Prince of Storms (40 page)

The shoreline held a sprawling camp of sentients grouped in a great semicircle around the beached navitar ships. One ship in particular was set apart, straddling a drizzle of river matter, flashing under the bright. Farther on, a large pavilion on the outskirts of the crowd flew Sen Ni's standard. Akay-Wat's heart lifted to see it.

She led the Inyx down the gentle slope. The stiff winds that had beaten on them during their long trek across the primacy now had subsided. Still, every face was crusted with sand. They had set out days ago, shortly after Mo Ti left the sway. Having seen that Sydney was captive on the Nigh, they were prepared to board ships to do whatever must be done. Now Titus Quinn had borne her to the shore.

Akay-Wat led the Inyx into the midst of the encampment, a massive press of sentients that squeezed the Inyx migration into a thin line. Behind her came Riod and Emka, Takko, Adikar, Ulrud, Vichna, and hundreds more. Tarnya, of course, was still at Mo Ti's side, and Mo Ti was with Sen Ni.

When Tarnya reported that Sen Ni had survived, a great cheer had gone
up in camp. Tarnya's message was chained from one mount to another, and thence to the riders in a mounting avalanche of joy. Now they kept their heart-sendings to themselves so as not to alarm a congregation of sentients justifiably wary of mind incursions. As they approached the pavilion, the pregnant Emka took charge of choosing the pasturing. In their need for grazing, the herd would be at some remove from the pavilion except for a contingent to be stationed at the front.

Mo Ti waited for them. He brought up the side of the tent so that Riod could enter. Akay-Wat followed him. Sen Ni lay on a cot in the center and said something to the attendants so that they moved back. Her face was bruised, but it was not as terrible as Tarnya had sent. Healing was already under way.

Riod went forward. He lowered his great head down to Sen Ni, and she reached her arms around his neck as far as was possible. In this embrace, they hardly moved. Akay-Wat saw a bandaged hand come around a neck horn and grip it, as though Sen Ni could by that touch prevent Riod from ever leaving her side again. No heart-thoughts escaped or perhaps were exchanged, but every sentient who knew the story of Sen Ni and Riod felt their throats swell and emotion storm through them.

From the side wall of the tent one of the Jinda ceb who had been attending to Sen Ni said, “Now she will heal very fast.”

After a time Riod raised his head and turned to look at Akay-Wat.
Come forward
.

Akay-Wat did so, laying her head at Sen Ni's side, receiving a hand on her neck. But she was surprised by the first thing that Sen Ni said to her. “Grave flag.”

Akay-Wat drew back. “Oh no, Mistress. You will be well soon!”

A small smile came to Sen Ni's lips. “Not for me. For Cixi. Can you…write a saying?”

Though Akay-Wat doubted that she could possibly come up with anything appropriate, she promised to. Oh dear. Why was Sen Ni always expecting her to do impossible things?

“Mistress,” Akay-Wat said, trying to whisper so no foreigners would hear, “what of your father? Will you have the Ascendancy?”

“He has promised it.” Sen Ni called for Mo Ti to come closer. “Tell her, Mo Ti.”

Mo Ti came forward. “We await delivery of Quinn's promise.” He added, muttering, “A wise soldier sleeps with his boots on, Akay-Wat.”

Venn had been called to the ship. Titus Quinn could see her now.

As Venn passed Anzitaj, still guarding the door, Anzitaj put a hand on her arm. She fixed her with a steady gaze. “Could you have gone into the binds after Geng De? I mean, would you have been able to function?”

Venn faltered, but met her eyes. “Not us in particular. We would have made up a war creature.” Anzitaj let her hand drop and turned away, kind enough not to show her disgust any more than that.

Tai was waiting for Venn at the cabin door. He showed her into Titus Quinn's cabin.

Venn thought he looked fine, except for some swelling in the temple where Mo Ti had struck him. “I need to speak to you in private.”

“Tai stays.”

She glanced at the young secretary, then plunged in. “Yesterday, on the ship. I could not kill you.”

“No.” His features were even, his tone, calm. Well, he was sparing her an onslaught of blame this time.

