Better Off Undead Page 2

  That I’d ended up with such a pretty bride was pure luck. It was clear she remembered our spirit-wedding, too, and I wished I did.

  "My people thought your parents were honest. Why would they not pay their debt?’’ she asked.

  I shook my head. "My parents would always pay their debt. For years they labored to pay a debt to the emperor.’’

  She squinted and wrinkled her nose. Indeed, she had the loveliest nose I’d ever seen. "Very well,’’ she said, at last, as though she were conceding a profound argument. "Very well. We shall go to the Fifth Hell, then, and—’’

  "Not the Fifth Hell,’’ I protested. "I do not wish to have my heart gouged.’’

  She gave me a pitying look, as though I were a poor thing without understanding. "Neither do I. I meant we should go and consult the records of our souls and see who’s been tampering with them.’’ She squinted at me again. "I do not belive any of this is natural, from your sudden death to this,’’ she gestured with her head towards the surrounding immense cave with its iron web and its prisoners screaming in anticipation of the agony to come.

  "But,’’ I said. "we cannot. We are attached to this web.’’

  But she only smiled at me, and as she smiled, a buzz came out of nowhere. A cloud of insects surrounded me—flies and grasshoppers and june bugs. They surrounded me till I could not see. I opened my mouth to scream and it was filled with insects.

  The insects lifted me, held me, carried me.

  Like being thrown across the cavern, it went on much too long. It was like I was flying for a thousand thousands of years, with insects all over me. I was afraid to scream, for fear they would penetrate my body and I would burst from the insects.

  I tried to remember if this was a torment of the eighteen hells, but I could not. And then, suddenly, I was set down. A buzz sounded all around me, and the insects left.

  I blinked the eyes I had closed to keep the creatures off my pupils, and looked around.

  We were in a deep tunnel. There were no insects anywhere. I was out of the shackles, and Yen was standing right beside me, smiling as if she’d done something very clever.

  "Who?’’ I asked. "How?’’

  She pulled back a lock of her long, glossy black hair. "It’s something I do,’’ she said.

  So I was married to a woman who could command insects? This did not seem to be the right time to dispute it, though.

  The tunnel ended in a large iron door, locked with a giant seal.

  From behind us came the sound of pursuers. No doubt they did not like someone escaping their iron web any more than a spider would like its meal walking off. Hell apparently was an ordered place, with documents for everything. They could not just have souls wandering at will through the places of torment. If they could not capture us, the demons would have to pay heavy fines, or perhaps be thrown to the torments themselves.

  "We have exchanged the iron web for a worse place,’’ I said, tearing at my hair. "Now we shall be sent to the Sixth Hell, where the screaming torture of Lord Bian Cheng Wan will punish our escape.’’

  She frowned at me, and I was not sure I would not prefer the screaming torture to her displeasure. "Do not be daft,’’ she said. "The seal is a letter. It is the letter of absolute closing, which bars it against any intrusion. All you have to do is change the letter to be one that opens.’’

  "All I have to do?’’

  "Certainly!’’ she said, and tossed back her head with the grace of a queen. "I heard you were the best calligrapher in the prefecture, able to draw letters as well as the high court calligraphers. Show me.’’

  "But I have no brush,’’ I said. "And no ink.’’

  She reached down to the floor, and with her nails tore flakes of the black ice. It melted in her hand, becoming liquid and black like the best ink. Then she gave me a lock of her hair held in a tuft for a brush.

  I worked fast, remembering my letters. It was hard because my hand was shaking, and I could hear our pursuers coming ever closer. But Yen stood there as though she trusted me to do it, and what else could I do? It was either write the door open or start enjoying the screaming torture.

  "Hurry,’’ she said. "They’re almost upon us.’’

  Without turning, I could sense them there, their large bodies, their heavy muscles. Without turning, I could imagine the confusion of fangs and teeth and everything that the most accomplished painters of a thousand generations had drawn in scrolls and murals of the underworld. My shaking hand finished turning the upturned tail of the letter that meant "closed against all’’ into a downward tail that meant "open to all.’’

