by Liz Williams
“It will return to Heaven,” Miss Qi said, sounding suddenly quite calm, as though she was discussing a game of chess. “It will not see the rest of the battle.”
The main line of the lion dogs had come within yards of the tank wall now, and the creatures were either leaping across or being torn apart. Something like a long iron spear shot screeching down from the sky and buried itself in a puff of dust not far from Chen and the others. It stood, quivering and emitting a mosquito-whine.
“What in gods’ name is that?” Chen said.
“Leg of a kuei,” Zhu Irzh answered. “Dragon’s winning this time.”
More iron legs showered down from the sky like giant needles, impaling luckless demons and spearing a tank through its engine casing. The machine howled. Steam poured out of the vent made by the kuei’s leg and the tank glowed red hot. Demons fled as it exploded.
“It strikes me,” Zhu Irzh remarked, “That Hell’s not doing all that well at the moment.”
“I don’t know,” Chen replied. “There’s a dragon down.”
Two hours or so later, Chen and Zhu Irzh were still trying to formulate a plan of escape. The demon’s latest notion had been to seize one of the small planes that had now landed across the desert and fly it back up the higher levels. This idea suffered an early termination when it transpired that no one knew how to pilot an aircraft.
“Besides,” Jhai said. “You’d have to get past the rest of the air forces, and that lot.” She gestured upwards. Five of the kuei had now perished, although it was difficult to tell through the clouds of smoke, and three dragons. Now, the kuei had retreated to one side of the sky, where they formed an enormous writhing knot, and the dragons to the other. Qi thought that they had agreed on some kind of breathing space while the rest of the forces went into battle, but Zhu Irzh disagreed.
“Kuei don’t give up,” he explained. “They’re relentless. There must be some other reason.”
Jhai half-rose, shielding her eyes. “What’s that plane doing?”
One of Hell’s bombers was shrieking out across the desert, low over the shadowless sands, heading in the direction of the mountains. The sound of the battlefield—lion dogs, the big spike-horned, moon-coloured unicorns that had made mincemeat of several rows of infantry—had diminished to an ominous hum.
Chen and the others watched the bomber until it became no more than a speck on the horizon. Then it began to grow larger again.
“It’s coming back,” Chen said.
Zhu Irzh surged to his feet. “It’s coming here!”
Moments later the bomber roared overhead, sending a hailstorm spatter of bullets down into the rocks. Chen and his companions threw themselves flat. The wail of the bomber was retreating again but Chen, glancing up, saw that it was turning. Beneath them, the ground shuddered, casting a shower of little stones down the hillside.
“For fuck’s sake!” Zhu Irzh said bitterly, brushing dust from his coat. “So much for staying out of the action. An entire battlefield to choose from and they pick on a bunch of non-com escapees.”
“Zhu Irzh,” Chen said. He’d just seen what was rising out of the shaking ground, beyond the demon’s shoulder. “I don’t think it’s us they’re aiming at.”
49
After a while, Pin grew less frightened than bored. He had a nasty moment when one of the kuei’s severed legs shot down into the nuclear plant, but it fell short of the reactor and speared a small hut instead. The bulk of the tanks were keeping Heaven’s forces well away from the plant itself, although from his vantage point on the observation tower he had an excellent view of lion dogs and unicorns and various other beasts in Celestial zoology. It still reminded him of various performances and if he ever got back to Earth, Pin thought, what an Opera he would be able to write! Above, with dragons and kuei fighting, the air forces could not get either off the ground, or through to the lowest level. So, for the time being, Pin felt reasonably safe, even in such a precarious position. Some of the demons still clung nervously to stanchions, peering out across the desert, but a number of them were crouching in the shade. A card game was in progress.
Then, Pin noticed that dragons and kuei were drawing back. He did not know why this should be. The observation tower shook a little. One of the demons engrossed in the card game looked uneasily up.
“What was that? Earthquake?”
“We don’t get earthquakes here,” somebody else replied. “There’s nothing underneath us.”
