Movement V · The Sixteen Kingdoms

I. The Guardian of a Village

The Five Hu threw the central lands into chaos, and the heartland was riven. In this era Chenyu was no general; he guarded a single village where people of Jin had gathered.

(On this road, counting from his rebirth in the Western Zhou, he had now been wandering some one thousand three hundred and fifty years; and more than a hundred years had passed since the last era he had lived through — the Three Kingdoms. The Western Jin was short-lived; the War of the Eight Princes brought Hu horse into the central lands; in the Yongjia disorders the gentry crossed south; for a hundred years and more the heartland lay in ruins, while five peoples — the Xiongnu, the Xianbei, the Jie, the Di and the Qiang — rose one after another.)

He had followed the scent here. The wind of the Sixteen Kingdoms was all blood and dust, and yet that thread of clear cold, like a river in winter, still drifted out of the direction of a village of Jin people. He came to the mouth of the village and in the dusk saw a woman leaning against a brushwood gate — before he had drawn near, the scent thickened. It was the one he had hunted all through this broken age. Her name was Axu. She saw the dust of the road on him, and only smiled faintly, and as though she had waited many lives, handed him a bowl of coarse tea.

Axu was the village's weaver, and worked in the fields as well. She noticed that Chenyu was always standing still, and drew him down to sit beside the spinning wheel, and said, "You are a man come from somewhere far away. There is road-dust on you, but no killing air." He started — a thousand years of killing, seen through at a glance by one mortal woman. Those who kept company with him were Wei Yue and Zheng Lan, two young men of the same village. Wei Yue was a silent, clever-handed man who could mend a plough and shape an arrow-shaft; Zheng Lan loved a joke, and beneath the old locust tree at the village mouth there was always the sound of him telling what he had seen in Ye. The two of them thought only that this outsider swordsman was silent and dependable, a friend worth having. Keeping company with them, Chenyu's days took on something of the ordinary. Once Zheng Lan asked, "With hands like yours, Brother Chen, you shouldn't be cooped up in a village this size," and he smiled and said, "Being cooped up suits me." Wei Yue said privately to Axu, "This swordsman is always wakeful at night, as though he were listening for something" — and listening he was: listening to whether the wind beyond the village carried the whinny of Hu horse. The village was not large, but of all the dynasties he had walked through it was one of the few "homes" that had ever taken him in.

This time there were two people at his side: one was Zhao Hao, an undying body who had stood shoulder to shoulder with him since the Han, whose art of the lance had grown keener with age; the other was Chen Xiu, a woman of this very village, a scout who fought with paired blades, fierce of temper, who guarded the village as she would her own. Zhao Hao thumped his chest and said to Axu, "Set your heart at rest, Axu. With my brother here, no Hu horse comes through that gate." Chen Xiu gave him a white look: "You would be the one to say so." These two became the exceptions of this post station of the Sixteen Kingdoms — the ones he was willing to stand beside, and could not bear to wipe away.

At night the village lit pine torches; the old spoke of the troubles of the Five Hu, and the children slept against their mothers. Zhao Hao loved to flourish his lance by the fire and say, "When there's peace, I'll teach Axu a pass or two," and Chen Xiu would laugh at him: "Keep your own head on first." Chenyu sat in a corner and watched, and it was warmer than a thousand years of walking alone. It came to him then: the rarest luxury of this undying body had never been drawing bloom to stay alive, but that someone would keep a place for you by the fire — even if that someone was a mortal woman who had no need to know who you truly were.

The days and nights of the village were a warmth rarely found in a broken age. Axu's loom stood in a corner of the main room, and the clack of the shuttle ran from morning to night like the beat of the village's heart. Now and then Chenyu helped her set the threads, clumsy-handed, and always tangled the warp with the weft, and she would laugh at him: "These hands that can kill a man — and cannot weave half an inch of cloth." He heard it, and was almost abashed — for a thousand years these hands had cut down enemies without number and drawn red bloom without number, and no one had ever laughed at him so lightly. Once, when Axu was mending his jacket, he took off that old thing stained with blood and dust, and she did not mind; in the light by the window she sewed it stitch by stitch. When the needle now and then pricked the pad of her finger she flinched, put the finger into her mouth and sucked it, and went on sewing. Chenyu stood beside her, smelling that thread of scent like a winter river mixed with the sun-dried smell of the cloth, and for an instant forgot that he was an undying body. When she had finished she handed the jacket back and said, "Don't get so much earth on your clothes next time." He took it, and touched stitches that were still warm, like the heat of her palm.

