sticks, with beggars and slaves and water carts and firekeepers' kilns,
with farmers' carts loaded high with spring produce or lambs and pigs on
their way to the fresh butcher. Voices jabbered and shouted and sang,
the smells of forge smoke and grilling meat and livestock pressed like a
fever. The city seemed busy as an anthill, and Maati's mind churned as
he navigated his way through it all. Otah had come to the winter cities.
Was he killing his brothers? Had he chosen to become the Khai Machi?
And if he had, would Maati have the strength to stop him?
He told himself that he could. He was so focused and among so many
distractions that he almost didn't notice his follower. Only when he
found what looked like a promising alley-hardly more than a shoulderwide
crack between two long, tall buildings-did he escape the crowds long
enough to notice. The sound of the street faded in the dim twilight that
the band of sky above him allowed. A rat, surprised by him, scuttled
through an iron grating and away. The thin alley branched, and Maati
paused, looked down the two new paths, and then glanced back. The path
behind him was blocked. A dark cloak, a raised hood, and shoulders so
broad they touched both walls. Maati hesitated, and the man behind him
didn't move. Maati felt the skin at the back of his neck tighten. He
picked one turning of the alleyway and walked down it briskly until the
dark figure reached the intersection as well and turned after him. Then
Maati ran. The alley spilled out into another street, this less
populous. The smoke of the forges made the air acrid and hazy. Maati
raced toward them. There would be men there-smiths and tradesmen, but
also firekeepers and armsmen.
When he reached the mouth where the street spilled out onto a major
throughway, he looked back. The street behind him was empty. His steps
slowed, and he stopped, scanning the doorways, the rooftops. There was
nothing. His pursuer-if that was what he had been-had vanished. Maati
waited there until he'd caught his breath, then let himself laugh. No
one was coming. No one had followed. It was easy to see how a man could
be eaten by his fears. He turned to the metalworkers' quarter.
The streets widened here, with shops and stalls facing out, filled with
the tools of the metal trades as much as their products. The forges and
smith's houses were marked by the greened copper roofs, the pillars of
smoke, the sounds of yelling voices and hammers striking anvils. The
businesses around them-sellers of hammers and tongs, suppliers of ore
and wax blocks and slaked lime-all did their work loudly and
expansively, waving hands in mock fury and shouting even when there was
no call to. Maati made his way to a teahouse near the center of the
district where sellers and workers mixed. He asked after House Siyanti,
where their couriers might be found, what was known of them. The brown
poet's robes granted him an unearned respect, but also wariness. It was
three hands before he found an answer-the overseer of a consortium of
silversmiths had had word from House Siyanti. The courier had said the
signed contracts could be delivered to House Nan, but only after they'd
been sewn and sealed. Maati gave the man two lengths of silver and his
thanks and had started away before he realized he would also need better
directions. An older man in a red and yellow robe with a face round and