Bright of the Sky

by Kay Kenyon

  "Hnnn. Dal Shen. Your son, you say?"

  "A worthless progeny, Lord," Yulin said. "He hardly merits your interest."

  "Now husband," Suzong said, "Dal Shen made a good soldier, since by all accounts he showed himself well at Ahnenhoon."

  "No, I fear he was average," Yulin said pointedly. "Nothing whatever to brag about or dwell upon."

  Suzong shook her head. "Oh, that you could say such things of your own son! True, he has not the brains of a veldt mouse, but he is loyal, and a soldier. For shame, husband."

  Yulin began to catch on, saying, "Cl Dehai has been in battle a hundred times, and of all that time, only one wound. Dal Shen fights once and comes home with a dent in his head and loses what little common sense he ever had-can't even remember his own name, and now he'll be a hanger-on at court and I'll be forced to bear his presence." He turned to Echnon. "Your pardon, Bright Lord, but my son is worthless, an embarrassment, and now I have him in my garden, disturbing my peace. The only place where I had privacy. Yet we do our best even for wayward progeny, do we not, even if he's one of a hundred sons?

  With growing distaste, Echnon watched Yulin prattle on. Finally he said, "We would see Anzi, to greet her." He unfolded himself from the chair and stood, towering over them.

  Suzong nearly fainted. Then, recovering, she stood along with Yulin, saying, "Oh, Bright Lord, of course. She is bathing just now, but we shall send for her. It will take a few moments for her to prepare herself to see the bright lord. No trouble at all. In that case, we have ample time for a meal, and I will order it immediately."

  Looking down at her, the lord remained silent, as though considering her offer. If he accepted it, their ruin would be upon them. A rivulet of sweat fell down her neck into the silk collar of her jacket.

  Then, brushing the matter aside with a sweep of his hand, the lord said, "Do not disrupt the Chalin girl's bath. We have duties that await us, ah?"

  Yulin bowed as though the breath had left his body. "Of course, Lord. Duties. I sympathize."

  Echnon walked toward the door of the meeting chamber and paused at the threshold. "You should mend the rift with Zai Gan, Chalin master."

  "Yes, Lord," Yulin said. "Immediately."

  Still gazing at them from the door, the Tarig said, "He was not in the garden, this Dal Shen. Bathing also?"

  Suzong simpered. "Oh, he wanders, being addled from the wound. Wanders here and there, Lord."

  "Ah." Echnon nodded, and then turned, receding from them, allowing them to breathe once again.

  Suzong and Yulin waited stiffly until they could no longer hear his footfalls. One did not see a Tarig to the door, since they disliked being directed and came and went as they pleased.

  A sheen of perspiration gleamed on Yulin's forehead. Suzong dabbed at it with the sleeve of her jacket. "My master of the sway," she murmured with affection, glad she had not had to witness his garroting, rejoicing that Zai Gan had wasted the lord's time. But now, of course, Anzi and her patient could not return here, and Dal Shen was far from ready to walk freely among them. But at this moment it was enough that the bright lord was gone.

  Still watching the door where the lord had departed, Yulin stroked his beard. When he spoke, his voice was a soft rumble, "Now, kill the gardeners."

  Suzong nodded. They should have been drowned in the lake days ago, of course.

  She departed to order this done, her tread wobbly now that the crisis had passed. Finding her favorite eunuch, she whispered to him, "Feed my carp a special meal from the garden this ebb." The servant's eyes narrowed, and he paused to make sure he'd understood her.

  He had.

  Arranged in terraces, black-and-gold dwellings descended the hill on which Yulin's mansion stood. The city enveloped Quinn, sprouting mazes at every turn. Now outside Yulin's compound, he was completely dependent on Anzi to know her way, and she led him swiftly through the tangle of streets. He suppressed the urge to keep looking behind them for the tall bronze lord, the one who might still be gazing from that high perch in the garden or striding close behind, searching the city for them.

  In short order Anzi had stolen servant's clothing for him, and he followed a few steps behind her, adopting the demeanor of a servant for a lady of means.

