SHIANG

by C. F. Iggulden

  ‘My lord …’ one of the servants began. ‘Is the stone …?’

  ‘Gone. Just get out,’ Lord Ran said.

  He brushed pieces of dust and glass from his coat as the servants left the room, some supported by others. He was alone then with the smell of burned flesh and the pieces of four years of his life all over the floor.

  He stood looking down on the dead men he had brought as prisoners to that place. Perhaps if the king had allowed him to use healthy young subjects, the experiment would not have failed! He closed his eyes in sudden worry. Lord Hong would expect word of his man. If the king found out he’d gone ahead and used the beggars, despite the royal command … Lord Ran glanced at the metal sluice that opened out onto the river. It was nothing more than a polished metal slide. It would be bloody, unpleasant work, but if the king learned he had disobeyed an explicit order, his family connections would not be able to save him. Lord Ran winced at the thought. The servants could be sent home. No doubt they were waiting nearby in case he summoned them once more. He could dispose of the bodies himself, into the river. What vanished beneath the surface was gone for ever. Unless one of those foul fishermen hooked it back, he thought sourly. He’d have to drive them away first.

  He reached down and raised the eyelid of the swordsman with a thumb, shaking his head. Lord Ran suddenly became very still, not daring to believe. The pupil had contracted as he’d exposed it to the light, he was sure of it. With a shaking hand, he raised the other lid and saw it happen again. The chests did not rise or fall. The four men were as still and waxen as the dead, but if the eyes reacted, there was yet life in them.

  ‘Attend me, here!’ Lord Ran roared.

  He pressed his ear to the chest of the blind man and was rewarded with a distant thump, then silence for an age before he heard it again. They were alive. In such a deep sleep it was barely a whisper from death, but alive!

  His servants came back in at speed, seeing their master point at the four subjects.

  ‘Get these straps off them. Rub their limbs and work the arms and legs to bring back the movement of blood. They sleep, merely. They may yet die, but not for lack of will. Not for lack of our labour! Move!’

  He had trained them well. In pairs, they freed each of the slack figures and began to pump the arms and legs and bow them forward and back. He saw the results in the faint flush that returned to the pale cheeks, the sweet colour of life’s triumph over death.

  The drunk was the first to make a sound, though it was a groan of pain. Perhaps because he had survived a thousand nights of vomit and pain and unconsciousness, he struggled back before younger, stronger men.

  ‘This one is alive, my lord!’ a servant said.

  Lord Ran watched as the old drunk held up a hand and peered at it as if seeing it for the first time.

  Lord Ran actually smiled when the blind man began to cough into his hand and swung legs over the side of the bed. After the drunk, he was the second, but the heavyset man was only moments behind him. That old soldier cleared his throat as if something itched him, making a grating sound. It was all too clear that his leg remained a stump, the proof of failure every time it caught the eye.

  Lord Ran’s brow creased suddenly. All the tests he had made indicated a huge reservoir of power in the Aeris Stone. If the thing had a purpose it could only be as a sort of battery, though it would have been a battery the size of a king’s palace. Yet it sat at the centre of that little group in that moment as a pile of dust. Where had the power gone, if not into the men?

  One of the servants was rubbing the chest of Lord Hong’s swordsman with some foul liniment that reeked like ammonia. The young man began to cough as the fumes reached him, pressing the servant away. Lord Ran smiled, despite his despair. He knew some of his colleagues thought he was unfeeling. Indeed, he prided himself on his lack of sentiment. If he had been asked to choose between the lives of the four men, he would have had no difficulty judging one more valuable than another. There were some clerics who bleated how all men were equal, though a mere child could see they were mistaken. Some men ran faster than others. Some created knowledge where there was none before – or just tantalising hints in the oldest books.

  If it would have healed one of them, Lord Ran would have happily seen the others die. Yet in defeat, he was pleased the price had been less than he’d thought. The king would have no cause to close his laboratory as he’d promised he would. Lord Ran would just have to find another source stone like the Aeris. If that one had taken him a lifetime and a fortune, perhaps the next would come more easily.

