The Withering Flame (The Year of the Dragon, Book 6)

by James Calbraith

  Her eyes welled up; she wiped them away, dismissed the memory, and focused on the scroll. The sun had almost set beyond the grey-blue horizon.

  She skimmed the beginning; a lot of it she already knew from the priest, the rest was a summary of the legend of the Watatsumi, the Dragon King.

  The kagura dance at Kirishima Shrine, she remembered. Where we first fought the Crimson Robe and his men and where I was stabbed…

  Instinctively, she touched her chest, where not even a scar remained after the injury. It seemed as long ago now as those evenings on the slope of Suwa Hill. How the jewels — which, according to this story, were given by the Dragon King to his son-in-law, Prince Hikohohodemi — had come to be worshipped by the Ancients, the scroll didn’t explain. Indeed, it didn’t mention the little people at all.

  The Stones cannot be truly destroyed, the scroll continued. If a great force or magic is applied, they fall into three equal pieces. When those pieces are put together again, the Stone comes back to life.

  So that’s what the old priest’s letter had meant. The last stone from the last pair, Ōen had said. Bran had brought one third of the blue stone back to Yamato — was the one on Koro’s chest the other piece of the same jewel?

  She rubbed her eyes. The scroll was long and full of scattered bits of old legends, stories, and songs, anything the priest and his acolytes managed to gather about the stones.

  Some say the last time the Jewel of Ebbs, the kanju, was used was in the Battle of Dan-no-Ura, to destroy the Heike Dragons.

  That line caught her eye. Dan-no-Ura! She put the scroll away and looked at the sea below. She didn’t know much about this ancient battle, except that it was the greatest in Yamato’s history, at least before the first Taikun had forged his kingdom. Thousands of warriors, humans, and magical creatures perished in these waters, along with the Mikado Antoku and all his treasure. She shivered at the memory of their spirits attacking her during the passage to Ganryūjima.

  So that’s how the kanju got here, to Mekari. But…destroy all the dragons? That little red orb? Ganryū couldn’t even slay Bran’s dragon…

  The last of the setting sun’s rays painted the grass on the hillside gold and scarlet. She yawned and folded the scroll. At the foot of the hill, Torishi’s dark, bulky frame reminded her of the stone-carved guardian dogs before the gates of the Suwa Shrine. He turned and looked up. She waved to show she was safe, and lay back on the grass.

  Closing her eyes, she hoped to dream about Kiyō.

  CHAPTER IV

  The five candles were the first to appear from the darkness, then the gold leaf, painted by their flickering light. A deep, rolling, rhythmical rumble was coming from somewhere deep down below.

  The stench was fainter this time, or maybe Nagomi had become familiar with it. The girl in the crimson silk robe sat as she always had, with her back to the priestess, her head covered with a white veil.

  “Why do you keep coming here?” the girl asked in a soft, subdued voice. “How do you keep coming here?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Nagomi. “I don’t know where here is. Something pulls me towards you whenever… whenever…”

  She couldn’t remember what brought her here this time. She wasn’t travelling to the Otherworld… was this a dream? Or a vision?

  “This is the top-most chamber of the Karatsu Castle,” the girl replied.

  Nagomi finally recognised the rumble coming from under the floor. Sea waves.

  We are somewhere on the coast

  “Karatsu… so this is not the Otherworld?”

  The girl turned to her abruptly. “Why would you say that? Have you come from the Otherworld?”

  “In — in a way…”

  The girl grasped Nagomi’s palms with her dead, rotting hands. “Are you here to take me away? Are you here to let me die?” she croaked.

  “Die? No!” The priestess pulled away. Disgust and pity fought in her mind. “Why would I do that?”

  “No, of course not.” The girl slumped. “I would have seen it in my visions.”

  Visions…?

  The gold-trimmed door slammed open. Nagomi cowed, expecting some terrible creature from the Otherworld to come through, but it was just a samurai. Judging by the number and shape of clan crests on his kimono, a high ranking courtier of the Ogasawara. The girl looked at Nagomi, then at the man. Her rotting face twisted in panic.

