Bright of the Sky (52 page)

And then Johanna was with him. It was only her voice, but it was as though she was sitting at his side. He struggled for control, trying to listen to the sense of what she was saying while feeling her absence like an empty realm within him. She was talking to him, telling him how her interrogator, the scholar Kang, had grown fond of her, and after many years had placed this redstone in the archives, and would be telling Titus where to find it. She had begged Kang for this favor, and had prayed that Kang would convey the red-stone to Titus.

Kang never had. Or perhaps Titus had already fled the Entire by then.

He sat with his back to the wall, and cradled the hat in his arms.

Johanna said that if she was discovered, Lord Inweer would kill her. That after listening to the recording, Titus should destroy it. That above all, he must never keep a redstone copy, because she would die of it, if discovered.

Then she said that she still wanted her life, and that he should want his.

“No,” he whispered.

As though she’d heard him, she laughed. “Yes,” she said. “It’s all that’s left now. Our separate lives. Take yours back, Titus. Because I’m taking mine. I don’t despair, and neither should you. Even after they sent Sydney away, I still believe somewhere she’ll salvage a life. If I didn’t believe that, I wouldn’t want to live.”

Perhaps she had heard to the contrary, and that was why she died. Of grief. But there was no time to speculate. She went on.

“Sydney has been sent to the Inyx sway. You know that, I’m sure. They say they are all slaves there—but I thank God she isn’t in Hadenth’s reach. She’s gone from us, Titus. I pray for her. I know you don’t pray. But you have to live. You have to find a way home. You have to tell them what this place is, this terrible world. A place so dreadful they hate God. I know you don’t think that’s much of an indictment.

“It doesn’t matter about God.” She sighed. “About us, Titus—what can I say? I expect you’ve found someone else by now. It’s all right; it really is. I’ve made a life, as much I can. You do the same. Lord Inweer has me here; if you ever saw this place, you would never hope for me again. I’m not sad, Titus. Life is a gift, even here, and even for you, whatever you may suffer.

“All right then, here’s what I’ve come to say. Even Kang doesn’t know. No one knows except the lords. And me.” She paused. “You’ve heard that this place has a great engine that protects Ahnenhoon from invasion. That’s a lie. The fortress isn’t built to fend off the Paion. The armies do that well enough.

“The engine is worse, so much worse than that. It’s the secret to the storm walls and the bright. I never thought about what powers things here— those storm walls and their sky—did you? We should have. The energy it takes is beyond imagining. Whatever power source the lords had in the Heart, where they came from, is running out. Now they’re going to feed off the Rose. I don’t know how it can be done, but the lords can do this. You’ve seen their power.

“I think that they’ve already started. The Entire is feeding slowly now, but soon the lords will collapse the Rose into the form that suits them, into a furnace, a gigantic star, is how I think of it. It’s the best sort of fuel for this place. The Rose has maybe a hundred years left—and then it will be a sudden collapse. These things are impossible to conceive of. Just remember what you know of the Tarig, and then you won’t doubt it can happen. Titus, I know that you must wonder how I know these things. All right, I’ll tell you. I’ve said I’ve made my peace here, and I have. Sometimes I’m close enough to the creatures that they tell me things. They could have lied, but why would they? Perhaps you’ll have to take what I say on faith. Hard for you, I know.”

She made a small sound in her throat. “No time, no time. Oh Titus, there’s so much I want to say. But none of it makes any difference now. Listen, then: Disable Ahnenhoon, destroy it if you can. I’ll gladly die with the place. Go home to the Rose and warn them.” She paused again. “He’s coming. You’d think they’d learn to wear soft-soled shoes so their footsteps didn’t echo so. I’m glad they make mistakes. Good-bye Titus. May God guide you.”

She added, “You know which God I mean.”

He walked down the rows of the mausoleum, his hand drifting along the ovoids so that he could pace in the dark. Anzi was listening to the recording now, and afterward they would destroy the redstone, so that no one could find it.

As he paced down the darkened aisles, the flags slapped at his hand.

She had said,
Take back your life, Titus. Because I’m taking mine.
The words cut a swath.

She had said,
They’re going to feed off the Rose.

