by Brian Thomas
The two men broke briefly, still circling as their bodies gleamed with perspiration. Both of them breathing deeply but not winded. As if with mutual consent they stepped back to their respective weapon racks and selected long knives to supplement their swords. This was a different style and each still sought an advantage over the other, confident in their own ability.
As they returned to the fight T’ze took a quick step and leapt up and forward remaining upright but striking down at the now crouching Duan, who evaded T’ze’s searching blade with a twist of his torso, countering with a sword stroke at T’ze’s passing leg. There was a gasp from the terrace opposite Li Chin as the tip of Duan’s sword cut through T’ze’s pantaloons and left a shallow graze. Rather than slow T’ze it seemed to galvanise him into a flurry of combined sword and knife strokes, which pressed the beleaguered Duan back until he was almost upon the terraces, his own blades whirling in a bewildering array of counter moves. Just in time, he managed to deflect an overhead blow from T’ze with his own crossed blades before using his whole body to twist away while locking T’ze’s sword blade tight between them. T’ze, with his sword trapped, followed the twist with his own body spinning parallel to the ground, so as to avoid a breaking pressure on his sword. When he landed there was only time for T’ze to sweep his blade clear and use his knife to deflect the attack now raining down on him, as Duan tried to press home his advantage before T’ze could regain the initiative.
Li Chin had spent most of his life developing his own martial skills and living amongst warriors of rare ability. As he sat watching the contest he could recall no finer display of skills in a duel to the death. The contest rampaged at a pace which could not be maintained for long, both contestants keeping up a blistering combination of attack and riposte, extending their bodies for extra reach and then performing almost impossible acrobatic manoeuvres to avoid a counter thrust. It was unusual for a contest to last as long as this one already had and, unless T’ze finished it soon, Duan would have the advantage of youth in the long match against his older opponent.
As their dance of death brought the combatants in front of Li Chin again he could see by the resignation on T’ze’s face that he also realised the need for a quick end before his endurance failed. But just as he reached this conclusion Li Chin noticed the amount of perspiration Duan was generating and the gauntness to his features in the shadowed torch light. Duan was excessively flushed, the sweat running in rivulets from his torso and spraying out in glittering broken chains as he maintained a connected series of blistering strokes and counters. Duan’s expression had lost some of its earlier determination, his concentration noticeably fading. His face was being distorted by an angry frustration, when if anything he should have been less tired by the bout than T’ze and manoeuvring for a long contest. Li Chin frowned as he scrutinized the bout; both contenders would know if Duan could just hold T’ze time and his youth should deliver the contest to him. Duan’s frustration and fatigue seemed out of place in a warrior of his outstanding ability and youth.
By mutual consent there was a short respite from the barrage of blows as each of the contestants broke off the engagement breathing heavily from their exertions. It was then T’ze noticed Duan’s laboured breathing and, if anything, that it was worse than his own. Looking at the youth’s face he could see more fatigue than he would have expected from one who had initially appeared so fit. T’ze barely had time to recognise these signs before he was defending against a new onslaught, delivered with a frenetic desperation which had him backing up to the terrace using knife and sword to deflect blows by instinct as there was barely time to see moves begin before they were delivered. Suddenly, the force behind the blows diminished, the strength seeming to have left them and T’ze was presented with an opening, a clear path where he could deliver a death blow. Fearing a trap he hesitated for the merest instant switching his gaze to the youth’s face and was shocked at the exhaustion he saw there.
This was no trap. Duan’s last attacking combination had used all of his reserves in a desperate gambit. However, the hesitation cost T’ze dearly as Duan took advantage of his momentary hesitation to perform an impossible stroke, forcing his blade up to T’ze’s gut, pushing aside T’ze’s own blade with his knife.
