Si vous aimez le frisson, le grand large, l’exotisme, et la fantasy bien sûr, il y a là tout ce qu’il vous faut avec ce roman.

Si vous aimez le frisson, le grand large, l’exotisme, et la fantasy bien sûr, il y a là tout ce qu’il vous faut avec ce roman.

Fiction: Fire in the Lake by Chris RobersonWood-Dragon year, 21st year of the Yongle emperorFrom his courtyard, the late summer blooms already closing their delicate petals for the night, Jurist Xi San could see a pillar of smoke rising to the northwest of the city, sign of some distant fire past Kunming Lake. Having finished his evening meal in accustomed solitude, Xi sat beneath the open sky as the sun began to set, packing his long-necked silver pipe with tobacco. It was cheap, foul-smelling stuff, but it served to calm his spirits, and settle his thoughts.Xi had smoked halfway through the first bowl, eyes lidded, his arms folded across his chest, when a polite cough from behind disrupted his meandering reverie.“Good evening, Fai, sister’s son,” Xi said, without turning around.“Uncle, how do you always know that it is me?”Xi opened his eyes, and repositioned on his bench, to face the boy standing at the courtyard’s entrance. In the boy’s features, Xi could see reflected the countenance of his sister, dead these many years, though in the boy’s eyes were something of the spark which lit his late father’s eyes.“It could be due to something no more complicated than the simple fact that you are expected to present yourself to me at the appointed hour, every evening,” Xi said, “and as this is the appropriate time, it is only reasonable that it is you who approaches.”“But couldn’t my studies delay me, or one of your servants precede my coming on some household business, by a matter of moments?”“One might assume that I trust my nephew to have learned the importance of punctuality, and the need not to try an old man’s patience through tardiness. Or one might recall that the household servants are forbidden from entering the courtyard of an evening, save for matters of the utmost importance.” Xi allowed a gentle smile to spread across his face. “Or, one might simply realize that having lived for so many years in a young man’s company, an old jurist might have come to recognize the pattern of footfalls his beloved nephew makes in crossing the flagstones.” Xi smiled broader, and motioned Fai to sit on the stool before him. “It is good to see you this evening, sister’s son. How go the course of your studies?”Fai arranged himself on the stool, tucking the hem of robes beneath him, and bowed from the waist, reverentially. Fai had been studying for some years now for his imperial examinations, and only weeks remained before he would take his xiucai-level exam. If he passed, and was awarded the title of “flourishing talent,” it would be the first step on a lifetime career in the imperial bureaucracy. If he failed, he could take the examination again, but each time he didn’t pass would decrease his chances of ever advancing in the emperor’s service.“With the help of the tutors you have graciously provided, Uncle, I feel that I am receiving the best possible advantages. Still…” The boy paused, his voice trailing off into silence, as an expression of doubt crept across his face. He seemed, in that moment, so much younger than his twelve summers, and Xi could not help but remember the small child he had welcomed–reluctantly, albeit–into his home those many years ago, when he had been District Magistrate in Sichuan province, long before he came to live in the Northern Capital. Parents lost in a fire, the soot of which still seemed to darken his tearstained cheeks, the young Fai had looked at Xi as a drowning man looks at a beach, his bloodshot eyes hungry for safety and security.“You worry whether your performance on the examinations will reflect your education, or whether you will betray the expectations of myself and your tutors alike?”The boy could only nod, his lower lip caught between his teeth.“Do not worry, sister’s-son,” Xi said, gently. “Keep what you have learned close to your heart and the words of your tutors in your mind, and you will prevail. I have heard more learned critique from your lips of Confucian law and logic than in any number of juren-level ‘elevated persons’ I have encountered, through my many years of service. I am, after all, a jinshi-level ‘presented person,’ and your grasp of ethics impresses even me.”The boy fidgeted on the stool, nervously.“Uncle, may I stand? I find that my limbs have too much energy to them this evening to sit still for more than a moment.”Xi puffed on his silver pipe, and nodded, indulgently.“My thanks, honored uncle.” Fai stood, bowed again, and began to pace the length and breadth of the courtyard.The sun had now dipped so low that it was almost hidden beneath the western horizon, the sky pinked and streaked with clouds painted orange and blue by the fading light, while in the east the stars began to shine, faintly.Fai stopped in his courses at the edge of the courtyard, facing the eastern heavens.“Uncle,” the boy said, pointing overhead, “do you note that red star, there in the east?”“It is the one called Fire Star, is it not?” Xi answered, absently.Fai nodded. “One of my instructors told me, in our recent sessions, that Fire Star was associated with judges, magistrates, and governance.”“I have not heard of that before now,” Xi allows. Then he added, with a wry smile, “I wonder if the association is due to the fact that Fire Star reverses its course from time to time, if I recall correctly, traveling backwards across the sky for a span of days before turning once more and resuming its prior heading. Perhaps your instructor means to suggest that magistrates and judges are likewise inconsistent in their thoughts and rulings, yes?” Xi smiled broader and, drawing deep on the silver-pipe clutched between his teeth, chuckled deep in his chest.Another polite cough from the courtyard’s entrance sounded, and Xi and Fai both turned to see one of the household servants standing at the threshold.“Your pardons, Master Jurist, but an imperial messenger has arrived with an urgent summons. Your presence is requested immediately at the Forbidden City, on a matter of the highest importance.”Xi set his pipe down on the bench at his side, and rose to his feet.“You will have to pardon me, sister’s son. Return to your studies, and we will discuss these matters further, tomorrow evening.”Fai bowed, low, and followed the servant from the courtyard. Xi arranged his robes, and tried to divine what possible use the imperial palace could have for a lowly District Magistrate.#Before the sun’s dying rays had vanished entirely from the western sky, Jurist Xi lingered at the southern Meridian Gate, the least of the Forbidden City’s five entrances, beneath the cloud-scraping Five Phoenix Tower, the easternmost entrance through which the imperial ministers entered the palace. Had he tried to enter through any of the others, reserved for the royal family or the emperor himself, Xi would have been clapped in irons at best, executed on the spot at worst. Passing through the shadowed tunnel, the light of the plaza of Supreme Harmony just a tiny crescent of brightness before him, Xi shivered, feeling out of his element.There were guards at the far side of the Meridian Gate, and standing between them were two men, who waited on Xi with barely disguised impatience. One was a eunuch of the Household Department, round and hairless, wearing simple robes that brushed the flagstones, his shaved head bare. The other was tall and slender with wispy mustaches, wearing the formal robes and ruby-topped court hat of a Confucian scholar, a courtier of the first rank. The two men seemed polar opposites, yin and yang given flesh. One tall where the other was short, the other slim where the other was round. Their manner, too, seemed divided into light and dark; the eunuch was all nervous energy, shuffling and ill-at-ease, his eyes darting at every sound, while the scholar kept his hands tucked serenely into the sleeves of his robe, his eyes narrowed and steady, his expression closed.“Your pardon, honored sirs,” Jurist Xi said, bowing from the waist as deeply as protocol demanded, his eyes on the ground. “But is it permitted to know what offense I may have given?”His head still lowered, Xi looked up from beneath his brows at the two men, who cast quick glances at one another before answering.“Offense, District Magistrate?” said the eunuch, a confused expression on his round features.“Yes, honored sirs,” Jurist Xi answered. “Having spent the majority of my years of service in the far provinces of the empire, it has been this one’s honor to serve as District Magistrate in the Northern Capital these last two years. Leaving behind those farthest and most benighted hinterlands, it is my honor now to serve at the pleasure of the emperor in the shadows of the imperial palace itself. But in all that time, this one has never yet been summoned to the palace. One only imagines that one has given offense.”The eunuch and the scholar exchanged looks, the meaning of which escaped Xi.“No, District Magistrate,” the eunuch said, a slight smile playing across his full mouth. “You’ve not been called to the Forbidden City because of anything you yourself have done, but because of a service you have yet to perform.”“A service?” Xi asked.“Yes,” the Confucian scholar answered, his tone level but severe. “There has been a crime committed. That is the purview of the Magistrate, is it not, the investigation of offenses and the meting out of punishments to the guilty?”“Yes,” Xi answered, bowing his head slightly in response. “But why call upon lowly District Magistrate, since the palace has its own guards and investigators? The Embroidered Guard, the secret policemen of the Eastern Depot, have as their charter the expressed job of safeguarding the emperor. Why not make use of them?” Xi paused, and then quickly added, “Meaning no disrespect, of course, honored sirs.”“The case does not involve the emperor,” the eunuch said, his gaze flickering to the north as he spoke, where the pillar of smoke perched over the distant mountains.“That is,” the scholar added, raising his hand, “not the emperor that was, and not directly.”“Could you offer some …clarification?” Xi asked, confused.“All will become clear in time,” the eunuch answered. The round man turned and began walking towards the inner walls of the palace, motioning Xi to follow. Xi fell in step, the scholar walking a few paces behind.Crossing the plaza, they passed next through the Gate of Supreme Harmony, skirting around the imperial hall to the west, then towards the Palace of Heavenly Purity and the Hall of Earthly Peace to the north beyond. As they walked, Xi cast nervous glances around him, his eyes not large enough to take in the grandeur of his surroundings. Few men of his station had seen the interior of the recently constructed palace, and fewer still allowed to roam so far within the inner reaches. The palace seemed fresh made and new, though construction had begun in Fire-Dragon year, eighteen years before. The emperor had only taken permanent residence in Wood-Dragon, seven years since, and if not for the sections routed by fire some time ago, now being rebuilt, the Forbidden City would look as though it had been completed only the day before.So distracted by the sights was Xi that he scarcely noticed the scholar begin to speak.“There are shifting allegiances and conflicts within the palace walls,” the scholar had said, his voice low and conspiratorial, his eyes narrowed on the eunuch’s back. “All involved thought it…best, to have the matter at hand investigated by someone from the outside. Someone without…loyalties.”“This one’s loyalty is to the emperor,” Xi said, quickly. He was not sure whether he was being tested, or allowed a confidence, but wasn’t prepared to take a chance.The scholar regarded him for a moment from beneath his brows, and then nodded slightly.“Well said, District Magistrate,” the scholar finally answered, his tone level, giving nothing.“If this one is permitted to ask,” Xi said, after a moment, “what is the matter at hand?”Up ahead, the eunuch came to a stop, tucking his arms in his full sleeves.“Here,” the eunuch said simply, indicating the ground before him with a flick of his eyes, as though afraid to point or to look too long on the scene.There, within the Imperial Gardens, in the shadow of the Pavilion of Ten Thousand Spring Seasons, a fat man lay face down on the ground.Coming forward to stand beside the eunuch, Xi looked carefully at the scene, taking in every detail. The fat man was on the ground with arms spread at his sides, his legs folded one under the other, as though he had been tripped from behind and fallen face forward. The back of his head was concave where it should have been convex, his thin black hair matted with blood, that was pooled in an already congealing halo around his head. His skin was cold blue and lifeless, suggesting some hours had passed since the incident had occurred.From his vantage point, Xi could see only a portion of the man’s left profile, and did not recognize the man’s features. His garments suggested a story in themselves, though. The color of the fat man’s brocaded sleeves was a shade of orange called “apricot yellow.” It was reserved for the exclusive use of the heir apparent.