Heaven to Wudang

by Kylie Chan

  ‘Always,’ Leo said. He tried to pull himself upright, and Martin helped him. ‘Geez, he could at least have healed my spine.’

  ‘Maybe the Serpent will one day,’ I said.

  Martin glanced meaningfully at me, and I stood up before he said anything. ‘I have places to be. I’ll see you guys later.’

  I walked back down to the main area, leaving them on top of the Mountain together. The group of students was waiting expectantly for me. Simone was with them.

  ‘He changed his mind,’ I said to them, and they whooped and cheered. ‘He’s alive and he’s planning to stay that way.’

  One of the students rushed towards the stairs, and I called to stop him. ‘Leave them alone, they’re having a moment. Wait till they come back down, okay?’

  The student stopped, nodded with a huge grin, and returned to the group.

  Simone threw her arm around my shoulders, brash with delight. ‘We should arrange a wedding for them too.’

  ‘The Jade Emperor won’t allow it,’ I said.

  ‘Why not? They love each other. They want to be together. Isn’t that enough?’

  ‘Not for the Jade Emperor. He defines marriage as between a man and a woman and won’t budge on it.’

  ‘My own father spent a week being a woman and the Jade Emperor won’t stop you two from getting married. What difference does it make?’

  I turned and glanced back at the gleaming golden temple with the dark-clad couple sitting on the steps below it. ‘None at all. Hopefully we’ll see times change.’ I turned back. ‘Let’s go find something to eat, I’m starving.’

  ‘Daddy’s down in the Grotto, and he says pilchards, please.’

  ‘Humph.’

  Gold came to us later in the afternoon after trying to revive my stone.

  ‘We can’t do anything for it,’ he said. ‘We hooked it into the Tree’s network and got nothing. There are two options now, and both of them are difficult.’

  ‘What are they?’ I said, feeling relieved as I slipped the ring back onto my finger. I tapped the stone and it pulsed in response.

  ‘Take it to the Lady Nu Wa — she is its creator and may be able to awaken it. Or take it to the Grandmother herself.’

  ‘I don’t think I could make it all the way to Nu Wa by myself right now,’ John said. He leaned his chin in his hand. ‘And going to the Grandmother is too far to travel in the current circumstances. This may have to wait until everything is dealt with.’

  ‘But it was with me when Kitty and the Death Mother took me to their boat,’ I said. ‘It knows where they are — we have to get that information out of it.’

  John shrugged. ‘Keeping our students safe and making sure full respects are paid to our casualties is just as important.’

  My mobile phone rang. I pulled it out of my pocket, checked the caller ID and flipped it open. ‘Ronnie. Go ahead and tell me that you know exactly what’s going on right now. You seemed to know every single other time.’

  ‘I don’t, ma’am, and that’s why I’m calling you. I haven’t known anything for days, since you returned to the Mountain, and I’m concerned for your stone.’

  ‘That bastard was telling you what we were doing?’ I said, glaring at the stone.

  ‘No, I wear its daughter as a piece of jewellery…’ His voice moved away from the phone. ‘Ow! Okay, she doesn’t like that. She’s actually my partner —’

  ‘And you never told us?’ I said.

  ‘She’s in hiding … She pissed off a tree spirit and it wants to chop her up. She’s not ready to be a mother, so she’s sitting on me until it blows over.’

  ‘I’ve never seen you wearing a stone as jewellery,’ I said.

  ‘She’s on a chain around my neck, she looks like a Buddhist medallion.’ He moved his mouth away from the phone. ‘Talk to them.’

  ‘I don’t want to talk to them!’ a woman’s voice said.

  ‘But how did she know what we were doing?’ I said.

  Ronnie hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘Well, it’s her father. She misses the Celestial Plane, so it tells her stories, and sometimes it tells her when you need me.’

  ‘I am going to kill it when it comes around,’ I said.

  ‘It’s unconscious?’

  ‘Kitty and the Death Mother did something to it. It was in a nest where they were building demon copies and holding humans to feed off. John brought it home, and it’s been silent since.’

  ‘Has Gold tried to wake it up?’ the female Shen said, her voice still tinny in the background.

