THE THREE TOOK A MEAL IN BEI'S QUARTERS adjacent to the veil-of-worlds room. A tottering assistant brought a tray of dumplings and oba, and they ate in silence, chewing on the food and their next moves.
Shelves formed the walls, packed tight with scrolls and bristling with loose papers. Tables bore the familiar boxy stone wells, some of them disassembled. Amid this, Bei's rumpled bed squeezed into one corner.
Anzi told Bei of Master Yulin's scheme, that Dai Shen would go as a suppliant and a messenger to the bright city, to secure the blessing of the high prefect for a journey to the Inyx. Bei shook his head, over and over.
“She will remember you,” he said. “She remembers everything.” It presented an opening for them to admit they came for a surgeon's skills. Bei snorted, looking at Quinn's face as though it were hopeless.
A tapestry of medieval European design hung over Bei's bed nook. Noting Quinn's gaze, Bei said, “A particular interest of mine. That one is based on the Dutch, fourteenth century.” His hawk eyes narrowed. “You don't remember our discussions of the Middle Ages, I suppose.”
Quinn didn't.
The scholar rose from his chair and went to the tapestry, which depicted a bearded white unicorn surrounded by a fence. The unicorn wore an elaborate collar and was crouching as though considering a jump from its cage. Bei's gnarled hands touched the weaving. “You used to admire this tapestry. Saw yourself as the unicorn, no doubt.”
Quinn did remember the tapestry, and for some reason, it filled him with a deep unease.
Bei had taken a scroll from a hook and laid it out on the table. Thumbing the nub at the top, Bei enlivened the surface, showing a written Lucent treatise. On closer inspection, Quinn saw references to rivers and lands of the Earth.
Bei's gnarled hand fluttered over the text. “The great discipline of geography. Each world has its mountains and valleys. Its face. Before you came, our knowledge of Earth geography was partial and misleading.” He sighed, retracting the scroll and waving it at the stuffed bookcases. “With your help, we secured the missing pieces of your mathematics, history, political economy, chemistry. You were no scholar, but you knew things.”
Quinn began to recall those discussions: long conversations threading deep into the ebb; Bei writing everything on a scroll.
“The Tarig wanted information on the Rose?”
Bei's eyebrows furrowed down. “What the Tarig wanted was to know why you came here.” He turned to Anzi, who was paying strict attention on the sidelines. “Have you ever wondered why they failed to pursue you?” When Anzi nodded, he answered, “Because they were convinced the Rose sent Titus Quinn. They never guessed he was retrieved here. They always feared discovery by the Rose. The Tarig reasoned that it was intentional on the part of Rose warlords, to send a scout. It was my job to find out the details of the conspiracy.”
From deep below, a tone vibrated, like a gong buried in wool.
“Even after thousands of days, they still wished me to follow that line of questioning, and this I did. You knew the game, and you answered as best you could, the details of the politics and the power structures. Thanks to you we know about Earth's hierarchies: the reigns of powerful commercial lords, and the magisterial lackeys that serve them. Minerva, that was one of the powers, wasn't it? In any case, the Rose seemed an unlikely threat. So the Tarig lords grew more satisfied with you, that there was no conspiracy. After that my questions were only a scholar's.
“That was when I began my great work. My book of cosmography, to lay out the structure of the Rose universe based upon the millions of views of the galaxies and clusters. There is no way to record a map of the Rose. It must be modeled mathematically based upon universal correlations and their relation to dimensionality.” He shrugged. “It is an old man's fancy. When I am gone, no one will pursue the work.”
Quinn said, “Are there universal correlations?”
Bei eyed him a long moment. “Some say yes. Others...”
“Tarig say no.”
“And perhaps they're right. Mutability is the principle. Mutability of correlates. They change in ways no one knows how to predict. Sometimes the view is steady, and of an inhabited world. The veils are attracted to power sources, and by this accommodation, we sometimes can study a situation, a people, for a hundred days—giving us a data point. Then the membrane blinks, and we see someplace new and unrelated—another data point.” He gestured in the direction of the veil-of-worlds. “Each point can be represented mathematically, even if it is black space. If you map such points, you have a geography of Rose space, a universal cosmography.
“That is my theory, and it has a strong following of one.”
Quinn said, “So your cosmography—it isn't about correlating the Entire and the Rose.”
“Against the vows,” Bei muttered.
“But the knowledge must exist. The Gond. We've seen their kind, even on Earth.”
Bei leaned in closer, lowering his voice. “Yes, Gond. Unstable, mentally. You have to be, to want to live there instead of here. A few of them have fled there to die, over the ages. They walk through the veil to vacuum space, and to the hearts of stars, and to frozen asteroids. And some, to worlds of Rose sentients. Your myths of monsters. Most of these are from the All. They were monstrous because they came to you in madness and despair, creating havoc. You killed them, employing your formidable arsenal of murder and mutilation. But they would have died anyway. To cross to the Rose is to become evanescent, just as to cross to the Entire is to be long-lived. That's why your people can never come here, Titus. They would overwhelm us.” He pointed a gnarled finger at Quinn. “And war is no answer, for either of us. The Entire is fragile. Some of your weapons would collapse the storm walls. Our world was not built for war, not at the scales you practice it.”
Quinn said, “All my people want is to use the correlates to travel in our own universe, through yours.”
Bei's mouth curled into a sneer. “You're a fool if you believe that.”
Quinn let that lie. Having just arrived, and finding Bei wary, if not hostile, now wasn't the time to push him.
The ancient assistant came back to collect their tray of cups and leftovers, shuffling out under his burden.
Watching him leave, Bei continued, “For those of us at this veil, the scholarship is mundane indeed. Most people have limited visions, after all. My dreams when I was called to the Ascendancy were vast and foolish. I would have a Rose sentient to question. I saw my ambitions of cosmography writ large. Now my dreams are small again.”
Bei's voice lowered. “I'm not proud of what I did, Titus. But if I hadn't been your interrogator, it would have been someone else. I taught you how to navigate Ascendancy politics, both high and low, and in the end that might have saved your life. Everyone was vying for a piece of you, the Chalin legates more than anyone else, but also the lords. Everyone took an interest. No one had ever seen a Rose being before. And you had knowledge, in context. For the first time, our bits of knowledge found coherence—for as much as you knew. Not much, it's true, but a stupendous boon nonetheless.” He paused, fingering his redstones. “You had power. And I taught you to use it.”
Quinn felt a growing confusion. “Power?”
“Oh, not enough to bring back Johanna. She was long gone. A trophy for Lord Inweer, as recompense for his dismal posting at Ahnenhoon. They questioned her—that was the job of scholar Kang—but she told me your wife had few notions of politics and the scientific endeavors.” He looked away, avoiding Quinn's expression. “As to your daughter, she knew little. They sent her away, to barbarians.”
“Why?”
“They look for ways to woo the Inyx. The girl was a prize.”
“And her being far away made it easier for them to compel me to speak,” Quinn murmured.
