"But I don't remember releasing that old woman. And if I'm the only one who can..."
"You don't remember releasing her," Ling said. "That doesn't mean that you didn't. The fact that she's here at this particular now and not in some age long gone "now" doesn't mean she was released recently. She took her own path here, as everyone must. If you went and touched her, you'd remember."
Jin thought of racing ahead and placing a hand on the old woman just to see if she would remember being the Guan Yin That Was as well, but she knew the visions didn't work that way. They would be about the old woman, not her redeemer.
"Fine. So where are the animals?" Jin asked. "I released my own cat, Missus Tickles, back before I even knew who I was. If that's so, then why isn't she here, or some other?"
"Humans are at an advantage in this," Ling said. "The greater the sentience, the more possibility of understanding error. Animals do move on, as you discovered, since all living things share this burden. That doesn't mean it's common. I believe the fact that Missus Tickles did appear here was Teacher's final proof that you were who he thought you were."
"She gave me away, huh? I wondered about that. Do... do you know what happened to her?"
"Missus Tickles? She was reborn in a different hell, of course. As a human this time. Progress," Frank said.
"I know some cat lovers who would dispute that point," Jin said dryly.
"I would dispute that point as well," Ling said. "Before my Enlightenment, there were those who argued that a woman could not, in fact, achieve Enlightenment. That I was a dragon besides and not human at all was doubly astonishing to them."
"Grrl power," Jin said, smiling.
Ling flexed her arms, grinning. "Indeed."
Frank just shook his head. "I look forward to the day when we can shed these corporeal forms again. Having a body makes one silly."
Jin smiled. "There are advantages. Though when I'm trudging up some infernal corridor or path trying to get somewhere I need to be, it's hard to remember what those advantages might be." Jin stopped a moment to rest on a large stone. "How much farther?"
Frank studied the path ahead. "Fifteen steps."
Jin looked up the mountain path as it meandered upward.
"More like fifteen miles."
"Appearances deceive. In hell, doubly so. Please count."
Jin rubbed her aching legs and then stood up again. "All right. One," she said as they took a step together.
"Two," said Ling.
"Three," said Frank, and by the time they all called "Fifteen!" they stood at a massive door of bronze, silver, and gold.
"On the nose," Jin said. "Nice job."
"Oh, he can count," Ling said. "I'm so impressed."
Jin sighed. "Don't start, you two. Where is Madame Meng?"
"Inside," Frank said. "But this is as far as Ling and I can go."
Jin blinked. "You're not coming? Why?"
"It's hard to explain," Ling said. "You could say it's outside our jurisdiction."
"Then... isn't it outside of mine as well?"
"You are Guan Yin." Frank said, as if that explained everything. Not that Jin was particularly worried about going in alone; in fact she much preferred a private audience with this Madame Meng, whoever she might be. Yet it was just one more reminder of how much she had yet to understand. She was hoping that Madame Meng could help with that.
"Wait for me, then. I'll be right back," Jin said, though at the moment she had no idea if that was true or not. Jin opened the door.
(())
Chapter 14
It's just like Grand Central Station!
Jin had only been to New York's Grand Central Station once, but the similarities with Madame Meng's domain were remarkable. Jin stood in one vast central space ringed by numerous doors disgorging people. There were high windows of colored glass that let the sun in, and everywhere was the bustle of people trying to get from one place to another. Everyone seemed to know where they were going except for Jin.
She stood just inside the doorway for a moment, then moved to one side as more people came through while she continued to study all the activity for a time. Soon Jin was able to make out patterns: when people first arrived, they all moved toward what looked like a vast waiting room off to the left, only no one waited there for very long. After a fairly short while they milled back into the main section, looking somewhat confused but still moving with purpose toward a huge open doorway on the far side of the central chamber opposite Jin. In time Jin began to think that the comparison with Grand Central Station wasn't totally accurate. In many ways it was more like the Gateway to All the Hells, except people were coming in through different doors and all leaving by the same one.
