THE (tlpq-4) (47 page)

Maati looked at her. The fire popped, and she shifted her head toward

the sound. Her jaw was set, her gray eyes angry. The cold wind made her

robes flutter at her ankles like a flag.

"No," he said. "You can't."

"I have been studying this for weeks," Eiah said, her voice sharpening.

"Only help me put these back together, and I can ..."

"You can die," Maati said. "I know you've changed the binding. You won't

do this. Not until we can study it. Too much rides on Wounded to rush

into the binding in a panic. We'll wait. Vanjit may come back."

"Maati-kvo-" Eiah began.

"She is alone in the forest with nothing to sustain her. She's cold and

frightened and betrayed," Maati said. "Put yourself in her place. She's

discovered that the only friends she had in the world were planning to

kill her. The andat must certainly be pushing for its freedom with all

its power. She didn't even have the soup before she went. She's cold and

hungry and confused, and we are the only place she can go for help or

comfort."

"All respect, Maati-kvo," Small Kae said, "but that first part was along

the lines that you were going to kill her. She won't come back."

"We don't know that," Maati said. "We can't yet be sure."

But morning came without Vanjit. The sky became a lighter black, and

then gray. Morning birds broke into their chorus of chatters and

shrieks; finches and day larks and other species Maati couldn't name.

The trees deepened, rank after ragged rank becoming first gray and then

brown and then real. Poet and andat were gone into the wild, and as the

dawn crept up rosy and wild in the east, it became clear they were not

going to return.

Maati built a small fire from last night's embers and brewed tea for the

four of them still remaining. Large Kae wouldn't stop crying despite

Small Kae's constant attentions. Eiah sat wrapped in her robes from the

previous night. She looked drawn. Maati pressed a bowl of warm tea into

her hand. Neither spoke.

At the end, Maati took the belts from their spare robes and used them to

make a line. He led Eiah, Eiah led Small Kae, and Small Kae led Large

Kae. It was the obscene parody of a game he'd played as a child, and he

walked the path back to the boat, calling out the obstacles he

passed-log, step down, be careful of the mud. They left the sleeping

tents and cooking things behind.

To Maati's surprise, the boat was already floating. The boatman and his

second were moving over the craft with the ease and silence of long

practice. When he called out, the boatman stopped and stared. The man's

mouth gaped in surprise; the first strong reaction Maati had seen from him.

"No," the boatman said. "This wasn't the agreement. Where's the other

one? The one with the babe?"

"I don't know," Maati called out. "She left in the night."

The second, guessing the boatman's mind, started to pull in the plank

that bridged boat and sticky, dark mud. Maati yelped, dropped Eiah's

lead, and lumbered out into the icy flow, grabbing at the retreating wood.

"We didn't contract for this," the boatman said. "Missing girls, blinded

ones? No, there wasn't anything about this."

"We'll die if you leave us," Eiah said.

"That one can see after you," the boatman called, gesturing pointlessly

at Maati, hip deep in river mud. It would have been comic if it had been

less terrible.

"He's old and he's dying," Eiah said, and lifted her physician's satchel

as if to prove the gravity of her opinion. "If he has an attack, you'll

be leaving all the women out here to die."

The boatman scowled, looking from Maati to Eiah and back. He spat into

the river.

"To the first low town," he said. "I'll take you that far, and no farther."

"That's all we can ask," Eiah said.

Maati thought he heard Small Kae mutter, I could ask more than that, but

he was too busy pulling the plank into position to respond. It was a

tricky business, guiding all three women into the boat, but Maati and

the second managed it, soaking only Small Kae's hem. Maati, when at last

he pulled himself onto the boat, was cold water and black mud from waist

to boots. He made his miserable way to the stern, sitting as near the

kiln as the boatman would allow. Eiah called out for him, following the

sound of his voice until she sat at his side. The boatman and his second

wouldn't speak to either of them or meet Maati's eyes. The second walked

to the bow, manipulated something Maati couldn't make out, and called

out. The boatman replied, and the boat shifted, its wheel clattering and

pounding. They lurched out into the stream.

They were leaving Vanjit behind. The only poet in the world, her andat

on her hip, alone in the forest with autumn upon them. What would she

do? How would she live, and if she despaired, what vengeance would she

exact upon the world? Maati looked at the dancing flames within the kiln.

"South would be faster," Maati said. The boatman glanced at him,

shrugged, and sang out something Maati couldn't make out. The second

called back, and the boatman turned the rudder. The sound of the paddle

wheel deepened, and the boat lurched.

"Uncle?" Eiah asked.

"It's all fallen apart," Maati said. "We can't manage this from here.

Tracking her through half the wilds south of Utani? We need men. We need

help."

"Help," Eiah said, as if he'd suggested pulling down the stars. Maati

tried to speak, but something equally sorrow and rage closed his throat.

He muttered an obscenity and then forced the words free.

"We need Otah-kvo," Maati said.

25

"Will you go back?" Ana asked. "When this is over, I mean."

"It depends on what you mean by over," Idaan said. "You mean once my

brother talks the poets into bringing back all the dead in Galt and

Chaburi-Tan, rebuilding the city, killing the pirates, and then

releasing the andat and drowning all their books? Because if that's what

overlooks like, you're waiting for yesterday."

