Dragons on the Sea of Night (33 page)

‘Hamaan!' he cried one more time in despair. Then he looked up at Sardonyx and said, ‘Do it!'

‘No,' she said. ‘Absolutely not. If I engage my power now that will be the last time.'

‘I cannot … I
will
not leave my brother.'

‘Moichi, we will be utterly helpless once we get to the summit.'

‘So be it, then,' he said.

‘You know, he may already be dead. In that case …'

‘I know. You will have used your magic for nothing. You cannot bring him back from the dead. But we don't know that he
is
dead, do we?'

Sardonyx looked at him. ‘Pull yourself back up,' she said bleakly.

Moichi did as she bade him. As he reached the upper finger he felt an overwhelming desire to close his eyes. The world spun and he dreamed he was falling, falling …

And when he opened his eyes, the three of them were sprawled on the far side of the great rift. Hamaan lay between them, curled into a ball. Moichi pawed through the ice and snow to turn him over.

‘Hamaan.'

His brother opened his eyes. Seeing Moichi, his mouth curved in a peculiar smile. ‘You owe me now, brother.'

‘I … what?'

Hamaan sat up. ‘For saving your life out there in the rift. Or have you conveniently forgotten?'

The horror of it was that he hadn't. After that disconcerting moment when two realities overlapped, the new one rushed in on Moichi and he remembered everything in gory detail: the pteron pulling out of the black ice, him tumbling downward, and Hamaan swinging immediately to grab him around the waist before his head smashed into a buttress of ice.

Moichi looked wordlessly across at Sardonyx, who was reeling in the last of their lines that had stretched across the rift.

She shrugged. ‘It was the only future where the three of us made it across unscathed.'

‘What the chill is she talking about?' Hamaan said irritably. ‘We make our own futures.' He grinned into Moichi's face. ‘Isn't that so, brother?'

The Kunshin relaxed alone in his royal bath. The bathing chambers were extensive for, it was said, he often loved to bathe with a number of nubile young women who did considerably more than run invigorating sponges over his shoulders and back. And yet the truth was far more mundane. For the Kunshin the bath had always been a time of solitude. The scalding water, the herb-infused mist rising from its surface, served to distance him from everyone and everything. In this manner he was best able to formulate policy, deliberate reforms, conquer whatever problems might arise.

So this was how his daughter found him, eyes closed, hairless body floating in an octagonal tub of polished cedar slabs and black jade, his mind a thousand miles away as he turned over some weighty matter affecting the Kunshindom.

As in a nightmare, Chiisai watched herself creep closer on ten-inch golden talons, across the damp cedar planks, past neat and homey piles of towels, washcloths and all manner of freshly laundered raiment that the Kunshin might require following his bath.

She wanted to call out to him, to raise her voice in warning, but it was no longer her voice, and she was no longer his child. He could not possibly recognize in this great winged beast the woman who had been Chiisai.

Some finely honed sixth sense made him turn as she approached.

‘Kaer'n?' he said, seeming not at all surprised. ‘Is my presence required?'

Chiisai's body kept coming on, but her detached mind wondered what was going on. He should have been stunned by the presence of a Kaer'n in the castle, let alone in his private bath chambers, and yet he took it as an altogether common occurrence.

He levered himself out of the water, wrapped a thick towel around his torso, rubbing briskly. ‘It will take me but a moment to dress and then we can be on our way.'

‘You are going nowhere, Kunshin.' Kaijikan stepped out from behind the bulk of Chiisai's body. ‘Except to each one of the ten thousand hells I designate.'

The Kunshin blinked, peering at her in the low light. ‘Who are you? How did you get in here?' Now he did seem startled.

‘I came with the Kaer'n,' she said, not altogether truthfully.

The Kunshin nodded distractedly. ‘That explains it then.' He was looking through his selection of clothes.

‘I am afraid it doesn't,' Kaijikan said. Chiisai had stopped a short pace from where her father was climbing into loose silk trousers and shirt. ‘Do you remember Ulrika?'

At the name, the Kunshin paused momentarily, then he continued dressing. ‘I know no one by that name.'

‘Liar!' Kaijikan screamed. Her clawed fingers performed arabesques in the air and Chiisai stumbled forward, her forearm reaching out, the taloned hand wrapping around her father's waist.

