The Blue Mountain (The Forbidden List Book 2) (23 page)

“Zhou,” she called after him. The name, his name, followed him out through the door and onto the street.

The onset of winter was on the breeze and his breath misted in front of his face. In that cloud, he saw the face of his child wearing the same smile he had when Zhou said goodbye in Wubei. The same look of pride in the boy’s eyes as he turned in his seat to look at his father, one more time. Zhou caught his hand halfway through the wave he had given the small boy. The mist drifted away on the wind like ash from the burnt out remains of his home. The ruin where the blackened bones of his family lay. Their funeral pyre in the lost battle for the city.

“Zhou,” she said and her hand rested on his shoulder. His wife’s voice was music to his ears, sweet notes of welcome. The melodious rise and fall, the joy and the concern, counterpoints of passion. The smile that formed on his face was one that had been absent for a long time. He placed his hand over hers and patted it gently. The gesture of a lifetime together, a ritual reconnection, familiarity.

“Zhou,” she said again and he turned. The darkness of evening turned the world to grey, making the shadows deeper and stealing the colour from her skin

But it was her face, her eyes that looked up at him with sympathy and empathy. The robe she wore had faded since he had seen her last. Not surprising, he thought. It had been over a year and she must have had a hard time finding him. All those days and nights in the sun and rain would leach the colour from any clothing, no matter how rich, how good a quality. But there was no mistaking it. The long robe was the same she had been wearing that day. His free hand found her cheek and cupped it with infinite tenderness.

“Zhou,” she spoke again. “Let it go.”

“I can’t,” he said. The sounds of the street vanished and all he heard was her voice, his own heart and breath.

“You have to,” she said. “It will consume you. Let it go.”

“I can’t. It is all I have,” he gazed into her eyes, darker and shadowed by the rising moon.

“You must,” she said and her hand covered his upon her cheek.

The touch was everything. It was the summer sun high in the sky. The comfort of a warm bed on winter’s morning. The heat of a bath easing tired muscles. The last breath, heavy with sleep, before the dreams. It was her hand, her smooth flesh on his. He savoured the sensation. Willed for time to stop, the earth to stop spinning, the moment to last forever.

He looked into her eyes. Sounds invaded his moment. The clash of steel, the cries of wounded, crackle of fire and the crash of timbers, shouted orders and alarms. The screams. All those screams. Mashed and mingled together, death’s melody played on the bodies of men, women and children. The song of war heard once, never forgotten.

His breath quickened and his heart beat faster. The shadows over her eyes grew wider, darker, and her skin paled. Bone white. Ivory. The smile he had loved fell away and was revealed as death’s face, grinning at him. Her fingers, a moment ago warm and comforting, grew cold. Zhou felt panic rise in his chest, fear confusing his mind. The pulse of the thread tying him to the spirit called to him. A blue ladder to safety. He fled towards it, but there was something else.

In his vision, the skull of his wife, fleshless and emotionless stared at him. Around it, on the polished lumps and bumps of brow ridge, nose and jaw, red snakes began to writhe. Blue called him to safety and red desired destruction. The pull was strong. His chest hurt.

“Zhou,” a voice called to him. Between the gristly thump of sword into flesh, the twig snap of bone and the wrenching calls of the wounded, it found its way into his mind. “No,” it said.

And the world collapsed. Colour flooded back in. Subtle hues of green and brown. The buildings swam about him, eaves and windows tilting, the dirt street swayed back and forth.

He fell to his knees, slipping from his wife’s grasp, pressing his hands into the dirt. Zhou sucked in great lungful’s, the cold air cooling his throat.

“Zhou,” Xióngmāo said, “you have to let it go. You cannot live there for the rest of your life.”

“I can’t.”

Above the beating of his heart and the rush of blood in his ears he heard another sound. The rapid beating of a gong, loud and clear through the streets.

“The alarm,” she said.

Zhou raised his head and looked up into Xióngmāo’s eyes.

“We have to leave,” she said.

“No.” Zhou brought his legs underneath his body and stood. Shaky, but upright. “I am going to the wall.”

“General, the gate is barred and the towers report ready,” the officer who had rushed up to the group said.

“Good, inform the third shift that I expect them to be formed up and ready within the next thirty minutes,” the general replied. The officer bowed and departed.

