Tripitaka said severely, "Yes, I know you were, and I have heard the tale of the havoc you caused there, five hundred years ago. Do as you did when you were a groom to the Jade Emperor's horses, and every deity in Heaven will seek to punish us." He turned to Shea. "Do you go along with him, Magician Xei, for I have found that you have an understanding of people that may enable you to restrain Monkey from his wildest excesses. And, too, your diplomacy may gain more help than all Monkey's bullying could ever do. Will you go?"
Shea swallowed, hard, and glanced at Chalmers, who shrugged almost imperceptibly, then gave him the slightest of nods.
Shea turned back to Tripitaka. "Of course, Reverend Sir, if that is what you ask." Inside, he asked himself frantically if Heaven could really be real.
The Chinese Heaven? Why not? As real as the Norsemen's Asgard, anyway—and Shea had been there already. Why not, indeed?
Seconds later, they were on a cloud and rising fast. Shea had to gulp air to quiet a queasy stomach, and tried to remember a spell for Dramamine. He decided that he definitely preferred a broomstick, under his own control—or better yet, a reclining seat with a seatbelt and a stewardess.
Then they rose above the floor of a cloudbank, and Shea found himself facing a huge Chinese gate in a wall that towered up and up. Both were of gold, and the gate was inlaid with mother-of-pearl and jade.
Monkey hopped off his cloud and swung up his cudgel; it lengthened into a six-foot iron staff.
"No, hold it a minute!" Shea grabbed the tip of the staff—and almost got another free ride, but Monkey halted in the nick of time and grunted, "Wherefore?"
"Because breaking down somebody's front door isn't the best way to get them to like you."
"Why should we want them to like us?"
"Because if they do, they're more likely to grant us a favor."
Monkey bared his teeth in a grin. "I assure you, Xei, none here has cause to like me—and they all have long, long memories.''
"Still, we might try another way."
"Why?"
"Humor me."
Monkey sighed. "You western barbarians are so unreasonable! Well enough, Xei—how would you gain entrance to Heaven? We are neither of us ghosts, you know—and, if truth be told, neither one pure enough for Heaven!"
"There's some truth in that, I suppose," Shea sighed, "but Heaven is common to both our cultures, so maybe I can impose a little of my own on this image of it." He frowned at the gate, concentrating very hard on his own private image of the Pearly Gates—and a small metal rectangle with two buttons appeared on the right-hand jamb. "There, see?" he said triumphantly, and stepped forward to press the button. The two gates slid apart with a slight hiss, to show a richly appointed little room, painted with red laquer and gold leaf, and hung with silken tapestries.
Monkey stared, the white showing all around his irises.
Shea stepped in quickly, pressing one hand against the edge of the door. "Come on in, quick, before it closes!'
Monkey snapped out of his trance and jumped aboard.
"Where are we going?" Shea was inspecting the panel, trying to decipher the buttons—they were in Arabic numerals, and he was currently geared to Chinese characters.
"The Thirty-third Heaven." Monkey eyed his surroundings like a caged animal.
"Thirty-third it is." Shea managed to figure out what those two backward-facing fat characters were, and pressed the button.
The car began to thrum about them.
"It is alive!" Monkey cried, and leaped so high he crashed into the ceiling, brandishing his staff. He fell with a thud, and Shea helped him up, trying to sound reassuring. "It's no more alive than one of your clouds. They move too, don't they?"
"True enough," Monkey said, but he crouched in the corner and brandished his staff, eyes flicking from side to side and top to bottom, trembling the whole time the elevator was moving.
"Yes, but my stomach does not sink when it flies," Monkey moaned.
"Mine does." Shea felt the pressure inside ease up. "Besides, the car's slowing—it must have been an express. What should we be expecting to see, Monkey?"
The doors slid back.
"That," Monkey whispered.
Shea stepped out and found himself facing a vista of cotton-candy hills bedecked with pagodas and palaces.
Monkey stepped out behind him, looking about him in awe. "That is far faster than I came here last time, and with much less adventure."
"Sorry to miss that last part," Shea sighed, "but we don't really have time for it right now. Which way is Lao-Tzu's laboratory?"
"Yonder." Monkey pointed.
Following his gesture, Shea saw a plain and simple hut—that glittered. "I thought he advocated austerity."
"He does, but the Jade Emperor insisted." Monkey gestured, and a cloud detached itself from the nearest cotton-candy mountain. "Your turn to suffer my mode of transport again, Xei."
The cloud barrelled into them, knocking Shea off his feet. Monkey, of course, sprang lithely up onto it, and caroled with delight. Shea was just managing to get his feet under him again when the cloud stopped, and he pitched headlong into its softness again. He extricated himself, grumbling: "For such a short distance, we could have walked?"
"Believe me, Xei, it would have taken half a day, in this clinging stuff." Monkey stepped up to the door and knocked with his staff.
Shea looked up, amazed. Yes, a plain, simple hut— the size of a palace! And made of mother-of-pearl and white jade, too!
The door opened, to show a young man shaved bald, with a saffron robe. He saw Monkey and stared, horrified.
"Let us in," the little ape blustered, "or I will bring your door down around your ears!"
"Monkey ...!" Shea moaned, but the young man's expression finned into stony impassivity. He cried, "Master! It is that horrible little monster again!"
"Horrible little monster yourself!" Monkey shouted, raising his cudgel. "I'll teach you to insult your betters!"
But the young man stepped aside, and a little old man in a plain tunic stepped into the doorway. He was bald except for a fringe of white hair, and wore a long white moustache and goatee. When he saw Monkey, he scowled. "Why do you trouble my disciple? And why have you come back, you thief and brigand?"
"Thief and brigand!" Monkey exclaimed indignantly, but Shea decided it was time he took a hand. He stepped up beside his companion, just incidentally getting between the simian and the sage, and bowed. "Have I the honor of addressing the reverend sage, Lao-Tzu?"
"You have, though I am only a man," the sage answered. "And you are Harold Xei. I have watched your skipping through universes with some interest. Do you truly think there is anything to be gained thereby?"
"Knowledge," said Shea, totally dumbfounded that the sage had noticed him.
"Knowledge?" Lao-Tzu shrugged. "What use is that?"
"Discovering new knowledge is a source of great joy," Shea answered slowly.
"Beware of such joy, young man. It will seduce you away from contemplation of the Way."
"So does all of human life," Shea sighed, "but I'm not quite ready to give up on it yet. Which is why we've come to speak with you, Reverend Sir—to ask your help in bringing a king back to life."
"We ask one grain! Only one grain! Of the Life-Restoring Elixir!" Monkey cried.
"One grain? Was not one whole flask enough for you?" Lao-Tzu scowled.
"That was five hundred years ago," Monkey protested, "and Buddha took it away from me!"
"As well he should have," Lao-Tzu said. "They who have eternal life but have not won it through virtue— it is they who fear death most; and they who fear death can be most easily intimidated. What would have happened to the world if the Elixir of Life had been spread far and wide?"
Shea forbore the temptation to mention overpopulation, and tried to remember a few of Lao Tzu's own verses instead. "But the King of Crow-Cock has been replaced by a usurper—and if the rightful king does not rule, will not the people suffer?"