The Demon and the City (22 page)

"Can't your families pray—or pay—to have you sent on? Tip the balance?"

"What families? We come from folk who are too ignorant to know and too selfish to care. And so we end up here in Bad Dog Village, little lost spirits whom the land turns to dog-form." The woman's foot thumped briefly on the ground, like a dog scratching. "It's not such a bad life. There's food in the hills, game and such like, though I wouldn't call them rabbits. Too many teeth. And the men are all right once you get to know them, and know your place. It's shelter."

"But you must want to move on, get back into life eventually?"

The woman snorted. "As what? Born back into the same life we left by dying? You don't know what my life was like as a human woman. This might be a shitty life, but it's still better." She rose to her feet and stretched. "Anyway, nice talking to you, but I'd better get on. And, dearie, when you get back to the land of the living, make sure you don't live the kind of life that winds you up back here, eh? I don't need the competition."

When she had gone Robin stared at the empty water bowl and thought. It seemed to her that Bad Dog Village was exactly where she had been heading, up until the point that she freed Mhara, and she only had the courage to do that because she was essentially delirious. But until that point, it had been neither good nor bad, and more of the latter than the former. She had done enough thinking about it, enough self-analysis. It was time to change, but if she was going to escape Bad Dog Village in death, then she had to escape it in life first, and she had no clear idea as to how to go about it.

The bitch-woman's comments about Mhara had been odd, as well.
He's special.
Well, she knew that, but did they mean only that Mhara was Heavenkind, and far from home, or something more? And if so, what were they planning for her friend?

Resolving to do something constructive, Robin made a thorough search of the hovel, but though the walls were flimsy enough, they were woven in with some kind of tough rush and she could neither force nor unweave her way through. She battered at the door until her strength was spent, but it was of no use. Frustrated, she sat down and tried to think of a plan.

The goddess did not accompany them back to the Night Harbor, as Zhu Irzh was expecting. Instead, she asked Chen and the demon to remain on deck, then closeted herself in the red lacquered room with her maid. The door remained closed for some time.

"What are they
doing
in there?" Zhu Irzh chafed. The atmosphere of the boat was really starting to get to him, causing a kind of deep psychic itch.

"I have no idea," Chen replied. "Discussing the situation, probably."

But when the door finally opened and the Celestial maiden stepped forth, she had changed. She now had about her an air of grave authority and presence, and her gaze was as depthless and dark as the Sea of Night itself.

"Goddess?" Chen said.

"A seed only," the maiden answered, and her voice was different, too, now having some of the timbre of Kuan Yin's own. Zhu Irzh had seen people download themselves, or parts of their psyches, into other people before, but he had rarely seen it done so smoothly. Usually the possessed were fuzzy around the edges.

"Can we go now?" he asked.

"Of course," the maiden replied, as though there had never been any question about it. Since becoming possessed, she seemed to have also taken on some of Kuan Yin's more fluid and mutable qualities. The maiden moved sinuously from the boat, and Zhu Irzh clambered after her.

The dock of the Night Harbor had filled up in their absence and was now crowded. There must have been a fresh consignment of souls released through the portals while Chen and the demon were on board. The souls looked confused: some wandered up to Kuan Yin's vessel and trailed wondering, wistful hands along its sides.

"We must be careful," the maiden said. "It would not be helpful if someone were to stow aboard." She spoke coolly, but Zhu Irzh caught sight of the sadness in her possessed eyes and knew that she would save them all if she could. Despite her remoteness, Kuan Yin, the Compassionate and the Merciful, was truly named.

Chen was already at the harbor master's hut, asking questions. When the maiden and Zhu Irzh reached him, he said, "The harbor master thinks he knows who she is. She's not in her original form, however. The dogs got to her when she reached the village."

"I can't understand why she didn't go onward to Hell," Zhu Irzh said. "She wasn't a good person."

"No, but she was murdered and that was probably enough to hold her here," Chen replied. "It gets complicated."

"So what happens now?" the maiden asked. "We go to the village?"

"Yes, but I'm reluctant to walk. It's too far and it's also dangerous. I'll have to try to arrange some transport."

"Leave it to me," the maiden said. She disappeared inside the harbor master's hut. Chen and the demon looked at one another.

