The Withering Flame (The Year of the Dragon, Book 6) Read online

  He doesn’t know about Bran, or the Black Wings…

  “Why are you telling me all this? What do you need me for?” she asked, though her thoughts raced. I have to find her and warn her.

  “I saw you… standing on the edge of the Darkness. The night beyond which no Scryer’s power can reach. You’ve heard of it, yes?”

  She nodded.

  “You were there… standing at the threshold of a gate to the other side, holding an old bronze sword…fending off some shadowy creatures…trying to get through.”

  A shiver went through her at the mention of the sword and the monster. Ōen reached into the folds of his robe and produced a piece of paper.

  “These are the words I heard in the vision. I could make no sense of them until I saw you two today…”

  With shaking hands Nagomi straightened the creases of the paper. The writing was wobbly, blotted, and she strained to decipher its vertical lines.

  All is lost, the Spirits cry

  Only one thing left to try.

  At the Gates of Otherworld

  Bear is fearful, Girl is bold

  She recognised the rhythm and the hidden power of the rhyme. The Prophecy, again. She sighed with irritation. How many more verses did she yet have to discover before she finally grasped its meaning?

  But she calmed down quickly. This verse was clear enough. She shivered again, this time with excitement. The rest of the Prophecy flooded forth from her memories. If the priest had seen so much, perhaps he knew more.

  “What about the third stone?” she asked.

  “The third stone?” It was his turn now to be surprised.

  “Green jewel. Jade, the bringer of Life,” she recited. She knew each verse of the Prophecy by heart.

  He shook his head. “There is no third stone. There never was. The Tide Stones come in pairs.”

  “But it’s in the Prophecy!”

  “I don’t know, child.” He shook his head sadly. “I’ve never heard of a green Tide Stone. Perhaps that is one for you to discover…”

  He coughed. The dragon claws at his side twitched in the rhythm of the spasms, as if still joined to his body. Blood soaked through the bandage in thick droplets. She touched his stomach, trying to at least stem the fresh bleeding with her healing.

  “Do not waste your power, priestess-sama,” he wheezed in between the coughs. “The time is near.”

  “Why does everyone keep dying before they tell me all I need to know!” she cried out. There were still so many mysteries surrounding the Tide Stones and time was running out.

  Ōen wheezed a chuckle and nodded at the acolyte waiting in the shadows. The young man produced a bundle of scrolls scribbled in the same shaky letters as the piece she’d read a moment earlier.

  “I had a year to prepare for this meeting,” he said. “You will find here everything I know about the Stones. It’s not much…but it should be enough to guide you further.” He coughed again. “You are welcome to stay here as long as you wish, priestess-sama,” he said, weakly. “The acolyte will take you to your room.”

  She stood up, uncertain.

  “I will call for you one last time, priestess,” Ōen added. “For now, go and rest.”

  Nagomi accepted the gift of the scrolls graciously, but for the time being she put them away with her other belongings. Her mind was too preoccupied to wade through some musty old tomes. She had to come up with her next move, and fast.

  She felt sorry for Torishi. The bear-man had never been so confused. She had kept him in the dark about her plans, but she had no other choice: if she had told him they were not going back to Lord Mori’s school, he would never have let her leave the city. After all, Chōfu had been the last place where the Taikun’s orders didn’t reach. Now, however, she was an outcast even there.

  Bran was right to warn her. Once the Mikado’s edict had arrived in the domain, the mood of the people around her soured. Lord Mori seemed to have forgotten about her existence while he was busy dealing with the rebels, but the Mikado’s order to clear Yamato from all foreigners reminded everyone Nagomi was a half-barbarian herself. They had to leave, but — where would they go? For the first time in her life she really felt foreign in her own country. Her hair was once again a mark of infamy and shame.

  They had no hope of reaching Kiyō — the entire island between her and the city was swarming with troops, either the Taikun’s or Shimazu’s. If they ventured anywhere north, she would have been captured in an instant before she even got to Nagoya. They could stay in the shrine but there was nothing left for her to discover in Mekari and sooner or later Chōfu’s, Satsuma’s or Taikun’s men — or even the Serpent — would discover and kill her.

