Asimov's SF, July 2007

by Dell Magazine Authors

  Copyright (c) 2007 John Schoffstall

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  THE SKY IS LARGE AND THE EARTH IS SMALL

  by Chris Roberson

  Chris Roberson's new story is set in his Celestial Empire sequence. This series features an alternate history in which China rose to world domination. Other works from that milieu include “Red Hands, Black Hands” (Asimov's SF, December 2004), The Voyage of Night Shining White, (PS Publishing, 2007), the forthcoming Dragon's Nine Sons from Solaris Books, and his YA novel, Iron Jaw & Hummingbird, from Viking.

  Water-Dragon year, twenty-eighth year of the Kangxi emperor

  Cao Wen stood south of the Eastern Peace Gate of the Forbidden City, facing the entrance to the Eastern Depot. It was an unassuming building, dwarfed by the grandeur of the buildings on the opposite side of the concourse—the Six Ministries, the Court of State Ceremonial, and the Directorate of Astronomy, where the imperial astronomers studied the heavens, watchful of any signs or portents which might auger good or ill for the emperor. Only the Office of Transmission was less grand than the Eastern Depot, its function largely eliminated when the emperor had instituted the palace memorial system, requiring that each of his ministers and deputies communicate their reports to him directly in their own hand, for his eyes only.

  At the Eastern Depot's large, unadorned entrance, two guards stood at the ready, sabers sheathed at their sides, poleaxes in their hands. Cao displayed his signs of authority, which marked him as an authorized representative of the Ministry of War. One of the guards studied the papers closely, then turned and motioned for Cao to accompany him, leaving the other at his post.

  Following the guard into the main hall of the Eastern Depot, Cao's eyes lit upon a plaque, on which a motto was engraved in simply crafted characters: “Heart and Bowels of the Court."

  “Please wait here,” the guard said with an abbreviated bow, “while this one fetches a superior.” Then, Cao's papers still in hand, the guard disappeared through one of the many arches leading from the main hall.

  Cao waited in silence as agents of the Eastern Depot came and went, all about the emperor's business. Most were clad in plain gray robes and would not merit a second glance were he to pass them on the street. Only a few wore the elaborate mantles that gave the emperor's secret police their name—the Embroidered Guard.

  After a few long moments, the guard reappeared, with an older man following close behind. In his simple cotton robes, this newcomer could have easily passed for a fishmonger or merchant in textiles, thin wisps of mustaches drooping over his thick lips, his eyes half-lidded as though he were just waking from a long slumber. His face, frame, and hands displayed the softened edges that suggested he was a eunuch, one who had traded in his manhood for a life of imperial service.

  “Return to your post,” the older man said to the guard, who replied only with a rigid nod.

  “You are Cao Wen?” the man said to him, without preamble.

  Cao allowed that he was, and bowed lower than the man's appearance would suggest was required. In such a setting, appearances could be deceiving.

  “I am Director Fei Ren of the Eastern Depot.” The man brandished the papers Cao had brought with him, which bore the chop of the Minister of War. “I understand you wish to speak with one of our guests?"

  “Yes, O Honorable Director,” Cao said, bowing again, lower this time, “it is the wish of his excellency the Minister of War that I should do so. It is believed that your ... guest ... has some intelligence that may be of use to the emperor, may-he-reign-ten-thousand-years."

  “This individual has been temporarily housed with us for some considerable time,” Director Fei answered. “Since before our emperor reached his age of majority. And not all that time spent in the Outside Depot, but some months and years in the Bureau of Suppression and Soothing, as well."

  Cao concealed a shudder. He had heard only whispered rumors about what went on in the private chambers of the Bureau of Suppression and Soothing, which the Embroidered Guard used to elicit confessions from the most recalcitrant suspects.

  Director Fei continued. “Any intelligence this individual had to offer has long since been documented, I would venture to say. And had we been able to extract a confession from him on his many crimes, he would long ago have gone under the executioner's blade. I think you will find this one a spent fruit, all juices long since dried up, leaving nothing more than a desiccated husk of a man."

