Shadow Pavilion (29 page)

“Well? Better decide if I'm worth the trouble, cousin.”

Zhu Irzh hoped Agni wasn't too far gone to be reasoned with. The prince hadn't even bothered to put out the blaze, but just as this occurred to Zhu Irzh, the tiger prince flicked a finger and the fire went out. There was surprisingly little damage left in its wake, only a little smoke stain on the columns. But then, it was Agni's own element. Would Agni see reason, or would pride hammer him down? Then Agni said, “You've certainly caused a remarkable degree of chaos in the space of your visit. Maybe you're right. I'm not sure I could put up with a lifetime of it.” He turned to Zhu Irzh. “As for you, perhaps eternity in a blazing dungeon wouldn't prove as great a punishment as marriage to Jhai.”

The demon considered a number of humorous remarks, and wisely kept silent.

“But my guests have come here tonight to expect entertainment,” the prince went on. “I can't deny them that. We've already lost one set of quarry. And you're not the only one I'm displeased with, Jhai. I'm not all that delighted with little Lara, either.”

“Very well,” Jhai said, warily. She could see what was coming, Zhu Irzh thought, and so could he. “What do you suggest?”

“I think a cat fight's in order,” the prince said.

61

I
nari said, “where do you want to go now?”

“Here,” her child replied. “Here, and then home. Will you let me do the working?”

Inari paused. She was not yet accustomed to sharing her self with this
other
. Was this what it had been like for Seijin, living with whispers in the head? Seijin had gone mad, she reminded herself.

“It's only for another eight months,” the child reassured.

Inari shivered. “Do the working.”

She felt two vastnesses drawn together by the thin red thread that was her body. She became, for a moment, the glowing chasm between continents, then blacked out as they came together and overlapped. When she regained consciousness, she was still standing on the steps of the Shadow Pavilion and the child seemed pleased.

Inari looked around her. “What happened?” But she already knew. A tide of long, sweet grass lapped the pagoda steps. It was still twilight, but the storm clouds had gone, leaving the taste of rain in their wake. A single star hung in the water-colored sky and there, not far away, was the scimitar crescent of the new moon, visible from all worlds except Hell. A flock of birds sailed around the summit of the pagoda, now smaller, yet not diminished. It looked—solid. The crack that had run up its length had disappeared and the pagoda's structure could now be seen, made not from shadows but from oak and stone. It looked like an old family fortress, the sort of place that might one day be a home.

Within, the child radiated assent. “It will do.”

The birds wheeled, flying westward, and now Inari could see that they were not birds after all, but spirits: all those whom the Shadow Pavilion had imprisoned, set free for their long journey to Heaven or Hell.

“And you?” the child asked. “What would you do now?”

Inari gave a shaky smile and touched a hand to her stomach. “I think we'd better go and find your father.”

62

“
You know what? I haven't done this enough,” Jhai said.

“Tough,” Zhu Irzh replied unhappily. He didn't want to sound unsympathetic, but Jhai was right. Deny your own true nature and look what happens: suddenly you're standing on a terrace in someone else's Hell, while a raging, pacing tiger waits impatiently for your blood. “Do your worst.”

“I always do.” But she was nervous all the same, Zhu Irzh knew. Jhai, still in her tattered bridal finery, stood before Agni and his guests and his harem and closed her eyes. It didn't take long; she must have been really pissed off, Zhu Irzh thought. Stripes barred Jhai's skin. A tail switched her ankles, and that was that: the bridal dress fell to the floor like a pool of blood. Jhai turned, snarled, and leaped at Lara.

She hit her cousin around the waist, bowling the growling Lara across the length of the terrace. Lara was a lot bigger in her tiger shape, Zhu Irzh noticed, though there was little to choose between the two women in their human aspect. Perhaps it was something to do with the number of kills. In which case, oh dear. Lara rose and swatted Jhai with a paw; Jhai went down, bloody grooves along her flank. She struggled up, but Lara was waiting. Lara sprang onto her cousin's back, jaws aiming at Jhai's throat. Jhai rolled over like an angry kitten and raked Lara's gut with her hind claws.

