Linnear 03 - White Ninja (82 page)

'I want to know,' Nicholas said. 'I have to know.'

'Yes,' Kansatsu said slowly. 'Of course you do.' There was an odd note to his voice, as if he were reluctantly, sadly accepting the inevitable.

They crossed the snow shoulder, skirted a black, serpentine ridge of rock from which the snow had been

scoured by the constant winds. Below, a four-thousand-foot drop, interrupted only by saw-toothed outcroppings of rock. Above, the sheer, indomitable face of the Black Gendarme impinged upon the purple-blue sky.

Kansatsu stared into a middle distance, at a landscape only he could see, as he began. 'It is true that your great-grandmother, So-Peng's mother, fled Zhuji with the mystic emeralds of the tanjian elders. She took sixteen. They were her birthright, bequeathed to her from the moment she came squealing into the world.

'The tanjian, of course, had other emeralds. But they squandered their power, overtaxed kokoro with their ambition to put emissaries in other lands. There came a time, therefore, when they needed her emeralds back.

'Towards this end, they concocted a story, fed it to a young tanjian named Zhao Hsia. He was talented but, in this case, particularly impressionable. This was why the elders chose him. They dispatched him to Singapore to bring back the emeralds along with So-Peng who, they had heard, was a totally untrained tanjian.

'So-Peng's mother was warned and, fearing the worst, she told So-Peng as much as she dared of his heritage. So-Peng did the rest. He sought out Zhao Hsia. They fought. So-Peng prevailed. But at a high price. Before he died, Zhao Hsia told So-Peng that they were half-brothers. He had come from the same womb as had So-Peng.

'In the months afterwards, knowing that he and his mother would be watched, So-Peng gave over the care of the emeralds to Desaru, the man whose dog's life he had saved on the tiger hunt Tik Po Tak had taken him on. No one else knew of this man or of So-Peng's relationship with him.

'And, true to So-Peng's suspicions, the tanjian elders sent other emissaries to spy on him, to try to get the emeralds back. In this they were unsuccessful. But they

managed in their devious ways to murder all of So-Peng's daughters, those offspring whose sex would assure the continuation of the tanjian gift in his family. So-Peng did nothing; he was one man and the tanjian were many. But his blood-friend Tik Po Tak thought otherwise. He sought revenge against the tanjian spies, and was himself killed by them.

'Only when So-Peng's second wife had died, when he had vowed not to take another wife, when they were assured that he would never have a daughter, did the tanjian spies withdraw back to Zhuji in China.

'But So-Peng was a wily fox, and he fooled them all. He discovered a young orphan girl, recognized in her the tanjian gift. He took her in, nurtured her, taught her, loved her more than he had ever loved his own daughters.

"This girl was your mother Cheong. And, through her, So-Peng ensured the continuation of his lineage.'

'Then everything that Senjin believed was fake.'

'Yes.'

If you die now, if you die too easily, you will never understand. But it was Senjin who never understood, Nicholas thought. 'His hatred, his blood-feud with me was for nothing.'

Kansatsu stopped at the edge of a ridge. His eyes opened wide, and the light, hitting the irises, gave them an iridescent cast, 'Oh no. It wasn't for nothing, Nicholas. It brought you to me.' Kansatsu smiled, and Nicholas felt again the peculiar stirring at his shoulder, as if another presence were with them. 'And not only you: the tanjian emeralds as well.'

'What do you mean?' And still Nicholas did not want to believe it. But at last he looked fully at the presence at his shoulder: the dangerous truth.

'The emeralds in your possession are all that are left/ Kansatsu said. 'Whoever holds them, holds Eternity in his hand.'

Nicholas thought again of Umi's warning to him before he had left for New York. The dorokusai is close. Closer than you can believe or can imagine. One must focus on the power of the mind. And of illusion.

Nicholas took a pace backwards.

'That will do you no good,' Kansatsu said.

'You used Senjin to get to me; then you used me to kill him. He was the only other one who had a chance of getting the emeralds from me.'

'I told you that the only truth was here, and that it was dangerous.'

'You weren't always like this,' Nicholas said. 'Manipulating people, lives, murdering through proxy. I thought you were incorruptible.'

'Corruption is an odd thing,' Kansatsu said. 'It seems an impossibility until that one moment when it becomes irresistible. Then you tell yourself that it is nothing but giving in to temptation.'

'My God, you make it sound like a decision to have an extra-marital affair!'

'Well, that is an accurate analogy, don't you think?' Kansatsu said. 'I've strayed from the path of Akshara. But consider the reward. Now I will have everything!'

'No,' Nicholas raised his fist. 'As you've said, you've made your decision. And it is to have nothing.'

Nicholas opened his hand. In it lay nine emeralds.

'No!'

It was more than a shout, more even than a scream. In that one syllable was contained the shift in tides that had turned white to black, light into darkness, the righteous into the corrupted, the Way into the snare.