“Is this…?” Xi paused, having trouble formulating the question.“Yes,” the scholar answered, his eyes downcast. “It is Zhu Gaozhi. Next in line to the throne after the emperor Zhu Di and, as of this morning, ruler of all the Middle Kingdom.”“I…I am confused,” Xi said, forgetting all etiquette in the dizzying moment.“Word reached us in secret,” the eunuch answered, glancing at Xi, “just before you arrived this evening. The emperor died this morning on the road back from the Mongolian campaigns in the northwest. Zhu Gaozhi was his successor, and died before ever learning the throne was now his.”#Jurist Xi began his investigations early the next morning, leaving home for the Forbidden City before his nephew and servants had even risen for the day.There were many in the palace whom a District Magistrate could not directly address, and whom he was forced to approach with much kowtowing and genuflection. In fact, there were some whose stations were so far above that Xi could not look directly at them. By the end of the first day of his investigation, his ancient knees were sore from kneeling so often on the floor, and his forehead felt frozen after being pressed time and again after the chill stones before some high ranking official.So far, from these inquiries of those in power, he had learned very little. Whether he spoke to the Eunuchs of the Presence who managed the emperor’s toilet and bath; or the Confucian advisors who influenced imperial policy, whispering blandishments behind screens; or the servants of the Imperial Mothers, the wives and consorts of emperors past–none seemed willing or able to share anything of substance, anything that might identify who had ended the life of the fat princeling.Jurist Xi returned to his humble apartments that evening, taking his evening meal in quiet silence as he always did, smoking a bowl of inexpensive tobacco in his long-necked silver pipe as the shadows lengthened, contemplating what might follow.A familiar fall of footsteps and a polite cough signaled the arrival of his nephew, and Xi absently motioned the boy to his stool with a wave of his silver-pipe.“Good evening, Uncle,” the boy finally said, to fill the silence that lingered between them.“And a good evening to you, sister’s son,” Xi said, between puffs on his pipe. “I apologize if I am distracted somewhat, but my thoughts are…elsewhere.”“If it is not too impertinent to inquire, Uncle, what office did the Forbidden City require of you, last evening?”Xi chewed momentarily on the mouth of his pipe before answering. “It is perhaps impertinent,” he said, “but I will answer, after a fashion. I have been asked to investigate a somewhat…delicate matter.”“For the emperor himself?” the boy asked. “That is a considerable honor, Uncle.”“An honor?” Xi repeated, thoughtfully. “Perhaps, sister’s son. But there are times when I miss the simplicity of the outer provinces. Did I ever tell you of the time a sheaf of fifteen notes of currency became thirty, and then forty-five, in front of my very eyes?”“No, Uncle.”“It was when I was District Magistrate in the province of Sichuan,” Xi said, his eyes lifted to the heavens as his thoughts drifted back over the long years. “A poor grocer headed to the market to buy vegetables, and on the way found a sheaf of paper money. When he counted the money, he found fifteen notes worth five ounces of silver and five notes worth a string of one thousand copper coins each. Out of this sum he took a note, bought two strings’ worth of meat and three strings’ worth of hulled rice, and placed his purchases in the baskets he carried on a pole across his shoulders. Then he went home, without having purchased the vegetables his mother had sent him to purchase.”Xi paused, taking a deep pull from the pipe, and then continued.“When he returned home, his mother asked him why he had no vegetables, and he told her about the fortune he had found. His mother did not believe anyone could have lost so great a sum, and accused him of stealing it, instead. When her son insisted he was innocent, she demanded that he return the money. He should go back to the place where he found the sheaf, and see if the owner comes looking for it.”Xi’s nephew shook his head. “That was foolish of her to say, wasn’t it, Uncle? Surely the money belonged to whomever had the most recent claim on it, and having lost it the previous owner had relinquished any claim to the sheaf.”“That is one interpretation,” Xi answered, “and while a valid one, it was not the mother’s, and so did not motivate what was to follow.” Xi knocked the burned embers from his pipe, and began to refill the bowl from the tobacco pouch he pulled from the inner folds of his robe. “In any event, the grocer took the notes back to the place he’d found them, and in due course a wealthy merchant came looking for the money. When the grocer handed over the sheaf of notes, bystanders urged the merchant to reward the grocer for finding his money, but the merchant was a miser, and refused.”“He refused?” Fai asked, horrified at the thought. “Then he was lying.”“Perhaps. But more germane to our story was the manner in which the merchant lied, if it was in fact lying. ‘I lost a sheaf of thirty notes,’ the merchant said. ‘Half of my money is missing.’”“But the grocer had found only fifteen notes,” the boy said.“Precisely. The grocer objected, and the merchant argued, and after the argument raged on and on, the pair was brought before me, the district magistrate, to try.”“What did you do?”“First, I questioned the merchant alone. Then, I questioned the grocer, and found that his answers seemed to bear the ring of truth. Then, I sent for the grocer’s mother, and questioned her in private. Finally, I had the merchant and the grocer each submit written statements to the court, outlining their version of events. Still, the merchant persisted that he had lost thirty five-ounce bills, and the grocer swore that he had found fifteen five-ounce bills.”Xi paused, lighting his pipe from a taper.“’Very well, then,’ I said, ‘the sheaf the grocer found is not the sheaf which the merchant lost. These fifteen notes are heaven’s gift to a worthy mother, to sustain her in old age.’ I gave the grocer and his mother the money. Then, to the merchant, I said, ‘The thirty notes you lost must be in some other place. You should continue to look for them.’ And the merchant went away, cowed and ashamed.”Fai laughed, clapping his hands together, merrily. “Well done, Uncle.”“Thank you, sister’s-son. At times like the present, there isn’t much I would not trade for a simple case such as those. Now, you’ll have to excuse me, but my current obligations require additional rumination, and so I’ll wish you a good night’s rest. Study well, and we’ll speak again tomorrow evening.”“Good evening, Uncle,” Fai said, crossing to the courtyard’s entrance, bowing low, and then leaving Xi to his quiet contemplation.#The next morning, he returned to the Forbidden City by the Meridian Gate, a different strategy in mind.No longer would he wait on the pleasure of the high and officious. From this point onwards, he would direct his attentions to the lowest ranked of the palace society. The subalterns and couriers, the scullions and sweeps. The eunuchs who fed the garden fish in the garden pools and polished the floors in the Hall of Supreme Harmony to a mirror shine, the servants who paraded the meals to the royal family through all the watches of the day and night and the low-ranking priests who rarely paused in their orisons. From all of these, the most low, the unnoticed and underfoot, Jurist Xi slowly pieced together an image of the truth, gathering together one small element at a time, until the whole was spread before him like a mosaic.#Xi sat on a low stone bench, just beyond the walls of the Imperial Garden. It was early afternoon, the sun overhead just past its zenith.“So you were not aware the emperor had died the afternoon the body was found?” Xi asked the eunuch who tended the topiary in the garden.“No,” the gardener answered, impatient to return to his duties, worried that the neglect would allow his creations to grow out of true. “We were told the emperor was returning from the campaign in Mongolia, and were making ready for his arrival, but it was not for several hours more that the first riders arrived from the march, with the news the emperor had died in his sleep.”Xi rubbed his hands together, palm to palm, trying to tease a fleeting idea from the back of his mind.“So you were the first to find the body?” he asked.“Yes,” the gardener answered with a sigh, his eyes flitting back to the garden beyond the low wall.Xi thought back to the scene two days before, the fat man laying face down in a pool of coagulating blood, the sun receding in the west across pink-dappled skies. The body was cold, but the blood at the back of the neck had not yet fully clotted. The murder had occurred no later than midday.“You work in the garden all day?” Xi asked, turning slightly from the waist, admiring the well-shaped hedges and crenulated trees.“From the sun’s first appearance until nightfall,” the gardener answered, proudly. “I rarely stop for meals. In fact, I’ve worked for the last week without ceasing, in preparation for the emperor’s return.”Xi narrowed his eyes.“And yet you were elsewhere at this hour two days past?” he asked.The gardener looked confused for a moment, and began to shake his head. Then, seeming to remember the content of their discussion, he quickly redirected the shake into an eager nod.“Yes, yes, of course,” the gardener answered. “I was called away by a representative from the Household Department for a few moments. Some question about the feng shui of plants kept in the Hall of Mental Cultivation, as I recall.”Xi held his hands together, palm to palm, as though he’d caught a fly between them.“Curious,” he said, innocently. “That seems more within the purview of a Taoist priest than a gardener…if you will excuse my impropriety in mentioning. Are you often called on such tasks?”The gardener regarded Xi closely.“From time to time,” he answered.Xi rose quickly, and bowed a fraction from the waist, nearly the bow given to an equal, shaded slightly towards deference.“This one is grateful for your time and patience,” Xi said, and then turned and walked away, his hands held tightly together, fingers laced.#That evening, after his simple meal, his silver pipe held to his lips, Xi reviewed what he had learned thus far.When Gaozhi was killed, no one knew the emperor had died. So who benefited from his death? His own son, Zhu Zhanji, or his brother, Zhu Gaoxu, either one of whom would be the likely next candidates for the throne. Of the two, the dead man’s son was away on the steppes on the fringes of the empire, on a long hunting expedition. He was a man who preferred the wilderness to the intrigues of court. Gaoxu had been in the capital city when his brother was killed, but witnesses placed him at a festival in the hour the murder had occurred.What of other factions within the palace? The eunuchs, who held all the administrative and most of the high military positions under the old emperor, seemed eager to begin the coronation process, and put Gaoxu on the throne as soon as possible. The Confucian scholar-officials, who made up the balance of the administration, were blocking this appointment, delaying the proceedings wherever possible. One or two of the Confucians had floated the notion that the son Zhanji was the more proper choice for the throne, as his father had technically died after becoming emperor, but this position was not supported by all of the Confucians, many of whom suspected the dead man’s son of collusion.Xi was in the midst of trying unsuccessfully to unravel the knot presented by the mystery, the pipe held between his teeth, his eyes closed tight, when he felt a touch on his knee.“Uncle?”Xi’s nephew Fai sat in his accustomed place on the stool before Xi, a look of concern on his features. He had entered, crossed the courtyard, and sat upon the stool, all without Xi noticing. After a long time waiting, apparently, he had tapped Xi’s knee, to rouse him.“My apologies, again, sister’s-son. The vexations of my current office are many, and I find myself lost in my thoughts on the subject, more and more. It is a…complicated matter.”