The Iron Khan (24 page)

These questions reached a head of concern as they stepped over the next rise and a small settlement came into view. There were vestiges of the village which Zhu Irzh had so briefly glimpsed before the sand came in and he and Nicholas were rescued. It was low, but the defensive clay wall that had protected it from enemies and the desert was no longer there. Sheep grazed on sloping pastures and a child was running down the slope. Her fair hair streamed out behind her like a banner; it seemed the Tokarians — if these were indeed they — still retained their Celtic appearance.

“Here we are,” the deer said, unnecessarily. “Do you need an introduction?”

“That would be helpful,” Zhu Irzh said. He didn’t think the sudden manifestation of a demon in their midst would please the villagers all that much. But if he was in the company of a friend of the Buddha…

“Then I will go with you,” the deer said, scampering ahead. Sighing again, the demon followed.

The villagers came out to meet them as they approached. One woman — a tall girl with long, light brown braids — bent to speak to the deer and the akashi metamorphosed back into her human form, streamers twirling. But when they saw Zhu Irzh they grew silent and fearful.

“It’s all right,” the akashi reassured them. “He was sent by the Buddha.”

“I’m looking for something,” Zhu Irzh told them. “A book.”

“What’s a ‘book’?”

Ah. He’d been afraid of this.

“Something that’s written down.”

“Written?”

Whatever form the Book had taken on its return to this time, it wasn’t the one he’d been hoping for. Damn. Zhu Irzh decided, uncharacteristically, not to engage in subterfuge. He seemed to be growing more naturally honest as the years went by. Another of those depressing signs of maturity and age, no doubt. “What I’m actually looking for is a piece of magic. Creation magic.”

The woman with the braids was frowning. “You’ll need to talk to the shaman, I think.”

“Is he available?”

“She.” And at this Zhu Irzh’s heart gave a bound. If this proved to be the woman he’d last seen perched on the edge of a parapet, about to leap onto a crane’s back…

And when they took him in among the huts to a low cottage near the well, his hopes were realized.

“It is you!”

The woman crouching over the fire looked up and frowned. “Have we met? Oh. You’re not human.” She straightened up and ran a hand through indigo hair.

“Can we talk?” Zhu Irzh said, with a glance at the woman with the braids. “Alone?”

After a pause the woman nodded. “You can go, Cealta,” she said. The braided woman was clearly reluctant, but after a sharp glance from those blue eyes, she did as the shaman wished.

“You ride a crane,” Zhu Irzh told her. “I last saw you many thousands of years in the future. You’d been brought back to life by a man who calls himself the Khan.”

The shaman was staring. “This is an extraordinary tale. But you are right about my crane.”

“I know it sounds odd.” Then Zhu Irzh gave her a brief account of events.

After he had finished, the shaman sat staring into the flame for a moment. Then she said, “You’re telling the truth. The fire says so.”

That was a relief, at least.

“But here, things are well. I have visions that they have not always been so. Visions that I don’t understand. This is a healed world, but I don’t know what it has been healed from.” Then, as if the word had been forced out of her, she added, “Almost healed.”

“Almost? Are you sure?”

“There is one remaining wound,” the shaman said slowly.

“A wound?”

“In the world. It is recent, too.”

“What do you mean by a ‘wound’?”

“I’ll show you,” the shaman said. “My name is Raksha. Or at least, that is what you may call me.”

“Zhu Irzh. I’m — of supernatural origins.”

“That,” Raksha said, “is fairly obvious.”

•

They rode on horseback to the place that the shaman spoke of as a wound. Zhu Irzh’s mount was nervous: with a demon on its back in this revised paradise, he could not blame it. Nor could he see any sign of anything amiss — the steppe was a peaceful place, with a serene blue sky and clouds floating overhead. Raksha spoke little, but spurred her horse on at a swift pace. At length they came to a narrow valley, winding between low hills, and Raksha brought the horse to a halt.

