A Betrayal in Winter lpq-2

by Abraham Daniel

  a moment before coming out with four lengths of silver that she left on

  the table. Seeing Maati's surprise, she smiled.

  "We didn't ask for the food and wine," she said. "It's rude to underpay."

  "The grapes were sour," Maati said.

  Kiyan considered this for a moment and scooped one silver length hack

  into her sleeve. They didn't leave through the front door or out to the

  alley, but descended a narrow stairway into the tunnels beneath the

  city. Someone-the keep or one of Kiyan's conspirators-had left a lit

  lantern for them. Kiyan took it in hand and strode into the black

  tunnels as assured as a woman who had walked this maze her whole life.

  Maati kept close to her, dread pricking at him for the first time.

  The descent seemed as deep as the mines in the plain. The stairs were

  worn smooth by generations of footsteps, the path they traveled

  inhabited by the memory of men and women long dead. At length the stairs

  gave way to a wide, tiled hallway shrouded in darkness. Kiyan's small

  lantern lit only part way up the deep blue and worked gold of the walls,

  the darkness above them more profound than a moonless sky.

  The mouths of galleries and halls seemed to gape and close as they

  passed. Nlaati could see the scorch marks rising up the walls where

  torches had been set during some past winter, the smoke staining the

  tiles. A breath seemed to move through the dim air, like the earth exhaling.

  The tunnels seemed empty except for them. No glimmer of light came from

  the doors and passages they passed, no voices however distant competed

  with the rustle of their robes. At a branching of the great hallway,

  Kiyan hesitated, then bore left. A pair of great brass gates opened onto

  a space like a garden, the plants all designed from silk, the birds

  perched on the branches dead and dust-covered.

  "Unreal, isn't it?" Kiyan said as she picked her way across the sterile

  terrain. "I think they must go a little mad in the winters down here.

  All those months without seeing the sunlight."

  "I suppose," Maati said.

  After the garden, they went down a series of corridors so narrow that

  Maati could place his palms on both walls without stretching. She came

  to a high wooden doorway with brass fittings that was barred from

  within. Kiyan passed the lantern to Maati and knocked a complex pattern.

  A scraping sound spoke of the bar being lifted, and then the door swung

  in. Three men with blades in their hands stood. The center one smiled,

  stepped back and silently gestured them through.

  Lanterns filled the stone-walled passage with warm, buttery light and

  the scent of burnt oil. There was no door at the end, only an archway

  that opened out into a wide, tall space that smelled of sweat and damp

  wool and torch smoke. A storehouse, then, with the door frames stuffed

  with rope to keep out even a glimmer of light.

  Half a dozen men stopped their conversations as Kiyan led him across the

  empty space to the overseer's office-a shack within the structure that

  glowed from within.

  Kiyan opened the office door and stood aside, smiling encouragement to

  Maati as he stepped past her and into the small room. A desk. Four

  chairs. A stand for scrolls. A map of the winter cities nailed to the

  wall. Three lanterns. And Otah-kvo rising now from his seat.

  He was still thin, but there was an energy about him-in the way he held

  his shoulders and his hands. In the way he moved.

  "You're looking well for a dead man," Maati said.

  "Feeling better than expected, too," Otah said, and a smile spread

  across his long, northern face. "Thank you for coming."

  "How could I not?" Maati drew one of the chairs close to him and sat,

  his fingers laced around one knee. "So you've chosen to take the city

  after all?"

  Otah hesitated a moment, then sat. He rubbed the desktop with his open

  palm-a dry sound-and his brow furrowed.

  "I don't see my option," he said at last. "That sounds convenient, I

  know. But ... You said before that you'd realized I had nothing to do

  with Biitrah's death and your assault. I didn't have a part in Danat's

  murder either. Or my father's. Or even my own rescue from the tower,

  come to that. It's all simply happened up to now. And I didn't know

  whether you still believed me innocent."

  Maati smiled ruefully. There was something in Otah's voice that sounded

  like hope. Maati didn't know his own heart-the resentment, the anger,

  the love of Otah-kvo and of Liat and the child she'd borne. He couldn't

  say even what they all had to do with this man sitting across his

  appropriated desk.

  "I do," Maati said at last. "I've been looking into the matter, but I

  suppose you know that if you've had me watched."

  "Yes. That's one reason I wanted to speak to you."

  "There are others?"

  "I have a confession to make. I'd likely be wiser to keep quiet until

  this whole round is finished, but ... I've lied to you, Maati. I told

  you that I'd been with a woman in the east islands and failed to father

  a child on her. She ... she wasn't real. That never happened."

