Daniel Abraham - THE

new sentences and meanings. The lilt of the girl's voice fell into

harmony with itself, and Maati heard a third voice, neither Vanjit nor

her echo, but something deep and sonorous as a bell. It was reciting

syllables borrowed from the words of the binding, creating another layer

of sound and intention. The air thickened, and Vanjit's back-her

shoulders hunched, her head bowed-seemed very far away. Maati smelled

hot iron, or perhaps blood. His heart began to race with a fear he

couldn't express.

Something's wrong. T' have to stop her, he said to Eiah, but though he

could feel the words vibrate in his throat, he couldn't hear them.

Vanjit's circling voice had made a kind of silence that Maati was

powerless to break. Another layer of echoes came, the words seeming to

come before Vanjit spoke them, echoing from the other direction in time.

Beside him, Eiah's face had gone white.

Vanjit's voice spoke a single word-the last of the binding-at the same

time as all the layered echoes, a dozen voices speaking as one. The

world itself chimed, pandemonium resolving into a single harmonious

chord. The room was only a room again. When Maati stood, he could hear

the hem of his robe whispering against the stone. Vanjit sat where she

had been, her head bowed. No new form stood before her. It should have

been there.

She's failed, Maati thought. It hasn't worked, and she's paid the price

of it.

The others were on their feet, but he took a pose that commanded them to

remain where they were. This was his. However bad it was, it was his.

His belly twisted as he walked toward her corpse. He had seen the price

a failed binding exacted: always different, always fatal. And yet

Vanjit's ribs rose and fell, still breathing.

"Vanjit-kya?" he said, his voice no more than a murmur.

The girl shifted, turned her head, and looked up at him. Her eyes were

bright with joy. In her lap, something squirmed. Maati saw the round,

soft flesh, the tubby, half-formed hands and feet, a toothless mouth,

and black eyes full of empty rage. Except for the eyes, it could have

been a human baby.

"He's come," Vanjit said. "Look, Maati-kvo. We've done it. He's here."

As if freed from silence by the poet's words, Clarity-of-Sight opened

its tiny throat and wailed.

11

Kiyan-kya-

I look athow longI carriedthe world, orthoughtI did, andl

wonder how many times we have to learn the same lessons.

Until we remember them, I suppose. It isn't that I've

stopped worrying. The gods all know I crawl into my bed at

night half-tempted to call for reports from Sinja and Danat

and Ashua. Even if I had them dragged into my chambers to

recount everything they'd seen and done, how would it change

things? Would I need less sleep? Would I be able to remake

the world through raw will like a poet? I'm only a man,

however fancy the robes they put me in. I'm not more suited

to lead a war fleet or root out a conspiracy or win a young

girl's love than any of them.

Why is it so hard for me to believe that someone besides

myself might be competent? Or did I ./ear that letting go of

any one part would mean everything would all away?

No, love. Idaan was right. I have been punishing myself all

this time for not saving the people I cared for most. I

think some nights that I will never stop mourning you.

Otah's pen hung in the cool night air, the brass nib just above the

paper. The night breeze smelled of the sea and the city, rich and heavy

as an overripe grape whose skin has only just split. In Machi, they

would already be moving down to the tunnels beneath the city. In Utani,

where his central palace stood wrapped in cloth, awaiting his return,

the leaves would have turned to red and yellow and gold. In Pathai,

where Eiah worked with her latest pet physician and pointedly ignored

all matters of politics and power, there might be frost in the mornings.

Here in Saraykeht, the change of seasons was only a difference of scent

and the surprise that the sun, which had so plagued them at summer's

height, could grow tired so early. He wrote a few more sentences, the

pen sounding like bird's feet against the paper, and then blew on the

ink to cure it, folded the letter, and put it in with all the others he

had written to her.

His eyes ached. His back ached. The joints of his hands were stiff, and

his spine felt carved from wood. For days, he had been poring over

records and agendas, letters and accountancy reports, searching for some

connection that would uncover Maati's suspected patron. There were

patterns to be looked for-people who had traveled extensively in the

past few years who might be moving with the poet, supplies that had

vanished with no clear destination, opposition to the planned alliance

with Galt. And, with that, Maati's boast of an ear in the palaces. And

the gods all knew there were patterns to be found. The courts of the

Khaiem were thick with petty intrigue. Flushing out any one particular

scheme was like plucking a particular thread from a tapestry.

To make matters worse, the servants and high families that Idaan had

chided him for not making better use of had no place here. Even if Maati

didn't have the well-placed spy he'd claimed, Otah still couldn't afford

the usual gossip. Maati had to be found and the situation resolved

before he managed to bind some new andat, and no one-Galt, Westlander,

no one-could hear of it for fear of the reaction it would bring.

That meant that the records and reports were brought to Otah's private

chambers. Crate after crate until they piled near the ceiling. And the

only eyes that he could trust to the task were his own and, through the

twisted humor that gods seemed to enjoy, Idaan's.

She was stretched out on a long silk divan now, half a month's lading

records from the harbor master's office arrayed about her. Her closed

eyes shifted beneath their lids, but her breath was as steady as the

tide. Otah found a thin wool blanket and draped it over her.

It had not particularly been his intention to embrace his exiled sister

and make her a part of the hunt for Maati, but the work was more than he

could manage on his own. The only other person who knew of the problem

was Sinja, and he was busy with Balasar and the creation of the unlikely

fleet whose mission was to save Chaburi-Tan. Idaan knew the workings of

the poets as well as any woman alive; she had been the enemy of one, the

lover of another. She knew a great deal about court intrigue and also

the mechanics of living an unobtrusive life. There was no one better

equipped for the investigation.

He did not trust her, but had resolved to behave as if he did. At least

for the present. The future was as unpredictable as it had always been,

and he'd given up hope of anticipating its changes.

He knew from long experience that he wouldn't sleep if he went to bed

now. His mind might be in a deep fog, but his body was punishing him for

sitting too long. As it would have punished him for working too hard.

The range allowed to him was so much narrower than when he'd been young.

A walk to loosen his joints, and he might be able to rest.

The armsmen at the door of his apartments took poses of obeisance as he

stepped out. He only nodded and made his way south. He wore a simple

robe of cotton. The cloth was of the first quality, but the cut was

simple and the red and gray less than gaudy. Someone who didn't know him