DAC 3 Precious Dragon (15 page)

The dragon swam along the seabed, seeing only a glimpse of her own writhing shadow in the light cast by her eyes. She swam for a mile or more, becoming increasingly sure that the shoal had been wrong, that there was nothing here, only acres of rumpled sand—but then she saw a glint of white in the seabed, something very small. She angled down to rest and plucked it free with one clawed toe. She found herself holding a skull. It was not human, although the configurations were a little similar. But the eye sockets were too large, the skull longer. She knew what it had belonged to: a Celestial being, one of the creatures from deep inside Heaven, who had never been born into the world.

Creatures like this had crewed the Veil of Day. She wondered what had happened to the skull's spirit, whether it had returned to Heaven to take on a new form, or whether it had become trapped in this lattice of water and dark. She was not skilled enough to say, versed in magic though she was. She laid the skull gently back on the seabed and swam on with renewed hope. After no more than a few minutes, the hull rose up in front of her.

She had not realized that the Veil of Day had been so big. The wreck was massive, a galleon, with a great curving arch of hull encrusted in turn with ghosts: little ones of barnacles and shells, of things with teeth. When she reached out a claw, it went straight through them to touch the glimmering surface of the wood. The ship was surprisingly intact, but then, the wood of Heaven took a long time to rot.

Embar Dea gathered water around her, calling on ice and tide and flow, forming a shell of protection about her body. There were still things that sought to trap dragons and she did not want to take the risk. Then she swam up, following the arch of the hull, and came to a porthole. She looked through, into a cabin gleaming with phosphorescence. One of the crew still sat at a table, a skeleton holding a pen. There was no flesh left on it at all, it glowed white, and as Embar Dea stared, its head rolled as though a sudden current had eddied through the wreck, and it said, "You are a dragon, are you not?"

"I am a lung of the sea. My name is Embar Dea." She spoke unhesitatingly, though it was well known that it was not wise to tell one's name indiscriminately to anyone. But this had been a Celestial.

"I would give you my name," the skeleton said, "but I cannot remember it."

"I understand," Embar Dea said. "You have been dead for a very long time. Yet you are still here, are you not? You haven't been reborn?"

"We cannot. We are enspelled around this wreck. We could not leave the ship in life, you see, not until it reached its destination and we had discharged our duty, but we did not get so far."

"And so you cannot leave at all," Embar Dea said. A great surge of pity rose in her; even she, a sea dragon, was not entirely happy so far down and in such darkness: How then must these Celestial spirits, used to light and air, feel? "I would like to help."

"You can help," the skeleton said. It leaned forward, its narrow jaws creaking. "You can take our cargo. If you promise me that you can deliver it—"

"Where is it supposed to go? To Hell?"

"To the Savior of the World," the skeleton said. "Once, that person was in Hell, but now it is likely that matters are different."

"I don't know who that might be," Embar Dea said, taken aback. "I don't even know if there is such a person these days."

"If there was not," the skeleton said, with a logic that caused that twinge of instinct once again, "I don't think you would be here."

Embar Dea had lived long enough to know when circumstances were pushing her in a certain direction. "Very well," she said. "I accept."

Something flowed outward from the being, a pale, watery mist that took on sketchy features of the creature that the Celestial had once been. "Do you swear to me?"

"I swear," Embar Dea said, after only a brief pause. And the wreck of the Veil of Day flew apart.

Embar Dea, still wrapped in her magical protection, was safe from the shards and splinters of wood as they foamed through the water, but she could see little through the boiling roar of sea. Then, through the bubbles and froth, she saw a skein of brightness, a web of light that spiraled up into a twist of gold and rose and azure, and she knew it for the spirits of the crew, returning to Heaven at last. She felt them pick her up and carry her with them, as lightly as if she had been a small and empty shell, but the speed with which they rose sucked her remaining breath out of her. She lay gasping, floating on the surface of the sea, with a calm crescent moon above her. The spirits of the crew flashed upward and were gone. In one clawed fist, she found that she was holding an object both round and smooth. When she looked, she saw that it was a pearl.

