All the Gates of Hell

by Richard Parks

  The thread led her down to Pepper Street and toward the familiar alleyway leading to the Gateway to All the Hells, but then it did something strange -- it went right past the alley. Jin frowned, but kept following. After a few yards the thread actually doubled back. Just when she reached the alleyway once again, the thread did the exact same thing except it went beyond the alley in the other direction before again doubling back.

  "What the blazes is going on here?" she asked aloud, to no one in particular. "It's almost as if..."

  Jin dismissed the thought at first, but when the thread again proved capricious and its true direction elusive, Jin had to consider her conclusions once more and she finished the thought. "It's almost as if whoever is on the other end of this thread knows I'm coming and doesn't want me to find them... but that doesn't make any sense!"

  It also wasn't going to work. Jin opened her Third Eye and followed the thread again, only this time she ignored the tangles, ignored the circuitous route, and looked beyond all that. If she were correct, then she knew where the thread was really going and the Third Eye verified it. Jin saw much more of the nothing underlying Medias than she really wanted to, but the thread itself, after numerous switchbacks, did indeed disappear down the corridor to the Gateway.

  Jin ignored the tangles and went straight down the corridor. In a few moments the thread resolved its contradictions and led her unerringly forward, while the tangles vanished behind them. Jin glanced behind her and saw them melt away. Before that, the pull she had felt made Jin think of the thread as an "infinitely elastic" cord, and that it simply compressed as it pulled her on. Now she saw the thread dissolving once she passed the place it had been but, in either case, it had to lead eventually to the right person.

  Assuming someone wants to escape, could they?

  Jin had her answer when she reached the Gateway to All the Hells. The cord led to one of the numerous doors, but did not pass through. Jin found it lying in a tangle on the ground and, like all the other tangles, it vanished when she stepped past it.

  "Guardians!"

  In a moment they were there. YES, IMMANENT ONE?

  "Who passed through this door a moment ago?"

  WE CANNOT SAY.

  Jin nodded. "Which only means one thing -- it was Shiro."

  WE DID NOT SAY SO.

  Jin smiled grimly. "No, you did not say so. I did. Where is Teacher? Back in the First Hell?"

  HE'S HERE.

  Jin blinked, then looked at where the three statues stood. Teacher leaned against the dais. He was barely recognizable at that distance and Jin couldn't tell if he was looking her way, but she was pretty sure that he was. She left the guardians and set out on a brisk walk toward the dais. Jin realized she hadn't been there in a while but, as she got closer, she also realized why. It wasn't that she had no real need or reason to go there; she was actively avoiding it. The sight of her own serenely smiling self was annoying in the extreme, and every time the Guan Yin That Was had managed to visit her Jin's reaction had just gotten worse. She tried to take that into account as she considered what to say to the King of the First Hell. What she had not and could not have taken into account was Teacher's first words to her.

  "I heard about Joyce. I'm sorry."

  Jin blinked. "I don't understand."

  Teacher looked a little wistful. "Which part? That I knew, or that I'm sorry?"

  "Why would you be sorry? Don't you deal with people like Joyce every day? It's just one more turn of the wheel, isn't it? She's reborn into Medias and gets another shot at whatever she didn't get the first time."

  Teacher shrugged. "Well, not automatically. It's possible for a person to make things worse and be sent to a lower hell. That's my call. Umm, that didn't happen, in case you were wondering."

  "I'm glad for that much. But I still don't understand why you say you're sorry."

  "I say it because it's true, Jin. I know what you're feeling, simply because that's the way humans feel when someone near to them dies. I'm expressing concern and sympathy like any other human would, because there's really nothing else I can do."

  "It's different for me. I saw Joyce after she died," Jin said. "Down in the Ninth Hell. I know she survived. I know death isn't the end."

  "I saw her too. The one doesn't change the other."

  Jin smiled a faint smile. "You're right, it doesn't." Jin leaned back, put her hands on top of the dais and hoisted herself up to sit there, her legs dangling over the sand. "I was following Shiro," she said.

  "I suppose you expect me to deny that it was Shiro?"

