The Pirate Empress (38 page)

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“Where am I?” Quan demanded.

He looked out across the strange bridge upon which he was standing to where a very plump, pink creature stood on the crest of the arc. Quan mused over his predicament. What was this—a smiling pig? The lower lip beneath the pug nose was thin and small, and curled at each corner in an expression of serene placidity. He glanced around, failing to understand where he was or how he could be standing here, seemingly in the middle of nowhere, with a pig watching him.

The sky was midnight blue and he was supported on some sort of overpass, but what exactly he was overpassing was a riddle. Stars vibrated in the endless dusk and one in particular shone bright while beneath the dubious bridge the night filled his vision.

“You have come to ask me the meaning of the universe,” the pig said.

Slowly comprehension broke through Quan’s confused mind. He had spent enough time with his comrade-in-arms, He Zhu, now a fledgling warrior-turned-monk, to learn a few things. Of course! This must be Chao, the Transcendent Pig. Quan racked his brain to salvage what information Zhu had divulged of him. Was he a god or simply a mythical figure? If he was a creature of myth what was he doing standing here, looking surreally lifelike? But if he was real, and he must be, as surely as Quan was standing in the breathless heavens, then he freely transcended time and space. Could he truly wander in and out of time at will? The most important thing Quan recalled from Zhu’s explanations was that the inscrutable pig was an invaluable source of answers.

But the answers would cost him in both time and patience. And he was doubtful of how much he had of either. Quan bowed low and said, respectfully, “I ask again, Master Pig. “Where am I?”

“Where do you want to be?”

“In the Middle Kingdom, outside the walls of Shanhaiguan.”

“And where do you think you are?”

“I do not know.” Quan looked about him at his unearthly surroundings, scanned below the precarious bridge and saw only more depths of midnight blue and more stars winking. “How is it that I can stand here and not fall off?”

Chao peered over the edge of the bridge. “Fall off of what?”

The floor of the bridge trembled, and involuntarily, Quan snatched at his balance willing himself not to fall prey to the vertigo. He pressed his boot deeper into the floor and noted its surface, layer upon layer of soft, smooth tiles like feathers, as black and rich as a magpie’s wing. He jerked back his boot. “What enchantment is this? The floor breathes.”

Chao looked at the feathers beneath his four pink feet as if to ascertain the fact.

“You know it does, Master Pig,” Quan said, bowing low once more when the pig remained silent.

“Why not ask, ‘How do I breathe?’ rather than ‘Why does the floor breathe?’” the pig replied.

“All right, I am asking,” Quan said.

“Why are there a heaven and an earth? Why is there east or west?”

“Why am I here?” Quan asked.

“I think you know the answer to that question.”

Maybe if he closed his eyes, then opened them, he would see this was all a dream. Had Zheng Min’s arrow struck true after all?
Am I dead—or in some kind of sleeping death from an injury to the brain?
He tapped his fingernails on his chest plate and heard the
ping
of solid armour.

The pig huffed, stared evenly into Quan’s face. “You are not dead, Brigade General Chi Quan.”

“You know my name!”

“And you know mine.”

That was true, though he hadn’t yet spoken it aloud.

The pig did what looked like a little shuffling dance, or perhaps his back between the shoulder blades was itchy, and he was trying to scratch the spot, but lacked the hands or the dexterity of feet in which to relieve the irritation.

“May I?” Quan asked. He took the hilt of his sabre, which was engraved with a fine design and rubbed the blunt end against the pig’s back. Chao looked like he was in ecstasy as his eyes rolled upward and his smile curled deeper. One of his legs started to do a little jig.

“Ah, that is good. Thank you, Brigade General.”

“You’re welcome,” Quan said. “Now, if it is not too much to ask. Will you tell me where I am and how I’m to get back?”

“You are on
Que Qiao
, the Magpie Bridge that stretches bird by bird across the Milky Way.”

“And this is not a part of the Etherworld?”

“Are you dead?” Chao asked.

Quan glanced down at his armour, accounting for his arms, his legs, his entire torso. “I don’t think so. I don’t believe I’ve been injured either.” There was no blood or pain, no wound of any kind that he could see or feel.

“Then you are not in the Etherworld.”

“But this bridge...”

“You’ve not heard of the Magpie Bridge,
Que Qiao
?”

“I’ve seen paintings of the magnificent legend and read poets imaginings of such a place, but not once did I think the Magpie Bridge was real. What is its purpose?”

“A better question would be, do
you
think it’s real?”

Quan shook his head until he swore he could hear something rattling inside his skull. Had he taken an arrow to the brain after all? And was it loose and shredding his senses?