  The dark adobe buildings pressed in, rounded, mottled, unnatural. Complex smells assaulted him, from cooking and the press of bodies and the small produce gardens on the rooftops of most of the dwellings. In the center of such things, and in his rush through the town, he felt disoriented, hardly registering what he saw. He had to be wary of making assumptions in this strange place. Anzi, for instance. Not just a simple niece of Yulin. And where was she taking him?

  They passed through a neighborhood where every house sold something, especially food, cooked on braziers on small covered porches. At one of these porches Anzi traded a stolen trinket for two drinks of water.

  Out of earshot of the householder, Quinn said in a low voice, "Where are we going?"

  "Do not talk, Dal Shen," she urged. "I know a place."

  As they drank their water, Quinn noticed a small boy inside the dwelling, at his studies by the window. It was the first child he'd had a clear glimpse of in this land. In fact, so far in the city he'd seen only a few children. When you lived a long time, infrequent breeding made sense. The child stared, and Quinn turned away, thinking that perhaps his eye lenses were not as convincing as he wished.

  Anzi returned the drinking cups, bowing her thanks, and led Quinn onward, down the hillside. The sky was more visible here, away from the tall trees of Yulin's preserve, and its silver expanse glittered in the Heart of Day. Spreading forever onto the plains, at times it almost looked like the sky on Earth with endless high cirrus clouds. Boiling.

  Anzi stopped momentarily to pilfer another item. He thought her stealing went beyond what she needed to do, and that she enjoyed it, palming trinkets with one hand while making a show of picking one up with the other hand. It was hard to trust her. But if she and Yulin wanted to betray him, they could have easily done so earlier. Anzi's glance cut in the direction of Yulin's palace. It looked silent and quiet. Sometimes she looked at the sky, where, Quinn knew, the Tarig flew their aircraft. He had a faded memory of those exotic craft-brightships, they were called. Only the Tarig rode them. Oddly, when Quinn thought of the ships, his memory conjured a muffled, distant scream.

  The vision clung to him, of the bronze-skinned creature on top of the aviary. He must flee those lords. But he must also close with them. To finish things, came the thought. Especially to finish things with Lord Hadenth, whose memory flickered just out of reach. He wasn't here for revenge, though, despite his hunger for justice. There was too much at stake to let personal enmity cloud his judgment.

  "Where are we going, Anzi?" he said again.

  As she walked, she murmured to him, "To hide. And while we do, to proceed with the changes to your appearance. I know a safe place; don't worry."

  "Trust you, then? All will be well?"

  Her face was grim as she increased their pace. "Yes. But hurry, please."

  He stopped, and when she noticed he no longer followed her, she motioned him to a side street, out of the stream of foot traffic. Before she could complain, he said, "What is the plan, Anzi? I'm glad you've got one, but now I'd like to hear if it matches mine."

  She looked around fretfully, then relented. "There is a friend, Jia Wa, who will help us. He must alter your face. But first we must travel to his city."

  Quinn nodded. He'd been prepared for alterations to his face. "But where is this Jia Wa?" And, cautiously, he added, "And where is the scholar Su Bei?"

  She told him that both men resided far away, entailing long journeys by train in opposite directions. She was beginning to gather that he would not follow passively, and she grew agitated. "We must find another way for your face surgery to happen. Since Yulin's physician is no longer available to us."

  "I don't have time to go to Jia Wa, Anzi. I'm going to Su Bei instead."


  "But why?"

  Suzong had said he should find his own excuse for going, and he had prepared one: "I need what he has. My history of what I did when I was here before. I'll need those memories if I meet people I used to know." But most of all he needed Bei to reveal who at the Ascendancy knew of travel between the realms.

  "First to Jia Wa, then to Bei." She glanced at him hopefully.

  Not if they were in opposite directions. It could mean weeks of delay. "No," he said.

  They stood without speaking for a while. Anzi's face was unreadable, but she held her mouth firm, and he knew she was angry. She refused to look at him.

  At length she started down the street again, leaving him. When he caught up to her, he said, "Well?"

  She pointed to a turret rising high about the low-slung buildings. "I must stop there." Coldly she added, "You can come or not."

  So, she was playing the game too. He needed her as much as she needed him.

  Without a glance backward, Anzi headed toward the turret. Finally they came upon the spire standing in the middle of a commons, deserted and fallen into weeds. The spire rose some five stories. At its foot stood a man dressed in tattered white silks.

