A World Too Near (47 page)

She could bring the chain to the engine herself. She had said so to Lord Oventroe. But no, his answer came. In the aftermath—and presumbably at least for the Tarig there
would
be an aftermath—her possession of such technology would throw suspicion on Lord Oventroe. His cousins would ask, Where could such destructive capability have originated? No, it must appear to come from the Rose; from Titus. Very well. So long as it accomplished the deed.

After accepting a light meal from SuMing, who joined her on the grass hillside, Johanna washed in a stream and set out for the battlements of the centrum. SuMing caught her mistress’s somber mood, and didn’t converse.

Once on the high ramparts, Johanna scanned the cascade of roofs of the great watch, and beyond, the fifth domain, the terminus. Hazy in the distance, the skies over Ahnenhoon were dotted with black ovoids, the war bulbs of the Paion. She couldn’t care about their mystery: where they came from, or why they came. One thing was clear, and that was that the Paion were at war with the Tarig. And
she
was at war with the Tarig. Since Lord Oventroe’s visit, she could be sure she was in this dark realm for a reason. It conferred immeasurable peace to think so.

“Shall I bring oba, mistress?” SuMing was nervous, wondering at Johanna’s mood.

“Yes, thank you.” They would linger here, drinking oba, chatting. Yes, it would look habitual, nothing out of the ordinary.

When SuMing bore the tray with an oba service, they drew chairs together and sat quietly for a time.

“Is it today?” SuMing asked. “Will he come today?”

The question startled Johanna. Had she betrayed her excitement so easily?

“I will wait to see, SuMing. Perhaps.”

After an interval of silence, SuMing ventured, “If he does, and if we find ourselves under suspicion, the lords will never take me. Do not fear that I will betray you.”

Johanna narrowed her gaze, surmising what SuMing intended. “Do not, SuMing. Death comes at its own time.” She was a hypocrite; not long before she had been considering her own suicide. But she hoped that the more innocent SuMing wouldn’t make such a choice.

“I will not die by the garrote, mistress. I have decided.”

Johanna kept her gaze on the place that Lord Oventroe had told her would signal Titus Quinn’s entrance into the terminus. “Don’t be afraid, SuMing. It may not come to that. And if it does, God will take you to join Him.”

SuMing made a warding gesture, not liking reference to the Woeful God.

Poor girl, Johanna thought, to live in such a place, where God bore only misery. “I have told you there is another god, SuMing.”

“Yes, mistress. But how else explain where misery comes from if not from the dark god?”

It comes from the Tarig, Johanna thought. “Humans would say Satan.”

“Two gods, then?”

“No, one.”

“Then why does the god not get rid of such a being who hates him?”

“Satan does not hate God, SuMing. He hates people.”

“Ah.” SuMing mulled this thought.

They left these matters of philosophy unanswered, sitting in companionable silence. Early Day brightened into Prime of Day as Johanna waited for Titus, and SuMing waited for Johanna to tell her what came next.

Quinn and Anzi lay on their stomachs, surveying a dark-shouldered plain.

Ahnenhoon. Even the name struck a note of dread. Before them, in the far distance, the antlike formations of the armies who contended here. On the far right, the Repel, massive even miles away.

He had arrived. Quinn had come across two universes to defy these armies and this fortress.

It seemed odd at that moment to rummage in their pack for food, but that is what he and Anzi did. The few hours’ sleep had restored them and their appetites, even for a few bricks of dried meat.

They had emerged at last from canyon country, breaching the last hillock before going to their bellies to observe the Great Reach. Now, in the vaulting shadow of the Nigh-ward storm wall and the anti-Nigh-ward storm wall conjoined, the two of them took what meal they could, lying flat, eyes drawn to the immense vista before them.

On the far right of the vista, on the anti-Nigh-ward side, massed the great bulk of the Repel. Before the fortress, the battle plains stretched far away to the converging storm walls, its grasses lending it a lavender hue, and the enemies contending there giving it an even broader aspect than an empty one might have had.

They watched as the collective armies of the sways brought fire to bear on the dirigibles, and in the far distance, advanced on a ground incursion of what looked like black beetles.

