All the Gates of Hell

by Richard Parks

  Jin let her legs collapse under her and she sank to a sitting position on the sidewalk, her back supported by the lamppost. "That poor child...was in Hell?"

  "A hell, and I wish you'd grasp the distinction. A little pocket universe all her own so small it was contained within the passageway from this plane to mine."

  "She wasn't alone," Jin said, and described her meeting with the shadow after Rebecca had disappeared. "I touched it, too, before then, but I didn't get the same vision from it that I got from Rebecca. Just a swirl of images...I couldn't quite sort them out."

  "The attribute of your touch is that it tells you the true situation of a person who is ready to move on. For someone else, someone whose time in a particular hell was not finished, that vision will be either empty or misleading or simply irrelevant."

  "Misleading? You mean someone could lie that way?"

  "Not exactly. It's more that you'd see what the person believes to be true, which is not always the truth. Be careful -- fetching a spirit out of hell is more art than science. I'm guessing Rebecca had some sort of attachment to that thing she was carrying? Is that how you freed her?"

  "Yes," Jin said, because she knew it was true.

  "Well, there you go. You broke the link, removed the obstacle, the obsessive attachment that had her trapped."

  "So I basically take away what people want most? And they call me the Goddess of Mercy?"

  Teacher laughed. "Never confuse 'mercy' with 'kindness,' Jin. As for the shadow...."

  In another mood she might have taken some grim satisfaction in the obvious puzzlement on Teacher Johnson's face, but not now. Despite her annoyance with him, Jin realized she'd taken some comfort in the fact that someone seemed to know what was going on. That comfort was rapidly eroding.

  "It seems to know you. I might know what that means. I'll have to give the matter some thought," he said finally.

  Jin groaned. "That's what he said too. It seems there's a lot of question about what's going on around me, besides mine, I mean. I also turned into a demon for a little while," Jin said. She heard the casual tone in her voice, and wondered if it was there because the only other option was to start screaming. Oh, yes. By the way, I turned into a demon just now. Thought you'd want to know. Jin almost smiled.

  Teacher brightened. "Oh, that. He's called Da Shi in some cultures, Pulan Gong in others. Another attribute. You were frightened at the time, yes?"

  Jin nodded. "Terrified." She still was a bit, now that she thought about it.

  "Well, there you go. Some hells are worse than others and most are no place for a celestial lady, even if she is a bodhisattva. Thus, your demon form. You'll find that aspect quite useful at times, but I would learn to control it, if I were you. I'm guessing you scared the crap out of that little girl."

  "The shadow too," Jin said. "It hid from me when I was in that form." She finally managed to get back to her feet, though she felt a bit unsteady.

  "Hmmm," Teacher said again, but that was all.

  "There's something you're not telling me," Jin said.

  "Because I don't know. I suspect much, but I'd rather be silent than wrong in this case." He glanced at his watch. "I have to go now," he said. "I have an appointment."

  It was the first time Jin had been close enough to get a good look at Teacher's strange old watch. The first thing she realized was that it had four hands. The second was that, in place of numerals, it had the kanji for Earth, Fire, Water and Air at the 12, 3, 6 and 9 o'clock positions, respectively. Jin wondered for a moment what sort of time Teacher was reading. Then he was already walking away from her. Jin started to follow but her legs were still too wobbly to trust.

  "Wait! You know I have a million questions, don't you?"

  "I know I would, in your place, but I'm sorry to say that I don't have a million answers," Teacher called back over his shoulder.

  "How about just one -- what do I do now?"

  "Your job, of course. And about damn time, too. Have you any idea how crowded a hell can get?"

  In another moment Teacher vanished.

  (())

  Chapter 3

  In the next three days Jin began to fully comprehend that there was a big difference between "data" and "information." Data she had, in multitudes: books, web articles, magazines all devoted to Buddhism in its various aspects and traditions. There was quite a bit on the subject of Guan Yin or GuanShiYin or Kwan Yin or Kannon, as the names varied depending on the location or sect/tradition. A lot of it was orthodoxy of various stripes, much else was in the realm of folk traditions: stories, legends, rumors, parables. In all that vast disorderly pile, there was not one jot that told Jin how to be Guan Yin.

