breaking out in here."
Zhu Irzh tried to shake his head, to reassure them that the episode was over, but this had the result of a tighter pull on the gag. They seemed to be passing along a corridor: there were a series of lights that illuminated a high, narrow strip of ceiling. He reached out and lightly touched the mind of the man at the back: a slow, stupid brain. It was like touching something stuffed with flock. The one at the front was a different proposition. He could see the back of a blonde head and the mind within was quick and subtle, as though he tried to catch an eel. That was Ei, then. The demon lay still and let himself be carried. He heard the hum of a door, and then was taken through into somewhere that smelled of water, rank and saline. They lowered the stretcher to the floor and moved away. The door closed again, and he heard a series of clicks. The bonds removed themselves from his wrists and ankles, drawing back into the edges of the stretcher. The gag remained. He lay still for a moment, flexing toes and fingers until the circulation returned, and then he stood up.
He was in a small, curved cell, the shape of a comma. He could feel the spit and crackle of warding spells, but not, he thought, terribly strong ones. Zhu Irzh grinned to himself. He loved being underestimated. In the bulge of the comma was a plexiglass opening, beyond which his captors stood, gaping at him like people in front of an aquarium. Ei rapped on the glass. "Can you hear me?"
"Yes."
"Good. I want you to be aware of a number of things, demon. Firstly, you're in Paugeng's prison unit. Secondly, you're being held for unprovoked assault, which carries an extensive sentence under local corporate law: three years, according to city statute. No remission, and no diminution. Thirdly, your employer has been notified and will be obliged to pay for your board. If they refuse, the money must be repaid within thirty days of leaving this building, otherwise you're back inside. It's not very fair, but you should have thought of that when you attacked Dowser Roche."
"Have you spoken with Jhai Tserai?"
"Madam Tserai's gone to Beijing, on business."
"When will she be back?"
"I don't know. That's up to her," Ei said primly.
"I see," Zhu Irzh remarked. He sat down on the molded bench that extended from the wall. His new position had not yet sunk in; the remains of the trank still fumed within his brain. With an effort, he tried to get a grasp on the situation, but he was starting to fade and soon, they were all gone again.
Somewhere in the recesses of imagination, Zhu Irzh was distantly aware that he dreamed. He was floating deep in the airless, starry depths of the Sea of Night. Globes hung close by, like glowing fruit. Zhu Irzh thought they might be worlds. Warmth sang through his veins with the heat of a sun; its grip took him with a force beyond orgasm and he gasped. It punched him through the membrane between death and life, Heaven and Hell. He could feel all the worlds at once. A great red eye, many times his own height, gazed at him for a moment and then the crack through which it glanced closed up. The sound of his own blood beat in his skull like a drum. All was silence for a moment, then a wave was upon him. He stood surrounded by it, like a man on an island, and despite the roaring in his ears he heard the tinny clatter of metal. Looking down, he saw that the coins of the I Ching lay at his feet, scattered across a web of light. It was curiously familiar; bending down, he saw that it was a map of the meridians of the city, as faint and fragile as one of the skeins of silk that the spiders draped across the hibiscus hedges.
Then the vast rushing tide was gone. The demon turned. Out of the shadows a speckled, doglike creature padded, and looked at him with human eyes. The beast opened its mouth and exhaled a great sour breath of rotten meat.
"Look what I have become," it said.
"What are you?" the demon asked. "What were you?" And the beast sighed.
"Only a human woman, but I wanted more. I risked everything," the beast said, with a laugh like a hiss.