Precious Dragon

by Liz Williams

  “The Superior Palace,” No said.

  Zhu Irzh arched an eyebrow. “That’s—quite good.”

  “The Ministry is most anxious that you should enjoy your stay,” No explained. Chen nearly commented that if he did, it would be a personal first, but he felt that this comment was a little impolite and might cause him to lose face. So he simply complied with Underling No’s invitation and clambered up the steps into the swaying coach.

  Inside, it was not unlike the train: a lot of black leather and dark red velvet. Underling No had evidently been chosen to accessorise her vehicle. Once Zhu Irzh and Miss Qi were safely inside, Underling No clucked to the deer and the coach set off at a smart pace, cantering down the sliproad to the main artery and keeping up with the rest of the traffic. The air reeked of unrefined petrol: Hell, it seemed, had not gone over to unleaded gas. The coach bounced but Chen had to admit that it had good suspension. Miss Qi clung to one of the struts, all the same.

  “The Superior Palace is one of the best hotels here,” Zhu Irzh shouted above the roar of passing cars. “It’s where they put all the visiting dignitaries from other hells. A lot of diplomats stay there.”

  “I wasn’t expecting this,” Chen shouted back.

  Zhu Irzh shrugged. “So far, so good.”

  Chen watched the scenery of the central city unfold, streets lined with sinister mansions behind huge gates and black lawns, the towers of the ministries growing more overwhelming as they grew closer. It was odd to be treated as honoured guest rather than human infiltrator and he did not trust it. But so far, it was a more pleasant stay than any he’d had in Hell so far.

  The Superior Palace turned out to be situated in its own parkland, just behind the Ministries of War and Lust. Neither was attractive, but Chen could at least find a moment to be grateful that they were nowhere near the Ministry of Epidemics, which stood some distance away across the square. Having been instrumental in its destruction, he considered that the less he had to do with it, the better. But the Ministry looked just the same as it always had, as though it had never been blown apart.

  “They raised its counterpart from a lower level yet,” Zhu Irzh told him, when he remarked on this. “Caused a huge crack in the continuum fabric, apparently, and left one of the lower levels rife with unrestrained diseases, but it’ll all sort itself out in a few hundred years.”

  Miss Qi shuddered. Chen couldn’t help feeling vaguely guilty. But if the Ministry of Epidemics hadn’t made its disastrous bid for power in the first place, then it would not have sown the seeds of its own destruction. A lifetime of considering karma had left Chen particular about the true causes of things.

  “Here we are,” Underling No called back from her seat on the top of the coach. She reined the deer to a flashy gravel-scattering stop in front of the hotel and swung down in a creak of leather armour to open the door.

  Chen was obliged to concede that the Superior Palace was, indeed, superior. The coach was whisked away and parked by a junior demon, while Underling No accompanied Chen and his party into the foyer, a rich and rather overwhelming melange of embroideries, wall hangings, oriental carpets and mahogany.

  “Delightful,” Miss Qi said, faintly.

  “Isn’t it lovely?” Underling No’s face was a fanged beam. “I’m sure you’ll have a comfortable stay here.”

  A maid hurried forward with room keys and showed them up a sweeping flight of stairs to their rooms, all next door to one another. Chen’s room turned out to enjoy, if this was the correct word, a view over the backs of the Ministries. Staring at the Ministry of War made him feel light headed, and looking at the Ministry of Lust, merely ill. So he drew the drapes closed and turned his attention to the room instead, a panelled chamber of no small gloom which managed to be both grand and uncomfortable. The bed seemed relatively hard, however, which suggested that at least he wouldn’t have to put up with back trouble. Rather than spend too much time in the room, he went next door to find Zhu Irzh.

  The demon was sitting glumly on his bed, studying a square of ornately printed cardboard in black and gold.

  “What’s that?” Chen asked.

  “What do you think?” Zhu Irzh tossed it towards him. Chen picked it up from the thick pile of the carpet and read:

  YOU ARE INVITED TO THE BIRTHDAY CELEBRATIONS OF MADAME ZHU FENG LI, BLOODLILY MANSION, ENDLESS LANE, AT 7:30 PM ON THE LAST DAY OF STIFLEMONTH.

