Jade Man's Skin

by Daniel Fox

  If the emperor had chosen to ignore the fire, he certainly didn’t ignore the mud. That might be because the last of his burned guards had gone into the water, and he was alert again to the world around; it might be because a gobbet of mud missed the fire and landed in his hair.

  He half turned toward Chung—which meant he half turned his back toward Yu Shan. Who stooped and rose and flung his own handfuls of mud; and meanwhile Chung had crouched again for more, crying, “Majesty, turn around, let me …”

  “It doesn’t burn,” the emperor said calmly. “At least, it only eats itself. I don’t even feel heat—”

  It was eating the mud, perhaps, if it couldn’t eat the jade. At least, handfuls of mud had no effect; the fire blazed as brightly despite Chung’s efforts, despite Yu Shan’s. The emperor might claim to feel nothing, but it had already singed his hair.

  Just then a voice cried a warning, an arm flung up to point: more canisters from the island, already in the sky. The emperor cursed, grabbed an arm in each hand—almost at random, it seemed, except that one arm was Yu Shan’s; the other, as it happened, was Chung’s—and flung himself forward.

  The jerk of it almost pulled Chung’s arm from his socket. The mud fell from his hands and he was dragged along like a reluctant child, like booty, like prey. He had to stutter a few desperate steps before he caught some kind of balance, before he could find any speed of his own.

  Even then, there was nowhere to run to. The earlier missile’s fire still burned, the one that had fallen short, all across the roadway from river to paddy. They would have to wade, unless they swam.

  Chung glanced up and saw stark black shadows in the sky, already falling.

  And the emperor was still on fire.

  Perhaps he thought he could run straight through the blaze ahead, and the flames not harm him? Perhaps he thought he was untouchable?

  Perhaps he was right, but it wasn’t true for Chung. One desperate glance at Yu Shan, behind the emperor’s back, through the sear of flame—and Chung swung himself forward on the emperor’s arm, thrust a leg out, and tripped the Man of Jade.

  At the same time—as though they’d discussed it, as though they’d rehearsed it—Yu Shan drove his shoulder into the emperor’s, so that all three of them went sprawling in an ungainly, rolling tangle, over the road and over the edge and down into the river.

  DOWN AND DOWN into dark roiling waters that snatched Chung’s breath away, that tumbled him end over end until he had forgotten entirely which way was up.

  Growing up in the docks, on the wharves all day long, he had been in the water and out of it, wet more often than he was dry; he swam like an eel, sinuous and native. Until today, when the jarring shock of the fall and the rough battering current almost made him forget how to swim at all.

  He thought he was lost, a nonsense soldier fallen to a stupid death in this unfought war, dead before the enemy could even be brought to battle.

  He thought how angry Shen would be, which was a sorrow he could almost smile at if he weren’t being hurled against rocks on the river bottom.

  But he opened his eyes, at least, at the thought of Shen; didn’t want to shame him by going into death like a coward, all courage washed away.

  He opened his eyes and saw a light that was momentarily yellow, flame beneath the water, and he thought the emperor’s still burning, it must be sorcerous, that wicked fire the rebels throw …

  But the yellow died, not so strong a sorcery after all; and then the light was only a glimmer of green, a frog in a pond.

  And that was still the emperor in his shirt, and Chung did try to swim toward him. He still had no breath, and couldn’t hold his lungs empty for much longer; but he kicked against the current and struck out with what strength he had remaining, and …

  AND THEN a hand gripped his neck and dragged him startlingly upward, and his head broke surface and he crowed a ragged breath, and then another; and that was Yu Shan’s head in the water beside him, breathing easily, almost amused.

  When he could talk—it took a while, it hurt a lot and was little more than wheezing with a shape to it, but he had to try—he managed, just, “The emperor …?”

  Who had still not come up for air, anywhere that Chung could see. Which ought not to be possible, but a lot of that young man’s gifts were not strictly possible for mortal man. They did clearly lie within the grasp of a god. Or a man of jade, given that he did seem to share them with Yu Shan.

