CHAPTER SIXTEEN

Savor the death of your enemy; then mourn him.

—Si Rong the Wise

RIOD SOARED WITH HIS HERD MATES, spiraling into the sky and into the night thoughts of the Entire. At his side, Emka, adding her fierce will to the force of the thousand mounts. Together they projected Riod’s vision outward, a dream for this ebb that would reach each sentient, deflected only by the dreamless Tarig. Riod told the story that had been told to him by his best rider, how the fragile sky of the world must have food to live; how without sustenance it would fail. And how the one styling himself regent would destroy the roamlands, the steppes, and the primacies, bringing them all down, down, into darkness. Riod felt Emka at his side, giving him strength. Our army will win, Emka assured him. The Entire will rise up. We will awaken them, warn them, tell them the story that only we can tell. He and Emka were of like mind on this. Riod thrust himself forward, into the landscape of dreams.

Ci Dehai stood on the ramparts of Ahnenhoon, gazing at the empty war plains. The land lay quiet, rippling with a gentle Deep Ebb light. He could not have said why the sight of peace made him uneasy, yet it did. Perhaps the dreams that had driven him from his bedchamber set the ebb’s tone. He looked up at the sky, finding in the turbulent folds of the bright a mirror of his heart.

Below, and across the Gathering Yard, his army was billeted, fortifying the Repel from Tarig—or any other—intrusion.

Gone were the days of Paion dirigibles welling up in the middle of the air, striking fear and also presenting a target. Gone but missed, he had to admit. It was good to know who your enemy was, and the Paion had been sturdy foes. Now the enemy might be the solitaires, or the forces of Rim City under the banner of Sen Ni. His officers were under orders to conduct vigorous training exercises for the troops, lest they forget it might still come to battle.

One of them approached now, his lieutenant, Han. Ci Dehai watched him guardedly. This was the damnable legacy of the dark navitar, that they must look on each other as possible assassins.

He signed the scroll—orders for the coming day—and only after the captain left did he turn back to the plains.

A primacy’s reach was the grandest sight in the Entire. The two storm walls converged, forming a curving wall of blackness, like the prow of a ship cutting into the void. What lay beyond the storm walls? Before, he had always thought, the Paion. His imagination went no further. These days one was forced to think of where the Paion—the Jinda ceb—had been, and where the Rose was, and the Miserable God only knew what else.

Ci Dehai turned his mind from these fancies. Beneath his feet, the adamantine stones of the Repel lay quiet, purged of the throbbing of the engine—that engine banished by the man who once had known little of command and less of combat.

Now Ci Dehai had been instructed to send a small and, above all, loyal task force of soldiers to the Ascendancy in case of defensive need. He had suggested this before to the regent, but Quinn had demurred.

He wondered what might be afoot in the realm that the regent had changed his mind. But the man’s daughter planned to overthrow him. Surely that was enough.

In Venn’s domicile, Obbwanir stood at the door, looking into the luxurious Deep Ebb that darkened the roofs and made the huts look like black spears. Her people had had eons of war. Even before the War of the Entire, there had been war among her own kind. Now war came again, or soon would. And the commonality would have nothing to do with it, by concurrence of Manifest.

She turned her gaze from the village roofs to the lavender folds of the sky. Peace, she thought, was a harsh choice. They had fought once for the Entire, spending their precious energy on involutions at the plains of Ahnenhoon. Would they abandon their responsibility now? Would Manifest remain unmoved, even when the last day of the Entire waxed into being? And if not, would they choose to destroy the Rose universe? If they did, each one of them would carry this into their derma, showing themselves craven and violent. Who could bear to look upon such life art?

To Obbwanir’s surprise, Venn joined her at the hut’s threshold, clad simply in her plainself.

“Learn to sleep through these dreams,” Venn said, “or you will be no use to me.”

“But what will we do, Complete One, if the bright cannot last?”

“Oh, we will just go back where we were.”

“But that kind of life…Manifest concluded this was much better.”

Venn made a disdainful noise with her tongue. “At least then we could sleep undisturbed. Tell Manifest to do something about this dream nonsense.”

“We do not know how.”

“We could shoot those great, horned, galloping things.”

Obbwanir was horrified. “You must not say that.”

“Well. That is what they always said in Manifest.” Venn huffed off to bed.

Anzi’s dreams were laced with poison. The Jinda ceb potions moved through her, resetting the workings of her body. She slept and woke; then slept again, resuming the awful dream.

Titus sat on a carved throne, with the skin of a dragon draped over his feet. All the sways were in chains before him on the great plaza of the Ascendancy. He raised a scepter, pointing to the bright, bringing shadows on the faces of those assembled. Jouts and Hirrin moaned in fear. At his side stood Johanna. Titus reached out to hold her hand.

Someone was at Anzi’s side, gentling her. Had she cried out? Her nurse held a cup of water for her to drink. Anzi sat up against her pillows, taking what liquid she could to slake a ferocious thirst.

“Sideree,” she whispered.

“Anzitaj. It will become easier.”

She slumped down onto the bed again, giving in to sleep, trying not to imagine that her back was glowing.

