It was enough. The mild drug in the liquid would help calm him – would make him sleep until the shock of his ordeal had passed.
Tuan Ti Fo stoppered the bottle and fixed it to the small hook on his belt, then straightened up. He had not really noticed before but the boy weighed almost nothing in his arms. He looked down at the child, surprised, as if the boy would vanish at any moment, leaving him holding nothing.
‘You’re a strange one,’ he said softly, moving outside the dream a moment. ‘It’s many years since the gods sent me one to tend.’
So it was. Many, many years. And why this one? Maybe it had something to do with the other dreams – the dreams of dead, dark lands and of huge, brilliant webs, stretched out like stringed beads, burning in the darkness of the sky. Dreams of wells and spires and falling Cities. Dreams filled with suffering and strangeness.
And what was the boy’s role in all of that? Why had the gods chosen him to do their work?
Tuan Ti Fo smiled, knowing it was not for him to ask, or for them to answer. Then, letting his actions be shaped once more by the dream, he set off, carrying the boy back down the broad main corridor towards the guard post and the lift beyond.
The doctors were gone, his ministers and advisors dismissed. Now, at last, the great T’ang was alone.
Li Shai Tung stood there a moment, his arm outstretched, one hand resting against the doorframe as he got his breath. The upright against which he rested stretched up like a great squared pillar into the ceiling high overhead, white-painted, the simplicity of its design emphasized by the seven pictograms carved into the wood and picked out in gold leaf – the characters forming couplets with those on the matching upright. Servants had opened the two huge, white-lacquered doors earlier; now he stood there, looking into the Hall of Eternal Peace and Tranquillity. To one side, just in view, stood a magnificent funerary couch, the grey stone of its side engraved with images of gardens and pavilions in which ancient scholars sat enthroned while the women of the household wove and prepared food, sang or played the ancient pi-p’a. Facing it was a broad, red-lacquered screen, the Ywe Lung – the circle of dragons, symbolizing the power and authority of the Seven – set like a huge, golden mandala in its centre.
He sighed heavily then went inside, leaving the great doors ajar, too tired to turn and pull them closed behind him. It was true what they had said: he ought to get to bed and rest; ought to take a break from his duties for a day or so and let Li Yuan take up his burden as Regent. But it was not easy to break the habits of a lifetime. Besides, there was something he had to do before he rested. Something he had put off far too long.
He crossed the room then slowly lowered himself to his knees before the great tablet, conscious of how the gold leaf of the Ywe Lung seemed to flow in the wavering light of the candles; how the red lacquer of the background seemed to burn. He had never noticed that before. Neither had he noticed how the smoke from the perfumed candles seemed to form words – Han pictograms – in the still, dry air. Chance, meaningless words, like the throw of yarrow stalks or the pattern on a fire-charred tortoise shell.
He shivered. It was cold, silent in the room, the scent of the candles reminding him of the tomb beneath the earth at Tongjiang. Or was it just the silence, the wavering light?
He swallowed drily. The ache in his bones was worse than before. He felt drawn, close to exhaustion, his skin stretched tight like parchment over his brittle bones. It would be good to rest. Good to lie there, thoughtless, in the darkness. Yes… but he would do this one last thing before he slept.
Reaching out, he took two of the scented sticks from the porcelain jar in front of him and held them in the thread of laser light until they lit. Then, bowing respectfully, he set them in the jar before the tiny image of his great-great-grandfather. At once the image seemed to swell, losing a degree of substance as it gained in size.
The life-size image of the old man seemed to look down at Li Shai Tung, its dark eyes magnificent, its whole form filled with power.
His great-great-grandfather, Li Hang Ch’i, had been a tall, immensely dignified man. For posterity he had dressed himself in the imperial style of one hundred and ten years earlier, a simpler, more brutal style, without embellishment. One heavily bejewelled hand stroked his long, white, unbraided beard, while the other held a silver riding crop – an affectation that was meant to symbolize his love of horses.
‘What is it, Shai Tung? Why do you summon me from the dead lands?’
