by Dave Gross
“It is just as well you cannot see the dragon,” he said. “Its holy aura destroys the courage of all but the greatest heroes.”
“But not yours.”
“Am I not the King of Heroes?” He was silent long enough that I realized he was awaiting a reply.
“You’re the king, all right.” Of something else, I thought.
“Do not despair. Once you have fulfilled our compact and I release you from this infernal form, your mortal eyes may be undamaged.”
“May be?”
“I have never met a hero with your particular qualities, but it seems probable—”
That was about as much as I could stand hearing. The more he went on about it, the more I was sure he had something to hide.
The crafty son of a bitch had set me up. I couldn’t prove it, but I felt it in my spurs like a change in the weather. Burning Cloud Devil released Cobra from his charm on purpose. He couldn’t have been sure that the snake would blind me, though. That meant he had to have told Cobra what to do and sicced him on me at just the right time. Or maybe he just dominated the snake and did it himself.
The scheming bastard had blinded me.
There was no point calling out the deception. That’d only put him on his guard. He could claim he’d been distracted while countering the naga’s magic, or that Cobra’s will was too great to keep him bound in the enchantment. Conveniently, Cobra was little more than snakeskin and ashes now, so I couldn’t beat the truth out of him. That’s one of the problems with wizards, sorcerers, all those types: they’re ready with all the answers, all the angles, no matter whether they’re made of truth or lies.
What I couldn’t figure was the why. How come Burning Cloud Devil needed me blind? What was it he didn’t want me to see? His line about the awesome sight of the dragon was so weak even he said it halfheartedly. There had to be something else.
I knew we had to kill our way past a bunch of guardians at Iron Mountain, and Burning Cloud Devil knew I wasn’t too keen on wholesale slaughter. Still, I said I’d kill his dragon, and I meant to. Sure, I’d had some misgivings, but as long as he would hold up his end of the bargain, I’d do the same.
Besides, there was the compact he’d made me sign. He hadn’t told me the details. Now I realized how he’d rushed over them, and how stupid I’d been to sign what I didn’t understand. The only thing I knew, or believed anyway, was that I was in for real trouble if I broke the bargain.
My yellow scroll was one of many he kept in that grimy bag of his. He wouldn’t carry them around if he didn’t need them at some point. I had the feeling I’d find out sooner rather than later.
“The Gates of Iron Mountain, one of the most magnificent sights of ancient Lung Wa,” said Burning Cloud Devil. I heard the satisfaction in his voice, but he changed his tone. “You will see them soon, my disciple. Once your task is finished and we leave this place.”
I showed him my teeth, but I didn’t trust myself to speak. There was a powerful mad building up inside me. Best to keep it banked, I decided. Save it for the dragon. Any resolution between me and Burning Cloud Devil could wait until after I was my old self again. Maybe I wouldn’t be so strong anymore, but I’d learned plenty of good tricks over the past year.
“The new disciples of Dragon Temple are still hours away,” he said. “We have plenty of time to dispense with the present guardians. There are three of note, two of them wandering monks who arrived only a few days ago.”
“Just point me at them.”
“Do you not wish to hear of the history of the Brothers Li? They may now be masters of Dragon Temple and Iron Mountain, but there was a time when both were the sorts of ‘sons of bitches,’ as you say, that you would not mind killing.”
“Do I look like I give a damn? Just get me to this dragon. I’ll slap it up good, and you’ll put me back in my body. That’s the bargain, isn’t it? That’s our compact.”
Burning Cloud Devil sighed, and for a second I thought I heard as much regret as impatience in the sound. “Yes, that is our compact.”
He bolstered us with magic and bellowed out a mighty spell to open the doors. The cool subterranean air meeting the outside warmth made my skin damp and clammy.
I saw dozens of steely glints on the points of long weapons, but I couldn’t make out the features of the men who bore them. They surged toward us with brave shouts.
The rest was flame and blood.
The sorcerer opened the way with his fireballs, and I waded in. Even in flames, the defenders were skilled enough to strike me a hundred times. The enchanted cloth of my robes blunted most of the blows to my body. I barely felt the shots to my head until the weight of blood soaking the bandages around my eyes made me rip them from my face. Someone screamed at the sight.
Burning Cloud Devil’s arcane fire healed me faster than the men could wound me. Some bloody urgency tugged at my guts. It felt a little like guilt, a lot like pleasure. I was a dark demigod wading through the carnage.
Demigod was the wrong word. I was a devil among the damned.
Burning Cloud Devil’s deafening laughter echoed in huge chambers whose borders I could barely see until his magical flames lit them up. That provided enough light to give me a feeling for the space. When one of the poor bastards defending the place put himself between me and the light, I killed his silhouette.
Others I found by following their screams and snuffing them out.
Only one gave me any trouble. Him I had to find by the path of the spells he stung me with. He cursed me in Tien, and I cursed him back in devil-speech. He had a flair for it, and something about his voice made me think he’d be a fun guy under other circumstances. When I caught a grip on his hair, we wrestled for a good five minutes before I got my arm under his chin and broke his neck.
