A Betrayal in Winter

"If it is the upstart behind it all, it's a poor thing for Machi," the older man said. "None of the trading houses would know him or trust him. None of the families of the utkhaiem would have ties to him. Even if he's simply never found, the new Khai will always he watching over his shoulder. It isn't good to have an uncertain line in the Khai's chair. The best thing that could happen for the city would be to find him and put a knife through his belly. Him, and any children he's got meantime."

Otah smiled because it was what a courier of House Siyanti would do. The younger man sniffed and sipped his bowl of tea. The woman shrugged, the motion setting small waves across the water.

"It might do us well to have someone new running the city," she said. "It's clear enough that nothing will change with either of the two choices we have now. Biitrah. He at least was interested in mechanism. The Galts have been doing more and more with their little devices, and we'd be fools to ignore what they've managed."

"Children's toys," the older man said, waving the thought away.

"Toys that have made them the greatest threat Eddensea and the Westlands have seen," the younger man said. "Their armies can move faster than anyone else's. There isn't a warden who hasn't felt the bite of them. If they haven't been invaded, they've had to offer tribute to the Lords Convocate, and that's just as bad."

"The ward being sacked might disagree," Otah said, trying for a joke to lighten the mood.

"The problem with the Galts," the woman said, "is they can't hold what they take. Every year it's another raid, another sack, another fleet carrying slaves and plunder back to Galt. But they never keep the land. They'd have much more money if they stayed and ruled the Westlands. Or Eymond. Or Eddensea."

"Then we'd have only them to trade with," the younger man said. "That'd be ugly."

"The Galts don't have the andat," the older man said, and his tone carried the rest: they don't have the andat, so they are not worth considering.

"But if they did," Otah said, hoping to keep the subject away from himself and his family. "Or if we did not-"

"If the sky dives into the sea, we'll be fishing for birds," the older man said. "It's this Otah Machi who's uneasing things. I have it on good authority that Danat and Kaiin have actually called a truce between them until they can rout out the traitor."

"Traitor?" Otah asked. "I hadn't heard that of him."

"There are stories," the younger man said. "Nothing anyone has proved. Six years ago, the Khai fell ill, and for a few days, they thought he might die. Some people suspected poison."

"And hasn't he turned to poison again? Look at Biitrah's death," the younger man said. "And I tell you the Khai Machi hasn't been himself since then, not truly. Even if Otah were to claim the chair, it'd be better to punish him for his crimes and raise up one of the high families."

"It could have been had fish," the woman said. "There was a lot of bad fish that year."

"No one believes that," the older man said.

"Which of the others would be best for the city now that Biitrah is gone?" Otah asked.

The older man named Kaiin, and the younger man and woman Danat, in the same moment, the syllables grinding against each other in the warm, damp air, and they immediately fell to debate. Kaiin was a master negotiator; Danat was better thought of by the utkhaiem. Kaiin was prone to fits of temper, Danat to weeks of sloth. Each man, to hear it, was a paragon of virtue and little better than a street thug. Otah listened, interjected comments, asked questions crafted to keep the conversation alive and on its course. His mind was hardly there.

When at last he made his excuses, the three debaters hardly paused in their wrangle. Otah dried himself by a brazier and collected his robes-laundered now, smelling of cedar oil and warm from the kiln. The streets were fuller than when he had gone into the bathhouse. The sun would fall early, disappearing behind the peaks to the west long before the sky grew dark, but it still hovered two hands above the mountainous horizon.

Otah walked without knowing where he was walking to. The black cobbles and tall houses seemed familiar and exotic at the same time. The towers rose into the sky, glowing in the sunlight. At the intersection of three large streets, Otah found a courtyard with a great stone archway inlaid with wood and metal sigils of chaos and order. Harsh forge smoke from the east mixed with the greasy scent of a cart seller's roasting duck and, for a moment, Otah was possessed by the memory of being a child no more than four summers old. The smoke scent wove with the taste of honeybread nearly too hot to eat, the clear open view of the valley and mountains from the top of the towers, and a woman's skin-mother or sister or servant. There was no way to know.

It was a ghost memory, strong and certain as stone, but without a place in his life. Something had happened, once, that tied all these senses together, but it was gone and he would never have it. He was upstart and traitor. Poisoner and villain. None of it was true, but it made for an interesting story to tell in the teahouses and meeting rooms-a variation on the theme of fratricide that the Khaiem replayed in every generation. A deep fatigue pressed into him. He had been an innocent to think that he might be forgotten, that Otah Machi might escape the venomous speculation of the traders and merchants, high families and low townsmen. There was no use for truth when spectacle was at issue. And there was nothing in the city that could matter less than the halfrecalled memories of a courier's abandoned childhood. The life he'd built mattered less than ashes to these people. His death would be a relief to them.

