five. But they are complete, and that's the biggest gap in our resources."
Cehmai got to his feet with a grunt. Ilis hair was disheveled and there
were dark smudges under his eyes. Nlaati imagined he had some to match.
"So to sum up," Cehmai said, "if the Khai fails, we might be able to
hind a new andat in a generation or so."
"Unless we're unlucky and use some construct too much like something a
minor poet employed twenty generations back. In that case, we attempt
the binding, pay the price, and dic badly. Except that by then, we'll
likely all have been slaughtered by the Galts."
"Well," Cehmai said and rubbed his hands together. "Are there any of
those raisins left?"
"A few," Maati said.
Nlaati could hear the joints in Cehmai's hack cracking as he stretched.
Maati leaned over and scooped up the fallen hook. It wasn't titled, nor
was the author named, but the grammar in the first page marked it as
Second Empire. Loyan Sho or Kodjan the Lesser. Nlaati let his gaze flow
down the page, seeing the words without taking in their meanings. Behind
him, Cehmai ate the raisins, lips smacking until he spoke.
""I'he second problem is solved if your technique works. It isn't
critical that we have all the histories if we can deflect the price of
failing. At worst, we'll have lost the time it took to compose the binding."
"Months," hlaati said.
"But not death," Cchmai went on. "So there's something to be said for that."
"And the first problem can be skirted by not starting wholly from scratch."
"You've been thinking about this, Nlaati-kvo."
Cehmai slowly walked back across the floor. His footsteps were soft and
deliberate. Outside, a pigeon cooed. Nlaati let the silence speak for
him. When Cehmai returned and sat again, his expression was abstracted
and his fingers picked idly at the cloth of his sleeves. hlaati knew
some part of what haunted the younger man: the danger faced by the city,
the likelihood of the Khai Machi retrieving the I)ai-kvo, the shapeless
and all-pervading fear of the Galtic army that had gathered in the South
and might now be almost anywhere. But there was another part to the
question, and that Maati could not guess. And so he asked.
"What is it like?"
Cehmai looked up as if he'd half-forgotten klaati was there. His hands
flowed into a pose that asked clarification.
"Stone-Made-Soft," Maati said. "What is it like with him gone?"
Cehmai shrugged and turned his head to look out the unshuttered windows.
The trees shifted their leaves and adjusted their branches like men in
conversation. The sun hung in the sky, gold in lapis.
"I'd forgotten what it was like to be myself," Cehmai said. His voice
was low and thoughtful and melancholy. "Just myself and not him as well.
I was so young when I took control of him. It's like having had someone
strapped to your back when you were a child and then suddenly lifting
off the burden. I feel alone. I feel freed. I'm shamed to have failed,
even though I know there was nothing I could have done to keep hold of
him. And I regret now all the years I could have stink Galt into ruins
that I didn't."