A sudden pain seemed to touch the old man's features and one
nearskeletal hand moved toward his belly.
"There is a shadow in your city," Maati said. "You've called it by
Utah's name, but none of it shows any connection with Otah: not Biitrah,
not the attack on me, not the murder of the assassin. None of the other
couriers of any house report anything that would suggest he was more
than he appeared. By his own word, he'd fled the city before the attack
on me, and didn't return before the assassin was killed. How is it that
he arranged all these things with no one seeing him? No one knowing his
name? How is it that, now he's trapped, no one has offered to sell him
in trade for their own lives?"
"Who then?"
"I don't ..."
"Who else gained from these things?"
"Your son, Danat," Maati said. "He broke the pact. If all this talk of
Otah was a ploy to distract Kaiin from the real danger, then it worked,
most high. Danat will be the new Khai Machi."
"Ask him when he comes. He will be the Khai Machi, and if he has done as
you said, then there's no crime in it and no reason that he should hide it."
"A poet was attacked-"
"And did you die? Are you dying? No? Then don't ask sympathy from me.
Go, Maati-cha. Take the prisoner anything you like. Take him a pony and
let him ride it around his cell, if that pleases you. Only don't return
to me. Any business you have with me now, you have with my son.
The Khai took a pose of command that ended the audience, and Maati
stood, took a pose of gratitude that he barely felt, and withdrew from
the meeting room. He stalked along the corridors of the palace seething.
Back in his apartments, he took stock. He had gathered together his
bundle even before he'd gone to the audience. A good wool robe, a rough
cloth hag filled with nut breads and dry cheeses, and a flask of fresh
water. Everything that he thought the Khai's men would permit. He folded
it all together and tied it with twine.
At the base of the great tower, armsmcn stood guard at the platform-a
metalwork that ran on tracks set into the stone of the tower, large
enough to carry twelve men. The chains that held it seemed entirely too
thin. Maati identified himself, thinking his poet's robe, reputation,
and haughty demeanor might suffice to make the men do as he instructed.
Instead, a runner was sent to the Khai's palace to confirm that Maati
was indeed permitted to see the prisoner and to give him the little
gifts that he carried. Once word was brought back, Maati climbed on the
platform, and the signalman on the ground blew a call on a great
trumpet. The chains went taut, and the platform rose. Maati held onto
the rail, his knuckles growing whiter as the ground receded. Wind
plucked at his sleeves as the roofs of even the greatest palaces fell
away below him. The only things so high as he was were the towers, the
birds, and the mountains. It was beautiful and exhilarating, and all he
could think the whole time was what would happen if a single link in any
of the four chains gave way. When he reached the open sky doors at the
top, the captain of the armsmen took him solidly by his arm and helped