Next day, Chen, Zhu Irzh, and Miss Qi were taken on a lengthy and exhausting tour of Hell's primary industries, as related to the Ministry of War. This, too, was just as Chen remembered it from his Chinese childhood: one factory after another, endless rows of workers laboring under sweatshop conditions. Except that in Hell, all the workers were dead and there was no pretence that anyone was doing this for the greater glory of the state, or out of some zealous notion of civic duty. On the contrary, the first factory foreman to whom Chen spoke, a flickering green person in a musty suit, seemed proud of the dire conditions and appalling hours.

"They must learn, you see, if they are to progress in their next life up-planet. All of these souls are those who, on Earth, perpetrated some injustice against their fellow workers. And now, they are learning."

"Hmm," Chen said. "I'm not quite sure how this ties in with our mission statement of learning about equal opportunity policies."

Zhu Irzh snorted. "I am. Everyone's equally miserable here."

"They're here to learn," the foreman insisted. Listening to him, Chen realized that he had been wrong: civic duty was evident, but applied to the wider sphere of karma. In either manifestation, it wasn't encouraging.

"What do you actually produce here?" he asked. The vapid rows of workers were clearly making something, feeding pieces of metal into a series of machines, but he couldn't tell what they were really doing.

"Why, they are performing a valuable contribution to the war effort," the foreman explained earnestly.

"I see," Chen lied. Miss Qi shifted uncomfortably at this further mention of war, but Chen, although these undercurrents of ill-concealed rumor were worrisome, was more concerned with the immediate problems of the person he had spotted on the previous night, and the question of the lung, the dragon. He kept telling himself that what he had seen slinking through the bushes was just one of the many hungry ghosts or itinerant spirits of Hell, but it nagged at him all the same. And the conversation they had overheard bothered him even more, especially when combined with the draconian rumors that Zhu Irzh had been investigating just before he left. Then there was the thing that had attacked them outside the Opera House and the being they had intercepted at the old lady's place. All of these things, relatively minor incidents in themselves, kept adding up, and Chen did not like it.

Plus, they had a demon's birthday party to attend later on. Chen might have agreed on going, but now—considering all that had happened so far—he liked that prospect even less.

Several hours later, after yet more factories—hives of military industry, all grim and all depressing—Chen and Zhu Irzh sat in the hotel bar, thankful that this part of their day, at least, was over. A present for Zhu Irzh's mother, purchased in the market earlier, sat on the table in front of them: a glass vase, hastily wrapped. Chen's contribution to the celebrations was a bottle of wine.

Miss Qi had retired to her room, saying that she would ask for supper to be sent up: she had not been invited to the birthday party, and Chen did not think he was imagining the distinct relief with which she had greeted this news.

"Lucky her," Zhu Irzh said, when Miss Qi's form had drifted up the stairs. "I wouldn't mind a nice quiet night in myself."

"I doubt you've ever had a nice quiet night in Hell in your life," Chen said.

"My childhood was fairly peaceable," the demon said. "Well, relatively. Well, maybe not all that quiet, looking back. But you don't have anything else to compare it to at the time, do you?"

"I don't know much about childhoods in Hell," Chen remarked. "Did you go to school?"

"No. The family's quite well off. I had tutors, so did my brother. I got on with most of them and they managed to teach me something, though sometimes I'm not sure quite what. My sister learned the usual domestic tasks—blood processing for the home, needlepoint, that sort of thing. Preparation for marriage, basically."

"How bourgeois."

"My sister actually has a job. Mother and I never got on all that well," the demon mused. "Not sure why. She never approved of my going into the police department. I think she wanted me to take up some more respectable job in one of the Ministries."

"Why did you join the police?"

"I admired my uncle—my father's brother. He was one of the heads of the city's police department. He seemed to lead an exciting life. And being a civil servant always struck me as rather dull. So the police it was."

"How did your father take it?"

"He was fine. But Dad and I have always got along. It's the only reason I'm going to this party, to be honest, to catch up with him. And the fact that my mother would kill me if I didn't." Zhu Irzh glanced up at the large clock on the wall of the bar. "She said she'd send a car. No sign of it yet."

