Shadow Sister (6 page)

Tao heard the dragon’s voice in his head. “This is not a time for fear.”

Tao gasped and sucked in a mouthful of foul air. Kai wrapped his tail around Tao’s staff and Tao felt himself being pulled along. The smell of the bats grew stronger, but at least it wasn’t mingled with the odour of death. He tried to picture something pleasant, but his mind was filled with darkness. And he was cold. His elbows and knees scraped against the rock. He was glad that he could feel the pain, smell the bats and hear the dragon’s grunting. He couldn’t see, but at least his other senses were working.

Panic no longer filled Tao’s heart, but there was no hope either. He stopped crawling, resigned to being stuck in the dark until he starved to death. He felt for the shard in his bag. Its smooth rounded surface gave him courage. A little speck of something entered the darkness. It wasn’t light, it was nothing he could see or hear. It was a sensation. In his blank mind he saw the faintest image of his brother’s face, his slow, dribbly smile. Tao made his hands and knees move again.

Then he could feel space around him. The tunnel had ended. He cautiously got to his feet. They were in a cavern, but it was still pitch black.

“Kai, where are you?”

“I am here.” A dragon paw touched Tao on his shoulder.

“I can’t see anything.”

“I can see a little, thanks to the bat droppings. It is as if it is a dark night with only a slender moon,” Kai said. “This is a wider passage. I can feel a draught of air.”

Tao tried to guess how big the cave was from the way the dragon’s sounds echoed off the walls and the ceiling. He could smell the bats and hear their screeching. He felt his scalp creep. The bats were hanging not far above their heads.

Kai’s talons hooked into Tao’s jacket. “Walk alongside me.”

Tao was shivering. The sweat on his body turned icy as the cold penetrated his bones. He had spent years living on a mountain wearing threadbare robes throughout winter. He should be used to the cold. Why was he suddenly chilled to the bone?

Kai kept walking. The passage was wide enough for them to walk side by side. Tao stumbled along, tripping on the uneven ground, banging into the rock walls. His teeth were chattering from cold and fear. And then he felt icy fingers brush his arm and cold breath on his face. It smelled like death.

“I want to go back,” Tao whispered.

“Into the arms of Fo Tu Deng?”

“There’s something else here with us.”

“There is nothing else here. How could there be?”

Tao still didn’t move. “I felt something touch me.”

“The darkness is confusing you.” Kai said. “I can see, remember? There is no one here but you and me.”

“No one alive.”

“Hold on to my mane. Let me lead the way. I am not scared of the dark.”

Tao grasped a tuft of the dragon’s mane in each hand. “
You
are not in utter darkness like me.”

He looked back, hoping to see a trace of daylight behind them, but there was none.

“We should go back while we can still find the way, or we will roam in the darkness until we die of starvation.”

The dragon kept moving forwards. “I can feel a faint breath of air. I am sure there is another way out.”

The blackness overwhelmed Tao. It wasn’t like the dark of a moonless night, when faint shapes and the stars above could be seen, and the touch of familiar things gave assurance the world was still as it should be. He longed to see a grey sky again.

The cold penetrated Tao’s thin jacket and trousers like freezing wind.

He could see nothing, he could hear nothing. He felt icy fingers touch the back of his neck. He spun round, waving his staff to fend off whoever, whatever was there. He foolishly let go of Kai’s mane. He reached out again, this time searching for the dragon. He wanted to call out to Kai, but his jaw was clenched shut. He couldn’t utter a sound. He tried to transmit words from his mind, but they froze half-formed. One thought entered his head. The ghosts of the dead from the cave had followed them. They wanted to punish him, even though their deaths were no fault of his.

Tao banged his head on something. He reached up to feel what it was. A huge icicle pierced the blackness above. He moved away from it, but tripped over another icicle protruding from the cave floor. Tao didn’t know how icicles could grow upwards. Whichever way he turned he ran into another. They were like teeth. This wasn’t a cave; it was the giant mouth, the living entrance to the underworld. The frozen, prodding fingers of the ghosts had driven him into its gaping jaws. Soon the teeth would close behind him and he would never be able to get out.

