Shadow Pavilion

by Liz Williams

  47

  Inari, wandering through halls … Silence and lamplight, the soft fall of shadows, the sudden footstep rush.

  Seijin was back. The Gatekeeper had told her but she already knew what was on the way, she could feel it in the air, the change. She shrank back among the cobwebs, merging into tapestry, as the old wooden doors of the Shadow Pavilion blasted open and its ruler came home.

  Seijin left a wake, which whistled as it swept through the passages of the Shadow Pavilion. Inari felt it glide over skin that was no longer there, stirring non-existent blood, whispering on. The Lord Lady was long gone by the time she stepped timidly out from behind the tapestry, whirling up into the high air of the upper chambers, and Inari, despite her wishes, was drawn into the assassin’s path. Moving fast, feet as still as if she’d stepped onto an elevator, magnet-pulled to the presence of the Lord Lady.

  Corridors fled by and the tapestries came alive as she passed, coal-bright eyes glancing out, fingers reaching. A small prancing presence, a sad-faced lion-dog, flickered across her path and away. Inari rushed on, unable to stop, locked into someone else’s dream; at the entrance to an upper chamber a man in a leather jacket, face full of hate, stepped out of the air, but Inari went right through him. The door banged behind her. She was still at last, standing in a room empty except for the moth-light of a single candle, and the Lord Lady Seijin.

  The assassin turned and Inari gasped. The serene presence that she had last glimpsed in the moment before her death was gone. Seijin’s face was a blood-stained mask in the candlelight, one eye gone, only a black hollow left where it had been. A thin thread of smoke misted from the eye socket, as if Seijin was burning up from within. Seijin’s lips drew back from pointed teeth; each one gleamed red. The Lord Lady hissed like an adder.

  “I left you dead!”

  Now that the assassin’s unnatural calm had dissipated like the smoke coiling out from the empty eye, Inari found that the tables had suddenly turned. She drew herself a little taller.

  “But now I am here,” she said, and smiled.

  Seijin stepped back, Inari moved forward.

  “You killed me, here I am. Forever and a day, Lord Lady.” The smile was widening into a grin. Inari spread her arms open so that her long sleeves trailed out like a butterfly’s wings. As she did so, she felt her feet drifting up from the floor, so that she was hovering. Without knowing how she did so, Inari shot forward, gliding through the Lord Lady with a cold rush like prickling ice.

  Seijin cried out, a terrible wail of woe, and Inari knew a moment of pure triumph. Then she was through the wall to the outside, hovering beyond the Shadow Pavilion. The sky was a sparkling sea-green, the shade that lasts only for a few minutes just before the fall of night, and the bulk of the Pavilion stretched below, a vertiginous series of angles, blocks of shadow that made the building look like part of the mountain. At the window of the room she had left, Inari saw Seijin’s anguished face looking out, a wan oval, fleetingly overlain by a snarling warrior and a woman’s sad countenance. Then they were all gone and the little light went out.

  Inari felt slightly foolish, floating here like a blown leaf. Being dead was odd, however: she knew how to do certain things without even thinking about it. She crossed her arms over her breast, pointed her toes, and sank down through the darkening air to the ground. Interesting, to see the Pavilion like this, though ominous. From the outside, there seemed to be much more going on than had been obvious from within. Inari sailed past an entire dinner party and paused to peer through the window, seeing a lavish spread, a table with blazing lamps and glittering silver, but the faces of the guests were somber and their food looked as though it was made of metal. And in another chamber, a woman wept alone, watched by the grave spirit of a child. This was a house-sized Hell, a microcosmic mansion of the slain.

  Inari thought: I am better off than these people. Her faith that Chen would find her was still strong and the fact that she had managed to disconcert—perhaps even hurt—Seijin was hugely empowering. Then Inari’s toes touched the ground, a leaf-light landing, and she was once more dragged to the Pavilion steps.

  In, she had to get in. Once on the ground, that ferocious compulsion had seized her: she was thrust against the doors as if pressed by an immense wind, with such force that she slid down the unyielding door and lay slumped on the stone.

