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

  “I had my men track your son ever since he arrived in Yamato,” he said, eventually. “Everything we know checks out with what you just related.”

  “Except you told me he left the country.”

  “And so we believed. This must have been when he was captured by the Gorllewin.”

  Dylan leaned back in his chair, and drummed the table’s edge with his fingers. There was a glint in his eye. “With this kind of magic, spying would be a breeze.” He shook his head in disbelief.

  Did he tell you about their healers yet? Curzius wondered. No, that would be the first thing you’d ask about.

  “The spirit magic is a deep secret of which we’ve only heard rumours. But… I don’t believe it works outside Yamato.”

  “A pity, if true,” Dylan said. “Why would the Yamato have agreed to perform such a ritual on a foreigner in the first place?”

  “This country is on the brink of a civil war,” the Overwizard explained with a growing hint of impatience. We’ve been through this! “The nobles are split into myriad factions. Some support the religious authorities, others, the military ones. Somebody must have thought having your son — or rather, his dragon — on their side would aid their cause.”

  “Nariakira.” Dylan’s fist clenched.

  If you choose to believe so.

  “What are you going to do now?” Curzius asked.

  “Do?” The Commodore shrugged. “I don’t see how any of this changes my plans. We are still leaving Yamato as soon as we can. Now that I have Bran back, there’s even less for me to hang around here for.”

  Liar.

  The Overwizard stood up and nodded. “I see. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have an audience with the city’s magistrate. Urgent matters.”

  “Of course.” Dylan lazily slid his chair away and stood up as well. “If you need me, I’ll be packing.”

  Light drew a dazzling, dancing pattern of colours on the stone path, and on the kimonos of the pilgrims; it broke and scattered on the thousands of little green leaves and reflected off hundreds of vermillion torii gates lining the approach to the top of Mount Inari.

  The scarlet corridor had no peer in all of Yamato. Once again, Satō was filled with pride at the achievements of her people. Surely, nothing like this exists anywhere in the world, she thought, admiring the perfection of the straight lines and angles, broken by the softness of the round timber pillars.

  Shōin followed close behind her, but he seemed to be too immersed in his thoughts to be excited about sightseeing. He insisted that they should not venture too far from the Terada-ya, in case their “contact” — whoever it was — showed up unannounced. But she managed to convince him that Mount Inari was just a short walk away.

  “Nagomi would never forgive me if I didn’t go to pray at the Inari Shrine. Foxes are her favourite kami.”

  Reluctantly, Shōin agreed.

  They reached a tea-house, halfway up the slope, and Satō ordered a cup of cha and a plate of rice parcels wrapped in sweet fried tofu. From the terrace, she saw the entire city below, all the way to the mountains rising on the opposite side of the valley. It was a near-perfect grid of avenues, criss-crossing at straight angles. To the north, it became more chaotic and denser, as the network of pre-planned streets failed to penetrate the low hills on the left bank of the Kamogawa River, and turned into a jumble of narrow alleyways. To the west, hiding in the haze, the urban sprawl grew sparser, giving way to vegetable fields and bamboo groves. But everywhere she turned her eyes, she saw spires of pagodas, shining, gold-plated roofs of monasteries, and the towering palaces of the aristocrats, culminating in the broad, dark green rectangle of the Mikado’s gardens. Heian was a city of the rich and well-born.

  “It’s magnificent,” she whispered.

  Shōin winced over his cup. “I preferred Naniwa.”

  “Naniwa? That city of merchants?” Satō grimaced. In her opinion, they couldn’t pass quickly enough through the harbour town. “How can you compare that crowded, smelly—”

  “I’m a merchant,” he reminded her. “And yes, Naniwa is all those things, but at least it’s alive. This — ” he raised a cup over Heian’s gleaming panorama, “is a corpse of a city.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “This city’s power is long dead. The military strength is in Edo, the money is in Naniwa. What’s in Heian? A bunch of nobles reminiscing about the good old days, and Butsu monks busy tending to their cemeteries. Yes, it’s all gleaming with colours like flies on decomposing flesh. It’s like all of Yamato: an empty, glittering shell.”