‘What is the meaning of this? How dare you touch the Kunshin's person!' he sputtered.

His protestations only made Kaijikan laugh. ‘Men! How ineffectual you all are, in the end! How different this land would be had there been a woman on the Dragon Throne.' She closed her lifted hand into a fist and Chiisai felt her own hand closing painfully around her father's torso. The Kunshin gasped and grimaced in sudden pain.

‘Now does the name Ulrika sound familiar?' she asked.

‘Y-yes.' The Kunshin's face was pale, but Chiisai could see his eyes darting around the bath chamber in an attempt to identify some weapon or implement he could use against his attackers. ‘Ulrika was a mistress of mine. But that was some time ago, before I ascended the Dragon Throne.'

‘Tell me about her,' Kaijikan said.

‘She was beautiful,' the Kunshin said. ‘Delicate and pale, almost like a spirit.'

‘Go on.'

‘Is it prurience you are after?' the Kunshin said stoically. ‘I have no intention of–'

‘She was mute, wasn't she?'

The Kunshin seemed shocked by the violence of her words. ‘Yes. She was without words. But it did not matter; we found other methods to communicate.'

‘Yes, indeed,' Kaijikan said. ‘Over and over, you climbed upon her body and had your way with her.'

Quite unexpectedly, the Kunshin smiled. ‘Actually, it was pretty much the other way around.'

‘Liar!'

‘You asked me to tell you about her and I am. She was quite a sexual hellion.' He cocked his head. ‘You mean you did not know this about her?'

‘My sister was chaste when you as much as abducted her. You raped her, kept her pent up like an animal'

The Kunshin frowned. ‘You are Ulrika's sister? Ah, yes, I see a resemblance now. But what gives you the idea that I raped her and kept her a prisoner? Nothing could be further from the truth.'

‘Then why did she stay with you?' Kaijikan shrieked. ‘She never came home. She abandoned me!'

‘Yes, I believe she did,' the Kunshin said. ‘She hated her family, and especially you. You bullied her, berating her every waking moment to work on learning how to speak. To make her more like yourself. That became your sacred quest, didn't it? And you never bothered to discover that she did not want to speak. As I said, she had other methods of communication. And, believe me, they were often far more profound than mere speech.'

‘You killed her.' Kaijikan fairly spit in his face. ‘Murdered her in cold blood.'

‘Nonsense,' the Kunshin said. ‘Why would I do such a thing? Ulrika died among her beloved Kaer'n.'

Kaijikan staggered backward a step. ‘What?'

‘It was she who introduced me to them. She could speak to them, you see. They require no words. It was with the help of the Kaer'n that I became Kunshin. Why do you think the highest office in Ama-no-mori is called the Dragon Throne? It is no coincidence. The Kaer'n are the true power behind the Kunshin. They have kept the peace here for millennia. All Kunshin have been their partners – and their most loyal allies.'

‘I will hear no more of this slander against my sister,' Kaijikan raged. ‘I know the truth. It
must
be the truth!'

So saying, her hands flew through the air and, to Chiisai's horror, she saw her own Kaer'n body betray her, betray the ages-old alliance between Kaer'n and Bujun. As her father's face became bloated, as he tried to twist this way and that to escape, her grip tightened on him until her long golden talons began to sink into his flesh.

On the far side of the great rift the clouds were lowering. The mountain trembled, periodically sending cascades of rock and ice hurtling into its depths. Moichi thought it providential that no such avalanches had occurred while they were traversing the rift.

Pink lightning streaked through the billowing clouds, so close overhead that one could make out their crimson centers. Bursts of icy snow, increasing in intensity, fell in oblique sheets, their strength cutting through the howling wind.

‘We had better keep moving,' Moichi said, hoisting the last of their gear onto his back.

‘Let me go,' Hamaan said. ‘A life for a life. That is God's way, you know it. You owe me as much.'

‘Is that why you saved my life, Hamaan, with this calculation in mind?' He shook his head, answering his own question. ‘No, it all happened too fast for that. You acted out of instinct. You
wanted
to save me.'

‘I cannot think why,' Hamaan said dourly. ‘Each hour that goes by I am more convinced that you march us to our doom.'

