flat stones, tall grass a yellow gray at the joints. A ruined fountain
with black muck where clear water had been squatted in the center.
Idaan's bow was in her hands, an arrow between her fingers.
"What was that?" Maati asked.
Idaan's dark eyes swept over the ruins, and Maati tried to follow her
gaze. They might have been houses or businesses or something of both.
The sound came again. From his left and ahead. Idaan moved forward
cat-quiet, her bow at the ready. Maati stayed behind her, but close. He
remembered that he had a blade at his belt and drew it.
The buck was in a small garden with an iron fence overgrown now with
flowering ivy. Its side was cut, the fur black with dried blood and
flies. The noble rack of horns was broken on one side, ending in a
cruel, jagged stump. As Idaan stepped near, it moved again, lashing out
at the fence with its feet, and then hung its head. It was an image of
exhaustion and despair.
And its eyes were gray and sightless.
"Poor bastard," Idaan said. The buck raised its head, snorting. Maati
gripped the handle of his blade, readying himself for something, though
he wasn't certain what. Idaan raised her bow with something akin to
disgust on her face. The first arrow sunk deep into the neck of the
onceproud animal. The buck bellowed and tried to run, fouling itself in
the fence, the vines. It slipped to its knees as Idaan sank another
arrow into its side. And then a third.
It coughed and went still.
"Well, I think we can say how your little poet girl was planning to get
food," Idaan said, her voice acid. "Cripple whatever game she came
across and then let it beat itself to death. She's quite the hunter."
She slung the bow back over her shoulder, walking carefully into the
trampled garden. Flies rose from the beast in a buzzing cloud. Idaan
ignored them, putting her hand on the dead buck's flank.
"It's a waste," she said. "If I had rope and the right knife we could at
least dress him and eat something fresh tonight. I hate leaving him for
the rats and the foxes."
"Why did you kill him then?"
"Mercy. You were right, though. Vanjit's in the city somewhere. That was
a good call."
"I'm half-sorry I said anything," Maati said. "You'd kill her just as
quickly, wouldn't you?"
"You think you can romance her into taking back her curse. I'm no one to
keep you from trying."
"And then?"
"And then we follow the same plan each of us had. It's the one thing we
agree upon. She's too dangerous. She has to die."
"I know what I intended. I know what Eiah and I were planning. But that
was the andat's scheme. I think there may be another way."
Idaan looked up, then stood. The bow was still in her hand.
"Can you give her her parents back?" she asked. "Can you give her the
brothers and sisters she lost? Udun. Can you rebuild it?"
Maati took a pose that dismissed her questions, but Idaan stepped close
to him. He could feel her breath against his face. Her eyes were cold
and dark.
"Do you think that Galt died blind because of something you can remedy?"
she demanded. "What's happened, happened. You can't will her to be the
woman you hoped she was. Telling yourself that you can is worse than
stupidity."
"If she puts it to rights," Maati said, "she shouldn't have to die."
Idaan narrowed her eyes, tilted her head.
"I'll offer you this," she said. "If you can talk the girl into giving
Galt back its eyes-and Eiah and Ashti Beg. Everyone. If you can do that
and also have her release her andat, I won't be the one who kills her."
"Would Otah let her live?" Maati asked.
"Ask him and he might," Idaan said. "Experience suggests he and I have
somewhat different ideas of mercy."
At midday, they returned to their camp. The boat was tied up at an old
quay slick with mold. The scent of the river was rich and not entirely
pleasant. Two of the other scouting parties had returned before them;
Danat and one of the armsmen were still in the city but expected back
shortly. Otah, in a robe of woven silk under a thicker woolen outer
robe, sat at a field table on the quayside, sketching maps of the city
from memory. Idaan made her report, Maati silent at her side. He tried
to imagine asking Otah for clemency on Vanjit's behalf. If Maati could
persuade her to restore sight to everyone she'd injured and release the
andat, would Otah honor Idaan's contract? Or, phrased differently, if
Maati couldn't save the world, could he at least do something to redeem
this one girl?
He didn't ask it, and Idaan didn't raise the issue.
After Danat and the armsmen returned, they all ate a simple meal of
bread and dried apples. Danat, Otah, and the captain of the guard
consulted with one another over Otah's sketched maps, planning the
afternoon's search. Idaan tended to Ana; their laughter seemed
incongruous in the grim air of their camp. Eiah sat by herself at the
water's edge, her face turned up toward the sun. Maati went to her side.
"Did you drink your tea this morning?" she asked.
"Yes," he lied petulantly.
"You need to," she said. Maati shrugged and tossed the last round of
dried apple into the water. It floated for a moment, the pale flesh
looking nearly white on the dark water. A turtle rose from beneath and
bit at it. Eiah held out her hand, palm up, fingers beckoning. Maati was
vaguely ashamed of the relief he felt taking her hand in his own.
"You were right," Maati confessed. "I still want to save Vanjit. I know
better. I do, but the impulse keeps coming back."
"I know it does," Eiah said. "You have a way of seeing things the way
you'd prefer them to be rather than the way they are. It's your only vice."
"Only?"
"Well, that and lying to your physician," Eiah said, lightly.
"I drink too much sometimes."
"When was the last time?"
Maati shrugged, a smile tugging at his mouth.
"I used to drink too much when I was younger," he said. "I still would,
but I've been busy."
"You see?" Eiah said. "You had more vices when you were young. You've
grown old and wise."
