Bright of the Sky

by Kay Kenyon

  Two mares had defected to Ulrud the Lame's herd, along with AkayWat's former mount, Skofke. Good riddance, Mo Ti had growled, if they have no stomach for free bond and for Riod.

  But an interval ago the riders of those mares had come limping into camp, having walked the long distance from Ulrud's herd. These were among the growing numbers of riders who were used to a free-bond status, and meant to keep it. Noting their approach, Akay-Wat had let out a whoop, and thundered out with her new mount, Gevka, to welcome them. Her prosthetic leg helped her to grip Gevka's back in a vise, transforming her into a superb rider.

  It was time for Akay-Wat to accept her mission to go to Ulrud's herd. But the Hirrin delayed, avoiding Sydney, keeping to herself.

  Sydney noted all this with detachment. She hardly cared about mares and chieftainship after the news about Titus Quinn had reached the encampment. She was weary of the herd and its politics.

  The steppe called to her. She clambered down from the roof on the side of the barracks facing away from camp, and set out walking. She had no clear goal, except quiet-especially the quieting of her mind. The steppe had always revived her, with its scoured horizon and clean smells. She had seen its vista from Riod's mind so often, its image was burned into her mind. Perhaps it would renew her today, if she walked carefully and didn't step in a vole hole.

  Despite her hope for peace, the quiet of the land brought her thoughts crowding for attention. Three days ago, the news had begun filtering through the roamlands, leaping from mind to mind, from encampment to encampment. Titus Quinn. Returned.

  Normally the Inyx sensed little from the outside world. It had always seemed normal to Sydney that the mounts kept their concerns local, as hers were. But some Inyx were fighting in the war, and even as distant as these kin were, their hearts could be read. Thus came the shocking tale.

  The human man Titus Quinn had returned. Hiding in the Ascendancy for a time-it was unclear how long-he had gone on a killing rampage and then destroyed the brightships, every single one. Having done all this, he eluded his pursuers, nor was he yet in custody. It was a tale almost past believing.

  He had spared one ship for his own escape. Where had he gone with it? No one knew, but many thought he had returned to the Rose.

  Oh, Cixi, she thought. Cixi, he has left nae. Who else but Cixi would know and care? Cixi, who had sheltered her, and protected her from the fiends. Cixi, who had seen her cry the last tears that she would ever shed.

  As she walked, the bright cooled toward ebb, making her trek more bearable, but her feet were beginning to hurt. What she wouldn't give for fine boots, so that she could walk forever.

  There hadn't been time for Cixi to send a report to her about this event. But from Inyx glimpses, the story came that Titus had murdered a Tarig child and a Tarig lord. Sydney had no idea why her father would kill a child, and how he could kill a lord. Perhaps he had been hiding in the Magisterium all these thousands of days, and had only now found a way to escape. Maybe he had grown tired of Lady Chiron at last. Or perhaps he had heard that Johanna was dead, and decided the Entire held little interest for him now. For any or all of these reasons he might have decided to run, and then, having been discovered, he killed those who tried to prevent him.

  Of course, Johanna wasn't dead. The rumor that it pleased the Tarig lords to spread was that, because of her lost child, she had died of grief. This sentimental story had taken root and spread until all had heard it. And although it was a lie-as Cixi had assured her-Sydney no longer thought about Johanna. Nor about Titus. Until now.

  The pack on Sydney's back grew heavy, and she considered leaving it behind. But the pack stayed on. In it, as always, was her journal containing the record of her Entire days. Perhaps her days were over, now. She felt tired enough with her life.

  She sat by a scraggly tree, leaning against it for a few moments' rest. Then, weary of thinking, she slept.

  When she awoke, Mo Ti's voice came to her: "Mistress."

  "Mo Ti." She rose to her feet, still weary. No shared sight came to her from his mount. Mo Ti was on foot.

  Remaining silent, he put a water flask in her hand. She drank as he lowered his bulk to sit beside her.

  Eventually she whispered, "Mo Ti."

  "My lady?"

  "Look at the sky." After a pause she added, "Do you see a brightship?"

  "No, Lady, there is no brightship."

  "But have you looked in all directions-down the Long Gaze of Fire, and toward the heartland?

  "Mo Ti has looked."

