The Pirate Empress (59 page)

“The Taijitu is true and false.”

“But is it whole?” Master Yun asked.

“It is always of two parts.”

“But do those two parts stand. Are they still connected?”

“I have not been to visit the Emblem in many a day or year or time.”

“But you have seen my granddaughter, Li. You helped her.”

“I help no one and I hinder no one. The one you speak of made her own choice.”

“Can you not tell me whether the Emblem stands?”

“I can tell you that you are asking the wrong question.”

The Transcendent Pig was a veritable fountain of wisdom when he chose. Master Yun must not allow his anxiety to cause him to be impatient. The dragon stroked the air lightly with his wings following the trajectory of Chao’s pale cloud. How long could he tread air before sinking? Suddenly, Chao frowned. “The past collides with the present, and the present with the future,” he said. “This is why you seek the Taijitu. You have witnessed that which you did not expect. And now, the Xiongnu are not your only concern.”

“Which is why I am in need of an answer. Not only are the Xiongnu not of this time, but lately I have come to suspect that the deposed Tay-son royalty who sponsor the South Coast pirates are not either.”

“One from the past, the other from the future,” the Transcendent Pig said. “But the future is only the future if it has yet to pass. To learn the truth, you must turn to that gift that is your people’s alone.”

You mean the Moonstone?
Master Yun stared at the milky jewel, but its eye refused to open. “The gemstones have been compromised. They will not answer.”

“That is not the gift of which I speak.” Chao gazed very calmly into his eyes. “Look into the very paleness of the clouds, Master Yun, and you will find what you seek.”

The Transcendent Pig vanished, and Fucanlong began to flap his wings in great strides. During the entire conversation with the mystical pig, they had been gradually plummeting earthward. Master Yun turned to ensure that the Emperor was safe. He was seated near the dragon’s tail, snivelling.

“That was not hallucination, and you are not crazy, Majesty,” he said. “We are headed home now. Soon you will be among your people again.” Master Yun turned back to the dragon. “Fucanlong,” he said. “Did you understand
any
of that?”

The blue dragon tilted his snout. “It seems to me, the pig was telling you that you already know the answer.”

Master Yun sighed. The power to which Chao referred was a very primal one. Master Yun had not seen it used in all his thousand years of existence. It was an ability known only through ancient texts, and was called the Sight of Wuji, the opposite of
Taiji
of which the Emblem, the Taijitu
,
was its physical manifestation.

The Sight of Wuji was an organic thing; it flourished in the eyes of the gifted. It was there in all of his people; even
he
possessed its vestigial essence, which lived inside the gelatinous matrix of his inner eye. Most of the time, this essence was invisible, but under the proper conditions, it could be coaxed into sight, and seen, albeit briefly, as a clear circle with a black center and a black circle with a clear center. The
Wuji
gave infinite sight, and made the Gemstones of Seeing obsolete, for it could transmit to its host the vision of truth. If the Taijitu of the Etherworld was broken, the
Wuji
would transmit this vision to him. But could he engage the sight himself? In all these centuries, he had failed to do so.

Stare into the paleness of the white cloud.

Master Yun looked straight above him to where his eyes focused only on whiteness. The sensations he encountered compelled him to blink, but he held tight. His eye began to tremble; white sparks flitted. Tiny black filaments and translucent grey motes travelled spasmodically in his vision, then he focused in on what he sought—the tiny circles, the black one with the clear center and the clear one with the black center. The trick was to meld the two together to form a single black spot in the white matrix of his eye. That done he should be able to engage its power.

Pull.

Focus.

Pull

Focus
.

But that was the problem. No matter how hard Master Yun tried, his eye muscles and his will were too weak. He ended up cross-eyed, dizzy, and with a screaming headache, and still the
Wuji
refused to connect. Master Yun knew how the power was activated, but he could not manipulate the two parts and attain limitless sight.

In all his riddles and non-answers, Chao had hinted at an obvious clue. When Li’s name was mentioned, the pig’s eyes had glimmered. Lotus Lily had survived the Etherworld to return to the Middle Kingdom and play out her role. Master Yun had not seen his granddaughter in ten years. In that time had she discovered her own powers? And was one of them, the Sight of Wuji?

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“So, Dilong protects you.”

He Zhu brandished the dragon’s rib like a sword. “I have no quarrel with you, War God. Why do you wish me ill?”

“I don’t wish you ill,” the six-armed man-beast said. He gnashed his teeth together and Zhu could hear the crushing of stone on stone. “I want you dead.”

“At least tell me why.”

“You have taken something that is mine.”

Zhu couldn’t imagine what that could be. This dragon’s rib? But he needed it to win the war against the Chinese rebels and their Manchu allies; he needed it to free the ghost armies to send the Mongols back over the wall. Nine armies, Master Yun had said. The fox faeries were amassing nine armies. Nine was a magic number—the number of victory.

“What have I taken?” He Zhu asked. All that he had, he had given away.