In half an hour, it was all over but for the weeping. It’s true what the veterans say about battlefields. Damned near everyone with breath left cried out for his mother. I mused for a second that they’d have felt different if they’d had my mother.
Or maybe they wouldn’t.
I silenced a couple with as much mercy as I had left, which wasn’t much. After a few I began to feel disgusted with myself, so I quit.
Burning Cloud Devil went from body to body, chanting. I heard him unrolling his scrolls and calling out unholy names. From each fallen defender emerged a flame so bright that even my ruined eyes could see them clearly.
No, it was more than that. The little things I couldn’t see in the real world I saw just fine on these fiends. I could see the cracks on their claws and nails, the veins in their bloodshot eyes, every ridge on every boil and blister. All of it painted in fire.
I didn’t want to think too hard about the why. Instead I watched as foul things crawled up out of the hearts of the dead.
Some of my infernal cousins were all grubs, chains, and bones. Others had the shape of angry winged women or horse-faced ogres. Still others looked so strange they defied description. Through my damaged vision, they all were made of blazing red fire. Brimstone and smoke stifled the air, and the wails of the damned souls echoed through the chambers they had died to protect.
The first fiends summoned joined Burning Cloud Devil in his rituals, their voices raised in depraved song. I felt the heat of their summoning behind me, and all the light they brought. I couldn’t look back down. I climbed up, following the dark.
I couldn’t stand it anymore. Feeling my way along the walls, I tripped at the base of a wide stairway. It was too much effort to stand, so I crawled step by step, trying to get away from the sounds and the smells and the greasy smoke licking at the back of my neck.
I found a rail and pulled myself to my feet. No one stopped me, so I kept walking, without any idea of where I was headed. It didn’t matter, as long as it was away from the charnel pit below.
Eventually the rail
turned, leading off to a side passage. Following the wall, I came to another large chamber. The cool air was a respite from the furnace we’d made below. A gentle tinkling greeted me from above. I lay down and looked up, pretending it was the night sky above me.
As if in answer to that image, motes of light twinkled down at me. I squinted at them a long time before I realized they were reflections off the surfaces of mirrors suspended from the ceiling. My entrance had disturbed the air in the room, and the mirrors swayed and turned on the chains that bound them to the ceiling.
One of the lights grew brighter. I stood to get a better look as the face of the mirror twisted away. I held its edge still and looked at it full-on.
There stood Spring Snow where my reflection should have been. Unlike the devils, she wasn’t made of fire but of moonlight.
“Forget it,” I told her. “Don’t even start with me.”
Even now, on the brink of catastrophe, it is not too late.
“I’d say we were pretty damned far past the brink. Do you know what your husband is doing down there?”
Your help made those atrocities possible. He could not have come if you had not sworn to be his hands.
“I seem to remember you came with him last time.”
That too was wrong, and so my spirit is justly banished from the afterlife. I linger here until the day of my husband’s final judgment.
“You should talk to him about that.”
You know he will not heed me. Always he has believed it is he who must lead, all others who must follow him.
“If he won’t listen to you, what made you think he’d listen to me?”
He won’t. But if you refuse to slay the Celestial Dragon—
“He’ll kill me.”
Perhaps.
“Even if he doesn’t kill me, he’ll leave me stuck in this body.”
Think of who you truly are. Think of what you want yourself to be. She dipped her fingers toward me, and the surface of the mirror rippled like a pool of water. As the ripples stilled, I saw an image of myself.
My real self.
Gone were the long spikes and the grotesque ridges. Gone too was my towering height and ogrish build. In the mirror I stood only a couple of inches taller than Spring Snow, but for once my own height didn’t bother me. Still, I saw things I’d never noticed before.
The traces of Hell in my features were more obvious than I’d ever realized. I saw it in my tapering chin, the lines of my high cheekbones, the copper-colored skin and golden eyes. And there were the spurs on my elbows, barely visible through the slits in my sleeves.
Spring Snow smiled and placed her hands on the shoulders of my reflection. Even a loyal ghost wife couldn’t keep her hands off of me. I was one handsome devil.
Grinning at the thought, I revealed my riot of teeth. Those give away my hellspawn heritage even in dim light. The sight of them snapped me out of my trance.
“That was the wrong thing to show me if you want me to renege on the compact, sweetheart. I can’t take a chance of getting trapped in this body.”
Perhaps if you could—
Before Spring Snow could complete her thought, a bright moonbeam shot through the hall. It ricocheted from mirror to mirror, finally settling into one that wavered back and forth, squeaking on its chains. I reached out to steady it. Inside I saw a familiar face.
It was the girl whose face I’d seen on her tombstone the last time Spring Snow appeared to me.
I’m not a big believer in coincidence.
“I can understand why she’s here,” I jerked my thumb at Spring Snow’s mirror and pointed at the newcomer. “But why are you following me?”
I am not following you! the girl insisted. She beat her fist against the mirror’s surface, but didn’t so much as crack the glass. I came for my revenge.
“Get in line.”
She tossed her head in a petulant gesture that might have been real cute if it hadn’t revealed the horrible burn hidden by her hair.
“What the hell happened to you, kid?”
