsmen led Otah to a fresh stairway, and the ordeal

began again. He had begun almost to dream in his pain by the time they

stopped. Thick, powerful hands pushed him into a room, and the door

closed behind him with a sound like a capstone being shoved over an open

tomb. The armsman said something through a slit in the door, but Otah

couldn't make sense of it and didn't have the will to try. He lay on the

floor until he realized that his arms had been freed and the iron collar

taken from around his neck. The skin where it had rested was chafed raw.

The voices of men seeped through the door, and then the sound of a winch

creaking as it lowered the platform and its cargo of men. Then there

were only two voices speaking in light, conversational tones. He

couldn't make out a word they said.

He forced himself to sit up and take stock. The room was larger than

he'd expected, and bare. It could have been used as a storage room or

set with table and chairs for a small meeting. There was a bowl of water

in one corner, but no food, no candles, nothing but the stone to sleep

on. The light came from a barred window. His hip and knees ached as Otah

pulled himself up and stumbled over to it. He was facing south, and the

view was like he'd become a bird. He leaned out-the bars were not so

narrowly spaced that he couldn't climb out and fall to his death if he

chose. Below him, the carts in the streets were like ants shuffling

along in their lines. A crow launched itself from a crack or beam and

circled below him, the sun shining on its black back. Trembling, he

pulled himself back in. There were no shutters to close off the sky.

He tried the door's latch, but it had been barred from without, and the

hinges were leather and worked iron. Not the sort of thing a man could

take apart with teeth. Otah knelt by the bowl of water and drank from

his cupped hand. He washed out the worst of his wounds, and left a third

in the bowl. There was no knowing how long it might be before they saw

fit to give him more. He wondered if there were birds that came up this

high to rest, and whether he would be able to trap one. Not that he

would have the chance to cook it-there was nothing to burn here, and no

grate to burn it in. Otah ran his hands over his face, and despite

himself, laughed. It seemed unlikely they would allow him anything sharp

enough to shave with. He would die with this sad little beard.

Otah stretched out in a corner, his arm thrown over his eyes, and tried

to sleep, wondering as he did whether the sense of movement came from

his own abused and exhausted body, or if it were true that so far up

even stone swayed.

MAATI LOOKED AT THE FLOOR. HIS FACE WAS HARD WITH FRUSTRATION AND anger.

"If you want him dead, most high," he said, his voice measured and

careful, "you might at least have the courtesy to kill him."

The Khai Machi raised the clay pipe to his lips. He seemed less to

breathe the smoke in than to drink it. The sweet resin from it had

turned every surface in the room slightly tacky to the touch. The

servant in the blue and gold robes of a physician sat discreetly in a

dim corner, pretending not to hear the business of the city. The

rosewood door was closed behind them. Lanterns of sanded glass filled

the room with soft light, rendering them all shadowless.

"I've listened to you, Maati-cha. I didn't end him there in the audience

chamber. I am giving you the time you asked," the old man said. "Why do

you keep pressing me?"

"He has no blankets or fire. The guards have given him three meals in

the last four days. And l)anat will return before I've had word hack

from the I)ai-kvo. If this is all you can offer, most high-"

"You can state your case to l)anat-cha as eloquently as you could to

me," the Khai said.

"There'll be no point if Otah dies of cold or throws himself out the

tower window before then," Maati said. "Let me take him food and a thick

robe. Let me talk with him."

"It's hopeless," the Khai said.

"Then there's nothing lost but my effort, and it will keep me from

troubling you further."

"Your work here is complete, isn't it? Why are you bothering me,

Maati-cha? You were sent to find Otah. He's found."

"I was sent to find if he was behind the death of Biitrah, and if he was

not, to discover who was. I have not carried out that task. I won't

leave until I have."

The Khai's expression soured, and he shook his head. His skin had grown

thinner, the veins at his temples showing dark. When he leaned forward,

tapping the howl of his pipe against the side of the iron brazier with a

sound like pebbles falling on stone, his grace could not hide his

discomfort.

