Dai-San - 03 (17 page)

‘Perhaps he is still in Eido,’ said Ronin.

‘Hardly likely. He was in Eido for the Noh.’

‘He will be searching for us in the city.’

‘No, his men will be carrying out that order.’ He continued to stare ahead. ‘See there?’ He pointed. ‘No, further to the left. Horses. He has returned all right and Moeru with him. He would not dare to leave her in Eido now.’

The white sails had vanished and now nothing broke the flat expanse save the castle of Haneda within the cryptomeria. The air was still damp and dense from the previous night’s heavy rain. Gray clouds scudded to the west, ragged and retreating warriors. Behind them, the immense sky was aglow with streaks of bronze and russet. The sun had already gone. Night was falling fast.

There was movement within the grounds of Haneda.

‘From this point on,’ whispered Okami, ‘until we reach the wood, we use hand signals only, for the marsh will carry even the tiniest sound.’ He pulled at his cloak. ‘Now watch me.’ He reversed the heavy garment and Ronin saw that it was lined with a dull black material. Ronin followed suit. Then they smeared their faces and the backs of their hands with mud.

Darkness came.

Startled, a goose flapped its wings and shot into the air. It was a relatively small sound yet, as Okami had foretold, in the quietude of the marsh the clatter magnified out of proportion, a dream sound.

They froze near the bole of a tall maple. Off to the left, Ronin saw an end to the rice fields. There, in the east, rolling grasslands, studded with low bushes and stands of thick maple, led to the line of high mountains, so far away that they looked like a painted backdrop, two dimensional and lifeless.

In the unraveling stillness, he heard the slosh of boots on the pathway through the marsh. He controlled his breathing, heard the thudding of his heart in his ears.

Four men in dark gray with the blue wheel pattern went by them perhaps twelve paces away. They were armed with swords and carried long bamboo pikes with metal tips. There was no talking. They were vigilant and extremely careful.

The minute rustlings of their passage faded but still neither he nor Okami moved. Time crawled forward and he longed to stretch his muscles. The water at his feet stirred. A long snake, black and sinuous, poked its head above the surface. Gnats hummed in the reeds, dancing above the mirrored surface of the marsh. The moon was rising, its pale light blanching the tops of the cryptomeria. A frog croaked tentatively and was answered.

At length they risked movement and slowly peered out from behind the trunk of the tree. Before them, the deep blue arch leading to Haneda. Light from the castle was diffused through the heavily foliaged trees.

They began to circle cautiously to the left, keeping to the reeds as much as possible in order to approach the castle from the flank. Keeping their eyes away from the moon and the marsh to avoid the possibility of reflection off the whites of their eyes.

Very near, the first of the cryptomeria where darkness hung like a shroud.

The frogs ceased their singing and they froze, crouched. Ronin’s hand was on the hilt of his dagger. His eyes searched the intense shadow of the wood but he discerned no movement. They waited, the sweat breaking out along their upper lips, at their hairlines. A heron called across the marsh.

Okami signaled and they went into the cover of the first line of cryptomeria.

Within the wood the dazzle of lanterns’ light was plain enough high up through the twisted branches. Crouched against the trunk of a tree, they were about to move again when they heard a sound. It was slight but sharp: the snapping of a twig along the ground.

Okami signaled for Ronin to move to his right and, as he set out, he saw the other head left. Ronin drew his dagger, holding it before him, point higher than hilt.

He caught the movement before him, as the man searched the wood, and he came in swiftly, silently, his body and his arm moving in concert, the bright blade slashing in a short arc through the man’s side, piercing a lung. There was no sound. He caught the body as it collapsed, pulling it into the underbrush.

He moved on, his course taking him obliquely towards the castle and Okami.

Two men passed in front of him. He let them go because silence was essential and he could not be certain of killing them both before one cried out.

