On the Road to the Hell of Hungry Ghosts

by Richard Parks

  Father drew his peachwood sword and held it out before him as he slowly approached the tomb. He muttered something under his breath, which was really more of a chant than a mumble, and then addressed the empty air before the entrance.

  “Show yourself!”

  The ward was no simple barrier; it was a giant with a massive club of spiked bronze. Its appearance echoed paintings of a guardian of the underworld which I had seen once in a temple—the same bulging eyes, the same armor of overlapping bronze plates, the same gnashing teeth. There was a shimmer to it in outline which suggested that the behemoth wasn’t entirely real. The bones scattered at its feet suggested otherwise.

  “Whoever conjured this one had great skill,” Father said. “Everyone stay where they are.”

  He studied the figure for several long moments, then let out a long, slow breath and took a step back.

  “This isn’t a creation of magic,” he said. “This creature was summoned from the underworld and bound here.”

  “So how do we get rid of it?” I asked. “Since defeating and destroying it physically seems unlikely.”

  “More than unlikely—impossible,” Father said. “But notice the shimmer? It doesn’t belong here. The binding ritual will have attached it as if with a chain to a physical object of our world, and that prevents it from leaving. We destroy that, and the creature will immediately return whence it came. We don’t, and it destroys us.”

  Father did have a way of boiling a situation down to its essence. Mei Li and I glanced at each other, and she asked the obvious question.

  “Honorable Pan Bao, what are we looking for?”

  Father started to stroke his beard, but after a moment he lowered his hand, looking a little defeated. “I have no idea. It could be anything, but it has to be nearby.”

  All the while we were discussing the guardian, I kept a careful watch on it, but it merely stood blocking the entrance to Lost Princess’ tomb, glaring at us but not attacking. If, as Father had said, the object anchoring it to the living world was nearby, it stood to reason that there was a proximity limit to the creature’s scope of action. I took three careful steps toward the guardian.

  “Jing!”

  Fortunately I didn’t need Father’s warning. As soon as the creature moved, so did I. Even so, the club missed crushing me into the earth by only one step.

  “That was foolish, Daughter,” Father said gruffly, which is about as close to ‘I’m glad you’re not dead’ as he’d ever spoken. I suppressed a smile.

  “Perhaps, but useful. Whatever we’re looking for,” I said, “has to be within about twenty paces of the creature itself. That is its boundary.”

  We all looked from where we stood, but in that area all we could see were a few stones scattered about. Some appeared to be no more than natural shards of stone shed from the canyon walls. However, there were a few which seemed to be the result of weathering of the tomb itself, including one showing decorative carving.

  “Father,” I said, “does it not stand to reason that someone wishing to bind this guardian to the tomb would literally bind it to the tomb itself?”

  “It would have to be a specific part, rather than the entire tomb,” Father said thoughtfully.

  I pointed to the carved stone, which I now could see was a discrete block rather than a broken stone. I could even see where it had fallen from. “Like that piece of the lintel?”

  Father smiled. “Exactly like that. Well done.”

  “Can we be sure?” Mei Li asked. “It is unlikely we’ll have another chance.”

  I had an idea. “Father, what will you need to do to break the binding?”

  “Unless it is stronger than I think, touching it with the proper ward should suffice,” Father said. “The problem is we have to reach the stone without being smashed to bits.”

  I turned to Mei Li. “I’ve seen you transform your bawu into a sword. Is that all it can do?”

  Mei Li looked puzzled for a moment, but then her eyes widened and she smiled. “There is this.” Again she mumbled something inaudible and the sword transformed into a powerful-looking recurved bow of horn with ivory tips. She took the silk bag she carried her flute in and spoke again, and there was a quiver full of arrows with barbed bronze points.

  “Surely you’re not suggesting we stand at a distance and fire arrows?” Father asked. “Even if they had any effect—which I doubt—the guardian would simply cease to manifest and thus avoid them.”

  “I suggest no such thing, as he is not the target. The ward has to simply contact the stone, yes? It doesn’t have to attach to it.”

