by Liz Williams
“Off there!” shouted a voice from within. Pin scrambled down. Above, both kuei and dragon had surged off towards the mountains, readying themselves for another battle. Pin backed away from the tank.
“You’re familiar!” a voice said. Pin turned and saw a pair of golden eyes in a severe and beautiful face.
“Jhai Tserai! I mean—I’m sorry, Madam, I—”
“Jhai will do,” she said. “Under the circumstances.” She frowned. “You came to one of my parties.”
“You’ve got a good memory,” Pin said. Jhai smiled.
“Oh, I remember people. It’s often useful. I’m looking for someone. A demon, the man you met at my party. Have you seen him?”
“Yes, he’s here. I saw him in the compound. He was running towards the reactor.”
Jhai exchanged glances with her companion who looked, Pin thought, too ethereal and pale to be a denizen of Hell. “What’s he up to?” Jhai said aloud. But Pin did not know.
The ethereal person—surely she could not be a celestial?—was looking up.
“That’s the king of dragons!” she said. “Wherever did he come from?”
“From Heaven, I assume,” Jhai said.
“No, he can’t have done. That’s the whole point. He was exiled from Heaven.”
Jhai frowned again. “Exiled?”
“Yes. I never found out why. I just heard rumours that there had been a terrible argument between Cloud Kingdom and the Celestial Palace, and that the Dragon King had been sent away, or had chosen to leave.”
“He might have been sent into exile,” Jhai said, shading her eyes with her hand as she stared into the skies, “but it looks as though he’s coming back.”
55
Embar Dea watched as the king of the dragons, the lost and exiled lord, snaked through the dusts of Hell’s skies. He was directly beneath her now, with the great kuei that carried the Emperor shooting towards him. Our king will prevail, Embar Dea thought. He has to. Then the kuei gave a hissing whistle that scraped across her hearing and more kuei poured down out of the sky. A cry of protest rose up from a dozen dragon throats—this was ancient law, now violated, but who says Hell has to play fair? Embar Dea thought bitterly.
The kuei fell in a writhing knot upon the bronze-green shape of the dragon king. Embar Dea watched as he twisted and bucked through the air, trying to shake off the pincered forms, but as he did so, his jaws gaped in pain and the pearl that gave him his power shot out.
In horror, Embar Dea watched the pearl as it fell; hurtling down through the grimy airs of Hell like a round white grenade. An Imperial dragon would not last long without it and the kuei knew this, too, for they dived: speeding after the descending pearl. Embar Dea’s gasp sent a shiver through the clouds but she could not take on the kuei, so many of them all at once.
And the Dragon King was in trouble: still flying, but writhing as he began to suffocate, unable to breathe without the magical properties of the pearl. The kuei had seen this, Embar Dea knew. One of them continued to streak after the pearl, but the other storm lords doubled back, heading to attack and to rend. The kuei who had gone after the pearl reached it; there was a grinding sound, a screeching shriek and then a vast soundless explosion as the kuei’s pincers met across the pearl. The pearl splintered into dust. It disembodied the kuei that had destroyed it, blasting it apart into a mass of legs and vertebrae, but it was too late: the pearl itself had gone.
Embar Dea saw, all of a sudden, not yellow dustclouds, but a thin light through a cold sea, the pale shapes of ghosts drifting across the seabed, the black bulk of hull rising ahead of her, crusted with ancient shells. She saw the pearl she had rescued from the sunken ship of Heaven, resting in shimmering perfection in her own old claw.
“Rish!” Embar Dea shouted. “Rish!” She arrowed across the sky towards the Dragon Prince. “Give me the pearl!”
He knew what she was going to do and did not hesitate. His trust in her stirred her heart and then the pearl was once more back in her claws. Embar Dea dived after the Dragon King, into the writhing mass of the kuei.
Their iron pincers streaked her sides and she was barely aware of it, barely aware, too, that the hot rain that spattered the desert sands of Hell was her own blood. She looked down into a golden glazing eye.
“Here!” she cried. “Take it, it’s yours by right.”
