Hidden Cities (13 page)

The typhoon and its sodden tail had kept even him indoors. Today’s rain, though, was only a shower. With much to think about, Ping Wen welcomed the chance to step out. Later there would be petitioners seeking an audience, and he must needs sit on his little stool below the empty throne and dispense what he could from almost-empty hands. There would be a council meeting, no doubt, where he could be no better than first among equals. There would most certainly be an argument with the dowager empress, the Widow of the World he liked to call her,
who would need reminding—again!—that she had no right to what she tried so very hard to seize. Even her son was not hers to keep. He belonged to the empire, if he could hold it. He had almost lost it already, all but this small island, or she had lost it for him. Now he was abroad and trying his strength, his own strength.

Ping Wen did not think it would prove to be enough.

Was betting against it, indeed, but cautiously.

Helping to tip the scales, indeed, but not in outright rebellion, never that. He had seen justice meted out to rebels; he had been the man who did that, on occasion. He did believe profoundly in the empire, in the sacred right of the emperor to rule. Only not perhaps this emperor, nor his mother through him puppetwise. Ping Wen would do what little he could—what very little, the least he could—to bring about a change. Which meant a change of dynasty, necessarily, as there was no heir to support. Which meant that he must give some aid at least—or at least some opportunity—to Tunghai Wang.

And then perhaps strike himself, in his own interest, unless Tunghai Wang’s position was manifestly stronger.

Ping Wen did after all have the Jade Throne within his own compass, even if he sat at its feet. It would be the work of a moment to shift from the stool to the throne above, if he only dared to do it.

The emperor had gone to make war, and there was no news. There could be no news while the dragon soared above the strait, until one victor or the other contrived to send a boat protected from her temper.

Ping Wen had been secretly delighted to see the emperor off in such a boat. If no news came back—which seemed all too miraculously likely—then he would make that shift indeed, in his own and the island’s interests. The greater empire could wait, for now.

It was much to think about, and he was grateful to be doing that in the air, in the rain, in the privacy of air and rain together.

·  ·  ·

H
ERE
was a bridge above a lily pond. He had always loved lily pads in a garden in the rain. He leaned on the curve of the parapet and watched the ripples for a while, how their pure concentric circles were checked by a sudden wall of green, how they were reflected away, how they came together in other and more complex patterns. And were interrupted by a fresh fall of rain, breaking those patterns and making new again.

Forces of wind and water played on the pond, and were absorbed. Things changed constantly, but only on the surface. Below, fish fed on undisturbed.

Ping Wen looked at the pond and saw the empire, of course. How could he not? The empire that endured, that absorbed all its petty people and their squabbles, their comings and goings, their dynastic shifts. The emperor and his mother, Tunghai Wang, Ping Wen himself—drops of water falling, sending their ripples out, seeing them bounce back or shatter or die away.

Voices in history, lost as suddenly as one raindrop’s fall is obscured by another, by ten thousand more, that constant patter that will blur and drown any individual, no matter how weighty …

That constant patter that will mask the sound of soft and careful footsteps behind a man, footsteps that are blurred already, irregular, pattern-free. Ping Wen never heard his killer coming, barely saw the black silk cord as it dropped down over his head and found his throat and tightened there with a jerk.

He was perhaps remembering his old campaigns, his soldier-days.

He reacted, at any rate, like a soldier. Sly and simple, vicious and unthinking and immediate.

His elbow slammed backward, seeking the solid body that must be somewhere there. At the same time he was ducking and twisting into that choking tug, not to let the assassin set a knee in the small of his back for a good clean draw. Ping Wen had seen men strangled, had ordered it on a battlefield and afterward, men and
women too. Had strangled some few himself, at need. He knew how swiftly dangerous that cord could be.

The pressure on his neck was bad already, squeezing, dizzying. His elbow found nothing; he could feel the man’s straining weight but only through the noose, not physically on his back, not reachable. His fingers clawed at the cord and couldn’t grip it, couldn’t slip inside, it bit so deep into spare flesh. There was a darkness threatening at the corners of his sight, a flickering like glowflies, there and gone and there again.

