The Pirate Empress (79 page)

Jasmine raised her hands and spun a spell of defiance, sending the windblast back into Master Yun’s face. He stumbled backward, very nearly tripping down the lip of the hill, and then, regaining his balance, he charged. Jasmine had managed to release herself and stood taunting him. He swirled his hands in the air to triple the force of his next windblast. He summoned the forces of reversal, calling on the power of the cyclone to spin the air in a vertical surge. She was caught up in a gyre, but that didn’t stop her from replicating his spell and trapping him in a helix of his own. He saw Fong out of the corner of his eye, desperate to aid him. “Hold your positions,” he boomed. “It is imperative that you do not move. Lotus Lily’s life depends upon it.”

The coil of air spun relentlessly around him, sealing him off from his adversary. She, too, was having trouble freeing herself from the gyrating tube of air that trapped her. He only had to hold her long enough to allow Li the chance to lop off Dahlia’s nine tails. How long it would take before the opportunity arose was impossible to guess, but he must keep Jasmine occupied for as long as possible. Though his head was spinning and his thoughts beginning to muddle, he saw the swirling image of the Lady Dai, and silently thanked her. He had no doubt, now, that her only wish was to return to the heaven from which she had been so rudely ousted.

Your wish is my command
.
If I have any say in the matter, you shall return to your bliss. The world has suffered long from the tyranny of the fox faeries. Jasmine must be banished to a place where she can do no harm.

Master Yun could not stop the gyration of the column of air in which he was captive, but he still had the power to manipulate hers. They both spun like twin helixes and he thrust his hands through the mire, calling upon the forces of the atmosphere to accelerate Jasmine’s swirling prison. He heard her screams as the gyro force engulfed, spinning faster and faster, twirling until he thrust his hands downward, willing her gyre to drill itself into the earth. She plunged helpless to stop her fate, whirling like a tornado, boring into the mound of First Emperor until finally, she vanished.

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At that moment when Master Yun trapped Jasmine in the gyre and Peng was returned to her post on the Crosshairs of the Four Winds, Li felt the air change. She saw the imminent recognition in the eyes of the black fox, and swifter than a junk in full sail, she slid off the back of Lilong.

The Fox Queen’s soldiers went still. Quan appeared out of nowhere catching the Fox off-guard. She turned to leap on him and on that instant Li saw her chance. The Scimitar came down in a blinding flash and the nine black, silver-tipped tails fell to the ground in a spray of blood.

CHAPTER SEVENTY-ONE

The Dragon Emperor

The Xiongnu had returned to battle in full force after the departure of the giant, and the decimation of the White Bone Spirits and the Ba She. He Zhu’s armies were almost spent. How weary he was! He fired arrow bolt after arrow bolt until his crossbow was useless except as a bludgeon for any soldier who had the audacity to creep too near. He had been reduced to hand to hand combat and now found himself facing the chieftain, Alai’s father.

Sweat pouring down his face, the Xiongnu chieftain hoisted a sabre which he had stolen from a Ming corpse and riposted Zhu’s thrust. “My daughter remains a fool, moon-eyed over a Chinese fool. But no daughter of mine will marry the enemy. I let you live once because she demanded it, and I let your brats live as long as
she
did because she threatened to adopt your foreign ways if I did not spare their lives.” Zhu’s hand went to his boot where he retrieved a dagger, but Amon’s free fist already circled the shaft of a knife. “Try it and you die, foreign dog.” Zhu relaxed his grip, heart thundering like a drum. “Your emperor has left a wake of a hundred thousand Xiongnu dead on his path to the Imperial throne. Today, I avenge my sons.”

“Emperor Qin is dead,” Zhu said. “He has been dead for a millennium and more. You have seen his phantasm on the plains of Xian, and who does the Ghost Emperor fight for? The Fox Queen! You are fighting on the same side as your enemy. Amon, of the Desert, for the sake of your daughter and your family, please, let us make peace.”

“I will kill you, foreign devil.”

“Then you leave me no choice.” Zhu crossed his fists, a dagger in one, his crossbow raised like a club in the other.

“Zhu!” Alai shouted.

He Zhu swung to seek his beloved and the Xiongnu knife plunged into his ribs before withdrawing with a sound like suction. He crumpled to his knees and Alai kicked aside her father’s blade—which fell from his hand—and collapsed with Zhu’s head cradled in her arms. Then the strangest thing happened. Zhu blinked hard because his eyes played tricks on him. Was he delirious from loss of blood? The Xiongnu chieftain who had attempted the deathblow faded like a cloud. All around the warriors of the ancient past turned diaphanous before vanishing. Was he hallucinating? He had to be. There was no other explanation.

“Zhu,” Alai’s voice whispered in his ear. “I think this is goodbye.”

