Gateway

by Sharon Shinn

  He took a deep breath. “I too am growing accustomed to the idea that you will be in Shenglang always,” he said. “The city would seem very dull to me now if it were missing your beautiful eyes and your captivating laugh.”

  She kept her eyes lowered and her laugh in abeyance. “As indeed I would find Shenglang to be quite empty if you were not in it,” she said. “You have been such a good friend to me.”

  There was a short pause. She knew—from Xiang’s constant tutelage—that young men did not propose marriage directly to young women, but worked through their mothers and aunts to make agreeable arrangements. But what if he spoke to Mei tonight and Mei came running to Xiang’s house as fast as her feetwouldcarryher?Daiyucouldonlyguess,butitseemedlike the summer holiday would be a propitious time to announce a betrothal. Surely there must be some way to stave this off. She could not in good conscience accept a man’s proposal when, in a matter of days, she planned to abandon his city forever.

  She could not say she was willing to marry him—not even in pretense, not even knowing the words were lies—when she was in love with another man.

  She looked up, smiling with false brightness. “Let us not talk of serious things until after the holiday!” she said. “Let us just be merry and lighthearted for a few more days. After the summer festival, who knows what will have changed.”

  He inclined his head. “Who knows, indeed. As always, you are wise, Daiyu.”

  If only that were true. “As always, you are gracious, Quan.”

  She turned her attention back to her frozen chocolate concoction only to find that all the ice had melted. She pushed it aside—she wasn’t sure she could swallow another drop.

  They arrived at the prime minister’s house in time for the second morning meal of the day, which they ate outside on a shaded veranda that overlooked the lush green lawns behind the mansion. Daiyu counted three fountains and such a variety of plant life that the property could have doubled as a botanical garden. Servants were busy setting up tents and tables for the next day’s festivities, and it was pleasant to sit under an awning on a hot day, sipping cool drinks and watching competent people work on interesting tasks.

  Chenglei’s other guests were two couples who each had one daughter, so, as was proper, a total of nine people sat together for this agreeable meal. Daiyu had met one of the girls at the Presentation Ball and the other one at Mei’s, though she had had no conversation with any of the parents. In fact, she didn’t have much conversation with any of them on this occasion, either, since the three girls were expected to be merely decorative while the older adults carried on a lively discussion about the current political situation in Yazhou. Daiyu would have been bored if she hadn’t been so replete with food that she was content to merely sit and look over the lawns. She saw one of the other girls impatiently ball her hands into fists and then slowly force her fingers to relax, and she grinned to herself. Not every Han girl was as meek as she appeared. This one would probably grow up to be as strong-willed and outspoken as Xiang herself.

  In the afternoon, the housekeeper gave them a tour of the house, which Xiang particularly enjoyed, and they played board games in one of the plush parlors. When most of the others disappeared to nap or check their holiday outfits one last time, Daiyu escaped outside to stroll through the lawns and inspect the decorations more closely. There would be plenty of fragrant potted plants and strings of brightly colored paper lanterns, she saw, as well as dozens of little wrought-iron tables and chairs scattered across the yard. She guessed that food and drinks would be served under the gaily striped tents, and perhaps fireworks would be shot off from that structure that laborers were building near the back edge of the property.

  “Are you looking forward to the celebration, Daiyu?” a man asked. She turned swiftly to find that Chenglei had approached her silently while she was staring at the scaffolding, trying to gauge how big the stage would be when it was completed.

  She smiled and bowed her head. “We don’t have anything quite like this back home,” she said truthfully.

  “Have you ever been to a celebration in Yazhou?” he asked.

  In Asia. She shook her head. “No, Prime Minister,” she said. “I’ve never traveled outside of the continent.”

  He turned and began pacing slowly back toward the house, and she fell in step beside him. “Oh, you should go sometime,” he said. “Shenglang is the center of the world, as we all know, but Yazhou is a marvelous place, full of ancient secrets and a brooding beauty. Not everyone appreciates it, but I suspect in your soul a capacity for wonder. A willingness to look beyond the ordinary and the familiar to embrace the extraordinary and thestrange.”

