The Dragon Men (27 page)

“Fuck the Dao, Dad. Do you want me to come back or not?”

Uri fell silent. He took the fiddle into his lap. Gavin watched him, trying to stay dispassionate. The two Dragon Men stood on the mountainside, surrounded by flowing water; one with wings and one without; one with a fiddle, one with the Impossible Cube; one older, one younger. The universe hung balanced between them. Gavin held his breath, and even the water seemed to slow.

At last Uri said, “You need to find your own self, Son, wherever that is.”

“Fine, Dad,” Gavin said tiredly. “You have your life, and I have—”

“But,” Uri interrupted, “I think the universe would smile if your path and mine traveled side by side again.”

Gavin gave a short bark of a laugh at that. “And maybe that's the best I can hope for. All right, Dad. Maybe I'll come back. But think about this—maybe
you'll
come back.”

They embraced, a gesture made clumsy by Gavin's wing harness, and for a small moment Gavin let himself be a small boy again. Then he turned and leaped off the edge of the porch. His wings left a blue trail as he followed the silver nightingale back to Alice, the Impossible Cube clutched in his hands.

Chapter Sixteen

“L
i and his men will be beheaded in the courtyard,” Phipps muttered to Alice. “Su Shun has other plans for us. They won't be pleasant.”

“No doubt,” Alice replied tightly. Su Shun's men had taken her wire sword away, of course, along with the new pistols and the weapons Li's soldiers carried. They couldn't take away the metallic hands and arms, at least. Or rather, Alice amended privately, they hadn't done so yet.

Su Shun's men herded them out of the false storage building and into the streets of the Forbidden City proper. It truly was a city, with walkways and buildings and parks, and Alice wondered whether she was the first Westerner ever to see it. She also wondered if she would survive to tell about it. The buildings all had the odd peaked roofs that swooped up at the eaves. Lanterns on poles burned everywhere to provide light. The air smelled of gunpowder and hot metal. The thudding and thumping Alice had felt underground were more prominent up here.

Imperial soldiers surrounded them on all sides, weapons drawn and ready. Su Shun himself, dressed in a suit of yellow lacquered armor, walked at the head of the procession with a single soldier between him and Alice. He had taken personal possession of Alice's wire sword and wore the battery pack, though he had to wield the weapon with his left hand. The Jade Hand glowed softly at his right. Alice stared at it. The thing they had come for was so close she could almost touch it. She tried to keep the fear under control, but every step took them closer to torture and death. The iron spider on her left hand felt chilly despite the heat of the August night.

“I thought there were no men in the Forbidden City after sunset,” she murmured to Lieutenant Li. “Are all these soldiers eunuchs now?”

“No,” Li murmured back. “The emperor would appear to have made some changes.”

A soldier snapped something at them, presumably an order to be quiet, and Alice fell silent. Her mouth was dry, and she desperately wanted a drink. As they marched through the streets, the machinery sounds grew louder and were punctuated with the occasional explosion. They passed an enormous well with a freestanding windlass over it, and Alice noticed a sad look pass over Lady Orchid's face. Alice wanted to ask about it, but she didn't dare.

Lady Orchid still held the Ebony Chamber, and Cricket walked next to her. The boy looked frightened and was trying not to show it, a feeling Alice understood. She scanned the skies. Empty.

Not far from the well, they reached what had once been a wide expanse of lawn. The grass was chewed up, and divots of earth lay everywhere. Many of the stone walkways had been shattered into rubble. Dragon Men, their salamanders glowing in their ears, worked like mad among dozens of animal-shaped machines that stomped and roared and clawed and breathed fire and shot rockets into the air. Piles of ammunition stood with enormous kegs of gunpowder near stacks and stacks of raw metal, and forges glowed like scattered demons. Lady Orchid put a hand over her mouth at the sight, and Alice understood that this had once been a place of tranquility and beauty. Heaven had become hell.

At one end of the lawn stood a wide marble three-sided staircase that led up to a tall, multiroofed building—a pavilion of some sort. Large chunks of the pavilion had been carved out, either blasted away or pried loose. Two stone dragon statues guarded the top of the stairs. Their jade eyes and teeth had been pried out. Su Shun led them to the front staircase, which faced the ruined lawn. Su Shun mounted the steps partway to the top, turned to face them, and held out the Jade Hand. Instantly, the soldiers forced everyone down to their knees and pressed their faces to the stones at the bottom of the stairs. The soldier who forced Alice down was none too gentle about it. He rapped her forehead against the ground hard enough to make her dizzy, and she couldn't help crying out in pain. The soldier pulled her upright, though she was kept on her knees. Her face burned. Su Shun stood on the fifth step, his half-brass face a hard mask. He said something sharp, and two soldiers hauled Lady Orchid up the steps to him, Ebony Chamber in her grip. The gold dragons crawled across it. Cricket shouted something and tried to run after her. Su Shun snarled, and one of the soldiers twisted Cricket's arm behind him. He howled and struggled. Alice wanted to snatch him up and run, but there was nowhere to flee to. Then Lady Orchid spoke to him, and he stopped. Su Shun flicked out the Jade Hand and cracked her across the face, sending her to her knees. Cricket yelled again, but the soldier easily put him on the ground, too. Alice trembled with outrage but kept her wits about her. Nothing would be gained by protest. Not yet.