Like raindrops falling into a pond, there and gone, swallowed …

Ping Wen fought for breath, what breath he could; and forced his hands from his throat and groped behind him till he found sodden cloth and flesh, man as rain-wet as he was, from crouching long hours in this ambush. Gripped what he could and plunged forward, over the parapet and down into the water.

T
HERE WAS
a terrible wrench on his neck, but the assassin was off-balance already, couldn’t take all his weight all unexpectedly. That man was coming with him, down and down.

Down to the surface of the pond, where the lily pads lay like scales; and through that shattering skin and down again, down deep to scare the fishes.

Ping Wen had what breath he had, not much. He had what strength was left him, the slow temper of a firepot, the sudden blaze of bamboo.

He was an old man half strangled, and his enemy was half his age. He saw that, turning in the murk of the water, abruptly face to face with the man who meant to kill him.

The man who had lost his chance when he lost his grip on his deadly cord, when they hit the lilies. He had a blade in his belt, and was reaching for it even as he kicked for the surface. Ping Wen saw that too, and had no notion of a sword-fight underwater.

He wrapped his arms around the other man’s legs, and drew him down.

·  ·  ·

P
ING
W
EN’S
feet touched bottom, but the pond was deep. The man above him could see the air, perhaps, but couldn’t reach it. Clawed for it, kicked for it, snatched at it in handfuls, but his hands could do him no good up there above his head and his legs could not kick free of Ping Wen’s grip.

They were shadows within shadow, fighting a shadow-war. Even flesh felt slow and cool and different, differently solid, here below. Ping Wen watched the man in silhouette above him, black against the dapple of the light; the man must see him less, or not at all.

Desperate, the man did drag his hands down from where they clutched at air. Did draw his tao and try to slash beneath him, tried to cut Ping Wen away like gripping weed.

Ping Wen could follow the line of the blade as it came down, could slide aside and still stay underneath the man, give him no chance to wrestle, just hold his ankles and wait.

Wait for that last bubble of used air to leak from desperate lips, wait for the flailing arms to fail and fall limp, wait for the last shudder of effort to waste itself in water and be lost.

And then, then, he could almost not remember what he ought to do himself: let go those ankles, push against the silt and rock beneath him, rise.

Let his own body rise and his enemy’s too.

Break surface.

Tear the floating lily pads aside and breathe.

One gasping, sodden, painful breath, and then another.

More, more air; more air than all there was, he wanted that. Shuddering, hacking at the hurt of it, he wanted more. All the pain there was, he’d take that too, just to remind himself of what he had that the dead did not. This floating bulk beside him, the dead man was still dead: hanging from the curve of his shoulders, face down in the water as if he would drink and drink, drink all the pond and so not drown in it after all.

·  ·  ·

P
ING WEN
was slow to swim to land, leaden and unhurried. Slow to haul himself out of the pond, that too: no strength in him but a dawning wonder, that he had survived.

It would be the old woman, the dowager empress who had sent her man to kill him. No doubt of that. She had given up on poisons, evidently, and tried a bolder way. And he had survived it, but not by men’s precautions, the wisdom of a long life lived at court.

Not by a soldier’s strength either, or not wholly so. It was the soldier’s fighting mind, his instinct that had dragged them both over the parapet, yes—but not a soldier’s patience that had simply held the man underwater until he drowned. Soldiers could be patient, sure, but even soldiers need to breathe.

Old soldiers, old half-strangled soldiers need to breathe sooner than their assassins.

They do not squat on the bed of a pond and wait for death to take other people and not to touch themselves.

Inside himself, Ping Wen felt like a man rising out of water, brushing obscuring leaves aside, drawing himself into a new light and seeing differently. Forgotten by death, it seemed he could remember himself. Or understand himself, and the path he trod now.

Immortals had no need to breathe. The dragon had spent centuries beneath the sea, untroubled. He was no dragon, and no immortal either; but the emperor, the old emperor who had died at last was divine despite that, and could very likely have walked the sea-bed from Santung to Taishu and never needed air along the way. His boy the young emperor could take a blade-thrust to the body and survive it, heal without a scar.

