A World Too Near (18 page)

Finally the lady rose, smoothing her soft metal skirt. “We will not speak of this again, Depta. We have the world to govern. You cannot know us, nor think that we see things as you do. Leave off curiosity, and only serve me, Preconsul. You understand?”

Depta crossed her legs in a shaky bow. “Yes . . . yes, Lady.” She eyed the arched gateway, yearning to be beyond it.

Chiron followed Depta’s gaze, and laughed. “Yes, go then. Compose yourself, Depta. Never worry until the day you wake and find you do not love us.”

Depta stumbled away, dizzy with relief, her stomach roiling. Then, remembering her reason for returning to the garden, she turned back to the lady, saying, “Our agent in Yulin’s camp needs the bright to—”

Chiron interrupted, waving a long-fingered hand. “Granted. Let him send word by the bright.”

Depta nodded dumbly, and stumbled away. What was that posture of stone a moment before, and the terrible gaze in the lady’s eyes? Truly, Lady Chiron was right in saying,
You cannot know us.
How, Depta thought, had she grown complacent so easily? Depta had assumed a level of worshipful comfort around her mistress. Oh, mistake, mistake. Depta would not again commit the error of thinking a Tarig was like a Hirrin—was like anything but a Tarig.

Yes, that was an important lesson. But more—Depta now wondered if it was possible to feel love and terror at the same time. Her heart held great love for the noble lady. And now for the first time, fear.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The Three Vows are these:

Withhold the knowledge of the Entire from the non-Entire.
Impose the peace of the Entire.
Extend the reach of the Entire.

—from
The Radiant Way

A
NZI CROUCHED BEFORE YULIN, her head on the floor in obeisance. Although her uncle held court in a ragged tent these days instead of his Chalin sway palace, he still ruled his few followers, and her. Now he intended to marry her to a man she didn’t love—an officious, strutting legate whom she could barely tolerate. That man stood in the shadows of the tent, watching her.

“Uncle of My Deliverance,” she murmured by way of greeting to Yulin.

Yulin waved a hand at her in impatience. “Yes, yes, all the titles and so forth. Get up, Ji Anzi.”

Anzi stood, wishing, profoundly wishing, to be elsewhere. “Uncle. You are looking fit.” He had lost weight in his trek across half the realm. His neck hung with folds of loose skin. He wore a dark green sash over his humble silks, the only strong color or ornamentation that distinguished him from the beku tenders outside.

“You will not flatter, Anzi. I have no time for your foolishness.” From Yulin’s haggard appearance, he hadn’t slept in some time, yet she sensed a new vitality about him. Her uncle had lived for his palace gardens too long; now he concentrated on outwitting the Tarig. It made him more alive. This was, in Anzi’s view, the thing that one learned from the Rose: to strive, to burn intensely. Everyone who touched Titus Quinn came away changed—sometimes for the worse, it was true, if one longed for something one could not have.

Her uncle had visions of aligning with powerful human traders when the barriers between worlds softened. But today the barriers remained, and the Tarig were on alert. Worse, the lords had discovered his recent complicity in hiding Titus Quinn. Yulin had fled, abandoning the sway to his ambitious brother, Zai Gan. Also exiled and in hiding were Anzi and Yulin’s oldest wife, Suzong. Fortunate to escape the slow death meted out for treason, they had taken on disguises and fled separately across the sway and
beyond it, to meet up again near the plains of war. Yulin had become a beggar, and Suzong a half-mad scholar, wandering. Anzi had attached herself to a military enlistment squad and traveled on an army transport down the Nigh. All the while her thoughts were on a man of the Rose, praying that he had escaped God’s notice and reached home safely. So that he could return.

Old Suzong sat at Yulin’s side, warning Anzi with a pursed look to be amenable to instruction.

“How may I serve, Uncle?” Anzi whispered.

“You can serve by curbing your plots.” Yulin pointed a finger at her. “Do not speak.” When she shut her mouth, he went on, “You can serve by restraining your instincts to disobey, willfully cross me, and flout convention. That’s how you can show me your loyalty, and your gratitude, which you can never repay if you live one hundred thousand days, which you will not because of errant adventurism.”

Suzong coughed, keeping her eyes on the floor.

Yulin rounded on her. “You have something to say, wife?”

She pulled her high-necked jacket more closely around her, but didn’t avert her eyes. He had been young and she, old, when he married her, but that hadn’t affected their devotion—or the distribution of power.

“I would only say that marriage should be a happy topic, husband.”