He returned to House Nan just as the stars began to glimmer in the deep northern sky. There was fresh bread and pepper-baked lamb, distilled rice wine and cold water. The other men who were to share his room joined him at the table, and they laughed and joked, traded information and gossip from across the world. Otah slid back comfortably into Itani Noygu, and his smiles came more easily as the night wore on, though a cold core remained in his breast. It was only just before he went to crawl into his cot that he found the steward, recovered his pouch of letters, and prepared himself.

All the letters were, of course, still sewn shut, but Otah checked the knots. None had been undone so far as he could tell. It would have been a breach of the gentleman's trade to open letters held in trust, and it would have been foolishness to trust to honor. Had House Nan been willing to break trust, that would have been interesting to know as well. He laid them out on his cot, considering.

Letters to the merchant houses and lower families among the utkhaiem were the most common. He didn't carry a letter for the Khai himself-he would have balked at so high a risk-but his work would take him to the palaces. And there were audiences, no doubt, to which he could get an invitation. If he chose, he could go to the Master of Tides and claim business with members of the court. It wouldn't even require stretching the truth very far. He sat in silence, feeling as if there were two men within him.

One wanted nothing more than to embrace the fear and flee to some distant island and be pleased to live wondering whether his brothers would still be searching him out. The other was consumed by an anger that drove him forward, deeper into the city of his birth and the family that had first discarded him and then fashioned a murderer from his memory.

Fear and anger. He waited for the calm third voice of wisdom, but it didn't come. He was left with no better plan than to act as Irani Noygu would have, had he been nothing other than he appeared. When at last he repacked his charges and lay on his cot, he expected that sleep would not come, but it did, and he woke in the morning forgetful of where he was and surprised to find that Kiyan was not in the bed beside him.

The palaces of the Khai were deep within the city, and the gardens around them made it seem more like a walk into some glorious low town than movement into the center of a great city. Trees arched over the walkways, branches bright with new leaves. Birds fluttered past him, reminding him of Udun and the wayhouse he had almost made his home. The greatest tower loomed overhead, dark stone rising up like twenty palaces, one above the other. Otah stopped in a courtyard before the lesser palace of the Master of Tides and squinted up at the great tower, wondering whether he had ever been to the top of it. Wondering whether being here, now, was valor, cowardice, foolishness, or wisdom; the product of anger or fear or the childish drive to show that he could defy them all if he chose.

He gave his name to the servants at the door and was led to an an techamber larger than his apartments back in Udun. A slave girl plucked a lap harp, filling the high air with a sweet, slow tune. He smiled at her and took a pose of appreciation. She returned his smile and nodded, but her fingers never left the strings. The servant, when he came, wore robes of deep red shot with yellow and a silver armband. He took a pose of greeting so brief it almost hadn't happened.

"Irani Noygu. You're Itani Noygu, then? Ah, good. I am Piyun See, the Master of Tides' assistant. He's too busy to see you himself. So House Siyanti has taken an interest in Machi, then?" he said. Otah smiled, though he meant it less this time.

"I couldn't say. I only go where they send me, Piyun-cha."

The assistant took a pose of agreement.

"I had hoped to know the court's schedule in the next week," Otah said. "I have business-"

"With the poet. Yes, I know. He left your name with us. He said we should keep a watch out for you. You're wise to come to us first. You wouldn't imagine the people who simply drift through on the breeze as if the poets weren't members of the court."

Otah smiled, his mouth tasting of fear, his heart suddenly racing. The poet of Machi-Cehmai 'Ivan, his name was-had no reason to know Itani Noygu or expect him. This was a mistake or a trap. If it was a trap, it was sloppy, and if a mistake, dangerous. The lie came to his lips as gracefully as a rehearsed speech.

"I'm honored to have been mentioned. I hadn't expected that he would remember me. But I'm afraid the business I've come on may not be what he had foreseen."

"I wouldn't know," the assistant said as he shifted. "Visiting dignitaries might confide in the Master of Tides, but I'm like you. I follow orders. Now. Let me see. I can send a runner to the library, and if he's there ..."

"Perhaps it would be best if I went to the poet's house," Otah said. "He can find me there when he isn't-"

"Oh, we haven't put him there. Gods! He has his own rooms."

"His own rooms?"

"Yes. We have a poet of our own, you know. We aren't going to put Cehmai-cha on a cot in the granary every time the Dai-kvo sends us a guest. Maati-cha has apartments near the library."

