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wonder would be unrealistic."

"The Khai Machi would expel me from his city if he thought I was

endangering his poet," Maati said. "And then I wouldn't be of use to

anyone.

Cehmai's dark eyes were both deadly serious and also, Maati thought,

amused. "This wouldn't be the first thing I've kept from him," the young

poet said. "Please, Maati-kvo. I want to help."

Maati closed his eyes. Having someone to talk with, even if it was only

a way to explore what he thought himself, wouldn't be so had a thing.

The Dai-kvo hadn't expressly forbidden that Cehmai know, and even if he

had, the secret investigation had already sent Otah-kvo to flight, so

any further subterfuge seemed pointless. And the fact was, he likely

couldn't find the answers alone.

"You have saved my life once already."

"I thought it would be unfair to point that out," Cehmai said.

Maati laughed, then stopped when the pain in his belly bloomed. He lay

back, blowing air until he could think again. The pillows felt better

than they should have. He'd done so little, and he was already tired. He

glanced mistrustfully at the andat, then took a pose of acceptance.

"Come back tonight, when I've rested," Maati said. "We'll plan our

strategy. I have to get my strength hack, but there isn't much time."

"May I ask one other thing, Maati-kvo?"

Maati nodded, but his belly seemed to have grown more sensitive for the

moment and he tried not to move more than that. It seemed laughing

wasn't a wise thing for him just now.

"Who are Liat and Nayiit?"

"My lover. Our son," Maati said. "I called out for them, did I? When I

had the fever?"

Cehmai nodded.

"I do that often," Maati said. "Only not usually aloud."

There were four great roads that connected the cities of the Khaiem, one

named for each of the cardinal directions. The North Road that linked

Cetani, Machi, and Amnat-Ian was not the worst, in part because there

was no traffic in the winter, when the snows let men make a road

wherever desire took them. Also the stones were damaged more by the

cycle of thaw and frost that troubled the north only in spring and

autumn. In high summer, it rarely froze, and for a third of the year it

did not thaw. The West Road-far from the sea and not so far south as to

keep the winters warm-required the most repair.

"They'll have crews of indentured slaves and laborers out in shifts,"

the old man in the cart beside Otah said, raising a finger as if his

oratory was on par with the High Emperor's, back when there had been an

empire. "They start at one end, reset the stones until they reach the

other, and begin again. It never ends."

Otah glanced across the cart at the young woman nursing her babe and

rolled his eyes. She smiled and shrugged so slightly that their orator

didn't notice the movement. The cart lurched down into and up from

another wide hole where the stones had shattered and not yet been replaced.

"I have walked them all," the old man said, "though they've worn me more

than I've worn them. Oh yes, much more than I've worn them."

He cackled, as he always seemed to when he made this observation. The

little caravan-four carts hauled by old horses-was still six days from

Cetani. Otah wondered whether his own legs were rested enough that he

could start walking again.

He had bought an old laborer's robe of blue-gray wool from a rag shop,

chopped his hair to change its shape, and let his thin beard start to

grow in. Once his whiskers had been long enough to braid, but the east

islanders he'd lived with had laughed at him and pretended to mistake

him for a woman. After Cetani, it would take another twenty days to

reach the docks outside Amnat-tan. And then, if he could find a fishing

boat that would take him on, he would be among those men again, singing

songs in a tongue he hadn't tried out in years, explaining again, either

with the truth or outrageous stories, why his marriage mark was only

half done.

He would die there-on the islands or on the sea-under whatever new name

he chose for himself. Itani Noygu was gone. He had died in Machi.

Another life was behind him, and the prospect of beginning again, alone

in a foreign land, tired him more than the walking.

"Now, southern wood's too soft to really build with. The winters are too

warm to really harden them. Up here there's trees that would blunt a

dozen axes before they fell," the old man said.

"You know everything, don't you grandfather?" Otah said. If his

annoyance was in his voice, the old man noticed nothing, because he

cackled again.

"It's because I've been everywhere and done everything," the old man

said. "I even helped hunt down the Khai Amnat-Tan's older brother when

they had their last succession. "There were a dozen of us, and it was

the dead of winter. Your piss would freeze before it touched ground. Oh,

eh ..."

The old man took a pose of apology to the young woman and her babe, and

Otah swung himself out of the cart. It wasn't a story he cared to hear.

The road wound through a valley, high pine forest on either side, the

air sharp and fragrant with the resin. It was beautiful, and he pictured

it thick with snow, the image coming so clear that he wondered whether

he might once have seen it that way. When the clatter of hooves came

from the west, he forced himself again to relax his shoulders and look

as curious and excited as the others. Twice before, couriers on fast

horses had passed the 'van, laden with news, Otah knew, of the search

for him.

It had taken an effort of will not to run as fast as he could after he

had been discovered, but the search was for a false courier either

plotting murder or fleeing like a rabbit. No one would pay attention to

a plodding laborer off to stay with his sister's family in a low town

outside Cetani. And yet, as the horses approached, tension grew in his

breast. He prepared himself for the shock if one of the riders had a

familiar face.

There were three this time-utkhaiem to judge by their robes and the

quality of their mounts-and none of them men he knew. They didn't slow

for the 'van, but the armsmen of the 'van, the drivers, the dozen

hangers-on like himself all shouted at them for news. One of them turned

in his saddle and yelled something, but Otah couldn't make it out and

the rider didn't repeat it. Ten days on the road. Six more to Cetani.

The only challenge was not to be where they were looking for him.

They reached a wayhouse with the sun still three and a half hands above

the treetops. The building was of northern design: stone walls thick as

the span of a man's arm and stables and goat pen on the ground floor

where the heat of the animals would rise and help warm the place in the

winter. While the merchants and armsmen argued over whether to stop now