“Yes, to compel you.” He paused. “But eventually, you walked freely. You had few enemies and many friends.”
That wasn't true. He had been a prisoner. Bei kept saying things that didn't square with how it was. How it had to have been. “I didn't walk freely.”
Bei stroked his chin. “That was all long ago. You did what you could.”
Quinn had forgotten to breathe.
The old scholar looked at Anzi, as though she should help him, as though it were her place to say what came next. But Anzi's eyes were as distressed as Quinn's.
Bei rose and paced away, as far as his little room allowed. He turned back, scowling. “This is why I took your memories. To keep you from all this. This urge to prove something.”
“What do I need to prove?” The foreboding was now full on him.
“Nothing,” Bei snapped. “Prove nothing. You are no better than other men, Titus Quinn.”
But perhaps he was somewhat worse. To have had friends. To have had power. He sat down, staggered. “Give me my own memories,” he whispered.
Bei shook his head. “I don't know how. I suppressed them, with as much knowledge as I had. It was incomplete knowledge. Now that you are back, I think they will come, gradually.” His face fell into even deeper lines as his eyes darkened. “You think me your enemy, Titus. Perhaps I was. I told myself you were no worse off because of me, but it excuses nothing.
“The Tarig kept saying that if you relinquished information, your family might be returned to you. One day led to the next, and the information was never enough. Every day you asked. And every day the lords said, Not yet. The days passed. You had not seen your wife and daughter since the first day of your capture. You did all you could, Titus; content yourself with that. You never forgot them. You told and told.” He gestured to his scrolls. “Everything you knew was written down, eventually. Because you persisted. But the Tarig would never have given them back. Why should they, when their absence was so productive?” He paused, looking away. “And then Johanna died. The daughter grew up. The past was over.”
“Never over,” Quinn whispered.
Bei shook his head, muttering. “No. I can see that.”
The awful part was, there was more. Quinn could almost remember, but the memories were withdrawing just in advance of his questing mind.
“Tell the rest of what I did.”
Returning to his seat, Bei fingered his redstones, collecting his thoughts. “You were part of the life of the court. You were close to the Lady Chiron.” Here Bei paused. “You remember the Lady Chiron?”
Quinn shook his head.
Bei muttered, “Perhaps that is best.” At Quinn's pointed look, Bei said, “The great Tarig lady. You liked each other. It was a dangerous friendship, but you could not be dissuaded.”
“Liked each other?”
Bei pursed his lips. “So it was said.”
When the old man had to glance away, Quinn took a stab at the truth: “I took a lover?”
“So it was said.” After a pause Bei added, “Even the Tarig lady could not save you when you attacked Lord Hadenth, the day you learned that your daughter was sent blind into slavery.” His voice lowered. “I had hoped that an exception had been made for the girl, and for all I knew, perhaps it had. But old Cixi knew the truth, and for some reason, after all those thousands of days, she told you. You appeared in the doorway of the great hall, looking half-crazed. You asked where Hadenth was. I didn't know. But you found him, eventually.”
In the corner, Anzi shuddered. Quinn looked at his fists, big enough to break open a normal person's skull. But to a Tarig, just enough to addle a mind.
“You remember Cixi? She collects enemies like I do redstones.” He sighed. “Your mistake was to expect restraint from a high lord. Your daughter was nothing to them. That is something to learn once and for all, Titus. They're not like us. In any way.”
Bei continued, “I took you to a minoral, an abandoned reach where the veil had been destroyed. Long ago a maddened Gond crossed over to the Rose through that place. The Tarig obliterated it, but they didn't realize there were two access points at this reach. We waited there for many days, half-starved, while I waited for it to correlate with a life-bearing world. I used the time to change your body. You allowed this, thinking you would come back. I took the liberty of insuring you wouldn't want to, that you would forget everything. Then the veil became productive, and gave us our chance. We took it.”
“Why?” Quinn asked. “Why did you risk helping me?”
Bei pursed his lips. “I've often wondered. You are impulsive, stubborn, and reckless.” He shrugged. “Who knows? It's past, now.”
“The past matters.”
“That is only true if your future is short.”
They faced off, each with his own view of the world. Of course it could not be the same view.
Bei drew himself up, resigned. “Listen then, Titus Quinn, Dai Shen, prisoner and friend of the Tarig. You will go, I can see, to the bright city. If you're lucky, the Tarig will take little notice and God will not regard you. There you will meet Cixi, the high prefect of the Chalin legates. If your subterfuge fools her, she'll send you to a far primacy from which you may never return. But that's beside the point. You'll rescue your child or die trying, the only thing that can satisfy you.
“Among the Chalin of the Ascendancy you may hear stories of a man of the Rose who once was among them. He began as a slave, and rose to influence, as eager to know the Tarig as they were to know him. It was, as you would say, many years in which you became accustomed to your prison, and in which it gradually became your palace. You found your happiness, because you had no choice. We, who began as interrogators and jailers, became your friends. How long can a man hold onto hate? You tried. I watched you try. Over years, mind you, the hate became despair, became numbness, became reborn as a new life.” He sighed. “Time will do that. It's no shame.
“Now I've told you what you've been digging for. You knew, of course.” Bei slumped into a deep chair, muttering, “I shouldn't have told you. But the memories—you were right—belong to you.”
Quinn was standing next to the table, staring at the tapestry, at the several depictions of unicorns. He had been an oddity in the Entire. But a treasured oddity. A pampered one. Here, the hunters advanced on the caged unicorn. Looking pacified and well fed, the unicorn pranced up on its hind legs, its jeweled collar sparkling. It wasn't often you got a bird's-eye view of your soul.
“A palace,” Quinn whispered. “A new life.”
Bei's voice was gentle. “Let it go, Titus.”
“I can't.” The past for him was yesterday. Six months ago. Time was twisted out of recognition. If you betrayed your wife, you didn't move past it in a day. If you betrayed your daughter, perhaps you never did.
Quinn turned and left the room, passing through the veil-of-worlds room, walking like a blind man down the tunnel.
Bei snorted. “Such a waste of passion.”
“I wonder if it is,” Anzi said. Then she followed Quinn.
Bei watched them as their forms receded down the long tunnel. He trusted that old Zhou would be watching for them in the next chamber, and would lead them to quarters. Meanwhile Bei was left to decide whether to help Titus or not.
You old fool, he thought. You knew he'd be back. But to be caught so unawares, to be so staggered by the vision of Titus Quinn standing before you in this remote place!
Truly, he'd been living in a dream world, locked in his studies, thinking Titus Quinn gone for good. Now the man was back, with powerful allies. Yulin and Suzong. He could well imagine that old Suzong was behind this. She would have been whispering in Yulin's hairy ear: Power, my husband.
With more accuracy, she might have whispered, Ruin.
Titus's patrons knew the way in. Now indeed ruin waited behind a door, a door no longer locked, nor even latched. Humans would swarm through, and it would never be for travel and commerce. They would come with their hordes and their dark weapons, and the culture of Bei's world would become human culture, because their numbers were endless. There might be war. Yes. A war that even the Tarig must fear. The storm walls. The bright. All so vulnerable. To prevail over the Rose, who knew what the fiends might do?
