Now they were free to begin again, to live as they'd been meant to live, with their feet on solid earth, their faces open to the sky.
A long way she had travelled to be standing here, by many and diverse paths. She had been a terrorist, a ruthless political killer with a price on her head, and then - in another life, it seemed - the wife of a great Company head; a Great Lady with a mansion and a thousand servants. Yet here she was, rooted, finally rooted in this place they had made their home.
Home. The very word seemed strange. For she had never had a home before, only a succession of places she had stayed.
She looked about her, smiling, knowing how lucky they had been to get this place. At first they had been forced to rent rooms in shared apartments in Mainz, making do in cramped, unsatisfactory conditions, but then one of the local merchants - a nice old man named Ho Chang - had heard of their circumstances and offered them this compound. They'd not thought they could afford it, but the rent he'd asked for was ridiculously low, and so they had moved here. That had been three years back, and though the old man was dead now, his daughter let them stay under the terms they had agreed with her father.
"Emily?"
She turned, surprised to find Lin at her shoulder. "Yes?"
"I thought you'd gone."
Emily laughed softly. She had been on her way out to the merchant's house, but that had been ten, fifteen minutes ago. "I was thinking."
"Thinking?" He came round and stood before her, his disfigured face revealed in the lamp's soft light. She studied it, then reached out to touch his right cheek. Lin looked back at her unselfconsciously, letting her fingers trace his skull's deformity. It had never worried him. Unlike most others she had met, he seemed to have no sense of self, only a feeling for those he might help. It was why she loved him. Why she had stayed with him all these years.
"It's enough, don't you think?" she said quietly, letting her hand fall away. "All this . . ."
Lin nodded, his eyes half-smiling, then answered her softly, using the words of the ancient sage, Lao Tzu.
"The nameless uncarved block is but freedom from desire. And if I cease to desire and remain still, the empire will be at peace of its own accord."
She sighed. "Would that it were so simple, neh?"
"But it is, Mama Em. Men have but to realise it, that is all. They struggle so. They . .." He shook his head, then laughed softly. "But you must go now. Steward Liu will be waiting for you."
"Then I will not keep him waiting any longer." She touched his arm. "Take care of my boys, neh, Papa Lin?"
"I will. You know I will."
Tung Wei's mansion was fifteen minutes walk, on the far side of the district. Tenth bell was sounding as she stood before the massive gates, waiting to be admitted.
Steward Liu had given them many things in the past, broken household things which would otherwise have been simply trashed, but it was rare for him to send for her.
As the smaller door within the gate creaked open she stepped forward, expecting Steward Liu's clean-shaven head to duck out beneath the lintel, but it was not Liu Yeh. The man who faced her was much younger than Liu, with a full head of black hair and the number six embroidered on the ersilk patch he wore at the centre of his chest; moreover, he was scowling.
"What do you want, old woman?"
"I . . ." Disconcerted by his manner, she fumbled in her jacket for the letter Liu Yeh had sent, then realised she had left it on the table in the inner courtyard. "Forgive me, I..."
Abruptly, he stepped forward and shoved her, sending her off-balance. "Be off with you! Now! Before I call the guard!"
She stared at him, shocked. Behind her a small crowd of passers-by had begun to gather. "But Liu Yeh said . . ."
Eyes glaring, he shoved her again, sending her sprawling. "Be gone! We'll have no beggars here!"
There was a murmuring from the crowd. A single voice called, "Leave her be!"
In answer, the servant made a gesture, as if he were going to cuff each one of them in turn with the back of his hand. "On your way, you rabble! Clear the street, or I'll turn the hose on you!"
He turned, looking to where Emily lay on her back looking up at him, then hawked up a gobbet of phlegm and spat into the dust beside her.
"Beggars . . ." he muttered, a sneer of distaste on his face, then turned and, slamming the door behind him, went inside.
Slowly Emily got to her feet, hands reaching to help her and brush her down.
"Who the fuck does he think he is?" one of them - an old fellow she recognised as a stallholder from Lung Chi Lane said, handing her a cloth to wipe her hands.
She turned, nodding her gratitude, and, biting back her anger, smiled at him. "Why, surely you know, lao jen? Our friend is Number Six. He is a big man in Tung Wei's mansion."
They laughed at that, but their laughter was uneasy, for all there remembered how it had been back in the World of Levels. There was not one there who did not recall the constant petty slights and humiliations heaped on them by their supposed "betters".
Looking about her, Emily felt a shadow fall on her. At core these people were still afraid. Fear lay at the back of their new found freedom: a deep-rooted fear that this was but a dream - a brief dream of open skies and happiness - and that soon they would wake, to find this new world vanished like the old. And then?
She sniffed, then wiped her hands and handed back the cloth. "Thank you," she said softly, smiling at him again, then, looking about her. "Thank you all."
There were nods, looks of understanding and sympathy, and then, unwillingly it seemed, the crowd began to disperse.
Emily turned, staring at the door, wondering for a moment if the young man had been carrying out Liu Yen's orders, whether this were some subtle ploy to remind her of her relationship to Liu Yeh's master, then, with a shrug, she moved away, making her way back to the compound, the full moon shining brightly high above.
The music had stopped. Tom stood there on the plank bridge between the boats, staring down at the surface of the water a dozen ch'i below. To his right, where the lantern-light fell, it seemed both strange and magical, a shimmering, ever-changing mask, yet here between the boats it was simply dark. He could see oil in the water, the floating detritus of the town washed up against the grimy hull.
So it is, he thought, feeling a sudden disenchantment. Yet the music still intrigued him: intrigued because it was so unexpected, here in this setting.
"Tom?"
He looked up, meeting Yun's eyes, then, realising he had been there some while, moved quickly on, jumping down onto the deck. As he did a young man - a liumang, or "punk", by the look of him - stepped out from the cabin further down the deck. He approached them slowly, like a lizard, his eyes the merest slits in his face, his knife drawn. For a moment it seemed as though the situation would get ugly, but a brief, murmured exchange between Yun and the punk seemed to settle things. The liumang stepped aside, then, slipping the knife back into his belt, he waved them through. Yun went quickly through, yet as Tom passed the liumang leaned close, sniffing him suspiciously, like a dog getting the scent of an intruder.
Questions. Suddenly he was full of questions. And no Sampsa to answer them. No Ben.
Tom ducked beneath the lintel, pulling the small, glass-panelled door closed behind him, then turned, looking into the room, conscious at once of the heavy scent of perfume in the musty air.
It was a long, low-ceilinged room, two small lanterns, hung from a beam to his left, casting a sickly pink glow over everything. To his right, a couch rested beneath a long window, over which cane blinds had been drawn. Beside it was a low table, on which were placed a silver cigarette box and a folded ladies' fan. A patched silk curtain - was it blue, green? the lamplight made it hard to tell - concealed the far end of the room. From behind it came the faintest rustling, silk upon silk.