Daylight on Iron Mountain Read Free Page A

Holy War against Tsao Ch’un. It would have been unthinkable only a year ago. But things had changed. No. When things were at their most chaotic, the Arabs and Jews had been at each other’s throats. It had been a fierce and bitter war; one which seemed destined to end in mutual obliteration. Only then they, the Chinese, had arrived with their City and their settlers, and things had changed. With armageddon facing them, the two blood enemies had united, ending a hundred years and more of conflict.
    Two days ago, that had been. Two days since that historic and foolhardy moment.
    Tsao Ch’un slowed the chair, then stopped. ‘Chao Ni Tsu? Was there ever a woman in your life?’
    Chao smiled. ‘There was. But that was long ago.’
    ‘Really? I am surprised. I thought…’
    ‘It was while I was in College. In Ying Kuo. You know, at Cambridge. Before I met you. She was a native, an English girl. A pretty young thing. We went out for a time, but I think she found me too intense, too nervous… yes, and too nerdy.’
    Tsao Ch’un laughed. ‘Nerdy… now there’s a term I haven’t heard for ages.’
    ‘Perhaps you should google it.’
    The two men laughed. Between them they had destroyed that world. Buried it where it could not be found.
    ‘So she left you, Chao?’
    ‘Did I say that? No, Tsao Ch’un. I wrote her a letter. Or rather, an e-mail. You remember e-mails.’
    ‘I’m not senile, Chao. I do remember how things were.’
    ‘Well… it was strange. You’d think I was heartbroken, only I wasn’t. I was relieved. Romance… I was not programmed for romance. But I had to learn that. Had to experience it so I could understand it.’
    ‘And move on?’
    ‘Yes, and move on. But I sometimes think of her. She must be dead now.’
    ‘You think?’
    ‘Oh yes, I looked. In the records. To see if she survived. Only she didn’t.’
    ‘Ah…’ Tsao Ch’un was silent a moment, then he began to push again.
    ‘Coming here, Chao… I didn’t realize it, but it was just what I needed. To get away from court and all of that incestuous nonsense that goes on. No. Let the Seven keep things ticking over. Let
them
worry and make decrees. I needed a break…’
    ‘Yes, but why here?’
    Tsao Ch’un stopped and gestured towards the horizon. Out there lay the old city with its high walls and its imposing watchtowers. And beyond it and all about, what seemed like a tiny mountain range, but what were in fact the tombs of thirty ancient emperors, dating back to the Chou, three thousand years before.
    ‘I came here, Chao, because this is where it began. China and the dream of unification. Of one single nation ruled by the Son of Heaven. And now that we’re in the endgame… well… I just thought it apt, that’s all. To come and see it all, one last time. Before the game was over. Before we’d placed the last stone on the board.’
    Tsao Ch’un smiled. ‘And to swim, of course, and bash in a few heads and… to eat gammon and sweet chestnuts. And to talk to my oldest, dearest friends. While there was time. Before our days were done.’

3
IN OLD CH’ANG-AN
    A mos, arriving, found them in the old city.
    Xi’an had been abandoned twenty years back. The ancient walled city was one of the places Tsao Ch’un’s Brigades had been forced to subdue, back in 2045. Though it had not yet begun to crumble, there was considerable sign of war damage. Only it was not its present state, but the great sense of history contained within its walls that struck Shepherd as he walked its empty main street, the Nan Ta Chieh, heading for the bell tower.
    The Panp’o had first settled here on the banks of the Wei Ho, a branch of the Yellow River, back in the Neolithic period, almost seven thousand years past. Their villages were scattered all about this region. But it was the Chou who had first built a city, here at the end of the Silk Road, thirteen great dynasties ruling the surrounding lands from Ch’ang-an, their capital. They lasted from