Bright of the Sky (25 page)

Unsure of the polite reply, Quinn gave a noncommittal look. The godmen were the dregs of society, unfit for most other duties, or such misfits that they preferred vilification to ordinary society. Sometimes they were women, then called godwomen, and treated with as much loathing. To the Chalin, and perhaps to most of the Entire, the god worshiped by the godmen was a demiurge—evil, rigid, jealous, and prone to murder. If you needed a reason why bad luck happened, that would be God. There was a concept, loosely thought of as “heaven”—although not associated with life after death—that people called upon, and swore upon. It seemed to mean “the best of us all,” or even for some, the bright sky itself.

But for most sentients, the best chance lay in living beneath God’s notice. As to a higher being of love and compassion, the Entire was devoid of this concept, perhaps because the Tarig themselves were so powerful as to fill this role. Some individuals demonstrated such deference to the bright lords that it amounted to worship, although Anzi had said that people who could fawn in that manner possessed feeble intellects. Still, the Tarig role was godlike: They had created the world and its creatures, and had organized society to be just and prosperous by enforcing laws and dispensing technology as needed. If the Tarig wished to diminish religion, they had been wise to give God a role, a debased one.

The godman looked resentfully at the other half of the car, where passengers ignored him. “I take the attention of God off of them, so naturally I am cursed. But I bear God’s attention, and I’m still alive.” He looked eagerly at Quinn. “You’re not afraid to sit with me?”

“I take my rest. You had a seat.”

The godman nodded. “Exactly. No waiting for a seat to come up. Even if the smells are unfortunate.” He twirled the spindle, content to chatter. A Chalin woman walked up to them, dropped a coin on the basket, and hurried away. Quinn thought he might be drawing attention sitting with a godman. As he rose from his seat, the godman looked crestfallen. “Leaving, then? To see the Gond? Heaven give us not seeing Gonds. Stay a while.”

The godman’s thread got stuck, and he opened the top of the basket, revealing an insectoid creature with a mouth spinneret, extruding a filament. He nudged the spinner, producing a mewing sound, then snapped the lid closed. The filament fed out. “They’re vow breakers,” he said, glancing at the tube opening. “The madness takes them. They go to their deaths, poor creatures. Through the veil. And so, after all, breaking the First Vow.”

Quinn covered his surprise at hearing this. “They risk much,” he said. “Discovery by the lords—”

The godman snorted. “They risk death by explosion. By the bright, an ugly way to die, for your body to erupt.” He shivered.

“If their timing is wrong.”

The young man drew back from him. “No time is a good time. It is not a matter of time, but of the law.”

Quinn hastened to agree. “Yes, naturally.”

“You are from the Ascendancy? You sound like it.”

Quinn shrugged. “There and back. A long time ago.”

“You are a legate?”

“A soldier.” He rose, saying to the godman, “You should find better seats. The smell.”

The basket lid raised up a little, and the godman tapped it shut with his foot. “Some say they’re not mad at all. That they go over, and their days continue.” He shuddered. “They live short lives then. But their bellies are full.” Through narrowed eyes, he regarded Quinn. “Do you hear such things at the bright city?”

“Legates tell little to a soldier.” Managing a smile, he began backing off. Then he left, heading back the way he had come.

At the forward end of the car was a closet that served for a latrine. He used it. When he emerged, the godman, in the company of a fat Chalin woman, was just disappearing through the tube to a forward car.

In the next moment Quinn was heading in the opposite direction, and through the tube, toward the bad smells. He would speak to these Gonds.

He found himself in an empty car where the sour smells intensified. Through the next connecting tube, he found a car with a narrow aisle between two long, open boxes. Here, without doubt, was the source of the smell: a pungent odor like ammonia, and decidedly toxic. Something was moving in the boxes. He looked over the sides, finding them full of soil. Little humping ridges marked the paths of burrowers. One hump surfaced, revealing a plump cylinder of flesh. It flopped out of the soil, showing itself to be about as long as his forearm, with the forward end bearing eyes and a slit for a mouth.

Turning around, he found that, in the other box, burrowers had lined up on the lip of the box to stare at him. As he approached, they dropped out of sight with plopping noises.