  So what did you expect, Jin? HOW TO BE A GODDESS IN FIVE EASY LESSONS?

  Worse, a lot of what she learned was contradictory: Hell existed, hell didn't exist. There were thousands of hells. There were exactly two. There was only one, and every different punishment was just a different section of it. You were kept in hell until your sins were atoned. You were kept in hell until you had learned the lesson you needed to move on. You were kept in hell forever. Guan Yin was male. Guan Yin was female. Guan Yin embodied the feminine aspect of divinity but was neither male nor female. Guan Yin didn't exist. The Avici Hell was permanent. Nothing was permanent.

  Jin sighed, and rubbed her eyes. She paused to adjust a teetering pile of books that was threatening to fall and crush her coffee cup, then turned once more to the open book in front of her. She tried to concentrate but the words were running together like a horde of centipedes. She glanced out the window of her apartment, saw a high full moon despite all the glare from the signs below the level of her tenth floor apartment. Jin put the books aside and went to bed.

  Jin dreamed and, for a change, knew that she dreamed. She recognized that nothing she saw was real, just as she knew that what had happened to her in the alley was real. In the dream Jin got out of bed and dressed warmly against the chill, then glanced once out the window. The moon was still there, though no higher in the sky than it had been when Jin went to bed. Because, of course, it wasn't the real moon, just part of the dream. The moon winked at her as she passed the window, as if she needed a reminder. Jin just smiled and went outside.

  The streets were empty. Jin looked around, not entirely sure what to expect. She knew that, even very late at night there was always some activity somewhere. Someone driving to a drug connection, a patrol car prowling, something. Not now. There was no one and nothing to be seen. The streetlights seemed to conceal more than they revealed, just little patches of light here and there along the streets, like the torches in the passageway to Hell that showed a section of the walls and hid the rest in darkness.

  NOT TO HELL.

  Oh, right. Her mistake. The passageway did not lead to hell; it led to the gateway which in turn lead to all the hells. It took a moment before Jin realized that someone else had supplied that answer, but she looked around and saw no one.

  "Who are you?" she asked aloud. "It's very rude to talk to a person when she can't see you."

  YOU MEAN IF I USED A PHONE IT WOULD BE DIFFERENT?

  "Well...sort of."

  ANSWER THE PHONE.

  Jin's cell phone rang. She didn't remember bringing it with her, but there it was, in the pocket of her jacket. Well, it was and it was not her phone. It looked something like her phone. It also looked quite a bit like the strange watch that she'd seen Teacher Johnson wear. Around the faceplate were the kanji for earth, air, fire, and water. The display said CALLER UNKNOWN. Jin pushed the button to talk. "Hello?"

  HOW'S THINGS?

  The voice was familiar, but she didn't recognize it. "Tell me who you are, and I'll tell you how it is."

  I'M YOU, SILLY.

  Oh, right. Jin thought that, perhaps, she should have seen that one coming. It was, after all, a dream. "I'm confused and angry and scared shitless, that's how things are!"

  DON'T BLAME YOU. BUT YOU HAVE TO GET OVER ALL THAT AND DO WHAT Y
OU HAVE TO DO. AND DON'T ASK ME "HOW." YOU'RE ON YOUR OWN. THAT WAS RATHER THE POINT.

  Jin sighed. She didn't know why she had halfway expected the dream Jin to understand any better than she herself did awake.

  "You're no help." Jin reached for the button to end the call.

  NOT SO FAST, LUV. I HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY.

  Jin hesitated. "Well?"

  YOU NEED TO COME TALK TO ME. THAT'S WHY YOU'RE DREAMING.

  "I am talking to you!"

  IN PERSON...OR AS CLOSE AS WE CAN MANAGE, CONSIDERING THE METAPHYSICAL IMPLICATIONS. SOME THINGS AREN'T SAFE TO SAY OUT IN THE OPEN, SO COME MEET ME. AND DON'T ASK "WHERE" EITHER. YOU KNOW VERY WELL. DO YOU REALLY WANT TO SORT ALL THIS OUT?

