The Shattering Waves (The Year of the Dragon, Book 7) (8 page)

CHAPTER V

The meal laid out on the low oak table before Satō was plain but nourishing: a large bowl of rice and seaweed, a broiled sweetfish, some monkfish livers, and a plate of pickles. Certainly, her hosts did not want her to die of malnutrition.

She had refused to touch the food on the first and second day — every morning, the plates and bowls were taken by a deaf and mute servant and replaced with new ones; every morning the set was a different one, taken from some collection of antique tableware. At last, she saw no further reason for starving herself and reached for the fish with the heavy metal chopsticks she’d been given.

The chopsticks, like the chains holding her ankles and wrists to the floor and the wall of her holding cell, were made of the same bronze metal as the daggers Crimson Robe had thrown at her during the assault on the Takashima Mansion. They slowly sapped away her magic. Every day she summoned a blade of ice to kill herself with, and every time it was smaller and more brittle, until at length she couldn’t even make her fingers cold.

That was when she decided to eat the morning meal. The hunger was stronger than she expected. She licked the bowls and plates clean and pushed the dishes away. She let her hands hang loose from the chains, twisting her body so that the wound in her stomach hurt less.

She lived only because of a blood spell binding the wound together. Keinosuke’s blade had dug deep into her, piercing several organs, and coming out the back through the kidneys. Not even Nagomi’s prayers or Torishi’s leaves and willow-wood strips would save her now.

There was something profoundly wrong with the way her shattered insides functioned, animated by the spell rather than by the movements of muscle and tissue.

I am a living dead,
she concluded.
Like the Fanged.

But she was still breathing, she still felt hunger and thirst, and other needs of living flesh. The clay chamber pot in the corner of her room was in regular use — or as much as it would be for a person who did not eat for three days. The dark energy of the blood magic did not spread from the vicinity of the wound: it remained contained and localized, like a small, benign tumour.

The mute carried the empty dishes away. Some time later — could have been half an hour, could have been half a day — another visitor entered the cell: the female Fanged in the Silver Robe. She sat down by the table opposite the wizardess and stared in silence. Her eyes were two deep black wells. Satō could only look into them for a few seconds before turning away with a pounding headache.

“Why did you keep me alive?” she asked. Her voice came out harsh, croaking. “Why not let me die and turn me into your slave?”

The Silver Robe scoffed. “We don’t need any more slaves. You shall join us of your own will.”

“Never.”

“Oh, not at first. It would be disappointing if you did! But it will take less time and effort than you think.” She raised a hand and formed a rune with her long-nailed fingers. “You’re already halfway there, you just don’t know it yet.”

She tugged at the air. A burst of pain tore Satō’s insides. Silver Robe was ripping out the wizardess’s liver with her claws and Satō cried out and writhed in pain. After several long seconds, the Fanged dropped her hand and looked at the girl in disappointment.

“Why won’t you fight me, girl?”

“
Fight …?
” Satō raised her head. “How? You put me in these shackles … They block all my power.”

“Not
all
power, fool! Only that of the elements. Just forget about them. Focus!”

The Fanged flicked her fingers again. The pain returned, even more intense this time. It radiated from the wound and spread throughout Satō’s body. She felt her mind slipping. Her throat was torn from screaming.

“You know what I mean. The power you’ve yearned for so long is yours. Take it.”

She wants me to use the blood magic,
the wizardess realized in a faint glimpse of consciousness.
But I have no blood to use …

The pain decreased a little, allowing her to focus on its source. In her mind, it glowed with a purple light, a dark beacon of suffering. The light poured from the wound, oozing like blood.

It
was
blood, she realized.
I’m bleeding internally, and I can sense it. I can transform it into power!

The Fanged scowled and drew another rune with her fingers. The pain returned with an even greater intensity.

If I cast the spell … they will get me …

The Silver Robe manipulated the level of pain deftly, keeping Satō at the edge of fainting, just deep enough to let her still have strands of clear, rational thought.

