The Lotus War - Kinslayer Part 33

"He cannot." Piotr scowled and shook his head. "Pretty girl."

"Where am I going to go?"

Piotr touched her cheek, tucking stray hairs behind her ears. He gathered up the utensils and bowls, set them aside, leaned back in his chair. Reaching into his white coat, he retrieved his fish-shaped pipe, stuffing it with that same dried, brown herb.

"Better she not here." He shook his head. "Better all."

"You could let me go?" Yukiko pulled at the restraints again.

"Too late." He lit the pipe with his flame-box, exhaled a cloud of ignition fumes into the air. "Is now coming she, they."

"What?"

"Zryachniye," he sighed. "Zryachniye."

"How do you speak Shiman?" Yukiko t.i.tled her head. "Were you a merchant?"

Sadness and anger thickened his voice. "Prisoner."

Realization arrived with a wave of nausea, and at last she understood the man's animosity. The slap to her cheek. Scarred face, blinded eye, crippled leg.

Samurai believed it was better to commit seppuku than fall into enemy hands. A gaijin soldier who allowed himself to be captured would have been viewed as beneath contempt; a wretch without honor or worth. If Piotr had been a soldier captured by Shgunate troops during the invasion, she could only imagine what he'd been through at her countrymen's hands.

The man seemed an utter b.a.s.t.a.r.d. But n.o.body deserved to be tortured.

"I'm sorry," she murmured.

"Sorry?" The gaijin sucked his pipe, breathed pale gray. "Save sorry for herself."

He stood, limped out the door and closed it behind him. The wind howled like a lonely dog, a solitary voice in dark wilderness, dawn a lifetime away.

As the hallway light was shut out, she realized at last that she was alone out here. On an impossible metal island in the middle of vast oceans, surrounded by people who saw her as a spy, an invader, an enemy. She had no idea which way land might lay. n.o.body knew she was in trouble, and even if they did, n.o.body knew where to find her.

No one could help her. No Buruu to fly her to safety. No Kin to build mechanical wings that could see them freed. No Kage, no father, no friends. She realized if anyone was going to get her out of this, it was her. But if she didn't do it soon, Buruu was going to starve out there in the storm. Hiro's wedding would go ahead unopposed, Aisha would be slaved for the sake of his legitimacy, and the nation would simply have traded one Shgun for another. Everything they worked for, her father died for, all of it would be for nothing.

So enough with sitting here in the dark and crying herself to sleep. Enough with waiting for lightning to strike. Time to stand instead of crawling. Time to start digging out of this hole with whatever tools she could scrounge.

If she found none, there was always her fingernails.

Buruu's warmth had emanated somewhere north, dulled with the distance between them. Somehow she had to get out to those islands, fix his wings. She considered the flying machine on the roof of the complex, but realized she had no idea how to operate it. The female aras.h.i.tora was going to be no help at all; that much was clear. As for the gaijin, Danyk and Katya clearly saw her as an enemy, and the memory of Piotr slapping her, ignoring her struggles as he tore off her uwagi, still filled her with bitter, helpless outrage.

But she needed someone. By herself, she had no chance of getting out of this room, let alone rescuing Buruu.

Ilyitch was her best bet. He was young, didn't get along with Danyk or Piotr, seemed to be an underling afforded little respect. And of course, he'd saved her from the ocean, risked his life for hers. Surely that spoke of a good heart? A kind soul? Guilt swelled at the thought of what might happen to him if his fellows caught him helping her, but she quickly quashed it under the weight of the stakes in play: not just her life. Buruu's. Aisha's too. All of Shima.

She had to get back. There was still hope. If they left soon, she might still reach Kigen in time to stop Hiro's wedding. And besides, if she couldn't trust the boy who'd dived into a freezing ocean full of sea dragons to save her life, who the h.e.l.ls could she trust?

But he doesn't speak Shiman. How do I even talk to him?

She sighed, shutting her eyes. She opened up the Kenning again-just a fraction-feeling about as gently as she could beyond the wall of herself. Again, she could sense the gaijin around her, muddy and indistinct. The headache reared up like a snake behind her eyes and she whimpered in pain.

She remembered touching Yoritomo's mind at the Burning Stones, crushing it to pulp with her thoughts. Her father had been there to help her that day, augmenting her strength with his own. But whatever was happening to the Kenning inside her, it had grown so strong she was certain she'd be able to hurt someone by herself now. Maybe not kill them outright. But definitely make them bleed.

But could she talk to them?

Not hurt them-just do something as simple as speaking?

She wouldn't even know where to begin. The Kenning had been with her since she was six years old, seeming totally natural to her as a child. She was able to use it because n.o.body ever told her she couldn't. And she'd grown up taking the gift for granted, as reflexive as walking or breathing. But this was something new. Something utterly untested, more like turning a cartwheel than placing one foot in front of another. Would she hurt him? Kill him? If she put words into the boy's head, would he simply think himself mad?

Only one way to find out.

