"We are coming near, and we are close," he said. "I know it isn't
something you can see, but each of you knows more about the andat and
the bindings right now than I did after a year with the Dai-kvo. You're
smart and dedicated and talented. And together, we can make this work.
It sounds terrible, I know, but as soon as Siimat failed her binding and
paid the price ... I won't say I was pleased. I can't say that. She was
a brave woman, and she had a wonderful mind. I miss her. But that she
and all the others died means we are very close."
Ten bindings, ending in ten failures and ten corpses. His fallen
soldiers, Maati thought. His girls who had sacrificed themselves. And
here, wet as a canal rat and sad to her bones, Vanjit impatient to make
her own try, risk her own life. Maati took her small hand in his own.
The girl smiled at the wall.
"This will happen," he said.
"I know it," she said, her voice soft. "It's just so hard to wait when
the dream keeps coming."
Maati sat with her for a moment, only the tapping of raindrops and the
songs of birds between them. He stood, fished the chalk from his sleeve,
and went back to the wall.
"If you'd like, you could light a fire in the office grate," Maati said.
"We could surprise the others with some fresh tea."
It wasn't called for, but it gave the girl something to do. He squinted
at the figure he'd drawn until the lines came into focus. Ah, yes. Four
categories of being.
The rain slackened as the others arrived. Large Kae checked the
coverings over the windows, careful that no stray light betray their
presence, as Irit fluttered sparrowlike lighting the lanterns. Small Kae
and Ashti Beg adjusted the seats and benches, the younger woman's light
voice contrasting with her elder's dry one.
The scents of wood smoke and tea made their warehouse classroom seem
less furtive. Vanjit poured bowls for each of his students as they took
their places. The soft light darkened the stone so that the chalk marks
almost seemed written on air. Maati took a moment to himself to think of
his teachers, of their lectures. He willed himself to become one of
their number.
"The world," Maati began, "has two essential structures. There's the
physical"-he slapped the stone wall behind him-"and there's the
abstract. Two and two are always four, regardless of whether you're
talking about grains of sand or racing camels. Twelve could always be
broken into two sets of six or three sets of four long before anybody
noticed the fact. Abstract structure, you see?"
They bent toward him like flowers toward the sun. Maati saw the hunger
in their faces and the set of their shoulders.
"Now," Maati said. "Does the physical require the abstract? Come on.
Think! Can you have something physical that doesn't have abstract
structure?"
There was a moment's silence.
"Water?" Small Kae asked. "Because if you put two drops of water
together with two drops of water, you just get one big drop."