Shadow Pavilion

by Liz Williams

  “Thank you,” Chen said. “I’ll leave it up to you whether or not you divulge the family relationship.”

  “Hmm,” Jhai replied. “Best not. He seems freaked out enough already.”

  Any questions Chen might have had as to whether Go recognized Jhai for what she was, even subliminally, seemed irrelevant. Go was clearly delighted to be in Jhai’s company, pathetically grateful for such a powerful champion, and offered as much help as he could to Chen in tracking Lara down.

  “We’re going to have to find her,” Chen said in an undertone to Jhai as she led Go out of the building. “I can’t guarantee she’ll survive it.”

  “I should have more family loyalty,” Jhai said, “but I won’t blame you if you have to put her down.”

  “It’ll be a SWAT unit, not a vet!”

  “You know what I mean. Try and trank her—I’ll send you some stuff, if you want. It’s a difficult one, Chen. If we catch her and send her back dead, she’ll be really pissed off. But so will the family. I know dead isn’t really dead in our case, but it’s the principal of the thing. Whereas if she’s sent back alive, at least they can’t get all uppity on that score.”

  “We’ll do our best,” Chen said. “But we’ll have to make sure she stays where she’s supposed to be.”

  “There are extradition agreements for that sort of thing.” Jhai looked doubtful. “Don’t always work, though.”

  And on that less than reassuring note, Chen had to be content.

  20

  Next morning, with much giggling, they made tea with the badger. He endured this, sensing that to complain would generate even more entertainment. Besides, it was a function of his non-animate aspect and he’d learned to get used to it over the years. Eventually, however, tea was poured and badger immediately reverted to his animal aspect. He took care to shake himself vigorously, ensuring that drops of boiling water flew over the tiger demons. There were squeals.

  “Ow!”

  “My dress!”

  Badger showed teeth and was hauled across the room by his leash and chained to the wall.

  “Hunting day today,” one of the women said. Badger thought it was one of the girls who had been engaged in so interesting a conversation the day before. “You’ll like that.”

  Badger merely grunted, but then curiosity won.

  “What is to be hunted?”

  The tigresses looked smug. “You’ll see, you’ll see,” they chanted in unison.

  “We ought to get ready,” one of the women said. “It’s nearly time to go down.”

  They left badger alone in a flurry of silks, only to reappear a short time later wearing leather harnesses and not a great deal else. No weapons, but then, of course, they would not need them, any more than badger needed more than his own sharp teeth. Their mood, a barely controlled, feral viciousness, was infectious: badger grew restless on the end of the lead and was glad when he was unchained and taken downstairs. The tigresses took him back through the long gallery, chattering as they went, but when they reached the end of the colonnade that looked out across the gardens, they took a long flight of steps, leading down.

  Soon, badger was standing on earth once more, even if it was not the soil of his own home. He snuffled it: it was of a strange texture, more like spice than earth, and strongly smelling. It was a rich cinnamon brown. This part of the garden was heavily manicured: planted with rhododendron and azalea, erupting into a profusion of scentless blossom in a variety of reds and golds. Overhead, the sunless sky burned blue and the heat struck the badger like a blow, even accustomed as he was to the climate of his own Hell and the city besides.

  The women took a narrow path between the bushes that led onto a wide sward of grass. Here, were more people: demons with curling moustaches and hot scarlet eyes beneath intricate turbans; a bevy of girls with blue skins and small, polished tusks tipped with gold; a glowering woman the color of polished bronze, wearing a quiver of glittering arrows between her quadruple shoulder-blades.

  Toward the back of the crowd, the badger spotted Prince Agni, dressed all in gold and mounted on an animal that badger initially took to be a horse, but which was covered in little black scales. It had clawed feet and an arrowed tail and reminded badger of some of the beasts he had seen in stables back home. Maybe they’d imported it, or perhaps these things were commonplace. As badger watched, it champed at its bit, displaying impressive teeth.