Otah shifted, pretending he was still asleep. The sun of late morning

warmed his face and robes, the low chuckle of the river against the

sides of the boat and the low, steady surge of the paddle wheel became a

kind of music. It had been easy enough to drowse, but his body ached and

pinched and complained despite three layers of tapestry between his back

and the deck. If he rose, there would be conversations and planning and

decisions. As long as he could maintain the fiction of unconsciousness,

he could allow himself to drift. It passed poorly for comfort, but it

passed.

"You can't think we'll be chasing these people for the rest of our

lives, though," Ana said.

"I'm hoping we live longer than that, yes," Idaan said. "So. If this

ends in a way that lets me return to him, then I will. I enjoy Cehmai's

company.

"And he'll take you back in, even after you've been gone this long?"

Otah could hear the smile in Idaan's voice when she replied.

"He's overlooked worse from me. Why do you ask?"

"I don't know," Ana said. And then a moment later, "Because I'm trying

to imagine it. What the world will be. I've never traveled outside Galt

before, except one negotiation in Eymond. I keep thinking of going back

to it. Acton. Kirinton. But it's not there anymore."

"Not the way it was," Idaan agreed. "We can't be sure how bad it is, but

I'll swear it isn't good."

The silence was only a lack of voices. The river, the birds, the wind

all went on with their long, inhuman conversation. It wasn't truly

silence, it only felt that way.

"I think about what I would do without all of you," Ana said. "And then

I imagine ... What would you do if a city caught fire and no one could

see it? How would you put it out?"

"You wouldn't," Idaan said. Her voice was cool and matter-of-fact.

"I think about that," Ana said. "I think about it more now. The future,

the things that can go wrong. Dangers. I wonder if that always happens

when-"

Idaan had made a clicking sound, tongue against teeth.

"You're not fooling anyone, brother," Idaan said. "We all know you're

awake."

Otah rolled onto his back, his eyes still closed, and took a pose of

abject denial. Idaan chuckled. He opened his eyes to the great pale blue

dome of the sky, the sun burning white overhead and searing his eyes. He

sat up slowly, his back as bruised as if someone had beaten him.

Ashti Beg lay a few yards off, her arm curved under her to cradle her

sleeping head. Two armsmen sat at either side of their boat with pairs

at the stern and the bow, keeping watch on the changeless river. Danat

had joined the watchers at the bow and seemed to be having a

conversation with them. It was good to see it. Otah had been concerned

after his disappearance at the wayhouse that Danat and the captain of

the guard might have found themselves on bad terms. Danat seemed to be

making it his work to see that didn't happen.

The boat itself was smaller than Otah would have chosen, but the kilns

at the back were solid, the wheel new, and the alternatives had been

few. When there are only three boats on the riverfront, even being

emperor won't create a fourth. Ana and Idaan were sitting side by side

on a shin-high bench, their hands clasped.

It was something Otah had noticed before, the tendency of Ana and Ashti

Beg to touch people. As if the loss of their eyes had left them hungry

for something, and this lacing of fingers was the nearest they could come.

"You both look lovely," Otah said.

"Your hair looks like mice have been building a nest in it," Idaan said.

Otah confirmed her assessment with his fingertips. The fact of the

matter was that none of them was presentable. Too many weeks on the road

bathing with rags and tepid water had left them looking disrep utable.

Somewhere just east of Pathai, they had been joined by a colony of lice

that still took up their evenings. Otah imagined walking into the

palaces at Utani as he now was and smiled.

He walked to the edge of the boat where a bucket and rope stood ready

for moments like this. With the armsmen looking on, he lowered the line

himself and hauled up the water. When he knelt and poured it over his

head, it was as if he could feel ice forming in his mind. He whooped and

shuddered, pulling his hair back. Idaan, behind him, was laughing. He

made his way back to them, Ana holding out a length of cloth for him to

take and dry himself.

And that was the nature of the journey. Tragedy lay behind them, and

desperate uncertainty ahead. He was gnawed by his fears and his guilt

and his sorrow, but his sister was there, laughing with him. His son.

The river was cold and uncomfortable and beautiful. Every day meant more

dead, and yet there was no way for them to move faster than the boat

would carry them. Otah knew that as a younger man, he would have been

sitting at the bow, frowning at the water as if by will alone he could

make things into something they weren't. As an old one, he was able to

put it all aside for as much as a hand at a time, holding his energy for

the moment when it might effect a change and resting until then. Perhaps

it was what the philosophers meant by wisdom.

Somewhere ahead, Maati and Eiah and the new poet were making their own

way to Utani and, he thought, the proclamation of their victory. Perhaps

Eiah would bind her andat as well, and return to the women of the

Khaiate cities their wombs. There would be children again, a new

generation to take the place of the old. All that would be sacrificed

was Galt, and the world would be put back as it was. An empire now,

instead of a scattering of cities, but with the andat, slaves of spirit

and will, putting them above the rest of the world.

Until a new Balasar Gice found a way to bring it all down, and the cycle

of suffering and desperation began anew.

"You've gone solemn," Idaan said.

"Steeling myself for failure," Otah said. "We'll be on them soon, I

think. And ..."

"You've been thinking about forgiveness," Idaan said. Otah looked at

Ana, listening, rapt. Idaan shook her head. "The girl's strong enough to

know the truth. There's no virtue in softening it."

"Please," Ana said.

Otah took a deep breath and let it slide out between his teeth. River

water traced a cold path down his back. On the east bank, half a hundred