Li Shai Tung felt a faint ripple of unease pass through him.
‘I wished to ask you something, Honourable Grandfather.’
Li Hang Ch’i made a small motion of his chin, lifting it slightly as if considering his grandson’s words; a gesture that Li Shai Tung recognized immediately as his own.
Even in that we are not free, he thought. We but ape the actions of our ancestors, unconsciously, slavishly, those things we consider most distinctly ours – that strange interplay of mind and nerve and sinew that we term gesture – formed a hundred generations before their use in us.
Again he shivered, lowering his head, conscious of his own weariness; of how far below his great-great-grandfather’s exacting standards he had fallen. At that moment he felt but a poor copy of Li Hang Ch’i.
‘Ask,’ the figure answered. ‘Whatever you wish.’
Li Shai Tung hesitated then looked up. ‘Forgive me, most respected Grandfather, but the question I would ask you is a difficult one. One that has plagued me for some while. It is this. Are we good or evil men?’
The hologram’s face flickered momentarily, the programme uncertain what facial expression was called for by the question. Then it formed itself into the semblance of a frown, the whole countenance becoming stern, implacable.
‘What a question, Shai Tung! You ask whether we are good or evil men. But is that something one can ask? After all, how can one judge? By our acts? So some might argue. Yet are our acts good or evil in themselves? Surely only the gods can say that much.’ He shook his head, staring down at his descendant as if disappointed in him. ‘I cannot speak for the gods, but for myself I say this. We did as we had to. How else could we have acted?’
Li Shai Tung took a long, shuddering breath. It was as if, for that brief moment, his great-great-grandfather had been there, really there, before him in the room. He had sensed his powerful presence behind the smokescreen of the hologrammic image. Had felt the overpowering certainty of the man behind the words and, again, recognized the echo in himself. So he had once argued. So he had answered his own son, that time when Yuan had come to him with his dream – that awful nightmare he had had of the great mountain of bones filling the plain where the City had been.
Back then he had sounded so certain – so sure of things – but even then he had questioned it, at some deeper level. Had gone to his room afterwards and lain there until the dawn, unable to sleep, Yuan’s words burning brightly in his skull. Are we good or evil men?
But it had begun before then, earlier that year, when he had visited Hal Shepherd in the Domain. It had been then that the seed of doubt had entered him; then – in that long conversation with Hal’s son, Ben – that he had begun to question it all.
He sat back, studying the hologram a moment, conscious of how it waited for him, displaying that unquestioning patience that distinguished the mechanical from the human. It was almost solid. Almost. For through the seemingly substantial chest of his great-great-grandfather he could glimpse the hazed, refracted image of the Ywe Lung, the great wheel of dragons broken by the planes of his ancestor’s body.
He groaned softly and stretched, trying to ease the various pains he felt. His knees ached and there was a growing warmth in his back. I ought to be in bed, he thought, not worrying myself about such things. But he could not help himself. Something urged him on. He stared up into that ancient, implacable face and spoke again.
‘Was there no other choice, then, Grandfather? No other path we might have taken? Were things as ine
vitable as they seem? Was it all written?’
Li Hang Ch’i shook his head, his face like the ancient, burnished ivory of a statue, and raised the silver riding crop threateningly.
‘There was no other choice.’
Li Shai Tung shivered, his voice suddenly small. ‘Then we were right to deny the Hung Mao their heritage?’
‘It was that or see the world destroyed.’
Li Shai Tung bowed his head. ‘Then…’ He paused, seeing how the eyes of the hologram were on him. Again it was as if something stared through them from the other side. Something powerful and menacing. Something that, by all reason, should not be there. ‘Then what we did was right?’
The figure shifted slightly, relaxing, lowering the riding crop.
‘Make no mistake, Shai Tung. We did as we had to. We cannot allow ourselves the empty luxury of doubt.’
‘Ah…’ Li Shai Tung stared back at the hologram a moment longer then, sighing, he plucked the scented sticks from the offering bowl, and threw them aside.
