Days of seemingly unending hard riding over terraced hills that had come to seem unending left him tired even if the electrobike had been doing the work. Still, that had been far less tiring than traveling that far through the shadows would have been, and he preferred to save the shadows for times of greater necessity, because, over time, using them exacted a price, if not so high as others he had paid and would likely pay again.
After showering, dressing, and arranging for two of his outfits to be cleaned, he checked the local news through the hotel system, again. He confirmed that the poetess, whose name appeared to be Erinna, at least that was the name she was using, had been giving readings in the parks at noontime and was scheduled to give another such reading at noon in Beihei Park, close to three milles from the hotel. Corvyn considered the matter, and whether to use the electrobike, walk, or use the shadows to cover the distance.
Should you visit Zijuan in the meantime? He frowned. Reason told him that he should; emotion suggested that it might be better to wait to make an appearance in the Hall of the Analects until after he observed Erinna and discerned who she might be and what power she might represent. That might also give him more information with which to deal with the Disciple of the Twin Masters.
Given that matters usually worked out less disastrously when he followed his feelings, an irony some of the First would not have appreciated, Corvyn decided to walk to Beihei Park. He had the time. He had not been in Tian for many years, and walking would give him a better feel for the city and what had changed and what had not. Also, it would be somewhat less tiring than using the shadows and would not alert any of Zijuan’s minion principalities, or others, who monitored the shadows.
Corvyn stepped out of the hotel into bright morning sunlight, filtered by the semitransparent bluish glassy impermite roof over the entry area of the hotel, then turned east, walking for a block before turning south on Qianmen. More had changed than he had anticipated. For one thing, he noticed that, while there was no apparent increase in the presence of police patrollers, the uniforms had changed from pale green shirts and dark green jackets and trousers with red piping to solid black uniforms with a brighter red piping. There was also a sense of what Corvyn could only call “sharpness,” possibly because the streets and wide sidewalks were not only clean, but seemed to lack even the smallest of imperfections or dings or dents. The same was true of the array of buildings flanking the street, and although the colors differed, all of them shimmered as if recently built or refurbished, and there seemed to be more shining metallic trim.
Almost militant in appearance. And that bothered Corvyn. Perhaps you’ve gotten lazy or too tired when you should have been traveling more.
The men and women walking swiftly along the ways seemed little changed, but Corvyn noticed that there were no street carts or vendors at all, and that represented a great difference. In the past, such vendors had been limited, but allowed.
While he did see some of those walking who might have been from Keifeng, he did not see anyone attired in the gray of the Skeptics, or the multicolored garments of Varanasi, or the looser tunics and trousers of Sunyata, all of the other nearer lands. He did not expect to see anyone in the greens of the Maid, nor did he. He did see an occasional individual in the whites of Los Santos, and one or two individuals in garment styles he failed to recognize, most likely from towns of belief, or the occasional city of belief without a hegemon, although not from Nauvoo or Ilium.
He kept walking, not quite as swiftly as those hurrying around him, but he had time, even though Qianmen was a long street. Beihei Park was at its southern end, which overlooked the Yangtze River, whose waters were a grayish blue in Tian, but turned brownish blue farther downstream after they mixed with those of the Mekong River.
As he proceeded southward, the shops and the buildings which contained them became somewhat smaller, if no less crisp and clean, and the walks became more crowded and the shoppers less in a hurry. More of those he saw were younger, wearing slightly more relaxed apparel with a greater range of color, but the colors were subdued and certainly not flashy. The obvious outsiders remained few.
In time, Corvyn reached the north entrance to Beihei Park, where he stopped at a kiosk just inside the entry, and asked the blue-uniformed woman there, “Can you tell me where the poetry reading will be?”
“The poetry reading?” She consulted a small screen, then said, “That will be in the Juniper Amphitheatre at noon, sir.” She pointed to the map on the counter. “Just take the left-hand walk. It’s less than half a mille.”
“Thank you.” Corvyn studied the map for a moment, then continued into the park, taking the left walk, paved in a light brown stone. He passed several small gardens and a pond with what appeared to be a miniature city on an island in the middle, but he had no idea what past or mythical city the miniature represented. After the pond garden, he came to an open area that might have been a field for some sort of sport, but at the moment, it was vacant except for two women, each with children, walking slowly across the grass.
He slowed his pace as he neared the Juniper Amphitheatre, which could easily have been called a grove theatre, because the five rows of separated wooden benches were each on a different level, surrounded by trees except directly behind the benches. It was still almost a quarter hour before noon, and close to a hundred people, largely younger women and a few older men, already sat waiting.
Corvyn made his way to the end of the last bench on the right side at the highest level, where he stood for several moments, looking over the small crowd and the stage, a stone platform raised about half a meter above the stone pavement between the stage and the first row of benches. He seated himself, not that he wanted to but continuing to stand would have drawn more attention to himself. While neither his garb nor his complexion was outlandish by the standards of Tian, he knew that any who studied him in more than a cursory fashion would find him an outsider.
