The long awaited acclamation of the grateful throng was sadly lacking. What their returning ears did receive were hushed whispers and halfhearted cheers. What their eyes received was the sight of families seeking among their corps those that had not returned. It was the timeless search for lives forever lost.
As the returning military procession reached the main square they disbanded, their mayhem had run its course. Only in dispersal did their spirits lift as families long apart were now reunited. Before revelry could completely overwhelm military discipline, the commander barked a final order, “The Northerner's carpet to my quarters.”
While others joined their wives and much grown children, he proceeded to his room within the palace walls to keep company with the head of the rebel, to drink, prepare his report, and to await the emperor's summons.
The wait would not be a long one.
The commander was interrupted mid rant in the privacy of his quarters by a knock from his young page. “What?” he slurred angrily.
The page wondered if the commander was already drunk or if his ruined face could no longer speak clearly even the simplest of words. “Sir,” he began, “the Emperor wishes to see you.” The boy retreated down the hallway without even waiting for a reply.
The court was already crammed with high officials and shuffling bureaucrats. Their whispered conversations ended as the commander strode in. He was clad in his standard polished armor, over which he boldly wore his robe of bear. As the putrid hide trailed behind him, the claws could be heard clearly, dragging across the smooth stone floor. The commander seemed more animal than the bear whose dead shell cloaked him, his face more savage than the ursine skull that framed it.
He walked disrespectfully tall and dangerously close to the Son of Heaven before dropping to his knees and bowing head to floor three times. The court was silent, the bodyguards were on edge, and the emperor was both displeased and disturbed. It was clear that the imperial arm of civilization had somewhere turned feral, and the emperor knew well that once an animal turns, it will never again turn back.
The commander rose to one knee and sounding hollow through the bear skull visor began to give his report. Stunned silence met its delivery, for it was spoken with the harshness and severity of a snarling animal, sometimes in a low growl and sometimes rising to a heavy roar. It was not the voice of a man, but some dark beast dressed in flesh and kneeling in the form of one who had once been human.
“The siege was long and hard fought; the rebels gave no quarter, and flatly rejected my emperor's benevolent hand. They were well prepared, and it is with great sorrow that I must report the loss of one thousand one hundred and eleven men. All died valiantly in the service of The Son of Heaven. Casualties on the enemy side numbered in excess of thirty-two thousand. Although minor compared to the brave lives lost, the machines of war were lost during their routine deployment in the early assault. Notwithstanding, I am pleased to report a successful completion of mission, and the total annihilation of northern pestilence and rebellion. By the might and wisdom of the emperor, peace has been restored.”
The emperor weighed the commander's report silently against the periodic sources of information gleaned during the year of the campaign. Without delving into the obvious contradictions, the emperor pushed on.
“Is there anything else?”
“Yes, Your Eminence,” growled the commander. “I bring two treasures from the rebel stronghold worthy of your reception.” With a dramatic flair he pulled himself to full height and shouted, “Now!” On cue, ten of his most trusted men carried in on their shoulders the rolled northern carpet and unfurled it as practiced, on the cavernous palace floor.
All present including the emperor were stunned at its unearthly beauty. The two dragons of north and south faced each other in a dance of celestial majesty. Truly it was a treasure worthy of an emperor. It was a living symbol of the unification of the northern and southern regions, two dragons now dancing as one. From the age of the First Emperor, it spoke in rich colors of the heavenly origin of imperial power and the unstoppable cycle of dynastic rule.
The emperor had the ten men that had carried it in, hang it in its rightful place of honor on the wall directly behind his celestial throne. The whispers of appreciation and admiration that swirled around the court like a sycophantic storm were cut short when the emperor began to speak.
“You have done well, Commander, you may ask one favor.”
Without hesitation the commander rose to eye level and addressed the Son of Heaven face to mangled face.
“More than fifteen years ago I embarked on a vital mission of imperial decree. It has been accurately reported to me that although I was successful in the emperor's glorious cause, one criminal escaped and still lives, and I am told that his power grows. I suspect that it was he that stole the monastic library, and it may yet be recovered. Let me assemble a force of five hundred hand-picked men to complete your mission with the finality that it deserves.”
All including the emperor knew the mission to which he referred. There was a long silence as the Son of Heaven studied the animal before him and carefully measured the permutations of possibilities.
Finally the words, “Permission granted,” issued from the Imperial Seat.
As the commander prepared to take his immediate leave, he was halted by a question from the throne of power.
“You spoke of two treasures, what is the second one?”
The commander stopped his hasty exit and almost as a casual afterthought reached under the cloak of hair and hide. Smiling in his damaged way, he drew forth and held up the severed head of the rebel insurgent.
A collective shudder of revulsion passed over and through the imperial court like the icy touch of a northern wind. The few that did not quickly avert their eyes beheld a face that smiled at death and one that decay had strangely not molested. They looked upon a man whose features, even though bodiless, were much more human than those of the man that held it. In the void of shock and silence, the commander tucked it away, pivoted awkwardly, and marched out.
Ministers jostled to move rapidly out of his way, as unhindered, untouched, and unhurried, he left the shaken hall.
Death has his time and perspective, and men have theirs. They are flightless creatures and so can see only the ground before them. Death soars in effortless circles sometimes gently and sometimes ferociously riding the winds. This higher view often leads to deeper understanding, or more accurately, over-standing, and does not fall easily within man's grasp.
If it did, they would have seen death flow steadily from north to south like a mighty river, a river that fills the channel where men once marched. They would have seen it branching off like tributaries. They would have seen it stop at the imperial palace and radiate out from the wall behind the throne to the far reaches of the kingdom like the spokes of some great wheel. Instead they knew only that Death came, and for a flightless earthbound creature, perhaps this was enough.