“Do you believe you are where you are?” the pig asked.

“I think I must be dreaming. And soon I hope to wake up and find myself amongst my countrymen, and not a prisoner under some drug-induced torture of the Mongol warlord Altan or the Chinese traitor Zi Shicheng.” Another thought occurred to him. Maybe he hadn’t sustained an injury at all. Maybe this wasn’t the rambling of an unconscious mind. The last thing he saw before he found himself here was the fox faerie in a maelstrom of golden fire. She had done something to him, placed some sort of spell on him. Had she driven him crazy?

Then whatever was supporting him fell away. He was sailing, spinning into space, the Transcendent Pig spiralling with him. His head swam and he lost all sense of orientation. He dared not shut his eyes for fear of losing his sense of self. His eyes widened as far as they would go and he forced himself to get a grip on the insanity that was happening around him. Was this some sort of time/space interface? The Transcendent Pig could move from one time plane to another. Was he taking him with him? The vortex swirled, a living gyro that was neither here nor there. Now he was thinking like the pig. But if this wasn’t a vortex, what was it? Bright blue swirls of light gyrated from a brilliant core that threatened to suck him in. Was this his way out? Was Chao sending him back to the Eastern wall?

“Look there,” Chao said, pug nose upended, face close to Quan’s. “What do you see?”

A bright orb shone in the vacuous space above him, while below the whirling gyro continued its ominous spin. “The Pole Star,” Quan gasped between breaths.

“This is the closest you will ever get to it,” Chao said. “This is the closest any man has ever gotten to it.”

The sensation of falling continued and Quan clutched his stomach. Nausea gripped his throat and he swallowed to control the involuntary response. “Where are you?” the pig asked. “What are you standing on? What keeps you from falling?”

Nothing was keeping him from falling. He was falling and falling and falling. And yet he knew the pig required an answer. He gave it. “The Magpie Bridge.”

He was suddenly standing upright and solid again, and Chao perched on his feet a few paces away on the crest of the arc. They were on the Magpie Bridge.

“What day is it?” Chao asked.

Bewildered, Quan blinked. “I don’t know. I only know that before I left the wall, my breath still frosted on the air.”

“It is the Night of Sevens.”

Was that significant? Seven moons and seven days—he had been gone for three months! Double Seven Day as it was known in his village was the traditional day for girls to demonstrate their domestic arts. It was the night of the Festival to Plead for Skills. A festoon was placed in the garden, and the single or newly married women of each household made an offering to Niu Lang and Zhi Nu, star-crossed lovers of legend. The gifts were fruit, flowers, tea and face powder. During a ceremony, half the face powder was tossed onto the house’s roof, while the other half was divided among the women. In this way, they were bound to Zhi Nu, a mythical faerie of great beauty. But what did the Night of Sevens have to do with him? He was a soldier.

“Jasmine is very clever,” Chao said. “She wishes to keep you away and yet she wants to possess you.”

“She sent me to you?”

“Time knows no bounds,” the pig said.

By now Quan was tiring of the Transcendent Pig’s riddles. His only wish was to return to the battle, have it out with Zheng Min once and for all, seize Jasmine and interrogate her, and win the war against the invading hordes.

“That is all you desire?” Chao asked.

Quan was no longer surprised by the pig’s apparent clairvoyant abilities. But just exactly what was he getting at?

“Do you know the story of the Cowherd and the Weaver Girl?”

Quan shot a fleeting glance at the stars that had righted themselves after his tailspin into the void. While his feet were firmly planted on the smooth iridescent backs of ten thousand magpies, the stars hung autonomous in the sky.

“You see that star?” the pig asked, pointing with his snout to a brilliant orb over his head. “That is the soul of Niu Lang, the peasant cow herder who broke a law between mortals and faeries and watched seven faerie sisters bathing in a lake. Egged on by his companion, Ox, he stole their clothes and waited to see their reactions. The most beautiful one, Zhi Nu, whom the sisters called Weaver Girl, was the only faerie with the courage to demand the return of their garments. Niu Lang fell in love with her, but the Goddess of Heaven discovered that a mere mortal had witnessed the nakedness of one of the faerie kind. Removing her jade hairpin, the Goddess scratched a wide river in the sky to separate the two lovers forever, forming the Milky Way.”

Chao pointed to another star, far to the other side. “So there sits the heart of Zhi Nu, the Weaver Girl, alone, while Niu Lang watches from afar. But once a year, all of the magpies in the world take pity on them and fly up to the constellation to form a bridge so that the lovers can be together for a single night, the seventh night of the seventh moon.”

