The Nicholas Linnear Novels (189 page)

Tak was scowling. “You knew this and you made no outcry?”

“If I had,” So-Peng said, “I would have been the next to die. I did not know from which direction the star had come, but I knew I was being watched.”

As he moved through the jungle, he avoided a spot where the sun dropped almost straight through a small gap in the jungle canopy, golden instead of luminescent green.

“We are being stalked,” So-Peng said as they returned to the jungle path. He had made his circuit, had seen no one. Still, he fingered the throwing star hidden in his trousers, the one he had purloined from the police office in Singapore. “I believe the tanjian mean to kill us one by one until you are the last remaining member of this party.”

The silence stretched on so long that Tak was forced to say, “And then?”

“I don’t know,” So-Peng confessed. “Perhaps they will seek to take you apart in front of your enemy.”

Tak looked at So-Peng. “Second sight says that I will not return from here,” he said. “That future, I believe, is but one of many. Now we must prove that it is the wrong one.”

“We cannot remain on the path,” So-Peng pointed out.

“No, we must head directly into the jungle.”

“How well do you know this area?”

Tak spat. “Maybe better than the tanjian, though not as well as the man we have to get to.” He eyed So-Peng. “Do you have an idea?”

“Maybe,” So-Peng said, “but I need height for it to work.”

Tak smiled, pointing almost due north. “There,” he said, “not a mile away are the Kota Tinggi waterfalls. They are over one hundred feet high.”

So-Peng nodded. “They’ll do.”

Tak and So-Peng returned to where the men squatted under cover, and headed out. Less than a mile, Tak had said. Still, So-Peng thought, considering the numerous skills of the tanjian, that could seem like a day’s march.

The second man went down at precisely the moment when So-Peng heard the deep rumble of the falls. An outflung arm flared across So-Peng’s vision like the wavering of a battle standard. Moving, he shouted in Malay patois, a dialect he and Tak had agreed upon for future communication, rather than a Chinese dialect, which might be understood by the tanjian.

The three of them hurried onward toward the falls, zigzagging as best they could. The terrain began to change, first subtly, then more obviously, as they approached the lowest level of the falls.

In the first of the rocks surrounding the falls, the last of Tak’s men went down with a throwing star in the back of his neck. As they had agreed, Tak ascended the wet rocks, heading directly up the left face of the cliff.

So-Peng hoped that the tanjian would be filled with their recent accomplishments and so could be taken off guard. So far as they were concerned, their strategy had been wholly successful. This was what was crucial, and as he climbed above and to the left of Tak, So-Peng thought it a shame that two men had had to die in the furtherance of this fiction. He would have much preferred to go after the tanjian after the first attack, but that would have proved foolhardy and, no doubt, fatal. They had obviously held the high ground, and as his mother had explained to him, they were masters of their environment, learning to blend into their surroundings. He would have had no chance at them back on the jungle floor.

Now he was taking the high ground. Now, like the field mouse fixed in the pupil of the eagle, he was about to fix the tanjian in his mind. Soon their image would appear in his eyes.

As he ascended, the water, white and fuming, bellowed in his ears. Birds flew at the level of his shoulder, then moments later soared below him. When he looked down he could see now and again Tak’s black hair bobbing in among the rocks and spume, a tiny boat trying to find safe harbor in a storm.

So-Peng paused and, setting his back firmly against the rocks, closed his eyes.

Was it the fear engendered by the tanjian or the arrogance inside himself that caused him to ignore his mother’s warning not to rely upon his gift? At that moment who could say? In any event, he sought to find that secret place in the center of him from which point his psychic link with his mother had been born. Then, as he had seen her do, he expanded his spirit outward, breathing in the sky.

It was a heady experience. He felt the wind against his mind and, rising, the salt spray of the South China Sea far away. He could see the stars burning in the heavens beyond the sunshine, could begin to feel the currents of unseen particles filling the vast trenches between the stars.

Below, he ranged across the tumbling arc of the waterfalls, fascinated by the continuous outpouring of kinetic energy, wondering like a child if he could find a way to tap into that elemental source.

It was then that he felt the wall. Featureless and grim, it rose up around him, blotting out first the stars, sun, and sky, then the wildly rushing water, even the rock face upon which he now crouched, trembling and terrified, his arm over his eyes.

