He glanced at his timer. It was only three minutes and forty-eight seconds since he had stood at the far end of the corridor. Was that time enough for DeVore to get to the lift? Possibly. But Karr had a hunch that he hadn’t done that. DeVore would want to make sure he was safe, and that meant getting back at his pursuer.
He walked slowly down the corridor, keeping to the wall, the largest of his guns, an antique Westinghouse-Howitzer, pressed tight against his chest. He would take no chances with this bastard.
He was about to go on when he paused, noticing the silence. The screaming had stopped, suddenly, almost abruptly, in mid-scream. It had taken him a second or two to notice it, but then it hit him. He turned, lowering himself on to his haunches, as if about to spring. Two doors down the corridor, it had been. He went back slowly, his finger trembling against the hair-line trigger, making a small circle of the door until he stood on its far side, his back to Cherkassky’s apartment.
He had two options now: to wait or to go in. Which would DeVore expect him to do? Was he waiting for Karr to come in, or was he about to come out? For a moment Karr stood there, tensed, considering, then he smiled. There was a third option: burn away the wall and see what lay behind it. He liked that. It meant he didn’t have to go through a door.
He lay down, setting the big gun up in front of him, ejecting the standard explosive shells and slipping a cartridge of ice-penetrating charges into the loader. Then he squeezed the trigger, tracing a line of shells first up the wall, then along the top of it. The partition shuddered, like something alive, and began to peel away from where the charges had punctured holes in it. There was no sound from the other side of the wall; only silence and the roiling smoke.
He waited, easing his finger back and forth above the hair-trigger as the ice curled back, revealing the shattered room. Karr’s eyes took in each and every detail, noting and discarding them. A young woman lay dead on the lounger, her pale limbs limp, her head at an odd angle, garrotted by the look of it. There was no sign of DeVore, but he had been there. The woman had been alive only a minute before.
Karr crawled into the room. A siren had begun to sound in the corridor. It would bring Chen and help. But Karr wanted to finish this now. DeVore was his. He had pursued him for so long now. And, orders or no, he would make sure of things this time.
He stopped, calling out.
‘Surrender yourself, DeVore. Put your hands up and come out. You’ll get a fair trial.’
It was a charade. Part of the game they had to play. But DeVore would pay no heed. They both knew now that this could only end in death. But it had to be said. Like the last words of a ritual.
His answer came a moment later. The door to the right hissed open a fraction and a grenade was lobbed into the room. Karr saw it curl in the air and recognized what it was. Dropping his gun, he placed his hands tight over his ears and pushed his face down into the floor. It was a concussion grenade. The shock of it ripped a hole in the floor and seemed to lift everything in the room into the air.
In a closed room it would have been devastating, but much of the force of it had gone out into the corridor. Karr got up, stunned but unhurt, his ears ringing. And then the door began to iris open.
Reactions took over. Karr buckled at the knees and rolled forward, picking up his gun on the way. DeVore was halfway out of the door, the gun at his hip already firing, when the butt of Karr’s gun connected with his head. It was an ill-aimed blow that glanced off the side of his jaw, just below the ear, but the force of it was enough to send DeVore sprawling, the gun flying from his hands. Karr went across, his gun raised to aim another blow, but it was already too late. DeVore was dead, his jaw shattered, fragments of it pushed up into his brain.
Karr stood there a moment, looking down at his old enemy, all of the fierce indignation and anger he felt welling up in him again. He shuddered, then, anger getting the better of him, brought the gun down, once, twice, a third time, smashing the skull apart, spilling DeVore’s brains across the floor.
‘You bastard… You stinking, fucking bastard!’
Then, taking the small cloth bag from his top pocket, he undid the string and spilled the stones over the dead man. Three hundred and sixty-one black stones.
For Haavikko’s sister, Vesa, and Chen’s friend, Pavel; for Kao Jyan and Han Ch’in, Lwo Kang and Edmund Wyatt, and all the many others whose deaths were down to him.
Karr shuddered, then threw the cloth bag down. It was done. He could go home now and sleep.
