The Iron Khan (Detective Inspector Chen Series)

by Liz Williams

  But there was something in the midst of the light that clearly did not belong. To one side of the door from which they had emerged stood a small chamber, a honeycomb cell in the substance of the city. As Roerich had said, it looked more like a monk’s meditational cell than a prison, but its door had been blasted off its hinges and now hung awry. The origin of that disharmony was floating in the middle of the light, staring at them with cold, black eyes.

  Roerich stopped dead, staring ahead. “Majesty,” he said at last. Chen had only set eyes on the former Empress of Heaven on a couple of occasions, but he had no difficulty in recognizing her. She looked exactly the same, her masklike face lovely in repose and yet somehow hollow, as if the evil behind it had eaten it away, corroding it over the long years until this was all that was left. Her garments floated round her like streamers of cloud, drifts and eddies of rose and gold.

  “I don’t know you,” the Empress said. Her voice, too, was still lovely, and yet it grated. Roerich gave a small nod. The Empress floated closer. “And Detective Inspector Chen. What a surprise. You appear in the most unlikely places.”

  “One might say the same of you, Madam,” Chen said. There was the faintest flicker of anger across the Empress’ smooth countenance, like a distant bolt of lightning.

  “Empress,” Roerich told her. “You must relinquish control of the city. Even if you care nothing for its inhabitants, or for the people in the buildings below, you must be aware that if we crash, you are likely to return to the Sea of Night, where your prison is waiting for you.”

  “Oh, I know that,” the Empress said. “My son was very careful. And I am learning to be careful, too.”

  “Not fast enough,” Jhai said. “This thing’s already missed a couple of passenger aircraft and you damn near took out the upper story of my offices.”

  “And what do you propose to do about it?” the Empress said, still sweet. “The Enlightened Masters have been incarcerated — it proved very easy, once I’d freed myself. And with them taken, the city itself was willing to bow to my will. I suppose limitless compassion doesn’t really equip you for battle, does it? I wish I’d remembered that during all those insipid centuries.”

  “Power’s addictive,” Chen said. The Empress laughed.

  “Do you speak from experience, Detective?”

  “You must stand down,” Roerich repeated.

  “I don’t think so,” the Empress told him. “I’ve come too far to back down now. And what kind of existence would be waiting for me if I did? As you so kindly reminded me, the Sea of Night and that cursed boat? Oh no. If you’re not happy with the way things are, my enlightened friend, then why don’t you just leave?”

  She raised a hand. The city canted over on its side, sending Chen and the others sliding down the parapet toward the emptiness of its interior. Chen scrabbled for a handhold and succeeded only in clutching Jhai’s sleeve. They went down into air, falling through sudden light, and out of Agarta.

  The cold knocked the breath out of Chen’s lungs. He thought: Inari! as the cityscape of Singapore Three spun up underneath him. The lights were so bright: he could see the length of Shaopeng, all the avenues that led out in a wheel from the district of the Opera House. From this height, it looked remarkably like Hell. He couldn’t even muster the breath to scream. Turning in the air he saw Agarta hanging like an inverted chandelier above the bay — and then his vision went black as something came up fast beneath him and Chen hit solidity.

  “Are you all right?”

  It was Inari’s voice. Chen blinked. The sky swam. It didn’t make sense, that Inari should be speaking to him so urgently now.

  “Wei Chen!”

  Her face came into focus: the huge dark-red eyes, filled with fear and concern in the pale oval of her face. His head was thumping, a rhythmic beat like distant thunder. He must have been stunned — and yet there was no pain. It took him a moment to realize that the sound was coming from outside his own skull.

  “Jesus,” said Jhai’s voice. They were moving. With difficulty, Chen sat up and found something soft underneath his fingertips.

  “What the hell — ?”

  Immense wings rose up, fell, rose up, beating as smoothly through the sky as a spoon through cream. Bronze pinions caught the lights of the city and glittered into cold metal. From ahead, a chilly voice said, “I’ve been waiting for you to come back. Best that you keep your promises, this time.”

  FORTY-NINE

  A rushing, gushing magic that reminded Zhu Irzh of water filled his senses. A moment later and it was gone, sucked back into the portal behind them. Omi and the demon stepped out into a dank, dark place, smelling of earth and mold. Zhu Irzh looked a question at the young warrior, but Omi shook his head. They could hear the footsteps of the Khan and his general receding up ahead. Once more, they followed.

  After a short distance, the earthen floor and walls gave way to polished stone blocks. Whoever had built this place really knew how to construct a fortress, the demon thought: the blocks were massive, but fitted together so tightly that he could not have slid a razor blade between them. The smell of the place changed, too: soil and damp giving way to incense. Thin veils of smoke hung in the air and they did not come from the sconces of burning tallow that lit their way.

  This was familiar. He’d been somewhere very like this before, so many times that it had burned its way into the marrow of his bones. This was Hell, Zhu Irzh knew, and yet his magical senses still told him that he was on Earth. Perhaps this was a gateway, like the temples of Singapore Three. The presence of the portal suggested as such. He wondered, if they passed into Hell itself, which region they’d find themselves in.

