Prince of Storms (36 page)

Screams, songs, howling. Madness inhabited the air.

She could not rise.

I will, I will
, she thought fiercely, pulling on the railing. And then, a strong odor of familiarity filled her nostrils. She gasped. She knew that smell.

The screams fell away, and there was only quiet and a strong and loving presence.

Beloved
, came the thought.
Best rider
.

Riod was with her. Could it be that he was here at last? Helpless with joy, her chest filled with tears.

He dipped his knees and took her on his back. She fell onto him, gratefully, reaching her arms along his back, wanting nothing more than her skin against his hide, her thoughts merged with his.

Slowly, he flowed down the stairs. She gripped his neck horns, and never had she felt anything so transcendent and strong.

They were in the main cabin. Blankets and stray items of clothing strewn. She remembered the children, their terrible danger.

Galley, Riod, the galley.

He stepped over a discarded little jacket, walking lightly on the air. They were in the galley. A weapon. She had been planning to find a weapon.

No time
, he sent.
He's coming.

A thin stream of sound returned to her ears: a discordant singing, far away but approaching. Fear clutched at her.

No time
, Riod sent.

She grabbed the galley knife. Or was it a fork? She could not, in her terror and delusion, know what it was, or how she could be here, or how Riod could be on the ship.

The children
, she moaned.
Oh, help Tiejun, beloved!

She was still clinging to his back, his lovely, warm, and loyal back, as he floated up the stairs. A terrible dream, he was bringing her back to her prison.
Oh Riod, take me home!

I will search for you forever. Wherever you go, I will follow.

He lay her on the cot and, gripping the cover with his teeth, he covered her.

The children, Riod.

Geng De burst into the room, thunking his cane as he staggered toward the pilot's chair.

Sitting on his throne, he was preparing to take them into the river. Riod, possessed by a fearful hatred, reared up. His hooves came down on Geng De.

Passed through.

The deck slanted. The ship plunged down. Riod was gone.

Her mind fell away.

ACROSS THE
N
IGH
, in a high wind, the storm wall tipped forward, leaning in toward the bright.

It was an illusion, Titus Quinn thought, for as much as he was able to judge such things anymore. Real. Illusion. Happening now. Has happened. Might happen. Likely to. The storm wall shuddered as a muted thunder rumbled deep inside the failing walls.

Might fail. Had failed. Likely to.

His hair whipped around his face, and his cloak snapped as he walked along the shore, waiting for Ghoris's ship, Venn at his side, clothes not stirring. She grows them on her skin.

Ghoris coming soon. Geng De's death coming soon. That death was a good thing, something he cherished. He spread his hands wide, bringing in a great lungful of air. Venn stepped back in alarm. They expect me to act strangely. And am I?

He had spent what seemed like years falling. On one level he had known he was on a bed in Nistothom's hut. But his mind had been falling, releasing its hold on the world, moving into a place where what might happen was as real as now—more real. He had never been more afraid as during that fall. With every moment he had been leaving himself behind, and yet he still had been the falling one. When he reached the bottom, there would be no rest, no death. A terrible prospect.

But here he was on the shore of the Nigh, still alive. What kind of life it exactly was, he didn't know. Perhaps Ghoris could tell him. As Last of Day darkened the sky, the storm wall groaned like a ship being twisted in two. They had to hurry.

The last thing he'd thought of as Nistothom pressed the caplets into his skin:
Kill Geng De
, lest in a navitar's madness he forget.
Pursue him in the Nigh, kill him.
He had not the slightest doubt that he should. That he would.

Venn still stared at him. She thought him a monster, but a necessary one. Perhaps he was. He looked at the river. It shimmered in a way it should not, limned with colors that had never been there before. What
was
he? A navitar who could think coherently—to an extent. A human being who could remain conscious in the binds—if he could. But distill that to its essence: He was a weapon. Sent to kill Geng De. From the beginning, his destiny had been to kill. He had wanted his daughter, her freedom, his wife, her rescue. He thought of that naïve human being hanging in a harness in the Rose, thinking the universe would reward him for a pure heart. No one is pure. Give any sentient enough power and they darken. Where was that Titus Quinn of the first days in the Entire? Left behind. Left above, as the new Titus sank.

