Prince of Storms (7 page)

Outside, Deep Ebb brought silence to the plaza, the only sound the soft passage of water through the nearest canal.

Titus passed a scroll to her, saying absently, “The list of senior functionaries that Suzong proposes to keep in the Magisterium.”

Evening was the only time they were alone to talk, and though she hated for him to lose a quiet moment, still, she said, “Do you trust him?”

He put down his scroll. “Inweer? Trust—I wouldn't say trust.”

“What would you say?”

But Titus had no answer, staring at the tent wall as though hoping for a clue written there.

Anzi's heart sank. He couldn't be thinking of letting Inweer remain. Who had more reason to hate Titus, to hate the change of regime? “Then send him home.”

“He didn't run with the solitaires.”

Strangely, Titus was softening by the hour to Inweer's proposal. Why? Was it Johanna? Inweer had said she was free and well. What more did Titus need to know on the subject of Johanna? But Anzi knew very well what more he might need. Anzi had met Johanna. Defiant, brave, beautiful. Young.

She put down Suzong's scroll and turned to her husband. “He might want to appear trustworthy, only to turn on us later.” When Titus didn't answer, she offered a compromise, “Pardon him if you must, but keep him under control in the Ascendancy.”

“Why do you fear him so, Anzi?”

“Why do you favor him?”

At the sharpening tone of the conversation, they both paused. They were on the edge of things Anzi did not wish to speak of. Johanna's return, for one.

Perhaps it was best if she did return, if it was what Titus wanted. It was
beneath Anzi to quibble about the status of a woman who had suffered so much, and for whose fate Anzi was originally responsible. And while Anzi was content for him to take other lovers, Johanna was different. Somehow different.

Titus laid his work aside. “You may be right, Anzi. Let me think on it.” He kissed her on the forehead. “I'll walk out.”

She wanted to go with him, but he was walking out to be alone. So the conversation had separated them further, and she had not even said the worst things.

“I love you,” she whispered.

“And I you. Desperately and forever. Be sure of that.”

But she wasn't sure. They had been separated for so long. She was no longer young—a thing Titus claimed made no difference. But was she the same Anzi who he had loved before? She would become that Anzi again, if she knew how. But the passage of time and her stay among the Jinda ceb had changed her subtly, in ways she could never untangle. He no longer knew her. How could he love her, then? His protestations did little to reassure her.

It would be like him to say the honorable thing.

INSOMNIA WAS A GIFT
, Cixi had long thought. Many difficult problems came to a head in Deep Ebb, and if you were not asleep, you had the advantage.

The litter jounced her on her cushions as the servants hurried her down to the quay. She left the sides open so that those who took notice would not come running, expecting to see Sen Ni. The girl had left for the Long Gaze of Fire, and Cixi prayed that the Miserable God would take no notice.

But Geng De was still here, and now, more than ever, he must weave.

The solitaires had escaped. The dear fiends! From the great balcony of the mansion, she'd seen the ships spiraling out from the floating city, diving into the folded bright. The ships all launching at once could only mean one thing; and then a messenger confirmed it, having had reports of her spies.

Titus had lost hold of the ships. The Tarig had refreshed the battle.

Now to be sure they were properly woven, to the proper cause.

On the pier, a litter with waiting porters suggested that Geng De might have company. She struggled out of her own litter and hurried toward the awning covering up the ship's ramp and the door to the undercity. As she approached she heard high-pitched laughter on the farther side of the awning. Pushing through the fabric of the closed awning, Cixi found Geng De kneeling on the quay.

He was leaning past the edge of the dock, holding a youngster over the silver waters. He lowered the child playfully up and down, although Cixi could not imagine anything less playful than exposing a youngster's feet to the Nigh.

“Giving the child silver slippers?” Cixi asked.

Geng De started, then turned to see her. Immediately he set the child on the dock, where it staggered off, pounding away to the other edge where Cixi feared it would plunge over. But the child stopped there, teetering, and rushed back to Geng De, as though ready for more.

