The Demon and the City
By Liz Williams
4/5
()
About this ebook
Zhu Irzh is having trouble adjusting to life on Earth. The food is bland, the colors dim, and the weather much too chilly for a demon used to the balmy climate of the underworld. Recently attached to the Singapore Three police department, Zhu Irzh has been assigned to help humans like Detective Inspector Chen investigate cases that overlap this world and the world to come. But how dedicated can a demon be to justice when his last assignment was to Hell’s vice squad—whose job is not to prevent vice, but to promote it?
Zhu Irzh is pondering these philosophical questions when he catches his first murder case: the savage killing of a rich would-be witch outside of the occult market. Chen is on a well-deserved vacation, so the demon takes charge himself, unearthing a supernatural conspiracy that proves Hell holds no monopoly on evil.
The Demon and the City is the second of the five Detective Inspector Chen Novels, which also include Snake Agent and Precious Dragon.
Liz Williams
Liz Williams is a science fiction and fantasy writer living in Glastonbury, England, where she is codirector of a witchcraft supply business. The author of seventeen novels and over one hundred short stories, she has been published by Bantam Spectra and Night Shade Books in the US, and by Tor Macmillan in the UK. She was a frequent contributor to Realms of Fantasy, and her writing appears regularly in Asimov’s and other magazines. She is the secretary of the Milford SF Writers’ Workshop and teaches creative writing and history of science fiction.
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Reviews for The Demon and the City
8 ratings6 reviews
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5I didn't like it as much as the first (Snake Agent). But it was still good enough that I'm looking for the third in the series. If you liked the first, I'd recommend this one. If you weren't so sure on the first, but you're hoping this one gets better.... it doesn't. Maybe the third will...
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5Such a promising start to the series in Snake agent then I read this what a let down, won't be carrying on with the series.
- Rating: 2 out of 5 stars2/5
2.5 stars
I started out loving this book which was a real surprise as I didn't like the last one that much and was really on the fence about even reading further. My biggest complaint with the first one was how sexist it was both in a lack of women characters in general. Even the extras, those that are there to hold the door or answer the phone, were almost exclusively men. The women were stupid and weak, other than the goddess who was just annoying. Other readers liked Inari but I found her whiny and weak and subservient and controlled by her husband because he cared about her so much! How many abusive husbands use that excuse to manipulate their wives?
But I really liked the demon Zhu Irzhs, the dark humor, and the complex world Williams created. And though it may not be that accurate, the depiction of a culture other than white American in an urban fantasy novel was refreshingly, well, novel. With trepidation, I decided to give the second one a go since my favorite character Zhu Irzhs was the main protagonist and Inari wasn't even in the book.
So paint me shocked that within a few pages I was introduced to several strong lesbians who were integral to the plot. The first few chapters were so good that I thought that a rating of five stars might be in this book's future. Williams continued to describe this complex world through showing rather than telling. (Actually the telling was more confusing than the showing.) The plot at that point was complicated but understandable and not at all predictable.
But oh how quickly do hopes get dashed. Very quickly it was revealed that the lesbians were all evil, in love with men, dead, or a combination of the above. Come on! Why can't there be a positive lesbian character in a mainstream urban fantasy novel? (There are several series with gay male characters that I love, but not with lesbians that I've found. If you are aware of any let me know!) This trickery is so early 20th century, so The Well of Loneliness et al where a lesbian cannot survive being a lesbian. They all die or find men.
But I read on because I liked the plot, there was lots of action, and I was curious what would happen next. But suddenly, around the middle of the book, I realized I just didn't care anymore. I read a few more chapters to see if it was just a loll but no. By the time Chen came back a few chapters later (the chapters are very short) I was bored stiff. The original murder mystery didn't even seem important anymore and the rest of the plot didn't make a lot of sense, at least not yet. I didn't like most of the characters and even the demon was annoying thus time around. There was some caricature of a vengeful magic user who kept cropping up even though he appears to have been a plot device more than anything.