  Lord Ran glanced up when he heard a moan of pain from the servant with the liniment. Lord Hong’s swordsman had reached out and grabbed his wrist, crushing the bones against one another.

  ‘Sir!’ Lord Ran said. What was the man’s name? He had been told it, but he was not good with names and it would not come. ‘Sir, you have not been harmed. The experiment is at an end. You see? In the name of Lord Hong, release that man immediately.’

  The hand that held the servant closed convulsively, so that the fellow’s wrist broke as easily as chicken bones. The servant shrieked in agony, falling limp. Even then, the swordsman didn’t let him go, but stood, dragging the poor man upright as he did so.

  ‘Who … what is this place?’ the swordsman demanded.

  ‘Taeshin!’ Lord Ran blurted as it came to him. ‘You are safe, sir, I swear it. The experiment is at an end.’

  He saw the young warrior take a step forward, with the groaning servant still gripped in his hand. An expression of pain crossed Taeshin’s face then and he opened the hand, touching it to his side. Freed at last, the servant retreated like a beaten dog, whimpering.

  The swordsman looked up in confusion. He pressed his hand into the black lumps that ran down his side and made a soft sound that turned into a growl.

  ‘Well, this won’t do,’ Gabriel said. ‘Who is this Taeshin? Is this Shiang? My god, am I home again?’

  Lord Ran blinked. He saw the blind man slap hands away from him and rise to his feet. One by one the others did the same.

  ‘I have no eyes,’ the blind man said.

  ‘My leg has gone,’ said the other. ‘I cannot stand.’

  ‘I can see, brother,’ Gabriel replied with satisfaction. ‘I can stand.’

  Marias raced through the market, wrapped in her cloak. It broke her heart to find the seer’s house empty and cold. The single window below and above in that rickety terrace was covered by a shutter and held by a wooden peg on a nail. It looked abandoned, somehow. Marias peered through the cracks and hammered on the door but no one came to open it and she slumped in defeat. She put her back to the door and slid down until she sat on the thick doorstep, facing the street. The buyers and sellers pressed past without even glancing down at her and a light rain began, so that her tears vanished as fast as they came.

  She turned at clicking hooves and scrambled up at the sight of the old woman swearing and gesturing for someone to get out of the way of a tiny dog-cart. It seemed a fragile thing, pulled by an ass with long ears. Yet Marias saw it was piled high with bales and cloth, all tied down with twine.

  ‘Mistress!’ Marias called.

  She jumped higher to be seen over the heads of the crowd, waving and calling until the seer known as Little Mung spotted her. The donkey did not want to stop and Little Mung was red-faced with effort by the time she had reined him in, some ten paces past the door.

  ‘You found me then, dear. Did you also find your master?’ she called over her shoulder.

  Marias shook her head and she saw a look of compassion touch the old woman’s stiff features, softening them.

  ‘I wanted to ask you to try again. But … you’re leaving?’ Marias asked.

  She watched as Little Mung considered her reply, pausing only to curse someone who complained she was blocking the road with her cart. The certainty was clear in her. Marias felt her spirits sink even lower. She knew so few people in the city. It hurt to see the ol
d lady abandoning Shiang.

  ‘You should go as well, dear,’ Little Mung said. She bent down to murmur and Marias came to the edge of the cart and stood on her tiptoes to hear. ‘Something terrible has come to Shiang. These fools don’t have the sense they were born with, but I do. Look to the seers, dear. If they start leaving a city, it’s time to run.’

  6

  First Sword

  Hondo watched his companions as they prepared to sleep under the stars. The twins, Hi and Je, worked almost as one. There was a nagging familiarity about the two of them that had eluded Hondo for two days until it came to him that evening. His parents had been just as comfortable with one another. Seeing the twins prepare a meal had made Hondo feel almost like a little boy again, half a century before. As one of the brothers reached for a knife or a pouch of spices, the other would hand it to him, without needing to look up. Hondo recalled operas he had seen in Shiang, where a kitchen scene had the same air of rhythm, almost of music. The two young men seemed quietly disciplined in all things, so that the meal they made for the camp was delicately flavoured and presented in clean wooden bowls. Hondo had also seen them fight in demonstration bouts a dozen times. He knew the silent brothers were fearsome opponents, in part because of that intimate understanding.