The air seemed to leave the room. A dull roar filled Otah's ears, and he had to put a hand to the wall to keep from swaying. Maati-cha. The name came like an unforeseen blow.

Maati Vaupathai. Maati whom Otah had known briefly at the school, and to whom he had taught the secrets he had learned before he turned his back on the poets and all they offered. Maati whom he had found again in Saraykeht, who had become his friend and who knew that Irani Noygu was the son of the Khai Machi.

The last night they had seen one another-thirteen, fourteen summers ago-Maati had stolen his lover and Otah had killed Maati's master. He was here now, in Machi. And he was looking for Otah. He felt like a deer surprised by the hunter at its side.

The servant girl fumbled with her strings, the notes of the tune coming out a jangle, and Otah shifted his gaze to her as if she'd shouted. For a moment, their eyes met and he saw discomfort in her as she hurried back to her song. She might have seen something in his face, might have realized who was standing before her. Otah balled his fists at his sides, pressing them into his thighs to keep from shaking. The assistant had been speaking. Otah didn't know what he'd said.

"Forgive me, but before we do anything, would you be so kind . . . " Otah feigned an embarrassed simper. "I'm afraid I had one bowl of tea too many this morning, and waters that run in, run out...."

"Of course. I'll have a slave take you to-"

"No need," Otah said as he stepped to the door. No one shouted. No one stopped him. "I'll be back with you in a moment."

He walked out of the hall, forcing himself not to run though he could feel his heartbeat in his neck, and his ribs seemed too small for his breath. He waited for the warning yell to come-armsmen with drawn blades or the short, simple pain of an arrow in his breast. Generations of his uncles had spilled their blood, spat their last breaths perhaps here, under these arches. He was not immune. Irani Noygu would not protect him. He controlled himself as best he could, and when he reached the gardens, boughs shielding him from the eyes of the palaces, he bolted.

IDAAN SAT AT THE OPEN SKY DOORS, HER LEGS HANGING OUT OVER THE VOID, and let her gaze wander the moonlit valley. The glimmers of the low towns to the south. The Daikani mine where her brother had gone to die. The Poinyat mines to the west and southeast. And below the soles of her bare feet, Machi itself: the smoke rising from the forges, the torches and lanterns glimmering in the streets and windows smaller and dimmer than fireflies. The winches and pulleys hung in the darkness above her, long lengths of iron chain in guides and hooks set in the stone, ready to be freed should there be call to haul something tip to the high reaches of the tower or lower something down. Chains that clanked and rattled, uneasy in the night breeze.

She leaned forward, forcing herself to feel the vertigo twist her stomach and tighten her throat. Savoring it. Scoot forward a few inches, no more effort really than standing from a chair, and then the sound of wind would fill her ears. She waited as long as she could stand and then drew hack, gasping and nauseated and trembling. But she did not pull her legs back in. That would have been weakness.

It was an irony that the symbols of Machi's greatness were so little used. In the winter, there was no heating them-all the traffic of the city went in the streets, or over the snows, or through the networks of tunnels. And even in summer, the endless spiraling stairways and the need to haul up any wine or food or musical instruments made the gardens and halls nearer the ground more inviting. The towers were symbols of power, existing to show that they could exist and little enough more. A boast in stone and iron used for storage and exotic parties to impress visitors from the other courts of the Khaiem. And still, they made Idaan think that perhaps she could imagine what it would he to fly. In her way she loved them, and she loved very few things these days.

It was odd, perhaps that she had two lovers and still felt alone. Adrah had been with her for longer, it felt, than she had been herself. And so it had surprised her that she was so ready to betray him in another man's bed. Perhaps she'd thought that by being a new man's lover, she would strip off that old skin and become innocent again.

Or perhaps it was only that Cehmai had a sweet face and wanted her. She was young, she thought, to have given tip flirtation and courtship. She'd been angry with Adrah for embarrassing Cchmai at the dance. She'd promised herself never to be owned by a man. And also, killing Biitrah had left a hunger in her-a need that nothing yet had sated.

She liked Cehmai. She longed for him. She needed him in a way she couldn't quite fathom, except to say that she hated herself less when she was with him.

"Idaan!" a voice whispered from the darkness behind her. "Conic away from there! You'll he seen!"

"Only if you're fool enough to bring a torch," she said, but she pulled her feet hack in from the abyss and hauled the great bronze-bound oaken sky doors shut. For a moment, there was nothing-black darker than closing her eyes-and then the scrape of a lantern's hood and the flame of a single candle. Crates and boxes threw deep shadows on the stone walls and carved cabinets. Adrah looked pale, even in the dim light. Idaan found herself amused and annoyed-pulled between wanting to comfort him and the desire to point out that it wasn't his family they were killing. She wondered if he knew yet that she had taken the poet to bed and whether he would care. And whether she did. He smiled nervously and glanced around at the shadows.

