by Kay Kenyon
Underground. He had wondered how scholars approached the tips of their world. He drew close, seeing that the door was etched with designs, now deeply pitted. He ran his fingers over the worn carvings. It was Lucent calligraphy, almost obliterated with time. He made out a portion: withhold the knowledge ... the reach of the Entire.
Anzi came up next to him. "The Three Vows," she said. And it was: the Three Vows repeated over and over around the door.
"Anzi, does every minoral have a reach like this?" If so, there were potentially thousands of access points to the Entire.
She paused. "Like this? No. Every minoral has a tip, but not all are valued and occupied."
"Why not?"
"Not all are useful. Some yield nothing but darkness. But those that are productive, in those places the lords have provided the veils."
"But even these are sometimes unreliable."
She frowned. "Unreliable? They are all unreliable." Shrugging, she added, "Some more than others." She watched him closely, perhaps worried that she would be accused again of withholding information. "Scholars have great patience to wait at places like this."
"The Tarig don't wait, I'm sure." At her look of inquiry, he explained, "They'd know where to look, and when. Having the correlates."
She shook her head. "But the lords seldom come to the reaches."
"Maybe they want to hide the fact that correlates exist."
Anzi grew thoughtful. "Yes, they do deny it. But if they have such correlates, it makes a mockery of all the studies, all the years of waiting."
"Not very gracious of them."
She glanced sharply at him, noting his smile.
"No," she agreed. "It isn't."
A noise came from the inner door. Anzi murmured, "Now we'll see if Su Bel is a friend or not."
The door opened, and an assistant stood there. He had only a few strands of hair left, but these were carefully pulled up into a topknot. They followed him through the To and From the Veil Door and across a small anteroom into a box that, with much creaking and grinding, began to descend. And kept descending.
How deep was this world? And how could it be contained as it was? As the ozone-laden air infused his mouth and mind, it collected a memory: that he had once been captivated by that question, and that the answer had eluded him. Chalin legends said that the Entire was a natural place, enlivened eventually by the Tarig. Descending into this subterranean place, he felt a frisson of both awe and dread at this world's scale. It was said to be smaller than the Rose, but still profoundly vast, with land distances that normally could only occur in space. Nor was the Entire an extended ribbon of land: it was miles deep, perhaps infinitely deep. It came home to him once more that the bronze lords ruled more than the peoples of the Entire; they ruled nature.
With a small bump the elevator door opened. The assistant led them into a cavernous hall, where a domed ceiling arched over a center mound of instruments. Amid an impressive rack of stone well computing devices, only one was active, lighting the face of a lone scholar, an old woman bent over her screen. She craned her head to see who had interrupted her, then went back to her task.
They followed their guide into a corridor where the end was lost in darkness.
Without turning around the old man said, "If we had received warning of your visit, we could have enlivened a car. Now we must walk." He led the way down a smooth tube, rounded on top and sides but shattered here and there by intrusions of soil and rock. Light nodes budded from the walls, waxing and waning with a throbbing of the ground. Quinn heard the drumming and felt it in his boots, his skin. After a few minutes, Quinn noticed a harmonic underneath the general vibration. It was a repeated refrain of four notes, simple and annoying. As they continued walking, a deep hum surged and faded, like a bass string plucked once. Whatever the rock and soil was composed of, it sang under the vibrations of the storm walls.
They came to the end of the tunnel and found a small chamber, rounded and domed like the first. Instrumentation crowded the walls, sharing space with long roping ridges like buried cables.
A man waited for them. Standing in the chamber was a man whose face was as lined as a crumpled map. A heavy rope of redstones hung around his neck. His white hair was shot through with streaks of black and was gathered in a clasp behind his neck. He stood nearly Quinn's height, and erect, with the form of one who had been robust in youth. Instantly, Quinn recognized him. Su Bel. He dug for shreds of memory. None came.
Anzi bowed, but Bei's gaze was on Quinn.
Quinn said, "I think you know me."
