“Emrys!” he cried and ran the rest of the way.
“Be careful, boy,” the General shouted a warning, his voice surprisingly anxious, almost afraid. “It’s completely wild.”
He was right. The dragon paid no attention to Bran. It hopped madly from rock to rock, from crag to crag, flapping its wings in vain and roaring helplessly. Something was keeping it from leaving the canyon. As the boy approached, the beast calmed down a little, but there was no recognition in its snake-like eyes. The dragon crouched with its claws forward, baring its teeth and hissing.
Bran sensed fear suffused with anger. It took him a while to realise what it meant: whatever this creature inside his mind was he could reach it with his thoughts. Did it mean anything in the real world? That remained to be seen, but he had to try.
He came forward with a hand reached out, sending soothing, calming thoughts. He had no idea how to tame a wild dragon, and didn’t even know something like this was even possible.
This is not a real dragon, he reminded himself. This is all in your head.
“Easy, easy,” he said, “good boy, good Emrys…”
The beast’s flared nostrils narrowed, its jaw clenched. His snake eyes glinted. With a great effort Bran took another step, and then another. He was trembling, affected by the dragon’s aura of fear. He summoned a tarian almost inadvertently. With one more step he was close enough to touch the beast. He moved his hand slowly.
The dragon spat fire; it was just a warning shot, but without the tarian it would burn him badly. The boy ignored the flames and pressed on. The dragon twitched its wings. Finally Bran laid his trembling hand on the warm, jade green scales and a jolt came through his body, like an electric spark. The dragon snorted and puffed sparks and smoke, but did not move away. Bran felt its emotions flow clearly without disruptions; he sent back an order. The dragon lowered its head in submission. The Farlink between phantom dragon and its rider had been established.
Bran leapt onto the mount’s neck. Even though the dragon wasn’t real, it felt great to be able to fly again. He flew back to the top of the black hill and landed — with some effort — near Shigemasa.
“Come, Taishō!” he said, laughing. “This will be faster than walking!”
“You seem perky today,” said Satō. She was grinning herself, wearing an over-sized blue kimono she had borrowed from their host — her vermillion Rangaku outfit sadly damaged beyond repair. She still avoided looking him too long in the eyes, though.
“Things don’t look as bleak when you’re rested,” the boy replied with a smile. He had no heart to worry today.
“Are we going already?” he asked, seeing her and Nagomi step down from the porch and into the sandals. “I thought — ”
“We’re going to the town. And so are you. Hurry up.”
“No, I’ll stay here with Torishi. I don’t need anything.”
Satō covered her month and sniggered. “Have you seen yourself lately? You need new clothes. And a barber.”
A barber?
He picked up a small glass mirror lying on the shoe cupboard and studied his still unfamiliar Yamato face. His hair had grown long and unruly, sticking out in tufts and clumps. The scar left by the sickle had healed up by now, but there seemed to be a layer of dirt on his cheeks... He touched his face.
I need a shave.
He hadn’t shaved before; the Prydain grew beards late and slow. He wasn’t even sure he knew how to do it. Dylan used magically imbued razors, which made the task much easier, and Bran doubted they had such devices here.
“All right,” he said, putting the mirror down. Only now did he notice the Bataavian runes ‘V.O.C.’ on the back.
Western glass.
“But let’s try to be back before lunch.”
It was well past noon when, rested and refreshed, they followed the samurai and his wife to the Hayato Harbour. They were all wearing their new clothes: Satō wore a plain grey kimono and black hakama; Nagomi’s travel clothes were pale yellow, and Bran managed to find a robe of the same dark indigo colour as his previous one. The Aoki crest of a mountain reflecting in the water had been hastily transferred onto the shoulders of the new outfit by the old tailor.
Their new travel bundles had been filled with necessary supplies: a waterskin and a small flask of saké, seaweed-rolled rice buns and dried rice crackers, straw sandals, bandages, a folded razor marked with Bataavian runes and a sharpening stone for the swords. To Bran’s delight, the Hayato cobblers had a small supply of sandals large enough for his Western feet. For the first time in a long while he could walk the cobbled streets comfortably.
