The Demon and the City - By Liz Williams Page 0,82
along it, just as there are meridians of ch'i and sha beneath the land. This boat must travel along the path of those meridians. Anyone who wants to disturb the passage of the boat, this far out to sea, must also disturb the meridians themselves."
"Who could have the power to do that?" the demon asked, adding, "Oh."
"I see you have divined the truth," the goddess said. "Senditreya herself, Lady of the Lines of the Land. Traitor and enemy."
"She must be doing this from Heaven then," Chen said.
"Unless she has already left," Kuan Yin replied. "She would have been wise to do so. I sent a message to the Jade Emperor as soon as I could, telling Him everything. He intended to summon Heaven's own kuei, the Storm Lords, to take her into their charge."
"If she has fled, then she must be desperate," Zhu Irzh said.
"Desperate enough to disrupt the meridians that hold the words together? If she causes enough damage, the worlds could fly apart," Chen exclaimed.
"What happens then?" Robin ventured to ask, but she thought she already knew. Mhara's vision, which she had shared: the city sinking into flood and ruin. Looking into the goddess' ineffable eyes, she saw that Kuan Yin had read her thoughts.
"What can we do?" she asked.
"We sail on," the goddess said.
As if by mutual consent, Robin went with Detective Chen and the demon, as well as the goddess' handmaidens, to the main cabin to ride out the storm. Kuan Yin herself remained at the helm, steering her boat through the thundering waves of night with a palpable air of serenity with which no one was inclined to argue. Mhara stayed with her, lashed to the plunging rail; the goddess seemed to need no such supports. The main cabin had a porthole facing the prow and thus the occupants could see out if they chose. Robin took the seat nearest the porthole and remained there, welded to the view of Mhara and the goddess at the helm.
"If this carries on," Chen said uneasily, "we're going to have to find some way of strapping ourselves in."
"Or a binding spell," the demon said.
"I've no way of knowing whether that would work out here. Magic is different in different worlds, and here we are between them. Anyway, we don't want to get stuck in case the boat goes over."
"You and I have fallen into the Sea of Night before," Zhu Irzh said.
"Yes, and nearly drowned, or whatever is analogous. I'd have died if it hadn't been for Inari." Chen sighed. "She must be wondering what's happened to me."
"The captain knew we were going to the Night Harbor."
"Yes, but he won't send anyone to look for us."
"Ma might."
"Ma? He's terrified of the Night Harbor."
"I think you'll find a change in Sergeant Ma, Chen. He's really been surprisingly helpful in recent weeks. He—"
But Robin, who had been paying little attention to this conversation, interrupted. "I can see something."
Within moments, they were all clustering around her shoulder, looking at the bright line of the horizon.
"It's Heaven!" one of the maidens sighed. "We are almost home." She clasped her friend's hands with joy.
"Thank the goddess for that," Zhu Irzh remarked with some irony. They watched as the line grew stronger and brighter, but then the ship gave another great plunge and sent everyone staggering.
"Hold on!" Chen cried. Robin could see through the porthole that something was rising up from the surface of the Sea of Night. It looked like a huge spined porcupine, with a mass of waving tentacles and a billowing sail that spanned out behind it into a web of light.
"What," Robin heard the demon say, with the kind of calmness that heralds screaming panic, "is that?"
Robin did not know. The thing made her sick to look at it. It was utterly wrong. The light was a visceral red, an intestinal shade, and moments later it came down to cover the boat. The cabin was cast into a crimson gloom and filled with a smell like old fish. One of the maidens began to gag, delicately, in the manner of a cat about to be sick.
"Please don't," Zhu Irzh said, eyeing her. Then everything went black.
"It's dragging us down!" Chen cried.
"But what is it?" That was the demon, the panic more evident than ever. "I didn't think anything could live in the Sea of Night."
"It is something from between the stars," a maiden gasped. "The churning of the Sea of Night has brought it up."