Seasons of War (39 page)

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Authors: Daniel Abraham

BOOK: Seasons of War
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‘That depends,’ Sinja said, dropping into the language of the Galts. ‘Does it really need doing?’
‘Yes. It does.’
Sinja spread his hands, not a formal pose, but only a gesture that completed the argument. For a moment, something like tears seemed to glisten in the general’s eyes, and he clapped Sinja on the shoulder. Without thinking, Sinja put his hand to the general’s, clasping it hard, as if they were brothers or soldiers of the same cohort. As if their lives were somehow one. Far away, something boomed deep as a drum. Something falling. Udun, falling.
‘I’ll get you those hostages,’ Balasar said. ‘You take care of them for me.’
‘Sir,’ Sinja said, and stood braced at attention until the general was gone and he was alone again in the garden. Sinja swallowed twice, loosening the tightness in his throat. The maple swayed, black leaves touched with red.
In a better world, he thought, I’d have followed that man to hell.
Please the gods, let him never reach Machi.
17
T
he watchmen Kiyan had placed at the tops of the towers began ringing their bells just as the sun touched the top of the mountains to the west. Traffic stopped in the streets below and in the palace corridors. All eyes looked up, straining to see the color of the banners draped from the high, distant windows. Yellow would mean that a Galtic army had come at last, that their doom had come upon them. Red meant that the Khai had returned. So far above the city, colors were difficult to make out. At least to Maati’s eyes, the first movement of the great signal cloth was only movement - the banners flew. It was the space of five fast, shaky breaths before he made out the red. Otah Machi had returned.
A crowd formed at the edge of the city as the first wagons came over the bridge. The women and children and old men of Machi come to greet the militia that had gone out to save the Dai-kvo. The Daikvo and the city and the world. Maati pushed his way in, elbowing people aside and taking more than one sharp rebuttal in his own ribs. The horses that pulled the wagons were blown. The men who rode them were gray-pale in the face and bloodied. The few who still walked, shambled. A ragged cheer rose from the crowd and then slunk away. A girl in a gray robe of cheap wool stepped out from the edge of the crowd, moving toward the soldiers. From where he stood trapped in the press of bodies, Maati could see the girl’s head as it turned, searching the coming train of men for some particular man. Even before the first soldier reached her, Maati saw how small the group was, how many men were missing.
‘Nayiit!’ he shouted, hoping that his boy would hear him. ‘Nayiit! Over here!’
His voice was drowned. The citizens of Machi surged forward like an attack. Some of the men crossing the bridge drew back from them as if in fear, and then there was only one surging, swirling mass of people. There was no order, no control. One of the first wagons was pushed sideways from the road, the horses whinnying their protest but too tired to bolt. A man younger than Nayiit with a badly cut arm and a bruise on his face stumbled almost into Maati’s arms.
‘What happened?’ Maati demanded of the boy. ‘Where’s the Khai? Have you seen Nayiit Chokavi?’ A blank stare was the only reply.
The chaos seemed to go on for a day, though it wasn’t really more than half a hand. Then a loud, cursing voice rose over the tumult, clearing the way for the wagons. There were hurt men. Men who had to see physicians. Men who were dying. Men who were dead. The people stood aside and let the wagons pass. The sounds of weeping and hard wheels on paving stones were the only music. Maati felt breathless with dread.
As he pushed back into the city, following in the path the wagons had opened, he heard bits and snatches from the people he passed. The Khai had taken the utkhaiem and ridden for Cetani. The Galts weren’t far behind. The Dai-kvo was dead. The village of the Dai-kvo was burned. There had been a blood-soaked farce of a battle. As many men were dead as still standing.
Rumor, Maati told himself. Everything is rumor and speculation until I hear it from Nayiit. Or Otah-kvo. But his chest was tight and his hands balled in fists so tight they ached when, out of breath and ears ringing, he made his way back to the library. A man in a travel-stained robe squatted beside his door, a tarp-covered crate on the ground at his side.
Nayiit. It was Nayiit. Maati found the strength to embrace his boy, and allowed himself at last to weep. He felt Nayiit’s arms around him, felt the boy soften in their shared grief, and then pull away. Maati forced himself to step back. Nayiit’s expression was grim.