Jin left the wall where she had been watching everything and found one of the new arrivals, a rather depressed-looking old man. "Excuse me, do you know where Madame Meng is?"
"Here, of course," the man said and kept walking.
That wasn't very helpful, but it seemed to be all the help Jin was going to get. All the depressed-looking people said more or less the same thing with slight variations, and all the confused looking people just said, "Who?"
The Terrace of Oblivion, Jin thought. If I were double-jointed, I'd kick myself.
Jin had thought of the Terrace of Oblivion as a metaphor, but she thought now that, perhaps, that was an error. She fell in with the people heading out toward what she'd first thought was the waiting area. They shuffled through great open doors, far larger than that those of an aircraft hanger, and out onto a vast balcony of marble and granite. In the distance Jin could see another mountain, much like the one where her path from the Gateway to All the Hells emerged, and there were so many bridges spanning the gulf from that side to this one that Jin was a little amazed that she hadn't noticed them at first. That aside, the view, as it was from the other side of the mountain, was simply breath-taking. Jin even noticed waterfalls on the opposite side, fed, she assumed, by high mountain lakes and rainfall. They emerged through fissures in the rock to fall in long white plumes toward the valley below, creating permanent rainbows in their wakes.
Jin thought of the central hub where the people had been going after visiting the balcony; she wondered if, perhaps, it was a stairway down to the Tenth Hell. Maybe the valley below was the Tenth Hell.
A large group of men and women shuffled past Jin, and something about them got her attention. Or rather, something missing: voices. The place was filled with people and no one was talking to each other. Even the people who moved in groups seemed to do so more from some sort of unconscious flocking instinct than any real interest in each other's company. They were simply bodies moving from one place to another as if by stage direction: go there. Stand here for a moment, then go over there.
There were multi-level fountains that looked like stacked marble mushrooms, and this was the "there" where most people were headed. They would walk up, take a ladle from the basin, and drink. Some seemed to drink eagerly, some drank looking resigned, and others still looked angry and sullen. Yet once they had drunk, all assumed the slightly bewildered look that Jin had noticed in the main hall. Then they would shuffled back into the main hall and proceed toward the central hub and its huge black doors.
All but one. She stood with her hands on the balcony railing. Her hair was long and pure white, her hands spotted and wrinkled with age. She did not drink. She did not speak. She simply looked out over the valley toward the far mountain. Jin approached, hesitantly.
"Excuse me... are you Madame Ming?"
The woman turned then. Jin's impression of age was not mistaken; the woman was ancient, her face lined and care-worn. Yet she stood straight and there was a dignity about her that made Jin feel more than a little awkward.
"Guan Shi Yin. It is you, isn't it? Let me look at you, girl."
The old woman frowned, then sniffed the air. Jin thought for a moment that maybe she needed a shower, but the old woman was smiling. "Real living flesh. Impressive. I'm s
urprised you made it here intact. Everyone else is dead, you know."
Jin did, in fact, know that, but the blunt way the old woman said it rather startled her. "Ahh, excuse me, you are Madame Meng, aren't you?"
"That I am. Sorry to go on so. Rude of me, but of course you didn't recognize me and I should have realized. It would make no sense at all if you did. Not even a bit. How have you been?"
Jin, confused, just stammered out the conventional reply. "Uh, fine. And you?"
"The same. Always the same." She was looking back at the far mountain again, and Jin joined her at the rail.
"Beautiful, isn't it?" Madame Meng asked after a short while.
"It's incredible," Jin said. "Though most of the people who come here don't seem to appreciate it. Frank... I mean, Shan Cai and Lung Nu said it was because they were dreading what was about to happen to them."
"I'm sure that's part of it," Madame Meng said, "but this is my realm, and I have my own theory."
"May I ask what that is?"
"They're dead, Immanent One. It's not that dying removes your sense of esthetics; I simply believe your priorities change. Now, take us by contrast -- we're alive. This sight means something to us. I've been here for longer than most glacial epochs and I never get tired of it. Which is fortunate, else I think I would go mad."