  “This is from your mother?” Chen asked. The demon nodded.

  “I can’t pretend I haven’t seen it.” He turned the invitation over and pointed to a glittering sigil on the back. “As soon as I opened the envelope, the hex flew off out of the window. It’ll inform my mother’s staff that I’ve read it.” He gave a dramatic sigh. “Just what I need. Mum snapping and bitching at dad for buying her the wrong birthday present, my sister sulking, my little brother—god knows what he’s up to these days. I don’t even know if he’s still living at home.”

  “You’ve never spoken much about your family,” Chen said, sitting down in the armchair.

  “There’s a reason for that. You know, Chen, I don’t think I’ve told you how much I’ve come to appreciate living on Earth.”

  “You didn’t live with your family, though, did you? I seem to remember you having your own apartment.”

  “I did. Nice place, actually. If I ever did move back here, I’d consider trying to rent it again. Bit of an issue with the landlady over something I slew in the living room, but apart from that …” Zhu Irzh gave Chen a curious glance. “You’ve never said much about your folks, come to that.”

  “I’ve got very few relatives left,” Chen said. “I was an only child—the one child policy, you know? My parents were getting on when they had me and they died a peaceful natural death within several months of one another.”

  “Where are they now? In Heaven, one assumes, not here?”

  “Yes, in Heaven. But in a remote part and I don’t know whether they’ve been reborn. Their shadow-personalities may live on but I stopped hearing from them some years ago. They never knew about Inari. I haven’t asked to look them up, though I loved them a great deal. Apart from that, there are a few distant cousins, and that’s it. Inari is my family now.”

  “You are a lucky man, Chen,” the demon said, and Chen replied:

  “I agree. So, do you think you’ll be going to this party?”

  “I’ll have to.”

  The demon looked so gloomy that Chen said, “Want me to come with you?” His motive was not simply to be supportive of a friend, but also, he admitted to himself, wanton curiosity. He wanted to see the kind of background from which someone as complex as Zhu Irzh had emerged.

  “Would you?” Zhu Irzh, normally so insouciant, looked pathetically grateful. “I could use all the support I can get.”

  “Well, let’s go, in that case. Miss Qi will be fine here in the hotel.” One hopes. But before they were able to discuss it at any length, there was a knock on the door and Zhu Irzh opened it to reveal a smiling Underling No.

  “Is everything to your satisfaction?”

  Apart from the fact that I’m in Hell and have just agreed to go to a demon’s birthday party. “Perfectly fine,” Chen said.

  “I’m so pleased. I’ve spoken to Miss Qi. You are to be taken on a short tour of the Ministry of War, and then you will go out to dinner.”

  “Sounds lovely,” said Chen.

  16

  “What a horrible story,” Mai said, when Pin had finished his tale. “You poor boy.” She squinted into his bottle, her eyes appearing as huge as the moon. “There must be some way we can get you out of there, anyway.”

  “Try taking the stopper out,” Pin advised. “I’m not sure if there’s a spell on it or anything.”

  “Well, let’s try,” Mai said. She seized the stopper and the bottle and gave a sharp tug. The stopper flew out and Pin flew with it. His spirit surged out of the bottle and hung in the air.

  “What do I look like?” he asked Ma
i. He felt so ephemeral, so diffuse, that he wanted proof of his own existence.

  “You look like a ghost of a boy,” Mai said. She frowned. “I suppose that makes a kind of sense, given that you’re not actually dead, are you? You’re still alive, so I suppose that makes you seem insubstantial.”

  Pin didn’t really understand, but so much had made so little sense recently that he decided to simply accept it. At least she could see him. He sat down on a nearby couch, floating slightly about its surface.

  “I don’t know what to do,” he said. “I think my mother is here, but I don’t know where to find her.” It embarrassed him to sound so lost, but Mai’s kind face drew it out of him.

  “How did she die?” Mai asked.