There was a crackling overhead. Bats swooped and soared in the crowded, tangled sky enclosed by the cryptomeria. And he was turning, his left elbow jutting, as the figure leapt at him. Powerful hands went to his throat, the thumbs pressing inward, attempting to crush his windpipe. He jammed backward with his elbow, smashing it into the man just below his armpit. There was a grunt but the man held on tenaciously. They rolled on the ground and Ronin brought both his arms together in front of him within the other’s lock. Using the heel of his hand like a battering ram, he smashed into the other’s nose, hit again from the other side. Cartilage broke and the skin burst in a hail of blood. Still the thumbs pressed inward and he was running out of air.

But he was on top now, if only for a moment, and he lowered his right arm, closing his fingers, stiffening them, lashing out against the man’s diaphragm just below the sternum. The fingers pierced skin and flesh like a blade and he jammed his hand upward. The man was dead before his mouth could open.

Ronin rolled away and moved off and, at length, he came upon Okami standing above a corpse. Together, they went toward the castle.

The walls were of stone and very high. Too high. They crouched within its hulking shadow.

‘Both of us cannot get over,’ Ronin whispered.

‘I know, but if you leap from my shoulders, you should make the top.’

Ronin was about to say something but Okami silenced him:

‘There is no other way.’

He dropped to the ground and silently crept toward the main building of the castle. The way seemed clear but still he clung to the ebon shadows of the trees. The wood rustled in the night wind. Near the side of the structure, he paused for a moment, then coiled his body and leapt for a thick branch overhead. He hung by his hands for a moment, then began to swing, using the weight of his body to overcome inertia and start his momentum. He swung, drawing his knees up to his chest, and he was sitting on the branch. Feeling his way carefully, he climbed into the upper reaches of the cryptomeria, then along another branch, and cautiously onto the tiled roof of the castle.

For some meters, he crawled along the sloping roof until he came to a window below. He lay on his stomach with his ears as close to the opening as he could reach. He was quite still for long moments. Bats flapped above his head. There was no sound from inside. And no light.

He dropped down and inward, silent as a raven.

The room was sparsely furnished. Dark wood. Tatamis covered the floor. A lambent shaft of moonlight illuminated a painted screen in pale greens and browns: two robed women with white faces, red lips, coifed hair, fans unfurled, hid nothing, save a bolt of mother-of-pearl silk thrown over the back of a low chair.

He crossed to the wooden door without even a whisper of sound, put one ear to it. With infinite slowness, he opened it a crack. A sliver of hallway appeared, lit by reed torches. Almost directly across from him, a fluted wood railing.

The crackling of the burning reeds.

He risked another centimeter, then cautiously crept out into the hall. The railing ran away from him to left and right, the entire length of the hall, which was, he saw now, a kind of inner balcony onto which the doorways of the rooms on this level opened.

To his left was a wide stairway leading down to the ground level. He heard, drifting up to him, muted footfalls echoing away. The brief clatter of metal pots, an angry voice. Nearer to him, the reeds expending themselves.

To his right, the balcony’s inner edge twisted upon itself in a corkscrew flight of stone steps. From above, a deep saffron light unfurled, amorphous, seemingly as solid as molten metal.

He stood very still for long moments, listening to the minute sounds of the castle as they blended together, allowing the pattern to form within his ears, against his flesh, sink in, take hold, so that any substantial alteration would automatically be picked up, even if his concentration was elsewhere.

Then he headed toward the purling light.

He passed two doorways other than the one he had come through. Cautiously he climbed the stairs, deliberately lifting his feet high, placing the ball of each foot on the stone before the heel. He ascended slowly, pausing every few steps, alert for sounds from above and below. And as he climbed, the light grew brighter and denser, coloring him, cascading over him until he felt awash on some fantastic sea. He stopped. Voices. They were indistinct yet they carried the tone of conversation. He moved upward.

At length, he came upon an alcove. This gave out on a great circular chamber with high sloping conical walls which thrust upward, toward the night sky. The height of the wall was irregular and beyond a low section, he could see the swaying tops of the cryptomeria, thick and somehow remote, the finality of earth’s domain.

In the center of the chamber a fire burned in an enormous oval hearth made of glazed brick which held no trace of charcoal or soot. It was solely from this fire that the liquid light emanated. The flames rearing above the bricks were yellow, with no trace of orange or blue. They were pure, elemental.

