Hidden Cities (49 page)

He said, “Because whatever happens today, you will call on me later to arrange matters for you, to work with Ping Wen or against him. It will be easier for me to understand the needs if I have seen, if I have heard the two of you together. If I know what he wants, and how he means to achieve it.”

“I can tell you—”

“No. You don’t see the same things I do. You will see his strengths, and how to break them. I will see his needs, and how to supply them.”

“Or how to cut him off, if he defies me.”

“That too.”

It was undeniable. Whatever Ping Wen did or thought to do, he could not support Santung through a siege. Tunghai Wang would starve him out eventually; Ma might see a way to do it sooner, find something that he needed more than food.

·  ·  ·

W
HEN THE
generalissimo set off, then, an hour later—full of intent, but grinding his teeth none the less, knowing himself all too obviously summoned under the eyes of all his army—Ma rode with him, and the monksmith too.

The night visitor had been most particular about that. Ma understood that he himself was invited only because of whom he could bring with him.

There was some comfort in that, knowing that he was not the purpose of the intrigue. It was the same discovery that had enraged Tunghai Wang, but Ma never had been one for the front line, first into the breach. He had his courage, and it was of a different sort. Frightened for himself, he would have been no use to anyone. Secure in his unimportance, he could watch what use was made of the monksmith and add that to the account of his knowledge, use it in his turn.

Also, secure in his unimportance, he had no qualms about bringing his boy. There was comfort in that too, in the familiar figure trotting at his stirrup, holding station in the corner of his eye. If something happened—to Tunghai Wang, to the monksmith—Ma would not be alone in the aftermath. He could manage armies, solitary at his desk; he was not so good at managing himself. He would not have done so well last night when the spy came, without his boy there beside him.

With Ping Wen and Tunghai Wang squabbling like vultures over the carcass of Santung, with both of them plotting and himself only marginally privy to their plots; with the monksmith to watch, knowing that he mattered in ways that neither of them knew; with his boy to watch him, a hand when he needed help and a sharp young eye, seeing things he wouldn’t think to look for—Ma might not be ready for the day, but he was as ready as he ever could be and almost eager for it.

Certainly eager to get off this accursed mule and face what must be faced on his own feet, as a man should, balanced and
justified in his own eyes and in the eyes of those who loved him.

T
HEY SHOULD
have walked in any case, he thought sourly, or else had men carry them in chairs. There were men enough, even after the generalissimo’s recent catastrophe. These beasts were only for pride, the arrival of a soldier and not a surrendered man; and the generalissimo’s pride would not let him ride the road where he personally had met his catastrophe, all too recently. Black scars on the road, ash in the air—no, he could not ride through that.

So he turned aside too soon, to follow wayward paths through wood and scrub where the beasts were confused and unwilling, untrusting. Ma at least had his boy to take the mule’s head and lead it forward through mud and shadow and bamboo. Trained to the open battlefield, horses of a more delicate temper twitched and shied as this unfamiliar world closed around them. Even where it opened into paddy they were uncertain of their footing, on narrow mud paths between stretches of still reflective water. Their nervousness delayed the whole procession, fed Tunghai Wang’s temper, fed it more when at last he surrendered his pride and summoned bannermen to the horses’ heads.

The paddy was empty, where the season’s second crop of rice should have been ripe and ready for harvest. Only these lowest stretches still held water. No one farmed on land where soldiers lurked; and as the men climbed the ridge, they found walls down and ditches blocked, whole terraces crumbling. That was the bitter residue of the dragon’s typhoon that had brought ruin to the generalissimo’s plans before, calling an end to a battle half-fought when he was poised to win it.

The higher, the drier. It hadn’t rained for days, for weeks; springs and streams still fed the lower paddy, but not the height of the ridge. The path there was easier for the horses, all dried mud. Tunghai Wang dismissed his bannermen to the fore again, but Ma kept his boy at the mule’s head. If he needn’t watch how he rode,
he could ride with his eyes ahead, high ahead, on that flirting banner and the curious structure rising beside it.