Su Shun reached down and plucked the Ebony Chamber from Lady Orchid with the Jade Hand and set it on the stairs above him, then said something to the assembled soldiers and Westerners.

“He's telling us to translate for anyone who can't understand a proper language,” Phipps said in a tight voice. “He wants everyone to understand what is happening here.”

“The weak and corrupt dynasty is at an end,”
Su Shun boomed, with Phipps translating a moment behind him.
“The final remnants of the dogs we called the Qing kneel before a true emperor, not an opium smoker who kowtows to the West, but a warrior who conquers it.”

“You are not the emperor, Su Shun.”
Lady Orchid was kneeling on the stairs, but her back was straight and her demeanor was proud.
“You can kill me and you can kill the son of Xianfeng, but that will not make you emperor.”

Su Shun flipped the switch on Alice's sword, and it growled to life. He moved the wire blade within an inch of Lady Orchid's throat. The Imperial Concubine didn't turn a hair, and Alice was impressed despite herself.

“Let us find out,”
Su Shun said.

But Lady Orchid couldn't be stopped. Her voice rang throughout the courtyard, and even the Dragon Men paused in their work to listen.
“Sitting at the emperor's table and eating from his dishes does not make a good emperor, Su Shun. It only makes a fat general. We all know that the Ebony Chamber guards the name of the true heir to the throne. It does not guard your name.”

The flesh half of Su Shun's face flushed a deep red at Lady Orchid's words. Alice didn't understand the reason for it—the insult about eating at the table seemed mild to her. Perhaps it was worse in Chinese than it was in English.

“And now your head will bounce to the stones while your son watches.”
Su Shun drew back the sword. Cricket continued to struggle in the soldier's grip.

“And now you will be nothing but an empty suit of lacquer,”
Orchid retorted.
“Before all these witnesses, all these soldiers, all these Dragon Men, I say you are afraid to open the Ebony Chamber with the Jade Hand.”

The trap snapped shut. Alice could see the understanding on Su Shun's face. He himself had arranged for many witnesses for the proceedings here, and those witnesses would spread far and wide what Su Shun did next. If he refused to open the Ebony Chamber with the Jade Hand, everyone would whisper behind his back about it, and his shaky hold on the throne would erode and vanish like farmland in a desert. If he did open it, there was every reason to believe the paper inside would bear Cricket's name. Su Shun had lost. Lady Orchid raised her chin in triumph despite the sword vibrating beneath it.

Alice held her breath. Su Shun held the humming sword. A flicker of movement would send Lady Orchid's head tumbling down the steps. The tendons in Su Shun's hand stood out like wires. Abruptly he swept the sword away.

“We will . . . open the Ebony Chamber,”
he said.

Wisely, Lady Orchid said nothing, though Alice could read the exultation in her eyes. Alice herself felt as if she might float away with the sudden release of tension. Su Shun slowly turned to the Chamber on the steps above him. The gold dragons on its glossy surface glimmered and shifted in the bright lantern light, and the phoenix latch seemed to flicker and dance with a life of its own.

“I believe the combination is eighteen,”
Lady Orchid supplied helpfully.
“It is already set. Naturally, the general would not dream of changing the numbers.”

A thundercloud crossed Su Shun's face, and for a moment Alice wondered if Lady Orchid had gone too far in addressing him as
general
and obliquely saying he might try to lie. But Su Shun pressed the Jade Hand to the phoenix latch. A clear
click
sounded across the courtyard. The Dragon Men and the soldiers gave up all pretense of politeness and craned their necks to see. The lid of the Ebony Chamber popped open. Su Shun's jaw moved back and forth as he ground his teeth, but he reached inside. Alice felt as if she might fly apart.

There was a long pause. Then Su Shun laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed some more. He pulled the Jade Hand—empty—from the box and knocked the container sideways so everyone could see inside.

The Ebony Chamber was empty.