  Someone said: “Is that you, Inari?” What had once been her heart echo-thumped against her ribs—Chen! But it was not Chen; it was Bonerattle.

  Inari turned her head with an effort. “I have to get in,” she whispered. All the confidence with which she had faced Seijin had now ebbed away, consumed by need.

  “Seijin killed you!” the shaman exclaimed. He scuttled out of the darkness, glancing from right to left; Inari wondered what else was out there, remembering the shapes she had seen.

  “Yes, it killed me. It came to the Emperor’s temple, I was in the way.”

  “I am so sorry,” the shaman said. He put a blackened hand on Inari’s shoulder; it was some small comfort.

  “It wasn’t your fault,” Inari said.

  “I brought you here, first of all.”

  “If you hadn’t,” Inari told him, “I would still have been at the temple and I would still have been in the way and I would still be dead. Tell me, shaman—has anyone ever come here, someone Seijin has killed, and left again?”

  “I would like to tell you they have,” Bonerattle said. “But the truth of it is, I do not know. The Pavilion is as crammed with spirits as a bottle filled with sand, and I can’t enter it.”

  “But now,” Inari said, “I can.” She told him what had just happened with Seijin, and the shaman listened intently. The compulsion to get back into the building was still strong, but talking to Bonerattle permitted her to ignore it, up to a point. But it was also fueled by fear of what else might be waiting among the rocks: there were things that ate spirits, Inari knew.

  “So,” the shaman said, when she had finished. “You are in an interesting position. You are a haunt.”

  “So it seems,” Inari said, with a hoarse little laugh. “What am I to do, then?”

  “Go back in,” Bonerattle said, “and do your work.”

  48

  Heaven was on the move. Mhara stood in front of the throne, watching as hundreds of people massed outside the Imperial Palace. These were the folk who had agreed to travel to Earth, there to take up roles in Singapore Three, to begin with, to see how they might best assist that city’s benighted populace.

  He’d left it up to them in the end, no exhortations, no enforced control. And this was what they’d chosen, restoring their Emperor’s tattered faith, at least to some degree.

  But there was another school of thought. Mhara could sense it, running through the Palace like a thin black wind. Discontent, dismay, a wind that could easily be fanned into flames and burning. He knew who was holding the fan, too. If he closed his eyes, he gained a small, incomplete vision of his mother, standing on the back steps of the Palace, whispering. During his time on Earth, she had managed to close him off to a considerable degree and he shivered to think of what kind of price she had paid to withstand Imperial magic.

  Oh, my mother, what have you become? But he already knew the answer to that; it had lain in the whistle of a poisoned pin and the beheading flash of a sword. Mhara’s lips tightened. Chen had insisted—with utmost politeness—that the Emperor return to Heaven, that he and Zhu Irzh would handle things from then on. There was too much at stake for Mhara to enter into purely personal engagements, Chen had said, and with reluctance Mhara had agreed.

  So he was back here, after the second assassination attempt, to find his mother still plotting. She must be furious, to learn that Seijin had once more failed. Furious, and also desperate, for she must know, too, that her son would now be forced to take steps.

  House arrest at the very least, but Mhara did not want to disrupt things still further on the verge of the Celestial exodus to Earth
. See them safely off, and then act. With that in mind, he’d better get on with it. The presence of the Dowager Empress was like a poisoned thorn, reaching the very heart of the Palace.

  Motioning to the courtiers, Mhara walked down the long hall, so quickly that the courtiers were obliged to scurry in order to keep up. The courtyard of the Imperial Palace was an ocean of upturned faces and Mhara experienced more than a twinge of doubt. He had no wish to be Heaven’s Mao, sending them off on their Long March to Earth … Their faith in him, so hard won at first, had kindled to a blaze—and what if he simply let them down? So many longed for angels; he had spoken about it with Kuan Yin, she of Compassion and Mercy, not so long ago.

  “They all cry out,” the goddess had said. “They all read books about angelic powers—their own culture, other people’s. They haunt the churches and temples, hoping for revelation. They see it on the television.”