Yulin snorted. “And so it would have been, if my niece had been properly appreciative of Ling Xiao Sheng.”

Stepping forward, the odious Ling bowed—a long drop for one so tall. He was the heir of a wealthy family with ties to high consuls in the Magisterium. Somehow, Yulin reasoned that such a match could help his precarious position. But surely there was only one way to survive now: to elude the Tarig completely. How could a minor marriage weigh in against treason? And besides, she had no intention of marrying anyone, much less Ling Xiao Sheng, who was too anxious for children and domination over a pregnant wife. Add to that, the man picked at his teeth with his nails, and stank. Even if it was true that they all stank in this hideaway, she couldn’t bear him.

Ling Xiao Sheng rested his right hand on his sword pommel, watching Anzi with eyes the color of urine.

Yulin adjusted his sash and waved at Anzi’s suitor. “Speak, and tell us what you have told me privately.”

The man smiled at Anzi, receiving her cool gaze in return. “Ji Anzi, we have had our betrothal announced some forty days, and now comes time to set our marriage day, which is your privilege to do.” When she didn’t respond, he added, “Which you have not seen fit to do.”

“No,” she agreed. Cutting a glance at her uncle she added, “Yet.”

“Yet,” Ling repeated in some confusion.

As hard as it was, she managed a tepid smile at him. “Yet.”

Yulin looked from one of them to the other, and exploded. “Yet, yet, yet! What game is this?” He stormed forward. “Farting Gonds, I’ll have an answer.”

Anzi held her place, but averted her eyes so as not to challenge her uncle. He did need her agreement. And she heartily wished she could comply, wished that she were the kind of woman who wanted a household to manage, and a high station in the meritocracy of the Entire. But Anzi had dedicated herself to the welfare of Titus Quinn. If he came back, she would be at his side, both because of how much she owed him, and because it was inconceivable to stay at home when adventures beckoned.

“Surely, One Who Shines,” Anzi murmured, “you have higher concerns than Ling Xiao Sheng’s marriage date? One dislikes to waste the time of the master of the sway.”

Yulin darkened. “Am I so? The master of the sway?” He spread his arms to encompass the tent, the camp. “I am master of nothing. And we know why. We know why I have left my beloved halls, left my gardens. And who sits there now.”

His half brother Zai Gan sat there. A bitter blow. Anzi whispered, “But you are always the master of the sway to me.” Zai Gan was a fat imposter, by all accounts a lackey of the high prefect Cixi.

Suzong now stepped in. “The date, Anzi. We will have the date.”

Thinking quickly, Anzi said, “Ten days to finish my purities. That will be the date of Ling Xiao Sheng’s wedding.”

“Purities,” Suzong mused. “A young woman must purge herself of other lovers, before first entering her husband’s chamber.” Her voice dropped an octave. “We waive the purities. She is pure enough, eh Ling?”

Ling Xiao Sheng blinked. As to Anzi’s other lovers, he might not have thought that she had had so many. Dozens. Hundreds, perhaps. He looked at her with a new appraisal.

Anzi murmured, “I would not want to bear my husband another man’s child, mistress.”

This utterance hung darkly in the room. Let them wonder about Titus Quinn and if we are lovers, Anzi thought. That must give them pause, to think that she was so favored by him. Yulin must still wonder what power Titus Quinn had, and if he spoke for the Rose, or whether he was just a man acting on his own, pursuing a lost daughter. This was Yulin’s dilemma, whether to be for him or against him—for converse with the Rose or, according to the vows, against it.

But this wasn’t a dilemma for Anzi. She was for the Rose. That realm of vast space, that place that held the Earth . . . She should have been born there, not here. Her longing for the place was the reason she had snared Titus Quinn’s escape capsule so long ago and brought him here. Hers was the first act of treason, by the vows. That it had destroyed his family caused her deep shame. But now she would make it up to Titus. If he came back.

Yulin scowled at the possibility that she might be bearing the man’s child. “Have you not . . . Since then, have you . . .” He gave up, glaring at Suzong.

Suzong beckoned Anzi forward and pulled her down so she could whisper in her ear. “Courses, girl. None?”

Anzi murmured back, “We may know in ten days, Aunt. Wait that long, I beg you.”

Smiling sweetly, Suzong whispered. “I’ll have your liver on a skewer if you’re lying.”

