Beneath an Opal Moon (15 page)

“The Dai-San misses you greatly, Moichi.”

“And I, him.”

She stepped up beside him, put her arm through his, as carefree as a little girl. “Well, I see you have turned out the honor guard, Aerent.”

“It is to your liking, Chiisai?” the Regent asked.

“As to its grandeur and display, most certainly.” She ducked her head. “Yet I must tell you in all candor that it was quite unnecessary. This is a visit of an unofficial nature. My father wishes, and I wish, to make it quite clear that there should be no official tours, no dinners in my honor, no escort; in short, absolutely no affairs of state.”

“I see,” Aerent said as they began to walk past the precise gleaming rows of the honor guard, though he most assuredly did not. “May I ask, then, the nature of your visit to Sha'angh'sei?”

“You may,” she said, laughing. “Regent, you must learn to treat me as a woman and not as the daughter of the Kunshin.”

“Indeed, lady. I shall endeavor to do so.”

“Good. Now as to my being here. My father feels strongly that I should not spend my entire life on Ama-no-mori; the Dai-San agreed with him. I am here to learn. That is why, you see, official parties and such will do me no good. In fact, I prefer not to have it widely known who I am.”

Moichi laughed. “You set us quite a formidable task, Chiisai. In Sha'angh'sei, secrets of that nature are difficult indeed to keep from spreading.”

“How is the Dai-San?” Aerent said.

“Well and happy. My father is delighted to have him by his side. They are quite inseparable these days. They often ride out from the castle, spending many days in the wilds with only the plovers for company.”

“I am happy to hear it.”

“The Dai-San wished me to inquire after your injuries but I see that there is no need.” She had no more than glanced at his articulated ruby legs once since stepping ashore.

They were at the foot of Three Kegs Pier now and about to enter the maelstrom of the bund's frantic activities. Behind them, stevedores were off-loading Chiisai's baggage, directed by the Bujun sailors. There was no sign of either captain or navigator and this Moichi found strange indeed.

But there was little time to contemplate such matters, for Chiisai was already leading him into the hive of the bund. Her skin, Moichi observed as she reached back to pull him forward and the wide sleeve of her robe slid back for a moment, was lightly tanned. This, too, was out of the ordinary. Bujun women prided themselves on soft white skin, and wide bamboo parasols, he had been told by the Dai-San, were plentiful in the streets of the cities, rain or shine.

The jostling of the kubaru, the smell of the spices, the grain dust clouding the air, the shouts, half-songs, were all like stepping out into the surf of an unquiet sea.

Chiisai seemed to know where she was going for she took them into the throng, heading toward the far side of the bund. There, almost directly across from Three Kegs Pier, was a small blue-and-white-striped tent set up just in front of a harttin's windowless wall.

They stopped in front of the tent's opening and she said, “What is this place?”

“It is the tent of a shindai, lady,” Aerent said.

“A shindai.” She said it as if tasting a new flavor, testing its sound out on her tongue.

“Yes, as the local diviners are called.”

“A fortune-teller. How delightful! May we?”

Aerent frowned. Personally he did not like the shindai, certainly set no store by their divinations. But, save for their systematically fleecing the visitors, they were completely harmless. “By all means.”

Moichi, for his part, as he allowed himself to be dragged inside the tent, wanted no part of this. He was frankly anxious to return to Aufeya.

It was dim inside the tent and already hot but he could make out the figure of a woman with a vaguely porcine face. For all that, she was quite pretty as she stood up and met them, smiling. “Welcome,” she said. “You have come to see your future.” She spoke to them all, but Moichi had the uncomfortable sensation that she was directing her remarks to him alone.

“Lovely lady,” the shindai said, “please take this deck of cards and arrange it in any manner you desire.”

Chiisai took the pack, turned the bottom one over, then one after the other she looked at their faces. They were all blank. “I do not see how it can matter,” she said, but complied with the shindai's request. Then she handed the cards back.

The shindai held the cards in her right hand face downward. With her left hand, she picked up the top card, turning it face up. On it was imprinted the figure of a bird.

