Bright of the Sky (27 page)

She ran her hands over the pages where she had recorded her days among the stinking beasts. Punched into the pages was the record of those grim days at the Ascendancy, when her world had collapsed. The blinding, the loss of Titus and Johanna. Time was when she had called them
Father
,
Mother
. After they abandoned her, after it was clear they would never come for her, they became only Titus, Johanna. Seldom thought of these days.

Now she punched in her account of her return ride after Glovid’s fall, and the ripple of muscle under Riod’s coat, his young body fairly exploding with energy. The bright overhead, the steppe beneath, and pressed between, only the ride.

Her right hand cramped at her task of punching words, but she continued to write.

Akay-Wat had grown used to the pricking noise. It came at all hours of the day and the ebb. Now that Sydney had secured a bunk with a nice warm window, Akay-Wat had become her neighbor, and her status had increased, yes, immeasurably. Akay-Wat’s bunk was in a space between windows. When the bunk next to her emptied due to the Jout who went off to war—and, so sadly, never returned—Sydney laid claim to it and, by sheer ferocity, won it. This event, more than any other, taught Akay-Wat the value of violence. For herself, of course, physical violence was impossible. Because Akay-Wat, so regrettably, was a coward.

Akay-Wat was one of the few sentients actually born in Priov’s barracks. At her majority, she could have chosen to go or stay, but if she stayed, she must be blind. Her mother, before she went to the Long War, had begged her daughter to leave for a better life, but Akay-Wat had been afraid to leave the life she knew. Then, shortly after Akay-Wat relinquished her sight, Sydney arrived: dirty, scrappy, and silent, unable to speak the Lucent tongue. Akay-Wat helped her to learn, but she knew she was not clever enough or brave enough to be chosen as a friend. Once, she had dared to join in one of Sydney’s fights. An enormous Jout sentient had nearly taken her head off. Since then, Akay-Wat had resigned herself to the meekness that came so naturally. However, Sydney’s contempt was hard to bear, and got no better despite the little services Akay-Wat performed for her. Someone should perform them, certainly, for Sydney was a personage, even if foul-tempered and disfavored by the mounts. She was a former denizen of the vast darkness, a creature of Earth—a human. Astonishing enough, but there was more: she had lived for a time in the Ascendancy, and been the special prisoner of the Lords Hadenth, Inweer, Nehoov, Chiron, and Ghinamid. Her father was the infamous barbarian Titus Quinn, criminal and fugitive.

None of Sydney’s past history mattered to the Inyx nor singled her out for preference. The Inyx lived apart, in a sway far from the heartland, and in a manner remote from the cultures of the Entire. Lucent-speaking creatures feared and reviled them, oh very. The Inyx formed no ties except among themselves and their riders. Some even believed that the Inyx considered themselves above the bright lords. The Inyx despised all those who could not speak heart-to-heart. In other words, everyone else. The Tarig, for their part, tolerated the Inyx as little more than beasts who were too base to understand Tarig greatness. Truly the lords were gracious.

Akay-Wat heard a snuffling noise near Sydney’s bunk. Someone was awake early, and came snooping. Bad. Sydney did not like to be interrupted when writing. Akay-Wat waited to see what the human would do at this provocation.

Sydney heard the noise too. Someone was shuffling next to her bunk. It was Puss, announcing his presence by a faint whiff of urine.

The catlike creature had long limbs for swinging in trees, of which there were none in this sway. For this reason, Puss’s arms were always busy, gesturing and scratching and getting into trouble. Its long tail made it vulnerable at payback times.

“Got the book, I hear. Nice little book,” he rasped, like he had a too-tight collar.

Puss was an Inyx spy, a smarmy Laroo, of a species that seemed born to be base. “Take a bath, Puss.” He couldn’t know the term, but he could guess it meant no good.

“What a sensitive little nose. I wonder how you can bear to ride. Our mounts are such animals.”

She wouldn’t be led into criticisms of the Inyx. Once, Priov had beaten her for an insulting remark about the state of the chief’s broodmares.
Old,
flabby, and barren
, Sydney had said. Some of the mares took exception, and Sydney had paid for it.

Puss rasped: “Tell what you write in that book, little rose.”

“That you stink because you pee on yourself.”

“Maybe you just pretend to write, but it’s all nothing but pinpricks. That’s what everyone thinks. The little rose thinks she’s better than us, doesn’t she?”

