A World Too Near (23 page)

He had never much considered what denizens of the Entire thought about him.
Hsien.
Immortal. Strange, from a people for whom life was as long as any could wish.

“People would follow you,” Zhiya said again.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“What did you come back for? Your daughter, still?” He nodded. “That’s not all of it, though, is it?”

He greeted this question with silence. He wasn’t about to confide his mission. “Why don’t
you
lead the opposition, Zhiya? If I lived here, I’d follow you.”

She drew out a mirror and a cup of red paste, reapplying her lip color. Smacking her lips together to spread the gel, she said, “A dwarf? A god-woman? I think not.”

Quinn murmured, “I’m no hero, no
hsien
. I want my daughter. I want peace between your world and mine. And I have no idea how to accomplish either one, much less making the Tarig behave. Don’t think of me to save you.”

Zhiya’s smile became fixed. “A shame.” She sighed, spreading her hands to encompass her quarters. “You’re welcome to ride to the Nigh in comfort, Quinn. We could talk. Oh. I didn’t make it clear, did I, that I’m on your side? My people won’t tell. They practically worship you. Damn annoying, when I used to be the big deal.”

He considered the advantages of getting Helice out of sight. When they reached the gathering place of the Adda, Helice could be crowded in among other sentients for that leg of the trip. She would never escape discovery, he knew now.

“Benhu and Li, as well?”

She considered this. “If I must.”

“I may accept. If you’re not worried about being seen with me.”

“Not at the moment. These godmen are poor and without communications
or stone wells. I’m known to take my pick of lovers. Let them think that’s the case.” She glanced at him coyly. “If it
were
the case, I would be delighted, by the way.” She held up a hand. “Don’t answer now. You’d hurt my feelings.”

She pulled her hair away from her face and smiled mischievously. “Besides, we hardly know each other.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The opportunity of defeating the enemy is provided by the enemy
itself.

—from Tun Mu’s
Annals of War

M
O TI WAS GOOD AT HIDING HIS THOUGHTS. From the time when he had grown up in the wicked Magisterium, he had survived the tauntings of other children by hiding his hurts. The bunched muscles of his misshapen body formed a fine armor around his heart. But it concealed a passionate nature. His loyalty to Cixi was absolute, his love for Sydney unshakable. However, for the sake of his young mistress, whose sufferings were worse than his own, he would not reveal how it cut him to be fallen in her regard.

He walked alone into the steppe, seeking the peace of its scoured ground. To outward appearance, Mo Ti was the same Chalin fighter who had become Sydney’s champion and closest advisor. But today he walked alone, and that was more the truth of things.

Some days he wanted to leave the sway, or die by his own hand. But that would only distress Sydney more, since she held—he presumed she did— some feelings for him. She didn’t say that she blamed him for her poisoned sight; she even claimed to understand why he never told her that Cixi had sent him; but she stood apart from him even so. He saw it in her every gesture around him.

It was with great surprise, then, that he saw Sydney on her mount galloping toward him from the encampment. He knew it was her from a great distance, because no one rode a mount like she did. Here on the steppe, your riding style was known before your name.

Mo Ti did wonder why she would come out here, alone and in such a hurry. He kept his thoughts guarded from Riod, his emotions tucked into a small core of regret. But as Sydney drew near, he read her face: an expression of pure joy.

Sydney slid off of Riod without waiting for the mount to bow his front legs. Striding toward Mo Ti, she stopped short of the embrace that was clearly in her mood.

“My lady?”

“Mo Ti,” she breathed, “they are false. False!”

Were there others besides Mo Ti who were considered false by Sydney? He waited.

“Mo Ti, the fiends aren’t themselves. They aren’t like us, nothing like!” She glanced back at Riod in triumph, and Riod’s thoughts came tumbling toward Mo Ti.
Not born, not dying, not flesh as Inyx are flesh. Not separate as other
beings are separate.

It was Early Day, and Riod must just have come back from the herd and its heart-probing work. “Immortal?” Mo Ti asked. If so, that was not so great a surprise.

Sydney shook her head. “No, not that. Or maybe that.” She grinned. He hadn’t seen so broad a smile on her before. She took him by the arm. “Come.” She led him to Riod and insisted that they ride double to find a spring that she knew was nearby.

Mo Ti mounted Riod and Sydney sat behind, her arms coming partway around his broad girth. It was a happiness that he used to take for granted; and though he didn’t think that Sydney had forgiven him his failures, his heart lightened to ride with her again.

