The Demon and the City (27 page)

"Ei," she said. "Where's the nearest main road? Apart from this one?"

"Shaopeng." Ei pointed. "Up there."

"Come on," Jhai said. "We'll get a taxi."

"Shouldn't we go back to the tower?" Opal quavered. "It's supposed to be earthquake proof, that nice Japanese man told me. And we can visit Kerala another time."

"No, Mother," Jhai said firmly. Perhaps it would have been better to tell Opal the truth after all. "We're getting out of here. Trust me."

Opal gave her a suspicious look. "Is there anything you're not telling me, dear?"

"Of course not." Jhai took her mother by the hand and led her, followed by Ei, up the street of steps that came out into Shaopeng. Here, to her relief, the traffic seemed unimpeded and the road surface was intact. A few cars had been abandoned by the roadside, but otherwise it seemed that people had resolutely decided to ignore the quake. Jhai, looking uneasily up at the sky, stepped out into the street and flagged down a taxi. It took several minutes, but eventually one slowed to a halt and she pushed Opal inside.

"The airport. Quickly!"

Paravang had gone to Senditreya's temple that morning to give the priest-broker the good news, and had been unable to find the old man. Indeed, the whole temple seemed to be in complete disarray, with priests and dowsers running to and fro. Eventually Paravang managed to collar a temple clerk and ask what was going on.

"No one knows!" the clerk gasped. "It's been chaos here. The goddess hasn't been answering prayer slips—not even the highest priests have been able to reach her. And the city is falling apart."

"Apart?" Paravang said, nonplussed. "What do you mean, 'apart'?" He hadn't done any actual dowsing or geomantic analysis since the episode at the murder site; he must be out of touch.

"The meridians are contorted. No one knows what's wrong with them.
Ch'i, sha,
it doesn't matter—the place is starting to crack along them as though they were fault lines. I spoke to a priest this morning and he said that it's as though the goddess has been holding the meridians in her hands like a knot, and now she's just let them slip."

"But why?"

"We don't know. There are rumors of a war in Heaven."

"That's not possible."

"Maybe not, but that's the nature of the visions that people have been receiving. And there have been prophecies about the end of the city." The clerk wrung his hands. "The end of the
world."
Then, summoned by one of the priests, he hastened away.

What nonsense,
thought Paravang. He was sure that this was nothing more than hysterical speculation. War in Heaven, indeed. He decided to concentrate on his own concerns and track down the priest-broker. Then, once the Assassins' Guild had been paid off, he could go back home and have a nice rest for a couple of days, his troubles at a temporary end. Who had ever heard of such a thing as a Celestial war?

But at that moment his theological certainties were undermined by a commotion in the courtyard. It came in the form of a thunderous roar, as though a jet engine was landing in the temple precincts. Paravang clapped his hands over his ears, but it was no use. The whole temple structure was beginning to shake and shudder, cracks and slits appearing in the walls. A shower of plaster fell from the ceiling like dandruff and the floor bucked under him, causing the tiles to snap. Paravang gripped a bench for support and when the ground stopped moving, he ran out into the courtyard with some vague notion that it was an earthquake.

It wasn't. It was the goddess.

Senditreya was standing in a chariot drawn by two fire-colored cattle at the center of the courtyard, on a pedestal of rock formed by the cracked earth around her. Paravang caught a glimpse down one of those cracks and reeled: it seemed to go all the way to Hell. Senditreya herself displayed none of the bovine calm with which Paravang had always associated her. The goddess was clearly furious. She carried the full mantle of her awe about her, the kind of atmosphere that could bring mortals involuntarily to their knees, and her dark eyes were snapping with fire. Paravang caught sight of her snarling mouth and flung himself face down on what remained of the ground. This was not a conscious decision, and moments later, he regretted it. Once more the ground shuddered and shook. Paravang felt as though he were riding a great wave of the sea: he was picked up and flung down again. With the breath knocked out of him, he twisted around and saw that the shivering temple had become overlaid with a triplicity of images: the place of worship with which he was so familiar; a gleaming, glittering palace with stars in its rafters; and a terrible dark hollow, echoing with woe. His paralyzed mind finally came up with the solution to this curious effect: he was seeing Senditreya's temple in all three dimensions, Heaven, Earth and Hell. As he watched, stunned, the Heavenly version of the temple grew stronger, its outlines bolder and sharply illuminated. He saw his fellow
feng shui
practitioners, shuffling back against the meager protection afforded by the temple wall, and he managed to pull himself to his feet and join them. But something was moving down out of the starry sky—a vast rushing shape, its robes billowing out around it like sails, its immense face filled with resolution. Its eyes seemed the size of moons. Paravang, having beheld it, could not look away. Lightning zapped around its hair and storm clouds swirled around it like a cape. It was, Paravang's terror informed him, one of the
kuei,
the Storm Lord enforcers of Heaven. As it sped toward them it reached out a hand, talon-tipped.

"No!" Paravang heard the goddess cry. Her shout came close to rupturing his eardrums. "You shall not!"

"Madam, I shall!" the
kuei
replied, in a voice like thunder. The taloned hand came closer, Paravang shut his eyes and then with a sensation of swift descent he was stumbling back into the courtyard of the earthly temple. Looking up, he saw the Storm Lord's hand close over the roof of the temple's Heavenly counterpart and then the Celestial version of the temple was collapsing, folding in upon itself with unnatural swiftness as if the structure holding it together had simply become unpinned. The hand was gone, too. The temple contracted down to a tiny spinning building and then with a starlit flash it was gone. Senditreya had been banished from Heaven.

Standing in her chariot, the goddess raised her head and shrieked. Beneath the racket, Paravang detected a low moaning noise that he was alarmed to identify was coming from himself. Senditreya raised a flail and brought it down across the backs of the cattle. They bellowed in pain and alarm, and sprang forward, carrying the chariot across the gap and toward the road, within feet of Paravang Roche.

"A guide!" Senditreya shouted. "You'll do."

Paravang, too late, tried to scramble away but felt a hot divine hand grasp the back of his neck and haul him bodily into the chariot. The flail whipped over his head like a thunder-crack and the chariot sped off, blasting through the closed gates of the temple and sending them into a thousand splinters. Paravang, his mouth and nose filled with sawdust, tried to jump down, but the goddess still had hold of the nape of his neck. Her hands were huge—she was huge, in fact, at least eight feet high and built like an ox beneath the billowing crimson and indigo robes. Paravang caught sight of her face and wished he hadn't: looking into Senditreya's eyes was like looking into the pit of Hell.

"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.

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."