The banner spoke of a northerly wind, blowing steadily offshore: fine wind for an invasion they could not mount, either of them, Ping Wen nor Tunghai Wang. The generalissimo had no means to cross the strait. The governor might have both boats and safe passage—Ma’s spies spoke of a child blessed by a goddess, able to repel the dragon, fetched unexpectedly from Taishu—but he dared not deplete his forces in Santung for any adventure against the emperor. If his attention slackened, if he let himself be distracted, the generalissimo would find a way in behind his guard.

So: two men caught in a sullen squabble, neither of whom could reach for what he wanted more. Ma was intrigued to learn how this tale would turn next—and what that was, that angular construction close by the banner there.

Before they reached it, he had recognized its bones. Had he not seen to the erection of such machines himself, and the feeding also: numbers of earthenware pots, quantities of oil, of black powder, flowers of sulfur, more?

He knew by length and weight and substance just how those machines were put together and how used, how many men they took. This was similar, and yet not the same. Its arm was longer, and there were too many ropes; it had a net sling rather than a solid cup to hold and hurl its projectiles. It had two young men climbing all across its gaunt height and arguing tightly, while its team squatted in the poor shadow of the rocky ridge.

More to the point, Ma couldn’t see the point of it. There were its missiles, familiar pots and curious woven baskets that wouldn’t hold the liquid fire he knew. He remembered sheets of flame in the sky, fireworks as weapons—but at whom would Ping Wen hurl them, up here? Not at the generalissimo, surely. That man had learned their lesson already, which was why he came when summoned. Giving him—and, more to the point, giving Ma—close
sight of these new machines would not be useful to Ping Wen, whatever he had in mind.

His boy clicked the mule to a halt and Ma slid off, awkward and ungainly as ever. He was sorry to let Yueh see him this way in this company, but what could he do? A man was what he was, whatever circles he moved in, however high he rose.

This had been the topmost terrace of the paddy. Now, in the wake of the dragon’s ruinous storm, it was a field of bare flat mud: dry mud, his boots found on landing, sun-baked to a desert dryness. He still didn’t understand why they were here, why Ping Wen would have chosen such a site for such a meeting.

Or why the war-machine, or why that other structure men were working at, a rough forge built from stones out of the broken wall. Smoke wrapped itself around them; the air shimmered and rang with hammer blows, iron on iron on stone.

Ma found the monksmith at his side, alert and interested. “They are making chains.”

“Are they?” Ma couldn’t see so much.

“Of course. Excuse me …”

And he was gone, to join the smiths around their furnace. Ma felt more confused than ever, looking around. Beyond the forge was a little group alone, two men sitting on the broken wall with attendants. One at least seemed to be a cripple. Squinnying across the distance, Ma thought that was Ai Guo the torturer. Tunghai Wang had left him behind in the city, intending to reclaim him later. Well, he was in another’s hands now; that was the price of confidence. The other man might be General Chu Lin, who had turned pirate and then traitor. Why he would still be with Ai Guo, why either of them would be here—these were questions wanting an answer Ma did not have.

Beyond them was an older man even more alone, standing where he had presumably been set, among a group of temple figures. More were set at intervals all around, like fence posts, like a ring of torches in the night.

Beyond him again, Ping Wen with an entourage. Among his followers was a woman with …

A woman with a tiger. On a chain.

A jade tiger. Ma had never seen one living, though he’d owned a skin once, a gift of the old emperor, long lost and left behind.

This was madness, and yet not. There was purpose here, grim purpose, and nothing to do with Tunghai Wang. Who knew it, perhaps. And was walking across the baked ground to join Ping Wen, to discuss it, perhaps. Ma should be with him, but he preferred to stay here, to hold himself apart, to watch this all work out. He had played his part already, bringing the monksmith here.

Also, he distrusted everything suddenly, including the assumed truce that had brought them here. There was violence everywhere, in that machine and all these machinations, in chains and hammer blows and heat, in the tiger and its woman and every man here: violence contained, potent, ready. Even the temple idols were a trap.

