The Best Science Fiction and Fantasy of the Year-II

by Jonathan Strahan

  Cao Wen raised his hand, attempting again to wrestle back control of the discussion, but the old man continued, unabated.

  "There are those who say that some men lie with other men as a result of an accident of birth, while others say that it is a degradation which sets upon us as we grow, an illness and not a defect. But was the Heir Apparent fated to prefer the company of men to women in the bedchamber? Did the movement of the stars through the lunar mansions in the heavens dictate the life he would lead, up to and including his end here, imprisoned behind these high, cold walls ? Or did choices he made, through his life, in some sympathetic fashion affect the course of the stars through the heavens? We know that man's destiny is linked with the heavens, but there remains the question of causation. Which is effected and which effects?"

  "Ling Xuan, if you please . . ." Cao said with a weary sigh. He found that he was almost willing to surrender in frustration, and simply complete his report with the information he already had to hand.

  "During the Warring States period of antiquity, the philosopher Shih-shen tried to explain the non-uniform movement of the moon as the result of man's actions. He said that, when a wise prince occupies the throne, the moon follows the right way, and that when the prince is not wise and the ministers exercise power, the moon loses its way. But if we presume that the ancients knew more than we do in all such matters, where would that leave the spirit of invention? The ancients, as praiseworthy as they were, could not have constructed a marvel like the Forbidden City. Can we not, then, assume that in the generations since we have likewise constructed concepts which they also could not have attempted? I like to believe that the world grows as a person does, maturing with the slow turning of years, becoming ever more knowledgeable and developed. But many would hold that such thoughts are an affront to the luminous ancestors who proceeded us, and whose lofty heights it is not given to us to reach. I suppose my thoughts were poisoned by the clerics of the Mexica. There, they believe that this is just the most recent of a series of worlds, and that each world increases in complexity and elegance."

  Cao Wen leaned forward, cautiously optimistic. Was his patience about to be rewarded?

  But before he went on, the old man leaned back, and breathed a ragged sigh. "But perhaps these are discussions for another day. I find that my voice tires, and my thoughts run away from me. Perhaps we should continue our discussion tomorrow."

  The old man rose, and went to knock on the metal-clad door.

  As Agent Gu opened the door, Cao rocketed up off the bench, raising his hand to object.

  "Tomorrow, then," Ling said, glancing over his shoulder as he shuffled down the passageway to the courtyard beyond.

  Agent Gu just shrugged, as Cao's mouth worked, soundless and furious.

  Back at the Ministry of War, Cao Wen looked over the paperwork he'd amassed. Spread before him were the notes he himself had taken by hand, long months before, which had led him to Ling Xuan in the first place.

  Cao had been through everything in the imperial archives on the subject of the Mexica, but much of the early contact with the Mexica had occurred during the Bright Dynasty, and many of the records from those days had been lost when the Clear Dynasty took control. Worse, much of what remained was fragmentary at best. Cao had spent endless days combing through the archives, hungry for any mention of the Mexica, when he finally stumbled upon a simple inventory list of the archives from the reign of the Chongzhen emperor, the last of the Bright Dynasty. Among dozens of bureaucratic documents, in which no one had taken any interest in long years, was listed one item which caught Cao's eye, and sped the pace of his heart—a Ling Xuan's account of a Treasure Fleet voyage to Mexica.

  In the weeks that followed, Cao searched unsuccessfully for the account, checking other archives and inventories, but quite by chance came across a communication from the eunuch director of the Embroidered Guard to the Office of Transmission, intended for the eyes of the Regent Aobai, listing all of the suspects temporarily housed in the Eastern Depot. The report dated from the early days of the reign of the Kangxi emperor, while the emperor had still been a child and the regency controlled the empire, before the introduction of the palace memorial. Cao very nearly returned the communication to its cubby hole without a second glance, and had he done so his researches would have been at an end. But instead he chanced to notice a name at the bottom of the communication, in amongst the hundreds of other names—Ling Xuan.