The Nigh beckoned him with its promise of profound and effervescent knowledge. And he wanted it. At times, he did. Those must be the navitar times.

“Do you see colors?” he whispered to Venn.

“Titus Quinn,” she said. “Wait a few hours until you are stronger.”

She didn't see the colors. He stared at the river, watching for a vessel. “
Wait
. Always the Jinda ceb Horat way.”

“Yes, sadly.”

He looked at her as though she had just expressed
unhappiness
at a mass slaughter. The enormity of her ignorance flattened his response. She was an under-sentient.

Look where your waiting got you, Venn. Look where your goodness got you. People who want to be good are too good to win. So that you could be good, so that the Jinda ceb Horat could be good, I have become what I am.

Little creases in the sand bore the river matter into the shore. He watched
it for a moment, drawn into its tortuous path. From the very beginning he had begged Tindivir to help. Anzi had begged her former friends for assistance. He had beseeched Avva ceb, the whole Manifest. But their answer had always been the same.

He snapped a glance at Venn. “When I come back, I'll make sure the Entire knows that you did nothing. I'll have them throw you out. If you won't go, another Long War will begin. If you kill us, you will soil your own nest. You will be more despised than ever. The Jinda ceb Horat will leave. I have seen this. Lord Inweer will look after the machineries here. We do not need you. Go home to your virtual life, go.”

“Do not do this, Titus Quinn. We have learned. We will be chastened when Geng De releases us. No one could have withstood Geng De—except you. You were the one rogue strand.”

The smile that came to his face felt like a knife slash in his cheek. “From the beginning you refused to act, even before Geng De's powers grew so large.”

She made a terrible smile, a show of teeth that revealed deep pain. “We were wrong.”

“Wrong.” A rivulet of river matter slithered near his feet. Venn tugged him back. He shook her off. “There is a penalty for
wrong
—so I have learned.”

She turned away from him, as though trying to deflect his words with her back, with her life art flickering there. A lacey effect of color and pattern, empty of meaning.

“I'll tell you the penalty,” he said.

She turned to face him. “One you see in the future?”

He nodded.

“Please do not.”

“Are you afraid to see your future?” He stared at the rivulet of the Nigh a few inches from his boots. “But you forced me to see
mine
.”

She didn't want to hear futures. She began to walk away. In three quick strides he had her by the arm, whipping her around to face him. His voice went low as he held her in a rigid grip: “I kill Geng De in the binds. With a blade no one could guess at, I saw through his neck. I come up from the river a hero.”

Hordes of people, pressing the shore, clamoring for a view of Titus Quinn. A stampede of sentients. Some drown. No one cares. It is the king. It is the king.

Pushing the memory of this vision away, he went on. “The storm walls cease their thunder. I am a true
hsien
, an immortal in the eyes of the Entire. They lift me on their shoulders, carry me. My feet must never touch the ground. My enemies prostrate themselves. My friends, rewarded, sent away to rule sways. I send them all away. I cannot bear to look in their eyes and see what I have become. Not quite human, no, nor Chalin. A disturbing creature of visions and nightmares.”

The former manses of the lords become my empty palace. I walk there, noting their crude technologies. Lord Inweer reveals the master keys to fundamental physics. I begin to alter the Entire, deforming its beauties. The Rose goes its way. I do not care. The Entire will die in a hundred years. I do not care.

“The Magisterium pampers me. I grow old, wealthy beyond definition, bitter at the rejection of former loved ones, but beloved by those about whom I care not at all. I toy with my subjects. At the last I am demented. When I die, no one mourns.”

“I cannot believe this future.”

“An easy answer. But I've lost my humanity. It has made possible a dark god.”

Those who die before me: Su Bei, Yulin, Tai, Zhiya (all executed for treason); Suzong (grief); Sydney (in the Second Rim City War); Anzi (suicide).

Venn looked very old. And, if he was any longer a judge of emotions, truly
sad
.

He let go of her. “That is the effect of your
goodness
.”

