The Red Plains (The Forbidden List Book 3)

by G R Matthews

  Chapter 33

  The temple was unlike those in Wubei. There were no priests to greet them at the door, no deep bows of respect, no red or saffron robes, no smell of incense, no prayer wheels or prayers embossed in bronze. Gone too, the imposing sense of scale, the high ceilings, the large rooms, that many temples used to impress their worshippers. Evidence of wealth, not just the embossed prayers, but the golden cups, the rich hangings and drapes, the art work, illustrating stories of the faith to the faithful, that would normally adorn the walls were missing too.

  The corridors, narrow and winding, had been carved out of the mountain rock and the smooth floor spoke of the passage of many feet, over many years. Here and there another corridor would form a crossroads. Zhou followed Xióngmāo along the corridors, trusting her decisions at each turn. They walked along passages that were only wide enough for one person at a time, passages where he was forced to duck to avoid striking his head on the ceiling. At times it felt as though they were climbing a hill and at other times descending into the earth.

  “I am glad I am not alone in here,” Zhou said, the closeness of the walls and the lack of sky above his head was making him uncomfortable. There was a sheen of sweat on his forehead and his robes felt as though they were sticking to his back. “I would be totally lost by now.”

  Xióngmāo stopped. “Zhou, I’ve been lost the moment we stepped in here.”

  “You mean we are lost?” He felt cold.

  “Yes. I have been choosing the corners at random, one of them must take us up to the fire or to a larger room where the priests worship.” She turned around and face him. “Have you not noticed there are no rooms on any of the corridors and passages we have walked along? There are no markings on the walls. No indication of correct path to take. We are in a maze and, at this point, I’d be happy to run into a dead end. At least it would be something different.”

  “We are lost?” he repeated and the cold settled into his bones, chilling him from the inside out.

  “Completely,” Xióngmāo agreed. “I think the temple was built as a test. Figure out the maze and you are worthy to be a priest, or to visit one at least.”

  “But, but, we were invited,” Zhou stammered.

  “No, I told you we had to reach the temple and meet someone inside. That is not the same as invited. Perhaps the person does not want to be found.”

  “Not that,” Zhou said. “When the door opened, someone said we were both welcome. I heard them.”

  “I heard no one. Maybe you imagined it. It was cold outside and you wanted to get inside.” Xióngmāo turned back and started walking again. Zhou followed.

  “There was definitely a voice,” he said.

  Xióngmāo turned left, then right at the next crossroads. The slope of the corridor increased and Zhou felt he was beginning to climb, at last, towards the promised fire and warmth. At the next crossroads she turned right again and after a twenty paces or so, round a corner, the corridor began to descend.

  “What if we marked the walls?” Zhou said.

  “I have been,” she replied. “At every crossroads I mark the walls with a dab of ink and our scent. So far, I have not found the mark or the scent again.”

  “There cannot be this many passages in the temple. No one would ever get through them to the end.”

  “You assume there is an end, and it would make sense if one existed. There is a trick to it, a secret and as yet I haven’t found it. Have you?”

  “I do not know what to look for,” Zhou said, his voice echoing down the corridor.

  “And don’t you find that strange too?”

  “What?” Zhou looked around for whatever she was referring to.

  “The echo, or rather the lack of it. Listen,” she said and when they were both still and quiet called out, “Hello.”

  Zhou stood still, listened and noticed nothing, he said so.

  “You do it,” she instructed him.

  He took a deep breath and called out. The word echoed down the corridor, reflecting and bouncing from the stone walls.

  “Do you see?” she said.

  “No,” he answered. “We both called out and that was it.”

  “Zhou,” she said and his name was filled with disappointment. “My voice does not produce any echoes, but yours does.”

  “Is that strange?” He patted the wall next to him. “Maybe because I have a deeper voice, it echoes more?”

  “Echoes don’t work that way,” she replied. “My voice should echo too. There is definitely something strange about this temple. Let’s try something different for a while. You lead the way.”

  “Me?”

  “Yes, you. Every time you get to a crossroads go with your best guess. Mine are not working, maybe you’ll have more luck.” Xióngmāo waved him forward.

  Zhou gave her an incredulous look and when she indicated again, he moved forward, squeezing past her in the narrow stone corridor.

  # # #

  “My feet are really beginning to ache,” Zhou complained.

  “We’ll rest at the next crossroads,” Xióngmāo said.

  “I do not think we are getting anywhere. We have been walking for hours.”

  “Then we need to do something differently,” she answered.

  At the crossroads where four passages, all alike, joined and added to the confusion, the two Wu sat and drank from their canteens. Zhou dipped into his food pack and drew out some dried meat from their dwindling supply. They sat in silence, chewing and sipping. There was not much to look at apart from each other and the stress of being lost had frayed their tempers over the past hour. It could have been longer or shorter, Zhou thought, time was impossible to gauge in these passages. It was better, therefore, to look elsewhere for a time and Zhou fell to inspecting the composition of the rock walls.

