Bright of the Sky

by Kay Kenyon

  Several coins sprayed down from above as Anzi threw payment on the ground in front of the godwoman. The Jout paused, looking at Quinn's knife, still drawn. Then, sourly, he descended. "Foul," the Jout repeated, but without conviction. He set the sacks down and motioned his cohorts to abandon the cart. They wouldn't fight for a godder, as the clergy were sometimes called.

  In the ensuing quiet, Quinn sprinted up the ladder. When he started to draw it into the pouch, Anzi said, "No, the ladder stays down."

  As Quinn backed away from the opening, he heard the creature growl, "May God bless your journey."

  Hearing this, Anzi thrust her hand into her purse and threw many more coins out of the pouch opening. "Take back the prayer," she shouted as the Adda let go of the ropes tethering her to the ground.

  The godwoman laughed out loud, rumbling, "And may God keep you in His gaze all your days!"

  As Anzi fumbled for more coins, Quinn stopped her. "It's only words."

  She looked doubtful as she crouched at the orifice, but ceased throwing money down.

  The Gond sat in her cart with a wide circle of emptiness around her. Her wings glistened, wings that could never hope to raise her off the ground. A fallen angel came to mind, as the creature conjured visions of heaven and hell combined.

  "I didn't know Gond could be priests," Quinn murmured.

  Anzi recited, "No sentient being is beyond hope." She eyed Quinn. "But you, Dai Shen, should not have drawn a knife."

  He knew he shouldn't have, but sharing quarters with a godwoman could have been disastrous. Anzi bit her lip, but said nothing.

  The Adda had risen into the sky to a height of about a hundred feet. Nearby, other of the blimplike creatures were letting go of their guy wires and starting a slow movement away.

  They watched as the gathering in the valley receded.

  He looked around him at the Adda's travel pouch. It was perhaps twothirds of the creature's size, and was surrounded by pink, fleshy walls smelling of warm yeast. The balloon in which they rode swayed gently as the prevailing winds pulled it into the great migration path toward the River Nigh. As long as the seeds lasted, the Adda would not be tempted to descend and forage.

  From high in the fleshy cavity came a whooshing sound.

  "The wind in the Adda's sinuses," Anzi said. She opened a bag and propped it against the Adda's side.

  In a few moments, from the roof of the cavity, feeding tubes descended. They plunged into the first bag, producing a snuffling sound that clearly signified a boisterous feeding.

  Quinn glanced at the orifice that served as the door of the passenger cavity. Once again he had drawn notice to himself, despite his resolve not to. But it was unthinkable to travel with a godwoman, much less a Gond. Godmen and godwomen were lonely souls, eager for converse and gossip. Some might well be in the employ of the Tarig. He took out the Going Over blade and began cleaning it.

  Anzi sat next to him. "It was well done, Shen. To prevent the Gond from boarding. You had no choice."

  "No help for it now."

  "No," she agreed, looking out through the orifice as though scanning for pursuers.

  As the Adda drifted toward the Nigh, they began the longest duration of any leg of their journey.

  Even though the primacies were narrow-perhaps four thousand miles wide-it was a slow journey to the Nigh from the populated centers on the other side of the primacy. But once a traveler arrived on the riverbanks the journey was almost over. So the heartland was near in a sense, as was Quinn's destination: the Ascendancy in the center of the heartland. From this hub radiated all the lobelike primacies, each with its own great river. He would travel another of those rivers to reach the primacy where Sydney lived.

  Would she remember him? How would she remember him?

  Since his meeting with Bel, he knew it was not a settled question.

  In the valley of the Adda, the godwoman BeSheb looked around her, noting that her Jouts had fled and no one would approach her now to offer assistance.

  She brushed her jacket, wiping away the grain particles that soiled the sacred white of her vestments. Foul, foul. A waste of grain, and now the coins lying where any miscreant could pick them up. She watched as the vile Adda set out on its journey, one that she prayed would be plagued by river spiders.

  BeSheb shifted her weight in the conveyance and prayed to calm her spiking emotions. "Oh, Miserable God look at me; oh, counter of sins, observer of sorrows, creator of evil, craftsman of the poxy Chalin! Look at me. I am not afraid, I am not debased to attend thee, I freely give obeisance...."