They found the spring, managing not to bring up the subject of the Tarig for a few intervals. By the time they sat next to the rare pool of water, Mo Ti had regained his composure and waited for good news. By the bright, he thought, let it be good news at last.

She sat cross-legged in front of him. “They are controlled beings,” she began.

“The Tarig?”

“Yes, the mantis lords! Who else? Listen, Mo Ti: Riod says they come to us as consciousness fully formed, set into the Tarig form. But they aren’t individuals. Not like we are.” She looked up at Riod and grinned. “I can’t get this straight.”

Tell him in your way
, Riod urged. He could have helped her convey the matter, but he held back, letting Sydney have her moment.

She took a calming breath. “Riod says that there is a being among them. Perhaps he is a Tarig lord—but he can’t tell—who speaks continually with the old world where they come from.”

“The Heart.” The Tarig always said they came from another universe. The Heart.

“We always assumed it was a place. But it’s a place without physical space. We can sense a chaos of thought. Riod calls it a swarm. A swarm of consciousnesses. When the fiends come here, they insert themselves into a created form. And when they pretend to die, they return to the swarm. They start out, Riod thinks, having one of just a few common personalities. Then, as each Tarig has different experiences, they become more individual.” She shook her head. “They used to say that they were cousins. That they were of one mind. I thought it was their way of bragging about how unified they were. But what it really means is that they started out in a template form.”

Mo Ti had a vision of robotic Tarig strutting the land. It caused him to smile. “They are not alive.”

“Maybe they are alive. But it is a strange kind of being alive.”

Riod sent,
The swarm is vast. Some strands in the swarm fear to come here. They
despise physical form. Some choose to come. They are few in number.
Riod conveyed a brilliant universe of pure light and thought, and the revulsion that the swarm had toward fleshly being, the fear of being in a physical place. Only a few strands of thought wished to have that experience. They weren’t necessarily the best strands of the bunch.

Sydney nodded. “The older they are, the more particular they are. And maybe some can’t handle the stress at all, and go mad. Like Lord Hadenth. He wasn’t like the rest. As bad as they all are, Hadenth was worst. . . .”

Her memory of the lord who had blinded her cast a shadow, and Mo Ti put a hand on her arm, touching her for the first time in many days.

Her excitement bubbled back, though, and she shook him off. “Mo Ti, that’s why there are no Tarig children, except they want us to think they are normal, so they create beings who seem childlike. If you’ve ever seen a Tarig child—what they claim are children—you’d know there was something wrong with them.”

“How do they create their own bodies?” Mo Ti asked.

“We don’t know. Wouldn’t it be simple, though? They created all forms in the Entire. No doubt their mantis form is copied from the Rose like they copied everything else. Everything except child-bearing, birth, and death.”

Mo Ti sat, considering this revelation. He felt his heart thudding in his chest. He thought of Cixi, imagining her joy at learning the true nature of the Tarig. He would tell her at his next opportunity, though it was never an easy task. He dared not ask Distanir to send a heart-thought that any mount and his rider could pick up.

Setting aside his excitement, Mo Ti sifted through to the crux of the matter: “How do they cross to and from the Heart?” That would be the lords’ great weakness.

“We don’t know yet. They hide, oh Mo Ti, they hide so much, being cowardly. But we’ll find out. We’ll hunt down all their secrets. They’ve lied to their subjects. Lied in everything. Gracious lords.” She shook her head. “They are simulacra. Afraid to live as we do.”

“We have them, my lady. When we find how they convey to and from, we destroy their ability to do so. Yes?”

“Yes.” She stood, brushing the dust off of her riding pants, and Mo Ti rose with her. She looked out onto the steppe, and beyond, toward the River Nigh, as though she were even now ready to board a navitar’s ship. “I think it’s
time to let this secret out.” She turned to him. “What do you think the sways would think of lords who aren’t alive?”

Mo Ti whispered, “The Tarig will be lower than Gonds.”

“Yes. The Entire will find them strange. Ugly. Cowardly. The mantis lords keep all this secret. They’re ashamed of what they are.” She smiled. “I have it in mind to send dreams to the sways, Mo Ti.”

“Dreams, my lady?”

Sydney had already thought it through, without him. “We’ll sneak in, in dreams. We’ll share this vision of the Tarig simulacra with our fellow sentients. Riod will send them dreams.”

Mo Ti was stunned by the audacity of her plan. But he shared his first thought: “It is no proof, to send visions.”

