Clockwork Samurai

by Jeannie Lin

  Just as the devil ships had forced their way into our harbors nearly ten years ago.

  “When?” Takeda demanded.

  “Soon—” Yang cocked his head suddenly. “What is that sound?”

  The whine of metal gears came from the other side of the wall, along with the rise and fall of armored feet.

  “Watch out—”

  The words barely left my lips before the assassin vaulted high over the wall, landing with a thud onto the stone courtyard. I had barely enough time to drag myself out of its path, and a moment later a shot rang out. It had to be from Satomi, but the bullet merely glanced off the steel chest plate.

  Lord Takeda led the next attack, sword flashing. The hitokiri didn’t need a weapon. It deflected the blade with its forearm, and sparks flew from the impact.

  The cage of armor might enhance the wearer’s strength, but it did slow him down. Takeda circled and drove in once more, but the hitokiri caught him with a swipe of its arm. It was easy to think of the assassin as inhuman, encased as it was in metal. Only his eyes showed through the samurai mask. They fixed coldly onto Chang-wei.

  Chang-wei swung his rifle up, leveling it at the hitokiri’s head. A shot between the eyes was the only way to stop it. Before Chang-wei could fire, something smashed over the assassin’s back, spilling liquid over the armor.

  Yang stood behind the intruder and hefted another ceramic container resembling a wine jug. The second one came smashing down.

  The hitokiri shook off the impact and resumed its advance. A thick syrup dripped from the armor plates as I fumbled for my pistol. I wasn’t accustomed to firearms the way Satomi was. With everything happening so fast, I hadn’t thought to draw.

  Chang-wei backed up against me, shielding me even as he took aim. But the shot was unnecessary. With each step, the assassin slowed. The substance coating the armor hardened until the metal assembly creaked to a halt. The hitokiri was frozen. Two black eyes glared at us, trapped inside the suit.

  The jugs had contained some sort of resin that had coated the armor and dripped into the joints and gears.

  “If we’re going to go, it must be now,” Yang said.

  Gears whirred as the hitokiri struggled against its bonds. I could smell machine smoke from the grinding of metal, and small cracks appeared on the surface of the hardened resin.

  Reinforcements would be coming soon. We left the assassin in his cage and fled.

  * * *

  We raced toward the north end of the quarter. The armed patrol charged after us with a hitokiri at the lead, a comrade of the one Yang had disabled. My lungs burned, but I didn’t dare slow to catch a breath.

  “How . . . are we . . . going to get over?” I panted.

  The settlement wall loomed ahead, rising nearly ten meters. I could sense Chang-wei close behind me. Makoto and Lord Takeda were just behind him.

  Yang was unfazed. “We’re not going over. We’re going through.”

  I had no time to ask how we were going to get through the thick slab of brick and mortar. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Satomi coming to a halt to swing around.

  “Keep going!” she shouted. “I’ll hold them.”

  Her first shot cracked through the air and struck the hitokiri squarely in the chest, sending him reeling into the patrol men behind him.

  I reached over to drag her along when an explosion shattered the air. The ground shook beneath our feet, and I fell to my knees, covering my head out of instinct. Another explosion followed before the echoes of the first one had faded.

  Someone draped himself over me, holding me by the shoulders as he shielded me with his body. Chang-wei tried to say something, but I couldn’t hear over the roaring in my ears. Wincing, I stayed down as pellets of gravel and stone rained down on us. When I looked up, I could see through to the harbor beyond.

  Yang was the first on his feet. Chang-wei pulled me up, and even though my knees were shaking, I started running. I hoped the others followed us. It was hard to tell, because as soon as we passed through the opening in the wall, a thick fog surrounded us. It seemed to be rising off the water.

  “Follow me.”

  It was Yang again. I held on to Chang-wei’s arm as we stumbled through the mist. The explosion left me disoriented, but I thought Satomi was just behind us.

