The Burning Man

6

Shavi felt as if he was flying through a brilliant blue sky. Hanging on to the Jade Emperor’s sleeve, they hurtled through hall and tunnel and cavern in immeasurable number, all of them lit by the brilliant glow of the Blue Fire.

Eventually they came to a halt in a cavern that Shavi guessed was the one Church had accessed in Vietnam in the sixties. He centred himself, trying not to consider what lay ahead.

‘Where does the Blue Fire come from?’ he said.

‘The source of everything under Existence.’

Something in the face his mind had chosen for the Jade Emperor reminded him of his grandfather. ‘And you and your kind stand with Existence?’

‘We stand for balance. The yin and the yang in eternal harmony. One cannot exist without the other: day needs night; love needs hate; peace needs war. Each defines the other.’

‘But the Void has been in control of the world for so long-’

‘In your terms.’

‘For the sake of balance, Existence should get its turn.’

A ghost of a smile. ‘Yes.’

Shavi imagined for a moment. ‘A golden age. Mankind in harmony with nature, not driven by the urge for money and power.’

‘A golden age indeed,’ Yu Huang repeated.

‘Then I am ready,’ Shavi said. ‘If my sacrifice could help bring that about, it is worth it.’

‘Why did you choose to put yourself before the one I had chosen, and the one who sought to take her place?’

‘They are my friends.’ It didn’t feel like enough of an explanation, so he added, ‘They love each other. They deserve a chance to be together.’

‘More than you?’

‘Yes.’

‘Do you fear death?’

Shavi smiled. ‘I do not welcome it. There is much more I feel I need to do before I leave this life. But no, I do not fear it. I believe it is not an ending in itself, rather that it leads on to something great and mysterious.’

Yu Huang nodded. ‘A wise answer. Your Brother spoke of his desire for Fragile Creatures to be considered equal to gods. He gives voice to a timeless prophecy of an age when the chi of Fragile Creatures will rise and advance. And in that time the age of gods will pass. This may well be that time.’

He approached a place in the cavern wall that was seared black, and for a second he appeared to be made of nothing more than blue light. ‘Tell me, little Brother of Dragons, if you could keep only five memories, which would you choose?’

The question felt like a request for a valediction. Shavi closed his eyes and thought. ‘My father and mother, hugging me on my tenth birthday. Before my father realised I was not going to walk his road and his heart hardened towards me.’

Shavi opened his eyes and was surprised to see that the thin pool of Blue Fire had licked up into a column three feet above the ground. Yu Huang watched it intently.

Closing his eyes again, Shavi searched his memories. If he was going to die, it would be good to do so with his best thoughts in his head. Was it an act of compassion from Yu Huang?

‘A kiss in the dark on Clapham Common.’ He saw Lee’s face, sweet and mysterious, and accepted how much he had loved him. ‘Lying on the Downs, looking over Stonehenge as the sun came up, listening to music on my iPod and feeling a part of something wonderful.’ His emotions surged and he thought he might cry. ‘Holding my grandmother’s hand while she died, and seeing her smile one last time, hearing her tell me everything would be all right.’

He took a deep breath, lost in the vast Otherworld inside his head, Yu Huang, the cavern, his impending death all forgotten.

‘The final one … sitting around a campfire at night, with Church, Laura, Ruth, Ryan, all of us laughing, and realising in such a powerful way that it shook me to the core that these were the best friends I could ever want. That they had enriched my existence just by being there, that they had changed my life, like the philosopher’s stone changed lead into gold.’ He let the image settle into his thoughts. ‘I will miss them.’

When he opened his eyes he was shocked to see that the column of Blue Fire now soared to the very roof of the cavern. Yu Huang studied it carefully before turning to Shavi with an almost reverential expression. ‘You have built a monument of wonder. A beacon in the deep dark of the Void.’

With a gesture, he raised another column from the Blue Fire, half the height of the one Shavi had created. ‘I bestride the heavens. I have seen all, done all, yet that is the height of my own monument.’ He looked from one column to the other and smiled. ‘These are strange times, great times.’

‘I am ready,’ Shavi said.

After a long moment of silence, the Jade Emperor said, ‘The season has turned, Brother of Dragons. It is your time now.’ He reached out to the scar on the cavern wall and there was an explosion of Blue Fire that knocked Shavi from his feet.

When he regained his equilibrium, Yu Huang was gone. Blue Fire gushed through an opening, filling the reservoir in the cavern, and rushing out across Vietnam, across China and the Far East, across the world.

Shavi was stunned. As he struggled to comprehend why he was still alive, Hal’s voice rang out warmly. ‘Looks like the king has returned to the land, just as he did in the Age of Misrule. Congratulations, Shavi. The Fiery Network is back. And commiserations — you’ve just ushered in the most difficult time of all. It’s going to be war, hard and brutal.’

Through the gap leading to the source of the Blue Fire, Shavi could make out movement. They came through with the flow, writhing sinuously as they struggled to adapt their nascent bodies to the new environment. The newborn Fabulous Beasts slipped into the stream one by one and made their way into the world. Shavi was overwhelmed by euphoria as their essence touched him in passing.

‘Come on,’ Hal said. ‘Let’s get you back to the others.’