Shadow Pavilion (14 page)

31

C
hen was clearly unhappy with the idea of Inari traveling to
between,
but it was equally unacceptable to risk Mhara.

“Besides,” Inari said resolutely, “I'm the only one who knows Bonerattle. He might not speak to anyone else.”

“I accept that,” Chen said. “It's just the thought of you heading off into what amounts to this assassin's lands. I don't like it.”

“Neither do I,” Inari said. The prospect of returning to
between
made her quail, but she had not shrunk from other, equally unpleasant challenges, and she did not intend to shrink from this one, either. “But I'm still going to do it.”

Mhara said, “You shouldn't do this. Not for me. I'll go myself.”

“You won't!” Inari said, and blushed. She was unused to telling Celestial Emperors what to do. But Mhara saved her face by not smiling.

“We can't risk you,” Robin said to Mhara. “If something happens to you, who is your heir?”

“Obviously, I have no child.”

“Exactly. So if you
…
disappear, who would take the throne?”

“My mother.” Mhara gave a grim nod.

“Then all the worlds are at risk,” Chen pointed out. “Given what you've told me about your mother's convictions, she'd waste no time in re-establishing the old order of Heaven and setting your father's wishes in motion. Heaven severed from Earth, and Hell let loose.”

“I may be a demon,” Inari said to Mhara, “but you know what I'd think about
that.”

Mhara sighed. “Then, let's commence.”

No Ro Shi said, “We might be able to offer her some protection, at least. A ring of necromancy, for instance, written in blood.”

“I'll gladly contribute,” Chen said.

The demon-hunter agreed. “It might be necessary. I also will give blood. Then, it should be fired. Inari's protection will last as long as the blood is alight.”

“I should give blood also,” Mhara said. “I may not have much authority in
between,
but the blood of the Celestial Emperor should count for something.”

Robin gave a wry grimace. “I'd offer, but I don't think it would do much good. Ghosts aren't endowed with blood.”

Chen gestured in reluctant agreement. “Then let's make a start.”

Inari knelt in the middle of the temple hall, eyes closed, hands firmly clasped around the strip of silk that contained the hatpin. Her brother might have worked in a blood emporium back in Hell, but she did not want to watch her husband and friends undergo injury on her behalf. Then it struck her that if they were prepared to give it, she should at least have the courage to watch, to take some of their pain on board. But there was no expression on Chen's face as he held out his hand and sliced open a palm that was crisscrossed with old scars, the workings of spells and conjura­tions, the necessary price paid for a magical life. Red drops fell into a bronze bowl, making it sing like rain. No Ro Shi was next, and then Mhara. The blood of the Celestial Emperor was a vivid neon blue. Robin's spectral eyebrows rose as the blood sang electricity into the bowl.

“I don't remember it looking like that.”

Mhara said, apologetically, “It changes, on coronation. My blood is the blood of Heaven itself.”

The blue fluid struck the walls of the bowl, sizzling like lightning. Quickly, Chen seized the bowl and sprinkled its contents around Inari's kneeling form. Then No Ro Shi spoke a word that rang throughout the rafters of the little temple, harsh and summoning. He drew his sword in a sweeping arc and touched the tip to the ring of blood. Inari saw the word run down the sword, a flickering spark, and ignite the blood around her. She heard the raised voices of Chen and No Ro Shi, with Mhara's quieter murmur running beneath. Then everything was blotted out by a wall of red fire.

Between.

Above her, perched on a rock, Bonerattle said, “You took your time.”

He looked like an old vulture, Inari thought: the sharp, black face, the bitter-sloe eyes. The shaman was hunched in his skin and bones as if against a cold wind.

“I came as soon as I could,” Inari said.

The shaman leaned forward, all eagerness. “Have you seen him? Have you spoken?”

“Yes. Just now, at his temple on Earth. I've told him what you told me.”

“Ah!” The word was a caw.

“But Bonerattle, listen—” She almost spoke the name out loud, then remembered in time. She thought the shaman had heard it anyway. “The person we spoke about has already been attacked.”

Bonerattle's head shot forward on a neck that was too long.

