(5) A Night of Chess

Night came on with a fierce wind, and the snow came fiercer still, howling as it piled up over the ground outside the tents until the drifts rose past the ankle. Elder Mu seemed to have foreseen it all along; with the weather so poor, the city magistrate had ordered the tents left standing rather than risk taking them down, so they would simply wait for the snow to pass. Now all the tents stood still and silent in a hush of quiet. Elder Mu sent his disciples off to rest in the larger tent, while he himself sat down across the table from Ziyuan, the chessboard and pieces already set in place, with Anu seated to one side. Neither Elder Mu nor Ziyuan was anyone's idea of an ordinary player — a match between the two of them was bound to be a magnificent affair, not to be missed for anything. Just as her excitement was rising, Elder Mu passed her a cup of "sweet dew," and she took it with delight.

　　"Won't you two drink as well?" Anu asked with a smile as she accepted the "sweet dew" and drained it in one go, genuinely pleased that her grandfather still remembered how fond she was of it.

　　"Of course we'll drink — but first, let's toast to Anu for all her hard work these past few days." Elder Mu chuckled warmly, and conjured up a cup of "sweet dew" for himself as well.

　　"And I'll toast to Anu's hard work too." Seeing this, Ziyuan understood at once that Elder Mu had worked something into the "sweet dew," and inwardly he smiled to himself, his own face betraying nothing, the corners of his mouth curving only slightly as he too conjured a cup of "sweet dew" and handed it to Anu.

　　Then, in turn, he conjured another cup for himself as well.

　　Anu had always been a simple, straightforward sort of girl, and in the presence of two such formidable Celestial beings, her small gift for reading others' minds would have done her little good in any case — so she thought nothing further of it. Both men before her loved and cherished her dearly; what need did she have to scheme? And so, not long after the match began, Anu found herself yawning again and again, her head propped on her hand, nodding off despite herself. Watching her, Elder Mu and Ziyuan exchanged a knowing, amused glance.

　　"What a foolish little thing!" Ziyuan gave a light flick of his fingers, and the stool beside them transformed at once into a bed, complete with pillow and coverlet. He rose, gathered Anu up in his arms, laid her gently upon the bed, tucked the coverlet snugly around her, and let down the curtain.

　　"The girl may be a little foolish, and a little quick-tempered besides, but she has a good and lovable heart. I hope Your Highness will cherish her, treasure her, protect her — and never bring her harm." Elder Mu spoke softly, but his words carried the weight of a thousand pounds, settling heavily upon Ziyuan's chest, leaving him strangely, inexplicably uneasy.

　　"That Your Highness is a man of fine character is beyond question. And yet, returning to the very root of the matter — an Asura woman's nature, prone as it is to jealousy, does not sit well within the confines of a Celestial royal household's harem. That the Celestial royal house has long kept a full complement of consorts is itself the very origin of the old enmity between our two clans. What the Celestial royal house takes as simple custom, no Asura woman can ever accept; the Celestial Sovereign himself once took an Asura princess as consort, and from that alone sprang wars between our peoples without end. Leave aside for now whether Your Highness might, in future, add further consorts to your own household — even as things stand now, with a principal consort already in place, where does that leave Anu?"

　　At this, Ziyuan lowered his head and fell silent; a long while passed before he set down a single piece.

　　To Elder Mu's words, he truly had no answer to offer. Taking a secondary consort would be no great difficulty for him — the difficulty lay precisely in the fact that it was because he cherished her, treasured her, and wished to protect her that he could not bear to see Anu suffer such an indignity; and the Asura King, for his part, would never accept such an arrangement in any case. And yet love was not a thing reason could simply command and control — even a man as composed and self-possessed as himself could not help but find himself, quite without meaning to, avoiding this very question at the heart of it all, whether deliberately or not.

　　A heaviness settled over Ziyuan's heart. Though born into the royal house, he had never had much taste for the practice of filling one's household with consorts; had his father not insisted, all those years ago, on arranging his marriage, he might well have gone without even a principal consort to this very day. To him, "having none" of Shenya would have been far more comfortable than "having" her — and yet this was not something he could ever say aloud.

　　Before he had met the one his heart truly desired, he had believed it made no difference whom he spent his life beside; only after meeting her did he come to understand that the difference was nothing less than the distance between heaven and earth.

　　Only now, it seemed, was he coming to understand the true meaning of a heart bound up entirely in another.

　　And yet his own temperament was such that even without the bond of true love between husband and wife, he still honored the bond of duty between them; so long as no grave wrong was done, he would never cast aside a wife without cause. This tangled, unresolvable anguish was his alone to bear, quietly, within his own heart — how could any outsider ever truly understand it?