A few more nitpicks: Yin & Yang are not positive and negative. A child is repeatedly referred to as "it" even though gender is known, the demon takes a cold shower to lower his libido but he's always cold, they call a woman in her late 20's a girl, and the worst thing of all, a BIG pet peeve: It's "another THINK coming" not "another thing coming"!
I wrote this and was all set to mark the book as abandoned but I then remembered that most of what I loved about the last book was the banter between Chen & the demon. So I went back and sped-read through the scenes that didn't involve both of them until about a quarter of the way from the end the action picked up, the different story lines braided together and things started happening. The end was one long action sequence which would probably have left me breathless if I cared about any of the characters a whole lot. I have to say the goddesses were strong and intelligent and one of the human females was almost recognizable as a 21st century metropolitan young woman (but not quite).
The biggest problem at the end I can't tell you without spoiling things but suffice to say I wanted to kick a woman upside the head for thinking she was strong when she did something heinously not. But the second worst problem was continuity. For example, at one point someone is fragmenting/melting/dissolving and the next scene he's fine and no explanation is given, a very important storyline was not completed and will be problematic in the next book, and new creature and ideas kept being introduced too late in the game.
So once again I am left giving this 2.5 stars and thinking I'm not going to read the next one. But I've said that before so who knows. Maybe if I'm desperate. - Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A worthy followup to Snake Agent, with the demon cop from the first book taking center stage as infernal machinations send Singapore Three into chaos.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5It's just another day in Singapore Three, the town with the worst feng shui in the world. Meaning that when war erupts in Heaven you don't have to guess where Ground Zero is located. Focusing more on the activities and character of demonic vice cop Zhu Irzhs, this is a fine follow-up to Williams' first book in this world.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5This second Detective Chen novel isn't as tight as the first volume. Still enjoyable, but hampered by the fact that some of the reoccurring characters that I liked in the previous book didn't get nearly enough airtime in this one. I'm not certain I like the new female protagonist-- though, as is with a few of her other books, I found myself strangely fascinated. (Or at least grudgingly respectful. Neither of which is the same as actually liking however.)The two main leads, Chen and Irzh are excellent.
Book preview
The Demon and the City - Liz Williams
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PRAISE FOR THE WRITING OF LIZ WILLIAMS
Williams has an astonishing ability to create strange worlds and complex characters with only a few words. She finds new tangents with standard myths … and uses non-Western concepts … to great effect.
—Publishers Weekly
Snake Agent
This exotic amalgam of police procedural, SF, comic fantasy, and horror is a delight from start to finish.
—Locus
Williams joins A. A. Attanasio and China Miéville as one of the best contemporary practitioners of a kind of imaginative literature that fuses the intellect of SF with the heart of fantasy.
—SciFi.com
"Williams’s language is lyrical and elegant… . The dialogue has a patina of Britishness about it that adds to the feeling of other that permeates the book. The first in a series, Snake Agent set the pace for what will no doubt be an exciting and worthwhile series. I am looking forward to the next … Inspector Chen novel." —Bookslut
The Demon and the City
Like all of Williams’s work, this is a smooth, sharp read. She turns the conventions of good and evil on their ear and gives them a good sharp boot in the rear.
—Jay Lake, author of Mainspring
The Demon and the City
A Detective Inspector Chen Novel
Liz Williams
Contents
Prologue
Hsiao Kuo: The Small Get By
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
Ming I: The Darkening of the Light
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
Hsiao Chu: The Taming Power of the Small
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
Ta Ch'U: The Taming Power of the Great
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
Interlude
53
Interlude
54
55
56
Interlude
57
Interlude
58
59
Interlude
60
61
62
63
64
Preview: Precious Dragon
About the Author
To the Witchcraft Shop Owner
Acknowledgements
With thanks …
… to everyone at Night Shade Books for being such a pleasure to deal with.
… to Marty Halpern for his help and (considerable) patience.
… as ever, to Shawna McCarthy for all her hard work, encouragement and help.
… to everyone in the Montpellier Writing Group.
… to David Pringle, for accepting the first Chen story for Interzone.
… to everyone at Milford, who kept asking when the Chinese detective story was going to be published. (And now it is!)
… to everyone in the Cantonese group for their help and support, particularly Chris Priest and Leigh Kennedy, and also to Tanith Lee for her unfailing kindness.
