Shadow Pavilion (21 page)

46

“
Look,” Jhai Tserai said. “Can't we discuss this some other time? I've got a lot on my mind right now.” She turned to Zhu Irzh. “At least
you've
finally shown up.”

The demon looked wounded by this. “You make it sound as though it's all my fault.”

Pauleng Go was having a hard time with all this. Knowing that Lara had come from Hell was one thing, but now he was surrounded by demons, what with Zhu Irzh and Jhai herself. And Zhu Irzh—from the admittedly brief time that Go had spent in his company—seemed like such a normal bloke, bumming Go's cigarettes and commiserating over his recent circumstances.

“Having survived the setup they've got down there—man, you don't want anything to do with that. I mean, really. The badger and I barely escaped by the skin of our teeth.”

Go found his perception shifting to an unnerving degree: one moment he saw the two demons as normal people, and the next, as Hellkind. It was almost like a kind of racial awareness: he'd had a couple of German friends, once, and at first you noticed all the time that they were white, but then it wore off and you stopped noticing. Dealing with demons was similar; it had been like that with Lara. Until they turned into beasts and started killing people, that is.

“I didn't mean that. You know what I mean.” Jhai was impatient. To Go, she said, “I really don't think this is a good idea.”

“I don't either.” Zhu Irzh dropped the stub of his cigarette on the temple step and scoured it out with the sole of his boot. Then, apparently struck by some pang of conscience, he bent down and picked it up. “As I said, I've seen the Hunting Lodge. Freaked
me
out and you can imagine what I'm used to.”

Go nodded. He thought he could.

“Trust me, Go. I don't know you, but you seem like a nice enough guy. You made a mistake, well, that happens. We all do that.” Zhu Irzh gave a slight frown, as if suddenly uncomfortable in this role of spiritual counselor. “Theologically, it probably is enough to get you sent to Hell.” The demon paused, possibly entertaining the thought that the conversation was veering into an unfortunate direction. “That is, I mean
…
”

“Darling,” Jhai said,” You're digging a hole.” To Go, she remarked, “It's all very well being noble. It's also all very well thinking that noble might get you killed. But that's not what it's about, as you ought to have realized by now. It's what happens after death that matters.”

“Yeah,” Zhu Irzh agreed. “As I said, I've seen it.”

“Zhu Irzh is trying to avoid telling you this, but I will. Given your actions, and the fact that you're Indian, the chance that karma will send you straight down to the Hunting Lodge is kind of high.”

“Maybe that's what's supposed to happen,” Go said, stubbornly. Somewhere at the back of his mind, an astonished voice protested: that would be Go's usual self, flabbergasted at this sudden shift to responsibility, facing the consequences of one's actions, all that kind of thing. “I brought her here. It's me she wants.”

Beni was one thing. He'd been Go's co-conspirator and there was probably a school of thought that said that they both deserved what was happening to them. It hadn't been until Lara had started killing other people—completely unrelated people—that Go had experienced this uncharacteristic change of heart, and it had taken him by surprise. Maybe his parents had managed to instill some values into their son after all; maybe this was what people meant by a midlife crisis.

Or an end-of-life crisis, as seemed more likely.

“Anyway,” Jhai said now, “from what my fiancé's just told me, this isn't necessarily all about you. Lara's sisters don't seem to want her back, but they do seem to want to increase their sphere of operations. That's got nothing to do with you or anything you've done.”

“It would probably have happened anyway,” Zhu Irzh said. “It's more about me than it is about you. Agni—that's the guy in charge of the Hunting Lodge—wants Jhai.”

“Agni,” Jhai said, “has proved to be a tosser. But this isn't your problem, Go.”

“I called up Lara,” Go said. “I ought to be the one who deals with her.”

At this point Chen appeared on the temple steps and asked for a word with Zhu Irzh. Jhai went with him, leaving Go alone. Jhai was taking her role as protector seriously, Go thought; she'd done a lot for him already, but she was right: she had problems of her own. And he could not shake himself of the conviction that he ought now to face up to what he'd done. With the stiletto of conscience pricking at him, Go went quickly and quietly down to the roadway and got on the next tram to the port.

He had expected to find the port deserted, shutters barred, police everywhere. But although some shops had been barricaded up, most were still open for business and there were a surprising number of people on the streets. Go kept his ears open but he only heard one conversation, between two elderly women, pertaining to recent events

“Well, there's always something,” one old lady said. “If it's not mad gods, it's tigers.”

