Prince of Storms (28 page)

Who could have known that his most important action would be to walk though the Scar and beg the Paion to fight? He would sacrifice everything to make sure they did. Tai already dreaded that sacrifice. But perhaps dire measures wouldn't be needed; the Jinda ceb would relent.

In the three-dimensional display field, he touched two data points, forming a cluster, the navigation seed. Then he voiced a command, a coordinate he'd assigned to the Jinda ceb minoral. The seed glowed with recognition.

The deck slanted upward as the ship sought the bright. It plunged into the white foam above them.

When Anzi found Venn, it was after an hour of searching. The Complete One sat leaning against a large biot, watching a group of children playing in a well-trampled moss patch. Their shouts laced the air.

“Blood and death,” Venn said, by way of a greeting. “They love that game. Have you learned to use the travel slits?”

“Not yet. I walked.” It was a several-mile journey to Venn's village of Tir, but Anzi had wanted time to think. About her thin gold line and what it meant. About what use she could be to Titus here if her life art never gave her standing among the Jinda ceb. And if Titus could be influenced by Geng De what would become of the Entire; what would become of them all if the Jinda ceb didn't listen or care. And beneath all these large concerns the small: whether to return to a younger version of herself.

Venn seemed distracted, staring into the gardens. “Just a bit longer walk—to Bast—and you could visit old Ramdilon. Historian. You might be interested in Jinda ceb history, since you're privy to secrets now. Have you decided to trade your body for a younger one?”

That wasn't how Anzi would have characterized her options, but Venn did love sarcasm. She used it to persuade people. What did the old woman want? Anzi thought it was a fair question. She wanted to ask everyone that she met,
What do you want?
Because after Iritaj's challenge, she wondered if she was the only one who didn't know.

She knelt in the moss beside Venn, watching the juveniles pursue each other with pointed sticks. “What do you want, Complete One? Can you answer that?”

Venn didn't answer, but had closed her eyes.

“Complete One?”

After a long pause, Venn seemed to snap awake. “Pardon me. I am feeling a bit tired. What do I want? I want us to come home in a good way. Not thrash the old things around in Manifest until a person is ready for blood and death.”

“But whose side are you on? The Entire or the Rose? Titus or Sen Ni?” It was a bald and graceless question, but she hoped Venn would answer.

“Sides…oh dear. We are a long way from
sides
. We are quite stuck in the very middle of ourselves. That is why I invited Sen Ni to Manifest. That is why I argued for your coming here. I wanted to force Manifest to consider new things. We need a broader view. Thus I bring all of you young people here to upset us.”

She glanced irritably at Anzi. “Please do not tell me that you are not young.”

“No, Complete One.”

“Turn around,” Venn commanded. When Anzi had done so, she heard Venn say. “Hmm.”

Anzi had temporarily forgotten about her gold line. Since Iritaj had forbidden her to look at her back in mirrors, she had learned to suppress her curiosity.

Venn said, “Nothing.”

Well, she was by now used to getting nowhere. When she turned back to the old woman, Venn had closed her eyes again and appeared to be sleeping.

“Are you sure you're feeling well?”

“I am tired. I am not quite myself. Why should I be wasting time in Manifest? I seem drawn there, as much as I hate it.” Her head swirls contracted. “Oh, dear.”

“What is it?”

The old woman stared into the air before her. “Oh, dear. Avva ceb is upset.”

Anzi hadn't been in Manifest for days. She had enjoyed stemming the flood of Jinda ceb information, keeping her head quiet. But at Venn's exclamation, Anzi went in.

Avva ceb had just finished listening to Tindivir's report. Everyone was talking at once, a great surge of voices that sorted into tributaries, and then blended, becoming Avva ceb's voice. The whole community was present. Everyone listening, dismay growing like a fast dark ebb.

The Indwelling
, Avva ceb said.
It is a perversion of a secret protection.

Long ago the Tarig created a defensive form for the Entire under attack. They
embedded a phase of the storm walls such that in case of an ultimate threat, the walls would rush toward the midlands, leaving only a narrow passageway between. In this crevasse, the Nigh would flow deeper, undergoing its own phase change. This catastrophic defense was devised against the Jinda ceb Horat, for the Tarig always worried that we, their ancient enemy, would grow to exceed their knowledge and strike in earnest against them, collapsing the Entire utterly. They thought us capable of that! The Tarig wished at least to preserve the physical Entire, if its beings must all die. They could create beings again.

The dark navitar knows how to actuate this response of the storm walls. And once having done so, he has a perverted wish—and means to carry out—a life for himself amidst the chaos of the Nigh.

A Jinda ceb theoretician launched into a rambling analysis of whether it meant that such navitars would have power to control conscious thought, and over what distances, and through what time shifts.

