City Without End (55 page)

“Why didn’t you call the police, then?” He gestured at the security cop, as though this lone, beefy guy could stop what was coming.

“The police wouldn’t believe me, would they? The only one who would is someone who knows about the Entire, and that’s you.”

He reached over to touch her hand. It turned into a pat. “You’ve just lost your husband. You’re in shock. Anyone would be.”

Jerking her hand away, she said, “I have two letters at home. The Bureau of Standard Tests has said it made a mistake on my scores—from twenty-five years ago—and also on my son Mateo’s scores from a few months ago. We’re now both savvies, isn’t that nice? And we were invited to cross over. When I refused, they came after us, so I wouldn’t tell anyone. You want to see the letters?” Stefan stood up. Reaching for his cell phone, he said, “I’m calling someone to come down and drive you home, Caitlin.”

“No!” she jumped up. “For God’s sake, at least investigate. All those people on the list”—she waved at the papers he was still holding—“all of them are at Hanford. Call work, ask your people who’s there and who’s not!”

The cop was now watching them.

Stefan hesitated. “Caitlin.” He paused until he had her attention. Speaking quietly, he said, “I don’t believe you. I’m sorry. You’re falling apart, and I’m going to get you some help.”

“You son of a bitch,” she murmured.

As he directed his attention to his phone, Caitlin backed away. “If you don’t do something, I’m going to make sure that Titus Quinn never deals with you again. We’re bringing everything to EoSap. Every ounce of every damn thing that Quinn learned over there is going directly to EoSap.”

He was talking on his phone, ignoring her. The goons, now concerned, were walking toward her.

She turned and rushed toward the door to the street. Barreling past people just entering, she chose a direction, and hurried away from Pioneer Square. Rounding a corner, she saw an empty cab and hailed it. Mercifully, it stopped.

“Just drive,” she said as she clambered in. Just drive. Where to go? She had no idea.

The driver looked at her in the rearview mirror as she moaned. It had just struck her that she had left her only evidence—the list of two thousand— with Stefan Polich.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

Shed no tears until you see the grave flag.

—a saying

I
N THE FIELD, TEN THOUSAND INYX GRAZED AND SLEPT
under the Deep Ebb sky. It was a peaceful scene, observed from a distance by Akay-Wat, Takko, Adikar, and the other riders, but they knew the mounts were vividly awake. No tendrils came into Akay-Wat’s mind from Gevka; her mount was pressed into the service of the herd, led by Riod, and directed at the city of the lords.

In the midst of the herd consciousness, Riod felt himself swept along, faster and higher than he had ever flown. They knew the path to the minds gathered in the Ascendancy, and sped there each ebb, spying for Tarig weakness. Although never able to penetrate the mind of a Tarig, the mounts sensed them as streams of light. One frazzle of light was much stronger than any other. This lord had been of interest to Riod for many weeks, but not even a concerted effort by his combined forces could penetrate the being’s heart-thoughts. This ebb the creature grew stronger. The signature of its consciousness grew incandescent, spraying into the dream realm like a beacon.

If Sydney were home in the steppe lands, Riod would tell her what they witnessed. But she was far away. Over far distances, their hearts were silent to each other. Only Inyx to Inyx could leap past such barriers. In the field, his fellow mounts soothed his mind, bringing him back to their purpose. They surged on, dipping now and then into the dreams of Titus Quinn, whose mind was also a bright flame. But the man slept little, and his heart was as chaotic as the lord’s.

Geng De stood at the prow of his ship as his vessel sped out, leaving the quay and Rim City behind. At a time when ordinary sentients slept and when Geng De longed for rest, he ordered the ship under way. And now, into the binds.

He nodded at his ship keeper, who moved to his bed to wait out the journey. Taking one last look at the floating city in the distance, hanging like a pendant fruit from the tree of heaven, the navitar gathered his caftan about him and climbed the companionway, leaning on his cane. The stairs were steep to his enfeebled legs. Each time he dove down and wrestled with the strands, he paid a price. But it must be paid! A mad lord loose in the Bright City; Titus Quinn seeking kingship; the lords themselves divided; the world contending with the Rose for precedence.

He prepared for the plunge into the binds. Now the strands would come to him: red, the color of the Rose, gold, the color of the Entire. Only one could thrive. The possible futures were complex blends of colors. Pulling on them—oh, so gently—he would knit them into one vast plait. Why had this weaving been given to him, of all the navitars? It granted him large and frightening powers. It made him a slave to the Nigh, his life an offering to the Entire. As was Sen Ni’s.