  Cao had looked into the matter further, and found no burial record, nor record of any conviction, for a Ling Xuan. He had, however, discovered that Ling had once held a position of minor authority during the reign of the Shunzhi emperor.

  Cao had petitioned the Deputy Minister of War for weeks to arrange the authorization to contact the Embroidered Guard in order to confirm that Ling Xuan was still imprisoned at the Eastern Depot, and once confirmation was received Cao labored another span of weeks to receive authorization to cross the concourse and interview the prisoner himself.

  At the time, Cao Wen had considered it an almost unbelievable stroke of good fortune that he should chance to discover that the author of the missing account, so crucial to his survey of the Mexica, still lived. Now, having met and spent time with the old man, he was beginning to rethink that position.

  Cao Wen stood over Ling Xuan, who sat in the middle of the courtyard.

  "Why do you not move from that position, Ling Xuan?"

  "But I am always moving, though I do not unfold my legs from beneath me." The old man looked up at Cao with shaded eyes, and smiled. "I move because the Earth moves, and with it I go. As Lo-hsia-Hung of the Western Han Dynasty said, 'The Earth moves constantly but people do not know it. They are as persons in a closed boat, and when it proceeds they do not perceive it.'"

  "You speak a great deal of astronomy, and yet the records indicate that you served in the Office of Transmission. But the study of the heavens is forbidden to all but the imperial astronomers."

  "When I was first brought to the Eastern Depot," Ling explained, a distant look in his eyes, "I was interred for some time in the Bureau of Suppression and Soothing. The days were long and full of pain, but the nights were largely my own. In my narrow, dank cell, I sat the long watches of the night, unable to see a patch of clear sky. However, there was a small hole cut high in the wall, for ventilation, and I learned that it opened onto the adjacent cell. In that cell was a dismissed minister, previously the head of the Directory of Astronomy. His name was Cui, high mountain. He had offended the Regent Aobai in the days after the death of the Shanzhi emperor."

  Ling drew a ragged sigh, and averted his eyes before continuing.

  "We helped one another survive through those weeks and months. I told the astronomer tales of my travels across the oceans, and he told me everything he had ever learned about the heavens."

  Ling stood up on creaking joints, and faced Cao.

  "One night, the cell next to mine was silent, and the night after that, another voice answered when I called through the vent. I never learned what became of my friend, but I remember every word he ever spoke to me."

  With that, the old man turned and started towards the interview chamber, where Agent Gu stood by the open door.

  "Come along," Ling called back over his shoulder to Cao, who lingered in the sunny yard. "You wanted to discuss the Mexica, did you not?"

  Cao sat at the worn table, and pulled a leather tube from the folds of his robe. Removing a cap from the tube's end, he pulled out a rolled sheaf of paper and, setting the tube to one side, arranged the papers before him, meticulously. Ling Xuan looked on, dispassionately.

  Finally, his notes arranged to his satisfaction, and with an inked brush in hand, Cao began to speak, impatiently. "I have already spent the better part of a year in my survey of the Mexica, Ling Xuan, and I would very much like to complete my report before another year begins."

  "But which year, yes?" Ling asked, raising an eyebrow. "We in the Middle Kingdom know two. The twent
y-four solar nodes of the farmer's calendar, and the twelve or thirteen lunar months of the lunisolar calendar. The Mexica had more than one calendar, too."

  Cao sighed. He had little interest in a repeat of the previous days' performance, and yet here he was, about to assay the same role. "Ling Xuan—"

  "The Mexica have a solar calendar, which like our own was made up of 365 days," the old man interrupted before Cao could continue. "Can you imagine it? Two cultures, so different and divided by history and geography, and yet we parcel out time in the same allotments. But unlike us, the Mexica divide their solar year into eighteen months of twenty days each, leaving aside five more, which they call 'empty days.' These are days of ill omen, when no work or ritual is to be performed."

  "That's very interesting," Cao said, in a rush, "but to return to the subject at hand . . ."