  Jin shrugged. "I wondered."

  "You're a smart girl, Jin, when you're thinking clearly. Who else in the known universe wants to be near you and yet lives in fear of you? Shiro. Who would flee Guan Yin in her aspect as Deliverer? Shiro. There was no other possibility, really."

  Jin took a deep breath. "Are you finally ready to help me, then?"

  "I've been trying to help you from day one, but if you mean 'am I going to risk interfering in what I don't understand,' then the answer is still 'no.'"

  "Then why were you here waiting for me? You were, weren't you?"

  "I told you that part already. Because of Joyce. Because it was the human thing to do. For what little it's worth."

  Jin thought about that for a moment and then nodded. "For what little it's worth: thank you."

  "You're welcome."

  "I do have a favor to ask, though. I want to talk for a minute. You don't have to say anything you feel you shouldn't, but I want you to listen to me. Will you do that?"

  Teacher glanced at his strange wristwatch again, checking each hand's position against the symbols of Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. "I'll be glad to, at least for a little while. Hell doesn't wait on anyone, and that includes me."

  "All right, then: Shiro, apparently against his will, has reached a point where he's vulnerable -- a strange use of the word -- to Guan Yin as Deliverer, and made a conscious decision to avoid me as surely as he avoids my demon form. Besides the ability to physically destroy him in my demon form, as Guan Yin I also have the power to send him on to you for his next judgment. Killing him I could do anytime provided I was willing to risk the consequences, but the fact that he broke the connection between us tells me that the state of 'being ready for deliverance' is not either on or off, as I had thought. Opportunities can be lost or, apparently, discarded. Why did Shiro discard his?"

  Teacher finally went off script. "I'm not going to tell you that, Jin. Not because I can't or won't, but because I don't have to. By now you know the answer, or you're an idiot. And you are not an idiot."

  Jin nodded. "He doesn't want transcendence. He wants me."

  Teacher grinned. "Duh."

  Jin smiled a grim smile. "Careful, Teacher. You're coming close to interfering."

  "Not a bit. It's not interfering to tell you what you already know," Teacher said, looking a little affronted. "Though, like most mortals, you don't always realize what you know. And I say that on good authority."

  Jin smiled. "Let's go with that for a moment. Guan Yin married a mortal. Why would she do that? It makes no sense until you realize that the answer is obvious. She did it for the same reason she does anything -- to release someone suffering from torment. And Shiro was and is suffering. It's a hell of his own make and design, but he's in it. He carries it with him wherever he goes."

  "Yes, but what she tried to do didn't work."

  Jin shook her head, slowly, and she grinned. "Nice try, Teacher. Sure, as a mortal it's very hard for me to take the long view, but it's safe to say the Guan Yin That Was did not have that problem. I no longer think this is 'Plan B' or anything of the sort. I think Guan Yin's original plan has not failed -- it's still going on, and we're in it."

  Teacher sighed. "Even if you're right, and let's, for the purpose of this delightful discussion, assume you are. So what? All this doesn't solve your problem."

  Jin smiled. "I didn't want to solve it, Teacher. I wanted to unders
tand what it was, and I think I do now."

  Teacher smiled. "Really? Would you put a wager on that?"

  Jin didn't even blink. "Name the stakes."

  Teacher just stared at her for several long moments, then shook his head. "No, I don't think I will take that bet. But I really would like to know."

  "My problem is this. Or rather, the question I have to answer: what can I can do for Shiro as Jin Lee Hannigan that I can not do as Guan Yin?"

  Teacher was silent for several seconds. "You'd have won, you know. I do not know the answer and wouldn't tell you if I did. I will tell you just one thing, though, for what little it might be worth: Shiro already believes he knows the answer, and I pray with everything I have that he's wrong. He believes that Guan Yin, as the mortal woman that you are now, can finally and truly love him the way he loves you. That he can 'fix' whatever went wrong the first time."

