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book in his hands.
    "Yes," Maati said.
    Athai looked up, one hand taking an informal pose asking excuse.
    "I didn't mean anything by asking," he said. "I only wanted to place him."
    Maati brought himself to smile and nod.
    "The reason I wrote to the Dai-kvo," Cehmai said, "was the application Maatikvo was thinking of."
    "Application?1"Tell
    "It's too early yet to really examine closely," Maati said. He felt himself starting to blush, and his embarrassment at the thought fueled the blood in his face. "It's too early to say whether there's anything in it."
    him," Cehmai said, his voice warm and coaxing. The envoy put Heshai-kvo's book down, his attention entirely on Maati now.
    ""There are ... patterns," Maati said. "There seems to be a structure that links the form of the binding to its ... its worst expression. Its price. The forms only seem random because it's a very complex structure. And I was reading Catji's meditations-the one from the Second Empire, not Catji Sano-and there are some speculations he made about the nature of language and grammar that ... that seem related."
    "He's found a way to shield a poet from paying the price," Cehmai said.
    "I don't know that's true," Maati said quickly.
    "But possibly," Cehmai said.
    The envoy and the andat both shifted forward in their seats. The effect was eerie.
    "I thought that, if a poet's first attempt at a binding didn't have to be his last-if an imperfect binding didn't mean death ..."
    Maati gestured helplessly at the air. He had spent so many hours thinking about what it could mean, about what it could bring about and bring hack. All the andat lost over the course of generations that had been thought beyond recapture might still he hound if only the men binding them could learn from their errors, adjust their work as Heshai had done after the fact. Softness. Water-Moving-Down. 't'hinking-in- Words. All the spirits cataloged in the histories, the work of poets who had made the Empire great. Perhaps they were not past redemption.
    He looked at Athai, but the young man's eyes were unfocused and distant.
    "May I see your work, Maatikvo?" he asked, and the barely suppressed excitement in his voice almost brought Maati to like him for the moment. "Together, the three men stepped to Maati's worktable. 'T'hree men, and one other that was something else.

Chapter 2
    Liat Chokavi had never seen seawater as green as the bays near AmnatTan. The seafront at Saraykeht had always taken its color from the sky-gray, blue, white, yellow, crimson, pink. The water in the far North was different entirely; green as grass and numbing cold. She could no more see the fish and seafloor here than read pages from a closed hook. These waters kept their secrets.
    A low fog lay on the hay; the white and gray towers of the low town seemed to float upon it. In the far distance, the deep blue spire of the Khai AmnatTan's palace seemed almost to glow, a lantern like a star fallen to earth. Even the sailors, she noticed, would pause for a moment at their work and admire it. It was the great wonder of Amnat-'Ian, second only to the towers of Machi as the signature of the winter cities. It would take them days more to reach it; the ports and low towns were a good distance downriver of the city itself.
    The wind smelled of smoke now-the scent of the low town coming across the water, adding to the smells of salt and fish, crab and unwashed humanity. They would reach port by midday. She turned and went down the steps to their cabin.
    Nayilt swung gently in his hammock, his eyes closed, snoring lightly. Liat sat on the crate that held their belongings and considered her son; the long face, the unkempt hair, the delicate hands folded on his belly. He had made an attempt at growing a heard in their time in Yalakeht, but it had come in so poorly he'd shaved it off with a razor and cold seawater. Her heart ached, listening to him sleep. The workings of House Kyaan weren't so complex that it could not run without her