Bright of the Sky (22 page)

The Tarig held up a hand. “Send for nothing. Sitting and discussing is enough, ah?”

Suzong said, “Certainly, Lord Echnon. Then, what news of the Ascendancy, if it pleases you to say? We live so far from great proceedings.” She leaned closer like an old gossip with nothing on her mind but Tarig glamour and the bureaucracy of the bright city. Yulin admired her more than ever.

Echnon turned his gaze back to Suzong. “Hnnn. News of the bright city. What would it please you to know?”

“Oh, anything,” Suzong chirped as though witless to be wasting the lord’s time. “Lady Chiron, is she in residence? And does Cixi fare well? She is old by now, even older than this Chalin wife.”

The lord put down his oba and unwrapped his long fingers from the cup. “The Chalin high prefect does not tire us with her duties, which she handles that we may be spared them. But she lives. Still. As to Lady Chiron, she is sometimes there. You cannot know where we are.”

“Lord, my life in your service, I meant no disrespect. I am an old woman, too long on the margins to know fine manners.”

Suzong looked at the pot of steaming oba, cursing her stupidity. She had gone too far, but the fiend would not come to the point, and she was desperate for him to be gone, or to accuse her and be done with it. If they could just keep the lord talking, perhaps Dai Shen could escape with Anzi’s help.

Lord Echnon sipped his oba, and the conversation lapsed.

Suzong glanced at his handsome face, so flawless, except too long. Everything about the Tarig was long and narrow, yet she knew they were fearfully strong. It would take little for him to snap her neck, as perhaps he was considering at this moment. May he take me first, she thought passionately, so I will not see my husband go down at his feet.

The lord said, “Ji Anzi has returned to this house, hnnn? Have we been misinformed?”

Suzong was startled, but Yulin controlled himself nicely, saying, “Yes, Lord, the least of my nieces has been visiting. Thank you for your interest in so small a girl.”

Suzong’s blood cooled. So, Zai Gan did have a spy in their house, and had informed the lord. The spy must also have revealed their other guest. A suspicious patient in the garden was one matter, but if he were known to have blue eyes, that was quite another. But no one knew of the blue eyes except herself, Yulin, Anzi, and Ci Dehai.

Recovering, Suzong blurted, “Of course Anzi is nursing the bastard son Dai Shen, and so it is well that she happened to come home at this time. She has been useful to us.”

Yulin was looking at her as though she were demented to mention Dai Shen, but in this, he was wrong. Better to tell the lord first, before being asked or accused.

“Hnnn. Dai Shen. Your son, you say?”

“A worthless progeny, Lord,” Yulin said. “He hardly merits your interest.”

“Now husband,” Suzong said, “Dai Shen made a good soldier, since by all accounts he showed himself well at Ahnenhoon.”

“No, I fear he was average,” Yulin said pointedly. “Nothing whatever to brag about or dwell upon.”

Suzong shook her head. “Oh, that you could say such things of your own son! True, he has not the brains of a veldt mouse, but he is loyal, and a soldier. For shame, husband.”

Yulin began to catch on, saying, “Ci Dehai has been in battle a hundred times, and of all that time, only one wound. Dai Shen fights once and comes home with a dent in his head and loses what little common sense he ever had—can’t even remember his own name, and now he’ll be a hanger-on at court and I’ll be forced to bear his presence.” He turned to Echnon. “Your pardon, Bright Lord, but my son is worthless, an embarrassment, and now I have him in my garden, disturbing my peace. The only place where I had privacy. Yet we do our best even for wayward progeny, do we not, even if he’s one of a hundred sons?

With growing distaste, Echnon watched Yulin prattle on. Finally he said, “We would see Anzi, to greet her.” He unfolded himself from the chair and stood, towering over them.

Suzong nearly fainted. Then, recovering, she stood along with Yulin, saying, “Oh, Bright Lord, of course. She is bathing just now, but we shall send for her. It will take a few moments for her to prepare herself to see the bright lord. No trouble at all. In that case, we have ample time for a meal, and I will order it immediately.”

Looking down at her, the lord remained silent, as though considering her offer. If he accepted it, their ruin would be upon them. A rivulet of sweat fell down her neck into the silk collar of her jacket.

Then, brushing the matter aside with a sweep of his hand, the lord said, “Do not disrupt the Chalin girl’s bath. We have duties that await us, ah?”

