35

Pin thought that he was never going to stop falling. He twisted and turned in the air until it was almost relaxing, travelling down through the dimly glimpsed layers of Hell like someone in an elevator, passing different floors. He saw lands that were nothing but windswept iron plains, lands that were all fire, with volcanoes spurting sparks the size of stars. A million hands reached out, beseeching, but it was too late: Pin had passed.

Below him, Mai also fell, downward like a leaf with her skirt billowing out around her. Occasionally, she waved. Pin thought that she was trying to keep his spirits up.

And above them, the kuei also fell. It was far enough behind that Pin could see the entire serpentine-centipede shape of its length, the thousand legs like metal pilings and the huge curving jaws at its head. Its visible eye rolled frantically in crimson panic and it roared, so loudly that Pin was soon deafened and could hear nothing at all. After a while, he noticed that the kuei looked smaller, diminished, but he thought that this must just mean that it had slowed down and was further away.

Down and down. And finally Pin realised that there was a limit to Hell after all and it was coming up fast. Unlike some of the levels they had passed, this was a bright land, a sandy expanse. Pin caught sight of ragged yellow mountains and then a canyon. He hit the sand at maximum velocity, was splattered out across a mile or so. This was painless, but bewildering, with only a tiny scrap of consciousness remaining and then there was an even more confused period during which he reassembled. Mai was struggling up between the rocks a short distance away. There was no sign of the kuei at all.

“Pin,” Mai shouted. Her voice sounded reedy and distorted. “Are you all right?”

Pin fought back hysterical laughter. “What do you mean, ‘all right’? I’ve just fallen into the depths of Hell and exploded.”

“Well,” Mai said shakily, coming across. She did not walk, but moved with an odd gliding motion, her feet not quite touching the ground. “You look much the same as you did upstairs, if that’s any comfort.”

“So do you,” said Pin. He looked around. This place seemed more like Earth than the city above; the sky a brassy gold, the yellow mountains and thick sticky earth. Like somewhere in the depths of China, perhaps. Pin had the sense of great age. “What happened to the kuei?” he asked.

Mai shook her head. “I don’t know. Didn’t you think it was getting smaller as we fell? It looked like it to me.”

“Me too,” said Pin, “But I thought it might just be slowing down.”

Mai looked dubious. “I don’t know. Perhaps you’re right. Maybe it got stuck on one of the levels above us. I hope so.”

“I hope so too,” Pin said, shuddering. The memory of that centi­pedal shape twisting and writhing through the skies of Hell was one that he’d far rather forget. But even worse was the dawning understanding of what had happened to them. “Mai, what are we going to do? Look at this place. There’s nothing here. Do you know where we are?”

Mai’s face was contorted with dismay. “I think I do know, Pin. This is the bottom of Hell. It’s where everything else came from—this is the distant past, not just another level, and it’s where the rest of Hell came from—where it grew out of. As for nothing being here, I’m afraid that the legends disagree with that. It’s where the first demons came from too.” She ran a hand through her dishevelled hair. “There’s one thing, though—in every level, including this one, there’s a place where you can move between the levels themselves. We can go back up.”

“Even given what’s waiting for us?”

Mai sighed. “I don’t know what else to do, Pin. The kuei are after us and they’ll find us eventually. We can either stay here or try to run. I’d rather run.”

“Then I’ll come with you,” Pin said.

There was no plant life in this part of Hell, just pools of oozing yellow mud that occasionally emitted a sulphurous geyser, and the endless, stony earth. Pin had never seen a bleaker place. They trudged on towards the mountains, which seemed to grow no closer no matter how much they walked. There were some benefits, however: Pin did not feel hungry, and neither did his feet hurt—like Mai’s, they did not seem to want to touch the ground.

Gradually, the brassy sky darkened and an ominous night fell over the canyon.

“I think we should stop,” Mai said uneasily.

“Are you tired?” Pin asked. He did not feel that he would sleep; it was as though the descent had sent him into even more of a state of limbo than he had been previously.

“No, I’m not,” Mai replied, “But I have the feeling that there might be things that come out during the night that we haven’t seen during the day.”

“Even if they do,” Pin said in despair, “We can’t fight them off. We’ve got no weapons.” The hungry water ghosts had been bad enough and that was in the upper level of Hell. He told himself that Mai might be wrong, that they’d seen nothing so far and that really did mean that nothing was there, but he could not believe in his own reassurances.

“We’ll just have to hope that they won’t bother with us,” Mai said, but as she spoke a blood curdling yell came from the rocks above them.

“What was that?” Pin whispered.

“Oh Pin,” said Mai, “Let’s just hide.”

They found a crack between two large boulders and crouched inside it. It did not afford much protection but any was better than none. The yell came again and something large bounded down the canyon wall and past the boulders. The sky was dark now, but a dim yellow glow came from the rocks of the canyon and when Mai wonderingly held out her hand, Pin saw that it, too, was glowing. He looked down and found that he was lit up like a beacon.

“It’s like radiation,” Mai exclaimed.

So was the thing that had gone past them. It was larger than a human, though it moved upright and wore a flapping cloak, and it had a narrow, pointed head. It was sleek and quick, moving with lizard speed against the rocks.

“Do you think it’s seen us?” Pin hissed.

“I hope not.”

But Mai was wrong. Next moment, the thing turned. It leaped up the canyon, covering six feet or more with each spring, until it was crouching at the entrance to the crack, directly in front of Pin. Its eyes were like boiling yellow fire. Mai and Pin both screamed. The demon’s jaws snapped open and it spat. A sticky web shot out, enveloping both Pin and Mai in its folds. The thing seized a handful of its web and, without any discernible effort, threw the web with Pin and Mai in it over its shoulder and strode off.