"Go sit by the stairs," he said. "Don't interrupt me, and if Cehmai- cha
tells you to do something, you do it. No asking why, no arguing him out
of it. You understand me?"
Eiah flung her hands into a pose of acceptance.
"And Eiah-kya. Understand what I'm doing has risks to it. If I die
here-hush, now, let me finish. If I fail the binding and my little
protection doesn't do what we think it will, I'll pay the price. If that
happens, you have to remember that I love you very deeply, and I've done
this because it was worth the risk if it meant keeping you safe."
Eiah swallowed and her eyes shone with tears. Maati smiled at her, stood
again, and waved her back toward the stairs. Cehmai came close, frowning.
"I'm not sure that was a kind thing to tell her," he said, but a sudden
outburst of trumpet calls sounded before Maati could reply. Maati
thought could hear the distant tattoo of drums echoing against the city
walls. He gestured to Cehmai.
"Come on. "['here isn't time. Finish drawing those, then light the
candles and close that blasted door. We'll all freeze to death before
the andat can have its crack at us."
"Or we'll have it all in place just in time for the Galts to take it."
Maati scribbled out the rest of the binding. He'd wanted time to think
on each word, each phrase; if he'd had time to paint each word like the
portrait of a thought, it would have been better. "There wasn't time. He
finished just as Cehmai lit the final lantern and walked up the stone
steps to the snow door. Before he closed it, the younger poet looked
out, peering into the city.
"What do you see?"
"Smoke," Cehmai said. 't'hen, "Nothing."
"Come back down,,, \laati said. "\V'here are the robes for it?"
"In the back corner," Cehmai said, pulling the wide wooden doors shut.
"I'll get them."
Nlaati went to the cushion in the middle of the room, lowered himself
with a grunt, and considered. The wall before him looked more like the
scrihhlings of low-town vandals than a poet's lifework. But the words
and phrases, the images and metaphors all shone brighter in his mind
than the lanterns could account for. Cehmai passed before him briefly,
laying robes of blue shot with black on the floor where, with luck, the
next hands to hold them wouldn't be human.
\laati glanced over his shoulder. Eiah was sitting against the back
wall, her hands held in fists even with her heart. I Ic smiled at her.
Reassuringly, he hoped. And then he turned to the words he had written,
took five deep breaths to clear his mind, and began to chant.
O'EMI STOOD ON T11E 1.11' OF"17IF. ROOF AND LOOKE1) DOWN XI' 1NIACIII AS
IF IT were a map. The great streets were marked by the lines of
rooftops. Only those streets that led directly to I louse Siyanti's
warehouses were at an angle that permitted him to see the black cobbles
turning white beneath the snow. To the south, the army of the Galts was
marching forward. The trumpet calls from the high towers told him that
much. "I'hey had worked out short signals for some eventualities-short
melodies that signaled some part of the plans he had worked with Sinja