For a moment he floated above the receding abyss of his unconscious where rose...
And sat up. Slatted wooden doors through which the salt breeze blew and light streamed and he knew then that he was in Llowan"s harrtin, though why Kiri had brought him back here instead of to Tencho he could not remember. He was alone in the room. He stood up and, naked to the waist, went out into the day.
The veranda too was empty yet still he felt the complex shreds of last night clinging to the edges as if they were real and fluttering in the wind.
He looked out at the sluggish sea, clogged with vessels large and small. It was a bright, clear day with thin high clouds near the lid of the sky and he squinted in the sunshine. Below him, the activity along the long wharves of Sha"angh"sei was fierce with loadings and unloadings, the compredores calling to the stevedores, who in turn shouted at the singing kubaru, jogging under the weight of bales and barrels filled with the wealth of the city, the foods and textiles of the continent of man.
His eyes moved from the white billowing sails studding the near waters to the yellow sea farther out and, like a wave pungent with salt and phosphorus washing over him, the events of last night flooded in on him.
Kay-Iro De. Kay-Ira De.
He shook his head. Perhaps it was only the aftermath of the substance which he had taken. What had Kiri called it? The tears of the Lamiae. Merely an illusion, rising and falling like the tide. Sun dancing on the restless water, shards of liquid gold. A memory elusive and vague, as if it were part of another lifetime, lapped at the edges of his consciousness. What? A shape, dark and vast and inconstant and...
He heard a sound behind him and turned, pa.s.sed through the open shutters into the cool room to find Matsu, serene, lithe Matsu, standing in the center in a pale green silk robe edged in rust, leaves of the same color falling across its surface. She held a deep blue lacquered tray on which sat a clay pot glazed gray and red and several small cups painted in the same pattern."I have come to take you to the Council," she said, kneeling and setting the tray down before her. She lifted a slim arm. "Please. Sit I have brought your breakfast"
Her dark eyes stared up at him unblinkingly and for a moment his stomach contracted.
He ran a hand across his face and went to her, knelt, the tray a low barrier between them. He washed his face and hands from a large bowl of water which she handed him. She patted his face dry with a clean white cloth. He sat back.
"Matsu, where is-?"
"She has much to accomplish today and it is already afternoon."
"How is the woman I brought to Tencho?"
She did not answer but concentrated on the ceremony of the tea, the turnings of the cup, the stirring, the pouring, all the precise movements that made it so special.
He sat quietly and watched her deft hands.
At last the tea was steaming in the cup and she lifted it, an oblique offering, saying, after he had accepted it, "She has awakened. Her name is Moeru, she wrote it for me."
He sipped the tea and it tasted better because of the way she had served it to him.
"Has she still a fever?"
"I think not. The sweat no longer rolls off her and she is eating now."
"That is good." Her eyes hiding behind sooty lashes.
"She wished to remove the bandage."
"What bandage?"
"The one high up on her thigh. The dressing is dirty."
He put the cup down on the tray.
"Ah, no. The apothecary told me to leave it on. There is a healing poultice beneath the cloth."
"But she says that she has no pain there."
"Then the poultice is working."
There was silence for a time. He continued to sip his tea. Matsu watched him, her small white hands folded on her lap. Leaves rustled as she breathed. Smells of sweat and spices and fresh fish from the wharves. Shouts and hoa.r.s.e laughter. Oval face like still water, strands of hair floating in the breeze, the perfect column of the neck, slender and ivoried.
"Your friend"s husband," he asked. "How is he?"
"Ah," sighed Matsu, her head minutely in motion so that a wave of black hair fell over one eye, across her cheek. "It is most sad. He was knifed last night, fighting in a tavern.""I am sorry."
She smiled wanly. "It is as well he died. The war had changed him. My friend no longer knew him. He brought only sorrow to those who loved him, even his son who lies paralyzed on a bed in my friend"s house."
