by Liz Williams
The maiden gave him a long, measured look. “Technically, no.”
“Oh, thanks!”
“Well, you are from Hell, aren’t you?”
“Hell was where I was born. I can’t help that, can I?”
“I suppose not,” the maiden said after a moment’s consideration. Then she added, humbly, “Perhaps I should be more charitable.”
“Yes, maybe you should.” But the whole exchange set Zhu Irzh to thinking as they followed the maiden along the deck, with the badger trundling along behind. It was true: as far as he knew, he’d had no choice. He wasn’t at all clear about the workings of Hellkind’s reproduction, at least, not as far as it concerned the soul. Humans were different: born into the flesh, they served out their time in it, discarded it, and then went elsewhere as if snapped back to their true realm by a piece of elastic. But the Celestials and Hellkind were not like that; they were born all of a piece. There was a limited kind of reincarnation—when a demon died, it simply remanifested, and as far as Zhu Irzh knew, the Celestials did not die at all. But did that mean that they could not die, or only that they rarely did? He had heard of demons slaying Celestial beings, but not what happened to them after that. He had assumed that they simply reappeared in Heaven, a bit ruffled. But maybe this wasn’t the case at all. Zhu Irzh was starting to feel a distinct theological lack. He frowned as he walked along the deck and was conscious of a sense of nervousness as they approached what was presumably the goddess Kuan Yin’s cabin.
When they got to a tall, narrow door, the maiden turned. “Wait here, if you please. I must speak to my mistress.” Then she stepped through the closed door, which rippled like water to let her in.
“You know,” the demon said. “I don’t think I’ve ever heard of a Celestial being coming all the way to the Night Harbor. I mean, apart from the clerks and so forth. But a goddess?”
“I’ve been wondering why she’s here,” Chen replied. “I can’t see it as a positive sign, somehow.”
“Neither can I.” Zhu Irzh glanced up as the maiden reappeared.
“She wants to see both of you,” the maiden said, managing to convey an air of discreet distaste as she looked at the demon.
“We’d be honored,” Chen said, before Zhu Irzh could answer.
“Then please go in.” The maiden opened the door. Zhu Irzh followed Chen into a warm, dark place, confined by red lacquered walls. It reminded him of a womb—that might, after all, be the idea. Smoke curled into the air from several tall incense burners, forcing the demon to stifle a sneeze. As his vision cleared, he saw that the goddess was seated at the far end of the chamber, upon a comfortably upholstered chair. She did not rise as they entered—one would hardly have expected her to—but greeted Chen with warmth. Zhu Irzh received a rather cooler salutation.
“Detective Zhu Irzh. We’ve met, have we not?”
“Yes, we have. After the—unpleasantness—last year.”
“I remember all too well,” the goddess said grimly. “And now you are here, on Earth.”
“Assigned to the offices of justice,” Zhu Irzh said. “Performing good and useful work.” He was suddenly aware that he was babbling. He was of one of the aristocracies of Hell, he reminded himself. There was no need to justify himself before the enemy. And yet, looking at Kuan Yin’s remote, cool countenance, Zhu Irzh could not help feeling very small.
At last the goddess rose, in a swish of silk and a wave of subtle perfume. “I have come, Chen, to search for someone. Someone who has answers to my questions, and someone who has been transformed.”
“With all due respect, Goddess,” Chen said. “I’m surprised that you came yourself, and did not send a minion.”
“I’m very hands-on sometimes,” the goddess remarked, surprising Zhu Irzh. She hesitated. “Besides, there is a question of trust.”
Zhu Irzh could almost feel Chen’s mouth drop open. “Trust? Among Heavenkind, I thought that would be automatic.”
“Then you would be wrong,” the goddess said. “We have our factions, just as you do. Aeons ago, perhaps, it was different—but you know the myths of origin. Creation arises not from agreement, but from conflict and tension. These things are the crucible that generates change. And there are many who hold that this is not a good thing, that Heaven must be more united, more cohesive. They do not believe that a certain degree of disagreement is healthy. They seek to unite us, and they seek to do so by withdrawing us from the ways of the world.”