Satō gasped and twisted in the shackles. She couldn’t take it any longer. She was ready to do anything to get rid of this pain. The Fanged’s eyes narrowed. She pointed her fingers forward and it felt as if she penetrated the wound itself with her claws. Satō’s world was aching and purple light.

And then it all stopped. The pain was no more. A row of blood runes danced before the eyes of her mind. She did not understand them all, but she recognized them from a different time and different life, when she had fought to save Bran’s leg.

They spoke to her, revealing their meaning. She could form them into words of power. A stream of energy poured from inside her stomach, feeding the spell. She could control it no longer — she just wanted the pain to stop.

The rays of magic struck at her chains. The metal grew red hot, the links melted soft and snapped as Satō reached towards the Fanged with renewed strength. The blood spell followed her thought, taking the form of a crimson blade aimed at the Silver Robe’s heart. She manipulated it as easily as ice.

How am I doing that?

The spear of blood magic flew forward. The Fanged brushed it off with a wave of a hand, then pushed Satō back with a blow of energy. The wizardess hit the wall and slid to the ground.

“Excellent,” the Silver Robe said. “We will continue this tomorrow.”

The ordeal was repeated the next day. And the day after, every time ending the same way, with Satō using blood magic to release herself from the chains and attack her tormentor. On the fourth day, something changed.

The moment she used the blood spell, all the veins in her hand shone through her skin. She proceeded with the attack as usual, but it was just a ruse to get rid of the Silver Robe — who by now demanded to be referred to as ‘Lady Yodo’
.

Once left alone, Satō studied her stomach. All the internal organs lit up, presented as if in a Bataavian anatomical drawing. Blood pulsated through her veins, her liver throbbed with each heartbeat. The wound was a shaft of darkness, radiating jagged, crackling purple rays. She looked at the wall and saw the faint glow of the circulatory system of the guard standing outside.

Her scholar mind concluded she now possessed a blood magic that was the equivalent of Bran’s True Sight. It was fading fast as the energy released by the initial spell dispersed. Satō fed it a little more blood to sustain it. What was it that Dōraku had told her about the history of Western magic? The war between blood mages and elemental wizards? Each of the blood spells she’d used had a parallel in the
Rangaku
spellbook. A Blood Lance. A Blood Sight. Easier and more powerful than the elemental equivalents.

This is the trap I cannot fall for. Except … maybe this one last time
.

Upon closer inspection, the edges of the stabbing wound proved susceptible to her power. She could manipulate them with a fair amount of precision, using the filaments of the purple light almost as a surgeon’s suture. She managed a few rough “stitches” before losing the rest of her energy. The Blood Sight expired, leaving her in the darkness, alone.

Lady Yodo tortured her for two more days, before Satō grew too weak to counter her magic.

She was spent, no longer able to regenerate the wasted blood through the food — food prepared to help her bodily fluids rebuild faster: fish livers, red seaweed, beans, raw, succulent tuna flesh … It wasn’t enough. Satō writhed in agony, unable to summon even the slightest spark of magic.

The Fanged smirked. She barked an order. A minute later, the mute servant entered the room, confused as to his purpose. Yodo’s eyes turned golden.

She became a blur of movement, reaching for the servant with a clawed hand, pinning him to the oak table and plunging her teeth into his neck. She tore at the flesh, gulping and slurping the blood, as the servant shuddered in the throes of agony. When he at last stopped moving, she left him among the empty plates and bowls like just another dish. The pool of blood grew underneath him, and started dripping onto the floor.

At first, Satō’s stomach churned at the sight. Then, she felt it: a terrible, insatiable hunger, unlike any she’d ever felt before. It was as if she hadn’t eaten anything in her entire life. In her mind, the dripping blood took the form of the finest, most desirable delicacy. The magic stirring inside her called for sustenance, and this was the only way she could provide it.

She reached out and dipped a finger in the red liquid, then licked it off. It tasted vile. She bent in two and retched on the floor.

Yodo covered her mouth with her hand and laughed. “It’s an acquired taste. You’ll get used to it.”

On the tenth day, Yodo began her usual torture with an air of ennui in her eyes. Satō didn’t flinch. She stared the Fanged in the face, unmoved by pain.

