by Liz Williams
It was fairly clear—both from Zhu Irzh’s comments and his own observation—that this was indeed Hell, or a realm of it. Go’s father had been a firm believer in reincarnation, maintaining that if one had not lived a good life, then one would, in time, be reborn as something unwholesome, probably a beetle. Go wondered whether this was happening now: whether the black being was some kind of middleman, dispatching souls between the realms. Maybe the web in which Go was partially encased would act as some kind of cocoon, dissolving him into a soul-soup before his regurgitation back into the world of Earth.
These theological ruminations were disturbed by a whisper.
“Who are you?” someone said.
Go turned his head and was confronted with someone a lot more appealing than the black entity. Also female, also naked, but with—yes!—no betraying sign of feline ancestry. Yet.
“My name’s—” Go hesitated. There were all sorts of reasons, both magical and practical, for not telling her. Besides, he’d only got into this situation through an uncharacteristic bout of honesty. Then again, what had he got to lose? Trapped in a tree, possibly dead, certainly screwed. “My name is Pauleng Go,” he said.
The girl bobbed her head in greeting and placed both palms together. “Namasté.”
“Hi. And who are you?”
“My name is Sefira.”
“You look human,” Go said. And how.
The girl burst out laughing. “How funny! Of course I am not human. I am a deva.”
“I see.” Go ransacked his memory for information on devas. Not goddesses, not demons. Created by Vishnu as handmaidens of Heaven. They had always been one of the more appealing aspects of Hindu mythology, to Go’s way of thinking.
“If you’re a deva,” he said, “what are you doing here?”
“I fell in love,” the deva said. She looked down, interlacing her fingers in her lap; Go tried and failed not to stare. “With Prince Agni, and he had me brought to the palace. Then he turned me into stone and a demon rescued me. A Chinese demon.”
“Aha,” Go said. Things were beginning to fit together. “His name wouldn’t have been Zhu Irzh, would it?”
The deva’s eyes widened. “You know him? There was a spirit with him, a beast.”
“Yes, I do know him,” Go said. “You might call him a friend.” Risky, but if Zhu Irzh had rescued this girl, she was presumably grateful. Go had almost given up making assumptions, however.
“Then you are a friend, too,” the deva said. Right decision! Go thought. For once. Maybe his luck was changing.
“Look,” he said to the deva. “You can see I’m stuck here. Can you help me? A black being imprisoned me up here.”
“Oh yes,” the deva answered. “They do that. They suck out your essence, later.” She pointed to the surrounding trees. “Can you see? There are the husks of the others. Their spirits are still here, but the essence is gone.” Now that it was light, Go could see that, indeed, there were faint shapes dangling from the branches, fragile as shadows.
“You know, I’d rather that didn’t happen,” Go said. “Can you cut me free?”
“I’ll try,” the deva said. She moved closer, enveloping Go in a cloud of musky perfume. Even under the current duress, his head swam. She began tugging at the webbing with surprisingly sharp fingernails. Soon, Go’s hands were freed enough for him to be able to help her; then he was able to swing himself up onto the branch.
“I need to get down,” he said. “Do you know a way out of here? Out of this realm of Hell, I mean? If you helped Zhu Irzh—”
“Yes,” the deva said. “I do. But only if you’ll take me with you. Zhu Irzh couldn’t, and now Agni knows I was involved, I think. There are things after me.” Her face crumpled. “I don’t want to be a statue again and there are worse things he can do. If I help you, will you take me to Earth?”
It was at this point that Go decided, once and for all, to give up self-sacrificing, noble behavior. Look where it had got him. It was time for a personal agenda to reassert itself. “Baby,” Go said. “If you help me get back to Earth, I’ll not only take you with me. I’ll make you a star.”
53
It was less a challenge, more a summoning. Chen held out a hand, palm upraised. “If you’re there, then show yourself.” His voice held the sudden ring of magic and the badger was hopeful: human powers altered in both Heaven and Hell, and there was no way of predicting how they would behave in between. “Show yourself now.” They would just have to hope that the presence sensed by the badger was not the Lord Lady Seijin, but it did not seem Seijin’s style, somehow, to skulk around boulders in what was, after all, the assassin’s own realm.
But then the person who had been following them stepped out, shuffling, the bones attached to its clothing shivering in the wind.
“You’re Bonerattle,” Chen said.
A sharp, beady glance, sideways, like an animal. “So I am,” the spirit shaman said. “You’ve come after her.”
“So we have. She is here, then?”
The shaman’s glance shifted to the badger. “A familiar,” the shaman said.
“Where is she?” The badger saw no point in small talk.
The shaman pointed toward the pagoda. “There. But Seijin has gone, I don’t know where, and it’s likely that Inari has gone, too.”
“You’ve seen her, haven’t you?” Chen said. “What kind of state is she in?” He spoke as calmly as ever, but the badger could hear the anxiety beneath the words and so, too, could the shaman, for he flinched.