"I begin to wonder, Maati-cha, whether you have been entirely honest

with me. You say that there is no great love between you and my upstart

son. You bring him to me, and for that reason alone, I believe you.

Everything else you have done suggests the other. You argue that it was

not he who arranged Biitrah's death, though you have no suggestion who

else might have. You ask for indulgences for the prisoner, you appeal to

the Dai-kvo in hopes ..

A sudden pain seemed to touch the old man's features and one

nearskeletal hand moved toward his belly.

"There is a shadow in your city," Maati said. "You've called it by

Utah's name, but none of it shows any connection with Otah: not Biitrah,

not the attack on me, not the murder of the assassin. None of the other

couriers of any house report anything that would suggest he was more

than he appeared. By his own word, he'd fled the city before the attack

on me, and didn't return before the assassin was killed. How is it that

he arranged all these things with no one seeing him? No one knowing his

name? How is it that, now he's trapped, no one has offered to sell him

in trade for their own lives?"

"Who then?"

"I don't ..."

"Who else gained from these things?"

"Your son, Danat," Maati said. "He broke the pact. If all this talk of

Otah was a ploy to distract Kaiin from the real danger, then it worked,

most high. Danat will be the new Khai Machi."

"Ask him when he comes. He will be the Khai Machi, and if he has done as

you said, then there's no crime in it and no reason that he should hide it."

"A poet was attacked-"

"And did you die? Are you dying? No? Then don't ask sympathy from me.

Go, Maati-cha. Take the prisoner anything you like. Take him a pony and

let him ride it around his cell, if that pleases you. Only don't return

to me. Any business you have with me now, you have with my son.

The Khai took a pose of command that ended the audience, and Maati

stood, took a pose of gratitude that he barely felt, and withdrew from

the meeting room. He stalked along the corridors of the palace seething.

Back in his apartments, he took stock. He had gathered together his

bundle even before he'd gone to the audience. A good wool robe, a rough

cloth hag filled with nut breads and dry cheeses, and a flask of fresh

water. Everything that he thought the Khai's men would permit. He folded

it all together and tied it with twine.

At the base of the great tower, armsmcn stood guard at the platform-a

metalwork that ran on tracks set into the stone of the tower, large

enough to carry twelve men. The chains that held it seemed entirely too

thin. Maati identified himself, thinking his poet's robe, reputation,

and haughty demeanor might suffice to make the men do as he instructed.

Instead, a runner was sent to the Khai's palace to confirm that Maati

was indeed permitted to see the prisoner and to give him the little

gifts that he carried. Once word was brought back, Maati climbed on the

platform, and the signalman on the ground blew a call on a great

trumpet. The chains went taut, and the platform rose. Maati held onto

the rail, his knuckles growing whiter as the ground receded. Wind

plucked at his sleeves as the roofs of even the greatest palaces fell

away below him. The only things so high as he was were the towers, the

birds, and the mountains. It was beautiful and exhilarating, and all he

could think the whole time was what would happen if a single link in any

of the four chains gave way. When he reached the open sky doors at the

top, the captain of the armsmen took him solidly by his arm and helped

him step in.

"First time, eh?" the captain said, and his men chuckled, but not

cruelly. It was a journey each of them risked, Maati realized, every

day. These men were more likely to die for the vanity of Machi than he.

He smiled and nodded, stepping away from the open space of the sky door.

"I've come to see the prisoner," he said.

"I know," the captain said. "The trumpet said as much, if you knew to

listen for it. But understand, if he attacks you-if he tries to bargain

your life for his freedom-I'll send your body down. You make your choice

when you go in there. I can't be responsible for it."

The captain's expression was stern. Maati saw that he thought this

possible, the danger real. Maati took a pose of thanks, hampered

somewhat by the bundle under his arm. The captain only nodded and led

him to a huge wooden door. Four of his men drew their blades as he

unbarred it and let it swing in. Maati took a deep breath and stepped

through.

Otah was huddled in a corner, his arms wrapped around his knees. He

looked up and then back down. Maati heard the door close behind him,

heard the bar slide home. All those men to protect him from this

half-dead rag.