  “I’m sorry, my lord,” she said, “I did not expect—”

  “Bow down when you talk to me!” The samurai put his foot on the girl’s head and pressed it to the floor. He ignored Nagomi. “I don’t want to see your disgusting face.”

  “Yes, tono,” the girl mumbled.

  “Your creator may be dead, but I am still your master. Don’t you forget it!”

  “No, tono.”

  The samurai stepped away and wiped his silk-clad foot on the tatami mat in revulsion.

  “I am going to war, Kyokō,” he said, calming down. “Tell me how it goes.”

  The girl straightened and, still not daring to look up to the samurai, whispered a fast, rhythmical prayer. The air around Nagomi grew dark, dense, and cold. The room, and everything in it, vanished gradually: first the samurai, then the girl, then the golden-trimmed walls and tatami floor, and, at last, the five candles.

  Bran woke up and stretched. He blinked, remembering where he was; the room was different from any he had woken up in over the last months, with simple, Western-style furniture, wooden walls painted in pastel blue, and a large, glass window. He spotted a piece of paper, folded in two, on the straw-seat chair standing next to his bed. He scrubbed his eyes and, turning the paper to the window, read the message scribbled in his father’s writing: Breakfast at nine. Lunch at twelve. Come down whenever you’re awake.

  Bran searched for the clock and didn’t find any in the room. He came up to the window to check on the sun and saw a tall, spiralling stone tower crowning the end of a short, narrow street, lined with houses whose walls were made of the typical Yamato black-and-white lattice, but whose window frames, staircases, and carved pillars were painted in the same pastel blue as the walls of his room. In the still air, an orange flag hung limp from a mast at the top of the spiral wizardry tower.

  Dejima.

  It had taken him… how many months? To reach the place he’d seen from the roof of Nagomi’s house, on his first day in Yamato…

  He reached out to Emrys. The dragon was hiding in the dark, dense, humid forest on the slopes of the mountain rising to the west of the harbour. Emrys snarled at his probing thoughts.

  Patience. I’ll call for you soon. I first need to make sure we’re welcome here.

  He hadn’t known what to expect with his arrival on Dejima; Dōraku had told him nothing. He certainly hadn’t expected a long dragon to fly out of the Qin quarter to meet him over the island. But even this had not been as much of a surprise as seeing a glimpse of his father on a Dejima street, next to a black-haired woman, who was, without a doubt, his Reeve, Gwen.

  It’d made him swerve and head for the mountains, instead of landing directly on the island as he’d had first planned. As glad as Bran was at seeing Dylan, he was not ready to meet him without thinking things through. It was clear enough how Dylan had arrived in Kiyō — a large Bataavian ship stood at anchor in the harbour — but it was much less clear why. Had he really come just for Bran? If so, how did he know to look in Yamato? Or had he been sent on a mission from Dracaland?

  Their first conversation had been brief and sparse in detail. Bran had been unable to wrap his head around everything that had happened to him since the Kiyō beach, not enough to tell a complete story — and the investigative manner of his father’s questioning had made him uncomfortable — and irritated.

  I thought he’d be as happy to see me, as I was to see him, he thought bitterly. Why does it feel like just another of his spy missions?

  He ended up leaving out whatever he’d felt might arouse Dylan’s greater interest, e
specially any mention of the Fanged and the Eight-Headed Serpent. Something told him this news was best kept for later.

  His stomach rumbled. Right, food. He spotted a glowing clock face on the second floor of the wizardry tower: ten to nine. Not “nearly Hour of the Rat”. He was back in the land of precise timekeeping. I slept too long. He stretched again, his joints loosened with a satisfying crack.

  A clean linen shirt and plain black trousers lay on a chest by the window. He put them on in haste and left the room in search of the dining hall.

  He was the first at the breakfast table. A Corrie-like creature brought him a plate of fried eggs, hard cheese, and bacon. They have pigs here, Bran noted. He stared at the grease-dripping bacon for a moment and put it aside. Struggling at first with the knife and fork, he tucked into the eggs, when the door opened and in came Dylan, in a loose-fitting white shirt and Marine uniform trousers, followed by his Reeve, in a yukata adorned with summer flowers. She was wearing the Yamato robe as if she’d been born for it; a large, round piece of jade hung on a leather cord on her neck.

