had gone until twelve moves later when he shifted a black stone one
place to the left, and Stone-Made-Soft smiled.
"Maybe she'll still love you afterwards," the andat said. "Do you think
she'll care as much about your love when you're just a man in a brown robe?"
Cehmai looked at the stones, the shifting line of them, flowing and
sinuous as a river, and he saw his mistake. Stone-Made-Soft pushed a
white stone forward and the storm in Cehmai's mind redoubled. He could
hear his own breath rattling. He was sticky with the rancid sweat of
effort and fear. He was losing. He couldn't make himself think,
controlling his own mind was like wrestling a beast-something large and
angry and stronger than he was. In his confusion, Idaan and Adrah and
the death of the Khai all seemed connected to the tokens glowing on the
board. Each was enmeshed with the others, and all of them were lost. He
could feel the andat pressing toward freedom and oblivion. All the
generations of carrying it, gone because of him.
"It's your move," the andat said.
"I can't," Cehmai said. His own voice sounded distant.
"I can wait as long as you care to," it said. "Just tell me when you
think it'll get easier."
"You knew this would happen," Cehmai said. "You knew."
"Chaos has a smell to it," the andat agreed. "Move."
Cchmai tried to study the board, but every line he could see led to
failure. He closed his eyes and rubbed them until ghosts bloomed in the
darkness, but when he reopened them, it was no better. The sickness grew
in his belly. He felt he was falling. The knock on the door behind him
was something of a different world, a memory from some other life, until
the voice came.
"I know you're in there! You won't believe what's happened. Half the
utkhaiem are spotty with welts. Open the door!"
"Baarath!"
Cehmai didn't know how loud he'd called-it might have been a whisper or
a scream. But it was enough. The librarian appeared beside him. The
stout man's eyes were wide, his lips thin.
"What's wrong?" Baarath asked. "Are you sick? Gods, Cehmai.... Stay
here. Don't move. I'll have a physician-"
"Paper. Bring me paper. And ink."
"It's your move!" the andat shouted, and Baarath seemed about to bolt.
"Hurry," Cehmai said.
It was a week, a month, a year of struggle before the paper and ink
brick appeared at his side. He could no longer tell whether the andat
was shouting to him in the real world or only within their shared mind.
The game pulled at him, sucking like a whirlpool. The stones shifted
with significance beyond their own, and confusion built on confusion in
waves so that Cehmai grasped his one thought until it was a certainty.
There was too much. There was more than he could survive. The only
choice was to simplify the panoply of conflicts warring within him;
there wasn't room for them all. He had to fix things, and if he couldn't
make them right, he could at least make them end.
He didn't let himself feel the sorrow or the horror or the guilt as he