[concluding chapter 1]
"Hey! We're going to be late!" Chin's voice blasted, echoing from the surrounding hills and causing leaves to flutter on nearby trees. And not just the leaves: as the pirate climbed back up the slope, Number One Grandfather flickered, shimmered, and vanished. The cold green light faded from the horse's eyes, and it trotted away, flicking its mane and tail in what Wen guessed was disgust.
Chin laughed, seeming not to have heard the horse's part of the conversation, and possibly most of Wen's. "You can never reason with a horse," he said. "Any more than you can reason with a woman. Or a magistrate. Gods, but that Li fellow is a horror! No doubt he'll go far in this administration."
"I'd like him to go far," Wen said. "All the way back to the Forbidden City, if possible."
"I'd like that too," Chin said. "If only because I'm pretty sure he'd be put to death the instant he arrived."
"What?" Wen stared after Chin, but the rebel leader said nothing more, just walked with impossibly long steps down the hill toward a cluster of the sharp-smelling native trees. After a moment Wen shrugged his shoulders and followed. The cryptic comment would be explained eventually, if it was important.
There was no path through the trees, and there was an especially vicious sort of shrub growing anywhere the trees weren't, so Wen's legs were red with scratches by the time he and Chin emerged on the other side of the wood, to find themselves facing another—albeit smaller—hill. "Normally, you know, I wouldn't mind the walking," he said. Chin's legs, he noted, were still blemish-free, despite being much larger than Wen's. I need to know more about the Daoist scriptures that man's been studying, he decided. "But today certain parts of me are rather sore. On account of the horse, you understand."
"Think nothing of it," Chin said. "A little suffering is good for you." Please don't say it will improve my character, Wen thought. Please don't. "It builds character, you know," said Chin. Wen wondered if it would be possible to run full speed at a tree and knock himself unconscious. At least then he'd be spared more of Chin's wisdom, and perhaps the man would even pick him up and carry him.
"I am going to have so much character by tonight," Wen muttered, "that sages will travel across the sea to study me."
"Oh, you'll endure much worse before you become a full member of the Green Turban Movement," Chin said with a cheerfulness that made Wen think of poison. "I demand the same sort of steadfastness of my men that I show myself."
This ship of his had better move swiftly, Wen thought. I don't know how much more of the man I can take.
And then they were at the top of the hill, and below them was the great Eastern Sea. And tucked into a little inlet, sheltered from the waves and looking as much like home as anything Wen had ever seen, was the most perfect, tiny ship.
"Yours?" he asked.
"Mine."
Next Prologue Chapter 1
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