From beyond the mark of compasses

they draw together

Five from the center are born;

Five from the outside are called

The Fortunate Ones.

And the two who from the beginning are created

shall guide them through the dark.

A rare jewel hidden and yet on display,

brought to light once more.

Hidden from the shadow where death doth creep

The cedar blooms in secret shades,

Essence wandering far from the trunk.

Leading the rain to the path of thunder.

While the tears of beloved winter fall

the sword of light is tempered--

Flame will call to steel,

and freed from the sheath

to battle they are bound.

And in the ashes of defeat,

all are taken into the Dragon's embrace.

Where the river ends, and the flowers fly,

they will be reunited once more.

--(the book of the Jade Emperor, tr. unknown)

Late July, Hong Kong

“Waking up,” Keith reflected soberly, “is the hardest part about being dead.” It wasn’t the ‘being dead bit that bothered him so much as the waking up. Dead people weren’t supposed to wake up, dammit.

Keith eyed the familiar rough cement wall ten inches from his face with the usual resigned disgust. Things still could have been worse– even if merely thinking that single phrase could bring on an unimaginable disaster.

He wasn’t a zombie, and didn’t have a body, so there was no worry that he’d lose a rotting limb or start to smell. Nor did Keith have to develop a taste for the flesh of the living and shuffle along brainlessly, mumbling incoherently while people ran in screaming terror.

No one was going to try shooting him in the face for drooling, either; there were benefits to being a ghost.

Once he’d recovered from the initial surprise of finding himself one, Keith had rather thoroughly explored the possibilities of his new non-incorporeal status. He could go pretty much where he wanted to. He also found that most of the laws of physics were easy to get around when one’s body was composed of what a popular movie he remembered called “ectoplasmic energy”. Hopefully there wasn’t an outfit like that in Hong Kong; Keith really wasn’t in the mood to be “busted”. At least not until he figured out a few things, and maybe kicked a few asses along the way.

Providing he could find a way to kick those asses. That was the first disadvantage of being dead; the whole non-incorporeal business made it infinitely more difficult to affect the world around him when nearly every attempt resulted in the embarrassment of falling on his face as he went through what he'd just tried to grab. The second disadvantage was that he had no one to talk to.

Oh, there were other ghosts floating around the hither and yon of Hong Kong– Most of Keith’s conversations with them had been rather limited; half only wanted to tell him how they‘d died, in gruesome detail. The others were either gibbering insane, or seemed to have lost what tenuous grip they had on reality (such as it was) and were now obsessed with the living in ways that would’ve made Keith’s skin crawl – if he still had skin. As it was, those conversations had left Keith more than a little creeped out. These days, he knew how to avoid the other ghosts.

Keith wasn’t sure if it was good fortune that he didn’t remember exactly how he’d died, or if it was just bad luck that he couldn’t remember arriving in the city.

Getting on the airplane, he could remember. Most of the long and boring flight? Sure. Being awakened by a rather attractive flight attendant just before the plane landed? Yes. Getting off in Hong Kong? Not even seeing the ramp to the airport.

Finding out what had happened was the biggest mystery that kept Keith going.

Another mystery was the big question of why he kept landing in the little alcove under a set of access stairs that he currently found himself waking up in. He’d seen it before. Many times, in fact.

As Keith picked himself up from the concrete slab and got to his insubstantial feet, the sun’s last rays filtered through overhanging leaves, and brushed the dingy white wall a rosy amber light. Sunset was, again, a fabulous painting in the sky overhead, only dimmed slightly by the millions of lights now flickering on in the city not too far away.

Keith had gotten to the westernmost tip of Lanatau Island, to the southernmost tip of Lamma Island, and as far east and north on the peninsula as he could travel. No matter what he did, no matter how far away from this Hong Kong back alley he tried to get, Keith would eventually find himself flat on his decidedly ghostly backside, staring at the inevitable sky between the leaves of what looked like an ash tree. He couldn’t get away from Hong Kong, and he couldn’t get away from this little corner of it. Always the same alcove.

There were always changes, of course; the first time he’d awakened there, it had looked as though someone had put a bomb inside a dumpster. Trash and newspapers had been blown everywhere. It had been cleaned several times since then, and now even the stacks of newspapers roughly blown into the corner looked relatively tidy.

So, for the five hundredth or so time in the past five years, Keith gathered his thoughts together and trudged towards the neon lights of the bay.

Keith may not have been able to talk to any of the living milling around there, but he sure as shooting was not going to sit around in the silence and brood about it -- not while there was a world of things to see and hear out there.

***

Somewhere over the Pacific

The only turbulence that Flight 3887 encountered in its sixteen-hour cruise from Las Vegas to the Hong Kong International airport did not come from the normal Pacific weather patterns. An unpredicted storm that had come from nowhere to flood the main island had disappeared just as suddenly as it had appeared, even before the aircraft crossed the international dateline.

