Prince of Storms (30 page)

Titus seemed not to notice. He nodded to Tai and Tai gathered his things, including the scroll, and went into his room.

When they were alone, Anzi asked, “Shall I order fresh oba?” Titus had not slept long, but perhaps he couldn't with so much hanging in the balance.

“No, but thank you, Anzi.” His voice was husky, still tangled in sleep. He went to the window and looked out to the commons, empty now that normal activities were suspended and Jinda ceb attention was on Manifest. Then he touched the shadow boundary of the window, and it closed. So he had learned to do that.

She looked at him, seeing him in a startlingly fresh way. This was her husband, but—it seemed to her now in a flash of insight—that she didn't know him. Nor did he know her, not really, not deeply. She reached out to him, taking his hand, tentatively, as she might touch a mysterious but compelling stranger.

His fingers curled around her hand, the tips of his fingers creating a current along her skin. Then he pulled her toward him and kissed her. It was a hungry kiss, his mouth warm on hers and demanding. It was as though he felt it too, that they were new to each other.

He began to undo the fasteners on her jacket. While he did so, he was still kissing her, his mouth moving down her neck. Her pulse thickened under the touch of his lips. He threw her jacket onto the chair.

“Take me to bed,” she said.

“Here,” he answered. But she laughed and, taking his hand, drew him toward her private room, closing the door behind them.

Beneath her thin blouse, his hands cupped her breasts. She staggered backward to the wall, where he pressed against her, his mouth on hers again, hands raking her hair. She pulled his jacket off, and he made short work of the clasps on her clothes. They slid to the floor. Neither of them could wait. He cupped her knees and separated them, touching her between the legs, each touch bringing a sob from her throat. “Love me,” she whispered, but she didn't mean to make love, but to love who she was, to know her, as she hardly knew herself.

He understood. “I do love you. Forever.” Then he drew back and released himself, taking her quickly and urgently. Thoughts vanished. There was only
Titus and she, Titus and she—sweet, and at the same time desperate. She had never experienced lovemaking like this, this giving of her body in such hot joy. I give you myself, she thought. Take me. As I am. As I am. If she couldn't say what that was, their bodies knew.

He brought her to climax, and she clung to him, weeping. Then he matched her, driving home his own release. It carried them away.

They had not made it to the bed, but lay folded in each other's arms on the floor.

Padding across the room grown hot with their exertions, Anzi brought a cool cloth to him. She patted it over him, exploring his body, noting the strong muscles of his legs, the heavy scarring on his arms and face. She wanted to memorize him. But then she sat still, thinking that there would be plenty of time for that. Why was she thinking of last things, last times?

They found their way to the bed, and this time they made love more slowly. Time wound down as she sought him and he found her. The Jinda ceb world remained blessedly silent around them.

Titus finally slept, this time deeply.

She watched him for a long while.
When this is over
, Tai had said.... She thought of how she and Titus might be together then. She would be different than before. But perhaps not just different, but more complete. They would find each other if they looked hard enough. Their bodies would teach them new things, and their hearts would. Would he still love her? Would she still love him? She could not know the future. They were learning at great cost that it could not be compelled. It would unfold.

Outside, Twilight Ebb faded to Deep. It was a time of waiting and transition. Though terribly afraid, she was also at peace—at least for a little while.

After she bathed and dressed she sat in a chair and entered Manifest.

HEART POUNDING
, Sen Ni ran down a side street from the wharf, her arms aching with Tiejun's weight. Sentients stared at her as she ran; she wished they looked friendlier. She didn't know whom to trust or how much time she had before Tan Hao noticed her gone.

Ducking into a doorway, she held the child close. Sweat poured from her face. She must get out of sight, but at the same time she had to put distance between herself and the vessel. Leaning out, she glanced down the street. No sign of Tan Hao. The neighborhood, with its warehouses and cheap hostelries, offered no obvious refuges. Dashing back out, she rushed up the street, watching for a side path that would take her out of line of sight from the wharf.

When they had tied up an hour ago, she'd grabbed her chance. There was no way to help the youngsters except for her to escape and get help, but she wasn't going to leave Tiejun behind. When Tan Hao returned with supplies after their stop, he'd left the ramp down. Then, with the need to serve food in the pilothouse, Tan Hao had ascended the companionway, fixing her with his usual insolent look, a look that she understood very well:
Don't try anything. Geng De doesn't care about you. I never got you the toys, did I?

There, a side alley! She darted in, quickly taking stock of the place. She spied a Jout woman cleaning a stoop with a broom. That was a good sign— a person who cared enough to clean an alley porch.