  Omi interrupted his speculations, putting out a hand to halt the demon in his tracks. Ahead, the footsteps had stopped.

  “Ah!” the Khan said aloud. “So he has done my bidding after all.”

  “Did you think he would not?” The ifrit general had a rasping, rattling voice like a bird. Zhu Irzh could almost see the Khan’s grin.

  “Can never be sure, you see, when it comes to the mad. Who knows what they might choose to do?”

  The general laughed. “Who indeed?”

  The Khan should certainly know, Zhu Irzh reflected.

  “But it’s more the span of time,” the Khan mused. “The years pass by, messages sent back through time become warped and changed.”

  “What was the original request, Lord?”

  “Ah,” the Khan said again. “I asked him to build me an army. And as you see, he has.”

  Zhu Irzh heard them heading away, their voices dwindling. Something about “the river” and “taking care.” With another glance at Omi, the demon went after them.

  •

  He had seen some remarkable things on this particular trip, he thought, as he stared down from the parapet, but this really beat everything.

  “My God,” Omi breathed beside him. The demon turned to his companion.

  “I must have seen them a thousand times. In magazines, on TV. And yet they’re still extraordinary.”

  Under the flickering light of the sconces, the army spread out into the distances of the cavern. Archers knelt, with bows drawn. Cavalry officers sat upon stiff-legged horses, awaiting orders. Ahead, the infantry stood in rigid rows. In the torchlight, their faces looked more like flesh than terracotta, the red glow lending animation and life to clay features.

  The terracotta army, creation of the mad First Emperor Shi Huang Di. Buried for over a thousand years, Zhu Irzh recollected, discovered by a farmer in the 1970s who had been trying to dig a well. He’d found a lot more than he bargained for.

  It was hard not to feel as if the army was looking at him. There was something unnervingly human about the faces, each one with a slightly individual cast, as though humans had been changed to clay… The demon was struck by a disturbing suspicion, which he decided not to voice. Omi nudged him.

  “They’re over there.”

  They were standing on a narrow w
alkway, a raised earth bank which led two-thirds of the way around the perimeter of the cavern. At the far end of the chamber, the stocky figure of the Khan and the attenuated form of the ifrit general could be seen, making their way through an open iron door.

  Once Omi and the demon reached this point, the way ahead was not clear. The door led into a further sequence of passages, twisting and turning in so confusing a manner that Zhu Irzh began to wish he’d tied a bit of string to the entrance: if they got lost in here, they might never find their way out again. He whispered as much to Omi, who confessed that he’d had the same fear. “But I have been counting the turns.”

  “Where do you think he’s going?” Zhu Irzh hissed. “We’re a long way from the army now.”

  “How much do you know about this place?”

  “Not a lot. I know we’re in Xi’an, so that means we’re quite a long way from the desert. I’ve read a few articles on the subject.”

  “Well, it isn’t just the army that obsessed Shi Huang Di. He also had a huge mausoleum constructed for himself, in the shape of a map of China — with himself at the center, of course. In fact, it does bear some relation to the reality of the geography — we must be close to the middle of the country. The mausoleum’s never been found, but it was supposed to be filled with precious metals and rivers of mercury.” Omi hesitated. “He’s also supposed to have set a lot of traps in the entrance passages to the tomb — like the ancient Egyptians with their pyramids. Disease was among them.”

  Zhu Irzh was not tactless enough to say that this was more a problem for humans than demonkind, but he’d had run-ins with the Ministry of Epidemics before and he didn’t like the idea of a replay. “Maybe he hasn’t completed it yet,” he said, hopefully.

  They went on, by now unsure whether the Khan was ahead or not. Then the passage came to an end: a further open door. Once more the demon stepped out onto a parapet and he nearly gasped.

  “Precious metals” had been an understatement. The entire cavern glittered from floor to ceiling with gold and silver. Rubies winked red from the rolling ground beneath, denoting on the map the presence of Beijing, and the great centers of medieval China. A glistening river poured across the expanse to a silvery sea. At the center of this huge map sat a throne, and on the throne someone crouched, knotting his hands and laughing.

  “Mercury poisoning,” Omi whispered, as he and Zhu Irzh drew back against the sanctuary of the door. “Not very good for you.”

  Another considerable understatement, Zhu Irzh thought. He’d seen madmen before, but few so obviously demented as the creature who huddled on the throne.

  “Emperor!” thundered the Khan, and at once the giggling idiot became a stern-faced warlord, who rose from the throne and marched across China to where the Khan stood.

  “My lord, you are finally here! You see that I have done as you asked. The army is almost complete; all that is required is the animating spell and your clay warriors will rise up and go forth to fight for you. They will be invincible — my magician has imbued them with great strength, with lunatic courage; he has hardened their surfaces so that spears will glance from them!”

  “I suppose,” Omi whispered to the demon, “that he has no direct experience of mortar fire.”