"I've brought food," Maati said. "I considered wine, but it seemed too

much like a celebration."

Otah chuckled, a thick phlegmy sound.

"It would have gone to my head too quickly anyway," he said, his voice

weak. "I'm too old to go drinking without a good meal first."

Maati knelt and unfolded the robe and arranged the food he'd brought. It

seemed too little now, but when he broke off a corner of nut bread and

held it out, Otah nodded his gratitude and took it. Maati opened the

flask of water, put it beside Otah's feet, and sat back.

"What news?" Otah asked. "I don't hear much gossip up here."

"It's all as straightforward as a maze," Maati said. "House Siyanti is

calling in every favor it has not to be banned from the city. Your old

overseer has been going to each guild chapter house individually.

There's even rumor he's been negotiating with hired armsmen."

"He must be frightened for his life," Otah said and shook his head

wearily. "I'm sorry to have done that to him. But I suppose there's

little enough I can do about it now. There does always seem to be a

price people pay for knowing me."

Maati looked at his hands. For a moment he considered holding his

tongue. It would be worse, he thought, holding out hope if there was

none. But it was all that he had left to offer.

"I've sent to the Dai-kvo. I may have a way that you can survive this,"

he said. "There's no precedent for someone refusing the offer to become

a poet. It's possible that ..."

Otah sipped the water and put down the flask. His brow was furrowed.

"You've asked him to make me a poet?" Otah asked.

"I didn't say it would work," Maati said. "Only that I'd done it."

"Well, thank you for that much."

Otah reached out, took another hit of bread, and leaned back. The effort

seemed to exhaust him. Nlaati rose and paced the room. The view from the

window was lovely and inhuman. No one had ever been meant to see so far

at once. A thought occurred, and he looked in the corners of the room.

"Have they ... there's no night bucket," he said.

Otah raised one arm in a wide gesture toward the world outside.

"I've been using the window," he said. Maati smiled, and Otah smiled

with him. 't'hen for a moment they were laughing together.

"Well, that must confuse people in the streets," Maati said.

"Very large pigeons," Otah said. "They blame very large pigeons."

Maati grinned, and then felt the smile fade.

"They're going to kill, you Otah-kvo. The Khai and Danat. 't'hey can't

let you live. You're too well known, and they think you'll act against

them."

"They won't make do with blinding inc and casting me into the

wilderness, eh?"

"I'll make the suggestion, if you like."

Otah's laugh was thinner now. Ile took up the cheese, digging into its

pale flesh with his fingers. lie held a sliver out to Maati, offering to

share it. Maati hesitated, and then accepted it. It was smooth as cream

and salty. It would go well with the nut bread, he guessed.

"I knew this was likely to happen when I chose to come back," Otah said.

"I'm not pleased by it, but it will spare Kiyan, won't it? They won't

keep pressing her?"

"I can't see why they would," Maati said.

"Dying isn't so had, then," Otah said. "At least it does something for her."

"Do you mean that?"

"I might as well, Nlaati-kya. Unless you plan to sneak me out in your

sleeve, I think I'm going to he spared the rigors of a northern winter.

I don't see there's anything to be done about that."

Maati sighed and nodded. He rose and took a pose of farewell. Even just

the little food and the short time seemed to have made Otah stronger. He

didn't rise, but he took a pose that answered the farewell. Maati walked

to the door and pounded to be let out. He heard the scrape of the bar

being raised. Otah spoke.

"Thank you for all this. It's kind."

"I'm not doing it for you, Otah-kvo."

"All the same. Thank you."

Maati didn't reply. The door opened, and he stepped out. The captain of

the armsmen started to speak, but something in Maati's expression

stopped him. Maati strode to the sky doors and out to the platform as if

he were walking into a hallway and not an abyss of air. He clasped his

hands behind him and looked out over the roofs of Machi. What had been

vertiginous only recently failed to move him now. His mind and heart

were too full. When he reached the ground again, he walked briskly to

his apartments. The wound in his belly itched badly, but he kept himself

from worrying it. He only gathered his papers, sat on a deck of oiled

wood that looked out over gardens of summer trees and ornate flowers a

brighter red than blood, and planned out the remainder of his day.