Hayato was just a small fishing port, but their host managed to find a merchant boat heading for Kagoshima that was big enough to fit all of four of them.
“I hope you will have a swift and pleasant journey,” the samurai said.
“I’m sorry for your trouble,” said Satō.
“It’s no trouble at all!” the samurai’s wife replied, waving her hands, “it’s the least we could do after what happened to you in the mountains. We wouldn’t want you to think badly of Satsuma.”
“I forgot to ask,” Bran turned to the samurai just before boarding the boat, “were the machines in the fields yours?”
“Oh, no, no. They belong to His Excellency, Shimazu-dono. He’s just testing them out on my fields. You should check out the wizardry school near His Excellency’s castle, if that’s the sort of thing you’re after.”
“And if you happen to meet a young man named Sugimoto, tell him his mother is very proud,” added the woman, wiping a tear from her eye.
The couple stood on the pier, waving to the departing boat until they were just two specks on the horizon.
“It must be a long time since they’ve seen their son,” said Nagomi, waving back. “ I wonder what my parents are doing right now…”
A sudden gust of wind filled the ship’s sail and she had to sit down and hold on to the bench.
“A school of wizards…” said Satō after a while, “I wonder if they were the ones we met in Kirishima.”
“I’m surprised they haven’t heard anything from the shrine yet,” said Bran, scratching his cheek; his skin felt itchy after the barber’s blade, especially around the scar. “It’s been what, a week?”
“They are a bit out of the way here,” replied Satō, “I suspect the news has to reach Kagoshima first.”
“What’s it like, this Kagoshima? Have you ever been there?”
The wizardess nodded.
“A few times with my father. It’s a big city, almost as big as Kiyō. Maybe even larger, now — it keeps on growing.”
The boat rocked again on a rogue wave. The enclosed bay was calmer than the open sea; still the girls sat tightly on their bench, not daring to look over the edge of the boat. Bran looked up to Torishi who stood on the prow proudly, like some old sea dog, unflinching as the salty waves splashed against his face. It was the first time Bran saw him happy.
“I’ve never seen anything so flat before,” the bear-man yelled over the wind. “All the way to the horizon in every direction. It’s like standing on top of the tallest mountain in the world! And look, the Fire Mountain is ablaze again!”
The boat slowed down, entering the narrow strait. They were approaching Kagoshima Harbour, and the waters of the Kinko Bay grew crowded with fishing boats and cargo ships. The wharf was flanked by a massive, slanting, stone wall, topped with what looked to Bran like modern cannons. On the opposite side of the strait the majestic Sakurajima loomed over the bay like a fist aimed towards the Heavens in defiance.
The ground shook as if in earthquake as three hundred kin of flesh slammed against the sand of the arena.
The crowd went wild, shouting the name of their champion: Kyūkichi! Kyūkichi! The wrestler stood calm, with his head modestly bowed, grinning discreetly.
The referee waited until Kyūkichi’s opponent gathered his huge bulk off the ground, and then pointed the wooden paddle a
t the winner.
“Undefeated for a record twenty five games. The strongest man in Chinzei — Unryū Kyūkichi!”
The spectators cheered for more than a minute before the referee raised his paddle once again, prompting them to silence.
“This concludes today’s tournament — unless there is another contender amongst you?”
Shakushain pushed his way through and stepped into the light.
“I will fight.”
The crowd jeered and booed him. Not only was he too lean and slim to be a wrestler, his thick beard and long hair betrayed a foreigner. There was no place for the likes of him at the sacred arena.
The assistants rushed to remove him from the sand, but the reigning champion raised his hand to stop them.
“No, wait. Let him in.”
Shakushain took off his cloak and handed it to the little dark-skinned man standing beside him. The crowd fell silent; they had never seen anyone whose muscles were so taut and perfectly toned; the geometric tattoos which covered his entire body were also a sight to behold. He basked in the spectators’ amazement for a while before crouching down to the starting line.
