The wolf spirits disappeared, having fulfilled their purpose, leaving Dōraku’s corpse exposed to the elements but also allowing it to slowly regenerate. The spell started working its way through the wounds as soon as the battle was over. Shredded veins and tendons linked up, nerve connections began slowly rebuilding themselves, muscles and skin grew back over the gashes and lacerations.
Dōraku needed neither blood nor oxygen to function. His heart, even fully regenerated, lay still in his chest without a single beat. His lungs did not move, no air pumped in or out of the trachea even as it grew fully back from the damage done by the wolf spirit’s jaw. Even though they did not perform any vital functions anymore, the spell’s power unhurriedly restored his inner organs to their former state.
His consciousness slowly returning, Dōraku moved fingers first of his right, then left hand, making sure he could feel the hilts of his swords. The muscles and tendons in his limbs were not yet fully regenerated and all he could do was lie and wait for full control of his motor functions to come back eventually. He felt the warm rays of the midday sun on his newly regrown skin and concluded it was a pleasant feeling, like lying half-asleep in a warm bed, long into the late morning hours.
He knew not how many hours or days had passed since the battle with the wolf ghosts. Since he could open his eyes, a night and half a day had gone by and that was his only frame of reference. At noon he could bend his wrists and wiggle his toes, move muscles of his face. In the afternoon, he could move his hand to where his waist had been and touch the soft leather of the salt pouch. The lungs and throat were not yet reinstated enough for him to speak comfortably, but it was only a matter of hours at worst.
A shadow fell across his face. A tall man towered over him, blocking the sun.
“It’s your own fault, you know, old friend. Why drink a wolf’s blood when there were so many humans to choose from?”
“Ganryū,” Dōraku whispered hoarsely, straining his newly reborn voice box, “I have never been your friend.”
The crimson clad Fanged stood leaning on the scabbard of his great two-handed nodachi sword, his long hair flowing in the dry hot wind, his silhouette black against the midday sun. He chuckled.
“Now, now. Don’t you remember all the good times we had?”
“Have you come to reminisce, or to brag?”
“I have no time for either. I only wanted to make sure you won’t be standing in my way tonight.”
“Tonight? What day is it?”
“The seventh.”
“Four days and you still haven’t made your move?”
Ganryū shrugged, “There’s been a troop of Hosokawa’s retainers in the shrine. I don’t wish to antagonize Kumamoto right now through impatience.”
“Hosokawa will never join your cause.”
“We’ll see about that once I get my hands on the dragon.”
“The dragon is in the shrine?” Dōraku tried to laugh but his throat failed him. “Then you can’t get anywhere near it.”
“Unlike you, I don’t work alone. My people don’t share our hindrances. All I have to do is to wait for them to come back with the dorako. Isn’t it precious, Takezō? Or whatever name you are using for yourself these days.”
The man in the crimson robe leaned closer towards Dōraku’s tense face.
“I can’t join my team, but neither can you help your companions. I wonder who will prevail in this contest; three city kids or a troop of trained warriors and assassins?”
“You underestimate them.”
“Perhaps. I wouldn’t mind a challenge for a change. Your performance against my wolves was sorely disappointing.”
He examined Dōraku’s body. “You regenerate faster than I expected.”
“It’s the Takachiho Mountain.”
Ganryū pulled out the great sword from its sheath in a slow, deliberate move.
“I’ve always wondered how long it would take you to regrow your head.”
He raised the nodachi to strike down, but at the same instant Dōraku swung his right arm at the Fanged’s feet. Ganryū leapt at the last moment, somersaulting back a few steps. The katana cut through the air with a whistle. Dōraku brought his left hand up, throwing the pouch of salt at his opponent.
Ganryū cried out and spluttered, cursing and rubbing the white crystals out of his eyes.
“I don’t have time for this,” he snorted, “by the time you’ll be able to stand up, I’ll be long gone.”