  "I felt something for Shiro that I'd never felt for any mortal man I've ever met. I thought it might be love. I was afraid it was. It wasn't, was it? It was the karma we share, he and my mortal self. You said that Guan Yin doesn't accumulate karma, but she was mortal then just as she's mortal now. But she's never going to love him the way he wants."

  "I hope that's true," Teacher said, looking thoughtful. "I'll even go so far as to say that I think it's extremely unlikely. Yet we're both mortal at the moment Jin, with all the hormones and confusion and delusions that naturally go with that state, so don't tell me it's impossible -- I know better and so do you. So, I think, does Shiro. He believes this is his chance, and he's not going to let go of it."

  "He damn well is; I'm going to make him let go."

  Just then Frank and Ling appeared in separate doorways of light.

  "Immanent One," Frank said, "we followed Shiro, but he proved elusive. We believe he came through here -- "

  He stopped, blinking in surprise, when both Teacher and Jin burst into laughter. Ling just shook her head, looking disgusted.

  "Mortals..."

  (())

  Chapter 22

  After Teacher returned to the First Hell, Ling and Frank remained behind. Jin, for her part, remained perched on the dais, looking thoughtful, for some time. She finally rose, stretched, and started to walk around on top of the dais among the statues of Guan Yin, Lung Nu, and Shan Cai.

  "Down to business, then," Jin said. "Do either of you have any idea where Shiro might be now?"

  "No," Ling said. "Even if we knew which hell corridor he went down originally, he wouldn't have had to come back the same way. These doors lead to all the hells, but they are not the only ones. He could be almost literally anywhere."

  "Could be, but isn't," Jin said. "He's never going to be very far from where I am."

  Ling nodded. "We know, and Frank and I have discussed this. We don't think we should leave you again. We move very quickly, but not infinitely so, and we can protect you better if we are with you. Now that..." Her voice trailed off.

  "Now that my mother and Joyce are gone, yes?" Jin said evenly. "You can say their names; I won't break. But what if your function here is not to protect me?"

  Ling and Frank glanced at each other. "We don't understand," Ling said

  Jin shrugged. "It's simple enough. You're assuming your function is to prevent me from being harmed. What if it isn't?"

  "But...what else? We serve Guan Yin, whatever her form. We would never allow you to come to harm willingly."

  "I believe you," Jin said, because it was the truth. "I also believe you'll intervene if you think I'm threatened. But what if it becomes necessary for me to put myself in harm's way?"

  "You mean deliberately?" Frank asked. "Why would that be necessary?"

  "I'm just saying 'what if?' What if I ordered you not to interfere with a course of action I've chosen?"

  "We would obey," Ling said. "Even..."

  "Even if you thought I was being a damn fool?"

  "Yes," Ling said evenly. "Even then."

  "Good, since before this is over I may have to do some very foolish things. Just so we understand one another."

  "Fine, but may we suggest that at least one of us stay with you while you send the other to search for Shiro?"

  Jin didn't say anything for a moment. She finally nodded at no one in particular. "That won't be necessary, since I know where he is." Jin held up her left wrist. "He's at the end of this golden cord. You see it, don't you?"

  "Yes, though it was a broken fragment a moment ago," Ling said.

  "I know. I just noticed the pull myself. Shall we?"

  Jin followed the newly reformed cord and Frank and Ling followed her, Frank a step to her left and Ling just behind her. Jin had the feeling that one would have walked in front of her if they could have figured out how to do so without getting in the way. She didn't know for certain that the new cord was leading her to Shiro; in fact after they had walked for some time Jin was pretty sure that it was not. The cord led her straight and true but, when they came to another door and passed through to a barren, rocky wasteland with a sun the color of burnished copper, the path remained straight and led them on in a direct line to whoever was on the other end of it.

  Not Shiro, but I'll wager he's not far away.

  The heat was terrible. There was no sign of water, or shade. There were no trees, no weeds, not even so much as a single blade of grass. No birds flew in the shimmering sky and, so far as Jin could see, she and her two companions were totally alone. After a few steps Jin put on her demon form to gain some relief from the sun, though neither Frank nor Ling seemed overly affected. Still, Ling nodded when she saw what Jin had done.

