The Year of the Dragon Omnibus

by James Calbraith

  “I helped her flee Ganryū. Last I saw her she was safe at Dejima.”

  “So you didn’t know the Crimson Robe found her eventually? That he attacked Dejima?”

  Dōraku shook his head. “I was… otherwise occupied. What happened to her?”

  Bran felt strange describing the events of the past to this being, so much older and wiser than himself.

  You always seem to know everything.

  “MS Phaeton arrived in Kiyō at the same time; she fled on board. I think she sailed to Prydain with my grandfather.”

  The Swordsman let out a short laugh.

  “I wish I could have seen Ganryū’s face.”

  “Why was he after her?” asked Bran.

  “She was the last guardian of the Shard of Fukuchiyama.”

  “The Shard of — you mean my ring?”

  Dōraku nodded.

  “It was a part of some powerful artefact Ganryū was trying to collect. Another Tide Jewel, perhaps. He always chased after trinkets like these — and that was reason enough for me to try and stop him.”

  It’s obviously more than just some trinket, Bran thought. The daimyo of Kumamoto wanted it as well, and now…

  “Now Nariakira-sama has it.”

  “So the copy didn’t fool you for long. We couldn’t risk it falling into wrong hands, you understand…”

  “I don’t really care.” Bran waved his hand.

  This is not my war.

  “The stone belongs here, in Yamato,” he said. “To me it was just a memory of my grandfather. This will suffice,” he added, shaking the medallion. “I must be going now.”

  Dōraku stood up and the boy bowed. The samurai bowed back and reached his hand out to Bran.

  “I know this is how you Westerners bid farewell. Farewell, Bran-Karasu-sama.”

  The boy shook the Swordsman’s hand.

  “Farewell Dōraku-sama. Tell Nagomi and Satō, I...” Bran fought back tears welling up in his eyes. He shook his head. “No, don’t tell them anything. I hope they will understand.”

  Shakushain stood among a dozen or so students of the Ganryū Dōjō on the pier, waiting for the supply ship to carry them back to the mainland.

  They all seemed dejected and broken. They had been caught in the fight between demons, so there was neither shame in defeat, nor obligation to die or avenge the Crimson Robe. They were his students — but not his retainers after all; and now it was time for them to search other schools and other masters.

  The ferry’s Captain was surprised to see them, and even more surprised and disappointed about the news that there would be no more need for his services. Shakushain guessed he was already calculating how to recover his losses and where to move on with his business.

  I wonder how Koro is faring. He remembered the last time he saw his small, dark face — under the waves of the Kanmon Strait as they waved at each other: Koro swimming away with strong beats of his short legs, Shakushain strangling one of the grey swordsmen who jumped into the sea with him.

  “The currents of Dan-no-ura are deadly,” he had explained then.

  They were half-way to the shore when the wind and waves around the boat stopped. The sail fluttered and hung impotently. The Captain grunted and gave the few crewmembers an order to row across the flat surface of the Kanmon Straits. Shakushain volunteered for oar duty; at least it was something to keep his mind and body occupied. He hated being idle.

  Several of the students noticed the odd silence and came up to the edge of the boat.

  “Hey, look at this, what’s going on?”

  “The water is calm only around the boat. There’s waves further out.”

  “That’s not natural. Do you think it’s the ghosts of Dan-no-ura?”

  “They only ever come out on stormy nights...”

  “Maybe the Master’s death brought them out.”

  “What’s this?”

  One of them pointed to the sky. Shakushain looked up. A bright, blazing light appeared in the clouds and was falling towards the ship at great speed.

  “It’s going to hit!” somebody cried. “Jump out!”

  But it was too late. The fiery missile struck the boat, shattering through the decks and hull. A ball of flame engulfed the ship and everyone on it, before dissipating in the cold water in a cloud of hot steam.

  The waves and wind returned.

  Torii Heishichi brushed the wooden boards of the pier with a sandal-clad foot, erasing the Falling Star character he had drawn in white chalk. He was breathing heavily, cursing his bad health. He adjusted his spectacles, wiped a trickle of blood from his nose and looked at the sea with satisfaction.