  ‘Here, you talk to her,’ Ronnie said, and there was the sound of the phone being handed over.

  ‘You are the cause of a huge Heavenly security breach, you know that?’ I said. ‘Ronnie may have turned, but he’s still one hundred per cent demon and he should not have known the details of our Mountain activities.’

  ‘Are you the Dark Lord?’ she said.

  ‘No, this is me, Emma Donahoe. The one who’s holding your dad. Gold’s had a look at the stone —’

  ‘Hi, Jie Jie,’ Gold said, joining the call in conference mode.

  ‘Di Di,’ she said. ‘What have you done with Dad so far? To try to bring him round?’

  ‘If he heard you calling him “he” he’d have an attack,’ Gold said. ‘I took him to the Tree and plugged him into the network to try to bring him around with an information dump.’

  ‘I’ve heard they’re doing some excellent work over there. Did you get anything?’

  ‘No. Next stop is probably either Nu Wa or Grandma.’

  ‘What about an electric shock? Did you take him to see Thunderbolt?’

  Gold’s expression went blank, then filled with wonder. ‘I never thought of that.’

  ‘That’s why you’re the runt of the litter,’ she said.

  ‘You’ll have to go into hiding from Dad too,’ Gold said.

  ‘Just take Dad to Thunderbolt, and if that doesn’t work try Nu Wa or the Grandmother. But Thunderbolt can probably do it.’

  ‘I think you’re right.’

  ‘I thought Thunderbolt had stopped his research with stones when the East took over,’ John said.

  ‘He did,’ Gold said. ‘But knowing him, he probably has all the equipment sitting in his lab gathering dust. We should go have a look.’

  ‘Give me a moment,’ John said. ‘Very well, I’ve ordered him to receive you. Head off to the Celestial Palace.’

  I returned the ring to Gold, who saluted John and disappeared.

  ‘Does Thunderbolt really have wings and a beak?’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ John said. ‘Poor fellow, his human form is as unremarkable as his True Form is extreme. The Jade Emperor learned a valuable lesson there: it’s all very well to change someone’s form to make them a better warrior, but they have to live with the consequences.’

  ‘The Jade Emperor did that to him?’

  ‘It was a long time ago. He helped end the Shang/Zhou — without him it would have dragged on another hundred years and thousands would have died — but he paid the price.’ He raised his head. ‘Jade is here.’

  Jade came in, bowed to both of us, and handed John a piece of paper. ‘This is the final schedule for the remaining funerals. Christian ones are so much harder to organise!’

  ‘There are three down at North Point tomorrow,’ John said, studying the list. ‘We should go. There’s nothing urgent here that needs handling.’

  The next morning, a bleak autumnal Hong Kong day, we arrived outside the funeral home. I wore a black skirt suit with a black T-shirt under the jacket; John did his usual thing of wearing a black suit with black shirt and tie. Funereal flower arrangements lined the sidewalk: all yellow and white chrysanthemums, with banners showing the names of those who had donated them. We went inside to the lobby, which had green tiles on the floor and walls, with a pair of old lifts in one wall. Jade was waiting for us next to the lifts.

  ‘First one is on the third floor,’ she said, pushing the button.
‘Nearly done; they’ve been here the full five days, this is the last day.’

  ‘I’m glad we could make it,’ John said, putting his hands into his pants pockets and leaning on the wall of the lift.

  On the third floor, three funeral rooms led off from the foyer, each double-doored with the name of the deceased on a stand outside. Jade guided us into the first room. ‘Tillie Chung.’

  ‘I remember her,’ I said as we went in. ‘Talented first year.’

  The room was five metres long and four wide: one of the smaller rooms. Chairs were lined up as though in a church, facing the altar which held Tillie’s photograph flanked by large candles. Behind the photograph was the glass viewing room, where her embalmed corpse lay. Her family, all wearing the symbolic white of mourning, knelt on a rattan mat to one side. Flower arrangements on bamboo stands lined the walls.

  We went to the table to one side of the entrance and paid our respects, signing the guest book and receiving a white packet with a candy to sweeten our sadness. We walked up the aisle to the front row of chairs and one of the officiators moved to stand next to the photograph. He ordered us to bow three times, and we did, with the family carefully not looking at us. Then we bowed once to the family and approached them. They rose to speak to us.