“Ah,” the shindai said. “You are about to embark upon a long and arduous journey.”

Aerent laughed. “You are a little late, shindai. This lady has just come from such travel.”

“Nevertheless,” the shindai said firmly, “travel is indicated. And in the future.”

She slid the card, face up to the bottom of the deck, turned over the second, now the top, card. It depicted a statue of a half-clothed human, placed quite oddly in the midst of a forest.

“This is what aids you.”

“What?” Chiisai exclaimed. “A statue?”

“The statue is the symbol of artistry and beauty.”

Again the shindai's hands moved and the third card was displayed. The figure was difficult to discern for it seemed a black pictograph against a black background. But now, as the shindai's hand moved, the light hit the card in such a way that the black disappeared, leaving behind, like spindrift at low tide, a spare shape etched in black. It appeared to be a human skull.

“Death!” Chiisai breathed.

“Now, really—” the Regent began, thinking this had gone on far enough and that he was a fool to allow his guest to be frightened by this shindai witch.

“Not death, lady,” the shindai interrupted him in a voice that brooked no further interference with her work. “Most assuredly not death. This is what crosses you. A man. A man will
desire
your death.” Everyone in the tent heard her added emphasis.

“Will?”

“Yes,” the shindai nodded. “He does not appear to know that you even exist now.”

“Then why will he want to kill me?”

“That I surely cannot tell you, lady.”

The shindai's hands were quiescent now.

“Is that it?” Chiisai asked.

“Yes. The Three Servitors have been exposed. They are the governors of the immediate future.”

Chiisai turned to Moichi. “Have yours done now.”

He was about to protest when Aerent caught his eye, gave him a discreet but distinct negative shake of his head. Without a word, Moichi took the deck and shuffled the cards quickly and negligently. He wanted only to end this bit of nonsense. He handed the pack to the shindai.

She displayed the first card. It was the sun.

The shindai cleared her throat. She seemed somewhat startled. “This is the symbol of Goal. I must say that I have never before encountered it in the guise of the First Servitor. Most unusual. Here it would be the significator of great change.”

Second card: This had an entirely black background like Chiisai's third card before it had metamorphosed to white, the more common color. In its center was what appeared to be a bier, etched in white, and upon that reposed a female figure, also outlined in white.

“This is what aids you.”

“A corpse?” Moichi almost laughed in her face.

“The past,” the shindai said evenly, even as her hands were bringing up the third card.

This time they could all hear the tiny gasp of her in-drawn breath.

The third card was blank.

“No one,” said Chiisai. “Isn't that marvelous!”

“Not no one,” the shindai said gravely. “Everyone.”

“Everyone crosses me?” Moichi scoffed. “But that is impossible.”

“Perhaps so,” the shindai said. “Yet it is what the Third Servitor reveals.”

Aerent dipped into his sash and placed a silver coin in the shindai's hand but she shook her head. “Oh no, sir, I cannot take any payment for this reading. It is my gift to this couple.” She looked at Moichi and Chiisai.

“You are mistaken, shindai,” Moichi replied. “We are no couple.”

“If I am in error, sir, then I do apologize most humbly. But either way I will accept no payment.” She placed the silver coin back into the Regent's sash as deftly as if she had been a pickpocket. “Good day to you all,” she said, bowing. “Good day.”

After the stifling interior of the tent, the colors, odors, sounds of the port quarter of Sha'angh'sei swept over them like an invigorating tide.

“I hope,” Aerent said, “that you take these divinations in the spirit in which—”

Moichi stopped listening. He was watching a kubaru runner hurtling along the bund pell-mell. He knocked over a stevedore, leapt over a chestnut merchant's impromptu stall. He seemed to be heading directly toward them and Three Kegs Pier. Moichi thought he looked vaguely familiar and, at that moment, he caught the kubaru's eye. The man obviously recognized him for he veered away from the dockside and sped hurriedly toward them. He shouted, bowled over a pair of kubaru. Sacks of rice flew into the crowd, opening and spilling out. Cries of anger trailed him.

