Part 46 (2/2)

He set Davies down, gave him water, made him as comfortable as was possible.

”Why have you done this?” Davies said. His face was streaked with dirt which had run in the runnels of his sweat and blood. ”I was certain I'd never see you again.”

”You are a barbarian,” Zilin said softly. ”What do you know.”

Davies smiled and closed his eyes. ”I thought the Shan was bad,” he said. ”It was worse in there,” he said. ”Much worse.”

Zilin said nothing as he squatted next to his friend. Perhaps, he thought, it is important for him to talk now because he could not before.

”I thought that they had prepared us well for a all eventualities. But nownow I think that even they did not know what would happen to us if we were captured.”

There was a deep-throated rumbling from the southeast. The rain was on its way. Zilin looked up, past the tiled roof overhang. There was no illumination in the low sky save a dull electric reflection from the lights of the sleeping city. He thought of the brilliant blue-white electric arc of the prod, the smell of cooking flesh, Ross Davies's flesh, and was glad at what he had done.

”I don't know,” Davies said as the first drops pattered onto the villa's roof, ”how I got here. This is a long way from Virginia. A long way from home.” He put his head down between his drawn-up knees. ”I feel like I'm on another planet, and I thinkI think, absolutely, that is the worst part. Dying so far from anything familiar.”

”You're not going to die,” Zilin said, s.h.i.+fting a little to get out of the rain, which was coming down harder now. He remembered the wild ride they had taken along the Jinyun Shan. He took out a cigarette, lit it, put it between Davies's lips. He thought it was good that Davies's parents wouldn't see him this way.

”I am afraid,” Davies said, not smoking at all. ”I am afraid to die. I would have tried to kill myself in my cell between interrogations but for that. It is a mortal fear. What will happen to me afterward? Will I drift in nothingness? Will I feel the cold? Will there be anything at all?”

”I am a Buddhist,” Zilin said. ”There is no heaven, no h.e.l.l.”

With an uncoordinated jerk, Davies turned his head. ”Then what?”

”A beginning,” Zilin said. ”Lifeour lifeis only the beginning of a cosmic journey. And who may say where it will end. Life is to be fought for. Every moment. But death is not to be feared, my friend.”

He reached out, took the faltering cigarette from between Davies's lips, sucked in some smoke. He exhaled, gave it back.

Davies looked at him. ”I am so far from home.”

”Forget about America,” Zilin said. ”China is your home now.”

Davies put his head back, took a long drag of the cigarette.

A noise, a sharp sound from the shadows beyond the well, and Zilin lurched to his feet. Saw a figure staggering toward the villa. Took a step forward, rain cascading over him, then another and another until he was near the covered well.

”Senlin!”

She hurled herself over the last few meters, into his arms.

”Ah, the lovers!”

Zilin knew that voice well. Huaishan Han. He appeared from out of the copse of trees, the hunter bringing his prey into the killing ground.

”The loyal Chu called me after you left,” Huaishan Han called as he advanced on them. ”He is a very thorough man, Chu tong zhi. Suspicious as well. I told him to keep you under surveillance until I arrived.” He smiled but there was no humor in his face. ”Now I am here.”

Zilin looked down at Senlin, who was s.h.i.+vering uncontrollably against him. It was very dark and the rain swept away what clear vision there might be. A clap of thunder, darkness and then a spit of lurid lightning illuminated her bruised and battered face.

”Senlin, what!”

”I told you he knew,” she sobbed. ”This is my punishment. He hit only my face. I think there are broken bones. That is what he wanted. *Everyone must know your shame!' he shouted as he beat me. *For the rest of your life, you will be known by what you have done!' ”

Zilin, speechless, hugged her to him. He kissed her face while she whimpered.

”For this?” he said, in time. ”For this?”

”Not only for my infidelity,” Senlin said. ”But also because I carry a child in my belly. It is your child.”

Stunned, Zilin watched, detached, as Huaishan Han gripped Sen-lin's wrist.

”Give her up, traitor!” His eyes blazed. They had the flat, opaquequality endemic to ideologues. Once Zilin would have bet on Huaishan Han's conversion to Communism. That was what motivated him to change sides, wasn't it? No, no. Now Zilin saw Huaishan Han for the clever opportunist he was. Moving from Nationalist to Communist served Huaishan Han well, and that was all he cared about. That was why he had involved himself with the tears of the poppy. Money and a widening power base: these comprised the ideology to which Huaishan Han subscribed.

Huaishan Han placed the blade of a knife at the side of Senlin's neck where the carotid artery pulsed. ”Give her up unless you want to see her die.”

Zilin unwound his arm from around Senlin. Watching for that split instant of relaxation in Huaishan Han, he ducked down and forward, b.u.t.ting his head against the other man's stomach, bulling him backward.

Huaishan Han grunted as his spine was jolted by the edge of the iron-capped well and the knife spun from his nerveless fingers.

Zilin put his hands together, slammed them down onto Huaishan Han's sternum so that the other doubled over in pain. Lifted him by crotch and hip, the rage, long held neatly in check, boiling over in a fever. Threw him upward.

Huaishan Han landed heavily on the center of the iron lid. Already rusted through by the elements and decades of neglect, the cap gave way. Huaishan Han shouted and, reaching desperately out, regained his hold on Senlin. She went down with him.

Shouting into the storm, Zilin scrambled atop the well, shaving skin off his knees and s.h.i.+ns. The odor of the ages a.s.saulted him. He could see nothing, only feel a hand, fingers grasping for his. Reaching to his limit, he held on to skin made slick with sweat and slimy condensation.

Whose hand was it? Huaishan Han's or Senlin's? In the darkness and the storm he could not tell.

Then the bosom of the moonlit ocean opened up to him and he was within da-hei. He heard the calling.

I will destroy him. He felt the voice. I must destroy him. Let go. Let go.

No! He cried silently. No!

There is no other way. He is killing me.

Hauling on the hand. No.'

I will not let him kill you as well. Let go, I beg you.

Senlin! Stars dancing in weir light off the bosom of the ocean. I can save you! And he reached out, not with his hand or even his mind but with his qi, his extraordinary qi, until he found her, grasped that essence of her with which he had merged so many times.

And merged with it one last time.

Senlin.

It is the only way!

Then he let go of the hand.

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