The Dragons of Heaven (38 page)

“I don't need it to last long. Just long enough. Did she say when it would be done?”

“Tonight.”

“That doesn't give us much time. Let's hope Lung Di gets back before then. Otherwise, we'll have to go with Plan C.”

“What's Plan C?”

I frowned. “There isn't one.”

The wait was interminable. I puttered. I changed clothes. I tried not to be irritated at Templeton as he crouched on top of my knapsack under the coffee table, whispering in the shadow-tongue to his final bauble. I forced myself to sit still on the floor near him. I concentrated on the incomprehensible whispers, letting the shadow speech chase away all my other fears. In my laid-back acceptance of the rat, I often forgot that he was formed of raw shadow, shaped only by the name I'd laid upon him. Just below the surface was a quiescent mass of primal terror – scrabbling on the floorboards, chittering in the darkness of the night. Plague, death, decay. If I concentrated, I could just make out those darker notes on the edge of my senses. I let the fears wash over me, clearing away my lesser anxieties. I meditated on Fear, and let my own go. Welcome to the dark side of the Force.

“Templeton,” I said after a time. “After the final trade, whatever happens, you're free to go. In fact, I want you to go. Take my bag and meet me back on the plain where I first called you.”

He raised startled eyes from his bauble. His whiskers twitched. “Won't you still need me? To guide you out of this place?”

“It will be too dangerous. We'll just have to hope the shadows will follow your instructions after you've gone. If things go according to plan, Lung Di will be furious. I don't think he'll kill me, but there's nothing to keep him from killing you.”

I leaned forward and placed a hand over his, covering the chunk of glass. “Thank you, Templeton. I know it's been hard for you. I couldn't have asked for a truer friend.”

“I will always be a friend to you, Missy.”

I said nothing. Templeton, not Reepicheep. I had inscribed avarice into his nature when I named him. I knew it. Lung Di knew it. But Templeton demonstrated that he was oblivious to that fact when he handed me his final bauble.

“
I
want
to put Mei Shen to bed.”

“I beg your pardon?”

The shadows informed Templeton the moment Lung Di returned. We made our final preparations in silence. Even our goodbye was no more than a wet nose snuffling against my cheek as I hugged him a little too tightly. I left him giving the shadows firm instructions to help me or fear his wrath and that of the Conclave. I hoped it worked. I hoped it all worked. I left my room in search of my nemesis. I found him in an alcove off the main room, looking through thick windows into the murky waters of the Huangpu.

“I said, I want to put Mei Shen to bed: tuck her in, get her a glass of water, all of the things I normally do when I put her to bed. And I want to do it without you or the Nurse hovering nearby. An hour of quality mother-daughter alone time, that's what I want.”

“Are you sure? Even with your rat's treasures, you have little left to trade. Shouldn't you save what you do have for something that matters?”

I crossed my arms and shot him a challenging look. Let him think I was losing patience with his games. It wasn't far off the mark. “This matters. To me. To both of us. And you and I both know that the next time we bargain, it will be for Mei Shen, and you won't be accepting any baubles. I just want to have one last bedtime with my daughter.” My voice cracked, and it wasn't entirely playacting.

“And what are you offering in trade? Your pearls?”

I shook my head and handed him Templeton's third bauble, the water-softened chunk of glass. He took it and favored me with an enigmatic smile.

“We could just end this charade now, you know,” he said, taking my arm and pulling me deeper into the shadows of the alcove. “I would give you Mei Shen in exchange for the pearls. We both know it, just as we both know that you'll do it – that you've already decided you'll do it. Why keep stalling with these games?”

“You would just give her up for the pearls? Here and now?”

“Yes.”

“Why? If she's one half of the weapon that will lead to your destruction, why give her up for anything?”

“And paint myself the villain in her eyes?” He arched a brow. “Anything I did to her would only make her will stronger, or turn her against me. Better to keep her for a short time, demonstrate what a ‘swell guy' I am, and then let her leave as soon as her mother comes to get her. But you and I both know the truth of what I'm giving up, and I won't give it up for nothing.”

