Bright of the Sky (49 page)

Cho was upset, but not as agitated as he might have predicted. What was the use of spending all your days amid scrolls and clarities and the fear of mistakes? And when you met a personage such as Dai Shen, might your life have been touched by the glance of greatness? He could be wrong. And then he would pay dearly.
Heaven give us few surprises
, he thought fervently.

Quinn took a detour past the pond, checking for his carp, but it was not among those congregating there. Quickly, he moved into the interior of the Magisterium, putting distance between himself and Cho.

The steward had seen through him, and knew that he was an imposter. Cho had been friendly, but by God, he was a lifelong servant of the Magis-terium, keeper of rules, follower of rules. Quinn stopped for a moment, ordering his thoughts, calming his nerves. He leaned against the adobe stone of an archway. Cho had implied he would be quiet, but for how long?

Hastening down to the third level, he held the stone tight in his fist. Johanna was here, a sliver of her at least. It had been risky, even stupid, to ask Cho for this. Amid all his lies and plots he was grasping for a subtle thread that converged with all others in his heart. The knot. The lines the navitar saw. He was caught in their web. Instead of passing directly to his goal, he had fatally paused. Impulses were pushing to get out.

Still, Cho had that aspect about him that spoke of integrity. What would he gain by calling attention to Dai Shen? After having been so friendly to the imposter, Cho might even draw suspicion himself. Quinn had to count on Cho now.

When he arrived at his cell, a familiar but unexpected smell came to him. Someone was in the room. Kneeling down, he looked under the bed. In the shadows, bright golden eyes met his.

“Anzi,” he whispered.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I went to the heartland, and what could I see,
But the five lands branching far from me.

The Radiant Arch said come here and look;
I went and wrote its wonders in my book.

Bright River Primacy was great to behold,
But it was not home, and I grew cold.

The Arm of Heaven went long and long,
My heartchime played its dulcet song.

The Sheltering Path went to the end of All;
I walked the whole way, so strong was its call.

But the Long Gaze of Fire is ever my place;
It holds my heart, it knows my face.

—“Song of the Five Primacies”

S
YDNEY STOOD AT THE BASE OF THE CLIFF
, hearing Mo Ti’s footfalls above her as he climbed.

“What do you see?” she called.

“Nothing yet.” Small rocks skittered down as he climbed, unafraid, now, to show that he was sighted.

Riod restively paced nearby, occasionally charging at a steppe vole or an insect. Practice charging for the coming fight. Her mount’s thoughts came to her in emotional gusts: the urge to gore Priov, and the uncertainty of fighting him out of season.

Sydney silently prayed: Careful, beloved. Don’t let Priov choose the battleground.

They could wait. In 520 days, mating season would course through the herd’s blood. Riod would be in full powers, then. And before that season, there would be time to win support for the heresies: free bond, Mo Ti’s sightedness, and—someday soon—her own sightedness.

At present the encampment was in turmoil. Akay-Wat was hobbling on her false leg, learning to walk again, hoping for a new mount. The scandal had stirred brawls among the riders and among the Inyx. But no one dared take a knife to Mo Ti’s eyes.

Mo Ti had done a superb job with the Hirrin’s leg, carefully taking apart the complex muscles of her knee joint and stanching the bleeding while knitting up the stump. Sydney had helped him, guided by Riod’s sight as her mount stayed through the surgery, binding himself to the crime and its aftermath.

Afterward, she and Riod had listened with amazement as Mo Ti spun out a forbidden dream: the ruin of the mantis lords.

Sydney had listened, moved yet doubtful. She had just begun to find peace in her captivity—since Riod, since Mo Ti. Mo Ti was becoming a champion and a friend. As for Riod, she had come to love her mount with a complex devotion, returning his loyalty with fervor, trusting him with her life, and far beyond that now—trusting him with her heart. They each held vastly different ideas of freedom, but he had given her freedom as she defined it: freedom to stay with him or go, to share in decisions, to be someday sighted again.

Now Mo Ti had told her she was thinking too small.

“The lords,” he had murmured to her that ebb-time by Akay-Wat’s side: “Are they a knife in your heart?”

As he spoke, she had felt that old wound burning with her every breath.

Next to her Riod had sent,
We have our lives. Far from them.
And then, much later in the ebb,
It is a dream.

