The Pirate Empress

by Deborah Cannon

  “Because only he would fail to benefit from its power. He already has say over our retribution when we’re dead. He has no time to fool with the living. Whereas the gods, if there be gods”—Master Yun rolled cynical eyes toward the heavens—“they would love to amuse themselves at our cost.”

  “There are gods,” Fucanlong said. “You know that as well as I.”

  “Yes, but they have long been lax, and have not shown themselves on this earth in many, many generations.”

  The dragon’s massive shoulders shrugged. “I wouldn’t be too sure of that, and I still say, we cannot enter uninvited.”

  %%%

  He Zhu glanced through the evenly spaced windows of the pagoda. The yellow mass of the giant carp gleamed outside. How odd. That sight was only possible if the pagoda was rising while he descended.

  He reached the bottom of the spiral staircase still breathing. This bubble of carp’s air might yet see him through his task. Zhu pushed himself off the last step, and went to a nest of sand. Is this the deathbed of Dilong? Nothing resembling a dragon’s skeleton was visible. Then a current washed away the sand, and a coil of bones greater than a rhinoceros appeared. Half were in shadow, and the other half pale, as though in sunlight. The skull was tucked downward, the spine perfectly intact, twisting back on itself, cutting the coil in half with an S-shape, while the tail curled to complete the circle. On the dark side was a single white bone, on the pale side a single black bone. It reminded Zhu of the tattoo that Tao used to sport on his hand.

  He Zhu could count to the fifth rib. But which should he take, the dark one or the light one? Left or right? He could take both, but they were massive bones and it would be a huge task to simply carry one. The water began to surge around him. The current increased and became a whirlpool. He grabbed onto the fifth rib—the white bone—and felt himself hurled forth by the swelling water. As his eyes left the floor, he glimpsed the image of the Taijitu scattered into fragments, the bones of Dilong no longer neatly ordered.

  He was pounded up the steps, the rib in his arms smashing against the walls of the pagoda. Outside the windows he could see the yellow carp swimming madly as though possessed by a demon. Do I have the right bone? There was no way to know. Returning wasn’t an option. The whirlpool wouldn’t let him. Instead of sucking him inward, it was spitting him up.

  Zhu’s head shot through the roof of the pagoda, expelled as though he tasted bad. The carp disappeared. When the boiling waters receded, he collapsed onto the sand. The air bubble over his head burst, and he breathed fresh air.

  Only a few moments of rest were allotted him before his horse began to whinny. He Zhu raised his head from where he clutched the dragon’s rib, and saw a huge shadow on the flat rocks surrounding him. Directly in his line of sight were the hooves of an ox. Rolling up his eyes, he beheld a most frightening spectacle. A creature the height of a tree with a metal ox’s head and four eyes scowled at him. In one of its six arms it waved a sword, in another, it held a halberd. When it opened its mouth to speak, Zhu saw that its teeth were made of stone.

  “So, you are the mortal warrior who has offended me.”

  Zhu had no tongue with which to respond to this accusation.

  “Do you know who I am?”

  Chi Yu was an ancient god of war, worshipped by First Emperor Qin’s Night Guards Army. He Zhu knew of this deity, but until recently had thought all deities to be machinations of rulers and supreme officers. His own belief in Lei Shen, his father’s thunder god, had come late. Chi Yu was reputed to have encased the souls of Qin’s army in pottery because of a woman. She had betrayed him with First Emperor, hence his retaliation. But Zhu had dismissed the stories as myth, fable. And now I am supposed to have offended the war god? How?

  Chi Yu brandished his sword. “You must die.”

  He Zhu went for his sabre but instead, raised the giant dragon’s rib like a staff. To his surprise when the deity swung his sword, the blow glanced off the bone as though it were made of metal.

  %%%

  “You are right, of course.” Master Yun agreed. “Only the dead are sent to the Etherworld before they are directed to Heaven or Hell. “I have already been to the fire labyrinths of Feng Du. I have no desire to revisit the realms of the dead. Besides, it is said that those who visit the Etherworld cannot return to an earthly existence.”

