Prince of Storms (16 page)

Tindivir had arranged for her to come under the tutelage of a great teacher, a Beautiful One named Iritaj. It was a concession for Tindivir to have interceded for Anzi, and both she and Titus took it as a hopeful sign.

“How long, Anzi?” Titus asked.

“Until I succeed.” Although she had to go, she wished that Titus would ask her to stay. But how could he when they needed allies so badly? “Tindivir
is waiting.” He would open a travel slit, collapsing the distance between here and there.

“I could still ask him to allow a servant to accompany you.”

“No, it's better this way.” It would be enough of an imposition for her to be among them when they were unhappy with her.

Titus brought her into his arms. “I love you,” he whispered. “If you need me, Anzi, send word. Promise me.”

“I always need you.”

“I'll come to you.”

“You must carry so many things. Don't try to carry me.” She hadn't meant to sound so cold. She wanted him to be free of her concerns and her demands. He must be. So much was at stake, beset as he was from all sides. She would not burden him, but…But was there just the slightest formality on his part, a small hesitation in his voice?

Anzi picked up her satchel. “Don't walk me to the domicile. I want to leave with more courage than I'm feeling at the moment.” She put a hand on his face, struggling and failing to put her thoughts into words.

A look of worry came across his face. “No more than one hundred days, Anzi. Then come home. We don't need them that badly.”

“We do.”

“Must you always argue, wife?”

“Yes.”

He smiled, a heart-stopping smile.

Observing the custom of not saying good-bye, she left the room, passing through the main quarters, where Li Yun Tai embraced her.

Zhiya walked with her toward the hut. As she approached it, the thought that had been circling just out of reach finally came to her. Had Geng De planned to separate them? Was Geng De driving a wedge between them, making good on his threat to take everyone from Titus,
one by one?

If so, then the wedge would not be real; it would not reflect Titus's true heart.

But, as well, it must be admitted that if Titus was woven against her, it would be the new truth. No matter how arrived at, it would be what she was left with.

DEEP IN THE CATACOMBS OF THE
M
AGISTERIUM
, Zhiya placed her mother's grave flag.

Quinn stood at her side while she placed the flag in its sleeve of honor, an empty space among the hundred thousand urns. She had to stand on a bench to do it, because she wanted it up high, she said, not at the level of a dwarf, where Jin Yi's name would never be seen again.

When she secured it in place, she whispered its lines, “O, Jin Yi, where bound?”

The whispered phrase left a catch in Quinn's throat. He had lost many friends in this conflict of worlds. He remembered them now.

O, Su Bei, where bound?
The scholar hired by the Tarig to glean all Quinn's knowledge of the Rose; the one who became his closest ally; the one who first said,
They would follow you.
The sentients of the Entire looked for someone to deliver them of the Tarig. Su Bei could never understand how Quinn had only come for his family. How long ago it seemed, when that had been his hope! He wondered if Su Bei would feel proud of him now.

O, Cho, where bound?
The steward who had led him to Johanna's secret knowledge of the death of Earth.

O, Gaulter, where bound?
Zhiya's Jout operative who had died at the hands of the Tarig in the undercity. Saving Quinn's life.

O, Depta, where bound?
The brave Hirrin preconsul who had killed Lady Chiron before the walls of Ahnenhoon. Saving Quinn's life.

Lamar, of course. He hadn't seen Lamar since the man had turned traitor. He still thought of him in the old way: his father's best friend; the only person in Minerva who had believed in him; believed that Johanna and Sydney still lived. Dead at Hanford, redeeming himself at the last.

Some whom he hardly knew, dead because of him: Jaq, Ghoris's ship keeper; Sen Tai, his translator in Yulin's garden. Even Lady Demat/Chiron. She had shown her true heart in the end, confessing to being a solitaire, poised against the machinations of the lords.

More ambiguously, he thought of Lord Oventroe—his death probable; surely killed by one of the many who wished him and all lords gone from the Entire. Oventroe would have saved the Rose, but mercilessly, he would have immolated the Entire.

And, cutting most deeply, his brother.

O, Rob, where bound?

“By the mucking bright, help me down.” Zhiya was still perched on the bench, waiting with hands on hips.

