She held her breath. “We really shouldn’t keep you any longer.”
“Worry not, young Ping, I have all the time in the world.”
“She’s right,” ShiShi agreed. “We should stay here longer. Trust me, most of Diyu isn’t half as nice as Lao Lao’s pavilion.”
Mulan pursed her lips, glancing at the lion worriedly. “Where are we in Diyu?” she asked Meng Po.
“This is the twenty-fourth level. I’m afraid you’re quite deep into King Yama’s realm.”
Mulan’s hand jerked, nearly dropping the cup onto her lap. “The twenty-fourth level?”
Alarm flickered in Shang’s eyes, but he composed himself quickly. “Gracious Lao Lao, would you be so kind as to tell us the way to the gates?”
“There is only one path out of Diyu,” Meng Po replied. “I’ll tell you after you drink.”
Mulan graced Meng Po with her best blank face. “I already did. It’s the best tea I’ve ever had.”
“Is it, now?” Meng Po fanned herself. “If you’d truly drunk it, you wouldn’t remember what the best tea was.”
Mulan’s face grew hot. She stood, lunging to escape the pavilion.
“Stay,” Meng Po said sharply. Paper panels unfolded like scrolls to cover the pavilion’s open sides. At once, the pavilion darkened, and Meng Po’s eyes narrowed. “Please. It is rude to refuse the hospitality of one’s elders.”
Mulan swallowed. They were trapped.
“I know who you are,” Mulan said through clenched teeth. “You’re not anyone’s lao lao. You’re the Lady of Forgetfulness.”
Meng Po rose from her seat. Her hooded eyes opened wide, unblinking. “And you are the soldier who stole Captain Li Shang from the Tower of the Last Glance to Home. Now drink, or I will be forced to set my demons upon you.”
“No.”
“My tea is meant to be a consolation. I assure you, it will be much more painful for you—for both of you—if you do not drink. You will never make it to the hundredth level.”
“You’re right. We won’t.” Mulan snatched the teapot from her hands and tossed the tea at the woman’s face. “Not if we stay here.”
“Ahh!” Meng Po shrieked, her long white hair dripping with tea.
“Come on, Shang.”
Shang was already on his feet. He lifted a rosewood table and hurled it at one of the panels. The paper ripped, and as Shang tore his way through, Mulan smashed ShiShi’s teacup with her foot. The lion blinked, stirring from Meng Po’s spell.
“Get up!” she shouted. “Lao Lao is Meng Po.”
ShiShi bolted to his feet and leapt out of the pavilion. Mulan followed, landing in one of the rosebushes. She pushed her way through the flowers and leaves to the brick path they’d found earlier. Behind her, Meng Po shouted furiously in a language Mulan didn’t understand.
She ignored it. They needed to find a portal out of this level, and fast.
Shang was one step ahead of her. “This way,” he said, heading north. “Where’s ShiShi?”
“He’s—” Mulan whirled around to make sure ShiShi was still with them. He wasn’t.
She gasped, spotting him behind her—in the garden. “The trees have him.”
ShiShi dangled from the top of a tree, his golden fur nearly completely swathed by long sleeves of pointed green leaves. One crooked branch curled over ShiShi’s mouth, preventing him from roaring, but when the lion saw Mulan and Shang, he thrashed furiously. He swept his paws at every branch that dared wrestle with him, his sharp claws digging into their arms and shredding their leaves.
Another tree extended a warped arm toward Mulan. She jumped back.
“Ping!” Shang’s jaw tightened as he assessed the trees. He stomped on a branch before it could take hold of him. “I’ll take care of this. You find the way out.”
Mulan bounded away from the tree’s clutches, skirting the edge of the rosebushes along Meng Po’s courtyard. The pavilion and the pond were the only places untouched by Meng Po’s monstrous trees.
The Lady of Forgetfulness had to be behind the trees’ attacks. She hadn’t moved from her position on the steps of the pavilion, where she was still chanting those strange words.
“Stop it!” Mulan yelled. “Let ShiShi go!”
For a second, Meng Po’s dark eyes met Mulan’s. She stopped shouting and snapped her fan closed, and the intensity of her gaze made Mulan wonder if she was actually considering Mulan’s request. But then, her thin, wrinkled lips curled into a faint smile before she turned her back to Mulan and went inside her pavilion.
