THE (tlpq-4) (52 page)

flat stones, tall grass a yellow gray at the joints. A ruined fountain

with black muck where clear water had been squatted in the center.

Idaan's bow was in her hands, an arrow between her fingers.

"What was that?" Maati asked.

Idaan's dark eyes swept over the ruins, and Maati tried to follow her

gaze. They might have been houses or businesses or something of both.

The sound came again. From his left and ahead. Idaan moved forward

cat-quiet, her bow at the ready. Maati stayed behind her, but close. He

remembered that he had a blade at his belt and drew it.

The buck was in a small garden with an iron fence overgrown now with

flowering ivy. Its side was cut, the fur black with dried blood and

flies. The noble rack of horns was broken on one side, ending in a

cruel, jagged stump. As Idaan stepped near, it moved again, lashing out

at the fence with its feet, and then hung its head. It was an image of

exhaustion and despair.

And its eyes were gray and sightless.

"Poor bastard," Idaan said. The buck raised its head, snorting. Maati

gripped the handle of his blade, readying himself for something, though

he wasn't certain what. Idaan raised her bow with something akin to

disgust on her face. The first arrow sunk deep into the neck of the

onceproud animal. The buck bellowed and tried to run, fouling itself in

the fence, the vines. It slipped to its knees as Idaan sank another

arrow into its side. And then a third.

It coughed and went still.

"Well, I think we can say how your little poet girl was planning to get

food," Idaan said, her voice acid. "Cripple whatever game she came

across and then let it beat itself to death. She's quite the hunter."

She slung the bow back over her shoulder, walking carefully into the

trampled garden. Flies rose from the beast in a buzzing cloud. Idaan

ignored them, putting her hand on the dead buck's flank.

"It's a waste," she said. "If I had rope and the right knife we could at

least dress him and eat something fresh tonight. I hate leaving him for

the rats and the foxes."

"Why did you kill him then?"

"Mercy. You were right, though. Vanjit's in the city somewhere. That was

a good call."

"I'm half-sorry I said anything," Maati said. "You'd kill her just as

quickly, wouldn't you?"

"You think you can romance her into taking back her curse. I'm no one to

keep you from trying."

"And then?"

"And then we follow the same plan each of us had. It's the one thing we

agree upon. She's too dangerous. She has to die."

"I know what I intended. I know what Eiah and I were planning. But that

was the andat's scheme. I think there may be another way."

Idaan looked up, then stood. The bow was still in her hand.

"Can you give her her parents back?" she asked. "Can you give her the

brothers and sisters she lost? Udun. Can you rebuild it?"

Maati took a pose that dismissed her questions, but Idaan stepped close

to him. He could feel her breath against his face. Her eyes were cold

and dark.

"Do you think that Galt died blind because of something you can remedy?"

she demanded. "What's happened, happened. You can't will her to be the

woman you hoped she was. Telling yourself that you can is worse than

stupidity."

"If she puts it to rights," Maati said, "she shouldn't have to die."

Idaan narrowed her eyes, tilted her head.

"I'll offer you this," she said. "If you can talk the girl into giving

Galt back its eyes-and Eiah and Ashti Beg. Everyone. If you can do that

and also have her release her andat, I won't be the one who kills her."

"Would Otah let her live?" Maati asked.

"Ask him and he might," Idaan said. "Experience suggests he and I have

somewhat different ideas of mercy."

At midday, they returned to their camp. The boat was tied up at an old

quay slick with mold. The scent of the river was rich and not entirely

pleasant. Two of the other scouting parties had returned before them;

Danat and one of the armsmen were still in the city but expected back

shortly. Otah, in a robe of woven silk under a thicker woolen outer

robe, sat at a field table on the quayside, sketching maps of the city

from memory. Idaan made her report, Maati silent at her side. He tried

to imagine asking Otah for clemency on Vanjit's behalf. If Maati could

persuade her to restore sight to everyone she'd injured and release the

andat, would Otah honor Idaan's contract? Or, phrased differently, if

Maati couldn't save the world, could he at least do something to redeem

this one girl?

He didn't ask it, and Idaan didn't raise the issue.

After Danat and the armsmen returned, they all ate a simple meal of

bread and dried apples. Danat, Otah, and the captain of the guard

consulted with one another over Otah's sketched maps, planning the

afternoon's search. Idaan tended to Ana; their laughter seemed

incongruous in the grim air of their camp. Eiah sat by herself at the

water's edge, her face turned up toward the sun. Maati went to her side.

"Did you drink your tea this morning?" she asked.

"Yes," he lied petulantly.

"You need to," she said. Maati shrugged and tossed the last round of

dried apple into the water. It floated for a moment, the pale flesh

looking nearly white on the dark water. A turtle rose from beneath and

bit at it. Eiah held out her hand, palm up, fingers beckoning. Maati was

vaguely ashamed of the relief he felt taking her hand in his own.

"You were right," Maati confessed. "I still want to save Vanjit. I know

better. I do, but the impulse keeps coming back."

"I know it does," Eiah said. "You have a way of seeing things the way

you'd prefer them to be rather than the way they are. It's your only vice."

"Only?"

"Well, that and lying to your physician," Eiah said, lightly.

"I drink too much sometimes."

"When was the last time?"

Maati shrugged, a smile tugging at his mouth.

"I used to drink too much when I was younger," he said. "I still would,

but I've been busy."

"You see?" Eiah said. "You had more vices when you were young. You've

grown old and wise."

