Pinion (47 page)

Gashansunu belatedly realized where she was. She had sliced time between one heartbeat and the next, between one click of the Shadow World and the next. The Silent World did not have time, as such, but the minds of people who went there perceived it through the filter of time, just as their bodies did back in the Shadow World. Great power was required to step completely outside time and slice it open like a sacrificial slave.

I do not have this power
, she thought.
I am no house priest
.

YOU ARE SWALLOWING MINE
.

The sorceress finally realized that the distance of her
wa
’s voice was within her.

She could not conceive of what that meant. People sometimes lost their
wa
, or themselves, but no one she knew of had ever swallowed up their
wa
.

My poor soul
, Gashansunu thought, then wondered why she had chosen that terrible, terrible word.

And the second angel poured out his vial upon the sea; and it became as the blood of a dead man: and every living soul died in the sea.          —
Revelation 16:3

He stepped heavily onto an alien deck. A knotted circle of men crowded around, gasping and stifling cries. Seven of
Erinyes
’ cannon rolled loose.

Someone screamed out across the open air, their voice trailing away. A Chinese sailor who’d missed his footing.

::
birds could soar no higher than the very angels of the Lord, yet here you have stood on the mountain with wings of wax and feathers upon your shoulders
::

Paolina
, he thought, but survival came even before love. She and that sorceress were safer than any of them. Orders were needed, quickly. He spoke in a low, urgent voice.

“Quiet. These ships are similar enough to your own. Petty Officer Martins, take three men and find the engine control room amidships. Two from the gas division go up into the bag so you may see to learning the arrangements. The rest of you dump these loose cannon overboard. We will depart as swiftly and silently as we may.”

“Someone should pull in the battle lanterns,” Kitchens shouted as he loped away.

Another salvo of fire came from one of their sister ships.
Erinyes
bucked and splintered, a brief flame jetting from her hull. Already the men over there were yelling.

Boaz wished them the luck of it.

::
one by one their robes were torn back, to shew each a man with his sword beneath his woman’s cloak, and the deception was brake
::

He twisted the wheel hard to port. Levine, an old sailor from
Erinyes
, had followed him onto the command deck. “Here,” the Brass said. “Figure how to call for more altitude. We must gain before they are on to our ruse.”

Their airship turned away from the attack. Paolina had chosen the
northmost vessel in the Chinese line, so they were not forced to cross the bows of their erstwhile enemies.
Small favors
, Boaz thought,
from the hand of the Divine
.

The sailor looked at the controls in bafflement. “Ain’t like our’n, guvner.”

“I know nothing of it, either,” he snapped. “If you need to, run smartly and carry word to the gas division and the engineers that they must sort this out right away.”

Everyone scrambled in a rush of panic and relief. They would survive another few minutes, and maybe beyond the day with both luck and skill.

::
watch the last horseman, for if he is taken, you will all be ate one by one, each by each
::

“I understand.” Boaz raised his voice. “Two men here for a stern watch, quickly.”

Kitchens popped up from a hatch in the deck and looked him in the eye. “Will we live, John Brass?”

“For now.”

The Paolina–al-Wazir voice surfaced again.
And well done, laddie, well done
.

I did nothing
, he thought, but did not say.

“Something’s gone over the side of
Erinyes
. Looks like a strip of bag fabric. They’re making a signal.”

“Number two Chinee is swung toward us.”

“Flames on our ship! Erm, their ship!
Erinyes
, sir!”

“Number three Chinee is standing to our’n.”

“Number four is heading our way.”

::
the false riders were diverted away by cunning, and so the trapper trapped
::

“The hoax is done,” Paolina said. “It bought us several minutes’ head start and a faster airship.”

“Yes,” Kitchens replied, “and we sail toward the heart of the Empire cloaked in the enemy’s colors.”

Boaz realized that his desire to reach Ophir had guttered out in Paolina’s presence. He hadn’t even noticed the death of that ambition. Just having her close to hand was sufficient. But to sail to England . . .

“We must alight, Mr. Kitchens,” he said. “Neither Paolina nor I have any wish to approach London.”

“I—” The clerk stopped, looked about. “You men, clear the deck a moment. I shall keep the stern watch a bit, but I must speak in confidence to John Brass and this sorceress.”

The two men on the stern watch exchanged a glance, then scuttled forward. From the shouts, Petty Officer Martins was trying to organize a firing party with unfamiliar Chinese weapons.

Kitchens stared aft, avoiding both Boaz and Paolina. “Our defense is in speed and wit, not force of arms.”

::
the storm that crosses the desert spares no man, claiming the virtuous and the wicked alike
::

“That is your defense, sir,” the Brass said. “Not ours.”

“I will not go to London,” Paolina stated flatly.

A sad, tired tension filled Kitchens’ voice. “For my part, I apologize.” He glanced at them, then returned to his study of the pursuit. “The fate of my country rests on what happens next. I can compel you to nothing, but I beg you to help see me safe to England.”

“What is this fate?” asked Paolina.

