'If she puts it to rights,' Maati said, 'she shouldn't have to die.'
Idaan narrowed her eyes, tilted her head.
'I'll offer you this,' she said. 'If you can talk the girl into giving Galt back its eyes-and Eiah and Ashti Beg. Everyone. If you can do that and also have her release her andat, I won't be the one who kills her.'
'Would Otah let her live?' Maati asked.
'Ask him and he might,' Idaan said. 'Experience suggests he and I have somewhat different ideas of mercy.'
At midday, they returned to their camp. The boat was tied up at an old quay slick with mold. The scent of the river was rich and not entirely pleasant. Two of the other scouting parties had returned before them; Danat and one of the armsmen were still in the city but expected back shortly. Otah, in a robe of woven silk under a thicker woolen outer robe, sat at a field table on the quayside, sketching maps of the city from memory. Idaan made her report, Maati silent at her side. He tried to imagine asking Otah for clemency on Vanjit's behalf. If Maati could persuade her to restore sight to everyone she'd injured and release the andat, would Otah honor Idaan's contract? Or, phrased differently, if Maati couldn't save the world, could he at least do something to redeem this one girl?
He didn't ask it, and Idaan didn't raise the issue.
After Danat and the armsmen returned, they all ate a simple meal of bread and dried apples. Danat, Otah, and the captain of the guard consulted with one another over Otah's sketched maps, planning the afternoon's search. Idaan tended to Ana; their laughter seemed incongruous in the grim air of their camp. Eiah sat by herself at the water's edge, her face turned up toward the sun. Maati went to her side.
'Did you drink your tea this morning?' she asked.
'Yes,' he lied petulantly.
'You need to,' she said. Maati shrugged and tossed the last round of dried apple into the water. It floated for a moment, the pale flesh looking nearly white on the dark water. A turtle rose from beneath and bit at it. Eiah held out her hand, palm up, fingers beckoning. Maati was vaguely ashamed of the relief he felt taking her hand in his own.
'You were right,' Maati confessed. 'I still want to save Vanjit. I know better. I do, but the impulse keeps coming back.'
'I know it does,' Eiah said. 'You have a way of seeing things the way you'd prefer them to be rather than the way they are. It's your only vice.'
'Only?'
'Well, that and lying to your physician,' Eiah said, lightly.
'I drink too much sometimes.'
'When was the last time?'
Maati shrugged, a smile tugging at his mouth.
'I used to drink too much when I was younger,' he said. 'I still would, but I've been busy.'
'You see?' Eiah said. 'You had more vices when you were young. You've grown old and wise.'
'I don't think so. I don't think you can mention me and wisdom in the same breath.'
'You aren't dead. There's time yet.' She paused, then asked, 'Will they find her?'
'If Otah-kvo's right, and she wants us to,' Maati said. 'If she doesn't want to be found, we might as well go home.'
Eiah nodded. Her grip tightened for a moment, and she released his hand. Her brow was furrowed with thought, but it was nothing she chose to share. Don't leave me, he wanted to say. Don't go back to Otah and leave me by myself. Or worse, with only 17anjit. In the end, he kept his silence.
His second foray into the city came in the middle of the afternoon. This time they had set paths to follow, rough-drawn maps marked with each pair's route, and Maati was going out with Danat. They would come back three hands before sunset unless some significant discovery was made. Maati accepted Otah's instructions without complaint, though the resentment was still there.
The air was warmer now, and with the younger man's pace, Maati found himself sweating. They moved down smaller streets this time, narrow avenues that nature had not quite choked. The birds seemed to follow them, though more likely it was only that there were birds everywhere. There was no sign of Vanjit or Clarity-of-Sight, only raccoons and foxes, mice and hunting cats, feral dogs on the banks and otters in the canals. They were hardly a third of the way through the long, complex loop set out for them when Maati called a halt. He sat on a stonework bench, resting his head in his hands and waiting for his breath to slow. Danat paced, frowning seriously at the brush.
It struck Maati that the boy was the same age Otah had been in Saraykeht. Not as broad across the shoulders, but Otah had been Irani Noygu and a seafront laborer then. Maati himself had been born four years after the Emperor, hardly sixteen when he'd gone to study under Heshai and Seedless. Younger than Ana Dasin was now. It was hard to imagine ever having been that young.
'I meant to offer my congratulations to you,' Maati said. 'Ana-cha seems a good woman.'
Danat paused. The reflection of his father's rage warmed the boy's face, but not more than that.
'I didn't think an alliance with Galt would please you.'
'I didn't either,' Maati said, 'but I have enough experience with losing to your father that I'm learning to be generous about it.'
Danat almost started. Maati wondered what nerve he had touched, but before he could ask, a flock of birds a more violent blue than anything Maati had seen burst from a treetop down the avenue. They wheeled around one another, black beaks and wet eyes and tiny tongues pink as a fingertip. Maati closed his eyes, disturbed, and when he opened them, Danat was kneeling before him. The boy's face was a webwork of tiny lines like the cracked mud in a desert riverbed. Fine, dark whiskers rose from Danat's pores. His eyelashes crashed together when he blinked, interweaving or pressing one another apart like trees in a mudslide. Maati closed his eyes again, pressing his palms to them. He could see the tiny vessels in each eyelid, layer upon layer almost out to the skin.
'Maati-cha?'
'She's seen us,' Maati said. 'She knows I'm here.'
In spite of the knowledge, it took Maati half a hand to find her. He swept the horizon and from east to west and back again. He could see half-a-hundred rooftops. He found her at last near the top of the palaces of the Khai Udun on a balcony of bricks enameled the color of gold. At this distance, she was smaller than a grain of sand, and he saw her perfectly. Her hair was loose, her robe ripped at the sleeve. The andat was on her hip, its black, hungry eyes on his own. Vanjit nodded and put the andat down. Then, with a slow, deliberate motion, she took a pose of greeting. Maati returned it.
'Where? Where is she?' Danat asked. Maati ignored him.
Vanjit shifted her hands and her body into a pose that was both a rebuke and an accusation. Maati hesitated. He had imagined a thousand scenarios for this meeting, but they had all involved the words he would speak, and what she would say in return. His first impulse now was toward apology, but something in the back of his mind resisted. Her face was a mask of self-righteous anger, and, to his surprise, he recognized the expression as one he himself had worn in a thousand fantasies. In his dreams, he had been facing Otah, and Otah had been the one to beg forgiveness.
Like a voice speaking in his ear, he knew why his hands would not take an apologetic pose. She is here to see you abased. Do it now, and you have nothing left to offer her. Maati pulled his shoulders back, lifted his chin, and took a pose that requested an audience. Its nuances didn't claim his superiority as a teacher to a student but neither did they cede it. Vanjit's eyes narrowed. Maati waited, his breath short and anxiety plucking at him.
Vanjit took a pose appropriate to a superior granting a servant or slave an indulgence. Maati didn't correct her, but neither did he respond. Vanjit looked down as if the andat had cried out or perhaps spoken, then shifted her hands and her body to a pose of formal invitation appropriate for an evening's meal. Only then did Maati accept, shifting afterward to a pose of query. Vanjit indicated the balcony on which she stood, and then made a gesture that implied either intimacy or solitude.
Meet me here. In my territory and on my terms. Come alone.
Maati moved to an accepting pose, smiling to himself as much as to the girl in the palaces. With a physical sensation like that of a gnat flying into his eye, Maati's vision blurred back to merely human acuity. He turned his attention back to Danat.
The boy looked half-frantic. He held his blade as if prepared for an attack, his gaze darting from tree to wall
