by Liz Williams
“I’m coming with you,” Inari said. For all her brave words about the badger, she did not want to be on her own until she was sure that this strange vessel meant no harm. She thought Miss Qi might protest, but after a moment’s pause the warrior said, “Very well. Be careful.”
Miss Qi hopped over onto the other deck and assisted Inari’s slower progress. The baby didn’t greatly impede her so far but she was still very conscious of its safety.
There was a scrambling at the rail and the badger joined them. Inari was glad of its presence, but not entirely happy about leaving the houseboat uninhabited. Standing on the deck of the strange vessel, she looked about her. There was a general air of decay, but it was slight, and yet the boat had moved with such purpose … Was it possible that the boat itself was alive? She’d heard of such things.
Then Miss Qi dropped to one knee, her bow drawn. Inari, not being a warrior, took a moment to register that a sound had come from the interior of the wheel-house. But no further movement occurred and Miss Qi stood.
“Someone’s inside.”
“Or something.”
With Inari close behind, Miss Qi strode to the wheel-house. She paused before the door for a second, listening, then kicked the door open. It opened easily, suggesting that it had not been locked. Ahead stretched a shadowy passage. Inari and Miss Qi glanced at one another and then, with the badger at their heels, went inside.
Whispers. And echoes, that sounded like snatches of old conversations, endlessly replayed. From what Inari could catch, they sounded trivial: gossipy murmurs, expressions of delight.
Miss Qi frowned. “Those sound like Celestial voices.”
“You said you thought this was a Celestial ship. Could they be—well, not ghosts, but similar?” If the ship’s crew had been abducted, or had to abandon the ship, maybe they’d left some trace of themselves behind. But these voices sounded more like ladies at lunch than the crew of a boat.
Then the sound came again, a scratchy shuffling. Miss Qi pointed to a door at the far end of the passage. Inari nodded and together they crept toward the door. Once more, Miss Qi flung it open, but here there was no empty hallway. A luxuriously appointed chamber lay within, smothered in heavy velvet draperies, the air thick with incense. Two glistening eyes looked out at them from a masklike face above a costume so opulent Inari wondered how the wearer could stand.
Miss Qi’s mouth dropped open. She said a single word: “Empress.”
13
It was not entirely dark inside the cave. At some point, someone had installed electricity and now a light gleamed high on the wall, not enough to fade the irreplaceable murals, but enough for tourists to be able to see them.
“These are beautiful,” Omi said. He stood, staring up at the girls and tigers and deer that danced and arched their way across the wall.
“They are akashi,” Raksha said. “A time when the world was one and deer and tigers were friends.”
“Has there ever been such a world?”
“There still is,” Raksha said. “The afterlife of my people. I’ve seen it once, but only for a little while.” She sounded wistful.
“But—you were dead, weren’t you?”
“Our killers sent us first to Hell, then trapped our souls in our bodies. We lay there like seeds, until someone gave us the power of movement again. Some of us are still there.”
“That is a terrible thing to do,” Omi said.
“It was the Khan who slew us and the Khan who brought us back.” Raksha looked as though she might spit. “I am tired of doing the Khan’s bidding.”
Omi couldn’t blame her. He studied the akashi, who looked more like the erotic sculptures from Indian carvings—all breasts and pointed toes and sly knowing eyes—than Buddhist nuns, before walking on.
In the next cave, Omi found himself confronted by a face: an immense, placid, golden visage. He recognized it.
“Buddha!”
“Yes. He’s the guardian of this place, so I understand. He’s kept it free of the Khan’s influence.”
“He is lord of all,” said a new voice, fluting and happy. A girl stepped out from the shadows surrounding the giant head. She wore diaphanous trousers and a short-sleeved silk top that left her jeweled midriff bare. Her long hair was piled on top of her head and decorated with scarves. Rubies winked in the light, decorating wrists and neck and ears. Smiling at Omi, she walked past him and put out a hand. Omi saw Raksha flinch, but she stood her ground.
