That Is Not Dead

by Неизвестный

  The man stood, picking up the horn and returning it to the interior of his robes. “You remind me of men I served with,” he said, not unkindly. “If I thought you would take heed of my words, I would caution you against taking part in tomorrow’s activities. Since my warning would fall on deaf ears, I’ll offer another in its stead: when you see your death approaching, meet it well.” The man turned and walked toward the corner behind him. The shadows seemed to surge forward to embrace him. To the young officer, it looked like the man entered a long, dark corridor. Then it and he were gone.

  The young officer glanced around the room, but if any of the other patrons had witnessed the man stepping into the shadows, none offered a sign of it. Nor did any of them challenge him as he departed the inn. The expression on his face kept his superior officer from asking him where he’d been for so long—and alone too. It may have been what determined that man to assign the young officer command of a small detachment of soldiers the next day. This group was one of several sent out and tasked with the destruction of local villages. If the young officer recalled the advice he’d received the previous day, he had little trouble discounting it. This was the same duty he’d been performing since his arrival, and if there was one thing this duty was not, it was dangerous.

  When the Judaean ambush erupted from the huts and hovels to either side of him and his men, there was no time for anything except the arrow that had struck his horse’s eye and dropped it to the street. He managed to roll free and to come up with his sword drawn, but Judaean warriors were everywhere. His men were swiftly and mercilessly overborne. It was all so fast. He swung his blade at a man, who parried the blow and returned it, opening himself to a cut to the neck. Like a kick from a horse, an arrow hit the young officer high in the left leg. He staggered forward, and a Judaean fighter lunged at him. His armor deflected the thrust into the meat of his right bicep. He cried out and released his sword.

  It was over. His men were dead or lying wounded, waiting for their attackers to finish them. From behind, hands grabbed his shoulder and pushed him toward a man who was drawing a long knife from his belt. The Judaean captain was standing in front of a dim doorway in whose shadows the young officer caught a glimpse of the face of the man with the black horn. As best he was able, he straightened up. After the story the man had told him, the young officer supposed it was futile to hope that he would intervene, raise the horn to his lips, and bring destruction to the Judaeans. At least he was present. If not a god, then not a man either. Was that sufficient consolation? The Judaean captain pushed the young officer’s forehead back and pressed the knife to his throat. He wasn’t sure, but he doubted it.

  For Fiona

  Central Asia, Second Century AD:

  Monsters in the Mountains at the Edge of the World

  Jay Lake

  The tent was cold. A typical Sogdian mess, like a steppe dweller’s yurt assembled by retarded Annamese slaves who’d once had the concept explained to them while drunk. Lu Lao-jia, a hsiawei of the Peichun Army, regretted yet again ever leaving his parents’ estate on the shores of Poyang Lake in distant Nanchang. Though those choices were decades behind him, he still wondered how his life would have turned out otherwise. Surely, he would not be sitting half frozen among stinking animal hides and a reeking, insufficient fire far, far west along the Silk Road from anywhere a decent human being might want to find himself.

  He was stuck in this tent because the rulers of Samarkand had barred Lu from taking a house inside the town, at least if he wanted his troops to be quartered alongside him. All the silk and lacquered wood and small luxuries in the world could not disguise the chilled poverty of life in this place. Still, a colonel without his soldiers was a poor colonel indeed. And foreign armies, it seemed, were not welcomed by the city’s Sogdian rulers.

  To make matters worse, the little man prattling before him apparently was possessed of some disease of the mind that prevented him from ever stopping his tongue. Lu Lao-jia was fairly certain that not even a dagger to the throat would shut this one up. Long after his burial, people would surely visit the oily bastard’s doubtless miserable tomb simply to hear his voice yet emitting from the soil with another long and pointless tale of fictional valor and putative value.

  Still, traders, much like traitors, were a necessary evil in this life.

  Lu sipped some tepid tea and pretended to pay attention.

  The sorry fellow labored under the barbarian name of An Hsi-kao. He presumably had some unpronounceable Sogdian name as well, but that was not hsiawei Lu’s problem. At least the trader’s Chinese was decent, though the ancestors alone knew why.

  “Stop,” said Lu, bringing the seemingly endless prattle to at least a temporary halt. “I am certain you are laboring to make a point, but what that point may be continues to escape me. Do you have my statues?”

  Art. The one thing he could gain from this miserable sojourn west of the Celestial Empire was art brought to Samarkand by traders from every corner of the wind. Someday, his acquisitions here would provide Lu Lao-jia with both pride and fortune, if he were even a little bit lucky and smart.

  “The Mikuo, oh mighty general, yes—sometimes called the Mi-go. They are in my humble cart attended even now by trusted slaves, safe beneath a billowing cloth as wide and protecting as the very roof of heaven itself. Though they themselves are not usually sought after.” The Sogdian’s eyes rolled dramatically. “There are stories, dangerous stories, most revered sir. Why, my own personal—”

  “Stop!” Lu Lao-jia sighed. “I am not a general. Merely a colonel, a hsiawei. Do not mistake my rank again.” Or I will have your tongue slit, he thought but did not say. This far from China, his word did not have the same force it would have had in a cantonment of the Peichun Army. Pending, of course, further and different direction from an actual general. Here, well past the edge of the Celestial Empire, with only a reinforced company at his command, diplomacy and circumspection were Lu’s primary tools.

