Daylight on Iron Mountain (2 page)

Chao Ni Tsu shook his head. ‘Think what? That they’d realize that you’re more
powerful
than them and that they cannot prevail? They know that, and it makes not a blind bit of difference. They would fight you to the last man anyway. Barbarians, that’s what they are. Next to them we are enlightenment itself. Besides, that’s not the reason why they’ve declared Holy War against you, Tsao Ch’un.’

‘No? Then what is?’

‘They do not think you have the
nerve
to nuke them.’

Tsao Ch’un laughed. ‘Didn’t they hear?’

‘About Japan? No, old friend. And even if they did, they’d think it but a rumour. What, after all, would they have seen of it? No… they think that God is on their side. Allah, Jehovah… call him what you will… they truly believe in him. Insane, I know, but no amount of logical argument will free them from their madness. It is God’s will, so they say.’

‘God’s will…’ Tsao Ch’un spat angrily. ‘And meanwhile they send their suicide bombers against our outposts!’ He snorted. ‘I should just do it. Get it over with and move on. Only…’

‘Only what? Are you worried about the fallout?’

‘Is that a joke, Chao Ni Tsu?’

Master Chao smiled in the darkness where he sat. ‘You must understand one thing, Tsao Ch’un. You cannot play games with these people. You might use words, trying to get through to them, but their answer is always a bullet or a bomb. They have no time for reason. Their passion is for gesture. For martyrdom.’

‘And ours?’

‘Is often the same, I agree. Only where we differ is that we want the world to move forward, not backwards. We want a world at peace, where all men might be given their chance. A world without conflict. And theirs? No, Tsao Ch’un. They would have us live in ancient times, by ancient laws. And ridiculously stupid laws at that! Laws formulated by tribes of desert nomads to suit their way of life. As for how they see us… well,
we’re
the heretics, as far as they’re concerned!’

Tsao Ch’un was quiet a moment. Then, deciding to get out, he hauled himself up out of the silvered water in one swift movement and stood there naked beneath the moonlight, the water streaming from him.

‘Do you remember, Ni Tsu, back in the early days? Back in forty-four, when the long campaign had just began? When we first sent the Brigades out to do our work? How exciting it all was. How exhilarating. Now… well, I grow jaded, Chao Ni Tsu. I grow…’ He sighed, then drew his fingers through his long dark hair, combing it back. ‘I guess what I’m trying to say is that nuking them would feel like a failure, somehow. Oh, I know the arguments how many lives it would save. I know all that. But
this
… it seems much too facile an answer.’

He turned as he said it, looking directly at Chao Ni Tsu.

Master Chao shrugged. But he remembered it well. 2044… Those had been hard times, difficult times; times when it could all quite easily have gone wrong. Back then, only skill and cunning had kept them ahead of their enemies.

Yes,
and an untiring, unrelenting watchfulness
.

My skill and his cunning
, he thought, fascinated by the physical creature that stood before him. Another would have called for a towel and clothes, but he did neither. He was content to be as he was: an animal that thought. Being such gave him an edge that others simply did not have.

‘I’ve asked Shepherd to come,’ Tsao Ch’un said, seeing how Chao was watching him, but not minding. ‘We’re meeting him in the old city, later this evening. We can decide then, neh?’

And there it was, put off again for another hour or two. But they would have to make the decision soon. Before the great Jihad got under way. Then again, Shepherd would know what to do. He always did, unfailingly.

‘Are you hungry?’ Tsao Ch’un asked, his voice strangely softer now that
they had decided not to decide. Not to destroy the Middle East in one big blinding flash.

Chao Ni Tsu nodded, then slowly hauled himself up out of his chair. He was getting old. His every movement told him as much. ‘You know what?’ he said. ‘I could murder a haunch of gammon. With rice and cinnamon and…’

He smiled, seeing how Tsao Ch’un’s face had lit up at the suggestion.

‘No wonder you’ve put on weight, Brother Chao. Not that you were ever slim.’

‘I can’t help it, Brother Tsao. I like my food. It was my mother’s fault. She fed me too well.’

