The Marriage of the Living Dark

“What”s your name?”

Daniel looked up from where he was sitting on a ledge of rock, and met his inquisitor’s eyes. “Daniel,” he answered, trying to read in those dark Han eyes what his fate was to be. “Daniel Mussida.”

“And what district were you from, Daniel?”

“From Westerndorf,” he answered, almost without thinking. “If s near Roseheim

...”

“I know it,” the Han said tersely, then crouched onto his haunches so that their faces were on a level. “So... what were you doing so far from home, Daniel?” “I -“ He looked down. “I came to find you.”

“To find us. What, so that you could claim a reward?” He looked up at that, stung by the insinuation. “No! I’d never do that! I came to join you. I wanted ...”

The young Han raised a hand. At once Daniel fell silent.

“I hear you saved my brother’s life.”

Daniel hesitated, then nodded.

“Well, for that I thank you, with all my heart Even so, I’m still left wondering what a good boy like you was doing wandering in the backstreets with a loaded gun. Did your mother not warn you of the dangers?” “I have no mother.”

“And your father?”

“I have no father.”

Lin Chao sat back a little, considering. “So where, exactly, were you staying?

And with whom?”

Daniel took his ID card from inside his jacket pocket and handed it across.

After studying it a moment, Lin Chao handed it back.

“So you’re a cadet? No wonder you could use a gun. But I’m still wondering.”

“Wondering?”

“Why you should want to join us. I thought they taught you that we were devils. Ruthless brigands who would as soon cut your heart out and eat it as talk to you.”

“And are you?”

At that Lin Chao laughed; a pleasant, unaffected laughter that Daniel instantly liked. The laughter gave him sudden confidence. “Who are you?”

“Me?” Lin Chao stood, looking past Daniel at the rock-littered slope. Beyond him the mountain climbed until it was lost among the other peaks in cloud. “Lef s just say that I could be a friend. That is, if you are who you say you are.””Then I can join you?” Daniel asked, standing for the first time. “Hold on, boy!” Again Lin Chao laughed. “Did I say that? No. One thing at a time. First we’ll get you some warm clothing, then . . . well, we’ll see, eh? But for now, thank you, Daniel. Thank you for doing what you did for young Pei.” Not knowing what else to do, Daniel came smartly to attention and bowed his head, as if to the Captain of Cadets. There was laughter from the watching men, but Lin Chao did not laugh. Straightening up, he too came to attention, returning the bow. Then, as if he could find nothing further to say, he turned and hastened away, returning up the slope to where his brother now lay, wrapped in a heavy blanket on a straw bier, waiting to be taken up the mountain.

DeVore pulled off his gloves and dropped them on the table, then hurried through into the control room. Heads turned at his entry then quickly turned back, concentrating on the screens.

“Any news?” DeVore asked, taking his seat at the centre of it all. “Nothing yet, Master,” the most senior of his generals answered, coming across and standing beside DeVore’s chair, head bowed. Behind him the remaining generals stood ill at ease, looking on.

DeVore glanced at the digital readout of the time in the right-hand lower corner of the biggest of the screens, then shook his head. “Something’s gone wrong. We should have heard by now. We should have seen something!”

On the screen there were a succession of tiny flashes.

“There!” DeVore said, leaning forward.

They waited, tense with anticipation, but that was it There were no big explosions. The satellites remained untouched. The attack had failed. DeVore sat back For a moment he simply stared into the air, his face like flint, his right hand tapping out a rhythm against the arm of the chair, then he stood. “Find out what went wrong,” he said tersely, angrily. “Someone will pay for this!”

In the lift heading back up to the surface, DeVore allowed himself the luxury of a smile. Down below, his generals were running about and shouting at each other, trying to allocate the blame, but the truth was he had never expected the attack to succeed.

Emtu was waiting for him at the entrance to the San Chang, the broken tile roofs of the Tang’s ruined palaces dominating the late morning sky behind her. “It worked!” he said exultantly, taking her arms. “Almost three minutes they were out, and we only needed two!”

