Escapement (56 page)

He handed Childress her tea with a grave smile, then wrapped his hands around his own cup. She found it too hot to the touch for that, and so set the tea down for a moment to cool. Wang sipped and stared at her.

And so we drink tea,
she thought. Some form of the same substance, by much the same name, had its own rituals half a world away in the country of her birth. Here in Wang’s office, it seemed nigh magical.

She finally picked hers up and sipped. It was as hot and thick as she might have expected, and bitter enough for her to feel her teeth. She drank it slowly as she matched stares with Wang over the rims of their cups.

This was as deadly serious as any face-off between cats in the alley or lords in the gallery of some royal court. She didn’t understand what stakes they played for, but the game was of great value to Cataloger Wang.

Childress finally set her cup down in a single graceful motion onto the small table that stood between them. He matched her gesture, then took up her cup to stare within at the bitter leaves pooling amid the brown water in the bottom.

Childress stilled the reflexive motion of her hand for the other cup. This was his game; she would let him play it.

Wang stared into her leaves for a time, then looked up at her.

“So close to the Wall,” he said, “the spirits are strong.”

In English, she realized.
“What do they tell you?”
Childress replied in Chinese.

“You carry power and the burden of time upon your shoulders. Words flow. You have seen the Golden Bridge.”

Quite good English, at that. She leaned forward. “You are not building any bridge here, are you?”

“There are bridges and there are bridges.” He set the cup down in a precise motion and sketched an arc in the air. “Bridges of air, bridges of rainfall, bridges of birds. Bridges of thought and deed and obligation.”

“Bridges of words.”

That smile again. “Bridges of words.”

Childress puzzled out the riddle. For it was indeed a riddle, however he phrased his words. “A course of study is a bridge of words,” she said slowly. “Learning built one text at a time. While gold . . . gold is the highest of metals, emperor among the elements. So the Golden Bridge is perhaps the Imperial Bridge. A course which can be trod only by the most elevated of feet. The path of the wise.”

“All paths lead to wisdom, for those with eyes to see the way.”

“Well, certainly.” That sounded like an empty aphorism, but Childress was trying neither to bait the man nor argue with him. “Even so, there’s some specific piece of wisdom for which you are hunting here.” Her conversation with Leung, about the bridge being more of a tunnel, came back to her. “A path that leads through the Wall would be a special kind of wisdom.”

He tilted his chin slightly toward her.

“But a path which led through the heart of the world . . .” She stopped, staring at him with speculation roiling in her mind. “It’s not just the Wall, is it? You could fly over it if you wanted to badly enough. So I’m told. And flight is not among the secrets of the ancients.”

“You are indeed a Mask,” said Wang. “Even if you are not who was appointed to come, and you do not bear what was appointed to be brought.”

“I am who you have been given,” she said sternly, all Poinsard for a moment. “The Wall is there for a reason. God’s plan, in the European view. Part of the order of Heaven and earth in the Chinese view. That you seek to overpass it is foolishness bordering on suicide. There is more danger and terror in the Southern Earth than you would ever wish to know.”

“Have you crossed the Wall to see these things for yourself?”

“No, of course not. But in six millennia of human history, no one has kept open a way across the Wall.”

“Chersonesus Aurea did,” said Wang. “And we shall again.”

“Look around you. There is nothing here but parrots and monkeys and salt water. Did the men of this city found or topple empires? Create new sciences for the glory of God and the benefit of man? No, they dug a hole and crawled into it, hiding amid their books until the ocean came to sweep them away. How will this benefit your Celestial Emperor?”

“Not here.” Wang smiled. “There are other centers of scholarship.” He leaned forward, gave her a significant look. “Phu Ket, and the temple of learning there.”

She didn’t know anything about Phu Ket, but admitting ignorance wasn’t what had gotten her this far. “There is no point in the effort there, either.” Her voice was low and serious.

“You of all people deny the pursuit of knowledge?”

“I am the last to deny the pursuit of knowledge. But knowledge has a purpose. Here . . . you build a bridge to nowhere.”

“You mistake our destination, Mask.” He reached forward, his fingers brushing her abandoned teacup. “I have read your power. You are not come to bring us to ruin. Go among the library and see what you can learn. We will see what we can learn from you in turn.”

“So you release me to the texts, and to my contemplation of your destination?”

“Dwei le,”
he said.
Affirmative
. Wang favored her with one last nod.

Childress returned the nod, then rose and returned to the gallery beyond. There she went to look for Leung.

“I don’t know what they are doing here,” she told him. “But it is not what Admiral Shang believed.”

“There is no bridge, of course,” the captain said.

They were at the far end of the pier where the launch was tied up. The only people nearby were Leung’s sailors.
Five Lucky Winds
sat peacefully at anchor in the little bay. Something called intermittently in the night, a croaking argument with the rising stars.

“You are correct about there being no bridge. I never saw how it could be literal. I don’t believe that Wang and the rest are trying to pass through the Wall in any case. They have another destination in mind. He said as much to me.”

“What destination could that be?”

Whether it was a poverty of imagination or some failing of vision, she could not say what destination would matter more to the Celestial Empire than passing beyond the Wall.

What greater game was there to hunt in God’s Creation?

She was ashamed. Ashamed and afraid. She had cried on al-Wazir’s chest like a girl in her mother’s arms, while the old sailor was probably dying.

Paolina sat up and wiped her face. He stank. A relic of his fight to save her. She looked at al-Wazir, whose eyes were closed. His breathing was regular. She couldn’t tell if he’d passed out or was merely asleep.