He put out his good arm, and she used it for balance to hop down. “That's done, then.” She started moving down the narrow path between the stacks, leading the way. “I don't know that she would have wanted a flag in the Ascendancy. But it doesn't belong to the Tarig anymore.” She kept walking. “Does it.”

Quinn stopped her with a hand on her shoulder. She swerved as though struck. “Zhiya,” he said. “I'm sorry for this loss.”

She nodded, determined not to show emotion.

“Your mother went too soon. For my sake. I'm damn sorry.”

Zhiya's face worked hard at control. “Too soon? She should have gone to the Nigh long ago. Neither of us could bear to be parted. It was wrong to keep her.”

Quinn didn't know what else to say; Jin Yi wasn't his to grieve and Zhiya would embrace it in her own time. They continued down the stack, turning at the end to wind their way to the door. Four guards joined them, moving in front and behind, Zhiya having judged that the catacombs might be a fine place for an ambush.

He had a clear view down the aisles they passed and of the few mourners who happened to be there at this hour of Early Day.

Quinn stopped. Backing up a few steps, he regarded a Hirrin who stood a few yards off, dusting off an urn. The Hirrin had a deep scar on his forehead. There was something about him…

When the mourner saw the contingent of guards, he backed up a few steps. Quinn sprinted down the aisle, cutting off his retreat. The guards moved quickly forward.

“Who are you?” Quinn asked.

“Me?” The Hirrin looked wildly up at the guards. “The catacombs were ever open. I've done nothing!”

One of the guards moved in to take control. “If you've nothing to hide, give us your name.”

“Satol-Dov.” The voice high and strained. “My wife's urn…”

Quinn stared hard at this Hirrin. The scar on his forehead was hairless and deep.

“Where did you get the wound?”

“The Long War, M-master Regent.” He'd finally figured out who he was talking to. It did nothing to reassure him; his legs trembled wildly.

Gradually Quinn became convinced that this was the wrong Hirrin. He wasn't the one he'd seen in his vision in the binds, the vision that showed his future self pointing at a Hirrin with blood dripping down his face.

“I'm an understeward,” the Hirrin went on, “for the legate Lo Kan.” He did wear a shoulder cape emblazoned with the icon of the white carp. And he could not lie without falling into a stupor.

At a nod from Quinn, his guard retired to the end of the aisle with the others.

Quinn was fiercely remembering the vision in the binds. “Did your wound, Satol-Dov, ever bleed into your eyes?”

“Indeed not, Excellency. It was a boil, and the healer lanced it and sopped it up and stuffed it with gauze.”

He wasn't the one. “Carry on then, Satol-Dov. I apologize for disturbing your devotions.”

As he rejoined Zhiya, she quirked an ironic smile. “You didn't like his looks?”

He glanced back at the Hirrin. “I know a Hirrin with a bad head wound. Or I will know him.” At Zhiya's quizzical look, he said, “Jin Ye showed me a bleeding Hirrin. Or the binds did.”

“You didn't mention a bleeding Hirrin.”

“I didn't know it was important. Maybe it's not.”

As they made their way up the levels of the Magisterium, Quinn remembered the prescient view, the strand of a possible future: His future self standing next to a bleeding Hirrin. He could wring meaning from this, if he could bring himself to trust things he saw in the river depths. Such acts of faith had always come hard. Finally he said, “I want to find that Hirrin.”

“Well then, we'll look.”

On a grand stairway, he stopped. Hand on the rail, he looked down on the level below, with its swarming clerks and legates. There was something more he'd seen in that fragment of the future. “I know where to start.”

He remembered that the Hirrin in the vision had stood with him on a high platform. The wind had stirred a scarf in a pile of refuse nearby. A God's offering. It had been a God's Needle.

Zhiya stopped one stair up, now looking eye to eye with him. “Titus?”

“It's a God's Needle that I know. One that's near the safe house you arranged for me when I first came to Rim City. After Ahnenhoon.” He looked at her. “Your mother wanted me to see that. Not just the vision of Geng De, but this Hirrin, too.”

Zhiya nodded. “It's the last thing my mother gave you. We'll find him.”

