“Kazuko-hime, please tell me what did you mean to say about Dōraku-sama. Sacchan trusts him but he scares me so… I can sense something’s not right, but I can’t tell what it is.”
She clapped her hands twice and shook the bell rope.
“I feel so alone… You’re gone forever, my family is far away… I have only Sacchan now, and… and…”
Bran’s green eyes appeared in her mind. She remembered the warmth of his touch. Satō rarely touched her like that. I suppose I’m still a child, she thought, and Satō’s all grown up now. It’s no longer proper.
She shook her head and focused on her prayer. “It doesn’t matter. I just need strength to carry on. But… if I only knew we were on the right track. That we’re doing the right thing… Just a sign…”
She clapped one more time and opened her eyes. Nothing happened. Nothing would, of course. It was silly of her to hope otherwise. She sighed and turned away from the altar. Bran was waiting for her outside the shrine gates.
The sun was nearing the rooftops and the marketplace was closing down. Bran and Nagomi had to squeeze their way through surprising crowds of shoppers going the opposite way. They walked along the river bank, past the fishing boats lined on the pebble beach. As in every harbour, the vendors sold mostly fish from the river — fresh to locals, salted to travellers — but other produce drew Bran’s attention, great stone jars of yellow mikan fruits, pickled from last winter, and sacks full of sweet potatoes prepared in every manner imaginable; fried, baked, boiled, and just plain raw.
Bran and Nagomi, their mouths sticky with sweet mikan juice, packed bags full of fruit, baked potatoes, pickles and freshly harvested bamboo shoots, first of the year, boiled to perfect softness.
“We either bought too much or too little,” said Bran. “Either way, Satō will be mad at us.”
“It’s her own fault. She should have come with us, instead of moping about in the bath. Why is everyone looking at us?” she stopped.
“I think it’s your hair — your hood is off...”
The girl quickly pulled the straw hood back over her amber hair, but it was too late. Some raised their fists in a gesture against evil, others clapped their hands in prayer but mostly they just seemed intrigued. A small crowd started gathering around Bran and Nagomi.
“Come,” Bran grabbed the girl by the hand and pulled her out of the circle of people, out of the marketplace, leaving the curious crowd behind.
He was hoping the commotion would end once they got back to the inn, but it was a futile hope. The rumour overtook them; the townsfolk had already begun to gather at the inn, frightened and confused. The landlady watched the growing crowd for a while, and then approached the travellers with a concerned face.
“I’m sorry, but your rooms are... not fit for your esteemed persons.”
“What do you mean?” Satō asked, rising from the floor.
“They, um, they are infested by lice.”
She’s not even trying.
“We’ll take another room.”
“All other rooms are full, tono. I’m very sorry. Perhaps another inn.”
“We will pay more,” Satō insisted, “isn’t this the best place in town?”
“Your money will only turn to leaves in the morning!” the landlady blurted, unable to keep her fright beneath the mask of politeness anymore. She glanced at Nagomi, who tried, futilely, to keep her copper locks under the hood of her cloak.
Satō’s face tensed. She reached for her sword, but Bran was faster. His blade was already drawn and pointed straight at the landlady’s widened eyes.
“I have a good mind to slay thee for this insolence,” he said, seething. The landlady stepped back, but still she stared back at him in a stubborn defiance, born out of fear. Bran looked around. The crowd fell quiet and anxious. Satō froze with her sword drawn half-way, staring at him in surprise.
He found Dōraku, observing the scene with some amusement. The samurai was smoking his long pipe and sipping from a large bowl-like cup in silence. The locals gave his table a wide berth. He poured himself another cup and sipped it.
Their eyes met. The samurai frowned and stood up, in a few long steps came up to the anxious landlady and leaned towards her. He whispered something in her ear. The woman’s face turned white. She quickly bowed before him and started placating the agitated crowd and removing them from the inn.
“It’s all right now,” Dōraku said after they were gone.