  “She was ill. I thought she might be somewhere in the Ministry of Epidemics, but I don’t know …”

  “I might be able to find out for you,” Mai said, “but to be honest, our records are in such a state—it’s very hard to track people down and I’m only a minor clerk.” She hesitated. “I’ve had associations with the Ministry for most of my life here, but it takes a very long time to work yourself up to any kind of position of power. I died of a disease, too, you see. I was three.”

  “Only three? Why are you here? Surely you can’t have done anything bad enough to warrant being sent to Hell?”

  “I’m not sure,” Mai said. She sighed. “There was some kind of mix-up, my mother says. But anyway, Pin, you shouldn’t be here. You’re not dead yet; you got here by accident, from the sound of it. And you’re so fragile. There are things here that eat ghosts.”

  “I don’t even know what happened to my body,” Pin said. Presumably it was still back in the demon lounge and he did not like to think about what might be happening to it.

  “My mother is on Earth,” Mai said. “I told you that. She’s looking after my son. But she’s elderly now—she wasn’t young when she had me. She’s very brave, but I don’t want to ask her to go to a demon lounge. I’m sorry, Pin, but I don’t want to put my family in danger.”

  “I understand,” Pin said. “But if you could give me some advice—I can’t stay here with you forever, can I?”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” Mai said with sudden resolve. “I want to help. No one should be stuck here. It’s different with me—I grew up here. I don’t remember Earth very well.”

  “How did you grow up?” Pin asked. He didn’t mean to pry, but it seemed unimaginably difficult to him, that such a small child might be sent on her own to Hell, and survive—yet how could she do otherwise, when already dead? The horror of it struck him then, that this was a life that one could not even escape through death. If he himself died—assuming he ever made it back to his life—then certainly he would escape the Opera, but to what?

  Mai sighed. “It wasn’t easy. I didn’t understand what had happened to me at first—one minute I was with my mother and crying because I felt ill, and then the next thing I knew I was on a boat with all these dead people, and then I was here in Hell. They just put us out on the shore and left us. I ran away and I hid for days, and then I just lived on the streets. My dad came down with us—I glimpsed him on the boat but they wouldn’t let me talk to him and I couldn’t find him when we got to shore. That was the worst thing. But my mother prayed and eventually one of my ancestors came and found me and took me home to his family. I lived with them until my marriage. It wasn’t so bad. But they reincarnated shortly after the wedding, and their shadow-personalities have faded, so I won’t see them again.”

  There was a short silence. “I’m sorry,” Pin said.

  “I’m happy now, Pin. Ahn and I love each other. And we love our son. I just wish—well, that’s not your problem. Pin—are you hungry, or thirsty? I don’t even know if you can feel things?”

  “I’m not,” Pin said. “But I am tired.” As he said it, in his ghost’s whisper, he realised that it was true: he was exhausted.

  “Then rest,” Mai said and Pin’s last memory of that night was of sinking down into the couch and sleep, as Mai spread a blanket like a cobweb across him.

  17

  Up close, the Ministry of War was loud. The air around it snapped and whirred, humming with machinery and lightning. If Chen listened carefully, he could hear more distant sounds in between the mechanical noise: the clash of arms and the shouts of dying warriors, explosions and the whine of falling shells, as if the very building of the Ministry was some kind of recording device, set to grasp the noises of war and play them back in incessant and horrifying turmoil. Looking up to the summit of the Ministry made him feel dizzy and disoriented; Chen concentrated upon its iron flanks instead, the gun placements and missile cones that bristled out from every angle. There were demonic guards at the doors, immense, hulking beings like monstrous bald bears, wearing antique metal armour.

  “I always thought it was very macho, this Ministry,” Zhu Irzh said with a sigh.

  Miss Qi eyed him curiously. “Do you think that’s a good thing?”

  The demon shrugged.

  “We are very proud of our Ministry,” Underling No said, earnestly. “Let me tell you some facts.”

  It was clear that there was no escape. It reminded Chen of school visits in his youth, trips arranged to this steelworks or that manufacturing plant, all designed to maximise the notion of Chinese productivity and industriousness. Whatever the content of the trip had been, the young Chen had found them all slightly depressing and now they blurred in his mind into one huge all-encompassing visit. He had a feeling that this trip, too, was destined to take its place among them.

