Shadow and Betrayal

Between those two joys - the finished succession and the marriage of the high families - there would also be the preparations for the Khai Machi’s final ceremony. And, despite everything Maati-kvo had done, likely the execution of Otah Machi in there as well. With as many rituals and ceremonies as the city faced, they’d be lucky to get any real work done before winter.
    The yipping of the mine dogs brought him back to himself, and he realized he’d been half-dozing for the last few switchbacks. He rubbed his eyes with the heel of his palm. He would have to pull himself together when they began working in earnest. It would help, he told himself, to have some particular problem to set his mind to instead of the tedium of travel. Thankfully, Stone-Made-Soft wasn’t resisting him today. The effort it would have taken to force the unwilling andat to do as it was told could have pushed the day from merely unpleasant to awful.
    They reached the mouth of the mine and were greeted by several workers and minor functionaries. Cehmai dismounted and walked unsteadily to the wide table that had been set up for their consultations. His legs and back and head ached. When the drawings and notes were laid out before him, it took effort to turn his attention to them. His mind wandered off to Idaan or his own discomfort or the mental windstorm that was the andat.
    ‘We would like to join these two passages,’ the overseer was saying, his fingers tracing lines on the maps. Cehmai had seen hundreds of sets of plans like this, and his mind picked up the markings and translated them into holes dug through the living rock of the mountain only slightly less easily than usual. ‘The vein seems richest here and then here. Our concern is—’
    ‘My concern,’ the engineer broke in, ‘is not bringing half the mountain down on us while we do it.’
    The structure of tunnels that honeycombed the mountain wasn’t the most complicated Cehmai had ever seen, but neither was it simple. The mines around Machi were capable of a complexity difficult in the rest of the world, mostly because he himself was not in the rest of the world, and mines in the Westlands and Galt weren’t interested in paying the Khai Machi for his services. The engineer made his case - where the stone would support the tunnels and where it would not. The overseer made his counter-case - pointing out where the ores seemed richest. The decision was left to him.
    The servants gave them bowls of honeyed beef and sausages that tasted of smoke and black pepper; a tart, sweet paste made from last year’s berries; and salted flatbread. Cehmai ate and drank and looked at the maps and drawings. He kept remembering the curve of Idaan’s mouth, the feeling of her hips against his own. He remembered her tears, her reticence. He would have sacrificed a good deal to better understand her sorrow.
    It was more, he thought, than the struggle to face her father’s mortality. Perhaps he should talk to Maati about it. He was older and had greater experience with women. Cehmai shook his head and forced himself to concentrate. It was half a hand before he saw a path through the stone that would yield a fair return and not collapse the works. Stone-Made-Soft neither approved nor dissented. It never did.
    The overseer took a pose of gratitude and approval, then folded up the maps. The engineer sucked his teeth, craning his neck as the diagrams and notes vanished into the overseer’s satchel, as if hoping to see one last objection, but then he too took an approving pose. They lit the lanterns and turned to the wide, black wound in the mountain’s side.
    The tunnels were cool, and darker than night. The smell of rock dust made the air thick. As he’d guessed, there were few men working, and the sounds of their songs and the barking of their dogs only made the darkness seem more isolating. They talked very little as they wound their way through the maze. Usually Cehmai made a practice of keeping a mental map, tracking their progress through the dark passages. After the second unexpected intersection, he gave up and was content to let the overseer lead them.
    Unlike the mines on the plain, even the deepest tunnels here were dry. When they reached the point Cehmai had chosen, they took out the maps one last time, consulting them in the narrow section of the passageway that the lanterns lit. Above them, the mountain felt bigger than the sky.
    ‘Don’t make it too soft,’ the engineer