An Autumn War(142)

"Something's gone wrong with the binding," Otah said. Cehmai took a pose of confirmation.

"Please," the poet said. "Come now. I furry."

Otah didn't pause to think; he went to the stairs, lifting the hem of his robes, and dropping down three steps at a time. It was four stories from the top of the warehouse to its bottom floor. Otah felt that he could hardly have gone there faster if he'd jumped over the building's side.

The space was eerie; shadows seemed to hang in the corners of the huge, empty room and the distant sound of voices in pain murmured and shrieked. Great symbols were chalked on the walls, and an ugly, disjointed script in Nlaati's handwriting spelled out the binding. Otah knew little enough of the old grammars, but he picked out the words for womb, seed, and corruption. Three people stood in tableau at the top of the stair that led down to the tunnels. NIaati stood, his hands at his sides, his expression blank. Otah's belly went tight as sickness as he saw that the girl at Nlaati's feet was Eiah. And the thing that cradled his daughter's head turned to look at him. After a long moment, it drew breath and spoke.

"Otah-kya," it said. Its voice was low and beautiful, heavy with amusement and contempt. The familiarity of it was dizzying.

"Seedless?"

"It isn't," Nlaati said. "It's not him."

"What's happened?" Otah asked. When Maati didn't answer, Otah shook the man's sleeve. " Nlaati. What's going on?"

"He's failed," the andat said. "And when a poet fails, he pays a price for it. Only Nlaati-kvo is clever. He's found a way to make it so that failure can't touch him. He's found a trick."

"I don't understand," Otah said.

"My protection," Maati said, his voice rich with despair. "It doesn't stop the price being paid. It only can't kill me."

The andat took a pose that agreed, as a teacher might approve of a clever student. From the stairwell, Utah heard footsteps and the voice of the Khai Cetani. The first of the servant men hurried into the room, robes flapping like a flag in high wind, before he saw them and stopped dead and silent.

"What is it doing?" Utah asked. "What's it done?"

"You can ask me, Most High," Sterile said. "I have a voice."

Utah looked into the black, inhuman eyes. Eiah whimpered, and the thing stroked her brow gently, comforting and threatening both. Utah felt the urge to pull Eiah away from the thing, as if it were a spider or a snake.

"What have you done to my daughter?" he asked.

"What would you guess, Most High?" Sterile asked. "I am the reflection of a man whose son is not his son. All his life, Maatikya has been bent double by the questions of fathers and sons. What do you imagine I would do?"

""fell me."

"I've soured her womb," the andat said. "Scarred it. And I've done the same to every woman in the cities of the Khaiem. Lachi, Chaburi-Ian, Saraykeht. All of them. Young and old, highborn and low. And I've gelded every Galtic man. From Kirinton to Far Galt to right here at your doorstep."

"Papa-kya," Eiah said. "It hurts."

Utah knelt, drawing his daughter to him. Her mouth was thin with pain. The andat opened its hand, the long fingers gesturing him to take her. The Khai Cetani was at Utah's side now, his breath heavy and his hands trembling. Utah took Eiah in his arms.

"Your children will be theirs," it said. ""I'he next generation will have the Khaiem for fathers and feed from Galtic breasts, or else it will not be. Your history will be written by half-breeds, or it won't be written."

"Maati," Otah said, but his old friend only shook his head.

"I can't stop it," Maati said. "It's already happened."

"You should never have been a poet," Sterile said, standing as it spoke. "You failed the tests. The strength to stand on your own, and the compassion to turn away from cruelty. "Those are what the I)ai-kvo asked of you."

"I did my best," Maati breathed.

"You were told," it said and turned to Otah. "You went to him. When you were both boys, you warned him that the school wasn't as it seemed. You told him it was a test. You gave the game away. And hecause he knew, he passed. He would have failed without you, and this could never have happened."

"I don't believe you," Otah said.

"It doesn't matter what you think," it said. "Only what he knows. \Iaati-kvo made an instrument of slaughter, and he made it in fear; that makes it a failure of both his lessons. A generation of women will know him as the man who stole motherhood from them. The men of Galt will hate him for unmanning them. You, Maati Vaupathai, will he the one who took their children from them."