Dragons on the Sea of Night (32 page)

The trio stopped in their tracks. Even Hamaan was struck dumb. Now Moichi understood the unconscious warning of the echoes of the rock slides and avalanches. Had they continued on yesterday, as Hamaan had suggested, they would be dead now.

There before them, not three hundred yards from the spot where they had made camp, lay a yawning rift in the ice and rock face so deep and wide it could have been made only by the hand of God.

FIFTEEN

T
HE
G
REAT
R
IFT

‘
Can you feel anything when I do this?
'

Kaijikan pursed her full lips and held her hand aloft. In it, encased within a shimmering transparent ball, swam a tiny Kaer'n.

Chiisai.

Kaijikan, laughing, shook the ball as a child would a toy, and Chiisai tumbled snout over tail.

‘How does it feel to be powerless, my dear?' Kaijikan chuckled, sucking in cheeks with an unhealthy pallor. ‘Get used to it.'

In truth, Chiisai could see nothing at all. From inside, the sorcerous ball was utterly opaque. But she could hear Kaijikan's voice as clearly as if she stood next to the Keeper of Souls. The vertiginous sensation that had overtaken her when Kaijikan had made the second runish pass in the air had not abated. Sick to her stomach, Chiisai could do nothing but float docilely and pray this state would soon pass.

Soon enough, it did. But when the opaque bubble broke and the fluid in which she had been immersed drained away, she wished she were back inside the sphere for she saw they were within her father's private chambers, at the center of the Kunshin's castle in Haneda. How Kaijikan had transported them here she had no idea, but they were already beyond the moat, the bristling armaments, the Kunshin's specially trained elite guards. Somewhere here her father, the leader and spiritual power of all the Bujun, lay unsuspecting and vulnerable to attack.

‘Even that hideous Kaer'n face possesses expression,' Kaijikan said. ‘And I like what I see.' She circled Chiisai. ‘Your fear excites me. It is like an exotic spice tasted on the tip of my tongue.' She stepped closer and her tongue flicked out, licking Chiisai's scaly skin. ‘Mmmm.' She closed her eyes as if in ecstasy.

Then her eyes snapped open, and they were steely hard. ‘Time,' she whispered, ‘for retribution.' She beckoned for Chiisai to follow her.

‘I cannot move,' Chiisai said. ‘Not even one muscle.'

Kaijikan turned back. ‘Is that relief I hear in your voice?' She smiled that altogether wicked smile. ‘Surely we cannot have that.' Her long fingers made signs in the air, releasing Chiisai from her stasis. ‘Understand me, child, you move now at my behest,' Kaijikan said softly. ‘You have no choice. You
will
do as I tell you.'

‘You are mistaken,' Chiisai said. ‘I will prove–' Against her will she lurched forward. She peered down at herself walking behind Kaijikan. Her mind was totally detached, floating in layers of fog. She tried to give her nerves and muscles direction but it was as if she had forgotten how. Nothing happened, except that she continued through room after room, heading deeper into her father's world. If her triple-hearts could have constricted with dread they would have, but she no longer had any connection with her physical body. She was like Sanda, her essence trapped in the ghastly limbo of Chaos.

But she could still speak. ‘Why are you doing this?' she asked.

‘I told you,' Kaijikan said irritably. ‘My sister–'

‘Your sister's death had nothing to do with you making an unholy pact with Chaos.'

Kaijikan paused, smiling thinly. ‘You know, it really is a shame that you will have to die. In a way, it is a sin against nature to destroy that lightning-quick brain of yours.'

‘Chaos is a crime against nature.'

‘Ah, there you are wrong, young lady. And I am astonished that you who have Crossed Over could still believe that very human lie. You are no longer human, Chiisai. In fact, I daresay you are now more like me than the father you will soon murder.'

‘How can you make such an outlandish statement?'

‘Because it is the truth.' Kaijikan looked her in the eye. ‘Look at me, child. What do you think I am? A human being? Could you mistake me for Bujun or Kintai? I think not.'

And it was true. Ever since she had met the Keeper of Souls, Chiisai had wondered at her origins.

‘I am Shinju. Do you know that race, child?'

‘I have heard of them. I know the legend of Miira's Mirror.'

