Asimov's SF, February 2010 (15 page)

"I fail to see why."

Had he lost all awareness of Earth? But no, she knew the answer. To transcend was to detach oneself from the real world, measure by measure—until no other destination remained but Penlai, where all desires, all emotions had lost meaning.

"You're a child,” she said, feeling cold certainty coalesce within her. “With the powers of a Celestial. You could will yourself anywhere in the world—within the Censorate, the Forbidden City—even in the Imperial Chambers..."

"If I willed it so."

For a moment, she stared at him. His face under the iridescent second-skin was almost featureless: only the eyes, protected by their thick facets, retained a semblance of life. His mouth—a bare slit—was impassive, expressionless.

"You're never going to make them believe that you don't want to do this."

"To want, even the smallest thing, is to desire.” Gao inclined his head. “And desire is impure."

Shinxie shivered—thinking of the Sixth Prince's touch on hers, of the hands stroking the curve of her back—before they were found out, and the Imperial Edict shattered her life. “You're—” she started, and then realized that he was right. Desire, love, tenderness—it was all an expression of the self, and only those who had no self could open the singularities.

"You haven't changed, then,” Gao said.

He said it so matter of factly that it took his words a moment to sink in. “What do you mean?” she asked—though she knew, like ice in her guts, that he already knew.

"You have never transcended."

And she never would; and she'd known it even before the Tianshu Emperor sent her there. She'd known it as she'd watched the Sixth Prince just after the Edict's proclamation, his face frozen in what might have been grief, what might have been anger—a memory warm enough to last for a lifetime. “No,” she said. “I have made my peace with that."

Gao inclined his head again—could he even feel ironic, or amused? No, of course not; he couldn't—and that was what frightened her so much. Lust burnt and destroyed the world, and duty compelled, maintaining the structure of the universe; but he was beyond either of those, so far away from the living creatures he might as well have been a rock, or a waterfall.

"Why have you come back?” she asked. “Something had to draw you here. Something had to make you return.” He had to have found a way around the constrictions of the Transcendents; some trick to bend the rules to his will.

But Gao sat, and smiled, and said nothing.

"If I can find no explanation, someone else will come,” Shinxie said. “Someone with fewer scruples than I."

But, no matter how hard she pressed him, she obtained nothing but that enigmatic smile—the same one teasing up the corners of her students’ lips, the same one carved on the statues of all the Celestials in their temples.

In the end, weary of his silence, she left him, and retreated to the safety of her room—where she began composing, with painstaking eagerness, a missive to the Imperial Court, explaining what had happened, and humbly pleading for guidance.

She had to pause for a moment at the transmitter, her hand frozen on the controls—it had been so long since the last communication between White Horse and the capital that she'd forgotten the proper protocol. But the lights shimmered on the panel; the humors swirled within the machine, until a single spike of wood-humor surged through the antenna; and the reassuring hum of an outgoing transmission soon filled the room.

The Court's answer was curt, and almost instantaneous:
Wait. Someone will come to you.

The Sixth Imperial Prince arrived with all the pomp due to one of his rank: a row of attendants, the metal of their engineered arms glinting in the morning sunlight; a few advisors, their gazes distant and contemptuous; and, finally, at the end of the procession, the Prince himself, a short, plump man of middle age, who looked curiously at every building in the monastery, as if working out a particular literary or alchemical problem.

The students, the alchemists and the teachers had all assembled in the Hall of Cultivating the Body and Mind, the teachers and alchemists looking almost colorless next to the students—their second-skins shimmering in the sunlight, so strongly Shinxie could almost imagine the whirlwind of humors beneath the alchemists’ modifications.

As abbess of the monastery, Shinxie was the one who welcomed the Prince—standing in the center of the Hall, under the ever-shifting pictures of successful Transcendents.

"Your Excellency.” Shinxie abased herself to the ground, in the prescribed position for welcoming a son of the Emperor—her chest pressed against the stones of the floor, her head lowered, her gaze down—she couldn't afford to look up at him, couldn't afford to meet his eyes.