  It was the first time he used it in the field: the first native Yamato spell; not copied and learned from Rangaku books, but created from scratch through the combined efforts of the wizards of Kagoshima. Written in Qin characters instead of Western runes, spoken in Yamato Spell Tongue instead of Bataavian. And it worked perfectly. Where mere moments ago a large supply ship was rowing towards the shore, there was now nothing but silence and emptiness. Only a few smouldering wooden boards bobbed up onto the surface.

  Excellent.

  “No witnesses,” he repeated the daimyo’s order to himself.

  Bran buckled the saddle-bag packed with a little food for the journey, checked the reins, bridle and harness, tightened straps and buckles. He improvised the tack from bits and pieces he had found in Ganryū’s stables. He patted Emrys tenderly on the snout. The dragon answered with a low, welcoming grunt.

  “I bet you can’t wait to leave this place.”

  The dragon snarled.

  “I’m really sorry for everything you had to go through,” said Bran, stroking the thick, scaly neck. He felt guilty for abandoning the dragon — and enraged at those who forced them to stay apart.

  “I’ll make it up to you somehow, I promise. And...” He put his arms around the neck and pressed his forehead against the scales. “I’m so proud of you, Emrys. I really am.” The beast purred and puffed a little wisp of grey smoke.

  Bran jumped on the dragon’s back — no horse saddle was big enough to fit Emrys — put on the goggles, and lightly squeezed the beast’s sides with his knees. It felt great to be able to fly again.

  From the moment they departed the island, Bran noticed something was different. Emrys reacted to commands faster and more smoothly than ever; the sensory feedback was far stronger: Bran felt the wind on his arms as if they were wings; his eyesight grew sharper, and he could swear he started feeling the magical energies on his skin without the need for True Sight.

  Could it be…?

  He leaned down, touching the green scales just like he had in the Otherworld the night before, and closed his eyes. He whispered the spell words and felt his mind meld with that of Emrys in a soft flash of light.

  He became aware of all the minute details of the land below: individual people on the roads and in the fishing boats, sharks and tuna in the ocean, black kites in the sky. He saw the currents of magic running through the air and sensed the flows of the Ninth Wind. He heard the buzz of a distant Farlink, the one he had been sensing for days, now far clearer and precise, coming from the North; four riders, he could tell with remarkable precision. Finally, he felt himself on his back, a light enough burden, clinging precariously to his neck.

  The strain of trying to reconcile being in two places at once made him dizzy and Bran let go of the dragon’s mind, returning to his own body.

  Nobody’s ever done anything like this before, he thought. At least, he’d never heard or read of a Farlink gone so far, or of such strange use of the Dragonform — and if there was any subject he knew about, it was the dragon lore. Something had happened to him and Emrys in Yamato’s Otherworld, something unique; was this Shigemasa’s parting gift?

  He patted the dragon on the neck and breathed deeply.

  CHAPTER 20

  The lights of the city twinkled in the distance like a second Milky Way low over the horizon. I
n the darkness, these flickers and the dark shadows of tall hills above them outlined a wedge-shaped, narrow bay.

  Samuel lowered the peculiar twin-lens spyglass he had borrowed from the Admiral and handed it back to him.

  “How do you like the Porro glasses, Doktor?” asked Otterson.

  “Curious invention,” replied Samuel. “Not as good as a magical spyglass, of course, but impressive for a Roman device.”

  “This is the finest harbour I’ve seen in these waters,” the Admiral said. “Such a waste.”

  “What happens now?”

  “In the morgoen they will spot us.”

  Diana was not able to submerge since the accident, and with the damaged rudder was no longer as nimble as it once was.

  “I hope they will send a pilot to guide us into the harbour.”

  “What if they attack?”

  “The spion said the Yamato have no kanoner that would break through this hull,” the Admiral said, patting the steel plate.

  “He also said they have no mistfire ships.”

