The Price of Spring

29

"No," Otah said. "Absolutely not."

"All respect," Maati said. "You may be the Emperor, but this isn't your call to make. I don't particularly need your permission, and Vanjit's got no use for it at all."

"I can have you kept here."

"You won't," Maati said. The poet was sure of himself, Otah thought, because he was right.

When Danat and Maati had returned early, he had known that something had happened. The quay they had adopted as the center of the search had been quiet since the end of the afternoon meal. Ana and Eiah sat in the shadow of a low stone wall, sleeping or talking when Eiah wasn't going through the shards of her ruined binding, arranging the shattered wax in an approximation of the broken tablets. The boatman and his second had taken apart the complex mechanism connecting boiler to wheel and were cleaning each piece, the brass and bronze, iron and steel laid out on gray tarps and shining like jewelry. The voices of the remaining armsmen joined with the low, constant lapping of the river and the songs of the birds. At another time, it might have been soothing. Otah, sitting at his field table, fought the urge to pace or shout or throw stones into the water. Sitting, racking his brain for details of a place he'd lived three decades ago, and pushing down his own fears both exhausted him and made him tense. He felt like a Galtic boiler with too hot a fire and no release; he could feel the solder melting at his seams.

If they had followed his plan, Danat and Maati would have returned to the quay from a path that ran south along the river. They came from the west, down the broad stone steps. Danat held a naked blade forgotten in his hand, his expression set and unnerved. Maati, walking more slowly, seemed on the verge of collapse, but also pleased. Otah put down his pen.

"You've found her?"

"She's found us," Maati said. "I think she's been watching us since we stepped off the boat."

The armsmen clustered around them. Eiah and Ana rose to their feet, touching each other for support. Maati lumbered into the center of the quay as if it were a stage and he was declaiming a part. He told them of the encounter, of Vanjit's appearance, of the andat at her side. He took the poses he'd adopted and mimicked Vanjit's. In the end, he explained that Vanjit would see him-would see only him-and that it was to happen that evening.

"She doesn't know you," Maati continued, "and what little she does know, she doesn't have a use for. To her, you're the man who turned against his own people. And I am the teacher who gave her the power of a small god."

"And then plotted to kill her," Otah said, but he knew this battle was lost. Maati was right: neither of them had the power here. The poet and her andat were their masters whether he liked it or not. She could dictate any terms she wished, and Maati was important to her in a way that Otah himself was not.

It was a meeting with the potential to end the world or save it. He would have given it to a stranger before he trusted it to Maati.

"What are you going to tell her?" Ana asked. Her voice sounded hungry. Weeks-months now-Ana had been living in shadows, and here was the chance to make herself whole.

"I'll apologize," Maati said. "I'll explain that the andat manipulated us, playing on our fears. Then, if Vanjit will allow it, I'll have Eiah brought so that she can offer her apologies as well."

Eiah, standing where Otah could see her face, lifted her chin as if something had caught her attention. Something ghosted across her facealarm or incredulity-and then was gone. She became a statue of herself, a mask. She had no more faith in Maati than he did. And, to judge from her silence, no better idea of what to do either.

"She has killed thousands of innocent people," Otah said. "She's crippled women she had numbered among her friends. Are you sure that apologizing is entirely appropriate?"

"What would you have me do?" Maati asked, his hands taking a pose that was both query and challenge. "Should I go to her swinging accusations? Should I tell her she's not safe and never will be?"

The voice that answered was Idaan's.

"There's nothing you can say to her. She's gone mad, and you talk about her as if she weren't. Whatever words you use, she's going to hear what she wants. You might just as well send her a puppet and let her speak both parts."

"You don't know her," Maati said, his face flushing. "You've never met her."

"I've been her," Idaan said dismissively as she walked down the steps to the now-crowded quay. "Give her what she wants if you'd like. It's never made her well before, and it won't make her well now."

"What would you advise?" Otah asked.

"She'll be distracted," Idaan said. "Go in with a bowman. Put an arrow in the back of her head just where the spine touches it."

