by Liz Williams
And some things did not.
It was too demeaning to prey upon the weak, like asking a leopard to chase mice. There was a curious thread of spilled blood running through the city air, reeking of a predator’s magic, and the assassin was tempted to follow it, purely from curiosity. But it was clearly someone else’s hunt and it would be ill mannered, to say the least, to interfere: Seijin placed great store on courtesy. It was too often all one had left.
After some thought, Seijin selected the target based on location: the man was coming out of a dojo in the Bharulay District of the city, a rough area. Seijin, with some satisfaction, saw that the man moved like a killer, and there was the ghost of blood upon him, a psychic stain. It would not have mattered if the man had been entirely innocent of life-shed; it was only important that he be some kind of warrior. Seijin decided to test a theory. Summoning female self to the fore, the Lord Lady stepped out of the shadows and cast the cloak of mist away, to seep into the shadows of the street and disappear.
Easy to see through the target’s eyes for a moment, easy to take in the slight, slender girl with the dark hair, the lost look, the fearful expression. Easy to hear through the target’s ears the faltering voice, “Excuse me? Do you know the way to Shaopeng from here? I thought …”
“C’mere.”
And Seijin, tottering a little as if on too-high heels, did so. A brief exhilaration, an indulgence really, of hands closing around the throat, a whispered hate-filled voice, and then the hammer of a human body against the wall as Seijin flung him aside.
Seijin said, softly, “You may fight if you choose.”
The prey ran forward, screaming, any discipline acquired at the dojo long since lost. Seijin did not bother to remember the details of the encounter. The assassin played with the man for a while, before growing bored. The next time the prey turned, battered now, staggering, but still upright, Seijin notched a silver-tipped arrow to the bow with slow ease and shot him through the heart.
That night, in the Shadow Pavilion, the Lord Lady dined on human flesh, lightly steamed. The liver and heart went to the Gatekeeper; Seijin did not particularly care for offal. Still, it helped to keep one’s strength up and the man’s savage essence was gratifying after the relative defeats of the day. And there was still time for an early night.
34
As it happened, Zhu Irzh did not have to carry the badger-teakettle very far.
“Between worlds?” Sefira the deva said. “You want to get back to Earth? This temple was a gateway, once.”
“Finally, something goes right!” the badger heard Zhu Irzh say. “Come on then, badger. Back we go.”
“Wait,” the deva murmured. “It’s not as simple as that. There are different keys to every gateway.”
The badger wanted to hear this, unimpeded by an iron skin. He turned back into his animal form.
“Well,” Zhu Irzh said, a trifle impatiently. “Can you tell me the key to this one?”
“Look around you,” the deva said. She moved a little closer to the demon. Zhu Irzh and the badger did as she instructed. The interior of the temple was as dank and uninviting as before.
“What?” Zhu Irzh asked.
The deva gave an exaggerated sigh. “Then look outside, if you cannot see.”
Zhu Irzh and the badger stepped cautiously out of the temple, into a clearing that was still empty, still quiet. The temple, with its entwined erotic carvings, seemed to merge into the tangled vines, a phosphorescent white-green.
“I can’t see anything that looks like an—oh,” the demon said.
The badger glanced up at him. “I still do not understand.”
“No, I don’t suppose you would. This is a humanoid thing.”
The deva was purring. “Come,” she said. “This is not for beasts. This is a temple of love.”
“Rather you than me,” said the badger. “Call me if something needs biting.”
An hour or so later, the badger and a somewhat disheveled Zhu Irzh once more stood in front of the temple. The deva was still within.
“Well,” the demon said. “It could have been worse.”
The badger had a brief, but uninteresting series of memories of the last hour: the deva’s gleaming limbs, now as white as the marble of the temple, now as dark as the surrounding vines, twining with the body of Zhu Irzh, eyes glinting in the shadows as the carvings of the temple wall crept out, one by one, still dappled with mold and damp. The curve of the deva’s breasts as she arched her back, her cries soft as moths …
The badger had spent his time rooting for beetles, a much more rewarding past time.
“This is taking longer than I thought,” Zhu Irzh said. “What’s she doing in there?”
“I don’t know. Moreover—” The badger, unused and uninterested in the mating rituals of two-legged things, was tentative about this next suggestion, but went ahead anyway, “I know that, should Husband-of-my-Mistress look at another female, Mistress would not be happy, although I believe she would understand.”
“In other words—” Zhu Irzh was not slow on the uptake “—how am I going to explain this to Jhai?”
“Just so.”
“Do you think I’m a total fool? She’d have me disembodied. This was dictated by necessity and thus I have no intention of telling her.”
“That would seem to be wise.”
“I trust you’ll be equally discreet?”
“It is of no consequence to me,” the badger said, with perfect truth, although he filed the information away, just in case it was ever needed.
“Glad to hear it. What is she doing in there?”
The demon’s question was soon answered. The deva appeared in the doorway of the temple, flushed and distressed.
“The gateway has not opened!”
“Oh damn,” Zhu Irzh said. “Maybe we need to try again?”
