Journey to Wubang 01 - Earth to Hell (8 page)

We waited for the Jade Emperor to tell us to rise. He didn’t.

We waited with our foreheads on the floor, not looking at him, but still he didn’t say a word. All I needed: a power game.

‘Rise,’ the Jade Emperor finally said after an uncomfortable couple of minutes, and both Simone and I pulled ourselves to our feet.

‘You are ordered to take True Form in the presence of the Jade Emperor,’ Er Lang said loudly.

Neither Simone nor I said anything or moved.

‘Take True Form!’ Er Lang shouted.

‘These are our True Forms,’ I said.

‘Simone—’ Bai Hu began.

‘Shut up, Bai Hu,’ Simone said.

There was the very faintest rustle of movement through the hall. Nobody said a word, but they were restless and their slight movements made the silk of their robes hiss.

The Jade Emperor’s face didn’t shift from its expressionless mask. ‘Lady Emma Donahoe.’

I saluted him, bowing slightly. ‘Celestial Majesty.’

‘You claim that the form I see here is your True Form?’

‘That I do, Celestial Majesty.’

‘Princess Simone,’ the Emperor said.

Simone saluted. ‘Celestial Majesty.’

‘You too?’

She bowed slightly and saluted again. ‘Celestial Majesty.’

The silk rustle in the hall became slightly louder, then faded again.

‘Er Lang,’ the Jade Emperor said.

‘Lady Emma Donahoe is ordered to take True Form,’ Er Lang said without looking at me.

‘As the Celestial Majesty wishes,’ I said, and didn’t change. I just stood quietly at the base of the dais.

‘This is not your True Form!’ Er Lang shouted.

‘This is the way I was born. This is the way I wish to be perceived. This is the true me,’ I said. ‘This is my True Form. Any other form I could take would not be me.’

The rustling became louder and a series of hushed whispers rippled through the hall then quickly settled to silence.

‘Er Lang,’ the Jade Emperor said again.

‘Princess Simone, daughter of Xuan Tian Shang Di, is ordered to take Celestial Form,’ Er Lang said.

Simone hesitated.

‘Do it, dear,’ the Jade Emperor said. ‘You have a Celestial Form. You have been ordered. Do it.’

Simone made a short, clipped whimpering sound and changed. She gathered all of the darkness in the hall and wrapped it around her, completely hiding herself from view. The darkness grew and became more massive. A spreading, seeping cold emanated from her and the air around her filled with ice. The darkness exploded out from her in a silent eruption and dissipated. Her Celestial Form became visible.

The voices in the hall erupted to a roar, then quickly faded.

Her livery was deep blue, almost black, and shining gold. She was nearly four metres tall, and her golden-brown hair swept around her, so long it lay on the floor. Much of it floated in a breeze that wasn’t there. Her skin shone translucent in the light; a delicate honey brown. Her enormous golden eyes glowed with wisdom far beyond her years. She appeared to be about twenty-five years old. Her deep blue robes flowed around her, decorated with a thousand tiny pinpoints of golden light, like stars. She was breathtakingly beautiful, more like a force of nature than a young woman.

‘Can you call Seven Stars, Simone?’ the Jade Emperor said.

Simone held out one slim arm and the sword appeared in her hand. The scabbard was black, the hilt was white, and the sword was nearly two metres long. It fitted her perfectly. She lowered her hand and held the sword in front of her. She truly appeared as a goddess with the sword in her hand and an expression of detached ferocity on her face.

‘Good,’ the Jade Emperor said. He rose from the throne and stood before us on the dais with his hands clasped behind his back. ‘What is it you have come to see me about?’

I bowed slightly. ‘Leo Alexander, Retainer of the Dark Lord, is held in Hell at your pleasure,’ I said. ‘We would like your permission, Celestial Majesty, to go and talk to him about accepting Immortality and returning to us.’

‘Why should he do this for you when so many of my staff have been unable to convince him?’

‘Because he loves us,’ Simone said in a voice of sharpened honey.

He smiled slightly. ‘Anything else?’

‘I request the freedom of the Golden Boy, child of the Jade Building Block, and the Jade Girl, eighty-second daughter of the Dragon King.’

Simone glanced at me.

‘And that’s all?’ the Emperor said.

‘Yep,’ I said. ‘Uh, yes, Celestial Majesty.’

‘Return to your normal form, Simone.’

Simone changed back and we shared a small sigh of relief.

‘Meet me in the Imperial Private Offices in one hour, together with your sponsors. Concluded. Dismissed.’ He returned to the throne.