“It’s here.”

The demon looked down the valley, but could see nothing wrong. “Where?”

In answer, the shaman dismounted and led him into the valley, to a spot that overlooked the wound. As she did so, a cloud passed over the sun and the valley fell into sudden shadow. Even the scent of fresh grass seemed muted. Zhu Irzh could hear running water. A small spring bubbled up, halfway along the slope, and spilled down onto the valley floor. Close to it, there was a gouge in the earth.

At first, it looked as though someone had drawn a plough through the soil. It was perhaps ten feet long and a foot wide. Zhu Irzh stepped closer but Raksha grabbed him by the arm. “Be careful.”

“What made this?”

“I don’t know.”

As he drew closer he could see that there was, indeed, something very wrong. The sides of the gap looked more like flesh than soil, and a stench rose from it that made even the demon blanch. “What the hell — ?”

Something fluttered up from the depths of the crevasse, something small and scattered. Black moths? Or flakes of ash? Whatever it was, there was nothing natural about it.

“When did this first appear?” the demon asked.

“Only a few days ago. I will tell you honestly, when I first set eyes on you, I thought you had come from the gap. But the fire told me otherwise.”

“To be brutally frank,” Zhu Irzh said, “it’s possible that the gap leads to my home. Or somewhere very similar. I’ll need to take a closer look.”

“Be careful,” the shaman said again.

Zhu Irzh went up the slope to the beginning of the rift. He wasn’t foolish enough to stand over the gap itself — things had been known to reach up and pull you in under similar circumstances — but there were ways of telling whether the rift went all the way down to Hell. He held out a hand and, mindful of the fact that this was a different world, spoke a spell.

According to the dictates of this kind of magic — a simple locator spell — an image should now unfold itself in front of Zhu Irzh’s eyes, depicting the gap itself and its origins. What happened was somewhat different.

The earth beneath Zhu Irzh’s feet began to rumble and growl, a tiger sound. The shaman gave a warning cry and Zhu Irzh leaped backward down the slope, stumbling a little as the earth began to crack under his feet. The gap was widening like a maw. Behind him, one of the horses screamed, and he turned to see that Raksha had caught both of them by their plaited leather bridles.

“Quickly!”

Zhu Irzh was more accustomed to leaping into a car than onto a horse’s back and his mount did not appreciate him scrambling onto it: the beast gave an angry whinny and shot off across the steppe.

“Hang on! Slow down!” Zhu Irzh cried, struggling to stay mounted. The shaman galloped up beside him just as Zhu Irzh managed to rein the horse in a little. He glanced over his shoulder.

Streaming out of the gap in the earth, they came: a long line of black-clad horsemen. At their head rode a familiar figure, wearing red leather armor and with a curious, pointed helmet.

“I mentioned the Khan?” Zhu Irzh shouted to Raksha. “That would be him.”

The Khan gave a roar as he spotted Zhu Irzh and the shaman. He motioned to one of the horsemen behind him and the man notched an arrow to his bow and let fly. The arrow shot past Zhu Irzh’s ear and buried itself in the grass. Raksha cursed. She leaned back in the saddle and raised a hand. A white-hot bolt of energy whipped out and knocked the horseman out of the saddle. The Khan laughed, showing golden teeth. His horsemen surged forward, toward the demon and Raksha. Zhu Irzh, realizing that they were hopelessly outnumbered, kicked his horse onward but it was too late. The faster he tried to ride, the more the world slowed down around him, until Zhu Irzh felt as though he were inhabiting one of those dreams where you walk through treacle. Beside him, Raksha called out, and he turned to see her horse crumple beneath her. The shaman went down into the grass and struggled to rise, but it was as though someone had clapped an invisible jar over her. She mouthed something to Zhu Irzh which he could not hear.

“Shit!” His own horse was folding and Zhu Irzh leaped clear. Then it was as if the world was contracting down into itself. He threw out a hand but encountered resistance. His limbs felt heavy, gravity dragging him down, and then his knees buckled and the world turned to cloud and cotton wool.

