Bright of the Sky (58 page)

Quinn wouldn’t commit to a large action that could open him to a Tarig mortal blow. He would parry and strike, stinging and maiming.

He circled again. The Tarig had learned nothing, turning to watch, waiting for Quinn to choose the moment.

Hadenth faced him dead-on, both arms held ready to attack. A foolish posture. Again Quinn darted in, slashing at the upraised hands, cutting him.

Then, as Hadenth saw Quinn spiraling in for another cut, he began backing away.

The lord was afraid. The Tarig walked backward, arms raised, ready for the major assault that never came. Quinn advanced, feinting a lunge, following him.

Quinn slashed at Hadenth’s hand, taking three of his right hand’s four fingers. The talons now hung useless.

Hadenth kept backing up. Quinn followed. Slowly, step for step, he matched the lord’s pace.

Hadenth could no longer fight. His hands, wrists, and lower arms were strips of gore. But he was still upright, still walking backward, walking toward the storm wall that hovered behind, roaring with dark light. It was impossible to tell exactly how close they were to the wall. Tendrils of silver wriggled out to surround Hadenth, to stab at Quinn. It jolted him. Walking forward now was like advancing into a line of spears.

Quinn could go no farther as Hadenth receded from him.

“You do not kill us,” Hadenth said.

Quinn stood locked in place, watching the Tarig move toward the wall. Quinn said, “You need to die.”

“You do not kill us,” Hadenth said.

Kill yourself then
, Quinn urged.

And Hadenth did. He turned, and walked deliberately into the wall, into that jumping land of sometimes wall and sometimes not. His form grew indistinct, wavering, then burning. A blistering tear appeared where Hadenth’s body appeared to rend the billowing fabric.

He was gone, leaving behind the odor of singed meat.

Around Quinn the nascence sputtered like a fire crackling in grease. Quinn staggered back across the sand toward the ship. The fragmental was now twitching and shuddering as though nervous to leave. “A moment more,” Quinn said to it.

He found Anzi, propped up against one of the ship’s legs, or piers, whatever they were. She had gotten that far, and watched his fight. He knelt by her side.

Her eyes were open. “You are bleeding,” she said.

“Hadenth’s blood.”

He took out his knife and cut her tunic at the neck. Carefully, he ripped the tunic fabric all the way to Anzi’s waist. When he got to skin, the news was good. The wound was not deep, though it was still bleeding, a gash straight up the middle of her sternum and ending at her throat just shy of a mortal wound. He used his own shirt to make a bandage to bind her up.

“You fought well,” she said. “Ci Dehai would be proud.” By her look, she was, also.

“He killed himself,” Quinn said wonderingly.

“He was a flame in the storm wall,” she murmured, and then she closed her eyes—in exhaustion, or savoring the memory.

The ship supplied water, and Anzi drank. After a half hour she declared herself ready to make the several day trek to a train station.

It was nonsense. They argued. He would help her walk down to the train, then come back.

She refused to budge in that case.

Eventually, he saw there was no winning. She was going alone, and perhaps she was right to try.

Behind them, the ship flowed alarmingly into and out of higher dimensions. He had to hurry.

Helping Anzi to her feet, he said, “Now Yulin can release the gardeners.” He had never forgotten their awful sentence, to remain within Yulin’s garden walls because they knew of a stranger who shouldn’t have been there.

She shook her head, brushing the sand from her leggings. “Still thinking of gardeners.” But she smiled.

They stood a moment in silence.

“The walls,” Anzi said, gazing at the coiling dark side of the nascence. “They hold us. But burning the Rose to do so.” The look on her face was bleak, deepened in shadow by the blue storm. It was an irreconcilable contest. One world lived at the expense of the other.

She turned to him. “Go home now, Quinn.”

He nodded, whispering, “And you.”

Then he remembered the thing he had wanted to do when the time came for them to part. He reached under his jacket and removed the cord on which the heartchime hung. He placed it around her neck. “Stay away from the Ascendancy,” he said, smiling. “If this thing screams, you’re too close.”

Her hand closed around the chime. “Once was enough,” she said.

