INTERZONE 254 SEPT-OCT 2014 (10 page)

I lie, partially: “Yes.”

“Then tell us of the great men and women who lead this campaign. Tell us of what this war means to them,” the Sergeant asks. There is something in her eye as she asks it, but I don’t quite catch its meaning.

I look into the fire. I tell the truth: “The generals complain all day long and watch plays at night, they eat three full meals a day and fart, then go to sleep in warm beds. That’s what the war means to them.”

I expect a rebuke from the Sergeant, but instead she almost smiles – or smiles as much as a person who never smiled could – and says, “Tell us then of this place.” She indicates the darkness around us with her eyes.

“This is Wu Mountain,” I say, and she nods in reply. She pulls her gold-shimmering memory card from her pocket so she can record the key facts; they all do, except the Corporal. It is Wu Mountain, this is true. As always, the rest I say is a lie:

“Here is where the Xia Emperor, dressed in his dragon robe and carrying a great golden axe, swept past with his mouth filled with fire, scattering the deviationist tribes of Chiang Kai-Shek.

“But I’m not going to tell you that story.

“Here is Wu Mountain, where the stone monster, whose scales move with the autumn winds, and whose feet are larger than elephants, stopped to rest on his journey east. The monster that was lured to the caves with promises of warmth and protection by the treacherous Gang of Four and their leader, the beautiful witch Jiang Qing, who drugged the tea she gave to the monster when it sat down at her table.”

Private Xu narrows her dark, gleaming eyes at me when I say this. The rest look on in wonder, as all do when an Omissioner gives the gift of truth.

“But I’m not going to tell you of this.

“I’m going to tell you of Lao Zi, who tried to walk against the lines of the earth, who attempted the journey west from Wu Mountain, through the purple mists of the pass.”

I speak low enough so they have to lean forward.

“Lao Zi, the great warrior of the fourth epoch, carried the silver crossbow of the Jiayu Pass. Lao Zi was
the assassin who shot a silver bolt ten miles to strike the heart of the foul dictator Joao Ferreira the Black. Lao Zi was the master tactician who played Go against the Mongol General for two years, deliberately prolonging the game until the Mongol’s superior army deserted and his campaign against Lao Zi’s homelands collapsed.

“Lao Zi walked here in the shadow of Wu Mountain. Then, as now, swallows that should have migrated swooped around his head, frightened and confused. It was here that he came across a grey turtle, old and weeping, making its way slowly east.

“Lao Zi stopped and said: ‘What is wrong, old man?’ The turtle replied: ‘Lao Zi, do not head west. All roads there now lead to the city of Chang-an; all passes and all ways must run through it. That city is now a city of ghosts. The ghosts play the same games they’ve played for a hundred years. They play them over and again, living out the dreams of others, remembering the memories of others: lives and memories that they swap each and every day. But you will never live to see that bleak place, Lao Zi. The trail between here and there is long and harsh and even such as you, with all your talents, will perish.’

“Lao Zi placed his hands on his silver crossbow, and said: ‘You know my name by my reputation; as do all in this land. But you don’t know me, old man.’

“The turtle sighed and said: ‘The gibbons will tell you three times the truth, and three times you will know it. But arrogant in your easy competence, you will ignore them.’

“Angry, Lao Zi said: ‘Arrogance? It is you who are arrogant to speak to me like this, old man. Why take your word and not another? There are a thousand fools between here and Chang’an, only a fool would pay heed to even one.’

“The grey turtle replied: ‘I know Lao Zi, because I am you. I am you, living in the sixth epoch, a thousand years from now. If I speak with arrogance, it is what pride still lingers from the folly of your youth. If I seem mournful, it is the knowledge of what that arrogance cost me. Turn back now or you will be forced to walk the road east for all eternity, a million Li on turtle’s feet, doomed to repeat and repeat again. Turn back, Lao Zi, for my sake, for yours.’