  “Guests!” Agni called, his voice carrying easily through the throng. Everyone immediately fell silent, although the four-armed woman scowled even harder. “Thank you all for honoring us today with your presence. We have many delights for you before the main hunt; I invite you all to gather at the end of the terrace, where we have a number of spectacles for you.”

  The crowd drifted to a marble expanse, dotted with urns. As badger was pulled past, a small muffled groan came out of one of the urns, intriguing badger. Was someone in there? But he had no time to investigate. Everyone was lining up for the first entertainment.

  This turned out to be the four-armed woman. She held two bows, one in each set of hands. A flock of bright birds, red as blood, was released from a cage by a distant servant. The birds rocketed up into the sky and were brought down, twitching, by a storm of arrows. Everyone applauded, politely, and the four-armed woman gave a stiff bow. Then the performance was repeated, with the archer’s back toward the flock. Maybe she had four eyes as well, badger thought. This sort of thing did not greatly interest him, although the birds might be worth trying. They looked plump.

  After this, the tigress who held the badger’s lead gave him a nudge with her toe. “It’s your turn.”

  “What?”

  “And now,” Agni said, “a demon from a neighboring Hell, all the way from China, to be pitted against our dogs!”

  Badger had automatically assumed that he was to be the hunter. It did not appear that this was to be the case.

  He was shoved down the steps and his lead jerked away. Badger turned, snarling, but the tigress was already bounding back up the steps. Behind him, came a blood-curdling yell.

  Four dogs, if one could call them that, were leaping across the grass. They were huge, scaled like the horse-beast, with curling teeth and glowing eyes. Their sides were pitted with scars, presumably from earlier encounters. Above their growls, badger heard a sound, a very small, swiftly muted sound, from the terrace above. He turned his head a fraction, just to see. Above him on the terrace, wearing a black linen shirt and trousers, his wrists bound in front of him and shackles on his bare ankles, stood Zhu Irzh.

  21

  There was a moment of silence, then an uproar, just as Mhara had expected there to be. Inwardly, he sighed. His father had held all the prerogatives of Celestial Emperor, and one of these was the Command of Belief: the power assumed on coronation which meant that if the Emperor believed something to be right, then every other denizen of Heaven believed it also, with the exception of the Emperor’s own immediate bloodline.

  It was a power that Mhara had declined to assume. He did not think that Heaven had quite accepted this as yet.

  One would think they’d be grateful to have been released from this epistemic shackle. But Mhara knew, only too well, that people don’t necessarily want freedom of thought. What they wanted was certainty, and maybe this had been one of the delights of Heaven: you knew what to think, you did not have to worry or fret, you could bask in the unreflective surety that the Emperor conveyed upon you. But now, freed by an unprecedented degree of humility on the part of the new ruler, you were prey to all the worries and difficulties of an independent mind.

  One could almost feel sorry for them. Almost. But it wasn’t a luxury Mhara was prepared to grant. Thinking about this that morning, as he stood gazing out over the Celestial City, Mhara gave a small, ironic smile. By imposing an intellectual democracy on Heaven, it might very well be that his views were as dictatorial as any that had been held by his father.

  Then, still wearing that iro
ny draped about him like a cloak, Mhara had gone into the great hall of the Imperial Palace and informed his subjects that they could now think as they pleased. He’d been right: they didn’t like it. The outcry had lasted for several minutes, while Mhara waited. When he did not respond, the courtiers fell silent, one by one.

  “This is not the way things were done,” Mhara said, speaking mildly. “My father ruled Heaven as his ancestors did before him; he followed a tradition which has held sway here for millennia, since even the very early days when we were nothing more than a small collection of tribal gods. But things change. Things move on.”

  “Emperor, may I speak?” That was one of the most senior courtiers, a man named Po Shu. In an ordinary environment, Mhara would have termed him close to the previous Emperor: with the thought-control issue, that relationship was in reality impossible to assess.

  “Of course. And please say what you think.” He did not hold out any great hopes of directness. With the thought-ban gone, other controls might simply emerge to take its place: self-censorship­, on the basis of currying favor and an eagerness to please.