Then she turned, and began her walk down the nascence. It was not the custom in the Entire to say good-bye. You never knew in such long lives when you might meet again.

The minoral was near. In the distance he could see a land where the view opened up, and the world was permanent. She didn’t turn around again, for which he was glad.

When she was only a small white blur, wavering in the charged air, he turned and entered the ship.

Afterward, he remembered little of punching through the wall. One moment what was left of the ship was picking up speed down the minoral, aiming— he knew, but could not see—for the fold where the two walls met: Bei’s reach.

In the minutes before takeoff he had conveyed to the fragmental all he could of how to identify the solar system. God above, even the
galaxy
. Finally, almost despairing of saying the right things, he advised,
Look for radio transmission
sources.

What is radio?

Before he had time to answer, the ship rose from its landing space. They were under way.

He remembered hoping that no travelers were in the minoral to witness this. He remembered thinking that Anzi would be pausing in her trek, watching the brightship speed away, up the minoral. He wondered what it looked like to her, what it had become as it prepared to go between realms.

He found himself trusting this creature. The fragmental had waited for him during the fight with Hadenth, when it could have simply slipped into the side wall of the nascence. Since coming to the Entire, Quinn had become an optimist. It was what the Entire did for you. Gave you hope—not that life would be necessarily better, but that, given the long hours, eventually you would have time to do what you must.

They sped toward the junction in the wall.

And then he was unconscious.

He dreamed the ship said,
Cannot hold the form.

He dreamed that he responded,
Now you tell me.

Immobilized and helpless, he was spinning. Around and around, stretched out, his feet moving clockwise and his head following, like a baton. Set adrift.

He remembered looking down at Small Girl, her face under a foot of water. Immobilized. Helpless.

Dead.

He remembered the girl in his backyard looking up the barrel of his shotgun.
Sorry we bothered you. We just wanted to see you for real.

Here I am, then.

Ready or not.

Going home.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

If the day brings grief,
It will ebb.

If the ebb brings joy,
It will burn away.

—from
The Twelve Wisdoms

S
YDNEY CROUCHED ON THE ROOF OF THE BARRACKS, imagining the steppe-land that surrounded her. Flat and dry. A limitless flat and dry. She came to the roof to lighten her heart, but the joy of this grand roamland had seeped away the last few days.

It had been forty days since Riod had taken command of the herd. Priov was dead, but the mares had yet to fully endorse his successor. If it had been breeding season, Riod might have earned more loyalty from the mares, but Priov had picked his challenge time carefully, and the mares who remained were skittish and demanding.

Two mares had defected to Ulrud the Lame’s herd, along with Akay-Wat’s former mount, Skofke. Good riddance, Mo Ti had growled, if they have no stomach for free bond and for Riod.

But an interval ago the riders of those mares had come limping into camp, having walked the long distance from Ulrud’s herd. These were among the growing numbers of riders who were used to a free-bond status, and meant to keep it. Noting their approach, Akay-Wat had let out a whoop, and thundered out with her new mount, Gevka, to welcome them. Her prosthetic leg helped her to grip Gevka’s back in a vise, transforming her into a superb rider.

It was time for Akay-Wat to accept her mission to go to Ulrud’s herd. But the Hirrin delayed, avoiding Sydney, keeping to herself.

Sydney noted all this with detachment. She hardly cared about mares and chieftainship after the news about Titus Quinn had reached the encampment. She was weary of the herd and its politics.

The steppe called to her. She clambered down from the roof on the side of the barracks facing away from camp, and set out walking. She had no clear goal, except quiet—especially the quieting of her mind. The steppe had always revived her, with its scoured horizon and clean smells. She had seen its vista from Riod’s mind so often, its image was burned into her mind. Perhaps it would renew her today, if she walked carefully and didn’t step in a vole hole.

Despite her hope for peace, the quiet of the land brought her thoughts crowding for attention. Three days ago, the news had begun filtering through the roamlands, leaping from mind to mind, from encampment to encampment.
Titus Quinn. Returned.

Normally the Inyx sensed little from the outside world. It had always seemed normal to Sydney that the mounts kept their concerns local, as hers were. But some Inyx were fighting in the war, and even as distant as these kin were, their hearts could be read. Thus came the shocking tale.

