A World Too Near (38 page)

Hearing someone behind him, Oventroe rose and turned in one movement, the claws of his hands extruding. Seeing Quinn, he relaxed a little. “Have you come for the great chain? We keep it in good hands, be assured.” It dangled from his hand in a muted glow.

Quinn staggered forward a step. It was the cirque, the chain that had been given into Quinn’s keeping. For the sake of Earth. Oventroe had opened the cirque. Yes, to analyze it . . .

A movement behind Quinn cause him to turn. Jesid had withdrawn from his post on the dais, and stood a few feet away, with an expression of agonized desire. He lunged for the chain, snatching it from the lord’s hand.

Swiftly, the navitar backed up, holding the chain aloft in both hands. “Reverse the order: One, five, four. Reverse the order, release the fire.”

Oventroe swept toward Jesid, stretching his hand out. “You will give it to us.”

Jesid sneered. “Give it to piglets; give it to fools.” As the ship yawed front to back, Jesid swayed, looking like an enraptured dancer. His face was alive with both ecstasy and suffering; the face of a man ready to die.

Then Quinn understood. In the binds, the navitar had seen a vision. One that told him they shouldn’t risk the nan on his world. What had he seen? Quinn grabbed Oventroe by the upper arm. It was like clutching a steel railing. “My lord, is the nan safe to use?”

Oventroe’s eyes were fixed on Jesid as he answered, “He does not think so. He sees the future he wishes to see. One where I have failed.” Oventroe surged forward, saying, hand outstretched, “Jesid, give us the chain.”

Jesid danced backward to the dais. Putting the Ysli’s slumbering body between him and the Tarig, he groaned, “One.” His forefinger and thumb depressed into
the chain, pinching once.

Quinn dove for him.

The ship pitched, throwing him off his target so that all he hit was Jesid’s right leg. Jesid lost his balance and crashed onto the deck.

Crashing to the deck, the navitar bellowed, “Five!”

As Jesid and Quinn wrestled on the floor, Oventroe raced past them and down the companionway. The navitar’s body was slimy from leaning out into the binds, causing Quinn’s hands to slip as he tried to pinion Jesid’s arms, pinion the one holding the cirque.

Locked together for a moment, the two men faced each other a few inches apart. The navitar relaxed. His face looked indescribably weary and old. He was giving up.

“Four,” Jesid whispered, pinching the chain four times.

Quinn knew enough to throw himself backward, away from the navitar.

Jesid stood up, holding a cirque streaming with nan. He smiled at Quinn. “I give it to the river. I give us all to the river.” Calmly, he mounted the dais, stepping over the ship keeper, dripping nan on him in small, fizzing clots. Jesid assumed his position at the center of the dais, under the navitar’s port. The Ysli didn’t awaken. For the best, Quinn thought.

All for the best.

He was falling asleep on his feet. The world was coming apart. He was dying to go to sleep. Or going to sleep to die.

He staggered down the companionway, but stopped, transfixed, as he saw a shape outside the pilothouse. It was Oventroe, who fell upon Jesid as the top half of the navitar’s body jutted out into the wilds of the binds. In the next moment, Jesid fell heavily to the dais, bleeding profusely from the stump where his hand used to be.

“Give it to the river,” he groaned, managing to lock Quinn with a fevered gaze.

Quinn dashed down the companionway, coming into the main cabin just as Oventroe threw open the hatchway.

“Come quickly,” Oventroe said.

Half awake, Anzi was huddling under one of the portholes, terrorized as she saw the ship deform around her. The bulkheads sagged inward. Quinn grabbed her by the arm and pushed her ahead of him onto the deck. But rather than the chaos of the binds, he found the long ribbon of the Nigh and the storm wall marching into the distance. They had surfaced. But the nan was loose and there was nowhere to go.

Quinn hugged Anzi to his side. Above him, the pilothouse was sagging, caramelizing, giving off a sheen of pinks and greens and oranges, like an oil slick in the sun. The roof sagged. Under its brown tent, a shape moved. The navitar, trapped in the embrace of whatever the ship was becoming. From amidships came a faint popping noise like something boiling.

“Quickly,” the lord said.

Turning, Quinn saw that snugged up to the vessel and resting placidly on the river was a craft the size of a child’s rowboat.

Glancing at Anzi, Oventroe said, “Leave her. There is only room for two.”

“Then you take her,” Quinn said. “You still owe me all you promised. Remember what you promised.”

Oventroe went over the railing, landing in the small boat. From below, he said, “You have no more time, Titus.”

