by T. A. Miles
“Cowards!” Fu Ran shouted, and he continued to jeer at them until Xu Liang stopped him.
“That will do,” the mystic said, lightly touching Fu Ran’s arm.
Fu Ran eventually calmed down, then harnessed his sword at his back, and looked at Xu Liang. He studied the official of the Empire in his layers of fancy silk with his ankle-length hair drawn back from his smooth face with two small beaded combs, his girlish mouth vaguely frowning. He didn’t know whether to kneel before him, embrace him, or strike him to the pier. Deciding that the last two options would probably kill the mystic if he wasn’t prepared for such assault, Fu Ran performed a variation of the first. He put his fist into his hand and bowed slightly. The simple gesture stirred more memories and emotions than he was prepared for, and he meant it when he said, “My lord, I’m pleased to see you in good health.”
The frown slowly lifted from Xu Liang’s expression. He smoothed the rumpled silk at his shoulder and said, “Old habits do indeed die with difficulty.”
Fu Ran smiled irresistibly. As usual, Xu Liang was right. Even though it had been several years since he’d acted as the slightly younger man’s bodyguard he’d never quite shaken his sense of loyalty toward him, and seeing him in danger had renewed his old duty full force. Abandoning Sheng Fan and becoming a landless sailor hadn’t changed him as much as he would have thought that morning.
He shook his head and changed the subject. Gesturing to the large ship, he said, “If you’re wanting to leave Sheng Fan, you’ll find no ship better suited for it than the Pride of Celestia.”
XU LIANG LOOKED to the vessel waiting at the end of the pier. His men were already gathered at the edge of the gangway with the horses, waiting for instructions. “It’s much larger than the Cloud Runner, and not built in Sheng Fan. Are you still seeking your place in the world, Fu Ran?”
The large man ignored the second question, but in answer to the first comment said, “It’s an Aeran vessel, captained by an Aeran woman, who has an incurable fascination with everything that has anything to do with Sheng Fan. I’m sure I don’t even have to ask if you and your men can board.”
“Then there should be no trouble arranging a contract,” Xu Liang said thoughtfully, and he started to walk toward the ship. “Perhaps now my journey can truly begin.”
It had been purely luck to find Fu Ran at Ti Lao. Xu Liang never would have expected to meet him there. The captain of the Cloud Runner had been even more disenchanted with the Empire than Fu Ran. The man rarely returned to Sheng Fan’s ports for any reason, least of all to be badgered into taking aboard servants of the Empire by one who couldn’t seem to forget that he no longer served it. Perhaps that was why Fu Ran had come aboard a new ship, both to shake his former captain’s lectures about what anchored him to Sheng Fan and to make a better attempt to pull up that anchor himself. Whatever the reason, it turned out to be fortuitous for Xu Liang, and the Empress.
“Does she speak Fanese?” Xu Liang asked his former guard as the large man led him aboard and ultimately below deck.
Fu Ran laughed. “Don’t you speak Aeran?”
“It has been some time since I’ve had to utilize that language. My studies recently have revolved mostly around certain far-western tongues. I would hate to carry on an awkward conversation.”
“I can’t imagine you doing anything awkwardly, Xu Liang, least of all speaking.”
Xu Liang smiled only a little. “I rode on your shoulder like a sack of rice but moments ago.”
“And still managed to cast a spell,” Fu Ran noted. “That’s something to be proud of.”
Xu Liang didn’t agree, but he opted not to argue. He thought back on the incident and the sorcerer who was evidently looking to halt his passing, just as the rogue at Li Ting had been. “I apologize, Fu Ran, for any trouble this may cause you.”
The former guard waved the notion away with one large hand. “I cause myself trouble.”
“That may be true, but the Ti Lao guard can be reasoned with and would likely not be inclined to attack your ship unannounced.”
Fu Ran looked at him seriously. “Do you think those assassins will try something like that?”
Xu Liang shook his head. “I do not know them, so I cannot say for certain. But I will inform you that there was an incident further up the Tunghui as well. It was someone else, but I suspect both parties are working for the same individual.”
Fu Ran sighed, “I guess it’s just not safe for your kind outside of your imperial cage.”
“It is not safe there either,” Xu Liang reflected.
