Quantum Shadows

by L. E. Modesitt Jr.

  “Let the shadowed one enter.” The disembodied command hung in the air before the red lacquered doors.

  Then the center door opened, and the three guards inclined their heads, just slightly, as Corvyn walked through the door, which closed behind him. The small hall was empty, except for a dais holding a simple wooden throne, with cushions of golden yellow. Corvyn’s eyes flickered briefly to the black trident burned into the stone wall above the throne. He was less than surprised.

  A slender figure in green stood below the dais and turned, watching as Corvyn approached.

  Corvyn stopped a yard away and offered a head bow. “Thank you for seeing me, honored one.”

  “For a raven of power, we could do no less.” The Laozi’s eyes sparkled in amusement. “Are you the true Raven? Caishen has some doubts.”

  “Those who count often doubt that which cannot yet be counted, even if by the time it can be counted the cost would be ruinous.” Corvyn shrugged. “What is the true raven? The red raven of the Zhou? The raven who survived Archer Yi?”

  The Laozi laughed. “You answer my questions with questions.”

  “Isn’t that life? If you say that I am Yangwu, then am I not?”

  The Laozi’s smile faded. “The raven is known for filial gratitude. What gratitude have you shown?”

  “I’ve always been true to the vision of our distant forebears who founded Heaven after the last Fall. Is there any greater gratitude?”

  “One of the few true sayings of the son of the white god,” replied the Laozi.

  “The one about many mansions?”

  “There are many paths to the way and the truth. I am not telling you anything you have not known far longer than I have, ancient one. I am a guide to the way, not the way. If the legends are correct, you also are a guide, of sorts, turning those who think they are gods, the incarnation of god, or merely the voice of their god, from paths better not trod.” The Laozi half turned and glanced up to the trident. “Is that why you are here?”

  “That is one reason. There may be others that I have yet to find out. There have been tridents burned into sacred structures or books in Marcion, Nauvoo, Yerusalem, Jannah, and Los Santos, and now here. There have also been two Valkyries murdered … and a few attempts on me.”

  “Attacks on ravens are unwise. So are attacks on nature as it is and should be. That has not stopped many from such unwise acts. Or from the price they pay, and the prices others pay for allowing such attacks.”

  “What are your thoughts on the matter?” asked Corvyn.

  “The attacks are meant to force a reaction. They are an attempt to bring change,” observed the Laozi. “Who thinks they would benefit from change? Who would be willing to take such a risk? For what purpose?”

  “I don’t see Lucian seeking change, nor you. I don’t see the Prophet of Nauvoo willing to take such a risk. I don’t see the Judaics as united enough.”

  “The Poetics burn for change, but they contend among themselves about which vision related by which relative of the Prophet is the one that should prevail. They also lack the capability to make such a change.”

  “In the past, they’ve had enough capability to destroy worlds,” Corvyn observed. “They could regain that capability, as they often have.”

  “That time has passed … given certain shadows.”

  “That still leaves half the hegemons,” Corvyn pointed out. “Mostly in the north.”

  “Then you will be heading to Tian next?”

  “It’s the closest from here.” Corvyn paused, then said, “I asked about a singer who was using song to unite people in belief. Caishen said he found Keifeng and your towns and lands … less than welcoming.”

  “Caishen is not fond of music that has been perverted from harmony with the world and nature.”

  “Or songs that have not been come by honestly and paid for by the singer?”

  “That is also so. Then there are our people. It takes more than musical slogans and simplistic hymns to move the people of Keifeng.”

  Then they’re unlike a great many people throughout the tragedy that’s human history. “You’re fortunate indeed. Where is he trying to move people now? Do you know?”

  “The village is just across the Mekong east of Sunyata and some thirty milles north.”

  “That’s an … interesting location, rather far south for a village of belief or rather closer to the center of Heaven than one would suspect. I would have thought that the Disciple of the Twin Masters would have … taken notice.”

  “We have entertained similar thoughts, but if Zijuan has allowed such … it must be for some great example of moral improvement.” While the Laozi’s voice was mild, the ironic tone was there, if just barely.

  “Moral improvement is often a matter of perspective,” replied Corvyn.

  “It could be phrased so.”

  Corvyn saw no point in pursuing that with the Laozi. The information appeared to be true, and in Laozi’s interest for Corvyn to find it so. “What about the poetess? A principality told me that she made little impact in Baiyin.”

  “She had some effect. That is because she does not argue against nature. Like the winds, she came, and she went. She’s likely in Tian. She left here weeks ago.”

  Corvyn doubted that the poetess was as fleeting as the winds, but he had no facts to back that feeling, and therefore, he only said, “It is hard for one poet or poetess to change a land, especially one so populous as yours.”

  “The land belongs to the way, not to me,” the Laozi replied. “Also, the lands of Tian are now more populous. Perhaps due to efforts at moral improvement … or other factors.”

  “How will the poetess fare there?”

  “Less well than here, if I had to judge. In Tian, harmony with nature is only a goal when convenient and otherwise merely afforded lip service.”

