Bright of the Sky (44 page)

He spoke presumptuously. But she forced herself to indulge him, for the sake of her larger plans—oh, far larger than Zai Gan could hope to grasp. “But,” she said, “if Yulin’s proposal is carried out and fails, you can set up your throne in his sway. Indeed, Yulin’s idea might fail in a spectacular manner. Inyx beasts as officers of battle! Absurd.”

The legate’s eyes peered out at her like an animal trapped in a fleshy cage. “Such a failure could take a thousand days to manifest.”

“Mmm,” Cixi murmured, a sound she quite liked as it could be interpreted by the listener as favorable or not, and sometimes, as now, she chose to be ambiguous.

She looked down at the young man standing at the edge of the rim. Indeed, he looked oddly fixated. And something else about him: his stature, the way he stood, reminded her of someone.

Meanwhile, standing below the two observers, Quinn was counting the days he’d been here. A total of eight. Three days since his unsatisfactory encounter with Min Fe, and one day since he had succeeded in meeting the consul Shi Zu. The very fact that they had met and no Tarig had swooped down on him led Quinn to believe that surveillance was customary, that he had not been singled out. Still, he had not escaped notice, as Bei had strongly advised him to do.

Yet his strategy to go over Min Fe’s head direct to his superior had worked. To Quinn’s great good fortune, Shi Zu despised Min Fe. With one exception, the meeting had gone well, and Quinn needed to think hard about that exception. But for the moment, he was distracted by the view of the sea far below.

Thirty thousand feet below, the Sea of Arising lay in a glittering platinum sheet. Although he could see only a wedge of the ocean at the moment, Quinn knew it was circular, and a million miles in circumference.

He had been coming here over the last few days because the sight had been steadily restoring his memory.

A field barrier stilled the winds, replacing the need for a railing. The unobstructed view fell away, drawing his eyes to the hammered sea, crawling with wisps of exotic clouds. The walkway was only a yard wide. It was possible to fall, but it would take a push. One could fall for five minutes. With a 360-degree view, it would be the supreme free fall. However, rather than being struck by the height, Quinn was keenly aware—as he had always been—of the feeling of centrality. Of being in the center of a radial universe: the center of the bright, the heartland, and the power. This was the memory that had visited him again and again in the Rose. As he sank into these memories, he thought of how, in some sways, even thinking was dangerous. He wondered if, for Sydney, the Inyx ability to decode thoughts was a particular misery. It would be for him, and he thought her very much like her father.

In the far distance, the squat storm walls surrounded the sea like a hurricane circling the eye of the storm. Overhead, the bright looked like a hammered plate of light resting on distant blue legs. The storm walls were broken in his view by two small gaps where the visible primacies plunged outward from their source. Though he knew that he should not be able to see all the way to the storm walls, a miragelike bending of light brought the walls closer.

He remembered this. Quinn had lived there, as he had been told, as he now recalled. He remembered Bei pouring steaming oba from a pot and discussing medieval Earth history. Quinn’s suite of rooms looked onto a courtyard. A remarkable tapestry adorned one wall of his room. There were no locks on the doors.

He remembered the Lady Chiron’s kindness when his sorrow had been a million miles in circumference. When Hadenth goaded Quinn, she stood nearby, forbidding the lord. And that protection—for no one could protect against a high lord other than another—brought Quinn’s gratitude, and later, that retreat into physical solace, an act that now repulsed him.

They lay on a shining bed, lit from above. Lit from a sky window, releasing the
bright over their naked bodies. As he moved, she matched him, angle for angle, curve
for curve, keeping contact along the lengths of their bodies, although she was taller than
he. She was supple, curious, inexhaustible.
He had vowed to stay away from her, and had succeeded for a long while. But eventually, he went to her suite.
She
rushed to meet him. She could not fully accept him into her, because the divide between
her legs was small. Over time this became irrelevant.

He understood why it had happened. There was the loneliness, the years of separation from Johanna. But he would give anything for it not to have happened while Johanna languished at Ahnenhoon.

It gnawed at him. To so completely succumb to the Tarig. Was it the power that he had relished? He couldn’t see himself as that man. Remembering the navitar’s prophecies, he wondered if his betrayals had set in motion some profound wheel of retribution.

