Demon and the City by Liz Williams

Author:Liz Williams
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2013-08-25T04:00:00+00:00

29

Robin and Mhara moved as swiftly as they could through the Night Harbor, but the chilly air seemed to sap Robin’s strength. She should not be here, it was not her time—and the knowledge that she had been here before, passing from one life to the next, in perhaps many different incarnations, was unsettling. Who had she been, in all those past lives? Had Deveth been there, and what had Deveth been to her then? Sister, perhaps, or lover, or mother, or murderer? All lives are connected, Robin knew, the economical universe weaving patterns from the same cloth, unpicking it again, unmaking … But Mhara could not have been there, if he was a Celestial being. Mhara must be immortal, constant, not subject to the forces of life and death.

“Mhara?” she said now. “Where are we going?”

“To find a boat.”

“What boat?”

“The boat that takes souls to Heaven. We will have to stow away, Robin, and I do not know if that will be possible. I can mask myself, perhaps, but the wards on the boat are set to sniff out a human soul. I can’t expect you to risk that.”

“I want to go with you,” Robin said. “Even if we get kicked out of Heaven immediately. And besides, it’s probably my only chance of ever getting to see the place.”

Mhara gave a soft laugh. “Are you so sure, then, that you have not and will not?”

“I’m not a good enough person, I think.”

“You see, this is why I left. Whatever Heaven might say, it does not understand what it’s like to be human. It doesn’t understand the stresses that you live under.”

“You said we had a choice,” Robin pointed out, “and we do.”

“But sometimes it isn’t possible to see that. Life and living obscures it, makes it disappear. Don’t underestimate how hard it is to be alive. I did not understand that before I came here. Heaven entombs itself in perfection; Heaven has forgotten. Perhaps, Robin, it is that Heaven is not good enough for you.”

“That sounds like heresy,” Robin said, with unease. “Whatever religion one might practice.”

“Then maybe the heretics are right.”

Robin looked about her. This area of the Night Harbor was nothing like the city they had left. Great shadowy buildings rose on either side, but as Robin watched, they shifted, altering into mere facades, some crumbling into ruin before her eyes. Mhara tugged at her arm.

“Robin …”

“I know. I’m coming. Do you know where we’re going? Can you tell?”

Mhara’s face fell. “I thought I knew. But now I’m not so sure.”

Robin looked about her, frustrated. “I don’t know the typo­graphy of the Night Harbor. Only the superstitions about the journey of the soul—across the razor bridge, through Bad Dog Village, then to the port …”

“We are not near the razor bridge,” Mhara said. “That lies close to the entrance to the port, and in any case, we would not be drawn to it—you are a living soul, and I am a Celestial.”

“What about Bad Dog Village, then?”

“We will probably have to pass through that.

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