by Matt Weber
“Vinculum?” said Lin Gyat.
“A connecting element, brother. In any case, the King, who appreciated the White Way’s contribution to affairs surrounding the succession, rewarded the King’s Lama with a corps of guards near to the original Cerulean Guard in size; these took the name Versicolor, after a fact promulgated by the natural philosophers inform us: to wit, that all colors of light combine to constitute white. In general, the Versicolor Guard is steward of West Rassha, and the Cerulean Guard minds the East. But we do betimes send patrols into one another’s demesnes so that we do not lose track of one another’s movements, and so that we may kill one another every so often and thereby stoke the fires of our mutual hatred, which limits complacency and keeps us in fighting trim. Had you come to the Tiger Gate rather than the Bat, you would have received a less odious welcome. On the subject of gates, it pays to keep in mind that we Ceruleans nurse a well-justified jealousy of the stewardship of the Wind Horse Gate, which is staffed by equal numbers of both troops, but lies in West Rassha and is commanded by Brigadier-General Dom Dron of the Versicolors, a recent import from Sar Palisade in Therku. Now, the Chusrin Gate that blocks the river is staffed by the Cerulean Guard, which enrages the Versicolors as much as the command of the Wind Horse Gate does our comrades-in-arms, but it is not well to view the arrangement as fair, since no one else does. Here, let us take Plum Blossom Street for a bit; this is the Icon-Makers’ Row, and I find it pleasant to take in the high scent of divinity that always perfumes the air on these few blocks.”
“I do not believe I have ever seen so much jade,” said Datang.
“Oh, that is not jade,” said Lin Yongten. “The icon-makers are geniuses with dyes and resins. They make a false-jade knife that would easily cut out the heart of a ritual sacrifice, were we still in the days when the gods demanded such offerings, and I have seen so-called holy warriors with false-jade swords who occasionally won duels. It is not the mystical properties of the substance that determine holiness, but rather precision of form, which these jade-fakers have in abundance, like all counterfeiters. Ah, here now begins a row of druggists and apothecaries, where items are sold that are as false as this jade but considerably less benign. Let us withhold even the custom of our eyes and turn here on the Street of Imprecations, which is a more direct route to the Logistics Bureau in any case. We again observe a decline in beauty as we recede from Plum Blossom Street, but in this case, the neighborhood remains relatively tidy, with signs of economic vitality; this piece of the city is called Nimashar, and it grows fat, or at least fat enough, on the profits from tinctures and potions. The best shops are the most flush, for the genuine apothecaries take bribes from the counterfeiters to remain here and lend the reflection of their skill to their worthless neighbors.
“Ah! The savory odors in the air emanate from the Street of Dogs, though dog has fallen out of fashion since the lean reign of Cold Tenshing—a development that coincides with a great rise in misconduct among dogs, due in my opinion to an insalubrious sense of invulnerability. Though, if the Iron Eunuch’s siege lasts long enough, it may revitalize the old cuisine. We will turn right on the Street of Dogs—thus!—and proceed past Incomparable Mukpo’s, who sells the worst food in Rassha, and whose stench will deflect us on pain of gastric eversion into the Forest of Shrines, where we will be obliged to meander for some minutes until we catch the clean scent of the river over the thousand terrible miasmas rising from a thousand terrible sticks of incense. At that point, we will make for the Silver Dragon with all due swiftness, and tread pleasantly along the Esplanade of Manifold Virtue until we arrive at the Logistics Bureau.”
“Excuse me,” said Lin Gyat, “but I could not help but observe a certain haste in the last segment of your description—for you seem to have begun telling us what we will do, rather than narrating what we are doing.”
“Your perspicacity is unequaled, Envied of Snakes,” said Lin Yongten.
“Thank you,” said Lin Gyat, “but is there an impetus behind this haste?”
“Oh,” said Lin Yongten, “the impetus is courtesy.”
“And yet—”
“Yes?”
“Why did you not choose to exercise this courtesy at the outset of your speech?”
