by Liz Williams
“Sorry, love, but the alert came a few weeks ago that this was on the cards, hence the build up. Heaven’s planning to strike at the very heart of Hell. Way I heard it, they’re sick of dealing with humanity, don’t want to dirty their precious celestial hands any more with nasty demons either, so they’re going to destroy Hell and let the humans stew No offence, Miss. I can see you’re one of them but I know you’re just a grunt, like me.”
Miss Qi appeared too stunned to speak. Chen had a hard time believing this as well, but it tied in rather too neatly with what he had recently learned about Heaven’s changing policies.
“But if Hell goes,” Zhu Irzh said, “and I have got family here, even if I despise them, and a home, even if I hate it, quite apart from all that—what happens to humans who die?”
“They won’t,” Jhai said. “They’ll either not die at all—which isn’t great news, given how fast the population of Earth is increasing, or they’ll have to convert to some other religion which, one presumes, won’t be affected by this, or they’ll die and just shuffle about like zombies. Whatever happens, it’ll cause havoc. You’ll get people converting the other way, because they’ve got terminal bloody cancer and they don’t want to end up in the Christian Hell, or the Hindu one or whatever.”
“I just can’t believe Heaven could do this,” Miss Qi said. Her modest friendliness had now entirely disappeared and along with it her traumatised aloofness of the previous day. She looked as close to tears as Chen had seen her.
“Unfortunately,” Chen said, “I do. The son of the Celestial Emperor’s a personal friend, not that I like to namedrop, and he’s not all that happy with the way things have been going. Neither is Kuan Yin.”
“It’s the Emperor’s say-so, though, isn’t it?” Jhai said. “Heaven’s a dictatorship. A benevolent one, but still a dictatorship. What the Emperor says, goes.”
“But that’s dreadful,” Miss Qi said.
“If you’re starting to consider the Lesser Lord’s job offer, I’d go for it,” Jhai said. She looked appraisingly at Miss Qi. “If you don’t like the idea of living in Hell, I could offer you work as a bodyguard. Frankly, the idea’s beginning to grow on me.”
“I—I don’t know,” Miss Qi said. “I’ve never thought of living anywhere other than Heaven, or doing any other kind of work.”
“Decent pension? Not that it’ll worry you, you’re an immortal. I could find you a really nice apartment, great pay …”
“Do you think,” Chen said, “That you might want to wait until we actually survive before you start debating terms of employment?”
“It’s a thought,” Jhai said. “But you know, Inspector, I always work on the principle that survival is a given in my case. Otherwise I’d never do anything.”
“I wouldn’t take it as a given right now,” Zhu Irzh said, craning his neck out of the blowing tarpaulin that made up the side of the truck. “Not when you see what’s happening.”
Chen squirmed over until he could look past the demon’s head.
“Dear merciful Heaven,” he said, even as it struck him that this might be an unfortunate choice of words right now.
The world was opening up. In front of the convoy, which lay along a colossal sloping plain several miles distant, was a black hollow, a void in the heart of Hell. The convoy was pouring into it like a column of ants through a gap in the soil, flowing onward without pause.
“The lower levels, mate,” the guard said, taking a last drag on his cigarette and throwing the burning stub out of the truck. “Told you that’s where we’re going.”
There was silence after that. Jhai appeared reflective, chewing her lover lip between teeth that were still slightly tigroid, until a drop of blood oozed out. Jhai flicked it away with her tongue and went on chewing; Chen was sure that she was plotting something. He hoped it wasn’t anything too rash, but with Jhai, one never knew. Zhu Irzh stared at his boots and Miss Qi seemed to return to being traumatised, although Chen couldn’t blame her. He sat tight in his seat in the truck and waited for Hell to drop away.
40
Mrs Pa was relieved when they reached Sulai-Ba, although this time they were coming through the back entrance rather than the front steps. It brought back a strong feeling of déjà vu, although last time she had been to the temple, to collect Precious Dragon, there had been that odd detached sense of dreaming. And now it was as though everything was hyper-real: the dome of Sulai-Ba etched against the sky in sharp relief, iron grey against morning gold. She felt that she had lost track of the time, somehow, that it should be evening, or a different season. She had been cast adrift on the world and she was glad that Mhara was there. Apart from Precious Dragon himself, Mhara seemed more real than anything else.
