This was the moment for the command which would turn the faltering awestruck enemy into a scattering rabble. Simon looked to the General for confirmation but as he did so heard a noise: a faraway grumbling buzz, like the hum of a distant bee. No, two bees—more. The General also heard it and asked: “What sound is that?”
As he spoke, and before they came into view at the end of the valley, Simon recognized it. And, recognizing it, he knew at last where Brad had been these past months, and what he had been up to.
Five of them flew along the valley in ragged formation. As aeroplanes, they were nothing much—small and crude, single-engined. But the point was that they flew and, smashing through the dancing dragons, shattered illusion and left a pathetic reality in their wake. Paper and bamboo strips showered from the sky like confetti as the dragon squadrons collapsed and died. The roar of engines faded as the planes flew on. For a second or two, there was a hush before, with a howl of exultation that rose like a storm, the enemy charged the demoralized lines of the General’s forces.
• • •
The General did not speak as his army disintegrated before their eyes. Simon said: “I’ll get the horses.” They were tethered to a tree close by. His, disturbed by the noise of the planes and battle generally, whinnied and reared, and it took him a little time to soothe it. When he had done so, he looked back to see the General with his sword drawn from its sheath.
Simon’s immediate thought was that if the General were planning a suicidal counterattack, riding into the ranks of the charging enemy, he was opting out. But that was not the General’s intention. He lifted his sword and stared briefly at its gleaming point; Simon saw his lips move, but no sound came out. They were still moving as, without looking down, he pressed the point against his chest and drove it home. He fell forward, slumping across the sword.
There was small doubt that he was dead, and no time anyway for doing anything except getting away; already the tide of the retreating rabble was getting close. Simon quickly mounted and spurred his horse on.
He was not the only horseman galloping westwards; others were showing similar prudence. Behind him, the noise of battle—the cries of fear and triumph—faded and died. He was falling behind the other fleeing officers, probably because he was a much less skilled horseman, but the important thing was that he was getting farther and farther away from the battlefield; there was no particular urgency now.
Ahead of him, a sound emerged and grew, this time immediately identifiable as the planes returning. That was, he was forced to admit, a pretty considerable achievement on Brad’s part. He was thinking of Brad as the roar grew louder, and of Li Mei. She must have had a part in the palace revolution, possibly the major one. Then, as the roar increased to a crescendo, he had no thought for anything except controlling his horse. It veered off its course, bucking sideways. He believed he had it under control again, before it bucked still more violently and he parted company with the saddle.
• • •
Recovering consciousness, the first thing he was aware of was the stink. He did not need a noisy grunting to tell him what it was: concentrated pig. It was dark, and he was in a confined space, with a wall at his back and something more yielding a few inches in front of him. The grunting came from that direction. He struggled to sit up, pushed against and dislodged a low ceiling. Debris scattered as he got to his feet. Although woozy, he recognized his surroundings: the pigsty abutted on a wooden building, a peasant’s hut, but one slightly larger than the average—Ki Ti’s father’s house.
A small child who had been watching ran into the house with a cry, and almost immediately Ki Ti appeared. Simon smiled at her and started to step out of the pigsty’s annexe. To his surprise, her own look was not a welcoming one but fearful. Hurrying to him, she pushed him down again, put back the bamboo screen he had dislodged, and began piling rubbish on top of it. As she did so, she explained: the Emperor’s soldiers were everywhere, hunting down the survivors of the rebel army. They had been several times to her father’s house, and some were actually quartered in the village. He must lie low, make no sound. She would come to him when darkness fell.
His brief glimpse of the sky had told him it was about the middle of the day, and he had plenty of time to think before the evening. In sending his men to exterminate the remnants of the defeated rebels, Yuan Chu was following immemorial custom. They would be merciless in carrying this out and equally ruthless towards anyone protecting the enemies of the Son of Heaven. One of the villagers must have discovered him after he was thrown by his horse, and told Ki Ti’s father. They had carried him back and, knowing their house would be visited and searched, had quickly constructed this camouflaged cell in the pigsty as a place of concealment.
In doing so, they had been fully aware of the appalling risks they ran. Discovery would mean death and destruction, not just for the headman and his family and house, but probably for the entire village. He was staggered by their generosity and courage, and determined not to let them remain in this hazardous situation any longer than was necessary. To leave during daylight would risk exposure for them, as well as himself. He would go when night fell, when Ki Ti returned.
It was a long time before he heard her clearing the rubbish from above his head and, after that, lifting the screen. The night air was marvellously fresh after the stifling stench of pig. He said urgently: “I must go, Ki Ti. At once. I am grateful to you, to everyone, for hiding me, but I cannot endanger you by remaining.” He stood up. “I cannot thank you enough. Now I must leave.”
She whispered: “Speak low. I have food and water. You cannot go, Si Mun.”
“I must.”
“The Emperor’s troops are everywhere. They will catch you when day comes, if not sooner.”
“I’ll take a chance on that.”
