by Ilsa J. Bick
Snow silted over the silver dragon’s face. He’d returned to his origins in a place that was forever winter in his mind, on a planet called Misery. But something nagged him.
He said our miseries may keep company. And then: The ice wasn’t as hard as I thought it’d be, as if someone’s already been here.
He found it within ten minutes. First, a dark hummock of something. Abandoning the trowel, he dug with his gloved hands, scooping out fistfuls of snow, uncovering what lay beneath. And then he just sat there, stupefied.
A bright green helmet. A very distinctive bright green helmet.
With shaking hands, he prized the helmet free. The helmet was heavy, as if it had been weighted down with snow and ice. Tugging off his right glove, his fingers crawled over frigid metal, searching for the catch to raise the visor. A minute click, a sense of something giving—and then, as the visor scrolled back, Thereon gave a guttural, muted cry of horror.
The man’s face was perfectly preserved: lean and wolfish, with high cheekbones, thin lips. The wind snatched at a fringe of camel-colored hair, and snow blew into eyes that were sable-colored and unblinking.
Later, he would find every single scrap of that disarticulated armor, and the jigsaw of this man’s body—his every limb and joint, his torso. Everything. Much later, forensic analysis would reveal that the body had been preserved through plastination, a process whereby the body was impregnated with acetone, then cured in gas and infused with silicone rubber. The work of an expert.
But, for now, he could only stare into those dead eyes. And in his mind, he heard his faceless nemesis: “Next time, Michi dear, choose a name with a little more imagination.”
70
Imperial City, Luthien
Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine
15 May 3137
The criers, the naki-onna, wailed: high, eerie, keening shrieks that were the stuff of bad nightmares and dark nights to come. These were professional mourners, but Yori knew they weren’t acting. Maybe they didn’t mourn Vincent Kurita the man, but this near-fatal blow dealt to the Combine? Yes.
The antechamber was small, and just off the Throne Room. In principle, the room served the way a sacristy did a priest. She now studied herself in a full-length mirror provided for that purpose. Her face still bore the traces of her disastrous campaign. The bruises were gone as were the stitches, but the scars remained, including a too-pink slash along her right cheek. A reminder she’d decided to keep because men had died—her lancemates, her troops—for no other reason than her feckless, selfish pride.
She would never make that mistake again. Never.
She plucked a pure white silken cloth from a small side table. Her garments were snow-white, the color of mourning and of Death, and she carefully draped the cloth over her hair. She was a small woman and in the mirror, she looked fragile, her dark eyes huge and rimmed with purple hollows. A little like a ghost.
That, too, was fitting. In a few moments, she would begin the rite of tama-yobei, soul-calling. Legend said that if the souls of the dead were not ready to depart, then they would reanimate their bodies and rise once more. That, she knew, would not happen. She doubted, though, that Vincent Kurita and the souls of his family—Emi and Ryuhiko, Theodore and Chomie and their unborn child—would ever leave this place.
I will hear them in my dreams, the same way I relive that awful moment when Toranaga met my DropShip, and I looked into his eyes—and I saw and knew what he had done, and why. I know everything.
What awaited her when this official mourning ended and she’d passed through the Rites of Ascension to take her place as the Combine’s new coordinator—and what could be done about Toranaga—was for later.
And yet, there was one thing she now knew that she would never have suspected. Before all this bloodshed, and longer ago than that—when Toranaga had left her behind with Julian and the others—she had only focused on survival. Just that. Staying alive had been her imperative.
But now there was more. Yes, she was alive, and Toranaga would have to be dealt with. Yet her destiny unfurled in a path too brilliant, too awful, too important to ignore.
She was the hope of the Combine. This wasn’t about her life anymore. This was about leading the Combine and her people not only to glory but to safety, security. To life. This was the heritage she now must honor and before which she was utterly humbled.
For the moment, though, she would honor the dead.
As she turned to go, her eyes fell on an ink painting left here, on a stand, deliberately. The painting was strange and eerie, filled with ghosts and demons twining through a landscape she recognized because she’d walked its paths. And with the painting, a note, in a strong, bold hand:
Hell paints the canvas of the lonely mind. You will lose nothing if you open yourself to trust.