  Otterson frowned.

  “With our two kanoner and a torpeder launcher we should be fine. But I’d rather avoid starting another war. Let’s hope they’ll be… how you say… resonlig?”

  “Reasonable,” offered Samuel.

  “Yes. Let’s hope the Yamato officials will be reasonable.”

  The Admiral knocked at the hatch with his staff. It screeched open.

  “Amiral…” Samuel said quietly, “what is behind the door of bronze?”

  Since his discovery, he had been dreaming of the hidden room — dark, heavy dreams of something, or someone, trying to break free.

  Otterson looked sharply at Samuel, then back at the twinkling city in the distance.

  “It’s a weapon, Doktor. One that I hope never to have to use.”

  Satō left Nagomi in the infirmary and went outside; Bran and Dōraku were nowhere to be seen. The courtyard was eerily empty and quiet.

  She passed the wicket gate and climbed the path through the azalea thicket before entering through the rune-covered door into Ganryū’s abandoned mansion. She walked through the narrow, dark, silent corridors. Some of the rooms along the way were opened wide, or even broken into — by the staff of the mansion, trying to loot as much as they could before fleeing, she guessed. There was a fortune scattered on the tatami floors: gold, jewels, overthrown vases, ancient scrolls torn off the walls. An iron-bound chest, still locked. A collection of antique weapons. A cabinet of exotic wood, one of its doors hanging loose from the hinges, another stolen. Satō passed it all by, barely taking notice. She could sense Ganryū’s Curse still lingering on all this treasure and she didn’t want to have anything to do with it.

  On the wooden boards where she had fought the assassin she noticed the stains of spattered blood; she crouched to touch it. There was more of it than she remembered. It was a long fight. If Master Dōraku had not come, I wonder…

  She touched her left shoulder. The pain was still there, faint but distracting. The blade with which Ganryū had wounded her was not of his making, so there was no reason to believe the injury would disappear after his death. Still, she was a little disappointed.

  The patterns of magic she could sense in the mansion had been dissipating since the Crimson Robe’s demise, and were now barely noticeable. Though the wooden walls looked solid, she had a feeling the building will soon fall apart without the blood energy supporting it. Unless some other demon or wizard took the island for his abode, in time there would be nothing left to tell the tale of the Ganryū Dōjō.

  In the garden, among the scorched trees and cratered ground, the remnants of the battle, a few hydrangeas valiantly sprouted blue and purple buds. Satō followed the path to the ruined pavilion. Rubble and ash were strewn everywhere, some still smouldering and crackling with the energy of the powerful magic.

  She picked up one of the still sizzling pieces of rubble. She didn’t need Nagomi’s power of sightseeing to know that what happened last night had been just the first battle of a coming war. She tried to reconstruct what the fight may have looked like, based on what Bran had told her in the morning.

  The Crimson Robe stood there, she imagined, and Bran faced him here. Alone. And stood his ground.

  Bran may not have been a Yamato, and he may have been reluctant to kill, but he had fought as bravely as any samurai. He had proven his worth ten times over.

  Why was I so hard on him?

  Repeatedly spurning his advances must have hurt him.

  Was it all just because he was a foreigner?

  “A proper Yamato boy”, she scoffed. “Is that really what I wanted?”

  She wasn’t sure herself why it was that way.

  Was I afraid he’d disappear, like Nagomi’s father?

  The more Satō thought about it, the angrier she was at her former self. I promised myself a new future, she remembered. And what better chance for a new future could she have than with Bran? For a moment, she clung to the idea of getting help from daimyo of Satsuma. But how much assistance would Lord Nariakira really offer, and how much would she have to bargain for it? She wasn’t so naïve to think he would do anything for her out of good will. Once again she had to face the humiliating reality of being a woman in Yamato. How better could she face the coming war than on the back of his dorako? What other man would appreciate her resolve and independence better than a foreigner, who came from a country ruled by a woman?

  How could I have been so stupid?

