The Last Dragon King, page 7
part #8 of The Year of the Dragon Series
He stood up, swaying from the drink, as did the other two. Buzenbo spread his arms and, in a flurry of black feathers, revealed his true form of a tengu: a mountain goblin. In a puff of smoke, Danzaburō turned into a rotund, grinning raccoon-dog standing on its hind legs. They raised their cha bowls to meet those of Nariakira and the onmyōji. The bowls met above the sunken hearth with an anticlimactic, dull clank.
The ship’s boards creaked again. Captain Fabius winced at the sound. One hadn’t plied these waters for twenty years without recognizing when a vessel was close to shattering.
His first officer shared his concern. With his head tilted towards the creaking, he notched a quick note in his journal.
“Are you sure we’re in the right place?” Fabius asked, for the fourth time.
“Either that, or our navigator’s lost her mind,” the first officer replied, for the fourth time.
Another wave, crested with thick white foam, struck against the ship’s bow with an unearthly wail. Hemmed in between the walls of the grey and black clouds, surrounded by whirlpools, water devils and water spouts, the Soembing stood, reluctant, against the dark wall of the Sea Maze stretching before it. Its engines purred quietly, just enough to maintain the course — whatever the course was in this forsaken place. Fabius insisted on them running all the time, even if the ship hadn’t changed position for three days, as they waited either for the navigator to correct her mistake, or, by some miracle, the wall of black clouds to open and allow them inside, as it always had, for the past two decades.
“With all due respect, Captain,” the First said, looking at his notes, “I think it’s fair to say they don’t want us back.”
“If we turn to Huating, we won’t get any pay for our trouble.”
“If we move forward, we won’t get any pay ever again,” replied the First, his face soured.
“Let’s stay a while more. I have a good feeling about today.”
“Really?” The First raised his eyebrow, then glanced at the Sea Maze. “I’m surprised you’re able to have any good feelings around this place.”
Fabius nodded in agreement and forced a smile. He knew what the First meant. For twenty years he’d sailed the Ship — in its various incarnations — across the Divine Winds, as the locals called them, and he’d never got used to it. The magic of the East always unnerved him, with its alien ways, but this was something else altogether. On his first journey, he had been naturally wary of the random storms, the unpredictable currents, the insanity of the compass readings and star charts — all the things the more experienced sailors had warned him about before setting off. But he’d soon learned all of that was just a minor nuisance compared to the real terror of the Sea Maze: the Wailing.
The clouds wailed and howled all through the night. Not the usual howl of a winter wind in the ropes — but a sound that could only be produced by a horde of tormented souls: a piercing cry of anguish, wordless, but full of meaning, coming from a thousand suffering throats hidden somewhere in the black clouds. There was no escape: it penetrated into the deepest cabin, into the cargo hold and engine room, through cotton wool and hands covering one’s ears, almost as if it wasn’t coming through the ear canals but entering straight through the brain.
What nameless Spirits had been tortured to create this monstrosity, Fabius dared not imagine. But it suited what he’d suspected about the Yamato magic in general: abuse of souls, forbidding them from passing beyond the veil of the mortal world to do the bidding of the priests and the shamans. They thought they managed to keep this a secret from the Westerners, but Fabius had heard enough rumours and gossip over the years to piece together the truth.
He stared at the cloud wall. What’s going on beyond it? The control of the Sea Maze belonged to the government at Edo. Every year, the Dejima Oppertovenaar received an envelope from Edo with coordinates of the secret path leading towards the Kiyō Bay, sealed with the Taikun’s crest. The path was different each year — but it should have stayed unchanged until the next summer. Of course, that was before the civil war erupted in Chinzei, before the Gorllewin landed in Shimoda, before the Soembing was sent out to buy Dracalish weapons for a Yamato warlord ... Had the rebels won without them, but didn’t know how to control the Divine Winds? Or was Edo in such chaos that nobody bothered to pay attention to keeping the path open?