“What do we do now?” she said to Mhara, who was waiting for her to catch up.
“We go inside,” Mhara said. He put out a hand and steadied her. “Are you all right?”
“I’ll be fine,” Mrs Pa told him, “as long as Precious Dragon is.”
“Grandmother?” the little boy said. His eyes were round. “I’m starting to remember things.”
“What sort of things, Precious Dragon?” Mrs Pa said.
“Clouds. And storms. Having to make a choice. But I don’t know what it was.”
“Do you still want to go back in here?” Mrs Pa asked. Now that they were actually standing before Sulai-Ba, with the iron wall of the temple roaring up over their heads to the broken dome, she suddenly thought: what if he goes away? He had come to this world through Sulai-Ba, after all, Mai’s child from Hell. What if this whole strange and uncomfortable journey was no more than the mechanism to send him back where he belonged? She was about to voice her doubts to Mhara when Precious Dragon swung around and looked at something beyond her, something behind—and Mrs Pa looked too, and saw a sight that made her mind up with lightening speed, for the blackened avatars of the kuei were standing there, in broad morning sunlight, eleven of them in a row and grinning red.
Mhara said, “Go. Go now, I’ll hold them as long as I can.”
Mrs Pa hesitated, but only for a moment. Then she clutched Precious Dragon by the hand and dragged him as quickly as she could up the back steps to the temple entrance. The door was ajar. With a last look back at the kuei, she forced her way in, shoving Precious Dragon ahead of her. Then she slammed the door shut with all her strength behind her. The last glimpse she had of the outside world was of Mhara on the steps, a blue-clad figure drawing the powers of daylight into himself, as the kuei closed in.
Inside the temple, it was calm and quiet, just as before. Mrs Pa and Precious Dragon did not stop, but ran through the vaults, past rows of skulls on top of enormous jars, past strange skeins of what might have been moss. In one of the vast inner chambers they came across something that resembled a shed skin, still faintly gleaming ivory and blue, scales skimming across the stone floor in a slippery mass. Precious Dragon stared at it and Mrs Pa had to pull him away.
After a little time, they found themselves on the bank of a canal. There was no way across and it looked dark and deep.
“What are we going to do, Precious Dragon?” Mrs Pa whispered. She cast a fearful look over her shoulder, expecting to see the shadows of the kuei slink around the corner, but there was nothing there. The temple was silent, echoing with the lapping of water.
“I—remember something. Down here.”
Precious Dragon led Mrs Pa through a small, cramped entrance. “I’ve been here before,” the boy whispered.
Mrs Pa was about to say that this was surely where she had collected Precious Dragon, that first time, from the skeleton of whatever beast it had been that had lain here, for the columns of the vault looked the same. But then she saw that the floor was empty; there was no skeleton here.
“This is the place,” Precious Dragon said with conviction.
“Which place is that?” Mrs Pa asked. Precious Dragon pointed.
“Look.”
There was the statue of
a dragon on a pedestal in the far corner of the room. An imperial dragon, with whiskers and open mouth and bulging eyes, rearing up on two stout hind legs and holding up a clawed paw. The paw was empty.
“That’s it,” Precious Dragon whispered.
As he spoke, something rustled at the door through which they had come. Mrs Pa turned and her heart dropped. A kuei was crouching in the entrance, with one hand placed on the ground. Its lensed head swung to and fro, but the lenses were fixed on Precious Dragon.
“Grandson?” Mrs Pa said.
“We’ll find out, won’t we?” Precious Dragon said, in response to a question that she had not asked, and he ran forward. The kuei opened its red mouth and gave a weird whistling cry. Another bounded through the entrance to crouch beside it. Mrs Pa put her hand to her mouth. Precious Dragon clambered up the pedestal but could not reach.
“Grandma!”