  "Wait here for me," Anzi said. "I must go into the needle."

  "I'll come with you."

  "No. It is a God's needle, not a good place."

  "What do you need to do there?"

  "The trains, Dal Shen. We need one." She added, "It would draw attention for two people to wish to approach God." She cocked her head in the direction of the man wearing white, who now was watching them. "This is a godman. He worships the god so we don't have to. Stay here."

  She walked toward the needle, and despite her admonition, he followed her.

  At the doorway, the godman examined the trinkets she showed him, wrinkling his prominent nose. He looked up dubiously at Quinn.

  "My servant will ascend for me," Anzi said. "And I will make sure he does."

  The godman looked unhappy at this proposal, but was mollified by receiving the best trinket from her assortment. He stood aside, and Anzi ducked inside the pillar, where a winding staircase ascended into the darkness. Mold and filth assailed Quinn from stairs badly in need of sweeping.

  "Dal Shen," her voice came to him. "The pillar is the altar of the god. It isn't good to come here, so I wish you had not brought attention to us. Of course, you don't trust me. I've given you good reason not to. But don't doubt Master Yulin, since he will fall with you if you fall."

  "What's in here, Anzi?"

  "Nothing. At the top we'll look to see if a train approaches. We must take such a train, Dal Shen, to leave quickly. And yes, to Su Bel, if you demand it." Now she had stopped on the stairs, waiting for him to come abreast of her. In this shadowy place he couldn't see more than her vivid white hair.

  He wanted to trust her, but it was difficult after she had misled him about herself. "Anzi, you've been lying to me. Stop lying now."

  She expelled a long breath. "Yes, lying-by all that I didn't say. Forgive me, Dal Shen."

  No forgiveness was in the air. He waited for her to tell the truth.

  She sighed, leaning against the rounded sides of the needle. "Once I studied to be a scholar. I was a small apprentice, to my teacher Vingde, who was the Eye of Knowledge. Vingde broke the Vow of no connections to the Rose. He found a way of seizing objects in the Rose, something never done before."

  Vingde had discovered a way to convey objects from the Rose to the Entire. To steal things. No wonder it appealed to Anzi.

  "For approaching forbidden things, the Tarig gave him the slow death, their favorite death, garroting. After Vingde's death I went back. I wanted to see a being of the Rose. I wanted this with all my heart, but why, I don't truly know. When the Rose tunnel faltered, I brought your conveyance in."

  He held up a hand, stopping her. "How did you find me? How did you happen to seize my capsule to bring it here?" Did Anzi, then, have the secret of to and from?

  "It was a game of chance. I knew just enough from my studies with Vingde. I would have taken anybody, and they might have been anywhere. After waiting a long time-fifty days-I saw your craft. Afterward, I tried to hide you, but the Tarig took you, and they never found me, nor could you tell them, since you knew nothing." She averted her eyes. "I did this terrible thing, to bring you here."

  Quinn most likely could have taken the escape pod safely out of the Ktunnel. No doubt she'd told herself that she was trying to save his life. Instead, she'd nearly destroyed it. He had to turn away. When he faced her again, his chest felt crushed by the column of thick air in the pillar. "And here you are again, showing up, pretending to help me."

  "Not pretending......

  "Are you real this time, Anzi?" He stepped back from her, controlling his temper. "Or just curious again?"

  "Oh, not curious. Dal Shen, please don't say such a thing."

  "Is it hard to hear, Anzi. Is it?"

  Their voices had risen, especially his.

  The white-garbed figure of the godman appeared on the steps below them. "Mistress?"

  "Leave us. My servant is afraid to ascend. He will do so, though."

  The godman retreated down the stairs.

  Anzi's voice took up the thread of her story. "Master Yulin was very angry. He regretted that he gave me all the advantages, so that I learned no restraint in my life. I abased myself before Caiji of the hundred thousand days, and she persuaded my uncle to help me, which I didn't deserve. Then we heard stories of you, and stories of your wife and child. All bad. So, as you suffered, I also suffered, but all in my own mind, imagining your horror, and knowing what I had done."