Yulin bowed as though the breath had left his body. “Of course, Lord. Duties. I sympathize.”

Echnon walked toward the door of the meeting chamber and paused at the threshold. “You should mend the rift with Zai Gan, Chalin master.”

“Yes, Lord,” Yulin said. “Immediately.”

Still gazing at them from the door, the Tarig said, “He was not in the garden, this Dai Shen. Bathing also?”

Suzong simpered. “Oh, he wanders, being addled from the wound. Wanders here and there, Lord.”

“Ah.” Echnon nodded, and then turned, receding from them, allowing them to breathe once again.

Suzong and Yulin waited stiffly until they could no longer hear his footfalls. One did not see a Tarig to the door, since they disliked being directed and came and went as they pleased.

A sheen of perspiration gleamed on Yulin’s forehead. Suzong dabbed at it with the sleeve of her jacket. “My master of the sway,” she murmured with affection, glad she had not had to witness his garroting, rejoicing that Zai Gan had wasted the lord’s time. But now, of course, Anzi and her patient could not return here, and Dai Shen was far from ready to walk freely among them. But at this moment it was enough that the bright lord was gone.

Still watching the door where the lord had departed, Yulin stroked his beard. When he spoke, his voice was a soft rumble, “Now, kill the gardeners.”

Suzong nodded. They should have been drowned in the lake days ago, of course.

She departed to order this done, her tread wobbly now that the crisis had passed. Finding her favorite eunuch, she whispered to him, “Feed my carp a special meal from the garden this ebb.” The servant’s eyes narrowed, and he paused to make sure he’d understood her.

He had.

Arranged in terraces, black-and-gold dwellings descended the hill on which Yulin’s mansion stood. The city enveloped Quinn, sprouting mazes at every turn. Now outside Yulin’s compound, he was completely dependent on Anzi to know her way, and she led him swiftly through the tangle of streets. He suppressed the urge to keep looking behind them for the tall bronze lord, the one who might still be gazing from that high perch in the garden or striding close behind, searching the city for them.

In short order Anzi had stolen servant’s clothing for him, and he followed a few steps behind her, adopting the demeanor of a servant for a lady of means.

The dark adobe buildings pressed in, rounded, mottled, unnatural. Complex smells assaulted him, from cooking and the press of bodies and the small produce gardens on the rooftops of most of the dwellings. In the center of such things, and in his rush through the town, he felt disoriented, hardly registering what he saw. He had to be wary of making assumptions in this strange place. Anzi, for instance. Not just a simple niece of Yulin. And where was she taking him?

They passed through a neighborhood where every house sold something, especially food, cooked on braziers on small covered porches. At one of these porches Anzi traded a stolen trinket for two drinks of water.

Out of earshot of the householder, Quinn said in a low voice, “Where are we going?”

“Do not talk, Dai Shen,” she urged. “I know a place.”

As they drank their water, Quinn noticed a small boy inside the dwelling, at his studies by the window. It was the first child he’d had a clear glimpse of in this land. In fact, so far in the city he’d seen only a few children. When you lived a long time, infrequent breeding made sense. The child stared, and Quinn turned away, thinking that perhaps his eye lenses were not as convincing as he wished.

Anzi returned the drinking cups, bowing her thanks, and led Quinn onward, down the hillside. The sky was more visible here, away from the tall trees of Yulin’s preserve, and its silver expanse glittered in the Heart of Day. Spreading forever onto the plains, at times it almost looked like the sky on Earth with endless high cirrus clouds. Boiling.

Anzi stopped momentarily to pilfer another item. He thought her stealing went beyond what she needed to do, and that she enjoyed it, palming trinkets with one hand while making a show of picking one up with the other hand. It was hard to trust her. But if she and Yulin wanted to betray him, they could have easily done so earlier. Anzi’s glance cut in the direction of Yulin’s palace. It looked silent and quiet. Sometimes she looked at the sky, where, Quinn knew, the Tarig flew their aircraft. He had a faded memory of those exotic craft—brightships, they were called. Only the Tarig rode them. Oddly, when Quinn thought of the ships, his memory conjured a muffled, distant scream.

The vision clung to him, of the bronze-skinned creature on top of the aviary. He must flee those lords. But he must also close with them. To finish things, came the thought. Especially to finish things with Lord Hadenth, whose memory flickered just out of reach. He wasn’t here for revenge, though, despite his hunger for justice. There was too much at stake to let personal enmity cloud his judgment.

