City Without End (4 page)

Zhiya checked again at the door—as though she could stop a Tarig from entering. Zhiya was hardly a soldier: barely four feet in height, with a sideways gamboling walk and a persistent disregard for her service to her religious order.

Zhiya smiled at the reeking legate. “Hurry, Excellency,” she crooned, “Marry them and celebrate with the heavenly smoke.”

The legate roused himself onto one elbow, but it was only to reach for the nugget. Zhiya surged forward and shook him by the shoulders. “By the mucking bright . . .” she began. But the man fell back, eyes rolling up. He had passed out.

From just beyond the walls came the sound of the sea splatting against the breakwater. Changjun’s room had a glorious location next to the largest sea in either universe. But then everyone in Rim City had more or less the same location, the city being many thousand of miles long and a stone’s throw wide.

Titus glanced at Zhiya. “Check the street. We’re leaving.”

Zhiya didn’t budge. “I could perform the ceremony.”

Anzi stifled a gasp of dismay. “No. You’re a godwoman. The Miserable God would curse us.” Anzi cast around for another solution. “Find us a priest of the Red Throne.”

Zhiya kicked at the slumbering legate, muttering. “My dear, it’s a charming thought to be helped by a Red priest. Unfortunately, it would get us all killed. But if you get another idea, be sure to keep it to yourself.”

“But,” Anzi continued, unfazed, “the Society of the Red Throne—”

“Believes in the lords, commerce, and the three vows. No, Anzi, I’m afraid you’re stuck with me. Only three can do the job: a legate, a ship keeper, or a godder.” Motioning toward the comatose legate, Zhiya said, “You’re down to two choices. See any ship keepers?”

Titus looked at Anzi, saying softly, “Let her do it, my love. What more can the Miserable God bring on us?”

Anzi raised an eyebrow. What more could He do? What, besides threaten the Rose universe with extinction? What, besides give Titus a weapon to save the Rose, and then, diabolically, make it a weapon he couldn’t bring himself to use? The cirque he’d brought into the Entire, the small silver chain around his ankle, had proven to be a molecular weapon that would erase not just the Tarig threat but the whole of the Entire. At Ahnen-hoon, as Titus was at the very moment of depositing the weapon at the base of the engine, Titus’s first wife told him to make peace with his God. In this way she let slip that Titus was about to die. That everyone in the Entire was about to die, since the weapon would destroy the Entire. He’d asked her what she knew of the cirque and how she
could
know. He learned that he’d been tricked by Lord Oventroe to bring a doomsday weapon to Ahnenhoon. Oven-troe, who had inspected the cirque and promised it would take down only the engine.

They had fled Ahnenhoon, he and Anzi, with the job undone, the engine still churning. But they were forced to leave Johanna behind. She had no doubt been caught at the foot of the engine, the place she was forbidden to be. No doubt it all came out, eventually, what she was there for.

A saving grace was that Johanna would be forced to reveal that Titus had the overwhelming weapon. That he left with it. It could still destroy the Tarig land. Therefore the lords did not dare to simply cross over to the Rose and kill the Earth to forestall future aggression. The lords would most certainly do so if not restrained by this most useful deterrent: the cirque in Titus’s possession.

But the problem was he had thrown the cirque away.

Titus said again, “Let her do the ceremony, Anzi.”

He looked at her with such longing it nearly stopped her breath. Anzi slid a glance at the godwoman, considering whether she could bear to be married by a godder.

Zhiya blurted, “You think I
want
to do it? If you ask me, Titus should marry
me
. I’ve lusted after him from the first day I saw him.” She shrugged apologetically at Titus’s bride-to-be.

Titus was still focused on Anzi. “Marry me, Ji Anzi, and let the Miserable God do his worst.”

At the blasphemy, she raised two fingers to her left eye. “Beloved, never say it.”

“Someone has to stand up to him.”

