Ice and Fire: Chung Kuo Series (24 page)

They knew that. Li Shai Tung had known it three years ago when he had summoned the
leaders of the House to him and, unexpectedly, granted the concession. But the old
man had had no choice.
Lehmann’s murder had stirred the hornet’s nest. It was the only thing the T’ang could
have done to prevent war.

Even so, none of his fellow conspirators had grasped what it
really
meant. They had not fully envisaged the changes that would come about – the vast,
rapid metamorphosis that would
sweep through their tight-knit community of thirty-nine billion souls. Science, kept
in check by the Edict for so long, would not so much blossom as explode. When Mankind
went out into the stars it
would not, as so many had called it, be a scattering, but a shattering. All real cohesion
would be lost. The Seven knew this. But few others had understood as yet. They thought
the future would be
an extension of the past. It would not. It would be something new. Something utterly,
disturbingly new.

The new age, if it came, would be an age of grotesque and gothic wonders. Of magical
transformations. Mutation would be the norm.

If it came.

‘What were you up to with Weis back there?’

DeVore turned and looked at the young man. He seemed perfectly suited to this environment.
His eyes, the pallor of his flesh; neither seemed out of place here. He was like some
creature of the
wild – a pine marten or a snow fox. A predator.

DeVore smiled. ‘I’ve been told Weis is a weak man. A soft man. I wanted confirmation
of that.’

‘What had you heard?’

DeVore told him about the tape he had acquired. It showed Weis in bed with two young
boys – well-known Han opera stars. That was his weakness; a weakness he indulged in
quite often, if the
reports were accurate.

‘Can he be trusted?’

‘We have no option. Weis is the only one with both the know-how and the contacts.’

‘I see.’

DeVore turned and looked back at the view. He remembered standing here with Berdichev,
almost a year before, when they had first drawn up their scheme; recalled how they
had stood and watched
the sunset together; how frightened Soren had been; how the sudden fall of dark had
changed his mood entirely. But he had expected as much. After all, Berdichev was typical
of the old Man.

Beneath it all they were still the same primitive creatures. Still forest dwellers,
crouched on the treeline, watching the daylight bleed away on the plain below, fearful
of the dark. Their
moods, their very beings, were shaped by patterns older than the race. By the Earth’s
slow rotation about the sun. By the unglimpsed diurnal round – cycles of dark and
light, heat and
cold. They could not control how they were, how they felt.

In the new age it would be different. There would be a creature free of this. Unshackled.
A creature of volition, unshaped by its environment. A creature fit for space.

Let them have their romantic image of dispersion; of new, unblemished worlds. Of Edens.
His dreams were different and rode upon their backs. His dream was of new men. Of
better, finer creatures.
Cleaner
creatures.

He thought back to the tape of Weis; to the image of the financier standing there,
naked, straddling the young boy, his movements urgent, his face tight with need.
Such weakness
, he
thought. So pitiful to be a slave to need.

In his dream of the new age he saw all such weaknesses eradicated. His new Man would
be purged of need. His blood would flow clean and pure like the icy streams of the
far north.

‘It’s magnificent. So pure.’

He looked across at the youth, surprised, then laughed. Yes, they were all much the
same – all the same, primitive Man, unchanged by long millennia of so-called civilization.
All, perhaps,
but this one. ‘Yes,’ he said, after a moment, feeling himself drawn to the boy. ‘It
is magnificent, isn’t it?’

The gateway was an arch of darkness, leading out into a vast and dimly lit hall. For
a moment Tolonen thought he had come out into the Clay itself. Broad steps led down
onto
bare earth. The ceiling was high above him. But it was too bright, however dim, too
clean, however bare, to be the Clay. And there, less than half a
li
from where he stood, was the ancient
stadium, its high, curved walls in partial shadow, the great curved arches of its
mighty windows black as a moonless night.

The Colosseum. Heart of the old
Ta Ts’in
empire.

He went down and crossed the space, choosing one of the tall archways at random, knowing
they all led inward to the centre.

Feeling exposed. Feeling like a man walking in death’s shadow.

He went inside, conscious of the sheer weight of stone above him as he stepped beneath
the arch. The arch dwarfed him; was five times or more his height. Three great layers
of arches, one above
another, capped by a vast, uneven wall of ancient stone.

