Bright of the Sky (50 page)

Mo Ti turned Distanir away, leaving Feng to her task.

“He won,” Sydney murmured to Mo Ti, leaning exhausted against his back.

“Yes, my lady.”

She leaned against Mo Ti’s back as they trotted down the valley, with the bright beating hard on her head and each stride bruising her anew.

“Why did you call me
lady
?” Sydney said into Mo Ti’s strong back.

“Because that’s what you are now. If Riod is our master.”

“We have no lords and ladies,” Sydney said.

“That will change.”

He had his large ambitions. Too large, she thought, while still thrilled that he would think them. That
anyone
would think them. Where had Mo Ti learned such high ideas? He had only told her that many people thought thus.

“Take me home, Mo Ti.” She was too weary to think. And taking command of the herd was enough for one day.

Out on the flats, Riod’s commanding presence came to her. He had not forgotten her, but he was bringing the mares to his side.

She urged him on, fierce with pride.

Later that day back in the encampment, Sydney went searching for Akay-Wat.

Feng’s special quarters were now hers, along with a new deference from the riders. Even Puss, whose real name was Takko, gave her a nod, almost a bow.

Wordlessly, Sydney passed through the yard, unaccustomed to esteem, or even courtesy. But evidently, Priov and Feng would not be missed.

She found Akay-Wat resting behind the barracks. Her right foreleg, with its molded prosthesis, lay stretched out before her. Sydney sat next to her on the hard-packed clay.

The Hirrin blurted out, “Now, free bond comes to us, oh yes? We will have it at last, my lady?”

Sydney rested her arms on her knees, preoccupied. Softly, she asked, “When will you be strong enough to ride?”

Akay-Wat flattened her ears, worrying about her answer. “Oh dear. No riding yet, for Akay-Wat.”

“When you can, I want you to leave.”

Akay-Wat gasped.

Sydney didn’t have time or leisure to argue with the Hirrin. Akay-Wat was either up to the task or not. Sydney was getting tough under Mo Ti’s tutelage, so she had decided to pass it along.

“We’ll find you a mount who wants free bond, Akay-Wat. When we do, you’ll go to Ulrud’s herd.”

Akay-Wat was as silent as the steppe around them.

“Live there and teach them of free bond,” Sydney said.

Akay-Wat made a mourning noise deep in her long throat. “My lady . . .” Then she breathed, “Don’t send me away. I will serve you, I will be brave, I will do anything you say, will Akay-Wat. Please, mistress.”

Sydney couldn’t bear this pleading. Yes, it was hard. Yes, Akay-Wat was afraid and wounded. Get tough, my Hirrin, she thought.

“Akay-Wat, listen now. I need those around me I can trust.”

“You can trust me, you can!”

Sydney interrupted. “Prove it.”

Then, slowly, Akay-Wat staggered to her feet. Her voice warbled in a plaintive ululation.

Sydney rose, too. Remembering Mo Ti’s steady hand, she placed her own on Akay-Wat’s back, pressing down firmly. They stood together for a few moments, and she felt the Hirrin’s warm hide tremble under her hand. Then she walked away, leaving Akay-Wat to cry in privacy.

And make up her mind.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

May the dragon you find be well fed.

—a blessing

A
NZI WALKED BESIDE QUINN
to his meeting with the high prefect. He’d confessed to her that he’d gone walking in the city, and now she refused to stay behind in his cell. Here at his side, she was determined to prevent similar lapses in judgment. So it was just as well he hadn’t told her about Small Girl.

Although she was dressed in stolen clerk’s attire with sloping hat, she made an unlikely bureaucrat. She strode tall, lacking the hunched back and squinting eyes. The garb had served double duty so far, since they’d used the hat to read Cho’s redstone. The uniform wasn’t all that she’d taken. In order to ascend one of the other pillars of the Ascendancy, she’d assumed another visitor’s identity. She delighted him with her audacity, and he was surprised by how glad he was to see her—even as dangerous as her presence was.

He’d kidded her, “So I wasn’t ready to do this on my own, after all.”

She had pursed her lips, but the smile came through. “I’m selfish, Dai Shen. My uncle would have me whipped for leaving you.” She’d let him save face, but he knew he was better off with her near.

