Bright of the Sky (35 page)

Priov’s mares capered around this newcomer, sniffing rudely. But none of them looked big enough to be his mount. Besides, Distanir was sending a clear message, that he had already chosen the giant. The story came out in fits and starts, of how they had come upon the distant encampment of the band led by Ulrud the Lame, and the monster, this Chalin giant, had grabbed Distanir by the forehorn and nearly brought him to his knees by sheer power of his arms. Not expecting to steal anything other than honor, Riod and his fellows nevertheless charged away with their prize, and Ulrud’s herd pursued them until the fog set in, covering Riod’s retreat.

Riod came to Sydney’s side, urging her to trade mounts. She sprang over to join him, and their delight in each other was instant. “Back, Riod, yes,” Sydney said, caressing his strong neck, realizing that without her planning it, and almost against her volition, Riod had found a place in her affection.

My rider
, he sent to her, with overtones of exhaustion and pride.

Priov’s hoof crashed down, shattering the mood of reunion. The old chief’s displeasure radiated out to the assembled riders and their mounts. This raiding of Ulrud’s roamlands would not do. They had brought an ugly prize, not even worth it. The mares screamed and pranced, defecating in agreement.

Goaded to action by this display, several mounts nipped at the giant, pulling on his clothes. He turned to glare at the harassment, but his beefy hands hung at his sides, passive. His attackers cantered away, and seeing that he would not retaliate, others darted in to yank at him.

Oddly, as the charging and nipping continued, not a single thought came from this man. To his credit, he seemed unafraid. But there was something insensible about him, as though he did not quite rise to the level of sentient.

Then Priov stepped close to the giant, and from her perch Feng reached down and pinched the man’s bulbous nose. At this, the Laroo decided he was fair game, and left their mounts behind, clawing at his legs. Puss stood near the giant’s boots, doing his usual: peeing.

Asserting his right of property, Distanir chased the Laroos off, leaving the Chalin man looking down at his wet feet. Being blind, he could easily smell what he could not see.

Sydney urged Riod to approach the giant. She looked down at the man. “You can fight back, you know. It’s permitted.” She waited, seeing no reaction. Perhaps, being stupid, he couldn’t talk. “Can you speak?”

The man stared into the fog, his mind as empty.

“It’ll go better for you if you speak. It’ll go better for you if you fight.” The man was becoming a fine target for cruelty, but he was causing it himself. “Most sentients have a name. Do you?”

Then the giant spoke, but it startled her, and everyone. His voice was soft, even effeminate. “Mo Ti,” he said.

The riders laughed.
Mo Ti
, they mimicked in lisping tones. Feng cried out, “Balls the size of marbles! Take off his pants and have a look!”

A Laroo jumped from his mare and approached Mo Ti, but warily.

Catching Sydney’s displeasure, Riod surged forward and sent the Laroo sprawling.

Riod spun in a circle, looking for more fights, but this tussle was not about Mo Ti, Sydney realized, too late.

Puss, who had slipped away from the crowd, was now back, scampering up to Priov, handing something up to Feng. With a jolt of dismay, Sydney saw what it was. Her book of pinpricks.

Feng held up the book for all to see, while Akay-Wat took up a ululating cry: “Unfair, unfair.”

Priov sent:
Thirteen days ago Riod’s rider ran from her beating. Now she will
lose her book.

As Akay-Wat’s chant of “unfair” grew louder, Feng swung around to growl, “Keep your face shut, or I’ll tie your ugly neck in a knot.” At this, Akay-Wat’s cry halted as she cringed from Feng’s threat.

Satisfied that she had the camp’s attention, and sitting high on Priov’s back, Feng opened the book and pretended to read. “I am a little princess of the Rose. Akay-Wat is very stupid, and should worship me.”

With a brief kick Sydney tried to nudge Riod forward, but he held fast to his position. Meanwhile Akay-Wat threw her distress into the minds of all, as though she had any reason to care.

Sydney turned in Akay-Wat’s direction, giving vent to her disgust: “You spineless Hirrin. Your own mother a soldier! I would sooner look like this monster than a creature like you.”

Then, propelled by frustration, she recklessly jumped off Riod’s back and stalked toward Feng, who was still pretending to read: “A princess like me should have a decent mount, not a scabby, mareless—”

Sydney reached for the book, but it was far out of reach, and Priov danced in a circle, keeping Sydney at bay.

