Seasons of War by Daniel Abraham Page A

been clever enough, competent enough, and still had been used as a stone in other people’s games. Perhaps he was harsh in still thinking of her in that light. The years had changed him. They certainly could have changed her as well.

    And, as the sun shifted slowly toward the western peaks, Otah found his heart growing heavy. The case she made was not complete, but it was evocative as a monster tale told to children. Galt might well have taken in this mad poet. There was no way to know what they might do with him, or what he might do with their help. The histories of the Empire murmured in the back of Otah’s mind: wars fought with the power of gods, the nature of space itself broken, and the greatest empire the world had ever known laid waste. And yes, if all Liat suspected proved true, it might happen again.

    But if they acted on their fears, if the Dai-kvo mandated the use of the andat to remove the possibility of a Galtic poet, thousands would die who knew nothing of the plots that had brought down their doom. Children not old enough to speak, men and women who led simple, honest lives. Galt would be made a wasteland to rival the ruins of the Empire. Otah wondered how certain they would all have to be in order to take that step. How certain or else how frightened.

    ‘Let me sit with this,’ he said at last, nodding to Liat and her son. ‘I’ll have apartments cleared for you. You’ll stay here at the palaces.’

    ‘There may not be much time,’ Maati said softly.

    ‘I know it,’ Otah said. ‘Tomorrow I’ll decide what to do. If Cehmai’s the right bearer, we can do this all again with him in the room. And then . . . and then we’ll see what shape the world’s taken and do whatever needs doing.’

    Liat took a pose of gratitude, and a heartbeat later Nayiit mirrored her. Otah waved the gestures away. He was too tired for ceremony. Too troubled.

    When Maati and the two visitors had left, Otah rose and stood beside Kiyan at the railing, looking out over the city as it fell into its early, sudden twilight. Plumes of smoke rose from among the green copper roofs of the forges. The great stone towers thrust toward the sky as if they supported the deepening blue. Kiyan tossed an almond out into the wide air, and a black-winged bird swooped down to catch it before it reached the distant ground. Otah touched her shoulder; she turned to him smiling as if half-surprised to find him there.

    ‘How are you, love?’ he asked.

    ‘I should be the one asking,’ she said. ‘Those two . . . that’s more than one lifetime’s trouble they’re carrying.’

    ‘I know it. And Maati’s still in love with her.’

    ‘With both of them,’ Kiyan said. ‘One way and another, with both of them.’

    Otah took a pose that agreed with her.

    ‘You know her well enough,’ Kiyan said. ‘Does she love him, do you think?’

    ‘She did once,’ Otah said. ‘But now? It’s too many years. We’ve all become other people.’

    The breeze smelled of smoke and distant rain. The first chill of evening raised gooseflesh on Kiyan’s arm. He wanted to turn her toward him, to taste her mouth and lose himself for a while in simple pleasure. He wanted badly to forget the world. As if hearing his thought, she smiled, but he didn’t touch her again and she didn’t move nearer to him.

    ‘What are you going to do?’ she asked.

    ‘Tell Cehmai, send out couriers west to see what we can divine about the situation in Galt, appeal to the Dai-kvo. What else can I do? A mad poet, prone to fits of temper and working for the Galtic High Council? There’s not a story worse than that.’

    ‘Will the Dai-kvo do what she asks, do you think?’

    ‘I don’t know,’ Otah said. ‘He’ll know this Riaan better than any of us. If he’s certain that the man’s not capable of a proper binding, perhaps we’ll let him try and pay the price of it. One simple death is the best we can hope for, sometimes. If it saves the