“An investigation, then?” Fai asked.“Something like that,” Xi answered.“Perhaps there is some crucial article of fact you have not yet uncovered.”Xi nodded slightly, puffing on the pipe, breathing out thick clouds of smoke which rose to obscure briefly the stars winking to light overhead. “Perhaps,” he allowed, after a time. “But I think it more likely that this is a quandary too complex to be solved at a single stroke, as much as I would prefer it were otherwise.”Fai frowned, thoughtfully.“You put me in mind of simpler times, though, sister’s-son. Did I ever tell you about the time he solved a murder case with a single word?”Fai shook his head. “I don’t believe so , Uncle.”“The case involved a merchant who was about to go out on a selling trip. The merchant had hired a boat and, having loaded it with the help of the boatman, waited for his servant to arrive from the house. He waited, and waited, and still the servant did not appear.” Xi drew the pipe’s smoke deep into his lungs, and exhaled another cloud to obscure the heavens. “The boatman, meanwhile, could not tear his gaze away from the fine, expensive things the merchant had loaded onto the boat. If the merchant were out of the way, the boatman reasoned, he could keep all of these fine things for himself. So, when the merchant’s back was turned, the boatman struck him from behind, killing him. The boatman weighted down his body, and sunk it deep into the murky river.”“So it was murder!” Fai said, breathlessly.“Without question. But if not for what came next, it is possible no one would have known. You see, the boatman then took the merchant’s fine goods, and carried them to his own home. With them safely secreted there, the boatman went to the merchant’s house. He pounded upon the gate, calling for the merchant’s wife. When the wife appeared at the gate, the boatman explained that the merchant had never arrived at the boat. The merchant’s wife sent her servants out to look for her husband, but they found no trace of him. The boatman, then, suggested that the merchant must have been waylaid on his way to the boat, and all of his fine goods stolen by thieves.”“He lied,” the boy said.“Yes, sister’s-son” Xi sighed, and shook his head slightly. “You will find, as you make your way through life, that people lie more often than philosophers and judges might prefer. In any case, the merchant’s wife was suspicious of the boatman’s story, and reported the matter to the local constable, who in turn informed the county officials, who then interrogated the boatman, but produced no new evidence. Finally, the court reached me, the district magistrate. All of the involved parties came before me, including the boatman, the merchant’s wife, and her servants. I sent out all but the merchant’s wife, and had her give an exact description of the events of that day. She explained that her husband had left in the morning, and that sometime later the boatman had knocked at the gate, and that before she could open it, the boatman cried out, ‘Mistress, why has your husband not come to my boat, after so long a time?’”“That is what the boatman had said?” Fai chewed his lower lip thoughtfully.“Yes,” Xi said, smiling slightly. “And I think perhaps you understand just how he undid himself with the first word he spoke.”The boy shifted excitedly on his stool. “I think that…”“Hold a while” Xi raised his hand. “I’ll finish my tale, and we’ll see if your thoughts accord with me own. Once I had heard the wife’s testimony, I her out, and called for the boatman. When questioned, the boatman gave a statement which agreed in all particular’s with that of the wife. I then called in all of the parties, and ordered the boatman arrested for murder, as he had just confessed to the crime. The boatman objected, asking what confession he had given.”“When he called at the merchant’s house,” Fai said, eagerly, “he asked not for the merchant, but for his wife.”“Precisely,” Xi said, smiling proudly. “Very good, sister’s-son. In answer to the boatman’s objection, I said, ‘When you knocked on the door of the merchant’s house, you addressed his wife, not him. Even before the gate had been opened, you were sure he was not still at home. How else could you have known he was away, unless you had seen him with your own eyes?’”“And so with that one word, ‘Mistress,’ the boatman proclaimed his own guilt!” the boy said.“Yes.” Xi sat his pipe beside him, and folded his hands in his lap. “Would that my current investigation could be solved so easily.”#The next morning, in the palace granary, amidst towering pillars of flour-sacks and casks of millet and grain, Xi found an ancient eunuch who had served the royal family since the days of the late emperor’s father. His fingers were permanently stained with ink, his shoulders hunched from sitting all day at his task, recording in his ledger the flow of victuals into and out of the palace stores, and his eyes were cloudy and dim, but his mind was clear and his tongue was sharp, and he was happy to have any audience, District Magistrate or no.The ancient eunuch, whose name Xi never learned, listened with bare impatience while Xi rattled off a few questions about his investigation, and then waved his ink-stained hands in from of him, as though warding off foul spirits.“These intrigues,” the ancient eunuch said, his voice high and piping. “They are nothing new, but pale shadows of what has gone before. All things tend towards decay and chaos, and treachery is no exception. Everything was grander in former days, even the darkness.”“Might this one ask…” Xi began, and then the old man waved him silent with an impatient gesture.“Know you, how the emperor Zhu Di–son-of-heaven and may-he-reign-ten-thousand-years–came to the throne originally?”Xi didn’t see it necessary to point out that the late emperor seemed unlikely, at this juncture, to reign another ten days, much less ten thousand years, but held his tongue. He shook his head, and seeing that the old man had made no indication that his blind eyes had seen the gesture, answered simply, “No.”“Listen, then,” the old man said. “This is what went before, in times past. This is what many fear might come again, whispering in the dark corner of the palace like frightened little girls.”“What do they fear?”“Purge, reprisal, siege, and the threat of civil war.”Xi leaned in close, and listened as the ancient man told a tale of hidden history, in his sing-song piping voice.#Before the late emperor Zhu Di came to the throne, the Confucian advisers of his father Zhu Yaunzhang advised against favoring Di. They said that it would cause a rift between the old emperor’s other sons, and plunge the country into civil war.Yaunzhang named his grandson Zhu Yunwen as his successor. Worried about the capabilities of his grandson, the old emperor launched a campaign in his final years to rid the empire of any who might later pose a threat to his successor. Fifteen thousand civil officials and loyal military commanders were executed in the mad emperor’s purge.However, Yaunzhang had not ordered the execution of his own sons, especially his beloved Di. When Yaunzhang had died, Yunwen ascended to the throne. Yunwen then ordered the execution and assassination of his uncles, the princely sons of the former emperor, seeing in each of them a threat. Within a year, seven of the eight were dead, the only one left living the craft Di, who feigned madness, running through the streets screaming obscenities, stealing food and wine from strangers, sleeping in gutters. In warm weather he’d huddle near stoves, shivering and complaining about the chill. But it was all a ruse, to deceive Yunwen into thinking he was harmless while he marshaled his forces.In time, Di gathered his strengths to him, his sons and loyal military commanders, and made a bid for the throne. He called his nephew Yunwen a dupe of treasonous advisors, and raised an army against him. Lost campaigns followed, and a siege of six months, but in the end Di was victorious, largely due to the cooperation of the court eunuchs, who had been dispossessed by Yunwen, stripped of their power and prestige. The court eunuchs, in exchange for a return to their previous positions, revealed to Di the secrets of the capital’s defense, and Di’s army took the city.There are those who say the burned body found within the palace walls was not that of the emperor Yunwen, but that of a subordinate, and that the emperor himself escaped death, disguised in the garb of a woman. But these are the stories that washwomen and broken old eunuchs tell, and should not be heeded.#By the end of the third day of his investigation, Xi felt close to a solution, though no nearer a full understanding of the forces at play. It was as though he were standing too close to an enormous mural, and able only to perceive small details, not the broad sweep of the work. In his best estimation, the palace was in the midst of a struggle between two factions, with the eunuchs on one side and the scholars on the other. From battles as simple as which scholar should be appointed to a low-level functionary position at court, to those as complex and wide-ranging as the costs incurred by the Treasure Fleets so favored by the eunuchs and the late emperor, the struggle between the eunuchs and the scholars was a war fought on many fronts.Since times past, generations gone, Jurist Xi had learned, the Palace eunuchs and the Confucian scholar-advisors had struggled for supremacy within the empire. In some eras one side was in the ascendant, in some eras the star of the other side was on the rise, but always the struggle, always the shifting of alliances and strategies back and forth. With the death of the emperor Di, and the murder of his successor Gaozhi, these ancient enmities again came to the fore. It seemed that the eunuchs were eager to rush through any investigation and deliberation, and put the dead man’s brother on the throne, while the Confucians were stalling for time, delaying matters at every turn, trying to devise some strategy.On the morning of the fourth day, before any but women, eunuchs and the Imperial mothers were yet within the walls of the Forbidden City, Jurist Xi was called before the two men who had first met him within the Meridian Gate.“You have been busy, we are told,” said the eunuch of the Household Department, his gaze level.“Yes, honored sir,” Xi answered.“And have your questions yielded fruit?” asked the Confucian scholar-courtier.“Meager fruit, honored sir,” Xi answered, “but sufficient to establish the taste.”“And what have you determined?” the eunuch asked, after a considerable pause.Jurist Xi looked from one man to the other, his eyes lingering on the round figure of the eunuch. He had struggled for the last hours on how best to couch his next response, how best to explain how he had determined the only ones who stood to benefit from the death of the heir apparent, without giving offense. Before he could open his mouth to frame a response, though, a court page appeared at the elbow of the eunuch, and hurriedly handed him a slip of yellow paper inscribed in black ink.Xi could not see from his vantage point what the paper said, but the impact on the eunuch was written in bold relief across the round features. His eyes widened, showing white all around, and his mouth twisted in a grimace that suggested shock commingled with fury. The eunuch’s hands closed into claws around the paper, crumpling it.“Your pardons,” he muttered, and turning on his heel, raced away. The crumpled paper he dropped behind, and it fluttered to the ground like a falling leaf.The Confucian scholar bent to retrieve the slip of paper in a fluid motion, and straightening it, read it at a glance. A slight smirk peaked at the corners of his mouth, but only for an instant.“Honored sir,” Xi said, after a long silence. “Is this one given to know what the message says?”The scholar lifted his eyes, and looked on Xi with an expression of wearied humor.“Come along, District Magistrate,” the scholar answered, turning. With measured steps, he began to walk after the eunuch. “You will need to know soon enough, I would imagine.”