An Autumn War(53)

"If you say so," Cehmai said, but there was something in his voice, some reservation. Maati felt his face begin to flush. Anger straightened his hack. StoneMade-Soft raised a wide, thick hand, palm out, silencing them both. Its head tilted, as if hearing some distant sound.

Its brow furrowed.

"Well," the andat said. "That's interesting."

And then it vanished.

Maati blinked in confusion. A few heartbeats later, Cehmai drew a long, shuddering breath. The poet's face was bloodless.

Maati sat silently as Cehmai stood, hands trembling, and walked back into the dimness of the house, and then out again. Cehmai's gaze darted one direction and another, searching for something. His eyes were so wide, the whites showed all the way around.

"Oh," Cehmai said, and his voice was thin and reedy. "Maati ... Oh gods. I didn't do anything. I didn't ... Oh gods. Maatikvo, he's gone."

Nlaati rose, brushing the crumbs from his robes with a sense of profound unreality. Once before, he had seen the last moments of an andat in the world. It wasn't something he'd expected to stiffer again. Cehmai paced the wide porch, his head turning one way and another, directionless as a swath of silk caught in the wind.

"Stay here. I'll get Otah-kvo," hlaati said. "He'll know what to do."

THE WALLS OF THE AUDIENCE CHAMBER SWOOPED UP, GRACEFUL AS A DOVE'S wing. The high, pale stone looked as soft as fresh butter, seamless where the stones had joined and been smoothed into one piece by the power of the andat. 'T'iny webworks of stone fanned out from the walls at shoulder height, incense smoke rising from them in soft gray lines. High above, windows had been shaped by hand. Spare and elegant and commanding, it was a place of impossible beauty, and Otah suspected the world would never see another like it.

He sat in the black chair his father had sat in, and his father before him, and on hack through the generations to when the Empire had still stood, and the name Khai had meant honored servant. Before him, seated on soft red cushions and intricately woven rugs, were the heads of the highest families of the utkhaiem. Vaunani, Radaani, Kamau, I)aikani, Dun, Isadan, and half a dozen others. For each of these, there were ten more families. Twenty more. But these were the highest, the richest, the most powerful men of %fachi. And they were the ones who had just suffered the worst loss. Otah waited while his news sank in, watched the blood drain from their faces. Otah kept his visage stern and his posture formal and rigid. His robes were simple, pale, and severe. His first impulse-a ceremonial black shot with red and long, flexible bone sewn in to give it shape-had been too gaudy; he would have seemed to be taking refuge in the cloth. The important things now were that they know he was in control and that they put trust in him. It would he too easy for the city to fall into panic, and here, now, through the force of his own will, he could hold it hack. If these men left the room unsure, it would be too late. He could hold a stone, but he couldn't stop a rockslide.

"C-Can we get it hack?" Wetai I)un asked, his voice shaking. "There are andat that poets have caught three, four times. Water-MovingDown was..."

Otah took a deep breath. "There is a chance," he said. "It has been done, but it will be harder than it was the first time. The poet who does will have to create a binding sufficiently different from the original. Or it could he that the Dai-kvo will be able to give us an andat that is different, but that still speeds the mining trades."

"How long will it take?" Ashua Radaani asked. The Radaani were the richest family in the city, with more silver and gold in their coffers than even Otah himself could command.

"We can't know until we hear from the Dai-kvo," Otah said. "I've sent my best courier with enough gold in his sleeve to buy a fresh horse every time he needs one. We will hear back as soon as it is possible to know. Until that happens, we will work as we always have. Stone-MadeSoft made the mines here and in the North the most productive in the world, that's true. But it didn't run the forges. It didn't smelt the ore. The stone potters will have to go back to working clay, that's true, but-"

"How did this happen?" Caiin Dun cried. His voice was as anguished as if he'd lost a son. "There was a stirring in the air. Fear. Without thinking, Otah rose, his hands flowing into a pose of censure.

"Dun-cha," he said, his voice cold as stone and harder. "You are not here to shout me down. I have brought you here as a courtesy. Do you understand that?"

The man took an apologetic pose, but Otah pressed.

"I asked whether you understood, not whether you were regretful."

"I understand, Most High," the man muttered.