The Pirate Empress (41 page)

“I thought by now that you would see that wanton killing is no solution. Peng is a child.” Even as Master Yun spoke, he knew the response that hovered on the tip of Zhu’s tongue.

“She has nine tails.”

Master Yun nodded, his eyes moving with the shadows. She could be a vital link in the fox faerie’s ability to summon the Powers of Nine. But that was yet to be proved. “There are more dangerous things in the world, Zhu. Let her be. She acted on instinct. To feed when her mother demanded she feed, and to quiet her belly. If anything, this little one needs our protection.”

“I saw her eat a human being. Do you know what I am saying, Master Yun? She feasted upon the living entrails of a young woman who happened to be her nurse, and whose only mishap was probably only to have spoken out of turn. In this case, I do not care that the nurse was a Mongol. To kill to protect one’s home or in self defense if you are being attacked is honourable, but to kill out of anger, and then to feast upon the victim’s flesh is inhuman. Even the Mongols, savages though they are,
don’t
eat their enemies.”

“The other side of it, Zhu, is that the fox faerie kit is your daughter.”

Zhu stared wide-eyed. “You know?”

“I saw her in a vision.”

Zhu rose from the ground where they were sitting and started pacing. “In the Moonstone? Then you must be able to see into her future. What evil does she commit? What horrendous crimes against our people?” He paused as another thought struck him, and his face lit with hope as he glanced down at Master Yun. “You know something, don’t you? Is there salvation for her after all? Dare I breathe hope?”

When Master Yun was trapped inside the burial mound of First Emperor Qin, the ancient king had bade him look into the gemstone to find the future: Two babies born. One a Mongol, born in a tent, honed to brutality by the wolf-haunted steppe; the other Chinese, born in the waterworld aboard a ragged, stolen junk.

The Mongol is the spawn of Altan. You know who the other belongs to,
the statue had said.
Altan is the younger brother of Esen ... Altan is also the father of the Mongol who will rule the Middle Kingdom by force.

Was that Mongol Peng? Peng was He Zhu’s daughter.

Zhu sat down again and crossed his legs, and Master Yun lifted his eyes from the gemstone. It had not brought him any new knowledge. “Sometimes hope is all we have,” he said. He told Zhu of his vision in Emperor Qin’s tomb. “I do not think that Peng is the Mongol. After all, you aren’t Mongol and technically, neither is Jasmine.”

“The other baby in the vision. That must be Wu.” Zhu smiled. “Yes, Wu. Li gave birth to a fine boy.” Master Yun reciprocated with a broad smile of his own. Of course, the boy would have been born and even grown somewhat by now. “Li named him Wu, after Quan’s father,” Zhu explained. After Quan’s father, but that was also the name of the Black Tortoise. “You have a great grandson, Master Yun. And I have a nephew.”

Master Yun understood Zhu’s accusatory look. “Yes, He Zhu. That is correct. I am your grandfather. How long have you suspected? It is obvious to me that you know that Li is your sister. Who told you?”

“Tao. But more to the point, why didn’t
you
tell me?”

“I wasn’t sure that the information would be useful to you. My first thought was always to keep you safe. Now tell me—because I am sure I misheard you the first time—who told you of your kindred?”

Again the answer came swiftly, the same name as before. “Tao.”

Master Yun’s eyes popped wide. This was news to him. He had laid Tao’s body to rest at the Taoist Temple in Xian with Eng Tong, before the old monk was killed. Had the eunuch somehow survived? Was Eng Tong there when Tao revived? Was that why the ancient monk was in the jungle when he got waylaid by Jasmine and fell to her treachery?

“I can see by the look on your face that you did not know until I told you that the eunuch still walks,” Zhu said. He hesitated before blurting out the frightening truth. “Tao is a hopping corpse.”

Master Yun’s voice caught in his throat. His heart began to rattle like a trapped fly. “Where is he?” he asked carefully.

