“What are you doing?” asked Gensai. “This is no time for games.”
“Imagine this band is the Divine Winds. See how far it is from the rim of the cup?” Lord Date said, then snipped about an inch from the ribbon, then tied it together again. “What about now?”
Gensai rolled his eyes. “Yes, it’s closer, of course. We’re not children, Date-dono. You should’ve just said what you meant, without these playground tricks.”
“I merely wanted to illustrate my point, Kawakami-dono,” Lord Date answered in a conciliatory tone.
“What is your point, Date-dono?” asked Atsuko. “I think I understand, but …”
“It seems to me the Divine Winds, whatever their provenance, are a finite resource. Every time Chief Councillor Hotta convinces His Highness to use their power, the band shortens, and comes closer to our shores.”
“And if he’s not stopped, soon it will swallow Yamato whole,” added Gensai grimly. “I thought he wanted to rule the country, not destroy it.”
“I’m not sure he’s aware of this … side effect. Or cares. Maybe he thinks he can stop before the storms get too dangerous.”
Gensai stroked the handle of his sword. “If only I could get my hands on that monster—”
“Patience, Kawakami-dono.” Lord Date’s voice had the smoothness of honey. “We cannot strike too early. Not before we know for certain exactly what we are dealing with, where these Abominations come from, and how many of them there are.”
Gensai scowled. “I know what you mean. We cut one head off, two more grow in its place.”
Atsuko straightened her back and brushed an invisible speck of dust from her housewife’s robe. I was prepared to deal with complex politics, she thought. I was taught how to play off clans against each other, how to placate and distract the courtiers, how to best protect the interests of Satsuma and my father. What I was not prepared for was having to face monsters and demons.
But she should have known her mission would take her to strange places. After all, it had started with meeting the Western boy and his dorako at Kirishima. By the time she reached Edo, the Black Wings were already a dark presence in the city, assassins terrorized the streets at night, and the north and south were torn by rebellions unprecedented in scale since Shimabara and the Civil War. An undead demon running the Council? Compared to everything else, it didn’t sound all that outlandish.
“I can give him to you,” she said quietly.
“I’m sorry?” asked Lord Date. “I’m not sure I heard right—”
“I am the Taikun’s wife. I can arrange for the Chief Councillor to be wherever you want and whenever you want him to be there.”
“We wouldn’t dream of risking your—” the nobleman started, but Gensai interrupted him.
The swordsman leaned forward. “How soon do you think you could organize this?”
“I need to find out the details of the court schedule for the upcoming weeks. Give me a few days to prepare. I don’t mind the danger. I despised this man even before you told me who — what – he is. Now I want him destroyed just as much as you do.”
Gensai’s eyes glinted in a mischievous smile. He leaned back. “What do you think, Date-dono? This is not a chance we can afford to waste.”
“It’s dangerous. It could put everything we’ve worked for in jeopardy.” Lord Date stared into the empty cup. “We will have to consult it with the others.”
How many others are there?
The gong in the garden started ringing out the hour. “You should probably be going back to the palace, hime,” said Lord Date. “We’ve taken up enough of your time.”
She stood up. The gong continued ringing. “That’s not the clock,” said Gensai, jumping to his feet. “That’s the alarm. We’ve been breached!”
“Get the princess out of here,” ordered Lord Date. “Not a hair on her head must be harmed.”
Breached? Who would dare …?
“What about you?” Atsuko asked the nobleman.
“Don’t worry, hime. I have survived more attempts on my life than I care to remember.”
He moved the flower vase in the alcove. With a grind, one of the daubed walls opened, revealing a secret passage, its floor covered with noise-dampening cloth. The swordsman rushed inside, urging the princess to follow. Barefoot, she ran down the corridor. She cast one last glance over her shoulder — Lord Date was already gone by the time the wall closed behind them.
“He’s right, hime,” said Gensai, his breath not affected by the chase in the slightest. “I’ve seen Date-dono come out of worse scraps unharmed. It’s almost like he’s a demon himself,” he added with a wry smile.
