Abel couldn’t wipe the sweat from his face inside the suit. It dripped into his eyes and stung. The heat was unendurable. The walkway beneath his feet swayed in a complex rhythm he couldn’t anticipate.
He brought up his left arm, cupping his hand to steady the gun, just as he’d seen in the movies.
Yifan shifted Vicky’s body sharply, jerking her hips first left then right. A wave of motion flowed down the cable and the broken walkway towards Abel. The gun went off with a blaze of flame from the muzzle; the noise hid the scream as Abel’s foot slipped off the aluminium tread. He could not react quickly enough, couldn’t bring his hand off the gun in time to find a grip. His knee hit the treads with a crack, the gun went flying; the walkway broke from the struts in front of him and he pitched over, falling, trying to grip the empty air, and smashed on top of the Emperor’s sarcophagus.
Vicky got control of her lungs back from Yifan, who had forgotten to do any breathing, and sucked in the last of the canned air. At the far end of the catwalk Abel’s companion was nowhere to be seen. Cries of alarm were coming from below. Wisely Vicky did not look down. She turned and started the last leg of that heart-thumping crossing and reached a metal ladder that led up into a circular ink-black hole very much like the muzzle of a gun. Blood pulsed from her arm where the bullet had gouged a furrow, but she paid it no heed, and slowly climbed hand over hand to freedom.
*
“The doctor’s here,” announced John, putting his head around the door of the attic playroom.
“Oh,” said Ji Ye. “Come in.”
The doctor, a man of middle age who looked rather like a famous comedy actor, peeked around the door, just to check that there was nothing offensive in the room, and then entered carrying his bag.
“Hello,” said Yifan, listlessly.
“I was told you were unconscious, little girl,” said the doctor, pulling a stethoscope from his bag.
“Just a bit,” said Yifan. “I got shot.”
“It was a dream,” said Ji Ye, uncomfortably. John nodded.
“Well, drink some water, and if you start leaking we’ll know where to find the bullet hole,” said the doctor, who knew he looked like a famous comedy actor. “How long was she asleep?”
“Oh, only a few hours,” said Ji Ye, and John said, “About sixteen hours.”
“Pardon?”
“Four hours or so, but we were quite worried, doctor.”
The doctor let it pass. Yifan was dehydrated, looked fatigued, had dark patches under her eyes. Her blood pressure was low and her pulse was fast but weak.
“Probably a virus,” he said, putting his equipment away and standing up. “Keep her off school for a few days until she gets better. Make sure she eats properly and drinks plenty of fluids.” He was at the attic door. John went after to show him out, and came back up immediately the front door had closed.
“That was close. What on earth’s been going on, darling?”
And Yifan, who normally would have spilled everything in a flood of words, just shut her mouth, and then her eyes, and started to cry.
*
“After we got up the hole there was a hatch and we went through that, and there was the sky. We got on the grass and Vicky took off that plastic suit and looked around and found a path that went down to the car park. She made me walk for miles,” Yifan complained, “and we found a buggy and went to the gate. There wasn’t anybody there. Then we walked along the road and found her car and she drove it towards Xi’an until the phone came back on. Then we phoned the police.”
“What happened after that?”
“She just faded out, like a film. I think she went unconscious.”
“And then you found yourself back here.”
“Yeah. Can I have cake?”
The whole story had taken a while to be told. This was the day after the doctor had called. Ji Ye and John were fascinated by Yifan’s tale, and although at first they were not disposed to believe Yifan’s accounts of her interventions in Vicky’s body, they later agreed that Yifan’s type of impulsive behaviour and bravery may indeed have saved the life of the older and more sensible Vicky.
“That thing about the gun,” commented John. “I’m glad you remembered what I’d told you.”
“It might have been wrong,” said both Yifan and Ji Ye together; then they laughed.
“I can imagine Vicky telling the story to Ji Ye in her own world.”
Yifan looked as if she was about to start crying again. She had done a lot of that since waking up the day before. “What if she’s dead? What if she was dying when I left her there?
