They stepped through the gateway onto a causeway, twenty metres wide and hundreds long, suspended above the brilliantly green forest surrounding the city. Michael’s stomach leaped and lurched, and he felt the lightness – the gravity really was reduced.
Glass and silver spires soared to the heavens around the causeway, appearing much too slender and tall to stand – and obviously only able to exist in the reduced gravity. The floor of the causeway was tiled, each tile a rich peacock blue and forty centimetres across. The deep blue looked like it was under a thick layer of transparent glass but the surface was somehow non-slip and easy to stand on.
The spires were also made of glass; panels of different shapes, some frosted and others clear, with the occasional jewel-like coloured piece, and all set into a fine decorative metal framework. The metal had a white patina over it, exactly the same way freshly polished silver did. Michael reached out with his metal connection and saw with wonder that the towers really were silver – a complex amalgam of silver, mercury and a variety of other metals that made them strong and tarnish proof.
He turned on the spot, seeing the soft sunset of the Celestial sky reflecting through the glass of the towers and the sides of the causeway and mirrored in the tiles beneath his feet. The Demon King gestured for Michael to join him at the edge of the causeway to see the view. Michael took a step and lurched – he’d gone three times further than he intended and landed clumsily. He took a few hesitant, gentle steps. It was reasonably easy to adjust to the reduced gravity and he strode more confidently, moving metres with each step. Eventually he took three big strides and jumped, sailing over the King’s head and off the causeway. He grinned ruefully at how far he’d gone, stopped his fall into the gardens below, and flew back onto the causeway.
When he was standing at the edge of the causeway next to the King, he looked around at the city below. It spread for kilometres before them, with large halls and multi-storey buildings, again impossibly tall and slender in construction, and decorated with more towers, some joined together with dizzyingly high bridges and walkways. Terraces along the sides of the buildings held gardens and boxes containing healthy green foliage and brightly coloured flowers, mostly blue and white.
‘Welcome to Murias, the Silver City,’ the King said.
‘Are these floor tiles glass?’ Michael said. ‘How did they keep them in such good condition? There’s not a single scratch on them.’
‘Yes, they’re glass. The people of this city were experts in manipulating glass; most of the construction is glass and metal and very little else. No concrete anywhere in this city. There’s tales that some of the European Shen even wore armour of glass.’
The technology was beyond anything that Michael knew of in the Asian Heavens and he needed to uncover more of the city’s secrets. ‘So where to now?’
‘There’s someone you need to see.’ The Demon King turned and gestured back the way they’d come, towards the Celestial analogue of the cathedral on the Earthly Plane.
The building on the end of the causeway was five times higher than it was wide, and again decorated with the impossibly tall spires. The construction was the silver amalgam and glass, but all the glass was coloured to produce a reflective rainbow that shimmered before them.
The Demon King led Michael to the cathedral and they entered, Michael still struggling to keep his walk to a decent pace and not cover the distance in huge steps that unbalanced him. The floor was black glass that reflected the coloured walls and ceiling to give the impression they were walking on water. The interior soared two hundred metres above them in a single vast empty space. There was no religious iconography that Michael could recognise; the building held long benches on either side with a single throne at the far end. A round stained-glass rose window was high on the wall behind the throne, showing a group of noble-looking European people on foot and horseback, wearing robes and gold jewellery.
‘Parliament,’ the King said. He gestured with his head. ‘The palace on the other side appears to be the Emperor’s residence, and we’ve put them there.’
‘Put who there?’ Michael said, studying the intricate silver filigree between the glass panels high above them. ‘How the hell do they clean the windows up there?’
‘This city worked much the same way your Celestial Palace does: there was a single spirit of the city with many servitors that worked for the city itself. The city came complete with fairy servants that could fly, and they maintained everything.’ The King gestured again. ‘This way, Highness.’
They went through a double doorway three metres wide and five high to a terrace that overlooked more terraces of gardens and fountains with a spired gothic mansion on the other side, glittering in the sun.
The King led Michael down the stairs between the garden boxes. ‘First: that wasn’t your mother who exploded at her coronation as Empress of the West. It was a copy I’d made, and was too demon to accept the Elixir of Immortality. It killed her.’
Michael remained silent. The King was obviously lying.
‘Five years ago, you agreed to her spending a week with me in exchange for information. I replaced her with a copy all that time ago and I’ve been holding her ever since.’
‘My mother passed through the Courts of Hell. Judge Pao told me that she wasn’t found Worthy, and he’s the one who judged her.’
‘They lied to you, they didn’t want you to know that everybody had been fooled by a copy.’ The King stopped at the bottom of the stairs and gazed at the garden. ‘Second: well, you can judge for yourself.’ He gestured towards the blonde woman sitting on a park bench.
It was his mother, Rhonda. She leaped to her feet when she saw them.
‘Michael!’ she shrieked, and ran to him. She pulled him into a huge hug and kissed him on both cheeks, then pulled back to wipe tears from her eyes. ‘It is you. The King promised you’d come and I didn’t believe him, but here you are.’ She embraced him again. ‘Thank you, George, thank you so much.’ She noticed that Michael wasn’t returning her affection and moved back to talk to him. ‘It’s me, Mikey, it really is. I spent a week with the King to prove to everybody that I was confident about marrying your father, and he never let me go. George has been holding me prisoner—’
‘I prefer the term “guest”, my Lady,’ the Demon King said.
‘Prisoner,’ Rhonda continued. ‘But it was okay once—’
‘Michael!’
Michael’s heart leapt. It was Clarissa. Clarissa, unhurt, undamaged, bursting with life and energy. She ran – almost floated – through the gardens to him and threw herself into his arms and he held her close and kissed her hair. It was her: her fragrance, her feel; the soft sound of her sweet voice. It was her.
‘You are breaking my heart, George,’ he said over the top of her head.
‘No, Michael, this is your real fiancée. We replaced her ages ago. The copy was in the lab being experimented on and didn’t take it well at all; much too fragile. This is your real mother and your real fiancée and you can take them home with you.’
‘We can go home?’ Rhonda said, full of hope.
‘Michael needs to do a simple job for me, then you can all go home unharmed.’
‘I won’t betray the Celestial. Not for anything,’ Michael said.
‘You don’t need to. Spend some time with your mother and girlfriend, and I’ll come back tomorrow and we can talk about the job you need to do. It doesn’t involve any betrayal of the Celestial, violence or killing. We just want the secret of the gravity, and we’re hoping that as a half-European demigod, the spirit of the city will talk to you and explain how it’s done.’ The King linked his hands behind his back. ‘Settle in. Spend time with your family. Enjoy the citadel, and I’ll be back tomorrow to discuss terms for the release of all three of you.’ He turned and headed back towards the parliament building.