“I know you,” said Kyūkichi. “You’re the Northerner who defeated Taniemon last year.”
“He said I cheated. I was banned from the East Division.”
“He was lying. I saw the fight. You beat him fair and square. I haven’t seen a Mitokorozeme like that in a long time.”
Shakushain smiled and bowed. The champion performed a brief ritual dance and stomped his legs, then entered the ring, threw salt on the sand to banish evil spirits, and crouched in front of his opponent.
Will he be the one who gives me a good fight? The Northerner thought, hopeful, assessing Kyūkichi’s frame and stance.
His quest so far had been a series of disappointments. The Shamo — or Yamato, as the Southerners called themselves — liked to brag about being the greatest warriors on Earth. But most of them learned to fight with spears, swords and bows; and he had defeated all the sumo wrestlers with little difficulty and no satisfaction. The bears and sea lions in his frozen northern homeland had put up more of a fight than these walking mountains of fat.
The referee marked the start of the fight. A lesser wrestler would have charged instantly at Shakushain, hoping to throw him off balance with the pure mass of his body. Kyūkichi just stared at the Northerner, studying his posture, the way his muscles rippled underneath the tattoos. Shakushain did the same, looking for weak points; there was no flaw in Kyūkichi’s stance.
“Go on! Go on!” the referee urged them.
At last, the Shamo wrestler charged. Shakushain’s muscles tensed and he let out a cry when the full weight of his opponent slammed into his chest. His feet slid dangerously on the sand, but he managed to hold just before the edge of the arena. The two men grappled with each other, trying to force one another to make an error of judgment. Sweat made their bodies slippery, making it difficult for Shakushain to get a grip.
This is no time for cheap tricks.
The Shamo’s skill left no place for special throws or undercuts; however Shakushain tried to pull or push, Kyūkichi responded in kind, his body nimble and pliable.
Only pure strength can settle this one.
At last, Shakushain managed to grab his opponent’s thick loincloth in both hands. The crowd gasped as Kyūkichi’s feet left the ground. The Shamo twisted and turned in Shakushain’s grasp, but in vain. Straining his muscles almost to the limit, the Northerner took a step back, then another. His calves trembled under the wrestler’s weight. Feeling the rope surrounding the ring touch his heels, he turned around and let go; Kyūkichi flew outside the arena and landed, with a great thud, on the wooden floor.
In the silence that followed, Kyūkichi’s laughter and clapping resonated loudly.
“Come with me!” the wrestler said, not bothering to get up from the floor. “Join my stable! I will make you rich.”
Shakushain forced a smile, bowed, took his symbolic trophy from the stunned referee’s hands and picked up his cloak from the little dark-skinned man. He had no mood for celebrating the victory. He spotted a glimpse of crimson in the audience and that spoiled his humour for the rest of the day.
The Crimson Robe found him outside the hall. He slid his hand across his chest in the Northern greeting.
“Irankarapte,” he said.
“He.”
“And who might that be?” the Crimson Robe looked at the little man at Shakushain’s side.
“A friend from the North.”
“That’s a curious necklace.”
The little man was wearing a jagged shard of blue glass tied on a leather cord. He covered it with his hand.
“What do you want?” barked Shakushain. “I don’t need you anymore.”
The Fanged smiled. “It is I that needs you. For a hunt.”
“I don’t hunt people.”
“I know. This time I’m after a beast.”
A beast?
“I’m listening.”
CHAPTER 7
The fine black dust screeched under Bran’s feet. The street sweepers may have all gone to sleep, but the Sakurajima Mountain was still awake, blowing up ash almost incessantly through the night, among the silent lightning strikes. The city of Kagoshima was the first he had seen in Yamato where the streets had not been immaculately clean. Not even an army of dedicated cleaners could defeat the inexhaustible power of the volcano.
Bran walked the swiftly darkening streets of the trade district, past the shops and inns closing, and saké stores and pleasure joints opening for the evening. He had an unusual guide into the night life of the bustling city: the General Itakura Shigemasa.
