"I know that I won't ever be able to make good for this. If I hadn't called the retreat-"
"This isn't your fault," Otah said. "It's the Dai-kvo's."
Nayiit reared back, his mouth making a small "o." His hands fumbled toward a pose of query, but the porcelain howl defeated him. Otah took his meaning anyway.
"Not just this one. The last Dai-kvo. "lahi, his name was. And the one before that. All of them. This is their fault. We trusted everything in the andat. Our power, our wealth, the safety of our children. Everything. We built on sand. We were stupid."
"But it worked for so long."
"It worked until it didn't," Otah said. The response came from the back of his mind, as if it had always been there, only waiting for the time to speak. "It was always certain to fail sometime. Now, or ten generations from now. What difference does it make? If we'd been able to postpone the crisis until my children had to face it, or my grandchildren, or your grandchildren-how would that have been better than us facing it now? The andat have always been an unreliable tool, and poets have always been men with all the vanity and frailty and weakness that men are born with. The Empire fell, and we built ourselves in its image and so now we've fallen too. "There's no honor in a lesson half-learned."
"Too had you hadn't said that to the I)ai-kvo."
"I did. To all three of them, one way and another. "They didn't take it to heart. And I ... I didn't stay to press the point."
"Then we'll have to learn the lesson now," Nayiit said. It sounded like an attempt at resolution, perhaps even bravery. It sounded hollow as a drum.
"Someone will," Otah said. "Someone will learn by our example. And maybe the Galts burned all the hooks that would have let them teach more poets of their own. Perhaps they're already safe from our mistakes."
""That would he ironic. To come all this way and destroy the thing that you'd come for."
"Or wise. It might he wise." Otah sighed and took another mouthful of the wheat. ""I'he Galts are likely almost to "Ian-Sadar by now. As long as they're heading south, we may he able to reach Machi again before they do. There's no fighting them, I think we've discovered that, but we might be able to flee. Get people to Eddensca and the Westlands before the passes all close. It's probably too late to take a fast cart for Bakta."
Nayiit shook his head.
"They aren't going south."
Otah took another mouthful. The food seemed to he seeping into his blood; he felt only halfdead with exhaustion. Then, a breath or two later, Nayiit's words found their meaning, and he frowned, put down his bowl, and took a questioning pose. Nayiit nodded down toward the low towns at the base of the mountain village.
"I was talking with one of the footmen. The Galts came up the river from Yalakeht, and they left heading North on the road to AmnatTan. They're likely only a day or so ahead of us. It doesn't seem like they're interested in TanSadar."
"Why not?" Otah said, more than half to himself. "It's the nearest city.,,
"Marshes," a low voice said from behind them. The blacksmith, Saya, had come up behind them. "There's decent roads between here and AmnatTan. And then the North Road between all the winter cities. TanSadar's close, Most High. But there's two different rivers find their start in the marshes between here and there, and if their wagons are like the one they've left down there, they'll need roads." The thick arms folded into a pose appropriate for an apprentice to his master. "Come and see yourself, if you'd care to."
The steam wagon was wider than a cart, its bed made of hard, oiled wood at the front, and sheeted with copper at the back. A coal furnace twice the size of a firekeeper's kiln stood around a steel boiling tank. Saya pointed out how the force of the steam drove the wheels, and how it might be controlled to turn slowly and with great force or else more swiftly. Otah remembered a model he'd seen as a boy in Saraykeht. An army of teapots, the Khai Saraykeht had called them. The world had always told them how it would be, how things would fall apart. They had all been deaf.
"It's heavy, though," Saya said. "And there's housings there at the front where you could yoke a team of oxen, but I wouldn't want to pull it through soft land."
"Why would they ever pull it?" Nayiit asked. "Why put all this into making it go on fire and then use oxen?"
"They might run out of coal," Otah said.
"They might," Saya agreed. "But more likely, they don't want to rattle it badly. All this was a rounded chamber like an egg. Built to hold the pressure in. You can see how they leaved the seams. Something cracked that egg, and that's why this is all scrap now. Anyone who was nearby when it happened ... well. Anything strong enough to make a wagon this heavy move in the first place, and then load it with men or supplies, and then keep it going fast enough to be worth doing ... it'd be a lot to let loose at once."