Chasing the Phoenix (39 page)

*   *   *

THE HIDDEN
Emperor, as it turned out, had been secreted in a large and ostentatiously vulgar mansion on New Wealth Street. No longer feigning drunkenness, the three walked straight to the front door, as if they had legitimate business within. Darger took a set of lockpicks from his pocket and bent casually over the knob. “The devil!” he swore. “It's not locked.”

At a push, the door swung open.

They went inside.

Prince First-Born Splendor held up his lantern, revealing a vast, high-ceilinged hall, totally free of furniture save for several ostentatiously overlarge vases on carved teak stands and some expensive carpets on the tiled floor. The building was utterly silent.

The bodies of two servants lay on the tiles. A single inner door gaped wide.

“Someone has been here before us.” Surplus crouched briefly by each of the bodies. “Dead. And recently—the bodies are still warm. Someone came here with the same intentions as we did.”

“Yes, but can we trust him—or them—to have done the job properly?” Darger asked.

“Destiny favors the man who takes no shortcuts,” Prince First-Born Splendor said with the assurance of a schoolboy quoting last year's lessons, “nor any least detail for granted.”

Surplus drew the sword from his cane. “Stay here,” he told the prince, “and secure our means of exit, lest we find ourselves outnumbered.”

Darger took the lantern from First-Born Splendor and followed Surplus deep into the house. They saw more corpses but did not stop to examine them. Like a trail of breadcrumbs, a series of open doors led them all the way to the Hidden Emperor's bedchamber. The room was opulent, and the linens and silks upon the bed were recognizably of the very best, taken from the many cities they had conquered. Curtains blew into the room from an open window.

In a chair by the bed was a still, cold body. A cloth mask lay at its feet, and the embroidered yellow robe had been torn open to enable a fatal knife stab between the ribs and into the heart.

The Hidden Emperor was already dead.

*   *   *

SURPLUS DID
not want to be the first to speak. But at last he did. “Darger,” he said, “this is the corpse of a woman.”

“Why in heaven's name would a woman be dressed as the Hidden Emperor?”

“You mistake my meaning. This individual smells exactly the same as did the Hidden Emperor, and—look!—here on the knuckle of the left thumb is the star-shaped scar left by the kitten he killed. She killed, I should say. The Hidden Emperor was a woman. Examine her features. Note how in death her Adam's apple has vanished. Her breasts are small but distinct, her hips those of a woman, and in every other manner her gender is self-evident.” Surplus closed the bloodstained yellow robes to hide the wound. It covered as well a necklace of brightly colored glass beads.

“Odd,” Darger said. “I recognize the necklace. She had it on when she posed as a tea girl to spy on our meeting in Crossroads. I had assumed then that it was part of her disguise and gave it no further thought.” Delicately, he drew it out for closer examination. “Several of the beads are broken! This grows less and less explicable.”

“It is a weapon,” Surplus said.

“Excuse me?”

“The necklace is a weapon. I learned of such things in my readings of military history. It was originally designed to be used by spies. Every other glass bead contains a toxin. Those between them hold the antidote. One breaks the bead with the antidote under one's nostrils and inhales while simultaneously crushing the bead with the toxin. Such poisons are very fast. In seconds, everyone in the room is dead, while the person who inhaled the antidote remains unharmed. It is exactly the sort of weapon one would expect so cautious a monarch to wear. Yet it didn't work. Why?”

“I don't know,” Darger replied. “As well ask: Who killed the Hidden Emperor?”

“Whoever it was,” Surplus said, “I'm grateful to our unknown benefactor. Had we confronted this young lady while she yet lived, we would both be dead now. For that matter, had he not left by the window, the toxins might not have had time to entirely disperse.” In death, the Hidden Emperor no longer looked dangerous. Deprived of the power to kill or despoil at whim, she was just an ordinary young woman, and Surplus could not help feeling sorry for her.

For a long moment Darger was silent. Then he said, “I find myself at an uncharacteristic loss for words.”

