the tea first. I'll be in by the fire, warming my feet."

He stepped in, and Kiyan followed, closing the door behind her.

"Bad night?" she asked.

"Sleepless," he said as he sat by the fire grate. "That's all."

Kiyan kissed the top of his head where she assured him that the hair was

thinning and stepped out of the room. He heard the soft rustle of cloth

against stone and Kiyan's low, contented humming, and knew she was

changing her robes. The warmth of the fire pressed against the soles of

his feet like a comforting hand, and he closed his eyes for a moment.

No building stands forever, he thought. Even palaces fall. Even towers.

He wondered what it would have been like to live in a world where Nlachi

didn't exist-who he might have been, what he might have done-and he felt

the weight of stone pressing down upon the air he breathed. What would

he do if the towers fell? Where would he go, if could go anywhere?

"Papa-kya!" Danat's bright voice called. "I was in the Second Palace,

and I found a closet where no one had been in ever, and look what I found!"

Otah opened his eyes, and turned to his son and the wood-and-string

model he'd discovered. Eiah arrived a hand and a half later, when the

thin granite shutters glowed with the sun. For a time, at least, Otah's

own father's tomb lay forgotten.

THE PROBLEM WITH ATHAI-KVO, MAATI DECIDED, WAS THAT HE WAS SIMPIX an

unlikable man. "There was no single thing that he did or said, no single

habit or affect that made him grate on the nerves of all those around

him. Some men were charming, and would be loved however questionable

their behavior. And then on the other end of the balance, there was

Athai. The weeks he had spent with the man had been bearable only

because of the near-constant stream of praise and admiration given to

Nlaati.

"It will change everything," the envoy said as they sat on the steps of

the poet's house-Cehmai's residence. "°I'his is going to begin a new age

to rival the Second Empire."

"Because that ended so well," Stone-Made-Soft rumbled, its tone amused

as always.

The morning was warm. The sculpted oaks separating the poet's house from

the palaces were bright with new leaves. Far above, barely visible

through the boughs, the stone towers rose into the sky. Cehmai reached

across the envoy to pour more rice wine into Maati's bowl.

"It is early yet to pass judgment," Nlaati said as he nodded his thanks

to Cehmai. "It isn't as though the techniques have been tried."

"But it makes sense," Athai said. "I'm sure it will work."

"If we've overlooked something, the first poet to try this is likely to

die badly," Cehmai said. ""1'he Dai-kvo will want a fair amount of study

done before he puts a poet's life on the table."

"Next year," Athai said. "I'll wager twenty lengths of silver it will be

used in bindings by this time next year."

"Done," the andat said, then turned to Cehmai. "You can back me if I lose."

The poet didn't reply, but Maati saw the amusement at the corners of

Cehmai's mouth. It had taken years to understand the ways in which

Stone-Made-Soft was an expression of Cehmai, the ways they were a single

thing, and the ways they were at war. The small comments the andat made

that only Cehmai understood, the unspoken moments of private struggle

that sometimes clouded the poet's days. They were like nothing so much

as a married couple, long accustomed to each other's ways.

Maati sipped the rice wine. It was infused with peaches, a moment of

autumn's harvest in the opening of spring. Athai looked away from the

andat's broad face, discomforted.

"You must be ready to return to the Dai-kvo," Cehmai said. "You've been

away longer than you'd intended."

Athai waved the concern away, pleased, Maati thought, to speak to the

man and forget the andat.

"I wouldn't have traded this away," he said. "Maati-kvo is going to be

remembered as the greatest poet of our generation."

"Have some more wine," Maati said, clinking the envoy's bowl with his

own, but Cehmai shook his head and gestured toward the wooded path. A

slave girl was trotting toward them, her robes billowing behind her.

Athai put down his bowl and stood, pulling at his sleeves. Here was the

moment they had been awaiting-the call for Athai to join the caravan to

the East. Maati sighed with relief. Half a hand, and his library would

be his own again. The envoy took a formal pose of farewell that Maati

and Cehmai returned.

"I will send word as soon as I can, Maati-kvo," Athai said. "I am

honored to have studied with you."

Maati nodded uncomfortably; then, after a moment's awkward silence,

Athai turned. Maati watched until the slave girl and poet had both

vanished among the trees, then let out a breath. Cehmai chuckled as he

put the stopper into the flask of wine.

"Yes, I agree," Cehmai said. "I think the I)ai-kvo must have chosen him

specifically to annoy the Khai."

"Or he just wanted to be rid of him for a time," Maati said.

"I liked him," Stone-Made-Soft said. "Well, as much as I like anyone."

The three walked together into the poet's house. The rooms within were

neatly kept-shelves of books and scrolls, soft couches and a table laid

out with the black and white stones on their hoard. A lemon candle

burned at the window, but a fly still buzzed wildly about the corners of

the room. It seemed that every winter Maati forgot about the existence

of flies, only to rediscover them in spring. He wondered where the

insects all went during the vicious cold, and what the signal was for

them to return.

"He isn't wrong, you know," Cehmai said. "If you're right, it will be

the most important piece of analysis since the fall of the Empire."

"I've likely overlooked something. It isn't as though we haven't seen

half a hundred schemes to bring hack the glory of the past before now,

and there hasn't been one that's done it."

"And I wasn't there to look at the other ideas," Cehmai said. "But since

I was here to talk this one over, I'd say this is at least plausible.

That's more than most. And the Dai-kvo's likely to think the same."

"He'll probably dismiss it out of hand," Maati said, but he smiled as he

spoke.

Cehmai had been the first one he'd shown his theories to, even before

he'd known for certain what they were. It had been a curiosity more than

anything else. It was only as they'd talked about it that Maati had