  "You know I do! Are you really going to tell me what's going on?"

  IF YOU WANT TO KNOW THE ANSWER TO THAT YOU'LL HAVE TO COME SEE ME, WON'T YOU?

  Jin got the "disconnected" message, then the display went back to idle. The kanji for fire and air, however, were glowing red. Jin didn't know what that meant, but she knew where the meeting was to be. Jin found the Pepper Street of her dream and headed down it as if she were going to work in the middle of the night, in the middle of the dream. She crossed over and entered the alley.

  This time the alley didn't even bother pretending it was an alley. The bricks disappeared immediately, and Jin made her way down the passage she remembered from three days ago. She paused to look at the niche carvings, trying to decide if they looked exactly the way she remembered them because they were actually there, or just because, well, that was the way she remembered them. Then she firmly reminded herself that it was a dream and got back to walking, because she had things to do and the night wasn't going to last forever.

  She came to the door at the end of the passage, and it was shut this time. Jin didn't bother with the lock, she just walked right through it as if it wasn't there, just as she'd fallen through it before. It felt strange, even in a dream, to simply walk through a door, to feel the wood part and flow around her. The two guardians were waiting for her. Still massive, still stone, but now they watched her as Jin passed by. Fierce as they were, they didn't seem at all threatening. Jin stopped, and thought for a moment. It occurred to her that there was a question she wanted to ask, and now seemed like the time.

  "Excuse me, but do you always stand at the doorway leading to Pepper Street?"

  "Of course not," said the gigantic scowling warrior on her right. "We stand where we must to guard the way." His voice was coarse and grating, like stone on stone.

  "What way is that?" Jin asked.

  "Whichever way is the direction required," replied the demon figure on the left. "Guan Yin opens the way to a Hell and the barriers are weakened for a time. We must be certain that no one gets out save the one who gets out."

  "Ummm...isn't the one who gets out by definition the one who gets out?" Jin asked, confused.

  "What my addled companion meant to say," interrupted the warrior, "is that only those brought out of hell by Your Immanence."

  "That's it," replied the demon. "Exactly."

  "But you're made of stone. To do any of that don't you have to, well, move?"

  They laughed together with a sound like rockslides. "Mistress is surely joking! We are not the statues," the warrior said.

  "The statue is a symbol of our presence on the corporeal plane. Our existence and our power both are pure spirit," the demon added.

  "We had heard your Immanence was...confused. We are sad to see that this is so," said the warrior. "We hope that you will feel better soon."

  "Oh. Thank you." Jin left them then, unsure as to whether she had learned anything or not. It was a dream. Nothing was real. Or maybe all of it. She hadn't made up her mind yet.

  "We haven't got all night, Jin. Morning's on its way."

  Jin recognized the voice. She approached the dais with the statue of Guan Yin and her attendants. The braziers, the golden statue itself, everything was as she remembered. "It's you, isn't it? So it's true? I'm the mortal incarnation of a bodhisattva?"

  "You've been studying," the statue said. It wasn't a question. "A bit of advice, though -- don't try to reconcile what you've been reading with you have experienced and are about to experience. Nothing fits in neat categories. Take us, for example: We're either the female form of an early male Buddhist deity from India, or the daughter of a Chinese nobleman who achieved Enlightenment through strength of character, or a native Chinese goddess who was hijacked into the Buddhist cosmos like the goddess Brigid in Ireland was turned into St. Bridget by the missionaries. Which story is the true one?"

  "I don't know. Which?"

  The image of Guan Yin smiled. "All of them, of course. Don't confuse the path with the destination. Clear?"

  "As crystal mud," Jin said. "Bodhisattvas, gods, demons, avatars... It's hopeless! I'll never get all the rules straight in one lifetime!"

  "This isn't about rules."

  Jin put her hands on her hips. "Then what the hell is it all about? What's the secret?"

  The Guan Yin That Was sighed. "You really want to know? Then I'll tell you: all living things come from the same place. We're all part of the same thing. And every single one of us, whether we realize it or not, whether it takes one lifetime or thousands, is just trying to get home."

  Jin's jaw dropped. After a moment she closed her mouth, feeling foolish. "That's it?"