#Beneath the Gate of Divine Prowess, at the northern wall of the Forbidden City, lay a body cold and still, dressed in the dull orange hue called “golden yellow,” reserved for the exclusive use of the emperor’s sons. Though he had never seen the man before, Jurist Xi knew at a glance that this was the body of Zhu Gaoxu, eldest son of the late emperor.No man but the emperor may spend the night within the palace walls, unless he should pay six silver taels to the knifeman and surrender his manhood as the eunuchs had done. Zhu Gaoxu had spent the night in his royal apartments, just beyond the palace walls, and had risen early to meet with palace officials about his role in the funereal rites that would occupy the Forbidden City for the next hundred days. He never made the meeting, but was found still and lifeless on the cold flagstones by a group of ministers in the early morning light.Some in the court, in the hours that followed, began to point their fingers in accusation at the late emperor’s grandson, Zhanji the hunter, out on the western plains, though how he came to be responsible for the murders of his father and uncle from a distance of thousands of kilometers, none can say with certainty. The arguments were spirited, and divided factions internally. Members of the Household Department disagreed openly and vehemently about what next course of action should be taken, and the courtiers and Confucian advisors locked themselves away, consulting histories and books of law, searching for precedent and historical guidance.That morning, on first waking, Jurist Xi had felt sure that he had determined who had murdered the heir apparent, though he scarcely understood the motive of the murderers. No, as the day grew nearer to dusk, Xi felt that he knew perfectly the motives of two murders, but had grown less certain about the identity of the murderers themselves. The one thing of which he remained convinced, though, a certainty that burned with crystal clarity in his thoughts, was that no one could learn what he had discovered.Xi knew well the responsibilities of the District Magistrate. His was the task of preserving order, at any cost. Xi remembered what the ancient eunuch in the granary had told him about the ascension of Zhu Di to the throne, and he wept to think of his district of the Northern Capital in burning ruins.#That evening Xi returned to his home, and ate his meal in private contemplation. Later, he sat in his courtyard, his silver pipe in hand. At the sound of a cough from the courtyard’s entrance, Xi turned, and waved dismissively.“Not tonight!” Xi said, sharply. “Return to your studies, and we’ll speak on some later occasion.”“Your pardons, honored uncle,” the boy said, his voice quavering as he bowed low. “Has …has this one displeased you in some fashion?”Xi took a deep breath, and collected himself.“No, sister’s son.” Xi forced himself to relax, incrementally, and smiled to the shaken boy at the entrance. “The anger conveyed in my tone is not with you, but with others more deserving of ire. You are dismissed this evening not for any fault of yours, but because I am expecting visitors which should arrive at any moment.”A household servant appeared at Fai’s side, bowing low.“Master Jurist, there are two men at the front gate who wish to speak with you.”“And there they are now,” Xi said.With a faint smile, Xi motioned the servant to escort the visitors in.“You must excuse me, sister’s son,” Xi said to Fai, who lingered nervously at the entrance.” I must receive these guests in private. Continue with your studies, and we will speak again tomorrow evening.”Fai bowed to his uncle and, without another word, left.Xi refilled his pipe and, when he turned again, standing uncomfortably side by side in the doorway were the eunuch of the Household Department, and the Confucian scholar-courtier. Neither knew that the other had been summoned, but likewise neither was able to refuse. Xi had made certain to include certain suggestive passages in the invitations his servants had delivered, to insure their prompt arrival.“District Magistrate,” the scholar began, attempting for bluster, “the manner of your invitation was most unseemly, and completely lacking in merit.”“Yes,” the eunuch put in, stepping forward, “Most inauspicious. Etiquette demands…”Jurist Xi raised his hand for silence, and shook his head with a slight smile on his face. He drew heavily on the silver pipe, and sent streams of spoke spilling up from the corners of his mouth.“This one offers humblest apologies for any offense,” Xi said, his voice laced with dark humor. “But on consideration it seemed that civil war and the palace in flames would prove more inauspicious, and of the unseemly options which presented themselves this course was the most suitable.”The eunuch and scholar regarded him through narrowed eyes.“This one is pleased to report that the mysteries surrounding the death of the imperial princes have been solved,” Xi went on. “One is less pleased with the answers, but then these are trying days.”Xi tapped out the spent tobacco from his silver pipe, and began to refill the bowl.“In all things, there is a first cause,” he continued. “One might assume that the instigation of this current string of events was the discovery of the body in the Imperial Gardens, four days since. That would not, however, be true. In fact, it all began with fires in the northwest, out beyond Kunming Lake.” He paused, and then added, “From the direction of Mongolia.”The Confucian looked at him, not comprehending, and then looked to the eunuch with dawning realization. The round man, for his part, kept his eyes on the ground.“That was the means…” the Confucian began, then bit off the rest of his statement.“One imagines there were a series of fires,” Xi went on, lighting his pipe from a taper. “Signal fires, stretching the hundreds of leagues between here and inner Mongolia. A way of passing information much faster than any horse and rider ever could. The content of the information would, perforce, be limited, but so long as your message was simple …say, to alert another as to a significant occurrence–the outbreak of war, or the death of a king…”Jurist Xi paused, and let his words hang in the air.“Understand, first, that one speaks only in the hypothetical,” Xi went on. “Imagine, if you will, that a group desired to circumvent the will of their emperor, in the manner of succession. For the sake of argument, let us say that…for instance…the palace eunuchs felt that their power would be severely curtained were the emperor’s chosen heir to come to the throne; they might even know for a certainty that the heir is the pawn of another faction within the palace…for example, the Confucian scholar-officials. These hypothetical eunuchs might be willing to go to any lengths, even murder, to secure their positions.”Xi paused, taking a long draw off the pipe.“However,” he said, continuing, “if the heir apparent were to die while the emperor stilled lived, the emperor might name a successor even less receptive to their cause. On the other hand, if the heir died after ascending to the throne, then the line of succession would next fall on the heir apparent’s own son. Suppose that the heir apparent’s son is an unknown, his allegiances not yet established. Let us say he prefers to hunt in the western wildernesses instead of playing court politics. Were he to take the throne, he might look favorably on the eunuchs’ cause, or he might favor some other faction…for example, again, the Confucian scholar-officials.”Xi glanced between the two men, his manner serene. Neither of the visitors spoke, their eyes locked on Xi.“If, however, the heir apparent were to die too late for the emperor to name a new successor, but before the emperor had passed on, then the throne would pass to the heir apparent’s brother.” Xi smiled, like an enlightened monk. “Suppose, further, that the heir apparent’s brother is, himself, the cat’s paw of the eunuchs, and with him on the throne, they know that they would be secure until another turn of the wheel. Now, if we assume that the eunuchs are successful in their scheme, and work out some mechanism to alert their compatriots at the palace that the emperor is on his deathbed, before the news is made public…say, by ingenious use of secret signal fires …and eliminate the threat of the heir apparent, isn’t it too much to assume that the Confucian scholars would not revenge. After all, if it is well known that the heir apparent’s brother is the pawn of the eunuchs, the Confucian scholars have a vested interest in eliminating this new successor, as well.”Xi lowered his pipe from his lips, his expression hardening.“I am merely a humble servant of the emperor,” Xi said, his voice hard. “I took my examinations and earned my certifications, and have served at the emperor’s pleasure from here to the western fastness these past long years. Now, mine is the role of District Magistrate of the Northern Capital, to maintain the safety and order of the city. What happens within the walls of the Forbidden City is beyond my ken and my control, but what happens beyond is my responsibility.”Xi stood, and crossed his arms over his chest. The eunuch made to speak, but Xi silenced him with a glare.“Murder is not to be tolerated,” he went on, “but if the prosecution of an offender leads to more bloodshed and violence, then who is to gain? Neither of your factions is guaranteed they will control the next emperor, whoever he will be. If the true facts of the last days is revealed, the only result will be civil war. Two men are now dead, and their father with them. Should more men now join them in death, or shall we consider things at an end, till the wheel should turn again?”The eunuch and the scholar looked at one another, their expressions hard, their gazes smoldering. Then they looked back to Xi.“The investigation of offenses and the meting out of punishments to the guilty is the purview of the Magistrate,” the scholar said through clenched teeth.“We will abide by your decision,” the eunuch added, bowing slightly.With that, both men turned, and walked back out into the night. Xi never saw either one of them again.#A month later, Zhu Zhanji, grandson of the late emperor, ascended to the imperial throne, and took up residence in the Forbidden City. Called the Xuande emperor, he seemed well disposed to the positions of the Palace eunuchs, but less so than was his predecessor. The new emperor seemed to listen with a more attentive ear to his Confucian advisors, but was reported to heed their counsel only when it suited him. In most ways, he was his own man, and his reign reflected that fact.Some weeks after Zhanji took the throne, Jurist Xi’s nephew Fai passed his xiucai-level examination, recognized now by the imperial bureaucracy as a “flourishing talent.” Through his uncle’s connections in the Northern Capital–there were always those in the bureaucracy who considered it auspicious and prudent to have favors owed them by a District Magistrate–Fai secured as a position as an assistant to the official scribe on a forthcoming Treasure Fleet expedition, bound for Nippon. He would continue his studies while onboard, and then take his juren-level examinations on his return to the Northern Capital, the following year.The day before Fai was scheduled to depart with the Treasure Fleet, he joined his uncle in the courtyard at the appointed hour, as was their custom.“Good evening, uncle.”“Good evening, sister’s son.” Xi motioned the boy to the stool, but his nephew politely declined, too excited to sit still.“I think it is safe to say that great things lie in your future,” Xi said, “but I am not afraid to admit that your presence will be missed in this house.”Xi dipped his head, reverentially. “I thank you for making a place in your household for me, Uncle. And I can only hope that my contributions can be even a shadow of what your service has meant to the empire.”“Graciously said.” Xi smiled, kindly. “My own contributions to the emperor, though, are humble offerings, and you would do better to set your ambitions somewhat higher. It is perhaps ironic, but my most significant contribution in the emperor’s service is likely one which no one knows, outside of myself and two other men, neither of whom are likely ever to speak of it.”“But surely,” Fai says, “even a hidden contribution still aids the emperor. What would have happened differently had you not performed this service?”Xi shook his head, a dark expression drifting momentarily across his features. That is not a topic fit for discussion and, besides, I would not want a new cloud to cast a shadow on my nephew’s proud day.”“Thank you, Uncle.” Fai bowed again, and then straightened, his hands in constant motion at his sides, too full of nervous energy to stand still.“Perhaps,” Xi said with a gentle smile, “you should go and prepare your things for the coming voyage?”“Yes, of course.” Fai smiled broadly, his eyes flashing. “Thank you, Uncle.”The boy hurried to the entrance, pausing only to give a perfunctory bow before rushing to his rooms, leaving the jurist alone in the courtyard.Xi smoked his silver pipe, looking at the stars coming out overhead.What had he contributed, in the broad view? The Xuande emperor would still likely have ascended to the throne in a few years time, had his father lived. But who knew how the fortunes of the Middle Kingdom might have changed, in those intervening years, if not for one fire, burning in the wilderness, out beyond Kunming Lake.