“What did you tell her?”
The samurai smiled vaguely. “I simply gave her a warning. You can put that away.”
Bran looked at his own sword as if seeing it for the first time. He sheathed it with a clank. Dōraku smiled again and got back to his table.
“I’m sorry,” the boy mumbled. I really was ready to kill that woman, he realised with a shudder.
“Sorry for what?” asked Satō. “She was asking to have her head cut off. I’ve never been so insulted in my life. I’m not sure if I want to stay here anymore.”
Nagomi stood up. Her face was pale and her lips pursed together fiercely.
“I’m tired. I’ll be in our room,” she said.
“Wait!” Bran moved to follow her, but Satō gripped his arm. The priestess disappeared up the stairs without turning back.
“Will she be all right on her own?” he asked.
“She wants to be on her own now. She’s learned to handle her… condition this way.”
“Condition…?”
“She may not seem so to you, but to the people of Yamato she’s a freak, an aberration. And it’s worse here, in the countryside, among the commoners.”
“Now I wish I hadn’t convinced her…”
Satō shook her head.
“Don’t worry. She’s survived fifteen years of this, she’ll manage.”
Bran sat down and played with his chopstick in pensive silence for a while, then stuck them in the pile of rice in his bowl.
“Don’t do that,” said Satō sternly. “It brings bad luck.”
“Sorry,” he mumbled and put the chopsticks on the wooden rest.
So many things to remember.
“Look, I… I never apologised for that…outburst in the forest.”
She looked at him, puzzled, then remembered. “It’s Dōraku-sama you should apologise to, not me.”
I couldn’t care less about him.
“I wanted to talk with you, first.”
She sighed. “It’s all right. We were all stressed. Still are.”
Tentatively, he reached out his hand to cover hers. She twitched, but didn’t move it.
“I… ” He struggled for words.
This would be so much easier if I knew at all what I wanted to say.
A bottle of saké appeared on the table with a soft clank. Satō immediately withdrew her hand.
The landlady bowed with an apologetic smile. “It’s a flask of our finest,” she said. “I hope you will forget this little… incident, client-sama.”
“I’ll go check on Nagomi,” said Satō, standing up.
The inside of his satchel was filled with blue light.
Bran had opened the bag to take out the notepad and pencil. He wanted to make some notes to clear his mind, as he had been doing since the night in the tomb of the Ancients, but seeing the light seeping through the hinges of the black lacquer box made him forget all about the journal.
He took the ring out of the box and the brightness almost blinded him at first. He guessed quickly the reason for the jewel’s dazzling radiance. Since they had descended into the valley, Bran had been feeling his connection with Emrys greatly increased. The dragon was really close now, the Farlink amplified. Even though the beast was still fast asleep, he could now sense the direction and distance precisely to where it was being kept. The blue stone must have been reacting to this proximity.
Now I definitely can’t be wearing it in public, he thought with regret.
To fit the box and notepad neatly back int
o the satchel he first had to take out the dragon figurine. He had almost forgotten about it. He had seen so many other dragon sculptures and carvings all over the Yamato that the little statuette seemed no longer to hold any importance. He kept it out of sentiment — it reminded him of Samuel and the crew of MFS Ladon, of the birthday on board the great ship. But if there ever came the need to discard any items from his luggage, the red dragon would have been among the first to go…
He was about to put it back and close the bag for the day, when the carved letters on the figurine’s base caught his attention. He scratched his nose in thought.
There was a knock on the door. Nagomi quickly wiped her eyes.
“It’s me,” said the boy, “I… I brought some fruit.”
She nodded at Satō to slide the door open. Bran sat down by Nagomi’s futon with a reassuring smile.
“Here,” he said, handing her the peeled fruit.
“Thank you.”
She wasn’t hungry, but was grateful for the gesture. The boy opened his satchel.
“That’s not really what I came here for. I just remembered something.”
He took out the red lacquer figurine of the dragon, the cheap and tacky Kiyō souvenir.