Jin wondered if she should say something, but Madame Meng didn't seem to expect it. Jin waited for her to say something else, but she didn't do that either. She simply leaned against the rail, looking out, just as she was when Jin found her.
"Listen, I hope you don't mind my asking -- "
"Not at all, and the answer is 'yes,'" Madame Meng said, not even waiting for Jin to finish the question. "Your divine self came to me to be reborn on the Wheel of Life and Death. That is what you came to ask, isn't it? Once your mortal incarnation found out that I and this place existed?"
Jin just stared at her for a moment, then blushed. "Well...yes."
Madame Meng just sighed. "I thought as much. You don't remember any of that, of course. Your choice. How I envy you that."
"You envy me? Why?"
The old woman smiled. "Well, not you as such, Guan Yin. Your responsibilities are grave and, despite my complaints, I would not wish to trade mine for yours. Just the 'forgetting' part. I wish I could do that."
"I don't understand."
Madame Meng looked back into the distance. "The nature of my responsibilities is that I must remain here, brewing the Elixir of Oblivion. It's my gift, you see. Or curse. It has to be done, and only I can do it. I have been doing it for a very long time, and I remember everything. One day, one time, one 'now' pretty much like another, and I think what a joy it must be to forget the journey, the path ahead and behind and all that has gone before."
"Like the people who come through here?" Jin asked.
Madame Meng nodded toward the confused-looking men and women shuffling out on their way to the Tenth Hell to be reborn. "Yes, and that's the true rebirth, not the taking on of crude flesh one more time -- the rebirth of the spirit. To start over fresh, your sins and errors all forgotten, to see the world with new eyes..." Madame Meng closed hers for a moment as if trying to imagine it. She finally shook her head, and opened her eyes once more. "I'm supposed to be beyond all that now, yet sometimes I think it would be worth all that I am to forget, just once." She smiled at Jin then. "Forgive my rambling. I get so few visitors. Or rather too many, but none of them are much for conversation. I gather conversation is what you had in mind? Answers?"
"Yes... I was hoping you would help me."
Madame Meng leaned over and patted Jin's hand in a grandmotherly fashion. "Let's have some tea and talk about it." She turned away from the railing. "It's not good for me to stare out like this for too long anyway. I start to believe I can fly, like those silly cranes who are always flittering around out there."
Jin followed the old woman to one side of the balcony, where a small door of iron-bound wood appeared. At least, Jin was pretty sure the door had suddenly appeared, since she was certain that it had not been there a few moments ago. They went up a spiral iron staircase into what looked like the den of a very comfortable apartment. While Madame Meng put the kettle on in the adjoining kitchen, Jin looked around.
There was an overall vaguely Eastern theme to the decor but, except for the lack of electronics the, place didn't seem much different than any other modern apartment. There was an overstuffed red sofa and chair, a small iron table and chairs by a big bay window. There were a few books, but they all seemed to be in Chinese.
"Nice apartment," Jin said as Madame Meng emerged from the kitchen.
"I must say I do prefer the current manifestation," Madame Meng said, smiling. "There was a time it was little more than one drafty room with a central hearth. Amazing how the perception of progress sometimes leads to the real thing. Please. Sit." The old woman lowered herself into the chair and Jin sat down on the couch.
"So," Madame Meng said, "what do you want to know?"
Jin thought about it for a moment. "First, I want to know if I... if the Guan Shi Yin who came to you, I mean, expected me to turn up?"
Madame Meng laughed. "Oh, child, it does get torturous, doesn't it? To be you and yet not 'you' at all." She looked thoughtful. "What do you call yourself now?"
"Jin. Jin Lee Hannigan."
"Well then, Jin Lee Hannigan, I have to tell you that the answer to that is also 'yes.' Guan Yin considered the possibility that you would find out about me and the Terrace of Oblivion."
Jin felt her hopes sink. "Damn...pardon my language, Madame Meng, but I hoped your answer would different. She forbade the Guardians to show me the way, so I thought 'maybe if I find another way..'"