Sometimes Axu hummed beside the loom, a low tune, a country air passed down at this village mouth for several generations. Chenyu listened, and the tune sounded suddenly familiar — Wan of the Western Zhou had sung one like it by a campfire, and Heng of the Han had hummed one in the tents at Gaixia. Each had her own fate, and yet all of them loved, at night, in the same low voice, to stitch the day back together. He never said so; he only set the tune down in his bones. Later, walking through the Sui and the Tang, and through the Song, every time he met someone "like her," it was always such a low song he heard first — a second signal, beyond the scent. And none of them ever remembered where the tune came from, or in which life they had sung it before, to the same silent man; they had only, by chance, hummed it once again.

He was always wakeful at night. The ear of an undying body is keener than a dog's; the whinny of a horse three or four li beyond the village, the small sound of a dead branch snapped underfoot — nothing escaped it. And so he took the night watch on himself; at the second watch he carried his sword up onto the wall and walked a circuit along the foot of the rammed earth. Wei Yue said, "You work by day, swordsman, and watch by night — where does the strength come from?" and he only smiled: "I sleep little." Once, on the round to the north of the village, he saw far off the torches of Xianbei outriders, winking in the snow like the eyes of ghosts; he stood on the wall until the torches went out, and then withdrew as silently as he had come. That night he disturbed no one — the chief art of the man who guards a village is that the people inside it should never have to learn what danger looks like.

That winter the snow came early. Axu lit a charcoal brazier in the main room and drew him over to warm himself, and said, "Your hands are colder than the snow." He was startled — the blood of an undying body is warm, and yet the skin carries always a chill, as of a corpse. She did not care; she only took his hands between her palms and rubbed them, as one rubs a piece of cloth frozen stiff. He did not draw them back — for a thousand years no one had dared to touch these hands. The charcoal hissed and spat, and that thread of scent like a winter river, mixed with the warmth, gave rise in him to an absurd thought: if he could simply sit so, until the snow stopped, until heaven and earth grew old, then he would not search, and he would not go. But the red thread burned faintly at his wrist, reminding him: this standing was only a post station on the way.

Wei Yue and Zheng Lan, that pair of young men, both died on the night the village fell. Chenyu always remembered the sound of Zheng Lan telling what he had seen in Ye beneath the old locust tree, and remembered the unnameable respect in Wei Yue's eyes when he quietly said to Axu, "This swordsman is always wakeful at night." They were the two most ordinary people in this broken age; they came and went, like the world he could not hold. And it was precisely because they were ordinary that they taught him this: what he guarded had never been one particular name, but this "ordinary" itself — a time when someone could still sit beneath the locust and talk idly, and still set aside a bowl of gruel for another.

II. The Frenzy of the Order to Kill the Hu

The village he guarded lay wedged into the seam between the soldiers of Han and the horse of the Hu, and he had attached himself to a man of ambition of that generation, Ran Min. Ran Min was Han, the foster grandson of Shi Hu, and afterwards set up Ran Wei on his own; time and again he broke the armies of the Xianbei and the Qiang by force of arms, and he was the rare blade in a broken age willing to stand up for the Han. Decades had passed since Shi Le founded the Later Zhao and Shi Hu's butcheries; the days when Fu Jian would unite the Former Qin and go down to defeat at the Fei River were still to come — the fire of hatred between Hu and Han had piled up for generations before it produced this order of blood for blood. Chenyu honoured that in him, and feared it too — too bright a blade in a broken age will cut down the enemy, and cut down your own as well.