He waited, conscious that more and more women appeared, and before long, all the seats on the benches were taken, with close to a hundred others standing and waiting.
Just a few moments after noon, at one moment the small raised stage was empty, and the next, a woman seemingly walked from behind a tree just behind the stage and stepped up onto it. She wore bright green trousers and a matching jacket, left open to reveal a cream blouse, suggesting some link or affinity with the Maid. That could have been a deception, since she could have as easily been a sub-identity of Saraswati … except Saraswati had never been known for that kind of subterfuge. The poetess also carried an instrument that Corvyn recognized, but had never heard played—a lyre.
Her only prefatory words were, “Welcome to the reading.” Then she began, using the lyre.
“I’ll sing you songs of men, of women so courageous,
of faith and foibles often most outrageous,
and ask you riddling questions hard to comprehend
in hopes you’ll find an overbearing common trend…”
Corvyn listened, alert as to whether she enhanced her recitation/song in some manner through the shadows or other power. If she did, it was in some fashion he could not discern, yet he had the feeling that there was something more behind the words and the lyre.
“A woman brave sprang from her father’s brow,
with wisdom rare, she cautioned care, and how
the golden fruits for beauty’s greatest prize
would shred two empires into death and lies.
No matter that, the feckless hero said,
I’ll choose her, claim a queen, and leave well dead
those flowered heroes on a plain stained red…”
Corvyn swallowed silently at those words, fearing he knew all too well the identity of the poetess, and wondered why she’d taken the name of the lesser-known poetess from early years. At the same time, the others listening seemed captivated. He waited for the next poem/song.
“We see the iris bloom in spring,
the youngest
robins soon take wing,
the sunglow fades to evening light
and stars unchanging shine so bright …
relentless through time’s cold flight…”
Even before she finished that piece, Corvyn wondered just what would come next.
He didn’t have to wait that long.
“Men talk of love, of life for two,
but when it’s done, and he is through
the sheets so white, the blood so red,
forgotten praises he once said,
rutting men so lost in lust
call it love because they must…”
Corvyn had a growing feeling that the reading/recital was not going to conclude well, but he continued to listen and to watch the poetess intently.
“You sing your praises to the skies
to gods, to faiths all made by men,
yet women’s truths are held as lies,
debased as straight from evil’s den.
We’re sisters all in blood and light
and held in Heaven, bound so tight
in faulted faiths from failing flight
and spread across time’s endless night…”
Corvyn could sense a certain feeling, perhaps a growing anger from the women listening, and at the same time, not too far away, he also sensed a gathering force, but he wanted to hear—and see—how matters played out … in both senses of the word.
“We women sing and speak in rhythms so unheard,
we’ve fought and died when we’ve had little choice
in spoils procured or children’s deaths incurred,
but who in Heaven hears a woman’s voice?”
At that moment, an announcement thundered from behind Corvyn. “This part of the park is closed. This part of the park is closed.”
Corvyn turned his head to see men and women in black uniforms appearing behind him and from each side of the small amphitheatre, moving toward the group seated on benches.
The poetess looked directly at Corvyn with a fiery glint in those gray eyes, then stepped forward to a recently vacated bench and left a single sheet of paper. Then she vanished, so quickly that Corvyn failed to detect the interplay of shadow.
He hurried down to the bench and snatched the paper, calling upon the shadows himself as he saw a uniformed woman turning toward him and lifting a weapon. As he disappeared into the shadows he sensed the stunner bolts filling the area he had just departed.
Using the shadows, he returned to a moderately busy side street near his hotel, appearing close to the wall of a building, since he had no doubt that his rooms were fully monitored, and he preferred not to reveal anything he did not have to, at least for the present in Tian. He slipped the paper into an inside pocket of his jacket and walked swiftly in the direction of the hotel.
Once back in his room, he took out the single sheet, pausing as he recognized it was a poem, but equally important, that the document was actually flexible impermite. The words were a part of the impermite, and not merely placed upon it.
“She definitely made it hard to be destroyed.” He also wondered how many impermite copies circulated across the plateau of Heaven, then noticed that the poem/song had no title.
He immediately read it.
The threefold, eternal dream, conscious stream
Winds, falls, through all time, a deceiving seam …
Belief in posing honor, lying pride,
And humble faith, deities undeified.
Sequestered sensibilities serve ages
Of strident sycophantic sages,
Ensconced too easily in ivory cages
Their words all penned from puissant plundered pages.
Well-worn welcome words twisting souls and minds
To comfort true believers of all kinds
Weave their webs to warp space-time and define
The Fall as though it were gods’ great design.
Do deities die under Heaven’s sky,
Or merely deathless do persist and lie?
Their many mansions truthlessly defy
The single truths of those they deify.
O higher ones, tell us now, if you can,
Why of all the Ten, that nine are man?
