Maati traveled through the darkness alone. The sense of unreality was profound. He had refused Otah Machi, Emperor of the Khaiem. He had refused Otah-kvo. For years, perhaps a lifetime, he had admired Otah or else despised him. Maati had broken the world twice, once in Otah's service, and now, through Vanjit, in opposition to him. But this once, Otah had been wrong, and he had been right, and Otah had acknowledged it.

How strange that such a small moment should bring him such a profound sense of peace. His body itself felt lighter, his shoulders more nearly square. To his immense surprise, he realized he had shed a burden he'd been carrying unaware for most of his life.

Maati traveled through the darkness of Udun alone, because he had chosen to.

The brown vines and bare branches stirred in a soft breeze. The flutter of wings came from all around him, from nowhere. The air was cold enough to make his breath steam, and the voice of the river was a constant hush. With each step, some new detail of his path would come clear: an axe consumed by rust, a door still hanging from rotten leather hinges, the green-glowing eyes of some small predator. Cracks appeared in the paving stones, running out before him as if his passage were corrupting the city rather than revealing the decay already there.

He and Vanjit carried a history together. They had known each other, had helped each other. She would see that it was the andat's intervention that had turned him against her. The palaces of the Khai Udun grew taller and taller without ever seeming to come close until, it seemed between one breath and the next, he stepped into a grand courtyard. Moss and lichen had almost obscured the swirling design of white and red and gold stones. Maati paused, his lantern held over his head.

Once, it would have been a breathtaking testament to power and ingenuity and overwhelming confidence. Columns rose into the black air. Statues of women and men and beasts towered over the entranceway, the bronze lost under green and gray. He walked alone into a welcoming chamber too vast for his lantern to penetrate. There was no ceiling, no walls. The river was silent here. Far above, wings fluttered in still air.

Maati took a deep breath-dust and rot and, after a decade and a half of utter ruin, still the faint scent of smoke. It smelled like the corpse of history.

He walked forward over parquet of ebony and oak, the pattern ruined and pieces pried up by water and time. He expected his footsteps to echo, but no sound he made returned to him.

A light glimmered high up and to his left. Maati stopped. He lowered his lantern and raised it again. The glimmer didn't shift. Not a reflection, then. Maati angled toward it.

A great stone stairway swept up in the gloom, a single candle burning at its top. Maati made his way slowly enough to keep from tiring. The hall that opened before him was not as numbingly huge as the first chamber; Maati could make out the ceiling, and that the walls existed. And far down it, another light.

The carpets underfoot had rotted to scraps years before. The shattered glass and fallen crystal might have been the damage of the elements or of the city's fall. The next flight of stairs-equally grand and equally arduous-could only have been a testament to that first violence, long ago. A human skull rested at the center of every step, shadows moving in the sockets as Maati passed them. He hoped the Galts had left the grim markers, but he didn't believe it.

Here, Vanjit was saying, each of these is a life the soldiers of Galt ended. They were her justification. Her honor guard.

He should have guessed where the candles were leading him. The grand double doors of the Khai's audience chamber stood closed, but light leaked through at the seams. After so long in the dark, he halfexpected them to open onto a fire.

In its day, the chamber must have inspired awe. In its way, it still did. The arches, the angles of the walls, the thin ironwork as delicate as lace that held a hundred burning candles-everything was designed to draw the eyes to the dais, the black lacquer chair, and then out a wide, unshuttered window that reached from ceiling to floor. The Khai would have sat there, his city arrayed out behind him like a cloak. Now the cloak was only darkness, and in the black chair, Clarity-of-Sight cooed.

"I didn't think you'd come," Vanjit said from the shadows behind him. Maati startled and turned.

Exhaustion and hunger had thinned the girl. Her dark hair was pulled back, but what few locks had escaped the bond hung limp and lank, framing her pale face.

"Why wouldn't I?"

"Fear of justice," Vanjit said.

She stepped out into the candlelight. Her robes were silken rags, scavenged from some noble wardrobe, fourteen years a ruin. Her head was bowed beneath an invisible weight and she moved like an old woman bent with the pain for years. She had become Udun. The war, the damage, the ruin. It was her. The baby-the inhuman thing shaped like a baby-shrieked with joy and clapped its tiny hands. Vanjit shuddered.

"Vanjit-cha," Maati said, "we can talk this through. We can ... we can still end this well."

"You tried to murder me," Vanjit said. "You and your pet poisoner. If you'd had your way, I would be dead now. How, Maati-kvo, do you propose to talk that through?"

"I . . ." he said. "There must ... there must be a way."