Fu Ran glanced at him, silently curious, and Xu Liang expounded.
“The Five Kingdoms Resolution is gradually becoming a rebellion,” he said. “Xun is being more difficult than ever, and I fear that Tzu’s silence as it sits all but unnoticed in the southwest may be indicative of its intent to follow suit. I left the kingdom of Ji just as Xun attacked it on its southern border, at Fa Leng. I fear that Governor Ha Ming Jin will not rest until he has sated his ambitions.”
“I remember him,” Fu Ran said. “His ambitions were the primary cause of Ha Sheng’s death, weren’t they?”
“That is only hearsay,” Xu Liang replied impartially. “It was unfortunate, however, to lose Ha Sheng. He was a rational man, even if discontent.”
Fu Ran shrugged, as if unconcerned. “Shouldn’t you be with the Emperor in his hour of need, then?”
Xu Liang fell briefly quiet. He disguised his pain with a neutral tone. “I wasn’t. And now Emperor Bao is no longer with us. I hope that I will not repeat my past error.”
“Song Lu can take care of himself,” Fu Ran said, shrugging again.
A twinge of anger followed by a sting of pain made Xu Liang’s words and tone abrupt. “Perhaps you would like to visit his tomb, Fu Ran, and ask him why he did not.”
Fu Ran stopped in the narrow wooden corridor and for several moments didn’t move or speak. When he finally pressed his hands together and bowed his head, Xu Liang understood and he deeply appreciated Fu Ran’s respect, even though it was belated. He wished that same respect existed for the Empress, but he knew better than to expect so much.
“Fu Ran,” someone said, and they both looked to a slim, but strongly built woman with pale orange hair and intensely green eyes walking toward them. She was dressed in the hodgepodge of leathers that was often worn by ‘barbarians’ and carried a sword at her hip. When she saw Xu Liang, she studied him with unexpected but understandable concern. In a diplomatic attempt to include him in the following discussion she began speaking Fanese to her crewman. “What did you bring me?”
“An officer of Sheng Fan’s Imperial Court,” Fu Ran answered. “His name is Xu Liang.”
Xu Liang bowed in respectful greeting.
The Aeran woman had yet to take her eyes off him and did not look away when she said to Fu Ran, “I’m assuming that if he wanted taxes or something of that nature from us you wouldn’t have let him onboard?”
“He’s not that kind of officer, Yvain. He’s a scholar.”
Again, Xu Liang inclined his head. “What I seek aboard your vessel, madam, is passage from Sheng Fan.”
The woman still seemed skeptical. “To where?”
“I must cross the Sea of Tahn,” Xu Liang replied. “If you are not prepared to sail that far at this time, then I would be grateful for passage to another port where I might negotiate for the longer journey with someone willing.”
The woman stared at him for a moment longer, indicating nothing with her firm expression. Finally, she said, “Your god of luck is with you, Xu Liang. It just so happens that the Pride of Celestia sets sail for Callipry in only a few hours. Just as soon as we finish purchasing supplies, in fact.”
She came forward and finally smiled, then bowed as was customary in Sheng Fan. “You’re welcome to ride along for a modest fee and moderate tolerance for the many questions I’m liable to have for you once I’m not quite so busy. It isn’t often that we have someone
onboard who can read.” After saying that, she smiled slyly at Fu Ran and departed.
The large man’s face reddened like a ripening plum and Xu Liang smiled quietly.
“XU LIANG MUST not be permitted to leave Sheng Fan!”
Ma Shou sighed languidly, slouching forward on the back of his horse. A part of him wished to be done with the entire affair of pursuing the Imperial Tactician. The rest of him remembered what he had to gain in carrying on with it.
“He’s with the barbarians now,” he said to his companion—a man of great strength and perhaps greater foolishness. “A ship full of them. Perhaps you would like to go retrieve him, Xiadao Lu.”
The larger man glared at Ma Shou without actually turning his face while they observed Ti Lao’s waterfront from a hill overlooking the city. “Perhaps you’d like to explain your failure to retrieve him yourself to our lord.”
“And your failure as well,” Ma Shou reminded coolly. “It would be an unpleasant scene, wouldn’t it?”
Xiadao Lu’s fists tightened audibly around the reins of his mount. “You are a fool to underestimate me, Xu Liang!” he growled. “Before this is over, you will wish you had finished me at Li Ting!”