The thought came to Quinn that this region should be more rumpled than any other in the Entire. Quinn had asked about this flatness before, in hearing the battleground described as plains. He wondered how such a basin could remain, subject as it was to the forces of the storm walls on two sides. He had been told that the shock waves of each side cancelled themselves out, leaving the plain in a state of perpetual calm. How, then, could the vast structure of the Repel endure so close to the wall? But that, of course, was Tarig doing. Quinn was starting to think like an inhabitant of the Entire. What the lords wished, they would do. Someday humans would learn their technologies. But he doubted that the Tarig would share willingly.

The noise of battle didn’t come this far. They watched the contesting forces mill in eerie silence. Quinn pulled his attention to the enormous black complex squatting massively on the land, its central keep a dark smear far away. That was the end point of his journey. Now that he was so close, he longed to enter the place and deliver his chain; the drive was almost as strong just to have the thing removed from his body.

He stood, and Anzi hefted her pack.

This was the ebb of the fourth day. Oventroe couldn’t predict exactly how long the cirque could contain its load. One day left, or two. He wouldn’t assume he had two days. If one day, he hoped it would be enough time to get into the Repel.

It was time to go.

Cixi slowly lowered herself onto the cold steps of the tower. At the moment she didn’t trust her legs to support her. Placing her hands on her knees to keep from shaking, she closed her eyes against the glare shedding from the tower walls. The fiends could bear no darkness, so even near the top of Ghinamid’s stone tower, one could find no shadows, no calm.

She stared at the alcove where the message had been waiting for her these several days.

Faithful Mo Ti had sent a short message, each phrase bearing an awful weight.

A woman of the Rose now in the sway. Warns of
a plague of matter that will dissolve
the Entire. Mistress orders me to Ahnenhoon to kill her father, take the chain he
wears that bears the weapon.

Cixi stared ahead, unseeing. So many questions. What woman of the Rose? How could she arrive? Why does she warn us?

But these questions paled before the awful warning:
A plague of matter
that will dissolve the Entire.
These phrases looped through her mind as she sat on the stairs, clutching her knees. With such an inconceivable threat, what could be done? How could Mo Ti, after all only a single man, find and destroy Titus Quinn? Think, you old dragon, think. As she collected her scattered concentration, she reminded herself that Mo Ti wasn’t alone. Lady Chiron also searched for Titus Quinn.

But the chain, the chain. The man carried a dreadful chain. Rivulets of acid trickled into Cixi’s stomach. If Chiron captured Quinn, he might still have time to set the plague free. The Rose had quickly moved to the offensive, yes. Cixi was impressed. Although the Rose capabilities were backward, the people of the dark compensated with remarkable ruthlessness. No, Mo Ti wasn’t the way to handle this. Nor was the Lady Chiron.

She rose from her position. How long had she been sitting here while her functionaries waited outside the tower, expecting her to arrive at the summit and look at the view, always her excuse for coming to Ghinamid’s Tower? No time for pretenses. Down the stairs Cixi rushed, her short legs wobbling with the strain, her mind framing and reframing her plans.
By my grave flag
, she thought,
Chiron must not be the only one to know where Titus Quinn has gone.

A hundred steps and still Cixi descended. A stark resolve gripped her heart. She would sever ties with the Lady Chiron. She should have done so days ago, when Chiron first left the Ascendancy, leaving Cixi alone with Lord Nehoov. He was the only one of the Five still in residence, not counting the Sleeping Lord. Nehoov must use every resource to find Titus Quinn. She had little doubt that he would.

She cursed herself for allowing Chiron to command her. Was it already too late? Was Quinn, even at this moment, loosing his pestilence on the world?

Her mind jumped from one question to the next: How can a small chain contain a plague? Why would a woman of the Rose work against the Rose? Answers would come, in time. For one hundred thousand days at the dragon court, Cixi had juggled fragments of information. She had learned long ago that waiting for complete intelligence brought paralysis.

She could only admit a certain portion of the truth to Nehoov, of course. She must say only why Chiron knew Titus was likely to attack Ahnenhoon if and when he came. She must at all costs hide the fact that she knew about the weapon he brought—for that brought the question of why she was in touch with Sydney, and how she was in touch, using the means at Ghinamid’s Tower. No one beside the Tarig could communicate at bright speeds. Or so they thought. Thus, her plan must be to tell some but not all of the story, and summon her wits to keep all her lies in mind.

