The Lotus War - Kinslayer Part 34

As one, the lieutenants covered their fists and bowed. The Gentleman nodded in return, saying nothing.

"Why are you here?" Jimen asked.

Uncertain glances flickering amongst the yakuza. No one made a sound.

The Gentleman waited a long, silent moment, breathing slow, the mournful notes of the duet drifting in the air like the scent of old chi.

He clapped his hands.

Half a dozen serving girls slipped into the room, charcoal eyes downcast, painted faces pale as the hungry dead. Pink kimonos, drum bows the color of rain clouds at their waists, tiny steps as quiet as smoke. Delicate hands laid two rice-paper bundles before each lieutenant. The packages were long and cylindrical, arranged on the place settings with all the precision of a tea ceremony. When they were done, the girls bowed as one to the Gentleman, then scuttled from the room with eyes still on the floor.

"Open them," Jimen said.

The room was filled with the whisper of tearing paper, translucent strips fluttering to the ground. When he was done, Seimi stared down at the gifts before him. The thicker package contained a tant in a short, lacquered sheath, mother-of-pearl inlays gleaming on the hilt. The second gift was a six-inch iron file: sawtoothed and thoroughly ordinary.

"Each of you has failed our oyabun." Jimen stared around the room, not a hint of anger in his voice. "Each of you has been robbed by these gutter-thieves who plague us. Each of you will now be given the opportunity to atone."

The Gentleman said nothing. Simply folded his arms and waited, patient as a glacier.

Seimi and Hida glanced at each other, then picked up their napkins. The other lieutenants followed suit, using the snow-white cloth to tie a tight knot around the top knuckle of their left-most fingers. Several were already missing the tips of their smallest digits and were forced to tie the knot at the second knuckle. Seimi unsheathed the tant, watched his fingernail turning purple. The lieutenants filled the room with the ring of drawn blades.

All save one.

"Nakai-san." Jimen aimed a cold stare in one man's direction. "You falter?"

The other yakuza looked at Nakai. He was a few years older than the rest, graying hair swept into a thin topknot. His ink was faded with the slow press of time, blacks running to blue. A knot of lean muscle, bloodshot eyes and a slightly gray hue to his skin telling his fellows that he'd been hitting the smoke a little too hard recently. He stared at his left hand, at the empty knuckle where his little finger should have been, the ring finger already missing its first joint. He held it up to the Gentleman, blinking over severed digits.

"Oyabun," he said. "My sword grip will be ruined."

"Why do you need a sword?" Jimen raised an eyebrow. "In a room full of your kin?"

"Not here." He nodded toward the window. "Out there."

"On the street?"

"Hai."

"The streets where children play in shadows they once feared? Where two guttersnipes are enough to see a lieutenant of the Scorpion Children hand over his iron, then tuck tail and run? Those streets, Nakai-san?"

"You do not speak to me that way," Nakai spat. "You're a G.o.dsd.a.m.ned accountant. A book-monger. You know less than nothing about life in this city."

"I know you shame yourself now." The little man's voice was soft. Dangerous. "Just as you shamed yourself when you handed over our coin to children."

"They had an iron-thrower. What was I supposed to-"

The Gentleman hardly seemed to move at all. Nakai paused midsentence, staring like a half-wit at the tant handle protruding from his chest, the thin line of blood running down his belly. He sucked in a shuddering breath, coughed scarlet. Clutching the hilt, he gurgled and slumped forward onto the table. Blood leaked across polished wood. The smell of urine mingled with sweat and smoke.

"You were supposed to do that, Nakai-san." The Gentleman wiped already-spotless hands on his napkin. "Something like that would have served you well indeed."

Nakai twitched once and was still.

"Know that I am not ashamed of any of you." The Gentleman glanced around the room. "But I tell you truly that I have never been less proud."

Seimi slapped his hand onto his dinner plate, fingers spread. With a single fluid motion, he sliced his little finger clean through at the top knuckle. The others around him followed suit, each removing a segment from their smallest digit. The blood upon their plates was bright, almost gaudy. Pale chunks of bloodless meat remained behind as each yakuza elevated their wounded hand, wrapped the napkin over their severed digit, curled their fingers into fists. Seimi looked down at the plate, noted his fingernail wasn't purple anymore.

