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almondinflower2009-12-03 01:32 am
fromastudio) wrote in almondinflower2009-12-03 01:32 am
Dice, in a Game of War - chapter 4/?
Characters: In this chapter - Touya, Waya, Le Ping, Shindou
Wordcount: 1500
Summary: In a world where divination is used to predict the future and govern nations, State Diviner Touya Akira and private investigator Waya Yoshitaka embark on a search for the heretic Sai, the ghostly diviner who may be the most powerful of them all.
Chapter 1 here.
Chapter 4
When it’s altogether primal chaos,
how do you see the shape of things?
As usual, Touya got what he wanted. Midnight saw the three of us ensconced in a first-class carriage westernbound for the Yihian capital. It was the most luxurious train ride I'd ever been on, although that wasn't saying much. The leather seating was maroon, commodious, and slumber-inducing; Le Ping was already out like a light. I was too disgruntled to feel sleepy.
Touya sat opposite us, forming patterns on a magnetic board balanced in his lap. If he was exhausted from last night's vigil – and he must have been – he did not show it. I watched his jewelled fingers move along the grid, adjusting a stone here, a stone there. His nails were clipped indifferently, and very short; he was not vain, despite his formal, angular beauty.
We were silent together into the early hours of the morning. I had nothing to say to him that I could express without anger, and he, presumably, was done giving me instructions for now. The rhythmic rumbles of the train continued without variation as we sped out of Ki. At some point I pressed my face to the window; it was cloudy and moonless, and I could see nothing besides the indistinct black silhouettes of trees and boulders, visible briefly until we slid past and left them far behind.
Touya has always been good at ignoring the world when he wishes to do so. I, on the other hand, am a compulsive cataloguer of my surroundings. It made for a poor combination when stuck together in a confined space, travelling at ninety miles per hour, with only each other and a dozing teenage boy for company.
“What are you divining?” I asked, observing the shapes on the Weiqi board shift and shuffle, cycling through an endless series of variations. The formations looked oddly familiar, yet resisted all my attempts to decipher them.
Touya's hand stilled. “I don't know.”
Startled by his words, I took a second look at the goban. It was a full nineteen-by-nineteen, and sat precariously on his knees; he had already placed more than a hundred stones on the intersections. Familiar, but no divination pattern that I could recognise.
My eyes widened. “You didn't.”
His face was unreadable. “I haven't yet succeeded.”
“Even the Touya name won't save you if this gets out.”
He shrugged, apparently indifferent. Next to me, Le Ping shifted in his sleep, lolling his head against my shoulder.
“How long have you been working at this?” I asked.
“Since he left.”
I heard the subtle crack in his voice, and knew he was not talking about his father.
#
“Are you Sai?” Over the months I had learned that Shindou was an accomplished liar with one fatal weakness; his face was extremely reactive. Catch him off-guard, in the right place at the right time, and his eyes would tell you everything. The moment was fleeting but revelatory.
Today he defused the situation with a contrived yawn. “Knock it off, Waya. Are you really bored or something? I'm getting really tired, trying to convince you of, you know, the truth.”
He sat on the floor of his room, fretfully pushing stones around a wooden goban resting between his splayed legs. I lay sidewise on his bed, head propped against my left arm. “You got any clues who he might be, then?”
He flicked a stone to the opposite wall, as if it were a carrom disk. “Someone with access to the Council House, obviously.”
“That only narrows it down to about three hundred people.” My eyes traced Shindou's arched back, his restless hands; but the opening had passed. “Maybe he'll send us another miraculous divination and we can catch him in the act.”
“I hope not.” He was wearing a novitiate's robe, and he used its broad sleeve to sweep the board clean. Of all of us, he was the least reverent towards the act of divining. “Sai only announces an augury when there's a disaster that the State Diviners have failed to foresee, right? That means we'll only hear from him again if something bad is about to happen.”
“He could always change his modus operandi.” I helped him gather the fallen pieces into their bowls. When we were done he immediately began marking out the board again.
“You're awfully fond of starting at tengen,” I observed. “Why? It's a rather odd way to divine.” Conventional methods of divination required that you place the black and white stones to reflect the chaos-order balance of the situation you were trying to decipher – black for order, white for chaos. Very few destinies were tipped so strongly towards one side of the equation that they had to be represented with a piece at dead centre.
“Because it's the origin of heaven. You have to assert control over the universe, if you want to suborn it.”
I frowned at his logic. “That's weird. You're weird, Shindou. Where did you get an idea like that?”
“Don't know. Some book somewhere, I guess.” He scattered five stones on the board. They began to clack and spin, rippling across the wood.
#
Breakfast was fried kipper and greasy eggs on toast, served with a choice of coffee or tea. Predictably, Le Ping asked for seconds.
“Are you sure you grew up on imperial court cuisine?” I eyed him askance. “Your palate doesn't seem at all discriminating.”
“Shut up.” He spoke with his mouth full. “I need my calories so I can grow up to be taller than you.”
“It's healthy practice for a man to harbour one or two impossible fantasies." I changed the subject. "Tell me more about Wang Shi Zhen.”