As soon as they stepped through the door, a black stickiness fell all around Chen. He swore, making a swift invocation, but in this Hell his magic did not work. The spell fell apart, pattering softly to the floor like rain. Then the web held him in its grip. Behind him, Li-Ju spat something in the Celestial tongue and the web began to disintegrate.

“Unwise, Madam,” the captain said coldly, “to rely on Heaven’s magic in another world’s Hell. Oh, wait. I forgot. It isn’t Heaven’s magic, is it? You renounced that some time ago.”

The Empress, squatting at the center of the room, hissed at him. Li-Ju leaped forward, sword drawn, as the Empress rose, with surprising speed given the weight of her skirts. She cast a spell toward Li-Ju, but it fizzled out like a damp firecracker.

“Oh no you don’t!” said a voice behind Chen. He turned to see a figure in a robe the color of a summer’s sky, striding down the corridor, followed by an armed group of demons. The blue-robed person was grinning a sharp-toothed grin. “So, Madam. It is you. You owe me a debt.”

•

Li-Ju had tried to explain, but it seemed that the pirate Banquo was having none of it.

“Doesn’t matter to me. One Celestial’s much the same as another, regardless of any feuds. Sorry about you,” he added to Chen as he shut the cell door, “humans tend not to fare all that well in Hell. Still, you must have known the risk.”

“We came looking for someone,” Chen said through the grille. “Two women. A Celestial and a demon. Have you seen them?”

“Ah.” Banquo turned. “Indeed. Two most decorative and enterprising young ladies. They had some sort of animal with them. Not only have I seen them, I’ve taken them prisoner. Twice, in fact. On the second occasion, they managed to suborn a native and escape. For obvious reasons, I’ve no idea where they are now.”

“Why were they held prisoner?”

“I was hired to take them. By Madam, there.” He pointed across the cell to where Mhara’s mother sat sullenly in a pool of her skirts.

“And what happened to them then?”

“I told you. They escaped, on the back of a bird, I believe.”

“On the back of a — ?”

“Anyway,” the pirate said briskly. “I can assure you that they are not here now. And if you’re thinking of attempting a similar route out, I wouldn’t. There are no Roc this far down in the forest and the shark-demons want for nothing and thus cannot be bought.”

“So what are you going to do with us?”

The pirate grinned a golden grin. “I have a large ransom in mind.”

Then he was gone in a swirl of blue robes. Across the cell, the Empress had begun muttering. It might be preferable to be ransomed, Chen thought, than be subjected to whatever the Empress had in mind as an escape route, if indeed she did so.

“Madam, be quiet,” Li-Ju said sharply.

“I will not!” A small but potent darkness was gathering in the corner of the cell, conjured by the Empress’ murmuring. Chen did not like the look of it, or the smell. Then the darkness was abruptly cancelled out, sizzling into nothingness like an evaporating stormcloud. The Empress swore. Borrowed magic, it seemed, had its limitations.

“Where are you speaking from?” Jhai cupped a hand to her ear. Evidently it was not a good line. “What? What are you doing there?”

A crackling on the other end of the cellphone, like distant bees. “Roerich?”

Miss Qi turned to Inari. “Who is she talking to? Do you know?”

But Inari shook her head.

“Never heard of it. Is it near Lhasa?” A pause. “Oh, I see. Well, sort of. Look, what the hell’s going on, Roerich? I’m standing on what’s supposed to be Singapore Three and there’s no trace of it.”

More squawking. Jhai listened intently.

“What, the whole lot? Outside China?”

Then she added, in more pragmatic tones, “Okay. So what do you want me to do?” Roerich replied at length and Jhai said, “I don’t know whether I’ve got enough fuel. I’ll have to check with the pilot. There’s no sense in flying out to Tibet if we — what? Where’s Zhu Irzh?”