Prince of Storms (21 page)

“Ohhh!”

“Yes, but then we made rules against that, too. We decided to change to ground dwelling so that when we came home we'd look less intimidating. We also decided to conform our breathing needs to our future homeland. We do not need the membrane covering the end of the minoral anymore. You remember that we could not breathe Entire air in the old days?”

“Yes! Needed good air!”

“It is all good now. We reattached to the same place where we broke away from. And so we are home.”

“Came home!”

“Yes, and now we have more changing to do.”

“Sex!”

“Well, yes, eventually. Do not worry about choosing a sex right now. No, the changing we need now is to find a way to be at home here. Are we at home, or are we just attached to the primacy?” She looked around delightedly at her confused class. “That is your thinking assignment: How to be at home.”

“No hoop work? No songs to compose?” one of the older juveniles asked.

“Thinking. Just thinking. Give it a try.” She rose. “Lesson done. Off with you, now. Go play at blood and death!”

As the class broke up, Venn waved Anzi to her side. As Anzi approached, Venn said, “I thought I might see you today.”

“Complete One.”

“Feeling better? You can walk me back to my hut, if you do not mind being seen with me.” She was referring to her punishment from Avva ceb, but she didn't seem upset about it.

Anzi had an urge to fall back a step and look at Venn's back display, but it wasn't polite. As they walked, people seemed far more interested in Anzi's life art, although they were careful to stare discreetly.

“How are you enjoying Manifest?” Anzi said with a little spite.

“Not. Not enjoying.”

“You missed Sen Ni's appearance.”

“Pity. I am sure it was worth seeing.”

“And so would Titus's appearance. You could give him a hoop. Let him
challenge the Jinda ceb view of what it means to be home. Let him challenge your neutrality.”

Venn nodded enthusiastically. “Good idea. But I am afraid Avva ceb is prepared for that now. She would never let him in. Or Sen Ni either, now that everyone knows she has a hoop.” Venn waved irritably at a large group of Jinda ceb who were working at biots hugging a decorative pool. “A waste of time, poor things. You cannot do group art, I have always said so.” She cut a glance at Anzi. “Besides, I thought Titus
did
have a hoop.”

“It's a million days old! It doesn't work.” Surely Venn knew that. She was playing with her.

“A million days, by Manifest! That
is
a long time.” Venn stopped, fanning herself and calmly regarding Anzi's increasing distress. “You have your own advantage, Anzitaj. You are here. Sen Ni is not. Is that fair? Is that neutral?”

“But my old teacher despises me. I think he's working against me. People stare at me. I haven't got any life art, and Iritaj won't let me look at what I do have.”

“You have life art.”

Anzi paused in frustration. “A gold line. It's just a line. It's nothing.”

“Well, the bright is a line.”

Did that imply the line was good? Iritaj had not been willing to say so. “Besides,” she went on, trying to recover her point, “people distrust me. My old friends won't talk to me. Who would listen to someone who stumbled as I did? Even if I win respect again, it might be too late, because Titus will be woven into a prison of Geng De's making, and he and Sen Ni will take over and invite the Tarig back and the Rose will die.”

Venn looked at her blankly.

Anzi thought it the worst speech she had ever made. She had come here to charm and reassure and gain the ear of Manifest. And now this outburst.

“You should sit down, my dear. You have been ill.”

They made their way to a bench, and Anzi sank onto it. “My husband has not thought of me in ten days,” she murmured.

Venn sat also. Her life art lit up the shadowed glen they sat in, as though her soul had been released for a moment to flit among the biots.

Anzi went on, “Because of events, now I am older than he is. All those
thousands of days wasted, when we wished to be together. I came back to him. But for me, a lifetime had passed; something was different between us. But we had married, and he, having blamed himself for abandonment of one wife, would never do so again. But he does not love me as he used to.”

“Do you love
him
?”