"Maybe she's forgotten," Chen said hopefully.

"No such luck." The demon stood up. "Look, there's the coach now."

Chen looked through the window and saw a squat black coach like a night-colored pumpkin making its way down the avenue that led to the hotel. It was drawn by a horse, or, at least, by something that looked like one. As it drew closer, Chen saw that the beast had long curling teeth. Zhu Irzh went out the door and down the steps with the air of someone heading for their own execution. Chen followed him into the coach, in a silence that lasted well beyond the Ministries and which was broken only when the coach reached the beginning of the mansion suburbs of Hell.

"This is where I grew up," the demon said. Chen gazed out at the passing mansions; it reminded him of parts of Singapore Three, not too hellish at all, really, once one discounted the black and crimson grass and the oppressive overhanging trees.

"Some elegant houses," Chen said politely.

"No they're not. They're overblown Gothic monstrosities."

"If you say so," Chen replied. He had rarely seen Zhu Irzh in such a gloomy mood.

"Oh fuck," was the next thing out of the demon's mouth. "We're here."

Chen craned his neck to see. There was little to distinguish the Zhu family mansion from all the rest, apart from the strings of red lanterns that hung from eaves and branches, creating bloodied eyes of light across the black lawns. Turrets and towers, a small pagoda set slightly aside and overlooking a pond. The whole place looked top-heavy, as if at any moment it might topple over, and the pagoda was listing rather like the Tower of Pisa. The perspectives and angles were distressing to a human eye.

There were other vehicles standing outside the house, spilling guests.

"Great," Zhu Irzh said under his breath as the coach came to a halt. "My sister."

Chen stepped down onto the rough roadway and watched a young female demon march up the drive in front of them, toward the mansion. This was the sister, Chen realized, who had been referred to as having a job. Even as a human, he could probably have discerned some family resemblance: Zhu Irzh's sister had the same height, the same pointed features and sleek black hair, which fell as far as her waist in a long braid. The end of the braid twitched, seemingly of its own accord, like the tail of an angry cat as she walked.

"How do you get on with your sister?" Chen asked.

"I don't."

Chen walked with him up the drive, following the sister's back, which seemed to radiate aggression. Chen wondered what the matter was. It did not help that the only female demon he knew well was the entirely atypical Inari.

In through an elegant set of metal lattice doors, then along a paneled hallway decorated with scenes of torture. Chen winced. It was all too reminiscent of the Ministry of War. They had almost caught up with Zhu Irzh's sister now and Chen kept expecting the demon to say something, but he did not. Then the sister stopped, so abruptly that Chen nearly cannoned into her.

"Mother! I demand an explanation!"

So much for "Happy Birthday."

"Well, you're not getting one," a voice hissed, so coldly that Chen imagined icicles forming around the doorframe.

"Mother, you are mad," the sister said, with equal hauteur. Next moment, she reeled back—a series of scratches blossoming across her face. A stiletto heel almost pierced Chen's foot and he gave a cry of pain. The sister turned, snarling, one clawed hand pressed to her bleeding cheek, and saw her brother.

"You!"

"Hi," said Zhu Irzh.

"What are you doing here?"

"It's Mother's birthday. Remember?" Zhu Irzh held out the present, a move that turned out to be unwise. His sister struck it from his hand with such force that it spun away into the room. There was the sound of shattering glass.

"Oh thanks, Daisy," said Zhu Irzh. Chen barely had time to think "Daisy?" before a female demon in late middle age appeared, wrapped in layers and layers of silk and furs, with a face so desiccated that it looked more like a mummified skull. One hand was clutching her fur collar and she had blood on her claws. Daisy turned on her heel and stalked off down the hall.

"Hallo, Mother," Zhu Irzh said.

"Oh. You came, then."

"Happy birthday. I brought you a present, but it's in the parlor, in pieces. I'll have it mended."

"Don't bother," his mother said. She cast a disparaging yellow glance over Chen. "Who's that?"

"This is Detective Chen. We work together on Earth."