An Inch of Ashes (29 page)

So, where to start? Where, in all this vastness of rock and ice, to start? How search this godsforsaken place?

He was pondering that when he saw the second craft come up over the ridge and descend, landing beside his own, in the valley far below. A moment later a figure spilled from the craft and began to make its way towards him, climbing the slope. It was Chen.

‘Gregor!’ Chen greeted him. ‘I’ve been looking all over for you.’

‘What is it?’ Karr answered, trudging down through the snow to meet him.

Chen stopped, then lifted his snow-goggles, looking up at him. ‘I’ve brought new orders. From the T’ang.’

Karr stared at him, then took the sealed package and tore it open.

‘What does it say?’

‘That we’re to close the files on the murders. Not only that, but we’re to stop our search for DeVore – temporarily, at least – and concentrate on penetrating the
Ping Tiao
organization. It seems they’re planning something big.’

Chen watched the big man nod to himself, as if taking in this new information, then look about him and laugh.

‘What is it?’ he asked, surprised by Karr’s laughter.

‘Just this,’ Karr answered, holding the T’ang’s orders up. ‘And this,’ he added, indicating the mountains all about them. ‘I was thinking... two paths, but the goal’s the same.
DeVore
.’

‘DeVore?’

‘Yes. The T’ang wants us to investigate the
Ping Tiao
, and so we shall, but when we lift that stone, you can lay odds on which insect will come scuttling out from under it.’

‘DeVore,’ said Chen, smiling.

Hans Ebert stood on the wooden veranda of the lodge, staring up the steep, snowcovered slope, his breath pluming in the crisp air. As he watched, the dark spot high up the slope descended slowly, coming closer, growing, until it was discernibly a human figure. It was coming on apace, in a zigzag path that would bring it to the lodge.

Ebert clapped his gloved hands together and turned to look back inside the lodge. There were three other men with him; his comrades in arms. Men he could trust.

‘He’s here!’ he shouted in to them. ‘Quick now! You know your orders!’

They got up from the table at once, taking their weapons from the rack near the door before going to their posts.

When the skier drew up beneath the veranda, the lodge seemed empty except for the figure leaning out over the balcony. The skier thrust his sticks into the snow, then lifted his goggles and peeled off his gloves.

‘I’m pleased to see you, Hans. I didn’t know if you would come.’

Ebert straightened up then started down the steps. ‘My uncle is a persuasive man,
Shih
DeVore. I hadn’t realized he was an old friend of yours.’

DeVore laughed, stooping to unfasten his boots. He snapped the clips and stepped off the skis. ‘He isn’t. Not officially. Nor will you be. Officially.’

He met the younger man at the bottom of the steps and shook both his hands firmly, warmly, flesh to gloves.

‘I understand it now.’

‘Understand what? Come, Hans, let’s go inside. The air is too keen for such talk.’

Hans let himself be led back up into the lodge. When they were sitting, drinks in hand, he continued. ‘What I meant is, I understand now how you’ve managed to avoid us all these years. More old friends, eh?’

‘One or two,’ said DeVore cryptically, and laughed.

‘Yes,’ Ebert said thoughtfully, ‘you’re a regular member of the family, aren’t you?’ He had been studying DeVore, trying to gauge whether he was armed or not.

‘You forget how useful I once was to your father.’

‘No...’ Ebert chose the next few words more carefully. ‘I simply remember how harmful you were subsequently. How dangerous. Even to meet you like this, it’s...’

‘Fraught with danger?’ DeVore laughed again, a hearty, sincere laughter that strangely irritated the younger man.

DeVore looked across the room. In one corner a
wei chi
board had been set up, seven black stones forming an H on the otherwise empty grid.

‘I see you’ve thought of everything,’ he said, smiling again. ‘Do you want to play while we talk?’

Ebert hesitated, then gave a nod. DeVore seemed somehow too bright, too at ease, for his liking.

The two men went to the table in the corner.

‘Where shall I sit?
Here?
’

Ebert smiled. ‘If you like.’ It was exactly where he wanted DeVore. At that point he was covered by all three of the marksmen concealed overhead. If he tried
anything
...

