Doctor Who_ The Eleventh Tiger Part 8

'You'd think they'd make things brighter than these lamps do.'

'I think they normally do. I've seen this kind of lamp before, in films and on television. I think it's to do with a particular festival, though I'm not sure which one.'

'It is yuelaan jit', yuelaan jit', Fei-Hung said. 'The Festival of Hungry Ghosts.' Fei-Hung said. 'The Festival of Hungry Ghosts.'

Vicki had heard of this, but had no idea what it meant or when it happened. 'It doesn't sound terribly cheerful. Is it something like Hallowe'en?'

'I think so,' Barbara answered.

She seemed to want to say more, but fell silent. Vicki supposed she wanted to get into a long lecture to take her mind off Ian's condition, and wished she could help.

'I don't know,' Fei-Hung admitted. 'What is Hallowe'en?'

Then, to Vicki's surprise, he winked at her.

'Hallowe'en is the old Celtic new year,' Barbara began. 'And also when the spirits of the dead were thought to return for one night, to join in the celebratory feast - if they could.'

'Then it is probably similar, except that the spirits that emerge from the h.e.l.ls during yuelaan jit yuelaan jit are more likely to be vengeful, and people try to show respect so that the spirits won't haunt them. So they offer food and money.' are more likely to be vengeful, and people try to show respect so that the spirits won't haunt them. So they offer food and money.'

'Is that what you were doing earlier?' Vicki asked. 'Burning money, I mean.'

'Not real money. h.e.l.l money.'

'h.e.l.l money?'

'Your country and mine have different moneys, different currencies?'

'Yes.'

'So do the lands of the living and those of the dead.'

By now Fei-Hung had led them northwards through the city, pa.s.sing parks and workshops, mansions, paG.o.das and slums. The difference in sights was impressive enough, but each area had sounds and smells of its own as if the s.p.a.ce around the different types of neighbourhood had different properties.

Finally they skirted the edge of a park, making for what Fei-Hung called the Baiyun road. Across the park Vicki could see a tall paG.o.da, brightly lit by oil and gas lamps quite unlike the paper lanterns that had turned the air in the streets to blood. Cannon pointed out from the walls around its grounds, and she could see patrolling men in uniform.

'What's that?' she asked.

Barbara and Fei-Hung stopped to look. 'Those look like British uniforms,' Barbara said slowly.

'They are,' Fei-Hung confirmed, tight-lipped. Their main garrison is on Xamian Island back in the river, but they also use this as a watchtower.'

'It doesn't look like a watchtower.'

'It was a temple five hundred years ago. The British and French took it over a few years ago.'

'During the Opium Wars?' Barbara suggested.

'Yes.' Fei-Hung let out a snort, and turned back on to the path to the Baiyun road. 'Come on. The sooner we reach this box of yours, the sooner your friend will be healed.'

Vicki could have sworn she heard an unspoken 'gone'

instead of 'healed' in Fei-Hung's voice. It was a moment of harshness that she hadn't expected from him.

She remained for a moment longer. The park was at the top of a hill and the city was spread out below, all the way to the Pearl River which curved around to the right, parallel to their path. There were lights on the river as well as on the streets, drifting gently along in the current. Some were on boats like the large junk she could make out silhouetted against the sunset far to the west, but others were clearly floating on the water under the warm sky.

Then there was a strange flickering in her eyes. At first Vicki thought it was something actually inside one of her eyes - a floating cell, perhaps - but she decided otherwise. It was a feint ripple of light, centred on the junk in the west. It spread out, looking like sunlight gently kissing the tops of waves, and continued across the land. It crept across buildings and lightly touched the sky. Then it was gone, as if it had never been.

From the deck of the junk Cheng watched the ferryman bring his boat closer. As far as he was concerned, the man couldn't move the thing fest enough. Moment by moment he was finding it harder to keep control of his bowels. His gut felt as if it were cartwheeling around the Beijing Opera stage. He could hardly breathe, and was forcing his lungs to obey him, when Jiang joined him. Cheng thought his heart was going to burst and kill him on the spot.

'It's you... Don't do that to me.'

Jiang looked thoughtful and relaxed. Cheng didn't like this at all. Anything Jiang liked was usually only good for Jiang, and equally often bad for someone else.

'Who is this abbot? Jiang asked.

Cheng stopped concentrating on his breathing and tried to resist the p.r.i.c.kling that took hold of his skull under the scalp. 'I don't know.'

Jiang's moustache turned up at the ends as he smiled.

'You were terrified when you saw him. There must be a reason for that. You have met him before, haven't you?'

The junk tried to judder round in Cheng's vision, though it never actually moved. 'I saw him once, yes. I don't know who he is. I don't know his name, or where he comes from, or what he wants.'

'What do you know about him?'

Cheng's gut tightened, though he couldn't tell whether this was simply from remembered terror or from fear that Jiang would think he was lying and be offended. 'I used to be a bandit.'

'I know.'

'The last robbery I did, a group of us attacked a caravan and looted it. There was myself, Pang, some others. We took shelter in a cave on a hillside, and there... there these three monks found us. They attacked, we fought. We got away.'

'That doesn't sound like something that would leave my friend Cheng in mortal terror.'

Cheng looked around for a way out and found none. There was an open door on the deck, but even if he went through it Jiang or someone else would ask him about the monks later.

