"What's your name?" she asked.
"Choya," the girl said.
Idaan took a pose of abject apology. It was more than a member of the
utkhaiem would have normally presented to a servant, but Idaan felt her
guilt welling up like blood from a cut.
"I am very sorry, Choya-cha. I was wrong to-"
"But that isn't all," the servant girl said. "A courier came this
morning from 'Ian-Sadar. He'd been riding for three weeks. Kaiin Machi
is dead. Your brother Danat killed him, and he's coming hack. The
courier guessed he might be a week behind him. I)anat Machi's going to
he the new Khai Machi. And Idaan-cha, he'll be back in the city in time
for your wedding!"
On one end, the chain ended at a cube of polished granite the color of
soot that stood as high as a man's waist. On the other, it linked to a
rough iron collar around Otah's neck. Sitting with his back to the
stone-the chain was not so long that he could stand-Otah remembered
seeing a brown bear tied to a pole in the main square of a low town
outside'lan-Sadar. Dogs had been set upon it three at a time, and with
each new wave, the men had wagered on which animal would survive.
Armsmen stood around him with blades drawn and leather armor, stationed
widely enough apart to allow anyone who wished it a good view of the
captive. Beyond them, the representatives of the utkhaiem in fine robes
and ornate jewelry crowded the floor and two tiers of the balconies that
rose up to the base of the domed ceiling far above him. The dais before
him was empty. Otah wondered what would happen if he should need to
empty his bladder. It seemed unlikely that they would let him piss on
the fine parquet floor, but neither could he imagine being led away
decorously. He tried to picture what they saw, this mob of nobility,
when they looked at him. He didn't try to charm them or play on their
sympathies. He was the upstart, and there wasn't a man or woman in the
hall who wasn't delighted to see him debased and humiliated.
The first of the servants appeared, filing out from a hidden door and
spacing themselves around the chair. Otah picked out the brown poet's
robe, but it was Cchmai with the bulk of his andat moving behind him.
Maati wasn't with him; Cehmai was speaking with a woman in the robes of
the Khaiem-Otah's sister, she would be. He wondered what her name was.
The last of the servants and counselors took their places, and the crowd
fell silent. The Khai Machi walked out, as graceful as a dying man could
be. His robes were lush and full, and served to do little more than show
how wasted his frame had become. Otah could see the rouge on his sunken
cheeks, trying to give the appearance of vigor long since gone.
Whisperers fanned out from the dais and into the crowd. The Khai took a
pose of welcome appropriate to the opening of a ritual judgment. Utah
rose to his knees.
"I am told that you are my son, Utah Machi, whom I gave over to the
poets' school."
The whisperers echoed it through the hall. It was his moment to speak
now, and he found his heart was so full of humiliation and fear and
anger that he had nothing to say. He raised his hands and took a pose of
greeting-a casual one that would have been appropriate for a peasant son
to his father. "There was a murmur among the utkhaiem.
"I am further told that you were once offered the poet's robes, and you
refused that honor."
Otah tried to rise, but the most the chain allowed was a low stoop. He
cleared his throat and spoke, pushing the words out clear enough to be
heard in the farthest gallery.
"That is true. I was a child, most high. And I was angry."
"And I hear that you have come to my city and killed my eldest child.
Biitrah Machi is dead by your hand."
"That is not true, father," Utah said. "I won't say that no man has ever
died by my hand, but I didn't kill I3iitrah. I have no wish or intention
to become the Khai Machi."
"Then why have you come here?" the Khai shouted, rising to his feet. His
face was twisted in rage, his fists trembled. In all his travels, Otah
had never seen the Khai of any city look more like a man. Otah felt
something like pity through his humiliation and rage, and it let him
speak more softly when he spoke again.
"I heard that my father was dying."
It seemed that the murmur of the crowds would never end. It rolled like
waves against the seashore. Otah knelt again; the awkward stooping hurt
his neck and hack, and there was no point trying to maintain dignity
here. They waited, he and his father, staring at each other across the
space. Otah tried to feel some bond, some kinship that would bridge this
gap, but there was nothing. The Khai Machi was his father by an accident
of birth, and nothing more.
He saw the old man's eyes flicker, as if unsure of himself. He couldn't
have always been this way-the Khaiem were inhumanly studied in ritual
and grace. It was the mark of their calling. Otah wondered what his
father had been when he was young and strong. He wondered what he would
have been like as a man among his children.
The Khai raised a hand, and the crowd's susurrus tapered down to
silence. Otah did not move.
"You have stepped outside tradition," he said. "Whether you took a hand
against my son is a question that has already gathered an array of
opinion. It is something I must think on.
"I have had other news this day. Danat Machi has won the right of
succession. He is returning to the city even now. I will consult with
him on your fate. Until then, you shall be confined in the highest room
in the great tower. I do not care to have your accomplices taking your
death in their own hands this time. Danat and I-the Khai Machi and the
Khai yet to come-shall decide together what kind of beast you are.
Otah took a pose of supplication. That he was on his knees only made the
gesture clearer. He was dead, whatever happened. He could see that now.
If there had been a chance of mercy-and likely there hadn't-having
father and son converse would remove it. But in the black dread, there
was this one chance to speak as himself-not as Itani Noygu or some other
mask. And if it offended the court, there was little worse they could do
to him than he faced now. His father hesitated, and Otah spoke.
