“Leaving before your term is complete, boy. You disgrace yourself.”
Otah switched to a pose of thanks appropriate to the end of a lesson, but Milah-kvo waved the formality aside and sat in the snow, considering him with an interest that Otah found unnerving.
“Why do it?” Milah-kvo asked. “There’s still hope of redeeming yourself. You might still be found worthy. So why run away? Are you so much a coward?”
Otah found his voice.
“It would be cowardice that kept me, Milah-kvo.”
“How so?” The teacher’s voice held nothing of judgment or testing. It was like a friend asking a question because he truly did not know the answer.
“There are no locks on hell,” Otah said. It was the first time he had tried to express this to someone else, and it proved harder than he had expected. “If there aren’t locks, then what can hold anyone there besides fear that leaving might be worse?”
“And you think the school is a kind of hell.”
It was not a question, so Otah did not answer.
“If you keep to this path, you’ll be the lowest of the low,” Milah said. “A disgraced child without friend or ally. And without the brand to protect you, your older brothers may well track you down and kill you.”
“Yes.”
“Do you have someplace to go?”
“The high road leads to Pathai and Nantani.”
“Where you know no one.”
Otah took a pose of agreement.
“This doesn’t frighten you?” the teacher asked.
“It is the decision I’ve made.” He could see the amusement in Milah-kvo’s face at his answer.
“Fair enough, but I think there’s an alternative you haven’t considered.”
The teacher reached into his satchel and pulled out a small cloth bundle. He hefted it for a moment, considering, and dropped it on the snow between them. It was a black robe.
Otah took a pose of intellectual inquiry. It was a failure of vocabulary, but Milah-kvo took his meaning.
“Andat are powerful, Otah. Like small gods. And they don’t love being held to a single form. They fight it, and since the forms they have are a reflection of the poets who bind them…. The world is full of willing victims—people who embrace the cruelty meted out against them. An andat formed from a mind like that would destroy the poet who bound it and escape. That you have chosen action is what the black robes mean.”
“Then . . . the others . . . they all left the school too?”
Milah laughed. Even in the cold, it was a warm sound.
“No. No, you’ve all taken different paths. Ansha tried to wrestle Tahi-kvo’s stick away from him. Ranit Kiru asked forbidden questions, took the punishment for them, and asked again until Tahi beat him asleep. He was too sore to wear any robe at all for weeks, but his bruises were black enough. But you’ve each done something. If you choose to take up the robe, that is. Leave it, and really, this is just a conversation. Interesting maybe, but trivial.”
“And if I take it?”
“You will never be turned out of the school so long as you wear the black. You will help to teach the normal boys the lesson you’ve learned—to stand by your own strength.”
Otah blinked, and something—some emotion he couldn’t put a name to—bloomed in his breast. His flight from the school took on a new meaning. It was a badge of his strength, the proof of his courage.
“And the andat?”
“And the andat,” Milah-kvo said. “You’ll begin to learn of them in earnest. The Dai-kvo has never taken a student who wasn’t first a black robe at the school.”
Otah stooped, his fingers numb with cold, and picked up the robe. He met Milah-kvo’s amused eyes and couldn’t keep from grinning. Milah-kvo laughed, stood and put an arm around Otah’s shoulder. It was the first kind act Otah could remember since he had come to the school.
“Come on, then. If we start now, we may get back to the school by breakfast.”
Otah took a pose of enthusiastic agreement.
“And, while this once I think we can forgive it, don’t make a habit of stealing from the kitchen. It upsets the cooks.”
THE LETTER CAME SOME WEEKS LATER, AND MILAH WAS THE FIRST TO READ it. Sitting in an upper room, his students abandoned for the moment, he read the careful script again and felt his face grow tight. When he had gone over it enough to know he could not have misunderstood, he tucked the folded paper into the sleeve of his robe and looked out the window. Winter was ending, and somehow the eternal renewal that was spring felt like an irony.
He heard Tahi enter, recognizing his old friend’s footsteps.
“There was a courier,” Tahi said. “Ansha said there was a courier from the Dai-kvo . . .”