“I don't take any notice.” The second woman snorted. “Can't let it get to you, can you?”

“No, you can't. Too much else to worry about.”

Go sidled up to the two women and said, “About these tigers. Have you heard anything?”

“Oh, there was a
terrible
fuss last night. Sirens screaming, policemen with guns. All over the place!”

“Did they shoot them?” Go asked, hoping against hope. Maybe there had been something on the news that he'd missed; things happened so fast in this city.

“Oooh, no, dear. All the tigers got away—I don't know what these policemen were thinking. Very inefficient. But the tigers went away, anyway. This morning's been ever so peaceful.”

“Let's hope it stays that way,” Go said, with perfect truth. Thanking the women, he wandered away down the street, feeling slightly deflated. Typical: you made up your mind to see things right, even at great personal cost, and it turned out to be a complete anticlimax. But something in him told him that Lara would not be far behind, all the same. He could almost feel hot breath on his neck.

His initial assessment of the number of people around had probably been flawed. It was bustling, certainly, but he remembered coming down here one day in the late summer and it had been nearly impossible to move, such were the crowds around the market. Now, though crowded, Go was able to make his way unimpeded by the flow of humanity.

If humanity was the right word.

This street led along the harbor itself, culminating at the market building: a huge, hangar-shaped structure with a metal roof. Go had heard somewhere that it had been erected early in the city's short history, intended as a temporary shopping center before the installation of a swish new mall. But the contractors for the mall had run off with the money and the makeshift market had stayed. Periodically, there were discussions in the media about tearing it down and putting up something nicer, but nothing had come of this. It was ironic, Go thought: during last year's earth tremors, some of the new, ergonomic high-rises had collapsed like decks of cards, while the rickety market had merely flexed on its pilings over the water and settled back, like an old toad. Having approached the doors—still at this point of anti­climax—Go meandered in.

This was the hardware section of the market: brooms, mops, cleaning equipment, all jumbled together in the stalls. Go made his way between bargaining shoppers, avoided the pleas of stall owners to purchase revolutionary washing powders, and generally let himself be calmed by the outstanding normality of it all.

Normality, however, did not last.

Go was halfway to the vegetable stalls when he first became aware of the uproar. Someone was screaming. There was a kind of ripple in the crowd, a butterfly effect that ran down the row of stalls, causing shoppers to scatter and reform and scatter once more. Go was instantly alert, senses ringing as though his spirit had been struck like a bell. He knew immediately what this was, even before he heard the roar.

Just do it. Don't give yourself time to change your mind.

“Lara!” he bellowed, causing people to look at him askance.

“It's me you want, you bitch! Here I am, then! Come and get me.” Folk would think he was mad but that didn't matter anymore; he was going to die anyway and personal reputation had ceased to be of much significance. Go felt as though he had stepped through a door and entered a strange alternative realm: he now could do nothing other than the course on which he had embarked. The removal of choice was oddly soothing. He began to push his way through the now-panicking mass of shoppers, moving salmonlike against the flow, toward his death.

47

I
nari, wandering through halls … Silence and lamplight, the soft fall of shadows, the sudden footstep rush.

Seijin was back. The Gatekeeper had told her but she already knew what was on the way, she could feel it in the air, the change. She shrank back among the cobwebs, merging into tapestry, as the old wooden doors of the Shadow Pavilion blasted open and its ruler came home.

Seijin left a wake, which whistled as it swept through the passages of the Shadow Pavilion. Inari felt it glide over skin that was no longer there, stirring non-existent blood, whispering on. The Lord Lady was long gone by the time she stepped timidly out from behind the tapestry, whirling up into the high air of the upper chambers, and Inari, despite her wishes, was drawn into the assassin's path. Moving fast, feet as still as if she'd stepped onto an elevator, magnet-pulled to the presence of the Lord Lady.

Corridors fled by and the tapestries came alive as she passed, coal-bright eyes glancing out, fingers reaching. A small prancing presence, a sad-faced lion-dog, flickered across her path and away. Inari rushed on, unable to stop, locked into someone else's dream; at the entrance to an upper chamber a man in a leather jacket, face full of hate, stepped out of the air, but Inari went right through him. The door banged behind her. She was still at last, standing in a room empty except for the moth-light of a single candle, and the Lord Lady Seijin.

