Hal smiled and reached out to take his hand. "That's fine. That's all I ever wanted."
PART 4 SUMMER 2201
Ice and Fire
War is the highest form of struggle for resolving contradictions, when they have developed to a certain stage, between classes, nations, states, or political groups, and it has existed ever since the emergence of private property and of classes.
—MAO tse-tung, Problems of Strategy in China's Revolutionary War, December 1936
It is our historical duty to eradicate all opposition to change. To cauterize the cancers that create division. The future cannot come into being until the past is dead. Chung Kuo cannot live until the world of petty nation states, of factions and religions, is dead and buried beneath the ice. Let us have no pity then. Our choice is made. Ice and fire. The fire to cauterize, the ice to cover over. Only by such means will the world be freed from enmity.
—tsao CH'UN, Address to his Ministers, May 2068
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Saddle
THE OLD T'ang backed away, his hands raised before I him, his face rigid with fear.
"Put down the knife, erh tzu! For pity's sake!" A moment before there had been laughter; now the tension in the room seemed unendurable. Only the hiss and wheeze of Tsu Tiao's labored breathing broke the awful silence.
In the narrow space between the pillars Tsu Ma circled his father slowly, knife in hand, his face set, determined. On all sides T'ang and courtier alike—all Han, all Family—were crowded close, looking on, their faces tense, unreadable. Only one, a boy of eight, false whiskered and rouged up, his clothes identical to those of the old T'ang, showed any fear. He stood there, wide eyed, one hand gripping the arm of the taller boy beside him.
"Erh tzu!" the old man pleaded, falling to his knees. My son! He bowed his head, humbling himself. "I beg you, Tsu Ma! Have mercy on an old man!"
All eyes were on Tsu Ma now. All saw the shudder that rippled through the big man like a wave; the way his chin jutted forward and his face contorted in agony as he' steeled himself to strike. Then it was done and the old man slumped forward, the knife buried deep in his chest.
There was a sigh like the soughing of the wind, then Tsu Ma was surrounded. Hands clapped his back or held his hand or touched his shoulder briefly. "Well done, Tsu Ma," each said before moving on, expecting no answer; seeing how he stood there, his arms limp at his sides, his broad chest heaving, his eyes locked on the fallen figure on the floor beneath him.
Slowly the great room emptied until only the six T'ang and the two young boys remained.
Li Shai Tung stood before him, staring into his face, a faint smile of sadness mixed with satisfaction on his lips. He spoke softly, "Well done, Tsu Ma. It's hard, I know. The hardest thing a man can do. ..."
Slowly Tsu Ma's eyes focused on him. He swallowed deeply and another great shudder racked his body. Pain flickered like lightning across the broad, strong features of his face, and then he spoke, his voice curiously small, like a child's. "Yes . . . but it was so hard to do, Shai Tung. It—it was just like him."
Li Shai Tung shivered but kept himself perfectly still, his face empty of what he was feeling. He ached to reach out and hold Tsu Ma close, to comfort him, but knew it would be wrong. It was hard, as Tsu Ma now realized, but it was also necessary.
Since the time of Tsao Ch'un it had been so. To become T'ang the son must kill the father. Must become his own man. Only then would he be free to offer his father the respect he owed him.
"Will you come through, Tsu Ma?"
Tsu Ma's eyes had never left Li Shai Tung's face, yet they had not been seeing him. Now they focused again. He gave the barest nod, then, with one last, appalled look at the body on the floor, moved toward the dragon doorway.
In the room beyond, the real Tsu Tiao was laid out atop a great, tiered pedestal on a huge bedspread with silken sheets of gold. Slowly and with great dignity Tsu Ma climbed the steps until he stood there at his dead father's side. The old man's fine gray hair had been brushed and plaited, his cheeks delicately rouged, his beard brushed out straight, his nails painted a brilliant pearl. He was dressed from head to foot in white. A soft white muslin that, when Tsu Ma knelt and gently brushed it with his fingertips, reminded him strangely of springtime and the smell of young girls.
You're dead, Tsu Ma thought, gazing tenderly into his father's face. You're really dead, aren't you? He bent forward and gently brushed the cold lips with his own, then sat back on his heels, shivering, toying with the ring that rested, heavy and unfamiliar, like a saddle on the first finger of his right hand. And now it's me.
He turned his head, looking back at the six T'ang standing among the pillars, watching him. You know how I feel, he thought, looking from face to face. Each one of you. You've been here before me, haven't you?
For the first time he understood why the Seven were so strong. They had this in common: each knew what it was to kill their father: knew the reality of it in their bones. Tsu Ma looked back at the body—the real body, not the lifelike GenSyn copy he had "killed"—and understood. He had been blind to it before, but now he saw it clearly. It was not life that connected them so firmly, but death. Death that gave them such a profound and lasting understanding of each other.
He stood again and turned, facing them, then went down among them. At the foot of the steps they greeted him; each in his turn bowing before Tsu Ma; each bending to kiss the ring of power he now wore; each embracing him warmly before repeating the same eight words.
"Welcome, Tsu Ma. Welcome, T'ang of West Asia."
When the brief ceremony was over, Tsu Ma turned and went across to the two boys. Li Yuan was much taller than when he had last seen him. He was entering that awkward stage of early adolescence and had become a somewhat ungainly-looking boy. Even so, it was hard to believe that his birthday in two days time would be only his twelfth. There was something almost unnatural in his manner that made Tsu Ma think of childhood tales of changelings and magic spells and other such nonsense. He seemed so old, so knowing. So unlike the child whose body he wore. Tao Chu, in contrast, seemed younger than his eight years and wore his heart embroidered like a peacock on his sleeve. He stood there in his actor's costume, bearded, his brow heavily lined with black makeup pencil, yet still his youth shone through, in his eyes and in the quickness of his movements.
Tsu Ma reached out and ruffled his hair, smiling for the first time since the killing. "Did it frighten you, Tao Chii?"
The boy looked down, abashed. "I thought..."
Tsu Ma knelt down and held his shoulders, nodding, remembering how he had felt the first time he had seen the ritual, not then knowing what was happening, or why.
Tao Chu looked up and met his eyes. "It seemed so real, Uncle Ma. For a moment I thought it was Grandpa Tiao."
Tsu Ma smiled. "You were not alone in that, Nephew Chu."
Tao Chu was his dead brother's third and youngest son and Tsu Ma's favorite; a lively, ever-smiling boy with the sweetest, most joyful laugh. At the ritual earlier Tao Chu had impersonated Tsu Tiao, playing out scenes from the old Tang's life before the watching court. The practice was as old as the Middle Kingdom itself and formed one link in the great chain of tradition, but it was more than mere ritual, it was a living ceremony; an act of deep respect and celebration, almost a poem to the honored dead. For the young actor, however, it was a confusing, not to say unnerving experience, to find the dead man unexpectedly there, in the seat of honor, watching the performance.