“Do you think he only speaks to you?” Vanjit spat.
Maati sputtered, falling back a step when Vanjit lunged forward. She only scooped up the andat, turned, and ran into the darkness.
Maati scrambled after her, calling her name with a deepening sense of despair. The trees were shadows within the night’s larger darkness. His voice seemed too weak to carry more than a few paces before him. It couldn’t have been more than half a hand—less than that, certainly—when he stopped to catch his breath. Leaning against an ancient ash, he realized that Vanjit was gone and he was lost, only the soft rushing of the river away to his left still there to guide him. He picked his way back, trying to follow the route he had taken and failing. A carpet of dry leaves made his steps loud. Something shifted in the branches overhead. The cold numbed his fingers and toes. The half-moon glimmering among the branches assured him that he had not been blinded. It was the only comfort he had.
In the end, he made his way east until he found the river, and then south to the wide mud where the boat still rested. It was simple enough to find the little camp after that. He tried to nurture some hope that he would step into the circle of firelight to find Vanjit returned and, through some unimagined turn of events, peace restored. The laughter and soft company of the first days of the school returned; time unwound, and his life ready to be lived again without the errors. He wanted it to be true so badly that when he stumbled into the clearing and found Eiah and the two Kaes seated by the fire, he almost thought they were well.
Eiah turned gray, fogged eyes toward him.
“Who’s there?” she demanded at the sound of his approaching steps.
“It’s me,” Maati said, wheezing. “I’m fine. But Vanjit’s gone.”
Large Kae began to weep. Small Kae put an arm over the woman’s shaking shoulders and murmured something, her eyes closed and tear-streaked. Maati sat at the fire. His bowl of soup had overturned.
“She’s done for the three of us,” Eiah said. “None of us can see at all.”
“I’m sorry,” Maati said. It was profoundly inadequate.
“Can you help me?” Eiah said, gesturing toward something Maati couldn’t fathom. Then he saw the pile of wax fragments. “I think I have them all, but it’s hard to be sure.”
“Leave them,” Maati said. “Let them go.”
“I can’t,” Eiah said. “I have to try the thing. I can do it now. Tonight.”
Maati looked at her. The fire popped, and she shifted her head toward the sound. Her jaw was set, her gray eyes angry. The cold wind made her robes flutter at her ankles like a flag.
“No,” he said. “You can’t.”
“I have been studying this for weeks,” Eiah said, her voice sharpening. “Only help me put these back together, and I can…”
“You can die,” Maati said. “I know you’ve changed the binding. You won’t do this. Not until we can study it. Too much rides on Wounded to rush into the binding in a panic. We’ll wait. Vanjit may come back.”
“Maati-kvo—” Eiah began.
“She is alone in the forest with nothing to sustain her. She’s cold and frightened and betrayed,” Maati said. “Put yourself in her place. She’s discovered that the only friends she had in the world were planning to kill her. The andat must certainly be pushing for its freedom with all its power. She didn’t even have the soup before she went. She’s cold and hungry and confused, and we are the only place she can go for help or comfort.”
“All respect, Maati-kvo,” Small Kae said, “but that first part was along the lines that you were going to kill her. She won’t come back.”
“We don’t know that,” Maati said. “We can’t yet be sure.”
But morning came without Vanjit. The sky became a lighter black, and then gray. Morning birds broke into their chorus of chatters and shrieks; finches and day larks and other species Maati couldn’t name. The trees deepened, rank after ragged rank becoming first gray and then brown and then real. Poet and andat were gone into the wild, and as the dawn crept up rosy and wild in the east, it became clear they were not going to return.
Maati built a small fire from last night’s embers and brewed tea for the four of them still remaining. Large Kae wouldn’t stop crying despite Small Kae’s constant attentions. Eiah sat wrapped in her robes from the previous night. She looked drawn. Maati pressed a bowl of warm tea into her hand. Neither spoke.
