by G R Matthews
“How do you know?” Zhou raised a hand to shield his eyes and focused in the direction Xióngmāo’s burning finger pointed.
“I can sense him. He carries some of my spirit and wherever it goes, I can feel it.”
“Take us to him,” Haung said.
The small woman nodded and they set off at a fast run across the red plains of fire and ash. How the two Wu kept their sanity, as layer after layer of flesh sloughed off only to be replaced by fresh, young skin that was itself charred and flaking away in moments, without the benefit of the quiet was something he marvelled at as they ran.
After a time, he realised he no longer needed to breathe and the tiredness he was beginning to feel in his legs disappeared. Xióngmāo nodded at him and their speed increased. Red, orange and yellow flames rose around his feet as he kicked up ashes with each step. Around him, over the plains, he spied other figures moving from one place to another. None came close or tried to intercept the small group.
Up ahead, a lone figure sat upon a chair consisting entirely of flame so bright it was almost white. The figure stood as they approached. Unlike every other creature, this figure was not aflame and the bald head, large belly and stubbled jowls of Yángwū were clear to see.
Haung reached for his sword and found the scabbard empty. He raced on, closing the distance between himself and the throne, ready to duck, roll or leap out of the way should Yángwū attack. However, the old crow did nothing but stand and wait, his hands by his side and his eyes focused upon the group.
Zhou was the first to attack, jumping forward in an echo of his leap on the plateau, both hands outstretched. Yángwū raised a hand in a slow, lazy gesture and bathed Zhou in a stream of fire. The Wu screamed in agony, a sound drawn from the deepest part of his soul, and collapsed into a heap on the ground before Yángwū’s feet. Hands that had been reaching for Yángwū were now charred bone and burnt meat. Zhou screamed again, his mouth opening wide, stretching and tearing skin dried and cracked from the fire.
Haung put the image to one side and let the quiet lead him into battle. Without thought, he ducked beneath a second jet of fire from Yángwū’s hand. Sliding through the ash on the ground, creating a cloud of fine grey that rose about him, he lashed out with his own hand. The first two knuckles on his right hand hit Yángwū at the base of his sternum, forcing the man to take a step backwards.
Rising to his feet, Haung threw a rapid series of short straight punches at Yángwū. Every one struck its mark, the breastbone of the immortal. As Yángwū lifted his own hands in defence, Haung kicked out with the heel of his foot, catching the retreating leg of the older man and forcing him off-balance.
Yángwū fell forward, his legs giving way beneath the punch and kick. Haung lifted his knee, a sharp, forceful move that caught the falling man on the chin. Even above the crackle of fire the snap of Yángwū’s teeth and crack of bone was audible.
“Is he dead?” Xióngmāo asked as she caught up to the battle.
“I don’t think so,” Haung said, looking down at the recumbent form of Yángwū. It was true that the man’s chest did not rise of fall with the rhythm of breath, but then neither did Haung’s in this realm.
“What now?” Zhou spoke in a quiet voice, his eyes still haunted with pain, as he rose to his feet. The skin re-growing, even as Haung watched, over his hands was fresh and unblemished.
“This is not Yángwū,” Xióngmāo said to them and qualified, “it is the spirit of the fire realm.”
“It looks like him,” Zhou said.
“I’d guess it looked like the previous immortal too, when it inhabited his or her body.”
“If it is the spirit of the fire realm, we cannot kill it?” Haung asked.
“We don’t want to kill it,” she answered, kneeling down next the prone body of the Yángwū shaped fire spirit. “We need to separate it from Yángwū. Take away his power and give it to the Jade Emperor.”
“How?” Haung said.
“We know that he has found a way,” Zhou said. “It is how he has taken the power of the spirits from the others.
“I think it is like the mountain.” As she spoke, she turned Yángwū’s head from one side to the other and pressed her fingertips against his neck, checking for a pulse. “There is a heart to the fire realm, a link between our world and his. The throne is merely a representation of it. It is how Yángwū probably sees the link and the power, as an imperial throne upon which to sit and issue his orders.”