"No," Maati shouted.

"No," Eiah said. "Even if killing her is the right thing, think of the risk. If she suspects, she can always lash out, and we haven't got any protection against her."

"There doesn't need to be anyone there for her to be suspicious," Idaan said. "If she's frightened by shadows, the end is just as bloody."

"So we're giving up on Galt," Ana said. Her voice was flat. "I listen to all of you, and the one thing I never hear mentioned is all the people who've died because they happened to be like me."

Maati stepped forward, taking the girl's hand. Otah, watching her, didn't believe she needed comfort. It wasn't pain or sorrow in her expression. It was resolve.

"They don't think they can move her to mercy," Maati said. "I will do everything I can, Ana-cha. I'll swear to anything you like that I will-"

"Take me with you," Ana said. "I'm no threat to her, and I can speak for Galt. I'm the only one here who can do that."

Her orders were met by silence until Idaan made a sound that was equally laughter and cough.

"She told me to come alone," Maati said. "If she sees me leading a blind Galt to her-"

"Vanjit has the right to see her mistakes," Otah said. "She's done this. She should look at it. We all should look at what we've done to come here."

Maati looked at him as if seeing him for the first time. There was a deep confusion in the old poet's face. Otah took a pose that asked a favor between equals. As a friend to a friend.

"Take Ana," Otah said.

Maati's jaw worked as if he were chewing possible replies.

"No," he said.

Otah took a pose that was at once a query and an opportunity for Maati to recant. Maati shook his head.

"I have trusted you, Otah-kvo. Since we were boys, I have had to come to you with everything, and when you weren't there, I tried to imagine what you might have done. And this time, you are wrong. I know it."

"Maati-"

"Trust me," Maati hissed. "For once in your life trust me. Ana-cha must not go."

Otah's mouth opened, but no words came forth. Maati stood before him, his breath fast as a boy's who had just run a race or jumped from a high cliff into the sea. Maati had defied Otah. He had betrayed him. He had never in their long history refused him.

For a moment, Otah felt as if they were boys again. He saw in Maati the balled fists and jutting chin of a small child standing against an older one, the bone-deep fear mixed with a sudden, surprising pride in his own unexpected courage. And in Otah's own breast, an answering sorrow and even shame.

He took a pose that acknowledged Maati's decision. The poet hesitated, nodded, and walked to the riverside. Idaan leaned close to Ana, whispering all that had happened which the girl could not see. Kiyan-kya- Sunset isn't on us yet, but it will be soon. Maati is sulking, I think. Everyones frightened, but none of us has the courage to say it. I take that back. Idaan isn't afraid. Just after Maati refused to take Ana Dasin with him to this thrice-damned meeting, Idaan came to me and said that she was fairly certain that if Vanjit kills us all, she'll die of starvation herself within the year. Uanjit's hunting ability hasn't impressed her, and Idaan has a way of finding comfort in strange places. Nothing has ever come out the way I expected, love. It seemed so simple. T' e had men who could sire a child, they had women who could bear. And instead, I am sending the least reliable man I know to save everything and everyone by talking a madwoman into sanity. If I could find any way not to do this, I'd take it. I appealed to what Maati and I once were to each other when I tried to convince him to accept Ana's company. It was more than half a lie. In truth I can't say I know this man. The boy I knew in Saraykeht and the man we knew in Machi has become a stew of bitterness and blind optimism. He wants the past back, and no sacrifice is too high. I wonder if he never saw the weakness and injustice and rot at the heart of the old ways, or if he's only forgotten them. If I had it all to do again, I'd have done it differently. I'd have married you sooner. I'd never have gone north, and Idaan and Adrah could have taken Machi and had all this on their heads instead of my own. Only then we'dhave been in Udun, you and , and I would have had your company for an even shorter time. There is no winning this game. I suppose it's best that we can only play it through once. You wouldn't like what's become of Udun. I don't like it. I remember Sinja saying that he kept your wayhouse safe during the sack, but I haven't had the heart to go and look. The river still has its beauty. The birds still have their song. They'll still be here when the rest q f us are gone. I miss Sinja. There's something I'm trying to tell you, love. It's taking me more time than I'd expected to work up the courage. We all know it. Even Maati, even Ana, even Eiah. None of us can speak the words; not even me. You're the only one I can say this to, because, I suppose, you've already died and so you're safe from it. Love. Oh, love. This meeting is all we can do, and it isn't going to work.

