Jade Empire

by S. J. A. Turney

  ‘The dead lands, sir,’ Jai said suddenly, surprising himself.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The land of the ghosts in the south, sir. It was to be part of my report. We forayed a few miles beyond the line of markers and discovered a small ferry crossing. There you could meet on neutral ground, far from the armies. Moreover, no man can carry a weapon beyond the markers without signing his own death warrant at the hands of the spirits, so no one will take a weapon to the meeting, and if they do, then they will not make it to the meeting. If it is a trap, then we can circumvent the worst danger that way.’

  The general frowned. ‘I thought you disapproved of people entering these lands. Sacred and deadly was the impression you gave me.’

  ‘Quite so, sir. And it is not a place I would go to lightly or even willingly under normal circumstances. But these are not normal circumstances. If you are to meet with any element of safety and secrecy, it is there that such a meeting should be held. It is a nerve-racking place, but we spent a day there and survived. Moreover, if the western general is willing to meet you in such a place, you will know he is serious, since the enemy are as respectful of the southern lands as we are.’

  Jiang nodded. ‘You speak a lot of sense. It will take some time, though, will it not? You have been gone three weeks.’

  ‘We travelled in a rather meandering route, sir. On good horses and riding direct at speed, you could make the ghost lands in seven days at most. Six, probably.’

  General Jiang leaned back in his chair and exhaled noisily. ‘Then I shall send an emissary across the bridge with this proposition. Cinna and his escort can travel along the far bank and we can travel along this one. We shall meet in these ghost lands of yours. I shall take just a unit of the Crimson Guard and you. You are content to act as guide?’

  No, thought Jai. The very last thing I want to do is walk into the dead lands with a unit of the Crimson Guard to meet an enemy deputation.

  ‘Yes, sir,’ he said, swallowing the fear once more.

  Chapter 15

  My grandfather, who predicted this entire slide into universal oblivion, was a man who never failed to face up to his responsibilities and to accept the realities of the world. While my father was much the same, it is to my rather visionary grandfather that I owe my own personality and system of values.

  One of the things my grandfather held as an article of faith was that there is no such thing as coincidence. Just the unfolding of what was meant to be. Another was that no man can run away from the world. From what he told me, when the Jade Empire’s forage parties started to come, my father expressed his intention to simply move the people of Initpur out of their reach. In retrospect, now that I think on it, perhaps there is more of my father in me than I realised.

  Regardless, my grandfather made my father promise to do no such thing, but to stay and face his fate, which of course he did. A man cannot run from fate, the old man had said. Fate simply follows him. You can attempt to shut yourself away from the world as much as you wish, but the world will find you.

  I had thought that of all places, the dead lands were the one place that the world would not find me. But my grandfather was, as always, correct. Even here, the world would not leave me alone, and though what was to happen brought me fear and apprehension, it brought me joy from the most unexpected sources.

  ‘The river crossing… is in use.’

  The watchman was breathing in gasps, having ridden from his post at breakneck pace. Some – the ever-negative Parmesh preeminent among them – had seen no need in this place to set guards, given the fact that no one came here willingly and that any who might would be unarmed or dead before they reached the monastery. Aram had disagreed and selfishly used the persuasive power of Mani and Bajaan to override the dissenters. Even in these dead lands, he would have pickets. Aram was not a military man, but in his new role as not ruler but leader, he was beginning to see the value of thinking like one. The watchmen had thus been set on every path that led from the monastery at a distance of three miles, and they changed shift every three hours to remain fresh and alert.

  Over the weeks they had been here, no one had reported an enemy presence. Oh, there had been plenty of panicked warnings, but they had, each and every one, been born of nerves and the constant feeling of being watched and threatened in these lands. Each time they had been more nervous of men jumping at shadows or perceived phantoms. That feeling was absent at the monastery, of course, but a few miles out, where the pickets sat alone in the wilds, it was strong and preyed on the mind of even the strongest-willed man.

  They had been good weeks at the monastery, though. The whole complex had been, and still was, a mass of construction and change. New bunkhouses continued to go up to accommodate those who had spent the intervening time living on the floors of the temple or the workshops or barns. The whole place was rapidly coming to order. The surfaces had been cleaned, oil applied to machinery, grass trimmed, beds weeded and so on. Gradually the place was beginning to resemble a proper community. One of the first tasks had been the overdue harvest, and now the granaries and storehouses were crammed full of grain, vegetables and fruit, and the beasts in the fields had once more reached an acceptable stage of domestication.

  Aram had been content for the first time since they had left Initpur. They were not just surviving as a community, they were beginning to thrive. And for whatever reason – perhaps that, because of the monks, this place was favoured by protective gods – there was no threat hovering in the air. The place felt peaceful. Moreover, in the weeks they had been here there had been no sign of other trespassers. The only other souls who had passed through the gates of the monastery had been those strays and displaced by the war who had been found by men sent by Aram. They came and marvelled at what they saw, unexpected in this haunted land.

  So new people came and added their muscle to the work and their enthusiasm to the community.

  It had all been perfect. Too perfect. Given his grandfather’s teachings, Aram should have been expecting the worst.