Pin was thinking that this was surely likely to produce more quakes, not less, when one of the other demons shouted and pointed towards the rocks. “Look!”
At the summit of a band of rocks, a ridge was appearing under the soil. That they could see it from this not-inconsiderable distance suggested that something big was coming up, like some enormous worm. Then a black many-pincered head broke the surface, scattering a burst of yellow soil in all directions, and a segmented body shot up after it, towering some thirty feet or so above the rocks.
“It’s a kuei!” a demon said. “Where did that come from?”
Four little figures—presumably demons—had broken cover from the rocks and were now racing across the desert towards the nuclear plant.
“Maybe it’s one of the ones that fell from the sky,” a demon replied.
Pin said nothing. He knew where the kuei, now rearing in a column of waving legs high, high above the desert, several times the height of the observation tower, had come from. It was the kuei that had pursued himself and Mai down through Hell and had, so it now seemed, buried itself in the sands of the desert. And now it was back.
50
Chen could not only hear the Kuei rustling and chittering behind him; he could also smell it, a rank, foul odour like cat’s piss magnified by several thousand degrees. A fetid wind blew past him, causing him to stagger on the already uncertain footing of the desert: the kuei, breathing out. Chen did not think that centipedes breathed, but then, this was not a centipede as such and neither was it the time for naturalistic speculation. He mustered a burst of speed that took him level with the sprinting Zhu Irzh.
“Chen!” the demon panted. “Fuck off!”
“What?”
“Go away. It’s me it’s after! Get clear and I’ll try and draw it off.”
“How in the world do you know that?”
“Because I can feel it in my head. It’s like it’s moved into my mind. Go away.” Zhu Irzh veered off to the right, charging towards the wall of the nuclear plant. Chen risked a glance over his shoulder and saw that, horribly, the demon was right: the kuei was coming in a scuttling rush across the sand, aiming its blood-eyed, pincered head directly at Zhu Irzh. Slightly ahead of him, Jhai had noticed the same thing.
“Zhu Irzh! Watch your back!” She stumbled as she spoke and Chen caught her arm. “Shit, why is it going for him?”
“I don’t know.” They were almost at the fence of the compound. Above, Chen was dimly aware of demons congregating along a walkway and clustering on the observation turret at the corner. Then, amazingly, someone called his name.
“Inspector Chen!”
Chen looked up and saw a thin, small shade. A boy, perhaps sixteen years old, gesturing wildly.
“Inspector! It’s me! It’s Pin H’siao!”
The boy from the Opera. Chen felt a surge of dismay. So the boy was dead—except, wait, no, he wasn’t. The faint spirit carried an unmistakeable sense about him, not a smell, not a colour, but something in between that tugged at the remnants of Chen’s magical abilities and spoke to him of life.
“Pin!”
The boy was shouting something to his fellow demons.
“Open the gate! Open the gate!”
A rusty metal gate swung open. Zhu Irzh, however, was running in the opposite direction along the compound fence. The kuei ducked its head and snapped at him, taking out a chunk of fence. It reared back, fragments of metal trailing from its pincers. Chen shoved Jhai and Qi ahead of him into the compound: he ser
iously doubted whether they were any safer there, but it gave the illusion of sanctuary, at least. Out of the corner of his eye he saw a tall dark shape swarm up and over: Zhu Irzh, going across the fence as the kuei leaned back for a second snap.
Chen turned. Someone was shouting through a loud hailer, but in a language that Chen did not understand. Then he saw the tank with the howdah containing the First Lord of War shoot up to the compound in a flurry of sand, and realised that it was the First Lord who was doing the shouting.
Zhu Irzh was nowhere to be seen. The kuei appeared to think better of its attack. It remained, half-reared up, swaying menacingly to and fro.
“Stay there,” Chen said to Jhai and Qi. Jhai started to ask where he was going, but Chen did not give her time to finish. “Wait there!” he shouted up to the shade of Pin H’siao and ran off behind the sheds, in the direction of Zhu Irzh.