"I do not understand."
"His back is broken but he still has eyes with which to see. His father resented that." She shrugged. "As I said, it is perhaps better this way."
"Will you have some tea?"
Matsu shook her head. "It is for you."
Outside, the sun beat down out of a deep cerulean sky. They smelled the gutted fish drying in the heat, a hint of cinnamon, of cloves, of coriander, and Ronin"s nostrils dilated for a moment as if recalling on their own a distant and odious scent.
Then they were in the ricksha, moving off down the narrow, baking streets, past the blind faces of the harrtin which Ronin now knew opened opulently their splendid verandas onto the bund-the wharves of Sha"angh"sei and the swelling yellow sea.
Deep within the jungle of the city, the kubaru runner stumbled and fell and the ricksha jerked to a halt. Although he had been talking to Matsu and his head had been turned away, the bright line of crimson along the runner"s side caught the periphery of his vision and as the two men leaped onto the still rocking ricksha his sword was already withdrawn.
It was the wrong action in the confined s.p.a.ce and the man who went for him had the advantage, the hilt of his filthy dirk slamming against the inside of Ronin"s wrist with a quick flick, the sword clattering to the muddy street. A professional, Ronin thought, and he did the only thing he could do, grappling, tearing the momentum so that they both fell to the ground.
He inhaled the stench of the body and the foulness of the breath as the man slashed the dirk at his throat. Saw the yellowed stumps of teeth, holes in the gray gums, images flashing across his vision path as the head whipped and the shoulders twisted and the blade blurred into the soft earth just past his neck.
Elbows in and up, using the heavy bone structure, and the man"s jaws clashed together with a crack as Ronin hit him. He had the good sense to scramble away then so that he could regain his advantage.
He let Ronin get up before he came toward him, confident because Ronin was unarmed. He was small but very powerful with broad shoulders and lean hips and thick muscular arms. He had a wide flat intelligent face, dark cunning eyes. He was bald save for a long queue of dirty blue-black hair. He was missing an ear.
He was clever and ignorant at the same time. He feinted, the blade of his dirkappearing to whip toward Ronin"s neck, canting downward at the last instant, reaching to slit his stomach. Using the man"s momentum, Ronin stepped into the thrust, grasping the extended arm, and leaned back, his hip and groin beneath the man"s b.u.t.tocks, a solid base as he planted his feet and stiffened the muscles of his legs. He lifted his right foot, slamming the sole of his boot down onto the stretched knee joint. Resistance was minimal. The kneecap shattered in a shower of white and pink and the vulnerable thighbone cracked as if it were a dry twig. The man screamed and collapsed and Ronin reached for his fallen dirk. "Stop right there,"
said a voice.
Ronin turned and in that instant remembered the second man. He stood now several paces from Ronin with Matsu drawn to his side, his dirk at her throbbing white throat, so perfect, like ivory. The blade grazed her windpipe for emphasis. He stared into her eyes, saw in their darkness no fear. What then?
The second man shook his head sadly.
"You should not have done that." He was large, very tall, with a grizzled beard and long greasy hair. He had a high forehead and the eyes of an animal. Ronin froze.
"What shall I tell his woman and her children? How will they eat? Now I will take your money and the woman." His feral eyes flicked at the man, broken and unconscious in the muddy earth, came back to Ronin. "She will fetch a high price at the Sha-rida."
Matsu gasped in pain as the blade bit into her throat.
"Sha-rida?" said Ronin, edging closer, wanting to keep the man talking.
"Outlander. Fool to travel these streets in a ricksha. The scent of your money precedes you." He smiled mockingly. "Yet I salute your foolishness because you are my living. Long may it last. Do not come closer," he snapped suddenly. His voice was now cold and hard. "The woman will be breathing through the hole in her throat.
You are not that foolish, I trust." The man pulled Matsu in front of him and his blade caught the sunlight in a dazzle. "Now come, let us not drag out this encounter. Toss your money to the ground."
