The Lamb and the Gray Battle

September 23, 2022

Nianzang fussed with the papers on his father's desk, tried to distract Diyiren from work. "How did the two of you get here?" he asked. Nianzang met the dead eyes of the Madame Long doll. "Why did Mam leave you?"

Diyiren pushed Nianzang to the floor, smoothed out the document and started through the laborious legal jargon, which was made up strictly to irritate him.

"You know that answer as well as I do. Your mother probably told you all about it."

"She said you were a cold, unfeeling monster, that you held her prisoner and controlled every move she made."

Diyiren's lips scrunched up, brushed against his teeth, that had inadvertently shifted to fangs, and twisted into a mask of horror. Diyiren slammed down the calligraphy brush. He rose off his knees and stormed out of his office. Demons for hundreds of miles worried over the heartbeat of King Ao Guang.

Under normal circumstances, Nianzang would have cursed his cold-hearted father and gone to his room. But today, his father's heartbeat thumped in his brain and he remembered his father's tears, that Madame Long had looked into her son's eyes and taken him to the precipice of death. Probably many times.

Nianzang stood before his father's closed door. It was an Asian style sliding door. The frame had a geometric design and was covered in paper. Inside his father's room was a mahogany desk, similar to the one in his office, low to the floor, Asian in style, with a cushion for kneeling. He had a nightstand next to his bed, which had an incense burner, a neutral scent perfuming the room. In the corner was a water feature. No room was without a water feature. If for nothing else than self-defense.

His father lay on his side, facing the wall. The bed looked like it was solid gold, but in fact, it was made from Madame Long's dragon bones. As was the Tang Dynasty-style crown on his head. He'd also had a cloak decorated with thread made from her bones, but he only wore it on special occasions. The cloak made from Satan's remains, however, he wore every chance he got.

Nianzang climbed over his father, nestled in between Diyiren's body and the wall.

His father blinked at him. "You're too old to act like a spoiled child."

"Don't push me away, okay?"

Diyiren sat up, speechless. He was hunched over, elbows on his knees, searching the room. Nianzang leaned against him.

Nianzang said, "I remember when I was young. I remember when you were kind and gentle. And one day you stopped. And it was like that with you and Mam too."

Diyiren said nothing. The investigation of the room intensified. He locked onto the fountain, explored the rippling water tinkling down the fall. Diyiren took a single drop of water, flung it across the room, killed an errant fly.

"You read Her Story," Diyiren said. "Read it again."

His father pushed himself up and started back toward his office. Nianzang grabbed his father by the arm.

Nianzang said, "It's her story, not yours."

"My story has been recorded a million times."

"And each tale is a little different. But you never tell it. BoBo likes telling all the different versions."

"BoBo is an ass. I should have listened to my mother." Diyiren strode to his office.

Nianzang called, "You only just laid down."

"And you followed me," Diyiren said. "You could find work too. Call up Iran, complain about all the hangings. Or you could threaten Russia, say I disapprove of their war with Ukraine."

"You don't interfere in human affairs. You haven't even complained about the witch hunts since 1750. Everyone knows it," Nianzang said. "I might as well have tea with Madame Hua."

Diyiren growled to himself, but Nianzang was as stubborn as he was in his own way.

Diyiren said, "I have work to do. I don't want to do it, but I have to." His tone was passionless and level. "I'm hurting right now and I can't stand it. I'm helpless and I hate it."

Diyiren brushed Nianzang off before the boy could hug him.

BoBo was a few feet away, hidden in a doorjamb. He had guessed the moment Diyiren announced Bronagh's death that all the emotions from 1446 had flooded back. The President of PC was an ass. PC hadn't had a reasonable man in charge for over a century.

And Bronagh was dead. That meant there was hope. Hope, a most gut-wrenching, destructive feeling. Yes, his dear little sweet nephew was drowning in all the choices between what he could do and what his treaties restricted to. And he was paralyzed in that ocean.