Anzi turned to Yulin and Ling. “Ten days’ wait, for the sake of the purities.” It would buy time. It would give Titus Quinn a few days to come back. To find her. Then, after ten days, she could claim she
was
pregnant. That would buy even more time. But of course there had been no intimacies, so that excuse would last only so long.

Anzi gave Ling Xiao Sheng a large smile, and his face brightened. I would rather lie with a Gond, she thought.

Yulin dismissed her, but despite her acquiescence, he felt no happier. Anzi had always been an inveterate liar and a sometime thief, when it suited her purposes. But he thought that she loved him, and for his sake perhaps she would conform this time. He wanted to tell her that if she didn’t, he might soon lie at the feet of the Tarig. He wanted to tell her that the Lady Chiron had discovered their hiding place, and that he had been forced to change allegiance. However, for the sake of trapping Titus Quinn, that must remain secret.

Yulin knew that he might be as good as dead right now. It kept him awake at ebb-time, and pursued his thoughts during the day. On the one hand, the gracious lords did wish to look
gracious
in the eyes of their subjects. It would not be seemly for them to subject the master of a sway to the garrote. Yet no matter how skillfully the Lady Chiron might argue on his behalf, she was only one among the five ruling lords. For this reason, he must forge alliances such as this marriage, so that when the time came, others would speak for him.

Yes, let her marry Ling, he thought. Yulin was more determined than ever to arrange his personal affairs. Anzi must relinquish her unhealthy devotion to the man of the Rose. Let Anzi not seek him out, nor help him, should he ever return. Let her turn her attention to a husband and the large household that Ling Xiao Sheng could provide. And let her reconcile herself to Titus Quinn’s capture. If the man came here—and
Yulin almost hoped he would not—he was Chiron’s.

His gut churning with anxiety, Yulin turned to Ling. Was it possible for this vain lordling to curb his exaggerated self-regard? “Be courteous to her, Ling Xiao Sheng.”

The man drew himself up. “Of course, Master Yulin.”

Yulin waved at him in irritation. “Your posture, your attitude. Soften it. Understand that Anzi is proud. Woo her, man!”

Ling took that for a direct command. Stooping, he ducked out the tent flap in search of Anzi.

He was alone again with Suzong. She murmured, “He can never replace the other one in Anzi’s heart.”

“Ling doesn’t want her heart. Let her flutter over whom she will.”

“And what about
your
heart, husband?”

His wife well understood that he was uncertain where his best interests lay. The Rose might be as powerful as the Ascendancy—someday. In that day, Yulin could be powerful too, more so than any master of a sway.

Yulin sighed. “I tire of speaking of hearts.”

“But you must choose,” she murmured, “between the man of the Rose and the lady of the Ascendancy. A matter of hearts.”

“A matter of power,” Yulin spat. “In the end, what does Titus Quinn promise us? Dreams of alliances with the Rose. Dreams, not power.”

Suzong waved her hand toward the camp. “
They
think he has power. He destroyed the brightships. He felled Lord Hadenth. Every sentient in the Entire has heard by now and wonders what power the Rose may have.” She sucked on her teeth. “Choose carefully, husband.”

What he meant for a whisper came out as a snarl. “It appears you and Anzi have already chosen.”

Suzong demurred. “What does it matter what women think? The choice is yours, husband.”

Yes, his choice. But not yet forced upon him. When and if Titus Quinn came to this camp,
then
he would have to choose whether to alert Lady Chiron. And if Anzi was safely married, then Quinn would have no reason to come here. Damn the girl and her pitiful excuses. Let her marry.

Ten days, and he would officiate himself.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

The bright is high and the Tarig far away.

—a saying

S
YDNEY LAY CURLED UP ON RIOD’S BROAD BACK, dozing in deep ebb-time. Around them the herd milled quietly, munching at tufts of grass, tails flicking at gnats. But they were elsewhere; their herd-thought ranging far outward, past the encampment, the roamlands sway, the primacy—to Entirean distances.

Riod guided his fellow mounts, picking his way through the eddies of the mental realm, tracking down Tarig minds, then skirting them, hovering to send a focused tendril inside this mind and that one. The Tarig so far were insensible to these probes, so Riod judged. In this heart-realm, he picked his way with the delicacy of a cat, the grace of a dancer. Tarig consciousness might be strange ground, but Riod and his legions were born to the territory, making few mistakes. Riod became the surgeon of minds, setting the point of entry and knifing a way through the maze of Tarig cognition. All the while, he performed an even more difficult task: to screen Inyx personal thoughts from leaking through, betraying a foreign presence.