In response, Chendana sprang away at an even greater pace. I could barely hold on to the pommel of the saddle and would surely have fallen if Er Lang had not gripped me from behind.
“Cut the ropes!” he hissed.
“You’ll fall off!”
“I won’t!”
Indeed, he seemed much stronger than before and I was amazed at his stamina. Now the mountains were racing to meet us. With every moment that passed they loomed larger. I could clearly pick out Fan’s tiny figure, like a paper doll at the entrance to the tunnel. She turned as if to go in, but hesitated. I was terrified that she would leave without me. Twisting round, I glanced again at the birds, expecting them to be almost upon us, but to my surprise they had halted. They wheeled around, swooping and diving in confusion.
“The meat,” said Er Lang. “It was a good idea.”
I opened my mouth to say that it was my mother’s foresight, not mine, when I remembered the last saddlebag that I had kept. Leaning over, I pulled the cord open with my teeth, scattering the stiff gobbets of flesh as we rode. I hoped this would delay them enough for us to reach the tunnel, but when I looked back, only a few stragglers remained behind. The main body of the flock was flying rapidly now, streaming toward us with every flick of those unnatural wings. I could not imagine their speed, for they must be many times faster than Chendana to gain on us like this.
“Let me loose!” Er Lang was struggling again, and his attempts to free himself from the ropes that bound us together threatened to plunge both of us from the horse. I tugged the scale he had given me out of my pocket, then paused.
“Why?” I screamed.
“Just do it!” He grabbed my hand and with a swift movement, sliced away the ropes.
“What are you doing?” I cried, but in an instant he was free. I thought he said something, but I barely heard it because the birds broke upon us like a storm.
With piercing, mewling cries, they fell on us like starving creatures. There was nothing but leathery wings, staring eyes, and sharply serrated beaks. They were like no birds I had ever seen before, with scythe-like claws. The sky was blotted out. I couldn’t even cry out with the fierceness of their onslaught. A talon raked across my face as I cowered behind Er Lang, clinging to his body instinctively as a barrier against them. Then he was changing, his form writhing and contorting even within my astonished grasp. I couldn’t hold him anymore. Smooth scales slid beyond my hands, his body too large to be encompassed. I caught glimpses of a pearl-like sheen, a thousand slippery plates sliding past one another in an endless loop, then an enormous head, the eyes shining like lamps and the teeth gleaming in a whiskered jaw. He rose up into the sky, shaking and snapping at the flock, curling back on his snakelike length and slashing with his claws. A great dragon, a loong, lord of the water and air. I watched in bewilderment as Chendana carried me away at a frantic gallop, staring up at the battle that now raged high above me.
The birds mobbed him, diving and tearing rapaciously. At first I thought he had the advantage, for several fell, broken-winged and crippled, but there were so many more of them. I could hardly see him for the black shapes that ravaged him, ripping mercilessly until gouts of dark blood stained the pearl white sides. I cried out in horror, but even as I did so the struggle moved ever farther from my sight, so that I could hardly make out the details anymore. I realized then that even as I rode toward the cliffs, he must have been flying in the opposite direction. “Stop!” I screamed, but for once my little horse ignored me, bearing me swiftly out of danger. They were now so far I could barely spy them, a smudged cloud on the horizon. Suddenly, the mass of wings dropped from the sky. It was no longer a battle. It was carnage. I covered my face and wept.
We reached the mouth of the cavern without further incident. My face was covered in blood and tears, my clothing torn and shredded. The gash over my forehead had bled copiously and I had done little to stanch the flow. More than once I had tried to turn back, but it was to no avail. Chendana would not heed me; I wondered whether it was a natural instinct to preserve her mistress, or whether Er Lang had said something to her so that his sacrifice wouldn’t be in vain. I would never know.
When I dismounted, Fan was standing there waiting for me. She was one of the last people I wished to see, but there was no hope for it. Staring at my bedraggled appearance, she said, “You lied to me.”
I barely had the heart to nod at her.
“You said you were from heaven.”
“I never said that. You just assumed it.”
She sighed. “I thought you wouldn’t make it. Come, we must hurry.”
Once inside the tunnel, the familiar gloom descended upon us. Soon, I could see less and less, relying on my hand entwined in Chendana’s mane to keep me from stumbling.
“So,” said Fan conversationally, after we had walked some time in the darkness. “You’re just a ghost like me after all.”
I felt a great weariness, but she went on. “That man told me. He appeared out of the air, just as I had reached the cliffs. I was so surprised! He asked me if I was the one who had brought a human to the Plains of the Dead, and he told me to wait for you.”
“That’s right,” I said at last. I had no wish to talk to her, but she kept pestering me with questions. It was easier to give her desultory answers while my mind, in shock, was still fixed upon Er Lang. Had he survived? It seemed impossible.
“So all this about a mission was also untrue?” she asked.
“No, I was helping him, in return for my body.”