There were still two armsmen from the cages with whom he hadn't spoken.

If he knew who had killed the assassin, it would likely lead him nearer

the truth. And the slaves and servants of the Third Palace might be

persuaded to speak more of Danat Machi, now that he was coming back

covered in the glory of his brother's blood. If he had used the story of

Otah the Upstart to distract his remaining brother from his schemes ...

A servant boy interrupted, announcing Cehmai. Maati took a pose of

acknowledgment and had the young poet brought to him. He looked unwell,

Maati thought. His skin was too pale, his eyes troubled. He couldn't

think that Otah-kvo was bothering Cehmai badly, but surely something was.

Still, the boy managed a grin and when he sat, he moved with more energy

than Maati himself felt.

"You sent for me, Maati-kvo?"

"I have work," he said. "You offered to help me with this project once.

And I could do with your aid, if you still wish to lend it."

"You aren't stopping?"

Maati considered. He could say again that the Dai-kvo had told him to

discover the murderer of Biitrah Machi and whether Otah-kvo had had a

hand in it, and that until he'd done so, he would keep to his task. It

had been a strong enough argument for the utkhaiem, even for the Khai.

But Cehmai had known the Dai-kvo as well as he had, and more recently.

He would see how shallow the excuse was. In the end he only shook his head.

"I am not stopping," he said.

"May I ask why not?"

"They are going to kill Otah-kvo."

"Yes," Cehmai agreed, his voice calm and equable. Maati might as well

have said that winter would be cold.

"And I have a few days to find whose crimes he's carrying."

Cehmai frowned and took a pose of query.

"They'll kill him anyway," Cehmai said. "If he killed Biitrah, they'll

execute him for that. If he didn't, Danat will do the thing to keep his

claim to be the Khai. Either way he's a dead man."

"That's likely true," Maati said. "But I've done everything else I can

think to do, and this is still left, so I'll do this. If there is

anything at all I can do, I have to do it."

"In order to save your teacher," Cehmai said, as if he understood.

"To sleep better twenty years from now," Maati said, correcting him. "If

anyone asks, I want to he able to say that I did what could be done. And

I want to be able to mean it. "That's more important to me than saving him."

Cehmai seemed puzzled, but Maati found no better way to express it

without mentioning his son's name, and that would open more than it

would close. Instead he waited, letting the silence argue for him.

Cehmai took a pose of acceptance at last, and then tilted his head.

"Maati-kvo ... I'm sorry, but when was the last time you slept?"

Maati smiled and ignored the question.

"I'm going to meet with one of the armsmen who saw my assassin killed,"

he said. "I was wondering if I could impose on you to find some servant

from Danat's household with whom I might speak later this evening. I

have a few questions about him ..

DANAT MACIII ARRIVED LIKE. A HERO. THE STREETS WERE FILLET) WITH people

cheering and singing. Festivals filled the squares. Young girls danced

through the streets in lines, garlands of summer blossoms in their hair.

And from his litter strewn with woven gold and silver, Danat Machi

looked out like a protective father indulging a well-loved child. Idaan

had been present when the word came that Danat Machi waited at the

bridge for his father's permission to enter the city. She had gone down

behind the runner to watch the doors fly open and the celebration that

had been building spill out into the dark stone streets. They would have

sting as loud for Kaiin, if Danat had been dead.

While Danat's caravan slogged its way through the crowds, Idaan

retreated to the palaces. The panoply of the utkhaiem was hardly more

restrained than the common folk. Members of all the high families

appeared as if by chance outside the Third Palace's great hall.

Musicians and singers entertained with beautiful ballads of great

warriors returning home from the field, of time and life renewed in a

new generation. They were songs of the proper function of the world. It

was as if no one had known Biitrah or Kaiin, as if the wheel of the

world were not greased with her family's blood. Idaan watched with a

calm, pleasant expression while her soul twisted with disgust.

