by Liz Williams
“I need,” the goddess said with dreadful calm, “to go to the home of one Jhai Tserai. Where is it?”
And once he had found his voice, Paravang told her. Several times.
48
Robin rested her hands on the rail of the balcony and looked out across the lake. It was, of course, beautiful. A huge, low moon hung over the water, much closer than it seemed on Earth, although it had been explained to her that this was illusion. If she half-closed her eyes, she could almost see the pavilions and temples that were said to lie upon it in this dimension, the Imperial Court of Mhara’s mother, the Lady of Mists. The lake itself was equally lovely: starred with fleets of water lilies and drifts of swans, crossed by a sequence of charming little bridges. Now, under the moonlight, it was a world of indigo and silver. Robin gazed across it and longed for the view into her own grimy back alley. Because what good was it being in Heaven, if you couldn’t spend your time with the person you loved?
She had certainly been well-treated. She had been granted a set of rooms in a long, low mansion, dressed in silk robes, and given a maidservant, with entrancing good humor and no sign of obsequiousness, who appeared to regard it as an honor to look after her. But she had seen nothing of Mhara for the last three days. She had asked and asked, and received polite, evasive answers, expressed with exquisite regret. Eventually hope gave out and Robin admitted what she had known all along: she was an embarrassment. The son of the Lord of Heaven wouldn’t be allowed to have a mere human as his consort. And when she had gone to look for Mhara, she discovered that all her wanderings seemed to bring her back to the lake, as though the land itself was carefully and cautiously turning her around.
So, Robin asked herself miserably, was this it? Was she supposed to stay here for the rest of her life, in the proverbial gilded cage? How long might that life be, since she was now in Heaven and perhaps, therefore, an immortal now herself. It seemed unlikely that anyone ever died here.
Then, below the balcony, something whistled.
Robin paid little attention at first. The lakeside trees were filled with delightful, sweet-singing birds; their song wafted through the fragrant air from morning until balmy night. But something about this was different: sharper, more insistent. Hope suddenly flared up all over again and Robin leaned over, craning so far that she almost fell off the balcony. Mhara stepped out of the shadows.
“It’s you,” Robin hissed.
“Robin!” Mhara jumped, caught the bottom of the balcony and hoisted himself over it. Robin could see at once that he was different. The dreaming serenity had been honed to a keener edge, voice and movements were decisive.
“We have to leave, Robin.” He took her by the shoulders and kissed her quickly.
“Thank God,” Robin said before she could stop herself.
“Well, no. My father has nothing to do with it.”
“I can’t flee in a dress. These skirts—”
“There’s no time. Come on.” He dropped from the balcony and held out his arms. Robin gritted her teeth and jumped down into them. It was an awkward landing and they both staggered, but then Mhara caught her by the hand and pulled her into the bushes. “This way. As quietly as you can.”
Robin brushed through thick branches of hibiscus and oleander, releasing a scent like roses and cinnamon into the air. That was the trouble with Heaven, she thought, it was all too much. But perhaps it wasn’t designed for human senses: perhaps spirits, such faint things as they were, needed overload in order to sense anything at all.
The shrubbery ended by the lake. On a narrow strip of shore, two deer were waiting patiently. They were white with silver horns, and bore saddles.
“We’re riding these?”
“They’re quick, that’s the beauty of them. Don’t worry, you won’t fall off and it knows where to go.” He boosted Robin into the saddle.
“There aren’t any reins.”
“You won’t need them. Just hang on.”
And indeed, hanging on to the saddle horn took all of Robin’s concentration. The deer moved as swiftly as thought, racing along the lake and into the series of low hills that she had been able to see from the windows of the mansion. Groves of flowering trees rushed by, quiet villages in the folds of hills with fat cows in their fields, picturesque outcrops of rock with water at their feet … Idyllic, and Robin felt that it was all too good for her. It didn’t bode well for her life after death, if she actually made it back to Earth. She loathed the Night Harbor, couldn’t settle in Heaven—that left Hell and she didn’t fancy the thought of that, either. But Heaven with Mhara by her side—heaven indeed, and impossible. She gripped the saddle more tightly and the deer flew on.
