by Jay Kristoff
Truth was, she’d spent eighteen years being both.
A threadbare cloak was slung around her servant’s clothes, grubby kerchief over her face, a broad straw hat pulled low over her good eye, narrowed against the rising sun. As she rounded the corner to her tenement tower, a figure prowled out of the gloom to meet her, quiet as final breath. A hulking shape, almost toddler-sized, missing both ears and half its tail, blue-black as lotus smoke. It had a mangled, snaggletoothed face, patchy fur stretched over crisscrossed scars. Its kind were rare as diamonds in Kigen these nights. Its eyes were the color of piss on fresh snow.
A cat. A demon-born bastard of a tomcat.
She knelt on the cobbles, scratched the creature behind one of its missing ears.
“Hello, Daken. Miss me?”
“Mreowwwwl,” he said, purring like a chainblade.
No One stomped up the tenement’s narrow stairwell, Daken trailing behind. The walls were plastered with posters for the Kigen army, slapped up just days after Yoritomo-no-miya died; a recruitment drive targeting the city’s poor and clanless, promising three squares a day, a clean bed, and a chance to die defending an empty chair.
Out onto the fourth-floor landing, she stepped over a crack-thin, crumpled figure, passed out in a puddle of his own waste. Gray skin, lotus-red eyes rolled back into his skull. It amazed her to think some fiends were still smoking now everybody knew how blood lotus was grown. Without sparing the wretch a glance, she unlocked her door and slipped inside.
“Sis.” Yoshi looked up from his card game. “How do?”
Her brother sat on the floor beside a low table scattered with cards and coins. His hair was tied in rows of elaborate braids, spilling around his shoulders in black, knotted ripples. He was terribly pale, sharp-edged and handsome, the same pointed chin and dark, round eyes as his sister, glittering like shuriken beneath his brows. The shadows of his first whiskers were a pale dusting on his upper lip and cheeks. He was grubby as a cloudwalker, clothed in dirty rags. A conical straw hat with a jagged tear through the brim sat crooked on his head. One year older than she, but still a youth—gutter-lean, hard muscle and long-limbs, slowly filling out into the man beneath his surface.
“I’m all right,” she sighed. “Can’t believe you’re still awake…”
“You’re not so old I can’t wait up for you, girl.” Yoshi hefted the bottle of cheap rice wine from the table. “Besides, there’s still a third left.”
She made a face, turned to the other boy. “You winning, Jurou?”
Jurou glanced up from the other side of the table, fingers hovering close to his stack of copper bits. He was around Yoshi’s age, shorter, darker in complexion. Softly curling bangs of black hair hung about shadowy eyes, cheeks flushed with wine. An empty smoking pipe dangled from pursed lips. A beautiful tiger tattoo coiled around a well-muscled arm; the kind you didn’t usually see in Downside unless it was attached to a corpse with very empty pockets.
“Winning? Always.” Jurou shot her his heartbreaker smile, turned over a maple card and flicked the straw brim back from Yoshi’s eyes. “Lucky hat my ass.”
Yoshi swore and pushed across his coin. The flat was claustrophobic, furnished with a low table and moldy cushions, dirty light guttering from a tungsten globe. A soundbox sat on the floor beside the boys; cheap tin and tangled copper wires, stolen from some peddler’s wagon last winter. A tiny window ushered in the pitiful breeze, the sounds of the rising dawn outside: the city stretching its limbs, automated criers trawling the streets, steam whistles from the distant refinery.
No One splashed a handful of copper kouka on the table amidst the playing cards. The coins were rectangular, two strips of plaited metal, dulled from the press of a thousand fingers.
Jurou whistled. “Izanagi’s balls. A month of slinging brown for that pittance? You’d be better off begging in the street, girl.”
“I’d be better off pimping you down at the sky-docks, too, if you’re that worried about it.”
“And we’d retire rich as lords in a fortnight.”
She laughed, and Jurou grinned around his empty pipe—the boy had quit smoking lotus once the origins of inochi fertilizer had broken, but chewing the stem had proven an unbreakable habit.
