Shadow and Betrayal (98 page)
Read Shadow and Betrayal Online
Authors: Daniel Abraham
‘I’ll better that! Brothers, I give my place before you to the son of the Khai and his one surviving heir!’
Had she thought the hall loud before? It was deafening. No one was left seated. Bodies pressed at her back, jostling her against the railing as they craned and stretched for a glimpse of the man entering the chamber. He stood tall and straight, his dark robes with their high collar looking almost priestly. Otah Machi, the upstart, strode into the hall, with the grace and calm of a man who owned it and every man and woman who breathed air.
He’s mad, she thought. He’s gone mad to come here. They’ll tear him apart with their hands. And then she saw behind him the brown robes of a poet - Maati Vaupathai, the envoy of the Dai-kvo. And behind him . . .
Her mouth went dry and her body began to tremble. She shrieked, she screamed, but no one could hear her over the crowd. She couldn’t even hear herself. And yet, walking at Maati’s side, Cehmai looked up. His face was grim and calm and distant. The poets strode together behind the upstart. And then the armsmen of Radaani and Vaunani, Kamau and Daikani and Saya. Hardly a tenth of the families of the utkhaiem, but still a show of power. The poets alone would have been enough.
She didn’t think, couldn’t recall pushing back the people around her, she only knew her own intentions when she was over the rail and falling. It wasn’t so far to the ground - no more than the height of two men, and yet in the roar and chaos, the drop seemed to last forever. When she struck the floor at last, it jarred her to the bone. Her ankle bloomed with pain. She put it aside and ran as best she could through the stunned men of the utkhaiem. Men all about her, unable to act, unable to move. They were like statues, frozen by their uncertainty and confusion. She knew that she was screaming - she could feel it in her throat, could hear it in her ears. She sounded crazed, but that was unimportant. Her attention was single, focused. The rage that possessed her, that lifted her up and sped her steps by its power alone, was only for the upstart, Otah Machi, who had taken her lover from her.
She saw Adrah and Daaya already on the floor, an armsman kneeling on each back. There was a blade still in Adrah’s hand. And then there before her like a fish rising to the surface of a pond was Otah Machi, her brother. She launched herself at him, her hands reaching for him like claws. She didn’t see how the andat moved between them; perhaps it had been waiting for her. Its wide, cold body appeared, and she collided with it. Huge hands wrapped her own, and the wide, inhuman face bent close to hers.
‘Stop this,’ it said. ‘It won’t help.’
‘This isn’t right!’ she shouted, aware now that the pandemonium had quieted, that her voice could be heard, but she could no more stop herself now than learn to fly. ‘He swore he’d protect me. He swore it. It’s not right!’
‘Nothing is,’ the andat agreed, as it pulled her aside, lifted her as if she was still a child, and pressed her against the wall. She felt herself sinking into it, the stone giving way to her like mud. She fought, but the wide hands were implacable. She shrieked and kicked, sure that the stone would close over her like water, and then she stopped fighting. Let it kill her, let her die.
Let it end.
The hands went away, and Idaan found herself immobile, trapped in stone that had found its solidity again. She could breathe, she could see, she could hear. She opened her mouth to scream, to call for Cehmai. To beg. Stone-Made-Soft put a single finger to her lips.
‘It won’t help,’ the andat said again, then turned and lumbered up beside the speaker’s pulpit where Cehmai stood waiting for it. She didn’t look at her brother as he took the pulpit, only Cehmai. He didn’t look back at her. When Otah spoke, his words cut through the air, clean and strong as wine.
‘I am Otah Machi, sixth son of the Khai Machi. I have never renounced my claim to this place; I have never killed or plotted to kill my brothers or my father. But I know who has, and I have come here before this council to show you what has been done, and by whom, and to claim what is mine by right.’
Idaan closed her eyes and wept, surprised to find her desolation complicated by relief.
‘I notice you never mentioned the Galts,’ Amiit said.
The waiting area to which the protocol servant had led them was open and light, looking out over a garden of flowering vines. A silver bowl with water cooling fresh peaches sat on a low table. Amiit leaned against the railing. He looked calm, but Otah could see the white at the corners of his mouth and the small movements of his hands; Amiit’s belly was as much in knots as his own.
