The pause that came before Cehmai's reply meant that no, he would have
chosen his freedom. It was the answer Maati had expected, but not the
one he was ready to accept.
"The Khai may be able to save the Dai-kvo," Cehmai said. "He may get
there before the Galts."
"But if he doesn't?"
"Then I would rather have Stone-Made-Soft back than decorate the end of
some Galtic spear," Cehmai said, a grim humor in his voice. "I have some
early work. Drafts from when I was first studying him. There are places
where the options ... branched. If we used those as starting points, it
would make the binding different from the one I took over, and we still
wouldn't have to begin from first principles."
"You have them here?"
"Yes. They're in that basket. There. You should take them back to the
library and look them over. If we keep them here I'm too likely to do
something unpleasant with them. I was half-tempted to burn them last night."
Maati took the pages-small, neat script on cheap, yellowing
parchment-and folded them into his sleeve. The weight of them seemed so
slight, and still Maati found himself uncomfortably aware of them and of
the return to a kind of walking prison that they meant for Cehmai.
"I'll look them over," Maati said. "Once I have an idea what would be
the best support for it, I'll put some reading together. And if things
go well, we can present it all to the Dai-kvo when he arrives.
Certainly, there's no call to do anything until we know where we stand."
"We can prepare for the worst," Cehmai said. "I'd rather be pleasantly
surprised than taken unaware."
The resignation in Cehmai's voice was hard to listen to. Maati coughed,
as if the suggestion he wished to make fought against being spoken.
"It might be better ... I haven't attempted a binding myself. If I were
the one ..."
Cehmai took a pose that was both gratitude and refusal. Maati felt a
warm relief at Cehmai's answer and also a twinge of regret.
"He's my burden," Cehmai said. "I gave my word to carry StoneMade-Soft
as long as I could, and I'll do that. I wouldn't want to disappoint the
Khai." Then he chuckled. "You know, there have been whole years when I
would have meant that as a sarcasm. Disappointing the Khaiem seems to be
about half of what we do as poets-no, I can't somehow use the andat to
help you win at tiles, or restore your prowess with your wives, or any
of the thousand stupid, petty things they ask of us. But these last
weeks, I really would do whatever I could, not to disappoint that man. I
don't know what's changed."
"Everything," Maati said. "Times like these remake men. They change what
we are. Otah's trying to become the man we need him to he."
"I suppose that's true," Cehmai said. "I just don't want this all to be
happening, so I forget, somehow, that it is. I keep thinking it's all a
sour dream and I'll wake out of it and stumble down to play a game of
stones against Stone-Made-Soft. That that will be the worst thing I have
to face. And not ..."
Cehmai gestured, his hands wide, including the house and the palaces and