Part 53 (1/2)

Neon Chow nodded. Went quickly below and, gathering up her things, she went off the junk.

Jake watched her leave. It was easy to pick her out of the crowd. She could stop traffic in a model's convention.

Bliss caught his eye. ”Jake” she began but Jake waved her to silence. Seeing Three Oaths emerging from belowdecks he went over to him.

”It's all done,” the old man said. If anything, he seemed in worse humor. ”If it means anything, Sawyer's reaction was the same as mine.

But he's done as you ordered. The du Long bonds are on the market.”

”Good,” Jake said, and began to turn away.

”Zhuan.”

”Yes, Elder Uncle.”

”Bliss told me about what happened at Great Pool of Fiddle's and I am concerned.”

”We're all concerned, Elder Uncle.”

”No. I mean about you.”

Jake watched him, silent.

”She told me what you did to White-Eye Kao.”

”I don't have to”

”She admitted her own guilt. The torture”

”We did what was necessary,” Jake said shortly. ”Nothing more.”

”I understand that there are great stakes involved.”

”Greater than we know, I fear.”

Three Oaths fought hard to decipher his nephew's words. Yes, he thought, he is greatly changed. His spirit is so far away from all of us. Is this what it means to be Zhuan? If so then, truly, I do not wish it for my number one son or any of my sons, for that matter. ”Is it true that Chen Ju is alive?” he said finally.

”So it would seem, Elder Uncle.”

”And that you and Bliss will seek him out.”

”Yes.”

Three Oaths gave a great sigh. ”It is exceedingly dangerous there.

In the Shan.”

”I know.”

”It is his place, now. Chen Ju's. It is our enemy's seat of power,”

Jake looked deeply into the old man's eyes. ”Elder Uncle, if I do not do this, there will truly be nothing left for any of us.”

”Of course you must go, then, Zhuan,”

”I will take good care of her, Elder Uncle. She is most precious to me, your bou-sehk.”

”My precious gem,” Tears were glistening in the old man's eyes. ”You were right. Times have changed. More, much more than I have realized, s.h.i.+ Zilin is gone. You are Zhuan now. And my bou-sehk is no longer a child. It is a difficult realization.” Which one did he mean? The first, the last, or all of them?

The madness was growing. Being in her proximity was akin to standing too close to an out-of-control blaze. No wonder, Huaishan Han thought, Colonel Hu was no longer among the living.

Within General Kuo's kingly hut Huaishan Han sat like a misshapen lump of lard. That one shoulder was higher than the other never bothered him more than it did now. It was a constant reminder of the well. Or perhaps sheQi linwas that reminder.

Her eyes were like burning coals. Once Huaishan Han had gone tiger hunting in the north, far above Beijing, Siberian tigers, enormous, savage beasts out of a prehistory he could only guess at.

It was the whiteness of the beast that had surprised him the most. He supposed it was because of the snow. There was a lot of snow that far north. He could still see his own breath, a living thing, escaping from his lungs in silver sheets. His hair had been rimed by ice so that he looked prematurely gray. The cold penetrated even through his sheepskin-lined parka.

Huaishan Han and the hunter had spent three days tracking the faint spoor of a ma.s.sive male. He was like a spirit: they could hear him at times, snuffling, growling low in his throat. Once he was certain he even scented the beast. But they never caught sight of him.

The last night in camp. They had decided to call it quits. The cold was bone-chilling and the quest seemed fruitless. All they spoke of around the sparking fire was returning to civilization where they could get warmth and real food.

Huaishan Han awoke into utter darkness. The full moon had gone down. A night wind flicked shards of ice and snow through the encampment like the remnants of a defeated army.

Heard a quick, sharp sound and, turning his head, he was aghast to see the ma.s.sive shoulders of the shadowed beast not a half-a-meter away. He held his breath. Fear was like a living being squirming in his belly. His legs were water and he was certain that he had lost control of his bladder.

The neck muscles displayed so high above him were bunched in tension and, as Huaishan Han stared in helpless fascination, the tiger gave a sharp jerk of its powerful head. He heard a distinct snap, as if a mature tree had been rent by lightning, and the pale face of his companion rolled in his direction.

Huaishan Han started despite himself and the great feline head came up. A rough b.e.s.t.i.a.l snuffling and he was staring directly into the face of the creature. For a moment, there was absolute stillness. Then, it snarled a little, black lips curling back to reveal long, blood-streaked fangs.

Those great mirrored eyes, utterly round, yellow and streaked as polished carnelians, gave off their own light, lurid and luminescent.

They lay encysted within the encompa.s.sing womb of the night, glowing with power, until Huaishan Han was quite certain that only he and the beast existed.

He knew that within the next sixty seconds he would either live or die. Knew as well that he had no say in the matter. He knew if he moved at all the tiger would leap upon him without warning.

It was up to the beast, then. Or Buddha, who dwelt within all livingthings. Joss.

Huaishan Han gave up a tiny sigh of resignation and, looking into the face of death, recognized it as being wholly familiar.

It had not surprised him when the beast turned away from him, all illumination ceased, the extraordinary world that those eyes had revealed to him winked out, the raw power, the indefatigable energy evaporated. And that awesome engine of destruction was again part of the night.

For many years afterward, Huaishan Han was to lie sleepless in his bed trying to decipher the message Buddha had left for him in those eyes. At last, he had decided that it was this: it was not that the tiger killed indiscriminately but, rather, that it did so without the slightest compunction.

Now, humped in the dusty wicker chair General Kuo had provided for him, Huaishan Han stared into Qi lin's coal-black eyes and knew that he was visited again by the terrifying engine of destruction out of his past.

Compulsively he reached out and took her hand in his. Turning it over, he stared down. It seemed so fragile, so pale and beautiful with its extraordinarily long slender fingers. Yet he knew that it must have been this hand that had killed Colonel Hu. He recalled the hypnotic beauty of the beast that had exerted its pull over him. It had made him ache to reach out and caress those velvet eyes. It had made him long to crawl closer to the nexus of that heady power. Did not this female, the granddaughter of his enemy, possess the same disorienting quality?

It was madness to think so, to believe in such power. But madness had been Huaishan Han's constant companion, a piece of the utter blackness of the well dwelling within him long after General Kuo had come to the lip of his world and, reaching down, had pulled him out of that pit of terror.

Huaishan Han closed his eyes and shuddered heavily. Ah, the well! The world of the d.a.m.ned. General Kuo had saved him from that but Huaishan Han knew that he had never truly escaped. His heart wasencased in the utter anguish of that endless time. And now, looking into those feline eyes so close to his face, he realized with a start, that though General Kuo might have pulled him from the depths of perdition, he had died down there in the lightless trough of the well.