Ran Min issued the order to kill the Hu. One order, and within Ye and without, the Han put the Jie to the sword, and the blood ran into the canals. Chenyu stood at the mouth of the village and watched this frenzy of blood for blood. He understood Ran Min's hatred — decades of Hu depredation, and the Han had piled up resentment mountain-high; but he saw too that after the order went out, many who were innocent, who only had the face of a Hu, women and children among them, fell beneath the blade as well. The hatred of peoples never asks who is good and who is bad. It asks only the face.

Not ten days after the order went out, he saw a thing with his own eyes. A troop of Han soldiers surrounded a village of the Jie and drove them all, old and young alike, out to the well. A woman of that village holding an infant knelt and knocked her head on the ground; the head of the soldiers flicked the infant into the air on the point of his blade, and when the woman threw herself forward they finished her with a score of swords. Chenyu stood on a wall in the distance, his fingers clenched until the nails bit into his palms. He wanted to go down — with his strength, saving that village would have been as easy as turning over his hand. But he had sworn an oath: not to change history. These butcheries, one after another, are gathered by the histories into three words, "the order to kill the Hu"; if he lifted a hand, the record of this stretch would run off its track. He ground his teeth to splinters, and only watched, watched the blood by that well run into the canals. That night he crouched outside the village, and for the first time understood where Ran Min's hatred came from — and for the first time understood that in blood for blood, in the end, it is always the innocent who bleed.

When he came back to the village, Axu ladled gruel as always in the early morning, not knowing where he had gone or what he had seen, and thinking only that this swordsman was born to carry the night on his back. He drank the gruel, and thought suddenly of the oath he had made in the Han — that apart from Zhao Hao, who had stood beside him so long, he would turn no one else out of pity. And yet this broken age stirred in him an impulse stronger than the Han had: rather than let these innocent ones die one by one beneath the blade, why not ... He shook his head and crushed the thought. Not changing history was the one cord that had held him through a thousand years; slacken it, and he would fall into an abyss he himself would not recognise. He could guard the village, but he could not turn the course of that order; he could only, in the seams of the order, win a few more days of quiet for these few dozen households.

In the days beneath the order to kill the Hu he saw too much of the absurdity of condemning a man by his face. A troop of Han soldiers took a Jie man who had married a Han woman and spoke fluent Han; the man knelt and said, "My wife is Han, my son calls me father," and the head of the soldiers only laughed coldly: "A face cannot lie." Chenyu stood in the dark, his hand clenched white. He understood Ran Min's hatred, and he understood too: once hatred takes the face for its measure it has no aim left in it, and every stroke falls on the innocent. It came to him that this undying body of his was, in its blood, one of the "not-human" kind — born into this broken age, he would no doubt have been counted by both sides among the "others" who ought to be killed. The thought flashed through him and gave him, for this frenzy, a layer of pity he could not name.

His village sat in the seam, like a lamp about to go out in the wind. Once a troop of Han soldiers came past and, seeing that women and children of Hu families had taken refuge in the village, meant to come in and slaughter them; Chenyu stood at the village mouth and turned them back without a change of expression, saying only, "This village is protected by the order of Ran Wei. It cannot be touched." The head of the soldiers saw how composed he was, and the cold at the sword at his waist, and hesitated, and withdrew. He turned back, and saw Axu watching him from within the wall, her eyes holding fright, and reassurance — she did not know what it was he had turned aside, only that this swordsman guarded the village gate as he would guard his own life. That night he crouched at the foot of the wall and thought of the oath, not to change history: he could guard the village, but he could not turn the course of that order; he could only, in the seams of the order, win a few more days of quiet for these few dozen households.

In the years when war broke out he lived on red bloom, and never hesitated when he stooped to draw — it was the rule by which he had lived a thousand years, and it was the cleanest excuse he had for turning aside the flash of blades on the villagers' behalf. But in the fighting at Ye, the red bloom he drew was mixed with many who had not needed to die: conscripted labourers caught up in it, boys of the Hu peoples dragooned into service, who when the blade fell were no different from the Han soldiers who sacked villages. Crouching beside a hill of corpses, he asked himself for the first time what, in the end, was the difference between living on red bloom and blood for blood. One side for the sake of living, the other for the sake of hatred — and yet what ran onto the ground was the same warmth, the same red. He had no answer; he only swallowed the question down together with the blood on his wrist — one who does not die must repent quietly as well, for fear of alarming the mortals still living beside him.

