by Kylie Chan
Simone swung Dark Heavens at the first elemental, narrowly avoiding a blow from a second. The Tiger faced three. He swung at the one on his left with his big white katana and sliced it in half. The two pieces each grew limbs and became new wood elementals.
‘Seven Stars, girly,’ the Tiger said.
Simone ducked under a swinging branch and buried her sword into the trunklike body of one of the elementals. Her sword lodged in the wood and she was struck by one of the flailing branches as she tried to free herself.
‘Come on, Simone, these things are big,’ the Tiger said. ‘Get out your Celestial Form and pull down the Seven Stars.’
Simone generated a wall of darkness around her and changed into Celestial Form. She grew to be nearly four metres fall, towering over the elementals, which moved back slightly, obviously intimidated. She was in full majestic Celestial Form, with robes of space sparkling with glittering stars, black hair, and huge black eyes with no whites. She dismissed Dark Heavens and the sword disappeared. She raised her hand, summoned Seven Stars, and ripped the enormous dark blade out of its scabbard. It had a hilt of shining white, but the blade itself was black, and down its centre were seven indentations surrounding holes which were about three centimetres across.
The elementals hesitated when they saw the blade.
Simone raised the blade vertically in front of her and closed her eyes. A deep, resounding note echoed from the sword and a red light appeared in the base of her abdomen, then disappeared and appeared in one of the holes in the sword’s blade. The rest of the colours quickly followed, each with a higher note than the one before — orange from her pubic region, red from her stomach, green from her heart, blue from her throat, a deep blue from the centre of her forehead, and then a vivid, almost invisible ultraviolet from the top of her head. The lights transferred to the sword, from base to tip, and when the lights were complete she raised her head and lowered the sword. Her eyes glowed completely white, and the blade shone with a similar light, enhanced by the colours in the holes.
Simone moved so fast she was a blur of light and darkness. The sword left trails of light and brilliant colour through the air as it carved the wood elementals to nothingness. She took out the six elementals in less than ten seconds, moving with an elegance and speed only her father could match.
When the elementals were gone she stood in an attack-ready wide stance, left hand out with two fingers raised and glowing with shen energy, and the brilliantly lit sword held in her right hand to one side, ready to sweep away any attackers. She looked around and saw that they had all been destroyed. She lowered her hand, removed the shen energy from it and then raised the sword again. She removed the chakra lights from the blade, starting at the top of her head and moving down through her body until the sword no longer glowed. She picked up the scabbard from the ground, resheathed the sword, and, as she raised the sword and dismissed it, she retook her normal human form.
She came to us to check on us, then stopped, her face full of disbelief as loud cheers and applause broke out behind her.
She turned to see. The residents of the Celestial Plane were cheering her with enthusiasm. Some of them came to her and patted her on the arm and back, but many held back, respectful, and applauded her.
She bowed to the crowd, who cheered louder, then she rejoined our group, blushing furiously.
‘Well done, Simone. Your father would be so proud,’ I said.
She stopped and stared at me for a moment, her face blank, then shook her head.
‘What?’ I said.
‘That’s not what you said in Sai Kung,’ she said.
‘I can’t remember what I said.’
‘I can.’
‘If it was anything cruel, it was the demon talking, and I want you to know that exactly the opposite is true.’
‘No, Emma,’ she said. ‘Some of what the demon said was very true, which is why it hurt so much.’
I rubbed her arm with my snake head. ‘I’m sorry.’
She smiled down at me and put her hand on my head. ‘Don’t be. And thanks for not calling me “sweetheart”. I know you want to.’
‘It’s only ’cause I love you.’
She put her arms around my neck. ‘I love you too, Emma.’
She pulled back and wiped her eyes, then turned to the Tiger. ‘You could have taken them easily, couldn’t you, Uncle Bai?’
‘Of course,’ the Tiger said.
‘Thanks,’ she said.
‘You’re welcome,’ he said. ‘Now you know where the demon that made them lives, go find it and use the sword on it. About time that sword came out of mothballs and we saw some fireworks. It’s been sitting at Wudang gathering dust for way too long.’
