Prince of Storms (29 page)

Suzong knew very well that He was engaged elsewhere, however. He was watching Titus Quinn most closely. He was bringing confusion and missteps upon the regent, and blessing the actions of Geng De. Geng De had wisely stayed deep in the river, whereas Titus had dared to bestride the world, ruling the Ascendancy, silencing the engine and banishing the lords.

“God not noticing him,” Suzong murmured, and her legates, misunderstanding her, took up a chant around her throne, “God not noticing her, God not noticing her…”

In the buried halls of the deeper levels, the horns sounded like beku being flayed alive. Cixi's followers, devotees, and enemies continued to file by, performing their last act of homage.

By the movement of the ship, Sen Ni could tell that Geng De was leading them into the binds again. It was almost a relief to know that she'd soon be unconscious, so that she could release her sickening thoughts.

She had never trusted Geng De. He was, from the beginning, strange, unsettling, naïve. But she had needed him. Now he showed himself to be brutal, even mentally unbalanced. He had duped her with his cloying affection, his promise of power. And she had linked arms with him, trusting him—trusting! Thoughts of revenge gave her some surcease from fury. But first she had to get off the ship. Every day she watched for her chances.

And then they were diving down. She abandoned herself to the dive. In the galley she heard the despicable Tan Hao settling onto his pallet. Oh, for sleep and just a little peace.

As she sank into dreams she thought she heard a horn sing out in a deep, sonorous reverberation. It was hauntingly sad.

Cixi was gone. Only Riod remained.

Riod, Riod
, she cried out in her heart.

On the steppe, in the heart of the roamlands, Riod ran. Alone, without escort or companion, he raced with abandon, all thoughts scoured away. Emka remained in the encampment, less tolerant these days of hard runs.

The lives of his fellow mounts and their riders were happily removed from the great changes shaking the Entire. The practice of dream-sendings was becoming familiar—all done at
her
request, his best rider, for reasons that he understood but only dimly regarded. During her absence in the city under the Ascendancy, Akay-Wat served as captain of the riders, but as for Mistress, that would always be
her
. Everyone knew this. He waited for Sydney's return.

Her call, when it came, pierced him like a long slim knife. It was a wail of sorrow and rage.

Riod slowed, concentrating. Was his beloved rider nearby? She must be, for it was her voice. But there was a wrongness about the heart thought. It seemed to come from all directions at once. Then nothing more. Silence descended on him.

Where was she? He pranced in a circle, looking to the distant canyon walls, back toward camp, and off in the direction of the embankments of the River Nigh. With her voice silenced, he could not discern her location.

But there was no mistaking the dread and alarm of her call.

Somehow she had reached out to him. He turned another circle, listening, observing.

Then he sprang forth, rushing headlong in the direction of camp, sending his urgent summons.

Emka had already sensed his panic, and reached out:
I heard her too!
She fears for her life. Gather every mount, Emka; gather them. We are waiting for you, brave one. Hurry.

QUINN HELD THE HOOP IN HIS HAND
. He stood before a small wood frame house with a porch. Hollyhocks leaned together in the warm sunshine. At the edges of the scene, blurring. Nothing there.

He climbed the short flight of stairs. Behind a screen door he saw that the door was wide open. A shadowy figure moved inside. He couldn't see the hoop in his hand, but he felt himself clutching it.

“You may come in, Regent.”

He entered a room that seemed to occupy the whole first floor. A bed, a dresser, an open closet. An old woman rummaged in the closet. “Come in,” she repeated. When she turned around she had an armload of clothes on hangars. These she dumped on the bed.

“Where is Avva ceb?” he asked, having been told how the avatar was likely to look.

“I am Avva ceb.” She looked around with what seemed a worried air. Her aged face was not quite convincing. It looked like a slightly melted wax carving. Well, the Jinda ceb did not understand aging, particularly human aging, if that was how Avva ceb was trying to present herself.

She approached a suitcase that had appeared on the bed. Unzipping the top, she threw it open. In went a batch of clothes. She paused, watching him.

“I've come,” he said, “to plead for our lives. Of the Rose and the Entire.”

“Yes. Speak to me. I've been expecting you.” She went back to the closet, grabbing things off hangars. It wasn't clear that the items were clothes. They were what a Jinda ceb might think of as human clothes, but they looked fleshy rather than clothlike. Into the suitcase they went.

