Nara

by M. L. Buchman

  In Bryce Sr.’s past there were elements she couldn’t trace. At least not yet. But hints lay in-between the folds of what was recorded. Bryce had a history before politics. It linked him to a few scattered individuals. She’d uncovered the fact of his service in the WEC troops, and that he’d been a member of a very elite squad. But their first mission eluded—

  “What are you doing out here alone, girl? Watching the night? Did you change your hair?”

  Suz battered her hip against the wall as she spun to face the voice. Her father. Tall and powerful in his trademark dark slacks and white dress shirt with two buttons undone. Her shaking hands pulled the tattered bathrobe tighter about her neck as she struggled to nod out an acknowledgement.

  Find the strength. It was there just a moment ago. She squared her shoulders, at least a little, and turned back to the night.

  “I like the night. It is clean. And quiet.” There was a silence of suspense. “I’m letting my hair grow.”

  She could see his nod from the corner of her eye as he moved to lean beside her. Separated too far for whispers, but close enough for carefully low conversation. The silence wrapped around them along with the refreshing cool salt taste that sometimes rode on the ocean waves.

  “The scent of distant shores.”

  The sweet smell echoed deep in her own lungs and she wanted to cough it out. There was nothing in this world that Suz wanted to have in common with this man, and almost everything in her life was his. Even the man in her bed was one of his. Not a guard or a spy, just one of the legion necessary to keep the center of world government in smooth operation. Not terribly interesting either. He offered little excitement, or relief. She’d left her bedroom and come out onto the patio in hopes he had the good graces to exit quietly.

  “I miss the night. Not much time for dark nights in politics, but I’ve certainly stood some long watches in the past. Part of a distant past, watching the stars wheel slowly through the hours.”

  The few security lights did little to dim the stars.

  “Sometimes I stand here and watch them all night.” Those were the good times, when she and the world were at peace together.

  Again he studied the side of her face, but she didn’t turn toward him. She was tempted to tease him, that the exact spot they were standing was the place James Wirden had learned of his own mortality, but one didn’t lightly poke the bear. She’d have to find a new place to stand.

  “Last time I did that, was in Japan. The last night for Japan.”

  At that she did turn, but his gaze was now directed upward into the night sky. That was the hole in his record. He’d been in Japan for the Smash.

  # # #

  Ninka was furious, first at Ri’s insistence upon going. Then at her refusal to take the hunter with her.

  “If my plan does not work, I cannot have the cadre lose its two best hunters in a single night. Tinnai’s arm will never be right again, she cannot lead. And none of the others are ready. You know that.”

  Ninka ground her teeth before nodding sharply.

  “I still think it is wrong.”

  “I know.” Ri kissed her on the cheek and bowed low to acknowledge the kinship she felt and respect for the wisdom she was about to ignore.

  Ninka relaxed the chain long enough for Ri to slide out the bolthole and past the sacrificial.

  Ri stood in the night and listened. Nothing moved except the sacrificial’s uneven breathing as he scanned the night for the Zenbu, and watched her back. The night air was still and waiting.

  She trotted across the street, around the bank, and moved to the long blank wall where Tancho Cadre had gathered so long ago to stage their attack on the bookstore. Tonight that same wall would be her rearguard. No windows, no doors through which she could be surprised. She trotted to a section without any shadows. It felt wrong to be exposed in the moonlight, like she’d left her instincts and common sense somewhere far behind. Perhaps she had, left it in the bookstore with Ninka when she’d come out into the night. Into the time of the Zenbu.

  Yes, she wore her fighting black, but left the hood off and tucked into her sleeve. Face to the night. Open. Exposed. Waiting. Inviting.

  The barren sidewalk and empty street stretched out into the shadows. The crumbled remains of an office building shadowed the far sidewalk, but otherwise she had a clear view. There wasn’t even any debris to hide a child, just scattered bricks and a few parts from a smashed flitter, that had scattered down the length of the block.

  Ri squatted down and leaned back against the safety of the brick wall. She could feel the pressure of the two sai knives in their crossed-shoulder sheaths. The shiruken throwing stars that she had so painstakingly shaped were secure in their pouches along her calves. And the fighting pipe she placed between her knees, butt on the ground, point aimed at the sky. She had grown enough that it was really too small and a fighting staff might serve her better, but she’d trust the gift of Tinnai over any other weapon.

  Except a sword. She dreamed of a great fighting sword, but had been unable to find one; making one was out of the question though she often woke from dreams of a great forge and the pounding, pounding, pounding that became her heart when she woke.

  Ri took a deep breath and struggled to settle her nerves as the books on meditation had taught. Even her thin, prized volume of the art of the Ninja offered no solace against what she was risking.

  But there were too many questions. Questions that neither Tinnai nor the books could answer. It had taken a long time to learn that some books made good stories around the fire, to be read aloud then burned for heat. The very few worth keeping were moved to the shelves by her third floor window. But all were from a different age.

  None revealed how the world had died.

