City Without End (8 page)

They came to a pier hidden in a shed and entered through a locked door which the Ysli resealed behind him. Quinn heard the slosh of exotic water against the boardwalk. Here in the deep shadow, no light shone from the wharf or from the ship. The navitar’s ship hunkered there, a mere outline.

Quinn let the Ysli take his arm, guiding him to the ship ramp.

On the upper deck, a brief flash of light and a glimpse of red cloth: Ghoris moving in her quarters, maybe keeping watch, or maybe just careening from porthole to porthole, staring madly.

The Ysli led him to the main cabin, leaving him at the threshold.

Then Quinn turned and found he was not alone. He faced a massive presence in the room. Neither of them moved. “I’ve come in good faith,” Quinn said at last. “And you?” When the presence didn’t answer, Quinn said, “Turn on a light.”

“No lights,” came the gentle voice.

River matter sloshed gently against the ship’s hull. The two of them faced off, shadow against shadow.

“I know you,” Quinn ventured, remembering.

“You do. I am Mo Ti.”

The man who’d covered his retreat from Ahnenhoon. “The one who fought off two soldiers so I could escape.”

“Three.”

“I’m glad you got away. I’d hear your story if you’ll tell it.” He heard Mo Ti move a little, and the floorboards creaked.

“Someday. Mo Ti is here now, with news.”

“Who are you, Mo Ti?”

“First, a story.”

Quinn sat on the bench under the porthole. Mo Ti took the bench oppo- site. His leathers stank of sweat in the small cabin, as though the man had run ten miles under the full bright.

“I come from a far sway, Titus Quinn. Your daughter’s sway.” Quinn waited.

“I was her protector, but she sent me away, taking on a vile advisor in my place. I wish to save her from ruin. No matter how I betray her today, Mo Ti serves her forever. You understand?”

“Yes,” Quinn breathed.

“I do not know you, nor care one gobbet for you, darkling. But I saw the thing you did at Ahnenhoon. You had the chain and did not use it against us. All would have died. You spared us. Mo Ti remembers.”

“I made my choice. For my own reasons.”

“And Mo Ti, too, has his own reasons. Listen.” The giant—for he was a massive man, larger than any Quinn had seen—leaned forward in the dark. “Before I left the primacy of the Long Gaze of Fire, someone came to us whom you know. Someone from the dark universe. It was she who told us about the chain and what it held.”

Helice. Quinn knew that when she slipped away from their former mission, she went to Sydney.

“The woman is a spider, Titus Quinn.”

“Call me Quinn.”

“You brought the spider here.”

He accepted the rebuke in silence. Helice had followed him, and he hadn’t thought fast enough to prevent it. From upstairs came a rattling sound. Ghoris at the door, trying to come down. The ship keeper had locked her in, then. The door rattled again, louder.

Mo Ti stopped, listening. Unperturbed, he went on: “The spider has a machine she built up from parts sown into her garments. Like a mechanical thing with a mind, it has magical properties. Your Hel Ese used it to take a blight from Sydney’s eyes. My mistress carried the sight of the Tarig, and to forestall them watching us, wore a blindfold. The spider healed her. For that she won Sydney’s high regard and prevailed on Sydney to send me away.

“Further, she told Sydney you had a device that would loose a plague on our land. That you would put it at the foot of the engine at Ahnenhoon, but that the plague would kill all the world. My mistress believed her.” Quinn could imagine what a monster his daughter must think him. Mo Ti continued, “But you did not use the chain.” He paused. “Was it because you love the Entire, darkling?”

“Yes.”

Mo Ti was quiet for a moment, perhaps mulling over whether to trust a man who would betray his own world. “Strange.”

“Is this the news you came to tell me, Mo Ti? That Helice has turned my daughter against me?”

“No.” They were interrupted by the ship keeper, who came inside and, without speaking to them or lighting his way, ascended the companionway to the upper deck. They listened as the Ysli unlocked the door and entered the navitar’s cabin. Ghoris barked a laugh, and the ship keeper slammed the door behind him, murmuring to the navitar.