Then, overcome with fury, and ignoring Riod’s sent warnings, Sydney yanked as hard as she could on Feng’s withered leg. The woman toppled from Priov, landing on her back in a thud. From the ground, she managed to toss the book to Puss, who bolted away. Sydney fell on the woman, landing a punch in the big woman’s eye. Or somewhere that hurt badly, since it was all conveyed secondhand and the visual disappeared in a bewildering array of perspectives. All that was left was Feng’s hatred flowing back from a hundred Inyx.

Riod stepped between them, a great wall of disapproval.

Sydney moved back, shamed that the crippled Feng was having difficulty rising from the ground. At Riod’s command, Sydney mounted him, her misery now compounded by her own despicable behavior.

Akay-Wat was making an absurd whining sound that only someone with such a long neck could make.

Sydney hissed at her, “Just shut up, can’t you?”

The shouts of the riders abated as a few of Feng’s cronies helped her back into the saddle. In this comparative quiet, Sydney strained to find any sign of Puss, but the thief had fled with the book.

The only image that came strongly into her mind was that of Akay-Wat dismounting from Skofke and hobbling away, ears flattened and a slump in her neck.

With Puss’s escape, Sydney’s pinpricks of memory were lost. Gone was her record of those first days in the stable, when the old lord Flodistog had broken her spirit and commanded her to groom his ticks and clean his hooves; when she had learned to bunk with criminals who took her silk clothes and her scrolls and every other thing she had acquired in the mantis realm; when it first came to her that she would never go home, nor did her mother wish to go home, nor did her father remember her. When she had first learned what it was to be blind. And then to see the world in shattered glass.

Tears gathered, and though hidden in the fog, every mount knew her sorrow, and conveyed it to every rider. Her humiliation was complete.

“Wants her mommy,” Feng crowed. “Ya, we’d all like to have her mommy!”

Sydney urged her mount out of the camp. Riod, his mind filled with dismay, shoved his way out of the crowd and bounded away, seeking the privacy of the steppe. As he ran, the tumult of the camp with its chaotic sendings gradually diminished.

In a nearby gully, Sydney dismounted, leaning against Riod’s solid neck. More tears might have come then, but she remembered her advice to Mo Ti: It will be better if you fight.

She would live like this no longer. She could endure fights, the camp’s hatred, even whippings. But she must have honor, even if it only came from Riod. As the sky waxed into a stronger fire, the fog tore apart, clearing her mind.

“You know what I want,” she said to Riod.

To kill Feng? To ride Priov? Best rider has many wants.

That was true. Except about Priov, who was old and slow. “I want . . .” She struggled for words. “I want you to think of me as a free rider.”

Into Riod’s mind came an image of the steppe, and a swift ride. This was what freedom meant to an Inyx. She would have to teach him what it meant to a human. “A free bond,” she said.

You accepted Riod.

“Not freely.”

What is a free bond?

“That I take you as my equal.”

You are small. Not Inyx.

“It doesn’t matter.”

On the ridge Distanir appeared, and on his back, the giant Mo Ti, almost the same size as his mount. Sydney didn’t want them near her. The giant had no true thoughts; he was an animal.

As they watched, Distanir and Mo Ti joined them. Through Riod, she saw the glower in the giant’s little eyes, and knew one day he would strike out, and any sentient in his way would be dead. Maybe she would provoke him, and end her life. Sensing this, Riod’s distress flooded her.

Sydney whispered to him, “I’d rather die than live this way.” She raised her face to feel the day’s warmth, and its power came into her. “But if you make me free, I will raise you high, Riod. As my equal.”

Then Riod bent down, persuading her to mount again. As she did so, he sent:
Yes. Equal. Free bond.
By the flood of his mind, he gave her all that she asked for.

She leaned across his curved horns, rubbing her face against his neck. “Yes,” she answered. “Beloved Riod.” He didn’t want her as a prisoner, but as herself. And trusted that her heart would still be bound to his.
Yes, always, Riod.

Standing nearby observing all this were Distanir and his new rider. Sydney resented having to share these intimate thoughts with them, much less hear the giant intrude, saying, in his soft voice, “And Mo Ti, free bond, too.”

A surge of emotion came from him, hitting Sydney with unexpected force. The man had opened a window, and out had come a gust of desire.

Distanir bristled under the man’s weight. He sent,
You must prove yourself
among us before such a gift.

