The Red Plains (The Forbidden List Book 3) (3 page)

“I was sad to see the mountain destroyed,” the short, soft voiced man said.

“What do you want from me?” Zhou said.

The short man shrugged. “Everything. Mostly information.”

“I will not tell you anything,” Zhou stated.

“Of course you won’t. I understand that. You don’t want to betray your friends. Please, believe me when I say that it gives me no great pleasure to have to ask you questions and require answers of you, but such is war and power. Each must have their quests and goals, their strategies and battles, their winners and losers, and each general will have their day.”

“I am not a general.”

“But you are a fighter.” The short man took a sip from his cup and grimaced. “The tea they make is not very good, however it is the best I can get at the moment. You’ll try some?”

Zhou shook his head. “I can fight.”

“I know. I have seen you on the Wall. Very impressive, as are your friends.”

“They will hold back your army. You will not take the Wall,” Zhou said.

“My army? No, you mistake me and the power of this army. The Wall will fall. It may happen this very night, or the next.”

Zhou stood still and stared at his questioner. The round belly, fur-lined robe, bald head and stubble on his chin, and those little eyes that stared right back, dark obsidian orbs that seemed unconcerned and unhurried.

“Who are you?” Zhou asked.

“I am a magician,” the short man answered before taking another cup of tea. “It really is the best they can do. It will be the last taste of civilisation you have for a long while. I suggest you try some.”

“A magician?”

The man nodded. “Tea?”

“Why do you want me to drink the tea so much?”

“Ah,” the man nodded again, “you think it is poisoned. Perhaps some form of potion to make you speak the truth? I promise you it is not, but why should you believe me. It is best, you think, to trust no one at all and answer no questions. I can understand that and I know that nothing I do will convince you otherwise. Your mind is set, is it not? I can see you are a stubborn man. One who sets his mind to a task and carries it through. You stand up for your beliefs do you not? But you were not always this way.” The voice paused and those dark reflective eyes turned in Zhou’s direction. “You’ve little to care for anymore. I have been there. It is not a nice place to be, is it? You are seeking meaning and purpose. Your eyes tell me that. No, you don’t have to speak for me to deduce many things about you.”

“Who are you?” Zhou forced the question between the constant chatter.

“You need a name? Would that make you feel better? Would it help you to trust me more?” The man put down his tea cup and rubbed his chin. “A name, a name... I’ve had so many. You can call me,” there was a pause as the man looked towards the roof of the tent, “Yángwū. It fits as well as any other I have worn over the years and brings back many memories. Yes, call me Yángwū.”

“I am not going to tell you anything, whether you have a name or not. The Wall will stand and I will,” Zhou stopped before he completed the sentence.

“You will what?” Yángwū leant forward in his seat. “See, already you begin to tell me things. What happened to you to make you so distrusting and stubborn. You were a teacher maybe? Your hands have done little manual labour, your nails are not cracked and broken. You stand tall and there are no discolourations on your hands, not an administrator then. Life was soft and easy. But something changed, there is coldness in your eyes. Your face is not used to smiling any more. The lines have deepened around your eyes. You frown a lot now. Ah, you lost someone close to you. An emotional trauma and the change it wrought you have still not overcome.”

Zhou turned his back and stomped away. The guesses were coming close to the mark and he could feel the anger burning in his stomach, acid roiling and rising up to his throat. He choked it down and took a deep, calming breath.

“You have been taught to control yourself. It does not always work, does it? You react instead of predicting and preventing. You still have much to learn about control. Maybe a year or two is all you have been trained for. A new
Wu
, and a wild one at that. Very interesting,” the soft voice said.

“What do you want with me?” Zhou turned back towards the voice.

“I told you, information. That is all I want and need. I want to understand you. You are a puzzle and I do not like puzzles. I like answers. I like to know.”

“You seem to know a lot about me already,” Zhou said and stepped forward. The man was short, he was fat and slow. Even without the spirit, Zhou was confident he could win a physical confrontation, but the man was a magician. He had powers and he was blocking Zhou’s access to the spirit. What else might he be capable of?

“I see you are thinking of overpowering me. It won’t work. Though if you want to try, please, be my guest. It is important you know your limitations. Strong as you are, without the spirit you are not a match for me. Even with it, I knocked you over the wall.”

Zhou stopped moving forward and took a step back, his hands curling into fists. “You were on the Wall?”

“Not me exactly, just my mind and my control of your
Fang-shi
. A strange magic, don’t you think? This draining of the nothing between and turning it to their own purposes. Where is the life in it? Where is the direction, the spirit, the control, the give and take? There is nothing, but the demand and the action. I could see it in his mind. Even after all these years, they still don’t understand what they do.”

Zhou stood still. The desire to throw himself upon Yángwū, to rip out the man’s throat and watch the blood splash across the floor, to bathe in it, was strong. Spirit or no spirit, a lunge across the room, just one exercise of the muscles in his legs to propel him forward. Arms would raise, hands would reach out towards his victim’s throat and with bunched shoulders he could strangle the life from the fat man’s body. Or, he could grab the smaller man’s head and drive it again and again into the central pole or even the floor. He could crush his skull and watch brain matter mix with blood and stain his robes. So many ways to kill, to take revenge for his wife, his child, his city and for the mountain.

But he did not move. He could not move. Time stopped. No movement, no flap of canvas, no shout or call, no voices or sounds of battle. Nothing. All that existed was the frozen scene in front of him. Zhou willed his body to move, for muscles to respond to his call. He wanted to cry out his frustration. He was unable to do anything, and then a voice sounded in his head.