  “Gone that way,” Yu Shan said, nodding upcurrent. Of course. Where he couldn’t run because his path was blocked by fire, of course he’d swim it. His victory was in peril, his chase was delayed; did anyone think he would wait calmly until he could consult with generals, fetch up men and boats, assault the island and its garrison like any normal commander …?

  Chung was a fierce swimmer if he had to be, but this current was fiercer. He couldn’t swim against it. Yu Shan could, though; and still could, even with Chung clinging to his belt.

  They swam underwater as much as possible, and close to the bank. The surface was all broken anyway where the river rewove itself after the island had torn its single flow in two, but still better not to chance being seen, two heads breaking water in mid-stream.

  They made their way swiftly—at least, Yu Shan made their way, while Chung clung and kicked and tried to feel useful, not too much of a drag—up to the bridge and into its shadow; and there, yes, there they found the emperor.

  Waiting with as much patience as he could muster, not much: clinging to a dank timber and gesturing to them for silence, caution, speed.

  HIS JABBING finger showed them why. Higher within the arch, shadow had substance: other figures hung in the framework, waiting.

  Waiting surely until they heard footsteps on the bridge above, soldiers running over to attack the rebels on the island. So few men, holding up an entire army while Tunghai Wang ran farther and farther away: of course the vanguard would hurry across the bridge, as soon as they found a way to reach it. And then a few mallet-blows on appropriate pins and the bridge would disintegrate beneath their feet, and those who didn’t fall into the urgent river would find themselves stranded on the island, just a few helpless men in the face of a triumphant defense; and the rebels would still be free to carry on hurling their fire until they had no more, by which time their comrades and commanders might be hours, even days ahead …

  Not if the emperor had any say, they wouldn’t. He went climbing softly up the bridge’s wooden girders with Yu Shan at his side, their noise covered more or less by the noise of the river beneath them.

  Chung stayed below; anything else would have been ridiculous bravado. He knew he had no place in this exploit. He really had no place with them at all, Yu Shan should have seen him safe and left him on the riverbank for the guards eventually to find him.

  Here he was, though, and glad of it, thrilled; and saving it up to make a story, something to tell Shen. Something not to spoil with absurd heroics, trying to overreach himself, getting himself killed and maybe others too, maybe even the emperor too …

  He did lift himself up out of the constant frothing tug of the water: partly to feel safer, partly to see better. To have more to say, not to spoil the story.

  He would swear that jade shirt shed a light of its own. Perhaps it only caught the reflection of daylight off water, but it shone in the shadows and he thought it was deliberate, inherent, something of the stone.

  Something to see by, however it came: a strange and greenish light as though the emperor were still a frog as he crawled long-leggedly, long-armedly through the network of crossed timbers that supported the arch of the bridge.

  Yu Shan stayed close enough that Chung’s eyes could follow him too, a figure of shade, green shadow in a green light.

  Those above them might have been asleep, or daydreaming, or listening very intently overhead, because they seemed to notice nothing beneath them. Not till the last possible moment, when that greenish cast embraced them too, and one of
them glanced down in puzzled wonder.

  And screamed, so that there was no secret anymore; the sound echoed and echoed, trapped in the shadows between wood and water. Chung’s head turned away instinctively from the man’s naked fear, his naked shame—

  —AND SO he saw the other two men who had been crouched deep in the footings, where even the emperor’s jade-bright eyes had overlooked them.

  Two men swinging with the ease of practice through the frame of beams, long knives between their teeth; and only him to stop them, disarmed and awkward and dripping wet …

  He set his jaw, just to stop his teeth from chattering, and began to swing himself slowly up the climb of the bridge and out over the water.

  They followed, casual and unconcerned, competent and lethal.

  Up, and out.

  Halfway up, a man fell screaming by his ear; fell into the water and was lost, a sudden silence, an absence.