Bei turned away, shaking his head. "A good day turned bad. Visitors, they said. By the bright ..." He muttered something more, then turned back to them. "All that trouble getting you gone and what good did it do?" He nodded at the assistant, dismissing him back down the long tunnel.
Bei frowned at Quinn. "You've aged."
"Hazards of the Rose."
The old man snorted. "But they're your hazards, not mine. Why do you bring me your problems?"
"What makes you think I've got a problem?"
"If you're here," the old man said, "you have a problem." He glanced at Anzi. "Where was he found? Who knows about him?"
Anzi stepped forward. "I am Anzi, master."
"I know who you are."
She passed by this remark. "Wen An brought him from the Ti Jing reach, injured and stunned. She sent him to my uncle, and all who saw him are now silent, except Wen An, whom we must trust."
Bei moved to Quinn's side, studying him from that angle.
Now a gleaming section of wall came into view-a glistening and translucent membrane covering a cleft in the room. Here, the walls of the chamber converged at an acute angle, leaving the membrane to cover a gap of perhaps four feet wide by nine feet high. It was impossible that the transition between worlds was constrained by the thin veil, or was it. The walls receded past the membrane into a long and tapering crevice that appeared to be filled with a viscous solution that pulsed now and then, causing the veil to tremble. Its surface flickered with starscapes.
Noting his gaze, Bei said, "You remember one of these?" He peered closer at Quinn. "You remember me?" Then he answered his question himself: "No, you don't. Good."
"What are you afraid I'll remember?"
"Everything." He gazed at Quinn a long time, then said, "Why have you come, Titus?"
"For your help."
Bei grimaced. "No doubt. But why have you come back to the Entire?"
"For my wife and daughter." And revising, "For Sydney."
Bei closed his eyes a moment, and then shook his head. "The worst possible reason." He came closer, examining Quinn's face. "Are you sure it's you? Yellow eyes-I don't remember yellow eyes."
Anzi said, "Lenses, master."
"So," Bei said, "Yulin's helping him. Got himself an escort and fancy ideas about the daughter." He turned to Anzi. "Yulin sent him to me?"
She shook her head. "But my uncle knows he came here, master."
"So the old bear managed to avoid committing himself, eh? Doesn't surprise me."
The membrane darkened suddenly, to utter blackness. Bei noted Quinn's gaze. "If I had my way, I'd send you through here this moment. But as you see, there's only death on the other side right now. Someday the veil might be productive." He grimaced. "I'll have my grave flag by then. Meanwhile, the old and the infirm are welcome to it. And Hirrin royals with fancy ambitions."
Quinn held his gaze. "I don't want to go through. When I do, it'll be with my daughter."
"Daughter," Bei muttered. Turning to Anzi, he said, "He's been addled like this since he arrived?"
Anzi faced him squarely. "He thinks he can save his daughter. Might it be true, master?"
Bei looked at her like she had caught Quinn's madness. "Might it be true? Of course it isn't!" He turned to Quinn. "Your daughter is far away. Another primacy away. No one goes there; why should they? The Inyx are good for nothing but running and dying in the Long War. Do you think t
he Inyx would give up your daughter easily? Alarms would be raised, and before you had gone a day's journey, the lords would have you. In all that you have forgotten, have you forgotten that they travel on the bright? Have you forgotten how they hate you?" As though in answer, a thrum sounded under their feet, a profoundly bass note like a chthonic god saying hmmmm.
Bei waved a dismissive hand. "No, you don't remember, of course not. You can thank me for that. When I sent you home, I sent you with white hair and drowned memories. The drowned memories were so you would never come back." In a quieter voice he said, "The white hair was because I thought you might."
He reached up to pick at Quinn's silk hat. "Still white? Good. It worked, then. I'm not a magician, you know. I don't have the power to find your daughter or help you kill yourself. Yes, I once served the Tarig. I lived among them and had every power a Chalin could want. Then Titus Quinn fell into a rage and everything fell apart. You struck Lord Hadenth."
