This choice: Stop running, start planning • Go Back...Chapter #10Taking a Third Option by: imaj   Three months later.
You stare at the open door into the limousine.
This is what it has come to. Two weeks of careful correspondence. Two weeks of back and forth, trying to judge intentions and second guessing your own safety. Two week of careful paranoia and this is what you are faced with.
Do you trust them enough to get in the car?
The Great Sages of The Heavenly Court - The Chinese equivalent of the Stellae. Except the Sages have very little in common with the Stellae. Pragmatic would be a better word. The Sages are more pragmatic than your own one time colleagues. When you visited Shanghai last, you'd been surprised to discover the Sages had taken what they had learned from Fane and used it for themselves. They had even tried to recruit you.
You're hoping that more pragmatic attitude means they won't just bundle you up and hand you over to the Stellae the moment you step inside the car.
"Oh get in the car Mr Prescott," calls a thin, impatient voice from inside.
You stand there for a few seconds, more slack-jawed than anything else. You don't look like Will Prescott, that would just be foolish. The use of your real name is a risk though, even this busy plaza where people rush backwards and forwards busily without giving you so much as a second glance. You look round yourself in half-panic, expecting retribution to jump out of nowhere in the form of Rick Bredon and his knife. Nothing comes, and nothing continues to come when you turn back to the car and take a tentative step towards it.
Your next step is more sure footed. No turning back now. What other choice do you have? You swing down and inside the limo, sitting yourself on the plush leather seats. Táng Bolin, effectively the leader of the Sages, sits opposite you - a little older, a little frailer than when you saw him last. He stares at you with milky eyes. The bodyguards on either side of him sit impassively, their expressions unreadable. You recognise them for what they are immediately: Dead men both, with clockwork gears where their hearts were. The Stellae would never tolerate this kind of necromancy.
Táng makes a querulous harrumphing sound. "Good of you to join us Mr Prescott," he tells you. His voice has lost none of its asperity over the last few years.
You close the door and the limo moves off smoothly. "I'm being careful," you reply mildly.
"A wise precaution," nods Táng. "Your Rosalie Durras is a formidable woman." The sage permits himself a small smirk, even though you are sure your own face betrayed no emotion at the mention of Rosalie's name.
"Is she," you murmur, glancing at the door. The limo isn't moving that fast. You could jump, flip imago to ignore any injuries you suffered and run. Without thinking, the muscles in your leg tense.
It takes you a moment to realise that the wheezing sound that Táng makes in reply is a laugh. "You should relax Mr Prescott," he continues after catching his breath. "I have no intention of delivering you to your erstwhile colleagues, and if I did, I would hardly draw attention to the fact by mentioning them in casual conversation. This is merely a friendly warning that the Stellae are still hunting you."
You narrow your eyes. "A threat then," you interrupt coolly.
That brings out Táng's laugh again, though this time it swiftly degenerates into a coughing fit. His bodyguards sit entirely passively as the elderly sage is bent over double in his seat hacking and gasping. He glares at them momentarily when he recovers, then his smile is in place again.
"What a marvellously suspicious mind you have Mr Prescott," continues Táng. "As I said, a warning. Mrs Durras was quite insistent that your next destination would be China, and very adamant that the Stellae assist us in your capture." Táng holds up his hands in a placatory gesture. "I meant what I said Mr Prescott, I am not going to turn you over to the Stellae. I told your former leader that if you were going anywhere in China it would be Hong Kong: Close enough to reach us and easier to enter, far away enough and different enough to make it difficult for us to track you. It would be the logical place to hide."
You nod. In fact it is exactly where you were when you first tried to make contact with the Sages until Táng had advised you to move across the Zhujiang to the other Special Administrative Region in Macau. You'd been a little freaked out at the time, in all honesty. You hadn't even told Táng where you were by that point.
Táng's smile fades a little. "Alas I could not talk Mrs Durras out of sending some Stellae here."
"Here," you interrupt. "How many? No, who?"
"To China," explains Táng. "Hong Kong, that is the logical place after all." Táng smirks at you. "As for how many, it depends on how you count. I could hardly refuse when Mrs Durras offered to send Verity Walker to assist our investigations."
"You know she can..." you begin to interrupt.
"See through any lie," snaps Táng. "Let us assume that I do, and that is why Sage Rèn is accompanying Miss Walker in Hong Kong. He has been told nothing of our conversations, and what he states to her in ignorance cannot be seen as falsehood."
"Did you talk to her?"
"I was very careful of course," replies Táng with a wave of his hand. "Every word I spoke to her was true. I suspect, though, that one investigation is not enough to satisfy the Stellae."
"So someone else as well," you ask. "Rick?"
"I believe Mr Bredon may be in Hong Kong too. He is a difficult man to track."
"He'll work out I'm not there," you tell Táng, your nerves fraying.
"Oh eventually," admits Táng with a shrug. "But he has no reason to suspect that you are here. Not yet anyway, and by the time he does it will be too late." You frown. Too late? "Why are you here Mr Prescott?"
You pause for a moment. You've thought about this at length since you left India, but now you are her you aren't sure how to put it into words. "You said once I was a student of Sun Wukong, and then I wasn't and you offered to make me one again," you say slowly. The words feel thick and clumsy and you have the weirdest sense that what you are proposing is nothing more than your own mutilation. No, it's a means to an end.
Táng smiles wryly. "You no longer wish to follow the path of Lin Moniang? It is the silent girl that you are an adherent of Mr Prescott, but you no longer wish to be?"
You nod. "Before I chose Eldibria I could do a lot more. Use different ousiarchs, maybe not as well, but the flexibility was useful. I want to be able to do that again," you tell Táng. It is only a small lie, and one of omission rather than anything else
Táng isn't Verity. He shows no sign that he disbelieves you, only nodding in agreement.
"I was lucky to get away last time Rick Bredon got close," you add. "I'm going to need something more the next time I run into him." That much is true at least. You do want an advantage should yours and Rick's paths cross again in the future. Or maybe some way to remove him from the game completely.
"So you want to be a student of Sun Wukong again," asks Táng. You nod. Táng taps his chin thoughtfully. "It could be done, and we would be willing to do it, if only to remind Mrs Durras that her remit does not extend so far. I have a counter offer for you though. You see, we have found the student of Lin Moniang."
You frown in confusion. Didn't Táng just say you were the student on Lin Moniang?
"Don't be so dense Mr Prescott. If you want it in Stellae terms, The Great Sages of The Heavenly Court have discovered a girl who has Eldibria and Sulva as her ousiarchs.
To stop reminiscing, attend to Fi's reports in "A Short Hop" 
You have the following choice: 1. Continue |
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