The Red Plains (The Forbidden List Book 3) (26 page)

“Is that enough time to get to the Three Mountains?”

“Using the Dragon Gates, yes,” the Emperor answered.

“But we cannot use them?” Haung asked, repeating his question from earlier.

“We cannot use them to bring an army in, the gates are not stable enough for that many. To send a few of us out, maybe.” The Emperor’s eyes betrayed his uncertainty.

“Then why wait here?” Haung said. “I don’t understand, why you didn’t you leave and arrange to meet elsewhere?”

“Haung, the plans were set years ago. Contact between the immortals is not a regular occurrence and some of them,” the Emperor indicated the tattooed lady sat across from him, “live in other countries, many months of travel away. It is not easy to get a message to everyone. Sabaa was making her way here long before the Wall fell and the Mongols invaded. We had no means to communicate and no choice in the matter.”

“Someone knew of those plans?” Haung said and saw the confused look on the Emperor’s face intensify.

“No,” the Emperor responded, “apart from you, no other mortal knows about the meeting unless another immortal told them.”

“My father knows, but I think we can agree he is trustworthy,” Jing Ke said. “I have told no one else. If I am honest, I was not sure that I would even be coming to the meeting myself.”

“It is a curse, but it can be a boon as well,” Sabaa said and there was sympathy in her voice. “Those I told are too far away to have done anything.”

“Someone knew,” Haung stated. “They knew enough to try and pin you, my Lord Emperor, in the capital and enough to deny access to the Dragon Gates. Someone, one of the immortals, does not want you to be at the meeting.”

“Logic would suggest it was whoever was leading the Mongol invasion,” the Emperor said.

“But we do not know who that is,” Jing Ke said.

“Whoever it is, they knew enough to send Mongols to the port to attack Sabaa,” Haung said.

“That does not make sense,” the Emperor stood from his chair and paced the small room. “The arrangements for her journey were made years ago and the exact date of her arrival was known only to a few trusted people. There is no way that the Mongols could have discovered that information.”

“Unless someone told them,” Jing Ke said, looking up at the Emperor. “Perhaps one of those trusted persons let slip the information to another less trusted person.”

“People talk and even a little information can be useful,” Haung agreed. “A little checking here and there, the sailing orders, talking to the ship’s crew before they sail, the purchase orders for supplies and rations, the deployment of vessels. Piece the puzzle together, bit by bit, and soon you have the full picture. It is what I was trained to do. There are others who can do the same. The ambush at the docks, by the Mongols...”

“If they were Mongols,” Jing Ke interrupted.

Haung nodded. “If they were indeed Mongols, we didn’t stop to check in any detail. The bows and arrows were Mongol design, but Liu’s injury was our immediate concern. It is possible the ambushers were disguised as Mongols. The invasion is used as cover for another’s treachery. Either way, the attack on us at the port is evidence that others know and seek to prevent the meeting taking place.”

“Then it is even more important that we arrive on time,” Sabaa said.

“Which leads us back to the same question. How do we get there?” Jing Ke looked at the other three, the question in his eyes.

“We use the Gates,” the Emperor said, sitting back down in his chair. “They are unreliable, but they do work. To bring a force in would take many hours, if not days. Those I have set to the task, inform me that a gate to a destination is stable for the first few moments of its existence. After that it becomes unstable and dangerous. Once that gate is,” the Emperor paused, thought and settled upon a word, “corrupted, it cannot be opened again.”

“We open a new gate and rush through before it is corrupted,” Haung said.

“Yes, and there is one close to the pass to the Three Mountains. It is garrisoned to protect the pass. If you are correct, that the leader of the Mongols is behind this, then we will need the force there to ensure our safe arrival,” the Emperor said.

“And if there is a traitor?” Sabaa said.

Haung shared a look with Jing Ke and could see the same answer in his fellow
Taiji’s
eyes. “We kill them.”