The Gentleman nodded once, lifted a sake bottle from the warming tray and poured himself a shot. He raised his cup, waited until each lieutenant had done the same. He looked each one in the eye.

"Scorpion Children!" he barked.

"Scorpion Children!" Six shouts in return.

The Gentleman and his crew threw back the liquor, returned their cups to their proper place. Several shared uneasy glances, but none seemed eager to speak. Finally, Hida growled, picked up the iron file and held it out to his oyabun.

The Gentleman smiled at him. "Hida?"

The Gentleman never smiled.

"Why?" Hida looked from his oyabun to the iron file and back again.

"A hound. A hound to set upon thieves, brother."

"How do they know where we're moving coin?" Seimi kept the pain of his wounded hand from his voice, gritting the yellow ruin he called teeth. "We follow no set route, yet they've hit us four nights running."

"They don't strike the stash houses." A pock-faced lump called Bao spoke. "They hit us when we move. They ambush, like the jade adder. Like the pit spider."

"Someone inside?" The female lieutenant, Geisu, voiced the ugly thought every man was afraid to speak. "A traitor?"

"Impossible," came the muttered replies. "Unthinkable."

"Then how are they doing it?" Seimi slapped his good hand onto the wood.

The room descended into brief clamor, each man offering his own theory. The Gentleman's voice cut through the noise like a tant through knuckle.

"We can ask them when we catch them."

"How?" Hida still held the file in his fist, still stared at his oyabun.

"Footprints in the snow, my brother."

The Gentleman smiled again.

"Footprints in the snow."

27.

A MOUNTAIN OF BONES.

The blood on Daichi's lips was a bubbling lather, pink as the hyacinths on the western rises. Shuddering groans running the length of him, froth bubbling from his nostrils as his pulse grew dim and the light in his eyes dimmer still.

Old Mari cut the straps of his crumpled breastplate, peeled the iron away and sliced his uwagi open, the flesh beneath already bruised, collarbone to belly. Her hands were flecked with blood, hair a bedraggled mess about her face, yelling at the Kage onlookers with a shrill, shaking voice.

"If you're not in here helping, get out of the b.l.o.o.d.y room!" She whirled on a younger girl. "Suki, fetch more lanterns from next door. Eiko, we need boiling water, I don't care how, but get it fast. And somebody get me some lotus, for Amaterasu's sake!"

Daichi drew his legs up as the pain overtook him. He coughed, b.l.o.o.d.y foam spattering the air. The wound was lung-deep, and Mari knew there was little they could do. Several men held Daichi down as she leaned in close, pressing at his ribs, feeling bone shift and pop, cursing again for more light.

"Is he going to die?"

Kaori stood nearby, wretched and trembling. Sodden fringe draped down over her scar, steel-gray eyes bloodshot with rage and grief. To see him go like this ...

"He's not going to die," Mari said. "Not if I can help it."

But she couldn't. And she knew it. Daichi was halfway to the Mountain of Bones already. Blood trickled from his lips with each bubbling gasp, pooling beside his head. Every breath was a labor, thinning by the moment, his blood pressure steadily dropping with each struggling beat of his heart.

The best anyone could pray for was that he pa.s.sed without pain.

"Where is that lotus?" she shrieked.

She heard a clamor on the verandah outside, angry voices swelling. Kaori looked up, jaw clenched, scowling like Enma- himself as Kin walked into the room, drenched to the bone. Following the boy was a tall, slender girl with earth-brown eyes and dark, cropped hair. Her lips were the color of bruised roses, so full it looked as if someone had cuffed her across the mouth. Dressed in a threadbare hakama, bare feet, a dirty uwagi with a hole torn in its back to accommodate the swell of a silver orb, a cl.u.s.ter of chromed, insectoid limbs curled at her back.

A gaggle of onlookers gathered in the doorway, dark stares and darker mutterings.

"Mari, you've met Ayane," said Kin.

"G.o.ds above..." the old woman breathed.

"What is the meaning of this?" Kaori hissed. "How did you get out of your cell?"

"She's here to help, Kaori," Kin replied.