Twisting away desperately as the blade swept up to him and inside his defence it was all T’ze could do to avoid a death blow. Nevertheless, Duan’s sword entered his side above the hip and Duan, now almost a spent force, was over extended as he leaned forward with the lunge, his knife arm out to the side to maintain his balance. T’ze dropped his sword, now useless as Duan was too close for it to bear, using his free hand to grip Duan’s sword arm he pulled him forward and further off balance, ignoring the intense pain as Duan’s sword was driven deeper into his side. Their faces were almost touching as T’ze drove his own knife blade up to the hilt beneath Duan’s ribs and into his heart.
The packed terraces watched the two antagonists gripped in their final embrace. Duan’s bloody sword blade protruded out of T’ze’s back and unable to see T’ze’s knife thrust masked by their bodies, it seemed Duan had been victorious with T’ze vanquished. Li Chin looked to the dais and saw a fleeting look of surprised consternation cross more than one elder’s face. The elders’ reaction and Duan’s premature exhaustion confirmed Li Chin’s earlier suspicion that they had not expected their champion to win the contest. Duan’s body slowly fell away. T’ze’s knife left buried in Duan’s chest up to its haft, leaving T’ze standing alone, though impaled by Duan’s three foot sword. The elders quickly recovered their air of stoic indifference.
Moving cautiously so as not to cause more damage, T’ze pushed Duan’s blade back along its entry route by the base of the haft, letting it fall to the ground with a dull clang as the point left his body. Placing a hand over the freely bleeding wound and breathing heavily, T’ze turned to the dais and proclaimed. “The emperor is victorious. The honour is his!”
The arena spontaneously erupted with salutes, the Temple priests striking their left hand to their right breast and calling out. “Ho, T’ze!”
As T’ze received his plaudits from the terraces Li Chin looked to the dais gauging the elders’ reaction. They appeared considerably more relaxed than when they believed their own champion might have been victorious. Li Chin knew some of them well, especially Si Li, who he thought had shown surprise rather than concern at the prospect of Duan’s victory, while Melong had looked as though he would be ill. When Duan had fallen away to leave T’ze standing, there had been an almost visible releasing of tension in all of the elders.
It appeared to Li Chin they had expected Duan to fail and he had nearly spoiled their plan. Li Chin was disappointed at further evidence of the Temple’s duplicitous behaviour in its illusion of autonomy, when in fact it appeared to be no more than a leashed hound at the command of the emperor.
T’ze had recovered his own sword and approached the dais. Planting it point down in the ground he used the bloodied blade to aid his balance. The elders rose to face him. T’ze looked defiantly at them, the arena completely hushed as he demanded. “Does the Temple acknowledge the emperor’s victory?”
Si Li replied evenly. “The Temple acknowledges the emperor’s victory.” The elders bowed to T’ze in acknowledgement of his victory and in his capacity as the emperor’s representative. With the formalities for the challenge complete Si Li indicated a seat to the side of the dais brought out by acolytes now waiting to administer to T’ze’s wounds.
Making his way to the chair as Duan’s body was carried clear T’ze was surprised to see he had at least a dozen shallow cuts in addition to the puncture above his left hip. None of the cuts were serious but all were bleeding freely as a result of his exertions and the acolytes were waiting to clean them, already preparing stitches for the worse of them.
He knew he had been fortunate. None of the cuts were serious but the main wound was sore, bleeding heavily and restricting his free movement. However, ther
e was always the risk of infection and unnecessary weakness due to blood loss, so he was pleased at their ministrations and an opportunity to rest.
T’ze had wondered whether he would survive the contest, the youth had been more accomplished than T’ze when he had been the same age and with a few more years experience he would likely have been unbeatable. If he had lived, T’ze thought grimly. The boy had been good but lacked the experience to harbour his strength as he should have done, though a small doubt at the back of T’ze’s mind queried why this should be.
T’ze pushed the doubt aside. He was the emperor’s guardian. One of the Temple’s most able warriors hardened by experience and battle, whereas the boy had been just that, a youth lacking the necessary experience to stand against an opponent of T’ze’s calibre. T’ze smiled grimly, he might be getting old but there were still few who could match him in the arena. Still, it had been a near thing.
Si Li turned to the now quiet and seated arena. “One of our own has returned from his indenture as guardian to a member of the royal family. Welcome his return to us and honour him for fulfilling the Temple’s obligations under the covenant with the emperor. “Ho! Li Chin!”