“No, that won’t work,” the deva replied. “Although—should you wish to return at any point, I will not be unamenable.” She looked more cheerful, the badger thought. “Perhaps I should go on holiday, to China.”
“You’d be welcome,” Zhu Irzh said, which the badger considered to be unlikely, given what had just happened. “However, that presupposes that any of us can leave here. Which, you’re telling me, suddenly isn’t possible.”
“But it has always worked before,” the deva said. “Tantric magic is very powerful, it opens many possibilities. In ancient times, it was used as a transgression, a breaking of natural law in order to split the worlds apart and travel between them. There is nothing to say that this has changed, although in recent days, the transgression has lessened because of changing morals.”
“So you think that might have caused the gateway to become inactive?”
“Maybe. Unless the prince closed it down when he turned me to stone.”
“Whatever the reason,” the badger said, “the gateway is not working and we are wasting time.”
“I wouldn’t call it wasting—” Zhu Irzh began, but a glance at the badger caused him to fall silent. “You’re right, of course. Well, if this gateway does not work, we need to find one that does.”
“There was one in the palace,” the deva said.
The demon sighed. “Back to Plan A. Can you get us into the palace? Do you know a way?”
“I used to. There was a passage not far from here, in the ruins that form the old part of the palace. As people lost faith, the place fell into disrepair. I don’t know if the passage is still passable.”
“We have to try,” said Zhu Irzh.
The deva was, at least, correct: the ruins of the old palace were not far away. They made their way through the skeins of vines, pushing aside huge leaves. Trumpet-shaped flowers rose out of the shadows, whispering allurements that were lost on the badger, if perhaps not Zhu Irzh. But the jungle seemed to have changed, even to the badger’s animal instincts: the scents becoming headier and more sensuous, the air perfumed with musk. He put this down to the deva’s restored prese
nce, but wondered with unease whether the changes might not alert someone at the Hunting Lodge to the fact that a possibly unwelcome alteration had occurred. Let’s hope that they are all sleeping. Let’s hope.
The jungle was thinning out now, and badger’s hackles prickled. Moments later, they were looking out across the lawns of the Hunting Lodge. The palace itself seemed quiet, though torches burned and flared along the terrace; badger could smell smoke above the increasingly narcotic scent of jasmine. High in the palace, in one of the tall, crenellated turrets that stood at either end of the long building, a lamp was burning. The deva nudged Zhu Irzh.
“That’s the prince’s chambers.”
“So he’s still up,” the demon said. “Oh, great.”
The deva shook her head, as if in denial of the entire circumstance. “You don’t understand. He very rarely sleeps.”
Zhu Irzh looked at her. “It’s not unknown for rulers in my own Hell to have a personal connection with their premises. The king is the land, that sort of thing. How closely is Agni linked to this realm?
“I don’t know.” The deva looked blank. “We didn’t discuss that sort of thing. Actually, we didn’t discuss much at all.”
“I don’t suppose you did.”
“Will he know if we set foot in the palace?”
The deva did not answer. But the badger said, “Things go on in this palace of which Agni is unaware.”
Zhu Irzh, interested, said, “Oh? What sort of things? And how do you know?”
As concisely as possible, the badger related the conversation that he had overheard in the kitchen.
“The women plot things behind Agni’s back.”
Zhu Irzh gave a snort. “There’s a surprise. I bet he thinks he’s got them all well under control.”
“Actually,” the deva said, “He does not trust them. He believed them to be continually scheming against him.”
“So you did discuss a few things, it seems?”
“This is what I overheard. People talk, especially servants. The sisters are Agni’s harem and they plot, as all harems do.” She sighed. “This place reflects the ancient world, not the modern one. I understand that on Earth, women can have direct power these days. But when I was created, from the lap of the world, women could only use what they had, their bodies and their circumstances.”
“I don’t think one needs to go into too much feminist outrage on their behalf,” Zhu Irzh murmured. “They are tigers, after all.”
“Yes, but Agni is a demigod. Who do you think has the most authority, if all are called before Vishnu and asked to account for their actions?”
“This may be of historical interest,” the badger reminded, “but it is not getting us into the palace. When does dawn come?”
“I don’t know,” the deva said. “You lose track of time, being a rock.”
“It feels like midnight or more,” Zhu Irzh said. “We don’t have all that long.”
The deva led them around the side of the lawn, out of sight in the shadows of the walls.
“What about guards?” Zhu Irzh whispered.
“Agni used to have them. The arrangements might have changed, I don’t know.”
For the moment, there was no one in sight. They crept along the balustraded wall that separated the upper level of the terraces from the lower, then beneath an arch that took them into a courtyard. The deva thrust Zhu Irzh back just in time and he trod heavily on the badger’s paw; the badger stifled a snarl.
“Who’s that?” A dog-visaged person, with tusks and armor, came into view.
The deva gave a bell-like laugh. “Why, I’ve come from the forest. It’s lonely out there, you know.”
The badger did not pretend to understand humanoid beings, but he did grasp that most male servants of a vaguely relevant species, when confronted with a naked, perfumed woman and time on their hands, will respond in a positive manner. The deva made shooing motions with a hand, as the dog demon drew her inside the guardhouse. Zhu Irzh and the badger wasted no time in slipping by.
