Prince of Storms (12 page)

“I see.”

“But they accepted me, even though I was from the Rose. They were used to people—sentients—being different. You'll be all right here.”

“Well.” Venn's clothes tightened about her for a moment, as though she had sucked in a breath, or gathered her clothes closer around her in a draft. “Well,” Venn said again. “A foreigner and a female. Perhaps not the best situation.”

Sen Ni picked up the book at her side. “I want to give you something. It might be of interest to Jinda ceb who study history.” She handed Venn a tattered and stained volume. “There's a secret to it. It's all written in code. The story of how I came to live with the Inyx. If you don't think it suitable, you don't have to accept it.” She added, “I can give you a key to the secret language, or you could use it as a puzzle.”

Sen Ni used to imagine that one day she would let her father read her book of pinpricks to learn what her life had been as an Inyx slave. But the book would be wasted on him. Not because he wouldn't have cared about what she'd gone through, but because he had found so many ways to excuse himself that he could no longer find any reprehensible thing in his own heart. She would rather give it to a stranger. Giving the book of pinpricks to the Jinda ceb gave her an odd sense of peace.

Venn looked interested as she fingered the book, turning the pages and running her fingers over them. “A code? How intriguing.”

“Do you study history?”

Venn gave a quick tilt of her head. “Oh, it is all history, in the end. I know a few who pursue it particularly. May I give it to whom I see fit?”

“Yes, please do.”

Venn opened a rent in her clothing and tucked the volume inside a large new pocket that had stretched to form in front of her belly. Out of this she brought an odd-looking instrument. “I have something for you, too.”

In size and shape, the device looked like a hand mirror with the glass missing.

“Since you live very far away, we may not get much chance to see each other.” She held up the mirror-frame. “This is a Manifest hoop. Squeeze the handle, and you will be able to visit us in Manifest. Perhaps just once. So when you come, make sure you know what you want to say.”

Venn turned to look in annoyance at several black slits that had appeared in the air, buzzing faintly.

“Oh, I am coming,” Venn whispered. Turning to Sen Ni, she said, “Thank you for the history.” She patted her belly. With that she walked toward the closest curdled black line and slipped into it. All the black slashes snapped closed at once.

QUINN DREAMED OF THE BRIGHT DARKENING
. He saw the one to blame: Titus Quinn. Titus Quinn, who would sacrifice the Entire for the Rose. Waking, stomach tight, he pulled off the covers and sat up. It was no natural dream, but rather Sydney and her Inyx dream sendings again. Everyone in the realm had the same dream this ebb. Sydney's reach was so much wider than his own. If she persuaded the sways…

“Titus,” came Anzi's sleepy voice. “Are you getting up?”

“Go back to sleep, my love.”

She pushed up onto an elbow. “A dream?”

“It's nothing.”

“I had it too.”

“I've chosen,” he found himself saying. The sky would darken. Because of him.

“Someone must choose.”

“And so he can't sleep.”

He sat on the edge of the bed. He had considered taking Ahnenhoon down, stone by stone. But with the weapon destroyed, the dreams would brand him. The sentients of the Entire would lose hope. Loss of hope could breed revolution, with Sydney replacing him. She would find a way to build another engine, with Tarig or even Jinda ceb help.

In the dark, he heard Anzi settling the pillows, sitting up in bed. He turned to her, desire stirring. He reached out to touch her arm.

“Titus,” she whispered. “Our enemies reach us even in sleep. We must be watchful.”

“They're only Inyx sendings, my love.”

“But there is Geng De.”

He released her arm. She would have more politics, late as it was.

“What if Geng De's reach comes this far?”

He struggled to see her in the dark. “Do you feel his reach?”

“No…do you?”

“Why would I?” He waited for her to go on.

“I…just wondered…if you felt anything.”

“No, Anzi. We're safe so far.”

After a very long pause she responded, “Yes…safe.” She lay back down, turning her back to him.

Sleep was a long time in returning.

At a very off hour of Early Day, Tindivir came to the command pavilion.

Tai woke Quinn, who nudged Anzi awake and waited for her to dress. They emerged from their chamber to find Tindivir standing in the main room.

“The prison ship is ready,” he announced.

“Where is it?” Quinn asked, since no one had seen construction of any kind, especially on the scale of a ship.

“In the domicile, Regent. If you please.”

He led the way back to his hut, Quinn and Anzi following. The hut was very spare as usual. All devices and furniture were minimized into the small protuberances. Some of the forma had migrated up to higher levels, studding the walls like facets of a geode.

The hut seemed very strange to Quinn, but Anzi was completely comfortable here; it was hard to remember that she had lived among the Jinda ceb a long while. Sometimes he looked at her matured face and tried to comprehend how long they had been separated, and what her life must have been like. He wanted to believe that those years had gone by swiftly, that he and his wife were still as they had once been together.

“We have not seen Ahnwalun in some time,” Anzi remarked to Tindivir.

“She was needed at home, and has gone.”

No one had informed Quinn. The Jinda ceb were not obligated to keep him up-to-date. Their decisions, their interactions with him, all seemed calculated and arbitrary. He had no idea whether they considered him an equal in any way or a being confined
in narrow pathways
.

Tindivir raised a hand in the direction of a pole that stood in the center of the hut. “This is the lord's conveyance, Regent. Would you care to enter?”

He raised an eyebrow at Anzi.

She murmured, “An orbifold. There is space in there.”

Tindivir touched the pole, and it expanded to the side, becoming a rectangle. A door.