  Po Shu said, “With the utmost respect for your august views—” This kind of remark went on for a little time and Mhara waited patiently. It would not be possible to rush them. Finally, Po Shu got to the point. “You are indeed correct when you say, with such perceptiveness, that things are subject to change. But this is Heaven, where matters remain eternal.”

  “I bow to your wisdom,” Mhara said. “But I might remind you that things have in fact changed, over the decades. Slowly, perhaps, and in a manner that is pleasing to all—the designing of a new pagoda, maybe, or an ornamental garden. And I have already mentioned our origins as tribal gods and lordlings: we ourselves—our nature and our relationship to humankind—have changed a great deal since then. You will also be aware that my father, who may have seemed so conservative in comparison to myself, was on the point of introducing a huge change to Heaven: sealing it away from Earth. Moreover, he took you to war and that can hardly be regarded as maintaining the status quo. I’m afraid that the changes to which I am referring will be as radical, but hopefully less destructive.”

  “Radical, Emperor?” Poor Po Shu looked like a man who had accidentally swallowed a beetle.

  “Radical,” Mhara repeated, and let the distasteful concept sink in for a moment before continuing: “You will doubtless all be wondering what form such proposed changes will take.”

  They looked quite terrified. Mhara went on, “What is the essence of our relationship to the human world?”

  “Compassion?” someone ventured after a moment.

  “Sanctuary, after the spirit’s travails upon Earth?”

  “Love?”

  Just as he’d thought, they had forgotten.

  “More than all those things,” Mhara said, “it is service. And it is the role of service that I plan to reintroduce.”

  Still raw terror, but some of them were also looking intrigued and Mhara felt a small surge of hope. They had been left in the comfort of unreflectiveness for too long, these benign spirits, these small gods. His father had done them no favors, but now, with good fortune, they might remember who they were and what they were for. “Some of you,” Mhara explained, “will be going to Earth, to assist in environmental programs and disaster relief. Our jurisdiction­ is not beyond China, but you may yet accomplish a great deal. And you will meet with opposition. Hell will always interfere: they bear us no small degree of justifiable resentment over our part in my father’s war. You will encounter resistance from humans, too. People­ have agendas and vested interests and they will prove reluctant to give those up, even if it is pointed out to them that a reward will be waiting in the afterlife. It will not be easy.”

  He studied them, noting who looked shocked, who appeared angry, and who might be resentful. It was not only humans who had vested interests. There were a few—a disappointing number, in fact, given what Heaven was supposed to be. But there were also those who looked excited, rising to an unanticipated challenge. There was even one, a local water spirit from the look of her, who said, “We should have been doing this before, shouldn’t we?”

  “Yes, you should. But you were not encouraged and my father’s rule was dictatorial.”

  “I should like to go to Earth,” the water spirit said. “My river has gone; it disappeared when they dammed the Yangtze. I should like to see what I could do about flooding, rather than sitting up here watching carp frolic in ponds.”

  “Very good,” Mhara said. He did not think she had said this simply to please him. “All of you, please begin to think about what you might achieve, how you might help.” He rose from the throne. “I look forward to your responses. We will reconvene tomorrow at the same hour.”

  He waved away offers to escort him to the upper rooms and left by a side door. As he stepped through the door, however, there was a sudden rustle of movement. But when he entered the passage, there was no one there. Frowning, Mhara walked quickly and quietly to the end of the passage and listened. Someone was walking away, almost at a run; he could hear the hissing of fabric against the floor. Someone wearing a robe—or skirts? He inhaled cautiously. Peach blossom, the ubiquitous scent of Heaven, but stronger and more pungent than the usual faint odor, with subtle undernotes of bergamot and jasmine. He recognized the perfume; it had been made specially. It belonged to the Dowager Empress.