And the snare became the pit.

A humming in the air, a spark and crackle as if of a wood fire or heat lightning.

The emeralds in Nicholas's palm stirred, came to life. They were the nine: the mystic configuration venerated,

worshipped by the tanjian since the dawn of time.

The emeralds formed a pattern, complex, three-dimensional. The configuration rose, whirling, into the air of the Hodaka and, with headlong speed, rushed at Kansatsu.

They struck him so hard in the face, that his features disappeared. For an instant, Nicholas could see their glowing facets like a potent constellation of-stars embedded in his flesh.

Then the scent of burning flesh arose as if from a pagan pyre.

A scream, echoing through the vast snow-wrapped canyons of the Hodaka, as Kansatsu was blown backwards as if from the percussion of a cannon. Flung off the ridge of snowy rock, out into the swirling winds, a black mote in the blue, blue sky.

Dwindling into nothingness.

Nicholas, his heart hammering painfully in his chest, took in huge draughts of air. The terrible fear was still with him: the fear of confronting his mentor, in a very real sense, his father, if only in a spiritual sense; the fear of confronting centuries of arcane power, deceit and illusion; of having in his possession the means of destroying that power.

He was, indeed, the One. The guardian of the tanjian emeralds. He had fulfilled his destiny.

'Now it's over,' Nicholas said softly. There was no one there, yet he knew he was speaking directly to his grandfather.

Then he turned, went silently down off the Hodaka. And never looked back at the looming Black Gendarme, inimical, indifferent.

It was just a slab of rock now.

Autumn refused to come to Washington. The leaves on the cherry and plane trees, so lush in mid-summer, hung

limp and unmoving in the stiffing heat. The Potomac seemed gelid, smooth beneath the blanket of oppressive October humidity.

Cotton Branding's Ascra bill had passed both houses by an overwhelming majority, and there was bipartisan agreement that, should the Hive Project pass stringent tests, it would be installed as the one governmental computer system as early as two years hence.

Branding's popularity spread from coast to coast, and he was making the most of his increased air time. He had been on Meet the Press and Face the Nation. CNN had run an in-depth piece on him, and he had done exceptionally well on Firing Line.

He and Shisei were married in a public ceremony in front of the Lincoln Memorial. The venue itself caused a kind of feverish speculation. What was the senior senator from New York doing getting married in the nation's capital unless there was a political motive?

The media coverage was unprecedented, gaining, the lead spot on every TV news-magazine show. Gaily striped tents were filled with laughing people, pop music and the sound of popping champagne corks. Forbes and Fortune fought over rights to an exclusive interview with Branding. Newsweek put Branding and Shisei on its cover with the headline, 'The Golden Couple'. People ran a cover picture of them kissing at the end of the wedding ceremony. The copy asked the question, "The New Administration?' That same week, Time's cover dubbed them 'The New Global Royalty'.

Shisei had applied for citizenship and, a month later, had taken the oath along with a dozen other immigrants from various nations. The ceremony, which also garnered extensive media coverage, moved her more than she could have imagined.

By October, too, it was clear that Branding had an overwhelming mandate from his party. It seemed

likely that after the presidential elections in two years, he would be the one presiding over the installation of the Hive computer from the Oval Office.

That afternoon - a Sunday when Branding and Shisei were finally alone - they had just finished making love. It had been a long and languorous day, the heat from outside seeping into their bare skin as they twined and slept and twined again.

Shisei rose at last, her bladder full, and padded into the bathroom. Beyond, through the open door, was the room they had converted into her study. As she finished, she passed by the open door, saw the red light flashing on her computer. A message was being sent via the modem. Curious, Shisei went to the computer, punched the code to bring up the message on the screen as it was being transmitted.

She sat down hard on a chair, an icy hand squeezing her insides. For there, blossoming on the screen was the unmistakable serpentine architecture of the mantis virus. But this was a new version, faster, with added elements that carried the information in a stream, curling on the crests of a series of waves.

In a moment, the last line of the transmission appeared on the screen, blinking over and over.

MANTIS PERFECTED. IMPLEMENT IMMEDIATELY.

Shisei cleared the screen.

But the new mantis was already stored in her computer as if it were a deadly substance or a genie, slipped into a glass phial, waiting, patient as a god, to be let out.

About the Author

Eric Van Lustbader is the author of French Kiss, Zero, Shan, Jian, Black Heart, The Ninja and The Miko, all bestsellers. He lives in New York City and in Southampton, Long Island, with his wife, editor Victoria Schochet Lustbader.

By the same author

Novels of Asia:

The Ninja Black Heart The Miko Zero French Kiss

The China Maroc Novels:

Jian Shan

Novels of America: Sirens

The Sunset Warrior sequence:

The Sunset Warrior Shallows of Night Dai-San

Beneath an Opal Moon

The End