“Who attacked us? Why?” she asked between gasps. Her clothes made running difficult, though she was thankful she didn’t have to wear her official robe.
They reached another door. Gensai pushed it open and they ran out onto a concealed garden path leading to the stone wall of the residence. The wall was built in the Qin style, with a dragon built of clay tiles coiling along the top. The swordsman pressed the dragon’s nose. A flight of narrow, slippery steps popped out from among the stones.
“There is a secret war going on in Edo under your nose, hime,” he said, helping her up the first step. “And you’ve only glimpsed a moment of it. You didn’t think our side is the only one using assassins?”
Dried-up tears glued Azumi’s eyelids together. She cursed the power that did not let her sleep away her despair. Her mind was exhausted, but her body was still rested. Lying on her back all through the night, peering into darkness, she saw stars blinking through the gap between the ceiling boards.
She dreamed awake. The first dream was bright, and filled with white haze. The mist parted, revealing Ozun as she remembered him, naked and glistening with sweat. He touched her cheek. His hand was warm and soft. He smiled, sadly.
“Farewell, love.”
“Don’t leave me,” she pleaded.
“You must move on,” he said. “You must live for me.” He kissed her and receded into the mist.
The fog grew dark, and blood-red, cold and horrid. Another silhouette appeared in the darkness. Ozun leapt out at her, pinned her to the ground, his face half-rotten, ash-coloured. He snarled and slobbered at her and pierced her flesh with long, sharp claws.
“You abandoned me! Left me to die! And you want to betray me — and for whom? That monster and his band. The people who killed me. My spirit howls in the Otherworld unavenged!”
She woke up from the visions, shivering with exhaustion. Dōraku stood over her with a curious look.
“Please,” she said, “I’m so tired. Grant me sleep.”
The Renegade touched her forehead. The power streamed out of her body and into his hand in a purple glow. Blood slowed down in her veins, her senses grew weak, muddled. The footsteps of the sailors, lapping water, the squeaking mice in the rice hold next door — all these sounds vanished. Hunger and thirst returned in painful pangs. Her muscles and sinews loosened. The chains fell off her limbs with a clang, but she was too weak to move.
She closed her eyes.
CHAPTER XV
The final hex brought Satō and the Fanged to the bottom of a vast bowl-shaped valley on the southern slope of an immense volcano. Rows of sharp, shattered lava boulders spiralled from the centre towards the edges of the bowl. In the middle of the valley stood a shed built of flat boulders, with a crooked stone gate in front. She looked up, towards the near-perfect cone of a distant summit, its tip hidden in a disc-shaped cloud. There was only one mountain like this in all Yamato: Mount Fuji.
Lady Yodo pushed Satō back against a tall, narrow rock outside the stone shed, and chained her arms around it. Yui approached the wizardess and put his hand on her head. His golden eyes seethed with fury.
“Your friends,” he hissed. “I will make you forget about them.” A dark energy began to seep from his fingers.
“No!” She pressed back with her mind. A barrier of purple lightning crac
kled between the Fanged’s hand and her forehead. He scowled and pulled away, then slapped her face. Stars danced before her eyes.
“Father Saturn,” said Yodo, shyly, “we must leave …”
Yui took a deep breath. “Yes. I don’t have time for this right now.” He took Satō’s chin in his hand. “We’ll be back soon. And when we do, we’ll have a lot of things to discuss.”
Neither of the Fanged returned the next day, or the day after. She was alone in the valley, chained to the rock, abandoned to her fate. At least she was getting to see the sun again — and lots of it.
The air halfway up the slope of Mount Fuji was crystal clear, with views spreading for tens of ri each way, over the lakes, forests, and tea plantations of the caldera. The wind rolled down from the summit of the mountain with the force of a typhoon, raising the grey volcanic dust in great plumes around the wizardess and her boulder — but she felt no cold. Neither did she feel the sun’s rays on her face, or any hunger or thirst other than for blood.
I’m changing into one of them.
