Heart and Soul (19 page)

He opened his mouth as if to say something, and from the expression on his face, what he meant to say was grim enough, but before he could speak, the gentleman to whom the house belonged spoke from across the table. “I believe, from what you said in your sleep, Enoch, that you have the remedy for this matter within your own hands.”

“My hands?” Mr. Jones asked, startled.

“Well, not your hands exactly, but in your possession,” Joe said. And to Mr. Jones’s blank look, “I believe you’ll find that, if you get the ruby, it will either react to the Lady Jade as friend or as foe. And since it seems to read the minds of men…If I understood what you told me correctly, the only reason it is in the possession of Mr. Zhang is because you had it shielded against revealing itself and, by being shielded, it is incapable of reading the mettle of those holding it. And you can’t reveal it while it is so far from us, and where anyone may grasp it, so shielded it must remain.”

“Yes, but…” Mr. Jones looked, for a moment, almost panicked. “But if it judges against her?” he said at last.

“Then we’ll have rid ourselves of a foe,” Joe said, though the look he bent upon Jade was not in the least threatening.

Jade kept her hands folded on the table by an effort of will. Was she willing to let herself and her intentions be judged by an ancient magical artifact of unknown provenance and perhaps with a different moral value structure than either her own or Mr. Jones’s?

The alternative, she realized, was to leave the jewel in Zhang’s possession, and risk the loss of her brother, any hope of regaining the throne and perhaps all hope for the world.

She inclined her head. “I am willing to be judged by your ruby,” she said.

A WIFE’S DUTY

It shouldn’t be so easy to take the emperor from the
Dragon Boats, Third Lady thought. But then, this was only because everyone put their hope and trust in Lady Jade and not in Wen at all. Third Lady could resent Lady Jade for this, but she knew that even now she was trying to track down the jewel that would awaken the rivers and put Wen upon the restored throne of his ancestors. Yet Wen must be ready to take the throne.

She had led Wen around to the back of the Imperial barge, past the guards. The guards had, in fact, tried to follow, but Wen had made a gesture of dismissal and they’d left.

And now she and Wen were in the boat and headed for the secret cave, where Third Lady hoped everything was ready per custom. According to the scrolls, it was a narrow opening in the mountains to the southwest, not at all like the cave where she’d taken Lady Jade.

This one was secret, known only to the Fox Clan. In fact, as she pulled the boat up at the entrance, then deep enough into the cave that no one would see it, she wondered if the cave would reject Wen. She hoped not, since Wen was married to her, and therefore, in some way at least, no matter how remote, a member of the Fox Clan.

The slit in the rock was barely wide enough for her to row the boat into it, carefully, making sure that nothing scraped. Wen was still in his opium dream, though he’d left his pipe behind on the Imperial barge, and he looked at her with unfocused eyes as she hopped out of the boat.

She offered him her hand. “Come, milord.”

He looked around, his eyes very large in the darkness. “Are you sure?” he said. “It’s so dark.”

She shook her head. “Do not worry.” She had to admit that the entrance to the cave was indeed dark, and smelled dank, and that nothing would look less appetizing as a place in which to make love. “Once we are farther in, I will light the magelights,” she said. “But we must first get out of sight of the entrance. Remember, this belongs to the Fox Clan, and if they see the lights shining, they might know what I’m about to do and come to thwart it.”

She extended her hand to him. His hand slid into hers and she pulled him gently out of the boat and onto the narrow tunnel ledge of the cave. Then she guided him into the cave, his steps hesitant and faltering.

“Are you sure?” he asked, once, as they navigated a particularly narrow part of the tunnel.

“Am I sure of what, milord?” she asked gently. “That I can light the magelights? Yes, my lord, I can. They’re in the walls already, waiting only to be activated, and they—”

He shook his head. She couldn’t see the movement, but she could hear it in the dark. “No,” he said, his voice an urgent whisper. “Are you sure you wish to stay with me?”

“Oh, my lord, always!”
Beyond this world and the underworld,
her mind added.
Beyond the will of gods or the decrees of heaven.

She pulled him farther inside, his hand moist and cold in hers, until she judged they were far enough from the entrance. Under her breath she said a disguising spell, so that to anyone else, even to her relatives of the Fox Clan, the cave entrance would seem to be utterly closed by rock.

Wen must have caught the spell, because he said, “Wha—”

“Just disguising where we are, to make sure we are not interrupted,” she said, and wondered that her husband was not—by now—frantic. After all, the Fox Clan had a reputation as tricksters and liars, deceivers and traitors.

But Wen gave no hint of doubting her word, and when she whispered under her breath the words that would cause the magelights embedded on the walls to ignite, all he did was look about with wonder and curiosity.

The truth was that the look of the lights surprised even her. She’d expected the normal white lights, embedded in niches, at regular intervals. What she got instead was a profusion of flickering colored lights, like captive fireworks, all over the rough stone walls. The lights picked at some veins in the wall that looked like mica and pyrite and made them sparkle, giving the whole cave the look of an enchanted land.