“Should we wake him up first?” Le Ping nodded at Touya, who was visibly drooping at the dining table; his body seemed to have finally caught up with him.
“I can always write him a report. He's paying for it, after all. Still, we should probably get him out of here before he wrecks those fancy clothes of his.”
Getting Touya out of his torpor and persuading him to walk the ten or so yards to our carriage was easy enough; although he spent most of those ten yards slouched against me.
“I'd love a camera right about now,” I muttered, shifting my chin so that it didn't collide with his forehead. It occurred to me that I was awfully used to doing this – only with Shindou, not with Touya.
I hauled Touya into his seat and sank into my own. Le Ping joined us, stared at the ground, and said, “Shi Zhen joined the Imperial Diviners same time as me.”
Oh. Right. What would Isumi say? Probably something that only worked when Isumi said it. “That really sucks.”
“Lu Li didn't do it. He's not the type.”
“At the risk of offending you, can I suggest that you don't really have the experience or capacity to evaluate whether someone is capable of murder?”
“Cui bono. He has nothing to gain from it. Shi Zhen was the one who...” He trailed off. He was young. I taunted him for it all the time, but sometimes, at important times, I forgot.
“I think his death was caused by divination.” We weren't going to Yih to figure out who murdered Wang Shi Zhen; we were going to Yih to find Shindou Hikaru. Or at least the trail of his passing.
But if I was right, and Touya Akira was right, we were going to kill a dozen birds with one stone.
“The emperor will never believe that. Even Yang Hai and Isumi...”
“If that's the truth, then there'll be proof. Gathering proof is what I do for a living.” I flipped him a smirk. Inside, I was crushingly aware of how meaningless my gestures were. A friend was dead; the how and who didn't matter.
“I don't believe it. Divination can't kill people.”
“It's not supposed to. It's not supposed to bring people back to life, either. I'm guessing you've never heard the full story about Sai. The true story.” He shook his head. “Then, that should be remedied. Right now would be a good time.”
#
When Touya woke up that afternoon and resumed the experiments with his Weiqi board, Le Ping immediately interrupted by slamming a white round down next to the lower left star.
“Let's try it with this,” he said, pulling a half credit coin out of his purse. He cast it up; it spun, suspended in midair, and dropped down.
Touya hesitated, his long-lashed eyes dark and inscrutable, and then gave one of his cold arrogant smiles. “Okay.”
Touya retrieved a quarter from somewhere inside his robes; Le Ping found another board. I avoided thinking about inquisitions.
Hanged for a sheep, hanged for a lamb. After the coins had landed double-heads for the eleventh time in a row, I reached for my own fold-up goban, tucked away in my trenchcoat, and joined them.
On to Chapter 5.
Wordcount: 1500
Summary: In a world where divination is used to predict the future and govern nations, State Diviner Touya Akira and private investigator Waya Yoshitaka embark on a search for the heretic Sai, the ghostly diviner who may be the most powerful of them all.
Chapter 1 here.
Chapter 4
how do you see the shape of things?
As usual, Touya got what he wanted. Midnight saw the three of us ensconced in a first-class carriage westernbound for the Yihian capital. It was the most luxurious train ride I'd ever been on, although that wasn't saying much. The leather seating was maroon, commodious, and slumber-inducing; Le Ping was already out like a light. I was too disgruntled to feel sleepy.
Touya sat opposite us, forming patterns on a magnetic board balanced in his lap. If he was exhausted from last night's vigil – and he must have been – he did not show it. I watched his jewelled fingers move along the grid, adjusting a stone here, a stone there. His nails were clipped indifferently, and very short; he was not vain, despite his formal, angular beauty.
We were silent together into the early hours of the morning. I had nothing to say to him that I could express without anger, and he, presumably, was done giving me instructions for now. The rhythmic rumbles of the train continued without variation as we sped out of Ki. At some point I pressed my face to the window; it was cloudy and moonless, and I could see nothing besides the indistinct black silhouettes of trees and boulders, visible briefly until we slid past and left them far behind.
Touya has always been good at ignoring the world when he wishes to do so. I, on the other hand, am a compulsive cataloguer of my surroundings. It made for a poor combination when stuck together in a confined space, travelling at ninety miles per hour, with only each other and a dozing teenage boy for company.
“What are you divining?” I asked, observing the shapes on the Weiqi board shift and shuffle, cycling through an endless series of variations. The formations looked oddly familiar, yet resisted all my attempts to decipher them.
Touya's hand stilled. “I don't know.”
Startled by his words, I took a second look at the goban. It was a full nineteen-by-nineteen, and sat precariously on his knees; he had already placed more than a hundred stones on the intersections. Familiar, but no divination pattern that I could recognise.
My eyes widened. “You didn't.”
His face was unreadable. “I haven't yet succeeded.”
“Even the Touya name won't save you if this gets out.”
He shrugged, apparently indifferent. Next to me, Le Ping shifted in his sleep, lolling his head against my shoulder.
“How long have you been working at this?” I asked.
“Since he left.”
I heard the subtle crack in his voice, and knew he was not talking about his father.
