The Eastern Depot and the Brocade Guard (5)
A quarter-hour later, at the opening of the Hour of Hai.
It was shift-change at the Brocade Guard Northern Prison. The Xu-hour watch was handing over to the Hai-hour watch — the last rotation of the day.
"Well done. You men are dismissed. Return to quarters."
"Sir!"
The incoming watch and the men coming off duty both snapped a military salute to their superior.
That was when a voice drifted up from behind them.
"Qianhu Gongsun. I take it you've drawn the night patrol."
Jin Myeong had a eunuch trailing him like an attendant — Gu Ryun himself. He had timed Gu Ryun's extraction to the precise moment Gongsun Dajing inspected the shift change, and Gu Ryun walked with his knees bent, deliberately shrinking his height.
"Ah, Director Jang. How goes the investigation?"
"Poorly, I'm afraid. I was just on my way to see the Grand Director."
Jin Myeong and Gongsun Dajing traded this and that as they walked the prison corridor, Gongsun Dajing a half-step ahead to inspect the watch and receive their salutes, Jin Myeong and Gu Ryun following behind.
"Carry on."
"Sir!"
None of the guardsmen showed the faintest suspicion that the man at Jin Myeong's side might be Gu Ryun. And why would they? There were ten thousand eunuchs in the palace. How could the Brocade Guard possibly know every face? The Hai-hour watch had never even seen Gu Ryun. They simply assumed he was some attendant in Director Jang's train.
"You've done well."
"Sir!"
Gongsun Dajing's presence did most of the work. Even among the Brocade Guard, he was a man the rank and file respected. The sentries were so taut at his appearance they had no attention left to spare for some junior eunuch.
And so Gongsun Dajing and Jin Myeong walked Gu Ryun out of the impregnable prison of the Northern Pacification Office and into the night.
"I'll be at Yinghua Hall before the bell three-quarters of an hour from now. Fortune in battle."
"You have my thanks, Qianhu. I'll see you then."
Jin Myeong swept the surroundings with all five senses and his qi-sense, then offered Gongsun Dajing a cupped-fist salute. From here on, it was a race against the clock.
"Come, Clerk Gu."
"Yes, Director."
Jin Myeong and Gu Ryun unfolded their movement arts toward Yinghua Hall, a precinct that sat empty as a tomb after dark. Beneath the dim moonlight, two figures slid toward Xi'an Gate like shadows on ice.
At that same hour, Commander-in-Chief Sa Hapji was receiving a continuous stream of reports on every stir inside the prison — including the fact that Jin Myeong had just left the Northern Pacification Office to see Zheng He, and a word-for-word account of the conversation with Gongsun Dajing.
"Even if he runs to the Grand Director now, what miracle could he possibly pull?"
An hour and a half remained. Anyone with eyes could see it was nowhere near enough time for Jin Myeong to conjure some dazzling reversal. Sa Hapji was already certain the scales had tipped. It was only a matter of waiting.
The Hour of Zi… just let the Hour of Zi arrive.
Utterly ignorant that Jin Myeong had already walked Gu Ryun out of the cells, Sa Hapji sat listening for a single sound: the bell that would open the Hour of Zi.
Just let this day end.
A half-hour later — a quarter-hour short of the midpoint of the Hai hour — a clerk of the Directorate of Ceremonial presented himself at Zheng He's residence. The roughness of his breathing said he had come at a dead run.
"What is it?"
"Supervisor Jang Jinmyeong requests that you come to Yinghua Hall by the midpoint of the Hai hour. He said the timing must be exact."
Zheng He's eyes flashed. At last. The moment had come.
It's time.
This was a case the Yongle Emperor had placed in the Brocade Guard's hands. Zheng He could not openly obstruct or interfere, so as a last resort he had sent Jin Myeong to Sa Hapji. With no word coming back, he had begun to think that even Jin Myeong had been outmatched this time, and had started preparing his next move.
But the boy had found a way through. There was no other explanation.
He caught it. The boy actually caught it.
The more Zheng He turned it over, the more uncanny the young man seemed. Flushed with a sudden heat, he decided to summon the Shou-tang Tai-jians — a precaution, in case the night went sideways.
"Go straight to Shou-tang Tai-jian Yi Gwak. Tell him I will see him at Yinghua Hall. Tell him to make haste!"
"Yes, sir!"
