Bright of the Sky (33 page)

God not looking at you, my boy, he thought.

And Chiron not looking at you.

Titus believed that whole business had been a sexual relationship. As it had. But not only that, at least for Chiron. Because the Lady of the Entire had loved Titus Quinn.

Bei had watched with fascination as all this had played out before him. He had never believed that Tarig could love in the way of a man and a woman. But because of Chiron’s possessiveness, he thought this had been the case.

It was best that Titus not know. His self-recriminations were poisonous enough, without wondering if
he
had loved
her
. Well, all in the past now, and best forgotten.

He tightened his jacket around him to keep the chill from settling into his bones. By heaven, Titus Quinn was heading to the one place that he should, at all costs, avoid. But it was his choice. Titus had chosen this path.

Free of the cage, yes, insofar as any man was.

Bei gathered his students, and they retreated from the storm to the quiet of their subterranean refuge.

The dirigible was a small bubble in the distance, receding quickly. Anzi and Quinn had bid their pilot farewell at the train station a few miles from the opening to the minoral. The hut on the train platform served double duty as a station office and living quarters for the train steward, a young man named Jang with a heavily pockmarked face and wisps of beard that failed to cover his scars. Despite his position in charge of the station, Jang couldn’t predict the arrival time of the train, and doubted it would come soon.

But nothing could dampen Quinn’s exhilaration. He had come away from the reach with everything he’d wanted. There had been a price to pay for it, as Bei said there would be: discovering the mistakes he’d made, the peace he’d made with his captors. Those mistakes made it even more urgent to get to Sydney. If she knew he’d risen high in the Ascendancy, she might think he’d forgotten about her, an almost unbearable notion. Therefore, he concentrated on his journey to find her.

His successes so far made him optimistic and impatient. Why go to the Ascendancy for an alibi that would explain his journey to the Inyx? This ruse that Yulin had devised, of offering commissions to Inyx sentients—would it draw unnecessary attention to him rather than provide cover? Would the high prefect Cixi believe this excuse to travel to the Inyx sway? Why walk into the den of vipers? He and Anzi had only to journey overland to the River Nigh, and from there to the Sea of Arising in the core of this world, from which central point they could pick up the River once more, to travel down the primacy where the Inyx dwelled. This long journey was best begun now, before rumors festered—those rumors that might start with gardeners, godmen, or Gond.

But he knew that he would not, despite the dangers, bypass the Ascendancy.

Because of what Suzong had told him of the correlates; what Bei had told him of Lord Oventroe. The pull of this great prize was a magnet drawing him in, though he believed without hesitation that the power he would gain was not for himself. It was for peace, for security, and to never be ridden again. Yes, he would go to the bright city.

Unfortunately, though, the train was late.

The steward Jang said that, on the one hand, it might arrive in the third hour of Heart of Day, unless it was delayed, and then perhaps it might arrive in the fourth hour of Last of Day, if it was not later.

By convention, days here were divided into eight phases with names such as Early Day, or Shadow Ebb, four of them considered “day” and four of them “ebb.” The eighths were in turn divided into four hours—for a total of thirty-two hours. Each hour was comprised of thirty-two short intervals, like minutes. But the Entire contained no clocks or timepieces, because every sentient possessed an instinctive recognition of absolute time. It was one of the uncanny small things that reminded Quinn that the Chalin, though they looked human, were designed by the Tarig. That didn’t make them inhuman, he reasoned. But he did wonder what other modifications the Tarig had made in the template of
Homo sapiens
. When he’d asked Anzi, she seemed offended to discuss differences. To her it was important to be human, and he didn’t argue.

Now, at Prime of Day, they might have a long wait. The sky would brighten further into Heart of Day, and then begin its recessional into the ebb. The sky burned extravagantly, devouring its fuel—whatever that might be. The lords had at their command a vast power source. Yes, they commanded very much. But they didn’t command Lord Oventroe, one of their own. Quinn made a point of collecting their weaknesses, but so far it was a short list.