She was trying very hard to ignore the
rose
bit. However, after a certain point, her reputation was at stake. Once you showed weakness in the stables, you lost everything. Her knife hung in its sling on the bedstead beside her. It had drawn blood before.

“I try not to piss on myself. It’s not a high standard.”

Puss jumped onto her bunk, murmuring, with fetid breath, “I don’t like you, and neither did Glovid, my good friend.” She heard a stream of urine fall onto her mattress.

Sydney jumped off her bunk, yanking Puss with her by one furry leg. Puss screamed in pain as he hit the floor. Racing back for her knife, Sydney unsheathed it and advanced on the creature. “Lick it up, piss-face.” She gestured at her soiled bed.

Riders were crowding around, always game for a good fight, the shouting equal for Sydney and Puss. Akay-Wat was clomping nearby, saying, “Oh dear, oh dear, bad fighting.”

Puss leapt for Sydney, landing all four feet in her chest and bouncing off, leaving a claw mark on her neck. She froze in place to listen. A faint scraping sound preceded Puss’s next jump, and she reached up to cut his stomach. By Tarig law, she mustn’t kill him, but a nice cut was fair payback. She felt her knife slice through fur and heard a caterwauling as Puss raced for the barracks door.

Sydney charged after him, pushing past the gathered riders, who piled out of the barracks after her, into the gleaming bright. Some of Puss’s fellow spies were in the melee, by the smell of them. They took turns darting in and out as she turned, slicing her knife to keep them cautious. Suddenly, one jumped onto her back, biting into her shoulder. She tossed him away, hardly feeling the wound, but ready now to murder them all.

The gang of Laroos grew silent. By the sound of a hoof slapping the dirt, she knew that a mount had come to see the fuss ended.

Unfortunately, it was Priov.

A breeze cooled the sweat on Sydney’s body. She stood, knife in hand, as Puss whined for good effect.

Who is using bad knives?
Priov directed at the group.

A hundred voices answered: Laroos accusing Sydney, Yslis accusing Hirrin, and, above it all, Akay-Wat saying, “Peed on the bed, did Laroo, to cause stinking.”

As the voices quieted Priov sent,
Here is one with a bad knife.
She didn’t need to guess whom he was looking at. She sheathed the knife in her belt, saying, “The Laroo have knives growing in their hands. Claws are just as bad as knives.”

Now that a mount had arrived, sight trickled into Sydney’s mind. She saw the ragged and dirty riders, a bad mix of the ugly and misshapen: the monkeylike Ysli with their sullen faces; the witless Hirrin, a cross between an ostrich and a donkey; and the Laroo, reddish fur glinting in the bright, standing stooped over like apes, with arms trailing at their sides. In their midst, a small human with matted black hair, as ugly as the rest of them.

Bring me the cuff
, Priov demanded. A Laroo went to fetch the long-tailed whip that fit around the fetlock of the Inyx.
Sydney, go to the post
, he said.

She held fast, trying not to show her outrage, or even feel it. She wanted to give no emotional performance for the Inyx, but she couldn’t help but remember the last whipping, when her nerves ran fire and she’d bitten through her lip without noticing. She thought of her book, and pin pricking this into the pages, the four hundredth wrong, unless it was the five hundredth. All could be borne, as long as there was a list.

Priov’s mares, who stayed close by him, trickled into the scene, nervously gathering up their riders and tossing their heads, disliking the emotion-charged atmosphere. The Laroos climbed on, and several others, as Akay-Wat chanted, “Not fair, not fair.”

Sydney walked to the post, keeping her walk steady, her head high.

Akay-Wat looked at Sydney with profound admiration. She felt more words gathering: her impassioned speech on behalf of her friend. But Priov’s mood was irritable, and Akay-Wat feared he might whip her, too. Yes, let him whip me. She began to move forward. When she heard Priov stamp his foot, the impulse vanished. A whipping hurt badly, especially if Priov used the cuff with the knots. The shame of her cowardice cut deeply as she saw, through the eyes of many mounts, Sydney standing calmly in the center of the yard.

Akay-Wat’s mount, Skofke, moved up beside her, bending down so that Akay-Wat could climb up. He caught the drift of his rider’s thoughts, and reflected them back to her in a horrible reverberation:
coward, coward, coward.
She clung to Skofke’s back in misery, watching her friend slowly turn to grip the post.

Priov approached, wearing the cuff.