Up until they‘d crossed the invisible line that separated one day from the next, Danny Chao had been engaged in a friendly game of cards with his (very attractive) American seat-mate for the long flight. He was winning, of course, and not trying very hard to do so. He’d never had to try very hard when it came to beating the odds. Fortune, it seemed, loved him dearly these days.

As the pilot announced their arrival at the international date line, Danny felt it; the first sign of turmoil was a non-physical tremble, a jolt that knocked the pair of aces right out of Danny’s grip before he could tuck them into the rest of his hand. They landed face-up on the impromptu table that they’d created on the first-class armrest.

“Nuts!“ Tria said, in a voice he heard distantly. “I thought I had you this time, Danny.”

The tremble continued; it was a familiar old feeling, Danny realized, as he let the rest of the cards go. It wasn’t a storm – the pilot would’ve said something. It was magic, like he hadn’t dealt with, hadn’t sensed or felt since–

“Danny?” Tria waved a slender hand in front of his eyes, “You okay there? You’re spacing out on me.”

“Huh?” Danny blinked away the rising memories. “I’m fine,” he said at last. “Just the flight getting to me, I suppose.” Swiftly gathering the discarded cards, he reshuffled the deck, “I think you’d better fasten your seatbelt, Tria. There’s some rough weather coming up.”

Tria gave him a wide-eyed grin, but didn’t have time to say whatever comment had crossed her quick-witted mind– or fasten her seatbelt, for that matter– before the entire plane bucked hard four times and then rolled abruptly to the left, sending everything that wasn’t bolted down flying down to the opposite side of the plane. Including passengers.

Forewarned by the ice-tremor of magic, Danny had braced himself, looping one arm around the back of the next seat and catching his ankle on one of the seat struts He quickly managed to catch the falling Tria around the waist with the other arm, preventing her from joining the mélange of papers, books and the few people who had been stretching their legs piled against the windows and passengers on the other side of the cabin.

Tria let out a surprised squeak.

“Thanks,“ she said, flipping her long red hair out of her face.“Now this is some bad weat–“

The plane lurched again with the grind of metal against metal, in ways that the designers hadn’t planned for, as the pilot overcompensated for the sudden roll. And then the vehicle swung, pitched, and suddenly yawed to right.

Tria landed on Danny’s lap, face pressed against his chest.

“See? I told you the pretty girls all threw themselves at me,” he joked, shifting his arm to protect their heads from the sudden shower of small unsecured items that were now heading back their way.

“Now whatever would my husband say?“ she retorted with a grin, as the pilot got the airplane level again – at last.

“Something punctuated with a fist?” Danny suggested with a grin, not moving to push her off his lap just yet. The wings trembled as the plane fought to stay stable through the last few hours of the flight. They were not out of the woods quite yet; the flight crew started to make their way through the cabin to check on the passengers and make sure they were fastened in.

“Or his sword.” Tria made an odd zrrrt sound, tapped Danny on the nose with her thumb, and plonked back into her seat. “Fasten seatbelt light is on, and I think I’ll just keep mine on for the rest of the flight.”

She had brains and wit all wrapped up in one pretty package– and was quite unavailable. Danny didn’t even bother with calculating the odds on trying to win Tria away from her husband. There were some things that weren’t worth gambling on – and this would be one of them. Still, Danny couldn't help be a bit envious of the guy who'd won the heart of this stunning microbiologist.

“How did you know that was going to happen?” Tria asked abruptly, surprising Danny.

“Lucky guess,” Danny answered, tucking the cards he’d salvaged into his jacket pocket. Tria gave him a narrow-eyed glance, but said nothing. “There’ll probably be more, but not quite as severe, now that the pilot knows it’s there.”

“You’re a pilot, too?”

“I’m not. I’ve just been through this kind of storm before.” Danny forced a wide grin. “So the flight to Hong Kong has been like this before?” Tria asked. “I didn’t notice it last time.”

“It’s been about five years.”

“Since you’ve been home?”

Danny nodded.

“Business keeping you away?” Tria asked.

“Some business. Some personal,” Danny replied, losing the grin. “Mostly personal– it’s a long story.”

“It’s a long flight … ”

“Do you believe in magic, Tria?” Danny tried to smile and ignore the distant hum of a power that he’d thought he would never feel again.

“No,” Tria laughed. “Of course not. What does that have to do with anything?”

“It’s nothing. Never mind.” Danny managed to smile faintly, turning his head to look out the window. “It’s not very rational and scientific, is it?”

Tria was disappointed, he could tell, though she did hide her disappointment better than most who'd asked him in the past. Danny wouldn’t even know how to begin to tell her his secrets, when he couldn’t even tell the whole truth to those who deserved to know.

The ocean of clouds outside the window sped by in wondrous formations of dragons and mythical creatures as the ghosts of Hong Kong loomed ever closer in his mind.