The Book of Bones (26 page)

Yin cast a troubled look at my friend. “I'm going in.”

“Wait a moment, Yin. We'd better talk strategy.”

The infuriating child ignored me. I started after her, but Kit was slumping against me and I had to gently help her sit down. While I did this, Yin had already walked up to the hulking wooden figures and made a deep bow.

Something very extraordinary happened. With a great creaking and groaning, a whistling of wind like a typhoon blowing up, the Wooden Men bowed back. That's right, they bent their wooden stomachs and kowtowed, just like ordinary humans of flesh and blood.

I've seen it all, I thought. Wooden men who move like they're alive. Obviously they must be powered by some sort of engine, but
I
couldn't for the life of me see what it was. My throat seized up, the idea of having to defend Yin and Kit against those hulking monsters was appalling. Yin was so tiny, maybe she could slip under
their fists. Kit was bound to get into trouble, and then what could I do?

“Waldo. You and Kit wait here. I will gesture to you like this when you can come,” Yin said over her shoulder, showing me a sign of her thumb and index finger forming a circle.

“NO!” I barked at once. “I go first. When it's safe—”

“It must be me,” she interrupted. “You don't know Kung Fu.”

“You'll be beaten to a pulp.”

“Stay. Do exactly as I say,” Yin gave me a look from those ill-matched eyes, then she was gone, gliding toward those monsters. I wanted to rush ahead and push her backward, but something was working in me, forcing me back. It was as if my feet were rooted to the ground, I was
powerless
to move. I glanced at Kit, expecting her to back me, but she was hunched up, her legs crossed, almost toppling forward. More color had drained from her face. Torn between concern for Yin and for Kit, my limbs chose that moment to seize up. Every bit of me was flooded with an odd weakness. It was as if I had just woken up from a nightmare and could not move. This has never happened to me before at a moment of crisis. So I did nothing—just watched as the Chinese girl advanced into the pit.

Yes, I, Waldo Bell, watched as a slip of a girl marched
into a den of monsters—watched and did nothing. It was my lowest point. Believe me, whatever my faults I am no coward. But at this supreme test, I was a bystander. My feet would not move. They were stuck, totally glued, by something other than fear.

As soon as Yin stepped among the Men they swung into action. I saw a blur of dark shapes, punching and kicking. They seemed to have all the space covered, thumping, crunching—their fists and legs like deadly wooden mallets.

Imagine it. A small child fighting mechanical beasts twice or even three times her size. She hunkered down, kicking, leaping, flying through the air. I don't want you to think they were mere machines—the Wooden Men could move sideways or up and down. They surprised me by the speed of their movements and their lethal attack. I don't know how Yin managed to stay alive for more than a minute. Yet she did. As I watched, my mouth hung open and sheer amazement flooded my whole being.

Her trick was having something special in her head—brains. I didn't understand how she defeated the first pair, or the second. But I saw her outwit the third. She swooped and grabbed one Man's legs, then she threw him at his opposite number. Unable to tell friend from foe, he began to batter his face. As they fought among
themselves Yin flew like a swallow, swooping, diving, striking through the battery of arms and legs.

Once, she fell straight into the fists of a Wooden Man, but by back-flipping swiftly over his head and between his massive thighs she was able to evade his blow and turn her force onto him. Crunch went her fist, aimed at his knee joint; crack, and her leg gave a lightning strike at his elbow. With a massive creaking the Wooden Man began to shatter, right in the face of his opposite number, who had come flying at Yin. Too late—the girl was much swifter than him. She had already disappeared and the automaton turned his fists on his comrade instead.

I knew then that my strange paralysis at the start of this battle had not been cowardice. Yin had somehow arranged it, for I was not ready. I would have been battered to death by this blank-faced army.

Never had I seen a more dazzling display of mortal combat. This was half a fight, half a dance. You wouldn't think a fight could be beautiful, would you? But this was. Yin had told me that the men were programmed with all the thirty-six strategies of Shaolin Kung Fu. I could see now that there were a limited number of moves the men could make. The secret of Yin's success was in starting a move—then changing it halfway through to another position. She took the automatons' expectations and threw them back in their faces. I was
watching a giant game of chess here, and Yin was the grandmaster.