‘Miira!' Kaijikan almost spat out the word. ‘It is so unjust that the legend should have grown up around
her. I
should be the subject of legend.'

‘But the Keeper of Souls–'

‘Is, as you say, a frightening fable meant to keep children obedient.' Kaijikan seemed truly sad. ‘I have been reduced to being an ogre in a children's story. What a pathetic cliche! Miira's legend, meanwhile, had panache, style. Everyone admires her.'

‘Perhaps if you had not made a pact with Chaos you, too, could–'

‘You stupid, stupid girl. Don't you understand?
All
the Shinju made a pact with Chaos, even the heroine, Miira. Do you think she was any different because she had the exceedingly poor judgement to run off with a Syrinxian politician? And now her half-breed child lords it over the Khashm, thinking rebellious thoughts just as Miira did. Don't you think I know it was he who cut the tongue from the Makkon and sent it to me as warning? My God, the whole mess makes me sick.'

‘Then what is it you want?' Chiisai said.

‘I want what all of Chaos wants because it is right and just. Reintegration. Chaos wants what rightfully belongs to Chaos. The piece of this world denied it when it was banished aeons ago.'

‘You cannot mean that.'

Kaijikan's face was an anguished mask. ‘Oh, but I do. I want to be whole again, as you are now – part of this world and part of Chaos. But you already knew this, didn't you? You just wanted to hear me say it. Now that I have, are you satisfied?'

Chiisai, her essence locked away by Kaijikan's sorcery, quailed at the truth. The thought of every being on the planet being possessed by the essence of a Chaos beast was too terrible to contemplate for long. She was a different case – perhaps unique. Her life in this world was coming to an end. She took the only route open to her and by some alchemical process had been transformed. Perhaps it was once true, as Kaijikan said, that man and Chaos had existed as one, but that time was long gone. Mankind had evolved while Chaos had not. Man was now well beyond the stage when reintegration would work. She knew that if Chaos were allowed its desire the end result would be nothing short of disaster. Humans could no longer tolerate the sight of Chaos, let alone its presence.

‘No, no,' Chiisai cried, ‘you must see how misguided the notion of reintegration is.'

A terrible, livid color suffused Kaijikan's face. ‘I see nothing of the kind,' she raged. ‘I am damaged, don't you understand. I
need
what only Chaos can provide. They are sworn to cure the disease that has ravaged me from birth in return for my help. All Shinju are born part Chaos. That is our inherited affliction. Our power began to wane when Chaos was banished through the Portal; I want it back.'

‘What Portal?' Chiisai asked. ‘The only Portal I know of I made with my sword in the cave fissure.'

‘That is an adjunct, a mere pinprick hole,' Kaijikan said. ‘I have been working for years with Chaos to weaken the fabric between their dimension and this world. But the main Portal is on the summit of the Mountain Sin'hai beyond the Khashm of Syrinx.'

‘That is how the tongueless Makkon came through?'

‘Yes. I have given Chaos everything it needs to succeed. My sorcery has at last unbolted the Portal on the summit of the Mountain Sin'hai so that Chaos may re-enter this world. And through the same method I delivered to Sakkourn, the new Chaos-master what it wanted most – the soul of a certain human. That was why the Makkon was loose in Iskael.'

Immediately, Chiisai thought of Sanda, trapped in Chaos, and her heart despaired. They were both helpless prisoners of Chaos.

She watched bleakly as Kaijikan made signs in the air and Chiisai saw her own body moving from one room to the next, passing through chambers familiar to her from her childhood. Each artifact, decoration and piece of furniture had a history, a purpose, and she knew them all, recounting them to herself like a child's invocation against evil.

But evil was coming, implacable and menacing; the malefic force was at her side, guiding her every move, and she despaired for her father's life which, she was quite certain, was about to end by her own hand.

The great rift ran to left and right as far as they could see in the swirling mist that was, once again, closing in on them. Already, the patch of blue sky was fast disappearing and the mountain trembled. A new storm must be on its way.

‘What do you think?' Sardonyx said as the three of them stood on the brink. ‘An eighth of a mile across?'

‘At least,' Moichi said.

‘We will never make it,' Hamaan said, but they paid him scant attention.

