Beneath an Opal Moon (3 page)

Alone again, Moichi's gaze raced outward, from the teeming foreshore, riding the white crests of the rolling sea like a storm-tossed gull, recalling those long days and nights aboard the
Kioku
, sailing south, ever south with his captain, Ronin, who had returned from Ama-no-mori transformed into the Sunset Warrior. Eyes clouded with memories of a lush jade isle, unnamed, gone now beneath the churning waves, and its lone sorcerous city of stone pyramids and gods with hearts as cold as ice; a dreamlike ride on an enormous feathered serpent high in the sky, through a land filled with sun, onto a ship sailing for Iskael, his homeland, where, with his people, he returned to the continent of man to join the Kai-feng; and the lightning of that last day of battle when he scrambled across a morass of seeping dead and dying warriors, mounds of the slain and wounded, friend and foe, his clothes so heavy with blood and gore that he could barely move, to greet the victorious Dai-San.

And what occupies his days and nights now? Moichi mused. My friend. We each owe the other a life. More than either of us can repay. And even now, though he resides in fabled Ama-no-mori among the Bujun, his kin, this world's greatest warriors, though we are far from each other, still do we remain closer than if we were brothers joined in blood at birth. For we have been forged upon the same anvil, tied by the terror of imminent death. And survived. And survived.

Moichi moved out into the sunlight.

Farther south still than far-off Ama-no-mori was Iskael. So long since he had walked its blazing deserts and its orchards, heavy with luscious fruit, the long lines of stately apple trees white-blossomed in spring, ethereal clouds come to earth and, in the blistering heat of the summer, with the incandescent sun a huge disc of beaten brass, to stand within their cool penumbra, to reach up and pluck the hanging fruit, ripe and golden. He could not count his hurried arrival and even more hasty departure during the Kai-feng. He had spent all of his time aboard ship, supervising the preparations for war, plotting their course northward to the continent of man. And all the while, beyond the foreshore, alive with frantic activity, bristling with bright shards of weaponry and men saying their farewells to their families, the dusky rolling hills of Iskael beckoned, forged by Moichi and his people over centuries of struggle from barren ground into a land of plenty. But that return, for him, did not count for the land was untouchable to him then.

He turned, watching the head of the stairwell as Yu's head appeared. She held a gray-green lacquered tray on which sat a squat ceramic pot and a matching handleless cup. She knelt before a low varnished table across from the massive wooden desk set against one corner of the room that Moichi regarded, despite his protestations, as strictly Llowan's. Its hugeness made him feel uncomfortable. Of course he was used to the much more compact and functional writing desks built into the bulkheads in ships' cabins. But beyond that it reminded him of his father's desk in the enormous bedroom in his family's house in Iskael.

He went into the room, observing Yu. She wore a cream-colored silk robe. She was tall and slim with a fine pale face dominated by dark expressive eyes. She had slid the tray soundlessly onto the tabletop and now sat with her hands in her lap and her head bowed, motionless. Waiting.

Moichi could scarcely tell if she were breathing as he knelt at the opposite side of the low table. Yu's hands unfolded like a flower reaching for the sun's warmth and slowly, precisely, she made the tea ceremony.

He settled himself. The quiet splash of the sea, the cormorants' and gulls' cries, a compradore's shouts, quite near, the scent of the warm sun heating the salted wood and the barnacled tar, the pale deft hands moving in their intricate orbits tying it all together, mystifyingly. Moichi felt a peacefulness wash over him.

Yu handed him the cup and he inhaled the spicy fragrance of the hot tea. He lifted it slowly to his lips, savoring the moment before he took the first sip. He felt the warmth sliding down his throat and into his broad chest. Energy tingled his flesh.

After a time, he finished his tea. He put down the cup and reached out his hand. Put two fingertips under the point of her chin, tilted Yu's head up. It was a face filled with broad planes, pale rolling meadows from which only the lowest of fleshy hillocks rose. What other skills lie within that body? he wondered idly. And can it matter at all? Wasn't the wondrous tea ceremony more than enough?

Yu smiled at him and her delicate hands moved to the fastening of her silk robe. Moichi stopped her, putting his calloused fingers over hers, holding them still.

