The Marriage of the Living Dark

“Who is he?” he asked, after a moment

The elder of them turned and smiled. “It doesn’t matter, Jem. Who he is now is not important. It is who he will become. In the pit all men shed their former selves ...”

“Oh, I know the words,” Jem interrupted. “But a Chink A fucking Chink!”

“Chinks are human, too, Jem. Cut them and they bleed.”

“And so does a coyote. But Nineveh ... are you sure?”

The elder seemed about to reply, then broke off. Someone was coming. “Heather,” he said, greeting a young woman who appeared on the ledge carrying a tray on which was a steaming bowl, some bread and a leather water bottle. “What’s this?””For our guest,” she said, letting them inspect the tray before they waved her through.

She came down the narrow steps and stood before Li Yuan, then crouched, setting the tray down. Then, as Jem covered her with a gun, she set about unbinding Li Yuan’s hands.

Li Yuan looked up at her with a smile of thanks as he massaged each of his hands in turn. They had tied him tightly and there was a deep red welt about each wrist She had green eyes and, in her occidental way, an attractive face. And she too wore the tattoo - that strange bowl-like shape with a spike jutting up from it - on her upper arm.

“Eat,” she said simply, handing him the tray and smiling. “You need to keep your strength up.”

For a time he was silent as he broke the rough homemade bread and dipped it in the soup. He ate and drank and felt much better for it Yet as he bent down to place the tray on the ground, he winced, a sharp pain shooting through his back. Seeing it, the woman hurried round behind him and, unexpectedly, began to massage his neck and shoulder muscles, her hands working their way expertly down his spine, the tension easing from him almost as if by magic. “There,” she said, straightening up, then came round in front of him again.

Li Yuan looked up at her, his eyes seeking an explanation.

“We don’t mean to harm you, Li Yuan,” she said. “You’ll understand in time.”

“Then why ...?”

She placed a finger to his lips. “No questions.” Then, with a gentleness neither of the guards had shown, she bound his hands once more, careful not to pull the ropes too tight “Later,” she said as she picked up the tray and stood. “After Nineveh.” And then she was gone. Li Yuan stared after her a moment. Then, noting how the younger guard was scowling at him, he looked down, wondering.

That night they moved him. Four men - one of them masked, as if to hide his identity - came just before nightfall and, placing Li Yuan in a cart, bound his feet and tightened the bindings on his hands. Then, as the night before, there was a journey across the cooling desert, under a moonless sky that, to Li Yuan, lying on his back in the jolting cart, seemed dusted with a million bright stars.

He thought at first they were taking him to Nineveh -wherever that was - but from the few things he overheard, he quickly understood that things had changed. He was to go to Isis, after all.

There “He” would come and speak with him.

Li Yuan was tired and the motion of the cart lulled him; even so, he could not sleep. There were too many questions left unanswered. Who were these people and what did they want with him? Were they rebels, or fanatics, or what? Certainly they had a seriousness to them - a sense of purpose - that he’d not witnessed among the Americans of the fortress cities. And certainly he had some part to play in their plans, or else why take him? Why keep him and transport him from place to place, unless ...? Unless what?

Always and ever he ran up against a point at which he knew nothing. And that was by far the worst of it To be utterly in the hands of someone else. To have no say in where you went, or what you did, or what, ultimately, happened to you. Li Yuan closed his eyes, feeling the bare wooden boards behind his head, and wondered how much further he could fall before the earth swallowed him up? Down into Ti Yu, the earth prison, where the Great Warder of Hell himself presided.

The thought of it almost - almost - made him smile. Did he believe any of that any more? Hadn’t he seen enough of the world to know that hell was not beneath the ground but up here on the surface? Or so Man could make it, just as Man could make a heaven for himself right here beneath the open sky.Man lived between the dark earth and the dark sky, in an illusion of light, and all his life was shadowplay. And in an instant - in less time than a bird takes to ruffle its feathers - it was over, and the darkness was all. So it was with illusions. Whereas reality ...

Reality was this - this feeling of absolute powerlessness before forces over which he had no control. And even emperors - even Tang - must bow to those forces ultimately. To the eternal processes of nature, and to the truth of entropy.

What did you do with your life, Li Yuan?

The voice seemed like his father’s, but he knew his father would never have asked him such a question. His father had had little time for introversion. I guess I lost a world.

The cart bumped on, over hard rock, climbing momentarily, then dipping down into a long valley.

The voice seemed surprised. Was it yours to lose, then?

He had to think about that.

It was given to me, by my father.

So it was his?

No. Not exactly. There were seven great Lords, you see, and between them ...

But the voice interrupted him, impatient with that answer.

Who gave it to your father’s father’s father?

Li Yuan frowned. No one gave it, exactly, he ...

Stole iff

Li Yuan’s eyes flicked open. For a moment he had thought someone was there beside him on the cart, speaking to him. But the presence, like the voice, had been imaginary.

He dug his heels into the board and struggled up, wedging his back against the tailboard of the cart, then shook his head.

Voices. He was hearing voices now.

Tiredness, he told himself, conscious that the light had changed - that it was almost morning now. The voices are only a product of your tiredness, Li Yuan. Yet for a moment, just before the end, it had seemed as if someone was really questioning him - pushing him to justify all that he was, and all that he had once been.Thieves. Was that all that emperors were, when it came down to it? And was the Emperor merely the most successful of all thieves? Li Yuan shivered, then flexed his fingers, feeling the ropes pull tight, chafing his wrists again.

And so the thief was caught, finally, and brought to justice.

The cart bumped on, jolting him, making him slip to the side and bang his head. Exhausted now, he lay there, staring up, up into the infinite night, and slowly the night came down into him.

And Li Yuan closed his eyes ... and slept

Egan stood facing the full-length screen, his hands on his hips, barely able to contain himself.

“How the fuck could you have let them take him, Major? Have you no defences whatsoever?”

Major Lanier lowered his head. “It was not our fault, Master. Captain Zelic ...” “Was acting to make up for your deficiencies!” Egan quivered with anger. “If you had taken proper precautionary measures in the first place, he would not have had to have interceded!”