… to my parents.
… and last but not least, to Trevor Jones, witchcraft shop owner, historian and best friend.
PROLOGUE
The chinese inhabitants of Singapore Three say that August is an unlucky month. They say that it is called the month of the dead, for it is always during the endless burning days that the dead return, looking for the living, drawn by blood and breath. They tell their children: You do not know how it was when we lived in the suburbs of Beijing and Guangzhou, or the willow villages of Szechuan, in the ancient cities where people understand how to keep the dead at bay. But in this great new city of Singapore Three, where the entrances to the Hell are closer and the veils between them are fractured, we no longer live in a place when a story is only a story, told to frighten a child in the darkness. Nor do you remember when the demons and the hungry ghosts were only dreaming shadows in an ordinary life, until we left the old cities and came to the new, and found that during certain months and certain times, when the eternal Wheel of Life and Death grates on its spokes, the world changes.
At such times, one can only prepare for the possibility of death as best one can.
Deveth Sardai, stepping from a downtown tram, was not thinking of death. She was, instead, wondering how to extricate herself from the latest disastrous relationship. The policy of ignoring the girl was clearly not working: Sardai had not phoned her since the previous Monday, but a litany of messages, of increasing desperation, had been left on her answerphone.
Sardai smiled thinly as she walked down to the retailers’ market, to wander, anonymous, beneath the girdered roofs of the warehouse shelter. The market was crowded with people on their way home from the production lines of Haitan. In fruitsellers’ quarter Sardai nearly tripped on the vegetables that spilled out over the floor, squashed into mush across the dank concrete. She kicked aside a burst cucumber, turned the corner and found herself out of the fruitsellers’ street and into the meat market. The butcherei, mostly women, glanced at her incuriously as she passed. The mild-eyed heads of the black cattle, swinging on their racks, held more expression. Sardai stepped queasily between the remnants which littered the floor; the concrete was washed with a faint pink gloss. Nothing was wasted, Sardai knew. The cattle were reared in the derelict lots between the apartment buildings of Bharulay and Saro Town; genes acquired on the black market and manipulated to produce Indian cows, of a sort. The butcherei slaughtered them illegally, bleeding them dry in hidden locations among the back streets in a literal moveable feast. The traders brought the bodies here before sunrise. The horns and hooves would be the first to go, sold off to the herbalists to be ground into powder and marketed as fraudulent aphrodisiacs.
At the end of butchers’ street, a shrunken, cheerful woman was washing out a cloth in a bloodstained bucket. She beamed up at Sardai, who had paused.
What you want?
I’m looking for the remedy market,
Sardai said. It seemed to have moved since her last visit; they rearranged the market frequently, to baffle the inspectors. No one was fooled, except the hapless customers.
Oh, sure.
The woman wrung out the cloth a last time and heaved herself to her feet. I’ll show you.
She walked with Sardai to the end of the meat market. Beyond, in front of the pilings that raised the market from the water, the butchered cattle lay in heaps of unidentifiable flesh. From the corner of her eye, Sardai saw a lean, dark shape slink behind the piles.
There!
the woman said, pointing. At the end of the meat racks, a helpful yellow line led along the warehouse floor. Obediently, Sardai followed it and came round to the familiar red-canopied corridor, the scarlet awnings incongruous beneath the rusted ironwork roof of the remedy market. The stalls were fringed with amulets: the almond-eyed shepherd god; My Lady simpering in a violet mantle with a sheaf of corn in her tiny arms; the little fox-faced demon of the mines. They shimmered before Sardai’s gaze. Maybe she should buy her girlfriend a present, make it clear that it was a parting gift. She didn’t dislike the girl, after all, it was just that once the first rush of intoxicated desire had passed, Sardai had started to feel suffocated. It was the same old story; it had happened before, it would happen again. Sardai gave a mental shrug. That was just the way she was. She did not intend to give way to guilt. She did not believe in it, and it solved nothing. Almost involuntarily, however, her hand reached out and unhooked the icon of a girl, an inch long, with the crescent moon on her brow. It was the sort of thing you hung in the kitchen window, or saw swinging on the dashboard of taxis. Sardai asked, How much is this one? Can I have her?