One remained. Its eyes were covered with a membrane, but they held an iris, and somehow the face managed to look like it was both infantile and wise. The little face turned to look toward the side. Eyes widening, it plopped into hiding.

As Quinn turned in that direction, he saw in the tube between cars an alarming animal.

The beast took up the entire opening. And, improbably, it was the Devil.

Quinn stepped back, and the beast cocked its head, as though interested in movements to flee.

The head was as large as a steer’s. Triangular, with two horns and red, lacquered gums. Fleshy wings twitched like a leathery robe around its snakelike body. No hooves, Quinn thought, because every other thought had fled.

The creature’s head turned in a jerk to one side, peering askance at the intruder. Then it spoke, in a troubling deep pitch. “You are hungry for momo.”

“No,” Quinn thought to say. Whatever
momo
was.

“Perhaps you eat momo, and not pay the price.”

“No.”

“Come closer.”

Quinn stayed where he was.

“I will rip out your backbone and feed you to my momo. That is the truth.”

The horns and pointed chin looked spectacularly like old, traditional images of the Devil, an association Quinn was having trouble shaking.

“Come closer. Breathe on my face. If you have not eaten momo, then we are friends. We have few friends.”

The admission of unpopularity softened the creature’s aspect. Quinn walked forward. He blew on the triangular head, ruffling a pointy beard that straggled from the chin.

“A meat eater,” the bass voice pronounced. “Not a momo eater. Then we can have transactions.” It backed up, tucking its wings about it as it squirmed through the passageway. “Come in. My sisters and I will have conversations on price. But the momo are fat, as you saw, and Gond are not fools.”

The Gond disappeared into the next car. Quinn hesitated on the threshold.

The triangular head poked through with an irritated stare.

Quinn followed, thinking he would regret it. Thinking that there were many times he stood wondering if he should do something that seemed very inadvisable, but very interesting. And how the same choice always resulted.

At first it was hard to see what the next car contained. As his eyes adjusted to a dark interior, Quinn saw several huge dead tree limbs upon which rested two additional Gond creatures. He could now see the whole aspect of the Gonds’ bodies. They were enormous and fleshy newtlike creatures. The first Gond rose on her muscular trunk and appeared to stand.

The Gond and her sisters watched him. He wished that they did not appear poised to jump. Quinn leaned against the doorway and folded his arms. “Well?” he said, trying to match their intimidating manner. One of them scratched herself with a wing tip.

“Where are you traveling?” the first Gond said, making the plain question seem full of meaning.

“That is of no concern,” Quinn answered.

The Gond exchanged glances with her sisters, and said, more conciliatory, “Of course. We can deliver them. No concerns.”

When Quinn didn’t respond, the Gond continued, “Good and fat. Alive, as you saw. Very fresh upon arrival. The soils make a difference. The grubs are from the richest lands of the Ord Wielding. It imparts a flavor much admired in the great city of Xi, where you are coming from, since you weren’t on the train before.” The Gond dipped her head. “We watch. Through the windows.”

She gazed at Quinn. “At first I took you for the train magistrate, come to bargain for momo on behalf of the dining pleasure of passengers. This has not happened. They put us and our cargo in the last cabins, and charged us, additionally, for the empty car in front.” Her eyes partly closed, and her face folded inward in an impressive scowl. “Such is their hate of Gond.”

Not liking the turn of mood, Quinn offered: “There are many ways on the Radiant Path.”

“Quite so,” the Gond said. “But some ways are said to be dark ways.”

From one of the branches came a slipping noise as one of the Gonds slid with a thud to the floor of the car, leaving a slick of something on the tree limb. This Gond watched Quinn just as steadfastly as before, but with her chin resting on the floor.

“‘No sentient being is beyond hope,’” Quinn quoted from
The Book of the
Thousand Gifts
.

The third Gond spoke for the first time, from her tree perch, and in the same unnerving bass. “He has no money.”

Without looking at her, the first Gond said, “Ignore such a speech. You will pay.”

Quiet came upon the group then. Outside the day dimmed, lending a certain beauty to even this nest of devils. The bare tree trunks became graceful boughs, and the glittering wings took on a purple sheen.

During this quiet, Quinn began, “I heard a story.”

