Bright of the Sky

by Kay Kenyon

  "And greatly reduces Yulin's chances of being exposed."

  She looked away. "That too."

  He'd known that he had to free Sydney without anyone knowing it was Titus Quinn who had done it. Or that it was Dal Shen, son of Yulin, who had done it. Yulin was counting on remaining anonymous. Counting on it a little too hard. Yulin had hedged his bets by appearing to agree while planning to persuade him to more modest goals. The sudden arrival of the Tarig lord in the garden had cut short Yulin's maneuvering.

  Quinn turned to Anzi, his nerves taut. "What about you, Anzi? What do you think?" He wanted her to dig herself in, reveal her true agenda, now before her agreeable facade took over.

  She looked at him, and her bright amber eyes were unapologetic. "I think it likely you will die otherwise, Dal Shen."

  So, she and her uncle were united. "Are my papers still in order? Or has Yulin voided the redstones he issued to me?"

  "They're still valid. He can't change what you already have. And you do need to go the bright city, and must have his endorsements."

  "Just a small change. He wants me to see Sydney, and leave her where I find her."

  Anzi caught his bitter tone, and lowered her voice. "Yes, I'm sorry." Still, she maintained her serenity. He wanted to shake her. Doesn't anything matter, Anzi?

  Quinn's mind was spinning with possible responses to all this. How much did he need Yulin's enthusiastic support? He staggered to his feet, needing to pace, but he faltered, and Anzi rushed to steady him. He shook her off. Yulin was a schemer, ready to ditch him at the first sign of trouble. No, ready to ditch him now, before trouble even began. Quinn shook with anger and moved away from Anzi, testing his sea legs.

  "What if I refuse?" It was his first instinct, to tell Yulin to go to hell.

  She responded, "Then you continue as before, Dai Shen."

  "What?"

  Anzi nodded. "We thought it likely you would refuse. Now you go on as before."

  He doubted what he was hearing. "No strings?" At her confused expression, he amended: "Yulin was just making a suggestion?"

  "Yes. A suggestion-a wise one."

  He waited for her to say more, but it seemed that, for now, he still had Yulin's support, even if it was forced. Yulin wasn't abandoning him, only testing his resolve. The man didn't know him very well. "Does he expect I'll change later?"

  "I don't know what my uncle expects. Perhaps he hopes, when you see how difficult it is, that you will remember there is a second way. But for myself, I know that you will never change." She bowed. "I have my answer. Thank you."

  "What is my answer?" Quinn wasn't sure whether he had said anything or not.

  "You said no, Dai Shen."

  There was a moment of silence when Quinn let himself absorb her quiet summation. She was allowing him to decide.

  Quinn murmured, "My daughter's waited long enough."

  "Yes, I know." Anzi's look was one that a friend might have who'd heard that you were dying, and approved of your bravery.

  Here she stood, knowing how he had betrayed his wife, knowing that he had given in to the lords. Here she was saying, Yes, you have to go. Even if it kills you. He would rather have her counting on his success than assuming he would fail, but she was giving him something else of equal importance: respect for his decision. He took a deep, cleansing breath. It wasn't all shame, then.

  She poured him another drink of water, and he drank it, and another. Still, she remained quiet. The conversation was over; she was letting his decision stand. She was saying, If you must die trying, I will still help you. If you are caught, I will go with you. Anzi believed in his cause, not because she wanted the same thing, but because Quinn wanted it. He was profoundly grateful.

  He looked around the small chamber. "A change of clothes, Anzi?"

  She found a pile of folded, fresh clothes left by the servant Zhou. Quinn took them from her, and she helped him to change.

  "I need to see Bel," he said.

  "When you feel stronger, Dal Shen," she said, holding a new jacket for him.

  "No, I need to see him now." He closed the fasteners. He'd waited too long in bed, laid flat more by emotional shock than the physical one. Suddenly he was eager to be back on track. "Would you tell him, please, that I need to talk to him right now?"

  "Yes." She turned to go.

  "And Anzi"-he had been meaning to say this to her for some time"can't you call me by my given name when we're alone?"

  Waiting by the door, she said, "Not Titus. That's too dangerous."