It didn't disembowel her, but it must have hurt. Lara screamed and it sounded more human than cat. She sprang backward, curling into a ball, but one paw lashed out and caught Jhai across the throat. There was a lot of blood. Jhai went down, making gargling sounds. Zhu Irzh started forward and was hauled back by one of Agni's spirits. Lara's tail twitched, she crouched, her head went down, and she sprang, claws fully extended. And Zhu Irzh, a coward after all (or so he would tell himself later) closed his eyes, but only in the second that it took for a spell to go spinning past him, radiating out like the ripples of a stone hurled into a pool and tasting of blood and Jhai and pain.

When the demon opened his eyes again, Jhai was standing on the blood-slick stones of the terrace, naked. One arm dangled uselessly by her side and her ribs were gouged into furrows. A ragged tear ran across her collarbone to the shoulder. But in her good arm, she was holding a small, surprised, striped cat.

“You didn't say I couldn't use magic,” Jhai said.

63

“
Perhaps I should apply for paternity leave,” Chen said. “Isn't that the modern thing to do?”

“Don't ask me,” the demon shrugged.

“You and Jhai aren't planning to have one?” Chen smiled. “I recommend it. Ensuring one's posterity and all that sort of thing.”

“The subject hasn't come up. She seems curiously averse to looking at wedding dresses, too. We might end up having a quiet private ceremony after all.”

Chen laughed. “That'll be the day.”

“She's already revised the guest list, that's for sure.”

Chen raised his eyebrows. “What, won't be inviting that nice cousin Agni?”

Zhu Irzh gave a snort. “She also says there won't be quite so many female guests. Playing havoc with the table settings, apparently. But she's keeping Lara. Bought her a collar and everything.”

“And if she turns back?”

“Well, the magic Jhai used won't work outside that particular Hell, so I suppose we'll just have to call the zoo.”

They were sitting on the deck of the houseboat, a blue afternoon in early summer. Ma and No Ro Shi were back at the station, piecing things together with the help of Paugeng security. Jhai was recuperating.

“What's that?” Zhu Irzh squinted into the heavens.

“I don't know.” Chen followed his gaze. Sparks of light had appeared high amongst the clouds and around them were twists and turns of brightness. They fell rapidly toward the ocean, but halfway down the sky, their trajectory flattened out and began to stream toward the city.

“Oh,” Chen said, in realization. Mhara's Long March had finally reached Earth.

1

T
he ghost horde swept out of the eas
t, moving fast across the black sands. Standing on the rise, legs braced and bow drawn, Omi could see a train in the distance, racing over the desert toward Urumchi. The horde was moving faster than that, quite silent, though in life, Omi reflected, the hooves would have sounded like thunder on the stones. They were heading straight for him. His fingers tightened on the bow and he spoke, also silently, to the Buddha, thinking of those images which still swam out of the shadows of the caves so many miles to the east. The memory gave him courage.

The horde was close enough now for him to see their faces. Not at all Chinese, though he knew that some with local blood had ridden under the Khan. Flat-faced men, black eyes below their topknots, which streamed like horse-tails from the back of their helmets. In the front of the horde rode the Khan, in armor the color of night: a man with a thin face, a narrow beard, all angles. He was riding hard up the slope and Omi drew back the arrow, thinking:
Not yet, not yet—now!
He fired. The arrow sang through the air but the Khan was coming, expressionless, as though he could not see the archer, but Omi knew he had come for this and he leaped forward, springing down the stones of the slope as the arrow sang on. At the last moment the Khan's pony swerved. The arrow sailed by, nicking the Khan's face. A single drop of dark blood flew out and Omi had the cup ready: he caught it. It sizzled into the metal cup and Omi snapped shut the lid. But the Khan had turned in the saddle with a bow of his own and as Omi met his blank night eyes the Khan, in turn, loosed an arrow.

“Now!” Omi cried. “Make it now!”—and the desert was ripped away from under his boots into the shadows of a cave and a pair of huge, calm eyes, looking down at him.

2

“
Missing?” Chen said, into the phone. Behind him, Miss Qi sat with neatly crossed legs, exuding a delicate perfume of cherry blossom. She sat up a little straighter at the tone of Chen's voice. “When did you last see it?”

On the other end of the receiver, a very long way away, Mhara the Emperor of Heaven answered, “A week ago. We had its annual honoring ceremony to celebrate the time of its writing, if one can say that. The Book wasn't so much written, as wrote itself.”