She ran up to the woman, frantic in her haste, but aware that she might
alarm the householder. She stopped some distance away from the woman, but there was no time to lose.

“Please help me. I've been held prisoner by a terrible man. Will you take my child and protect him? Would you take him to an orphanage?”

The Jout stared at her, mouth open in surprise.

“A very bad person is following me. You could take the child to master of the wharves, someone in authority. Will you?”

Finally the woman deigned to look at Tiejun. “Your child? How do I know you didn't make off with him and want to lay blame on me?” She added defensively, “These are hard times. No one knows who is in charge.”

Sen Ni checked behind her. “Please. This man will kill me. And then the child. For the sake of the bright, I beg you!” She placed Tiejun at the woman's feet, and Tiejun began to cry as he saw Sen Ni backing up.

“Shh, shh,” she hushed him, meanwhile beseeching the woman with her eyes. The woman seemed to be softening. She'd put her broom down. Tiejun's cries grew louder.

“Or give us a place to hide....” Now she realized that might have been a better request. Asking someone to take a child, it was too…

The Jout looked up in alarm, and Sen Ni swirled around to see Tan Hao striding down the alley.

Sen Ni raced to grab Tiejun, but Tan Hao got to her first, striking her on the side of the face. She went to her knees, breathless with pain.

He yanked her to her feet and hauled her down the alley, holding her rigidly by the upper arm and carrying Tiejun under his other.

“I knew you were the type to run. I knew,” he said between his teeth.

People stared as they rounded the corner into the street. One Chalin man stepped in their path.

“Wait now, you're hurting that child!”

Tan Hao faced off with him, sneering, “She tried to steal this boy off a navitar's vessel!” He pointed at the wharf. “You can ask the navitar. How do you like that?”

The man frowned, looking down the street at the ship at anchor, then backed away.

The street cleared for them as they made their way back to the wharf. Sen
Ni felt her eye swelling shut where Tan Hao had struck her, but the worst was Tiejun's screams.

In desperation, she tore off her hat. “I'm mistress of the sway! Look at my hair—black! You know me, I am Sen Ni who faced the Tarig down. I am Sen Ni! Someone help me!”

Tan Hao swore under his breath, shoving her onto the dock and up the ramp to the vessel.

Geng De was waiting for her outside the main cabin, shaking his head. “Look how you've upset Tiejun.” He reached out his arms at the boy, who came to him. “There now,” he crooned, “shall we have a sweet?”

Geng De allowed Tan Hao to haul her into the cabin. She expected Geng De to follow, but he didn't. Some understanding had passed between the ship keeper and the navitar.

“Go upstairs,” Tan Hao said.

The youngsters in the cabin were watching in high anxiety, knowing something was very wrong, knowing enough to remain silent.

Sen Ni was not going to let him get her alone. She stood her ground.

Tan Hao glanced around the cabin. “First I will spank one of the children. Then I will spank them all.”

She and the ship keeper exchanged looks of loathing. The truth was, Tan Hao and Geng De could do what they wanted with her. Nothing could change that now.

As she ascended the stairs to the pilothouse, she heard Tan Hao's footfalls behind her. At the top, she entered the pilothouse. Tan Hao closed the door behind him. Instantly, his arm drew back and his fist went into her stomach.

Crumpling, her breath gone, she felt bile rise up in her throat. No time to absorb this blow, because another one came, this one to the side of her head. A restrained blow, but one that sent her sprawling.

Despite her resolve, she cried out each time he struck her. She pushed back her fear into the part of herself that was always ready for horror. The thing that Tan Hao didn't know was that she'd been beaten before, many times. Beaten and mutilated. It had only made her fiercer.

He was merely a ship keeper. And she, if he had forgotten, was Sen Ni, mistress of the Inyx riders.

The blows fell and fell.

Standing on the outside deck, holding Tiejun in his arms, Geng De cringed at the sounds of the beating. He'd told Tan Hao to be careful with her. Nothing broken. Nothing humiliating. By his expression at the time, Tan Hao did not seem to take it to heart. Geng De was starting to fear his ship keeper. He had not seen the man in his future—of course, in all truth, hardly anyone was in Geng De's future—and though he wove Tan Hao every day, the threads frayed. Some sentients were like that.

The Jinda ceb were especially difficult until he'd begun to use Manifest to magnify his efforts. Manifest had made it possible to weave them—but the price! He was exhausted, and losing his hold on other threads. Since he could not do it all, he had abandoned his efforts with Titus Quinn. No matter. Quinn had nothing without the Jinda ceb. Lately he'd also had to ignore Lord Inweer—whom he'd been trying to keep out of the fray, certainly out of an alliance with Quinn.

