"What's it like?" he asked after a moment.
"Beautiful," she said. "The way the light's reflected in the dark water. It's—"
"I know," he said, as if he had seen it too. "I can imagine it."
She looked away a moment, noticing how the fire's light flickered in the windowpane; how it cast a mottled, ever-changing pattern against the narrow opening.
"I'm glad you did what you did," he said, more softly than before. "I would have stood there and watched myself bleed to death. I owe you my life."
It was not entirely true. He owed his life to their mother. If Beth had not come back early, then what Meg had done would not have mattered.
"I only wrapped it with the sheet," she said. But she saw how he was looking at her, his eyes piercing her. She could see he was embarrassed. Yet there was something else there too— something that she had never seen in him before—and it touched her deeply. She felt her lips pucker and her eyes grow moist.
"Hey, little sis, don't cry."
He had never called her that before; nor had he ever touched her as he touched her now, his good right hand caressing both of hers where they lay atop the bedclothes. She shuddered and looked down.
"I'm fine," he said, as if in answer to something she had said, his hand squeezing both of hers. "Father says they can graft a new hand onto the nerve ends. It'll work as good as new. Maybe better."
She found she could not look up at him. If she did she would burst into tears, and she didn't want him to see her weakness. He had been so strong, so brave. The pain—it must have been awful.
"You know, the worst thing was that I missed it."
"Missed what?" she said, staring at his hand.
"I didn't see it," he said, and there was genuine surprise in his voice. "I wasn't quick enough. I heard the chain break and I looked up, but I missed the accident. It was done before I looked down again. My hand was no longer part of me. When I looked it was already separate, there on the keyboard.
He laughed. A queer little sound.
Meg looked at him. He was staring at the stub of his left arm. It was neatly capped, like the end of an old cane. Silvered and neutral. Reduced to a thing.
"I didn't see it," he insisted. "The glass. The cut. And I felt . . . only a sudden absence. Not pain, but. . ."
She could see that he was searching for the right words, the very thing that would describe what he had felt, what experienced at that moment. But it evaded him. He shrugged and gave up.
"I love you, Ben."
"I know," he said, and seemed to look at her as if to gauge how love looked in a person's eyes. As if to place it in his memory.
AFTER MEG had gone he lay there, thinking things through.
He had said nothing to her of what was in the journal. For once he felt no urge to share his knowledge with her. It would harm her, he knew, as it had harmed him: not on the surface, as the mirror had, but deeper, where his true self lived. In the darkness inside himself.
He felt angered that he had not been told; that Hal had not trusted him enough to tell him. More than that, he felt insulted that they had hidden it from him. Oh, he could see why it was important for Meg not to know; she responded to things in a different way from him. But to hide it from him? He clenched his fists, feeling the ghostly movement in the hand he had lost. Didn't they know? Didn't they understand him, even now? How could he make sense of it all unless he could first solve the riddle of himself?
It was all there, in the journal. Some of it explicit, the rest hidden teasingly away—ciphers within ciphers—as if for his eyes alone.
He had heard Augustus's voice, speaking clearly in his head, as if direct across the years. "I am a failed experiment," he had said. "Old Amos botched me when he made me from his seed. He got more than he bargained for."
It was true. They were all an experiment. All the Shepherd males. Not sons and fathers and grandfathers, but brothers every one—all the fruit of old Amos's seed.
Ben laughed bitterly. It explained so much. For Augustus was his twin. Ben knew it for a certainty. He had proof.
There, in the back of the journal, were the breeding charts— a dozen complex genetic patterns, each drawn in the tiniest of hands, one to a double page; each named and dated, Ben's own among them. A whole line of Shepherds, each one the perfect advisor for his T'ang.
Augustus had known somehow. Had worked it out. He had realized what he was meant for. What task he had been bred for.
But Augustus had been a rebel. He had defied his father; refusing to be trained as the servant of a T'ang. Worse, he had sired a child by his own sister, in breach of the careful plans Amos had laid. His mirror had become his mate. Furious, his "father," Robert, had made him a prisoner in the house, forbidding him the run of the Domain until he changed his ways, but Augustus had remained defiant. He had preferred death to compromise.
Or so it seemed. There was no entry for that day. No explanation for his death.
Ben heard footsteps on the stairs. He tensed, then made himself relax. He had been expecting this visit; had been rehearsing what he would say.
Hal Shepherd stood in the doorway, looking in. "Ben? Can I come in?"
Ben stared back at him, unable to keep the anger from his face. "Hello, elder brother."
Hal seemed surprised. Then he understood. He had confiscated the journal, but he could not confiscate what was in Ben's head. It did not matter that Ben could not physically see the pages of the journaclass="underline" in his mind he could turn them anyway and read the tall columns of ciphers.
"It isn't like that," he began, but Ben interrupted him, a sharp edge to his voice.
"Don't lie to me. I've had enough of lies. Tell me who I am."
"YouVe my son."
Ben sat forward, but this time Hal got in first. "No, Ben. You're wrong. It ended with Augustus. He was the last. You're my son, Ben. Mine and your mother's."
Ben made to speak, then fell silent, watching the man. Then he looked down. Hal was not lying. Not intentionally. He spoke as he believed. But he was wrong. Ben had seen the charts, the names, the dates of birth. Amos's jjreat experiment was still going on.
He let out a long, shuddering breath. "Okay. . . . But tell me. How did Augustus die? Why did he kill himself?"
"He didn't."
"Then how did he die?"
"He had leukemia."
That, too, was a lie, for there was no mention of ill health in the journal. But again Hal believed it for the truth. His eyes held nothing back from Ben.
"And the child? What happened to the child?"
Hal laughed. "What child? What are you talking about, Ben?"
Ben looked down. Then it was all a lie. Hal knew nothing. Nor would he learn anything from the journal unless Meg gave him the key to it; for the cipher was a special one, transforming itself constantly page by page as the journal progressed.
"Nothing," he said finally, in answer to the query. "I was mistaken."
He lifted his eyes and saw how concerned Hal was.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I didn't mean to trouble anyone."
"No____"
Then, strangely, Hal looked down and laughed. "You know, Ben, when I saw Peng Yu-wei stuck there in the mud, all my anger drained from me." He looked up and met Ben's eyes, his voice changing, becoming more serious. "I understand why you did it, Ben. Believe me. And I meant what I said the other night. You can be your own man. Live your own life. It's up to you whether you serve or not. Neither I nor the great T'ang himself will force you to be other than yourself."
Ben studied his brother—the man he had always thought of as his father—and saw suddenly that it did not matter what he was in reality, for Hal Shepherd had become what he believed he was. Ben's father. A free man, acting freely, choosing freely. For him the illusion was complete. It had become the truth.
It was a powerful lesson. One Ben could use. He nodded. "Then I choose to be your son, if that's all right?"