"He hasn't come," Idaan said.

"He will. Don't worry," Adrah said, and then a moment later: "My father has drafted a letter. Proposing our union. He's sending it to the Khai tomorrow."

"Good," Idaan said. "We'll want that in place before everyone finishes dying."

"Don't."

"If we can't speak of it to each other, Adrah-kya, when will we ever? It isn't as if I can go to our friends or the priest." Idaan took a pose of query to some imagined confidant. "Adrah's going to take me as his wife, but it's important that we do it now, so that when I've finished slaughtering my brothers, he can use me to press his suit to become the new Khai without it seeming so clearly that I'm being traded at market. And don't you love this new robe? It's Westlands silk."

She laughed bitterly. Adrah did not step back, quite, but he did pull away.

"What is it, Idaan-kya?" he said, and Idaan was surprised by the pain in his voice. It sounded genuine. "Have I done something to make you angry with me?"

For a moment, she saw herself through his eyes-cutting, ironic, cruel. It wasn't who she had been with him. Once, before they had made this bargain with Chaos, she had had the luxury of being soft and warm. She had always been angry, only not with him. How lost he must feel.

Idaan leaned close and kissed him. For one terrible moment, she meant it-the softness of his lips against hers stirring something within her that cried out to hold and be held, to weep and wail and take com fort. Her flesh also remembered the poet, the strange taste of another man's skin, the illusion of hope and of safety that she'd felt in her betrayal of the man who was destined to share her life.

"I'm not angry, sweet. Only tired. I'm very tired."

"This will pass, Idaan-kya. Remember that this part only lasts a while."

"And is what follows it better?"

He didn't answer.

The candle had hardly burned past another mark when the moonfaced assassin appeared, moving like darkness itself in his back cotton robe. He put down his lantern and took a pose of welcome before dusting a crate with his sleeve and sitting. His expression was pleasant as a fruit seller in a summer market. It only made Idaan like him less.

"So," Oshai said. "You called, I've come. What seems to be the problem?"

She had intended to begin with Maati Vaupathai, but the pretense of passive stupidity in Oshai's eyes annoyed her. Idaan raised her chin and her brows, considering him as she would a garden slave. Adrah looked back and forth between the two. The motion reminded her of a child watching his parents fighting. When she spoke, she had to try not to spit.

"I would know where our plans stand," she said. "My father's ill, and I hear more from Adrah and the palace slaves than from you."

"My apologies, great lady," Oshai said without a hint of irony. "It's only that meetings with you are a risk, and written reports are insupportable. Our mutual friends ..."

"The Galtic High Council," Idaan said, but Oshai continued as if she had not spoken.

". . . have placed agents and letters of intent with six houses. Contracts for iron, silver, steel, copper, and gold. The negotiations are under way, and I expect we will be able to draw them out for most of the summer, should we need to. When all three of your brothers die, you will have been wed to Adrah, and between the powerful position of his house, his connection with you, and the influence of six of the great houses whose contracts will suddenly ride on his promotion to Khai, you should be sleeping in your mother's bed by Candles Night."

"My mother never had a bed of her own. She was only a woman, remember. Traded to the Khai for convenience, like a gift."

"It's only an expression, great lady. And remember, you'll be sharing Adrah here with other wives in your turn."

"I won't take others," Adrah said. "It was part of our agreement."

"Of course you won't," Oshai said with a nod and an insincere smile. "My mistake."

Idaan felt herself flush, but kept her voice level and calm when she spoke.

"And my brothers? Danat and Kaiin?"

"They are being somewhat inconvenient, it's true. They've gone to ground. Frightened, I'm told, by your ghost brother Utah. We may have to wait until your father actually dies before they screw up the courage to stand against each other. But when they do, I will be ready. You know all this, Idaan-cha. It can't be the only reason you've asked me here?" The round, pale face seemed to harden without moving. "There had best be something more pressing than seeing whether I'll declaim when told."

"Maati Vaupathai," Idaan said. "The Dai-kvo's sent him to study in the library."

"Hardly a secret," Oshai said, but Idaan thought she read a moment's unease in his eyes.

"And it doesn't concern your owners that this new poet has come for the same prize they want? What's in those old scrolls that makes this worth the risk for you, anyway?"

