Just after Maati refused to take Ana Dasin with him to this
thrice-damned meeting, Idaan came to me and said that she
was fairly certain that if Vanjit kills us all, she'll die
of starvation herself within the year. Uanjit's hunting
ability hasn't impressed her, and Idaan has a way of finding
comfort in strange places.
Nothing has ever come out the way I expected, love. It
seemed so simple. T' e had men who could sire a child, they
had women who could bear. And instead, I am sending the
least reliable man I know to save everything and everyone by
talking a madwoman into sanity. If I could find any way not
to do this, I'd take it. I appealed to what Maati and I once
were to each other when I tried to convince him to accept
Ana's company. It was more than half a lie. In truth I can't
say I know this man. The boy I knew in Saraykeht and the man
we knew in Machi has become a stew of bitterness and blind
optimism. He wants the past back, and no sacrifice is too
high. I wonder if he never saw the weakness and injustice
and rot at the heart of the old ways, or if he's only
forgotten them.
If I had it all to do again, I'd have done it differently.
I'd have married you sooner. I'd never have gone north, and
Idaan and Adrah could have taken Machi and had all this on
their heads instead of my own. Only then we'dhave been in
Udun, you andl, andl wouldhave had yourcompany for an even
shorter time. There is no winning this game. I suppose it's
best that we can only play it through once.
You wouldn't like what's become of Udun. I don't like it. I
remember Sinja saying that he kept your wayhouse safe during
the sack, but I haven't had the heart to go and look. The
river still has its beauty. The birds still have their song.
They'll still be here when the rest q f us are gone. I miss
Sinja.
There's something I'm trying to tell you, love. It's taking
me more time than I'd expected to work up the courage. We
all know it. Even Maati, even Ana, even Eiah. None of us can
speak the words; not even me. You're the only one I can say
this to, because, I suppose, you've already died and so
you're safe from it.
Love. Oh, love. This meeting is all we can do, and it isn't
going to work.
MAATI LEFT IN TWILIGHT. THE STARS SHONE IN THE EAST, THE DARKNESS RISing
up like a black dawn as the western sky fell from blue to gold, from
gold to gray. Birdsong changed from the trills and complaints of the day
to the low cooing and complexities of the night. The river seemed to
exhale, and its breath was green and rotting and cold. Maati had a small
pack at his side. In the light of the failing day and the flickering
orange of the torches, he looked older than Otah felt, and Otah felt
ancient.
He tried to see something familiar in Maati's eyes. He tried to see the
boy he'd gone drinking with in dark, lush Saraykeht, but that child was
gone. Both of those children.
"I will do my best, Otah-kvo," Maati said.
Otah bit back his first reply, and then his second.
"Tomorrow's going to be a very different day, Maati-cha," Otah said.
Maati nodded. After so much and so long, there should have been more.
Sinja appeared for a moment in the back of Otah's mind. There had been
no last good-bye for him. If this was to be the ending between the two
of them, Otah thought he should say something. He should make this
parting unlike the others that had come before. "I'm sorry it's come to
this."
Maati took a pose that agreed but kept the meaning as imprecise as Otah
had. One of the armsmen called out, pointing at the looming threat of
the Khai Udun's palaces. In a wide window precisely above the river, a
light had appeared, glittering like gold. Like a fallen star.
Ana and Danat were in a corner of the quay, their arms wrapped around
each other. Idaan stood among the armsmen, her expression grim. Eiah sat
alone by the water, listening. Otah saw Maati's gaze linger on her with
something like sorrow.
With a lantern in his unsteady hand, Maati walked off along the ruined
streets that ran beside the river. Otah guessed it would take him half a
hand to reach the palaces.
"All right," Idaan said. "He's gone."
Otah turned to look at her, some pale attempt at wit on his lips, and
saw that the comment hadn't been meant for him. Idaan crouched beside
Eiah. His daughter's face was turned toward nothing, but her hands were
digging through the physician's satchel. Danat glanced at Otah,
confusion in his eyes. Eiah started drawing flat stones from her bag and
laying them gently on the flagstones before her.
No, he was wrong. Not stones, but triangles of broken wax. The contents
of old, broken tablets with symbols and words inscribed on them in
Eiah's hand.
"You could try being of help," Idaan said and gestured toward the shards
at his daughter's knees. "There's a piece that goes right here I haven't
been able to find."
"You did enough," Eiah said, her hands shifting quickly, fitting the
breaks together. Already the wax was taking the shape of five separate
squares, the characters coming together. "Just going to the campsite and
bringing back the bits you did was more than I could have asked."
"What is this?" Otah asked, though he already knew.
"My work," Eiah said. "My binding. I hoped I'd have time. Before we
actually came across Vanjit-cha, there was the chance she was spying on
us. She'd always planned to kill me by distracting me during the
binding. But now, and for I think at least the next hand and a half, her
attention is going to be on Maati-kvo. So..."
Idaan shook her head, clearing some thought away, and gestured to the
captain of the guard.
"We'll need light," she said. "Eiah may be able to work puzzles in the
dark, but I'm better if I can see what I'm doing."
"I thought you couldn't do this," Otah said, kneeling.
"Well, I haven't managed it yet," Eiah said with a wry smile. "On the
other hand, I've studied to be a physician. Holding things in memory
isn't so difficult, once you've had the practice. And there's enough
here, I think, to guide me through it, no matter what Maati-kvo believes."
Idaan made a low grunt of pleasure, reached across Eiah and shifted a
stray chunk of wax into place. Eiah's fingers caressed the new join, and
she nodded to herself. Armsmen brought the wild, flickering light close,
the waxwork lettering seeming to breathe in the shadows.
"Maati's warnings," Otah said. "You can't know what will happen if you
pit your andat against hers."
"I won't have to," Eiah said. "I've thought this through, Papa-kya. I
know what I'm doing. There was another section. It was almost square
with one corner missing. Can anyone see that?"
"Check the satchel," Idaan said as Otah plucked the piece from the hem