“So what do we do now?” Jamie asked. “How do we get her back again?”
The Master of the Mountain poured himself a glass of water from a crystal jug and drank it.
“Jamie and I can go into Hong Kong,” Matt said. “We can find her…”
“If you go into Hong Kong, you will be doing exactly what they want you to do. They will be waiting for you and although they will not kill you – that is not part of their plan – they will keep you in so much pain that you will wish constantly for death.”
“We can’t just leave her.”
“You may have no choice.”
“No, Mr Shan-tung,” Matt said. “You don’t believe that. Otherwise, why would you have invited me here?” Matt looked him straight in the eyes. “You’re going to help us get into Hong Kong,” he said. “You’ve already told us. You’ve got people over there. You can smuggle us in. We can find Scarlett. And we can be out of there before the Old Ones know what’s happened.”
Han Shan-tung set his glass down. “I might help you,” he said. “But as I mentioned to you earlier, there is still a question you have to answer for me.”
“And what is that?”
“I am, by nature, a very careful man. I have told you that I have killed twenty-five times. What I should have added is that there have been as many attempts on my own life. You are here in my house on the recommendation of my friend, Mr Lee. I trust him. He has been useful to me in the past, and he definitely believes that you and the American boy are who you say you are.”
“Is that your question?”
“It is exactly that. How can I be sure that you are one of the Five?”
Matt thought for a moment. Then he pointed at the crystal jug. He didn’t even need to think about it any more. The jug was swept, instantly, off the table. It fell to the floor and smashed. Shan-tung blinked. It was his only reaction. But then he slowly smiled. “An amusing conjuring trick. But it is still not enough. I do not question your abilities. It is your identity I wish to know.”
“I’ll read your mind,” Jamie said. “You say you know everything about us. In ten seconds I can tell you even more about you.”
“I would recommend that you stay out of my mind,” Han Shan-tung said. He turned to Matt. “There is a test, a trial you might say, that will prove to me beyond any doubt that you are who you say you are. Only one of you needs to take part in it. But I should warn you though that to fail will cause you great pain and perhaps even death. What do you say?”
Matt shrugged. “We need your help,” he said. “We’ve flown a long way to get it. If there is no other way…”
“There isn’t.”
“Matt…” Richard muttered.
“Then let’s go ahead,” Matt said. “What test do you have in mind?”
Han Shan-tung got to his feet. “It is called the sword ladder,” he said. He gestured towards a door at the back of the room. “Please… will you come this way.”
THE SWORD LADDER
Matt stood up and followed Han Shan-tung. Richard and Jamie came behind. They went through the door into a long corridor, all polished wood but otherwise undecorated. There was a second door at the far end.
It opened into a large, square room that didn’t seem to belong to the rest of the house. It reminded Matt of a chapel or perhaps a concert hall that might comfortably seat fifty or sixty people. The walls were plain and wood-panelled, matching the corridor outside, and there were pews arranged around three of the sides. The fourth was concealed by a dark red curtain that had been pulled across, perhaps concealing a stage. There was a gallery above the curtain, but it was high up, arranged in such a way that it was impossible to tell from floor level what it might contain.
“You are inside a Triad lodge,” Mr Shan-tung explained. “And you should consider yourselves very privileged. Only Triad members and initiates are allowed in here and normally any outsiders would be instantly killed. We meet in this place on the twenty-fifth day of each Chinese month. There is a separate entrance from the street. You might be interested to know that an initiation ceremony lasts six hours. A new recruit is expected to answer three hundred and thirty-three questions about the society. He learns secret handshakes and recognition signals. A lock of his hair is taken and he signs his name in blood.”
“Actually, I wasn’t thinking of joining,” Richard muttered.
Fortunately, Shan-tung didn’t appear to have heard. “I speak of our rituals to remind you that the White Lotus Society is very old,” he went on. “Things have, of course, changed with modern times. Nine hundred years ago, initiates would have drunk each other’s blood, mixed with wine. And there is another part of the ceremony that has fallen out of use. When China was enslaved by Kublai Khan, it is said, the society searched for a leader, the one man who might liberate them. That man would be known as the Buddhist Messiah and he would show himself by a sign…”
He crossed the room and pulled on a cord that drew back the curtain. Jamie gasped. Matt stepped forward. At first he thought he was looking at a strange ladder leading up to the balcony above but then he realized that it was actually made up of antique swords, each one polished until it shone, lashed together in a wire frame with the edges of the blades facing upwards. Theoretically, it might be possible to climb. But he doubted it. As soon as you rested your body weight on one sword, you would cut your foot in half. Even if you were light enough, the climb to the top would be agony. It was a long way to the balcony. Matt counted nineteen steps. Nineteen chances to slice yourself apart.
“In my time as Master of the Mountain, three initiates have claimed to be the Buddhist Messiah,” Shan-tung explained. “They asked my permission to be allowed to climb the ladder and I was glad to give it. Watching their attempts was a fascinating experience. One of them almost made it to the top before he fainted. Sadly, he broke his neck in the fall.”
“What about the other two?” Matt asked.
“One cut off the fingers of his left hand on the first step and chose not to continue. The other bled to death.”
“This is insane!” Richard couldn’t restrain himself any more. “Matt isn’t claiming to be your Buddhist Messiah or whatever you want to call it.”
“He is claiming to be one of the Gatekeepers. If he is who he says he is, he has nothing to fear.”
“And if we say no? If we refuse to perform your little party trick?”
“Then I will not help you. You will leave Macau. And the girl will die, slowly, on her own.”
Richard swore under his breath. Jamie came forward and stood next to Matt. “I don’t mind giving it a try,” he said, quietly.
“Thanks, Jamie,” Matt replied. “But I brought us here. I think this one’s down to me…”
He took a step closer but Richard held out a hand. “Forget it, Matt!” he said. “You don’t need to do this. There are plenty of ways we can get into Hong Kong without this maniac’s help.”
“We can’t go in on our own,” Matt said. “One of us has to try…”
“You’re going to cut yourself to pieces.”
“After the first finger, I promise I’ll stop.”
He went over to the ladder. Any hope that it might not be as dangerous as it looked vanished at once. The swords were fixed rigidly in place by the wires. The blades were pointing towards each other so that as he climbed up, the hilts and the points would be on alternate sides. The swords had been sharpened until they were razor-thin. He rested a finger on one and almost cut through the skin just doing that. If he had dropped an envelope onto it, he would have sliced it in two.