Prince of Storms (33 page)

In the hours since Titus left, Anzi had sat alone in her room, paced in her hut, talked with Tai, and even tried to sleep—but her mind was always with Titus. She declined a lesson from Iritaj, made and then abandoned plans to visit Venn. She had not had the heart to dip into Manifest and see what remained, to see what had become of Avva ceb. Avva ceb was only a representation, but it was hard to remember that. Anzi, and perhaps most of the Jinda ceb, held her/him/it in great affection.

The only place that calmed her was the communal garden. People had begun to gather there, finding some peace in its beauty and shadows. But few talked. Only the children carried on as before.

Earlier in the day a groaning rumble had issued from the nearest storm wall. Not even the Jinda ceb knew what it portended. They had all waited in dread for several hours, expecting that it had been something of Geng De's design. But all was quiet again. Still, now and then, Anzi glanced toward the storm wall.

Oh Titus, it is all up to you now.
She knew it to be true, but she hated it. At times her bitterness was all toward the Jinda ceb, but she knew it was not their fault. Even Titus had been woven at times....

She forced herself to think of the future rather than the dread present. If the Entire survived, would she carry on as before? If Titus did not survive…
Oh, my love.
She could not bear to think of it. But she must think of it.

Would she keep her body computational? Stay with the Jinda ceb? There would be no pressing reason to resume her old form. But staying among the Jinda ceb was no future, either. They were determined to remain aloof, and the Rose and the Entire were still contending for dominance. For Titus's sake, would she still fight for the Rose?

Oh, my love.

She forced her mind back to the question before her. Iritaj had been right when he said that she cared little for high events. She was interested in the particular. It was why she had been a miserable scholar, why she had brought Titus Quinn's faltering ship through the veil-of-worlds, why she had pleaded with Master Yulin not to kill him. Because of specific things: individuals and their lives, not the fortunes of the thousand thousand sentients. Suzong, now. She was one who knew leadership. Zhiya—she was one with the passion for revolution. And Tai. He would work without ceasing to carry out Titus's legacy.

Looking up, Anzi saw a juvenile standing a few paces off. The children had been aware of her sitting there, she knew. “Yes?” Anzi had a bad moment when she thought that perhaps something had happened, and the child had come to tell her.

The juvenile pointed to Anzi's chest. “You are a female.”

“I am.”

The youngster flicked a hand at the hoop dangling at its waist. “Manifest doesn't know anything interesting about female. We all looked it up. Or male, either.”

“What would you like to know?”

“We practice at sex. But we don't know how it will change when we choose gender.”

When Anzi didn't speak, the juvenile went on. “Males hang on the outside. Females have their sex on the inside.”

“Well, it isn't about inside or outside,” Anzi said. “It's more”—she touched her head—“up here.” Another juvenile approached, standing farther back, obviously listening. “It's mental. It comes from how we feel about each other.”

The first youngster turned to the second one. “I told you so. It doesn't matter what we pick.”

“It matters,” Anzi said. “It's just that you can't know in advance what it will be like. You have to step into it and see.”

From behind her, she heard, “Good advice. Just what I would have said!” It was Venn.

She looked marginally better than the last time Anzi had seen her. Anzi
made room on the bench for the Complete One as more juveniles started to gather. “You're looking better.”

Venn rocked gently from side to side. “Less woven?”

Perhaps Anzi was seeing what she hoped to, but she answered, “Yes.”

“He cannot keep us all down at once. But I still have bad patches. I do better when I do not peek into Manifest.”

“We should all stay out of Manifest,” Anzi said, the realization just now taking shape. Geng De was using Manifest to reach many Jinda ceb at once. How had that obvious fact escaped her? The reason she still had her own volition was that Titus's arrival at the minoral had kept her too busy to enter Manifest very much. She looked around the garden, claimed by a sudden urge to warn them all away from the danger.

Venn threw her a quizzical glance.

“The navitar has a great advantage there,” Anzi said. “He has us all at once.” If there had not been so much going on, she would surely have seen all these connections before. “Look at Nistothom. Out of shame he stayed away from Manifest, and in the end he was the only one who would help Titus.” Urgently, she locked her gaze on Venn. “Stay out of Manifest, Complete One. Stay out.”