Milah looked over his shoulder. His own feelings were echoed in Tahi’s round face.
“From his attendant, actually.”
“The Dai-kvo. Is he . . .”
“No,” Milah said, fishing out the letter. “Not dead. Only dying.”
Tahi took the proffered pages, but didn’t look at them.
“Of what?”
“Time.”
Tahi read the written words silently, then leaned against the wall with a sharp sigh.
“It . . . it isn’t so bad as it could be,” Tahi said.
“No. Not yet. He will see the school again. Twice, perhaps.”
“He shouldn’t come,” Tahi snapped. “The visits are a formality. We know well enough which boys are ready. We can send them. He doesn’t have to—”
Milah turned, interrupting him with a subtle pose that was a request for clarification and a mourning both. Tahi laughed bitterly and looked down.
“You’re right,” he said. “Still. I’d like the world better if we could carry a little of his weight for him. Even if it was only a short way.”
Milah started to take a pose, but hesitated, stopped, only nodded.
“Otah Machi?” Tahi asked.
“Maybe. We might have to call him for Otah. Not yet, though. The robes have hardly been on him. The others are still learning to accept him as an equal. Once he’s used to the power, then we’ll see. I won’t call the Dai-kvo until we’re certain.”
“He’ll come next winter whether there’s a boy ready or not.”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps he’ll die tonight. Or we will. No god made the world certain.”
Tahi raised his hands in a pose of resignation.
IT WAS A WARM NIGHT IN LATE SPRING; THE SCENT OF GREEN SEEMED TO PERmeate the world. Otah and his friends sprawled on the hillside east of the school. Milah-kvo sat with them, still talking, still telling stories though their lectures for the day were done. Stories of the andat.
“They are like . . . thoughts made real,” Milah said, his hands moving in gestures which were not formal poses, but evoked a sense of wonder all the same. “Ideas tamed and given human shape. Take Water-Moving-Down. In the Old Empire, she was called Rain, then when Diit Amra recaptured her at the beginning of the War, they called her Seaward. But the thought, you see, was the same. And if you can hold that, you can stop rivers in their tracks. Or see that your crops get enough water, or flood your enemies. She was powerful.”
“Could someone catch her again?” Ansha—no longer Ansha-kvo to Otah—asked.
Milah shook his head.
“I doubt it. She’s been held and escaped too many times. I suppose someone might find a new way to describe her, but . . . it’s been tried.”
There was a chill that even Otah felt at the words. Stories of the andat were like ghost tales, and the price a failed poet paid was always the gruesome ending of it.
“What was her price?” Nian Tomari asked, his voice hushed and eager.
“The last poet who made the attempt was a generation before me. They say that when he failed, his belly swelled like a pregnant woman’s. When they cut him open, he was filled with ice and black seaweed.”
The boys were quiet, imagining the scene—the poet’s blood,
the dark leaves, the pale ice. Dari slapped a gnat.
“Milah-kvo?” Otah said. “Why do the andat become more difficult to hold each time they escape?”
The teacher laughed.
“An excellent question, Otah. But one you’d have to ask of the Dai-kvo. It’s more than you’re ready to know.”
Otah dropped into a pose of correction accepted, but in the back of his mind, the curiosity remained. The sun dipped below the horizon and a chill came into the air. Milah-kvo rose, and they followed him, wraith-children in their dark robes and twilight. Halfway back to the high stone buildings, Ansha started to run, and then Riit, and then Otah and then all of them, pounding up the slope to the great door, racing to be first or at least to not be last. When Milah arrived, they were red-faced and laughing.
“Otah,” Enrath, an older, dark-faced boy from Tan-Sadar said. “You’re taking the third cohort out tomorrow to turn the west gardens?”
“Yes,” Otah said.
“Tahi-kvo wanted them finished and washed early. He’s taking them for lessons after the meal.”
“You could join the afternoon session with us,” Milah suggested, overhearing.
Otah took a pose of gratitude as they entered the torch-lit great hall. One of Milah-kvo’s lessons was infinitely better than a day spent leading one of the youngest cohorts through its chores.