“A dream?” Mo Ti had left the Hirrin’s side and drawn closer to Riod, looking at him eye to eye. “A dream?”

A dream without hope.
Riod’s view of Mo Ti’s gnarled face came to Sydney. Mo Ti’s eyes were shining, watching the mount as he said,
A thousand thousand
days of dreams. To never again fear the lords, never to fall to them. As the Chalin have
fallen. As all have fallen everywhere, except the Inyx. But it is a dream, too old, too weak.

In pictures more than words, Sydney saw the generations of mounts living and riding, roaming and dying, fearing the lords who wanted to subjugate them. The lords who subjugated with persuasion, through the Radiant Path, receiving as their due gratitude and awe—things the Inyx would never grant. Sydney saw the hundreds, the thousands of Inyx gone to the Long War. She felt the carnage and the anguish of war from the minds of herdmates who shared every pain, every horror.

A dream too old and weak
, Riod said again.

“No,” Mo Ti said. “The dream is alive.” He added: “But it needs legs.”

And then, through the ebb, he had laid out a plan, audacious and breathtaking, of a great change to come, beginning in secrecy and gaining in power, no matter how long it took. To raise the kingdom, a sentient kingdom with no lords.

Who shall be chief, then?
Riod sent.

Mo Ti’s glance slid sideways, as though to snag a thought not yet in his grasp. “We will see. But no fiends.” Then he looked at Sydney. “Perhaps there is one who we would all gladly serve.”

Sydney shook her head. “They would smash us. They have the bright. Their ships. Their hands. They have—”

“—it all, yes,” Mo Ti finished for her.

A silence fell. Outside, the distant snort of an Inyx came from the pasture where the herd slept standing, sending their dreams to their riders.

Mo Ti began again. “The weak place,” he said. “Everyone has a weak place. Even them.”

Sydney thought of the lords and tried to imagine a weak place.

Mo Ti’s voice came soft, high, and calm. “The Inyx must find the weak place.”

She took a wonder-filled breath. The Inyx are the key, she thought.

Riod sent negation.
We hate them. We choose never to touch their minds.

“That must change,” Mo Ti murmured.

And they had watched over Akay-Wat in silence then, each with their own thoughts.

Now, at the base of the cliff, Sydney looked up at Mo Ti’s high perch. “What do you see?”

Mo Ti answered, “Priov comes.”

“How close?”

“Close now, mistress. And he has many mounts with him.”

To fight, then. It was all very well to dream of fighting the lords, but here came a more immediate foe.

Mo Ti’s sure, muscular movements soon brought him down from his perch on the rock wall, and he mounted Distanir.

Riod approached Sydney, dipping front legs for her to mount.

“Who’s coming with Priov?” Sydney asked.

Riod sent,
The mares.

“Don’t fight,” she said. They were outnumbered, and Priov had blood on his mind. He would stamp out free bond and Riod all at once. But Riod didn’t answer. Ahead of them was a canyon with no exit. Riod set off at a gallop toward it.

“Turn back,” Sydney pleaded. Riod’s only answer was a dark resolve.

Mo Ti urged his mount close to her, saying, “Let him prove himself, mistress. It begins here.”

They thundered into the canyon. Riod’s thoughts were strangely hidden from Sydney as they came to the snub-nosed end of the canyon. Around them soared columns of rocks, casting a reflected yellow light. Riod circled to face the oncoming group.

Mo Ti rested a hand on Sydney’s arm to steady her. “Come over to me.”

She clambered behind him onto Distanir’s back, holding tight while he carried her to the canyon wall. There, they dismounted. Hooves echoed in the ravine as Priov’s band came around a bend in the cliffs.

Through Distanir’s eyes, Sydney saw Riod standing alone, his black coat glistening.

Distress and excitement colored Distanir’s perceptions: Priov thundered into the arena formed by the stone walls. Feng slipped off Priov’s back as the mares bunched around Priov, cantering and snorting. Separating himself from them, Priov pranced for their benefit. The canyon echoed with the shrill screams of the mares as they lifted their tails, spraying feces.

This should not be happening. It should wait for mating season, when the mares were at issue. Today, though, it wasn’t about mares, as everyone knew.

Riod stood unmoving, conserving energy under the molten bright.

Beloved
, Sydney murmured.

Mo Ti admonished her: “Do not weaken his concentration, mistress.”