The three watched him. “The story was that a madness comes upon some Gond, and the sadness is that they die in the reaches.”

The first Gond showed teeth for the first time, deeply stained and long.

“That is not the story you heard. You heard that we go across, and take our fill of unusual meat. Thinking meat.”

Thinking meat.
They ate sentient creatures. Perhaps this was approved behavior, so long as they were Rose sentient creatures.

The Gond continued, “The sways think that we must be mad to go to the Rose, and lose our days, and never come home. The madness is what keeps us from Tarig justice. They pity us.”

The more he looked at this creature, the more compelling the idea became, that the Gond had come into the Rose—at least to the Earth—and spawned stories of a monster, the Devil, that took on this bizarre appearance.

“Are we mad, do you think, to throw ourselves into the Rose?” The Gond rose even higher on her body, until her head nearly touched the ceiling.

“Where is the Rose?” Quinn threw this out, to see what he caught.

The Gond boomed, “Where is the meat of the Rose? Where is the Rose? But no sentients know the correlates. That is why we are mad to go.”

“Perhaps brave—to go.”

The Gond lowered herself, coming closer. “The price for the meat of momo is no less, for saying such things.”

Correlates.
Here was a new term for the thing he sought, the secret behind crossing over to the Rose.

He risked saying, “You believe, do you, in the correlates? That they are more than a child’s story?” He tried to sound casual, as though the answer made no difference.

The Gond’s breath smelled of rot. It was all he could do to stand his ground. “The vows forbid,” the creature said, so low it was almost out of hearing range.

“Of course.” Backtracking, he said, “But children will prattle.” The correlates were the charts of passage. Like the closely guarded sea manuals of medieval seafaring, they would trace the safe waters, allowing a ship to avoid dangerous shoals and false routes—like a map, perhaps, or equations that would predict timing and place of exit from the Entire.

But if there were correlates, the Gond didn’t have them. “The vows forbid,” the Gond repeated.

It might be prudent to leave now, but no parting comment came to mind. Then one did: “What is the price of these momo you offer for sale?”

“Ah, to the point.” The Gond smiled, a disturbing sight. “I thought you long-winded, even for a trader. Twelve minors per heft.” She flexed a wing. “If alive, then fifteen minors. That is fair.”

“Good. I will consider your offer.” Quinn turned to leave, eager to be gone, to savor what he’d learned.

A talon caught at his shoulder. The Gond shifted her weight, coming closer. “You talk strangely.”

“There are many ways on the path,” Quinn said, managing a steady gaze into the Gond’s eyes.

“You only say what others have said. You are bad at bargaining. You are no trader.”

“Well,” Quinn said, shaking free of the claw. “We’ll see, won’t we?”

“You will buy momo?”

“My partners will decide.”

The Gond’s breath was hot in Quinn’s face. “I will be waiting for you,” she said.

As the train raced across the veldt, Quinn faced Anzi, considering his opening move in their fighting match. He swayed slightly, adjusting to the trembling floor.

They were halfway to their destination of Bei’s reach, and he considered how totally dependent on her he was, isolated from even such allies as Yulin and Suzong. They had a long way to travel together, if ultimately he needed to reach the Ascendancy and then the far sway of the Inyx. He wanted to trust her, but he was having a hard time of it.

Coming at her, he pierced her defense, snapping her tunic. She blinked, surprised, moving around to his weak side, his left.

Quinn wanted to win. He wanted her to fall. He wanted her to stop withholding from him.

He darted in, receiving from her a kick that caught him on the thigh. He grabbed her foot, yanking her down. As she fell, she swiped his legs from under him, taking him down as well. They both lay winded.

“The Gond cross over to the Rose,” he said, panting. “Did you know?”

She sprang up. “No. And neither do you. It’s only a story.”

“The Gond told me that they go. There are what she called
correlates
. They do go, I believe.” He thought that perhaps Gond were not the only monsters to appear in the Rose from the Entire. Any nonhominid that went over would seem a monster on Earth.

She circled him, watching for an opening. “They go, but only fling themselves through the veil. That’s not going to and from. It’s suicide.” Anzi whipped out a knife from her tunic. “What to do, Dai Shen, when one has a weapon and you do not?” She feinted a few jabs at him.