An Autumn War

"Hold off there," he said, then turned to Eustin. "You're a good

soldier, Eustin-cha. You're loyal and you're ruthless, and I want you to

know I respect that."

Eustin cocked his head, confused.

"Thank you, I suppose," Eustin said, and Sinja drew his sword. Eustin's

eyes went wide, and he barely blocked Sinja's thrust. Blood showed on

his arm, and the other ten men pulled their own blades with a soft sound

like a rake in gravel.

"What are you doing?" Eustin cried.

"Not betraying someone."

"What?"

This isn't how I'd hoped to die, Sinja thought. If the boy had any

mother in the world besides Kiyan, he'd stand hack and let the thing

take its course. Instead, he was going to be cut down like a dog. But if

the men were watching him, Danat could slip away. A boy of five summers

was no threat. The men might not bother tracking him. Danat might find

his way to the tu

wasn't a better option.

"Call them off, Eustin. This is between the two of us."

"What's between the two of us?"

Sinja raised the tip of his sword by a hand's span in answer. Eustin

nodded and dropped his own blade into guard position.

"He's mine," Eustin called. "Leave us be."

Sinja took a step hack, away from the cart, and smiled. Eustin let

himself be drawn. In the corner of his vision, Sinja saw Danat drop from

the cart's hack. He took a hard grip on his sword, gri

Steel rang on steel. Eustin closed and Sinja darted back, the snow

crackling under his boots. They were both smiling now, and one of the

bowmen had pulled out his quiver, prepared to act in case Eustin should

fail. Sinja took a deep breath of cold air, and felt strangely like

shouting.

He'd been wrong before; this was exactly how he'd hoped to die.

NIAATi CHANTED UNTIL HIS MOUTH WAS DRY, HIS EYES LACKED ON THE scrawled

note on the wall before him. Each time he began to feel his thoughts

taking shape, it distracted him. He would think that the binding was

begi

what he could do, the fate of Gait, the future, what Eiah and Cehmai

were seeing, and the solidity that the binding had taken would slip away

again. It was hard to put the world aside. It was hard not to care.

He didn't pause, but he closed his eyes, picturing the wall and his

writing upon it. He knew the binding-knew the structures of it, the

grammars that formed the thoughts that put together everything he had

hoped and intended. And instead of reading it from the world, he read it

from the image in his own mind. Dreamlike, the warehouse wall seemed

more solid, more palpable, with his eyes closed. The sound of his voice

began to echo, syllables from different phrases blending together,

creating new words that also spoke to Maati's intention. The air seemed

thicker, harder to breathe. The world had become dense. He began his

chant again, though he could still hear himself speaking the words that

came halfway through it.

The wall in his mind began to sway, the image fading into a seedpeach

pit and flax seed and everything in between the two. And an egg. And a

womb. And the three images became a single object, still halfformed in

his mind. Bright as sunlight, but blasted, twisted. There was a scent

like a wound gone rancid, the sulfur scent of bad eggs. His fingers

seemed to touch the words, feeling them sliding out into the world and

collapsing back; they were sticky and slick. The echo of the chant

deepened until he found himself speaking the first phrase of the binding

at the same moment his remembered voice spoke the same phrase and the

whole grand complex, raucous song fell into him like a stone dropping

into the abyss. He could still hear it, and feel it. The smell of it was

thick in his nostrils, though he was also aware that the air smelled

only of dust and hot iron. So it wasn't truly the thick smell of rot;

only the idea of it, as compelling as the truth.

Maati balanced the storm in a part of his mind-hack behind his ears,

even with the point at which his spine met his skull. It balanced there.

He didn't know when he'd stopped chanting. He opened his eyes.

"Well, my dear," the andat said. "Who'd have thought we'd meet again?"

It sat before him, naked. The soft, androgynous face was the moonlight

pale that Seedless' had been. The long, flowing hair so black it was

blue. The rise and curve of a woman's body. Corrupting-the-Generative.

Sterile. He hadn't thought she would look so much like Seedless, but now

that he saw her, he found himself unsurprised.

Cehmai approached on soft feet. Maati could hear Eiah's breath behind

him, panting as if she'd run a race. Maati found himself exhausted but

also exhilarated, as if he could begin again from the start.

"You're here," Nlaati said.

"Am I? Yes, I suppose I am. I'm not really him, you know."

Seedless, it meant. The first andat he'd seen. The one he'd been meant for.

"lily memory of him is part of you," he said.

"And so the sense that I've seen you before," it said, smiling. "And of

being the slave you hoped to own."

Cehmai lifted the robe, unfolding the rich cloth. The andat looked up

and hack at him. There was something of Liat in the line of its jaw, the

way that it smiled. Sterile rose, and stepped into the waiting folds of

cloth. When Cehmai helped it with the stays, it answered with a pose of

thanks.

"We should call Otah-kvo," Nlaati said. "He should know we've succeeded."

Sterile took a pose that objected and smiled. Its teeth were sharper

than Nlaati had pictured them. Its cheeks higher. He felt a surge of

dread sweep through him.

"Tell me what you remember of Seedless," it said.

"What?"

"Oh," the andat said, taking a pose of apology. "Tell me what you

remember of Seedless, master. Is that an improvement?"

"Maati-kvo-" Cehmai began, but Maati raised a hand to quiet him. The

andat smiled. He felt its sorrow and rage in the back of his mind. It

was like knowing a woman, being so close to her that he had become part

of her and she part of him. It was the intimacy he had confused with the

physical act of love when he had been too young and naive to distinguish

between the two. He stepped close to it, raising a hand to caress its

pale cheek. The flesh was hard as marble, and cold.

"He was beautiful," Nlaati said.