Obliquely, Zhu Irzh understood. Heaven was splitting, Kuan Yin couldn’t trust any of her peers, and so she had come all the way down here to get her divine hands dirty. One had to have some respect for that: it was almost Hellish.
“I’m glad you’re here,” Chen was saying. “I have some critical information for you.”
“Tell me,” the goddess said, and so Chen did.
When he had finished, the goddess was silent for a long time. She was so still that Zhu Irzh wondered whether she might have returned to her marble form: he’d seen her do that before, the Celestial equivalent of locking oneself in the bathroom and having a long think. But it seemed that the goddess was merely processing, for eventually the life flooded back into her features and she turned to Chen.
“And you say it has already begun?”
“Tserai has already altered at least one Celestial being. My colleague here witnessed its transformation.”
“Tell me about this being,” the goddess said. Beneath the icy calm, Zhu Irzh thought he detected a momentary unease, but the goddess was too difficult to read. Perhaps he had merely imagined it. He related to Kuan Yin the events at the Farm. When he had finished, she said, “And this Celestial being. Tell me again what he looked like.”
She was presumably trying to place the entity. Zhu Irzh obliged and again there was that faint stirring beneath the marble facade, this time one of relief. But why should the goddess be relieved to know that one of her kindred had fallen into the hands of the enemy?
Chen said, “You spoke of looking for someone. May we be given to know who?”
“You may. An enemy. The one who has been trying to bring Hellkind through to the city.”
For a paranoid moment, Zhu Irzh thought that Kuan Yin meant himself and was being subtle about it. But the goddess continued: “One who has died and is trapped here. One who was murdered.”
“Deveth Sardai?” Zhu Irzh said before he could stop himself. Chen shot him an unreadable glance and it was only then that he realized that Chen himself may wish to keep secrets from Heaven, though he did not understand why.
“She is here, in the Night Harbor. Heaven has had its eye on her for years.”
“Surely she’s hardly a candidate for the Celestial pastures!” Zhu Irzh remarked.
“I meant, demon, in the sense that we continue to watch our enemies. Sardai’s family has long been in league with Hell. And Deveth was one of the most promising sorcerers of her generation. Naturally, we watched her.”
“You realize that Deveth is not the prime mover here?” Chen said carefully. He glanced at the demon again, as if wondering whether to ask Zhu Irzh to leave. The demon stood his ground. He knew what Chen was about to say.
“You mentioned the name of Jhai Tserai. I understand that she is the focus of all this. But Tserai is not human, and subject to other jurisdiction. I am licensed only to go in search of Sardai.”
“Other jurisdiction? What other jurisdiction?”
“The family is Keralan,” Zhu Irzh said. “I’m assuming that makes Tserai subject to other deities.”
“We could issue a kind of extradition order,” Kuan Yin answered, “but such things are complex and take time. Sardai has all the answers I need for the moment, and her presence and witness is all the evidence.”
“You’re planning to bargain with her?” Chen asked doubtfully.
“I see no conflict here, Detective. She is your murder victim, after all, not a suspect. You have only to seek out the one who slew her. No, Sardai
will be subject to our courts and our justice. There is, however, no difficulty in granting you the right to question her before I take her to Heaven.”
The goddess seemed very confident, Zhu Irzh thought, but he supposed that this went with the territory.
“Then if we help you look for Sardai,” Chen said, “and she tells us exactly who it was who murdered her, you can take things from there?”
“She can’t appear in your courts, can she? All you need is a signed and sealed witness statement.”
“Yes, that’s perfectly adequate under these circumstances. It isn’t possible for a spirit to lie about their death: it’s the one thing on which they have to speak the truth.”
“Then we are in accord,” the goddess said, smiling. “All we have to do now is find her.”
But Zhu Irzh, thinking of the vast and shadowed hinterlands of the Night Harbor, suddenly realized that he was unable to share the goddess’ presumption of success.
