by T. A. Pratt
Ch’ang Hao moved sinuously—he was a snake stylist, or at least he was starting out in snake style. Of all the forms of five animals kung fu, snake was the most reactive, the most dependent on moving around your opponent. Fighting a snake stylist could be like fighting a pool of water, though there were plenty of whip-fast strikes for offense, and if you let a snake grapple with you, you’d quickly find yourself entangled. Not to mention the rumors about secret poisoning techniques if you got too close to a real snake master, which Marla suspected Ch’ang Hao probably was.
Marla’s approach to martial arts was syncretic, like her approach to magic—she put together anything that seemed useful, and her own preferred style was hard to name precisely. If pressed, an educated observer would say she fought mainly with Jeet Kun Do, the style created by Bruce Lee—itself a combination of boxing and foil fencing with a core of wing chun. Jeet Kun Do was a style of brutal lunges, bone-snapping low kicks, and crippling grapples. Marla’s sinewy strength was well suited to the style. The thing she liked about Jeet Kun Do was the fact that every attack was meant to be a fight-stopper. Long, drawn-out fights between martial arts masters were a cinematic invention, because a real fight didn’t work well on a movie screen—a brief blur of action, too fast to follow with the eye, and it was over, usually in ten or fifteen seconds at the outside, excluding feints and moves meant to test your opponent’s reactions. But Jeet Kun Do took that to its logical extreme. A Jeet Kun Do stylist meant every strike to be the last one.
Ch’ang Hao’s hands rippled forward.
Marla struck back, intercepting his blows and trying to land her own at the same time. She liked Jeet Kun Do because there were no blocks, just counter-strikes that served as blocks. Ch’ang Hao hit hard, and he was fast, but Marla didn’t have any trouble knocking his strikes aside. She knew he was just testing her at this point, seeing what she could do. She, in turn, winced when he hit, to make him think the blows hurt more than they had.
They could go on sparring like this, but she didn’t care for games—she got enough of those with Master Ward at the dojo. She’d make Ch’ang Hao fight her fight. She went for his knees with a low kick, and when he stepped aside to avoid it, she got into grappling distance, grabbed him, twisted him against her hip, and bounced him onto the ground. Ch’ang Hao sprang up, lashing out at her—and snakes came out of his sleeves, little hissing asps, fangs bared, leaping straight for her face. Marla shouted a bug-in-amber spell, and the asps hung in the air, still hissing, as Marla stepped away from them.
Fucking snakes! First frogs, then hummingbirds, then Finch’s bear trick, and now snakes?
“I’ve got it,” Rondeau said, flipping out his butterfly knife and slicing the asps in two with a casual twist of his wrist. The severed snake-halves fell to the pavement.
Ch’ang Hao took advantage of Marla’s distraction, striking at her head. Marla blocked with her arm—the blow numbed her from the wrist to the elbow—and jabbed her other fist into his throat. He dropped to one knee, then struggled to his feet, hissing inhumanly—and began to grow. Marla thought it was simply an illusion meant to intimidate her, at first, but no—he was actually gaining mass, getting taller, his shoulders broadening, the muscles in his arms and calves bulging. His clothes split at the seams and fell away, revealing a complex harness of brown leather straps with copper-colored studs he wore underneath. The straps cut visibly into his expanding flesh, and when a strange, yellowish blood began to run down his arms, legs, and chest, Marla realized the copper studs were actually the heads of nails—the harness was nailed to him, and as he expanded against the bonds, the nails dug in and wounded him. He gasped, standing eight feet tall now, but hunched over in the constricting harness. Marla didn’t relax, but it was clear Ch’ang Hao wasn’t about to attack anyone.
“That’s some serious fucking bondage,” Rondeau said.
“Hush,” Marla said. But he was right—it was bondage, and not of the consensual, recreational sort they’d seen at the party.
Ch’ang Hao shrank down to his old size, wincing. “If I were in possession of my full powers, I would destroy you,” he said solemnly.
