Prince of Storms (23 page)

“Any man can.”

“But they are not men! Nor women! They are altered beings. Evolved beings, shaped by the lords themselves to ken the strands of reality. You think we worship them, but not so. We revere them, take what wisdom we can from the contemplation of their great visions. ‘To stand next to the master is to see from the corner of his eye.' Thus was the saying of Kan Shi, the greatest of our scholars, who had the Archive…when did he have it, Jaffor?”

“Long ago, Master. But the book…”

Rekior snorted. “You will never be a scholar!”

“The book you seek…”

Rekior snapped a look at him, as though unused to the acolyte initiating topics.

The acolyte blurted out, “The scroll's not here, Master.”

“How would you know? Of course it's here. Eleventh Form. I never forget a category.”

They had moved into increasingly narrow passageways, and Rekior began squinting at titles. “
Drowning Time
. A distasteful story, Quill. If you look for darkness, you can find it. That's why you people worship the Miserable God, because you can't find goodness anywhere! You…you…” He sputtered out, turning in the narrow space between two stacks.

“Master—” Jaffor began.

Rekior cut him off. “It's here somewhere.” He peered closely at the titles on the tags that hung down from the scroll ends. “
Book of the Twists
,
Book of Faithless Keepers
,
Book of Dark Winds
,
Book of
…” He stopped, staring through
the stacks, lost in thought. “These are the Illogics. It should be right here. Don't just stand there, Jaffor, find it. Quill's time is up!”

Jaffor made no move, but stubbornly stood in front of the Archivist, though his master slapped at him to move. “Master Rekior,” Jaffor said, “do you remember when our great visitor came four hundred days ago? He came to borrow a book.”

“Borrow? No one borrows books! This is an archive, not a charity!”

“But Master, he said he must have it. And since he was a great personage, we were afraid to deny him.”

“Deny him what?”

“The
Book of the Drowning Time
, Master. He took it. The navitar did.”

“The navitar?” Rekior gaped at him.

“Don't you remember his visit, Master?” Jaffor's voice had risen in pitch as it became apparent that the Rekior had no memory of the visit in question.

Quinn stepped forward. “What was the name of this navitar, Jaffor?”

“Geng De, Regent.”

Rekior swayed against the stack next to him. He squeaked, “Took the scroll? Took it from the ancestral archive?”

Quinn glanced at Jaffor. “Perhaps a chair for His Excellency.”

Jaffor nodded and scurried off in search of a chair, finding a small bench. Rekior sank into it.

“A navitar came? Why wasn't I informed?”

“You said you wouldn't see him. You were reading.”

“I…was reading. But Jaffor, they do not leave their ships.”

“He had the Tarig imprimatur, and the signet ring. We feared he was a true navitar, and when you would not see him, it fell to me to help him. He was very demanding. He carried himself like a high-ranking personage. I…I'm sorry, Master. I was afraid to tell you. He demanded the scroll. And since it was of the Illogics, I let him…borrow it. To return it in the next arc of days.”

“Oh, he returned it!”

“No, Master.”

Quinn crouched next to Rekior. “Don't blame Jaffor. This navitar has broken many rules. He has powers of persuasion. He's even fooled me.”

It was cold here, but with a purity of air and scent, as though nothing had been disturbed for thousands of years. They waited while Rekior regained his equilibrium.

Quinn felt time slipping away from him. He was just one man, a man who had set himself an impossible task, to save the Rose. People who set themselves impossible tasks knew a misery that few others did. Nothing else could bring light to their lives. He felt this acutely here among the deep and ancient stacks of books. Jin Yi had died to help him with his task. He had seen Nimday in a vision, and Nimday's story had led him here. Now the trail had evaporated.

As Quinn remained crouched next to the Archivist, Noheme bent close, muttering, “He knows more than he's saying.”

Quinn looked at the shriveled librarian, undone by losing one of his million scrolls. Perhaps this archive was a dead end. Perhaps the clue was really Geng De's meetings with children. They'd go to the orphanage next. But the problem was how to do so without alerting Geng De and Sydney. The orphanage was in her compound.

Rekior put a hand on Quinn's forearm. “I see you are downcast. Don't be. Your search is not in vain.” He pointed to his temple. “It's all here, you see. I've read nearly seven thousand books; I've read the Illogics. It's why I don't have time to see visitors. I read, read them all.”

“Tell me, Excellency,” Quinn whispered.

“Your
Book of the Drowning Time
. It is a book of the foretold history of the navitars. So it is a
predictive history
, if you know the scholar's term. It says a time may come when some few navitars have broken their vows and have influenced the flow of events. A foul recrimination, for the great ones take a vow against it and have no ambitions. Yet, so the scroll sets forth. For this to have occurred, a navitar will have been soaked in the holy Nigh as a child, and will have returned alive, with great powers.”

All as Quinn had already learned, to his deep chagrin.

Rekior continued. “This navitar wished to bring about the great Indwelling, the drowning of reality in the river Nigh. To create new powers, he has caused the Nigh to overflow its banks.” Rekior shook his head. “It is against ancient law, and calumny to say so of the navitars. Not only that, but
inconceivable, for it would mean the end of life. Only the life of the binds would remain, only the navitars survive.”

Quinn exchanged looks with Noheme. The archive grew even more quiet and cold.