Ma had his courage, and he would keep it here, beside his boy.

T
HE TWO
great men, governor and generalissimo, met on open ground and bowed respectfully to each other, just as much as they each thought protocol demanded. Ping Wen had served Tunghai Wang before this, both openly under the late emperor and covertly under the new; he stood now as imperial governor, and might reasonably claim an equality he had lacked before. One outside the city and one inside, both held absolute dominion.

If Tunghai Wang still thought they were here to discuss the city, dominion, he was swiftly disabused. Ping Wen ushered him to the side, to the rocky shadow of the ridge—and left him there. Went back to his entourage, to his woman with the tiger, seemingly just to wait.

To wait and watch the sky.

The banner turned and twisted in the wind. It was a summons, meant to do more than fetch the generalissimo. Now it was to fetch the dragon.

Ma understood that, just a little too late to pretend that he was ready when she came.

H
E COULDN’T
understand why she would come, but that was only one of the many things he did not understand today. It was easier than many to dismiss. Why should he ever pretend to understand the dragon?

She came. He knew it when the men were suddenly pointing, as suddenly snatching back their arms, not to draw attention to themselves. Her attention. She might not like to be pointed at.

S
HE CAME
, and blocked out the sun. Deliberately, Ma was sure.

She hung in the air and peered down at them. Staring back, Ma saw an excrescence on her neck, a shadow that moved: the boy that was said to ride her. He had assumed that to be a myth, compounded of fear and mystery together. He was perhaps a little more afraid, finding it true. An immortal creature is one thing; an immortal mediated by a human, something else entirely. A tiger on a chain.

The impression of control was too easy to misread or overvalue. The woman held the chain; she didn’t hold the tiger. The dragon might bear the boy, but not the way Ma’s appalling mule had borne him here.

He stepped up to the beast’s head, only to be closer to his own boy. Let people read that as they would. No one was looking anyway. Not with a dragon in the sky.

It was Ma’s business to watch not the battle, but the men who served it. The habit of long practice brought his eyes down from the dragon.

He might have been the only one—apart surely from the dragon, and perhaps her boy—who saw the team working on the war-machine, dragging down the arm and setting a missile carefully, carefully into its net. One man running to the forge, running back with smoke swirling from the cup of his fingers.

Those two young men whose charge it seemed to be, shifting the aim of it with poles and spikes. Carefully, carefully.

Everyone around them, their whole team worked blindly, heads tipped back to stare—but they were well drilled and their duties were mechanical, they seemed almost part of the machine themselves as they heaved and hauled, as the world seemed to pause on its moment.

Even Ping Wen wasn’t watching the men, or the machine. He must presumably have given the order for it, which left him free now to follow his soul’s desire, do as every man else did, watch the dragon.

Ma’s own soul was torn. The intense draw of the dragon—almost a passion, almost a craving, he was fascinated by the sense of his own self reacting—balanced, cruelly teasing, against the fascination of watching all these others react.

One last glance around the margins of the bare open field, and he saw the woman too with her head cocked, looking upward into that vast shadow. The tiger’s eyes gleamed through the gloom of it. Ma thought they gleamed at him: as though he held some interest in himself, as though simple dragons could be discounted.

Ma would have discounted that, only that it was hurled suddenly and entirely out of his head as one of the young men called an order, men heaved, the war-machine creaked and an object rose startlingly, almost vertically into the sky.

It was a missile-pot, trailing smoke. It climbed a little higher than the hovering dragon, and seemed to pause a moment before it began to fall, directly toward her.

She appeared to be watching it with as much interest as anyone.

Then it exploded.

M
A HAD
seen fireworks all his life. Just a couple of nights since, he had seen fireworks made into weapons, or at least instruments of terror.

He had never seen this, never imagined how a missile might
erupt into a sheet of viscous flame, which might fall like a curtain over the hindquarters of an immortal.

Who might lift her head and scream, a dreadful sound that could shatter rocks and hearts together.