“There's a navitar who thinks he can
weave
. I believe it. I've seen him do it. He'll try to dictate our actions. Forever.”

“Yes, I've heard that rumor.”

“It's more than a rumor, Avva ceb. It's written down in the
Book of the Drowning Time
. Geng De stole that book from the Red Society archive. I think he has the means to bring a flood into the Entire. A flood of the Nigh. And that will bring catastrophe, even to you.”

She stood in the middle of the room, arms full of things from the closet. “Speak your mind, Regent.”

“Can you pursue him inside the river?”

“I…” She looked around her, momentarily confused. “What was I doing? Oh yes.” She went over to the bed and dumped the clothes she'd been holding into the suitcase. “Can I pursue this navitar? In a way, yes. But will I, that is your question, is it not?”

“It always was. How far will you go to help?”

“I must decide.”

“Yes.”

“One man's justice is not another's.” She went to the chest of drawers and grabbed a fistful of socks, depositing them in the suitcase.

“Why are you packing?”

“It has all become…so complicated. We are tired of your conflicts.” Her eyes grew narrow and hostile.

“They're your conflicts, too. Strange that you don't think so.”

“I have not rendered judgment.”

He wanted to ask her if she was leaving—if the Jinda ceb Horat were leaving the Entire. But he didn't want her to render judgment on that. Perhaps this was only a mood of Manifest. An urge to flee, portrayed in dramatic form.

“Avva ceb. I had a friend. She died a few days ago. Her name was Jin Yi. She was a navitar, like Geng De, but with a good heart. Before Geng De ordered her murder, she told her daughter something, a principle that we should use in the cause of the Entire against the Rose:
Each realm sovereign.
That each world should keep within its own frame. That to save a world, we shouldn't destroy another one. Each realm sovereign. No matter how terrible the affliction, we don't ask another world to perish in our place. That's what I would have asked you to consider if I'd come to you earlier. Now things are very much worse. But they're also clearer. There's no reason anymore to hesitate. Events require a hard courage now. Take action for us all, Avva ceb. Capture him. Take him out.”

“Where did I put my earrings?” She patted her ears and passed her hand over the dresser top.

Whatever he had expected from Manifest, this wasn't it. His frustration mounted.

She zipped the suitcase and lifted it off the bed, forgetting to give the suitcase handles. She stood there, effortlessly holding the luggage stuffed with clothing.

“Are you even listening to me?” he asked.

“Yes. I'm trying to.” She went to the front door and, holding the suitcase with one hand, opened the latch. “I'll think about what you have taught me and the opinions you have voiced. I am Avva ceb.” As she went out the door, she muttered, “Aren't I?”

He followed her onto the porch, afraid she would disappear before he said the last thing that he had come to say.

She was still standing there. A cab had pulled up, waiting for her.

“Avva ceb, if you won't act, then let me.”

She smirked. “What can you do, Regent? If you'd been able to act you would have done so back when you were haranguing Tindivir.”

“I can follow Geng De into the binds and kill him.” He put a hand on her arm to keep her from leaving. His hand passed through her. “Make me a navitar. I'll undergo the process, whatever it is. If the Tarig could do it, so can you. Give me a fighting chance. If you decide against us, at least give me a chance. Let me go after him.”

She sighed in a very good approximation of impatience. “It wouldn't work. He'd see you coming. It's too clumsy.” She hurried down the sidewalk toward the waiting cab. “Besides,” she called back, “it would be murder.”

When the little house vanished, he was left in the Jinda ceb garden. Anzi sat on a bench, her head in her hands.

She had been in the virtual room, watching. They all had been there, presumably.

Anzi looked up at him. Meeting her gaze was one of the hardest things he'd ever done. He had hoped that the meeting with Avva ceb would not have ended the way it did.
Navitar
. The very word was now laced with dread.

“Anzi…” he said, helplessly.

“Oh, Titus, you cannot. No one can ask it of you.” When he remained silent—what could he say?—she went on, “It would never work; you'd go mad.”

He was so weary, not having slept since before the fight on the bridge. “Then let Avva ceb go after Geng De. She'll consider it. She said she would.”

“Yes,” Anzi whispered. “Maybe she will.”

They could still hope for that. And as small as that hope was, it threw a strong light.