Voices filled Manifest. Avva ceb listened. Avva ceb spoke, the voice of the many.

In the middle of this, Anzi picked up a trace thought: Titus Quinn was in the minoral, having come from the Ascendancy. He was walking up from the primacy toward Orm. He asked to speak to Manifest. Several voices argued against this.

Anzi turned to Venn, shaking the cacophony from her mind. “Will they listen to him?”

“I am so tired.”

“Don't be tired! Speak in his favor, Complete One!”

“I would…but I do not seem quite myself....”

Anzi stood. The children had melted away to another area, leaving the garden very quiet. Several nearby Jinda ceb looked passive and confused. Anzi gazed down at Venn. The Complete One wasn't tired. She was woven.

She backed up, trying to shake off this stunning conclusion. Venn still sat immobile, happily sleepy. Anzi turned and raced through the biots looking for someone who had the willpower to open a travel slit.

IN THE END
, Quinn walked into the minoral without a regent's escort and without a decent plan to communicate with the Jinda ceb. At his side was Li Yun Tai. Tai walked with new confidence. In his short experience of high affairs, the boy had stared down the Tarig and flown a brightship. More was to come. Quinn hoped he was up to it; trusted that he was.

They had left the brightship on the flat lands of the steppe. Quinn decided it was best to leave it behind, though he had little idea of how far he would have to travel in the minoral.

They brought a pack of food and water. Tai wore his jeweled sword and a cloak cut from an excellent cloth. People might mistake
him
for regent. Well, the title had never meant much, least of all to a people who were a million years more advanced than either the Rose or the Entire.

They came to a village called Orm, the closest one to the junction with the primacy. Tindivir had said Anzi was in the village farther up minoral, in Hozz, the habitation of her Nan Da Iritaj. Quinn tried to marshal all that Anzi had told him about the minoral, about Jinda ceb culture, but it was little enough. So much had occupied them since she had come home. One thing he was sure of: the Jinda ceb had no political hierarchy, no one in particular to appeal to. It was all done by their damnable consensus. The Complete
Ones and Beautiful Ones were no more influential than anyone else. Therefore Quinn's first goal was to speak in Manifest. If they didn't allow this, he would plead with every individual he encountered until the Jinda ceb were no longer ignorant of the Indwelling.

They had once had the luxury of neutrality. No more.

Quinn learned that his visit was considered aggressive and thus most people would not speak to him. But walking with Tai through an extensive grove of odd treelike forms, he managed to strike up a conversation with one Jinda ceb, Elmondet by name. They sat on a bench in the grove of trees.

From his pack Quinn brought out a gift. “I have something that belongs to the Jinda ceb. I don't know if it's of interest to you.”

He unwrapped it. It was the long-dead hoop that Akay-Wat had given him.

Elmondet took the piece in his or her hands, examining it. “Very old, I would judge.”

“Children use these, don't they?”

“Yes. Before they adopt their internals. This one is ancient. It may even be that it was used by juveniles during the First Age, to view their mothers flying above.”

Flying? Quinn didn't pursue it. “It was found outside what we called the Scar.”

“So very old,” Elmondet murmured, growing more pensive by the moment. “We have no old things, from the days of belonging. None at all. Somehow, it survived all that was lost.”

Quinn wondered why they would have no old things. But if it was a valuable gift, so much the better. “Please keep it.”

Elmondet gazed at him. “I cannot bring you to Manifest, Titus Quinn.”

It hadn't exactly been a bribe. Maybe a nudge. “Keep it anyway.”

“Regent,” came Tai's excited whisper from his post nearby.

Quinn looked up and saw someone coming down the path.

Anzi. He rose, full of relief, and forgetting Elmondet, he rushed forward, meeting her on the path. As they embraced, his chest constricted with relief.

“You've come,” she whispered into his chest.

“Anzi.” He held her close, maybe too hard, as though she might rush away at any moment. When at last he looked into her face, he searched it for harm. If they had hurt her…“They haven't let us communicate,” he said. “I didn't know anything about what's happened here until a few hours ago.”

“I know, I know. I missed you....”

She looked so wan. He tried to summon up a smile. “Just tell me who I need to beat up.”

The old spark came back into her eyes. “It's done now. And they meant well.” She ran a hand down the side of his face. “They said you fought on the bridge.”

“We overran the compound, but Geng De ran off in his ship. With Sen Ni.” That was the quick summary. It would have to do for now. He gripped her hand, looking at her closely, judging her face almost gaunt, she was so thin. “You haven't told me that you're well.”

They were close enough that he could reach around her, touching her back. It was bare. Her jacket was cut away, hugging her closely in front and on the sides.

“You know,” she said softly.