Quan glanced down. And this was the Magpie Bridge.

Chao locked eyes with him, his gaze full of the wisdom of the ages. “To the west are the Black Mountains, to the east the Yellow Sea. You have but to choose, Duty or Love. Which will it be?”

Quan clamped his now gaping jaw shut.

“Someone waits for you, does she not?” The pig scratched his chin with the cleft toes of his right foot. “There is more than one way to win a war.”

“But if I abandon the fight at the walls. The Middle Kingdom will be lost.”

“Will it?” Chao looked down at the mat of birds cushioning his four feet. Each bird was a dark purplish-blue black, white-tipped wings outspread in flight, long black tails forked at the base, ink black beaks. From one end of the Magpie Bridge to the other, the Transcendent Pig swept his gaze. The birds were locked head to tail and wing to wing in a solid arch. The ends of the bridge, like the ends of the Dragon Wall, were so extensive and distant that they vanished beyond Quan’s vision into the twilight at either extreme.

“By choosing, will I get to go home?”

“By choosing you will seek a new destiny.”

“But I’ll return to the Middle Kingdom? To Earth as it were?”

Chao dipped his head in a mockery of a bow. “To Earth as it
was
.”

No wonder Master Yun had never spoken of any encounters with the Transcendent Pig. Such engagements were exhausting. Quan sighed.

“East or west?” Chao asked. “Make your destiny.”

Clearly Chao could only speak in riddles. A bright orb shone over his head, but as he squinted at it, the light from the celestial body seemed to hang lower in the sky. Quan shot a sharp look at the pig. If a pig’s lips could purse, that was what they were doing. He would get no help from Chao.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

The Green-headed Vultures

The gelding shuffled, restless, scenting death and putrefaction when He Zhu approached the ruined wall at Guyuan. He touched his parched tongue to his cracked lips, urging his steed into silence with a hoarse whisper as the moans and screams of the injured and dying rose over the brick barrier. The defenses had failed. As quickly as the Ming could raise the fortifications, the Mongols had collapsed them. The barbarians had stormed the barricades, driving the walls apart with ramming poles, then ransacked the garrison and razed it to the ground. Had some of the sentry escaped? He hoped so. Those who hadn’t escaped were doomed to die from thirst and starvation.

A dying soldier, sprawled flat on his back on the ground, raised his blood-darkened face and gasped, “Where are His Majesty’s men?”

“They are coming,” He Zhu lied. The poor man was beyond help. His legs were missing, the stumps poorly dressed and the bandages stained with fresh blood. Unless there was a physician here, soon all of his lifeblood would seep away. “What is your name, brave warrior?”

“Ma Low,” the man whispered.

One of the
yebushou
. Chi Quan’s best mole. Had he come to report to his general only to get caught in the crossfire? “When did this happen?”

“Altan left a legion of men to ambush the garrison weeks ago. I am certain they now threaten Shanhaiguan. I arrived just in time for his stragglers to catch me in my treachery. They made short work of me.”

The effort of talking was too much. Zhu’s eyes flitted here and there. He had to work quickly in case any more barbarians lurked in the shades. “Ma Low,” he said swiftly. “Altan’s base camp. Where is it?”

The man closed his eyes. For a second, He Zhu thought he had lost him. Then Ma Low snapped his eyes wide and said, “Near Jiayuguan, north of the western pass. He calls himself Khan now. Can you believe it? Chief of all the Mongol tribes. To me he will always be nothing but a barbarian and a warlord.”

Zhu nodded. “Your loyalty will be remembered. I promise.”

He placed the mole’s dagger in his curled fist and watched his eyes close as he died. All around him, it was the same. Death waiting. If only he had stayed with Quan at Yulin. Had he rejoined his countrymen, fought side by side with them, maybe some of the key garrisons would have been saved. Confound Jasmine and her lies. He should have stayed to protect the wall. As it was, he had been delayed anyway. His flight from Yulin had taken him through villages laid waste by starvation. He had stopped to help transport the refugees to towns that still possessed food, but the townsfolk had turned them back, and they had found no respite until they reached Lintao near the Wei River. Now summer was here and he was no closer to finding Jasmine.

But tea that was spilled was spilled, and could not be unspilled. His actions were what they were. This garrison never stood a chance. Guyuan was littered with dead soldiers and workers, and those in the last agonies of dying could not be saved. Already the crows were feasting, growing sluggish as he watched. He bowed to his dead countryman, flashed one last wary look backward and mounted his horse. Then he rode over the rubble of Altan’s destruction onto the open plain. He must stay on the south side of the wall to avoid detection. The ponds and rivers were full and gleaming, and beneath their mirrored surfaces the carp grew fat. On their banks the withered rushes of winter gave way to new growth, and in the sky, white clouds spun wildly. The farms remained bare and brown.

