The veiled maiden paid no heed to the brocade youth approaching, but cast her gaze over his shoulder to the tall old man dogging his steps, and said, low and moody: "Just now you meant to kill at a single word's provocation. You had your reasons, I daresay — but I hold it is wrong."
The brocade youth halted seven or eight paces from the forbidding maiden, his eyes sincere. "My name is Gao Zhen, a native of Yiyang Prefecture in Great Sui. If Uncle Wu has given offense, I am willing to offer you apology and reparation."
The tall old man, standing behind the brocade youth, was much agitated within. The so-called scion of the Gao clan of Yiyang Prefecture in Great Sui was, in truth, no more than a discreet way of putting it. The realm of Great Sui had stood for twelve hundred years, and every soul to sit the dragon throne had borne the surname Gao; the founding Grand Ancestor had risen to power out of Yiyang Prefecture.
The maiden was unmoved. Raising both hands to tighten the binds of her bandages, she said to the old man: "Out there, against a grand martial master of the highest rank, who has very likely already 'voyaged afar upon the wind,' I would be no match at all. But in this moment and this place, the moment I borrow the flying sword, you are a dead man, beyond all doubt."
The tall old man answered with a sneer: "Had that assassin known your killing stroke in advance, with that body of his at the very summit of the minor grand master realm, so long as he sheltered the vital points, piercing him ten times with your sword — what of it? And I stand two whole realms above him besides, with one of the thresholds counted a heavenly moat in the martial way. Little miss, I cannot say where you dredge up such confidence to speak the words 'beyond all doubt.'"
The maiden frowned, and one hand stole to the hilt of her blade. "I am a person who hates trouble, and despises quarreling. Else, why not put it to the test — let the two of us have a go and see which is truth? The victor's word is the proof. How say you?"
The old man, who had but rare occasion to be threatened, was rather nettled. Were he not hemmed in by this uncanny, spirit-spurning, ghost-abhorring place, a girl of such mere cultivation as hers — however gifted her nature — he could crush and slaughter a score like her with a single hand. That step aside, had he not a weighty charge riding on him, to look after a young prince on whom the whole of Great Sui had pinned its hopes, the old man would have taken a beating at the hands of this place's self-revolving Great Dao, wounded and bowed, to teach the heedless girl a lesson. A newborn calf, ignorant of tigers, is to be admired for its pluck — and pluck alone does not mean the tiger will not devour the calf to the last shred.
The brocade youth calling himself Gao Zhen hurried to make peace: "If miss is determined to press the matter, I am willing to offer this object up as recompense."
He bent to open the cloth bag at his waist, drew out the jade seal, and held it in a single hand, thrust out toward the veiled maiden at a distance. "As proof of my sincerity — I ask only that miss not pursue the unwitting offense of Uncle Wu's earlier moment. He acted after all out of loyalty and righteousness, and had no mind to harm."
The tall old eunuch, brows and hair alike gone white, was seized with sudden dread. He dropped to one knee, trembling and fearful: "Your Highness cannot! How filthy is this old slave, while this jade seal is the very fated chance of his Highness — a pure treasure unmatched in the world, able, besides, to bear the incense of the people's piety. How are the two of you to be compared? His Highness would be the death of this old slave!"
The young man of the Gao line, springing from the imperial stock, wore a wooden, hardening face.
The maiden, as though growing impatient, mocked with a smile: "Frogs at the bottom of a well, each shut away in a corner — every one of them will cling to his own chipped basin as a treasure. Take that jade seal back. There is a saying I have always loved: the gentleman does not wrest from others what they delight in."
The maiden's dealings were brisk and clipped. She turned and walked away.
The brocade youth, greatly relieved, said: "Rise, Uncle Wu. Kneeling is unseemly. The twelve great eunuch-directors of my Great Sui kneel but to the sovereign and the throne. Let one of the six censoring bureaus or a man of the Ministry of Rites get wind of this and drag it into the light, and the pair of us will come to grief. Enough. This venture to the town, shielded by the ancestral spirits, I have carried through to fair completion. Let us stir up no fresh complication, but quit this place at once; and once beyond the walls, when we have rejoined our own men, we must not drop our guard — for know that of the six pillar-states of the Great Li dynasty, the two houses of Yuan and Cao, though they stand opposite camps, most unfortunately are these two great columns of Great Li with whom our Gao line of Great Sui harbors a feud that knows no burying. Should you, Uncle Wu, come to harm here and your fighting strength be spent, I shall hardly make my way safe back to Great Sui."