"What was I supposed to be that I wasn't?" Vanjit asked as she walked toward the black chair with its tiny beast. "You knew what the Galts had done to me. Did you want me to get this power, and then forget? Forgive? Was this supposed to be the compensation for their deaths?"

"No," Maati said. "No, of course not."

"No," she said. "Because you didn't care when I blinded them, did you? That was my decision. My burden, if I chose to take it up. Innocent women. Children. I could destroy them, and you could treat it as justice, but I went too far. I blinded you. For half a hand, I turned it against you, and for that, I deserved to die."

"The andat, Vanjit-kya," Maati said, his voice breaking. "They have always schemed against their poets. They have manipulated the people around them in terrible ways. Eiah and I ..."

"You hear that?" Vanjit said, scooping up Clarity-of-Sight. The andat's black eyes met hers. "This is your doing."

The andat cooed and waved its arms. Vanjit smiled as if at some unspoken jest, shared only between those two.

"I thought I would make the world right again," Vanjit said. "I thought I could make a baby. Make a family."

"You thought you could save the world," Maati said.

"I thought you could," she said in a voice like cold vinegar. "Look at me.

"I don't understand," he said.

"Look."

Her face sharpened. He saw the smudge of dust along her cheek, the stippled pores along her cheek, the individual hairs smaller than the thinnest threads. Her eyes were labyrinths of blood mapped on the whites, and the pupils glowed like a wolf's where the candlelight reflected from their depths. Her skin was a mosaic, tiny scales that broke and scattered with every movement. Insects too small to see scuttled through the roots of her hair, her eyelashes.

Maati's stomach turned, a deep nausea taking him. He closed his eyes, pressing his palms into the lids.

"Please," he said, and Vanjit wrenched his hands away from his face.

"Look at me!" she shouted. "Look!"

Reluctantly, slowly, Maati opened his eyes. There was too much. Vanjit was no longer a woman but a landscape as wide as the world, moving, breaking, shifting. Looking at her was being tossed on an infinite sea.

"Can you see my pain, Maati-kvo? Can you see it?"

No, he tried to say, but his throat closed against his illness. Vanjit pushed him away, and he spun, a thousand details assaulting him in the space of a heartbeat. He fell to the stone floor and retched.

"I didn't think you would," she said.

"Please," Maati said.

"You've taken it from me," Vanjit said. "You and Eiah. All the others. I was ready to do anything for you. I risked death. I did. And you don't even know me."

Her laugh was short and brutal.

"My eyes," he said.

"Fine," Vanjit said, and Maati's vision went away. He was once again in the fog of blindness. "Is that better?"

Maati reached toward the sound of her voice, then stumbled. Vanjit kicked him once in the ribs. The surprise was worse than the pain.

"There is nothing you have to teach me anymore, old man," she said. "I've learned everything you know. I understand."

"No," Maati said. "There's more. I can tell you more. I know what it is to lose someone you love. I know what it is to feel betrayed by the ones you thought closest to you."

"Then you know the world isn't worth saving," Vanjit said.

The words hung in the air. Maati tried to rise, but he was short of breath, wheezing like he'd run a race. His racing heart filled his ears with the sound of rushing blood.

"It is," he said. "It's worth ..."

"Ah. There's Eymond. Everyone in Eymond, blind as a stone. And Eddensea. There. Gone. Bakta. But why stop there, Maati-kya? Here, the birds. All the birds in the world. There. The fish. The beasts." She laughed. "All the flies are blind. I've just done that. All the flies and the spiders. I say we give the world to the trees and the worms. One great nation of the eyeless."

"Vanjit," Maati said. His back hurt like someone had stabbed him and left the blade in. He fought to find the words. "You mustn't do this. I didn't teach you this."

"I did what you told me," she said, her voice rising. The andat's cry rose with her, an infantile rage and anguish and exultation at the world's destruction. "I did what you wanted. More, Maati-kvo, I did what you couldn't do yourself, and you hated me for it. You wanted me dead? Fine, then. I'll die. And the world can come with me."

"No!" Maati cried.

"I'm not a monster," Vanjit said. Like a candle being snuffed, the andat's wail ceased. Vanjit collapsed beside him, as limp as a puppet with cut strings.

There were voices. Otah, Danat, Eiah, Idaan, Ana. And others. He lay back, letting his eyes close. He didn't know what had happened. For the moment, he didn't care. His body was a single, sudden wash of pain. And then, his chest only ached. Maati opened his eyes. An unfamiliar face was looking down at him.

The man had skin as pale as snow and flowing ink-black hair. His eyes were deep brown, as soft as fur and as warm as tea. His robe was blue silk embroidered with thread of gold. The pale man smiled and took a pose of greeting. Maati responded reflexively. Vanjit lay on the floor, her arm bent awkwardly behind her, her eyes open and empty.