He thought of those he had drawn from in former lives — enemies of the Western Zhou, soldiers of the Warring States, generals of the Han; all that blood had come to him, and not one of them had ever made the drawing sit so heavy on him as this. Bowl after bowl of an enemy's red bloom, it turned out, had weight; and the weight was not in the throat but in the heart. For the first time he could not tell whether he lived by drawing bloom or by forgetting — forgetting these innocent faces, forgetting that he too had once been a mortal who could die for someone, and weep for someone.

Whenever a bitter fight ended and the troops drew off, he would find an empty wall-foot and slowly work off the red bloom he had drawn that day. Once Zhao Hao came on him: saw him bent in a corner, shoulders faintly shaking, thought him wounded, and rushed up to steady him; he waved him off — "Not a wound. Hunger." Zhao Hao was startled, and then remembered that this sworn brother of his was not a man — he too had to eat, only what he ate was the red bloom of the enemy, the provisions this broken age had thrust into his hands. Chen Xiu came to know of it too, and after that, whenever a battle ended, she would silently leave a flask of water at the edge of the tent, asking nothing, saying nothing. He saw it, and thought suddenly that the people he met on this road, one by one, understood better than his undying body what it means to keep someone company.

III. The Bloody Battle at Ye

After the order to kill the Hu was issued, Ran Min led the army of Han out of Ye to give decisive battle to the allied Xianbei and Jie. Chenyu followed him out — the first time on this road that he had done it not for a scent, but because he truly honoured this general who would stand up for the Han. On the field Ran Min's twin blades whirled and he cut down general after general, until a Xianbei commander of ten thousand levelled a long lance and forced his horse's head about. Chenyu sprang out on his toes; the sword slid in along the lance-shaft, shore away the hand that gripped it, and a backhanded thrust finished the man's throat; in the confusion he stooped and drew bloom, enough to serve a day. Zhao Hao's lance upended a Jie horseman charging the line; Chen Xiu's twin blades cut down a cold arrow loosed at Ran Min, and in the same motion struck down a Hu soldier who came at him. In this battle Ran Wei drove the allies back a while — and yet Chenyu saw: the iron horse of the Xianbei was like black cloud behind the snow-line, retreating and returning. He could shield Ran Min for a moment; he could not shield this age of blood for blood — the hatred of peoples had piled up for generations, and no single battle could clear it. The sharper the blade of Ran Wei, the larger the snowball of hatred rolled; and standing beside a hill of corpses, he felt for the first time that this undying body of his could not make out which side he ought to stand on.

Ran Min would sometimes clap him on the shoulder and say, "With you here, Ran Wei has three parts more chance of winning." He shook his head — he knew he could shield Ran Min for a moment, and could not shield this world of blood for blood. Once, between battles, Ran Min reined in and looked at him: "You are not a man who came for me; you are more like a man who came for some notion in this broken age." Chenyu did not answer — and it was true, he had come for a notion. The notion was called guarding: guarding a village, guarding people, guarding the will to go on living. And that notion, in a world of blood for blood, was as light as a lamp in the wind. Standing beside a hill of corpses, he felt for the first time that this undying body of his could not make out which side he ought to stand on.

When the fighting at Ye ended and the troops drew off, Chenyu went back with Ran Min into camp. At night he sat alone outside the tent, his wrists still stained with the enemy's red bloom — what he had stooped and drawn that day served only a day, and on the morrow he would be hungry again. Zhao Hao squatted down beside him and held out a skin of rough wine: "Brother, that sword of yours today was a fine thing." He took it, but did not drink, and only gazed into the camp fire. Chen Xiu came past, broke a piece of hard-baked cake and pushed it into his hand: "What are you thinking about, Brother Chen? We won — aren't you glad?" He smiled: "Glad. Of course I'm glad." But he knew clearly in his heart: this one victory had only rolled the snowball of blood for blood one turn larger. The iron horse of the Xianbei had withdrawn; next year it would certainly come again; he could shield Ran Min for a moment, and could not shield where this broken age was going. That night he felt for the first time that this undying body of his was like a blade with nowhere to fall — it could cut the enemy, and could not cut through the hatred between two peoples that grew deeper with every day.

