Daniel Abraham - An Autumn War

easy for him. lie was at heart a gentle man, and the world was a darker

place than it had been.

\Iaati's mind was still involved in its contemplation of darkness when

he stepped into his room. At first, he didn't notice that Liat was

there, seated on his bed. She coughed-a wet, close sound close to a sob.

lie looked up.

"What's the matter, sweet?" he asked, hurrying to her. "What's happened?"

In the steady glow of the lantern, Liat's face seemed veiled by shadows.

Her eyes were reddened and swollen, her skin flushed with recent tears.

She attempted a smile.

"I need something, Nlaati-kya. I need you to speak with Nayiit."

"Of course. Of course. What's happened?"

"He's ..." Liat stopped, took a deep breath, and began again. "He isn't

leaving with me. Whatever happens, he's decided to stay here and guard

her children."

"What?"

"Kiyan," Liat said. "She set him to watch over Danat and Eiah, and now

he's decided to keep to it. To stay in the North and watch over them

instead of going home with me. He has a wife and a child, and Otah's

family is more important to him than his own. And what if they see that

he's ... what if they see whose blood he is? What if he and Danat have

to kill each other?"

Maati sat beside Liat and folded her hand in his. The corners of her

mouth twitched down, a mask of sorrow. lie kissed her palm.

"He's said this? That tic's staying in \Iachi?"

"I Ic doesn't have to," Liat said. "I've seen the way he looks at them.

Whenever I talk about the spring and the South, he smiles that false,

charming way he always smiles and changes the subject."

Nlaati nodded. The lantern flame hissed and shuddered, setting the

shadows to sway.

"What is this really?" he asked, gently as he could. Liat pulled back

her hand and took a pose that asked clarification. There was anger in

her eyes. Maati chewed his lower lip, raised his eyebrows.

"He enjoys a duty that was designed, from what you told me, to he

enjoyable for him. To give him the sense of redeeming himself. He's made

friends with Otah's children-"

"I lis otherchildren," Liat said, but Nlaati had known her too long and

too well to let the barb turn him aside.

"And they're very easy to make friends with. Danat and Eiah are charming

in their ways. And Nayiit doesn't want to talk about plans he can't

really make. About his own child who might already he dead. About a wife

he doesn't love and a city that's fallen to the Galts. Why would he want

to talk about that? What is there in any of that to cause him anything

but pain?"

You think I'm an idiot," Hat said.

"I think he hasn't told you that he's staying. That's something you've

decided, and you don't reach conclusions that wild unless there's

something more going on," he said. "What it is, sweet?"

Hat's face squeezed tight, her brows and mouth and eyes seeming to hull

in together like those of a fighter bracing to take a blow.

"I'm frightened. Is that what you want to hear? All right, then. I'm

frightened."

"For him."

"For all of us!" I fiat stood and began to pace. "For the people I knew

in Saraykeht. For the people I've met here. And the ones I haven't met.

Do you know how many people the Galts have killed?"

"No, love."

"No one does. No one knows how bloody this has been. No one knows how

much more they'll want before it's over. I knew what the world was when

I came here."

"Thu came here to change the world by slaughtering all of Galt," \laati

said.

" 1'es, Nlaati. Yes, so that this wouldn't happen. So that u'e wouldn't

change!" She was weeping now, though he couldn't hear it in her voice.

The tears only ran unnoticed down her cheeks as she moved, restless as a

trapped bird. "I don't know the Galts. I don't love them. I don't care

if they all die. What's going to happen to us? What's going to happen to

him? What's already happened?"

"It hard, isn't it' When there's nothing to distract you from it,"

NIaati said. "I larder, I mean. It's not ever easy. You had the

organization of the city to keep your mind busy, but that's done, and

now there's nothing but the waiting. I've felt it too. If I didn't have

the binding to work on, I'd have sunk into it."

Liat stopped. 11cr hands worried at each other.

"I can't stop thinking about it," she said. "I keep half-expecting that

it will all go hack to what it was. That we'll go back to Saraykeht and

carry on with the business and talk about that terrible year when the

Galts came the way we talk about a bad cotton crop."

"It won't, though."

"Then what's going to happen to him?"

"Him? Just Nayiit? He's the only one you wonder that of?"

The tears didn't stop, but a smile as much sorrow as otherwise touched her.

"He's my son. Who else matters?"

"He's going to be fine," Maati said, and even he heard the conviction in

his voice. "'l'he Galts will be turned hack, because I will turn them

back. Our children won't die. Theirs will. We won't go hungry. They

will. Nayiit won't be harmed, and when this is all finished with, he

won't stay here with Otah-kvo. He'll go, because he has a child of his

own in Saraykeht, and he isn't the kind of man who can walk away from that."

"Isn't he?" Hat asked. Her tone was a plea.

"Either he's Otah's son, and Otah sacrificed his freedom and his dignity

to keep I)anat and Eiah safe. Or he's mine, and you had to force me away.

"Or he's mine," Liat said. "Then what becomes of him?"

""Then he'll be beautiful and lovely beyond all mortals, and age

gracefully into wisdom. And he'll love his child the way you love him,"

Maati said. "Silly question."

Liat couldn't help but laugh. Maati rose and took her in his arms. She

smelled of tears-wet and salt and flesh. Like blood without the iron. He

kissed the crown of her bowed head.

"We'll he fine," he said. "I know what to do. Cehmai's here to help me,

and Otah's bought us the time we need. Nothing bad will happen."

"It will," Liat said into his shoulder, and then with something that

sounded like hope and surrender, "Only make it happen to someone else."

"They stood in silence for a while. Maati felt the warmth of Liat's body

against him. They had held each other so many times over the years. In

lust and shame, in love and pleasure. In sorrow. Even in anger. He knew

the feel of her, the sound of her breath, the way her hand curled round

his shoulder. "There was no one in the world who he would ever be able

to speak with the way he spoke to her. They knew things between them

that even Otah could never share-moments in Saraykeht, and after. It

wasn't only the great moments-the birth of Nayiit, the death of Heshai,

their own last parting; there were also the small ones. The time she'd

gotten ill on crab soup and he'd nursed her and cared for the still

squalling Nayiit. The flute player with the dancing dog they'd given a

length of silver at a firekeeper's kiln in Yalakeht. The way the autumn

came to Saravkeht when they were still young.

When she left again, there would he no one to talk to about those

things. When she went to the South again and he became the new I)aikvo,

there would he no one to remind him of those moments. It made them more

precious. It made her more precious.

"I'll protect you," he said. "Don't worry, love. I'll protect us all."

lie heard approaching footsteps, and he could feel it in Liat's body

when she did as well. She stepped hack, and he let her, but he kept hold