him," Cehmai said, his voice warm and coaxing. The envoy put
Heshai-kvo's book down, his attention entirely on Maati now.
""There are ... patterns," Maati said. "There seems to be a structure
that links the form of the binding to its ... its worst expression. Its
price. The forms only seem random because it's a very complex structure.
And I was reading Catji's meditations-the one from the Second Empire,
not Catji Sano-and there are some speculations he made about the nature
of language and grammar that ... that seem related."
"He's found a way to shield a poet from paying the price," Cehmai said.
"I don't know that's true," Maati said quickly.
"But possibly," Cehmai said.
The envoy and the andat both shifted forward in their seats. The effect
was eerie.
"I thought that, if a poet's first attempt at a binding didn't have to
be his last-if an imperfect binding didn't mean death ..."
Maati gestured helplessly at the air. He had spent so many hours
thinking about what it could mean, about what it could bring about and
bring hack. All the andat lost over the course of generations that had
been thought beyond recapture might still he hound if only the men
binding them could learn from their errors, adjust their work as Heshai
had done after the fact. Softness. Water-Moving-Down. 't'hinking-in-
Words. All the spirits cataloged in the histories, the work of poets who
had made the Empire great. Perhaps they were not past redemption.
He looked at Athai, but the young man's eyes were unfocused and distant.
"May I see your work, Maati-kvo?" he asked, and the barely suppressed
excitement in his voice almost brought Maati to like him for the moment.
"Together, the three men stepped to Maati's worktable. 'T'hree men, and
one other that was something else.
2
Liat Chokavi had never seen seawater as green as the bays near
Amnat-Tan. The seafront at Saraykeht had always taken its color from the
sky-gray, blue, white, yellow, crimson, pink. The water in the far North
was different entirely; green as grass and numbing cold. She could no
more see the fish and seafloor here than read pages from a closed hook.
These waters kept their secrets.
A low fog lay on the hay; the white and gray towers of the low town
seemed to float upon it. In the far distance, the deep blue spire of the
Khai Amnat-Tan's palace seemed almost to glow, a lantern like a star
fallen to earth. Even the sailors, she noticed, would pause for a moment
at their work and admire it. It was the great wonder of Amnat-'Ian,
second only to the towers of Machi as the signature of the winter
cities. It would take them days more to reach it; the ports and low
towns were a good distance downriver of the city itself.
The wind smelled of smoke now-the scent of the low town coming across
the water, adding to the smells of salt and fish, crab and unwashed
humanity. They would reach port by midday. She turned and went down the
steps to their cabin.
Nayilt swung gently in his hammock, his eyes closed, snoring lightly.
Liat sat on the crate that held their belongings and considered her son;
the long face, the unkempt hair, the delicate hands folded on his belly.
He had made an attempt at growing a heard in their time in Yalakeht, but
it had come in so poorly he'd shaved it off with a razor and cold
seawater. Her heart ached, listening to him sleep. The workings of House
Kyaan weren't so complex that it could not run without her immediate
presence, but she had never meant to keep Nayiit so long from home and
the family he had only recently begun.
The news had reached Saraykeht last summer-almost a year ago now. It had
hardly been more than a confluence of rumors-a Galtic ship in Nantani
slipping away before its cargo had arrived, a scandal at the [)a[-kvo's
village, inquiries discreetly made about a poet. And still, as her
couriers arrived at the compound, Liat had felt unease growing in her.
"There were few enough people who knew as she did that the house she ran
had been founded to keep watch on the duplicity of the Gaits. Fewer
still knew of the books she kept, as her mentor Amat Kyaan had before
her, tracking the actions and strategies of the Galtic houses among the
Khaiem, and it was a secret she meant to keep. So when tales of a
missing poet began to dovetail too neatly with stories of Galtic
intrigue in Nantani, there was no one whom she trusted the task to more
than herself. She had been in Saraykeht for ten years. She decided to
leave again the day that Nayiit's son Tai took his first steps.
Looking back, she wondered why it had been so easy for Nayiit to come
with her. He and his wife were happy, she'd thought. The baby boy was
delightful, and the work of the house engaging. When he had made the
offer, she had hidden her pleasure at the thought and made only slight
objections. The truth was that the years they had spent on the road when
Nayiit had been a child-the time between her break with Maati Vaupathai
and her return to the arms of Saraykeht-held a powerful nostalgia for
her. Alone in the world with only a son barely halfway to manhood, she
had expected struggle and pain and the emptiness that she had always
thought must accompany a woman without a man.
The truth had been a surprise. Certainly the emptiness and struggle and
pain had attended their travels. She and Nayiit had spent nights
huddling under waxed-cloth tarps while chill rain pattered around them.
They had eaten cheap food from low-town firekeepers. She had learned
again all she'd known as a girl of how to mend a robe or a boot. And she
had discovered a competence she had never believed herself to possess.
Before that, she had always had a lover by whom to judge herself. With a
son, she found herself stronger, smarter, more complete than she had
dared pretend.
The journey to Nantani had been a chance for her to relive that, one
last time. Her son was a man now, with a child of his own. There
wouldn't be many more travels, just the two of them. So she had put
aside any doubts, welcomed him, and set off to discover what she could
about Riaan Vaudathat, son of a high family of the Nantani utkhaiem and
missing poet. She had expected the work to take a season, no more. They
would be back in the compound of House Kyaan in time to spend the autumn
haggling over contracts and shipping prices.
And now it was spring, and she saw no prospect of sleeping in a bed she
might call her own any time soon. Nayiit had not complained when it
became clear that their investigation would require a journey to the
village of the Dai-kvo. As a woman, Liat was not permitted beyond the
low towns approaching it. She would need a man to do her business within
the halls of the Dai-kvo's palaces. They had hooked passage to Yalakeht,
and then upriver. They had arrived at mid-autumn and hardly finished
their investigation before Candles Night. So far North, there had been