An Autumn War

17

The watchmen Kiyan had placed at the tops of the towers began ringing their hells just as the sun touched the top of the mountains to the west. "Traffic stopped in the streets below and in the palace corridors. All eyes looked up, straining to see the color of the banners draped from the high, distant windows. Yellow would mean that a Galtic army had come at last, that their doom had come upon them. Red meant that the Khai had returned. So far above the city, colors were difficult to make out. At least to Nlaati's eyes, the first movement of the great signal cloth was only movement-the banners Hew. It was the space of five fast, shaky breaths before he made out the red. (bah Machi had returned.

A crowd formed at the edge of the city as the first wagons came over the bridge. The women and children and old men of Machi come to greet the militia that had gone out to save the l)ai-kvo. The Dai-kvo and the city and the world. Maati pushed his way in, elbowing people aside and taking more than one sharp rebuttal in his own ribs. The horses that pulled the wagons were blown. The men who rode them were gray-pale in the face and bloodied. The few who still walked, shambled. A ragged cheer rose from the crowd and then slunk away. A girl in a gray robe of cheap wool stepped out from the edge of the crowd, moving toward the soldiers. From where he stood trapped in the press of bodies, Maati could see the girl's head as it turned, searching the coming train of men for some particular man. Even before the first soldier reached her, Nlaati saw how small the group was, how many men were missing.

"Nayiit!" he shouted, hoping that his boy would hear him. "Nayiit! Over here!"

His voice was drowned. The citizens of Machi surged forward like an attack. Some of the men crossing the bridge drew back from them as if in fear, and then there was only one surging, swirling mass of people. 'T'here was no order, no control. One of the first wagons was pushed sideways from the road, the horses whinnying their protest but too tired to bolt. A man younger than Nayiit with a badly cut arm and a bruise on his face stumbled almost into i\laati's arms.

"What happened?" Maati demanded of the boy. "Where's the Khai? I lave you seen Nayiit Chokavi?" A blank stare was the only reply.

The chaos seemed to go on for a day, though it wasn't really more than half a hand. Then a loud, cursing voice rose over the tumult, clearing the way for the wagons. There were hurt men. Men who had to see physicians. Men who were dying. Men who were dead. The people stood aside and let the wagons pass. The sounds of weeping and hard wheels on paving stones were the only music. Maati felt breathless with dread.

As he pushed back into the city, following in the path the wagons had opened, he heard bits and snatches from the people he passed. The Khai had taken the utkhaiem and ridden for Cetani. The Galts weren't far behind. The I)ai-kvo was dead. The village of the Dai-kvo was burned. 'T'here had been a blood-soaked farce of a battle. As many men were dead as still standing.

Rumor, Maati told himself. Everything is rumor and speculation until I hear it from Nayiit. Or Otah-kvo. But his chest was tight and his hands balled in fists so tight they ached when, out of breath and ears ringing, he made his way back to the library. A man in a travel-stained robe squatted beside his door, a tarp-covered crate on the ground at his side.

Nayiit. It was Nayiit. Maati found the strength to embrace his boy, and allowed himself at last to weep. He felt Nayiit's arms around him, felt the boy soften in their shared grief, and then pull away. Maati forced himself to step hack. Nayiit's expression was grim.

"Come in," Nlaati said. "Then tell me."

It was had. The Galts were not on Machi's door and Otah-kvo lived, but these were the only bright points in Nayiit's long, quiet recitation. They sat in the dimming front room, shutters closed and candles unlit, while Nayiit told the tale. Maati clasped his hands together, squeezing his knuckles until they ached. The Dai-kvo was dead. The men whom Maati had known in the long years he had lived in the village were memories now. ITe found himself trying to remember their names, their faces. 't'here were fewer fresh to his mind than he would have thoughtthe firekeeper whose kiln had been at the corner nearest Maati's cell, the old man who'd run the bathhouse, a few others. They were gone, fallen into the forgetfulness of history. The records of their names had been burned.

"We searched. We searched through everything," Nayiit said. "I brought you what we found."