Valashu a écrit :Est-ce que cette nouvelle a un rapport avec son livre, ou pas du tout ?

This week's free fiction offering is a complete short story, which first appeared in Jeanne Cavelos's The Many Faces of Van Helsing, a fine anthology that sadly didn't get the attention it deserved. Copies can still be had on the remainder shelves of many Barnes & Noble stores, and I recommend picking it up if you chance upon one.I've done two more stories with my version of a young Abraham Van Helsing, one in the pages of Adventure Vol. 1, and the other in the forthcoming Solaris Book of New Fantasy, edited by the inestimable George Mann. About the latter story, Nick Gevers had this to say in the most recent Locus Magazine: "And Such Small Deer" by Chris Roberson, a tale of Doctor Van Helsing in the Dutch East Indies, embraces the grotesque in a neat conflation of Bram Stoker, Arthur Conan Doyle and H.G. Wells.The Solaris antho is highly recommended, by the way, and should be in stores shortly. And I imagine that George would agree with me that they make great stocking stuffers!These three stories, for what it's worth, are actually the first three chapters of a novel, Travel Towards the Sunrise, which I may get around to writing one day, assuming that the stink of that crappy movie ever fades.(And if anyone guesses that there might be a bit of Wold Newtonry in this story, and that the young Manchurian doctor Fu might be somewhat familiar, well...)So Far From Us In All Waysby Chris RobersonLetter, from Fu Zheng Lei, Hunan Province, to his Excellency, the Imperial Minister of Examinations, the Forbidden City, Beijing(translated from the Mandarin)Your Excellency, forgive my impertinence in addressing this missive directly to you. At the urging of my uncle, Governor of Hunan Province and cousin to his imperial Majesty Xianfeng (scion of the Qing dynasty, son of heaven, may he reign ten thousand years), I am writing to explain my absence from my scheduled Jinshi national examination, and to beg your indulgence in allowing me another attempt. My uncle, Governor of Hunan Province and cousin to his imperial Majesty, thought it might be beneficial if I were to explain how it was that I came to miss my scheduled examination, as the circumstances were most unusual and unavoidable. My uncle, likewise, suggests that recounting the events could prove instructive for me, and help mold me into one who might in future better serve the Dragon Throne.The difficulty arose on the road from Changsha, en route to Beijing and the Forbidden City.###Abraham Van Helsing’s Journal(translated from the Dutch.)1 Sep, 1860. Zhengzhou. -- Left Tianjin by junk boat, morning of 25th August, and after a journey of five days, four onboard and one additional by horse-drawn wagon, reached the rural city of Zhengzhou. Unfortunately, employer’s agent, whose health I was sent afield to tend could not wait my coming. Arriving too late to help the poor devil, I was able to do little more than supervise the packing up of his body to be shipped, first to Tianjin, then back to England for burial.I have been in the Orient only a relatively short time, and this journey marked my first real foray beyond the protection of the English Concession in the treaty port city of Tianjin. Guarded by English troops, the narrow streets packed with the regional offices of dozens of leading English international firms, my employers among them, living in the Concession is not so different, upon reflection, from my years spent studying in London. Beyond those protective walls lies the alien landscape of China, mysterious and threatening.I have had occasion, these last months, to question the wisdom of quitting my native Holland for such a strange port. I’ve not felt at ease since stepping off the packet boat on the Tianjin docks, surrounded by the odd customs and incomprehensible jabber of the natives. Even within the confines of the English Concession I am surrounded by foreigners, and never hear my native tongue (though at least there, with my admittedly limited facility with the British tongue, I can comprehend and make myself understood). Still, after the loss of my wife and son this past winter, I could not remain any longer in Amsterdam. Each street corner I turned, each park bench I passed, only served as a reminder of happy memories, and brought to mind the grim, miserable state of my life without them. When the invitation from my former classmate arrived, I saw it as a chance for escape. A fellow student from my days studying medicine in London, he had gone into business, and established himself in international trade. With the cessation of the Opium War, and the opening of Chinese ports to European powers, my former classmate’s business was one of many opening regional offices in the Orient, and his branch in the north port of Tianjin was in need of a physician. In a trice, I resigned my teaching position at the University, packed my bags, and made arrangements for immediate departure.In the months since, there has been little call for my specialized skills, beyond treating the occasional laceration or fracture, prescribing a poultice for a rash induced by some exotic nettle, or tending to a victim of dysentery. This journey into the hinterlands was to be the first real test of my medical abilities, and due to the slowness of the transportation, I arrive too late even to unlatch the clasps on my bag. I will, at least, be able to serve my patient in some small regard, by escorting his body back to civilization, to be shipped to his family overseas, who do not even know yet that they should grieve.Abraham Van Helsing’s Journal2 Sep, - Intolerable. Upon arriving at the docks, after a long dusty wagon ride from the company offices at Zhengzhou, I was informed there were no boats for hire, at least none that would be willing to head downriver. Through the broken English of the dock-master, I learned the reason. In the days since I traveled up river aboard the junk, the river’s mouth has been seized by Taiping rebels, and it is not safe for travel, either for Europeans, or for those Chinese loyal to the Qing emperor.It was apparent that my only option was to travel the long distance back to Tianjin overland. I was directed to a caravan heading north, under the protection of imperial troops. As I understand it, the caravan is transporting weapons and ammunition to the capital city, to be distributed to loyal troops in the northern provinces. There was but a single large cart in the train, all others traveling on foot, but there was sufficient room both for my luggage and the casket holding my charge’s body… at any rate, there was sufficient room after I had asked several times, and punctuated each request with an ample outpouring of the local currency. The casket, an air-tight box of cherry wood, packed in lye and salts, was lashed securely on the cart under a heavy canvas tarp, with the dead man’s head by the driver’s seat, and his feet near neat rows of crated muskets, ball, and powder.I had little money left in my purse, but was happy to spend what little I had to the master of the caravan, to secure for myself a place at the driver’s seat. The rough plank of the cart was unforgiving and hard, but I would rather pass the next week with a bruised backside, than wear my feet down to the ankle by walking the hundreds of miles to our destination.It appears I am not the only member of the company to have performed this calculation. I will be sharing the driver’s seat with a young Chinese scholar, who has some smattering of English, while the cart’s ostensible driver will be walking before the cart horse, leading him on a rope.If nothing else, then, there may be some conversation had, to pass the time.Later. – I shall endeavor to write in as neat a hand as possible, despite the jars of this rugged road, that I can later read my record of this journey. Though why I should want to do so, in future times, I am now hard pressed to say.My young companion, the scholar, is a Manchurian bureaucrat named Fu Zheng Li. He is on his way to the capital city of Beijing, to take some form of examination. Naturally, he speaks no Dutch, as does no one else in the company, but he knows a smattering of English, learned from the missionaries in Hunan province, he says, in his childhood. I know barely enough Chinese to inquire after the location of the privy, but am a fair hand at English, though in the awkward phraseology of one accustomed to the more regimented and reasonable syntax of the Dutch language, and so Fu and I are able to communicate between us without especial difficulty.Fu explains that, with many of the shipping channels and imperial roads under the command of separatists and insurgents like the Taiping rebels, most traffic from city to city and province to province has shifted to rough rural roads. Merchants, bureaucrats and scholars, who otherwise would travel in some measure of comfort, are forced to trudge through clouds of dust, under the not-always diligent watch of imperial soldiers unable to secure for themselves any more attractive posting.In our small company, besides Fu and myself, are four merchants, three bureaucrats, and two scholars, all watched over by a half-dozen soldiers. The soldiers, despite Fu’s protestations to the contrary, seem quite alert, their hands never straying far from the hilts of their swords, or the muskets slung over their shoulders, their eyes always scanning the horizon for potential threats. China, it would seem, is in the midst of some considerable unrest, even more than I might have guessed, and a lack of attention might bode ill for one’s chances of survival.###Letter, Fu Zheng Lei to the Imperial Minister of Examinations (continued)Considering the state of the countryside, and the dangers posed by insurgent forces preying on loyal Qing subjects both on the imperial roads and on the waterways, my uncle considered it best that I travel to the capital overland, and had passage secured for me among a caravan carrying military supplies from Hunan province, where such were in abundance, to the capital, whence they would be distributed throughout the northern provinces. As the Taiping rebels held Nanjing, and roamed the surrounding countryside with impunity, the caravan was scheduled to take a more westerly course, bearing more or less due north before turning to the east in the northern reaches of Shanxi province.Given my station, having passed my Xiucai degree provincial examination at the age of eleven years, and my Juren degree provincial examination at sixteen years, on my way to my Jinshi degree national examinations when not yet twenty years, I was afforded some small comforts among the caravan. My close relations to the governor, and his relations to the Dragon Throne, might also have helped my position. While the other scholars and merchants traveling under the caravan’s protection, then, walked alongside or behind the horse-drawn wagon, I was offered a seat on the wagon-driver’s seat.I rode alone on the wagon seat for many days, until just past the city of Zhengzhou a foreigner joined the caravan, and inauspiciously bribed his way into the favors of the chief soldier in the caravan.This foreigner, a Dutchman, was a physician of some sort, escorting a coffin to the city of Tianjin. He was taller than most of the company, strongly built, with a deep chest and thick neck. His wide face and square chin seemed more suited to a field-hand than a man of medicine or philosophy, and his large, jutting nose and mobile, bushy eyebrows made him seem like some sort of primitive. His hair was a mess of reddish wire, and his large eyes were a blue so dark as to almost be black. He spoke no Chinese, but passable English, and so I was able to communicate with him, having learned some measure of English from foreign religious zealots who traveled to Changsha in my youth.He was crude, with little of substance to share, and I was loathe to surrender the solitude I’d enjoyed on the ride previously.