Li Yuan stood in the deep shadow by the carp pool, darkness wrapped about him like a cloak. It had been a long and tiring day, but his mind was sharp and clear. He stared down through layers of darkness, following the languid movements of the carp. In their slow, deliberate motions it seemed he might read the deepest workings of his thoughts.
Much had happened. Out there, in the chill brightness of his study, all had seemed chaos. DeVore was dead and his warren of mountain fortresses destroyed. But Klaus Ebert was also dead and his son, the General, had fled. That had come as a shock to him, undermining his newfound certainty.
Here, in the darkness, however, he could see things in a better light. He had survived the worst his enemies could do. Fei Yen and young Han were safe. Soon he would have a General he could trust. These things comforted him. In the light of them, even Wang Sau-leyan’s concessions to the Young Patriots seemed a minor thing.
For a while he let these things drift from him; let himself sink into the depths of memory, his mood dark and sorrowful, his heart weighed down by the necessities of his life. He had companionship in Tsu Ma and three wives to satisfy his carnal needs. Soon he would have a child – an heir, perhaps. But none of this was enough. So much was missing from his life. Fei Yen and Han Ch’in, so deeply missed that sometimes he would wake from sleep, his pillow wet with tears. Worst were the nightmares: images of his father’s corpse, exposed, defenceless in its nakedness, painfully emaciated, the skin stretched pale across the frame of bone.
The fate of kings.
He turned and looked across at the single lamp beside the door. Its light was filtered through the green of fern and palm, the smoky darkness of the panels, as if through depths of water. He stared at it, reminded of something else – of the light on a windswept hillside in the Domain as a small group gathered about the unmarked grave. Sunlight on grass and the shadows in the depths of the earth. He had been so certain that day: certain that he didn’t want to stop the flow of time and have the past returned to him, fresh, new again. But had Ben been right? Wasn’t that the one thing men wanted most?
Some days he ached to bring it back. To have it whole and perfect. To sink back through the years and have it all again. The best of it. Before the cancer ate at it. Before the worm lay in the bone.
He bowed his head, smiling sadly at the thought. To succumb to that desire was worse than the desire itself. It was a weakness not to be tolerated. One had to go on, not back.
The quality of the light changed. His new Master of the Inner Chambers, Chan Teng, stood beside the doorway, silent, waiting to be noticed.
‘What is it, Master Chan?’
‘Your guest is here, Chieh Hsia.’
‘Good.’ He lifted a hand to dismiss the man, then changed his mind. ‘Chan, tell me this. If you could recapture any moment from your past – if you could have it whole, perfect in every detail – would you want that?’
The middle-aged man was silent a while, then answered.
‘There are, indeed, times when I wish for something past, Chieh Hsia. Like all men. But it would be hard. Hard living in the “now” if “what was” were still to hand. The imperfection of a man’s memories is a blessing.’
It was a good answer. A satisfactory answer. ‘Thank you, Chan. There is wisdom in your words.’
Chan Teng bowed and turned to go, but at the door he turned back and looked across at his master.
‘One last thing, Chieh Hsia. Such a gift might well prove useful. Might pro
ve, for us, a blessing.’
Li Yuan came out into the light. ‘How so?’
Chan lowered his eyes. ‘Might its very perfection not prove a cage, a prison to the mind? Might we not snare our enemies in its sticky web?’
Li Yuan narrowed his eyes. He thought he could see what Chan Teng was saying, but he wanted to be sure. ‘Go on, Chan. What are you suggesting?’
‘Only this. That desire is a chain. If such a thing exists it might be used, not as a blessing but a curse. A poisoned gift. It would be the ultimate addiction. Few men would be safe from its attractions. Fewer still would recognize it for what it was. A drug. A way of escaping from what is here and now and real.’
Li Yuan took a deep breath, then nodded. ‘We shall speak more on this, Chan. Meanwhile, ask my guest to come through. I shall see him here, beside the pool.’
