Prince of Storms (26 page)

They found Cixi's body in the hidden room beneath the bridge. With Zhiya, Quinn knelt by the high prefect's side just long enough to assure himself that she was dead. It seemed unlikely, with all she had survived, with as long as she had lived and cast her will over the Entire and the Magisterium. But she was gone.

Moments earlier they had followed the sounds of grinding, and crashed through the wall, but Sydney had escaped. It could only be she who had hidden here, hidden with the dying Cixi, with Geng De likely at her side.

Soldiers climbed down onto the understructure, looking for Geng De.

One of them shouted, “A sky bulb!” Zhiya crouched down to look, but the view was obstructed.

“Where is it?” she asked.

“Motoring away!”

In an instant, Quinn was down onto the understructure, hanging onto a strut, looking where the soldier pointed. The dirigible was just disappearing around the curve of the bridge. He climbed back into the room.

“Zhiya, I'm going after them.” He scrambled through the hole in the wall leading to the hallway.

“Take me with you!” she shouted after him. “Take soldiers with you!”

He heard Zhiya swearing behind him, trying to keep up. Sprinting back through the lower hall, he ran up the stairs to the great entryway and out to the veranda.

In the garden, all was quiet, the smoke dissipated. Soldiers turned to stare as he loped across the grass. With the hatch to the brightship open, he jumped in, thinking as he did so: No one else comes. He heard Zhiya calling from behind. The hatch swooped shut, and he fairly threw himself at the control panel.

The ship lurched into the sky.

There was only one reason to send a slow-moving dirigible, he realized now. Because it didn't have far to go. Geng De had another ship and it was waiting close by. If it was at sea, it would make the transfer of personnel from the sky bulb to the ship devilishly hard. There would be time for him…

He sped past his quarry before he knew it. The sky bulb was behind him. On the wharf. It wasn't at sea at all, but docked. He had overshot. Careening back toward the dock, he saw that the dirigible had lowered toward the wharf. No time to land. The only way was to plow into them. He had known this when he ran to the ship. On brightships there were no weapons. The Tarig had no need of them, damn them to hell.

The only option: plowing into the ship and taking out the sky bulb at the same time. God have mercy. Sydney forgive me.

He angled down, perfect aim. Coming closer, dirigible and navitar vessel close enough to take both at once. No choice, no mercy. Do it. It ends like this.

The vessel disappeared.

A flick of his wrist brought up the nose of the brightship a split second before it dove into the wharf.

He streaked into the sky, sweat pouring off him. Geng De had fled into the binds.

The ship raced upward, then leveled off. His thoughts felt pinned down, deadened. The world unrolled below him as he sped away.

So fast, this brightship. Up here he was free of the world, the Entire, of the binds of duty, of all that was expected of him. He was tempted to keep flying, into the Empty Lands, those infinitely long folded spaces. Perhaps there he could find some peace.

The sweat on his face evaporated, chilling him. Eventually thoughts crept back in to fill the panicked spaces of his mind. He was alive. She was. A reprieve. He turned the ship back toward the bridge.

When he landed in the garden, setting the ship down in the scarred compound, he learned that the dirigible had been empty by the time Zhiya's soldiers got there. Sidney was with Geng De, in the river.

He stood in the garden, watching the soldiers gather their dead. Noheme among them. They brought Cixi's body into the brightship, carrying her carefully, with respect. She was wrapped in such silks as they had been able to find.

He took as many soldiers as he could into the ship. Zhiya came along. She wanted to return by ship with the rest of her soldiers to the foot of the Ascendancy, but he asked her to come with him.

Looking at him, she did not argue. “You had to do it, Titus. You had to try.”

He met her eyes. He couldn't speak. His thoughts turned to the Empty Lands. But now he had to ferry the dead home. By the grace of the Miserable God Sidney wasn't among them.

THE
H
IRRIN FIRST PRINCESS
cantered prettily around the paddock, splattering mud onto her attendants. It was a fine, clear day after an arc of fog, and she was by-the-bright going for a run.

Nosta Gari huffed along beside her, ostensibly trying to carry on a conversation, but barely able to keep up with her. Well, it was not her fault if he chose to wear a brocaded coat into the royal paddock, and a gold one no less, making his legs look knobby and pale. Of course he couldn't have known that she'd be holding the audience here. It was important to keep Nosta Gari guessing about things since he tended to puffery about his appointment to the congress of the Inyx girl, what was her name? Sinn Nu, Sun Ni?

