The server half filled each glass, then departed.
“It’s not as good as you’d hoped,” offered Hu Mei.
“No, but it will do.” Corvyn took a small swallow of the Carmenére.
“What do you want to know?” she asked.
“How many times did Shui Rong warn you to stay off the square?”
“Just once before.”
“But you risked it because that’s the one place where men would think a vixen wouldn’t be?”
Hu Mei nodded, holding her wineglass, but not drinking.
“And you’re afraid of fading?”
“That’s not a danger yet.”
This time Corvyn was the one to nod. “Is Shui Rong the only immortal who’s in Baiyin all the time?”
“He is the city god.”
“Have others visited?”
Hu Mei shrugged. “If they have, I’ve never felt them.”
“Then Shui Rong has been gone more often lately?”
She frowned. “How did you know?”
“I just did.” Because you chanced the square. “You’re one of the last vixens, aren’t you? In the lands of Tao, that is?”
The hint of brightness in her reddish-brown eyes confirmed that, even before she murmured, “I think so. There are few in Tian, as well.”
“How long have you been here?”
“I don’t know.”
That also did not surprise him. “How have things changed in Baiyin?”
She did not reply.
Corvyn waited.
The server returned with the appetizers and a small plate for each of them.
Hu Mei waited.
Corvyn gestured to her, and she then served herself several of the rabbit bits in the hot bean sauce.
Corvyn added several to his plate, as well as one of the pan-fried dumplings. After several bites, he said, “You were going to tell me how things have changed in Baiyin.”
“They feel different. They smell different. There’s more of a smell of fear. I don’t know how else to say it.”
“The young strong men are … more desperate, perhaps?”
She tilted her head, as if considering his words, then nodded abruptly.
“Is Shui Rong more restless, wandering the city more?”
“I’ve felt him in more places.”
By the time the server returned, Hu Mei had finished the rabbit bits and shown little interest in the dumplings or the mushrooms. She had drunk a bit more of the wine, and she smiled as the platters with the duck appeared.
Corvyn sampled the duck. It was better than the wine, and he took several bites before speaking again, noting that Hu Mei was definitely enjoying the duck. “Have you run across a singer with a lute-like guitar? Or heard anyone speak of him?”
A look of puzzlement crossed her face, a visage narrower than that of most women.
“Any time in the past several years?” Corvyn added, doubting that she had, but knowing that there was no harm in asking.
“No. I might have heard if one had been here.”
“Because you frequent places where there are many young men?”
Her face flushed slightly, but her eyes met his. “It’s better if I take only a little from many. Then no one is unhappy or suspects.”
“I imagine you’ve made many young men happy for an evening.”
“Until the poetess came.”
That surprised Corvyn, although he did not reveal such. “The poetess?”
“She stood by the river and recited poems.”
“When?”
“It must have been a year ago.”
“What did she look like?”
“She must be old indeed. Her hair had silver in it. I’ve never seen that. Her skin was almost as dark as mine.”
“Do you remember any of what she said?”
“Only a few words. There was one phrase about…” Hu Mei frowned and paused, then said, “‘Well-worn welcome words twisting souls and minds.’ She also said something about men lost in lust call it love because they must.” Hu Mei smiled. “I remember that because it’s so true.”
From those words, especially after what little Corvyn had glimpsed of the poetess, she wouldn’t seem linked to the power behind the tridents, except he’d always thought there was some connection because she and the singer had seemingly become more visible at the same time as the tridents had appeared. Her possibly not being connected concerned him, because it suggested another power’s involvement, and the more powers that were involved, the more the dangers of a loss of control that could lead to another Fall. “Why did that change what you could do?”
Hu Mei shook her head. “She made me think … But … I still had … to do … some … or…”
“You’d fade back into what you had been?”
Hu Mei gave the smallest of nods.
“What else did she make you think about?”
Again, Hu Mei did not answer immediately.
Corvyn took a little more wine and then refilled both wineglasses, not that he had to add much to her glass, then said, quietly, “That you could be so much more … if only…”
Her face sharpened, and her words were tight, low bites in the quiet. “So many girls … they see nothing … they want for nothing … they only do as little as they can…”
“You think that’s unfair?”
“Life is unfair. One like me … I can’t change it…”
Corvyn understood what she was not saying, that she struggled on the edge of being, just to hang on to what she had almost become.
“We’ll get back to that … later. What else do you remember about the poetess?”
“She saw me. Everything was clearer after that.”
He nodded. “Do you think any of the others who listened to her felt that way?”
“Some of the women … I think. The men…” She shook her head.
That clarified some matters for Corvyn … and complicated others. “Is there anything else?”
“She looked determined, but there was a sadness there.”
“And?”
“That was all.”
Corvyn had the feeling that Hu Mei was not hiding anything. “Thank you.” He looked at her empty platter and grinned. “For someone who wasn’t hungry…”
“I lied. Thank you for dinner.”