  The mist had to be Yang’s work. He had employed a similar diversion to escape at sea once. Some mix of chemicals dumped into the water to form the fog.

  The murky outline of a trading junk loomed up ahead with its battened sails. Once more, we broke out in a run.

  The gangplank was already lowered when we reached the pier. The gunpowder engine rumbled beneath the water. Yang was the first up into his ship. Makoto had a hand pressed to his wound, and Satomi took his arm to assist him up the plank.

  I looked over my shoulder as I started to climb. Chang-wei remained on the dock, rifle positioned and ready to shoot.

  The final figure through the fog was Lord Takeda. He held his sword in one hand but drew a book from the front of his robe with the other. Warrior and scholar.

  “Take this.” He handed the book to Chang-wei. “For Satomi.”

  She and Makoto paused on the gangplank as she turned to look back at him.

  “It was your father’s. Written in his blood.” Lord Takeda then bowed to her and then Chang-wei. “I must take my leave now, friends.”

  “What will you do?” Chang-wei asked him.

  “Surrender myself to the shogunate. The bakufu will need me in the days to come.”

  With the coming of the American fleet.

  Takeda looked up once more to Satomi, and their eyes met. “Sayonara.”

  “Sayonara, Takeda-sama.”

  He turned to disappear into the mist, with his shoulders back and head high.

  “Time to go,” Yang called to us.

  We resumed our climb. Chang-wei was the last on board, and Yang shouted the order to fire the engines. The crew hurried to raise the gangplank, and the low rumble of the engine became a roar. The ship was underway.

  “But they might kill him,” I said to Chang-wei.

  “They might.” Chang-wei looked down at the book in his hands. “But Lord Takeda was not willing to renounce his homeland. Not in its time of need.”

  “Country first,” I intoned.

  Chang-wei didn’t answer.

  The boom from the guard tower reminded us we weren’t done yet. The ship cut through the bay as cannon fire landed in the water just off the port bow. The fog provided cover, but it was also a two-edged sword. We were moving fast and blind. One wrong turn and the ship could run aground.

  Yang moved to the helm to steer as a whistling sound rose above us. The explosion this time came from on high, and the sky ignited in a blossom of yellow sparks.

  Chang-wei swore. “They can see us.”

  A moment later, cannon fire crashed through the rear deck. We ducked as splinters flew everywhere.

  “Get below deck!” Yang snapped.

  Another whistle and pop lit the sky with fireworks. I ran to the stairs and ushered Makoto and Satomi down first. Chang-wei was close behind as the tower cannon boomed. For a second, I prayed for a miss, but the junk shuddered violently with the impact.

  Chang-wei had just cleared the top steps, but he lost his footing and stumbled into me. We held on to each other, righting ourselves just as a second engine roared to life. The ship jolted forward, and I listened, breath held, as the next volley of cannon fire fell wide.

  We waited silently as the engines sped on. My heart pounded frantically until the cannons quieted. A sigh of relief ran through each of us—until we heard the sound of leaking water coming from somewhere down below.

  Chapter Twenty

  Over the next few hours, the ship’s carpenter plugged the hole and we were headed out of Nagas
aki Bay.

  “There aren’t any ships in pursuit, but we’re keeping watch,” Yang reported. He only spoke with us briefly before going to join his crew. He still needed to steer his ship clear of danger.

  Yang had had his crew at the ready as well as a route laid out for our escape. He had known we would come to him.

  “We owe him our lives,” I told Chang-wei.

  Chang-wei appeared less than grateful to be in Yang Hanzhu’s debt.

  Our ragged party retired to the sleeping berths down in the hold. The escapes and battles of the previous days had bound the four of us together. Lord Takeda’s absence left a palpable emptiness.

  “Takeda-sama will be fine,” Satomi murmured. “He made his choice.”

  And she made hers.

  I felt the last of my energy drain from me. Only sheer will kept me on my feet.