He peered at Quinn, waiting for a reaction. "Yes, struck him, with a lucky-or unlucky-blow that almost killed him. Then you fled Tarig justice, the first ever to do so. All this occurred under my tutelage, my responsibility." He turned from Quinn and stared into the grotto of light, flickering low. "They let me live, thinking me witless. But my scholarship was over. All my studies. Taken from me. All my scrolls ..." His voice quavered. "I came here. There is nothing left but scraps. We paste them together. So I have nothing to give you."
He stood, looking old and defeated. "Go home, Titus. There's been enough ruin."
Quinn let that sit for a moment. "The memories you took. I need them." It was only part of what he needed from Bei, but the old man's mood was poor for asking favors.
Bei exclaimed, "What good would memories do you? They're all of the Ascendancy. It's all you knew, back then." After a moment, understanding dawned. "You're going there?" He looked in astonishment at Anzi, then back at Quinn. "You will lie at their feet. And as well, the girl who helped you, the girl who started the whole disaster. She'll join you." He peered at Anzi. "Yulin is allowing this?"
"My uncle says there is no stopping the people of the Rose. Now that Titus Quinn is here."
Bei turned to Quinn. "Is that right? No stopping the human hordes?"
Quinn said, "No stopping our use of the Entire to travel in the Rose, by a detour through the veils."
Bei looked from one to the other, running his hands through his hair. "And the daughter? She is relevant how?"
Quinn grew weary of the old man's hostility, but he kept his own impatience in check. He needed Bei's goodwill. "She's only relevant to me."
Bei sighed. "This will be easy. Snatch your daughter from the Inyx sway. Open the veils to human travel, trusting that they have no interest in staying to live forever." The old man paced, and as he did, his redstones clacked together, swinging on their strands. "I draw Titus Quinn to me like Paion to Ahnenhoon." He shook his head. "God has noticed me."
"You have no children, Su Bei." Quinn was guessing, but he thought that was right. If he'd had children, he'd know why Quinn couldn't give up.
"No, no children. But if I did, I wouldn't let myself be killed for them."
"I think you would."
Bei shook his head. "You haven't changed. You never learned that things pass. She's lost to you. Best to accept this."
"I can't do that."
Bei eyed him with disgust. "Human, you are human. I keep forgetting that. Even if I sent you home, you'd be back, chasing after life and all the lost things. Why did I ever think otherwise?" He looked at Anzi. "Yulin has set all this in motion. I blame him. And the red crone, who should know better." He raised an eyebrow at Anzi. "So they succumbed to the Titus Quinn spell, did they?" She didn't answer, and Bei turned back to Quinn. "You attract fierce attachments; you always did, Titus. Some you had cause to regret." He slowly shook his head. "You don't remember that part, do you?"
There was a long pause, filled only by the throbbing rock and its odd harmonics, endlessly repeating. Quinn thought that if he stayed here long, he would have to plug his ears against that music.
A long silence ensued as Bei twitched his mouth in thought. Then he said: "I'll give you what is yours. Your story. But you won't thank me for it."
"I will," Quinn said.
Bei snorted. "We shall see."
He walked to a side door and opened it, gesturing them through. As he did so, the veil's membrane flashed brighter, showing a streak of glowing, interstellar gas. A streak of white formed a finger of hot light, as though pointing the way into the abyss.
CIIJPTEIt FOURTEEN
The student asks, Master, what is the other realm that we perceive through the veil?
The master answers, It is the cosmos of cold and fire and disruption; it is the place of delusion, thinking itself primary; it is the ancient sway of all templates, the core designs of all sentients, perfected in the Bright Realm; its worlds are spheres of war and misery; its worlds have scattered glories, among them a colorful sprouting called the rose; it is a domain of striving, and hopes lost to the decay of days; it is a zone where glorious day holds only half the sky; it is the kingdom of the evanescent.
It is what you see through the veil.
-from The Veil of a Thousand Worlds
HE THREE TOOK A MEAL IN BEfS QUARTERS adjacent to the veil-of-worlds room. A tottering assistant brought a tray of dumplings and oba, and they ate in silence, chewing on the food and their next moves.