At once the image shrank, diminishing to its former size.
He leaned back, a sharp sense of anger overwhelming him. At himself for the doubts that ate at him, and at his ancestor for giving him nothing more than a string of empty platitudes. We did as we had to… He shook his head, bitterly disappointed. Was there to be no certainty for him, then? No clear answer to what he had asked?
No. And maybe that was what had kept him from visiting this place these last five years: the knowledge that he could no longer share their unquestioning certainty. That, and the awful, erosive consciousness of his own inner emptiness. He shuddered. Sometimes it felt as if he had less substance than the images in this room. As if, in the blink of an eye, his being would turn to breath as the gods drew the scent sticks from the offering bowl.
He rubbed at his eyes then yawned, his tiredness returned to him like ashes in the blood. It was late. Much too late. Not only that, but it was suddenly quite hot in here. He felt flushed and there was a prickling sensation in his legs and hands. He hauled his tired bones upright then stood there, swaying slightly, feeling breathless, a sudden cold washing through his limbs, making him tremble.
It’s nothing, he thought. Only my age. Yet for a moment he found his mind clouding. Had he imagined it, or had Chung Hu-yan come to him only an hour back with news of another attack?
He put his hand up to his face, as if to clear the cobwebs from his thoughts, then shrugged. No. An hour past he had been with his Ministers. Even so, the image of Chung Hu-yan waking him with awful news persisted, until he realized what it was.
‘Lin Yua…’ he said softly, his voice broken by the sudden pain he felt. ‘Lin Yua, my little peach… Why did you have to die? Why did you have to leave me all alone down here?’
He shivered, suddenly cold again, his teeth chattering. Yes, he would send for Surgeon Hua. But later – in the morning, when he could put up with the old boy’s fussing.
Sleep, he heard a voice say, close by his ear. Sleep now, Li Shai Tung. The day is done.
He turned, his eyes resting momentarily upon the dim, grey shape of the funerary couch. Then, turning back, he made a final bow to the row of tiny images. Like breath, he thought. Or flames, dancing in a glass.
*
It was dark in the room. Li Yuan lay on his back in the huge bed, staring up into the shadows. The woman beside him was sleeping, her leg against his own, warm, strangely comforting.
It was a moment of thoughtlessness, of utter repose. He lay there, aware of the weight of his body pressing down into the softness of the bed, of the rise and fall of his chest with each breath, the flow of his blood. He felt at rest, the dark weight of tension lifted by the woman.
In the darkness he reached out to touch her flank then lay back, closing his eyes.
For a time he slept. Then, in the depths of sleep he heard the summons and pulled himself up, hand over hand, back to the surface of consciousness.
Nan Ho stood in the doorway, his eyes averted. Li Yuan rose, knowing it was important, letting Master Nan wrap the cloak about his nakedness.
He took the call in his study, beneath the portrait of his grandfather, Li Ch’ing, knowing at once what it was. The face of his father’s surgeon, Hua, filled the screen, the old man’s features more expressive than a thousand words.
‘He’s dead,’ Li Yuan said simply.
‘Yes, Chieh Hsia,’ the old man answered, bowing his head.
Chieh Hsia… He shivered.
‘How did it happen?’
‘In his sleep. There was no pain.’
Li Yuan nodded, but something nagged at him. ‘Touch nothing, Surgeon Hua. I want the room sealed until I get there. And, Hua, tell no one else. I must make calls first. Arrange things.’
‘Chieh Hsia.’
Li Yuan sat there, looking up at the image of his father’s father, wondering why he felt so little. He closed his eyes, thinking of his father as he’d last seen him. Of his strength, masked by the surface frailness.
For a moment longer he sat there, trying to feel the sorrow he knew he owed his father, but it was kept from him. It was not yet real. Touch – touch alone – would make it real. Momentarily his mind strayed and he thought of Fei Yen and the child in her belly. Of Tsu Ma and of his dead brother, Han Ch’in. All of it confused, sleep-muddled in his brain. Then it cleared and the old man’s face came into focus.