At the height of the fighting, a body of Xianbei heavy horse cut in from the flank and drove straight at Ran Min's centre. Chenyu need not have troubled — he was with the army only to follow a scent, and whether Ran Min lived or died was settled in the histories. But he saw that man of ambition rein in and look back, beard and hair all white, and still in his eyes the fierceness of a boy, and he sprang out on his toes; the sword-light ran like a ribbon, three horsemen went down one after another, and he built a wall of blood before Ran Min. Ran Min looked round and saw only this silent swordsman standing among the corpses, blood dripping from his sword-point, like a door god risen out of the ground. That shield was not for the histories, and not for the scent; it was only that in a broken age a blade willing to stand up for the Han ought not to break on this one stretch. When the fighting ended he stooped and drew bloom, enough to serve a day, and in the taste of the blood found a thread of bitterness — he could shield Ran Min for a moment, and could not shield this world of blood for blood; this undying body, in the end, could not even make out which side it stood on.

IV. The Fall of the Village

The night before the great army came down on them, the village was unnaturally quiet. Chenyu stood on the village wall and heard, in the wind, the whinny of horses much nearer than usual. Axu brought a bowl of gruel up to him, and her hand trembled a little as she handed it over: "Last night I dreamed the village gate opened, and what came in was not Hu horse but a fall of snow." He took the bowl; it was warm, like she was. "Dreams go by opposites. Once the snow has fallen, it will be spring." She nodded, but did not go; she stood with him a while. The moonlight drew their two shadows out long and laid them one over the other on the wall, like two trees standing guard over something about to wither. What he did not say was this: he could smell in the wind that rust-like stench, the smell of a thousand horse and ten thousand men — this village, this gruel, this person, none of them would outlast tomorrow's sun. He only drank the gruel to the last, gave the bowl back to her, and said, "Go and sleep. I am here." That sentence he had said to every one of her; and every time, he had failed to hold it.

An island cannot be held for ever. The great army of the Xianbei came down, and the village was broken. That night a troop of Xianbei outriders came first to probe; a Xianbei brute nine chi tall levelled a long lance and drove straight at the village gate, the wind of it like thunder. Chenyu sprang out, turned the lance aside on the flat of his sword, and riding the force of it spun; the point went in beneath the brute's ribs, and in one pass it was finished; Zhao Hao's lance upended two riders behind him, and Chen Xiu's twin blades struck down an outrider clawing over the wall and drove back another Xianbei who had got over. Three more corpses lay before the gate, and the blood was Chenyu's. Axu watched him from behind the brushwood gate and said softly, "The three of you are like a wall around this village." He did not answer; he only covered over the marks of lance and arrow — this wall would not, in the end, hold back the great army behind it.

When that great army truly came down, the dust hid the sky. Chenyu, Zhao Hao and Chen Xiu stood at the village mouth, the three of them back to back, like three stakes driven into the earth. The Hu horse came on like a tide; Chenyu's sword flashed again and again, every stroke going in exactly beneath the ribs, and in the confusion he drew bloom, enough to serve a day; Zhao Hao's lance lifted arrows out of the air and its point found throats, and he built a wall of corpses before the gate; Chen Xiu's twin blades whirled, and for the women and children behind her she turned aside every cold arrow that came, and shielded the little ones crowding to the brushwood gate. They beat one wave back and another came; the blood and mud came over their ankles. Chenyu understood suddenly: this wall had never been brick and stone; it was three bodies that would not give way — and behind them was a whole village about to die.