He turned from the maze of these thoughts. Tomorrow he would come back and confront them again. Until Shi Zu arranged a summons from Cixi.

Shi Zu was pleasant but dangerous. He affected elaborate dress, including brocaded trousers and a golden jacket. The symbol embroidered on the back of his garment was that of a sky chain, bright insects linked and floating in the sky, a configuration he had seen before. This foppish consul was amused by Quinn’s bypass of Min Fe. Then it occurred to the consul that, given the importance of a matter altering military protocol, perhaps a person of high standing should present Yulin’s clarity to the Inyx sway. Quite possibly that functionary should be Shi Zu himself. Quinn hoped his arguments against this were persuasive.

He looked around him, thinking that he might even now be observed. If so, it wouldn’t hurt to show his heartchime—that bauble of the devoted, that told the wearer how close they were to the beloved Ascendancy. He brought forth the heartchime and held it to his ear, listening to the high tone that was the Ascendancy’s pitch. He wondered where Anzi was, and hoped she was safe.

Heading down the ramp to return to the inner Magisterium, deep in thought, he made his way into the third level. A familiar voice caught him off guard.

“Your Excellency,” Cho said, bowing before him in the junction of a small corridor with a wide one.

“Steward Cho,” Quinn replied, matching the bow.

This brought a look of consternation and a yet lower bow. “Please, Excellency, I’m an understeward.” Rising, he said, “Seeing the sights, are you? Everyone sees the sights on their first visit.” He looked past Quinn to a doorway to an outer deck. “There are better views. Seating areas, and so forth.”

“You must know them all, my friend. Did you deliver your trunks to the legate Min Fe?”

Cho’s face fell only a little. “A pressing weight of duty has not allowed him to view the documents. So far.” Sidling closer and lowering his voice, Cho said, “We’ve heard that Min Fe has suffered a rebuke from the consul Shi Zu.”

Quinn stifled a smile. “Has he? Perhaps it’s long overdue.”

Cho looked startled. “An alarming thought, Excellency.”

“Please, Cho, Dai Shen will do.”

Cho bobbed, agreeing, and they began to walk together. Hearing of Shi Zu’s notion to usurp Dai Shen’s mission and travel to the Inyx sway himself, Cho looked worried. Then, hearing that Quinn had tried to talk Shi Zu out of such a notion, Cho said, “Forgive me, Excellency—Dai Shen—but you may be in jeopardy of a small misstep in protocol.”

“Or a rather large stumble?” Quinn could not quite recall the Chalin equivalent of
bull in a china shop
, though he was sure there was one.

“No, no stumbling, none whatsoever, but if I may suggest . . .” He waited for a nod from His Excellency. Receiving it, he went on, “You must let him win, of course.”

They came upon a great atrium. Arising from one end was a narrow but ornate staircase that twisted at intervals to disappear into the second level. Leading the way upward, Cho continued, “If I may offer a small idea, let him have the mission without protest.”

That wasn’t damn likely. “My father would think me a failure to give my duty to another.”

A rustle from above them signaled that someone was descending the stairs. Quinn looked up. Just turning onto the next landing came a grandly dressed Chalin woman attended by ladies wearing heavily embroidered silks. Quinn and Cho bowed deeply as the entourage passed, Cho murmuring, “Subprefect Mei Ing, and glorious consuls.” Switching quickly from unctuous to practical, he returned to his subject: “By letting him win, you will win, Dai Shen, do you see?”

Quinn turned to watch the ladies descend, especially the one with the river walker emblazoned on her tunic. Perhaps if the high prefect wouldn’t see him, the plain prefect might.

Cho continued, “Permit me; it wouldn’t be seemly to disagree with the consul that he is the most fit to handle the matter. But once you agree with his superior judgment, he will abandon the plan. He would never leave the Ascendancy, Dai Shen. He’d lose his place in line.”

Quinn glanced at the steward, thinking that Cho the hapless might in fact be quite the master at navigating the bureaucracy.

“I haven’t presumed too far?” Cho asked, cutting his eyes at Quinn.

“No, it’s very valuable advice. I’m not a subtle man.” He shrugged. “A soldier.”

Cho stuttered. “But I’m subtle, you think?”

“Yes, Understeward Cho should advise all newcomers here. It could be a side business. There’s a Jout I know who could use some help.”