The clerk withdrew, and Zheng He left his residence at once. Little of the day remained. There was no time to waste.
A short while later, on his way to Yinghua Hall, Zheng He crossed paths with Gongsun Dajing, who was making his night circuit of the palace. Zheng He took it for chance. It was nothing of the kind. Jin Myeong had arranged the meeting down to the step.
Jin Myeong trusted Zheng He. But Gongsun Dajing knew perfectly well that he was acting against his own organization's interests, and the weight of that would be sitting on him. So the fact that Gongsun Dajing had given his aid remained a secret between the two of them alone.
"Grand Director."
"Qianhu Gongsun. Night patrol?"
"Yes, sir. I have the night watch today. I'm headed toward the Western Palace."
The great gates of the palace and the precincts of the inner court fell to the Brocade Guard; everything else belonged to the Imperial Guards. Officers of the Brocade Guard at vice-qianhu rank and above rotated the day and night patrols in turn. The Western Palace quarter was thick with unoccupied pavilions and Buddhist halls that saw no use after dark — which made it one of the most vulnerable stretches of the palace at night, and a primary circuit for whoever held the night watch. It was also the ground Jin Myeong had calculated, down to the last contingency, as the place where the snare for Huang Yan would close.
"The Western Palace… as it happens, I have business at Yinghua Hall myself. Walk with me."
Zheng He had not the faintest notion that Jin Myeong had summoned Gongsun Dajing. He only thought the timing fortunate.
Heaven is lending a hand. The small things, at least, I can help with.
If Gongsun Dajing came along, no one could snarl that the eunuchs had huddled together and settled the case among themselves. Even if Sa Hapji wanted to pick the thing apart, he would have nowhere to stand once his own subordinate said he had seen it with his own eyes. And since the Yongle Emperor had given the investigation to the Brocade Guard, the appearances would be satisfied as well.
"It's been some time since I last met the pride of the Great Ming's Brocade Guard. I have matters of import to discuss besides."
"As you wish, Grand Director."
Following Jin Myeong's instructions, Gongsun Dajing fell in half a step behind Zheng He and matched his stride.
Everything was unfolding exactly as Jin Myeong had designed it.
A quarter-hour later, Yinghua Hall.
Candlelight trembled across the Shakyamuni Triad at the center of the worship hall where the imperial consorts made their devotions. Huang Yan and Gu Ryun stood facing each other.
"What in heaven's name is going on?"
Huang Yan was stunned. Gu Ryun — Gu Ryun, who ought to have been rotting in a cell — standing here?
"How are you here?"
"Supervisor Jang and the Grand Director got me out."
"You? How? By what means?"
Huang Yan flinched and swept the shadows with his eyes. A trap. It had to be a trap. Sa Hapji, who understood better than anyone that this was a golden chance to shove the Directorate of Ceremonial's face in the mud, had simply handed Gu Ryun over? Impossible to believe.
Suspecting a snare, Huang Yan quietly drew up his true qi. Gu Ryun's face twisted with a surge of betrayal so raw it nearly broke the surface — but Huang Yan never noticed.
You son of a bitch…!
When a newly admitted eunuch finished his training, he entered the household of a high-ranking patron to receive instruction. That Under Name bond was a master-and-disciple relationship in all but the name. Gu Ryun had been that disciple — a castrated boy who had trusted this man with his life. And Huang Yan, far from saving him, had sent an assassin after him, and now stood there without a shred of guilt or even concern, leading with suspicion. Gu Ryun's teeth wanted to chatter with rage.
He showed none of it. Tonight he had to be nothing but a disciple who had come running out of worry for his master.
"I don't know the full story, but they seemed to have taken confessions from Gong Jun and the interrogator. Supervisor Jang spoke with Sa Hapji in front of the cells, then pulled me out at once."
"What? Gong Jun? That old bastard dares betray this Gonggong?"
"I heard Gong Jun kowtowing over and over, thanking them. It seems they've uncovered that Your Eminence planned this. You must flee. Now."
The words — Gong Jun and the interrogator had confessed — hit Huang Yan like ice water. At last the shape of the thing came clear. Gong Jun had agreed to talk in exchange for having his weakness taken off the board, and Zheng He and Sa Hapji had cut a deal. There was no other reading.
No wonder it's been so quiet. These bastards!