The old man nodded and rose slowly. "This old slave knows the weight of matters, and their urgency."
The instant the old man spoke the word "urgency," the veiled maiden had already walked out more than twenty paces.
A gust of clean wind swept past the brocade youth, setting the hair at his temples and the sleeves of his brocade robes adrift.
It turned out that the old man at his side, so powerful within the court of Great Sui, had never for a moment intended to let the maiden go — and now he had surged forth in a single charge; his first three steps stamped hard upon the ground of the lane, the sound heavy and dull, boring more than a full fathom into the earth beneath, and on the fourth step the old man had soared up high and flung a fist at the small of the maiden's back.
The veiled maiden twisted her waist with savage force, made the tip of her left foot the fulcrum, and wrenched her blade from its sheath — a blur of snow-white, more dazzling than the sunlight, appeared in the lane.
The tall old man came swooping down in a crush of killing weight, and drove his fist straight upon the blade's edge — his hand's back laid open by that keen and fiery edge but a single red slash of a wound. Both feet thumped to earth, and he pressed on, shoving the blade-wielding maiden steadily backward, then idly extended a single palm — seeming slow and unhurried, yet in the very flash of lightning it struck the maiden upon the forehead. The old man was just gathering his force, meaning to shatter with that one palm the head hidden beneath the veil, when his feet shifted of themselves and his body slid a foot aside; with a muffled *fut*, he cast a glance downward and found a keen weapon piercing through from his back out through his right breast — the point of a sword.
The old man's face did not change. Two fingers closed like pincers about that sword-point, and he thrust it back behind him.
That fierce flying sword, which had come here heeding the maiden's will, he forced bodily out through his own chest.
Blocked and checked by that flying sword, the old eunuch's palm had failed to shatter the maiden's head after all — and she, hurled through the air to crash in a heap in the lane, seized that chance to catch her breath, rose nimbly as a wildcat, and in a trice had vanished into a branch lane.
The youth's face turned dark beyond measure, both fists clenched, his breath swelling, and he cried in a fury: "Wu Yue, chief eunuch of the Imperial Stables Bureau, eunuch-director Wu! Why would you not heed my hint, but must go your own stubborn, headlong way? Do you truly think this town holds none to match my eunuch-director Wu's all-conquering might? We were in the wrong first, and she, afterward, was no hawk pressing her prey — she was willing to let the matter drop. Why must you be so poison-bitter? You have gone too far, past all bearing!"
The old eunuch wrenched his gaze from the direction in which the maiden had fled, turned, and walked back, his back held straight, his bearing grown only the more towering and imposing. Slowly he came, step by step, as if treading on a man's very heart.
The youth, feeling that suffocating might, and chafed to fury at being overawed by a mere menial, glared with wide eyes and ground his teeth: "Eunuch-director Wu of the Imperial Stables Bureau — that is the death sin!"
The old eunuch said tranquilly: "Your Highness, whether it is the death sin or a lesser one must be settled personally by his Majesty. As this one sees it, the safety of your Highness weighs heavy as mountain and crag, and stands in the foremost place of all; while the very existence of that girl in the lane has become, to this one's eyes, a blaze licking the eyebrows — and so true ease, the ending of all trouble, lies only in doing her to death. When she is dead, only then may this one rest assured."