“I loved him from the first moment I saw him come through from the Rose, with his wife and daughter. From that moment. I love him still.”

“Well, you should think about a question like that before answering.”

“I don't need to think about it.”

“You need to.”

“I…” She stopped herself. Was she actually arguing with a Complete One?

“Is that all you want, Anzitaj, to have things be the same as they were between you and Titus Quinn?”

“Yes.” Anzi's throat swelled. If they could be as before…

“Because it can be.” She noted Anzi's confused look. “When you came among us the first time, you shared with us a nonmaterial life; our world was an information equivalency. We have a memory of your physical properties from when you arrived. You can be re-created.”

Anzi gazed at her, uncomprehending.

Venn went on. “I am not sure I should tell you all this, but I am already in trouble, no going back.” She paused, then went on. “Anzitaj, where did you think the Jinda ceb went when the Tarig cut away our minoral so long ago?”

“You were still a minoral. Floating between the bubbles of the worlds.”

“So we had our own bright and storm walls. Is that what you thought?”

“Well, no River Nigh. You had the travel slits.”

“Anzitaj. There was no bright. There was no minoral. We could never have sustained a minoral cast away between worlds. For one thing, when the Tarig cut us away, we were a young civilization, without great capabilities. We were still flying in the skies. But the Tarig allowed us to become a representation of ourselves. Perhaps they felt some guilt over their decision to exile us. Who knows?”

Anzi had not the slightest idea what she was talking about.

“This part is difficult. The foam of the Thousand Realms contains life
and substance on the surface of each foam particle. But what lies
inside
the surface of the bubble? Ah well, that is a holographic representation. It bears an isomorphic relationship with the surface. Inside—in the volume of the foam particle, so to speak—is a correspondency, but a representational one. That is, it exists as data, but not as life and blood, rock and biot. That is where we lived while separate from the Entire. We found your little capsule floating between the worlds, and we brought you in, representationally.”

“I died?”

“Best not to think of it that way. I certainly do not.” Venn's life art—which Anzi still could not see from her position seated next to the old woman—now cast a weird blue light on the glen, more a brooding murk than a dance of soul. What were the Jinda ceb? Had she lived with them completely oblivious?

Venn continued. “You lived with us for a time that is best expressed as five thousand days, and when you asked for the involution back to the Entire, Nistoth (as he was known then) gave you form based on the experiences you had as a correspondency being. That is, all that you knew, all that you did while living among us, all the days that had passed—these all determined what material being you would become upon your return.”

Anzi was still swimming in confusion. She whispered, “A correspondency being?”

“Think of it rather like a complete mathematical description of yourself.”

“I see.” Although she didn't, quite. She felt her world wobbling. “You switch back and forth? Between dreaming and real?”

“Did I say dreaming? I suspect you are stuck on the physical world. You think it is more real than other descriptions of reality. But it is all information, you see.” She pinched Anzi on the arm. “Matter—it is just an incidental, my dear. It is all only information. The volume is encoded on the surface, but the volume is virtual. That does not necessarily make it less real.”

Anzi frowned, confused about something that Venn had said. “But you
did
create a minoral.” She gestured around her. “This minoral wasn't here, and now it is.”

“Well. By the time of our homecoming we could do all kinds of things. We were infinitely older. And attaching to the Entire is much more easily
done than thriving between the worlds.” She went on, “So, Anzitaj, I have some interesting information for you: If you would like to go back to that earlier Anzi, the one who we recovered from the void, that can be effected. That is, I
think
I could persuade Avva ceb, if I got to him on the right day and Manifest was quiet for once.”

She looked satisfied with herself. “So how would that be, then?”

“I…I…” Anzi looked at her helplessly.

“Oh dear. And I thought it would help.”

“Would I be young again?”

“You would lose knowledge of things between then and now. And you would be the age that you left the Entire. I cannot imagine why that would be what you want, but if it is, Avva ceb remembers your form.”