"All right," said Ronin. "Do not harm her." Because he was close enough now and Matsu was in the correct position. He had deliberately moved because he wanted her in front of the man, where he could look at her, read her expression. He needed that advantage. His sword was out of the question. She would die before he got halfway to where it lay.
His shoulders moved minutely, slumping in an att.i.tude of defeat. Back within the depths of the Freehold and his Senseii, the Salamander was before him, saying, "Provide your foe with clues. He will be trained to look for the key to victory through the tiny betrayals of your body. So you must give him that which he wishes to find." These men were sufficiently adept.
His hands were at his belt, slowly unknotting the cord to his bag of coins. He stared at Matsu and she read what he wished her to know, written in his colorless eyes.The bag hit the soft ground with a heavy c.h.i.n.k and the gauntleted hand sped across the short s.p.a.ce without warning. The hesitation, the merest split instant caused by Ronin"s att.i.tude of defeat and the visual and aural distraction of the bag of coins dropping, was sufficient. Ronin grasped the blade just as it commenced its inward stroke. He wrenched at it and the metal snapped. At the same time, Matsu twisted her body, swung her arm, and her fist hit his stomach. Then she was away and Ronin was closing with the man.
He went for the throat and the man blocked him, turning as he did so, taking Ronin down. There was pressure against Ronin"s windpipe and he had to force his breathing. The man"s fist smashed into the side of his head and the grip tightened on his throat. He felt the urge to retch as his body rapidly used up the last of the oxygen in his stilled lungs. He fought to breathe, could not, and so turned his attention to bringing up his right hand. It was caught between their bodies and he worked at freeing it while he began to strangle on carbon dioxide. The man"s attention narrowed as he increased the pressure and now the hand was free; bring it up, through the maze. Groping, he found the open spot on the side of the neck, jabbed with his thumb.
The man could not even scream and Ronin was up, his lungs heaving in great bursts of air. They were on their knees in the mud and shine and the man was recovering and there was no time to reconsider, the organism out to survive. Ronin"s fist, sealed within the hide of the Makkon gauntlet, smashed into the lower end of the man"s sternum. The bone cracked, splintered, the force of the fist plunging it upward into the heart. Blood and viscera fountained outward, drenching him as the face before him, drained and white, bobbed like a berserk marionette. The jaws snapped shut spasmodically, biting off the end of the lolling tongue.
Ronin stood and kicked at the body, looking around, but there was only Matsu staring at the ruined corpse.
She started then, looking at him. She went and got his sword and he sheathed it as she bent to pick up the bag of coins. Then she went to the slain kubaru and ripped off his damp shirt, returning to Ronin and wiping the pink foam from his face and chest and arms. She reached out and touched the strange scaled gauntlet, h.o.r.n.y and unreflective, glistening now, beaded with dark fluids.
"What is that?" she whispered, stroking the hide.
"A present," Ronin said, watching the thin line of red across her throat where the dirk had crossed the delicate flesh. It stood out like a tear on a shadowed cheek He licked his finger, wiped it along her neck. Her eyes closed and she shuddered. "It was given to me by a little man who walks with a limp, whose companion is a singular creature. It is made from the claw of the thing that killed Sa."
She seemed not to hear him. "I could not believe that any man could do what you have just done. Was it the gauntlet?" Her fingers dark now with the viscous liquids.
Ronin wiped her hand and the gauntlet on the sodden shirt, then threw it from him. He shrugged. "Perhaps, in part." He reached for her. "Now we must finish ourjourney. The Council awaits me."
The dark eyes lifted, looked at him strangely. Then she nodded and they set off through the labyrinthine streets, finding at length the Nanking and then, a short time later, a narrow winding road with no name that Ronin could see.
"I came a different way the last time."
"I have no doubt. But it is not prudent to take King Knife Street, is this not so?"
