by Liz Williams
TWENTY-THREE
Chen and Robin did not discover what had happened until later that evening, when, without warning, Mhara appeared in the middle of the temple. His manifestation was sufficiently sudden for Chen to blink and step back.
“Mhara!” Robin said. “I’ve been trying to contact you.”
“I was in the Book room,” the Emperor said. “Chen knows.”
“Kuan Yin was here earlier. I’m afraid there’s a problem,” Chen began.
“I know. My mother.” The Emperor’s serene face took on an expression of unfamiliar unease. “She’s missing. I’m very sorry, Chen. Your family seems continually to be caught up in my own problems.” He paused and Chen realized that he was ashamed: it seemed unnatural, to be facing the Celestial Emperor when the Emperor himself was in the wrong. “She’s taken Inari with her.”
“How did you find out?” Chen and Robin said simultaneously.
“Do you know where she’s gone?” Chen then asked.
“Kuan Yin returned to find pirates ransacking her vessel,” Mhara said. “Her crew was frozen, but remained aware. One of her maids saw Inari being taken. Miss Qi was with her, and the badger. She is not alone. I know that isn’t much comfort.”
Chen took a deep breath. “It’s somewhat reassuring. I know there are supposed to be pirates on the Sea of Night, but — ”
“These weren’t local.”
“Then — ”
“These people came from somewhere else. Another sea, in another Hell. There are such.”
“I thought the worlds were supposed to be sealed off from one another,” Chen said. “Unless — ” Zhu Irzh had recently managed to get snatched into a Hindu Hell, after all.
“Unless one is venturing in lands where many different cultures have strong religions,” Mhara said. “Even then, one tends to find oneself only in the realms belonging to one’s own particular faith. There is a certain amount of bleed — Between was such an area — but the Sea of Night is not such a place.”
“So what does this mean?” Robin asked. “That the walls between the worlds are breaking down?”
“I can’t think what else it would mean,” Mhara said. “Somehow, against all magical logic, it seems that my mother managed to contact someone outside the Sea of Night.”
“Or someone contacted her,” Chen said. “She’s still powerful, isn’t she?”
“Yes, she’s still powerful. And she wants revenge for what she sees as my slights.”
“I can’t just sit here,” Chen said.
“No. But equally, you can’t go to the Sea of Night on your own, with no clue of who these people are or where they’ve come from. We know roughly where they entered the Sea. I will send you a boat, Chen, if you wish.”
“I’d like to take Zhu Irzh with me,” Chen said, “but I haven’t been able to reach him.”
“I think you’ll find that Zhu Irzh has a task of his own,” the Emperor said.
•
The “boat” the Emperor sent was a warship, which Chen had not been expecting. It did not look like something that had come from Heaven. It was high and black and blunt, not modern. It lay at anchor just off the coast of Singapore Three, not far from the typhoon shelter and the place where, until recently, Chen’s own home had been moored.
“Can anyone else see it?” Chen asked Mhara as they stood at the harbor wall, looking out. The boat, silhouetted against a fiery sunset, was the color of ink: a medieval engraving. Its sails billowed gently in an otherwise unnoticeable wind.
The Emperor laughed. “Only a few. It won’t show up on naval radar, if that’s what you mean. Quite invisible.”
“Who’s the captain?”
“You’ll meet him.” Mhara pointed. A skiff was setting out from beneath the shadow of the war-junk, moving swiftly over the gleaming water. Chen could see a small figure hunched in the prow, but no one seemed to be rowing the craft. They climbed down the harbor steps to meet it and as the skiff slowed, the Celestial in it stood. He reminded Chen of Miss Qi: another heavenly warrior, pale-faced and sloe-eyed. He bowed his head as he neared the Emperor.
“Majesty.”
“Don’t bother with all that,” Mhara told him. “It’s good that you’re here.”
“I’ve come to collect Master Chen,” the young man said. He extended a guiding hand, but Chen climbed on board without aid, nodding his thanks.
“I have to return to Heaven,” Mhara said. “With my mother missing, I need to be there, but I’ve placed troops on the borders.”
“You think she’s trying to raise an army?” Chen asked.
“I think she wants Heaven back,” Mhara said. He raised a hand in farewell as the skiff set off again, a smooth, invisible glide. Chen watched the Emperor’s tall figure recede against the lights of the city, until suddenly it was no longer there. He sighed. He wished that he could believe Mhara to be wrong, but a maternal plan to reclaim Heaven sounded all too plausible.
