The Hand, the Eye and the Heart

by Zoe Marriott

  The next corridor was short and wide, more like a cave in its own right. The sounds were almost deafening here, echoing from the rounded walls. I resisted the urge to put my hands over my ears.

  I saw the reason for the level of noise with the next step, and stopped dead in shock.

  The boy left me behind, his steps speeding slightly as he headed down a set of steps that had been crudely hacked out of a cave so massive, it dwarfed the halls of the Centre of the Universe.

  The ceiling soared above, disappearing into darkness. The grey walls were streaked with lines of yellow, reddish and grey dirt. Below, a river – a true river, wide and crashing white, spanned here and there with makeshift bridges and rickety piers – flowed through the cave. Every other scrap of space was taken up with people.

  It was practically a town – a town of slaves and soldiers. There were … dear ancestors, thousands of people, living down there in wooden huts in the orange-yellow light, crammed in among penned animals – pigs, oxen, geese, ducks and chickens, horses – and military tents.

  In one corner, a water mill turned in the churning river. This was the source of the rhythmic creaking-and-grinding noises which shook the cave walls. Near by, also making use of the river, there was a smelter. It sent up clouds of toxic black smoke into the darkness of the cave’s shadowy roof. In a smaller building alongside, an ironsmith was hard at work among flames and sparks, the ringing of his hammer lost in the cacophony. Swords, shields and other weapons were strung up against his walls on twine, like the prizes at a country festival.

  Near one of the tents, a man in Leopard armour was beating a woman. He used a horse whip. Her back was already shredded, dark with blood. The woman lay prone, unresisting, either dead or unconscious. She wore an iron collar. No one looked twice.

  Other armoured men drilled sloppily in sword-work. A second group were practising archery on crude targets painted on the cave walls.

  Despite the flowing river and the cavernous roof, even up where I stood, the air positively boiled with the stench of effluent, unwashed bodies, animals, burning tallow, and metallic smelter fumes. It made the training camp’s reek seem as sweet as the emperor’s perfume. Anyone who spent more than a few days down there would probably begin to get sick – in their lungs, their heart, even their mind.

  I took an involuntary step back. I did not want to go down there.

  But … there were multiple tunnel mouths, at varying levels, around the cave’s walls. What if one led where I needed to go? Was it possible that I could discover which, before someone down there in that seething mass of people noticed the moving blot of shadow amongst them and caught me?

  My father had always told me that banner-breakers needed to be wary of children and madmen. I couldn’t see many children down in the cave – thank the heavens – but that there were madmen aplenty I had no doubt.

  Grinding my teeth in thought, I scrutinized the rebel settlement. Along with the cave entrances peppering the walls, there were several other sets of steps hacked into the stone of the great cavern. A few of them met at different points. If I followed the steps down from here, I could reach one or two of those tunnels without having to descend to the great cavern’s floor. There was as good a chance as any that one of those would lead me closer to the surface.

  I looked again and squinted. Was that…? Yes. One of those staircases led not to an open tunnel mouth, like the one where I stood, but to a ledge. And above the ledge, halfway up the wall, was an iron-bound wooden door.

  Where there was a door, there had to be something that needed to be protected. For instance, an entrance to the outside world. Locked and barred, to stop the slaves escaping. Or, if not, perhaps weapons … something that might be useful to me in getting away from this place. Excitement made my head pound. I forced myself to be calm, to look more carefully. To try the door was a risk. There was no guarantee that I could pick the lock, and if my cloak of shadows was noticed, or failed me for a second, I would be trapped on the ledge in full view of the enemy soldiers below.

  But I could not linger here in this entrance waiting for someone to trip over me all day, either.

  Mind made up, I descended the uneven, crumbling steps to the level of the ledge and, hands grasping at the cold walls for support, scuttled down it towards the door.

  It was identical to the one that had blocked the exit of my cell – except that there were two locks securing it. That must be a sign. Something important lurked beyond.