He had disobeyed his mother. He had chosen to abandon the low ground where he could use his gift in obscurity. In thoughtlessly expanding his spirit, he had announced himself as clearly as if he had shouted “Here I am!” at the top of his voice.

Because a link had been forged. Not with Liang—she was many miles away. But with another who possessed the gift!

In the moment when their spirits touched, So-Peng gave up his anonymity. But in return he learned a great deal. For one thing, he now knew that there was only one tanjian who had been stalking them. He knew where that tanjian was, and most terrible of all, he knew his identity.

Hearing his name being called, So-Peng took his arm away from his face and rose in time to see the tanjian appearing through a narrow defile in the rocks not more than six feet away.

So-Peng looked into the face of Zhao Hsia, his childhood friend.

At that instant Zhao Hsia laughed. “Not merely your childhood friend,” he said in a voice grown deep through the years. “Your half brother.”

Seeing the look on So-Peng’s face, he smiled. “It is clear that Liang never told you. She was married before she met your father, wed to the tanjian monk our grandfather chose for her.”

“Was it you who killed those two merchants in Singapore?” So-Peng asked. He was still half in shock at discovering the true identity of Zhao Hsia.

Zhao Hsia shook his head. “Originally, I was with another tanjian. We were meant to scare the merchants so that they would work for Tik Po Tak’s enemy, not with Tak himself. My friend does not have my temperament. When the merchants refused to leave Tak’s employ—well, the persuasion got out of hand. I tried to stop him, but it was too late. The merchants were already dead. I regret that sincerely.”

So-Peng wanted to believe him.

“Tell me,” Zhao Hsia said. “I have not seen our mother in many years. How is she?”

“She has been well,” So-Peng said, still trying to discern truth from fiction. “But the tanjian presence in Singapore—the murders—have upset her terribly.”

“Then I will have to speak with her,” Zhao Hsia said, “to pacify her fears.” He took a step up the rocky slope. “Tell me, have you seen the box?”

“What box?” The trip-hammer beating of So-Peng’s heart almost made him trip over the words. As it was, the lie felt squeezed out of him like a pip from a fruit.

“The one containing the emeralds.” Noting So-Peng’s puzzled expression, Zhao Hsia went on. “The sixteen emeralds, you idiot. The energy of the tanjian. Our sacred history is engraved upon their facets, although no one but a tanjian monk can see the writing. The emeralds are encased in a small velvet box. Have you seen it?”

“No.”

“I would know if you were lying,” Zhao Hsia said, and So-Peng felt again the cool, featureless wall enclosing him for an instant.

“Why would I lie?”

Zhao Hsia’s expression was contemptuous. “Because evidently you are our mother’s son, devious, depraved. Just as I am my father’s son, a true monk of Tau-tau, schooled in all its disciplines.”

So-Peng, his heart in his throat, thought it interesting that Zhao Hsia could not tell that he was lying. Was this, too, part of his gift? he wondered.

“You have the gift,” So-Peng pointed out. He thought he had discovered something, a glittering rent in the apparently seamless wall. He struck out at it to see if he could prize it open. “The gift comes from Mother. Like it or not, we are both her sons.”

Abruptly, Zhao Hsia’s demeanor shifted. His mask slipped off his face and the hate appeared, as stark and powerful as theatrical makeup. “Do not speak to me of Liang,” Zhao Hsia said tightly. “She despised my father, she despised me just as she despised the tanjian way of life. So she ran away. She broke the law of Tau-tau.”

“Then it’s true,” So-Peng said, struggling not to be overwhelmed by the brilliant light flowing out from the wall’s rent. “You’ve come to take her back to Zhuji.”

Zhao Hsia threw back his head and laughed. “Not her, my friend. I’ve come for you!”

So-Peng was so stunned that all he could utter was, “Me?”

“You have the gift, just as I do. That gift is revered by the tanjian; its uses are limitless when it is harnessed to the discipline of Tau-tau.”

“I have no wish to be harnessed by anyone or anything.”

So-Peng thought frantically—how could I have been so blind as not to see the connection between my gift and Tau-tau? And he asked himself why his mother had lied to him about the connection. She had lied, too, about Zhao Hsia’s mission. What else had she lied about? What if everything Zhao Hsia accused her of was true?

