Dreamlands (19 page)

“That sounds very interesting,” McGann said. “What are the Dreamlands like?”

Tamazusa laughed. “You are asking a very silly question. The Dreamlands are a reflection of the real world. The Dreamlands just
are
.”

“And what are you doing here?” Murphy semi-growled.

Tamazusa snapped her fan shut. “That is a very rude question.” Mason looked up from his food, “Like asking a chick her weight or how old she is. I thought that your wife would have you trained by now.”

“When you actually see a woman besides those whores―” Murphy started.

McGann buried her face in her left hand, and Romejinoff rolled her eyes. I was fascinated by the fact that Wolf was embarrassed by this conversation. I didn’t blame him, because such squabbling showed the lack of unity in his group. But did he truly think that any of us had not heard of the word “whore” before?

“I know enough not to be an asshole to the people who are our hosts,” Mason retorted.

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“Could you not fight in front of our hostess?” McGann hissed, blushing bright red. “Act like you both aren’t choking on testosterone!” Wolf coughed as if something was caught in his throat. Tamazusa stared at all of them, amused by their gross lack of manners that allowed them to squabble in front of us. I wondered again why they were here. If the leader couldn’t control―or at least act like he could control―his men, he had no business leading them. Members of this group, it seemed, would kill each other given a chance to. That was interesting, but it didn’t answer my question of why they were here. I wondered if they had been sent here just to get rid of them.

“What is testosterone?” Tamazusa asked after a minute of strained silence, looking at the group in front of her. These people were straining the limits of the politeness that had been drilled into her by her training as a companion.

“Macho bullshitedness,” Mason said with a smile.

At the same time, McGann said, “It is a hormone in men that is related to aggression.”

“Hormone?” I asked.

McGann looked embarrassed. “I’m sorry; I forgot that you aren’t that technologically advanced. It’s a substance that is produced in the human body, like blood. There are a lot of them, men and women even have different ones. Hormones have something to do with how feminine or how masculine someone is.”

“Interesting,” I smiled. “We―at least I―have not bothered to follow the discoveries and changes in the other world. I know that my lady has always been more interested in such discoveries. I have centered my attention on other things. However, there would be others that might be interested in such things in the other lands.” Murphy and Romejinoff had the same faint sneer on their faces.

Mason looked thoughtful, as if he wanted to ask a question but had changed his mind. The other two were just absorbing what we were telling them. Wolf and McGann were the ones to watch; they were clever and could think on more than one level, unlike Mason, who was FELICITAS IVEY

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a blunt weapon. I wondered why Murphy was the one in charge when Wolf was much more clever. He deferred to the older man, and there was some respect there, but Murphy was too blinded by his prejudices to be a good leader.

The rest of our breakfast was finished in silence, Keno staying behind Tamazusa until we were done, eating his breakfast quickly.

“Sakura-chan, could you tell the kitchens that we are through here?” she asked Keno in Japanese. “And then attend me at court today.”

Keno bowed and hurried off to do her bidding. Romejinoff stared after her, but I thought it was simply jealousy I saw in her eyes. Keno was much better looking and better dressed than she was. I didn’t think she knew that Sakura was anything other than she appeared to be.

“I must leave you in Samojirou-sama’s hands right now,” Tamazusa said. “I have duties and appointments that I cannot neglect.”

“A moment before you leave us, my lady,” I said with a bow.

“There might be an unexpected visit from an old friend of mine today.” Tamazusa nodded, and we drew to one side, out of earshot of the outlanders. “Mason and Wolf are
Hakkenshi
avatars,” I said. “That might bring the princess to us. There was also an incident with Inue-sama and Inuta-sama last night. She may come to talk to you about your gift to me, even though I said that I would be calling on her.” She nodded. “And how is your blossom?”

“Wanting to avoid these people,” I said. “It was his idea to dress as Sakura, not mine. But the outlanders have seen someone here that they think that they know.”

“Thank you for the warning,” Tamazusa murmured. “I doubt that the princess will come here today; it will take some time for her to convince her sons to allow her to travel here, to say nothing of her consort.”

