There was a moment’s silence, smoke swirled, and then they moved on, into the inner sanctum.
His wives were dead, his three sons missing. From outside he could hear the screams of his men as they died. It would be only moments before they broke into his rooms. Even so, he could not rush this thing.
Iron Mu had washed and prepared himself. Now he sat, his legs folded under him, his robe open, the ritual knife before him on the mat. Behind him his servant waited, the specially sharpened sword raised, ready for the final stroke.
He leaned forward, taking the knife, then turned it, holding the needle-sharp point towards his naked stomach. His head was strangely clear, his thoughts lucid. It was the merchant Novacek who had done this. It had to be. No one else had known enough. Even so, it did not matter. He would die well. That was all that was important now.
As he tensed, the door shuddered then fell open, the great locks smashed. Two Hei stood there, panting, looking in at him. A moment later a man stepped through, wearing the powder-blue uniform and chest patch of a Colonel. A filter-mask covered his lower face.
Iron Mu met the Colonel’s eyes, holding them defiantly. In this, his last moment, he felt no fear, no regret, only a clarity of purpose that was close to the sublime.
Nothing, not even the watching Hei, could distract him now.
A breath, a second, longer breath, and then…
The Colonel’s eyes dilated, his jaw tensed, and then he turned away, letting his Hei finish in the room. He shivered, impressed despite himself, feeling new respect for the man. Iron Mu had died well. Very well. Even so, it could not be known how Iron Mu had died. No. The story would be put out that he had cried and begged for mercy, hiding behind his wives. Because that was what the T’ing Wei wanted. And what the T’ing Wei wanted, they got.
Yes, but while he lived, Iron Mu’s death would live in his memory. And one day, when the T’ing Wei were no more, he would tell his story. Of how one of the great lords of the underworld had died, with dignity, meeting the darkness without fear.
Fat Wong stood by the door, bringing things to a close, thanking his fellow Bosses for coming. And as they left, he made each stoop and kiss the ancient banner.
It should have been enough. Yet when they were gone it was not elation he felt but a sudden sense of hollowness. This victory was not his. Not really his. It was like something bought.
He went across and stood there over the tiny pool, staring down into the water, trying to see things clearly. For a moment he was still, as if meditating, then, taking the letter from his pocket, he tore it slowly in half and then in half again, letting it fall. No. He would be beholden to no man, not even a Son of Heaven. He saw it now with opened eyes. Why had Li Yuan agreed to act, if not out of fear? And if that were so…
He took a long, deep breath, then, drawing back his sleeve, reached in, plucking the fish from the water until five of the bloated golden creatures lay there on the ledge, flapping helplessly in the hostile air.
His way was clear. He must unite the underworld. Must destroy his brothers one by one, until only he remained. And then, when that was done, he might lift his head again and stare into the light.
He looked down, watching the dying gasps of the fish, then turned away, smiling. His way was clear. He would not rest now until it was his. Until he had it all.
Li Yuan stood on the terrace, beneath the bright full circle of the moon, looking out across the palace grounds, conscious of how quiet, how empty the palace seemed at this late hour. No gardeners knelt in the dark earth beneath the trellises of the lower garden, no maids walked the dark and narrow path that led to the palace laundry. He turned, looking towards the stables. There, a single lamp threw its pale amber light across the empty exercise circle.
He shivered and looked up at the moon, staring at that great white stone a while, thinking of what Karr had said.
Standing there in the wavering lamplight, listening to the big man’s account, he had been deeply moved. He had not known – had genuinely not known – what was being done at Kibwezi, and, touched by the rawness of the man’s appeal, had given his promise to close Kibwezi and review the treatment of convicted terrorists.
He had returned to the reception, distracted by Karr’s words, disturbed by the questions they raised. And as he went amongst his cousins, smiling, offering bland politenesses, it had seemed suddenly a great pretence, a nothingness, like walking in a hall of holograms. The more he smiled and talked, the more he felt the weight of Karr’s words bearing down on him.
