Pinion (37 page)

“Now you will get your chance,” Wu said.

“With hard eyes and ready weapons trained on me from both sides, no doubt.”

Wu patted him on the shoulder. “One thing I like about you, Wang. You are a realist.”

Ottweill gave him a long, shrewd look. Then he turned wordlessly and trudged back to the barrier where the crew took their unexpected rest.

“Go back to base,” the doctor announced. “In confidence will I confer with this fine bureaucrat. No guards will I need. When I return, the next shift may come on.”

A muttered cheer rose, quickly aborted in the flickering shadows. “You wants us to shut the borer down cold?” someone asked.

“No, leave her idling. I will check her fire myself if too long we are here.”

“Then be off, you lot,” shouted a fat man with a rumpled face.

Kitchens followed Ottweill back down the tunnel until the doctor found a pile of tailings to his liking and took a seat. He tugged a small silver flask from within his coveralls. “Slivovitz?”

“No, thank you.”

The doctor took a careful sip, then capped his flask and put it away again. “Only at special times do I myself this luxury permit. This Wall will be my grave, so not so much need for saving do I find. Still, a man must have discipline.”

“Doctor,” Kitchens said, “I have never seen you so slow to answer. On most occasions one must stand aside from the sheer velocity of your replies.”

“I know your kind of person. You would not ask your question about the societies lightly. I will not answer lightly.”

Which, right there, was more of an answer than Kitchens had truly expected. “I understand, sir.”

“I studied at Heidelberg first,” Ottweill told him. “Before I went to the Polytechnic in Berlin, then to the University of St. Andrews. There was a time when I imagined myself a philosopher.”

Kitchens started a bit at that statement.

Ottweill raised a hand as if to ward him off. “No, true this is. Never had I abandoned my dreams of building in the earth, not since the first tunnel in my grandmother’s basement I dug at the age of five. Such a whipping Papi gave me, you may be sure. But for a time, it took my fancy that there was a truth to the spirits of the earth, and that a man with a shovel could also carry a lamp of knowledge on his journeys. What might we learn from the flints among the chalk, from the tiny animals trapped in the seams of coal as if their bones had formed there? What might the shapes of the insides of the mountains tell us about the urges of Creation?

“These things I studied, even while I drank and fought and applied myself to classes in mechanics, in chemistry, in geology, in the applications of steam. In turn they led me to a study of other philosophers. Dr. Professor Gruene at Heidelberg had made a survey of the literature of these secret societies. They are not so secret, just quiet about themselves. He showed me how old the white birds were, those
avebianco
with their roots in the early days of Christian Rome. He showed me how the Silent Order grew from the dualistic faiths of Persia. There have been other societies, to other purposes, but long these two have struggled with different visions of God and His intentions for the world.”

Ottweill tugged his flask back out, and took another slow, careful sip. He did not offer it to Kitchens this time. The clerk sat fascinated, wondering how much more the doctor would tell him.

“Behind thrones they do not stand, these societies, but often beside them. Just as a man might belong to a parish, or be an alumnus of a university, so he might be a white bird or numbered among the Silent. When you inquire if this digging is a project of one of the societies, I must of course say yes. In the same sense that the Royal Navy is a project of theirs, more
avebianco
than not if the truth we will tell. Likewise the entire Matter of Britain, and indeed almost anything of substance in this world.”

Ottweill looked at the wall opposite them, seeming to study the textures of its shadows. When Kitchens was sure the doctor was not simply pausing for breath, he spoke.

“You would say this tunnel was not conceived or funded by the societies for their purposes, but that those who did conceive and fund it might share in those purposes.”

Ottweill took his time in replying. “A fair enough statement. Imagine you might that the Rational Humanists are more interested in the expansion of the body politic and its attendant perquisites. But no, come this project did not from the secret halls of Valetta or Phu Ket.”

Valetta? Kitchens had never heard that mentioned before. He wondered how much of this was known at Admiralty, and who in the Special Section answered to these hidden masters. Amberson? The Queen’s mad doctor Stewart? “I should like to think I would have known if such a thing were true,” he said, knowing that the opposite far more likely held.

“A vision of mine this tunnel was, untainted by those ancient agendas.” Ottweill sounded both sad and angry, as if he were returning to his natural state of condescending energy. “What spirits in Whitehall moved it forward were almost certainly not untainted. Even the Queen herself blessed my work.”

Kitchens felt his heart seize cold. “You have met the Queen?”

Ottweill’s face hardened and he stared. “Yes. And you?”

“When she was at Osborne House?” the clerk asked, almost not daring to speak. “Or . . . later?”

“A man of many secrets you are, indeed.” The doctor’s voice very nearly crackled now. “Both, in truth. Once before, and once . . . later.”

“Her condition must be a doing of the societies,” Kitchens breathed.

“I will not speak of it further,” Ottweill announced. He stood, shaking.

They marched in silence to the barred metal gate, then out to the handcart.

“You will be on your way.” The doctor released the brakes. “Starving here we are, and at grave danger of continued attack. Do your job to summon a relief, and my job of tunneling I will do.”

“Into solid brass?” Kitchens asked. He was certain this project was finished, no matter what the doctor said.

“A way in I will find. Through as well, damn your English eyes.”

A shallow bay, pilings dotting the mud that led out from the beach. A spit to her right, ragged with familiar trees. A looming knee of rock to her left, rising up like a tiny cousin to the stone immensity behind.

The shadow of the Wall eclipsed the water, a great squared cloud the size of the world. The last quarter of the year was at hand, and so the sun had moved southward. A vee of birds rose from the distant trees and crossed the sky, heading for the light.

