And in the boy? He took a deep breath, looking across at him. Gweder and Lagasek. Yin and }ang. As in all men. But in this one the Tao was at war with itself. Yin and yang were not complementary but antagonistic. In that sense the child was like the world of Chung Kuo. There, too, the balance had been lost. Yes, like the boy, Chung Kuo was an entity at war with itself.
But the thought brought with it an insight. Just as this world of theirs had been tampered with, so had the child. Something had happened to split him and make him fight himself. He had lost his oneness. Or had it taken from him.
Tuan Ti Fo cleared the board slowly, concerned for the boy. Yet maybe that was his role in this—to make the boy whole again, to reconcile the animal and the human in him. For what was a man without balance?
"Nothing," he answered himself softly. "Or worse than nothing." He began again, the shapes of black and white slowly filling the board until he knew there were no more stones to play, nothing left to win or lose.
Tuan Ti Fo looked up. The boy was sitting up, watching him, his dark, overlarge eyes puzzling over the shapes that lay there on the cloth.
He looked down, saying nothing, then cleared the board and set up another game. He began to play, conscious now of the boy watching, edging slowly closer as the stones were laid and the board filled up again.
Again he laid the final stone, knowing there was no more to be won or lost. He looked up. The boy was sitting only an arm's length from him now, studying the patterns of black and white with a fierce intensity, as if to grasp some meaning from them.
He cleared the board and was about to play again when the boy's hand reached out and took a white stone from the bowl to his left. Tuan Ti Fo started to correct him—to make him take from the bowl of black stones—but the boy was insistent. He slapped a stone down in the comer nearest him on the right. In Tsu, the north. They played, slowly at first, then faster, Tuan Ti Fo giving nothing to the boy, punishing him for every mistake he made. Yet when he began to take a line of stones he had surrounded from the board, the boy placed his hand over Tuan's, stopping him, lifting his hand so that he might study the position, his face creased into a frown, as if trying to take in what he had done wrong. Only then did he move his hand back, indicating that Tuan Ti Fo should take the stones away.
The next game was more difficult. The boy repeated none of the simple errors he had made first time around. This time Tuan Ti Fo had to work hard to defeat him. He sat back, his eyes narrowed, staring at the boy, surprised by how well he'd played.
"So," he said, "you can play."
The boy looked up at him, wide-eyed, then shook his head. No, Tuan thought; its not possible. You must have played before.
He cleared the board and sat back, waiting, feeling himself go very still, as if something strange—something wholly out of the ordinary—were about to happen.
This time the boy set the stone down in the south, in Shang, only a hand's length from Tuan Ti Fo's knee. It was a standard opening—the kind of play that made no real difference to the final outcome—yet somehow the boy made it seem a challenge. An hour later Tuan Ti Fo knew he had been defeated. For the first time in over forty years someone had humbled him on the board he considered his own.
He sat back, breathing deeply, taking in the elegance of the shapes the boy had made, recollecting the startling originality of his strategies—as if he had just reinvented the game. Then he bowed low, touching his forehead almost to the board.
The boy stared back at him a moment, then returned his bow.
So you are human, after all, Tuan Ti Fo thought, shaking his head, amused by the gesture. And now I'm certain that the gods sent you. He laughed. Who knows? Perhaps you're even one of them.
The boy sat with his legs crossed under him, perfectly still, watching Tuan Ti Fo, his eyes narrowed as if trying to understand why the old man was smiling.
Tuan Ti Fo leaned forward, beginning to clear the board, when a knock sounded at the door. A casual rapping that he knew at once was Marie.
He saw how the boy froze—how his face grew rigid with fear—and reached out to hold his arm.
"It's all right. . ." he whispered. "There!" he said, indicating the blanket. "Get under there, boy, and stay hidden. I'll send them away."
marie turned, hearing noises behind her, then broke into a smile, bowing to the two elderly gentlemen who were passing in the corridor. She turned back, frowning. Where was he? It was not like him to delay.
Marie Enge was a tall, good-looking woman in her late twenties with the kind of physical presence that most men found daunting. They preferred their women more delicately made, more deferent. Nor was the impression of physical strength deceptive. She was a powerful woman, trained in the arts of self-defense, but that was not to say that she lacked feminine charm. At a second glance one noticed signs of a softer side to her nature: in the delicate primrose pattern of the edging to her tunic; in the strings of pearl and rose-colored beads at her wrists; in the butterfly bow on her otherwise masculine-looking pigtail.
She waited a moment longer, then knocked again. Harder this time, more insistent.
"Tuan Ti Fo? Are you there? It's me. Marie. I've come for our game."
She heard a shuffling inside and gave a small sigh of relief. For a moment she had thought he might be ill. She moved back, waiting for the door to open, but it remained firmly shut.
"TuanTiFo?"
The slightest edge of concern had entered her voice now. She moved forward, about to press her ear against the door, when it slid open a little.
"What is it?" the old man said, eyeing her almost suspiciously.
"It's me, Shih Tuan. Don't you remember? It's time for our game."
"Ah ..." He pulled the door a fraction wider, at the same time moving forward, blocking her view into the room. "Forgive me, Marie, I've just woken. I didn't sleep well and—"
"You're not ill, are you?" she said, concerned.
"No . . ." He smiled, then gave a bow. "However, I do feel tired. So if, for once, you'll excuse me?"
She hesitated, then returned his bow. "Of course, Shih Tuan. Tomorrow, perhaps?"
He tilted his head slightly, then nodded. "Perhaps. . ."
She stood back, watching the door slide closed, then turned away. But she had gone only a few paces before she turned and stared back at the door, a strong sense of oddness—of wrongness—holding her in its grip. He had never before spoken of sleepless nights: neither, as far as she knew, had he ever complained of any kind of illness. Indeed, a fitter old boy she had never known. Nor had he ever put her off before. She frowned, then turned away again, moving slowly, reluctantly, away.
For a moment she hesitated, not quite knowing what to do, then she nodded to herself and began to move quicker. She would go straight to the Dragon Cloud. Would ask Shang Chen if she could work an extra hour this end of her shift and leave an hour earlier. Yes. And then she would return.
Just in case the old man needed her.
the dragon CLOUD filled one end of the Main, dominating the market that spread below its eaves. It was a big, traditional-looking building with a steeply sloping roof of red tile, its five stories not walled-in but open to the surroundings, each level linked by broad mock-wooden steps. Greenery was everywhere, in bowls and screens and hanging from the open balustrades, giving the teahouse the look of an overgrown garden. Waiters dressed in pale-blue gowns—male and female, Han and Hung Moo—hurried between the levels, carrying broad trays filled with exquisite ceramics, the bowls and pots a pure white, glazed with blue markings. At strategic points about the house the ch'a masters, specialists in ch'a shu, the art of tea, sat at their counters preparing their special infusions.