“Haung, go and bid your family farewell, you are coming with us. I will meet with the generals and give the orders for the defence of the city. Jing Ke, go and get your father, it is time he took a larger role again in the affairs of the Empire. If we do have traitors, he is the only man I trust to lead the city. He is aware of what is at stake,” the Emperor pinched the bridge of his nose. “Return here at sundown. We travel then.”

“Never again,” Zhou stammered. He staggered forward and collapsed to his knees. “I am never doing that again.”

“A few more times,” the old lady cackled. “What’s the matter, child?”

“It is,” Zhou pointed at the rock face from which he had just stumbled as words failed him, “horrible.”

“What about you, girl? Not to your taste either?”

A retching sound came from his right and he looked over. Xióngmāo was on all floors, a stream of green vomit spewing from her mouth. An acrid, acidic smell attacked his nasal passages and he looked away, covering his mouth and nose with a hand.

“No gratitude, the youth of today,” Biyu said and Zhou felt a bony finger poke him in the ribs.

“I need a drink,” Xióngmāo said, her voice a faint whisper.

“A quick rest only. A drink and we need to get moving. The layers of rock between here and the Three Mountains are not easy to traverse, they rise and fall like waves. Too many are broken so we’ll have to keep slipping out of them and choosing a new one.”

Zhou took a sip from his water gourd and passed it over to Xióngmāo, keeping his gaze averted from the viscous puddle that was seeping into the dark earth. Behind him, Biyu was muttering and he was glad he could not make out a single word she said.

All told, and given the option, Zhou felt he would rather have crawled to the Three Mountains than have to rely on Biyu’s method. It had taken three cups of strong green tea and a lot of convincing to get him to agree. Sliding through the rock, one hand gripping the old lady’s and the other wrapped around the short wooden dryad’s staff, was not a pleasant experience. Nothing like the visions he had experienced in the temple.

It had been both incredible and horrific. For the entirety of the journey he had been unable to breathe, there was no need. The absence of this simple act was disconcerting and panic frayed the edges of his control. The rock passed through his whole body or rather, he adjusted his thinking, his body passed through the rock. Every part of him had been scraped through the stone. It was cold. A deep and constant cold that he could still feel in the depths of his bones.

The worst of it, he shuddered at the memory, was not the physical sensation. The rock invaded his thoughts. It sifted and sieved through his mind, finding every idea, every emotion, every fear. Some memories it lingered over, inspecting them. Grey fingers probing and digging through the recesses, plucking at ends left lose by choice and knots that had been purposefully tied. At first it was a distraction, a tickle to be ignored, but it became painful as it grew stronger. The more he fought, the more the pain increased. Before long, he was fighting a losing battle to keep some semblance of himself private.

There was no escaping the rock’s intrusion. Everything he was, the rock knew and the rock shared. He felt himself stretched and pulled in every direction, expanding and yet being contained. The rock wanted him to give himself over to it, to share it all, but he kept a little to himself, a shard, a broken, chipped, scarred piece of himself.

And he became aware of the others, their thoughts and memories merged with his and he knew them. Impressions, visions, thoughts, random collections of disassociated sights and smells. They flitted through his mind, presented by the spirit within the rock. Held up for inspection and tossed aside as if it was seeking something. The owners of the memories were obviously Xióngmāo or Biyu, even his own were shown to him. Nothing stayed still long enough to make much of and they were gone from his memory before they could become fixed.

The rock lingered over two things. The blue thread that held him safe, his escape should he need it and the green thread that twinned about it. Again and again the rock spirit returned to that image.

No longer one being, separate in his own mind, safe behind the walls of his construction, behind a self-image. He was Xióngmāo, Biyu, the rock and Zhou. An amalgamation, a monster made of them all. His mind frayed at the edges, fragments torn from his soul, breaking apart and losing himself.

Grasping fingers of blue and green reached out towards those floating fragments, dragging them back to the centre. Struggling to hold together all that he was. A battle for the ground that was him, and he was losing.