Mulan tried to follow the Lady of Forgetfulness, but the pond begun to bubble. Horns emerged, then yellow and red eyes, and the tips of newly sharpened spears.
And now Mulan could guess whom Meng Po had summoned—
The demons.
The demons were coming.
Mulan dove into the rosebushes, scrabbling for the bronze spade that Meng Po had discarded. To her relief, it was still there. Quickly, she tossed it to Shang.
“Demons!” she shouted. “Coming from the pond. Help ShiShi!”
As the captain hacked at the trees, freeing ShiShi branch by branch, Mulan wrestled against the rosebushes, which had also come alive to attack her. Their stems hissed like snakes and entwined about her ankles.
She glanced quickly to the pond, taking note of the demons who had emerged. There were dozens of them—as many as could fit in the pond. They looked different from the guards she’d met on the Bridge of Helplessness. These demons looked like wolves, and they wore battle armor just like hers; they were soldiers trained to kill.
Mulan gulped, scanning their surroundings. No cannon to fire this time, and no snow to create an avalanche. I don’t even have my sword.
She kicked away the roses and hurried back toward ShiShi. The lion was almost free from the trees, but one stubborn tangerine tree held on. Its branches wrapped around ShiShi’s neck, trying to choke him. While Shang cut at the branches, Mulan pulled ShiShi out of the tree’s clutches by his tail, a rescue the guardian didn’t seem to appreciate.
“I hate trees,” ShiShi snarled at the garden, shaking his mane until the cords holding his jade pendant untangled. “That was Meng Po!”
“We know.”
“What a fool she made out of me,” ShiShi huffed. “I’ll never live this down with the other guardians if they find out. And to think, I was the one who warned you all not to—”
This wasn’t the time for ShiShi to pour out his anger at the Lady of Forgetfulness or grieve at how quickly he’d fallen into her trap. Mulan pulled on his mane.
“Ow! What are you—”
“Run,” urged Mulan. Then she took her own advice and sprinted away from the pond.
Shang held the spade over his shoulder as he ran beside her. Even though he was a spirit, sweat dribbled down his temples. “How many?”
“What—” ShiShi bolted to keep up with Shang and Mulan. “Don’t tell me you’re all afraid of a few plants,” he huffed. “Those trees barely scratched me. They came out of nowhere. It was surprise that got me. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have had a—”
“We’re not running from the trees,” Mulan interrupted, panting. “We’re running from the demons.”
Looking skeptical, ShiShi glanced back. A horde of demons came into sight, rustling through the bushes and trees. Some looked like the wolf demons Mulan had seen emerge from the pond, and others looked more human—but with red or yellow skin. From her glimpse back, Mulan saw yellow teeth, bloodshot eyes, fur and scales. The wolf demons were fastest. Even though they ran on two feet like humans, they bared glistening fangs. They led the charge, sniffing and howling as they ran.
ShiShi’s eyelids peeled back with alarm. He raced to the front of the line, his powerful legs springing off the brick path. “Hurry, Li Shang. Hurry, little soldier. Pick up those puny legs or you’ll end up as dinner.”
Mulan clenched her jaw, but ShiShi’s threat worked. She ran faster.
Not that it m
attered. The wolf demons quickly gained on them, the others not far behind. “I-I say we fight,” Mulan said, already nearly out of breath. “We can’t run forever.”
“Three against thirty,” Shang calculated between breaths.
“We’ve fought against worse!”
Mulan slowed down, forcing the encounter. ShiShi scraped his feet against the bricks. “What are you doing?” he cried. “You cannot kill demons. But they can kill you.”
Mulan didn’t respond. They couldn’t outrun a mass of demons, especially demons who knew the territory better than they did. They had no choice.
And she knew Shang agreed.
“You take this.” Shang passed Mulan the bronze spade. He raised his fists, pale blue like the rest of him. “Separate the wolf pack from the rest of the demons. Or else we’ll have to fight thirty at once.”
Mulan nodded once to show she understood. Then the wolves charged at them. They were fast and vicious and strong, but Mulan and Shang were ready.