When Danat reached the long, broad yard and stepped down from his

litter, a cheer went up from all those present; even from her. Danat

raised his arms and smiled to them all, beaming like a child on Candles

Night. His gaze found her, and he strode through the crowd to her side.

Idaan raised her chin and took a pose of greeting. It was what she was

expected to do. He ignored it and picked her up in a great hug, swinging

her around as if she weighed nothing, and then placed her back on her

own feet.

"Sister," he said, smiling into her eyes. "I can't say how glad I am to

see you.

"Danat-kya," she said, and then failed.

"How are things with our father?"

The sorrow that was called for here was at least easier than the feigned

delight. She saw it echoed in Danat's eyes. So close to him, she could

see the angry red in the whites of his eyes, the pallor in his skin. He

was wearing paint, she realized. Rouge on his cheeks and lips and some

warm-toned powder to lend his skin the glow of health. Beneath it, he

was sallow. She wondered if he'd grown sick, and whether there was some

slow poison that might be blamed for his death.

"He has been looking forward to seeing you," she said.

"Yes. Yes, of course. And I hear that you're to become a Vaunyogi. I'm

pleased for you. Adrah's a good man."

"I love him," she said, surprised to find that in some dim way it was

still truth. "But how are you, brother? Are you ... are things well with

you?"

For a moment, Danat seemed about to answer. She thought she saw

something weaken in him, his mouth losing its smile, his eyes looking

into a darkness like the one she carried. In the end, he shook himself

and kissed her forehead, then turned again to the crowd and made his way

to the Khai's palace, greeting and rejoicing with everyone who crossed

his path. And it was only the beginning. Danat and their father would be

closeted away for a time, then the ritual welcome from the heads of the

families of the utkhaicm. And then festivities and celebrations, feasts

and dances and revelry in the streets and palaces and teahouses.

Idaan made her way to the compound of the Vaunyogi, and to Adrah and his

father. The house servants greeted her with smiles and poses of welcome.

The chief overseer led her to a small meeting room in the hack. If it

seemed odd that this room-windowless and dark-was used now in the summer

when most gatherings were in gardens or open pavilions, the overseer

made no note of it. Nothing could have been more different from the mood

in the city than the one here; like a winter night that had crept into

summer.

"Has House Vaunyogi forgotten where it put its candles?" she asked, and

turned to the overseer. "Find a lantern or two. These fine men may be

suffering from their drink, but I've hardly begun to celebrate."

The overseer took a pose that acknowledged the command and scampered

off, returning immediately with his gathered light. Adrah and his father

sat at a long stone table. Dark tapestries hung from the wall, red and

orange and gold. When the doors were safely closed behind them, Idaan

pulled out one of the stools and sat on it. tier gaze moved from the

father's face to the son's. She took a pose of query.

"You seem distressed," she said. "The whole city is loud with my

brother's glory, and you two are skulking in here like criminals."

"We have reason to be distressed," Daaya Vaunyogi said. She wondered

whether Adrah would age into the same loose jowls and watery eyes. "I've

finally reached the Galts. They've cooled. Killing Oshai's made them

nervous, and now with Danat back ... we expected to have the fighting

between your brothers to cover our ... our work. There's no hope of that

now. And that poet hasn't stopped hunting around, even with the holes

Oshai poked in him."

""The more reason you have to be distressed," Idaan said, "the more

important that you should not seem it. Besides, I still have two living

brothers."

"Ah, and you have some way to make Danat die at Otah's hand?" the old

man said. There was mockery in his voice, but there was also hope. And

fear. He had seen what she had done, and perhaps now he thought her

capable of anything. She supposed that would be something worthy of his

hope and fear.

"I don't have the details. But, yes. The longer we wait, the more

suspicious it will look when Danat and the poet die."

"You still want Maati Vaupathai dead?" Daaya asked.

"Otah is locked away, and the poet's digging. Maati Vaupathai isn't

satisfied to blame the upstart for everything, even if the whole city

besides him is. There are three breathing men between Adrah and my

father's chair. Danat, Otah, and the poet. I'll need armsmen, though, to

do what I intend. How many could you put together? They would have to he

men you trust."