Being thrown from the rock and stumbling to the dark earth had been painful relief. All that he had been, that he was, came rushing back. All that was other was torn from him. He felt that he was Zhou again, but that he had lost something indefinable.

“Get up, get up,” Biyu scolded. “We don’t have much time and a long way to travel. Up and up, on and on, children. Don’t let the rock take you all. Give it only what you wish.” She laughed. “I dare say, you’ll learn a lot about yourselves on the journey. Some of it you’ll like, some of it you won’t. There’ll be a bit you’re ashamed of, and some you feel guilty for. Welcome to a life made of choices, children. Time to grow up. Time to go on.”

Zhou staggered to his feet and offered a hand to Xióngmāo. She returned a withering look and stood on her own two feet, proud and shaky.

Biyu smiled at them and beckoned them to the rock face. “Ready?”

# # #

The sound of steel rasping from scabbards and the shouts of alarm kept Zhou on his feet as he was thrown from of the rock. Within the first stumbling step and the waving of arms to maintain his balance, he had called to the spirit and felt its power rushing through his limbs.

When next his foot hit the floor, he was in control. With his staff raised before him, he took in the array of swords and weapons that were pointed in his direction. In the gloom of the oil lamps, his cat’s eye vision picked out every detail, every threat. The men arrayed against him glowed with the blue of the spirit, though now he could identify the growing flecks of green within the blue. Perhaps it had always been there and he had not been able to see it. Right now, it did not matter.

Beside him, Xióngmāo reacted in the same manner, two of her daggers sliding from her belt and held close to her body. In the corner of his vision he saw her glow, blindingly bright compared to those before him.

Biyu stepped from the wall between them. She did not raise a weapon or act with any surprise. Instead, she slid forward, her feet skimming the surface of the ground, all trace of the elderly woman gone from her frame. In its place, a graceful lady with eyes of silver, reflecting the meagre light from the lamps, brighter than the polished swords that tracked her.

Only the sound of breathing and the thump of hearts broke the silence. He watched Biyu come to halt before the sharp tip of a sword, wielded by a man in armour. She raised a finger and pointed to the central tower of the castle, its sweeping tiered roofs arching out over the ground below.

“Your Emperor is expecting me,” she said.

“Where did you come from?” the soldier sputtered.

“What? You blind boy? You saw, just as the others did,” Biyu said. “Now, are you going to escort us to see the Emperor or are you going to make a very bad decision?”

The soldier took a breath. Zhou watched the man’s face and saw the rush of fresh air bring some semblance of control. The flustered, surprised soldier was replaced by a man confident that he held a bared sword and was surrounded by his comrades.

“I’m going to put you under guard in the cells and hand this over to the captain,” the soldier said. “That’s what I am going to do.”

Zhou gripped the staff tighter and a growl escaped his lips. A day travelling through rock, having every last bit of his soul torn apart and the soldier wanted to put him back underground. He stepped forward, the staff brought round, ready to strike and he sought the power in the centre of his being.

“Calm down, boy.” Biyu turned her gaze from the soldier and favoured Zhou with a look. It was one he recognised. One his mother would have given him when he was young, or his wife when he forgot to do one thing or another. “Now, soldier child, your Emperor is expecting me and, as you can see, this one,” she pointed at Zhou, “is ready to fight the lot of you, and considering he is a
Wu
and has already fought on the Wall, I’d bet every coin I have on him.”

The soldier spared Zhou a glance and the hand that held the sword tightened, skin stretching across knuckles. “You are surrounded. You will put down your weapons. If you refuse, my men will kill you.”

A step ahead, he saw Biyu’s shoulder rise and fall in a sigh. The old lady looked around at the soldiers, her gaze lingering on each and every one.

“So young to want to die,” the old woman said. “One more chance, I’ll grant you. Xióngmāo, use your rank and order these soldiers to do as they are told.”

“Too many years have passed for it to mean anything,” Xióngmāo said, her tone startled.