The kubaru paid no attention, completing his run. He reached Moichi.

“You must come now, san!” he said. The combination of the dialect and the cutting of the words caused by the man's panting, made it difficult to understand him completely. Still, the gist was readily apparent. “Come now. Right away!”

Now Moichi recognized the kubaru and felt a knife twisting in his vitals. The man was already pulling at him and he needed no further urging. Without a word he set off with the kubaru at his side, hurtling down the bund.

“What has happened?” Chiisai asked, turning to the Regent.

Aerent's face was ashen for he too had recognized the kubaru. “I am afraid to speculate, Chiisai. Please come with me.” Taking her elbow with his left hand, he guided her toward the bund's landward fringe. There he hailed a passing ricksha and, lifting her into it and quickly following her, he gave the runner an address. “Take the streets,” he told the kubaru. “We are in a hurry.”

Llowan was the first to meet Moichi at the doorway to the harttin. He seemed to have aged and his hands were shaking.

“I cannot imagine how this happened, Moichi,” he said, his voice unsteady. “There was so much business this morning. Such confusion.” He shook his head sadly. “But there is no excuse. This is my fault.”

Moichi put a hand on his shoulder. “Whatever has happened, it has nothing to do with you.
I
brought them here.” Then he was mounting the stairs, three at a time, emerging to find—

The room looked as if a fierce storm had hit it. The bed was askew, chairs were broken, Llowan's enormous hardwood desk was demolished, a pile of broken firewood in the far corner.

The jalousies had been smashed in at least three places and, fearing the worst, Moichi went out onto the wide veranda.

Shards of the jalousies, furniture littered the floor and—He knelt, staring at the droplets of blood strewn about. He picked through the debris not knowing what he was searching for until he found it. His dirk lay just under his fingers, both blade and handle smeared with blood, still wet.

He picked it up, stood looking around, wiping it off. They were not here. He went back into the room, started toward the far end. Aufeya was gone, which meant that she was not dead but had been taken by force; there had been no time here to get information from her. Where would they have taken her? Surely not somewhere within Sha'angh'sei, a foreign city where they would be at a disadvantage. But would they have also taken Kossori?

At that moment his eye caught a dark spot in among the desk's debris. He leapt forward, hurling the cracked wood and hanging brass fittings from his path.

Within a crude tent made by the splintered desk, he found the body. The face, curiously, had been untouched and it appeared as calm as if the man had been sleeping. But the body. Arms and legs were broken in too many places for him to count but it was the hands which magnetized his attention. They were bloody pulps, the knuckles looking as if they had been crushed one by one with precise and sadistic care. Moichi felt cold sweat break out along his face.

This broken corpse was all that was left of Kossori, the man who could defeat half a dozen Ching Pang without breathing hard.

What devil, Moichi thought numbly, had done this?

But he already knew the answer.

TWO:

Pursuing the Devil

The Lorcha

“IT IS GOOD TO have a rolling deck beneath my feet again.”

He breathed deeply of the salt spray and turned, briefly, gazing over the stern's sheer-strake. Sha'angh'sei was but a memory, floating somewhere beyond the low-lying haze to the south.

“Can you really speak their tongue?” she asked. He nodded affirmatively and she continued, “It is most strange, is it not, to think that all the peoples of the world devised one tongue long ago that amply fits them all?”

“The Bujun have their own tongue.”

She nodded. “True. But we all speak the common tongue, also. Odd that these people do not.”

She meant the Daluzan.

He went slightly for'ard, putting his hands on the rail separating the elevated aft deck from the rest of the sleek lorcha and, cupping his hands at the sides of his mouth, called to the men in the shrouds:
“Ganarse las velas! A babor!”
Immediately, he saw with some satisfaction, they altered the sails so that they picked up more of the following wind and the vessel began to sweep to port.
“Navegas viento en popa!”
There came an answering shout from the sailors in the shrouds. The lorcha now sailed before the stiff wind with every centimeter of canvas full out, racing up the coast of the continent of man, northeast to Dalucia.