The metal face of the war god showed no expression. His ox’s hooves thrashed the ground. Six arms swung in deadly anticipation. He raised the halberd, but then he spied something on the horizon and stopped. Zhu looked, too, and saw an amazing sight.

Chi Yu began to quiver as though his bones were melting. What was happening to him? “The child—” the god said, then his voice cut off and he vanished.

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

The Sight of Wuji

“Alai?” Zhu called out, dragging the dragon’s rib with him to meet the horse and riders.

The bowmaid tugged back her reins, and He Zhu glanced quickly about in case the war god reappeared, before dropping the giant bone and reaching upward to lift the children from their mount. Alai followed and stood facing him. “What are you doing here?” he demanded.

She trembled, knowing he was angry: she had abandoned the plan of hiding the youngsters among her people. “Something has happened,” she said. “The children are no longer safe there. The Xiongnu have girded for battle and are headed for the Dragon Wall.”

“But I thought your people had forsaken war to live a peaceful life of raising goats and horses.”

“My father announced that he was joining the Mongol Esen.”

“That fool? He’s a coward and a clown. Better that they should join with his brother. Although he may be my enemy—nay the nemesis of all the Middle Kingdom—Altan is at least a warrior to reckon with.”

She shrugged. “And something else.” She raised a bronze sword, the one he had left with her. She gripped it firmly in her right hand without altering her expression. “I did exactly as you instructed, but it doesn’t work for me.” She frowned, and handed it to him.

Zhu gripped the blade, and glanced at his feet. His boots remained the official footgear of the Imperial Army, his tunic that of a Ming soldier.

“Is it broken?” she asked.

“I don’t understand. It has always performed its magic before.”

“There’s more.” She turned to Wu, and stooped to lift the fabric cord that hung loosely around his neck. Zhu had placed that cord there, himself. It held the Tiger’s Eye, the holy gemstone of the monkhood that possessed the power to reveal ‘what is’. “The boy confided in me. He was worried about you, about his mother, his father and his great grandfather. He feared he might never see any of you again. I caught him peering into the stone and he said that it, too, is broken.”

He Zhu hoisted the necklet from his nephew’s throat and detached the ring, and slipped it onto his finger, gazing into the saffron jewel. The cold, hard surface remained inert. He rubbed its face three times, but still it stayed lifeless. The creases in Zhu’s brow deepened. What did this mean?
First there is no magic, then there is magic, and now there is no magic again?

After his ordeal with the giant carp, the underwater pagoda, the fifth rib of Dilong, and the war god Chi Yu, He Zhu was exhausted. There was no safe place in the desert for Wu and Peng, nor for Alai, so he must take them with him—but to where? And without the gemstone’s sight how was he to predict what to do? Then something occurred to him. “How did you find me?”

Alai proffered a tiny smile. “We followed you. It was Peng’s suggestion.”

He Zhu glanced at his daughter, crouched to her height, which to his surprise was quite a bit taller than when last they were together. She was only four years old but stood almost as tall as the eight-year-old Wu.

“I saw you,” Peng said, puckering her red lips.

The girl had the ability to transform into a fox. Did foxes have particularly long vision? But how was that possible? No creature, not even a fox, could see thousands of miles ahead of itself. “Tell me exactly how you could see me, Peng. I was leagues away from Alai’s family’s encampment.”

“I know that,” Peng said, annoyed. “But I squeezed my eyes together and I saw you at this lake—talking to a giant goldfish.”

Alai glanced sceptically at him. “I didn’t believe her at first, but we had to run
somewhere
. And when we had gone some distance in the direction she indicated, we began to pick up traces of your journey. You left remains of a fire and the droppings of your horse.”

The foxling had more powers than he knew. Her mother lacked this ability except for the reading of tealeaves and lily ponds. “Are you sure you didn’t see me in a cup of tea?”

“I did not,” she protested. “I saw you with my EYES.”

“All right. No need to shout.”

“You were there at the bottom of the lake by a thing made of bones. It was white on one side and black on the other. Just like what I saw in my eyes.”

What was she talking about? She saw a similar configuration in her eyes? She must mean her imagination. Children made up all sorts of things…then her description struck a chord in his memory. A lesson taught to him by the texts of the monkhood.
Know whiteness. Maintain blackness and be a model for all under heaven. By being a model for all under heaven, eternal integrity will not err. And if eternal integrity does not err, you will return to infinity.

It was a Taoist philosophy, but what did it mean? He had not understood it when he read it on the ancient bamboo scrolls, and he did not understand it now.

“The thing,” Peng said. “That black and white thing made of bones. I saw that it was broken.”

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The golden rooftops of the Forbidden City came into sight once more, but Master Yun sensed something was wrong. From high upon the back of the flying dragon, he could see to the north, the web of green-brown walls marking Shanhaiguan which blocked passage from the territories of Manchuria to the farms of his homeland. The First Pass on Earth with its solid tree-high ramparts, crowned with weighty, curling eaves was eerily empty. There should be soldiers on those ramparts, and travellers passing through the Gate at Which the Border Tribes Come to Pay Homage. Master Yun shivered as a growing reality dawned on him. Rebellion had swallowed up the north and central regions of the Middle Kingdom. Was his worst fear true? Had the rebels overtaken the capital?