But now, at last, he could face the matter squarely, beneath the unseeing eye of the moon.
Until this moment he had denied that there was a moral problem with the Wiring Project. Had argued that it was merely a question of attitude. But there was a problem, for – as Tolonen had argued from the first – freedom was no illusion, and even the freedom to rebel ought – no, needed – to be preserved somehow, if only for the sake of balance.
Were it simply a matter of philosophy – of words – it might have been all right. But it was not. The population problem was real. It could not be simply wished away.
He looked down, staring at his hands – at the great iron ring on the first finger of his right hand. For men such as Kao Chen, a common phrase like ‘We are our masters’ hands’ had a far greater literal truth than he had ever imagined. And a far greater significance. For what was a man? Was he a choosing being, forging his own destiny, or was he simply a piece on the board, there to be played by another, greater than himself?
And maybe that was what had troubled him, more than the fate of the woman. That deeper question of choice.
He turned, looking back into his room, seeing Minister Heng’s report there on the desk where he had left it.
It was a full report on the ‘police action’ against the Big Circle Triad, a report that differed radically from the T’ing Wei’s official account. He sighed, the deep unease he had felt at reading the report returning. The Hei riot squads had gone mad down there. More than two hundred thousand had been killed, including many women and children.
Yes, and that was another argument in favour of wiring. If only to prevent such massacres, as ‘necessary’ as this one might have been.
He turned back, standing there a moment, the night breeze cool on his face.
The moon was high. He looked up at it, surprised, his perception of it suddenly reversed, such that it seemed to burn like a vast shining hole in the blackness of the sky. A big circle of death. He shivered violently and looked down, noting how its light silvered the gardens like a fall of dust.
Before today he had striven always to do the right thing, to be a good man – the benevolent ruler that Confucius bade him be – but now he saw it clearly. In this there was no right course of action, no pure solution, only degrees of wrongness.
And so he would make the hard choice. He would keep his word to Karr, of course. Kibwezi Station would be closed. As for the other thing, he had no choice. No real choice, anyway. The Wiring Project had to continue, and so it would, elsewhere, hidden from prying eyes. Until the job was done, the system perfected.
He sighed, turning his back on the darkness, returning inside. Yes. Because the time was fast coming when it would be needed.
Broken glass littered the terrace outside the guardhouse, glistening like frosted leaves in the moonlight. Nearby, the first of the bodies lay like a discarded doll, its face a pulp, the ragged tunic of its uniform soaked with blood. Through the empty window a second body could be seen, slumped forward in a chair, its head twisted at an unusual angle, the unblemished face staring vacantly at a broken screen.
Behind it, on the far side of the room, a door led through. There, on a bed in the rest room, the last of the bodies lay, naked and broken, its eyes bulging from its face, its tongue poking obscenely from between its teeth.
At the end of the unlit corridor, in the still silence of the signal room, the morph stood at the transmitter, its neutered body na
ked in the half-light. To one side, a hand lay on the desk like a stranded crab, the fingers upturned.
The morph tensed, the severed wrist of its left hand pressed against the input socket, the delicate wires seeking their counterparts, making their connections to the board, then it relaxed, a soft amber light glowing on the eye-level panel in front of it. There was a moment’s stillness and then a faint tremor ran through the creature. At the count of twelve it stopped, as abruptly as it had begun. The message had been sent.
It waited, the minutes passing slowly, its stillness unnatural, like the stillness of a machine, and then the answer came.
It shuddered, then broke connection, drawing its wrist back sharply from the panel, a strange sigh, like the soughing of the wind through trees, escaping its narrow lips.
Reaching across, it took the hand from where it lay and lined it up carefully against the wrist, letting the twelve strong plastic latches – six in the hand, six in the wrist – click into place. The hand twitched, the fingers trembling, then was still again.
It turned, looking out through the dark square of the window. Fifty ch’i away, at the edge of the concrete apron, was a wire fence. Beyond the fence was the forest. For a time it stood there, staring out into the darkness, then it turned, making its way through.