Anzi stared into the gardens, suddenly as strange a scene as she could imagine. What was real? What was solid? She murmured, “I would lose my present body.”

“Is that not the point?”

“Would Manifest still think of my disgrace, or would that get erased?”

“Manifest cannot forget. But the Jinda ceb would not blame the new Anzitaj for anything the old one did. You would have a fresh start with us.”

A fresh start. Powerful words.

Venn stood up. “Well, it is a lot to absorb. Do not tell anyone. Manifest has decided that we must appear as normal as possible to the sentients here. I am afraid most of them would be troubled by how we coped with banishment. Look at how they reacted to learning that the Tarig were consensus beings. They are setting them on fire, I believe.” Her scalp swirls contracted. “You people have a very narrow view of life. We try to understand; most of the time we just accept how you think. It is not easy, you know.”

She settled an appraising look on Anzi. “You do look rather pale, even for a Chalin.” She raised her hand. “Shall I send you home by travel slit?”

Anzi suddenly didn't like the idea of the travel slits. She wanted just plain real. Real body, real walking, real everything.

“Thank you, no, Complete One. I'll walk.”

She wandered in the direction of her village, stunned, oblivious to what people thought of whatever in the world was appearing on her back.

Five thousand days. Five thousand days she had lived as an imaginary being, dreaming of life. Or was the dream the same as the actual? And how could it be? No wonder the Jinda ceb had fought so fiercely to come home. They had been living suspended lives.

It made Anzi a little crazy. She could go back to what she was. The Jinda ceb could remove those thousands of days from her mind and body as though they never were.

Because they never had been.

FOG CLOAKED THE
H
IRRIN CITY
, erasing the buildings and shrouding the inhabitants with ghostly cloaks. Lapli rushed home to his younglings, his saddlebags full of fresh market purchases and a few hard-sugar licks for treats.

He passed the palace of Dolwa-Pan, with its fancy metal gate and roof pinnacles, their points lost in the mist. For a moment the clouds parted and he glimpsed the princess herself on the veranda extending her royal neck as though trying to snatch something from the air. It was most indecorous for Princess Dolwa-Pan to adopt such a posture, but Lapli had his fresh meats and hard sugars and he thought little more of it, hurrying home to be out of the damp.

On the pavement before him was an odd, bright orange branch. In fact, three of them. He nudged the nearest one with his hoof, then bent closer for a better look. Something bounced off his head. Another orange branch. Looking up, he saw the air full of orange rain, drops that sprang into larger form upon striking the ground—or one's head. Everywhere now, the pellets sprouted into forms like tiny tree branches.

He lipped one off the ground, feeling its hidelike texture.

“Water.” The branch said. “Put me in water.”

Lapli dropped the thing in alarm.

“If you put me in a glass of water, I will tell you a secret.”

Lapli looked around him. The fog wrapped closely around, but here and there the bright lit up fallen branches.

“Why do you need water? There's a heavy fog.” He spoke to the thing as an experiment. After all, he was alone in his cocoon of mist and no one could see him talking to a branch.

“A little more water than this.”

Lapli eyed the orange talking thing. The other sticks were silent, but when he nudged another one with a hoof it, too, asked for water.

In the end he tucked one into his neck bag and took it home. He stepped carefully, so as not to squash things that appeared to be alive.

When he arrived at his home, he found that the younglings had already collected dozens of branches, filling many pots, urns, cups, and jars with water. Each branch spoke, stuffing the domicile with a cacophony of voices.

His oldest galloped up to him. “Father, the Tarig lords are talking!”

Dolwa-Pan hurried along the royal promenade to the ambassador's keep, hoping to reach him before he was summoned to the First's palace. As she passed junctions with the major paths, she saw knots of Hirrin talking and looking up at the sky.

Everyone was in an uproar over the orange sticks with their talking messages. There were eight Tarig lords in a ship overhead, and they wished…what did they call it?
Sanctuary
.