“But I have given you a clean option.” He waited, curiosity the only thing written on his face. “There is a nodule in your arm, just below the bend of your elbow. It is on the left, so you can reach it with your good arm. It looks like a mole. But it is not.”

He pushed up his shirtsleeve. Found it.

“Press heavily on it for a full minute. It will stop your heart. Clean.” She went on, “I put it there when you were unconscious on Geng De's ship.”

He fingered the mole. His voice came as a whisper: “Thank you, Venn.” He rolled his sleeve down again. “What I said on the shore yesterday—”

She interrupted. “Never mind about that. You were quite right.”

“Please pardon me.”

She nodded to him. “Is there anything else that I can do for you?”

“Can you heal Sen Ni faster? Get her on her feet and out there to speak to them.” He cocked his head toward the portholes.

“I'll try. But I thought you didn't trust her with the Rose.”

“She's changed.”

If so, that was very good news. If Sen Ni could speak up for the sovereignty of realms—if so, then Venn wouldn't be alone when she had her say in Manifest. Still, she wondered how likely it was that Sydney would give in so easily. But then she knew: “You've foreseen it.”

He nodded.

Venn shuddered. He
does
perceive times to come, she thought. No one should have to live with that. She bowed to him. It was a lovely gesture of the Entire, and one she would recommend to Manifest.

The door clanged shut, leaving Quinn and Tai alone.

Quinn was conscious of Tai's misery. Ever since they had left the Magisterium, Tai had known that his master was planning his death. Suzong had given them two scrolls. One for the divorce from Johanna, one for pardoning Quinn's executioner, if Quinn became a navitar. But Tai hadn't reconciled himself to it.

“Tai,” Quinn said. “There is so much that will be well. Try to think on that.”

Mutely, his secretary nodded.

In the last piece of prophecy that he ever engaged in, and solely for Tai's sake, Quinn said, “If I pass by the crowds out there, then Sydney will rule. She will be gracious and wise. She will be regent, and when the Entire no longer needs kings, they will govern themselves and she will return to the roamlands. I see her racing across the steppe on her mount's back, her hair whipping behind her, her happiness absolute. It is a beautiful sight.”

Tai brightened. “That is a lovely image.”

So Quinn thought as well.

He asked Tai to bring Anzi in.

ANZI AND
T
ITUS SHARED A SIMPLE MEAL IN SILENCE
. When they had finished, Tai cleared the leftover meal and found a way to stay busy in the galley while they talked.

She let Titus speak first, and he seemed to struggle for what to say. Eventually it was: “Anzi, I'm not who you married.”

She nodded. It did no good to deny these things, much as she would like to. “A great change has come to you. I know.”

“I wonder how far…it goes.” She almost winced at the intensity of his gaze. “Don't stay with me, Anzi. I desperately want your love, if you only knew how much. But it's no longer a reasonable future.” A quick glance at the nearest porthole, as though reasonable futures were more likely to be outside.

Turning back to her he said, “With all my heart, I'm sorry.”

The pot of oba grew cold between them. Tai rummaged in the galley.

“I provoked Mo Ti to raise his sword against me. I'm sorry that I would have left you in that way, without explaining.”

“You had seen a future you couldn't bear.” He had said,
everyone I love dies.
“You had just been through a terrible ordeal…the fight with Geng De…”

That was over now. And if the Entire raised Sydney up in his stead, surely then…surely then they were safe? But she waited for him to go on.

“Anzi, I don't know who I am anymore.”

“You are a man who is about to give up a kingdom. You are going to turn your back on the gathering, and give the Entire to your daughter. You have told me this, and I believe you.”

“Sometimes I believe that, too.” He stood up and paced away. The cabin was so small that he looked like a caged animal. Back and forth, back and forth. He spoke softly, remembering: “Nistothom sent me down into the river. The forma cut little nicks in my skin and began the changes. As my body changed, I perceived it as a slow drift downward, leaving things behind. Leaving them…above.”

Ceasing his pacing, he stopped in front of her. “Anzi, I might not let Sydney
keep
the Entire.”

Her voice went hoarse. “You
would
.”

