The Chrysanthemum Seal (The Year of the Dragon, Book 5)

by James Calbraith

  Do I want to do it?

  He crushed the message in his fist and destroyed it with a sizzle of dragon spark.

  “Damn you, Dylan,” he muttered to himself. “Of course I’ll do it.”

  He called the messenger back.

  “Yes?” the boy asked.

  “Send back only this,” said Edern, and scribbled two symbols on a piece of paper.

  “A crescent moon and burning torch…?”

  “Yes. And make sure it’s delivered today.”

  Moon and Torch — the symbols of the old Roman Feast of Diana. The fifteenth day of the eighth month. This would give Edern enough time to prepare his grand exit.

  He would fly to the Gates of Annwn to see the Ardian again… but Yamato was close enough.

  Torishi turned away from the lashing rain outside and slid the wall panel shut. The thin paper wall shuddered from the buffeting of the wind.

  “I wish this storm would end already,” said Nagomi.

  “This is no normal tempest,” replied Torishi. “Can you not hear the souls wailing in the gale?”

  She nodded. The weather was strange, not only because there should have been no storms at this time of year, but because there was something unnatural about the wind. It reminded her of the night they swam to Ganryūjima, but this was different still. The Spirits she sensed in the wind were not angry or malicious, but rather… confused and lost.

  And it’s been going on for days.

  “We should’ve gone to Mekari when we had the chance,” she said.

  “You were not ready to face your visions,” said Torishi. “You still aren’t. Let’s begin.”

  He sat down heavily on the polished wooden floor opposite Nagomi, beside the irori hearth pit. With so many of the students gone, they had the entire dining room of the school to themselves. Torishi removed the pot from the hook over the hearth and put it aside, saying to himself, “we won’t need that.” He lay his bow to one side, and a bunch of arrows to the other, then opened his shaman’s box and stuck the wooden slates into the ash.

  “Speak nothing, little priestess,” he warned Nagomi. “When I say, drink this and enter the fire. Don’t worry, it will not hurt.”

  He handed her a cup of strongly smelling, murky saké. He put a bowl of the same before the hearth as an offering.

  “I understand,” she said.

  “This is not what you’re used to, priestess. This is raw and wild. But as long as you’re with me, we may just make it.”

  She nodded. Torishi started the fire in the hearth and threw some leaves on it. Soon the room filled with thick, wet smoke, and the bear-man began to hobble back and forth, entering the trance.

  He started muttering words in his own strange language, at first too quiet to tell apart. The flames in the hearth rose, and formed into the shape of a woman, old and wise. Nagomi bowed inadvertently, sensing she was in the presence of a mighty Spirit. Torishi threw his head back and chanted aloud.

  Kamui huchi

  Ires huchi

  Iairaig’ere!

  Tan tonoto

  Chise otta tuki

  Soita tuki

  Ekas nomi kamui

  Anomi shiri nena.

  Pirika-no nuian!

  The fire woman crouched and took a sip from the saké bowl. She smiled broadly and then disappeared, and the flames rose even higher and brighter. Torishi opened his eyes for a moment: they were dark and empty, like bottomless pits.

  “Now!” he called.

  Nagomi swallowed the warm, sharp liquid, and the world around her swirled. The fire in the hearth turned blue and parted in the middle, forming an entrance. She stood up and, fearless, stepped into the portal.

  She felt herself pulled, and torn, and twisted; she was squeezed through some narrow opening, and then thrust into what felt like layers of slime; another force tore her from there and cast her into warm liquid, smelling faintly of iron, and then shoved her against a wooden floor.

  Not this again…

  She rose and faced the familiar, gold leaf-trimmed door. She slid it open. The putrefied corpse of the girl was still there among the candles.

  “You again,” it croaked. “You mustn’t be here. This is not your place.”

  “I know you,” said Nagomi, “why do I know you? Wait – you look just like… that blind girl from Kirishima!”