Mo Ti went on. “Here is the news I came to tell: The spider told us in private counsels she would come to the Entire with a large force of darklings, but not too large. They would take refuge here, and she would let the Tarig burn the Rose. She has a great machine in the Rose that matches the forces of the Ahnenhoon engine. Working together, the two machines will ignite a great fire in your realm. Thus she removes all threat of the Rose sending another plague into the Entire. She purges her fellow darklings whom she hates. She begins a new sway, and breeds humans to long life here. That is the spider’s plan.”

For a moment Quinn couldn’t quite grasp the size of it. He sat, waiting for Mo Ti’s words to stick. Instead, they swirled: matching engine; a great fire; breeding humans . . .

“She has a darkling word for this plan.
Rena Sance
. To renew darkling life. To begin your culture over again. This pleases her. Also long life in the Entire. That is Mo Ti’s belief, that she comes here to live one hundred thousand days.”

Quinn was shaking his head. It wasn’t possible, even for Helice. “The Tarig can already burn the Rose for fuel. Why have another engine?”

“She says using a matching engine can hasten the Rose collapse. What would take many thousands of days can be done in one.”

Still pushing away, Quinn shot back: “Why? Why should the Tarig rush? They have time to burn us one star at a time.”

“No. She would get it over with. As it is now, there are armed forays forthcoming from the Rose. You were one. If there are others, best light the Rose fire now, rather than wait. So the spider told us.”

A moan from upstairs. Perhaps Ghoris heard this, despaired of it.

Quinn sat in the dark, thoughts circling. It stunned him—not just the plan, but that Helice had even thought of it. How could a universe collapse in an instant? But it could. A quantum transition, occurring everywhere at once; the universe and all its atoms moving simultaneously to a lower energy state, falling inward, heating to incandescence.

“I don’t believe you, Mo Ti. Why the hell should I?” In the heavy dark, the giant’s silence reigned. “Why doesn’t she go directly to the Tarig?” It would be like her to go to the top.

“The spider says she needs assurances that the Tarig won’t take her engine without first letting her people come. She seeks the Tarig weak point. So do we all. But she might find it first. She has her little machine. It is the only part of her I fear. The machine is a little god.”

Worse and worse. A machine sapient, of course. She had brought an mSap with her.

They sat facing each other while Mo Ti waited and Quinn churned. One part fit: Helice had warned him the nan device was out of control. She tried to save the Entire. She wanted it for herself, then. Herself and
a force of darklings
.

“And you, Mo Ti. Why help the Rose—against your own mistress?”

The giant didn’t answer. Quinn let the moment stretch out. Why would the devoted Mo Ti go against Sydney, against the Entire?

Even in the dark, the two men faced off with hostile eyes.

Mo Ti shifted his weight. “Mo Ti has reasons.”

Oh yes, reasons. Mo Ti had them aplenty. Hel Ese wished to bring darklings to the All. A human sway, a settlement of thousands. The lords would crush her for the mere suggestion. When caught, Hel Ese’s downfall would take Sydney as well. But if he and his mistress were to die for treason, let it be their own treason, and their own goals: to raise the kingdom. First envisioned by High Prefect Cixi, then transmitted to Mo Ti, the dream was for a kingdom of diverse sentients under the daughter of the Rose. It was Cixi’s perfect plan, and Mo Ti and Sydney were bringing it to fruition.

As for fuel needed, that was a problem for another day.

He was not ready to divulge to Titus Quinn Sydney’s plan. Quinn need only assist them by removing the spider. It suited the man’s interests to do so, and it suited Mo Ti to set him upon it.

“The Entire is for the Entire,” Mo Ti said, finally. “I want no hoards of darklings here. Especially not ruled by the spider. Go away once you rid us of her. You to the Rose, we for the Entire. It is the way it has always been.”

They heard the ship keeper coming down the stairs in a great hurry. Entering the main cabin, the Ysli bore a small lantern. By its light, Quinn looked at Mo Ti in his leather tunic, torn leggings. His face, bulging at chin and cheekbones and his hair drawn up into a top knot, in the warrior style. Just as he remembered him.

“We must depart,” the Ysli rasped. “Ghoris says our presence is suspect. Ready yourselves for the binds.”

Quinn glanced out the port hole, but the enclosed pier remained empty by what light was cast from the cabin. He addressed Mo Ti. “My daughter wouldn’t help kill the Earth. She wouldn’t help Helice.”