“We'll see.” He was unsparing. “Anzi. Leave now. While you still have the chance.”

She didn't know what he meant by that, but refused to give in to his visions. She would not believe in them. Perhaps they would have no power over her if she just withheld belief.

“Don't stay with me,” he said. “By God, I don't want your pity.”

She rose, walking across the room to get some distance from him. She would not say he was wrong. But he was missing some things. Turning to face him, she said, “I am not assuming we are still married.”

That got his attention.

She went on. “We may be. But I don't want your
loyalty
. I've seen how you put duty before your own happiness. It may be a wonderful thing that you can do this. But it's no basis for a marriage. So I'm hoping that you won't feel loyalty toward me and pull me down with the weight of the gratitude I would owe you.”

She was not trying to be unkind. But she wasn't sure how much time they had for this discussion, and so far he had only half the picture. The other half was
her
.

“This great change has come to you—to us. So that you don't know who
you are anymore. And I don't know who you are. I want to love you. But I don't know if I can.”

He sat on the bench beneath the portholes, watching her keenly.

“But also, Titus, I don't know if you can love
me
. I've changed, too. So I want the truth from you. Not about the future. But about right now. If you need to be away from me, go. If you want me near, ask me to stay. It will be a time of wait-and-see. This wartime has riven us apart. But who knows—you do not know, not even you—what we'll have in the future. You don't
know
.”

“It may be worse than you think.”

“Then perhaps we are not together. Because I won't
pity
you. And you won't be
loyal
.”

He nodded, looking at her with what, if she wasn't imputing to him things he couldn't feel, admiration. “You won't be under the spell.”

The spell of Titus Quinn. The terrible future where everyone thinks he is something great and godlike.

“There was a time when I would have been. You haven't seen much of me since then.” She began unbuttoning her jacket. Off it came. And then her tunic shirt, over her head. She turned her back to him.

Her life art was hidden from her, nor had she tried to see it. Iritaj had forbidden it. Never mind. It wasn't important how it looked, only that Titus see it. She knew it was greatly altered from the brief glimpse he'd had a few days ago.

He came toward her, touching the skin on her back here and there, tracing the patterns. “Anzi” he whispered, “this is beautiful…a moving tattoo of light.”

She felt his hand on her back, and it moved her greatly. He was seeing her at last. “You have to understand, Titus. This is just on the outside. Deeper down, my body can take information from Manifest and arrange it.”

“A DNA computer.”

She turned to face him. “We can give it a name, but that is not what matters.” She donned her shirt again. As she pulled on her jacket, she said, “What matters is that we will have to find each other again. If we want to. You get to choose. And, Titus, so do I.”

A hint of a smile on his lips stirred her. She thought she saw love in his eyes. But of course, she couldn't know.

“You are so brave, Anzi. It's the first thing I loved in you.” He took her hand.

His gesture seemed unconscious, as though there was the old Titus standing in the shadows, one who had been banished and who had hopes of reprieve. Perhaps there would always be two of him, one dominant, one shadowy. Something quailed inside her, thinking of a life like that. Yet if he tried to cut away his navitar self…would he maim himself in some deep way? He needed to be whole. But how did you invite a hated guest into your heart?

He glanced at the porthole, toward the gathering on the shoreline.

“Shall I leave, Titus?”

“For a little while. I have to go to Sydney alone.”

Following a vision, or dispelling a vision? She hadn't the will or the heart to ask. He wanted some time; she'd offered it. And perhaps she wanted time alone as well. To see what he became.

A travel slit appeared. Venn's voice came: “It will be soon, now. She is being dressed.”

With Anzi on the outside deck to keep visitors away, only Quinn and Tai heard the pronouncement.

Tai rose nervously from his seat.

Venn's voice: “The healers will give her a few minutes only.” The slit snapped shut and vanished.

Quinn felt the flow of events moving in his favor. First, Anzi. She was as brave as he knew her to be, as forgiving as was possible to be. If things moved in this slightly altered direction for another hour, Anzi would thrive.

Tai brought his jacket and helped him into it. Quinn accepted the jeweled sword and fastened his sword belt around him.

