Dai-San - 03 (23 page)

The best-known tale concerning him was told constantly throughout his company of warriors until it had taken on the patina of legend. Tuolin had overheard one of his men boasting about his exploits on the battlefield and, without comment, he had sliced off the man’s head. This one superb action was more eloquent, more precise in its fierce and uncompromising statement than anything he could have said to admonish his men for that abuse of the warrior’s power. It was also infinitely more effective.

He leaned over and quietly watched the last of the sweet smoke drift from the black split between her immobile lips. Her large violet eyes were glazed as she peered inward at the mystery of her self.

Gently, he opened her robe, and eased her down into the snow. Slowly, her white arms came around him and drew him down to her waiting loins. His mouth opened, pressed her cool lips.

He wrapped the corners of her robe around their moving bodies.

Their terrible voices raised louder and the trees around them burst into frigid flames. The pulsing of the Makkon’s bodies became more rapid and now explosions burst within the forest, splitting the trunks of the ancient pines.

Through their chants, they felt the vibrations begin, rolling outward from the epicenter at the forest’s heart. All about them, the pines were aflame.

They redoubled their efforts.

A howling, from far away, from the throat of neither man nor beast.

They stood, linked by their cruel talons, in the center of the flaming forest, hearing the sizzle of the sleet as it hit the cold fire, hearing the grinding of shifting rock, hearing the shriek of their own voices.

Their hideous cries echoed through the burning wood, the pale chill fire arcane and terrifying, and at last, all air was banished from the vicinity. Then all color. Then all light.

A darkness deeper than night, deeper than sleep, vaster than death, stretched itself upon the flaming skeleton of the dying pine forest, bending, lapping, flowing. Growing.

The Dolman.

Perhaps it was the lightning and thunder talking to him that ultimately led him, like a blind man, downward to a great ledge on the eastern face of Fujiwara, still quite near the snow summit.

Set upon the ledge was a wooden house with an obliquely sloping roof and a long terrace overlooking the sheer side of the mountain and the mist-shrouded valley at its feet.

At the rear of the house, the rock face had been cleared away to make room for an enormous glazed chimney of green brick. Before it had been built a great forge.

Red sparks leapt upward into the roiling darkness in concert with the echoing sounds of violent hammering.

He approached the terraced side of the house and, mounting several wide slatted wood stairs, entered the house.

Three robed women met him. They appeared tiny beside his great frame. They seemed unconcerned by his nakedness. Their dark brown robes swirled as they bowed to him, ushering him down a dark hall and into the bath. It was only when he had climbed into the tub and they turned away from him for a moment that he saw the interlaced ellipses embroidered on the backs of their robes, soft green fans.

They dried him carefully and he donned a robe they held out for him, woven of swirling colors so cleverly constructed that he could not tell where one left off and another began.

They led him through the interior of the house. It was sparsely and simply furnished with tatamis upon the wooden floor and small lacquered tables. Upon the walls were prints of travelers upon two roads, one mountainous, the other winding by the sea.

At length, they reached the rear, where sparks flew and the heat was intense. They left him there and he went slowly down the steps. The high chimney loomed over his head.

Bellows moved.

Hammer hit upon the flat anvil and pink and yellow sparks shot into the air like fireworks.

A figure, bare to the waist, wearing black silk pants, faced away from him, working before the forge. Long black hair with deep blue highlights flowed down the back like an animal’s mane. The shoulders were wide, the waist narrow, a scabbarded sword hung from one hip—

The figure turned to him. Her bare breasts glistened. Her dark candid eyes stared up at him. Her wide lips curved into a smile. She lifted the great glowing hammer.

‘Almost finished,’ she said in a rich musical voice, and he started, believing for a moment that he knew her. ‘You came not a moment too soon.’ She pointed to a rough-hewn wooden table to her right. ‘The short one’s ready.’

He went to the table, picked up the scabbarded sword, and slowly withdrew it. The long, slightly curving blade reflected the forge’s glow, spangling the charged air.

He strapped the scabbard about his hip, spread his legs, made several flashing cuts in the night. He felt its weight and balance, satisfied. Then sheathed it.