“She is dead, but here in spirit. A strong spirit, too. She’s bound to her killer but I don’t think Seijin has had an easy time from her.”
“Oh good. You said the Lord Lady has gone?”
“Last night, in a terrible hurry.”
“How do you know this? Did you see them go?”
“I have been watching the Shadow Pavilion,” the shaman said. “Trying to look after Inari, but in truth, there’s little help I can give her.”
“What about the Pavilion itself? Is there anyone there who might know where Seijin has gone?”
“The Gatekeeper,” the shaman said. “I could not speak to him last night, the Pavilion was locked.”
“And now?”
“Perhaps.”
“If you can take us there, then please do so,” Chen said.
“You can see for yourselves where it is. But I will go with you.” The shaman peered over Chen’s shoulder. “That’s your lifeline?”
“A blood line.”
“It’ll get you back to Earth,” the shaman said, “as long as it isn’t cut. The Lord Lady has swords that can cut through anything.”
“I have seen the Lord Lady wounded,” Chen said. “As long as Seijin isn’t invincible, we will cope.”
“I believe you might,” Bonerattle replied, looking at Chen more closely. “You have the mark of gods on you.”
Chen laughed. “I’m no god. I just know a couple.”
The badger, impatient, was already heading across the stony ground, skirting the rocks. Mistress’ perfume was stronger now, but only a little. It was, however, enough to know that she had been here, in some form. Now, they would find her and restore her: to the badger’s way of thinking, matters continued to be simple.
“How do you know Seijin hasn’t come back?” Chen asked, some time later. They were standing close to the steps that led up to the pagoda, keeping out of sight of the main entrance.
“The presence of the Lord Lady is like a star in the heavens,” the shaman said. “I can feel it.”
The badger looked up at the Shadow Pavilion. From this brief distance, the origins of the building were even more marked: he could see bits of it fading out of sight even as others regained prominence. Spectral balconies manifested and grew translucent again; a flight of steps appeared, leading down to empty air, and were gone. The ghosts that soared around it were more ragged than they had seemed from further up the valley, and although one might have th
ought that they would have been woeful, desolate, they had merely the sense of emptiness; of shells of spirits, flocking to the pagoda from long and weary habit. A dreary place, the badger thought, and he was accustomed to bleak.
“This does not look very stable to me,” Chen remarked.
“And yet it is,” the shaman said. “It is a place of spirit and everything here has nowhere else to go. You will see when we enter.”
“Ah,” said Chen, “So you can get us in.”
“As I said, I will try.”
But he did not have to try very hard. As they went up the steps, the doors swung open without warning and an old spirit tottered out.
“Shaman, you have come! And with company.” He barely spared Chen and the badger a glance. “Well, never mind that.”
“Where is the Lord Lady?” the shaman asked.
The spirit wrung his hands. “Gone, gone to Heaven to slay the Emperor. The Lord Lady is injured and has gone mad; we will not withstand it here, even if Seijin returns. Everything is starting to crumble.”
“Seijin mad is more dangerous, not less,” the shaman said in alarm.
“Three beings in one, how can that be sustained?” the old spirit remarked.
Chen said, “There was the ghost of a female demon with Seijin. What happened to her?”
The spirit stared at him. “She went with him. She could do nothing else.”
Urgently, the badger said, “You, spirit. Can we reach Heaven from here?”
“You can reach anywhere, from here,” the shaman said. “The question is, whether you can get back to where you started.”
“I will send you on,” the Gatekeeper said.
“You’re a member of Seijin’s household,” Chen said. “Why would you help us? Because the Lord Lady is fragmenting?”
“This household has grown in the years that Seijin has made it a home. It is all these spirits have.” The Gatekeeper gestured to the circling ghosts. “Without the Pavilion, they would be out in the wastes of between, the prey of ghouls. I have a responsibility to them. If Seijin dies, then we might yet stay on. But if the Lord Lady is mad, then the Pavilion is likely to crumble alongside.”
“Who are you, then?” Chen asked.
“I am Seijin’s first victim. The Lord Lady killed me when Seijin was eight years old, riding with the horde. They besieged Bukhara. I was a gatekeeper of the city; I was already old. Seijin was just a child on a pony and ran me through. I remember that there was no expression on my murderer’s face. I came here: it was smaller then, only a single peak, and stones. The Pavilion came later, along with all the dead.”
“You must have desired revenge,” the badger said.
The old spirit shrugged. “Terrible things happened in those days. It was the way of it.”
“Terrible things are happening now,” Chen reminded him. “If you want to save the Shadow Pavilion, I suggest you give us some help.”
Within, the badger could barely move for spirits. They thronged the passages and corridors, bumped against the ceilings like moths. Women with their throats cut, eyeless warriors and their mutilated steeds, murdered children. Seijin’s legacy was coming home to roost, the Gatekeeper explained. Before, the Lord Lady had worked to keep these spirits invisible, at bay, but ever since the Lord Lady’s injury, the Pavilion had become increasingly full of ghosts.