The human man Titus Quinn had returned. Hiding in the Ascendancy for a time—it was unclear how long—he had gone on a killing rampage and then destroyed the brightships, every single one. Having done all this, he eluded his pursuers, nor was he yet in custody. It was a tale almost past believing.

He had spared one ship for his own escape. Where had he gone with it? No one knew, but many thought he had returned to the Rose.

Oh, Cixi
, she thought.
Cixi, he has left me.
Who else but Cixi would know and care? Cixi, who had sheltered her, and protected her from the fiends. Cixi, who had seen her cry the last tears that she would ever shed.

As she walked, the bright cooled toward ebb, making her trek more bearable, but her feet were beginning to hurt. What she wouldn’t give for fine boots, so that she could walk forever.

There hadn’t been time for Cixi to send a report to her about this event. But from Inyx glimpses, the story came that Titus had murdered a Tarig child and a Tarig lord. Sydney had no idea why her father would kill a child, and how he could kill a lord. Perhaps he had been hiding in the Magisterium all these thousands of days, and had only now found a way to escape. Maybe he had grown tired of Lady Chiron at last. Or perhaps he had heard that Johanna was dead, and decided the Entire held little interest for him now. For any or all of these reasons he might have decided to run, and then, having been discovered, he killed those who tried to prevent him.

Of course, Johanna wasn’t dead. The rumor that it pleased the Tarig lords to spread was that, because of her lost child, she had died of grief. This sentimental story had taken root and spread until all had heard it. And although it was a lie—as Cixi had assured her—Sydney no longer thought about Johanna. Nor about Titus. Until now.

The pack on Sydney’s back grew heavy, and she considered leaving it behind. But the pack stayed on. In it, as always, was her journal containing the record of her Entire days. Perhaps her days were over, now. She felt tired enough with her life.

She sat by a scraggly tree, leaning against it for a few moments’ rest. Then, weary of thinking, she slept.

When she awoke, Mo Ti’s voice came to her: “Mistress.”

“Mo Ti.” She rose to her feet, still weary. No shared sight came to her from his mount. Mo Ti was on foot.

Remaining silent, he put a water flask in her hand. She drank as he lowered his bulk to sit beside her.

Eventually she whispered, “Mo Ti.”

“My lady?”

“Look at the sky.” After a pause she added, “Do you see a brightship?”

“No, Lady, there is no brightship.”

“But have you looked in all directions—down the Long Gaze of Fire, and toward the heartland?

“Mo Ti has looked.”

“No one there, then.” She felt dispassionate, but curious. Where was Titus now? But there was no figuring such things out. She rose, and started to walk again. At her side, the big man matched her steps.

He said, “Mo Ti also watches for the caravan that brings your eye surgeon.”

Her surgeon was coming. The beku caravan bringing her Chalin surgeon would be here in ten days. The Tarig had agreed with Riod’s demand, eager to curry Inyx favor. The mantis lords would have to find a new gulag for their misfits, though. Once the riders were sighted, many individuals would come to the sway to ride freely with the Inyx. But it no longer seemed such a fine thing to her.

“Where are you going?” Mo Ti asked.

“Walking.”

“Walking where?”

She kept silent. She didn’t know where.

His hand was on her arm, stopping her. She felt like a twig, like a steppe mouse. He could stop her, or carry her home, so insubstantial she was compared to him.

“My lady. This person is not worthy of your sorrow.”

“But I’m not sad, Mo Ti. I feel nothing, truly.” She heard the tenderness in his voice, and it hurt her that he was troubled on her account. How was it possible for such a mountain of a man to imagine one girl’s sorrow? He had never seemed so fanciful, before.

She began to walk again, but he still held her arm, restraining her.

“Let me go, Mo Ti.”

“No.”

She thought about this a moment. Had he ever told her no before? She tested his resolve by twisting her arm in his hold. Tight as a vise. “I forbid you to bring me back to the encampment,” she said, her calm beginning to tatter at the edges.

“Very well. Then we’ll stand here together.”

“We’ll get thirsty.”