  A passing Hirrin looked with alarm in BeSheb's direction and ambled away, flattening her ears so as not to hear the prayer. The circle around the Gond grew wider, but no one dared touch the coins that sparkled in the bright like the yellow eyes of a buried god.

  BeSheb threw her head back and voiced her prayers, and as she did so, her distress eased, and finally she grew silent and began to count the coins. Twelve of them, two of them primals. Well. That was ten times the price of the grain, and rightly compensated for her humiliation. So then, paying for one more sack plus the muscles of some hapless sentient to carry it, there should be plenty left to-

  A shadow bent over one of the primals.

  A Tarig crouched to pick it off the ground. He turned to BeSheb. "Your coin, ah?"

  The Gond drew her wings around her, to settle her appearance and prepare to deal with the fiend. The Tarig were not believers, and God hated them even more than He hated most. Such was the teaching of the seer Hoptat, who set down the Ways of God the Miserable archons ago, before the days of radiance.

  "Yes, Bright Lord, my life in your service," BeSheb whispered, knowing that her voice was more subservient when gentle.

  The lord approached her, holding the primal in his long fingers.

  "Someone pays very handsomely for your prayers."

  BeSheb lifted her head to better see the fiend. "As to that, pardon me, it is not the case. The miscreants paid for damage to my sack of grain, which they inflicted by means of a sword, improperly drawn and threatening my Jout helpers."

  "We see no Jout helpers."

  The Gond licked her lips in irritation. "Certainly you do not. They fled." She was still waiting for the fiend to give her the coin.

  The lord fixed her with a most unpleasant gaze as the circle of emptiness around her widened and even the Adda moved off farther.

  The Gond added, "One is sorry to contradict the lord, but truth is not always pleasant." If he wanted to take offense, so he would. But the miscreants had insulted her, BeSheb of Ord, and she'd sooner end her days than keep quiet about it.

  The Tarig's voice came melodious and calm. "Who has a sword and is using such?"

  The Gond pointed skyward. "There, the Chalin man goes, riding alone, because he did not wish the Miserable God to accompany him."

  "Hnnn. Wished to be alone." The Tarig seemed to smile. "Many wish to shun the God of Misery. We give permission to shun God, ah?" He fingered the gold primal, moving it among his four fingers like a filthy conjurer.

  BeSheb scowled. "And permission also to wield knives?"

  "You are bold, BeSheb, to speak so."

  He knew her name. Not just a lord stumbling upon a situation, then. Perhaps she had let her irritation show improperly.

  The lord went on. "We like you. Speaking directly and fearlessly. Not often the case, BeSheb. One welcomes such diversion."

  BeSheb smirked. "They are all groveling toadies. A Gond speaks her thoughts."

  The coin fell, and BeSheb caught it. The Tarig turned, summoning with a gesture a Chalin boy who watched them from a distance. "Pick up the coins for this personage, young Chalin," the lord commanded. "Then do the godwoman's bidding until the ebb, not requesting payment. Ah?"

  The boy stammered his agreement.

  As the lord stalked off, BeSheb settled her bulk more comfortably into the cart, smiling to herself. The God of Misery sometimes came through generously. Sh
e fingered the coins as her new helper brought them to her. He was a good Chalin boy, nice of feature, though grubby. She put her mind to the task of planning how the boy could further serve her, in private, until the ebb.

  As the Adda floated onward, Quinn and Anzi sat cross-legged on the fleshy floor, just close enough to the orifice to watch the land slide by.

  As they sat side by side, Anzi took something from her pocket. On a long blue cord was a circular medallion. It looked familiar. She put it to Quinn's ear, and the heartchime struck a tone, clear and soothing.

  "Dolwa-Pan's heartchime," he said.

  "To listen to the approach of the heartland," Anzi said, handing him the necklace.

  Quinn couldn't reprimand her. She never kept anything for herself. He wondered if the Hirrin princess would make a decent scholar, like Bei, or a failed one, like Anzi. He said, "The princess liked to keep track of how close she was to the Ascendancy."

  "Yes," Anzi said thoughtfully. "She should get over it."

