by Kay Kenyon
A knock at his door startled him. Opening it, he found Brahariar standing before him. She bowed. "Forgive the ebb intrusion, Excellency."
Glancing at a satchel at her feet, she said, "I am leaving. My mission is complete, thanks to Steward Cho."
"A worthy man. I hope your petition was successful, then."
"It was." Her skin fluttered, the petals closing and opening in pleasure. "The shining consul Shi Zu ruled in my favor."
"Well done, Brahariar. Your waiting is over."
"Excellency," she said, "you took pains on my behalf. I hope it did no harm to your own mission, but I fear that it did." Looking up and down the corridor and finding it empty, she said, "The great legate Min Fe came looking here, while you were gone."
"The great legate has disliked me since I met him. Not your fault."
"I am relieved," Brahariar said. She picked up her satchel. "I wish to thank you, but have nothing to give you."
"Nothing is needed. Many days to you, Brahariar."
As the Jout still made no immediate move to depart, Quinn said, and then wished that he hadn't: "What was your mission, if it pleases you to say?"
Her mouth elongated in a Jout smile. "Oh, yes it does please me, Excellency. I pleaded for the strangulation death of one who might have saved my father from falling from a God's Needle."
Quinn waited, confused.
"He was the last person to see my father alive. He should have prevented it."
"He pushed your father?"
"No. Still, someone must be responsible. It is good that Shi Zu agreed with me. I will watch the strangulation with satisfaction. Then I can be at peace." She bowed again, and departed.
Quinn watched her bulky form recede down the corridor. He remembered what he had once known about the Jout: that they carried a grudge longer than a beku could go without water. The conversation left him feeling uneasy and complicit.
He sat on his bed, staring at the opposite wall, his mind skittering from one thought to another. Anzi's voice echoed: If you die or are captured ... who will bring the warning to the Rose?
Not that it was dangerous for him to enter the Inyx sway. He had his endorsements, his identity. But escaping with her was the difficulty ... the alarms raised, and the sudden disclosure of who he was-because who else but Titus Quinn would come for Sydney Quinn?
He put his head in his hands and felt a blackness descend. In his whole life he had never come to such despair. Sitting on his bed and staring at the wall, he let go of thinking and gave himself up to dark thoughts. After a long while he slept.
And dreamed.
Ghoris the navitar stood on the dais, her head and torso protruding through the membrane above her chair. She wrestled with the lightning bolts of the binds, grabbing them and throwing them at the storm wall, trying to pierce those dark folds. But the storm wall only absorbed the lightning, growing stronger and darker. Quinn stood on the roof of the navitar's cabin, watching as Ghoris struggled. But now it was not with lightning that she wrestled, but with Johanna.
Fire, oh fire, Ghoris thundered, giving Johanna a dreadful blow that took away half her face. Her face is ruined, Quinn thought in deep remorse, and as the two women grappled he thought that Johanna looked like Ci Dehai, and fought as well. Finally, with a strong shove at Johanna, Ghoris cried out, Choose, choose! Regaining her footing, Johanna stood very still, saying with reproach, "I already have." Then Johanna turned to look at Quinn. He'd thought himself invisible, but she saw him. And kept gazing at him, her robes fluttering in the storm of the walls. A knocking sound came from below. Someone trying to tell him to get off the roof.
He jerked awake. Someone was knocking on his door. Stumbling to answer it, he found Shi Zu standing before him, flanked by legates.
"Ah. Here you are," the consul said. In his finery, Shi Zu looked like a male peacock amid a flock of plain females. He brought out a scroll from his tunic. By its golden spindle, Quinn knew that it was from Cixi.
"Your approvals, and official clarity to be presented to the Inyx," he said. "By heaven, a fine accomplishment, Dal Shen of Xi."
Quinn accepted the spindle, holding it in numb silence.
Shi Zu said, "It would have been a suitable undertaking for my retinue and me, but many duties hinder such an indulgence. Do it justice then, soldier of Ahnenhoon." Nodding at Quinn's mumbled thanks, the consul left, accompanied by his clerks.