Mrs Pa had not known that she could move so swiftly. She picked Precious Dragon up in her arms and hoisted him high enough to reach the claws of the dragon. The kuei moved, as if her own motion had broken whatever spell they were under, but as they bounded forwards, Precious Dragon spat the pearl into his hand and placed it between the dragon’s claws.
Time stopped. Mrs Pa looked directly down into the storm-riven eyes of the kuei. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the dragon and her grandson blur, whirring as swiftly as a hummingbird’s wings as they merged. She cried out. Precious Dragon was gone, as completely as if he had never been. But the stone dragon was coming alive, stretching, roaring, growing and seething down from the pedestal towards the kuei.
The kuei shrieked. Roiling clouds of darkness boiled out of the lenses of their eyes and enveloped Mrs Pa. Blindly, she groped out and touched something cool and scaled and huge, that still somehow reminded her of a small child. She clutched at it and found herself falling forwards, over the top of a round, hard surface. There was a snarling roar and a sudden iron smell. Thousands of legs stretched out over Mrs Pa’s head and she ducked down onto the dragon’s back, hanging on for dear life. The clouds cleared. Mrs Pa was carried up high beneath the ceiling of Sulai-Ba, the stone floor a dizzying span far below. The kuei were gone, the vault filled with coiling centipedal forms, bigger than anything she had ever seen, and that was when the floor of the temple gave way.
41
The dragons were the last of Heaven’s warriors to leave their home, and of the dragons, Embar Dea was the last to go. She did not think she would see Cloud Kingdom again. The mother of dragons had once told her that you can feel your death approaching, and Embar Dea did not think it would be long now. But it was an honourable way to go: to battle the kuei, ancient enemies of dragonkind. The kuei were planning to invade Heaven, so Prince Rish had been informed by the Emperor; they must strike first.
The older a dragon becomes, the closer it draws to the truth. Rish was too young, but as soon as Embar Dea heard this, she knew it to be a lie. It surprised her, that the Celestial Emperor should lie to his oldest allies, but then such things had happened before. So she went to Rish and told him.
The Prince was silent for a long time after Embar Dea had spoken. They were alone in the great mist-filled hall of the Cloud Palace, the seat of the dragon kings. An opalescent light swirled through it, like liquid pearl, concealing the old dragon and the young.
“Do you believe me?” Embar Dea said, in a moment of terrible doubt, for it had also been known for old dragons to go mad.
“I believe you,” Rish said, slowly. “Of course. But what are we to do about it? This kingdom was granted to us thousands of years ago by Heaven, it is the only place in all the worlds where we can build a home. Hell won’t have us, because of the kuei and the old enmities. Earth will not—they would hunt us down and exhibit us in zoos, you know that. And we are too big for the pastures and orchards of Heaven. If the Emperor takes Cloud Kingdom away from us, then where are we to go?”
“We should not be under the mandate of another,” Embar Dea hissed in frustration.
“Indeed we should not. And yet, we are. Embar Dea, you are the oldest of us all and I have great respect for you—” and here Prince Rish, to Embar Dea’s embarrassment, bowed his great head, “—but you were born in a time when politics was not so important, when China respected Heaven and when dragons were honoured within it. Now the world of humans has forgotten us and Heaven is closing in upon itself and only Hell is still the same, it sometimes seems to me.”
“So you are saying that we must do as the Emperor asks,” Embar Dea said. She sighed and the mist rose and sparkled at the touch of her breath. “Then I will go with you.”
And now she was flying at the end of the great skein of dragons pouring out from Cloud Kingdom. She did not look back; there was little point. Instead, she stared straight ahead, at the golden, the green, the scarlet, all manner of dragons with the silver-black shape of Prince Rish at their head. Embar Dea knew there had been lamenting, that the King of All Dragons was no longer there to lead them, but times were different now. She flew on.
Cloud Kingdom fell away into the soft clear light of Heaven. Embar Dea looked down and saw fields and rolling hills below, small temples on summits, rocky crags with pouring waterfalls. A wild, yet managed, land, mirroring China itself. They flew over a wall, snaking across the hillsides, and soon they came to a great plume of water cascading down a mountainside that marked the start of the river that on Earth was known as the Yangtse. As they flew on, it widened, until the landscape beneath them was recognisably populated with small cottages, large mansions, orchards filled with blossom and fruit and the faint light of floating stars. Embar Dea looked ahead and saw the edge of the Sea of Night, a dark line in the distance, and before it lay the Eternal City, with its fortress walls and its palaces.