Even so, Lord Nehoov might kill her. Why had she allowed herself to be persuaded by Chiron to withhold the information that Quinn had discovered the great engine’s purpose? I am an old fool, she chided herself.

Cixi arrived at the bottom of the tower stairs and threw open the door on her surprised attendants. Composing her face, she muttered at them, “The stairs are too steep today. I go to the palatine hill to confer with Lord Nehoov. Beg of him an immediate audience.”

A Hirrin legate rushed off in the direction of the hill. Cixi turned to her remaining retinue—a Jout consul and two Chalin stewards. She brought them along as she hurried to Lord Nehoov’s mansion. She might need them to relay orders. Or to witness her death. If the latter, then let the Magisterium sing of her glorious role in saving the All.

Arriving at the outer vestibule of Nehoov’s audience chamber, Cixi conferred with the gatekeeper, who consulted an activated scroll and found that the lord permitted the entry. Opening the door, the legate gestured her through. Fear shed from her as she entered the chamber, her mind uncluttered by doubt. She did indulge a fleeting hope that, should Nehoov take offense, he wouldn’t employ the garrote. Fling me from the city’s edge, she prayed. Put
that
spectacle in the legend.

Shards of glass and ceramics lay around the lord as he paused in his rampage. It had been a most disgraceful display of temper. Unprecedented. Cixi found herself kneeling in front of him, although being half the fiend’s height, she could hardly be more inferior.

Then Lord Nehoov began roaming his chamber again, looking for something else to break, but he had quite finished the matter in the first interval after hearing of Chiron’s schemes.

At last Nehoov took a seat, his visage composed. His profoundly bass voice came to her in a whisper: “Cixi of Chendu wielding.” He wasn’t looking at her, but rather up at the ceiling, as though imploring the Miserable God for help. He would be even more alarmed if he realized the powers that Titus Quinn’s weapon possessed.

He turned to face her. “Why would the bright lady confide in you, but not in us, hnn?”

“I know not, Lord. I simply obeyed.”

“Is it obedient to withhold from us?”

“Obedient to the lady, but not to the lord. Until the bright burns out, I will feel that shame.”

He remained silent for a time, not giving permission for Cixi to rise, or to speak. At last he said, “We will make a display of our displeasure.”

Her chest cinched tighter around her heart. “Radiant Lord, I have served you for one hundred thousand days—”

“You have served yourself well indeed,” he conceded, fixing her with that baleful stare.

Her mind had gone numb. In her vision she saw Sydney, so young and fierce, the girl she hadn’t seen for so long. Oh, to say good-bye, to set eyes on her one more time. She had hoped to preside over her investiture; had hoped to be present when Sydney took on a new name: Sen Ni, her Chalin name. Go on without me, dear one, she thought.

Without being given permission, she stood.

Nehoov rose too, and in a few strides came to her side. He looked down on her. “You shall live in honor, High Prefect, for your actions this day.”

She stared at him.
Live in honor
, did he say?

“Lady Chiron will unsheathe a claw or two, when she learns you abandoned her.” He looked as though he enjoyed the prospect of Chiron’s anger. “So you have shown courage, if belated.”

“Bright Lord,” she whispered.

As she took in a breath of cool air to steady herself, she heard the lord murmur, “But the steward Cho shall pay.” He gestured her away. “Bring him to the lip of the city.”

A small bulge in the platform formed a stage. It jutted out into the sky. Where Cho stood with the lord and the high prefect, the floor had been made transparent, so that the others could view him from the lower levels of the Magisterium. The thousands assembled there would all want to see the four-minute ride of Cho the steward.

No one had told him why today was the day of his execution, nor why they had delayed so long. He tried to compose his mind, but his thoughts skittered around like water drops in a hot pan. One of them was his grave flag saying:
Learned to live at the very last.

He had served the lords, the land, and the Magisterium for six thousand days. Then he had met Titus Quinn in disguise at the Ascendancy, and everything had changed. He never knew why the man of the Rose had come here, but Cho believed the man was a personage of great import, that he had no venality in him. Cho believed that Titus Quinn had come to open the door between worlds, and he considered this a worthy goal.