"I don't think so. I don't think you can mention me and wisdom in the
same breath."
"You aren't dead. There's time yet." She paused, then asked, "Will they
find her?"
"If Otah-kvo's right, and she wants us to," Maati said. "If she doesn't
want to be found, we might as well go home."
Eiah nodded. Her grip tightened for a moment, and she released his hand.
Her brow was furrowed with thought, but it was nothing she chose to
share. Don't leave me, he wanted to say. Don't go back to Otah and leave
me by myself. Or worse, with only 17anjit. In the end, he kept his silence.
His second foray into the city came in the middle of the afternoon. This
time they had set paths to follow, rough-drawn maps marked with each
pair's route, and Maati was going out with Danat. They would come back
three hands before sunset unless some significant discovery was made.
Maati accepted Otah's instructions without complaint, though the
resentment was still there.
The air was warmer now, and with the younger man's pace, Maati found
himself sweating. They moved down smaller streets this time, narrow
avenues that nature had not quite choked. The birds seemed to follow
them, though more likely it was only that there were birds everywhere.
There was no sign of Vanjit or Clarity-of-Sight, only raccoons and
foxes, mice and hunting cats, feral dogs on the banks and otters in the
canals. They were hardly a third of the way through the long, complex
loop set out for them when Maati called a halt. He sat on a stonework
bench, resting his head in his hands and waiting for his breath to slow.
Danat paced, frowning seriously at the brush.
It struck Maati that the boy was the same age Otah had been in
Saraykeht. Not as broad across the shoulders, but Otah had been Irani
Noygu and a seafront laborer then. Maati himself had been born four
years after the Emperor, hardly sixteen when he'd gone to study under
Heshai and Seedless. Younger than Ana Dasin was now. It was hard to
imagine ever having been that young.
"I meant to offer my congratulations to you," Maati said. "Ana-cha seems
a good woman."
Danat paused. The reflection of his father's rage warmed the boy's face,
but not more than that.
"I didn't think an alliance with Galt would please you."
"I didn't either," Maati said, "but I have enough experience with losing
to your father that I'm learning to be generous about it."
Danat almost started. Maati wondered what nerve he had touched, but
before he could ask, a flock of birds a more violent blue than anything
Maati had seen burst from a treetop down the avenue. They wheeled around
one another, black beaks and wet eyes and tiny tongues pink as a
fingertip. Maati closed his eyes, disturbed, and when he opened them,
Danat was kneeling before him. The boy's face was a webwork of tiny
lines like the cracked mud in a desert riverbed. Fine, dark whiskers
rose from Danat's pores. His eyelashes crashed together when he blinked,
interweaving or pressing one another apart like trees in a mudslide.
Maati closed his eyes again, pressing his palms to them. He could see
the tiny vessels in each eyelid, layer upon layer almost out to the skin.
"Maati-cha?"
"She's seen us," Maati said. "She knows I'm here."
In spite of the knowledge, it took Maati half a hand to find her. He
swept the horizon and from east to west and back again. He could see
half-a-hundred rooftops. He found her at last near the top of the
palaces of the Khai Udun on a balcony of bricks enameled the color of
gold. At this distance, she was smaller than a grain of sand, and he saw
her perfectly. Her hair was loose, her robe ripped at the sleeve. The
andat was on her hip, its black, hungry eyes on his own. Vanjit nodded
and put the andat down. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, she took a
pose of greeting. Maati returned it.
"Where? Where is she?" Danat asked. Maati ignored him.
Vanjit shifted her hands and her body into a pose that was both a rebuke
and an accusation. Maati hesitated. He had imagined a thousand scenarios
for this meeting, but they had all involved the words he would speak,
and what she would say in return. His first impulse now was toward
apology, but something in the back of his mind resisted. Her face was a
mask of self-righteous anger, and, to his surprise, he recognized the
expression as one he himself had worn in a thousand fantasies. In his
dreams, he had been facing Otah, and Otah had been the one to beg
forgiveness.
Like a voice speaking in his ear, he knew why his hands would not take
an apologetic pose. She is here to see you abased. Do it now, and you
have nothing left to offer her. Maati pulled his shoulders back, lifted
his chin, and took a pose that requested an audience. Its nuances didn't
claim his superiority as a teacher to a student but neither did they
cede it. Vanjit's eyes narrowed. Maati waited, his breath short and
anxiety plucking at him.
Vanjit took a pose appropriate to a superior granting a servant or slave
an indulgence. Maati didn't correct her, but neither did he respond.
Vanjit looked down as if the andat had cried out or perhaps spoken, then
shifted her hands and her body to a pose of formal invitation
appropriate for an evening's meal. Only then did Maati accept, shifting
afterward to a pose of query. Vanjit indicated the balcony on which she
stood, and then made a gesture that implied either intimacy or solitude.
Meet me here. In my territory and on my terms. Come alone.
Maati moved to an accepting pose, smiling to himself as much as to the
girl in the palaces. With a physical sensation like that of a gnat
flying into his eye, Maati's vision blurred back to merely human acuity.
He turned his attention back to Danat.
The boy looked half-frantic. He held his blade as if prepared for an
attack, his gaze darting from tree to wall as if he could see the things
that Maati had seen. The moons that passed around the wandering stars,
the infinitesimal animals that made their home in a drop of rain, or the
girl on her high balcony halfway across the city. Maati had no doubt she
was still watching them.