With that, the Crimson Robe turned away and walked down the slope towards Kirishima.
The Admiral seemed frail, weak and somehow older. The green cloth of the infirmary tent cast an unhealthy hue on his wrinkled face.
“That was a good battle,” he said quietly and burst into a dry cough.
“We were reckless,” said Dylan. He, Edern and the Admiral’s aide-de-camp were sitting by the old man’s bed. “That’s the second ship I lost to the Rebels on my watch.”
“Every ship’s destiny is to sink,” the Admiral said. “Victory is all that matters.”
“And we’ve won splendidly,” said Edern, “though our losses were great.”
“The enemy’s losses were much greater,” said Dylan with a bitter smile. “The Ever Victorious Army is what our troops are called now. By the Emperor’s edict!”
“And by my edict, they will now have a Commodore to lead them.”
Reynolds gestured feebly at his aide-de-camp. The young man reached into his pocket and gave Dylan a sealed envelope.
“If I could make you an Admiral, I would,” the old man said. “A better soldier I have not seen since my father’s death. And the Pointy-Beard will respect you more if you have a proper rank. I could see how uneasy he was, having to deal with a mere Ardian.”
“Thank you, Sir, that’s a great honour.”
“I only wish I could see all the victories you will win, Commodore.”
“Perhaps after you return from your assignment at Ta Du — “
The Admiral laughed and then started coughing again. Blood spattered the bed sheet. He looked at the mangled, twisted remains of what was once his right arm. His iron leg was torn off at the knee.
“I am nothing but a broken machine… I should have died with my ship, but I won’t fall far behind her. It doesn’t matter. I had a long life. All my old crew mates are gone — from the Culloden, the Terpsichore, the Phaeton…”
His eyes opened wide.
“The Phaeton! That’s what I wanted to tell you about!”
“Sir?”
The Admiral looked around him. “This is too confidential even for our lieutenants.”
Edern and the other young man nodded and left.
“Tell me, Commodore, did your father ever tell you about the time we invaded Yamato?”
Yamato? Is he delirious?
“No, Sir.”
“Good.” The Admiral chuckled lightly. “So he had kept his oath. We were all sworn to secrecy as soon as we returned from that accursed place — and paid well to keep it.”
“Paid?”
“How else do you think I could have afforded all this?” He pointed to the remains of his automated limbs and chuckled again. “Even after I was abandoned by my own men in shark-infested waters… But it doesn’t matter. I’ve kept my part of the bargain. But it didn’t mean I forgot — oh no, I never forgot it, and I bet neither did Ifor, for his own particular reasons.”
With an increasingly weakening voice, in short sentences interspersed with bouts of coughing, the Admiral told the astonishing story of the Phaeton’s raid on the city of Keeyo and the harbour of Dejeema and of the mysterious woman they had brought back to Dracaland.
“Dejeema!” Dylan whispered, remembering suddenly. “Bran asked me about that place the night before the disaster.”
The Admiral nodded. “That would confirm my suspicions. I figured if your boy was somewhere in Qin, we’d have heard about it already. Even if the magic transported him all the way to Fan Yu or Temasek
, we would have had some news by now. But there is nothing. And there is only one place secretive enough for this to happen.”
He wheezed loudly, but managed to stop himself from coughing. What he had to say was too important.
“What if your son had found some information about his grandfather’s journey? Maybe even some souvenir from it? Something Ifor had brought with him to Gwynedd? Could this have influenced the way the Seal worked?”
“The ring…”
“What’s that?”
“My father gave Bran a ring and told him to always keep it with him. We never learned where it came from. A shard of a blue stone.”
The Admiral closed his eyes, straining to remember.
“The memories are faint after so many years… That woman. She wore a brooch of gold with a blue stone around her waist. She and Ifor were very close. I don’t remember what happened to her — I think she was taken away when we moored at Brigstow.”
“But if all this is true…” Dylan said, thinking quickly, “and if Bran really is in Yamato right now, then that means — he’s lost to me! Nobody knows the way to Yamato.”