Chan Teng bowed low, and turned away. Li Yuan stared down at the naked glow of the lamp, and moved his hand close, feeling its radiant warmth, tracing its rounded shape. How would it feel to live a memory? Like this? As real as this? He sighed. Perhaps, as Chan said, there was a use for Shepherd’s art: a way of making his illusions serve the real. He drew his hand away, seeing how shadows formed between the fingers, how the glistening lines of the palm turned dull and lifeless.
To have Han and Fei again. To see his father smiling.
He shook his head, suddenly bitter. Best nothing. Better death than such sweet torment.
There was movement in the corridor outside. A figure appeared in the doorway. Li Yuan looked up, meeting Shepherd’s eyes.
‘Ben…’
Ben Shepherd looked about him at the room, then looked back at the young T’ang, a faint smile on his lips. ‘How are you, Li Yuan? With all that’s happened, I wasn’t sure you’d remember our meeting.’
Li Yuan smiled and moved forward, greeting him. ‘No. I’m glad you came. Indeed, our meeting is fortuitous, for there’s something I want to ask you. Something only you can help me with.’
Ben raised an eyebrow. ‘As mirror?’
Li Yuan nodded, struck once again by how quick, how penetrating Ben Shepherd was. He, if anyone, could make things clear to him.
Ben went to the edge of the pool. For a moment he stared down into the darkness of the water, following the slow movements of the fish, then he looked back at Li Yuan.
‘Is it about Fei Yen and the child?’
Li Yuan shivered. ‘Why should you think that?’
Ben smiled. ‘Because, as I see it, there’s nothing else that only I could help you with. If it were a matter of politics, there are a dozen able men to whom you might talk. Whereas the matter of your ex-wife and the child. Well… who could you talk to of that within your court? Who could you trust not to use what was said to gain some small advantage?’
Li Yuan bowed his head. It was true. He had not thought of it in quite such a calculated manner, but it was so.
‘Well?’ he said, meeting Ben’s eyes.
Ben moved past him, crouching down to study the great tortoise shell with its ancient markings.
‘There’s an advantage to being outside things,’ Ben said, his eyes searching the surface of the shell, tracing the fine patterning of cracks beneath the transparent glaze. ‘You see events more clearly than those taking part in them. What’s more, you learn to ask the right questions.’ He turned his head, looking up at Li Yuan. ‘For instance. Why, if Li Yuan knows who the father of his child is, has he not acted on that knowledge? Why has he not sought vengeance on the man? Of course, the assumption has always been that the child is not Li Yuan’s. But why should that necessarily be the case? It was assumed by almost everyone that Li Yuan divorced Fei Yen to ensure the child of another man would have no legitimate claim upon the dragon throne, but why should that be so? What if that were merely a pretext? After all, it is not an easy thing to obtain a divorce when one is a T’ang. Infidelity, whilst a serious enough matter in itself, would be an insufficient reason. But to protect the line of inheritance…’
Li Yuan had been watching Ben, mesmerized, unable to look away. Now Ben released him.
‘You always saw things clearly, didn’t you?’
‘To the bone.’
‘And was I right?’
‘To divorce Fei Yen? Yes. But the child… Well, I’ll be frank and say that that puzzles me somewhat. I’ve thought about it often lately. He’s your son, isn’t he, Li Yuan?’
Li Yuan nodded.
‘Then why disinherit him?’
Li Yuan looked down, thinking back to the evening when he had made that awful decision, recollecting the turmoil of his feelings. He had expected the worst – had steeled himself to face the awful fact of her betrayal – but then, when he had found it was his child, unquestionably his, he had been surprised to find himself not relieved but appalled, for in his mind he had already parted from her. Had cast her from him, like a broken bowl. For a long time he had sat there in an agony of indecision, unable to see things clearly. But then the memory of Han Ch’in had come to him; of his dead brother, there beside him in the orchard, a sprig of white blossom in his jet-black hair – and he had known, with a fierce certainty, what he must do.
He looked back at Ben, tears in his eyes. ‘I wanted to protect him. Do you understand that, Ben? To keep him from harm. He was Han, you see. Han Ch’in reborn.’ He shook his head. ‘I know that doesn’t make sense, but it’s how I felt. How I still feel, every time I think about the child.’