　　Though Elder Mu's words had carried weight, his face betrayed nothing of it, remaining calm and untroubled throughout.

　　He raised his hand lightly, and set down a piece.

　　The night stretched deep and still, the snow falling thick and heavy, and between the two of them the soft, steady click of pieces being set down rang out with unusual clarity. The snow fell the whole night through, and their match lasted just as long, until at last the sky began to pale toward dawn, streaked faintly with red and gold in the east, and only then did the two of them finally set down their pieces — while outside, the snow had piled up higher still, blocking the tent flap so thoroughly it could scarcely be lifted from within.

　　Elder Mu gave a wave of his hand, and the chessboard and pieces vanished at once into the boundless space within his sleeve; Ziyuan, with a light sweep of his own sleeve, cleared away the drifted snow before the entrance in an instant.

　　Elder Mu rose and walked slowly to the tent flap, lifting the curtain aside.

　　"The snow has cleared, the clouds have parted, the sun shines through — a fine day today, it would seem." he said.

　　"My thanks for your instruction, Elder Mu." Ziyuan rose and bowed deeply to him.

　　"Your Highness is too kind. That the Celestial Clan has you is a blessing to the Celestial Clan, and a blessing to all under heaven besides." Elder Mu turned and returned the bow in kind.

　　"This old man takes his leave now. Little Five and Little Six will stay behind to see to the last of things here; Your Highness and Anu should see to your own affairs. Until we meet again." With that, he drew out a small brown pill and pressed it into Ziyuan's hand.

　　"Give this to Anu, and she will wake at once." Elder Mu, without the slightest hesitation, turned and lifted the tent flap, and was gone.

　　Ziyuan did as he was told, walking to the bedside and lifting the curtain, gently placing the pill in Anu's mouth. Sure enough, before long, Anu's eyes fluttered open.

　　"How did I fall asleep?" Looking at Ziyuan, at the bed that had appeared from nowhere, and at herself lying upon it, Anu's face was full of bewildered suspicion.

　　"Perhaps you've grown so used to the rhythm of mortal days that when night falls, sleep simply comes over you before you know it." Ziyuan smiled and helped her sit up from the bed.

　　Once Anu was steady on her feet, Ziyuan restored the bed back into a stool, then took her hand. "Elder Mu has already left ahead of us. Let's be on our way too."

　　Anu blinked, startled. Hadn't she just been sitting there watching the game? How, in what felt like no time at all, had the match finished, the sky brightened, the snow stopped — and she woken from some unaccountable sleep to find everyone already gone?

　　Grandfather had simply left, just like that? It felt like nothing so much as a dream.

　　"So... who won?" However confused Anu might be about everything else, she still could not let go of her curiosity over how the match had ended.

　　"A draw. Seven wins apiece." Ziyuan's eyes were soft, his tone even.

　　"Seven wins apiece?" At this, Anu could not help clicking her tongue in astonishment.

　　Just as she'd expected — a match that must have been magnificent beyond words, full of twists and turns she could hardly imagine — and to think she'd missed the whole spectacle, with no chance now of ever seeing such a rare event again.

　　"For Ziyuan to fight Grandfather to a draw, with neither side gaining the upper hand — that's no small feat. I've never once heard of anyone beating him." However put out Anu felt at having missed it, she could not help but sing her grandfather's praises when she thought of his skill at the board.

　　"It really is funny, when you think about it — a Celestial being who insists on playing chess with mortals down in the human realm. It's precisely because no mortal can ever beat him that he goes looking for Celestial opponents instead — Grandfather's favorite story to tell is how he beats the Celestial Sovereign and that whole crowd of old men at the Celestial Court at chess, and he never tires of telling it." Anu laughed as she spoke.

　　"Back in the day, Xiaoyi got scolded worse over his chess than over his medicine. Grandfather so badly wanted to raise up someone who could give him a real match that it was almost too much to ask of the poor boy."

　　Taking in all of Anu's chattering, Ziyuan felt he understood Elder Mu a little better now. Beneath what looked like the playful antics of an old child, he carried the whole world in his heart — within his chest lay a chessboard entirely his own.

　　The affairs of the world, too, were much like a game of chess — danger lurking at every turn, moments that seemed to offer no way forward at all, and yet, just as often, a sudden turn in the road, and a way out found where none seemed to exist.

　　The clouds had scattered, the sun shone bright — was this not itself just such a turn in the road, a way found where none had seemed to exist?