  Another man fell with no sound at all, only the sudden shadow of his plunging body, there and gone, dead already.

  Not the emperor, not Yu Shan. Chung didn’t even need to look. They wouldn’t die like that, swift and meaningless and gone. He’d seen men die just that way on the beach raid, and still didn’t believe it of those two. Besides, neither one of them would scream.

  Perhaps those two swift deaths whipped on his pursuers; perhaps they thought he was climbing up to seek help of his friends. Perhaps they realized that his friends might actually survive that strange quiet fighting overhead, now that the odds were more in their favor.

  They came after Chung more urgently then, which only meant that he needed to do something a little sooner. Otherwise he would climb up into that higher fight, get in the emperor’s way, bring two more rebels up beneath Yu Shan just at the wrong moment …

  So he locked his legs around a horizontal beam and let his body drop down like a child hanging from a tree branch: drop and swing with his arms at full stretch, suddenly and unexpectedly within snatching range of one of the climbers below.

  He had to arch his spine painfully to do it, but for a moment at the height of his backswing there he was, just an arm’s length away. The rebel was startled, clinging on with both hands, helpless; and Chung could simply reach out and grab that heavy knife the man held in his teeth, seize the handle and jerk it away.

  Teeth wouldn’t grip on oiled steel, against that abrupt sideways tug. Now the man was disarmed, and Chung had a weapon.

  That was all he’d meant. He swung himself back up again with a terrible effort of his belly muscles—Shen would have laughed, and then made him practice the move over and over, again and again, week after week till it was easy—and went to put the knife in his belt.

  And saw dark streaks on the blade, and for a little moment wondered how he’d cut himself.

  But of course it wasn’t his own blood; that blade hadn’t come anywhere near his skin.

  A quick glance down showed him the man he’d just left, still clinging to the beams, lifting his head as though to stare after Chung, to accuse or just to protest, why did you do this to me?

  One brief glimpse in the shadows; that was enough. Chung turned his own face away, not to see what he’d done, that had left a blade so darkly marked and so easily wiped clean.

  The knife was double-edged and sharp as the wind. Jerked savagely, heedlessly out of the man’s mouth, it had cut through his tongue and the flesh of his cheek, the muscle and bone of his jaw; he gaped slack-mouthed and always would, half his face hanging open to the world.

  He had a comrade, a friend perhaps, who was suddenly being as slow to chase as Chung was numbedly slow to get away. Who had stopped to listen to the slow keening that arose from that ruined mouth, to touch his companion’s shoulder in some hopeless gesture of sympathy, of pity, of promise.

  Who lifted his own head now to find Chung looking down at him watchfully, unable after all to keep his face turned away.

  The rebel took his own knife from between his teeth then, in a deliberate gesture; gripped it fist-tight and began to climb again.

  This time, when Chung swung, he used his hands to grip the beam. It was his legs that drove in toward the rebel. Who needed one hand to grip, and could only slash wildly with the other while he clung to a perilous balance on the dank and slippery woodwork.

  Chung felt that blade score across his leg, but he had too much impetus for so fine a cut to divert him. His feet slammed against the rebel’s chest, knocking him back against an upright, knocking all the breath from his body, knocking him from his stance so that now he was only hanging by that one desperate hand.

  Chung bent his legs at the moment of strike, so that his body went on swinging in toward the rebel. In the moment that he had before he must swing away again, he let his legs slip around the man’s waist and lock behind.

  Then, with his own body’s weight and a great jerk, all the muscles that he had working with him, he pulled the man off the bridge.

  And swung back, unlocked his legs and let him fall.

  One last despairing clutch, the man’s hand trying to snare Chung’s ankle; but that ankle was wet already and slick with blood now, it offered no safe grip. Chung felt him slide away, didn’t listen for the splash. He gathered himself for another effort, to haul his body up into the safety of the bridge’s frame; felt a burning pain in his leg just at that worst moment, and wondered if he was actually going to make it—

  —AND A HAND reached down to seize his wrist, lifted him up into that reassuring woodwork. He found himself safe—entirely safe, no question—in the irresistible strong grip of the emperor.

