Daniel Abraham - THE

his side. The hunter's bow slung over her shoulder was meant more as

protection from feral dogs than to assassinate Vanjit, though Maati knew

Idaan could use it for either. To their left, an unused canal stank of

stale water and rotting vine. To the right, walls stood or leaned, roofs

sagged or had fallen in. Every twenty steps seemed to offer up a new

display of how war and time could erase the best that humanity achieved.

And above the ruins, rising like a mountain over the city, the ruined

palaces of the Khai Udun were grayed by the moisture in the air. The

towers and terraces of enameled brick as soft as visions.

He had lost Eiah too.

Squatting on the boat as they made their way upriver, he had watched her

turn to Otah, watched her become his daughter again where before she had

chosen the role of outcast. She had lost faith in Maati's dream, and he

understood why. She had delighted in the Galtic girl's condition as if

it weren't the very thing that they had feared and fought against.

Maati had wanted the past. He had wanted to make the world whole as it

had been when he was a boy, none of his opportunities squandered. And

she had wanted that too. They all had. But with every change that

couldn't be undone, the past receded. With every new tragedy Maati

brought upon the world, with each friend that he lost, with failure upon

failure upon failure, the dim light faded. With Eiah returned to her

father's cause, there was nothing left to lose. His despair felt almost

like peace.

"Left or right?" Idaan asked.

Maati blinked. The road before them split, and he hadn't even noticed

it. He wasn't much of a scout.

"Left," he said with a shrug.

"You think the canal bridge will hold?"

"Right, then," Maati said, and turned down the road before the woman

could raise some fresh objection.

It was only a decade and a half since the war. It seemed like days ago

that Maati had been the librarian of Machi. And yet the white-barked

tree that split the road before them, street cobbles shattered and

lifted by its roots, hadn't existed then. The canals he walked past had

run clean. There had been no moss on the walls. Udun had been alive,

then. The forest and the river were eating the city's remains, and it

seemed to have happened in the space between one breath and the next. Or

perhaps the library, the envoys from the Dai-kvo, the long conversations

with Cehmaikvo and Stone-Made-Soft had been part of some other lifetime.

The sound was low and violent-something thrashing against wood or stone.

Maati looked around him. The square they'd come to was paved in wide,

flat stones, tall grass a yellow gray at the joints. A ruined fountain

with black muck where clear water had been squatted in the center.

Idaan's bow was in her hands, an arrow between her fingers.

"What was that?" Maati asked.

Idaan's dark eyes swept over the ruins, and Maati tried to follow her

gaze. They might have been houses or businesses or something of both.

The sound came again. From his left and ahead. Idaan moved forward

cat-quiet, her bow at the ready. Maati stayed behind her, but close. He

remembered that he had a blade at his belt and drew it.

The buck was in a small garden with an iron fence overgrown now with

flowering ivy. Its side was cut, the fur black with dried blood and

flies. The noble rack of horns was broken on one side, ending in a

cruel, jagged stump. As Idaan stepped near, it moved again, lashing out

at the fence with its feet, and then hung its head. It was an image of

exhaustion and despair.

And its eyes were gray and sightless.

"Poor bastard," Idaan said. The buck raised its head, snorting. Maati

gripped the handle of his blade, readying himself for something, though

he wasn't certain what. Idaan raised her bow with something akin to

disgust on her face. The first arrow sunk deep into the neck of the

onceproud animal. The buck bellowed and tried to run, fouling itself in

the fence, the vines. It slipped to its knees as Idaan sank another

arrow into its side. And then a third.

It coughed and went still.

"Well, I think we can say how your little poet girl was planning to get

food," Idaan said, her voice acid. "Cripple whatever game she came

across and then let it beat itself to death. She's quite the hunter."

She slung the bow back over her shoulder, walking carefully into the

trampled garden. Flies rose from the beast in a buzzing cloud. Idaan

ignored them, putting her hand on the dead buck's flank.

"It's a waste," she said. "If I had rope and the right knife we could at

least dress him and eat something fresh tonight. I hate leaving him for

the rats and the foxes."

"Why did you kill him then?"

"Mercy. You were right, though. Vanjit's in the city somewhere. That was

a good call."

"I'm half-sorry I said anything," Maati said. "You'd kill her just as

quickly, wouldn't you?"

"You think you can romance her into taking back her curse. I'm no one to

keep you from trying."

"And then?"

"And then we follow the same plan each of us had. It's the one thing we

agree upon. She's too dangerous. She has to die."

"I know what I intended. I know what Eiah and I were planning. But that

was the andat's scheme. I think there may be another way."

Idaan looked up, then stood. The bow was still in her hand.

"Can you give her her parents back?" she asked. "Can you give her the

brothers and sisters she lost? Udun. Can you rebuild it?"

Maati took a pose that dismissed her questions, but Idaan stepped close

to him. He could feel her breath against his face. Her eyes were cold

and dark.

"Do you think that Galt died blind because of something you can remedy?"

she demanded. "What's happened, happened. You can't will her to be the

woman you hoped she was. Telling yourself that you can is worse than

stupidity."

"If she puts it to rights," Maati said, "she shouldn't have to die."

Idaan narrowed her eyes, tilted her head.

"I'll offer you this," she said. "If you can talk the girl into giving

Galt back its eyes-and Eiah and Ashti Beg. Everyone. If you can do that

and also have her release her andat, I won't be the one who kills her."

"Would Otah let her live?" Maati asked.

"Ask him and he might," Idaan said. "Experience suggests he and I have

somewhat different ideas of mercy."

At midday, they returned to their camp. The boat was tied up at an old

quay slick with mold. The scent of the river was rich and not entirely

pleasant. Two of the other scouting parties had returned before them;

Danat and one of the armsmen were still in the city but expected back

shortly. Otah, in a robe of woven silk under a thicker woolen outer

robe, sat at a field table on the quayside, sketching maps of the city

from memory. Idaan made her report, Maati silent at her side. He tried

to imagine asking Otah for clemency on Vanjit's behalf. If Maati could

persuade her to restore sight to everyone she'd injured and release the

andat, would Otah honor Idaan's contract? Or, phrased differently, if

Maati couldn't save the world, could he at least do something to redeem

this one girl?

He didn't ask it, and Idaan didn't raise the issue.

After Danat and the armsmen returned, they all ate a simple meal of

bread and dried apples. Danat, Otah, and the captain of the guard

consulted with one another over Otah's sketched maps, planning the

afternoon's search. Idaan tended to Ana; their laughter seemed