“Anzi,” Quinn said. “Don’t argue. Please.”

Her eyes pleaded. “You go, Titus. Leave me.”

The air was filled with the sound of collapsing, heavy air pockets. A brown fizz surged outward from the pilot’s cabin and sped for the rails.

Oventroe snarled, “Both of you, get in.”

Quinn followed Anzi down the side of the vessel, where the small boat thrashed under the weight of the three of them. With a huge shove, the lord set the boat free of the navitar’s ship, now listing toward the storm wall.

In that moment Quinn remembered the thing that had been nagging at him.

“Benhu,” he said.

The stern and prow of the ship began to curve back on themselves, in effect rolling up the deck. Then, amidships, the deck and pilothouse began stretching away from each other, elongating the middle of the ship in a slick isthmus. Along this narrow bridge, Benhu appeared, lurching forward intently as though the other end of the ship might harbor safety. Looking up, he spied the smaller craft, and waved wildly.

There was no way to get to Benhu. “My lord,” Quinn groaned.

“Do you speak to your God, or to me?” Oventroe muttered as he deployed a paddle, and used it.

Benhu’s garments clung to his skin in an oily layer. He lifted his arms, puzzled by what appeared to be their extraordinary length. Dragged down by Benhu’s weight, the isthmus of the ship began to sag.

At the last moment before the isthmus fell, Benhu locked a gaze on Quinn and bowed deeply from the waist. Then the isthmus collapsed into a seething pool amidships, where the pilothouse had fallen into the Nigh. The outer bulkheads went next, melting into the river’s surface.

As the dinghy moved slowly to shore, the ship sank in unrecognizable pieces, leaving several pale scars on the river’s surface.

“There is no God,” Quinn said.

“Not that we have ever found,” Oventroe responded. In the glowering shadow of the storm wall, his face wasn’t the usual bronze, but iron.

It wasn’t just Benhu’s death, though. It was the cirque. Gone. The whole point of his journey.

Oventroe seemed to understand Quinn’s distress. He pointed at a small round casing in the bottom of the boat. “The chain lives,” he said.

“But the nan . . .”

“It is contained.”

Quinn looked back at the now-empty river. “I don’t think so.”

Oventroe carefully transferred the paddle to the other side of the boat, where he continued his swift, sure strokes, making headway to the shore.

“Jesid hit the chain in the wrong order. He knew the combination. But he did not know which indentations to press.”

“What got out, then?”

“The analysis specimens. One fragment from each of the three repositories in the chain. The specimens clung to the chain. Jesid used your entrance to take us off guard.”

Anzi was staring at the place on the river where the vessel had sunk. She shivered, and Quinn huddled close to her, putting his arms around her. “A fragment,” he murmured. “That was just a fragment? It destroyed the whole ship.”

“A small one, though,” Oventroe said, as he brought the craft toward the shore.

Lady Chiron boarded four more ships of the Nigh. She required that Depta drink from the awful cup twice more, until Depta hardly cared what she drank, what she saw. In the end, it was all to no avail; they failed to find Lord Oventroe’s ship, or any sign of Titus Quinn.

Depta lay on her side on the cabin deck, weak from the stresses of the journey. Chiron sat on the floor beside her, looking thoughtful. “Jesid is accomplished as a navitar,” she said, her voice pitched so low Depta could hardly hear her.

“Jesid?” Depta repeated, wondering if she had missed something.

“We played among the curtains—he, slipping in and out, and we, following his wake. It was invigorating. For a time.” She regarded Depta as though blaming her for Jesid’s escape.

You created him, Depta thought. You created all the navitars. One part of her mind heard this comment with distress. Another part cheered her on.

“By now Titus-een has left the binds. Where next, hnn?”

Depta tested her voice, finding it raspy, but audible. “Ahnenhoon.”

“Unless
he surprises us, and turns toward the Inyx sway,” Chiron murmured half to herself, “Strange. We have just now learned that the daughter no longer serves us with her eyes.”

“No longer serves, Lady?”

“She is dark to us.”

The startling thought came, and Depta put voice to it: “She put out her own eyes, do you think?”

“Perhaps. If so, we must wonder how she came to hate her sight. One could almost believe someone close to us warns her.”

Depta didn’t like that Chiron regarded her so closely. She fought back. “It is said that the high prefect doted on the girl.”

The lady regarded her with a flat stare. “Cixi has served us for longer than you have had days.”