The mounts kept arriving, gathering riders up, tossing nervously about, picking up a cacophony of emotions. Then a new emotion: foreboding and excitement. A mount was galloping down the gully near the barracks, black coat glistening.

It was Riod, his thoughts clear as a shout:
She is mine.

Silence fell on the gathering as Riod came to Sydney’s side.
Up
, he said.

No
, Priov demanded.
First, the cuff.

Her hand went out to Riod’s strong face, making sure where he was. Sydney was thrilled but also wary. Riod risked much, especially in front of Priov’s mares, all milling about, witness to whether Priov could control one renegade Inyx or not. But he had dared to side with her against another Inyx.

“I used a knife on the Laroo,” she told him, to be fair.

Which Laroo?

“The one that pees on beds.”

He sent an emotion of contempt, and then she felt his front legs dip for her to mount. She sprang up, and Riod charged out of the circle, Sydney holding tight.

They thundered down the gully by the camp, and then out onto the steppe.

Priov shall not hit you
, Riod sent.

She liked hearing that. Even though it was in Riod’s self-interest not to have an injured rider, she caught his emotion of loyalty. It was a fierce and lovely emotion, one that stirred her like no other.

Those who should be loyal often weren’t. No one had stood by her in four thousand days here: not Johanna, not Titus, not the powers of the Rose who never came looking for the vanished family. Only one person in four thousand days: an old Chalin woman, the prefect of the Magisterium—and even she couldn’t save Sydney from the cruel hands of the Tarig or the cruel hearts of the Inyx. Sydney nevertheless loved Cixi. Her messages came infrequently, whispered by couriers, Chalin legates bringing new slaves. Messages like,
Persevere, my strong girl. Remember the vows.
The vows she and Cixi had sworn to each other.
Someday soon we will be together again.

Sydney rode on, letting all the bad things peel away on the wind. It was a good day to ride, and not be beaten. A good day to remember that the most powerful Chalin in the All was her foster mother—no, her true mother—who would come for her someday.

Twilight slipped into the Shadow time, and they slowed their pace. It seemed likely they would spend this ebb-time on the steppe.

Riod found a shallow ravine and a stand of spike grass, bending down so Sydney could dismount. He walked away, hoofing the sand for a chance at water. Eventually a pool formed, and seeing it in his mind, Sydney came to cleanse herself.

Riod pranced closer, sniffing her.

“I’m all right,” she said, feeling his curiosity about her wounds. Through his eyes she saw herself: ragged, short hair, and in the dirty face, eyes still blue but so blank.

It was easy to forget she was blind. Not so easy to forget the Tarig’s embrace, as he held her, as the claw came closer. There was confinement, steel-locked arms, and the mantis lord whispering to her. . . .

Riod’s warm breath wafted into her face. He licked at the deep scratch at her neck. When she loosened her collar, he cleansed her shoulder bite as well. Riod’s warm tongue was probably full of germs, but it felt good. She didn’t want to like this mount. She wanted to exploit him as he exploited her. It was disgusting that, to feel important, the mounts must have helpless riders. The Inyx claimed that blindness enhanced the ability of non-Inyx to pick up silent Inyx communication. Even if true, Sydney bristled at their domination. And at her growing affection for Riod.

I’m not your pet, she thought angrily, pushing him away.

What are you?
Riod asked, rudely listening in.

“Stay out of my head!” she said aloud. She kicked the grass in frustration, stomping on patches of thread weed as Riod watched, feelings hurt, mixing his own feelings with hers.

Tomorrow she must face Priov again, and the thought sickened her. But she was weary now, needing sleep. She found a hollow in the ground and lay down, trusting Riod to watch over her because she was too weary to care whether that made her more dependent on him.

Standing guard, Riod faced out to the steppe. Through his eyes she saw the flat world stretched out, clean and empty, with a lavender blush dimming the land. As she drifted into sleep, she felt Riod’s mind probing hers, looking for something. He hoped that, with her guard down, he might find a shred of reassurance.

Sydney fled into sleep, her only privacy.

As Quinn and Anzi debarked the train at the village of Na Jing, Anzi steered Quinn away from the Gond who had taken insult in their failure to purchase goods. The Gond urged her sling-bearers to hurry after Dai Shen, but this ploy failed when the Hirrin princess intercepted Anzi and Quinn and, striking up a conversation that Anzi now welcomed, offered transportation to Bei’s reach. In this manner, Quinn found himself in the only mechanical air transport commonly available to travelers: a dirigible.