  “And what would happen if you gave them angels?” Mhara had asked, unease rat-gnawing within.

  “They’d be horrified,” the goddess said. This, in essence, was what he was doing now, and would they be grateful? Probably not, but he had to try.

  He raised his voice to address them and the murmurs immediately stilled. They were rapt, waiting.

  “You are about to begin your journey,” the Emperor said. Don’t call it a march, too many memories, even all the way up here. In Heaven’s terms, all that was a moment ago. “Be warned! Earth may not welcome you. There are those who want things made worse, not better, so that they can scavenge on the remnants. Remember what you know already: the human world is filled with predators. But you have to try. Do your best and if you ask, if you have need, then Heaven will take you back and there will be no blame.” He held up a hand. “You have my blessing.” And it rolled out from his outspread fingers, a blue wave, sparkling through the air, settling over their heads.

  A horn sounded. Kylin danced at the head of the procession, the crowd now forming into a neater queue. The manes of the kylin were golden; their protruding eyes gleamed with a ferocious wisdom. They grinned, displaying gilded teeth. Mhara had forbidden them from entering Earth itself, mindful of recent deific incursions: the mad goddess Senditreya’s rampage through the city, in her oxen-drawn chariot, was still unpleasantly fresh in human minds. But they would see the Celestials safely through Heaven and across the Sea of Night. Difficult to say when they would arrive: these things took their own time and not even the Emperor could rearrange temporal space, not for so large a gathering. They would get there when they were meant to.

  The horn sounded again and the kylins wheeled, herding stray Celestials into line. Mhara watched, hand still upraised, as they set off, a joyful procession, singing, playing flutes, and banging drums. He hoped they’d still be happy in a week or so’s time. And it would mean more work for Robin: he envisaged a stream of dislocated Celestial personnel showing up at the temple door, all needing urgent advice about dealing with the human realm. Robin would cope, she always did. But that still didn’t mean it was fair.

  He watched until, some time later, the last members of the procession threaded their way through the groves of flowering trees and out of direct sight, and the final capering notes of the flutes faded into birdsong. Enough, they were gone, and he would watch over them all the way as far as he could. But now, it was time to deal with the Dowager Empress.

  He did not find his mother immediately. He went methodically through the Palace, searching room by room, always half-expecting­ the strike of a pin between his shoulder blades. He couldn’t sense Seijin but that hadn’t stopped the assassin last time, had it? He thought of Inari and regret made him shiver. Standing in the middle of an ornate room, one of the guest banqueting halls for visiting dignitaries, causing the silken drapes to billow from the walls, checking for someone hiding. Finally he reached the last chamber of all and she was not there. She had not been on the back steps of the Palace for some time.

  Enough and enough. Mhara stood still once more, and summoned her.

  The Dowager Empress arrived with a shriek. It was, her son thought, the only time he’d seen her anything approaching disheveled. Her robes still streamed behind her, as if caught in a stormwind, and her hair was coming down. She tried to glare at her son, but the decades of habit held her face in its masklike expression.

  “How dare you.” Her voice was low and cold.

  Mhara said, equally icy, “On the contrary, madam. Since you’ve been trying to have me killed, I think I’ve demonstrated admirable restraint.”

  The Dowager Empress grew very still. “Killed?” she echoed.

  “You’re a terrible liar, Mother.” Mhara circled her, wolflike, and the Dowager Empress tried to turn with him, but was hampered by her skirts. “The Lord Lady Seijin. The assassin. Tried twice and failed twice; I imagine there’ll be a third attempt soon. You won’t be there to see it.”

  The Dowager Empress’ countenance grew even paler, becoming glassy and translucent. Maybe she’d simply disappear, Mhara thought: that would be helpful.

  “Are you threatening me?” the Dowager Empress whispered.

  “With what? Death? Treason, a trial? Oh no. I’m going to do far worse than that. I’m going to issue you with a home all of your own. Comfort, luxury, all you could ever need. What son could do more for a mother?” Distantly, Mhara wondered where he’d dredged up this aspect of cruelty: probably no need to work out where he’d got it from, given who was standing in front of him. Now the eyes of the Dowager Empress were distinctly fearful as well as angry, but Mhara meant what he’d said. He’d even had the place made ready, arranged before the Celestials were dispatched to Earth.