Daaya looked at his son, as if expecting to find some answer there, but

Adrah neither spoke nor moved. He might very nearly not have been there

at all. Idaan swallowed her impatience and leaned forward, her palms

spread on the cool stone of the table. One of the candles sputtered and

spat.

"I know a man. A mercenary lord. He's done work for me before and kept

quiet," Daaya said at last. He didn't seem certain.

"We'll free the upstart and slit the poet's throat," Idaan said. "There

won't be any question who's actually done the thing. No sane person

would doubt that it was Otah's hand. And when Danat rides out to find

him, our men will be ready to ride with him. That will be the dangerous

part. You'll have to find a way to get him apart from anyone else who goes.

"And the upstart?" Daaya asked.

"He'll go where we tell him to go. We'll just have saved him, after all.

't'here will be no reason to think we mean him harm. They'll all be dead

in time for the wedding, and if we do it well, the joy that is our

bonding will put us as the clear favorites to take the chair. That

should be enough to push the Galts into action. Adrah will be Khai

before the harvest."

Idaan leaned hack, smiling in grim satisfaction. It was Adrah who broke

the silence, his voice calm and sure and unlike him.

"It won't work."

Idaan began to take a pose of challenge, but she hesitated when she saw

his eyes. Adrah had gone cold as winter. It wasn't fear that drove him,

whatever his father's weakness. There was something else in him, and

Idaan felt a stirring of unease.

"I can't sec why not," Idaan said, her voice still strong and sure.

"Killing the poet and freeing Otah would be simple enough to manage. But

the other. No. It supposes that Danat would lead the hunt himself. He

wouldn't. And if he doesn't, the whole thing falls apart. It won't work."

"I say that he would," Idaan said.

"And I say that your history planning these schemes isn't one that

inspires confidence," Adrah said and stood. The candlelight caught his

face at an angle, casting shadows across his eyes. Idaan rose, feeling

the blood rushing into her face.

"I was the one who saved us when Oshai fell," she said. "You two were

mewling like kittens, and crying despair-"

"That's enough," Adrah said.

"I don't recall you being in a position to order me when to speak and

when to he silent."

Daaya coughed, looking from one to the other of them like a lamb caught

between wolf and lion. The smile that touched Adrah's mouth was thin and

unamused.

"Idaan-kya," Adrah said, "I am to be your husband and the Khai of this

city. Sit with that. Your plan to free Oshai failed. Do you understand

that? It failed. It lost us the support of our hackers, it killed the

man most effective in carrying out these unfortunate duties we've taken

on, and it exposed me and my father to risk. You failed before, and this

scheme you've put before us now would also fail if we did as you propose.

Adrah began to pace slowly, one hand brushing the hanging tapestries.

Idaan shook her head, remembering some epic she'd seen when she was

young. A performer in the role of Black Chaos had moved as Adrah moved

now. Idaan felt her heart grow tight.

"It isn't that it's without merit-the shape of it generally is useful,

but the specifics are wrong. If Danat is to grab what men he can find

and rush out into the night, it can't be because he's off to avenge a

poet. He would have to be possessed by some greater passion. And it

would help if he were drunk, but I don't know that we can arrange that."

"So if not the Maati Vaupathai ... ," she began, and her throat closed.

Cehmai, she thought. He means to kill Cehmai and free the andat. Her

hands balled into fists, her heart thudded as if she'd been sprinting.

Adrah turned to face her, his arms folded, his expression calm as a

butcher in the slaughterhouse.

"You said there were three breaths blocking us. There's a fourth. Your

father."

No one spoke. When Idaan laughed, it sounded shrill and panicked in her

own cars. She took a pose that rejected the suggestion.

"You've gone mad, Adrah-kya. You've lost all sense. My father is dying.

He's dying, there's no call to ..."