  “You are obviously much wiser in such matters than I, Honorable Director,” Cao said, with the appropriate tone of humility, “but such is my office to fulfill, and it would displease my master the Minister of War if I were to shirk my responsibility."

  Director Fei shrugged. “Very well. It is your own time that you waste. Come along and I will have one of my agents escort you into the Outside Depot."

  Director Fei waved over another man dressed in plain robes, this one nearer Cao's own age of twenty years.

  “Agent Gu Xuesen will escort you, Cao Wen. Now you must excuse me, as more pressing matters demand my attention."

  Cao bowed low, and Director Fei disappeared back into the shadows beyond the main hall.

  “This way, sir,” Gu said, inclining his head, and started toward one of the larger arches.

  Agent Gu led Cao through the winding labyrinth of passages within the Eastern Depot. The building was larger than its exterior would suggest, due to the snaking passages, numerous small chambers, and rooms inside. Frequently passages opened onto open-air courtyards, and just as frequently onto dank chambers that had never seen the light of day. As they went, Agent Gu provided the name and use of each chamber and room.

  Cao was surprised to find so talkative a member of the Embroidered Guard, who were widely known as a circumspect—some might even say taciturn—lot. When Agent Gu explained that he was only in his first years with the Embroidered Guard, and that he was required to complete his long years of training before being allowed to go beyond the walls of the Eastern Depot, his talkative manner became much more understandable. He clearly hungered for dialogue with someone nearer his own age, and while his training likely prohibited providing information when it was unnecessary and when there was no advantage to be gained, his youthful hunger for distraction, in this instance at least, was getting the better of his discretion.

  “And now, Cao Wen,” Agent Gu was saying, “we pass into that section known as the Inside Depot. This is the place used to house the most dangerous and serious suspects brought in by the Embroidered Guard. It is the most closely guarded of all the sections of the Eastern Depot, and none who are not of the Embroidered Guard may enter unescorted."

  They passed by a tall doorway, the door lacquered matte black, the frame painted a red the color of blood.

  “And beyond this point,” Gu said, pointing to the door, “rests the Bureau of Suppression and Soothing."

  Cao flinched, despite himself. He labored not to call to mind the stories he had heard of the Bureau.

  “Even through the reinforced walls and doors of the Bureau,” Gu went on, “which have been designed to dampen sound, screams and hideous wailing can occasionally be heard."

  They passed by the jet-and-scarlet doorway, turning a corner to a long corridor, and Cao tried to put the door and what lay beyond it out of his thoughts.

  Continuing on, they came at last to a broad, open-air courtyard, surrounded on all sides by narrow doorways leading to small chambers. Men and women milled around in the bright morning sun, shuffling under the gaze of guards who perched atop towers positioned on the opposite sides of the courtyard, surmounted by banners on tall posts.

  “This, finally, is the Outside Depot,” Gu explained, “in which guests of th
e Embroidered Guard are temporarily housed. Some have confessed to minor crimes which merit no more severe punishment than imprisonment, while others await the decision of the emperor on their final sentencing. Some few have yet to confess, but have been deemed by the Bureau of Suppression and Soothing as not likely to confess at any point in the future. As no conviction can be achieved without a confession, these few are returned to the Outside Depot, assuming they are not violent enough to merit imprisonment in the Inside Depot, to wait."

  “Wait for what?” Cao asked, casting his gaze across the dispirited faces before him.

  “Some wait for a reprieve from the emperor, some wait for further evidence to come to light, while some just wait. For death to take them, one supposes."

  Agent Gu pointed to an ancient man sitting at the center of the courtyard, his legs folded under him, his full attention on the passage across the ground of the shadows of the two towers.

  “That is the man you seek,” Agent Gu said. “That is Ling Xuan."