  Quinn held the heartchime in his hand, wondering how it measured distance and translated it into music. "You're not devoted to them," he said to Anzi, thinking how there must be many in the Entire besides Suzong and Bei and Lord Oventroe who didn't serve the gracious lords.

  "They know all the knowledge-all the things I wonder about." She smiled. "But no, Shen-would I be here if I served them?"

  He had to remind himself how Anzi jeopardized herself, being with him. But he didn't think that she thought of herself as a dissident. Or that any Chalin did.

  "The Chalin haven't ever rebelled. No one has, right?"

  She blinked. "Rebelled? As in war?" The thought was clearly beyond her. "Why would you ask such a thing?"

  Clearly, his question had disturbed her. Perhaps she saw the people of the Rose as prone to war, and feared a confrontation. He'd promised Su Bei that he'd protect the Entire, should the correlates ever become known. To do what he could. Thinking of the predations of Minerva, that might not be much.

  "It may come to war, between our people," he said to be as honest as he could.

  She sat with that thought for a time. Then she murmured, "Whose side would you be on, Shen?"

  He started to say the Rose. Because he was of that place. But something blocked the saying of it. He remained silent.

  They sat without speaking a long while then, and Anzi let the subject pass.

  The hills gathered closer, into a rumpled plain that would have defied a train's path. Toward Last of Day, they passed over a forest of stubby golden trees. In its depths he spied a floating chain of winged insects, linked together, sweeping clouds of gnats into the airy basket. They watched the ground give way to corrugated valleys. He felt a peace descend, a familiar thing, something that came from the Entire, or the bright, or the singular vastness of the place with its unknowable horizon.

  Hours later they tired of the views and, making what beds they could on the grain sacks, slept.

  He woke to the waxing bright, greeted by the sour smell of grain and the innards of the Adda. They had left the forest behind and were skimming very slowly over a lake.

  "It's very shallow," Anzi said, having wakened and come to the edge of the opening to sit with Quinn. "Water doesn't generally collect on the surface. The bright burns it off." She stopped short. Then she shoved him in the chest, with a sharp whack of her hand. "Back," she hissed.

  Just beyond the shore of the lake, a figure stood on the ground, hailing them. Beside the figure, a brightship sat on the plains. The Adda had slowed.

  " T a n g . . . , " Anzi whispered. "He comes."

  "Maybe the Adda won't stop."

  "By bond law, the Adda has to stop. That's why the ladder is always down."

  She hauled him across the floor, pointing up. "Climb, climb."

  "Why? We have our cover story."

  "But you drew a knife; they might question you too closely. Go!" She pushed him toward the wall. "Use the ridges as footholds; go into the sinuses. Hurry!"

  "What about you?" He struggled with her as she kept pushing, and as the Adda kept lowering.

  "I can pass! You can't!" She started slapping at him. He began to climb, then looked down at her. "Go," she repeated, waving her arms at him.

  He climbed where she'd pointed, finding that the skin was ridged enough for a handhold. Near the top of the wall, the air grew hotter, alive with a yeasty smell. He saw a curve. It led into a small tunnel that required him to go on hands and knees. The yeasty smell grew deep and sickening.

  He felt the blimplike body shake as it became clear that the Tarig had grabbed hold of the ladder and was coming aboard.

  Quinn entered a bony, scalloped structure that spiraled wildly, with depressions and tubes branching out and dead-ending. This must be the sinuses Anzi referred to. A breeze wafted through, and Quinn hoped that the Tarig didn't smell keenly.

  He folded himself into a ball to keep from falling in this slick place. But hiding wouldn't help much if the Tarig had reason to search. Had the godwoman raised suspicions about them?

  He huddled and listened.

  "Ah, the Chalin girl," a melodious voice said.

  "Lord, my life in your service," came Anzi's small voice.

  "We do not know you." The Tarig's voice was deeply rich, and resonant, but the Adda amplified it hugely, and made it the voice of the beast herself.

  Anzi said, "I am Lo May, of the Chingdu wielding, Bright Lord."

  God, she was lying. Quinn closed his eyes, listening hard.

  "Going where?" the Tarig asked.

  "Lord, by the Nigh, to visit my parents' graves, both brave fallen of Ahnenhoon."

