power of the andat.
At the pinnacle, a small platform stood high above the world. The
tallest place in the city. Wind whipped it, as cold as a bath of ice
water. Otah motioned for Maati to be led forward. The poet's eyes were
wild, his breath short. He raised his thick chin.
"What?" Maati spat. "Decided to throw me off, have you?"
"It's almost the half-candle," Otah said and went to stand at the edge.
Maati hesitated and then stepped to his side. The city spread out below
them, the streets marked by lanterns and torches. A fire blazed in a
courtyard down near the riverfront, taller than ten men with whole trees
for logs. Otah could cover it with his thumbnail.
The chime came, a deep ringing that seemed to shake the world. And then
a thousand thousand bells rang out in answer to mark the deepest part of
the longest night of the year.
"Here," Otah said. "Watch."
Below, light spread through the city. Every window, every balcony, ever
parapet glowed with newly lit candles. Within ten breaths, the center of
the Empire went from any large city in darkness to something woven from
light, the perfect city-the idea of a city-made for a moment real. Maati
shifted. When his voice came, it was little more than a whisper.
"It's beautiful."
"Isn't it?"
A moment later, Maati said, "Thank you."
"Of course," Otah replied.
They stood there for a long time, neither speaking nor arguing,
concerned with neither future nor past. Below them, Utani glowed and
rang, marking the moment of greatest darkness and celebrating the yearly
return of the light.
EPILOG
We say that the flowers return every spring, but that is a lie.
CALIN MACHI, ELDEST SON OF THE EMPEROR REGENT, KNELT BEFORE HIS father,
his gaze downcast. The delicate tilework of the floor was polished so
brightly that he could watch Danat's face and seem to be showing respect
at the same time. Granted, Danat was reversed-wide jaw above gray
temples-and it made the nuances of expression difficult to read. It was
enough, though, for him to judge approximately how much trouble he was in.
"I've spoken to the overseer of my father's apartments. Do you know what
he told me?"
"That I'd been caught hiding in Grandfather's private garden," Calin said.
"Is that true?"
"Yes, Father. I was hiding from Aniit and Gaber. It was a part of a game.
Danat sighed, and Calin risked looking up. When his father was deeply
upset, his face turned red. He was still flesh-colored. Calin looked
back down, relieved.
"You know you're forbidden from your grandfather's apartments."
"Yes, but that was what made them a good place to hide."
"You're sixteen summers old and you're acting twelve of them. Aniit and
Gaber look to you for how to behave. It's your duty to set an example,"
Danat said, his voice stern. And then he added, "Don't do it again."
Calin rose to his feet, trying to keep his rush of joy from being
obvious. The great punishment had not fallen. He was not barred from the
steam caravan's arrival. Life was still worth living. Danat took a pose
that excused his son and motioned to his Master of Tides. Before the
woman could glide over and lead his father back into the constant
business of negotiating with the High Council, Calin left the audience
chamber, followed only by his father's shouted admonition not to run.
Aniit and Gaber were waiting outside, their eyes wide.
"It's all right," Calin said, as if his father's lenience were somehow
proof of his own cleverness. Aniit took an exaggerated pose of
congratulations. Gaber clapped her hands. She was young, though. Only
fourteen summers old and barely marriageable.
"Come on, then," Calin said. "We can pick the best places for when the
caravan comes."
The roadway had been five years in the building, a shallow canal of
smooth worked iron that began at the seafront in Saraykeht and followed
the river up to Utani. The caravan was the first of its kind, and the
common wisdom in the streets and teahouses was evenly divided between
those who thought it would arrive even earlier than expected and those
who predicted they'd find splinters of blown boilers and nothing else.
Calin dismissed the skeptics. After all, his grandmother was arriving
from her plantations in Chaburi-Tan, and she would never put herself on
the caravan if it was going to explode.
The sweet days of early spring were short and cold. Frost still sent
white fingers up the stones of the palaces in the morning and snow
lingered in the deep shadows. A hundred times Calin and his friends had
gone through the elaborate ritual of how they would greet the caravan,
rehearsing it in their minds and conversations. The event, of course,
was nothing like what they'd planned.
When word came, Calin was with his tutor, an ancient man from Acton,
working complex sums. They were seated in the sunlight of the spring
garden. Almond blossoms turned the tree branches white even before the
first leaves had ventured out. Calin frowned at the wax tablet on his
knees, trying not to count on his fingers. Hesitating, he lifted his
stylus and marked his answer. His tutor made a noncommittal sound in the
back of his throat and Gaber appeared at the end of the arcade, running
full out.
"It's here!" she screamed. "It's here!"
Before any adult could object, Calin joined her flight. Tablet, stylus,
and sums were forgotten in an instant. They ran past the pavilions that
marked palaces from merchants' compounds, the squares and open markets
that showed where the great compound gave way to the haunts of common
labor. The streets were thick with humanity, and Calin threaded his way
through the press of bodies aided by his youth, the quality of his
robes, and the boyish instinct that saw all obstacles as ephemeral.
He reached the Emperor's platform just before the caravan arrived. Wide
plumes of smoke and steam stained the southern sky, and the air smelled
of coal. Danat and Ana were already there, seated in chairs of carved
stone with silk cushions. Otah Machi-the Emperor himselfsat on a raised
dais, his hands resting like fragile claws on the arms of a black
lacquer chair. Calin's grandfather looked over as he arrived and smiled.
Danat's expression was distracted in a way that reminded Calin of doing
sums. His mother was craning her neck and trying not to seem that she was.
It hardly mattered. The crowd that pressed and seethed around the yard
at the caravan road's end had eyes only for the great carts speeding
toward them, faster than horses at full gallop. Calin sat at his
mother's feet, his intended perch nearest his friends forgotten. The
first of the carts came near enough to make out the raised dais, twin of