"What else would enrage Danat enough to let his caution slip? The

upstart escapes. Your father is murdered. In the confusion, we come to

him, a hunting party in hand, ready to ride with him. We can put it out

today that we're planning to ride out before the end of the week. Fresh

meat for the wedding feast, we'll say."

"It won't work," Idaan said, raising her chin.

"And why not?" Adrah replied.

"Because I won't let you!"

She spun and grabbed for the door. As she hauled it open, Adrah was

around her, his arms pressing it shut again. Daaya was there too, his

wide hands patting at her in placating gestures that filled her with

rage. Her mind left her, and she shrieked and howled and wept. She

clawed at them both and kicked and tried to bite her way free, but

Adrah's arms locked around her, lifted her, tightened until she lost her

breath and the room spun and grew darker.

She found herself sitting again without knowing when she'd been set

down. Adrah was raising a cup to her lips. Strong, unwatered wine. She

sipped it, then pushed it away.

"Have you calmed yourself yet?" Adrah asked. There was warmth in his

voice again, as if she'd been sick and was only just recovering.

"You can't do it, Adrah-kya. He's an old man, and ..."

Adrah let the silence stretch before he leaned toward her and wiped her

lips with a soft cloth. She was trembling, and it annoyed her. Her body

was supposed to be stronger than that.

"It will cost him a few days," Adrah said. "A few weeks at most.

Idaan-kya, his murder is the thing that will draw your brother out if

anything will. You said it to me, love. If we falter, we fail."

He smiled and caressed her cheek with back of his hand. Daaya was at the

table, drinking wine of his own. Idaan looked into Adrah's dark eyes,

and despite the smiles, despite the caresses, she saw the hardness

there. I should have said no, she thought. When he asked if I had taken

another lover, I shouldn't have danced around it. I should have said no.

She nodded.

"We can make it quick. Painless," Adrah said. "It will be a mercy,

really. His life as it is now can hardly be worth living. Sick, weak.

That's no way for a proud man to live."

She nodded again. Her father. The simple pleasure in his eyes.

"He wanted so much to see us wed," she murmured. "He wanted so much for

me to be happy."

Adrah took a pose that offered sympathy, but she wasn't such a fool as

to believe it. She rose shakily to her feet. They did not stop her.

"I should go," she said. "I'll be expected at the palaces. I expect

there will be food and song until the sun comes up."

Daaya looked up. His smile was sickly, but Adrah took a pose of

reassurance and the old man looked away again.

"I'm trusting you, Idaan-kya," Adrah said. "To let you go. It's because

I trust you."

"It's because you can't lock me away without attracting attention. If I

vanish, people will wonder why, and my brother not the least. We can't

have that, can we? Everything must seem perfectly normal."

"It still might be wise, locking you away," Adrah said. He pretended to

be joking, but she could see the debate going on behind his eyes. For a

moment, her life spread out before her. The first wife of the Khai

Machi, looking into these eyes. She had loved him once. She had to

remember that. Idaan smiled, leaned forward, kissed his lips.

"I'm only sad," she said. "It will pass. I'll come and meet you

tomorrow. We can plan what needs to be done."

Outside, the revelry had spread. Garlands arched above the streets.

Choirs had assembled and their voices made the city chime like a struck

bell. Joy and relief were everywhere, except in her. For most of the

afternoon, she moved from feast to feast, celebration to

celebration-always careful not to be touched or bumped, afraid she might

break like a girl made from spun sugar. As the sun hovered three hands'

widths above the mountains to the west, she found the face she had been

longing for.

Cehmai and Stone-Made-Soft were in a glade, sitting with a dozen

children of the utkhaiem. The little boys and girls were sitting on the

grass, grinding green into their silk robes with knees and elbows, while

three slaves performed with puppets and dolls. The players squealed and

whistled and sang, the puppets hopped and tumbled, beat one another, and

fled. The children laughed. Cehmai himself was stretched out like a

child, and two adventurous girls were sitting in Stone-MadeSoft's wide

lap, their arms around each other. The andat seemed mildly amused.