  They sat down. Dylan nodded.

  “Did you sleep well?”

  “Too long.”

  “You were tired so I let you sleep.”

  “Not that tired.”

  Dylan buttered his toast; his moves were slow, precise.

  “So, did you get here on that Bataavian ship?” Bran asked, sliding a slice of cheese onto a piece of dry, brown bread.

  “We did. Some two weeks ago,” replied Dylan.

  There was a hint of insincerity in Dylan’s voice. This surprised Bran, not the dishonesty itself, but the fact that he noticed it in the first place.

  “You said you got your little dragon back. Where is it, then?” Dylan asked.

  “In the mountains. I did not want to alarm the locals. From what I saw, I needn’t have worried.”

  “Indeed.” Dylan nodded. “I think the locals are far beyond being alarmed by one small dragon at this moment.”

  “Speaking of dragons… I haven’t seen Afreolus around?”

  A slight wince. “I lost it at sea,” said Dylan. “It was a long way.”

  And yet Emrys made it without harm. Bran hid his smirk in a mug of warm milk. They have cows, too.

  “And you’ve been on Dejima all this time?”

  “Actually, we visited a place called Satsuma,” replied Gwen, before Dylan could answer. A note of warning in his eyes, a reassuring smile in response. “You’ve heard of it, I guess?”

  Satsuma!

  “He’s been there too,” said Dylan.

  “Have you met the daimyo?” Bran asked casually. He’d noticed earlier that Dylan had no problem using Yamato terms.

  “Briefly. I asked him for help in finding you. Doesn’t matter now.”

  Bran grimaced.

  “It was a beautiful place, though,” added Gwen. “So it wasn’t a complete waste of time.”

  An exchange of looks. Dylan passed her the salt cellar, their hands touched briefly.

  “What are you doing here, anyway?” Bran asked her, then turned back to Dylan. “I thought you said this wasn’t a military mission.”

  Gwen hesitated.

  “She’s my Reeve,” Dylan answered, instead. “Of course, she accompanied me.”

  There was the insincerity again. And was it a hint of a blush on Gwen’s face?

  He was struck by a sudden realisation. He put down the mug and licked his lips. With a trembling hand he reached for the cheese knife.

  “I see,” he said, coldly.

  Dylan put aside the half-buttered toast and stared at Bran. “What’s wrong, son?”

  “He knows,” said Gwen. “It had to happen.”

  “Does mam know?” Bran asked.

  “No,” Dylan snapped. “No,” he repeated, slower.

  Bran tried to slice the cheese, but the knife slipped and clanged loudly on the tin plate. Gwen jolted in her chair. The Corrie servant jumped up to assist, but Bran dismissed him with a wave of his hand.

  “You’re taking it coolly,” said Dylan. “That’s new.”

  He’s right, thought Bran. I should storm out of the room. I used to do that for the silliest of reasons.

  The knuckles of his knife-holding hand were white, but other than that, he felt surprisingly calm.

  “Don’t tease him, Dylan,” said Gwen. She reached out and held his hand in hers. She was visibly relieved and that angered Bran even more.

  Why did I not notice this before?

  “Now I understand why you hated tadcu,” said Bran. “He reminded you too much of yourself.”

  “No, Bran. I am nothing like him. I would never abandon my family,” Dylan said. He pointed at Bran with his butter knife. “I have come all this way for you.”

  Bran looked up at his father. Dylan’s eyes were cold. The courtesans from Shigemasa’s memories flashed in his mind. In Yamato, a high-ranking officer was almost obliged to have a mistress.

  But you’re not a Yamato. And this is more than just custom… Mother is waiting for us in Gwynedd… Tending to her herbs, brewing her potions, looking towards the sea, faithful… waiting…

  It was the unfairness of the situation that annoyed him the most.

  “I’m looking forward to discussing it when we’re back in Gwynedd,” he said quietly.

  “That’s quite enough.” Dylan put the hand with the knife back on the table. He was calm again, the redness on his face receding, his breath slowing down. The irritability lasted only a few seconds. “I did not come all this way to be lectured by a naïve boy.”

