THE (tlpq-4) (41 page)

the boy's hand like a moth as Danat threw open the shutters and let the

morning light spill in. Otah blinked, yawned, and frowned. Dreams

already half-remembered were fading quickly. Danat dropped onto the foot

of Otah's cot.

"I've found them," Danat said.

Otah sat up, taking a pose that asked explanation. Danat held out the

paper. The handwriting was unfamiliar to him, the characters wider than

standard and softly drawn. He took the page and rubbed his eyes as if to

clear them.

"I was sleeping in one of the side rooms," Danat said. "When I woke up

this morning, I saw that. It was in a corner, not even hidden. I don't

know how I missed it last night, except it was dark and I was tired."

Otah's eyes able now to focus, his mind more fully awake, he turned his

attention to the letter.

Ashti-cha-

Me have decided to leave. Eiah says that Maati-kvo isn't

well, so we're all going to Utani so that she can get help

caring for him. Please, if you get this, you have to come

back! Uanjit is just as bad as ever, and I'm afraid without

you here to put her in her place, she'll only get worse.

Small Kae has started having nightmares about her. And the

baby! You should see the way it tries to get away. It

slipped into my lap last night after the Great Poet had gone

to sleep and curled up like a kitten.

They've almost finished loading the cart. I'm going to sneak

back in once we're almost under way so that she won't find

it. You have to come back! Meet us in Utani as soon as you can.

The letter was signed Irit Laatani. Otah folded the paper and tapped it

against his lips, thinking. It was plausible. It could be a trick to

send them off to Utani, but that would mean that they knew where Otah

and his party were, and the errand they were on. If that was the case,

there was no reason for misleading them. Vanjit and her little Blindness

could stop any pursuit if she wanted it. Danat coughed expectantly.

"Utani," Otah said. "They're going north, just the way you'd planned.

This is where you tell me how clever you were for heading there at the

first?"

Danat laughed, shaking his head.

"You were right, Papa-kya. Coming here was the right thing. If Maati

wasn't ill, they'd have been here."

"Still. It does mean they've stopped hiding. That's a risk if they've

only got one poet."

Danat took a questioning pose.

"This poet," Otah said. "She's their protection and their power. As long

as she has the andat in her control, they think that they're safe. In

truth, though, she can only defend against things she knows. As long as

there is only one poet, a well-placed man with a bow could end her

before she could blind him. And then none of them are defended."

"Unless there's a second binding. Another andat," Danat said, and Otah

took a confirming pose. Danat frowned. "But if there had been, then Irit

would have said so, wouldn't she? If Eiah had managed to capture Wounded?"

"I'd expect her to, yes," Otah said.

"Then why would they go?"

Otah tapped the letter.

"Just what the woman said. Because Maati's ill," he said. "And because

Eiah decided that caring for him was worth the risk. If he's bad enough

to need other physicians' help, they may well be going slowly. Keeping

him rested."

"So we go," Danat said. "We go now, and as fast as we can manage. And

attack the poet before she can blind us."

"Yes," Otah said. "Burn the books, stop them from binding the andat. Go

back, and try to put the world back together again."

"Only ... only then how do we fix the people in Galt? How do we cure Ana?"

"There's a decision to make," Otah said. "Doing this quickly and well

means letting Galt remain sightless."

"Then we can't kill the poet," Danat said.

Otah took a long breath.

"Think about that before you say it," he said. "This is likely the only

chance we'll have to take them by surprise. The Galts in Saraykeht are

safe enough. The ones in their own cities are likely dead already. The

others could be sacrificed, and it would keep us alive."

"And childless, so what would the advantage be?" Danat said. "Everything

you'd tried to do would be destroyed."

"Everything I wanted to do has already been destroyed," Otah said.

"There isn't a solution to this. Not anymore. I'm reduced to looking for

the least painful way that it can end. I don't see how we take these

pieces and make a world worth living in."

Danat was silent and still, then took Otah's hand.

"I can," Danat said. "There's hope. There's still hope."

"This poet? Everything Ashti Beg says paints her as angry and petty and

cruel at heart. She hates the Galts and thinks little enough of me.

That's the woman we would be trying to reason with. And if she chooses,

there is more than Galt to lose."

Danat took a pose that accepted the stakes like a man at a betting

table. He would put the world and everything in it at risk for the

chance that remained to save Ana's home. Otah hesitated, and then

replied with a pose that stood witness to the decision. A feeling of

pride warmed him.

Kiyan-kya, he thought, we have raised a good man. Please all the gods

that we've also raised a wise one.

"I'll go tell the others," Danat said.

He rose and walked for the door, pausing only when Otah called after

him. Danat, at the doorway, looked back.

"It's the right choice," Otah said. "No matter how poorly this happens,

you made the right choice."

"There wasn't an option," Danat said.

It had been clear enough that no matter what the next step was, it

wouldn't involve staying at the school. Under Idaan's direction, the

armsmen were already refilling the water and coal stores for the

steamcarts, packing what little equipment they had used, and preparing

themselves for the road. The sky was white where it wasn't gray, the

snow blurring the horizon. Ashti Beg sat alone beside the great bronze

doors that had once opened only for the Dai-kvo. They were stained with

verdigris and stood ajar. No one besides Otah saw the significance of it.