“Ah, I understand your confusion. You see, at that point I had no reason to think I might be dead before we reached the Logistics Bureau.”
“Whereas now—”
“Well, you see the eight men in versicolor armbands, who have split off from the line at Incomparable Mukpo’s to make their way toward us?”
“Ah, our colleagues!” Lin Gyat studied them a moment. “Do you think they wish us to examine their steel? Or have their scabbards simply suffered a coordinated malfunction?”
“I suspect,” said Lin Yongten, “that their intentions are less than collegial.”
“Relationships among colleagues are often fraught with tension,” mused Lin Gyat. “In the coal mines of Degyen, I once caved in a man’s skull with a piece of basalt after he sent me into a passageway where all the air had been replaced by some noxious gas. Things were never the same between us after that.” He gave a philosophical shrug, lifted his rifle, and put a bullet through the seahorse helm of the corporal who led the squad. The corporal dropped like a sack of barley; the report echoed, and silence covered the Street of Dogs.
Lin Yongten screwed his eyes shut for a moment and pinched the bridge of his nose. “I confess, Envied of Snakes, I had hoped my small efforts at indirection would forestall this very sort of preemptive attack.”
“Well, I had hoped my preemptive attack would accelerate our progress to the meat of this encounter,” said Lin Gyat. “As my colleague, you might celebrate my success a bit.”
At this point the group of Versicolor Guards, correctly thinking their chances poor as long as they remained at range, began to charge. “There are seven of them left,” Datang hissed, drawing her straight sword, “and I am wounded.”
Lin Gyat shrugged and put another bullet through another skull. “Now there are six.”
“I have no need for your favors,” said Datang, and sprang forward to meet the enemy, who saw her leap higher than the awnings of the food carts and turned pale.
Lin Gyat lowered his rifle and unlimbered his club. “The Crescent,” said Lin Yongten, “you are a voracious killer, Envied of Snakes.”
“She can run down any enemy she likes,” complained Lin Gyat. “I must take my advantage where I can. When the poets write the ballad of Envied of Snakes and the Ape’s Left Hand, I do not wish to be portrayed as merely an athlete of the intimate.”
“Ah,” said Lin Yongten. “Then, you and she—?”
“In due time,” said Lin Gyat. “The moon is on her. Look, do you see?” he said with some dismay. “It is one against five already.”
“Aiya!” Lin Yongten flinched. “Four.”
“The Crescent, Eager Edge!” said Lin Gyat. “Let us salvage what glory we may from this encounter, before the Left Hand’s savagery confiscates the whole of it.”
Lin Yongten drew his broadsword. “A fine plan, brother,” he said, and the two Green Morning brothers charged.
The contexts of discourse
onversation that nourishes and uplifts can be had at any hour of the day, but for some reason such conversations seem to occur most often after sunset and before sunrise. These are, of course, the times when food and spirits can be savored without unduly abbreviating the day’s work, but that does not entirely explain the conduciveness of evenings to good conversation in settings devoid of comestibles—in one’s bedroom, for example, or watching the sun set over water. Possibly it is the drawing-in of vision with the dark, which frees the mind from its burden of interpreting the senses, so that it is possible to concentrate on the internal. Certainly the matchless Rinzen Lama has much to say about the salutary impact of sensory deprivation on fine thought, adducing from the meditative experience a great volume of elegant theory linking complexity and simplicity in
contexts culinary, military, and horticultural; and King Tenshing Astama, a scholar much in the habit of quiet contemplation, agreed with Rinzen in almost all particulars.
This all said, it would be careless to suggest that the conversation between the King and the uninvited guest in his chambers was as enriching as, for example, the conversation one might imagine having with an intimate friend while watching the sun set over water. Indeed, their badinage had commenced with nothing less banal than a restatement of an obvious temporal fact—for Tenshing had applied a certain Rigor to the shoulder of his uninvited guest, and now the latter could not shake off the King’s index and middle fingertips no matter what he did; to which King Tenshing responded, perhaps unavoidably but surely with no surfeit of originality, “You cannot shake me, assassin.” (Lest the reader surmise that Tenshing’s epithet represented the result of insight or conjecture, we must emphasize that it was neither, for Tenshing’s interlocutor had already deployed a steel garrote and an astonishing variety of exotic throwing knives in a manner that more than endorsed the accusation.)
