The Marriage of the Living Dark

“Did you love your brother?”

Li Yuan looked up, meeting Tuan Ti Fo’s eyes. Both men were seated now, cross-legged, facing each other across the ink black pool.

TO NINEVEH

“I idolised him.”

“And used him, too ...”

“Used?”

“As an excuse, when things went wrong.”

“No, I...”

Tuan Ti Fo’s eyes were compassionate, yet his words, as ever, went to the nub of things. So it had been this past hour.

“Think back, Li Yuan. How many times, when tilings did not go as you desired, did you not say to yourself, it is not my fault, I was not born to rule. And again, with Fei Yen, did you not convince yourself that it failed not through any fault of yours, but because she was your brother’s wife?” “That is not fair!”

“No?” Tuan Ti Fo looked down. At once the pool began to glow. A drop of water fell. The pool rippled and cleared, and as it did, Li Yuan found himself looking at the image of the young Fei Yen, standing at the great window at Tongjiang, her face anxious. There was no sound, but he could make out the words she said as clearly as if he had heard them.

“Why has he left me here alone? Why does he not come?’

A drop of water fell. The pool rippled once more as the image faded into black. “You neglected her, Li Yuan. She could have been everything to you. Yes, and would have been, did you but know it But you did not value what you were given. You never valued it It was always too easy for you.” “Easy?” Li Yuan laughed scornfully. “It was never easy. There were so many conflicting choices, so many enemies.”

“True. But also many friends. And advisors, too. Good men whom you might have listened to.” Tuan Ti Fo shook his head, like a father chastising an errant son. “You were given a world, Li Yuan. Yes, and the intelligence and compassion to govern it But you did not value what you were given. You took it for granted. As with Fei Yen, you had to lose it before you understood its worth.” Li Yuan huffed impatiently, clearly put out by the old man’s words. “And that is how you see it, is it, loo jen? It was as simple as that?””I did not say it was simple, yet the underlying causes ...” He paused, then, leaning towards Li Yuan asked gently. “When did it start, Li Yuan? When were you first wounded?” “Wounded?”

“Yes. When did the hurt begin?”

Li Yuan was silent a moment, then, very quietly: “It did not begin. It was

always there. I woke to life with it”

“Your mother...”

“Yes.”

Tuan Ti Fo watched Li Yuan a while, then nodded to himself, his dark eyes thoughtful.

“When a man is hurt - hurt in the way that you were hurt, his nature scarred from birth - he can inflict much damage on those about him. That hurt can be a poison, festering in him, making him a source of much corruption. Yet when an emperor - a T’ang - is hurt, how much greater the damage he can do. So it was with you, Li Yuan. Your hurt - that scar you were born with - also scarred a world. It damaged not merely those about you, but billions of ordinary lives.” Li Yuan’s eyes flared. “So it was all my fault?” “No. Not all of it Yet you were thoughtless sometimes, callous even. As when you drew the line between the cities. That scar inside you made you blind to the suffering of others. You did not imagine what you were doing.” Li Yuan sat there, staring at the surface of the pool, his silence like a shroud about him.

“Well?” Tuan Ti Fo said, after a while. “Have I said too much?” Li Yuan looked up, a weariness in his eyes. “No.” He sighed. “I remember Karr mentioning it to me once. About the people falling. Like grains of pepper, so he said. But even then I did not see it Not the truth of it, anyway.” “So you never saw the faces?”

“Faces?”