In his peripheral vision, a form bulked up on the Nigh. Swerving, he noted that a ship had surfaced just off shore. Ghoris.

He had almost forgotten the most important thing to tell Venn.

“Do you want to redeem yourself, Venn? It isn't often that one has a chance at that. I can tell you that I've had only one or two chances, and wasted them all. But you can be forgiven.”

Her eyes showed how desperately she wanted it. “By whom?”

“By me.” The delicious moment had come. He knew it an unworthy emotion, but he blessed the Miserable God for this chance at revenge.

Revenge against himself—that hateful future self—and the Jinda ceb Horat, all in one stroke.

Ghoris's ship skimmed onto the sands. Funnel lifting from the river, struts falling into place, it settled on the sandy shore like a monstrous, exhausted turtle that could swim no farther.

Quinn walked toward it, eager to be under way. The ship keeper lowered the gangway.

“Wait!” Venn cried. “How shall we redeem ourselves?”

He turned back, calling out to her as the wind rose. “When I come back, kill me. Tai has a scroll of pardon from Suzong for whoever performs the deed. So kill me, Venn. Wait here until I return. Free me from the future.”

She stared at him, aghast.

“Did you think I would accept that future? Had you thought beyond your own life? Did you forget the man who became a bloated god for your sake?”

“But Titus Quinn, you can decide what to become.”

He smiled at her in pity. “If you believe that, you should start your life art from scratch.”

Turning, he strode up the gangway.

Mo Ti kneeled over the small body on the shore. The dead child was slicked with river matter. Drowned. He hadn't known what to expect when he arrived here, but he hadn't expected a child.

Riod's communications to Mo Ti's mount had been in fragments: Sen Ni was here, hurt. Geng De had her in his ship, along with others. Seventeen others, Riod reported.

But upon their arrival, Tarnya knew immediately that Sen Ni was not here. Geng De had already fled. That was bitter news. The navitar Caiji had agreed to help him, but how long would she stay on task? Every time she went into the binds her visions were so demented that she required hours to regain her calm.

On the surface was hardly better. Mo Ti and Tarnya kept watch on the
storm walls, a terrible vigil. Great rending screams issued forth, like the death of gods. It was, Mo Ti, thought, what came from the dark navitar aligning the future: a perversion of a navitar's power; enough to quake the walls of the world.

Mo Ti stood, his heart very dark. Tarnya pawed at the dock, uneasy, nostrils flaring.
The young ones are up there
, Tarnya sent.

Mo Ti turned to look at the hovel at the top of the rise. Why were there children here, so far from settlements? He walked back to the dock, noting the worried ship keeper up in the pilot's cabin, peering out a window.

Mo Ti put his hand on Tarnya's flank. “Who is with them?”

I know not. They are all afraid.

Mo Ti eyed the low building. “Who else besides young ones is in the building?”

Perhaps one sentient.

“Armed?”

Yes
.

Mo Ti did not want to risk a fight that was not his, nor pause in his search for Sen Ni. Every hour was sacred. Nevertheless he drew an extra knife from his saddlebag, and secured it at his belt. Then he unsheathed his sword and advanced toward the hut.

As he moved closer, he found all the windows darkened. No sound. In his admittedly small exposure to young ones, he had never known a group of them to be
quiet
. He jammed a boot through the door, slamming it open.

The bright poured into a large hall. There, children sat tied and gagged.

He danced past the opening, pivoting to present his fighting side to any enemy behind the door. No one. A quick scan showed about fifteen small sentients, eyes frantic, snot running from noses, silent tears.

He moved to a screen, slashing it open, finding nothing. Then to cubbyholes and panels that could hide an assailant. Across the hall, four main doors led off the room.

Mo Ti moved to the side of the youngling who looked the oldest. He whispered in her ear, “I am going to help you. Do you know how to whisper very soft, like Mo Ti?”

The Ysli child nodded solemnly.

“I will let you speak for a moment only. Tell me how many bad sentients there are in here.” He pulled down her gag, and she whispered, “One.” A little too loud. Gently, he replaced the gag.

Helping her to her feet he whispered in her ear, “Turn and face the door where the bad one is hiding.”