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He keeps coming back to the tower.
The tower is gone. The tower has been gone for years.
After some of the things Xue Yang left there, Jin Guangyao had never wanted to see it again. But all the same, even though it was completely physically gone, he returned. Again and again. And again.
With all the work he had done, painting and erasing, making and unmaking, he had never been able to master the act of wiping away the ghosts of architecture.
Where, after all, then, would he go?
“A-yao. A-yao. A-yao.”
A rough and fervent drum, that old song moving in and out of his surround. So much a definitive rhythm of his life as to be like air coming and going in his lungs.
It’s easy to just slip away. Even now.
Outside this room, outside this room, it is the first feathery curling expression of spring. The air has been fine, the light has been good. His palace shines. But in the tower it is so frequently winter.
Even now.
“My water in the mountain.
There is one branch I can reach that still has one small plum. It is in its’ ancients’ time, remaining to share wisdom with any of its fellows that still cling. There are none, but it cannot know it. It has long since become blind. Yet it will not let go.
I cannot pluck it. I think I need it to be there past the momentary thrill of sundering, that wild preparation for ice. No one may know or shame what I do, here. I am lord of my own kingdom. But.
I have, hidden in a box, a few pieces of honeyed fruit that I kept back–what, two years ago? Three?--From one afternoon, that day when we had so much. Peaches, plums, pears, a lake of sweetness, increasing into night.
If I keep it, we will still have so much. It will remember for me, no matter where my tasks take me this season.
My dear mysterious and abundant source. Please pray for this small plum on the branch, as the winds become the rulers of outdoors. It does not know anything but its own insides, now. It is a fool for grasping. But please lend it your pity, as you are taught to do, in that place higher than any other.
It is a conceit, but the world is better for someone having it.
When I kiss my fingertip, please remember honey.”
The rhythm rocks him unceasingly; he has long since passed exhaustion, but all he needs do is be rocked, release, allow release, receive gifts, loyalty, alliance. The fug of a dandy clinging to his furs as days lengthen surrounds him in a cloud. All raw and barren earth, the thread-fine imperceptible scent of death, the animal will not wash, how else will men know he is an animal, walking amongst them intoxicated with its reminder. It can be hateful. It is business. A filth for the lotus to reach from. Perhaps, perhaps. But this is not the lotus house? What does a peony do but look impressive. Why don’t they shave? Why won’t they shave. He has long since been able to, they all have, but why
“A-yao.”
Cool through hot, the timbre of the voice for a moment changes. The opposite of death’s thread, a blue wisp of space, it was, there were other voices once. Lighter, purer. A monk’s, not a king’s, sandalwood.
“A-yao!”
Now that is just him getting lost. Self-indulgence.
He’s going to have to give the jade pass back.
It’s probably already deactivated. He can’t bear to open the box. He knows, the white stone dead and cold, the fruits fattening hot maggots at last.
It had kept for so long, in the tower, before he had to burn it and all its crimes. The crimes have been unmade; he cannot seem to undo that little room where he goes even now, with the books and the writing-desk, stolen from one of his fathers’ rooms, the only nice thing in it, he never noticed, that was the point.
Xichen had offered another, but he wanted to keep this one. Surely the peonies also belonged to him?
It must have cradled hundreds of letters, all looking mountainward. Does Xichen still keep his? By now they’d be evidence. Better he hadn’t. Better he erase.
This man is almost finished, on top of him. In an hour he will be kneeling in a puddle of fur and scent, kissing his feet. He has legendary reserves of men of low morals.
Jin Guangyao –”A-yao–” is going to need them.
The ferns are beginning to wake, all around New Jinlintai. His wife has been choosing new silks and banqueting sets. Outside all is cerulean, celadon, even when it should not be. The grunting sets him off to a place that seems fitter, the cold hiding-place away from his father that became his. It is still his, even now that it has long since burned away, may Xue Yang stay ashes as well, as many times as he has almost ruined this, as much as they have ruined. As much as they have ruined.
When he is gone, will Xichen be able to find him? The ghost of that tiny tower room? Trace the arc of the letters back, back? That stupid prayer, that accursed, ridiculous fruit?
“A-yao. A-yao. A-yao!!”
A stutter, the song is almost over, for now; the lord weighing him down is almost done. Jin Guangyao wants to put his clothes back on. He hates being naked. He still uses the formula his mother taught him, but the cosmetic never lasts; the scars always peek through.
The spring stars wheel wide, inevitably, outside this room, outside this room.
Even as the gossamer breezes arise, new warmth from the uncomprehending earth, he is cold.
***