  The creature howled in anguish and raised a skeletal hand. A great force pushed Nagomi away, back into darkness. Her body whirled again and she landed face-first into fine, dry dust.

  She stood up, spluttering and coughing. The world around her spun one more time and then stopped. She retched, took a few deep breaths and looked around.

  There was nothing there but an endless plain of fine red dirt. Behind her rose a vermillion torii gate and a small white thatched shrine. Before it stood a large black bear.

  “Torishi-sama?” she asked, uncertain.

  “I’m here,” replied Torishi behind her. “You took a long time to get here.”

  She turned around. He was wearing his finest treebark garments, with many-coloured beads tied into his beard and long hair; he had his bow and arrows over his back and the broad sword at his belt.

  “How do you feel?” he asked.

  “My stomach hurts.”

  He winced. “I’m sorry. There was no other way.”

  “Is this the Otherworld?”

  “A part of it, yes. This is where the Living Spirits can get to unguided. But we won’t dwell here long.”

  He looked around and sniffed.

  “Something is amiss. There’s evil abroad. Maybe we should go back.”

  “No,” Nagomi said firmly. “Let’s do it.”

  Torishi grinned. He leaned over to the bear and whispered. The animal grunted and shook its head.

  “Sit on its back, little priestess,” he told Nagomi, “it will lead you to the Place on the Mountaintops.”

  “What about you?”

  “I will be waiting there. Hold tight! This is a wild animal, after all!”

  He slapped the bear on its behind and the beast charged forth, faster than any horse Nagomi had ever seen, and smooth, like the Ikazuki mounts. She rode for what seemed a long time, and yet when she looked back, she could still see the white shrine clearly behind her.

  They reached a range of tall, steep mountains, and the bear started climbing the dusty slope, leaping from shelf to shelf and scratching at the dark red rock until at last it reached the summit, half-hidden in white and orange clouds.

  Nagomi looked down — she no longer saw her shrine, but she could now see, through the openings in the clouds, many other buildings scattered around the red dirt plain: towers, pagodas, temples and palaces, each of them alone, each of them radiating red light and each surrounded by a mighty wall.

  Torishi appeared beside her and helped her dismount. The animal grunted again.

  “When I was a child,” said Torishi, watching it disappear in the red haze, “I caught this bear as a cub, in a trap of my own making. I raised it myself, feeding the best meat and fruit, until it grew strong and powerful.”

  “What happened to it?” asked Nagomi.

  “I killed it.”

  She covered her mouth in shock.

  “Why?”

  “So that it could return here,” Torishi explained. “Bears are Spirits from the Otherworld. They only come to our world to find a hunter with whom they bond. Forever. Without it, I would be lost in this land.”

  “Why did it bring me here?”

  “So that you could meet someone.”

  He turned his back to her, put his hands to his mouth in the shape of a trumpet, and yelled a resounding, wordless cry, which echoed through the mountaintops.

  “I found him here not long after our fight with the demon,” Torishi explained. “I should’ve asked him for help earlier. He knows more about these things than I do.”

  “Who is it?”

  The mists and clouds solidified into the shape and
form of a tall and burly man. She had seen this man before; she recognized the long, braided hair, the colourful garments much like those Torishi wore, and the jangling bronze bracelets. A mighty eagle was sitting on his outstretched arm.

  “Irankarapte, nipa,” he said in a deep voice.

  “Irangarapte na,” said Torishi.

  “You!” She gasped. “But… we let you go free!”

  “And for that I am grateful,” the man replied, raising a fist to his chest. “But somebody else wished me dead, it seems.”

  “I am sorry,” she whispered.

  “Leaves in the wind, priestess. Leaves in the wind.”

  She shivered.

  “They may have lost the Way of the Bear in the North,” added Torishi, “but they retained some of the old lore.”

  The man looked at Torishi with slight annoyance. “The Bear is still strong in our land. We just do things differently. But let us not argue here. We have precious little time left to train you before I pass beyond the mountains.”