She also knew how to attack their weak points—their joints, knees and elbows, where the different parts of these wooden puppets were attached.

Then Yin was at the end of the row of warriors. Behind her were two rows of wrecked puppets, lying in splinters and chunks of wood. Turning to me she made the O signal with her thumb and forefinger.

“Come on, Kit,” I said. “She's calling us.”

At the end of the vanquished warriors, I spied a pedestal holding a glass casket. My heart hammered, for I was convinced that this, finally, was what we sought. The Book of Bones. We were agonizingly close to the thing that could give Kit back her life.
So close
. To get to it, all we had to do was climb over wooden guts.

“Time to go.”

Kit moaned but didn't move from her crouch.

“Don't give up on me now, Kit! We're nearly there.”

She peered at me, as if she didn't know who I was.

“Do you need my help?”

Without waiting for an answer, I took her by her shoulders and heaved. Her eyelashes were flickering, her pupils dilated. Beads of sweat bloomed on her skin, a row of them above her lips. She leaned on me and we walked through the bloodless battlefield. Kit became
heavier and slower as we neared Yin. I was impatient with my friend.
Trust Kit! She would chose the very worst time to swoon on me
, I thought. Then the both of us were by the marble pedestal. Kit leaning on me, heavy as a horse.

Dust puffed from the casket as Yin opened it. I held my breath. Yin took something out. Not a precious leather-bound book, not even a faded old manuscript. They looked like a handful of old bones. The sort of animal bones you see scattered by the roadside in China, bleached by the sun.

“What is
that
?”

“The Book of Bones,” Yin replied.

“What? That's it? That's what we've been chasing all these weeks? It's not even a book, it's bones and—”

“A book, Waldo, is anything that you can read.”

“Are you trying to tell me you can read bones?”

“These aren't ordinary bones. They belong to Bodhidharma—the great mystic who founded the Shaolin temple. Look over there.” Yin pointed to the opposite wall of the cave. I could see a faint outline on the wall, like a dark shadow etched into the rock.

“That is the Bodhidharma's soul on the rocks. He sat for so many years, still as a statue in silent meditation just here, that his impression is graven on the rocks. It is a sacred place.”

I nodded, though I didn't understand how a man could sit still like that. I could see that this place had something far beyond my understanding.

“The fame of the Bodhidharma's bones has grown far and wide. Some monks can read their message.”

“So this is what they're all looking for. The Baker Brothers, the Imperial government … I'll be willing to bet that even Hilda Salter's spies want it!” I began to laugh. “But it's all one great big con trick—!”

Kit gave a convulsive shudder, cutting off my laughter. I turned to look at her. She had jerked upright and was gazing at the bones in Yin's hand. I have never seen such a look on Kit's face. It was fascinated, almost greedy. Yes, that's it. She was staring at the bones as if she wanted to gobble them up.

“Can I?” she asked.

Yin nodded.

With stumbling steps Kit walked over to the casket and took something out. She held it up, where it was caught by a sunbeam from the ceiling of the cave. A skull. It was slightly broken at the apex, the eye sockets gaping. The thing seemed to glow. My alarm was growing. Kit was having some kind of fit. Bright spots stood out on her cheeks and the look in her eyes was positively lunatic.

“NO. No,” Kit whispered. She was talking to the skull. “What can you see?”

She was silent a moment, the skull quivering in her hand. It was as if she were
listening
.

“Stop this at once,” I hissed to Yin, but she shushed me.

“You
know
. Why can't you tell me?” Kit moaned.

“Who knows?” I interrupted.

“The Shaman.”

“What Shaman? What does he know?”

“Everything,” Kit said, and turned back to the skull. “I can't go on if I don't—please—no more! I can't—”

In the middle of her sentence, her lips stopped, her hands opened and she dropped the skull. Yin sprang to catch it, just as Kit collapsed. She lay in a heap by the base of the pedestal, all crumpled up. I crashed toward her and took her hand, gently pulling her up.

