came."
Nayiit took a pose that accepted all she said. Kiyan smiled and leaned
forward to touch Nayiit's hands with her own. She seemed at ease except
for the tears that had gathered in her eyes.
"If the Galts come," she said, "will you take F,iah and Danat there?
Will you ..."
Kiyan stopped, her smile crumbling. She visibly gathered herself. A
long, slow breath. And even still, when she spoke, it was hardly more
than a whisper.
"If they come, will you protect my children?"
You brilliant, vicious snake, Liar thought. You glorious bitch. You'd
ask him to love your son. You'd make caring for I)anat the proof that my
boy's a decent man. And you're doing it because I asked you to.
It's perfect.
"I would be honored," Nayiit said. The sound of his voice and the
awestruck expression in his eyes were all that Liat needed to see how
well Kivan had chosen.
""Thank you, Nayiit-kya," Kiyan said. She looked over to I,iat, and her
eyes were guarded. They both knew what had happened here. Liat carefully
took a pose of thanks, unsure as she did what precisely she meant by it.
THE LIBRARY OF CETANI WAS MCCII SMALLER THAN MACIII'S. PERHAPS A third
as many hooks and codices, not more than half as many scrolls. They
arrived on Maati's doorway in sacks and baskets, crates and wooden
boxes. A letter accompanied them, hardly more than a terse note with
Otah's seal on it, telling him that there was no living poet to ask what
texts would he of use, that as a result he'd sent everything, and
expressing hope that these might help. There was no mention of the Galts
or the Dai-kvo or the dead. Otah seemed to assume that Maati would
understand how dire the situation was, how much depended on him and on
Cehmai.
He was right. Maati understood.
He'd left Cehmai in the library, looking over their new acquisitions,
while he sat in the main room of his apartments, marking out grammars
and forms. How Heshai had hound Seedless, what he would have done
differently in retrospect, and the variations that Maati could
makedifferent words and structures, images and metaphors that would
serve the same purpose without coming too near the original. His
knuckles ached, and his mind felt woolly. It was hard to say how far
into the work they'd come. Perhaps as much as a third. Perhaps less. The
hardest part would come at the end; once the binding was mapped out and
drafted, there was the careful process of going through, image by image,
and checking to see that there were no ambiguities, no unintended
meanings, no contradictions where the power of the andat might loop hack
upon itself and break his hold and himself.
Outside, the wind was blowing cold as it had since the middle morning.
The city of tents that had sprung up at Machi's feet would be an
unpleasant place tonight. Liat had been entirely absent these last four
days, helping to find Cetani a place within Machi. It was just as well,
he supposed. If she were here, he'd only want to talk with her. Speak