A swift hand, its owner unseen, wrapped the icon in red tissue paper to keep her safe on her journey, and Sardai dropped the little package into her bag. Our Lady of Storms, the woman from the sea, reposed amidst Sardai’s pens, card wallet, keys and the rest of the junk in her bag. Her girlfriend would like the little icon since she lit candles to the goddess at festival time. Sardai herself followed a different path. Thinking of this, she smiled again. All magic is art, she thought, and she considered herself to be an artist in the truest sense of the word: one who is not afraid, one who dares to gamble for great stakes. She walked on to the herbalist’s. Dried carcasses of snakes rustled in their pannier with the semblance of life. Someone was having a little joke, but Sardai wasn’t going to gratify them by being startled. She leaned over the dry, writhing bodies and purchased a pinch of bitter mint and then a tiny bag of lobelia, imported from the West. The herbs were horribly expensive, but Sardai didn’t care. They were useful, if one practiced a particular kind of art.
Her purchases completed, Sardai wandered to the end of remedy street and came out opposite the yawning exit. Beyond, the slick waters of the harbor were apricot in the falling light. It was time to go home. Sardai walked along the slippery platform that led from the market entrance and out into the southern end of Siling Street, a meandering labyrinth of iron shelters and cookhouses. The smell of frying meat and peppers filled the evening air. Chickens were rotating on a spit in the nominal gutter, where a shadowy man was blowing a fire into life. Sardai walked quickly; it was growing dark. She slipped into her usual routine, imagining herself ten feet tall and looking down on the people she passed, with her square shoulders back and her hand on the mace canister. Guns were banned; they were common enough on the black market but the penalty for shooting your assailant was death, anyway, so why bother? Sardai was always careful; there were very few nice parts of town.
At the end of the street a humpbacked bridge led over a narrow arm of the main canal, a winding stretch of water called the Taitai: the little wrist. Sardai crossed into a wilderness of apartment blocks separated by vacant lots where sparrow vine covered the fallen masonry. Something was always being built up or torn down. The exception was the Waste, the stretch of land which crossed Jhenrai southeast to northwest, a ragged scar created when an old mine had caved in and taken the apartment homes with it. The fires still burned, fueled by some persistent gas seepage beneath the soil. People lived on the Waste: the rootless, the insane. Sardai avoided it in daylight and at night took detours out of its way, but she was well past the Waste by now and nearly home to the row of old rickety houses in the eastern part of the quarter.
Turning back, she saw a last strip of pale green sky over the harbor. The tower of the Paugeng Corporation snaked up in absurd modernist spirals above the docks; the red bird logo catching the dead sun and glowing against the rearing wall. That was a weird setup, Sardai thought, with grim amusement. She had known the Paugeng heiress, mad Jhai Tserai, from their debutante days. And now, they had an even stronger connection. Smiling, she turned back and continued walking.
Something came fast out of the shelter of the darkness. Sardai had a brief glimpse of a lean shape moving too quickly to see, and then it was gone. She’d seen something in the retail market, her bewildered mind told her, sneaking among the bones, but that had been a dog, a little thing. This was a person. She swung the mace canister out of her pocket, looked about her warily. She could see nothing. She backed off, starting to run down Mherei Street, but it was right behind her, alongside her. She could see it out of the corner of her eye, pacing beside her, silent. She stopped, nearly stumbling, and turned but there was nothing there. Her breath whimpered in her throat. There was a great wave of soundless motion behind her, the smell of the sea, hot salt washed over her, roaring in her ears, bearing her down into the well of the apricot sky. She saw the crescent moon swing round, and then she was out into the gentle shallows, leaving it all behind.
Neatly, quickly, she was dragged into the silence behind the dark streets. No one had seen, animal-sense said, no one was watching.
HSIAO KUO:
THE SMALL
GET BY
1
Do we know who she is?
Seneschal Zhu Irzh asked, idly flicking the ash from his opium cigarette. The body sprawled at his feet, outlined by a faint nimbus glow. The girl had not long been dead, though there was no trace of her dismayed spirit in the immediate neighborhood and surprisingly little blood, given the state she was in.