A door opened along the curving wall and Ronin flattened himself within the concealing shadows of the tiny alcove. The tall figure of Nikumu came into view. His skin seemed yellowed, patinaed like ancient ivory. His long almond eyes glittered in the reflected light of the fire, turning opaque, and for an instant, Ronin found himself back in the alley in Sha’angh’sei, kneeling over the dead body of the defeated Bujun. Then another image superimposed itself upon his conscious, recalling his first meeting with Borros, deep inside the Freehold. These symbols of sickness and death blurred his vision for a moment. He blinked, curious.

Nikumu, garbed in a long silk robe of midnight blue with the repeating wheel pattern of charcoal gray, strode across the room, stood a moment before the rising flames. Ronin wondered where the chamber’s other occupant was. Nikumu had not been talking to himself.

The tall man seemed lost in thought and when he moved it was almost as if he floated above the floor. From a cabinet with a fluted facade he produced a rice paper scroll.

Across the room, Ronin caught a flicker of movement. A shadow struck the stone hearth, fell across the stone floor. Long and lean, it seemed almost to be Nikumu’s shadow, as if it had somehow been dislodged from his person. Then a figure glided into view. His back was to Ronin but he could see that the man had a long narrow skull, wide shoulders made more impressive by the stiff-shouldered robe he wore. His waist was narrow, as were his hips. His black robe was belted and from each hip hung a scabbarded sword. The one on his left hip was so long that it scraped the floor when he moved.

‘You cannot mean to go through with it,’ he said.

Nikumu did not move, his head did not lift as his eyes continued to study the scroll. Only a pulse beating fast along the side of his neck indicated that he had heard the other.

‘There are forces set in motion, you must know that,’ continued the dark figure. ‘The man at—’

‘What would you have me do?’ cried Nikumu, whirling toward the other, his face made hard and lined by the chiaroscuro of the firelight.

‘I? What would
I
have you do?’ The other shook his head. ‘You are Bujun. Your soul knows what must be done, just as hers does. Will she be stopped because she cannot speak? She will find a way, Nikumu, if she has not already.’

‘That is why she must be chained, just as I am.’

‘The man will come, Nikumu—’

‘Then I will kill him!’

‘Fool! If you could see what that thing has done to you. Do you not understand that when he comes, you will have to kill them both.’

‘No!’ said Nikumu, but already his eyes were dead. ‘No.’

Ronin went silently down the stairs, away from the flowing river of light, away from the disturbing confrontation. Much of the dialogue made no sense to him but this much he had learned: Moeru was indeed here and she was being held prisoner.

On the balcony overlooking the main floor, he paused to allow his eyes to adjust to the dimmer light. He heard a clatter on the lower staircase, at the opposite end of the balcony, and he retreated into the dense shadows behind the circular stairs.

Two armed men, one carrying a tray of food and drink, emerged onto his level. They came toward him and, for a moment, he thought that they were going to climb the corkscrew stairs, but instead they turned the other way and unlocked one of the doors along the outer wall.

He peered out, past their retreating backs, into the dimly lit room. It was densely furnished, chairs and piles of rolled rugs scattered at random as if the accumulation of years of living had been thrust into that small area.

On a chair in front of high curtained windows, near the wan light of a flickering oil lamp, sat a slender figure. Sliver of white oval face, like a new crescent moon, long sweep of dark hair. Flash of the sea as her eyes shifted at their approach.

And Ronin was already leaping from his hiding place and, swinging his left arm in a vicious arc, slammed his balled fist into the side of the first man’s neck. The jaws gaped open as the hide of the Makkon gauntlet tore through muscles and tendons. The teeth clashed together, severing the man’s tongue tip. A hail of blood. And he was already past, as the corpse began to fold in upon itself, drawing his sword as he sprang at the second man. The tray of food and drink went flying and the eyes had just opened with shock when the head tumbled to the floor, went rolling until it struck one of her feet.

She said nothing.

She turned her exquisite face upward to him but her features were quiescent. She gazed into his colorless eyes with a distant curiosity. He knelt before her nakedness.

‘Moeru,’ he said urgently. ‘Do you recognize me? Surely—’