“Where now, do you think?” Zhu Irzh hissed. And the badger discovered a fact of remarkably pertinent interest: he was able to smell himself. The trace was very faint, but nonetheless unmistakable. The badger nudged Zhu Irzh and told him so.
“You can smell you?” The demon looked at him blankly.
“Yes. From when I was brought here. We smell strongly, you understand.”
“I had noticed, didn’t want to say anything, seemed a bit rude.”
“Why should it be rude?” the badger asked, puzzled. “It is a fact. My scent is rather stale, but I can still follow it.”
“Do you think you can find where they brought you in?” Zhu Irzh asked, with a nervous glance toward the guardhouse. Yelping cries were emanating from it.
“I will have to,” the badger remarked. “She cannot keep him entertained forever.”
“She’s having a damn good try.”
The only problem with pursuing the fragile scent was in determining whether it led back to the point of entry, or forward into the palace. After some casting around, the badger thought he might be coming close to the point at which he had been released from the bag, and sure enough, they could see through a window that they had reached the hall. The cries from the guardhouse were diminishing; they did not have long.
“This way,” the badger told Zhu Irzh. They ran along the wall, the badger tracking the scent. Unfortunately, this had been the time during which he had been within the bag and the smell was less pungent than it would otherwise have been. But it was possible to locate the scent, nonetheless. With the demon close behind, he ran up a flight of steps, under an ornate jasmine-fringed arch, and into a further courtyard.
There was a block of black stone in the center of the courtyard, a rough, unfinished archway, leading to nothing. The stone should have gleamed in the light of the torches, but instead it seemed to swallow any illumination. The badger felt an instinctive repulsion; this was not a healthy place.
“Shit!” Zhu Irzh’s whisper cut the air.
“What?”
The demon was staring upward. The badger followed his gaze and found that they were directly underneath the room in which the lamp was burning. Now, all the lights went on, blazing out across the courtyard and casting the shadows of demon and badger into sharp relief. Above, silhouetted against the sudden glare, Prince Agni’s figure stood, still and impassive, staring down at them. Behind, the torchlit night erupted into a frenzied baying. Prince Agni had let loose his hounds.
35
This time, it really was Lara. Go could hear her padding around in the darkness, but she smelled like the woman he had known: the strong musky perfume she favored was very distinct. He held his breath, fumbled for a cigarette, trying to look as though he’d just stopped for a moment in some endless flight through the city.
Surely she wouldn’t fall for this? How mad was she, really? As if in answer, there came a growl. Don’t look up, don’t breathe. Would she wonder why he wasn’t reacting to her presence? Did she truly think he might not have noticed? Then there was a sound that seemed to split the world and Go did look up at that, just in time to see the fire of yellow eyes as Lara leaped.
She hit him full on and Go, screaming, went down. The cigarette flew out of his hand and, weirdly, he watched the full arc of its trajectory as it hurtled into the pond and hissed out. Lara’s stinking-meat breath made him gasp and retch, as though she had somehow sucked all the oxygen out of the immediate atmosphere. She had knocked the breath out of his lungs, his ribs ached with the shock of impact, but when she reared back Go still managed to find the strength to stagger to his feet and try to run, as if his body had been subject to sudden possession by a desperate spirit. Somewhere, someone else was shouting, but Go was past the point where he was able to distinguish words. Then he tripped over a tree root and fell full length. There was a curious noise like a puff of wind, then a shriek and a thump that shook the world. Go stayed where he was,
facedown in loose earth, unable to move.
A moment later, however, someone was hauling him to his feet. “Come on, Go. You did it. She’s down.” Jhai’s voice sounded exultant. Go was, for the moment, unashamed to lean his full weight on her; she bore it easily.
He had to drag his head up to look at Lara. The tigress’ body lay twitching in spasms, a little distance away beneath the trees. Go’s breath deserted him once more; she was surely twice as large as an ordinary, earthly tiger. What had he and Beni been thinking, to conjure up a monster such as this? Go looked back on his only-slightly-younger self with a feeling of wonder, as one who considers a madman.
“Yeah,” Jhai said, following his gaze. “That’s Lara, all right. Typically unreasonable.”
“Is she—dead? Can she be dead?”
“No, we just tranked her. She’d just be shot straight back to Hell if we killed her here, and given what Savitra’s told me, they’d make sure she came back again. Twice as angry. Which, I’m assuming, you’d prefer she didn’t?”
“Too right,” Go quavered. “What about a binding spell, then?”
Jhai made a get-moving gesture to the figures in the shadows. “On its way.”
Go watched as the tigress’ inert form was loaded onto a stretcher. It took half a dozen security personnel even to lift her. Jhai, watching also, shook her head. “I’m going to have her snapped permanently back to her human form once we’ve got her under lock and key. Much more manageable.”
“Couldn’t you do that here?”
“Look around you.” Go did so, and saw that quite a few bystanders had congregated.
“If we did, and someone recognized her, called the media—you can see it, can’t you? ‘Movie Star in Stun Gun Shock.’ Much better that they just see a dangerous wild animal of whom yours truly has just rid the city.”