  I picked the first lock quite easily, but the second proved more challenging. My back crawled with the awareness of thousands of eyes that might spot me at any moment. Clammy sweat trickled down my temples. My fingers shook and fumbled. The stink and deafening noise of the camp below affected my concentration – at a scream of pain from some nameless throat I jolted violently, nearly dropping the gold pin.

  I was beginning to feel dizzy and faint. The scale and density of my cloak of illusion was burning up my already depleted qi dangerously fast.

  Come on…

  A soft click vibrated through the pin. I gasped with relief. A quick twist of the handle and I slipped through the door, shutting it hastily behind me.

  I stared, astonished. I had expected to find another corridor, or a dank cave. Instead, I was in a medium-sized room. It was lit with hundreds of lanterns – metal, octagonal, decorated with intricate piercing and coloured glass – burning scented lamp oil. But the room was empty of inhabitants. Instead, it was filled with treasure.

  Luxuriant rugs and animal pelts were piled on the floor three or four deep. The walls were hung with tapestries that rivalled those at the Imperial Palace for beauty. Grand but mismatched pieces of black, red and gold lacquered furniture jostled for space – a bed, chairs, a cabinet and a huge, ornate writing desk and stool. Bronze statues, carved jades, fine porcelain bowls and vases, boxes of jewellery, and sacks of precious metals in both coin and ingot form were piled against the walls. Next to the door there was a suit of gold armour on display, crusted with precious stones.

  This was a gilded graveyard. I was looking at the remnants of thousands upon thousands of lives that had been destroyed and picked over for scraps.

  And then I wasn’t looking at any of it any more. On the desk there was food.

  My illusion cloak puffed away like dandelion seeds in the wind. I pounced.

  Roasted and spiced duck, stewed mutton with unleavened bread in sweet wine sauce, salted fish dumplings, soft buns filled with red bean paste or red pork, preserved plums, egg tarts… I tore into it all with my fingers, scattering half-eaten bites everywhere and barely tasting what I ate, at first, except to appreciate that it was not what I had been force-fed in the cage. There was a bowl of cold soup, and I spilled half of it down my front in my eagerness to drink.

  A voice of caution rang faintly in my mind. I assumed it was telling me to slow down and ignored it.

  It was only when my stomach started to swell out around the emperor’s sash, forcing me to straighten up, that I realized my instincts had been trying to tell me something else. Something more important. My eyes had passed over the furniture, the bed, without really seeing it. Only now did I notice that it was made up with fine sheets. That the sheets were rumpled and trailing half on to the floor, along with a stunning silver snow leopard fur. A tray sat on the bed, with more plates of food, half-consumed. A toppled wine bottle had spilled dark drops over the cloth.

  I looked down. The desk that I was leaning on … there were papers. Scribbled notes. Brushes, paperweights, inkstones and ink sticks. Official-looking documents: rosters of men, lists of resources and weapons. This was not here merely as a trophy room. Someone was using it.

  That – that suit of armour I had noticed by the door…?

  I turned slowly. There it stood, freshly polished, shining with gilt and gems. The round plate set into the chest guard was engraved with the imperial seal. The helm had a plume of snowy-white horsehair. It was the armour of a general of the ar
mies of the Red Empire.

  An ex-general, in this case.

  I wasn’t in Feng Shi Chong’s treasure room. I was in his bedchamber.

  Twenty-seven

  UN! Get out, get out, now, go! Go!

  I forced the impulse down. I was a soldier of the Imperial Army. My first duty was not to preserve my own life. It was to protect my country. This was an opportunity that no loyal subject of the empire had ever been granted: access to the Leopard’s private room and his most secret papers.

  I dragged my eyes away from the door and turned back to the desk. The tally numbers, lying right there – they must be useful. I folded them up as small and thin as I could and tucked them beneath the bulky material of the emperor’s sash. What else? Many of the notes were crumpled, blotted, barely legible. They seemed more like random, furious thoughts spilled out on to paper than military secrets. This one read: The sun is black with my shame… and trailed off there. Another: Betrayal! No longer shall I steel myself to endure! I grimaced and pushed them aside, searching for something that looked more substantial.

  Here. The paper was a different size and quality – thick, curling from having been rolled, and with the broken remains of a jade-green wax seal attached. The penmanship was exquisite, like that of an official palace scribe.