  But meeting Ōen made her realise those things no longer mattered.

  There was a Prophecy to fulfil, a destiny to follow, a task given to her by Lady Kazuko. A half-dragon, guided by the Gods, had endured agony just to point her in the right direction. She would not waste his sacrifice.

  I must have been given enough hints and clues by now, she thought feverishly. I can’t just wait until I’m told everything.

  She asked for ink and paper and wrote down all the pieces of the Prophecy she remember on strips of paper and scattered them around the floor. She now understood so much more of it than the first time she had heard the words in the Waters of Scrying. More even, she suspected than Lady Kazuko herself did. She knew what two of the three stones were; she knew what the black wings of despair signified, what the Eight-headed Serpent was, and she had seen the Storm God’s sword in her vision. Lady Kazuko suspected the “mightiest” that was to fall at the “breaking of the world” was the Taikun; the old one had just died, but somehow Nagomi felt that was not what the Prophecy was talking about.

  The Gates of Otherworld.

  She feared it had something to do with Satō. The blood magic, the Ganryū’s orb… Bran thought reaching the wizardess was the best idea and Nagomi so desperately wanted to make sure she was alright.

  But how?

  There were always visions, but even if they were true, all she saw were flames and blood, clashing blades and flying missiles; nothing that would point her in any direction.

  There must have been a clue in what she already knew. She leaned over the verses told to her in the dream from Nagoya. Most of it had already happened, if her reading was right.

  Man and beast are torn apart: Bran and Emrys. The once-pure kanju, the White Stone, was now unclean, defiled by Ganryū’s blood curse, now in Satō’s hands.

  The other of the pair, the blue manju, was in shards, of which one had once been in Bran’s possession, the others lost in history, perhaps yet to be discovered.

  The final two verses were still too vague. She tapped her finger on the mat.

  What was dead will be reborn.

  She couldn’t even tell if it was a promise, or a threat? Was Ganryū to come back to life? She shook her head.

  What was lost shall not be mourned.

  There were so many things that had been lost throughout their misadventures, she couldn’t even begin to list them. No, those lines would not help her find Satō. And so, only one verse of the rhyme remained unsolved but, perhaps…

  Find the boy who can’t be seen.

  She pressed her fists against her forehead in frustration. What could this mean? Bran, again? No, the Prophecy would not refer to the same person twice with different terms, of that she was certain; if there were any rules to Scrying at all, that was one of them.

  But if not Bran, then who? What other boy in Yamato could not be seen?

  And then she remembered. Her heart raced. The boy in her dream! The one who had slain the eight-headed beast with the Storm God’s sword. She had forgotten about him, but now, with a sudden prophetic clarity, she saw him again, as if he was standing before her in the flesh: tall, handsome, somewhat bashful, dressed in a robe of purest silk, marked with the golden chrysanthemum.

  The Mikado’s crest.

  C
HAPTER II

  The Imperial Capital snuck upon Satō unawares.

  A city, not marked on any map, stretched between the Naniwa harbour and Heian, endless, straight and uninterrupted, save for bridge-spanned rivers and wooded, shrine-topped hills forcing the road to bend out of the way. The towns and villages that formed it had long ago lost their names and individual characters, having coalesced into this monstrous serpent of houses, taverns, tea-houses, shops and temples.

  The Kiheitai column crossed another bridge over another nameless river. Before Satō, stretched a broad plain, bounded on three sides by low mountains, grey-blue in the summer haze. A cool waft from the river struggled in vain against the stuffy, dry heat that held this inland city in its torturous grasp, but it did bring with it a flowery, familiar aroma. Satō sniffed.

  “Saké!”

  “Fushimi breweries,” said Takasugi and grinned. He was the only one of the group who had previously been to the city, having spent a year accompanying his father on a mission to the court.

  He pointed upstream, where several brick chimneys belted out clouds of sweet-smelling fumes. A barrel-filled barge sped down the river, its helmsman belting out a cheerful, but nonsensical song, consisting mostly of cries of Yoi-sa! Yoi-sa!