The arena responded as one. “Ho Li Chin! Ho Li Chin!” The enclosed space of the arena echoing to their salutes as hands clapped against breasts around the terraces.
Li Chin rose and stood before the dais to address the elders and, indirectly, the priests filling the terraces. “Honoured elders and brothers. I bear news which will bring trouble to the Temple and make my welcome short lived. Zu Wah, my previous master and his life guard are all slain. The emperor will lay the blame at the Temple’s door and seek his retribution accordingly.”
There was a stunned silence before the terraces began to murmur at the import of what Li Chin had said. Si Li held up a hand to silence the murmurs and asked sternly. “How is it that your master and his life guard were slain, yet his guardian still lives and is unharmed? What of their slayers?”
Li Chin replied steadily. “I was not my master’s guardian when they were slain, my indenture had expired. There was only one responsible for their deaths. They were all slain by my own hand.”
The silence was unbroken as those listening were struggling to comprehend what they had heard. There had not been a direct assault on the royal family by the Temple or any of its priests since the founding of the Wah dynasty and the subsequent covenant, since held sacrosanct between them. The Temple had just sampled a taste of the emperor’s displeasure from T’ze, at what he considered a minor transgression. They wondered what would be his reaction to the slaughter of his nephew and his guard by a Temple priest. At the same time, there was admiration for the man who could single handed bring down a whole contingent of royal life guard with no visible signs of injury.
“They were all slain by your own hand?” Si Li queried. “Explain yourself!”
Li Chin studied his old teacher deciding Si Li was not surprised at the news, despite his severe questioning. Li Chin felt a fresh bout of frustration at the Temple’s duplicity. “My previous master set me a dilemma for his own gratification, instructing me to perform an injustice. To commit an evil act to prevent a greater one. I had a choice. To make one unjust execution by my own hand, or if I refused have three unjust executions by his life guard on my conscience as a consequence. This, after I refused to accompany him to the Sun Palace for his oaths of fealty to the emperor following the end of my indenture as guardian. I chose to accept neither of the options offered and instead took the life of an insane tyrant, which would otherwise plague the lands into his old age. His life guard of twenty attempted to apprehend me. They were brave and honourable men adhering to their oath of loyalty to their master, death or vengeance against his slayer. They died by my sword while fulfilling their oath and afterwards I sent the honour guard to return to their barracks. I stand before you now to inform you of this event.”
There was a tense period of astonishment within the arena as they all imagined the scene described by Li Chin. “What compelled you to slay your previous master and in doing so expose the Temple to the inevitable and vengeful retaliation of the emperor?” Demanded Si Li angrily, though Li Chin thought he could see through a staged anger to detect a genuine interest and concern for Li Chin’s actions.
Li Chin paused a moment before continuing. He would prefer not to explain his actions before such a large audience but it was also important to him that as many as possible hear what he had to say. He picked up his explanation again, less confrontational this time. “I was fully prepared, even committed, to fulfil my previous master’s command. In fulfilling this command I would commit a smaller evil to prevent a greater one, in accordance with the Temple’s philosophy and teachings. Had I done so I would have knowingly held to the Temple’s will in this regard and be true in my loyalty to the Temple.”
Li Chin paused as he considered the events he was describing. “But while I was preparing to strike, my soul was taken by a spirit guide. Time was frozen in this world, while my spirit guide showed ahead of me a life of one such act after another. A future for myself committing an evil act to prevent a greater evil or committing an evil in the fulfilment of my oath as guardian to a master, many times over. With the oath to my master the responsibility for the evils I committed was not mine but the master’s. Nevertheless, it was I who committed these evil acts.”
Li Chin gave a mental shudder at the memory of his future self, old and bitter at this same temple and none listening doubted the veracity of his story or its impact on him. “Seeing a lifetime of such unjust and evil acts ahead of me, performed in the name of others and compelled to do so by my oaths, I was persuaded I should no longer take the oath as guardian or be bound by any oath which would compel me to perform an evil act at the behest of another.”
