Anna Lu Pohl’s private residence took up the entire third floor in the east wing of the Governor’s Palace. She had rooms for all occasions, from solitary meals and casual meetings to banquets and balls. Her private office had hardwood floors covered in Persian-style rugs, a golden teak desk, and a wall-size curio-filled with a jade collection owned by the Liao people, but conveniently displayed for their Governor when not on tour. A gas fire glowed behind ceramic logs in the fireplace, warming the room.
Having retired from twenty straight hours on her feet, the Governor had long since kicked her shoes into the corner and loosened the robes that hung down from her mantle. Underneath she wore a smart but comfortable dress suit, rumpled and dark with sweat stains under the arms.
“One hell of a way to start the New Year,” she said to Gerald Tsung as more fireworks bled across the night sky. She toasted the display, downed the last of her plum wine and set the glass on the windowsill.
Tsung continued to look over the two-story-high walls and into some distant streets of Chang-an. Governor Pohl left him there, having seen enough. The riots showed no sign of burning themselves out. Riots. Plural. Chang-an was not a homogenous city. Chang-an was a walled-off palace and several forums buildings. Chang-an was the rural stretch to the east, where single-family farms competed with larger combines, and then the suburb of Erisa beyond that. Chang-an was Yiling and Sua and the industrial sector of Gahn where the fires were under control now, though sixty percent of the factories were little better than gutted husks and charred grounds. Chang-an was the military reserve near Lianyungang, it was the gem of Beilù, and it was the voice of Liao.
And Chang-an was dying.
“Nothing more from Hunnan or Thei?” she asked, naming the next two largest cities on Liao’s northern continent.
“Mandrinn Klein has moved no forces in response to your request. Lord Governor Hidic also sent Mandrissa Erin Ji orders, and she has refused to answer either until ‘the competing Governors of Liao reach some level of accord.’” He reported as if on automatic pilot, coloring nothing with his own feelings or opinions.
“And what do you think?”
With a direct request, “Klein is scared. Erin Ji, I’m certain, has thrown in with the Cult of Liao. She has never been very stable.”
Anna bypassed her desk for a red velvet sofa, easing onto the overstuffed cushion and pulling her legs up for comfort. All of the district nobles were holding fast and stubborn. They did not want the madness infecting Chang-an to spread into their own cities—not any worse than was already happening. So Qinghai and its surrounding provinces were on their own.
“Maybe they are right to do so,” she said out loud.
“You are, Governor,” Tsung said simply, as if that explained all. “They have no right to refuse you.”
“Thank you, Gerald. Let us hope they see that as well, and soon.” She dismissed him with a tight smile that never reached her eyes. “I will not be sleeping tonight. Come for me if you hear any news.” Her aide bowed his way from the room, leaving her to solitude and her own thoughts.
And again, they returned to the idea that her insubordinate nobles might have the right of it. The nobility derived its power from the people, much as her own office did. Without land, without the fealty of those who worked it, they had no more authority than a man who stood on a wooden crate at the corner and preached his cause.
What did the people truly want? What was best for them? For the first time in her career, Anna Lu Pohl was not certain. She had come to power on Liao courting the populace’s indecision, supporting The Republic and at the same time encouraging a resident’s right to value his or her Capellan heritage. Like any good politician, she managed to walk that line found between any two opposing camps. What had surprised her, then, was how wide that divide stretched. So many people were not at all certain whom they should be or what they wanted.
Well, that wasn’t quite true. They wanted it all, Capellan and Republic and citizen and patriot. Now they were learning that the cost of such desires ran high, very high.
They were also making up their minds. Anna could sense that. She had felt the shift in Capellan sympathies growing stronger, and with the Conservatory revolt she had sensed the problem coming to a head. People were waking up. They were scratching their heads and their numb asses, and they were beginning to wonder if they had surrendered too much for The Republic.
“When the people question their government, that government deserves to be questioned. And when the government is more concerned with maintaining itself at any cost to its people, the people will no longer fear. They will rebel.”