“Of course. You are right, Bright Lady.” But the more Depta thought of it, the more reason she could find that Cixi might be an informant. Depta had humiliated her. Chiron had forced her to withhold information from the ruling lords. The notion sent sparks through her body; the very idea that the old dragon would thwart the lords on her own! Was it possible?

“We will put questions to the high prefect. But not yet. First, our quarry closer to hand. We must wonder if Titus will go to the daughter. If he does, my cousins will have him first, and we must defer to them.”

Chiron seemed lost in thought for many moments before adding, “That would be so like him. To choose the daughter instead of the world. What would you choose, Depta?”

Depta thought hard how to answer. “I do not know, Bright Lady. I have no progeny.”

“Nor do we.” Looking away, Chiron murmured, “One never could anticipate what he might do. We found it . . .” She paused.

“Stimulating,” Depta offered.

Looking up in surprise as though she had forgotten about Depta, Chiron said, “Yes, a good word. He was stimulating. Most sentients do not require us to pay attention. Life passes in a succession of predictable moments.” Chiron rose to her feet. “With you, Depta, it is different. You are learning to become great. You have taken your first steps.”

But Depta didn’t want greatness. Only a worthy calling. Watching the Tarig lady as she sat beside her, Depta found her oddly distasteful—this angular biped with bald skin and pretensions to greatness. Had Titus Quinn ever wanted greatness? Or had the lady forced him to conform as well, caging him in the gilded room and insisting he drink from her cup? Depta drew a long breath, trying to steady her careening mind. These thoughts were the spawn of too little sleep, bad drugs, and the death of strangers.

“No matter,” Chiron went on. “We will hunt for him at Ahnenhoon. It is well that we have an excuse to go to the battle plains, Depta. The Paion are agitated, and they stream through in some number. This serves us well, making probable our appearance at Ahnenhoon.”

Depta tried to absorb yet another new piece of information. “Paion? Paion come? The vows forbid, my lady.”

“Hnn. The vows forbid, but do not prevent.”

More blood then, Depta thought, her mood plummeting.

“Opening the door arouses them. Titus-een passed through recently. Here is another reason for you to abhor leaks, Depta: The Paion detect it, and draw inspiration.”

Depta must have looked overwhelmed, because Chiron looked down at her with indulgence. “Sleep now. You have earned your rest.”

Depta gave a relieved sigh, closing her eyes. They were finished with raids on the Nigh, and unnatural visitations. From nearby she heard Chiron whisper, “You look so content while you sleep, Depta. You dream, ah?”

“Nightmares, I fear.”

Chiron was close to her ear, saying, “What is a nightmare?”

Depta murmured, “Do you not dream my lady?”

“No.”

Halfway into a powdery sleep, Depta thought she heard the lady say,
That is a kingdom we would give much to rule.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

O God of Misery, look upon this one especially: my faithless friend.

—a prayer

I
T WAS SHADOW EBB AND TIME FOR BED. But Johanna put it off, having just come from Morhab’s apartments and not wishing to trail thoughts of him into sleep. Her only friend in the Entire still alive, Pai, held her nightgown for her, waiting to help her mistress undress. Johanna was reluctant to disrobe, still feeling the beast’s eyes on her.

Pai whispered, “Mistress, tell Lord Inweer that the engineer torments you. Why do you let Morhab command you?”

Because he holds my life in his hands, Johanna thought. My life, which isn’t worth nearly so much as when I believed I might guide Titus to the engine. The engine in question thrummed, low and distant, yet ever-present.

Pai laid the nightgown on the bed. Her voice came gently: “Mistress, I grieve to see you so. Can you not find peace? Is it so terrible to talk to a Gond?”

Day after day Johanna went to Morhab’s apartments, that ghostly den of dead trees. Day after day, he wanted to know her inmost thoughts. Oh, she lied, of course: made up events, softened others, all with the purpose of leading him away from her core self. But it made no difference. Morhab wanted the underbelly of everything, so that even the lies must have human emotion behind them, and she had to go to a deep well within herself to answer his inquiries. Sometimes, hearing her bland recitations, he chose his own topics, ones she couldn’t evade: Tell me about the time of becoming a woman. Tell how it felt to be with child. She twisted and turned under his scrutiny, suffering his scowls if no intimacies were offered, then threats of the nest when one lie contradicted another. Evasions could lead to discipline. She began to think she would tell him some truths to avoid
that
. And then she told him some, keeping the nest at bay. Each day she returned to tell him her story, and each day he stripped away more and more of her privacy, her self-respect. At last, she had told him so much, a little more hardly mattered. These days she walked the halls of the centrum, dulled yet agitated.