  She personally approved each volume that was fed to the flames. Her selected library had grown and she had studied. Many, many nights she had stood watch. First up in her third-floor window watching the shadows of the Zenbu drift along the street in ones and twos. Later, night after night, through the long dark hours sitting on the sacrificial’s chain, trying to catch the whispers of the Zenbu as they took their honor gift. Or not. Bits, pieces, scraps almost too small to be used, were carefully compared to the dictionaries she’d saved from the flames. She should have waited longer. Learned more Japanese.

  But there had to be answers. Somewhere—

  One moment she crouched alone with the moonlight and her thoughts. The next a dozen Zenbu ranged about her. Less than ten paces away, the rag-clothed forms made a perfect half circle with the wall as the side and herself as the center point. They were shadowed by the tatters of their own clothing until all shape, even arms, was lost in shreds of fabric. Large hoods shielded their faces, blocking all light, so that it was easy to believe no one was there, just the clothes and the stink of death. The smell coiled through the moonlight like the night Koukou’s hair had caught fire and burned half her scalp before they could catch her and put it out.

  A dozen Zenbu. She sent a prayer to her ancestors in apology. Ninka had been right. Tonight she would die and Tancho Cadre would have a new chief hunter. Zenbu never even traveled in threes, and here were four times that number.

  She took a deep breath, less steady than she’d like despite all of her training. If she was to die, she would do it with honor.

  Ri swung her pipe to horizontal and bowed low over it until the pipe rested on the ground and her forehead on the pipe. She held the pose for as long as she dared and then sat back up. The circle hadn’t broken or moved.

  “Konbanwa, ikkitousen-sama.” She spoke the words carefully doing her best to imitate the intonations she’d stolen from the night.

  “Konbanwa, hunter of Tancho Cadre.”

  “You… you know me.” She managed to stop the shiver before it ran up her spine. She debated whether it was pride or fear, but wasn’t able to identi
fy it before another spoke.

  “Yes, these matchless warriors…”

  “. . . know the hunter.” And yet a third.

  “The mightiest in many years.”

  “High she sits…”

  “Reading.”

  “. . . In her window.”

  “Watching.”

  The conversation was hard to follow as it jumped side-to-side across the circle.

  “Brave enough to come alone to face the night,” hissed the scratchy voice farthest to her right.

  “And face the Zenbu.”

  Ri nearly leapt to her feet at the man’s voice so close on her left. He slipped back as quietly and quickly as he’d moved forward. She was wholly at their mercy.

  “She does not attack.”

  “She waits.”

  “Much of Tancho’s power in this one.”

  “Much of their wisdom.”

  She was starting to separate the voices. The deepest one was straight ahead. The high whiney one was two to the right. The far right always hissed and the third from the left never spoke at all.

  “So, we are left to wonder.”

  “Why the mighty hunter comes forth.”

  “In the night.”

  “Into our night.”

  “She honors the offering.”

  “We take more from Tancho to acknowledge the honor.”

  Acknowledge the honor? If she knew how hard her hunters had to struggle to find fresh sacrificials when they should be hunting food. It was no blessing to be so honored by the All of the night.

  “But she does not come for that.”

  “She must come to make an offering.”

  “The only offering…”

  “Is death.” The deep-center voice finished.

  She couldn’t see them move, but the circle pressed in upon her. In moments she would be dead, dead as a sacrificial. And still she wouldn’t know—

  “What happened?”

  The pressure eased.

  “Questions.”

  “She has questions.”

  “Seeks knowledge.”

  “From the Zenbu.”

  “From the All.”

  “What knowledge?”

  “We know the night.”

  “Nothing more.”

  “Yes,” she leaned forward and faced the center Zenbu. “There must be. What came before?”

  “Before?” The note held a tone she couldn’t recognize at first. She thought it might be surprise, but decided rather that it was caution. She tried to see beneath his hood for any hint of a face, but failed.

  “When the books ended. When the flitters tumbled from the skies and the world fell silent? How did the world die?”

  The Zenbu circle widened until she thought they might fade back into the night.

  “I must know!” Her cry stopped them.

  The circle was broken, some nearer, some farther. But the silence continued.

  At long last, the silent one spoke. A woman’s voice. A strong voice. An old voice. Many times older than even Tinnai’s.

  “We keep the night to forget the light. But it doesn’t help. We find no relief in the dark of the night, and so we bring forth our pain on those who remain and still it does not appease the pain. The loss.”

  The others remained frozen. Only the woman spoke. She moved a step forward, but Ri felt no threat.

  “There was a time before, a grand time. A time when we held the power of the world. When the reins rode lightly in our hands.”

  Whispers echoed about the circle.

  “We ruled.”

  “The world.”

  “The wealth.”

  “The power.”

  “We ruled.”

  “But all did not go well,” she cut the whispers like a sword. “The power ran out of our control. The wealth, great enough to sink our island beneath the seas, the wealth ran out.”

  “The Crash,” all the voices echoed together like a religious hymn and held them all frozen in silence.

  “The Crash,” Ri echoed. Then an old phrase she’d heard Tinnai speak once came to mind.

  “The Crash and the Smash.”

