The Lotus War - Kinslayer Part 6

"This barbarism will end." The magistrate's gaze roamed the cell. "Lady Aisha's handmaidens will be escorted to the palace and placed under house arrest. I will speak to each girl personally regarding their treatment whilst in your care."

"This one was injured when she came in," the warden mumbled. "I had the apothecary tend her wounds to ensure she wouldn't fall to infection."

"And the rat bites?"

"I-"

"I know the nature of her injuries, Warden. I have read the report. Multiple knife wounds. Beaten b.l.o.o.d.y, cheek cracked, comatose for days. Lucky to escape the Stormdancer with her life. Yet you believe she was in collusion with the Kitsune girl?"

"There were many secrets in the wh..." the warden cleared his throat, "... in the Lady Aisha's chambers. Some of these maidens must have been privy to them."

"This girl is barely seventeen years old."

"All due respect, Magistrate, but Yoritomo-no-miya's a.s.sa.s.sin was sixteen."

"And you thought to beat the insurgency's secrets out of a girl that same a.s.sa.s.sin had already beaten near to death?"

"I was commanded to investigate all-"

"Your loyalty is admirable, Warden. But your confusion about where to place it is of grave concern. You should invest thought in your future." The magistrate's eyes glittered above his breather. "My n.o.ble cousin, Daimyo Hiro, would be disappointed to learn you had also been ... retired for the sake of your health."

"I understand, Lord Magistrate," he nodded. "My thanks for your wisdom."

"Unchain her at once."

The warden unlocked the girl's manacles, blanching as he noted the raw bruises on her wrists. Ichizo shouldered him aside, throwing his robe around her to preserve her modesty. The magistrate tut-tutted as he a.s.sisted her from the cell.

"It is over, my dear." His voice was soft as feather down. "It is all over now."

The girl continued crying, hugging herself as the magistrate escorted her down the stone corridor. The warden heard the sound of heavy boots: more bushimen marching into the prison, barking orders at his men to release the other maidens. He could feel it all around him-the entire country teetering on a knife edge. The promise of b.l.o.o.d.y conflict looming among the clans. Kage insurgents infecting the city like a cancer. Samurai thrashing about like spoiled children, concerned with nothing but carving paths toward the throne.

The warden sighed again, wished for a return to simpler days. Days when a soldier knew where his allegiances lay. Days before the Stormdancer had taken his world away.

Then he clomped out of the cell and went in search of that drink.

"Your suite, I believe."

They stood in a wide palace hallway, flanked by four bushimen, the stink of their motor-rickshaw journey still clinging to her skin. The girl had stared out the window as they drove from the jail, forehead pressed to gla.s.s as Kigen city brushed past in all its misery. Market stalls standing empty and abandoned, broken gla.s.s crunching under their wheels. People in rich garments scurrying to and fro, hunched shoulders, nervous glances behind custom goggles. Past the empty, bloodstained arena, through the tall iron gates of the palace grounds. Stunted gardens behind high walls; gray stone with a broken-bottle crust. Autumn had finally broken the awful summer heat, and yet everywhere she looked, she could see the color of flame. Smell the tinder, waiting for the spark.

Waiting to burn.

Magistrate Ichizo slid the door to her suite open, and she stared into the small, familiar room. Unmade bed, drawers upended, clothes strewn over the floor. She could see the congealed bloodstain on the wicker matting, reached up to touch the scab at her cheek, the memory of the knife strikes on her forearms, the blow to her face, fresh and real in her mind.

"You will forgive the state of things." Ichizo's tone was apologetic. "Another minister must have ordered your possessions searched. The past month has been ... turbulent. I am sure it will not take long to put all back in order."

"My thanks, my Lord."

"You ... do not remember me, do you?"

A shake of her head. "Forgive me, my Lord."

"We met last spring festival." A gentle smile in his voice. "The Seii Taishgun's banquet. We spoke about poetry. The strengths of Hamada over Noritoshi. I recall that evening fondly..."

She looked up at him then, still clutching his robe about her shoulders, and her face crumpled like candle wax in a burning fireplace. She threw her arms around him and sobbed, pressing herself into his chest to m.u.f.fle her wails. The magistrate was taken aback, unsure whether to embrace her or push her away. He nodded to the bushimen flanking him, and they retreated to spare her further loss of face.