“Perhaps, Physician,” she murmured. “But Vincent Kurita was killed because he trusted, and then he loved, and that destroyed him. Rest assured, Makoto Shouriki: I will never make the same mistake with you.”
Even so, the demons’ whispers trailed in her wake, and she could not decide if there wasn’t just a bit of laughter, too.
71
Thank the Dragon, the naki-onna had ceased their infernal wailing, and not a moment too soon. His headache was blinding, and so intense, his brain was practically leaking out of his ears. It didn’t help that the room was crowded, all this maddening and unbroken bone-white glare, and thick with the too-sweet aroma of lotus and jasmine. Although the easternmost shoji had been pushed aside to allow the souls of the dead to reenter if they chose, the Throne Room was stuffy and too warm.
But, wrapped in mourning robes, Ramadeep Bhatia was cold. He was scarred as well. Only good fortune and blind luck that he’d put it all together, the pieces snapping into place in time for him to dart behind a thick pillar just as the bomb went off. His memory of the event was jagged as glass, bits and pieces he couldn’t quite fit together. A blinding flash, a deafening roar, and then a hot, thick wind that rained blood and flesh and bone.
But cold is what he remembered most, that icy premonitory frisson the moment he saw Toranaga’s face on that awful day—and realized that Death had painted Bhatia with the same bloody brush. And he was cold now, but with rage that was hard and as glittery as the most flawless diamond formed by millennia of pressure and heat.
Dare you imagine to have gotten rid of me as well? Well, relax. For you are safe for now, Tai-shu. But if your protégée makes a misstep, I will make sure that her skirts pull you down after, and I will not be there to catch you.
He had other problems, all of them named Kappa. Yes, of course, he fulfilled some of what he’d promised. Chomie was successfully dispatched, and her child with her. But Kappa had not arranged for so spectacular an end to Vincent Kurita’s life; that was Toranaga. Unless . . . Kappa was in league with the warlord.
The more he thought about it, the less he liked it. Well—Bhatia ground his teeth so hard his jaw ached—that put a new complexion on things. Would Toranaga dispose of such an asset? Probably not, and Bhatia would bet good money that Kappa was alive and well and waiting in the wings somewhere. His black eyes clicked over the sea of faces: most of them anonymous and a few too many, like the geisha and her contingent, familiar in the extreme. Kappa could be here, standing right next to him, and Bhatia would never know, never understand until a blade slid between his ribs or a garrote tightened round his neck.
He knows all my security protocols now. I’ll have to change everything, even the back doors into secured systems.
His only advantage, a microscopic one at that: As per protocol, he’d had Chomie’s body autopsied, her death thoroughly investigated, and he knew something that he wagered Kappa did not. Chomie had not died easily. There was skin and blood beneath her nails, and several strands of hair that were not hers mired in blood. So they had DNA; they were, in fact, running it at this very moment. All they now had to do was wait for the day when Bhatia might make a match—and hit it cold
.
72
Warlord Matsuhari Toranaga arranged his face into an appropriate mask for mourning, but his heart was jubilant. His unwavering gaze tracked Yori Kurita, all in white, as she ascended the dais upon which the Dragon Throne rested—and then the perfect symmetry of it all struck him. This was yose, and Yori Kurita his white stone, and the very last he would place upon this particular Igo board. He’d won. Oh, there were other games yet to play. For the moment, however, he allowed himself this satisfaction, basking in the reflected rays of Yori Kurita’s glory.
They were all gone, and he was still standing. Well, he and Bhatia . . . and too bad about that, but no matter. Bhatia and he were bound by snake’s coils, and they would see which was the stronger. Actually, he already knew the answer.
As for Yori? She’d disappointed. Dieron had been a disaster, but what a stunning reversal of fortunes! Still, he had no illusions about her. There was no love between them and never would be, but she would not be where she was without him. Yes, he knew that she knew all.
