An Inch of Ashes (CHUNG KUO SERIES)

by David Wingrove

  Li Shai Tung turned sharply, facing him, openly angry now. ‘You go too far! Hell’s teeth, boy!’

  Wang Sau-leyan smiled sourly. ‘Boy... That’s how you see me, isn’t it? A boy, to be chastised or humoured. Or locked away, perhaps...’

  ‘This is not right...’ Li Shai Tung began, but again the young T’ang interrupted him, his voice soft yet threatening.

  ‘This is a new age, old man. New things are happening in the world. The Seven must change with the times or go under. And if I must break your power in Council to bring about that change, then break it I shall. But do not think to buy or silence me, for I’ll not be bought or silenced.’

  Li Shai Tung stood there, astonished, his lips parted. Break it? Break his power? But before he could speak there was a knocking at the door.

  ‘Come in!’ he said, only half-aware of what he said, his eyes still resting on the figure of the young T’ang.

  It was Chung Hu-yan. Behind him came four servants, carrying trays. ‘Chieh Hsia?’ he began, then stepped back hurriedly as Wang Sau-leyan stormed past him, pushing angrily through the servants, their trays clattering to the tiled floor as they hastened to move back, out of the T’ang’s way.

  Hou Tung-po hung back a moment, clearly dismayed by what had happened. Taking a step towards Li Shai Tung, he bowed, then turned away, hurrying to catch up with his friend.

  Li Shai Tung stood there a moment longer, then, waving his Chancellor away, went to the desk and picked up one of the documents. He stared at it a moment, his hands trembling with anger, then, one by one, he began to pick off the unmarked seals with his fingernails, dropping them on to the floor beside his feet, until only his own remained at the foot of the page.

  He would have offered this today. Would have gladly torn this document to shreds to forge a peaceful understanding. But what had transpired just now convinced him that such a thing was impossible. Wang Sau-leyan would not permit it. Well, then, he would act alone in this.

  He turned his hand, placing the dark, dull metal of the ring into the depression at the desk’s edge, letting it grow warm, then lifted his hand and pressed the seal into the wax.

  There. It was done. He had sanctioned his son’s scheme. Had given it life.

  For a moment longer he stood there, staring down at the document – at the six blank spaces where the seals had been – then turned away, his anger unassuaged, speaking softly to himself, his words an echo of what the young T’ang had said to him.

  ‘This is a new age, old man. New things are happening in the world.’

  He laughed bitterly. ‘So it is, Wang Sau-leyan. So it is. But you’ll not break me. Not while I have breath.’

  Karr stood there on the mountainside, shielding his eyes, looking about him at the empty slopes. It was cold, much colder than he’d imagined. He pulled the collar of his jacket up around his ears and shivered, still searching the broken landscape for some sign, some clue as to where to look.

  The trouble was, it was just too big a place, too vast. One could hide a hundred armies here and never find them.

  He looked down, blowing on his hands to warm them. How easy, then, to hide a single army here?

  It had begun two days ago, after he had been to see Tolonen. His report on the Executive killings had taken almost an hour to deliver. Even so, they were still no closer to finding out who had been behind the spate of murders.

  Officially, that was. For himself he was certain who was behind it all, and he knew the T’ang and Tolonen agreed. DeVore. It had to be. The whole thing was too neat, too well orchestrated, to be the work of anyone else.

  But if DeVore, then why was there no trace of him within the City? Why was there no sign of his face somewhere in the levels? After all, every Security camera, every single guard and official in the whole vast City, was on the lookout for that face.

  That absence had nagged at him for weeks, until, coming away from his meeting with Tolonen, he had realized its significance. If DeVore couldn’t be found inside, then maybe he wasn’t inside – maybe he was outside? Karr had gone back to his office and stood there before the map of City Europe, staring at it, his eyes drawn time and again to the long, irregular space at the centre of the City – the Wilds – until he knew for a certainty that was where he’d find DeVore. There, somewhere in that tiny space.