“That’s quite a trick, changing size while retaining your original shape,” Marla said. “I’ve never known a sorcerer who could do that, not without getting cancer in the process. That kind of stuff plays hell with your cellular integrity.” She was on edge, prepared to reverse her cloak at the slightest renewed threat from this man, consequences to her humanity be damned. She didn’t understand what he was, and that made her nervous.
The man spat. “I am not a sorcerer. I am older than your kind. I lived with the serpents before man rose up on two legs.”
Marla squinted, looking beyond the obvious. She was starting to get a headache, peering into the magical realm so often tonight. She could see the tiny silver threads now, like puppet strings, attached to Ch’ang’s throat, shoulders, wrists, waist, and ankles. “But you got caught by a sorcerer,” Marla said. “There’s a serious thrall laid on you. And that harness keeps you from getting too big and dangerous, huh?”
“I am dangerous enough for most purposes at this size,” he said. “I did not expect you to be so formidable. I confess, I did not recognize your fighting style.”
“Jeet Kun Do, mostly,” she said. “The style Bruce Lee invented.”
“I do not know Mr. Lee,” he said, as if it saddened him.
“You’ve never heard of Bruce Lee?” Rondeau said. “You’re even more clueless about pop culture than Marla is.”
“I don’t imagine our friend in Chinatown lets Ch’ang out of his box very often,” Marla said. “How big can you get anyway?”
Ch’ang Hao almost smiled. “When I am unencumbered, I can grow just large enough to defeat whatever enemy I face. No more, no less.”
“And our friend in Chinatown is afraid of you getting big enough to defeat him, huh?”
“I see that you comprehend my situation fully.”
Marla nodded. “Are you going to try to kill me again?”
“If you choose to let me go free, I will report to my master that you defeated me. He will be displeased. Perhaps he will send me after you again.” Ch’ang Hao shrugged.
Marla nodded. “Look, if I could cut the ties that bind, set you loose from your master’s thrall…would you do me a favor?”
Ch’ang Hao tensed. “This is not possible,” he said at last.
“I’ve got a knife, nice and sharp, that cuts through the metaphysical as well as the actual. I used it to cut a ghost out of Rondeau once—he’d still be possessed if it weren’t for me.”
“It’s true,” Rondeau said. “She’s a dab hand with the blade.”
“I can cut the threads that tie you to your master,” Marla said.
Ch’ang Hao looked into the sky for a moment. “If you do this thing, my master will be your enemy forever. He…values my service.”
“He already tried to have me killed,” Marla said. “I’m not especially worried about pissing him off worse.”
“You will cut the harness away?”
“I didn’t say that. I don’t like the idea of you getting too big for me to fight, either. But I can sever the connection between you and your master, the thrall that keeps you from running away, the one that makes you keep going back to him, that makes you obey. I’ll cut the leash, but I’ll leave you muzzled.”
“I see,” Ch’ang Hao said, his face expressionless. “And what favor will you ask in return for this great service?”
She shrugged. “I like having ancient powerful beings owe me their freedom. I don’t know what I want from you, yet. I won’t ask for any service that would require your death, though. Maybe the risk of death, but not certain death.”
The veins in Ch’ang Hao’s arms began to bulge, and snakes came slithering out of his pores, tiny at first, but growing as they emerged, four long yellow-and-black serpents that fell from his arms to the ground and slithered around their feet. Something about Ch’
ang Hao’s bearing let her know this wasn’t an attack. Each snake took the tail of another in its mouth, forming a circle with Marla and Ch’ang Hao inside. “Inside this circle, promises are binding,” Ch’ang Hao said.
Marla nodded, feeling the power of his spell. “And a poisonous death for any promise-breakers, I assume.”
Ch’ang Hao nodded. “If you free me from my master’s thrall, I will owe you a favor in return, to be named at your convenience.”
“Sounds good to me,” Marla said.
The snakes began to devour one another, the circle constricting, and Ch’ang Hao and Marla stepped over them. The snakes somehow, impossibly, devoured one another completely, until no sign of them remained.
“My blade is back at the hotel,” Marla said. “Come back with us?”
Ch’ang Hao frowned. “I am not properly attired for human company.”