“Do you know why worms travel in the ground?” Milah-kvo asked.
“Because they can’t fly?” Ansha said, and laughed. A few other boys laughed with him.
“True enough,” Milah-kvo said. “But they are good for the soil. They break it up so that the roots can dig deeper. So in a sense, Otah and the third cohort are doing worm work tomorrow.”
“But worms do it by eating dirt and shitting it out,” Enrath said. “Tahi-kvo said so.”
“There is some difference in technique,” Milah-kvo agreed dryly to the delight of them all, including Otah.
The black robes slept in smaller rooms, four to each, with a brazier in the center to keep it warm. The thaw had come, but the nights were still bitterly cold. Otah, as the youngest in his room, had the duty of tending the fire. In the dark of the mornings, Milah-kvo would come and wake them, knocking on their doors until all four voices within acknowledged him. They washed at communal tubs and ate at a long wooden table with Tahi-kvo at one end and Milah-kvo at the other. Otah still found himself uncomfortable about the round-faced teacher, however friendly his eyes had become.
After they had cleared their plates, the black robes divided; the larger half went to lead the cohorts through the day’s duties, the smaller—rarely more than five or six—would go with Milah-kvo for a day’s study. As Otah walked to the great hall, he was already planning the day ahead, anticipating handing the third cohort over to Tahi-kvo and joining the handful most favored by Milah-kvo.
In the great hall, the boys stood in their shivering ranks. The third cohort was one of the youngest—a dozen boys of perhaps eight years dressed in thin gray robes. Otah paced before them, searching for any improper stance or scratching.
“Today, we are turning the soil in the west gardens,” Otah barked. Some of the smaller boys flinched. “Tahi-kvo demands the work be finished and that you be cleaned by midday. Follow!”
He marched them out to the gardens. Twice, he stopped to be sure they were in the proper order. When one—Navi Toyut, son of a high family of the utkhaiem in Yalakeht—was out of step, Otah slapped him smartly across the face. The boy corrected his gait.
The west gardens were brown and bare. Dry sticks—the winter corpses of last year’s crop—lay strewn on the ground, the pale seedlings of weeds pushing up through them. Otah led them to the toolshed where the youngest boys brushed spider webs off the shovels and spades.
“Begin at the north end!” Otah shouted, and the cohort fell into place. The line was ragged, some boys taller than others and all unevenly spaced, leaving gaps in the line like missing milk teeth. Otah walked along, showing each boy where to stand and how to hold his shovel. When they were all in their places, Otah gave the sign to begin.
They set to, their thin arms working, but they were small and not strong. The smell of fresh earth rose, but only slowly. When Otah walked the turned soil behind them, his boots barely sank into it.
“Deeper!” he snapped. “Turn the soil, don’t just scrape it. Worms could do better than this.”
The cohort didn’t speak, didn’t look up, only leaned harder onto the dry, rough shafts of their spades. Otah shook his head and spat.
The sun had risen a hand and a half, and they had only completed two plots. As the day warmed, the boys shed their top robes, leaving them folded on the ground. There were still six plots to go. Otah paced behind the line, scowling. Time was running short.
“Tahi-kvo wants this done by midday!” Otah shouted. “If you disappoint him, I’ll see all of you beaten.”
They struggled to complete the task, but by the time they reached the end of the fourth plot, it was clear that it wouldn’t happen. Otah gave stern orders that they should continue, then stalked off to find Tahi-kvo.
The teacher was overseeing a cohort that had been set to clean the kitchens. The lacquered rod whirred impatiently. Otah took a pose of apology before him.
“Tahi-kvo, the third cohort will not be able to turn the soil in the west gardens by midday. They are weak and stupid.”
Tahi-kvo considered him, his expression unreadable. Otah felt his face growing warm with embarrassment. At last, Tahi-kvo took a formal pose of acceptance.
“It will wait for another day, then,” he said. “When they have had their meal, take them back out and let them finish the task.”
