The Pirate Empress (50 page)

“But you can’t stay here. When winter comes, the desert will become tundra. The ice and wind will show no mercy. Human flesh can’t prevail. You will perish.” Quan glanced down at the charm in his fist.
Will it work? Will the amulet immobilize the rust-coloured pillars and stop the bones that walk from pursuing me?
He rubbed the smooth, lumpy surface, feeling the outline of the dragon in the moulded metal, and looked up. “What happens if you change your mind and
want
to go home? How will you find your way out of the mind-bending wasteland without Master Yun’s magic?”

Ho Teng smiled, for the first time not grimly. “Master Yun is a warlock of the first degree. Foresight is one of his greatest gifts. Don’t worry. He was not negligent. I can always find my way home.”

The poet raised one of his hands and Quan saw on the leathery palm an exact replica of the azure dragon scorched into his skin. Quan pressed his palms together in a bow of deep respect. “This is most generous of you, Master Poet. I won’t forget your good turn.”

He glanced at the etched bones piled against the pithouse walls.
And rest assured, I won’t let anyone else forget you either.

With the Charm of Bearing clasped in his hand, he felt a slight pull like an ox drawn to water, and wrapped his fist around the amulet, thanked the poet once more and left the pithouse. He had two choices. Seek out Master Yun and Altan’s daughter and convince the warlock to exchange the Mongol princess for Wu, or return to the Forbidden City and beg His Majesty to lend him an army with which to invade Altan’s camp.

Poor Li. His thoughts now wandered to his beloved. No doubt she was also searching for their son.

CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

White Bone Spirit

The Pirate King was procrastinating again. He had kept his promise up to a point, and although they had entered the Yellow Sea and were on a northern course, the lookout on the masthead had spotted a prize about a hundred miles off. It was headed to Tsingtao and the greedy pirate captain wanted the silver that was most certainly aboard. Several hundred armoured junks bore down on the merchant carrier. She had less than twenty cannon. Half the number of the Black Flag junk,
Lady White Snake
. The prize, a large and splendid vessel, flew the Emperor’s green dragon and yellow triangle. One of the cargo carriers of Kwangtung, it was similar to Mo Kuan-Fu’s menace of the seas. Both were built of strong ironwood, running a length of one hundred and fifty feet, and each had distinctive red bands in their hulls. But the rogues were assured of success because of the size of their flotilla.

“Captain!” Li shouted to the upper deck. “After this, no more delays. There is enough booty on that junk to keep you in silver all the rest of your days. I demand you take me to the capital and to my father.”

The Pirate King snapped at her. “I give the orders here. I decide when we leave and when we stay. Scream at me again and I will feed you to the White Bone Spirit of the sea.”

The slovenly pirate turned on his heel and went to his shrine of
Bai Gu Jing
. Before each mission he prayed to her for success. She was a young, beautiful woman with the ability to transform into any person or creature at will. Known for her trickery, that was probably why the Pirate King had chosen a shape-shifting demon to worship. The sight of her painted image gave Li the chills, for she was as exquisite as the fox faerie, from the top of her black-haired skull to the full white breasts, incurved waist, and slender feet, pale as a lamb’s belly.
Bai Gu Jing
could no more hurt her than
Xiang Gong could protect Madam Choi’s junk or bring back Li’s son. If gods were real and the nine-headed, snake-bodied deity was truly benevolent to his followers, then why had that ox-brained steppe rat of a Mongol, Esen, been allowed to board Madam Choi’s junk and kidnap Wu?

Li followed the captain to the upper deck, and sneered as he offered libations of rice wine and jasmine tea to the goddess. She hesitated to call it a ‘she,’ for it could transmute into a lizard or a man, and the only thing certain was that it had bones.

“What are you doing watching me?” he demanded, spinning around to confront her. She suddenly noticed, beside the tea and wine cups, a haunch of strange, but at the same time, familiar looking meat. The
crew
did not eat that well. They had congee for breakfast, lunch and dinner—with a little salt fish if lucky. He noticed her eyes on the altar and stepped into her line of vision. “I repeat. What were you doing watching me?”

“Awaiting your orders, O’ Mighty King of the Eastern Seas,” she answered.

“Is that sarcasm?” he accused her. “Don’t mock me.”

Right. If she wanted any cooperation, she had better smarten up. She forced her expression to slacken, and made a respectful bow. “You are the Pirate King. I am awaiting orders.”

