Heaven to Wudang

  I stood and turned to go. ‘Let’s cross that bridge when we come to it.’

  ‘Promise me, Emma: if it comes to that, you’ll let me do it.’

  I didn’t look back at him. ‘I already did, mate. You have my word. I’ll do my best.’

  ‘That’s all I can ask for.’ He wheeled himself so that he was next to me. ‘What were we supposed to be doing? Taming or energy?’

  ‘You missed taming with Gold. You have energy with me now.’

  ‘Do me a favour and reschedule me? I think I need to go do something seriously physical for a while.’

  ‘How about we meet up in front of Dragon Tiger and do a Wu set?’

  He nodded. ‘Sounds like a plan. See you there.’ He disappeared.

  CHAPTER 10

  As Leo and I worked through the Wu set, students gathered to watch, sitting on the steps below Dragon Tiger. We both put chi into our hands, moving it with our focus as we completed the set, and it vibrated in harmony.

  We were about two-thirds done with the set when Martin appeared in front of us and saluted. ‘Forgive my intrusion, Lady Emma, there is something you should know.’

  I froze in place, and Leo stopped as well.

  ‘What?’ I said.

  ‘The Generals — the Marshals — Lady, all thirty-six of them have gathered at the Gates of Heaven, at Guan Yu’s abode. Are you aware of this?’

  I dropped my hands. ‘All thirty-six?’

  He nodded a reply.

  ‘A coup?’ Leo said behind me.

  ‘Not possible,’ I said, but I wasn’t sure. I turned to Leo, who’d pulled his wheelchair closer to sit in it. ‘Can you take me to the Gates?’

  ‘I’ve never been. I have Divine Mandate and don’t need to go through them,’ Leo said. ‘So I have no idea where they are.’

  ‘I know,’ Martin said, and raised his hands to us. ‘I should come as well; you may need support.’

  We arrived in front of the Gates of Heaven, where those without Divine Mandate were appraised before being given permission to enter. The gates were actually a five-storey tall, windowless building built of brick and carved with the Four Winds, painted in red and enhanced with gold. The Phoenix was above the main door; the Dragon to the left; the Tiger to the right; and the Xuan Wu along the bottom painted across the wood of the doors. Chinese always put North at the bottom of the map. The left and right doors were painted with images of the Door Gods; and the massive central door was inscribed with a simplified image of the Jade Emperor himself. The roof was traditional tiles, but they were covered with gold as well, making the whole building shine in the sun. The gate building was fifty metres thick, and a wall stretched from either side of it, red with a gold roof, all the way around the Celestial.

  I went through the right gate, as was my entitlement, and the demons on either side of the gate saluted me, fist to chest. I opened the door on the side of the corridor that led through the building, and Leo floated to follow me up the five flights of stairs to the top where Guan Yu’s quarters occupied the entire top floor.

  Two doors led off the lobby: one to Guan Yu’s apartment, and the other to his meeting room. I went to the door of the meeting room and stood quietly for a moment, listening.

  General Ma was speaking. ‘So we can remove the eleven thunder gods and the three tiger gods straight away. Of the twenty-two remaining, seven have a very close association with demonic forces: too much of a risk they’d bring out the Dark Lord’s demonic side.’

  ‘I could feed him. I’m not that demonic!’ someone said, protesting.

  ‘Looked in a mirror lately?’ a deep voice growled.

  ‘That leaves fifteen. Dang is too small, the Zhu sisters are girls …’

  I went into the room and they stopped. The room was decked with triangular banners down the side, displaying Guan Yu’s Heavenly Guard allegiances, and held a U-shaped table around which all thirty-six of the Generals sat. They were all in human form, wearing armour over their robes, even those who were usually non-combatants in the battles against demonkind. It was definitely a council of war.

  ‘Oh shit,’ one of them said softly.

  Ma rose and strode around the back of the table to me. ‘Lady Emma. I can explain …’

  ‘Leo will be the one to feed the Dark Lord, not one of you,’ I said.

  ‘Thanks, Emma,’ Leo said behind me.

  Marshal Zhao rose, his dark face fierce under the skinned tiger’s head he wore into battle. ‘With all due respect, ma’am, the Black Lion simply isn’t big enough to bring the Dark Lord back.’