“You said your father — your real father — signed his letters to your mother with four letters.”
“Yes.”
“I thought it may have been a coincidence, but… I doubt there would be two men with such strange initials.”
He showed her the figurine’s base, scratched with four symbols.
“I… I can’t read that.”
Satō leaned over.
“Are these letters of some kind? I noticed these marks when you first showed us the statuette.”
“These are Latin letters, the alphabet they use in Rome.”
“What do they say?”
Nagomi’s heart was beating furiously, as if after a long run, though she didn’t know why.
“P — F — V — S.”
“No!” she cried and turned away. The tears returned and started flowing down her cheeks uncontrollably. “That’s a very bad joke.”
“It’s true. I promise.”
“But how?” asked Satō, “how is this possible?”
“My father said he got it from a Bataavian physician. It must have been your — ”
“It’s too much of a coincidence,” Nagomi said firmly, holding back the sobs. She could not help her tears and did not know how to stop them. “This… this must have been some other Bataavian. Maybe it’s a common name.”
“That’s not what Kazuko-hime would have said,” Bran replied.
She sniffed and turned back to him. She reached out her hand.
“Can I…”
“Of course,” Bran replied, “it belongs to you.”
It was smooth and warm, like Bran’s hand when he had taken her away from the marketplace.
“Kazuko-hime…”
Is this your sign? Is this your response to my prayers?
Yellow sulphurous mist descended on the Sendai valley in the morning. The air was warm and thick with dew, making it difficult to breathe, not to mention walk. Dark clouds returned, coming from all directions like a besieging army.
She had on her straw hood, but decided not to dye her hair after all. Bran’s miraculous discovery had cheered her up greatly and restored her fortitude.
They halted at the crossroad, on the outskirts of the town. Several bridleways were spreading from here, all leading roughly south.
“Which road do you wish to take?” asked Dōraku.
“Which one leads to Kirishima?” Bran replied with a question.
Why Kirishima? She looked at Satō, but the wizardess only shook her head and shrugged. We might as well, her eyes seemed to say.
“The town or the shrine?”
“Is there a difference?”
“The shrine is farther up. Closer to the fire mountains.”
“The shrine, then.”
The samurai nodded. “This way.”
He stepped upon the path leading straight towards the tallest of the sharp mountaintops on the southern horizon.
“I hope you bought enough supplies.”
“Why?”
“Because it will take us three days to reach the shrine and we’re not stopping anywhere along the way.”
“Three days? I can’t wait that long,” Bran whispered. The three of them marched a short distance behind their guide. The road was rarely used and badly in need of repairs.
“Why are you in such a hurry? What’s in Kirishima?” asked Satō.
“My dragon,” the boy replied and winced, “we need to hurry.”
She drew her breath, a little too loud. Master Dōraku turned to them.
“Is something wrong?”
“No, it’s fine. Is this the fastest route to the shrine?”
The samurai chuckled.
“You should already know you can’t afford to follow the fast routes. Whoever your enemies are, they will be expecting you.”
“He’s leading us into a trap,” Bran murmured.
“You said the same when he guided us to the tengu’s house, and then when we climbed down the mountains,” she replied, “and he’s right about the enemies — the Crimson Robe would expect us to take the main road.”
“I thought we wanted the Crimson Robe to find us. How else are you going to find out what happened to your father?”
“I thought you might want to get your dorako first. We could use it in a fight.”
He did not respond, picking up the pace instead.
We never discussed it before, she realised as the boy marched a few paces before her. What if he doesn’t want to help us? What if he only cares about his beast?
Not everyone was as selfless as Master Dōraku, after all. The samurai guided them tirelessly through the towns and wilderness, just because Yōkoi-dono had asked him to. She was growing weary of Bran’s suspicions. Even Nagomi seemed apprehensive towards their guide. Why couldn’t they just let him be? He was as cheerful and open as the few men she had met. So what if he had secrets — who among them didn’t have any?