He had a sense of time, of power as old as time itself. This millennia-old edifice,
monument to power and death and empire, awed him slightly, and he understood why the
T’ang had chosen it
for their meeting place.

‘So you’ve come…’

Tolonen stopped on the edge of the inner arch, squinting into the darkness at the
centre, trying to make out the shape of his master.

‘Heavy-handed monsters, weren’t they?’

Li Shai Tung stepped out from the next archway. At a signal from him the lights were
raised and the central amphitheatre was suddenly revealed. It was huge, monstrous,
barbaric. It spoke of a
crude brutality.

Tolonen was silent, waiting. And while he waited, he thought about the pain and death
this place had been built to hold. So much raw aggression had been moulded into darkness
here. So much warm
blood spilled for entertainment.

‘You understand, then?’ said the T’ang, turning to face him for the first time. There
were tears in his eyes.

He found he could barely answer him. ‘What is it,
Chieh Hsia
? What do you want from me?’

Li Shai Tung drew a deep breath, then raised a hand, indicating the building all about
them. ‘They would have me believe you are like this place. As unthinkingly callous.
As brutal. Did
you know that?’

He wanted to ask,
Who? Who would have you believe this?
, but he merely nodded, listening.

‘However… I know you too well, Knut. You’re a caring man. A loving man.’

Tolonen shivered, moved by his T’ang’s words.

The T’ang moved closer; stood face to face with his ex-General, their breaths mingling.
‘What you did was wrong. Very wrong.’ Then, surprisingly, he leaned forward and kissed
Tolonen’s cheek, holding him a moment, his voice lowered to a whisper. ‘But thank
you, Knut. Thank you, dearest friend. You acted like a brother to my grief

Tolonen stood there, surprised, looking into his master’s face, then bowed his head,
all the old warmth welling up inside him. It had been so long, so hard being exiled.

He went down onto his knees at Li Shai Tung’s feet, his head bowed in submission.
‘Tell me what you want,
Chieh Hsia
. Let me serve you again.’

‘Get up, old friend. Get up.’

‘Not until you say I am forgiven.’

There was a moment’s silence, then Li Shai Tung placed his hands on Tolonen’s shoulders.
‘I cannot reinstate you. You must realize that. As for forgiveness, there is nothing
to
forgive. You acted as I felt. I would need to forgive myself first.’ He smiled sadly.
‘Your exile is at an end, Knut. You can come home. Now get up.’

Tolonen stayed on his knees.

‘Get up, you foolish man. Get up. You think I’d let my ablest friend rot in inactivity?’
He was laughing now; a soft, almost childlike laughter. ‘Yes, you foolish old
man. I have a job for you.’

It was a hot night. Nan Ho had left the door to the garden open. A gentle breeze stirred
the curtains, bringing the scents of night flowers and the sound of an owl in the
orchard. Li Yuan woke and stretched, then grew very still.

‘Who is it?’ he said, his voice very small.

There was a touch of warmth against his back and a soft, muted giggle, then he felt
her pressed against him – undoubtedly
her
– and heard her voice in his ear.

‘Hush, little one. Hush. It’s only me, Pearl Heart. I’ll not bite you.’

He turned and, in the moon’s light, saw her naked there beside him in his bed.

‘What are you doing here, Pearl Heart?’ he asked, but his eyes were drawn to the firmness
of her breasts, the soft, elegant slope of her shoulders. Her dark eyes seemed to
glisten in
the moonlight and she lay there, unashamed, enjoying the way he looked at her.

She reached out and took his hand and pressed it gently to her breast, letting him
feel the hardness of the nipple, then moved it down, across the silken smoothness
of her stomach until it
rested between her legs.

He shivered, then looked to her eyes again. ‘I shouldn’t…’

She smiled and shook her head, her eyes filled with amusement. ‘No, perhaps you shouldn’t,
after all? Shall I go away?’

She made to move but his hand held her where she was, pressing down against the soft
down of her sex. ‘No… I…’

Again she laughed, a soft, delicious laughter that increased his desire, then she
sat up and pushed him down, pulling back the sheet from him.