Titus slept in Anzi's hut. She lay by his side, silently trying out all her arguments for why he must not consider doing this thing. Heart sinking, she knew that nothing she could say mattered against the Indwelling. Titus had given so much up to this struggle. Now he was willing to relinquish the last thing left to him: his sanity.

But the Jinda ceb would do their part, wouldn't they? The Jinda ceb would succeed, no matter how Geng De might try to weave them. For who could hold so many thousands of sentients in thrall—the whole of Manifest, every individual in the minoral?

Slipping into Manifest, she found that they were still talking. Gratifyingly, a few strong voices demanded action. This proved they were not all hobbled by Geng De's interventions. The Jinda ceb were a warriorlike people. They would stop this tyrant. But she was not yet allowed to add her voice.

When she'd had enough of the talk—repetitious as it was—she moved her attention out of Manifest and lay down beside Titus as he slept. She curled into his side, feeling his breath rise and fall, feeling the warmth of him.

How far things had come since they had first known one another. She remembered when he had come to Yulin's palace grounds. It seemed several lifetimes ago. Everyone thought him a dangerous man. At that time he was on the verge of shattering the barrier between the Rose and the Entire, long forbidden by the Tarig, who feared the Roselings would inundate the Entire, seeking long life, riches, and war. Yulin and the Tarig, however, had been mostly wrong about what would happen. Titus had cast down the Tarig instead. He had shut down the engine that allowed the Entire to live. All these things showed how little people could predict what would happen. Titus had always surprised her. He would find a way to live. It was unthinkable that he would not.

Restless, she left her bedchamber and, coming into the main room of her hut, found that Sideree had formed a new room to one side for Tai to sleep.

He stood in his open doorway now, and smiled at seeing her. He held something in his hand.

“Are you hungry, Tai?” Before she left, Sideree had unfolded three chairs at a small table and had set out a box of food, delicacies that were Anzi's favorites.

Tai joined her and they shared the small meal. He looked so young. She wanted to reassure him, but gave him enough respect not to smooth over the difficulties they faced.

He murmured, “Ji Anzi, why didn't we kill Geng De when he was among us at the Ascendancy?”

They hadn't known then what Geng De was. That day when Sen Ni came to take possession of the bright city, that day when Geng De accompanied her, when the Tarig were watching from their mansions and Titus told Sen Ni
no
—they hadn't known how monstrous he was. A priceless moment squandered.

Anzi did not respond. Things had come to this pass. The mistakes of the past were not only irretrievable, they were the basis of what would come next. They would face it, somehow.

“Do you know,” Anzi said, “that I have taken an internal computational?” When Tai nodded, she went on. “I can hear them. In Manifest. As though there are many voices, but one at a time. I think Manifest chooses certain voices to represent a new view, or a consolidating view. I'm not sure. Sometimes it's just one person who stands in for them all.” She trailed off. “I wasn't sure I should accept the computational. Now I don't think I needed to.”

“When this is over,” Tai said, skimming past all that they faced, “we'll still need someone who understands them. Who is accepted by them.”

She held his gaze. “I hope you don't think that I'm strange because of it.”

“It makes you unique, Ji Anzi. I think you were brave.”

“What does Titus think?” She wondered how much the two of them talked.

Tai was silent for a while. He still held a scroll in his hand. He laid it on the table.

“Before we left the Ascendancy,” he said, “Master Quinn went to see High Prefect Suzong. He asked her to create a document.” He pushed the scroll toward her.

Anzi took it. Tai spoke very low, perhaps out of concern that he not wake Titus—or perhaps because the scroll was not something he had leave to share. But she activated the scroll.

She read it quickly. Then again, more slowly.

It was a divorce decree. Titus had formally divorced Johanna.

Why, amid all his cares, had he done this? He was so harried he could not even take time to sleep, but he had visited Suzong for this. She felt tears well. “He didn't need…need to…” She had never complained of Johanna or denied her status. There was room for both women. It did not matter if she was a wife.

“He needed to,” Tai said. “He was very glad when Suzong agreed.” He looked pointedly at her. “Very glad.”

She felt a surge of pleasure. As they sat in companionable silence something hard and dark opened inside her. All at once she felt unaccountably happy—at a time when no one could reasonably be happy.

A noise from behind drew her attention. Startled, she turned to see Titus standing in the doorway. She rose, noting as she did so that the scroll still lay on the table.