And now Bei had botched his one chance to discourage Titus. He could have sent him home with a shrewd and merciful lie, could have told him that Sydney was dead. That would have put an end to it. But, no, he had revealed the whole sordid story, unleashing the demon that would ride Titus's back until the bright burned out.
Bei swore under his breath. Never a good liar, that's my trouble.
I knew, he thought. I knew the man would hate what he'd been. To learn it all at once was different than experiencing it day by day: the relentless weight of days, days when the wife and daughter were gone, and never the slightest intimation of where they were. Titus would have gone mad unless he'd been willing to start a new life. But, God's beku, it was hard for the man to hear. And now he'll be out mucking about, proving his devotion. When you were short-lived, things like devotion to a wife, a child, seemed so crushingly important. But over seventy, eighty, ninety thousand days, you learned that there were always more children, more wives, more days, what did it matter?
Still. The man had a right to know his own history.
Bei had told most of it, including the worst things—things that a man of the Rose might think the worst—such as his bedding of the Lady Chiron.
He shuddered. Bei was no prude, but to bed a Tarig female, how was it even done? Well, there were many ways to pleasure one another, and not all of them required compatible anatomy. Besides, the lords had required that Titus stay among them. He had had few Chalin contacts, and no human ones. So when the lady took him, she might have seemed normal to him by then. He shook his head. Not the lad's fault—and who knows, she might have compelled him.
Bei had kept some details to himself, but soon enough Titus would remember them. It remained to be seen if he could rebound.
He sat down, worn out by pacing and the shock of the last few hours. When Titus had disappeared through the veil, Bei had hoped to banish thoughts of him and all that had transpired. But memories of Titus had haunted him. His role in Titus's captivity, of course; there was always that stain. But also, the friendship that they'd had—one that evolved from tolerance to admiration so gradually that Bei never noticed when it was that he had decided to help Titus escape. The distress Bei felt in seeing him again arose from knowing that the terrible longing and deprivation of his first sojourn here was now upon Titus again. And Bei would have to watch, and be as helpless as before.
To collude with him would only worsen, or delay, the man's fate. What, by the bright, did you do if a friend begged you for something that would destroy him?
Withhold. That's what you did.
Bei rose, feeling older than when he'd sat down. So, Titus was asking for surgeries. To hide among his enemies, the man wanted to alter his face.
Better if could alter his heart.
Bei paced the veil-of-worlds chamber, trying to fortify his decision to tell Titus no. As he paced, the veil lit up with a new view: a star surrounded by a huge shell of gas that glowed in a flood of ultraviolet radiation, its round shape looking like a fence around a lone prisoner. Bei stared at this view.
God's beku, but he knew what he would decide.
He'd aided and abetted in the confinement of Titus Quinn once. And that would never happen again. The older he got, the clearer it had become to him that shameful behavior was always on your own shoulders, no matter who ordered it. “God not looking at me,” he muttered. His fate was entwined with Titus Quinn's. He'd known that from the day the Tarig first showed up at his door, saying that the lords required him to attend them and asking if his command of English was still perfect.
It was, by the vows, though he should have lied to them.
Learn to lie. That would be his advice to his children, if he'd had any.
Bei performed his transformations on Quinn's face, using needles that stimulated alterations in the cells. The bones in Quinn's face hurt with every vibration of the deep ground, but he refused the pain inhibitors, full of vicious secondary compounds. Perhaps ideal for a Chalin, the medicinals failed the test of his Jacobson's organ. They smelled bad.
During the days, Anzi sat at his side reading to him from Bei's scrolls. She had a thousand to choose from. He learned things that he had once known, and things that he had never known. He tried to pay attention, to learn, but awash in the pain of his facial bones re-forming, it was difficult to concentrate. Sometimes he took out the photos of Johanna and Sydney, to seek some comfort from them. But they were creased and faded, accusing him by their deterioration. Prince of the Ascendancy, they seemed to say.
He saw glimpses of the bright city—with its carved halls and wide, curving stairs—and the labyrinth underneath, where labored the legates, consuls, factors, and stewards. He saw himself threading into the city, into its fabulous byways, seeing wonders. He saw the Lady Chiron, almost human, yes, almost…. Lady Chiron lay beside him on a platform of hot light. Her nakedness unnerved him. Some sexual acts were impossible. But one could be creative. She was without inhibition. Forcing himself to attend to the memory, he recalled: Hadenth appearing in the doorway. Jealous. Chiron driving him away.
He hardly needed more details to know that what Bei had alluded to was true. He tried to imagine what kind of a man he had been. And then he was left to wonder what kind of a man he was now. His hands moved over his face, failing to find the old geography.
Seeing him touch his face, Anzi produced a mirror.
Even under the puffiness and bruises, Quinn could see that the face in the glass was narrow and strange. The blue of his eyes had become a burnished gold. Quinn didn't recognize himself. It was comforting.
He must have smiled, because Anzi said, “Good?”
“Yes.” He pushed himself up to a sitting position, headache raging.
“Since you're better”—she glanced at him ironically, knowing he was still shaky—”there is a matter to discuss. You won't like it, though.”
He was sick, dispirited, and confused. Now there was more? Best to have it over with. He sat up fully, giving her his attention. She offered him water, and he took it, while she gathered her thoughts.
“Master Yulin worries that you'll be captured when taking unwise actions at the Inyx sway.” She looked at the floor. “I worry also.”
Quinn's breathing grew shallow. So now Yulin was withdrawing from the venture? Without Yulin's help he couldn't go far—perhaps nowhere. He waited for her to go on.
“Yet he knows you have this great desire to bring your daughter home. Thus his proposition that he urges you to think about most carefully….”
“A proposition you've waited so long to tell me?”
“Yes, forgive me. I thought it would anger you, when you were already displeased with me.”
Quinn took a deep breath. When would she learn that it was best to tell him everything?
“My uncle says, yes, go to the land of the Inyx, but only to confirm that she's there, and alive. If possible, speak with her and tell her to be patient. Then, when humans come to bargain with the Tarig over routes through our land, demand Sydney's release. This preserves your disguise, and greatly improves the chances that both of you will survive.”
“And greatly reduces Yulin's chances of being exposed.”
She looked away. “That too.”
He'd known that he had to free Sydney without anyone knowing it was Titus Quinn who had done it. Or that it was Dai Shen, son of Yulin, who had done it. Yulin was counting on remaining anonymous. Counting on it a little too hard. Yulin had hedged his bets by appearing to agree while planning to persuade him to more modest goals. The sudden arrival of the Tarig lord in the garden had cut short Yulin's maneuvering.
Quinn turned to Anzi, his nerves taut. “What about you, Anzi? What do you think?” He wanted her to dig herself in, reveal her true agenda, now before her agreeable facade took over.
She looked at him, and her bright amber eyes were unapologetic. “I think it likely you will die otherwise, Dai Shen.”