Mulan thwacked the first demon on the head. Behind her, ShiShi swung his heavy jade pendant at one, then bit at the next with his sharp teeth. He pounced and jumped, lobbing his enemies off the bricks and into the gardens where Meng Po’s trees patiently waited to strangle their next prey. Mulan started tossing her own demons off to the side too.
It shouldn’t have surprised her that Shang was the demons’ main target. They probably had orders to bring him back to the tower.
Shang had managed to retrieve weapons of his own, but that didn’t deter the demons from surrounding him. They howled, jabbing at him with their spears to force him to back up off the path so the trees might have him.
Mulan started toward Shang, but the captain didn’t seem to need any assistance. He frowned at the six wolf demons, then gripped his spear and sword in one hand, points at each end. With the weapon at his waist, he spun, swiping at his enemies in a whirlwind the moment they attempted to attack. One particularly smart—or lucky—wolf demon leapt and managed to grab the end of Shang’s spear with his teeth. Mulan struck him with her spade and pushed him toward the hungry trees.
Shang shot her a look of thanks. “Twenty more to go. You ready?”
She nodded.
Shang pressed his back against hers and raised his weapons. “Together, then.”
The red-skinned demons charged. They were stronger than her, but she was smarter. Mulan countered their spears with her spade and used her smaller size and nimbleness to evade their attacks, feinting and then ducking to swipe at their ankles while Shang often delivered the crushing blow.
The yellow-skinned demons watched from a distance. They didn’t join the battle, but their long tongues flicked and they whispered to one another before blowing a horn and calling the others to retreat.
Mulan’s hands were raw from clutching the spade tight, but she kept it at her side, watching the demons run off.
“Is it over?”
“I doubt it,” Shang said through his teeth.
“We’ll be doomed if we stay here,” ShiShi grunted. “Demons cannot die. Not by the hand of a ghost or a mortal, anyway. We’ve wounded them, but they’ll regenerate. At least we’ve bought ourselves time before more appear.”
He was right. War drums pounded. They sounded far away, but close enough that the bricks under Mulan’s feet quivered. The bushes to their sides rustled, and the trees’ arms stretched and crawled across the tall grass. The ground shook—thump, thump, thump—with the weight of hundreds of demon soldiers.
“Run!” ShiShi ordered.
This time, Mulan didn’t argue. She sprinted.
“The brick path ends just ahead,” Shang shouted. “It must be the end of Meng Po’s domain.”
The path disappeared, and the scenery abruptly changed. Gone were the tangerine and lemon trees, the pleasant fragrance of peonies and plum blossoms. The grass under their feet turned to black rock, and the sky deepened into a dark crimson, with a thick fog obscuring what lay ahead of them.
Suddenly Shang halted. He reached for Mulan, but his fingers went through her arm. “Stop him!” he yelled at ShiShi.
The lion lunged in front of Mulan, blocking her way before she went any farther.
Her breath caught in her lungs. She’d nearly run off the edge of a cliff. In her shock, she dropped the spade. It tumbled down, bouncing against the cliff before it snapped over one of the jagged rocks protruding from the water below.
Mulan winced, watching the spade’s bronze pieces sink into the black, murky water. If not for Shang and ShiShi, that would have been her.
“This is as far as we go,” ShiShi said.
“We can’t fight them off again. Thirty demons is one story. Against a hundred?”
Mulan clenched her fists. She couldn’t lose to King Yama, not after finding Shang. She’d promised she’d save him. “There has to be another way.”
“I can make the jump,” said Shang. “So can Ping.”
“That is the River of Hopelessness,” ShiShi said sharply. “No one is diving into it.”
“We don’t have a choice,” Shang argued.
More than ever, she was grateful for Shang’s training. Thanks to their speed, they were at least a hundred strides ahead of the demons. Still, it was impossible not to hear the demons catching up. A war drum thudded from their army, out of sync with their thumping footsteps and clashing spears. Mulan, Shang, and ShiShi were cornered.
No, she couldn’t let fear and panic distract her. She watched the fog curl underneath the cliff. What secrets was it hiding?