He was following the Way of the Sword and, she was raised to believe, wielding the swords with utmost skill required a clear mind and a pure heart. She only had to remember that knave, Tokojirō — a coward and a traitor who managed to get himself disarmed by a confused Westerner.
And he was guiding them well. The volcanic peaks emerging from the mist seemed much closer by afternoon. The road started climbing upwards again. The villages and fields grew sparse, replaced by low growing, thin islands of forest in the sea of short, bright green grass growing over the ancient lava flows. The weather turned for the worse. It was the beginning of the rainy season in this southernmost corner of Yamato. The clouds, gathering since morning, finally released their waters in a torrential downpour, beating upon the travellers with a force of a mountain waterfall. Shivering under their straw raincoats, they climbed still upwards across the rocky, torn highland. The stinking brimstone vapours had been dispersed by the rain.
“At least now I know we won’t suffocate — we’ll drown,” Bran remarked wryly.
In these conditions they managed to traverse a far shorter distance than she had expected before having to stop, exhausted. Master Dōraku led them to a small copse of thin, gnarled pine trees. He pulled out a large measure of tent cloth from the bag and wrapped it around the branches, forming a very rudimentary shelter from the elements.
“I’d prefer to face our enemies than this weather,” said Bran, preparing his bedding on the wet soil.
Will his whining never stop?
Satō rolled her eyes.
And to think I almost let him kiss me. Again. What had she been thinking? And after she had promised herself…
“You’ll be fine. We’ll soon start a fire,” said the samurai.
The bleak weather managed to turn even him grim and sullen. He picked up some wood from around
the thicket, but it was all wet. Satō tried to help him light the campfire, but the firesticks got damp and could not produce even the tiniest of sparks.
“Or maybe not,” Master Dōraku commented their efforts with a joyless smile.
“Oh by the Dragon’s Breath…”
Bran reached out towards the pile of firewood and flicked his fingers. A wide tongue of flame spewed from his hand and the wood burst with a bright blaze.
The samurai looked genuinely surprised for the first time since they had met him. He scratched his thin beard in wonder.
“I couldn’t stand another night in the cold,” the boy said with a shrug, “besides, it wasn’t that easy before. We’re now much closer to the...”
He glanced at the samurai nervously.
“...source of power.”
“Yes, there is a strong vortex of mystic energies nearby,” Master Dōraku agreed. “All magic in its vicinity will probably be similarly strengthened.”
“And how do you know that?” Bran asked suspiciously, “are you a wizard as well? Is he telling the truth?” he turned to the wizardess.
Satō wasn’t sure what to answer, but then she remembered her glove — she took it from her bag and studied the dial. It was fluctuating, trembling, as if great streams of magical energies flowed through it.
“He’s right!”
Eager to test the discovery, she scrambled out of her bedding and cast a small freezing spell at a branch of a nearby tree. To her surprise, the whole tree became covered with solid ice from root to top. She jumped back, startled by her own power.
“Eeh! A fire wizard and an ice wizard!” the samurai exclaimed, “what fascinating company I find myself in! Are you a mage as well, priestess-sama?” he asked Nagomi. The priestess raised her eyes as if frightened that somebody would mention her.
“None of your business,” barked Bran before Nagomi could answer.
“Bran!”
Satō clasped her mouth, shocked. The samurai glanced at the boy in amusement.
“What about that vortex of energies you’ve mentioned?” Bran asked quickly, avoiding her accusing stare.
“The Takachiho Mountain.”
“Takachiho Mountain...” Nagomi repeated, whispering the words like a prayer.
“Ame no Uzume asked again — where shall you go and where shall the August Grandchild go? He answered and said — the child of the Heavenly Deity will proceed to the peak of Kushifuru at Takachiho, and I will go to the upper waters of Isuzu at Sanada in Ise,” Master Dōraku recited.
The Year of the Dragon Omnibus Page 53