First was right to be concerned. But Fabius couldn’t help feeling the wind would soon change. Maybe it was something in the wailing coming from the wall of clouds — a quality he sensed, rather than heard. Or maybe he was just being stubbornly optimistic for no reason at all.
“You’re right, it’s hopeless,” he said. “Tell Verle to plan a course for Temasek.”
He heard his men cry out in distress. He turned just in time to see a giant black wave break over the deck.
CHAPTER VI
The letter lay on the small table in Atsuko’s make-up room. She drew breath and paused at the door, scanning the room for hidden threats. She approached the table on tiptoe. The lacquer seal was stamped with the cross in a circle. She ran her fingers along the edge of the envelope and found the series of invisible bumps notifying her that this wasn’t just a standard letter from home, but a secret message from her father, written in the family code.
None of the palace servants had seen or heard anyone enter her personal chambers. Mineko had been in the room next door all day, and even she could not guess how the envelope had found its way onto the table. Rather than suspicious, this made her feel more at ease as soon as she confirmed the letter was real. It meant that Lord Nariakira had discovered a way to communicate with her across the blockade.
The letter was longer than usual, and it took her the better part of the evening to decipher the code. When she finished, she realized she was grinning with self-satisfaction. Not for the first time, she was a few steps ahead of her father’s wishes, though he had no way of knowing it when he’d written the message.
What she’d learned was that, after a series of minor victories, the Rebel armies were closing in on Kokura Castle, the key to leaving Chinzei and entering the Taikun’s heartlands on Hondo, the main island. Lord Nariakira was certain of victory, but the next step was doubtful. The Rebels needed to cross the sea.
Most generals think our main problem will be obtaining the ships, or ensuring the safety of the crossing, her father wrote. For this, they negotiate with Yamauchi-dono of Tosa, whose fleet all but matches that of the Taikun. What they don’t realize is that the real threat lies elsewhere altogether.
She knew what he meant before she decoded the next string of sentences. The Taikun’s control of the Divine Winds. This had been on his mind ever since she’d written to him about the discovery of the Orb. Abolishing the protective wall of cloud and wind had long been his dream. Positioned between Kiyō and the Ryukyū Islands, Satsuma had unique understanding of the opportunities of free trade between Yamato and the lands beyond. But the revelation that the Winds could have been used as a weapon changed everything. Rather than desiring to be rid of them altogether, Lord Nariakira now wished to control them — and the only way he could do it without conquering Edo with force of arms was by using her arms, her hands on the cold crystal of the Orb.
The grin slowly vanished from her face. She had been too complacent. She’d wasted days doing nothing, or little to nothing, after the incident at Asakusa. Instead of worrying about spies and traitors, she should have been exploring the Orb’s magic, learning to use it with precision and confidence. Hers was a unique gift. She’d already guessed that her marriage to Iesada was what tied her to the Orb: not for her sake, but for her future son, the heir to the throne. He would inherit this talent, able to control the winds and currents of the outer sea from birth. It was this spell, more than any army or daimyo loyalty, that ensured the Tokugawa rule over Yamato. As long as the Divine Winds existed, the Taikun could simply close down the seas, shutting off not just the entire country from the rest of the world, but the islands from each other, holding the entire sea-based economy and the wealth of the remote provinces an ultimate hostage.
It was this danger that Lord Nariakira had wisely foreseen, and that no other warlord was even aware of. The Rebels may have controlled Chinzei, they may have had allies on Iyo and other, smaller islands, but they could never reach Hondo without her husband’s approval. She needed to find a way to control them against his will or, failing that, disperse them, opening Yamato to the outside forever. The foreign armies were no doubt waiting for the opportunity to pounce on the country engulfed in the chaos of a civil strife, but it was a risk her father was willing to take, “in the name of”, as he wrote, “the Yamato people.” Atsuko wasn’t sure what the people themselves would have to say to that.