Sergeant Ma eyed him askance and said, No, not yet. Forensics is trying to get a positive ID on her now. And you shouldn’t be smoking those. They’re bad for your health.
"My dear sergeant, in case it had escaped your attention, I am already dead. In a manner of speaking, of course, seeing that I am a demon." Ma merely grunted. Zhu Irzh smiled to himself. Ma’s attitude toward him was a combination of the disapproving and the protective, which was a long way from the sergeant’s earlier attitude of insensate fear. Zhu Irzh had only been attached to the Singapore Three police department for a few months, but had already managed to provoke strong reactions in his colleagues, both positive and negative, yin and yang. Zhu Irzh liked to think that it was the hallmark of a masterful personality, but Detective Inspector Chen, his immediate superior, witheringly attributed the phenomenon to Zhu Irzh’s otherworldly origins. Zhu Irzh reflected on this as he stood over the mutilated remains of what had, after some initial investigation, proved to be a young woman.
He found himself frowning. He missed Chen, and the Detective Inspector had only been gone for a week. If anyone deserved a holiday, Zhu Irzh thought, it was Chen, but still, Singapore Three’s temporary loss was Hawaii’s impermanent gain. He hoped, not without a trace of bitterness, that Chen and his wife were having a nice time. Meanwhile, he was still stuck here in the city, dealing with humans who had been foolish enough to get themselves mangled by unknown persons.
If forensics doesn’t turn anything up, we could go to the Night Harbor, couldn’t we? Interview the victim directly,
Ma remarked.
I suppose so. Though I don’t fancy shoving my way through that throng on a Saturday night trying to work out which spirit is minus her face. Or other bits. And I’m still having problems with my visa.
Zhu Irzh gave a martyred sigh. Initially, he had been excited about his reassignment from Hell’s Vice Division; the result of a political embroilment which only now was beginning to subside. The human world was novel enough to be interesting at first, but now it slightly depressed him. The colors seemed so insipid, the air so bland. It wasn’t as bad as Heaven, which he’d visited only fleetingly, but it was getting close. The food was like the sort of thing you fed to cats: it smelled all right, but it didn’t taste of anything. Besides, he’d had little to properly occupy him since he got here: a few routine gang killings, and a long and indescribably tedious investigation into the Feng Shui Practitioners’ Guild, resulting in several boring visits to renegade dowsers. Zhu Irzh had done his best to get out of this last task, but had been thwarted by Chen. The latter seemed to be enjoying the novelty of having an underling, and had disturbingly little compunction in handing the most banal tasks over to Zhu Irzh. If one was of a flamboyant personality, the demon felt, one might as well make the most of it. He had not been allowed near the work of the Vice Division, where his experience lay. It was nothing but a waste. An earlier, oft repeated conversation, replayed itself in his mind.
Your experience,
Chen had said firmly, "has been in the promotion of vice, not its suppression. You surely can’t seriously think they’ll let you anywhere near drugs or prostitution, given that Hell’s vice squad is responsible for most of it?"
The demon had bridled. I’m not unremittingly evil—and me saying that just goes to show that I’m not a typical demon. I have feelings, too. I have a conscience. I helped you save the world, didn’t I?
Chen, though conceding that there was a measure of truth in this, had remained resolute. I don’t think you’re unremittingly evil,
he said. I just think you’re … slightly dodgy.
Zhu Irzh had pretended to be annoyed, but admitted to himself that Chen might have a point. Vice was pretty much a consuming interest with him, and why not? It was fun, after all. It was a vocation.
However, human women tended to give Zhu Irzh a wide berth, thus negating another of the demon’s consuming interests. This was perhaps understandable, but also cause for some lament. Back home in Hell, he had barely been able to turn round without falling over one or another girlfriend; here, it was a different story. And it was cold: even in this summer that humans described as sweltering. Morosely, Zhu Irzh poked the limp corpse with the toe of his boot, revealing the shattered pelvis and ribcage. Ma gazed at him in reproach.