With a thick rustle, he pulled the thick waxed cloth from out of the crate. Two stacks of books lay beneath it, and Maati, squatting on the floor, lifted the ancient texts out one at a time with trembling hands. Fourteen books. The library of the Dai-kvo reduced to fourteen hooks. He opened them, smelling the smoke in their pages, feeling the terrible lightness of the bindings. There was no unity to them-a sampling of what had happened to be in a dark corner or hidden beneath something unlikely. A history of agriculture before the First Empire. An essay on soft grammars. Jantan Noya's Fourth 7i-eatrse on Form, which Maati had two copies of among his own hooks. None of these salvaged volumes outlined the binding of an andat, or the works of ancient poets.

Stone-Made-Soft wouldn't be bound with these. And so StoneMade-Soft wouldn't be bound, because these were all that remained. Maati felt a cold, deep calm descend upon him. Grunting, he stood tip and then began pacing his rooms. His hands went through the movements of lighting candles and lanterns without his conscious participation. His mind was as clear and sharp as broken ice.

Stone-Made-Soft could not be bound-not without years of workand so he put aside that hope. If he and Cehmai failed to hind an andat, and quickly, the Gaits would destroy them all. Nayiit, Liat, Otah, Eiah. Everyone. So something had to be done. Perhaps they could trick the Gaits into believing that an andat had been hound. Perhaps they could delay the armies arrayed against them until the cold shut Machi against invasion. If he could win the long, hard months of winter in which he could scheme…

When the answer came to him, it was less like discovering something than remembering it. Not a flash of insight, but a familiar glow. He had, perhaps, known it would come to this.

"I think I know what to do, but we have to find Cehmai," he began, but when he turned to Nayiit, his son was curled on the floor, head pillowed by his arms. His breath was as deep and regular as tides, and his eyes were sunken and hard shut. Weariness had paled the long face, sharpening his cheeks. Maati walked as softly as he could to his bedchamber, pulled a thick blanket from his bed, and brought it to drape over Nayiit. The thick carpets were softer and warmer than a traveler's cot. There was no call to wake him.

What had happened out there-the battle, the search through the village, the trek back to Machi with this thin gift of useless bookswould likely have broken most men. It had likely scarred Nayiit. Maati reached to smooth the hair on Nayiit's brow, but held back and smiled.

"All the years I should have done this," he murmured to himself. "Putting my boy to bed." lie softly closed the door to his apartments. The night was deep and dark, stars shining like diamonds on velvet, and a distant, eerie green aurora dancing far to the North. Maati stopped at the library proper, tucked the book he needed into his sleeve, and then-though the urge to find Cehunai instantly was hard to resist-made his way to the palaces, and to the apartments that Otah had given Liat.

A servant girl showed him into the main chamber. The only light was the fire in the grate, the shadows of flame dancing on the walls and across Liat's brow as she stared into them. Her hair was disarrayed, wild as a bird's nest. Her hands were in claws, trembling.

"I haven't… I haven't found-"

"He's fine," Maati said. "He's in my apartments, asleep."

Liat's cry startled him. She didn't walk to him so much as flow through the air, and her arms were around Maati's shoulders, embracing him. And then she stepped hack and struck his shoulder hard enough to sting.

"How long has he been there?"

"Since the army came hack," Maati said, rubbing his bruised flesh. "EIe brought books that they salvaged from the Dai-kvo. I was looking them over when-"

"And you didn't send me a runner? There are no servants in the city who you could have told to come to me? I've been sitting here chewing my own heart raw, afraid he was dead, afraid he was still out with Otah chasing the Galts, and he was at your apartments talking about books?"

"He's fine," Maati said. "I put a blanket over him and came to you. But he'll need food. Soup. Some wine. I thought you could take it to him."

Liat wiped away a tear with the back of her hand.

"He's all right?" she asked. Her voice had gone small.

"I Ic's exhausted and hungry. But it's nothing a few days' rest won't heal."

"And… his heart? You talked with him. Is he…?"

"I don't know, sweet. I'm not his mother. 'lake him soup. "talk with him. You'll know him better than I can."

Liat nodded. There were tears on her cheeks, but Nlaati knew it was only the fear working its way through. Seeing their boy would help more than anything else.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"I'he poet's house."