Anzi turned to Zhiya. “Yes, then,” she whispered. “You’re not so despised a godder as most.”

Zhiya sighed. “By God’s balls, a fine compliment. But shall we get on with this?”

“Yes, Venerable,” Anzi said, almost inaudible. “Bless us.” She closed her eyes, unable to meet Zhiya’s gaze.

Without preamble, the godwoman muttered the blessing. Anzi heard it in a blur of resin smoke and adrenaline . . .
counter of sins, creator of misery . . .
do not look on this paltry couple, do not bring thine eye to their small, mean, and plodding
lives . . .

“Anzi,” Titus said at last, nudging her from a sickening reverie. He drew her into his arms, whispering, “My great love. My wife.”

“Is it over?” she asked.

“Yes,” Zhiya snapped. “Many days of bliss to you both.” She peeked out the door. “We’ll raise a toast at the whorehouse.” She ducked an apology to Anzi. “My side business, but they do know how to have a party.”

“Titus,” Anzi said. He paused, waiting for her to go on. “Have you thought what will happen if they catch us?”

He nodded. “Yes. They won’t catch us.”

“But, if they do?”

Zhiya sighed. “The longer we stay here the more chance there is that they
will
catch you. Go now. Talk later.”

Anzi fixed Zhiya with her gaze. “No. There is no later.”

Titus grew wary. “What is it?”

“It’s the chain. It’s gone. Lying at the bottom of the Nigh.” The chain as a deterrent was the only chance left for the Rose, and Titus knew that as well as she did. He just didn’t want to admit what it meant. “If we separate, and one of us is caught, we can claim the device is with the other person.” She saw him resisting this idea. “The chain still has power—if they believe we have it. They’ll be afraid to move against the Earth if they think I’ll open the links and let out the plague. Or you will.”

“No, Anzi.”

“Pardon, but I think yes.”

Zhiya rolled her eyes. “What a fine beginning to marital harmony.”

Ignoring her, Titus said, “No. If we’re caught we’ll just say we gave it to someone for safekeeping.”

“But who would that be? Among all the sentients of the Entire, who loves the Rose? Only you and I. The lords would suspect us.”

“Anzi,” he pleaded. “No, I don’t like it.”

“I might choose to go without your agreement.”

They looked at each other for a long moment. Titus was processing this. He had already heard the wisdom of what she said. She thought he’d already decided, but was postponing saying so.

She went to his arms. “My love,” she whispered. They held each other.

Anzi pushed away finally. “Wait for me, Titus.”

He held her at arms’ length. “I hate this. Go, if you think best. But don’t pretend to have the cirque. I can’t ask it of you. I won’t.”

“No. Don’t ask.” He was always wanting to do the right thing. He had done so many awful things that he weighed small things too hard because they were easier to grasp. This was a small thing.

When he saw her resolve, he said, “Come home to me.”

“Yes.”

Zhiya regarded the leave taking with growing impatience. “Where will you go, girl?”

“To a far primacy. Somewhere you can’t guess.”

Zhiya flicked her gaze at Titus. “I’ll put her on a vessel, then.”

He nodded. After a pause he said, “Give us one hour alone.”

The godwoman smirked. “What? Here?” She noted the unconscious legate sprawled on the only bed. “You don’t have the luxury of an hour.”

“Give us some goddamn time, Zhiya.”

Anzi put a hand on his arm, getting his attention. “We’ll have our time.”

It was something she was not quite ready to believe, but she said it anyway, her heart cooling. She lifted her hood and yanked it forward, moving to the door.

Titus intercepted her at the door, pulling the hood back. Cupping her face, he kissed her in a way that instantly heated her.

She pressed him away at last. “The Chalin never say farewell. I won’t say it now.”

“No,” he agreed. “Protect yourself first. Promise me.”

“First before what?”

“Before me.”

“I promise.”

Zhiya took Anzi’s arm. “Pull that hood over your head, and let’s get out of here.” She cut a reassuring look at Titus, but Anzi could not look at him again.

