Abraham Daniel - A Betrayal in Winter

to writhe tinder his fingers like dry worms. Stone-Made-Soft sat at the

gaming table. The white marble, the black basalt. A single white stone

was shifted out of its beginning line.

"Not now," Cehmai croaked.

"Now," the andat said, its voice loud and low and undeniable.

The room pitched and spun. Cehmai dragged himself to the table and tried

to focus on the pieces. The game was simple enough. He'd played it a

thousand times. He shifted a black stone forward. He felt he was still

half dreaming. The stone he'd moved was Idaan. Stone-MadeSoft's reply

moved a token that was both its fourth column and also Otah Machi.

Groggy with sleep and distress and annoyance and the an gry pressure of

the andat struggling against him, he didn't understand how far things

had gone until twelve moves later when he shifted a black stone one

place to the left, and Stone-Made-Soft smiled.

"Maybe she'll still love you afterwards," the andat said. "Do you think

she'll care as much about your love when you're just a man in a brown robe?"

Cehmai looked at the stones, the shifting line of them, flowing and

sinuous as a river, and he saw his mistake. Stone-Made-Soft pushed a

white stone forward and the storm in Cehmai's mind redoubled. He could

hear his own breath rattling. He was sticky with the rancid sweat of

effort and fear. He was losing. He couldn't make himself think,

controlling his own mind was like wrestling a beast-something large and

angry and stronger than he was. In his confusion, Idaan and Adrah and

the death of the Khai all seemed connected to the tokens glowing on the

board. Each was enmeshed with the others, and all of them were lost. He

could feel the andat pressing toward freedom and oblivion. All the

generations of carrying it, gone because of him.

"It's your move," the andat said.

"I can't," Cehmai said. His own voice sounded distant.

"I can wait as long as you care to," it said. "Just tell me when you

think it'll get easier."

"You knew this would happen," Cehmai said. "You knew."

"Chaos has a smell to it," the andat agreed. "Move."

Cchmai tried to study the board, but every line he could see led to

failure. He closed his eyes and rubbed them until ghosts bloomed in the

darkness, but when he reopened them, it was no better. The sickness grew

in his belly. He felt he was falling. The knock on the door behind him

was something of a different world, a memory from some other life, until

the voice came.

"I know you're in there! You won't believe what's happened. Half the

utkhaiem are spotty with welts. Open the door!"

"Baarath!"

Cehmai didn't know how loud he'd called-it might have been a whisper or

a scream. But it was enough. The librarian appeared beside him. The

stout man's eyes were wide, his lips thin.

"What's wrong?" Baarath asked. "Are you sick? Gods, Cehmai.... Stay

here. Don't move. I'll have a physician-"

"Paper. Bring me paper. And ink."

"It's your move!" the andat shouted, and Baarath seemed about to bolt.

"Hurry," Cehmai said.

It was a week, a month, a year of struggle before the paper and ink

brick appeared at his side. He could no longer tell whether the andat

was shouting to him in the real world or only within their shared mind.

The game pulled at him, sucking like a whirlpool. The stones shifted

with significance beyond their own, and confusion built on confusion in

waves so that Cehmai grasped his one thought until it was a certainty.

There was too much. There was more than he could survive. The only

choice was to simplify the panoply of conflicts warring within him;

there wasn't room for them all. He had to fix things, and if he couldn't

make them right, he could at least make them end.

He didn't let himself feel the sorrow or the horror or the guilt as he

scratched out a note-brief and clear as he could manage. The letters

were shaky, the grammar poor. Idaan and the Vaunyogi and the Galts.

Everything he knew written in short, unadorned phrases. He dropped the

pen to the floor and pressed the paper into Baarath's hand.

"Maati," Cehmai said. "'lake it to Maati. Now."

Baarath read the letter, and whatever blood had remained in his face

drained from it now.

"This ... this isn't ..."

"Run!" Cehmai screamed, and Baarath was off, faster than Cehmai could

have gone if he'd tried, Idaan's doom in his hands. Cehmai closed his

eyes. That was over, then. That was decided, and for good or ill, he was

committed. The stones now could he only stones.

He pulled himself back to the game board. Stone-Made-Soft had gone

silent again. The storm was as fierce as it had ever been, but Cehmai

found he also had some greater degree of strength against it. He forced

himself along every line he could imagine, shifting the stones in his

mind until at last he pushed one black token forward. Stone-Made-Soft

didn't pause. It shifted a white stone behind the black that had just

moved, trapping it. Cehmai took a long deep breath and shifted a black

stone on the far end of the board back one space.

The andat stretched out its wide fingers, then paused. The storm

shifted, lessened. Stone-Made-Soft smiled ruefully and pulled back its

hand. The wide brow furrowed.

"Good sacrifice," it said.

Cehmai leaned hack. His body was shuddering with exhaustion and effort

and perhaps something else more to do with l3aarath running through the

night. The andat moved a piece forward. It was the obvious move, but it

was doomed. They had to play it out, but the game was as good as

finished. Cchmai moved a black token.

"I think she does love you," the andat said. "And you did swear you'd

protect her."

"She killed two men and plotted her own father's slaughter," Cehmai said.

"You love her. I know you do."

"I know it too," Cehmai said, and then a long moment later. "It's your

move."

Rain came in from the south. By midmorning tall clouds of billowing

white and yellow and gray had filled the wide sky of the valley. When

the sun, had it been visible, would have reached the top of its arc, the

rain poured down on the city like an upended bucket. The black cobbled

streets were brooks, every slant roof a little waterfall. Maati sat in

the side room of the teahouse and watched. The water seemed lighter than

the sky or the stone-alive and hopeful. It chilled the air, making the

warmth of the earthenware bowl in his hands more present. Across the

smooth wooden table, Otah-kvo's chief armsman scratched at the angry red

weals on his wrists.

"If you keep doing that, they'll never heal," Maati said.

"Thank you, grandmother," Sinja said. "I had an arrow through my arm

once that hurt less than this."

"It's no worse than what half the people in that hall suffered," Maati said.

"It's a thousand times worse. Those stings are on them. These are on me.

I'd have thought the difference obvious."

Maati smiled. It had taken three days to get all the insects out of the

great hall, and the argument about whether to simply choose a new venue

or wait for the last nervous slave to find and crush the last dying wasp

would easily have gone on longer than the problem itself. The time had

been precious. Sinja scratched again, winced, and pressed his hands flat

against the table, as if he could pin them there and not rely on his own

will to control himself.

"I hear you've had another letter from the Dai-kvo," Sinja said.

Maati pursed his lips. The pages were in his sleeve even now. "They'd