  “That sure makes me thirsty,” said Satō, licking her lips. They’d been marching from Naniwa for two days now, in relentless heat, with only a few brief stops along the way.

  “Good,” replied Shōin, “because we’ve reached our goal.”

  Just below the bridge, sprawled on the river bank and surrounded by a lush garden, was a large, two-storey guest house. The doors and windows were shielded from the sun by straw mats, the stone pavement in front had been freshly sprayed with cold water, and a steady trickle of a cooling stream was coming from the garden. A more inviting place Satō could not even imagine. There was only one problem.

  “Why is there a Satsuma crest next door?” she asked, stepping away from the inn’s threshold, while Shōin went inside.

  “That’s one of the residences of the Shimazu,” he said, soon emerging from under the noren curtain. “There’s nobody there at the moment, apart from servants and guards.”

  “I don’t like it being here.” Satō gave the building next door a scornful look, before entering the inn.

  “Welcome to Terada-ya, noble guests!” the landlord bellowed, bowing. “The best guest house in Fushimi!”

  “Fushimi? I thought past the river it’s Heian already,” said Satō.

  “Well, the checkpoint is just a mile away,” said Takasugi. “I’m sure there’s a reason why we’re here.”

  “We have to wait for the others to catch up,” said Shōin.

  “Others?” asked both Satō and Takasugi.

  Shōin tutted, eyeing the room, full of patrons “Not here.” He turned to the landlord. “Is there a quiet room here where we can discuss private matters?”

  “Of course, tono. In fact, we are quite famous for it,” the landlord replied with a wink. “Follow me upstairs.”

  Shōin produced an envelope sealed with the Mori crest.

  “I kept receiving orders from Chōfu along the way,” he said. “The last one in Naniwa. I was to keep it secret before we got here.” He handed the letter to Satō.

  “Who are all these people?” she asked, after running through the long list of names they were supposed to contact upon arriving in Heian.

  Shōin looked nervously around the small room, as if to make sure they weren’t being spied on; but they were hidden behind double screen walls, padded with straw, and concealed in a maze of other small rooms and passages at the top floor of the inn. If there were spies here, it would take True Sight to detect them.

  “Commanders of various forces scattered throughout the city,” he said. “Chōfu and allied clans. Residence sentries, groups of rōnin, caravan bodyguards…”

  “It must be hundreds of men,” said Takasugi.

  “Two thousand altogether,” said Shōin. “Counting us and Kunishi’s samurai.”

  “Two thousand!” gasped Satō. “That’s an army!”

  How long has Mori-dono been preparing all this?

  “And there would be more, if the storms in the straits hadn’t delayed their ships. Many clans have become incensed by the Mikado’s — Tosa chief among them. Cleansing Yamato from barbarian influence is something everyone can get behind.”

  Satō frowned.

  “But our enemy is the Taikun, not the foreigners.”

  Shōin shrugged. “One thing at a time, Satō, one thing at a time…”

  Takasugi looked through the list and drew a breath. “I wasn’t aware we are to fight our way into Heian.”

  “It’s just a show of force,” said Shōin. “The s-staging ground…” he stuttered. That was a term of war, not diplomacy. “…is a monastery not far from here. We’ll go there in the morning.”

  Satō noticed Shōin’s hands were trembling, and poured him a brimful of cold saké.

  “Who’s in charge of all this? Kunishi-sama?” she asked.

  He gulped the drink and in an instant his eyes grew teary and red. He slammed the cup on the table. “I don’t know yet,” he replied. “We are to wait here for contact.”

  “I hope it’s soon,” said Takasugi. “The Taikun will not wait, that’s for sure.”

  The old priest lay still, breathing at a slow, steady pace. Through the wide open veranda door, he was staring at the sea, calm now under the smothering blanket of the summer rain.

  A whole day had passed before he’d called for Nagomi; the sun had sunk beneath the dark line of the Chōfu shore.