“Like us, but not,” the akashi said. She smelled of unknown magic, Omi thought, something spicy and unfamiliar, like a dust in the air.
“We have not met,” Raksha said. “I am a cousin of yours.”
The akashi studied Raksha, with her head to one side. “You are a Tokarian, aren’t you? I thought you were all dead.” She looked a little closer: Omi got the impression that she was smelling Raksha. “Ah, I see you are. My commiserations.”
“I have recently been reanimated,” Raksha said. “By an old enemy, the Khan.”
A rumbling sound came from the giant head and Omi turned. The head was as before, quite peaceful. The akashi was frowning, but in the manner of someone who seeks to solve a problem. “Do you seek sanctuary here? You would be welcome.”
“I seek aid, but not sanctuary,” Raksha said. “I’m trying to take down the Khan.”
“Ambitious,” the akashi said. She turned to Omi. “And you. You are a Buddhist?”
“Yes. I am Japanese. I trained as a warrior. My grandfather was a Samurai, killed by the Khan. My mother raised me as a Buddhist, but I have a duty of vengeance.”
“Sometimes one must fight,” the akashi said.
“Sometimes, one must. Raksha has come here asking for help. Can you help us?”
“We are held here,” the akashi said, sighing. “All of us desert spirits are closely attached to place; we are woven into the landscape. We akashi are bound to this temple complex, for instance. We cannot leave it—we would wither and die. If we could be freed, we could act.”
“It’s the same for all of us,” Raksha said. “Including the Khan. You’re right. Except for you, Omi.”
Except for me, and someone from Hell.
“Is there a way of freeing you?” Omi asked. “It seems to me that your goals and those of the Khan are the same, but from opposite sides. He seeks warriors to do his bidding, and so do you, except that the warriors you need are yourselves.”
“Believe me, we’ve tried,” the akashi said. “This temple holds many archives—some of them were ransacked and stolen by people from the West over a hundred years ago now. But documents still remain and my sisters and I have spent years going through them in search of a spell, or anything that might liberate us. The only thing we’ve ever found is a mention of a charm, very far away.”
“Do you know where?” Omi asked.
“There is a map,” the akashi said. “It is not clear. Mice ate part of it. But I can show it to you, if you like.”
Omi agreed. He was not optimistic: it seemed to him that the constant shift and change of the desert over the centuries was not conducive to information remaining the same. With Raksha in close attendance, he followed the akashi down a ladder that traversed the length of the Buddha’s body. The statue was at least thirty feet high and Omi took a moment to admire its builders, their dedication in this lonely place.
The archive was housed in the back of the caves, via a passage which led through into a modern office. It was strange to see Raksha and the akashi in this contemporary setting and Omi, fearing tactlessness, was nonetheless compelled to say as much.
“Do the monks know you are here?”
The akashi smiled. “They know our likenesses adorn their walls—and even the t-shirts that they sell.”
“That wasn’t quite what I meant.”
“They may glimpse us out of the corners of their eyes, or in their dreams,” the akashi said. “But you know, these are holy men. Celibates. If they see us—well. The human m
ind is prone to conjuring fantasies. Especially—no disrespect—the male mind.”
“I see.”
“Our very nature hides us. Many years ago—more than two hundred—one of my sisters fell in love with a monk.” The akashi’s beautiful face betrayed sadness. “They ran away together. They did not get far. She was killed by the spell that binds us here and he pined away. Their bones lie hidden by the sand.”
“A tragic story,” Omi said.
“If you find a way to break this spell, Omi, you will not be the only one who is thankful for it,” the akashi said. She took a handful of scrolls out of a cabinet, the parchment so fragile and ancient that Omi feared they would disintegrate within the minute. The akashi unscrolled one of the documents onto the table as Omi and Raksha looked over her shoulder.
The temple complex was outlined in a series of small black boxes. There was also a hole and, spread out across the map, scratches which indicated the desert and its environs. Omi saw hills he did not know, and finally, at the bottom of the map, faint marks.
“Those are dunes,” the akashi said.
“How do you know?”