“Already?”

“Yes, in Heaven.”

“But the person was not successful.”

“No. This is how it happened.” And Inari told him Mhara's tale.

“This weapon. Let me see it.” Bonerattle's black gaze was sharp. With great care, Inari unwrapped the silk and held it out.

“This is a
ru-lun,”
Bonerattle said, in awe. He sat back.

“I don't know what that is.”

“An ancient metal, forged from the heart of a star. Something that fell to Earth millions of years ago, but did not reach the planet's surface. Fell instead into
between,
became a legend. The smith took pieces of it.”

“The smith?”

“Every story starts with something forged,” the shaman said. “Find the smith, you find a spell.”

“And spells can be reversed?” Inari asked.

“Exactly.”

She did not know how much time she had. She explained this to the shaman, who laughed. “The blood of the Celestial Emperor will surely burn long and long. But we should be swift, anyway. I know where the smith is to be found, if the land will let us in.”

Inari followed Bonerattle up amongst the rocks, the shaman skipping and dancing like a mad child. It seemed to her that she could feel the protective ring of blazing blood, a warmth upon her skin. But the thought of Seijin was enough to make her grow cold—the audacity of it, someone who would try to slay a god. The Lord Lady was assuming monstrous proportions in Inari's mind; she told herself not to be so fearful. But it was a fear more for others than for herself, of what would befall them all if Seijin succeeded.

And how had the assassin entered Heaven, anyway? Had someone let Seijin in?

Inari's thoughts soon turned to the badger and Zhu Irzh; there were more people to worry about than simply herself. Her world was quickly reduced to simple things, the necessity of watching where she was going, for they were up above the mist line now, the fog swirling about Inari's face and filming her skin and hair, and the rocks underfoot were smooth and treacherous. It seemed to her that she could glimpse shapes and forms in the mist, gliding presences with ragged wings and eyes that were like holes into shadow. When the shaman paused, Inari touched his arm.

“What are those things?”

The shaman said, “I don't know. Shadows of the worlds beyond, perhaps. They're always here. They never harm.”

“Are you sure?” Inari faltered. She had met shadows in Hell, sad souls, lost to memory and almost to sentience, that creaked and croaked in the darkness of corners. These things still carried power, like a dust in their filament wings.

“I have never known them to do harm,” the shaman said, less than reassuringly. “Do not worry, demon wife. Can't you hear the forge?”

And as soon as he spoke, Inari realized that she could indeed hear it: a distant roar, counterpointed by a harsh tap-tapping. It was coming from the rocks up ahead, the summit of the stone-strewn slope. It was growing hotter, too, and then she noticed that the mist that streamed past them was not fog after all, but smoke. There was an acrid tang on the wind, the scent of fire. The tapping grew louder, more insistent, as if someone were beating a small drum.

Inari followed the shaman behind a rock and saw that they were standing above a small valley. It glowed: the rocks beneath were hot coals, the earth sizzling and blackened, the valley walls stained with soot. Occasionally, spires of flame gouted out from cracks in the earth. At the end of the valley stood something too bright to see, but Inari, glancing at it from the corners of her eyes, thought that it was a little building, three-walled, with a sloping roof.

The scene might have been fearsome, but Inari was used to the fires of Hell, the forests of flame that lay far beyond the city limits, and besides, after the monochrome shadow and gray of
between,
the valley was almost welcoming.

“Tread where I tread,” the shaman commanded, and Inari did so, placing her feet carefully upon the rocks on which Bonerattle walked. It was like a game, children following one another across an old and ritual pattern. Only once did she slip, her ankle turning slightly on a loose boulder, and the hem of her skirt touched the coals and flared briefly into light. Inari beat it out, while the shaman waited impatiently, some little distance ahead.

Now that they had drawn closer, the forge had become paradoxically easier to see. Behind the falls of fire, it was a modest structure, assembled out of what Inari at first took to be plaster and stone. But then, following Bonerattle across the final bridge of coals, she saw that the sides of the forge were made of bones: the enormous femurs of something long dead and legendary, the roof of the forge formed by the upper part of a skull. The eyeholes would easily have encompassed a man; the twin tusks reached almost to the ground and twisting horns extended back, balancing the forge against the fiery ground. Inari felt a pang of pity for it, but as they approached, the skull spoke.

