Maati's mind softened, slipped. He felt his body sinking into the planks
below him, heard the creak and clatter of the wheels. His heart, low and
steady, was like the throbbing drum at the wayhouse. It didn't sound at
all unwell.
On the shifting edge of sleep, he imagined himself capable of moving
between spaces, folding the world so that the distance between himself
and Otah-kvo was only a step. He pictured Otah's awe and rage and
impotence. It was a fantasy Maati had cultivated before this, and it
went through its phases like a habit. Maati's presentation of the poets,
the women's grammar, the andat. Otah's abasement and apologies and
humble amazement at the world made right. For years, Maati had driven
himself toward that moment. He had brought on the sacrifice of ten
women, each of them paying the price of a binding that wasn't quite correct.
He watched now as if someone else were dreaming it. Dispassionate, cold,
thoughtful. He felt nothing-not disappointment or regret or hope. It was
like being a boy again and coming across some iridescent and pincered
insect, fascinating and beautiful and dangerous.
More than half asleep, he didn't feel the tiny body inching its way to
him until it lay almost within his arms. With the reflex of a man who
has cared for a baby, instincts long unused but never forgotten, he
gathered the child close.
"You have to kill her," it whispered.
21
Otah stood in the ruins of the school's west garden. Half a century
before, he'd been in this same spot, screaming at boys not ten summers
old. Humiliating them. This was where, in a fit of childish rage, he had
forced a little boy to eat clods of dirt. He'd been twelve summers old
at the time, but he recalled it with a vividness like a cut. Maati's
young eyes and blistered hands, tears and apologies. The incident had
begun Maati's career as a poet and ended his own.
The stone walls of the school were lower than he remembered them. The
crows that perched in the stark, leafless trees, on the other hand, were
as familiar as childhood enemies. As a boy, he had hated this place.
With all its changes and his own, he still did.
Ashti Beg had told them of Maati's clandestine school. Of Eiah's
involvement, and the others'. Two women named Kae, another-Ashti Beg's
particular confidante-named Irit. And the new poet, Vanjit. Ashti Beg
had escaped the school and the increasingly dangerous poet and her false
baby, the andat Blindness. Or Clarity-of-Sight.
Three days after Eiah had left her in one of the low towns, she had lost
her sight without warning. The poet girl Vanjit taking revenge for
whatever slight she imagined. In a spirit of vengeance, Ashti Beg had
offered to lead Otah to them all. Under cover of night, if he wished.
There was no need. Otah knew the way.
The armsmen had gone first, scouting from what little cover there was.
No sign of life had greeted them, and they had arrived to find the
school cleaned, repaired, cared for, and empty. They had come too late,
and the wind and snow had erased any clue to where Maati and Eiah and
the other women had gone. Including the new poet.
Idaan emerged from the building, walking toward him with a determined
gait. Otah could see the ghost of her breath. He took a pose that
offered greeting. It seemed too formal, but he couldn't think of one
more fitting and he didn't want to speak.
"I'd guess they left before you reached Pathai," Idaan said. "They've
left very little. A few jars of pickled nuts and some dry cheese.
Otherwise, it all matches what she said. Someone's been here for months.
The kitchen's been used. And the graves are still fresh."
"How many boys died here, do you think?" Otah asked.
"In the war, or when the Dai-kvo ran the place?" Idaan asked, and then
went on without waiting for his reply. "I don't know. Fewer than have
died in Galt since you and ... the others left Saraykeht."
She had stumbled at mentioning Danat. He'd noticed more than once that
it wasn't a name she liked saying.
"We have to find them," Otah said. "If we can't make her change this
soon, the High Council will never forgive us."
Idaan smiled. It was an odd and catlike expression, gentle and predatory
both. She glanced at him, saw his unease, and shrugged.
"I'm sorry," she said. "It's only that you keep speaking as if there was
still a High Council. Or a nation called Galt, for that. If this Vanjit
has done what for all the world it seems she's done, every city and town
and village over there has been blinded for weeks now. It isn't winter
yet, but it's cold enough. And even if they had gotten some of the
harvest in before this, it would only help the people on the farms. You
can't walk from town to town blind, much less steer one of these soup
pots on wheels."
"They'll find ways."
"Some of them may have, but there'll be fewer tomorrow. And then the
next day. The next," Idaan agreed. "It doesn't matter. However many
there are, they aren't Galts anymore."
"No? Then what are they?"
"Survivors," Idaan said, and any amusement that had been in her voice
was gone. "Just survivors."
They stood in silence, looking at nothing. The crows insulted one
another, rose into the air, and settled again. The breeze smelled of new
snow and the promise of frost.
Inside the stone walls, the armsmen had made camp. The kitchen was warm,
and the smell of boiling lentils and pork fat filled the air. Ana Dasin
and Ashti Beg sat side by side, talking to the air. Otah tried not to
watch the two blind women, but he found he couldn't turn away. It was
their faces that captured him. Their expressions, their gestures thrown
into nothingness, were strangely intimate. It was as if by being cast
into their personal darkness, they had lost some ability to dissemble.
Ashti Beg's anger was carved into the lines around her mouth. Ana, by
contrast, betrayed an unexpected serenity in every movement of her
hands, every smile. Three empty bowls lay beside them, evidence of Ana's
appetite. Their voices betrayed nothing, but their faces and their
bodies were eloquent.
As the sun set, the cold grew. It seemed to radiate from the walls,
sucking away the life and heat like a restless ghost. That night, they
slept in the shelter of the school. Otah took the wide, comfortable room
that had once belonged to Tahi-kvo, his first and least-loved teacher.
The wool blankets were heavy and thick. The night wind sang empty,
mindless songs against the shutters. In the dim flickering light from
the fire grate, he let his mind wander.
It was uncomfortable to think of Eiah in this place. It wasn't only that
she was angry with him, that she had chosen this path and not the one he
preferred. All that was true, but it was also that this place was one