Like the first rain drops of a gathering tempest, reports began to trickle in from the far reaches of the empire. A sickness had struck with the suddenness of a summer storm. Even the earthbound could now discern its rapid progression.
The soldiers had returned free of plunder, but not free of disease, and this is what entered their homes and embraced their families. The plague infiltrated like a spy and lay dormant like a sleeper cell. It incubated within the carrier unnoticed, it gave away nothing of its presence; it hid, it grew, it traveled, and then it struck. Innocent and quiet at first, it began as a minor irritation of the skin, a few red spots. Like brook to stream and stream to raging river, its symptoms grew to rage in torrents.
The red welts swelled to ugly sores which spread and festered. Hard and painful to the touch they soon covered the body and lined even the mouths of those infected. Even through the highest fever, the itch could drive men mad. The angry boils puckered and broke like volcanic craters. The strong survived and the weak perished. Scabs eventually formed and dropped off. Some of the lucky were left blind, all of the lucky were left pock scared and disfigured.
This was Death slashing from horseback upon the stallion known as War. It struck with the unpredictability of battle, a scythe that knows not wheat from weed. Young or old, man or woman, rich or poor, any could fall before it. Some survived while many perished, and others it left alone.
There were no walls high enough to keep it out, or thick enough to keep it in. Not even the walls of the imperial palace. For the emperor, the death of his people was only one consideration. With a great dying the economy grinds to a halt, and before plagues of great magnitude, even empires crumble. As trickle became flood, the seriousness of the situation weighed upon his shoulders, and with every passing day that weight increased.
The commander spoke to the dead young rebel often, sometimes about this accursed pox, and often about killing the smelly boy. He remembered little of the bargain that the rebel had offered and that he had refused, for overstanding was not his strength, and delusion was now his overlord.
All the commander knew was that the ranks of the military were decimated, and that he and those that still stood were pressed to bury the dead. It was a curse upon his head, not because of death or suffering, but because it had delayed his revenge. The monk would live, at least until the plague had run its course.
Within the imperial walls the emperor's minister was also ravaged by the plague. Not directly, for that would have been a blessing, but indirectly like so many others. This man of wealth and power could do nothing to ease the suffering of his beloved eldest son. This minister, in spite of rank or wealth, could do nothing when Death came and took his boy. As the funeral fire burned, and the blackened smoke that was once his boy rose up, the anguished cries of a grieving father mingled with the winds that blew across the land.
This was the reaping of the lesser pox, the smallpox, and it was this black carpet that now rolled out to cover the empire.
This Chancellor, once the emperor's most trusted minister, ambled throughout the palace grounds like a wraith. He had always borne the responsibility of his post well, but now it paled by comparison to the weight that pulled him down and slowed his every step. He was without purpose, a man who knew that in reality his life had amounted to nothing. Sorrow was a heavy burden, and the fact that he would never really know his son added to it greatly.
His regrets were many. Their time spent together was as an official with his heir, he wished now it had been much more as a father with his son. There was no comfort and no solution, and for all his worldly influence, he was now utterly powerless. He had steered his boy away from all things frivolous, but would now give anything just to hear that childish laugh once more.
With no real way to escape his pain, he wandered vacantly to the only place that gave him small respite. As he approached this private spot, he froze when he saw another in his place. He stood quietly and watched carefully to see what the boy had come to steal. Instead he saw the page light an offering before the urn that held the ashes of his son. The smoke rose and circled as the boy bowed three times and thrust the incense into the bowl of alter sand.
An image of chopsticks stuck in a rice bowl came to mind. He walked forward, and at the sound of his closing footsteps, the page's tear-wet face turned suddenly in his direction. The frightened boy stood clumsily and prepared to flee. “Stay,” the minister bid, and reluctantly but without choice the boy sat once more. “Why are you here?” the chancellor asked, and when the page answered, “I came to visit my friend,” his eyes could not hide their surprise.
He raked through memory for anything his son may have told him about this friendship, but there was nothing. He did remember the distain his boy had of the rough commander, and what once he thought irrational now began to make more sense. Their status was as opposite as night and day, but their ages were similar. In the adult realm of the palace, the minister was starting to believe that his son may have had a secret friend. The Chancellor asked bluntly, “What besides your years could you two possibly have had in common?”
The page responded with an unwavering stare, and with an answer that took the emperor's highest official completely off guard, “Horses, Sir. Your son loved horses.” There was a time his boy walked into the palace smelling like the stable, and the memory of how he had rebuked his child now scalded him like bitter tears.
Over the course of the afternoon he gleaned many details from the page about a boy that he didn't know. The minister heard about his son's dreams of one day joining the military. Proudly he heard that his son was kind to the page and the animals that he tended. In a short time the minister realized that this boy knew his son much better than he did, and he took delight in every hidden detail.
The page eventually apologized but explained that he had his duties to attend to, and that any slip would bring harsh retribution. The minister did not want him to go but understood the workings of the palace. He felt much lighter as he stood to face the page whose position now grew more desperate with every passing moment.
“Sir,” the page intoned with one final recollection, “It was your son's strongest desire to rid the land of the sickness that came in time to claim him.” With an awkward and uncustomary embrace the minister said, “Goodbye.”
The minister walked with new direction, grateful for the gift the young page had given him. He was clearer in thought and lighter in spirit than he had been since his son's departure. Once inside his private chamber, he took his position behind his desk. He sat straight and breathed deeply as he looked at the blank silk paper that lay before him. Gathering in mind the spirit of his boy, he dipped the brush and began to write in his beautiful cursive script.