  “I should check the binding,” I told Makoto.

  He appeared similarly drained and didn’t protest as I bent to tend to him. Chang-wei sank down in the opposite bunk as I pulled the edge of Makoto’s robe aside. Blood seeped through the makeshift bandage. The wound appeared to have reopened during our escape.

  “It’s not bad,” Makoto insisted in samurai fashion.

  I hoped it was true. “I’ll rebind it.”

  Last time I had sailed with Yang, they had no physician, but perhaps someone in the crew would know more about treating wounds than I did. They had to tend to their own injuries while at sea. All hands were busy at the moment.

  Makoto exhaled and inhaled while I worked, steadying his breath to control the pain.

  “I didn’t expect you would come with us,” I said. The conversation was in part a ploy to distract him.

  “It was fate.” Exhale. Inhale.

  “We can try to smuggle you back through another location,” Chang-wei suggested.

  The swordsman closed his eyes, leaning his head back against the wall. “Nothing left for me there. I was disgraced and cast out of my clan.”

  I remained silent, merely focusing on the bandages. There was something about illness or injury that made one vulnerable. I was used to people confessing their secrets to me when I treated them.

  “There was a merchant’s daughter. Chinese. Beautiful.” He let out a deep breath. “But it wasn’t permitted, so I was stripped of my rank and exiled. And she . . . Her family’s ship sailed and hasn’t returned. I’ve waited for it, finding work among the tojin when I could, but now I know it was merely a fool’s hope.”

  He turned to look at Satomi. “Your servant sacrificed himself to save my life. For that I owe.”

  Satomi didn’t protest that Yoshiro had merely been an automaton. Instead, she bowed her head to accept Makoto’s offer graciously.

  “We have no country any longer,” she said quietly. “We are both outcasts.”

  Chang-wei reached into his robe and pulled out the book Takeda had handed him. “This is for you.”

  “Written in my father’s blood.” Satomi kept her expression neutral as she opened the first part. The characters were inscribed with black ink, but Takeda had meant Lord Sagara’s life blood, his soul.

  “For another time,” Satomi said quietly, closing the book.

  She set her rifle down beside her, then lay down with the book tucked against her arm like a child’s doll. She promptly fell asleep like that, with her father’s words near her heart. I prayed she would find some comfort in them.

  “You should rest as well,” I told Makoto. “Try not to disturb the binding.”

  “Arigato.” With his sword tucked beneath his folded arms, he closed his eyes.

  Chang-wei placed a hand on my shoulder, and for a moment I let myself soak in the stillness, with his touch anchoring me. We were safe, and we were together.

  He started to recline back in his bunk, but I took him by the hand instead. His skin was hot to the touch, but his grip was firm as he held on to me. He regarded me with a question in his eyes as I led him away.

  It had been a year since I’d been on the ship, but the layout came back to me easily. I found my way to the compartment that served as Yang’s laboratory. The door was unlocked, and I led Chang-wei inside before lighting the lanterns.

  He stared at the long tables and the various glass receptacles and apparatuses bolted to the surface. “What has he been doing here?”

  “Experiments.” I thought of the cabinets filled with chemicals and samples in the storeroom. One drawer had contained vials of blood. “Experiments on opium.”

  I know the scientist in Chang-wei wanted to explore the room, but that wasn’t why I’d brought him here.

  “Show me what they did to you.” I feared the answer even as I led him to a chair.

  Chang-wei hesitated but finally let out sigh, resigned. “Two points at the wrists.”

  I pulled back his sleeves, one side and then the other. The red line traveling up his arm had become more pronounced and visible on both sides.

  “Two on either side of my torso.”

  “Show me.”

  He loosened his sash to open the front of his robe. Then he pulled the undershirt down. Acupuncture rarely left any visible mark, but I could see two inflamed points on his chest. I pressed my fingers against each site. The skin felt hot beneath them.