  22

  Life was weird, reflected reflected Pauleng Go. One moment your house had been reduced to a smoldering ruin and you’d been forced to run for your life, pursued by a hysterical demon bent on revenge, and the next, you were reclining on a chair over­looking the harbor, with an iced tea, and a beautiful woman pottering about in the next room. He still found it difficult to believe that Jhai Tserai had taken him on board. He knew who she was, naturally­—it was a real blast to find out she was a fan—and he’d heard some pretty odd stories about her, including one that she was herself engaged to a demon. She’d mentioned that in the car, sitting in the back with him while the chauffeur steered the Mercedes­ expertly through the city traffic.

  “Yes, my fiancé’s from Hell.” Her dark eyes had dared him to make any cracks about that and Go, mindful of his position and his gratitude, had refrained. “He’s a nice guy, though. He’s a vice cop here in Singapore Three.”

  “How do you meet someone like that?” Go had ventured to ask.

  “Oh,” Jhai had said vaguely. “Through work.”

  Go preferred not to take that line of enquiry any further—vice cop, eh?—but then Jhai said, “He’s not around at the moment. He’s off on a case.”

  “So when’s the wedding?”

  “Next spring. You can imagine what my schedule’s like.”

  “It would make a great movie,” Go remarked before he could stop himself. “Top industrialist meets demon, falls in love.”

  Jhai looked a little startled, then she laughed. “Yeah, I suppose it would. The course of true love hasn’t exactly run smooth, either. Lots of adventures on the way. I’m not sure I’d be prepared for you to film it, though. I don’t know who I’d want to play me.”

  “Ever acted?” Go asked.

  A sidelong glance. “All the time.”

  They’d reached Paugeng shortly after that and Jhai had installed Go at the very top of the building.

  “It’s the apartment we use for visitors. We encounter a lot of problems with industrial espionage—everyone in the pharmaceutical industry’s the same, it’s such big bucks—so security here is very, very tight. If anyone does come after you, they’ll be intercepted long before they get to the second floor, let alone all the way up here. Unless your demon can fly?” She grinned.

  “Not without a hang-glider,” Go replied. He was not quite convinced. He’d somehow got himself into that state of extreme paranoia where everything seemed possible: What if Lara somehow materialized out of the air, just as she had during the banishing ritual? As if she had read his min
d, Jhai said, “By the way, when I mentioned security—it isn’t just armed guards and computer systems. There are magical wards on this building—feng shui guards and some customized stuff, too. We’re set up for all eventualities.”

  “Impressive,” Go said. But if her boyfriend was a demon, who knew what she’d had to contend with? It made him feel easier, however.

  “I need to do some work,” Jhai said. “There are servants; ring the bell if you want anything. You look like you need some sleep, though.”

  “Thanks,” Go said. “I really appreciate it. Can I just ask—I mean, why are you doing all this for me?”

  Jhai’s face was inexpressive. She said, “I’ve had problems with Hell before now. Not just the Hell attached to China. Let’s say there’s some mutual feeling involved, shall we, and leave it at that? Besides, I owe Chen a few favors. He’s a decent man.”

  “Can he really help me, do you think?”

  “I don’t know,” Jhai said. “But I do know how hard he’ll try.”

  23

  He had fought dogs before, on the streets of Hell, and he knew that location was everything. Rather than fight these hounds on the palace steps, badger turned and bolted, heading for the cover of the bushes. As he wheeled around, he saw the palace for the first time in its entirety: a sprawling crimson building, lacquer gleaming like blood, the white marble pillars standing out like stripped bone.

  There was a stand of hibiscus at the far end of the grass. The badger made for it, as fast as his short legs would carry him. He felt a hot breath on his hind paws, just as he reached the shelter of the bushes. These plants had spines. Badger was used to that, but he did not think the dogs were. A wailing yell from behind him confirmed this opinion. Badger pushed through the undergrowth, which became increasingly dense, snuffling and snorting, sounding out the ground beneath. Somewhere, there was a hollow­ness, and this could only be a good thing. But the hounds were not far away; he could hear them whining, running parallel to his own course, presumably on the far side of the bushes. Soon, there would be a place at which they would break through.