“Forgetting something?” Yoshi asked, raising a lazy eyebrow.
No One sighed, sinking down onto her haunches and scratching at the stippled scar below her eyepatch. She slipped a chunk of metal from inside her kimono, hefted it in her hand. The lump was snub-nosed with a thumb-broad barrel, matte-black and ugly as a copper-kouka whore. There was no symmetry to the design; it was all pipes and rivets and leaden menace. The handle was polished oak, inlaid with golden tigers, a deep scar in the wood from where its former owner had dropped it onto the cobbles at her feet as he died.
Shōgun Yoritomo’s iron-thrower.
It was heavy in her hand, seemingly cold and dead. But she’d been there in the Market Square when its trigger was pulled on the Black Fox of Shima. She’d seen what it could do. What one little girl could do too.
That was where it had started.
“Give it here,” Yoshi said. “You’ll blow your foot off.”
She passed the weapon back with a scowl, mumbled a threat about Yoshi’s privates.
“Not sure why you insist on carrying that thing around with you,” Jurou mused.
“You try being a girl walking alone in this city at night,” she replied.
“We should sell it. Make a fortune.”
“There’s fortunes to be made without selling anything.” Yoshi fixed Jurou in a pointed stare. “Besides, what pawnman would be crazed enough to turn grist on the Shōgun’s property?”
Her brother took a long pull from the bottle, glanced at her.
“So how was work?”
“Talk of clan war is all over the kitchens,” she shrugged. “Dragon clan are gearing up to attack the Foxes. Rumor has it the local bushimen are going to kick out all the gaijin merchants in Docktown today. Tell the round-eyes to sail back to Morcheba or have their ships burned into the bay.”
“Do you do anything in that place beside gossip?” Jurou smiled.
“I don’t gossip,” she pouted. “I just listen.”
Daken prowled up to the table, sharing his evil, piss-eyed glare with both boys, lamplight glittering in dirty yellow. The cat sniffed, as if objecting to the smell of the booze, then jumped up on the window ledge to stare out at the dawn, half-tail swishing.
Jurou held out the bottle; a lethal brand of brown rice wine the locals affectionately called “seppuku.”
“Drink?”
“You know that won’t happen.”
The boy shrugged, placed the bottle back on the table. In the distance, the trio heard six tolls upon an iron bell; an automated Guild crier trundling the streets on rubber tank tracks and ringing in the Hour of the Phoenix. No One leaned down and turned on their little soundbox, started trawling the shortwave frequencies.
“Izanagi’s balls, not the Kagé again…” Yoshi moaned.
“They transmit once an hour, one day a week,” she growled. “And I have to listen to your serial melodramas every other day, so up with the shut.”
Yoshi adopted a mocking tone, spoke into his fist. “You’re on rrrrrradio Kagé. We’ll be telling you how wonderful your lives are now the Shōgun’s dead for the next five minutes, or until the Guild kicks in our door and we scatter like fleas when the dog comes scratching. Thanks for listeniiiing.”
“Least they’re doing something,” she muttered. “At least they stand for something. They’re fighting to change the world, Yoshi.”
“Girl, if you were any more full of shit, your eye would be brown.”
“I’m supposed to point out my eye is brown now, right?”
“Oh my gods, when did that happen?”
She met his lopsided grin with a sour glare.
“Oh, come on now, sister-mine.” Yoshi leaned over and gave her a hug, planted a noisy kiss on her
cheek. “You know it’s just in fun.”
Jurou took the bottle from Yoshi. “Seriously, girl. The way you glue your ears to those broadcasts … You’ll be telling us you’re joining up with those fools next…”
“Mad though she is, she’s not quite mad enough for that,” Yoshi smirked.
No One pursed her lips, said nothing. After a long search on the radio, she found a scrabbling snatch of low-fidelity static. Eye narrowed with concentration, she adjusted the dial in tiny increments until she latched on to the signal.