We fell to our knees again. ‘
Wen sui, wen sui, wen wen sui
.’

‘Supplicants are permitted to depart,’ Er Lang said.

We backed away for about ten metres, then turned and walked out of the hall with every eye in the place boring into our backs. I could tell from the way Simone walked that she wanted to run out of there as much as I did.

‘What in Heaven possessed you two to do something like that?’ the Tiger shouted. He paced in front of us with his hands clasped behind his back.

Ms Kwan had also returned to human form. She sat at the dining table, as serene as ever. She waved one hand and summoned a pot of tea. ‘Sit. Drink tea. All will be well, Ah Bai.’

The Tiger stopped and glared at her. ‘Don’t encourage them.’ He turned his attention back to me. ‘What if you’d been ordered to take demon form? What would you have done then?’

‘Refused again.’

The Tiger paced once more. ‘I’m glad you weren’t ordered to then. Defying an order from the Celestial
once
is bad enough; twice would have got you executed. And
you
.’ He rounded on Simone. ‘You
should
have refused. Or at least taken something less impressive. God, Simone, what a stupid thing to do.’

‘That
is
less impressive,’ Simone said. ‘That’s the smallest one I can do. In the full version, I’m more than three metres tall, as big as Daddy’s biggest Celestial Form. The robes appear like space; the gold stars really
are
stars. My eyes are even bigger and freaking
black
. And the yin hangs around my hair like some sort of freaking cloak, freezing the air wherever I go. It’s
huge
.’

‘Shit.’ The Tiger began pacing again. ‘You sure your mother was human? Every Immortal in Heaven is going to be after your hand, my girl. If I saw you like that, and I didn’t love your father like a brother, I’d be after you in a second myself.’ He shook his head. ‘What a fucking disaster.’

Mr Wong tapped on the door and came in. He smiled like a kindly grandfather and we all glowered at him.

‘Well done, ladies. But you should have taken the full version, Simone. Maybe later, eh? Come on up and have some nice tea with me, and we’ll talk about it.’

Bai Hu stood threateningly over Mr Wong. ‘Don’t you dare let anybody grab this little girl, Ah Ting. She’s just a child.’

‘Calm down, Ah Bai, don’t get your whiskers in a twist. I’ll protect them, don’t worry. I know what I’m doing.’ He glanced at me, his eyes sparkling. ‘Come on up to my apartment and we’ll have a little chat.’

‘It’s about time someone reminded that bunch of stiffarsed old farts exactly what it means to pursue the Tao,’ the Jade Emperor said amiably. He poured the tea and we all tapped the table in thanks. ‘See? You show respect in exactly the right amount required, at the time it is required, and not more. And when the order is a stupid one, you make your feelings clear. The most senior Celestials are aware of your serpent form, Emma. They were fully expecting you to take it, even
though you made it clear that you regard your human form as your True Form.’ He sighed with feeling. ‘So many blindly follow orders purely to avoid taking responsibility for their actions.
Lazy
. Now.’ He picked up his teacup, brushing his long sleeve out of the way. ‘Leo Alexander. Stupid bastard. Entirely much more trouble than he is worth. I know why you did it, Lady, but he has still been a massive thorn in my side for many years.’

Kwan Yin nodded silently.

He sipped his tea. ‘You certainly have my permission to try your best to pull Leo out. Go for it. If you can persuade him out of Hell, I’d be very happy indeed.’

‘I wasn’t expecting this to be so easy after all the bureaucracy we’ve had to go through,’ I said.

The Emperor smiled slightly. ‘We thought we would be able to fix this without the intervention of a mortal such as yourself. It makes us look very, very bad to have to call you in on this. The Celestial should be able to handle this type of thing.’

‘Leo’s very stubborn when he wants to be,’ I said.

The Emperor raised his teacup to me. ‘That he is. And thoroughly Worthy. I am looking forward to seeing him take his place here among the Immortals.’

‘He’s black and gay, Ah Ting,’ Bai Hu said.

We all stared at Bai Hu with astonishment, even the Jade Emperor.

‘I’m just saying,’ Bai Hu said with a shrug. ‘He’d be the first.’