“Fox-
fairies,
” Wen said, in a low tone of appreciation, and smiled at her. She let go of his hand. If what she understood of her clan’s history was true—per the instructions she’d received long ago in her girlhood—this tunnel would lead to an inner room, where the preparations could be made for travel to the underworld. And if things were as they were supposed to be there, then it would also look much like a bridal chamber, and perhaps Wen would have no reason for alarm.

He followed her willingly, so she didn’t need to hold his hand or pull him. He touched the wall once and said, “I can almost feel the magic, but it is very ancient.”

“It is an ancient lair of my clan,” she said, “established by the Duchess Eterna.”

“Oh,” he said, because the duchess—sometimes called Queen Eterna—was a villainess of children’s stories.

Third Lady looked over her shoulder and smiled at him, trying to appear reassuring. “She was not,” she said, “everything she is claimed to be, you know. Though I daresay none of our ancestors were as good or as bad as it’s claimed.”

“No,” Wen said, softly, and then in a slightly louder tone, “I am not afraid of you.”

“I know, my lord,” Third Lady said, feeling tears sting her eyes, but not letting them fall. Because though she’d fallen foolishly in love, and in love with an opium addict at that, she had also fallen in love with a man not of her clan who had never suspected her of double-dealing. And that alone would be worth traveling to the underworld to keep.

As she thought this, the corridor opened into a vast circular chamber. Unlike the room of the oracle, it wasn’t a vast sphere—merely a circular space, with flat floor and roof. Here the rock seemed to be all gold, except it couldn’t be so, Third Lady thought, so it had to be pyrite. But it sparkled like gold in the light of the multicolored flares, which here covered and circled the ceiling, seeming to dance.

She almost breathed a sigh of relief—except she didn’t want Wen to suspect that she had any reason to be particularly relieved—because it was, indeed, set up as a bridal chamber, with a broad bed in the center, a hearth all set up for lighting and cooking, with a teapot and jars that, according to Third Lady’s information, contained herbs and tea.

With a gesture she bid the fire lit, and casually she told Wen, “If you’d lie on the bed, milord, there is a healing potion I must cook. Before we can…”

He smiled at her, shyly, and she felt herself blush at the tenderness in his eyes. There had been such tenderness and shyness on their wedding night, but then nothing had happened.

She set a pot of water—which had been kept under spells so that it was still fresh—on the fire, then came over to the bed and removed Wen’s slippers and arranged his pillows. Her hands were shaking. Even now, if he should suspect that not everything was as she had told him, he could turn into a dragon and confound all her plans.

Dragons were the most powerful of all the were-clans, and though Wen might be addled by opium, his magic weakened because his soul was kept in the place of the dead, he was still the True Emperor of All Under Heaven, and there was a magic that attached to the Dragon Throne—a magic that Wen could call if he felt himself threatened, if he suspected his fox-fairy wife of double-dealing.

Before she could get away, he reached for her hands and held them both in his. She startled, but he only took them to his lips and kissed the open palms. It was an odd gesture. She’d never heard of it being done. But there was infinite tenderness in the touch of his lips.

“Thank you, Third Lady,” he said soberly. “For choosing to stay with me. I hope you’ll never regret it.”

“Oh, never, milord,” she said, feeling herself blush down to the soles of her feet and up to the roots of her hair. She heard the water boiling and returned to the fire. Into the teapot that sat next to the fire—an ancient porcelain work of art in the shape of a fox—she crammed the leaves that would cause them to leave their bodies and be able to enter the underworld. She had to be careful with the dosage since, if she were not careful, their souls might leave their bodies forever. And that was not what she intended. Besides which, Lady Jade would be most seriously displeased.

Atop the leaves of the various plants that made you sleep or dream, she added as much tea as she could, to disguise the taste. She packed the teapot as though she were making old-man tea, where people crammed the teapots full of leaves, then poured in only as much water as it took to soak them, and thus made a tea strong enough to get old blood pumping.

She waited, counting under her breath to two hundred. And then she poured the tea into two matching cups, painted with a fox that sat and grinned at them, as it must have sat and grinned at generations uncounted.

How many of her ancestors had come through here? How many had engaged in this ritual? How many had gone to the underworld? More importantly, how many of them had come back?

For the only thing the scroll said about finding their way back without going through the wheel of reincarnation was that they must—they absolutely must—insist on coming back. Precious Lotus wondered to whom they would have to insist, and how much they would be believed. She knew having jade disks—those safe conducts dispensed by the Jade Emperor—would help, but though Wen’s family legends spoke of them, there were none in the records room. And so she must go into the underworld unarmed, save for her slim cache of documents and her roll of paper cash and the nine-colored silk—the nine-colored silk again being paper, but symbolizing a vast roll of precious fabric.

She walked to the bed with a cup in each hand. And this was a tricky point, for Wen must fall asleep, but she must stay awake long enough to be able to burn the paper cash, the documents, the nine-colored silk and the other provisions she’d brought for their journey. She must, in fact, not drink as much of the tea nor as fast as he did. But he also must not suspect anything.