  * * * *

  Cao Wen sat opposite the ancient man in the interview chamber. Agent Gu waited beyond the door of iron-clad hardwood, which Cao doubted any sound could penetrate, short of a full-bodied bellow.

  Cao had a sheaf of papers in front of him, while the old man sat with his shoulders slumped, his hands folded in his lap and the slack-jawed smile of an imbecile on his wrinkled face.

  “Ling Xuan?” Cao repeated. The old man's eyes rested on the simple wooden table between then, worn smooth by generations of hands. Cao could not help but wonder what other dialogues had played out across the table, over the long years since the Embroidered Guard was established in the days of the Yongle emperor, during the Bright Dynasty.

  Still, though, the old man did not reply.

  “Is that your name?"

  The old man drew in a deep breath through his nostrils, blinked several times, and straightened up, all without lifting his eyes from the surface of the table. When he spoke, his voice was soft but with an underlying strength.

  “The swirls and curves of the wood from which this table is constructed call to mind the heavens and clouds picked out in golden thread on the longpao dragon robes I wore in the service of the Shunzhi emperor. Strange to think that they follow me, here, after all of these long years. Perhaps they seek to remind me of days past, when my circumstances were more auspicious."

  The man had spoken slowly, without any pause between words, a single, breathless oration.

  Cao looked at the table, and saw nothing but meaningless swirls and knots. Was the old man mad, and his search already proven to be in vain?

  “Need I remind you,” Cao replied, his tone moderated but forceful, “that I come here on the authority of the Minister of War, who speaks with the voice of the Dragon Throne itself ? Now, I ask again, is your name..."

  “Yes,” the old man said, not raising his eyes. “Ling Xuan is my name."

  Cao nodded, sharply. “Good. And are you the same Ling Xuan who is listed here?"

  Cao slid a piece of paper across the table, a copy he had recently made of the fragmentary inventory of the imperial archives of the Chongzhen emperor, one of the last of the Bright Dynasty, who ruled before the Manchu came down from the north and established the Clear Dynasty.

  On the inventory was highlighted one item: A Narrative Of A Journey Into The East, To The Lands Which Lie Across The Ocean, With Particular Attention to the Mexica, by Ling Xuan, Provincial Graduate.

  Ling looked at the paper for a long time, as though puzzling out a complex mathematical equation in his head. After a long moment he spoke, his voice the sound of distant thunder. “Such a long time ago.” And then he fell silent once more.

  After a lengthy silence, the old man nodded, slowly, and raised his eyes to meet Cao's.

  “Yes,” Ling said. “I am he."

  “Good,” Cao said impatiently. “Now, I am sorry to report that all that is known about your account is the title, as it was among those records lost in the transition of power from the Bright Dynasty to the Clear. My purpose for coming here to interview you is..."

  “Such a long time ago, but I can remember it all, as though it were yesterday."

  Cao paused, waiting to see if the old man would speak further after his interruption. When Ling remained silent, Cao nodded again and continued, “That is good, because..."

  “When we are young,” Ling said, the distant thunder growing somewhat closer, “the days crawl by. I remember summers of my youth which seemed to last for generations. But as we grow older, the months and years flit by like dragonflies, one after another in their dozens. But by the calendar, a day is still a day, is it not? Why is it, do you suppose, that the duration of a span of time should seem so different to us in one circumstance than another?"

  Cao shuffled the papers before him, impatiently. “I'm sure that I don't know. Now, as I was saying..."

  “I have begun to suspect that time is, in some sense I don't yet fully comprehend, subjective to the viewer. What a day signifies to me is quite different than what it signifies to you. How strange my day might seem, were I able to see it through your eyes."

  “Ling Xuan, I insist that you listen to, and then answer, my questions."

  “We shall see how our day looks tomorrow, shall we?” Ling Xuan rose slowly to his feet, crossed to the door, and rapped on the metal cladding with a gnarled knuckle. “Perhaps then we shall have more perspective on the subjectivity of time."

  Cao jumped to his feet, raising his voice in objection. “Ling Xuan, I insist that you return to your seat and answer my questions!"