  "Am I supposed to feel sorry for you, Anzi? I can't." He wanted to. But for Sydney's sake, he couldn't let it pass. For Johanna's sake.

  She knelt before him. "Dal Shen, you have the knife. Now you can use it to free yourself."

  "Free myself?"

  "From the hate you carry, and from the sadness. Then, as Cl Dehai said, you can find that river to carry you forward. To a new life." She paused. "God hates you, but it's no use to hate back. I've learned this."

  She reached up, fumbling at his tunic, to free the knife. But he slapped her hand away. "Stop it. I know I have the knife. What do you think, that I'm going to kill you in a church?"

  "That would be a good place, if you only knew, Dal Shen."

  "Get up, Anzi." She remained kneeling. He took her arm, pulling her to her feet. "Just stop lying to me." He was tired of her voice. "Find us a train, Anzi." He pushed her ahead of him.

  At the top, they emerged onto a small platform heaped with rotting fruit and offerings, including coins and jewelry. From this vantage point, Quinn surveyed the near territory, looking for the glint of bronze skin, or any hurried activity, but the city appeared untroubled.

  Bowing before the offerings, Anzi placed her handful of trinkets among the rest. She intoned, "Do not look at me, do not see me, do not note my small life. Do not look at this man beside me, poor and small as he is. These gifts make us poorer by far than others more worthy of your great notice."

  Here was an ominous god, one who was so malevolent even worshiping it was inadvisable. Thus the godman, to do it for them. "Do you hope He hears your prayer, or that He doesn't?"

  "That is truly a scholar's question, Dal Shen." But she didn't answer. Maybe she didn't think about such things. Everyone had their selfdelusions-including Titus Quinn, he thought, although he wasn't sure what those might be.

  Without further ceremony, Anzi turned and scanned the plains beyond the city. Squinting, Quinn looked as well, but saw nothing. More than any other feature, the bright commanded his attention. How could this river of sky exist? It was a colossal stream of energy, without a natural explanation. It had a Tarig explanation, though, as did the Entire as a whole, a place that could not exist, and yet did. A place, if not created by the Tarig, then at least exploited by them, and enhanced to sustain living creatures. Despite such powe
rs, they were only copiers of what the Rose had evolved. So then, their one glaring inadequacy was lack of creativity. Perhaps they had other inadequacies, as well.

  "Will the sky ever burn out?" Quinn murmured.

  Anzi looked up at the bright as though considering this for the first time. "Surely not, Dal Shen. How could we live?"

  Well, that is never guaranteed, he thought.

  Just then Anzi pointed, and he saw a crinkle in the yellow plains that she convinced him was a train approaching from far away.

  "Fortunate," Anzi said, nodding with satisfaction.

  "The right train?" Quinn asked.

  "Who knows? But it's the one to the scholar Bel." Motioning for him to hurry, she disappeared back down the stairs.

  Quinn hurried after her. He had expected her to loot the offerings, there being several fine pieces among the junk, but apparently Anzi didn't steal from God. The woman had her standards.

  Waiting for the train, they shared a pilfered meal in a cemetery close to the station. The cemetery was deserted, but still, they couldn't relax. Surely the Tang watched the trains. Small flags fluttered from shafts that pierced the graves, giving each soul a lofty-sounding name: Weaver of a Thousand Silks; Son Who Saw a Far Primacy; Aunt of a Shining Face; Soldier of Ahnenhoon (many of those); Soldier of One Arm; Child Dying on the Nigh. Now they shared their meager meal, next to the grave of One Who Laughed.

  From their place, they could see thick crowds milling on the platform. "How far is it to Bel?" Quinn asked.

  "An arc, at least," she said. An arc was ten days. A long time to remain undercover, trying to pass for Chalin. Anzi admitted that Bel, or those in Bei's service, could perform the alterations-although, she couldn't help but point out, it would be much preferable to go to Jia Wa and not be countermanding Master Yulin's orders.

  Quinn remembered Bei's face. Frowning, netted with lines of age, the hair threaded with black. A hawk nose, and a hawk's eyes, blinking relentlessly, repeating relentlessly, "Tell me, Titus. Tell me ..." And the old man would write, hunched over his scrolls, and Titus would listen to the skritch skritch of his pen.