  “They had gunpowder in these days, though,” Zhu Irzh whispered back. “After all, we invented it. Or rather, the Ministry of War did, and made sure humans got hold of it.”

  “Maybe his magician has been liaising with the Ministry of War,” Omi suggested.

  “Frankly, that’s all too probable.”

  Looking at the lunatic ahead of them, Zhu Irzh saw something familiar about him: the demon could not place the memory, but he was sure he’d encountered this man before, in Hell. Since they had traveled back in time, this was possible. But which of the Ministries had it been? Epidemics, or War? Zhu Irzh was fairly certain that it had not been Lust. Whatever the case, it suggested that Shi Huang Di’s spirit had not been reincarnated in human form but had remained in Hell, and that wasn’t a good sign. For anyone except perhaps the Khan.

  “So!” the Khan now boomed, all menacing jocularity. “My army! When can they be mobilized?”

  “Tonight!” Shi Huang Di’s face was lean and eager, alight with fanaticism. “My magician will arrive shortly, summoned from the far west. Then we will begin.”

  “I’ll call down the troops,” the Khan said. “We will be ready and waiting for our journey.”

  “We need to stop this,” Omi murmured to Zhu Irzh.

  Indeed, thought the demon, but how? Their main focus must be the magician, and to attack him, they would need to remain here, close to the army. He said as much to Omi and the young warrior nodded.

  “We ought to go back,” Omi added. As silently and swiftly as they could, they made their way back through the maze of passages, with Omi in the lead. To the demon’s surprise and relief, they soon stepped out into the cavern that contained the army. Lines of terracotta eyes stared into the flickering light and once again Zhu Irzh felt that these images might already be alive.

  Their concern now was to find a place to hide. They found this behind a row of barrels to one side of the chamber. There was no way of telling what these contained: the lids were nailed tightly shut. Zhu Irzh hoped they held something innocuous. Then, cramped, hungry, and nervous, they waited for Shi Huang Di’s magician to arrive.

  •

  Zhu Irzh had lost track of time. Despite the constricted conditions, he must have dozed, for he came awake with a start. Omi was crouched close by, his eyes intent and gleaming. He put out a warning hand as the demon shifted position.

  “Something’s happening.”

  Zhu Irzh heard voices, and footsteps. They were too far away to identify, but he thought one of them was the voice of the Khan. Then, suddenly, the cavern was filled with magic: the same rank sorcery that he had sensed throughout his dealings with the Khan. Had the Khan brought it with him from the past, or had he learned it along the way from people like Shi Huang Di’s magician? Zhu Irzh did not really want to know.

  “I can see him,” Omi whispered. “Come here.”

  Zhu Irzh moved closer so that he could see past Omi’s shoulder. The magician was standing in a small knot of people: Shi Huang Di and the Khan himself, while the ifrit general stood guard. Zhu Irzh could not see very clearly but the magician was old, stooped, wizened. He wore Qin dress and a thin white beard, but when he turned and the demon was able to catch a glimpse of his face, he saw that the magician’s countenance was as flat as a plate, his eyes hard little pebbles.

  “Uighur,” Omi said. “Or one of the western tribes.”

  “Are you ready?” That was the Khan, his voice booming out into the chamber. Zhu Irzh could not hear the magician’s reply but it must have been in the affirmative, for the Khan hissed, “Good!”

  The magician raised his arms, and Zhu Irzh felt a sudden surge of power beneath the ground, summoned up from the land around the cavern. Earth magic, and yet there was something wrong with it: it was not a pure earth current, but had something twisted and unnatural within it. And moreover, it lacked power. Whereas earth energy could be used for many ends, this felt flaccid, like a slack rope.

  “Not very good, is he?” Zhu Irzh whispered hopefully. But in the next moment, he realized what the Khan was about to do.

  There were five captives, perhaps representing each one of the elements. Four were men, and one was a woman.

  “Damn,” Zhu Irzh heard Omi murmur. The woman was Raksha. Her head was drooping, like those of the men, but when the magician turned his back she glanced up and he saw the sudden determination in her face. The shaman was neither drugged nor enspelled. Then the magician drew a circle of power around the five humans. It glowed in the air, a vivid, hectic scarlet. A second later, it was joined by another shade of red as the magician, without ceremony, slashed the throat of one of the captives. The man crumpled without a sound, his windpipe severed.

  “We’ve got to get
her out of there,” Omi said. He notched an arrow to his bow and raised it, angling to get a clear shot past the barrels, but the magician was behind Raksha, walking around the perimeter of the bloody circle and chanting. By now, power was humming through the chamber like an incoming tide, making the demon’s head swim. Then the magician moved beyond Raksha’s drooping form and Zhu Irzh hissed, “Now!”

  The arrow sang through the chamber just as the magician slit another captive’s throat. Omi’s aim was good. The bolt struck the magician in the chest, but it did not kill him. Magic sizzled through the magician’s body, lightning bright, earthing itself through the floor of the cavern and spreading out. Zhu Irzh felt it pass through the floor, quivering and alive. The Khan gave a great howl of rage. Raksha’s head snapped up.