“A shaman and a demon?”

“I need to speak to your master,” Bonerattle informed it. “Is he within?”

“He is. I know you. You have been here before. But the demon has not.”

“Your perceptiveness knows no bounds,” the shaman said, waspish.

“It's not easy, without eyes. Master is here, and will see you. Go inside.”

Inari stepped over a steaming lintel, into the heart of the forge. Within, the bone structure was even more apparent, the pitted ivory of the walls scorched and cracked. In the center of the room stood the forge itself: a massive anvil, made of something harder and heavier than iron, with a presence almost as great as the skull that surrounded it. The bellows breathed out and fire licked the walls of the forge.

“It's alive,” Inari said.

“Oh yes. Most things are, in
between.”

Inari's eyes were adjusting to the intense brightness, but as she watched, the anvil hissed and the roar of the forge subsided to a dull red glow. Inari blinked. Someone was sitting at the back of the forge, a man as wiry and thin as a skeleton, bones and sinews clearly visible through a translucent covering of skin, blackened by fire. Sharp teeth showed in a grin. His eyes were white, as if filmed by cataracts.

“Bonerattle. You again. At least your guest is prettier.”

“Are you a demon, too?” Inari asked.

The smith laughed. “No, just very old. I've been here a long time. And other places. We used to get around more. You might say I'm semi-retired.”

“We've brought you something,” the shaman said. “A piece of your own work, if I'm not wrong.” He held out the silk-wrapped hatpin.

“Aha,” the smith said. “I was wondering when use would finally be made of that.”

“You remember it, then?” Inari said, and cursed herself for stupidity: of course he would remember, he was an artist, and she felt deep within that nothing that ever passed his anvil would be forgotten.

The smith's grin widened. “Naturally. This is an old piece, made when I was younger and more foolish. Now—even I would think twice. This is a substance that can cut the wind: forged star-stone, in the days before metal was known to men. I made it for a demon. Her name was Ti-tao and she was a consort to both the Emperors of Heaven and Hell. She had hair that was thirty feet in length and she needed a pin with which to bind it. This was that pin and it has a twin sister.”

“You made it for Ti-tao,” the shaman said, “but now it has become a weapon.”

“Ah, it's had a long history. Ti-tao came to a sad end, these people usually do. Her consorts both accused her of treachery and she was said to be imprisoned here in
between,
beneath a river of molten iron. She is almost certainly disembodied. After that, one pin was given to Heaven and the other to Hell, in remembrance.”

“So this pin must have come from either?”

“Presumably Hell,” Inari said, “if it was used to try to kill the Emperor of Heaven.”

The smith's white eyes were expressionless as he said, “So, that is why you're here? Do you wish to assault Heaven, little demon?”

“No!” Inari said indignantly. “The Emperor of Heaven is my friend.”

The smith's eyebrows had been singed away long since, but his eyes widened nonetheless. “Is that so? Unusual. But then, you have a precedence in Ti-tao of the glorious hair and I'm sure you must be almost as beautiful.”

“We're not lovers,” Inari said, blushing at the thought. “I owe him some allegiance.”

“Besides,” Bonerattle explained. “There have been many interesting things happening in the three worlds lately. Wars, invasions, goddesses gone mad.”

“I don't get out much,” the smith remarked. “And I absented myself from the affairs of the Realms a long time ago. But that doesn't mean that news is not welcome. Moreover, it's always of interest to see what has become of one's work.”

“We need to know,” Bonerattle said, “about the spells that are attached to this pin.”

The smith frowned. “I know that both pins were cursed. Ti-tao's hair was what made so many fall in love with her, and so it was her hair that was the focus of her consorts' anger. They had it cut off, before she was imprisoned, and I don't know what became of it. The pins were cursed, as I have told you, and separated: they were held to be more powerful if they were together. I wove only one spell into them when I made them, and that was a spell of beauty which called upon the power of the star from which they were forged.”