35
Robin knew that no sunlight penetrated into the lands of the Night Harbor, and yet a kind of dawn seemed to come nonetheless. The outlines of the squalid room shimmered into view and she could see once more through the slats of the hovel. Bad Dog Village stirred slowly into life. Robin watched through the slats as dogs bounded from their houses, blurring into their humanoid forms as they did so, scratching, yawning, bickering and occasionally squatting down in the street to shit. No wonder she had no memories of this place. The essential mind-wiping nature of the Night Harbor aside, her spirit had undoubtedly hastened through it as quickly as possible with eyes averted.
She had not expected breakfast and, indeed, none came. This was no hardship, for she was not hungry, but the thirst was dreadful and she was relieved when the door opened and a scruffy, sharp-toothed woman with matted hair entered with a bowl of water.
“This is for you. You’ll be thirsty,” she said, roughly but not with unkindness. The woman stared curiously at Robin as she awkwardly drank.
“So, you’re the brindled bitch’s bitch. Not dead, are you?”
“No,” Robin said, after a moment. No point in trying to lie: she was sure these people could smell the life in her.
“We don’t get many live ones through here. You’d be all they could talk about if it wasn’t for the other one.”
“Mhara? My friend? Do you know where he is?”
“Oh, I’m not going to tell you that. He’s special, is that one. Heavenkind, and they think they know who, too.” The woman put on a sly look as though she enjoyed knowing something that Robin did not. “You don’t know, do you? He hasn’t told you.”
“Told me what?”
“Oh, I couldn’t say. Tesk would whip the life out of me.” She gave a short, harsh laugh. “If there was any in me, that is.”
Robin wasn’t going to let on that she didn’t know what the woman was talking about. She hid her disquiet and said, “So tell me. Who are you people?”
“Us? We’re the outcasts. Too good for Hell, too bad for Heaven. People the bureaucrats don’t know what to do with. All our cases are pending. Supposedly. But I know what happens—they just shove them in a drawer somewhere and forget about them because they don’t want the hassle.”
“Can’t your families pray—or pay—to have you sent on? Tip the balance?”
“What families? We come from folk who are too ignorant to know and too selfish to care. And so we end up here in Bad Dog Village, little lost spirits whom the land turns to dog-form.” The woman’s foot thumped briefly on the ground, like a dog scratching. “It’s not such a bad life. There’s food in the hills, game and such like, though I wouldn’t call them rabbits. Too many teeth. And the men are all right once you get to know them, and know your place. It’s shelter.”
“But you must want to move on, get back into life eventually?”
The woman snorted. “As what? Born back into the same life we left by dying? You don’t know what my life was like as a human woman. This might be a shitty life, but it’s still better.” She rose to her feet and stretched. “Anyway, nice talking to you, but I’d better get on. And, dearie, when you get back to the land of the living, make sure you don’t live the kind of life that winds you up back here, eh? I don’t need the competition.”
When she had gone Robin stared at the empty water bowl and thought. It seemed to her that Bad Dog Village was exactly where she had been heading, up until the point that she freed Mhara, and she only had the courage to do that because she was essentially delirious. But until that point, it had been neither good nor bad, and more of the latter than the former. She had done enough thinking about it, enough self-analysis. It was time to change, but if she was going to escape Bad Dog Village in death, then she had to escape it in life first, and she had no clear idea as to how to go about it.
The bitch-woman’s comments about Mhara had been odd, as well. He’s special. Well, she knew that, but did they mean only that Mhara was Heavenkind, and far from home, or something more? And if so, what were they planning for her friend?
Resolving to do something constructive, Robin made a thorough search of the hovel, but though the walls were flimsy enough, they were woven in with some kind of tough rush and she could neither force nor unweave her way through. She battered at the door until her strength was spent, but it was of no use. Frustrated, she sat down and tried to think of a plan.
36
The goddess did not accompany them back to the Night Harbor, as Zhu Irzh was expecting. Instead, she asked Chen and the demon to remain on deck, then closeted herself in the red lacquered room with her maid. The door remained closed for some time.