“Separate him from the throne, separate him from the spirit?” Zhou said.
“I think so,” Xióngmāo answered. “The link cannot move from here, this is the centre of the fire realm.”
“Which is why he waited for us to come to him?” Haung leaned down and grabbed one of Yángwū’s arms, nodding for Zhou to take the other.
Between them they began to drag Yángwū’s body away from the throne of fire. With every step the task became harder. Yángwū’s body grew in weight and the ash turned to a sticky wet mortar that offered strong resistance to their attempts.
Xióngmāo moved around to Yángwū’s feet and they lifted him from the ground. The effort required to move the unconscious man did not lessen, but with sweat pouring down their faces and turning to steam which wafted up past their eyes, they fought onwards.
A few steps later, Zhou staggered, falling away from the burden they carried, letting go of the arm he had grasped as he did so.
Even as Haung called out, he realised that far from staggering Zhou had been thrown clear by a sudden burst of strength and movement from Yángwū. The man’s eyes opened, bright yellow orbs with cavorting flames of red dancing within the pupils, and he started to buck and pull at the hands that held him.
Haung clamped his hands down upon the arm he held and refused to let go. At the other end, Xióngmāo was forced to release her hold as Yángwū kicked out.
The man’s free hand whipped round at Haung who hunched his shoulders, taking the blow on his back. As Yángwū found his feet, Haung clung onto the arm and drove a knee into the man’s ribs. Yángwū grunted and threw another punch. It was clear the man had never fought seriously in his life, not with his hands or a weapon, as the punch was a sweeping flail rather than following the shortest, fastest route to its target.
Haung leaned backwards, letting Yángwū’s fist pass in front of his face, and, using the leverage of his grasp on the man’s arm, he kicked once more. His foot connected with Yángwū’s chin and the man was forced to step back.
Zhou collided with Yángwū’s lower legs and together the Wu and the Taiji, pushed and pulled the man to the floor. Without a pause, they lifted Yángwū once more and forced his body three more steps away from the throne.
Yángwū, the old crow, the spirit of fire, screamed and shrieked. A thousand years of pain and rage escaping from the man’s open mouth. The sound was followed by spurts of fire that rose from his eyes, from his nose, from his mouth and ears. Yángwū’s skin began to split and rivers of fire ran down his face like tears, like a thousand raindrops in a heavy storm as the cracks widened.
He exploded in bright fire. Skin caught, flamed and evaporated. The last remnants of flesh drifting up into the fiery sky, trailing smoke and dripping fat that turned to steam.
The blast threw Haung back. Tumbling through the air, he tried to control his path, but the ash laden ground rushed up to meet him too fast, too low, too hard.
Chapter 47
Zhou fell, angling his body to catch the wind passing him by, directing his course with small movements of his shoulders, eyes focused on Haung’s tumbling form. Beside him, Xióngmāo did the same.
It felt good to breathe again. Cold air filling his seared and burnt lungs, clearing out the smoke and the taste of cooked flesh from his mouth. His armour shed the ash and flakes of charred skin into the whistling wind. Eyes fixed on Haung, began to tear and blur, but he could not afford to misjudge his fall. Missing the Taiji would risk losing him forever in the expanse of
the air realm.
He worked hard to keep his body aimed correctly, hoping that Haung’s end over end tumble would slow his passage through the air. Gauging the moment, Zhou tucked his arms into his side, held his legs close together and gave himself over to the fall.
Haung’s body rushed up quicker than he expected. A panicked reach with his right and he caught hold of Haung’s scabbard. Zhou held tight and pulled on the smooth wooden sheath. The gap between them closed and Zhou began to spin and tumble with Haung.
Wrapping an arm around the Taiji’s waist, Zhou spread out his body as far as he could. The resistance from the wind slowed the somersaults and when Xióngmāo also caught hold of Haung they stopped altogether.
“Is he all right?” Zhou shouted over the wind.
“Yes,” she shouted back. “I think he hit his head on something before the realm ejected us.”
“Ejected?”