The orange message sticks were from the lords who had escaped banishment. Dolwa-Pan had thought them all gone, although there had been rumors of the pirated brightships. Now, instead of landing in the great field and demanding obeisance, they came with a modest request of hospitality. The All had never seen such a day. This was a time of change, a new epoch. An unwelcome one. Where was one to put one's loyalty? It had all been so clear once. The three vows. The radiant land. Now doomed to lose its radiance forever.

The sway had been ablaze with controversy for arcs, beginning with the news of the Tarig banishment and then the dreams urging war against the
Rose. Dolwa-Pan's own mind was awash with misgivings. Somewhere up there—the mists hiding it—was a brightship, containing the remnants of the high lords. Barely had the sway become accustomed to the Great Banishment than news came that some lords remained.

Oh dear, oh misery. Titus Quinn had deposed the bright lords. But was that proper? A Roseling had forced them into exile. Could the sway bear such an insult? Dolwa-Pan's uncertainty astonished her. Titus Quinn had deceived her once, accepting from her a ride to a scholar's reach aboard her royal sky bulb. Although she had noted his Ascendancy accent, he had explained it away and she had accepted his story of having been a soldier of the Long War. She'd given him a heart chime, her beloved talisman of the bright lords. Now this darkling was—what did he call himself?—regent. The Entire was doomed under his reign. The Tarig lords had the answer to this. Ahnenhoon, where a great furnace lay hidden in the Repel, one that could reach through the storm walls to…Oh dear, dear, dear. How could the All have come to such a pass? Her head felt stuffed with fog.

By the time Dolwa-Pan was admitted to the ambassador's dressing chamber, she was panting with nervous exhaustion.

Nosta Gari was halfway through dressing. Good. Plenty of time for a talk. His attendants had only gotten to his back padding.

Strictly speaking, Nosta Gari was not a royal, so Dolwa-Pan could interrupt his dressing ritual and impose her views on him. He was only ambassador to Sen Ni's court. And what did that amount to? One voice among those of the
Entirety
, as she called it.

Dolwa-Pan sat on the proffered cushion and accepted a stand of flavored water, sucking gratefully on the tube.

“One can't turn away Tarig lords,” Nosta Gari opined. He looked dubiously at the frames holding his heavy ceremonial capes. His dressers wheeled first one, then another in front of him. He waved each one away.

“Choose the gray, ambassador,” Dolwa-Pan murmured, “it sets off a good leg.” If he
had
good legs, which he did not. Too knobby.

“The gold,” he ordered his dressers. As they struggled the heavy frame close to him, Nosta Gari eyed the princess. “They ask only to land, and suitable habitation. We have the vacant Second quarters, since the old prince died.”

Goodness, Tarig lords in the royal compound? Perhaps that would make her their equals, for who could say where deposed lords and legitimate royals fell in hierarchy? She imagined state dinners, delightful ebb conversations sipping skeel.... Her heart lifted at this pleasant image. “The regent would soon find out, of course,” she said.

The ambassador let out a whuff as his dressers transferred the encrusted cape to his back. They lipped the fasteners closed under his belly.

“I know the man,” Dolwa-Pan reminded him. “Titus Quinn was quite respectful to me when I confronted his pretensions at the Ascendancy not long ago. He was waiting for his wife, lost between the worlds and—”

“—we've cast our lot with the Entirety, Princess, you surely remember.”

That brought Dolwa-Pan up short. She hadn't quite realized that was the case. The mistress of Rim City sway wished to form a new reign, as all sentients knew. But listening to her ideas was not the same as agreeing with them. “If she moves against Titus Quinn, it by no means guarantees that she'll win,” Dolwa-Pan pointed out. “And where will the Paion come in? Surely we must wait and see what they will do, Ambassador. That's best.”

The dressers were adjusting his jeweled hat, perched between his ears like an alarming tumor.