Seeing the fury that could scarcely be held back from blazing up in the youth's eyes, the old eunuch sighed, and said softly: "In more than sixty years of service in the great harem of the palace, this one has witnessed more scheming and intrigue than can be counted — the bloody, and the bloodless — and for the hearts of men, this one has truly no shred of confidence left. Only in the course of escorting the person of the sovereign, this one has personally settled no fewer than thirty-odd ambushes and assassination attempts, great and small. Your Highness, the cunning and the treachery of those killers beggar the imagination; some mad-dog death-sworn fanatics are past all reasoning. Take that masked killer of a moment ago, and that veiled girl — "
The brocade youth thrust an arm, finger stabbing at the cold-faced old eunuch, and hurled his accusation: "Shut up! You old gelding! I will not hear your raving! I know well that you have wrecked my careful drawing of an ally — even a blind man could tell how the girl who could command a flying sword surpassed the ordinary in nature and in gifts, was brilliant beyond all compare! Set among the cultivation folk of the mountain, she was a genius of the very first water! A figure such as that — say not Great Sui nor Great Li, but across the whole of the Baoping Continent, she is a thing as rare as a phoenix's feather or a unicorn's horn! I had only to groom her for ten years, twenty at the most, and she could have become the deadliest assassin in the shadow behind my back! Land Immortal, grand martial master — what would even they be counted against that?! And what is the result? I am Gao Zhen, the future heir-apparent of the great Sui dynasty — your master, you old gelding Wu!"
Strange to say, the world-worn and time-tested old eunuch was not in the least nettled by that repeated "old gelding." Rather the light in his eyes grew the more satisfied. When the youth had spent his fury and at last ceased his cursing, the old man looked at the panting youth and smiled: "Your Highness, though there be some matters you have never weathered first-hand, and so know not the crookedness of the world nor the venom of men's hearts, there is one thing done right, in which you carry tim thing of your father's day."
An awkward silence fell.
Calming himself, Gao Zhen must by now have realized how grievously he had erred — that before he had been given the title of heir-apparent, he had shown such disrespect to an old man who was chief eunuch of the Imperial Stables Bureau and one of the three gate-keepers of the Sui palace. And, worse, a man in whom his father and mother both reposed their deepest trust. So Prince Gao Zhen opened his mouth as if to speak — but saw that the powerful eunuch he had just called an old gelding break into a smile and say: "Your Highness, remember one thing: do not go freely saying 'forgive me' to menials and servants. There is no need, and it only cheapens your standing, nor will the servant thank you for it. Even if guilt gnaws at your heart, bury it deep. For know that an emperor-king, that human true dragon as men enthrone him, holds the decrees of heaven in his mouth, sits upon the honor of the nine-and-five..."
Gao Zhen said: "Uncle Wu, for one of my present standing, that is a subject better suited to a later day."
The old eunuch's body suddenly went tight, all senses on high alert, and with one hand he drew the brocade youth behind him, then cast his gaze to where the masked killer lay dead.
At the far end of the lane there had abruptly appeared a middle-aged scholar, tall and lean of frame. He walked slowly in, came to a stop by the killer's corpse, and crouched. He drew off the mask, revealing a strange face — no brows, a sliced-off nose, and graven marks upon the skin.
That this man, in his lifetime, had been a criminal branded by the law, admitted of no doubt.
The scholar was silent. It was indeed a plot laid long beforehand — one could well believe its casting had begun at that very temple to Confucius.
Gao Zhen, eyes burning hot, stepped out from behind the old eunuch, doubled at the waist in a full bow — greet first, whatever else — and only then raised his head to ask with deference: "Might I ask whether you are the Master Qi of the Cliff Academy?"
The scholar rose to his feet, and said to Gao Zhen: "Had not you been first to claim a great fated chance, the two of you could not have quit this place so easily today."
Outsiders who came to this town and slaughtered one another — by the rules laid down by the four founding sages, the punishment was not heavy, though not light either. Compared with the certain expulsion that fell on one who butchered the common folk of the town, the quarrels of outsiders carried a clear 'loophole' that let a man patch the fold after the sheep was lost. It was for this very reason that Gao Zhen, and two other parties besides, had each brought along a "retainer," having made ready for the worst — to thrust out some scapegoat at the critical hour. For even a single such place, a place of the traveling gate, had cost fully half the store of the Great Sui Gao ruler's own private coffer — and that was after all the private hoard of a sovereign of a mighty, exalted realm, a full half of his own substance; a sum so vast the immensity of it is easy to imagine. Who, then, would play the willing fool and be turned into such a patsy for nothing?
To speak it plainly, it was no more than paying money to buy off calamity.
Only here the price of it — to call it the emptying of a mountain of gold, a hill of silver, were no exaggeration; the mortal marketplace's "throwing a thousand in gold" was, set beside it, mere child's play.
Gao Zhen, upon whom the order to leave had been served, went on regardless, addressing himself: "Master Qi, if there is ever opportunity, might you come to lecture at an academy of Great Sui? Great Sui would, for your sake alone, hold open the post of 'State Tutor,' waiting for you to fill it!"