“I’m sure she’s not dead,” said John. “It was only a flesh wound.”
“ALL wounds are in your flesh,” Yifan cried.
IX.
-- Hi, Yifan.
-- Hi, Vicky.
Vicky was in Paris, being driven around in a flashy open-topped car by none other than Belinda, who glanced at Vicky, did a double-take, braked, skidded and nearly crashed the car into a rather picturesque cast-iron Art Nouveau Metro entrance.
“Is it Yifan?” Belinda enquired breathlessly. She still had the pop-eyes and red cheeks of her youth, but now her hair was grey and pulled back beneath a Liberty silk scarf. Vicky nodded, and let Yifan use her mouth.
“Hi, Linda. Wow, you’re old now! You were a horse. I saw you in a punt…”
Vicky clamped her mouth shut and told Yifan to keep quiet. She then tried to explain things to Belinda, who was gaping at Vicky like the best kind of fish.
“She’s excited. She was with me when the Xi’an thing happened – the attempted robbery. I haven’t seen her since then.”
“Well, you don’t actually ‘see’ her at all, really,” giggled Belinda. “Anyway; never mind. I suppose I was quite a little chatterbox myself when I was eleven.”
-- I’m twelve, said Yifan.
“She’s twelve now,” said Vicky.
“Doesn’t time just fly!” exclaimed Belinda. “It seems only thirty years ago that she was eleven.”
-- What happened after I left? Yifan begged. I really need to know if you were alright.
-- Well, I didn’t die, said Vicky, dryly.
A gendarme approached the car and asked Belinda why she was blocking the street with her stationary vehicle. He reeled back as Belinda launched into a ferocious torrent of fluent and very low-class French, blaming the cobbles, the sunshine, the pedestrians, the weather, her parents…
During which Vicky brought Yifan up to date.
After she had called the police and Yifan had departed, Vicky kept fading in and out of consciousness. During one waking period she saw two of the rough terrain vehicles rumble past her, heading for the G30 expressway. They didn’t notice her; the area was built up and there were cars and trucks parked all along the street. She lost consciousness again and next came to when she was being placed onto a wheeled stretcher by a pair of paramedics.
In the hospital she was transfused with new blood and her wound strapped up. She gave the police a more or less coherent account of the night’s activities and mentioned seeing the thieves’ trucks, and was drinking a cup of Chinese health tea a few hours later when the Police Superintendent came back and told her the thieves had been caught on the expressway.
Nobody had been inside the tomb yet; they were waiting for a team from the Beijing archaeology group to suit up along with a couple of detectives. Vicky made the officer take her to the site and she went in with them, describing what had happened as the team made its way deeper into the structure. When they came to the sarcophagus it was not only bare of gold, but Abel’s body had disappeared.
The gold panels were found in the two trucks that had been stopped on the G30, and Abel’s body had been in the back of one of them. The thieves were arrested. In the weeks that followed Abel’s production company was investigated and found to be a front, doing the minimum amount it could to keep him in the Xi’an media group. The captured thieves had worked for him often
before, and their confessions led to the investigation of several very rich men around the world who had used Abel to obtain the things they coveted.
Vicky had been awarded a medal by the Chinese Government for her bravery, and had completed her documentaries at the Emperor’s tomb. What with all the excitement and publicity the series was an immediate hit, which gave her more awards and status and the Professorship she had hoped for.
And now here she was, fourteen years later, in Paris with her old friend Belinda, who was now regaling the gendarme with a history of her maternal grandmother. That recalcitrant relative, it appeared, had greatly misinformed Belinda about the way one should drive around Paris, leading directly to the present predicament.
The gendarme was drooping by this time, and could only grunt. Eventually he waved at her and made vague engine noises, and Belinda took this as permission to reverse the small car over his foot. At this point Yifan returned to her own world, clutching a bagful of new French words with which to scandalise her teachers.
*
For Ji Ye and John Yifan’s account of her Paris meeting was both hilarious and a completion. They felt that the exciting story of Vicky’s adventures had finished satisfactorily, and they were both very glad that because of her help they had been able to get through their own adventure with Princess Aster’s pot without all the problems that Vicky and her family had had to face.