He took his fingers away, kissed their tips, put them against her own. Then he stood up and bowed formally to her. She returned it. Stillness in the long room. He left her there, as quiet as sunlight.

Downstairs, it was a completely different world. Kubaru, bare-chested and sweat-soaked, trotted in and out of the wide wooden doors open onto the sprawling bund and, just beyond, the long wharves where the myriad ships waited impatiently. Wheat dust stained the air, hanging, silvered in thick bars of sunlight slanting in through the doorway and the many windows lining the harttin's seaward face.

Llowan was talking with several stevedores, perhaps discussing the disbursement of some newly off-loaded shipment. Piles of brown hempen sacks and wide wooden casks filled the harttin, separated by narrow mazelike corridors honeycombing the area.

Moichi saw the Regent's messenger at once, standing beside one of the narrow rear doorways leading out onto one of the streets of the city's port quarter. He was muscular but still with the thinness of youth. One side of his face was bruised a livid purple-blue fading to a yellow near the perimeter. The flesh was still puffy.

The messenger recognized the navigator as soon as he saw him emerge out of the bustle of activity within the harttin. He wasted no time with unnecessary formalities, merely handed Moichi a rice-paper envelope. Moichi broke the blue-green wax seal of the Regent, read the note. It said: “Moichi—Apologies for the early hour of this summons but your presence is urgently required at Seifu-ke soonest. Aerent.” Typically, Moichi thought, he had left off his new title. Old habits die hard. Moichi smiled to himself. Aerent is a rikkagin, always will be, no matter what other job he takes on; the training is ineradicable. And that, I suppose, is as it should be. He is an excellent choice for Regent of Sha'angh'sei, whether he is aware of it himself or no.

“All right,” Moichi said, looking up, “lead on.”

He waved farewell to Llowan as he followed the messenger out.

Out along the Sha'angh'sei delta it was already sweltering even though it was yet early morning. The jumble of narrow twisting streets, which were among the city's oldest, ran with seawater and diluted fish blood. Flies buzzed blackly and the thin nervous dogs rooted in the refuse heaped against the buildings' walls hoping to find fresh fish entrails. Pairs of kubaru jogged by with loads hung between them on flexing bamboo poles bowed with the weight.

They were in a ricksha, a two-wheeled carriage powered by a kubaru runner. There were many halts as they bounced along but their kubaru was very good and he quickly got them away from the frustrating crowds, taking them down dark cramped alleys and bent lanes.

Moichi watched the panoply of Sha'angh'sei slide by him, thinking of the changes within the vast city and, because of those changes, how it all stayed essentially the same; its eternalness fascinated and awed him. Even though now there was no Empress to rule, just the rose-and-white-quartz monument to her memory at Jihi Square, where the city's delta met the region's major river, the Ki-iro; even though the Greens and the Reds, or the Ching Pang and the Hung Pang as they were also known, Sha'angh'sei's hereditary enemies, united by the now-dead Empress and their tai-pan for the Kai-feng, now held a balance of a truce between them; even though the war, which had gone on for more time than anyone living could remember and was, some said, the cause for Sha'angh'sei's creation, was at last finished forever; despite all these changes. Moichi thought, Sha'angh'sei abides, prospering, pushing ever outward, mysterious, deadly, an entity unto itself, alive and the giver of more pleasure and pain than any one man could conceive. Still, for him, it was not enough.

“How did you get that?” he said, indicating the messenger's large bruise.

The young man touched the tender spot unconsciously with the tips of his fingers. “Oh, combat practice with the Regent. You know, he never misses a day and he is an outstanding warrior even—even now.” He looked away from Moichi, embarrassed by his blunder.

Just then Moichi felt a shift in the kubaru's gait and he leaned out of the ricksha. There was a disturbance in the street ahead and the runner was slowing. They were out of the port quarter now and into an area swarming with shops of a bewildering variety—a sort of permanent bazaar.

A cluster of people was blocking the street, Moichi saw, and their kubaru was turning his head, searching for an alternate route to the Seifu-ke. But before he could turn them around, three Greens separated themselves from the pack and swaggered up to the ricksha. They were all heavyset men with greasy black hair tied back in queues. They were dressed in black cotton tunics and wide pants. Short-hafted axes hung at their sides.

