The Power and the Glory

Book 3 Chapter XV: Rise and Fall

Warning: contains violence, minor character death, cannibalism -- basically all the things normally associated with a zombie apocalypse.

I navigate the endless rise and fall
You push my back against the wall
When I attack I'm taking all
-- Starset, Rise and Fall

Once again the gong rang out in the middle of the night. This time Mirio knew exactly what it meant. The Fifth Prince was dead. He lay awake and stared up at the ceiling while chaos reigned outside.

I must stop this, he thought. It was a pointless thought when he didn't know where to start.

Over the noise of a hundred people wailing he heard the faint click of a door being closed just outside his room. Soundlessly he climbed out of bed and poked a small hole in the paper door. When it was just large enough to see through he peered out. He was just in time to see a figure open the door out to the courtyard.

He couldn't see their face from this angle. Whoever they were, they were dressed in white sleeping clothes and had their hair loose. Probably one of the servants going to see if they could help. Then they turned their head just enough for Mirio to see the side of their face.

It was Lian. He stood in the doorway for a long time. Mirio noticed with a start that he was unnaturally still. He didn't even seem to be breathing. There was a strange look on his face. In the contrast between the darkness of the house and the light of the torches outside it was hard to tell for sure, but it looked like he was annoyed.

What an odd reaction to a death, Mirio thought.

True, the Fifth Prince had never done anything to be greatly mourned. He had never done much of anything, in fact. But annoyance didn't seem like the proper response.

Lian moved so abruptly that an average immortal's eyes couldn't have followed him. Even with a sea serpent's better-than-average eyesight Mirio only saw a blur. Then he was gone. Mirio slid his door open and crept over to where Lian had been a minute ago. Now there was nothing to show anyone had been there at all. It had been raining for days, the garden was a morass and the path was waterlogged, but there wasn't a single footprint or a ripple in any of the puddles. Nor was there any sign of Lian anywhere.

Maybe he flew, Mirio wondered.

Was Lian a shapeshifter? He had never said one way or the other.

By now the noise had awoken Zi Yao. He began to sob loudly. That disturbed his mother and the servants. Within a few minutes the palace was full of light and noise as everyone tried to calm him down. Mirio went back into his room, put on a dressing gown, and went to see if he could help.

~~~~

All of the noise and activity centred around the Fifth Prince's Manor. So that was exactly where Lian was not going to go. Instead he made the rounds of all the other palaces. He checked on all of the king's other children. None of them were overcome by grief at their brother's death, but none of them were openly celebrating it either. The Third Princess was the most emotional of any of them.

"It's sickening," she complained to her maid. "At this rate I'll never be out of mourning."

Lian moved on without wasting any more time listening to her. He put her down on his list of "probably not guilty". The trouble was that by the time he returned to the Ninth Prince's Manor, all of the princes and princesses were on that list. He'd spent ages running around in the cold and wet, dodging guards and servants, eavesdropping in very uncomfortable places -- who knew a rooftop could be so cold? -- and he had nothing to show for it.