  She shivered a little when he said the words, which were truer than he had any right to understand. “Thank you, Prime Minister,” she said, her voice subdued. “No one has ever paid me a compliment quite like that before.”

  “I traveled in Yazhou for years before I came to Shenglang,” he said. “You would be astonished at the items I brought back with me—plates and dishe smade of gold, statues carved of jade in every color, masks made of feathers, jewels that put a qiji to shame. All of them from vanished civilizations so old we cannot remember when they existed and we can only guess at what they believed. When my days seem overlong and my problems insurmountable, I hold one of these old artifacts in my hand and I realize how small a part I play in the ongoing story of the world.”

  Was it his voice? Was it his words? He inspired in her a desire to study those lost societies, to dig through layers of rock and silt to find those antique treasures. “I would love to see such jewels and such statues,” she said earnestly.

  “Would you? Come to my office tomorrow morning and I will present them to you one by one. I think you will be amazed and delighted. I would show them to you now,” he added, smiling ruefully, “but as you see, I am being summoned for some far less enjoyable duty.”

  Indeed, they had arrived at the house by now and found a servant waiting at the doorway with a sheaf of papers in one hand and a portfolio in the other. “I will not keep the prime minister from his important tasks,” Daiyu said, bowing her head and stopping at the door. “But tomorrow I would be happier than he knows if he would grant me the privilege of viewing his foreign treasures.”

  “Then it is an appointment,” he said. “I look forward to the chance to show them off to someone who will love them as much as I do.”

  Neither of them mentioned the assignation over dinner that night, at which the nine of them sat down to a meal so lavish it made Xiang’s ordinary feasts look like food that might be served at Kalen’s table. However, Daiyu did tell Xiang that night before they parted to go to their separate, luxurious bedrooms.

  “This is very good,” Xiang said, her dark eyes bright with satisfaction. “He likes you. He did not ask Lanfen’s daughter to come to his office and look over his treasures. I will not boast, ofcourse,butyoumightfindaway toletitfallthat you have seen some of Chenglei’s most cherished artifacts. In a very guileless manner, of course.”

  Daiyu hid a smile. “Of course, Aunt.”

  Xiang then launched into yet another lecture about how to behave during the celebration. Daiyu barely listened; she had heard these particular instructions too many times to count. Plus, she was distracted by the low, cascading tones of the big river bells calling the stonepickers to come to work in the morning. Chenglei’s house was far enough from the waterfront that the bells were barely audible, and Daiyu was washed with an unreasonable sense of panic. As if she was too far away from Kalen—as if she would not hear him if he called her name. She clenched her hands tightly to her sides and strained to hear every last stroke of the bells until the final note faded into the night.

  NINETEEN

  CHENGLEI’S OFFICE WAS a long, high-ceilinged room that over- looked the back lawns and ran half the width of the third story. It could be accessed from two hallways feeding from two different stairways, and each doorway was blocked by a heavy red-velvet
curtain held back by a golden rope. The extended bank of windows took up one entire wall, but the other long wall was covered with art and artifacts. Chenglei started his presentation by taking Daiyu on a little tour.

  “I love this cloisonné mask for its soft colors and intricate detail, but I do not believe it was ever worn, even in a ritual ceremony,” he said as they paused to admire one item. “It looks too small, don’t you think? Unless our ancestors from Yazhou were much tinier than we are today.”

  “Perhaps it was a child’s mask?” Daiyu suggested.

  “That is what some scholars have considered. But it seems very heavy for a child, don’t you think?”

  “What was the purpose?”

  “Ah! No one knows. Unfortunately, that is the case for many of these items.”