She stared back at him soberly. “Don’t get too excited. You do not know for certain yet.”

He calmed. “No, no ...” Then, smiling again, he took her hand. “Let1 s go and see.”

Guards unlocked the gate to the north palace and stood back, letting them pass. Inside the central corridor was dark, sepulchral. All was silent. They walked through, their booted feet stirring the years-old dust, the sound of their footsteps echoing back from the high ceilings and massive rooms. At the far end of the corridor was a huge set of double doors, panelled and studded. DeVore looked to his companion and, with a smile, pushed open the right-hand door. Inside was a massive hall, a row of stone pillars running away to left and right, stone dragons coiled about them. At the far end, beneath the great throne, there was movement.

Giant figures straightened, then turned, facing the newcomers. In their midst was a strange craft, identical to the ship DeVore himself had used to return to Chung Kuo; a translucent, capsule-like craft that could fold space and time about it Seeing who it was, one of the massive figures came across. “Hannem?” DeVore asked, recognising his servant of old. The big morph knelt, bowing his head low. “We have come, Master.”Behind him, his eight companions also knelt and bowed, subservient to their creator. DeVore turned, looking to Emtu, a look of triumph in his eyes. “There,” he said.

“Now we are even. Now the endgame has begun.”

From the air one could see nothing, yet some fifty metres beneath where the tree-line ended and the grey, rocky slope climbed to meet the first of the three snowbound peaks, tucked in among the ancient pines, was a slight indentation, a patch of shadow trapped between two twisted, limb-like roots. Here was the entrance they called the “High Door”. Other hidden entrances were dotted about the surrounding mountainside, yet this was the quickest, the most direct route into the ruined alpine fortress.

More than thirty years had passed since Li Yuan’s Imperial forces had bombed the Dispersionist fortress, leaving a massive crater in the mountain’s flank, and for most of that time it had remained unoccupied and open to the elements, but for the past five years it had been reclaimed by rebel elements, the crater covered over with a mesh of high-tensile ice, upon which earth and rock had been piled. To add to this visual disguise, a web of anti-detection devices had been scattered over the fortress’s new roof, so that to the camera eyes of passing craft it seemed that the mountainside was cool and solid. It was mid afternoon when Lin Chao finally returned from the base camp. Normally he would have taken one of the lower entrances, down among the big boulders at the foot of the valley, but today he was late. The meeting would already have begun and he was keen this once to hear what was said and add his own voice to the debate.

Things were changing. The attack on his brother Pei said as much, but in truth he had known it for some time now. DeVore was losing patience. Not only that, but their activities had begun to hurt DeVore, especially since the Americans had agreed to back them.

A hundred metres from the entrance Chao paused, tucked in tight against the bole of a leaning pine. For a moment he stayed there, his eyes searching the slope ahead, flicking from tree to tree. There was nothing. Even so, he hesitated a moment longer. Old habits died hard, and he knew that one single mistake could cost them all dear.

Ducking low, he moved from tree to tree, following a zig-zag course towards the entrance. Ten metres from it he stopped again, looking up past the vee of shadow, then turned to study the slope beneath him. He was alone.

Quickly now, he ran across and ducked inside, stooping to pass through the tight, dark entrance. Some five metres along a steel door barred his way. Reaching up blindly, he found the panel just above it and tapped out the coded sequence. The door slid quietly back.

Chao slipped inside.

Hidden cameras were watching him as he made his way through the narrow maze, following his every movement. In a control room in the heart of the mountain someone was watching a screen, their hand close by a pad, ready to flood the tunnels with gas if he set a foot wrong.

Necessary, he thought, as he waited at the end of the final tunnel, his left palm pressed to the pad as it took a tiny sample of his blood. For it was said that DeVore could copy anything, anyone. And the only way to stay alive was to keep one jump ahead of him. Paranoia had become a survival tactic. At the count of ten the wall beside him slid back, revealing a well-lit, empty corridor. Chao stepped down, stretching his limbs as the wall slid back. There was the murmur of voices, the faintest click and whirr of machines. He walked towards them.