  As she watched the sea in silence, she saw a ship in the storm, crashing against a rocky shoreline, heard the desperate cries of the crew over the howling wind, and somewhere among the splintering timber she glimpsed a twinkle of a blue light, a star shining through the darkness. She blinked.

  Ōen’s voice broke through the apparition.

  “I’m sorry?” she asked.

  “I was browsing through the scrolls once again,” he said. “But I could not find anything about a green stone.”

  “I appreciate your effort,” she replied. She had not hoped for any more revelations from the dying priest.

  “I did find… something, though,” he said. “A Scryer’s letter from the days of the dragons, from the Genpei Wars.”

  “What does it say?”

  “He writes to the Mikado Antoku about the secrets of his craft: how to read visions, and interpret them.”

  “Can I see it?”

  “I doubt you’d manage to read it, it is very old… It concerns false visions and — among them the priest does mention one showing a third Tide Stone.”

  Nagomi gasped. “A false vision—”

  “The stone in his vision was formed when three comma-shaped pieces, each carried by a green dorako, combined into one,” said Ōen. “He dismisses it along with other examples. ‘It was obviously a dream sent by malevolent Spirits,’ he claims.”

  “Do you think… I’m being shown a false dream, too?”

  “Maybe,” the priest said, “but there is something else about the letter. You see, it was never sent to Heian. A day after the priest had written down his ‘false’ visions, Antoku’s fleet arrived here, in Dan-no-Ura… and the Mikado perished with his entire army.”

  “What of it?”

  “This was exactly as the priest had predicted in the letter. He thought this, too, to be untrue.”

  “Then you think…”

  Ōen chuckled. “Whoever this priest was, he had a true scrying talent, but was terrible at his craft. His visions were true, but he chose not to believe them. I’m sorry I did not find anything written by somebody with more sense.”

  “No, this — this is already more than I could ever find out by myself, I’m sure.”

  Green dragons… This much matched what she had seen in the Prophecy. But comma-shaped stones did not help much. Most onmyōji magic jewels were t
hat shape. She touched her neck through the kimono; even the jade necklace she’d received from Lady Kazuko…

  A gust of wind rattled at the paper windows, and the waves thundered against the shore, louder than before. Ōen rose slightly off the wooden pillow.

  “It is time,” he said.

  Nagomi’s eyes followed his gaze. The rain stopped. Clouds loomed over the water, dark and vast, like giant wings, and she heard a roar in the sound of the billows, as if of a great monster.

  “Our meeting ends here, child. Watatsumi-sama has come for me at last,” the priest said. His face brightened, and all suffering and weariness perished from his eyes. “My spirit will join him in the undersea palace!”

  Supporting himself on Nagomi’s shoulder, he stood up, swaying, and reached out the healthy hand. The wet breeze licked his fingers and shook the rickety roof tiles. The waves roared again, scattering the sand. Nagomi bowed down in the presence of a God. The priest’s fingers clenched her shoulder.

  “Another dragon dies this evening,” Ōen whispered. “Can you sense it? The Gods are busy today.”

  She shook her head. Whatever the priest witnessed in the storm was only his to see. He gasped once, and collapsed. She touched his wrist and felt no pulse.

  The acolytes rushed out of the shadows, shooing her away. The wind quietened down and the waves regressed from the beach.

  Prince Mutsuhito stared at the strip of coloured paper in his hands, carefully composing the wish poem in his mind.

  There were a few other wishing strips tied to the young bamboo tree that grew by the gate of the Crown Prince’s quarters.

  Only the court ladies serving the Prince, and their children, had the time to even think about the Tanabata holiday. This wasn’t even the proper day: the festival in the city had long gone, and nobody within the Imperial Palace walls had noticed. The court was in disarray, busy with the political drama unravelling outside the Imperial Capital, of which Mutsuhito was only vaguely aware. It all sounded preposterous to him, more myth than reality. The barbarians were in Yamato with some flying monsters. The Mikado had openly defied the Taikun. The daimyo of the distant provinces were growing restless, even rebellious. This was no time for celebrations.