“Lao Zi ignored the turtle, leaving without a word. He walked until he stood near a deep gorge. In this place the gibbons bounced and watched him from the trees and called to him. And he found it was true, the things they said, and he wept. Three times they called to him, yet three times he failed to heed them, the only fool on the path to Chang’an.

“He walked to the West, until the purple mist crossed the pass. Lao Zi was consumed by it, as was foretold. When you look West, friends, think of him. And know that if the turtle is slow, it is because he knows he will never arrive at his destination.”

They were silent after that, their faces flickering orange from the fire, all turned to me.

“West?” asks the Corporal, looking over at the Sergeant.

The Sergeant still looks at me. “We were heading West, Omissioner. Are you saying it is a mistake? Are the purple mists…are they real?”

I give her an ambiguous raised eyebrow, the sort that suggests I know all the answers, but I was, in my wisdom, encouraging them to work it out for themselves. I was quite pleased with myself after the story. Except for the turtle-from-the-future part, which I often used in these tales, I’d made everything up on the spot. That’s the thing about stories that are lyrical and vague, filled with familiar symbols and primal dreams: anyone can read anything into them. So I spin my tales while the listener weaves their own truth to each one. They let me have my wine and I let them have their fictions. This is the circularity of the dead world I now walk through, and it is enough for me.

Almost enough, anyway.

“The west was a long shot,” grunts the cook.

The Corporal squares his shoulders. “Where the Sergeant says we go, we go.”

“The cook is right. West was always a long shot,” says the Sergeant, and the mumbling from the others ceases. It is hard to tell in the firelight, but her eyes seem to gleam.

The Private has been watching me throughout. “What the Omissioner’s story tells us is this,” she says, “the journey east is too long. If we head that way we live as the turtle does, on a journey that never ends.”

“Um,” I say, “I’m not sure—”

“South – it means we must go south,” continues the Private, “like I keep saying. We can’t survive the creeping winter. We must head towards a warmer climate.”

I want to interrupt and tell her she’s wrong, but it’s too late. The conversation heads where I don’t want it to go and in so doing, veers away from my home. The Private looks at me while the others speak, eyes twinkling. I was right; she has the devils in her. I grit my teeth. I should just have had the turtle tell them to go east: kept it simple. But no, I tried to end the story with a flourish. Old fool. So they speak of their new plans with each other over the fire while I look into my empty wine cup. I am attached to these people now – to leave this remnant unit would be called desertion. And the iron-faced Sergeant woman was the sort to shoot deserters.

My wife and sons never felt further away.

I
am awoken the next morning, the large face of the cook smiling over me as he shakes my shoulder. I grumble at him for doing so, groan at the cold in my bones, and curse both as I sit myself up. He puts a warm cup of tea in one hand and rice porridge in the other, and leaves me to my grumbling, still smiling. The mists have not relented with the early morning, they press in on the small clearing, drawing a veil across the darkened forest beyond. The others have already packed their bags and are chatting to each other quietly.

The warm breakfast is a pleasure I have not had for many weeks, and I relish it. When I give the bowl back to the cook, his face reddens as he opens his mouth and then closes it again.

“Is there something you want to ask me, cook?”

“This dish,” he holds up the bowl, “what’s the name of it again?”

I raise an eyebrow. “Congee?”

He beams and bows deeply. “Yes, that’s it – congee. Thank you Omissioner.”

The cook seems worse than average. Maybe that’s why they just call him cook. He’s probably forgotten his own name.

We walk most of the morning and afternoon, with a brief break for lunch. I slow them down, but not too much. In this world you can either march all day, or you can die, and I’ve been marching as long as I can remember. I still complain, of course. I am old, so it is my right. About the cold, my sore hip, the lack of wine. The others pay due respect to my office by not telling me to be silent; Corporal Zhong just glowers twenty shades of loathing at me. The mist is always with us, whether thirty feet away or three, pressing down on the earth and our moods. Eventually its oppressive omnipresence is enough to stop even my old-man complaints, and we are left with silence bar the scuffing of feet and a thin wind that rattles the bamboo.