I turned back to the Jade Emperor. ‘He’d be the first gay Immortal? Is it allowed? I know the tradition…’

‘Humankind is very fond of rules,’ the Jade Emperor said. ‘Very fond of putting things into little boxes and sticking labels on them. Yang is masculine; yin is feminine. Therefore all males must be yang and be attracted to females. Despite the fact that the universe is
obviously not built that way, humans insist on creating their little boxes and pushing things into them even when it’s quite plain that they don’t fit.’ He poured more tea. ‘The nature of the Tao is the true nature of all. If a man is attracted to other men and that is his nature, then how can he pursue the Tao without pursuing that nature? Ridiculous.’

‘So it’s not an issue?’ I said.

‘Of course not,’ the Emperor said. ‘There are plenty of gay Immortals, there always have been. The minute you stick a label on something it loses its true nature and you move further away from the Tao, which is nameless.’

‘But he’s
black
,’ Bai Hu said.

‘I have the sudden urge to rap you sharply across the nose, cat,’ the Emperor said.

‘He’s not
Eastern
, I meant,’ Bai Hu said. ‘It’s not the colour, it’s the
location
. I mean, we’ve had Westerners gain Immortality here before…’ His voice trailed off. He raised his hands in defeat. ‘Okay. I just made my own point. Shutting up now.’

‘You aren’t just a sexist pig, you’re a racist one as well,’ I said with wonder.

‘The hell I am,’ the Tiger said. ‘He doesn’t belong to this Corner of the World. He should be Raised to Immortality in the United States, his home. He should reside on his own Celestial Plane.’

‘What about me?’ I said.

‘You too. If you were to gain Immortality, you should do it in the South, where you belong, and live in the Southern Celestial Plane.’

‘What about me?’ Simone said.

The Tiger opened his mouth and closed it again.

‘Oh, very well,’ the Emperor said. ‘But this is strictly for your ears only, you are not to share it with anyone. The Elder of the Southern Shen and I have been in
contact for about ten years. We’re arranging a conference in a neutral territory, probably Antarctica. As soon as we contact the Western, African and North and South American Shen we’ll start making arrangements. We’ll probably do it when Ah Wu’s back and he can do the security in conjunction with each group’s people. We’ll thrash out a reciprocal agreement.’

‘Not North, South, East and West Shen?’ I said.

‘No, the Eastern and Western thing is just for convenience,’ the Jade Emperor said. ‘Actually, each continent has its own Shen, divided by the ocean or desert. So there aren’t actually any Northern Shen, unless you count Ah Wu who is the essence of the North itself.’ He shrugged. ‘Hardly anybody lives up there anyway—people there fit into their own region. So basically it will be a meeting of Shen from the six continents, and when we get together we’ll probably start formal naming and reciprocal diplomatic arrangements.’

‘What, Shen UN?’ I said.

The Jade Emperor made a soft sound of amusement. ‘Yes. Now that travelling between the Corners is becoming common, we need to deal with the matter of mortals attaining Immortality in a Centre outside their own. If they choose to reside in a different Celestial Plane, the option to do so should be open to them. Leo is a classic example of this; he is in the first hundred or so black people who have been through our Hell, and the first to gain Immortality in our Centre. Until now, we have had very little contact with other Celestials. The time has come that we should make an arrangement for free movement between the Planes.’

‘The demons are moving as well,’ I said. ‘Look at these stone things.’

‘
Precisely
,’ the Emperor said with feeling. ‘Mixing Western mystical stones with Eastern demons. And the biotech that One Two Two was experimenting with…’
He glared at the Tiger. ‘Absolutely not acceptable.’

‘I don’t do anything like that,’ the Tiger said. ‘My kids are just studying them. Just having a look. Working out what makes them tick.’

‘As long as that’s all it is,’ the Jade Emperor said. ‘Supervise your scientists closely. Interfere with the demons’ true nature and Er Lang will land on you so hard you’ll think your nose is your tail.’

Bai Hu saluted. ‘Celestial Majesty. I agree with you anyway.’

‘Jade and Gold,’ I said.

‘Ah.’ The Emperor leaned back. ‘Do you know
why
they are bound into servitude?’

‘No,’ I said. ‘They’re both obviously embarrassed about it, and I haven’t pushed the point.’

‘They deserved it,’ the Tiger said. ‘They should have spent the time in Hell.’

‘I didn’t see
you
charging out of the West to defend the honour of the Qing,’ the Emperor said.

‘You issued the goddamn edict telling us not to interfere yourself, Ah Ting,’ the Tiger said.

The Jade Emperor thumped his hand on the table. ‘That is the third time you have called me that, Bai Hu. Call me Ah Ting again and I will have you executed! I gained this appointment through
cultivation
and
merit
and that story is a
lie
! You are walking a very fine line!’