“Your body?” She seemed much interested in the fact that I still had a living body in Malacca. “What a waste!” she said. “How could you abandon it? If I were you I would have stuck close by.”
“If I had, perhaps he wouldn’t have died.”
“Who was he, after all? I couldn’t really see what happened, only that the birds stopped chasing you and started flying the other way.”
Surprised, I realized that with the whitening sky and the great distance, Fan might not have been able to see Er Lang’s pearl bright form against the horizon.
“He was a minor government official,” I said.
The rest of the journey through the tunnel, shut in on all sides by enclosed rock, passed in a numbed daze for me. Fan kept chattering, but I had little stomach to answer her. The air grew close and suffocating. The silence pressed on me like a stone.
“Well, I had a wonderful time in the Plains of the Dead,” she said at length. “It was so nice to go back to my house. I changed my clothes and everything. Do you want to see what I bought with the money you gave me?”
I heard the swish of cloth, but by this time the darkness was complete to me. On the way in, we had had the faraway glow from the mouth of the tunnel to guide us, but going in the opposite direction there was no relief from the shadows.
“Oh, I forgot. You can’t see anything here, can you? It must be because you’re only half dead. That also explains why you looked so different to me.” Fan continued to prattle on about her visit, her glowing account completely different from the glum and dismissive behavior she had displayed before. “Really, I don’t know why I don’t visit more often. It’s such a pleasant place. I can’t wait until my lover and I can build our own mansion there.”
It’s because you were afraid of the authorities, I thought, but didn’t voice it.
“And socially—well! It was far better than my last visit. I met a number of high-ranking people
who were very kind to me.” Fan’s light voice tinkled off the walls. At length she turned solicitously to me. “We’re almost there. Do you need to rest?”
“So soon?” I asked. In my mind, the outward journey had taken a far longer time, but maybe that was the way with all unknown ventures.
“Yes,” she said. “What will you do when you get back to Malacca?”
I hung my head. With Er Lang gone, I had no idea of what to do. If he were, indeed, dead. Even now, I wanted to turn back to search for his body, though it was madness. What if he was lying wounded somewhere in the grass? The thought distressed me so much that I could hardly breathe. But Fan was repeating her query.
“Go home, I suppose,” I said, wishing she would stop asking me questions. I could barely even think of what to do if my house was still under guard.
“Oh, me too! I can’t wait to see my lover again.”
My own thoughts turned to Tian Bai. Perhaps I should find him as well, question him in his dreams and find out the truth behind Lim Tian Ching’s accusations. But I didn’t have the heart to think about it right now, overwhelmed as I was.
I was roused by Fan. “Here we are,” she said.
I could see nothing at all, but I was conscious of her movements in front of me. There was a sudden rush of fresh air, as though the pressure had changed, and the faint gleam of stars in a night sky. I stepped forward, then stopped for a moment.
“Are you sure this is right?”
My words died in my mouth as I turned. Behind me I saw a door vanishing slowly, its edges fading into darkness. I caught a glimpse of Fan’s pale face, illumined once again with the hazy green corpse glow she had lost in the Plains of the Dead. She was smiling, a faint, wicked smirk that winked out abruptly as the door closed. I stared around frantically. I was lost.
Part Four
Malacca
Chapter 31
It was dark outside, far darker than I would have expected in the immediate environs of Malacca. Shadowy trees loomed overhead and the stars were brilliant through the punctuated jungle canopy. In the Plains of the Dead, there had been no scent in that dry world, but here the air was green and intensely alive. I drank it in tremendous draughts, even as I felt like crying. Fan had betrayed me. This was nowhere near my home.
She had spoken of different doors in that passageway to the world of the dead, and had been surprised when I admitted that I couldn’t see them. Any door might lead to a different place. What if this were somewhere far away, such as Johore, or even Kelantan on the east coast? Or an island across the Straits such as Bali or Kalimantan? There was no one to save me now. Er Lang was gone, Tian Bai a possible murderer, my mother a servant in the Plains of the Dead. I ran my fingers through Chendana’s mane, thankful that she, at least, was still with me. It was true I could be anywhere, but I had the feeling that I wasn’t too far from Malacca.
The smell of the vegetation and the faint tang of the sea were familiar. And I doubted Fan’s capacity to thoroughly lose me. Fan was lazy; she would probably shove me out of a door fairly close to the one that we had entered from. Besides, she herself had admitted that she’d explored almost none of these alternate exits, fearing her incapacity as a ghost to find her way home. I wasn’t like her, I told myself. I was only half dead, though the thought made me grimace. It didn’t seem like something to be proud of. One of the few advantages of the Plains of the Dead was that I had been corporeal again there. But now as I gazed down at my feet and the dead leaves that were faintly visible through them, I was gripped by fear that my form was even more tenuous than it had been before. Er Lang had warned me about the long separation from my body. How many days, even weeks, had it been since I had left the world of the living? I felt so agitated that I almost started off into the jungle, wishing only to find some familiar landmark, but I stopped myself. It was dark and I was at the end of my strength. My eyes were swollen from crying. In the morning I might be able to take better bearings.
