Abraham Daniel - A Betrayal in Winter

die first."

"What happens then?" Maati asked. "If the birds die?"

"It depends on how valuable the ore is," the young poet said. "Abandon

the mine, or try to blow out the had air. Or use slaves. There are men

whose indentures allow that."

Two servants followed at a distance, their own torches glowing. Maati

had the sense that they would all, himself included, have been better

pleased to spend the day in the palaces. All but the andat.

StoneMade-Soft alone among them seemed untroubled by the weight over

them and the gloom that pressed in when the lanterns flickered. The

wide, calm face seemed almost stupid to Maati, the andat's occasional

pronouncements simplistic compared with the thousand-layered comments of

Seedless, the only andat he'd known intimately. He knew better than to

be taken in. 'The form of the andat might be different, the mental

bindings that held it might place different strictures upon it, but the

hunger at its center was as desperate. It was an andat, and it would

long to return to its natural state. They might seem as different as a

marble from a thorn, but at heart they were all the same.

And Maati knew he was walking through a tunnel not so tall he could

stand to his full height with a thousand tons of stone above him. This

placid-faced ghost could bring it down on him as if they'd been crawling

through a hole in the ocean.

"So, you see," Cehmai was saying, "the Daikani engineers find where they

want to extend the mine out. Or down, or up. We have to leave that to

them. Then I will come through and walk through the survey with them, so

that we all understand what they're asking."

"And how much do you soften it?"

"It varies," Cehmai said. "It depends on the kind of rock. Some of them

you can almost reduce to putty if you're truly clear where you want it

to be. Then other times, you only want it to be easier to dig through.

Most often, that's when they're concerned about collapses."

"I see," Maati said. "And the pumps? How do those figure in?"

"That was actually an entirely different agreement. The Khai's eldest

son was interested in the problem. The mines here are some of the lowest

that are still in use. The northern mines are almost all in the

mountains, and so they aren't as likely to strike water."

"So the Daikani pay more for being here?"

"No, not really. The pumps he designed usually work quite well."

"But the payment for them?"

Cehmai grinned. His teeth and skin were yellowed by the lantern light.

"It was a different agreement," Cehmai said again. "The Daikani let him

experiment with his designs and he let them use them."

"But if they worked well ..."

"Other mines would pay the Khai for the use of the pumps if they wished

for help building them. Usually, though, the mines will help each other

on things like that. There's a certain . . . what to call it ...

brotherhood? The miners take care of each other, whatever house they

work for."

"Might we see the pumps?"

"If you'd like," he said. "They're back in the deeper parts of the mine.

If you don't mind walking down farther...."

Maati forced a grin and did not look at the wide face of the andat

turning toward him.

"Not at all," he said. "Let's go down."

The pumps, when he found them at last, were ingenious. A series of

treadmills turned huge corkscrews that lifted the water up to pools

where another corkscrew waited to lift it higher again. They did not

keep the deepest tunnels dry-the walls there seemed to weep as Maati

waded through warm, knee-high water-but they kept it clear enough to

work. Machi had, Cehmai assured him, the deepest tunnels in the world.

NIaati did not ask if they were the safest.

They found the mine's overseer here in the depths. Voices seemed to

carry better in the watery tunnels than up above, but Maati could not

make out the words clearly until they were almost upon him. A small,

thick-set man with a darkness to him that made Maati think of grime

worked so deeply into skin that it would never come clean, he took a

pose of welcome as they approached.

"We've an honored guest come to the city," Cehmai said.

"We've had many honored guests in the city," the overseer said, with a

grin. "Damn few in the bottom of the hole, though. There's no palaces

down here."

"But Machi's fortunes rest on its mines," Maati said. "So in a sense

these are the deepest cellars of the palaces. The ones where the best

treasures are hidden."

The overseer grinned.

"I like this one," he said to Cehmai. "He's got a quick head on him."

"I heard about the pumps the Khai's eldest son had designed," Maati

said. "I was wondering if you could tell me of them?"

The grin widened, and the overseer launched into an expansive and

delighted discussion of water and mines and the difficulty of removing

the one from the other. Maati listened, struggling to follow the

vocabulary and grammar particular to the trade.

"He had a gift for them," the overseer said, at last. His voice was

melancholy. "We'll keep at them, these pumps, and they'll get better,

but not like they would have with Biitrah-cha on them."

"He was here, I understand, on the day he was killed," Maati said. He

saw the young poet's head shift, turning to consider him, and he ignored

it as he had the andat's.

"That's truth. And I wish he'd stayed. His brothers aren't bad men, but

they aren't miners. And ... well, he'll be missed."

"I had thought it odd, though," Nlaati said. "Whichever brother killed

him, they had to know where he would be-that he would be called out

here, and that the work would take so much of the day that he wouldn't

return to the city itself."

"I suppose that's so," the overseer said.

"Then someone knew your pumps would fail," Maati said.

The lamplight flickered off the surface of the water, casting shadows up

the overseer's face as this sank in. Cehmai coughed. Maati said nothing,

did not move, waited. If any man here had been involved with it, the

overseer was most likely. But Maati saw no rage or wariness in his

expression, only the slow blooming of implication that might be expected

in a man who had not thought the murder through. So perhaps he could be

used after all.

"You're saying someone sabotaged my pumps to get him out here," the

overseer said at last.

Maati wished deeply that Cehmai and his andat were not presentthis was a

thing better done alone. But the moment had arrived, and there was

nothing to be done but go forward. The servants at least were far enough

away not to overhear if he spoke softly. Maati dug in his sleeve and

came out with a letter and a small leather pouch, heavy with silver

lengths. He pressed them both into the surprised overseer's hands.

"If you should discover who did, I would very much like to speak with

them before the officers of the utkhaiem or the head of your House. That

letter will tell you how to find me."

The overseer tucked away the pouch and letter, taking a pose of thanks

which Maati waved away. Cehmai and the andat were silent as stones.

"And how long is it you've been working these mines?" Maati asked,

forcing a lightness to his tone he did not feel. Soon the overseer was

regaling them with stories of his years underground, and they were

walking together toward the surface again. By the time Maati stepped out

from the long, sloping throat of the mine and into daylight, his feet