She glanced at the water clock. It was the Hour of the Monkey, and if her husband was not in his bedchamber yet, it meant he was with the Orb again. Knowing what she knew now, she wondered how many ships he had sent to the bottom of the sea, either Rebel or just suspected of carrying the Rebels? Though the rumours reaching Edo from outside were sparse, she knew the merchants complained of freak weather patterns affecting their transports. Mineko had told her that rice, beans, even fish, had grown expensive in the city — not that she, or anyone in the castle would ever be bothered by any such inconveniences. She remembered Lord Date and his ever-shortening ribbon. With each use, the Divine Winds drew closer to the land …
Curiosity and unease grew in her heart and made her stand up from the table. She could not wait until morning. She needed to see the Orb, right now — even if it meant confronting her husband. No, more than that: she needed to see her husband use the Orb, to spy on him and learn from him as much as she could.
She slipped on a warm cloak — the nights were already growing chilly. She paused at the door and returned to pick up the bundle of grey cloth from the bottom of the undergarment chest.
She stood in front of the rough cypress door, listening to the roar of the ocean coming from the other side. A pale purple light shone through between the boards and under the door, flickering to the rhythm of the waves.
She had searched the warehouse compound thoroughly, but there was no other way to enter the Orb’s chamber, or to spy on what was going on inside. Drawing on her own experience, she counted on Iesada himself not being aware of his surroundings as long as his hands rested on the Orb. If there was anyone else there …
She tapped the handle of the black blade at her waist with her fingers. She wasn’t sure why she’d taken it with her. If, as she feared, her husband was not alone in the room, was she really expecting to fight and, if so, was she even able to? She’d been trained in the use of the short kodachi blade, but the focus of her training was to hold out against the assassin long enough either for the guards to come to the rescue, or for her to slash her own throat. She’d never been trained for killing.
She breathed in and opened the door — then breathed out.
There was nobody there but her husband. The Orb bathed the octagonal room in the ominous purple light, and filled it with wind, a miniature hurricane spiralling along the walls, tearing at her hair and clothes. Iesada’s hands, engulfed in a web of crackling electric arcs, rested firmly on the crystal, his eyes wide open and filled with the same pale light. His lips were open too, in a grimace of pain and horror, a thin thread of dribble trickling from one corner.
Her heart reached out to him. Her husband was in obvious distress, forced to drain his life force against his will in service of monsters who cared little for his title and power. He was being forced to exert himself far beyond his limits. The dribble on his chin turned pink; his eyes bulged out of their sockets. The veins on his neck swelled to a tangle of thick blue ropes. He seemed on the verge of a stroke.
She stepped closer and looked over his shoulder. The Orb zoomed in on the Divine Winds, somewhere south of Kiyō. Drifting towards the wall of clouds was a Bataavian ship — not the usual galleon, but a mistfire warship, clad in iron. But it was just a child’s toy compared to the forces raised against it by Iesada. The Divine Winds reached out towards it in tentacles of giant black waves. The billows threw it around like a twig. Though she could not see them, she imagined the sailors locked in a desperate battle for survival, clinging to the ropes, holding onto the rails; the men in the engine room doing whatever it was the men in the engine room of such a ship did to keep it afloat in the midst of a typhoon.
Another giant wave struck the ship on the bow and swirled it in place, throwing what looked like a plume of black dust into the water. She let out a shocked gasp when she realized the dust was people; each dot a human life, extinguished forever. She covered her mouth, but it was too late.
His head swivelled towards her. His mouth twisted in a parody of a smile. She stepped back, reaching for the black blade. The Taikun’s eyes turned black-in-black. The air in the room grew freezing cold.
“No …” she whispered.
“You shouldn’t have come here.”
Iesada’s lips did not move as he spoke. His mouth was just a gateway through which the words came, echoing with a buzzing hum as if arriving from deep inside some great cavern. It was not the Taikun’s voice.
“Who are you …?”
“Did you forget me already, hime?” Iesada’s head tilted mockingly.
She recognized the voice now.
