The Demon and the City - By Liz Williams Page 0,102

"I didn't think she had the wit."

"You don't think much of your patron deity, do you?"

"Would you?"

The demon was forced to agree.

"Very well," Chen said. "We're wasting time. Mr Roche, do you know a way into Shai that won't get us hopelessly lost?"

Paravang Roche looked very shifty. "I believe so. I might have glimpsed an old map somewhere . . ."

"I'm not asking you to spill all the Guild's secrets. Just get us into Shai."

And after a pause, the dowser nodded.

Fifty-Five

She ran swiftly, swerving to avoid the festive people, her feet taking her unerringly down the alleyways of the portside. Later, when she was herself again, Jhai wondered what they had seen: a young woman, half-known from TV interviews and the burgeoning shrines, the famous face panting and distorted by running, dressed conservatively in a crimson jacket and black trousers. Their faces streamed past her, meaning nothing, their mouths opening and closing as though they were underwater, their hair trailing in the wind from the sea, which suddenly seemed so slow, a mere trickle of air.

The currents ran strongly beneath the port. She could feel the Great Meridian, straining to keep to its appointed bed, remaining only because the unlucky sha from the Trade House had been inadvertently removed. Jhai did not know this, but she felt it, an inexplicable lightness in the north of the city. But the Great Meridian would not hold for long; already its foundations were loosened and soon, soon it would tear free and take the city with it, opening all the doors to Hell and they would all be washed through on the changed tide. This unspoken understanding lent urgency to her. Dimly, she could sense Zhu Irzh's presence in the city; he was a little blurred around the edges, but still recognizable. She paused for breath, leaning heavily against a doorframe, sought outward for her bearings, and then she was off again.

Hands caught her wrists and twisted.

"Where are you off to, girlie?" a voice said in her ear. Jhai heard the words, but did not understand. The smell of cheap Japanese whisky was bitter on the man's breath. She snapped his hold downward and broke free. "No, no," he mumbled. "You're going to come back here . . ."

Jhai growled, deep in the back of her throat. Uncomprehending, she saw his face slack above her and she struck up at it. His head flicked to one side, easily moved, and she hit him again. Rage grew in her, tiger-hot and filling her mouth with saliva. She beat at him, and he went down on his knees, and she could reach his eyes then. He screamed as her hand stabbed, and flung up his arms to protect his face. Jhai grasped him under the chin, pulled up, and twisted. There was a sudden limp heaviness in her arms. She set him down, quite gently, and ran, her tail flickering about her ankles as she did so. The moving presence of the demon drew her on, surely, as though to a fixed star, her magnetic north.

Fifty-Six

They were standing outside the back regions of Shai. The journey through the city had been distressing, at least for those folk who weren't Zhu Irzh. The demon had been alternately entertained and puzzled: Hellkind were certainly coming through, but not in any ordered way. Typical, Zhu Irzh thought: no strategy, no planning . . . He supposed that all of that had gone into the intended invasion of Heaven. The city was responding in a variety of ways, chief among them incomprehension, panic and partying. The demon supposed that was as good a reaction as any.

The temple rose above them in a great arc, a dome of darkness. To Zhu Irzh, it looked impenetrable, but Robin was saying to Mhara, "There! That's where we went in." She was pointing in the direction of the canal.

"I happen to know," the dowser said, "that this particular route will take you right into the Night Harbor. We won't go by water. Come with me—I'll show you where to go."

He led them around the building, to a rubble-strewn courtyard. It looked to Zhu Irzh as though part of the side wall of the temple, perhaps one of the buttresses which supported its squat bulk, had collapsed into the courtyard. A series of fissures and holes were apparent in the wall of Shai.

"Look!" Chen said sharply. "Who's that?"

Zhu Irzh turned to see someone crouching by a pile of fallen mortar. The woman was rocking