  "But like us, they are not satisfied with only one calendrical system," Ling continued, undaunted. "In addition to their solar year, they have a second calendar of 260 days, marked out by interlocking cycles of twenty-day signs and thirteen numbers. Again, reminiscent of our own system of element and animal, wouldn't you say?"

  "I suppose so," Cao agreed, weakly.

  "But the Mexica have another calendar, on a scale even grander than the other two. In the capital city of the Mexica, Place of the Stone Cactus, there is a massive circular stone, thicker than a child is tall and wider than the height of two men. This is a calendar too, of a sort, but while the other calendars measure the passage of days, months, and years, this massive calendar of stone is used to measure the passage of worlds themselves. As I told you, the Mexica believe that this is the fifth and most recent world created by the gods. They believe that this world was constructed only a few hundred years ago, in the year 13-Reed, and that its peoples and cultures were put in place, fully formed and with their histories already in place, as a test of the Mexica's faith."

  "You traveled to the capital of the Mexica?" Cao asked, sitting forward, readying his brush over a blank sheet of paper.

  "Yes," the old man answered, a faraway look in his eyes, "a party of us, along with the commander of the Treasure Fleet, traveled overland for long days and weeks before we reached the heart of the Mexic empire. Their city of Place of the Stone Cactus was as large and grand as the Northern Capital itself, hundreds of thousands of men and women toiling away in the service of their emperor."

  Ling Xuan's eyes fluttered close for a brief moment, and he swayed, momentarily lost in thought.

  "The Mexica know when this world will end," he went on. "It will come in the year of 4-Movement, when the world's calendar has run its course. But which cycle, yes? In Place of the Stone Cactus, I saw steam-powered automatons of riveted bronze, which symbolically represented the jaguars, hurricanes, fires, and rains which destroyed the previous worlds."

  Cao Wen's brush raced down the page in precise movements, as he took careful notes. "Steam-powered, you say?"

  Ling Xuan nodded. "Yes, and while the Mexica had never before seen a horse, they had steam-powered trolleys that could carry them back and forth across the breadth of their broad valley in a twinkling."

  "What of their military capacity?" Cao asked, eagerly. "Were you given any glimpse of their level of armament?"

  Ling Xuan blinked slowly. "I did, in fact, spend considerable time with an officer of their army, an Eagle Knight of the first rank. I was one of the few to have learned the rudiments of Nahuatl, the Mexica's tongue, and as such I was appointed to tour their city and report back what I'd learned, and Hummingbird Feather was to be my guide."

  Ling Xuan dropped his gaze, and his eyes came to rest on the leather tube at the edge of the table, in which Cao Wen had brought his notes.

  "This reminds me of something," the old man said, pointing at the tube.

  "Something to do with the Mexica?"

  The old man nodded, slowly, his eyes not leaving the tube. Then he shook his head, once, leaving Cao unsure whether the old man had meant to reply in the affirmative, in the negative, or if in fact he'd replied at all.

  "I remember something my friend Cui told me. A metal tube capped on either end by ground glass lenses, used for far viewing. A Remote-Viewing Mirror, he called it. A tool employed by the Directorate of Astronomy. Have you heard of such a thing?"

  Cao nodded, impatiently. "Yes, I believe I've seen them in operation. What of it?"

  "I would very much like to see such a device for myself. My eyes are not as strong as they once were, and it would be a welcome sight to see the shapes upon the moon's surface. If you could arrange such a thing, I would be happy to tell you all I saw of the Mexica's armament and defenses."

  Then the old man rose, rapped on the door, and disappeared from view, leaving Cao in the room with his notes, his brush, and his questions.

  It took Cao Wen several days to receive authorization from the Deputy Minister of War to requisition the far-seeing device from the Directorate of Astronomy, several more days to locate the bureaucrat within the Directorate who was responsible for materiel and equipment, and an additional week of wheedling and cajoling to get the astronomer to recognize the authority of the Deputy Minister's order.