“Where are we going, Anzi?” he said again.

As she walked, she murmured to him, “To hide. And while we do, to proceed with the changes to your appearance. I know a safe place; don’t worry.”

“Trust you, then? All will be well?”

Her face was grim as she increased their pace. “Yes. But hurry, please.”

He stopped, and when she noticed he no longer followed her, she motioned him to a side street, out of the stream of foot traffic. Before she could complain, he said, “What is the plan, Anzi? I’m glad you’ve got one, but now I’d like to hear if it matches mine.”

She looked around fretfully, then relented. “There is a friend, Jia Wa, who will help us. He must alter your face. But first we must travel to his city.”

Quinn nodded. He’d been prepared for alterations to his face. “But where is this Jia Wa?” And, cautiously, he added, “And where is the scholar Su Bei?”

She told him that both men resided far away, entailing long journeys by train in opposite directions. She was beginning to gather that he would not follow passively, and she grew agitated. “We must find another way for your face surgery to happen. Since Yulin’s physician is no longer available to us.”

“I don’t have time to go to Jia Wa, Anzi. I’m going to Su Bei instead.”

“But why?”

Suzong had said he should find his own excuse for going, and he had prepared one: “I need what he has. My history of what I did when I was here before. I’ll need those memories if I meet people I used to know.” But most of all he needed Bei to reveal who at the Ascendancy knew of travel between the realms.

“First to Jia Wa, then to Bei.” She glanced at him hopefully.

Not if they were in opposite directions. It could mean weeks of delay. “No,” he said.

They stood without speaking for a while. Anzi’s face was unreadable, but she held her mouth firm, and he knew she was angry. She refused to look at him.

At length she started down the street again, leaving him. When he caught up to her, he said, “Well?”

She pointed to a turret rising high about the low-slung buildings. “I must stop there.” Coldly she added, “You can come or not.”

So, she was playing the game too. He needed her as much as she needed him.

Without a glance backward, Anzi headed toward the turret. Finally they came upon the spire standing in the middle of a commons, deserted and fallen into weeds. The spire rose some five stories. At its foot stood a man dressed in tattered white silks.

“Wait here for me,” Anzi said. “I must go into the needle.”

“I’ll come with you.”

“No. It is a God’s needle, not a good place.”

“What do you need to do there?”

“The trains, Dai Shen. We need one.” She added, “It would draw attention for two people to wish to approach God.” She cocked her head in the direction of the man wearing white, who now was watching them. “This is a godman. He worships the god so we don’t have to. Stay here.”

She walked toward the needle, and despite her admonition, he followed her.

At the doorway, the godman examined the trinkets she showed him, wrinkling his prominent nose. He looked up dubiously at Quinn.

“My servant will ascend for me,” Anzi said. “And I will make sure he does.”

The godman looked unhappy at this proposal, but was mollified by receiving the best trinket from her assortment. He stood aside, and Anzi ducked inside the pillar, where a winding staircase ascended into the darkness. Mold and filth assailed Quinn from stairs badly in need of sweeping.

“Dai Shen,” her voice came to him. “The pillar is the altar of the god. It isn’t good to come here, so I wish you had not brought attention to us. Of course, you don’t trust me. I’ve given you good reason not to. But don’t doubt Master Yulin, since he will fall with you if you fall.”

“What’s in here, Anzi?”

“Nothing. At the top we’ll look to see if a train approaches. We must take such a train, Dai Shen, to leave quickly. And yes, to Su Bei, if you demand it.” Now she had stopped on the stairs, waiting for him to come abreast of her. In this shadowy place he couldn’t see more than her vivid white hair.

He wanted to trust her, but it was difficult after she had misled him about herself. “Anzi, you’ve been lying to me. Stop lying now.”

She expelled a long breath. “Yes, lying—by all that I didn’t say. Forgive me, Dai Shen.”

No forgiveness was in the air. He waited for her to tell the truth.

She sighed, leaning against the rounded sides of the needle. “Once I studied to be a scholar. I was a small apprentice, to my teacher Vingde, who was the Eye of Knowledge. Vingde broke the Vow of no connections to the Rose. He found a way of seizing objects in the Rose, something never done before.”