Quinn read the calligraphy, confirming its essence. A redstone rattled inside the spindle cap, a data stone the Inyx didn't know how to use. He stared at the scroll. But now it was useless to him. He must go home. Without her. It wasn't about Sydney's life anymore; it was about everyone's life. Everything we love, Johanna had said, all to burn.
He would rather have died than chosen. But he chose. He felt his heart cooling into something more steady and basic than before: a logical, mechanical engine. He could keep going; he must-and all the reasons why were clear and stone cold.
A vision of Sydney came to mind-his grown daughter. How long was it, he wondered, before she gave up hoping I would come for her? Probably long ago. And now, in the event, she was right. He wasn't coming for her. He had to turn away from the look on her face.
Now he and Anzi would leave this place. A few loose ends to wrap up, and then they would leave.
He tucked the scroll into his satchel lying near the bed. Then he took out the toy boat and walked out of the Magisterium into the city.
With few sentients abroad, the Tarig city was eerily quiet as Early Day renewed the cycle of the bright. Looking at the sky, Quinn thought how profligate, how wanton, was that fire. He didn't know what kind of fire it was, except a devouring one. The beauties that he'd seen in its waxing and waning moods had now grown somber. He couldn't help but mourn its loss, and the loss of his attraction to it. What was the Entire, but an inverted flower that sucked dry the real world? And, unwilling to think that thought for long, he let himself believe there was yet a way to resolve all problems. He was tired; he knew that. He would sleep soon, and then depart.
A flock of ground birds sped about the plazas, pecking at specks of food. He couldn't remember if they were real animals or merely vacuums. Crossing a canal, he walked across a nearly deserted plaza, toward the palatine hill. The city stretched out on all sides, this circular city in the heart of a circular ocean, in the center of the great arms of the primacies-the whole of it shaped like a starfish. And he, at its center. The wires holding it all together plunged to their destinies here.
Perhaps, to avoid his awful decision, he should have told Oventroe about the engine at Ahnenhoon. The lord might have been an ally, if he loved the Rose, or was fascinated by it. But if Oventroe already knew, then he was as bad as the rest of them, and no friend to the Rose. And no friend to Titus Quinn, to withhold the correlates-although who would give an enemy the key to such a door? Now that the Rose was an enemy of the Entire.
So finding the correlates was another reason to come back. He would come back, of course. That thought kept him going.
He stood in front of the walled garden, with its arched entrance, and cool interior beckoning. It looked the same as before, but empty of children and toys.
He entered the garden, brushing past the lush climbing vine. No one was in sight. Just as well. At the pond, he set the boat in the water. It rocked in the gentle current of the pond. Not as fine a boat as the child had burned, but his parting gift.
Turning to go, he saw Small Girl standing at the garden entrance.
She showed no surprise at finding him here. "The Chalin man," she said.
He bowed. She was up early, and dressed formally, as before.
"Fixing," she pronounced, looking at the pond. She ran to the water's edge and stretched out her hand for the boat, but it had drifted too far.
Quinn snagged the boat from the water and gave it to her. She smiled, and it lifted his spirits. There remained small pleasures. He was grateful for them.
The bright was warm on his he
ad and hands. Sitting next to Small Girl, he felt exhausted and spent. He could almost have lain down next to the wall and slept. They sat together as she examined the boat, turning it over and over. Finally she said, "Thank you."
He nodded. "Yes. Of course. A small thing."
"A fixed thing."
"Yes, Sydney, fixed."
She continued to gaze at the boat.
But Quinn's heart had stopped. What had he said? Dreamlike, he looked around him. He had said his daughter's name. Slowly, he stood up. Time to leave.
"The Chalin man sits down."
He was frozen, watching her. She wouldn't remember the word, that name, to repeat it to her parents.
But her eyes commanded him to sit, and now he was afraid not to. He sat next to her, trying to stay calm.
"What name did you say?" She still gazed at the boat.
He was sick, his heart beating erratically. "Nothing," he said.
The bright was growing hot, monstrous.
"Something," she said. "It is something."
What could she possibly know? He was rattled for nothing. He would brazen it through, get her mind on something else. "But Small Girl likes the boat?"