  "There,’’ I said, but my quick-witted wife had already reached past me to push the door open and shove me through, yelling, "Run, run, run.’’

  And then her voice stopped, because the place we entered had no air at all. It was like walking inside a red hot furnace with no air in it.

  Around it, all over, people stood and lay, gasping, flopping like fish out of water, until they fell, blue and still, only to be poked by demons that revived them so that they could be suffocated again.

  It was the Eighth Court of Feng Du, ruled by Du Shi Wang. I never saw the gentleman, but I heard his voice vibrating forth through my brain, in this place with no air.

  Intruders. Catch them.

  I did not fancy suffocating any more than I fancied having my heart gouged out. I ran so fast I overtook Yen.

  My chest felt like it would burst from not breathing. In another moment I would fall, flopping, to the ground. We hit a huge door, made of wood, locked with the symbol of the green dragon. Almost fainting—feeling as though my eyes would pop out of their sockets—hearing the clamor of many demons closing in on us down the narrow tunnel, I bowed to the east, "Lord of Spring,’’ I said soundlessly, miming the words with my lips. "Whose color is green and who lives in the East, you are our only hope, and you are a lord of air and life. Grant us air and life; let these miserable supplicants through.’’

  I could not believe it when the door opened.

  Yen could, because she was through it before me, taking big gulps of air. I threw myself through the door, shoving it closed behind me and hoping it would at least delay all those demons. I must have pleased the Lord of the East, because though I could hear the demons pound on the door on the other side, trying to get through, he held it fast against them.

  I was so relieved by this—trembling in tiredness at our flight and in gratitude for our escape—so happy to be breathing air again, I did not notice the smell for the longest time.

  When I did, it was like the smell of ten thousand butcher shops rolled together. There was screaming, too—more screaming than I’d heard when the river overflowed its banks and flooded our village.

  I realized this was the Seventh Court of Feng Du, where evildoers were put through mincing machines, then made whole again only to be ground up once more. Looking up, I could see the place was full of people being shoved feet first into mincers and of blood-splattered demons intent on their work.

  This was the domain of Lord Tain Shan Wang, and as I thought this, Yen pulled at my arm, and I heard the voice of the Lord of Grinding scream, "Intruders! Get them.’’

  Blood-splattered demons abandoned their grinding machines and headed for us, leaving their victims screaming, half ground.

  We were already running, fast, through the dark corridor. Turning a corner, we were faced with a door of polished diamond on whose surface were inscribed the words a perfect poem.

  "What does that mean?’’ I asked Yen. "It will open for a perfect poem. I heard you were the best poet in three prefectures.’’

  "How can I make a poem like this?’’ I asked, gasping and trembling, while the blood-splattered mincing demons closed in on us.

  "Would you prefer to be minced?’’

  From the depths of my mind I pulled all the talent that my father had ever imagined I had, and I shouted with my whole strength:

  "Amidst the flowe
rs a jug of wine

  I pour alone lacking companionship

  So raising the cup I invite the Moon

  Then turn to my shadow which makes three of us

  Because the Moon does not know how to drink

  My shadow merely follows the movement of my body

  The moon has brought the shadow to keep me company

  a while

  The practice of mirth should keep pace with Spring

  I start a song and the moon begins to reel

  I rise and dance and the shadow moves grotesquely

  While I’m still conscious let’s rejoice with one another

  After I’m drunk let each one go his way

  Let us bind ourselves for ever for passionless journeyings

  Let us swear to meet again far in the Milky Way.’’1

  The door sprang open and we ran in. We could hear the screams, and I remembered this was the Sixth Hell, ruled by Lord Bian Cheng Wang, and the domain of the screaming torture. With it ringing in our ears, it was difficult to hear him ordering the demons to seize us, but I was sure he was doing just that. I ran as fast as I could, and I came upon a door that was made of ice. Try as I might, my nails scraped on it, and there was no indication on how to open it.

