by Liz Williams
“To be brutally frank,” Zhu Irzh said, “it’s possible that the gap leads to my home. Or somewhere very similar. I’ll need to take a closer look.”
“Be careful,” the shaman said again.
Zhu Irzh went up the slope to the beginning of the rift. He wasn’t foolish enough to stand over the gap itself—things had been known to reach up and pull you in under similar circumstances—but there were ways of telling whether the rift went all the way down to Hell. He held out a hand and, mindful of the fact that this was a different world, spoke a spell.
According to the dictates of this kind of magic—a simple locator spell—an image should now unfold itself in front of Zhu Irzh’s eyes, depicting the gap itself and its origins. What happened was somewhat different.
The earth beneath Zhu Irzh’s feet began to rumble and growl, a tiger sound. The shaman gave a warning cry and Zhu Irzh leaped backward down the slope, stumbling a little as the earth began to crack under his feet. The gap was widening like a maw. Behind him, one of the horses screamed, and he turned to see that Raksha had caught both of them by their plaited leather bridles.
“Quickly!”
Zhu Irzh was more accustomed to leaping into a car than onto a horse’s back and his mount did not appreciate him scrambling onto it: the beast gave an angry whinny and shot off across the steppe.
“Hang on! Slow down!” Zhu Irzh cried, struggling to stay mounted. The shaman galloped up beside him just as Zhu Irzh managed to rein the horse in a little. He glanced over his shoulder.
Streaming out of the gap in the earth, they came: a long line of black-clad horsemen. At their head rode a familiar figure, wearing red leather armor and with a curious, pointed helmet.
“I mentioned the Khan?” Zhu Irzh shouted to Raksha. “That would be him.”
The Khan gave a roar as he spotted Zhu Irzh and the shaman. He motioned to one of the horsemen behind him and the man notched an arrow to his bow and let fly. The arrow shot past Zhu Irzh’s ear and buried itself in the grass. Raksha cursed. She leaned back in the saddle and raised a hand. A white-hot bolt of energy whipped out and knocked the horseman out of the saddle. The Khan laughed, showing golden teeth. His horsemen surged forward, toward the demon and Raksha. Zhu Irzh, realizing that they were hopelessly outnumbered, kicked his horse onward but it was too late. The faster he tried to ride, the more the world slowed down around him, until Zhu Irzh felt as though he were inhabiting one of those dreams where you walk through treacle. Beside him, Raksha called out, and he turned to see her horse crumple beneath her. The shaman went down into the grass and struggled to rise, but it was as though someone had clapped an invisible jar over her. She mouthed something to Zhu Irzh which he could not hear.
“Shit!” His own horse was folding and Zhu Irzh leaped clear. Then it was as if the world was contracting down into itself. He threw out a hand but encountered resistance. His limbs felt heavy, gravity dragging him down, and then his knees buckled and the world turned to cloud and cotton wool.
37
As soon as they stepped through the door, a black stickiness fell all around Chen. He swore, making a swift invocation, but in this Hell his magic did not work. The spell fell apart, pattering softly to the floor like rain. Then the web held him in its grip. Behind him, Li-Ju spat something in the Celestial tongue and the web began to disintegrate.
“Unwise, Madam,” the captain said coldly, “to rely on Heaven’s magic in another world’s Hell. Oh, wait. I forgot. It isn’t Heaven’s magic, is it? You renounced that some time ago.”
The Empress, squatting at the center of the room, hissed at him. Li-Ju leaped forward, sword drawn, as the Empress rose, with surprising speed given the weight of her skirts. She cast a spell toward Li-Ju, but it fizzled out like a damp firecracker.
“Oh no you don’t!” said a voice behind Chen. He turned to see a figure in a robe the color of a summer’s sky, striding down the corridor, followed by an armed group of demons. The blue-robed person was grinning a sharp-toothed grin. “So, Madam. It is you. You owe me a debt.”
Li-Ju had tried to explain, but it seemed that the pirate Banquo was having none of it.