Well then, Sydney thought. Let it begin. She calmed her mind to better receive the images sent by Mo Ti’s mount. The mares quieted, retreating behind Priov.

Then, posturing done, Priov charged.

As he raced in, Riod’s head lowered, bringing his horns to the fore. Priov feinted toward Riod and raced away. Circling around, he charged again, this time with his head lowered, veering to the side to swipe at Riod, who evaded, taking a defensive stance.

Across the expanse of spike grass, Feng stood like a queen, her hand on the hilt of her sheathed knife. Sydney felt for her own knife, patting it. Beside her, Mo Ti stood quietly with his mount.

Again Priov charged, this time clanking horn to horn with Riod. Hide ripped and separated. Blood flowed. It was Riod’s blood. His flank. Mo Ti rested a hand on her arm, giving her his strength.

Out of season, Riod wasn’t fighting well. Priov, on the other hand, had been stoking his own resolve all across the steppe.

Priov raced in again, making sickening contact in a crack of locked horns. Digging in his front legs for leverage and twisting violently, he yanked Riod down to his foreleg knees.

Disengaging, Priov pranced for his mares. For his arrogance, he took a wrenching kick in his ribs as Riod rolled on his side to bring his own legs in the air.

Enraged, Priov turned on his rival again, dashing in to slash Riod’s foreleg.

Blood spattered as Riod scrambled to an upright position, and both mounts breathed fitfully, near exhaustion.

Then one of the mares came forward. With a burst of speed, she ran toward Riod, swiping his flank with her own body and dashing away. Then another mare dashed in to attack.

By Sydney’s side, Mo Ti stirred.

He climbed onto Distanir. Of one mind, he and his mount plunged into the fray.

The mares pounded to and fro, in a confusing tumult of viewpoints and emotions. But Sydney could just discern Mo Ti’s strategy: he didn’t strike at the mares, but herded them. Expertly, he led Distanir in herding patterns that cut off the mares, and left Riod to recover his wind.

Seeing that Riod would only get stronger, Priov charged once more. The older mount’s head was down, coming at Riod, forehorns aimed low. Their skulls crashed together; then, as they separated, Riod turned his head to the side and gored Priov’s mouth. Priov roared in pain.

Sydney heard something behind her. She spun, drawing her knife at the same time. Someone was there.

“Little rose,” Feng’s voice growled.

Sydney now had her own fight. She held out her knife, turning in one direction and then the next, listening for Feng.

The whoosh of air came—the path of a knife.

And again Feng’s weapon flashed by. Having a fix on Feng’s position, Sydney dove for the big woman’s legs, bringing her down with a thump. They thrashed, but Feng was bigger, and gave Sydney a punch that knocked the wind out of her. For a moment she was helpless before a bigger, better fighter.

But then Feng paused, hearing, as Sydney did, the outcry of the mares.

Feng sobbed, “Priov.” And then she pounded away, leaving Sydney to pick herself up. Quiet surrounded her.

Amid a new and dreadful silence, Sydney staggered in the direction of the bloody arena. As she pushed her way among the now-quiet mares, she began picking up images: Two mounts, gushing blood. One mount on the ground, one standing.

Sydney made her way, grasping for sight, at last seeing through dozens of viewpoints: Priov was on the ground, horribly torn. His lip fell away in a slab of meat. He tried to stand, but Feng urged him to lie still. Beside Priov, Riod stood, with wounds on his flank and foreleg welling blood. But he could still move, and now he paced closer to Priov. Feng was on her hands and knees next to her mount. She looked up with loathing as she sheltered Priov’s head with her body.

Riod had won.

The mares stood quietly, absorbing the meaning of all this. Riod ducked his head at two mares, and, instead of shying, they came to sniff him, breaking the tension. Riod pranced into the middle of the crowd of mares— he managed what might be called a prance—and nuzzled a few of them, which they allowed. Sydney would have run to him, but this was not a time for her to interfere, she knew. Riod must take the mares, take their loyalty.

Then, with a trumpeting sound, Riod signaled for the mares. They slowly sorted themselves out—the eager, the tentative—but all came to him. Gathering them together, Riod galloped down the canyon, leaving behind the former leader. A dying one.

Mo Ti reached down for Sydney’s hand and, clasping it, pulled her up to ride behind him. Now Feng had a duty she must perform—a duty Sydney had once carried out for Glovid, but with less anguish.