“That being so…” Surplus began.

“Yes. Let us dispose of the body and move on.”

Darger and Surplus stripped the dead emperor—or, more properly, empress—of her robe of office and swaddled her in the thick brocades taken from the bed. This surprisingly light bundle they brought with them to the foyer, where they saw Prince First-Born Splendor with blood pouring down his face, pulling himself up from the floor. The door was open behind him.

“Is the deed done?” he asked.

Surplus nodded.

“Whatever happened to you?” Darger asked.

“I hardly know myself. I was standing here, holding the door open the merest crack and peering out at the street, when I heard a noise behind me. Before I could turn, I was seized and slammed into the wall. That was just seconds ago. My assailant ran out the door.”

All three conspirators stared out at the empty street. “He's gone now,” Surplus observed.

“Let him go,” Darger said. “He did us a good turn, whether by design or not, and I feel no need to avenge a monarch we had every intention of killing ourselves. Give us a hand, noble prince. We dare not leave this body here.”

When they were several streets away from the death scene, Prince First-Born Splendor said, “What about all the other bodies?”

“In the morning, Capable Servant will be here, robed and masked, in the Hidden Emperor's persona. When he orders that the corpses of his servants be cleared away and new servitors provided him, nobody will ask questions,” Surplus said.

“That is one of the advantages of being known to be completely off your chump,” Darger added.

Together, they three carried the body down the lightless and deserted streets to the stone bridge by the knackery. There, they entrusted their bundle to the nameless creek that flowed into the White River. It fell in with a splash, tumbled over twice, and then was swept under the surface and away into darkness by the swiftly flowing water, to be found or not somewhere downriver, as the fates decreed.

 

18.

The ancient sage Builder of Pyramids borrowed money at very high interest and paid it all back promptly with money lent by other investors. Those in turn he repaid with money from yet newer lenders, at each step increasing the number who wished to invest in his enterprise. In this way he became incalculably wealthy. For a time.

—
THE
SAYINGS OF THE
PERFECT
STRATEGIST

THE NEXT
morning dawned like any other. The death of an emperor (or empress), it seemed, made very little difference to the world. The air smelled as sweet. Food tasted as good. By day's end, Darger had the happy conviction that his fortunes had turned a corner at last and that there was nothing before him that could not be faced with equanimity.

But first …

A carefully prepared and rehearsed Capable Servant was dressed in the emperor's clothes and ensconced in the emperor's bed. As predicted, the discovery that all of his servants had been murdered caused a great deal of alarm—until the Hidden Emperor declared that it was a matter of no great import, thus implying that whatever had happened had been done at his whim. At which point, the corpses were whisked away for cremation, the floors were mopped clean, and a new staff was swiftly procured.

By noon, the incident was as good as forgotten.

“It is very convenient to be thought crazy,” Capable Servant confided to Darger when they were alone. “The standards for behavior are very easy to live up to.”

“Confine your madness to small matters that hurt no one and this insight will serve you well.”

Capable Servant plucked at an imaginary bit of fluff on his robe. “Nevertheless, I am glad that I must wear a mask to pull off this deception. It will hide my nervousness. I hardly know what to do. Should I call my advisors together?”

“It would look suspicious if you did not. But wait until the Canal Army has arrived, so that Shrewd Fox and her subordinate ceos may be present. There will be a great deal of speech, much disguised boasting, a certain amount of braggadocio. Be careful to listen more than you speak, imply more than you say, and fly into a fit of fury if anyone points out any contradictions in your proclamations. I have faith in your ability to improvise. Should you find yourself at a loss, simply call upon me and be guided by my advice.”

“Sir, what should I do about the phoenix device?”

“The Dog Warrior and I have given that serious thought,” Darger said. Their debate, in sober fact, had been long and heated. But eventually they had decided that since White Squall would not detonate the device without a direct order from the Hidden Emperor—which order was now unlikely to come—and since ordering it deactivated might raise the irrationally loyal cao's suspicions, matters could simply be left as they were for the nonce. “When the cao asks for your orders, tell her that you have decided to postpone the marriage until you've conquered North and put your new empire in order. She will secretly greet that as welcome news. I, meanwhile, have someone to consult with before we decide upon the device's ultimate disposition.”