“Tiejun and I are playing,” Geng De said. He slowly pulled himself to his feet, leaning hard enough on his cane that Cixi thought he'd punch a hole in the deck.

“Mmm. A dangerous play.”

Geng De called for a servant. The woman appeared and gathered up the child. “Take him back, Ling. Tiejun has been a good boy, so he should have a sweet.”

Cixi watched as the servant bore the child away. Curious, that Geng De had brought a babe to the docks, for she doubted the man possessed a playful side. But more important matters waited.

“The solitaires have escaped, Master Geng De.” He did not seem surprised. “They took the five ships and escaped. Twenty-three of them. And in brightships! Titus has no ships. The Tarig will do mischief, one prays.”

Geng De slowly nodded, looking up at the Ascendancy.

“If you are done with dangling children, we must make use of this.”

Turning back to her, he regarded her with a calm that Cixi found annoying. “Did I not tell you that the Tarig were the main strands?”

Cixi sucked on her teeth. “True, you did say so.” Although he didn't need to remind her.

“Was Lord Inweer among them?”

“No. Inweer remains.”

“Good, good.” He glanced skyward again, absently moving his fingers as though remembering how certain strands felt.

“Walk with me, High Prefect.” He gestured toward the awning. “I must see to the binds, and you may give me the whole story as we walk.”

“You can make the climb down yourself, Master Geng De. My duties call, and I like not the crystal room.”

“You have never been in the crystal room. Though you would be welcome there, High Prefect. I would be pleased to initiate you into the mysteries of the binds.”

Despite a certain boyish enthusiasm—calculated perhaps to disarm her—Cixi thought he'd like to see her mouth stuffed with the foaming Nigh. “I have never ridden a beku, either, but I do not feel deprived.” She paused. “Weave the Tarig, Master Navitar. Set aside playing on the dock and make them our allies.”

“Inweer. It is all Inweer.”

Cixi tried to keep her voice neutral, but she had never been accustomed to functionaries disagreeing with her and she had no plans to be more flexible now. “I have lived among the Tarig for a hundred thousand days, Geng De. They are
all
forces to be reckoned with. They all know how to master the engine. I say, do each one, and we'll see who remains at the end.”

He looked at her with a flat expression. “Yes, we will see who remains.”

She left him to hobble down the tunnel to his nest in the river. Truly, her dear girl would have to rid herself of this boy-navitar. Not until he assured Titus Quinn's failure, but soon.

The girl only needed one advisor, and it shouldn't be a pudgy navitar with an unsavory interest in children.

Quinn managed to slip past Tai, sleeping at his desk. Outside, he directed the guards to stay at their posts and not follow—freeing him to roam the plaza alone.

Anzi's words followed him like the voice of his conscience. He didn't like to admit that he felt some affinity for Lord Inweer. It shouldn't enter into his decision. It would not. Inweer claimed he could be a counterbalance against the solitaire threat. Ironic in the extreme, that the very lord who once maintained the engine might now assure its retirement. But what was one Tarig against twenty-three? Still, in a weak position, you exploited every advantage.

The ebb was at its darkest hour, the bright tinged with purple in its deep folds. In the deserted plaza silhouettes of bridges arched over the canals like the necks of monsters rising from an adamantine sea. The hill of the lords bulked up before him at one end of the Ascendancy.

Who would occupy those bizarre warrens once the Tarig left? It was even possible that Johanna was a prisoner
there
. Where had Inweer sent her? But they had the vastness of the primacies to choose from, of course.

The distinctly uncharitable thought came to him that Johanna just wouldn't stay dead. It made him wince. But she had been reported dead before and he'd believed it, grieving her. And then again. But now, by Inweer's report, she was alive. Hidden away, perhaps happy to be apart from great events. That would ease his mind, if he thought that Johanna had no need of him. She was no longer his wife. She'd freed him, so
she
could be free.
I've moved on, Titus. I've had to.

