The Pirate Empress (36 page)

PART III: AZURE DRAGON

CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

The Yeren

The sand had changed colour. Strange stone columns marked the landscape like a dead forest. The grains flying from beneath his steed’s hooves were as rust-coloured as the strange columns beneath the fragile blue sky. The sun was white unlike the red ball of the south.

Summer had come to the desert by the time Master Yun realized what had happened. He slid from his horse’s back and landed on the ground, approached one of the columns and touched a finger to a row of Mongol characters engraved on its surface while the midday sun stabbed at his eyes. He rubbed sweat from his brow to keep it from stinging.

The strong walls of the frontier will not stop the great hordes

of the Northwest.

Not while the nobles drink tea in their red silk robes.

Below the towers of the Golden Palace,

in the green valleys,

the rice grows.

But the people of the Valley starve
.

“How strange,” Master Yun whispered into the stiff ear of his horse. “A Chinese poem written in Mongol.”

Xingbar neighed, snorted dust and rubbed his lips against Master Yun’s parched and roughened hand. The silence of the wind sent a shiver along the warlock’s spine; his travel-worn robes flapped, caked with soil. His right hand went to his side to feel the hardness of bronze and the Scimitar of Yongfang bumped against his thigh as he led his mount by its bridle. Not only had the terrain altered, but the smell of the air had too: iron, raw and bitter. And still he saw no sign of Hot Lake. Had he erred in his last action? What year was it? His bearings were unstable, his moonstone unreliable.

After he left He Zhu at the river flats of the Yangtze River, his journey had been long and arduous, fraught with obstacles and false visions. No sooner had he reached the Grand Canal where it converged with the southwest branch of the Yellow River leading to Xian, when he had witnessed the aftermath of Esen’s madness. The warlord had sent every man in his band to ransack the homes of the townsfolk in search of Tao and himself, in the hopes of routing out the hiding place of Lotus Lily. The death of innocents followed, and as survivors fled the town in terror, the Mongols pursued them on the plain. They slew as many as they could find before their anger abated. Where was Jasmine during this bloodbath? Master Yun’s moonstone had not answered. But someone had left a trail of carnage heavy with Esen’s stamp.

Master Yun had lured the maniac away. He, himself, was the only acceptable bait—short of the princess herself. He had led the Mongol warlord on a wild goose chase north of First Emperor’s mound, and somewhere among the badlands he had lost him, only to be waylaid by Dahlia. The magic of Yongfang’s blade had failed on her. She recognized him on the spot and came for her revenge. Dahlia, Queen of all fox faeries, the progenitor of Jasmine, carried a secret that could collapse the Empire. Which was why Master Yun had earlier banished her to the hellfires of Feng Du Mountain. She was the midwife who had birthed He Zhu. The only other witness to the boy’s entry into the world was his father. Ling She had never revealed Zhu’s sire, but had bidden Master Yun take the boy and train him in the ways of war. But her secret was no longer safe. The Tiger’s Eye, the gemstone’s choice of master, had exposed He Zhu’s destiny, and through his destiny, the warlock had seen the warrior’s lineage.

That Dahlia escaped the Hell Master did not surprise him. When the Ox and Horsehead Messenger arrived to take away his kill, he had baulked at the sight of the Fox Queen. Master Yun had taken her head with the slice of his blade, but the magic surrounding Dahlia was unlike the magic of any other fox faerie. After all, she possessed nine tails. She had not remained dead. And it was the job of Yan Luo, the Hell Master, to make the call. Master Yun had left him to it. Clearly, he had made the call, and not one to the warlock’s liking. Dahlia was dangerous. She could come unbidden, without warning. Unlike Jasmine, her power was omnipotent and she needed no man to make her strong. As long as she was free, Lotus Lily and He Zhu—brother and sister—were in danger.