At last, just as Robin was beginning to grow tired, the deer took her up the side of a small hill. Heaven’s sky was starting to lighten now with the roseate gold of dawn and the air felt pleasantly cold and moist, like early autumn. At the top of the hill stood a little temple, and unlike the rest of Heaven, it was almost a ruin. It had been built of a stone that looked like lapis, flecked with starlit sparks, but the roof had fallen in, leaving the temple open to the sky, and as they drew near a flock of golden birds shot up from it, startled by their approach, and vanished into the dawn. A plant like a small, blue vine had covered much of the temple and Robin could smell fermenting fruit.
“Mhara, what is this?”
Mhara dismounted from the back of his deer and smiled at her. “This is my temple.”
“Your temple? But it’s a ruin.”
“I never wanted worship, Robin. Other sons of other Jade Emperors have had temples all over the place, all the followers they could wish for. But I hadn’t done anything to merit it, you see. If people were going to worship me, then I wanted to be worthy of it, and I haven’t done much with my life so far. I am young, by Heaven’s terms, but even so … That was partly why I went to Earth, to see what could be done.”
“Yet you said this is your temple.”
“It’s the only one. Someone disobeyed the edict and built a temple to me. In terms of Earth, it lies just outside Singapore Three—or it used to. The suburbs have crept up around it. On Earth, the equivalent to this building is surrounded by apartment blocks. It’s a real ruin; I asked them to desist—and the priest left, so there was no one to take care of it. There’s not much left. It sits on a piece of waste ground and it’s a home to stray cats, mainly. But here, as you can see, it’s in the middle of nowhere. No one comes here, I’m sure all the family have forgotten about it. But apart from through the Night Harbor, it’s the one place where I can enter Earth: my own portal. It’s how I came in the first place. I should have headed back there, but Paugeng’s troops turned up and we were forced into Shai.”
“Kuan Yin didn’t need a temple to send those policemen back,” Robin said.
“No, because all of Heaven is her precinct, and that of the other major Lords. But if she manifests on Earth, she can only do so for any great length of time in her own temple, and if she travels to the Night Harbor, for instance, where she has no place of worship, she has to journey there like anyone else. Well,” Mhara amended, “not quite like anyone else, but she still needs a vessel.” He glanced at the growing light. “They’ll soon notice that I’m not in my bed. We have to get going.”
He turned and whispered to the deer, who sprang away down the hillside. Then he and Robin stepped together into the quiet ruin and Mhara spoke a word.
It was like stepping into a moving lift. The world fell away, rushing past Robin’s ears. She felt them pop with pressure. The breath left her lungs and she clutched Mhara for support. Moments later, the air of Heaven was replaced with fumes and the smell of cat piss. They were back.
49
Chen and the demon stood outside Kuan Yin’s temple, waiting for Sergeant Ma.
“Well,” Chen said, looking at the cracked roof of the temple behind them. The temple had not been too badly damaged, but the priests had closed it off just in case the roof came down, and n
ow the faithful milled unhappily around its walls as if seeking shelter. “I think that answers the question of whether Senditreya’s here or not.”
“Here and on the rampage,” Zhu Irzh remarked. “But if so, why?”
“It might not even be intentional,” Chen said. “The very presence of a goddess where no goddess is supposed to be—especially one that has such a close connection to the land itself—could be disruptive.”
“So how do we go about tracking her down?” the demon asked. “Just follow the fault lines and the havoc?”
“The most obvious place would be Senditreya’s own temple.”
“She’s not likely to hole up there, is she? It’s too obvious.”
“Perhaps not, but she’s likely to have come to Earth there. And Zhu Irzh—wherever she goes, it will be obvious. She’s a deity.” He stepped out into the road and raised a hand. “Hey, there’s Ma!”
