A World Too Near (24 page)

“Bright Lady,” Depta said, hoping to introduce a safe topic, “the legate Hu Zha has arrived at Yulin’s camp. He reports that he has been received with courtesy, and finds Yulin ready to comply with all duties.”

“Ah.” Chiron looked as though she hardly remembered Yulin or her spy.

“As you commanded to know,” Depta said, bowing again, trying to fill an uncomfortable silence.

Chiron finally said, “Hu Zha, the legate. Hnn. But Depta, even with Hu Zha watching, Yulin might secretly hear from Titus-een.” This term, Depta had heard a few times before; a pet name for the man of the Rose.

“Lady, Hu Zha is a most resourceful legate. Not easily deceived if Yulin turns against us, heaven give us mercy.”

She resisted the urge to bow. Standing so close to Chiron, Depta found herself staring at the lady’s hands. Hands were a wonderful feature, and all creatures rose high in service who had them, such as Chalin, Jout, Ysli, and even Gonds. Chiron’s hands weren’t as lovely as her other features. Ridges on the top of her hands showed where the sheathed claws lay. Depta’s prehensile lips were no match for hands and claws.

The thought of a physical fight with a Tarig alarmed her, and she forced her mind back to dwelling on Chiron’s higher qualities. However, it was no use. Chiron noticed her discomfort.

“Do not bow like a courtier, Preconsul.”

“No, Lady.” She began to bow anyway, and stopped herself.

Near the garden wall, Cho, no longer able to stand the weight of the collar, went to his knees in exhaustion.

Chiron turned from this sight. “He is a tedious companion. Let him rest in the mud, and contemplate the breaking of vows.” She walked toward the open veranda that joined the garden with the apartment, signaling for Depta to follow her.

Chiron led Depta into a small but elegant chamber. In all the times of waiting upon her lady in the garden, the preconsul had never before been in Titus Quinn’s former quarters.

In the center of the room, a sleeping platform was dressed with brocaded blankets. Two scrolls lay there, as though just yesterday Titus Quinn had put them down, intending to read them again. An ornate rug covered most of the floor. On two of the walls hung large tapestries depicting people in strange garb as well as bizarre animals. Scenes from the Rose, Depta suspected.

The lady murmured, “You have seen such tapestries before, Depta?”

Her conversational tone put Depta more at ease. “Only pictures of such, Bright Lady.”

“Hnn. He would have the custom brought here, to fashion figures in woven material. We gave him this tapestry especially.” She went to the closest wall and drew her long fingers down the cloth. The weaving depicted a lithe-looking animal, like a Hirrin, yet unlike. The prancing animal was pure white in color, with a beard. Crowning the head was a single upright horn.

“What is the creature, Lady?”

“A strange one, ah? We have no term for this beast. He had a word for it, but we do not use dark languages.” Chiron put her hand on Depta’s back, causing an involuntary flinch at the unexpected caress. The lady pointed at the tapestry. “Here you see the white beast has a low fence around it. It prances as though it would leap free. Do you see, Depta?”

“Yes, Lady.”

Chiron traced the fence with a finger, her claw slightly extruded. “But he does not leap free. Why, Depta?”

“Because he does not wish to leave.” Depta noted a tear at the corner of the tapestry. That would be where Titus ripped the weaving from the wall, that day when, returning to his old prison, he had been followed by Lord Hadenth. Titus had escaped behind the tapestry, to that tunnel he had once created during captivity.

Almost inaudibly Chiron repeated, “Does not wish to leave. Yet does wish it.” Then, turning to Depta, she said, “Do you wish to find him, Preconsul?”

Depta’s heart jolted at the question. “Of course, Bright Lady. The Repel . . . he will likely assault it.”

“Ah. But even if he came peacefully, you must wish for his capture, Depta. Do you know why the first vow commands that the knowledge of the Entire be kept from the Rose?”

“To protect us, Lady.” All children knew that.

“Hnn. But understand, Depta, why protection is needed. Our land is sweet and bright, our lives long; the Rose is dark and fleeting. The ephemeral will hate us, and take what is ours.”

A cold summary. After all, Titus Quinn was just one human man. . . . But Depta would never voice such a thought, especially not with Chiron staring at her with that dark, fixed look. The lady wished for Depta to hate what she hated. Depta tried, but all she saw was a white beast in a cage. A part of her wanted to see it spring free.

