his face.
She called his name, and a low groan escaped him. He stood and for a
moment she was afraid that he would stagger and fall. But she made out
his silhouette, a deeper darkness, and he did not sway. She called his
name again.
"No," he said, then a pause and, "No no no no no. Oh gods. Gods, no."
Liat rose, but Maati was already walking. She heard him bark his shin
against the table in the front room, heard the wine bottle clatter as it
fell. She wrapped her sheet around herself and hurried after him just in
time to see him lumbering naked out the door and into the night. She
followed.
He trotted into the library, his hands moving restlessly. When he lit a
candle, she saw his face etched deep with dread. It was as if he was
watching someone die that only he could see.
"Maati. Stop this," she said, and the fear in her voice made her realize
that she was trembling. "What's the matter? What's happened?"
"I was wrong," he said. "Gods, Cehmai will never forgive me doubting
him. He'll never forgive me."
Candle in hand, Maati lumbered into the next room and began frantically
looking through scrolls, hands shaking so badly the wax spilled on the
floor. Liat gave up hope that he would speak, that he would explain.
Instead, she took the candle from his hand and held it for him as he
searched. In the third room, he found what he'd been seeking and sank to
the floor. Liat came to his side, and read over his shoulder as he
unfurled the scroll. The ink was pale, the script the alphabet of the
Old Empire. Maati's fingertips traced the words, looking for something,
some passage or phrase. Liat found herself holding her breath. And then
his hand stopped moving.
The grammar was antiquated and formal, the language almost too old to
make sense of. Liat silently struggled to translate the words that had
caught Nlaati short.
The second type is made up of those
thoughts impossible to hind by their
nature, and no greater knowledge shall
ever permit them. Examples of this are
Imprecision and Freedom-From-Bondage.
"I know what they've done," he said.
11
Nantani had been one of the first cities built when the Second Empire
reached out past its borders to put its mark on the distant lands they
now inhabited. The palace of the Khai was topped by a dome the color of
jade-a single stone shaped by the will of some longdead poet. When the
sunlight warmed it in just the right way, it would chime, a low voice
rolling out wordlessly over the whitewashed walls and blue tile roofs of
the city.
Sinja had wintered in Nantani for a few seasons, retreating from the
snowbound fields of the Westlands to wait in comfort for the thaw and
spend the money he'd earned. He knew the scent of the sea here, the feel
of the soft, chalky soil beneath his feet. He knew of an old man who