found a kind of joy in it. Amiit knew what his talents were, and chose
assignments for him in which he could do well. And in return for the
trust of the house and the esteem of his fellows, Otah did the best work
he could, brokering information, speculation, gossip, and intrigue. He
had traveled through the summer cities in the south, west to the plains
and the cities that traded directly with the Westlands, up the eastern
coasts where his knowledge of obscure east island tongues had served him
well. By design or happy coincidence, he had never gone farther north
than Yalakeht. He had not been called on to see the winter cities.
Until now.
"There's trouble in the north," Amiit said as he tucked the last of the
opened letters into his sleeve.
"I'd heard," Otah said. "The succession's started in Machi."
"Amnat-"Ian, Machi, Cetani. All of them have something brewing. You may
need to get some heavier robes."
"I didn't think House Siyanti had much trade there," Otah said, trying
to keep the unease out of his voice.
"We don't. That doesn't mean we never will. And take your time. There's
something I'm waiting for from the west. I won't be sending you out for
a month at least, so you can have some time to spend you money. Unless ..."
The overseer's eyes narrowed. His hands took a pose of query.
"I just dislike the cold," Otah said, making a joke to cover his unease.
"I grew up in Saraykeht. It seemed like water never froze there."
"It's a hard life," Amiit said. "I can try to give the commissions to
other men, if you'd prefer."
And have them wonder why it was that I wouldn't go, Otah thought. He
took a pose of thanks that also implied rejection.
"I'll take what there is," he said. "And heavy wool robes besides."
"It really isn't so bad up there in summer," Amiit said. "It's the
winters that break your stones."
"Then by all means, send someone else in the winter."
They exchanged a few final pleasantries, and Otah left the name of
Kiyan's wayhouse as the place to send for him, if he was needed. He
spent the afternoon in a teahouse at the edge of the warehouse district,
talking with old acquaintances and trading news. He kept an ear out for
word from Machi, but there was nothing fresh. The eldest son had been
poisoned, and his remaining brothers had gone to ground. No one knew
where they were nor which had begun the traditional struggle. There were
only a few murmurs of the near-forgotten sixth son, but every time he
heard his old name, it was like hearing a distant, threatening noise.
He returned to the wayhouse as darkness began to thicken the treetops
and the streets fell into twilight, brooding. It wasn't safe, of course,
to take a commission in Machi, but neither could he safely refuse one.
Not without a reason. He knew when gossip and speculation had grown hot
enough to melt like sugar and stick. There would be a dozen reports of
Otah Mach] from all over the cities, and likely beyond as well. If even
a suggestion was made that he was not who he presented himself to be, he
ran the risk of being exposed, dragged into the constant, empty, vicious
drama of succession. He would sacrifice quite a lot to keep that from
happening. Going north, doing his work, and returning was what he would
have done, had he been the man he claimed to be. And so perhaps it was
the wiser strategy.
And also he wondered what sort of man his father was. What sort of man
his brother had been. Whether his mother had wept when she sent her boy
away to the school where the excess sons of the high familes became
poets or fell forever from grace.
As he entered the courtyard, his dark reverie was interrupted by
laughter and music from the main hall, and the scent of roast pork and
baked yams mixed with the pine resin. When he stepped in, Old Mani
slapped an earthenware bowl of wine into his hands and steered him to a
bench by the fire. There were a good number of travelers-merchants from
the great cities, farmers from the low towns, travelers each with a
story and a past and a tale to tell, if only they were asked the right
questions in the right ways.
It was later, the warm air busy with conversation, that Otah caught
sight of Kiyan across the wide hall. She had on a working woman's robes,
her hair tied back, but the expression on her face and the angle of her
body spoke of a deep contentment and satisfaction. She knew her place
was here, and she was proud of it.
Otah found himself suddenly stilled by a longing for her unlike the
simple lust that he was accustomed to. He imagined himself feeling the
same satisfaction that he saw in her. The same sense of having a place
in the world. She turned to him as if he had spoken and tilted her
head-not an actual formal pose, but nonetheless a question.
He smiled in reply. This that she offered was, he suspected, a life
worth living.
CEHMAI TYAN'S DREAMS, WHENEVER THE TIME. CAME TO RENEW HIS LIFE'S
struggle, took the same form. A normal dream-meaningless, strange, and
trivial-would shift. Something small would happen that carried a weight
of fear and dread out of all proportion. This time, he dreamt he was
walking in a street fair, trying to find a stall with food he liked,
when a young girl appeared at his side. As he saw her, his sleeping mind
had already started to rebel. She held out her hand, the palm painted
the green of summer grass, and he woke himself trying to scream.
Gasping as if he had run a race, he rose, pulled on the simple brown
robes of a poet, and walked to the main room of the house. The worked
stone walls seemed to glow with the morning light. The chill spring air
fought with the warmth from the low fire in the grate. The thick rugs
felt softer than grass against Cehmai's bare feet. And the andat was
waiting at the game table, the pieces already in place before it-black
basalt and white marble. The line of white was already marred, one stone
disk shifted forward into the field. Cehmai sat and met his opponent's
pale eyes. There was a pressure in his mind that felt the way a
windstorm sounded.
"Again?" the poet asked.
Stone-Made-Soft nodded its broad head. Cehmai Tyan considered the board,
recalled the binding-the translation that had brought the thing across
from him out of formlessness-and pushed a black stone into the empty
field of the hoard. The game began again.
The binding of Stone-Made-Soft had not been Cehmai's work. It had been
done generations earlier, by the poet Manat Doru. The game of stones had
figured deeply in the symbolism of the binding-the fluid lines of play