  "The Chalin girl is dutiful in grave-duty, to travel the Nigh."

  "Lo May would see a grand sight, of the Nigh."

  "Less dutiful, seeing sights."

  "Oh, please pardon such a girl, Bright Lord."

  A long spell of quiet. Quinn's skin prickled with sweat and consternation. What was the Tarig doing?

  "Do you see, Lo May, four sacks of grain?"

  "Yes, Lord."

  "Passage for a lone Chalin girl?"

  A pause. Then: "No, Lord, there was one other here."

  "Where is this other? Hnnn?"

  "Lord, he wished to lie with me and was insistent. By my rights of bonds, I used force to compel him down the ladder."

  "Ah. A Chalin man? And now he may die because you left him untended in the wilds. This can be murder, of the bond law."

  "Heaven give me mercy, I meant no harm, Lord."

  A long pause. Quinn's mouth was dry. Murder? How could the conversation veer so sharply? Quinn thought it better to descend and kill this individual before he killed Anzi. He rose.

  "A pretty Chalin girl," the Tarig said.

  Quinn didn't like the tone. Silence again. Quinn was imagining things. Anzi, he thought, give me an indication of what is happening.

  "Yet we saw no stragglers," the Tarig continued.

  "Perhaps, Lord, he was already rescued. Many Adda set out from the axis yesterday."

  "Hnnn. A pretty Chalin girl. Are we to think you are strong enough to compel a grown man down a ladder?"

  "Yes, Lord. Lo May is."

  The Tarig's voice came: "Ah, and keeps the bonds."

  "As the bright guides me, and as God takes little notice of one such as Lo May."

  And the Tarig again, more ominously: "We take notice."

  "Yes, Lord," Anzi whispered.

  "Do you know, Chalin girl, one named Wen An?"

  A pause. "No. Is this a personage I should know?"

  Quinn crept forward to listen more intently. Wen An-the scholar who had sent him to Yulin. This was a bad trend for the conversation. He put his hand on the Going Over blade, wondering how many Tarig were in that brightship, and if right now they stood outside holding guy wires while their fellow lord made inquiries.

  "The Chalin scholar Wen An, her life is forfeit, and we seek her. Thus, if you know her, you will tell us, ah?"

>   "By the vows, I do not know Wen An."

  "Shaking?"

  There was a silence as Quinn strained to hear words said more softly. Was Anzi shaking in fear? What was the lord doing? And he wondered if they carried their garrotes with them.

  The silvery voice of the Tarig came: "We have frightened you."

  Again, Quinn couldn't hear Anzi answer. He was beside himself with anxiety, and so crept to the very edge of the sinus cavity, where he could just see the sleeve of Anzi's arm as she backed away from her inquisitor.

  "There is no need for fear, Lo May. How long have you been traveling, and from where?"

  "Lord, a Sequent or more from the wielding, from Chingdu."

  She'd said five days, a Sequent.

  "In that journey, Lo May, you beheld the bright realm laid out before you, ah?"

  Quinn could now see Anzi leaning against the wall. Anzi nodded.

  "The bright realm lives in peace, the peace of the Entire. And Wen An has broken that peace, and sentients lie murdered. So then, do you fear our justice?"

  "No, Bright Lord. It is the radiant path, heaven give me mercy."

  "Just so, Lo May. A good Chalin girl." A bronze hand came forward and wiped a wisp of hair back from Anzi's face.

  If he touched her again, Quinn would use his knife.

  "We like you, Chalin girl," the lord said.

  Quinn couldn't see the Tarig, only Anzi standing like an animal frozen in a carnivore's gaze.

  "And now we leave you in peace."

  Anzi didn't move, but watched the lord as he apparently moved away, toward the orifice.

  As the lord climbed down the ladder, he said to those who waited below, "Only one Chalin girl, of no consequence."

  "Swords?" a voice asked from farther away.

  "No swords," the lord answered, his voice fading.

  A long pause. Quinn wiped the sweat of his hands against his tunic, waiting and listening. The Adda lurched with the jump of the Tarig from the ladder, and then again with the release of the rope or ropes that secured the Adda in place. He felt the symbiont rising again, and the breath came back into him. By its motion, the Adda was under way again.