“Why?” Zhu asked. “Your face has gone grey, as grey as your hair. You look like I did something wrong by telling you of Tao’s fate. What is it? Granted, I didn’t believe it either, at first, when Tao told me what had happened to him, but he has helped me on more than one occasion, and I’ve come to trust him.”

“Do not trust him. He is not the man you knew. A hopping corpse must feed on the life force of the living. In the end, it will corrupt his soul. You must find a way to send him to the Netherworld.”

“He told me he feeds on the life force of plants.”

“For now that may be so, but in the end, to remain in his state of undeadness, he must seek the blood of the living.”

Zhu swallowed, marvelling at the strangeness of it all. He narrowed his eyes, worried. “He will not go. His soul has been betrayed.”

A dead man only became a hopping corpse if his death was unjustified. Tao’s time was unfairly wrested from him, but it was not for Master Yun to judge. Only Yan Luo could make that judgement. “You’re in great danger, Zhu, if Tao is not returned to the land of the dead. He must go to Feng Du where his sins will be judged.”

“What did he do that he must go to the Hell Master for judgement?”

“There are secrets. And then, there are secrets. Not unlike your sister, the secret of your paternity has been kept from the world. I only uncovered this mystery of late. But I have no more doubts. Tao is your father.”

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The dark shadows of the demon birds scattered; the sky turned black. The half-moon sat in the heavens like a white cup. Master Yun always knew that he would one day divulge this news to Zhu, but he did not know that it would be so soon or under these strange circumstances. He watched the face of the warrior-monk explode with emotions too complex to explore.

“Tao? Tao is my father? But Tao is a eunuch!”

“It wasn’t always so. When he left Eng Tong’s temple in Xian, he was a man, complete and whole, quite capable of siring offspring. He was taken into the palace as a teacher and advisor to the Emperor. It was only when he discovered forbidden love, and perpetrated the act that conceived you, that he turned to castration. He wanted to keep his place near your mother and near you. But in the end he could not protect her.

“He left you to the care of one he knew had your best interests at heart, one who was of your blood—me. As for himself, he thought the best way to keep you safe was to forget that he had sired you. He became a eunuch, and all in the palace forgot that he was ever anything else.

“So you see, Zhu, it is not so farfetched to place you on the throne. A woman cannot inherit an empire, but a man can. Li can’t take the throne, but you are the son of Ling She, the daughter of kings on her mother’s side. Did you not know that she is descended from First Emperor Qin’s line? You are the Empire’s lifeline until Wu reaches manhood. As the son of a blood empress, you are also of royal blood and the people will embrace you. But His Majesty must not discover the secret of your birth or he will seek your destruction. Only at the very last moment of despair can we show our hand.”

Zhu clasped his palms together and shut his eyes in frustration. He snapped his eyes wide. “His Majesty already has me in line for the chopping block. You forget. I rescued Lotus Lily in full view of His Majesty and his court. He wants us both dead, my sister and I, the same way he bestowed death upon his wife, the Empress, Ling She. Our mother was beheaded. I have no claim to the throne.”

Oh, but Zhu was wrong. Zhu was well loved by the Ming army, except perhaps by its leader Military Governor Zheng Min. There was no one more respected or loved than the common soldier’s soldier, He Zhu. He fought side by side with them, enduring the icy winters and the sweltering summers, the bad food and the shoddy equipment. Even Chi Quan was not loved in the same fashion as He Zhu. Zhu was one of the men. He slept on the cold wet ground and tore meat with them. Not once did he seek comfort or refuge inside the stone fortresses where the likes of Zheng Min made their fancy cups of tea while resting their fat behinds on purple satin cushions, ordering the soldiers to drink stagnant water while they watched. He Zhu was their man. When the Mongols or the Manchus came banging on Anding Gate, the Emperor’s hand would be forced. He knew who his champions were. And they did not wear the face of Military Governor Zheng Min. When His Majesty saw that the choice was dethronement or a faithful heir, he would accept Ling She’s first born.

“You can sit on the throne until Wu comes of age, guiding him, and leading the troops,” Master Yun said. “Or you can watch the Empire crumble to foreign hands.”