‘The gods bless her souls.’

‘Are you not cold, Tsao Ch’un?’

‘Not at all, Chao Ni Tsu. The night air’s warm. You should try it. To have nothing between one and the world. To feel the air on one’s skin. There is no greater delight… unless it’s a woman.’

‘Or a plate of gammon and rice and cinnamon…’

Two hours later, drowsy from too much food and definitely too much wine, Chao Ni Tsu settled in the corner of the chamber while Tsao Ch’un took his nightly reports.

He did this every night, though not always at the same hour, speaking to his leading commanders in the field, making sure that all was well. Right now he was talking to Marshal Wei, who had set up his command post in Tehran.

The war in West Asia had reached a strange impasse. Marshal Wei had subdued most of the territory from China to the border of Iraq, but there things had stalled, defying the marshal’s most strenuous efforts to make advances.

Even so, Tsao Ch’un was pleased with Marshal Wei. He was a brilliant strategist. Without him the campaign would have lasted twice as long, for it was no easy task, fighting in such terrain. For the last six months he had rolled back his enemies mile by mile. Only now had they ground to a halt in the face of fanatical resistance.

And now there was this small matter of the Jihad.

Chao Ni Tsu smiled contentedly. It was pleasant to think that one was seated where the great Ming Huang, the Purple Emperor, had once sat. To imagine the Son of Heaven listening, perhaps, as his concubine, Yang Kuei Fei, played the lute for him or sang.

Or
bathed
with him.

He closed his eyes, imagining the sight. The old man and the beautiful younger woman, her flesh like olive perfection.

‘Are you good, old friend?’

He felt Tsao Ch’un’s hand pressed gently but firmly on his shoulder. Half turning, he looked up at him.

‘I was thinking of the great emperor, Ming Huang and the beautiful Kuei Fei… Being here I could imagine it... could almost see them…’

Tsao Ch’un grunted. ‘The old man was mad… to lose his empire over a woman!’

It was true
, Chao thought.
To force one’s eldest son to divorce his young wife, then assign her to one’s own harem. And then to promote her family, against the wishes of his court. Only a man bewitched would have followed such a course. And what was the end of it all? He had been forced to have her killed, strangled by his chief eunuch, to pacify his enemies.

Only it had not been enough to save things. An Lushan, Kuei Fei’s lover and Ming Huang’s general a Manchurian of common birth had finally overthrown him.

Tsao Ch’un came round, squatting on his haunches just in front of Chao Ni Tsu. He had put on a loose-fitting cloak of midnight blue, and combed back his long, jet-black hair. He had been up all day since dawn, in fact but he did not look the least bit tired.

Another might have abused his power. Might have spent his days in debauchery. But that was not Tsao Ch’un’s manner. He was no holy man when it came to women. In fact he
enjoyed
women. But he had never let a woman control him, or manipulate him, or distract him. What he had, he always said, was an itch. And the only thing to do with an itch was to scratch it. Scratch it good and hard.

‘Amos has been delayed,’ he said, squeezing the old man’s knee fondly. ‘He’ll be here late morning now.’ Tsao Ch’un smiled. ‘And he reminded me…’

Chao Ni Tsu frowned. ‘Reminded you?’

‘Yes, my humble friend.
Reminded
me. About your birthday. I’m sorry. I
had
forgotten. But look…’ He pulled out a bright red silken package from behind his back, like a conjurer presenting a fake bunch of flowers. ‘I have a gift for you!’

‘Old friend…’ Chao Ni Tsu sat forward, moved by the gesture, reaching out to take the package. ‘You really shouldn’t have…’

He opened it, let the silk fall away, then caught his breath.

‘
Kuan Yin!
’

It was an ancient piece, the size of a woman’s hand; a delicately carved figure of a
wei ch’i
player just the figure and the board, in pure white marble. Marble that seemed almost soft to the touch.

Chao Ni Tsu stared and stared. It was beautiful, astonishingly beautiful. Perhaps the most beautiful thing anyone had ever given him. He put a finger to his eye, wiping the tear away.