DeVore sat, perfectly at ease, lifting the lid from the pot, then placed the first of his stones in
tsu
, the north. Ebert sat, facing him, studying him a moment, then lifted the lid from his pot and took one of the black stones between his fingers. He had prepared his men beforehand. If he played in one particular place – in the middle of the board, on the edge of
shang
, the south, on the intersection beside his own central stone – then they were to open fire, killing DeVore. Otherwise they were to fire only if Ebert’s life was endangered.

Ebert reached across, playing at the top of
shang
, two places out from his own corner stone, two lines down from the edge.

‘Well?’ he said, looking at DeVore across the board. ‘You’re not here to ask after my health. What do you want?’

DeVore was studying the board as if he could see the game to come – the patterns of black stones and white, their shape and interaction. ‘Me? I don’t want anything. At least, nothing from you, Hans. That’s not why I’m here.’ He set down a white stone, close by Ebert’s last, then looked up, smiling again. ‘I’m here because there’s something
you
might want.’

Ebert stared at him, astonished, then laughed. ‘What could I possibly want from you?’ He slapped a stone down almost carelessly, three spaces out from the first.

DeVore studied the move, then shook his head. He took a stone from his pot and set it down midway between the corner and the centre, as if to divide some future formation of Ebert’s stones.

‘You have everything you need, then, Hans?’

Ebert narrowed his eyes, then slapped down another stone irritably. It was two spaces out from the centre, between DeVore’s and his own, so that the five stones now formed a broken diagonal line from the corner to the centre, two black, one white, then two more black.

DeVore smiled broadly. ‘That’s an interesting shape, don’t you think? But it’s weak, like the Seven. Black might outnumber white, but white isn’t surrounded.’

Ebert sat back. ‘Meaning what?’

DeVore set down another stone, pushing out towards
ch’u
, the west. A triangle of three white stones now sat to the right of a triangle of black stones. Ebert stared at the position a moment, then looked up into DeVore’s face again.

DeVore was watching him closely, his eyes suddenly sharp, alert, the smile gone from his lips.

‘Meaning that you serve a master you despise. Accordingly, you play badly. Winning or losing has no meaning for you. No
interest
.’

Ebert touched his upper teeth with his tongue, then took another stone and placed it, eight down, six out in
shang.
It was a necessary move; a strengthening move. It prevented DeVore from breaking his line while expanding the territory he now surrounded. The game was going well for him.

‘You read my mind, then,
Shih
DeVore? You know how I think?’

‘I know that you’re a man of considerable talent, Hans. And I know that you’re bored. I can see it in the things you do, the decisions you make. I can see how you hold the greater part of yourself back constantly. Am I wrong, then? Is what I see really the best you can do?’

DeVore set down another stone. Unexpectedly it cut across the shape Ebert had just made, pushing into the territory he had mapped out. It seemed an absurd move, a weak move, but Ebert knew that DeVore was a master at this game. He would not make such a move without good reason.

‘It seems you want me to cut you. But if I do, it means you infiltrate this area here.’ He sketched it out.

‘And if you don’t?’

‘Well, it’s obvious. You cut me. You separate my groups.’

DeVore smiled. ‘So. A dilemma. What to choose?’

Ebert looked up again, meeting his eyes. He knew that DeVore was saying something to him through the game. But what? Was DeVore asking him to make a choice? The Seven or himself? Was he asking him to come out in the open and declare himself?

He set down his stone, cutting DeVore, keeping his own lines open.

‘You say the Seven are weak, but you, are you any stronger?’

‘At present, no. Look at me, I’m like these five white stones here on the board. I’m cut and scattered and outnumbered. But I’m a good player and the odds are better than when I started. Then they were seven to one. Now...’ he placed his sixth stone, six down, four out in
shang
, threatening the corner ‘... it’s only two to one. And every move improves my chances. I’ll win. Eventually.’

Ebert placed another black stone in the diagonal line, preventing DeVore from linking with his other stones, but again it allowed DeVore space within his own territory and he sensed that DeVore would make a living group there.

‘You know, I’ve always admired you, Howard. You would have been Marshal eventually. You would have run things for the Seven.’

‘That’s so... But it was never enough for me to serve another. Nor you. We find it hard to bow to lesser men.’