  "I agree. But can't you call me Shen, at least in private, as I call you Anzi and not Ji Anzi?"

  She smiled. "Yes, if you want."

  "I want."

  He bowed as she left. Then he went to the basin and splashed water over his throbbing face and head, having forgotten his headache.

  Bel knelt in the soil beneath the subterranean grow lights, hands muddy and work tunic soaked in sweat from pruning gleve plants. He picked a rock from the soil and slung it with practiced accuracy into the pile of stones nearby. The physical labor eased his worries and calmed the storm of memories triggered by Titus's return.

  Earlier in the day he had sent Zhou and the others out of the vegetable field so that he could work in silence, meditatively pulling tubers, checking leaves for mites, and harvesting grayals. But his serenity had been disrupted when Anzi came asking for a meeting with Titus, now apparently recovered enough to get out of bed.

  And so Titus had come, looking hale except for swelling that must have felt like a Gond gnawing on his cheeks.

  "I'm in your debt, Su Bei," he began.

  Bei stood, brushing the soil from his knees. "Well, you haven't seen the result yet." And the result might well be a garroting from Lord Hadenth. But Bei pushed this worry aside. He was glad to see Titus. Oddly, after all they'd been through together, Titus considered him a stranger. No memories. It made for awkward interactions, with Bei keeping his distance and Titus still summing him up, weighing things like blame, resentment, and gratitude.

  "The eyes shouldn't hurt you much," Bei said. "It's the facial bones that ache."

  "Getting better."

  The man had a high pain threshold; that was clear. He also seemed mentally improved. And had something on his mind.

  Bei knelt to his task again, ripping out weeds and pruning. "Care to help? It's a big field." A little exercise wouldn't hurt the lad, or Anzi either.

  Titus made no move, but said, "I'll leave soon."

  Bei knew it. A few more days and Titus could leave by sky bulb, since Dolwa-Pan had instructed her pilot to wait for Dal Shen's departure. Bei tossed another stone into the pile. Good. Two stones, better than average.

  "What's the rock pile for?" Titus asked.

  "Without rocks the soil is easier to work. We've tilled this soil so long, there's hardly a stone left." Bei sat back on his heels, wiping the sweat from his eyes. "You've come to ask something. Then ask." He glanced away. "If you're sure you want to know."

  Titus crouched down nearby, facing him. His yellow eyes had already vastly improved his face, although Bei had grown used to the blue, eyes that seemed to see farther than Chalin eyes. Not content to absorb things gradually, Titus always wanted to understand things right away. As now.

  "The way to and from isn't random, is it?"

  Bei sighed. "If I knew how it was organized, would I be a minor scholar?"

  "I think you may know someone who does."

  Bei glared up at Anzi. "Have you been putting these thoughts in his head?"

  Anzi was watching with wide eyes. "No, Su Bei, your pardon. I didn't know."

  How, by the vows, had the man found this out? Suzong, came the thought. Bei crept down the row of gleve, concentrating. He'd expected Titus to ask how he would get home once he had snatched the daughter from her jailers. But now, he demanded more, far more. Well, there were some things that even Titus Quinn couldn't have. He tossed another rock into the pile and crawled on.

&nbs
p; Then Titus's hand was on his arm. "Bel."

  They met, eye to eye. "Why would I know of such things?" Bei shook Quinn's hand off.

  "Because you lived at the Ascendancy. The legates hoard information, and have been for a hundred thousand days. Someone there knows."

  It was Suzong who told him, Bei was sure. She'd see the Rose as a great power, one worth cultivating. She hated the lords, but not for any noble reason, only for her personal revenge, having watched her mother die of asphyxiation at the feet of a lord so long ago that she should have forgotten by now. Damn the woman, anyway. If Titus's goal had been perilous before, this new meddling could sacrifice all.

  He shook his head. "Titus, when you come back here, I'll try to think of how to help you get out. The veil may not release you-may never release you. But come back here, and we'll pray for luck. And that's the end of it. I've done what I can for you."

  Titus was now on the other side of the row, pulling tiny stones out of the soil, making his way on hands and knees. He seized a decent-sized rock and flung it into the pile. "It's a big field," Titus said.

  And I'm staying in it until you relent was the implication.