  John shook their hands. ‘I am John Chen, Master of the Wudang Academy where Tillie was learning. This is my partner, Miss Donahoe.’

  ‘Thank you for coming,’ Tillie’s father said. ‘And for your generosity in providing for the funeral. Your secretary, Jade, has been wonderful.’

  ‘It is the least we could do,’ John said.

  ‘My condolences,’ I said. ‘So many were lost.’

  Tillie’s mother gestured towards John’s arm. ‘Did you lose that at the same time?’

  ‘I did, and Miss Donahoe’s arm was crushed. The survivors were lucky.’

  ‘Tillie sent us letters. She said you were very special, and she was having a wonderful time, and she wished she could tell us how great it was,’ Tillie’s father said. ‘I’m glad she was so happy.’

  Tillie’s mother broke down. She pulled a packet of tissues out of her bag, then turned away.

  Tillie’s father stared up into John’s face. ‘Tillie said you were something very special, sir. I wonder what she meant.’

  ‘Many of my students say that,’ John said. ‘I think it is because my students go so far once they have learnt the Arts from us. Many of them go on to successful careers in show business, even if it is behind the scenes. It is said that my Academy makes up half the film industry here.’

  ‘I understand,’ Tillie’s father said. He gestured towards the glass viewing area. ‘Would you like to see?’

  We nodded, and he guided us past the screen in front of the area where the corpse was visible. Tillie’s body was glossy and artificial in death, petrified by chemicals. It wasn’t her any more. The Tillie I knew had been a joyful student, full of life and wonder, delighted to be doing what she loved every day. What I saw here was a shell; the Tillie I knew was gone.

  I pulled a packet of tissues from my bag and wiped my eyes, then couldn’t help myself and let go. John put his arm around my shoulders.

  ‘You were right,’ I said through the gasps.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Tillie’s father said, touching my arm in sympathy.

  ‘She was a lovely girl. We will all miss her,’ I said, trying to control my sobs and failing.

  Everything has caught up with you, we should take you home, John said.

  I shook my head into the tissue.

  John led me back to the family, and shook Tillie’s father’s hand again. ‘If there is anything you need, let Jade know.’

  Tillie’s father nodded to John. ‘Thank you.’ He touched me on the arm again. ‘And thank you.’

  John bowed slightly, and led me out.

  Jade was waiting outside the room with her clipboard. ‘Oh, my Lady,’ she said.

  ‘Take her to the side and let her work it out of her system,’ John said. ‘We should take her home.’

  ‘No,’ I said into the tissues. ‘Just let me do some deep breathing and I’ll be able to continue. Could you get me a bottle of water, Jade?’

  Jade went to a corner of the lobby, facing away from us, to conjure the water bottle.

  ‘I don’t know how many hundreds of times I have attended events like this,’ John said, holding me around the shoulders. ‘And every time it is as if it is the first.’

  Jade handed me the bottle of water. I took a few sips and nodded that I was okay. ‘What’s next?’

  ‘Two more here,’ she said. ‘One on the fifth floor, and one on the sixth. That is all for Hong Kong for today; we have more in other cities.’

  ‘How many?’ John said.

  ‘Three in China; one in Shanghai, two in Beijing. One in Kuala Lumpur — a Muslim one, so we have to be there right on time to attend. A Christian one in Singapore — again, we have to be right on time. European and American ones are next week, all Western style.’

  ‘I don’t think we’ll be able to make them all,’ John said.

  Jade nodded. ‘I don’t think anybody would expect you to.’

  ‘I do,’ John said.

  We went into the lift and Jade pressed the button.

  Gold and Thunderbolt were waiting for us outside John’s office when we returned later that afternoon. They rose and saluted John, and he waved them into the office with us. Thunderbolt was a small, middle-aged Chinese man with thick glasses and unruly hair, in a pair of plain jeans and a tatty Atari T-shirt.

  ‘Anything major?’ John said as he sat behind the desk.

  ‘No, my Lord,’ Zara said.

  ‘Good. Out,’ John said, and Zara disappeared. He spun in his chair to see Gold and Thunderbolt. ‘Well?’