“Why do you want the pearls?”

“I could sleep with you instead. It would do nearly the same damage, but…” He shook his head and turned again to gaze out the window. “No. Jian Huo could always deceive himself into thinking that you were unwilling. Forced. The pearls offer less in the way of visceral pleasure, but they are symbolic. He will know exactly what you've spurned in exchange for your daughter.”

“So, why not just take them, then? I'm here at your mercy. Why haven't you just taken them?”

“And how would that be different from forcing you?” He aimed his question at my reflection in the glass. “You'll give them to me, of your own will, to save your daughter. I will not have them by force or guile.”

“If he doesn't love me, if he's just using me, then what makes you think it would even matter to him?”

“Honor, Missy. There's nothing he prizes more.” He turned to face me. I shrank back against the curve of the wall. “I think you're different. Honor is something that's useful to you, but also negotiable. Malleable. That's what I'm betting on – that you value your child more than some misguided sense of honor.”

“You're wrong,” I whispered, but my voice wavered. I swallowed and tried to strengthen it. “I'll never give you Jian Huo's pearls.”

“I think you'll reconsider. You really have no choice.”

“No. You don't get it. You pegged me when you delivered your manifesto.” I straightened, my face inches from his. “The ends don't justify the means. Not ever. How and why you do something is as important as what you're trying to do. That conviction is what Jian Huo and I have in common. It's why your manifesto is crap. It's why your claim that Jian Huo used me is crap. And it's why I won't ever give you my pearls. Now stop fucking with me and let me put my daughter to bed.”

He pulled back, but no flash of amusement or irritation crossed his features. He'd dropped the pretense that I was anything but a tool to him. I wasn't worth getting worked up over. That was fine by me. We both were at our end-games, and my strategy was too complicated to muddle with emotions.

Lung Di pocketed the glass. “Very well. You may have your hour. Follow me.”

He led me through more serpentine corridors until I was lost. The symbolism was clear: he held my daughter trapped in his coils. Another set of black-lacquered doors opened onto the Barbie palace. Mei Shen sat on a chair next to an empty cricket cage, feet kicking as they dangled. The nurse was nowhere to be seen.

“An hour.” Lung Di said. Before he could grow suspicious, I entered and shut the door in his face.

Given my previous encounter with the nurse's work, her changeling was better than I'd expected. It was too quiet by half, but the questions it did ask were intelligent, more like things my daughter would say. Perhaps spending so much time with the original had helped the nurse to improve the quality of the doppelgänger.

I went through the motions of putting my false daughter to bed, lingering over the experience not because I enjoyed it, but because I had no doubt I was being watched. I needed to give the nurse as good a chance as possible to spirit Mei Shen away.

I was singing an old sea shanty to the sleeping changeling when Lung Di returned for me. I left without too much fuss, playing off that I didn't want to wake my sleeping daughter. We were both quiet as Lung Di escorted me back to my own rooms. We stopped before the doors.

“There are no more moves for you to make.” His words made me pause on the threshold. “It is time to bargain in earnest.”

I shook my head, and there was little artifice to the weary droop of my shoulders. “In the morning. Then I'll be ready to bargain.”

“Putting it off will not make the outcome any different. Only more painful.”

He sounded almost sympathetic. I ignored him. “I'll see you in the morning,” I said and shut the door.

Leaning back against the closed doors, I took a deep breath. The only light in the room came from above the wet bar. Everywhere else was deep in shadow. I scanned the rest of the room, but there was no sign of Templeton. He'd done what I'd asked and vacated. I was relieved, but also saddened. Who knew if I would ever see him again?

I did one last sweep of the rooms – hotel habits die hard – then took a deep breath and stepped into shadow.

