A Betrayal in Winter (lpq-2) by Daniel Abraham Read Free Book Online Page A

pick this game. I haven't seen twenty summers, and you've seen
    more than two hundred. I wasn't even a dirty thought in my grandfather's
    head when you started playing this."
     
    The andat's thick hands took a formal position of disagreement.
     
    "We have always been playing the same game, you and I. If you were
    someone else at the start, it's your problem."
     
    They never started speaking until the game's end was a forgone
    conclusion. That Stone-Made-Soft was willing to speak was as much a sign
    that this particular battle was drawing to its end as the silence in
    Cehmai's mind. But the last piece had not yet been pushed when a
    pounding came on the door.
     
    "I know you're in there! Wake up!"
     
    Cehmai sighed at the familiar voice and rose. The andat brooded over the
    board, searching, the poet knew, for some way to win a lost game. He
    clapped a hand on the andat's shoulder as he passed by it toward the door.
     
    "I won't have it," the stout, red-checked man said when the opened door
    revealed him. He wore brilliant blue robes shot with rich yellow and a
    copper tore of office. Not for the first time, Cehmai thought Baarath
    would have been better placed in life as the overseer of a merchant
    house or farm than within the utkhaiem. "You poets think that because
    you have the andat, you have everything. Well, I've come to tell you it
    isn't so."
     
    Cehmai took a pose of welcome and stepped back, allowing the man in.
     
    "I've been expecting you, Baarath. I don't suppose you've brought any
    food with you?"
     
    "You have servants for that," Baarath said, striding into the wide room,
    taking in the shelves of books and scrolls and maps with his customary
    moment of lust. The andat looked up at him with its queer, slow smile,
    and then turned back to the board.
     
    "I don't like having strange people wandering though my library,"
    Baarath said.
     
    "Well, let's hope our friend from the Dai-kvo won't be strange."
     
    "You are an annoying, contrary man. He's going to come in here and root
    through the place. Some of those volumes are very old, you know. They
    won't stand mishandling."
     
    "Perhaps you should make copies of them."
     
    "I am making copies. But it's not a fast process, you know. It takes a
    great deal of time and patience. You can't just grab some half-trained
    scribes off the street corners and set them to copying the great hooks
    of the Empire."
     
    "You also can't do the whole job by yourself, Baarath. No matter how
    much you want to."
     
    The librarian scowled at him, but there was a playfulness in the man's
    eyes. The andat shifted a white marker forward and the noise in Cehmai's
    head murmured. It had been a good move.
     
    "You hold an abstract thought in human form and make it play tricks, and
    you tell me what's not possible? Please. I've come to offer a trade. If
    you'll-"
     
    "Wait," Cehmai said.
     
    "If you'll just-"
     
    "Baarath, you can be quiet or you can leave. I have to finish this."
     
    Stone-Made-Soft sighed as Cehmai took his seat again. The white stone
    had opened a line that had until now been closed. It wasn't one he'd
    seen the andat play before, and Cehmai scowled. The game was still over,
    there was no way for the andat to clear his files and pour the white
    markers to their target squares before Cehmai's dark stones had reached
    their goal. But it would be harder now than it had been before the
    librarian came. Cehmai played through the next five moves in his mind,
    his fingertips twitching. Then, decisively, he pushed the black marker
    forward that would block the andat's fastest course.
     
    "Nice move," the librarian said.
     
    "What did you want with me? Could you just say it so I can refuse and
    get about my day?"
     
    "I was going to say that I will give this little poet-let of the
    Dai-kvo's full access if you'll let me include your collection here. It
    really makes more sense to have all the books and scrolls cataloged
    together."
     
    Cehmai took a pose of