He was about to turn away when a shadow on the table top caught his eye and he reached out wonderingly. It was another Makkon gauntlet, seemingly the mate to the one on his left hand.

‘By all means, put it on,’ said the smithy. ‘He left it here for you, after all.’

They stared at each other for a moment.

‘You know,’ she said, ‘you look different than I had imagined. Almost unfinished—’ She shrugged.

‘And you,’ he said, drawing on the second gauntlet, walking towards her, ‘you seem so familiar that I—’

‘Here, look at this.’

He stood behind her, watched her work, because it was what she wanted. She held in her hands a sword over one third again as long as the one he now wore, which she had called ‘the short one’. The metal of its blade was blue-green down its center, but a glowing lavender along the honed double edges. The guard had been lovingly crafted of a carved piece of lapis lazuli reinforced by an inner core of metal. The hilt was constructed of a black metal center surrounded by sea-green jade, beveled and polished to a high gloss.

With a hiss and a turbulent cloud of white steam, the smithy doused the blade in a barrel of water. She wiped it with a chamois cloth before locking it onto the anvil. From a lacquered iron box near the forge, she withdrew an implement somewhat akin to a knife, using it to scrape down the length of each edge of the blade. Next, she produced a long file which she used to further refine the keen edges. When she was satisfied, she unstrapped the sword and took it a short distance to a wooden framework within which rested a gleaming stone. Mirrored chips danced in the light. By using her foot on a pedal, she caused the stone to revolve at a remarkably high speed. Carefully, she drew the blade across the surface of the stone.

Sparks flew like hot snow.

Again and again and again.

He became dizzy with the watching and he turned away, lifting up his eyes to the towering summit of Fujiwara high above his head. The clouds had rolled away on a high dry wind and he could once again see the glittering spray of stars, blue-white and terribly clear in the thin air. Perhaps they held a message for him. But he was certain now that they contained no answers, for as long as man reigned here, there would be mysteries.

At length, the smithy turned the edges of the blade to an oiled stone for polishing and, finally, she returned to the anvil, strapping it down again, rubbing its entire length with composed flakes.

She bent over and engraved her signature on the tang, then burnished the entire blade with a polishing needle.

She turned, handed it to him.

He took it, the weight an ecstasy to him, and as he held it up, he saw for the first time, within the shining face of his newly forged blade, his image.

His eyes were the palest lavender, speckled with gold around the rims of the large irises. They were long and almond-shaped. His angular forehead gave way to a mane of silky black hair, which fell unbound down to his shoulders. His skin was tawny. His cheekbones high and hard. But beyond these features, he could not understand the strange configuration of his face and he looked abruptly away, into the eyes of the blacksmith, dark as olives.

She stared at him placidly but, whirling into their depths, he beheld a ferocious force bound, quivering, in check. A dark, febrile force which he recognized.

Vengeance.

And what else did they share?

‘Who are you?’ he said.

‘Are you pleased with your new weapons?’

‘Yes, very much.’

‘Good,’ she said, laughing, her breasts shaking provocatively, and she led him back into the house.

The robed women stripped off her pants and it was then that he saw that they were held in place by an oval lapis pin.

And as she climbed into the steaming, fragrant, polished wooden tub, the memory surfaced in a rainbow flash, a flying fish breaking the roll of a stormy sea, an instant’s sharp vision from another’s lifetime.

‘No,’ he said. ‘It cannot be. It cannot.’

Her body seemed smaller now, pale and firm, the sweat washed from its gleaming surface, glowing with the stimulation of the rough sponges of her servants.

‘I saw you die—felt the ribbons of your flesh and blood all—’

She held out her arms and called to him:

‘Enough, now. I am the blacksmith; you are the sorcerer.’

They took his robe from him and she gasped at his strange form, her dark eyes glowing.

‘I do not understand,’ he whispered. ‘Dor-Sefrith is the sorcerer.’

He climbed into the bath with her.

She kissed his strange lips, crying out as they touched, put her mouth against his ear.

‘But he is no more.’ A breath as soft as dawn.

Her strong fingers exploring such a singular terrain.