  Titus didn't want just help; he wanted the secrets of the kingdom. He wanted everything, as he always did. Wanted the correlates, of course, so he could be the leader of the wave of immigration. Routes to the stars, indeed. No such thing. Humans wanted empire, not routes.

  God's beku, why should he betray his own land? Bei didn't give a dumpling for the gracious lords and their paranoia. But wasn't it true that the universes had been separate from the very beginning? It was better to stay separate than risk mixing. Who, after all, could wish to live in the dark when the bright beckoned?

  Now Anzi was down on hands and knees, sorting rocks from the next row over. They would stick to him like gnats on a beku's arse. Bei stood, slapping the dirt from his hands. His back ached, and his left wrist, where he'd been leaning on it, throbbed. Now he walked behind Titus as the man resolutely grubbed in the soil for rocks.

  "Titus," Bei said, trying to make his voice more reasonable, "you can't use the correlates-even if someone had them in their possession-unless the lords permit it. You see that, don't you?" The man couldn't think that the Tarig would just stand by.

  "I don't care if they're used. I just need to bring them home."

  "Oh. A bonus is waiting?"

  Another stone hit the rock pile. "My nephew is waiting. He's eleven years old."

  Bei frowned at this irrelevancy. He trudged behind as Titus continued down the row. "That would be, let's see, Mateo? Your brother's son?" He'd thought the boy would be grown by now, but the time differences, yes, you could never forget those....

  "I have to get back. Or they'll put Mateo in a jar and never let him out. And I need to have something when I get there. I know that, eventually, the Rose will figure out the correlates. It could take hundreds of years, but they will." He looked up, his new yellow gaze as intense as the old one. "Let me be the one to find them."

  Bei had to look away so as not to be snared by his passion, his intentions. "Who'll put Mateo in a jar?"

  "My employers. Minerva." The venom in his voice was hard to mistake.

  So, they had Titus Quinn in a harness. They were compelling him.

  Titus went on. "They'll ruin the boy's future. That's why I want the correlates. Unless I have some power over them, they'll run me. I'll be their puppet, and so will my family."

  Bei watched his altered friend. So Chalin-like, physically. So human. The man was still in a cage. Now Bei understood some of this passion that drove Titus. It wasn't all about love. Some of it was about hate. They compelled Titus, threatening him. It was untenable. And even if Bei withheld what he knew, Titus would pursue it. Nothing would stop him.

  By the vows, I'm going to tell him, Bei realized with a sinking heart.

  "Stand up, Titus." The man did so, and Anzi with him, both of them looking expectant, trusting.

  Don't trust me, boy. If you ask me which side I'm on, it's ever the Entire. And why not? It's my world. Imperfect, regulated by the lords, constrained by vows and laws and the arrogance that comes of immortality. But my world.

  He sighed. "Titus. I'll help you. But with conditions."

  Titus grew wary, and properly so.

  "You must swear to me that you'll do everything in your power to keep humans from conquest. Pardon me if I don't trust that bunch of murderous, pillaging scoundrels. You may not be able to do much, but what's in your power, that you'll do. Swear to me."

  Titus had the grace to think about what he was swearing. He looked down the long rows of gleve, and he came to his resolve. "I swear it, Su Bei."

  "That your people won't come in numbers, staying. Swear it."

  "I'll do what I can to prevent it. I swear."

  Bei held up a hand, "Don't say on God."

  "I wasn't going to."

  Bei smiled. Titus was no believer. He knew the man well, and thought his plain word good enough.

  "What I'll tell you is a capital offense, to know." He nodded in the direction of Anzi. "You want her to know?"

  Titus raised an eyebrow at Anzi. She answered, "I already know enough to die a hundred times."

  That was true. They all did.

  Bei was conscious that his next words were potent. They might be a poison or a medicine, but they could change the Entire forever. "So, then." He fixed Titus with a gaze. "Here is a name to remember: Oventroe. Mark me, I don't know if he would reveal knowledge of the correlates." Titus watched him carefully. "But they're not all satisfied, you know. Some of them want converse with the Rose, of course. Some of them are against Hadenth and Inweer and the rest. Like Lord Oventroe."

  The expression on Titus's face, though swollen and disfigured, registered his surprise. "Lord Oventroe?"