But she will remain silent because she understands that she cannot bring me down without toppling herself. No one will ever believe that we did not plot this together. Ah, Yori. One of us is the fly snared in a web spun by an exceedingly clever spider. And believe me, my dear, whatever you think of yourself—you are no spider.
A whisper now at his ear, so faint it faded almost before it could form: “Something amuses you, Tono?”
Toranaga’s eyes slid round. Hatsuwe was close, close enough to touch. So close that the warlord saw the flutter of the samurai’s pulse beneath the smooth skin of his neck. Hatsuwe was dressed for mourning, and that was a good thing because those sleeves hid the scars left from those scratches very nicely. And who knew the woman would have nails like knives?
“No,” Toranaga murmured. “I am just thinking of the pleasures I shall take in my bed this evening.” It gave him a thrill to watch the color march up Hatsuwe’s neck, the way the young samurai dipped his head to hide that quick, sly smile.
And what a pity for you, Hatsuwe, that you’ll be standing just a little too close to that airlock when the seal fails—because I know what you’ve failed to learn. There can be no witnesses.
Still, it would be a loss. So, maybe bed first. Pleasure before duty . . . just this once.
73
16 May 3137
Just after midnight
Nothing was the same anymore. They were all dead, and there was nothing she could do about it. Nothing to take back, and only regrets she could not wish away. She’d been trying all day to remember what it was that she and Andre Crawford had been talking about right before the disaster—only she couldn’t dredge up the memory. It was gone, like her voice. She’d wanted to journal but couldn’t find the words. The microrecorder’s light winked its readiness—and she was struck dumb. As if some bottomless chasm had opened up beneath her feet, and she’d fallen through, lost in a darkness that swallowed her whole.
The sky beyond her balcony was black. There was no moon, and the stars looked broken, like pieces of glass embedded in obsidian. The day had been unusually warm, still and humid, and now the night air was cloying and uncomfortable, like a heavy swag. There was no wind, but the air was alive anyway, prickly with spirits.
She wore a short kimono with nothing beneath, and her feet were bare. Her skin still tingled from a scalding hot bath, her third that day—yet, try as she might, she could not scrub out the thoughts that stained her mind.
Because I should’ve died. I should have taken my place with the dead, and I would gladly trade places with the coordinator, with Theodore.
She blinked back sudden, hot tears even as her throat convulsed with a bitter, choking laugh. Yes, she hadn’t died, so she’d better learn to live with that, right? She was alive only because she’d been knocked back and out of the kill radius. The blast was directed and contained, meant to kill those in the immediate vicinity: the coordinator, Ryuhiko—and Bhatia. Yes, Bhatia was supposed to die. Only he hadn’t—and maybe that was because he had recognized the danger, seen the same thing she had at the very last second: that moment when Toranaga took that fatal step back.
And she had seen much else this afternoon, standing there before the Dragon Throne. The throne was new; the other was splinters. The Dragon Mural had taken some damage but had been repaired, all the jewels replaced and new ones added: Biham, Al Na’ir, Athenry, Styx. Bloody, ruby-red Dieron.
Their contingents had been arranged in an arc, sweeping from left to right: Toranaga, then Saito, followed by Katana and what remained of her command staff. The far right position of the arc had been empty, save for a single, white silk pillow upon which replicas of Theodore’s double swords lay, the originals having been destroyed with their owner.
Yori had begun the ritual, calling the names of the dead, and although Katana’s heart bled with grief, one thing she knew. She would never forgive Yori or forget. Yori Kurita was a pretender, the Kitten who landed on her feet.
Dry-eyed with rage, Katana had watched as Toranaga, his face appropriately arranged into sorrow, faced the assembled mourners and witnesses, and took up the call—and that’s when she had heard it: that little thrumming note of Toranaga’s triumph.
Ah, you had a hand in this, Jackal, didn’t you?