She sensed the energies of the Fuji nexus surging through her and around her. Whatever spells were woven into the fabric of this place, the nexus amplified them tenfold. Blood ran thick and slow in her veins under the influence of a powerful magic field.
Why did they leave me here? Where have they gone?
On the third morning, Satō’s patience ran thin. She tapped into her blood magic reserves and burned through the chains. They snapped open with ease. As she did so, the earth under her feet trembled. Moments later, a palpable darkness emanated from inside the stone shed. The feelers of the thick mist resembled the Shadows of the Otherworld. The tentacles oozed under Satō’s feet, searching, prodding. She moved out of their way.
Her insides churning with hunger, she began a long descent down the slope. The dark mist slithered after her: a sentient stream of black ghostly lava. The edges of the rocks around her seemed to shimmer in and out of existence.
By the evening, she reached the shore of a long, narrow lake and followed alongside it, through a thick cedar forest, until she reached a small harbour town. She had feasted on a deer at noon — the speed and force with which she’d caught it and snapped its thick neck shocked her — and though its blood did not taste as sweet as human blood, it at least satiated her hunger for a while.
Now she felt thirsty again. Hiding in the azalea bushes, she observed the harbour town at a distance. It was strangely quiet. There was no movement at the samurai checkpoint on the highway. The ships at the pier rocked on the gentle waves in silence. There were no porters on the dock, no fishermen tending to their nets. She decided to investigate closer, and entered the town’s narrow streets.
An odd grey smoke hung low by the ground, like morning mist. She sniffed and frowned. It had a sickly sweet, herbal smell. The wind spread it all around the town, but it appeared to come from one particular direction.
It took her a while, but finally she found the source of the smoke. It spewed from under the door of an inn on the outskirts of the town. She slid the door open. The inn was full of people. It seemed like entire the town was here, men, women and children alike — samurai next to commoners. They were lying on the dirt floor, the straw mats and the low tables, all of them thin, emaciated, corpse-like. The grey smoke emanated from a brass furnace contraption in the corner, and slowly filled the hall, up to Satō’s knees.
She grabbed the nearest man by the folds of his kimono and raised him to her face. The pupils of his eyes were wide and dark, his breath smelled even worse than the grey smoke. For a moment, the world around Satō dimmed.
“You! What happened here? What is this thing?” She pointed at the furnace. “Answer me!” She shook him until his eyes focused on her. He moaned. She brought his mouth nearer to her ear.
“Kujin …” he muttered. “Gai …”
“Gaikokujin? The foreigners were here?”
“… weed …”
“The Cursed Weed. Of course, that smell ...”
She let go of the man and he tumbled onto the floor. She leaned over one of the samurai and picked up his sword. Outside, she glanced at the creeping, oozing darkness. It was still there, following her, keeping at a distance of several feet.
She heard the flapping of huge leathery wings. A silver dragon landed on a dried rice paddy at the town’s edge. Several smaller beasts descended next to it, each with two riders on top. She clenched her hand on the hilt of the sword and hid in the shadows of the inn’s eaves. She watched two men climb down from the silver dragon’s back — the taller one was wearing a dark blue uniform, the shorter one — a black Yamato kimono over a Western white shirt.
It’s Bran, she realized, her heart beating faster. She made no move.
The boy remained by the dragon, while the other man approached the town accompanied by the other riders. Satō felt the slithery, cold touch at her feet. The darkness was here. Another offshoot of the black stream poured in the direction of the Westerners. They didn’t seem to notice.
A Western soldier emerged from the back of the inn to meet his compatriots.
“How’s the test going?” the man in the dark blue uniform asked.
Somehow, Satō was able to understand them perfectly. Was it the dark mist’s doing? With the shadowy appendages, it now touched each of the men as well as herself.
“Better than expected, Commodore Dylan,” the soldier replied. “The fumes alone were enough to neutralize most of the town. The rest were too weak to resist.”