  He frowned at the watchman. ‘This is not some trick of the mind?’

  ‘No. Men. A few of them too.’

  ‘Could they be refugees who have heard of our settlement?’

  The picket shook his head. No, Aram agreed. The only people who had heard of this place were those who had been brought here deliberately by his guides.

  ‘No. They are Jade Empire men.’

  Aram felt his blood chill. ‘You are sure?’

  ‘Yes. And they seem to be important ones too. Not just some stray scout party. They wear impressive red uniforms and two of them are done up like senior officers. They all had good horses too. They were starting to use the crossing already when I left.’

  Aram nodded. ‘It will take them some time to cross, especially with their beasts. How many?’

  ‘Perhaps twenty or more.’

  Aram hardened his heart and steeled himself. The last thing he wanted was a fight, but there were thousands of refugees here. They had no reason to fear a score of men, no matter how dangerous they might be. They would be unarmed, else they would not have got this far. And had not the monks of this place, through their deserted training hall, inadvertently shown Aram that there was still a way to fight without weapons, even here, where the spirits were ascendant?

  ‘Sound the assembly bell and have the gates closed once everyone is inside,’ he shouted to the man by the gate. Moments later, the great bronze bell near the main temple entrance was clanging repeatedly.

  Out across the fields, farmers, woodsmen and workers of all types abandoned their tasks and hurried back to the monastery at the urgent sound. Aram waited in tense silence as the population of the settlement returned, passing through the gate and seeking the assigned places of safety they had prepared for such an eventuality. Only those capable of throwing a punch and willing to stand and fight would remain out in the open with him, the rest hiding inside, away from potential danger.

 
Then, in the second heart-stopping moment in one morning, Aram spotted the rider charging towards the monastery from the north-west – the very road along which they had first come – shouting at the scurrying workers to get out of the way.

  Aram closed his eyes for a moment. You can find the most obscure and overlooked place in existence and conceal yourself, but the world will always find you, Aram…

  He waited as the rider approached the gate and slipped from the horse’s back, leading it the last few paces towards him.

  ‘Trouble?’

  ‘Riders, sir. Still a few miles out to the north. They’re moving slowly and carefully, but they’ll be here soon enough.’

  ‘How many?’

  ‘Twenty or thirty.’

  Aram nodded. Western men, almost certainly, coming from that direction. And it was hardly worth bothering to enquire as to whether they were refugees. But the odd synchronicity of weeks of peace and then an incursion from both sides simultaneously? Like his grandfather before him, Aram did not believe in coincidence. Coincidence was a fool’s attempt to explain away fate.

  ‘What do we do?’

  Aram turned to find Mani behind him, and Bajaan hurrying over to join them. Blessedly, of Parmesh there was as yet no sign, though he would be here soon enough, arguing.

  ‘Do? We do nothing. We shut the gate and talk. Even if both of the new arrivals decided to assail us, they would number fewer than fifty to our thousands. Attack is not within their capability. They could not be that foolish. Moreover, timing suggests that this is some mutual design of theirs, independent of our presence.’

  Mani nodded. Behind them, several hundred muscular men with grim faces were gathering in the open space inside the gate, preparing to defend the colony should they be required.

  In half an hour all was ready. Every full civilian was inside, lurking in the relative safety of the buildings. Every man assigned to defend the place was gathered in the open. Aram and his close companions – soon including Parmesh – were at the closed gate, standing on a raised platform inside the wall that they had constructed for observation rather than defence.

  The better part of an hour passed before the first figures emerged from the jungle at the edge of the fields to the north-west. For some time, the refugees watched as the small column of horsemen, resplendent in blue and white tunics and gleaming, silvery armour, rode along the path through the monastery’s territory, making for the gate. There were, at a quick count, twenty-seven of them including the two men in what appeared to be officer’s garb, cloaks of gleaming white rippling behind them.

  ‘Be ready,’ he said to Mani. ‘But no one moves unless the soldiers do so first. I will not be the man to start a fight here, when I suspect that is not the reason for their presence.’

  He watched the men approach, and it was only when they were less than thirty paces from the gate and slowing down that he realised he recognised one of them. The stocky man with the neat, almost severe hair in the senior officer’s uniform was the general to whom he had spoken at Jalnapur on their way south. That realisation went some way to calming his jangling nerves. He remembered the general as an urbane, even friendly character, who had seemed sympathetic to the plight of the Inda.

  The horsemen reined in and the two officers – the other, surprisingly, being a young Inda-born fellow – came to the fore, their arms raised as if to demonstrate that they were not armed. As his eyes strayed across the second officer, something sang a strange song in his blood and, once again, he recalled his father’s contempt for the concept of coincidence.

  ‘You have come a long way,’ the general said with a smile.

  ‘I am surprised that you remember me,’ Aram replied, genuinely so.

  ‘These lands, Dev here tells me, are forbidden to the living, and yet a force of several hundred seem to wait at your command. You have to be the same rajah who passed by Jalnapur with his column of refugees.’