  Ma gestured towards the table. ‘Since you’re here, you might as well contribute. Just don’t order us not to do this, because it has to be done if mortal lives are to be saved.’

  I went around the table and Zhu Bo Niang moved down a seat to give me room. Leo wheeled his chair to sit behind me and Martin stayed near the door. I looked down at the table in front of me: they’d made a list of all the Generals with their elemental or demonic natures, and had been crossing themselves off it.

  I glanced up at Ma, who’d taken a seat next to me. ‘First, tell me how much you can see. Leo and I were just talking about this; all of us can see it. I only have a very nasty sense of powerful foreboding but nothing specific. Lives will be lost, some of them close and precious.’ I tried to control my voice. ‘And Simone is mortal.’

  ‘So are you, ma’am,’ Ma said. ‘Nobody has details. All we know is that it’s big, it’s soon, and lives will be lost.’ He put his hand on the list. ‘Some of us simply aren’t qualified to feed the Dark Lord to complete health. He can’t be fed by one who is too small or too elementally opposing —’

  I cut him off. ‘I know all that. Who do you have left?’

  ‘Fifteen. Less Dang, who is too small, and the Zhu girls —’

  ‘We’re not little girls!’ Zhu Bo Niang said.

  ‘You’re female. That’s enough,’ Ma said. ‘Twelve.’

  Bo Niang took the list in front of me, crossed the three names off with a modern ballpoint, and placed the list so that both of us could see it.

  ‘I’m too fire-related,’ Ma continued. ‘Zhou’s too wind-based. Ten.’

  ‘Guan Yu can’t be spared, he guards this Gate,’ Marshal Zhou said.

  ‘Conceded,’ Ma said. ‘Nine.’

  ‘I’m probably too fire-related as well,’ Marshal Tie said. ‘And so is Xie Shi Rong.’

  ‘Yes,’ Ma said. ‘Seven.’

  ‘The Pure Ones, who’ve never taken a life, or are pursuing the Teachings,’ Bo Niang said. ‘Xun and Kang Xi the Humane Sage. They’d destroy him with their type of energy.’

  ‘You sure?’ Marshal Kang said.

  ‘Yeah, she’s right,’ Liang Tian said. ‘He’s still way too dark to receive that sort of light.’

  ‘Five,’ Ma said. He lifted the paper. ‘The two biggest of those who could easily fill the Dark Lord to full strength are Gao Yuan the Heavenly Star, and Xiao Lei Qiong the Grand Marshal of the Hours.’

  ‘You can’t sacrifice time!’ Liang Tian said. ‘You can’t use Xiao!’

  ‘Time goes on without me,’ Xiao said. ‘Not as reliably, but it will.’

  ‘Not worth the risk,’ Ma said. ‘That leaves four: Gao Yuan, Marshal Meng of the City of Hell, Yang Biao the Earth spirit, and Wang Zhong of the Yellow River Delta.’

  ‘And me,’ Leo said.

  ‘Wang’s needed to control the river,’ Zhou said.

  ‘The humans should try living without his moderation of the floods and see the devastation that their stripping of the forests has caused,’ Liang Tian said with venom.

  ‘The humans in the lower reaches of the delta have no control over what happens in the mountains,’ Wang said. ‘They need to be alive and scared and raising their voices if change is to happen. If they’re dead, they have no voice.’

  ‘If the demon horde invade, they’ll have no voice anyway,’ Bo Niang said, leaning her chin on her hand. ‘We need the Dark Lord ba
ck.’

  ‘We need Meng to guard the Gates of Hell as well,’ Ma said. ‘We don’t know the extent of what they’re planning, except that it’s something big.’

  ‘I will guard the Gates,’ Meng said.

  ‘That leaves only two who are both available and qualified to feed the Dark Lord in case of emergency.’ He looked pointedly at Leo. ‘And are big enough to fill him. Gao Yuan and Yang Biao.’

  ‘Is Yang Biao big enough?’ Zhou said.

  ‘I was big enough to imprison all of you in the Earth when I Fell,’ Yang said, speaking for the first time. ‘Took the Dark Lord himself to take the form of a water dragon to subdue me. That was a grand battle.’

  ‘He’s perfect for the job,’ Liang Tian said. ‘Thick, useless and powerful.’

  ‘Just be glad you’re not on ground level where my power rules,’ Yang said.