  "No one there, then." She felt dispassionate, but curious. Where was Titus now? But there was no figuring such things out. She rose, and started to walk again. At her side, the big man matched her steps.

  He said, "Mo Ti also watches for the caravan that brings your eye surgeon."

  Her surgeon was coming. The beku caravan bringing her Chalin surgeon would be here in ten days. The Tarig had agreed with Riod's demand, eager to curry Inyx favor. The mantis lords would have to find a new gulag for their misfits, though. Once the riders were sighted, many individuals would come to the sway to ride freely with the Inyx. But it no longer seemed such a fine thing to her.

  "Where are you going?" Mo Ti asked.

  "Walking."

  "Walking where?"

  She kept silent. She didn't know where.

  His hand was on her arm, stopping her. She felt like a twig, like a steppe mouse. He could stop her, or carry her home, so insubstantial she was compared to him.

  "My lady. This person is not worthy of your sorrow."

  "But I'm not sad, Mo Ti. I feel nothing, truly." She heard the tenderness in his voice, and it hurt her that he was troubled on her account. How was it possible for such a mountain of a man to imagine one girl's sorrow? He had never seemed so fanciful, before.

  She began to walk again, but he still held her arm, restraining her.

  "Let me go, Mo Ti."

  "No."

  She thought about this a moment. Had he ever told her no before? She tested his resolve by twisting her arm in his hold. Tight as a vise. "I forbid you to bring me back to the encampment," she said, her calm beginning to tatter at the edges.

  "Very well. Then we'll stand here together."

  "We'll get thirsty."

  "Yes."

  She stood, her arm pinioned in his gentle grip. But when she tried to move, his fingers tightened. They stood like this a while, forged together. She lifted her face to the bright, to gauge the time. Moving into Twilight Ebb. But it was a guess. Of all the Entire's inhabitants, only she and Johanna had no instinctive sense of bright-time.

  Over thousands of days Sydney had come to think of herself as Chalin. Cixi was her mother. The Rose held nothing that Sydney loved anymore. She hardly remembered the Rose. She was of the Entire. But today, standing on this plain, she knew she belonged to neither one place nor the other. This must be why she felt so untethered from the world, and from herself.

  Mo Ti handed her the water flask. She refused it. She was starting to get used to not needing water.

  She tried freeing her arm again. "Let me go, Mo Ti."

  Surprisingly, he did. But he put something new in her hands. It was a knife.

  "Dying of thirst is a hard way to go," he said. "I recommend the knife. With a nice deep cut, it will all be over quickly. Very efficient. Unless you're afraid of the knife."

  Ugly words from one she'd thought was a friend. Resentment surged. "Have I ever been afraid of a knife?"

  "No. But that was during fights, when your blood is worked up, and you throw away caution. It's not true courage."

  How could he say such things to her? It was a bitter betrayal, to call her a coward, to push a weapon on her and urge her to use it on herself. Had he been waiting for a moment of weakness to take control of the herd? Was it all a ruse, this friendship?

  Stripping off the scabbard, she stood, pointing the knife in his direction. "Do you mean to kill me, Mo Ti?"

  "Mo Ti doesn't car
e."

  She gripped the knife, trembling with anger. "Don't care? All your highsounding plans, and urging me on? To raise the kingdom?" Her fury built, and she advanced on him.

  "Mo Ti doesn't care for a young girl who quits."

  "I'm not quitting!" She was just walking on the steppe, and it was no crime to walk. Why was he against her?

  His soft voice came to her, maddeningly smug. "Standing alone here under the bright, no food or water. Yes, quitting." He added. "Like AkayWat, like a gutless Hirrin."

  She hurled herself at him, lunging with the knife, knowing that she would miss, but hoping to shut him up.

  Missing him, she spun around, and charged at him again.

  This time he caught her, and grabbing her wrist, shook the knife free from her hand. In a fury, Sydney struck him in the chest. His huge arms came around her, leaving little room for her flailing arms, but she attempted to beat on his torso. She twisted back and forth to free herself while pummeling him over and over again. Eventually her hands lost their feeling.

  When she was quiet at last, Mo Ti sank to his knees, taking her with him. Then, kneeling in his embrace, she began to cry.