“You'll have to forgive me,” Chen said. “I don't know anything about all this.”

“It's kept as secret as possible,” Mhara explained. “Not even all the denizens of Heaven know that it's a real text. You'll meet people who think it's no more than a creation myth.”

Chen caught Miss Qi's glance and, ever tactful, the Celestial warrior rose and glided from the room, closing the door behind her. “From what you've told me,” Chen said, “This isn't so much a creation myth as a creation manual.”

“Exactly. The words it contains are the blueprint for Heaven. If they're tampered with—deconstructed—then Heaven itself could begin to unravel. Of course,” Mhara added thoughtfully, “there are those who might say that this is no bad thing.”

After the loss of both of Mhara's parents—an Emperor gone mad and an Empress turned wicked—Chen couldn't blame him for those sentiments. “Things are stable now,” he reassured Mhara, “now that you've been crowned.”

“Ruling has become somewhat more achievable than it initially appeared,” the current Emperor agreed. “At least, so I thought until yesterday. Then the curator appeared in a flat panic and told me that the Book was gone.”

“And it's definitely been stolen? Could it have—I don't know—taken itself off? Does it have a will of its own?”

There was a short pause on the other end of the line. “I don't really know,” Mhara said slowly. “I've never heard anyone mention it. But often these magical artifacts have some degree of consciousness. What a depressing thought, that things might have become so lousy in its own creation that it's removed itself.”

“Is there any way we can find out?” Chen asked.

Mhara sighed. “That's why I called you. Sorry, Chen. I know you've got a lot on your plate at the moment …”

Chen smiled. This was characteristic of Mhara: to be concerned, but also omniscient. In this instance, however, the Emperor of Heaven was simply being courteous. “I
have
got a lot to do. But it's all good stuff, as well you know.”

He could almost feel the Emperor's smile. “Robin has spoken to Inari, I know. She told her that things are going well with the pregnancy.”

“Yes, it's been four months now,” Chen mused. He still couldn't quite believe it. He'd always wanted a child, of course, but never thought it would actually happen. Humans and demons could breed, but it wasn't always an easy process. And this child … well, they were all special, weren't they? But it seemed that this child might be more special than most. Not a comfortable thought.

“Inari has hopes,” he confided, “that this might bring herself and her family back together. Children often do reconcile warring relations.”

“And what do you think?” Mhara was being very patient with him, as usual. A theft that could threaten the very foundations of the Celestial Realm and here was Chen waffling on about his family.

“To be honest, I doubt it. I've seen rather too much of Hell's attitude toward family life.”

“How
is
Zhu Irzh?”

“Actually, he's fine as far as I know. Jhai had business in the Far West, so she's out there now. Zhu Irzh chose to cash in some vacation time and go with her. Spoke to him last night. Says there are some nice restaurants. But you didn't call me to talk about all this, Mhara.”

The Emperor of Heaven sighed. “I wish I had. Everyday life is so relaxing. It would be nice to have more of it.”

“About this book,” Chen said. “I'll do my best, you know that. I've got a fairly light caseload at the moment. For a change.”

“In that case,” Mhara said, “could you come to Heaven for a day or so? To look at the scene of the crime?”

“I'll be glad to,” Chen said.

* * *

Later, the trip arranged, he walked with Miss Qi alongside the harbor wall. Out in the bay, the boats bobbed beyond the barriers of the typhoon shelter; it was autumn now, the air mercifully cooler after the summer's steaming heat, with a salt breeze stirring up from the ocean. In a week or so, Chen knew, that breeze would grow stronger, heralding the storms that lashed at the south China coast. His son or daughter would be a winter child: it was not, Chen considered, all that surprising.

“Jhai didn't ask you to go west with her?” he asked Miss Qi now.

“I'm on standby,” the Celestial warrior said. “I know I was hired as her bodyguard, but she said she just wanted to get away from it all for a bit.”

Trust Jhai to think that the Gobi Desert was the ideal place to “get away from it.” But she was probably right.