So said Lao-Tzu. Many had made the conscious choice, for one side or the other. The balance swayed. Could it be brought back under control? Possibly. But it wouldn’t take much to tip everything against The Republic. If that happened…
When that happened, Governor Anna Lu Pohl would have everything in place. For the good of Liao, for the good of her people, she would ready herself for anything.
Even in welcoming home the Confederation.
PART THREE
The Spoils of Treachery
26
The Cult of Liao
Republic forces were strengthened on Gan Singh and Menkar this week as Prefect Tao continued efforts to recall discharged veterans and push new cadets into the field to meet the growing Capellan menace. The New Aragon Field Academy has graduated seventy-five percent of the senior class ahead of schedule, earning a new generation of soldiers early citizenship for their valiant efforts in this time of severe national crisis.
—In the News!, New Aragon Free Press, 26 July 3134
Beilù Northern Ranges
Sarrin Province, Liao
29 July 3134
The VTOL trio flew a tight formation, a Sprint scout helicopter leading the way and two Balac Strike VTOLs flanking. Rotors thumped hard overhead as the craft banked just above treetop level and ran hard for the approaching Northern Ranges.
Mai Uhn Wa saw no tactical or strategic reason why Evan would want him to see this remote area of Beilù. His former protégé was most secretive about the whole episode, which both pleased and irritated the elder warrior. He had taught Evan well the value of closely held information. Now he was the student. Mai glanced into the rear passenger compartment, where Evan sat with stoic calm, then turned back to gaze out of the forward canopy.
Two hundred kilometers northeast of Chang-an, only blue green evergreens thrived in winter’s final grip. There were towns, occasionally, and small farms. Cattle, hardy sheep and goats fled from the noise of the passing VTOLs. Not even the Dynasty Guard, striking west from the Du-jín, had seen the need to press forces this far north.
“Not much longer,” Evan promised, leaning forward to make himself heard over the deafening rotors. He tapped the VTOL pilot on the shoulder, made a slashing motion across his throat and then pointed out the Balac Strike ’copters that flew as escorts. The pilot nodded, and pinched closed his throat mic.
Mai wore the copilot’s helmet for its sound-deadening properties as much as any need to stay plugged into the chatter. Still, he raised an eyebrow when their pilot ordered the Balacs to find themselves a good nest and wait for the Sprint’s return. The Strike VTOLs were a loan from McCarron’s Armored Cavalry, requested through Mai Uhn Wa. They had no way of knowing the command did not come from him, and Mai saw no need to fight with Evan now, after coming so far, over who controlled them. He let them go.
Evan would not risk their lives foolishly. Or, at least, without need.
The Sprint dodged over a few more foothills and found a small valley farm that looked no different from any other except for its hillside barn. Mai spared it a single glance, but slapped his gaze back to the control panel as alarms wailed from sensor lock. Someone was tracking them with military targeting systems! Multiple systems, in fact, though Mai saw no movement from the barn, farmhouse or hillsides.
Evan reached forward and grabbed the pilot�
�s arm with steadying strength, pointed out a cleared area of land near the strangely placed barn. The pilot drifted down carefully, making no threatening maneuvers, bumping the landing skids against a tan-colored pad of ferrocrete painted expertly to blend into the hillside grasses and open scrabbles of hard dirt and rock.
“A strange area for an Ijori Dè Guāng cell,” was Mai’s only comment as he released his own harness and left the helmet sitting on his seat. “See a lot of military activity out this way?”
Evan followed him out through the VTOL’s passenger door, both of them bending down to run out from under the still spinning blades. “Not Ijori Dè Guāng,” Evan said. “This is the Cult of Liao stronghold.”
