He let his head fall back and closed his eyes. It was hard, living in utopia. And some days it was far from perfect. Sometimes it was just plain tough.
And today?
Today felt like it was the end of something. Like they were waiting for something new to begin. Only no one was sure quite what.
Sometimes he felt like he had lived too long, seen too many changes. But not today. Despite everything that had happened in the last week–and five deaths were no small thing in a person’s life – he felt strangely optimistic. As if, from these death throes, something better might transpire, a phoenix from these ashes.
‘Jake?’
‘Huh-hmm?’
‘I’m sorry about your friend, Alison. It must have been hard.’
He opened his eyes, looked at her again. ‘You had nothing to be jealous of, you know?’
Mary’s smile was warm, open to him. ‘I know. Even so… you’re a good man, Jake. It must have touched you.’
He thought about that. About all those he had lost. Presences in the landscape of his memory.
‘It was hard,’ he said finally, ‘I mean, just living through these times. Harder than I ever thought it would be. But rewarding, too.’ He smiled. ‘I’m glad I did. Glad I had you beside me.’
He reached out, taking her free hand, lacing his fingers into hers.
‘Jake?’
‘Yes, my love?’
‘Let’s pray for a miracle, yes? A good old-fashioned one. Touch wood we all get through.’
Chapter 25
DAYLIGHT ON IRON MOUNTAIN
Shen Fu lay on the torturer’s slab, where he’d been left by Tsao Ch’un, alone beneath the unsparing light, a dim consciousness flickering in his head. He was in pain and yet beyond pain. So many of his nerves had been burned away that it no longer hurt. Not that this troubled him in any way. Nor did the smell of shit and burned flesh worry him. He was in a state of sublime indifference.
The truth was, he had lived in his own private hell since that moment when his world had quite literally vanished in an instant, vaporized in the flash of a nuclear explosion. Blind as he was, he could still picture it vividly.
And later, serving as an oven man, there had been that chance meeting, the offer of a job. All of which, step by step, had led to this moment of nullity, of meaningless physicality. Of pain.
And the world? Chung Kuo?
He did not care about the world. In truth he had never cared.
Shen Fu lay there, his mind utterly detached from the battlefield of pain that was his body, waiting for the blackness.
It was in that state that they found him, the Seven’s mercenaries. In a palace littered with corpses he – who looked as if he should be dead – was the only one alive. All the rest had fled, or committed suicide, or been killed where they stood. They took care of Shen Fu and, having bathed and dressed him, carried him on a litter to a waiting cruiser.
Oblivious, the First Dragon dreamed.
*
Li Chao Ch’in stood beside Shepherd on the sunlit lawn as the ship came down, just below them on that long, grassy slope.
It was a beautiful morning, made more so by the news coming in.
Tsao Ch’un, it seemed, had gone into hiding, fleeing his fortress after the Banners had turned against him, murdering their officers and declaring for the Seven.
It was wonderful news. Only, relieved as he was, nothing could have made Li Chao Ch’in happy, for he knew what it meant. That he would see Tongjiang again, and he didn’t know if he could face that. Not after what had happened there.
Shepherd, however, seemed distracted by this incoming flight. Who it was Shepherd wouldn’t say, but Li Chao Ch’in had rarely seen him so animated.
‘Li Chao Ch’in,’ he said, turning to him, raising his voice over the craft’s engines. ‘You should send for Li Chang So. There’s someone I want him to meet.’
Li Chao Ch’in gestured to the nearby guard – a full major, in dress uniform – who hurried off to find and bring the prince.
As the craft touched down, the engines whining down to silence, Shepherd went across, as the hatch lifted and a young man – mid-twenties at the most – stepped out.
The two embraced warmly, then turned, walking back up the slope towards the T’ang.
‘Li Chao Ch’in,’ Amos said, ‘Might I present my son, Augustus.’
Li Chao Ch’in stared at the young man, shocked, not merely because he looked the very double of his father, as he might have looked fifty years ago, but that he existed at all.