At the end, Maati took the belts from their spare robes and used them to make a line. He led Eiah, Eiah led Small Kae, and Small Kae led Large Kae. It was the obscene parody of a game he’d played as a child, and he walked the path back to the boat, calling out the obstacles he passed—log, step down, be careful of the mud. They left the sleeping tents and cooking things behind.
To Maati’s surprise, the boat was already floating. The boatman and his second were moving over the craft with the ease and silence of long practice. When he called out, the boatman stopped and stared. The man’s mouth gaped in surprise; the first strong reaction Maati had seen from him.
“No,” the boatman said. “This wasn’t the agreement. Where’s the other one? The one with the babe?”
“I don’t know,” Maati called out. “She left in the night.”
The second, guessing the boatman’s mind, started to pull in the plank that bridged boat and sticky, dark mud. Maati yelped, dropped Eiah’s lead, and lumbered out into the icy flow, grabbing at the retreating wood.
“We didn’t contract for this,” the boatman said. “Missing girls, blinded ones? No, there wasn’t anything about this.”
“We’ll die if you leave us,” Eiah said.
“That one can see after you,” the boatman called, gesturing pointlessly at Maati, hip deep in river mud. It would have been comic if it had been less terrible.
“He’s old and he’s dying,” Eiah said, and lifted her physician’s satchel as if to prove the gravity of her opinion. “If he has an attack, you’ll be leaving all the women out here to die.”
The boatman scowled, looking from Maati to Eiah and back. He spat into the river.
“To the first low town,” he said. “I’ll take you that far, and no farther.”
“That’s all we can ask,” Eiah said.
Maati thought he heard Small Kae mutter, I could ask more than that, but he was too busy pulling the plank into position to respond. It was a tricky business, guiding all three women into the boat, but Maati and the second managed it, soaking only Small Kae’s hem. Maati, when at last he pulled himself onto the boat, was cold water and black mud from waist to boots. He made his miserable way to the stern, sitting as near the kiln as the boatman would allow. Eiah called out for him, following the sound of his voice until she sat at his side. The boatman and his second wouldn’t speak to either of them or meet Maati’s eyes. The second walked to the bow, manipulated something Maati couldn’t make out, and called out. The boatman replied, and the boat shifted, its wheel clattering and pounding. They lurched out into the stream.
They were leaving Vanjit behind. The only poet in the world, her andat on her hip, alone in the forest with autumn upon them. What would she do? How would she live, and if she despaired, what vengeance would she exact upon the world? Maati looked at the dancing flames within the kiln.
“South would be faster,” Maati said. The boatman glanced at him, shrugged, and sang out something Maati couldn’t make out. The second called back, and the boatman turned the rudder. The sound of the paddle wheel deepened, and the boat lurched.
“Uncle?” Eiah asked.
“It’s all fallen apart,” Maati said. “We can’t manage this from here. Tracking her through half the wilds south of Utani? We need men. We need help.”
“Help,” Eiah said, as if he’d suggested pulling down the stars. Maati tried to speak, but something equally sorrow and rage closed his throat. He muttered an obscenity and then forced the words free.
“We need Otah-kvo,” Maati said.
25
“Will
you go back?” Ana asked. “When this is over, I mean.”
“It depends on what you mean by over,” Idaan said. “You mean once my brother talks the poets into bringing back all the dead in Galt and Chaburi-Tan, rebuilding the city, killing the pirates, and then releasing the andat and drowning all their books? Because if that’s what over looks like, you’re waiting for yesterday.”
Otah shifted, pretending he was still asleep. The sun of late morning warmed his face and robes, the low chuckle of the river against the sides of the boat and the low, steady surge of the paddle wheel became a kind of music. It had been easy enough to drowse, but his body ached and pinched and complained despite three layers of tapestry between his back and the deck. If he rose, there would be conversations and planning and decisions. As long as he could maintain the fiction of unconsciousness, he could allow himself to drift. It passed poorly for comfort, but it passed.
“You can’t think we’ll be chasing these people for the rest of our lives, though,” Ana said.