‘There was no call,’ Otah said. ‘The families that were involved know that they were being used, and if they only suspect that I know it, that’s almost as good as being sure. How long are we going to have to wait?’
‘Until they’ve finished deciding whether to kill you as a murderer or raise you up as the Khai Machi,’ Amiit said. ‘It shouldn’t take long. You were very good out there.’
‘You could sound more sure of all this.’
‘We’ll be fine,’ Amiit said. ‘We have backing. We have the poets.’
‘And yet?’
Amiit forced a chuckle.
‘This is why I don’t play tiles. Just before the tiles man turns the last chit, I convince myself that there’s something I’ve overlooked.’
‘I hope you aren’t right this time.’
‘If I am, I won’t have to worry about next. They’ll kill me as dead as you.’
Otah picked up a peach and bit into it. The fuzz made his lips itch, but the taste was sweet and rich and complex. He sighed and looked out. Above the garden wall rose the towers, and beyond them the blue of the sky.
‘If we win, you will have to have them killed, you know,’ Amiit said. ‘Adrah and his father. Your sister, Idaan.’
‘Not her.’
‘Otah-cha, this is going to be hard enough as it stands. The utkhaiem are going to accept you because they have to. But you won’t be hailed as a savior. And Kiyan-cha’s a common woman from no family. She kept a wayhouse. Showing mercy to the girl who killed your father isn’t going to win you anyone’s support.’
‘I am the Khai Machi,’ Otah said. ‘I’ll make my way.’
‘You don’t understand how complex this is likely to be.’
Otah shrugged.
‘I trust your advice, Amiit-cha,’ Otah said. ‘You’ll have to trust my judgment.’
The overseer’s expression soured for a moment, and then he laughed. They lapsed into silence. It was true. It was early in his career to appear weak, and the Vaunyogi had killed two of his brothers and his father, and had tried to kill Maati as well. And behind them, the Galts. And the library. There had been something in there, some book or scroll or codex worth all those lives, all that money, and the risk. By the time the sun fled behind the mountains in the west, he would know whether he’d have the power to crush their nation, reduce their houses to slag, their cities to ruins. A word to Cehmai would put it in motion. All it would require of him would be to forget that they also had children and lovers, that the people of Galt were as likely as anyone in the cities of the Khaiem to love and betray, lie and dream. And he was having pangs over executing his own father’s killer. He took another bite of the peach.
‘You’ve gone quiet,’ Amiit said softly.
‘Thinking about how complex this is likely to be,’ Otah said.
He finished the last of the peach flesh and threw the stone out into the garden before he washed his hands clean in the water bowl it had come from. A company of armsmen in ceremonial mail appeared at the door with a grim-faced servant in simple black robes.
‘Your presence is requested in the council chamber,’ the servant said.
‘I’ll see you once it’s over,’ Amiit said.
Otah straightened his robes, took and released a deep breath, and adopted a pose of thanks. The servant turned silently, and Otah followed with armsmen on either side of him and behind. Their pace was solemn.
The halls with their high, arched ceilings and silvered glass, adornments of gold and silver and iron, were empty except for the jingle of mail and the tread of boots. Slowly the murmur of voices and the smells of bodies and lamp oil filled the air. The black-robed servant turned a corner, and a pair of double doors swung open to the council hall. The Master of Tides stood on the speaker’s pulpit.
The black lacquer chair reserved for the Khai Machi had been brought, and stood empty on a dais of its own. Otah held himself straight and tall. He strode into the chamber as if his mind were not racing, his heart not conflicted.
He walked to the base of the pulpit and looked up. The Master of Tides was a smaller man than he’d thought, but his voice was strong enough.
‘Otah Machi. In recognition of your blood and claim, we of the high families of Machi have chosen to dissolve our council, and cede to you the chair that was your father’s.’