In fact, life was now rather good for Ji Ye, John and Yifan because of Vicky. The only disappointment they felt was in the secrecy which they had to maintain about her – after all, who would believe them?
For Yifan, though, there was a big hole in her life. Time went by, and school, pony club, boy band and friends all claimed her attention; but she did not see Vicky again. Yifan felt she needed to be with her just one more time, to thank her (which she had never had time to do before) and to rest; to watch TV together, or a sunset, or to jump Vicky’s favourite horse, Harry, over the stiles near her home. In Vicky, Yifan had found a sister she had never expected to have.
Yifan’s thirteenth birthday came and went with a brief shower of presents that were of a decidedly higher quality than those on her eleventh. One of the perks of being a Princess, she remarked smugly. And early in the morning of the day after…
-- Yifan?
-- Vicky?
It was dark. A darkened room. Faint lines of light told her that the daylight was being held back by heavy drapes. The room was warm, she was comfortable, lying down in a firm bed with a thin duvet pulled up to her chin.
Yifan could feel Vicky’s body. It was aching a bit. It felt unfamiliar. The view through her eyes was blurry. Her breath was shallow, slow and a bit crackly.
She was dying.
-- Don’t think about it, said Vicky. I’m not thinking about it.
-- Where are we?
-- Home. My home.
-- When are we?
-- I’m a hundred and twelve, I think. It was my birthday yesterday.
-- Mine too. Yifan tried to get her head around being a hundred and twelve years old.
-- I’m so glad you’re here. You’re the sister I never had, said Vicky. And Yifan started to cry, quietly, with Vicky’s eyes.
-- I’m sorry, I’m getting your face all wet.
-- It’s alright, Yifan.
Yifan tried to wipe her face but her arms would not move. They trembled a bit, but did not rise.
-- I’ve missed you. It’s been a long time since Paris.
-- It seems like it to me too, but it’s only been about two months for me. I’ve missed you so much.
It felt to Yifan as if they wrapped their arms around one another, hugging like real sisters. There was no weight from the duvet, no pressure from the mattress. Though it was dark it was comfortable darkness. It wasn’t riding with Vicky, or walking with Vicky, or just chilling with Vicky; but for Yifan it was just right.
-- You know all about ‘Multiple Uni’s now, Yifan.
-- Not really. John keeps trying to explain it but he doesn’t do it very well.
-- There are more worlds. It’s not just you and me. I don’t know why you came to me in my world when I was nineteen, but if you hadn’t I don’t think I would have had the life I have had. And I’ve enjoyed it, and survived it, thanks to you.
But you’re not surviving now, thought Yifan, sadly.
-- What do you mean about more worlds? Yifan asked.
-- Just that. There may be an infinite number of lives for you to live. My life is one of them. Others may be quite different; or there may be millions of your lives which only have tiny changes that no-one would notice.
-- What does that mean?
-- It means that next time you find yourself in another Universe, it won’t be this one. And the Yifan you find there will not be me. She won’t remember you.
-- I don’t want it to happen again.
-- There may be no choice. I don’t know. I just had to tell you, and now I’ve told you. So you won’t be so surprised if it does happen again.
Yifan accepted this. They floated in warmth, in silence, in peace for a while. Yifan couldn’t feel Vicky’s body any more. There was no crackly breath, none of the gentle rhythm of blood in her ears, no sensation except for her arms around her sister, and her sister’s arms around her.
-- Why are you all alone? Yifan asked. She could not imagine that Vicky would be left alone to die.
-- I have friends, but not close. No family now. My house looks after me. But why do you say that I am dying alone? I’m not alone. I have you.
Vicky’s arm unwrapped from around Yifan and swept around the darkness, and Yifan’s eyes followed its shadow as Vicky said,
-- And I have them.
Ji Ye stood smiling proudly at Yifan and Vicky. Yifan’s father was there, and John behind him because he was taller. Mister Ji and Missus Ji smiled at her and waved.