‘See there.' Moichi pointed. ‘Though the rift is very deep there are series of formations thrust up from the bottom. The spaces between them are not so great. If we can fasten the line to one, we can swing from one to another.'

‘They are fingers. Some are as thin as stalagmites,' Hamaan said. ‘What if they cannot take our weight?'

‘Let's get ready,' Moichi said, and pointed again to a formation several yards to their right. ‘We will start there. The rock finger looks closest.'

Moichi got the line around the tapering top of the rock finger on the second try, pulled it fast. ‘Hamaan is right, these formations are suspect,' he said. ‘It's only fair that I go first.'

‘Moichi–' Sardonyx's face was filled with trepidation.

He smiled at her. ‘Have faith. We are in God's domain now.'

He gripped the line with both hands then, taking a deep breath, launched himself out into the rift. Vertical fields of ice- and snow-covered rock rushed by below, and he could hear the wind moaning through the depths of the rift. He came up on the rock finger with appalling speed and, twisting his body, just missed being slammed belly-first into it. Instead, he swung around it, his fingers slipping for a moment on the icy surface, then catching hold.

For a moment he clung to the icy rock, hanging in the middle of nowhere. It was almost like being suspended in space. His heart hammered painfully in his chest and he fought to regain control of his breathing.

Then, he set about work, choosing an appropriate spot to hammer in a pteron, running the second line he carried through the loop end, securing it. He waved to Sardonyx and Hamaan and, taking aim at the second finger, swung toward it. When he had safely made it, he turned in time to see Hamaan swinging out toward the first finger.

So it went in laborious fashion until in intense concentration a certain rhythm was achieved: swing, grapple, hammer, sling, check, rest, re-check, swing again as the entire process repeated itself. There was a kind of joy in the rhythm, in successfully completing one job after another, that took the edge off the terror of the rift yawning at every moment just below where they hung.

Storm clouds swept by overhead, and the deep-throated rumbling was now an all but constant reminder that they were closer to their objective than they had realized. They had successfully negotiated more than two-thirds of the rift when the pteron on the finger toward which Hamaan was swinging gave way.

Hamaan cried out at he fell through open space. Twenty feet down, the safety line came up taut, jerking him out of free-fall. In doing so, he was propelled into an ice outcropping. He went into it head first.

‘Hamaan!' Moichi called.

‘He is hurt, badly,' Sardonyx, who had a better angle, shouted across the rift. ‘He is either unconscious or dead.'

‘Stay where you are,' Moichi called, ‘I'm going back for him.'

‘But Moichi–'

‘I need you to stay in place, Sardonyx. If I go down you are the only anchor we will have.'

He dug the heels of his boots into the ice finger, flung himself back across the rift. Catching hold of the icy rock, he searched for the spot into which he had sunk the pteron. Black ice! No wonder it had given way. A six-inch chunk had simply sheared off under the pressure.

He looked directly below him, saw his brother hanging bloody head downward, banging slowly against the ice outcropping. ‘I'm going down,' he called to Sardonyx, ‘but I don't know whether I have enough line to reach him.'

Down he went, hand over hand, the toes of his boots digging for purchase along the slick ice. Now that he was lower, he could see the problem clearly. The ice outcropping was part of a shorter rock finger, so a gap remained between the formation he was on and the one from which Hamaan dangled.

‘Come back!' Sardonyx shouted. ‘You are not going to be able to get to him.'

Perhaps she was right, Moichi thought. But he could do nothing else save try. He continued downward, then, at the right instant, kicked outward. For one breathless instant he was suspended in space, then he dropped into what seemed like dizzying infinity. The minor finger loomed in front of him and he grabbed onto its summit. Now he could see Hamaan more clearly. There was a large gash in one temple that was bleeding profusely. Sardonyx was right: it looked very bad.

‘Hamaan!' he called. ‘Hamaan, I am right above you!'

‘Moichi,' Sardonyx shouted. ‘He cannot hear you!'

‘Hamaan!' he continued, ignoring her, ‘Just reach up and I can grab your hand!'

There was no response; the body continued to bump-bump-bump against the side of the rock finger. Moichi let himself down, down until he reached the limit of his line. He could go no further without completely disengaging himself from the harness and then he would have no way back up.