‘And so it comes to me,’ he said quietly, as if to the painting. But the burden of it, the reality of what he had become while he had slept, had not yet touched him.
He thought of the calls he must make to tell the other T’ang, but for the moment he felt no impulse towards action. Time seemed suspended. He looked down at his hands, at the prince’s ring of power, and frowned. Then, as a concession, he made the call to summon the transporter.
He went back to his room, then out on to the veranda beyond. The woman woke and came to him, naked, her soft warmth pressed against his back in the cool, pre-dawn air.
He turned to her, smiling sadly. ‘No. Go back inside.’
Alone again, he turned and stared out across the shadowed lands of his estate towards the distant mountains. The moon was a low, pale crescent above one of the smaller peaks, far to his right. He stared at it a while, hollow, emptied of all feeling, then looked away sharply, bitter with himself.
Somehow the moment had no meaning. It should have meant so much, but it was empty. The moon, the mountains, the man – himself – standing there in the darkness: none of it made sense to him. They were fragments, broken pieces of some nonsense puzzle, adding to nothing. He turned away, his feeling of anguish at the nothingness of it all overwhelming him. It wasn’t death, it was life that frightened him. The senselessness of life.
He stood there a long time, letting the feeling ebb. Then, when it was gone, he returned to his study, preparing himself to make his calls.
Tolonen stood in the centre of the chaos, looking about him. The floor was cluttered underfoot, the walls black with soot. Dark plastic sacks were piled up against the wall to one side. They were all that remained of the men who had worked here on the Project.
‘There were no survivors, Captain?’
The young officer stepped forward and bowed. ‘Only the tutor, sir. We found him thirty levels down, bound and drugged.’
Tolonen frowned. ‘And the others?’
‘Apart from T’ai Cho there were eighteen men on the Project, excluding guards. We’ve identified seventeen separate corpses. Add to that the other one – Hammond – and it accounts for everyone.’
‘I see. And the records?’
‘All gone, sir. The main files were destroyed in the explosion, but they also managed to get to the back-ups and destroy them.’
Tolonen stared at him, astonished. ‘All of them? Even those held by Prince Yuan?’
‘It appears so. Of course, the Prince himself has not yet been spoken to, but his secretary, Chang Shih-sen, advises me that the copies he w
as given on his last visit are gone.’
‘Gone?’ Tolonen swallowed drily. He was still too shocked to take it in. How could it have happened? They had taken the strictest measures to ensure that the Project remained not merely ‘invisible’ in terms of its security profile but that, in the unlikely event of sabotage, there would be copies of everything. But somehow all their endeavours had come to nothing. The assassins had walked in here as if they owned the place and had destroyed everything. Erasing every last trace of the Project.
DeVore. It had to be DeVore. But why? How in the gods’ names could he possibly benefit from this?
‘Let me see the reports.’
The officer turned away, returning a moment later with a clipboard to which were attached the preliminary, handwritten reports. Tolonen took them from him and flicked through quickly.
‘Very good,’ he said finally, looking up. ‘You’ve been very thorough, Captain. I…’
He paused, looking past the Captain. His daughter Jelka was standing in the doorway at the end of the corridor.
‘What is it?’
Jelka smiled uncertainly at him then came closer. ‘I wanted to see. I…’
Tolonen looked back at her a moment then shrugged. ‘All right. But it’s not very pleasant.’
He watched her come into the room and look about her. Saw how she approached the sacks and lifted one of the labels then let it fall from her hand with a slight shudder. Even so, he could see something of himself in her; that same hardness in the face of adversity. But there was more than that – it was almost as if she was looking for something.
‘What is it?’ he said after a moment.
She turned, looking at him, focusing on the clipboard he still held. ‘Can I see that?’
‘It’s nothing,’ he said. ‘Technical stuff mainly. Assessments of explosive materials used. Post-mortem examinations of remains. That kind of thing.’
The Broken Wheel Page 19