“We’re linked to Yángwū, when the spirit of fire left him, he left the realm and so did we.”
“So he is here too?” Zhou looked across the unconscious Haung at Xióngmāo who had flattened her body out on the opposite side.
“Yes, I can still feel his presence.”
“Where and how do we get to him?”
“We fly to him or rather we fall in a controlled way,” she shouted.
Following her lead, he angled his body and Haung’s along the path she indicated and they began to glide. It was hard to determine a difference in their direction of travel. The realm of air had little to measure their speed against. There were violet skies all around. Above, below, left, right, in every direction an unending vista of violet.
As his eyes adjusted, he began to pick out differences in the infinite colour. Subtle shades at first that, when focused upon, became clearer. Swirling eddies of mauve and lavender that appeared to be dancing around each other, playing like children. And there were clouds. Thin wisps of white amongst the never-ending violet skies, the last threads of cotton hanging on to the plant after the seeds have dropped.
“Where are we?” Haung’s voice was thick and Zhou only just heard him over the wind.
“In the realm of air, Sabaa’s realm,” he said, drawing himself close to Haung’s ear. “Lie still, Xióngmāo is guiding us to a place we can land.”
“What hit me?”
“The ground,” Zhou said. “Be quiet and try not to move.”
A cloud, thicker, wider and longer than the rest came into view. First as a small dot below them, but it grew quickly and Zhou could make out a structure on its upper surface.
“How do we slow down?” he shouted. “We will be killed if we hit it this fast.”
“Zhou, it’s a cloud. We’ll probably just pass straight through like running through mist,” Xióngmāo called back.
“There is a tent on top,” he pointed out.
“A tent?” Haung said, trying to turn over.
“Stay still,” Zhou commanded. “Yes, a tent. A big one, like the Mongol tents, but this one is square.”
“Sabaa said something about living in tents,” Haung said. “Maybe she is still alive”
“Brace yourselves,” Xióngmāo shouted and Zhou saw the cloud grow rapidly in his vision, rushing up faster than he thought possible.
With nothing to do apart from hope, he took a deep breath and closed his eyes. Against his eyelids, splotches of colour resolved themselves into the face of his wife and child. They were smiling at him, love and pride in his wife’s eyes, simple worship in his child’s. He choked on an involuntary sob and dragging in a lungful of cold water the choking became real.
The whistling of the wind, a sound he had grown accustomed to without realising, had stopped. He opened his eyes to a world of white. Billowing mountains of misty cloud rose in front of his face, coating his eyebrows and hair with moisture. For a moment, he watched them rise and fall. Watched them swell until the edges tattered into fine threads that vanished into the air.
There was a new sound. One that the wind had hidden. The sound of fighting.
Zhou pushed himself to his feet, seeing Haung and Xióngmāo do the same, and darted into the tent, unconcerned that he was running over intangible cloud.
Yángwū was there, casting gusts of dark purple from his hands at Sabaa who threw up shields of bright violet as she backed away. It was clear from the expression on Sabaa’s face that she was losing. All she could do was defend and Yángwū seemed to be growing in strength. Against the white of the tent walls and the violet and purple blasts of power, the spreading stain of red blood on Sabaa’s robe was clear.
Without pause, Zhou ran at Yángwū, shouting in rage as he did so. The old crow turned in his direction and raised his hand, a purple glow appearing in the palm facing him. The gust of air, fast and strong, rushed towards him. Forewarned by experience, Zhou twisted aside, turning on the ball of his left foot he let the blast of air pass him by. Arching his back to complete the turn, he landed on his right foot, bringing his fist around in an arc, all the speed of his spin, and all the power of his arm behind it.
Yángwū’s chin took the full force of the blow. The immortal’s head snapped around, his eyes glazed over and the bald man fell to the floor.
A cry sounded from the other side of the room and Zhou looked around in time to see Sabaa collapse against the tent wall. A smear of blood against the white tent wall evidence of her slide to the ground.
Xióngmāo rushed over to kneel beside the fallen woman and press her hand onto Sabaa’s wound. Sabaa cried out again, but it was weaker, lacking energy or strength.