  “Are you a Scryer?” Nagomi asked.

  “I was taught the Way of the Eagle in my youth, but I never had the patience to pursue it… I will teach you what I can, Shamo priestess, but from there you are on your own.”

  “I understand,” she replied with a short bow. “I’m sorry — I never learned your name.”

  “I am Shakushain, Prince of the North,” he said, running a hand across his beard. He then smiled, closed his eyes and, with the speed of a lightning strike, he slammed his fist into the rock underneath him.

  A crack spawned in the stone floor, spewing white, green and yellow fumes, similar to those Nagomi remembered from the Suwa Shrine.

  “The Waters of Scrying!” she whispered in awe. Shakushain grimaced.

  “Hah! This is the real thing, not your pale, Shamo imitations,” he said. “These mountains are built of Time itself. Each wisp of this smoke is a moment in the past, present or future.”

  He waved his hand, and the coloured mist split into separate strands.

  “What you see in your Waters is already cleansed and chosen by the Spirits out of all possibilities… But you know already there’s more to Scrying than that. Here, you can learn how to do it yourself. That is the skill of true Scryers.”

  He blew at the smoke, and the strands enveloped Nagomi’s head. Instinctively, she held her breath.

  “No, no!” Shakushain said. “Breathe it in.”

  She did as she was told, and her head filled with images. There were dragon wings and precious jewels; thick forests, high mountains, and deep caves; bloody battles and fierce duels, flashing guns and slashing swords; children being born and conceived, cities burned and rebuilt anew, iron ships steaming in the high seas and walking machines roaming the land.

  “Too much!” she cried. “I can’t see…”

  “Focus, girl. Only one of those is real.”

  “Which one?”

  “Which one do you think?” his voice boomed, but she no longer saw him.

  She tried to concentrate on each strand of vision separately, but they all seemed identical. There was no specific feature she could grasp onto. Until…

  A strand floated past which was brighter and crisper than all others, a vision of a sea battle between several fleets of monstrous iron ships.

  “That one!” she cried and tried to grab it in her hands. The strand disappeared.

  “Wrong!” Shakushain rebuked her. “That was the one that’s least likely. Try again!”

  Least likely? But it seemed so real…

  She breathed in again, and another set of visions overwhelmed her. This time, she watched calmly as each strand passed before her eyes. She now noticed a few other wisps were as clear and sharp as the one she had grabbed before, and she dismissed those. She looked beyond them and saw something else: a vision so plain and insignificant, it was almost invisible; a faint, grey light, weak and shimmering, moving quickly and difficult to pinpoint.

  She reached for it, but it was like trying to catch a fish in the pond with her hands. Slippery, the wisp slipped away and vanished among the others, and once again, all the strands around her dissipated into the air.

  “I couldn’t get it…” she said.

  “Good.” Shakushain smiled. “That means it was the right one. The truth is the hardest to spot and impossible to hold on to. That’s the difficult part of Scrying — and one I never mastered myself…”

  He stopped abruptly and looked sharply past her, towards the red dirt plain below.

  “You must go,” he said.

  Nagomi followed his gaze and saw something move on the plain; a black, crawling dot, scurrying rapidly towards them, then another behind it, and another. She sensed dread emanating from the dark forms that tightened up her throat and covered her skin with goose bumps.

  “What are they?”

  “I don’t know,” replied Shakushain. “But it’s best you leave now.”

  “He’s right,” said Torishi, and helped Nagomi mount the black bear again.

  “Goodbye, priestess,” said Shakushain.

  “We’ll be back soon, won’t we?” she asked, looking from him to Torishi. “I have so much to learn from you.”

  The men looked at each other.

  “Go now,” said Torishi. “Once you reach your mind shrine, remember to close the door behind you.”

