Bright of the Sky (23 page)

Vingde had discovered a way to convey objects from the Rose to the Entire. To steal things. No wonder it appealed to Anzi.

“For approaching forbidden things, the Tarig gave him the slow death, their favorite death, garroting. After Vingde’s death I went back. I wanted to see a being of the Rose. I wanted this with all my heart, but why, I don’t truly know. When the Rose tunnel faltered, I brought your conveyance in.”

He held up a hand, stopping her. “How did you find me? How did you happen to seize my capsule to bring it here?” Did Anzi, then, have the secret of to and from?

“It was a game of chance. I knew just enough from my studies with Vingde. I would have taken anybody, and they might have been anywhere. After waiting a long time—fifty days—I saw your craft. Afterward, I tried to hide you, but the Tarig took you, and they never found me, nor could you tell them, since you knew nothing.” She averted her eyes. “I did this terrible thing, to bring you here.”

Quinn most likely could have taken the escape pod safely out of the K-tunnel. No doubt she’d told herself that she was trying to save his life.

Instead, she’d nearly destroyed it. He had to turn away. When he faced her again, his chest felt crushed by the column of thick air in the pillar. “And here you are again, showing up, pretending to help me.”

“Not pretending. . . .”

“Are you real this time, Anzi?” He stepped back from her, controlling his temper. “Or just curious again?”

“Oh, not curious. Dai Shen, please don’t say such a thing.”

“Is it hard to hear, Anzi. Is it?”

Their voices had risen, especially his.

The white-garbed figure of the godman appeared on the steps below them. “Mistress?”

“Leave us. My servant is afraid to ascend. He will do so, though.”

The godman retreated down the stairs.

Anzi’s voice took up the thread of her story. “Master Yulin was very angry. He regretted that he gave me all the advantages, so that I learned no restraint in my life. I abased myself before Caiji of the hundred thousand days, and she persuaded my uncle to help me, which I didn’t deserve. Then we heard stories of you, and stories of your wife and child. All bad. So, as you suffered, I also suffered, but all in my own mind, imagining your horror, and knowing what I had done.”

“Am I supposed to feel sorry for you, Anzi? I can’t.” He wanted to. But for Sydney’s sake, he couldn’t let it pass. For Johanna’s sake.

She knelt before him. “Dai Shen, you have the knife. Now you can use it to free yourself.”

“Free myself?”

“From the hate you carry, and from the sadness. Then, as Ci Dehai said, you can find that river to carry you forward. To a new life.” She paused. “God hates you, but it’s no use to hate back. I’ve learned this.”

She reached up, fumbling at his tunic, to free the knife. But he slapped her hand away. “Stop it. I know I have the knife. What do you think, that I’m going to kill you in a church?”

“That would be a good place, if you only knew, Dai Shen.”

“Get up, Anzi.” She remained kneeling. He took her arm, pulling her to her feet. “Just stop lying to me.” He was tired of her voice. “Find us a train, Anzi.” He pushed her ahead of him.

At the top, they emerged onto a small platform heaped with rotting fruit and offerings, including coins and jewelry. From this vantage point, Quinn surveyed the near territory, looking for the glint of bronze skin, or any hurried activity, but the city appeared untroubled.

Bowing before the offerings, Anzi placed her handful of trinkets among the rest. She intoned, “Do not look at me, do not see me, do not note my small life. Do not look at this man beside me, poor and small as he is. These gifts make us poorer by far than others more worthy of your great notice.”

Here was an ominous god, one who was so malevolent even worshiping it was inadvisable. Thus the godman, to do it for them. “Do you hope He hears your prayer, or that He doesn’t?”

“That is truly a scholar’s question, Dai Shen.” But she didn’t answer. Maybe she didn’t think about such things. Everyone had their self-delusions— including Titus Quinn, he thought, although he wasn’t sure what those might be.

Without further ceremony, Anzi turned and scanned the plains beyond the city. Squinting, Quinn looked as well, but saw nothing. More than any other feature, the bright commanded his attention. How could this river of sky exist? It was a colossal stream of energy, without a natural explanation. It had a Tarig explanation, though, as did the Entire as a whole, a place that could not exist, and yet did. A place, if not created by the Tarig, then at least exploited by them, and enhanced to sustain living creatures. Despite such powers, they were only copiers of what the Rose had evolved. So then, their one glaring inadequacy was lack of creativity. Perhaps they had other inadequacies, as well.