He heard Anzi approaching. “I ground it into dust, Dai Shen,” she whispered.

She embraced him, and he held her in the dark. Anzi whispered into his shoulder, “If I had never lived to hear such things . . .” She didn’t finish the thought. He couldn’t finish his own thoughts about the Rose. Soon to die. To power the All. To the Tarig, the Rose was only fuel.

Amid the large shocks, the small:
It’s all that’s left now. Our separate lives.
She had released him. It left him with an unsteady feeling, like walking on a beach where the tide ran up and stole the sand from under your feet. A separate life. Did he have one, then?

Anzi asked, “What will we do?”

The dark chamber filled with this thought. There seemed to be lines falling from the ceiling, filaments from a spider’s mouth. He felt paralyzed by a web more complex than he could fathom.

“I’ll find Sydney. Then I’ll go home with her—and tell what’s happened here.”

Anzi’s voice came so soft and small, he thought it might be the words of a spirit: “If you die or are captured, Shen, who will bring the warning to the Rose?”

The darkness was so thick, he thought he might suffocate.

“I have time to do both,” he whispered, because he prayed with all his heart that this was true.

Anzi’s silence was terrible. If he didn’t rescue Sydney, if he ran back to the Rose, was he betraying this Chalin woman who thought things of greatness converged in him? Was he betraying Bei? Because what came next could condemn the Entire.

“When I come back—when my people hear this—we’ll be at war.”

“Yes.”

In confusion, he exclaimed, “Whose side are you on, then?”

“That’s not the right question.”

“But it is. Why not put it off for as long as you can? You’ve seen war in my universe. We’re good at it. The lords may win, but it might not matter after we’re done with the Entire.”

“Not the right question,” she repeated.

“What
is
the right question?” He was confused and ragged, and she wasn’t. He was glad of her steadiness, but he also wanted her allegiance back. The woman who was going to the Inyx sway with him, the woman who had said he could start over.

Her voice came softly. “The question is, Whose side are
you
on?”

The Rose was his place; how could it not be? But that didn’t mean he wanted war. “Tell me not to do this, Anzi. Not to bring war to the Entire. Can’t you tell me that?”

“No, I can’t.” Her voice sounded small, but certain. “You know why, I think.”

He knew. She was on the side of the Rose. “I need time to think.” He began backing off. “I can’t think right now.”

“You can think. You just don’t like your conclusion.”

He shot back at her: “What’s it like being so certain, Anzi?”

“Like burning up inside.”

He tried to say something, but failed. He turned and enlivened the light under his feet. It lit him all the way to the door.

He walked through the Magisterium, half-blind, not knowing which level, which corridor. Returning no bows, he got sideways looks. Not good, not good to draw attention. He turned to see if Anzi was following him; but no, he was alone.

At last he found himself sitting outdoors by the pool, by the Sleeping Lord’s monument, where he was half-hidden from view but could still snatch narrow views of the city. On the promenade a few Tarig strolled, as well as all the other motley and wearying variety of thinking beings, walking and strolling and hurrying. Among them all, he alone was human. For the first time, he was lonely. He sat staring dully at the pool. Johanna’s voice came to him:
They will collapse the Rose into a form that suits them.
To power the storm walls of the Entire. This, then, was the end in fire that the navitar Ghoris had foretold. This was why Johanna was at the center of it all. Because she was going to tell him.

And here, too, was the true meaning of the Third Vow:
Extend the reach
of the Entire
. It was so obvious now. The Entire must reach outside itself to survive; it must devour the Rose. Despite the long lives of its denizens, the Entire itself was short-lived. It was obvious—and he had thought it before— that its energy requirements could not be sustained without extraordinary measures. Extraordinary, indeed.

He must have sat for a full hour or more. Above him, the bright blasted into Prime of Day. He was weary of the bright, profoundly weary, with his mind buried under everything. The Entire had finally managed to overwhelm him.

The carp had been swimming in place for a long time. The carp with the orange back. Quinn was staring right at it, not seeing it. Until he did see it.

Its scales humped in ridges, looking wrong. Then the mottled marking looked like Lucent script. A word formed:
Follow
.