And the king of all dragons reached out and took the old king’s lost pearl from her claws. It was the last thing that Embar Dea saw in the Three Worlds. The kuei closed in and she felt no pain, only triumph, and a growing sense of wonder at the last glimpse of the Wheel of life, before she drifted from it into the soft and glowing dark.
56
The Kuei was coming straight down now out of the sky, arrowing with its legs folded against its sides until it looked like a great black spear. The Emperor—staying on by some kind of magic, it must be, Pin thought—was a tiny hump against its back. It headed for the revived dragon king like a missile, flattening out before it hit the ground and streaking over the plain. But the dragon saw it coming. The dragon turned, spinning in air, evading the kuei that surrounded it, and pounced like a cat. Pin somehow had the impression that the Emperor’s kuei had not been expecting such a direct attack. It rolled over and over as the dragon struck it, bringing both beasts almost directly overheard. Demons scattered as the kuei’s iron legs began to shower downwards. Something small and nodule-like flew out and hurtled into the compound. A gasp went up: “the Emperor!”
“Well,” said Jhai, shielding her eyes. “That’s a bit unfortunate.”
The kuei was definitely getting the worst of it. Many of its legs had been splintered away in the dragon’s attack and now stood quivering in the ground, or embedded in machinery. The dragon’s claws tore at the sides of the kuei and the ground was slick and slippery with ichor and blood. Pin stood with Jhai and the strange woman, unable to look away. Jhai hauled at his sleeve.
“Better get out of the way.”
Pin, mesmerised, agreed. He ran between the tanks, following Jhai, but kept glancing up at the battle. The dragon’s head, above, was twice the size of the huge tanks: rushing across the sky like a machine, eyes wide and fire-filled, mouth gaping. Both its front legs were outstretched, talons reaching for the kuei’s side, and in its mouth gleamed something round and white, like an enormous mint, thought Pin.
The kuei tried to turn but the loss of its legs appeared to be impeding it. It emitted a high whistling scream, reminiscent of a boiling kettle, and then the dragon broadsided it. The impact carried them both back above the nuclear plant but the dragon seemed to be struggling to drag the kuei back. Perhaps it was afraid that they might both fall into the compound. The dragon seized the back of the kuei’s neck in its jaws and thrashed it to and fro. Its body whipped across the compound, removing two more of the corner observation towers. But Pin, unfamiliar with the kuei as he was, could tell that it was failing. Black ichor bubbled at the corners of its mouth and its red eyes were glazing over.
The dragon spread fringed wings and leaped, taking the kuei beyond the reactor and over the reach of the army. Then it plunged the kuei into the ground, driving it down under the dust. The dragon rose, snarling, then bit down. The kuei’s body arched up, like a snake trying to bite its own tail, and then it fell back and lay still. The dragon stood, behind a cloud of dust.
Jhai dragged Pin and the celestial-looking woman around the side of a tarpaulin tent. Demons were shrieking in dismay. The First Lord of War’s tank barrelled around the compound, the First Lord shouting instructions, gesturing towards the sky. Now that the way had been cleared of both dragon and kuei, Pin could see a skein of bright objects descending from the heavens, at first as distant as pinpricks, sparks against the stormcloud skies, and then coalescing into chariots, silver-white vehicles drawn by unicorns, shaggy, goat-like creatures with a thick spike rising out of their forelocks. They were not much like the slender, graceful unicorns that graced the backdrops of the Opera.
These looked fierce and the figures in them carried spears. There was a burst of light from the ground as a rocket launcher fired and one of the spears spat flame. The site of the rocket launcher disappeared in a gout of dust and fire.
Then the dragon king was spiralling upwards—to join the chariots, Pin thought at first, but then he saw that the leading chariot had veered around to avoid the swipe of the dragon’s claws.
“What the hell—?” Jhai asked.
“He’s attacking our air battalion,” said the celestial woman. “But—he killed the kuei, too. I don’t understand! Perhaps the dragon king has gone mad.”