Then it had been her turn. Katana and her retinue had executed a crisp about-face. She remembered taking that deep breath and holding it, not wishing to let go. But she had let go. Had no choice. So Katana had called for Vincent Kurita’s soul and all the rest: Emi, Theodore, Chomie. Their heir who would never be. Tears had spilled down her cheeks, but she was not ashamed, and her voice had been strong and only faltered once: when she’d invoked Theodore’s name. And although she could not say their names aloud, her mind also had cried out for her friends. For Toni, so long dead now, a wound of the heart that never quite healed, as perhaps it shouldn’t.
And then, at the very last, her soul had called out for Andre Crawford. Two steps behind, at her right hand as he had always been, so that when she was thrown clear—when Fate had intervened—Death had sidestepped her and claimed Andre instead.
At the memory, a fresh pang of grief stabbed her heart. She closed her eyes against the night and this pain, and saw only more blackness.
Oh, Andre, I will miss you most of all. There are all these souls crowding round, waiting on me, watching—and I am so very alone.
Yet even as she thought this, she knew it wasn’t quite true. There was another: the one Fate had thrust her way. The man to whom she owed her life was just down the hall. Her good right hand now, as he’d stood by her side that afternoon, his presence solid and reassuring. When she had faltered, he’d brushed the back of her scarred hand with his. Just a touch, very fleeting, but the contact was electric. She felt his strength, and when their eyes met, she saw his devotion. But there was something else in those gray eyes—shaded now silver, now a light blue—that plucked a responsive cord.
She was not alone, so long as she had her memories, and him.
“So, do not be restless, my friends,” she whispered now. Her voice was husky and cut her throat as if she hadn’t spoken in centuries. “Ten no Sabaki, Judgment Day, will come, and then he and I will avenge you. I swear it.”
Even so, she wept, and her tears were bitter.
74
She is just down the hall, near enough to touch, close enough to feel, tethered to my soul, the memory of her flesh against mine burning like a hot coal. I wanted her then. I want her now, and more than I’ve ever desired anything in my life.
It’s dark in my quarters. So still. So quiet. Times like these, I wish I were weightless, defying gravity, soaring through the air like a god. As it is, lying here now upon this bed, naked, every nerve in my skin alive to the slow, sensuous slide of silk whispering over my body . . . well, it’s no substitute. For now, it will have to do. I will enjoy this moment, my triumph. I’ve earned the right. And wanting is so very sweet. Wanting is
the hunt.
They say that everything comes to those who wait. Still, I make my own luck. Like Chomie: With all the mayhem and madness, everyone accepted my story about grappling with an intruder, too late to save Theodore’s wife or child, or the hapless, nameless guards about whom no one gives a damn. I’ll be the first to admit it, though. That little slash to the arm? A nice bit of theater, that. Blood adds such an air of authenticity that no one questions. Because no one in his right mind cuts himself, right? (Although I will have to watch that: Between last year on Biham and this, I’ll end up a mass of scars.) And lucky for me, all I took away from the explosion were burns, and bits and pieces of, well, several people. You really can’t quite appreciate how much mess a bomb makes until you’ve washed someone’s brains out of your hair.
There is nothing to stop me now. I’ve stared Bhatia in the face, watched those eyes bounce away to think about other things—and, oh, the wheels and gears turning in that brain; I can practically hear his thoughts chittering round and round like a computer caught in a recursive algorithm. Yet he’s looked his nemesis full in the face and does not recognize me. Excellent. Even if, by some fluke, he eventually does, I have more than enough to bring him down. All those wonderful words from that night on New Samarkand when he hatched his little plot with Toranaga. If that became public, if I happened to do a bit of investigation, say, and turned up a data crystal . . . Well, it would be Bhatia’s head on a pike.
And as for Toranaga: Well, let’s just say that his comeuppance may come sooner rather than later. A process I’ve already set in motion with a little DNA. A simple data crystal strategically placed. Ah, Toranaga, I wish you’d been there when I was baptized in a mystic’s blood. To be fair, it was Bhatia’s idea, but I’m sure you’ll appreciate taking credit. Maybe not my best performance, but I think I made, well, quite a splash. Certainly created some buzz, hmm?