  She stood up from the rubble, resolved to seek the boy out and tell him what she had just decided. A cross-shaped shadow passed over the garden; she looked up, just in time to see the jade-green shape disappear into the clouds.

  Bran flew along the coast, just as Dōraku had advised him, but far enough from the land not to be seen by anyone below. The rain clouds parted and the sun was shining at his back. He did not try the mind meld again — he resolved to try it when he was somewhere safe.

  He tried not to think of his decision to leave Yamato. There would be plenty of time for regrets later.

  It was the right thing, he kept telling himself. What else was I supposed to do?

  He was going home, or at least in the direction of home. In a few days he would reach Huating, and then he’d try to find out what had happened to his father and the rest of the Marines. Some of them were bound to have survived… He hadn’t thought about Qin in a long time. What state was the Empire in now? What happened to the rebellion?

  Whatever was going on, he was certain Dylan — if he was still alive — was right in the middle of it.

  By evening, Bran reached an archipelago of small islands around a narrow bay. He unrolled Dōraku’s map to make sure he was in the right place. As he did so, a monogram in the corner of the cartouche caught his eye. Four Roman letters: P.F.V.S.

  Nagomi’s father.

  He studied the map more carefully. It was drawn with a strong, yet precise hand. The shoreline was rendered in great detail but, inland, only certain geographical features were marked: roads, mountain passes, river crossings and local fortresses. Garrison sizes were noted in thin black ink.

  This is a military map. He was a spy after all!

  He couldn’t read any more in the quickly falling twilight. It was time to look for a place to stay the night to rest up before next day’s long flight across the Divine Winds. Bran chose to land on one of the uninhabited islets, far from the ship lanes and human settlements, and lay among the roots of a great cedar tree, covering himself with a cloak.

  He quickly fell asleep, still tired after the night’s events.

  He wasn’t sure how, or even if, he could fly across the Divine Winds. Emrys had done it, but the beast was rider-less and confused. The storm certainly looked imposing: an impenetrable wall of black clouds, torn through with howling, hurricane-speed winds. Thunder struck so densely that at times it formed webs of blue light encompassing the entire horizon. Through the holes in the clouds, Bran
saw torrential rain and streams of hail. Flying closer, he noticed something else, a sight now almost familiar: the white light wisps of trapped Spirits, thrown every which way by the wind.

  There must be thousands of them here, he thought. Tens of thousands. Have they all drowned at sea?

  He took a deep breath and looked over his shoulder, towards Yamato. This is it, he thought. Once past this, there will be no going back.

  What if I am never able to return? He swallowed hard. Never again see those cedar forests? Never walk on the cobbled streets? Taste the food? Smell the air?

  He would be like Nagomi’s real father, forever torn between two worlds, unable to see his loved ones again. He shook his head.

  It’s different now, he realized. Sooner or later, Dracaland will move into Yamato. And when it does… I could become a diplomat. Not a spy, not a soldier like father, just a mediator and interpreter. I know the language; I understand how they think…

  Bran wondered what Dylan would say about his travels across the foreign and hostile land in pursuit of a dragon.

  He would tell me to forget all about it and find an easier way to return home. Look, I will buy you a Highland Azure, he would say, now let’s bribe the captain of this ship and have him sail us to Huating!

  Bran chuckled. He thought he did rather well, all things considered. At least he managed to stay alive.

  Emrys snorted and shook its head.

  “All right, all right, we’re going…”

  He spurred Emrys higher, hoping to fly over the worst of the rumbling storm. At around five thousand feet, the clouds began to thin enough for the dragon to risk flying through. Enveloped by the cocoon of warm air — a by-product of the dragon’s metabolism — and protected by a light tarian, Bran braced himself as he and his dragon braved the hurricane.

  The Spirits from the storm below climbed towards him; their faces were white masks twisted with anguish and fury.

  I could use Shigemasa and his halberd now, he thought. As they got closer, he started to recognize some of them. There was the bird-like tengu goblin; here, a reptilian kappa sprite. White foxes and raccoons, and other beings he had not yet heard about.