A shadow stirred on the farthest bridge. The bridge near the tower of Ghinamid. Someone was abroad, against his order to leave the plaza empty at ebb time.

The figure was too far away to identify. Chalin? It looked like. He watched. There were, in fact, two of them, if there were not more in the covered portion of the bridge. The figures appeared to be gazing around them, as though looking for someone.

A flash of color suggested that they were functionaries of the Magisterium, with embroidered icons on their backs showing their rank.

Quinn walked toward them. Before he'd even decided to investigate, he just began to walk, his thoughts turning toward an unlikely surmise.

He crossed the nearest canal at the bridge—this one uncovered—and then into the next segment of the plaza, a place that in its geometric layout functioned as a giant matrix for crossing over. He passed the section where the adventurers from Minerva had come through expecting a Tarig welcome, getting a Tarig's execution. Past the very ground where he had fought Lord Ghinamid, although it had been more a dance of avoidance, Quinn stepping over bodies, sliding in pools of blood, holding an almost useless sword in his one good hand…

These thoughts fled as he drew closer to the covered bridge. And gazed for the first time on a Jinda ceb Horat.

He or she stood by the opening to the interior of the bridge, looking down into the water of the canal below. The other individual stood a few paces away, looking at the hill of the lords. They had not seen him yet. They were covered with close-fitting brown-and-cream-colored garments, soft and thick like leather, just as Anzi had described. The one who was turned away had a bright pattern on his back.

So they were here. Without preamble or announcement, standing in the midst of his garrison.

He waited until one of them took notice of him. The nearest one turned.

“You've come,” Quinn said.

Now both of them were regarding him. The one who had been looking at the Palatine Hill resumed his watch. The other said, “They live their lives in strips of water.”

The reference must be to the carp in the canal. Perhaps they had not seen fish before. Or canals.

Quinn ventured, since the subject was carp, “It's home to them, by now.”

“
Home
is an interesting word. It can mean where you come from or where you feel you should be.”

“I've always thought it was where you owed allegiance.”

“Some of these swimmers are machines.”

With a shock, Quinn remembered that some carp were spies. “How can you tell?”

“One of these moves with great precision.”

The Jinda ceb who'd been looking away now directed his or her attention to Quinn. “The Tarig fled. No one kept safe the flying ships.”

“The ships are gone, yes.”

The second individual continued. “What do the Tarig think of our return?”

“I haven't asked them. It was my decision.” He waited while they absorbed this. If they hadn't known his identity, they did now. “How many Jinda ceb representatives will be coming?”

The one who had been looking at the canal answered. “Only we two. The rest are needed in the villages. We are making…improvements.”

“We stand by to help you.”

“That will not be necessary, Titus Quinn.”

“You can call me Regent.”

The first Jinda ceb now moved off the bridge. As this one came closer, Quinn noticed that the individual's skull was capped with swirls, almost like petals of a flower. The face was humanoid. Anzi had told him these things. Eyes dark, skin shaded from reddish brown to rust. The hands, exposed beneath the leathery sleeves, were fleshy and five-fingered. They had designed themselves—long ago—to be as close to Chalin as they felt necessary to fit in when they returned.

The one he'd been talking to was lighter in coloration than the other. He would be male, then, Anzi had said. That one approached.

“You will call me Tindivir. And at my side, Ahnwalun.”

Tindivir turned back to Ahnwalun for a moment, giving Quinn a clearer view of the display that Jinda ceb Horat created on their bodies. On Tindivir's back was an asymmetrical field of color and pattern. A snaking line of dots wound through a field of yellow and gray. In one corner, a magenta saddle-shape of great depth. This would be what Anzi had described to him as the Jinda ceb
life art
, added to imperceptibly, day by day. He had asked:
Is it conscious art or unconscious? Both
, she had answered.

A noise behind caught his attention. Turning, Quinn saw his guards, six of them, standing by, nervously fingering weapons. He signaled them to remain at a distance.