The old eunuch, after a moment's thought, made no move to curb the youth's overstepping speech.
For if this scholar could truly be convinced to scheme and advise for the Gao line of Great Sui in days to come, the Sui emperor would surely be moved to delight beyond measure.
The scholar smiled, and made no answer to this.
The old eunuch — decisive and ruthless toward the passing acquaintance that was the veiled maiden — now adopted the opposite extreme of bearing toward this pillar holding the place in stability, the Master Qi of the Cliff Academy. He lowered his head and clasped his fists: "Master Qi, we have much disturbed you, and ask your indulgence. The blow struck at a junior a moment ago was a matter of no alternative, and this one begs the master to consider the pains of a servant of the Gao household."
Qi Jingchun gave a flick of his sleeve. "Begone, and quickly."
Gao Zhen and the old eunuch had no choice but to take their leave — and as it chanced, they walked the very route by which the veiled maiden had withdrawn.
The youth asked, low: "Is she dead?"
The old eunuch shook his head. "She certainly has not long to live. The flying sword has only bought her a few more breaths; against that, it serves nothing."
The youth hesitated, then asked, curious: "When did Uncle Wu realize that her command of the flying sword was nowhere near as effortless as it appeared upon the surface?"
The old man said: "Too much is as bad as too little — her too-early-won cleverness gave her away."
The youth was startled and puzzled.
The old eunuch led the youth out around a turning of the lane, and said in a low voice: "This one asks your Highness a question. Your Highness, who has seen more than enough of the precious and the sumptuous, the rare and the curious, of this world — would your Highness still take any interest in the common earthenware of this town?"
The youth patted the pouch at his waist and laughed: "Of course not. Only this jade seal, or some thing of its like and level, could stir a delight in me."
The old eunuch nodded. "Just so. That girl, when she slew with her flying sword, kept her heart as still as still water, utterly composed and unhurried — like... the eating and drinking of an ordinary man. And afterward, the moment she sensed my true martial cultivation, she gave over all thought of fighting; and fearful, above all, that I should see through her show of strength and bluster, she deliberately came at us with provocation — her real intent being to offer both sides a step down, fearing that this one harbored a killer's heart, and would sooner slay an innocent than let a peril slip, exterminating her root and all. So she was forced to break the deadlock herself. And, of course, the outcome proved she did it none too well. All the same — at so tender an age, to have such reckonings in her head is already no simple matter. But the more so, the greater the threat she poses to your Highness if a tiger be released to the wilds and left to grow strong."
The old man sighed. "A lad and a lass at their springtide of vigor — slaughtering in hot blood, or dying in a burst of generous valor, this one would find no wonder in it. But to walk toward death with composure, deliberating it slowly, or to kill without the faintest ripple rising on the lake of the heart — that is the truly out of the ordinary. You might even say such a temperament, ground out only by the whetstone of lived vicissitude, has little enough to do with the measure of a person's talent, or the quality of his natural root. Whether cultivator or martial man, many geniuses die young precisely because the faults of their temperament are too glaring — at the first rough patch, they come to grief."
Gao Zhen lamented: "Say what you will — what a pity."
The old eunuch jested, half in earnest: "Your Highness, if a single sigh is to be spent over the life and death of such a figure, then when your Highness comes at last to stand upon the summit of the mountain, you will find yourself a very busy man."
The youth laughed. "I do not believe it."
The old eunuch said suddenly: "Whether it is an illusion, this one cannot say, but that Master Qi — with that heaven-crossing cultivation of his — it seemed to this one that he labors under no small trouble."
This prince of Great Sui wore a look of perfect unconcern as he said: "Be that as it may, I had set my only hope on the bringing of this 'Dragon Gate' seal with me, and counted all accomplished; never would I have dreamed that this seal of a worth beyond reckoning would 'sink' to being the little lagniappe tacked onto some greater bargain. So it is time we gathered our winnings and went. The very mention of that golden carp sets me to thinking of that straw-sandaled little fellow..."
The old eunuch laughed. "Your Highness is thinking of an opportunity, later on, to thank this lad?"
The youth shook his head. "What thanks? I am fretting over that pouchful of coin."