  “Are you hurt?”

  All instinct and courtly convention told him to lie, to say No, majesty, and allow the emperor to let it go, not to concern himself in the least.

  But his emperor was his commander too, and this was a field of battle; and Shen had trained him better than that. What was right at court was wrong in war. He said, “A cut on the leg, majesty.”

  “Can you stand?”

  “I… think so.” It hurt more, now that he was thinking about it. His trouser leg told him nothing, being sodden already from the river; he was trying to test the leg itself there on the cross-beam, but the emperor was still supporting his weight, and how did you tell the Man of Jade to let go?

  “Well, perhaps another swim will help.”

  “Another …?”

  You weren’t supposed to question the emperor. Everybody did sooner or later, but that was in camp. At court, they tried not. Here in battle, Chung was fairly sure that he shouldn’t. He bit that one off half asked. And glanced up into the green-shaded shadows, trying to see past the obscuring glow of the jademail shirt; and said, “Are there …?”

  And choked it off again, but the emperor smiled and said, “More rebels up in the arch there? No. This bridge is safe, until our people come.”

  Which would be soon now, surely, an imperial guard without its emperor. But there were still those terrible fires on the riverbank, the guards must still be under attack, more canisters hurling at them; maybe not so soon after all. Maybe even time enough for the rebels to send more men under the bridge to bring it down …

  Perhaps the emperor meant that the bridge was safe because he and his companions were there now to protect it. Chung said, “Yes, majesty. So …”

  “So where is Yu Shan?”

  Chung nodded.

  This time the emperor didn’t smile. His eyes were bright and compulsive, and Chung couldn’t look away. A proper subject keeps his head low and his gaze lower in the presence of his emperor, but they had learned other manners in the camp. This was neither court nor camp, and even so Chung had no wish to stare, nor to be stared at by majesty, but he wasn’t being offered the choice. Something deliberate was happening here, and it was the emperor’s decision, and …

  And it wasn’t that Chung heard a noise below, even now, when he might have been listening for it. What he heard instead was a silence, an end to noise: the breaking-off of
a sound that had been low and persistent and sharp enough to cut through the constant noises of the river, only he’d been too busy to give it any attention.

  The emperor heard it too, or heard its ending. And still didn’t release Chung’s gaze, but only said, “Yu Shan is … attending to the last of the rebels.”

  That must mean the one Chung had left with a ruined face. That missing sound could well have been the moan of a man helpless in extraordinary pain; so Yu Shan had gone to help in the only way that would suggest itself, the way of war.

  Chung didn’t try to look.

  Yu Shan came gracefully up to join them, and the emperor said, “The three of us, then: Chung is hurt, but he thinks not badly and a swim will help his leg if you and I help him, Yu Shan …”

  “Majesty?”

  Here he was asking questions again, but he was too bewildered to hold himself in check and the emperor didn’t seem to mind.

  “Yes, Chung?”

  “Where must we swim to now?”

  “The rebels will be watching the bridge,” Yu Shan said, “as well as our friends across the river. If they see us—well, there are only three of us, until our friends catch up. We don’t know how many they are. And if they throw fire at us as well as swords, even the emperor may not come through it.”

  The emperor thought he was fireproof like his shirt, but he nodded cooperatively.

  “We can’t just sit and wait,” he said. “Our people will come through, but they might have to wait till night, or till they can fetch boats up; and more of them will die in the meantime, perhaps many more if they keep trying to reach us through that firestorm. We need to prevent it.”

  “The rebels are all busy looking downriver,” Yu Shan cut in. Interrupting the emperor was a great offense, greater than staring, greater than questioning: so impossibly forbidden that there could hardly be a law to forbid it. No matter. He might have learned it from Mei Feng, who did it all the time. “Shooting their fireballs, killing our people. We’re going to swim up to the north end of the island; that way we can surprise them.”