The False-Lifer stepped up to the b.l.o.o.d.y table, eyes sweeping Daichi's body. She peeled back one of his eyelids with her thumb, pressed two fingers against his throat and leaned close to hear the breath rattling in his lungs. The old man coughed, spattering her face with blood. She stood, turned to Kin and blinked once. Twice.

"His lung has collapsed. He will be dead soon."

"By all the G.o.ds in the heavens, Guildsman, are you insane?" Kaori still glared at Kin, outrage in her eyes. "You seriously believe I would let this accursed freak treat my father?"

"Would you rather he died?" Kin asked.

"This is madness. Are you going to run cables beneath his flesh? Plug him into one of those cursed mechabacii? I'd rather bury you both alongside him."

"What's wrong with you?" Kin slammed his hands on the table. "She's offering to save his life, and you repay her with threats?" Kin glared at the faces peering through the windows. "Aren't you supposed to be the ones who'll free this island? You should be better than this!"

Kaori stepped close to Kin, her face inches from his. "If it weren't for your d.a.m.nable machines, none of this would have happened!"

"Your people are the reason this happened! The shuriken-throwers were sabotaged, Kaori!"

"You are wasting time." Ayane's voice cut through the clamor, soft as silk, sharp as the limbs on her back. "With respect, this man has precious little left. If we do nothing, he is as good as dead. I do not see how allowing me to try can make matters worse."

Kin ran his hand over his scalp, met Kaori's stare with defiance.

"What say you, Kaori? Will you trust Ayane, or watch your father die?"

Kaori's eyes drifted to her father. His struggles had grown feeble, shallow breath sucked ragged through b.l.o.o.d.y teeth. Fear carved long furrows across her brow, into the corners of her mouth. Clenched fists, clenched jaw, trembling breath. She looked at Ayane, moments ticking by like minutes, like hours, like days until at last Daichi started coughing, coughing, his whole body shaking and shuddering, lips painted with blood. Kaori knelt by her father's side, clutching his hand. Tears welled in her eyes.

"Can you really save him, girl?"

The chromed arms uncurled from Ayane's back one pair at a time, like peac.o.c.k feathers, gleaming in the lantern light. She touched the blood spattered on her face, smearing it between her fingers as if savoring the sensation.

"I can save him."

Kaori sighed.

Nodded once.

"... Then do it."

28.

MOVING PICTURES.

There is power in words.

There are words that bid us laugh and make us weep. Words to begin with and words to end by. Words that seize the hearts in our chests and squeeze them tight, that set the skin on our bones to tingling. Words so beautiful they shape us, forever change us, live inside us for as long as we have breath to speak them. There are forgotten words. Killing words. Great and frightening and terrible words. There are True words.

And then there are pictures.

It was a slow process at first. Sitting opposite one another on the metal cot, Yukiko pushing images into Ilyitch's mind, waiting for him to form his clumsy replies. His eyes were wide, mouth slack. And though he had no idea how it was all happening, the boy seemed enthralled enough by the process that he didn't waste time seeking explanations.

Ilyitch's images were blurry impressions; finger paintings in the rain, running and bleeding at the edges. By comparison, Yukiko's thoughts were intricate, full of light and color. But they found an equilibrium between them, and she soon found enough meaning in the gaijin's mental shorthand to understand his intentions. She tried to inject emotion into her thoughts, to make him feel like she was a friend, but had no idea if she was succeeding.

Her nose started bleeding almost as soon as they began, and it took a long time to explain that the blood was nothing to be concerned about, that there were more important things at stake. Her skull was close to splitting, the wall she'd once again built herself trembling with the strain, barely keeping the Kenning's fire at bay. But something held it in place, stopped it collapsing utterly; something fierce and bright and desperate inside her. Born perhaps of fear for Buruu, lost out there in the dark, or perhaps rage at her own helplessness to save him.

She started by showing Ilyitch an image of Shima's armies in retreat, packing up and flying home after Yoritomo's death. She tried to show him the war was over. That she was not an enemy, or at least, not his.

In turn, the young man showed her burned crops and gutted buildings. Gaijin soldiers cut down under white flags, prison camps, wailing children dragged into sky-ships and flown away, never to be seen again.

She showed him Yoritomo, murdered in the Market Square. An empty throne.