Li Chin contemplated Si Li and the other elders before him. The first spirit guide’s manner had been familiar but out of context, in a situation which already had Li Chin disorientated. It had not been until Li Chin had again seen and talked with his old teacher he had placed the familiarity and realised it had been Si Li who had been his first spirit guide. Though he had no idea how this could be so. “At that point I was prepared to take no part in the evil deed. I was prepared to walk away and remain removed, apart from it. I had no wish to be sullied by becoming part of the evil taking place.”
Li Chin considered the strange events he was recalling and the arrival of the second guide. To those watching it was obvious Li Chin was reliving the strange out of world event, his attention momentarily wandering from the arena.
Whatever the truth of this strange tale, made all the more eerie in the black of night and silver glow of the moon, it inevitably marked him as a target for the emperor’s anger. It was only a matter of time before he paid a terrible price for the crimes he now freely admitted before them.
Si Li leant forward, his bright eyes glittering. “But you did not walk away. You slew a master and his life guard, thereby betraying your loyalty to the Temple and compromising its covenant with the emperor. Why?” Si Li demanded.
Li Chin focused on Si Li and the other elders again. “As the spirit guide left me to contemplate the burden of foreknowledge it had placed upon me, I was taken by a second spirit guide.” Si Li sat up startled and if Li Chin had held any earlier doubts about Si Li’s involvement they had now gone. Si Li’s easy acceptance of the first spirit but surprise at hearing of the second spirit guide marked his presence at the Tree of Futures for Li Chin.
“This second spirit guide did not wish to show me my life but to show me the life of another. It showed me the life of my previous master, Zu Wah. In doing so it showed me a great evil at the beginning of a long life, whose hunger and lust for blood grew rampant as it was left unchallenged. The evil seed within Zu Wah was effectively encouraged by the tolerant acceptance of those around him. This spirit guide convinced me it is not enough to stand aside from evil, in doing so one becomes complicit in it. This spir
it guide convinced me I should take a stand against evil, as and when I encountered it. That I was honour bound to strike it down when I saw it, irrespective of conflicting loyalties. This is what I did in slaying Zu Wah. I struck down a great evil.”
There was a stunned silence around the arena. T’ze struggled awkwardly out of his chair and all eyes turned to him as he faced Li Chin seething with rage.
“Are you mad! You kill a master because he asks unreasonable things of you, because you think over his life he will be evil! And what of the Temple when the emperor hears of your lunacy? He will hold the Temple jointly responsible. He will believe the Temple is the architect for your lunatic act and will slaughter us all. All we have done, all we might have done to aid our people will be for nothing. We will become dust on the wind, nought but a memory and even that will fade over time.”
T’ze had forgotten any discomfort from his wounds in his outrage at what he had heard. “Your own selfish indulgence to avoid the burden of serving, of honouring our code, has condemned us and everything we stand for. I am the emperor’s guardian and I will not have you make my sacrifices made worthless by your own lack of moral courage. You are an oath breaker, casting aside your loyalty to the Temple and your brothers as easily as you would discard a cloak on a hot day.” T’ze’s arm swept out to include the terraces, held spell bound by his rage. “Rather than suffer personal discomfort, you unilaterally commit us all to death.” Taking a grip on the haft of his sheathed sword T’ze demanded angrily. “In the name of the emperor, I will take your foul and worthless life here and now!”
Li Chin looked calmly at T’ze. He had anticipated no less once he had relayed his tale but had not expected the challenge to come from the emperor’s champion. He looked T’ze in the eye with assurance as he replied without heat and with absolute certainty. “I have watched you duel, T’ze. You would not win against me if you were uninjured and twenty years younger. I have no wish to fight you and I believe it is only fear of the emperor’s retribution for the Temple that drives you to challenge me. You are an honourable and courageous man. I know you too must rebel at the evils you are compelled to perform under your oath as guardian. Do not direct your anger at me but at the evil which has you in its grip. Strike it down and bring peace to our people.”