Gateway (26 page)

Chenglei’s party was utterly charming. Even before true darkness fell, the festive lanterns strung overhead washed the back lawns with color; sweet doughs baking and spicy meats frying sent tantalizing aromas swirling out from the tents. The guests were all dressed in summer elegance, bare arms glittering with jewels, faces lifted to catch the first cool breezes of evening. The whole tone of the event was one of suppressed excitement as the privileged families of Shenglang gathered in one place to show off their beauty and revel in their wealth.

It was fairly easy for Daiyu to get free of Xiang, who was much more interested in banding together with her cronies and dropping hints about her invitation to view Chenglei’s artifacts in the morning. Daiyu supposed she also managed to work into the conversation how much time her niece was spending with Mei’s son. In fact, here at the party, Quan was making his interest in Daiyu quite clear as he strolled around the lawns with her for much of the evening, introducing her to his friends and offering every five minutes to fetch her something else to eat. She allowed herself, now and then, to touch him on the arm in a proprietary manner. Some of the girls her own age glared at her when they thought no one else could see their faces; some of them sighed and looked forlorn.

Daiyu had never meant for her life in Shenglang to get this tangled.

It was just on the edge of true darkness, and the technicians at the very back of the lawns had set off a few preliminary fireworks, when Mei approached Daiyu and Quan as they stood together, idly talking.

“Ah, Daiyu, how are you enjoying your first summer holiday here in Shenglang?” Mei asked in a very friendly way. “It is much different from such holidays back home, isn’t it?”

“Very much so,” Daiyu agreed, “though we do have fireworks. What would a summer holiday be without them? But I am sure the prime minister’s will be more spectacular than any I have seen.”

“Some year, if you are not invited to the prime minister’s for the holiday, you should go down to the riverfront and watch the display there,” Quan said. “It is a noisy and very public place, of course, but the colors overhead are magnificent.”

“Foolish boy, why would there ever be a time Daiyu was not invited to the prime minister’s?” Mei demanded.

Quan bowed his head, chastened, but he managed to give Daiyu a quick sideways grin. “Forgive me, Mother, that was indeed foolish.”

Mei had taken hold of Daiyu’s arm. “Come with me, Daiyu. One of my sisters and her daughter are here and they want to meet you. No, Quan, you find someone else to absorb your attention tonight. You do not want to be so particular that people talk about you.”

Now he was grinning broadly, since it was clearly his partiality for Daiyu that was making Mei so happy. “Yes, Mother,” he said. “Daiyu, I will seek you out later in the evening, when such attentions do not seem so—obvious.”

She smiled in return. “Yes, Quan. Thank you, Quan.”

Mei’s sister, like Mei herself, was small, well-groomed, and avid for details, studying Daiyu closely by the light of the lanterns and asking searchingly personal questions. Daiyu answered serenely, giving very little away. The daughter was younger than Daiyu and quite pretty, though not particularly discreet. She stared at Daiyu during the whole conversation and asked in a loud whisper, “Is she the girl who’s going to marry Quan? Why does he like her?”

It was a relief to be able to excuse herself when one of Mei’s friends joined the group, and Daiyu was in no hurry to seek out Quan or Xiang again. Instead, she took advantage of the fact that full dark had fallen to wander unobserved toward the back acres of the lawn. No colorful lanterns were strung over this portion of the yard; the technicians on the fireworks stage were working by torchlight to line up their canisters and time their fuses. While Daiyu stood in the shadows, almost completely invisible in her black dress, they shot off another practice round, and this one decorated the sky with whistling spirals of red and gold. There was laughter and polite applause from the crowd.

“Do you like fireworks displays, Daiyu?” asked a voice at her elbow, and she turned in some surprise to find that Chenglei had approached her in the dark. Perhaps she wasn’t so invisible after all.

“Ilovethem,”sheconfessed.“Notjustthecolors—Ilovethe sounds as well.”

“You like detonations,” he said. He sounded amused, but they were too far from the lanterns and the torches for her to see his face clearly. “So do I.”

She laughed. “My mother always said it was impossible to understand how such a sedate child could be so fond of loud noises,” she told him.