Chenyu fought his way through the press, and when he looked back, Axu had already fallen beside the brushwood gate, a broken arrow in her breast. She looked at him, and in her eyes was a softness he could not name — though plainly she had met him for the first time in this village and had never seen him before, she seemed certain that the one he was waiting for was not herself. Her lips moved, and she called, very softly, "Brother Chen," and was gone. She did not remember that he had come out of a former life, and did not remember that she herself had been the thread of scent he had hunted a thousand years; she remembered only that this silent swordsman had kept the gate for this village. He held her, and at last knew for certain: this was not the end either. Every time he thought he had found her, every time it was a mistake — they were only people like her, and had never truly been Wan, and had never remembered.

In this fight Chen Xiu, to turn aside that arrow for Axu, had her left ribs pierced by a long lance, and the blood poured out of her like a spring; Zhao Hao held her up, his eyes red. Chenyu swept past, drew once at the side of a neck and finished the man who held the lance — the red bloom all taken, and the man struck dumb. Chen Xiu's wound was grave, but her life was saved in the end; she was still the woman who guarded the village, only this time, what she had guarded was Axu.

And Chen Xiu, shielding the village children who crowded to the brushwood gate, was run through the belly by the long lance of a Xianbei trooper, and looked as though she too would go. Chenyu had no time to think; he opened his own wrist and poured the blood into her throat — this mouthful was the first of his own kind he had made with his own hand since the one he had given Zhao Hao all those years before. Chen Xiu's wound slowly closed, and her eyes opened; first bewilderment, and then the sight of the smooth unbroken flesh before her belly, and her face went white. Watching it, Chenyu understood suddenly: that mouthful of blood given to Zhao Hao all those years ago had planted not only a brother, but a line that could be carried on — and now the head of that line had at last come back into his own hands.

Zhao Hao held Chen Xiu up on her feet, turned to Chenyu and bared his teeth in a grin, and there were tears in his eyes: "Brother, for that mouthful I owe you two lives." Chenyu clapped him on the shoulder and said nothing. He saw Chen Xiu open her eyes — bewilderment first, and then the smooth flesh of her body, and her face go white — she had not yet learned what "cannot die" means. A shudder of belated fear went through him: the mouthful of blood he had given Zhao Hao all those years ago had been right; whether this one given to Chen Xiu was right would not be known for many years. But this broken age allowed no hesitation; those he could keep, he kept. He had never thought that this undying body of his would one day set itself against solitude by keeping people.

He wanted to make Axu one of his own kind too, and keep her as he had before — but he thought of Zhao Hao: that mouthful of blood had saved his sworn brother's life, and it had also put the shackle of "not dying" upon him; undying was not a kindness, it was choosing for her a road he had no right to choose. In the end he did not move. Axu stopped breathing in his arms, and went, as she had every time, lightly.

At the falling of the village there was one old account to settle. A young brave of the village, at the point of death, had taken an arrow meant for Axu and hung by a thread; Chenyu could not bear it, and gave him blood, and turned him into his own kind — this is what turning is. But that man, once he was an undying body, presuming on the fact that he could not be killed, secretly brought men and horses into the village, meaning to make himself weighty by holding it, and very nearly altered the record of the battle at Ye. Chenyu's grasp of the history of the Sixteen Kingdoms was hazy to begin with, with only two or three parts in ten of his memory left; by the time he noticed, the survival of Ran Wei had very nearly run off its track. He sought the man out, ended him with his own hand, and wiped away every trace of him. In the histories, Ran Min remained the man of ambition who had issued the order to kill the Hu and was in the end killed by Murong Jun of the Xianbei. The correction, once again, had made itself while he was not attending — crouching in the blood and mud, he remembered Zhuo Sheng's words: he who turns one of his own kind must in the end wipe them out with his own hand.