When Cehmai caught sight of her, he came over immediately. She smiled as

she had been doing all day, took a greeting pose that her hands had

shaped a hundred times since morning. He was the first one, she thought,

to see through pose and smile both.

"What's happened?" he asked, stepping close. His eyes were as dark as

Adrah's, but they were soft. They were young. There wasn't any hatred

there yet, or any pain. Or perhaps she only wished that was true. Her

smile faltered.

"Nothing," she said, and he took her hand. Here where they might be

seen-where the children at least were sure to see them-he took her hand

and she let him.

"What's happened?" he repeated, his voice lower and closer. She shook

her head.

"My father is going to die," she said, her voice breaking on the words,

her lips growing weak. "My father's going to die, and there's nothing I

can do to help it. No way for me to stop it. And the only time crying

makes me feel better is when I can do it with you. Isn't that strange?"

Cchmai rode tip the wide track, switchbacking up the side of the

mountain. The ore chute ran straight from the mine halfway up the

mountain's face to the carter's base at its foot. When the path turned

toward it, Cchmai considered the broad beams and pillars that held the

chute smooth and even down the rough mountainside. When they turned

away, he looked south to where the towers of Machi stood like reeds in

the noonday sun. His head ached.

"We do appreciate your coming, Cehmai-cha," the mine's engineer said

again. "With the new Khai come home, we thought everyone would put

business off for a few days."

Cchmai didn't bother taking a pose accepting the thanks as he had the

first few times. Repetition had made it clear that the gratitude was

less than wholly sincere. He only nodded and angled his horse around the

next bend, swinging around to a view of the ore chute.

There were six of them; Cchmai and Stone-blade-Soft, the mine's

engineer, the overseer with the diagrams and contracts in a leather

satchel on his hip, and two servants to carry the water and food.

Normally there would have been twice as many people. Cehmai wondered how

many miners would he in the tunnels, then found he didn't particularly

care, and returned to contemplating the ore chute and his headache.

They had left before dawn, trekking to the Raadani mines. It had been

arranged weeks before, and business and money carried a momentum that

even stone didn't. A landslide might overrun a city, but it only went

down. Something had to have tremendous power to propel something as

tired and heavy as he felt up the mountainside. Something in the back of

his mind twitched at the thought-attention shifting of its own accord

like an extra limb moving without his willing it.

"Stop," Cehmai snapped.

The overseer and engineer hesitated for a moment before Cehmai

understood their confusion.

"Not you," he said and gestured to Stone-Made-Soft. "Him. He was judging

what it would take to start a landslide."

"Only as an exercise," the andat said, its low voice sounding both hurt

and insincere. "I wasn't going to do it."

The engineer looked up the slope with an expression that suggested

Cehmai might not hear any more false thanks. Cehmai felt a spark of

vindictive pleasure at the man's unease and saw Stone-Made-Soft's lips

thin so slightly that no other man alive would have recognized the smile.

Idaan had spent the first night of the festival with him, weeping and

laughing, taking comfort and coupling until they had both fallen asleep

in the middle of their pillow talk. The night candle had hardly burned

down a full quarter mark when the servant had come, tapping on his door

to wake him. He'd risen for the trek to the mines, and Idaan- alone in

his bed-had turned, wrapping his bedclothes about her naked body, and

watched him as if afraid he would tell her to leave. By the time he had

found fresh robes, her eyelids had closed again and her breath was deep

and slow. He'd paused for a moment, considering her sleeping face. With

the paint worn off and the calm of sleep, she looked younger. Her lips,

barely parted, looked too soft to bruise his own, and her skin glowed

like honey in sunlight.

But instead of slipping back into bed and sending out a servant for new

apples, old cheese, and sugared almonds, he'd strapped on his boots and

gone out to meet his obligations. His horse plodded along, flies buzzed

about his face, and the path turned away from the ore chute and looked

back toward the city.

There would be celebrations from now until Idaan's wedding to Adrah

Vaunyogi. Between those two joys-the finished succession and the

marriage of the high families-there would also be the preparations for

the Khai Machi's final ceremony. And, despite everything Maati-kvo had