To avoid unwanted conversation, Anzi decided they would wait outside rather than in the cramped station office. On the train platform, Anzi settled herself on a bench. All Quinn could do was pace and watch for a train that came now and then. It was maddening not to know how much time was passing in the Rose. He could hope that Helice Maki had not judged it too long a delay; had not taken out her frustrations on Mateo. He hoped that he had time.

The denizens of the Entire lived without rushing. If something was not accomplished today, there would be tomorrow. One might travel by beku. Or wait for a train. But where were the roads and vehicles that Chalin technology could easily provide? He asked Anzi this.

“But Dai Shen,” she responded, “the Entire is too vast for transport.”

“But you travel constantly. Why no roads?” He knew that air travel at most altitudes was not possible. The bright disrupted mechanisms, just as it precluded radio signals.

“Roads? But to where, Dai Shen? We have vast regions of emptiness. Cities are clustered along train paths.” She shrugged. “Also, we are not in such a hurry.”

But he thought it was convenient for the Tarig to limit travel as they saw fit. He said so, but Anzi countered: “We can go everywhere in the Entire. Eventually we get there, and the passage is safe.”

“The River Nigh,” he said. The other key to transport here, besides the veils. So far he had no satisfactory explanation for the river that was not a river.
Exotic matter
, Anzi had said. Like the bright, its science was beyond her.

The train steward brought them a meal on the small porch that sheltered them from the sky. As Quinn and Anzi ate, the steward lingered to talk. Had they heard, he asked, about the murders?

Anzi kept eating, but asked what murders, looking shocked that such things could happen.

The young man said four bodies had been found in shallow graves in the Shulen wielding. Now Quinn came fully alert. This was the region where Wen An had taken him that first day.

Anzi kept her tone even, inquiring about the incident, and the steward relayed the story that the four men who died had been seen in the company of a woman scholar and a stranger. Quinn felt certain that the murdered men must have been his captors, the ones who had put him in a jar and brought him to Yulin. By Yulin’s way of thinking, they would have had to be silenced.

The steward’s glance skimmed over Anzi and Quinn, in an artless assessment of this couple who traveled together and were possibly suspect.

A silence fell as the young man watched them eat. A veldt mouse came to beg food, and the steward shooed it away. It fled in bounding leaps, waving a fan-shaped wedge at the end of its tail that served to dump excess heat.

Jang turned back, looking hard at the man now eating his midday meal on the train platform. The fellow did indeed look a bit odd. For one thing, his hair was not the proper Chalin length. It was slicked back, but where there should have been a tail, it was short, with nothing protruding from under the hat. Furthermore, the few words the man had spoken to the lady were accented. Jang didn’t know the man’s sway, but it wasn’t proper speech. So, he could easily be described as a stranger, yes.

His pulse raced at the sudden thought: What if, by incredible fortune of heaven, the very murderers of the corpses were now standing before him? He, Jang, would have the honor of apprehending vow-breakers. It could be a glorious thing, and raise him up in the estimation of his harping mother who always said he would come to nothing because of sloth. And if they indeed had killed not just once, but four times! An almost unheard-of massacre in a sway that seldom saw violent offense against persons. Yes, not only his frowning mother, but the magister of the village, and perhaps the legate of the city of Po would have to take note of Jang, the steward.

He tried not to stare. The girl was a beauty, with a slim body and fine, full lips that he could well imagine had pleasured the man she traveled with. Yes, though the man was her servant, he could sense their attraction for each other. Jang’s instincts were honed in this matter, as he spent hundreds of days alone, hardly seeing a traveler, much less a female one as handsome as this one. Perhaps, to keep him silent, she would come with him into his quarters, and there perform for him the things he had imagined in his many days of boredom.

He could hardly believe his fortune, and to keep his excitement from overpowering him, he made a show of looking into the distance as though to spy the train.

He imagined himself standing before a lord and telling what he knew. That scene was less invigorating than the one he’d just conjured up. To speak in person to a lord—that would be a thrilling story to tell in the village. But he could feel himself shrivel at the prospect of that black Tarig gaze bearing down on him. And what if he were wrong? What was the penalty for false accusation? Oh, he’d seen the execution of a vow-breaker once, and though he was stimulated by the sight, in truth, the garroting had terrified him.