Chiron went on, “Scholars tell us that the Rose sentients breed without thought to sustain themselves. How many progeny did your parents have, Depta? One, ah? All in accordance with the long lives of the bright realm where we seldom step aside for new individuals. Consider now the Rose: their billions become many more, all rushing through the door that Titus Quinn would force open. The door, once open, channels a torrent of darklings.”

Depta imagined hordes of breeding humans overrunning the Entire. They might breed more slowly here, but the doors would be open. . . .

Chiron went on, “Consider not only the inundation of our sways, but the nature of those invaders. Think, Depta. In their short lives, their ties are momentary. They do not feel loyalty as you do. Their worlds are shattered by war and strife because their paths are dark. This is why we have created a peaceful realm, where merit is rewarded and laws replace impulse. We have improved upon the Rose, and left the Rose in a jar to darken and die.

“Still, we are gracious, even when provoked. Finding the man of the Rose among us, we afforded him every courtesy. We could not allow him to go back, to invite more darklings through the veil, no. But we made him welcome. To prevent him breeding here as he might have, we removed his wife from proximity. For this, he murdered his host, the gracious Lord Hadenth. For this, he lay waste all our brightships.” She turned to survey the bedchamber. “We arrived home to find that he had fled.”

The room seemed empty, despite Chiron’s and Depta’s presence. Titus Quinn wasn’t here. But his memory was vivid for the lady.

Chiron’s voice stretched thin. “We had given him the mansion to roam, the Ascendancy to enjoy. But he cast these things back in our face. He had no concern for ties of loyalty or graciousness. Nor will his cousins of the Rose, if they come.” She turned back to Depta, and her eyes no longer seemed crazed, but sad. “Do you comprehend?”

Depta was shaken. Never before had the lady discussed such things with her. She spoke with conviction: “I do comprehend, Bright Lady. The Entire must remain separate. Always.”

“Yes, just so.”

The lady strolled to the bed platform. “All remains as Titus-een left it.” She gestured at the scrolls. “
The Age of Simulacra
.
The Twelve Wisdoms
. We have kept all as it was. So that he will recognize his chambers when he is required to return.”

Depta observed wryly, “He is fortunate to return to former rewards.”

Chiron stroked one of the blankets. “Some things will change, though.” She led Depta to the tapestry depicting the horned white beast and pulled it aside.

Behind the weaving was a gaping hole and, beyond, a smooth cylinder, a hollow tube through the stone. “Here,” Chiron said, “is the tunnel through which he leapt the fence.”

Depta strained her long neck to peer inside. “How could he have programmed the tunnel so exactly? It is perfect.”

Chiron’s voice grew wistful. “He did not. I have gilded the tunnel.”

“Gilded?”

“Hardened it. The walls will suffer no adjustments; there will be no escape. We will seal both ends, leaving him in darkness. Thus will he die, eventually.”

A sobering vision. A long death, giving him time to consider the proximity of his former luxuries. But the man had invaded this land, and might do so again. Behind him were waves of Rose invaders who would swarm through.

Depta gazed at the sculpted and elegant face of her lady, seeing there a great ruler who held the Radiant Path in her protection. Seeing there a generous being who had found it in herself to bestow favors on a strange, misguided intruder. Until he had betrayed her and fled, killing those in his path. Seen in this light, the lady was far from unbalanced. She was what she had always been: Tarig, unfailingly Tarig, with all the perfection that implied.

Depta took leave of Chiron, making her way through the garden where the despicable Cho cowered. The lady had dismissed her, but already Depta was looking forward to the next time she would be in her presence. Depta did have the high calling she longed for: It was to serve the Tarig lady, and her justice. To keep the Entire free of the dark.

Underneath that lofty viewpoint she felt a subtle and surprising emotion— something she could hardly have imagined just an interval before: empathy for the Lady Chiron.

CHAPTER TWENTY

There are many worlds. Worlds above, worlds below, worlds in
between. If you doubt, ask where you go, in dreams.