  ‘Would Leo and myself be enough, if both of us were to feed him?’ I said.

  ‘No way,’ Leo said. ‘Don’t even think about it.’

  ‘Frankly, ma’am, although you’re bigger than many humans, compared to us you’re tiny,’ Ma said. ‘You’d be a drop in the ocean, lost for no purpose.’ He nodded to Leo. ‘With all due respect, sir, you are too small and too new and would share a similar fate.’

  ‘You promised,’ Leo said to me.

  ‘I’ll make it happen. Even if they bring him back using someone else, I’ll ask him when he is back.’

  Leo was silent for a moment, then said, ‘Okay.’

  ‘What about if all of you got together and fed him?’ I said.

  Ma nodded. ‘All of us could join forces and feed him close to all our energy without being destroyed, and that would bring him back at full health. But it would kill us all.’

  ‘And then you’d all be stuck in Court Ten while this hurricane occurs,’ I said. ‘I see.’

  ‘You could tell Judge Pao to let them out straight away,’ Leo said.

  I snorted with laughter. ‘Even if the world was on the edge of destruction and the Jade Emperor himself gave Pao a direct order, he wouldn’t let them out straight away because that’s not the procedure. The shortest time anybody’s been held in Court Ten is twelve hours.’

  ‘Twelve hours is too long with what we can see coming,’ Ma said.

  ‘Anyone have any idea how long we have until this storm breaks?’ Leo said.

  ‘Not really,’ Zhou said. ‘But we called this meeting because of a very disturbing development.’

  ‘What’s that?’ I said. ‘And why didn’t you tell me?’

  ‘You know already, ma’am, and I’m surprised you haven’t put it together,’ Ma said.

  ‘She’s still very weak,’ Bo Niang said. ‘It’s understandable.’

  ‘Not really,’ I said. ‘What?’

  ‘When was the last time you identified a demon copy?’ Zhou said.

  I inhaled sharply. ‘Weeks. We haven’t seen one in weeks.’ I rose and strode to the side of the room, next to the banners. ‘We haven’t seen one in weeks, and I never noticed.’ I slapped my forehead. ‘The Demon King burned out my intelligence with that demon essence.’

  ‘For the first time in more than ten years, you’ve had a new batch of students with no demon copies at all,’ Ma said. ‘None of your existing testing methods worked.’

  ‘Well, that’s good, isn’t it?’ Leo said. ‘It’s possible there are no copies and they gave up making them.’

  ‘The Death Mother is still out there, and she’s been making copies for ten years. Do you think she would suddenly give up?’ Zhou said.

  ‘I need to go back right now and call Ronnie Wong in to see if he can identify them,’ I said, and returned to sit at the table. ‘Everybody else, I suggest you return to your posts, because our dominion is undefended while you are all here. Ma, Gao Yuan, Yiang Biao, Guan Yu: remain. Everybody else, dismissed, and you don’t need to tell me; I know.’

  ‘My Lord,’ the Generals said, and disappeared.

  ‘Know what?’ Martin said as he came into the room to join us.

  ‘She sounds like him,’ Leo said.

  ‘Exactly like him,’ Ma said. ‘Have you been sitting down in the Grotto next to the water?’

  ‘Maybe,’ I said. ‘Leo’s not the only one who likes hanging out down there.’

  Guan Yu raised one hand and the meeting room shrank, the table becoming smaller until it was a round ten-seater. Ma conjured tea for us.

  ‘Now,’ I said. ‘Gao Yuan. Yang Biao. Each of you give me one good reason why I should let you sacrifice yourself to bring him back.’

  Gao Yuan let his breath out in a long gasp. ‘You are his Serpent. You have to be.’

  I tapped the stone.

  ‘What are we doing here?’ it said. ‘You’re supposed to be doing energy work with Leo in Fragrant Lotus.’

  ‘Am I John’s Serpent?’ I said.

  The stone didn’t reply.

  ‘That would solve the problem. I feed him, we rejoin, you have him back, no sacrifice necessary,’ I said.

  ‘Your sacrifice,’ Ma said.

  ‘Not if I’m his Serpent.’

  ‘The stone said you’re powerful but not all the time,’ Leo said. ‘Could you be his Serpent just some of the time?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘it’s possessing me. When Simone or I are in terrible danger, it takes me over, makes me more powerful, and helps me take the danger out.’