“Well, Inari appreciates you being around,” Chen said. His wife had suggested they ask Miss Qi to dinner that night and Chen had agreed. Their social circle had expanded since the worlds began opening up: a handful of years ago, Chen wouldn't have been able to mention his otherworldly pursuits without people coughing nervously and heading in the opposite direction. Or phoning a psychiatrist. Just look at Sergeant Ma, whose view of the supernatural had started out as raw fear and now was close to resembling a healthy interest, or an unhealthy one, depending on how you looked at it. These days, they often entertained all manner of people and Chen had to admit that his wife had blossomed because of it, unless that was simply a product of the pregnancy. He hated to think how lonely she must have been in the earlier days of their marriage: separated from her admittedly vile relatives, torn from the only home she'd ever known, and living incognito in a city in which half the inhabitants couldn't see her and the other half were likely to summon an exorcist as soon as she came into view. Sure, Inari had the badger to look after her, but the badger had his limits.

But things were changing, as the presence of the quiet, pale warrior by Chen's side attested to. Miss Qi looked up at the rose and turquoise of the evening sky and smiled.

“It's quite lovely sometimes, this human realm,” she said.

Chen returned the smile. “It's not as beautiful as Heaven, I'm afraid.”

“Heaven can get a bit … cloying,” Miss Qi said, frowning as though she'd said something disloyal. “I never thought so until I lived
here,
and then I started looking at Heaven with a different eye. I suppose that's what travel does.”

“There's a Western saying I heard in a movie once,” Chen told her. “‘You can't go home again.'”

“Well, you
can
go home,” Miss Qi said, “it just won't be the same.”

Perhaps she was right, Chen thought as they crossed the makeshift bridge of other people's sampans to one of the little rowing boats that was used whenever the houseboat was moored further out in the harbor. Miss Qi took one oar, Chen the other, and they rowed the short distance to the houseboat. But it was certainly good to be coming home this evening, seeing the old-fashioned lamp that swung from the prow of the houseboat and the lights in the kitchen. A familiar striped shape was waiting at the top of the rope ladder.

“Hello, badger,” Chen said. The badger grunted, bowing his head to Miss Qi. She'd learned not to try to pat him. Badger had been uncharacteristically patient.

“Good evening, spirit of earth,” Miss Qi said. Badger preferred formality.

“Good evening, warrior of Heaven. Mistress will be pleased that you've come.” The badger trundled inside.

“You must be one of the only people I've ever met who has a badger for a butler,” Miss Qi remarked.

Chen laughed. “He's a little more than that.” They followed the earth spirit inside, to where Inari was bending over a steamer on the stove. Looking at her, one would never have known she was pregnant. Chen had not known what to expect of a demon gestation, and Inari had not reassured him by saying vaguely that it took all manner of forms. Much more helpful had been the explanation given by the midwife. They'd been very lucky in finding Mrs Wo: demon health professionals weren't common in Singapore Three, even under the new and more relaxed immigration policies. Half of Heaven seemed to have decamped to the city after Mhara had insisted that his personnel take a greater role in human affairs, and all of them seemed to want to be healers. Well and good, thought Chen, but they'd all balked at treating a demon, even one who was a personal friend of the Emperor himself. It wasn't a political issue, they'd taken pains to explain: it was simply that they lacked the relevant obstetrical knowledge.

Then, one evening, he'd come out of the police station to find a hunched figure sitting on a bench in the shadows, veiled by an enormous hat. Chen had thought there was something odd about her at the time, and moments later, when he felt a tug on his sleeve and looked down into little green eyes, like chips of jade, set in a coal-black face, he realized that beneath the hat was a demon.

“Sorry to trouble you,” the demon had said, gripping the handle of her capacious handbag, “but this might be of interest.”

She proffered a large, ornate business card, on which the words
Mrs Wo, Midwife
were written in gold.

“I have references,” Mrs Wo said. “I know you'll be wary of trusting a demon. But you'll need someone, at least, when the time comes.”

Inari, when asked, had requested a meeting and she had, rather unexpectedly, taken a liking to Mrs Wo. Chen checked out the references with all the capability of a police department that deals extensively with Hell, and they were excellent. So Mrs Wo had been hired as a midwife to the Chen's forthcoming child and, thus far, had proved invaluable.

Now, Inari straightened up from the stove and smiled at Chen and Miss Qi.

“It's good to see you,” she said to the Celestial warrior.

“Thank you,” Miss Qi said, gravely, and Chen watched with a quiet satisfaction as his wife served tea to their friend.