  And yet there was one who had. Li had told He Zhu of her strange visions while under the influence of the black poppy, and the place she described sounded exactly like the Etherworld. Li, Lotus Lily, had survived her sojourn to that place where one is dead, but is not. She was the only one who had seen the true, the one pure Taiji, the Taijitu, carved out of the heavenly marbles of the Golden Bridge.

  His talk with the Hell Master had left him troubled. If the Moonstone was inactivated, then by implication, the Tiger’s Eye and the Fire Opal had lost their powers as well. And if all of the Gemstones of Seeing were disabled, was this due to the theft of the Bloodstone? Only sight of the Taijitu, whole and unbroken, would assure him that Yan Luo spoke false.

  Is there a way into the Etherworld? If he called upon the Transcendent Pig, would he permit entry? Perhaps not, for the pig was neither guardian nor gatekeeper.

  “Chao!” Master Yun shouted to the heavens.

  Fucanlong shot skyward, switchbacking this way and that, accelerating to the point at which when seen from the ground, the warlock and the Emperor were nothing but two passengers seated upon a fast current of watery, blue air. Master Yun looked out across the scattered clouds, before sending his eyes down to see a very plump, cute, smiling pink pig riding a pillow of cloud below them.

  “Greetings, Master Yun.” The Transcendent Pig bowed his head as Fucanlong descended to bring Master Yun level. Behind him, His Majesty whimpered like he was going mad. Master Yun ignored the Emperor’s struggle with sanity. It was a lot to take, being released from climbing a tree of knives, rescued by a shapeshifting dragon, then to encounter a pig on a cloud while in mid-flight aboard an invisible steed. Yes, it was all quite unbelievable and incredible and terrifying—and it was natural to think one was losing one’s mind. Hopefully, before this adventure was played out, His Highness would have toughened up.

  Master Yun bowed in turn. “It’s been a long time, Chao. I wish our meeting was under happier circumstances.”

  “These are not happy times,” Chao said. “Neither are they sad. It all depends upon which side you favour.”

  “Agreed,” Master Yun said. “But it seems my side is in dire need of your help. It concerns the true Taijitu.”

  “The Taijitu is true and false.”

  “But is it whole?” Master Yun asked.

  “It is always of two parts.”

  “But do those two parts stand. Are they still connected?”

  “I have not been to visit the Emblem in many a day or year or time.”

  “But you have seen my granddaughter, Li. You helped her.”

  “I help no one and I hinder no one. The one you speak of made her own choice.”

  “Can you not tell me whether the Emblem stands?”

  “I can tell you that you are asking the wrong question.”

  The Transcendent Pig was a veritable fountain of wisdom when he chose. Master Yun must not allow his anxiety to cause him to be impatient. The dragon stroked the air lightly with his wings following the trajectory of Chao’s pale cloud. How long could he tread air before sinking? Suddenly, Chao frowned. “The past collides with the present, and the present with the future,” he said. “This is why you seek the Taijitu. You have witnessed that which you did not expect. And now, the Xiongnu are not your only concern.”

  “Which is why I am in need of an answer. Not only are the Xiongnu not of this time, but lately I have come to suspect that the deposed Tay-son royalty who sponsor the South Coast pirates are not either.”

  “One from the past, the other from the future,” the Transcendent Pig said. “But the future is only the future if it has yet
to pass. To learn the truth, you must turn to that gift that is your people’s alone.”

  You mean the Moonstone? Master Yun stared at the milky jewel, but its eye refused to open. “The gemstones have been compromised. They will not answer.”

  “That is not the gift of which I speak.” Chao gazed very calmly into his eyes. “Look into the very paleness of the clouds, Master Yun, and you will find what you seek.”

  The Transcendent Pig vanished, and Fucanlong began to flap his wings in great strides. During the entire conversation with the mystical pig, they had been gradually plummeting earthward. Master Yun turned to ensure that the Emperor was safe. He was seated near the dragon’s tail, snivelling.

  “That was not hallucination, and you are not crazy, Majesty,” he said. “We are headed home now. Soon you will be among your people again.” Master Yun turned back to the dragon. “Fucanlong,” he said. “Did you understand any of that?”

