Shadow and Betrayal

of a ritual judgment. Otah rose to his knees.
    ‘I am told that you are my son, Otah Machi, whom I gave over to the poets’ school.’
    The whisperers echoed it through the hall. It was his moment to speak now, and he found his heart was so full of humiliation and fear and anger that he had nothing to say. He raised his hands and took a pose of greeting - a casual one that would have been appropriate for a peasant son to his father. There was a murmur among the utkhaiem.
    ‘I am further told that you were once offered the poet’s robes, and you refused that honor.’
    Otah tried to rise, but the most the chain allowed was a low stoop. He cleared his throat and spoke, pushing the words out clear enough to be heard in the farthest gallery.
    ‘That is true. I was a child, most high. And I was angry.’
    ‘And I hear that you have come to my city and killed my eldest child. Biitrah Machi is dead by your hand.’
    ‘That is not true, father,’ Otah said. ‘I won’t say that no man has ever died by my hand, but I didn’t kill Biitrah. I have no wish or intention to become the Khai Machi.’
    ‘Then why have you come here?’ the Khai shouted, rising to his feet. His face was twisted in rage, his fists trembled. In all his travels, Otah had never seen the Khai of any city look more like a man. Otah felt something like pity through his humiliation and rage, and it let him speak more softly when he spoke again.
    ‘I heard that my father was dying.’
    It seemed that the murmur of the crowds would never end. It rolled like waves against the seashore. Otah knelt again; the awkward stooping hurt his neck and back, and there was no point trying to maintain dignity here. They waited, he and his father, staring at each other across the space. Otah tried to feel some bond, some kinship that would bridge this gap, but there was nothing. The Khai Machi was his father by an accident of birth, and nothing more.
    He saw the old man’s eyes flicker, as if unsure of himself. He couldn’t have always been this way - the Khaiem were inhumanly studied in ritual and grace. It was the mark of their calling. Otah wondered what his father had been like when he was young and strong. He wondered what he would have been like as a man among his children.
    The Khai raised a hand, and the crowd’s susurrus tapered down to silence. Otah did not move.
    ‘You have stepped outside tradition,’ he said. ‘Whether you took a hand against my son is a question that has already gathered an array of opinion. It is something I must think on.
    ‘I have had other news this day. Danat Machi has won the right of succession. He is returning to the city even now. I will consult with him on your fate. Until then, you shall be confined in the highest room in the great tower. I do not care to have your accomplices taking your death in their own hands this time. Danat and I - the Khai Machi and the Khai yet to come - shall decide together what kind of beast you are.’
    Otah took a pose of supplication. That he was on his knees only made the gesture clearer. He was dead, whatever happened. He could see that now. If there had been a chance of mercy - and likely there hadn’t - having father and son converse would remove it. But in the black dread, there was this one chance to speak as himself - not as Itani Noygu or some other mask. And if it offended the court, there was little worse they could do to him than he faced now. His father hesitated, and Otah spoke.
    ‘I have seen many of the cities of the Khaiem, most high. I have been born into the highest of families, and I have been offered the greatest of honors. And if I am here to meet my death at the hands of those who should by all rights love me, at least hear me out. Our cities are not well, father. Our traditions are not well. You stand there on that dais now because you killed your own. You are celebrating the return of Danat, who killed his brother, and at the same time preparing to condemn me on the suspicion that I did the same. A tradition that calls men to kill their brothers and discard their sons cannot be—’
    ‘Enough!’ the Khai roared, and his voice carried. The whisperers were silent and unneeded. ‘I have not carried this city on my back for all these years to be lectured now by a rebel and a traitor and a poisoner. You are not my son! You lost that right! You squandered it! Tell me that this . . .’ the Khai raised his hands in a gesture that seemed to encompass every man