  “Oh?” Corvyn knew that full well, but would like to hear what the current Laozi had to say.

  “What we believe is similar in many ways. We do not change what functions well, and we change what does not. That is why we speak the language that proved most useful and not the one of our revered and most distant ancestors.” The Laozi paused. “We are more concerned that desire serves nature, and not the other way around, which is what I have seen most recently in Tian.” He shrugged, then added, “Most other beliefs subsume too much to desire.”

  “The Maid does not.”

  “No. There are other problems there.”

  Such as the fact that she is a woman. “I would suspect as much.”

  “Are not all Ravens suspicious?”

  “So it’s been said by some. Nine sun ravens were not, though,” Corvyn pointed out.

  “Then you must be the tenth.” A pause followed. “What else do you wish from me?”

  “Not to change the position of the lands of the Tao, no matter what is threatened or offered.”

  “Of whom else have you made a similar request?”

  “No one else. Until I came to Keifeng, I did not know how serious matters could become.”

  “You think one of them will risk triggering the Lances of Heaven?”

  If limited to the Lances alone, that possibility might be survivable; what the renegade hegemon, or conceivably, even the chief of a town or city of belief, had in mind appeared to be much worse. But Corvyn only said, “I don’t think there’s any doubt that one of them would trigger the Lances if they could. I just don’t know which one. Who do you think might?”

  “Those who believe that physical power is the way to understanding, all the while proclaiming the opposite.” The Laozi’s expression was wry. “Either of the Christos followers. Possibly Shiva. Zijuan is less likely, but lately…”

  Corvyn smiled. “We have similar concerns.”

  “Shadowy Skeptics are not that far from the Tao.”

  Corvyn supposed not, but there was no point in saying so. “I thank you for your time.” He offered a considered head bow.

  “May your sh
adow carry you safely.” The Laozi bowed in return.

  Then Corvyn stepped back before turning and departing.

  Once outside the audience hall, he entered the shadows and quickly slipped back to the Zhongzhou Imperial. There was little point in remaining in Keifeng, and he needed to be on his way to Tian.

  In Heaven’s great and gloried space,

  the raven flies to life’s embrace.

  34

  So late in the afternoon that Corvyn could just as easily have called it early evening, he saw a sign at the intersection with a well-traveled road to the south. The sign read WAZHAPING. The name seemed as though it should be familiar, but Corvyn could not remember why. As much because he hated not remembering as needing to find an inn or hotel for the night, he turned toward the large town that seemed to nestle beneath a line of hills running roughly north and south. As he rode past neat, small houses that continued into the town on smaller and smaller plots of land, although each seemed to have a walled garden in the rear, he saw long stone structures rising from the base of the hill beyond the town nearly to the top, and each of those structures was surrounded by solar collectors.

  As he saw the solar-electric dragon kilns, he immediately recalled where he had seen the name—the renowned Wazhaping Celadon porcelain. Since he had never been in the town where the ware was fired, he excused his lapse of memory—slightly.

  Because he wanted to learn more, he bypassed the larger inn in the center of the town, and chose a smaller one closer to the dragon kilns, appropriately named, he hoped, the Potter’s Rest. He secured the electrobike outside the inn and walked inside into a very modest reception area. The clerk could not conceal a frown.

  Corvyn smiled, not in amusement, but because there was a restaurant, or public room, with an entrance to the right of the reception area, with quite a few men and women inside, although a quick glance told Corvyn that men tended to be at one table and women at another, suggesting that the public room was a gathering place for kiln workers. He hoped so, but returned his attention to the clerk.

  “Honored sir?”

  “You do have rooms for the night? Just tonight?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Excellent.” Corvyn handed over his card.

  “Ah … we do have a small suite, honored sir.”

  “That would be even better.”

  The clerk hid a smile of relief as he handed over an actual metal key with an inscribed “B” upon it. “On the second level at the end away from the public room.”

  “My electrobike”—Corvyn gestured—“will be all right there?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Thank you.” Corvyn returned to the bike and extracted his two cases, then secured the bike in more than one fashion before returning and making his way up the wide stairs just beyond the public room. At the top of the stairs, he turned left and made his way to the end. The key did indeed open the door with the stylized greenish-gray porcelain “B” on the door.

  Corvyn opened the door, wondering what “a small suite” meant in the Potter’s Rest. Once inside, he studied the modest sitting room, then smiled. The “sitting room” was in essence a gaming room, dominated by a four-sided table that could be converted to a hexagonal table, although there was a leather settee against the wall, and a large sideboard. He moved into the bedchamber, which contained an overlarge bed, a small dresser, and two side tables with a padded bench at the foot of the bed … and a ceiling mirror.

  Corvyn laughed softly and put his cases in the small closet, where he shielded them in shadows, an act that would not be caught by whatever surveillance system was in operation. He washed up quickly, then left the suite and made his way down to the public room, for that was certainly what it was.