  Aram did not answer. His eyes were scrutinising the other figure. He was Inda. Of about the right age. Of course, Dev was hardly an uncommon name among the people, but Aram did not believe in coincidence. Fate ruled all men and had brought the world once more to his door for a reason.

  His heart hammering in his chest, unable to tear his eyes from the young officer, Aram coughed and attempted to clear a suddenly constricted throat.

  ‘You are not here for us, General, and those who you expect are, I believe, less than a mile away.’

  ‘You are well informed.’

  ‘I keep my eyes open, as does anyone who hopes to see a new dawn these days. But fate is a curious thing,’ Aram said, his skin prickling. ‘Your aide, there. What would you say were I to mention Initpur?’

  The adjutant, who had been perusing the walls of the monastery with a practised military eye, suddenly snapped his head round to the gate, brow furrowed.

  ‘I…’ the young man’s eyes widened. ‘Father?’

  Now it was General Cinna’s turn to look surprised. ‘Dev?’

  ‘That…’ the young man’s eyes were drinking in every detail of the figure at the gate and Aram felt his spirit soar. It was his son. He had changed in over a decade, but then so had Aram, and wondered how he must look to his estranged son. He had grown older and greyer, naturally, but it was more than that. Gone were the trappings of a rajah, even a poor one. Gone was the veneer of civilisation. Here was a man of the people. A labourer, but still one used to command, given how the others inside the wall looked to him. Dev of Initpur had quit his home long ago, but Dev’s expression left Aram in no doubt that it was he who stood in front of him.

  ‘He is my father,’ Dev said in a hoarse tone. ‘The rajah of Initpur, far to the north, in the lower mountains east of the great river. Father, this is General Cinna.’

  ‘We’ve met,’ Cinna cut in. ‘I couldn’t recall the name, but your father was leading his people south some months back. Many thousands of them. I hope you have not suffered losses, Rajah?’

  Aram shook his head. ‘Our people are inside. They do not trust outsiders – especially invaders. And I am no longer a rajah.’

  ‘Evidence suggests otherwise,’ Cinna replied with an odd smile. ‘You can relinquish any crown you like, Aram of Initpur, but you have simply exchanged your beleaguered northern kingdom for a haunted southern one.’

  ‘Father, how did you come to be here?’ Dev asked. His voice cracked with suppressed emotion, and Aram suspected that he himself sounded remarkably similar.

  ‘Seeking the only place the Inda could be saved from the war, my son. I left the north with our people when Initpur fell to the Jade Empire, but the population here is formed of peoples from all over the western Inda Diamond. I am pleased to see that your sojourn in the west has not been wasted. I…’

  Aram’s voice faltered. Emotion was beginning to overcome him.

  ‘We are not here to impact upon your presence, Aram of Initpur,’ the general said loudly. ‘I give my oath that no harm will befall you or yours at the hands of my men. We are here in this place to seek a parley with the commander of the Jade Empire’s forces. It will be he who you have seen less than a mile from here.’

  ‘The Jade Empire’s general,’ Bajaan said quietly, close by. He leaned towards Aram and spoke in low, whispered tones, inaudible to those outside the gate. ‘You realise that we have both the senior commanders of our enemies meeting outside this very gate. We could end the invasion in a heartbeat with just two deaths.’

  Aram’s head snapped round to his friend, eyes wide. ‘No. You cannot suggest such a thing. Besides, that is not how the great empires work. These two men would simply be replaced, and I have an odd suspicion that that would not go well for anyone. Keep the men calm and under control. This, I think, could be the beginning of something important.’

  ‘You seek a treaty with your opponent?’ Aram said, framed as a question, though he was in no doubt.

  ‘We hover on the edge of a pit whose maw waits to consume the world,’ General Cinn
a replied with unexpected candour. ‘Only a fool would not seek to avoid such a thing.’

  ‘Then you are welcome into our monastery,’ Aram said suddenly, earning himself a worried glare from Bajaan, a concerned look from Mani, and downright hostility from Parmesh.

  ‘That is not a good idea,’ Bajaan said.

  ‘These men are seeking a peaceful solution. Is that not precisely what we have searched for? Should we not all foster such a notion?’ The questions were hammered home like nails of truth into the refugees behind him. He turned to the man on the far side of the platform. ‘Open the gate and let them in. Have the refectory cleared and have food and fruit juice brought in. It is time to do what we can to influence the world for a change, instead of the other way around.’

  The waiting men in the open space began to pull back as the gate ponderously crawled open, making way for the new arrivals to enter. The general was first in, his manner friendly yet aloof. Dev came second, and his eyes never for a moment left the face of his father. The horsemen with them looked nervous and distinctly uncomfortable.

  General Cinna turned to his men. ‘Dismount, find somewhere to rest and be calm and courteous to all. I will personally tear the tongue out of the first man to cause offence among these people.’ His threat delivered, the general himself slid from his horse and left his helmet hanging on a saddle horn, removing his gloves and walking in small circles to ease his muscles after the ride.

  Aram approached slowly, tentatively.

  ‘Thank you for your invitation,’ Cinna said as he neared. ‘It is most welcome after a long ride. I hope to repay your hospitality well, though we have little with us at this time.’