The transmission was distorted, awash with faint white noise. Turning the volume down, she leaned close to the speaker. She didn’t recognize the voice—truthfully she hadn’t been with the Kagé long enough for introductions to more than a few members, the one safe house on Kuro Street. Less risk that way. For them and her. None of the local cell even knew each other by name—everyone went by some kind of handle to lessen damage in the event of a capture. When Gray Wolf had asked her what she wanted to be called, she’d considered something romantic—something exotic or dangerous sounding. The name of a hero from some childhood story. But in the end, “No One” seemed to fit best.
She licked at dry lips, listened hard to the tiny voice.
“… curfew still in effect eight weeks after Yoritomo’s death. How long will this government continue to make its citizens prisoners in their own homes? Do they beat children and old women caught after dark without permits for the sake of your safety? Or because their slave state is crumbling? Because their fear of their own people is at last justified?
“Even now the Stormdancer is in council with Kagé leadership, planning their next strike against the murderous regime that has strangled this nation for two centuries. She is the tempest to wash away the dregs of the Kazumitsu Dynasty, and give birth to a shining new…”
The sound of heavy iron boots and screams in the street outside made her flinch, and she turned the volume down to a whisper. Orders to halt in the name of the Daimyo were followed by scuffling and a wet crunch on cobblestones. A sharp cry of pain.
“Might want to turn that off for a bit,” Yoshi said. “Unless you want to invite the bushi’ up here for a drink?”
No One sighed, flipped a small switch and silenced the soundbox. She settled herself on the cushion next to her brother and Daken jumped down into her lap. The girl ran her fingers through the big tom’s smoky fur, across the nubs where his ears used to be, the scars crisscrossing his body. The cat closed his eyes and purred like a motor-rickshaw.
“He stinks of dead rat,” Yoshi scowled.
“Funny that.” She gave the cat an experimental sniff.
“He shit in our bed again last night.”
The girl laughed. “I know.”
Yoshi brandished the iron-thrower. “He does it again, he might find himself divorced of more than ears.”
“Don’t even joke like that.” She scowled daggers, held the cat close to her thin breast. Daken opened his eyes, stared directly at the boy. A low feline growl rumbled in his chest.
“You don’t scare me, friend.” Yoshi waggled the weapon under the tom’s nose.
She made a face. “Little boy with his big toy.”
“Been telling stories about me again, Jurou?” Yoshi raised an eyebrow at the other boy, took another belt of rice wine. No One watched her brother drink, lips pressed shut, radiating faint disapproval. Even with one eye, she could stare down with the best of them, and Yoshi avoided her gaze. Draping Daken over her shoulder, she stood with a sigh.
“I’m going to bed.”
“What?” Jurou cried. “You just got in!”
“I’d rather sleep than watch you two get drunk and slobber over each other.”
“Well, you should go out and find yourself a pretty man.” Jurou waggled his eyebrows. “Slobber over him instead.”
“I’ve already got a man, don’t I, Daken?” She planted a kiss on the cat’s cheek, shuffled toward her room. “Yes, I do, my big brave man.”
“Mreoooowl,” Daken said.
Yoshi stared at her back, a sour look on his face.
“Makes a fellow ponder gouging his eyes out just thinking on it.” He scowled at the cat flopped over his sister’s shoulder, waved the bottle in his direction. “I mean it, you little bastard. You shit our bed again, I’ll feed you to the corpse-rats.”
The big tom blinked once, a broken-glass glint dancing in his eyes. His thoughts were a purr inside the siblings’ heads, the whisper of black velvet on silken sheets.
… would not sleep with your mouth open tonight if i were you …
7
A PALE INFERNO
Whether it’s a reeking pit in the heart of Kigen city, or a comfortable house with barred windows amidst the branches of an ancient sugi tree, a prison is a prison is a prison.
The room was divided down the center, thick bamboo bars separating the jailed from the jailers. Ayane sat against the far wall, her spine curved to accommodate the silver orb affixed between her shoulder blades. The long, thin spider legs sprouting from the bulbous hub were curled up against her back, motionless save for the broken limb trailing on the floor beside her. It had stopped spitting sparks once they’d come in from the rain, but still twitched occasionally, like a gutter-child stricken with palsy.