“What, because you’re wearing a bloody harness of leather straps?” Marla said. She waved her hand. “Please. This is San Francisco.”
“She’s got a point,” Rondeau said. “But I’ll loan you my jacket, just in case.”
Seeing Ch’ang Hao in the mundanity of a hotel room was oddly disconcerting. Marla had experienced the same sense of fundamental dislocation in the past, during her few brushes with non-human intelligent entities. It wasn’t so bad talking to him outside, in the night, but having this ancient creature sit calmly on the edge of the bed while Marla sliced through the individual silver lines connecting him to his master…that was bizarre. She could feel Ch’ang Hao’s age, radiating from him like the heat of a star. Most people would take him for human, as Marla had at first, but now that she knew, it was different. Standing beside him was like standing close to a lion—a mixture of awe, fear, and wonder. All that despite the fact that Ch’ang Hao was dressed in one of Rondeau’s T-shirts and a pair of his flannel boxer-shorts.
Rondeau was unbothered, sitting up in bed watching a reality show about strippers on HBO. Maybe the fact that Rondeau was, at core, non-human himself made him more comfortable around beings like Ch’ang Hao. Or maybe he was just being Rondeau.
Marla’s dagger of office cut cleanly through the last silvery thread, and the trailing ends that still touched Ch’ang Hao’s back disintegrated into silver sparkles, then disappeared. The longer ends, trailing out through the walls back to their friend in Chinatown, turned black and melted away.
Ch’ang Hao stood up, turned slowly around, and bowed to Marla. “For the first time in decades, I do not feel the weight of the chain on me.”
“I guess our friend in Chinatown knows you’re not his lapdog anymore, right?”
“He, too, will feel that the connection has been severed.”
“So is he going to try to kill us again?” Rondeau said. “Like, before morning? Because I could use some sleep. Watching Marla fight tires me out.”
“My…former master…will be otherwise occupied for some time, I think,” Ch’ang Hao said. “I may still be muzzled, as Marla says, but I am not without resources, and I may now turn those powers against my former master.”
“Give him hell,” Marla said. “But don’t get yourself killed, all right? Not while you still owe me.”
“I would not dream of dying and depriving you of a favor, Marla,” Ch’ang Hao said.
“There is one more thing,” Rondeau said. “It’s possible that the guy you think is your former master isn’t, and his apprentice is.”
Ch’ang Hao appeared to mull that over, then shook his head. “This is not my first language,” he said, apologetically.
Marla clarified. “What he means is, there’s a chance that our friend in Chinatown has switched bodies with his young apprentice. We’re not certain, but it’s a distinct possibility.”
“That is ugly magic,” Ch’ang Hao said. “If it is true, he owes the world an even greater debt of suffering than I had imagined. It appeared to be the old master who gave me my orders, but I have seldom spoken to him, and cannot be sure. Though I owe no mercy to my former master’s assistant, I shall proceed carefully, as I wish the fullness of my vengeance only upon him who imprisoned me. There are ways and means to tell which mind resides in each body.” He bowed. “Good night, Marla. If you need me, simply find any snake, and tell it you require my service. The message will reach me.”
Marla nodded.
Ch’ang Hao started to leave, then hesitated. “In the interests of honesty, and so that you understand the nature of our relationship fully, I feel I must tell you something.”
“Go on,” Marla said.
“You and I are, from this time forward, mortal enemies,” he said, almost sadly. “I regret that such a position must be taken, but I have no choice.”
It was all Marla could do to keep herself from gaping. “What? Why would you want to be my enemy? I just cut your apron strings!”
Ch’ang Hao regarded her with his cold eyes, and it was obvious that the face he wore was merely a convenience; he was not human at all. “There are few things so terrible as being enslaved. But being only half free is little better. I wear a suit of spikes, Marla Mason, and I am tormented. It is in your power to set me free, and yet you do not. You choose to leave me bound, in agony.”
“I don’t know you,” Marla said, striving to sound as cold as Ch’ang Hao did. “I can’t risk cutting you loose. I don’t know what you might do.”