Nosta Gari lifted his front left hoof for the first shodding. “The Jinda ceb won't give an opinion, and they won't help either side, Princess. Our question remains, shall we engage in war or not?”

War? How had they gotten to war? “We are done with war,” she sniffed. “The Long War, you're too young to—”

“We're not done with war,” he interrupted. “Once the machine at Ahnenhoon is under way again, the Rose may come with forces to stop us. But we have no choice. I will be alive in a hundred thousand days, Princess; my younglings shall certainly be alive. We face the void. The engine is our only hope. That is how I'll counsel the First.”

Now fully shod, he did look more impressive than before. Dolwa-Pan saw that he was getting ready to leave, and she had not even made her wishes known so that he could convey these to First Princess.

“My opinion is that—”

Nosta Gari raised his head and waited pointedly for her to go on. Or to
finish. He seemed to be in a hurry. Well of course he was in a hurry. The brightship overhead. One mustn't tarry too long over a lord's request. If they
were
still lords.

“Your opinion, Princess?”

Confusion roiled in her mind. “Tell Her Highness that I wish…” She hesitated. She had come here to warn the ambassador about Titus Quinn's perfidy and the need to be respectful to the lords. Now…

“Tell Her Highness that we must not go to war.” She saw Nosta Gari's contempt. She went on, increasingly sure. “It is unseemly to kill the Rose. It is murder.”

“Forgive me, Princess, but that is easy for someone of your advanced days to say.”

“Furthermore, the Tarig…” Dolwa-Pan's vision of the lords as her neighbors were crumbling. “They must not land their ship, nor have a habitation here.”

“You side with Titus Quinn, then.”

She hadn't known that she did. Maybe it was the sight of this overdressed young Hirrin eager for another war and intimidated by a fancy brightship full of lords.

She thought of Titus Quinn sitting on the bench in the Great Plaza, waiting for his wife and worrying about his world falling to ashes. What right did the Entire have to feed off another world?

The room quickly emptied of the ambassador and his attendants. Dolwa-Pan feared that Her Highness would be getting very bad advice today, if Nosta Gari was any example. She sighed, deeply and long, as only a Hirrin could.

On her way out, she tossed her orange talking stick onto the floor.

Deep in the ebb, Breund stood by his bedchamber door, ear pressed hard against it. Someone was talking in the main cabin. It could only be Lord Inweer.

Breund's petaled skin hugged him so hard he could barely breathe. The
lord was speaking to the solitaires—who else? That the lord had chosen to do so in the middle of darkest ebb was instructive of his purpose: to deceive, to plot.

He turned from the futile effort to overhear. It was enough to know that Lord Inweer communicated with his cousins; the reasons could only be base. Turning toward his wardrobe with the intention to dress, Breund hesitated whether to confront the lord officially or pretend to have awakened upon hearing voices. The latter was best, to stumble into the main cabin in his sleeping silks. He could then reasonably ask Lord Inweer a simple question. But then? Report to the regent in front of the lord? Would that not destroy what fragile trust he had laboriously established with his charge?

Breund laid a hand on his altar, remembering his vows to act with rectitude at all times. Thus do we bring forth a propitious future, or if not propitious, then less calamitous, or if not less calamitous, then blameless. It was this clear path that made Breund love the Society. One could always be blameless if one did one's best.

He strode into the main cabin.

Lord Inweer was standing at the door to his private quarters as though about to enter. Hearing Breund, he turned.

“My lord,” Breund said. “I heard voices.”

“You sleep lightly, warden.”

It was a fact that Breund slept uneasily. His hopes that Inweer would accept his prison ship as penance had been destroyed by the immolations in the forest of the Gond. Since that day, the lord had brooded terribly. What Breund had first seen as a healthy interest in piloting on Lord Inweer's part had been instead an aimless transit of the Entire, a manifestation of the lord's turbulent mood.