The Iron Khan

The Iron Khan

Copyright 2010 Liz Williams

Published by Morrígan Books,

Östra Promenaden 43, 602 29

Norrköping, Sweden

www.morriganbooks.com

ISBN: 978-1-4524-1684-7

First Published December 2010

Editor: Marty Halpern

Cover Art Copyright 2010 Reece Notley

Interior layout and design: Amanda Pillar

All characters in this publication, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any forms by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information retrieval system, without prior permission, in writing, from the publisher.

This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

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Available at Morrígan Books

By Liz Williams:

Iron Khan

Morningstar (coming soon)

By T.A. Moore

The Even

Shadows Bloom (coming soon)

By Gary McMahon

How to Make Monsters

Edited by Mark S. Deniz & Amanda Pillar:

Voices

The Phantom Queen Awakes

Edited by Mark S. Deniz

Dead Souls:

Edited by Gerard Brennan & Mike Stone:

Requiems for the Departed

Edited by Amanda Pillar & Pete Kempshall

Scenes from the Second Storey

Other Books by Liz Williams:

Snake Agent

The Demon and the City

Precious Dragon

The Shadow Pavilion

Darkland

Bloodmind

Winterstrike

The Ghost Sister

Empire of Bones

The Poison Master

Nine Layers of Sky

Banner of Souls

DEDICATIONS

I would like to thank the following people:

Trevor

My parents

Shawna McCarthy, my agent

Marty Halpern, my very patient editor

All the folks at Morrígan Books

…and finally Nicholas Roerich, for his incredible and inspiring work.

The ghost horde swept out of the east, moving fast across the black sands. Standing on the rise, legs braced and bow drawn, Omi could see a train in the distance, racing over the desert toward Urumchi. The horde was moving faster than that, quite silent, though in life, Omi reflected, the hooves would have sounded like thunder on the stones. They were heading straight for him. His fingers tightened on the bow and he spoke, also silently, to the Buddha, thinking of those images which still swam out of the shadows of the caves so many miles to the east. The memory gave him courage.

The horde was close enough now for him to see their faces. Not at all Chinese, though he knew that some with local blood had ridden under the Khan. Flat-faced men, black eyes below their topknots, which streamed like horse-tails from the back of their helmets. In the front of the horde rode the Khan, in armor the color of night: a man with a thin face, a narrow beard, all angles. He was riding hard up the slope and Omi drew back the arrow, thinking: Not yet, not yet — now! He fired. The arrow sang through the air but the Khan was coming, expressionless, as though he could not see the archer, but Omi knew he had come for this and he leaped forward, springing down the stones of the slope as the arrow sang on.

At the last moment the Khan’s pony swerved. The arrow sailed by, nicking the Khan’s face. A single drop of dark blood flew out and Omi had the cup ready: he caught it. It sizzled into the metal cup and Omi snapped shut the lid. But the Khan had turned in the saddle with a bow of his own and as Omi met his blank night eyes the Khan, in turn, loosed an arrow.

“Now!” Omi cried. “Make it now!” — and the desert was ripped away from under his boots into the shadows of a cave and a pair of huge, calm eyes, looking down at him.

“Missing?” Chen said, into the phone. Behind him, Miss Qi sat with neatly crossed legs, exuding a delicate perfume of cherry blossom. She sat up a little straighter at the tone of Chen’s voice. “When did you last see it?”

On the other end of the receiver, a very long way away, Mhara the Emperor of Heaven answered, “A week ago. We had its annual honoring ceremony to celebrate the time of its writing, if one can say that. The Book wasn’t so much written, as wrote itself.”

“You’ll have to forgive me,” Chen said. “I don’t know anything about all this.”

“It’s kept as secret as possible,” Mhara explained. “Not even all the denizens of Heaven know that it’s a real text. You’ll meet people who think it’s no more than a creation myth.”

Chen caught Miss Qi’s glance and, ever tactful, the Celestial warrior rose and glided from the room, closing the door behind her. “From what you’ve told me,” Chen said, “This isn’t so much a creation myth as a creation manual.”

“Exactly. The words it contains are the blueprint for Heaven. If they’re tampered with — deconstructed — then Heaven itself could begin to unravel. Of course,” Mhara added thoughtfully, “there are those who might say that this is no bad thing.”