“We are here,” Ming said in Chinese. “Our journey reduced as if it had never been.”

She unlooped the cord from his wrist and passed it to Gashansunu. Wordless, the sorceress coiled the length. The other woman seemed thoughtful, even drawn.

“That was the step of a moment for me,” Paolina said. “How did the transit seem to you?”

“I used my powers to follow your path,” the Southern woman replied. “It was . . . difficult. My
wa
cried out at the crossing of the Wall.” She fell silent.

Paolina tucked her gleam away along with the ragged angel feather, then set to helping Ming look for their boat. They had passed through here only weeks ago. They located the boat easily enough in the crowded brush. Creepers had already begun to grow over the hull, and moss bloomed along the inverted keel.

“I should scrape this before setting out,” Ming told her. “Lest there be hidden rot.”

“Then I will help. I am not quite ready to bid you farewell.”

They hauled the boat onto the muddy beach, leaving it overturned. Ming hunted for tough shells or jagged rocks to do his scraping, while Paolina went back for the oars and the rolled-up tarpaulin they had left tucked beneath the hull.

Neatness, always neatness. Now it meant Ming’s freedom.

She was unsure of the distance to Taiwan, but it seemed like he must go very far indeed.

Paolina met Ming back at the boat, where he was comparing the worth of several makeshift tools. “How will you manage the journey?”

“I must reach Sumatra in this boat. No farther than our original sea journey to here. There I can find someone to take me to Singapore. Then
I will sign onto a vessel heading north, a little coaster or freighter. A competent man with a quiet mouth rarely lacks for work at sea.”

“And on to Oluanpi?”

“Somewhere in Taiwan,” he said. “I cannot go to Tainan. Surely we are all long since made outlaw. Admiral Shen might forgive, if he knew all the truth, but the Beiyang Navy cannot afford to. The Dragon Throne would never imagine doing so. My honor has been sold away, so I must live as I can.”

“I am so sorry,” she began, but he stopped her with a look.

“I followed Captain Leung. Even now I believe his purposes and those of Admiral Shen are not so far apart. If
Five Lucky Winds
can carry the Mask Childress to stop the Golden Bridge, as she has proposed to do, then our sacrifices will be worthy.”

“Hopefully she can make the journey.”

Ming shrugged. “I cannot conceive of how, but then I am neither a captain nor a mask.”

“If I had her close by, I could take her.” Paolina felt comforted by the weight of the stemwinder against her thigh.

“Advice is something I should not presume to give you,” Ming told her. “You are near to a mask, or a princess of the Imperial house, and I am but a sailor from the provinces.”

“Do not be immodest! You were chief among the sailors aboard
Five Lucky Winds
.”

“As may be. But for you, step lightly with your powers. If you continue to pass across the world as we just did, you may awaken dragons.”

She was unsure what to say to that, so she said nothing, but instead took up a promising stone and helped him in his scraping.

That afternoon, Ming was ready to set out. They had harvested some gourds to carry water for him, and enough fruits for the crossing. Sumatra was not far over the horizon.

Paolina helped him push the boat into the sea. Gashansunu watched from a distance. The Southern woman had spoken very little in the course of the day. Paolina touched Ming’s arm, wondering if she should hug him, but he smiled and slipped over the gunwale.

“I go,” said Ming. “Farewell, and may all the luck of the seas follow in your wake.”

“Farewell.”

With that, it was over. He rowed away, facing her in his seat, but with his head tucked down and focused on his labors. She wondered if he
cried, for she did, and could not decide if that was an honor or unworthy of them both.

Paolina watched for a long time, until he was a gray-black speck on the water, then turned back to Gashansunu.

“You do not want to go to a place,” the sorceress said. Her expression was almost wistful, which struck Paolina as curious. “You want to go to a person.”

“To Boaz, yes.”

They sat beneath the failing light of day. A fish baked on coals was spread between them on broad leaves. Paolina had plucked some tart, pulpy, green-fleshed fruit to go with it.

Gashansunu clicked her tongue. “Difficulties present themselves.”

“I can imagine. You showed me your Silent World. It has correspondences to the real world. I—”

The other woman interrupted. “The Silent World
is
the real world. This is the Shadow World. When you traffic with the passage between the two, best to remember the difference.”

Paolina wondered why the world of sunlight was the Shadow World. “In any case, the Silent World corresponds to the Shadow World in the matter of place. For all that they are not the same size.”

“They correspond in the matter of persons, as well. I am my
wa
’s shadow.”

“Surely that is the other way around? Do you not call your
wa
?”

“No,” Gashansunu said. “You are confusing effects and causes. There is not a single sun in the Silent World casting all shadows the same direction, and so the correspondences appear imperfect to us.”

Paolina persisted. “This beach has a form in the Silent World, yes?”
What
is
the Silent World, stripped of this woman’s very powerful metaphor?
“People have a form in the Silent World, but they move themselves through differing places and moments. It is far easier to step from a place to a place than from a place to a person.”

“That is close enough to the truth,” Gashansunu said in a guarded tone. “You surprise me.”

“Thank you.” Paolina realized that this woman was something of a female
fidalgo
, much as the Mask Childress had been.

Gashansunu clicked her lips again. Then: “How would you expect to pass through the Silent World to reach a person known to you?”

That question had been much on Paolina’s mind since stepping to this beach from the other side of the Wall. “The simplest way is if the person’s
location is known to me. Were I to seek out Hethor, all I should need to do is step to his village. He will be close by.”

“Go on,” the sorceress said encouragingly.

“Likewise, if they go from a certain place to another place, in the manner of a hunter or tradesman, I might go between those places to look for them. But this is little more than a case of the first instance.”