  "That was well done. I think we are in the realm of Hungry Ghosts; it is no place for a mortal of any sort."

  "A 'hungry ghost'? What's that?"

  Frank looked surprised, but then blushed. "Your pardon, I still forget sometimes."

  "That I don't know what I'm doing?" Jin asked sweetly.

  "That you do not know all that you know," Frank said. "A hungry ghost is usually a person who was overly covetous of food, drink, or possessions. They are reborn here with none of these things. They can find nothing to eat nor to drink, yet they cannot die since they are not really alive. They tend to become somewhat...desiccated and abnormal-looking. I think you'll find a prime example over there," Frank said, pointing near an outcrop of stone jutting out of the barren ground.

  For a moment Jin could not comprehend what she was seeing. What she'd taken for a tangle of debris near the base of the rock was moving. She got a little closer and saw that the debris vaguely resembled a human, but only vaguely. Its neck was thin and long, and tied into a large knot at the base of the skull. Its eyes were large and staring, it's limbs almost literally pencil thin and its body at once wrinkled yet bloated so that it was very difficult for its very weak limbs to move it about. Yet it was gamely trying, making slow progress around the rock in a sort of crawl, roll, and flop technique. The sound it made filled Jin with horror and pity.

  "Is it looking for shelter from the sun?" Jin asked.

  "And food and water," said Ling. "Well, anything, really. It won't find any, of course. There is none in this place."

  "Isn't there something we can do?"

  "Not that I'm aware of," Frank said. "Nor should we."

  "Should...? Can't you see it's in torment?"

  "It's in the Hell of Hungry Ghosts," said Ling, and she shrugged. "And it's here for a reason. Your tendency to mercy and your empathy for those who suffer does you credit, Jin, and as the mortal incarnation of Guan Yin it's entirely natural. Yet I must say those feelings are misplaced here."

  Jin held up her wrist. "Not entirely."

  Ling shrugged again. "I admit it is very strange to see that; only a demon is less likely than a hungry ghost to progress beyond its own hell."

  Jin shook her head. "It used to be human. Doesn't it know what happened to it? If such had happened to me I'd be going to any length to escape this place, including finding and correcting
my spiritual error. Why is it so difficult here?"

  Ling's smile wasn't pleasant. "A fair question that deserves an answer. You there!"

  The pitiful collection of rags and twisted limbs shuddered as if it had been struck. It moved its head and they could hear its joints popping and cracking like dried-out leather with the effort. The voice, though faint and whispery, was audible. "Who calls?"

  "I am Lung Nu, servant of Guan Shi Yin. My mistress wishes to speak to you."

  "What does she offer?" asked the hungry ghost.

  Offer? Jin frowned, and stepped forward. When the hungry ghost saw the demon approaching it shrank back against the stone. "I won't hurt you," she said. "I only want to ask why you are here."

  "Give me gold," the ghost said.

  "I don't have any," Jin said. "And what would you spend it on if I did have some and gave it to you? Do you see merchants? Wine shops? Inns? Restaurants? What is gold to you, so long as you remain in this place?"

  "Everything," the ghost said simply. "It would be everything to me. I would eat it. I would drink it. I want nothing else. There is nothing else. Give me gold!" The thing tried to crawl its way toward Jin, but there was too much distance to cover quickly in its crippled form. Even so, in that instant Ling was between Jin and the ghost in her full dragon form. She hissed and spat steam at the ghost, who cried out but did not retreat.

  "Dragon? Dragons have gold. Give it to me!"

  The creature frothed and snapped like a rabid animal, now trying to crawl roll flop its way over to Ling. Ling paid it no more heed than an ant. She reverted to human form and looked at Jin. "Now do you understand why this creature is here?"

  Jin nodded, feeling a little ill. "This is not the one. Let's keep going."

  "They're all like that," Frank said, when they were well past the first hungry ghost. "If it's not gold it's something else. The overwhelming desire is common to them all, and it consumes them as much as their eternal hunger and thirst. Still, even they are not beyond redemption. Or else why are we here?"