The night air was chill, both numbing his skin and making him more acutely aware of it. Summer was failing, autumn clearing its throat. The few men and women Nlaati passed seemed to haunt the palaces, more spirit than flesh. They took poses of deference to him, more formal or less depending upon their stations, but the stunned expressions spoke of a single thought. The news from the broken army had spread, and everyone knew that the I)ai-kvo was gone, the Galts triumphant. With even the last glow of twilight long vanished, the paths were dimmer than usual, lanterns unlit, torches burned to coal. The great halls and palaces loomed, the glimmering from behind closed shutters the only sign that they had not been abandoned. Twists of dry herbs tied with mourning cloth hung from the trees as offering to the gods. The red banner that had announced the army's arrival still hung from the high tower, grayed by the darkness. Colorless. hlaati passed through the empty gardens, and found himself smiling. He felt separate from the city around him, untouched by its despair. Perhaps even invigorated by it. "There was nothing the citizens of Nlachi could do, no path for them to take that might somehow make things right. That was his alone. He would save the cite, if it were to be saved, and if Machi fell, it would find Nlaati working to the end. It was that hope and the clarity of the path that lay before him that made his steps lighter and kept his blood warm.

He wondered if this strange elation was something like what ()tali had felt, all those years he had lived under his false name. Perhaps holding himself at a distance from the world was how Otah had learned his confidence.

But no. That thought was an illusion. I lowever much this felt like joy, Nlaati's rational mind knew it was only fear in brighter robes.

'['he door of the poet's house stood open. The candlelight from within glowed gold. Maati hauled himself up the stairs and through the doorway without scratching or calling out to announce his presence. The air within smelled of distilled wine and a deep earthy incense of the sort priests burned in the temples. He found Cehmai at the back of the house, eyes bloodshot and wine bowl cupped in his hands. He sat cross-legged on the floor contemplating a linked sigil of order and chaos-mother-of-pearl inlay in a panel of dark-stained rosewood. He glanced up at Maati and made an awkward attempt at some pose Maati could only guess at.

"You've found religion?" Maati asked.

"Chaos comes out of order," Cehmai said. "I can't think of a better time to contemplate the fact. And gods are all we have left now, aren't they?"

Nlaati reached out, brushing the panel with his fingers before tipping it backward. It slapped the floor with a sound like a book dropped from a table. Cehmai blinked, half shocked, half amused. Before he could speak, Maati fished in his sleeve, brought out the small brown volume, its leather covers worn soft as cloth by the years, and dropped it into Cchmai's lap. He didn't wait for ("ehmai to pick it up before he strode back into the front room, closed the door, and dropped two fresh lumps of coal onto the fire in the grate. He found a pan, a flask of fresh water, and a brick of pressed tea leaves. That was good. They'd want that before the night was out. He also found the spent incense-ashes lighter than fresh snow on a black stone burner. He dumped them outside.

A high slate table held their notes. Thoughts and diagrams charting the new and doomed binding of Stone-Made-Soft. Maati scooped up the pages of cramped writing and put them outside as well, with the ashes. "l'hen he carefully smoothed the writing from the wax tablets until they were smooth again, pristine. He took up the bronze-tipped stylus and scored two long vertical lines in the wax, dividing it into three equal columns. Cehmai walked into the room, his head bent over the open hook. He was already more than halfway through it.

"You aren't the only one who was ever chosen to bind one of the andat," Maati said. "I even began the binding once, a long time ago. Liatcha talked me out of trying. She was right. It would have killed me."

"You mean this?" Cehmai said. "You're going to bind Seedless?"

"It was what the I)ai-kvo chose me for. Heshai wrote his binding, and his analysis of its flaws. It's too close to the original. I know that. But with the changes we'll need to make in order to include my scheme for avoiding the price of a failed binding and your fresh perspective, we can find another way."

In the first column of the wax tablet, Maati wrote Seedless.

"Forgive me, Maati-kvo, but will this really help? Stone-Made-Soft could have dropped their army half into the ground. Water-Moving- I)own might have flooded them. But Seedless? Removing-the-PartThat-Continues doesn't have much power to stop an army."

"I can offer to kill all their crops," Maati said, writing Heshai-ko at the top of the second column. "I can threaten to make every cow and pig and lamb barren. I can make every Galtic woman who's bearing a child lose it. Faced with that, they'll turn hack."