“Ah! But — no!” the Admiral cried, raising himself off the pillow, “there is a greater secret than the Phaeton’s journey!”
He fell back and breathed hard for a while.
“My aide will give you access to all my papers,” he continued at last, “what’s left of them after the Wintoncaestre blew up. There you will find coded notes — the boy knows the code.”
“The Bataavians changed the course of their ships after the Phaeton incident. I have tried to figure out where the new passage was, but then… my crew got restless again… and I was reassigned to the Cape Colony, not long after we got it from Bataavians.. It was there that I met a certain doctor, a spy in Bataavian employ. He told me everything.”
The Admiral paused, gathering strength.
“There is only one ship in the year, and only its pilot knows the route. It sets sail from New Bataave in the late spring, past Temasek and Tagalogs. You will find all this in the notes.”
“Late spring — that’s… right now.”
“Exactly.”
The Admiral closed his eyes and focused on breathing. Dylan could see life trickling away from the frail body.
“You will do with this knowledge as you see fit,” the Admiral whispered with increasing difficulty. “I trust you will... make the right decision.”
He said nothing else. Dylan waited a moment and then touched the Admiral’s wrist; there was no pulse. He stood up quietly and went outside.
He woke up feeling something was not right. The tent seemed somehow different in the pink light of dawn, the bedding was in the wrong position, and the table was folded.
A warm, soft hand touched his shoulder and then he remembered.
“Good morning, Commodore,” said Gwenllian. He sighed.
“The night was too short.”
“And now you’re off again.”
“There’s a war on, you know,” he said, smiling.
“Not right now. The battle is over.”
“The Bohan’s armies are still besieging Shanglin. They will need our help.”
“Let them fight it out themselves. I’m still not sure we should be helping the Emperor rather than the Heavenly Army.”
He chuckled. “Not you too! I find it hard enough to quell rebellious moods among the ensigns.”
“And who can blame them? I despise the Ta Du court. Have you seen what they are doing with their women?”
“You mean the feet? It’s been like that for centuries.”
“The Rebels have disallowed that custom. And they are giving away the land to the poor peasants for free.”
“But they refuse to trade with the West. They decline our envoys and kill our smugglers.”
“And that is reason enough? That they don’t want to peddle the Cursed Weed?”
“You sound like Bran.” He shook his head and sat up, reaching for the uniform.
“Don’t go yet,” she pleaded. “I’m sorry.”
She ran her fingers down his back, scratching the scars left on his body by all the dragons he had once ridden. A pleasant shiver ran down his spine. He thought about something for a moment, looking through the white canvas walls at the rising sun.
“Come with me,” he said. “There is still some time before the siege recommences. I want to show you something.”
They flew on the back of Afreolus over the vast, flat plain south of the river, a battlefield stretching from where the Ever Victorious Army had first made its landfall to the walls of Shanglin overlooking a long and narrow lake. The Bohan’s army encircled the city on all sides.
“Is this what you wanted to show me?” asked Gwenllian. “How the Emperor’s Army destroys the last Rebel stronghold between here and Jiangkang?”
“No.”
The silver dragon dived towards the southern end of the lake. Dylan landed it on a spur of land between two outflows, beside a ruined villa of some Qin dignitary. He led her down an overgrown path to a green mound. Bits of white protruded from among the grass.
“Are these… bones?” she said with a shudder.
“Porcelain. But come over here.”
She joined him at the top of the mound and, looking down, gasped. The ground beneath was strewn with shards of pottery as far as the eye could see, white, ivory and celadon green.
“These are the great celadon kilns of Yue — or what’s left of them after the centuries of wars that rolled through these plains.”
“Why are you showing me this?”
