"Please," he said, and Vanjit wrenched his hands away from his face.
"Look at me!" she shouted. "Look!"
Reluctantly, slowly, Maati opened his eyes. There was too much. Vanjit
was no longer a woman but a landscape as wide as the world, moving,
breaking, shifting. Looking at her was being tossed on an infinite sea.
"Can you see my pain, Maati-kvo? Can you see it?"
No, he tried to say, but his throat closed against his illness. Vanjit
pushed him away, and he spun, a thousand details assaulting him in the
space of a heartbeat. He fell to the stone floor and retched.
"I didn't think you would," she said.
"Please," Maati said.
"You've taken it from me," Vanjit said. "You and Eiah. All the others. I
was ready to do anything for you. I risked death. I did. And you don't
even know me."
Her laugh was short and brutal.
"My eyes," he said.
"Fine," Vanjit said, and Maati's vision went away. He was once again in
the fog of blindness. "Is that better?"
Maati reached toward the sound of her voice, then stumbled. Vanjit
kicked him once in the ribs. The surprise was worse than the pain.
"There is nothing you have to teach me anymore, old man," she said.
"I've learned everything you know. I understand."
"No," Maati said. "There's more. I can tell you more. I know what it is
to lose someone you love. I know what it is to feel betrayed by the ones
you thought closest to you."
"Then you know the world isn't worth saving," Vanjit said.
The words hung in the air. Maati tried to rise, but he was short of
breath, wheezing like he'd run a race. His racing heart filled his ears
with the sound of rushing blood.
"It is," he said. "It's worth ..."
"Ah. There's Eymond. Everyone in Eymond, blind as a stone. And Eddensea.
There. Gone. Bakta. But why stop there, Maati-kya? Here, the birds. All
the birds in the world. There. The fish. The beasts." She laughed. "All
the flies are blind. I've just done that. All the flies and the spiders.
I say we give the world to the trees and the worms. One great nation of
the eyeless."
"Vanjit," Maati said. His back hurt like someone had stabbed him and
left the blade in. He fought to find the words. "You mustn't do this. I
didn't teach you this."
"I did what you told me," she said, her voice rising. The andat's cry
rose with her, an infantile rage and anguish and exultation at the
world's destruction. "I did what you wanted. More, Maati-kvo, I did what
you couldn't do yourself, and you hated me for it. You wanted me dead?
Fine, then. I'll die. And the world can come with me."
"No!" Maati cried.
"I'm not a monster," Vanjit said. Like a candle being snuffed, the
andat's wail ceased. Vanjit collapsed beside him, as limp as a puppet
with cut strings.
There were voices. Otah, Danat, Eiah, Idaan, Ana. And others. He lay