The old man laughed himself silent.
And perhaps, in the days to come, the Sui court would gain for itself a thrifty emperor?
---
In a quiet, secluded lane running north and south, there was no sound but the grind of cart-wheels.
There was a young Daoist with a lotus-petal crown atop his head, who had closed up his trade early today and was pushing his cart along, thinking only of reaching his lodgings, packing up, and making speed for home. This stinking mess of a place — whoever waded into it foundered.
Suddenly a black-robed figure, of a slender build, came staggering out of the branch lane that ran east and west, and at last set himself back against a wall, slithering down it, one hand reaching up past the shallow gauze of a veil to clap hard over his mouth, the other stretched toward the young Daoist.
The young Daoist hastily bent his head, murmuring under his breath: "Can't see me... can't see me... Lord Lao of the Highest Realms, swiftly as the law wills it... no, on second thought — better Buddha protect, and the Bodhisattva work a miracle..."
It was, to tell the truth, a sorry thing — a Daoist, at the pinch of a crisis, begging neither of the Three Pure Ones, but turning instead to the Buddha and the Bodhisattvas.
And as it chanced, Buddha and the Bodhisattvas seemed disinclined to tend the scattering disciples of another faith — for that veiled maiden, calling up some last shred of strength from no one knew where, came lurching and reeling toward the Daoist, and dropped with a thud, heavily; but her last-hurled hand caught hold of the Daoist's ankle in an iron grip.
The young Daoist clutched his head in both hands, a picture of utter, desperate collapse — as if he looked up demanding of heaven: "To have such a karmic millstone as this come crashing down upon me — is it not the very same as branding the words 'one heart, bent upon death' fresh upon my forehead? All these years have I wandered the four quarters of the world, sleeping rough and eating lean, crossing the very mountains and rivers afoot, and more often than I can count I have been set upon by dogs in the streets... It has been hard going, I tell you, hard going! Curse the Gao line of Great Sui, and that old dog surnamed Wu as well — you wait! That account is not to be settled for five hundred years to come... shallow as my Dao's progress is, I truly cannot hoist up any such burden as this..."
The young Daoist, his words run clean away with him, lowered his head, near to tears: "Little miss, practise some mercy and let me go, do! Turn around, and I will find you a place of fine hills and clear waters, of excellent feng shui, sure to bless the generations after you... oh no, that will not do — a miss, still an untouched maid at that, then let it be..."
The maiden had already swooned away altogether.
Seeing no one about, the young Daoist crouched, and was just about to pry stealthily at the maiden's five fingers.
*Shk.*
The flying sword hung poised in mid-air, its point no more than three inches from the young Daoist's brow.
The young Daoist let go, without a flicker, then put on an air of deep compassion and proclaimed with lofty righteousness: "Man is not grass or wood — how can he lack a heart of pity? All my life have I stood in the clean light of day; am I the sort to look on while another dies and do nothing?!"
The young Daoist sat down cross-legged, his whole handsome face scrunched nearly into a knot. "And where she is to be taken next is a nuisance in itself."
The flying sword, which had hung three inches from the Daoist's brow all the while, darted a full inch forward.
The Daoist explained with patience: "To keep your mistress alive, this poor priest will need a helper. Oh, yes — make for the old locust tree over there and pluck off a leaf of it, and bring it here. This poor priest will first preserve the vital breath of her that hangs by a thread; your mistress is of a particular sort, and this poor priest has no wish to save a person by thrashing about and saving her wrongly, and in some moment of carelessness do harm to the path of her cultivation to come — and that fresh-chain of karma... damn it, it makes this poor priest wish himself dead and done with..."
The flying sword seemed to hesitate, its point trembling ever so slightly.
The Daoist said crossly: "The sooner you go, the sooner your mistress steps back from the very gates of the dead. Tarry, and we shall all sink together!"
The flying sword vanished in a wink.
The Daoist muttered in low fury: "A yearning man and a willing maid make the perfect pair — but not you, Master Qi Jingchun! You meddle with lovers' fates so carelessly, and do not even wipe your own backside after your mess!"
With one hand supporting his chin and the other tapping out a divination on his fingers, the young Daoist said: "Let this poor priest reckon — to which household of the town you might be sent, where you may live, and they shall not come to ruin, house and all. Try the Lu family first... the Lus will not do — like the Zhao family, they have already fated chances upon their persons. Then the Song family?"