‘What have we here? Ah, now here’s the root of all your problems.’

She lifted his stiff penis gently between her fingers, making him catch his breath,
then bent her head and kissed it. A small, wet kiss.

‘There,’ she said gently, looking up the length of his body into his eyes. ‘I can
see what you need, my little one. Why didn’t you tell Pearl Heart before now?’ She
smiled and her eyes returned to his penis.

For a moment he closed his eyes, a ripple of pure pleasure passing through him as
she stroked and kissed him. Then, when he could bear it no longer, he pulled her up
against him, then turned her
over, onto her back, letting her hand help him as he struggled to find the mouth of
her sex with the blind eye of his penis.

Then, with a sudden sense of her flesh parting before his urgent pressure, he was
inside her and she was pushing back up against him, her face suddenly different, her
movements no longer quite
so gentle, her legs wrapped about his back. He thrust and thrust and then cried out,
his body stiffening, a great hot wave of blackness robbing him momentarily of thought.

He slept for a while and when he woke she was there still, not a dream as he had begun
to imagine but real and warm, her body beautiful, naked in the moonlight beside him,
her dark eyes watching
him. The thought – the reality of her – made his penis stir again and she laughed
and stroked his cheek, his neck, his shoulder, her fingers moving down his body until
they were curled
about the root of him again.

‘Pearl Heart?’ he said, looking up from where her fingers played with him, into her
face.

‘Hush,’ she said, her smile like balm. ‘Lie still and close your eyes, my little one.
Pearl Heart will ease the darkness in you.’

He smiled and closed his eyes, letting the whole of him be drawn like a thread of
fine silk into the contact of her fingers with his flesh. He gave a little shudder
as her body brushed against
his own, moving down him, then groaned as he felt her tiny, rosebud lips close wetly
about the end of his penis.

‘Pearl Heart,’ he said softly, almost inaudibly. And then the darkness claimed him
once again.

Chen leaned on his hoe, then looked up into the sky and wiped his brow with the cloth
Pavel had given him.

‘This is harder than I thought it would be,’ he said, laughing.

The young man smiled back at him. ‘Would you like some water, Tong Chou?’

He hesitated, then gave a small bow. ‘That would be good. I’ve a thirst on me such
as I’ve never had.’

‘It’s hot,’ Pavel said kindly. ‘You’re not used to it yet, that’s all. You’ll get
the hang of it.’

Chen rubbed his back then laughed again. ‘Gods! Let’s hope so. I’ve a feeling I’m
not so much breaking the earth as the earth’s breaking me.’

He watched Pavel go, then got down to it again, turning the dark, hard earth, one
of a long line of workers stretching out across the huge, two-
li
-wide field. Then, only moments later, he
looked up, hearing raised voices from the direction Pavel had gone. He turned and
saw the youth had been stopped by the guards – the same two men who had stopped them
on the path the day
before.

‘What is it?’ he asked the woman next to him, then realized she didn’t speak English,
only Mandarin. But the woman seemed to understand. She made a drinking gesture with
one
cupped hand, then shook her head.

‘But I thought…’

Then he remembered something Pavel had said earlier. They were only allowed three
cups of water a day – at the allotted breaks. Curse him, the stupid boy! Chen thought,
dropping his hoe
and starting across the field towards the noise, but two of the field workers ran
after him and held his arms until he returned to the line.

‘
Fa!
’ one of them kept saying. ‘
Fa!
’ Then, in atrocious English, he translated the word. ‘
Pah-nis-men
.’

Chen went cold. ‘I’ve got to stop it.’

One of the older men – a peasant in his late forties or fifties, his face deeply tanned
and creased – stepped forward. ‘You cannot stop it,’ he said in a clipped but
clear English. ‘Watch. They will summon some of us. They will make us form a circle.
Then the punishment will begin.’ He sighed resignedly. ‘It is their way.’

On the far side of the field the shouting had stopped now and he could see Pavel,
his arm held tightly by one of the men, his head bowed under the coolie hat.

‘Shit!’ he said under his breath. But the old man was right. He could not afford to
get involved; neither, probably, would his involvement change anything. He was a field
worker
here, not
kwai,
and his job was to get at DeVore. He could not risk that, even to prevent this injustice.