"I don't know, great lady," the assassin said. "I'm trusted with work of this delicate nature because I don't particularly care about the points that aren't mine to know."

"And the Galts? Are they worried about this Maati Vaupathai poking through the library before them?"

"It's ... of interest," Oshai said, grudgingly.

"It was the one thing you insisted on," Idaan said, stepping toward the man. "When you came to Adrah and his father, you agreed to help us in return for access to that library. And now your price may be going away.

Will your support go, too? The unasked question hung in the chill air. If the Galts could not have what they wanted from Adrah and Idaan and the books of Machi, would the support for this mad, murderous scheme remain? Idaan felt her heart tripping over faster, half hoping that the answer might be no.

"It is the business of a poet to concern himself with ancient texts," Oshai said. "If a poet were to come to Machi and not avail himself of its library, that would be odd. 't'his coincidence of timing is of interest. But it's not yet a cause for alarm."

"He's looking into the death of Biitrah. He's been down to the mines. He's asking questions."

"About what?" Oshai said. The smile was gone.

She told him all she knew, from the appearance of the poet to his interest in the court and high families, the low towns and the mines. She recounted the parties at which he had asked to he introduced, and to whom. The name he kept mentioning-Itani Noygu. 'T'he way in which his interest in the ascension of the next Khai Machi seemed to be more than academic. She ended with the tale she'd heard of his visit to the Daikani mines and to the wayhouse where her brother had died at Oshai's hands. When she was finished, neither man spoke. Adrah looked stricken. Oshai, merely thoughtful. At length, the assassin took a pose of gratitude.

"You were right to call me, Idaan-cha," he said. "I doubt the poet knows precisely what he's looking for, but that he's looking at all is had enough."

"What do we do?" Adrah said. The desperation in his voice made Oshai look up like a hunting dog hearing a bird.

"You do nothing, most high," Oshai said. "Neither you nor the great lady does anything. I will take care of this."

"You'll kill him," Idaan said.

"If it seems the best course, I may...."

Idaan took a pose appropriate to correcting a servant. Oshai's words faded.

"I was not asking, Oshai-cha. You'll kill him."

The assassin's eyes narrowed for a moment, but then something like amusement flickered at the corners of his mouth and the glimmer of candlelight in his eyes grew warmer. He seemed to weigh something in his mind, and then took a pose of acquiescence. Idaan lowered her hands.

"Will there be anything else, most high?" Oshai asked without taking his gaze from her.

"No," Adrah said. "'T'hat will be all."

"Wait half a hand after I've gone," Oshai said. "I can explain myself, and the two of you together borders on the self-evident. All three would be difficult."

And with that, he vanished. Idaan looked at the sky doors. She was tempted to open them again, just for a moment. To see the land and sky laid out before her.

"It's odd, you know," she said. "If I had been born a man, they would have sent me away to the school. I would have become a poet or taken the brand. But instead, they kept me here, and I became what they're afraid of. Kaiin and Danat are hiding from the brother who has broken the traditions and come back to kill them for the chair. And here I am. I am Otah Machi. Only they can't see it."

"I love you, Idaan-kya."

She smiled because there was nothing else to do. He had heard the words, but understood nothing. It would have meant as much to talk to a dog. She took his hand in hers, laced her fingers with his.

"I love you too, Adrah-kya. And I will be happy once we've done all this and taken the chair. You'll be the Khai Machi, and I will be your wife. We'll rule the city together, just as we always planned, and everything will be right again. It's been half a hand by now. We should go."

They parted in one of the night gardens, he to the east and his family compound, and she to the south, to her own apartments, and past them and west to tree-lined path that led to the poet's house. If the shutters were closed, if no light shone but the night candle, she told herself she wouldn't go in. But the lanterns were lit brightly, and the shutters open. She paced quietly through the grounds, peering in through windows, until she caught the sound of voices. Cehmai's soft and reasonable, and then another. A man's, loud and full of a rich selfimportance. Baarath, the librarian. Idaan found a tree with low branches and deep shadows and sat, waiting with as much patience as she could muster, and silently willing the man away. The full moon was halfway across the sky before the two came to the door, silhouetted. Baarath swayed like a drunkard, but Cehmai, though he laughed as loud and sang as poorly, didn't waver. She watched as Baarath took a sloppy pose of farewell and stumbled off along the path. Cehmai watched him go, then looked back into the house, shaking his head.

Idaan rose and stepped out of the shadows.

She saw Cehmai catch sight of her, and she waited. He might have another guest-he might wave her away, and she would have to go back through the night to her own apartments, her own bed. The thought filled her with black dread until the poet put one hand out to her, and with the other motioned toward the light within his house.