The Daoist had not finished speaking, there in the lane —
when, at the gate of the Song mansion upon Fortune Street, every one of the door-gods pasted upon the great and the small door leaves lost its luster in that very instant, and grew dim and lifeless, while wreaths of green smoke, invisible to mortal eyes, rose curling upward.
Deep in the courtyard of that house, a barefoot man of years came pushing out through a door and stamped about the yard in a fury, bellowing: "Who is the son of a bitch laying his plots against the foundations of my Song clan?! Step forward and fight me!"
The young Daoist gave a little cough, and said, speaking to himself: "The Liu household on Fortune Street — it looks to be a house prosperous in incense and offerings, one that could carry matters on its back. Let us try that one?"
The vertical plaque of the Liu clan's ancestral hall, handed down across a thousand years, burst with a crack, a web of hair-raising fissures splitting across its face.
An old woman with a heavy, sonorous voice struck the ground thrice with her dragon-head staff. "What holy being is this? Will you not come forth and be seen?!"
The young Daoist pretended nothing had happened at all. "Then the Wei household of Peach Leaf Lane? One look at you people tells me your house is one that has stacked up virtue and good deeds — surely you can bear the weight of this karma."
And soon enough, an old man, transmitting his words by a secret art, was roaring toward the schoolhouse: "Qi Jingchun! Will you not take this in hand?! If you cannot govern it, or dare not, then piss off and clear the seat for Ruan Qiong! Let him come and deal with this skulking creature! Or is it that all of this is none other than you, Qi Jingchun yourself, venting some private grudge?"
Somewhere south of the covered bridge, at a bend of the brook, a man who had been leading a crew in the digging of a well straightened his back, and moved his lips toward the north.
And as though a clap of spring thunder rolled and rumbled over Fortune Street and Peach Leaf Lane alike, a voice proclaimed: "Enough! You shall not treat Master Qi with disrespect — and I, Ruan Qiong, will not set foot in the town's affairs before the spring equinox!"
In that instant, heaven and earth fell silent, and all the ten-thousand sounds stilled.
And the culprit sitting beside that cart in the lane — he had at that moment caught up the black-robed maiden's hand, and was pressing that verdant-and-green locust leaf, fetched by the flying sword, upon her blood-smeared palm.
The moment that locust leaf touched the wound upon the maiden's palm, it dissolved like snow under warmth, and in an instant was gone.
The young Daoist sighed: "Every time I behold such a sight, I find myself moved by this work of heaven-and-earth's fashioning..."
He wrestled long and hard over what to say, and could not settle upon a phrase that satisfied him.
At last the young Daoist lowered his head and looked upon the maiden, in whom a little color was beginning to trickle back, and found the matter vexing: "Since the vital fortune that clings to you is greater than this poor priest guessed, there is no choice but to work against the current. In this town there are six hundred households, their roots entangled and intertwined, steeped through the generations in the breath of this hidden realm. Ask this poor priest to find some person wrapped about with a fated fortune, and it is easy as child's play. But to find a penniless nobody — that is harder than scaling heaven. It is like the great hall of an imperial audience: to point out some great minister is easy; but a beggar — how am this poor priest to put a finger on such a one?"
The young Daoist gave a little "eh?"
He had, after all, found just such a sorry soul.
And he took no pleasure in it, but was seized with dread instead. He shut his eyes, and questioned himself in the depths of his heart.
The young Daoist sighed. "However that may be, let us first see what choice you make; this poor priest will by no means force it upon you. If you are unwilling, then this poor priest will shoulder this burden of karma himself."
At last he schooled himself like a monk and brought his palms together. "Buddha protect me, Bodhisattva, work a miracle — surely you will see this poor priest through this very tribulation."
---
In Clay Bottle Alley.
The young Daoist, bent over, pushed a two-wheeled cart to the gate of a courtyard, stopped, and knocked. He called out: "Is Chen Ping'an in?"
Upon the cart, in a gap between the corners, lay a long sword in its snow-white scabbard — and the flying sword within it peeked out, listless and poorly, as though it were sneering at the Daoist for having sought out such a tumbledown household as this.