Dahlia waited. Their meeting was timely. Across the northern frontier from east to west Ming soldiers were pounded by a new enemy, and from the strongholds of the Manchus above the Yellow Sea, the borders at Shanhaiguan were embattled. From the vast Mongol camps nipping away at the western walls the Ming sentry was slowly eroding. The power of Master Yun grew in leaps and bounds as the Chinese were crushed. The body count rose, and amidst the transfer of power from the energy of his countrymen, Master Yun and the lady Dahlia crossed magic once more.

She had delivered him to the desert, but since when was the Gobi Desert red and its sun white? This was not the right desert. And where his magic had ultimately sent her, he did not know. Nor would he rest, for she had eluded the fire mountain of Feng Du. He was ever on his guard for the backlash that he knew was inevitable. Dahlia, wherever she was, would find him, no matter what prison contained her. Her minions were everywhere. Her power was pervasive. This last encounter was a warning. His only comfort was in the knowledge that her escape from the hellfires of Feng Du had taxed her. Which was why he was in the desert right now—and not inside the fire labyrinth of Feng Du Mountain.

“Do you feel it?” Master Yun whispered to Xingbar. A gentle tremble in the sand beneath his feet, a quivering of the air, the musty scent of desert, and layered behind the breeze and the smell, something else.

Master Yun stood still for a second, bringing Xingbar close until the scent of horseflesh filled him. The horse’s nostrils flared and flapped as he drank in the sensations that haunted his master. Master Yun steepled his hands, his wide sleeves filling with air. He shut his eyes and felt his
Chi
rise.

“Closer,” he muttered. “Come closer.” Xingbar reared up in terror, and Master Yun gripped his reins and yanked them in to still the horse’s fear. A crunching sound turned him on his heel and the Scimitar of Yongfang swung out from beneath his robes.

A shimmer in the atmosphere drew his eyes level with the horizon. They darted from skyline to desert sand and back again. Was this a mirage? Did something move toward him? On the ground before his feet, footprints appeared as the crunching grew louder, but these were no tracks of any man or beast. They were the three-toed skeletal impressions of something huge, something strange.

So, Dahlia had sent him to where he wished to be after all. He was in the Land of the Walking Bones. The marks of the toe bones in the sand were the thickness of his wrist; the heel bones the size of his palm. This was a monster of a desert dweller. The Scimitar of Yongfang swung loosely to his side; this blade would be useless against such a foe. He slipped it back into his sash, beneath his soiled robes. His only knowledge of the Yeren was through the mountain folk of the Himalayas. There they called the legend Yeti.

Xingbar tensed, his hide blending in with the desertscape. The animal was red-brown with no identifying marks, and mingled so well with the rust-coloured environs that he almost vanished from sight. The Yeren was purported to be thrice the height of a man and six times his weight. It was invisible. Xingbar was right to make himself scarce. If Master Yun could do the same, he would have.

“If you don’t move, it won’t see you.”

A flap of camel skin fell from the top of what had looked to be a rust-coloured column of stone to reveal a man dressed in desert garb complete with thin hide robes and turban. “Ho Teng!” Master Yun gasped. “What is the Emperor’s top poet doing in the middle of the desert?”

“Don’t you know? I was exiled. My last verses did not please His Majesty.”

“So it was you who carved that beautiful verse on the stone column. I would have recognized your style had it not been written in Mongol.” He paused. “Alas, I have been out of touch with palace doings. When did this banishment occur?”

A crunch sounded from behind Master Yun, and Ho Teng’s voice fell to a whisper. “It is well to remember we’re not alone here, although the starkness of this place would belie that.”

“You’ve met the creature that makes these tracks?”

“I have avoided meeting it. It keeps me here so that I cannot return to my village. There is magic behind its actions and the position of those rust-coloured columns. Haven’t you noticed? They don’t stay in the same place. That is why I have remained here for a moon and a day. I have lost all sense of direction.”

Master Yun nodded. He knew whose magic that was. His eyes flickered as though he were watched. “You say that it cannot see us if we don’t move?”

“It can’t hear us either, but it can break our bones if it catches us.”