For the past few nights it had dreamed. Dreams of a black wind blowing from beyond; of a dark and silent pressure at the back of it. A dream that was like the rush of knowledge down its spine; that set its nerve ends tingling in a sudden ecstasy. And with the dream had come a vision – a bright, hard vision of a world beneath the surface of this world. Of a world ruled by the game. A game of dark and light. Of suns and moons. Of space and time itself. A game that tore the dark veil from reality, revealing the whiteness of the bone.
On the terrace it paused, considering. From Tao Yuan to Tashkent was six thousand li. If it travelled in the dark it could make eighty, maybe a hundred li a night for the first ten days or so. Later on, crossing the great desert, it could increase that, travelling in the heat of the day, when no patrols flew. With any luck it would be there in fifty days.
It smiled, recalling DeVore’s instructions. In Tashkent it would be met and given new papers. From there it would fly west, first to Odessa, then on to Nantes. From Nantes it would take a ship – one of the big ships that serviced the great floating Cities of the Mid-Atlantic. There it would stay a while, biding its time, working for the big ImmVac company of North America, putting down roots inside that organization, until the call came.
For a moment longer it stood there, like a silvered god, tall, powerful, elegant in the moonlight, then it jumped down, crossing the circle of light quickly, making for the fence and the darkness beyond.
DeVore looked up from the communications panel and stared out into the darkness of the Martian night. It was just after two, local time, and the lights of the distant City were low. Beyond them was a wall of darkness.
He stood, yawning, ready for sleep now that the message had come, then turned, looking across at the sleeping man.
Hans Ebert lay on the camp bed, fully clothed, his kit bag on the floor beside him. He had turned up four days back, scared, desperate for help, and had ended here, ‘rescued’ by DeVore from the Governor’s cells.
DeVore went across and stood there over the sleeping man, looking down at him. Ebert looked ill, haggard from exhaustion. He had lost a lot of weight and – from the smell of him – had had to rough it in ways he had never experienced before. His body had suffered, but his face was still familiar enough to be recognized anywhere in the system.
Well, maybe that was a problem, and maybe it wasn’t. A familiar face might prove advantageous in the days to come. Especially when behind that face was a young prince, burning with ambition and eager for revenge. And that was why – despite the obvious dangers – he had taken Ebert in. Knowing that what was discarded now might prove extremely useful later on.
He bent down, drawing the blanket up over Ebert’s chest, then turned away, looking outwards, conscious once more of the guards patrolling the frosted perimeter, the great, blue-white circle of Chung Kuo high above them in the Martian sky.
Chen crouched there on the mountainside, looking down the valley to where the dark, steep slopes ended in a flat-topped arrowhead of whiteness. It was like a vast wall, a dam two li in height, plugging the end of the valley, its surface a faintly opalescent pearl, lit from within. Ch’eng it was. City and wall.
The moon was high. Was a perfect circle of whiteness in the velvet dark. Chen stared at it a moment, mesmerized, held by its brilliant, unseeing eye, then looked down, his fingers searching amongst the ashes.
He turned, looking across at Karr, then lifted the shard of broken glass, turning it in his hand, remembering.
‘What is this place?’ Karr asked, coming closer, his face cloaked in shadow.
Chen stared at him a while, then looked away.
‘This is where it began. Here on the mountainside with Kao Jyan. We lit a fire, just there, where you’re standing now. And Jyan… Jyan brought a bottle and two glasses. I remember watching him.’
A faint breeze stirred dust and ash about his feet, carrying the scent of the Wilds.
He stood, then turned, looking north. There, not far from where they stood, the City began, filling the great northern plain of Europe. Earlier, flying over it, they had seen the rebuilt Imperial Solarium, which he had helped bomb a dozen years before. Chen took a long breath, then turned back, looking at the big man.
‘Did you bring the razor, as I asked?’
Karr stared at him fixedly a moment, then took the fine blade from his tunic. ‘What did you want it for?’