His stylus paused over the head of the third column, and then he wrote his own name. He and Cehmai could outline the major points here; they could add and remove aspects of Heshai's first vision, interpret the corrections the old poet would have made, had he been given the chance. They could remake the binding, because the binding was already half-remade. If there was time. If they could find a way. If they were clever enough to save the world from the armies of Galt.

"And if they don't turn hack?" Cehmai said.

"Then we'll all die. Their cities and ours. Check to see if that tea's ready to brew up, will you? I need your help with this, and it will go better if you're sober."

The Sculpture Garden of Cetani was the wonder of the city. Two bronze men in the dress of the Emperor's guard stood at the entrances at its Northwest end, staring to the south and east, as if still looking to the Empire they had failed to protect. In their great, inhuman shadows, the finest work of the cities of the Khaiem had been gathered over the span of generations. There were hundreds of them, each astounding in its own fashion, under the wide branches of ash and oak with leaves the color of gold. The dragons of Chaos writhed along one long wall, their scales shining with red lacquer and worked silver, chips of lapis and enamel white as milk. In a shadowed niche, Shian Sho, last of the Emperors, sat worked in white marble on a high dais, his head stink despairingly in his hands. It was a piece done after the Empire's fall. If the Emperor had seen himself shown with such little dignity, the sculptor would have been lucky to have a fast death. But the drape of the final Emperor's robes made the stone seem supple as linen, and the despair and thoughtfulness of the dead man's expression spoke of a time nine generations past when the world had torn itself apart. The sculptor who had found Shian Sho in this stone had lived through that time and had put the burden of his heart into this monument; this empty sepulcher for his age. Otah suspected that no man since then had looked upon it and understood. Not until now.

The Khai Cetani stood at the foot of a life-size bronze of a robed woman with eagle's wings rising wide-spread from her shoulders. He was younger than Otah by perhaps five years, gray only beginning to appear in his night-black hair. His gaze flickered over Otah, giving no sign of the thoughts behind his eyes. Otah felt a moment's selfconsciousness at his travel-worn robes and incipient, moth-eaten beard. He took a pose of greeting appropriate for two people of equal status and saw the Khai Cetani hesitate for a moment before returning it. It was likely it was the first time in years anyone had approached him with so little reverence.

"My counselors have told me of your suggestion, my good friend Nlachi," the Khai Cetani said. "I must say I was… surprised. You can't truly expect us to abandon Cetani without a fight."

"You'll lose," Otah said.

"We are a city of fifty thousand people. These invaders of yours are at most five."

`They're soldiers. They know what they're doing. You might slow them, but you won't stop them."

The Khai Cetani sat, crossing his legs. His smile was almost a sneer.

"You think because you failed, no one else can succeed?"

"I think if we had a season, perhaps two, to build an army, we might withstand them. Hire mercenaries to train the men, drill them, build walls around at least the inner reaches of the cities, and we might stand a chance. As it is, we don't. I've seen what they did to the village of the [tai-kvo. I've had reports from Yalakeht. Amnat-Tan will fall if it hasn't already. They will come here next. You have fifty thousand, including the infirm and the aged and children too young to hold a sword. You don't have weapons enough or armor or experience. My proposal is our best hope."

It was an argument he had wrestled with through many of the long nights of his journey to the North. Force of arms would not stop the Gaits. Slowing them, letting the winter come and protect them for the long, dark months in which no attacking force would survive the fields of ice and brutally cold nights, winning time for the poets to work a little miracle, bind one of the andat and save them all-it was a thin hope but it was the best they had. And slowly, during the days swaying on horseback and nights sitting by smoldering braziers, Otah had found the plan that he believed would win him this respite. Now If the Khai Cetani would simply see the need of it.

"If you bring your people to Machi, we will have twice as many people who can take the field against the Galts. And if you will do what I've suggested with the coal and food, the Galts will be much worse for the travel than we will he."

"And Cetani will fall without resistance. We will roll over like a soft quarter whore," the Khai Cetani said. "It's simple enough for you to sacrifice my city, isn't it?"

