Shadow and Betrayal

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