“I can’t see anything,” Gang grumbled. The large man leaned on the wall’s battlements and peered into the darkness.

“I’d have thought all those years in dark rooms would have enhanced your night vision, Gang,” Liu laughed at him.

“I relied mostly on touch.” Gang smiled and winked. Corporal Enlai snorted but recovered quickly, turning it into a cough.

“The alarm is set to sound when a raiding party is within twenty
li
of the wall, half a day’s travel,” the general explained.

“Whose travel?” Haung asked.

“Sorry?” The General of the Wall glanced away from his own inspection of the darkness.

“Whose rate of travel was used to set the alarm?” Haung clarified. “Was it a man walking? A group on horseback or an army?”

“I fail to see how that can be important.”

“The group that attacked my patrol were on horseback. And they were fresh horses too.” Haung moved up to the wall and added his own efforts to those already searching for signs of the enemy. “My point is, they could be closer than we think.”

“Or they may not be here at all,” said a soft voice from behind the group.

Haung turned. Soldiers were moving along into their positions. They flowed around the man dressed in dark robes who stood still in the centre, the rock in the stream. The wrinkled face that peered out from beneath the hood would have looked frightening if it were not for the man’s smile.

“Master Shen.” Haung greeted the newcomer with a smile of his own and a deep bow.

“Apprentice Haung,” Shen nodded, “General, Masters.”

“What did you mean Master Shen?” the general asked as the
Fang-Shi
moved out of the stream of soldiers and closer to the group.

“Hmmm...” the old man muttered, his gaze focused on the darkening night beyond the wall.

“Master, the alarm?” Haung prompted.

“What? Oh yes, sorry.” The magician turned back to the group. “The alarm does not register raiding parties or horses or any such thing. If it did, the alarm would have gone off at least once a week since it was built.”

“Are you saying that the alarm going off might be a mistake?” the general said, a note of surprise in his voice.

“No, not a mistake.” Shen looked from face to face, seeking something. Haung felt that he lingered longest on his face. Their eyes locked, but all Haung could respond with was confusion. Shen sighed. “What has the state of education come to these days?”

“Master Shen, if you could get to the point, I would be grateful,” the general said.

“General,” Shen said, but did not favour the man with a bow. “The alarm was not set to record the approach of an army or even a raiding party. The wall was built to defend against those. The troops were placed upon the wall to deal with any threat from an invading army, however unlikely that was to be.” He waved his hand to indicate the high, thick wall and the hundreds of troops stationed along the section they stood on. “The alarm was created to recognise a particular threat and, to my knowledge, has only been set off three times in the past century. Outside of the regular tests, of course.”

“What threat?” Haung asked.

“It detects the peculiar signs and auras of magic,” Shen said.

“There are
Fang-Shi
out there?” Haung asked.

“What?” Shen shook his head. “No, of course there are no
Fang-Shi
out there. We have sat behind this wall safe, for centuries, and we have forgotten.”

Haung looked at the others and saw the same look of confusion on their face’s that he supposed he wore on his own.

“Master Shen,” Haung said, “who is out there?”

“The Mongols always had their own magicians. Not
Fang-Shi
. They were never to our level of skill, but they have a magic of their own. When the Emperor’s
Fang-Shi
assisted in the building of the wall they did so to keep the Mongol magicians away. To stop them from undermining the wall or destroying it.”

“How would they do that?” the general spoke into the quiet that followed the magician’s words.

“I don’t know,” Shen admitted.

“Who does?” the general pushed.

“As far as I know, no one.” Shen placed his hands on the battlements and leaned over, staring at the road that led away into the darkness. “According to the records no Mongol magician has ever been captured alive. The
Fang-Shi
who battled them during the raids could not determine the source of their power. However, they could not deny it either.”

“How much effort was put into capturing one?” Gang said above the shouted orders of a loud sergeant.

“You have to remember what the raids were. Transient events. Small armies would strike into the Empire and then retreat when the resistance grew, when the Empire’s army got organised to defeat them. Nonetheless, there were efforts made by the
Fang-Shi
and the army to capture one. The operations failed three times. It was determined that each raiding group had only a few magicians with them and that they were always in the most protected parts of the army. In the last operation, we sent in a small group of
Jiin-Wei
backed up by a
Fang-Shi
. They did not return to us.”