“I’m hoping we live longer than that, yes,” Idaan said. “So. If this ends in a way that lets me return to him, then I will. I enjoy Cehmai’s company.”
“And he’ll take you back in, even after you’ve been gone this long?”
Otah could hear the smile in Idaan’s voice when she replied.
“He’s overlooked worse from me. Why do you ask?”
“I don’t know,” Ana said. And then a moment later, “Because I’m trying to imagine it. What the world will be. I’ve never traveled outside Galt before, except one negotiation in Eymond. I keep thinking of going back to it. Acton. Kirinton. But it’s not there anymore.”
“Not the way it was,” Idaan agreed. “We can’t be sure how bad it is, but I’ll swear it isn’t good.”
The silence was only a lack of voices. The river, the birds, the wind all went on with their long, inhuman conversation. It wasn’t truly silence, it only felt that way.
“I think about what I would do without all of you,” Ana said. “And then I imagine…What would you do if a city caught fire and no one could see it? How would you put it out?”
“You wouldn’t,” Idaan said. Her voice was cool and matter-of-fact.
“I think about that,” Ana said. “I think about it more now. The future, the things that can go wrong. Dangers. I wonder if that always happens when—”
Idaan had made a clicking sound, tongue against teeth.
“You’re not fooling anyone, brother,” Idaan said. “We all know you’re awake.”
Otah rolled onto his back, his eyes still closed, and took a pose of abject denial. Idaan chuckled. He opened his eyes to the great pale blue dome of the sky, the sun burning white overhead and searing his eyes. He sat up slowly, his back as bruised as if someone had beaten him.
Ashti Beg lay a few yards off, her arm curved under her to cradle her sleeping head. Two armsmen sat at either side of their boat with pairs at the stern and the bow, keeping watch on the changeless river. Danat had joined the watchers at the bow and seemed to be having a conversation with them. It was good to see it. Otah had been concerned after his disappearance at the wayhouse that Danat and the captain of the guard might have found themselves on bad terms. Danat seemed to be making it his work to see that didn’t happen.
The boat itself was smaller than Otah would have chosen, but the kilns at the back were solid, the wheel new, and the alternatives had been few. When there are only three boats on the riverfront, even being emperor won’t create a fourth. Ana and Idaan were sitting side by side on a shin-high bench, their hands clasped.
It was something Otah had noticed before, the tendency of Ana and Ashti Beg to touch people. As if the loss of their eyes had left them hungry for something, and this lacing of fingers was the nearest they could come.
“You both look lovely,” Otah said.
“Your hair looks like mice have been building a nest in it,” Idaan said.
Otah confirmed her assessment with his fingertips. The fact of the matter was that none of them was presentable. Too many weeks on the road bathing with rags and tepid water had left them looking disreputable. Somewhere just east of Pathai, they had been joined by a colony of lice that still took up their evenings. Otah imagined walking into the palaces at Utani as he now was and smiled.
He walked to the edge of the boat where a bucket and rope stood ready for moments like this. With the armsmen looking on, he lowered the line himself and hauled up the water. When he knelt and poured it over his head, it was as if he could feel ice forming in his mind. He whooped and shuddered, pulling his hair back. Idaan, behind him, was laughing. He made his way back to them, Ana holding out a length of cloth for him to take and dry himself.
And that was the nature of the journey. Tragedy lay behind them, and desperate uncertainty ahead. He was gnawed by his fears and his guilt and his sorrow, but his sister was there, laughing with him. His son. The river was cold and uncomfortable and beautiful. Every day meant more dead, and yet there was no way for them to move faster than the boat would carry them. Otah knew that as a younger man, he would have been sitting at the bow, frowning at the water as if by will alone he could make things into something they weren’t. As an old one, he was able to put it all aside for as much as a hand at a time, holding his energy for the moment when it might effect a change and resting until then. Perhaps it was what the philosophers meant by wisdom.