  “Try not to see it as house arrest—more as a holiday. I’m sure that, given time to reflect on matters, you’ll reach a more balanced perspective. Healing. Inner peace.”

  The Dowager Empress looked as though he had offered her a bowlful of scorpions. “I—” she began, but Mhara hissed, “Enough.” Blue light surrounded the Dowager Empress, darken­ing to indigo, muffling her sudden scream. The light lapped around her feet like water, pooling, rippling, then rising to first one wave crest, then another. There was a strong wind blowing, out of nowhere. Mhara looked up and saw stars all around, reflected in the depths, an untethered moon sailed by, its sharp crescent cutting through the waves. Beneath his feet, the bare boards were encrusted with something white and grainy: if this had been an ocean of Earth, it might have been salt. The ship rocked and plunged, causing the Dowager Empress to stagger, and grip the nearest mast.

  “Where are we?”

  “Why, Mother, I thought you’d know. You can see it from the Palace windows, after all. This is the Sea of Night.” Mhara pointed to a bright and distant line. “Look—you can even see Heaven from here. You won’t be able to sail to it, unfortunately. In fact, you won’t be able to sail anywhere, as this boat is anchored. Permanently.” He pointed to the chain, gleaming blue, which ran over the deck and down into the sea.

  The Dowager Empress gave him a look that was filled with hate.

  “Nor will you be able to leave; the boat’s warded. I’m sure you’ll get used to a gentle retirement. There’s a state room, it’s all very elegant. And now, I really have to leave. I’ll visit you, from time to time. When things quiet down.”

  He wondered, as he left, where his mother had picked up some of the curses she was currently employing. Certainly not from the parlors of Heaven. He looked back, once, and saw her standing there on the rearing ship, tiny against the vast expanse of the Sea of Night. Her face was upturned, and she had made some progress, at least, for the mask was finally gone: her expression was one of pure rage.

  “Goodbye, Mother,” Mhara murmured, as Heaven’s shore grew closer and the darkness fell behind.

  49

  Go was nearly flattened in the rush, as shoppers pushed and shoved their way out of the market, away from the roar. He struggled toward it nonetheless, dodging around stalls, trying and failing not to knock over
stands of peppers, strings of chilies and ginger, baskets of millet. Treading on a slick of grain, he fell, going down under the flying feet of escapees. Cursing at his wrenched ankle, Go clambered to his feet, looked up, saw Lara.

  “You!” the tigress said. She was bigger than Go remembered, or perhaps it was the enhanced perspective lent by fear.

  “Yeah, it’s me,” Go said. That fear had already started to ebb, replaced by simple weariness. Suddenly, all he wanted was for this to be over and done with, knowing all the same that it never would. A transition, that was all, stepping from one room into another, into even deeper shit. “Go on then, Lara. I guess I deserve it. I won’t even ask you to make it quick. Just get it over with.”

  “All right,” the tigress said. Burning bright, indeed: she looked like a bonfire, all flame and soot, making the spilled colors of the fruit and vegetables pallid in comparison. “All right then, I will.” And leaped.

  But as she leaped, Go smelled something pungent, a blast of spice, heard a harsh male voice crying out something in a language that was familiar, and not Cantonese. Lara knocked him flat again: Go was suddenly struggling underneath a mass of silken draperies and warm flesh.

  “What the fuck?” Lara, no longer tiger, shouted.

  “Get off me!” He was sure she’d broken a rib. Go was prepared to meet his death in feline jaws, not to be flattened by a felled actress. This might be the dream of some of Lara’s fans; Go, at this point, would rather have been buried in centipedes. Moments later, his command was enforced by a tall man, gloriously dressed in orange and gold, who hauled Lara back by the arms and smacked her across the face when she resisted.

  “Agni!” Lara’s face was working.

  “You’ve been having quite a time.” Black eyes, golden ringed, a voice like a purr.