“If I understand you correctly, Master Shen, then it is likely that one of these Mongol sorcerers is less than half a day away from the wall,” Liu said, lifting one of the axes from his belt and testing the edge against his thumb.

“Correct,” Shen said. In the background, the sergeant had stopped shouting orders and seemed to be having an argument. A common occurrence in every army. Haung ignored it and focused his thoughts upon Liu’s statement.

“And, given the absence of tribes in the local area, it is more than probable that this magician is travelling as part of a large group.” Liu replaced the first axe and tested the second.

“Yes. An armed group,” Shen said. “Probably quite large.”

“And heading this way,” said a voice from behind.

“I’m sorry, sirs,” said another.

Haung turned around to see a sergeant covering the anger on his face by exacting a deep bow to the group. To the soldier’s right stood a short, beautiful woman and a taller man who carried a staff. It took Haung a moment to recognise him.

“How did you get up here?” the general demanded. “Sergeant, escort these people back to the town. If they refuse to go, arrest them and put them in the holding cells.”

Haung stepped forward and gestured to the sergeant. Next to him Corporal Enlai took a step, then stopped.

“General,” Haung began, “I know this man.”

“Sergeant, wait a moment,” the general said and he faced Haung. “What do you know, Colonel?”

“General, may I present the Diplomat Zhou, of Wubei,” Haung said.

The man, dressed in scruffy, travel stained robes, looked from Haung to the general and back again. There was confusion on his face. Haung compared the face he saw against the one in his memory. The one he had seen during the negotiations in Yaart had been full of arrogance and ambition. The face, much later, as it rose above the dead body of the Yaart’s duke had worn shock and sadness.

The haunted look was still there. The sense of loss still in his eyes. But there was more, an anger. A fire in the dark shadows beneath his brow. The face was leaner and, when Haung took note of the diplomat’s stance, a frame that carried more muscle and looked ready to pounce. Haung rubbed his thumb over his necklace and took a deep breath, settling into the quiet.

“Wubei?” the general said, puzzled. “That city is no more.”

“Zhou, no.” The lady put a restraining hand on the diplomat’s arm.

Zhou looked down at the hand on his arm, covered it with his own and gave it a little squeeze. The man in front, the same one who had come into the throne room just after he had killed the duke, looked ready to defend himself. The shorter man next to him, dressed in a soldier’s uniform, had taken a step forward and looked similarly prepared to fight.

“
Jiin-Wei
Haung,” Zhou said, dredging the name up from that brief meeting over a year ago. “You are looking better than the last time I saw you.”

“Time and a good healer will do that for a man, Zhou,” Haung replied. “I wish I could say the same for you.”

Zhou looked down at his clothing. True, it was dirt stained and rumpled, the finery of his previous life had been absent for a long time, but the simple robe suited him, he thought. There was nothing that a good wash could not sort out. He shook his head. The spy’s comment was meaningless. Things change and he had changed. The blue thread pulsed.

“Colonel Haung,” the general spoke, “you have yet to give me a reason why this man and woman should not be escorted from the wall and thrown in prison.”

“You need us,” Zhou said, turning his eyes on the general.

“And, I do not think that trying to imprison them would do much good,” Haung said. “The list, General.”

“What?” the general flashed an exasperated look at the
Jiin-Wei
. “What list?”

“Zhou, is on the list, General. The Emperor’s list.”

The senior officer inspected Zhou from the tips of his shoes to the top of his head. It was an unpleasant experience and Zhou fought the urge to strike out.

“What about the woman?” the general asked.

Haung paused a moment before speaking. “I do not know, General.”

The corporal at Haung’s elbow took a breath to speak, but seemed to think better of it and took a step back.

“I am Xióngmāo,” she said. “Zhou is correct when he says you need us. We heard the alarm.”

“Young lady, I do not think that...” the general began and then he too paused. “Do I know you?”

“I do not think so, General. It is not very likely we have met,” Xióngmāo said.

“Do not trust them.” They were the first words the
Fang-Shi
had said since the couple had made their way onto the wall.

“What? Why?” the general said.

