looking almost priestly. Otah Machi, the upstart, strode into the hall,
with the grace and calm of a man who owned it and every man and woman
who breathed air.
He's mad, she thought. He's gone mad to come here. They'll tear him
apart with their hands. And then she saw behind him the brown robes of a
poet-Maati Vaupathai, the envoy of the Dal-kvo. And behind him ...
Her mouth went dry and her body began to tremble. She shrieked, she
screamed, but no one could hear her over the crowd. She couldn't even
hear herself. And yet, walking at Maati's side, Cehmai looked tip. His
face was grim and calm and distant. The poets strode together behind the
upstart. And then the armsmen of Radaani and Vaunani, Kaman and Daikani
and Saya. Hardly a tenth of the families of the utkhaicm, but still a
show of power. The poets alone would have been enough.
She didn't think, couldn't recall pushing back the people around her,
she only knew her own intentions when she was over the rail and falling.
It wasn't so far to the ground-no more than the height of two men, and
yet in the roar and chaos, the drop seemed to last forever. When she
struck the floor at last, it jarred her to the hone. Her ankle bloomed
with pain. She put it aside and ran as best she could through the
stunned men of the utkhaiem. Men all about her, unable to act, unable to
move. They were like statues, frozen by their uncertainty and confusion.
She knew that she was screaming-shc could feel it in her throat, could
hear it in her cars. She sounded crazed, but that was unimportant. Her
attention was single, focused. The rage that possessed her, that lifted
her up and sped her steps by its power alone, was only for the upstart,
Otah Machi, who had taken her lover from her.
She saw Adrah and Daaya already on the floor, an armsman kneeling on
each back. "There was a blade still in Adrah's hand. And then there
before her like a fish rising to the surface of a pond was Otah Machi,
her brother. She launched herself at him, her hands reaching for him
like claws. She didn't see how the andat moved between them; perhaps it
had been waiting for her. Its wide, cold body appeared, and she collided
with it. Huge hands wrapped her own, and the wide, inhuman face bent
close to hers.
"Stop this," it said. "It won't help."
"'t'his isn't right!" she shouted, aware now that the pandemonium had
quieted, that her voice could be heard, but she could no more stop
herself now than learn to fly. "He swore he'd protect me. He swore it.
It's not right!"
"Nothing is," the andat agreed, as it pulled her aside, lifted her as if
she was still a child, and pressed her against the wall. She felt
herself sinking into it, the stone giving way to her like mud. She
fought, but the wide hands were implacable. She shrieked and kicked,
sure that the stone would close over her like water, and then she
stopped fighting. Let it kill her, let her die.
Let it end.
The hands went away, and Idaan found herself immobile, trapped in stone
that had found its solidity again. She could breathe, she could see, she
could hear. She opened her mouth to scream, to call for Cehmai. To beg.