Stone-Made-Soft brooded over a game of stones, its massive head cupped in a hand twice the size of her own. The white stones, she noticed, had lost badly. The andat looked up slowly and, its curiosity satisfied, it turned back to the ended game. The scent of mulled wine filled the air. Cehmai closed the door behind her, and then set about fastening the shutters.

"I didn't expect to see you," the poet said.

"Do you want me to leave?"

'T'here were a hundred things he could have said. Graceful ways to say yes, or graceless ways to deny it. He only turned to her with the slightest smile and went back to his task. Idaan sat on a low couch and steeled herself. She couldn't say why she was driven to do this, only that the impulse was much like draping her legs out the sky doors, and that it was what she had chosen to do.

"Daaya Vaunyogi is approaching the Khai tomorrow. He is going to petition that Adrah and I be married."

Cehmai paused, sighed, turned to her. His expression was melancholy, but not sorrowful. He was like an old man, she thought, amused by the world and his own role in it. There was a strength in him, and an acceptance.

"I understand," he said.

"Do You?"

"No.'

"He is of a good house, their bloodlines-"

"And he's well off and likely to oversee his family's house when his father passes. And he's a good enough man, for what he is. It isn't that I can't imagine why he would choose to marry you, or you him. But, given the context, there are other questions."

"I love him," Idaan said. "We have planned to do this for ... we have been lovers for almost two years."

Cehmai sat beside a brazier, and looked at her with the patience of a man studying a puzzle. The coals had burned down to a fine white ash.

"And you've come to be sure I never speak of what happened the other night. To tell me that it can never happen again."

The sense of vertigo returned, her feet held over the abyss.

"No," she said.

"You've come to stay the night?"

"If you'll have me, yes."

The poet looked down, his hands laced together before him. A cricket sang, and then another. The air seemed thin.

"Idaan-kya, I think it might be better if-"

"Then lend me a couch and a blanket. If you ... let me stay here as a friend might. We are friends, at least? Only don't make me go back to my rooms. I don't want to be there. I don't want to be with people and I can't stand being alone. And I ... I like it here."

She took a pose of supplication. Cehmai rose and for a moment she was sure he would refuse. She almost hoped he would. Scoot forward, no more effort than sitting up, and then the sound of wind. But Cehmai took a pose that accepted her. She swallowed, the tightness in her throat lessening.

"I'll be hack. The shutters ... it might be awkward if someone were to happen by and see you here."

"Thank you, Cehmai-kya."

He leaned forward and kissed her mouth, neither passionate nor chaste, then sighed again and went to the back of the house. She heard the rattle of wood as he closed the windows against the night. Idaan looked at her hands, watching them tremble as she might watch a waterfall or a rare bird. An effect of nature, outside herself. The andat shifted and turned to look at her. She felt her brows rise, daring the thing to speak. Its voice was the low rumble of a landslide.

"I have seen generations pass, girl. I've seen young men die of age. I don't know what you are doing, but I know this. It will end in chaos. For him, and for you."

Stone-Made-Soft went silent again, stiller than any real man, not even the pulse of breath in it. She glared into the wide, placid face and took a pose of challenge.

"It that a threat?" she asked.

The andat shook its head once-left, and then right, and then still as if it had never moved in all the time since the world was young. When it spoke again, Idaan was almost startled at the sound.

"It's a blessing," it said.

"WHAT DID HE LOOK LIKE?" MAA'I'I ASKED.

Piyun See, chief assistant to the Master of 'rides, frowned and glanced out the window. The man sensed that he had done something wrong, even if he could not say what it had been. It made him reluctant. Maati sipped tea from a white stone bowl and let the silence stretch.

"A courier. He wore decent robes. He stood half a head taller than you, and had a good face. Long as a north man's."

"Well, that will help me," Maati said. He couldn't keep his impatience entirely to himself.

Piyun took a pose of apology formal enough to be utterly insincere.

"He had two eyes and two feet and one nose, Maati-cha. I thought he was your acquaintance. Shouldn't you know better than I what he looks like?"

"If it is the man."

"He didn't seem pleased to hear you'd been asking after him. He made an excuse and lit out almost as soon as he heard of you. It isn't as if 1 knew that he wasn't to be told of you. I didn't have orders to hold back your name."

"Did you have orders to volunteer me to him?" Maati asked.

"No, but ..."

Maati waved the objection away.

"House Siyanti. You're sure of that?"

"Of course I am."

"How do I reach their compound?"

"They don't have one. House Siyanti doesn't trade in the winter cities. He would be staying at a wayhouse. Or sometimes the houses here will let couriers take rooms."