  Most respectable and honourable ally,

  I write to invite you cordially to a hunting party taking place shortly after dawn in the pleasant environs of the Forbidden Park. The party shall embark on the day after the return of He Upon Whom the Sun Rises, and will enter the park through the Glorious Dawn Gate. The fellows riding shall be composed of all your most particular friends, including the One We Have Often Praised. I am sure that She would be delighted to receive you at the Blue Jade Lodge. You shall be well looked after there, for She is planning to take at least twenty servants, who will be well equipped to protect Her and Her guests. It is advised that you should provide perhaps twice that number of your own servants, in order to seem well prepared. I rely upon your talents and wisdom as always.

  I End My Words

  With Deepest Respect,

  Your Friend

  This … this was the missive which had betrayed us. The letter that had brought me here, drugged and raving in an iron cage. These words had condemned Yang Jie to death.

  My eyes prickled with tears of rage and anguish and my back heaved with a single, harsh sob. This – this flowery invitation, this obsequious little missive, the kind of letter that my own mother might write – it wasn’t even in real code! The careless ruthlessness of it took my breath away. How could anyone write the death warrants of so many with so little ceremony?

  Grasping the letter, I folded it up, tightly, tightly, tightly. Into my sash it went. I did not need to look at it any more: the contents were imprinted upon my mind now. There would be evidence in this. In the paper, the wax of the seal, the style of writing, even the ink. They all gave information away, information that I did not know how to read. But the emperor and Wu Jiang would.

  This was the key to finding the traitor – and crushing him.

  I shoved a final dumpling into my mouth, chewing defiantly as I stepped out from behind the desk and made for the door. I was halfway there when it began to open.

  My mantle of shadows snapped out like great black wings, enfolding me in muffling darkness so dense that it made my vision cloud slightly, as if I looked out at the world through smoky glass.

  A tall, bearded man with distinguished silver-grey hair entered the room. He was followed by two other younger men. One of them was Pei Yen, the man who had captured me. But my gaze glanced off them, drawn back to the first as a sliver of metal is drawn to a magnet.

  Wiry and well-tanned, he had the tough look of one who spends most of his time on horseback under the sun. But … his eyes were strange. Wide and staring, the white showing all around the iris, as if he had just sustained a great shock. Yet his expression betrayed no such emotion. In fact, it betrayed no emotion at all. The black lacquered armour he wore was of fine quality, skilfully painted with a glittering pattern of gold spots down the arms and chest. From his shoulders hung a cloak not of cloth, but of leopard skin.

  I had never seen Feng Shi Chong in my life, but I knew the Leopard when I saw him.

  Rooted to the spot, I held my breath, not daring to so much as twitch, blink or shift my weight from one foot to the other. The Leopard stopped with his hand upon the handle of the door, his strange gaze travelling over the room. He stared at the plates of half-devoured food on the desk for only an instant.

  And then his eyes found me.

  The silver brows drew together as he squinted, then blinked, his head tilting slightly. His back straightened. The lips parted on a breath of surprise.

  He knew something was there.

  Beware madmen. They see the world as it is.

  No. No. He couldn’t possibly – he couldn’t see me. He couldn’t be sure what he was perceiving. Or even that anything was really there. I was just a shadow to him, a blot of darkness, a trick of the eyes. I – I still had a chance. I just had to hold still. Stay quiet. Think. Think.

  “General, what’s the matter?” asked Pei Yen, stirring restlessly as his superior continued to block his entry into the room. “Did you forget something—”

  “The door was unlocked,” the Leopard said softly. His voice was surprisingly light in timbre, gentle and smooth. The sort of voice that would excel in reading poetry, or delivering bad news kindly.

  “You think someone has been here?” the second young man demanded, hand flying to his sword belt. “A thief? A spy?”

  “Perhaps.” Feng Shi Chong let go of the door handle and took a step forward – a step towards me. “But also something … entirely more interesting. SHOW YOURSELF!”