"You're a clever one, incarnated or no," Madame Meng said. "And I must admit there's more than a little entertainment value watching you trying to outsmart yourself. I have so few diversions here." She apparently noticed the stricken look on Jin's face and patted her hand again. "Oh, don't look that way. Things aren't so bad as you fear. They may actually be worse."
"That's not exactly comforting," Jin said.
"Did you come to me for comfort? I thought you came here to find out the truth. While I don't claim to know it all, I believe I can give you a piece of it."
Jin frowned. "But you said -- "
"That Guan Yin had anticipated the arrival of her mortal incarnation here, and so you did. You're assuming that I promised not to reveal your own intentions to you."
"Well... didn't you?"
Madame Meng chuckled. "Oh, not at all, because you did not confide in me. Not that it would have made an ounce of difference -- you simply asked me as a friend for the gift of oblivion and I gave it to you. Do you think me such a poor sort of friend that I would turn about and take it away?"
Jin slumped back against the couch, defeated. "Then I'm wasting your time...or whatever it amounts to. I'll go now -- "
The tea kettle started whistling, and Madame Meng shook her head as she got up to attend to it. "Nonsense. Stay and have a cup of tea. We'll talk."
Jin wanted to make her excuses and go, but the sofa was comfortable and she was suddenly very tired. Getting up and going back outside seemed altogether too much bother, even for another glimpse of the wonders of the Ninth Hell.
"Do you take lemon or milk?" asked Madame Meng from the kitchen.
"Neither. Just a little sugar if you have it," Jin said absently.
"I have everything I want or need," Madame Meng said, as she emerged from the kitchen bearing a tray with a tea service and what looked like small cakes with chocolate and white icing. "Save the freedom to leave, other than for very short periods. It goes with the position. Let's take our refreshment by the window, shall we?"
Jin got up, feeling brittle and old, and trudged behind Madame Meng to the ironwork table by the window. Madame Meng set down the tray and went to pull open the curtains while Jin chose a seat and fell into it.
"You must be tired," Mad
ame Meng said. "One of those limits of the flesh we have to deal with."
What Madame Meng said now and before on the terrace finally registered. "Are you incarnate too? Like me?" Jin asked.
"Since the day I was last born... I think you'd call it Han Dynasty China."
"But...aren't you a Bodhisattva?"
Madame Meng seemed to be having a bit of difficulty getting the curtains open. "No, just a very old woman." She glanced back at Jin. "That surprises you, doesn't it?"
"Well...yes."
Madame Meng nodded. "I wasn't the first to say this, but it's true: Never be good at something you don't want to have to do. The sad fact is, in order for the Ninth Hell to function, my elixir is required. I was a mortal woman but the only person with the skill to make that elixir. So..." She shrugged. "One bite of the Peach of Immortality and here I am -- immortal and in demand, but no more 'enlightened' than a tree stump. It's rather like one who maintains the path but can't walk on it. You might think of it as job security."
"I know you said you wouldn't trade," Jin said, "but I think you have a very difficult job."
Madame Meng smiled, then shrugged. "Sweet of you to say, but I'm suited for it, and that's the truth. I couldn't do what you do. But then you can't do what I do, either. Best for both of us that things worked out the way they did, yes?"
She finally got the curtains unsnarled and pulled them aside. Jin was reaching for a cake when she got her first good look at what lay beyond the window.
"Holy crap."
Madame Meng sat down and began to pour the tea. "That's a rather colorful way of describing it."
Jin had expected the window to show the same mountain view she'd seen on the way up. By her reckoning it pointed in the same direction, but the view was very, very different. Jin looked out over a blighted landscape, marred by smoking pits and lava flows. Demons were hard at work grabbing screaming, writhing people and dumping them headfirst into what looked like, and probably were, cauldrons of molten lead. Jin wondered dully if any of them were the unfortunate person that the Keeper of the Names was gathering the records for back in the First Hell. Madame Meng seemed to sense her thought.
All the Gates of Hell Page 14