So, she and her uncle were united. “Are my papers still in order? Or has Yulin voided the redstones he issued to me?”
“They're still valid. He can't change what you already have. And you do need to go the bright city, and must have his endorsements.”
“Just a small change. He wants me to see Sydney, and leave her where I find her.”
Anzi caught his bitter tone, and lowered her voice. “Yes, I'm sorry.” Still, she maintained her serenity. He wanted to shake her. Doesn't anything matter, Anzi?
Quinn's mind was spinning with possible responses to all this. How much did he need Yulin's enthusiastic support? He staggered to his feet, needing to pace, but he faltered, and Anzi rushed to steady him. He shook her off. Yulin was a schemer, ready to ditch him at the first sign of trouble. No, ready to ditch him now, before trouble even began. Quinn shook with anger and moved away from Anzi, testing his sea legs.
“What if I refuse?” It was his first instinct, to tell Yulin to go to hell.
She responded, “Then you continue as before, Dai Shen.”
“What?”
Anzi nodded. “We thought it likely you would refuse. Now you go on as before.”
He doubted what he was hearing. “No strings?” At her confused expression, he amended: “Yulin was just making a suggestion?”
“Yes. A suggestion—a wise one.”
He waited for her to say more, but it seemed that, for now, he still had Yulin's support, even if it was forced. Yulin wasn't abandoning him, only testing his resolve. The man didn't know him very well. “Does he expect I'll change later?”
“I don't know what my uncle expects. Perhaps he hopes, when you see how difficult it is, that you will remember there is a second way. But for myself, I know that you will never change.” She bowed. “I have my answer. Thank you.”
“What is my answer?” Quinn wasn't sure whether he had said anything or not.
“You said no, Dai Shen.”
There was a moment of silence when Quinn let himself absorb her quiet summation. She was allowing him to decide.
Quinn murmured, “My daughter's waited long enough.”
“Yes, I know.” Anzi's look was one that a friend might have who'd heard that you were dying, and approved of your bravery.
Here she stood, knowing how he had betrayed his wife, knowing that he had given in to the lords. Here she was saying, Yes, you have to go. Even if it kills you. He would rather have her counting on his success than assuming he would fail, but she was giving him something else of equal importance: respect for his decision. He took a deep, cleansing breath. It wasn't all shame, then.
She poured him another drink of water, and he drank it, and another. Still, she remained quiet. The conversation was over; she was letting his decision stand. She was saying, If you must die trying, I will still help you. If you are caught, I will go with you. Anzi believed in his cause, not because she wanted the same thing, but because Quinn wanted it. He was profoundly grateful.
He looked around the small chamber. “A change of clothes, Anzi?”
She found a pile of folded, fresh clothes left by the servant Zhou. Quinn took them from her, and she helped him to change.
“I need to see Bei,” he said.
“When you feel stronger, Dai Shen,” she said, holding a new jacket for him.
“No, I need to see him now.” He closed the fasteners. He'd waited too long in bed, laid flat more by emotional shock than the physical one. Suddenly he was eager to be back on track. “Would you tell him, please, that I need to talk to him right now?”
“Yes.” She turned to go.
“And Anzi”—he had been meaning to say this to her for some time—“can't you call me by my given name when we're alone?”
Waiting by the door, she said, “Not Titus. That's too dangerous.”
“I agree. But can't you call me Shen, at least in private, as I call you Anzi and not Ji Anzi?”
She smiled. “Yes, if you want.”
“I want.”
He bowed as she left. Then he went to the basin and splashed water over his throbbing face and head, having forgotten his headache.
Bei knelt in the soil beneath the subterranean grow lights, hands muddy and work tunic soaked in sweat from pruning gleve plants. He picked a rock from the soil and slung it with practiced accuracy into the pile of stones nearby. The physical labor eased his worries and calmed the storm of memories triggered by Titus's return.
Earlier in the day he had sent Zhou and the others out of the vegetable field so that he could work in silence, meditatively pulling tubers, checking leaves for mites, and harvesting grayals. But his serenity had been disrupted when Anzi came asking for a meeting with Titus, now apparently recovered enough to get out of bed.
And so Titus had come, looking hale except for swelling that must have felt like a Gond gnawing on his cheeks.
“I'm in your debt, Su Bei,” he began.
Bei stood, brushing the soil from his knees. “Well, you haven't seen the result yet.” And the result might well be a garroting from Lord Hadenth. But Bei pushed this worry aside. He was glad to see Titus. Oddly, after all they'd been through together, Titus considered him a stranger. No memories. It made for awkward interactions, with Bei keeping his distance and Titus still summing him up, weighing things like blame, resentment, and gratitude.
“The eyes shouldn't hurt you much,” Bei said. “It's the facial bones that ache.”
“Getting better.”
The man had a high pain threshold; that was clear. He also seemed mentally improved. And had something on his mind.
Bei knelt to his task again, ripping out weeds and pruning. “Care to help? It's a big field.” A little exercise wouldn't hurt the lad, or Anzi either.
Titus made no move, but said, “I'll leave soon.”
Bei knew it. A few more days and Titus could leave by sky bulb, since Dolwa-Pan had instructed her pilot to wait for Dai Shen's departure. Bei tossed another stone into the pile. Good. Two stones, better than average.
“What's the rock pile for?” Titus asked.
“Without rocks the soil is easier to work. We've tilled this soil so long, there's hardly a stone left.” Bei sat back on his heels, wiping the sweat from his eyes. “You've come to ask something. Then ask.” He glanced away. “If you're sure you want to know.”
Titus crouched down nearby, facing him. His yellow eyes had already vastly improved his face, although Bei had grown used to the blue, eyes that seemed to see farther than Chalin eyes. Not content to absorb things gradually, Titus always wanted to understand things right away. As now.
“The way to and from isn't random, is it?”
Bei sighed. “If I knew how it was organized, would I be a minor scholar?”
“I think you may know someone who does.”
Bei glared up at Anzi. “Have you been putting these thoughts in his head?”
Anzi was watching with wide eyes. “No, Su Bei, your pardon. I didn't know.”
How, by the vows, had the man found this out? Suzong, came the thought. Bei crept down the row of gleve, concentrating. He'd expected Titus to ask how he would get home once he had snatched the daughter from her jailers. But now, he demanded more, far more. Well, there were some things that even Titus Quinn couldn't have. He tossed another rock into the pile and crawled on.
Then Titus's hand was on his arm. “Bei.”
They met, eye to eye. “Why would I know of such things?” Bei shook Quinn's hand off.
“Because you lived at the Ascendancy. The legates hoard information, and have been for a hundred thousand days. Someone there knows.”
It was Suzong who told him, Bei was sure. She'd see the Rose as a great power, one worth cultivating. She hated the lords, but not for any noble reason, only for her personal revenge, having watched her mother die of asphyxiation at the feet of a lord so long ago that she should have forgotten by now. Damn the woman, anyway. If Titus's goal had been perilous before, this new meddling could sacrifice all.
