Six Celestial Swords (6 page)

The frown slowly lifted from Xu Liang’s expression. He smoothed the rumpled silk at his shoulder and said, “Old habits do indeed die with difficulty.”

Fu Ran smiled irresistibly. As usual, Xu Liang was right. Even though it had been several years since he’d acted as the slightly younger man’s bodyguard he’d never quite shaken his sense of loyalty toward him, and seeing him in danger had renewed his old duty full force. Abandoning Sheng Fan and becoming a landless sailor hadn’t changed him as much as he would have thought that morning.

He shook his head and changed the subject. Gesturing to the large ship, he said, “If you’re wanting to leave Sheng Fan, you’ll find no ship better suited for it than the
Pride of Celestia
.”

XU LIANG LOOKED to the vessel waiting at the end of the pier. His men were already gathered at the edge of the gangway with the horses, waiting for instructions. “It’s much larger than the
Cloud Runner
, and not built in Sheng Fan. Are you still seeking your place in the world, Fu Ran?”

The large man ignored the second question, but in answer to the first comment said, “It’s an Aeran vessel, captained by an Aeran woman, who has an incurable fascination with everything that has anything to do with Sheng Fan. I’m sure I don’t even have to ask if you and your men can board.”

“Then there should be no trouble arranging a contract,” Xu Liang said thoughtfully, and he started to walk toward the ship. “Perhaps now my journey can truly begin.”

It had been purely luck to find Fu Ran at Ti Lao. Xu Liang never would have expected to meet him there. The captain of the
Cloud Runner
had been even more disenchanted with the Empire than Fu Ran. The man rarely returned to Sheng Fan’s ports for any reason, least of all to be badgered into taking aboard servants of the Empire by one who couldn’t seem to forget that he no longer served it. Perhaps that was why Fu Ran had come aboard a new ship, both to shake his former captain’s lectures about what anchored him to Sheng Fan and to make a better attempt to pull up that anchor himself. Whatever the reason, it turned out to be fortuitous for Xu Liang, and the Empress.

“Does she speak Fanese?” Xu Liang asked his former guard as the large man led him aboard and ultimately below deck.

Fu Ran laughed. “Don’t you speak Aeran?”

“It has been some time since I’ve had to utilize that language. My studies recently have revolved mostly around certain far-western tongues. I would hate to carry on an awkward conversation.”

“I can’t imagine you doing anything awkwardly, Xu Liang, least of all speaking.”

Xu Liang smiled only a little. “I rode on your shoulder like a sack of rice but moments ago.”

“And still managed to cast a spell,” Fu Ran noted. “That’s something to be proud of.”

Xu Liang didn’t agree, but he opted not to argue. He thought back on the incident and the sorcerer who was evidently looking to halt his passing, just as the rogue at Li Ting had been. “I apologize, Fu Ran, for any trouble this may cause you.”

The former guard waved the notion away with one large hand. “I cause myself trouble.”

“That may be true, but the Ti Lao guard can be reasoned with and would likely not be inclined to attack your ship unannounced.”

Fu Ran looked at him seriously. “Do you think those assassins will try something like that?”

Xu Liang shook his head. “I do not know them, so I cannot say for certain. But I will inform you that there was an incident further up the Tunghui as well. It was someone else, but I suspect both parties are working for the same individual.”

Fu Ran sighed, “I guess it’s just not safe for your kind outside of your imperial cage.”

“It is not safe there either,” Xu Liang reflected.

Fu Ran glanced at him, silently curious, and Xu Liang expounded.

“The Five Kingdoms Resolution is gradually becoming a rebellion,” he said. “Xun is being more difficult than ever, and I fear that Tzu’s silence as it sits all but unnoticed in the southwest may be indicative of its intent to follow suit. I left the kingdom of Ji just as Xun attacked it on its southern border, at Fa Leng. I fear that Governor Ha Ming Jin will not rest until he has sated his ambitions.”

“I remember him,” Fu Ran said. “His ambitions were the primary cause of Ha Sheng’s death, weren’t they?”

“That is only hearsay,” Xu Liang replied impartially. “It was unfortunate, however, to lose Ha Sheng. He was a rational man, even if discontent.”

Fu Ran shrugged, as if unconcerned. “Shouldn’t you be with the Emperor in his hour of need, then?”

Xu Liang fell briefly quiet. He disguised his pain with a neutral tone. “I wasn’t. And now Emperor Bao is no longer with us. I hope that I will not repeat my past error.”

“Song Lu can take care of himself,” Fu Ran said, shrugging again.

A twinge of anger followed by a sting of pain made Xu Liang’s words and tone abrupt. “Perhaps you would like to visit his tomb, Fu Ran, and ask him why he did not.”

Fu Ran stopped in the narrow wooden corridor and for several moments didn’t move or speak. When he finally pressed his hands together and bowed his head, Xu Liang understood and he deeply appreciated Fu Ran’s respect, even though it was belated. He wished that same respect existed for the Empress, but he knew better than to expect so much.

“Fu Ran,” someone said, and they both looked to a slim, but strongly built woman with pale orange hair and intensely green eyes walking toward them. She was dressed in the hodgepodge of leathers that was often worn by ‘barbarians’ and carried a sword at her hip. When she saw Xu Liang, she studied him with unexpected but understandable concern. In a diplomatic attempt to include him in the following discussion she began speaking Fanese to her crewman. “What did you bring me?”

