within the night's larger darkness. His voice seemed too weak to carry more than a few paces before him. It couldn't have been more than half a hand-less than that, certainlywhen he stopped to catch his breath. Leaning against an ancient ash, he realized that Vanjit was gone and he was lost, only the soft rushing of the river away to his left still there to guide him. He picked his way back, trying to follow the route he had taken and failing. A carpet of dry leaves made his steps loud. Something shifted in the branches overhead. The cold numbed his fingers and toes. The half-moon glimmering among the branches assured him that he had not been blinded. It was the only comfort he had.
In the end, he made his way east until he found the river, and then south to the wide mud where the boat still rested. It was simple enough to find the little camp after that. He tried to nurture some hope that he would step into the circle of firelight to find Vanjit returned and, through some unimagined turn of events, peace restored. The laughter and soft company of the first days of the school returned; time unwound, and his life ready to be lived again without the errors. He wanted it to be true so badly that when he stumbled into the clearing and found Eiah and the two Kaes seated by the fire, he almost thought they were well.
Eiah turned gray, fogged eyes toward him.
'Who's there?' she demanded at the sound of his approaching steps.
'It's me,' Maati said, wheezing. 'I'm fine. But Vanjit's gone.'
Large Kae began to weep. Small Kae put an arm over the woman's shaking shoulders and murmured something, her eyes closed and tearstreaked. Maati sat at the fire. His bowl of soup had overturned.
'She's done for the three of us,' Eiah said. 'None of us can see at all.'
'I'm sorry,' Maati said. It was profoundly inadequate.
'Can you help me?' Eiah said, gesturing toward something Maati couldn't fathom. Then he saw the pile of wax fragments. 'I think I have them all, but it's hard to be sure.'
'Leave them,' Maati said. 'Let them go.'
'I can't,' Eiah said. 'I have to try the thing. I can do it now. Tonight.'
Maati looked at her. The fire popped, and she shifted her head toward the sound. Her jaw was set, her gray eyes angry. The cold wind made her robes flutter at her ankles like a flag.
'No,' he said. 'You can't.'
'I have been studying this for weeks,' Eiah said, her voice sharpening. 'Only help me put these back together, and I can…'
'You can die,' Maati said. 'I know you've changed the binding. You won't do this. Not until we can study it. Too much rides on Wounded to rush into the binding in a panic. We'll wait. Vanjit may come back.'
'Maati-kvo-' Eiah began.
'She is alone in the forest with nothing to sustain her. She's cold and frightened and betrayed,' Maati said. 'Put yourself in her place. She's discovered that the only friends she had in the world were planning to kill her. The andat must certainly be pushing for its freedom with all its power. She didn't even have the soup before she went. She's cold and hungry and confused, and we are the only place she can go for help or comfort.'
'All respect, Maati-kvo,' Small Kae said, 'but that first part was along the lines that you were going to kill her. She won't come back.'
'We don't know that,' Maati said. 'We can't yet be sure.'
But morning came without Vanjit. The sky became a lighter black, and then gray. Morning birds broke into their chorus of chatters and shrieks; finches and day larks and other species Maati couldn't name. The trees deepened, rank after ragged rank becoming first gray and then brown and then real. Poet and andat were gone into the wild, and as the dawn crept up rosy and wild in the east, it became clear they were not going to return.
Maati built a small fire from last night's embers and brewed tea for the four of them still remaining. Large Kae wouldn't stop crying despite Small Kae's constant attentions. Eiah sat wrapped in her robes from the previous night. She looked drawn. Maati pressed a bowl of warm tea into her hand. Neither spoke.
At the end, Maati took the belts from their spare robes and used them to make a line. He led Eiah, Eiah led Small Kae, and Small Kae led Large Kae. It was the obscene parody of a game he'd played as a child, and he walked the path back to the boat, calling out the obstacles he passed-log, step down, be careful of the mud. They left the sleeping tents and cooking things behind.
To Maati's surprise, the boat was already floating. The boatman and his second were moving over the craft with the ease and silence of long practice. When he called out, the boatman stopped and stared. The man's mouth gaped in surprise; the first strong reaction Maati had seen from him.
'No,' the boatman said. 'This wasn't the agreement. Where's the other one? The one with the babe?'
'I don't know,' Maati called out. 'She left in the night.'
The second, guessing the boatman's mind, started to pull in the plank that bridged boat and sticky, dark mud. Maati yelped, dropped Eiah's lead, and lumbered out into the icy flow, grabbing at the retreating wood.
'We didn't contract for this,' the boatman said. 'Missing girls, blinded ones? No, there wasn't anything about this.'
'We'll die if you leave us,' Eiah said.
'That one can see after you,' the boatman called, gesturing pointlessly at Maati, hip deep in river mud. It would have been comic if it had been less terrible.
'He's old and he's dying,' Eiah said, and lifted her physician's satchel as if to prove the gravity of her opinion. 'If he has an attack, you'll be leaving all the women out here to die.'
The boatman scowled, looking from Maati to Eiah and back. He spat into the river.
'To the first low town,' he said. 'I'll take you that far, and no farther.'
'That's all we can ask,' Eiah said.
Maati thought he heard Small Kae mutter, I could ask more than that, but he was too busy pulling the plank into position to respond. It was a tricky business, guiding all three women into the boat, but Maati and the second managed it, soaking only Small Kae's hem. Maati, when at last he pulled himself onto the boat, was cold water and black mud from waist to boots. He made his miserable way to the stern, sitting as near the kiln as the boatman would allow. Eiah called out for him, following the sound of his voice until she sat at his side. The boatman and his second wouldn't speak to either of them or meet Maati's eyes. The second walked to the bow, manipulated something Maati couldn't make out, and called out. The boatman replied, and the boat shifted, its wheel clattering and pounding. They lurched out into the stream.
They were leaving Vanjit behind. The only poet in the world, her andat on her hip, alone in the forest with autumn upon them. What would she do? How would she live, and if she despaired, what vengeance would she exact upon the world? Maati looked at the dancing flames within the kiln.
'South would be faster,' Maati said. The boatman glanced at him, shrugged, and sang out something Maati couldn't make out. The second called back, and the boatman turned the rudder. The sound of the paddle wheel deepened, and the boat lurched.
'Uncle?' Eiah asked.
'It's all fallen apart,' Maati said. 'We can't manage this from here. Tracking her through half the wilds south of Utani? We need men. We need help.'
'Help,' Eiah said, as if he'd suggested pulling down the stars. Maati tried to speak, but something equally sorrow and rage closed his throat. He muttered an obscenity and then forced the words free.
'We need Otah-kvo,' Maati said.
25
'Will you go back?' Ana asked. 'When this is over, I mean.'
'It depends on what you mean by over,' Idaan said. 'You mean once my brother talks the poets into bringing back all the dead in Galt and Chaburi-Tan, rebuilding the city, killing the pirates, and then releasing the andat and drowning all their books? Because if that's what overlooks like, you're waiting for yesterday.'
Otah shifted, pretending he was still asleep. The sun of late morning warmed his face and robes, the low chuckle of the river against the sides of the boat and the low, steady surge of the paddle wheel became a kind of music. It had been easy enough to drowse, but his body ached and pinched and complained despite three layers of