The cursed Jinda ceb took all his efforts: going into the binds, hour after hour after hour. If not for the crucial need to keep them woven, he could act. Drown the children, get
on
with it.

Oh, the screams from the bridge. Tan Hao had gone far enough. He unlocked the main cabin door, where the children were all crying. “We'll play games,” he said, putting Tiejun down and gazing around at the miserable youngsters. Jout juveniles could cry especially loudly. “Just be good, and we'll play a game. Would you like that?”

It seemed to make them cry all the louder. He tried so hard to understand children, but he had to admit Sen Ni had a better way with them. Another good reason for Tan Hao not to damage her.

When he opened the door to the bridge, Sen Ni lay on floor, utterly still. Tan Hao was stripping her clothes off.

“No! No!” Geng De shrieked. He rushed forward, and raising his cane over his head, he brought it down on Tan Hao's head. Tan Hao stopped, but the blow hadn't impressed him.

Geng De gripped the cane in fury. “No humiliation, I said!”

Tan Hao smirked. “She can't be humiliated; she's not even awake.” He glared up at Geng De, and for a few moments it was not clear that he would
curb his intentions. Then he stood up. “I'm hungry. You're the only one who's eaten today.” He left the bridge without another word.

Geng De followed, slamming the bridge door behind him. Then he hobbled to Sen Ni and kneeled beside her, buttoning up her jacket. One eye was swollen shut, and her lip was cut and bleeding. There might be other injuries, but he mustn't search them out; it wouldn't be proper.

He made up a nest of blankets for her in a corner, and managed to pull her onto them. Perhaps what she needed was rest. At least she wasn't screaming.

“Have you slept enough?” Geng De was happy to find Sen Ni finally awake.

Only one of her eyes could open, and that one wasn't focused. Geng De had a pail of water and placed a cool cloth over her swollen eye. He seemed to remember that wet cloths should be placed on injuries.

She gargled something.

“Don't try to talk.” He patted her hand. “I won't let him beat you again. I'm sorry. Sorry…” He realized that was true. Was this what compassion felt like? Or was it guilt? It would be strange if he finally felt something. But then he thought that, no, he couldn't really feel anything. He was just sorry that she had caused so much trouble.

“You wanted to protect Tiejun,” he murmured.

Her good eye locked on him.

“I know why you ran away. You have feelings for the boy. But you don't understand. Tiejun has a wondrous future, if he's one of the lucky ones. That's why I need so many young ones, because not all of them will work out, but I'm so hoping for Tiejun. Would you like that?”

He could see that she wouldn't. She moaned as she tried to move.

“My sister.” He shook his head. He doubted now that she had the imagination or resolution for what was to come. One reality had seemed especially clear, where they reigned together in the Nigh. But all foreseen futures were provisional.

He soaked the cloth in water again and pressed it gently on the worst
side of her face. “Water?” he asked. When she blinked, he brought a cup to her lips and let a small amount dribble in. It came out again, bloody.

Tan Hao would pay for this. The ship keeper had to learn discipline, for at least a little while longer.

He brought up the cup again. This time she swallowed.

“I should have told you before how it would be. I thought we'd have time. Then your father attacked us and we had to rush away.”

Though she closed her eyes, he thought she was listening.

“I told you how I fell into the Nigh when I was a babe. That was true, except I didn't fall. I was pushed. It was the old one who pushed me, a devotee of the Drowning Time who was on board the ship my parents and I traveled on. He pushed me into the river. When I survived the drowning, he told my parents that I'd be no good to them and that he'd gladly care for me. My parents refused. Thus I was taken to the Tarig to see what could be done and they made me a navitar. Years later, the old one came on board my vessel and told me of the teachings of the Drowning Time. That it was my duty to drown children here and there when chance allowed. Such children, if brought to a special place, the
Fold
, would have a glorious role to play in the Drowning Time. He asked me to accept my role in making that happen. On his person he kept a ragged book from which he read excerpts of the foretold history of how the worlds would be brought into harmony by a navitar who had been drowned as a child. But he never let me have the book. He was old and jealous of the great future that awaited me. Still, he was a believer. He thought I might be the one foretold, but he wasn't sure.” By her expression, she had begun to realize whose presence she was in at this moment.

“The Tarig were always afraid of the Great Without. They knew that someday the Paion would break through, or the Rose would. In case of an invasion, they built into the storm walls a wondrous safeguard, allowing the walls to contract against the land, so that the Entire would fold up. Then, it could be unfurled again, and all enemies would be dead. As would everyone in the Entire—except for the navitars—but then the Tarig could re-create all the sentients. They could start over.