  ‘That’s what happened at the Convention Centre!’ Leo said.

  ‘No, that was all me, I didn’t black out. But the Serpent’s definitely been possessing me when I can’t do something by myself. Please don’t mention it to Simone; she hasn’t worked it out yet. If John’s Serpent possesses me and then rejoins with the Turtle, I’ll probably be taken as part of the equation. If that happens, Simone may never forgive him.’

  ‘Neither would he,’ Ma said.

  ‘We don’t want to have to put up with the aftermath of him losing you,’ Guan Yu said with grim humour. ‘It was bad enough after Michelle died. Losing you or Simone as well would push him totally over the edge. He could turn away from the Celestial.’

  ‘If he changes sides, it’s all over,’ Ma said.

  ‘Would Heaven fall?’ I said.

  ‘We may be able to hold Heaven, but the Earthly would fall. The Celestial Plane would be under siege, and I don’t know how long we could defend it.’

  ‘You wanted an extremely good reason for letting one of us make the sacrifice,’ Gao Yuan said. ‘There it is.’

  ‘Conceded,’ I said. ‘Neither of you has family, those who need you?’

  Leo rose out of his wheelchair and walked to the windows. He leaned on the window ledge. The meeting room looked over the interior of the Celestial dominion, and Guan Yu’s demon troops were doing weapons training on the grassy hillside below.

  ‘I have chosen to be without family,’ Gao Yuan said. ‘And I’ve had enough of this sentient life. I would prefer to end it now after three thousand years of being alone.’

  ‘My nature is Stone,’ Yang Biao said. ‘I’m more of an Earth God, though, aligned with the soil rather than rock. The Dark Lord is weak to my elemental alignment regardless, and I would be the ideal candidate to fill him.’

  ‘My special nature means that I would not be destroyed. I would just lose my sentience and revert,’ Gao Yuan said.

  ‘You really are a star?’

  ‘I really am.’

  ‘I would return to become one with the Earth in a similar way,’ Yang Biao said.

  ‘So neither of you would be completely destroyed; you would just become non-sentient nature spirits?’ I said.

  ‘That is correct,’ Gao said. ‘We are not strong enough to ever return; we would be gone.’

  ‘I see.’ I turned to Ma. ‘And you wasted all this time cutting down the list?’

  He shrugged. ‘I was already at this point, but everybody wanted to do the stupid noble thing and make the sacrifice. I had to get them all together and let
them all see exactly why these two are the only choices.’

  ‘It’s not like the Generals to be that obtuse,’ I said.

  ‘When it comes to being all noble and selfless, they can be a royal pain,’ Guan Yu said.

  ‘I see your point. All right.’ I leaned back. ‘Gao and Yang, when the time comes, you have to be ready to do it. Ideally he’ll be back before then and we won’t need to do this, but if we have to, you need to be alive.’

  ‘So that means keeping yourselves safe, no throwing yourself suicidally at stupid targets,’ Ma said.

  Leo turned and yelled at us. ‘I don’t know how you can all discuss this so calmly. You’re talking about killing these two wonderful men, and you don’t even seem to care! Do you love him so much that you’re willing to sacrifice anybody to see him back?’

  ‘Do you love him that much?’ I said.

  He swiped one hand in front of him. ‘No!’

  ‘Then I don’t think you love him enough to sacrifice yourself to bring him back.’

  His face screwed up. ‘Don’t play word games with me. I know how I feel.’

  ‘Okay, I’ll put it straight then. If you have a choice of sacrificing the entire mortal world or the intelligence of one of these noble gentlemen, which do you choose?’

  ‘Neither.’

  ‘That may not be an option.’ I rose. ‘I think we’re done here. We all know what we have to do.’

  Leo went to his wheelchair, fell to sit in it, and disappeared.

  ‘And it looks like I’ll need someone to give me a lift back to Wudang,’ I said.

  ‘I’ll take you, then I’ll try to find him,’ Martin said.

  ‘Thanks, Martin, but don’t try to find him. When he’s ready he’ll come back.’

  Martin disappeared the minute we arrived at the Mountain, probably to go look for Leo anyway. I pulled out my mobile and stormed towards the admin section.