Chen met his eyes. ‘Nothing stupid, I promise you.’
Karr hesitated a moment longer, then handed him the razor. Chen stared at it a moment, turning it in the moonlight, then tested it with the edge of his thumb. Satisfied, he crouched again, and, taking his queue in the other hand, cut the strong dark hair close to the roots.
‘Kao Chen…’
He looked up at the big man, then, saying nothing, continued with the task. Finished, he stood again, offering Karr the blade, his free hand tracing the shape of his skull, feeling the fine stubble there.
Karr took the razor, studying his friend. In the moonlight, Chen’s face had the blunt, anonymous look of a thousand generations of Han peasants. The kind of face one saw everywhere below. A simple, nondescript face. Until one met the eyes…
‘Why are we here, my friend? What are we looking for?’
Chen turned, looking about him, taking in everything: the mountains; the sky; the great City, stretched out like a vast glacier under the brilliant moon. It was the same. Twelve years had done little to change this scene. And yet it was quite different. Was, in the way he saw it, utterly transformed. Back then he had known nothing but the Net. Had looked at this scene with eyes that saw only the surfaces of things. But now he could see right through. Through to the bone itself.
He nodded slowly, understanding now why he had had to come here. Why he had asked Karr to divert the craft south and fly into the foothills of the Alps. Sometimes one had to go back – right back – to understand.
He shivered, surprised by the strength of the returning memory. It was strange how clearly he could see it, even now, after almost thirty years. Yes, he could picture quite vividly the old Master who had trained him to be kwai; a tall, willowy old Han with a long, expressionless face and a wispy beard who had always worn red. Old Shang, they had called him. Five of them, there had been, from Chi Su, the eldest, a broad-shouldered sixteen-year-old, down to himself, a thin-limbed, ugly little boy of six. An orphan, taken in by Shang.
For the next twelve years Old Shang’s apartment had been his home. He had shared the kang with two others, his sleeping roll put away at sixth bell and taken out again at midnight. And in between, a long day of work; harder work than he had ever known, before or since. He sighed. It was strange how he had hid
den it from himself all these years, as if it had never been. And yet it had formed him, as surely as the tree is formed from the seed. Shang’s words, Shang’s gestures had become his own. So it was in this world. So it had to be. For without that a man was shapeless, formless, fit only to wallow in the fetid darkness of the Clay.
He turned, meeting Karr’s eyes. ‘He had clever hands. I watched him from where you’re standing now. Saw how he looked into his glass, like this, watching the flames flicker and curl like tiny snakes in the darkness of his wine. At the time I didn’t understand what it was he saw there. But now I do.’
Karr looked down. It was Kao Jyan he was talking about. Kao Jyan, his fellow assassin that night twelve years ago.
‘A message came,’ he offered. ‘From Tolonen.’
Chen was still looking back at him, but it was as if he were suddenly somewhere else, as if, for a brief moment, his eyes saw things that Karr was blind to.
‘He confirms that Li Yuan has ordered the closure of Kibwezi.’
‘Ah…’ Chen lowered his eyes.
Karr was silent a moment, watching his friend, trying to understand, to empathize with what he was feeling, but for once it was hard. He crouched, one hand sifting the dust. ‘Your friend, Kao Jyan… What did he see?’
Chen gave a small laugh, as if surprised that the big man didn’t know, then looked away again, smoothing his hand over the naked shape of his skull.
‘Change,’ he said softly, a tiny tremor passing through him. ‘And flames. Flames dancing in a glass.’
IN TIMES TO COME
In Monsters of the Deep, the ninth volume in the Chung Kuo saga, the long-repressed divisions within the Council of the Seven finally come to the surface in a bitter internecine struggle. From the outset, Li Yuan, Tsu Ma and Wu Shih form a secret triumvirate, dedicated to ensuring the survival of Chung Kuo and its traditions and institutions, but, as ever, outside forces conspire against them.
The White Mountain Page 31