She drew the sword. The broken blade vibrated in her hand with such vigour she almost dropped it. The blackness radiating from it repelled the purple light emanating from the Orb, surrounding her with a shield of darkness.
“Hotta!”
She didn’t need to understand how the former Chief Councillor had possessed her husband. She might have guessed it wouldn’t have been that easy to kill an Abomination.
The Taikun’s mouth opened wider. First, his shoulders shook rhythmically, a second later came the laughter, sounding more like a bark of a hundred dogs than any human expression of mirth.
“Would you kill your husband, hime?” Hotta asked. “Your rightful lord?”
“If that’s what it takes.”
“I’m not sure that it would. You see, I am not like those low-level acolytes your friends kill in the streets. I am one of the Heads of the Serpent — not that you’d understand what this means … I will always return, one way or another. Meanwhile, your dear Iesada will die for nothing. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have a job to finish.”
He returned his attention to the Orb. His eyes rolled and his tongue flailed between his teeth as the web of lightning crackled with even greater power. The waves renewed their assault on the Bataavian ship. Atsuko dropped the sword, leapt to him and grabbed him by the forearm with both hands. He didn’t budge. The Orb and the Taikun were as one; the flesh of his hands and the crystal of the artefact fused together as if welded. The lightning burned her skin.
Hotta laughed again, the laugh raising all hair on her body.
“Go back to your chambers, woman. Your Taikun will deal with you later.”
She stepped back and slowly picked up the black blade. Hotta was right: if his Spirit survived the death of his body once, he’d survive again and her husband would’ve died in vain. But she had to do something … She could not just let all those poor sailors die while she watched, even if they were mere barbarians.
She raised the blade over her head and with a high-pitched cry she brought it down. The sword went through both Taikun’s wrists like a chef’s knife through fish. His palms dropped off the crystal. Blood burst in twin thick streams. Iesada howled and hobbled away, waving his severed stumps, splattering the walls, the Orb, and Atsuko’s clothes red.
She dropped the blade and placed her hands on the Orb, the vision of the savage ocean filling her view. She focused on the black waves, stopping them with her mind. The Divine Winds receded from the warship. She reached out with phantom hands, scooping the clouds and spreading them apart. She did so until she formed a clear passage for the ship, leading across the Winds towards Kiyō.
Once she made sure the ship was safe, she pulled away from the Orb with a gasp. The Taikun lay at her feet in a pool of blood. She crouched to check the pulse — he was still alive, though barely. She tore strips of silk from her undergarment and wrapped them around the ends of his stumps. She then grabbed his light body and dragged him out of the warehouse.
The dawn was breaking over the castle. She carried Iesada a little more, to a less conspicuous location in the palace gardens, laid him in the bushes, then shrieked and called for help.
Bran circled the island. The Gorllewin scouts were right. Enoshima had been abandoned. There was not a soul in sight, not even on the watchtowers by the causeway. Most of the buildings in the shrine compound had burned down, no doubt destroyed by the rampaging beasts. The roof of the main hall had collapsed. Among the rubble, the bronze statue of a dragon rose defiant over the cave entrance.
It took him a while to locate the hole leading to the hatchery. It was well hidden in a deep fissure under a grove of dense, sprawling camphor and maple trees on the south-eastern edge of the island. The trees around the fissure were scorched white. At another fly-past, he discovered a second entrance to the cave system: a tunnel in the cliffs just above the line of the low tide. He guessed this was how the Fanged had been entering the caverns — and the island.
He bade Emrys hover in place above the hatchery while he pondered his next move. A Black Wing materialized next to him.
“Are we done here?” Frigga asked.
If the Komtur had hoped for Frigga to overcome her antipathy to Bran, it wasn’t working. She was as gruff and brusque towards him as ever. Nonetheless, she was a good soldier, and she took her duties seriously.
“Not even close,” he replied. “Keep watch up here, I’m going down into these caves.”
Her eyes narrowed. She looked at the fissure. A shadow passed through her face. “Is it safe?”
“It’s empty, if that’s what you mean.”