Cho hardly knew how to respond to this half-jest, but his steps came more lively, and he pointed out the sights, most of them actually new to Quinn, although not all.

They had come to the highest level of the Magisterium by means of the asymmetrical staircase, into a narrow passage with a vaulted ceiling. As they started down this hall, Quinn thought he knew where Cho was leading him. It was to the chamber of Lord Ghinamid.

“Most newcomers want to see the Sleeping Lord,” Cho said.

They passed through tall galleries lit by windows and crowded with prosperous-looking legates, including a few Hirrin sentients. Then, crossing out of the Magisterium, they came under the sky for a moment into a sunken garden, then climbed curved stairs and came into the city above. They were in the city, where he should not be seen. Not planned—but not unwelcome, either.

At the head of the stairs and through an outdoor gallery, they came at last to the open doors of the Sleeping Lord’s chamber.

The cavernous room was filled with an orange light from burnished walls that looked to be quilted in giant squares of etched metal. The chamber was empty except for two features: on three sides of the room a raised gallery was supported by columns; below the gallery and in the center of the room was a raised platform. From the gallery, a scattering of sentients viewed the Sleeping Lord’s resting place.

As he had lain for two million days, Lord Ghinamid rested on the raised platform on a black bed of exotic matter, never aging. Quinn didn’t expect that the Masterful Lord would look any different than he had the last time Quinn had seen him, nor did he.

Approaching the platform, they bowed, then gazed up at the Tarig lord. The face, long and narrow like all the Tarig, looked carved but alive, and harder than most. There was that quality to Tarig skin that was both metallic and supple. Ghinamid’s form was clothed in a black chitinous-looking robe. The eyes were covered by two black, oblong stones that looked like they might topple off if the lord came into REM sleep.

“Asleep,” Cho said. “What must he dream of?”

“Home,” Quinn replied, remembering that he had once fled into sleep himself from sheer homesickness.

They had lowered their voices, as though not to disturb the sleeper. Cho asked, “You know the stories, then?”

“Some.” He well remembered the tale of Lord Ghinamid, who couldn’t bear his separation from his original home in the Heart. He had been among the first great lords to rule the Entire, and therefore was impossibly old.

“Of course, your pardon. You are of Yulin’s household, an educated man, naturally.”

Quinn looked around the hall. It was now deserted. Both the mezzanine and the hall were empty except for the two of them.

And a lord, on the perimeter.

A Tarig stood at a doorway, watching them. Cho was now as still as a mouse in an owl’s gaze.

Quinn turned to leave, and Cho fell in step with him. From behind, he heard the clicking of the Tarig’s feet approaching.

A voice, wasted, deep, and familiar said, “He dreams, do you say?”

It was a mistake to pretend the lord hadn’t spoken to them. Even before he turned to face the Tarig, Quinn remembered the main way to tell one Tarig from another. By voice.

He turned to face Lord Hadenth, and in that moment it seemed that time looped back, and that he had never left this place.

He had forgotten what the lord had said.

“Dreams?” Lord Hadenth repeated.

Recovering his wits, Quinn answered, “We wonder if the great one dreams. We are ignorant, Bright Lord.”

Cho was bowing so low Quinn thought he might topple.

In a terrible moment, Quinn declined to bow. He knew what he should do, and couldn’t.

Lord Hadenth had reached the dais and stood there, resting a bare muscled arm on what Quinn had always considered
the bier
. Hadenth wore a sleeveless long tunic over a straight skirt, slit to the knees for easy movement. Over the tunic was a vest of woven platinum thread. At his neck he wore a collar of twisted metal. Quinn had always thought of it as a dog collar. He had learned how to hate at the feet of this creature. Fearing that it showed, he breathed deeply to quiet himself.

Hadenth looked at Cho. “We do not know you.”

Cho bowed. “Bright Lord, Steward Cho of the fourth level, of the Hanwin wielding of the house of Lu. Bright Lord.”

“Ah, the understeward.” Hadenth flicked his gaze at Quinn. “You, we know.”

The three words cut at him, stopped his breath. He would not be captured; he had set his mind to that, a million miles ago.

“Bright Lord?”

The Tarig hadn’t moved, and said casually enough, “Watching, watching.” He reached up to touch Lord Ghinamid’s feet. “For eight days, watching, on the rim. And for what? What approaches, hnnn?”