"Killed her," Maati said. "You. Killed her."

"Well. More precisely, we wounded her profoundly and then she died," the pale man said. "But I'll grant you it's a fine point. The effect is much the same."

"Maati!"

He lifted his head. Eiah was rushing toward him, her robes pressed back like a banner by her speed. Otah and Idaan followed her more slowly. Ana and Danat were locked in a powerful embrace. Maati lifted his hand in greeting. When she drew near, Eiah hesitated, her gaze on the fallen girl. The pale man-Wounded-took a pose that offered congratulations, and there was irony in the cant of his wrists. Eiah knelt, touching the corpse with a calm, professional air.

"Oh, yes," the andat said, folding its hands. "Quite dead."

"Good," Eiah said.

"He isn't standing," Idaan said, nodding toward Maati.

Eiah's attention shifted to him and her face paled.

"Just need. To catch my breath."

"His heart's stopping," Eiah said. "I knew this would happen. I told you to drink that tea."

Maati waved his hand, shooing her concerns away. Danat and Ana had come. He hadn't noticed it. They were simply there. Ana's eyes were brown and they were beautiful.

"Can't we ... can't we do something?" Danat asked.

"No," said the andat in the same breath that Eiah said, "Yes. I need my satchel. Where is it?"

Danat rushed back to the great doors, returning half a moment later with the physician's satchel in his hands. Eiah grabbed it, plucked out a cloth bag, and started shuffling through sheaves of dried herbs that to Maati looked identical.

"There's another bag. A yellow one," Eiah said. "Where is it?"

"I don't think we brought it," Danat said.

"Then it's back at the quay. Get it now."

Danat turned and sprinted. Gently, Eiah took Maati's hand. He thought at first she meant to comfort him, but her fingers pressed into his wrist, and then she reached for his other hand. He surrendered himself to her care. He didn't have a great deal of choice. Idaan squatted at his side, Otah sitting on the dais. The andat rose, stepping back by Ana's side as if out of respect.

"How bad?" Idaan asked.

"He hasn't died. That's what I can offer for now," Eiah said. "Maati- kya, open your mouth. I don't have time to brew this, but it will help until I can get the rest of my supplies. It's going to be sweet first and then bitter."

"You've done it," Maati said around the pinch of leaves she put on his tongue.

Eiah looked at him, her expression startled. He smiled at her.

"You bound it. You've cured the blindness."

Eiah looked up at her creation, her slave. It nodded.

"Well, no," she said. "I mean, yes, I bound him. And I did undo Vanjit's damage to Ana and myself. And then you, when I saw that she'd done it."

"Galt?" Ana asked.

"I hadn't ... I hadn't even thought of it. Gods. Is there anything different to be done? I mean, a whole nation at once?"

"You have to do everything," Maati said. "Birds. Beasts. Fish. Everyone, everywhere. You have to hurry. It's only a thought." The herbs were making his mouth tingle and burn, but the pain in his breast seemed to ebb. "It's no different."

Eiah turned to the andat. The kind, pale face hardened. No matter how it seemed, the thing wasn't a man and it wasn't gentle. But it was bound to her will, and a moment later Eiah caught her breath.

"It's done," she said, wonder in her voice. "They've been put back. The ones who are left."

Ana stepped forward and knelt, wordlessly enfolding Eiah in her arms. From where he lay, he could see Eiah's eyes close, watch her lean into the embrace. The two women seemed to pause in time, a moment that lasted less than two long breaths together but carried the weight of years within it. Eiah raised her head sharply and the andat twitched. Idaan leaped up, yelping. All eyes turned to her as she pressed a flat palm to her belly.

"That," she said, "felt very odd. You should warn someone when you're planning something like that."

"Sterile?" Otah asked. His voice was low. There was no joy in it.

"Repaired," Eiah said. "We can bear again. Galts can father children and we can bear them."

"I don't suppose you could leave me as I was?" Idaan asked.

"So we've begun again," Otah said. "It is all as it was. We've only changed a few names. Well-"

Wounded cut him off with a low bark of a laugh. Its eyes were fixed upon Eiah. Otah looked from one to the other, his hands taking a querying pose. Woman and slave both ignored him.

"Everyone?" the andat asked.

"Everyone, everywhere," Eiah said. "It's only a thought, isn't it? That's all it needs to be."

"What are you doing?" Ana asked. It seemed like a real curiosity.