Was she strong enough to thwart her father? Oh, but she must be. She was the beloved land’s only hope. The binds had taught him that the Entire could die. First the bright would pale; then flicker. The Nigh would leave its banks and surge across the midlands. The Empty Lands would pull down the storm walls. He saw the Ascendancy sucked into the Heart. Perhaps at the end, the lords, and they alone, would endure.

The ship plunged down. Geng De stood up on his platform, ready to weave.

Zhiya sat by her mother’s bed, unable to sleep while her mother was in such distress. She dipped a cloth in the pan of water, dabbing the old navitar’s face and arms to cool her.

“Hush, Mother. All will be well.” She didn’t believe it but said it anyway.

It expressed a hope and was perhaps a worthy prayer.

“Nooo,” Jin Ye moaned.

Then it would
not
be well. So much for God listening to a corrupt god-woman. “Sleep, Mother. That is best.” Over the last days her mother’s mutterings were again and again of a baby—also a navitar—whose mouth was stopped with river matter and who had become deformed. Mother feared this child because he was breaking—or would break?—the immemorial ship vows to navigate and never tamper with fundamental things. Zhiya hadn’t known that tampering was possible.

She had asked her mother: “What is the worst that will come of this child?”

“The world, devouring everything.”

But what could this mean?

Zhiya put her head on her mother’s shoulder and rested. Sleep tugged at her. But her mother’s hand came up to touch Zhiya’s hair, bringing her daughter awake.

She looked steady and clear, her eyes bright. With great deliberation, she enunciated her words. “Each . . . universe . . . is . . . sovereign. Leave the Rose to the Rose . . . and the All to the All. This is the
law
, my daughter.

You remember?”

“No, Mother. Should I?”

“Geng De . . . forgets.”

“Sleep is best, Mother.”

Her mother moaned. “Do not sleep. Not this ebb, do not . . .” But then she closed her eyes, appearing to sleep.

Geng De
. That was a name Zhiya knew. It was a navitar who had been visiting Sen Ni, according to her spies. A fully grown navitar, but one who left his vessel, one who walked about and did not appear to rave. Zhiya’s mind circled darkly around this thought: the baby had grown up. He was tampering, devouring.

Sleep was out of the question, now.

Anzi tore the hem of her tunic to make a bandage for her hand. It had bled from the fiery bars of Titus’s cell. From this side of the bars, she saw little in the cell that indicated he had ever been there, only a blanket thrown at the foot of the pallet and a water cup.

How much time had passed? Had he set down that cup, cast aside that blanket, only increments ago—or a much longer time ago? She pushed away some of her darker worries. He was gone, and she would have to find out where.

A sound at the door to the anteroom leading to Titus’s cell.

The door pushed open. In the opening stood a Tarig carrying a short sword.

Anzi backed up a step.

The Tarig lord was muscular and tall. He wore long pants made from a metal mesh that scraped as he strode into the room. A cloak over his shoulder fell to his calves, making him seem enormous. On his head, a metal helm with flaps covering his ears and neck.

Lord Ghinamid.

She’d been watching him with impunity through the veil. Oh, that she had stayed on that side!

His gaze flicked to the cell, then back to Anzi. While it might be proper to greet the lord, nothing would come out of her throat. Her attention focused on the sword.

When he spoke, his voice was a low growl, a terrible sound. “Titus Quinn. Where?”

“I . . . do not know, Gracious Lord. I came here. He was gone.”

With a few paces he came close and put the sword at her neck.

She managed to whisper, “I swear by the Bright. I do not know.”

The growl again: “Released him, did you?”

Anzi was acutely aware of her windpipe and her small voice, all at risk of severing by the sword. Faintly, she eked out, “I swear. I did not.”

Slowly the sword moved down and away from her neck. The lord grasped her hair with his free hand, bringing her close to him. She thought he was going to kiss her, as bizarre as the notion was. Bringing his face close to her neck for a moment, he held her in an immobilizing embrace. Then, stepping back from her, he said, “You are Chalin. We can smell the others.”

He moved to the fiery bars and they evaporated as he passed through. In a mighty kick, the lord toppled the pallet, as though Titus might have hidden under it.

Anzi thought of a dash for the door and abandoned the idea. The lord could easily close the distance between them.

Then suddenly, he moved out of the cell in her direction. She closed her eyes in dread, but in a moment he was past her. Turning, she saw that he had opened a hole in the wall behind her. Light burst from it as he ducked into this opening, turning into a passageway.

He was gone.

Without thinking, she rushed in the opposite direction, out the door and up a stairway leading away from Titus’s prison. She was in an arched corridor, sparkling and empty. Choosing a direction at random, Anzi ran.