  No one was directing anyone to tables, so he took a small table against the wall, since all the corner tables were large and already filled. He had barely seated himself at the dark wooden table with clean polished wood bare of scratches or dents, when a serving woman appeared.

  “Drinks … or food and drinks?” Her voice was pleasant, her smile professional. Her dark brown hair was pulled back, and she wore a clean brown tunic that might once have shimmered, but was only smooth now.

  “Food and drinks. What’s the best drink?”

  “Do you want potency or taste?”

  “How about a little potency and an excellent taste?”

  “The golden lager.”

  “What’s the best dish to go with it?”

  “I’d suggest the pan-fried noodles with crayfish and vegetables. That or the pork dumplings.”

  “I’ll try the lager and the noodles.”

  “I’ll have your lager in a moment.” She moved away swiftly, avoiding the roving hand of a younger man at the adjoining table.

  At the table behind him, two older men with worn faces and black hair were talking quietly. Corvyn used the shadows to listen.

  “… is a difference between a body and its attributes. Your pots are bodies; their attribute is ugliness.”

  “And those flat circles you call platters are beautiful? Besides, ugliness or beauty is not an attribute, properly speaking. The celadon green is a characteristic or an attribute. How you see the combination of form and color is a judgment on those attributes. The attributes exist independent of our judgments.”

  Corvyn managed not to frown. He hadn’t expected that kind of conversation in the public room of an inn so close to the kilns of a pottery works.

  “… might be, but the judgment affects the attributes … can’t make beauty if you’re thinking ugly…”

  Corvyn stopped listening as the server returned with a tall crystal stein filled with a golden liquid. He offered his card.

  She scanned it. “The meal’s in the scan, sir.” Then she was gone, winding through the tables in the direction of the kitchen.

  Corvyn decided to listen in on three women, two tables away.

  “… all men know how to do is to make things…”

  “… more than things…”

  “… the way some of them do it … it’s things…”

  “… They do what they think matters and try to convince us that they know more than we do…”

  “… and you try to let them know that you know more…”

  “Just sometimes.”

  Corvyn heard a hint of a smile in those words, then shifted his attention back to the two older men.

  “Of course the world will end. All worlds end, but the universe beyond Heaven … it’s a Moebius snake swallowing its tail, and the tail is the end of time.”

  “Meaning that time never ends?”

  “Why should it? Because some teacher or god says so?”

  “We have a beginning and an end. Worlds and stars do. How can the universe be different?”

  “What we’re made of doesn’t end. Only the pattern that’s us ends.”

  “… never convince me of that…”

  Corvyn didn’t quite shake his head, but he was glad when the server brought his steaming platter. He ate slowly, finding the noodles much better than he expected and the crayfish better than tasteless. The lager helped.

  He kept eating and listening, catching phrases as the public room began to empty.

  “… time to head home…”

  “… nothing much there but an empty room…”

  “… better than the full room waiting for me…”

  “… too many folks make themselves who they are by what they’re opposed to, rather than by what they’re for…”

  “… all your big statements won’t throw a pot or paint a faultless slip…”

  “… throw a better pot than the Laozi, or any hegemon…”

  Corvyn was certain of that, and almost nodded.

  The server reappeared. “You need anything else, sir?”

  “No, thank you.” Corvyn paused just slightly. “Did you ever work in the pottery works?”

  “Never did. Pots and vases and even porcelain flowers are a
ll the same. People aren’t. That be all for you, sir?”

  “That’s all, thank you.”

  As she moved away, Corvyn thought just of the people—and powers—he encountered on his journey. For all the similarities of ceramics, there was also a great variety, from ugly to beautiful and in between. Are people any different?

  He took a last bite of the noodles, leaving a good half of what he was served, then swallowed the last drops of the golden lager before standing. Only a few scattered tables still held patrons, the others having had their after-work letdown or refreshment before returning to whatever they called home.

  As he left the public room, Corvyn smiled to himself. If those he’d overheard were any indication, the people in Wazhaping had ideas, possibly so many that they agreed on little … and that might be why the town would remain as it had been and was, a town in a not-quite-obscure corner of Keifeng that produced ceramics both functional and beautiful, with the works of the crafters’ hands far more likely to outlast their ideas.

  But then, throughout time, for a favored few, the objects they create outlast their names and ideas, and for another small group, their ideas and names outlast them, but most people leave neither beautiful objects nor beautiful and worthwhile ideas.

  Corvyn returned to the room, where he not only bolted the door, but added a few precautions of his own, although he doubted their necessity. Whoever might be watching was bound to be bored and disappointed.

  All thoughts turned black, feathered and unshod,

  the raven flies against the unknown god.

  35

  A day after leaving Wazhaping, Corvyn woke early and glanced around the bedroom of the small suite in the Hotel Hou Hei in Tian, only several blocks from the Great Square and the Hall of the Analects that dominated the square, and indeed, Tian. Although Tian was a river city, unlike Keifeng, its boundaries proper more resembled a rhombus, so that the city only extended perhaps some twenty-five milles along the Yangtze River.