###Abraham Van Helsing’s Journal3 Sep. – Stayed overnight at a small shelter along the roadside, presided over by a graven image of the Buddha, the god of these heathen peoples. With such considerable distances separating the cities and towns in this wide land, over the generations the Chinese seem to have established an elaborate network of way-stations and shelters along the country byways, separated by the rough distance of a day’s travel. I am grateful for these brief respites, in which I can pry my weary backside from the knotty plank of the cart’s seat, and sleep stretched out under a roof, with no fear that the skies might open up and pour down on me. There was no rain last night, but storm clouds have been gathering since late yesterday afternoon, and I think we’ve little chance of escaping a drenching.I’ve gotten to know my young companion in our short time together. Over our humble meal last evening, a weak soup stock and a chewy stalk of some form of vegetable, he told me some little bit about his background. Throughout our talk, his eyes shifted to the rest of our company, sitting a distance away, in the protection of the shelter, and to the soldiers, who patrolled the road leading to and from our position. It seemed that his words were for me alone, and that he was wary of any other’s overhearing. Perhaps it was the use of the foreign tongue which insulated him from propriety, and freed him to confide things to a stranger he’d never utter to another.“My parents, they are dead,” Fu explained. “From an early age, I was a member of my uncle’s household. My uncle, he is the governor of Hunan province since I was a child. He is a proud Manchurian, and he refuses to admit that his distant relations, those who have controlled the Dragon Throne for generations, have lead the kingdom of China into disgrace.”“Disgrace?” I worked at the touch, sinewy fibers of the vegetable stalk, trying unsuccessfully to soften it in the soup stock.“Disgrace,” he said, nodding. “Yes, and even ruin, it might seem. After the shaming loss of the Opium Wars, the Qing emperor and his advisors, they have conceded ports to European control, opened lucrative financial opportunities to Europeans, allowed Europeans the freedom of the countryside, to roam as they will. Now, in the countryside, there is unrest, rebels and insurgents sprouting up like weeds after a spring rain. Threatening the honest Chinese laborer. Threatening the stability of the Chinese bureaucracy. Threatening the legacy of millennia of history.”My young companion paused, and looked across the open space to the merchants, bureaucrats, and scholars huddled in the shelter of the way-station. The flickering light of the circle of candles inside cast moving shadows across his face. His magnetic eyes, narrowed and flashing with the light reflecting back, gave his lean face an almost feline appearance. He slowly nodded.“In order for China to regain her former glory,” he said, “she will need strong, new leadership.”With that said, he set down his bowl, turned his face away from the circle of light, and laid down on his side, silent until morning.Later. – We have ridden without pause since first light, Fu and I side by side on the driver’s seat, the rest of the company trudging through the dusty ruts of this country road.Some time past noon, the silence that had hung over us for some hours having grown oppressive, Fu and I struggled to find some meaty topic on which we could converse, to pass the time.“Fu,” I asked, “what is this examination you are en route to take?”“Jinshin.” Fu paused, searching for the appropriate English term. “It means, Presented Scholar. It is the highest of three levels of imperial examination, the first two being the Xiucai… it means, erm, Flourishing Talent, and the Juren, it means, I suppose, Elevated Person. To join imperial service, in the province, one needs at least to have attained the Xiucai rank, but to serve in the capital, truly to prosper in the service of the emperor, one must become a Jinshin. Presented, it means that one is presented to the emperor himself. It is a very high honor.”“Three ranks of academic achievement. Quite like the western system of education, with the Bachelors of Arts, Master of Arts, and Doctorate. In English, I suppose you might say that you are on your way to becoming Doctor Fu, Manchurian scholar.”“Yes,” Fu said, nodding, “something like that.” He pointed a long-nailed finger at my chest. “Like you, Doctor.”I smiled, and nodded in return.An awkward silence filled the space between us, and I realized we’d exhausted the usefulness of the topic. As I searched for anything to say, Fu charged into the fray.“Doctor,” he said, “do you have a wife?”My hands tightened on the edge of the seat’s plank, my knuckles white.“I had a wife,” I answered, “and though she is lost to me now, I suppose in the eyes of Mother Church she is my wife, still.”“Doctor, do you have any children?”My throat constricted, and unbidden came the mental image of my wife and son, laying still on the cold tile of our entryway, their eyes wide and sightless, and contorted faces bloodless and pale. From the hidden recesses of memory came the impression of something else there, some dark figure slipping out the door, blood stained hand lingering on the doorframe for a brief instant before slipping out of view. But such a thing… It is not possible. Reason does not allow it.“No,” I managed to choke out the word. “Not any more.”My face tight, I turned my attention to the monotonous road ahead, and ignored any of Fu’s questions or comments for the remainder of the day’s journey. I hadn’t the strength within me to speak further.Behind us, beneath the lashings and the canvas tarp, lay the coffin of the dead man, always at our sides, silent participant in our disjointed conversations.###Letter, Fu Zheng Lei to the Imperial Minister of Examinations (continued)On the third night out from Zhengzhou, stopping under a moonless sky at an unmanned way-station, the caravan was surprised by strange noises from the dark forest. Shuffling, rustling, something unnatural. We huddled in the shelter in the protective circle of candles, the foreign doctor off to one side, smoking a strong, tightly-rolled cigar that fouled the air and offended the senses. Later, we sleep restlessly, under the sheltering eyes of a stone Buddha. In the morning, one of the guards, who had been posted as picket through the night, was found dead, torn into a dozen pieces, several of which appeared to be missing.###Abraham Van Helsing’s Journal4 Sep. – The caravan continued on, after the soldiers had dealt with the remains of their fallen brother’s body. The company is unsettled, walking closer together, their eyes darting at every sound.There is scattered talk among the bureaucrats, merchants and scholars, only occasional words of which I’m able to catch. Their chatter continues unabated, in whispered tones, as though afraid something just beyond the edge of vision out in the rushes and the hedges might overhear. In the days previous, the company had been mostly silent, occasionally punctuated by brief outbursts of laughter following what must have been a joke or ribald tale. The slow, steady susurration of whispered voices today, I must confess, has me somewhat unnerved.Fu has translated for me the meat of the others’ speculations. Some say that it was a wild beast that got to the soldier, while others hold it was some form of phantom or spirit, and that the soldier succumbed to its wiles before becoming its meal. Those who hold the attacker was a wild beast argue that the supply of weapons and ammunition in the cart should prove ample protection, if used properly; those who hold it was a phantom have no such hope.I couldn’t understand what wiles a phantom might have, and explained my confusion to Fu.“In China, spirits, they often take the form of an attractive woman.” Fu kept his eyes on the road, a slight blush rising in his cheek. “In this form, they seduce men, drowning them in the… sensual pleasures until they are helpless, and then consume them, body and soul.”Fu paused, and then drew a slight sigh.“I do not think, for my part,” he said, “that it sounds like such a terrible bad way to die.”Having been raised on stories of rotting ghosts and unquiet spirits, and not knowing the touch of a woman until I was nearly Fu’s age, I was forced to agree.###Letter, Fu Zheng Lei to the Imperial Minister of Examinations (continued)The sun set on the fourth night, and the company was left uneasy. Still out of reach of any established town or village, the caravan stopped at another way station. Vandals, though, had defaced the small statue of the Buddha within the shelter, removing the head from the stone body. This seemed an inauspicious omen. The members of the company sat huddled, exchanging nervous whispers, in the shadow of the headless form.###Abraham Van Helsing’s Journal4 Sep. – I write by firelight, my fingers almost numb from cold and fear, but I want to record my thoughts and impressions before sleep and forgetfulness drive them from me. As though I could sleep tonight. The swift stream beside us gurgles like a drowning man, and the stranger who saved us keep a wary watch, and I am undone. But enough. My recollections, before my fear consumes them all.We had arrived at the way-station, and sat huddled within the shelter in restless anticipation, fearful of the falling of night. We ate in silence, feeling vulnerable in the dim circle of candle light, the shadow of the headless icon dancing on the far wall, unsetting.A sliver of a moon rose in the sky, and there came from the forest sounds of rustling, of movement. The pickets had been placed closer in tonight, the soldiers well in sight of the shelter. In the flickering candlelight that broke from the entrance, the assembled company could see the tense bodies of the soldiers, their swords and muskets at the ready. The canvas covered cart was parked a few dozen feet from the shelter, alongside the road, while the cart-horse was tied to a nearby tree. Storm clouds gathered overhead.A strong wind blew in across the tree tops, guttering the candles’ flames. For an instant, the soldiers were swallowed by shadows. When the wind died down, and the flames snapped back to life, burning bright once more, the soldiers were nowhere to be seen. Gone. All gone.The wind began to pick up again, and the temperature dropped suddenly. A storm was almost upon us. A lightning flash in the distance, and faint peal of far-off thunder, clouds sliding across the slender moon.The candles were blown out completely in a sudden blast of cold, dry wind. Another lightning flash, and all of us huddled in the darkened shelter saw, framed briefly in the open doorway, a lurching, stiff-limbed horror, arms outstretched, ruined mouth open wide.It was some monstrosity of which I’d never dreamt, and yet there was for the briefest instant the frisson of recognition. I hadn’t the opportunity nor the inclination to explore the sensation of familiarity, as the monstrosity drew nearer, and fear choked off my thoughts. The stiff-limbed horror advanced, an odd, jerky gait, towards the quivering company, filling the small shelter with a faint green luminescence.Fu was on his feet immediately, sidling along the darkened wall towards the entrance, and escape.“Doctor,” Fu called from just beyond the entrance, beckoning to me. “Come on.”As the lurching monstrosity advanced on the wailing merchants and bureaucrats, I steeled my nerves and slipped through the entrance, following hot on Fu’s heels. But the movement had caught the monster’s attention. I suppose that it reasoned the livelier meal was the tastier, and that two fleeing were livelier than the huddle masses before it. He pivoted on unbending joints, and started after us.