Dressed for the ceremony, Quinn prepared to say good-bye to his secretary.

Tai's expression was already wounded looking.

“Tai, I'm no longer regent. You're free to choose your future.”

Tai held himself together with difficulty. His voice came out in a whisper. “Where shall I go?”

Quinn wondered what sort of question that was. Was Tai asking him as a friend or as a navitar? And how to answer him, with which part of himself? “Perhaps it can be arranged that Sen Ni will send you to the Rose.”

A flicker of interest. Tai's dream of traveling to the Rose had been cast aside once he'd met the man who became regent. His life could now resume.

“Thank you, Tai. For all you have done.”

Tai blurted, “Must I leave you?”

Quinn answered from the side of himself that foresaw Tai's death at his own hands. “I must leave. You've been my faithful friend. You've taught me what a gift unearned love is. Thank you, Tai, for everything.” He went to the cabin door. Before he went through, he said, “For your service during the taking of the Ascendancy, you should have had wealth and honors. I should have done more for you.”

Tears streamed down Tai's face. “I…didn't want them.”

“I know.” Quinn struggled not to take the man in his arms and accept his fealty forever. He struggled to be cold. Wasn't a navitar supposed to feel nothing? And yet this flood of longing for how things might be. So, here was proof that he must exit the world as soon as possible. Because he wanted it all. That love, fealty, friendship. Power. Not for bad things. Not at first…

Quinn hardened his heart and turned from Tai, going out onto the deck. It was the first time he had left the ship since the fight in the binds.

And there, massed on the shore and into the distance: the gathering.

At least six or seven thousand Jinda ceb, mixed with crowds of Hirrin and Chalin and Jout. On one side, near the pavilion, the massive encampment of Inyx, with some of them grouped like a barrier around Sydney's tent. The gathering's voices rippled through the air like distant thunder.

It was a mighty throng, a dark and glowering assemblage of beings looking for a god. Just as he had foreseen.

At that moment he saw that on shore Sydney emerged from the pavilion. Though far away, her figure was difficult to miss, with her black hair and bright yellow garment. By her side, an Inyx mount.

Profoundly stirred, the Inyx were sending their thoughts, scattering their emotions into the crowd. The crowd bulged toward the tent. A few cheers went up as it became clear that Sydney had emerged. Within the ranks
of the Inyx, riders took up the cry, and it was a strong tribute, but died swiftly. The crowd shifted and flowed, everyone struggling for a better view.

All as he had foreseen.

He turned to Anzi. He wanted to say something to her. But he had been unable to think of anything that was true or fair or wise. They gazed at each other. She didn't know that she would never see him again. This was the hardest thing of all. Was he betraying her or saving her? It would be so easy for him to take her with him.
Anzi, raised high. The consort.
He would not.

Dragging his gaze away from her, he turned and walked toward the gangway.

Everyone was looking in his direction. A hush fell over the masses.

He moved deliberately but swiftly down the ramp to the river flats, splashing carelessly into pools of river matter, striding onto the hard shore. Out of his peripheral vision he saw Lord Inweer; pockets of Jinda ceb and others began to pour toward him. Everything depended on his maintaining his speed and intention so that no one dared block him. He looked neither to the right nor the left, but strode like someone on a mission, someone who had no thought for the ten thousand watchers, but only for his destination. The pavilion.

He walked quickly along the shoreline, taking advantage of that inbetween region where sentients preferred not to step. Here was his buffer region. He couldn't see, but felt the crowd leaning toward him, wanting him, harnessing him. If he made eye contact with even one individual, the line would break and he would be lost. He would never make it to Sydney's pavilion. They would carry him, possess him. The future would lock in, presaged by one brief look.

They would do anything for me. Anything. Secure the Rose. Obey me utterly. Raise up my friends. Give me control over all the evil that ever could threaten the Entire or my family.

He would not look at them. He did not.

Within a stone's throw, the pavilion. He cut into the crowd to make his way to Sydney, but there his luck failed. Leaving the shore, he was now in the midst of the crowd. They took it as permission to have him. They rushed forward. The path in front of him closed. Hands reaching for him, eyes beseeching.