“A bird told us, on its way north.” The akashi’s face was sad. “They still come to speak to us, but there are fewer of them these days. The climate is changing, even in these lands.”
“If they are dunes,” Omi said, “they will almost certainly have altered over the years.”
“That is so. The charm is held here—” She pointed to a small indigo dot. “But the oasis this represents has been here for hundreds of years—many people know about it. There is a chance that it still remains.”
Raksha took Omi’s arm. “You can borrow my crane, if you wish. Faster than going on foot, and safer.”
He did not want to show her how afraid this idea made him. But she was right. “Thank you,” he said, swallowing. “I will.”
14
At night, the villa belonging to the Khan was substantially more sinister than it was by day. This cliché annoyed Zhu Irzh, who was hoping that he could use irritation to carry him through his nerves. If there was anything “sinister” around here, he thought, it ought to be him. All the same, he hesitated at the gate, trying to work out exactly what it was that had so disturbed him about this place. It wasn’t that image of the Khan, seated, roaring over his dinner of human flesh, that had got to him, but some quality of the Khan himself—reanimate or whatever he might be—a voraciousness that Zhu Irzh had rarely encountered, even in Hell, where spirits could afford to be more laid-back. After all, once you were already dead, a certain degree of urgency was lacking, whereas the Khan clung to life …
Better get on with it. Zhu Irzh spoke the words of the concealment mantra with which Roerich had provided him.
“It’s very old,” Roerich had said, “but not as old as the Khan, so he might know a way round it. I’m hoping he doesn’t. It’s a Buddhist spell, so be careful with it, given that you’re a demon.”
His instructions had been precise and meticulous, and Zhu Irzh, mindful of consequences, followed them to the letter. When the mantra had been spoken the requisite three times, he waited for a moment. He felt no different, but the air smelled of an unfamiliar magic. This was encouraging; so once more, the demon made his way down the path. This time, the front door was closed and Zhu Irzh could find no way to open it. It was very tempting to give up the entire idea, go back and tell Roerich that he’d been unsuccessful. But the demon found, to his considerable frustration and annoyance, that he was as incapable of letting Roerich down as he was with Chen.
Damn.
It would be easier to let Jhai down. She might not forgive him, but he knew she’d understand. It was other people’s disappointment that he had such a hard time with. When he got back to Singapore Three, Zhu Irzh told himself, he was going to get the number of a good demon psychiatrist and stick to therapy, even if it meant weekly visits back to Hell.
But he could see the newspaper headline now: Emperor’s Stepson Seeks Psychiatric Treatment for Attacks of Conscience. “I try to be evil,” Seneschal Zhu Irzh, aged 372, formerly of Bone Avenue, told this reporter. “But I keep suffering from attacks of sheer decency. My life’s a living—oh, wait.”
And imaginary press persecution notwithstanding, he knew he wouldn’t do it, any more than he’d sought therapy after leaving Hell and taking up a new life as Chen’s right hand. Time to grow up?
At this depressing thought, Zhu Irzh marched around to the back of the building, looking for another means of ingress. He finally found it in the form of what appeared to be a scullery window, which was closed but yielded to force when shoved.
The demon wasn’t remotely stout, but it was a tight squeeze all the same. He landed on the scullery floor some minutes later and looked around him. Nothing unusual. Rows of pots and plates were arranged along the shelves and the place smelled of mold. Zhu Irzh opened the door and saw a long, dark hallway, similar to the main hall of the house, but narrower.
The Khan was home. The demon could feel him. But he wasn’t sure whether the Khan could sense him in return: he hoped that Roerich’s spell was working. He hadn’t liked to ask Roerich if anyone had tried the spell before—if it was that old, then they almost certainly had. And had almost certainly failed.
Walking on, the demon heard a faint sound to his left. He paused, listening. It came again: a knocking. But the pastel wooden panels of the hallway seemed unbroken. Mice? No, it was too loud. Cautiously, Zhu Irzh rapped on one of the panels and was rewarded with another knock.
“Push the rose!” a voice said in accented Mandarin.