“I cannot,” said the assassin, after attempting once again to sweep Tenshing’s arm away. “This must be the Spider Silk Palm about which my general has warned me.”
“Silken Palace Palm,” said Tenshing. “If your general would replace me in my office, he must needs apply himself better to the lore of the boxing arts.”
“Where names fail him, talent will step in,” said the assassin. “But where to now? We are at an impasse—once you separate from me, I shall try to kill you again.”
“Well, assassin,” said the King, “to that I respond in kōan, so that your mind may improve if you survive this night.”
“I have some skill at kōan,” said the assassin. “Tell me yours.”
“Is there a candle in the room?”
On this the assassin thought for some moments. “There is a candle in the room,” he said slowly, “but it is not lit.”
“And why—” began the King; but the assassin interrupted him. “Please,” he said, “allow me to continue my line of reasoning, as it may be my last act beneath this sky. There is a candle, and I have evidence of that with my own eyes. But the light reflected from the candle does not emanate from it, for as we have agreed, it is not lit. Nor is any other candle lit. One sees vividly in dreams and the imagination, to be sure, but it seems nearly certain that this is not a dream. It is widely supposed that the eye cannot function unless it is agitated by light. But at this hour, with no candle burning, whence light?” Before the question was asked, the assassin’s eyes had found the answer, having alit on the point at which King Tenshing’s index and middle fingers clung resolutely to his shoulder. Those fingers, and indeed the hand of which they were constituents, coruscated with a clean white flame whose description will be familiar to the attentive reader—although this particular flame burned steadily, without guttering or any suggestion that it might die in the near term. The assassin’s black shirt had burned away, leaving a clean-edged hole, and the flesh underneath had grown very red.
“This must be the Four Conflagration Touch about which my general has warned me,” the assassin murmured.
“Your general has named this rigor correctly, at least,” said Tenshing. “But he cannot be blamed for failing to anticipate that I would use it in concert with the Silken Palace Palm. Not many men can use both, much less together. It is infuriatingly rare to find tactical theory that integrates the advanced techniques.” Now that the assassin had deduced the consequences of delay, Tenshing’s voice had become rather conversational, even casual. He allowed his ring finger to join the other two on the assassin’s shoulder. “But one experiments.”
“This experiment is a success,” said the assassin, who had just caught a trace of the smoke curling up from his wound and determined beyond any filament of doubt that it had not originated from his shirt. “But I must hope it is not carried to its conclusion.”
King Tenshing allowed his little finger to join his middle three. His palm, which burned no less hotly than his fingertips, was now quite close to the left side of the assassin’s breast, below which his heart beat out its ever more apprehensive rhythm. The King stared at the spot where his palm would touch if he but stepped forward an inch, as though appraising what was hidden there.
“Perhaps it would endear me to you if I said I was not the only man sent tonight for you and yours,” the assassin said.
“The hour for endearment would seem to have passed,” said the King, not without regret. “As for me and mine, well, you perceive that I am in excellent condition, and unworried about my family. You surely know that I have no eighth son, and the only murder you could do to prevent the arrival of such would be to kill all the women of Uä, or else me. You have taken the more direct option, which is commendable, for I do not think your general would wish to rule over a kingdom of men. Morale and hygiene would deteriorate quickly.” Tenshing frowned. “I seem to have lost the thread of this digression.”
“Let me posit one—”
“Ah,” said the King, “I have it. Here: Another reason I remain sanguine on the subject of my family is that I noticed the new face among the steward’s men late this afternoon. Early this evening I received a report from an associate indicating a number of suspicious movements on the part of this unfamiliar character, concerned principally with the gatehouse and the windows in the nursery. Your colleagues will have found the balance of the sleeping arrangements altered, and the small and vulnerable targets they expected replaced by slightly more formidable opponents. Here is another kōan for you, assassin: What have I demonstrated for you with this story?”
