"You might have
to help me here," he said to Yin Fengzi as he tried and failed to get to
his feet.
"Shouldn't you
take that off?" she asked, nodding at the armor. "It's not even all that pretty, you
know."
"A small
problem there," he said. "When
I came back into my body it was, um, naked under the armor. Which is damned cold, by the way, and it
pinches bits of me I'd rather not talk about."
The way she blushed was amazingly attractive, and interesting in all the right fashions. Remember to talk about this some more, later, Wen told himself.
"So for the
time being, I think I'd be better off staying in this gaudy suit. Until we can get back to the Maiden and collect something more
suitable." He propped himself with
his good arm and eventually was standing, in a way that looked more or less
notorious depending on the way the light fell.
With Yin Fengzi at
his side to assist him if he wobbled, the Notorious Wen made his way across the
square and into the crowd of pirates that had gathered behind hastily
constructed barricades about a hundred paces from the circle of soldiers
gathered around Governor Li. "Lum!"
Wen cried when he caught sight of his first mate. "I'm glad to see you! And much more glad that my stupidity didn't
entrap you as well as me."
"Captain, I am
only sorry I wasn't able to get you out as well," said One-Eyed Lum. "But we're back together now, eh?"
"For
good," Wen said, and was pleased to know that he meant it. "The Meiyou
treasure turned out to be a trap, but there will be others. We'll be rich yet, my friend!"
"Don't we have
something to deal with first?" Fengzi asked.
"At this
point," said Wen, "I think it'll be more a matter of talking than of
fighting." And I hope to Guanyin
the Goddess of Mercy I'm right, he added silently.
"Soldiers!"
he called. "You have a decision to
make now. I pray you are guided to the
correct choice." He gestured to the
pirates, and to the growing crowd of citizens arrayed behind him. "The people of this city, and the free
sailors of Penglai Island, have decided that they, and they alone, will be the
ones who decide how they will be ruled in future. Your choice is to join them in freedom, or to
die with the corrupt and scheming bastard who has falsely claimed the mandate
of heaven and trapped you along with himself."
"Don't listen
to him, men!" shouted Li, invisible behind a wall of armor and
spears. "He is nothing but a thief
and a liar!"
"And I freely
admit to both of those!" Wen shouted in response. "But this is the truth: I am a thief and
a liar who has visited the Heaven Honored Jade Emperor and out-argued the Queen
Mother of the West. I have tricked the
judges of hell and I have come out of the underworld with my spirit
intact! I can tell you without fear of
contradiction that this liar who hides behind you does not have the mandate of
heaven, has never had the mandate of heaven, and will never have a single thing
from heaven save perhaps for a strong kick up the arse!"
The crowd laughed at
that, and Wen, looking carefully, saw some of the soldiers laughing as
well. Good, he thought, as Fengzi
squeezed his hand.
"A new world is
being born today," he told them.
"A world in which the people of Fusang decide for themselves how
they are to be governed, and do not let the dead dry hand of a man from a
thousand years ago dictate what they may be and what they may do. Now, this new world will need defenders, and
I can see from your discipline and your strength that you will make good,
strong defenders of the people. So the
question you have to ask yourselves is, do you want to live as defenders of the
people? Or would you prefer to die as
defenders of the indefensible?"
He had scarcely finished speaking when the bowmen amongst the pirates brought their crossbows up to the ready position. Goodness, thought Wen. Don't know my own strength.
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