The demon seemed to have disappeared completely. Chen scouted around the sheds and saw a series of boot prints in the dust. He was not entirely sure that they belonged to Zhu Irzh, but lacking any other clue, he followed them. They led him under a flapping tarpaulin into a building that looked like some kind of storeroom: metal containers were stacked against the far wall. Chen stopped and listened. He could hear voices coming from behind the containers—no, a single voice, unknown and whispering, and then Zhu Irzh saying loudly, “Where are you?”
“Zhu Irzh?” Chen called.
“Over here!”
Chen went cautiously around the side of the containers—it was not unknown for demonic predators to mimic someone’s voice—and discovered Zhu Irzh standing in the middle of an empty space, apparently having a conversation with himself.
“The fucking thing came straight after me! What was I supposed to do?”—and then—“Well, I didn’t know that.”
Then he turned and saw Chen.
“Chen, meet my grand-dad.”
“What? I thought your grandfather was dead—or whatever. Isn’t that his heart you’ve got there?”
“You know I told you he was dispatched to the lowest level after attempting a coup against the Emperor and having his heart removed?” Zhu Irzh explained. “And now we’re here and so is he. He’s come in search of his heart. But I can’t see the old bastard.”
“Oddly enough,” Chen told him, “Now, I can.”
51
Pin squeezed into a small hole by the stanchion on the observation platform, trying to keep out of sight of the kuei, which paced on its many legs just beyond the perimeter fence of the compound. He had a feeling that this was useless, that it would know he was there even if it could not see him—but he just didn’t want to draw attention to himself.
Then there came a shout from the other side of the fence, across the ranks of troops. “Look!”
If Pin had still possessed a heart, it would have stopped, for over the mountains was coming another kuei. It was far larger than the one just beyond the fence, or even the kuei that Pin had watched doing battle with the dragons in the skies. Its length must have been close to half a mile and it carried something on its back.
A demon by Pin’s side nudged him and whispered, “That’s the oldest, that is! With the Emperor.”
“The Emperor?” Pin said.
“The Emperor of Hell!”
The kuei was moving with the speed of an express train and now Pin could see that the thing on its back was an awning, like the howdah in which the First Lord of War was seated. Inside it, sat something hunched and wizened and old—Pin did not understand how he knew this, because the kuei was still some distance away—but it was as though the thing sent an aura of age ahead of it, making the air stale. If this part of Hell had contained any plants, Pin thought, they would have withered. He glanced at the demons around him and they seemed to have aged, too. A hissing rustle passed through the troops below: he is coming, the Emperor is coming.
And not only the Emperor. A great shadow passed over the valley. He looked up and saw that the sky had been blotted out by something huge and bronze-green and glistening. A dragon, but a dragon as large as the kuei that bore the Emperor. The troops grew still and hushed. The dragon flew on.
52
The shade of Zhu Izrh’s grandfather was standing in the corner of the room. Dust motes spiralled through him and the wall was clearly visible on the other side, but to Chen, at least, he was still reasonably visible: an elderly demon, very similar to Zhu Irzh in countenance, but with a pencil moustache and an even shiftier expression.
“How do you know it’s grand-dad?” Zhu Irzh asked, apparently still unable to see his departed relative.
“The gaping hole in his ribcage is a bit of a giveaway,” Chen said.
“Ah.”
“Who are you?” the spirit said, in a sub-vocal rasp.
“My name is Chen,” Chen said, aloud. “I am a friend of your grandson.”
“My grandson has my heart,” the spirit said.
“He took the heart from your daughter,” Chen told the spirit.
The spirit turned and, invisibly, spat. “My daughter! She never did know anything about magic. Do you know what it’s like, to exist down here, day after year after day, knowing that your essence is still in the worlds above, frozen and misused?”
“You’re going to have to explain to me this business about your heart,” Chen said, casting an uneasy glance back towards the compound. There seemed to be some kind of conflict going on; he could hear shouts. “It’s not a piece of human magic.”
