THE (tlpq-4) (38 page)

that."

Ana sat straight, her hands on her knees, her face expressionless. Otah

coughed, cleared his throat, and went on.

"There is a second section," he said. "He says ... well."

Otah smoothed the page with his fingers, tracing the words as he spoke.

"Still, I was your age once too. If good judgment were part of being

young, there would be no reason to grow old. In God's name write back to

tell us you're well. Your mother's sick that you'll fall off the trail

and get eaten by dogs, and I'm half-sick that you'll come back wed and

pregnant," Otah said. "He goes on to offer a brief analysis of my own

intelligence. I'll skip that."

Ana chuckled and wiped away a tear. Otah grinned and kept the smile in

his voice when he went on.

"He ends by saying that he loves you. And that he trusts you to do

what's right."

"You're lying," Ana said.

Otah took a pose that denied an unjust accusation, then flapped his

hands in annoyance. The physical language of the Khaiem was a difficult

habit to put aside.

"Why would I lie?" he asked.

"To be polite? I don't know But my father? Fatter Dasin putting on paper

that he trusts his little girl's judgment? The stars would dance on

treetops first. The wed-and-pregnant part sounded like him, though."

"Well," Otah said, placing the folded page into her fingers. "He might

surprise you. Keep this, and you can read it for yourself once we've

fixed all this mess."

Ana took a pose that offered thanks. It wasn't particularly well done.

"You are always welcome," Otah said.

They sat in silence until Danat and the other water bearers returned.

Then Otah left his seat to Danat and crawled into the sleeping tent,

where, true to expectations, he shifted from discomfort to discomfort

until the sun rose again.

They reached Pathai at midday. Silk banners streamed from the towers and

the throng that met them at the western arch cheered and sang and played

flutes and drums. Men and women hung from lattices of wood and rope to

get a better view of Otah and Danat, their armsmen, the steamcarts. The

air was thick with the scents of honeyed almonds and mulled wine and

bodies. The armsmen of Pathai met them, made an elaborate ritual

obeisance, and then cleared a path for them until they reached the palaces.

A feast had been prepared, and baths. Servants descended on the group

like moths, and Otah submitted to being only emperor once again.

The celebration of his arrival was as annoying as it was pointless. Dish

after dish of savory meat and sweet bread, hot curry and chilled fish,

all accompanied by the best acrobats and musicians that could be scraped

together with little notice. And Ana Dasin sitting at his table, her

empty eyes a constant, unintentional reproach. Finding Maati and this

new poet was going to be like hunting quail with a circus. He would have

to do something to let them move discreetly. He didn't yet know what

that would be.

The rooms he'd been given were blond stone, the ceiling vaulted and set

with tiles of indigo and silver. A thousand candles set the air glowing

and filled his senses with the scent of hot wax and perfume. It was, he

thought, the sort of space that was almost impossible to keep warm.

Danat, Ana, and the armsmen were all being seen to elsewhere. He sat on

a long, low couch and hoped that Danat, at least, would be able to get

out into the city and make a few inquiries.

When a servant came and announced Sian Noygu, Otah almost refused the

audience before he recognized it as the name Idaan traveled under. His

heart racing, he let himself be led to a smaller chamber of carved

granite and worked gold. His sister sat between a small fountain and a

shadowed alcove. She wore a gray robe under a colorless cloak, and her

boots were soft with wear. A long scratch across the back of her hand

was the dark red of scabs and old blood.

The servant made his obeisance and retreated. Otah took a pose of

greeting appropriate to close family, and Idaan tilted her head like a

dog hearing an unfamiliar sound.

"I had intended to meet you when you came into the city. I didn't know

you were planning a festival."

"I wasn't," Otah said, sitting beside her. The fountain clucked and

burbled. "Traveling quietly seems beyond me these days."

"It was all as subtle as a rockslide," Idaan agreed. "But there's some

good in it. The louder you are, the less people are looking at me."

"You've found something then?" Otah asked.

"I have," Idaan said.

"What have you learned?"

A different voice answered from the darkness of the alcove at Idaan's

side. A woman's voice.

"Everything," it said.

Otah rose to his feet. The woman who emerged was young: not more than

forty summers and the white in her hair still barely more than an

accent. She wore robes as simple as Idaan's but held herself with a

mixture of angry pride and uncertainty that Otah had become familiar

with. Her pupils were gray and sightless, but her eyes were the almond

shape that marked her as a citizen of the Empire. This was a victim of

the new poet, but she was no Galt.

"Idaan-cha knows everything," the blind woman said again, "because I

told it to her."

Idaan took the woman's hand and stood. When she spoke, it was to her

companion.

"This is my brother, the Emperor," Idaan said, then turned to him.

"Otah-cha, this is Ashti Beg."

20

When before Maati had considered death, it had been in terms of what

needed to be done. Before he died, he had to master the grammars of the

Dai-kvo, or find his son again, or most recently see his errors with

Sterile made right. It was never the end itself that drew his attention.

He had reduced his mortality to the finish line of a race. This and this

and this done, and afterward, dying would be like rest at the end of a

long day.

