The Demon and the City

visions that people have been receiving. And there have been prophecies about the end of the city." The clerk wrung his hands. "The end of the world." Then, summoned by one of the priests, he hastened away.
    What nonsense, thought Paravang. He was sure that this was nothing more than hysterical speculation. War in Heaven, indeed. He decided to concentrate on his own concerns and track down the priest-broker. Then, once the Assassins' Guild had been paid off, he could go back home and have a nice rest for a couple of days, his troubles at a temporary end. Who had ever heard of such a thing as a Celestial war?
    But at that moment his theological certainties were undermined by a commotion in the courtyard. It came in the form of a thunderous roar, as though a jet engine was landing in the temple precincts. Paravang clapped his hands over his ears, but it was no use. The whole temple structure was beginning to shake and shudder, cracks and slits appearing in the walls. A shower of plaster fell from the ceiling like dandruff and the floor bucked under him, causing the tiles to snap. Paravang gripped a bench for support and when the ground stopped moving, he ran out into the courtyard with some vague notion that it was an earthquake.
    It wasn't. It was the goddess.
    Senditreya was standing in a chariot drawn by two fire-colored cattle at the center of the courtyard, on a pedestal of rock formed by the cracked earth around her. Paravang caught a glimpse down one of those cracks and reeled: it seemed to go all the way to Hell. Senditreya herself displayed none of the bovine calm with which Paravang had always associated her. The goddess was clearly furious. She carried the full mantle of her awe about her, the kind of atmosphere that could bring mortals involuntarily to their knees, and her dark eyes were snapping with fire. Paravang caught sight of her snarling mouth and flung himself face down on what remained of the ground. This was not a conscious decision, and moments later, he regretted it. Once more the ground shuddered and shook. Paravang felt as though he were riding a great wave of the sea: he was picked up and flung down again. With the breath knocked out of him, he twisted around and saw that the shivering temple had become overlaid with a triplicity of images: the place of worship with which he was so familiar; a gleaming, glittering palace with stars in its rafters; and a terrible dark hollow, echoing with woe. His paralyzed mind finally came up with the solution to this curious effect: he was seeing Senditreya's temple in all three dimensions, Heaven, Earth and Hell. As he watched, stunned, the Heavenly version of the temple grew stronger, its outlines bolder and sharply illuminated. He saw his fellow feng shui practitioners, shuffling back against the meager protection afforded by the temple wall, and he managed to pull himself to his feet and join them. But something was moving down out of the starry sky—a vast rushing shape, its robes billowing out around it like sails, its immense face filled with resolution. Its eyes seemed the size of moons. Paravang, having beheld it, could not look away. Lightning zapped around its hair and storm clouds swirled around it like a cape. It was, Paravang's terror informed him, one of the kuei, the Storm Lord enforcers of Heaven. As it sped toward them it reached out a hand, talon-tipped.
    "No!" Paravang heard the goddess cry. Her shout came close to rupturing his eardrums. "You shall not!"
    "Madam, I shall!" the kuei replied, in a voice like thunder. The taloned hand came closer, Paravang shut his eyes and then with a sensation of swift descent he was stumbling back into the courtyard of the earthly temple. Looking up, he saw the Storm Lord's hand close over the roof of the temple's Heavenly counterpart and then the Celestial version of the temple was collapsing, folding in upon itself with unnatural swiftness as if the structure holding it together had simply become unpinned. The hand was gone, too. The temple contracted down to a tiny spinning building and then with a starlit flash it was gone. Senditreya had been banished from Heaven.
    Standing in her chariot, the goddess raised her head and shrieked. Beneath the racket, Paravang detected a low moaning noise that he was alarmed to identify was coming from himself. Senditreya raised a flail and brought it down across the backs of the cattle. They bellowed in pain and alarm, and sprang forward, carrying the chariot