I am not a kid! I was old enough to be married, before...
She beat on the surface of her mirror some more, but she couldn’t stir up so much as a ripple.
I glanced at Spring Snow, who shook her head in commiseration. It is no use, little sister. These are ghost traps. We cannot escape until someone breaks them from the outside.
Help me! cried the girl. It was you who released me from my grave.
Truly? said Spring Snow. It must be that our fates are somehow entwined. Yet as you see, I am as helpless as you.
Then you must help me. The ghost looked back at me. It was to speak to you that she disturbed my gravestone.
“What’s your name, ki— That is, what’s your name, miss?”
I was known as Shuchun. She stamped her foot and showed me a pretty little pout. Release me from this trap.
“I don’t know,” I said. “What are you going to do if I bust you out?”
I will torment a man. I will harrow him. I will drag his soul to Hell.
“Yeah? What did he do to you?”
Turns out young Shuchun had two suitors in life, a pair of brothers from the Li family. Both wanted to marry her, and she chose the younger. Jealous, the elder splashed her face with acid and fled the village to become a monk. The younger, disgusted by her ruined face, followed his brother to the monastery.
But not to punish him, said Shuchun. They were reconciled and lived long, contented lives.
“Figures. Only the good die young.”
One brother is already damned, his soul sacrificed to summon a devil. The other will arrive soon, and must face me. I will make him pay!
“You make a good case.”
No, said Spring Snow. Iron Mountain is a place of tranquility, the balance between Heaven and Hell. It is not a place for vengeance but for redemption. In our pride, my husband and I disturbed the Celestial Order three cycles ago. All this time the monks have striven to restore tranquility between the gates. You must not tip the balance further.
“Your husband is downstairs calling up a legion of devils,” I said. To reinforce my argument, the footsteps of the damned echoed up from the stairway. “I think the balance is as tipped as it can get.”
Please, speak to him. Persuade him. Turn him away from this path. If not—
“Sorry, Snow. It’s too late for him.” I smashed Shuchun’s mirror. “It’s too late for all of us.”
The ghost cried out in delight, but the next trap swallowed her up. I smashed that one, too, and then the next. The Hall of Mirrors sang with shattered glass. Shards rained down on me until my face and arms ran hot with blood.
At last, Shuchun’s ghost flew out of the last shattered mirror. Without a backward glance, she flew out of the room and up the staircase.
Only the mirror holding Spring Snow remained.
Please, she said. Stop him.
“Stop him yourself.” I took her mirror down from its chains. Beyond its surface I could still see Spring Snow, but she turned her face away. “Yeah, that’s what I figured.”
The light of an inferno rose from the stairway.
“Come,” Burning Cloud Devil called to me from the head of his army. “It is time.”
The mirror trembled in my hands. I could have let it shatter on the floor, but on a whim I stuck it into my robe.
“Who were you talking to?” he asked.
“Nobody.”
“Then what are you waiting for?”
“Not a damned thing.” I fell in line with the other devils, and we marched up the stairs toward the Gates of Heaven and Hell.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Broken Bastion
As one, Brother Kwan and I dropped to our knees. Bl
ood streamed through our fingers where we pressed our hands to stanch the flow.
That we rivals should perish simultaneously and by the same hand was too much. My first laugh was a painful choke, the second a bloody gasp. All mirth died as my mind grasped the mortal consequences of such a wound. My body slumped to the ground, and I rolled onto my back to stare beyond the leafy canopy at the sky.
The faces of my brothers appeared above me. Foremost was Mon Choi’s sweaty countenance, blood-flecked from the destruction his hammers had wreaked upon the oni band. Reading the Tien words from his lips required too much concentration. I favored him with a smile, grateful for his affection, however fickle. It was no fault that he admired Kwan more than me. He did not know the true intentions of the disguised prince, and now it no longer mattered.
In the distance I heard Jade Tiger’s cool reply to angry words from Karfai. It was something about “protecting the princess” and “good reason to distrust both Kwan and the foreign devil.”
Distantly I thought I should be analyzing the eunuch’s tone for deception, but as I felt the world revolve behind me, I found I cared less for how our drama played out and more about seeing the face of Princess Lanfen one last time. If she but smiled down at me, I should gladly stand upon Pharasma’s scale and pray my qualities outweighed my defects.
When an intruding presence dispersed the faces of my brothers, it was not Lanfen’s gentle visage but the scowling face of Master Wu. He shook his head at my imminent demise. Rather than order me buried, however, he pushed up his sleeves, sketched a solemn design in the air, and struck me upon the chest.
The impact brought no pain. Rather, it divided my thoughts from my body. It seemed a small mercy until I felt his thick fingers rummage in my guts. Strangely, I felt less alarm than umbrage. How dare his rough digits intrude upon the person of a Count of Cheliax?
The absurdity of my ire—and my pathetic grasp for the niceties of status that I had long since lost—caused me to smile, but I heard a sound like weeping. It could only have been my own voice.
Wu removed one of the eunuch’s long darts and thrust his fingers back inside my body. I protested the indignity, but my vocabulary had shrunk to a single syllable.