The last item in the satchel was a piece of carved jade, more or less in the shape of a comma. A jewel, ancient in design, but unimpressive to modern eyes, save for its size and luster.
Taken separately, each object was interesting, ancient, and unidentifiable. Taken together, however, and Minori knew precisely what she was looking at, in spite of the fact that no one outside of each sitting Emperor and his attendant priests had seen these items since 734 AC. “Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi,” she whispered, pointing at the sword. “The Grass-Cutting sword, taken from the tail of a dragon by the god Susanoo. Given to Amaterasu, his sister, as an apology for having wronged her. Given to the hero, Yamato Takeru, who foolishly ignored his wife’s advice to take it with him into battle, and died without it in his hand . . . and then given to the Emperor.” Fleetingly, she thought it a very good thing that Adam ben Maor had been wise enough to bring his god-touched weapon with him when they needed it, rather than leaving it at home in a drawer. “Recovered from the sea in the twelve hundreds, by the hand of a water spirit, after one of the rebellious clans threw it into the ocean.” She paused, and stared at the other two objects. “Yasakani no Magatama. The gem given by the rest of the gods to Amaterasu, to lure the sun-goddess back out of her cave, when she was enraged at them all. And . . . Yata no Kagami. The Eight-Hand mirror.” She stared at it. It didn’t seem nearly large enough to match its name, but . . . “These are the regalia of the Emperor,” Minori whispered, though there was no one around to hear, anymore. “How did you get them?”
“Yesterday, I walked into the private quarters of the Emperor and told him he needed to prepare his eldest son to leave the Imperial Palace, and should send several of his younger children to other countries, so that the unbroken line of Emperors would remain intact. And that the regalia, which I gave to his ancestors so long ago, would now come back to my hands. They have not been used for their true purpose in centuries. The understanding of their magic has been lost, as they have become . . . ceremonial objects.” The old woman sighed, and Minori realized for the first time that her lips had never actually moved. This is how Lassair does it. People don’t even realize it.
“You are . . . Amaterasu?” Minori actually squeaked the last, like an adolescent, and blushed.
Yes.
“Are . . . are our gods fighting?” Minori needed to know that. She needed to know that her people would stand and fight.
We fight. Ōyamatsumi, he who is mountain, wind, and war, battles even now with a mad godling near Fuji. He chased it away, for the moment, but they are circling in this area. They duck away, into Qin, or Korea, or Siam, and then come back again. The old woman raised her head, and Minori averted her gaze, for the old, wise eyes were now like pieces of the sun. Impossible to look upon. We fight, but we also prepare. I require services of you, Truthsayer.
Minori bowed her head, immediately. “Whatever you need.”
Less suspicious now, I see. Amusement there. I require you to gather as many of our people as you can, and begin moving them to places of safety. By preference, Judea, Tyre, and perhaps Rome. I require you to take and protect the regalia. Do not return them to the eldest son of the Emperor, not yet. The sword is a weapon, not a symbol, and it will need to be used. The mirror shows truth, and that is a rare commodity in these days. The gem extends benevolence to all who see it. Good will. Understanding. This will be needed, too. People are suspicious and wary in these times. As you yourself proved. The goddess of the sun paused. And last? I require a conduit who is not of my blood-line. A fallback position, and place of refuge, in case all our efforts fail.
Minori froze, suddenly horrified. Kanmi had let a god in. He’d technically been god-touched of Baal at the end, and she’d watched him fight the god off for years. Fight the madness of a god being pulled a dozen different ways by the differing expectations of his followers. The ones who expected him to be as he was in ancient times, wrathful and furious, the ones who expected him to be life and generativity and benevolence, in his modern fashion. And all the different perspectives of a hundred million worshippers that fit in between. Kanmi had died for precisely what Amaterasu now asked her to do. Her breath caught in her chest and squeezed.
The old woman put a hand on her shoulder, and warmth radiated through Minori. I am not Baal-Hamon. I am who I am. Not mad. Nor do I plan to be so . . . invasive, if I can avoid it. I would like to make of you a sort of avatar. Though I will be a quiet passenger in your mind and body. I will not reshape you, or use your body to speak or act, unless it is absolutely necessary. A part of me must be smuggled out of our lands, and to do that, I must be . . . quiescent. Else the gods of the places through which we must travel will notice my presence, and the mad gods will certainly follow, like hounds on a scent.
Minori trembled. “You . . . will not replace me? I will not have to fight to . . . remain who I am? My body will not change, as when Cocohuay’s became Mamaquilla’s, all covered in scales?”
I believe the expression is ‘no tricks.’
“Then of course I agree.”
Your summoner friend really must teach you to bargain better. You ask for no concessions for yourself in this?
“Unless you can bring back the dead, there is nothing that I want for myself.” Minori looked at the ground. “A respite from the arthritis and the bad back would help me move more quickly. Beyond that . . . there is nothing I can think of. My needs are few.”