"She's the goddess," Zhu Irzh said. "Best leave it to her."

But when the maiden emerged, her head was held high and her eyes were snapping. "Bureaucrats! Come with me!" was all that she said. Exchanging a further round of glances, Chen and Zhu Irzh followed meekly in her wake.

The transport that was to take them to Bad Dog Village proved to be a ramshackle coach, drawn by two mangy kylin lion-dogs. They stamped their fringed feet as the demon approached, tossed their manes and roared, enveloping the party in a wave of fetid breath.

"Lovely," Zhu Irzh said, eyeing them with minimal enthusiasm. "Couldn't they find anything better?"

"Apparently not," the maiden remarked. "I believe that man took actual delight in thwarting a deity. But I have so little jurisdiction here . . . We must take what we can get." She allowed Chen to open the door of the carriage and help her inside. "You will have to drive."

Chen glanced at Zhu Irzh. "Can you do it? I've no experience with these things."

"I can try," Zhu Irzh said, but he was not confident that the beasts would obey him. Chen hoisted the badger up, then clambered up beside him and watched as Zhu Irzh shook the reins, clucked, and failed to make the kylins budge. Eventually, with a lot of cursing and the use of a small, flicking whip, the beasts were prodded into movement and the carriage set off along the dock at a slow trundle.

"Do you even know where we're going?" Zhu Irzh asked.

"Not really, but apparently Kuan Yin does. Her avatar will give us directions."

"Strange," the demon mused. "You must have come here many times, and yet you retain none of it."

Chen grimaced. "Probably just as well. I don't like the Night Harbor, Zhu Irzh."

"I can see why." Zhu Irzh looked with distaste at the ghosts clamoring alongside them, their spectral hands brushing against his coat and the sides of the carriage. "What good do they think that will do?"

"They can sense the presence of the goddess," Chen said uneasily. "They're drawn to her."

"What, they think she might be able to give them special dispensation? Get them up to Heaven?"

"I have no idea. Maybe they're just like moths to a flame. Maybe it's me they're drawn to. After all, I'm still alive."

Zhu Irzh shook the reins, flicked the whip and the carriage picked up speed as they approached the outskirts of what passed for a settlement here. Chen leaned into the carriage and spoke to the maiden. Zhu Irzh heard a murmured reply.

"We need to head for the mountain road, apparently."

"And where might that be? There's a distinct lack of signs."

"Look," Chen said, and as he spoke the demon could see the mountains rising ahead, huge masses of shadow against the darkness. Somewhere high on a peak, he could see a wan light. "Do you think that's the village?"

"I don't know. Keep on this road and it'll take us into the hills."

As the carriage rolled along, Zhu Irzh saw that they were passing groups of souls, trailing drearily down from the mountains. Some were no more than children, clutching the hands of adult spirits, and many of them were old. Used to the exigencies of Hell as he was, Zhu Irzh repressed a shudder. What an afterlife, he thought. No wonder so many humans tried to make deals with Hell in order to avoid it. You would be much better off going to Hell straightaway: at least it was exciting, not this dull, elusive hinterland.

"Excuse me," he called down to one of the groups of souls. "Have you come from Bad Dog Village?"

"Yes, yes, a terrible place." One of the souls, an elderly man with the ravages of illness still plain in his face, was eager to complain. "We hurried through it, but we lost one of our number. The dogs kept him, it is said they eat spirits or hunt them for sport. And now we head for the boat and the peach orchards across the sea." A kind of peace suffused his worn features, blotting out the anxiety.

"We wish you good fortune and good sailing," Chen called down, and the demon drove on.

Gradually, he became aware that the sky, or whatever passed for it in the Night Harbor, was beginning to lighten. It became easier to see the fields and copses alongside the road, the remnants of farms and smallholdings.

"Who lives here then?" Zhu Irzh asked, puzzled. "Who would choose to farm such changing terrain?"

"I don't think they have a choice," Chen replied. "Some folk just get stuck. And perhaps some people don't want to face the journey, the razor bridge, dogtown—maybe they
do
choose to stay here. I don't know. I thought perhaps you would."

"I understand Hell and its workings," Zhu Irzh said. "But this country . . . I'm not familiar with it, after all, and why should I have taken an interest before now?"

