The Demon and the City

Chen and spat fire. Chen dodged back and the demon felt the spell falter and fall apart. There was a momentary wrenching sensation within him, as though someone had taken hold of his guts and given them a swift, sharp tug. He heard Robin cry out in pain and then the room was dark.
    "Well," Chen said. "At least we know where she is."
    Zhu Irzh frowned. "But why has she gone to Shai?"
    "I could tell you that," a voice said. Someone stumbled out of the shadows, someone bruised and singed. It took the demon a minute to recognize him.
    "Dowser Roche!"
    Paravang Roche stared at him with hatred. "It's taken an age to find you. I had to call your captain and everything. My feet hurt. You want to know why she's gone to Shai? You want to know what she's doing there?"
    "I'd appreciate it if you could tell us," Chen said, ever polite.
    "Oh no. There's a price." Paravang Roche was glaring at the demon. "I want my license back."
    "You'll have it," Zhu Irzh said quickly. If that was all the man wanted . . .but then some humans were notoriously lacking in imagination.
    The dowser nodded with grim satisfaction. "All right. What guarantee do I have?"
    "I'll give you a written guarantee," Chen said. "Will that do? Although I feel bound to point out that you might find it a bit difficult to find work, after all this is over. The Feng Shui Practitioners' Guild isn't going to be terribly popular."
    "I'll take my chances," Paravang Roche said. He accepted Chen's scrawled note, set with the bloody imprint of Chen's personal seal, and stowed it away in his pocket. "Very well, then. That bitch has gone to Shai because it was originally her temple." Mhara was watching the dowser, Zhu Irzh saw, with no surprise. He had known, then. But one would expect him to. The dowser went on: "The Practitioners' Guild doesn't advertise it. Why would we? Senditreya's come down in the world over the last couple of hundred years. She was human first, but then she used to be one of the primary goddesses in this region—not just of feng shui but of agriculture and herding—but then technology started taking over and people began to migrate to the cities and, slowly, her worship became eroded. Her priests made the decision to move out of Shai to a smaller temple. Then the land got bought up by the franchise committee and the city developed around it. Shai was just a big, empty space."
    "I'm surprised no one bought it for redevelopment," Chen said.
    The demon saw Robin shiver. "It leads to the Night Harbor."
    "Yes, that's part of the problem," Paravang Roche said, looking at Robin for the first time. "When the temple was abandoned, it started to fall into ruin and then it started to leak. Literally—gaps opened up between the worlds. It's my opinion that it was never sealed properly, but perhaps that's not the case. Any one entering it risks becoming lost in the hinterlands of the Night Harbor, even a member of the Practitioners' Guild. The meridians warp as the worlds meet."
    "So the goddess has returned to her old temple," Zhu Irzh said. "Do you think she's planning a last stand?"
    "I don't know what she's planning," the dowser replied. "She's raving bloody mad."
    "Well, she has to be stopped," Chen said. "Her presence here is causing the city itself to leak—you must be more aware of this than any of us."
    Paravang Roche nodded. "The meridians have become hopelessly disrupted. All sorts of things are coming up from Hell, through the breaches."
    "And that's not all," the demon said. Briefly, he brought the dowser up to speed on the matter of Senditreya's demonic virus.
    "She was planning all that?" Paravang Roche said, startled. "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