It was a reasonable judgment, but Sydney was now considering Mo Ti in a different manner. He wanted free bond. This Chalin beast had heard her ask, and it had awakened his own desires. Wouldn’t all riders desire it?

“Distanir,” she said. “Let Mo Ti be free. It’s a better way to ride, yes?”

Distanir pawed the ground, remaining quiescent, holding his thoughts. But Mo Ti’s eyes were alight, looking at Sydney with a new intelligence, with an assessing look, if her clouded view could be trusted.

A thought tugged at her, from under a pile of resentments, wrongs, and pinpricks: Wouldn’t they all desire free bond? She let go of this thought in order to consider it further in private.

Her business with Riod was not finished. There was one thing more she must have, for honor’s sake. Addressing Riod, she said, “My thoughts, beloved. Those are mine alone. Teach me to hide them.”

This drew agitation from Riod.
Riod can’t. Why hide what is plain to all,
speaking heart to heart?

“Your thoughts aren’t plain. You must send thoughts. But mine can be stolen. Some thoughts I don’t want to share.” Thoughts of Cixi, for example, whom she must avoid thinking about for fear of exposing her. “Teach me to keep my thoughts, beloved.”

Riod can’t. But Riod can create storms around your thoughts. Others will hear
only confusion.

His pronouncement thrilled her. If what he said was true, no longer would Feng or Puss read the thoughts she so desperately wished to contain. “What if we’re separated, Riod, when you’re alone with your rogues? Can they steal my thoughts then?”

Riod creates a storm even from a distance. Others will not like it.

“Oh, but I’ll like it, Riod. I’ll like it very much.”

Her response flooded him with gratification. She laid her cheek against his horns and thought that already their free bond was a better bond than before. When she straightened, she sensed that Mo Ti had urged Distanir closer to her, until their knees almost touched.

Then Mo Ti brought forth something from his jacket. In his large square hand Mo Ti gripped the book of pinpricks, slightly charred, but intact. He handed it to her.

The book’s leather cover was burned. Sydney felt pieces of it flaking away. But the rest had survived.

Distanir sent,
Mo Ti put his hand in the fire. No one dared approach him. Feng
is angry.
An overtone of amusement threaded into the comment.

Sydney felt a grin spread across her face. She liked this Chalin monster, no matter how ugly he was. Unlike Akay-Wat, he was a worthy companion. She tucked the book in her jacket. It would never leave her side again.

“Perhaps, Distanir,” she said, “Mo Ti has proven himself?” Leaving Distanir to chew on that notion, she gripped Riod’s rear horn. “A race?” she proposed.

Before the terms were even decided, Riod and Distanir charged out of the gully, onto the tundra. Sydney leaned forward, gripping the horns, whooping in joy.

It was a magnificent race, and one that she long remembered, even though she and Riod lost. Because against all odds, Mo Ti was a better rider.

“Don’t look at them,” Anzi hissed as they rode in the open pedi cab.

Quinn tried not to stare. But in the crowds of the teeming city of Po, many Tarig roamed, their height making them stand out among lesser beings.

“Ignore them, Dai Shen. The murder has attracted them to the wielding, especially this axis point where a criminal might flee. If they stop us, I’ll answer them.” She didn’t look as though she was eager to do so. They had no idea how the Tarig questioning of Su Bei had gone; if badly, then Quinn’s disguise might not hide him any longer.

Anzi kept her voice low, so as not to be overheard by the cab owner, who pedaled them toward the landing field. There they would take passage on another sort of blimp for their trip to the Nigh.

They wound through the pedestrian streets crowded with food stands, vendors, and hostels—most catering, Anzi said, to sentients needing to send communications. Quinn spied dozens of Tarig, often merely standing and watching, at other times towering over those they spoke to, their gazes neutral yet disturbing. He couldn’t distinguish male from female, but he knew both went abroad with equal power. Their sculpted faces drew his gaze. It unnerved him that he’d chosen their image for the door knocker on his house. It was a cry from his subconscious to remember. But when he got home, he’d strip it off.

Anzi kept her hand on Quinn’s forearm, in a gentle reminder to be inconspicuous. She didn’t often touch him, and he wondered if she thought him so unpredictable that he’d do something to attract attention. Lately her worry was at the prospect of his contacting Lord Oventroe at the Ascendancy. He intended to pursue this matter of the correlates, although to induce Oventroe to deal with him, he might have to reveal who he was. Anzi argued against that, but in the last few days, seeing his resolve, she’d given up.