Gently, he turned her around. Down her spine, a column of orange-gold about three inches wide, glowing faintly. “Oh, Anzi,” he murmured.

Turning toward him, she composed her face, apparently trying very hard to attend to the business that lay before them. “They've been arguing for hours in Manifest about what to do—now that so much has changed. Titus, they're going to let you speak to them.”

At last a break.

“We've heard about the
Indwelling
.” She said the word as though it were a stone in her mouth. “The Jinda ceb are finally paying attention.”

“I was going to make a lot of trouble if they didn't.”

She smiled. “I think we're both good at that.” Then she sobered. “I'm worried that Geng De is influencing them. Maybe from the beginning, but especially now. We have to hurry.”

He nodded. There would be time later for the two of them. “How do I get into Manifest?”

Anzi beckoned to a small Jinda ceb individual who had been standing off the path, hidden among the botanical growths. “May I borrow your hoop?” she asked.

The youngster nodded. Anzi had brought a child with her. Quinn would access the Manifest as a child would, through a hoop.

“When you're ready, put a little pressure on the handle.” She led him to a bench. “Maybe you should sit down for this.”

Sen Ni struggled to stay awake on the ship, still looking for a chance, any opportunity to arm herself or escape—but the river pulled her toward oblivion. Nevertheless, for a few minutes more she was able to remain awake. Nearby the young ones had already fallen into stupor. Tiejun slept in the curve of her stomach. Behind her in the galley, Tan Hao was propped up in his under-the-counter pallet, staring at her, awake at least so far. He was always watching her.

Rage welled up into the cracks of her mind. How had she come to be at the mercy of Geng De, under his control? When had he swerved from their lofty intention to this.
This
. When she thought of Tiejun coming to harm, she wanted to arrest Geng De and strip him of his power—but she was helpless here. Her anger smoldered, barely under control. All her plans to save the land and its people—all this was slipping from her grasp. Looking at these sixteen children, she knew the limits of her ambition. Her enemy, long the Tarig and then her father, had become strangely irrelevant. Geng De was her foe. Sometime during their alliance he had turned from saving the Entire with leadership to saving it by mangling children. If that was the cost, then it was not worth doing.

Stunned by this turn of events, she considered that all her plans might be ruined. Had she come to the place where she should abandon her quest? Oh Cixi, she thought, stricken once again to remember her death. What shall I do?

She had thought she needed Geng De; that only his powers could overcome her father's kingship. Now she wondered if she should let Titus Quinn
have the Entire and make of it what he would. He would have to explain to its sentients why it must die. She would like to hear him try. She wondered what the Entire would answer. But whatever she did now, it would be without Geng De.

Had using children always been Geng De's plan? She didn't think so. Step by step, he had gradually fallen into evil. But to ever have trusted him! She had been so foolish, so wrong, and worse, by her collusion, she had helped him to power.

Closing her eyes, she felt consciousness begin to slip away. From the bridge she heard Geng De shout as he grabbed the threads he wanted. Even his voice filed her with loathing.

She folded her body around Tiejun. If they came for the boy, she would fight them. Always watchful for a chance to steal a galley knife, she would make sure they didn't take Tiejun.

In the highest level of the Magisterium, at the top of the staircase leading to her audience chamber, Suzong sat on an uncomfortable carved chair with her feet on a jeweled box watching the funeral procession of Cixi, former high prefect of the Dragon Throne.

It had been going on for two hours. She watched as eight-foot horns carried by three legates at a time blew sonorous tones through the Magisterium, driving out the Miserable God. Amid the god-cleansing horns were the robed and icon-clad consuls, legates, stewards, factors, and clerks, two abreast, carrying lantern boxes with the unlit candles symbolizing Cixi's extinguished life.

At Suzong's side, Zhiya leaned in, muttering, “The procession is a continuous line. I think I saw that one fellow—the Gond—before.” She shifted her stance, obviously uncomfortable from standing.

“No,” Suzong murmured back, “it's just a long line. They are to make one circuit. She deserves that much, who served us for a thousand thousand days.”

It would have been folly not to have given the Magisterium their ceremony.

Suzong had no illusions that her subprefect Mei Ing was loyal, nor any of
the legates she had raised up to replace Cixi's sycophants. But Titus had needed a stand-in, and Suzong was delighted to perform the function, however much it kept her from her beloved Yulin, who wrote her three times an arc, and complained vigorously of her absence. But it was worth it. Suzong had lived to see the fiends deposed. For that, she would have performed any service that Titus had asked, even pretending to oversee the affairs of the primacies.

The funeral stewards attended Cixi's body in the catacombs, waiting for a propitious time to commit it to the flames. But first the notice of the Woeful God must be diverted lest He intercept her spirit and torture her for eternity in revenge for all the ways she had accomplished great things and yet escaped His notice.