Rekior went on. “Why, you will want to know. Why do this? The book claims the Indwelling gave the navitar governance of the many kingdoms which the Entire touches in its central position in the Great Without.” He snaked a look at Quinn and Noheme. “Oh yes, the
Great Without
. You think it is a term meaning outside the bureaucracy of the Magisterium. But it was ever the secret word for
outside the Entire
. You may be surprised to learn, Quill, that the Entire is not the only realm. If you were a scholar of the Society, you would know these things.

“A river kingdom, it was—or will be. The navitar will dwell forever submerged. He—or she—will then weave all the remaining realms. Life will be arranged by the whims of this one dark navitar. This is the time called the Indwelling, or the Drowning Time.”

Quinn looked again at Noheme, now fiercely scowling. “Master Rekior,” Quinn said, “does it say what can prevent this navitar?”

“Prevent?” Rekior considered. “The only ones that might are the navitars themselves. But they do not concern themselves with practical affairs. You have seen them; they are insensible to fear and hope. Mark this, though, Quill: The crisis point is passed once the dark navitar recruits helpers.”

“Other navitars?”

“He cannot do it himself. He will need others, but not ordinary navitars. To be of any use, they must be drowned in the Nigh at birth or soon after.”

Rivulets of acid cut down his insides. “Children.”

“Of course, children.”

“Children so young…how can they help him?”

“To assist him in his old age and beyond. They are the future. And their children must be drowned, and so on, down the dynasty.”

A deep chasm seemed to lie beneath him. Quinn looked into it, stomach churning. “Their mouths stopped with silver…” he whispered, remembering something that Ghoris had said.

“And so,” Rekior recited from memory, “the Nigh will spread out over
the midlands. Our world becomes naught but the foamy Nigh, the Nigh grown in power beyond imagining. Then all other realms become subservient to the altered Entire and the dark navitars that knit reality.”

Jaffor helped the old Jout to stand. “It's a perverted history. Fortunately, it's not true.”

Oh, but it was.
Their mouths stopped with silver.
Ghoris had known that something terrible was coming, something even worse than the death of the Rose. She had tried to enunciate it. He doubted she had read the
Book of the Drowning Time
. But she had seen the future. It was one where Geng De would convert the Nigh to a distorted kingdom, wiping out the normal world. What mechanism he would use to do this, Quinn didn't know, but he could not discount the danger—believed it, in fact. Geng De clearly believed it. He was making sure there were young ones who could rule that kingdom forever.

His daughter couldn't possibly know of this. Geng De was leading her to her death. She no doubt thought his ambition was to knit the future for her, but it was all for him, and at a staggering scale.

Near a shelf, Rekior drew out a scroll at random, thrusting it into Quinn's hand.

“Save these books from oblivion. After I am gone. Titus Quill, will you?”

“All these stacks of scrolls,” Rekior rasped. “What good are they if no one reads them?” They began their trek back to the great hall, Quinn and Noheme quietly grim.

At the door to Rekior's apartment, the Archivist hesitated. “It's a very old scroll from the Eighth Form.” He put a frail hand on Quinn's arm. “Promise me you'll read it.”

He would if he had time. If there was any time left.

Quinn and Noheme stood at the foot of the crystal bridge. On the great Way, a stream of people moved to and fro across the bridge, even at this hour of the ebb.

“We'll take him, Noheme. His pilot days are over.”

“Let me,” she said, cocking her head at the wharf where Geng De's ship snugged up to the dock.

Quinn was on the verge of striking at Sydney and her navitar, to take them prisoner. They were armed, of course, but perhaps not as well as he, with his hundred soldiers of Ahnenhoon. He might try to tell Sydney of her navitar's plans, but she wouldn't trust her father. The danger was that she would alert Geng De and he would escape into the Nigh where none could follow him.

He tried to shove aside the thought of his daughter coming to harm by his own order, but it remained stubbornly in his mind.

Noheme looked at him, waiting for orders.

All he really had was a vision in the binds and a legend from a book. The problem was he had never believed in visions. He was not a man of faith or one given to belief in portents. He couldn't wait for proof; he knew that. But to commit his soldiers to an armed assault—for that he needed one more thing.

He needed Hanwen, the mistress of the orphanage.

When they found her, she had saved them the trouble of infiltrating Sydney's garden. She came down from the bridge, a heavy woman of middle years, carrying an oversized satchel. As she turned into a side alley, one of Quinn's Chalin guards followed her.

Noheme muttered, “She goes into the city like this regularly. We thought nothing of it, since so many do.”

The guard brought Hanwen to one of the many rented rooms belonging to Zhiya throughout the lower Rim. There she sat blindfolded, bound and tied to a chair, her back to the door. When Quinn and Noheme entered, she could not turn to face them.

By the twist of her shoulders, she'd heard them enter. She whimpered, “Please…” but it wasn't clear what she hoped they'd refrain from doing. Quinn wasn't sure what he
would
do. Once they had debriefed her, she was a danger to them.

“Hanwen,” Quinn said, standing behind her. “You may die this ebb.”

“Oh, oh Miserable God,” she whispered.

“But if you tell me the truth I can spare you. Do you understand?”

“Oh my poor boys, oh my boys,” she sobbed.