  I saw the understanding dawning on my father’s face. “Clever girl. You do take after your mother. Mei Li, I need you to remove the point of one of those arrows.”

  While Mei Li complied, Father got busy with ink and pen to create the appropriate ward. When he was finished he took the arrow from Mei Li and wrapped the paper ward around the arrow with the paper just protruding from the end. He then tied it firmly in place with a bit of silken thread.

  “I do not claim to be an expert archer,” Mei Li said, and it sounded like an apology. “My eyesight is not first rate. Yet the bow will only work for me.”

  “So I suspected,” Father said. “Can you see the stone?”

  “Yes, though the guardian is obscuring part of it. I will do my best.”

  “We need a clear shot, so we’ll have to make the guardian move to one side or the other. Jing, take the right side. I will take the left. Wait for my signal. Mei Li? As soon as it goes after either of us, aim for the stone.”

  “Understood,” she said.

  I didn’t say “try not to miss.” I think that was understood, too.

  When Father was in position, he probed for the exact limit of the boundary with this peachwood sword. I knew he had found it when the creature’s eyes suddenly swung in his direction. Clearly Father saw it too.

  “Now!”

  Father darted in, moving with great alacrity for a man of middle years. Mei Li drew her bow, but the creature leaned forward to strike at my father, who withdrew with equal alacrity. At Father’s signal, I also darted forward, and no sooner had my father cleared the boundary, the guardian turned toward me, but now changing direction required him to shift his balance to the right. No sooner had he lifted his foot when I heard the twang of Mei Li’s bow.

  She hit it…?

  Apparently not, for the creature did not even blink. In an instant it was after me. Its first swing missed me but struck the ground with such force that I was jarred into a stumble. It was only my frantic roll to the left that put me just beyond the creature’s club rather than beneath it, but I was still within the boundary, and I did not think I could avoid the third strike.

  I had almost closed my eyes when I noticed something odd—the shimmer around the creature’s outline was moving inward, and as it moved, the guardian started to shrink in on itself. It struck again from where it stood, only this time its club was too short to reach me. In another moment both the guardian and its club were gone, and Mei Li was at my side, helping me to my feet.

  “You are unhurt, Young Mistress?” she asked.

  My pride had taken a blow, but fortunately the rest of me had not. “I’m fine. Thanks to you. You’re a better archer than you’d have us believe.”

  “Fortune smiled on all of us,” she said.

  Father spared a hard glance in my direction—either to make sure I was all right or to scold me for my clumsiness, I didn’t care to guess which—and was now examining the entrance to Lost Princess’ tomb. “Look at this, you two,” was all he said.

  We approached the tomb under the shadow of the high valley walls. I noticed the ghost of Lost Princess loitering behind us, but she came no closer. Father was standing by the tomb’s bronze door.

  Door?

  “I could have sworn that this portal was not there a moment ago,” Mei Li said.

  “Apparently it was part of the warding in place,” Father s
aid. “Concealed to appear as solid stone.”

  “The tombs we passed earlier were sealed with stone blocks, originally. Why is this one different?” I asked.

  “I don’t know,” Father said, “but I can tell you that this tomb was originally sealed the same way. This door was added later. Why? I have no idea.”

  Mei Li frowned. “Lost Princess still advises caution. She says there is something else.”

  Even as she was speaking, Father hesitated. “I sense it too.” He turned to Mei Li and myself. “Jing, Mei Li, I want to know what you can detect.”

  I never claimed to be as attuned as my father to these currents in the ebb and flow of energy, the balance of yin and yang, but I understood the necessity. I placed my hand on the bronze door and immediately snatched it away.

  “Evil,” I said.

  “Power,” Mei Li said.

  “Yes,” Father said. “To both. Did Lost Princess know about this?”

  Mei Li went to speak to her again and soon returned. “No, she sensed it just as you did. She only knew about the first ward.”

  “So we have a Chief Counsellor so afraid of a little child ghost that he conjured and bound a demon of the underworld, but that wasn’t enough?”

