The library stretched out around them-chamber after chamber of scrolls
and books and codices that were Maati's private domain. The air was rich
with the scent of old leather and dust and the pungent herbs he used to
keep the mice and insects away. Baarath, the chief librarian and Maati's
best friend here in the far, cold North, had kept it before him. Often
when Maati arrived in the morning or remained long after dark, puzzling
over some piece of ancient text or obscure reference, he would look up,
half-wondering where the annoying, fat, boisterous, petty little man had
gotten to, and then he would remember.
The fever had taken dozens of people that year. Winter always changed
the city, the cold driving them deep into the tunnels and hidden
chambers below Machi. For months they lived by firelight and in
darkness. By midwinter, the air itself could seem thick and stifling.
And illnesses spread easily in the dark and close, and Baraath had grown
ill and died, one man among many. Now he was only memory and ash. Maati
was the master of the library, appointed by his old friend and enemy and
companion Otah Machi. The Khai Machi, husband of Kiyan, and father to
this almost-woman Eiah who shared his almond cakes, and to her brother
Danat. And, perhaps, to one other.
"Maati-kya? Are you okay?"
"I was just wondering how your brother was," he said.
"Better. He's hardly coughing at all anymore. Everyone's saying he has
weak lungs, but I was just as sick when I was young, and I'm just fine."
"People tell stories," Maati said. "It keeps them amused, I suppose."
"What would happen if Danat died?"
"Your father would be expected to take a new, younger wife and produce a
son to take his place. More than one, if he could. "That's part of why
the utkhaiem are so worried about Danat. If he died and no brothers were
forthcoming, it would be had for the city. All the most powerful houses
would start fighting over who would be the new Khai. People would
probably be killed."
"Well, Danat won't die," Eiah said. "So it doesn't matter. Did you know
him?"
"Who?"
"My real uncle. Danat. The one Danat's named for?"
"No," Maati said. "Not really. I met him once."
"Did you like him?"
Maati tried to remember what it had been like, all those years ago. The
Dai-kvo had summoned him. That had been the old Dai-kvo- "Iahi-kvo. He'd
never met the new one. 'Iahi-kvo had brought him to meet the two men,
and set him the task that had ended with Otah on the chair and himself
living in the court of Machi. It had been a different lifetime.
"I don't recall liking him or disliking him," Maati said. "He was just a
man I'd met."
Eiah sighed impatiently.
""Tell me about another one," she said.
"Well. There was a poet in the First Empire before people understood
that andat were harder and harder to capture each time they escaped. He
tried to bind Softness with the same binding another poet had used a