“They are not what they seem,” Shen said.

There was a moment of quiet on the wall, Shen’s ominous warning hanging over their heads. Zhou did not know what to make of it. As far as he could remember, he had never met the sorcerer.

Xióngmāo broke the silence and stepped forward. One step, in front of Zhou, and toward the magician.

“Void-stealer,” she said. “Still trying to understand the source of your magic are you? You would think that after all these years one of you would have figured it out. All you had to do, at some point in the last thousand years, was to learn a little humility. Let go the arrogance of power and come to the mountain. You know where it is.”

“We know, woman.” The old man spat at the floor.

The general looked shocked and the corporal, Zhou noticed, directed a worried glance towards Xióngmāo.

“Then you should have come and asked. We could have told you. Could have shown you the way, if you wanted it. Instead, you steal your power and claim it as your own. Yet, you do not truly understand it.” Xióngmāo turned her back on the irate sorcerer. “I’ve never met one yet who had developed the simple politeness to ask. Take, take and take. Thinking they are so clever but never really knowing.”

  “Zhou, Xióngmāo.” The spy spoke in a calm voice. “The alarm has been sounded, what help can you offer?”

“We know of the threat you face,” Xióngmāo said.

“We have fought it already.” Zhou stepped up beside the small woman. “If you remember the Emperor’s instructions in throne room? He asked me to look to the north, to the threat coming this way. The one he knew little about. I saw it.”

“The red flame?” Haung’s voice carried uncertainty.

“It is not flame any longer,” Zhou said. “It covers all the land beyond the wall. It is an ocean lapping against our shoreline.”

“Is this something from the Emperor’s report?” the general said.

Zhou spared him a glance. “He was there too, when we fought it.”

“The Emperor was not specific as to the exact nature of the threat,” Haung said and the general nodded. “What can you tell us, Zhou?”

But it was Xióngmāo who spoke first. “The alarm has sounded. A Mongol magician is not far away.”

“We know,” the sorcerer snapped.

“And they never travel alone. There will be an army with him. Likely more than one magician and therefore a big army,” Xióngmāo said.

“What do you know, woman?” Shen spat the last word at her, a curse, an insult.

“Call her ‘woman’ one more time, wizard, and I will rip out your throat,” Zhou growled and shifted his weight forward.

“I lived with them for a time. I met some of their magicians,” Xióngmāo said and put out a placating hand towards Zhou.

He settled back and fought to control his anger. She was more than able to take care of herself. The time spent on the Blue Mountain, the journey from there to here and her easy confidence in the town with the Mongols proved that. The
Jiin-Wei
had not reacted to his anger, nor had the enlisted man beside him. The general’s face had twisted, for a moment, with fear and that had been replaced by blustering anger. Zhou ignored him.

“What? We have no reports of any one from the Empire living amongst the Mongols in the last ten years,” the
Fang-Shi
said.

The enlisted man spoke over the magician. “What did you find out?”

Zhou glanced around. The gloom of night was almost full upon them, but soldiers were still streaming past, taking up their positions on the wall. The soldiers carried lanterns which they hung on hooks on the outside of the walls, just below the battlements. It was a sensible idea. The lanterns illuminated the ground below the wall and, being outside their view, preserved the Empire soldiers’ night vision, but would rob the enemy of theirs.

He did not listen to Xióngmāo’s answers but moved to the wall, stepping past Haung and the enlisted man. The stone was cold under his hand and a shiver ran up his arm. It took him a moment to recognise the power he felt. The strength of a realm flowing through his veins. His contact with the stone grew and he could feel the power carry him along the length of the wall. A distance that would normally take months of travel. Each stone was bound tightly to its neighbour by cement, mortar and more. They were connected by a deeper force. A thread bound them together, one that pulsed not blue like his own, but the grey of stone.

“Zhou.” Xióngmāo had wrapped her arm around his and pulled his hand from the stone. “I thought I had lost you there for a moment.”

“Sorry. I was day dreaming.” He looked away from the wall and met her eyes. There was concern in their depths but also a determination, a stubbornness. “They are out there then, the ones who destroyed the mountain?”

“Yes, can you not see them?” she asked.