“The perils of a repressed unconscious,” Chen murmured.
“What?” the badger asked, but Chen did not reply. They went up a long, winding staircase and out onto a landing. The badger passed through the shade of a slaughtered princess, the long metal tongue of an arrow still protruding from her mouth. Above it, her hair was piled up in an elaborate confection; she moved her head graciously from side to side, as if greeting visitors.
“This is the Lord Lady’s own chamber,” the Gatekeeper said. “This is where magic is done.”
That was immediately apparent to the badger on entering the room. It stank of magic: the old, blood kind that was rarely practiced these days, at least outside of Hell. The walls were stained with it, a red-black substance like mold, and its tarry residue coated the ceiling. On the floor, a smoldering circle stood, similar to the one by which they themselves had come to between.
“Can this be used?” Chen turned to the Gatekeeper.
“You can use it, but Seijin will know.”
“Is it possible to build another circle?”
The Gatekeeper wrung thin fingers together. “Not two at once, no. The Lord Lady made it this way, so that none should come in through the second circle while Seijin is away.”
“We will have to use this one then,” the badger said.
“Can you make it ready, Gatekeeper?” To the badger, Chen added, “We’ll just have to hope Seijin’s got other things on its collective mind.”
“Mistress will do her best to provide a distraction,” the badger said, stoutly. “I am sure of it. She will know we are close behind.”
At a gesture from the Gatekeeper, Chen stepped across the threshold of the circle, grimacing. “I don’t like using other people’s magic. It’s like wearing other people’s underwear.”
What was wrong with that? the badger wondered. It was probably some human thing, to do with scent and territory. Those, at least, were things he understood. He joined Chen in the middle of the circle. Seijin’s presence was strong here, as if the Lord Lady was standing right next to them. In a manner of speaking, perhaps this was so. The badger had only a hazy notion of how all the realms connected; he thought that they were probably like the bulb of an onion, lying closely together and yet separate. He did not like the idea of stepping from air to find himself beneath the assassin’s blade, and neither, he could tell, did Chen: he could feel Husband’s uneasiness. The thread that connected them back to Earth was visible, but only just and it looked perilously thin where it crossed Seijin’s circle.
“When you’re ready,” Chen said to Bonerattle and the Gatekeeper. The latter spoke a word, the circle flared up, rather as Lao’s had done. The badger, half-blinded, closed his eyes; the pattern grew, then faded. He thought he heard Chen say, “We’re moving.”
A brief flicker of time and the sense of years passing. Worlds glimpsed, all at once, and the badger, opening his eyes again, found it familiar. The cone of the mountain rushed by and this time he was certain he had seen it: its earth core whispered to him, calling his stray spirit home. The badger thought of Mistress and did not listen.
And then—blossom-sweet, sparkling air and the reek of war magic, pungent as decay. Chen and the badger stumbled out into opulence. Seijin’s passage was obvious, like stinking footsteps, but so was that of someone else.
“Inari” and “Mistress,” spoken at the same time.
“She’s here,” the badger said, and Chen replied, “I know.”
Together they ran through luxury, the badger noting only that this was a place that had been sealed by magic and then blasted open again; the smell of transgression was strong. The opened door hissed and sparked as they went through, but Mistress’ scent was very clear and now the badger knew she was not far away.
54
“No trace,” Jhai said, putting down the phone. “They’ve all gone.”
“Are you sure?” The demon was peering out of the window of Jhai’s topmost office, as if tigers could somehow be seen from this great height, stalking the city in their black and gold.
“According to the security team and the police. There’s no sign of them in the market, but they’re not reopening the building just yet. Lao and Ma are down there now. Lao says someone’s been doing magic: scorch marks all along the floor, apparently. And a fisherman saw a tiger jumping off the dock after a swimmer. Tall young guy, apparently, looked Indian.”
“Your friend Go,” Zhu Irzh said. “Oh well.”
“I told the stupid bastard not to go near them. Conscience is a terrible thing, Zhu Irzh. I’m so glad I don’t have one.”
The demon suppressed a smile.
He wasn’t sure about that, whatever protestations Jhai might make. It just worked in an unconventional way, that was all.
“I want to go down there, take a look for myself,” Jhai said. “Fucking Agni. I might have known he’d be trouble one day.”
The demon shrugged. “Families.”
“It’s not even a question of being dysfunctional,” Jhai mused. She slung her bag over her shoulder and made for the door. “It goes beyond that into some other concept.”
“Psychosis?”
“You’re probably right. Are you coming?”
“Of course. It’s my job.”
In late afternoon, the port area was humid and the rudimentary air-conditioning in the old market building had long since failed. Zhu Irzh straightened up from his examination of two sets of footprints.
“You don’t really have to be a detective to see what was going on here,” Jhai remarked.
“My dear Watson!” the demon protested. He’d lately got into old, subtitled Basil Rathbone movies; they were having their effect. “The only curious thing here is—”