  They moved on to study a dragon about the size of Daiyu’s forearm, carved of apple-green jade and accented with gold on its eyes, its tongue, its talons, and its tail. “Can you believe it? That item is more than a thousand years old,” Chenglei marveled. “What artisan took up his tools to liberate this creature from insensate stone? Who was he? A craftsman who produced masterpieces for emperors? A student who practiced his skills late into the night? Was he arrogant enough to believe that his work would last for centuries or humble enough to hope that he could sell his figurine to buy another meal for his wife and starvingdaughter?”

  His words filled Daiyu’s head with images of Han artists industriously bent over workbenches, their eyes intent, their expressions enraptured. “Will anything you or I create last long enough to make people wonder about us ten centuries from now?” she asked in turn.

  He turned to her, delighted. “Precisely! What mark will we makeonourworld?Whatgoodwillwedo,whattreasureswill we produce, to make people remember us long after we have moved on?”

  “I have never had such an ambition,” she admitted.

  “Well, I have,” Chenglei said. “And a girl like you has as much right to change the world as a man like me.”

  She was filled with a sudden excitement—he was right! Anyone could make an impact on the world—followed by the swift realization that such sentiments were not quite as popular in Shenglang as they might be back in her own iteration. She cast her eyes down. “My aunt does not encourage such thinking,” she said in a low voice.

  “Well, your aunt might not know as much as I do,” Chenglang said, sounding amused. “I have had experiences that Xiang could never hope to match.”

  Before Daiyu could answer that, a servant was stepping through one of the red-curtained doors and bowing low. “Prime Minister,” he said, “Chow has arrived to speak to you on a mattter he calls very urgent.”

  Chenglei sighed. “And if it is the matter I asked him to investigate for me, it is very urgent indeed.” He turned to Daiyu. “Most honored guest, I am afraid that—”

  Daiyu was already backing away toward the curtained door through which they had entered. “I will not take any more of your time! Thank you for sharing your treasures—and your thoughts—with me. I feel immeasurably enriched.”

  “It is I who am the richer,” Chenglei said.

  She was halfway out the door when she heard Chenglei speak to his servant. “I need ten minutes to read a report. Bring Chow to me after that.”

  “Yes, Prime Minister.”

  Head bent in thought, Daiyu descended the great curved staircase that led two stories down to the main foyer where they had all congregated on the night of the Presentation Ball. She was almost on the ground level when she realized that two people were coming in the front door.

  “Niece, see who I found arriving at the prime minister’s house to call on you!” Xiang exclaimed, drawing Quan through the door with the air of someone about to present an expensive gift. “He is so impatient to see you that he cannot even wait till nightfall!”

  “That is only partly true,” Quan said with a grin. He was comfortable enough with Daiyu now to add a little humor to the ritualized conversations. “I also thought I could make myself valuable by offering to take you on any last-minute errands you might need to run. I know that women always require some final accessory to make their outfits complete.”

  “Oh, Daiyu is always forgetting something,” Xiang said with a wave of her hand. “I am sure she will be grateful to you for your thoughtfulness.”

  “Most grateful,” Daiyu agreed. “Aunt, may I go with him now?”

  “You must first tell your host that you are leaving,” Xiang said in a scolding voice. “How rude! To simply leave a man’s house without a word of explanation!”

  “Yes, Aunt. I’m sorry, Aunt. I will seek out the prime minister right now.”

  “I will wait here,” Quan said.

  Xiang headed straight toward the rear of the house, no doubt looking for one of the other guests to brag to about Quan’s courtship of her niece. Daiyu flew back up the stairs, hoping to arrive in Chenglei’s office before Chow was ushered in. Surely it had not yet been ten minutes?

  She was almost at the red velvet door when she heard voices through the curtain, and she stopped, disappointed. Could she leave the house without Chenglei’s permission? She crept close enough to hear, wondering if this was a conversation she could interrupt.

  “And you have located the traitor Feng?” Chenglei was asking.

  “We believe we have, Prime Minister,” a man replied. His voice was soft and subservient; the word “unctuous” came to Daiyu’s mind, though she had never used it in her life. “He has been living with a family in the cangbai district of Shenglang.”

  “And? I hope you have apprehended him, Chow.”