“An officer of Sheng Fan’s Imperial Court,” Fu Ran answered. “His name is Xu Liang.”

Xu Liang bowed in respectful greeting.

The Aeran woman had yet to take her eyes off him and did not look away when she said to Fu Ran, “I’m assuming that if he wanted taxes or something of that nature from us you wouldn’t have let him onboard?”

“He’s not that kind of officer, Yvain. He’s a scholar.”

Again, Xu Liang inclined his head. “What I seek aboard your vessel, madam, is passage from Sheng Fan.”

The woman still seemed skeptical. “To where?”

“I must cross the Sea of Tahn,” Xu Liang replied. “If you are not prepared to sail that far at this time, then I would be grateful for passage to another port where I might negotiate for the longer journey with someone willing.”

The woman stared at him for a moment longer, indicating nothing with her firm expression. Finally, she said, “Your god of luck is with you, Xu Liang. It just so happens that the
Pride of Celestia
sets sail for Callipry in only a few hours. Just as soon as we finish purchasing supplies, in fact.”

She came forward and finally smiled, then bowed as was customary in Sheng Fan. “You’re welcome to ride along for a modest fee and moderate tolerance for the many questions I’m liable to have for you once I’m not quite so busy. It isn’t often that we have someone onboard who can read.” After saying that, she smiled slyly at Fu Ran and departed.

The large man’s face reddened like a ripening plum and Xu Liang smiled quietly.

“XU LIANG MUST not be permitted to leave Sheng Fan!”

Ma Shou sighed languidly, slouching forward on the back of his horse. A part of him wished to be done with the entire affair of pursuing the Imperial Tactician. The rest of him remembered what he had to gain in carrying on with it.

“He’s with the barbarians now,” he said to his companion—a man of great strength and perhaps greater foolishness. “A ship full of them. Perhaps you would like to go retrieve him, Xiadao Lu.”

The larger man glared at Ma Shou without actually turning his face while they observed Ti Lao’s waterfront from a hill overlooking the city. “Perhaps you’d like to explain your failure to retrieve him yourself to our lord.”

“And your failure as well,” Ma Shou reminded coolly. “It would be an unpleasant scene, wouldn’t it?”

Xiadao Lu’s fists tightened audibly around the reins of his mount. “You are a fool to underestimate me, Xu Liang!” he growled. “Before this is over, you will wish you had finished me at Li Ting!”

T
HE IMPERIAL CITY was a myriad of complex open spaces. The flagstone aisles were wide, marked with low walls or structures built at dramatic yet concise angles. Many of the roofs were red and adorned with figurines of the legendary beasts of Sheng Fan. Marble and bronze statues guarded gateways and the low, wide staircases adjoining levels of the enormous sacred grounds. Activity was constant, but orderly and pleasurable to watch as life moved tranquilly beneath slender trees and graceful eaves.

It was absurd to Jiao Ren that he could look at such a scene and feel anger. He would have turned away and taken in a view of the green mountains in the distance, but he would have felt worse daring to turn his back on the city that was the glory of Sheng Fan and the sanctum as well as the throne of the Empress. So he stood upon the outer west wall with the moat and the Gate of Heavenly Protection behind him, returning the glare of a fierce dog statue below, in front of the Temple of Divine Tranquility.

He felt like there was nothing he could do here and nothing that could be done with Xu Liang gone. It was not right to think that. This was not a battle the Imperial Tactician needed to be present for, but it was one he had planned for just the same. And it was Jiao Ren’s duty to remain at what would all too soon be the forefront of a struggle fiercer than any Sheng Fan had known before.

“Such a bold look of anger,” someone observed. “You are troubled, young general?”

Jiao Ren glanced at the slender man suddenly beside him, dressed, as he was, in the fanciful blue and gold silk of an officer under the banner of the Imperial City and the Blue Dragon of Ji. The newcomer was older than Jiao Ren, old enough for his hair to have turned white. His face was narrow, somewhat hollow at the cheeks and looking even more pointed with his thin, sharp beard. The brocade robes of his station as a scholar-mystic, woven with images of bats and symbols of good fortune around the large coiled dragon at his back, were no more elaborate than Jiao Ren’s attire, but more flowing, as tended to be the preference among scholars. Jiao Ren, an officer of the Imperial Army, wore a long tunic cut to expose his pants and boots and to allow for more freedom of movement. There were dragons at his shoulders and one also winding down the front panel of his gold-trimmed tunic. He wore soft leather boots as well as a green sash at the waist and a blue silk headband to keep his past-the-shoulder hair out of his face. Though he was still considered quite young at just twenty years, he was glad to have some maturity about him, to not be known for brash behavior.

“I am not troubled, Lord Han Quan,” he finally said to the elder. “I am mired in foolish doubts.”

“To doubt is to question, and to question is not foolish.”

In a respectful tone, Jiao Ren said, “It is if Lord Xu Liang’s tactics are the matter of debate.” He felt his fists closing involuntarily as the frustration mounted.
This waiting!
He liked to consider himself a temperate and patient man—one who was hasty and easily agitated could never last long on any battlefield—but he usually knew what he was waiting for. The Imperial Tactician’s instructions had been explicit, but his plans unclear.