Ten Thousand Futures

The fourth scratch did not finish.

It began beneath the first three, dragged a dark line across half the boundary stone, then stopped as if the hand making it had been pulled away. Tova felt the interruption in his arm. The black route line snapped west, went slack and snapped again.

He sat on the kiln step while Lan Jue replaced the bandage. She worked without conversation, which he preferred. When she pressed the glass ring over the bite, the black line rose toward it and flattened against the skin.

"Does it hurt?" she asked.

"It does."

"What kind?"

"The travelling kind."

"That is not a medical category."

"It starts in the wrist and arrives somewhere I did not invite it."

She accepted the answer and drew its path on a scrap of cloth. Tova liked her better when she was measuring. Questions about pain had too many possible roads.

Across the yard, the expedition argument had already divided into people who wanted to go, people who wanted someone else to go and people who had discovered urgent reasons why nobody should leave them behind.

Shen Qing rejected the district guards. Pei Chao rejected himself because the door required his plate work. Wu An volunteered before Fu Lan asked who would repair the shrine roof if the western rain came. Old Meng volunteered because Dren had closed the north. Fu Lan crossed his name out before he finished saying it.

Tianhui sat under the eaves with his weakened left ankle supported on a folded coat. Luo Pei had wrapped it after the fight because the old weakness returned whenever exhaustion changed his balance. His first channel was closed by Lan Jue's needles. Even so, when Tova looked at him the route wound leaned forward.

"You knew," Tova said.

Tianhui's eyes lifted.

The courtyard noise covered them.

"Knew what?"

"That the chain would hold."

"I knew it would."

Tova's jaw tightened. "That the thing would reach me."

Tianhui was silent long enough to make lying useless. When he answered, his voice had lost its usual polish. "I saw it as the branch with the fewest deaths."

Tova's hand curled. "You saw my arm."

"I saw several versions of it."

"And chose this one."

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"I chose it."

Tianhui did not lower his eyes. Tova stood too quickly; the route line tightened and drove him back against the post.

Dren crossed the yard in three strides. "What did he do?"

Tova pulled his sleeve down. "Made a choice."

Her attention moved to Tianhui. "With him in it?"

Tianhui did not defend himself. "Yes."

Dren's seal cloth unwrapped from one fist.

Shen Qing stepped between them. "Not here."

Dren said, "Move."

Shen Qing answered, "No."

"I buried a city because men with his face kept choosing the smallest count."

Tova had heard pieces of Orasha all his life: the sealed gates, the feeders below the streets, Dren on the western tower with blood drying inside one boot. She never told the story in order. The order might have made it possible to judge.

Tianhui's voice remained level. "If I had warned him, he would have moved."

"I would have," Tova said.

"Qiao Rui or Keshi died in the branches where you did."

Dren looked at Tova. "Do you believe him?"

"That is the difficulty."

The fifth scratch cut into the boundary stone.

This one appeared all at once, deep enough to split the inked handprint. The hound tooth rang inside Dren's seal. A thin voice came through the clay beneath it.

"—not alone—"

Irlan. The words broke in water.

"—door below the road—"

Then a second voice spoke behind him.

It used the old language of Tianhui's era.

"Bring the buried king."

Everyone in the kiln yard turned toward Tianhui.

His face changed very little. Tova had watched men recognise ambushes, graves and relatives they hoped were dead. The stillness was the same.

Shen Yao opened his document case. "Can you identify the speaker?"

"No." Tianhui's answer came after a delay. "The pronunciation is later than mine. The title is not."

Dren wrapped the hound tooth more tightly. "Irlan has delivered exactly what he wanted: pursuit."

"He also said he was not alone," Xiulan replied.

"He steals before danger, during danger and after danger. Sometimes he does it because danger exists. Sometimes danger exists because he was bored."

Tova pressed the wound. "He does not let someone else draw over his map."

Dren looked at him.

"That voice was standing close enough to use the plate," he continued. "If Irlan wanted us to come, he would draw a direction. He gave counts because he was running out of time."

The fifth scratch began filling with black water.

Shen Qing made the decision before the meeting could become another village assembly. "Six people. Tianhui, Xiulan, Lan Jue, Tova, Registrar Shen and me. Dren stays."

Dren's head came up. "You need a seal."

"We need the north road held. If another feeder comes while we are gone, Hejingshui cannot wait for us to return."

"You think I will obey you?"

"No. I think you will choose the larger door."

Dren looked toward Old Meng at the closed marker, then at the black route in Tova's arm.

"If the wound crosses the shoulder," she said, "cut it above the line."

Tova stared at her. "You might say goodbye first."

"I might be wrong."

"About which part?"

Dren did not answer.

The six-person list held. It did not feel like agreement. It felt like the moment after a bridge cracked, when everyone chose a side because standing over the break was no longer possible.

Shen Yao closed his case. "I am not surrendering district authority."

Shen Qing pointed at the seals inside it. "You are surrendering those."

The registrar's mouth tightened. For a few seconds he looked toward his guards and the courier road. Then he removed the bronze seal and placed it on Luo Dain's ledger.

"If I do not return, the inspection remains incomplete."

Luo Dain swallowed. "That is not the usual succession language."

"It is the language available."

Fu Lan appeared with six empty travel sacks. "Then use it while packing."

She threw one at Tianhui. He failed to catch it because his right arm was still numb. The sack struck him in the face.

For the first time since the old voice spoke, Tova laughed. It hurt his arm. He laughed again anyway.

Tianhui removed the sack from his head with what dignity remained. "This contains no provisions."

"It will when people stop discussing the road and begin preparing to walk on it."

The village moved.

Behind them, black water reached the end of the fifth scratch and dripped upward into the air.