She and Zhiya slipped through the door.

Once out in the street, the godwoman hurried alongside Anzi toward the wharf, where a navitar vessel might be found. “You have no more intention of putting yourself first than I do of going celibate. You are an impressive liar, Ji Anzi.”

Anzi nodded under her hood. “Thank you, Venerable.”

CHAPTER TWO

Lies seek the light like Inyx do the steppes.

—a saying

S
YDNEY RAN INTO SLEEP, INTO HER DREAMS
, eager to share in the carnage. Dreams were the battlefield, the only arena where the mantis lords were vulnerable. Each night she lay her head down to sleep, to fight. She was no Inyx, could not join the raids of her Deep Ebb army, but her thoughts urged them on. At the head of the Inyx forays was her beloved mount Riod, slicing into the minds of those who slept, sending poison. The worst kind of poison for despots: truth.

The gracious lords have deceived us all. They are not flesh and blood, but wayfarers
in bodies of their creation, fearing to live, tethered to their ancestral home, far
outside of the Entire. The lords are simulacra, fearing carbon-based life. They do not
die or have children. To them, birth is stepping into a form for a time. Until they
scurry back to the Heart, where they exist as unholy burning things. Denizens of the
Entire, should we venerate such creatures? Should we trust the radiant lords, who can
retreat at any time to their true home—the Heart? It is a hellishly burning place
where their minds swarm in chaos. Only here in the Entire can a Tarig have a body,
a life, and worshippers. Would you be subject to such as
that
?

The dream took Sydney, as Inyx dreams could, filling her drifting mind with urgent sendings. Then it cast her up, like a wave tosses a shell on a beach. She lay sweating in fear and excitement, sticking to her bedclothes, as the storm moved on. She knew that the same kinds of dreams were harrowing the sleep of sentients throughout the Entire. Each one interpreted the send-

ings in their own dream-logic. Lacking perfect coherence, the dreams still suggested truths, sowed anxieties. All part of her plan, of Mo Ti’s plan: to bring the Inyx herds together in one common force, then use their united dream-sendings in an insurgency of the mind.

Mo Ti’s plan, when he’d brought it to her so long ago, had been simple, breathtaking:
Discredit the Tarig. Undermine them. Crush them.
And though Mo Ti was at present far away, Sydney executed that plan, joined by Riod, greatest of the hoofed and horned magnificent Inyx. She didn’t know how she would crush the mantis lords. That part was yet to unfold. But it began with a dreamtime rebellion that could penetrate Entirean distances. Each night, a new dream swooped into the minds of sleepers, like a bird landing lightly on a branch, waiting to peck at vital parts.

She sat up, too stimulated to sleep. It was Between Ebb, nearly morning, and Riod would return soon. She rose quickly and dressed, thinking of him, but not too strongly. He shouldn’t be distracted from his work in the fields nearby. There, the herds grazed and dozed, looking harmless, while forging their heart-sight into a sword.

Sydney moved quietly, not wanting to disturb Helice, asleep on the other bed. They shared a tent and compatible ambitions; most ebb-times, they spent hours talking. For the first time in the Entire, Sydney had a woman friend.

As she washed and dressed, she glanced at Helice, thankful for her but also blaming her. Helice had brought word of the cirque. In response, Sydney had no choice but to send Mo Ti to stop her father from using it. To kill him.

The decision sickened her. It was an ugly thing, even if her father
had
abandoned her and steeped himself in privileges and princedom. How he could have done so, she would never understand. It didn’t matter anymore.

When she drew back the tent flap, she was surprised to find the herd surging from the pastures into camp. Their sendings began to filter to her.

Look up. It comes.
Her eyes cut to the sky. Nigh-ward, a shadow cut a crease into the curdling lavender folds of the bright. At great speed, the speck grew.

It could only be one thing.

A brightship.