Sydney smiled, but he saw that he had displeased her by offering doubts. “Sentients don’t need proof. They just need suspicions. Of those, we have plenty.”

After considering a moment, Mo Ti nodded. “It will sow distrust across the primacies. A good beginning, Mo Ti thinks.”

“I wasn’t asking for permission.”

Nor had he meant it as such, but his heart fell. “No, my lady. Never.”

In the distance, a galloping sound, and Distanir came into sight.

Mo Ti said, “You have made me glad that you came here yourself, mistress. Mo Ti thanks you.”

Sydney nodded, her smile not unfriendly. She mounted Riod. “Now here is something for you to do, Mo Ti.”

He paused, wondering if he had not already been doing all that he could in her service.

“Tell Cixi. However you communicate with her, do so as soon as you are able. Tell her what we have learned.” She nudged Riod forward, then turned back for a moment. “And greet her for me.”

They shared a brief eye contact, the warmth of their conversation gone.

As he watched Sydney depart, he felt a swelling of pride. He had taught her to think like a leader. To formulate strategies and tactics. Now she had outdone her teacher.

In his heart he saluted her as she sped away on her mount.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

The Ascendancy lies between bright and bright. Bright above: the
gate of heaven. Bright below: the Sea of Arising. Between these
shining places, the place of blinding power: the Ascendancy. Look
up, see the city of the gracious lords, the source of all gifts, the
fountainhead of the land wherein you dwell.

—from
The Book of the Thousand Gifts

D
EPTA PAUSED ON THE NARROW WALKWAY LEADING TO THE GARDEN— Titus Quinn’s garden, that favorite haunt of Lady Chiron. The path followed a line of topiary trees, engineered for order and tidiness, qualities that Depta had once admired but which now seemed slightly ominous. Looming nearby, Lady Chiron’s mansion formed one of the walls around the garden.

Although Depta had urgent reports to make, she feared making them— feared saying the wrong thing, or offending her mistress. She remained haunted by the vision of Lady Chiron sitting in her chair as though turned to stone . . . then, rising up to grip her throat, that terrible look in her eyes. Depta’s hide rippled with uneasiness. Gone were the times when, anticipating meeting with the bright lady, Depta’s thoughts had been gold-tinged. Now, all had gone gray.

But the lady’s command remained:
Send word the moment he arrives.
Chiron’s spy had arrived in Yulin’s camp. Reports could not be delayed.

As Depta rounded the bend in the pathway, she found Lady Chiron waiting for her, a glittering figure under the bright, her skirt and vest like melted silver.

Depta approached, and bowed, trembling. She knew what Chiron would ask.

With no other greeting, Chiron murmured, “Do you love us, Depta?”

“Yes, Lady.” Depta remained standing, not falling into that fatal swoon. So here was her answer to that perplexing question: could fear and love dwell together? Yes, they could.

By the garden’s wall, the steward Cho crouched, weighed down by a shackle that he wore over his shoulders. He couldn’t run far with such a necklace. Catching Depta’s eye, and taking that for permission to acknowledge her, Cho bowed nearly in half. Somehow, he managed to pull himself upright again.

Chiron regarded the steward without malice. “Cho does not love us.”

Hearing his name, Cho bowed once more. His face was bruised where he’d been stoned by his associates in the Magisterium, but otherwise he had weathered his confinement well. Depta knew that his days would not be long, that he was alive only to preserve the option that Titus Quinn might confound all expectation and return
here
. Although Chiron was convinced he would go to Ahnenhoon, the man was unpredictable. He might wish to rescue this steward who had once helped him.

Depta regarded Cho with misgivings. How had such a timid sentient dared to break the vows? But of course at the time he hadn’t known that he played a role in exalted matters. This was a new anxiety for the Hirrin, to know that one could fail in duty without intending evil. She saw Ascendancy life as more perilous than before. Stewards wearing prison collars, Chiron falling into a stupor for no reason, Depta—briefly—accused of spying. These shocking events trickled darkly through her mind, eroding the firm ground upon which Depta had always stood. This garden was the center of that darkness: Titus Quinn’s old quarters. Lady Chiron came here day after day, obsessed. Perhaps mad. That didn’t bear thinking of, that the lady might have become logically unbalanced. Especially, that she hid things from Nehoov, Inweer, Oventroe, and Ghinamid. The latter was excusable, since he slept. But the other three . . . unforgivable. Yes, the lady might well be mad.