###Letter, Fu Zheng Lei to the Imperial Minister of Examinations (continued)I raced through the darkened forest, lightning marking out my path. The foreign doctor followed close behind, lumbering and wheezing as he came. The strange, monstrous figure was close at our heels, bounding along on unbending knees. The path we followed through the dark forest was difficult to see, and whipping braches and thorns stung us as we passed.The monster was almost upon us, our final moments arrived, when a figure jumped out of the darkness before me, with head shaved clean and yellow robes that shined like the sun in the brief lightning flashes.This newcomer jumped between us and the advancing monster, pulling a woven bag from his belt and shaking out a handful of glutinous rice into his palm. He muttered a quick incantation over the grains, the words of which the wind carried away from my ears, and then threw the rice directly into the face of the lurching monstrosity. The monster reared back, smoke curling up in delicate curls from its desiccated flesh, an insensible yowl issued from the ruined mouth. It swatted at its face with long-nailed fingers, trying unsuccessfully to claw the grains away. In that moment, I recognized the tattered rags hanging from the gaunt frame as the traditional Manchurian burial garb. This was a corpse, given life, or the semblance of life.The man in the yellow robe turned to me and the foreign doctor, both of us looking on blank-faced in shock and amazement.“We must hurry,” the man in the yellow robe said in refined Mandarin. “The creature will not be stopped for long by the rice, and I haven’t the strength to fight at the moment.” He then turned, and hurried into the darkened forest.I turned to follow, but first glanced over to the foreign doctor, who stood stock still, watching the writhing corpse figure, his large mouth slack-jawed, his blue eyes wide.“Come, we must follow,” I told him in English, my tone urgent. “Danger.”Considering my duty filled, I turned and raced after the retreating yellow robe. The foreign doctor must have understood, as within heartbeats I heard his lumbering steps following mine.###Abraham Van Helsing’s Journal4 Sep. Later. – Fu and I followed close behind the yellow-robed stranger, and he led us to a little shrine along a swiftly running brook. Instructing us through signs and barked orders to seat ourselves near the base of the shrine, he pulled a collection of small bags from the belt of his robe, and proceed to surround the shrine at a radius of a few yards with a circle of iron filings and rice. I tried to enquire after his purpose, but it seems that our benefactor speaks no English, only Chinese. I pleaded with Fu to repeat my questions to the old man in a tongue he could comprehend, but Fu sat quietly shaking at the base of the shrine, his narrowed eyes closely watching our savior’s every move.I wished that I had a touch of whisky to calm my shaky nerves, or even a cigar, but a quick check of my sweat-damped pockets produced only my package of lucifer matches, my other supplies back with the cart. Back with the monstrosity, that strange figure that had lurched out of the darkness, pure evil at sight.My thoughts spun in tight frenzied circles around the danger stalking the dark night. Would I die here, by strange hands in this foreign land, and be rejoined with my family after so short a time?When the yellow-robed stranger had finished his circuit of the shrine, and come to sit beside me and Fu in the dim shadow of the shrine, I found my tongue again, and plied Fu once more with questions.“Who is he?”Fu left off rubbing his hands together to relay my question to the stranger along with, by the sound of it, several of his own. The stranger, after a long pause, answered in just a few short words, and then turned his attention back to the deepening shadows beyond the little circle of rice he’d laid.“Well?” I said. “What did he say?”“This man,” Fu answered, “he is a Taoist priest from the western provinces, and his name, he say, is Master Xi. He says, the creature we escaped, that was Chiang Shih. It means, the Undead.”###Letter, Fu Zheng Lei to the Imperial Minister of Examinations (continued)Master Xi explained the origin of the strange creature, and how this doom had befallen us.“The Chiang Shih is a vivified corpse,” Master Xi said. “Undead, but yet not living. There is in each of us two souls, the higher and the lower. The higher, Hun, is associated with Yang and controls the higher functions of the human self: emotion, thought, passion. On the death of the body, the Hun soul ascends quickly to the heavens, to be among the stars. The lower soul, though, or Po, is associated with Ying, and controls the baser functions: hungers, appetites, lusts. On the death of the body, the Po soul begins slowly to sink to the earth, to be absorbed back into the soil. In the case of violent or traumatic death, or improper burial, the lower soul remain trapped in the body after the higher soul ascends. The corpse of the departed, then, is still driven by the baser passions and appetites of a man, but lacks the guiding instincts and awareness that makes us human. It is a mindless thing, less than animal.“A century ago,” Master Xi continued, “an army was sent by the Qing emperor to the western wilds of Xinjian, to tame that savage Mongol land for the Dragon Throne. Among those who fought, bled, and died for their emperor were seven Manchurian brothers, the bravest of General Zhaohui’s warriors. Buried in that foreign land, improperly interred and not revered by their descendants, their lower souls stayed with their bodies, and they rose from their unhallowed graves. Driven by their lower animal urges, and the blind instinct to return home, these seven Undead crossed the breadth of China to return to their ancestral Manchurian lands, driven in their mindless, animalistic fashion to their final rest.“I have been trailing these seven Chiang Shih across seven provinces, saving those hapless victims it is within my power to save, and burying with proper rites those I cannot, so that they, too, do not rise up as Undead. With the aid of my three assistants, I have managed to defeat the Chiang Shih one at a time, so that there is now but one left, but my assistants have all perished in the attempts, and I am left alone. This last, this final Chiang Shih, is the strongest and fiercest of them all, and it is too much for me to handle alone.”When Master Xi had finished speaking, he grew quiet, and watched for our response. I translated as much of Master Xi’s story to the foreign doctor as seemed appropriate, and he agreed that we had little choice but to assist Mater Xi, primarily because without his help, we had little chance of escaping the Chiang Shih.###Abraham Van Helsing’s Journal5 Sep. – This morning, in the full light of day, Fu, the Taoist priest and I returned to the shelter of the way-station. The cart and horse still stand, just as they did the night before, but all that remained of the soldiers and our company were scattered body parts and spatters of blood.“Why does the Undead consume the bodies of men,” I asked, “but does not touch the horse?”Fu relayed my question to the Taoist priest, and after hearing his response, answered.“The Undead, Chiang Shih, they are driven by their lower souls, but still crave a higher soul. The souls of animals, they cannot sate this hunger, but the souls of men can whet their appetites. Nature does not allow the Undead to consume the souls of their victims, but the mere whiff of souls escaping as the lives are snuffed out is enough to satisfy their hunger, if only for a moment.”My first instinct was to check on the state of my charge, the poor unfortunate whose body I was ferrying back to my employer’s care. I found the casket in fine condition, the seals untouched, the wood unbroken and secure. The Taoist priest’s eyes followed my movements, making careful study of everything I did. Satisfied that the body was unharmed, I crossed myself and gave a brief prayer of thanks for this small kindness. When I turned, the priest’s eyes were still on me, measuring my every move, taking note.Later. – We three spent the long hours of the morning and afternoon making preparations for our coming conflict with the Undead. We began by burying the victims of the monster with the proper rituals, Fu and I taking the backbreaking task of moving earth and the gruesome task of collecting the remains, while the Taoist priest busied himself with charms and chants, burning incense and marking strange glyphs on little slivers of rock.During a brief rest, with the sun high overhead, I expressed some reservation about what I considered to be provincial superstition. Whether the bodies of these poor unfortunates were danced and sung over with plumes of smoke, or just planted a few feet in the ground without ceremony, it seemed to me that they posed no threat to anyone in their present state.At the priest’s request, Fu translated my brief outburst, whereupon the priest made a show of walking with thundering steps to the casket lashed to the nearby cart, and with outstretched finger touched his left shoulder, then his right, then forehead, and then navel. Finishing his mimed cross, he turned to me, his expression plain even across the gulf of language. Then he returned to his charms and chants, and finding I could muster no suitable reply, I returned to my digging.###Letter, Fu Zheng Lei to the Imperial Minister of Examinations (continued)Nightfall approached, and we made ready. Master Xi gave me what training he could, in the time allowed, which I then passed along to the foreign doctor.Here is what Master Xi taught us:When confronting the Chiang Shih, hold your breath; the Chiang Shih cannot see, as mortals see, and detects the presence of the living by scenting the trace of the higher soul in their breath. The Chiang Shih fears glutinous rice, which represents the fecund power of the earth itself, into whose bosom the body of the Chiang Shih should return, to decompose and fertilize future life. The Chiang Shih fears mirrors, and can be controlled if one places yellow paper inscribed in red-ink or chicken blood with holy symbols on its forehead. If part of a Chiang Shih’s body is removed or cut off, it will continue to function, apart from the rest of the body. The Chiang Shih fears running water. The only hope in defeating the Chiang Shih lies in immobilizing it first, and then burying it with the proper rituals, cremating it if at all possible, to free the lower spirit to sink back into the earth.Master Xi assembled our plans, and we made ready. Nightfall approached.###Abraham Van Helsing’s Journal6 Sep. – It is difficult to think on the events of this last night, the evening of 5th September, but having come this far in recording the events of my strange journey, I would be remiss to stop short here.Night fell, and we three readied ourselves. Where the night before had seen a storm, lightning and thunder, tonight was clear and still.The old priest, a sword scabbarded in cherry-wood in hand, looked to the sky, and muttered a few words.