Mulan glanced behind her shoulder to see if the demons were getting closer. But she suddenly saw their way out instead. Above the fog, just under the moon, was a silver mountain.
The slope of the mountain was gentle enough to climb easily. She couldn’t see the other side of the mountain, but that didn’t matter now.
“Look,” Mulan said, pointing at a narrow ridge that looked connected to the mountain ahead. “There’s a small cave there at the tip of the ridge.” She squinted. “And light inside it. Could be a tunnel that leads to that mountain with the silver grass.”
Shang was taller than she was and had a better view of what lay beyond the cave. “I don’t think it’s grass on that mountain. It looks more like a cemetery.”
“You think those are graves?” ShiShi asked darkly. “Look again.”
“They’re knives,” Mulan whispered, seeing the blades shine in the light as the fog cleared. She gulped. “I guess we take the river then.”
“No,” the lion disagreed. “We take the mountain.”
“The mountain will kill us.”
“The River of Hopelessness is cursed,” ShiShi informed her. “You’ll be lost in it forever. And if you are lucky enough to escape it, you’ll emerge a demon.” He tilted his head at Meng Po’s oncoming battalion. “Like them.”
Mulan relented. There wasn’t time to weigh the choices.
Fog and mist cloaked the mountain, obscuring the path toward it. But as Mulan waded through the fog, careful not to misstep and fall off the cliff, she found the narrow cave ahead.
She yanked away the moss blocking the cave’s mouth. The tunnel inside was so tight they would have to enter sideways, one at a time. That, at least, should slow the demons, she thought.
“You two go first,” she said to Shang and ShiShi. The demons were coming, and she’d lost Meng Po’s bronze spade to use as a weapon. She took the spear from Shang’s hands.
“Wait,” said Shang. “What are you—”
“It’s you they’re after. Not me.”
“Go,” ShiShi barked after Shang. “We waste time by arguing.”
Shang slipped inside first, then ShiShi. Mulan had to shove the lion through the cave with her weight; ShiShi barely fit. She heard him whimper as he inched his way through, nails scraping against the cave walls.
Mulan went next, sidling carefully through the entrance to the dank, musty cave. A few steps into the cave, she bent her head so
it wouldn’t hit the ceiling. Suddenly, something grabbed her leg and pulled.
She gasped, kicking, and blindly poked her weapon at her assailant.
“Grab my tail!” ShiShi shouted, his voice echoing in the cave.
Mulan reached for it, but even as ShiShi pulled her through, the demons outside still had her foot. Then someone jabbed her ankle with his spear, and Mulan let out a cry of pain.
“Ping!” she heard Shang shout.
Biting her lip to hold in the pain, Mulan hurled her weapon at the demons outside, and ShiShi yanked the rest of her into the cave. The walls trembled, pebbles and stones tumbling from the ceiling.
Mulan covered her head with her hand and limped as fast as she could toward the opening on the other side. Her ankle burned, but she didn’t stop to look at it.
The demons tried to follow. The one in the front was too fat to make it through the cave’s narrow opening, so he tried stabbing his spear at Mulan while the smaller demons around him tried crawling under his legs into the cave. Their claws scraped the earth as they attempted to scramble inside, but dirt and debris spilled over their eyes.
The cave was collapsing. If Mulan didn’t hurry, she’d be trapped inside. As the tunnel widened toward the other side, she barreled through and leapt for the exit. ShiShi grabbed her collar with his teeth and pulled her out.
“Th-that was close,” she said, coughing. The fog was thinner on this side of the cave, but it still misted over the ground and hovered about their surroundings. She bent down to catch her breath and rubbed dirt out of her eyes. “Have we lost them?”
“Until they find another way to this side, yes.”
With a sigh of relief, Mulan sat up. She tried to get to her feet, but her ankle still burned.
“You’re hurt,” Shang said.
She touched her foot, pressing the spot the demon had struck with his spear. Blood came back on her fingertips, but nothing was broken. “I’ll be fine. It’s nothing.”
Shang knelt in front of her, examining her ankle, too. “You need to wrap it.”
“Later. There isn’t time.”
“Will you be able to manage this climb?” ShiShi rumbled.
Reflection: A Twisted Tale Page 10