  “And the final point?”

  I tried to remain as calm as possible as he tapped a point immediately over his heart. The middle dantian, an energy point where qi gathered. That, in itself, meant nothing. The points themselves meant nothing. One had to know how to needle each point to stimulate it. Pressure, depth, all these nuances were significant.

  “I wonder about the real reason Aguda sent you, Soling.”

  “You mean to spy on you?”

  “Maybe he was trying to help me.” His breathing was labored as he looked up at me. “Maybe he knew you could help.”

  I felt sick to my stomach. “I can’t. I don’t know anything about forbidden points.”

  I had only been practicing acupuncture for the last four years, and most of that as Physician Lo’s apprentice. But Chang-wei no longer spoke as if he doubted what they’d done to him. And he regarded me with such trust in his eyes.

  “The needles can’t take away disease any more than they can inject them,” I explained. “All I can try to do is right an imbalance. Restore the flow of energy where it’s blocked.”

  Chang-wei smiled faintly. “Then right my imbalances.”

  He rose to remove his outer robe while I cleared away one of the laboratory tables. It would have to do. When I turned back around, Chang-wei had taken off his shirt, leaving his chest bare. His body was young and strong, tight with muscle that was usually hidden beneath scholars’ robes.

  I’d seen him once before like this, and just like that time, my cheeks heated. He stood watching me without a trace of shame. By all appearances, Chang-wei should have been at the height of health, not wasting away.

  “Come lie on the table.” My throat was dry when I tried to speak. “It’s best if you can relax.”

  His eyes never left me as he came forward. I had seen other patients in such a state of undress when treating them, but this was Chang-wei. The man I had once thought would be mine.

  Instead of climbing onto the table, he reached for me, his palm cradling my cheek.

  “It’s always like this, isn’t it? You and me.” His voice dropped low and deep, making my heart race. “And it always will be.”

  He tilted his head and leaned toward me, but I flinched away.

  “Don’t you dare,” I said through my teeth. The corners of my eyes stung, and my anger was the only thing keeping the tears from falling. “If you care for me, then show it when you’re not facing death. When you haven’t been pushed to the edge of a cliff.”

  His lips were so close I could practically fe
el them pressed against mine, but he halted as I’d asked.

  “This won’t be death for me,” he insisted. “The imperial court is trying to intimidate me, that’s all.”

  Then why the fever? Why the lines indicating blood poisoning, and the drain of energy from his body? I broke away from his hold, and Chang-wei obediently climbed onto the lab table. It took some effort and he was out of breath by the end, but he made it on his own strength. That was important to see.

  The mind will heal the body, Physician Lo had been fond of saying. My mentor was no man of great learning. He was a country doctor, and I, his assistant, but I thought of the truth of those words now.

  “Breathe steadily,” I instructed, placing my hand over his heart. I didn’t do it for any diagnostic purposes. I just wanted to feel his heartbeat and know that he was still here. He was still alive, and I could help him.

  I concentrated on my breathing as well, allowing the rhythm to center me. When I was ready, I reached for the leather folding case attached to my belt. There was only a limited set of needles there, but they would have to do. After another cleansing breath, I set to work.

  Focusing my attention on Chang-wei instead of on my own fears helped calm me. I set the first needle at a point at the end of the heart meridian, which traveled from the hand up to the shoulder. Whatever the grand physician had done had disrupted the energy flow to Chang-wei’s heart. I needed to try to restore it. Balance.

  The points were grouped closely at the wrist. I fixed the needles one after the other, holding my breath. Only when I had moved to the next point near the elbow did I speak.

  “When I came with you to Peking, I thought you had the Emperor’s ear. That he was on your side.”

  Chang-wei’s eyes remained closed, his breathing deep. “I do have his ear.”

  I had to bite back my anger. “But he allowed them to do this to you.”

  “There are many opposing forces within the court. The Emperor has to answer to all of them.”