And he’d been glad of her company last night as they pored over the document Cho had provided: Kang’s account of the interrogations of Johanna. It was a dry summary, but Johanna shone through because of the lies she’d told. She had lied about Earth politics and company politics. Lied about Minerva, about technology, and about small personal matters. How many children did she have?
Eight
. How long had she lived?
Fifty years
. It was as though she was determined to thwart them even if it did no good. She had fought them with all her wits, and enjoyed it. No wonder he loved her.

Here, close to the salon of the high prefect, legates packed the halls, clutching scrolls or pausing to gossip, while clerks mingled with downcast eyes to avoid continuous bowing. Fluted columns framed the views of the heartland, now fallen into a dusty lavender time. Since Cixi preferred to meet in the ebb of day, it had become the fashion on this level of the Magisterium to work all ebb and sleep all day.

A wide staircase marked the boundary of the high prefect’s salon doors. Legates stood in knots on the stairs, glancing at times to the gilded doors, hoping for a glimpse of Cixi.

Barely hiding a growing elation, Quinn walked to his interview. Drawing closer, he drew looks from legates who must have wondered how someone dressed in plain silks could hope to find a place in line. He bowed to the closest few. He was ready for his greatest challenge: securing the old woman’s endorsement of his journey to the Inyx.

Pausing before the steps, Anzi whispered, “I will wait for you here, Dai Shen.”

“No, Anzi. Too conspicuous.”

“I will wait, I think.”

The legates on the stairs were watching him; it was time to go. He looked at her. Faithful Anzi. In danger because of him. He would send her on a harmless errand. “Find me a toy boat,” he said.

Anzi looked doubtful.

He lowered his voice. “One about this big,” he said, gesturing. “A boat that can be put in the water.”

He glanced up at the legate guarding the salon doors. The practice matches with Min Fe and Shi Zu were over. “To the dragon,” he said.

Anzi whispered, “Remember not to step on the dragon.”

He started up the stairs, threading his way through legates and preconsuls, the finely plumed birds of Cixi’s aviary, whether Chalin, Ysli, or Hirrin.

They turned to watch him as he made straight for the door, clutching his summons. This he presented to the Chalin gatekeeper, who perused the scroll and, finding it in order, reached to open the door. At that moment Quinn caught a glimpse of a familiar legate standing off to the side. Min Fe bowed in his direction, a jackal on the fringe of the lions.

Quinn stepped into Cixi’s domain, into a foyer. A spike of worry hit him, that the old woman would remember him. Unlike the Tarig, Chalin were good at faces.

A Hirrin servant stood guard at yet another door. On the floor at the Hirrin’s feet coiled an inlaid design in the likeness of a snake that appeared to slither under the door.

As Quinn approached, the servant opened the door, ushering him into an expansive colonnaded room with a sweeping view out to the city. Amid a dozen Hirrin attendants, Cixi sat on a raised chair. Dwarfed by the elaborate chair, the old woman perched there, her feet supported by a footstool. A Hirrin knelt at her side applying a lacquer to the prefect’s fingernails. The fumes of the lacquer swept over Quinn’s Jacobson’s organ, along with smells of Hirrin perfumes.

The prefect’s stiff gown and hair created an imposing façade, but the woman herself, as he’d noted before, was as small as a child. Her startlingly black hair was sculpted into a high bonnet framing a lined and crumpled face. Her fingernails were three inches long, curling in at the ends. She hadn’t changed a bit.

Next to the dais, but standing somewhat back, was a huge man clad in a tentlike embroidered jacket and pants. This, he guessed from his glimpse of the man the other day, was Zai Gan. The man’s scowl cut into the folds of his face. He looked like his rotund brother, but a crueler version.

Quinn bowed, noting that beneath his feet was the rest of the snake that he’d seen in the foyer. However, now he saw that it was no snake, but a dragon, scaled and whiskered. Jeweled teeth glowed in the grinning mouth.

When he rose from his bow, Cixi was glaring at him. The Hirrin at her side had stopped her ministrations and also stared at him.

Cixi looked at Zai Gan. Her deep voice had lost none of its authority: “Stands on Breathing Fire, Preconsul. You saw?”

“Shocking, High Prefect,” Zai Gan said.

Quinn had shocked her before he had even opened his mouth. She’d said
stands.
. . . He looked down, seeing that he stood on the dragon. Moving to the side, he stepped off it. The Hirrin attendants on the sidelines moved their heads in unison to note this.

Cixi smirked at him. “Born in a minoral?”

“My noble father despaired of me, Your Brilliance.”