Maati left in twilight. The stars shone in the East, the darkness rising up like a black dawn as the western sky fell from blue to gold, from gold to gray. Birdsong changed from the trills and complaints of the day to the low cooing and complexities of the night. The river seemed to exhale, and its breath was green and rotting and cold. Maati had a small pack at his side. In the light of the failing day and the flickering orange of the torches, he looked older than Otah felt, and Otah felt ancient.

He tried to see something familiar in Maati's eyes. He tried to see the boy he'd gone drinking with in dark, lush Saraykeht, but that child was gone. Both of those children.

"I will do my best, Otah-kvo," Maati said.

Otah bit back his first reply, and then his second.

"Tomorrow's going to be a very different day, Maati-cha," Otah said. Maati nodded. After so much and so long, there should have been more. Sinja appeared for a moment in the back of Otah's mind. There had been no last good-bye for him. If this was to be the ending between the two of them, Otah thought he should say something. He should make this parting unlike the others that had come before. "I'm sorry it's come to this."

Maati took a pose that agreed but kept the meaning as imprecise as Otah had. One of the armsmen called out, pointing at the looming threat of the Khai Udun's palaces. In a wide window precisely above the river, a light had appeared, glittering like gold. Like a fallen star.

Ana and Danat were in a corner of the quay, their arms wrapped around each other. Idaan stood among the armsmen, her expression grim. Eiah sat alone by the water, listening. Otah saw Maati's gaze linger on her with something like sorrow.

With a lantern in his unsteady hand, Maati walked off along the ruined streets that ran beside the river. Otah guessed it would take him half a hand to reach the palaces.

"All right," Idaan said. "He's gone."

Otah turned to look at her, some pale attempt at wit on his lips, and saw that the comment hadn't been meant for him. Idaan crouched beside Eiah. His daughter's face was turned toward nothing, but her hands were digging through the physician's satchel. Danat glanced at Otah, confusion in his eyes. Eiah started drawing flat stones from her bag and laying them gently on the flagstones before her.

No, he was wrong. Not stones, but triangles of broken wax. The contents of old, broken tablets with symbols and words inscribed on them in Eiah's hand.

"You could try being of help," Idaan said and gestured toward the shards at his daughter's knees. "There's a piece that goes right here I haven't been able to find."

"You did enough," Eiah said, her hands shifting quickly, fitting the breaks together. Already the wax was taking the shape of five separate squares, the characters coming together. "Just going to the campsite and bringing back the bits you did was more than I could have asked."

"What is this?" Otah asked, though he already knew.

"My work," Eiah said. "My binding. I hoped I'd have time. Before we actually came across Vanjit-cha, there was the chance she was spying on us. She'd always planned to kill me by distracting me during the binding. But now, and for I think at least the next hand and a half, her attention is going to be on Maati-kvo. So…"

Idaan shook her head, clearing some thought away, and gestured to the captain of the guard.

"We'll need light," she said. "Eiah may be able to work puzzles in the dark, but I'm better if I can see what I'm doing."

"I thought you couldn't do this," Otah said, kneeling.

"Well, I haven't managed it yet," Eiah said with a wry smile. "On the other hand, I've studied to be a physician. Holding things in memory isn't so difficult, once you've had the practice. And there's enough here, I think, to guide me through it, no matter what Maati-kvo believes."

Idaan made a low grunt of pleasure, reached across Eiah and shifted a stray chunk of wax into place. Eiah's fingers caressed the new join, and she nodded to herself. Armsmen brought the wild, flickering light close, the waxwork lettering seeming to breathe in the shadows.