When I woke, the sun was shining. There had been no sun in the Plains of the Dead, but now shafts of warm light caught the tops of the jungle giants though their feet were still shrouded in gloom. I had never been so glad to be back, yet so downhearted as I surveyed the thick tropical undergrowth. It reminded me of how close I was to never returning to this world again. My path was as narrow as the blade of a knife. One false step, and I would be permanently severed from my body. I looked around to see if I could discern any sign of the door through which I had passed last night, but there was nothing. With each passing moment, I felt a pressing urge to return to Malacca. To find out if my body was still preserved. To see Amah, and my father. And Tian Bai. I was sure, perhaps naively so, that if I confronted him I would be able to tell if he was a liar. Or a murderer. I wondered too whether Fan’s betrayal was purely spite or if someone put her up to it. Or if Lim Tian Ching and his demons were even now searching for me. But overshadowing these anxieties was the loss of Er Lang.
The chances of his survival were bleak. With a shudder, I recalled how he had joked about being devoured in the Plains of the Dead. I did not know what that meant, only that it had a dreadful finality. Since losing my own body, Er Lang had been the only one with whom I could speak freely about my fears and concerns. But I had never thanked him properly for coming to my aid, even when he could have saved himself and left without me. I missed his odd companionship desperately; it seemed impossible that I would never see him again. My chest constricted as I recalled how pleased he had been when I gave him the letter. And now that evidence too was destroyed.
I had often heard tales of loong during my childhood: great lords who controlled the rain and the seas. Sometimes they appeared as magnificent beasts, other times as kingly men or beautiful women. Occasionally, they took human wives or lovers; the emperor of China himself claimed descent from dragons and embroidered them on his robes. Five claws for royal garments, three for common folk. Recalling the tale of the scholar who visited the wonders of the Dragon King’s palace underneath the sea, I could certainly understand now why Er Lang had felt entitled to patronize me. To see a dragon was considered lucky, but what if one were complicit in the death of one? The thought plunged me into greater depression.
Taking the scale out of my pocket, I examined it carefully. To my dismay, the color was flat and the shining luster dulled. I fought back the unhappy suspicion that the life had gone out of it and blew tentatively on the fluted edge. The sound was faint and choked. After a while, I put it away and buried my face in my hands.
With Er Lang gone, whom could I go to with my tale of rebellion and conspiracy in hell? And who would intervene in Lim Tian Ching’s schemes to marry me? My hopes of regaining my body seemed doomed. I leaned back against the rough bark of a tree. The jungle around was thick and filled with the sound of insects. I heard a grunting sound as a wild pig ran through a clearing and, later, the curious coughing bark of a tiger. But there were no people or spirits. This door might once have opened onto an ancient settlement, though long ago, the last hungry ghost in this vicinity must have withered and vanished away. It was no use staying here, but the trees were so close that I had no sense of my surroundings beyond thirty feet. Gazing up at the forest canopy, I was struck by the idea of climbing to get my bearings.
It was far easier than I imagined. My light body needed scarcely any effort to pull up. Again, I tried to suppress the terrible suspicion that I had lost substance. Gritting my teeth, I set my gaze higher. When I br
oke through at last, I was dazzled by the brilliant sunlight. All around was an unbroken sea of green, an undulating ocean of thousands of leaves. The sky was a pure cerulean, as blue as the finest Ming porcelain. Butterflies the size of my hand fluttered slowly past, their wings glittering. In the bright sunshine and wind, I couldn’t help heaving a sigh of relief.
From my perch I could see the distant sparkle of the sea and the curve of a bay. I could even, with my preternatural eyesight, spy the smudge of low red rooftops. I was right, Fan had discarded me just a few doors down from the correct exit. For most ghosts, a journey of this length would be impossible given their frail natures and difficulties walking straight. But I wasn’t a ghost yet, and I still had my horse.
Though I rode as fast as I could, Chendana still had to pick her way between trees and over rocks as it was exhausting to pass through solid objects. I suspected that every time I did so, I lost more substance. To make matters worse, I frequently lost my way among the massive trunks and was forced to climb again to get my bearings. From time to time, I blew on Er Lang’s scale. There was never any response, but I continued in the vain hope that it could call him back. The hours dragged on till nightfall while the distance to the sea decreased in agonizingly slow increments. Naively, I’d thought I might get there by the next day at least, or even the day after—but to my dismay it took me almost a week to reach the outskirts of the port.
We approached Malacca from the north, coming up along the bay. Once we were clear of the trees, Chendana cantered freely and the miles of sand were eaten up under her hooves. We passed fishermen’s settlements with wooden stilt houses standing over the water, boats drawn up on the beach. Fish smoked over fires, and naked children played in the shallows. I passed them in a blur, unseen and unnoticed. Even the hungry ghosts stayed out of my way. The urge to return home was reeling me in like a fish on a line. I felt frantic with anxiety, for something strange was happening to me.