"Howard/"
DeVore looked up, alerted, and saw at once what was happening. The two assassins were making directly for him now, less than two body lengths away, their blades out, slashing at anyone who got in their way, intent on reaching their quarry. Beyond them Lehmann was pushing his way through the crowd, yelling at people to get out of his way; but it would be several seconds before he could come to DeVore's aid.
DeVore moved forward sharply, bringing the case he was carrying up into the face of the first man as he came out of the crowd in front of him. Hampered by a woman at his side, the assassin could only jerk his head back, away. At once DeVore kicked out, making him stagger back. But even as he did, the second assassin was upon him, his notched knife swinging through the air at DeVore's head.
The speed at which DeVore turned surprised the man. One hand countered the knife blow at the wrist while the other punched to the ribs. The assassin went down with a sharp cry.
DeVore turned, facing the first assassin, feinting once, twice, with his fists before he twisted and kicked. The assassin moved back expertly, but before he could counter, he sank to his knees, Lehmann's knife embedded in his back.
There was shouting and screaming from all sides of them now.
"Come away," Lehmann said quietly, taking DeVore's arm. "Before Security comes!" But DeVore shrugged him off, going over to the second man.
The would-be assassin lay there, helpless, clutching his side, gasping with pain. DeVore had shattered his rib cage, puncturing his lung. He crouched close, over the man, one hand at his throat.
"Who sent you?"
The man pushed his face up at DeVores and spat.
DeVore wiped the blood-stained phlegm from his cheek and reached across to pick up the assassin's blade. Then, as the man's eyes widened, he slit open his shirt and searched his torso for markings.
DeVore turned, looking up at Lehmann, a fierce anger in his face. "He's not Triad and he's not Security, so who the fuck . . . ?"
The third man came from nowhere.
DeVore had no time to react. It was only accident that saved him. As Lehmann turned, he moved between DeVore and the man, glancing against the assassin's knife arm. The knife, which would have entered DeVore's heart, was nudged to one side, piercing DeVore between neck and shoulder.
The assassin jerked the serrated knife out savagely from DeVore's flesh; but before he could strike again, Lehmann had lashed out, punching his nose up into his skull. The man fell and lay still.
DeVore sank to his knees, holding one hand over the wound, a look of astonishment on his bloodless face. This time Lehmann didn't ask. With a single blow he finished off the second man, then turned and did the same to the other. Then, lifting DeVore up onto his shoulder, ignoring the shouts of protest from all about him, he began to carry him toward the exit and the safety of the transit, praying that their man in Security could hold his fellows off a minute longer.
As for DeVore's question, he had his answer now; for that last man had been a Hung Mao, a face they'd often seen in the past, one of several who had always been in the background at their meetings with the Ping Tiao. A guard. One of the ones who had defected to the Yu.
So it was Mach, Jan Mach, who'd tried to have DeVore killed.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Willow Plum Sickness
0N THE OPEN windswept hillside the small group gathered about the grave. Across the valley, cloud shadow drew a moving line that descended, crossing the water, then came swiftly up the slope toward them.
Ben watched the shadow sweep toward him, then felt the sudden chill as the sun passed behind the cloud.
So it is, he thought. As swift as that it comes.
The wooden casket lay on thick silken cords beside the open grave. Ben stood facing the casket across the darkness of the hole, his feet only inches from the drop.
Earth. Dark earth. It had rained and tiny beads of moisture clung to the stems of grass overhanging the grave. In the sunlight they seemed strange, incongruous.
It was still unreal. Or not yet real. He felt no grief as yet, no strong feeling for what he had lost, only a vacancy, a sense of his own inattentiveness. As if he had missed something . . .
They were all in black, even Li Yuan. Blackness for death. The old Western way of things. His mother stood beside the casket, her face veiled, grieving heavily. Beside him stood his sister, and next to her Li Yuan's Chancellor, Nan Ho.
A cold wind gusted from the south across the hilltop, blowing his hair into his eyes. A sea breeze, heavy with brine. He combed strands back into place with his fingers, then left his hand there, the fingers buried in his fine, thick hair, his palm pressed firmly against his forehead. Like an amnesiac. A sleeper.
He felt like an actor, the outer shell dissociated from the inner core of himself: the "boy in black" at the graveside. An impostor. Neither loving nor dutiful. Cuckoo in the nest. Too distanced from things to be his father's son, his brother's brother.
Had he ever even said he loved him?
Two of Li Yuan's men came and lifted the casket on its cords.
Ben moved back as they lowered the casket into the earth. A cassette of death, slotting into the hillside.
And no rewind ... no playback. Hal Shepherd existed only in the memories of others now. And when they in their turn died? Was it all simply a long process of forgetting? Of blinded eyes and decaying images? Maybe... but it didn't have to be.
The earth fell. He closed his eyes and could see it falling, covering the pale wood of the casket. Could hear the sound of the earth tumbling against the wood. A hollow, empty sound.
He opened his eyes. The hole was a shallow depression of uneven darkness. The T'ang's men had ceased shoveling.
He felt the urge to bend down and touch the cold, dark earth. To crush it between his fingers and feel its gritty texture, its cool, inanimate substance. Instead he watched as Li Yuan stepped forward and pressed the young tree into the pile of earth, firming it down, then moving back to let the servants finish their task.
No words. No graven stones. This was his father's wish. Only a tree. A young oak.
Ben shivered, his thoughts drawn elsewhere. What was the darkness like on the other side of being? Was it only a nothingness? Only blank, empty darkness?
They walked back along the path, down to the cottage by the bay—Li Yuan holding his mother's arm, consoling her; Nan Ho walking beside his sister. Ben came last, alone, several paces behind.
His father's death. Expected so long, it had nonetheless come like a blow of evil fate to his mother. He had heard her crying in the night: a sound that could not be described, only heard and remembered. A wordless noise, connected to the grieving animal deep within the human—a sound drawn from the great and ancient darkness of our racial being. An awful, desolate sound. Once heard, it could never be forgotten.
He turned and looked back. There was no sign of the grave, the fledgling tree. Banks of iron-gray clouds were massed above the hillside. In a while it would rain.
He turned and looked down the slope at the cottage and the bay beyond, seeing it all anew. Where was its paradigm? Where was the designer of all this? The shaping force?
Death had unlocked these questions, forcing his face relentlessly against the glass.
He sighed, then walked on, making his slow way down.
LI yuan stood in the center of Ben's room, looking about him. Ben was hunched over his desk, working, making notations in a huge loose-leafed book, the pages of which were covered in strange diagrams.
It was not what Li Yuan had expected. The room was cluttered and untidy, totally lacking, it seemed, in any organizational principle. Things were piled here, there, and everywhere, as if discarded and forgotten; while one whole wall was taken up by numerous half-completed pencil sketches depicting parts of the human anatomy.