The squad car skidded to a halt. Behind the wheel, Ma’s face was white with fright and concentration. Chen, the demon and the badger bundled themselves into the car.
“Senditreya’s temple, Ma. Quickly!”
“What?” Ma stared at him. “They’re saying that’s the epicenter. You’ll be lucky to get within half a mile of it. Buildings are collapsing all over the place.”
“Sorry, Ma, but we don’t have a choice.” As Ma took the car out into the road, Chen brought him up to date.
“Well, at least the lane’s clear,” Ma said, after a pause. He was right: the traffic was streaming out of the city center.
Zhu Irzh felt a growing hollowness in the pit of his belly. It had nothing to do with hunger: it was a nauseous, heady feeling exacerbated by the uneven motion of the squad car. But he wasn’t normally motion sick … Perhaps it was something to do with the number of worlds he had so recently traveled through—some disturbance of the inner ear. How annoying, and how undignified: demons shouldn’t suffer from anything except the most esoteric and exotic complaints, not just the need to throw up out of a car window.
Beside him, Chen’s gaze widened fractionally and the badger gave a low growl. Outside the curved window of the carrier, a fascinated Zhu Irzh saw, Battery Road was beginning to change. He was aware of Chen beside him, staring open-mouthed out of the window. He could feel the structure of the world altering beneath them, the Shaopeng meridian buckling and turning as it began to alter course, pulling its tributaries of ch’i with it.
Ma turned the corner of Battery Road and headed up Shaopeng. The disruption going on underneath the city made Zhu Irzh disoriented and lightheaded, with an undertow of nausea that he was trying hard to suppress. He kept his gaze on the fixed point of the seat in front and gritted his teeth. Chen, visibly shaken, was conferring with the badger, but the beast would not speak. Its narrow jaws remained tightly shut. It closed its eyes. Creature of Earth that it was, the demon thought, perhaps it too was feeling unwell.
Beneath the carrier, the meridian, which ran the length of Shaopeng, lurched and twisted. Zhu Irzh’s instinct was to lean forward and put his head on his knees, but he was constrained by the seat belt. He shifted uncomfortably. Chen looked at him in some alarm.
“Are you all right?”
“Yes … No. The meridian’s changing under Shaopeng. It’s making me ill.”
The nausea was ebbing, mercifully, but his head was pounding. It felt as though someone had rung a bell in his ear. The world was full of sickly color, coming in waves and accompanied by a hot, electric smell. Zhu Irzh concentrated on his breathing. He felt unpleasantly hot. Ma took the car onto the highway toward Murray Town, and they were moving away from the main meridian. The sickness faded a little more.
“How are you feeling now?” Chen asked, then without waiting for a reply added: “Goddess! Something’s happening here as well.”
Zhu Irzh strained to look past him. Through the window he could see a line of intense color, incredibly bright, waist-high along the air. Above it, the shabby go-down entrances and shop fronts were unchanged, but below, the structures were obscured by a seething mass of air, like something seen through a blast of heat. The air writhed and billowed, causing a sort of mental recoil. Passers-by had seen it, too, and were pointing and exclaiming. Slowly, the car ground to a halt. Ma gunned the accelerator, but nothing happened. Underneath the carrier, the ground started to shake, a queasy wave of motion traveling up through the frame of the vehicle and shuddering to rest. It came again, and again.
“Out of the car,” Chen ordered. Zhu Irzh scrambled clear, but the sickness was intensifying. Humiliated, he retched into the gutter but produced nothing.
“Sorry!”
“Don’t worry about it, Zhu Irzh. Can you walk?”
“I think so,” the demon replied. He was by no means sure.
Once they stepped into the road, they had an unobstructed view along Shaopeng. The whole city was bathed in unnatural light, and as they watched, it quivered momentarily, as though someone was shaking a picture. Very slowly, the steep angle of the Eregeng Trade House tilted to one side and the building leaned over gracefully. It hung in the air for a moment, suspended, and then as they watched, the stem of the tower strained and cracked to send the upper stories of the Trade House down into the street. There was a crash so loud it was almost beyond sound, and the earth leaped under their feet. A wave of dust rolled up from the fallen building, and as it did so the ground once more began to quiver. A slow crack appeared in the road, began to widen. Ma stared at it in disbelief. Chen was thrown forward onto his knees, and struggled to get up.