Midmorning saw a thinning of the clouds, a weak, pale blue forcing its

way through the very top of the sky's dome. The horses were in harness,

the carts showing their billows of mixed smoke and steam, and everything

was at the ready except Idaan and Ana. The armsmen waited, ready to

leave. Otah and Danat went back.

Otah found the pair in a large room. Ana, sitting on an ancient bench,

had bent forward. Tears streaked the girl's cheeks, her hair was a wild

tangle, and her hands clasped until the fingertips were red and the

knuckles white. Idaan stood beside her, arms crossed and eyes as bleak

as murder. Before Otah could announce himself, Idaan saw him. His sister

leaned close to the Galtic girl, murmured something, listened to the

soft reply, and then marched to the doorway and Otah's side.

"Is there ... is something the matter?" Otah asked.

"Of course there is. How long have you been traveling with that girl?"

"Since Saraykeht," Otah said.

"Have you noticed yet that she isn't a man?" Idaan's voice was sharp as

knives. "Tell the armsmen to stand down. Then bring me a bowl of snow."

"What's the matter?" Otah demanded. And then, "Is it her time of the

month? Does she need medicine?"

Idaan looked at him as if he had asked what season came after spring:

pitying, incredulous, disgusted.

"Get me some snow. Or, better, some ice. Tell your men that we'll be

ready in a hand and a half, and for all the gods there ever were, keep

your son away from her until we can put her back together. The last

thing she needs is to feel humiliated."

Otah took a pose that promised compliance, but then hesitated. Idaan's

dark eyes flashed with something that wasn't anger. When she spoke, her

voice was lower but no softer.

"How have you spent a lifetime in the company of women and learned

nothing?" she asked, and, shaking her head, turned back to Ana.

True to her word, a hand and a half later, Ana and Idaan emerged from

the school as if nothing strange had happened. Ana's outer robe was

changed to a dark wool, and she leaned on Idaan's arm as she stepped up

to the bed of the steamcart. Danat moved forward, but Idaan's scowl

drove him back. The two women made their slow way to the shed, where

Idaan closed the door behind them.

The men steering the carts called out to one another, voices carrying

like crows' calls in the empty landscape. The carts stuttered and

lurched, and turned to the east, tracking back along the path to the

high road between ruined Nantani and Pathai, from which they'd come.

Otah rode down the path he'd walked as a boy, searching his mind for

some feeling of kinship with his past, but the world as it was demanded

too much of him. He searched for some memory deep within him of the

first time he'd walked away from the school, of leaving everything he'd

known, rejected, behind him.

His mind was knotted with questions of how to find the poet, how to

persuade her to do as he asked, what Idaan had meant, what was wrong

with Ana, whether the steamcarts had enough fuel, and a growing ache in

his spine that came from too many days riding horses he didn't know.

There was no effort to spare for the past. Whatever he didn't remember

now of his original flight from the school he likely never would. The

past would be lost, as it always was. Always. He didn't bother trying to

hold it.

They made better time than he had expected, starting as late as they

had. By the time they stopped for the night, the high road was behind

them. The fastest route to Utani would be overland to the Qiit, then by

boat up the river. Any hope they had of overtaking Maati and Eiah would

come on the roads, where the steamcarts gave Otah an advantage. They

would have to sleep in the open more than if they had kept to wider

roads, and the rough terrain increased the possibility of the carts

breaking or getting stuck. Even of the boiler bursting and killing

anyone too near it. But Idaan's voice spoke in Otah's mind of the next

day, and the next, and the next, so he pushed them and himself.

Four of the armsmen rode ahead in the lowering gloom of night to scout

out the next day's path. The others prepared a simple meal of pork and

rice, Ashti Beg sitting with them and trading jokes. Danat's slow cir

cling of their camp took the name of defense but seemed more to be

avoiding the still-closed shed where Idaan and Ana rested. Otah sat

alone near the steamcart's kiln, reflecting that it was very much like

his son to shift between noble dedication in the morning and childish

pouting as night came on. He had been much the same as a young man, or

imagined that he had.

The door opened, Ana's laughter spilling out into the night. Idaan led

the girl forward, letting Ana keep a careful grip on her. Her dark eyes

and Ana's unfocused gray ones were both light and merry. Ana's hair had

been combed and braided in the style of children in the winter cities.

In the dim moonlight, it made Ana seem hardly more than a girl.

Idaan steered the girl to the cart's front and helped her sit beside

Otah. He coughed once to make sure the girl knew he was there, but she

seemed unsurprised at the sound. Idaan placed a hand on the back of the

girl's neck.

"I'll go get some food," Idaan said. "My brother here should be able to

keep you out of trouble for that long."

Ana took a pose that offered thanks. She did a creditable job of it.

Idaan snorted, patted the girl's neck, and lowered herself to the

ground. Otah heard her footsteps crushing the snow as she walked away.

"Ana-cha," Otah said. His voice was more tentative than he liked. "I

hope you're well?"

"Fine," she said. "Thank you. I'm sorry I delayed things today. It won't

happen again."

"Hardly worth thinking about," Otah said, relieved that her infirmity

had passed. Grief, he suspected, over what the poet had done to her, to

her family, her nation.

"I misjudged you," Ana said. "I know it seems like everything we do is

another round of apology, but I am sorry for it."

"It might be simpler to agree to forgive each other in advance," Otah

said, and Ana laughed. It was a warmer sound than he'd expected. A