Amaterasu lifted the hand that had lain on Minori’s shoulder, and placed her palm against the woman’s forehead. There was a searing bolt of warmth, even pleasure, that rocketed through her body . . . and then the old woman was gone, leaving only a satchel on the bench. Not even her cane remained behind. Minori picked up the satchel, making sure that the regalia were in place. The warmth did not, however, abate. It stayed with her. What am I supposed to do with the regalia, anyway?
You will know, when it is time. The whisper came from the back of her mind.
So, I’m never going to be alone again, am I?
Is that a bad thing?
On the whole, Minori didn’t think that it was. It was, in fact, somewhat comforting, and soothed the raw ache that had been a part of her soul for two years now.
The ferry arrived, and Minori continued on her journey. Her homeland had never looked so beautiful to her. Partially, she was sure, because this might be the last time she would see it, but also, she could perceive things in it that she had never noticed before. She had always had to concentrate to discern weaves of sorcery; now, she saw them easily and automatically, along with trails and lattices of spirit-energy . . . everywhere. Every hill had a little kami, a little spirit that called it home. Every lake, every forest. She could see trellises of power woven around every temple, reaching up into the sky, all of them intertwining with other ribbons of energy, going up from one shrine or another. They formed a tent of sorts in the sky, and then dipped back down into the earth again. Beautiful. Carnelian and salmon, gold and delicate tourmaline, ultramarine and amethyst, and colors for which she had no names, and which existed nowhere in the electromagnetic spectrum. She had never properly understood how sacred her homeland really was, and was . . . awed. Almost every land is like this, the goddess within her murmured. But I like to believe that ours is the most beautiful. That we and our people have painted the sky together, and in harmony, for thousands of years.
But there were . . . holes in that tapestry of light. Rents and tears. Places where the mad gods had punched through, and come in search of easy prey, taking a few lesser kami before being forced to flee. And seeing that destruction made Minori want to weep.
Eventually, they reached her father’s estate. On reflection, Minori was rather shocked at how easy it was, to think of herself as . . . travelling in the company of another. But she’d been a part of a they for a very long time. It came naturally.
Her father was adamantly opposed to leaving, and it showed in gestures and demeanor, if not words. He was old, stern, and dignified, a
nd told her, gruffly, but with love, that she was over-reacting. “Volcanoes erupt. That is what they are meant to do. None of the ones here have done so in hundreds, if not thousands of years. I see no reason to give in to fear and flee. The world will balance itself.”
Minori sighed, and went at him and her mother from the side of family, not the side of fear. She wheedled, politely and gently. She deployed pictures of Masako, Solinus, and the baby—particularly the baby—with care. And she could see her mother being swayed every time Aika picked up another image and studied it with delight. This was Aika’s continuity, her version of immortality. So Minori pushed, gently, on the fact that Masako hadn’t seen her grandmother in over a decade, and that this might be the last good time for Aika to travel. And still, her mother hesitated, usually looking at Tadaoki as she, too, temporized. “I don’t know what your father would do without me here.”
Gradually, Minori came to the realization—backed by Amaterasu’s whispers at the back of her mind—that her father would not leave. He had decided where he wanted to die. And it was here, where there was a little waterfall leading down into the lake. Where he could walk through groomed gravel paths between cherry trees, and smell green in the air. His entire body language spoke it: I was born here. Here is where I will die. This is my place. I will defend it with my last breath, and I will not run from it. Even recasting it as a familial need only made him ask, “Then why can Masako not come here?”
Minori refocused her efforts on her mother, and, after a day or so, won Aika’s agreement to come and visit. After all, there were servants, and daughters and sons and grandchildren to look after Tadaoki. “Good!” Minori said, cheerfully. “Then let us get you packed. I have other business in the area, if I cannot persuade any of my sisters, brothers, nieces, or nephews to come with me. Judea is becoming a wonder. Wouldn’t some of you young people like to meet a fenris? Perhaps some of the harpies and dryads who escaped Hellas before the madness there spawned? The half-lion creatures of Carthage who have taken refuge there, and in places like Alexandria? It would be a good thing to see the Pyramids, as well, if you have the chance.”
A handful of her younger nephews and nieces agreed, after gaining permission from their dubious parents. “This is probably not the time to be going on a pleasure tour. What will people think, when there are so many near Edo who are without lights and power, thanks to the eruption of Fuji?”
Minori tried to ease their reservations, and got her relatives all on a train heading to an airport, at least. Her next step was to winnow her way through the countryside, finding the people that Amaterasu wanted her to find. Engineers in a calculi factory. Gardeners at a Shinto monastery. Irezumi artists—the ones who were sorcerers in their own right, and who bound spells and energies into the tattoos they placed on other people’s skin. Silk workers. Woodcut artists. Electronics designers and assemblers. People from the Nipponese space program, based right here on Hokkaido. Pharmaceutical specialists. Sorcerers and summoners from the best schools, as she worked her way south. Minori approached most of these people during their short lunch breaks, and listened to what Amaterasu told her about each person. The goddess had both uncanny insight into every person, and what . . . certainly felt like a complete dossier on each individual. Minori wasn’t always sure quite what to say, but she tried to tailor her approach to each person, based on what the goddess provided. She felt . . . a little uncomfortable about it. It seemed like a heavy violation of privacy, but she’d looked at dossiers in plenty during her analyst years with the Praetorians. But it also had something of the feel of becoming a . . . cult leader, too. The way their eyes widened when she spoke to them, as a friend, a motherly figure, as if she’d known them all their lives . . . it was a little unnerving.