  He finished buttering the toast and took a silent bite.

  They would not speak for the rest of breakfast, until Dylan finished eating, took the last gulp of coffee, wiped his lips, and left without saying a word to anyone.

  Bran pushed his plate of half-eaten eggs away, but remained in his place. He wasn’t sure what to do next; he had not yet made any plans for his stay on Dejima.

  “I’m sorry,” said Gwen. She swirled her teacup.

  “It’s not your fault,” said Bran, shrugging.

  “You mustn’t blame your father for everything.”

  “You’re not the one with a family,” he replied. “With a wife. With a son,” he added forcefully.

  “He cares deeply for you, Bran,” she said. “You have no idea what he’s had to go through to find you here.”

  “Does he? It really doesn’t show.”

  “You’ve known him longer than I have,” she replied, and sipped some tea. “You know how… professional he can get, even with those close to him. And for what it’s worth… You must see he cares for your mother, too.”

  “I used to think so.”

  “He wouldn’t want to hurt her, if he could help it. But I’m sure she’s aware of what’s going on between us. By all accounts, she’s a clever woman.”

  “It’s the cowardice that gets me,” Bran replied after a long pause. “He’s a soldier. I used to think him a hero. But he’s afraid to tell the truth to his own wife?”

  Gwen laughed bitterly. “Men!” She stood up. “You can face an army of dragons, but to tell the truth to a woman you love? That takes guts.”

  She left the dining room leaving Bran stunned.

  What was that all about?

  So this is the famous Ship.

  After everything he’d heard about it from the enthusiastic Satō, Bran expected something much more impressive than the fatigued, battered old Bataavian galleon.

  It may have been a grand vessel when it was built a generation ago, but now it clearly belonged in a museum. It was listing slightly to one side, there was some damage on the bulwarks, and one of the masts was shorter than the others. It seemed to be missing some tackle and gear.

  But Bran had not come to the Dejima dock to admire the antique ship. If Emrys was to come down from the mountain, it needed a place to land; the dockyard was the only space on the tiny island big enough to accommodate a dragon. And for now, it
was packed with crates, barrels, and bales of cloth, prepared for loading into the galleon’s vast holds.

  Maybe I could land on the deck, he thought. Before it’s full up.

  He heard a shimmering swoosh, like the sound of a gold-trimmed brocade pulled over cobblestones. The golden long, the Qin dragon, landed smoothly behind him, filling the entire main street with its body. A man in yellow Qin clothes and dark blue cap jumped off and strolled over to Bran.

  “You’re the man who rode out to meet me,” said Bran, climbing off a crate.

  “Li Hung-Chang,” the Qinese introduced himself with scarcely a bow. “My apologies for any distress caused.”

  “I didn’t know the Qin district had dragons.”

  “Oh, I’m not one of the merchants,” Li replied with a smile. “I arrived here with Commodore Di Lán.”

  “Your Dracalish is impeccable,” Bran noted.

  “Thank you.” Another, even slighter bow. “I am an Imperial Interpreter.”

  “Is that why my father brought you here? To translate for him?”

  Li’s smile widened. “I’m afraid the Commodore did not, ah, intend for me to accompany him.”

  “What, you stowed away? With this?” Bran nodded at the golden dragon shimmering in the alleyway. The beast yawned, and shifted its weight, but got its foot caught in the railings of a veranda, and now had to remain in an even more uncomfortable, cramped position than before.

  “You might say that.”

  What an odd fellow.

  “What did you want from me?” Bran asked.

  “I was just hoping for a friendly chat.”

  Bran shrugged, and sat down on the crate, facing the sea. “Chat away, then.”

  Li snapped his fingers at his mount. The long dislodged its trapped foot — snapping a pillar in the process — and slithered forward, nestling its body in a twisted coil among the crates, forcing the dockers to walk around it, cursing.

  “I see you’re admiring the Soembing,” said Li.

  “Is that what the ship’s called? What happened to it? It looks damaged.”

  “Some of it is your father’s unique, ah, methods of persuasion.”