  Which was, of course, precisely why a general had not been sent.

  An Hsi-kao veritably quivered with the force of his pent-up words dammed behind his thin, flaking lips. Small, lithe, dark—the man’s body seemed as twisty as his logic.

  Lu continued, holding back another sigh. “Have the statues brought in. My master of coin will settle your account.” Which was a rather glorified way of referring to poor Ching chun-hsi, the company’s lead sergeant. Ching was a man much put upon by duty, without the usual squadrons of bureaucrats and clerks to wield their calligraphy brushes in pursuit of feral disbursements and imperial accountability.

  “Sir. Sire. Your excellent grace.” An Shiagao bobbed like a goat over a roasting pit. “I must tell you that those Tufo barbarians at the roof of the world hold some unusual beliefs regarding these Mikou statues. There are dangers to be heeded. Some of those sky-dwellers claim that the Mikou have been sculpted by the oldest of the gods, yet others pretend—ridiculously, fantastically—that they are not sculptures at all but the actual Mikou themselves, who lie dormant for long periods of time, as if turned to stone, but then suddenly come back to life. Then they are let loose to torment all creatures on earth. It has something to do with the positions of the stars, the Tufo barbarians say. Why—”

  “Stop.” The hsiawei felt he was decidedly not getting the best of this conversation. He decidedly did not need to be lectured about Tibetans. “You may go now—if you wish to live to be paid, at least.”

  “One…one more thing. Sire. Sir. Most honorable gener…ah, colonel. A thing you must know, that you must permit to be passed from my lips to your ears.”

  Lu Lao-jia briefly considered the merits of simply having this man killed on principle. Surely, he would be a local hero for doing so. Still, he kept his temper in check. “I want your lips to pass nothing to me. If you have something to tell me, something that does not concern my statues, say it. With brevity. And concision.”

  “Brief and concise. Why, those are the very watchword
s by which I am known, whispered in the same breath as my name up and down the Silk Road, surely as the north wind blows cold as a prostitute’s heart.” An Hsi-kao bobbed even harder, as if pumping the words out of some deep inner well. “Brevity. I shall name the next of my sons that in your honor, hsiawei. But I must inform you, esteemed colonel, the tip of your spear is about to meet the tip of another spear, stretching thus from far to the west.”

  It took Lu a moment to sort out that this was not a sexual proposition. “What are you suggesting? That an Anhsi army marches on Samarkand?”

  “No, no, absolutely not that. The Parthians have no interest in us. They must secure their own borders to their north and west. These mountains are the grave of armies, noble sir, and those westerners have long learned their lesson. Rather it is another, stranger army from much farther west that reaches out their least finger to stroke our city’s girding walls.”

  “Brevity,” warned Lu.

  “The Tai-Ch’in,” the Sogdian said with a clearly unaccustomed economy of speech. After a moment, he added helpfully, “Also known as Luoma. Or Roma, in their own tongue.”

  “A myth. The great General Pan Chao himself could not find this supposed empire a dozen years ago. China is the heart of the world. Anyone who would pretend to greatness must as a matter of course wend their way before the walls of the Celestial Empire.”

  “F-far be it from my humble station to tell the noble hsiawei his own business, but these Tai-Ch’in march in a company not unlike your own, with bright turtled armor and weapons of the finest steel such that no barbarians could hope to craft. That alone tells of their might in mining and metallurgy and smithing, which in turn tells of cities and mines and roads. Great industry requires a great polity. Surely these pale, sweating Westerners have marched east along the Silk Road—perhaps as far as you have marched west along it.”

  Lu’s heart sank. He was here to seek threats from the west, which Pan Chao had worried of without ever finding them. But the hsiawei himself had never expected to see anything of the sort. He was out here in the rectum of the Central Asian mountains to serve an old man’s paranoia and to be as the parrot in the garden: to scream if danger approached, then fly away with his mere two hundred spears.

  “How many of them are there?” he asked, careful to keep his voice level with ordinary curiosity.

  “Much like yourself, though not quite so numerous. Perhaps a hundred. And also much like yourself, their manner and equipment speak of a great power far distant, of which this is only the tip of a long, long spear.”

  “Enough,” said Lu. “I am not so concerned with them this day. Bring me my statues and be on your way.”

  “Shall…shall I also carry word back to you, should their hsiawei be desirous of an audience? It might do you two good to pass time in social intercourse.”

  What was it with this smarmy little Sogdian? Lu realized he had been away too long from good tea and pleasing gardens and the quiet pleasures of poetry in a lakeside pavilion. He was cold and tired and far, far from home.