"Come now, my dear." He patted her awkwardly on her shoulder. "You shame yourself."

"It was so awful." Hot tears soaked into scarlet silk. "The l-last thing I remember was the Kitsune girl h-hitting me. Then I woke in that cell and they were screaming at me, calling me a tr-traitor. My G.o.ds, there was no servant more loyal to Yoritomo-no-miya than I..."

"Hush now." He tried to hug and push her away simultaneously, failing on both counts. "They will not hurt you again. You may not leave these rooms unattended, but you will suffer no more ill-treatment. Upon my honor, I vow it."

"Thank you, Lord Ichizo. Bless you."

She stood on tiptoes and kissed him, soft as summer showers down his cheek, until at last she reached his lips. And there she pressed herself, just a little longer, pushing her body against his. He broke away with a nervous smile, extricating himself and straightening his kimono.

"Very good, very good." A small cough. "Duty well served."

She was ushered inside, tear-soaked, pawing her eyes with her sleeve. Ichizo bowed and backed out of the room, shutting and locking the door behind him, his cheeks a subtle shade of rose. She stood amidst the flotsam and jetsam and continued sobbing, just loud enough to be heard through the walls. As their footsteps faded across the polished boards, she counted one hundred heartbeats, weeping still. And finally, she dropped her hands away from her face and the tears stopped as if someone had choked them.

She stared into the warm void on the back of her eyelids, listening to the emptiness inside her head. Still and mute in the free air. Finally, she moved, stalking toward the washroom, toward clean water and sweet-smelling soap, intent on scrubbing the prison from her skin.

She glanced at the looking gla.s.s as she pa.s.sed by, caught a glimpse of her reflection. For a terrifying moment, she was seized by the unshakeable sensation that a stranger stared back at her. Oh, the long dark hair, the slender body, the plump, pouting lips were all hers. But the face belonged to someone else entirely; a girl she didn't know, and didn't care to. A weakling whose skin she wore.

She stripped the rags and robe from her shoulders, stared at her body in the mirror. The stain of false tears on skin she had pinched until it was red and swollen. The knife wounds she had carved into her own arms. The cheek she had slammed against the corner of her own dresser. Remembering the rats squealing and flailing in her hands as she pressed them to her flesh. Anything, everything to evoke pity, to soften the hearts she longed to tear still-beating from their chests.

The urge to smash the reflection burned bright in her mind. She stared at her doppelganger, the tiny, broken girl she pretended to be, hands curling into fists.

"You are death," she whispered. "Cold as winter dawn. Merciless as Lady Sun. Play the role. Play it so well you could fool yourself. But never forget who you are. What you are."

She pointed at the gla.s.s, and her whisper was sharp as knives.

"You are Kage Michi."

5.

CHRYSALIS.

Cold nausea in her belly, bubbling past her lungs to the tip of her tongue.

Blood-red eyes stared at Yukiko from the pit trap's gloom-polished gla.s.s affixed in a bone-smooth, mouthless face. The membrane covering the figure's body was brown as old leather, glossy and supple, creased at the joints. A transistor-studded mechabacus on its chest and the cables snaking around it body marked it as Guild, the cl.u.s.ter of thin, chromed limbs at its back completing the horrific, arachnoid portrait.

"What the h.e.l.ls is that?" she breathed.

"A False-Lifer." Kin frowned, pawing at his stubble.

"A what?"

Yukiko glanced at the boy beside her, hand still on her tant hilt. Buruu loomed near her shoulder, watching the pit with narrowed eyes. The warmth radiating from his fur gave her gooseb.u.mps, that now-familiar scent of ozone and musk filling the air, flecked with electricity.

"They create the flesh-automata for the Guild." Kin shrugged. "The servitors that work in the chapterhouses. The city criers that trundle about calling the hour. They conduct surgical procedures, install implants into newborns, that kind of thing."

Four sets of eyes looked at him as if he were speaking gaijin.

"They build machines that emulate life." He waved one hand in the air. "False. Lifer."

"G.o.ds above," Atsushi breathed.

"What's it doing here?" Isao demanded.

"Do I look like a mind reader?" Kin asked.

Isao glanced at Yukiko. "If we were alone, I'd tell you exactly what you look like, Guildsman."

Kin blinked, opened his mouth to retort when a graveled, sibilant rasp drifted up from the pit. Half statement, half question, retched from the belly of some rusted metal serpent.