We are setting up camp in the dark trees that evening when the Sergeant emerges from the mist, red-faced from running. “Omissioner,” she puffs, “I’ve found something. You need to see this.”

I’m already sitting down near the fire and not planning on leaving it anytime soon. “What is it?”

Her eyes harden. “Now.”

The Corporal stands. “You heard the Sergeant – now.”

The orders in stereo only harden my desire to stay where I am, but I’ve decided the Sergeant scares me. So I grumble and complain, but get to my feet anyway. After a twisting walk down a fading stone path we come to a large, grey door covered in moss and moisture. Water has worn down the markings on the stone, but despite its age, despite the decay, the symbol engraved on the door is plain to see. It matches the symbol on my Memento of Office – the
智
.

“This is something important, isn’t it?” asks the Sergeant. The others have gathered behind her now, curious. Even the cook is here, his son staring up at the huge door from behind his father’s apron.

I rake back the grey hair from my eyes and step over to a short stone pillar that stands next to the door. My heart thumps in my chest and suddenly my throat is dry. This can’t be what I think it is. Not after all this time. The top of the pillar is angled at forty-five degrees towards me, made of a dark metal that time has made little impact on. It is completely blank, just a flat, black panel with enough shine still in it that I can see my reflection: an old man with deceptively quiet eyes and a thin white beard growing from his chin.

I pull the Memento from my shirt and pass it over the touchplate. Nothing happens.

For several long seconds, anyway, while the others look on in silence. Then something does happen, the touchplate glows a soft golden hue and satisfying
clunk-clunks
, metallic and deep, echo from inside the door. With a hiss of compressed air and a gasp from someone behind me, it opens.

I move to enter, but the Sergeant pushes me to one side, signalling Zhong and Xu to go first. Zhong leads, machine gun to his shoulder, while the Private pulls the pistol from her hip and shadows him down steep stone stairs. We follow. The stairs end at another door, this one cleansteel and chrome. My Memento opens this door as the last, and we follow Zhong and Xu through.

We enter another world.

The space is brightly lit, a smooth oval space with moulded furniture in harsh whites and soft reds, the walls lined with books and viewing screens and paintings of worlds long forgotten. The lines are crisp here, real, when I reach out and touch a cushion the sensation of the soft leather against my fingertips is sensual and startling. The space is large and interspersed among the moulded chairs are plinths, perhaps twenty, an object on each. One near me has old coins with square holes in the middle, the next, a calligraphy pen and scroll with ancient script; the one after that a bronze cauldron with intricate patterning on the side – western Zhou period, I’m sure; lacquered black wood platform shoes on another, a horn shaped jade cup on the next, pure and curled and gleaming.

It’s like waking up from a long dream. Senses long blurred are now sharp, vague thoughts now linear and clear.

“What is this, Omissioner?” asks the Sergeant, now at my shoulder. She speaks in the whisper of her awe.

I tell the truth, readily: “A memory shelter. I heard of these, secreted away as minds faded and wars began. I thought it a myth, passed from general to general, Omissioner to Omissioner.” I nod towards the shelves and the screens. “Here is our collective consciousness, the fibres of our civilization. These books and manuscripts and artefacts embody us, and in those screens there on the walls you’ll find a hundred million recordings and facts and virtual archaeologies.”

Her hand touches my elbow, her fingertips sparking as they alight on the cloth of my robe. I start and turn to her. She bows deeply. The Corporal and the cook and even his son do the same. The passivity of shock and wonder now settled on their faces.

The Sergeant’s eyes are wide, glistening. “You have saved us, Omissioner. We owe you our lives.” She turns and indicates walls. “And you have given us purpose. To protect this, to learn it, to preserve it will be the duty of our lifetimes. And yours will be to teach it all.”

I’m wondering how to respond to this rather lengthy proposed timeframe when the Private appears at the mouth of one of three corridors that lead from the room. “Omissioner – you must see this.”