There was a thundering sound coming from further up Shaopeng. What the hell? thought Zhu Irzh. It sounded like hooves. Moments later, a chariot turned the corner and bolted down Shaopeng. It was drawn by two red cattle with enormous golden horns, their sides streaming with flame as they ran. Steam boiled from their mouths and nostrils. Zhu Irzh, leaping out of the way, caught sight of Senditreya standing in the chariot, wielding a flail. She looked completely mad. Her eyes were wide and staring, her mouth fixed into a rictus of hate. There was someone in the chariot with her, a crouching form, but the vehicle was moving too swiftly for Zhu Irzh to get more than a glimpse. As the chariot passed, the ground cracked in its wake. Zhu Irzh hauled a spluttering Chen to his feet.
“Well, looks like we’ve found her.”
50
Paravang Roche huddled in the chariot, hanging on grimly, his vision obscured by the goddess’ flying skirts. The presence of Senditreya in the chariot with him was almost too much to bear—boiling rage, incandescent anger, a cold hate that was somehow worse than either. The goddess’ emotions felt planet-sized. Paravang considered throwing himself from the chariot, but they were moving too quickly. He was dimly aware that something major had just occurred, a wave of sound and dust, but he did not know what it might be. Whatever had just happened paled in comparison with the roaring emotions churning around the chariot. And the flames from the cattle’s sides occasionally erupted over the edge of the vehicle, causing the singed odor of hair to become added to the mix.
“You!” bellowed the goddess. Paravang cringed, believing at first that she was addressing him. Then he realized that the divine hand was pointing forward, like an arrow of hate. The chariot ground to a halt, the hooves of the cattle skidding on melting tarmac. The flames shot upward, then ceased. Cautiously, Paravang peered over the rim of the chariot.
There was a car in the road—a taxi. Its windows were grimy with dust, but as Paravang stared, the door fell open and someone stumbled out into the street. Jhai Tserai took one look at the outraged, exiled deity, mouthed something that might have been, “Oh shit,” and scrambled back into the cab.
“Stop!” Senditreya cried, but the cab was already spinning around and heading away. The goddess cracked the reins with a sound like thunder, and followed. Paravang, clinging on once more, risked a glance behind him and saw that they were being followed by a police car, blue lights flashing. Paravang’s initial thought was of how ridiculous
this was, and then he caught sight of a familiar face beside the driver. Seneschal Zhu Irzh. Talk about being caught between the devil and the deep blue sea, Paravang thought. He wished he could faint at will, but it wasn’t an option.
They chased Jhai’s car along the length of Shaopeng, dazed passers-by hurling themselves out of the way. The chariot caught the side of an awning, already listing to one side, and tore it free. A banner now snapped behind the chariot, obscuring Paravang’s view of the police car, but he could hear it, the siren wailing like a condemned soul. And then they turned the corner and beneath the snapping banner and the streaming flames Paravang saw that the spire of the Eregeng Trade House was lying across the street.
Jhai’s cab ground to a halt seconds before it hit this unnatural barrier. The goddess gave a shriek of triumph that deafened Paravang Roche, but somehow its force lent him the strength to throw himself from the chariot. He landed almost in the arms of Zhu Irzh. Under the circumstances, seeing the demon was almost a relief.
51
Robin liked the little temple, in a way that she had never liked Heaven. It was rough, and somewhat squalid, but it was real. She reached out a hand to one of the shadowy cats that prowled its meager precincts and said, “The city’s falling apart.”
Beside her, Mhara gave an unhappy nod. “Senditreya’s gone on the rampage. And because she is goddess of the meridians, of the earth itself, they are responding to her presence.”