Mai had a moment to ponder that as the two men walked toward the aged gray barn. Cult of Liao. The political faction that supported the Confederation’s return. Evan was obviously involved with them, able to lead a military chopper into this protected valley. But had he chosen his words carefully when he said this was the stronghold? One? Mai Uhn Wa had always envisioned a cell system much like the one he had worked to establish for the Light of Ijori. In military terms, it made sense. So, “They are not a paramilitary order.”
“Not exactly,” Evan admitted.
“How involved are you with the Cult?”
“As deeply as one can be.” Evan hesitated, then, “I would have told you that night.”
No need explaining to which night Evan referred. The night Mai Uhn Wa had turned his back on Evan, Greggor and the entire organization. The night he had left Liao to answer for his crimes against the State.
Mai Uhn Wa felt a touch of sadness and, in a way, disappointment. When he’d first met Evan, the young student had been searching for something to fill the void hollowed out of his life. His parents killed shortly after the Night of Screams. Raised as a ward of the state. Mai had sensed the longing inside him to connect with something larger, and also recognized Evan’s incredible natural talents. A future leader. He had planned to nurture Evan into that role himself, and had been just as proud to learn Evan had gone on without him.
But a cult? Mai had thought Evan destined for leadership, not servitude.
“A civilian organization,” Mai asked, betraying none of his thoughts. “They are worth our time now?”
“He is worth it,” Evan promised. He. Mai was to meet with the leader of the Cult.
They were nearly at the barn. From the ground it looked more wrong than it had from the air. Built partly into the hillside, as a mining shaft might be, the barn was painted gray with darker streaks added to make it look like naturally aged wood. One of the larger doors stood open, swinging neglected in the chill winds that gusted through the short valley. Mai pictured a barren floor with a rickety table and no chairs, around which a few fanatics met with a candle for light to whisper of government insurrection. And built into the hillside? A bolt-hole for safety.
Might take a military force all of twenty minutes to dig them out.
Mai followed Evan into the barn, built on a ferrocrete pad, and stood in awe of the bunker-quality doors recessed into the hillside. Twenty hours, he quickly amended his first estimate.
“There are petragylcerin charges built into the pad, ready to take off the entire side of the hill. The doors are also primed with charges, and we can bring down fifty meters of corridor inside, sealing off the primary access.”
He used a palm-scanner to key open the bunker, rolling back blast doors that would have made an Overlord–class DropShip proud. A large number of barrels pointed into their faces. These were the first people Mai had seen, and they all were on the wrong end of assault rifles. Meaning the trigger end.
“He sleeps for us,” Evan said carefully, though certainly the Cult members recognized one of their own with access to such a vault.
Like water flowing into a series of drains, the guards melted into side passages, leaving the main chamber open. Dimly lit by overhead spots, Mai saw that it ran far back into the hillside. Twenty days, he decided. Weeks to dig out this bunker if the fanatics caved in the ceiling behind them. Leaving those trapped inside free to do… what? Slip out by an alternate tunnel? And with what treasure? A bunker like this wasn’t built as a bolt-hole. It was built to protect something. Or someone. What kind of man led this Cult?
“What does he want from the Ijori Dè Guāng?” Mai asked. “Or is it from the Armored Cavalry?”
Evan hesitated. “He wants for nothing,” he finally said. The two walked along the long, narrow corridor, following ventilation ductwork and cable runs, alone with each other’s company. “This is about what we need, Mai Uhn Wa. You and I. I do not bring you here lightly.” They traipsed down a short flight of stairs, hewn into the surrounding rock. “I found something within the Cult that I needed. Something I have never been able to duplicate within the Ijori Dè Guāng. Now I realize that I was never the right person to do so.
“I kept the Light of Ijori burning, but I cannot bring illumination.”
And the Cult leader could? Was that what Evan tried to say? A room opened up at the end of the corridor, full of bright light and the hum of large machinery. The elder man decided to withhold final judgment for a few moments more. If he trusted Evan was the man he had always believed, he had to trust that Evan had seen something in this Cult leader worth following.
Evan had. And so did Mai Uhn Wa when he stepped across the threshold of the underground shrine.