Around the city were gathered the troops of Heaven, mounted on unicorns and lion-dogs and deer. Beyond them, were immense engines: catapults and creaking wheeled citadels. Hell had tanks and guns, Heaven had arrows and bows, yet Embar Dea knew that, somehow, they were equally matched. Heaven had a strong, clear magic; she wondered whether this was still the case, or whether it now carried undercurrents and shadows, the betraying trails of secrets and lies.
The lion dogs raised their chrysanthemum heads and roared as the dragons flew overhead, the sound reverberating out from the city walls and causing, somewhere, a ringing sound like a gong. Moments later, as they came in sight of the Imperial Palace, Embar Dea realised that it was indeed a gong: a circle of bronze the size of a house, situated at the summit of the citadel itself. It was the signal for the descent into Hell.
42
The truck containing chen and the others trundled forwards towards the lip of the chasm, picking up speed as it did so. Even Jhai’s normally shuttered face wore an expression of alarm, which Chen was sure was mirrored on his own countenance. Miss Qi looked simply resolute.
“Here we go,” said the guard and there was a sudden lurching sensation, rather like a plane taking off, except that the nose of the truck dipped slightly instead of rising. Chen, unable to hold onto the sides of the truck because his hands were still bound, and reluctant to place faith in the rather frayed old seatbelt that circled his waist, could not hold back the thought that they might all fall out. Given that he, at least, was human and still alive, the thought was not an appealing one. He tried to wedge himself as tightly as possible against Zhu Irzh and the demon seemed to understand what he was doing.
He need not, however, have worried. The descent was jerky, but it did not feel as though they were plummeting. Looking out of the sides of the truck, Chen saw that they were part of a huge convoy of falling vehicles. A tank drifted past, made of red iron and covered with graffiti and images of devilish faces. A picture of a scantily clad female demon adorned its engine casing. Beyond, where Chen could dimly glimpse a fiery shore, a jet hurtled downwards, nose-diving into Hell’s heart. The air was filled with the sound of humming engines.
“Are we nearly there ye
t?” Zhu Irzh asked. Chen suppressed the momentary urge to strangle him. Perhaps it was a good thing that his hands were still bound.
“Dunno,” said the guard. “ETA was supposed to be seven p.m. upper level time but nothing ever happens on time round here.”
“It’s four now,” Zhu Irzh said, squinting at the watch on his bound wrist. “Three more hours of this. Great.”
“At least there’s a view,” Jhai said, but negated her own words by closing her eyes and leaning back against the seat. Chen admired her fortitude.
“I had not thought,” Miss Qi mused bitterly, “To see so much of Hell.”
Something jumped against Chen’s arm and made him start.
“What was that?”
“Sorry,” Zhu Irzh said. “Think something just bit me.” He shot Chen a warning glance and Chen realised what it was that had moved: the heart in its bag, still stashed in the inside breast pocket of Zhu Irzh’s coat.
“Don’t worry about it,” Chen said. “Made me jump, that’s all.”
“Lot of insects on some of them levels,” the guard said, not without sympathy. The nose of the truck tilted and Chen looked downwards through the flapping tarpaulin. The convoy stretched out below, growing more ragged now as they descended. There was no sign of any ground.
43
Pin was asleep when the alarm sounded. It was so loud that it felt as though he’d been picked up and slammed against a wall. He sat up with all the normal physiological reactions of shock: heart hammering, head pounding, sweat icy down his spine, before he remembered that he didn’t actually possess a body. It didn’t seem to make much difference at this particular point. The dormitory was a seething turmoil of startled demons. The crew was not the most organised group of people at the best of times and this sudden incursion threw them into complete chaos.
“Shut it!” Foreperson Tung yelled, barrelling in through the door, pendulous breasts swinging unappealingly from side to side. “Get yourselves together!”