Venn's derma tightened around her, and Anzi realized she had just given a rather bald order to a Complete One.

Venn muttered, “That is where you got in trouble in the first place, Anzitaj. Ignoring Manifest.”

This seemed a rather strange argument coming from one who seldom went there. They sat side by side, drifting, Anzi felt, away from the topic. If Venn and the Jinda ceb were woven, recognizing their compulsion would be a delicate matter—just as it had been with Titus.

Finally, Venn spoke again. “I heard about Titus Quinn going with Nistothom.” Without saying more, she put her hand on Anzi's. “There was something that I was going to tell you, but now I've forgotten. I suppose I can blame that on the vile navitar.”

The juveniles were still shyly waiting for Anzi's attention. When she turned back to them, one of the smallest said, “Anzitaj, how many kinds of sentients are there? Do you include the flying Adda? Or the Inyx?”

“And, Anzitaj,” another one piped in, “what happens in the Empty Lands? Does anyone ever come out if they go in? And how big
are
the Empty Lands?”

“Do Gond children eat their parents?”

“What does the Ascendancy look like?”

“How do you live without a Manifest?”

“What is the biggest primacy?”

“How deep is the Nigh? Does anything live there? What about river spiders walking upside down on the surface?”

Smiling, Anzi put up her hands in defense. “Perhaps you'll need to venture out and see for yourself.”

Venn clapped. “Venture out! Shall we go now?” She seemed to enjoy the consternation on the juveniles' faces. “No time to lose!”

“Manifest would not let us go,” the older one said. “Until we are mature.”

“By then it will be too late,” Venn muttered—but whether she meant that Geng De would fold up the world, or that adult Jinda ceb were too rigid too learn, Anzi didn't know.

The juveniles had now formed quite a crowd. Anzi rose so that those in the back could hear her. “If you form a tidy group and all sit down, I'll answer you.”

The children milled and fought for position in the clearing, finally arranging themselves in a tidy grouping.

As the juveniles waited, she asked Venn, “Is it all right to talk to them, Complete One?”

“Oh, indeed yes. We have needed to have a little teaching for a long time. Perhaps starting with the immature is best.” She gave a start as she sat on the bench. “Oh! I just remembered what I was going to tell you. Do you remember that historian I mentioned, the one who lives in Bast?” Anzi nodded.

“He is more interested these days in having visitors. You might want to go up there. It would do you good, while you are waiting for what is going to happen.”

“Well, I don't think a trip—”

“He goes by Ramdilon, but that was not his first name. He used to be Su Bei.”

Anzi stared at her. “Bei? Bei is here?”

“Yes, in Bast. Reclusive man. And I thought I was isolated.”

The children were growing restive, throwing out more questions. Anzi blurted, “But why didn't you tell me he was alive?”

“He wanted privacy to work. He is writing something....”

The precious cosmography treatise. Happiness crowded out her annoyance. Bei was alive. “But Complete One, we've been sick at heart. We thought he was dead!”

“Well, we never said
dead
.”

“Is he well? When did you find him?”

Venn contracted her derma, hesitating. “Actually, we found him before we found you. But he did not want any interruptions in his work. It seems the world had a way of distracting him. He is more receptive now. He said you might visit, if you are inclined.”

Anzi shook her head, trying to grasp this news. “Why didn't you tell me?” she asked again.

“It is rather difficult for us to figure you people out—what you want, why you want it. We tend to respect what people
say
they want. In his case, it was privacy.” She waved Anzi toward the waiting crowd. “Perhaps you had best start your lesson.”

She gestured at Anzi's back. “Very nice life art, by the way.”

Slowly Anzi turned back around to Venn. “It…is?”

“Yes, quite nice so far. You have a good blue.”

“Blue? I've got blue?”

“That shade is not easy, either.”

“Are you saying
life art
? I have some?”

Venn smiled. “Under way. In spectacular fashion. Oh, but I am not supposed to say, am I? When will I learn?”

