The Iron Khan by Liz Williams, Marty Halpern, Amanda Pillar, Reece Notley

some trace of themselves behind. But these voices sounded more like ladies at lunch than the crew of a boat.
     
    Then the sound came again, a scratchy shuffling. Miss Qi pointed to a door at the far end of the passage. Inari nodded and together they crept toward the door. Once more, Miss Qi flung it open, but here there was no empty hallway. A luxuriously appointed chamber lay within, smothered in heavy velvet draperies, the air thick with incense. Two glistening eyes looked out at them from a masklike face above a costume so opulent Inari wondered how the wearer could stand.
     
    Miss Qi’s mouth dropped open. She said a single word: “Empress.”
     

THIRTEEN
     
    It was not entirely dark inside the cave. At some point, someone had installed electricity and now a light gleamed high on the wall, not enough to fade the irreplaceable murals, but enough for tourists to be able to see them.
     
    “These are beautiful,” Omi said. He stood, staring up at the girls and tigers and deer that danced and arched their way across the wall.
     
    “They are akashi,” Raksha said. “A time when the world was one and deer and tigers were friends.”
     
    “Has there ever been such a world?”
     
    “There still is,” Raksha said. “The afterlife of my people. I’ve seen it once, but only for a little while.” She sounded wistful.
     
    “But — you were dead, weren’t you?”
     
    “Our killers sent us first to Hell, then trapped our souls in our bodies. We lay there like seeds, until someone gave us the power of movement again. Some of us are still there.”
     
    “That is a terrible thing to do,” Omi said.
     
    “It was the Khan who slew us and the Khan who brought us back.” Raksha looked as though she might spit. “I am tired of doing the Khan’s bidding.”
     
    Omi couldn’t blame her. He studied the akashi, who looked more like the erotic sculptures from Indian carvings — all breasts and pointed toes and sly knowing eyes — than Buddhist nuns, before walking on.
     
    In the next cave, Omi found himself confronted by a face: an immense, placid, golden visage. He recognized it.
     
    “Buddha!”
     
    “Yes. He’s the guardian of this place, so I understand. He’s kept it free of the Khan’s influence.”
     
    “He is lord of all,” said a new voice, fluting and happy. A girl stepped out from the shadows surrounding the giant head. She wore diaphanous trousers and a short-sleeved silk top that left her jeweled midriff bare. Her long hair was piled on top of her head and decorated with scarves. Rubies winked in the light, decorating wrists and neck and ears. Smiling at Omi, she walked past him and put out a hand. Omi saw Raksha flinch, but she stood her ground.
     
    “Like us, but not,” the akashi said. She smelled of unknown magic, Omi thought, something spicy and unfamiliar, like a dust in the air.
     
    “We have not met,” Raksha said. “I am a cousin of yours.”
     
    The akashi studied Raksha, with her head to one side. “You are a Tokarian, aren’t you? I thought you were all dead.” She looked a little closer: Omi got the impression that she was smelling Raksha. “Ah, I see you are. My commiserations.”
     
    “I have recently been reanimated,” Raksha said. “By an old enemy, the Khan.”
     
    A rumbling sound came from the giant head and Omi turned. The head was as before, quite peaceful. The akashi was frowning, but in the manner of someone who seeks to solve a problem. “Do you seek sanctuary here? You would be welcome.”
     
    “I seek aid, but not sanctuary,” Raksha said. “I’m trying to take down the Khan.”
     
    “Ambitious,” the akashi said. She turned to Omi. “And you. You are a Buddhist?”
     
    “Yes. I am Japanese. I trained as a warrior. My grandfather was a Samurai, killed by the Khan. My mother raised me as a Buddhist, but I have a duty of vengeance.”
     
    “Sometimes one must fight,” the akashi said.
     
    “Sometimes, one must. Raksha has come