Somewhere ahead, Maati and Eiah and the new poet were making their own way to Utani and, he thought, the proclamation of their victory. Perhaps Eiah would bind her andat as well, and return to the women of the Khaiate cities their wombs. There would be children again, a new generation to take the place of the old. All that would be sacrificed was Galt, and the world would be put back as it was. An empire now, instead of a scattering of cities, but with the andat, slaves of spirit and will, putting them above the rest of the world.
Until a new Balasar Gice found a way to bring it all down, and the cycle of suffering and desperation began anew.
“You’ve gone solemn,” Idaan said.
“Steeling myself for failure,” Otah said. “We’ll be on them soon, I think. And…”
“You’ve been thinking about forgiveness,” Idaan said. Otah looked at Ana, listening, rapt. Idaan shook her head. “The girl’s strong enough to know the truth. There’s no virtue in softening it.”
“Please,” Ana said.
Otah took a deep breath and let it slide out between his teeth. River water traced a cold path down his back. On the east bank, half a hundred crows took to the air, startled by something on the ground or just one another.
“If we lose Galt,” Otah said, stopped, and began again, more slowly. “If we lose Galt, I don’t believe I can forgive them. I know what you said, and Danat. I should. I should do whatever it takes to stop all this, even if it means agreeing that I’ve lost, but it’s beyond me. I’m too old to forgive anymore, and…”
“And,” Idaan said, making it sound like agreement.
“I don’t understand,” Ana said.
“That’s because you haven’t killed anyone,” Idaan said. Otah looked up at her. Idaan’s eyes were dark but not unsympathetic. When she went on, the words were addressed to Ana, but her gaze was fixed on his. “There are some things about my brother that few people know. His best friend, Maati, was one who knew his secrets. And because of Maati, Cehmai. And so I am also one of the few to know what happened all those years ago in Saraykeht.”
To his surprise, Otah found himself weeping silently. Ana leaned forward, her brow fierce.
“What happened?” she asked.
“I killed a good man. An honorable, unwell man with a wounded soul,” Otah said softly. “I strangled him to death in a little room off a mud-paved alley in the soft quarter.”
“Why?” Ana asked.
The answers to that seemed so intricate, so complex, he couldn’t find words.
Idaan could.
“To save Galt,” she said. “
If the man had lived, all of Galt would have at least suffered horribly, and likely been wiped from the map. Otah had the choice of condemning his city or letting thousands upon thousands upon thousands of your countrymen die. He chose to betray Saraykeht. He’s carried it ever since. He’s ordered men killed in war. He’s sentenced them to death. But he’s only ever ended one life himself. Seen something that had been a man become only a body. If you haven’t done it, it’s a hard thing to understand.”
“That’s truth,” Otah said.
“And along with all the other insults and injuries and pain that he’s caused. Along with the deaths,” Idaan said, sorrow and amusement mixed in her voice, “Maati Vaupathai has taken away the thing that made Otah’s slaughter bearable. He took away the reason for it. Galt is dying anyway.”
“I also did it for Maati,” Otah said. “If I hadn’t, he’d be fighting against Seedless today.”
“And I wouldn’t have been born,” Ana said. She put out a wavering hand to him, and Otah took it. Her grasp was stronger than he’d expected. There were tears in her milky eyes. “I won’t forgive him either.”
Idaan sighed.
“Well,” his sister said, “at least we’ll be damned for what we are.”
The second sang something from the bow, a high trill that ended in words Otah couldn’t make sense of. The paddle wheel, in the stern, shifted and creaked, the deck beneath him lurching. Otah stood, unsteadily.
“Sandbar,” Danat called to him. “It’s all right. We’re fine.”
“Ah, well then. You see?” Idaan said with a chuckle. “We’re fine.”
They stayed on the river as long into the twilight as they could. Otah could see the unease in the boatman’s expression and hear it in his voice. Otah’s assumption was that the boats would travel at nearly the same speed. The gap between his party and Maati’s would only keep narrowing if he pushed farther past the point of safety than they were willing to do. He thought his chances good. Maati, after all, had all the power, and time was his ally. There was no reason that he should rush.
The Price of Spring (The Long Price Quartet Book 4) Page 33