In the end, she had about three thousand people, over the course of three weeks, who were thinking of leaving. Three hundred who were willing to pick up their lives and come with her when she left. Her mother had already departed for Judea, and she’d gotten a call on her satellite phone from Masako, assuring her that she’d picked up Aika at the airport, and that great-grandmother and great-grandchild were bonding happily. “And to think I worried that Asha would subvert my daughter,” Masako said, cheerfully. “I don’t think my grandmother had enough chances to hold you as a baby, Mother. She’s trying to make up for it now.”
Minori nodded to herself, and bade her daughter farewell. Placed one last call to her father, to bid him farewell, and headed south to Edo, to get aboard an ornithopter heading for Qin. The number of earthquakes, medium and minor, had increased throughout her visit. Amaterasu kept a steady stream of information going in Minori’s head, noting when another lesser kami died, and was consumed . . . resulting in another earthquake. Explaining that her greater self and Hachiman, the god of war, were currently engaged in fighting one of the mad gods off to the south, near Okinawa. Fūjin, lord of the winds, will escort your ornithopter away from here, Amaterasu told Minori. Be not afraid. For the moment, the mad ones flee whenever I approach. It is just that there are five of them, all circling between here, Qin, India, Korea, and eastern Raccia. The goddess actually sounded weary in Minori’s mind.
Minori fell into a light vision state, seeing a mad-god, taking up a third of the sky, black, seething arms reaching out from its body, locked in battle with Hachiman . . . and then it retreated as her perspective raced up on it and the wounded guardian-spirit. She paused long enough to see that Hachiman was healing, though energy bled from his wounds, and he sent three balls of raw light chasing after the creature, to follow and track it . . . .
They fear you. Like a jackal fears a lioness.
For the moment. They are growing. With each spirit they consume, they grow. This one in particular feels . . . bloated, like a tick. It has fed well, and recently. And yet, it always wants more. Wishes to consume more. Forgive me. I must spare the energy I leave with you, for the moment. Her voice went silent once more, and Minori opened her eyes again, seeing the airport around her, the crowds of bustling people in kimonos and shenyi and other items of hanfa apparel for the Qin travelers present. She could see, out the window of the departure lounge, ranks of helicopters, which had been grounded due to ash until this week, and which were now taking off for search and rescue operations around Fuji, to supplement the ornithopters that had been flying around the clock. The helicopters could also help with the removal of debris, though she knew that sorcerers and technomancers were out in force, helping relief crews around the clock to lift debris from the first several earthquakes. They’d been fortunate. None had been larger than a 7.0 so far on the Rihtære scale.
. . . Feeling the strain in people’s muscles and minds as they dug through the rubble, knowing, at this point, that it was no longer a question of rescue, but of recovery . . . every minute, fearing that another quake would come and topple more of the building down on them. That’s why every building now had to be secured. All leaning or vertical debris had to be removed. Nets and magical wards put in place to try to stabilize piles that could slide, and then they could dig . . . .
Minori’s eyes snapped open again. It was horribly easy to get lost in Amaterasu’s vision. The great kami could see . . . everything that someone who venerated her, in particular, saw. Not for the first time, Minori wondered, distantly, Why me? Why not a shrine-maiden? Someone dedicated to you?
None of them had what I needed. None of them had your power. Your understanding. Your experience. Or your sorrow. You understand loss. Many of our people are coming to understand it, themselves. They will need someone like you. Someone who has experienced what life has to offer, both good and bad. Not someone who has cloistered themselves away because they could not deal with the outside world. The words were faint, but there.
She heard her flight announced, and shuffled to the boarding station. She could see, just past it, an elderly shrine-maiden, as if summoned by her thoughts, standing at a counter, almost begging the attendant there to allow her to board. Minori wa
s about to intervene, in sympathy, but there was something oddly familiar about the voice . . . and then she managed to map the weathered, aged features onto a younger, fresher face, with sparkling, mischievous eyes. Asuka.
Amaterasu spoke at the back of her head. Do you wish to help her?
Minori turned away, and extended her boarding pass to a ticket agent. No.
She could have changed, Amaterasu pointed out. At what point has someone suffered enough for their crimes?
Minori paused. Has she changed? Has she been a good shrine-maiden? Has she suffered for the fact that her lover Mitsuo was executed for a crime they both committed? And that . . . I committed, as well? Her thoughts were weary. It was probably hypocritical to condemn Asuka. And yet, she wasn’t going to ask anyone to give up a seat for her. She wouldn’t give up her own.
She is only nominally bound to me. What do you see when you look at her?
Minori turned and peered, briefly. A wasted life, she said, after a moment. Mistakes. Anger. A little learning from them, but resignation to her lot. And now, desperation.
The Goddess Denied Page 109