"Guildsman?" The thing tilted its head, looking at Kin. "You are Kioshi?"

The name sparked a chill in Yukiko's gut, slick and oily. An unwelcome reminder of who and what Kin had been in days past. The name of a father long dead, a Lotusman of station and esteem, pa.s.sed to his only son as Guild custom bid. The name Kin had called himself, encased in that metal skin. The name of the stranger. The enemy. Before she'd discover the boy beneath the bra.s.s. Before he'd ...

"Shut up!" Isao raised his tetsubo, apparently amazed to hear the thing speak. "Shut your mouth or I'll cave your skull in, b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

The False-Lifer raised its hands. Seven of its metallic arms lifted up in unison. The eighth spat a shower of blue sparks and twitched, dangling beside the Guildsman's leg.

"I mean no harm to any of you," it hissed. "By the First Bloom, I vow it."

"What the h.e.l.ls is a First Bloom?" Isao spat.

"The leader of the Lotus Guild," Kin said. "The Second Bloom of every chapterhouse reports to him."

"And you people swear by him like he's a G.o.d?"

Kin stared at the boy for an empty moment, then turned back to the thing in the pit.

"What are you doing here?" he asked.

"Looking for you, Kioshi-san."

Looking for him?

"My name is Kin."

"You ... no longer bear your father's name?"

"His name is none of your business." Yukiko spoke through clenched teeth. "I'd stop asking questions and start answering them if I were you."

The False-Lifer averted its smooth, gla.s.s eyes. Yukiko could have sworn it cringed.

"Forgiveness, Stormdancer."

"What the h.e.l.ls are you doing here? What do you want?"

A small, helpless gesture, silver arms rippling. "To join you."

"Join us?" she scoffed.

"Kiosh-" A pause. "Kin-san is not the only one who dreamed of escaping the Guild's control. There are many of us within chapterhouses all over Shima, harboring secret thoughts of rebellion. But none thought it was possible. None were brave enough to risk it." The thing looked at Kin, admiration in its voice. "Until he did."

"We should kill it, Stormdancer." Atsushi pointed his spear into the pit, rain running down its razored edge. "We can't trust it."

"Please..." the False-Lifer whispered. "I've come so far..."

Kin glared at Atsushi. "When a Guildsman's skin suffers catastrophic damage, the mechabacus sends a distress beacon. The Guild will know exactly where we are."

"Can you disable the beacon?" Yukiko pointed to the bra.s.s tool belt slung about his waist.

"I could." Kin frowned. "But you're not going to-"

Yukiko turned to Isao.

"Get it out of the pit."

They tossed a rope down, Yukiko watching in disgust as the Guildsman crawled twenty feet up into the light. The arms on its back made a skittering, clicking noise as they moved, as if a hive of scuttling insects were housed in each limb. Glowing eyes lent a blood-soaked tinge to its glistening sh.e.l.l. Though the skin looked moist, dirt or dust didn't cling to it at all.

As the Guildsman reached the pit's edge, Yukiko realized it was wearing a long, buckle-studded ap.r.o.n, making it difficult to clear the lip of the trap. Isao seized one of its humanoid arms, dragged it out and dumped it without ceremony on the ground. Atsushi leveled his naginata at the thing's throat. Yukiko stood back, well out of reach of the spider limbs, but the Guildsman made no threatening gestures, merely raised all its arms amidst more of that horrid clicking and slowly rose to its feet. Eyes averted. Shivering. Its mechabacus was silent, implanted over the swell of its ...

G.o.ds above.

"It's a girl." Yukiko frowned at Kin. "She's a girl."

Kin shrugged. "All False-Lifers are."

"I didn't think there were any women in the Guild."

"Where do you think little Guildsmen come from?" A small, embarra.s.sed smile.

Yukiko's scowl grew darker still, and she gestured toward the False-Lifer's mechabacus. The device chattered, counting beads clicking back and forth across a surface of relays, heat-sinks and glowing transistors.

"Disable it."

Kin stepped forward, uncertain, drawing a screwdriver and pliers from his work belt. Looking a little awkward, he placed his hands on the Guildswoman's chest. It kept its eyes downturned as he loosened a handful of screws. Dozens of insulated wires spilled out as he peeled the faceplate away.