“I look forward to our evening meal,” I said formally with a bow and smile. Tamazusa bowed back and went on her way. I didn’t envy 135

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her, dealing with the quarrels and problems of her court today. She enjoyed it, though, and took great joy in those details of ruling.

“Where’d she have to go?” Mason asked.

“My lady has court today. She gives justice one day every month,” I said.

“But there doesn’t seem to be anyone around here,” McGann said.

I shrugged. “The estate houses between fifty and a hundred workers, depending on the season. She has a steward, for lack of a better term, who runs the estate for her, with some help from myself.

Then there is Okita-san, her master at arms, who trains her samurai. I train with them upon occasion. I also lead the samurai into battle for her, but that hasn’t happened recently. But she is also lord over several lesser lords and townships. The townsmen and merchants come to her for advice and justice. There are also others, lords of the
kuni
and foreigners who would wish to speak to her in this setting. My lady travels to her
donjon
today for this. She prefers that to having the rabble overrun her estate.”

“So she’s actually lord of this land,” Romejinoff sneered.

I shrugged. “It is something that she enjoys. I lost my taste for the politics needed a while ago.”

“It figures she wears the pants,” Murphy muttered.

I didn’t think he realized how good my hearing was. I ignored the insult, even if I didn’t exactly understand it. McGann looked appalled, and I wondered again why this man was their leader. Was it something about the place they were from that they only allowed those whose brains were rotted and prejudiced to lead them? Heiseg had been the same, from what Tamazusa had told me.

“Let us see if Hikura-sensei has finished his morning meal,” I said. “Though I think that he might be overwhelmed with the amount of visitors.”

Wolf shrugged. “Why don’t you see if Okita-san is willing to have me and Mason?”

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“But there is the issue of language,” I pointed out to them. “None of my lady’s samurai speak English fluently, and you apparently don’t speak Nipponese.”

“Pantomime goes a long way,” Mason said.

“I also know German, Russian, and Norwegian,” Wolf offered.

“Do any of the samurai speak those languages?” I nodded, noting that he left out his fluency in our language in this list. “A handful speak some language other than their own. But usually the ones who are multilingual are the merchants.”

“Wouldn’t they have to be?” McGann asked.

“It is useful to know the language of those you are dealing with so that you know how much you can cheat them,” I said dryly. “Such miscalculations are usually fatal if they guess wrong.”

“But―” Murphy protested.

I shrugged, “They are merchants. The lowest form of life, barely above the unclean.”

All of them looked upset over my pronouncement. These outsiders were amazing ignorant. That was still the attitude in my homeland, as far as I knew.

“I think that Hikura-sensei would be as interested in meeting all of you,” I said. It also would be interesting to watch because he spoke several human as well as demon languages.

WE arrived at the library while Hikura was bustling around doing his morning routine. He seemed surprised to see someone this early, and I could tell that the outsiders were horrified to see someone who was so obviously nonhuman aside from the Reavers.

Hikura bowed low, announcing in Japanese, “You honor me with your presence!”

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“Please speak English,” I said, “since the outsiders seem to only have that tongue.”

Hikura nodded and continued in that language. “And what does Samojirou-sama desire of me?”

“The outsiders are explorers; they wish to see the maps of my lady’s lands and those that show the Dreamlands.” Hikura bowed and disappeared into his realm to gather what the outsiders needed.

MASON

THE library was the last place I wanted to be. Tamazusa was letting her boy toy show us around while she went off and did the real work. It didn’t piss me off as much as it should have. I knew that the two of them were treating us as if we were just a minor inconvenience and weren’t taking us seriously. I knew we hadn’t put our best foot forward with these people; we were all bitching at each other, and this was just the first day we were here. If these two ever clued into the snide comments the ice bitch was making, our asses were grass. I didn’t know what she was saying, because it was all a language that only Wolf knew, but the look in his eyes told me volumes. It was probably telling this Samojirou guy the same thing. Romejinoff was making really snide comments, because she thought that she was better than everyone here. She wasn’t, not on her best day.