He shook his head. “Titus, when you come back here, I'll try to think of how to help you get out. The veil may not release you—may never release you. But come back here, and we'll pray for luck. And that's the end of it. I've done what I can for you.”
Titus was now on the other side of the row, pulling tiny stones out of the soil, making his way on hands and knees. He seized a decent-sized rock and flung it into the pile. “It's a big field,” Titus said.
And I'm staying in it until you relent was the implication.
Titus didn't want just help; he wanted the secrets of the kingdom. He wanted everything, as he always did. Wanted the correlates, of course, so he could be the leader of the wave of immigration. Routes to the stars, indeed. No such thing. Humans wanted empire, not routes.
God's beku, why should he betray his own land? Bei didn't give a dumpling for the gracious lords and their paranoia. But wasn't it true that the universes had been separate from the very beginning? It was better to stay separate than risk mixing. Who, after all, could wish to live in the dark when the bright beckoned?
Now Anzi was down on hands and knees, sorting rocks from the next row over. They would stick to him like gnats on a beku's arse. Bei stood, slapping the dirt from his hands. His back ached, and his left wrist, where he'd been leaning on it, throbbed. Now he walked behind Titus as the man resolutely grubbed in the soil for rocks.
“Titus,” Bei said, trying to make his voice more reasonable, “you can't use the correlates—even if someone had them in their possession—unless the lords permit it. You see that, don't you?” The man couldn't think that the Tarig would just stand by.
“I don't care if they're used. I just need to bring them home.”
“Oh. A bonus is waiting?”
Another stone hit the rock pile. “My nephew is waiting. He's eleven years old.”
Bei frowned at this irrelevancy. He trudged behind as Titus continued down the row. “That would be, let's see, Mateo? Your brother's son?” He'd thought the boy would be grown by now, but the time differences, yes, you could never forget those….
“I have to get back. Or they'll put Mateo in a jar and never let him out. And I need to have something when I get there. I know that, eventually, the Rose will figure out the correlates. It could take hundreds of years, but they will.” He looked up, his new yellow gaze as intense as the old one. “Let me be the one to find them.”
Bei had to look away so as not to be snared by his passion, his intentions. “Who'll put Mateo in a jar?”
“My employers. Minerva.” The venom in his voice was hard to mistake.
So, they had Titus Quinn in a harness. They were compelling him.
Titus went on. “They'll ruin the boy's future. That's why I want the correlates. Unless I have some power over them, they'll run me. I'll be their puppet, and so will my family.”
Bei watched his altered friend. So Chalin-like, physically. So human. The man was still in a cage. Now Bei understood some of this passion that drove Titus. It wasn't all about love. Some of it was about hate. They compelled Titus, threatening him. It was untenable. And even if Bei withheld what he knew, Titus would pursue it. Nothing would stop him.
By the vows, I'm going to tell him, Bei realized with a sinking heart.
“Stand up, Titus.” The man did so, and Anzi with him, both of them looking expectant, trusting.
Don't trust me, boy. If you ask me which side I'm on, it's ever the Entire. And why not? It's my world. Imperfect, regulated by the lords, constrained by vows and laws and the arrogance that comes of immortality. But my world.
He sighed. “Titus. I'll help you. But with conditions.”
Titus grew wary, and properly so.
“You must swear to me that you'll do everything in your power to keep humans from conquest. Pardon me if I don't trust that bunch of murderous, pillaging scoundrels. You may not be able to do much, but what's in your power, that you'll do. Swear to me.”
Titus had the grace to think about what he was swearing. He looked down the long rows of gleve, and he came to his resolve. “I swear it, Su Bei.”
“That your people won't come in numbers, staying. Swear it.”
“I'll do what I can to prevent it. I swear.”
Bei held up a hand, “Don't say on God.”
“I wasn't going to.”
Bei smiled. Titus was no believer. He knew the man well, and thought his plain word good enough.
“What I'll tell you is a capital offense, to know.” He nodded in the direction of Anzi. “You want her to know?”
Titus raised an eyebrow at Anzi. She answered, “I already know enough to die a hundred times.”
That was true. They all did.
Bei was conscious that his next words were potent. They might be a poison or a medicine, but they could change the Entire forever. “So, then.” He fixed Titus with a gaze. “Here is a name to remember: Oventroe. Mark me, I don't know if he would reveal knowledge of the correlates.” Titus watched him carefully. “But they're not all satisfied, you know. Some of them want converse with the Rose, of course. Some of them are against Hadenth and Inweer and the rest. Like Lord Oventroe.”
The expression on Titus's face, though swollen and disfigured, registered his surprise. “Lord Oventroe?”
Heaven give us patience. The man thought the traitor was a Chalin. Or a Hirrin. Or a Gond. Didn't he know that such traitors would be powerless? The game was the Tarig, of course.
“Yes, lord. Lord Oventroe. He hopes to rise to influence as one of the five ruling lords. Perhaps he will see you as a potential ally. Or perhaps not. He has no reason to hurry his timetable in whatever he's planning to do—but you asked for a name. The next part is on your shoulders.” Bei looked from Titus to Anzi and back again, at their incredulous faces. “Now you're in a bigger game than you thought, eh?” He closed his eyes. May god not look at me, now I'm in that game, too.
Bei thought of his scholarship and all that might be learned of the Rose, given free interactions between here and there. Free interactions...that consummation might be far in the future, and after unguessed-at turmoil. But the notion stirred him. Why not have converse? It was a question many sentients had asked over many thousands of days.
“You will hear,” Bei continued, “when you get to the Ascendancy, that Oventroe is a fanatical enemy of the Rose. In fact, that is a pose. He's always believed that contact was inevitable. He's curious about the Rose, curious in a way that most Tarig aren't. He'd be interested in you, to say the least. But that would mean you'd have to tell him who you are.” Seeing Quinn frown, Bei added, “A colossal risk, yes.”
Quinn said, “But you believe him, that he wants Rose contact?”
“I believe it. Unless he's lying. In the end you'll have to make your own judgment.
One thing I can do for you. I have a token from Oventroe. It allowed me to see him from time to time, when I lived there. All at his whim. And we never discussed his plans; why would we? I was a scholar, not a partisan. At the time, because of you, I knew more about the Rose than anyone.”
“Did he know me?”
“No. He kept well away from you, to preserve his disguise. Cixi watched him, always. But she watched everybody, as she'll watch you. The Magisterium is full of spies; remember that, and strive to pass unnoticed.”
So, then. He'd uttered the forbidden name, uttered it to the Rose. Lord Oventroe might thank Bei for it, or kill him, but the words were spoken now, and could not be withdrawn. Bei didn't regret it. It felt like a completion—of what, he could not have said—but long in coming.
“The lord could kill you in an instant,” Bei said, to cover a surge of emotion, “and no one would question him.”
Titus still looked eager enough, or foolish enough, to take the risk. “But if I use the token, Bei, he'll know you sent me.”