  It was grey, but with nothing else to occupy his mind and to draw his thoughts away from the fear of being stuck down here for the rest of his life, he carried on looking. The initial grey turned out to be a light coating of dust and he brushed it away with his sleeve. Underneath, the stone was still grey, but there were subtle differences.

  The grey became less uniform. A tiny patch of dark grey appeared, on closer scrutiny, to be made of some flecks of black and some of grey. The patches of light grey were devoid of the black. Here and there, not often, but noticeable after a longer inspection, were little grains, it was the only word he had to describe them, of rock that appeared translucent, or at least, such a light, pale grey that they were almost invisible.

  He started to try and count the translucent grains, and then to map their position on the section of wall he had chosen at random. It became a little game, a little test of his attention to details. Was there a pattern? Could he map a constellation onto them? Interest soon waned and the rock wall became just the rock wall again.

  But, he thought, if I see all that with just my eyes, what will the spirit see? And with nothing else to do, he called the spirit.

  Everything took on the familiar hue of blue and he focused his new vision on the patch of wall, resting his hands upon it to support his position. The greys were a little less grey, the blacks more black and the translucent were something else, something that glowed with its own energy. Not a spark like those Zhou had seen on the Wall, those he could see in people. Something else and he focused upon them, trying to see more clearly.

  “Zhou,” Xióngmāo said, “it is time to move on.”

  He waved at her with one hand, removing it from the wall and patting the air. Zhou stopped moving. The glow faded from the translucent crystals. He removed his other hand and the glow vanished. Turning both palms towards him, Zhou inspected his hands and saw nothing different. When his hands made contact with the wall once more, the glow returned.

  “What have you found?” Xióngmāo said, peering over his shoulder.

  The explanation did not take too long and straight away she tried to emulate his experiment.

  “I see nothing diffe
rent,” she reported.

  “Really? But it is so clear. There is a glow here, like the flames we see in people, but it is different. I have seen something like this before. Something similar.” His voice drifted off into memory.

  The cave on the mountain had been hewn from grey rocks, dappled with grains of white and translucent crystals. They were bigger than these and had not glowed or, in fact, done anything but hold the roof up. It was not that memory he sought.

  Zhou dug deeper, seeking the memory of rock. Rock that glowed or did something other than its role of support. It was there. He could feel it tickling the edge of his mind. A tantalising taste of knowledge. Striving to find it, to reach it, only pushed it away so he did the opposite. He relaxed and let the memory find him, and it did.

  On the Wall, before the battle, he had rested both hands on the stone work and been taken, in his mind, on a journey along the whole length of the Wall, from sea to mountains and to its desert end. He had swooped, soared, skimmed and bounced through the rocks at speeds that he could never match in the physical world. On the edge of that vision, the glow.

  He took a deep breath and called to spirit once again, and more than that, let the green thread that linked him with the realm of life swell within him. The link between life and spirit that he had forged by the simple act of spearing his short staff into the ground of the Spirit realm, bloomed. He placed both hands on the wall.

  # # #

  He fell into the grey.

  This time he let the colours come and, before he could strike the invisible floor, he was flying through the rock. It was a hint of colour, a brush of feeling, a suggestion of space that told him where the corridors were and he flew down them all.

  He turned, left and right, up and down, he twisted and gave himself over the joy of being free. Though he was not without boundaries. The gaps in the rock, the corridors and passages, were the boundaries to the world and he sought ways around them. Rising up through the rock of the mountain, he realised he could see the pattern of the open spaces below him.

  So simple and yet so complicated. In those passages, they had been lost and were unlikely to ever find the way to the centre or the path back out. But here, looking down upon the pattern he could see both.

  Zhou smiled as he flew through the rock, back towards Xióngmāo and his own body.

  “I will await your presence.”

  Chapter 34

  They left the road before they reached the inn which Haung had stayed in on the way to the port town. As yet, there were no Mongol patrols on the road, but he knew it would not be long and though the inn provided the opportunity to find out the latest news, it would be a risky stop. If the Mongols had ranged out from the capital, along the roads, then the inn was a clear target. Also, any news would be at least a day out of date and Sabaa had, according to her, the means to get information that was current, up to date.

  The land around the road was cultivated. Fields of rice close to the small rivers that the farmers allowed to flood the land, hardier crops and animals further away, on the shallow slopes. Between the villages, forests of tall trees filled the land. It was into these that the two had ridden and made camp out of sight of the road.

  Haung had a small fire going and was unpacking the evening meal. Nothing was to be cooked, it would take too long and require a larger fire. A cold meal and cold night’s sleep. Autumn was relinquishing its grip on the land and winter was coming.

  “We’ll need to know what is happening around the capital,” Haung said as he handed Sabaa a wrapped package of food.

  She smiled back at him. “I know.”

  “When can you look?” He took a bite of his food and tried to keep the worry from his voice.

  “When I have eaten, Haung,” she said. “It will not take too long.”

  “Good,” he replied. The Mongol army he had faced at the Wall had been almost uncountable and though the Empire’s armies were certainly beyond counting, they were unlikely to all be protecting the Capital. It would be all right, he was sure and yet there was worry too. Jiao and his son were in the city and, according to Xióngmāo, the Mongols were not known for their merciful nature.

