of this guilt as well. fie was the one who had come to Ntaati, all those
years ago. He was the one who had hinted to Maati that the school to
which they had both been sent had a hidden structure. If he hadn't,
Maati might never have been a poet. Never have known Seedless or Heshai,
Liat or Cehmai. Nayiit might never have been born. Even if the Galts had
come, even if the world had fallen, it wouldn't have fallen on Maati's
shoulders. Cehmai was right; the binding of Sterile had been a decision
they had all made-Otah-kvo more than any of the rest. But it was Maati
who was cast out to live in the dark and the cold. The sense of betrayal
was as comforting as a candle in the darkness, and as he walked, Maati
found himself indulging it.
The fault wasn't his alone, and the punishment was. There was nothing
fair in that. Nothing right. The terrible thing that had happened seemed
nearly inevitable now that he looked back on it. He'd been given hardly
any hooks, not half the time he'd been promised, and the threat of death
at the end of a Galtic sword unless he succeeded. It would have been
astounding it he hadn't failed.
And for the price, that wasn't something he'd chosen. That had been
Sterile. Once the binding had failed, he'd had no control over it. He
would never have hurt Eiah if he'd had the choice. It had simply
happened. And still, he felt it in the hack of his mind-the shape of the
andat, the place in the realm of ideas that it had pressed down in him,
like the flattened grass where a hunting cat has slept. Sterile came
from him, was him, and even if she had only been brief, she had still
learned her voice from him and visited her price upon the world through
his mind and fears. The clever trick of pushing the price away from
himself and onto the world had been his. The way in which the world had
broken was his shadow-not him, not even truly shaped like him. But
connected.
The tunnel before him came to a sudden end, and Nlaati had to follow his
own track back to the turn he'd missed, angling up a steep slope and
into the first breath of fresh, cold air, the first glimmer of daylight.
Nlaati stood still a moment to catch his breath, then fastened all the
tics on his cloak, pulled the furred hood up over his head, and began
the long last climb.
The bolt-hole was perhaps half a hand's walk from the entrance to the
mines in which the poets hid. The snow was dry as sand, and the icy
breeze from the North would he enough to conceal what traces of his
footsteps the sled didn't smooth over. \Iaati trudged through the world
of snow and stone, his breath pluming out before him, his face stung and
numbed. It was a hellish. His feet first burned then went numb, and
frost began to form on the fur around his hood's mouth. AIaati dragged
himself and his sled. The numbness and the pain felt a hit like penance,
and he was so caught tip in them he nearly failed to notice the horse at
the mouth of the bolt-hole.
It was a small animal, fit with heavy blankets and riding tack. Nlaati
blinked at it, stunned by its presence, then scurried quickly behind a
boulder, his heart in his mouth. Someone had come looking for them.
Someone had found them. He turned to look back at the path he'd walked,
certain that the footsteps in the snow were visible as blood on a
wedding dress.
lie waited for what seemed half a day but couldn't have been more than
half a hand's width in the arc of the fast winter sun. A figure emerged
from the tunnels-thick black cloak, and wide, heavy hood. Mlaati was
torn between poking his head out to watch it and pulling back to hide
behind his boulder. In the end caution won out, and he waited blind
while the sound of horse's hooves on snow began and then grew faint. tie
chanced a look, and the rider had its back to him, heading back south to
Machi, a twig of black on the wide field of mourning white. \laati
waited until he judged the risk of being seen no greater than the risk
of frostbite if he stayed still, then forced himself-all his limbs
aching with the cold-to scramble the last stretch into the tunnel.
The bolt-hole was empty. He was surprised to find that he'd halfexpected
it to be filled with men bearing swords, ready to take their vengeance
out against him. He pulled off his gloves and lit a small fire to warm
himself, and when his hands could move again without pain, he made an
inventory of the place. Nothing seemed to be missing, nothing disturbed.
Except this: a small wicker basket with two low stone wax-sealed jars
where none had been before. Maati squatted over them, lifting them
carefully. They were heavy-packed with something. And a length of
scroll, curled like a leaf, had been nestled between them. Maati blew on
his fingers and unfurled the scrap of parchment.
Maati-rha-
I thought you might be out in the hiding
place where we were supposed to go when
the Galts came, but you aren't here, so
I'm not sure anymore. I'm leaving this
for you just in case. It's peaches from
the gardens. They were going to give
them to the Galts, so I stole them.
Loya-cha says I'm not supposed to ride
yet, so I don't know when I'll be able
to get out again. If you find this, take
it so I'll know you were there.
It's going to be all right.
It was signed with Eiah's wide, uncontrolled hand. Maati felt himself
weeping. He broke the seal of one jar and with numb fingers drew out a
slice of the deep orange fruit, sweet and rich and thick with the
sunshine of the autumn days that had passed.
THE WORLD CHANGES. SOMETIMES SLOWLY, SOMETIMES ALL OF AN INSTANT. But
the world changes, and it doesn't change back. A rockslide shifts the
face of a mountain, and the stones never go back up to take their old
places. War scatters the people of a city, and not all will return. If any.
A child cherished as a babe, clung to as a man, dies; a mother's one
last journey with her son at her side proves to be truly the last. The
world has changed. And no matter how painful this new world is, it
doesn't change back.
Liat lay in the darkened room, as she had for days. Her belly didn't
bother her any longer. Even when it had, the pain hadn't been deep. It
was only flesh. The news of Nayiit's death had been a more profound
wound than anything the andat could do. Her boy had followed her on this
last desperate adventure. He had left his own wife and child. And she
had brought him here to die for a boy he hadn't even known to be his
brother.
Or perhaps he had known. Perhaps that was what had given him the courage
to attack the Galtic soldiers and be cut down. She would have asked him;
she still intended to ask him, when she saw him next. Even knowing that
she never could, even trying consciously to force the im pulse away, she
found she could not stop intending it. It-hen / see him again still felt
like the future. A time would come when it would feel like the past.