  “… inaugurated over five thousand years ago by the then-Emperor of Hell, Jing-Li, and since then has had a long and illustrious history in establishing and maintaining conflict across the Oriental world …” No was saying.

  Miss Qi, unsurprisingly, frowned. “Did you have any part to play in the last two world wars?”

  “Of course,” No assured her. “Although we must note that the seeds of those conflicts were begun in other Hells elsewhere, since the main wars began in the Western hemisphere. However, we are proud to say that we played our part in fermenting disruption across the East, too. And of course, since then, we have worked closely with the Hells of North Korea and South East Asia, since China has not directly been involved in conflict for some years.” Underling No managed to look faintly embarrassed at this, as though the Ministry of War had been slacking.

  “But you can’t get a really clear picture from statistics,” No went on, to Chen’s secret relief. “You need to see the Ministry.”

  As they walked through the immense portal, decorated with gory scenes of combat and destruction from the ancient to the modern, Chen reflected that it was really quite open-minded of the Ministry to allow a human and a Celestial through its doors for a tour. Presumably there would be restricted areas, for Chen could not see the Ministry letting people wander in and out to observe its secrets. Or perhaps they were so well-established and confident that they simply didn’t care … Either way, he intended to learn what he could and if necessary, pass on the information to whichever authority seemed best able to deal with it. He was not deceived by No’s pleasant manner and willingness to convey information. She was a mere lackey, after all, and her function as a liaison officer was purely to supply authorised material, the public face of the Ministry. But things were, perhaps, changing, for Chen had never known Hell’s institutions to see the need for a public face before. Maybe recent events had convinced even the governing lords of the underworld that a degree of give and take might be required. And that, essentially, led to questions about just how much they feared the wrath of Heaven, of the Celestial powers.

  An interesting question, Chen thought, strolling behind No through the colossal metal-panelled atrium, brutalist architecture at its most massively imposing. For it raised the issue in his own mind as to what kind of power Heaven and the Celestial Emperor wielded: one really saw it so rarely, or so it seemed. Yet Earth, though a bit of a d
isaster area environmentally, was improving, and there were millions of people who were not starving, disease-­ridden and murdering one another even in spite of Hell’s machinations. So that suggested that a more subtle balance was in play than one might otherwise consider. Either Heaven had an authority all of its own, or it had none and the improvements were entirely due to human will and human ingenuity. The question remained: if Hell decided again to make a play for power across the three worlds, just how far Heaven might choose to go …

  Zhu Irzh was staring up at the panels. “Five thousand years of war,” he murmured. “That’s a lot of killing.”

  “Hell was repopulated many times through developments in this very Ministry,” No assured him. “As I’m sure you know, we play an integral role in maintaining the infrastructure of Hell and also our research and development departments have proved most lucrative in forwarding ideas to Earth.”

  “I’m afraid the military industrial complex is one of the foremost on the planet,” Chen said. He could not approve, but No naturally took this as a compliment.

  “That’s so kind of you to say so,” she said. “Now. One of the Lesser Lords has agreed to meet you. We’ll go to his office.”

  She took them through a bewildering series of passageways, all lined with gleaming metal. Their footsteps resounded on stone and the interior of the Ministry was stiflingly hot, although Chen could hear a curious whirring sound throughout the place that reminded him of a large fan. Once away from the ornately decorated atrium, the Ministry was austere, with few decorations of any kind on the walls.

  “Here we are,” No said, in hushed tones. She knocked on a door and after a moment, a voice barked, “Enter!” They were shown through into a palatial office: if this was one of the Ministry’s lesser lords, Chen thought, then the administrative quarters of its rulers must be opulent indeed. An armoured figure was sitting behind a desk, so huge and polished that it resembled a mirrored pool. Like No, his face was dark red, but he bristled with spines. Black and white porcupine quills bushed out from beneath a flared Samurai helmet and his hands were like the paws of a dog: bunched fingers terminating in short black claws. When he stood, Chen saw that he was around eight feet in height.