She regarded him for a moment. “Are you of my acquaintance, petitioner?” Her face was all squinting eyes and wariness.

“It has never been my honor, High Prefect.”

“Yet you sound familiar.”

A pause stretched long enough to shred his stomach lining.

The Hirrin attendant blew too strongly on her nails, and Cixi jerked her hand away, frowning and readjusting the drape of her robes. “Minor son of Yulin. No, I suppose not. Does your father still pretend to service ten wives?”

“Nine, these days, Your Brilliance.” He’d seen Caiji’s funeral procession.

A hiccup emerged from the prefect, an eruption that passed for a laugh. “Even so.” The Hirrin spectators fluttered their lips in amusement, and in an instant the suspicion on her face had passed.

“Which wife must claim you?” she asked.

“I am nothing so grand, High Prefect. No wife claims me.” With Yulin’s brother standing close by, Quinn hoped to avoid speaking of things Zai Gan would know intimately. But Cixi, of course, controlled the conversation.

Cixi examined her glowing purple nails. “Well then, bastard son of the One Who Shines, is it an insult to send such a messenger to the high prefect?”

“It’s true that the sublegate Min Fe found me unworthy. He would have sent me home before I could shock the great Cixi.” He glanced at the dragon on the floor.

“Perhaps that would have been well.” The attendants stood like a row of pawns on a chessboard, waiting for the queen’s next move.

It was a hall of power. Quinn thought of Ghoris the navitar reaching out and gathering the lines of choice, of fate. Crisscrossing this room were invisible wires, the burning shadows of things that must be, or should be. All he had to do was grasp them and pull them toward him.

Cixi’s voice came to him like a vibration almost beyond hearing: “Perhaps it takes more than that to shock the high prefect.”

“I’m relieved. It wasn’t the image I had of your personage.”

“And what image did you have of this
personage
, bastard messenger?”

He took a chance at flattery: “A woman who wears the dragon, the only one who dares to wear it.”

“Ha.” Cixi pointed a blue-nailed finger at him. “This one is either very stupid or very smart.” She turned slightly to inquire of Zai Gan, “Which, Preconsul?”

Zai Gan muttered, “Stupid, it would seem.”

Cixi closed her eyes for a moment, revealing eyelids crusted with silver. “I am surrounded by stupidity. Why do I prefer Hirrin attendants, messenger?”

“Because Hirrin can’t lie,” Quinn said.

She turned a virulent gaze on the preconsul. “But Chalin can, is that not correct?”

Zai Gan moved closer to the dais. “Yes, Your Brilliance.”

“Stop calling me that ridiculous name.”

Quinn made a mental note to do likewise, while Zai Gan squirmed under her gaze. Then Cixi turned once more to Quinn, beckoning him with a long finger. “Approach me, messenger.”

As Quinn did so, the Hirrin vacated the footstool where she had been seated, and bid him take her place. Sitting, Quinn met Cixi’s gaze and managed, he thought, to look relaxed. Her hair wax smelled rancid, barely covered by her perfumed body powder. She looked like a gnome-queen presiding over a grotesque court. But she didn’t suspect that the one in front of her was the most peculiar of them all.

Speaking more intimately now, Cixi asked, “Why should the Inyx be leaders of battle, when they cannot utter commands?”

“Madam, they can speak silently among themselves to coordinate.”

She held up a lacquered nail to make her point. “But silently. We do not trust those who whisper.”

Quinn nodded. “Wise, if whisperers have a choice. But the Inyx have no choice. All their speech is silent.”

Zai Gan snorted in response, and Cixi cut a glance at this impertinence. She resumed, “Then how, son of Yulin, do we know if they are loyal, when they never affirm that it is so? When we see no evidence of respect for the gracious lords? These creatures have no writing, no music, nothing to celebrate their Tarig creators. Is this natural, is this loyal?”

“It is loyal to fight for the high lords. This is worth more than bowing and writing.”

She allowed herself a small, awful smile, showing an even row of yellow teeth like kernels of corn. “Fighting worth more than bowing? You insult my legates, perhaps?”

Quinn murmured, half apology, half irony, “Born in a minoral.”

Cixi’s face warred over whether to be amused or annoyed. By her tone, annoyance won. “But sent on high matters to the dragon’s court. Strange.”

“My father gives me a chance to make up for past indiscretions, madam. If I succeed, I am redeemed.”

Her face twitched as though assaulted by a gnat. “No concern of mine.”