his grandfather's, and the stiff-backed white-haired woman sitting atop
it. Calin's mother left all decorum, and stood, waving and calling to
her mother.
Calin felt his father's hand on his shoulder and turned.
"Watch this," Danat said. "Pay attention. That caravan reached us in
half the time even a boat could have. What you're seeing right now is
going to change everything."
Calin nodded solemnly as if he understood.
It is true that the world is renewed. It is also true that that renewal
comes at a price.
CEHMAI TYAN SAT ACROSS THE MEETING TABLE FROM THE HIGH COUNCIL'S special
envoy. The man was nondescript, his clothing of Galtic cut and
unremarkable quality. Cehmai didn't like the envoy, but he respected
him. He'd known too many dangerous men in his life not to.
The envoy read the letters-ciphered and sent between a fictional
merchant in Obar State and Cehmai himself here in Utani. They outlined
the latest advance in the poetmaster's rebuilding of the lost libraries
of Machi, which also had not happened. Cehmai sipped tea from an iron
bowl and looked out the window. He couldn't see the steam caravan from
here, but he had a good view of the river. It was at the point he liked
it most, the water freed by the thaw, the banks not yet overgrown by
green. No matter how many years passed, he still felt a personal
affinity with earth and stone.
The envoy finished reading, his mouth in a smile that would have seemed
pleasant and perhaps a bit simple on someone else.
"Is any of this true?" the envoy asked.
"Danat-cha did send a dozen men into the foothills north of Machi,"
Cehmai said, "and Maati-kvo and I did spend a winter there. Past that,
nothing. But it should keep Eddensea's attention on sneaking through to
search for it themselves. And we're in the process of forging books that
we can then `recover' in a year or so."
The envoy tucked the letters into a leather pouch at his belt. He didn't
look up as he spoke.
"That brings a question," the man said. "I know we've talked about this
before, but I'm not sure you've fully grasped the advantages that could
come from leaning a little nearer the truth. Nothing that would be
effective. We all understand that. But our enemies all have scholars
working at these problems. If they were able to come close enough that
the bindings cost them, if they paid the andat's price-"
Cehmai took a pose of query. "Wouldn't that be doing your work for you?"
he asked.
"My job is to see they don't succeed," the envoy said. "A few
mysterious, grotesque deaths would help me find the people involved."
"It would give away too much," Cehmai said. "Bringing them near enough
to be hurt by the effort would also bring them near to succeed„ ing.
The envoy looked at him silently. His placid eyes conveyed only a mild
distrust.
"If you have a threat to make, feel free," Cehmai said. "It won't do you
any good."
"Of course there's no threat, Cehmai-cha," the envoy said. "We're all on
the same side here."
"Yes," the poetmaster said, rising from his chair with a pose that
called the meeting to its close. "Try to keep it in mind."
His apartments were across the palaces. He made his way along the
pathways of white and black sand, past the singing slaves and the
fountain in the shape of the Galtic Tree that marked the wing devoted to
the High Council. The men and women he passed nodded to him with
deference, but few took any formal pose. A decade of joint rule had led
to a thousand small changes in etiquette. Cehmai supposed it was
smallminded of him to regret them.
Idaan was sitting on the porch of their entranceway, tugging at a length
of string while a gray tomcat worried the other end. He paused, watching
her. Unlike her brother, she'd grown thicker with time, more solid, more
real. He must have made some small sound, because she looked up and
smiled at him.
"How was the assassin's conference?" she asked.
The tomcat forgot his string and trotted up to Cehmai, already purring
audibly. He stopped to scratch its fight-ragged ears.
"I wish you wouldn't call it that," he said.
"Well, I wish my hair were still dark. It is what it is, love. Politics
in action."
"Cynic," he said as he reached the porch.
"Idealist," she replied, pulling him down to kiss him.
Far to the east, an early storm fell from clouds dark as bruises, a veil
of gray. Cehmai watched it, his arm around his lover's shoulder. She
leaned her head against him.
"How was the Emperor this morning?" he asked.
"Fine. Excited to see Issandra-cha again as much as anything about the
caravan. I think he's more than half infatuated with her."
"Oh please," Cehmai said. "This will be his seventy-ninth summer? His
eightieth?"
"And you won't still want me when you've reached the age?"
"Well. Fair point."
"His hands bother him most," Idaan said. "It's a pity about his hands."
Lightning flashed on the horizon, less that a firefly. Idaan twined her
fingers with his and sighed.
"Have I mentioned recently how much I appreciate you coming to find me?
Back when you were an outlaw and I was still a judge, I mean," she asked.
"I never tire of hearing it," Cehmai said.
The tomcat leaped on his lap, dug its claws into his robe twice,
kneading him like bread dough, and curled up.
For even if the flowergrows from an ancient vine, the flowers of spring
are themselves new to the world, untried and untested.
EIAH MOTIONED FOR OTAH TO SIT. SHE WAS GENTLE AS ALWAYS WITH HIS
crippled hands. He sat back down slowly. The servants had brought his
couches out to a wide garden, but with the coming sunset he'd have to be
moved again. Eiah tried to impress on her father's servants that what he
needed and what he wanted weren't always the same. She'd given up
convincing Otah years earlier.
"How are you feeling?" she asked, sitting beside him. "You look tired."
"It was a long day," Otah said. "I slept well enough, but I can never
stay in bed past dawn. When I was young, I could sleep until midday. Now
that I have the time and no one would object, I'm up with the birds.
Does that seem right to you?"
"The world was never fair."
"Truth. All the gods know that's the truth."
She took his wrists as if it were nothing more than the contact of
father and daughter. Otah looked at her impatiently, but he suffered it.
She closed her eyes for a moment, feeling the subtle differences of his
pulses.