that it was accepting a compliment.
"But you can see his dilemma," Nlaati said.
Outside, beyond the carefully sculpted oaks that kept the poet's house
separate from the palaces, the city was in shadow. The sun, hidden
behind the mountains to the east, filled the blue dome of air with soft
light. The towers stood dark against the daylight, birds wheeling far
below their highest reaches.
"I see that he's in a difficult position," Cehmai said. "And I'm in no
position to say that good men never lose their hearts to ... what?
Inappropriate women?"
"If you mean the Khai's sister, the term is vicious killers,"
StoneMade-Soft said. "But I think we can generalize from there."
"Thank you," Cehmai said. "But you've made the point yourself, Maati.
Nayiit's married her. He's acknowledged the child. Doing that hinds him
to something, doesn't it? He's made an agreement. He's made a kind of
promise, or else why say that he's been good to her? If he can put those
things aside, then that goodness is just a formality."
Maati sighed. His mind felt thick. Too much wine, too little rest. He
was old to be staying up all night; it was a young man's game. And
still, he felt it important that Cehmai understand. If he could explain
Nayiit to someone else, it would make the night and all their
conversations through it real. It would put them into the world in a way
that now might only have been a dream. He was silent too long,
struggling to put his thoughts in order. Cehmai cleared his throat, shot
an uncomfortable glance at Maati, and changed the subject.
"Forgive me, Maati-cha, but I thought there was some question about
Nayiit's ... ah ... parentage? I know the Khai signed a document denying
him, but that was when there was some question about the succession, and
I'd always thought he'd done it as a favor. If you see what I ..."
Maati put down his tea bowl and took a pose that disagreed.
""There's more to being a father than a few moments between the sheets,"
Maati said. "I was there when Nayiit took his first steps. I sang him to
sleep as often as I could. I brought food for him. I held him. And
tonight, Cehmai. He came to me. He talked to me. I don't care whose
blood he has, that boy's mine."
"If you say so," Cehmai said, but there was something in his voice, some
reservation. Maati felt his face begin to flush. Anger straightened his
hack. Stone-Made-Soft raised a wide, thick hand, palm out, silencing
them both. Its head tilted, as if hearing some distant sound.
Its brow furrowed.
"Well," the andat said. "That's interesting."
And then it vanished.
Maati blinked in confusion. A few heartbeats later, Cehmai drew a long,
shuddering breath. The poet's face was bloodless.
Maati sat silently as Cehmai stood, hands trembling, and walked back
into the dimness of the house, and then out again. Cehmai's gaze darted
one direction and another, searching for something. His eyes were so
wide, the whites showed all the way around.
"Oh," Cehmai said, and his voice was thin and reedy. "Maati ... Oh gods.
I didn't do anything. I didn't ... Oh gods. Maati-kvo, he's gone."
Nlaati rose, brushing the crumbs from his robes with a sense of profound
unreality. Once before, he had seen the last moments of an andat in the
world. It wasn't something he'd expected to stiffer again. Cehmai paced
the wide porch, his head turning one way and another, directionless as a
swath of silk caught in the wind.
"Stay here. I'll get Otah-kvo," hlaati said. "He'll know what to do."
THE WALLS OF THE AUDIENCE CHAMBER SWOOPED UP, GRACEFUL AS A DOVE'S wing.
The high, pale stone looked as soft as fresh butter, seamless where the
stones had joined and been smoothed into one piece by the power of the
andat. 'T'iny webworks of stone fanned out from the walls at shoulder
height, incense smoke rising from them in soft gray lines. High above,
windows had been shaped by hand. Spare and elegant and commanding, it
was a place of impossible beauty, and Otah suspected the world would
never see another like it.
He sat in the black chair his father had sat in, and his father before
him, and on hack through the generations to when the Empire had still
stood, and the name Khai had meant honored servant. Before him, seated
on soft red cushions and intricately woven rugs, were the heads of the
highest families of the utkhaiem. Vaunani, Radaani, Kamau, I)aikani,
Dun, Isadan, and half a dozen others. For each of these, there were ten
more families. Twenty more. But these were the highest, the richest, the
most powerful men of %fachi. And they were the ones who had just
suffered the worst loss. Otah waited while his news sank in, watched the
blood drain from their faces. Otah kept his visage stern and his posture
formal and rigid. His robes were simple, pale, and severe. His first
impulse-a ceremonial black shot with red and long, flexible bone sewn in
to give it shape-had been too gaudy; he would have seemed to be taking
refuge in the cloth. The important things now were that they know he was
in control and that they put trust in him. It would he too easy for the
city to fall into panic, and here, now, through the force of his own
will, he could hold it hack. If these men left the room unsure, it would
be too late. He could hold a stone, but he couldn't stop a rockslide.
"C-Can we get it hack?" Wetai I)un asked, his voice shaking. "There are
andat that poets have caught three, four times. Water-MovingDown was..."
Otah took a deep breath. "There is a chance," he said. "It has been
done, but it will be harder than it was the first time. The poet who
does will have to create a binding sufficiently different from the
original. Or it could he that the Dai-kvo will be able to give us an
andat that is different, but that still speeds the mining trades."
"How long will it take?" Ashua Radaani asked. The Radaani were the
richest family in the city, with more silver and gold in their coffers
than even Otah himself could command.
"We can't know until we hear from the Dai-kvo," Otah said. "I've sent my
best courier with enough gold in his sleeve to buy a fresh horse every
time he needs one. We will hear back as soon as it is possible to know.
Until that happens, we will work as we always have. Stone-MadeSoft made
the mines here and in the North the most productive in the world, that's
true. But it didn't run the forges. It didn't smelt the ore. The stone
potters will have to go back to working clay, that's true, but-"