She had lost her family when she was barely six years old. Her mother,
father, younger sister, and two older brothers cut down by the gale of
Galtic blades. The pain of it had faded, perhaps. It had never gone.
Maati felt, as they sat together, that perhaps she had begun, however
imperfectly, to build a new family. Perhaps she would have sat at her
true father's knee, listening to him with this same intensity. Perhaps
Nayiit would have treated him with the same attention that Vanjit did
now. Or perhaps their shared hunger belonged to people who had lost the
first object of their love.
By the time Eiah and the others arrived in the late morning, Maati had
reached the decision that he'd fought against the whole night. He took
Eiah aside as soon as she came in.
"I have need of you," Maati said. "How much can you spirit away without
our being noticed? We'll need food and clothing and tools. Lots of
tools. And if there's a servant or slave you can trust ..."
"There isn't," Eiah said. "But things are in disarray right now. Half
the court in Nantani would chew their tongues out before offering
hospitality to a Galt. The other half are whipped to a froth trying to
get to Saraykeht before the rest. A few wagonloads here and there would
be easy to overlook."
Maati nodded, more than half to himself. Eiah took a pose of query.
"You're going to build me a school. I know where there's one to be had,
and with the others helping, it shouldn't take terribly long to have it
in order. And we need a teacher."
"We have a teacher, Maati-kya," Eiah said.
Maati didn't answer, and after a moment, Eiah looked down.
"Cehmai?" she asked.
"He's the only other living poet. The only one who's truly held one of
the andat. He could do more, I suspect, than I can manage."
"I thought you two had fallen out?"
"I don't like his wife," Maati said sourly. "But I have to try. The two
of us agreed on a way to find one another, if the need arose. I can hope
he's kept to it better than I have."
"I'll come with you."
"No," Maati said, putting a hand on Eiah's shoulder. "I need you to
prepare things for us. There's a place-I'll draw you a map to it. The
Galts attacked it in the war, killed everyone, but even if they dropped
bodies down the well, the water'll be fresh again by now. It's off the
high road between Pathai and Nantani...."
"That school?" Eiah said. "The place they sent the boys to train as
poets? That's where you want to go?"
"Yes," Maati said. "It's out of the way, it's built for itinerant poets,
and there may be something there-some book or scroll or engravings on
the walls-that the twice-damned Galts overlooked. Regardless, it's where
it all began. It's where we are going to take it all back."
3
The voyage returning Otah to the cities of the Khaiem took weeks to
prepare, and if the ships that had left Saraykeht all those months
before had looked like an invading fleet, the ones returning were a city
built on the water. The high-masted Galtic ships with their great
billowing sails dyed red and blue and gold took to the sea by the
dozens. Every great family of Galt seemed bent on sending a ship greater
than the others. The ships of the utkhaiem-lacquered and delicate and
low to the water-seemed small and awkward beside these, their newest
seafaring cousins. Birds circled above them, screaming confusion as if a
part of the coast itself had set out for foreign lands. The trees and
hills of Otah's onetime enemies fell away behind them. That first night,
the torches and lanterns made the sea appear as full of stars as the sky.
One of the small gifts the gods had granted Otah was a fondness for
travel by ship. The shifting of the deck under his feet, the vast scent
of the ocean, the call of the gulls were like visiting a place he had
once lived. He stood at the prow of the great Galtic ship given him by
the High Council for his journey home and looked out at the rising sun.
He had spent years in the eastern islands as a boy. He'd been a middling
fisherman, a better midwife's assistant, a good sailor. He had come
close to marrying an island woman, and still bore the first half of the
marriage tattoo on his breast. The ink had faded and spread over the
years as if he were a parchment dropped in water. With the slap of waves
against wood, the salt-laden air, the morning light dancing gold and
rose on the water, he remembered those days.
This late in the morning, he would already have cast his nets. His
fingers would have been numbed by the cold. He would have been eating
the traditional breakfast of fish paste and nuts from an earthenware
jar. The men he had known would be doing the same today, those who were
still alive. In another life, another world, he might be doing it still.
He had lived so many lives: half-starved street child; petty thief;
seafront laborer; fisherman; assistant midwife; courier; Khai; husband;
father; war leader; emperor. Put in a line that way, he could see how
another person might imagine his life to be an unending upward spiral,
but it didn't feel that way to him. He had done what he'd had to at the
time. One thing had led to another. A man without particular ambition
had been placed atop the world, and likewise the world had been placed
atop him. And against all probability, he found himself here, wearing
the richest robes in the cities, with a private cabin larger than some
boats he'd worked, and thinking fondly of fish paste and nuts.
Lost in thought, he heard the little ship's boat hail-a booming voice
speaking Galtic words-before he knew it was approaching. The watchman of
his own vessel replied, and then the landsman's chair descended. Otah
watched idly as a man in the colors of House Dasin was winched up, swung
over, and lowered to the deck. A knot of Otah's own clerks and servants
formed around the newcomer. Otah pulled his hands up into his sleeves
and made his way back.
The boy was a servant of some sort-the Galts had a system of gradation
that Otah hadn't bothered to memorize-with hair the color of beach sand
and a greenish tint to his face. Seeing Otah, the servant took a pose of
abject obeisance poorly.
"Most High," he said, his words heavily inflected, "Councilman Dasin
sends his regards. He and his wife extend the invitation to a dinner and
concert aboard the Avenger tomorrow evening."
The boy gulped and looked down. There had, no doubt, been a more formal
and flowery speech planned. Nausea led to brevity. Otah glanced at his