“Probably. But I'm not the only person who has one. Oventroe's spies are scattered through the Ascendancy and the sways. Don't trust anyone.”
“Why did you trust him?”
That made Bei laugh, and he realized how naïve Titus was at this time, before his memories of the Tarig became complete. “I didn't, lad. But when a lord takes an interest in you, you submit to him.” Bei rubbed his chin. “Or her.”
Titus averted his eyes, not wanting to dwell on that.
They walked together out of the field, with Titus and Anzi helping to carry baskets of the harvested tubers.
Bei stopped for a moment, looking back over the tended beds. It had been a restful pastime, growing produce and working the soil. He thought that those endless and peaceful days were now at an end. What he had taken for serenity had been a suffocating peace, imposed by the vow of withholding the knowledge of the Entire. The reverse side of that coin had been to withhold knowledge of the Rose.
Well, he thought with resignation, the Rose and the Entire were about to get a rather strong dose of each other.
“Ji Anzi, wake up.”
Bei shook her arm again, and Anzi woke in some alarm, her face wary in the light from the lantern Bei held. “What is it? What's wrong?” Anzi pulled her blanket around her, though she'd slept fully clothed. The chill in the deep ground affected newcomers that way.
“Nothing's wrong.” Bei had spent the last hours thinking instead of sleeping. He'd been focused for so many thousands of days on cosmography that he had lost his once-acute sense of politics.
Tonight, it had come back to him: the balance of the Radiant Path was about to shift. Bei had always thought of Tarig hegemony as a monumental presence, as stable and unmovable as one of those stone pyramids erected by the pharaohs of Earth. What had kept sleep at bay this ebb was the notion that the pyramid was not stable if turned upside down. Then, its very breadth and weight could send it crashing with a nudge. A nudge from Titus Quinn.
“Ji Anzi,” he said, keeping his voice low so as not to wake Quinn, sleeping next door. “I've been watching you. I think that you're loyal.”
A woman of few words, she watched him. He looked at the girl, thinking that she was prettier than he'd thought at first. She held herself with dignity. She was what a young man might call fine-looking, although Bei had ceased wondering about such things since his last wife had left him a thousand days ago. A good woman, and one who deserved better than life in a minoral's reach.
Now Bei looked at Ji Anzi and wondered if she realized that she occupied a position of supreme importance: advisor and confidante of Titus Quinn. Bei had to know what their relationship was. Everything depended on it.
He couldn't order her to do what he had in mind. She'd have to see the wisdom of it herself. “Ji Anzi,” he said, “the question for you—and for all of us—is, who are we loyal to?” When she didn't answer, he said, “Well, who do you serve, girl?”
“My uncle Yulin.”
“Ah.” Well, now that was out of the way; she had said what she had to. “Yes, yes. But beyond family obligations?” She watched him still. “Let me ask this, then: How do you find Dai Shen? Is he worthy—worthy of your efforts?”
“Yes.”
The reserve was seeming less of a virtue. “And are you committed to him, then?”
“Yes.”
“There! That's just my point. How far will you go for his sake? Surely you've thought of that? At some point you'll have to choose between the interests of the Rose and interests of”—here he spread his hands, indicating the world—“all this.”
“Not if what he wants is his daughter.”
He paused. “And the secret of going to and from?” He looked at her with compassion. She was fully committed to the man, but she had no idea where that might lead.
“As Dai Shen said, the Rose will discover it sometime anyway.”
Ah, so guileless. He wished he could let her stay that way. But no. “Anzi, listen to me. Right now you only see a man on a quest to learn some things and take back something that belongs to him. As he should! But freedom to go to and from...that is a lever to move our world off its base. The correlates are the fulcrum.” He sighed. She wasn't following—and she wasn't looking ahead.
“I don't know what the future will bring to the Entire, Anzi, but I know that the door is open now—open for many changes. Titus wants the correlates to bargain with his masters for the safety of his family. But the possibilities go far beyond that. They could go far beyond.” He looked toward the wall separating her sleeping chamber from Titus's, and lowered his voice further. “If he is won to our side.”
She frowned, and he plowed past her questions for the time being. “Listen to me. Titus doesn't love the Rose. The Rose has exploited him. He could be won over, Anzi, to the Entire.”
“Won over?” She watched him with sober eyes, with that reserve she kept around her like a fence. “What more do you want of him?”
He paused, fingering his redstones. “I'm not sure yet. But it begins with his loyalty.” Seeing the confusion on her face, he went on, “Anzi, pay attention. I'm telling you it matters where his heart lies. Even if we can't tell right now how it matters, it always matters what a great man thinks.” He fixed her with a gaze. “Win him over. To the Entire. It always pulled on him—what he called the peace of the Entire. He was under its spell once. He loved it, Anzi. If he came to love it again, we'd have a chance to become a land beyond anything we've been before.”
“Aren't we enough right now?”
Bei regarded her, wondering if she had a political bone in her body. “Perhaps we are. Or perhaps there's more that we could be. Who knows, now that we'll have converse with the Rose?”
“But...” She hesitated.
When nothing more came, he supplied: “You don't even know where your loyalties reside, much less his, eh?” He paused. “Because you hero-worship him. Even love him?”
She raised her chin. “No.”
“Well. Even if not. Your duty is to this land, this people, this culture. You'll know that, eventually. Things aren't better in the Rose.”
She looked up sharply at him. “That's what Dai Shen said, also.”
“Well, yes, I'm not surprised.”
They sat side by side, as the silence lengthened. He wished it hadn't come to this, that he must manipulate Titus. But Titus was the man who wanted everything, wanted power. All for a good cause, no doubt, in his own mind at least. And perhaps he would, in the end, be a boon to the Entire. But because Titus was only a representative of the Rose, and not typical of them, Bei must protect his people, his world.
He disliked this next part, but he had to be certain of Titus, and Anzi could help. “One thing might ensure his loyalty, Anzi. Physical intimacy. The man is robust. You could bind him to you.”
She looked at him with contempt. Not the right timing for that suggestion, but when would he have another chance?
At last she murmured, “What else could the Entire be, Su Bei, than the All?”
He let the irony seep into his voice. “Well, it could be the Chalin All, for one thing, instead of the Tarig All.” He saw that those considerations meant little to her. She was in love, and it blinded her. “Don't answer me now,” Bei said. “Think about what I've said.”
She shook her head. “How can you ask me to betray him twice?”
He paused, chagrined to be chastened by one so young. He found himself saying, in his own defense, “It's only betrayal if you don't love him.”
Anzi sat there, her face knotted in thought.
He rose, bidding her a peaceful ebb. He'd probably destroyed her sleep, but for himself, he was finally ready for some.
The reach blew cold and dark, sprouting luminous dust devils, as though they carried specks of lightning inside of them. Bei watched as five of his least-feeble students released the ropes of the sky bulb, freeing it to rise from its moorings and bear Dai Shen and Anzi away.