The sharp fingers gripped him on both arms. They turned him to his left and propelled him forwards with unexpected force. The ground disappeared from under his feet, and the fingers let go. He fell, tumbling down a steep slope. Cruel, jagged points of rock dug into his body, first his arm, then his back, then his knees. What little breath he had was knocked out of him. He crashed into hard rock. He had reached the bottom of a pit. The black had swallowed him completely. He knew he should try to find Kai again but he had lost the will to move. He tried to call out, but no words came out of the dry hole that had once been his mouth. He tried to stand, but he had not escaped the cold fingers. They had hold of him again. They clutched at his body, dug into his flesh so that the cold entered his stomach, his liver, his heart. He wanted to weep with despair, but his blank eyes couldn’t make tears. In this world of rock, he felt as if he were turning to stone himself. He knew where he was now. He had entered the realms of hell.

The novices at Yinmi Monastery had a game they played to frighten newcomers as they lay on their pallets in the dark, missing their homes and families. They had memorised the many dungeons in the sixteen realms of hell.

“Which would you rather endure?” they asked. “The dungeon where you must kneel forever on bamboo splinters, or the dungeon where you are forced to drink liquid dung?”

As the night progressed, the tortures they described grew worse.

“Would you rather the dungeon where you have to walk across five-pronged forks, or the one where demons scrape your flesh from your bones?”

They reserved the worst till last.

“Would you rather the dungeon where your brain is removed from your skull and replaced by a hedgehog, or the one where crows peck out your heart and lungs?”

By that time the new novices were either sobbing or screaming. When the monks came to see what the noise was about, the older boys feigned sleep.

Tao wasn’t a bad person. He wouldn’t be going to one of the worst realms of hell. But he remembered from those night-time stories that the entrance to the first realm of hell was very dark. There was a special place in that hell for monks who had done bad things – a dark dungeon called the
Puqingshuo
where devils with black and red faces suspended bad monks by their feet for all eternity. Tao knew what his sins were. First he had broken every one of the novices’ precepts. Then he had abandoned his vows. Finally, he hadn’t given a thought about offering prayers for the dead in the cave. When he had realised it was a grave, he had been concerned only for himself, too busy thinking about his own discomfort to consider his duty. Now he was paying for that neglect.

The souls of the dead villagers had become ghosts, hungry ghosts. Lost and angry, they had not passed into their next lives. They were lingering, longing to get revenge for their violent deaths, for their inadequate burial, for the lack of prayers to send them into their next life. They had latched on to Tao, the person who had ignored their silent plea for release, and pushed him into the mouth of hell. They blamed him, and he deserved their blame. He should have prayed for them. Unless he corrected this error, he would continue his journey in darkness until he reached the
Puqingshuo
.

He called out to Kai with his mind, but there was no response. If he could just get back into the world, he could put everything right. But how could he do that? Perhaps he could summon a vision, despite the darkness. He reached for his bag. He felt around him. All he could feel was his water skin over his shoulder. The ghosts had taken his bag. He couldn’t attempt to call up a vision without the mixture of sesame oil and safflower. They had taken back the bronze bowl Kai found in the village, and with it all his other possessions. Those things could be replaced; even the vial of yellow oil was replaceable, if he could ever find a place in Huaxia where such treasures as safflower and sesame oil still existed. But there was one thing in his bag that could never be replaced – the shard of dragon stone. The shard was precious to him, and he had only just begun to understand that it had powers of its own.

His ancestor Ping had used the dragon-stone shard to help her find lost things. After centuries, that precious tool had found its way to Tao. And what had he done with it? His frozen lips bent into a bitter smile. He had lost it! Even without ghosts to steal from him, he had always been good at losing things. He needed Kai. But he had lost the dragon as well. He remembered that you were permitted to take nothing with you into the realms of hell, nothing but the sins you committed. That explained why the ghosts had taken his possessions.

