and the solidity of the stone markers. The competition between a spirit
seeking its freedom and the poet holding it in place. Cehmai ran his
fingertip along his edge of the board where Manat Doru's had once
touched it. He considered the advancing line of white stones and crafted
his answering line of black, touching stones that long-dead men had held
when they had played the same game against the thing that sat across
from him now. And with every victory, the binding was renewed, the andat
held more firmly in the world. It was an excellent strategy, in part
because the binding had also made StoneMade-Soft a terrible player.
The windstorm quieted, and Cehmai stretched and yawned. StoneMade-Soft
glowered down on its failing line.
"You're going to lose," Cehmai said.
"I know," the andat replied. Its voice was a deep rumble, like a distant
rockslide-another evocation of flowing stone. "Being doomed doesn't take
away from the dignity of the effort, though."
"Well said."
The andat shrugged and smiled. "One can afford to be philosophical when
losing means outliving one's opponent. This particular game? You picked
it. But there are others we play that I'm not quite so crippled at."
"I didn't pick this game. I haven't seen twenty summers, and you've seen
more than two hundred. I wasn't even a dirty thought in my grandfather's
head when you started playing this."
The andat's thick hands took a formal position of disagreement.
"We have always been playing the same game, you and I. If you were
someone else at the start, it's your problem."
They never started speaking until the game's end was a forgone
conclusion. That Stone-Made-Soft was willing to speak was as much a sign
that this particular battle was drawing to its end as the silence in
Cehmai's mind. But the last piece had not yet been pushed when a
pounding came on the door.
"I know you're in there! Wake up!"
Cehmai sighed at the familiar voice and rose. The andat brooded over the
board, searching, the poet knew, for some way to win a lost game. He
clapped a hand on the andat's shoulder as he passed by it toward the door.
"I won't have it," the stout, red-checked man said when the opened door
revealed him. He wore brilliant blue robes shot with rich yellow and a
copper tore of office. Not for the first time, Cehmai thought Baarath
would have been better placed in life as the overseer of a merchant
house or farm than within the utkhaiem. "You poets think that because
you have the andat, you have everything. Well, I've come to tell you it
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.