"That's not true," Danat said.
"Every day that we're like ... like this, more of us are dying. It's
harvest time. How are they going to harvest the grain if they can't see
it? How do you raise sheep and cattle by sound?"
"I knew a blind man who worked leather in Lachi," Danat said. "His work
was just as good as a man's with eyes."
"One man doesn't signify," Ana said. "He wasn't baking his own bread or
catching his own fish. If he needed to know what a thing looked like,
there was someone he could ask. If everyone's sightless, it's different.
It's all falling apart."
"You can't know that," Danat said.
"I know how crippled I am," Ana said. "It gives me room to guess. I know
how little I can do to stop it."
There was a soft sound, and Danat hushing her. Otah took a careful step
back, away from the door. When Ana's voice came again, it was thick with
tears.
"Tell me," she said. "Tell me one of those stories. The ones where a
child with two races could still win out."
"In the sixteenth year of the reign of the Emperor Adani Beh," Danat
said, his voice bright and soft, "there came to court a boy whose blood
was half-Bakta, his skin the color of soot, and his mind as clever as
any man who had ever lived. When the Emperor saw him ..."
Otah backed away, his son's voice becoming a murmur of sound, inflected
like words but too faint to mean anything. Their whole journey, it had
been like this. Each time Otah thought they might have a moment alone,
Ana was near, or one of the armsmen, or Otah had brought himself to the
edge of speech and then failed. Every courier they stopped along the
road was another reminder to Otah that his son had to know, had to be
told. But no word had come from Idaan, and Danat still didn't know that
Eiah was involved in the slow death of Galt and, with it, the future
Otah had fought for.
Before Pathai, Otah had told himself when they were on the road. During
the journey itself, it hardly mattered whether Danat knew, but once they
reached their destination, his son couldn't be set out without knowing
what it was they were searching for and why. Otah had no faith that
another, better chance would come the next day. He made his way back
upstairs, found a servant woman, and had cheese, fresh bread, and a
carafe of rice wine taken to Danat's room. Otah waited there until the
Galtic clock, clicking to itself in a corner, marked the night as almost
half-gone. Otah didn't notice that he was dozing until the opening door
roused him.
Otah broke the news as gently as he could, outlining his own
halfknowledge of Maati's intentions, Idaan's appearance in Saraykeht,
Eiah's appearance on the list of possible backers, and his own decision
to set his sister to hunt down his daughter. Danat listened carefully,
as if picking through the words for clues to some deeper mystery. When,
at length, Otah went silent, Danat looked into the fire in its grate,
wove his fingers together, and thought. The flames made his eyes glitter
like jewels.