“His Majesty remains our emperor. As far as I know, there is no vacancy for a ruler as of yet. Let us pray that our sovereign still has a long reign.”

Master Yun nodded, but the all-consuming power that filled him rang ominous. More soldiers than he dared imagine had died defending the walls. He knew this even as he breathed and felt his
Chi
expand beneath his powerful rib cage. His victory over the Yeren—without bloodshed—was testimony to his strength. And as he questioned Zhu over the events of the past six years, he realized that he had stayed away too long. But the chink in the Ming armour had not mended. They still needed more soldiers.

His greatest fear was that the Emperor could not survive the humiliation of his army’s defeats. All of the Middle Kingdom, more than ever before, needed a strong and stable leader, or at least, the appearance of one. But His Majesty had never been a forceful man. With Jasmine by his side, it was she who gave his reign its irrepressible appearance. Now that she had abandoned him, his defect was ever visible. The formidable shell would soon crack and the paltry liquid that was his soul would spill and flow to merge with the spilled blood of his people.

Master Yun sent his gaze westward to the triple towers of Jiayuguan and its lonely garrison. How many remained to guard the westernmost pass? The three-tiered winged roofs cut against the dusky sky, silent in their vigil. No lights shone. No warning fires. No cannon. Jiayuguan was most certainly deserted and if not, it soon would be when more troops were withdrawn and sent westward to defend the walls of the Forbidden City itself.

Master Yun watched his former pupil struggle with his conscience.

“Sometimes I think I would rather die than to fail in my purpose,” Zhu said. “But I no longer know what my purpose is. I am at wit’s end. It seems to me it was easier when I was just a soldier. Before the Tiger’s Eye complicated my life. Instead of feeling empowered, I feel like the gemstone has crippled me. I can’t live like this. I don’t know what to do. It’s as though some part of me is missing and I will never find it. Like a vital organ has been removed. I function, but I do not function fully. How can this be?” He Zhu looked up at Master Yun with pleading in his eyes. “How can I have been given a gift that seems to have taken away my will?” Zhu sighed. “It is rather like a curse. For what have I accomplished since you burdened me with this accursed bauble? I chase visions. And when I catch up to the vision, I fail to choose the right course.”

“Who says that you have failed?” Master Yun inquired.

“Why, you of course. Your very act of preventing me from doing away with the foxling tells me unequivocally that I have failed.”

“You have not failed, Zhu. Only when you stop trying will you have failed. Do you honestly think that I know better than you which course you should take? I don’t even know which course
I
should take, but I follow my heart. I feel my
Chi
. It tells me which way I should go. I, too, have choices to make. I, too, bear the burden of owning one of the Gemstones of Seeing.”

“You are wiser than anyone I know, Master Yun.” Zhu paused, bowed and lowered his voice reverently. “My grandfather.” He lifted his head after absorbing that most solemn and honourable of thoughts. With that motion he also raised his voice, now with conviction. “But I feel I have no control over my life. Something drives me … I don’t know what. It pulls me
against
what my heart tells me is the right thing to do.”

“What do you feel you must do, Zhu?”

“If I cannot kill the foxling, then I must take her away from Jasmine and the influence of her evil.”

“And if the Emperor needs you? If the people of the Middle Kingdom cry out for a leader, a military man with the wisdom of a monk, what then?”

Zhu squeezed his eyes tight again to block out the face of the warlock. “I will do what must be done when the time comes.”

“All you can do is live every day of your life as you see fit. None of us are in control of our destinies. All we can do is guide ourselves in the direction that we want to go. Trust me, Zhu. Your actions and the actions of your sister will change the outcome of the future. Take Peng to wherever you see fit to take her. My destiny is elsewhere. Then find Tao and convince him to enter Feng Du.”

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It was clear from their dress that they were not men of the camp, and Zhu looked up as a young Mongol woman approached from the cluster of tents. She seemed frightened or hesitant, and he got to his feet, as did Master Yun. “It’s all right,” Zhu said. “We mean you no harm. We have come for the fox faerie’s offspring.”