::
and a darkness rose over the plains of Absalom, while in her heart writhed the pain of two loves twined like snakes
::

Kitchens seemed to shiver as he glanced at the pursuing airships. “We are a nation at the edge.”

Boaz marshaled his thoughts. “What, sir, is the edge on which the largest empire in history now abides?”

“The edge of madness.” The clerk’s voice dropped to a whisper. “I fear the Empire will fall.”

::
the flames of the furnace polished his bones, until on the third day the prophet rose up, gathered himself from the ashes and walked through the iron door to once more confront the king
::

“All empires fall.” Boaz tried to think what the Sixth Seal had meant with those words.

“Maybe this is England’s turn,” Kitchens replied. “But there is already war to drag down the world with her. Look at the deck on which we stand right now. A month ago, this would have been beyond conception.”

“It is my doing.” Paolina’s voice was bleak. “I carried the gleam into your empire. The Chinese pursued me to Mogadishu, where they snatched me away from Boaz, carrying poor al-Wazir with them. That was the opening salvo in this war. Because of me, and my stemwinder. If I had not come, they would not be fighting now.”

::
a maiden rode the shoulders of a cold wind, ice streaming from her hair, while death carried himself in her van
::

“Regardless, there is war today,” Kitchens said, obviously impatient with the argument. “It pursues us at this moment; it spreads across Africa and the Wall. India must already be a battleground. A war that will take the lives of tens of thousands, and ruin millions more.”

::
as you travel among the distant forests, so the concerns of the forest dwellers become your own, for all that your heart abides among the sheep and their meadows
::

“This war is not my concern,” Boaz told the clerk. “The Wall will not burn. It is of the Lord, and too large for your armies to encompass.”

“Perhaps you are correct, sir. But that is not enough for me. This cancer grows at the heart of England. I have been charged with cutting it away. If I can do so, Government will change, and we will have cause to stop the fighting without seeming weak.”

That gave Boaz long pause. Paolina gripped him more tightly. Their gaze met, though he could not read her eyes.

“Whom will you kill?” she asked.

“I will kill no one,” the clerk replied almost absently. “But I would help a beloved woman finish dying.”

::
when you heed the counsel of women, and leave the priests idle in the dusty rooms of their temple, you will find a different nation at your feet
::

“The enemy is gaining,” Boaz reported. “We are nearly at risk, if they are willing to fire on one of their own airships.”

Paolina stared at him. “This is not their airship anymore.”

Pursued by shouting men, he burst into another hallway. This was crowded with boxes, crates and a cluster of mops and brooms.

No time to choose. He ran right. Bellowing close by. A bell began shrilling
alarm, alarm, intruder, intruder
.

Double doors ahead. A place to bring in goods and equipment.

He raced into a marshaling yard. Wagons, a steam tractor with a flat trailer behind it. Surprised men, mostly Arabs but a few large-boned Britons.

“Fire!” Wang screamed without breaking stride. “Inside! Raise the alarm!”

He’d never run so fast in his life.

The crack of a bullet told him that being outside had been a poor choice. Nothing struck him down, while a babble of Arab voices rose louder and louder.

The outer gates of the yard stood open. The street beyond invited him. Already the people and traffic there swirled to focus on the happenings within.

“My pardons,” shouted Wang. “Make way for the injured!”

Another bullet snapped overhead. The gathering crowd melted as fast as
it had coalesced. He melted with it, the shouts of “Oi, you, ’alt,” lost among the chaos.

Don’t push
, Wang thought.
Be one of them
.

He knew he was an idiot. There wasn’t another Chinese man on this street. Everyone would mark him for a foreigner.

Yet a dozen styles of dress pressed around him, clothing skin colored from almost midnight black through nut brown to pale white. He was different, but not alone in his difference.

The alarm still shrilled behind him, fading with distance. Angry British shouts echoed, but few in this crowd would turn a hand to aid their masters.

This place was like Singapore, he realized. Whoever ruled held the power, but the people were their own and majestically indifferent. He would never see such a thing in the heart of China.

Wang’s chest ached awfully. A stitch in his gut felt like he’d been knifed. His legs shivered, elastic and vague.

He slowed to a walk. Either he would reach the boat or he would not. Meanwhile, the monk had been doing . . . what?

Sometimes, Wang wished he had told the Kô to do his Imperial worst. Instead of chasing two magically impossible women halfway around the Northern Earth under the threat of his own death, he could be in his notso-comfortable office, drinking bad tea and piecing through ancient documents so rotten they made his eyes burn.

He smiled as he passed through the dusty streets amid the donkey shit and the spilled fruit and the press of foreigners.

She continued unmoored in time, even in the Shadow World. The new airship seemed little different than the old, but the men were strange. Here one moment, over there the next, then gone. Likewise the sun stuttering as it crested the horizon.

I am Westfacing
, she thought.
That is east
. Unless the Northern Earth was so turned around even the compass stood untrue.

A magenta sliver jumped to an orange crescent between one moment and the next.

Worse, the voice of her
wa
had faded completely. She felt different, as if a hand had been sliced from her body. The sense in her head of always knowing gaped.