“Do you know why my heart was taken from me?” the spirit asked.
“I thought it was to keep you down here,” Zhu Irzh said.
“Not only that. I defied the Emperor of Hell,” the spirit said. “I sought to lead a rebellion against him.”
“Yes, I know that bit. For any particular reason?”
The spirit spat again. This time, the spittle sizzled into the dust and left a small smoking hole in the floor. “All he cared about was the Ministry of Lust: its pleasures, its intrigues. Hell rarely saw him. He spent most of his time inside the Ministry.”
“It’s the same Emperor,” the demon said. “He’s not changed much. The Ministries run things. Except, by the way, Lust’s gone, for the moment. Long story.”
“I have the means to destroy the Emperor,” the old spirit said. “My daughter knows this: she seeks to overthrow the Emperor in turn. But she does not know what the means is. So she has kept my heart, trying to summon me from these levels, always failing.”
“What, you mean mum’s been trying to bring you back? Not keep you here?”
“Did you prompt Zhu Irzh to ask for the heart at that dinner?” Chen asked. Zhu Irzh started to say something, but then stopped.
“I did. I knew he could succeed where my daughter has not. Tell him to put the heart down,” the spirit stated.
“I don’t think so,” Zhu Irzh retorted. “Sorry, grandpa, but I don’t think you can be trusted.”
The spirit hissed in frustration. “If I am reunited with my heart,” the spirit said, “Then I will have the power to defeat the Emperor. I was granted that power during the rebellion, but the spell was on the condition that the power would last as long as my heart continued to beat in my body. During the rebellion itself, I was captured by the Emperor’s forces and my heart was torn out. I was cast down here, but my heart was stolen by a person loyal to me and returned to my family.”
“Defeating the Emperor isn’t really the issue,” Zhu Irzh said, when told. “Given that we’re under attack by Heaven.”
“If I had succeeded during the first rebellion,” the spirit said, “Heaven would not now be in a position to attack us. The Emperor of Hell is weak, and he must be removed.”
“I think that might be about to happen anyway,” Zhu Irzh said.
53
“Grandmother,” the dragon said. “I will have to put you down.”
Mrs Pa looked at the landscape beneath her, unfolding at speed. She should be blown about all ov
er the place, yet the high airs of Hell were windless and still, as if Precious Dragon flew through a vacuum.
“I don’t have a parachute,” she said.
She thought she felt the dragon smile. “You won’t need one.”
He veered upwards, coiling through the yellow clouds. Far ahead, Mrs Pa saw a platform.
“What’s that?” she asked.
“You’ll be safe there,” Precious Dragon said. As he flew alongside, Mrs Pa saw that the platform was large, and that people were standing on it, holding parasols. They wore red and gold; they were women with quiet, grave faces. Several of them ran forwards to take her hands and pull her onto the platform.
“I will see you soon, Grandmother,” the dragon said. The gleaming back curved as the dragon dived.
“Be careful!” Mrs Pa shouted over the edge of the platform and his voice came back, faint now, “I will!”
54
Pin watched in horror as the kuei on which the Emperor rode rose up from the ground, its legs writhing. It rose up and up until its hindquarters left the ground and it was airborne. It shot past the great bronze-green dragon with a snap of its pincers. The dragon coiled away, but just a little too late: a pincer tore open a strip along its flank and sent boiling green blood spattering over the assembled troops. A cheer went up, even from those who’d been scalded. But the dragon was turning. It roared down out of the sky, coming so close over the observation tower that everyone standing on it ducked, and struck the kuei a glancing blow. The kuei spun, momentarily out of control, and the end of its spiny tail flicked the observation tower. It was as though the tower had been struck with a giant hammer. It did not fall, but reverberated, catapulting everyone who stood on it either down into the compound or out among the troops.
Pin, light spirit that he was, floated down like a leaf and landed on the hood of a tank.