Master Yun and the Emperor’s poet stood rock still. The footsteps began to march away. Xingbar let forth a soft whinny, his muscles flexed and he urged his rider to leave this place. “Would that I could Xingbar,” Master Yun whispered into his horse’s ear, before returning his attention to the poet. “Where have you hidden yourself all these weeks?”

“I have built a house beneath the sand. His Majesty’s soldiers did not leave me entirely destitute.”

Ho Teng led Master Yun in the opposite direction from which the Yeren had gone, between the stone columns to a pithouse in the ground. Master Yun stared over the desert plain and decided it was safe to leave Xingbar outside, for the clever beast had shown a talent for camouflage when needed.

Over the pithouse was a roof made of camel hides draped upon a framework of bones. When they descended by a rope ladder to the living area at the bottom of the pit, Master Yun could see that the walls were shored up with struts comprising the ribs and long bones of animals and men. On the floor were more hides and several bladders of water.

Ho Teng flung off his hide cloak and turban to reveal a thin frame and shiny bald pate. His long, skinny moustache was skinnier than the warlock remembered during their days at the Imperial court, and a prickly growth of whiskers covered his chin. Deep furrows in his sunbaked forehead made him look older than he was.

Master Yun rested his back against the wall of the shaded pit, drinking thirstily from a water bladder. He wiped his mouth. “I have been long away from court. Tell me what’s happened.”

Ho Teng’s face grew grim. The Empire was collapsing. The infrastructure of the Ming economy was broken. Despite complaints of an empty Imperial purse, there really was more silver flowing into the country than ever before. Foreigners wanted Chinese luxury goods and were willing to pay, but the wealth of China was clustered in the cities and towns where the least of the population lived. Businesses flourished because they brought trade to the cities, and taxes were not levied on them, but on the traditional workers of land and sea. The money was stolen from the labour of farming and fishing, and these were the folk that made up the bulk of the populace. They were the ones who were suffering. With every silver yuan spent in the city, twenty more were taken from the country folk to replenish the palace coffers—until there was nothing left to take.

“The Emperor dares not tax the rich or they will bring him down,” Ho Teng said. “And now with war on the frontiers and the thieving pirates on the coast, his purse is all but drained.”

Master Yun waved a hand to take in their nasty environment. “And this is your punishment for trying to inform the people of their plight?”

“This is my punishment for speaking the truth. Now, we must eat.”

Ho Teng unrolled a rough, uncured hide to expose some dubious-looking meat still encased on the bone. With a blunt knife, he tore strips from the haunch to give to his guest. The bone looked suspiciously familiar, and not like any livestock he’d ever eaten. But beggars could not be choosers, and he was not in any position to criticize the grim fare that would keep his body and mind alive. He accepted the portion proffered, chewed the tough jerky until his jaws ached, washing it down with distilled rainwater.

After swallowing another tough wad of meat, Master Yun said, “You have survived in the desert wastelands for many weeks. I don’t know how far you have travelled. Do you know the body of water that the tribesmen call Hot Lake?”

Ho Teng peeled off another strip of jerky and passed it to Master Yun. “I have seen no water except what I collect myself when it rains. Lucky for me, it seems the gods don’t wish me dead from thirst. But the Yeren, that invisible maker of menacing footsteps, is constant.”

It would be cruel to leave the poet here in this hostile place, but he could not take Ho Teng with him on his journey to find the bones of Dilong. However, he could leave him a charm that would help him to find his way home. Provided there were no obstacles other than confusion to block his way.

“The Yeren will not let me leave,” Ho Teng said. “Even if I knew east from west and north from south. As long as I stay in the confines of the rust-coloured columns, it leaves me alone.”

For two days Master Yun rested to regain his strength. He was not content to be the prisoner of the Yeren. He still had to find Hot Lake and the Dragon’s Gate. On the third day, he left the pithouse of the poet and stepped onto the red sand below the white sun. If the Yeren didn’t seek
him
, he would seek
it
. In order for Ho Teng to find his way home, the creature must be outfoxed. But how did one outfox a thing that was invisible? And if it could kill as Ho Teng insisted it could, it must have a solid form with which to crush its victims. The trick was to make it reveal this form.