‘Your kindness overwhelms me, brother.’

‘Good,’ Tsao Ch’un said, getting to his feet once more. For once, his face was lit with simple pleasure at Chao’s own delight. ‘Then let us get some sleep. Tomorrow is a fateful day, neh?’

T
he Mausoleum was huge, the great semi-transparent roof stretching away in all directions. In the shadows, down there beneath and between the slatted walkways, the life-size figures stood in formation; row after row of grey-black figures, the clay face of each one different, each modelled on the individual they had been, back when they had lived and breathed, twenty-three centuries ago.

In life the army of the Ch’in had been a million strong, soldiers of the First Emperor, Ch’in Shih Huang-ti. Their terracotta figures had followed their great lord into the realm of the dead, beneath the yellow earth; there, no doubt, to carve out an empire fit for the Son of Heaven.

Tsao Ch’un grinned, then jumped down, striding between their ranks looking first at this one then at that.

‘This one, I think…’

And, raising the baseball bat he was carrying, he swung. The clay head cracked in half as it tumbled from the body.

He swung again.

‘Do you
have
to, brother?’ Chao queried, watching from his wheelchair on the walkway high above. ‘It seems… I don’t know… lacking in respect. He was a great man, our King of Ch’in.’

‘A great man and a fool,’ Tsao Ch’un answered, taking another swing and removing another clay head. ‘Besides, this is fun. You know how much I like to break things, Chao Ni Tsu! To
vandalize
them!’

And he laughed, a great gust of laughter, before he swung again.

‘You know what he believed, Chao? He believed he could be immortal. That all he had to do was build a bridge to the Isles of the Immortals, out there to the east, and he could join them, peach and all!’

Chao knew the tale. ‘It’s just…’

Tsao Ch’un swung again. ‘Oh, leave off, Chao! Let me have my fun. What are a few clay heads compared to what we will discuss today?’

It was true. Only it seemed somehow sacrilegious. Ch’in Shih Huang-ti
had
been a great man. The great unifier of China. And it
was
lacking in respect. Unless Tsao Ch’un meant something else by the gesture.

‘Immortal! I mean to say… When a man is dead, he’s dead. His reputation? Well, that’s different. But the flesh… the flesh decays, brave Chao. Back to dust and clay, as
these
fellows will testify!’

And he laughed again. A fierce, belligerent laughter.

There was a crack as another head fell and then another. He had ‘killed’ a good dozen of them by now.

‘You know, Chao… I should have a purge, don’t you think? Shake things up a bit. Stop my people from becoming too complacent. It’s what Ch’in Shih Huang-ti would have done. He had no time for fools, you know… except himself, that is. He got conned, Chao, by a shaman. The man took him for a fortune. Riches enough to fight a great campaign. And what did he buy? A bridge! A fucking non-existent bridge! Well, you won’t find me buying no fucking bridges!’

He swung. There was the crack of clay, the tumble of broken shards.

‘But I do like to break things. I really do. It
annoys
them, see. All the pompous little nothings. It winds them up. Gives them indigestion. Stomach cramps… And I like that. I like seeing them all discomfited.’

Another head flew. The floor now was littered with broken pottery.

‘You think me ruthless, Chao, I know. But we Han have always been ruthless. In 259
BC
in southern Shan-hsi, the army of Chao no relatives of yours, my friend, I should quickly say was starved into surrender by the Ch’in at Ch’ang P’ing. Etiquette demanded that they give up their weapons and go home, only the Ch’in generals executed them, to the last man. Four hundred thousand men. Beheaded, every last one, their heads made into a great pile as a warning to others.’

Tsao Ch’un paused, narrowing his eyes. ‘You know what? That purge…
it’s a good idea, neh? You could compile a list for me, Chao… like in the old days.’

A list
, Chao thought, turning his chair slightly and wishing that Amos were there so they could settle this matter.
Another bloody list
.

Back in the old days it had seemed the only way to go about things. To target one’s enemies and ‘reduce’ them. Necessity had forced their hand. But purges. He hated the notion. Weren’t they at peace now?