  He put his hand on the back of her head and held her close to his chest, and her face grew so hot with crying, she thought it must be swelling up. She grew weak with crying. Mo Ti didn't move, except to caress the back of her head.

  Then, for a long time, she was silent, dazed. By the feel of the bright on her skin, it must have fallen into Deep Ebb.

  Her mind shut off, and perhaps she slept.

  After a time she became aware that she was lying in Mo Ti's arms, stretched out on the ground. He dabbed at her face with his kerchief and the remains of the water.

  Stirring, she sat up. Mo Ti was there; he would always be there. More loyal than her former family. More important. "I will rejoin the herd, Mo Ti. But first take me, love me."

  He dried her face with his kerchief. "Mo Ti loves you," he said. "But that is not how he serves you."

  "It's best for us to be bonded, Mo Ti. After this."

  "My lady. Mo Ti is a eunuch."

  She touched his face. The bulging cheekbones, the heavy brow. Truly life was cruel. Yet wonderful as well. Then she clung to him again.

  At last she said, "We will walk back, now."

  "Yes, Lady."

  And they walked back to camp, taking a long time to get there, because, of course, she wasn't going to enter the barracks yard being carried.

  The next day, Akay-Wat left the encampment, riding out on Gevka just as the bright began its waxing phase. Before she left, the Hirrin had knelt by Sydney's bunk, waking her and whispering, "Someday I am coming home, yes." It was becoming impossible for Akay-Wat to imagine living without this woman of the Rose. She hoped her assignment of preaching free bond would soon be over.

  Stirring, Sydney sat up. "Yes. Then you'll be my high officer."

  "High officer?" Akay-Wat said, stupefied.

  "Who has been braver?"

  Akay-Wat never thought she would hear this word applied to herself, much less from Sydney. She felt her long throat tighten with emotion. "This Hirrin is still afraid, mistress."

  "So am I, Akay-Wat. Just don't tell anyone."

  Akay-Wat thought of her parents, long dead in the war at Ahnenhoon, and thought how she had at last earned the right to be their progeny. She wished that they were alive to see this day.

  Now came the next brave thing: leaving. She would miss Sydney, who now had become queen of the sway. Queen was perhaps too strong a word. But Sydney was a great personage, and someday, Akay-Wat thought, she would have the whole of the roamlands under her dominion. The key was free bond, of course.

  The Hirrin pressed her mobile lips into Sydney's hand. Then she walked out of barracks, her newly fashioned leg striking the floor and adding a new rhythm to her gait.

  Later, when Sydney at last climbed from her bed, she found a skinned vole carcass at her feet. A present from Takko. She'd smelled him nearby, when he deposited his present there. She was willing to use Puss's real name as long as he behaved.

  Taking the carcass to the fire pit, she roasted it to a crackling finish.

  Around the fire pit, her barracks-mates prepared their meals, talking of yesterday's rides and of free bond. A few mounts stood next to their riders, sharing morning thoughts. Their bodies and faces were familiar to Sydney: Mo Ti the Chalin, Adikar the Ysli, Takko the Laroo, and many others, including the mounts themselves. Each one was outrageous of shape and of culture, stinking for lack of bathing, and wary of leadership. But as they talked and shared tidbits of food, it seemed to Sydney that they were linked in a new way, in a shared life-connected by their mounts to each other.

  Feng was absent from their midst, having slunk off to another herd. And now Akay-Wat was gone, an emissary to Ulrud's herd, to tell her story of how she had lost her leg to the old bonds and now rode better and freer.

  Late in the ebb, Mo Ti woke Sydney. "A ship," he said.

  She rose, shoving her feet into her boots. Riod's thoughts came to her from the yard, alarmed. Accompanying Mo Ti outside, she tried to breathe normally, but her chest seemed too small to draw air. Above her the bright stretched over the roamlands, and a trail marked the passage where a ship had cleaved the sky. That trail came from the heartland.

  Mo Ti said, "I have talked with this new arrival, my lady. It is your surgeon."

  "Surgeon?" Her surgeon was to arrive by caravan, not brightship.

  Riod urged her to mount. His thoughts were chaotic, but his instinct was to have Sydney on his back.

  Mo Ti spoke to both of them. "The Tarig have sent one of their own to do the surgery."

  A breeze blew across Sydney's face, chasing away old hopes. She let it cool her.