"So other than the fact that he came, you can tell me nothing," Maati said.

This time the pose of apology was more sincere. Frustration clamped Maati's jaw until his teeth hurt, but he forced himself into a pose that thanked the assistant and ended the interview. Piyun See left the small meeting room silently, closing the door behind him.

Otah was here, then. He had come back to Machi, using the same name he had had in Saraykeht. And that meant ... Maati pressed his fingertips to his eyes. That meant nothing certain. That he was here suggested that Biitrah's death was his work, but as yet it was only a sug gestion. He doubted that the Dai-kvo or the Khai Machi would see it that way. His presence was as much as proof to them, and there was no way to keep it secret. Piyun See was no doubt spreading the gossip across the palaces even now-the visiting poet and his mysterious courier. He had to find Otah himself, and he had to do it now.

He straightened his robes and stalked out to the gardens, and then the path that would lead him to the heart of the city. He would begin with the teahouses nearest the forges. It was the sort of place couriers might go to drink and gossip. There might be someone there who would know of House Siyanti and its partners. He could discover whether Irani Noygu had truly been working for Siyanti. That would bring him one step nearer, at least. And there was nothing more he could think of to do now.

The streets were busy with children playing street games with rope and sticks, with beggars and slaves and water carts and firekeepers' kilns, with farmers' carts loaded high with spring produce or lambs and pigs on their way to the fresh butcher. Voices jabbered and shouted and sang, the smells of forge smoke and grilling meat and livestock pressed like a fever. The city seemed busy as an anthill, and Maati's mind churned as he navigated his way through it all. Otah had come to the winter cities. Was he killing his brothers? Had he chosen to become the Khai Machi?

And if he had, would Maati have the strength to stop him?

He told himself that he could. He was so focused and among so many distractions that he almost didn't notice his follower. Only when he found what looked like a promising alley-hardly more than a shoulderwide crack between two long, tall buildings-did he escape the crowds long enough to notice. The sound of the street faded in the dim twilight that the band of sky above him allowed. A rat, surprised by him, scuttled through an iron grating and away. The thin alley branched, and Maati paused, looked down the two new paths, and then glanced back. The path behind him was blocked. A dark cloak, a raised hood, and shoulders so broad they touched both walls. Maati hesitated, and the man behind him didn't move. Maati felt the skin at the back of his neck tighten. He picked one turning of the alleyway and walked down it briskly until the dark figure reached the intersection as well and turned after him. Then Maati ran. The alley spilled out into another street, this less populous. The smoke of the forges made the air acrid and hazy. Maati raced toward them. There would be men there-smiths and tradesmen, but also firekeepers and armsmen.

When he reached the mouth where the street spilled out onto a major throughway, he looked back. The street behind him was empty. His steps slowed, and he stopped, scanning the doorways, the rooftops. There was nothing. His pursuer-if that was what he had been-had vanished. Maati waited there until he'd caught his breath, then let himself laugh. No one was coming. No one had followed. It was easy to see how a man could be eaten by his fears. He turned to the metalworkers' quarter.

The streets widened here, with shops and stalls facing out, filled with the tools of the metal trades as much as their products. The forges and smith's houses were marked by the greened copper roofs, the pillars of smoke, the sounds of yelling voices and hammers striking anvils. The businesses around them-sellers of hammers and tongs, suppliers of ore and wax blocks and slaked lime-all did their work loudly and expansively, waving hands in mock fury and shouting even when there was no call to. Maati made his way to a teahouse near the center of the district where sellers and workers mixed. He asked after House Siyanti, where their couriers might be found, what was known of them. The brown poet's robes granted him an unearned respect, but also wariness. It was three hands before he found an answer-the overseer of a consortium of silversmiths had had word from House Siyanti. The courier had said the signed contracts could be delivered to House Nan, but only after they'd been sewn and sealed. Maati gave the man two lengths of silver and his thanks and had started away before he realized he would also need better directions. An older man in a red and yellow robe with a face round and pale as the moon overheard his questions and offered to guide him there.

"You're Maati Vaupathai," the moon-faced man said as they walked. "I've heard about you."

"Nothing scandalous, I hope," Maati said.

"Speculations," the man said. "The Khaiem run on gossip and wine more than gold or silver. My name is Oshai. It's a pleasure to meet a poet."

They turned south, leaving the smoke and cacophony behind them. As they stepped into a smaller, quieter street, Maati looked back, half expecting to see the looming figure in the dark robes. There was nothing.

"Rumor has it you've come to look at the library," Oshai said.

"That's truth. The Da]-kvo sent me to do research for him."