‘Come in,’ Maati said. ‘Then tell me.’
It was bad. The Galts were not on Machi’s door and Otah-kvo lived, but these were the only bright points in Nayiit’s long, quiet recitation. They sat in the dimming front room, shutters closed and candles unlit, while Nayiit told the tale. Maati clasped his hands together, squeezing his knuckles until they ached. The Dai-kvo was dead. The men whom Maati had known in the long years he had lived in the village were memories now. He found himself trying to remember their names, their faces. There were fewer fresh to his mind than he would have thought - the firekeeper whose kiln had been at the corner nearest Maati’s cell, the old man who’d run the bathhouse, a few others. They were gone, fallen into the forgetfulness of history. The records of their names had been burned.
‘We searched. We searched through everything,’ Nayiit said. ‘I brought you what we found.’
With a thick rustle, he pulled the thick waxed cloth from out of the crate. Two stacks of books lay beneath it, and Maati, squatting on the floor, lifted the ancient texts out one at a time with trembling hands. Fourteen books. The library of the Dai-kvo reduced to fourteen books. He opened them, smelling the smoke in their pages, feeling the terrible lightness of the bindings. There was no unity to them - a sampling of what had happened to be in a dark corner or hidden beneath something unlikely. A history of agriculture before the First Empire. An essay on soft grammars. Jantan Noya’s
Fourth Treatise on Form
, which Maati had two copies of among his own books. None of these salvaged volumes outlined the binding of an andat, or the works of ancient poets.
Stone-Made-Soft wouldn’t be bound with these. And so Stone-Made-Soft wouldn’t be bound, because these were all that remained. Maati felt a cold, deep calm descend upon him. Grunting, he stood up and then began pacing his rooms. His hands went through the movements of lighting candles and lanterns without his conscious participation. His mind was as clear and sharp as broken ice.
Stone-Made-Soft could not be bound - not without years of work - and so he put aside that hope. If he and Cehmai failed to bind an andat, and quickly, the Galts would destroy them all. Nayiit, Liat, Otah, Eiah. Everyone. So something had to be done. Perhaps they could trick the Galts into believing that an andat had been bound. Perhaps they could delay the armies arrayed against them until the cold shut Machi against invasion. If he could win the long, hard months of winter in which he could scheme . . .
When the answer came to him, it was less like discovering something than remembering it. Not a flash of insight, but a familiar glow. He had, perhaps, known it would come to this.
‘I think I know what to do, but we have to find Cehmai,’ he began, but when he turned to Nayiit, his son was curled on the floor, head pillowed by his arms. His breath was as deep and regular as tides, and his eyes were sunken and hard shut. Weariness had paled the long face, sharpening his cheeks. Maati walked as softly as he could to his bedchamber, pulled a thick blanket from his bed, and brought it to drape over Nayiit. The thick carpets were softer and warmer than a traveler’s cot. There was no call to wake him.
What had happened out there - the battle, the search through the village, the trek back to Machi with this thin gift of useless books - would likely have broken most men. It had likely scarred Nayiit. Maati reached to smooth the hair on Nayiit’s brow, but held back and smiled.
‘All the years I should have done this,’ he murmured to himself. ‘Putting my boy to bed.’
He softly closed the door to his apartments. The night was deep and dark, stars shining like diamonds on velvet, and a distant, eerie green aurora dancing far to the North. Maati stopped at the library proper, tucked the book he needed into his sleeve, and then - though the urge to find Cehmai instantly was hard to resist - made his way to the palaces, and to the apartments that Otah had given Liat.
A servant girl showed him into the main chamber. The only light was the fire in the grate, the shadows of flame dancing on the walls and across Liat’s brow as she stared into them. Her hair was disarrayed, wild as a bird’s nest. Her hands were in claws, trembling.
‘I haven’t . . . I haven’t found—’
‘He’s fine,’ Maati said. ‘He’s in my apartments, asleep.’