"I have seen many of the cities of the Khaiem, most high. I have been
horn into the highest of families, and I have been offered the greatest
of honors. And if I am here to meet my death at the hands of those who
should by all rights love me, at least hear me out. Our cities are not
well, father. Our traditions are not well. You stand there on that dais
now because you killed your own. You are celebrating the return of
Danat, who killed his brother, and at the same time preparing to condemn
me on the suspicion that I did the same. A tradition that calls men to
kill their brothers and discard their sons cannot be-"
"Enough!" the Khai roared, and his voice carried. The whisperers were
silent and unneeded. "I have not carried this city on my back for all
these years to be lectured now by a rebel and a traitor and a poisoner.
You are not my son! You lost that right! You squandered it! Tell me that
this ..." The Khai raised his hands in a gesture that seemed to encom
pass every man and woman of the court, the palaces, the city, the
valley, the mountains, the world. ". . . this is evil? Because our
traditions are what hold all this from chaos. We are the Khaiem! We rule
with the power of the andat, and we do not accept instruction from
couriers and laborers who ... who killed ..."
The Khai closed his eyes and seemed to sway for a moment. The woman to
whom C'chmai had been speaking leapt up, her hand on the old man's
elbow. Otah could see them murmuring to each other, but he had no idea
what they were saying. The woman walked with him back to the chair and
helped him to sit. His face seemed sunken in pain. The woman was
crying-streaks of kohl black on her cheeks-but her bearing was more
regal and sure than their father's had been. She stepped forward and spoke.
"The Khai is weary," she said, as if daring anyone present to say
anything else. "He has given his command. The audience is finished!"
The voices rose almost as high and ran almost as loud as they had at
anything that had gone before. A woman-even if she was his
daughter-taking the initiative to speak for the Khai? The court would be
scandalized. Otah already imagined them placing bets as to whether the
man would live the night, and if he died now, whether it would he this
woman's fault for shaming him so deeply when he was already weak. And
Otah could see that she knew this. The contempt in her expression was
eloquent as any oratory. He caught her eye and took a pose of approval.
She looked at him as if he were a stranger who had spoken her name, then
turned away to help their father walk back to his rooms.
The march up to his cage led through a spiral stone stair so small that
his shoulders touched each wall, and his head stayed bent. The chain
stayed on his neck, his hands now bound behind him. He watched the
armsman before him half walking, half climbing the steep blocks of
stone. When Otah slowed, the man behind him struck with the butt of a
spear and laughed. Otah, his hands bound, sprawled against the steps,
ripping the flesh of his knees and chin. After that, he made a point to
slow as little as possible.
His thighs burned with each step and the constant turning to the right
left him nauseated. He thought of stopping, of refusing to move. They
were taking him up to wait for death anyway. There was nothing to he
gained by collaborating with them. But he went on, cursing tinder his
breath.
When the stairs ended, he found himself in a wide hall. The sky doors in
the north wall were open, and a platform hung level with them and
shifting slightly in the breeze, the great chains taut. Another four
armsmen stood waiting.
"Relief?" the man who had pushed him asked.
The tallest of the new armsmen took a pose of affirmation and spoke.
"We'll take the second half. You four head up and we'll all go down
together." The new armsmen led Otah to a fresh stairway, and the ordeal
began again. He had begun almost to dream in his pain by the time they
stopped. Thick, powerful hands pushed him into a room, and the door
closed behind him with a sound like a capstone being shoved over an open
tomb. The armsman said something through a slit in the door, but Otah
couldn't make sense of it and didn't have the will to try. He lay on the
floor until he realized that his arms had been freed and the iron collar
taken from around his neck. The skin where it had rested was chafed raw.
The voices of men seeped through the door, and then the sound of a winch
creaking as it lowered the platform and its cargo of men. Then there
were only two voices speaking in light, conversational tones. He
couldn't make out a word they said.
He forced himself to sit up and take stock. The room was larger than
he'd expected, and bare. It could have been used as a storage room or
set with table and chairs for a small meeting. There was a bowl of water
in one corner, but no food, no candles, nothing but the stone to sleep
on. The light came from a barred window. His hip and knees ached as Otah
pulled himself up and stumbled over to it. He was facing south, and the
view was like he'd become a bird. He leaned out-the bars were not so
narrowly spaced that he couldn't climb out and fall to his death if he
chose. Below him, the carts in the streets were like ants shuffling
along in their lines. A crow launched itself from a crack or beam and
circled below him, the sun shining on its black back. Trembling, he
pulled himself back in. There were no shutters to close off the sky.
He tried the door's latch, but it had been barred from without, and the
hinges were leather and worked iron. Not the sort of thing a man could
take apart with teeth. Otah knelt by the bowl of water and drank from
his cupped hand. He washed out the worst of his wounds, and left a third
in the bowl. There was no knowing how long it might be before they saw
fit to give him more. He wondered if there were birds that came up this
high to rest, and whether he would be able to trap one. Not that he
would have the chance to cook it-there was nothing to burn here, and no
grate to burn it in. Otah ran his hands over his face, and despite
himself, laughed. It seemed unlikely they would allow him anything sharp
enough to shave with. He would die with this sad little beard.