His hands moved down her back, caressing her spine. Her eyes closed. They kissed again, their bodies sinking down into the slapping water. The turbulence increased.

Kneeling, the robed women wiped at the gathering moisture with new sponges.

He slept in her enormous bed while time stood still, while his body adjusted itself, completed the last of its healing, while she finished her exquisite, arduous task.

And when at length he awoke, the armor was ready for him.

He was dressed in black lacquer breastplate banded in lapis lazuli and sea-green jade. The scabbard for his great sword was of silver and streaked malachite in alternating bands. He was weaponed now on each hip, the shorter sword on his right, the great blade on his left.

The blacksmith placed the high curving helm of red jade and burnished copper upon his head. And all at once, he was eager to depart, to descend the mountain, to leave Ama-no-mori. The urgency of the Kai-feng swept over him like a tide. He was aware too that much more than a confrontation with The Dolman lay before him. He knew that without him the last remaining might of man would perish in the Kai-feng, yet he understood also that at every step he must be aware of his actions and of those about him—the very acuteness of his power necessitated that—for in his regained newness had come the knowledge of the complexity of life. Just as no one was forged by one event so no one was created for solely one purpose, not even the Sunset Warrior.

Fully garbed, he stood waiting.

The smithy dropped her arms to her side.

She shook her head, her long, dark hair waving like an undersea fan.

And she made a movement. Just a blur. Swift and threatening, she lunged at him with her sword.

Nerves willed muscles to instantaneous motion while the brain still mused. Thought drifted behind like a scarlet streamer, unwillingly forgotten, as his arm, his hand, his fingers, thus his blade turned to a platinum blur.

His eyes caught the dazzle of sunlight upon a choppy sea, just behind her, as the superbly honed sword shot through her body.

Red strung the air between them, as startling as the vermilion in the snow print upon her wall.

It splashed hotly onto his face, into his eyes, and he plummeted downward with a sharp sense of vertigo, crying, plunging at last into the deep, deep green of the sea.

Once again he found himself at the foundations of the world. They were still enormous yet now so too was he and he swam lazily through the colossal edifices, searching.

At length, he found the Aegir, the limitless landscape of its gently curving side, pulsing slightly with the breath of life, the rough hide rippling, and he swam along its length with great powerful strokes which seemed to carry him leagues with each kick.

He knew the way now even though the path seemed endless. Twisting through the foundations of the world, following the sinuous route, he went deeper and deeper, across shale shelves, below barrier reefs, past the black trenches, mysterious doorways, to the core of the world.

In time he gazed upon the head of the Aegir, so huge that he could not even make out the end of its snout. He was filled with infinite sadness and a great exhilaration as he lifted the great blade over his high helm. He struck downward, into the Aegir’s brain with a mighty blow.

The body writhed, the head flew apart, smashing into him in great severed hunks. He gasped, no longer able to breathe, and swallowed convulsively. Water filled him.

Whole, she stood before him, smiling.

He looked from her to the long blue-green blade, dripping blood upon her tatamis. He was drenched in sea water.

‘So now it is named and is truly yours,’ she said. ‘A soul of steel.’

Still he stared at the shimmering blade.

‘What is its name?’

‘Aka-i-tsuchi,’
he said, not looking up.

Her head bowed before the weapon.

‘I pity your enemies.’

‘Can she be of aid to us?’ said Rikkagin Aerent.

‘Now that The Dolman has come, I doubt if anyone can be of help.’ Tuolin stared out at the last of the cold flames.

‘You know—’

‘Yes, brother, I am aware that is not what you meant.’ The pine forest was but smoking charcoal now. ‘These are dismal days. We are all in ill humor.’ He turned from the scene to the north and his outstretched arm swept across the buildings of Kamado, whose inner porticoes were pillared with the images of the ancient gods of war. ‘They can no longer aid us and I fear that the weapons of man will not be enough to prevail over these sorcerous creatures.’ Still his eyes darted back and forth, met his brother’s steady gaze only fleetingly. ‘You have seen as well as I have what those deathshead warriors can do to our men. They do not bleed and their strength is inhuman. If we but had a defense that would stop them.’