‘A son? You have a son?’
Amos smiled and ruffled his son’s dark hair. ‘My little secret. Kept out of harm’s way, until such a day as this.’
‘But Tsao Ch’un…’
‘Probably knew about him, yes. Only the moment I declared for you, he went into hiding. But with the news…’
Augustus had something timeless about him. He looked like one of those ancient Greek statues, only alive, his green eyes – and again, they were Amos’s eyes – filled with an intense intelligence.
‘I’m pleased to meet you, Li Chao Ch’in,’ he said, bowing respectfully.
‘Your voice…’ The T’ang almost laughed. It was so like his father’s.
Just then there were noises from the cottage up the slope behind them. Li Chao Ch’in turned to see his own son, six two and handsome with it, coming towards them.
‘Father…’ Li Chang So slowed, his eyes taking in Shepherd’s son. ‘But I thought…’
‘Come, Prince Li,’ Amos said, smiling broadly now. ‘Come and meet your new advisor.’
It had ended suddenly. As suddenly as it began.
Even as the assault units were in the air, heading for Pei Tai Ho and Tsao Ch’un’s fortress, everything had changed.
Tsao Ch’un, reacting to the news, had not waited to hear any more. One moment he was there, the next…
They were still trying to work out which of the fifteen craft that had sped away from the Black Tower was his. Or whether, perhaps, he was on one of the shuttles that had launched.
Whichever, they would track him down and have him. Given time.
And they had time, now that the Banners had defected; now that his sons were dead, his nest of hackers destroyed.
There was some mopping up to do, of course, a winding down of the campaign, but so little as to make the sudden peace seem strange. More like a change of weather than a great political upheaval.
One moment it had been stormy, the next…
Li Chao Ch’in glanced about him at the others in the cabin. They were flying east from Pei Ching, to see Tsao Ch’un’s fortress for themselves. He and Shepherd and their sons, the two young men deep in earnest conversation, leaning across the aisle between them, their heads almost touching.
On their return from the Black Tower that evening, there was to be a feast, and afterwards, a meeting of the Seven. With the war so abruptly ended, there was much to be decided. The appointment of a new First Dragon, for a start, to replace Tsao Ch’un’s man, Chang Yu. And then there was Tsu Chen’s proposal that they merge the Banner armies into Security. To make them an elite force, possibly, but principally to close down their camps and establish them within the levels and not outside. It made sense, as did the legitimizing of the Northern Banners – without whom the war could not possibly have been won – to work alongside their Han compatriots, again as part of Security.
For they didn’t need the Banners. Not now that the Age of Wars had ended. Security was the problem now, and to that end they planned to increase vigilance. For a time. Until things were settled again. For the war had woken something in the people.
Yes, he thought. That part of it surprised us. The anger of the masses. The violent retribution that they took.
He could see it now, in memory, those five bloated corpses hanging from the beam. Landlords and usurers, bullies and enforcers. Users, all of them, and all of them strung up by the people they had bled. Just one e
xample of many.
So much had changed so quickly. For the better, he hoped. How could it not be better, now that Tsao Ch’un had gone?
Thinking that, Li Chao Ch’in looked to Shepherd. Amos was convinced that Tsao Ch’un was already dead; his body one of those charred, almost skeletal figures they had pulled from the wreckage of the cruisers they’d shot down. DNA tests would confirm it, but it was unlikely he’d survived. It would have been nice to have taken him alive, to have stood him up and tried him for his crimes – nice yet problematic. As Shepherd rightly said, to give him the chance to defend himself would not have been fair. Not after how he’d treated those who’d come before him. It was good that he was dead. Only without a body to parade rumours would circulate that Tsao Ch’un was still alive, that he gathered his forces about him, awaiting the day of his return.
Ridiculous, he thought, but true. It was how the masses thought.
Up ahead, in the cockpit, the pilot turned his head, looking back at him.
‘We’re five minutes off, Chieh Hsia. I am beginning the descent.’