“Doesn’t matter to me. One Celestial’s much the same as another, regardless of any feuds. Sorry about you,” he added to Chen as he shut the cell door, “humans tend not to fare all that well in Hell. Still, you must have known the risk.”
“We came looking for someone,” Chen said through the grille. “Two women. A Celestial and a demon. Have you seen them?”
“Ah.” Banquo turned. “Indeed. Two most decorative and enterprising young ladies. They had some sort of animal with them. Not only have I seen them, I’ve taken them prisoner. Twice, in fact. On the second occasion, they managed to suborn a native and escape. For obvious reasons, I’ve no idea where they are now.”
“Why were they held prisoner?”
“I was hired to take them. By Madam, there.” He pointed across the cell to where Mhara’s mother sat sullenly in a pool of her skirts.
“And what happened to them then?”
“I told you. They escaped, on the back of a bird, I believe.”
“On the back of a—?”
“Anyway,” the pirate said briskly. “I can assure you that they are not here now. And if you’re thinking of attempting a similar route out, I wouldn’t. There are no Roc this far down in the forest and the shark-demons want for nothing and thus cannot be bought.”
“So what are you going to do with us?”
The pirate grinned a golden grin. “I have a large ransom in mind.”
Then he was gone in a swirl of blue robes. Across the cell, the Empress had begun muttering. It might be preferable to be ransomed, Chen thought, than be subjected to whatever the Empress had in mind as an escape route, if indeed she did so.
“Madam, be quiet,” Li-Ju said sharply.
“I will not!” A small but potent darkness was gathering in the corner of the cell, conjured by the Empress’ murmuring. Chen did not like the look of it, or the smell. Then the darkness was abruptly cancelled out, sizzling into nothingness like an evaporating stormcloud. The Empress swore. Borrowed magic, it seemed, had its limitations.
38
“Where are you speaking from?” Jhai cupped a hand to her ear. Evidently it was not a good line. “What? What are you doing there?”
A crackling on the other end of the cellphone, like distant bees. “Roerich?”
Miss Qi turned to Inari. “Who is she talking to? Do you know?”
But Inari shook her head.
“Never heard of it. Is it near Lhasa?” A pause. “Oh, I see. Well, sort of. Look, what the hell’s going on, Roerich? I’m standing on what’s supposed to be Singapore Three and there’s no trace of it.”
More squawking. Jhai listened intently.
“What, the whole lot? Outside China?”
Then she added, in more pragmatic tones, “Okay. So what do you want me to do?” Roerich replied at length and Jhai said, “I don’t know whether I’ve got enough fuel. I’ll have to check with the pilot. There’s no sense in flying out to Tibet if we—what? Where’s Zhu Irzh?”
The conversation ended and Jhai snapped her phone shut. She did not look happy. She said, “That was—a friend. At least, I think he’s a friend. Says he’s in a floating moveable city in the middle of Tibet and my fiancé’s gone back in time to try and sort things out. We’re in trouble.”
Inari did not know whether Jhai was speaking generally, or in direct connection with Zhu Irzh’s apparent involvement. “Did he say anything about Wei Chen?” she asked.
“No, and I’m sorry, Inari.” Jhai put a hand on her arm. She might even have meant the apology. “I didn’t ask.”
“But where is everyone? Are they dead?”
“No,” Jhai said slowly. “It’s apparently more accurate to say that they were never born.”
“What’s that?” Miss Qi asked. They looked in the direction of her pointing finger. On a slight rise, some
distance from the shore, stood a white-domed building. It was so small that it was almost invisible against the gray-green-brown of the hills, but Inari recognized it at once. How could she not? It was the place where she’d died.
“Mhara’s temple!”
It made sense, Inari thought. If anyone survived this changed, denuded world it ought to be the Emperor of Heaven.
“Do you have a number for Roerich?” she asked.
Jhai examined her phone. “No. And somehow, I’m not sure he was using an actual phone.”
“I don’t know this man,” Inari said uneasily. “I’d rather go where it might be safe.” An odd term to use for a place where you’d been decapitated, and yet somehow she knew it to be the right choice.