Pin did not understand it either but he was relieved that the dragon was now some distance away and not rocketing overhead. The flying chariots came in for another swoop and were, again, rebuffed by the dragon. One of the chariots, knocked aside, spun out of control down into the mountains: there was a distant puff of smoke. A muted cry came from the skies, a roar of many voices raised in anguish and outrage, the protest of Heaven.
“This is terrible!” the celestial woman was wild-eyed. “Why is he doing this?”
“Who cares?” Jhai said. “It’s keeping Heaven from attacking. And I’ve got a demon to find.”
57
Chen picked himself up from the floor of the warehouse, coughing.
“What in the name of the unholy was that?” Zhu Irzh spluttered, some distance away. They had been in the middle of conversation with the demon’s grandfather when the roof of the warehouse had caved in, sending them both sprawling. The beams and girders of the roof now curled inwards like the legs of a large spider, blasted apart.
“Must have been a missile,” Chen said. He helped the demon to his feet. There was no sign of the Irzh ancestor: the spirit had either disseminated or fled.
“But where did it go?” Zhu Irzh groped in his pocket for the heart and was evidently reassured that it was still there. “Is grandfather still here?”
“No, he’s not. I don’t know where he’s gone. I can’t see him.”
“Do you think the old bastard was telling the truth about his heart?” Zhu Irzh asked.
“I’ve no idea. I don’t know much about that kind of magic. It sounds plausible.”
“It’s certainly true that he was involved in a rebellion,” Zhu Irzh said, dusting off his coat.
“Might even have been in the right,” Chen said. Usually, he kept out of political conflicts, motivated as he was by a feeling that both sides were as bad as each other. This might very well be the case here, but given what he’d seen of the Ministry of Lust, and also what he knew of the Emperor’s relationship with that governmental department, he had more than a slight sympathy for Grandpa Irzh’s original goals.
Beside him, Zhu Irzh said, “What was that?”
Chen frowned. The sound had come from beyond a partition on the other side of the warehouse, or what was left of it: a curious hissing, as if someone was letting the air out of a balloon.
“Let’s have a look,” Chen said.
But when they reached the partition and looked cautiously around it, there was no one there.
“Someone’s been here, though,” Zhu Irzh said. He pointed to a line of small footprints in the dust. “Hard to tell when they were made.”
“Only one way to find out,” Chen said, and they followed the footprints.
They were soon out of the warehouse itself and into a series of catacombs, a warren of passages that must, Chen estimated, surround the reactor. The nuclear plant might run according to the principles of physics but there was nonetheless a powerful magic at some level. The place reeked of it, ancient and earthy and primitive.
“Can you feel that?” Chen asked the demon, as they hurried past one particularly potent spot.
“Hard to miss,” Zhu Irzh replied. “Lower level magic, if you ask me. Really old stuff.”
“What’s it doing here?”
“At a guess, protecting the plant. I’m not sure how much security they actually need—not much gets down to these levels, or at least, didn’t before Heaven showed up. It didn’t seem very great in terms of demonpower, so they must be relying on something else to keep the plant safe.”
The layman, Chen thought, might have associated the magic of Hell inextricably with evil, yet although this place was frightening, it did not have the hallmarks of some of the darker magic he had encountered in the course of his career. It was just very, very old: a primordial force that had nothing of the human about it. And Chen could not help wondering if this was in part the source of the current situation: that Heaven, so elevated, lofty and sophisticated, had not grown too far away from the physical world, so far that it could no longer sympathise with those who sweated and bled and struggled. Hell might, indeed, be hellish, but at times it seemed closer to the human realm than the celestial powers did. Did that grant Hell, too, the possibility of redemption and improvement? Looking at Zhu Irzh, striding ahead of him along the passage, and thinking of his own wife, Chen thought that it might.
He could hear the hissing again, a sibilant muttering, and this time he thought he recognised the voice. Zhu Irzh’s grandfather was, it seemed, back. He caught the demon by the arm.
“Zhu Irzh. I think it’s your ancestor.”
The footsteps led beyond a narrow door, marked with a symbol that was either magical or the demonic equivalent of a biohazard sign. Zhu Irzh pointed.
“We’re nearly at the reactor.”