That’s Dylan? That’s Bran’s father? She tried to spot a resemblance, but whether it was the smoke or the blood hunger, she couldn’t focus her eyes enough. The man’s face — as were the faces of all the other soldiers, except Bran — was just a pale, featureless blur.
“Excellent,” said Dylan, if that was indeed him. “Prepare the device. We’re taking it to Edo. The Taikun is the last one standing in our way.”
The blood that cursed in her veins now froze almost to a halt. So that was their plan all along? Addle us with their foul herbs, like the Qin, and pick up the spoils? Did … Bran know?
“You are wrong. We are still here to protect these islands, barbarian!”
Three robed figures appeared on the street, out of nowhere: Yui, Yodo, and a third Fanged she hadn’t seen before, wearing a bronze robe and holding a mighty spear. They all looked worse for wear — their robes torn and muddied, their hair dishevelled.
Dylan ordered his men back to the dragons. He remained on the ground, summoning a translucent, semi-circular shield and lighting a Lance in his right hand — a great golden weapon, longer and sturdier than the one she had seen Bran wielding.
The three Fanged struck at the Westerner with rays and missiles of black and purple light. The spearman in the bronze robe charged forward, thrusting the point, smashing at the shield with brute force. It crackled and vanished. Satō let out a quick whoop. But her joy was premature: Dylan whirled a spell, and a ball of flame hit the Bronze Robe in the chest, throwing him in the air. When he landed, several feet away, a great black hole smouldered where his heart should have been.
The smaller dragons took to the air. Yui and Yodo dragged the Bronze Robe under the inn’s wall. They noticed Satō.
“Help us,” Yui pleaded. “We can’t counter their Rangaku magic, or their dragons.”
She glanced at the Westerner and saw that Bran had now joined his side, brandishing his Lance and supporting the magic shield with his own power.
She shook her head. “I can’t … Not against him.”
The dark mist rose to her knees, clinging to her legs like a tight-fitting cloth.
“If we fall, there will be no more Yamato,” said Yodo. “What happened in this village is the future of these lands. You see it now, don’t you?”
Satō stood motionless as the Fanged returned into the fray. Silent, she watched them exchange fire and lightning with Dylan. In a purely professional way it was fascinating to observe this on
e Western wizard who was able to stand against two of the mighty Fanged — but in the end, the onslaught forced even him to retreat towards his silver mount. The Bronze Robe stood up, the wound in his chest sealed halfway. He grabbed his spear and charged again with a powerful battle cry.
It was then that the dragons struck. One by one they dived in waves, silver bullets shooting cones of sun-hot flames. The Fanged stood no chance. Their robes burned away first, then charred flesh started falling from their bones. They struck back, but their magic could not reach the flying beasts.
Yui — what was left of him — reached out a scorched hand towards Satō and again begged her for help. She hesitated: Bran was once again standing next to his father.
He knew all along that Yamato would share Qin’s fate. He used us.
Dylan whispered an order into his son’s ear, mounted the silver dragon, and launched into the air. The beast zoomed over the heads of the Fanged. A mighty blast of dragon flame from its gaping mouth turned the three warriors into little more than blackened skeletons, crawling on their hands and knees. The blood power which sustained them could no longer regenerate their tissue fast enough. The dragons halted their attacks and hovered in the air.
Bran, alone of the Westerners, was left on the ground. The boy gripped the Lance firm and approached the crawling Fanged. He raised the weapon and with one slash cut off the head of the Bronze Robe — Satō recognized him by the spear still clutched in his dead hand.
Bran moved over to Yodo. She raised an arm to protect herself, but the blade of light cut through bone and skull with the same ease. Two smouldering heads now rolled on the sand, turned to glass by the dragons’ flames.
The dark mist now enveloped Satō up to her neck. It didn’t hinder her movements, rather, it felt like a dense, cold vapour.
Bran reached Yui. There was no fear, only defiance and pride in the Fanged’s golden eyes. Bran put his foot on the Fanged’s head and pushed it to the ground, exposing the neck to his executioner’s Lance.
The Shattering Waves (The Year of the Dragon, Book 7) Page 17