A conviction grew in him, hardening from intuition to certainty. A warning lay in this glimpse of a Hirrin with blood tears. Was it, in fact, why Jin Yi had risked her life to take a last plunge into the Nigh?

“Zhiya,” he said, with a rush of foreboding. “I think we have to hurry.”

Anzi had been sitting on the bench outside the domicile for an hour. The Beautiful One hadn't opened the door for her yet, so she had plenty of time to look over her surroundings and feel self-conscious.

The hill at this end of the village was quite steep, affording her a view over the pointed roofs of the huts below. Up the winding street from the lower village, people paraded by on their way to observe the latest garden. A few were old acquaintances, most were strangers, but all ignored her, except for sideways glances. It was all part of the general shunning.

To be expected, Tindivir had warned her.
Do you still wish to seek teaching in a House?
Yes. A little shunning would not deflect her.

Here, averting his gaze at the last minute was Nolivsid, and just behind, Bodutmon, acquaintances of a former time. It hurt more than she had expected.

As they climbed the path Anzi turned on the bench to see their backs. She watched the life art playing across jackets and shirts—displays she had always found utterly engrossing. These displays on their derma were only one remarkable outcome of their body computationals; they could also see into Manifest, and communicate at will, giving them a profound common ground that no visitor among them could share.

A buzzing sound drew her attention. A travel slit cut into the air near her bench, and out stepped a Jinda ceb she vaguely recognized.

It was Venn. She knew the Complete One only slightly, but she was relieved to have anyone approach her. “Complete One,” she said in the Jinda ceb tongue. “An honor.”

“Best not to make a fuss,” Venn said, brushing off a few specks of dust on the bench and sitting beside Anzi.

Venn's skin was quite dark, Anzi noticed. She had chosen her gender.

“Iritaj makes you wait,” Venn observed. “The old rascal.”

She was speaking in Lucent, and Anzi decided to follow suit. “I'm sure he's very busy, Complete One.”

“Do not be silly. He is trying to soften you up.”

“It's working.”

Venn's derma tightened around her for a moment. “Such drama. Always your way, Anzi. Did you learn nothing from your late fiasco?”

This was not the sort of respite she might wish from Venn, but she could hardly talk back to a Complete One. “I haven't learned.” I would do it again, she thought.

Venn eyed her. “Then it is a good thing you're applying to Iritaj. He will teach you well. Has he said he will take you?”

“Not exactly.” Although Tindivir had said it was likely if Anzi was willing to work hard.

“I suppose I would know these things if I went to Manifest. He will probably set you conditions, and they will be unpleasant. The worse they are, the more people will admire you. Remember that when your impulsive side tries to manifest.”

“What might he want me to do?” Anzi remembered one backward student who had been assigned to create the ugliest garden possible—in public.

Venn ignored the stares of people on the street. “Iritaj is not going to be easy on you like Nistoth was. You learned nothing from Nistoth, really. That is why Manifest was not sure it would do any good this time.”

Anzi's confused look drew a smile from Venn. “I just said I do not go to Manifest, so how do I know what they say there? Gossip. It is as good as Manifest and takes less time. How is your husband Titus Quinn?”

At the sound of his name, Anzi's heart crimped. “He is—” But before she could finish the sentence, she was distressed to find that her eyes were filling with tears. “He is fine.”

“I see. Well, then, are you pregnant?” She stopped. “You still have children of the body—I seem to recall that you do....” When Anzi remained silent, she went on, “Well, plenty of time, later. Things are rather snarled right now what with your little political war.”

“Pardon, Complete One, but it's not little.”

The old Jinda ceb gazed at her a moment. “I suppose not. The very crux of it. That is why you are here, is it not?”

So they knew her reasons. Of course they would know. Anzi blurted, “Was it wrong to try to save my husband?”

“They read your letter in Manifest. I believe it contained an apology?”

It had, but the longer Anzi sat with the idea, the less apologetic she felt. She had asked to be sent home to save Titus and also the Rose. She couldn't have left him to die in the Tarig prison. By the time the Jinda ceb sent her over, it was too late to help him, but she couldn't have known that.