And was abroad just now, and had left the throne quite empty with Ping Wen’s mind upon it, Ping Wen’s body at its feet. Perhaps the jade had reached out that far already. Perhaps his ambition had reached out to the jade.

He rose from the pond on unsteady legs, feeling some touch of godhood in him, and a new determination. The old woman would die, when he was ready; her son too, when he was in reach. Ping Wen would rise from the stool and sit the throne. This day had been a sign.

H
ALFWAY TO
the palace, he met with frantic servants come in search.

The boat, the emperor’s boat was in the mouth of the bay, riding the late tide into harbor with the dragon overhead.

T
HERE
was a fleet, a small fleet at the emperor’s tail, but he had to send runners to establish that. Some facts are so big they eclipse anything else. The first lookouts had seen only the emperor, in the dragon’s shadow.

W
HILE HE
learned the truth of it—no, the emperor’s boat was not the sole survivor; no, this was not anything like the whole war-fleet returning; yes, every boat was decked in yellow and yes, the empress knew it and was already on her way to the dockside to greet her son returning, despite the rain—Ping Wen was dried and dressed, and had taken no pleasure in it at all.

Hurriedly, anxiously, with his hair and beard still damp, he gave certain orders and then went out into the rain again: in pomp this time, nothing he could enjoy or profit from, processing from palace to harbor humiliatingly late, slow, in the old woman’s wake.

On the way, he realized that he had forgotten entirely to tell anyone about the would-be assassin. Perhaps the empress’s people would have discovered and removed his body by the time Ping Wen could return. Best to wait, and check later. Better to say nothing than to send men on a fool’s errand to a corpse no longer there. Servants would whisper, and laugh behind their hands:
the old
man took a soaking, and tried to pretend he had a hero’s fight with a killer. Vanished killer. A killer who could come and go unseen, even dead …

He found the empress and her entourage already on the quay, the emperor’s boat just docking. There was, apparently, no room for him. He must stand in the rain-shadow of a warehouse, because this wretched fishing port had no space for ceremonial; he must watch from a distance while the emperor and his mother greeted each other, while her trivial clerks kowtowed to the imperial triumph before ever they made room enough for him.

When at last he was allowed close to the returning warlord in his victory, that warlord was more concerned with his woman, who had somehow spirited herself across the water in his shadow. The emperor had brought her back, but in something opposite to disgrace, another kind of triumph, seemingly: only that she was seemingly ill, seasick and needing help even on the short plank down from deck to quay. He insisted on giving her that help himself, which was added disgrace to her because of course it could not be disgrace to him, no commoner could disgrace an emperor.

At last he could be persuaded to hand her over to another, because Ping Wen was all too visibly, all too impatiently waiting. And for some reason it wasn’t her grandfather who took her, because that old man was still aboard the boat, waiting for something else altogether.

Waiting on imperial orders for Ping Wen, apparently.

So said the emperor: “Ping Wen, good. The man I want. I want you to go to Santung in my place, be my voice there as you have been my voice here: be governor in my name.”

“Majesty, you do me too much honor …” Be a sea away from the Jade Throne, a stone’s throw from Tunghai Wang? There was an end to his ambition, death to his new resolution, death perhaps to himself. In Santung there was nothing that he wanted, or could use.

“No, no,” said the emperor. “You deserve this and more. I
would keep you at my side, except that I most especially need a man I can trust in Santung. Go, go now: this boat is waiting.”

“Majesty, I am not ready, I am not packed …”

“All your servants, all your things can be fetched over later. The fisherman has orders to come straight back again for those. I am leaving a squad of soldiers on his boat, to ensure that he does. I have departed the city all too soon, in too much of a hurry, but I had to see Mei Feng home, I had to bring her myself. She bears the hope of us all.” He meant that she was pregnant, which was another blow to Ping Wen’s heart, another problem. Another death, at least, to be arranged from the wrong side of the strait. “Go you, go now. I need you there, and they are ready for you. I have left you an army; you have a city to fortify.”