The Iron Khan (17 page)

“I must be taken back to the place where this began. I must be allowed to rewrite the world into its correct configuration, to reknit the text into its original and proper form.”

“What place is that?” Omi asked.

“The deep desert — not the desert of the physical world, but of time. The world of the Taklamakan and of the Tokarians.”

“We need to go back into the past?” Omi gaped at the Book.

“Back, and remake it. You must carry me, but it is too dangerous for you to go alone. I have sent for help,” the Book said.

A man stepped out of the shadows, making Omi start. He had no indication that the man had been there, and this was bad, for a warrior. The stranger was tall, bald, dark-eyed, and carried a palpable weight of experience.

“Omi,” he said, and bowed. “My name is Nicholas Roerich.”

“I’ve heard of you,” Omi said.

“I work for the Masters, just as you yourself do. And I knew your grandfather, both in life and in death.” Roerich smiled. “The latter condition does not appear to have greatly altered him, as a matter-of-fact.”

“He didn’t really see any difference between the two,” Omi concurred.

And it was true. He had not.

•

Later, Omi stood with Roerich on the parapet of the pavilion. The desert lay beyond and the dunes hummed, singing in the dying light with a strange, deep boom.

“They’re gathering,” Omi said. He pointed to where the ifrits wheeled over the sand, avoiding the lake, which now gleamed golden under the sunset.

“Yes. They’ll stop us if they can. The Khan’s controlling them; he seeks to breed them afresh.”

Omi looked at him askance. “Can he do that?”

“He has a lab, of sorts. The…man we’ll be traveling with discovered it.”

Omi was not sure whether he had imagined the tiny hesitation before the word “man,” but decided not to press the point, for now. “What else did this man discover?”

“Ghosts in the walls. The spirits of the murdered.”

“My grandfather was one of those.”

“I know. But your grandfather is free, Omi.” Roerich amended this. “Free to move, at least, if not free from duty.”

“The Book says we need to go back in time,” Omi said. The idea filled him with disquiet. Once, he might have welcomed the adventure; but this did not please him.

“So we do. But you know that you will not be going alone.” Roerich spoke quietly and did not look at Omi; the latter knew that he was trying to save the younger man face and was grateful. “I will be going with you, as will the other.”

“The — man — who discovered the Khan’s lab?”

This time Roerich smiled. “Just so. He is not a human, Omi. He is a demon, from the Chinese Hell. He works as a policeman in Singapore Three. You will find him helpful, in a number of ways.”

Whatever Omi had been expecting, it was not this. “A cop? But — ”

“Wickedness is, I have found, at least partly in the eye of the beholder,” Roerich said. He pointed to the wheeling ifrits. “Those, for instance. If they could be free to have a real choice, what do you think they would choose?”

“Evil,” Omi replied promptly. “I do not like to think in black and white, Roerich. My grandfather taught me not to do so, and so did my sensei. But ifrits are predators, and mindless.”

“Even so,” Roerich said, “perhaps even they might one day surprise you.” He sighed. “I have walked the face of this world, Omi. In life, and now in death. I have seen a great many things that surprise me, and more that may yet do so.”

“This policeman,” Omi said after a pause. “When can I meet him?”

The badger was nuzzling her face, muttering as he did so. Inari stirred, feeling hard wooden boards beneath her, and sat up. They were moving: up and down in a gentle rocking motion that suggested they were on water. Light filtered into the dim chamber, startling after the Sea of Night. Across the chamber, Miss Qi lay in a pale huddle of garments.

Inari’s hands went to her stomach, but there was no sign that anything was amiss and she breathed a sigh of relief.

“We are afloat,” said the badger.

“Have you been on deck?”

“No. The door is locked.” Scratch marks at the base of the wooden door told Inari that the badger had made considerable attempts to break free. “I can smell salt. This is a proper sea.”

“Maybe we’re back on Earth?” Inari said hopefully. She went across to Miss Qi and knelt by the Celestial warrior’s side.

“What — ?” asked Miss Qi. She blinked.

“Are you all right?” Inari said.

“I think so. I don’t remember what happened. I was fighting, and then — ” She frowned.

“I remember being carried off,” Inari said. “There was another ship. We’re on it, presumably.”

“But where are we?”

High on the wall, there was a little window, without glass. The badger might have squeezed through it, but the window was too small for either Inari or Miss Qi. They managed to look through it, however, by dragging a bench to the wall and standing on it on tiptoe.

“It looks like Earth,” Miss Qi said. An expanse of glittering blue sea, bright sunlight, and a warm, spicy breeze lay beyond the window. In the distance was a little hummock of an island, clad in dark green foliage. Inari could hear the snapping of sails above her head.

“It does look like Earth,” Inari agreed, “but I don’t think it is.”

Miss Qi looked at her curiously. “Why do you say that?”

“I don’t know. It doesn’t — feel right.” All of her life on Earth had been lived on the sea, after all, even if it had been the edges of it, close to shore. The light was a little too vivid, the sea slightly over-aquamarine.

“Maybe it’s just a different place on Earth,” Miss Qi said.

“Maybe.” But Inari didn’t think so and could not say how she knew.

They got down from the bench and worked at the door. But though it looked old, the wood salt-rotted and stained, it would not budge, even with the badger’s solid weight against it. Eventually they sat back down on the bench.

“They can’t keep us in here forever,” Miss Qi said. “Someone will come eventually.”

“I don’t like being kidnapped,” Inari said. “Especially by mad empresses.”

“This isn’t the Empress’ ship.”

“I know. And that worries me.”