Otah took a pose of thanks that he realized as he took it was a thousand times too casual for the moment, dropped it, and walked up the dais. Someone in the second gallery high above him began to applaud, and within moments, the air was thick with the sound. Otah sat on the black and uncomfortable chair and looked out. There were thousands of faces, all of them fixed upon him. Old men, young men, children. The highest families of the city and the palace servants. Some were exultant, some stunned. A few, he thought, were dark with anger. He picked out Maati and Cehmai. Even the andat had joined in. The tables at which the Kamau and Vaunani, Radaani and Saya and Daikani all sat were surrounded by cheering men. The table of the Vaunyogi was empty.
They would never all truly believe him innocent. They would never all give him their loyalty. He looked out into their faces and he saw years of his life laid out before him, constrained by necessity and petty expedience. He guessed at the mockery he would endure behind his back while he struggled to learn his new-acquired place. He tried to appear gracious and grave at once, certain he was failing at both.
For this, he thought, I have given up the world.
And then, at the far back of the hall, he caught sight of Kiyan. She, perhaps alone, wasn’t applauding him. She only smiled as if amused and perhaps pleased. He felt himself soften. Amid all the meaningless celebration, all the empty delight, she was the single point of stillness. Kiyan was safe, and she was his, and their child would be born into safety and love.
If all the rest was the price for those few things, it was one he would pay.
EPILOGUE
I
t was winter when Maati Vaupathai returned to Machi. The days were brief and bitter, the sky often white with a scrim of cloud that faded seamlessly into the horizon. Roads were forgotten; the snow covered road and river and empty field. The sledge dogs ran on the thick glaze of ice wherever the teamsman aimed them. Maati sat on the skidding waxed wood, his arms pulled inside his clothes, the hood of his cloak pulled low and tight to warm the air before he breathed it. He’d been told that he must above all else be careful not to sweat. If his robes got wet, they would freeze, and that would be little better than running naked through the drifts. He had chosen not to make the experiment.
t was winter when Maati Vaupathai returned to Machi. The days were brief and bitter, the sky often white with a scrim of cloud that faded seamlessly into the horizon. Roads were forgotten; the snow covered road and river and empty field. The sledge dogs ran on the thick glaze of ice wherever the teamsman aimed them. Maati sat on the skidding waxed wood, his arms pulled inside his clothes, the hood of his cloak pulled low and tight to warm the air before he breathed it. He’d been told that he must above all else be careful not to sweat. If his robes got wet, they would freeze, and that would be little better than running naked through the drifts. He had chosen not to make the experiment.
His guide seemed to stop at every wayhouse and low town. Maati learned that the towns had been planned by local farmers and merchants so that no place was more than a day’s fast travel from shelter, even on the short days around Candles Night when the darkness was three times as long as the light. When Maati walked up the shallow ramps and through the snow doors, he appreciated their wisdom. A night in the open during a northern winter might not kill someone who had been born and bred there. A northerner would know the secrets of carving snow into shelter and warming the air without drenching himself. He, on the other hand, would simply have died, and so he made certain that his guide and the dogs were well housed and fed. Even so, when the time came to sleep in a bed piled high with blankets and dogs, he often found himself as exhausted from the cold as from a full day’s work.
What in summer would have been the journey of weeks took him from just before Candles Night almost halfway to the thaw. The days began to blend together - blazing bright white and then warm, close darkness - until he felt he was traveling through a dream and might wake at any moment.
When at last the dark stone towers of Machi appeared in the distance - lines of ink on a pale parchment - it was difficult to believe. He had lost track of the days. He felt as if he had been traveling forever, or perhaps that he had only just begun. As they drew nearer, he opened his hood despite the stinging air and watched the towers thicken and take form.
He didn’t know when they passed over the river. The bridge would have been no more than a rise in the snow, indistinguishable from a random drift. Still, they must have passed it, because they entered into the city itself. The high snow made the houses seemed shorter. Other dog teams yipped and called, pulled wide sledges filled with boxes or ore or the goods of trade; even the teeth of winter would not stop Machi. Maati even saw men with wide, leather-laced nets on their shoes and goods for sale strapped to their backs tramping down worn paths that led from one house to the next. He heard voices lifted in loud conversation and the barking of dogs and the murmur of the platform chains that rose up with the towers and shifted, scraping against the stone.
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