the eruption is different this time. The previous ones happened while I was on the rooftop with Wukong, but this one I can feel through the soles of my feet. And through the tattoo on my right heel, I can feel the paroxysm of pain that the elemental is experiencing, the profound drain that’s occurring due to this portal opening and closing repeatedly. The land near here will die, like the land in Arizona around the portal Aenghus Óg made. That was high chaparral desert, and this is subtropical forest. Obviously not a worry for the Yama Kings, who’d like to do far worse, but it’s the sort of thing that ignites my ire, and I have no qualms about judging the situation. This should not be allowed.
I try to communicate with the elemental Taiwan, whose voice already sounds tired. //Query: Who opens the portal?//
//Local deities// she says.
Taiwan must mean the Yama Kings. //Query: Can I stop them?//
//No / Portal opened from other side//
It would have to be voluntarily closed by the one who opened it or, as with the others, by the actual defeat of the Yama King in question. It occurs to me that perhaps I should rephrase the question. //Query: Can I prevent next one from opening?//
//Yes / Slay deity first//
In other words, if I want to end this, I need to skip this fight, go to the next hell, and kill the Yama King there on his own turf.
“Wukong: Which Yama King is this?”
“The sixth. King Biancheng. The fifth is staying out of this mess.” The demons and the damned begin to land on the slopes, and Wukong’s clones engage some of them. More stream in our direction.
“So who’s the seventh?”
“He is called King Taishan.”
“What’s he look like?”
“Why do you ask?”
“If I take him out ahead of time, can we end this early? Will the other Yama Kings keep coming if they know King Taishan never even made it here?”
“You mean go to the seventh court and kill him there?”
“Yes.”
“That’s—”
“Please don’t say it’s dangerous. So is being on this mountain right now. Just tell me if killing him will stop the others.”
“I think it might. Why would the others risk such a preemptive defeat? And I was going to say that’s unexpected. Are you perhaps looking at things differently?”
“No, I think I’m still in the same frame of mind. I just want to protect Gaia. What’s King Taishan look like?”
“He wears a judge’s cap, like all the Yama Kings. His robes are blue because of the cold hell he watches over, Utpala, which turns the skin of all the damned blue. But he also rules a fiery hell called Tapana.”
“All right. Let me see if this is even possible.” The damned reached us and I had to separate headspaces to continue the conversation, but this time I battled in Whitman’s English headspace so that I would have the Latin one to speak to the elemental.
//Query: Where is tether to seventh hell of Diyu?//
//No Druidic tether exists / Must be escorted by deity of pantheon//
Balls. I hadn’t tried out my Polish headspace yet because it wasn’t technically complete. I still had some poems to absorb and some fluency to achieve in Polish, but perhaps I could use it well enough to fight the damned. These from the sixth court of Biancheng had different wounds and marks on them than the ones from the fourth; they had been pierced and sliced with steel and some of them still had spikes poking out of their flesh, but Scáthmhaide caved their heads in just as easily.
No time like the present to see if I could juggle three headspaces. I would need to if I ever wanted to shift planes with more than just Orlaith.
I switched my battle to the Polish headspace and gave it some time and some lines from Szymborska’s “Soliloquy for Cassandra” to make sure it was established. A fitting poem, since Cassandra kept telling people something terrible was about to happen and was never believed:
To ja, Kasandra.
A to jest moje miasto pod popiołem.
A to jest moja laska i wstążki prorockie.
A to jest moja głowa pełna wątpliwości.
I kept that going in my head while I fought, then flipped on the English for conversation. “Wukong. The elemental says I need a deity from your pantheon to escort me to hell and back. There are no Druidic tethers to that plane.”
He did not answer right away, and for a time it was just the sounds of battle, crunches and screams and grunts. But eventually he said, “There is one who can do this. He will be here soon.”
“Who?”
“The immortal warrior, Erlang Shen. Do you know him?”
“I know of him, sure! Wasn’t he the one from the stories that subdued you so long ago?”
The Monkey King laughs even as his iron rod destroys the damned and sends them back to Mahāraurava, one of the hells over which King Biancheng presides. “Yes, I remember well. He is the one who defeated me in battle in the days I was rebellious against heaven. But now we are on the same side. His arrival was already planned to come at the emergence of King Biancheng.”
And when the warrior does come, some minutes later, he is a riot of colors and a pageant of death. His hound accompanies him—very similar to a wolfhound, in fact, but far more used to battle than Orlaith is or will ever be if I have anything to say about it. Together they cut a swath through the hordes of the damned as they move to join us at the base of Seven Star Mountain.
The Monkey King is glorious and impressive, to be sure, but as Erlang Shen descends from the heavens, I think he could practically slay people with how badass he looks, a mixture of flowing red and white silks and hardened-leather armor inlaid with gold and accents of jade. Steel armor is not necessary for him, since even without a stitch on he is practically impervious to weapons. His chosen weapon is sort of like a spear, except the head is three-tipped and double-bladed. Rumor has it that the weapon functions much like Fragarach and can cut or punch through armor as if it were cotton. It certainly seems to have no trouble slicing through the damned as if they were cucumbers instead of flesh and bone.
And once he lands and introductions are made and the plan is revealed to him, I am brought forcefully to the question once again: Why am I here? Because Erlang Shen and the Monkey King can obviously take care of this on their own. Both are more skilled and powerful than I and would easily be able to defeat King Taishan without my help. I am not even needed for them to shift planes—it’s in fact they who must shift me to the seventh court! So for what purpose have I been sent here by Brighid? I worry about her motivation more than these Buddhist deities, because the First among the Fae didn’t get that title granted to her. She earned it by being stronger and smarter than everyone else. And it has to be something significant, doesn’t it, if she’s gotten the Monkey King to agree to her scheme? It can’t be simply to help Taipei by battling these poor souls. I mean, I’m sure she’d want me to minimize the damage here as much as possible, but if that were all, there would be no need to have Flidais bring me here with code phrases and magic apples and have Sun Wukong lay down mystic riddles on my brow. She could have simply said to minimize the damage and I would have done it.
It’s an uncomfortable feeling, knowing that gods are playing a game with you as a prominent piece but you’re not able to see the board or even know the rules.
And then the puzzle turns and clicks into place for me like a Rubik’s Cube—or at least a part of it does. I have not been viewing events from the proper perspective. I’ve been a Sunday-afternoon sports spectator, looking at all the action from my couch and involved in what I’m watching, unaware that people can watch me in turn from the kitchen or hallway or even outside and laugh because I am so engrossed by minor happenings in my narrow vision and cannot see the bigger picture.
This is not about Taiwan. I’ve certainly not been sent to save it, because it’s in perfectly capable hands. This is about whether I can step outside my own exquisite narcissism and serve a greater cause. This is about my field of vision. About my judgment. About how someone obviously felt I wasn’t able to judge for myself where my talents would best serve Gaia, so I was sent here to be safe—oh, my. That’s it!
I’ve been packed off on a milk run, faced with just enough danger to make me feel like it was something real. No wonder Flidais didn’t feel like there was any hurry to tell me about this caper; she knew she was essentially escorting me to the kiddie pool to splash around in shallow waters. And she knew that’s what she would be doing in Japan too. The Shinto deities would need us no more than the Taoist or Buddhist ones. The question becomes, why would Brighid do this to us?