Li Chao Ch’in nodded, noting how the man had addressed him. Chieh Hsia. The same words they had used to address Tsao Ch’un, a mere three days ago.
And so the circle turns, and a new cycle begins.
Chung Kuo had new masters. New masters and a new beginning.
*
Li Chao Ch’in stood over the pale, disfigured body of Shen Fu, wincing at the sight of what Tsao Ch’un had done to the man.
‘Look at him,’ the T’ang said, turning to Shepherd. ‘That is the world Tsao Ch’un would have had us occupy, if he had won.’
Shepherd looked, his eyes taking in everything. It seemed like his interest was academic, almost artistic. Indeed, he studied it almost as if he planned to paint the scene from memory.
‘I only wonder he’s alive. Was there a tape?’
Shepherd’s question was prurient, almost obscene. Li Chao Ch’in looked away, vowing to himself that if there was a tape, he would destroy it, for no one deserved to be seen in such distress. No one.
Yes, Li Chao Ch’in thought, and that was the difference between he and Shepherd; he and Tsao Ch’un. There were things he would and wouldn’t do. Moral boundaries he would not cross. Even now, when he grieved his sons, his wife and baby daughters, his retainers and old friends. Even now, filled as he was with hatred for Tsao Ch’un, he would not have done this to the man. Kill him, yes, but keep him alive in this state of suffering… no. Only a demon would have done such a thing.
And that was how this new world would be different. It would be a world with laws and limits, a world where a man could live without fear of another’s violent whims.
A world where the presence of six other powerful men – where the need for their consensus – acted as a check to tyranny.
He felt a tiny ripple down his spine at the thought. Tonight it would begin. After the ceremony. Once they had all gathered, there at the centre of the world. At the place where his kind, the Han, had gathered to ritually renew the world of their ancestors since the dawn of time. There at the Temple of Heaven.
‘Come,’ he said, touching Shepherd’s arm, not wanting to look a second time at the shallow breathing corpse that lay there on the trolley. ‘We’ve much to do before the meeting.’
‘And Tongjiang?’
Li Chao Ch’in met Shepherd’s eyes, keeping his voice carefully under control. ‘Tomorrow. I will deal with that tomorrow.’
*
Tsao Ch’un was crouched down behind a rock on the mountain’s side, looking out into the failing light, the sound of baying dogs – GenSyn-enhanced creatures, possessed of limited intelligence – filling the cold, late afternoon air.
The shot that had brought down his craft had been a lucky one, but then he too had been lucky. The pilot and his bodyguard were dead, the latter burned alive in the crumpled ship while he had crawled free.
Free and without a scratch. It was an omen, surely.
He was tired and cold, and his shoulder ached from where he’d lost the GenSyn healing pack, but he wasn’t beaten. Not yet. If he could survive this night and hide somewhere, if he could persuade just one old and trusted friend to take him in, then all would be well. It did not matter about the Banners. It did not matter that his sons were dead. All that mattered was that he lived. For he would rebuild and, one day, not so long from now, have his revenge.
He turned, making his way down the slope. As he did he could hear distant shouts and, far off, the sound of a cruiser’s engines. But safety was in sight, and, as he descended down the far side of the slope, he chuckled to himself.
Nearly, he thought. You nearly had me.
Only nearly wasn’t good enough.
That evening, in the Forbidden City, at the very heart of Pei Ching, the surviving T’ang met for the first time since it had all begun, three days before. They took on their new offices there beneath the Ywe Lung, the great Wheel of Dragons, once symbol of their stewardship, now of their rule, each of them allocated a part of Tsao Ch’un’s world-spanning empire.
There would be seven cities from henceforth, each ruled by a T’ang, one of the ‘Beautiful and Imposing’, with Wei Shao, once Chancellor, drafted in to fill the vacant position created by the extinction of the Fan family.