“You’ve done something, haven’t you,” said Yodo. She tugged at the magic strings again — and again, the result was a mocking silence.

“I removed it,” replied Satō. “The pain. The wound. It’s gone.”

“You shouldn’t have been able to do it yet.” The Fanged stood up and stepped away from the table. Something stirred for the first time in the blackness of her eyes. Was it … fear?

Satō had worked hard on the mending spell. Every night, saving every scrap of power she could spare after the daily ordeals, piece by piece she applied magic. Blood of human sacrifices was the point of no return and she knew it well.

I would sooner die.

Fastening the gash inside her stomach, she mended the wound with the power of blood magic, better than a shrine priest could ever do. When she realized it had worked a wave of euphoria washed over her.

There is nothing I cannot do
.

By the time Yodo-
dono
returned, Satō felt pangs of hunger and thirst that no amount of rice and fish could quench — the pounding headache and nausea — the urge to cast more magic, to use this almost unlimited power again, even at the cost of the remaining life force.

I mustn’t let it. Father … Nagomi …
She still had her
memories and they gave her strength to fight the addiction.
Bran …
They could rescue her. Or maybe she could rescue herself …? She dared one more spell.

The bronze cuffs snapped open with a metallic clang. A long blade of ice crackled in Satō’s hands, the frost crystal enhanced with speckles of bright blood. She stooped to a charge.

Yodo shot across the room, grabbed Satō by the hair, and slammed her with full force against the table, breaking her nose. Satō slashed blindly at the air. Yodo smashed her to the floor and in an instant brought her face near to Satō’s. She hissed, baring her black teeth. Her breath was sickening, smelling of blood and sulphur.

“Don’t you dare threaten me again in my own castle,” she said. “You’re not
that
irreplaceable.”

She left the wizardess bleeding on the straw mat and turned for the door. “We’re moving to the next phase,” she said to somebody in the corridor. “Wash her and have her put on the robe. Saturn will arrive tomorrow; he won’t enjoy her like this.”

Lady Yodo led her down a wide, windowless hallway, under massive timber beams, past rows of white sliding panels.

A castle,
remembered Satō,
she said it’s her castle. Where are we? Not in Heian, that’s certain ..
.

The hallway ended at a large octagonal room, with a gilded ceiling and a floor of tightly packed, superior quality straw mats. Its walls were covered with soot and runes drawn both in ink and dried-up blood. Old landscape paintings, landmarks of Yamato, showed from under the dark stains.

Another Fanged was waiting in the room, sitting before a tray with a clay flask and two cups. He was wearing the snow-white robe of death. He had long black straight hair, falling over his shoulders and shaved into a peak over his forehead, a thin whisker over narrow lips and a small goatee. He seemed a few years older than Dōraku or Ganryū — or rather, he must have been when he was turned. The cunning and constant calculation visible in his black eyes reminded Satō of a more malevolent version of Nariakira.

“She is ready, Father Saturn,” Yodo announced. “I cannot teach her any more for now.”

Teach? Is that what you think you were doing?

“I understand, Sister Moon,” the other Fanged replied. “Leave us.”

There was a hint of fear and revulsion in the way the Silver Robe bowed before “Father Saturn”. She glanced at Satō, then back at the Fanged, bowed again and backed out of the room.

Interesting.

The wizardess sat down, wrapping her robe around her knees. It was made from the same silver silk as the one worn by Yodo.

“Are you the leader here?” she asked.

“At your level of initiation, it would be enough for you to believe it,” the Fanged replied. “But you’d soon realize this isn’t the whole truth. No, I am not the leader. I am, however, the chief strategist of the Serpent.”

“The strategist — so the war plans are all yours?”

“The general outline, yes. I tend to leave the others some independence. It doesn’t always work out, as you may have noticed.”

He smiled an odd, nostalgic smile. He seemed different from Ganryū and Lady Yodo, the only other Heads of the Serpent she’d met so far. She sensed little malice from him, compared to the others. She even noticed a slight resemblance in his demeanour to that of Dōraku, as if the two Fanged were two sides of the same coin, one a Leader, the other a Renegade.