An Inch of Ashes by David Wingrove

as they’d seemed. Each white-suited attendant seemed to conceal an assassin dressed in black.
    It made it no better for her that they had been after her father. No, that simply made things worse. For she’d had vivid dreams – dreams in which he was dead and she had gone to see him in the T’ang’s Great Hall, laid out in state, clothed from head to foot in the white cloth of death.
    She stared at him a moment, her eyes narrowed slightly, as if she saw through the flesh to the bone itself, and while he met her staring eyes unflinchingly, something in the depths of him squirmed and tried to break away.
    They had been
Ping Tiao
. A specially trained cell. But not Security trained, thank the gods.
    He looked down at where his hands held those of his daughter. The audacity of the
Ping Tiao
in coming for him had shaken them. They knew now that the danger was far greater than they had estimated. The War had unleashed new currents of dissent: darker, more deadly currents that would be hard to channel.
    His own investigations had drawn a blank. He did not know how they would have known his household routines. Siang? It was possible, but now that Siang was dead he would never know. And if not Siang, then who?
    It made him feel uneasy – an unease he had communicated to Li Shai Tung when they were alone together. ‘You must watch yourself,
Chieh Hsia
,’ he had said. ‘You must watch those closest to you. For there is a new threat. What it is, I don’t exactly know. Not yet. But it exists.’
    Bombs and guns. He was reaping the harvest he had sown. They all were. But what other choice had they?
    To lie down and die.
    Tolonen looked at his daughter, sleeping now, and felt all the fierce warmth of his love for her rise up again. A vast tide of feeling. And with it came an equally fierce pride in her. How magnificent she had been! He had seen the replay from the Security cameras and witnessed the fast, flashing deadliness of her.
    He relinquished her hand and stood, stretching the tiredness from his muscles.
    They would come again. He knew it for a certainty. They would not rest now until they had snatched his breath from him. Instinct told him so. And though it was not his way to wait passively, in this he found himself helpless, unable to act. They were like shadows. One strove to fight them and they vanished. Or left a corpse, which was no better.
    No, there was no centre to them. Nothing substantial for him to act against. Only an idea. A nihilistic concept. Thinking this, he felt his anger rise again, fuelled by a mounting sense of impotence.
    He would have crushed them if he could. One by one. Like bugs beneath his heel. But how did one crush shadows?
    Fei Yen jumped down from her mount, letting the groom lead it away, then turned to face the messenger.
    ‘Well? Is he home?’
    The servant bowed low, offering the sealed note. Fei Yen snatched it from him impatiently, moving past him as if he were not there, making her way towards the East Palace. As she walked she tore at the seal, unfolding the single sheet. As she’d expected, it was from Li Yuan. She slowed, reading what he had written, then stopped, her teeth bared in a smile. He would be back by midday, after four days away on his father’s business. She looked about her at the freshness of the morning, then laughed and, pulling her hair out of the tight bun she had secured it in to ride, shook her head. She would prepare herself for him. Would bathe and put on fresh clothes. The new silks he had sent her last week.
    She hurried on, the delights of her early morning ride and the joy of his return coursing like twin currents in her blood.
    She was about to go into her rooms when she heard noises further down the corridor, in the direction of Li Yuan’s private offices. She frowned. That part of the East Palace was supposed to be out of bounds while Li Yuan was away. She took two steps down the corridor, then stopped, relieved. It was only Nan Ho. He was probably