  “If there is word worth having, bring it to me. Meanwhile, my Mikou.“

  Four straining slaves—from below the Indus, judging by the darkness of their skin and the overlarge sharpness of their noses—strained to bring in his two statues one by one. Those Tufan barbarians had wretched imaginations, he had to admit. The Mikou were far uglier than even An Hsi-kao himself. Curled heads like insects or worms, great ragged membranous wings that would have shamed a plum-drunk dragonfly, twisted bodies with multiple sets of clawed hands and feet—these creatures were the stuff of nightmares. Or perhaps the visions of some poor, twisted artist demented by his own paints and solvents. No wonder superstitious legends had attached themselves to this statuary.

  They were, however, magnificent. The two Mikou were nicely matched in size, each almost man-high. Their sculpting was executed in terrifying detail that seemed to show off each hair and scale and bit of horn. Lu Lao-jia wondered idly how the artist had managed such exquisite finesse.

  They were heavy, as evidenced by the four bearers required to move each statue. He had the slaves leave them flanking the flaps of the tent’s entrance, where guards might normally be stationed. Their composition was strange too: a dark gray rock shot through with pink veins that looked as slick as polished jadeite but was almost gritty to the touch.

  They were strangely warm as well, given the brutal weather outside—almost as if An Hsi-kao had kept a fire in his cart.

  The slaves took themselves away with a tactful quiet very much unmatched by their master, leaving Lu alone with his new acquisitions. He had always held a passion for sculpture. These would make great prizes back on his family estate. Still, they were disturbing enough that his original plan of placing them in the great hall now seemed in need of revision.

  There was a certain beauty in their ugliness, he decided—a beauty that might be best served behind a protective screen of plants in one of the lesser gardens.

  Ching chun-hsi came to Lu hsiawei the next morning, hard on the heels of his insufficiently warm bowl of congee. Even spicing the rice porridge with plum wine did little to increase its appeal. His sergeant was a welcome distraction from the horrors of breakfast.

  “Is there something unusual to report?” Lu asked, wondering about the worried expression on Ching’s face. Out here on the frontier, they had adopted an informality that would have been a flogging offense back in the regimental cantonment. On the other hand, he had to have someone to speak freely with.

  “Sir… “ Ching glanced at his hands as if notes had been inscribed on his fingernails. “A company of soldiers is camped on the west side of the city.”

  “Then it is good for them that we are on the east side of Samarkand,” Lu said mildly. For once, he was grateful to the little Sogdian bastard for keeping him from being surprised at this news. “And even better for us that we are soldiers of the Peichun Army, the finest troops in the Celestial Empire—and thus the world.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  The hsiawei was well aware that his chun-hsi nurtured a streak of unhealthy cynicism, but even in their unorthodox familiarity, the sergeant was canny enough not to be too obvious about it.

  Ching continued: “People say they’re the lead element of a big, big army. From the West. Coming into Asia.”

  Interesting but improbable. Also consistent, in a sense, with what the Sogdian had reported the day before. “Do you find this likely?”

  “Not really, sir. But I saw their weapons and gear. They come from someplace a lot better than this hellhole. These guys are nothing like the sorry mountain bastards we’ve been pissing away our time with.”

  Lu perked up at this news. “You’ve been to their camp?”

  “Not without your permission, sir. But last night, at the joy house in town, me and some of the boys met three of theirs.”

  Even more interesting. And unfortunately, all too probable. “How did that go?”

  “It went polite enough.” After a moment, he added thoughtfully, “They were big bastards with long knives.”

  “What did the joy girls say?”

  Ching laughed. “Mostly the same thing.”

  “And what does Ching chun-hsi say?”

  His sergeant met Lu’s eyes with a frank gaze. “I say we turn around and go home and forget we ever saw them. These guys are as far from their home as we are from ours. They can look at our weapons and gear and figure us out just like I figured them out. You know the emperor will never send a real army this far west. Why? Who wants to rule over these camel-loving, snow-eating bastards anyway? Their emperor can’t be a fool either. They’re doing what we’re doing: looking to see what’s out there.”

  Lu thought of the Sogdian’s words. “The tip of one long spear brushes against the tip of another long spear in the dark.”

  “This isn’t even the edge of the Celestial Empire, sir.”

  “So, you think we should be good parrots and fly home screaming?�
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  Ching seemed almost annoyed at this, though as usual he was careful with his face and his words. “I’m no coward, sir. But I think we should walk home at our own pace. When we get there, we’ll tell the general that the west is quiet. No threat comes from here. Better to worry about the Mongols or the Koreans or the Manchu. They can reach China. These…whoever they are…never will.”

  “Tai-Ch’in,” Lu supplied. “That’s who they are—the westerners who Pan Chao is so concerned with.”

  “Hmm.” The sergeant didn’t seem to have anything more to say, so he looked around the tent. “Why the ugly statues?”

  “There is no accounting for taste,” said Lu. Whose taste, he didn’t feel qualified to comment on. The Mikou were ugly and ever more disturbing the longer he had them in his tent.

  The hsiawei startled awake from an afternoon dream of joy girls and pale men with long knives and longer manhoods. One of the common soldiers of his company discretely coughed again just outside the tent flap.

  “Man to see you, sir.”

  Lu rubbed his eyes. No servants, no clerks, no protocol. He hated being beyond the frontier. “Any man in particular or just a male?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  The soldier was lucky Lu didn’t know them all by voice. “Who is it?”