“You’re welcome. Would you like dessert?”
“No, thank you. I still don’t have a need for sweets. Or a desire.” The last three words were added quickly.
“Then we can leave.”
“What else … do you have in mind?”
“Nothing,” he lied. “You told me everything you could about what I wanted to know.” Those words were truthful. He gestured to the server, who immediately moved to the table. “That will be all.” He lifted his card.
She scanned it, and Corvyn added more than a reasonable amount to the total. Then he rose.
Moments later, the two stood outside the River Pearl.
“Do you need somewhere to stay? Or do you have a place?” Besides a den?
“I have a room.”
“Then you have credit, and you exist in Heaven?”
She nodded. “Barely.”
“Hand me your card.”
Her face froze.
Corvyn laughed softly. “You should know by now that I intend you no harm.”
She handed him the card, gingerly.
He took it and touched it to his, then used the shadows to make the transfer. He handed the card back. “Go to a town near Keifeng, but not in it.” He touched her slightly, with the shadows, in a particular way.
She shivered as the shadows accomplished their task.
“You didn’t…” Fear again clouded her face.
“No. You’ll live as long as you would have, except you’re now the lowest of principalities, rather than a barely tolerated half spirit, half woman.”
“But … why me?”
“Let’s say … just because.” Because you
’ve existed too long in fear and longing … and because you’ll make life more interesting wherever you go. Now. She would also, in time, learn that getting her heart’s desire—and more—required much more than she considered. If she didn’t, of course, she wouldn’t survive. Corvyn hoped she would learn.
He gestured. “Don’t stay in Baiyin. Not even for a few days.” He knew he was repeating what he said earlier, but it was necessary. “You need to be unknown, completely unknown, while you figure things out.”
“How do you…”
“Once upon a time … I had to learn what you need to learn.” He smiled, as he confirmed that she was definitely more than merely human. “Good night.”
He watched as she made her way along the street to the northwest. Then he turned to walk back to the Inn of the River’s Happiness.
The raven scorns, with other birds,
the wings of white and holy words.
30
Corvyn stood in the west wing of the Musée des Beaux Arts, looking at the three-figure sculpture by Maria diCassatti—Icarus, with a horrified expression on his face as he realizes that the wax in his wings is melting, that the feathers are coming loose, and that he is falling; sun-eyed Apollo in his chariot suspended above, his visage contemptuous, as if suggesting a mortal youth belongs not in the realm of the gods; and the bearded ancient-testament version of Jahweh observing sternly, as if to suggest that the youth deserves what he is getting, if not a great deal more.
“Flight and Faith” was the title of the triptych, which was what Corvyn considered the work, even if it was not technically that, given that the three figures were sculptures and not joined altar boards. He doubted that most of those who came to the museum, the only one of its kind on Ganymede, would appreciate the artistry, from the depiction of the semi-clad Icarus’s muscles struggling to keep the wings moving, to the dispassionate arrogance on Apollo’s face, and then the unforgiving sternness of Jahweh’s countenance.
Only a handful of others stood in the gallery with Corvyn, most of them likely Belters with a few hours to kill, except for the two students who were studying the triptych as if they had some sort of assignment to report on it and the older woman who was trying to sketch the three figures on a lightscreen.
At that moment, shouts and at least one scream shattered the comparative silence of the gallery.
Corvyn turned to see five figures clad entirely in silver—silver singlesuits and hoods, silver-gray gloves, as well as silver face coverings, each a cross between mask and veil that revealed little more than the eyes. The de facto uniforms identified them as Pentecostal Soldiers of the Faith. Four of the five carried stunners, the fifth a heavy sonic disruptor.
“All of you,” snapped the first man, “back against the wall.”
Even before Corvyn or any of the others could comply, a tall woman in the dark blue of museum staff appeared at the other end of the gallery and strode toward the group.
“What are you doing here?” Her voice was firm and calm.
“Destroying all decadent and blasphemous salaryman pretensions at art,” replied the leader.
“This art isn’t yours to destroy,” the woman replied. “You should leave immediately.”
The leader fired his stunner.
The museum staffer didn’t even have time to look surprised as she pitched forward, oh so slowly.
Corvyn had the sickening feeling that the stunner’s setting was lethal.
“The rest of you! Against the wall.”
Corvyn moved toward the wall, if at an angle so that he would be closer to the man who had given the orders. The others joined him, the two students last of all, obviously bewildered by the appearance of the PSF commandos.
The commando with the disruptor set it on the floor, quickly focused it, then touched a stud. The figure of Icarus expanded, cracked, and then collapsed into fragments of rose marble. Next came the figure of Apollo, followed by that of Jahweh. Even the black marble base of the triptych was cracked and ruined.
From elsewhere in the museum, or perhaps from elsewhere in the city, came the sounds of sirens and alarms, loud enough that Corvyn knew all too well that the attack on the museum was but a fraction of what was happening.
