him in the first place, that had held it for generations. And when it
had been brought to heel, he took it the rest of the way through his
pathway and then slowly, carefully, brought his mind, and its, back to
where they stood.
"Cehmai-cha?" the overseer asked again. The engineer was eyeing the
walls as if they might start speaking with him.
"I'm done," he said. "It's fine. I only have a headache."
Stone-Made-Soft smiled placidly. Neither of them would tell the men how
near they had all just come to dying: Cehmai, because he wished to keep
it from them, Stone-Made-Soft, because it would never occur to it to care.
The overseer took a hand pick from his satchel and struck the wall. The
metal head chimed and a white mark appeared on the stone. Cehmai waved
his hand.
"To your left," he said. "'t'here."
The overseer struck again, and the pick sank deep into the stone with a
sound like a footstep on gravel.
"Excellent," the overseer said. "Perfect."
Even the engineer seemed grudgingly pleased. Cehmai only wanted to get
out, into the light and hack to the city and his own bed. Even if they
left now, they wouldn't reach hlachi before nightfall. probably not
before the night candle hit its half mark.
On the way back up, the engineer started telling jokes. Cehmai allowed
himself to smile. There was no call to make things unpleasant even if
the pain in his head and spine were echoing his heartbeats.
When they reached the light and fresh air, the servants had laid out a
more satisfying meal-rice, fresh chickens killed here at the mine,
roasted nuts with lemon, cheeses melted until they could be spread over
their bread with a blade. Cehmai lowered himself into a chair of strung
cloth and sighed with relief. To the south, they could see the smoke of
the forges rising from Machi and blowing off to the east. A city
perpetually afire.
"When we get there," Cehmai said to the andat, "we'll be playing several
games of stones. You'll be the one losing."
The andat shrugged almost imperceptibly.
"It's what I am," it said. "You may as well blame water for being wet."
"And when it soaks my robes, I do," Cehmai said. The andat chuckled and
then was silent. Its wide face turned to him with something like
concern. Its brow was furrowed.
"The girl," it said.
"What about her?"
"It seems to me the next time she asks if you love her, you could say yes.
Cehmai felt his heart jump in his chest, startled as a bird. The andat's
expression didn't change; it might have been carved from stone. Idaan
wept in his memory, and she laughed, and she curled herself in his
bedclothes and asked silently not to be sent away. Love, he discovered,
could feel very much like sorrow.
"I suppose you're right," he said, and the andat smiled in what looked
like sympathy.
MAATI LAID HIS NOTES OUT ON THE WIDE TABLE AT THE BACK OF THE LIbrary's