The library was a little room that didn’t impress me. It was empty except for a couple of low tables, because these people had something against furniture. We had sat on pillows to eat breakfast, and I had thought Murphy was going to pitch a fit. There was a trick to sitting in robes that none of us knew; I had almost showed Tamazusa a lot more than either of us wanted her to see. But we all managed to sit without flashing anyone, and breakfast wasn’t that bad, for being weird soup, FELICITAS IVEY

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rice and fruit, and fish and vegetables. I didn’t stab anyone with chopsticks, so I was happy.

I also found out the name of the chick: Sakura. She seemed to be some sort of maid or something, because she sat behind Tamazusa while she played hostess, but they both ate with us so I knew it wasn’t poisoned. She ran off at the end of the meal when Tamazusa had given her some sort of orders. That was how I figured out her name. And Tamazusa seemed to like her, from the tone of her voice. But there was something else that was going on, from the low-voiced conversation she’d had with Samojirou before he dragged us off to the library to get us out of her hair.

“Where are the books?” I blurted.

Samojirou laughed. “Hikura-sensei will fetch what you need to know. He doesn’t allow anyone but Tamazusa free rein in his dominion.”

McGann nodded. “There are libraries from where we are that do that. The staff will find what you are looking for.”

“I doubt that Kairns has been to a library in his life,” Romejinoff muttered.

“I don’t go too often either,” Wolf remarked.

I thought Wolf was pissed at her attitude. I didn’t care. I could read what I needed to and could write a report fairly legibly. Books weren’t something that really interested me. I thought of all the books I had packed up from Keno’s place and knew that he’d have liked being here.

Hikura brought out a couple of rolls of what I thought was wallpaper at first but realized were their “books.” He carefully put them down and unrolled the first one. The librarian was a little roly-poly blue guy with a beak of a nose that would make a Muppet proud. He didn’t look too impressed with us either. Hikura was someone you could tell had never been human, because his skin was scaly and an odd color blue, and he had a very long nose. He was a shorter than me and very 139

DREAMLANDS

round, with green eyes that looked like they should have been on a frog because they bulged out.

“This is Nippon,” he announced. His accent was heavy and almost unintelligible. It made me feel a lot better, because I’d had a feeling that everyone here who knew English was going to sound bland and model perfect. He gestured over the scroll he had unrolled. “These are the territories that Tamazusa-sama controls.” I looked at it. The map was really pretty, and I couldn’t figure out a damned thing on it. Wolf frowned and looked down and the rest of them huddled around the table. I just stood back and tried to make some sort of sense out of the pictures.

“You do not wish to study this?” Samojirou asked me.

I looked at him. We were about the same size, but I was packing a bit more bulk. He made me nervous. I thought he knew it because he just smiled like he was trying to sell me something, and I wasn’t buying it. I thought he knew it too.

“It’s pretty,” I said truthfully, “but without some sort of key, I can’t make heads or tails of it.”

I resisted asking him if his hobby was selling used cars, because he seemed slick enough to be a salesman. “Hikura-sensei would be overjoyed to explain it to you,” he offered.

I shrugged. “I can see it from here and hear most of what he is saying.”

“Knowledge is power,” he said seriously.

“What kind of knowledge do you want?” I asked.

Samojirou looked surprised at the question, but he continued to smile. I thought he liked being surprised like that. “You would not believe what I know,” he murmured.

“Tell me,” I challenged.

He merely smiled, and I knew he knew where Keno was. I wanted to throw him against the wall and choke it out of him. Samojirou knew FELICITAS IVEY

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that too. “I have studied many things over the centuries. You need to be more specific.”

“While the wife runs the place.”

He laughed, and everyone looked at us. Hikura looked like he was waiting for orders to attack us or something, and I realized there was muscle under all that roundness. He wasn’t as harmless as he looked.

“Kairns!” Murphy yelled.

“I assure you that Kairns-san simply is talking with me,” Samojirou said.