Ebert laughed, then realized how far DeVore had brought him. Only it was true. Everything he said was true. He watched DeVore set another stone down, shadowing his own line, sketching out territory inside his own, robbing him of what he’d thought was safely his.

‘I see...’ he said, meaning two things. For a time, then, they simply played. Forty moves later he could see that it was lost. DeVore had taken five of his stones from the board and had formed a living group of half of
shang.
Worse, he had pushed out towards
ch’u
and down into
p’ing
. Now a small group of four of his stones were threatened at the centre and there was only one way to save it, to play in the space in
shang
beside the central stone – the signal for his men to open fire on DeVore. Ebert sat back, holding the black stone between his fingers, then laughed.

‘It seems you’ve forced me to a decision.’

DeVore smiled back at him. ‘I was wondering what you would do.’

Ebert eyed him sharply. ‘Wondering?’

‘Yes. I wasn’t sure at first. But now I know. You won’t play that space. You’ll play here instead.’ He leaned across and touched the intersection with his fingertip. It was the move that gave only temporary respite. It did not save the group.

‘Why should I do that?’

‘Because you don’t want to kill me. And because you’re seriously interested in my proposition.’

Ebert laughed, astonished. ‘You
knew
?’

‘Oh, I know you’ve three of your best stormtroopers here, Hans. I’ve been conscious of the risks
I’ve
been taking. But how about you?’

‘I
think
I know,’ Ebert said, even more cautiously. Then, with a small laugh of admiration he set the stone down where DeVore had indicated.

‘Good.’ DeVore leaned across and set a white stone in the special space, on the edge of
shang
, beside Ebert’s central stone, then leaned back again. ‘I’m certain you’ll have assessed the potential rewards, too.’ He smiled, looking down at his hands. ‘King of the world, Hans. That’s what you could be. T’ang of all Chung Kuo.’

Ebert stared back at him, his mouth open but set.

‘But not without me.’ DeVore looked up at him, his eyes piercing him through. ‘Not without me. You understand that?’

‘I could have you killed. Right now. And be hailed as a hero.’

DeVore nodded. ‘Of course. I knew what
I
was doing. But I assumed you knew why you were here. That you knew how much you had to gain.’

It was Ebert’s turn to laugh. ‘This is insane.’

DeVore was watching him calmly, as if he knew now how things would turn out between them. ‘Insane? No. It’s no more insane than the rule of the Seven. And how long can that last? In ten years, maybe less, the whole pack of cards is going to come tumbling down, whatever happens. The more astute of the Above realize that and want to do something about it. They want to control the process. But they need a figurehead. Someone they admire. Someone from amongst their number. Someone capable and in a position of power.’

‘I don’t fit your description.’

DeVore laughed. ‘Not now, perhaps. But you will. In a year from now you will.’

Ebert looked down. He knew it was a moment for decisiveness, not prevarication. ‘And when I’m T’ang?’

DeVore smiled and looked down at the board. ‘Then the stars will be ours. A world for each of us.’

A world for each of us
. Ebert thought about it a moment. This, then, was what it was really all about. Expansion. Taking the lid off City Earth and getting away. But what would that leave him?

‘However,’ DeVore went on. ‘You didn’t mean that, did you?’ He stood and went across to the drinks cabinet, pouring himself a second glass of brandy. Turning, he looked directly at the younger man. ‘What you meant was, what’s in it for me?’

Ebert met his look unflinchingly. ‘Of course. What other motive could there be?’

DeVore smiled blandly. Ebert was a shallow, selfish young man, but he was useful. He would never be T’ang, of course – it would be a mistake to give such a man
real
power – but it served for now to let him think he would.

‘Your brandy is excellent, Hans.’ DeVore walked to the window and looked out. The mountains looked beautiful. He could see the Matterhorn from where he stood, its peak like a broken blade. Winter was coming.

Ebert was silent, waiting for him.

‘What’s in it for you, you ask? This world. To do with as you wish. What more could you want?’ He turned to face the younger man, noting at once the calculation in his face.

‘You failed,’ Ebert said after a moment. ‘There were many of you. Now there’s just you. Why should you succeed this time?’