The terrain on the other side was like no shadow landscape I'd ever entered. The ground was slick and black: featureless. It fell away from beneath my feet, and no horizon marked where it bled into the black sky. I looked up and then couldn't look away. Void yawned above me: a gaping crack in reality that reached down to brush at me with oily, black tentacles. Nine shining threads, strained near-to-breaking, were all that held the wound closed. Nine threads. Nine Guardians. They were stretched thin with weakness, so inadequate against the void that pulsed to break through. I shied away from the questing polyps that had made it past their guard, swaying with vertigo. The world spun into a mad twist of laughter. I collapsed to my knees and scrabbled at the slick ground, seeking some kind of secure purchase. The void pulled at me, stretching me like taffy into a shape no human was ever meant to take. I sobbed, or maybe I laughed. Or screamed. There was no difference here. They were sounds in a place of not-sound.

Oh, God. What had I done in coming here?

My wail was answered by a soft chittering. Underneath that, the scrabbling of claws.

“Help me,” I whisper-screamed. The chittering grew louder. I shut my eyes. I didn't want to see what was making that noise. The blackness behind my lids, comfortable and known, helped anchor me. I recalled why I was in this place, what I needed to do.

In the name of Templeton, lieutenant in service to the Conclave of Shadow, I command you to come to my aid.

Had I spoken? Through the madness, I couldn't be sure. Perhaps it was all in my head – fifteen years living a fever dream of dragon-lovers and ancient gods; thirty-odd years of an insignificant life, a monkey trying to make sense of the cosmos. Might as well hand me a typewriter and ask me to write the works of Shakespeare. Life's but a walking shadow. Perhaps the Judeo-Christians had the right of it: to hear the Logos, to look into the face of God, was to invite madness. But if the void was God, then why lock it away from us? The tentacles of darkness tugged at me, urged me to reach out and pluck away the threads that strained to hold the wound closed. Guardians? What were they guarding against? The void that strained against them whispered of the completion of annihilation, a return to the primordial womb before the Big Bang of creation. Not Guardians. Wardens, and Creation was our prison. They kept us from reuniting with God.

Something closed around me, caught my reaching hands and drew me back from the wound in the void. I fought against it, but I was stretched too thin between Self and Otherness. Resistance was futile. I couldn't recall why that was funny, but I laughed, and the thing pulling me back caught hold of that laughter, wrapped me up in it, used it to give me shape and voice. It named me…
Missy
… in a dozen chitters that were all echoes of Templeton's voice

I felt cold, slick ground beneath my cheek, like obsidian. The chittering around me grew louder, blocking out all other sounds. I cracked an eye. Shadow-shapes darted around and above me – a plague of Templetons. They blotted out the void, the landscape, everything. The shadows nudged under me, forcing me at first to my hands and knees, and then into a low crouch. Above me, the void strained against its cage and called to me, its daughter, to free it. Only I could do it. I swallowed and kept my eyes focused on the ground as I ran.

A few of the shadows darted forward a short distance, then back to me. I stumbled in the direction indicated, and soon we were making our halting way across the obsidian-dark landscape. After an eternity, they stopped, milling about my feet as if they could go no further. In normal circumstances, I would have shown more gratitude, but I couldn't wait to be quit of this place. Lighting a crimson sparkler, I fled the void.

Sight, sound, and sanity returned in an overwhelming rush. I fell to my knees again, dry-heaving. The cave entrance turned to brick maybe ten yards ahead of me. Beyond that, the lights of nighttime Shanghai flashed so brightly after the never-ending nothingness of the voidlands that it set my eyes to tearing.

“Mother? Mother, are you all right?” Mei Shen crouched at my side. I gulped the thick air in deep breaths and struggled to get my stomach under control. I was still trembling as I sat back and looked into my daughter's face. I sensed movement to my right, and then the nurse stepped into my line of sight. She stood between us and the light beyond the cave's mouth. Her shadow stretched out toward me, and I flinched away before I realized that it was just a shadow.

“You are either very brave or very stupid,” she observed.

“A little of column A, and a little of column B,” I muttered, rising to my feet. Mei Shen steadied me, stronger than she had any right to be. I spared a moment to check her over, but I had no doubt it was my daughter. I spared the nurse a nod of gratitude.

“I thank you for what you've done. It will go far to ensuring that Lung Huang does not seek vengeance against you for the wrong you did him.”