Daniel Abraham - THE

incongruous in the grim air of their camp. Eiah sat by herself at the

water's edge, her face turned up toward the sun. Maati went to her side.

"Did you drink your tea this morning?" she asked.

"Yes," he lied petulantly.

"You need to," she said. Maati shrugged and tossed the last round of

dried apple into the water. It floated for a moment, the pale flesh

looking nearly white on the dark water. A turtle rose from beneath and

bit at it. Eiah held out her hand, palm up, fingers beckoning. Maati was

vaguely ashamed of the relief he felt taking her hand in his own.

"You were right," Maati confessed. "I still want to save Vanjit. I know

better. I do, but the impulse keeps coming back."

"I know it does," Eiah said. "You have a way of seeing things the way

you'd prefer them to be rather than the way they are. It's your only vice."

"Only?"

"Well, that and lying to your physician," Eiah said, lightly.

"I drink too much sometimes."

"When was the last time?"

Maati shrugged, a smile tugging at his mouth.

"I used to drink too much when I was younger," he said. "I still would,

but I've been busy."

"You see?" Eiah said. "You had more vices when you were young. You've

grown old and wise."

"I don't think so. I don't think you can mention me and wisdom in the

same breath."

"You aren't dead. There's time yet." She paused, then asked, "Will they

find her?"

"If Otah-kvo's right, and she wants us to," Maati said. "If she doesn't

want to be found, we might as well go home."

Eiah nodded. Her grip tightened for a moment, and she released his hand.

Her brow was furrowed with thought, but it was nothing she chose to

share. Don't leave me, he wanted to say. Don't go back to Otah and leave

me by myself. Or worse, with only 17anjit. In the end, he kept his silence.

His second foray into the city came in the middle of the afternoon. This

time they had set paths to follow, rough-drawn maps marked with each

pair's route, and Maati was going out with Danat. They would come back

three hands before sunset unless some significant discovery was made.

Maati accepted Otah's instructions without complaint, though the

resentment was still there.

The air was warmer now, and with the younger man's pace, Maati found

himself sweating. They moved down smaller streets this time, narrow

avenues that nature had not quite choked. The birds seemed to follow

them, though more likely it was only that there were birds everywhere.

There was no sign of Vanjit or Clarity-of-Sight, only raccoons and

foxes, mice and hunting cats, feral dogs on the banks and otters in the

canals. They were hardly a third of the way through the long, complex

loop set out for them when Maati called a halt. He sat on a stonework

bench, resting his head in his hands and waiting for his breath to slow.

Danat paced, frowning seriously at the brush.

It struck Maati that the boy was the same age Otah had been in

Saraykeht. Not as broad across the shoulders, but Otah had been Irani

Noygu and a seafront laborer then. Maati himself had been born four

years after the Emperor, hardly sixteen when he'd gone to study under

Heshai and Seedless. Younger than Ana Dasin was now. It was hard to

imagine ever having been that young.

"I meant to offer my congratulations to you," Maati said. "Ana-cha seems

a good woman."

Danat paused. The reflection of his father's rage warmed the boy's face,

but not more than that.

"I didn't think an alliance with Galt would please you."

"I didn't either," Maati said, "but I have enough experience with losing

to your father that I'm learning to be generous about it."

Danat almost started. Maati wondered what nerve he had touched, but

before he could ask, a flock of birds a more violent blue than anything

Maati had seen burst from a treetop down the avenue. They wheeled around

one another, black beaks and wet eyes and tiny tongues pink as a

fingertip. Maati closed his eyes, disturbed, and when he opened them,

Danat was kneeling before him. The boy's face was a webwork of tiny

lines like the cracked mud in a desert riverbed. Fine, dark whiskers

rose from Danat's pores. His eyelashes crashed together when he blinked,

interweaving or pressing one another apart like trees in a mudslide.

Maati closed his eyes again, pressing his palms to them. He could see

the tiny vessels in each eyelid, layer upon layer almost out to the skin.

"Maati-cha?"

"She's seen us," Maati said. "She knows I'm here."

In spite of the knowledge, it took Maati half a hand to find her. He

swept the horizon and from east to west and back again. He could see

half-a-hundred rooftops. He found her at last near the top of the

palaces of the Khai Udun on a balcony of bricks enameled the color of

gold. At this distance, she was smaller than a grain of sand, and he saw

her perfectly. Her hair was loose, her robe ripped at the sleeve. The

andat was on her hip, its black, hungry eyes on his own. Vanjit nodded

and put the andat down. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, she took a

pose of greeting. Maati returned it.

"Where? Where is she?" Danat asked. Maati ignored him.

Vanjit shifted her hands and her body into a pose that was both a rebuke

and an accusation. Maati hesitated. He had imagined a thousand scenarios

for this meeting, but they had all involved the words he would speak,

and what she would say in return. His first impulse now was toward

apology, but something in the back of his mind resisted. Her face was a

mask of self-righteous anger, and, to his surprise, he recognized the

expression as one he himself had worn in a thousand fantasies. In his

dreams, he had been facing Otah, and Otah had been the one to beg

forgiveness.

Like a voice speaking in his ear, he knew why his hands would not take

an apologetic pose. She is here to see you abased. Do it now, and you

have nothing left to offer her. Maati pulled his shoulders back, lifted

his chin, and took a pose that requested an audience. Its nuances didn't

claim his superiority as a teacher to a student but neither did they

cede it. Vanjit's eyes narrowed. Maati waited, his breath short and

anxiety plucking at him.

Vanjit took a pose appropriate to a superior granting a servant or slave

an indulgence. Maati didn't correct her, but neither did he respond.

Vanjit looked down as if the andat had cried out or perhaps spoken, then

shifted her hands and her body to a pose of formal invitation

appropriate for an evening's meal. Only then did Maati accept, shifting

afterward to a pose of query. Vanjit indicated the balcony on which she

stood, and then made a gesture that implied either intimacy or solitude.

Meet me here. In my territory and on my terms. Come alone.

Maati moved to an accepting pose, smiling to himself as much as to the

girl in the palaces. With a physical sensation like that of a gnat

flying into his eye, Maati's vision blurred back to merely human acuity.

He turned his attention back to Danat.

The boy looked half-frantic. He held his blade as if prepared for an

attack, his gaze darting from tree to wall as if he could see the things

that Maati had seen. The moons that passed around the wandering stars,

the infinitesimal animals that made their home in a drop of rain, or the

girl on her high balcony halfway across the city. Maati had no doubt she

was still watching them.

"Come along, then," he said. "We're done here."