needed to perform one last errand. He rose quietly and left by the hack passage, down deeper into the earth.
The physician rose when he caught sight of Utah, taking a welcoming pose so quietly that the rustle of cloth in his robes seemed loud. Utah replied with one that asked a question.
'I le's well,' the physician said. 'The poppy milk makes him sleepy, but it stops the cough.'
'May I?' Utah asked.
'I think he'll never rest unless you do. But it would be best if he didn't speak overmuch.'
Danat's room was warm and close. The night candle fluttered and glowed in its glass case. Great iron statues of hunting cats and a hear risen on his hack feet radiated heat from the fires in which they'd been kept all through the day. His boy sat up unsteadily, smiling. Utah went to his side.
'You should be asleep,' Otah said, smoothing the hair from Uanat's brow.
'You were supposed to read to me,' the boy said. His voice was scratchy and thick, but not as had as it had been. Otah felt tears in his eyes again. He could not bring himself to say that the hooks were all gone, the stories all made ash. 'Lie back,' he said. 'I'll do what I can.'
Grinning, Danat dropped to his pillows. Otah took a long, unsteady breath and closed his eyes.
'In the sixteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Adani Boh,' Otah murmured, 'there came to court a boy whose blood was half Bakta, his skin the color of soot, and his mind as clever as any man who has ever lived…' IDanat made a small sound of pleasure and closed his eyes, his hand seeking out Otah's fingers.
Otah went on as long as he could before his memory failed him, and then he began to invent.