“Are you Sai?” Over the months I had learned that Shindou was an accomplished liar with one fatal weakness; his face was extremely reactive. Catch him off-guard, in the right place at the right time, and his eyes would tell you everything. The moment was fleeting but revelatory.
Today he defused the situation with a contrived yawn. “Knock it off, Waya. Are you really bored or something? I'm getting really tired, trying to convince you of, you know, the truth.”
He sat on the floor of his room, fretfully pushing stones around a wooden goban resting between his splayed legs. I lay sidewise on his bed, head propped against my left arm. “You got any clues who he might be, then?”
He flicked a stone to the opposite wall, as if it were a carrom disk. “Someone with access to the Council House, obviously.”
“That only narrows it down to about three hundred people.” My eyes traced Shindou's arched back, his restless hands; but the opening had passed. “Maybe he'll send us another miraculous divination and we can catch him in the act.”
“I hope not.” He was wearing a novitiate's robe, and he used its broad sleeve to sweep the board clean. Of all of us, he was the least reverent towards the act of divining. “Sai only announces an augury when there's a disaster that the State Diviners have failed to foresee, right? That means we'll only hear from him again if something bad is about to happen.”
“He could always change his modus operandi.” I helped him gather the fallen pieces into their bowls. When we were done he immediately began marking out the board again.
“You're awfully fond of starting at tengen,” I observed. “Why? It's a rather odd way to divine.” Conventional methods of divination required that you place the black and white stones to reflect the chaos-order balance of the situation you were trying to decipher – black for order, white for chaos. Very few destinies were tipped so strongly towards one side of the equation that they had to be represented with a piece at dead centre.
“Because it's the origin of heaven. You have to assert control over the universe, if you want to suborn it.”
I frowned at his logic. “That's weird. You're weird, Shindou. Where did you get an idea like that?”
“Don't know. Some book somewhere, I guess.” He scattered five stones on the board. They began to clack and spin, rippling across the wood.
Breakfast was fried kipper and greasy eggs on toast, served with a choice of coffee or tea. Predictably, Le Ping asked for seconds.
“Are you sure you grew up on imperial court cuisine?” I eyed him askance. “Your palate doesn't seem at all discriminating.”
“Shut up.” He spoke with his mouth full. “I need my calories so I can grow up to be taller than you.”
“It's healthy practice for a man to harbour one or two impossible fantasies." I changed the subject. "Tell me more about Wang Shi Zhen.”
“Should we wake him up first?” Le Ping nodded at Touya, who was visibly drooping at the dining table; his body seemed to have finally caught up with him.
“I can always write him a report. He's paying for it, after all. Still, we should probably get him out of here before he wrecks those fancy clothes of his.”
Getting Touya out of his torpor and persuading him to walk the ten or so yards to our carriage was easy enough; although he spent most of those ten yards slouched against me.
“I'd love a camera right about now,” I muttered, shifting my chin so that it didn't collide with his forehead. It occurred to me that I was awfully used to doing this – only with Shindou, not with Touya.
I hauled Touya into his seat and sank into my own. Le Ping joined us, stared at the ground, and said, “Shi Zhen joined the Imperial Diviners same time as me.”
Oh. Right. What would Isumi say? Probably something that only worked when Isumi said it. “That really sucks.”
“Lu Li didn't do it. He's not the type.”
“At the risk of offending you, can I suggest that you don't really have the experience or capacity to evaluate whether someone is capable of murder?”
“Cui bono. He has nothing to gain from it. Shi Zhen was the one who...” He trailed off. He was young. I taunted him for it all the time, but sometimes, at important times, I forgot.
“I think his death was caused by divination.” We weren't going to Yih to figure out who murdered Wang Shi Zhen; we were going to Yih to find Shindou Hikaru. Or at least the trail of his passing.
But if I was right, and Touya Akira was right, we were going to kill a dozen birds with one stone.
“The emperor will never believe that. Even Yang Hai and Isumi...”
“If that's the truth, then there'll be proof. Gathering proof is what I do for a living.” I flipped him a smirk. Inside, I was crushingly aware of how meaningless my gestures were. A friend was dead; the how and who didn't matter.
“I don't believe it. Divination can't kill people.”
“It's not supposed to. It's not supposed to bring people back to life, either. I'm guessing you've never heard the full story about Sai. The true story.” He shook his head. “Then, that should be remedied. Right now would be a good time.”
When Touya woke up that afternoon and resumed the experiments with his Weiqi board, Le Ping immediately interrupted by slamming a white round down next to the lower left star.
“Let's try it with this,” he said, pulling a half credit coin out of his purse. He cast it up; it spun, suspended in midair, and dropped down.
Touya hesitated, his long-lashed eyes dark and inscrutable, and then gave one of his cold arrogant smiles. “Okay.”
Touya retrieved a quarter from somewhere inside his robes; Le Ping found another board. I avoided thinking about inquisitions.
Hanged for a sheep, hanged for a lamb. After the coins had landed double-heads for the eleventh time in a row, I reached for my own fold-up goban, tucked away in my trenchcoat, and joined them.
On to Chapter 5.