  The blue dragon tilted his snout. “It seems to me, the pig was telling you that you already know the answer.”

  Master Yun sighed. The power to which Chao referred was a very primal one. Master Yun had not seen it used in all his thousand years of existence. It was an ability known only through ancient texts, and was called the Sight of Wuji, the opposite of Taiji of which the Emblem, the Taijitu, was its physical manifestation.

  The Sight of Wuji was an organic thing; it flourished in the eyes of the gifted. It was there in all of his people; even he possessed its vestigial essence, which lived inside the gelatinous matrix of his inner eye. Most of the time, this essence was invisible, but under the proper conditions, it could be coaxed into sight, and seen, albeit briefly, as a clear circle with a black center and a black circle with a clear center. The Wuji gave infinite sight, and made the Gemstones of Seeing obsolete, for it could transmit to its host the vision of truth. If the Taijitu of the Etherworld was broken, the Wuji would transmit this vision to him. But could he engage the sight himself? In all these centuries, he had failed to do so.

  Stare into the paleness of the white cloud.

  Master Yun looked straight above him to where his eyes focused only on whiteness. The sensations he encountered compelled him to blink, but he held tight. His eye began to tremble; white sparks flitted. Tiny black filaments and translucent grey motes travelled spasmodically in his vision, then he focused in on what he sought—the tiny circles, the black one with the clear center and the clear one with the black center. The trick was to meld the two together to form a single black spot in the white matrix of his eye. That done he should be able to engage its power.

  Pull.

  Focus.

  Pull

  Focus.

  But that was the problem. No matter how hard Master Yun tried, his eye muscles and his will were too weak. He ended up cross-eyed, dizzy, and with a screaming headache, and still the Wuji refused to connect. Master Yun knew how the power was activated, but he could not manipulate the two parts and attain limitless sight.

  In all his riddles and non-answers, Chao had hinted at an obvious clue. When Li’s name was mentioned, the pig’s eyes had glimmered. Lotus Lily had survived the Etherworld to return to the Middle Kingdom and play out her role. Master Yun had not seen his granddaughter in ten years. In that time had she discovered her own powers? And was one of them, the Sight of Wuji?

  %%%

  “So, Dilong protects you.”

  He Zhu brandished the dragon’s rib like a sword. “I have no quarrel with you, War God. Why do you wish me ill?”

  “I don’t wish you ill,” the six-armed man-beast said. He gnashed his teeth together and Zhu could hear the crushing of stone on stone. “I want you dead.”

  “At least tell me why.”

  “You have taken something that is mine.”

  Zhu couldn’t imagine what that could be. This dragon’s rib? But he needed it to win the war against the Chinese rebels and their Manchu allies; he needed it to free the ghost armies to send the Mongols back over the wall. Nine armies, Master Yun had said. The fox faeries were amassing nine armies. Nine was a magic number—the number of victory.

  “What have I taken?” He Zhu asked. All that he had, he had given away.

  The metal face of the war god showed no expression. His ox’s hooves thrashed the ground. Six arms swung in deadly anticipation. He raised the halberd, but then he spied something on the horizon and stopped. Zhu looked, too, and saw an amazing sight.

  Chi Yu began to quiver as though his bones were melting. What was happening to him? “The child—” the god said, then his voice cut off and he vanished.

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  The Sight of Wuji

  “Alai?” Zhu called out, dragging the dragon’s rib with him to meet the horse and riders.

  The bowmaid tugged back her reins, and He Zhu glanced quickly about in case the war god reappeared, before dropping the giant bone and reaching upward to lift the children from their mount. Alai followed and stood facing him. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

  She trembled, knowing he was angry: she had abandoned the plan of hiding the youngsters among her people. “Something has happened,” she said. “The children are no longer safe there. The Xiongnu have girded for battle and are headed for the Dragon Wall.”

  “But I thought your people had forsaken war to live a peaceful life of raising goats and horses.”

  “My father announced that he was joining the Mongol Esen.”

  “That fool? He’s a coward and a clown. Better that they should join with his brother. Although he may be my enemy—nay the nemesis of all the Middle Kingdom—Altan is at least a warrior to reckon with.”

