spending a life with Danat would be like, she should see what sort of

man you were. If she wanted to know how Danat would see her, to find how

you saw your wife."

Otah laughed, and he thought he saw the darkness around Idaan shift as

if she had smiled.

"I'm sorry I didn't have the chance to know her," Idaan said. "She

sounds like a good woman."

"She was," Otah said. "I miss her."

"I know you do," Idaan said. "And now Ana-cha knows it too."

"Does it matter?" Otah said. "All the hopes I had for building Galt and

the Khaiem together are in rags around my knees. We're on a hunt for a

girl who can ruin the world. What she's done to Galt, she could do to

us. Or to all the world, if she wanted it. How do we plan for a marriage

between Danat and Ana when it's just as likely that we'll all be

starving and blind by Candles Night?"

"We're all born to die, Most High," Idaan said, the title sounding like

an endearment in her voice. "Every love ends in parting or death. Every

nation ends and every empire. Every baby born was going to die, given

enough time. If being fated for destruction were enough to take the joy

out of things, we'd slaughter children fresh from the womb. But we

don't. We wrap them in warm cloth and we sing to them and feed them milk

as if it might all go on forever."

"You make it sound like something you've done," Otah said.

Idaan made a sound he couldn't interpret, part grunt, part whimper.

"What is it?" he asked the darkness.

The silence lasted for the length of five long breaths together. When

she spoke, her voice was low and rich with embarrassment.

"Lambs," she said.

"Lambs?"

"I used to wrap up the newborn lambs and keep them in the house. I even

had Cehmai build them a crib that I could rock them in. After a few

years, we had to switch to goats. I couldn't slaughter the lambs after

all that, could I? By the end, I think we had sixty."

Otah didn't know whether to laugh or put his arms around the woman. The

thought of the hard-hearted killer of his own father, his own brothers,

cuddling a baby lamb was as absurd as it was sorrowful.

"Is it like this for everyone?" he asked softly. "Does every woman

suffer this? Is the need to care for something that strong?"

"Strong? When it strikes, yes. But everyone? No," Idaan said. "Of course

not. As it happened, it struck me. I assume Maati's students all feel

strongly enough about it to risk their lives. But not every woman needs

a child, and, thank the gods, the madness sometimes passes. It did for me."

"You wouldn't be a mother now? If it were possible, you wouldn't choose to?"

"Gods, no. I'd have been terrible at it. But I miss them," Idaan said.

"I miss my little lambs. And that brings us back to Ana-cha, doesn't it?"

Otah took a pose that asked clarification.

"Who am I," Idaan asked, "to say that falling in love is ridiculous just

because it's doomed?"

22

The weeks spent at the school had let Maati forget the ways in which the

world broadened when he was traveling, and also the ways in which it

narrowed when he was traveling with company. Living in the same walls,

the same gardens, and surrounded as he had been by only a few deeply

familiar faces had begun to grate on him before they left, but there had

still been a way to find a moment to steal away. On the road, all of

them together, the chances for private conversation were few and precious.

Since the andat had spoken, he hadn't found himself alone with Eiah, or

at least not so clearly so that he would risk speaking. He didn't want

either of the Kaes or Irit to know what had happened. He was afraid that

they would say something where Vanjit could hear them. He was afraid

that Vanjit would find out what the andat had said and take some

terrible action in her fear and in her own defense.

He was afraid because he was afraid, and he was half-certain that Vanjit

knew he was.

They reached the lands surrounding the river sooner than he would have

wanted; if the long days and nights on the road had kept him in close

quarters with the others, the days ahead sharing a boat would be worse.

He had to find a way to talk with Eiah before that, and the prospect of

his lessening time made him anxious.

Cold and snow hadn't reached the river valley yet. It was as if their

journey were moving backward in time. The leaves here clung to the

trees, some of them with the gold and red and yellow still struggling to

push out the last hints of green. As they approached the water, farms

and low towns clustered closer and closer. The roads and paths began to

cling to irrigation channels, and other travelers-most merely local, but

some from the great cities-appeared more and more often. Maati sat at

the front of the cart, his robes wrapped close around him, staring ahead

and trying not to put himself anywhere that the andat could catch his eye.

He was, in fact, so preoccupied with the politics and dangers within his

small party that he didn't see the Galts until his horses were almost

upon them.

Three men, none of them older than thirty summers, sat at the side of

the road. They wore filthy robes that had once been red or orange. The

tallest had a leather satchel over his shoulder. They had stepped a few

feet off the path at the sound of hooves, and the tall grass made them

seem like apparitions from a children's epic. Their eyes were blue, the

pupils gray. None of them had shaved in recent memory. Their gaunt faces

turned to the road from habit. There was no expression in them, not even

hunger. Maati didn't realize he had slowed the horses until he heard

Eiah call out from the cart's bed behind him. At her word, he stopped.

Large Kae and Irit, taking their turns on horseback, reined in. Vanjit

and Small Kae moved to the side of the cart. Maati risked a glance at

Clarity-of-Sight, but it was still and silent.

"Who are you?" Eiah demanded in their language. "What are your names?"

The Galtic apparitions shifted, blinking their empty eyes in confusion.

The tall one with the satchel recovered first.

"I'm Jase Hanin," he said, speaking too loudly. "These are my brothers.

It isn't plague. Whatever took our eyes, miss, it wasn't plague. We

aren't a danger."

Eiah muttered something that Maati couldn't make out, then shifted a

crate in the back. When he turned to look, she had her physician's