“Perhaps you are not so sedate after all,” Chenglei replied.

Daiyu considered. “Or perhaps it is the very tranquility of my nature that allows me to endure the explosions. A woman who was more high-strung might find that all the noise put her greatly on edge.”

“I would agree that you have a certain tranquility to you, but I would add that I sense an adventurousness in your soul as well,” Chenglei replied. “Or have I misjudged?”

She was having a hard time believing they were having this conversation at all. She had to concentrate on the words, the bantering tone, and smother the voice of outrage in her head:
This man just tried to murder hundreds of people. This man tried to murder Kalen.
“It is only recently that the adventurousness has come to the fore,” she admitted. “It is not a trait that many people admire in well-brought-up young women, and I am trying very hard not to disappoint my aunt. But you are astute, Prime Minister. That spirit is definitely there.”

“I find myself wondering,” he said in a soft voice, “just what adventure you were pursuing this afternoon when you went running from my house.”

She turned to stone and said nothing, merely peering up at him in the dark.

Another firecracker went off, this one gold and blue. I tpainted Chenglei’s face with vivid colors and quickly faded, but for a moment she had a clear glimpse of his unreadable smile.

Did he know what she had done? Was he merely curious about her sudden flight, willing to believe some innocent tale?

Her voice was remarkably composed. “Not so much an adventure as an insane attempt to make a purchase before the deadlineofyourparty.Quanverykindly—andveryrapidly!— drove me to the river shops so that I could fulfill an obligation. I was only glad I remembered in time.”

It was so vague as to be ridiculous, but in this polite society, it would be rude for him to press for more details. If he believed her. If he was not suspicious. From his answer, she could not be sure, and her heart began a slow, heavy pounding.

“Ah, and was Quan then allowed to know what this secret obligation consisted of?”

“It was a purchase for my aunt, and no, he was not allowed to know!” Daiyu replied. Bad enough if Chenglei suspected Daiyu, but to embroil poor Quan in this mess as well . . . !

“I was curious,” Chenglei said, his voice still light and agreeable. “Because a very short time after you fled, someone broke into the bell tower on the western bank of the Zhongbu River and called the stonepickers back to shore two hours before their normal time.”

Daiyu merely gaped at him, the looming shape of nemesis in the imperfect dark.

“And I wondered if
you
were the person ringing those bells,” he went on. “And if so, why you felt compelled to do so.”

She did not reply. Words would not come to her lips; air would not come to her lungs. He knew, he knew, everything was lost. . . .

She was staring at him, trying to make out his features, but even so he put his hand out and pushed her head up, as if to make sure she could not look away. “And I wondered if perhaps you lingered outside my office longer than I supposed and overheard—something—in my conversation that alarmed you.”

Still she said nothing. Still she did not move. Her heart was a laboring knot of pain and her mind was a chaotic swirl of horror.

“If you do not answer me, Daiyu,” he said, still in that pleasant tone, “I will consider you guilty, and the consequences will be dire.”

“What consequences?” The words forced themselves past her lips.

His head tilted to one side as if he was thinking that over. “I will have you arrested for treason. I need not be specific about the act. You are practically a stranger here. No one will believe you innocent if I declare you guilty. And—I want to be very plain—no one will get a chance to ask you for
your
version of the facts.”

Imprisonment—maybe torture—exactly what she might have expected from a tyrant. Exactly the reason Aurora and Ombri had given her the rose quartz talisman. She would not be incarcerated very long. But she would have to make sure she used the stone before she was bound or stripped or otherwise restricted.

She would have to use it now. Without having a chance to explain to Aurora and Ombri what she’d learned. Without saying good-bye to Kalen. At the thought, her heart protested; for a moment she didn’t think she would be able to do it. But there was no choice. She flattened both hands on the front of her dress, awaiting her moment.

Chenglei was still speaking. “Xiang will be disgraced, of course. Her niece in prison! After Xiang has introduced her into every important home in Shenglang! Her property will be forfeit, she will be beggared. All because of your actions.”

“No,” Daiyu whispered.