‘Thank you for reminding me,’ Yue Gui said, and concentrated for a moment.
The fireworks that Yue Gui had organised blasted off from three barges on the lake, filling the sky with a glittering display of light and colour. As one, the crowd said, ‘Wah.’
Someone touched the back of my neck and I turned to see, and looked straight into John’s eyes; he was standing next to me with his hand on the back of my neck. I stood transfixed, staring at him, and he smiled, his eyes crinkling up. He bent to kiss the end of my snout, and disappeared.
I turned and opened my mouth to tell Simone and saw her face; it was full of cheeky delight. She quickly turned away, pretending that she hadn’t seen, and watched the fireworks. I leaned my serpent head into her, Leo wrapped his arm around both of us, and we watched the fireworks together.
The Serpent raises its head from the water and slides onto the ice, the stars blazing above in the night sky.
The Turtle sinks to the bottom of the rich light-filled water, attempting to avoid the sun’s brilliance and find a sanctuary in the dark.
They cry. There is no answer.
BOOK TWO
HELL
TO HEAVEN
The Turtle raises its head above the water and watches the glittering
coloured lights beneath the blazing stars of the Northern Heavens,
wondering why it is there.
The Serpent chokes on the polluted water, drifting to the
bottom amid the mud and oil, listening to the many engines
moving overhead.
They cry. There is no answer.
CHAPTER 1
I was in my office, trying to ensure a fair allocation of funds from the increased Northern Heavens tax revenue, when the intercom on my desk buzzed.
‘There is someone here for you, ma’am,’ Yi Hao said. ‘She’s very upset and says she needs to see you right now.’
‘Who?’
‘Zara. She says she knows you.’
‘Send her in.’
Yi Hao opened the door and escorted a young Chinese woman in, then left, closing the door behind her. The woman was about twenty-five, with long, snow-white hair and matching brows and lashes, incongruous against her golden skin.
‘Sit, Zara,’ I said, gesturing towards one of the visitors’ chairs. ‘What’s the problem?’
Zara opened her mouth to talk, but didn’t make it very far, instead collapsing into great racking sobs. I went around the desk and put my hands on her shoulders to comfort her, and she leaned into me, still weeping. I pulled a tissue from the box on my desk and handed it to her, and she blew her nose loudly.
The rest of the stones are accusing her of being complicit in Lady Rhonda’s destruction, the stone in my ring said. After what happened to Gold, and the activities of Demon Prince Six, we even suspect our own of treachery. It is a sad situation. The Tiger’s Retainers have been interrogating her, that is why she is distraught.
I sat in the other visitors’ chair and put my arms around her, and she clutched me.
‘Let it out,’ I said. ‘I can wait.’
She continued to yank tissues out of the box, and eventually ran out of steam.
‘My stone told me what you’re going through,’ I said. ‘It must be very tough. Y
ou can stay here as long as you like, Zara, we can look after you.’
‘I am a possession of the Emperor of the West, I must return,’ Zara said in a soft Putonghua accent.
‘If you want to stay here, I can ask him to release you. All I have to do is say the word.’
She looked up at me, her eyes red and her face full of hope. ‘If you could shelter me until this blows over, please, I would appreciate it.’
‘Done,’ I said, then to the stone: ‘Tell the Tiger.’
‘Ma’am,’ the stone said.
Good, take her for a while, see if you can get anything out of the stupid bitch, the Tiger said. We need to find the real Rhonda! My wife is out there somewhere and that stone doesn’t know anything, she’s fucking useless.
You made sure yourself that she was the real Rhonda, I reminded the Tiger via the stone.
No! the Tiger said. Not possible!
Tell the Tiger what Kwan Yin said to me, I said to the stone.
… The Lady said that Rhonda was a victim of her heritage, same as Lady Emma is, Lord Bai, the stone said. That wasn’t a demon copy of your lovely lady. It was really her. Please, sir, talk to Kwan Yin.