  The bear leapt down the slope in a great hurry and raced on, even faster than before. The mountains soon disappeared beyond the horizon, and the red dirt beneath her became a blur. But the dark, crawling shadows were fast, too. She sensed them behind, slithering on the ground like black snakes. Soon they were near, reaching her back with their shadowy tentacles. The bear roared and picked up the pace, its sides steaming with sweat. At last, Nagomi saw the white walls of the shrine. With a few great leaps, the bear swallowed the remaining distance and ground to a halt before the torii gate.

  The black shadows were almost upon her. The bear turned and bared its teeth at them, and they stopped. Nagomi hesitated.

  “Will you be all right?” she asked the animal, but it did not respond. The shadows crept closer. The air around Nagomi grew cold, smelling of blood and rot.

  One of the dark shapes leapt into the air and struck at her with its arms; she covered her head and heard a sharp whiz of an arrow. The missile pierced the shadow and it vanished. Another arrow destroyed the second one. Torishi showed up behind it, holding the bow aimed at the last of the creatures.

  “What did I tell you?” he snarled at her with wild fury. “Get inside and close the door!”

  He looked more like a furious bear than a human being. She had never seen him like this before, not even in the midst of battle. She turned back, ran inside the shrine and slammed the door behind her.

  On the fourth day of the storm, Bran ran out of food. On the fifth, he felt the first pangs of starvation and began to wonder whether the storm would ever cease. Even Emrys was growing annoyed: the foul weather had caused all its prey to hide in dens, lairs, and thicker forest, where the dragon couldn’t reach them.

  On the sixth day, Bran had another visitor.

  “I thought you could use some supplies,” said Dōraku, throwing a bundle at Bran.

  “All right,” the boy said, unpacking the food in hurry, “now I’m intrigued. How did you get here in this weather?”

  The Swordsman smirked. “Your dragon did not eat all of the Ikezuki horses.”

  “What about the Dan-no-ura spirits? Wouldn’t a storm like this get them out?”

  “This storm is not their doing. Something else is going on, and I’m not yet sure what. I was just on my way to investigate.”

  He turned back towards the sea. Bran stood up.

  “Wait.”

  “What is it?”

  “I was thinking… if I perished in this storm, nobody would suspect anything, would they?”

  Dōraku turned around with a grin. “What prompted this change of heart?”

  Bran
shrugged. “A change of circumstances.”

  The episode with the fisherman, though brief, had destroyed his confidence. It had been the first time he had shown his real face to an ordinary Yamato man, and that man preferred to succumb to raging waves rather than risk spending any more time in Bran’s company.

  Bran realized at last that he had been clinging to a fool’s hope. The Mori clan’s disgust with him was more than just an act.

  The death order was no bluff. They really hate me — and fear me.

  “Hold on a few hours,” said Dōraku. “I’ll be back at nightfall to help you out.”

  “I don’t need your help. I can fly away any time.” Bran said, preparing to mount the dragon.

  “They will suspect something if you don’t make it convincing enough.”

  Bran stopped.

  “Convincing — how?”

  “Just wait, and you’ll see.”

  “We must go back,” said Nagomi firmly.

  The freak storm continued to batter the walls and doors unabated, adding its hollow wail to the eerie silence that filled the school buildings. The Meirinkan was shut down, and even the few pupils that had remained behind after the Kiheitai departed, had returned to their families. There was nobody left apart from the essential staff, which moved about the corridors silent and invisible like the shinobi assassins.

  Rice, pickles, and dried seaweed was all Nagomi and Torishi had prepared for their meal. Not that it mattered; Nagomi was too distracted to think of eating.

  “Too dangerous,” said Torishi, biting into a slice of radish. “You saw what happens. Every time we go there, the shadows get closer and more numerous.”

  “But there is so much I have yet to learn! And Shakushain-sama – ”

  “He’s gone,” replied Torishi. “Departed beyond the Mountains, at last.”

  “So you did go there — without me.”

  He gave her a long look, and chewed the radish over slowly. She pushed the half-empty rice bowl away, despondent, but then she had another idea.

  “What if we stayed close to my shrine? That way we could escape at any moment.”