“Will the sky ever burn out?” Quinn murmured.

Anzi looked up at the bright as though considering this for the first time. “Surely not, Dai Shen. How could we live?”

Well, that is never guaranteed, he thought.

Just then Anzi pointed, and he saw a crinkle in the yellow plains that she convinced him was a train approaching from far away.

“Fortunate,” Anzi said, nodding with satisfaction.

“The right train?” Quinn asked.

“Who knows? But it’s the one to the scholar Bei.” Motioning for him to hurry, she disappeared back down the stairs.

Quinn hurried after her. He had expected her to loot the offerings, there being several fine pieces among the junk, but apparently Anzi didn’t steal from God. The woman had her standards.

Waiting for the train, they shared a pilfered meal in a cemetery close to the station. The cemetery was deserted, but still, they couldn’t relax. Surely the Tarig watched the trains. Small flags fluttered from shafts that pierced the graves, giving each soul a lofty-sounding name: Weaver of a Thousand Silks; Son Who Saw a Far Primacy; Aunt of a Shining Face; Soldier of Ahnenhoon (many of those); Soldier of One Arm; Child Dying on the Nigh. Now they shared their meager meal, next to the grave of One Who Laughed.

From their place, they could see thick crowds milling on the platform. “How far is it to Bei?” Quinn asked.

“An arc, at least,” she said. An arc was ten days. A long time to remain undercover, trying to pass for Chalin. Anzi admitted that Bei, or those in Bei’s service, could perform the alterations—although, she couldn’t help but point out, it would be much preferable to go to Jia Wa and not be countermanding Master Yulin’s orders.

Quinn remembered Bei’s face. Frowning, netted with lines of age, the hair threaded with black. A hawk nose, and a hawk’s eyes, blinking relentlessly, repeating relentlessly, “Tell me, Titus. Tell me . . .” And the old man would write, hunched over his scrolls, and Titus would listen to the
skritch
skritch
of his pen.

“Do you think Bei will help us, Anzi?”

“If you must pick a destination not endorsed by Master Yulin, Su Bei is not a bad choice. He is loyal to Yulin.”

“But not to me.”

“Now they are the same thing.”

Quinn let himself hope so. He had been fueled by hope from his first day back. There wasn’t much left without it. He had a young nephew who unwittingly depended on his uncle to return from the Entire. Helice Maki had made it clear: Quinn had to come back. Preferably with good news, but he must come back. Perhaps he would come back with more than she could imagine.

A commotion on the distant train platform signaled the approach of the train. They quickly rose, eager to be under way. It was a risk to be in close quarters with the denizens of this new world, but they had no choice. Anzi had listed all the rules of riding on trains. Every few moments she thought of one more thing he should remember to do or refrain from doing. They set out across the field of graves.

Anzi caught his attention with her eyes. Someone was following them.

She murmured to him, “I will pretend to relieve myself, Dai Shen. When he approaches, I will spring at him, and you also.”

He turned his back as Anzi went off a distance, crouching. And then their pursuer was upon them, taking Anzi down easily and catching Quinn’s punch before it was even thrown.

Standing above them was a man with half a face. “You learned nothing,” Ci Dehai said, looking sour.

Anzi brushed herself off, rising to bow before the fighting teacher.

Quinn had fallen hard, but rose with what dignity he could muster.

Handing Anzi a small pouch, Ci Dehai said, “Four hundred primals. Spend little.” He fixed Anzi with a cold glare. “But spend, instead of stealing.”

Anzi bowed. “Thank you, High Warrior of Ahnenhoon.” The purse of money disappeared into her tunic pocket. Then, under his critical gaze, she reached into her pocket and withdrew the redstone, handing it to him.

The general took the stone, but still waited.

From his waistband, Quinn removed the knife.

Ci Dehai made no move to take it. “I would have thought my lessons better repaid than this.”

Quinn nodded. It was fair to think so, but a man needed a weapon, despite Helice Maki’s theory that the Entire would be nonviolent.

“The Tarig—,” Anzi began.

Ci Dehai interrupted: “Wanted a tour of the famed gardens of Master Yulin. A lord, snooping—but finding nothing.” He recounted the conversation of the lord and Yulin. “Best to leave now, however.”

“Dai Shen insists that we see Su Bei,” Anzi said. “I couldn’t dissuade him.”

