Part 58 (1/2)

'Yes,' Otah said. 'I came . . . I came when I heard.'

'I am afraid Sinja will have to do without my aid,' Balasar said, his voice ironic and bleak. 'It seems I'll be in no condition to sail.'

Otah leaned against the window's ledge, his shadow falling over Balasar. The general turned toward him. His voice was banked rage, his expression impotence.

'Did you know, Otah? Did you know what they were doing?'

'This wasn't my doing,' Otah said. 'I swear that.'

'My life was taking your G.o.d-ghosts out of the world. I thought we'd done it. Even after what you b.a.s.t.a.r.ds did to me, to all of us, I was content trying to make peace. I lost my men to it, and I lived with that because the loss meant something. However desperate the cost, at least we'd be rid of the f.u.c.king andat. And now . . .'

Balasar struck the table with an open palm, the report like stone breaking. Otah lifted his hands toward a pose that offered comfort, and then stopped and let his arms fall to his sides.

'I'm sorry,' Otah said. 'I will send my best agents to find the new poet and resolve this. Until then, all of you will be cared for and-'

Balasar's laughter was a bark.

'Where do I begin, Most High? We will all be cared for? Do you really think this has only happened to the Galts who came to your filthy city? I will wager any odds you like that everyone back home is suffering the same things we are. How many fishermen were on their boats when it happened? How many people were traveling the roads? You could no more care for all of us than pluck the moon out of the sky.'

'I'm sorry for that,' Otah said. 'Once we've found the poet and talked to . . .' He stumbled on his words, caught between the expected him and the more likely her.

Balasar gestured to him, palms up as if displaying something small and obvious.

'If it wasn't your pet andat that did this, then what hope do you have of resolving anything?' Balasar asked. 'They may have left you your sight for the moment, but there's nothing you can do. It's the andat. There's no defense. There's no counterattack that means anything. Gather your armsmen. Take to the field. Then come back and die beside us. You can do nothing.'

This is my daughter's work, Otah thought but didn't say. I can hope that she still loves me enough to listen.

'You've never felt this,' Balasar said. 'The rest of us? The rest of the world? We know what it is to be faced with the andat. You can't end this. You can't even negotiate. You have no standing now. The best you can do is beg.'

'Then I will beg,' Otah said.

'Enjoy that,' Balasar said, sitting back in his chair. It was like watching a showfighter collapse at the end of a match. The vitality, the anger, the violence snuffed out, and the general was only a small Galtic man with crippled eyes, waiting for some kind soul to take away the remains of his uneaten meal. Otah rose and walked quietly from the room.

All through the city, the scenes were playing out. Men and women who had been well the night before were in states of rage and despair. They blundered into the unfamiliar streets, screaming, swinging whatever weapon came to hand at anyone who tried to help them. Or else they wept. Or, like Balasar, folded in upon themselves. The last was the most terrible.

Balasar had been only the first stop in Otah's long, painful morning journey. He'd meant to call on each of the high councillors, to promise his efforts at restoration and the best of care until then. The general had spoiled the plan. Otah did see two more men, made the same declarations. Neither of the others scoffed, but Otah could see that his words rang as hollow as a gourd.

Instead of the third councillor, Otah went back to his palaces. He prayed as he walked that some message would have come from Idaan. None had. Instead, his audience chambers were filled with the utkhaiem, some in fine robes hastily thrown on, others still in whatever finery they had slept in. The sound of their voices competing one over another was louder than surf and as incomprehensible. Everywhere he walked, their eyes turned toward him. Otah walked with a grave countenance, his spine as straight as he could keep it. He greeted the shock and the fear with the same equanimity as the expressions of joy.

There was more joy than he had expected. More than he had hoped. The andat had come back to the world, and the Galts made to suffer, and that was somehow a cause to celebrate. Otah didn't respond to those calls, but he did begin a mental catalog of who precisely was laughing, who weeping. Someday, he told himself, someday the best of these men and women would be rewarded, the worst left behind. Only he didn't know how.

In his private rooms, the servants fluttered like moths. No schedules were right, no plans were made. Orders from the Master of Tides contradicted the instructions from the Master of Keys, and neither allowed for what the guards and armsmen said they needed to do. Otah built his own fire in the grate, lighting it from the stub of a candle, and let raw chaos reign about him.

Danat found him there, looking into the fire. His son's eyes were wide, but his shoulders hadn't yet sagged. Otah took a pose of welcome and Danat crouched before him.

'What are you doing, Papa-kya,' Danat said. 'You're just sitting here?'

'I'm thinking,' Otah said, aware as he did so how weak the words sounded.

'They need you. You have to gather the high utkhaiem. You have to tell them what's going on.'

He looked at his son. The strong face, the sincere eyes the same rich brown as Kiyan's had been. He would have made a good emperor. Better than Otah had. He took his boy's hand.

'The fleet is doomed,' Otah said. 'Galt is broken. These new poets, wherever they are, no longer answer to the Empire. What would you have me say?'

'That,' Danat said. 'If nothing else, say that. Say what everyone knows is true. How can that be wrong?'

'Because I have nothing to say after it,' Otah said. 'I don't know what to do. I don't have an answer.'