“All day, for miles around, they have been finding and killing. If anyone should be caught coming from here, they will guess he has been helped. They will question you, and it will be a hard questioning.” She paused. “The ones who came here used harsh words. They have heard that the people in these parts welcomed the army from the north.”
He knew what she meant: they were spoiling to make an example of some village, and she could not trust him, under torture, not to give them away. Nor, for that matter, could he. He was silent.
She said: “Eat and drink. I must not stay long.”
He tried for a time to keep track of the days, but eventually lost count. He was allowed to stretch his legs a little at night, with village children keeping watch—they would boom like a crane, he was told, if a stranger approached.
There was a terrifying incident a couple of days after he was first hidden when soldiers did come, not only to the house but to the pigsty. They were requisitioning the pigs, and he lay petrified while someone wrestled a reluctant pig out of the sty, a few inches from his head. But the camouflage worked, and he listened to them driving the pigs away down the hill. Life was less smelly after that, but lonelier: his grunting oinking neighbours had been company.
Ki Ti came every night, but their conversation was limited by their awareness of the soldiers almost within earshot. She apologized for the meagreness of the food she brought—it was not just pigs which had been taken by the occupying troops. Then one day she came when it was still light, her face showing joy and relief. The soldiers had left the village early in the morning; the imperial army was marching back to Li Nan.
That night, he ate with the rest of the family, in the headman’s house. The meal included delicacies which, like he himself, had been carefully concealed, and even wine. At the end, he made a kind of speech, thanking them, or trying to. Anything he said must, he knew, be inadequate.
Ki Ti’s father spoke in reply. The great ones came and went, flourished and fell. Oppression continued, whichever emperor ruled. The humble ones were obliged to endure it as best they could. But there were good things in life beyond a tyrant’s reach: the warming sun, the nourishing land, the com
pany of friends. They had been honoured to have their friend, Si Mun, as a guest. He could depart now, without danger. Or, if he wished, stay with them.
They were good people; he could not expect to find better anywhere. It would not be a bad life, sharing their work and pleasure through the seasons and years. He saw Ki Ti watching him, her dark eyes solemn. Not just not bad, but good, in so many ways. And yet, understanding the value of what was offered, he could not accept it. There were things to settle, answers to find, doubts to resolve.
He said to Ki Ti’s father: “The honour you do me is as great as the aid you have given me. If I could stay, I would; but I must go.”
• • •
It was chill and misty in the foothills, and this time when he came out onto the plateau the mist still clung. The granite walls of the bonzery, which had once sparkled in sunlight, were grey and gloomy.
He found no one inside the building, but that was not particularly surprising: the priests could be working in the fields or in the pagoda. As he went through to the terrace, though, he saw someone, partly hidden by a trail of ivy, looking out.
The figure, conscious of his approach, turned towards him. Even though he still could not distinguish who it was, he had a sense of familiarity, of recognition. Bei Pen, he guessed, half dreading, half wanting the voice inside his head.
But it was Brad.
10
THEY WALKED PAST PLOTS OF dead or dying crops. When Simon referred to this, Brad shrugged.
“The weather’s turned bad.”
The afternoon was grey and cold; a wind keened in from the escarpment, knife-edged.
“For any particular reason?”
“A lot of the priests have gone. And I suppose the ones still here have lost heart.”
“You mean, they were using some kind of combined mental force to control the weather, and that’s cracked up?”
“Something like that.”
They went past the greenhouse with the peaches. Those fruits still on the branch were withered, the glossy green leaves crumpled and blackened by frost. They were walking with no apparent aim, but Simon suddenly realized they had come to the hollow where the confrontation between Bei Pen and Li Mei had taken place. Fish still swam in the pool, but the willow had cast most of its spears onto the water. Unable to restrain himself any longer, he asked abruptly: “What did happen—about Li Mei?”
“I don’t know what’s happened.”
It wasn’t an answer. Simon said: “The aeroplanes were your idea.”
It came out more accusingly than he had intended, but Brad didn’t seem to mind. He said, in simple explanation: “The dragons were the big problem, of course. She had the power to put her own up, but it would only have equalled things out. If that. She couldn’t be sure of getting the windward station. But it all depended on illusion, so if there was some way the illusion could be shattered . . . She saw the point in aircraft right away.” He paused, and added dispassionately: “She has a good brain.”
“And you?”
“Well, it wasn’t . . .”
“I wasn’t talking about your terrific brain. Your illusion, about Li Mei. What shattered that?”
Brad said slowly: “I saw her as she really was.”
“As I recall, that happened right here. Bei Pen forced you to see it. But I thought you’d decided you preferred the illusion to the reality.”
“I don’t mean physical appearance. Her real self. I could understand her hating Bei Pen after what he’d done to her, in front of us. I wasn’t too bothered by her being determined to get back at him, either. She had no hope of doing anything here, but the imperial court was different. She went to work on Yuan Chu. I still wasn’t bothered. There have been plenty of palace revolutions in China in the past, and there’ll be plenty more to come.”
“I shouldn’t think they’re ever very pleasant for the poor devils caught up in them.”