Doors led off to right and left Most were closed. Through glass panels he could see his people at work, collating information, organising the vast and complex business of rebellion, or simply debating new “targets” among themselves. All would finally find its way to the room at the far end of the corridor where his mother had her office. He went there now, throwing the door open, expecting to find a dozen people seated about her desk, but the room was almost empty. Almost At the far end of the conference table sat his mother, her gaunt, grey-haired head bent over a file. She looked up at him from the document, surprised to find him there. “Chao?”

“I thought...”

“I cancelled it,” she said, anticipating him. Then, closing the folder, she stood and came round the table until she stood by him. “There’s a problem.” “A problem?”

“If s Michael. There’s no word from him yet”

He reached out and held both her arms, the same way she had always held his own when he’d been a child and full of fears.

“He’ll be okay. He’s being careful, that’s all.”

“But he said ...”

A look from him silenced her. “Okay,” she said finally, the moment’s weakness passed. “But I’ve sent Han Ye and Sung out to look for him. If they were ambushed ...”

“He’ll be okay,” Chao said, insistently this time, but there was a small knot in his stomach at the thought of his stepfather being in DeVore’s far-from-tender hands. Death was preferable. “How’s Pei?” he asked. “He’s fine. The wound’s clean. He had a lucky escape.”

“Too lucky, perhaps?”

Emily had been about to turn away, but at his words she looked back at him. “You think the boy’s a plant?”

“If s possible. I mean, it was rather a coincidence that he should be there at that precise moment” “Maybe. But Lin Pei would have been a big prize for DeVore. He could have taken him back, copied him. Got to me that way. Besides, he lost two morphs. He can ill afford such losses, especially now.”

“I’m sorry?”

She smiled at him. “You haven’t heard, then?”

“Heard?”

In answer she went across and picked up the folder she’d been reading, then came back, handing it to him. Chao opened it, took out the slender document, then looked up at her, surprised. “Is this true?”

She nodded. “We’ve had it confirmed from eight different sources. This morning at eleven DeVore attempted to break the blockade. Missile attacks on five of the stationary satellites were followed by an attempt to slip a number of ships through the High Barrier. Both the missile strike and the attempt to outrun the American blockade failed. All of his ships were blown out of the skies. Word is that they carried a total of more than sixty of DeVore’s creatures. That1 s almost a fifth of his remaining strength.”

“But what was he trying to do?”

Emily shrugged. “Who knows?”

“Then things really are desperate ... for him, I mean.”

“Maybe.”

The way she said it made him look at her anew. “What are you thinking?”

“If s nothing.”

“No. Tell me. I want to know.”

“I don’t know,” she began. “If s just... well, with DeVore you can never take anything at face value. He’s a master of feints and illusions. Such a direct action ... if s unlike him, don’t you think?”

He shrugged. “Go on.”

“It made me think of the game ... of wet da. Of how a Master of the game might sometimes play a stone in a part of the board he isn’t really interested in, as a decoy, to mask his true intentions.”

“But we know DeVore’s true intentions. He wants to break the blockade so that he can bring in reinforcements. Without them he’s too weak to win this conflict” “Or so he’d have us think” Chao stared at his mother a moment, then shook his head. “No. His weakness is no bluff. If he were strong enough he’d destroy us all without a momenf s thought He’d not waste his time sending patrols out into the mountain passes, he’d destroy the Wilds themselves!”

“Maybe.”

He huffed, exasperated with her. “And what does Tybor say?”

She smiled. “Why don’t you ask him. He’ll be here any moment now.” Chao nodded. If anyone could fathom DeVore’s twisted mind, then maybe Tybor could, for Tybor had been made from DeVore’s own genetic material, flesh of his flesh.

“You’ve spoken to the boy, I assume.”

“Huh?” For a moment he was at a loss, then, “the boy.”