Mo Ti snorted. “What ties does my mistress have to the Rose? Whatever ties there were, they are gone. Sydney is a power in the land, and her loyalties are here.”

While the two faced off in silence, the Ysli spat out, “We leave now. Be ready!”

Mo Ti said, “Run with us. You are the only one that can stop the spider.”

“There’s you.”

“Mo Ti is easy to see, and all will seek me. You are like other men. Go abroad in the bright realm and remove her.”

So much for being at peace. The war would never be done with him. He was enlisted for the duration. Already he felt something uncoiling within him. A striking force, gathering rage from the words of this hulking messenger.

From upstairs they heard Ghoris cry out, “Ship keeper! Cast off, cast off!”

As Quinn hesitated, Mo Ti sneered, “Tarig, no doubt. Did they follow you? Do you want to live?”

“If you’re lying, wherever you go, I’ll find you. We’ll have the fight we should have had.”

Mo Ti grinned. In the cerulean light, he looked like the Miserable God himself, gloating from the side of a godman’s cart. “I am waiting, darkling.”

If it was Tarig who approached, his best chance was with the ship. Quinn glanced at the ship keeper. “Cast off,” he said. The ship keeper nodded. Upstairs, the navitar seemed to know. The vessel lurched, then began a slow pull out of its berth.

The ship gained speed, spearing out of the pier. Within the next moment, the funnel came down with a splash, sucking in the fuel of the exotic water. Leaving Rim City behind, the vessel sped out to sea.

CHAPTER FOUR

The light of your ambition leads you, burning its promises for
fuel.

—Hoptat the Seer

“T
HE BINDS,” THE SHIP KEEPER WARNED FROM THE GALLEY DOOR.
“She goes steeply in. Be ready.” Then he disappeared into his galley and his hammock.

Quinn found a seat on a bench. Outside, a bluish light stained the deck and fizzed along the edges of the portholes. On the bridge, Ghoris shouted something incoherent. The ship yawed, dipping the starboard deck. A gout of the Nigh swilled off the porthole. They were headed down, lopsided, into the knots of time. Mo Ti, less accustomed to ships than Quinn, staggered and grabbed a wall for support.

The ship sank deeper, bleeding off the lights. Quinn heard Mo Ti seek his own berth, settling heavily. The vessel, calmer now that it had made its dimensional transition, fell slowly into the depths, thickening the air inside the cabin, bringing a familiar nausea. Quinn stared at the porthole near him. Inside the Nigh was an intermittent, querulous light. Some said the light source was the ship itself, and others, the mind of the observer. They were travelers in space-time, traversing the galactic distances of the Entire the only way common people could, by leave of the navitars—unlikely pilots though they were. No wonder simple people revered them, made of them red-clad prophets, though few ever spoke to a navitar, and none sensibly.

Outside, light ran in slicks on the back of long waves. Sleep beckoned. Quinn pushed it away as thoughts fell like sediment through his mind. Drifting down, drifting deep. Across from him, Mo Ti lay on his bench barely awake, eyes rolling up, his body splayed on its too-small bed.

Quinn tried to focus on the warrior’s face. Devoted to her. Betraying her. Jealous of the new advisor. Spared Quinn’s life. Big enough to kill with a blow of his fist. The body muscular but longing to go to fat. Mo Ti was a eunuch.

“Who gelded you?” Quinn asked, barely able to form words.

A long time later Mo Ti whispered, “The mantis lords cut me.”

Quinn closed his eyes. Here was a sentient who hated the Tarig. It moved him to trust Mo Ti a bit more, that they shared an enemy. He had hoped to find a great flaw in the man; some reason to dismiss the things he’d said. But on this edge of consciousness, Quinn abandoned himself to instinct. Mo Ti had told the truth. Quinn let himself fall into the hole that was waiting for him: Helice’s almost inconceivable plan. She was a demon. Some people had rotted hearts; no saving them. From his first encounter, he’d thought her shriveled and feral.
Must learn to trust first insights. It wasn’t racial purity she was
after, but intellectual. The new monstrous. Guise: small young woman with sporty
smile.
He slept.