TEN
Wen rushed to catch up with her, not caring whether the grandfathers were with him or not. "I don't think I ever thanked you properly for everything you did for me," he said, breathless. That wasn't what he wanted to say, what he should have said, but he seemed to be frustratingly out of the right sort of words. "I'm sorry," he added. "I don't seem to be doing this very well."
She stopped and smiled at him. "You've said everything that needs to be said," she told him. Brushing his hand with hers—it was deliciously cool, like shaved ice on a hot day—she added, "I haven't found your father yet, so there really isn't anything to thank me for, Xia. And it seems to me we're running out of time."
"How can you tell? I have no sense of time whatever. How long has it been since Chin captured me? At least one night, I think, but after that I've pretty much lost track. What about you?"
She shook her head. "No idea. It's just a sense I'm getting." She looked back a moment, then said, "How much do you know about heaven, Wen?"
"Nothing at all." He looked ahead. "But that sure is pretty. Whose palace is it?" He pointed to a sprawling compound of multi-story buildings whose golden roof-tiles shone and whose gate-posts were topped with jade and cinnabar.
"I'm not sure. But if it's the first palace we see, it's probably a lesser god's. Do we want to stop there?"
"Why not? If I've got us into trouble by coming up here, I'd rather learn about it before we encounter someone like the Queen Mother of the West." Fengzi winced, and Wen remembered—too late, of course—that the Queen Mother of the West presided over the fates of those Daoists who sought immortality. Fengzi had always claimed not to be interested in immortality or even in immortality studies, but whatever it was she had studied she had studied enthusiastically enough that the Queen Mother of the West might not worry about distinctions. "Sorry," he said.
"It's all right. If all goes well we won't meet her. You have the pass and memorandum?"
"Right here." He patted his sleeve.
"I suppose we should wait for your ancestors to catch up with us."
"Do you really think that Number One Grandfather is going to be an asset to any petition we make to a god?" Wen asked.
"Hey!" a cranky voice said from the mist behind them. "Just because I can't see you doesn't mean I can't hear you!"
Smiling, Wen stepped off the bridge.
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