“Kit! This is no time to go all ladylike on me,” I said, trying to hide my terror.

Her hand was clammy. Her face chalky white. No pulse in her wrist. Kit was gone. Instead of Kit lay this corpse. I backed away in horror, blundering into the pedestal.

“She's dead—”

Yin was crouching over Kit, her lips closing over my friend's. Her hands worked away, pumping at Kit's chest. The kiss of life. I stood there helpless, praying she would revive my friend. If anyone could work miracles, it was Yin.

Kit's lips, when Yin came up for air, were bluish, not a flutter of breath under her nostrils.

“What happened? One moment—”

“Be still!” Yin said and moved back to Kit.

The moments ticked by, long moments.

“Yin?”

She didn't answer, but her face as she came up told me all I needed to know. Kit was gone. I sat down and sobbed. The pain in my chest was choking me.

Kit was gone. Kit was gone. Kit was gone and I had promised to look after her.

Yin was laying her flat, gently easing her limbs straight, folding her hands across her chest. She smoothed the damp hair back from her forehead. She was preparing her for her funeral. In China they hold funerals straight away to prevent the corpse from decomposing.

A shimmer of light fell on Kit's face. I looked up and there was Gray Eyebrows.

“You move her too soon,” Gray Eyebrows said to Yen. “She walks among us still.”

Yin looked up, confused.

“Talk sense! Kit is not walking,” I choked. “She's dead. Stone-cold dead.”

“Not dead. No. But not alive.”

“You're either one thing or the other,” I said. “There's no such thing as in-between.”

“In-between the world of the living and the great beyond,” Gray Eyebrows replied. “At this moment your friend listens to every word we speak, but she cannot speak herself.”

“What are you babbling on about?”

Yin smiled, the relief shining from her. “You call it coma. This is your scientists' name for the half-life.”

Yin began to murmur in Mandarin as I considered what Gray Eyebrows had said. I did not ask why she believed Kit was still alive. The scientific part of me thought it was utter nonsense. Kit was dead. She had no pulse, no heartbeat, no breath, was cold to the touch. But I wanted to hope. She had offered me this much and I wanted to grab at it.

Gray Eyebrows retrieved the skull and returned it to the casket. She has put the genie back in the bottle, I thought, wondering if it was the skull that had harmed Kit. Gray Eyebrows placed her hand on my arm. It was burning hot.

“Your friend has a worm inside her. It lives on her, feeding on her desires. It is always hungry, this grub. It has a mouth the size of a needle's eye and a stomach the size of a mountain.”

I turned to stare at her, shaking off her hand. At this moment I did not want comfort. Besides, her words made no sense. At this awful time she was talking in riddles. “What are you trying to say?”

“The grub always wants to eat
more
and
more
,” Gray Eyebrows replied. “It has been bleeding your friend, sucking her energies ever since she entered the sacred place.”

“What place?”

“Shambala. It was there that the monster entered Kit's soul.”

“Shambala!” I murmured. “But she never drank the water. She told me so!”

“Perhaps not. But just to stand there, to breathe in the magic of those waters, is enough for one so young.

“When she came close to this holy relic, the power of the bones struck at the grub. And the grub struck back. The bones sought to kill the worm. But—a fight so terrible, what mere human could survive? If she had drunk freely of the water she would be beyond anyone's help. Look, I will show you.”

The nun led the way behind the casket to the back of the cave. There, laid out on a jutting stone ledge, was a
thing
. I cannot call it a man, as it looked more like a shriveled ape. The waxy skin surrounded by rotting wrinkles was loathsome. I looked upon the man with horror. I knew without being told that it was Jorge, the monkey-man who had entered Shambala as the Baker Brothers' servant. The ancient, grasping soul who Kit had talked of, just once, as a creature of horror.

Gray Eyebrows' voice washed over me. “See him.”

“How did this happen?”

“He too entered Shambala, twice, to bathe in the waters of immortal life. He was warned. He knew that to desire too much—to want immortality before you are ready to give up desire—is a curse. But he was a magician and very arrogant. So he drank, and meanwhile the grub drank too. It grew fat in him, coiled like a giant slug around his heart.