Zhou looked at his smaller companion, seeing her for the first time, for the twentieth time. There was still so much he did not know. It was not that she kept secrets, she just had more years of life than she had time to tell him about. Married to the leader of the Mongols and now holding a rank high enough in the Empire to order soldiers about. What else had she done and accomplished in her life?

In his spirit vision, he saw what she was doing. Fine threads of blue were being woven around the soldiers, entwining them and drawing their spirit to hers. Tiny pulses ran along those threads, from her to the soldiers and back again. More like arteries and veins than a spider’s web, creating one complete being. Still the soldiers held back, when it would have been an easy decision to attack and overwhelm Zhou’s small group with their numbers.

“Listen, soldier boy,” Biyu was saying to the leader of the men surrounding her. “I really don’t have time to wait and,” he watched her reach out with bone thin, translucent skinned finger to touch the tip of the soldier’s sword, “when I speak to the Emperor, I’m going to give him a piece of my mind about the disrespectful attitude of his soldiers towards the elderly. In fact,” she continued to speak as she pushed her finger down on the sword tip, “I may well tell him to administer one of the five punishments.”

The soldier’s eyes stopped focusing on Biyu’s and widened in shock. Under her finger, the tip of the sword bent downwards. Zhou shared the man’s surprise as the sword bent further until the tip was near the soldier’s hand that grasped the hilt.

“Now, little soldier boy, go and get someone in charge who can take us to the Emperor or next I am going to do something to all those little metal plates you wear as armour that will make you wish you’d never learned how to dress yourself.”

The soldier stared at the little old lady in front of him, looked over her shoulder at Zhou who matched his gaze and back to the Biyu.

“Go,” Biyu barked and the soldier dropped his sword, rushing off into the dark.

“How?” Zhou said.

“Metal’s just another form of rock,” Biyu replied.

# # #

Zhou bowed to the Emperor.

“Welcome,” the armoured Emperor said.

“Quite a gathering,” the
Taiji
standing next to the Haung added. Zhou recognised him from the wall, Corporal Enlai.

“Perhaps some introductions are in order, just to clarify things, though I would guess we all know why we are here,” the Emperor said. “Please, sit.”

Servants placed a small, thin porcelain cup of tea in front of each of them. The delicate fragrance of jasmine rose with the steam and washed away the dry scent of stone that had been with Zhou since he had been ejected from the rock.

“Honest introductions mind,” Biyu said with no trace of awe or the respect due an emperor.

“Of course,” the Emperor responded. “I am Dà Lóng, the Dragon Emperor, a
Wu
, and one of the immortals.”

Beside him, Xióngmāo gasped and the Emperor looked pained, focusing his gaze on the table top. For a moment, there was silence so heavy that it threatened to come crashing down and smash the table into small pieces.

“I’m Biyu, one of the immortals and can we get a move on. We have a lot to do and somewhere important to be.”

“Zhou,” he said and added no more.

“Colonel Haung,” the man from Yaart said.

“Sabaa, from Fēizhōu, one of the immortals.”

“Jing Ke,” the man said. “One of the immortals.”

His companion gasped for a second time.

“I am Xióngmāo,” she said in a quiet voice.

“Honest, I said and honest I meant,” Biyu said, directing a frank stare at Xióngmāo. “If you’re not honest now, we are all at risk.”

Zhou directed a concerned glance at Xióngmāo, a chill grasping his heart.

“I can’t,” she said.

“You must,” Biyu said, for the first time with a note of sympathy in her voice. “If you do not, then I must. In the rock, everything is shared, each grain rests upon the next, bound to it for strength, relying on its neighbour. It should be the same with us. Come on, child. Tell them.”

Xióngmāo looked up, tears falling from her eyes and meandering down her cheeks.

“Biyu,” the Emperor said, “we are here to discuss tomorrow’s plans. We know who she is.”

“No, Dà Lóng,” the old lady answered. “You do not know everything. Girl, tell them. There is no shame, you did what you had to do, but they all need to know. Only then can they make their plans.”