The woman was speaking to him, and he turned to face her.

She said sweetly, “What did the woman look like, the one traveling with the stranger? Did your sources say?”

He liked it that she had said
sources
, as though, at this juncture on the veldt, someone like him might hear many things from travelers of importance. He stood taller, strutting over to her. “Yes, there were descriptions.” He glanced at the servant man. It was said his face was full, not narrow like this man’s. When Jang looked back at the girl, he realized with confusion that she, in particular, could not be the one described. For didn’t they say that the woman with the stranger was old and that she wore the redstones of a scholar?

“Perhaps,” the girl said, “you could describe her for me, so that we can be watchful as we continue our journey.”

“Oh,” Jang said, his great fantasy collapsing, “she was old and ugly.” He added, looking at her chest, where her woman’s form was nestled against her silks: “Not like you.”

She gave a charming smile. “Well, then, we shall be on guard against an ugly old woman and strange-looking man. You have been most helpful. I will tell my uncle—who is a man of influence—that this station is well tended.”

He recognized that she was dismissing him, but in such nice terms. Perhaps she was suggesting that her gratitude might extend as he had hoped. But no. Jang, you worthless fool. Why would a great lady lie with such as you? He looked at the woman’s companion, and hoped that the man didn’t enjoy those favors, either.

He bowed low to the woman, and not as low to the man, and left to tend his tasks in the station hut, now eager to convey that he was too busy for further idle conversation.

Quinn turned to face Anzi. She shook her head, trying to silence him, but he crouched close to her.

“Master Yulin had them killed?”

She took a deep breath, as though weary of saying something he should already know. “They saw you. Who knows what they might have said to others about you?” Anzi looked at him squarely. “Dai Shen, I know this makes you unhappy. But now we have further problems, besides unfortunate deaths.”

He nodded, having thought of that already. “Tarig justice. It will come into the sway.” The Tarig conferred the penalty for murder, thus removing the chance for cycles of revenge among the diverse sentients who managed to live together. Killing was not just a community issue, but a threat to the whole Entire. That Yulin practiced it so freely gave Quinn a new sense of the master’s desperation in regard to having housed him.

Anzi saw his agitation. She murmured, “Do you think that before all this is finished, you won’t have to kill?”

The knife he wore inside his jacket was testimony to his willingness to kill. She was right, as she was about many things.

Anzi peered down the rut of the train’s path. The yellow veldt was stunningly empty, its flatness making for a limitless horizon in three directions. In one direction, the storm wall bulked up like a distant mountain range, gray and brooding.

As the ebb came on, Quinn and Anzi decided they would sleep outside on the train platform. They sat side by side for a time, waiting for Shadow Ebb when the lavender cast of the sky made it easier to call it night, and sleep.

He took out his picture of Johanna and smoothed its wrinkles. Anzi looked over his shoulder. “Shen, your wife was beautiful.”

Yes, she had been, especially to him. Hard to believe that she was gone. “You saw her once, Anzi. . . .”

She bit her lip. “Such dark hair—at first I thought she was very old, but then I saw that she was your partner, and very lovely.”

He looked at Anzi’s stark face and hair, thinking how opposite the two women were. He held her gaze for a moment. This woman of the Entire, against all odds, was his best ally. He knew her by now, and liked her greatly. Something flickered between them, catching him off guard. He could have reached for her, and almost did. Then Anzi moved away, her reserve back in place. They found their separate places to sleep there on the platform.

As they drifted off, she whispered, “Unwise to keep the pictures, Shen.”

Her caution was a good thing, he supposed.

Late in the ebb Anzi awakened him, putting her finger to her lips. She led him to the other side of the station, and pointed.

In the distance was a blot on the sky. A crescent sped toward them, a black scythe, silhouetted against the bright. Under it, a curved shadow drove down the plains.