He laughed then. "Yes, Matsu, it would indeed not be wise. But what about the Greens at the gate?"
She smiled. "There are many entrances to the walled city."
The climb was steep this way. No houses lay along the road, only giant firs and lush green-leafed trees. The earth was thick with small plants and wild flowering bushes.
Soon the shadow of the great wall blotted out the warmth of the sun and they stood in the cool dimness while Matsu spoke in low tones to the Greens who guarded this gate. The metal door swung open and they went through. The Greens ignored them, returning to, the absorption of their dice game.
Within the perfectly linear corridor of the carefully tended trees he asked her, "The Sha-rida, Matsu. What is it?"
She laughed nervously, the sound like shattering crystal in the quietude, and he heard the sighing of the trees before she said, "The Sha-rida is a tale told to frighten outlanders." But he saw the look on her face and did not quite believe her.
"Tell me then," he said lightly. "I am not easily frightened."
Her eyes swept his face and she tried a smile but did not quite make it.
"It is a market, a special kind of market, which, it is said, moves from night to night, through the black alleyways of Sha"angh"sei, opening only after the moon has left the sky."
"A flesh market," said Ronin. "Slave trade."
She shook her head. "No. There are many of those in the city. They conduct their business during the day."
"Well then?"
"It is true that the Sha-rida deals in human flesh, but only the most beautiful women and men, young and healthy."
"Toward what end?"
They walked in silence for a time. The cicadas were singing among the trees and birds called in staccato rhythm above their heads. The avenue stretched before them, white and empty, as if it were some giant"s plaything abandoned now for some newer and more elaborate toy.
"Toward, it is said, a hideous death." Her voice was like the first touch ofautumn"s winds. "The buyers wish only to observe death and the act of dying, and the more they indulge themselves, the more bored they become and the more monstrous the forms of dying they conjure up." She looked at him. "Even in a city such as this, such a thing does not seem possible."
"It is only a tale."
"Yes," she said. "That is all."
Their footsteps shattered the silence of the hall and the still air eddied softly in their wake. The woman with the light eyes and jutting b.r.e.a.s.t.s was at her post behind the heavy marble desk. Two Greens, armed with axes and curving dirks, stood watch outside heavy wooden doors with iron rings in their centers.
"Yes?" she inquired, lifting her head. She did not seem to recognize Ronin. He was about to say something when Matsu squeezed his arm.
She spoke to the woman who said, "Ah," softly as she listened, her eyes on Ronin.
"Ah." Her lacquered nails sc.r.a.ping across the cool desk top like articulated insects. "No, I am afraid-" But Matsu cut into her prepared speech and they stared at each other now, a test of power that encompa.s.sed more than mere wills. The woman licked her lips with her bright tongue. "Well, I-" Matsu spoke at length and the woman"s face came apart, a subtle thing which he observed with some wonderment.
"Yes. Yes, of course." She signaled to the Greens who turned and, pulling on the iron rings, opened the doors.
At last, Ronin thought, as they went forward. An audience with the Munic.i.p.al Council of Sha"angh"sei. They went into the Council chambers. He was already uns.c.r.e.w.i.n.g the hilt of the sword. An answer to the long riddle. An end to the uncertainty. The way now open to defeat The Dolman and his hordes. The doors closed behind them. His hand stopped as it was about to pull forth the scroll of dor-Sefrith.
He whirled on Matsu.
"What insane jest is this?"
"There is no jest." Calm. The black eyes steady.
"Then surely this is the wrong chamber."
"You can see for yourself that this is the Council"s chambers."
It was a high-ceilinged, windowless room dominated by an immense ornate table around which were placed at regular intervals high-backed wooden chairs, richly carved, regal. Save for the two of these, the chamber was empty."Why did you bring me on a day when the Council is not in session," he demanded.
"If it were not in session, the building would have been closed."
Ronin"s temper broke and he shook her by the shoulders.