When the great army withdrew, nothing was left in the village but scorched earth and new graves. Chenyu buried Axu with his own hands; the earth was still loose, and he stood a long while before the grave. Zhao Hao and Chen Xiu stood off at a distance and did not disturb him — they knew that every time this sworn brother of theirs saw one of "her" away, he must stand so, alone, for a while. Chen Xiu asked Zhao Hao in a low voice, "How many has Brother Chen seen off in this life?" Zhao Hao shook his head: "I have been with him several hundred years, and the ones I have seen I can no longer count." The wind swept the ash past, and that thread of scent like a winter river scattered at last. Chenyu closed his eyes before the grave, and when he opened them again, it was that same silent look, as though nothing at all had happened. He slapped the earth from his clothes and beckoned to the two of them: "Let's go. Follow the scent, and go on."

V. Going On

Axu and Chen Xiu were both buried now (Chen Xiu's "burial" was only the finding of a quiet piece of ground, so that this newborn undying body could first learn to live with eternity). Chenyu followed the scent and went on.

Chen Xiu, newly an undying body, was not used to it. She would start awake at midnight and feel, without meaning to, for the wound before her belly; and finding smooth flesh, remember that she could not die now. Zhao Hao would sit with her until daybreak and say to her, "Chen Xiu, your brother is on this road too. You are not alone." Watching the two of them, Chenyu understood suddenly that the mouthful of blood he had given Zhao Hao all those years ago had planted not only a brother, but a line that could be carried on — and now on that line there was Chen Xiu as well. This road of his was, after all, no longer walked alone. Only Axu was gone, and the village was gone, and that thread of scent like a winter river was scattered now into the wind of the Sixteen Kingdoms; when he would meet it again he did not know — perhaps several hundred years on.

On this stretch he came little by little to understand: Zhao Hao and Chen Xiu were no longer simply "his own kind" to him — they were a few people willing to walk this whole journey at his side. Several hundred years had gone by; mortal friends came and went; Zhao Hao had stood shoulder to shoulder with him since the Han, and now, in the Sixteen Kingdoms, Chen Xiu had been added, following him on stretch after stretch. And suddenly he was afraid: afraid that on some day in the Qing, even these two would scatter. But that is a later story. At this moment he saw only the bewilderment in Chen Xiu's eyes when she first woke, and heard that one word "brother" from Zhao Hao — this undying body, it turned out, had someone who would call him brother.

What this era taught him was the bottomlessness of the hatred of peoples: you think you are acting for heaven, and when the blade falls it is the innocent you kill. And his rule of not changing history, in a frenzy like this, looked more like a helpless watching from the sidelines. He was more silent than before, and yet Zhao Hao was at his side, and Chen Xiu had been added; this road was, in the end, no longer walked by one shadow alone. He looked back over the way he had come: the wind of the Sixteen Kingdoms was all blood and dust, and yet it was precisely here, in the dirtiest of broken ages, that he had for the first time had the shape of a "home" — a village, a bowl of gruel, someone to mend his clothes, a brother to call him brother. Now the village was gone and the people scattered, and that shape was branded into his bones, harder to wear away than any battle. He touched the scrap of cloth inside his coat, the piece Axu had pressed on him, not yet woven to an end, and thought suddenly that the bitterest thing in eternal life is not losing, but that after losing you must carry that warmth and go on.

What this post station of the Sixteen Kingdoms taught him was not killing, but enduring — enduring the refusal to change that damned order, enduring the sight of the innocent falling one by one, enduring the folding away of Axu's warmth inside his coat to carry with him. Of all the battles this undying body had fought, the hardest had never been cutting down the enemy; it was standing on the wall, hearing the horses beyond the village, and doing nothing. And he understood at last what Zhuo Sheng had meant, years before, by the injunction against altering the great currents of history — that was not a bond, but the last mercy shown to one who does not die: if even history could be changed, there would be nothing left that he must endure. And it was precisely this enduring that let him see clearly, in the dirtiest of broken ages, what it was he meant to guard: not one person, and not one battle, but the same warmth in which that thread of scent would not break — in every life she was only "like," and what he guarded was precisely that warmth inside the "likeness" that would not go cold.

The red thread ran on ahead. He stepped out, followed the scent, and went on — the next stretch would hold another her, another guarding, and another time of seeing someone off, lightly.

*The end of this movement. Continued in Movement VI · The Sui and the Tang.*