"Pity you've come at such a delicate time. Succession. It's never an easy thing."

"It doesn't affect me," Maati said. "Court politics rarely reach the scrolls on the back shelves."

"I hear the Khai has books that date back to the Empire. Before the war.

"He does. Some of them are older than the copies the Dai-kvo has. Though, in all, the Dai-kvo's libraries are larger."

"He's wise to look as far afield as he can, though," Oshai said. "You never know what you might find. Was there something in particular he expected our Khai to have?"

"It's complex," Maati said. "No offense, it's just ..."

Oshai smiled and waved the words away. There was something odd about his face-a weariness or an emptiness around his eyes.

"I'm sure there are many things that poets know that I can't comprehend," the guide said. "Here, there's a faster way down through here."

Oshai moved forward, taking Maati by the elbow and leading him down a narrow street. The houses around them were poorer than those near the palaces or even the metalworkers' quarter. Shutters showed the splinters of many seasons. The doors on the street level and the second-floor snow doors both tended to have cheap leather hinges rather than worked metal. Few people were on the street, and few windows open. Oshai seemed perfectly at ease despite his heightened pace so Maati pushed his uncertainty away.

"I've never been in the library myself," Oshai said. "I've heard impressive things of it. The power of all those minds, and all that time. It isn't something that normal men can easily conceive."

"I suppose not," Maati said, trotting to keep up. "Forgive me, Oshai- cha, but are we near House Nan?"

"We won't be going much further," his guide said. "Just around this next turning."

But when they made the turn, Maati found not a trading house's compound, but a small courtyard covered in flagstone, a dry cistern at its center. The few windows that opened onto the yard were shuttered or empty. Maati stepped forward, confused.

"Is this ...... he began, and Oshai punched him hard in the belly. Maati stepped back, surprised by the attack, and astounded at the man's strength. Then he saw the blade in the guide's hand, and the blood on it. Maati tried to hack away, but his feet caught the hem of his robe. Oshai's face was a grimace of delight and hatred. He seemed to jump forward, then stumbled and fell.

When his hands-out before him to catch his fall-touched the ground, the flagstone splashed. Oshai's hands vanished to the wrist. For a moment that seemed to last for days, Maati and his attacker both stared at the ground. Oshai began to struggle, pulling with his shoulders to no effect. Maati could hear the fear in the muttered curses. The pain in his belly was lessening, and a warmth taking its place. He tried to gather himself, but the effort was such that he didn't notice the darkrobed figures until they were almost upon him. 'l'he larger one had thrown back its hood and the wide, calm face of the andat considered him. The other form-smaller, and more agitated-knelt and spoke in Cehmai's voice.

"Maati-kvo! You're hurt."

"Be careful!" Maati said. "He's got a knife."

Cehmai glanced at the assassin struggling in the stone and shook his head. The poet looked very young, and yet familiar in a way that Maati hadn't noticed before. Intelligent, sure of himself. Maati was struck by an irrational envy of the boy, and then noticed the blood on his own hand. He looked down, and saw the wetness blackening his robes. There was so much of it.

"Can you walk?" Cehmai said, and Maati realized it wasn't the first time the question had been asked. He nodded.

"Only help me up," he said.

The younger poet took one arm and the andat the other and gently lifted him. The warmth in Maati's belly was developing a profound ache in its center. He pushed it aside, walked two steps, then three, and the world seemed to narrow. He found himself on the ground again, the poet leaning over him.

"I'm going for help," Cehmai said. "Don't move. Don't try to move. And don't die while I'm gone."

Maati tried to raise his hands in a pose of agreement, but the poet was already gone, pelting down the street, shouting at the top of his lungs. Maati rolled his head to one side to see the assassin struggling in vain and allowed himself a smile. A thought rolled through his mind, elusive and dim, and he shook himself, willing a lucidity he didn't possess. It was important. Whatever it was bore the weight of terrible significance. If he could only bring himself to think it. It had something to do with Otah-kvo and all the thousand times Maati had imagined their meeting. The andat sat beside him, watching him with the impassive distance of a statue, and Maati didn't know that he intended to speak to it until he heard his own words.

"It isn't Otah-kvo," he said. The andat shifted to consider the captive trapped by stone, then turned back.

"No," it agreed. "Too old."

"No," Maati said, struggling. "I don't mean that. I mean he wouldn't do this. Not to me. Not without speaking to me. It isn't him."

The andat frowned and shook its massive head.

"I don't understand."

"If I die," Maati said, forcing himself to speak above a whisper, "you have to tell Cehmai. It isn't Otah-kvo that did this. There's someone else."