Anzi found herself trying to perform the impossible act of seeing her own back. Then she found herself trying to stem the tears that came streaming down her cheeks. To no avail.

In the commons garden, in front of the now astonished children, Anzi let the dammed-up tears flow.

AS HE FELL
, Quinn began to feel his body lighten. He was becoming porous. Accepting. He observed the past and the future, the grand cascade of events of which he was no longer a part. He had become a watcher. Shadows of meaning came to him, but when he tried to express them, words fell away. He saw:

Su Bei, with Anzi standing before him. She watched him as he wrote in his tablet. “What happened at the end to Titus? I was hoping you could fill me in, so I could finish.” Anzi whispered, “I don't know.” Bei shook his head. “It isn't proper scholarship, of course. It ends up being a story.”

He was at peace, but in a false, drugged way. Fighting for his own truth, he discovered an intimation of dread. The old world was up
there,
high above him. How could he return? Where would this end? What place would he find when at last he came to the bottom?

Su Bei, stylus in hand. “If one isn't sure of how it went, one is inclined to just go by what one
knows
of people.”

The matrix through which he descended was saturated with droplets of moisture, air currents and longing.

Johanna stood on the covered porch of a large farmhouse. She looked older; hair 
braided through with white. She watched as a visitor, having parked at the end of the sloping grass lawn, walked toward her. Johanna squinted into the setting sun, unable to see who it was, but recognition had begun to dawn. She clutched her hand to her throat, closing her sweater in the chill.

He saw these things. They stirred him, but with a remove, as though he were reading a story of great events. It could not even be called
his
story. It was the tapestry of the world, to which at times he had lent a thread. No one's story was wholly their own.

Least of all the story of a navitar, a pilot of the Nigh.

He had once been a pilot.

Now again.

Twilight Ebb cooled the skies over the Inyx sway. Riod looked up into the curdled bright, impatient to fly, to rush with his herd mates into the Entire's sea of minds. Somewhere in the realm Sydney lay broken and afraid. She had reached out in a desperate heart cry, and Riod had turned his great powers toward the source to hear her.

The sides of the command tent were drawn up, giving Emka and him access to the small group assembled there. Behind him, the mounts and riders stood in quiet readiness, waiting to act in unison for Sydney, yet unsure how to do so. The dark navitar had taken Sydney into the Nigh and hurt her, but all they had to defend her were heart-sendings. It was little enough; perhaps useless.

Inside the tent Akay-Wat stood with Mo Ti. If it came to combat, Mo Ti would be their champion. But it would not come to combat.

“Find me a ship,” Mo Ti was saying, “and I'll lie in wait for the monster to surface.” He muttered this without conviction. All those present knew that Geng De was perfectly hidden in the trackless Nigh.

Akay-Wat looked to Riod. “You can wind into his thoughts and strangle him, oh yes?”

Riod had a vivid image of the fat navitar choking, falling. He sent his thoughts to all those assembled,
We cannot kill him. But we can make him wish to be dead.

Mo Ti regarded him with a dark stare. “Dreams are not combat.”

It will not be in dreams. We can find his waking mind and scream our outrage.
Today they could strike at their target in the open, without hiding. In prior times they had used the sleep time of the ebb to send their messages into the Entire. They had needed stealth when the Tarig reigned, but no longer.

Emka nuzzled up to Riod, nervous in the way of females carrying new life.

You will stay behind, Emka.

I will join you in the sky.

He could not command her. And truly, her voice was strong in heart-sendings. He was proud of her bravery.

Akay-Wat said, “But can you find this one person whom we seek?”

I do not know. If we focus our will, if we fly far enough. If Sydney guides us to her side. Then.

In the past, in their dreamtime rovings, the Inyx had seen individuals, but had never attempted specific communication. Now they would try. Could they detect a sentient's thoughts in the twisted pathways of the river? Riod did not know. But the herd would hunt this Geng De down, if not below, then when he came to rest on the surface. No one could stay submerged always.

The navitar would regret harming Sydney. He would regret it very much.

