He thought it might not be wise to appear amused at the idea of a woman
in power.
"She wouldn't take the job if you begged her," Otah said. "She's a
smart, strong-willed woman, but court politics give her a rash."
"But if she changed her mind. Twenty years from now, who can say that
her opinions won't have shifted?"
"It wouldn't matter," Otah said. "There is no tradition of empresses.
Nor, I think, of women on your own High Council."
She snorted derisively, but Otah saw he had scored his point. She
considered for a moment, then with a deep breath allowed herself to relax.
"Well then. It seems we have an agreement."
"Yes," Otah said.
She stood and adopted a pose that she had clearly practiced with a
specialist in etiquette. It was in essence a greeting, with nuances of a
contract being formed and the informality that came with close relations.
"Welcome to my family, Most High," she said in his language. Otah
replied with a pose that accepted the welcome, and if its precise
meaning was lost on her, the gist was clear enough.
After she had left, Otah strolled through the gardens, insulated by his
rank from everyone he met. The trees seemed straighter than he
remembered, the birdsong more delicate. A weariness he only half-knew
had been upon him had lifted, and he felt warm and energetic in a way he
hadn't in months. He made his way at length to his suite, his rooms, his
desk.
Kiyan-kya, it seems something may have gone right after all...
2
Ten years almost to the day before word of Otah's pact with the Galts
reached him, Maati Vaupathai had learned of his son's death at the hands
of Galtic soldiers. A fugitive only just abandoned by his only
companion, he had made his way to the south like a wounded horse finding
its way home. It had not been the city itself he had been looking for,
but a woman.
Liat Chokavi, owner and overseer of House Kyaan, had received him.
Twice, they had been lovers, once as children, and then again just
before the war. She had told him of Nayiit's stand, of how he had been
cut down protecting the Emperor's son, Danat, as the final assault on
Machi began. She spoke with the chalky tones of a woman still in pain.
If Maati had held hopes that his once-lover might take him in, they did
not survive that conversation. He left her house in agony. He had not
spoken to her since.
Two years after that, he took his first student, a woman named Halit.
Since then, his life had become a narrow, focused thing. He had remade
himself as a teacher, as an agent of hope, as the Dai-kvo of a new age.
It was less glamorous than it sounded.
All that morning he had lain in the small room that was presently his
home, squinting at the dirty light that made its way through the
oiledparchment window and thinking of the andat. Thinking of thoughts
made flesh, of ideas given human form and volition. Little gods, held
tight to existence by the poets who knew them best and, by knowing,
bound them. Removing-the-Part-That-Continues, called Seedless.
WaterMoving-Down, called Rain or Seaward. Stone-Made-Soft who had no
other name. And his own-Corrupting-the-Generative, called Sterile, whom
Maati had not quite bound, and who had remade the world.
The lessons he had learned as a boy, the conversations he had had as a
man and a poet, they all came back to him dimly. Fragments and moments,
insights but not all the steps that had led him there. A mosquito whined
in the gloom, and Maati waved it away.
Teaching his girls was like telling the story of his life and finding
there were holes in it. He knew things-structures of grammar and
metaphor, anecdotes of long-dead poets and the bindings they had made,
occult relationships between abstractions like shapes and numbers and
the concrete things of the world-without remembering how he'd learned
them. Every lecture he gave, he had to half-invent. Every question he
answered, he had to solve in his mind to be sure. On one hand, it was as
awkward as using a grand palace as a lesson on how to build scaffolding.
And on the other, it was making him a better poet and a better teacher
than he would ever have been otherwise.
He sat up, the canvas cot groaning as his weight shifted. The room was
tiny and quiet; the stone walls wept and smelled of fungus. Halfaware of
his surroundings and half in the fine points of ancient grammars, Maati
rose and trundled up the short flight of stairs. The warehouse stood
empty, the muted daylight and the sound of light rain making their way
through the high, narrow windows. His footsteps echoed as he crossed to
the makeshift lecture hall.
Benches of old, splintering wood squatted near a length of wall smooth
enough to take chalk. The markings of the previous evening still shone
white against the stone. Maati squinted at them.
Age was a thief. It took his wind, it made his heart race at odd times,
and it stole his sleep. But the worst of all the little indignities was
his sight. He hadn't thought about the blessing that decent vision was
until his eyes started to fail. It made his head ache a bit, but he
found the diagram he'd been thinking of, traced it with his fingertips,
considered, and then took a rag from the pail of water beside his little
podium and washed the marks away. He could start there tonight, with the
four categories of being and their relationships. It was a subtle point,
but without it, the girls would never build a decent binding.
There were five of them now: Irit, Ashti Beg, Vanjit, Small Kae, and
Large Kae. Half a year ago, there had been seven, but Umnit had tried
her binding, failed, and perished. Lisat had given up and left him. Just
as well, really. Lisat had been a good-hearted girl, but slow-witted as
a cow. And so, five. Or six, if he counted Eiah.
Eiah had been a gift from the gods. She spent her days in the palaces of
Utani, playing the daughter of Empire. He knew it was a life she
disliked, but she saw to it that food and money found their way to
Maati. And being part of the court let her keep an ear out for gossip
that would serve them, like a dispute over the ownership of a low-town
warehouse that left both claimants barred from visiting the building
until judgment was passed. The warehouse had been Maati's for two months
now. It was beginning to feel like his own. He dropped the rag back into
its pail, found the thick cube of chalk, and started drawing the charts
for the evening's lecture. He wondered whether Eiah would be able to
join them. She was a good student, when she could slip away from her
life at the palace. She asked good questions.