  I turned to Yen, but she only smiled and reached past my shoulder, to touch the door. The door went from ice to water to vapor in a moment, and she pushed past me, her heavenly soft skin rubbing against my body.

  "How could you do that?’’

  "Does it matter?’’ she asked. "Come, this is the Fifth Hell. It has sixteen departments of heart gouging and boiling oil, but it also has, deep within, the files of life, where every soul’s destiny is recorded.’’

  I thought it mattered. Pieces of our adventure were gathering in my mind and adding up to a very odd picture, but I had no time to think because Yen pulled me through and, with a word, caused the door to reform into ice behind us.

  The blood-splattered demons hit against the ice, and we were now in another corridor and at least no one was saying we should be seized.

  Yen put her tiny, well-shaped finger to her red lips to signify that I should be very quiet, then led me, on tiptoe, down a hallway and past another and yet another, till we got to the lowest level, where a correct functionary looked up from behind the desk.

  For a moment I was afraid he was going to scream that we should be seized. But instead, he asked, "What is your business?’’

  Yen was working with her fingers at her waist unfastening her girdle. I was about to ask her what she was doing, when I understood her plan.

  Any functionary, anywhere, could be bribed, and the jade girdle was worth a king’s ransom, in heaven, hell or earth.

  She held it in front of the keeper of the records, and spoke, softly, "We want to consult the records of souls and the archives of deaths.’’

  The functionary looked perfectly normal, but his eyes were beady and small like a pig’s. He now squinted them at us, then bowed once. "You may consult.’’

  His hand moved so fast to snatch the girdle that it was almost impossible to see. We left him exclaiming over his prize and moved forth to an immense cavern, filled with pigeonholes carved in the stone. Each pigeonhole contained a hundred or more well-rolled scrolls; the cavern extended to seeming infinity.

  "We’ll never find it,’’ I said.

  "Do not be ridiculous,’’ Yen said, and she moved, assured and calm, among the pigeonholes. "They are of course organized by district, county, and prefecture, and by year and month and hour, too.’’

  "But what are you looking for?’’ I asked, bewildered, walking after her in the immense cavern.

  "Your records, of course,’’ she said. "Ah, let’s see, here they are. Year of the pig. . . .’’

  She knelt, pulling at several scrolls. Meanwhile I’d had time to think. There was a legend of a creature that could turn into a multitude of insects, a creature who would command water, a creature who owned a green girdle.

  In a time so long ago that only fragments of the story had been taught in my time, a goddess had fought the god of the granary. He’d invaded her land and she’d tried to convince him to share it. When that failed, she had seduced him, every night. And every morning she had disappeared by turning into a cloud of insects that blocked out the sun and blinded him.

  He’d defeated her by giving her a girdle of vivid green jade, which allowed him to see her even in the darkness. Then he’d shot arrows and killed her. I felt my hair stand on end.

  She was squatting on the floor, her perfect buttocks resting on the back of her perfect heels, reading a scroll as though it were the most fascinating story.

  "Yen,’’ I asked, my voice cracking. "Are you the Goddess of the Salt River?’’

  She looked up and smiled at me, then back at her scroll, "Listen here, Heng. You were not supposed to die at twenty. In fact, you were supposed to live till you were ninety.’’

  "You did not answer,’’ I said.

  She smiled again. "You’d have married a woman named Na and—’’

  "How could it be, though,’’ I said, trying to convince myself I was dreaming. "You said that my parents bought your bones from your parents. That means . . .’’

  "Not my parents. Just my people. Na would have given you five daughters and three sons. And you’d have been a secretary first grade. Oh, I bet your father would have been proud. And you’d—’’

  "I would not have attained a provincial post?’’ I asked, offended.