Mo Ti spoke up again. “Mo Ti wishes he could be at your side, Riod.”

Riod gazed at the giant Chalin, remembering better times. Glory times, when he and Sydney and Mo Ti and Distanir rode out into the roamlands, and no other cares.
I wish former times were here again. And Sydney and Distanir among us.

But Distanir was dead of a broken leg near Ahnenhoon. And Sydney was now Sen Ni, mistress of a different sway. A cloud of longing fell over Riod's thoughts, and then over Mo Ti's, he discerned.

Beloved
, he sent to Sydney, with all his great heart could muster.

As Twilight Ebb deepened, Mo Ti led his mount Tarnya through the encampment, in the direction of the closest storm wall. It lay like a black escarpment on the edge of the world. The herd through which they passed did not stir. With riders standing at their sides, the mounts had fallen still, some swaying gently as though banking into a wind.

But they were insensible to everything now, joining their minds in a migration outward, searching for the cries of their mistress or the dark heart of the navitar.

Mo Ti did not know whether even the massed herd could find one man in the limitless stream of the five-fold river. But if they did, he would be ready.

When he got to the banks of the Nigh he must persuade a navitar to stand by with him and relinquish other journeys. He would let Tarnya try to persuade the navitar. Inyx visions were persuasive.

Without a backward glance, he mounted Tarnya and they cantered out of the field. Riod would bend the herd to their task. No sentient would do more for love of the woman of the Rose. Let Riod madden the navitar and drive him over the side of his ship to choke on the Nigh.

For Mo Ti's part, he had only one thing to offer Sen Ni.

His sword.

Sitting next to the unconscious Titus Quinn, it occurred to Nistothom that he had made a terrible mistake.

The realization swelled within him, overcoming doubts. He could not quite sort through why the transformation of Titus Quinn was wrong, but the dread of it corkscrewed into his mind. He stood up from his chair, knocking it over in his hurry. Forma scattered onto the floor. In his distress, he dumped excess body heat into his derma. He paced the room, trying to remember events leading up to his precipitous action.

For forty-six days he'd stayed away from Manifest. He had become isolated from the commonality, and therefore had been spared the sickness that rampaged through Manifest. On his own, he had decided to give Titus Quinn
what he sought. This may have been a fateful mistake. Hadn't he learned the consequences of acting without Manifest?

But Avva ceb was
sick
. They said she was sick. So it was well he had stayed away. Wasn't it?

Longing to return to Manifest flooded him.

Turning back to look on the unconscious Quinn, he noted the forma scattered on the floor. They were the next stage of medicinals, but should he use them? He moved closer to the bedside, where his thoughts darkened yet again. If the man were to awake, he would blame Nistothom for ruining him.

His hands began to shake. Was he contemplating murder? It could not be.

And yet.

Nistothom stood frozen at the bedside, his mind at war.

And down, still. The atmosphere through which Quinn fell—so softly, as though gravity were irrelevant—darkened to gray and then to blue shadows. Visions fell away. It seemed as if he were approaching the deepest trenches of the world ocean, where nothing could live, nothing recognizable.

He heard a distant churning sound.

Down. He tried, but could not completely abandon hope of what lay above. He wished that he were sinking facedown so that the good-bye to the realm above did not take so long. He struggled to move his limbs, perhaps to swim upward, but only his fingers stirred. He saw:

Light evaporating like the slowest northern sunset. Somewhere above was a sliver of the bright, ingot-hot compared to the abyss. A gentle rain began to drift down, falling on his face and limbs, coating him. He knew what this was. All the life above him, those who had died, were now remnants making the descent to the ocean floor.

It was the Drowning Time.

Yes. That churning sound was the roar of the storm walls closing in.
Storm wall, hold up the bright/ Storm wall, dark as Rose night....

The sound grew louder, then deafening. Looking to the side, he saw that the anti-Nighward storm wall had crept up on him, rising like a vast sea mount. Alarmingly,
on the other side, the Nighward storm wall had moved in, too.
Storm wall where none can pass/ Storm wall always to last.