  But what had seemed small on the map was gigantic in reality. The mountains were overpowering, both in their size and number. They filled the sky from one horizon to the other, and when he turned, there they were again, marching away into the distance, until the whole world seemed but one long mountain range and the City nothing.

  So, where to start? Where, in all this vastness of rock and ice, to start? How search this godsforsaken place?

  He was pondering that when he saw the second craft come up over the ridge and descend, landing beside his own, in the valley far below. A moment later a figure spilled from the craft and began to make its way towards him, climbing the slope. It was Chen.

  ‘Gregor!’ Chen greeted him. ‘I’ve been looking all over for you.’

  ‘What is it?’ Karr answered, trudging down through the snow to meet him.

  Chen stopped, then lifted his snow-goggles, looking up at him. ‘I’ve brought new orders. From the T’ang.’

  Karr stared at him, then took the sealed package and tore it open.

  ‘What does it say?’

  ‘That we’re to close the files on the murders. Not only that, but we’re to stop our search for DeVore – temporarily, at least – and concentrate on penetrating the Ping Tiao organization. It seems they’re planning something big.’

  Chen watched the big man nod to himself, as if taking in this new information, then look about him and laugh.

  ‘What is it?’ he asked, surprised by Karr’s laughter.

  ‘Just this,’ Karr answered, holding the T’ang’s orders up. ‘And this,’ he added, indicating the mountains all about them. ‘I was thinking... two paths, but the goal’s the same. DeVore.’

  ‘DeVore?’

  ‘Yes. The T’ang wants us to investigate the Ping Tiao, and so we shall, but when we lift that stone, you can lay odds on which insect will come scuttling out from under it.’

  ‘DeVore,’ said Chen, smiling.

  Hans Ebert stood on the wooden veranda of the lodge, staring up the steep, snowcovered slope, his breath pluming in the crisp air. As he watched, the dark spot high up the slope descended slowly, coming closer, growing, until it was discernibly a human figure. It was coming on apace, in a zigzag path that would bring it to the lodge.

  Ebert clapped his gloved hands together and turned to look back inside the lodge. There were three other men with him; his comrades in arms. Men he could trust.

  ‘He’s here!’ he shouted in to them. ‘Quick now! You know your orders!’

  They got up from the table at once, taking their weapons from the rack near the door before going to their posts.

  When the skier drew up beneath the veranda, the lodge seemed empty except for the figure leaning out over the balcony. The skier thrust his sticks into the snow, then lifted his goggles and peeled off his gloves.

  ‘I’m pleased to see you, Hans. I didn’t know if you would come.’

  Ebert straightened up then started down the steps. ‘My uncle is a persuasive man, Shih DeVore. I hadn’t realized he was an old friend of yours.’

  DeVore laughed, stooping to unfasten his boots. He snapped the clips and stepped off the skis. ‘He isn’t. Not officially. Nor will you be. Officially.’

  He met the younger man at the bottom of the steps and shook both his hands firmly, warmly, flesh to gloves.

  ‘I understand it now.’

  ‘Understand what? Come, Hans, let’s go inside. The air is too keen for such talk.’

  Hans let himself be led back up into the lodge. When they were sitting, drinks in hand, he continued. ‘What I meant is, I understand now how you’ve managed to avoid us all these years. More old friend
s, eh?’

  ‘One or two,’ said DeVore cryptically, and laughed.

  ‘Yes,’ Ebert said thoughtfully, ‘you’re a regular member of the family, aren’t you?’ He had been studying DeVore, trying to gauge whether he was armed or not.

  ‘You forget how useful I once was to your father.’

  ‘No...’ Ebert chose the next few words more carefully. ‘I simply remember how harmful you were subsequently. How dangerous. Even to meet you like this, it’s...’

  ‘Fraught with danger?’ DeVore laughed again, a hearty, sincere laughter that strangely irritated the younger man.

  DeVore looked across the room. In one corner a wei chi board had been set up, seven black stones forming an H on the otherwise empty grid.

  ‘I see you’ve thought of everything,’ he said, smiling again. ‘Do you want to play while we talk?’