“Master Xi,” Fu translated for my benefit, “he says that fortune is not with us. If it had only stormed again, and fiercely, then the elements might have taken care of the Chiang Shih for us. The Undead are often dispatched by particularly loud thunderclaps, their lower souls shocked from the body by the noise.”I followed their gaze to the cloudless sky, and shook my head. Our only hope lay in following the old priest’s plan.The plan was to lure the Undead into the shelter, which has only one door. Once the monster was within the confines of the shelter, Fu and I, who to that point had been hiding in the corners, would rush outside behind it, pulling with us strong cords attached to the mouths of woven bags hung from the rafters just above the entrance. The bags would open wide and a shower of sticky rice would fall, blanketing the entrance to the shelter. The Undead, then, would be trapped inside with the priest, unable to exit without the burning, searing pain at the touch of the grains. The priest would wield his silver-bladed sword, with a slip of yellow paper inscribed in chicken’s blood pierced at the tip. He would then drive the sword through the Chiang Shih’s forehead, immobilizing it long enough to perform the burial rituals and cremate the body.Fu and I crouched in darkness at either side of the entrance, the cords gripped tightly in our hands. The priest stood before the opening, eyes closed, drawn sword in hand.From beyond the opening came a thumping noise at regular intervals. The same noise I’d heard the night before, pursuing us into the darkness. The Undead approached.I could scarcely watch it enter, lumbering in on stiff limbs, long-nailed hands stretched out to the priest, its presence filling the shelter with a sickly green luminescence.The priest opened his eyes, and then spoke the signal word, the single bit of English he knew, learned just for the occasion.“Now!”The initial stages of the operation went as planned. Fu and I rushed past the monster, pulling the drawstrings as we went, which opened the mouths of the sacks and carpeted the hard-packed dirt floor at the entrance to the shelter. Then we crouched outside, fearful, watching the old priest do battle with the monster.###Letter, Fu Zheng Lei to the Imperial Minister of Examinations (continued)For the briefest of instants, it looked as though Master Xi’s plan would work. The Chiang Shih fought back, parrying his sword thrusts with long-nailed fingers, but still Master Xi pressed on. The battle between priest and Undead raged.In the final moment, just as it appeared that Master Xi would succeed in immobilizing the monster, the Chiang Shih swatted the sword from his hands and fell on him, claws and ruined mouth and all. The Taoist priest, with a forlorn shriek, fell under the monster’s teeth and talons, and was ripped into bloody pieces before our eyes.###Abraham Van Helsing’s Journal6 Sep. Later. – I looked to the cloudless sky overhead, wishing on whatever holy thing that might exist, Oriental or Occidental, that a storm might whip out from the ether, and a thunderclap drive the damned spirit of the monster down into the earth. Then my eyes lit on the cart, and the casket of the dead man, and I knew our only choice.The weapon and ammunition of the soldiers, forgotten in the excitement of the monster’s attack, were still on the cart, still under the tarp at the foot of the cherry-wood coffin.“Gunpowder,” I whispered to myself, as though to hear the word aloud would bring it to my hand. “Gunpowder.”I grabbed Fu’s arm, dragging him after me. I rushed to the cart, still parked only a few dozen feet from the mouth of the shelter by the side of the road, and fell to the knots in the dim light.###Letter, Fu Zheng Lei to the Imperial Minister of Examinations (continued)Having consumed what it wanted of Master Xi’s body, the Chiang Shih prowled the rice-laid mouth of the shelter like a caged tiger, sniffing the still air for a hint of our breaths. With every pass, the monster’s feet grazed a little further into the carpet of rice, and despite the tendrils of smoke curling up from its soles, and the silent grimaces of pain, still nearer to freedom it came. The barrier of rice would not hold it for long, and then it will be on usThe foreign doctor was side, tearing at the lashes holding the canvas tarp in place, trying to get at the ammunition. I had surmised that if a thunderclap could dispel the Chiang Shih, then an explosion of gunpowder might serve the same purpose. The Chiang Shih came ever nearer the freedom of the open spaces, ever nearer attacking and consuming us both. We couldn’t get the stoutly-fastened knots loose, and had no knife with which to cut the bindings. After all our exertions, only a single trailing rope was free, hanging in the dust.###Abraham Van Helsing’s Journal6 Sep. Later. – The monster was almost free. There was no time. We’d not got more than a single rope untied, and our time was through.Fu drew himself up short, and grabbed my elbow.“Your light,” he said, struggling for the words. “Your flame. Your…” he broke off, frustrated, and mimed the action of lighting a cigar.“My lucifer matches?” I answered.Fu nodded, fiercely.“Yes, yes, now, matches, now!”“But we’ve no time for nonsense, boy,” I said. “There’s just no…”“NOW!”Taken aback, I reached into my vest pocket, and pulled out the box of matches. Fu snatched them from my hands, struck one alight, and then held it to the frayed ends of the single rope trailing down from the lashings. It caught fire, and the flame began to climb up its length.Fu, grimly, got behind the cart, and began to push it forward towards the shelter with all his might. I hung back a moment, confused, and then in a flash understood the young man’s plan. I put my shoulder to it, and heaved for all I was worth.Three things happened at once, my mind scarcely able to take them all in.The Undead stepped into the shelter’s doorway; the cart careered into the open door; and the flame traveling up the cart’s trailing rope reached the canvas covering, which caught fire in an instant blaze. In the following instant, there was only deafening noise and blinding light, as the amassed powder and ammunition on the cart caught fire and exploded, in a violent fury, catching the small shelter in a blossoming firestorm that burned bright as the noonday son.The cart horse, tied to a nearby tree, brayed and whinnied, but was unhurt, while Fu and I, knocked onto our back, could only look on in exhausted awe at the destructive splendor of the blast.###Letter, Fu Zheng Lei to the Imperial Minister of Examinations (continued)The next morning, and the way-station had burned to fine ashes. Nothing of the cart, or the coffin, or Master Xi, or the monster, remained. Of all the caravan that had set out from Changsha, so long before, and all that had joined along the way, only I, the foreign doctor, and the cart-horse remained.We sat, in silence, while the sun rose and climbed the pale blue sky. With few words exchanged, we got to our feet, unhitched the horse, and mounted, the foreign doctor riding behind me, and continued up the road to Beijing.I arrived, finally, a day late for my Jinshi degree national examination, and was sent with the next convoy back to Hunan province in disgrace.I have returned to service in the administration of my uncle, the Governor of Hunan Province and cousin to his imperial Majesty Xianfeng (scion of the Qing dynasty, lord of heaven, may he reign ten thousand years), but am still desirous of serving the Dragon Throne in a more personal fashion, and helping to bring greater glory to the kingdom of China. Perhaps the strangest lessons I’ve gleaned from my experience is the resolute nature of the Manchurian spirit. Even in death, the Manchurian will not cease to fight, will not surrender. If we remember that, then perhaps we might someday rule the world.Again, I thank you for your kind indulgence, and await your response.###Abraham Van Helsing’s Journal31 Oct. Tianjin. – I’ve had neither the opportunity nor the will to update this record since the early morning hours of the 6th September, the morning following the conflagration. During the long journey back to Tianjin, my mind was simply too numb to compose rational thoughts, and upon my arrival at the English concession, I was greeted with too many questions regarding the ultimate disposition of the body of my charge to have a moment’s reflection.In the end, my employers and the British authorities in Tianjin reached a compromise, and recorded the unfortunate gentleman as “Lost Through Misadventure.” Nevermind that a certificate of death existed, showing him dying of native disease in the township of Zhengzhou, and that his body was among the manifest of a caravan lost en route. There was no body, and no chance of his return, and so his family back in England was simply told that he had been “lost,” and that was an end to the matter. Still, they look at me with suspicion, and none accept the truth of my story.Of the young scholar Fu, I have seen nothing since our arrival in the capital on horseback. He was greeted with no small dismay by the imperial wardens, as he had evidently given insult to the examiners by missing his scheduled appointment, and compounded the offense by arriving in a sorry state in the company of an uncouth foreigner.I could not help but pity the young scholar, but felt certain that he would preserver. Though we spoke little in our solitary journey to the capital, on the long nights by the roadside we forced conversation, anything to fill the terrible empty silence of those dark spaces.I had made mention, on one of these nights, that we in Europe have legends of creatures similar to the Undead of our shared experience, but that men of science and learning such as myself do not give them credence. I wondered aloud what difference in environment or circumstance might give rise to such unnatural monstrosities in one geographical locale, but not allow them in another, as I am certain we have no such in the West. Any thoughts to the contrary are the result only of delusions or irrational passions.Fu, after a long silence, began to speak in response, but it was almost as though he were answering some question that had not been asked. He had a far away look in his eyes, the flickering light of our fire reflecting his eyes back to me like a cats, glowing in the night.“I could not help but to feel some small pride at hearing the accomplishment of the seven Manchurian brothers in life,” he said, “seven champions of Xianjian, even if they were responsible for such horrors after death. They had been, in life, true warriors of the Manchurian spirit, and with more like them today China might prove better equipped to stand against foreign intervention and insurgents from within.”Fu fell silent, and after a time I asked him whether his opinions on the presence and influence of foreigners in his country was common.“No,” he said simply, “it is not. Those of my mind, we patriots, must pander to the soft whims of those in authority over us. To gain prestige, to gain position and influence, we flatter and coerce. But someday, perhaps, with enough of us in high bureaucracy, matters will change.”He looked at me across the flickering fire, as though seeing me for the first time, his eyes narrowed.“And come that day, Doctor, I would hope that you are gone from this land. Far away when that day comes.”I shivered, and could not help but agree. But I need not wait for Fu’s promised rise to power to force my decision. I have arranged to return to Amsterdam as soon as possible. I hunger to be away from here, and my only sleep is fitful.In my dreams, I am haunted by the memory of that strange, unearthly creature, lurching after me in the darkened Chinese woods. Strange, then, that in my dreams those woods become, at length, the pristine entryway to my home back in Amsterdam, and that instead of the young Manchurian Fu by my side, it is my wife, and my young son, fleeing for their lives.And every time, just before waking, the monster overtakes my wife and son, and I alone survive, but before I can turn and face the creature, I awaken with a chest rattling scream.I had hoped to escape my demons by coming to the East, but have found that there were only other demons here, waiting for me. I look forward to returning home, where at least the memories which haunt me will be happier ones, and reason still holds sway.Copyright © 2004 Monkeybrain, Inc.

Gillossen a écrit :En fait Chris Roberson développe un univers alternatif où la Chine domine le monde.