At least I knew my mother, he thought, the bitterness of her loss somewhat alleviated by the love he shared with his own child. At least I knew she loved me.
And that was something his father had never, it seemed, been certain of. All Li Yuan knew was that she had loved his elder brother, Han. After all, hadn't he seen those images of the two playing in the Imperial gardens together in the summer before his untimely birth? Yes, and how that must have hurt -to see another have what he himself had been denied. And was that the key to his relationship with Fei Yen? That he could, for once, have what his brother had?
He almost laughed at the irony of it, for things had truly come full circle. Up there, at the very back of the craft, sat Fei Yen, her haggard face and night black silks making her seem a good thirty years older than she really was.
Like a curse, Kuei Jen thought, thinking of all that had happened - of the strange inevitability of the chain of events that led to this moment. Who would have thought?
He felt the ghosts of his ancestors at his shoulder at that moment. Of Li Shai Tung and all those others who, for the briefest eye blink of creation, had ruled a solid world of certainties. Gone it was. Vanished like a dream. And this, the very last of it. When they stepped up into the craft and the door closed behind them, they would be leaving that world forever. The San Chang would fall into ruin and Chung Kuo would slowly fade, until even the memory of it - even the words themselves - would be forgotten.
"Ten thousand years!" he said quietly, making an imaginary toast to the air. "Kan Pef. May the gods bless you with good fortune and many children!"
Gone it was. Gone. He shivered, then turned and walked back up the ramp.
Han Ch'in stood there a moment in the shadowed bedroom, the portrait of his grandmother wrapped in a towel beneath his arm. The scene around the empty bed was eerie, as if a group of huge insects had dressed themselves in men's silks and then gathered about the bed in a predatory huddle, only to die and desiccate. The curled, almost foetal, figures did not really look like men, though they had men's features and men's limbs.
He shivered and took a few steps closer. Though he knew none of these men personally, he understood that they must have been important and powerful men while they yet lived. And now . . . His foot brushed against one and it fell aside. A tiny cloud of spores rose from the husk's chest, then settled slowly.
So much for the pretensions of men. So much for power and status and riches . . .
Han Ch'in frowned, then bent down, picking something up. It was a ring. Moving to the doorway he stared at it in the light from the wall lamp and gave a tiny gasp. It was a heavy iron ring, and on its face was a wheel of seven dragons - the Ywe Lung, the symbol of the Seven Han Lords who had once ruled Chung Kuo.
It was his father's, he was sure of it. Li Yuan must have dropped it as he made his way from the bed, or it had slipped from his finger without him noticing. Whichever, his finding of it was fortuitous. Now he could give Li Yuan both his mother and - in a sense - his father, for this ring had been Li Shai Tung's ring long before Li Yuan was born.
Smiling to himself, he hurried back to the cruiser. The engines were warming up as he came out onto the path again, the guards he'd posted earlier moving back toward the craft, their eyes searching the walls and windows of the overlooking palaces, making sure nothing went wrong at the last moment.
He ran across, signalling to his men to get on board, then climbed the ramp. Kuei Jen was waiting for him just beyond the hatch.
"You have it?" he asked.
Han Ch'in nodded. "And his ring," he said, showing it to Kuei Jen. "He must have dropped it."
Kuei Jen took it and studied it a moment, then handed it back. "Go through," he said. "Our father is impatient."
Han Ch'in grinned, then moved past his brother into the long interior cabin.
Li Yuan was sitting at the far end of the cabin, immediately across from his once-wife, Fei Yen. Seeing his son, he began to get up, but Han Ch'in hurried to him.
"It is all right, father. I have the portrait."
"Portrait?" Fei Yen said, looking first to her son and then to Li Yuan. "What portrait is this? You have a portrait of me?"
Li Yuan took the towel-wrapped painting anxiously, giving Fei Yen a tiny glare as he did so. "Of you? You think I'd want a portrait of you?"
He unwrapped the painting and rested it in his lap, studying it. In it his mother was no more than sixteen years old, a Minor Family princess, only recently betrothed to his father after the failure of Li Shai Tung's previous wife to give him any children.
"Ahh," Fei Yen said, leaning across the gangway to get a better look. "I should have known. You always were a mother's boy, Yuan."
"And you always were a haggard-faced old bitch underneath it all, neh, my sweet one?" Li Yuan answered acidly.
"Now, you two," Han Ch'in began, but he got no further.
"Is that what you really believe, Li Yuan?" Fei Yen said, showing a hint of the steel of which she was made. "So you never loved me?"
"Oh, I loved you," Li Yuan answered, sitting back, beginning to enjoy the exchange. "Like a lamb loves the friendly touch of a butcher, not knowing there is a cleaver hidden behind his back!"
Han Ch'in looked away, not knowing whether to laugh or groan. Ever since they had been reunited five hours back, they had done nothing but bicker. Like a couple who had been married fifty years.
"Father," he interrupted, before his mother could find something equally devastating to say, "I found something else, in your rooms."
"A pair of maids, no doubt," Fei Yen began, but Han ignored her, holding his hand out, palm open, to his father.
"My ring?" Li Yuan said. He extended his hand as if to take it, then drew it back. "Achh! That cursed thing! Take it away! Throw it down some deep, dark well where it can never be found again!"
"Father?" Han Ch'in stood back, surprised.
But Li Yuan had bared his teeth now, as if the ring were some living thing. "It blighted my life. My brother should have ruled, not me, but that killed him. It destroyed my relationship with your mother here, and it killed all my other wives. And now .. . well, it shan't have me! I'll not let it!"
Han Ch'in closed his hand on the ring, then slipped it into his pocket. Li Yuan's eyes noted the movement and nodded.
"That's right, Han Ch'in. You keep it. But it will not bring you happiness. Not if you wore it on your finger for ten thousand years."
Han Ch'in swallowed, then, bowing to his father, backed away. At the doorway Kuei Jen stepped back, letting him come past, and, as the cabin door slid shut, he turned to face Han Ch'in.
"He's right, elder brother. All that that symbolises has passed now. Chung Kuo is gone. We must learn to be ordinary people now."
"Ordinary?"
Kuei Jen laughed. "Well, less than kings, let us say." He paused, then, looking into Han's eyes asked "Why, did you want to be a T'ang, brother?"
"I was a Warlord ..."
"That's not what I asked. Did you want to keep it going? I mean . . . even after all we've seen and experienced?"
Han Ch'in shrugged, as if he wasn't sure. Then, conscious of his brother's eyes on him, he shook his head. "No. If s best, neh?"
Kuei Jen nodded and, taking the ring from his hand, ducked through into the cockpit. He was back a moment later, his hands empty.
"There," he said. "We'll eject it on the way across to America. It can lie there on the ocean bed until the sun grows old."
Han Ch'in sighed. "So that's it, then? If s over."