A sigh went through the assembled people. All the fear came rushing back. Alice's stomach churned, and she nearly vomited on the stones.

“Before these witnesses, I proclaim the emperor declared no heir.”
Su Shun raised the growling sword to the sky, and his voice was rich with reclaimed luster.
“Since I bear the Jade Hand—”

“No!”
Lady Orchid rushed at Su Shun, her fingers formed into claws. She swiped at the fleshy side of his face and scored furrows. But he caught her wrist with the Jade Hand and twisted. She dropped to one knee.

“Your filthy hand struck the emperor!”
he howled.
“Let it pay the price before you die!”

He swung the wire sword around. The snarling blade sliced through Lady Orchid's right wrist as if it were paper. Lady Orchid screamed. Her hand dropped to the staircase with a horrible
plop
. Su Shun released her, and she held the stump before her eyes, too shocked to believe what she was seeing. The blade had cauterized the wound as it cut, leaving no blood. Threads of smoke drifted up from the half-cooked meat. This time Alice did throw up. Vomit spattered across the cracked cobblestones and left burning acid in her mouth and nose. Phipps looked green. Cricket was crying openly now, not caring who saw.

Alice thought she heard a faint, familiar clicking sound from overhead, and a bit of whirling brass caught the tail of her eye. She didn't dare look directly at it.

“Enjoy your perfect beauty now, Imperial Concubine,”
Su Shun said.
“Captain! Throw this pig filth down the well like her dogs and send her illegitimate brat after her.”

The captain bodily lifted Lady Orchid and carried her toward the well Alice had noticed earlier. The soldier with Cricket followed. Both Orchid and Cricket fought and yelled. Alice cast about for something to do, but she couldn't think of a thing. A dozen weapons were pointed at her, and if she got up or even protested, she would die in an instant. In cold horror she watched as the captain lifted the screaming Lady Orchid over his head and dropped her into the dark pit. The earth swallowed her screams. Seconds later, the soldier dropped Cricket in after, and his cries likewise vanished. Alice wept. She couldn't even hear the splash.

“Monster!” she cried at Su Shun, tears streaming down her face. “May you rot in hell!”

“I won't translate,” Phipps said hoarsely. “Though I think he understood the general idea.”

That seemed to be the case. Su Shun made a sharp gesture, and one of the soldiers grabbed Alice's arms with a steel grip that left bruises. He dragged her up to the stairs to the new emperor's feet. The eyes on her spider gauntlet glowed green—no one near her carried the clockwork plague. She looked up at Su Shun and his yellow armor and his half-brass face and his metal neck all ringed in rivets. There was a fury in his eyes, but fear, too. In that moment, she saw that he was little more than a boy surrounding himself with a wall of metal and creating toys that would fight for him. Under other circumstances she might have found him pathetic or even pitiable, but right now a woman and a child were, at his order, drowning in fear and darkness. The snippet of whirling brass tugged at the tail of her eye again, but she kept her eyes on him.

“Do not look the emperor in the eye, pig spawn,”
Su Shun snapped.

“You're nothing but a tin bully,” Alice snapped back, and spat at his feet.

At those particular words, Phipps, Li, and all of Li's men put their hands over their ears. So did Alice. The imperial soldiers had time to look puzzled. In a rage, Su Shun drew back the vibrating sword, and at that moment, an explosion rocked the Forbidden City. Heat blasted through the courtyard, and a shock wave knocked flat everyone who wasn't kneeling, including Su Shun. A second blast followed the first. Several of the Dragon Men's mechanical animals were knocked over. The gunpowder and ammunition stores—the source of the explosion—roiled up to the sky in a choking cloud of black smoke. Alice, who was braced for the event, recovered first. She leaped past Su Shun and snatched up the Ebony Chamber. With shaking fingers, she spun the phoenix latch to 000 and opened the lid. Out of the impossibly small space, Alice drew one of Gavin's new pistols, trailing its battery pack by a cable, and threw it to Phipps. Alice tossed a second pistol to Li and kept the third for herself. She started to shrug herself into the battery pack, but the well caught her eye. How long had Lady Orchid and Cricket been down there?

Chaos erupted in all directions. Phipps turned and fired at the Dragon Men's automatons without bothering to put the battery pack on first. Her pistol spat crackling orange bolts that hissed and sparked over the mechanical animals, blowing holes in them or melting them. Li joined her. The black-clad Dragon Men scattered like shadows before the light, howling as they went. Li's men shot to their feet and leaped for their imperial counterparts, wrestling the stunned guards to get their weapons back. Su Shun was staggering to his feet, shaking his head. Alice tried fumbling with the battery pack, but her fingers were numb. And the well—always the well.