In that moment when the leader was partly distracted, Corvyn attacked, moving fast enough to paralyze the leader with his first blow and kill him with the second.
Then there was only blackness.
To see beyond the words and sights
is how the raven guides his flights.
31
Corvyn’s sleep was both deep and disturbed, and he woke early, aware of nightmares, the details of which he could not recall, only that they had been disturbing. He took a long hot shower, which helped with the residual soreness, and then dressed quickly, after which he made his way down to the main level of the inn, where he was the first to breakfast in the small dining room. He dragged out eating the breakfast noodles, and slowly sipped his way through several cups of tea before walking, slowly and carefully, to Custom Transport, where he inspected and took a trial drive on his new electrobike before making the final payment. Even the holder for a water bottle and the bottle were as he specified.
In turn, he rode it back to the Inn of the River’s Happiness, where he loaded it with his new clothing before departing. Then he disabled three of the four miniature tracking devices, which he located by following minute energy flows.
The sun was higher above the dark green hills to the west of Baiyin than he would have preferred, but there was no help for that. With that white sun shining through the pink sky and at his back, he rode to the river road, joining it on the northwest side of Zhengyi Square. For the next half hour, his progress through the congestion of Baiyin was slow, almost torturous. In the midst of that orderly quagmire, he disabled the fourth tracking device, but it was almost another hour before he reached the far side of the small city, where the volume of bicycles, electrobikes, and small vans dwindled away to a modestly moving line of assorted vehicles heading steadily away from the densely clustered buildings in the middle of Baiyin and toward the small patches of intensely cultivated land on the low rolling hills to the north of the river road.
With each mille that he covered, the traffic thinned, but he knew it would never be less than a steady flow, given the population of the Taoist lands and the necessary decentralization of essential manufactures, even with replicators.
Should he have opted for another form of transport? He shook his head. Electrobikes were ubiquitous in the more northerly reaches of Heaven, and even the most sophisticated sensors in the Pearls of Heaven could not tell one rider in blue or gray from another, not without the aid of the locators he had disabled, whereas any more “secure” transport would be more easily discerned. At this point, Corvyn preferred to keep matters as simple as possible, even though those opposing him clearly had other ideas.
So far it was likely that his new sub-identity remained unknown to any of the hegemons, but there remained the singer and the poetess, whose roles in the subterranean intrigues among and between the hegemons of the Decalivre were anything but clear, as well as what role Ares played.
The air felt fresher well away from the city, and the silence of the electrobike allowed him to hear, if occasionally, the owl-like call of collared doves, similar to and yet unlike Gabriel’s doves, for all that they reminded him at times of aerial rats who tended to drive out other avians, even in Heaven.
Four hours passed before Corvyn felt the need for refreshment. From the map he scanned, the next town of modest size was Qikou, a place of which he had no recollection, suggesting that he never lingered there on past journeys. As he neared Qikou, the low hills flanking the north side of the river became more uneven and rockier, with none of the meticulously maintained agricultural terraces he had previously passed, but the river itself was slightly wider, and the current appeared less turbulent.
Before long he saw piers extending into the yellow-green water, sever
al with cargo barges moored there, with a squat tugboat tied up at the adjoining pier. He also saw that Qikou was an ancient town, even by the standards of Heaven, its houses and other structures built largely of sand-colored blocks of stone only roughly smoothed, although the masonry appeared to be precisely laid. The wooden window trim and the doors varied from building to building, but all the colors were bright, unlike what he had seen in Baiyin.
Feeling that any eating establishment near the piers featured fish, he turned onto a road headed toward the hillier west side of Qikou, where he found a jiaozi shop and stopped, carefully securing the electrobike to the old-style bike stock, not only with the standard lock, but also with a hint of shadow, before entering the small eatery. A girl, most likely barely out of school, ushered him to a small wall table, one of the few available seats, despite the lack of bicycles or electrobikes outside, suggesting that people living nearby largely frequented the restaurant.
In the end he decided on pork dumplings with stir-fried bok choy and tea, and the girl server never gave him a curious look. The meal was satisfactory, the tea better than he expected, and a half hour later he was back on the river road to Keifeng.
There is something to be said for less selective restaurants. At least, if he wished not to be noticed.
By late afternoon, it became obvious that he had drastically misjudged the time it would take to reach even the outskirts of Keifeng, a city stretching more than forty milles along the Yellow River, so he reconsidered his options. In the end, he decided to stop for the night in a Gyumgo, a town far smaller than Luoyang.
He turned off the river road onto a street that seemed to lead to a better part of town, where the walls were of a smoother brown stone, only to discover that with every block he rode the walls seemed higher. Then they ended, and he entered what appeared to be a park with very old, well-tended evergreens that reminded him of grown bonsai lining the winding ways. He seemed to be the only one around, and he soon realized that he was on the grounds of an old temple, set on a rise in the middle of the extensive and well-kept gardens.
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