But Miss Qi was correct. It was not long before the door was wrenched open. A man stood in the opening: not human, Inari’s senses told her, but she did not know what manner of being he was. Tall, dressed in cerulean blue robes and turban, with skin the color of soft brown earth. Indigo spirals circled his cheeks and brow and his eyes were the same color as his robes. He smiled, displaying sharp golden teeth. He carried with him a smell of cinnamon and ginger.

“Ladies! And beast! Good afternoon.”

Miss Qi was frowning again. “You are a djinn.”

The man, or djinn, laughed. “Indeed so. You are well-traveled, warrior.”

“I saw a documentary,” Miss Qi said, surprising Inari.

“My name is Banquo,” the djinn said. “Welcome to Hell.”

“Ah,” said Inari. “That’s where we are. Whose Hell? It’s not mine.”

“It is the Hell of the Moors. Only a little Hell, I’m afraid. It didn’t have a very long existence and yet, we endure.”

“Did the Empress hire you?” Miss Qi asked.

“Yes. But she has not kept to her side of the bargain.” Banquo’s golden smile widened. “We were not paid the price we requested. In fact, we were not paid at all. And so, my dear ladies, you must remain here until we can find someone who will ransom you.”

•

“The Emperor of Heaven will do that,” Miss Qi said.

“Are you certain of that? You seem very confident. And yet one of you is a demon.”

“The Emperor is my friend,” Inari said. The blue eyes widened.

“Is that so? How unusual.”

“Nevertheless,” Miss Qi said firmly. “Send word to him. You’ll find that we speak the truth.”

Banquo gave a bow. “I shall do so. Until then, you will be my guests. We’ll leave the door unlocked. You may have the run of the ship. Don’t entertain any thoughts of escape. There’s nowhere to go.”

“I am,” Miss Qi said balefully, “an excellent swimmer.”

Banquo gestured toward the door and they followed him onto the deck. The heat hit Inari like a fist. One of the warmer Hells, evidently. And not, at second glance, all that unpleasant, with the gleaming heave of the sea and the little islands. Then Banquo pointed over the side.

The sinuous black bodies of over a dozen sharks circled the boat. Their sharp fins broke the water and as Inari peered over, one of them looked up. Its eyes were not the eyes of a shark: they were aware, alive with a malign intelligence. And they were hungry.

“A good swimmer, you say? So are they.”

Omi watched the demon cautiously. He did not want to be seen staring. In a varied career, he had encountered the denizens of the Chinese Hell only at the end of bow or sword, but never over tea in a dingy hotel room. And the woman with him — she wasn’t human either, unless Omi was greatly mistaken. But he didn’t know what she might be.

“The thing is,” Zhu Irzh was saying, with a languid flick of the hand, “the Khan’s obviously our main foe. But what about this book? Can it be trusted?”

Roerich leaned forward. “Absolutely.”

“But where does it come from? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

“The Book is itself a Master,” Roerich said. “It comes and goes as it pleases.”

“And why should it help us?”

“I think you will find,” Roerich said, “that it has its own agenda.”

“That’s not reassuring.” The demon looked as close to unnerved as Omi had ever seen a demon look.

“Whatever that agenda is,” Roerich reminded him, “it would appear to have chosen you.”

“Myself and Omi here,” Zhu Irzh said, looking across at Omi. The golden gaze was itself disconcerting. Omi was used to battling demons, not negotiating with them.

“I might say,” Omi said diffidently, “that the same applies to yourself, from my point of view. How do I know I can trust you?”

“You can’t.”

“Can’t know, or can’t trust?”

“I’d like to say that you can trust me, but you can’t know that. I got roped into all this — I didn’t volunteer. It seems that events have selected me and I don’t like it — I’d bail out if I could, but I know how these things work. Once you’re involved, you have to see things through.” He looked genuinely unhappy, Omi thought. There was no sense of anything amiss, and Grandfather had effectively approved… Grandfather should know. But Omi himself had been wrong before….

“We have to act,” Roerich said. “The Khan’s gathering strength. His ifrits are massing.”

The demon rose abruptly. “Then let’s do it. What did the Book say?”

“The spell needs to be taken into the desert, taken to the land. It will know what to do once it’s there.”

“All right.” The demon turned to the woman, Jhai. “There’s no need for you to come with us.”

“But — ”

“No need.”

After a moment, Jhai gave a reluctant nod. “I’d like to. Don’t like to miss out on an adventure. But I suppose I ought to get back to business.”

Unless Omi was once more greatly mistaken, he thought, Jhai had agreed a little too easily. Up to something? She was the kind of woman who would be.

•

Several hours later, Omi, Zhu Irzh, and Roerich stood on the edge of the desert. Behind them Kashgar shimmered, a mirage-oasis. Omi could hear the boom and shift of the sands. It was close to dusk now, with a bloom falling over the eastern sky and a small, hard moon riding up above the shoulder of the dunes.

“What now?” the demon asked. With his long coat billowing out around his heels, Zhu Irzh looked like a sliver of shadow.

“We start walking,” Roerich said.

Soon the lights of the city faded into the heat haze and were gone. The desert lay all around them, the high waves of the dunes reminding Omi of a static ocean. An owl glided low over the sands, casting a moon shadow before it, and looking up, Omi was somehow surprised to see the tiny cross of a jet moving over the sky and leaving a contrail behind it, rosy in the reflected light of the sunken sun. When he next looked up, a moment later, the plane and its wake were no longer there, and Omi repressed a shiver. It was as though the desert was watching him now, rather than the other way around.

“You all right, Omi?” the demon said.

“I’m wondering when we are now,” Omi replied in a low voice. “I’m wondering whether we’ve slipped in time.”

“Why?”