“Mei, too,” Chenglei added. “And her son Quan. And all their relatives. Dishonored for their stupidity in foisting a traitor onto Shenglang society. I already have in mind the faithful council members to whom I will award all of their estates and belongings.”

“You can’t,” Daiyu said, her voice still faint. “Please. Don’t hurt anyone but me.”

“Why did you ring the bells, Daiyu?”

“You were going to let all those people die.”

“Ah. So you did hear my conversation with Chow. I thought you had.”

“All those people. Just to get rid of one man.”

“One very troublesome man, let me point out,” Chenglei said reasonably. “Feng must die, and I’m sorry that makes you unhappy, but I really cannot endure his attacks on me any longer. And, Daiyu, I cannot stomach soft-hearted girls who do not understand why I must silence the rebels.”

“I don’t care about Feng,” she said flatly.

Another round of preliminary fireworks went off, briefly showing Chenglei’s face surprised and intrigued. “Really? So it was just the scale of my reprisal that you found intolerable?”

“I don’t care about any of those people,” she said, her voice finding strength. Boldly, she stepped back from him, and he let his hand fall. She put her fists on her hips, tried to take the stance and tone of a mutinous girl. “My aunt would disown me if she knew—yes, and Quan’s heart would be broken!—but I have fallen in love with a
cangbai
boy, and he is a stonepicker who works in the river. He is the one I wanted to save today, not your stupid rebel, not any of those other people that I never met. You can call that treason if you like, but I wasn’t thinking of you when I sounded the bells. I was thinking of the man I love.”

“Now, that has the ring of honesty to it,” Chenglei replied. “Xiang would be justified in disowning you if she discovered such a dreadful secret! What is this young man’s name, Daiyu?”

“Do you think I will tell you so you can arrest him, too?” she scoffed. “He is nobody who will ever trouble you.”

By his voice, Chenglei was amused again—possibly even delighted. “Oh, you spoke the truth when you said you admire explosions!” he said. “How such a serene face can hide such an addiction to danger I can hardly understand.”

“We each have our secrets,” Daiyu said. “You know mine and I know yours. I won’t tell if you won’t.”

For a moment, there was silence, as if Chenglei was considering the bargain. Then there was a sudden rapid succession of detonations as the technicians on the stage shot off the first salvo of fireworks. Overhead, gorgeous golds and emeralds and sapphires bloomed across the night sky, seeming to stretch to the horizon. By their light, Daiyu saw Chenglei’s narrowed eyes and pursed lips.

“You almost persuade me,” he said. “And I will miss you, I think, when you are gone. But I cannot trust you and I cannot allow you your freedom, so I must refuse.”

It took her a second to assimilate the words, and then she realized what he had just said—and what he had implied.
You will be arrested; you will be imprisoned; perhaps you will be killed.
She must leave here, and instantly. Her right hand dove for her pocket as she spun on her heel to run.

But another burst of fireworks showed Chenglei exactly what she was doing, and his hand shot out and clamped around her forearm just as she yanked the pouch from her pocket. “A weapon, Daiyu?” he asked, amused again. “I would not have expected that from you!”

She brought her left arm around to strike at him wildly, but he easily blocked her blows with an upraised arm. “No—no—not a weapon—let me go—”

“Something you cherish, evidently,” he said. His grip tightened so cruelly that she cried out in pain and dropped the pouch to the grass. More fireworks covered the sound of her voice and showed Chenglei exactly where the bag had landed. Before she could fall to her knees and scrabble for the quartz with her free hand, he twisted her right arm so ferociously that for a moment she was blinded with pain. When her eyes cleared, she saw that he had scooped up the pouch.

She was whimpering on the ground, so he obviously felt it was safe to release her. “Let us see exactly what kind of treasure you reach for at your direst moment,” he said, and shook the talisman into his hand.

There was an intense flash of light, an echoing boom, and Chengleidisappeared.

More fireworks exploded overhead in an orgy of light and sound. Not even the technicians a dozen yards away would have noticed anything unusual.

Daiyu merely stared at the spot where he had been, cradling her injured arm against her chest. She could not remember crying, but she could feel the tight streaks of dried tears along her cheeks.