“Zhou, come over here,” Xióngmāo called to him.
It was a matter of a few steps only to Sabaa’s side and on each one he saw the red stain widen on her robe. As he knelt down, her eyes flickered open, the pupils dilating as she sought to focus on him. He took one of her hands in his and saw Xióngmāo do the same. Haung sat behind her, lifting her head into his lap.
“He hasn’t got the spirit,” Sabaa whispered, a dry voice. “It fought him. We fought him.”
“You did well, Sabaa,” Haung said, leaning down to be close to her ears.
“It flies free,” she said, her eyes rolling back in her head as the last vestige of life left her body.
Xióngmāo moved her hand around to check the woman’s pulse with her fingertips and, shaking her head, moved those fingers to her neck.
“She’s dead.”
Zhou watched Haung lay the tattooed lady’s head carefully upon the soft white floor and without emotion walk over to Yángwū’s unconscious body. Lifting a foot high, the Taiji, brought it down across Yángwū’s neck, bearing down with all his weight. The snap sounded clear within the cloud walls of the tent and Zhou could not supress a wince.
The white cloud faded, dissipating under him as Haung lifted his foot from Yángwū’s neck. The body of the immortal fell through the cloud and tumbled down, into the distance. A moment later, he fell too.
Chapter 48
Haung woke to a world that terrified him. There was nothing to see, nothing to breathe, nothing to smell. A taste of dry dust, grit and sharp stones rolled across his tongue. The sensation of his body no longer being his, of no longer being contained by his skin, no longer having a defined edge to himself and of the all-encompassing rock passing through him made him want to heave and retch, but there was nothing to bring up.
“Where is he?” he heard Zhou ask.
“I...,” Xióngmāo faltered.
“Can you take us to him?” Haung spoke without moving his lips or expelling a breath.
“I think so,” her voice said to him. “But I do not know where you are?”
“Call out. We will follow the sound,” Zhou suggested.
“Can you do that?”
“We can try,” Haung said. “Go, we will follow.”
To his surprise Xióngmāo did not call out. Instead she began to sing, an old tune, a melody from the past that, to his ear, sounded formal. The tune rose and fell
in regular time, following a pattern that spoke to him of tall mountains, deep valleys and wild rivers that flowed across a land he had never known.
Following it was not difficult, an act of will and desire. The notes rang clear through the strata of rock, drawing forth an answer from the stones. A bell tolled through the rock, its tone strong and loud in answer to her song.
After a time, it began to feel less like he was sliding through the rock but rather leaping from layer to layer, each one subtly different from the last. In each, the tone of the bell changed, becoming sharper or flatter.
“He’s ahead,” Xióngmāo said to them.
Her song began anew, to a faster rhythm, and Haung found himself moving quicker in response.
“I wondered when you would turn up,”a voice, Biyu’s voice, he realised, said to them. “The old crow cannot harm me here. He thinks he knows it all. Thinks there are no secrets to be learned. Hah! Now he knows. Now he knows there is always much more to learn.”
Biyu’s voice broke off from her cackle turning into a hacking cough.
“Biyu,” Haung called into the wall of rock.
“Come to the cave,” her voice came back and he realised he knew where that was, a picture appearing in his mind.
The journey was, to his perception, short and within a handful of heartbeats he was pulling his body free of the rock and stepping into a wide, deep cave lit by glowing rocks in small alcoves. At the far end, Biyu sat upon a stone chair much like those he had seen on the plateau.
Zhou and Xióngmāo stepped from the wall beside him and into the open space. Both, Haung saw, took a reflexive breath. Zhou looked ill and his hands were shaking. The female Wu was pale and her eyes were wide. She was still humming the tune.
The old woman waved them forwards, making no attempt to rise from her seat. They rushed across the smooth stone floor to her side. As with Sabaa, red soaked the front of Biyu’s clothes and the old lady had, if possible, developed more lines around her face. Her eyes were still bright and clear though and she inspected them all as they approached.