Jhai shrugged. “Fair enough. If Roerich wants to track us down, I have a feeling he will anyway.”
She spoke at length to the crew and pilot, who elected to stay with the jet. They could survive for some time on aeroplane food, they said. But Inari felt that the presence of Mhara’s temple was an indication of some kind of life, unless this world had changed so radically that the temple was inhabited by something else entirely. One never knew, but one had to take the risk anyway.
She set off, with Miss Qi and Jhai. The Celestial warrior was nervous and kept glancing around her, but apart from the plane crew, there was no one else in sight. Inari, however, respected Miss Qi’s instincts.
“Can you sense anything?”
“Many things,” Miss Qi said with a shiver. “Ghosts of the might-have-been, perhaps.”
“What caused this?” Inari asked. So Jhai explained, and the story took them more than halfway to Mhara’s temple. Inari was relieved to see it so close at hand. She kept trying to trace the lines of non-existent streets, seeing from the corners of her eyes the shapes of buildings that were no longer there, and in this reality, had never been. The sun was going down now in a calm burn of gold beyond the shore and even if this was a worldly paradise, as Jhai had suggested, darkness was still dark and things still lived in it.
The temple was still, its roof turned to gold by the sunset light. The doors were closed: they walked up the front steps and knocked. Inari expected the door to remain bolted, but it did not: Robin stood in the entrance, gaping at them.
“Inari! Miss Qi! You’ve come back!”
Inari was so relieved by this apparent lack of change that she went weak at the knees. Robin hastened them inside.
“Things,” said Robin, “have changed.”
“You said they came back,” Jhai said sharply. “Did you know they’d been away? Or were you referring to something more general?”
“No,” Robin said. “These two went missing in the typhoon. Chen’s been here, Inari, looking for you, and he’s gone after you. I don’t know where Zhu Irzh is. But Kuan Yin came here and told us what had happened.” Her slightly spectral face was creased with worry. “Then I got up in the morning and—this had happened. The whole city’s gone. The worst thing of all is that I can’t seem to contact Mhara.”
“Do you think the spell—edited him out?” Inari faltered. She did not like to think of that level of power.
But Robin shook her head. “Why would it do that, and leave me here—I’m his priestess as well as his girlfriend, after all. Why not just write me out of the equation? No, I think it disrupted communication somehow, or stranded him in Heaven.”
“If the aim of the spell was to set Heaven and Earth in their rightful place,” Jhai said, “then maybe there’s no need for direct communication between the two.”
“But what is Earth’s ‘rightful place’?” Robin asked. “Looks like it’s a world with no one in it.”
“Maybe that’s the idea,” Inari said. “And what about Hell?”
“If we could find a spot that connects to Hell, maybe we could find out,” Jhai said. She sat down on a low bench, brow furrowed. “Of the three worlds, that’s the least likely to have been affected by the spell, one would have thought. I spoke to the pilot—there’s not enough fuel to get us back across China. But if we can travel through Hell, and meet up with Roerich …”
“There’s the Night Harbor,” Inari said. “That’s still there.”
“Wait until morning,” Robin advised. “We don’t know what’s out there.”
Halfway through the night, Inari woke with a start. She’d been dreaming—of Seijin coming through the door with a sword in hand, of that moment of sudden stunning silence when Inari’s head fell to the floor. But the room was empty and the silence within it was simply that of the depths of night. Yet something had woken her, all the same. Inari got to her feet and, clutching Robin’s borrowed night robe around her, went into the temple.
Robin knelt before the altar. Her head was bowed and, for a moment, Inari thought that the ghost was weeping. Then Robin raised her sleek dark head and Inari saw that the expression on her face was one of intense concentration.
“Can you hear me?” Robin asked, and Inari bit back a reply. Robin was not talking to her; the ghost’s face remained fixed on the altar. There might have been the faintest whisper across the air, or perhaps it was only the draft. Robin waited, but there was nothing more.
Inari meant to go back to her room but Robin turned.
“Inari! Sorry, I hope I didn’t wake you.”
“No, it’s okay. I often wake in the night. I heard something, that was all.”