"None of this is easy. But simple? Yes, it's simple. Bring your people to Machi. Bring all the food you can carry and burn what you can't. Mix hard coal in with the soft, so that what we leave behind for the (; alts will burn too hot in their steam wagons, and give me the loan of five hundred of your best men. I'll give you a winter and the library of Machi. Between your poet and the two at my court-"

"I have no poet."

Otah took a pose of query.

"Ile died half a month ago, trying to regain his andat," the Khai Cetani said. "His skin went black as a new bruise and his bones all shattered. I have no poet. All I have is a city, and I won't give it away for nothing!"

The Khai Cetani's words ended in a shout. His face was red with fury. And with fear. There was no more that Otah could say now that would sway him, but years in the gentleman's trade had taught Otah something about negotiations that the Khaiem had never known. lie nodded and took a pose that formally withdrew him from the conversation.

"You and your men will stay here," the Khai Cetani said, continuing to speak despite Otah's gesture. "We will make our stand here, at Cetani. We will not fall."

"You will," Otah said. "And my men will leave in the morning, with me.

The Khai Cetani was breathing fast, as if he had run a race. Otah took a pose of farewell, then turned and strode from the garden. To the east, clouds darkened the horizon. The scent of coming rain touched the air. Otah's armsmen and servants fell in with him. The eyes of Cetani's utkhaiem were on the little procession as Otah walked to the apartments granted him by the Khai. He was a curiosity-one of the Khaiem walking with the swagger of a man who'd sat too long on a horse, his retinue looking more like a mercenary captain's crew than courtiers. And Otah suspected that martial air, however undeserved, would serve him. He scowled the way he imagined Sinja might have in his place.

Ashua Radaani was sitting at the fire grate deep in conversation with Saya the blacksmith when Otah entered the wide hall that served as the center of the visitors' palace. Battle and loss and the common enemy of Galt had mixed with the shared recognition of competence to make the two men something like friends. They stood and took poses of respect and welcome that Otah waved away. He sat on a low cushion by the fire and sent his servant boy to find them tea and something to eat.

"It didn't go well, I take it," Radaani said.

"It didn't go well and it didn't go badly," Otah said. "He's smart enough to be frightened. "That's good. I was afraid he'd be certain of himself. But his poet's dead. "Tried to recapture his andat and paid its price."

Radaani sighed.

"Did he agree to your plan, Most High?" Saya asked.

"No," Otah said. "tie's determined that Cetani not fall without a fight. I've told him we're leaving with him or without him. How was your hunting, Ashua-cha?"

Radaani leaned forward. His features were thinner than they had been in Machi, and the ring he turned on his finger wasn't so snug as it had once been.

"The court's frightened," he said. "There are a few people who came here from Yalakeht, and the stories… well, either they've grown in the telling, or it wasn't pretty there. And the couriers from Amnat- 'l an haven't come the last two days."

"I'hat's bad," Otah said. "Will we have time, do you think?"

"I don't know," Ashua said. He seemed to search for more words, but in the end only shook his head.

"Get the men ready," Otah said. "We'll give Cetani tomorrow to join us. After that, we'll head home. With enough time, we might be able to tear up some sections of the road behind us. Slow down the Galts, even if we can't do all we hoped against them."

"What about the hooks?" Saya asked. "If their poet's dead, it isn't as if they'll have need of them. Perhaps ours would make something of them."

"I can ask," Otah said. "With luck, we'll have the books and the people and the food stores."

"But the Khai refused you, Most High," Sava said.

Otah smiled and shook his head. Only now that he found himself a moment to rest did the weariness drag at him. He tried to think how many days he'd been riding from first light to last. A lifetime, it felt like. He remembered the man who'd left Machi to save the I)ai-kvo, but it no longer felt like something he'd done himself. He was changing. Ills heart still ached at the thought of Kiyan and F, iah and I)anat. His apprehension at the struggle still before him was no less. And still, he was not the man he had once been, and to his surprise and unease, the man he was becoming seemed quite natural.

"Most High?" Saya repeated.

"Walking away from a negotiation isn't the same as ending it," Otah said. "Cetani's proud and he's lost, but he's not a fool. He wants to do what we're asking of him. He just hasn't found the way to say yes."

"\ou sound sure of that," Saya said.

Otah chose his words carefully.