“There is always a key,” it said.

It was not speech. More like the communication in the spirit realm, mind to mind, spirit to spirit. Zhou’s vision faded.

# # #

The hazy blur resolved into focus and he wished it had not.

Smoke rose in twisting snakes towards the dark clouds above. All around was ruin. Charred timbers still warm and glowing, a reptile’s scales in black, yellow and orange. The rubble of collapsed stone walls littered the ground, children’s blocks discarded and abandoned by the flight of attention drawn to something new. Ahead, the remains of a staircase climbed upwards to empty air. The floor it had once led to was gone. It had existed once, Zhou could remember the rooms above.

At his feet, the discoloured and scorched remains of his wife and child. Burnt flesh, torn and curled like paper scrolls, still clung to their bones. A memory of their life, dry and desiccating. The last of the moisture turning to steam and carrying their souls to the skies.

“Death is never pretty,” the voice said, and now it sounded from behind him.

“Where are we?” Zhou refused to turn. He knew where he was. He still lived here. He always would. Some part wanted to look away from the wreck of his former life, the destroyed home, ruined city and charred remains of his family. Another part, a stubborn aspect, would not let him.

“In your memory,” the voice said. “There is always a key. It took me a while to find yours. The
Fang-shi
was easier, but they never learned to shield their spirit the way the
Wu
do.”

“Why have you brought me here, Yángwū? I am not telling you anything.”

“You mistake me once more, little cub. I did not bring you here. You made that decision. This is where you exist. Your mind created this place, this memory.” Yángwū moved around to stand in front of Zhou and continued to talk. “I would have preferred a more welcoming environment, but it was not my choice.”

Zhou tore his gaze away from the corpses of his wife and child to look into Yángwū’s eyes.

“You will tell me what I need to know,” Yángwū said. “In that you have no choice. You have no access to the Spirit realm, nowhere to hide in your own mind. Now that I am in, I can travel to any of your memories. It would be easier, for both of us, if you complied, but I can force you. The process is not pleasant, I assure you.”

“I will not help you,” Zhou stated.

“So be it,”
Yángwū said. “A shame, but you have made your choice and I respect that. You see us as enemies. I understand, but you and I are fighting different wars.”

“You are going to kill me once you have what you want anyway. Don’t pretend,” Zhou said.

“You may not believe me when I tell you I have no wish to see you dead, nor even suffer. My war is not with you or even with your Empire, you are just in the way. Now,”
Yángwū shrugged, “let us see to the information.”

Here he could act. Here Zhou could move, and he did. A step forward, shifting his weight into the leap, and he left the ground in graceful arc towards
Yángwū. Abandoning the desire to strangle or tackle, Zhou snapped out his front leg in a kick aimed squarely at his enemy’s chest. All of his anger and rage he put behind that kick and it passed right through Yángwū’s body.

“Interesting,”
Yángwū said. “I do believe I almost felt that. There really is nothing you can do. I am not really here. You may exist here, but are not really, physically here.”

Yángwū turned and picked his way across the rubble to the bottom of the stairs that rose to nowhere.

“How apt,” he said and placed his foot upon the bottom step.

Zhou’s vision shattered.

# # #

“Zhou,” his wife’s voice pierced the darkness and he opened his eyes.

It was dark. Night.

“The baby’s coming, Zhou. Get the midwife.” Her voice sounded panicked and he struggled to understand why. A baby coming, why? Nonsense, he decided and turned over to go back to sleep. His eyes closed again.

“Zhou,” she screamed, “it’s coming.”

His baby. His wife was giving birth to his baby. The plans, what where they? Get the midwife. Yes, that was the first thing. Hot towels and lots of water, that was next wasn’t it? It sounded right.

Zhou struggled with the sheet. It seemed to be caught round his legs. He flapped at it, kicked his feet and only entangled himself more. The fear fluttered in his chest.

“Too early,”
Yángwū said.

Darkness.

# # #

Back in the ruins of his home. Smoke rising and the charnel scent of death. On the stairs,
Yángwū took another step upwards.

Vision tumbled and spun.

# # #

“You have ruined our family,” Father-in-law said. A heavy frown creased his forehead and his fist slammed down upon the table.

“It is a trick,” Zhou said. His heart beat faster and he rushed to get the words out. “The cattle are not real, they are a trick. I saw one of them destroyed. It exploded in purple light and left behind the ruins of men. They killed all the crew, all the guards. I was there. You have to believe me.”

“Zhou, how can I? Hsin has spoken out against you twice now. First to deride your efforts in the Peace Treaty and now this. You are lucky not to be in prison and we are lucky to still have our homes. I have called in every favour, every debt due and owed, just to maintain our present status, but it is slipping.”

“Father-in-law, they will destroy us. We must do something. We must convince them. This treaty, this road, has put us in more danger than ever before. An army is coming to destroy us and we sent ours back to their farms.”

“Still too early,”
Yángwū said. Zhou turned away from his argument with his Father-in-law just as the vision crumbled once more.

# # #

“It is all about control,” Boqin said. “You have to be aware of the spirit and it will be aware of you. How you use it, or it uses you, is something you can find out as you grow together.”

“What will be my spirit?” Zhou asked.

“That we will only find out when you make that first journey into the realm. It is the same for all us. In the far past it was different, a longer process, a lifetime to learn just the simple arts. We have made some progress over the years,” Boqin said with a smile.

“When can I make the journey?” Zhou said. The thought of power, and what he could with it strong in his thoughts.

“It is good to see the bear again,”
Yángwū said. “It has been a long time.”