"I'm curing everyone," Eiah said. "If there's a child in Bakta who split her head on a stone this morning, I want it fixed. A man in Eymond whose hip was broken when he was a boy and healed poorly, I want him walking without pain in the morning. Everyone. Everywhere. Now."

"Eiah Machi," the andat said, its voice low and amused, "the little girl who saved the world. Is that how you see it? Or is this how you apologize for slaughtering a whole people?"

Eiah didn't speak, and the andat went still again. Anger flashed in its eyes and Maati's hand went out, touching Eiah's. She patted him away absently, as if he were no more than a well-intentioned dog. The andat hissed under its breath and turned away. Maati noticed for the first time that its teeth were pointed. Eiah relaxed. Maati sat up; his breath had almost returned. The andat shifted to look at him. The whites of his eyes had gone as black as a shark's; he had never seen an andat shift its appearance before, and it filled him with sudden dread. Eiah made a scolding sound, and the andat took an apologetic pose.

Maati tried to imagine what it would be like, a thought that changeable, that flexible, that filled with violence and rage. How did we everthink we could do good with these as our tools? For as long as she held the andat, Eiah was condemned to the struggle. And Maati was responsible for that sacrifice too.

Eiah, it seemed, had other intentions.

"That should do," she said. "You can go."

The andat vanished, its robe collapsing to the floor in a pool of blue and gold. The scent of overheated stone came and went, a breath of hell on the night air. The others were silent. Maati came to himself first.

"What have you done?" he whispered.

"I'm a physician," Eiah said, her tone dismissive. "Holding that abomination the rest of my life would have gotten in the way of my work, and who told you that you were allowed to sit up? On your back or I'll call in armsmen to hold you down. No, don't say anything. I don't care if you're feeling a thousand times better. Down. Now."

He lay back, staring up at the ceiling. His mind felt blasted and blank. The enameled brick was blurred in the torchlight, or perhaps it was only that his eyes were only what they had been. The cold air that breathed in through the window too gently to even be a breeze felt better than he would have expected, the stone floor beneath him more comfortable. The voices around him were quiet with respect for his poor health or else with awe. The world had never seen a night like this one. It likely never would again.

She had freed it. Gods, all that they'd done, all that they'd suffered, and she'd just freed the thing.

When Danat returned, Eiah forced half a handful of herbs more bitter than the last into his mouth and told him to leave them under his tongue until she told him otherwise. Idaan and one of the armsmen hauled Vanjit's body away. They would burn it, Maati thought, in the morning. Vanjit had been a broken, sad, dangerous woman, but she deserved better than to have her corpse left out. He remembered Idaan saying something similar of the slaughtered buck.

He didn't notice falling asleep, but Eiah gently shook him awake and helped him to sit. While she compared his pulses and pressed his fingertips, he spat out the black leaves. His mouth was numb.

"We're going to take you back down in a litter," she said, and before he could object, she lifted her hand to his lips. He took a pose that acquiesced. Eiah rose to her feet and walked back toward the great bronze doors.

The footsteps behind him were as familiar as an old song.

"Otah-kvo," Maati said.

The Emperor sat on the dais, his hands between his knees. He looked pale and exhausted.

"Nothing ever goes the way I plan," Otah said, his tone peevish. "Not ever."

"You're tired," Maati said.

"I am. Gods, that I am."

The captain of the armsmen pulled open the doors. Four men followed, a low weaving of branches and rope between them. Eiah walked at their side. One of the men at the rear called out, and the whole parade stopped while the captain, cursing, retied a series of knots. Maati watched them as if they were dancers and gymnasts performing before a banquet.

"I'm sorry," Maati said. "This wasn't what I intended."

"Isn't it? I thought the hope was to undo the damage we did with Sterile, no matter what the price."

Maati started to object, then stopped himself. Outside the great window, a star fell. The smear of light vanished as quickly as it had come.

"I didn't know how far it would go."

"Would it have mattered? If you had known everything it would take, would you have been able to abandon the project?" Otah asked. He didn't sound angry or accusing. Only like a man who didn't know the answer to a question. Maati found he didn't either.

"If I asked your forgiveness ..."

Otah was silent, then sighed deeply, his head hanging low.

"Maati-kya, we've been a hundred different people to each other, and tonight I'm too old and too tired. Everything in the world has changed at least twice since I woke up this morning. I think about forgiving you, and I don't know what the word means."

"I understand."

"Do you? Well, then you've outpaced me."

The litter came forward. Eiah helped him onto the makeshift seat, rope and wood creaking under his weight, but solid. The gait of the armsmen swayed him like a branch in the breeze. The Emperor, they left behind to follow in the darkness.

P/S: Copyright -->www_novelfreereadonline_Com

***