‘If that is your conviction,' Moichi said, ‘then I free you. Go back down the Mountain Sin'hai.'

Hamaan laughed sourly. ‘Is that some kind of joke? Alone, I would not last half-a-day. For starters, how would I traverse the great rift?'

Moichi shrugged. ‘In the same way we came across.'

They all turned as the earth shook and, with a great roar, a thick shelf of icy rock collapsed into the abyss.

‘That is not a comforting thought, brother.'

‘Then continue on with us,' Moichi offered.

‘To be offered up to God like a sacrifice.'

‘I have freed you of all obligation,' Moichi said. ‘Do as you will.'

He signed to Sardonyx and they set off away from the great rift, on the last leg of the journey to the summit. Hamaan stood staring after them. Then, with a muttered, ‘Chill take him!' he strode after them, hurrying to catch up. He had no desire to be alone in this wilderness.

‘I hope you know what you have made me do,' Sardonyx said.

‘You have saved a life,' Moichi replied.

Sardonyx shook her head. ‘Perhaps so, but in so doing we have left ourselves far more vulnerable to whatever might be waiting for us on the summit.'

Moichi grunted. ‘What will happen if we run into terminal trouble and you attempt to use your Shinju sorcery?'

‘Truthfully, I cannot say. I only know that Bjork warned me against using it more than twice.'

The way was becoming steeper and narrower all at once. A form of ice fog hung in the air like chill cobwebs, forcing them to slow their pace. With the weather so bad it was impossible to judge the time of day but Moichi, anxious to reach their objective, pushed them to pick up their pace. Ahead of them, the pink lightning looked like streaks of blood upon the ice, and now it was possible to see that they all appeared to radiate from a central point that was directly ahead of the travelers.

‘The summit,' Moichi said, pointing. ‘We are almost there.'

‘Moichi,' Hamaan said, coming up at his side, ‘what happened back there in the rift? When I think about it sometimes I remember it one way, and other times …' He paused and a quick shudder went through him. ‘I don't know, it's as if I was dying.' He gave a sharp uncomfortable laugh. ‘But I'm not, am I?'

‘No, Hamaan. We are all alive.'

‘Then what am I feeling inside?'

‘Why pursue it?'

‘Because I find it disturbing,' Hamaan said. ‘I have never had thoughts like these. Am I going mad?'

‘No.' Moichi turned to his brother. ‘No matter what you have done, no matter what you say or think, I was not going to let you die. You are my flesh and blood and by God I will hang on to you come what may.'

Hamaan was ashen-faced. ‘So it was not a nightmare. It really happened.'

‘Forget it,' Moichi said. ‘What happened was that you saved my life, remember?'

‘I remember them both,' Hamaan said, dropping back a pace in order to be alone with his thoughts.

‘What has happened?' Sardonyx asked him a moment later.

‘He remembers both realities,' Moichi said, ‘and it has rattled him.'

Sardonyx gave him a brief glance. ‘Good. Perhaps now there is less chance he will stab us in the back.'

The path they had chosen up to the summit quickly became a narrow defile. Above them on either side, great conical rock formations rose into the icy mists. The wind howling through them created the semblance of speech, heavily tremoloed and distorted beyond comprehension. And yet it fostered the notion that they were entering a place where life existed all around them, in objects and elements normally without consciousness. It was as if the very air was possessed of spirits that rose and fell, gyring on treacherous currents.

It seemed now as if they ascended a cyclopean staircase hewn from the living basalt for they rose in precise increments, passing from tread to tread, rising toward what could only be their objective: the summit of the Mountain Sin'hai.

The bolts of lightning clashed constantly, illuminating everything in a feral glow. The basalt formations became larger, more massive, until they rose on every side, a mountain atop Sin'hai. And at their very peak a red glow burned through the icy mist like a massive lantern hung at the apex of a lighthouse.

As they watched, the swirling sheets of ice metamorphosed. As they struck the rock formations they did not bounce off but, rather, accreted onto the rock, becoming one with it. Lower down, enormous boulders that hung like goiters from the nearly vertical formations quickly broke down, dissolving into liquid that rose into the air, transforming into more sheets of ice.