Daniel Abraham - THE

do this. Not until we can study it. Too much rides on Wounded to rush

into the binding in a panic. We'll wait. Vanjit may come back."

"Maati-kvo-" Eiah began.

"She is alone in the forest with nothing to sustain her. She's cold and

frightened and betrayed," Maati said. "Put yourself in her place. She's

discovered that the only friends she had in the world were planning to

kill her. The andat must certainly be pushing for its freedom with all

its power. She didn't even have the soup before she went. She's cold and

hungry and confused, and we are the only place she can go for help or

comfort."

"All respect, Maati-kvo," Small Kae said, "but that first part was along

the lines that you were going to kill her. She won't come back."

"We don't know that," Maati said. "We can't yet be sure."

But morning came without Vanjit. The sky became a lighter black, and

then gray. Morning birds broke into their chorus of chatters and

shrieks; finches and day larks and other species Maati couldn't name.

The trees deepened, rank after ragged rank becoming first gray and then

brown and then real. Poet and andat were gone into the wild, and as the

dawn crept up rosy and wild in the east, it became clear they were not

going to return.

Maati built a small fire from last night's embers and brewed tea for the

four of them still remaining. Large Kae wouldn't stop crying despite

Small Kae's constant attentions. Eiah sat wrapped in her robes from the

previous night. She looked drawn. Maati pressed a bowl of warm tea into

her hand. Neither spoke.

At the end, Maati took the belts from their spare robes and used them to

make a line. He led Eiah, Eiah led Small Kae, and Small Kae led Large

Kae. It was the obscene parody of a game he'd played as a child, and he

walked the path back to the boat, calling out the obstacles he

passed-log, step down, be careful of the mud. They left the sleeping

tents and cooking things behind.

To Maati's surprise, the boat was already floating. The boatman and his

second were moving over the craft with the ease and silence of long

practice. When he called out, the boatman stopped and stared. The man's

mouth gaped in surprise; the first strong reaction Maati had seen from him.

"No," the boatman said. "This wasn't the agreement. Where's the other

one? The one with the babe?"

"I don't know," Maati called out. "She left in the night."

The second, guessing the boatman's mind, started to pull in the plank

that bridged boat and sticky, dark mud. Maati yelped, dropped Eiah's

lead, and lumbered out into the icy flow, grabbing at the retreating wood.

"We didn't contract for this," the boatman said. "Missing girls, blinded

ones? No, there wasn't anything about this."

"We'll die if you leave us," Eiah said.

"That one can see after you," the boatman called, gesturing pointlessly

at Maati, hip deep in river mud. It would have been comic if it had been

less terrible.

"He's old and he's dying," Eiah said, and lifted her physician's satchel

as if to prove the gravity of her opinion. "If he has an attack, you'll

be leaving all the women out here to die."

The boatman scowled, looking from Maati to Eiah and back. He spat into

the river.

"To the first low town," he said. "I'll take you that far, and no farther."

"That's all we can ask," Eiah said.

Maati thought he heard Small Kae mutter, I could ask more than that, but

he was too busy pulling the plank into position to respond. It was a

tricky business, guiding all three women into the boat, but Maati and

the second managed it, soaking only Small Kae's hem. Maati, when at last

he pulled himself onto the boat, was cold water and black mud from waist

to boots. He made his miserable way to the stern, sitting as near the

kiln as the boatman would allow. Eiah called out for him, following the

sound of his voice until she sat at his side. The boatman and his second

wouldn't speak to either of them or meet Maati's eyes. The second walked

to the bow, manipulated something Maati couldn't make out, and called

out. The boatman replied, and the boat shifted, its wheel clattering and

pounding. They lurched out into the stream.

They were leaving Vanjit behind. The only poet in the world, her andat

on her hip, alone in the forest with autumn upon them. What would she

do? How would she live, and if she despaired, what vengeance would she

exact upon the world? Maati looked at the dancing flames within the kiln.

"South would be faster," Maati said. The boatman glanced at him,

shrugged, and sang out something Maati couldn't make out. The second

called back, and the boatman turned the rudder. The sound of the paddle

wheel deepened, and the boat lurched.

"Uncle?" Eiah asked.

"It's all fallen apart," Maati said. "We can't manage this from here.

Tracking her through half the wilds south of Utani? We need men. We need

help."

"Help," Eiah said, as if he'd suggested pulling down the stars. Maati

tried to speak, but something equally sorrow and rage closed his throat.

He muttered an obscenity and then forced the words free.

"We need Otah-kvo," Maati said.

25

"Will you go back?" Ana asked. "When this is over, I mean."

"It depends on what you mean by over," Idaan said. "You mean once my

brother talks the poets into bringing back all the dead in Galt and

Chaburi-Tan, rebuilding the city, killing the pirates, and then

releasing the andat and drowning all their books? Because if that's what

overlooks like, you're waiting for yesterday."

Otah shifted, pretending he was still asleep. The sun of late morning

warmed his face and robes, the low chuckle of the river against the

sides of the boat and the low, steady surge of the paddle wheel became a

kind of music. It had been easy enough to drowse, but his body ached and

pinched and complained despite three layers of tapestry between his back

and the deck. If he rose, there would be conversations and planning and

decisions. As long as he could maintain the fiction of unconsciousness,

he could allow himself to drift. It passed poorly for comfort, but it

passed.

"You can't think we'll be chasing these people for the rest of our

lives, though," Ana said.

"I'm hoping we live longer than that, yes," Idaan said. "So. If this

ends in a way that lets me return to him, then I will. I enjoy Cehmai's

company.

"And he'll take you back in, even after you've been gone this long?"

Otah could hear the smile in Idaan's voice when she replied.

"He's overlooked worse from me. Why do you ask?"

"I don't know," Ana said. And then a moment later, "Because I'm trying

to imagine it. What the world will be. I've never traveled outside Galt

before, except one negotiation in Eymond. I keep thinking of going back

to it. Acton. Kirinton. But it's not there anymore."

"Not the way it was," Idaan agreed. "We can't be sure how bad it is, but

I'll swear it isn't good."

The silence was only a lack of voices. The river, the birds, the wind

all went on with their long, inhuman conversation. It wasn't truly

silence, it only felt that way.

"I think about what I would do without all of you," Ana said. "And then

I imagine ... What would you do if a city caught fire and no one could

see it? How would you put it out?"

"You wouldn't," Idaan said. Her voice was cool and matter-of-fact.

"I think about that," Ana said. "I think about it more now. The future,