He returned his gaze to the land beyond the wall and squinted into the darkness. But, beyond the range of the lanterns and with only the feeble illumination of the stars above, there was little he could see with any clarity.

“I can see nothing,” he answered.

“Zhou, still you think of only one perception. This time really look.” She patted his arm.

He let his eyes shift as the spirit infused him. The world, the physical world, the wall, the trees, people and land swam in his vision. A second world appeared, it shifted to and fro until it settled over the physical one. This new world, coated in blue, was subtly different than the other. The wall was gone and the people stood in mid-air, kept aloft by nothing. The trees on the far slopes looked like blazing torches, a green core amongst the blue flame. The land was teeming with life, all small and normally unseen but here, in the vision of his spirit, it crawled, heaved and wriggled. For second, he felt his body fall towards the ground then right itself without conscious effort. Like riding a horse, the world bobbed up and down until he had found the rhythm of motion, until he had discovered the pattern, the great breath of life around him.

Further out it changed. The bright blue of the spirits, mixed with tendrils of a pale green, were being strangled, drowned in a tide of red. At first glance, there was little movement but the more he concentrated, the more he noticed the little details. The blue spirits being smothered by the red. Beneath the asphyxiating layer of red, the little spirits clung to life and burrowed deeper. In amongst the crimson wave were darker spots and others of a much brighter red. The spots moved, rank upon rank and file upon file of them, forward towards the wall.

“You see the soldiers,” she asked.

“I see spots in the red. Dark spots and bright spots,” he answered. Zhou closed his eyes and let go of the spirit.

“Those are the soldiers,” Xióngmāo said. “They are part of the army but not part of the red, whatever that may be. They are the physical army amongst it all.”

“And the brighter ones?” Haung asked as the
Jiin-Wei
stepped up to them.

“The magicians, I would guess.” Xióngmāo closed her own eyes for a moment.

“What are you?” The general gasped.

“She... they are the
Wu
, General.”

Zhou turned expecting to see a bitter anger on Shen’s face, but it was the corporal who had spoken.

“I thought it was you,” Xióngmāo said with a smile on her face and in her voice.

“Always your servant,” Enlai bowed low to her.

“You know him?” Zhou said.

“What is going on?” the general said at the same moment.

“We are
Wu
, general. You could ask your pet magician or even your
Jiin-Wei
here,” Xióngmāo said and Zhou saw her direct a puzzled glance at the colonel. “Though I doubt you will get a true reflection of a
Wu
. Indeed, even from us you may not truly understand what we are.”

“I know what
Wu
are,” the general snapped. “Sideshow magicians. Necromancers who talk to the dead and pass on cryptic messages from deceased relatives. Divinators who tell fortunes from the dregs of tea leaves but cannot tell you if tomorrow will be clear or it will rain, any better than I can. Charlatans who promise much, but deliver little.”

“No, General. They are not
Wu
. Look at your court wizard’s face. He knows better.” Xióngmāo took two quick steps to stand before the general where she did nothing but stare into the fat man’s eyes.

A strange sight, Zhou considered, a petite woman in travel worn clothing staring down an army officer. To his left, Haung began to move towards Xióngmāo, but the corporal stopped him with a raised hand and shake of his head.

The moment froze. Soldiers passing by stopped and looked, confused. Zhou could taste the moment on his tongue. The wrong move by anyone, from soldier to magician, and the fear would give way to anger, anger to violence and then to death. Liu laughed, a strange sound in the darkness. Time began again.

“I’ve always said, Gang, you have to watch out for the small ones,” Liu said.

Zhou put his hand on Xióngmāo’s shoulder and, with a sigh, she broke the stare.

“General, my apologies,” she said as the fat man took a shaky step away from her. There was sweat on his face, yet the night was chill. “The
Wu
are best thought of as Shaman. Not those who dress in wolf and bear skins to dance around the fires, banging drums and evoking the spirits through trances and herbs. Those days are long gone. More than a millennia or longer.
Wu
see the spirit that is in all of us and act as a conduit between it and this realm. We do not steal the power as the
Fang-Shi
do but invite it and are invited by it.
Wu
are not made or taught to be so, they are chosen.”

“What did you see?” Enlai asked into the silence that followed.

“The enemy are here,” Zhou said and Xióngmāo nodded.