“All is arranged as we agreed,” Tindivir said. He paused. “Do you wish me to go first, to demonstrate?” At Quinn's gesture, Tindivir stepped forward and walked through the shadow-shape of the door. Quinn could just glimpse him, standing not far off. He followed Tindivir through while Anzi waited outside.

The space sprang up around him: a long cabin with a pilot's chair in the center and workstations along the far bulkhead. Shadow lines demarcated where folded devices might be retrieved.

Quinn moved to a work surface, running his fingers along it. “Not a virtual space, then.” This was the dimensional borrowing that John Hastings had described.

“It is a kind of space. When we bring it outside, it will occupy normal space. We wanted to show you it in private, first.”

Fore and aft, doorways gave access to other rooms. Quinn moved aft, inspecting a large private cabin with a very long bed, suitable for the largest occupant. There was a ship wash stall, also over-large. In the fore cabin, a similar space, sized for a Jout.

Tindivir pressed the bulkhead. “There can be more and different spaces, if they wish.” Under his touch, a doorway expanded from a crease, revealing an empty cabin on the other side. “The ship will grant design changes within limits. Suitable, Regent?”

Quinn thought that Lord Inweer might accept it. He would have some
control over the shape of the spaces. “And Breund will have a communication slit to stay in touch?”

“Yes. The ship will report to me, as well. They will go nowhere without our instant recognition. I will show you.”

They left through the outer door, to rejoin Anzi.

She murmured to him, “Is it a prison ship?”

“Yes.” He wished she would see it that way, but knew very well she didn't.

Tindivir glanced at the nearest wall, and a forma slid down within reach. He plucked it from the wall and placed it on a small table. “Here is a manifestation of the ship as it was a few moments ago.”

The device rapidly grew into a shiplike miniature. In another moment, the top of the miniature disappeared, and Quinn looked down on a scene with figures moving: he and Tindivir, inspecting the ship—all just as they had done in the orbifold.

A crowd had formed at the edges of the plaza. The functionaries kept their distance, however. They no longer trusted what the plaza had become, having seen the lords disappear, suggesting that the world, at least here, had holes.

Anzi and Zhiya stood with Quinn, watching as Lord Inweer and Breund approached the ship. Quinn was acutely conscious of Anzi's silence, and Zhiya's. He knew their opinions; he wished they had not been such strong ones, but someone must decide the hard things.

This was the first time Inweer and Tindivir had seen each other. Quinn performed the briefest of introductions between these ancient enemies. Their positions were now reversed. When the Tarig had cut away the Jinda ceb homeland so long ago, the Jinda ceb had possessed only modest scientific abilities. But in the million or so years since then, their technology had surpassed even the Tarig. Now they could repay that expulsion by imposing their own. A sweet revenge, no doubt.

Quinn beckoned Breund forward. “The surfaces of the ship open to a touch, Breund. You might as well get used to it now.”

Breund touched the surface of the door, a mere scar on the ship's side. It expanded to a large rectangle.

“Push on it,” Tindivir suggested. As Breund did so, the door opened.

Inweer murmured, “It responds only to Breund?”

Quinn nodded. “These are the conditions of your release.”

Inweer glanced at Tindivir, and what passed between them was unreadable. Without waiting further, Inweer swept past Breund and entered the ship.

“Go with him, Breund,” Quinn said. “Remember that you may both pilot the ship, but access and egress are up to you. Also, yours is the communication panel that you can use to send reports.” Breund went in.

When Inweer emerged from the ship he cut a dark gaze at Quinn.

Quinn met that gaze. The pause lengthened.

“I accept the ship,” Inweer finally said. He added, “For three hundred days, ah? Then I will have earned a measure of freedom.”

“And Breund goes with you,” Quinn said.

Inweer switched his gaze to the ship's warden. His voice came low. “And Breund.”

Quinn didn't envy Breund his post or his roommate. A slight bow from Breund sealed the compact.

Zhiya's flat look spoke a bleak message.
What ship can contain this master of the Entire? And Titus, why do this?
Her doubts and Anzi's had had the effect of driving every decision into a spiral of clarity followed by doubt. It was no way to live.

Turning to the lord, he saw that Inweer held a small package. He thrust it forward for Quinn to take.

“A gift as we part, Regent. A view spray of your wife Johanna.”

Anger spiked through him. Inweer still held Johanna somewhere. The Tarig had always used him, used his family, warping their lives to Tarig ends. No matter how high he rose, he was always subject to the rule of others. For an instant he longed to be as ruthless as they. He had power, but held it at arm's length. Though he had seen what it did to others, he did not feel immune. Looking at this Tarig, longing to wrest the information about Johanna from the lord, he knew he was not.

Inweer held out the package.

He would rather have it than let Inweer keep it. He took the package, aware of Anzi's gaze, hoping she would not take it amiss.

With that, Lord Inweer entered the ship, followed by Breund. For a fleeting moment Quinn had the disturbing sense that this duty might turn into a hellish mission for the Jout. He pushed the thought aside.

Disturbing news came the next day by communication slit.

A would-be assassin had attacked Yulin in his own garden. Luckily Yulin was more nimble on his feet these days and had fought the man off, killing him.

Quinn and Tai had just delivered this news to Suzong. Outside the high prefect's reception hall, the door keeper bowed to Quinn, as did the legates who habitually lurked near Suzong's audience chamber. They stared as they did every time the regent came to the dragon hall.