Zhu Irzh looked. The panels were decorated with plaster flowers, and one of them could have been a rose. He poked it with his finger and the panel slid to the side.
“Thanks!” said the voice. A young man stepped out into the passage. A Westerner, obviously so, even in the dim light. He wore gaiters and a cream-colored jacket, and sported a luxuriant moustache. He was, from his complexion and the stains on his jacket, also fairly obviously dead.
“You’re welcome,” the demon said. “What are you doing here?”
“One of the Khan’s guests,” the ghost said. He grimaced. “Was given the chance to move on, actually, but thought I’d best stay and find out what the old monster was up to. Told the rest of the chappies I’d join them later.”
“Chappies?”
“My regiment. Was with the—well, I don’t suppose it matters now. Ran into the Khan’s men outside Khokand. Nasty business. Most of them died. Some of us were brought here. Wasn’t too pleasant after that, but luckily I don’t remember much. And spying was my profession, you might say—all along the northeast frontier. So I thought I’d hang on, Queen and country and all that.”
“Quite,” said Zhu Irzh, who had only the faintest idea what the ghost was talking about. “And did you find anything?”
“Well, not all that much. Khan spends some of his time here, some of it in other places—Khokand, Khotan, out in the desert. Looks for victims, mainly. I’ve seen a good few folk come through these doors and I’m afraid very few of them have made it out again. You’re not human, are you?”
“No. Demon. From Mandarin Hell.”
“Yes, I’ve met a few of you chaps before. India was more my field of ops, though. Some funny buggers out there—four arms and all that. At least you’ve got the usual complement of limbs. Don’t get me wrong. Not unduly prejudiced against Johnny Foreigner. Known some damn fine fellows, in fact.”
“My name’s Zhu Irzh,” the demon said. Sometimes you had to be careful in giving people your name, but he had an instinct that in this case, it would be all right. “What were you doing in the wall?”
“Khan found me snooping about on his last visit. Normally I keep out of the way, but he lost his temper. Had me shut up there—this place is riddled with secret passages. I’d have found my way out eventually. Appreciate your help, though.” He held out his hand and Zhu Irzh took it. “Name’s Foyle. Rodney F
oyle. So, what are you doing here?”
“Same as you, more or less. Can I ask you something? You can see me, yes?”
“Clear as daylight, old boy. That’s a Buddhist spell you’re using, of course?”
“Yes. How did you know?”
“Spent some months in a monastery up in Lhasa. Pretty much converted. Didn’t tell the pater—he was very high church, you know, all bells and smells—kept it to myself. But they taught me magic. Don’t know that you’d be visible to anyone else.”
“I’m hoping not. I need to find the Khan. And not be visible.”
“Well,” Foyle said. “Let’s see what we can do.”
Ten minutes later they were standing outside the door of the dining room. Sounds came from within. Foyle frowned.
“Think he’s got another live one, from the sound of it. Don’t like it when that happens. Not cricket.”
“Not what? No, never mind. This is how he renews himself, isn’t it?”
“Yes. Revolting practice. Ran into a vampire up in the Torogurt Pass once, very similar sort of thing. But of course the Khan’s survived for such a long time, he’s very powerful.”
“How does he bring them in?”
“Lures them through dreams, or has his men scout for them. Don’t know how this one came in, on account of being shut up.”
Zhu Irzh was entertaining thoughts of rescuing the current unfortunate, but it might already be too late.
“If you’re hoping to hear anything revealing,” Foyle whispered, corroborating that hypothesis. “I wouldn’t bother. The Khan doesn’t engage in light conversation—none of this explaining to victims why they’re about to be slaughtered, or how he plans to do it. Just slits their throats and devours them.”
From the noises coming from the dining room, Foyle was right.
“You stand a better chance with the war room,” Foyle added.
“War room?”
“The Khan keeps a war room on the upper story of the villa. Like a library, but I’ve seen him planning strategy up there. Trouble is, Zhu Irzh, I can’t do anything physical—can’t turn pages or unfold maps. I have to go on what I hear or see. Damned inconvenient.”