Parallel to the landscape, the wall wound like a serpent and He Zhu’s heart hammered as he turned north and raced alongside the wall toward the western stronghold. The triple towers of Jiayuguan rose over the western sands. The desert played tricks on the eyes. Hazy in the distance, the garrison was several hours ride away. It wasn’t there he headed. Rumour told that Jasmine’s offspring was holed up in a tent in Altan’s camp. He reined in his horse and slowed it to a trot.

This place was familiar, and he brought the gelding to a halt and waited. No sentries on the wall. They had all deserted. His horse approached softly on the dusty earth, and he dismounted. Leading the way to a scrawny shrub, he tethered the animal to it. This wall, as he recollected, seemed an impenetrable barrier, but on closer scrutiny was noticeably lower due to neglect. He climbed the fallen stones until he gained purchase on the top of the wall, then hoisted himself partway up and hung by his hands to survey the landscape. Where was he? The dying soldier had mentioned Jiayuguan. That made sense. The further away the safer. Jasmine would not have brought the child to the battlefront.

The wind blew wickedly; Zhu’s mantle flapped behind him and his fingers ached with the strain of suspending his body from the wall. He snapped sand from his eyelids. The stabbing sun glared upon the desert. Something moved on the other side.

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For lack of scrap metal, this would do. Master Yun removed one of the stirrups from Xingbar’s saddle and fingered it fitfully, and instructed Ho Teng to stand back while he called upon the powers of the magma surge. Below the crust of sand, the Earth heard his summons. From somewhere far and deep, where the planet’s bowels boiled, a vent opened and spewed a jet of the liquid core onto the sand to erupt into flame. The warlock plunged the stirrup into the bubbling rock before hoisting it out with the Scimitar of Yongfang. He poured his bladder of water over it, and reheated the iron in the steaming fire. Sparks flew and the warlock doused it again, sending mist into his face. When the misshapen piece of stirrup was malleable, he used a stone and beat it into the form of a dragon.

The poet stood over him, holding the reins to Xingbar, as Master Yun worked, a frown creasing his features. “This charm,” he asked, “will it keep the Yeren away?”

“It will keep it centered,” Master Yun said. “The Yeren represents the Earth. While this charm will confuse it and cause it to walk in circles, it will guide the wearer in the direction he wishes to go. I have shaped it like the azure dragon that our emperors so covet, and so its natural inclination will be to lead you east, toward the Forbidden City. If you wish to go west, then walk in the opposite direction from which it leads. But, pay heed, there is nothing in that direction except more unhappy desert and alien lands, and the white traders that would bleed this country dry.”

“How will I know which way it is leading?”

“You will feel its pull.”

Master Yun lifted the red-hot amulet with his hand and spread out his arms. The Charm of Bearing burned as brightly as the fire symbol representing the Vermilion Bird. North, south, east, west. Water, fire, wood, metal. He infused it with the elements of the earth and calibrated it to the Pole Star. He lowered his hand to the poet, revealing the treasure.

The stirrup had transformed into an exquisite azure dragon, iridescent with steely blues and purples, silver and black. Around its outer edges, it glowed with the orange-red heat of the Vermilion Bird.

Was it hot to the touch? The palm of Master Yun’s cupped hand was unmarred. The warlock showed no evidence of pain. But Master Yun was a being of magic, immune to earthly ravages. What was Ho Teng? A mere poet, and victim to the desert’s night chill and the sandblasts of the day.

“Take the amulet,” Master Yun said.

Ho Teng opened his balled fist and Master Yun dropped the burning amulet into his hand. Xingbar whinnied, and the poet screamed as the blazing metal scored his flesh, and he dropped the effigy of the dragon onto the sand. Tears streamed down his face, the pain so fierce, even his nose ran slick with mucous and the weak slobber dribbled from his mouth.

Master Yun ignored Ho Teng’s agony and his cries. He quickly cooled the poet’s hand with a dousing from the water bladder.

“Why did you do that?” Ho Teng shrieked, frustrated and enraged. “I trusted you!”

“Stop snivelling, Master Poet,” he said, gripping Ho Teng’s flailing arm. “I haven’t turned to sadism despite what you might think. I have simply impressed the image onto your hand. There are those who would seek to steal my magic from you. If you lose the charm, this image will serve as well.”