  ‘Could you soak the stone and freeze it while I send a shock through it?’ Thunderbolt said.

  ‘Will that hurt it?’ I said.

  ‘Yes,’ Gold said. ‘But we need to know where Kitty’s base is.’

  ‘How cold?’ John said.

  ‘As cold as you can go,’ Thunderbolt said.

  John smiled slightly. ‘I won’t destroy the world just to bring a stone back.’

  ‘You can go that cold?’ Thunderbolt said with disbelief.

  ‘I can do Absolute Zero,’ John said.

  Thunderbolt stared at him. ‘But that’s scientifically impossible.’

  ‘So am I. How cold?’ John said.

  ‘Twenty degrees above?’

  ‘Done,’ John said. He rubbed his chin. ‘Now to find somewhere to do it.’

  ‘North Pole?’ Gold said. ‘Is that too far?’

  ‘I don’t want to go more than a couple of hundred kilometres,’ John said.

  ‘Go straight up,’ I said. ‘Do it in space.’

  ‘Can you do that, my Lord?’ Gold said.

  John turned to me. ‘Want to come? I don’t think you’ve ever been in orbit; it’s about time you saw what it’s like.’

  ‘Can you keep me alive while you’re freezing the stone?’

  He hesitated for a moment, then said, ‘Let me see.’ He raised his hand above the desk and a sphere of water appeared, floating beneath it. He concentrated, and the water shrank slightly, condensation mist coming off it. ‘That’s supercooled,’ he said. ‘If you like, I can supercool water around the stone, and we can solidify the water at the same time that you put a shock through it.’ The condensation mist around the water sphere disappeared and it hovered, perfectly clear and still.

  ‘How cold is that?’ Thunderbolt said.

  ‘A hundred Kelvin at the moment; about minus a hundred and seventy C,’ John said. ‘I’ve had to put a vacuum around it; if it touches the molecules in the air it will crystallise.’

  ‘Damn, sir, that’s impossible,’ Thunderbolt said with awe. His mouth fell open. ‘How fast would a silicon processor go at those temperatures?’

  ‘Fastest computer in the world,’ Gold said. ‘That�
��s going to hurt Dad like hell.’

  John snapped his wrist over the sphere and it froze with a loud crack. The air around it filled with ice crystals, which shattered outwards. I quickly ducked to avoid the tiny needles that flew towards me. Just as quickly, they changed to a cloud of warm moisture and disappeared.

  ‘Sorry,’ John said. ‘Maybe Emma shouldn’t come with us.’

  ‘If that doesn’t wake Dad up, nothing will,’ Gold said.

  John shrugged. ‘Let’s go up and try.’

  I followed them out of the office and to the courtyard in front of Yuzhengong. A group of students was practising a tai chi set with Meredith.

  John raised one hand towards them. ‘We need some space. Move to the side.’

  After the students had moved, Gold, Thunderbolt and John all changed to True Form. Gold took his stone shape, and John was a massive black Turtle, four metres from nose to tail. Thunderbolt lost his clothes, grew to three metres tall, and tan-coloured feathers sprang out all over him. He grew a pair of wings with a span of three metres, and a vicious predatory beak replaced his face. The three of them took off vertically and the back blast nearly knocked us over. The ground shook as they broke the sound barrier about half a kilometre above us, and they were gone.

  Meredith moved the students back into formation.

  ‘If the Dark Lord broke any windows, his shell is mine,’ I said, and went to my office.

  They returned an hour later. John came into my office and handed the stone back.

  ‘We couldn’t torture it any more,’ he said. ‘We had to stop. It screamed a couple of times, but apart from that we gained nothing.’

  I wanted to give the stone a hug but it was too small. ‘So what do we do now?’

  ‘I will contact Nu Wa and the Grandmother. One of them must be able to help us.’

  ‘But both are so far to travel,’ I said.

  He dropped his head and sighed. ‘I know. This may have to wait until I am stronger.’

  ‘It can wait,’ I said. ‘The demons lost their entire Singapore facility; it will take them a while to rebuild.’

  He turned to go out. ‘I hope you’re right. Dinner in thirty.’

  I saluted him. ‘Sir.’