  Agent Gu opened the door, in response to the knocking sound.

  Ling smiled beatifically, looking back over his shoulder at Cao. “And if I insist to the sun that it stop in its courses, and remain unmoving in the heavens, do you suppose that it will?"

  With that Ling Xuan turned and walked out of the chamber, nodding slightly to Agent Gu as he passed.

  Cao raced to the door, his cheeks flushed with anger. “Agent Gu, bring him to heel!"

  Agent Gu glanced after the back of the retreating prisoner.

  “That old man survived more than a year in the Bureau of Suppression and Soothing,” Gu answered, “and never confessed. What do you suppose I could do that would make him talk?"

  Gu walked out toward the courtyard, and Cao followed behind, his hands twisted into trembling fists at his sides.

  Ling had walked out into the sunlit courtyard, and he glanced back at Cao as he sat, gracefully folding his legs under him.

  “Tomorrow, don't forget,” he called to Cao. “Perhaps that will be the day in which we find answers."

  * * * *

  Back at the Ministry of War, across the concourse from the Eastern Depot, Cao Wen sat in his small cubicle, surveying the mounds of paper before him, hundreds of notes and maps and charts, the product of months’ work.

  “Cao?” an impatient voice called from behind him, startling him.

  Cao turned, pulse racing, to find the imposing figure of the Deputy Minister of War standing behind him.

  “Deputy Minister Wu,” Cao said breathlessly, rising to his feet and bowing.

  Wu waved him to return to his seat, an annoyed expression on his broad face. “Is it too much to hope that you have completed your survey of the archives, and your report on the Mexica is finally ready to present to the Minister?"

  Cao blanched, and shook his head. “Your pardon, O Honorable Deputy Minister, but while my researches are very nearly complete, I still have one final resource to investigate before my survey is ready for review."

  “I take it you refer to this prisoner of the Eastern Depot? Were you not scheduled to interview him today?"

  “Yes,” Cao answered reluctantly. “But our initial meeting was not entirely ... productive. It is my intention to return to the Eastern Depot tomorrow to complete his interrogation."

  “Was this Ling Xuan forthcoming with strategic details about the Mexica? The em
peror is most desirous of a complete analysis of the possibilities for invasion of the Mexica isthmus, once our pacification of Fusang is complete, and the Minister of War is eager to present the Ministry's findings on the matter."

  “The urgency is well understood, Deputy Minister.” Cao shifted uneasily on his bench. “But I believe this final interview will provide much needed detail for the survey, and greatly improve the emperor's understanding of the strategic possibilities."

  “I suppose you are well aware of the fact that a survey well received by the Dragon Throne will do much to enhance the estimation of a scholar so far unable to pass the juren level examinations, and would greatly aid one's chances of advancement within the imperial bureaucracy."

  Cao brightened, and sat straighter. “Most certainly, Deputy Minister."

  “The converse, however, is also true,” Wu said, his eyes narrowed, “and a report which displeases the Minister, to say nothing of displeasing the emperor, Son of Heaven, may-he-reign-ten-thousand-years, could do irreparable damage to a young bureaucrat's career prospects. Such a one might find himself assigned to the far provinces, inspecting grain yield and calculating annual tax levies for the rest of his life."

  Cao swallowed hard. “It is understood, Deputy Minister."

  The Deputy Minister nodded. “Good,” he said, turning and walking briskly away. “See that it is not forgotten."

  * * * *

  The next day, Cao Wen stood over Ling Xuan, who again sat in the middle of the concourse, his eyes fixed on the shadows on the ground.

  “Note the shadows of the two towers,” Ling said without looking up, before Cao had announced himself. “The spires atop each function like the points atop an equatorial sundial. If one views the many doorways opening off the central courtyard as marking the hours, the shadows indicate the time of day, with the southern tower indicating the time in the summer months, when the sun is high in the sky, and the northern tower indicating the time in the winter, when the sun is lower."