“I think your grandfather is in there,” Chen said. The hissing was louder now and he was able to place it: the syllables and cadences of a spell. It was rising. Chen could feel the power building up and for a horrifying moment he thought the reactor was going to blow. Zhu Irzh evidently sensed the same thing because he grabbed Chen by the arm and pulled him to the floor. The door of the reactor room blew outwards on a blast of magic, which shot overheard and down the corridor like an invisible fireball.
“Shit!” Zhu Irzh cried. “What was that?”
Chen did not know. There was a power in the room ahead, nearly as ancient as the ground on which they walked, but this time it was entirely sentient, not the ancient earth energy but something active and malign. And it was working. He felt it beginning to counter the spell that Zhu Irzh’s grandfather had just launched through the door.
“Who is that?” Zhu Irzh asked, eyes narrowing. “I’ve felt that before.”
“Can you remember where?” Chen asked. He was conscious of stalling for time. He was as reluctant to go into the reactor chamber as if the room had been on fire.
“Yeah,” Zhu Irzh said. “The Imperial Court.”
He looked at Chen in sudden wild surmise. Then they raced through the door.
Chen had never set eyes on the Emperor of Hell, but he knew what he looked like and so when he saw the person who was standing on the railed walkway above the reactor, facing Irzh Senior, he knew immediately who it was.
It was said that the Emperor of Hell breathed magic like air. He had placed himself outside time, a pocket of protection that kept him from even Hell’s curious temporal forces. He was neither old nor young, but cycled endlessly between, now having the smooth face and bright eyes of a boy, now the seamed countenance of an old man, but the two were blurred and shifting so that it was impossible to say which he favoured at any one moment.
If this had been a legend, Chen thought, then perhaps the Emperor might have been described as the embodiment of evil, darkness incarnate—he was, after all, the Emperor of Hell—but things aren’t that simple. There was simply the aura of great age, and a kind of experience that no living thing should really have, and that in a way was worse than evil, because it still transcended the natural law of any world, and as such, it was obscene.
Zhu Irzh’s grandfather was chanting now, face a picture of hate and concentration. He raised a hand and Chen saw a line appear down the centre of it, a ragged strip in ghostly flesh. The gape in his chest was painfully apparent; Chen could see the ribs peeled back l
ike the struts of a ship. He managed to throw a spell, drawn out from the hole in his hand, but it was a little, sputtering thing.
Chen thought he saw the shifting face of the Emperor change again, in a smile. It reminded him somehow of the Minister of Lust, something small and cruel, that sipped at pain because that was the only sensation left. And what Chen next thought was: you’ve lived too long.
He was never quite sure, later, what prompted him to act as he did, whether it was the magic foaming and boiling in the air, or the memory of the Ministry of Lust and how it had decayed, or the decadence that had played its part in leading the self-righteous armies of Heaven down to Hell, or just an impatience with Emperors, an upswelling of rage that his own life and Zhu Irzh’s and Inari’s and everyone else’s should be so disrupted by these bloody people—whatever the reason, Chen stepped forward, opened Zhu Irzh’s coat and, before the startled demon could stop him, snatched the heart from its pocket and threw it like a ball across the reactor to Zhu Irzh’s grandfather. It burned his hand when he touched it, the pain of magic transgressed.
Irzh senior hesitated for only a moment. Then he gave a great, incredulous shout and caught the heart as it flew in his cupped hands. He slammed it into the hole in his chest and the hole healed, ribs folding in like flower petals closing, the old flesh closing over it, ragged robe hiding ragged scar. The Emperor stopped changing; an old man’s withered face peered across the reactor and Zhu Irzh’s grandfather leaped. He hit the Emperor full on, grasping and clawing at him, and they both fell over the rail.
Zhu Irzh turned to Chen, standing transfixed and nursing his burned hand. “Run like fuck, I’d say.”
Chen agreed. They bolted out of the reactor room, down the corridor, back into the warehouse, leaping over the fallen girders and beams, their flying feet sending dust spiralling up into the air. Out into the compound and Zhu Irzh was shouting now.
“Run for it, you lot! The reactor’s going to blow!”