"Yes."
"Good."
"But Sydney doesn't."
She was not going to leave it. He looked at her, and she returned his gaze, putting the toy aside on the ledge. "You are not the Chalin man."
He swallowed. She knew.
"I am," he said.
"You do not go against what we say, though."
"And what do you say, Small Girl?"
Her black eyes looked into his. "Your small girl is Sydney. We know who you are." She stood, at eye level to him, as he sat. "Hnnn?" The expression was predatory.
She knew. It was all coming down. The false names, the grand plans.
He shook his head. He looked at the Tarig child. He had to go home. Because they were burning the Rose.
Small Girl put her hand under his chin, and peered at his face. "Titus, then," she said.
"No," he whispered.
"Come back. Ah?"
"No," he said again.
It was all on his shoulders, the terrible plans of the Tarig. If Small Girl betrayed him, everyone would die. All the worlds. All the Earth.
He would knock her out; it had to be done.
Small Girl caught the intention in his eyes, and turned to run. He caught her tunic, dragging her backward. She clawed at him, a hot downstroke that gashed his cheek but missed his eyes. She cried out.
Then he struck her, trying to stun her, so it could be the end of their struggle. But she wouldn't give up, and she shrieked, her cry reverberating in the garden. He covered her mouth, lest she call to her Tarig parents, and holding her in an iron grasp, he immobilized her. As she thrashed with ferocious strength, his grip began to slip.
Renewing his hold, he cast about for what to do. There must be something. He could take her to an empty room-the mansions were full of empty rooms-and tie her up while he escaped.
An arm came free of his hold and smashed against his temple, knocking him backward for a moment. She bolted from his arms, screeching, "Titus Quinn, Titus Quinn." Diving for her, he pinned her to the ground; placing his hand on the back of her head, he forced her face into the ground to stop her screams.
Any moment now the Tarig would come.
The Rose. He must go back and tell them. That the Earth would die. They would kill it, and every other Earth.... And he knew then, with awful clarity, that Small Girl had to die, before she raised the alarm and prevented him from leaving.
He pulled Small Girl into the pond, keeping his hand over her mouth. Oh God, he prayed. Oh, Johanna, how can there be a God? A good one, a just one? No, it was a Miserable God.
Small Girl twisted in his arms like a steel coil, but he managed to push her down in the waist-high water. He sobbed for this small creature, even as he submerged her head. She came up once, shrieking, "Titus!" But pushing her down again, he held her there. He looked down on himself from some mental vantage point, seeing a monster drowning a child.
Then, to his horror, from deep inside the palace, he thought he heard shouts. He thought he heard someone shout his name.
Small Girl had ceased struggling. He lurched away from her body. She floated, facedown, her tunic turning purple as it became saturated.
He crawled from the pond, backing away. Then he turned and ran from the garden.
On the other side of the gate, he nearly collided with Anzi. She looked like a person from another life. The one where he had not murdered a child.
"Anzi," he breathed. "Run."
Anzi looked over his shoulder, toward the pond, where the child floated.
He looked too, hoping that it was some terrible vision, not an irrevocable event. But the Tarig child floated there in the water. "I killed her," he whispered.
Anzi was dragging him down the narrow path. How had she come here, and where could they go? Quinn pulled her into a side street, deserted for now. They stopped, looking wildly around for pursuit.
Anzi murmured, "I tried to stop you from coming here. Too late."
"I killed her," Quinn said. He looked at Anzi, hardly seeing her. "She knew me." Her voice came back to him: Titus, then.
"I killed her."
"Yes," Anzi said. "You did. And now we're going to leave."
"Leave?" He heard the words, but not the sense.
"The pillars," she said. "Hurry." She tugged at him, trying to drag him down the pathway.
Instead, he pulled her down the side street. "This way, Anzi."
Her face was frantic. "To where?"
The pillars were too obvious. He ran for the mansion he knew well: Lady Chiron's. He knew the way, although his mind was nearly empty with shock. He had murdered Small Girl. Part of his mind kept saying that it couldn't have happened, couldn't ...