  Several of the Zenbu actually stumbled back as if they’d been struck. But the woman only nodded, her rags flapping forward then back. Once.

  “Fingers pointed. Accusations flew. A witch hunt for those who had caused the Crash. And the hands that had begged for us to rule now pointed and cried aloud, ‘Guilty!’ ”

  At the woman’s cry and damning finger, Ri drove her head back against the brick wall hard enough to see stars of light in her vision.

  Then a silence descended, so heavy that Ri wondered if she’d ever hear sound again. At long last the woman’s voice resumed her story like the shattering collapse of an old building caused by a gentle breeze.

  “They pointed at the lords of wealth and power. We who had walked the world like giants. Like gods brought to life upon the face of the earth. We were laid blame for the collapse of the wealth. The world starved and fought each other. A billion died. Two. Three.”

  The woman’s hood scanned right and left, but all of the Zenbu looked away rather than meet her hidden gaze. Ri alone could not look away.

  “We retreated. Softly. Unnoticed, or so we thought. We returned to the mighty islands of Japan. Back to the land that had been our father’s and their father’s straight back to the Holy Emperor of the Rising Sun. We were safe here and our shields were strong.”

  “The Third Great War ended,” a deep-voiced Zenbu intoned.

  “Our islands untouched,” his the rightmost one.

  “Then they turned upon us. And strove together to lock us away. The Great Blockade. We were Crowded. Starving. But we planned, built, prepared.”

  Ri could feel the righteous pride of her people.

  “And then the dragon awoke.” At the deep-center’s pronouncement the silence hammered down once again leaving Ri once again small and cold.

  Now the story passed back to the circle.

  “The ground shook.”

  “The cities fell.”

  “The deaths.”

  “Oh gods, the deaths.”

  “The sea rose,” the woman pronounced their doom, “rose from its bed and crashed down upon the lands. The father god dragon and the mother god dragon shook the earth so hard that all nations were lost beneath the rage of the sea.”

  “The waves circled the globe.”

  “We alone were spared.”

  “Only Nara.”

  “Only the Zenbu…”

  “And the children…”

  “The world died…”

  “. . . Nara alone survived.”

  Tears coursed down Ri’s cheeks. Such power. Such glory. And all gone because the people of the world had tried to destroy their former rulers. Jealousy. A jealousy greater than Ninka had of Ri’s first leadership, than of Koukou for all those not fire-scarred. Such a twisted passion that they had brought their curse down upon their own heads. The guilty had died when they killed their own world.

  Her fingers were white where they were clenched about the pipe laying across her knees. Such waste. And she thought she could fight back, protect her cadre, bring them back to the wonders in the books, with a length of steel and its blood-stained point. Such arrogance.

  “Gomen nasai. Gomen nasai.” She bowed her head to the pipe as the tears burned out her eyes and she could no longer see. The rust cut at her forehead as she worked it back and forth in shame. Only Nara remained. No new cities to reach, new cadres to make new pacts. Only Nara.

  “I am so sorry. I wanted to know. But I wish I hadn’t. I didn’t want this…this burden of our lost past. Never to be regained.”

  When her tears were done, and she raised her head
, the street was empty. The Zenbu were gone back into the night as if they’d never been. All that remained was a small girl, crouched against a wall, suddenly afraid of the dark.

  # # #

  Jaron hurried along the trail. He’d run out of notepaper three weeks earlier and he could feel the loss of data with each step as he hurried toward the ecological station. Each minute more observations slid away, lost, gone. With the knowledge he’d gained reviewing the biological journals last spring, he and Harold had plunged into the Amazonian Basin once more.

  Now that his eyes were clear of assumptions and predispositions, it was much easier to see the patterns and interactions that truly existed, and those that didn’t exist as well. At long last he arrived in the clearing and headed straight for the lab. He barely thought to give the living quarters, now completely collapsed and buried in lush growth, much of a wide berth. That was part of the past. His goal was to record the present.

  He pushed open the door. He was inside before he registered that the vines were fresh-cut back from the door edge. And the lights were on. And someone was at his terminal. Harold screamed in his ear and launched himself out through the closing door. He attempted to follow, but it had shut.

  The person grew in size to impossible proportions as it rose out of the console chair. Jaron bumped his shoulder back against the door several times with no result. Some part of his brain was informing him that the door opened inward, but he was unable to lodge the thought anywhere that would be of use.

  A massive hand extended toward him as he shrank against the door. It stopped like a knife aimed at his heart.

  “Hi, I’m Robbie.”

  He blinked. It was a high voice. He glanced down at the vast expanse of white t-shirt. Robbie was a woman. A very large woman. Her eyes were dark, the brown of mahogany, about the same shade as her close-cropped hair. Her skin almost as white as the shirt she wore. And while their eyes were at the same level, that was where the similarity ended.

  Her broad shoulders and massive arms were built on a scale to move mountains. Her legs could be the very pistons that made the world spin upon its axis. They were planted like great tree trunks upon the floor. And her bosom, the whelps of the gods could have nursed there. All his family had been lightly built and he’d never met any other. He’d never imagined a being built on such a scale, much less meeting one.