  Heaven give us patience. The man thought the traitor was a Chalin. Or a Hirrin. Or a Gond. Didn't he know that such traitors would be powerless? The game was the Tarig, of course.

  "Yes, lord. Lord Oventroe. He hopes to rise to influence as one of the five ruling lords. Perhaps he will see you as a potential ally. Or perhaps not. He has no reason to hurry his timetable in whatever he's planning to do-but you asked for a name. The next part is on your shoulders." Bei looked from Titus to Anzi and back again, at their incredulous faces. "Now you're in a bigger game than you thought, eh?" He closed his eyes. May god not look at me, now I'm in that game, too.

  Bei thought of his scholarship and all that might be learned of the Rose, given free interactions between here and there. Free interactions ... that consummation might be far in the future, and after unguessed-at turmoil. But the notion stirred him. Why not have converse? It was a question many sentients had asked over many thousands of days.

  "You will hear," Bei continued, "when you get to the Ascendancy, that Oventroe is a fanatical enemy of the Rose. In fact, that is a pose. He's always believed that contact was inevitable. He's curious about the Rose, curious in a way that most Tarig aren't. He'd be interested in you, to say the least. But that would mean you'd have to tell him who you are." Seeing Quinn frown, Bei added, "A colossal risk, yes."

  Quinn said, "But you believe him, that he wants Rose contact?"

  "I believe it. Unless he's lying. In the end you'll have to make your own judgment.

  One thing I can do for you. I have a token from Oventroe. It allowed me to see him from time to time, when I lived there. All at his whim. And we never discussed his plans; why would we? I was a scholar, not a partisan. At the time, because of you, I knew more about the Rose than anyone."

  "Did he know me?"

  "No. He kept well away from you, to preserve his disguise. Cixi watched him, always. But she watched everybody, as she'll watch you. The Magisterium is full of spies; remember that, and strive to pass unnoticed."

  So, then. He'd uttered the forbidden name, uttered it to the Rose. Lord Oventroe might thank Bei for it, or kill him, but the words were spoken now, and could not
be withdrawn. Bei didn't regret it. It felt like a completionof what, he could not have said-but long in coming.

  "The lord could kill you in an instant," Bei said, to cover a surge of emotion, "and no one would question him."

  Titus still looked eager enough, or foolish enough, to take the risk. "But if I use the token, Bei, he'll know you sent me."

  "Probably. But I'm not the only person who has one. Oventroe's spies are scattered through the Ascendancy and the sways. Don't trust anyone."

  "Why did you trust hina?"

  That made Bei laugh, and he realized how naive Titus was at this time, before his memories of the Tarig became complete. "I didn't, lad. But when a lord takes an interest in you, you submit to him." Bei rubbed his chin. "Or her."

  Titus averted his eyes, not wanting to dwell on that.

  They walked together out of the field, with Titus and Anzi helping to carry baskets of the harvested tubers.

  Bei stopped for a moment, looking back over the tended beds. It had been a restful pastime, growing produce and working the soil. He thought that those endless and peaceful days were now at an end. What he had taken for serenity had been a suffocating peace, imposed by the vow of withholding the knowledge of the Entire. The reverse side of that coin had been to withhold knowledge of the Rose.

  Well, he thought with resignation, the Rose and the Entire were about to get a rather strong dose of each other.

  "Ji Anzi, wake up."

  Bei shook her arm again, and Anzi woke in some alarm, her face wary in the light from the lantern Bei held. "What is it? What's wrong?" Anzi pulled her blanket around her, though she'd slept fully clothed. The chill in the deep ground affected newcomers that way.

  "Nothing's wrong." Bei had spent the last hours thinking instead of sleeping. He'd been focused for so many thousands of days on cosmography that he had lost his once-acute sense of politics.

  Tonight, it had come back to him: the balance of the Radiant Path was about to shift. Bei had always thought of Tarig hegemony as a monumental presence, as stable and unmovable as one of those stone pyramids erected by the pharaohs of Earth. What had kept sleep at bay this ebb was the notion that the pyramid was not stable if turned upside down. Then, its very breadth and weight could send it crashing with a nudge. A nudge from Titus Quinn.