  Bosin was a different sort. To Hondo’s eye, the enormous black shire horse was as ridiculous as the man who rode it. Hondo had felt himself flush with embarrassment as they’d passed through the first villages and towns near Shiang. Of course the people there had come out as soon as the swordsmen were sighted. Some seemed to know Hondo from his black, lacquered armour, or the twins for the identical blades they wore, with hilts of gold. In a realm that revered masters, all four were famous names. Hondo had ignored the calls and children held up for him to bless. He and the twins had kept a cold face as they rode through. They were on Crown business, after all, a most delicate task given to them by their noble masters and, through them, the direct command of the king himself.

  Hondo shook his head a fraction in irritated memory. They’d had no need of directions or supplies, as close as they had been then to Shiang. They’d desired only to put the first miles and perfectly tended fields behind them. Yet Bosin had performed for the villagers. There was no other word for it. That enormous swordsman had stood up on his carthorse and walked the length from neck to tail. In its own way, the animal was as much a behemoth as Bosin himself, a beast with a back like a polished dining table. It was, of course, uncut. The creature’s parts were in proportion and dangled as they travelled west. Bosin seemed to enjoy the blushes of maidens as they glimpsed what swung beneath. He was not above calling ribald comments on the subject either, leaving them staring in shock or laughter.

  Hondo clenched his jaw. A man chose neither family nor travelling companions, so went the old saying. Yet the thought of months on the road with Bosin was almost beyond endurance. They would come to blows, Hondo was certain. He had not lost a bout in thirty years, but the great size of the man still worried him. It was too easy to imagine Bosin falling on him like a tree. It would be difficult to stop such a man, Hondo admitted grudgingly. At least without killing him. Yet even the greatest heart could be pierced by a sword. That was the sword’s purpose.

  Bosin finished the meal the twins had prepared. He used a handful of grass to wipe the bowl and passed it back, but his gaze was everywhere as he looked for more. Hondo raised his eyes in exasperation. It had been bad enough on the night they’d taken rooms at an inn. The sword saint had watched aghast as Bosin ate enough for three and drank so many cups of clear spirit that the entire tavern had come to a halt to watch him. Some of the locals had counted aloud each time Bosin emptied a cup and banged it back on the boards. It had been a rough place, but a great cheer had gone up when the enormous swordsman finally waved his hand in surrender. With an amiable grin at them all, Bosin had staggered to a chair by the fireplace, where he’d snored all night.

  Hondo had wondered then how they would fare when such a man found himself in the wilderness, without servants or slaves to feed him. It seemed the answer lay in irritability, like a child denied. Hondo could feel Bosin’s gaze swing around as he looked for someone to distract him. In response, the sword saint of Shiang closed his eyes and sat cross-legged rather than observe further. He needed no friends. In truth, he needed no companions.

  Hondo wanted time to consider the king’s actions. By sending the other three with him, was His Majesty Yuan-Choji signalling the end of a career? It would be a subtle move for such a young king, but Choji was not without guile. Hondo was fifty-six years old and no man, not even a saint of swords, could hold back time for ever. He was still strong and frighteningly quick. He practised the Mazer steps each day and ran for hours if there was an opportunity. He was both lean and supple, the master of most men. The trouble was that he was neither as fit nor as fast as he had once been. For all his talent that year, his younger self could have carved him into pieces – and only one of them would have been sweating at the end. Hondo thought he might surprise that younger version of himself with a trick or two, but he also knew age stole more than just speed. The mind itself became less flexible, less able to react to a new factor.