“No, Alai,” he rasped. His body was weakening frighteningly fast, his mind delirious. He rolled his eyes upward to catch a glimpse of her dear face. “I won’t leave you! I refuse to die again.” The last thing he saw before he lost consciousness were the purple ribbons braided into her hair, now wrapped in haloes, and the vision of something hot and red rising in the sky behind her.

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When Zhu awoke, he found that he wasn’t dead. His chest was bandaged in white wrappings and he was lying in a luxurious bedchamber inside the citadel of the Forbidden City. Little Peng was sitting at the foot of his bed chewing on a piece of jerky.

“Ba-ba, finally you’re awake. I was getting bored.” He Zhu laughed. “The dragons have returned,” she said. “All of those horrible beasts are gone, and Mother, well, she is gone too.”

“And the Fox Queen?”

Zhu looked up as a voice spoke from the opened door. “Dahlia is no more.” Master Yun walked in, dressed in the same old grey robes with his topknot slightly askew. “The Crosshairs was successful, and enabled Li to penetrate her Circle and destroy the Nine Tails. So, how are you feeling, Warrior Monk? You scared us for a bit. We thought we were about to lose you again. If it wasn’t for Tianlong of the sun who guided us swiftly to you, you would have been lost.”

“As you can see, it takes more than a Xiongnu blade to take my life. If the fox faerie, Jasmine, failed, than how could a mere mortal end my life?” Master Yun did not answer and Zhu saw the irony of his question. “So, it’s true, the dragons have returned. Not just Fucanlong, but his surviving brothers.” He paused to take in the strange new situation. “And Li, where is Li?”

Quan entered behind Master Yun. “She is resting,” he said.

“Thank the gods, we all survived. And Wu, our little emperor, he is unscathed?”

“He is scathed by the knowledge that he must assume the title of the Dragon Emperor, but he will have enough help between the three of us and his mother. Other than that, he is well.”

“And what of Alai? Where is she? Where is the love of my life, my bowmaid?”

Quan’s eyes dropped to the floor. And Zhu knew that what he had seen as he lay dying was not delirium after all.

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On New Years Day, amidst the swirling of winter snow and sharp Pole winds, Wu was crowned Emperor of the Middle Kingdom. He was ten years old. By his side were his surviving family: his great grandfather, the warlock Master Yun, his father, Brigade General Chi Quan, his uncle, the warrior monk He Zhu and his mother, the Pirate Empress Lotus Lily who still insisted upon being called Li.

The Mongol and Manchu embassies were present, headed by Altan of the Ordos and Liao Dong of Manchuria. The ceremony was brief and simple. All of the people in all of the lands surrounding the Middle Kingdom were exhausted. Most of their resources were depleted and it was a wonder they could scrounge up anything at all fit for a coronation. But they retired to the Emperor’s banquet hall and while the feast was not as extravagant as in the days prior to the awakening of the dragons, still the guests were pleased with the gastronomic spread laid before them. For the first time in history, the Mongols and the Manchus made gifts of food, which formerly they had purloined from the Chinese court. They returned with stolen porcelain laden with assorted fowls, dried meats and fruits, filberts, walnuts, peeled chestnuts, and garnishments of lemons, garlics and onions pickled in ginger.

The food was laid out on long tables and seating was mixed; the guests could sit wherever they liked. And so royal mixed with soldier, and soldier mixed with pirate and Mongol, while Manchu and Chinese sat shoulder to shoulder. Although tradition required special treatment for the ruling emperor, Wu decided otherwise. Not only was he as hungry as everyone else (and it was well known that ten-year-old boys disliked having to wait to fill their bellies) but he decided that no one should have to wait, simply because someone was emperor and someone else was not.  He forwent having his feast prepared behind the traditional yellow satin curtain, and since the kingdom was in tatters he also declined the accompaniment of an orchestra and the twirling of ceremonial umbrellas and displays of acrobatics as the royal feast was brought before him—primarily because there were few acrobats or musicians to speak of. Most had joined up as soldiers and perished in the fighting.

He Zhu sat with his daughter Peng and his new allies Altan and Liao Dong. Admiral Fong and Lao sat with Captain Ching and his pirates. Li sat between Wu and Quan because she was told that they were a family. Of all the guests at the young emperor’s coronation, only Li was melancholy, and after awhile, she left her place by her family, and Master Yun followed her.

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Torches were lit everywhere in celebration and in every household, business and farmhouse a flame was lit for the new emperor. This night there were no armies on the streets, no clink of weaponry or armour. People feasted inside and outside their own homes.