They'd ask again and again until he told them, and if he just ran away the whole issue would resurface at every opportunity. There was no escape.

He went into the junk's galley to pilfer a bottle of rice wine, and brought it back to the deck. Gathering his thoughts, he sat on a thick coil of rope, unstopped the bottle, and drank from it. The wine burnt pleasantly, chasing away the p.r.i.c.kles from under his skin.

'We didn't win that fight,' he admitted. 'These three monks were good enough to join the Tigers, and more. They were the best that Shaolin training has to offer. So they beat us, and they bound us. Then something happened.'

'Something?'

Cheng spread his hands and looked helplessly heavenwards, in search of the right words. 'The cave wasn't just a cave, it was man-made. A great hall, maybe, with jewels and quicksilver for stars in the ceiling. That night, it was yuelaan jit yuelaan jit and the full moon. And the ghosts came.' and the full moon. And the ghosts came.'

'Ghosts?' Jiang echoed, and a couple of men swabbing the deck behind him looked at each other with varying degrees of disbelief.

'I saw lights in the ceiling, flying through the room like reflections on water. Then that abbot changed and his eyes glowed like lanterns.'

'He froze like a corpse waiting for a spell to command it.

That's when we escaped. The ghosts took that abbot and maybe the other monks as well. And I came as far away from that cave as it was possible to get while still being in China.'

Jiang looked back at the doorway to below decks. And now he's here.'

'That's right.'

'Are you going to run away again?'

Cheng let out the kind of laugh that desperately wants to be a tearful wail. It felt like it was slas.h.i.+ng at his stomach as it came out. 'Where else could I go?'

There was a quiet call from below. The ferryman had arrived, and Cheng was only too happy to get off the junk.

Jiang watched him go then went back below decks.

2.

The evening was peaceful and calm, with birdsong fading.

Vicki was quite enjoying the peace of it - the coolness of the air, the quiet, the smell of plants and trees. She had almost managed to dismiss that strange flicker as a figment of her imagination.

She wasn't as emotionally attached to Ian as Barbara was, but she did care about both of them and could feel worry about them within her. She thought if her worry was making her vision falter like that, she wouldn't like to experience whatever Barbara must be going through. She supposed that must be a hundred times worse, or even a thousand. Finally, she decided that maybe she couldn't actually imagine how bad Barbara must be feeling.

Barbara was trying to behave normally, of course, but Vicki could tell the difference.

As the three of them walked under the waxing moon Fei-Hung dropped back into step with Vicki. The venom she had seen in his face when they were looking at the tower had gone, and he now looked at Barbara with reluctant concern.

'Miss...?'

'Everyone calls me Vicki.'

'Vicki... Is Chesterton Miss Wright's husband?'

'No. At least not formally.' She thought about it for a moment. 'Actually, I think maybe they are sort of married, but they just don't know it yet.'

Fei-Hung smiled faintly. 'I think I know what you mean.

Sometimes it is just meant to be.'

'I suppose so.' She looked at him. He was barely older than herself, but there was a wisdom in his eyes that was almost as palpable as the wiry muscles that covered his body.

'You're nothing like I imagined...'

Fei-Hung looked puzzled for a moment, then quickly covered this with an expression Vicki could only think of as being on guard. 'You imagined me? You mean you've heard of me?'

'Oh yes. I've seen -' She caught herself at last. Cars and telephones weren't around yet, so she wasn't sure that moving pictures had been invented either. 'I've read about you.'

'The gwailos gwailos - sorry, no offence - the Europeans know my name? They've been writing reports?' - sorry, no offence - the Europeans know my name? They've been writing reports?'

'Well, not exactly.'

Vicki wondered how the Doctor, Ian and Barbara coped with not being able to talk about things that were common knowledge to a time traveller, but a secret of the future to anyone they met. She doubted she would ever get used to it.

'You said something about there being a festival on now,'

she said, more to make conversation and relieve the boredom of walking than actually to learn anything.

'Yes,' Fei-Hung nodded. He seemed unsure whether he should say any more, but finally continued. 'In the seventh moon of the year the gates of h.e.l.l are opened so that the ghosts of the dead can come and look for food, and take revenge on people who wronged them. So we make offerings, and offer prayers, to dissuade the ghosts from harming us. At the full moon there will be feasts and operas to pacify the ghosts and bring good luck for the harvest season.'

'How did this festival start?' Barbara had joined them. 'I mean, there must be a reason why the ghosts would be let out,' she said.

'You don't believe this stuff, do you?' Vicki murmured, low enough, hopefully, for Fei-Hung not to hear her.

'No,' Barbara whispered back. 'But a culture's folklore is very much a part of its history, and understanding it helps you to understand the history.'

'It's a very old legend.' Fei-Hung answered Barbara, showing no sign of having heard their doubts. 'Long ago, before even the First Emperor, there was a greedy, selfish woman. She never thought of anyone but herself. When the poor begged for her help in the street, she would laugh in their faces and push them away.'

'She sounds perfectly awful.' Vicki said.

She also had a son, but he was virtuous and kind. Exactly the opposite of his mother in every way. He had a great deal of compa.s.sion for everyone, and one day he decided he could best help his fellow people by becoming a monk.

'This rich woman was very angry with him for that, and thought he was a fool. Worse, she saw it as a betrayal as she thought he should be a professional craftsman, who would earn money and give it to her.'