  Ebert hesitated, then gave a nod. DeVore seemed somehow too bright, too at ease, for his liking.

  The two men went to the table in the corner.

  ‘Where shall I sit? Here?’

  Ebert smiled. ‘If you like.’ It was exactly where he wanted DeVore. At that point he was covered by all three of the marksmen concealed overhead. If he tried anything...

  DeVore sat, perfectly at ease, lifting the lid from the pot, then placed the first of his stones in tsu, the north. Ebert sat, facing him, studying him a moment, then lifted the lid from his pot and took one of the black stones between his fingers. He had prepared his men beforehand. If he played in one particular place – in the middle of the board, on the edge of shang, the south, on the intersection beside his own central stone – then they were to open fire, killing DeVore. Otherwise they were to fire only if Ebert’s life was endangered.

  Ebert reached across, playing at the top of shang, two places out from his own corner stone, two lines down from the edge.

  ‘Well?’ he said, looking at DeVore across the board. ‘You’re not here to ask after my health. What do you want?’

  DeVore was studying the board as if he could see the game to come – the patterns of black stones and white, their shape and interaction. ‘Me? I don’t want anything. At least, nothing from you, Hans. That’s not why I’m here.’ He set down a white stone, close by Ebert’s last, then looked up, smiling again. ‘I’m here because there’s something you might want.’

  Ebert stared at him, astonished, then laughed. ‘What could I possibly want from you?’ He slapped a stone down almost carelessly, three spaces out from the first.

  DeVore studied the move, then shook his head. He took a stone from his pot and set it down midway between the corner and the centre, as if to divide some future formation of Ebert’s stones.

  ‘You have everything you need, then, Hans?’

  Ebert narrowed his eyes, then slapped down another stone irritably. It was two spaces out from the centre, between DeVore’s and his own, so that the five stones now formed a broken diagonal line from the corner to the centre, two black, one white, then two more black.

  DeVore smiled broadly. ‘That’s an interesting shape, don’t you think? But it’s weak, like the Seven. Black might outnumber white, but white isn’t surrounded.’

  Ebert sat back. ‘Meaning what?’

  DeVore set down another stone, pushing out towards ch’u, the west. A triangle of three white stones now sat to the right of a triangle of black stones. Ebert stared at the position a moment, then looked up into DeVore’s face again.

  DeVore was watching him closely, his eyes suddenly sharp, alert, the smile gone from his lips.

  ‘Meaning that you serve a master you despise. Accordingly, you play badly. Winning or losing has no meaning for you. No interest.’

  Ebert touched his upper teeth with his tongue, then took another stone and placed it, eight down, six out in shang. It was a necessary move; a strengthening move. It prevented DeVore from breaking his line while expanding the territory he now surrounded. The game was going well for him.

  ‘You read my mind, then, Shih DeVore? You know how I think?’

  ‘I know that you’re a man of considerable talent, Hans. And I know that you’re bored. I can see it in the things you do, the decisions you make. I can see how you hold the greater part of yourself back constantly. Am I wrong, then? Is what I see really the best you can do?’

  DeVore set down another stone. Unexpectedly it cut across the shape Ebert had just made, pushing into the territory he had mapped out. It seemed an absurd move, a weak move, but Ebert knew that DeVore was a master at this game. He would not make such a move without good reason.

  ‘It seems you want me to cut you. But if I do, it means you infiltrate this area here.’ He sketched it out.

  ‘And if you don’t?’

  ‘Well, it’s obvious. You cut me. You separate my groups.’

  DeVore smiled. ‘So. A dilemma. What to choose?’

  Ebert looked up again, meeting his eyes. He knew that DeVore was saying something to him through the game. But what? Was DeVore asking him to make a choice? The Seven or himself? Was he asking him to come out in the open and declare himself?

  He set down his stone, cutting DeVore, keeping his own lines open.

  ‘You say the Seven are weak, but you, are you any stronger?’

  ‘At present, no. Look at me, I’m like these five white stones here on the board. I’m cut and scattered and outnumbered. But I’m a good player and the odds are better than when I started. Then they were seven to one. Now...’ he placed his sixth stone, six down, four out in shang, threatening the corner ‘... it’s only two to one. And every move improves my chances. I’ll win. Eventually.’