  She shrugged. “And something else.” She raised a bronze sword, the one he had left with her. She gripped it firmly in her right hand without altering her expression. “I did exactly as you instructed, but it doesn’t work for me.” She frowned, and handed it to him.

  Zhu gripped the blade, and glanced at his feet. His boots remained the official footgear of the Imperial Army, his tunic that of a Ming soldier.

  “Is it broken?” she asked.

  “I don’t understand. It has always performed its magic before.”

  “There’s more.” She turned to Wu, and stooped to lift the fabric cord that hung loosely around his neck. Zhu had placed that cord there, himself. It held the Tiger’s Eye, the holy gemstone of the monkhood that possessed the power to reveal ‘what is’. “The boy confided in me. He was worried about you, about his mother, his father and his great grandfather. He feared he might never see any of you again. I caught him peering into the stone and he said that it, too, is broken.”

  He Zhu hoisted the necklet from his nephew’s throat and detached the ring, and slipped it onto his finger, gazing into the saffron jewel. The cold, hard surface remained inert. He rubbed its face three times, but still it stayed lifeless. The creases in Zhu’s brow deepened. What did this mean? First there is no magic, then there is magic, and now there is no magic again?

  After his ordeal with the giant carp, the underwater pagoda, the fifth rib of Dilong, and the war god Chi Yu, He Zhu was exhausted. There was no safe place in the desert for Wu and Peng, nor for Alai, so he must take them with him—but to where? And without the gemstone’s sight how was he to predict what to do? Then something occurred to him. “How did you find me?”

  Alai proffered a tiny smile. “We followed you. It was Peng’s suggestion.”

  He Zhu glanced at his daughter, crouched to her height, which to his surprise was quite a bit taller than when last they were together. She was only four years old but stood almost as tall as the eight-year-old Wu.

  “I saw you,” Peng said, puckering her red lips.

  The girl had the ability to transform into a fox. Did foxes have particularly long vision? But how was that possible? No creature, not even a fox, could see thousands of miles ahead of itself. “Tell me exactly how you could see me, Peng. I was leagues away from Alai’s family’s encampment.”


  “I know that,” Peng said, annoyed. “But I squeezed my eyes together and I saw you at this lake—talking to a giant goldfish.”

  Alai glanced sceptically at him. “I didn’t believe her at first, but we had to run somewhere. And when we had gone some distance in the direction she indicated, we began to pick up traces of your journey. You left remains of a fire and the droppings of your horse.”

  The foxling had more powers than he knew. Her mother lacked this ability except for the reading of tealeaves and lily ponds. “Are you sure you didn’t see me in a cup of tea?”

  “I did not,” she protested. “I saw you with my EYES.”

  “All right. No need to shout.”

  “You were there at the bottom of the lake by a thing made of bones. It was white on one side and black on the other. Just like what I saw in my eyes.”

  What was she talking about? She saw a similar configuration in her eyes? She must mean her imagination. Children made up all sorts of things…then her description struck a chord in his memory. A lesson taught to him by the texts of the monkhood. Know whiteness. Maintain blackness and be a model for all under heaven. By being a model for all under heaven, eternal integrity will not err. And if eternal integrity does not err, you will return to infinity.

  It was a Taoist philosophy, but what did it mean? He had not understood it when he read it on the ancient bamboo scrolls, and he did not understand it now.

  “The thing,” Peng said. “That black and white thing made of bones. I saw that it was broken.”

  %%%

  The golden rooftops of the Forbidden City came into sight once more, but Master Yun sensed something was wrong. From high upon the back of the flying dragon, he could see to the north, the web of green-brown walls marking Shanhaiguan which blocked passage from the territories of Manchuria to the farms of his homeland. The First Pass on Earth with its solid tree-high ramparts, crowned with weighty, curling eaves was eerily empty. There should be soldiers on those ramparts, and travellers passing through the Gate at Which the Border Tribes Come to Pay Homage. Master Yun shivered as a growing reality dawned on him. Rebellion had swallowed up the north and central regions of the Middle Kingdom. Was his worst fear true? Had the rebels overtaken the capital?