He turned away, trying for a moment to control – to wall in – the immensity of his suffering. Then turned back, his face open, exposed to the other man, all of his grief and hope and suffering there on the surface for Ben’s eyes to read.
‘I couldn’t save Han Ch’in. I was too young, too powerless. But my son…’ He swallowed, then looked aside. ‘If one good thing can come from my relationship with Fei Yen, let it be this: that my son can grow up safe from harm.’
Ben looked down, then, patting the shell familiarly, he stood. ‘I see.’ He walked back to the edge of the pool, then turned, facing Li Yuan again. ‘Even so, you must have sons, Li Yuan. You have taken wives for that very purpose. Can you save them all? Can you keep them all from harm?’
Li Yuan was staring back at him. ‘They will be sons…’
‘And Fei’s son, Han? Is he so different?’
Li Yuan looked aside, a slight bitterness in his face. ‘Don’t tease me, Ben. I thought you of all people would understand.’
Ben nodded. ‘Oh, I do. But I wanted to make sure that you did. That you weren’t trying to fool yourself over your real motives. You say the boy reminds you of Han. That may be so, and I understand your reasons for wanting to keep him out of harm’s way. But it’s more than that, isn’t it? You still love Fei Yen. And the child… the child is the one real thing that came of your love.’
Li Yuan looked back at him gratefully.
Ben sighed. ‘Oh, I understand clearly enough, Li Yuan. You wanted to be her, didn’t you? To become her. And the child… that’s the closest you’ll ever come to it.’
Li Yuan shivered, acknowledging the truth. ‘Then I was right to act as I did?’
Ben turned, looking down, watching the dark shapes of the carp move slowly in the depths. ‘You remember the picture I drew for you, the day of your betrothal ceremony?’
Li Yuan swallowed. ‘I do. The picture of Lord Yi and the ten suns – the ten dark birds in the fu sang tree.’
‘Yes. I saw it then. Saw clearly what would come of it.’
‘To the bone.’
Ben looked back at the young T’ang, seeing he understood. ‘Yes. You remember. The mistake was made back there. You should never have married her. You should have left her as your dream, your ideal.’ He shrugged. ‘The rest, I’m afraid, was inevitable. And unfortunate, for some mistakes can never be rectified.’
Li Yuan moved closer, his hand resting loosely on Ben’s arm, his eyes boring into Ben’s, pleading for something that Ben could not give
him.
‘But what else could I have done?’
‘Nothing,’ Ben said. ‘There was nothing else you could have done. But still it isn’t right. You tried to shoot the moon, Li Yuan, like the great Lord Yi of legend. And what but sorrow could come of that?’
It was dawn in the Otzalen Alps and a cold wind blew down the valley from the north. Stefan Lehmann stood there on the open mountainside, his furs gathered tight about him, the hood pulled up over his head. He squinted into the shadows down below, trying to make out details, but it was hard to distinguish anything, so much had changed.
Where there had been snow-covered slopes and thick pine forest was now only barren rock – rock charred and fused to a glossy hardness in places. Down there where the entrance had been was now a crater almost a li across and half a li deep.
He went down, numbed by what he saw. Where the land folded and rose slightly he stopped, resting against a crag. All about him were the stumps of trees, charred and splintered by the explosions that had rent the mountain. He shuddered and found he could scarcely catch his breath.
All gone…
A thin veil of snow began to fall, flecks on the darkness below where he stood. He made himself go on, clambering down the treacherous slope until he stood there at the crater’s edge, looking down into the great circle of its ashen bowl.
Shadow filled the crater like a liquid. Snowflakes drifted into that darkness and seemed to blink out of existence, their glistening brightness extinguished. He watched them fall, strangely touched by their beauty. For a time his mind refused to acknowledge what had been done. It was easier to stand there, emptied of all thought, all enterprise, and let the cold and delicate beauty of the day seep into the bones, like ice into the rock. But he knew that the beauty of it was a mask, austere and terrible. Inhumanly so. For, even as he watched, the whiteness spread, thickening, concealing the dark and glassy surface.
The White Mountain Page 11