“I was trying to contact Mhara,” Robin said, rising from her knees. “Still nothing.”
Inari sighed. “If you cannot get in touch with him here, then you are unlikely to be successful anywhere else.”
Robin grimaced. “Someone in Heaven once told me that this was how it was long ago. The three worlds separate, with spirits passing behind a veil that none could penetrate. Perhaps that’s how it’s supposed to be.”
“And yet the Night Harbor is still here,” Inari said. She did not like the idea of traveling back through Hell: most journeys took one across the Sea of Night, and Inari did not care if she never set eyes on that Sea again.
Jhai drove a hard bargain. Inari had known this, but she had never had reason to be so thankful for it. The clerk at the Night Harbor was not someone Inari had seen before: a small, wizened individual of indeterminate sex.
“We don’t get many folk through here,” the clerk was saying, as though Jhai and the rest of her party had proved a gross imposition. “Especially not headed for Hell.”
“I don’t care whether we pass through Heaven or Hell,” Jhai snapped. “We just need transport.”
The clerk peered more closely. “One of you is a ghost. Two of you are demons, and one—a Celestial.”
Miss Qi stepped forward. “We are obliged to travel to another point in this world. To do so, we must pass through another realm, or start walking. I will act as a personal guarantor for these women, if you let us travel through Heaven’s domain.”
“I cannot do that,” the clerk said. The wizened face grew grim. “Each must pass through her own realm.”
“Look,” Jhai said. She leaned forward. “I’m sure some arrangement can be made.”
“What kind of arrangement?”
“Perhaps a token of our appreciation for your help?”
“My help will be considerable,” the clerk warned.
“So will our appreciation.”
39
Zhu Irzh came round to find that his hands were bound behind him. He sensed warmth, and wriggling his fingers received an answering response. Blinking, he saw that the flickering light in front of him were the flames of a fire.
“Raksha?”
The owner of the other hands replied, “Yes. I was beginning to think you’d never wake up.”
“Where are we?”
“At the world’s wound.” He could not see her, but Raksha’s voice was grim. They were bound on opposite sides to a stake—in a valley, a basin between low hills. Not far away, voices hissed in exultation.
“Who is he?”
&
nbsp; “He is the Khan.” Zhu Irzh thought he knew what had happened. The spell had indeed revised the world to its current paradisiacal state, but it had been incomplete. Perhaps it was easier to create from fresh cloth rather than to revise: Zhu Irzh knew little about building worlds. But it was both encouraging and problematic to know that gaps remained in the fabric. Given that the Khan had ridden through one of them.
He tested the bonds. Strong, and yet Zhu Irzh thought he could work his way through. Cautioning Raksha to silence, he started to rasp at the rope with a sharp nail; at least the bonds were not made of metal, in this bucolic age. A whoop from the Khan’s encampment signaled some kind of action and Zhu Irzh rasped faster.
At last, to his intense relief, the rope started to fray. There was movement, somewhere over to the left. Zhu Irzh couldn’t see what it was from this angle, so he concentrated on the rope and it snapped and sagged. He felt Raksha clutch it, to preserve the illusion of bondage. She might be the product of a paradise, but she had a good grasp of the essentials, he thought.
“Wait,” he murmured.
“I think the Khan is coming.”
A moment later, this hypothesis proved correct. A striding, helmeted figure came into view.
“So!” the Khan cried. “We have visitors!”
He thrust the point of a short sword into the earth and the soil split and fractured like glass.
“Not for long,” Zhu Irzh muttered. “Raksha, get ready to run.”
“Where is the brushwood?” the Khan snarled. A man ran forward with an armful of broken wood, the scrublike saxaul of the steppe, and threw it in front of the stake.
“Supper!” The Khan was gleeful.
Oh great. The Khan’s habits clearly hadn’t been modified much over the intervening centuries. More brushwood was brought, and Zhu Irzh pretended to sag in his bonds, his head drooping. The Khan continued to stride around the growing pyre, and once the wood had been assembled to his satisfaction, he called for a torch.