Liat’s cry startled him. She didn’t walk to him so much as flow through the air, and her arms were around Maati’s shoulders, embracing him. And then she stepped back and struck his shoulder hard enough to sting.
‘How long has he been there?’
‘Since the army came back,’ Maati said, rubbing his bruised flesh. ‘He brought books that they salvaged from the Dai-kvo. I was looking them over when—’
‘And you didn’t send me a runner? There are no servants in the city who you could have told to come to me? I’ve been sitting here chewing my own heart raw, afraid he was dead, afraid he was still out with Otah chasing the Galts, and he was at your apartments talking about
books
?’
‘He’s fine,’ Maati said. ‘I put a blanket over him and came to you. But he’ll need food. Soup. Some wine. I thought you could take it to him.’
Liat wiped away a tear with the back of her hand.
‘He’s all right?’ she asked. Her voice had gone small.
‘He’s exhausted and hungry. But it’s nothing a few days’ rest won’t heal.’
‘And . . . his heart? You talked with him. Is he . . . ?’
‘I don’t know, sweet. I’m not his mother. Take him soup. Talk with him. You’ll know him better than I can.’
Liat nodded. There were tears on her cheeks, but Maati knew it was only the fear working its way through. Seeing their boy would help more than anything else.
‘Where are you going?’ she asked.
‘The poet’s house.’
The night air was chill, both numbing his skin and making him more acutely aware of it. Summer was failing, autumn clearing its throat. The few men and women Maati passed seemed to haunt the palaces, more spirit than flesh. They took poses of deference to him, more formal or less depending upon their stations, but the stunned expressions spoke of a single thought. The news from the broken army had spread, and everyone knew that the Dai-kvo was gone, the Galts triumphant. With even the last glow of twilight long vanished, the paths were dimmer than usual, lanterns unlit, torches burned to coal. The great halls and palaces loomed, the glimmering from behind closed shutters the only sign that they had not been abandoned. Twists of dry herbs tied with mourning cloth hung from the trees as offering to the gods. The red banner that had announced the army’s arrival still hung from the high tower, grayed by the darkness. Colorless.
Maati passed through the empty gardens, and found himself smiling. He felt separate from the city around him, untouched by its despair. Perhaps even invigorated by it. There was nothing the citizens of Machi could do, no path for them to take that might somehow make things right. That was his alone. He would save the city, if it were to be saved, and if Machi fell, it would find Maati working to the end. It was that hope and the clarity of the path that lay before him that made his steps lighter and kept his blood warm.
He wondered if this strange elation was something like what Otah had felt, all those years he had lived under his false name. Perhaps holding himself at a distance from the world was how Otah had learned his confidence.
But no. That thought was an illusion. However much this felt like joy, Maati’s rational mind knew it was only fear in brighter robes.
The door of the poet’s house stood open. The candlelight from within glowed gold. Maati hauled himself up the stairs and through the doorway without scratching or calling out to announce his presence. The air within smelled of distilled wine and a deep earthy incense of the sort priests burned in the temples. He found Cehmai at the back of the house, eyes bloodshot and wine bowl cupped in his hands. He sat cross-legged on the floor contemplating a linked sigil of order and chaos - mother-of-pearl inlay in a panel of dark-stained rosewood. He glanced up at Maati and made an awkward attempt at some pose Maati could only guess at.
‘You’ve found religion?’ Maati asked.
‘Chaos comes out of order,’ Cehmai said. ‘I can’t think of a better time to contemplate the fact. And gods are all we have left now, aren’t they?’
Maati reached out, brushing the panel with his fingers before tipping it backward. It slapped the floor with a sound like a book dropped from a table. Cehmai blinked, half shocked, half amused. Before he could speak, Maati fished in his sleeve, brought out the small brown volume, its leather covers worn soft as cloth by the years, and dropped it into Cehmai’s lap. He didn’t wait for Cehmai to pick it up before he strode back into the front room, closed the door, and dropped two fresh lumps of coal onto the fire in the grate. He found a pan, a flask of fresh water, and a brick of pressed tea leaves. That was good. They’d want that before the night was out. He also found the spent incense - ashes lighter than fresh snow on a black stone burner. He dumped them outside.

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