He felt exhausted, yet there was still more to do before he retired.
He turned, looking back at the palace, thinking how vast and desolate it seemed without his father's presence. There was only him now—only Li Yuan, second son of Li Shai Tung. The last of his line. The last of the house of Li.
A faint wind stirred the reeds at the lake's edge. He looked up, that same feeling of exposure—that cold, almost physical sense of isolation—washing over him again. Where were the brothers, the cousins he should have had? Dead, or never born. And now there was only him.
A thin wisp of cloud lay like a veil across the moon's bright face. In the distance a solitary goose crossed the sky, the steady beat of its wings carrying to where he stood.
He shivered. Today he had pretended to be strong; had made his face thick, like a wall against his inner feelings. And so it had to be, from this time on, for he was T'ang now, his life no longer his own. All day he had been surrounded by people—
countless people, bowing low before him and doing as he bid—and yet he had never felt so lonely.
No, never in his life had he felt so desolate, so empty.
He gritted his teeth, fighting back what he felt. Be strong, he told himself. Harden yourself against what is inside you. He took a deep breath, looking out across the lake. His father had been right. Love was not enough. Without trust— without those other qualities that made of love a solid and substantial thing—love was a cancer, eating away at a man, leaving him weak.
And he could not be weak, for he was T'ang now, Seven. He must put all human weakness behind him. Must mold himself into a harder form.
He turned away, making his way quickly down the path toward the palace.
At the door to his father's rooms he stopped, loath to go inside. He looked down at the ring that rested, heavy and unfamiliar, on the first finger of his right hand, and realized that nothing could have prepared him for this. His father's death and the ritual of burial had been momentous occasions, yet neither was quite as real as this simpler, private moment.
How often had he come in from the garden and found his father sitting at his desk, his secretaries and ministers in attendance? How often had the old man looked up and seen him, there where he now stood, and with a faint, stern smile, beckoned him inside?
And now there was no one to grant him such permission. No one but himself.
Why, then, was it so difficult to take that first small step into the room? Why did he feel an almost naked fear at the thought of sitting at the desk—of looking back at where he now was standing?
Perhaps because he knew the doorway would be empty.
Angry with himself, he took a step into the room, his heart hammering in his chest as if he were a thief. He laughed uncomfortably as he looked about him, seeing it all anew.
It was a long, low-ceilinged room, furnished in the traditional manner, his father's desk, its huge scrolled legs shaped like dragons, raised up on a massive plinth at the far end of the chamber, a low, gold-painted balustrade surrounding it, like a room within a room, the great symbol of the Ywe Lung set into the wall behind. Unlike his own, it was a distinctly masculine room, no hanging bowls, no rounded pots filled with exotic plants breaking up its rich yang heaviness; indeed, there was not a single trace of greenery, only vases and screens and ancient wall hangings made of silk and golden thread.
He moved further in, stopping beside a huge bronze cauldron. It was empty now, but he recalled when it had once contained a thousand tiny objects carved from jade; remembered a day when he had played there on his father's floor, the brightly colored pieces—exquisite miniatures in blue and red and green—scattered all about him. He had been four then, five at most, but still he could see them vividly, * could feel the cool, smooth touch of them between his fingers.
He turned. On the wall to his right was a mirror, an ancient metallic mirror of the T'ang Dynasty, its surface filled with figures and lettering arrayed in a series of concentric circles emanating outward from the central button. Li Yuan moved closer, studying it. The button—a simple unadorned circle—represented the indivisibility of all created things. Surrounding it were the animals of the Four Quadrants: the Tiger, symbol of the west and of magisterial dignity, courage, and martial prowess; the Phoenix, symbol of the south and of beauty, peace, and prosperity; the Dragon, symbol of the east, of fertility and male vigor; and the Tortoise, symbol of the north, of longevity, strength, and endurance. Beyond these four were the Eight Trigrams and surrounding those the Twelve Terrestrial Branches of the zodiac—rat, ox, and tiger; hare, dragon and serpent; horse, goat, and monkey; cock, dog, and boar. A band of twenty-four pictograms separated that from the next circle of animals—twenty-eight in all—representing the constellations.
He looked past the figures a moment, seeing his face reflected back at him through the symbols and archetypes of the Han universe. Such a mirror was hu hsin ching and was said to have magic powers, protecting its owner from evil. It was also said that one might see the secrets of futurity in such a mirror. But he had little faith in what men said. Why, he could barely see his own face, let alone the face of the future.
He turned his head away, suddenly bitter. Mirrors: they were said to symbolize conjugal happiness, but his own was broken now, the pieces scattered.
He went across to the desk. Nan Ho had been in earlier to prepare it for him. His father's things had been cleared away and his own put in their place—his inkblock and brushes, his sandbox and the tiny statue of Kuan Ti, the god of war, which his brother, Han Ch'in, had given him on his eighth birthday. Beside those were a small pile of folders and one large, heavy-bound book, its thick spine made of red silk decorated with a cloud pattern of gold leaf.
Mounting the three small steps he stood with his hands resting on the low balustrade, his head almost brushing the ceiling, looking across at the big, tall-backed chair. The great wheel of seven dragons—the Yuie Lung or Moon Dragon— had been burned into the back of the chair, black against the ochre of the leather, mirroring the much larger symbol on the wall behind. This chair had been his father's and his father's father's before that, back to his great-great-great-grandfather in the time of Tsao Ch'un.
And now it was his.
Undoing the tiny catch, he pushed back the gate and entered this tiny room-within-a-room, conscious of how strange even that simple action felt. He looked about him again, then lowered himself into the chair. Sitting there, looking out into the ancient room, he could feel his ancestors gathered close: there in the simple continuity of place, but there also in each small movement that he made.
They lived, within him. He was their seed. He understood that now. Had known it even as they had placed the lid upon his father's casket.
He reached across and drew the first of the folders from the pile. Inside was a single sheet from Klaus Ebert at GenSyn, a document relinquishing thirteen patents granted in respect of special food-production techniques. Before his father's death, Ebert had offered to release the patents to his competitors to help increase food production in City Europe. They were worth an estimated two-hundred-and-fifty million yuan on the open market, but Ebert had given them freely, as a gift to his T'ang.
Li Yuan drew the file closer, then reached across and took his brush, signing his name at the bottom of the document.