  I spoke up. “Honored Father, when I said ‘evil’ before, I meant it. Malice, hatred… The guardian wasn’t evil, it was merely doing what it was bound to do. Whatever is waiting for us within? That is something different.”

  Father sighed. “Daughter, I believe you are right. No matter—we’ve come this far. Everyone, be ready.”

  Mei Li had already transformed her bow back into a sword. I drew my own. Father threw the bolt on the bronze door and pulled it open. Even after so many years, it balanced perfectly on its hinges and moved, as I could see, with very little effort.

  “A fine door,” Mei Li said. “But on a tomb? It doesn’t make sense.”

  “It does if someone wanted to access it more easily later,” I said. “It would be ideal for a grave robber.”

  Father glared. “A grave robber? How could a grave robber have a door installed?”

  “One who had the authority to do so and the means to make the guards look the other way,” Lost Princess said.

  We had not noticed her approach. Not surprising, as ghosts moved about as silently as it was possible to move. She bowed. “Forgive me for taking so long to speak directly to you. My experiences when alive made me wary of those I had every reason to trust.”

  “Whereas you had no reason at all to trust us,” Father said. “Though surely you must understand by now that our intentions are as much mercenary as compassionate, Highness?”

  There was a smile on the little ghost’s face which I found more than a bit unsettling. “Which is a motivation I understand, Good Sir. At court, it was one of the first made clear to me. Unlike those of Counsellor Wei, which I only understood when it was too late. It was he who ordered the door. I didn’t understand why. Then I learned it was he who killed me. That’s when I…”

  “—did the same to him, Highness, if what Mei Li told us is accurate,” I said.

  She bowed. “It is. Even if I didn’t intend to do so or understand how I did it. All I knew was the living energy I took from him made me feel alive, at least for a while. I knew, if I remained among the living, I would hurt others to feel that way again. I did not wish that. So I fled to my tomb and found it sealed against me. Since then I have hidden in the forgotten places until all of Kai became a forgotten place. Then gentle Mei Li heard my cries.”

  “You do me too much honor, Highness,” Mei Li said. “This form may be human, but I am a snake-devil and far from gentle.”

  The ghost regarded Mei Li with her large, dark eyes. “You are not human, true, but neither are you what you were, or at least not completely so.”

  “Oh…”

  For a moment I held my breath as it appeared Mei Li was about to burst into tears, but then Father broke the mood.

  “Highness, what awaits us in your tomb?” he asked.

  “I do not know,” she said, “unless it is some further insult by Counsellor Wei.”

  He frowned. “I suppose we have to go find out.”

  “Please be careful… and whatever happens, you have my gratitude,” Lost Princess said again. Then, as if the effort of speaking to us had somehow drained her, she shuddered and slowly vanished.

  “If we live, we can discover what that gratitude is worth,” Father said. “Still… quite well-spoken for a child.”

  “Who happens to be a hundreds-of-years-old princess,” I pointed out.

  “A child is a child,” Father said, then spared a pointed glance in my direction. “Even at seventeen. Let’s go.”

  I lit a torch first and took the lead as we filed in. I’m not sure what I expected, but this was no mere stifling crypt chiseled into the rock. The entrance opened into a large chamber, perhaps forty paces square and at least twice as high as I was tall.

  Completely empty.

  Mei Li was the first to express the obvious. “There’s nothing here.”

  The stone walls had been painted with colorful murals of life in the Kai royal palace: courtiers in antique clothing and hairstyles, servants, musicians, everything a princess might need to remind her of the palace she had grown up in, but there was nothing else. No furnishings, no guardian statues, no grave goods of any kind. Also no coffin or other obvious resting place.

  Father pointed at a dark square on the wall across the room. “This is just an antechamber. It goes on.”

  The doorway lead into another chamber, if anything more richly painted than the first, but also empty. Or rather, almost. Near the far wall there was a raised stone bier on which rested an intricately carved casket. Beside that was a throne of granite, also intricately carved. On the throne there sat a dark, skeletal figure, its once fine robes in tatters.