“What are they doing in there?” Zhu Irzh chafed. The atmosphere of the boat was really starting to get to him, causing a kind of deep psychic itch.
“I have no idea,” Chen replied. “Discussing the situation, probably.”
But when the door finally opened and the Celestial maiden stepped forth, she had changed. She now had about her an air of grave authority and presence, and her gaze was as depthless and dark as the Sea of Night itself.
“Goddess?” Chen said.
“A seed only,” the maiden answered, and her voice was different, too, now having some of the timbre of Kuan Yin’s own. Zhu Irzh had seen people download themselves, or parts of their psyches, into other people before, but he had rarely seen it done so smoothly. Usually the possessed were fuzzy around the edges.
“Can we go now?” he asked.
“Of course,” the maiden replied, as though there had never been any question about it. Since becoming possessed, she seemed to have also taken on some of Kuan Yin’s more fluid and mutable qualities. The maiden moved sinuously from the boat, and Zhu Irzh clambered after her.
The dock of the Night Harbor had filled up in their absence and was now crowded. There must have been a fresh consignment of souls released through the portals while Chen and the demon were on board. The souls looked confused: some wandered up to Kuan Yin’s vessel and trailed wondering, wistful hands along its sides.
“We must be careful,” the maiden said. “It would not be helpful if someone were to stow aboard.” She spoke coolly, but Zhu Irzh caught sight of the sadness in her possessed eyes and knew that she would save them all if she could. Despite her remoteness, Kuan Yin, the Compassionate and the Merciful, was truly named.
Chen was already at the harbor master’s hut, asking questions. When the maiden and Zhu Irzh reached him, he said, “The harbor master thinks he knows who she is. She’s not in her original form, however. The dogs got to her when she reached the village.”
“I can’t understand why she didn’t go onward to Hell,” Zhu Irzh said. “She wasn’t a good person.”
“No, but she was murdered and that was probably enough to hold her here,” Chen replied. “It gets complicated.”
“So what happens now?” the maiden asked. “We go to the village?”
“Yes, but I’m reluctant to walk. It’s too far and it’s also dangerous. I�
��ll have to try to arrange some transport.”
“Leave it to me,” the maiden said. She disappeared inside the harbor master’s hut. Chen and the demon looked at one another.
“She’s the goddess,” Zhu Irzh said. “Best leave it to her.”
But when the maiden emerged, her head was held high and her eyes were snapping. “Bureaucrats! Come with me!” was all that she said. Exchanging a further round of glances, Chen and Zhu Irzh followed meekly in her wake.
The transport that was to take them to Bad Dog Village proved to be a ramshackle coach, drawn by two mangy kylin lion-dogs. They stamped their fringed feet as the demon approached, tossed their manes and roared, enveloping the party in a wave of fetid breath.
“Lovely,” Zhu Irzh said, eyeing them with minimal enthusiasm. “Couldn’t they find anything better?”
“Apparently not,” the maiden remarked. “I believe that man took actual delight in thwarting a deity. But I have so little jurisdiction here … We must take what we can get.” She allowed Chen to open the door of the carriage and help her inside. “You will have to drive.”
Chen glanced at Zhu Irzh. “Can you do it? I’ve no experience with these things.”
“I can try,” Zhu Irzh said, but he was not confident that the beasts would obey him. Chen hoisted the badger up, then clambered up beside him and watched as Zhu Irzh shook the reins, clucked, and failed to make the kylins budge. Eventually, with a lot of cursing and the use of a small, flicking whip, the beasts were prodded into movement and the carriage set off along the dock at a slow trundle.
“Do you even know where we’re going?” Zhu Irzh asked.
“Not really, but apparently Kuan Yin does. Her avatar will give us directions.”
“Strange,” the demon mused. “You must have come here many times, and yet you retain none of it.”
Chen grimaced. “Probably just as well. I don’t like the Night Harbor, Zhu Irzh.”
“I can see why.” Zhu Irzh looked with distaste at the ghosts clamoring alongside them, their spectral hands brushing against his coat and the sides of the carriage. “What good do they think that will do?”