But what did she want with Inari? And where was Zhu Irzh? Chen told himself not to fret as the black bulk of the war-junk drew closer. Then they were alongside the ship and a rope was tossed downward. The pilot seized it and held it taut while Chen scrambled up onto the deck. The sails belled out over his head and all at once the city was falling fast behind. They came out of the harbor mouth, speeding past the place where Chen’s houseboat had been moored, and then toward the hummocks of the islands, whalebacks against the still-red sky. As they passed the last rock, with the towers of Singapore Three glittering in the distance, Chen felt the world shift around him. He gripped the rail. Beside him, the pilot of the skiff gave him a sympathetic glance. Chen looked back. The city was no longer there. Ahead, lay the yawning dark expanse of the Sea of Night.
TWENTY-FOUR
The forest shifted and warped around Omi’s fleeing form, the trees changing as he ran. It was hard to tell, out of the corners of his eyes, but he thought they were shifting into words: huge flickering characters written on the air. The world was rewriting itself, Omi realized, perhaps transformed by the contents of the scroll that he now carried carefully between his cat-jaws. Different tastes — blood, jasmine tea, snow, metal — touched his tongue and the scroll seemed to be singing, a small joyous voice that spoke in a language he could not understand.
Behind him, however, he could still hear the ifrit, crashing through the trees. Ifrits, Omi reminded himself, can’t read. He was confident that he could outrun it and if not — well, then he would simply have to turn and fight. But he was worried about the scroll, wanting to keep it safe, hoping that he could make the oasis before —
And there it was, whirling through a wall of words and symbols, the startling blue crescent of the moon-shaped lake with the pavilion beyond.
Omi conjured a last burst of speed from his limbs and was out once more into the desert. The ifrit gave a shriek, perhaps rage, perhaps despair. But Omi was already bolting across the harsh shiver of the sands toward the lake. He shot through the gate and as he did so, was jarred forcibly back into his human form. He just managed to catch the scroll before it hit the stone flags. Turning, he saw the ifrit hurtling toward the gate, its narrow, leathery head outstretched. Half phoenix, half pterodactyl, it struck the air of the gate and exploded in a shower of blood and fire. Omi shielded the scroll under his coat as blazing fragments fell all around the courtyard and the air was filled with the reek of burning demon.
Inside his head, the Book said, “Well?”
“I got it!” Omi said aloud, exultant.
“So you have. Well done. Bring it to me.”
Omi took the stairs two at a time and found the Book, not unexpectedly, sitting where he had left it on its pedestal.
“Open the scroll,” the Book instructed him. “Read it to me.”
“I can’t,” Omi said blankly. “I don’t know what language it’s written in, and anyway, there’s not much writing on it as far as I can see — it’s a map.”
“That doesn’t matter. Just
open it.”
Doubting, Omi did so and experienced a curious sensation, as though the top of his head had been lifted off. He felt words entering his consciousness, unfamiliar, unrecognizable, and he spoke.
When he had finished, he stared. The spell hung before him in the air, its letters glittering like fire. But it was not just a spell. The words snaked into configurations of their own, forming constellations in the dim air of the library.
“It’s still a map,” Omi said, peering.
“Yes. Words that formed the world,” said the Book. “And if you could look within me, you would find part of me missing.”
“The scroll was taken from you?” Omi asked.
“Stolen from me. Stolen, and used to rewrite the rules of the land. It must be restored and I must be restored with it.”
“How is that to happen?”
“I must be taken back to the place where this began. I must be allowed to rewrite the world into its correct configuration, to reknit the text into its original and proper form.”
“What place is that?” Omi asked.
“The deep desert — not the desert of the physical world, but of time. The world of the Taklamakan and of the Tokarians.”
“We need to go back into the past?” Omi gaped at the Book.
“Back, and remake it. You must carry me, but it is too dangerous for you to go alone. I have sent for help,” the Book said.
A man stepped out of the shadows, making Omi start. He had no indication that the man had been there, and this was bad, for a warrior. The stranger was tall, bald, dark-eyed, and carried a palpable weight of experience.
“Omi,” he said, and bowed. “My name is Nicholas Roerich.”
“I’ve heard of you,” Omi said.
“I work for the Masters, just as you yourself do. And I knew your grandfather, both in life and in death.” Roerich smiled. “The latter condition does not appear to have greatly altered him, as a matter-of-fact.”
“He didn’t really see any difference between the two,” Omi concurred.
And it was true. He had not.
•
Later, Omi stood with Roerich on the parapet of the pavilion. The desert lay beyond and the dunes hummed, singing in the dying light with a strange, deep boom.
“They’re gathering,” Omi said. He pointed to where the ifrits wheeled over the sand, avoiding the lake, which now gleamed golden under the sunset.
“Yes. They’ll stop us if they can. The Khan’s controlling them; he seeks to breed them afresh.”
Omi looked at him askance. “Can he do that?”
“He has a lab, of sorts. The…man we’ll be traveling with discovered it.”
Omi was not sure whether he had imagined the tiny hesitation before the word “man,” but decided not to press the point, for now. “What else did this man discover?”