Otah took a pose of gratitude until Tahi-kvo turned his attention back to the cohort he was leading, then Otah turned and walked back out to the gardens. The third cohort had slacked in his absence, but began to work furiously as Otah came near. He stepped into the half-turned plot and stared at them.
“You have cost me an afternoon with Milah-kvo,” Otah said, his voice low, but angry enough to carry. None of the boys would meet his gaze, guilty as dogs. He turned to the nearest boy—a thin boy with a spade in his hand. “You. Give me that.”
The boy looked panicked, but held out the spade. Otah took it and thrust it down into the fresh soil. The blade sank only half way. Otah’s shoulders curled in rage. The boy took a pose of apology, but Otah didn’t acknowledge it.
“You’re meant to turn the soil! Turn it! Are you too stupid to understand that?”
“Otah-kvo, I’m sorry. It’s only—”
“If you can’t do it like a man, you can do it as a worm. Get on your knees.”
The boy’s expression was uncomprehending.
“Get on your knees!” Otah shouted, leaning into the boy’s face. Tears welled up in the boy’s eyes, but he did as he was told. Otah picked up a clod of dirt and handed it to him. “Eat it.”
The boy looked at the clod in his hand, then up at Otah. Then, weeping until his shoulders shook, he raised the dirt to his mouth and ate. The others in the cohort were standing in a circle, watching silently. The boy’s mouth worked, mud on his lips.
“All of it!” Otah said.
The boy took another mouthful, then collapsed, sobbing, to the ground. Otah spat in disgust and turned to the others.
“Get to work!”
They scampered back to their places, small arms and legs working furiously with the vigor of fear. The mud-lipped boy sat weeping into his hands. Otah took the spade to him and pushed the blade into the ground at his side.
“Well?” Otah demanded quietly. “Is there something to wait for?”
The boy mumbled something Otah couldn’t make out.
“What? If you’re going to talk, make it so people can hear you.”
“My hand,” the boy forced through the sobs. “My hands hurt. I tried. I tried to dig deeper, but it hurt so much . . .”
He turned his palms up, and looking at the
bleeding blisters was like leaning over a precipice; Otah felt suddenly dizzy. The boy looked up into his face, weeping, and the low keening was a sound Otah recognized though he had never heard it before; it was a sound he had longed to make for seasons of sleeping in the cold, hoping not to dream of his mother. It was the same tune he had heard in his old cohort, a child crying in his sleep.
The black robes suddenly felt awkward, and the memory of a thousand humiliations sang in Otah’s mind the way a crystal glass might ring with the sound of singer’s note.
He knelt beside the weeping boy, words rushing to his lips and then failing him. The others in the cohort stood silent.
“YOU SENT FOR ME?” TAHI ASKED. MILAH DIDN’T ANSWER, BUT GESTURED out the window. Tahi came to stand by him and consider the spectacle below. In a half-turned plot of dirt, a black robe was cradling a crying child in his arms while the others in the cohort stood by, agape.
“How long has this been going on?” Tahi asked through a tight throat.
“They were like that when I noticed them. Before that, I don’t know.”
“Otah Machi?”
Milah only nodded.
“It has to stop.”
“Yes. But I wanted you to see it.”
In grim silence, the pair walked down the stairs, through the library, and out to the west gardens. The third cohort, seeing them come, pretended to work. All except Otah and the boy he held. They remained as they were.
“Otah!” Tahi barked. The black-robed boy looked up, eyes red and tear-filled.
“You’re not well, Otah,” Milah said gently. He drew Otah up. “You should come inside and rest.”
Otah looked from one to the other, then hesitantly took a pose of submission and let Milah take his shoulder and guide him away. Tahi remained behind; Milah could hear his voice snapping at the third cohort like a whip.
Back in the quarters of the elite, Milah prepared a cup of strong tea for Otah and considered the situation. The others would hear of what had happened soon enough if they hadn’t already. He wasn’t sure whether that would make things better for the boy or worse. He wasn’t even certain what he hoped. If it was what it appeared, it was the success he had dreaded. Before he acted, he had to be sure. He wouldn’t call for the Dai-kvo if Otah weren’t ready.