“The new face,” said the assassin, whose own face was paling rapidly, although little enough of it was exposed by his black mask. “My general had warned me of your Eye of Ten Thousand Apprehensions.”
“Excellent,” said Tenshing.
“It was not a very good kōan, Your Grace,” said the assassin, as gently as he could.
“Even the great masters suffered failures of improvisation,” said King Tenshing. “Place your hand on my chest while I continue.” Now thoroughly terrified, the assassin did so. “Now observe my left hand.” A rod of pure white light the length of a man’s forearm sprang from it, roiling and sparking like molten metal and pouring off a bright smoke, which the assassin cringed from as it touched him, though it did him no ill save a faintly electric tingling. “Three aspects. Rigid and flexible.” Here the light tapered and grew almost gelatinous, and a flick of Tenshing’s wrist caused it to lash the wall, where it left a thin whipstroke of glowing stone. “Short and long range.” Now the light flowed into a glowing nimbus around Tenshing’s left hand. A piece of the nimbus detached and, with another flick of the King’s wrist, flew like heaven’s own mortar to hit the very center of his whipstroke, which was now bisected by a circular blotch. “Blunt and sharp.” And the light became a column again, then spread out as Tenshing flattened his hand into a blade. He brought the edge of the light just short of the assassin’s wrist—or, in truth, not quite short, for the fabric of his captive’s black glove parted and a bright line of blood appeared in the gap. “Two times two times two, assassin.”
“Eight. The Eight Weapon Hand.”
“Think on your palm: Have I drawn breath since this demonstration began?”
“The Infinitesimal Breath,” the assassin moaned.
“How many of the rigors have I shown you?” The King brushed the assassin’s hand from his chest as he might a bird’s excreta from his shoulder (although it must be said that the perceptions of King Tenshing Astama were too highly developed for him to be taken unawares by any such avian bombardment). “Think well and quickly. I will have no patience if you get it wrong.”
The assassin’s eyes were wide and wet now, but he reined in his shying mind and performed the calculation. “Five! It has been five.”
Remember it well. The short phrase seared itself into the assassin’s mind. Your gener
al must know.
“The Diamond Word!” the assassin exclaimed, and a moment later brightened in posture and physiognomy both even as the King’s four fingers burned into the flesh above his heart, for he realized that he must live to bring this message. In this judgment he was of course correct, although hindsight suggests his joy may have been gratuitous.
“What man has mastered seven of the eight rigors who was not King of Uä?” said Tenshing.
“None,” said the assassin. “But, Your Holiness—it is impertinent of me to say it, but there is no help for it—” Here he drew a deep breath through his nose and reconciled himself to the same dire fate he had just dreamed he might avoid; but, having been offered his life with such grand generosity by a man whose depth of moral probity he had only just now come to sound, he could not allow error to blemish his report. “You have only shown me six.”
At this King Tenshing’s face lost all the intensity of the penetrating stare to which he had subjected the assassin and relaxed into a strange, serene benevolence. He shook his head gently from side to side. “Your only impertinence has been to doubt the foresight of your King; but this can be forgiven, and I do forgive it. As I hope you, and the spirits who protect the Orchid Palace, will forgive me.”
And here the King’s right hand closed, its fire snuffed, around the assassin’s night-black shirt; and the light around his left hand coalesced into a blinding sphere the size of a cannonball, then flew forth to shatter the chamber’s narrow window, sending shards of glass and gobs of melted steel in a fountain onto the courtyard below; and the powerful muscles of the King’s legs bunched and then released like coiled springs with the strength of the Crane’s Migration Step; and the two of them, King and kingslayer, soared through the hole of the window to hang for just a moment in the heavens above that flagstoned courtyard, where King Tenshing Astama released the first grown man who had ever tried to kill him into the waiting boughs of a century-old cherry tree just coming into bloom.