  The sudden bellow made me jolt like a startled horse. Behind the Leopard, Pei Yen and the other subordinate scanned the – to them, obviously empty – room, exchanged a tense look, and as one, took a hurried step back.

  Pei Yen let go of his sword hilt to raise his hands in a placatory gesture. The other officer kept backing away until he was outside the entrance entirely. “Shall I go for the doctor?” he asked.

  Pei Yen shook his head impatiently, waving the other to silence. “Sir, please, you mustn’t begin to… Sir, please look at me. Remember what the surgeon said, about your humours.”

  “Fool,” the Leopard whispered, eyes growing wider and wider as he stepped forward again. One of his hands lifted. Long, slim fingers grasped gently at the air like a maid servant pinching cobwebs from the corners of a ceiling. “Those who do not look cannot be expected to see…” In one more step he would be close enough to touch me with his outstretched hand.

  But now there was a gap.

  A gap between him and the doorway.

  I felt the moment come, as if my gathered ancestors had leaned forward from the afterlife to speak in my ear. Go.

  Pivoting on one foot, I dodged the Leopard’s hand, and ran for the door. The Leopard let out a roar of rage, spinning on the spot, arms spread wide. Pei Yen, who still stood inside the room, flung himself back against the wall – away from the flailing arms of his unpredictable leader – but also out of my way. The doorway was clear.

  I flew through it, dodging to avoid the second rebel officer who still hovered on the ledge outside. There was no way to pass him without touching. I turned in the other direction and made for that end of the ledge, where it intersected with another set of carved steps in the cavern wall. No choice but to head down now, into that mass of toiling, sweating, dying humans that blanketed the bottom of the cave.

  My steps knocked loose tiny rocks on the steps, betraying my presence, but the sounds from below hid the noise of my footsteps. I didn’t dare look back. I must, I must have left them at the top – none of them, not even the Leopard, could make me out in this dim and flickering light. I knew it. I could make it. I would make it—

  Six steps from the bottom, a wildly sw
inging hand came from behind and swiped a hard blow to the bruised side of my face. The impact spun me around. I tumbled head-first from the wall of the cave and landed like a lead weight, crashing through a crowd of milling people.

  Two fell with me, one crumpling directly under my body. We hit the ground together in a tangle of limbs and rags. A bony shoulder drove right into my sternum with a sickening crunch. From me? Or the one who had broken my fall? I couldn’t tell. I hurt so much. So much. I couldn’t breathe. My eyes wouldn’t open. Everything had seized up on impact, my muscles locking, limbs curling up and in helplessly, like a dying spider. I choked on air that my bruised lungs could not accept.

  There was screaming all around me, a wall of noise.

  My qi fluctuated wildly. The delicate threads of my cloak of shadows begin to dissipate, drifting back under my skin. I tried to grasp at them, to push them up, spin them back out. I was not fast enough. Not strong enough. The cloaking illusion flickered … and died.

  There was a collective gasp – and then silence.

  “Got you,” breathed the Leopard’s smooth, kind voice. A hand lay lightly on the top of my head for an instant, stroking my hair – then sank into the tangled mass, dragging me up on to my knees. I flopped back, head lolling as his grip momentarily loosened, unable to support my own weight. Water streamed from my eyes, turning my vision to a blur of darkness and piercing starbursts of light.

  I heard the Leopard’s harsh breath, felt his fingers tighten again until I whimpered.

  “Pei Yen! What is this?” the Leopard screamed, shaking me like a straw doll. He flung me away. I fell again, cheek bouncing off the stone floor as a heavy boot stamped on my spine between my shoulder blades. My ribs groaned. I whimpered again, animal and pleading.

  “Sir – that is … that is the emperor.” Pei Yen’s voice drifted above me. “I don’t know how she escaped from her cell—”

  “This? This is what you brought me?” The boot pressed down, forcing the last breath from my chest. “This is not Wu Fen! You white-eyed idiot! This is … twenty years too young and two stone too heavy! And a banner-breaker! You’ve brought me her double, her decoy, you – you – useless, cringing worm! You think he will be satisfied with this? Lieutenant – take him! Wrap him in chains and throw him in the pit for the snakes!”