  Haung ate quickly. Sabaa took longer and it was difficult to sit still as she finished her meal.

  “You’re worried about your family,” she said and it was not a question. “Will knowing what is happening be a relief or will it increase your worry?”

  He opened his mouth to answer and no words came forth.

  “I understand. To be here, I have left my own children and family behind. Wars in my country are usually small affairs. One tribe will attack another. One or two will be hurt, maybe killed, and it will be over.”

  “The ones who attack the capital are not like that,” Haung answered the question behind her statement. “They have come for conquest and I have seen them fight. They send their young into battle first, to prove their valour.”

  “Every culture is different, Haung. I will look at your capital. You stand guard.”

  Sabaa sat with her back against a tree and closed her eyes. For a few moments he watched her, noting her breathing settle into a slow rhythm. Her shoulders relaxed and head bowed forward. She did not move and, eventually, he gave up waiting, unrolled the bed cloths, gathered more wood for the fire and settled down.

  There was little to look at and he fell to gazing into the fire. The more he stared, the more variations in reds, oranges and yellows he started to see. Between the bright colours, the dark shadows of the burning wood. The structure, the pyramid of small twigs he had erected to get the fire started, had collapsed. Tiny sparks and sprites danced between the flames and a faint wisp of grey smoke rose into the network of branches above.

  “Don’t fall in.”

  Her whisper broke the spell and he leaned back, wiping the smoke from his dry eyes.

  “What?”

  “The fire,” she said, her voice still quiet, “you have been staring into it for a long time.”

  “Wasn’t a lot else to do,” he replied.

  “You should be careful of fires. They are hypnotic and can drag you in. Stare for too long and you leave yourself open.”

  “Open?” He shook his head.

  “Fire is one of the planes, the realms. Like all, it reaches into this one, seeking to gain a hold and bring them together once more.”

  “I have no idea what you are talking about.” Across the fire he saw her look of surprise.

  “Is it not taught anymore?”

  He returned a blank look.

  “The realms, the beginning, the division? None of this means anything to you does it? I can see by your face it does not.” She paused to take a sip of water. “The world, the bit you see, isn’t all of it. There are overlapping realms. Places where things are different, but have reflections in this world. There is a realm of fire, for example, and when you stare into a fire for too long, too deeply, you can lose yourself to that realm. The fire is seeking a way back to this world where it will no longer be a reflection.”

  “You’re not making a great deal of sense,” he answered.

  “I know. Normally this would take years of education and experience to understand. I’m trying to put it in simple terms. Once, a very long time ago, all the realms were one and each aspect, fire, air, water and all the others, fought to establish their dominance. It was chaos. One being desired order and he, eventually, after many millions of years, battled the universe. The outcome was this world and the realms, but the battle continues. You see the outcomes of those skirmishes on this world, the earthquakes, volcanoes, storms, diseases, floods. Many of the other realms still want dominance over this realm, others are happy to be separate and co-exist.”

  “Is that one of your myths? From your country, I mean.”

  “It is not a myth, Haung, it is truth,” she said.

  “Every priest I’ve ever met said their version was the truth,” he countered.

  “You get your magic from the void
,” she stated. “The gap between this world and the realms, the result of the tearing apart. It is a realm unto itself, though it is empty of everything and emptiness is not something the universe enjoys. Hence it is a place where you can draw power from. The other realms have similar effects. There are those who can draw power from the realm of fire or water, air or earth, life or death.”

  “And you?”

  “Air.” She waved her hand above the fire. “It is how I can ride the warm currents and send my sight to other places.

  “You’ve seen the capital?” He pushed aside all the talk of realms, religion and magic. “What can you tell me?”

  “That I cannot get too close. The capital is protected by some very strong magic. However, from a distance I could see that the walls still stand and all around lie piles of dead, horses and men. There are clouds of smoke, dirty and grey, above the city itself and fires burn in many places. I can tell you that the air smells of magic. There has been a great battle today and much magic has been used on both sides.”

  “Mongol magic?” he interrupted.

  “I do not know what form Mongol magic takes. The magic smells of the void and fire, though mostly the void.”

  “The Fang-shi have defended the city,” he said with certainty.

  “Possibly, though the smell hangs all around the city and above the camps outside. Who has used it, I cannot tell. The bodies outside the city suggest your Empire is holding on to their city.”

  “We could never get the magic at the Wall to work so this will be the first time the Mongols have truly felt the might of the Fang-shi.” He slapped his knee with one hand and smiled across the fire at Sabaa.

  “There are many of the enemy left,” she cautioned, “and the city itself has numerous fires raging. Those I could see from a distance.”

  “But the walls are standing, the gates are closed and the Mongols are outside.”

  “And how will we get in?” Sabaa asked.

  “I don’t know yet,” he said. “It depends upon the battle tomorrow. The city covers a large area. It would be difficult for any army, no matter how large, to surround it totally. Can you describe to me the location of the Mongol camps?”