  Ebert placed another black stone in the diagonal line, preventing DeVore from linking with his other stones, but again it allowed DeVore space within his own territory and he sensed that DeVore would make a living group there.

  ‘You know, I’ve always admired you, Howard. You would have been Marshal eventually. You would have run things for the Seven.’

  ‘That’s so... But it was never enough for me to serve another. Nor you. We find it hard to bow to lesser men.’

  Ebert laughed, then realized how far DeVore had brought him. Only it was true. Everything he said was true. He watched DeVore set another stone down, shadowing his own line, sketching out territory inside his own, robbing him of what he’d thought was safely his.

  ‘I see...’ he said, meaning two things. For a time, then, they simply played. Forty moves later he could see that it was lost. DeVore had taken five of his stones from the board and had formed a living group of half of shang. Worse, he had pushed out towards ch’u and down into p’ing. Now a small group of four of his stones were threatened at the centre and there was only one way to save it, to play in the space in shang beside the central stone – the signal for his men to open fire on DeVore. Ebert sat back, holding the black stone between his fingers, then laughed.

  ‘It seems you’ve forced me to a decision.’

  DeVore smiled back at him. ‘I was wondering what you would do.’

  Ebert eyed him sharply. ‘Wondering?’

  ‘Yes. I wasn’t sure at first. But now I know. You won’t play that space. You’ll play here instead.’ He leaned across and touched the intersection with his fingertip. It was the move that gave only temporary respite. It did not save the group.

  ‘Why should I do that?’

  ‘Because you don’t want to kill me. And because you’re seriously interested in my proposition.’

  Ebert laughed, astonished. ‘You knew?’

  ‘Oh, I know you’ve three of your best stormtroopers here, Hans. I’ve been conscious of the risks I’ve been taking. But how about you?’

  ‘I think I know,’ Ebert said, even more cautiously. Then, with a small laugh of admiration he set the stone down where DeVore had indicated.

  ‘Good.’ DeVore leaned across and set a white stone in the special space, on the edge of shang, beside Ebert’s central stone, then leaned back again. ‘I’m certain you�
��ll have assessed the potential rewards, too.’ He smiled, looking down at his hands. ‘King of the world, Hans. That’s what you could be. T’ang of all Chung Kuo.’

  Ebert stared back at him, his mouth open but set.

  ‘But not without me.’ DeVore looked up at him, his eyes piercing him through. ‘Not without me. You understand that?’

  ‘I could have you killed. Right now. And be hailed as a hero.’

  DeVore nodded. ‘Of course. I knew what I was doing. But I assumed you knew why you were here. That you knew how much you had to gain.’

  It was Ebert’s turn to laugh. ‘This is insane.’

  DeVore was watching him calmly, as if he knew now how things would turn out between them. ‘Insane? No. It’s no more insane than the rule of the Seven. And how long can that last? In ten years, maybe less, the whole pack of cards is going to come tumbling down, whatever happens. The more astute of the Above realize that and want to do something about it. They want to control the process. But they need a figurehead. Someone they admire. Someone from amongst their number. Someone capable and in a position of power.’

  ‘I don’t fit your description.’

  DeVore laughed. ‘Not now, perhaps. But you will. In a year from now you will.’

  Ebert looked down. He knew it was a moment for decisiveness, not prevarication. ‘And when I’m T’ang?’

  DeVore smiled and looked down at the board. ‘Then the stars will be ours. A world for each of us.’

  A world for each of us. Ebert thought about it a moment. This, then, was what it was really all about. Expansion. Taking the lid off City Earth and getting away. But what would that leave him?

  ‘However,’ DeVore went on. ‘You didn’t mean that, did you?’ He stood and went across to the drinks cabinet, pouring himself a second glass of brandy. Turning, he looked directly at the younger man. ‘What you meant was, what’s in it for me?’

  Ebert met his look unflinchingly. ‘Of course. What other motive could there be?’