He did not answer. Something caught his eye, glinting in the sun. He came down and rustled through the pot shards. He found a piece of celadon pottery, a large round bead, an inch in diameter, polished so smoothly it seemed like a true gemstone — a piece of beryl or jade. Some hair-thin Qin characters were carved carefully into the clay, but they were eroded beyond recognition. There was some magic still left in the stone; Dylan could feel its slight buzz in his hand.
On an impulse, he pulled out the leather cord from the hood of his cape. He threaded the bead onto it and climbed back to the top of the mound, where he tied the cord around Gwenllian’s white neck.
“It’s… it’s beautiful,” she whispered, admiring the jewel’s green shimmer. Her black eyes turned sad.
“Something troubles you.”
He said nothing again, just gazed eastwards, beyond the besieged city, towards the sea.
A sudden roar of guns broke his meditation.
“I have to go,” he said, “that’s the Bohan’s army, breaching the walls of Shanglin.”
CHAPTER XIV
The messenger from Kumamoto galloped for a full night and day across the mountains, without respite, changing horses several times before reaching the procession. He was now resting in the Captain’s palanquin while Kiyomasa walked beside it, carefully perusing his orders, written in the daimyo’s personal code.
“Silk is cheaper than jade. Make friends with the wizards for the time being. The winds blow strong from Higo, but the tide is higher in Sasshu.”
The Captain frowned. The courier was almost too late — Lady Atsuko’s entourage had already departed from the shrine, but they were still close enough to turn back. The first words of the missive meant that the protection of the dorako was more important to Lord Hosokawa than the safety of his ally’s daughter. Kiyomasa was to take as many of his men as he deemed reasonable and go back to Kirishima. It was a risky gamble and a costly one.
The last sentence was an unnecessary reminder of his precarious situation. Lord Hosokawa had sent reinforcements from Kumamoto — Higo in the daimyo’s code — but so had Atsu-hime’s father — Sasshu indicated Satsuma — and these would arrive first. If Lord Nariakira decided to move the dorako again somewhere else, the Captain would be unable to stop him.
“You’re back,” Heishichi said, not even looking up from the scroll he was studying. “Did something hap
pen to the princess?”
There was no sign of worry in his voice, not even a feigned interest.
“Atsu-hime is safely on her way, with the rest of my men. I have returned to aid you with the protection of the Treasure.”
“I don’t remember Shimazu-dono agreeing to this arrangement.”
“I take my orders from Kumamoto, not Kagoshima.”
The wizard finally raised his eyes. He removed his horn-rimmed spectacles and his sad eyes seemed suddenly smaller, narrower. His hands trembled slightly.
“My men are more than capable of taking care of the safety of the shrine.”
“You have not seen what our enemies are capable of.”
“You mean the ghost wolves? Pah!” Heishichi scoffed. “Those onmyōdo tricks are no match for the power of my wizards.”
Kiyomasa struggled not to scowl. Everyone had warned him that Daisen Torii Heishichi was as arrogant as he was bright. “Too clever for his own good” was an often repeated description of the wizard. Too radical, even for the Kiyō community, this merchant’s son could only find a refuge and recognition for his skills at the Satsuma court.
“How many men do you have?”
“Six — and me. The best in Satsuma. I picked them myself.”
“And I have twice that — also hand-picked. I’m sure the shrine can accommodate for all of us without a quarrel.”
“Do as you wish,” the wizard waved his hand, “just try not to disturb me too much. I have a lot of work to do.”
“I would like to see what security you already have in place,” the Captain remained standing. Heishichi crumbled the scroll in his hand and sighed deeply.
“Captain… Kiyomasa, was it? Do you know what we have in there?” he asked, pointing vaguely with his Western-style pencil in the direction of the storehouse. “Something that could change the fate of Yamato. And all the combined powers of Satsuma’s best wizards can do is to keep it bound safely in the cage. I have already lost two men to this beast’s uncontrollable wrath; one of them died. I’m at the end of my wits here, trying to make it do our bidding. And you want to check my security detail?”
The Year of the Dragon Omnibus Page 64