In the center of the paddock the first chamberlain sat in a covered panoply. No running for that one, fat as he was.

She moved into a gallop, to the applause of the courtiers crowded around the perimeter. Nosta Gari huffed along as best he could, then gave up, waiting for her to come round again.

A shadow came over the paddock. Long necks craned up to spy the Tarig craft, the source of all the uproar. Throwing its silhouette over the royal grass, the brightship streaked by; no doubt it would return for another pass.

The princess had already made up her mind about the Tarig matter, but liked to give the impression that she considered everything with royally paced care. Over there, next to the risers where some younglings clustered, she noted Princess Dolwa-Pan, who had been tiresomely repeating her old
story of having met Titus Quinn, and who was now, apparently, a partisan in his favor.

It was her opinion that the whole matter of fuel for the Entire was overblown. It was ridiculous to think that the storm walls could fail. They had always been there. The same went for the bright, and the Nigh, and what have you. These things were eternal.

Having come round the circle again, she trotted past Nosta Gari and approached her chamberlain. Nosta Gari hurried to join her.

“Chamberlain,” she said, “please communicate my will to the Tarig lords.” She had been framing suitable phraseology over the last hours and thought her answer would strike the right tone: “The first princess, after thorough consultations with ranking nobles, and having deliberated with due respect in consideration of past obligations and acknowledging with appreciation the cares and favors dispensed by the most gracious lords, and in hopes of promoting the general well-being of the Hirrin sway, regretfully declines to allow a landing. Therefore her royal answer is no.”

Nosta Gari gasped. “No?”

The royal chamberlain blinked. “No?”

“No.”

After a pause, the chamberlain reached for a little orange stalk resting on the table in front of him; the little sticks could apparently hear as well as talk. She trusted the lords would be paying attention.

Turning back to the courtiers gathered closely now, poking noses through the espaliered vines forming the paddock enclosure, she strolled to the nearest group. “I've decided not to allow a landing. Go to your palaces and throw the little orange sticks away.”

Nosta Gari trotted by her side. “But Princess! These are Tarig lords.”

As he sputtered on in this vein, his displeasure was clear: Nosta Gari believed that the sway should cultivate a relationship with the Tarig. So much for his sincerity with the mistress of Rim City! But if the lords came down, the city would soon be under their authority, and then the sway. No, there could be no relationship with the Tarig. She wasn't sure she liked Titus Quinn any better, but at least he stayed in the Ascendancy and hadn't demanded anything of her.

Nosta Gari stood in the mud of the track, drooping under his heavy coat. He had the temerity to sulk. Delightful. The princess was always happy when she could upset her courtiers.

It was a fine day, warm and dry. The first princess decided on another few laps. As she passed a knot of royals, she noted that Princess Dolwa-Pan was smiling.

The prison ship sped on, seldom landing.

For the first few days after Lord Inweer's rebellion, Breund had maintained a dignified silence. Every few hours he tried to send his report to the Ascendancy. He no longer expected any success, but he felt it proper to keep trying.

Today, however, he decided that his silence was not helpful. It also had to be noted that Lord Inweer had not slaughtered him. This showed a modicum of restraint and—dared he hope?—respect on the lord's part. Therefore he decided that perhaps there was still hope for rehabilitation of his charge, even if present circumstances suggested that the lord was rather far from submitting to his punishment.

Turning from his workstation, he gazed at Lord Inweer in the pilot's chair. The lord gripped the chair arms, his muscles tense, his eyes very black. Breund hoped that the eyes did not reveal the inner being. Even though Inweer had disappointed him, he still did not like to think any being irremediably dark.

Lord Inweer seemed at times to be listening to voices beneath Breund's threshold of hearing. In fact, Breund was convinced that he spoke to the other lords constantly now. He saw the lord's throat constricting with some kind of subvocal utterances.

One thing was new. If he was not being too fanciful, he would have said the lord looked less peaceful than he had earlier in the day. Breund had begun to read moods in the lord. However, anger was the only emotion he was sure of so far.

He cleared his throat. “My lord, how do you feel today?”

Inweer cut a look at him.

Breund had decided to maintain a professional cordiality no matter how surly his prisoner might be.

“It has occurred to me that since we find ourselves in this vessel and you have seen fit to keep me here with you—after my position has been compromised—that we might still use the time to establish an understanding.”