“My orders are for you to go below and prepare to attack that approaching Kwangtung carrier.” He pointed across the deck to the massive cargo ship. “I believe we’ve been sighted. She is trying to change course. Go. Man the longboats, and redeem yourself.”

“Longboats won’t work.” He did not want to endanger his flagship by bearing down on the carrier, which was the same tonnage as his junk, but it was impossible for the pirates to board from longboats because of the carrier’s high hulls. “Better to hail them from here,” she said. “Fire a warning cannon and board them from the
Lady White Snake
.”

As soon as the words left her mouth Li knew she had made a mistake. Mo Kuan-fu’s face turned dark as purple cabbage.

“You dare to question my orders?”

“You know we can’t board them from sea. Not on longboats. We can’t get purchase on those hulls. You know that.”

“Get in the longboat.”

“No,” she said. “That would be suicide.”

His eyes went black with outrage. “I should run you through with this—” His fingers clasped the two-handed hacker hanging at his hip. The sword with which he threatened her sported a long heavy blade. It was typically swung with both hands and could cut through armour. But she was safe because her hand was on the hilt of her lighter sabre. And the steel blade would pierce his heart before his own ever left his hip.

The tension in the air was thicker than the fog on the horizon. He mumbled some gibberish, and then a strange thing happened. Behind his head where the painting of
Bai Gu Jing
hung in its wooden shrine, a sound erupted. It was like the cracking of wood: a creaking at first, and a groaning, and then a loud snap as though a branch had broken off a tree. They both turned at that instant, and saw that the board on which the seductive demon’s image was painted had splintered. Colours flowed on the deck. Black and red and purple, and the lamb’s white of its skin. The look on Mo Kuan-fu’s face told her that he didn’t know what was happening. Then he smiled. The colours were starting to form a shape, swirling first in a rich liquid mass, before muddying.
Bai Gu Jing
was coming to life. But its shape was not the shape of the beautiful painting; it had become an ugly toad-like man. It was dressed in trousers with no shirt, and its massive muscular body was covered with wart-like lumps, its skin slug green.

“Do you know why
She
is called the White Bone Spirit?” the Pirate King asked. “It’s because she eats the flesh of men—especially holy men—and women with special gifts. She devours the flesh until she reaches the bone. Then she cleans the bone until it’s white and shining ... No need for that,” he said, noting the sabre in her hand. “You are no longer a member of the Black Flag fleet.” He turned abruptly and shouted, “Feed!”

Li swung at the toad man, but it leaped exactly like the amphibian it mimicked and dodged the blade. In midair, it reverted to female form and floated back to the deck in a silky purple robe.
Bai Gu Jing
tossed glossy black hair and chuckled. When Li hammered her blade at the demon, it skirted the blows as if it were made of light.

The beautiful demon flew at her, and by this time Li knew her sword was useless. She called upon the powers of
Gwei-huo,
and the Ghostfire answered. Shrouded in a veil of shivering lights, she caught the startled look on Mo Kuan-fu’s face. Even the White Bone Spirit seemed to be stymied for a minute, but then its eyes turned white, and it was clear Li was visible. Li raced for the rail, the tiny luminescent spirits cloaking her, leaped into the sea and made for the Kwangtung carrier. But
Bai Gu Jing
was already on her tail. The White Bone Spirit transformed into a two-headed shark. There was no hope now. What was she going to do? Where could she go? The cargo junk was outside swimming reach. As Li sank below the surface, she heard shouts demanding to spear her.

There was nothing left to do but pray. She prayed to Lei Shen, Zhu’s thunder god, to send a bolt of lightening to kill the shark. She prayed to Xiang Gong, Madam Choi’s figurehead, but what could a nine-headed, snake-bodied god do for her? He wasn’t real. None of them were.