Sa Hapji and Zheng He had nothing to gain from becoming mortal enemies. And since the Yongle Emperor had given the case to the Brocade Guard, Sa Hapji was owed his share of the credit. Zheng He would absorb the thing as his own unilateral action; Sa Hapji would take the merit of closing it. That had to be the bargain.
God damn it!
Everything else could wait. He had to get out of here this instant and secure the hostages.
"That's why I came straight to warn you, Your Eminence. This humble one intends to leave the palace by this road. I don't believe the Grand Director or Supervisor Jang will let me live."
"You're right. They're not the sort to leave you breathing. No one knows you came to see this Gonggong, I trust?"
Huang Yan's eyes lit as he put the essential question. He understood how the board sat now, and silencing three mouths was the surest remedy in any case. He had already decided to kill Gu Ryun here. He had been turning over the method — and the boy had kindly arranged the room himself. How considerate.
He drew his true qi up in secret.
You dog-shit castrate. I was an idiot for ever calling a thing like you master.
Gu Ryun was no fool. He knew exactly what that question meant. He had understood long ago that Huang Yan had thrown him away — and Jin Myeong had warned him, over and over: if it comes to it, he will try to kill you. Drip what you know. Stall for time.
Supervisor… hurry…
He kept his face still, but his heart lurched and slammed against his ribs. Bingbi Eunuch Huang Yan was a master of the Peak Realm - Late Stage. Gu Ryun could not have matched him if he died and clawed his way back from the grave.
Damn it! This eunuch's life is hanging off a hundred-foot precipice! Supervisor!
Jin Myeong had said he would show himself the moment Huang Yan produced hard evidence. If he still had not appeared, something had gone wrong — or it was not enough yet. Gu Ryun needed a little more time.
"Of course n—"
He was answering as if it were the most natural thing in the world when the sound came.
DONG— DONG—
Far off, the bell marking the midpoint of the Hai hour. Two strokes — and then, on the third:
DONG—
A voice cut through the hall, sharp as struck glass, and a figure stepped out from behind the Buddha.
Huang Yan and Gu Ryun — already strung to a screaming pitch of attention on each other — nearly came apart at the seams. They came so close to fainting outright that their eyes bulged as if the orbs might leave their sockets.
"Your Eminence, if you're going to lose your mind, at least do it with some grace. A eunuch spending money to have another eunuch killed?"
Jin Myeong's mouth hooked in a grin. He gave the statue he had been leaning on a brisk wipe with his sleeve, then dropped down beside Gu Ryun.
Meanwhile, at the Northern Pacification Office, as those same bells rolled across the palace, Sa Hapji and two of his officers had every nerve trained on Jin Myeong's and Zheng He's movements.
"An hour left. Has the Supervisor still not returned?"
"Not yet. He's probably getting his hide stripped off right about now. With only an hour remaining, even the Grand Director won't have a miracle sitting in his sleeve."
"All the same — lock the prison down tight. Even if the Grand Director himself appears, turn him away on my authority."
"Have no concern, Commander. We check every half-ke. All three prisoners are locked in their cells. They aren't going anywhere."
Had a guardsman not just come in and reported as much? Gu Ryun, Gong Jun, and the interrogator — all present, all accounted for. The three officers and the Brocade Guard had fixed so hard on those three prisoners that none of them had noticed the number of eunuchs standing watch outside the cells had dropped by one.
"One shichen feels like a whole d—"
Sa Hapji had started to say that the crawling of the clock was enough to make a man's skin crawl, when the sound hit.
KWA-AAAH—
A sonic boom tore out of the southeast, from the direction of the imperial palace.
The two officers startled as one and looked at Sa Hapji. Direction, magnitude — there was no question. It had come from inside the palace itself.
"You two stay here!"
"Sir!"
The Commander-in-Chief of the Brocade Guard was the supreme authority for the security of the imperial palace. Sa Hapji hesitated a heartbeat — go himself, or send men — then left the Northern Pacification Office in his subordinates' hands and launched his body into the air.
Yinghua Hall, in the instant after Jin Myeong's appearance.
Huang Yan and Jin Myeong stood locked across from each other. Behind Jin Myeong, Gu Ryun was still trying to coax his heart back down out of his throat. The blood had gone out of his face entirely — and no wonder. He had not had the faintest idea Jin Myeong had been hiding there.
"Jang Jinmyeong? You… you dog-fucking—!"