THE IMPERIAL CITY was a myriad of complex open spaces. The flagstone aisles were wide, marked with low walls or structures built at dramatic yet concise angles. Many of the roofs were red and adorned with figurines of the legendary beasts of Sheng Fan. Marble and bronze statues guarded gateways and the low, wide staircases adjoining levels of the enormous sacred grounds. Activity was constant, but orderly and pleasurable to watch as life moved tranquilly beneath slender trees and graceful eaves.
It was absurd to Jiao Ren that he could look at such a scene and feel anger. He would have turned away and taken in a view of the green mountains in the distance, but he would have felt worse daring to turn his back on the city that was the glory of Sheng Fan and the sanctum as well as the throne of the Empress. So he stood upon the outer west wall with the moat and the Gate of Heavenly Protection behind him, returning the glare of a fierce dog statue below, in front of the Temple of Divine Tranquility.
He felt like there was nothing he could do here and nothing that could be done with Xu Liang gone. It was not right to think that. This was not a battle the Imperial Tactician needed to be present for, but it was one he had planned for just the same. And it was Jiao Ren’s duty to remain at what would all too soon be the forefront of a struggle fiercer than any Sheng Fan had known before.
“Such a bold look of anger,” someone observed. “You are troubled, young general?”
Jiao Ren glanced at the slender man suddenly beside him, dressed, as he was, in the fanciful blue and gold silk of an officer under the banner of the Imperial City and the Blue Dragon of Ji. The newcomer was older than Jiao Ren, old enough for his hair to have turned white. His face was narrow, somewhat hollow at the cheeks and looking even more pointed with his thin, sharp beard. The brocade robes of his station as a scholar-mystic, woven with images of bats and symbols of good fortune around the large coiled dragon at his back, were no more elaborate than Jiao Ren’s attire, but more flowing, as tended to be the preference among scholars. Jiao Ren, an officer of the Imperial Army, wore a long tunic cut to expose his pants and boots and to allow for more freedom of movement. There were dragons at his shoulders and one also winding down the front panel of his gold-trimmed tunic. He wore soft leather boots as well as a green sash at the waist and a blue silk headband to keep his past-the-shoulder hair out of his face. Though he was still considered quite young at just twenty years, he was glad to have some maturity about him, to not be known for brash behavior.
“I am not troubled, Lord Han Quan,” he finally said to the elder. “I am mired in foolish doubts.”
“To doubt is to question, and to question is not foolish.”
In a respectful tone, Jiao Ren said, “It is if Lord Xu Liang’s tactics are the matter of debate.” He felt his fists closing involuntarily as the frustration mounted. This waiting! He liked to consider himself a temperate and patient man—one who was hasty and easily agitated could never last long on any battlefield—but he usually knew what he was waiting for. The Imperial Tactician’s instructions had been explicit, but his plans unclear.
“Xu Liang is an educated and intelligent man,” Han Quan admitted. He pulled his hands out of the draping sleeves of his robe and added sternly, “However, he is young for his station, like the Empress. It presents an uncomfortable imbalance to have two such fledgling individuals at the summit of the vast mountain Sheng Fan is to the rest of the world.”
Jiao Ren looked at the mystic again and his dark eyes lingered this time. At length, he returned his gaze to the inner wards of the Imperial City and said evenly, “Xu Liang is no fledgling, Lord Han. He has served the Empire for almost two decades now. I was a mere child when our late Emperor Song Bao saw promise in the mighty Lord Xu Hong’s second son.”
Han Quan’s narrow eyes glimpsed Jiao Ren in his peripheral vision. He said calmly, “And in comparison to a man of my years you are a mere child still. The Empress is but an infant. And the Imperial Tactician, who has also assumed the role of Imperial Tutor, in spite of his frequent absence from the court, is a very young and very restless man. How can he know what is best for Sheng Fan when he cannot even decide what is best for himself?”
Jiao Ren frowned involuntarily. “Master Han Quan, his thorough study of the land and its history helps him to perceive its future. He does nothing against the Empress’ wishes.”