Fuck, the Tiger said, and went quiet.
I turned back to Zara. ‘I have the word of Kwan Yin that it was the real Lady Rhonda that was destroyed by the Elixir of Immortality,’ I said. ‘I didn’t realise anyone was giving you trouble about this, Zara; if I had known I would have told them.’
Zara let out a huge, shivering sigh. ‘I thank you, my Lady. You have saved my honour.’
‘Will you stay here with us?’
She glanced up at me. ‘May I switch off for a while in a corner somewhere?’
I nodded. ‘If that is what you wish.’
Zara addressed the stone in my ring. ‘Jade Building Block, will you tell the others what Kwan Yin said?’
‘I already have; it should be filtering back to you through the network already,’ the stone said.
She dropped her head. ‘I have been disconnected from the network for the last three days.’
The stone was silent for a moment, then: ‘Reconnect, dear one, hear what they have to say.’
Zara concentrated for a moment and her face cleared, then she collapsed weeping again.
The stone in my ring took human form and stood behind her, his hand on her shoulder. ‘Come to the armoury with me, Zara. The section for the Celestial Weapons is completely soundproofed and just what you need.’
She nodded and rose, then bowed her head to me. ‘Thank you, Lady Emma, my honour is yours.’ She went out with the stone, who nodded to me as he closed the door behind them.
I turned back to my computer just as a body landed on the floor with an almighty thump. I jumped up and peered over the desk, then relaxed; it was Leo, prone on the floor. He floated into the air, came upright, then sat in the chair across from me and collapsed over my desk.
‘Keep trying, you’ll have it soon,’ I said.
‘That’s what Meredith keeps saying,’ he said, his voice muffled by the desk. He pulled himself upright. ‘I thought I’d have it first time! I’ve spent enough goddamn time in here gossiping with you — I should have the image straight in my head.’
I waved one hand at him and turned back to the computer. ‘Just make less of a noise when you hit the floor, okay? I’m trying to get some work done here.’
‘Humph,’ he said, and disappeared with a rush of air that rustled my papers.
‘And less of a tornado when you leave,’ I said.
I’m working on it, he said.
Without the stone, I couldn’t respond. I pressed the intercom button for Yi Hao.
‘Yes, ma’am?’
‘Pass on my congratulations to Lord Leo, please, he just learned telepathy.’
‘Oh, ma’am, that is good news. I will do it right away.’
Really? You heard me?
I pressed the button again.
‘Ma’am?’
‘Please tell Leo: Yes. And tell him that I don’t have my stone on me right now, so I can’t talk back to him.’
Can’t talk back to me, eh? Let me have a think about all the things I could say to you while I have you like this.
‘Bastard,’ I said under my breath as I returned to my work.
I heard that.
Later that day, Leo dropped me off for my lunch meeting at the Mandarin Hotel with the planet Venus, the Jade Emperor’s emissary. He pulled up across the road from the Landmark in Central, blatantly illegally using the Pedder Street informal lay-by outside the Pedder Building. I hopped out and walked up to the corner to cross the road, pulling my scruffy silk jacket closer around me; the late winter wind off the harbour was cold. Every shopfront in this area housed a famous designer label and the window displays struggled to outdo each other in artistic extravagance. Some of them didn’t even show the products on sale; instead they focused on the ‘lifestyle’ they represented. Leo had been hounding me to go shopping with him along this strip to replace what he called my ‘gruesome’ wardrobe, but I’d managed to avoid it.
I entered the Landmark and took the escalators up to the pedestrian overpass across Queen’s Road into Alexandra House, an unremarkable office building with a plain, tiled lobby full of people like me who were just passing through. I walked across another enclosed pedestrian bridge over Ice House Street to the Prince’s Building, which was all shiny white tiles, glittering glass and jewellery shops displaying gemstones the size of pigeon eggs. Stern-looking Sikh security guards armed with sawn-off shotguns stood at the doors.