Master Yun raised an imposing hand. “The moving rust-coloured columns will not cease to move because I have given you the charm. The Yeren won’t cease to exist. I cannot stop what these impediments do or whom they serve. I don’t even know what that is or where their masters are. No, do not bother to ask, Ho Teng. Who they are or what our enemies hope to accomplish isn’t important. There is only one question you need answer. Do you want to leave this place?”

Fiercely, despite his obvious agony and the tears blurring his sight, Ho Teng nodded. “But why didn’t you warn me of your intentions?”

“Would it have made it any easier? Well, and now you have food for thought. Your next poem might concern an insensitive warlock who inflicts pain on others in order to rescue them.”

Master Yun poured more water on the poet’s hand before blowing his cooling breath over the burn. “The image will endure,” he said. “The desert is vast. Until the red sands transform to white and the white sun reverts to red, I do not know how many moons it will take for you to find your way home.”

Ho Teng squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for the pain to subside. In a few moments it did. Master Yun had no herbs with which to help the wound heal faster, but he was fairly certain that none were needed. He had not held the amulet long enough to cause a serious burn, only long enough to transfer the image to his flesh.

“Why can’t I come with you?” the poet asked. “After you complete your quest, we could return to Beijing together.”

“You are a brave soul, Master Poet, but where I am going it is not only bones that walk. The location of Dilong is sacred. And the dangers I will encounter are beyond the survival skills of mortals. I promise you with my Charm of Bearing you will find your way home.”

A gentle tremble in the sand quickened his feet. A quivering in the air, the dry smell of the desert—and layered beneath the breeze and the smells, something frighteningly familiar. Master Yun watched the ground where the magma surge had surfaced. What remained of the boiling liquid stone smouldered and went cold. He remained inert, hugging Xingbar close. “Easy there,” he whispered. “Be one with the desert.”

He dropped Xingbar’s bridle, tented his fingers, raising his arms. He shut his eyes, willing his
Chi
to rise.

“The Yeren is coming,” he muttered.

Xingbar reared up in terror, Master Yun yanked in the reins, quenching the horse’s fear. Instinctively, he hoisted the Scimitar of Yongfang.

A shimmer in the atmosphere sent Master Yun’s eyes to the horizon while the
crunch
,
crunch
,
crunch
began. His eyes ached with the strain of keeping them fixed on his invisible quarry, and he dared not blink though his sight darted from skyline to desert and back. A shimmering appeared once more, and then on the ground before his feet, stark footprints materialized.

Seconds passed in silence. Then came footsteps, and the heavy swishing of a large body.

“Don’t move,” Master Yun instructed Ho Teng.

Ho Teng exhaled involuntarily, tripping on something hard near his feet, and Master Yun looked down at the exposed, white skull. The sounds started to move away. “Stay put,” he ordered and passed his horse’s reins to the poet and turned to follow the footfalls.

The tracks moved well beyond the cold remains of Master Yun’s fire. Master Yun squinted to control his focus, sucked in the dry desert air to gather his
Chi
, and hurried. The footprints stopped. Exhaling, he paused to watch the sand settle. No movement now. He turned, arms raised, his grey, tattered sleeves loose in the breathless air. He stared at the last footprint, and saw the solid form rise. The massive bleached bones of the ancient, anthropoid skeleton rattled to life. A gasp escaped from the poet who appeared behind him. The bones were instantly covered in white fur while the face contorted into laughter.

Ho Teng ran.
Fool!
The poet had the nerves of a girl.

Master Yun raised his hands and called upon the power of stones to blind the creature into stopping. The sands swirled and rose, collecting and balling the grains into cobbles. They slapped at the beast until it cowered in solid terror. The cobbles froze, too, in midair, subject only to Master Yun’s will. What to do now? He had it under his power; the power of stones was keeping the beast immobilized like a statue. He suddenly grasped the significance of this standoff. His power had escalated beyond what it was even yesterday, and that meant the recent defeat of Ming soldiers. In the sky the screech of carrion birds sharpened his ears, and green-headed desert vultures wheeled into his line of vision, sailing toward the southwest in the direction of the Jiayuguan pass. He had not seen the green-headed omens of death since the betrayal of First Emperor by his concubine, the lady Peony.

Alas, he must make a choice: continue to Hot Lake and the burial site of Dilong or return to the frontier walls to see what terrible fate awaited his people. If he could only withdraw his sight for a breath and peek into the Moonstone, but in that breath the Yeren could strangle him.

“Ho Teng,” he shouted to the poet who was halfway to the pithouse. “I had hoped to make this situation permanent, but I do not know how long I’ll be able to hold him. Take the amulet, go back to your pithouse and prepare for your journey home. I give you ten minutes!”