Don’t do that. It’s disturbing the crime scene. Forensics won’t like it.
Oh, don’t worry,
Zhu Irzh said. She’s probably swanning around the Night Harbor as we speak, awaiting her departure to the peach orchards of Heaven and unutterably grateful to be temporarily relieved of the shackles of her mortal flesh.
Suppose she’s destined for Hell?
I hope you’re not implying that this unfortunate young lady deserved to die?
Zhu Irzh remarked satirically, adding under his breath, And if she did, then lucky her.
It’s always a shock,
Ma said defensively. I don’t suppose she thought that this would be the day of her death, poor girl.
Zhu Irzh laughed. Few people ever do.
2
Dowser Paravang Roche, kneeling before the statue of the goddess Senditreya, was not thinking of death—at least, not of his own. Senditreya’s temple was dark, shrouded in shadow and wreaths of incense. A complex sequence of patterns was outlined in silver on the floor, showing the energy lines which lay beneath the city; the energy wells of ch’i and sha. Among the hazy coils of smoke sat the statue, holding out her divining rods and her compass, and smiling down at her supplicants.
Bitch, thought Paravang Roche. He had an ambivalent relationship with his deity. He looked sourly up at the statue; studying the gilded loops of hair, the three bands tied around each wrist to signify the founding member of the dowsers’ guild, elevated into goddess-hood seven hundred and twenty years ago.
To the left of Paravang, a man swayed forward on his mat, moaning and muttering. Paravang regarded him with distaste. Surely it wasn’t necessary to make so much noise about one’s worship. His neighbor rattled a hollow canister and shook out the yarrow sticks. Hastily arranging them into a pattern on the woven mats, he stared for a moment and then began to chuckle.
Well, good for you, Paravang thought sourly. I’m glad someone is having good fortune, because I’m not. He glared at his hilarious companion, who caught the enraged look on Paravang’s face and subsided. Paravang arranged himself into a more decorous position and stared up at Senditreya. Sometimes he thought she winked at him. Sometimes he was right.
Underneath the carpet, and the stone floor, and the earth itself, Paravang could feel the energy line of the Great Meridian, running to the confluence of energy, the lake of ch’i which lays beneath Senditreya’s temple. With such ch’i, how could there fail to be good fortune? Paravang asked himself. One would have thought that some of it, at least, might have rubbed off on a poor feng shui dowser. Paravang’s lips pursed in resentment. He had worked hard all his life to win first this coveted place here in the temple, and then his contract with Paugeng Mining, and now it was all going to be taken away.
Above him, Senditreya’s cow-eyed gaze blurred and faded, to be replaced by another face: the color of a shadow, golden-eyed. It was the face of a demon, named Seneschal Zhu Irzh. It was the face of his most recent enemy, and to Paravang’s feverish gaze it seemed quite real, as though the demon himself were standing before him. As, indeed, Zhu Irzh had been, a week ago today.
Paravang had opened the door to find him standing on the step, a most unwelcome visitor. The scene replayed itself through Paravang’s mind, as it had done so many times over the past few days.
Who are you?
Paravang had quavered. What do you want?
He’d always taken care to limit his dealings with Hell, but it seemed he hadn’t been careful enough.
"I’m here about an irregularity in your feng shui dowsing license, the demon said.
My name’s Seneschal Zhu Irzh. Want to see my badge? At this point he had produced a piece of paper which, to Paravang’s horrified gaze, had proclaimed him to be not only a citizen of Hell, but also a member of Singapore Three’s police department. To Paravang’s mind, this was a truly nightmarish combination.
Mind if I come in?" the demon asked, and without waiting for a reply, had brushed past Paravang into the narrow apartment and taken a seat on the sofa. It had all gone downhill from there.
It seemed that Paravang had actually forfeited his dowsing license some time before, the result of a small matter of unpaid taxes and undelivered bribes. Unlicensed, he was therefore practicing feng shui illegally, and must apply for a new license as well as pay the requisite fine to the authorities.
Never mind,
Zhu Irzh had remarked cheerfully. I’m sure you’ll get it all straightened out. Shouldn’t take more than a few months.
