LotS/The Story/Days of Wu/Reading The Stones

Ah, such self-indulgence. Autobiography is the greatest vanity of all. Those operatives and friends who hear my words will believe I was overtaken with sentiment in my final moments, lost in childhood memories. Some of them may be surprised that I was ever a boy -- that I didn't emerge from a tank of chemicals, already clad in a mandarin's robes and arrogance.

Friends... Perhaps I flatter myself. Assassins have few friends, and politicians fewer. Do I seem as dangerous and inscrutable to others as Noir seems to me? You will have to be the judge of that.

Wu Tenchu had never been in space before, so he took a moment to glance out of the window as the ship left the planet's atmosphere. The sight held his interest for a moment or two. But he'd walked among the stars countless times in his computerized simulations, just as he'd trodden ancient Chinese battlefields and a myriad distant worlds. Reality was a poor simulacrum. Hence he turned his attention to the lounge's other occupants instead.

The chamber was spacious, like a mansion's living room. The handful of children dispersed through it only served to emphasize its vastness. A girl sat cross-legged on a sofa big enough to hold a sports steam. Three datapads hovered around her head, each pulsing with the soft purple glow of their anti-gravity systems. She read from two whilst making notes on the third. A Snuuth boy -- the sole non-human Wu had seen aboard the ship -- lay on the opposite side of the room, sprawled on his back. His snores made his prodigious belly rumble. Empty dishes rested around him like conquered nations. A boy and girl were at the videogame terminals. The former sat in a cockpit, exchanging fire with rival ships that flashed across a holographic screen. The latter waved her arms in the air, while her jian-wielding doppelganger decapitated enemy warriors.

The last child sat at a low table. His datapad rested on its surface, projecting a weiqi game into the air above. The boy's brow was creased, eyes narrowed in deep concentration. Wu followed the game for a few moments and decided that the artificial adversary would score a narrow victory. As he was about to look away, the boy shot him a quick glance. Their eyes only met for the briefest instant before the weiqi player looked away again -- as though startled that he'd been observed. There was something in his eyes that intrigued Wu Tenchu, but he couldn't decide what.

No more passengers had boarded the vessel before it took off. Wu assumed other children had been sent on different ships -- that dividing the academy's intake between multiple spacecraft was a security precaution. Why risk the planet's best and brightest students aboard a single craft, where a mechanical failure or attack could eliminate them all at once? Had he been an enemy of the empire, he would have relished such an opportunity.

Wu leaned back in his chair, gazed out of the window, and mentally sketched out a dozen stratagems to destroy the ship, as well as two dozen ways to counteract them.

The galaxy holds more secrets than stars. Millions of spies and agents seek them out, because knowledge is the most valuable thing in the universe. All advancements and victories begin with knowledge in the minds of those men and women responsible for bringing them to pass. Experimental technologies, battle plans, diplomatic meetings, the forging of alliances in the void... To know these things before others is to have an advantage in matters of both war and peace.

Even my magnificent mind can't number all the fragments of information which have passed before my eyes in my time as an assassin, an advisor, a prime minister. The vast bulk of them reside in repositories which may startle my successors with their scope and magnitude. But others, the latest acquisitions, lurk within my brain and the encrypted terminals Noir couldn't access. It's time to share them.

A little twitch of the fingers. The stroking of my moustache. The way I hold the weiqi stone as I pretend to scrutinize the board (in truth, I had this move planned several minutes ago). All these things are messages that bring my will to fruition and send knowledge into the hands I desire to possess them. Some will be of little immediate consequence: an ambassador's drug of choice; the name of a president's secret lover; the identities of a womanizing hero's illegitimate children. But all things can become tools or weapons when the moment arises.

Zhao Chen, She, Bao, Shayu, and my other agents will each find certain things meant for their eyes and action. Missions assigned to them by a man who'll be dead before they read the first word. All will be carried out, regardless of who replaces me. Not because of personal loyalties -- I've taught them better than that. But because they trust my judgment, and know these deeds will serve the empire even if they cannot yet understand how.

A few veins of information cause me a pang. These are the mysteries death will prevent me from unraveling, and must be bequeathed to others unsolved. I'll never know what Kulnar-Xex ships were doing at the edge of Besalaad space, nor how an ancient sword came to be lodged in the rock of a Centurian base. I shan't learn why a bizarre religious group is pursuing <Player's name>, or the truth behind the weapon hidden beneath the Grand Temple on Jerusalem Maior (though I have my suspicions, fanciful as they may seem). <Player's name>... If he has enemies such as Noir, he may have need of unfathomable weapons...

"Wu Tenchu and Jason Yun."

A door slid aside, interrupting a wall painting of a long jade dragon and revealing a modest dorm room with a bed in each of the far corners. Wu bowed to the instructor. Jason Yun, the boy who'd been playing weiqi aboard the ship, hesitated for a fraction of a second before doing the same. The two of them entered the chamber. Wheeled automatons trundled in after them, bearing their luggage.

Jason stepped towards one of the beds. Then he paused. Wu went to the other, and the automaton deposited his bags beside a footlocker. They unpacked their possessions in silence after the machines left. Wu Tenchu found himself glancing into his wardrobe's mirror more than once, staring at his roommate's reflection. Something incomprehensible niggled at the back of his mind.

"Where are you from?" he asked after some minutes.

"Zhen Bao."

Jason's answer was swift and sure. There was no hesitation in his voice or gaze. Wu nodded, and pondered.

The way a person plays weiqi reveals a great deal about them. Whether it's a trickle or a deluge, their mind flows onto the board and takes shape with the placement of each stone. Sun Xi's prescience, Telemachus' impetuousness, Illaria's gentle wisdom... All these things emerged with the patterns of the stones. I alter my own style to render myself inscrutable, but few others take the same precaution. Today, in this final game, I play as my father first taught me. More sentimentality? Perhaps. Yet it seems fitting.

Noir... Noir's style is intriguing. I see two players behind his eyes. Both are cunning, yet one is arrogant and aggressive, the other more thoughtful. The mental shift between the two is almost seamless, but not quite.

Yes, one may learn a lot from observing a weiqi game. It's how I discovered my greatest friend.

Jason's hand hovered over the board, the white stone held between thumb and forefinger -- awaiting its destiny and its place in the flow of the game. He took a breath and set it down. Wu Tenchu glanced at the board and smiled.

"Who taught you how to play?" he asked.

"My father."

"I thought so." Wu placed his stone. Jason stared at him. "Your position is unwinnable, Highness."

There was a sharp intake of breath. Wu looked up and savored the moment of victory.

"How?" Jason asked.

Wu nodded, pleased that his roommate hadn't insulted him with a useless attempt at subterfuge.

"The augmentations used to disguise your appearance are exceptional, but a keen eye can discern the changes. And I've read all of the Emperor's published weiqi games."

"Will you..."

"I came to this academy to serve the empire, not to disclose its secrets. No one will hear of this from me."

"Thank you. Another game?"

"First, I should teach you how to play. With the greatest of respect to your father, he isn't my equal."

Many years later, I played weiqi with a young princess. Pride filled my breast that day. For I saw hints of the same techniques I'd taught her father.