“I’m sorry.”
Kin stood outside the cell, hands wrapped around the bars. The forest air was cloying, sweat gleaming on his body. Ayane still wore the uwagi he’d given her, though she’d torn a hole in the back to accommodate her extra limbs. Someone had fished out a pair of oversized hakama to cover her legs, grubby and threadbare. Her feet were filthy, toes curling against the floorboards. The rain drummed insistent upon the ceiling.
“You need not apologize, Kin-san.” Ayane smiled despite her grim surroundings. “You cannot blame them for being suspicious. If I were a Kagé who had turned myself over to the Guild, the Inquisition would have arranged far less comfortable accommodations.”
“The Inquisition.” Kin sighed. “I haven’t thought about them in a long time.”
“Do you still dream?” Ayane’s eyes were wide. “Your Awakening, I mean?”
“Every night since I was thirteen.”
Ayane sighed, stared at the floor.
“I hoped … once I unplugged…” She ran a hand over her bare scalp. “It might stop.”
“What do you see?” Kin’s voice was soft as smoke.
She shook her head. “I do not want to talk about that.”
“Your What Will Be can’t be any worse than mine.”
She looked up at him again, and he saw sorrow welling in her eyes.
“There are secrets, and then there are secrets, Kin-san.”
Ayane drew her knees up to her chest and hugged them tight. The delicate limbs at her back unfurled, one pair at a time, folding around her, cocooning her in five-feet lengths of sharpened chrome. The clicking of a hundred wet mandibles filled the air, cutting through the chilled hum of the wind amidst the trees, the paper-dry conversations of falling leaves. The broken limb twitched, illuminating her face with faint bursts of blue-white.
“It feels so strange to be out of my skin.” She rubbed her knees as if savoring the sensation. “And First Bloom help me, the smells. I used to get skinless alone in my habitat, of course, but it was nothing like this…”
“Can you … feel them?” Kin pointed to the spider limbs. “Like your flesh?”
“No.” She shook her head. “But I feel them in my mind.”
“Does the broken one hurt?”
“It is giving me a headache.” A rippling shrug. “But I will have to live with it.”
Kin looked around the tiny cell, the moisture beading on her skin, slick upon the iron padlock. He remembered his own time in here, the agony of his burns with no anesthetic to numb him; fear and uncertainty intensified by physical pain. Empty hours alone, listening to the sound of his own breathing and counting the endless minutes in his head.
&nbs
p; “I’ve got a tool kit here.” He pointed at his belt. “I could try fixing it?”
“Will that not get you in trouble?”
“They said you weren’t to leave the cell. You’re not.”
“Kin-san, I do not wish to cause you grief…”
Kin was already selecting tools from his belt. He gave her a small smile, held up a screwdriver. “Turn around. Let’s see what we can see.”
They sat together, her within the bars, him without, the hushed metallic tones of the tools and metal between them. As his fingers flitted over intricate clockwork, he realized how much he’d missed it—the language of the machine. The poetry of it. The absoluteness of it. A world governed by laws, immutable, unchangeable. A world of mass and force, equations and calibrations. So much simpler than a world of flesh, with all its chaos and complexity.
He murmured around the four screws pursed in his lips. “It feels good to be working with my hands again.”
“I am surprised they are not worked to the bone.”
“What do you mean?”
“… Forgiveness.” The girl shook her head. “I speak out of turn. It is not my place.”
Kin pulled the screws from his mouth, frowning. “No, Ayane. Say what you think.”
“It is just … your knowledge could make life up here so much easier…” The girl shivered, shook her head. “But no. I am a guest here. I do not understand their ways. I will be silent.”
Kin’s frown deepened. “Ayane, the Guild can’t hurt you here. There are no Inquisitors waiting in the shadows, no Kyodai to punish you, no Blooms to answer to. You’re your own person. Your choices are your own, too.”