—Hoptat the Seer

J
ANG, STEWARD OF TRAINS, tucked his blanket more firmly around himself, nearly waking from his remarkable dream. In it, a bright lord was sitting in his kitchen. The high honor of serving the lord sent Jang scurrying to present a beverage service. A problem was, there were now four lords sitting at his table, and he had difficulty bowing and paying respects to all four at once. A train was coming in, and passengers pressed forward on the platform, surging for the best seats. But Jang couldn’t meter that flow because ten lords crowded
into his small cooking room, jostling each other, helping yet more lords to step out of the oven, where, Jang could clearly see, dough rose on trays. Dough shaped like lords. One was even now stepping out of the bake-well, grinning most unpleasantly and smelling of yeast. Jang twisted on his bed, aghast even in sleep to be having such thoughts. The bright lords in an oven! Even worse, oh much worse, the lords were now inviting him into the searing interior of their birthing chamber.

Deep in the Magisterium, Consul Shi Zu woke, sweating in his silks. The dream was receding rapidly, hardly coherent anymore. What could have been so distressing? It was only a dream. He padded over to the drinking fount, filling a jeweled cup with water to wet his dry throat. Looking out of his window on the Sea of Arising, he bowed reflexively to the world the gracious lords had created. As he rose from his bow, he had an unwelcome vision: that of the lords hooked to strings from far overhead. Alien hands came down from the bright, pulling the lords this way and that. He shuddered. Magisterium-trained and therefore not a man of imagination, he wondered how such repellent notions could come to him. Knowing that they
had
come to him kept him awake for some time.

Dreams came snaking into the ebb-time rest of those in the Entire who slept most deeply. Among these, the Hirrin princess Dolwa-Pan, recovering from a bout of nervous palpitations, moaned in her long throat, protesting her dream. The lords were gracious and beautiful. In their great wisdom they had created the world. Yes! So lovely, their form and their law. She thrust out her hooves in her sleep, pushing the dream away, the dream that the lords were simulacra, not flesh, not gracious, not truly alive. Her prehensile lips unconsciously nipped at her chest, searching for the heart chime that used to bring her such comfort. She had lost it soon after she had traveled with a nice Chalin man she had met on a train. A man who journeyed with a young woman who was teaching him how to fight. She sometimes feared that the young woman had stolen the chime; if so, a shocking gesture of disrespect to the lords. She turned in her sleep, momentarily waking. Visit the girl with such poxy dreams, she thought. When she fell back to sleep the puppets were waiting.

Zai Gan, Master of the Chalin sway, roamed his brother’s garden, shaking off unsettling night-visions. He thought of the animal park as his half-brother’s, although Yulin had disappeared into the wastelands, abrogating his position and wealth. Around Zai Gan, growls and hoots came from the many cages. Despite the animal sounds, this ebb-time stroll calmed him and assured that he wouldn’t entertain further dreams. He couldn’t remember what they were, but once nightmares started, it had been his experience that they tended to play themselves out, especially after three helpings of dessert at table. Passing the tiger’s cage, he recalled that this creature had recently given birth to three young. Sweet little fur balls, one of his wives had remarked. Tarig bear no children, the thought came. He had dreamed an awful dream, but he couldn’t remember it. He was just as glad.

Though in a stuporous sleep, BeSheb the Gond muttered her prayers from deep habit: “O Miserable God look at me, O counter of sins, observer of sorrows, I am not afraid, I am not debased to attend thee. . . .” In the dream a Tarig lady stood before BeSheb, her eyes rolling backward like marbles. The high lady was a mechanism, unconscious, insensate, waiting the occupation of a higher sentient to sit in her body. “O Miserable God . . .” BeSheb’s voice trailed off. The Tarig never gave the Woeful God his due. Nor did the Tarig give BeSheb proper respect, since she was a godder. BeSheb had never cared for the strutting lords. Too tall, disgustingly narrow, lacking in bodily joy and gusto. The Tarig lady rattled in front of her, horribly broken. BeSheb chuckled in her sleep.

In Ghinamid’s Tower, the tallest point in the city of the Tarig, Cixi braced herself against the alcove walls. It was an alcove like many on the three-hundred-stair climb, but this one possessed a concealed stone well computational device with a small cup to receive a redstone. The wall before her had enlivened, showing Mo Ti’s words.

Cixi slumped to her knees.

It was some time before she lifted herself up to read the message again. The words shimmered on the stone, and shimmered in her heart. Oh, my dear girl. The brave girl had done what no one else could do. Found the underbelly of the beasts.