"If someone had come to me after that battle and said that they knew what to do, that they would take the responsibility, I would have given it to them. And that's just what I've offered him," Utah said. "The Khai Cetani will call for me. Tonight."

He was wrong. The Khai Cetani didn't send for him until the next morning.

The man's eyes were bloodshot, his face slack from worry and exhaustion. Utah doubted the Khai Cetani had slept since they had spoken, and perhaps not for days before that. Through the wide, unshuttered windows, the morning was cold and gray, low clouds seeming to bring the sky no higher than a sparrow might fly. Utah sat on the divan set for him-rich velvet cloth studded with tiny pearls and silver thread, but smelling of dust and age. The most powerful man in Cetani sat across from him on an identical seat. That alone was a concession, and Utah noted it without giving sign one way or the other.

The Khai Cetani motioned the servants to leave them. From the hesitation and surprised glances, Otah took it that he'd rarely done so before. Some men, he supposed, were more comfortable with the constant attention.

"Convince me," the Khai Cetani said when the doors were pulled closed and they were alone.

Otah took a pose of query.

"That you're right," the Khai said. "Convince me that you're right."

"There was a hunger in the request, almost a need. Otah took a deep breath and let it out slowly. The fire in the grate popped and shifted while he gathered his thoughts. He had turned his plans over in his mind since he'd left the ruin of the I)ai-kvo's village. He'd honed them and tested them and stayed up late into the night despairing at their improbability only to wake in the morning convinced once more. The simplest answer was the best here, and he knew that, but still it was a struggle to find the words that made his mind clear.

"On the field, we can't match them," he said. "If we stay here and face them, we'll lose outright. There's nothing that can keep Cetani from falling to them. But they have two weaknesses. First, the steam wagons. They let them move faster than any group their size should be able to, but they're dangerous. It's a price they're prepared to pay, but they have underestimated the risks. If we start by breaking those-"

"The coal?"

Otah took a confirming pose.

"'l'hey aren't built for forge coal," he said. "And the men we're facing? "They're soldiers, not smiths and ironmongers. "Where's no reason for them to look too closely at what they raid out of your stocks. Especially when they're pushing to get to Machi before the winter comes. If we leave them mixed coal, it'll burn too hot. The seams of their metalwork will soften, if the grates don't simply melt out from underneath."

"And so they have to come on foot or by horse?"

Otah remembered the twisted metal from the I)ai-kvo's village and allowed himself a smile.

"When those wagons break, it's more than only stopping. "They'll lose men just from that, and if we play it well, we can use the confusion to make things worse for them. And there's the other thing. They know we're going to lose. They have the strength, and we're unprepared. The only time we've faced them head-on, we were slaughtered. They know that we can't effectively fight them."

"IThat's a weakness?" the Khai Cetani asked.

"l'es. It keeps them from paying attention. To them, it's already over. Everything's certain but the details. That something else might happen isn't likely to occur to them. Why should it?"

The Khai Cetani looked into the fire. "I'he flames seemed to glitter in his dark eyes. When he spoke, his voice was grim.

"'They've made all the same mistakes we did."

Otah considered that for a moment before nodding.

"I'he Galts understand war," he said. "They're the best teachers I have. And so I'll do to them what they did to us."

"And to do that, you would have rne-Khai of my own cityabandon Cetani to follow your lead?"

"Yes," Otah said.

The Khai sat in silence for a long time, then rose. The rustle of his robes as he walked to the window was the only sound. Otah waited as the man looked out over the city. Over Cetani, the city for which this man had killed his brothers, for which he had given up his name. Otah felt the tension in his own hack and neck. Ile was asking this man to abandon everything, to walk away from the only role he had played in his life. Cetani would fall. It would be sacked. Even if everything went perfectly, there might he nothing to rebuild. And what would a Khai he if there was no city left him?

Many years before, Otah had asked another man to do the right thing, even though it would cost him his honor and prestige and the only place he had in the world. Heshai-kvo had refused, and he had died for the decision.

"Most High," Otah began, but the Khai Cetani held up a hand to stop him without even so much as looking back. Otah could see it in the man's shoulders in the moment the decision was made; they lifted as if a burden had been taken from him.