The old warrior turned his face so that his one eye locked on Quinn. “Su Bei? No. Better to prevail on someone less conspicuous. Jia Wa, for example.”

Quinn responded, “I need what Bei can tell me of my history.”

“Not advisable.”

“Nevertheless.”

Ci Dehai looked at the man of the Rose with new concern. This Dai Shen had enticed Yulin into a ludicrous alliance: the Master of the sway and the Rose fugitive. The blackmail was explicit:
Help me, or you’ll be my people’s enemy.
And even Suzong of a thousand ambitions had urged her husband to comply. But to what advantage? What did it matter if Yulin was an enemy of the Rose? Since the Rose was powerless against the bright lords, why should anyone fear Dai Shen or his masters?

He looked at Dai Shen, still hoping to convince him against this new course of action. “Bei is in disgrace, and has little to offer.” But Dai Shen set his mouth and wouldn’t budge.

Perhaps, Ci Dehai thought, he should save his master the peril of this rash scheme by dispatching Dai Shen here and now. A small matter, to slit his throat in this field. How could the man’s patrons know that Yulin hadn’t cooperated, if the emissary never returned? The Rose would send other scouts who would find other personages to exploit, and he would be doing Yulin an enormous favor. He itched to take his blade from its sheath at his waist and put this man into one of these convenient graves.

His hand hovered over his knife, and he saw that Anzi saw this, and moved between Ci Dehai and Dai Shen.

As Dai Shen grew wary, Ci Dehai saw his moment evaporating, when he could make a clean kill. He had lost the advantage of surprise, all because of Yulin’s worthless niece. Still, it could all easily be done within a moment.

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the train coming into the station.

Anzi said, “I doubt that my uncle cares whether it is Bei or Wa whom we take refuge with. Both are loyal. I’m sure my uncle would permit it, Warrior of Ahnenhoon.”

He relaxed his knife hand. He didn’t want to hurt Anzi nor face Yulin’s outrage if she was wounded. And now she was giving him an excuse not to kill Dai Shen, either. And so the moment passed when he might have killed the man. A part of him was relieved—the part that had sized up Titus Quinn in training sessions and knew him for a better man than most.

Ci Dehai turned to Quinn. “I see you are set on this course.”

“I am,” came the answer. “Tell Master Yulin I believe our enterprise will be safer if Su Bei can tell me my history.”

In the distance, on the train platform, crowd noises surged.

Ci Dehai snorted, giving in, feeling older than his days. Time was when he wouldn’t have hesitated to save his master from a troublesome individual.

He glanced at the knife Dai Shen had stolen. “Keep the blade. Use it on Master Yulin’s enemies.” Or on yourself if events turn bad.

He unstrapped a small pack from his back. “Here are some children’s scrolls to continue your journey from ignorance. Also inside is a thong on which are strung four redstones, each one a copy of Yulin’s message to the prefect.” He handed the pack to Quinn, who thanked him.

Turning to Anzi, he said, “Once again you have leave to create disorder. Your uncle has given you another chance. Don’t squander it, Ji Anzi.”

Looking up to note the approach of the train, he said to Quinn, “If you make it to the Ascendancy, Master Yulin warns that you must, above all, win over the high prefect Cixi. But know this: She despises the One Who Shines. Master Yulin is second only to Cixi. Do you understand what this means, Dai Shen?”

Quinn nodded. “She won’t welcome any chance for Yulin to succeed.”

“Can you charm a dragon, then?”

“Any hints?” Quinn asked.

“No,” he said. “I’m a fighter, not a diplomat.” As Quinn and Anzi repeated their thanks and headed off, Ci Dehai added, “And beware of her legates. They’re worse than she is.”

Quinn and Anzi began hurrying toward the train platform, threading their way through the graves. “Does he like anyone?” Quinn asked Anzi.

She smiled. “He’s too wise to have friends.”

Carrying the pack of scrolls and data stones, he took his position behind his mistress. She assumed a regal stride, clutching the purse Ci Dehai had given her.

They approached the platform where the thing they called a train was waiting. It was very long, and here at the loading dock he couldn’t see the front of the assemblage, or the rear. The surface of the compartments was smooth but mottled, looking more like cooled lava than worked metal. No wheels, and no tracks. He could almost conclude that it was not a train at all, not as he would define it. But there were coaches. Between each coach, a connecting tube.