of one of the towers. Other things as fragmentary, as fleeting. He could
not say which memories were real and which only parts of dreams.
It was enough, he supposed, to be here now, walking in the darkness. He
would go and see it with a man's eyes. He would see this place that had
sent him forth and, despite all his struggles, still had the power to
poison the life he'd built for himself. Itani Noygu had made his way as
an indentured laborer at the seafronts of Saraykeht, as a translator and
fisherman and midwife's assistant in the east islands, as a sailor on a
merchant ship, and as a courier in House Siyanti and all through the
cities. He could write and speak in three tongues, play the flute badly,
tell jokes well, cook his own meals over a half-dead fire, and comport
himself well in any company from the ranks of the utkhaiem to the
denizens of the crudest dockhouse. This from a twelve-year-old boy who
had named himself, been his own father and mother, formed a life out of
little more than the will to do so. Irani Noygu was by any sane standard
a success.
It was Otah Machi who had lost Kiyan's love.
The sky in the east lightened to indigo and then royal blue, and Otah
could see the road out farther ahead. Between one breath and the next,
the oxen came clearer. And the plains before them opened like a vast
scroll. Far to the north, mountains towered, looking flat as a painting
and blued by the distance. Smoke rose from low towns and mines on the
plain, the greener pathway of trees marked the river, and on the
horizon, small as fingers, rose the dark towers of Machi, unnatural in
the landscape.
Otah stopped as sunlight lit the distant peaks like a fire. The
brilliance crept down and then the distant towers blazed suddenly, and a
moment later, the plain flooded with light. Otah caught his breath.
This is where I started, he thought. I come from here.
He had to trot to catch hack up with the caravan, but the questioning
looks were all answered with a grin and a gesture. The enthusiastic
courier still nave enough to be amazed by a sunrise. There was nothing
more to it than that.
House Siyanti kept no quarters in Machi, but the gentleman's trade had
its provisions for this. Other Houses would extend courtesy even to
rivals so long as it was understood that the intrigues and prying were
kept to decorous levels. If a courier were to act against a rival House
or carried information that would too deeply tempt his hosts, it was
better form to pay for a room elsewhere. Nothing Otah carried was so
specific or so valuable, and once the caravan had made its trek across
the plain and passed over the wide, sinuous bridge into Machi, Otah made
his way to the compound of House Nan.
The structure itself was a gray block three stories high that faced a
wide square and shared walls with the buildings on either side. Otah
stopped by a street cart and bought a bowl of hot noodles in a smoky
black sauce for two lengths of copper and watched the people passing by
with a kind of doubled impression. He saw them as the subjects of his
training: people clumped at the firekeepers' kilns and streetcarts meant
a lively culture of gossip, women walking alone meant little fear of