“Fucanlong,” he said. “Set us down northwest of the city. We must not send the streets into a panic. The people have never seen a living dragon, and their reaction might not be politic. I will not risk injury to His Majesty.”

Fucanlong agreed. He did not want to risk injury to himself either, for he was determined to find a way to reverse the fox faerie’s spell and breathe fire again.

“In the Koi Gardens,” the warlock said. “It is private and no one will see us. Place us there.” But when the dragon circled above the gardens, Master Yun saw that it was no longer private. Sentries stood at the entrance to the parkland and at either side of the temple’s doors.

“What is happening?” the Emperor asked from behind. “Those are not the colours of my guard.”

No. They were not. He had to find a place to hide His Majesty until he knew what had occurred. “Set me down behind that forest there,” Master Yun requested. “And take His Highness into the woods.”

The Emperor objected, but the warlock turned deaf ears to him. He abandoned His Majesty to the keeping of the dragon. It promptly transformed into a handsome Imperial soldier.

Master Yun leaped into the air, and traversed four leagues with little effort. It was, as he had feared. More deaths. The Ming army was near defeat. Carnage paved the road from the forest on: corpses of horses and soldiers, all bearing Imperial colours; severed heads perched upon pikes at strategic crossroads. The Forbidden City was under siege. As he entered the countryside, peasants cowered inside their farmhouses. One brave old man ventured out at Master Yun’s urging and spoke of a new leader, a warrior who dared smash the doors of Anding Gate, and declare himself Supreme Leader.

“He calls himself ‘The Dashing Prince’,” the old peasant said.

So, Zi Shicheng, the Chinese rebel, had succeeded in taking the throne, with the help of his Manchu allies.
But, what had become of the army’s supreme chief, that scoundrel Military Governor, Zheng Min? Had he defected to the other side when all seemed lost? And what of the Mongol, Altan? The warlord wouldn’t just sit in his felt tent and allow the Manchu invaders to take the capital, would he? Well, if Zi Shicheng was calling himself the Dashing Prince, that meant he was not yet crowned, which meant that the Manchus had not agreed. Perhaps they had their own ideas for a ruler, a Manchu ruler? And where were the fox faeries in all of this? It was their silence at a very crucial time that made him nervous. Did they not care who ruled, because he
wasn’t
going to rule for long? Ah. If only he was privy to their plan.

Master Yun sprinted across the field. When he arrived at the fringes of the city, a frightened merchant warned him that barbarians stood posted at every gate. Master Yun declined the offer of a mule to ride and went on foot, skirting the sentries until he reached the citadel. Leaping onto a wall outside the Forbidden City, his jaw gaped at what lay ahead. Tens of thousands of soldiers filled the city streets leading to the palace, and thousands more flooded the public square outside Anding Gate. But it wasn’t so much their numbers that horrified him. It was their raiment.

Time enough for answers when he found a way inside. He drifted down from the wall and stood in its shadow almost invisible. Armed men flanked every gate.

He stepped into the sunshine, and leaped onto the roof of the palace unnoticed. Then he slipped under the eaves of the top tier, entering through the fresh air vent.

With every sense he possessed, he raked the halls of the palace. He glided among the shadows as palace eunuchs wept, heads bowed in deference to the never-ending stream of marching soldiers. In the audience halls, he, who had seen all manner of ghoulish things, gagged at the sight of the Imperial guards splayed across the marble floors, their heads and limbs lopped off as though they were nothing but cuts of meat. His heart rattled like the armour of a hundred thousand invading soldiers as he flitted in and out of the audience halls. He waited before approaching the throne room. The green mosaics of the ceiling gleamed above, the yellow pillars with their lion dog sculptures towered before him. Master Yun froze at the threshold. A hundred armed warriors turned their blades to him. The words of the Hell Master filtered through his shock into the very core of his being.
Nothing is as it was
.

This
was The Dashing Prince that had all of the Middle Kingdom trembling in their boots?

“Who goes there?” the chief guard demanded.

The shadow spell Master Yun had devised to mask his entrance into the palace was still intact, and to the military assembly he was invisible. He decided to remain so until he was clear on what had transpired, and sent a shadow of a flying crow to draw the soldiers’ eyes to the far wall. The diversion succeeded. The ringing of pivoting armour sent all eyes away.

The one who now claimed the throne had been made crazy by his obsession with Lotus Lily: his sole purpose in life to exterminate her and her son. What he did not know was that she had birthed two sons, each marked with the sign of the Black Tortoise.

So the tide had turned. The universe was confronting its opposite.

When last the warlock had visited this chamber, the royal throne had been kicked onto its side, cracked down the spine by a mortified Chinese emperor. Now, seated upon the newly mended throne was Esen, the Mongol.