Free Prince of Storms by Kay Kenyon Page B

Meanwhile, he broached the subject most immediately on his mind.
    â€œThe Tarig must go back to the Heart.”
    â€œYes.”
    A point of common interest at last. They both saw the Tarig as dangerous. Sending the lords back to the Heart couldn’t happen without Tindivir. In fact, everything now depended on the Jinda ceb. A troubling dependency.
    Quinn sent a messenger to the Palatine Hill, to tell the Tarig to prepare themselves. If the Tarig had a psychology complicated enough that they needed such preparation. No one, not even Tindivir, was quite sure.

    â€œAnd regarding Lord Inweer,” Quinn began at the next meeting with Tindivir. Anzi attended with him. The hut was not brightly lit; in that dimness, the room flickered with the muted glow from Tindivir’s life art. More forma had grown on the walls high above. “Would you object if Lord Inweer stayed among us?”
    Anzi darted a glance at him. He saw her distress; but he hadn’t decided about Inweer. This was an exploratory question.
    Tindivir sat a long time. Then he answered, “I will bring this to Manifest.”
    â€œI think this is my decision,” Quinn risked saying.
    â€œPerhaps,” Tindivir said, “it is not substantive, whether one more Tarig stays. A mass of them have already been allowed to escape.”
    Anzi changed the subject. “Have you brought my letter to Manifest, Tindivir?”
    â€œIt made no difference.”
    â€œI would like to apologize to Nistoth.”
    â€œNistothom.”
    â€œYes, to Nistothom.” Her old mentor had lost his status as Beautiful One and therefore had another syllable attached. In the matter of names, the shorter the name the higher the status.
    Tindivir said, “He understands you are sorry, Anzi. But you must understand, Nistothom erased his life art.”
    That hung heavily in the air, as though he’d said, he lost everything .
    Anzi paused. “So there is no point to anything I might say to Manifest.”
    â€œWords are unimportant, Ji Anzi.”
    Quinn bristled. Sometimes they are. It’s called communication.
    He wished she would stand up for herself, but he didn’t intervene. Anzi wanted to proceed slowly. She had evidently learned a bit about patience during her sojourn with the Jinda ceb—this Anzi who had always been impulsive and sometimes rash. He wasn’t sure this new prudence was a good thing; he wasn’t used to seeing passivity in her, although she had always been self-contained.
    He couldn’t help but say, “It’s not as though Nistothom, as a Beautiful One at the time, didn’t know what he was getting into. He could have refused Anzi.”
    Tindivir paused. “He had grown fond of Ji Anzi. She had pleaded with him. He should have taken more care. Nistothom does not speak against her.”
    It was the rest of them, on Nistothom’s behalf, who wanted to punish her. “No concept of pardon here?” Quinn snapped.
    Anzi put a hand on his arm. “Pardon is easy. But trust has been lost. That can’t be repaired.”
    â€œEver?”
    Tindivir watched this exchange with apparent interest. Anzi was speaking for them, perhaps doing a fairly good job.
    She answered, “One’s life art is the creation of a lifetime. They had five thousand days with me. That is a small portrait.” She left unsaid: A portrait with one ugly blot.
    Tindivir did not disagree.

    One of the first things the Jinda ceb did after building their hut was to find and cleanse the detonating particles attached to the tower of Ghinamid. Presumably their effort had disabled any military capability that the mSap had.
    Quinn wasn’t sorry to see the mSap disarmed. It had been remarkable that Helice Maki had ever conceived of using a machine sapient as a weapon .
    The mSap still had its uses, however. John Hastings was using it to assess Jinda ceb technology. He had already begun to work out how the Jinda