“General Jiao Ren, you misinterpret me. I am not criticizing, but stating fact. And the fact remains that there is a terrible conflict facing the Empress and the people, and the land of Sheng Fan. In his haste to research the matter, Lord Xu Liang has hidden our Empress from us. It is as snatching the sun from the sky. The people see only the looming shadow of a storm and they grow concerned, some fearful.”
“A storm is nothing to fear.”
“Not to one who watches it from the safety of higher ground.”
Jiao Ren turned to look at Han Quan once more, but the ancient mystic was already departing. He decided not to holler after him, but turned back to the wall and placed his hands upon the railing. He stared out over the Imperial City and its residents out of doors, and wondered if they were fearful. They did not look it, nor did they act it, but perhaps...
At that moment he felt a tremor in his hands. It was nothing violent and nothing that came from him. He felt it beneath his hands, in the stone itself as the minor quake reverberated up from the earth. He severed contact with the wall and looked closely at the Imperial City’s residents still moving about below him. No one reacted to the tremor and in the still air not even a leaf trembled. He looked to the guards stationed on the walls, all of them seeming not to notice. It must have been very weak and therefore—he lightly touched the wall again and felt no vibration—nothing to be concerned with.
SONG DA-XIAO opened her eyes, not alertly but almost as a reflex to the tremors in the air. Since their beginning, they had been growing steadily more insistent, like an assault ram hammering against stubborn gates. Stubborn and sturdy as they may have been, even the gates of the Imperial City would weaken without reinforcement.
The Empress’ eyes, gleaming golden with magic, fell shut, as if she’d fallen back asleep after being stirred by a sudden noise in the night without actually having regained consciousness. Her prayers continued uninterrupted. And then, for no apparent reason, her spirit and prayers strengthened.
WE HAVE SET out to sea, my Empress. We are unharmed. Remain strong and remember that you are the life essence of Sheng Fan.
Xu Liang withdrew from his meditation with a pang of dread in his heart. Though he hid his concern from the Empress, he could tell, through her, that time was moving rapidly against them. A heavy thump drew his attention to the door of the narrow cabin Captain Yvain had been gracious enough to lend him for the journey across the Sea of Tahn. The first noise was follo
wed by a second. Feet scuffled and voices rose.
“Get out of my way! Worthless peons!”
“You will not interrupt our lord!”
“I told you to get out of my way!”
Xu Liang sighed, then calmly stood and made his way to the door. He reached for the latch, then thought better of the action and stepped aside.
The door burst open and Guang Ci stumbled backward into the room. He managed to stay on his feet, glaring at the one who’d pushed him. The young guard reached for his sword.
Xu Liang stopped him. “We are guests, remember.”
“My lord!” Guang Ci stepped out of his fighting stance and dropped onto his knee. “My apologies. I did not realize—mmmh!”
One of his fellow guards staggered with momentum into the room and rolled over him.
Xu Liang sighed once again. “Fu Ran, you are a menace.”
The former guard stepped into the cabin, shoving back the man who followed him. He grinned with satisfaction that was just beginning to nettle Xu Liang. “This is the best these drones can do? It’s a wonder you haven’t been killed.”
With no humor in his tone, Xu Liang said, “It is a wonder, yes, with you so carelessly flinging them about. At any rate, that is their concern and not one that they will easily discard, as you can see.”
Fu Ran glanced at the bodyguards surrounding him, who were waiting for the order to dispatch him. There was not a trace of fear in the brute, but his features darkened noticeably. “The captain wants to see you,” he said to Xu Liang.
Xu Liang inclined his head in agreement to the invitation, instructed his men to stay behind, and went with Fu Ran. No words were exchanged between them as they passed through the narrow corridors. There was nothing to be said. Fu Ran had abandoned the Empire. Nothing would come of an argument between them, except the same conclusion that had been drawn fourteen years ago. In Fu Ran’s mind, there was no place left for him in the Empire; no place he would accept, Xu Liang would argue. Until now they had managed to accept each other’s positions whenever they infrequently met. It irritated Xu Liang that Fu Ran would dare to imply that those who had taken his place were incompetent, years after it had voluntarily ceased to be his concern. Of course, Fu Ran’s pride had always been his greatest weakness. A weakness Guang Ci seemed to share. Fortunately—and ironically—that shared trait would not enable Guang Ci to follow Fu Ran’s example, for now.
