After you took your robes? Did you go to see you parents?"
"My father was very old when I went to the school," Maati said. "He died
before I completed my training. We did not know each other."
"So you have never had a family."
"I have, most high," Maati said, fighting to keep the tightness in his
chest from changing the tone of his voice. "A lover and a son. I had a
family once."
"But no longer. They died?"
"They live. Only not with me."
The Khai considered him, bloodshot eyes blinking slowly. With his thin,
wrinkled skin, he reminded Maati of a very old turtle or else a very
young bird. The Khai's gaze softened, his brows tilting in understanding
and sorrow.
"It is never easy for fathers," the Khai said. "Perhaps if the world had
needed less from us."
Maati waited a long moment until he trusted his voice.
"Perhaps, most high."
The Khai exhaled a breath of gray, his gaze trapped by the smoke.
"It isn't the world I knew when I was young," the old man said.
"Everything changed when Saraykeht fell."
"The Khai Saraykeht has a poet," Maati said. "He has the power of the
andat."
"It took the Dai-kvo eight years and six failed bindings," the Khai
said. "And every time word came of another failure, I could see it in
the faces of the court. The utkhaiem may put on proud faces, but I've
seen the fear that swims under that ice. And you were there. You said so
in the audience when I greeted you."
"Yes, most high."
"But you didn't say everything you knew," the Khai said. "Did you?"
The yellowed eyes fixed on Maati. The intelligence in them was
unnerving. Maati felt himself squirming, and wondering what had happened
to the melancholy dying man he'd been speaking with only moments before.
"I ... that is ..."
"There were rumors that the poet's death was more than an angry east
island girl's revenge. The Galts were mentioned."
"And Eddensea," Maati said. "And Eymond. There was no end of accusation,
most high. Some even believed what they charged. When the cotton trade
collapsed, a great number of people lost a great amount of money. And
prestige."
"They lost more than that," the Khai said, leaning forward and stabbing
at the air with the stem of his pipe. "The money, the trade. The
standing among the cities. They don't signify. Saraykeht was the death
of certainty. They lost the conviction that the Khaiem would hold the
world at bay, that war would never come to Saraykeht. And we lost it
here too."
"If you say so, most high."
"The priests say that something touched by chaos is never made whole,"
the Khai said, sinking back into his cushions. "Do you know what they
mean by that, Maati-cha?"
"I have some idea," Maati said, but the Khai went on.
"It means that something unthinkable can only happen once. Because after
that, it's not unthinkable any longer. We've seen what happens when a
city is touched by chaos. And now it's in the back of every head in
every court in all the cities of the Khaiem."
Maati frowned and leaned forward.
"You think Cehrnai-cha is in some danger?"
"What?" the Khai said, then waved the thought away, stirring the smoky
air. "No. Not that. I think my city is at risk. I think Otah ... my
upstart son ..."
He's forgiven you, a voice murmured in the back of Maati's mind. The
voice of Seedless, the andat of Saraykeht. They were the words the andat
had spoken to Maati in the instant before Heshai's death had freed it.
It had been speaking of Otah.
"I've called you here for a reason, Maati-cha," the Khai said, and Maati
pulled his attention back to the present. "I didn't care to speak of it
around those who would use it to fuel gossip. Your inquiry into
Biitrah's death. You must move more quickly."
"Even with the truce?"
"Yes, even at the price of my sons returning to their tradition. If I
die without a successor chosen-especially if Danat and Kaiin are still
gone to ground-there will be chaos. The families of the utkhaiem start
thinking that perhaps they would sit more comfortably in my chair, and
schemes begin. Your task isn't only to find Otah. Your task is to
protect my city."
"I understand, most high."
"You do not, Maati-cha. The spring roses are starting to bloom, and I
will not see high summer. Neither of us has the luxury of time."
THE GATHERING WAS ALL THAT CEHMAI HAD HOPED FOR, AND LESS. SPRING
breezes washed the pavilion with the scent of fresh flowers. Kilns set
along the edges roared behind the music of reed organ, flute, and drum.
Overhead, the stars shone like gems strewn on dark velvet. The long
months of winter had given musicians time to compose and practice new
songs, and the youth of the high families week after weary week to tire
of the cold and dark and the terrible constriction that deep winter
brought to those with no business to conduct on the snow.
Cehmai laughed and clapped time with the music and danced. Women and
girls caught his eye, and he, theirs. The heat of youth did where
heavier robes would otherwise have been called for, and the draw of body
to body filled the air with something stronger than the perfume of
flowers. Even the impending death of the Khai lent an air of license.
Momentous things were happening, the world's order was changing, and
they were young enough to find the thought romantic.
And yet he could not enjoy it.
A young man in an eagle's mask pressed a bowl of hot wine into his hand,
and spun away into the dance. Cehmai grinned, sipped at it, and faded
back to the edge of the pavilion. In the shadows behind the kilns,
Stone-Made-Soft stood motionless. Cehmai sat beside it, put the bowl on
the grass, and watched the revelry. Two young men had doffed their robes
entirely and were sprinting around the wide grounds in nothing but their
masks and long scarves trailing from their necks. The andat shifted like
the first shudder of a landslide, then was still again. When it spoke,
its voice was so soft that they would not be heard by the others.
"It wouldn't he the first time the Dai-kvo had lied."
"Or the first time I'd wondered why," Cehmai said. "It's his to decide
what to say and to whom."
"And yours?"
"And mine to satisfy my curiosity. You heard what he said to the
overseer in the mines. If he truly didn't want me to know, he would have
lied better. Maati-kvo is looking into more than the library, and that's
certain."
The andat sighed. Stone-blade-Soft had no more need of breath than did a