"I don't think so. I don't think you can mention me and wisdom in the

same breath."

"You aren't dead. There's time yet." She paused, then asked, "Will they

find her?"

"If Otah-kvo's right, and she wants us to," Maati said. "If she doesn't

want to be found, we might as well go home."

Eiah nodded. Her grip tightened for a moment, and she released his hand.

Her brow was furrowed with thought, but it was nothing she chose to

share. Don't leave me, he wanted to say. Don't go back to Otah and leave

me by myself. Or worse, with only 17anjit. In the end, he kept his silence.

His second foray into the city came in the middle of the afternoon. This

time they had set paths to follow, rough-drawn maps marked with each

pair's route, and Maati was going out with Danat. They would come back

three hands before sunset unless some significant discovery was made.

Maati accepted Otah's instructions without complaint, though the

resentment was still there.

The air was warmer now, and with the younger man's pace, Maati found

himself sweating. They moved down smaller streets this time, narrow

avenues that nature had not quite choked. The birds seemed to follow

them, though more likely it was only that there were birds everywhere.

There was no sign of Vanjit or Clarity-of-Sight, only raccoons and

foxes, mice and hunting cats, feral dogs on the banks and otters in the

canals. They were hardly a third of the way through the long, complex

loop set out for them when Maati called a halt. He sat on a stonework

bench, resting his head in his hands and waiting for his breath to slow.

Danat paced, frowning seriously at the brush.

It struck Maati that the boy was the same age Otah had been in

Saraykeht. Not as broad across the shoulders, but Otah had been Irani

Noygu and a seafront laborer then. Maati himself had been born four

years after the Emperor, hardly sixteen when he'd gone to study under

Heshai and Seedless. Younger than Ana Dasin was now. It was hard to

imagine ever having been that young.

"I meant to offer my congratulations to you," Maati said. "Ana-cha seems

a good woman."

Danat paused. The reflection of his father's rage warmed the boy's face,

but not more than that.

"I didn't think an alliance with Galt would please you."

"I didn't either," Maati said, "but I have enough experience with losing

to your father that I'm learning to be generous about it."

Danat almost started. Maati wondered what nerve he had touched, but

before he could ask, a flock of birds a more violent blue than anything

Maati had seen burst from a treetop down the avenue. They wheeled around

one another, black beaks and wet eyes and tiny tongues pink as a

fingertip. Maati closed his eyes, disturbed, and when he opened them,

Danat was kneeling before him. The boy's face was a webwork of tiny

lines like the cracked mud in a desert riverbed. Fine, dark whiskers

rose from Danat's pores. His eyelashes crashed together when he blinked,

interweaving or pressing one another apart like trees in a mudslide.

Maati closed his eyes again, pressing his palms to them. He could see

the tiny vessels in each eyelid, layer upon layer almost out to the skin.

"Maati-cha?"

"She's seen us," Maati said. "She knows I'm here."

In spite of the knowledge, it took Maati half a hand to find her. He

swept the horizon and from east to west and back again. He could see

half-a-hundred rooftops. He found her at last near the top of the

palaces of the Khai Udun on a balcony of bricks enameled the color of

gold. At this distance, she was smaller than a grain of sand, and he saw

her perfectly. Her hair was loose, her robe ripped at the sleeve. The

andat was on her hip, its black, hungry eyes on his own. Vanjit nodded

and put the andat down. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, she took a

pose of greeting. Maati returned it.

"Where? Where is she?" Danat asked. Maati ignored him.

Vanjit shifted her hands and her body into a pose that was both a rebuke

and an accusation. Maati hesitated. He had imagined a thousand scenarios

for this meeting, but they had all involved the words he would speak,

and what she would say in return. His first impulse now was toward

apology, but something in the back of his mind resisted. Her face was a

mask of self-righteous anger, and, to his surprise, he recognized the

expression as one he himself had worn in a thousand fantasies. In his

dreams, he had been facing Otah, and Otah had been the one to beg

forgiveness.

Like a voice speaking in his ear, he knew why his hands would not take

an apologetic pose. She is here to see you abased. Do it now, and you

have nothing left to offer her. Maati pulled his shoulders back, lifted

his chin, and took a pose that requested an audience. Its nuances didn't

claim his superiority as a teacher to a student but neither did they

cede it. Vanjit's eyes narrowed. Maati waited, his breath short and

anxiety plucking at him.

Vanjit took a pose appropriate to a superior granting a servant or slave

an indulgence. Maati didn't correct her, but neither did he respond.

Vanjit looked down as if the andat had cried out or perhaps spoken, then

shifted her hands and her body to a pose of formal invitation

appropriate for an evening's meal. Only then did Maati accept, shifting

afterward to a pose of query. Vanjit indicated the balcony on which she

stood, and then made a gesture that implied either intimacy or solitude.

Meet me here. In my territory and on my terms. Come alone.

Maati moved to an accepting pose, smiling to himself as much as to the

girl in the palaces. With a physical sensation like that of a gnat

flying into his eye, Maati's vision blurred back to merely human acuity.

He turned his attention back to Danat.

The boy looked half-frantic. He held his blade as if prepared for an

attack, his gaze darting from tree to wall as if he could see the things

that Maati had seen. The moons that passed around the wandering stars,

the infinitesimal animals that made their home in a drop of rain, or the

girl on her high balcony halfway across the city. Maati had no doubt she

was still watching them.