"It's good, eh?" said Lo Ying, turning to order two more beers. Then he frowned. "Hey, Chen, look. . . ."
Chen turned, his mouth full of chicken, and looked. On the big screen over the serving counter the Yuie Lung had appeared. AH over the bar people were turning to look and falling silent.
"It's nothing," Chen said. "Just another announcement about the wedding."
"No. . . look. The background's white. Someone's dead. One of the Seven."
A low murmur went around the packed bar. A few got up from their seats and went to stand at the bar, looking up at the screen.
Chen looked at Lo Ying's face and saw the concern there. There was still a strong feeling for the Seven at this level, whatever was happening Above or far below. Here they identi-.fied with the Seven and were fiercely loyal. "Trouble for the Seven is trouble for us all"—how often he'd heard that said in the last year and a half. And something of that had rubbed off on him, he realized, as he sat there, his pulse raised by the ominous white background to the imperial symbol.
Martial music played. Then, abruptly, the image changed.
"What's that?" said Lo Ying softly.
There was a buzz of noise, then quiet. On the screen was a plain, red-carpeted room. In the middle of the room was a very solid-looking block; a big thing, an arm's length to a side. Its top was strangely smooth, as if melted or worn flat by the passage of feet or water over it, and cut into its dull gray side was the Ywe Lung, the wheel of dragons.
For a moment the screen was silent. Then came the voice.
It was the same voice he had heard numerous times before, making official announcements, but now it seemed more somber, more threatening, than he had ever heard it before. And the shadow voice, softer, more singsong, that spoke in native Mandarin, seemed to contain the same dark threat.
Chen put the bulb to his lips and emptied it. "Listen," said Lo Ying, reaching out to take his arm again. "There's been a trial."
The voice spoke slowly, carefully, outlining what had happened. There had been an assassination. The T'ang's minister, Lwo Kang. ...
Chen felt himself go cold. Lwo Kang. He looked down, shuddering.
A man named Edmund Wyatt had confessed to the killing. He had organized it. Had been the hand behind the knife.
Chen stiffened. Wyatt? Who in hell's name was Wyatt? Why not Berdichev? That was the name Kao Jyan had mentioned on his tape. Berdichev, not Wyatt. He shook his head, not understanding.
The image changed again, and there, before them, was Wyatt himself, speaking into camera, admitting his part in everything. A worn yet handsome man. An aristocrat. Every inch an aristocrat.
From the watching men came a sharp hissing. "Scum!" shouted someone. "Arrogant First Level bastards!" called another.
Chen looked down, then looked up again. So Kao Jyan had been wrong after all. He had guessed wrongly. A pity. But then, why had they killed him? Why kill him if he was wrong about Berdichev?
Or had he been wrong?
Wyatt's face faded, leaving the image of the empty room and the block. Again there was silence, both on the screen and below it in the bar. Then, suddenly, there was movement to the right of the screen. Two big, hugely muscled men brought a tall, very angular man into the center of the room and secured him over the block, his chest pressed against the upper surface, his bowed head jutting out toward the watching billions.
The man was naked. His hands had been secured tightly behind his back and his feet shackled with manacles. He looked very ill. Feebly he raised his head, his lips drawing back from his teeth in a rictus of fear, then let it fall again. His shaven head was like a skull, its paleness dotted with red blotches, while his bones seemed to poke through at shoulder and elbow.
"Gods . . ." whispered Lo Ying, "he looks half dead already, poor bastard!"
Chen nodded, fascinated, unable to look away. One of the guards had gone offscreen. The other leaned over the prisoner and brought his knee down firmly, brutally onto his back, pressing him down against the block. Then the first guard came back.
From the men in the bar came a single gasp. Of surprise. And fear.
In the guard's hands was a sword; a huge, long, two-edged weapon with an exaggeratedly broad, flat blade and a long iron-black handle. It was cruel and brutal, like something out of a museum, but it had been polished until it shone like new. The edges winked viciously in the brightness of the room as the guard turned it in his hands, accustoming himself to its weight and balance.
Lo Ying swallowed noisily, then made a small whimpering sound in his throat. "Gods. . . ." he said again, barely audibly. But Chen could not look away. It seemed alive. Hideously alive. As if some awful power animated the weapon. Its heaviness, its very awkwardness, spoke volumes. It was a brutal, pagan thing, and its ugly, unsophisticated strength struck dread into him.
Beside him Lo Ying groaned. Chen looked about him, his eyes searching from face to face, seeing his own horrified fascination mirrored everywhere.
"They're going to execute him!" Lo Ying's voice shook.
"Yes," said Chen softly, looking back at the screen, "they are."
The guard had raised the sword high. For a moment he held it there, his muscles quivering with the strain. Then, as if at some unspoken command, he brought it down onto the block.
The sword met little resistance. The head seemed to jump up on its own, a cometary trail of blood gouting behind it. It came down to the far left of the screen, rolled over once, and lay still, eerily upright, the eyes staring out sightlessly at the watching billions. The headless corpse spasmed and was still. Blood pumped from the severed neck, dribbling down the sides of the block to merge with the deep red of the carpet.
There was a fearful, awful silence. The guards had gone. Now there was only the block, the body, and the head. Those three and the blood.
Chen sat there, like the others, frozen into immobility, unable to believe it had been real. Despite himself he felt shocked. It couldn't be real, could it? He saw the surprise, the sudden pain, in the dead man's staring eyes and still could not believe it had been real. But all around him grown men were on their feet, shuddering, groaning, laughing with shock, or crying openly as they stood there, unable to look away from the screen and the severed head. Then Chen unfroze himself and stood up.
"Come on," he said, taking Lo Ying's arm firmly. "Let's get out of here."
Above them the screen went dark. Chen turned and pushed his way through the crowd, pulling Lo Ying along behind him, anxious to get outside. But out in the corridor he stopped, breathing deeply, feeling suddenly giddy. Why? he asked himself. IVe killed men before now. With these very hands I've taken their lives. Why, then, was that so awful?
But he knew why. Because it was different. Because it had been witnessed by them all.
It was a sign. A sign of things to come.
"Gods. . . . Gods. . . ." Lo Ying was shaking violently. He was barely in control of himself. "I didn't think . . ." he began. Then he turned away and was sick against the wall.
Yes, thought Chen. A sign. Times are changing. And this, the first public execution in more than a century, is the beginning of it.
He turned and looked at Lo Ying, suddenly pitying him. It had shocked him; what, then, had it done to such as Lo Ying? He took his arms and turned him around. "Listen," he said, "you'll come back with me. Stay with us tonight. We'll make space."
Lo Ying began to shake his head, then saw how Chen was looking at him and nodded.
"Good. Come on, then. We can send a message to your family. They'll understand."
Lo Ying let himself be led along, wiping distractedly at his mouth and beard and mumbling to himself. But at the junction of Chen's corridor he stiffened and pulled back.
Chen turned, looking at him. "What is it?"
"There"—Lo Ying bent his head slightly, indicating something off to Chen's right—"those men. I saw them earlier. Back at the bar."