They climbed a long, winding staircase higher into the palatine hill.
In the distance, he heard voices. Looking back, he saw, on a high terrace, several Tarig. They ran across, and disappeared.
"Running," Quinn said, his voice low. Anzi followed his gaze, and became very still. Tarig didn't run. With their long legs, they were superbly equipped for it, but he had never seen a Tarig run.
The fourth level of the Magisterium was in chaos. Cho heard from every side: Titus Quinn, Quinn, Quinn. Small Girl, dead in the pond. Functionaries scattered from their posts, running, as though they had duties of a martial nature. They didn't, no more than did Cho, who sat at his stone well, bewildered, sweating.
The Chalin man sent by Master Yulin. Oh, by the everlasting bright, it had been Titus Quinn. He had never imagined it. All knew the famous face, but the man must have undergone surgeries.
He bent over his computational well, sick in his gut. His nose hit a nub on the stone well and the screen flashed at him, and it made him sit upright and gather himself with more dignity.
Dal Shen had never claimed to be on the Radiant Path. He had said his goal was worthy. Was that goal to connect the worlds, to convey the knowledge of the Entire to the Rose? Surely, if Titus Quinn had gone home that first time, he had already conveyed that knowledge. Ah, but if he hadn't, then he was escaping to do so now.
Cho wondered: Was this forbidden converse between worlds forbidden for a good reason? Cho had never questioned the Three Vows. Which breaking is to die....
Well, he thought, I have already broken the First Vow, by helping Dal Shen.
Filled with anxiety, he stumbled to his feet and fled the warren of stewards. He made his way upward toward the city, pushing past crowds of frantic clerks, stewards, and legates. He knew that he would help Dal Shen one more time, if he could. But how?
And why? Indeed why? His life would be forfeit if he did. But when he thought of his life, he knew that he had hardly lived at all. Not compared to Dal Shen, nor even compared to Ji Anzi, or any of those beings who lived in the Great Without. Possibly each one of them had lived mo
re fully than any steward of the Great Within.
Today that would change.
He hurried to the nearest pillar, the third pillar. There, a capsule had left a short time ago for the sea. He nubbed the screen to find who had been aboard, and added Dal Shen to the list.
He stood back from his work, startled and a little saddened. He had altered a record, inserting an inaccuracy. The great pandect of the Magisterium had been defiled. Good.
Backing away, he turned and gazed at the palatine hill, thinking of Small Girl, wondering why such a personage would have killed a child. Surely he hadn't. There were so few Tarig children, surely they must mourn every lost one.
He put some distance between himself and the pillar. Perhaps he had created enough confusion that Dal Shen might have a chance to leave the city.
It was such a slim chance. About as slim as a steward of ten thousand days suddenly wearing the icon of the golden carp; about as slim as a career steward finally taking a stand on something.
He thought of his new icon, the golden carp. Let me be worthy of such a glorious symbol, he prayed. And may God not look at me.
Cixi gripped the railing of her open porch, her eyes darting over the cityscape.
Behind her, Z.ai Gan stood, breathing hard, having come to her salon on a dead run.
Titus Quinn, she thought. By the bright, he stood in front of my very face. The perfidious father and betrayer.
She swirled on Zai Gan, spitting at him, "Run to the fourth pillar, that is closest to Inweer's mansion. Find him. Stop him."
Zai Gan bowed and dashed for the doors.
"Preconsul," she barked at him before he could disappear. When he stopped to await her, she said, "If you fail to apprehend him, you will wear the emblem of a beku."
"Yes, Lady." He rushed from the room, a great engine of a man. Titus Quinn mustn't escape to brag that he'd fooled them all. He must not escape to bring back to the withered Rose whatever prize he had snatched from them. She was sure there was a prize. If he thought it would be Sydney, he was addled indeed.
Something had gone wrong with his plans. And she meant to complete his ruin.
Quinn continued to haul Anzi up the winding staircase into the heart of the palatine hill. She protested, begging him to run for the pillars. Ignoring her protests, he pulled her up the stairs. "They'll be looking for us down there," he said, panting by now. "No one will think we'd go into the mansions."