  “Not yet. He slipped away when we tried to corner him this morning. We followed him, but he mingled with the workers stepping into the river to gather qiji stones.”

  Chenglei uttered a sound of deep frustration. “And that is where he stillis? Grubbing about in the mud, hiding among the stonepickers?”

  “We believe so. We have men roving up and down both sides of the river, ready to catch him if he tries to leave.”

  There was a short silence. Daiyu could almost feel Chenglei thinking. As for herself, she couldn’t think; she could scarcely breathe. This conversation made it obvious Chenglei was far more worried about the dissident Feng than he had earlier led her to believe.

  “And you’re positive he is in the riverbed at this very moment?” Chenglei asked.

  “No,” Chow replied quietly. “He may have managed to elude us. He may have escaped up the eastern bank while we were getting men into position. But we were very fast, Prime Minister. I believe he is still there.”

  “Then open the gates,” Chenglei said.

  At first, neither Chow nor Daiyu understood what he meant. Chow said, “Excuse me, Prime Minister?”

  “Open the gates to the river,” Chenglei said, enunciating very clearly. “Let the water sweep him away.”

  There was a moment’s silence while even the sinister Chow seemed shocked. “Every laborer in the river will drown, Prime Minister.”

  “Stonepickers are easily replaced,” Chenglei said dismissively .“This is the best chance we have had in weeks to silence the rebel. Open the gates.”

  There was a slight sound. Daiyu imagined Chow was bowing. “Yes, Prime Minister. It shall instantly be done.”

  Daiyu was halfway down the first flight of steps before she even realized she had moved. Her heart was a misfiring cannon booming inside her chest; her lungs were mangled sacks laboring against a vacuum. Flood the river! Drown the stonepickers! Murder Feng . . . and murder Kalen. . . .

  Nononononono....

  She had no plan, she had no clear thought in her head except to plunge down the steps and burst out the front door, then run and run and run all the way to the river. She could not possibly make it in time. However Chow had arrived at the mansion, it undoubtedly had not been on foot. Could she catch a trolley? Would it beat Chow’s vehicle to the waterfront?

  She took the final three stairs with a l
eap and skidded onto the patterned carpet of the foyer, almost somersaulting across the floor. “Daiyu!” someone exclaimed, and she looked up in astonishment to find Quan staring at her.

  She had completely forgotten he was there.

  “Quan,” she said breathlessly, and dashed across the wide room to lay her hand on his arm. “Quan—my good friend—I have just realized—there is something desperately important that I need. I must have it, I must have it right now. Can you take me? Can you drive me to the riverfront?”

  He had instantly put his hand over hers in ac omforting fashion, but now he frowned. “To the riverfront? But what—”

  “Please,” she begged, tugging him toward the door. “There is no time to waste. I will explain on the way. But please, please hurry.”

  He hesitated only a moment—a traditional man whose instincts clearly warred with his affection for this unpredictable girl—and then grabbed her hand and started running. “Let us go!” he cried.

  His car was idling in the curved driveway, guarded by admiring servants. The two of them leaped in and Quan wheeled away from the house, driving in his usual manic fashion. Daiyu clung grimly to the seat, scarcely noticing as he swerved around trolleys and wove through traffic, careening around the narrow corners without slowing down. Too many thoughts scrambled through her mind for her even to care that Quan risked both of their lives with his hazardous driving. Chenglei is evil! and I should have used the bracelet and I’ve been so foolish clamored for attention, but the only thought she could really hold in her head was Kalenwilldrown,Kalenwilldie....

  “So tell me, Daiyu!” Quan called over the noise of the rushing wind and the screaming of a teenage boy who jumped out of his way. “Why are we dashing so madly to the riverfront? This is not at all what I expected.”

  There was no way her tortured brain could come up with a story that made much sense. “There is—something I had told Xiang I would buy—before the celebration tonight,” she said. “We saw it one day in a shop near the riverfront. I lied—I told her I had it already—and I don’t. And I just remembered. She will be very angry with me if I appear without it.”