angry ghosts who swarmed around him, shrieking and cursing, but ShiShi powered through them toward the dais.
Mulan grabbed ShiShi’s mane, and together they ran up the hill. The shouting and shrieking spread. Angry ghosts snatched at them, but their shadowy fingers slipped right through Mulan’s armor.
“Guards!” the ghosts began to shout. “They’re cutting the line.”
The pandemonium grew until the entire chamber reverberated so loudly Mulan couldn’t even understand what the ghosts in front of her face were shouting at her. Then—
“ORDER!”
The cave walls boomed, tiny rocks tumbling down from the ceiling onto the ghosts and demons below.
Mulan’s knees quaked.
“I WILL HAVE ORDER IN MY COURT.”
Mulan and ShiShi snapped into the line, straightening before the terrible voice. Demon sentries grabbed her and ShiShi.
“BRING THE INTRUDERS TO ME. NOW.”
King Yama, god and ruler of the Underworld, did not look happy to see them.
His lips, barely visible under his thick peppery beard, twisted into a scowl. His eyebrows, which slanted up like two thick storm clouds and were so long they curled down his temples, furrowed with displeasure.
Mulan didn’t know whether she should be awed or frightened. After all, it was the first time she had ever encountered a deity. To her surprise, Yama didn’t glow like his subjects, and he looked nothing like the demons. Yet his appearance was monstrous.
Wrinkles contorted his face, and his cheeks were ruddy; his eyes flickered a fiery red and yellow. His neck was thick as the trunk of a willow tree, and his wild black hair was so abundant it rivaled ShiShi’s mane. When he stood, as he did now, the top of his heavy gold crown disappeared into the dark space above, and his black and emerald robes flooded down the steps past his desk.
His eyes, hard, calculating, and currently an irritated shade of yellow, bored into Mulan.
It took her a moment to figure out why: she wasn’t bowing! Even ShiShi had bent into a deep bow at her side.
Mulan hurriedly copied the lion. As she stared at the ground, King Yama lowered himself back down with a harrumph. His throne, a wooden chair with red-tasseled silk cushions, creaked under his massive weight.
Mulan peeked, lifting her eyes from the ground past the nine steps up to King Yama’s dais. She watched Yama open one of the large books on his desk and resume writing in it. Two brass lanterns, shaped like dragons’ heads, hovered over his work.
She waited as patiently as she could, expecting King Yama to address her and ShiShi, but the ruler of the Underworld kept writing.
All day and night, King Yama works behind his desk, Mulan’s grandmother had told her. He rarely ventures into the Underworld himself.
So far, Grandmother Fa’s story held up. Yama’s expression was severe, and he seemed grumpy that the papers and scrolls piled higher than his chair.
He didn’t look up at them again.
Mulan frowned. She hadn’t come all this way to be ignored.
ShiShi was clearly thinking the same thing. The lion had furtively taken a few steps closer to King Yama’s throne, and Mulan sidled up next to him.
“Don’t think I can’t see you,” King Yama muttered, his nose still in his book.
Mulan’s body snapped up. “Sire, I—”
“Return to the back of the line,” King Yama said, scribbling furiously. Ink stained the ends of his long emerald sleeves. “Your indiscretion has been noted. Everyone waits his turn.”
“I’m not dead,” Mulan said. “And I’m not in line. I’m here to ask—”
King Yama finally looked up from his book, thick brows knitting angrily. “I DON’T CARE,” he roared. “Back of the line.”
ShiShi glared at Mulan. “Let me do the talking from now on.”
With one leap, he bounded up the stairs, stopping just two steps below King Yama’s desk. “Your Majesty, you must recognize me. I am the great guardian of the Li family, the protector of the esteemed General Li before he passed into your domain.”
“Didn’t you hear me?” King Yama pounded his fist on his desk, and the demon guards raised their weapons. “I said, back of the line.”
ShiShi opened his mouth, which must have been the last straw—because King Yama gave a thunderous clap with his monstrously large hands.
ShiShi froze midword. His apricot-colored tail grayed, and his mane, spiked from the flurry of danger since meeting King Yama, hardened.
He was stone again, and still as a statue.
“Arrogant guardian,” King Yama muttered. “The stone ones are always the worst. So entitled.”
Mulan held her breath, her mind reeling, frantically trying to think what she should say or do now. She