"That," she said, "felt very odd. You should warn someone when you're planning something like that."
"Sterile?" Otah asked. His voice was low. There was no joy in it.
"Repaired," Eiah said. "We can bear again. Galts can father children and we can bear them."
"I don't suppose you could leave me as I was?" Idaan asked.
"So we've begun again," Otah said. "It is all as it was. We've only changed a few names. Well-"
Wounded cut him off with a low bark of a laugh. Its eyes were fixed upon Eiah. Otah looked from one to the other, his hands taking a querying pose. Woman and slave both ignored him.
"Everyone?" the andat asked.
"Everyone, everywhere," Eiah said. "It's only a thought, isn't it? That's all it needs to be."
"What are you doing?" Ana asked. It seemed like a real curiosity.
"I'm curing everyone," Eiah said. "If there's a child in Bakta who split her head on a stone this morning, I want it fixed. A man in Eymond whose hip was broken when he was a boy and healed poorly, I want him walking without pain in the morning. Everyone. Everywhere. Now."
"Eiah Machi," the andat said, its voice low and amused, "the little girl who saved the world. Is that how you see it? Or is this how you apologize for slaughtering a whole people?"
Eiah didn't speak, and the andat went still again. Anger flashed in its eyes and Maati's hand went out, touching Eiah's. She patted him away absently, as if he were no more than a well-intentioned dog. The andat hissed under its breath and turned away. Maati noticed for the first time that its teeth were pointed. Eiah relaxed. Maati sat up; his breath had almost returned. The andat shifted to look at him. The whites of his eyes had gone as black as a shark's; he had never seen an andat shift its appearance before, and it filled him with sudden dread. Eiah made a scolding sound, and the andat took an apologetic pose.
Maati tried to imagine what it would be like, a thought that changeable, that flexible, that filled with violence and rage. How did we everthink we could do good with these as our tools? For as long as she held the andat, Eiah was condemned to the struggle. And Maati was responsible for that sacrifice too.
Eiah, it seemed, had other intentions.
"That should do," she said. "You can go."
The andat vanished, its robe collapsing to the floor in a pool of blue and gold. The scent of overheated stone came and went, a breath of hell on the night air. The others were silent. Maati came to himself first.
"What have you done?" he whispered.
"I'm a physician," Eiah said, her tone dismissive. "Holding that abomination the rest of my life would have gotten in the way of my work, and who told you that you were allowed to sit up? On your back or I'll call in armsmen to hold you down. No, don't say anything. I don't care if you're feeling a thousand times better. Down. Now."
He lay back, staring up at the ceiling. His mind felt blasted and blank. The enameled brick was blurred in the torchlight, or perhaps it was only that his eyes were only what they had been. The cold air that breathed in through the window too gently to even be a breeze felt better than he would have expected, the stone floor beneath him more comfortable. The voices around him were quiet with respect for his poor health or else with awe. The world had never seen a night like this one. It likely never would again.
She had freed it. Gods, all that they'd done, all that they'd suffered, and she'd just freed the thing.
When Danat returned, Eiah forced half a handful of herbs more bitter than the last into his mouth and told him to leave them under his tongue until she told him otherwise. Idaan and one of the armsmen hauled Vanjit's body away. They would burn it, Maati thought, in the morning. Vanjit had been a broken, sad, dangerous woman, but she deserved better than to have her corpse left out. He remembered Idaan saying something similar of the slaughtered buck.
He didn't notice falling asleep, but Eiah gently shook him awake and helped him to sit. While she compared his pulses and pressed his fingertips, he spat out the black leaves. His mouth was numb.
"We're going to take you back down in a litter," she said, and before he could object, she lifted her hand to his lips. He took a pose that acquiesced. Eiah rose to her feet and walked back toward the great bronze doors.
The footsteps behind him were as familiar as an old song.
"Otahkvo," Maati said.
The Emperor sat on the dais, his hands between his knees. He looked pale and exhausted.
"Nothing ever goes the way I plan," Otah said, his tone peevish. "Not ever."
"You're tired," Maati said.
"I am. Gods, that I am."
The captain of the armsmen pulled open the doors. Four men followed, a low weaving of branches and rope between them. Eiah walked at their side. One of the men at the rear called out, and the whole parade stopped while the captain, cursing, retied a series of knots. Maati watched them as if they were dancers and gymnasts performing before a banquet.