With Eiah's pronouncement, his view shifted. No list of accomplishments

could forgive the prospect of his own extinction. Maati found himself

looking at the backs of his hands, the cracked skin, the dark blotches

of age. He was becoming aware of time in a way he never had. There was

some number of days he would see, some number of nights, and then

nothing. It had always been true. He was no more or less a mortal being

because his blood was slowing. Everything born, dies. He had known that.

He only hadn't quite understood. It changed everything.

It also changed nothing. They traveled slowly, keeping to lesserknown

roads and away from the larger low towns. Often Eiah would call the

day's halt with the sun still five hands above the horizon because they

had found a convenient wayhouse or a farm willing to board them for the

night. The prospect of letting Maati sleep in cold air was apparently

too much for her to consider.

On the third day, Eiah had parted with the company, rejoining them on

the fifth with a cloth sack of genuinely unpleasant herbs. Maati

suffered a cup of the bitter tea twice daily. He let his pulses be

measured against one another, his breath smelled, his fingertips

squeezed, the color of his eyes considered and noted. It embarrassed him.

The curious thing was that, despite all his fears and Eiah's attentions,

he felt fine. If his breath was short, it was no shorter than it had

been for years. He tired just when he'd always tired, but now six sets

of eyes shifted to him every time he grunted. He dismissed the anxiety

when he saw it in the others, however closely he felt it himself.

He would have expected the two feelings to balance each other: the

dismissive self-consciousness at any concern over him and the

presentiment of his death. He did not understand how he could be

possessed by both of them at the same time, and yet he was. It was like

there were two minds within him, two Maati Vaupathais, each with his own

thoughts and concerns, and no compromise between them was required.

For the most part, Maati could ignore this small failure to be at one

with himself. Each morning, he rose with the others, ate whatever

rubbery eggs or day-old meat the waykeeper had to offer, choked down

Eiah's tea, and went on as usual. The autumn through which they passed

was crisp and fragrant of new earth and rotting leaves. The snow that

had plagued the school had also visited the foothills and shallow passes

that divided the western plains of Pathai from the river valleys of the

east, but it was rarely more than three fingers deep. In many places,

the sun was still strong enough to banish the pale mourning colors to

the shadows.

With rumors that Otah himself had taken up the hunt, they kept a balance

between the smaller, less-traveled roads and those that were wider and

better maintained. So far from the great cities, the ports and trading

posts, there were no foreign faces to be seen. None of the handful of

adventurous Westlands women had made their way here to try for a Khaiate

husband and a better life. There was no better life to be had here. The

lack of children, of babies, gave the towns a sense of tolerating a slow

plague. It was only the world. It no longer troubled Maati. This was

another journey in a life that seemed to be woven of distance. Apart

from the overattentiveness of his traveling companions, there was no

reason to reflect on his mortality; he had no cause to consider that

these small chores and pleasantries of the road might be among his last.

It was only days later, at the halfway point between the school and the

river Qiit, that without intending it, Eiah called the question.

They had stopped at a wayhouse at the side of a broad lake. A wide

wooden deck stood out over the water, the wind pulling small waves to

lap at its pilings. A flock of cranes floated and called to one another

at the far shore. Maati sat on a three-legged stool, his traveling cloak

still wrapping his shoulders. He looked out on the shifting water, the

gray-green trees, the hazy white sky. He heard Eiah behind him, her

voice coming from the main building as if it were coming from a

different world. When she came out, he heard her footsteps and the

leather physician's satchel bumping against her hip. She stopped just

behind him.

"They're beautiful," he said, nodding at the cranes.

"I suppose," Eiah said.

"Vanjit? The others?"

"In their rooms," Eiah said, a trace of satisfaction in her voice.

"Three rooms, and all of them private. Meals this evening and before we

go. One length of silver and two copper."

"You could have paid them the normal price," NIaati said.

"My pride won't allow it," Eiah said. She stepped forward and knelt.

"There was something. If you're not tired."

"I'm an old man. I'm always tired."

Her eyes held some objection, but she didn't give it voice. Instead she

unbuckled her satchel, rooted in it for a moment, and drew out a paper.

Maati took it, frowning. The characters were familiar, a part of Eiah's

proposed binding, but the structure of them was different. Awkward.

"It isn't perfect," Eiah said. "But I thought we could consider it. I've

mentioned the idea to Large Kae, and she has some ideas about how to

make it consonant with the grammar."

Maati lifted his hand, palm out, and stopped the flow of words. The

cranes called, their harsh voices crossing the water swifter than

arrows. He sounded out each phrase, thinking through the logic as he did.

"I don't understand," he said. "This is the strongest part of the

binding. Why would you change..."

And then he saw her intentions. Each change she had made broadened the

concept of wounds. Of harm. Of damage. And there, in the corner of the

page, was a play on the definitions of blood. He folded the page,

slipping it into his sleeve.

"No," he said.

"I think it can-"

"No," Maati said again. "What we're doing is hard enough. Making it fit

the things that Sterile has done is enough. If you try to make

everything fit into it, you'll end with more than you can hold."

Eiah sighed and looked out across the water. The wind plucked a lock of

hair, the black threads dancing on her cheek. He could see in her

expression that she'd anticipated all he would say. And more, that she

agreed. He put a hand on her shoulder. For a moment, neither spoke.

"Once we reach the river, things will move faster," Eiah said. "With the