She reached into the Kenning, felt for the boy's mind amidst the rolling, seething storm of gaijin around her. But almost immediately, she realized she had no way of telling one blinding tangle from another. It wasn't as if she could read their thoughts to tell them apart-the mental reflection of every round-eye felt nearly identical. And even if she could tell one from another, she was uncertain if she could project herself into their minds without line of sight.

Line of sight ...

Red.

The dog lifted his head, rawhide strip in his mouth, curled up on his blanket in His Boy's room. His tail began wagging.

girl!

Red, will you do something for me?

will try i am gooddog!

Find your Boy.

food?

I'll get you some food, yes.

Red jumped up from his blanket, and she slipped into the gla.s.s-smooth s.p.a.ce behind his eyes. It was like being in the bamboo forest of her childhood again; she and her brother Satoru wrapped inside their old hound's head-the original Buruu who died defending them from a starving wolf.

She felt the faint disconnect between the dog's motion and her own stationary body, the influx of scent, the clarity of sound. Machines rumbled in the building's belly, the storm wailed with enough fury to shake the foundations. The relentless sea pounded the iron supports as if it wished the building scrubbed from its surface, nothing left behind save rusting metal and clean, feather-white bones, sunk too deep for sunlight to ever touch again.

Red scampered through the corridors, past a large room set with tables and dozens of chairs, food-scent hanging in the air. He trotted through what Yukiko presumed were barracks; bunk beds and a strong, musty scent that was distinctly male. He tried to make it up to the roof, but the door was shut with no dog flap to slip through. Red turned and padded back down three floors, slipped into a broad corridor and finally came to a halt outside a pair of heavy doors, slightly ajar. The dog whined and paced back and forth, ears pressed flat to his head.

What's wrong?

not allowed here ...

Why?

loud place bad place!

Is your Boy inside?

Red sniffed the air, the concrete floor.

yes ...

Come on, let's look. You're too clever for them to catch you.

Uncertain but overjoyed with her flattery, the hound nosed his way into what looked like a vast boiler room. Dozens of men in dirty red coveralls were at work on a great system of cables and valves cast in greasy iron. Enormous, glittering spirals of gla.s.s descended from metal intakes in the ceiling, down to a series of strange, lopsided machines encrusted with incomprehensible controls, tight bundles of coiled copper and gla.s.s cylinders filled with a thick solution the color of urine. Thunder shook the walls around them, shivering the apparatus in their brackets. As she watched, the ceiling pulsed with a lightning strobe, and the gla.s.s spirals filled with a blinding blue-white illumination that danced across the mirrored lenses of the gaijin's goggles. Every globe in every wall socket grew momentarily brighter, and she felt Red's fur bristle in the crackling air.

A hollow, sucking hiss filled the room, and Red cringed as raw current arced and twisted down the copper coils and into the cylinders of yellow liquid. Yukiko felt ashamed at having tricked the dog into a situation he was so obviously frightened of, but the thought of Buruu pushed her misgivings aside. The men shouted to each other, throwing switches and clamping cables. As the light faded, squat metal trolleys were rushed in, and the gaijin shuffled the gla.s.s tanks along squeaking iron rails. The solution inside had changed color to a luminescent blue-white, a frosting of condensation forming on the gla.s.s. The smell of ozone was hung fog-thick in the air alongside a fading, high-pitched squeal.

Catching the sky ...

keep in jars so silly can't eat sky!

Let's find your Boy.

not allowed here ...

Please, Red.

they yell at me they hit Please?

He whined.

shouldn't be baddog Red ...

going now i am gooddog The hound turned to leave. Yukiko thought of Buruu again, bleeding and starving out in the storm. Her best friend in the world. Her brother. More to her than life itself. And though the guilt made her wince, the breath catch in her lungs, she reached inside the Kenning, and found herself making it hard. Iron. Not the soft voice of suggestion, or even the subtle press of manipulation. It was crude and heavy-handed; a subtraction of will, the strings of a puppeteer upon a flinching marionette. Head pounding as if it might burst, warmth trickling over her lips.

Red. Do as I say.

Not asking. Commanding.

And with another soft whine, the dog tucked his tail and obeyed.

He stole across the generator room, several gaijin shouting at him, trying to shoo him away. Yukiko noticed none of the workers had insignia on their collars or animal skins on their shoulders. They looked messier than Danyk and his fellows, more unkempt. Several sported what looked to be burn scars on their exposed skin.

The hound nosed his way up onto a gantry of steel mesh, into a thicket of pipes and bright red valve handles. A large picture hung on the wall, covered in gaijin writing. It resembled a spider's web; a central hub connected to smaller nodes by thin, fluorescent wires. Each node was set with a small globe and scribed with a symbol. One bulb in the topmost corner was glowing faint blue-white, a trail of fluorescence leading back to the web's center, light slowly fading as the static electricity in the room died. Yukiko noticed a stylized sea dragon curled around what looked like a compa.s.s in the bottom corner and realized what she was seeing.

A map.

A map of the lightning farm and the surrounding pylons.