'Then tell them that we're thinking of one,' Danat said.

Otah sat silent, his hands on his knees, and let the fire in the grate fill his eyes. Danat shook his shoulder with a sound that was part frustration and part plea. When Otah couldn't find a response, Danat stood, took a pose that ended an audience, and strode out. The young man's impatience lingered in the air like incense.

There had been a time when Otah had been possessed of the certainty of youth. He had held the fate of nations in his hands, and done what needed doing. He had killed. Somewhere the years had pressed it out of him. Danat would see the same complexity, futility, and sorrow, given time. He was young. He wasn't tired yet. His world was still simple.

Servants came, and Otah turned them away. He considered going to his desk, writing another of his letters to Kiyan, but the effort of it was too much. He thought of Sinja, riding the swift autumn waves outside Chaburi-Tan and waiting for aid that would never come. Would he know? Were there Galts enough among his crew to guess what had happened?

The world was so large and so complex, it was almost impossible to believe that it could collapse so quickly. Idaan had been right again. All the problems that had plagued him were meaningless in the face of this.

Eiah. Maati. The people he had failed. They had taken the world from him. Well, perhaps they'd have a better idea what to do with it. And if a few hundred or a few thousand Galts died, there was nothing Otah could do to save them. He was no poet. He could have been. One angry, rootless boy's decision differently made, and everything would have been different.

A servant woman came and took away a tray of untouched food that Otah hadn't known was there. The pine branches in the grate were all ashes now. The sun was almost at the height of its day's arc. Otah rubbed his eyes and only then recognized the sound that had drawn him from his reverie. Trumpets and bells. Callers' voices ringing out over the palaces, over the city, over sea and sky and everything in it. A p.r.o.nouncement was to be made, and all men and women of the utkhaiem were called to hear it.

He made his way through the back halls, set like stagecraft, that allowed him to appear at the appropriate ritual moment. What few servants there were bent themselves almost double in poses of obeisance as he pa.s.sed. Otah ignored them.

A side hall, almost too narrow for a man to walk down, took him to a hidden seat. Years before, it had been a place where the Khai Saraykeht could watch entertainments without being seen. Now it was Otah's own. He looked down upon the hall. It was packed so thickly there was no room to sit. The cus.h.i.+ons meant to allow people to take their rest were all being trampled underfoot. Whisperers had to fight to hold their positions. And among the bright robes and jeweled head-dresses of the utkhaiem, there were also the tunics and gray, empty eyes of Galts come to hear what was said. He saw them and thought of an old dream he'd had of Heshai, the poet he had once killed, attending a dinner though still very much dead. Corpses walked among the utkhaiem. Balasar was not among them.

Silence took the hall as if someone had cupped his hands over Otah's ears, and he turned toward the dais. His son stood there, his robe the pale of mourning.

'My friends,' Danat said. 'There is little I can say which you do not already know. Our brothers and sisters of Galt have been struck. The only plausible cause is this: a new poet has been trained, a new andat has been bound, and, against all wisdom, it has been used first as a weapon.'

Danat paused as the whisperers repeated his words out through the wide galleries and, no doubt, into the streets.

'The fleet is in peril,' Danat continued. 'Chaburi-Tan placed at risk. We do not know who the poet is that has done this thing. We cannot trust that they will be as quick to blind our enemies as they have our friends. We cannot trust that they will undo the damage they have caused to our new allies. Our new families. And so my father has asked me to find this new poet and kill him.'

Otah's fingers pressed against the carved stone until his joints ached. His chest ached with dread. He doesn't know, Otah wanted to shout. His sister is part of this, and he does not know it. He shook and kept silent. There was only the swelling roar of the people, the whisperers shouting above it, and his son standing proud and still, shoulders set.

'There are some among us who look upon what has happened today as a moment of hope. They believe that the andat returned to the world marks the end of our hard times. With all respect, it marks their beginning, and neither I nor . . .'

Otah turned away, pus.h.i.+ng his way down the narrow hall, afraid to let his hands leave the stone for fear he should lose his balance. In the dim hallways, he gathered himself. He had expected shame. Seeing Danat speaking as he himself could not, he thought that he would feel shame. He didn't. There was only anger.

The first servant he found, he grabbed by the sleeve and spun halfway around. The woman started to shout at him, then saw who he was, saw his face, and went pale.

'Whatever you were doing, stop it,' Otah said. 'Find me the Master of Tides. Bring her to my rooms. Do it now.'

She might have taken a pose that accepted the command or one of obeisance or any other of the hundred thousand things the physical grammar of the Khaiem might express. Otah didn't stop long enough to see, and didn't care.

In his rooms, he called for a traveler's basket. The thin wicker s.h.i.+fted and creaked as he pulled the simplest robes from his wardrobes and stuffed them in, one atop the other like they were canvas trousers. The dressing servants made small pawing movements, and Otah didn't bother to find out whether they were meant to help or slow him before he sent them all away. He found eight identical pairs of strapped leather boots, put three pairs into his basket, then snarled and took the extra ones back out. He only had two feet, he didn't need more boots than that. He didn't notice the Master of Tides until the woman made a small sound, like someone stepping on a mouse.

'Good,' Otah said. 'You have something to write with?'