"Maati's warnings," Otah said. "You can't know what will happen if you pit your andat against hers."

"I won't have to," Eiah said. "I've thought this through, Papa-kya. I know what I'm doing. There was another section. It was almost square with one corner missing. Can anyone see that?"

"Check the satchel," Idaan said as Otah plucked the piece from the hem of Eiah's robe. He pressed it into her hand. Her fingertips traced its surface before she placed it at the bottom of the second almost-formed tablet. Her smile was gentler than he'd seen from her since he'd walked into the wayhouse. He touched her cheek.

"Maati doesn't know you're doing this, then?" Otah asked.

"We didn't think we'd ask him," Idaan said. "No disrespect to Eiahcha, but that man's about half again as cracked as his poet."

"No, he isn't mad," Eiah said, her hands never slowing their dance across the face of the broken tablets. "He's just not equal to the task he set himself. He always meant well."

"And I'm sure the two dozen remaining Galts will feel better because of it," Idaan said acidly. And then, in a gentler voice, "It doesn't matter what story you tell yourself, you know. We've done what we've done."

"I wish you would stop that," Eiah said.

Idaan's surprise was clear on her face, and apparently in her silence as well. Eiah shook her head and went on, her tone damning and conversational.

"Every third thing you say is an oblique reference to killing my grandfather. We all know you did the thing, and we all know you regret it. None of this is anything to do with that. Papa-kya and Maati love each other and they hate each other, and it doesn't pertain either. Maati's overwhelmed by the consequences of misjudging Vanjit, and he might not be if he weren't hauling Nayiit and Sterile and Seedless along behind him."

Idaan looked like she'd been slapped. The armsmen were crowded so close, Otah could hear the low flutter of the torches burning, but the men pretended not to have heard.

"The past doesn't matter," Eiah said. "A hundred years ago or last night, it's all just as gone. I have a binding to work, and I'd like to make the attempt before Vanjit blinds Maati and walks him off something tall. I think we have something like half a hand."

They worked together in silence, three pairs of hands putting the wax into place quickly. There were still sections missing, and some parts of the tablets were shattered so thoroughly that Eiah's markings were all but lost. His daughter passed her fingertips slowly over each of the surfaces, her brow furrowed, her lips moving as if reciting something under her breath. Whether it was the binding or a prayer, Otah couldn't guess.

Idaan leaned close to Otah, her breath a warm and whispering breeze against his ear.

"She takes the tact from her mother's side, I assume?"

His tension and fear gave the words a hilarity they didn't deserve, and he fought to contain his laughter. The quay was dark around them; the torches kept his eyes from adapting to the darkness. It was as if the world had narrowed to a few feet of lichen-slicked flagstone, a single unshuttered window in the distance, and countless, endless, unnumbered stars.

"All right," Eiah said. "I can't be disturbed while I do this. If we could have the armsmen set up a guard formation? It would be in keeping with my luck to have a stray boar stumble into us at the wrong moment."

The captain didn't wait for Otah's approval. The men shifted, Idaan and Danat with them. Only Otah stayed. As if she saw him there, Eiah took a querying pose.

"You may die from this," he said.

"I'm aware of it," she said. "It doesn't matter. I have to try. And I think you have to let me."

"I do," Otah agreed. Smiling, she looked young.

"I love you too, Papa-kya."

"May I sit with you?" he asked. "I don't want to distract you, but it would be a favor."

He brushed the back of her hand with his fingertips. She took him by the sleeve of his robe and pulled him down to sit beside her. The fingers of her left hand laced with his right. For a moment, the only sounds were the gentle lapping of the river against the stone, the diminished hush of torch fire, the cooing of owls. Eiah leaned forward, her fingertips on the first tablet. Otah let go, and both of her hands caressed the wax. She began to chant.

The words were only words. He recognized a few of them, some phrases. Her voice went out on the cool night air as she moved slowly across each of the shattered tablets. When she reached the end, she went back to the beginning.

Though there were no walls or cliffs to sound against, her voice began first to resonate and then to echo.