Gaijin men were gathered around a cl.u.s.ter of controls nearby, and one of them soon spotted Red standing before the glowing diagram. A hulking uniform-clad shape Yukiko recognized as Danyk appeared, bellowing at the top of his voice. Red cowered low, belly to the floor. Blue-white light glinted across the flattened samurai helms on the big man's shoulders.

told you baddog now ...

I'm sorry, Red. I really am.

Danyk picked up a wrench and made to throw it at the dog, roaring again. Ilyitch appeared from behind a cl.u.s.ter of pipes, a dripping mop in his hands, faint hand-shaped bruise on his cheek. The big man cuffed the boy across the back of his head, sending his goggles flying. Scooping them back up off the grille, Ilyitch grabbed Red by his collar and dragged him down the stairs, berating the hound in his strange language. She sensed Red's shame, vague resentment mixed with confusion about why he'd done something so thoroughly baddog. She felt awful guilt; a pity-sick disquiet that she'd turned the Kenning into something so overt. So cruel.

She eased away from the contact with the hound, blinking hard, licking at the blood drying on her upper lip. And tentatively, she projected herself through Red's eyes, reaching out to touch the boy's thoughts. The migraine grew awful; like a metal vise grinding the base of her skull. She had to fight to maintain her grip, to stay inside the noise and light of a human mind, so utterly different from the beasts she'd swam in for most of her life.

The boy dragged Red across the catchment room floor, through the double doors and up the spiral stairwell. Yukiko tried to speak into his head, to frame words Ilyitch might understand, but they slipped away from her, all a-tumble, white and empty noise, like hollow pipes falling upon a sodden floor.

The boy stopped, looked around him with a frown. Red whined, hackles rising. She could feel the dog's trepidation, his instinctive sense that something was very wrong.

She tried again, to form a greeting and project it through the dog, but it collapsed like a castle of sand between her fingers; just a muddled jumble of consonants and vowels and hissing static. Ilyitch tilted his head to one side, eyes screwed shut, holding his nose and trying to pop his eardrums. Yukiko backed off, lingering on the edge of his warmth, and he grabbed Red's collar again, hauled him up the stairs.

This isn't working. I can't form the words.

It was as if the constructs in the boy's head were too different from her own: square pegs into round holes. Language was never an issue with animals, but perhaps that was because animals didn't really speak? Perhaps the Kenning was never meant for this?

What could she do? How could she leap the barrier between them? She needed a way of communicating that they both understood ...

She recalled Danyk looming over her, the katana blade slipping down over her tattoo. His eyes fixed upon the picture inked into her skin, the symbol he understood without her needing to speak a word.

"Keetsoonay. Sahmoorayee."

... That was it.

The answer.

Not words. Pictures.

Yukiko formed an image and pushed it into Ilyitch's mind; herself, sinking beneath the waves as he dove into the thrashing waters to save her. The boy reeled back against the railing, hand to his brow. She gave him another image; of her and Buruu flying through clear skies, her arms around his neck. She tried to inject emotional content into the picture, the simple warmth of friendship and trust.

Ilyitch steadied himself, blinking as if he'd been struck in the face. Sure enough, the boy loosed his grip on Red's collar and looked to the stairwell above. He ascended at a scuffing, cautious pace, Red on his heels, heavy footfalls ringing on metal as he reached the landing and started down the corridor toward her room.

The sensation was disorientating, almost nauseating; watching the boy walking down the hallway, Red beside him, hearing their footfalls through Ilyitch's ears, the same footsteps coming closer in her own. So she broke full contact and opened her eyes, wiped her nose as best she could on her shoulder and leaned back against the wall. As she did so, she pushed one last picture out to the gaijin boy; an image of herself, helpless, frightened and wretched. Bound wrists and pleading eyes, desperate and alone, looking to him, her only hope.

When Ilyitch opened the door a few moments later, that was exactly what he saw.

26.

FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW.

The Gentleman knelt on a satin cushion at the head of a long oaken table. The reflections of the overheads on its surface were tiny stars on lacquered midnight, twinkling with more vibrancy than the real stars overhead could ever dream. A pretty duet of koto and shamisen music drifted through the drinking house walls, competing with the growl of the generator downstairs.

The table was dressed for eight, each place set with fine porcelain, a sake cup, a thousand-thread linen napkin; all as white as Iishi snow. Jimen the accountant sat at the Gentleman's right hand. Each other cushion was occupied by a yakuza lieutenant; a collection of muscle and scars, narrowed eyes and gleaming, tattooed flesh. Five men and one woman, each stripped to the waist, every inch of flesh below their necks and above their wrists sporting beautiful, intricate ink work. Canvases of flesh, painted by the greatest artisans in Kigen.

Seimi knelt with fists upon knees, Hida beside him, pawing at one cauliflower ear. The room was cool as autumn's kiss, the heady scent of liquor veiling the stink of sweat and exhaust from nearby sky-docks. Seimi could see the horizon through the bay windows, the shades of night studded with the silhouettes of docked sky-ships, forlorn as abandoned lovers.

And not a breath of wind.

"Brothers." Jimen looked around the room. "The Gentleman thanks you all for coming."