what we do."
The andat looked up from the board.
"Has it ever struck you people how arrogant you are?" it asked, huge
hands taking an attitude of query that bordered on accusation. "You're
talking of slaughtering a nation. Thousands of innocent people
destroyed, lands made barren, mountains leveled and the sea pulled up
over them like a blanket. And you're feeling sorry for yourself that you
had to wring a bird's neck as a boy? How can anyone have feelings that
delicate and that numbed both at the same time?"
"It's your move," Cehmai said.
Stone-Made-Soft sighed theatrically-it had no need for breath, so every
sigh it made was a comment-and turned back toward the game. It was
essentially over. The andat had lost again as it always did, but they
played to the last move, finishing the ritual humiliation once again.
"We're off to the North," Cehmai said as he put the stones hack into
their trays. ""There's a new vein the Radaani want to explore, but I'm
not convinced it's possible. Their engineers are swearing that the
structure won't collapse, but those mountains are getting near lacework."
"Eight generations is a long time," Maati agreed. "Even without help,
the mines would have become a maze by now."
"I fear the day an earthquake comes," Cehmai said as he stood and
stretched. "One shake, and half these mountains will fold up flat, I'd
swear it."
`°I'hen I suppose we'd have to spend months digging up the bodies,"
Maati said.
"Not really," the andat said. Its voice was placid again, now that the
game was ended. "If we make it soft enough, the bodies will float up
through it. If stone is water, almost anything floats. We could have a
whole field of stone flat as a lake, with mine dogs and men popping up
out of it like bubbles."
"What a pleasant thought," Cehmai said, gently sarcastic. "And here I
was wondering why we weren't invited to more dinners. And you,
Maati-kvo? What's your day?"
"More work in the library," Maati said. "I want the place in order. If
the Dai-kvo calls for me ..."
"He will," Cehmai said. "You can count on that."
"If he does, I want the place left in order. A sane order that someone
else could make sense of. Baarath had the thing put together like a
puzzle. 'look me three years just to make sense of it, and even then
some of it I just went through book by book and made my own
classifications."
"Well, he had a different opinion than yours," Cehmai said. "He wanted
the library to be a place to bury secrets, not display them. It was how
he made himself feel as if he mattered. I don't suppose I can blame him
too much for that."
"I suppose not," Maati agreed.
The three of them walked along the wooded path that led to the palaces
of the Khai. The stone towers of Machi rose high above the city, bright
with the light of morning, and the smoke of the forges plumed up from