  "No. Just a local one. And you’d have lived in the village all—’’

  "Unauthorized entry into the most secret records,’’ a voice boomed, reverberating off the walls of the cavern. With that much power and potency, it could only be the voice of Yen Lo Wang, Lord of the Fifth Hell. He had once been the Lord of the First Court of Hell, but he’d been so lenient too many souls were getting into Heaven, and so he’d been sent to the Fifth Hell, where he found joy in gauging hearts and pouring boiling oil onto the guilty souls.

  "Seize them.’’

  The sound of running feet was everywhere, from every recess of the cavern. "Where do we run?’’ I asked Yen.

  "We do not run,’’ she said, and smiled. "Nowhere to run. They’re coming at us from the east, the west, and the north. Our backs are against the wall to the south.’’

  "We’ll be caught,’’ I said. "And after all this we’ll be sent to the Hell of Ice, which is in the Second Court of Feng Du and whose lord is Qu Jiang Wang.’’

  She shook her head. "Not if I can help it. Only remember, when the secretaries reach us, there are perfect jade disks hanging on leather thongs from their necks. I need one of those.’’

  "Why?’’ I asked, confused at my wife, who was a goddess and who spoke in riddles. She’d just given away her jade girdle and now she wanted a jade disk?

  "They are Pi disks,’’ she said. "And through them we can speak to the August Jade Emperor.’’

  "What?’’ I asked. "Why?’’

  "Because there’s been an administrative error only he can correct.’’

  I’d have asked more, but I could now see the secretaries. An army of them, running towards us. There were thousands. Millions. We’d never have time to speak into the Pi disk.

  "When you get the disk,’’ Yen said. "Scream into it that you are Heng, married to the Goddess of the Salt River and that your life was cut before your time.’’

  "You are insane,’’ I said. "We will not have time.’’

  "Just do it,’’ she said, and smiled at me, revealing her perfect, pearly teeth.

  And then the secretaries were upon us, screaming, shouting, reaching.

  Blindly, before they could immobilize me, I grabbed the jade disk of the nearest one—a perfect disk the size of my palm and the color of the purest amber—and pulled on it, desperately.

  I felt the leather thong break at the same time that a cloud of insects covered me.

  I managed to shout into the jade disk
, "My name is Heng. I’m married to the Goddess of the Salt River. My life was cut short. My tomb money stolen. It’s an administrative error.’’

  And then darkness engulfed all.

  Pang, echoed a golden gong from amid the rosy mist that surrounded us. The scent of roses was everywhere and warm breezes caressed my naked body. Yen stood beside me as unruffled as ever, her hair flowing like black silk down her back. In front of us was a perfect lotus flower the size of a village.

  Slowly, slowly, while I stared in confusion, thinking it must be a dream, the petals of the lotus opened to reveal a giant white palace. It was laid out with pleasure gardens. Peacocks strutted in the gardens and called out their sudden screams.

  Without any words, I felt we were being ordered to enter the palace. I think Yen must have felt the same, because we stepped forward, side by side, onto the petal of the flower and through it, into the gardens.

  There was a sound of giggling from my left. I glimpsed, amid flowering rose bushes, several young women playing and throwing petals at each other in a pool of water.

  "Those are the concubines of the Jade Emperor,’’ Yen said, with the faintest tone of disapproval in her voice. "They are not for you to gawk at.’’

  I tore my gaze away with some regret, and instead followed my wife down the garden path to a broad white stone staircase and up it to a salon filled with the most august beings I could imagine.

  There were people and dragons, phoenixes and other fabulous creatures all of them mingling with men and women of such perfect countenance and dress as had never graced any land in the world.

  And in the middle of it all, in splendor, sat the August Emperor of Jade, in a white throne shaped like a lotus flower.

  I immediately fell to my face and started kowtowing. I was somewhat surprised that my wife was doing the same by my side.

  Laughter, like a low rumble shivered through the marble floors. And then a voice said, "Get up, Heng and you too, Yen. You may approach the throne.’’