  Cao tried on several occasions in the interval to renew his interview with Ling Xuan, but every attempt failed. Each time, the old man would look up at him, blink slowly, and ask whether Cao carried the far-seeing device. When he saw that Cao did not, Ling would turn his eyes back to the ground, watching the shadows in their slow course across the ground.

  Finally, Cao managed to retrieve the device from the Directorate of Astronomy, and a short while later sat in the interview room, carefully removing the device from its protective sheath. He presented the object to Ling Xuan, with Agent Gu standing by as witness.

  While Ling turned the device over in his hands, eyes glistening and mouth open in wonder, Cao read aloud from an official release document, signed with the chop of the Head Director of Astronomy, and countersigned by the Deputy Minister of War. "This far-seeing device, the Remote-Viewing Mirror, remains the property of the Directorate of Astronomy, as decreed by His Majesty the emperor, but by special order of the Deputy Minister of War, it is being loaned for a short time to one Ling Xuan, a temporary resident at the Outside Depot of the Embroidered Guard. Be it known that this Ling Xuan is not to allow the Remote-Viewing Mirror to pass into any hands other than his own, nor is he to reveal the details of its manufacture to any but those parties determined by imperial decree as worthy to hold such knowledge."

  Cao paused, and glanced up from the document at the old man, whose eyes were fixed on the device in his hands.

  "Ling Xuan, do you understand these terms?"

  The old man simply held the device up for a closer inspection, marveling.

  "Temporary Resident Ling," Agent Gu said, his tone martial, stepping forward incrementally and looming over the old man as menacingly as he was able. "Do you understand the terms as recited to you?"

  Ling Xuan nodded, absently. "Yes, yes, of course."

  "Thank you for bearing witness, Agent Gu." Cao nodded to Gu, and motioned him towards the door. "Now, with your permission, I would like at this point to continue my interview with Ling Xuan."

  Agent Gu bowed, crossed the floor, and closed the door behind him as he left.

  "Now," Cao said to the old man, his tone turning dark, "let us talk about the Mexica."

  Ling Xuan held the Remote-Viewing Mirror lovingly and, without lifting his eyes from the device, began to speak.

  "Hummingbird Feather, who I like to think became my friend in the weeks we stayed in Place of the Stone Cactus, explained to me the structure of the army of the Mexica. He was an Eagle Knight, and a Quauhyahcatl, or a Great Captain of the Mexic army, meaning that he had taken five foreign captives in combat. When the Treasure Fleet arrived, though, the Mexica had not gone to war against their neighbors in almost a generation. And so they fought, instead, the War of the Flowers.

  "The army of the Mexica
is organized into banners of twenty men each—and here, too, we hear echoes of our own culture, do we not? So like the banners of our Manchu masters, yes? In any case, twenty of such banners make up a battalion of four hundred men, and twenty of these an army of eight thousand. The best warriors were inducted into the orders of the Jaguar and the Eagle, and advancement was measured by how many captives one took while in battle. In times of peace, though, there were no captives to be had, and how then to measure one's worth?

  "The Mexica challenge their neighbors to fight in a War of the Flowers. We were lucky enough to arrive in Place of the Stone Cactus during one of these ceremonial tournaments. The armies of the Mexica and those of their neighbors gather in the broad plains beyond the valley of the Stone Cactus, and meet in mock combat. Though the blows are not killing blows, and no blood is spilled on the plains, the stakes are no less high than in warfare. The combatants in the War of the Flowers take prisoners, capturing their defeated foes, and when each side decides that it has taken enough prisoners, the battle is ended. The side which has captured the most of its enemy is declared the winner, and the two armies return home with their spoils. The captives are executed or enslaved, depending on the moods of their captors.

  "In this way, the army of the Mexica are able to keep their martial skills honed and ready, even when there is no enemy to be bested."

  Cao scarcely looked up from his notes, his brush flying across the page.

  "Yes, yes," Cao said, eagerly. "Now, how do the generals of the armies communicate their orders to the officers of the banners, and how do the banners' leaders communicate the orders on to their subordinates?"