I passed a couple of tailor’s shops and took another pedestrian overpass to the Mandarin Hotel. A huge crystal chandelier adorned the staircase that swept from the ground-floor lobby up to the second floor. The Mandarin’s coffee shop had been on the ground floor, with large windows looking out onto the street and providing a fascinating view of life in Central — the immaculately dressed taitais on their way to their daily salon visit, the couriers riding their heavy Chinese-made bicycles with full-sized gas bottles in the front basket, usually wearing nothing but a pair of filthy shorts and a grimy towel around their necks. Recently, however, the coffee shop had been moved up to the mezzanine floor and renamed something that sounded more upmarket — and was therefore unpronounceable. The cheesecake was the same though, which was why I’d arranged to meet Venus there.
Theoretically I had precedence over him as First Heavenly General (Acting), but it was politically sensible to arrive there first and do him the honour of waiting for him. The waiter guided me to a table next to the window overlooking the street, and went through the tedious rigmarole of spreading my napkin, offering me the over-priced bottled water of the day, filling my huge balloon wine glass with chilled water from a silver-plated jug, and handing me a menu that was mostly blank paper in an expensive leather folder. Finally he established that I was there to meet someone and left me to wait for Venus.
Venus arrived five minutes later, accompanied by a pair of Retainers who had taken the form of burly Chinese bodyguards. He was in the form of a mid-thirties Chinese, slim and elegant, wearing a tailored grey silk suit, his long hair held in a traditional topknot and flowing to his waist. The waiter escorted him to my table, did the napkin and water thing, then hurried back to the entrance to take the bodyguards to another table nearby. A couple of diners noticed the bodyguards and took surreptitious photos of us with their mobile phones, probably hoping to catch a minor celebrity meeting with his foreign mistress to sell to a gossip magazine. Unfortunately for them, all they would get would be movement-blurred images no matter how still they held the phone.
Venus toasted me with his glass of water: ‘Lady Emma.’ It was a polite alternative to the traditional salute in a modern setting. I nodded and toasted him back, then we checked the menus. The options hadn’t changed much since we were last there so I just folded it and waited for him.
‘Lord Leo wasn’t able to join us?’
‘I
asked him to come along, but he said he had some errands to attend to at the bank,’ I said. ‘He’s still establishing his identity, and the bank is giving him trouble about the new accounts.’
‘He doesn’t need to worry about these Earthly issues any more,’ Venus said. ‘Why hasn’t he taken up residence on the Celestial where he belongs?’
‘He says he belongs here with us, his family,’ I said.
Venus nodded his understanding. ‘He is unusual in his swift return to what he was doing before he was Raised. Do you think it has something to do with his Western heritage? Most Chinese are well aware of what lies in store for them should they attain Immortality. Westerners, however, seem to have little idea.’
‘That may have something to do with it,’ I said. ‘What did Meredith do?’
‘I have only recently made Master Liu’s acquaintance, I’m afraid. You should probably ask her. I’d venture a guess that she was assisted by her husband.’
I nodded; that made sense.
‘Leo must start to take his place among us, Lady Emma. He should be at your side when you are undertaking your official duties in the Northern Heavens. He is the Retainer of the First Heavenly General now, not a simple human bodyguard.’
‘Try telling him that,’ I said. ‘And good luck.’
The waiter approached us, ready to take our order, and I opened the menu and pointed. ‘Vegetarian pasta.’
‘Hainan chicken,’ Venus said, and I choked with laughter. He looked at me. ‘What?’
‘Very good,’ the waiter said, and took our menus. ‘Wine?’
‘No, thank you,’ we said together, and the waiter nodded and left.
‘What’s so funny about Hainan chicken?’ Venus said.
‘Do you know what steak frites is?’
‘It’s a restaurant in New York.’
‘No, the dish itself.’
Venus nodded. ‘Steak and chips. Horrible Western meal.’
‘Well, Western restaurants all over the world do steak and chips, from the most down-market greasy-spoon diner to the top five-star hotel restaurant. It’s everywhere, they just make it with less or more expensive ingredients and trimmings.’