“Then you are a fool.” Zhao Hsia’s face was like rubber, stretching into the aspect of utter dismay. He was an actor upon a sunlit stage. “Don’t you understand? Your potential, like mine, goes beyond anything yet imaginable. But you are undisciplined, untrained, unfocused. Tau-tau can change all that. It can give you the power of dreams!”

So-Peng now realized what his mother had been hiding from him. She had known all along what the tanjian wanted—of course she would know, he was her son! She had understood that it was So-Peng’s and Zhao Hsia’s karma to meet like this. She had done her best to prepare So-Peng, to have the meeting occur on neutral territory where So-Peng would have at least a semblance of a chance. She had known that his gift was raw, untrained, unfocused, as Zhao Hsia had said. Just as she knew that Zhao Hsia’s gift was already in harness to Tau-tau.

“I will not return to Zhuji with you,” So-Peng said, sealing his karma, and Zhao Hsia’s.

“Would you leave me no choice, then?” Zhao Hsia asked. His voice was sincere, laced with regret. But beneath that glossy surface So-Peng felt the emanations of exultation, and his spirit recoiled in horror.

“Weakling!” Zhao Hsia cried. “Remember how we stole the tortoise eggs. It was only after Tau-tau that I understood the magnitude of our sin. We stole the tortoise’s future, So-Peng. Just like Liang did. She robbed me of my future—just as she robbed you of yours—when she stole away into the night. I needed her and she was not there. You needed the tanjian community and she withheld it from you. It is she who is the evil one! It is she who must be punished!”

Like a wave inundating the shoreline, reality wavered, and So-Peng saw the world woven for him by the words of the tanjian. Zhao Hsia’s hate became his hate; Zhao Hsia’s sense of abandonment became his.

“She did not tell you about your heritage. It is your birthright, So-Peng! It was her duty to tell you. But she didn’t, did she? Did she tell you that she stole the sacred emeralds from our grandfather? I imagine not. He wants them back, So-Peng. He needs them. They are the source of his power. It is said that these sixteen emeralds were the prize possession of Chieh, the terminator, from whom our grandfather is directly descended. It is said that their power kept Chieh alive for decades after his contemporaries had perished.”

So-Peng felt an urge to hurl epithets in Zhao Hsia’s face, to tell him what a liar he was. But he said nothing, knowing that any such words would give him away. Zhao Hsia would know that Liang had the emeralds, and this, he knew, he must never reveal.

“It must be so,” Zhao Hsia was saying. “Even now Grandfather grows ill and weak, the life draining out of him. Without the emeralds, Grandfather will perish.” He was inching closer, sidling up the rock face toward So-Peng. “Liang knew that, yet she took them anyway. Now her punishment is at hand.”

For an instant the two boys’ personalities merged, and So-Peng caught a glimpse of the terrifying entity thus created. He felt a lurch, as if the earth itself were shuddering at such an abomination.

Then he saw Zhao Hsia, the surrounding rocks, heard the churning of the waterfall beside and below him, and he knew how completely he had been deceived. He also had a firsthand glimpse of the awesome power of Tau-tau. Had it not been for his gift, he would have been hypnotized by the speech, would have been convinced that Liang was indeed evil incarnate.

With a crystal insight he understood that he was the only thing standing between his half brother and Liang’s death.

Palming the throwing star from his pocket, he threw it at Zhao Hsia’s head. Zhao Hsia did not move his upper torso, but rather lifted his hand, catching the whirling weapon out of the air.

“You do not know how to use this, brother,” Zhao Hsia said. Like a conjuror he twirled the deadly thing between his outstretched fingers. “It cannot harm me.
You
cannot harm me.” He was grinning now. “But thrown by a true tanjian, it can kill you.” All at once the star was on his fingertips, poised, waiting. Sunlight glinted blindingly off its razor edges, as if the weapon could gather in that solar power.

“As I told you, brother,” Zhao Hsia said, “you leave me no choice.” He twisted the star. “Here is your karma.”

At that moment So-Peng felt a presence behind him. He willed himself not to turn around, not to move or to think about the presence. Tak had been quite clever. He had used the sound of the falls to mask his approach, coming upon Zhao Hsia from the only direction possible—by keeping So-Peng’s body between him and the tanjian.

Now everything happened at once, and like a glass ball in which was embedded a tiny scene, the snow falling as it was shaken, the present became the future, and that future was changed forever.