  The statue nodded affably. "All the sects, cults, religions... all the theological squabbling, all the syncretic mish-moshes of gods and goddesses and demons, of buddhas and bodhisattvas. That's all it is, Jin. There ain't no more."

  "Time for a reality check then--the nature of a bodhisattva is that he or she is an Enlightened Being, one who makes a conscious decision to forego Transcendence in order to remain of the world and help others along the path, yes?"

  "More or less. What's your point?"

  "My point is that, if I really were an Enlightened Being, I'd understand all of this already! Teacher Johnson is another Bodhisattva incarnation but apparently understands his nature. I don't. I free someone, I'm still just Jin Hannigan. I become a demon when startled, but I'm still just Jin Hannigan!"

  "That's true -- We are Jin Hannigan. I incarnated to be Jin Hannigan. We're also Guan Yin. See, I did this to us on purpose, if you hadn't figured that out already. I incarnated without my memory. That's why I brought you here to talk about."

  Jin sighed. "Finally. Answers."

  "Actually, no. A warning -- stay away from the shadow. Now that he knows we've incarnated as a mortal he'll know where to find you. That was unfortunate but it can't be helped now. Karma has its own rules, as we should know."

  "Why should I be afraid of him? When it came time to get serious I sent him packing! I bet I can do it again."

  "And again and again and again for eternity? You don't understand," the image of Guan Yin said. "The problem with Shiro is you can't beat him—he has to beat himself."

  "You're right, I don't understand," Jin agreed. "Explain, please."

  "No," said the image of Guan Yin.

  Jin's mouth dropped open for a second or two and it was a moment before she could trust herself to speak.

  "What do you mean, 'no'?! You know the answer, don't you?"

  "Of course I do, but you don't, and I'm sad to say, that's very important right now. If I told you how to defeat him, then you won't be able to do so."

  "This doesn't make any sense! What if I just walk away? Did you even consider that?"

  The image of Guan Yin shrugged her golden shoulders. In the distance Jin heard a stalactite fall. "You did walk away, Jin. For twenty years. You were Jin Lee Hannigan and that's all for those twenty years, but now you hear the voices, see the visions, and Shiro knows who you are. Try dealing with all that on your own or running away from it and I promise you either path will tear you apart."

  Jin sat down on the dais and put her head in her hands. "You're as bad as Teacher."

  "I don't suppose he gave you the
'Mercy isn't the same as Kindness' speech?"

  Jin sighed. "As a matter of fact -- he did."

  "He wasn't wrong. He seldom is. Though when it does happen, it's a beaut."

  A shimmer passed through the cavern. Jin thought it was a flash of light for a moment, but then realized that the entire structure of the cavern had wavered for a moment, becoming less substantial. The image of Guan Yin sighed.

  "You're almost out of time, Jin. If you've got any questions that I can answer, you'd better ask them now. Breaking the veil between Guan Yin as you were and will be and Guan Yin as you are now is tricky and dangerous, and I don't plan to do it very often."

  "Why do you sound like me? I don't mean the voice, I mean the mannerism and slang. Seems out of place for a goddess."

  "I'm speaking in my normal voice, Jin. I have no idea how you're hearing it, though I'd guess in a form and manner that you understand. Ask me something that matters."

  "This is the Gateway to all the Hells, yes?"

  "Yes."

  "Then why does one of them lead directly to Medias?"

  "Unless you're dumber than I think you are, you already know the answer."

  "I was born...I live..." Jin couldn't quite finish.

  "Scary, huh? It should be, but don't feel alone. On this side of Enlightenment, everyone lives in one Hell or another. There are places you'd consider Heaven, compared to Medias, that are no less a Hell than the deepest pit of all, and the people who dwell there are born and die and are reborn there just as the people in any of the other hells. Rewards can trap as surely as punishments. The trick is to learn the lesson you need to learn and move on."

  "That's where I come in?"

  "That's where you come in."

  "But I don't know what to do! Dammit, I need help!"

  The image reached out her golden hands and patted the heads of her two attendants, the young girl and the youth. "I thought of that. Do you know who these are?"