“The ceo, you mean? Shrewd Fox?”

Darger glanced out the window at the darkening sky. “No, I am thinking of someone far more dangerous than her.”

*   *   *

THE DAY'S
other great event—the reunion of the Hidden Emperor's armies—was an occasion of tremendous joy for all involved. Indeed, it took on aspects of a carnival. First the Sea Army advanced to the flatlands before the city of North, there to pitch camp and await the Canal Army coming from the south. The first sails appeared while it was still morning, and the first outriders arrived at full gallop when the sun was at its highest. Military bands greeted the main forces as they came marching in, and off-duty soldiers ate fire and waved banners while walking on stilts. By twilight, an immense tent city had been erected that was the very shadow and other of the stone city of North.

The foe might well have emerged from North to attack them at this, their moment of greatest confusion. But no troops came forth from the city gates. This, the army's leadership (who had not been as unprepared for such a sally as they had made it appear) agreed when they made their reports to the Hidden Emperor, was an encouraging sign. As were the gathering thunderheads piling up behind North. The Immortals' confidence in their own invincibility had spread to the newly integrated units, and all agreed that the coming storm would smash down the opposition, cleanse the city of the foe, and wash the blood of the coming battle from the streets into the gutters and then the streams that emptied into the White River and, from thence, all the way to the Yellow Sea.

While Ceo Shrewd Fox was preparing for the emperor's conference, Darger, with a glib word here and an evasion there, slipped past her guards and into her tent. He found her talking quietly with General Powerful Locomotive.

“How did you get past my people?” Shrewd Fox asked.

“I told them that you had summoned me and looked dramatically reluctant to be led into your presence.”

“So my best schemes to rid myself of you failed, and you and I have come full circle and are back where we began.”

“Oh, it is far worse than that,” Darger said. “I move from triumph to triumph. I am currently so firmly set in the Hidden Emperor's favor that there is absolutely no hope of your dislodging me from it. So why try? I have no ambition to supplant you. Why not take advantage of my talents and friendship?”

He extended his hand in a bluff, manly fashion.

Shrewd Fox ignored it. “All I have, all I have suffered, all I have learned, I got without you. I am confident that this lifelong streak of fortune will continue. Right now I am putting the finishing touches on my plans for the conquest of North. When I have placed the Hidden Emperor on the Dragon Throne, he will grant me whatever I wish as a reward. Give me one convincing reason why I should not, among other things, ask for your exile.”

“You would regret it,” Darger said simply.

“Show this gentleman out,” Ceo Shrewd Fox told her second-in-command. “Make it clear to him what will happen if he attempts to speak to me again.”

General Powerful Locomotive opened his mouth. At a warning glance from Shrewd Fox, however, he shut it again.

When Powerful Locomotive had escorted Darger far enough from the ceo's tent to avoid being overheard, the general said, “You mustn't be bothered by the ceo's curt ways, Perfect Strategist. She is a great woman and, like all such, prone to focus only on her own vision of what should be. No personal rancor was involved.”

“You sound taken by her, my friend.”

“Well … I … you see…”

“You are in love with Ceo Shrewd Fox!” Darger cried, in what he trusted was a convincing counterfeit of astonishment.

Powerful Locomotive flushed. “No! Well, perhaps. Shrewd Fox is not like other women. She does not…” His great hands opened and closed, trying to grapple the words out of nothing. “I feel like myself in her presence. I feel that we could accomplish great things together.”

“And White Squall?” Darger asked. “Should I stop working to win her for you? I swear to you, on my word as a gentleman, that I am at this very moment as close as close can be to making her yours.”

“I hardly know. When I am with her, White Squall fills my thoughts completely, and I can imagine loving no one else. But in the presence of Shrewd Fox, I feel quite the other way.”