She was going to die. The last breath in her body strained for release. She couldn’t hold it much longer. Bubbles exploded from her mouth and her nostrils, and her lungs filled with water; her heart burst like a stampede of elephants and her muscles screamed. Li shot for the surface into hazy sunlight, gasped for air, choking and sputtering, scattering the Ghostfire. They were of no use here. She glanced down; saw the grey form of the two-headed shark gaining on her. She still had her sabre; if she could pierce it between the eyes of one of its heads, she could slow it down, maybe even kill it. She thrust, but the shark grabbed the blade with the jaws of one of its heads as though it were no more than a limp piece of rope, and dragged her down with it. Let go of the blade.
Let go!
Why couldn’t she let go of her sword? Down and down the two-headed demon shark dragged her, deep into the abyss. This time it was certain. Any minute, she would have to breathe. And with that first breath, she’d begin her dance of agony to death. Would the Ox and Horsehead Messenger come for her and whisk her to Feng Du Mountain to be judged by the Hell Master? Or would she go to the Etherworld to chat with the Transcendent Pig, and await the opening of Heaven’s doors?
Chao! Where are you? You, who can transcend time and space, land and air and sea, save me.
The current tugged at her tunic and strung out her hair. She sailed in the wake of the two-headed shark, towed by her blade like a fish on a line. It was dark. The cold chilled her to her very bones. And still she hung on by sheer force of will; her hand clamped to the hilt of her sword like a ghostly manacle strapped it there.

No more,
she thought.
I have to breathe.
Her lungs ached, her mind swooned; fiery hallucinations blinded her eyes like the lit oil of spilled lanterns. Bright lights glowed everywhere, flashing and burning. She was beyond saving. Maybe she was already in the fire labyrinths of Hell.

Li gasped, her lungs bursting. Seawater poured into her mouth, her nose, her ears. She inhaled, ready to accept the end that was coming. And then, her hand let go of the sabre’s hilt. The two-headed shark, surprised by the loss of its prey, jerked around and fishtailed toward her. She waved her arms and legs like a frog and felt her muscles respond. She shot through the water but the shark was close on her heels. She shut her eyes.
Master Yun, guide me.
If you are my grandfather, then why don’t I have any powers?

She heard his voice answer:
What makes you think you don’t?

I can’t save myself.

Can’t you? Even now you breathe. Power does not necessarily flow from the fingertips.

She squeezed her eyelids tighter. Brought forth the image of the seabed that was obscured by the fiery lights, and willed the forces of the earth to hear her. The floor of the sea began to crack. An explosive sound, like cannon fire rippled across the seabed, sending vents of oscillating bubbles in an upward-climbing stream. Bright orange, flame-like waves licked the black water; the sea began to churn and a behemoth force with the power of a tsunami thrust her to the surface.

Li allowed the current to sail her to the top of the sea. As she crested the peaks, the water beneath her felt solid. She looked down to where her hands gripped the curvature of a strange globe, and her legs straddled the hump of something blue and scaly. There wasn’t only one globe bouncing in the water ahead of her; there were nine. Nine yellow globes with long necks arced like dolphins as they thrust up and down to propel its mass forward. She gaped. She was perched on the slithering back of a blue snake with nine yellow human heads. She forced herself to keep her handhold rather than fall back into the twin jaws of
Bai Gu Jing
. She knew she was riding the snake body of Xiang Gong.
How can this be?
In the six or seven years she had been aboard Madam Choi’s junk, she had never seen any living manifestation of the pirate’s water god.

“Can you speak?” she asked the head that was cupped in her hands.

“It depends upon to which of us you wish to speak,” the head answered. The other eight turned her way without changing the speed at which they ripped through the water.

“I wish to speak to
you
,” Li said.

“Then you will have to speak up. The roar of the wind and the pounding of the sea will suck away your words.”

“You are Xiang Gong?” she shouted, indicating all of his heads with a bob of her chin.

“I am.”

“Can you outrun the White Bone Spirit?” A frightening thought occurred to her. What if this was another manifestation of the demon goddess?

The yellow head to which she addressed her questions spoke. “You can relax. I am not she. If I were, you would be dead.”

Li shot a look at the dark water beneath her. “Where is she?”

“Returned to her master. Mo Kuan-fu feeds her. She is loyal.”

What or
who
did the Pirate King feed to the demon? Li shuddered as her heart jumped into her throat. What was on the altar of that shrine? A haunch of meat that might have been human? The sailor who had died the night Po came to search for her had never been buried. The snotnose pirate who had brought her aboard the
Lady White Snake
had not been seen in days. This time the goose bumps on her flesh refused to dissipate.

“She prefers her meat live.”

Why had she ever trusted him? Mo Kuan-fu was a monster. “Please slow down, so that we can hear each other better,” she said.

“Not a wise course of action,” the head replied.

No, probably not. The wind was whipping wet strands of her hair across her face and she was grateful that the sea god had none. Gripping his bald head was bad enough, but clinging to his hair, like she would to the mane of an unbridled horse was just plain rude.