Shelves formed the walls, packed tight with scrolls and bristling with loose papers. Tables bore the familiar boxy stone wells, some of them disassembled. Amid this, Bei's rumpled bed squeezed into one corner.
Anzi told Bei of Master Yulin's scheme, that Dal Shen would go as a suppliant and a messenger to the bright city, to secure the blessing of the high prefect for a journey to the Inyx. Bei shook his head, over and over.
"She will remember you," he said. "She remembers everything." It presented an opening for them to admit they came for a surgeon's skills. Bei snorted, looking at Quinn's face as though it were hopeless.
A tapestry of medieval European design hung over Bei's bed nook. Noting Quinn's gaze, Bei said, "A particular interest of mine. That one is based on the Dutch, fourteenth century." His hawk eyes narrowed. "You don't remember our discussions of the Middle Ages, I suppose."
Quinn didn't.
The scholar rose from his chair and went to the tapestry, which depicted a bearded white unicorn surrounded by a fence. The unicorn wore an elaborate collar and was crouching as though considering a jump from its cage. Bei's gnarled hands touched the weaving. "You used to admire this tapestry. Saw yourself as the unicorn, no doubt."
Quinn did remember the tapestry, and for some reason, it filled him with a deep unease.
Bei had taken a scroll from a hook and laid it out on the table. Thumbing the nub at the top, Bei enlivened the surface, showing a written Lucent treatise. On closer inspection, Quinn saw references to rivers and lands of the Earth.
Bei's gnarled hand fluttered over the text. "The great discipline of geography. Each world has its mountains and valleys. Its face. Before you came, our knowledge of Earth geography was partial and misleading." He sighed, retracting the scroll and waving it at the stuffed bookcases. "With your help, we secured the missing pieces of your mathematics, history, political economy, chemistry. You were no scholar, but you knew things."
Quinn began to recall those discussions: long conversations threading deep into the ebb; Bei writing everything on a scroll.
"The Tarig wanted information on the Rose?"
Bei's eyebrows furrowed down. "What the Tarig wanted was to know why you came here." He turned to Anzi, who was paying strict attention on the sidelines. "Have you ever wondered why they failed to pursue you?" When Anzi nodded, he answered, "Because they were convinced the Rose sent Titus Quinn. They never guessed he was retrieved here. They always feared discovery by the Rose. The Tarig reasoned that it was intentional on the part of Rose wa
rlords, to send a scout. It was my job to find out the details of the conspiracy."
From deep below, a tone vibrated, like a gong buried in wool.
"Even after thousands of days, they still wished me to follow that line of questioning, and this I did. You knew the game, and you answered as best you could, the details of the politics and the power structures. Thanks to you we know about Earth's hierarchies: the reigns of powerful commercial lords, and the magisterial lackeys that serve them. Minerva, that was one of the powers, wasn't it? In any case, the Rose seemed an unlikely threat. So the Tarig lords grew more satisfied with you, that there was no conspiracy. After that my questions were only a scholar's.
"That was when I began my great work. My book of cosmography, to lay out the structure of the Rose universe based upon the millions of views of the galaxies and clusters. There is no way to record a map of the Rose. It must be modeled mathematically based upon universal correlations and their relation to dimensionality." He shrugged. "It is an old man's fancy. When I am gone, no one will pursue the work."
Quinn said, "Are there universal correlations?"
Bei eyed him a long moment. "Some say yes. Others ..."
"Tarig say no."
"And perhaps they're right. Mutability is the principle. Mutability of correlates. They change in ways no one knows how to predict. Sometimes the view is steady, and of an inhabited world. The veils are attracted to power sources, and by this accommodation, we sometimes can study a situation, a people, for a hundred days-giving us a data point. Then the membrane blinks, and we see someplace new and unrelated-another data point." He gestured in the direction of the veil-of-worlds. "Each point can be represented mathematically, even if it is black space. If you map such points, you have a geography of Rose space, a universal cosmography.
"That is my theory, and it has a strong following of one."
Quinn said, "So your cosmography-it isn't about correlating the Entire and the Rose."