Huang Yan's gaze snapped from the young man who had appeared out of nowhere to Gu Ryun at his side, and back again. At last the shape of it settled. Gu Ryun had colluded with Jin Myeong. They had dug a pit and led him into it. His suspicion had been right all along.
"Your Eminence. Have you forgotten? We eunuchs may tear each other apart all we like inside the fence of our own kind — but we do not take the fight outside it."
Jin Myeong's voice dripped mockery over Huang Yan's boiling guts, wearing the expression he always wore: a mouth that smiled, and eyes that did not.
"Gu Ryun…! How dare you betray this official? I would have gotten you out myself in due time!"
"Your Eminence, Clerk Gu already knows you bribed the interrogator to have him killed. And now you're barking on top of it?"
Huang Yan started spinning a tale that was not worth half a copper. Jin Myeong cut it down on the spot.
"You've truly gone mad. This official would never—! I raised Gu Ryun with my own hands! Ryun — you believe this creature? A man so eaten by greed he'd defile the dynasty and His Majesty the Emperor? He's trying to drive a wedge between you and me! Don't tell me he threatened you?"
The fact that he had, not a dozen breaths ago, been drawing up true qi to murder Gu Ryun had apparently slipped his mind. Huang Yan laid on the performance with both hands.
"I believe him. Of course I do, Director. This man is in a different class from Your Eminence entirely."
Gu Ryun opened his mouth before Huang Yan had even finished. Looking at this man he had once gazed up at, he felt only a dull, scraping shame.
"What? So you're asking me to kill you. Is that it?"
"Instigating Clerk Gu. Threatening Gong Jun. Bribing the interrogator. What the hell is this circus?"
Jin Myeong laid Huang Yan's crimes out in the open on purpose — a snare, baited and waiting. The bell had just sounded. Zheng He would have arrived; there was no question of it. Of the three charges, only Huang Yan's instigation of Gu Ryun stood as hard fact. The other two were still a matter of conviction.
"…What, is there a special seed for a eunuch emperor? We're all seedless castrates anyway. You lot used your heads well enough — but luring this official here was a mistake."
Caught in Jin Myeong's trap and too blind to see it, Huang Yan decided this was, if anything, convenient. Very well. Everything else could wait. He would deal with Jin Myeong and Gu Ryun first. He had been turning over how to shut their mouths — and they had been kind enough to walk in and present themselves.
"KIYAAAH!"
The thought finished, and Huang Yan's hands were already in motion.
A ghost's shriek tore the air — the Ghost Howl. The Sun-Moon Claw, cultivated to the eighth stage, streaked toward Jin Myeong on a line of crimson blood-light.
In the sliver of an instant as those claws came for him, Huang Yan felt it — something wrong, something that made his whole body flinch.
A strange, keening vibration. From Jin Myeong's open palm, a bizarre flame shivered into being and split, blue peeling away from red. The center of that split began to tremble. The air itself shook with the collision of yin and yang. Heat and cold unfurled along the line that joined Huang Yan to Jin Myeong.
The opening form of the Extreme Heaven Palm, foremost under heaven.
Instinct screamed that this was no ordinary technique. Huang Yan poured Sun-Moon true qi into the hand he had already thrown. Whatever was unfolding around that palm was not a method any sane man would take lightly.
Then they met.
Huang Yan's Sun-Moon Claw and Jin Myeong's palm crashed together. A sonic boom ripped the hall apart.
Huang Yan's body was driven backward in a long, skidding line. He flailed in empty air and barely, barely brought himself to a stop. Jin Myeong dusted off his palm as if he had brushed crumbs from a sleeve.
"Only the eighth stage? This humble one is not quite so frail as that."
"You little—bastard—!"
Huang Yan, apoplectic, began hauling his Sun-Moon true qi up to its absolute limit — and that was when the door groaned on its hinges and swung open.
Huang Yan froze, staring at the widening gap. Through it, a landscape of killing pressed into the hall.
Battle-will and murderous intent rolled over the threshold in a slow, crushing wave. In the dark air beyond the doorframe, fingernails hung suspended — gleaming in exactly the same color as Huang Yan's own.
The nails belonged to Yi Gwak, who spoke the name as if tasting it, and to the rest of the Shou-tang Tai-jians at his back.
Behind the Grand Eunuchs, Zheng He and Gongsun Dajing stood in silence, their faces cold as winter stone.