Chen shrugged. Zhu Irzh drove on and at length the fields faded and gave way to rock and ragged outcrops. The air smelled of dust and decay. Zhu Irzh kept glimpsing bones from the corner of his eye, skeletal heaps by the side of the road, but when he looked, there was nothing there. He had not realized it was so quiet when the roar shattered the air. It reverberated from the rocks, making Zhu Irzh's head ring. The maiden gave a cry, quickly stifled, from within the carriage, and the kylins danced to a standstill and refused to go further.

"What was that?" Chen, his usual composure ruffled, clutched at the demon's arm.

"I don't know. What sort of things are you supposed to find in these mountains anyway?"

"I thought it was the home of the dogmen alone."

"I don't think that was a dogman. It sounded enormous."

"Look, let's just get on," Chen said.

"If I can get these things to move, we will."

Eventually he coaxed the kylins forward, but as they rounded the corner, something bounded down to stand in their path. It moved so swiftly that Zhu Irzh saw it only as a flicker against the rocks. The kylins reared, nearly overturning the carriage. Zhu Irzh and Chen both fought for control of the reins and hauled the kylins back.

"What is it?" the maiden cried.

"A thing," Zhu Irzh called back, with perfect truth.

He had never seen anything like the creature that now stood before them, bouncing slightly on four long legs. It was hairless and white, with a gaunt, tapering body and no sign of genitalia. Its narrow head was eyeless, with a slit for a nose and a gaping hole of a mouth, lined with teeth like a lamprey. Yet despite its unfamiliarity, it felt . . .known. He had experienced this thing before, and recently.

The maiden, disregarding Chen's warning shout, was scrambling down from the carriage to stand in the road.

"Heavenly Emperor," she said faintly.
"Shur?"
Her face was aghast, and abruptly Zhu Irzh remembered where he had met this thing before. It looked different, but he knew it. He would have paid good money to bet that this was the spiritual remnant of the immortal that Jhai Tserai had captured and held at the Farm. Next moment, his suspicions were confirmed. The thing's razor-sharp tongue shot out in the direction of the maiden and the creature charged.

Paravang Roche went to the temple at the appropriate time. He bought the goddess a bunch of flowers at the station: chrysanthemums tawny in their roll of paper, smelling of spice. A proper show of obsequiousness should help matters along. As he went through the door of the temple he saw that the priest-broker was there before him, kneeling perfectly still, his forehead touching the ground before the outstretched arms of the smiling deity. Roche knelt beside him and waited until he had completed his prayer. The broker uncoiled from the floor and looked at him.

"You."

"Indeed," Paravang said.

"Do you have the money?"

"Of course I don't have the money. These things take time. But I will have it, make no mistake about that." Make a good display of confidence, Paravang thought, and maybe he'll go away without asking too many awkward questions. But the priest-broker's eyes narrowed.

"And how do you propose to manage that?"

"Family," Paravang said, with perfect truth.

He could tell that the broker wanted to believe him, and yet could not quite make the leap. He smiled serenely at the old man, trying to give an impression of untroubled unconcern, and eventually, with a last suspicious glance, the broker shuffled off to the duties of the day, leaving Paravang alone in the temple.

Paravang laid the flowers before the statue of the goddess and prayed for success rather perfunctorily. The rites might have to be duly observed, but his confidence in Senditreya's powers was at an all-time low. He did not spend long in the temple, therefore, but took off down the street to a narrow alley filled with remedy shops and a butcher's. He had first come here years before to defuse a
ch'i
war, and the butcher still owed him a few favors. Before the butcher's door, he paused for a moment and collected himself before going inside.

The butcher was a short, slight man with an unhealthy plumpness. Indeed, it was more than plumpness: Paravang, with a distaste he found difficult to conceal, could see the outlines of breasts beneath the butcher's bloodstained overall, and yet the butcher was unmistakably male. Rumor had it that this was caused by continual exposure to the illicit hormones found in the meat that this particular establishment specialized in, but it had one singular advantage. The butcher was an accomplished sorcerer, and his shifting gender apparently lent him powers that a normal man would have found difficult to attain. Years ago, Paravang had read an article about Siberian shamans who cross-dressed, and he supposed that this was a similar kind of thing.