There was no better description of the room, even though it was packed along three walls with power relay systems and a collection of chemical tanks. A high-tech shrine, devoted to a single person. Mai stared at the coffinlike encasement mounted to the fourth wall, through frost-tinted ferroglass that dimmed, but did not hide, the figure inside. A God to many Capellans.
It wasn’t the Cult of Liao, the world.
It was the Cult of Liao, the man.
Sun-Tzu Liao slept peacefully in the cryogenic chamber, body surrounded by a swirl of frozen gasses. Age lined his slackened face. Gray hair, streaked with poor remnants of youthful black, swept over his mantled shoulders. Golden robes cloaked Liao’s Eternal Father, and helped to hide the various medical leads and tubes, which snaked along at the back of the chamber.
Mai stepped forward, slowly, and brought up one hand to touch the coffin with the tips of his fingers.
“He is a man, Mai Uhn Wa.” Still, Evan whispered. “And he is dead.”
“You withheld this from me? Even that night?”
He could not see Evan’s shrug, but heard the bitter memory in his words. “You turned away from us. Why would I trust you with anything so important?” He stepped closer. “And I was still in shock at the revelation.”
Mai was still reeling himself. The room swayed uncertainly around him. “Dead,” he repeated. “He is not preserved?”
“Chancellor Liao is preserved, but not in life.” Evan checked a readout panel on the side of the chamber. “He came back to Liao to die, Shiao-zhang Mai. His body was failing, and he performed one last act to strengthen the Confederation at a time when it wavered before the Republic. He ‘ascended.’ He let his disappearance rally his people, and Daoshen was eventually able to broker a new peace.” Evan almost left his explanation there, but then continued. “Even if he could be helped medically now, we are not certain about the cryogenic technology. It is old. Many people who’ve tried to use such devices suffered irreversible brain damage.”
Which explained why no one had ever tried to revive the Chancellor. That, and the fact that Daoshen Liao might not appreciate the idea of his father—the Divine One—as a mere mortal held permanently at death’s door. And so the religion had begun. The great secret, holding Sun-Tzu’s body in trust for the people of Liao.
With so many thoughts, plans and their repercussions running through his head, Mai Uhn Wa did not notice for several minutes the title Evan Kurst had awarded him. “You spoke to me as—”
“Shiao-zhang,” Evan said again. The honorific rank of a Warrior
House Leader. “We need each other, Master Mai Uhn Wa. So much of what I am is because of your influence and vision. So much of what you want to accomplish, I can help make real.”
Evan had not been talking of the Cult leader earlier, but of Mai Uhn Wa! And by commending this secret into Mai’s hands, Evan relinquished himself as well. But, “This is too big for us, Evan. You don’t even begin to understand what this could do to the Confederation.”
“I think I do. I’ve labored with this for nearly two years, keeping a lid on the Cult of Liao even at times they thought to go public. Even when it might have helped the Ijori Dè Guāng, or the Conservatory. If it is to happen, it has to happen under our control.”
“I don’t know.” But he did know. He did.
“What will you do then? Turn your back on this, on us, again?” He did not sound angry this time, but accepting. “I will not stop you from walking out of here, Mai Uhn Wa. You have my pledge, and I will keep it no matter what you decide. But decide now.”
Mai bristled at the calm ultimatum, delivered by the same man who only moments ago acknowledged him as Master. Then the elder warrior relented, realizing the large pressures Evan had been living with, alone, for too long.
“I am not walking out of here without you, Evan. You are first among warriors, and I would have it no other way.” He offered his hand, and Evan clasped it with both of his own and bowed. “We will keep this secret, together, you and I.”
But Mai Uhn Wa knew he planned to immediately betray that promise, and this time Evan might not ever be able to forgive. Which would be unfortunate. Mai truly did not want to kill his first son of House Ijori.
27
Truths Be Told
By Temptations and By War mda-7 Page 22