With this less than reassuring remark, he had left Paravang Roche to grind his teeth with helpless fury and hurl curses at the demon’s unresponsive back. He had contacted the authorities, hoping that this might merely be some malignant joke on the part of Hell, only to find that Zhu Irzh was a fully paid-up member of the police department, assisting a Detective Inspector Chen, and completely entitled to act as he had done. Given the city’s formidably ponderous bureaucracy, it would indeed take months for Paravang to retrieve his license, and a correspondingly huge drop in revenue.
Why do you despise me, Goddess? Paravang thought now, helplessly. The endless perfidy of the divine never ceased to amaze him. You gave your all, you turned up four times a year for the festivals and twice every week for your devotions; spent your hard-earned capital on presents and offerings; wasted nine minutes morning, noon and night in the requisite prayers, and for what? Only to be scorned. Rising abruptly, Paravang threw a handful of rice at the feet of his capricious deity and walked out into the evening dusk.
3
The city was baking in the morning heat, and Robin Yuan was late for work. The downtown tram rattled by her, dangling like a child’s toy from its pylons, as she turned the corner of the block. She started to run, but it was too late. The downtown slowed for the next stop, saw no one waiting and picked up speed, vanishing around the curve of Shaopeng Street as Robin reached the platform. She swore. An ochre-clad nun swung around to stare at her reprovingly.
Screw you, Robin thought. I’m late. She was already sweating in the morning heat. Here at the junction of Shaopeng and Jhara, the restaurant backs emitted clouds of fragrant steam: ghambang and chowder for breakfast today. Robin had eaten prawn crackers, left over from the night before, stiff and cold in their greasy folds of paper. She watched the high-collared, shawl-suited men and women vanishing into the dark interior of the Pellucid Island Hotel and envied them.
The hot rails sang and the next downtown hurtled out of the Jhara embankment tunnel. It’s not going to stop! Too many people! Robin thought, panicking, but the tram slowed to a halt and she squashed herself inside; leaning back from the bulging doorway and forward again as the doors closed. The downtown took off, lurching. The woman beside her directed a venomous glance at Robin.
Can’t you move?
she snapped. I can’t stand up properly.
I don’t think I can,
Robin said. This was true; there was no room at all in the carriage and Robin couldn’t reach the strap. It wouldn’t matter if the downtown suddenly had to stop: she was too tightly constrained to fall.
But I’m standing on my toes!
her neighbor wailed.
Grumbling faintly, the carriage rearranged itself in some minute fashion. Robin’s neighbor lost height, sighing in relief. Robin stifled a yawn. Trying to keep her balance on the swaying, roaring tram, she wondered whether Deveth would call today. She had wondered the same thing for the last week, her spirits rising every morning, then sinking toward midnight as the day grew old, and still Dev did not call or come by. Where are you, Deveth Sardai? Was I just your bit of rough trade? If she’d had the nerve, Robin reflected, she would have called Deveth’s parents, but the thought of contacting the aristocratic Sardais and interrogating them as to the whereabouts of their daughter made Robin’s mouth go dry. She was fairly sure that this was one relationship which Dev would have taken care to keep quiet.
The downtown ground to a halt at Phikhat Square, spilling its cargo onto the crowded street. Wearing dark blue, ochre and gold, the money-workers made for the temples and Robin was able to sit down at last. She collapsed onto a slatted bench and watched the tops of the city whirl by in the steaming air. There were seven more stops to Semmerang and the laboratories. At last the downtown rang in triumph for the final stop, ready now to turn around and go back. Robin got out, her rubber-soled slippers padding on the platform, and headed for Paugeng Corporation and another day at work.
Inside the labs surrounding the Paugeng tower, there was a stirring atmosphere of activity and anticipation. People gathered in little knots, chattering. Robin was not part of the elite team, the chosen core, but the excitement infected her like a contagion as she hastened through the double doors of Y Lab. She passed her flustered colleagues and went straight through to the lift, heading for the basements. There, in the warren of rooms and corridors, the experiment was waiting for her, sitting up in his cot, arms around his knees, blinking blue eyes.
How did you sleep?
Robin