She found, to her dismay, that she was shaking. Ten years past, and a whole world between them, and she couldn't even quiet her memories and her desires enough to respect protocol. What a waste.

"Yue Shinxie.” The Prince's voice was low, with the cultured accents of the Court. “You may rise. There's no need to stand on ceremony here."

From where Shinxie lay, she heard the sharp, shocked intake of breath course through the ranks of the assembled teachers and students—how could the Prince set aside protocol, unless he had some previous acquaintance with her? She could only guess at the questions she'd have to face later, the idle speculations at the noon rice and in the quiet hours after evening, the subtle accusations spreading like wildfire among the students.

But then, none of that mattered, because she was rising on stiff knees, to meet the Prince's gaze. He hadn't changed in ten years—aged a little, with new wrinkles on the moon-shaped face, a few lines pulling his eyes into sharper almonds. But the same presence emanated from him: the palpable charm and aura that underlined every one of his postures. She knew, of course she knew, that the imperial alchemists had worked on him while he was barely in his mother's womb—and she knew that, if she laid her hands on him, her implants would feel the engineered humors pulsing, combining into the melody of seduction—but it didn't matter, it had never mattered. Her throat was dry, her breasts aching as if with milk.

"You'll want to see him,” she said, struggling to bring her mind back to the present.

The Prince inclined his head, gracefully. “Of course. Walk with me, will you, Yue?"

Protocol would have put him in front of her—but protocol had to give way to practicalities; for, of course, he had no idea where the holding cells were. She walked slightly in front, head bowed, trying not to think of his presence behind her—of the hands that had once traced the contours of her body; of the lips, moist and warm, sending a quiver of desire arching through her body like a spear.

There were no other footsteps: neither the attendants nor the advisors had followed them, and the others in the monastery had gone back to the flow of their lives.

"You're happy here,” the Prince said. There was a hint of wood in his aura—a hint of enquiry, barely perceptible unless one knew him well.

Shinxie sucked in a slow, burning breath. “Of course,” she said.

"Shinxie.” He gave her name the edge of a blade.

She stopped, still not daring to look at him. “My work is here,” she said. “Helping them transcend."

"That doesn't answer my question."

"No,” she said. “You were the one who once said that happiness wasn't our fate, Your Excellency."

"Your Excellency? Is this what it has come to?"

It wasn't, and he knew it—he had to know it, to see something on her face, in her bearing, of the confusion of humors within her. “I'm sorry,” she said, finally. “But it's been a long time."

"It has.” Was the quiver in his voice bitterness, or regret? She'd never been able to read him properly; she, the physician, the empath, the one who could always know what her students were thinking, who could always open the book of their lives with the mere touch of her hands.

"Why did they send you? There are many Princes, and even more censors."

The Prince did not speak for a while. Their path crossed the Pavilion of the Nesting Phoenix, where the hum of the alchemists’ machines made the slats of the floor tremble underfoot. “They could have sent someone else,” he said, with something like a sigh. “But I asked."

The shock of his answer was like cold water. “You—"

The Prince shook his head. Before them stretched the Corridor of Stone, and the rows of holding cells, all doors half-open—save one. “I wanted to see how you were, Yue."

The hint of hunger in his voice made her uncomfortable—as if something were not quite right with the world. He had always sought what he needed, taken what he wanted; but never had he let protocol lapse, except for that one unguarded moment after the Edict. “As well as can be,” she said, carefully. “I trust you are well."

The Prince did not look at her. “I have three wives, and have been blessed with seven sons and three daughters."

That was no answer. “I see,” Shinxie said. She laid her hand on the door, wondering why she felt so empty inside. “Let's see him, shall we?"

Gao's eyes flicked up when they entered, but he showed the Prince even less interest than he'd shown Shinxie. The Prince, if he was angered by this lack of protocol, showed nothing—sitting cross-legged on the floor with Shinxie by his side.

"Gao Tieguai,” the Prince said. “Do you know why I am here?"