Master Yun joined Li at the parapet of the walled citadel to look upon her son’s kingdom. They gazed into the far distant north and a few frail snowflakes gently dusted their winter furs. Through the misting of their breath, he saw the beacons burning on the Dragon Wall, no longer a barrier, but a symbol of alliance: a serpentine trajectory winding along the mountain peaks like its dead namesake fallen from the sky. Perched at intervals along the brickwork six dragons cast shadows against the frosty sky.

“Will they disappear too?” she asked.

“Who? The dragons? Fucanlong has sworn allegiance to the new emperor, and I think you know Lilong is your faithful companion. They will stay and watch, at least for a time.”

“Something feels wrong, Master Yun.”

He nodded. “Something
is
wrong. The Bloodstone has yet to be located and returned to the Hell Master inside the fire mountain of Feng Du.”

“What will happen to the world if we don’t find it?”

“The creatures of myth and legend will lurk in the dark corners of the Earth. Unorganised and uninfluenced by ambition and evil, they will cause little trouble as long as we are vigilant.”

“And if we aren’t? If we let down our guard?”

“You saw what happened. You saw how we were able to unite the races of men and fight the demon-folk. The ghost soldiers have been returned to their tomb. Whether they thrive or not I cannot say, and won’t, for I have no desire to return to that place of death to find out. But at least Dahlia is crushed and her kit Jasmine is contained. The foxes will not trouble us again.”

“But what of the other dead and undead, Madame Choi and my dear Po, the Lady Dai and the hopping corpses? Where are Tao’s soul and his teacher’s, the old monk Eng Tong? What of Chao, the transcendent pig? Master Yun I am terribly afraid. The Emblem is still broken because the dragons remain in our world. That means the Xiongnu remain also. Or have they returned to their time? But how could they, if all else is broken? If Alai is still here, then that is wonderful news for Zhu, but he tells me she is gone. He saw her vanquished with her tribe. And while I welcome the alliance of the northern folk who were once our fiercest enemies, that too is incongruent with a complete and unbroken Taijitu. Nothing makes sense, Master Yun. We have won the war, but still all is topsy-turvy and I fear for all the world because the feeling in the atmosphere is disturbed.”

“I feel it, too, Li. And you’re quite correct. The Emblem of Balance has not been restored, and I do not know the whereabouts of any of those of whom you spoke. I am as ignorant of the future as you are. But one thing is certain. Wherever the Bloodstone is, it isn’t in the hands of evil at the moment, because look—” he raised his hand in the air and showed her the gleam of the Moonstone on his finger. “It burns bright once more.”

“Quickly then, look into the future.”

“Are you sure you want to know it? The future, once known, cannot be unknown.”

“But if it’s bad, can’t it change? Oh, how I hope and wish it could. I feel such disquiet in the air, so deep and penetrating. Like a part of myself is missing.”

Master Yun paused before answering. “A part of you
is
missing, Li. You sold those memories to the god when you made your bargain.”

“I know that. But I did not realize that such bargains would leave me feeling so empty.” She turned dark, tear-filled eyes to him. “I don’t know him, Master Yun. I don’t know my own boy. Everyone tells me that Wu is my son. But I feel nothing for him. He looks at me with those plum-like eyes begging me to love him, and I don’t. I feel a fondness for him and a respect because he is a brave soul, but I do not feel a mother’s love. Will I ever? Quan says that I will learn to love him again because he is our son and I have sacrificed everything for him. But I do not remember. The gods truly keep their bargains.”

“In the days and weeks and months to come, your feelings will change, grow perhaps. I can’t make you any promises and whatever happens, Wu will accept it.” Master Yun took Li’s hand in his, and remembered how just a few short years ago, she was a girl. It was this hand that had wielded the sword that destroyed Dahlia’s reign. “You have made the ultimate sacrifice, Li. Although neither you nor the people of your kingdom know it. At the time of the bargaining with Xiang Gong you thought you were choosing the life of your son over the Empire. In fact, you have chosen the Empire over the love of your son, and so truly…you are an Empress.”

The sound of children’s voices came from below. Master Yun recognized Peng’s girlish giggles and Lao’s haughty teasing, and the cool, childish, but imperious voice of Wu. These children loved each other. But how long would that last? Each was marked for great things. Would jealousy and ambition tear their friendship apart in the years to come?

Peng was the Vermilion Bird. With that title came great expectation. Who did she have to guide her now that her mother was entombed and her great foremother vanquished? Dahlia’s words echoed in his mind:

I must destroy the one they call the Pirate Empress. As long as she lives, there will be the possibility of the one who obliterates my world…No, Warlock. It is not Wu, the son of Brigade General Chi Quan, nor is it Lao, the spawn of Admiral Fong, the White Tiger. This one—is not yet born.

Master Yun hesitated. Then looked into the Moonstone.