After the loss of both of Mhara’s parents — an Emperor gone mad and an Empress turned wicked — Chen couldn’t blame him for those sentiments. “Things are stable now,” he reassured Mhara, “now that you’ve been crowned.”

“Ruling has become somewhat more achievable than it initially appeared,” the current Emperor agreed. “At least, so I thought until yesterday. Then the curator appeared in a flat panic and told me that the Book was gone.”

“And it’s definitely been stolen? Could it have — I don’t know — taken itself off? Does it have a will of its own?”

There was a short pause on the other end of the line. “I don’t really know,” Mhara said slowly. “I’ve never heard anyone mention it. But often these magical artifacts have some degree of consciousness. What a depressing thought, that things might have become so lousy in its own creation that it’s removed itself.”

“Is there any way we can find out?” Chen asked.

Mhara sighed. “That’s why I called you. Sorry, Chen. I know you’ve got a lot on your plate at the moment…”

Chen smiled. This was characteristic of Mhara: to be concerned, but also omniscient. In this instance, however, the Emperor of Heaven was simply being courteous. “I have got a lot to do. But it’s all good stuff, as well you know.”

He could almost feel the Emperor’s smile. “Robin has spoken to Inari, I know. She told her that things are going well with the pregnancy.”

“Yes, it’s been four months now,” Chen mused. He still couldn’t quite believe it. He’d always wanted a child, of course, but never thought it would actually happen. Humans and demons could breed, but it wasn’t always an easy process. And this child…well, they were all special, weren’t they? But it seemed that this child might be more special than most. Not a comfortable thought.

“Inari has hopes,” he confided, “that this might bring herself and her family back together. Children often do reconcile warring relations.”

“And what do you think?” Mhara was being very patient with him, as usual. A theft that could threaten the very foundations of the Celestial Realm and here was Chen waffling on about his family.

“To be honest, I doubt it. I’ve seen rather too much of Hell’s attitude toward family life.”

“How is Zhu Irzh?”

“Actually, he’s fine as far as I know. Jhai had business in the Far West, so she’s out there now. Zhu Irzh chose to cash in some vacation time and go with her. Spoke to him last night. Says there are some nice restaurants. But you didn’t call me to talk about all this, Mhara.”

The Emperor of Heaven sighed. “I wish I had. Everyday life is so relaxing. It would be nice to have more of it.”

“About this book,” Chen said. “I’ll do my best, you know that. I’ve got a fairly light caseload at the moment. For a change.”

“In that case,” Mhara said, “could you come to Heaven for a day or so? To look at the scene of the crime?”

“I’ll be glad to,” Chen said.

•

Later, the trip arranged, he walked with Miss Qi alongside the harbor wall. Out in the bay, the boats bobbed beyond the barriers of the typhoon shelter; it was autumn now, the air mercifully cooler after the summer’s steaming heat, with a salt breeze stirring up from the ocean. In a week or so, Chen knew, that breeze would grow stronger, heralding the storms that lashed at the south China coast. His son or daughter would be a winter child: it was not, Chen considered, all that surprising.

“Jhai didn’t ask you to go west with her?” he asked Miss Qi now.

“I’m on standby,” the Celestial warrior said. “I know I was hired as her bodyguard, but she said she just wanted to get away from it all for a bit.”

Trust Jhai to think that the Gobi Desert was the ideal place to “get away from it.” But she was probably right.

“Well, Inari appreciates you being around,” Chen said. His wife had suggested they ask Miss Qi to dinner that night and Chen had agreed. Their social circle had expanded since the worlds began opening up: a handful of years ago, Chen wouldn’t have been able to mention his otherworldly pursuits without people coughing nervously and heading in the opposite direction. Or phoning a psychiatrist. Just look at Sergeant Ma, whose view of the supernatural had started out as raw fear and now was close to resembling a healthy interest, or an unhealthy one, depending on how you looked at it. These days, they often entertained all manner of people and Chen had to admit that his wife had blossomed because of it, unless that was simply a product of the pregnancy. He hated to think how lonely she must have been in the earlier days of their marriage: separated from her admittedly vile relatives, torn from the only home she’d ever known, and living incognito in a city in which half the inhabitants couldn’t see her and the other half were likely to summon an exorcist as soon as she came into view. Sure, Inari had the badger to look after her, but the badger had his limits.