  He recalled the time, six months before, when a pigeon had clattered into his face as he’d practised in his gardens. It was not that the bird had startled him. The creature could have blundered across his path at any stage of his life. Yet his younger self would have drawn and cut it from the air. Instead, Hondo had stepped back, falling into a defensive stance. He had told himself it was the mark of experience that he had not swung the blade. That was true, but it was not all. Part of the truth was that he’d also been a touch too slow to take the bird before it was out of range. He’d almost strangled that little moment of disappointment when he’d finally understood it. If he had not reflected on the event and made himself relive each …

  ‘You are meditating, aren’t you?’ Bosin said, suddenly. ‘I could never manage it. I kept falling asleep. No matter how I tried to stay awake. I would empty my mind and think of nothingness, but then I’d be snoring and the masters would send me for another beating. They beat me like a rug, Master Hondo. Oh, they beat me like an egg.’

  Bosin chuckled in memory and pleasure at his own description. Hondo gave up his internal examination and opened his eyes. He reminded himself he had a long time ahead on the road. It was always correct to maintain politeness. He had to ignore the little voice that told him he was polite in part because he was afraid, that Bosin was like a bullock and about as mindless. Hondo put the thought aside to be examined later. He did not like to feel afraid, if that was truly what it was. Fear was an animal spirit. It made him angry and he preferred to be calm.

  ‘I have ridden twelve hours today, Bosin. I believe we have covered fifty miles and I find I am weary. Now that we have eaten, I would prefer to meditate and then to sleep, but I am willing to take first watch if you want.’

  ‘Oh, I won’t be able to sleep tonight,’ Bosin replied, cheerfully. ‘I’m too used to beds! Now, when I was a boy, I could sleep anywhere. I could sleep in a tree, even, if there were wolves about. But not now. Now that I’m thirty, the ground resists me and I can’t sleep for hours. I think there is something alive in my jerkin that keeps biting. Would you take a look?’

  ‘No. I will not take a look,’ Hondo replied, already nettled by the man. Only thirty! The news was galling. How fast his hard-won sense of peace seemed to shred when Bosin started flapping his lips! It was extraordinary. Hondo wondered if he had become too used to the respect of others. Even noblemen were usually careful not to offend him. Most men walked gingerly around one who could make them look like a child or take their life at a whim. They told themselves they honoured the title of ‘sword saint’ that he had won. Yet there was always fear there, too. It seemed Bosin did not share that sense of caution.

  ‘You are not afraid of me, are you?’ Hondo asked. He had trained himself not to avoid a difficult questio
n merely because he might not like the answer. He spoke the words as soon as he felt the first desire to stifle them. He allowed no dishonesty, in himself or anyone else. It was a cancer to a man’s peace.

  Bosin blinked slowly at him, looking as if he thought he was being mocked. He frowned heavily and Hondo could almost see thoughts crashing against one another.

  ‘Lord Inijui came to me and said I had been chosen from among many …’ Bosin said slowly. ‘He said it was a great honour that I would be accompanying you – and these silent lads as well. He did not say I should be afraid, Master Hondo, of anyone. Why would I be afraid? I saw you fight for the old king twenty years ago, when I was a little boy. I saw you then and I said to myself that I would become a master. It was a great day for me. I cannot fear my childhood hero.’

  Hondo found himself smiling at the big thug’s earnestness. He had heard the same story, or some version of it, a thousand times.

  ‘Would it please you to spar with me?’ he heard himself ask. He regretted the offer as soon as it was made, but there was no taking it back. To his surprise, Bosin shook his head and lay down, tugging a blanket into place and folding his hands across his chest.

  ‘I don’t want to hurt you, Master Hondo. You were younger then. I haven’t sparred for years, anyway. There were too many accidents. I’ll take second watch, if you want.’

  Hondo watched in astonishment as the enormous man settled himself. Bosin’s mouth sagged open after a time. Despite his previous certainty, the man seemed to pass into sleep as easily as a child, with no sign of cares or worries. Hondo watched the twins exchange a glance and settle into their blankets by the embers. The night would be cold. He folded his own blanket into a square rather than let sleep take him unawares. Hondo rose from that spot and went away into the trees to empty his bladder and practise his forms. He tried not to hear the snoring that echoed after him.