“I understand you, warden.”

“Excuse me, Lord Inweer, but I do not think you do.”

“As much as is required by my intentions.”

Ah, his intentions. Breund swallowed uneasily. What might those be? It was the constant, troubling question. He pushed on. “Perhaps a deeper understanding would be useful. I do not know how much you have ever paid attention to a sentient other than your fellow lords.”

Another look. Contempt? Pity? Worry?

“I thought you might like to hear my story of how I came to the Society. How I came to accept its consul and its ways.”

No answer. But neither had the lord ordered him to silence.

“I was young,” Breund began, “and chafing against the rule of my father and the ambition of my mother. We had lived many generations in Rim City, and despite the advantages from my father's post as clerk, I fell in with the morts....”

Inweer held very still. His throat had ceased moving, so perhaps he did listen.

“I ran afoul of the authorities for destructive pranks. One day I roamed into the precincts of the undercity sacred to the Reds, and took a satchel from a personage of the Society. I grabbed it outside a foodery.” He went on to tell of how he repented of his action and returned the satchel, finding that the woman's husband was a priest of the Red Throne....

Lord Inweer sat so still he looked cut from stone. He had likely turned off in that way that lords had.

Nevertheless, Breund soldiered on. Perhaps Lord Inweer still heard things around him. And perhaps by learning how Breund had salvaged his own life from meaningless rebellion, the lord might catch a glimmer of moral action.

Breund also considered how, as a prisoner of a dread lord, he was reciting this tale for his own comfort. And indeed, as he warmed to his story, it
did
comfort him. His life story. Perhaps the time had come to say what his life had been. What it meant. What he had striven for, and how far he had come toward the ideal. So he poured out his story to this solitary, frozen lord, though the words might hover unregarded in the prison ship.

When he had finished, the lord remained silent, but Breund had hardly expected more.

After a few minutes, Lord Inweer murmured, “They have turned from us. Every sway, one by one, until none remain.”

They made eye contact, and the ferocity of Inweer's gaze took Breund aback.

“Do you think, storyteller,” the lord said, “we might regain the Entire's love by restarting the life-giving engine?”

Breund's throat went dry, and he drew a breath to protest. But he turned away, too downcast to speak.

Sen Ni gazed out the porthole at a small town—some outlying region of Rim City. A few adobe buildings sprawled along the Way, and closer, a huddle of small stores near the wharf.

Tiejun lay nearby, twitching in his dreams, like all the children clutching their blankets, piled on the benches. A Hirrin youngster woke, braying piteously. She went to him, trying to settle him down, grateful to be doing something instead of remembering.

As she patted him, the moment of tenderness gave permission for her own tears, those that had spilled since the awful moment in the mansion.
Cixi, Cixi
, she thought. The Hirrin child looked at her in alarm, and she forced herself to steadiness.

A clatter from the pilothouse. Tan Hao came down with a bucket and crossed the cabin, letting in welcome fresh air as he went on deck. She heard him empty the pail over the side. Then he came to the door and announced that he was going to buy food.

“Where are we?” she demanded.

“Upper Rim City. If any come for passage, keep them away. Hide your hair. It should not be black.”

Bristling, she said, “Bring me clothes. Plain woven pants and jacket. A hat. Buy a few toys.” Tan Hao only sneered. This attitude needed correcting before he learned to dominate her. “A game of balls and sticks. I'll be very unhappy with you if you don't.”

“I am ship keeper, not nursemaid.”

“Buy the toys,” came a voice from behind her.

Geng De stood at the foot of the stairs to the pilothouse. He hobbled into the cabin, his cane whacking down on the deck with each step.

Tan Hao nodded stiffly to him and departed.

“De De,” the Hirrin child bleated. Geng De went to him, easing himself into a crouch to pet his neck.

She had not been in Geng De's presence since the fight on the bridge, and the sight of him made her angry. “Why did you bring the children?”

He tried to rise, but could not. Instead, he settled heavily into a sitting position on the deck.

“The children,” he said. “We will discuss their future. But first: We are alive. We are free. Your father came to subdue us, and he failed. If I had not been vigilant and seen his action before he took it, he might have slain us.” He closed his eyes in what seemed an infinite weariness. “I saw him coming in his brightship. I wove against it, but he was too strong. I abandoned that thread and worked to bring you safely out of the garden.”

“But Cixi…” The rest of the words stopped in her throat.