Then the carp swam away toward the canal.

Quinn followed.

He fought to keep his agitation under control, thinking he must look like a man who’d just seen a plane crash. He felt stunned and horrified, sick and galvanized. He didn’t know what he felt, but he was sure he looked odd. Kneeling beside the canal, he stooped to gather water in his hands. He washed his face. It was all he could think of to brace himself, and it helped. Lord Oventroe had sent for him. Sent for him now, at the worst time, when his thinking had slowed and his body was indescribably weary.

Ahead, the carp was waiting for him, swimming in a little eddy. Then, seeing him, it swam slowly away, upstream. He strolled, trying not to stare at the carp. The fish was easy to spot, waiting for him and then swimming on. Quinn forced himself to look away from the canal, as any ordinary person would; to look at the spires of the city, to gaze now and then at the palatine hill. Once or twice he stopped to sit on the canal walls, looking like he had no place to go. Whereas he had the most important places in the world to go. And all at once.

He followed the carp in this dazed state, recalling his plan for that moment when he might talk to this lord. The plan now seemed very ill advised. It was always going to be a risky thing, to see this lord. But from great risks, great rewards. That logic had held until Johanna changed everything. Now he must get home no matter what—Anzi said so, and she might be right. And, if it came to that, then he had to go home without the correlates. Without Sydney. He pushed that thought aside. No, not without Sydney.

A shadow fell on him. He was standing there, gazing at the water, and astonishingly, a Tarig had come to stand beside him. He’d heard no boots, no sound at all.

Quinn turned and bowed, to gain time, to gather his wits. Had he been discovered, now of all times?

“We do not know you,” the Tarig said.

This Tarig was only a half foot taller than Quinn. The lord’s voice was deep, and Quinn did not recognize him.

Quinn answered, “Dai Shen of the house of Yulin, my life in your service.”

“Ah, Yulin. We know of that Chalin man. A famous personage, indeed.” The lord regarded him with a calm assurance that was far from Quinn’s own state. “Su Bei is not so famous, though some remember him well. We gave him a token once.”

Quinn’s breathing became very shallow. It was Oventroe, then. The red-stone he’d fed the carp was Su Bei’s. And now, after thirteen days, here was Oventroe come to see him out in the open, and not hiding. Quinn felt his scalp prickle. Were other Tarig coming toward them even now, and was it over? But no one was nearby. No Tarig. Other sentients passed, bowing low, looking relieved that they had not been singled out for conversation by the lord.

“Su Bei is of my acquaintance,” Quinn said carefully.

The lord did not look at him, but gazed at the canal, as though idly watching carp. “Bei, by his redstone, begged this lord to see you, Chalin warrior of Ahnenhoon. You have ten words. Give them up.”

He had only ten words to convey what he wished. That settled it, then. There were to be no games of
how can I trust you
. The lord demanded everything, immediately.

“I am Titus Quinn.”

A small breeze wicked the sweat from his face and neck. He felt ill to say it in the outdoors next to the mansions of the Tarig. To a Tarig.

“Prove that you are he.”

“Do you speak the dark languages?” Quinn asked. He’d been ready for this moment. “Such as that language that Titus Quinn spoke when he was first here?”

The lord turned to look down on Quinn. His face was somewhat rounded, his black hair knotted into rows and gathered at his neck with a glittering metal clasp. The eyes: black, merciless. Oventroe said, “Conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition . . .”

He was speaking in English.

“That all men are created equal,” Quinn whispered, finishing the sentence in his turn.

Quinn was shaking. Speaking the words, speaking in English. It was all exposed now. He commanded himself to get a grip.

“We favor the Lincoln speech,” Lord Oventroe said. “We select it as one to memorize.” His face seemed to soften for a moment, if it was not Quinn’s imagination. One had to be careful not to impute human feelings where none existed. But Tarig had
some
feelings, and sometimes they appeared understandable, as Quinn knew to his profound regret. The lord continued, “You are not favored here.”

The understatement was staggering. Perhaps a joke?

“Yet you return,” Oventroe continued.

“To open the Entire to converse with the Rose, Bright Lord. Help me.”

“You believe that this lord would do so?”