Moichi was on the point of asking them to help clear the way when he saw one of the Greens scowl and, grasping his ax, fling it, whirring, into the carriage. It crashed into the chest of the messenger with such force that, as his breastbone shattered, he was propelled partway through the ricksha's reed back. The young man had not even had enough time to realize that they were under attack.

As blood spurted, Moichi jumped clear of the carriage, keeping the small reed structure between his rolling body and the oncoming Greens.

Time seemed to leap forward as the period of shock passed and movement began all over. People were running in every direction, screaming, and this helped somewhat. But the Greens were quartering, two, then three as the squat man who had thrown the ax leapt up into the carriage and jerked his weapon from the messenger's corpse.

Moichi had one dirk out, the point lifted slightly higher than the haft, crouched in the attacker's pose.

He ran from them and they laughed as if they had encountered a frightened child instead of a warrior and they fanned out in a wedge-shaped path. In a moment, he had whirled, one of the Greens almost upon him, and, reversing the dirk, threw it, heavy hilt first, directly into the onrushing man's face.

The Green screamed and reeled backward from the enormous force of the blow. Blood gushed from his broken nose and he tried to spit out shattered teeth through his torn and ruined lips. At the same time, Moichi was whipping out his second dirk, rolling into the man. He slashed once as he went by, cutting the Green's Achilles tendon. He picked up the Green's fallen ax and hurled it without having time for a proper aim, using his peripheral vision from whence he had seen the blurred movement heading toward him.

The airborne ax glanced off the second Green's kneecap. It hit him flat on and the man grunted as his leg buckled at the joint. But he knew how to fall, rolling, and he came up—the angle had been wrong and thus the knee was merely bruised, not broken as Moichi had intended. He let fly his own ax.

Moichi ducked and splinters of brick and mortar sailed at him, filling the air as the weapon crashed into a building wall just beside his head.

The Green was close enough now and Moichi lashed out with his right leg, feeling his arch make contact with the man's cheekbone at the precise angle. Bones splintered and the Green moaned, toppling over. His tongue came out, red and sticky, almost torn in two by his own teeth. But he was far from through. He bounced off the wall, hurled himself at Moichi, using his massive arms in a smashing blow against the navigator's shoulder. The dirk flew from Moichi's grasp and the Green's fingers went for the throat, the nails long and deadly.

Moichi let the hands in, looped his own around them, slamming his balled fists into the other's ears with such force that blood immediately sprayed out as the eardrums ruptured. The Green rose up, bellowing with pain, and Moichi brought his massive hands together, breaking his neck.

Rolling the bloody body off him he rose, watching the third Green approach. He was the squat man and he circled Moichi with some caution. His ax blade shimmered crimson in the sunlight.

Moichi, keeping the splintered brickwork of the wall at his back, drew his silver-hilted sword. “Why did you kill him?” he said thickly. “We meant you no harm.”

“Meant us no harm?” spat the Green. “He was a Red, wasn't he?”

For an instant, Moichi felt disoriented, almost as if he had somehow slipped backward into time, into the Sha'angh'sei before the advent of the Kai-feng. “What are you saying?” he breathed. “The Reds and the Greens are at peace.”

The squat man hawked and a gob of phlegm spattered at Moichi's feet. “No more, by the gods. No more! That ill-omened truce is thankfully at an end.” He brandished his ax menacingly. “It was unnatural. We all felt ashamed. As unclean as defilers of little boys.” By the great god of Sha'angh'sei, Kay-Iro De, war is returned to the streets of the city!”

He rushed at Moichi then and they fought close together for long moments, breathlessly thrusting and counterthrusting, each seeking a weakness in the other's defense.

Moichi shifted his sword to his left hand and in the same motion swung it at the squat man in a flashing flat arc. Thus occupied, the other failed to see Moichi's right hand in time, fingers extended and rigid as a board. He turned, far too late. Moichi's hand, edge first, plowed into the nerve cluster at the side of his neck and the Green crashed heavily to the cobbles.

The street was deserted now, save for the strewn bodies; the kubaru had long since disappeared. But Moichi could feel the eyes staring at him from the many shop windows. Taking deep breaths, ignoring the fire in his left shoulder, he hastily retrieved his dirks, shoving them into his wide sash. Returning his sword to its tattooed leather scabbard, he turned down a side street, disappearing almost immediately from view.