There was no use lamenting the loss of the shard. It was gone. He had nothing to aid him. Then he remembered. There was one thing that he still had. One thing that the ghosts could never take from him. He had Wei’s
qi
– all of it – his brother’s dying gift. Tao still didn’t have a clue what his
qi
power was, but whatever its form, it might be useful to him now. He searched within, trying to locate the knot of Wei’s
qi
inside him. It was small, no bigger than a peach stone, but he knew that it was concentrated enough to last him one lifetime at least if he was careful and didn’t squander it. He needed it now. If he died in that cold, dark hole, then Wei had sacrificed his life for nothing. He searched inside himself. He made a promise to the ghosts. If he ever got out of the darkness, he would offer prayers for them. He would make a proper memorial to their passing.

Tao located Wei’s
qi
. It was in his heart. Of course. Where else would it be? But it was frozen solid, like a large hailstone. He needed to thaw it out. He tried to think of something warming. He remembered his dear brother, who had never been able to walk or speak. They’d experienced many happy times together when they were young. But Tao’s brain was frozen as well. He couldn’t recall a single image of their shared childhood. Not an image of his brother’s face, so like his own, and yet so different.

A holy thought then. There had been times when, deep in meditation, he had felt the radiance of Buddha shining on him like sunlight. He recalled one of those moments, but the Blessed One’s glow didn’t reach him. It was as if he were watching himself from behind a sheet of ice. An image flashed into his mind. Not of his brother. Not of the glory of Buddha. Not of a brush swollen with ink creating a perfect character on a fresh page. It was Pema. Pema the wild nomad girl. He remembered the touch of her lips on his cheek before she had turned and walked away into her own future. That unholy happiness was not what he had been seeking, but it was exactly what he needed. The spot on his cheek burned hot.

The warmth spread in a rush of pleasure and guilt. His heart started to thaw a little. So did Wei’s
qi
. A thin strand of it began to flow, slowly like honey in winter, gradually moving into his limbs. The ghost fingers fell away.

He hurt all over, but none of his bones had broken in the fall. And at least he wasn’t numb. He could see nothing, but he was no longer afraid of the dark. His hand touched something smooth and wooden. It was his staff. He used it to struggle to his feet. His instinct was to crawl back up the slope he had fallen down, but the
qi
flowed to his legs and his feet turned him round. He walked in the opposite direction along another tunnel, further away from the cave where they had entered the mountain. He didn’t resist. He had to find Kai. And with his brother’s help he could do it.

He focused his mind and spoke to Kai with his thoughts.
Where are you?
There was no reply. Tao still couldn’t see, but his other senses were beginning to thaw. He could hear water dripping. He could feel the whisper of air that Kai had mentioned. He took tiny steps, his staff held out to alert him to any obstacles. He felt more of the huge icicles hanging from the cave ceiling and protruding from the cave floor. They were thick and slippery with moisture, but now that his body had thawed, he realised they were not as icy cold as he had thought. He licked his fingers. They were wet with water that tasted of minerals. He realised that they were made of rock, not ice.

Tao could hear a faint sound in his mind. It reminded him of his father sharpening his wood-carving tools on a stone. The sound grew a little louder. It was mixed with the low toll of a cracked bell. Tao moved towards it. He felt his way through this strange forest of stone. He could hear water dripping from the ceiling. He felt the drips on his face and hands. He was beginning to understand the world of the blind.

His foot struck something soft. He heard a different sound. “Ooof.” And there was a new smell. A faint whiff of salty fish mixed with plums on the turn.

“Kai.” He kneeled down and ran his hands over the dragon’s scales as if they were smooth and soft, like satin, not rough and scratchy. “Are you hurt?”

“Frozen.” The dragon’s voice was faint in his head.

Tao felt the shape of the dragon’s great body. He was lying coiled in a knot, his nose buried beneath his back paws, his tail drawn up through the centre of the coil.

“Hungry ghost,” the dragon whispered.

“It’s okay, Kai. The ghosts won’t hurt us.”

“Trip. Freeze.”

“Yes, but they did this to us because they want us to help them into their next life.”

Though dragons had no religion, Tao knew that Kai had more faith in the old beliefs than in the words of Buddha. He didn’t believe that after death a creature’s soul moved into a different body and began another life. He believed that the souls of the dead lingered near their graves. If these souls didn’t get offerings of food and a comfortable place to spend their afterlife, they would turn into hungry ghosts. They would punish whoever they thought was responsible for neglecting them. That’s what the people of Huaxia had believed before they were shown the way of Buddha.