“No. Neither was the Christian revolution against the Roman emperor—nor a lot of other things that have happened since the fireball.” He was silent a moment. “But you’re right. I didn’t realize it at the time, but I did later. It wasn’t the actual fighting, which was over quickly, but what happened after. Yuan Chu ordered a general massacre—not just of soldiers and officials, but the women as well. I was told he strangled the Dowager Empress with his own hands.”
“And . . . Cho-tsing?”
In a wooden voice, Brad said: “I thought being with Li Mei and helping her to help Yuan Chu gave me a right to ask favours. I pointed out Cho-tsing was just a boy and had never wanted to be emperor. Yuan Chu said that made no difference, because people might use him. He had to be killed, and since others might claim he was still alive and start revolts in his name, he must die publicly, in the market square of Li Nan. And so that the citizenry should properly mark and remember it, the execution would last from dawn until dusk.”
Simon was engulfed by a wave of sickness and anger. He had long given up hope that Cho-tsing could have survived, but he had not imagined this sort of horror. He had been so gentle; Simon remembered the look on his face when one of his monkeys was ill. He had an impulse to say to Brad: “You went chasing after your illusion, and look what that did to Cho-tsing—not in illusion, but for real.” But he knew there was nothing he could say to Brad which Brad had not said already to himself.
He stayed silent as Brad went on: “That’s when I went to Li Mei. I didn’t anticipate any real difficulty. Yuan Chu might be emperor, but it was Li Mei who had put him on the throne, and he needed her help against a possible counterrevolution by people like your general. We’d planned the planes, but Yuan Chu didn’t have them yet. He depended on her, and she could put pressure on.
“I couldn’t believe it when she refused to do anything. I told her Cho-tsing was my friend, but she wasn’t interested. I said, even apart from that, I wasn’t going to stand for anything so barbaric and sadistic—no civilized person could. She looked at me as though I were a child, or an insect. So I pleaded with her . . . in the end, I cried. She smiled. That was the real ugliness, not what Bei Pen showed me.
“So then I got angry. I even went for her, with some crazy idea of physically forcing her to save him. What a laugh that was. Her voice came inside my head, and I couldn’t speak—couldn’t move. She called soldiers. I expected her to have me killed, and didn’t mind, but they put me in a cell instead. I suppose even though she’d got the planes, she reckoned I might still be of some use. I was in the dungeon a long time: all through the winter. I had plenty of time to think, and work things out. The roots of her madness probably went a long way back, before Bei-Kun’s other disciple, her brother, died. But that precipitated things. She feared death, hated the aged body which she could not disguise from herself, had this insane urge to destroy. Destruction for her became the only thing worth living for. And all I was was a useful tool.”
The last words were said with bitterness and self-contempt. There was a silence.
Simon asked: “How did you escape?”
“There was a big celebration when news of the victory reached the city. All the guards were drunk. Getting out wasn’t all that difficult, and I headed here. One place seemed as good as another, or as bad.”
Simon said: “What do we do now?”
Brad shrugged. “I haven’t thought. I guessed it was possible you might turn up. Not all that likely, but possible. I didn’t plan any further.”
“Well, maybe we’d better start planning. One place may be as bad as another, but I have a feeling this one could be worse than most with Li Mei on the rampage.”
• • •
Only about a dozen priests appeared for the midday meal, which consisted chiefly of boiled rice. Towards the end, they were joined by Bei Pen. Simon thought he might ask questions about recent events, but he did not. In the end, Simon brought up the subject of the battle himself. He found himself taking satisfaction in describing how the aeroplanes had torn the dragons into shreds.
> He realized he was trying to provoke Bei Pen, and realized too the unfairness of it. The system of peace and order which had stemmed from the Laws of Bei-Kun had been better than most. It was tolerably certain any succeeding situation was going to be a lot worse than the old. But he could not help himself.
“They drifted down out of the sky like scraps of paper,” he said. “But that’s all they were, weren’t they? Just scraps of paper.”
The other priests had left. Bei Pen said: “Illusion prevails until doubt enters. Then illusion is no more than a thicket of gossamer, and doubt is a charging bull.”
“Which amounts to saying it’s all fake really, all a pretence. You could do fantastic things like growing peaches on top of a mountain, controlling weather, but they only worked as long as you could keep the mental ranks solid behind you. The moment your grip on that weakened, everything started to collapse.”
Brad suddenly looked up. “When you had the showdown with Li Mei, did you have any idea what might come of it?”
“Not might come, but must. I knew it much earlier than that. From the moment two boys came through the fireball from another world into this one.”
“And yet you had us brought here from Li Nan!”
“That which must happen, will happen. But to see the future is not to know the ways of reaching it, which are infinite. And I was curious.”
Simon demanded: “Can you see our futures?”
“I have not looked.”
“Then will you?”
Bei Pen shook his head. “No.”
Simon’s mind was full of confused resentments and anger. He felt the voice come into his head, the other mind touch his. “Be at peace.” Resentment flared into fury, and he flashed back defiance: “Get out!”