"This humble person would not presume,” Gao said. His face was blank, the second-skin like gleaming cloth over his features. “Your Excellency.” He used the wording and tone suitable for addressing a high-ranking member of the Imperial Court.

"Deference,” the Prince said, as if pondering a particular problem. “That's something to work with."

Gao bowed his head. “I assume you'll ask me the same question the Honored Abbess did."

The Prince inclined his head, looking at Gao. “No,” he said, finally. “The wise man knows better than to travel well-worn roads. I'd find nothing more than she did."

"Enlighten me,” Gao said, gravely.

"I'll give you a variant on the warning she's already given you, no doubt,” the Prince went on, as if this were nothing more than a polite conversation. “A delicate balance maintains us all bound to each other: the workers in the factories, the merchants in their skiffs, the alchemists at their machines, the Emperor on his throne. You—upset this, Gao Tieguai."

"Because I fit nowhere?"

The Prince made a quick, dismissive gesture with his hands. “Everyone in White Horse is as you once were,” he said, bending toward Gao Tieguai, as if imparting a particular secret between equals. “Dreamers. Troublemakers. Rebels who flee Earth, finding no other choice but to leave the world behind. So long as you bend your mind to transcending, you'll not upset anything. So long as your voyage is without return. Do you understand, Gao?"

"You are mistaken,” Gao said. His face had not moved. “If I truly wanted to cause unrest, I could not have returned."

"I know what you told her,” the Prince said. “About desire and care. I don't believe it."

"Whether you believe it or not will change nothing to what is.” Gao spread his hands. “Consider dandelion seeds, Your Excellency. They go where the wind blows them, take root where the Earth welcomes them. If they flower in the cracks of some high mountain, it's not because they chose to ascend the mountain, or because they love heights."

The Prince pondered this for a while. Gao did not move; and Shinxie could feel his presence, the humors he radiated, like a weight on the palms of her hands—calm and balanced, so unlike the Prince's fierce, stormy aura.

Finally the Prince said, “Chance? I find it too convenient that you, of all people, should return."

"As you said—” Gao shook his head—"many people like me came to White Horse. You try to read too much into events."

The reproach was almost palpable, to a man whom only the Emperor or the Grand Secretary were in a position to correct. Surely the Prince would not tolerate it? But he merely shook his head, as if amused. “I see. If that is the way the game must be played, it would be inappropriate of me to refuse. Thank you for your answers, Venerable. I trust we will speak again."

Gao inclined his head; but it was Shinxie's gaze that he met when he looked up again. His presence was in his eyes, in the light the faceted covers caught and broke into a thousand sparkles. On impulse, Shinxie reached out to touch him—and stopped herself just before she breached his privacy.

Gao made a slow, graceful gesture, inviting her to go on. “There is no shame in this,” he said.

His second-skin was metal-cold, as if remembering the frosty touch of Heaven—but then her implants connected, and all she could feel was the maelstrom of humors within him: fire and earth and water and metal and wood, generating each other, extinguishing each other in an endless dance, everything in perfect balance, no one humor dominating the others, no one feeling distinguishing itself from the endless cycle. He cared for nothing; loved nothing and no one; and even his courtesies toward her or the Prince were nothing more than bare civilities, doled out on a whim.

"I see,” she whispered, standing on the edge of the abyss—feeling the wind howling in her ears, the cold that traveled up into her belly. “Thank you."

Back in the Corridor of Stone, the Prince turned to Shinxie, who had not said a word. “So?” he asked.

"Are you asking for my opinion?” Shinxie said.

The Prince made a quick, annoyed gesture with his right hand. “Who else would I ask?"

"When I touched him—” Shinxie shivered—"I knew that he was right. He's brought all five humors into perfect balance; he is one with the world. He feels nothing.” Nothing stuck out from the morass within him; nothing ever would. Her first instinct when she had seen him had been correct: there was no descent. The Transcendents, their bodies changed by the alchemists, their minds shaped by the teachers and their hours of meditation, were everything they had been molded into: beings who no longer had their place on Earth, who no longer belonged in the cycle of life and death and rebirth.