Or will you declare, as it seems you must.
All stars in Heaven’s sky are distant dust?
There was no doubt in Corvyn’s mind just who the poetess was, and that she had strong concerns to have done what she had done. There was also no doubt that she had a slightly different agenda than did Corvyn, but her concerns were certainly not antithetical to his, unlike the elusive Bran Denu, whose movements suggested a far different set of motives.
Or is he merely a lure?
That was more than possible, Corvyn knew, but the singer’s name was so obviously suggestive that the power behind him might have considered the obvious as concealment and that bespoke a devious approach, not that Corvyn wasn’t already aware of that.
Before he set out to meet with Zijuan, there was one more task to deal with—to see if the netsystem had any information on a certain village of belief. First, he called up maps of the area mentioned by the Laozi, and, unsurprisingly, there was a modestly large village located right on the west bank of the Mekong River some thirty-three milles north of the ferry crossing connecting the segments of the main road from Tian to Sunyata. The maps did not provide any name, but Corvyn discerned that one road ran along the west side of the river from the ferry crossing to the town. There were also certain indications that the road was comparatively recent, such as the absence of tall vegetation nearby, and several bridges that appeared newer.
Corvyn nodded. A side trip to the village was definitely in order—with more than a few precautions. But first, he needed to visit Zijuan.
He decided to dispense with an indirect approach and used the shadows to cross the few blocks from the Hotel Hou Hei to the Hall of the Analects and the Great Hall within. Not surprisingly, Zijuan, the Disciple of the Twin Masters of Reason, was not in the Great Hall. Corwin simply followed the flow of power, and appeared in Zijuan’s modest private study, a teak-paneled chamber with bookcases on all sides, except for the carved stone frieze two meters wide directly behind the teak table desk and chair. Three books were stacked on one side of the otherwise clear table desk. All the books struck Corvyn more as a nod to tradition or simply an affectation, since none of those who held the position of Zijuan had been known as bibliophiles. Corvyn also sensed that the stone plaque at the top of the frieze with the intertwined symbols of the Twin Masters was new and covered an older plaque, into which a black trident had burned itself.
Behind the desk sat a man attired in a dark olive-green jacket and trousers. His complexion was honey-olive, and his glossy black hair was slicked back. Power radiated from him, so much that he was obviously Zijuan.
Corvyn stepped out of the shadows, but before he could speak, the other did.
“Shadowed one,” he said politely, but not subserviently, as if he had sensed Corvyn even before Corvyn emerged from the shadows, which he doubtless had.
“Honored Disciple of the Twin Masters.”
“What brings you here, so far from the lands of the Skeptics? Some concern of the Dark One of Helios?”
“You know better than that.” Corvyn smiled, even as he sensed and noted the amount of power mustered behind the antique teak bookcases. “He seldom deigns to involve himself in affairs beyond the lands of the Skeptics.”
“So it is said. What is said is not always what is, or what is believed. If not for the Dark One, then why are you here?”
“I’ve been following a certain poetess. I caught up with her, and before I could talk to her, your guards stopped her reading, and she vanished. Then your guards began to stun some of those who had been listening.”
“Ah, yes. The poetess. She was becoming disruptive to the social order.”
“By reading poetry?” asked Corvyn mildly.
“Words can be disruptive. Literature and art m
ust fit into society and must always unite and educate.”
“What about the pursuit of art for its own sake? Doesn’t art enrich life?”
“There is no such thing as art for art’s sake. Any art that is art has meaning, and those meanings have repercussions … as you well know.”
“Repercussions?” Corvyn probed. “Such as changing people’s beliefs?”
“I noticed that you also vanished immediately after the tool of the Misleading Maid disappeared.”
“It seemed advisable, given that your guards were armed.”
“Merely stunners. Not something one such as you need worry about. You never did say what your interest in the … tool of depravity happens to be.”
“She’s been reading her works in at least several lands of Heaven. I wanted to see why. From what I heard, she was offering a different viewpoint in her words.”
“She was fomenting disruption.”
“Questioning beliefs, you mean?”
“Belief is not a poem, nor a dinner party, nor words mouthed out of habit. Belief is a way of life. It is simple. It is only shadowed ones like you that make it complicated. So many forget that he who learns but does not believe is lost.”
“What about women? Are they lost, too?”
“You are trying to provoke me, shadowed one. That is not wise.”
“I’m actually curious,” Corvyn said, his voice pleasant. “I don’t see why a woman reading poetry requires suppression by armed guards.”
“That is because it is man’s and woman’s social being that determines their thinking, and the role of the Disciple is to ensure that all social being is in accord with the highest standards.”
“The standards written by the Twin Masters and interpreted by the Disciple.”
“Precisely. How can there be high standards otherwise? By nature, people are alike. In an ungoverned society they move apart, seeking advantage. Shared beliefs keep people closer together. Totally diverse beliefs have torn worlds apart…”
Quantum Shadows Page 24