  Maati considered this, waiting for his heart to rise in anger or

  shrivel, but it only beat in its customary rhythm. He wondered when it

  had stopped mattering to him, the father of the boy he'd lost. Since the

  last time he had spoken with Utah in the high stone cell, certainly, but

  looking back, he couldn't put a moment to it. If the boy was his get or

  Utah's, neither would bring him back. Neither would undo the years gone

  by. And there were other things that he had that he might still lose, or

  else save.

  "I thought I was going to die," Otah said. "I thought it wouldn't matter

  to me, and if it gave you some comfort, then ..."

  "Let it go," Maati said. "If there's anything to be said about it, we

  can say it later. There are other matters at hand."

  "Have you found something, then?"

  "I have a family name, I think. Certainly there's someone putting money

  and influence behind the Vaunyogi."

  "Likely the Galts," Otah said. "They've been making contracts bad enough

  to look like bribes. We didn't know what influence they were buying."

  "It could be this," Nlaati said. "Do you know why they'd do it?"

  "No," Otah said. "But if you've proof that the Vaunyogi are behind the

  murderers-"

  "I don't," Maati said. "I have a suspicion, but nothing more than that.

  Not yet. And if we don't uncover them quickly, they'll likely have Adrah

  named Khai Machi and have the resources of the whole city to find you

  and kill you for crimes that everyone outside this warehouse assumes you

  guilty of."

  They sat in silence for the space of three breaths.

  "Well," Otah-kvo said, "it appears we have some work to do then. But at

  least we've an idea where to look."

  IN HER DREAM, II)AAN WAS AT A CELEBRATION. FIRE BURNED IN A RING ALL

  around the pavilion, and she knew with the logic of dreams that the

  flames were going to close, that the circle was growing smaller. They

  were all going to burn. She tried to shout, tried to warn the dancers,
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  but she could only croak; no one heard her. 't'here was someone there

  who could stop the thing from happening-a single man who was Cehmai and

  Otah and her father all at once. She beat her way through the bodies,

  trying to find him, but there were dogs in with the people. The flames

  were too close already, and to keep themselves alive, the women were

  throwing the animals into the fire. She woke to the screams and howls in

  her mind and the silence in her chamber.

  The night candle had failed. The chamber was dim, silvered by moonlight

  beyond the dark web of the netting. The shutters along the wall were all

  open, but no breath of air stirred. Idaan swallowed and shook her head,

  willing the last wisps of nightmare into forgetfulness. She waited,

  listening to her breath, until her mind was her own again. Even then she

  was reluctant to sleep for fear of falling into the same dream. She

  turned to Adrah, but the bed at her side was empty. He was gone.

  "Adrah?"

  "There was no answer.

  Idaan wrapped herself with a thin blanket, pushed aside the netting and

  stepped out of her bed-her new bed. Her marriage bed. The smooth stone

  of the floor was cool against her bare feet. She walked through the

  chambers of their apartments-hers and her husband'ssilently. She found

  him sitting on a low couch, a bottle beside him. A thick earthenware

  bowl on the floor stank of distilled wine. Or perhaps it was his breath.

  "You aren't sleeping?" she asked.

  "Neither arc you," he said. The slurred words were half accusation.

  "I had a dream," she said. "It woke me."

  Adrah lifted the bottle, drinking from its neck. She watched the

  delicate shifting mechanism of his throat, the planes of his cheeks, his

  eyes closed and as smooth as a man asleep. Her fingers twitched toward

  him, moving to caress that familiar skin without consulting him on her

  wishes. Coughing, he put down the wine, and the eyes opened. Whatever

  beauty had been in him, however briefly, was gone now.

  "You should go to him," Adrah said. Perversely, he sounded less drunk

  now. Idaan took a pose of query. Adrah waved it away with the sloshing

  bottle. "The poet boy. Cehmai. You should go to him. See if you can get

  more information."

  "You don't want me here?"

  "No," Adrah said, pressing the bottle into her hand. As he rose and

  staggered past her, Idaan felt the insult and the rejection and a

  certain relief that she hadn't had to find an excuse to slip away.

  The palaces were deserted, the empty paths dreamlike in their own way.

  Idaan let herself imagine that she had woken into a new, different

  world. As she slept, everyone had vanished, and she was walking now

  alone through an empty city. Or she had died in her sleep and the gods

  had put her here, into a world with nothing but herself and darkness. If

  they had meant it for punishment, they had misjudged.

  The bottle was below a quarter when she stepped under the canopy of

  sculpted oaks. She had expected the poet's house to he dark as well, but

  as she advanced, she caught glimpses of candle glow, more light than a

  single night candle could account for. Something like hope surged in

  her, and she slowly walked forward. The shutters and door were open, the

  lanterns within all lit. But the wide, still figure on the steps wasn't

  him. Idaan hesitated. The andat raised its hand in greeting and motioned

  her closer.