  “That’s not the princess,” Mei Li said. “That is a jiangshi.”

  I felt it too. This was the source of the evil, the malice I sensed. A creature neither alive nor dead. It would feed on the living if given a chance, but what was it doing in Lost Princess’s tomb?

  Father already had his peachwood sword at the ready, and Mei Li and I quickly followed his example with our own blades.

  “Be prepared to fight,” he said, and then he spoke directly to the corpse. “Counsellor Wei, I presume?”

  There was a creaking, crackling sound like dry wood on cloth or bone on bone, and the thing spoke.

  “You have the advantage on me, Sir,” It said. “Who are you?” Its voice was like an echo of the tomb itself.

  “A humble scholar of no great importance,” Father replied.

  “Hardly,” the jiangshi said. “You banished my guardian or you wouldn’t be here. I suppose then I must deal with you myself.”

  No less impossibly than it speaking, the creature rose from the stone chair. No mere ghost, it carried its boney, tattered frame with the dignity of a king.

  Father smiled. “Before we begin the inevitable, may I be impertinent enough to ask a few questions? Surely as a change from your lonely vigil, it would not inconvenience you greatly?”

  The horror seemed to consider. “Ask,” it finally said.

  “Whose tomb are we in?”

  “Why would you assume it was not mine?” he asked, turning the question back.

  “It is a royal tomb. You, of high status though you may be, are not in that category.”

  “This is the tomb of the Princess Chunhua of Kai,” it said. “While it is true what you say, nevertheless I would have been the father of a king, except for her. She killed my son. She killed me. I have taken her tomb as my own.”

  “She did not kill your son,” Mei Li said.

  The lich turned to look at her with its sunken eyes. “Sweet flower, I knew you had been speaking to that little insect. I smelled my own life force lingering about you from the moment you entered. She took that from me. I will take it back from you!”

>   “The way you stole her tomb offerings?” Father said. “You had planned that, even before you poisoned her.”

  The lich shrugged. Its bones made a grinding noise as they rubbed together. “Why shouldn’t I? There were those who would know the truth of the queen’s son. There were bribes to make, assassins to hire. Becoming royal is all very expensive. Regardless, when I realized what had happened to me, I left my own tomb and came here to find revenge, only to discover that I already had it, having barred Chunhua from her resting place. That was too wonderful. Once you three are dead, your shades will serve me, and I will bind another demon, a stronger one this time, to guard the entrance. That little brat can howl in the dark forever!”

  “I think I’m beginning to understand ‘evil’ now,” Mei Li said. “Thank you for the lesson. Now please be so good as to die again—”

  Mei Li froze in place, her sword extended toward the lich. I tried to reach her side only to discover that I could not move. A sideways glance showed that Father was in the same condition.

  “What have you done?” I said, or thought I did, except the sound was only in my head. It never reached my lips. The thing that had once been Counsellor Wei approached Mei Li, its footsteps sounding like bare wood on the stone floor.

  “You first, my lovely.”

  What flesh remained around his mouth pulled back and cracked into a horrid parody of a smile as he stopped just inches from the tip of her sword. “Frustrating, is it not? So close, and yet you cannot strike me. Honestly, how did you fools live this long?”

  “With the help of friends, perhaps, Counsellor Wei?”

  Mei Lei’s blade plunged into Counsellor Wei’s chest, through the breast bone and into the shriveled lump that had been his heart. It took me a moment to realize that she wasn’t responsible. Princess Chunhua, the lost princess, had appeared at her side, grasped Mei Li’s elbow, and shoved the sword forward. I don’t know what charms and spells the blade must have carried, but the effect was immediate—the lich screamed.

  “P-princess—”

  She smiled at him. If I never see such a smile again in my time on earth, that will be fine with me.

  “I did not kill your son, Counsellor Wei, traitor and murderer though you are. That was the Judgement of Heaven. Wait for me in Hell, for I will surely find you… in my own sweet time.”