Sons of Heaven they would be, each one of them, yet their powers were to be subject to constraint – to the democratic vote of the majority of their number. So it would be, for there must be no more tyrants. Chung Kuo, that great world-spanning City of ice, was to last ten thousand years, and that was their toast as they raised their silver goblets: ‘Ten thousand years!’ It was the traditional salute to emperors, yet for once it had a ring of truth.
Ten thousand years…
In that length of time men had emerged from beneath the trees, to create artworks and forge language, to build great civilizations and great cultures. And to make war, endless war.
But now they had the chance to put an end to that. To make a peace of ten thousand years. What nobler, higher cause could there be?
Not one. Yet it had come at a price. That night Li Chao Ch’in, alone in his sleeping chamber, finally succumbed, lying there in the darkness, the tears streaming down his cheeks.
While there’d been things to do, he had been all right. But now that it was accomplished…
He lay there, remembering their faces. Seeing them clearly. Hearing them in memory. His darling boys and girls dead, and their father far away, unable to protect them.
That helplessness had hurt him most. How ineffective he had been. How he had failed them. How, in the confusion of the times, he had left them there, within the tyrant’s grasp. If asked he would have said it was unforgivable. Only no one thought to ask, for he was T’ang now, a Son of Heaven. And one did not ask a T’ang such questions.
But lying there he asked them of himself, and felt ashamed. Had Chang So been older – had he been twenty-five and not fifteen – he would have stepped down, letting his son be T’ang in his place. But things were not so ordered.
I had six sons…
And now he had but one. His mother’s favourite. And she… dead like the rest of them.
No. He did not need to imagine how Shen Fu had suffered. Had not needed to see that pale, cadaverous body, laced with unhealed scars, to know that each day from now would be a torment.
And tomorrow?
The mere thought of it; watching them being led off like that, bound hand and foot, into Tsao Ch’un’s less than tender care. It was enough to drive a man mad.
Li Chao Ch’in sat up, placing his head in his hands, the anguish he felt beyond all bearing.
‘It was not my fault!’
Only he knew it was. He had betrayed them. Abandoned them. Left them to their fate.
Kuan Yin have mercy on my soul. Sweet Goddess of Mercy, forgive me for what I have done.
The dawn was grey, unvarying. As for Tongjiang…
Tongjiang was a shell, the
floor plan of a palace laid out in ash and fallen stone. Li Chao Ch’in had seen it, up there on the screen in the Domain, but standing there amidst its smoking ruins he groaned. The devastation touched and scarred his soul.
He dared not see the bodies of those who had been taken by Tsao Ch’un. He did not dare to see how they had suffered on the slab.
One thing, however, brought it all home. One small detail amidst that hell on earth. They had burned his horses. Burned all the mounts they had ridden that fateful morning. They lay in the stable yard, badly charred but recognizable for what they were. Seven long, blackened forms, a fine layer of ash lifting up from them in the cold morning breeze.
The palace could be rebuilt. They had the plans, after all. But how to rebuild a life? How to bring back a dead child, a dead wife? It was impossible. And yet he must. It was his duty, not merely to his ancestors but to the world he now ruled. For nothing that he did henceforth was private. He was in the spotlight now. A T’ang. Beautiful and imposing. Yes, and a model for them all. For so an emperor must be. A paradigm. Not merely wise, but unerring.
He turned away, walking back to the craft where his son was waiting.
Li Chang So had refused to see it. Had sat there staring at the floor, shaking his head, refusing to leave the craft. Not that Li Chao Ch’in had possessed the heart to force him.
Does he blame me too? he wondered, glancing at the boy as he strapped himself in again. More specifically, did Li Chang So blame him for the death of his mother? If so, then what future had they? He loved his son. Loved him fiercely. Loved the anger and the hurt he saw in him at that moment. Loved him for the sensitive young boy he was.
Li Chao Ch’in swallowed bitterly. He knew that a T’ang ought not to think such thoughts. That a man could lose his reason thinking thus. But he could not help it. For two whole days he had blocked it off. But now…
Daylight on Iron Mountain Page 36