“I understand,” Ch’ang Hao said. “Nevertheless, I do not forgive you for leaving me bound, and we must therefore be enemies. Had you chosen to set me entirely free, we might have been great friends. But you sought to make me another sort of slave, to your own will, and I will not forget that.”
“You’re like the genie in that story. He gets freed from his bottle, but he’s been imprisoned so long that he hates people, and he kills the man who released him, instead of giving him a wish.”
“You have extracted your wish from me,” Ch’ang Hao said. “And I will grant it when you call. Do not doubt that.”
“Fine.” She crossed her arms, trying not to let her discomfort show. Making an enemy of such a powerful being was probably one of the worst mistakes she’d ever made, but she dared not let him see how much it upset her. “Then here’s my wish. I wish you’d change your mind about us being enemies.”
“I am bound to perform a service for you,” Ch’ang Hao said. “I am not bound to forsake my dignity or my honor, and I will not. Call me when you have a true request to make.”
“And after that, you’ll try to kill me?”
“I doubt I could kill you, so long as I wear this harness. But I do not expect to be wearing it forever.” He turned to Rondeau. “It was a pleasure to meet you,” he said, and then left the room. Marla sat on the edge of the bed and put her head in her hands.
“He was nice, for an ancient demon,” Rondeau said. “Until he got to the part about killing you someday.”
“I’m pretty sure he was a snake god,” Marla said, staring down at the floor. “Or at least he used to be.” She sighed. “Let’s get some sleep. We have to meet Finch early tomorrow.” Maybe there was no reason to worry. It was possible Susan would cast her spell tonight, and then Marla wouldn’t have to worry about Ch’ang Hao anymore.
Rondeau went to his room next door, leaving Marla to undress, brush her teeth, and lay in bed, gazing up at the ceiling. She normally had no trouble falling asleep, but this business with Susan had shattered her calm, driven her across the continent, mixed her up in all manner of ugly business, and now, indirectly, made her an enemy of a snake god.
She’d had better days.
“Marla.” A low voice, from the direction of the bathroom. Marla sat up and activated her night-eyes.
Susan Wellstone stood in the doorway to the bathroom. “Don’t bother to get up,” she said. A faint silvery sheen surrounded her, like an aura of translucent sparkles.
Marla leaned back against the headboard. “Why would I? You’re here by astral projection. It’s not like I could bash your
head open anyway.” Though there were other things she could do, if she could reach her dagger on the nightstand and then get to Susan. “What do you want?”
“Hamil has been calling me all day. I finally took his call, and he begged for your life.” Susan smiled, and even in this attenuated astral form, it was a dazzling smile. She was tall and coltish, her features stark but beautiful. “We were friends, once, long ago. Lovers, actually.”
“I’ve heard,” Marla said, looking past her to the silver astral cord that stretched from Susan’s back into the darkness, across psychic space, all the way to Susan’s body in Felport. If Marla could get her dagger and sever that astral cord before Susan could recall her spirit, her soul would be loosed from her body forever, and she would be as good as dead. That would solve one of Marla’s problems nicely.
“So for the sake of my past with Hamil, I’ve come to offer you a deal. I’m willing to let you live.”
“Sure,” Marla said. “I assume there’s a catch.”
“A small one, yes. Abdicate. Name me your successor. Swear you’ll never return to Felport. That’s all.”
“How generous,” Marla said.
“Actually, it is. I could dispose of you forever, and you know it—that’s why you ran away, isn’t it? Hoping that distance would weaken my spell? But it won’t. That works for some magics, but not this one.”
At least she didn’t know about the Cornerstone. No one back home did, except Hamil, and he wouldn’t have said anything—he’d been close to Susan once, but that was a long time ago, and these days he was scarcely more fond of her than Marla was.
“We’ll see,” Marla said. “I have no doubt that one of us will be dead before this thing between us is finished.”
“Why not abdicate?” Susan said. She stepped forward, shimmering. “You know it’s the sensible thing to do. You never deserved your position. I was the one training for it, rising through the ranks, making negotiations. But you—you short-circuited everything.”