"All hail Yanluo Wang, General of the Five Ways, Judge of the Fifth Hell!" The clerk's voice sounded like that of a carrion-bird, and Wen found himself stuffing fingers into his ears.
"Let go of my fingers, please," said Fengzi.
"Sorry," said Wen. "That clerk has a truly horrible voice, that's all."
"His voice is no worse than his face." Fengzi nudged him. "This is the part where we bow, remember?" Wen quickly pressed his forehead to the floor, hoping nobody had noticed the delay.
"I forgot to ask you earlier," Wen said to her. "Does One-Eyed Lum have any way of communicating back to you when you send him a message?"
"We had worked out something before," Fengzi said. "It doesn't work now that I'm dead, though."
"Oh, gods." Wen prayed to Guanyin to ensure that Wu Ming was taking good care of her body. "So we'll know he got the message —"
"When the bribe arrives," said Fengzi. "If it does."
"Who has business before this court?" shouted the clerk, as the judge climbed the dais and took his seat.
I don't anymore, thought Wen. I've changed my mind. I'll just be leaving now, sorry for the intrusion.
The General of the Five Ways was, his grandfathers had assured him, the perfect answer to his question about a judge whom the judge of the first hell knew and didn't like. Yanluo Wang had at one time been the judge of the first hell, and in fact he was still considered the Yama King of Hell by many people. But the emperor of heaven had, Number One Grandfather said, decided that Yanluo Wang was being too lenient on the souls brought before him, and so King Yama was now stationed mid-way through the standard course of ten hells.
Where he continued to be, despite his demotion, the most feared judge in all the hells, Buddhist, Daoist and even barbarian.
If this was what a judge looked like after being demoted, Wen hoped with a burning sincerity that he never had to meet anybody higher up on the pay-scale. After a few moments in which fear and disgust took turns at his insides, Wen decided that the most frightening thing about Yenluo Wang was the fact that he looked very nearly human. Granted, at a guess, the judge stood about ten feet tall, and his body—especially his face—was the color of bricks, or possibly even cinnabar; even so, he was recognizably human.
Angry human. Very angry, by the expression that sat, unmoving on his face. And it didn't repay to look too closely at that angry face, either, because the unruly tendrils of hair that crawled—and that was the only applicable word—from under his cap were disgustingly reminiscent of the snake-demon Wen had killed in the dragon's palace. Worse, there were eight of those crawling tendrils. And, like horrible children, they seemed incapable of keeping still. Wen was sure that each tendril seemed to end in some instrument of torture. Li would be envious, Wen thought: were he set up like this fellow he could be judge and executioner at the same time. Much more efficient, no doubt. And presumably there was a loophole in the imperial legislation Li could discover that would allow him to serve in both capacities—and take over the imperial throne, too.
"The Court of the Fifth Hell summons Wen Xia!" The clerk was looking directly at him, which would make it rather difficult to argue that he hadn't heard.
"Do I look reasonably presentable?" Wen got to his feet, brushing his spectral tunic; Fengzi had magically clothed him as a mid-level bureaucrat in a division of the bureaucracy she had assured him was unaffiliated with any particular hell or judge. As he rose, Fengzi squeezed his hand. The touch was brief, but electric. For a moment Wen forgot what he had planned to say.
"My apologies, Learned One," he said, bowing to the judge. The judge rumbled, a bit like a volcano contemplating eruption. "It was not my intent nor my desire to intrude on the peaceful function"—there was a good joke—"of your court. However, circumstances beyond my control have made my presence here necessary, and with it a disruption of your routine for which I apologize."
"What circumstances are you speaking of? If you're not confessing to something or here to be sentenced, why are you bothering me? I have very important duties to attend to"—here he beamed with something Wen had to guess was a form of pride—"in that this court has been awarded the privilege of developing a range of suitable punishments for the prince of Lu, last pretender of the Ming dynasty."
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