looked older. The horrors of the past days had etched lines at the
corners of his mouth. Exhaustion had blackened his eyes. Exhaustion and
guilt.
"There's no one, is there?" Nayiit said.
"No. They're gone."
Nayiit nodded and looked down to the neat, carefully fitted bricks that
made the road. No blade of grass pressed its way through those stony
joints. It struck Otah as strangely obscene that a place of such carnage
and destruction should have such well-maintained paving stones. It would
be better when tree roots had lifted a few of them. Something so ruined
should be a ruin. A few years, perhaps. A few years, and this would all
be a wild garden dedicated to the dead. The place would be haunted, but
at least it would be green.
"There weren't any children. Or women," Nayiit said. "That's something."
"There were in Yalakeht," Otah said.
"I suppose there were. And Saraykeht too."
It took a moment to realize what Nayiit meant. It was so simple to
forget that the boy had a wife. Had a child. Or once had, depending on
how badly things had gone in the summer cities. Otah felt himself blush.
"I'm sorry. That wasn't ... Forgive my saying that."
"It's true, though. It won't change if we're more polite talking about it."
"No. No, it won't."
They were silent for a long moment. Off to their left, three of the
others were laying out blankets, unwilling, it seemed, to seek shelter
in the halls of the dead. Farther on, Sava the blacksmith was looking
over the Galtic steam wagon with what appeared to be a professional
interest. High in the robin's-egg sky, a double vee of cranes flew
southward, calling to one another in high, nasal voices. Otah took two
cupped fingers and lifted a mouthful of the wheat gruel to his lips. It
tasted wonderful-sweet and rich and warm-and yet he didn't enjoy it so
much as recognize that he should. His limbs felt heavy and awkward as
wood. When Nayiit spoke, his voice was low and shaky.
"I know that I won't ever be able to make good for this. If I hadn't
called the retreat-"
"This isn't your fault," Otah said. "It's the Dai-kvo's."
Nayiit reared back, his mouth making a small "o." His hands fumbled
toward a pose of query, but the porcelain howl defeated him. Otah took
his meaning anyway.
"Not just this one. The last Dai-kvo. "lahi, his name was. And the one
before that. All of them. This is their fault. We trusted everything in
the andat. Our power, our wealth, the safety of our children.
Everything. We built on sand. We were stupid."
"But it worked for so long."
"It worked until it didn't," Otah said. The response came from the back
of his mind, as if it had always been there, only waiting for the time
to speak. "It was always certain to fail sometime. Now, or ten
generations from now. What difference does it make? If we'd been able to
postpone the crisis until my children had to face it, or my
grandchildren, or your grandchildren-how would that have been better
than us facing it now? The andat have always been an unreliable tool,
and poets have always been men with all the vanity and frailty and
weakness that men are born with. The Empire fell, and we built ourselves
in its image and so now we've fallen too. "There's no honor in a lesson
half-learned."
"Too had you hadn't said that to the I)ai-kvo."
"I did. To all three of them, one way and another. "They didn't take it
to heart. And I ... I didn't stay to press the point."
"Then we'll have to learn the lesson now," Nayiit said. It sounded like
an attempt at resolution, perhaps even bravery. It sounded hollow as a drum.
"Someone will," Otah said. "Someone will learn by our example. And maybe
the Galts burned all the hooks that would have let them teach more poets
of their own. Perhaps they're already safe from our mistakes."
""That would he ironic. To come all this way and destroy the thing that
you'd come for."
"Or wise. It might he wise." Otah sighed and took another mouthful of
the wheat. ""I'he Galts are likely almost to "Ian-Sadar by now. As long
as they're heading south, we may he able to reach Machi again before
they do. There's no fighting them, I think we've discovered that, but we
might be able to flee. Get people to Eddensca and the Westlands before
the passes all close. It's probably too late to take a fast cart for Bakta."
Nayiit shook his head.
"They aren't going south."
Otah took another mouthful. The food seemed to he seeping into his
blood; he felt only half-dead with exhaustion. Then, a breath or two
later, Nayiit's words found their meaning, and he frowned, put down his
bowl, and took a questioning pose. Nayiit nodded down toward the low
towns at the base of the mountain village.
"I was talking with one of the footmen. The Galts came up the river from
Yalakeht, and they left heading North on the road to Amnat-Tan. They're
likely only a day or so ahead of us. It doesn't seem like they're
interested in Tan-Sadar."
"Why not?" Otah said, more than half to himself. "It's the nearest city.,,
"Marshes," a low voice said from behind them. The blacksmith, Saya, had
come up behind them. "There's decent roads between here and Amnat-Tan.
And then the North Road between all the winter cities. Tan-Sadar's
close, Most High. But there's two different rivers find their start in
the marshes between here and there, and if their wagons are like the one
they've left down there, they'll need roads." The thick arms folded into
a pose appropriate for an apprentice to his master. "Come and see
yourself, if you'd care to."
The steam wagon was wider than a cart, its bed made of hard, oiled wood
at the front, and sheeted with copper at the back. A coal furnace twice
the size of a firekeeper's kiln stood around a steel boiling tank. Saya
pointed out how the force of the steam drove the wheels, and how it
might be controlled to turn slowly and with great force or else more
swiftly. Otah remembered a model he'd seen as a boy in Saraykeht. An
army of teapots, the Khai Saraykeht had called them. The world had
always told them how it would be, how things would fall apart. They had
all been deaf.
"It's heavy, though," Saya said. "And there's housings there at the
front where you could yoke a team of oxen, but I wouldn't want to pull
it through soft land."
"Why would they ever pull it?" Nayiit asked. "Why put all this into
making it go on fire and then use oxen?"
"They might run out of coal," Otah said.
"They might," Saya agreed. "But more likely, they don't want to rattle
it badly. All this was a rounded chamber like an egg. Built to hold the
pressure in. You can see how they leaved the seams. Something cracked