  "I was starting to think you wouldn't come," Stone-Made-Soft said in its

  distant, rumbling voice.

  "I hadn't intended to," Idaan said. "You had no call to expect me."

  "If you say so," it agreed, amiably. "Come inside. He's been waiting to

  see you for days."

  Going up the steps felt like walking downhill, the pull to be there and

  see him was more powerful than weight. The andat stood and followed her

  in, closing the door behind her and then proceeding around the room,

  fastening the shutters and snuffing the flames. Idaan looked around the

  room, but there were only the two of them.

  "It's late. He's in the back," the andat said and pinched out another

  small light. "You should go to him."

  "I don't want to disturb him."

  "He'd want you to."

  She didn't move. The spirit tilted its broad head and smiled.

  "He said he loves me," Idaan said. "When I saw him last, he said that he

  loved me."

  "I know."

  "Is it true?"

  The smile broadened. Its teeth were white as marble and perfectly

  regular. She noticed for the first time that it had no canines-every

  tooth was even and square as the one beside it. For a moment, the

  inhuman mouth disturbed her.

  "Why are you asking me?"

  "You know him," she said. "You are him."

  "True on both counts," Stone-Made-Soft said. "But I'm not credited as

  being the most honest source. I'm his creature, after all. And all dogs

  hate the leash, however well they pretend otherwise."

  "You've never lied to me."

  The andat looked startled, then chuckled with a sound like a boulder

  rolling downhill.

  "No," it said. "I haven't, have I? And I won't start now. Yes, Cehmai-

  kya has fallen in love with you. He's Young. His passions are still a

  large part of what he is. In forty years, he won't burn so hot. It's the

  way it's been with all of them."

  "I don't want him hurt," she said.

  "Then stay."

  "I'm not sure that would save him pain. Not in the long term."

  The andat went still a moment, then shrugged.

  "Then go," it said. "But when he finds you've gone, he'll chew his own

  guts out over it. There's been nothing he's wanted more than for you to

  come here, to him. Coming this close, talking to me, and leaving? It'd

  hardly make him feel better about things."

  Idaan looked at her feet. The sandals weren't laced well. She'd done the

  thing in darkness, and the wine had, perhaps, had more effect on her

  than she'd thought. She shook her head as she had when shaking off the

  dreams.

  "He doesn't have to know I came."

  "Late for that," the andat said and put out another candle. "He woke up

  as soon as we started talking."

  "Idaan-kya?" his voice came from behind her.

  Cehmai stood in the corridor that led hack to his bedchamber. His hair

  was tousled by sleep. His feet were bare. Idaan caught her breath,

  seeing him here in the dim light of candles. He was beautiful. He was

  innocent and powerful, and she loved him more than anyone in the world.

  "Cehmai."

  "Only Cehmai?" he asked, stepping into the room. He looked hurt and

  hopeful both. She had no right to feel this young. She had no right to

  feel afraid or thrilled.

  "Cehmai-kya," she whispered. "I had to see you."

  "I'm glad of it. But ... but you aren't, are you? Glad to see me, I mean.

  "It wasn't supposed to be like this," she said, and the sorrow rose up

  in her like a flood. "It's my wedding night, Cehmai-kya. I was married

  today, and I couldn't go a whole night in that bed."

  Her voice broke. She closed her eyes against the tears, but they simply


  came, rolling down her cheeks as fast as raindrops. She heard him move

  toward her, and between wanting to step into his arms and wanting to

  run, she stood Unmoving, feeling herself tremble.

  He didn't speak. She was standing alone and apart, the sorrow and guilt

  heating her like storm waves, and then his arms folded her into him. His

  skin smelled dark and musky and male. He didn't kiss her, he didn't try

  to open her robes. He only held her there as if he had never wanted

  anything more. She put her arms around him and held on as though he was

  a branch hanging over a precipice. She heard herself sob, and it sounded

  like violence.

  "I'm sorry," she said. "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I want it back. I

  want it all back. I'm so sorry."

  "What, love? What do you want back?"

  "All of it," she wailed, and the blackness and despair and rage and

  sorrow rose tip, taking her in its teeth and shaking her. Cehmai held

  her close, murmured soft words to her, stroked her hair and her face.

  When she sank to the ground, he sank with her.

  She couldn't say how long it was before the crying passed. She only knew

  that the night around them was perfectly dark, that she was curled in on

  herself with her head in his lap, and that her body was tired to the