“Ghosts in the walls. The spirits of the murdered.”
“My grandfather was one of those.”
“I know. But your grandfather is free, Omi.” Roerich amended this. “Free to move, at least, if not free from duty.”
“The Book says we need to go back in time,” Omi said. The idea filled him with disquiet. Once, he might have welcomed the adventure; but this did not please him.
“So we do. But you know that you will not be going alone.” Roerich spoke quietly and did not look at Omi; the latter knew that he was trying to save the younger man face and was grateful. “I will be going with you, as will the other.”
“The — man — who discovered the Khan’s lab?”
This time Roerich smiled. “Just so. He is not a human, Omi. He is a demon, from the Chinese Hell. He works as a policeman in Singapore Three. You will find him helpful, in a number of ways.”
Whatever Omi had been expecting, it was not this. “A cop? But — ”
“Wickedness is, I have found, at least partly in the eye of the beholder,” Roerich said. He pointed to the wheeling ifrits. “Those, for instance. If they could be free to have a real choice, what do you think they would choose?”
“Evil,” Omi replied promptly. “I do not like to think in black and white, Roerich. My grandfather taught me not to do so, and so did my sensei. But ifrits are predators, and mindless.”
“Even so,” Roerich said, “perhaps even they might one day surprise you.” He sighed. “I have walked the face of this world, Omi. In life, and now in death. I have seen a great many things that surprise me, and more that may yet do so.”
“This policeman,” Omi said after a pause. “When can I meet him?”
TWENTY-FIVE
The badger was nuzzling her face, muttering as he did so. Inari stirred, feeling hard wooden boards beneath her, and sat up. They were moving: up and down in a gentle rocking motion that suggested they were on water. Light filtered into the dim chamber, startling after the Sea of Night. Across the chamber, Miss Qi lay in a pale huddle of garments.
Inari’s hands went to her stomach, but there was no sign that anything was amiss and she breathed a sigh of relief.
“We are afloat,” said the badger.
“Have you been on deck?”
“No. The door is locked.” Scratch marks at the base of the wooden door told Inari that the badger had made considerable attempts to break free. “I can smell salt. This is a proper sea.”
“Maybe we’re back on Earth?” Inari said hopefully. She went across to Miss Qi and knelt by the Celestial warrior’s side.
“What — ?” asked Miss Qi. She blinked.
“Are you all right?” Inari said.
“I think so. I don’t remember what happened. I was fighting, and then — ” She frowned.
“I remember being carried off,” Inari said. “There was another ship. We’re on it, presumably.”
“But where are we?”
High on the wall, there was a little window, without glass. The badger might have squeezed through it, but the window was too small for either Inari or Miss Qi. They managed to look through it, however, by dragging a bench to the wall and standing on it on tiptoe.
“It looks like Earth,” Miss Qi said. An expanse of glittering blue sea, bright sunlight, and a warm, spicy breeze lay beyond the window. In the distance was a little hummock of an island, clad in dark green foliage. Inari could hear the snapping of sails above her head.
“It does look like Earth,” Inari agreed, “but I don’t think it is.”
Miss Qi looked at her curiously. “Why do you say that?”
“I don’t know. It doesn’t — feel right.” All of her life on Earth had been lived on the sea, after all, even if it had been the edges of it, close to shore. The light was a little too vivid, the sea slightly over-aquamarine.
“Maybe it’s just a different place on Earth,” Miss Qi said.
“Maybe.” But Inari didn’t think so and could not say how she knew.
They got down from the bench and worked at the door. But though it looked old, the wood salt-rotted and stained, it would not budge, even with the badger’s solid weight against it. Eventually they sat back down on the bench.
“They can’t keep us in here forever,” Miss Qi said. “Someone will come eventually.”
“I don’t like being kidnapped,” Inari said. “Especially by mad empresses.”
“This isn’t the Empress’ ship.”
“I know. And that worries me.”
But Miss Qi was correct. It was not long before the door was wrenched open. A man stood in the opening: not human, Inari’s senses told her, but she did not know what manner of being he was. Tall, dressed in cerulean blue robes and turban, with skin the color of soft brown earth. Indigo spirals circled his cheeks and brow and his eyes were the same color as his robes. He smiled, displaying sharp golden teeth. He carried with him a smell of cinnamon and ginger.
“Ladies! And beast! Good afternoon.”
Miss Qi was frowning again. “You are a djinn.”
The man, or djinn, laughed. “Indeed so. You are well-traveled, w
arrior.”
“I saw a documentary,” Miss Qi said, surprising Inari.
“My name is Banquo,” the djinn said. “Welcome to Hell.”
“Ah,” said Inari. “That’s where we are. Whose Hell? It’s not mine.”
“It is the Hell of the Moors. Only a little Hell, I’m afraid. It didn’t have a very long existence and yet, we endure.”
