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Thirty-Four

Zhu Irzh stared glumly at the ruin of what had once been his room and contemplated where to start clearing up. The divan was a wreck; the table had been split down the middle in the fight with the visitor, and two of his best tea bowls lay in fragments on the floor. Moreover, the carpet was now irredeemably stained with an inky pool of spinal fluid, which assiduous scrubbing had failed to remove. His landlady had been to see him first thing in the morning, about the noise. On seeing the remains of the creature, now hacked into fragments of cartilage and bone by the razor edge of Zhu Irzh's departmental sword, her face had taken on the expressive patina of ice. It had taken all the demon's charm and powers of persuasion, plus a month and a half's additional deposit, to induce her to let him to stay.

As for his guest. . . Zhu Irzh sighed. This was it. He had known it the minute he'd seen her. Previously, he had merely skirted the perimeters of love: tested the waters, so to speak, had a couple of practice runs in rehearsal for the real thing. And now it had dropped upon his unsuspecting psyche with all the force of a rhinoceros. Leilei's phantom face floated before his besotted imagination: the vast, dark-crimson eyes, the pale curve of her cheek, the night-velvet of her hair. She reminded him of the lilies in the garden beyond, but then, everything reminded him of Leilei now. . . With great reluctance, Zhu Irzh dragged his unwilling imagination away from thoughts of romance, and onto the immediate problems of the present.

The presence of the visitor had confirmed his already active suspicion that Leilei had been lying through her pretty teeth during her account of her reason for standing in shackles at the Ministry of Epidemics. Zhu Irzh didn't hold this against her; on the contrary, it only made her more intriguing. He preferred women with an imagination; it tended to extend into many areas. Moreover, he recognized the creature that now lay in stinking pieces at his feet: it was a hunter-tracker from the lower levels of Hell, a crab-demon which characteristically spent time scavenging in the graveyards of Laon Shu and Honan until it had gathered enough flesh to adequately disguise its skeletal form. Such creatures were rare, and expensive. Whoever had sent it after Leilei was not short of cash, and that meant that Leilei was rather more than a mere assistant's sister whom some apparatchik had happened to fancy. It also gave rise to curiosity about the demon who had shackled her in the first place: evidently he was someone sufficiently high up within the Ministry of Epidemics to be able to afford such expensive equipment as the crab-demon. Zhu Irzh could smell the distinctive odor of rising stakes, and the prospect of serious political intrigue both excited and dismayed him. Sinking to the remains of the couch, he debated the thorny question as to which aspects of recent events he should relay to the First Lord of Banking. He had the feeling that there was no optimum solution; he was likely to be castigated whatever he did, but at least there was the possibility that certain elements of his narrative would prove so useful to his employer that the rest would be forgiven. Zhu Irzh blinked at his own naiveté. He was definitely in love.

He was painstakingly constructing a suitable account of events when the phone shrilled. Hesitating for a moment, Zhu Irzh picked it up.

"Seneschal?" said a familiar voice, and Zhu Irzh frowned.

"Lord," he said, with careful neutrality.

"I have had a complaint about you. I will allow you, for the moment, the luxury of conjecturing the identity of the complainant."

Zhu Irzh took a deep breath. "Thank you, Lord, that is customarily gracious. I would surmise that any allegation might stem from the portals of the Ministry of Epidemics."

"How perspicacious of you," replied the First Lord of Banking, with more than usual acidity. "It is indeed from the Ministry, who might best be described as livid. Would you care to explain yourself?"

Hastily Zhu Irzh said, "I went to the Ministry as instructed. I was extremely careful. I made enquiries, and conducted an investigation. High in the levels of the Ministry, I discovered a potentially important witness who was under interrogation. In order to prevent her from disclosing what she knew to a hostile authority, I removed her from the premises and brought her here. Halfway through the night, however, someone dispatched a crab-demon after her, thereby corroborating my intuition that she is crucial to the investigation."

"Well, Seneschal," said the old dry voice at the other end of the phone. "You would seem to have acted with admirable speed, albeit with less than admirable discretion. And where is this crucial witness now?"

"Ah."

"Well?"

"She's not here, Lord. She was so disturbed by our nocturnal visitor that she fled from the house. I made an extensive search for her as soon as I got rid of the crab-demon, but she was nowhere to be found."

"Unfortunate," said the First Lord of Banking, without any inflection at all.

"Yes," said Zhu Irzh, wondering fleetingly if he should endeavor to provide some sort of justification for his actions. He decided against it. Hell was no place for excuses.

"And would you care to elaborate upon this critical secret that the witness was about to spill prior to your gallant rescue?"

"Not over the phone," Zhu Irzh said quickly. "One never knows who might be listening."

"Quite," the First Lord mused, and Zhu Irzh breathed an inaudible sigh of relief. "You'd better come here then, hadn't you? And tell me in person, as quickly as possible."

"I will indeed proceed as swiftly as I can to your august mansion—however, this is the third day that I haven't put in any appearance at work and frankly, Lord, I'm reluctant to anger my superiors. Normally, I am a most conscientious employee," Zhu Irzh said, buying time.

"Don't worry about that," the First Lord of Banking snapped. "I've spoken to Supreme Seneschal Yhu. He's granted you an indefinite leave of absence."

"That is most kind, most thoughtful, although I might perhaps draw your attention to one little detail—under current regulations, a leave of absence would entail that I am not entitled to be paid for the period in question."

"No, you're not."

"So, therefore. . ."

"You had better submit an invoice detailing your expenses to date to my under-secretary. We'll review it at the end of the month, with all other related claims."

"But it is now only the second day of Sho'ei, and by my calculation the month has another seventy days to run."

"Your calculation is quite correct, Zhu Irzh. I'm delighted to see that you are numerate. Perhaps if your leave of absence goes on for too long a period and you are fired, we might consider giving you a position here as an accountant," the First Lord of Banking said, chuckling at his little joke. "Goodbye for now, Seneschal. I'll see you very soon." With that, he rung off, leaving Zhu Irzh to contemplate the prospect of an eternity in an accounts department. The very thought made him sigh. Hell indeed.

 

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