He was both relieved and sad to see them go. Relieved because, since Titus's facial alterations, Bei had labored to keep Dolwa-Pan from seeing him again, fending off her requests to see Dai Shen, to whom she'd taken a liking. She'd have been surprised to find that he no longer looked familiar. But Bei was saddened too, because he feared that this might be the last time he ever saw Titus. He felt deep affection for him, and always had, even this new version: driven, haunted, and golden-eyed.
Now Bei had sent him into more danger than Titus had planned on getting into in the first place. Now there was Lord Oventroe, and the chance the whole façade would collapse right there.
He sighed, watching the dirigible wend down the minoral, shuddering from side to side in the wind and glowing from reflected auroras.
God not looking at you, my boy, he thought.
And Chiron not looking at you.
Titus believed that whole business had been a sexual relationship. As it had. But not only that, at least for Chiron. Because the Lady of the Entire had loved Titus Quinn.
Bei had watched with fascination as all this had played out before him. He had never believed that Tarig could love in the way of a man and a woman. But because of Chiron's possessiveness, he thought this had been the case.
It was best that Titus not know. His self-recriminations were poisonous enough, without wondering if he had loved her. Well, all in the past now, and best forgotten.
He tightened his jacket around him to keep the chill from settling into his bones. By heaven, Titus Quinn was heading to the one place that he should, at all costs, avoid. But it was his choice. Titus had chosen this path.
Free of the cage, yes, insofar as any man was.
Bei gathered his students, and they retreated from the storm to the quiet of their subterranean refuge.
The dirigible was a small bubble in the distance, receding quickly. Anzi and Quinn had bid their pilot farewell at the train station a few miles from the opening to the minoral. The hut on the train platform served double duty as a station office and living quarters for the train steward, a young man named Jang with a heavily pockmarked face and wisps of beard that failed to cover his scars. Despite his position in charge of the station, Jang couldn't predict the arrival time of the train, and doubted it would come soon.
But nothing could dampen Quinn's exhilaration. He had come away from the reach with everything he'd wanted. There had been a price to pay for it, as Bei said there would be: discovering the mistakes he'd made, the peace he'd made with his captors. Those mistakes made it even more urgent to get to Sydney. If she knew he'd risen high in the Ascendancy, she might think he'd forgotten about her, an almost unbearable notion. Therefore, he concentrated on his journey to find her.
His successes so far made him optimistic and impatient. Why go to the Ascendancy for an alibi that would explain his journey to the Inyx? This ruse that Yulin had devised, of offering commissions to Inyx sentients—would it draw unnecessary attention to him rather than provide cover? Would the high prefect Cixi believe this excuse to travel to the Inyx sway? Why walk into the den of vipers? He and Anzi had only to journey overland to the River Nigh, and from there to the Sea of Arising in the core of this world, from which central point they could pick up the River once more, to travel down the primacy where the Inyx dwelled. This long journey was best begun now, before rumors festered—those rumors that might start with gardeners, godmen, or Gond.
But he knew that he would not, despite the dangers, bypass the Ascendancy.
Because of what Suzong had told him of the correlates; what Bei had told him of Lord Oventroe. The pull of this great prize was a magnet drawing him in, though he believed without hesitation that the power he would gain was not for himself. It was for peace, for security, and to never be ridden again. Yes, he would go to the bright city.
Unfortunately, though, the train was late.
The steward Jang said that, on the one hand, it might arrive in the third hour of Heart of Day, unless it was delayed, and then perhaps it might arrive in the fourth hour of Last of Day, if it was not later.
By convention, days here were divided into eight phases with names such as Early Day, or Shadow Ebb, four of them considered “day” and four of them “ebb.” The eighths were in turn divided into four hours—for a total of thirty-two hours. Each hour was comprised of thirty-two short intervals, like minutes. But the Entire contained no clocks or timepieces, because every sentient possessed an instinctive recognition of absolute time. It was one of the uncanny small things that reminded Quinn that the Chalin, though they looked human, were designed by the Tarig. That didn't make them inhuman, he reasoned. But he did wonder what other modifications the Tarig had made in the template of Homo sapiens. When he'd asked Anzi, she seemed offended to discuss differences. To her it was important to be human, and he didn't argue.
Now, at Prime of Day, they might have a long wait. The sky would brighten further into Heart of Day, and then begin its recessional into the ebb. The sky burned extravagantly, devouring its fuel—whatever that might be. The lords had at their command a vast power source. Yes, they commanded very much. But they didn't command Lord Oventroe, one of their own. Quinn made a point of collecting their weaknesses, but so far it was a short list.
To avoid unwanted conversation, Anzi decided they would wait outside rather than in the cramped station office. On the train platform, Anzi settled herself on a bench. All Quinn could do was pace and watch for a train that came now and then. It was maddening not to know how much time was passing in the Rose. He could hope that Helice Maki had not judged it too long a delay; had not taken out her frustrations on Mateo. He hoped that he had time.
The denizens of the Entire lived without rushing. If something was not accomplished today, there would be tomorrow. One might travel by beku. Or wait for a train. But where were the roads and vehicles that Chalin technology could easily provide? He asked Anzi this.
“But Dai Shen,” she responded, “the Entire is too vast for transport.”
“But you travel constantly. Why no roads?” He knew that air travel at most altitudes was not possible. The bright disrupted mechanisms, just as it precluded radio signals.
“Roads? But to where, Dai Shen? We have vast regions of emptiness. Cities are clustered along train paths.” She shrugged. “Also, we are not in such a hurry.”
But he thought it was convenient for the Tarig to limit travel as they saw fit. He said so, but Anzi countered: “We can go everywhere in the Entire. Eventually we get there, and the passage is safe.”
“The River Nigh,” he said. The other key to transport here, besides the veils. So far he had no satisfactory explanation for the river that was not a river. Exotic matter, Anzi had said. Like the bright, its science was beyond her.
The train steward brought them a meal on the small porch that sheltered them from the sky. As Quinn and Anzi ate, the steward lingered to talk. Had they heard, he asked, about the murders?
Anzi kept eating, but asked what murders, looking shocked that such things could happen.
The young man said four bodies had been found in shallow graves in the Shulen wielding. Now Quinn came fully alert. This was the region where Wen An had taken him that first day.
Anzi kept her tone even, inquiring about the incident, and the steward relayed the story that the four men who died had been seen in the company of a woman scholar and a stranger. Quinn felt certain that the murdered men must have been his captors, the ones who had put him in a jar and brought him to Yulin. By Yulin's way of thinking, they would have had to be silenced.
The steward's glance skimmed over Anzi and Quinn, in an artless assessment of this couple who traveled together and were possibly suspect.
A silence fell as the young man watched them eat. A veldt mouse came to beg food, and the steward shooed it away. It fled in bounding leaps, waving a fan-shaped wedge at the end of its tail that served to dump excess heat.
Jang turned back, looking hard at the man now eating his midday meal on the train platform. The fellow did indeed look a bit odd. For one thing, his hair was not the proper Chalin length. It was slicked back, but where there should have been a tail, it was short, with nothing protruding from under the hat. Furthermore, the few words the man had spoken to the lady were accented. Jang didn't know the man's sway, but it wasn't proper speech. So, he could easily be described as a stranger, yes.