The assassin turned and Inari gasped. The serene presence that she had last glimpsed in the moment before her death was gone. Seijin's face was a blood-stained mask in the candlelight, one eye gone, only a black hollow left where it had been. A thin thread of smoke misted from the eye socket, as if Seijin was burning up from within. Seijin's lips drew back from pointed teeth; each one gleamed red. The Lord Lady hissed like an adder.

“I left you dead!”

Now that the assassin's unnatural calm had dissipated like the smoke coiling out from the empty eye, Inari found that the tables had suddenly turned. She drew herself a little taller.

“But now I am here,” she said, and smiled.

Seijin stepped back, Inari moved forward.

“You killed me, here I am. Forever and a day, Lord Lady.” The smile was widening into a grin. Inari spread her arms open so that her long sleeves trailed out like a butterfly's wings. As she did so, she felt her feet drifting up from the floor, so that she was hovering. Without knowing how she did so, Inari shot forward, gliding through the Lord Lady with a cold rush like prickling ice.

Seijin cried out, a terrible wail of woe, and Inari knew a moment of pure triumph. Then she was through the wall to the outside, hovering beyond the Shadow Pavilion. The sky was a sparkling sea-green, the shade that lasts only for a few minutes just before the fall of night, and the bulk of the Pavilion stretched below, a vertiginous series of angles, blocks of shadow that made the building look like part of the mountain. At the window of the room she had left, Inari saw Seijin's anguished face looking out, a wan oval, fleetingly overlain by a snarling warrior and a woman's sad countenance. Then they were all gone and the little light went out.

Inari felt slightly foolish, floating here like a blown leaf. Being dead was odd, however: she knew how to do certain things without even thinking about it. She crossed her arms over her breast, pointed her toes, and sank down through the darkening air to the ground. Interesting, to see the Pavilion like this, though ominous. From the outside, there seemed to be much more going on than had been obvious from within. Inari sailed past an entire dinner party and paused to peer through the window, seeing a lavish spread, a table with blazing lamps and glittering silver, but the faces of the guests were somber and their food looked as though it was made of metal. And in another chamber, a woman wept alone, watched by the grave spirit of a child. This was a house-sized Hell, a microcosmic mansion of the slain.

Inari thought:
I am better off than these people
. Her faith that Chen would find her was still strong and the fact that she had managed to disconcert—perhaps even hurt—Seijin was hugely empowering. Then Inari's toes touched the ground, a leaf-light landing, and she was once more dragged to the Pavilion steps.

In,
she had to get
in
. Once on the ground, that ferocious compulsion had seized her: she was thrust against the doors as if pressed by an immense wind, with such force that she slid down the unyielding door and lay slumped on the stone.

Someone said: “Is that you, Inari?” What had once been her heart echo-thumped against her ribs—
Chen!
But it was not Chen; it was Bonerattle.

Inari turned her head with an effort. “I have to get in,” she whispered. All the confidence with which she had faced Seijin had now ebbed away, consumed by need.

“Seijin killed you!” the shaman exclaimed. He scuttled out of the darkness, glancing from right to left; Inari wondered what else was out there, remembering the shapes she had seen.

“Yes, it killed me. It came to the Emperor's temple, I was in the way.”

“I am so sorry,” the shaman said. He put a blackened hand on Inari's shoulder; it was some small comfort.

“It wasn't your fault,” Inari said.

“I brought you here, first of all.”

“If you hadn't,” Inari told him, “I would still have been at the temple and I would still have been in the way and I would still be dead. Tell me, shaman—has anyone ever come here, someone Seijin has killed, and left again?”

“I would like to tell you they have,” Bonerattle said. “But the truth of it is, I do not know. The Pavilion is as crammed with spirits as a bottle filled with sand, and I can't enter it.”

“But now,” Inari said, “I can.” She told him what had just happened with Seijin, and the shaman listened intently. The compulsion to get back into the building was still strong, but talking to Bonerattle permitted her to ignore it, up to a point. But it was also fueled by fear of what else might be waiting among the rocks: there were things that ate spirits, Inari knew.

“So,” the shaman said, when she had finished. “You are in an interesting position. You are a haunt.”

“So it seems,” Inari said, with a hoarse little laugh. “What am I to do, then?”

“Go back in,” Bonerattle said, “and do your work.”