She turned to him, a shadow within a shadow. He bent close to her, his

voice as low as he could make it and still be heard over the clatter of

hooves on stone.

"You know the grammar well? You have it all in mind?"

"Of course," she said.

"Could you do it without it being written? It's usual to write it all

out, the way Vanjit-cha did. And it helps to have that there to follow,

but you could do the thing without. Couldn't you?"

"I don't know," Eiah said. "Perhaps. It isn't something I'd thought

about particularly. But why ... ?"

"We should postpone your binding," Maati said. "Until you are certain

you could do it without the reference text."

Eiah was silent. Something fluttered by, the sound of wings against air.

"What are you saying?" Eiah said, her words low, clipped, and precise.

Maati squeezed his hands together. The joints had started aching

sometime earlier in the night. The ancient dagger scar in his belly

itched the way it did when he'd grown too tired.

"If you were performing the binding, and something happened so that you

couldn't see," Maati said. "If you were to go blind when you'd already

started ... you should know the words and the thoughts well enough to

keep to it. Not to slip."

"Not pay its price," Eiah said. Meaning, they both knew, die. A moment

later, "She'd do that?"

"I don't know," Maati said. "I don't know anything anymore. But be ready

if she does."

Eiah shifted the reins, the pattern of the horses' stride altered, and

the cart rocked gently. She didn't speak again, and Maati imagined the

silence to be thoughtful. He shifted his weight carefully, turned, and

let himself slip down to the bed of the cart. The wool blankets were

where he'd remembered them. Feeling his way through the darkness

reminded him of his brush with blindness. He told himself that the

shudder was only the cold of the morning.

The shifting of the cart became like the rocking of a ship or a cradle.

Maati's mind softened, slipped. He felt his body sinking into the planks

below him, heard the creak and clatter of the wheels. His heart, low and

steady, was like the throbbing drum at the wayhouse. It didn't sound at

all unwell.

On the shifting edge of sleep, he imagined himself capable of moving

between spaces, folding the world so that the distance between himself

and Otah-kvo was only a step. He pictured Otah's awe and rage and

impotence. It was a fantasy Maati had cultivated before this, and it

went through its phases like a habit. Maati's presentation of the poets,

the women's grammar, the andat. Otah's abasement and apologies and

humble amazement at the world made right. For years, Maati had driven

himself toward that moment. He had brought on the sacrifice of ten

women, each of them paying the price of a binding that wasn't quite correct.

He watched now as if someone else were dreaming it. Dispassionate, cold,

thoughtful. He felt nothing-not disappointment or regret or hope. It was

like being a boy again and coming across some iridescent and pincered

insect, fascinating and beautiful and dangerous.

More than half asleep, he didn't feel the tiny body inching its way to

him until it lay almost within his arms. With the reflex of a man who

has cared for a baby, instincts long unused but never forgotten, he

gathered the child close.

"You have to kill her," it whispered.

21

Otah stood in the ruins of the school's west garden. Half a century

before, he'd been in this same spot, screaming at boys not ten summers

old. Humiliating them. This was where, in a fit of childish rage, he had

forced a little boy to eat clods of dirt. He'd been twelve summers old

at the time, but he recalled it with a vividness like a cut. Maati's

young eyes and blistered hands, tears and apologies. The incident had

begun Maati's career as a poet and ended his own.

The stone walls of the school were lower than he remembered them. The

crows that perched in the stark, leafless trees, on the other hand, were

as familiar as childhood enemies. As a boy, he had hated this place.

With all its changes and his own, he still did.

Ashti Beg had told them of Maati's clandestine school. Of Eiah's

involvement, and the others'. Two women named Kae, another-Ashti Beg's

particular confidante-named Irit. And the new poet, Vanjit. Ashti Beg

had escaped the school and the increasingly dangerous poet and her false

baby, the andat Blindness. Or Clarity-of-Sight.

Three days after Eiah had left her in one of the low towns, she had lost

her sight without warning. The poet girl Vanjit taking revenge for

whatever slight she imagined. In a spirit of vengeance, Ashti Beg had

offered to lead Otah to them all. Under cover of night, if he wished.

There was no need. Otah knew the way.

The armsmen had gone first, scouting from what little cover there was.

No sign of life had greeted them, and they had arrived to find the

school cleaned, repaired, cared for, and empty. They had come too late,

and the wind and snow had erased any clue to where Maati and Eiah and

the other women had gone. Including the new poet.

Idaan emerged from the building, walking toward him with a determined

gait. Otah could see the ghost of her breath. He took a pose that

offered greeting. It seemed too formal, but he couldn't think of one

more fitting and he didn't want to speak.

"I'd guess they left before you reached Pathai," Idaan said. "They've

left very little. A few jars of pickled nuts and some dry cheese.

Otherwise, it all matches what she said. Someone's been here for months.

The kitchen's been used. And the graves are still fresh."

"How many boys died here, do you think?" Otah asked.

"In the war, or when the Dai-kvo ran the place?" Idaan asked, and then

went on without waiting for his reply. "I don't know. Fewer than have

died in Galt since you and ... the others left Saraykeht."

She had stumbled at mentioning Danat. He'd noticed more than once that

it wasn't a name she liked saying.

"We have to find them," Otah said. "If we can't make her change this

soon, the High Council will never forgive us."

Idaan smiled. It was an odd and catlike expression, gentle and predatory

both. She glanced at him, saw his unease, and shrugged.

"I'm sorry," she said. "It's only that you keep speaking as if there was

still a High Council. Or a nation called Galt, for that. If this Vanjit