There was Belinda, and there the boyfriend Yifan had seen briefly, and Professor Steller. There were people Yifan had never seen, and as Vicky’s arm folded around her again the crowd grew all around them, all the souls whose lives had crossed with Vicky’s; her relatives and her friends, her colleagues, her loves, her mentors and her tormentors. Abel was there, a rueful look on his face, acknowledging with a wave that he had been beaten by the best.
And across in front of all of them strolled Bart, ignoring Ji Ye’s scowl and Belinda’s attempts to stroke him. He sat down right in front of Ji Ye and looked steadily at Yifan, and Yifan was sure she saw him wink, slowly, before she faded away.
* * *
Glossary
Unless you speak Mandarin Chinese, you may find your tongue gets twisted trying to pronounce the names in this book. So here is a guide to help you with the most difficult names...
Yifan Shenee-fan shen
Ji Yegee yeah
Qin Shi Huangdichin shur hoo-ang dur
Xing Huashing hoo-ah
Lao-Yelow (like cow) yur
Fu Sufoo soo
Hu Haihoo high
Qin Er Shichin er shur
Zhao Gaojow (like cow) gow (like cow)
Xi Yinshe yin
Xi'ansee ann
Xianyangshe ann yang
Guilingwee lin
Yunnanyou nan
Weinanway nan
Lintanglin tang
Acknowledgements
Princess Aster, the daughter of the first Chinese Emperor Qin Shi Huangdi, is based on the character White Aster from the novel Lord of the East by Sir Arthur Ronald Fraser (1888-1974), a distinguished writer of mystical works. He wrote twenty-seven novels, which so far is twenty-six more than me. You can find out more about him online, of course, but his books are sadly quite hard to come by nowadays.
Jody Kihara is an Authoress who has helped me immeasurably with this book. She is an accomplished and popular writer of fiction for children and young adults, which means that I can read her works but I have to pretend I’m young. You can find Jody at www.jodykihara
.com
Taster – Prince Yifan
Prince Yifan is the second book in the Worlds of Yifan series of novels for older children and young adults. It’s intended to appeal to young male readers as well as young females. In Prince Yifan, Yifan finds herself in a world of Eastern kingdoms and eighteenth-century technology – but what has happened to the boy whose body she is inhabiting?
“What happened before,” explained John, “was that Yifan would fall asleep here, and come awake inside the head of her older self, but in a different Universe. And it was only for short periods of time. She would be back here within seconds, maybe hours. Sixteen hours was the longest she was away, although less time passed in the other Universe then.”
“So soon you should be going back home,” added Ji Ye, smiling, although her face was drawn and pale, and her eyes still red from crying. Teal was not so sure.
“This time I am here, and she is there,” he said. “Or at least we think she is there. So it’s already different to how it was before. And I am not Yifan at some other age. I am Teal, and I’m not even the same sex as Yifan. There’s no guarantee that I’ll go back home. I may be here forever.”
“She was with Vicky – her older self – when Vicky died,” said John. “When that happened, Yifan came back to her own body.”
“And you think that should make me feel good?” cried Teal, half-rising from his seat. “So if she gets me killed – and she will – she’ll come back here and I’ll be sent back to a corpse!”
“Yifan is a sensible girl” Ji Ye shouted, also rising. Then she blinked. “Sometimes. Anyway, she is brave, and clever. And she faced a gun and nearly got killed, but she survived. So don’t worry about your – your precious body. It’s her body now and she’ll keep it safe.” She sat back down, breathing heavily. Teal also, slowly, sat back in his seat. His eyes were mere slits and his mouth was a thin line. John considered announcing more tea, but thought better of it. Instead he stood up and went to sit with his wife on the sofa. Putting his arm around her he looked Teal in the eye and said, “Tell us about your world. Who you are, why you’re on a ship. Then we’ll take you out to see our world. You could be here for quite some time, so you’re going to have to get used to it – and you’re going to have to learn how to behave like a girl, like Yifan, before you go back to school.”
“School?”
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