His pulse raced at the sudden thought: What if, by incredible fortune of heaven, the very murderers of the corpses were now standing before him? He, Jang, would have the honor of apprehending vow-breakers. It could be a glorious thing, and raise him up in the estimation of his harping mother who always said he would come to nothing because of sloth. And if they indeed had killed not just once, but four times! An almost unheard-of massacre in a sway that seldom saw violent offense against persons. Yes, not only his frowning mother, but the magister of the village, and perhaps the legate of the city of Po would have to take note of Jang, the steward.
He tried not to stare. The girl was a beauty, with a slim body and fine, full lips that he could well imagine had pleasured the man she traveled with. Yes, though the man was her servant, he could sense their attraction for each other. Jang's instincts were honed in this matter, as he spent hundreds of days alone, hardly seeing a traveler, much less a female one as handsome as this one. Perhaps, to keep him silent, she would come with him into his quarters, and there perform for him the things he had imagined in his many days of boredom.
He could hardly believe his fortune, and to keep his excitement from overpowering him, he made a show of looking into the distance as though to spy the train.
He imagined himself standing before a lord and telling what he knew. That scene was less invigorating than the one he'd just conjured up. To speak in person to a lord—that would be a thrilling story to tell in the village. But he could feel himself shrivel at the prospect of that black Tarig gaze bearing down on him. And what if he were wrong? What was the penalty for false accusation? Oh, he'd seen the execution of a vow-breaker once, and though he was stimulated by the sight, in truth, the garroting had terrified him.
The woman was speaking to him, and he turned to face her.
She said sweetly, “What did the woman look like, the one traveling with the stranger? Did your sources say?”
He liked it that she had said sources, as though, at this juncture on the veldt, someone like him might hear many things from travelers of importance. He stood taller, strutting over to her. “Yes, there were descriptions.” He glanced at the servant man. It was said his face was full, not narrow like this man's. When Jang looked back at the girl, he realized with confusion that she, in particular, could not be the one described. For didn't they say that the woman with the stranger was old and that she wore the redstones of a scholar?
“Perhaps,” the girl said, “you could describe her for me, so that we can be watchful as we continue our journey.”
“Oh,” Jang said, his great fantasy collapsing, “she was old and ugly.” He added, looking at her chest, where her woman's form was nestled against her silks: “Not like you.”
She gave a charming smile. “Well, then, we shall be on guard against an ugly old woman and strange-looking man. You have been most helpful. I will tell my uncle—who is a man of influence—that this station is well tended.”
He recognized that she was dismissing him, but in such nice terms. Perhaps she was suggesting that her gratitude might extend as he had hoped. But no. Jang, you worthless fool. Why would a great lady lie with such as you? He looked at the woman's companion, and hoped that the man didn't enjoy those favors, either.
He bowed low to the woman, and not as low to the man, and left to tend his tasks in the station hut, now eager to convey that he was too busy for further idle conversation.
Quinn turned to face Anzi. She shook her head, trying to silence him, but he crouched close to her.
“Master Yulin had them killed?”
She took a deep breath, as though weary of saying something he should already know. “They saw you. Who knows what they might have said to others about you?” Anzi looked at him squarely. “Dai Shen, I know this makes you unhappy. But now we have further problems, besides unfortunate deaths.”
He nodded, having thought of that already. “Tarig justice. It will come into the sway.” The Tarig conferred the penalty for murder, thus removing the chance for cycles of revenge among the diverse sentients who managed to live together. Killing was not just a community issue, but a threat to the whole Entire. That Yulin practiced it so freely gave Quinn a new sense of the master's desperation in regard to having housed him.
Anzi saw his agitation. She murmured, “Do you think that before all this is finished, you won't have to kill?”
The knife he wore inside his jacket was testimony to his willingness to kill. She was right, as she was about many things.
Anzi peered down the rut of the train's path. The yellow veldt was stunningly empty, its flatness making for a limitless horizon in three directions. In one direction, the storm wall bulked up like a distant mountain range, gray and brooding.
As the ebb came on, Quinn and Anzi decided they would sleep outside on the train platform. They sat side by side for a time, waiting for Shadow Ebb when the lavender cast of the sky made it easier to call it night, and sleep.
He took out his picture of Johanna and smoothed its wrinkles. Anzi looked over his shoulder. “Shen, your wife was beautiful.”
Yes, she had been, especially to him. Hard to believe that she was gone. “You saw her once, Anzi…. ”
She bit her lip. “Such dark hair—at first I thought she was very old, but then I saw that she was your partner, and very lovely.”
He looked at Anzi's stark face and hair, thinking how opposite the two women were. He held her gaze for a moment. This woman of the Entire, against all odds, was his best ally. He knew her by now, and liked her greatly. Something flickered between them, catching him off guard. He could have reached for her, and almost did. Then Anzi moved away, her reserve back in place. They found their separate places to sleep there on the platform.
As they drifted off, she whispered, “Unwise to keep the pictures, Shen.”
Her caution was a good thing, he supposed.
Late in the ebb Anzi awakened him, putting her finger to her lips. She led him to the other side of the station, and pointed.
In the distance was a blot on the sky. A crescent sped toward them, a black scythe, silhouetted against the bright. Under it, a curved shadow drove down the plains.
“Tarig,” Anzi whispered.
Quinn fought the instinct to hide. There was no hiding here, after the station steward had seen them.
“We have our story,” Anzi said, her voice husky, though she tried for calm.
Quinn could face them. He had been ready for weeks to face them, even if it was Hadenth, the enemy he could hardly remember. But the brightship filled him with dismay. It swooped down on them like a raptor, and a hungry one. There was something awful about those ships, not bright at all, but dark, dark, and he shivered involuntarily.
“The murders,” Anzi said, frozen in place, watching the ship draw closer, a mile away and dropping altitude.
So, Tarig justice was coming.
But maybe not today. The ship suddenly curved away on a new path, rushing up the minoral toward Bei's reach. From behind, the brightship was just a crack in the sky, a black puncture revealing the black space that surrounded the cocoon of the Entire.
“Why are they going to Bei?” he asked.
“Asking questions, perhaps no more than that….”
If so, then Bei was to admit having had visitors: Ji Anzi and Dai Shen. Anzi, he would say, was looking for scholarship, but she would not suit, and left disappointed. Bei would say she was accompanied by a Chalin warrior of Ahnenhoon, and when they left, they were bound for the Ascendancy on an errand from Yulin. Quinn hoped Bei was a good liar.
They watched the brightship until it disappeared.
When they could breathe again, Anzi rubbed her arms, suppressing a shudder.
Noticing her disquiet, Quinn murmured, “Like a bird of prey.” Then a tendril of memory escaped the trap of his mind, and he thought, They are like birds. And prey.
For the rest of that ebb sleep eluded them. Then, as the bright waxed into Early Day, the train finally appeared out of the yellow dust of the plains.