Before he threw off his covers, Breund had lain awake for an hour avoiding treasonous dreams. Rising from his bunk, he performed his ablutions at the water fount, and donned a tunic coat over his sleep silks. If he could not sensibly rest, he could make a report to his superiors.

In the main cabin, Lord Inweer slept in the pilot’s chair, as was his custom. Not that he slept as a normal sentient, but his eyes were closed and he would not be productive of conversation.

Settling himself before the workstation, Breund touched the shadow line that brought his report scroll into dimension. He wrote with his stylus:

Since leaving the Radiant Arch Primacy we have been traveling in the Bright River Primacy, sometimes descending for the ebb, but most times remaining aloft. The lord has been quiet since the terrible event of the immolations....

He glanced over at Inweer. Still asleep. It made him uneasy to write reports in front of the lord, but the lord could not read the report from over there.

They had been together fifteen days, and small things loomed large in the close quarters. They spoke little, but there was an interaction of movement and glance that defined a gross communication. It was a respite when Lord Inweer retreated to his private quarters. But he seldom did, for he loved the pilot chair and seemed to change course often for the pleasure of it. Unless it was a convoluted plan for finding the other brightships, a fear that grew in Breund especially after the Gond forest.

…which has seemed to darken his mood.

He erased this. Speculation on mood was unproductive.

Lord Inweer continues to pilot the ship manually, his constant preference. He has said to me that he has not seen much of the Entire, a statement that greatly surprised me.

He removed the comment about surprise.

…since his post had always been Ahnenhoon. He displays the land below us in large array, peering at things such as geography and the occasional Laroo city that we pass. Although Lord Inweer appears to seek out habitation, we know better than to descend near populations. There are pent-up hatreds of the Tarig lords, and word has spread that they deserve burning. I have sternly warned Lord Inweer that we will not be welcome in cities.

It was a curious thing to warn or direct the lord. Sometimes Breund wondered if he was the warden or the lord was. Lord Inweer sat in the pilot’s chair, which seemed more and more like a command center. Nor did the lord ever defer to Breund or ask permissions. Breund did not require it, but one would think, since so much depended on Breund’s good reports, that the lord might show some respect. Not that he was ever arrogant, or if he was arrogant, not that he was ever quite challenging. Well, once, in the forest.

It still troubled him to be writing about the Tarig personage while the lord occupied the cabin. He glanced over and found, disconcertingly, that the lord was watching him.

“So late in the ebb, hnn?”

“I could not manage to sleep. Please pardon me if I…awakened you.”

Inweer cocked his head. “I do not need rest as you do.”

“But perhaps it is restful, to be quiet?”

The lord regarded him for a few beats. “You do not know me.”

Breund had not meant to be presumptuous. “Of course not, Lord Inweer.”

When the lord remained quiet, Breund made an attempt to return to his report, but it was hopeless with the Tarig looking at him. He closed the scroll. Unfortunately that left them staring at each other.

Lord Inweer broke the silence. “When we came into form so long ago, we did not think this matter of ebb time dreaming important.” His long fingers tapped into the armrest of the pilot’s chair, and Breund felt a slight course change. “But I have come to think it is a realm worth knowing.”

They were on the threshold of an actual conversation. Indeed, they had crossed into it. Breund ventured, “Dreams are a confused landscape, but a most interesting one.”

“The landscape reveals something of a sentient’s secret hopes, ah?”

Breund found himself warming to this topic, a favorite of Red Throne philosophy. “The Twelve Wisdoms say, ‘The more buried the desire, the more vibrant.’ Often a dream is a way of perceiving wrong thoughts, brought forward for cleansing by the higher purposes of the mind.”

“Hnn. And when the thoughts are falsely introduced?”

The conversation swerved. “You speak of Inyx sendings.” Breund glanced at Inweer to see if he had it aright, but the lord remained passive. Inweer did not receive the dream visions, of course, but he knew of them. “In those cases there is little to learn of one’s deeper being.”

“What was your dream, Breund?”

“Oh. It was…” He stopped, thinking that it was not suitable to reflect on anything against the regent. “They were improper dreams.”

Inweer went on, “In previous times, our servants told us of the things the Inyx promulgated about us. But now I have no insight into what dreams come. You can tell me.”

Breund hesitated. It was grudging not to answer, especially in this moment of openness between them. “Well. They say the bright will not last. And that the regent is to blame, because of silencing the engine.”

Lord Inweer gazed for a long while into the visual array that showed the midlands rushing by below. “And what do the dreams urge?”

The room fell into a heavy quiet. Finally Breund answered, “To rise up. For Sen Ni.” He turned a stern look on the lord. “But this will draw Rose aggression, and so the regent rightly prevents her from taking power.”

“Loyally said, warden. And would your fellow Jouts concur?”

“I do not ask my sway to inform my thinking. I give my bond where I see fit.”

“But would they concur?”

“Each sentient must pursue his path.” Ever mindful of opportunities to rehabilitate Lord Inweer, he added, “One could wish that you do not glean hope from treason.”

“This prison is my best hope,” the lord said softly.

Breund thought that well said. “Let its disciplines bring you peace.” He added, “The dreams of the rabble are not for you, my lord. You must rise above.”

Inweer gazed at the display of the primacy, racing by. “I have my own dreams, Breund, be assured.”