Either way, he needed to rest.

They were in a small cabin with woven mats upon the floor and no furnishing nor windows. A wan electrick glowed in the ceiling, keeping them in dim light. She could not tell if there had been furniture before, and it was removed, or if their captors favored empty cabins. Surely this tiny room had another purpose.

The damned Chinese! They were as bad as the British. Worse, maybe. She’d had a clear view of the chaos in Mogadishu as their ship had risen out across the Indian Ocean. One of the Royal Navy airships had exploded at mast, and a second was damaged. The third pursued, though she lost sight of the action when the Chinese officers finally thought to force her belowdecks. The lack of running and shouting overhead suggested that the chase had fallen astern.

Paolina wondered if that was all there would be to her life—written out of history as a footnote to a battle in the skies above an obscure African port. Surely these Chinese no more had her interests to heart than did the Silent Order back in Strasbourg. Less, for while the Silent Order had worked by subterfuge and the application of social leverage, this airship had fallen upon Mogadishu as a raider, spreading death and destruction.

No differently from I with the gleam in my hand.
She’d brought one of these
very ships down herself, after all. The world would end in jealousy and hatred if people could kill with a thought.

Paolina gripped al-Wazir’s remaining hand and studied the bulkheads. This ship varied so much from
Notus.
It was as if one empire had seen the other’s work from afar, then returned home to re-create it from memory. Chinese airships had a different shape to their gasbags—she’d observed that while fleeing north from
a Muralha.

Here beneath the decks it was clear that construction proceeded from a different philosophy of design. They used some lightweight wood laid down in thin, flexible strips. The whole vessel creaked like a house in a storm.
Notus
had been primarily built of maple and willow, with oak beams and knees. More stout, and tougher.

A trade-off that made sense to her. She could see the wisdom of both options. It depended on how much premium you placed on speed, how efficient your engines were, and how much hydrogen you wanted to carry and manage in order to maintain buoyancy.

Al-Wazir groaned, bringing her back to the moment. Paolina felt a flush of shame at how her thoughts had wandered from the fate that lay before them.

“I’m very sorry about your hand.” She gripped his right even tighter.

He groaned again. “Hae they tarred the wrist?”

She forced herself to look at the silk rags wrapping the stump. The gray cloth was soaked almost black with fluid. “I can’t tell, Chief. All I see is a covering, thick with something. Blood?”

“ ’T hurts like the fire piss a dozen times over.” He struggled to his elbows, successfully this time. “Well, and how are we planning to get out o’ this one, lassie?”

She had to smile at that. “I don’t suppose there’s any out to get. We’re here till they set us down somewhere.”

“No, no, there’s always a way out. Especially on an airship. Down’s favorite. Nothing between you and the ground but empty air. No fences, no guards, no howling dogs. Believe you me, missy, there’s much worse things than being aboard ship.”

“Even a Chinese airship?”

“Aye. Even a Chinee.”

He was pale and shaking. The lost hand was affecting him badly.

If she’d had the gleam, she might have been able to do more, but here, now, there was nothing but her and al-Wazir and a ship full of belligerent Chinese.

She remembered the men left behind on the ground and corrected herself: A
flimsy
ship,
partially
full of belligerent Chinese. Surely a plucky girl
of parts and an experienced sailor like al-Wazir could find some way to free themselves. If the Chinese carried those parachutes that Davies the loblolly boy had spoken of back in Praia Nova, perhaps they could escape to whatever lay below them.

Thousands of miles of ocean, she realized. Their only problems there would be thirst, starvation, and shark attacks. Even that would constitute an improvement over their current chances of reclaiming their freedom.

Later a plump man came to see her and al-Wazir. He was bespectacled, and wore blue silk with no rank or insignia. When he entered their little cabin without knocking, the first thing he did was bow and make that strange little bird sign. Lachance had shown it to her several times back in Strasbourg. The steward on
Star of Gambia
had made it as well.

Not the Silent Order then, but something else reaching from England to China and back that was just as large.
A marvelous but frightening prospect,
Paolina thought.

“I physician,” he said, his accent thick. “See big man wound.”

Paolina nodded and stepped back from al-Wazir, who had slipped into deep sleep and now snored lustily.

The doctor squatted on his heels and took the Scotsman’s good hand by the wrist for a moment. He then ran his fingers slowly over al-Wazir’s face. Both men’s eyes were closed, until Paolina had the strange idea that the doctor had fallen asleep as well.

He finally took hold of al-Wazir’s left forearm and studied the wrist stump. The doctor did not remove the bandages, nor probe the wound, just held it for some time. His eyes fluttered shut repeatedly.

“Fire in blood.” The doctor stared at her seriously. “You England know fire in blood?”

“Infection?” she hazarded. Paolina turned her own forearm toward him, slipped her sleeve back and traced the line of a vein. “Like here?”

“Ah.” He patted al-Wazir’s forearm, then laid the limb down. “Yes. No have here.”

“Good.” She was baffled as to what should come next.

“He make smell, he make fire in blood, you say for me, ah?”

“Of course.” She wondered how a large middle-aged sailor
couldn’t
smell. Flatulence and wine breath seemed to be the perpetual lot of men past their boyhoods. The doctor presumably meant something newer and nastier. Skin rot setting in, for example.

“Ah.” He stood, bowed. “Welcome to
Heaven’s Deer,
la.” Then he stared at Paolina as if willing her to do something.

“Thank you . . .” She felt the fool. Paolina moved her hands in imitation of the sign he’d made. “What are you?”

His face grew very still. “I doctor.”

“You are helping us. Why?”