  Then she murmured, "It was a Tarig who blinded me." She climbed onto Riod's back. "We will send this mantis lord away." Mo Ti had her by the ankle, and Sydney jerked her foot, wrestling to free herself. "I won't let them touch me."

  "But you must."

  Now Riod turned his displeasure on Mo Ti, and it was a standoff of wills.

  Mo Ti said, "Let them think they have your gratitude. Take their gift. You need it to win the herds, to make Riod strong. To raise the kingdom."

  Mo Ti's hand was still on her foot as she sat astride Riod. He was waiting for her to say what she would do-not just today, this awful moment, but forever.

  "What do I want, Mo Ti?" she almost cried to him.

  "Sight. Power. Revenge."

  She listened to the summation as Riod stomped beneath her, his hide trembling with agitation.

  "You know me, Mo Ti."

  "Yes, Lady."

  She took a breath, drawing it deep. Then: "Yes, if I have to, I'll take their help." Riod shook his head in agitation, twisting the horns on his neck back and forth. But at last he moved forward, bearing her through the camp, past the stirring herd, out onto the steppe where the brightship waited-a new kind of ship, it seemed to Sydney, different-looking than the one that had brought her here so long ago. So the Tarig were replenishing their fleet. Mo Ti followed, mounted on Distanir.

  If the fiend's hand falters, I will kill him, Riod sent.

  "Yes, beloved," she said. "Do so."

  CIIJPTEIt TIIIKTY

  PRIL IN PORTLAND WAS COLD THIS YEAR, scoured with wind gusting off the river. Lamar Gelde tucked his face into his neck scarf as much as possible and trudged across the parking lot to Minerva Building 919. His reserved parking place was long gone, of course.

  Damn the wind. His face felt like it might fall off. An expensive misfortune if so, since he'd spent liberally on mitochondrial enhancements. For skin tone. For turkey neck, and drooping eyelids, and the other little insults of age. His face hurt as he entered the lobby. The docs said he'd be supersensitive to temperature changes.

  Walking into the high-security area, he held up his hand, catching the beam of the tideflow, using the day pass Stefan Polich had stranded to him. It must have
been a top-drawer security pass, because people were practically bowing to him as he went by. He looked around, wishing for a motorized conveyance, but Minerva wasn't built for the feeble.

  Entering the savant warehouse, he silvered his palm for directions to Rob Quinn's cubicle. It was almost like the old days, when his access to the beam was absolute. But as he passed the workstations of the minor savant-tenders, no one recognized him.

  When he finally found Rob, the man was flexing his fingers, using digit commands instead of a keyboard. Fancy. But he looked like a man trying to touch a real life, instead of the one he had.

  Lamar coughed. Rob turned around.

  "Spare a minute?"

  Rob nodded. "Didn't expect to see you," he said by way of greeting for his father's old friend. Rob stood and waved for Lamar to follow him out of the warren and then down a corridor.

  Lamar's legs protested. "Jesus, Rob, I've already walked my limit."

  Rob stopped dead. "Okay, fine, let's talk here." He looked resentful. Well, he'd heard about Stefan's threats and blackmail. No doubt he didn't like being a pawn. But truth to tell, Rob was a pawn, and always would be. He was a forty-year-old savant tender. Couldn't get much more marginal than that.

  "What's wrong with your face?" Rob asked, squinting at him.

  "Had a little procedure." Wrong with nzy face? Took twenty years off him, his surgeon said. Pushing away his annoyance, Lamar said, "It's Titus. He's back."

  Rob's mouth compressed, holding in his emotions. "Back?"

  "Yes. He's been through hell, but he'll live."

  "How much hell?"

  Lamar shrugged. "You'll have to ask him."

  "I mean, how bad is he?"

  "He's weak, dehydrated, disoriented, and bleeding from internal capillaries. He's in shock, and he might lose a couple of toes from frostbite."

  "Christ."

  "Not quite, but he'll work that angle, I'm sure." Lamar smiled, hoping that Rob would join him.

  He didn't. Rob shook his head, trying to track this news. "It's only been ten days."

  A flock of techs were thumping down the hall, and Lamar waited for them to pass out of earshot. "Time is different in the adjoining region. Remember? And he's been adrift in space for several days."