isn't so."
Cehmai took a pose of welcome and stepped back, allowing the man in.
"I've been expecting you, Baarath. I don't suppose you've brought any
food with you?"
"You have servants for that," Baarath said, striding into the wide room,
taking in the shelves of books and scrolls and maps with his customary
moment of lust. The andat looked up at him with its queer, slow smile,
and then turned back to the board.
"I don't like having strange people wandering though my library,"
Baarath said.
"Well, let's hope our friend from the Dai-kvo won't be strange."
"You are an annoying, contrary man. He's going to come in here and root
through the place. Some of those volumes are very old, you know. They
won't stand mishandling."
"Perhaps you should make copies of them."
"I am making copies. But it's not a fast process, you know. It takes a
great deal of time and patience. You can't just grab some half-trained
scribes off the street corners and set them to copying the great hooks
of the Empire."
"You also can't do the whole job by yourself, Baarath. No matter how
much you want to."
The librarian scowled at him, but there was a playfulness in the man's
eyes. The andat shifted a white marker forward and the noise in Cehmai's
head murmured. It had been a good move.
"You hold an abstract thought in human form and make it play tricks, and
you tell me what's not possible? Please. I've come to offer a trade. If
you'll-"
"Wait," Cehmai said.
"If you'll just-"
"Baarath, you can be quiet or you can leave. I have to finish this."
Stone-Made-Soft sighed as Cehmai took his seat again. The white stone
had opened a line that had until now been closed. It wasn't one he'd
seen the andat play before, and Cehmai scowled. The game was still over,
there was no way for the andat to clear his files and pour the white
markers to their target squares before Cehmai's dark stones had reached
their goal. But it would be harder now than it had been before the
librarian came. Cehmai played through the next five moves in his mind,
his fingertips twitching. Then, decisively, he pushed the black marker
forward that would block the andat's fastest course.
"Nice move," the librarian said.
"What did you want with me? Could you just say it so I can refuse and
get about my day?"
"I was going to say that I will give this little poet-let of the
Dai-kvo's full access if you'll let me include your collection here. It
really makes more sense to have all the books and scrolls cataloged
together."
Cehmai took a pose of thanks.
"No," he said. "Now go away. I have to do this."
"Be reasonable! If I choose-"
"First, you will give Maati Vaupathai full access because the Dai-kvo
and the Khai Machi tell you to. You have nothing to bargain with.
Second, I'm not the one who gave the orders, nor was I consulted on
them. If you want barley, you don't negotiate with a silversmith, do
you? So don't come here asking concessions for something that I'm not
involved with."
A flash of genuine hurt crossed Baarath's face. Stone-Made-Soft touched
a white marker, then pulled back its hand and sank into thought again.
Baarath took a pose of apology, his stance icy with its formality.
"Don't," Cehmai said. "I'm sorry. I don't mean to he a farmer's wife
about the thing, but you've come at a difficult time."
"Of course. This children's game upon which all our fates depend. No,
no. Stay. I'll see myself out."
"We can talk later," Cehmai said to the librarian's hack.
The door closed and left Cchmai and his captive, or his ward, or his
other self, alone together.
"He isn't a very good man," Stone-Made-Soft rumbled.
"No, he's not," Cehmai agreed. "But friendship falls where it falls. And
may the gods keep us from a world where only the people who deserve love
get it."
"Well said," the andat replied, and pushed forward the white stone
Cehmai knew it would.
The game ended quickly after that. Cehmai ate a breakfast of roast lamb
and boiled eggs while Stone-Made-Soft put away the game pieces and then
sat, warming its huge hands by the fire. There was a long day before
them, and after the morning's struggle, Cchmai was dreading it. They
were promised to go to the potter's works before midday. A load of
granite had come from the quarries and required his services before it
could be shaped into the bowls and vases for which Machi was famed.
After midday, he was needed for a meeting with the engineers to consider
the plans for House Pirnat's silver mine. The Khai Machi's engi neers
were concerned, he knew, that using the andat to soften the stone around
a newfound seam of ore would weaken the structure of the mine. House
Pirnat's overseer thought it worth the risk. It would be like sitting in
a child's garden during a mud fight, but it had to be done. Just
thinking of it made him tired.
"You could tell them I'd nearly won," the andat said. "Say you were too
shaken to appear."
"Yes, because my life would be so much better if they were all afraid of
turning into a second Saraykeht."
"I'm only saying that you have options," the andat replied, smiling into
the fire.
The poet's house was set apart from the palaces of the Khai and the
compounds of the utkhaiem. It was a broad, low building with thick stone
walls nestled behind a small and artificial wood of sculpted oaks. The
snows of winter had been reduced to gray-white mounds and frozen pools
in the deep shadows where sunlight would not touch them. Cehmai and the
andat strode west, toward the palaces and the Great "rower, tallest of
all the inhuman buildings of Machi. It was a relief to walk along
streets in sunlight rather than the deep network of tunnels to which the
city resorted when the drifts were too high to allow even the snow doors
to open. Brief days, and cold profound enough to crack stone, were the
hallmarks of the Machi winter. The terrible urge to he out in the
gardens and streets marked her spring. The men and women Cehmai passed
were all dressed in warm robes, but their faces were bare and their
heads uncovered. The pair paused by a firekeeper at his kiln. A singing
slave stood near enough to warm her hands at the fire as she filled the
air with traditional songs. The palaces of the Khai loomed before
them-huge and gray with roofs pitched sharp as axe blades-and the city
and the daylight stood at their backs, tempting as sugar ghosts on
Candles Night.
"It isn't too late," the andat murmured. "Manat Doru used to do it all
the time. He'd send a note to the Khai claiming that the weight of
holding me was too heavy, and that he required his rest. We would go