It started with a conversation they had had a few hours earlier. Bran and the others had eaten a rich supper at an inn Satō remembered from her travels with her father. Almost all the dishes served were fish — deep-fried in bronze paste, tiny marinated herrings, big chunks of rockfish, which tasted remarkably like the chicken, slices of succulent raw tuna — all this served with lashings of buckwheat noodles, polished rice and crisp pickles, and doused with cha and best local shōchū mixed with hot water. Later they had been asking around for some news and rumours that could lead Bran towards the dragon, but with no results, and Satō had decided they would have to visit the wizardry school the next morning.
“They will know,” she said, before going to the room she shared with Nagomi.
Bran had retreated into his mind again and found the jade dragon still there, strolling about the red dust plain not far from the tower. Shigemasa was sitting at a safe distance from the beast, observing it curiously.
Bran approached the dragon, and this time it let him touch its scales without objection. The buzz of the Farlink once again filled the boy’s head. It was very faint, barely a murmur, but Bran was almost certain this time that he had reached through to the real Emrys. There was no trace of sentience in the stream of emotions he received, just the beastly rage, the confusion and the hunger… He let go, and the dragon trotted off by a few paces before lying down to sleep. Bran turned to the General.
“Why have you shown me this, Taishō?”
Shigemasa chortled and stroked his beard.
“For too long I had to watch you and your little troupe wander aimlessly the length and breadth of Chinzei. A dragon hunt sounds much more exciting. But tell me boy, did it work?”
Bran looked back at the phantom dragon.
“It… seems to be working. But I never heard about anything like this being attempted before. When a dragon goes wild it cannot be re-tamed and there is no other way but to kill it.”
“But isn’t that what you were planning to do?” Shigemasa raised his eyebrows. “I thought I was just giving you a way to track the beast down and slay it.”
“I don’t want to slay Emrys,” Bran said, “I want to save him.”
The General scratched his chin in thought.
“I can’t say I know a lo
t about these things, boy, but I trust your judgement. I’m glad we can start doing something useful for a change.”
Bran felt a change in the way the Spirit was treating him.
“We,” he said.
“I’m grateful for your help,” said Bran. “If there’s anything I can do…”
The samurai’s eyes glinted and his face brightened in a grin.
“Tell me, did the wizard girl give you some more of her gold coins?”
“We split the treasure among the three of us, but what —”
“Put on your kimono, boy,” said Shigemasa, standing up, “I’ll show you the side of Yamato you haven’t yet seen.”
Kagoshima was a narrow city, hemmed in between the sea and the hills, and there was only one direction to cross it — north to south along the main street, across the river, past the merchant storehouses and into a district that was built-up more densely. Two- and three-story buildings lined the narrow, criss-crossing alleyways.
“I’ve only been in this city once,” said Shigemasa, “but it shouldn’t be hard to find the right place. Just follow the noise!”
There was nothing of Kiyō’s nightly quiet here. The part of the city Bran ventured into seemed more alive after dusk than by day. The streets, illuminated by red paper lanterns, teemed with people, a forest of colourful paper umbrellas protecting their heads and clothes from the omnipresent dust. It didn’t take Bran long to realise that the crowds were made predominantly of adult men, and that all the women either hung off the shoulders of their male companions, or stood in small groups in the doorways, laughing and shouting at the passers-by, revealing their painted necks and white ankles seductively.
“Wait a minute,” said Bran, stopping in the middle of the street, “I may not be experienced in these matters, but even I know what this place is.”
“Ignore them, boy. Tonight we seek a more refined pleasure. Turn here, after that palanquin.”
Bran followed the ornate vehicle carried by four tall porters into another street. This one was wider and not as crowded, paved with small square stones. There were only a few buildings here, sprawling mansions hiding behind tall earthwork walls daubed with red plaster. Armed guards stood before each gate.
The Year of the Dragon Omnibus Page 78