  “You’re in a cheerful mood today,” she said.

  “I’m sorry, I’ve just been thinking a lot lately,” he replied. “Why are we here, in Heian? Why are you here, Satō?”

  “Me?” She swallowed the rice. “It’s Mori-dono’s orders—”

  “Aren’t you curious what the end game is? The country needs a change. We all know it. Are we the ones fit to lead this change? Is Mori-dono? I wouldn’t even know where to start. I started writing down some of my thoughts on this, but it’s been all a jumble so far…” His voice trailed off; he didn’t expect her to answer.

  She picked up another rice parcel with her chopsticks. As she chewed, she looked around, desperate to find a new topic of conversation. She noticed ribbons of paper tied to the twigs of a small bamboo, growing over the terrace.

  “Oh, that’s right, we’ve missed Tanabata. What would you have wished for?” she asked.

  He blinked, surprised by the question. “Wish?”

  I would have wished for the Taikun’s downfall, she thought, but I can’t write that on the ribbon.

  A small tabby cat, like many of the sort she’d seen dozing off among the torii gates along the way, jumped next to their table from somewhere on the terrace. It stretched under the stroke of Shōin’s hand. The boy smiled and handed it half of his rice parcel. The cat purred in glee. Shōin smiled.

  “He knows what matters in life,” he mused. “I’d wish this conflict was over soon, and that we could go back to what’s truly important.”

  “And what is that?”

  “Peace,” Shōin said. “Home. Family. L-love,” he stuttered and blushed.

  “I’ll drink to that,” said Satō, hiding her face in the cup.

  They left the Mekari shrine in the morning, their bundles much heavier than when they’d arrived: not only did they have to carry the scrolls, but also some water and travel food the acolytes gave them on their departure.

  A gust of sea breeze skewed Nagomi’s bamboo hat, and she pushed it back onto her brow, hiding her face in the shadow. Torishi followed grudgingly behind, despondent and diminished, though his face seemed younger by a decade. They had both cropped their hair short, and the bear-man had to shave his proud beard — oh, how he wept! But Nagomi was determined that they disguise themselves as best they could. They were not going to make it easy for the Taikun’s or Lord Mori’s agents.

  They were heading for the Kokura harbour, where Nagomi wished to buy a passage towards Naniwa, or any port in that direction. She expected the harbour would be swarming with Taikun’s agents. From what she remembered, the domain’s lords were Edo’s staunch allies, but she hoped to use the chaos of the upcoming war and the festival season to their advantage.

  As she strode forward along the muddy, seaweed-covered beach, she spotted dark shapes in the shallows, rising bent and cracked, like rotting bones of some giant animal. It took her a moment to realise what it was.

  “It’s …. it’s a wreck!” she cried back to Torishi, who scrambled out after her, urging her to wait. She remembered her latest vision.

  “Maybe there are survivors.”

  But the ship — a large transport barge, judging by the size of the shattered bulkheads, and the crates of goods spilled out into the sea — must have crashed days before their arrival, and whatever survivors there were, had long gone away in search of shelter and help, their footprints washed out by the lashing rai
ns.

  “The harbour,” said Torishi, laying his heavy hand on the girl’s shoulder. “Let’s not get distracted.”

  She nodded and moved on, but before long, they stumbled onto another wreckage and then another.

  “How many of those ships are here?” It was as if they walked through a graveyard of monsters.

  “The storm lasted for days,” said Torishi. “There must be dozens. What a desolate place. Come, let’s get to higher ground, it’s difficult to walk.”

  She turned to follow him inland, when she spotted something glinting underneath one of the fallen beams.

  “Wait, what’s that?”

  Smashed into the sand by the weight of the timber, so that only one corner of it emerged from under the water, was a large, nearly man-sized, iron-bound crate, with several small, barred openings near its top. Nagomi recognised the style: it was similar to the box of the wagon she had been held in at Nagoya; similar to the cage Lady Kazuko had been put in during her last days in Kiyō. Only the crests stamped into the iron bars were those of the Chōfu clan, rather than the Taikun’s.

  “A prison box,” she said, “there may still be somebody inside.”

  She crouched down, peering inside the small windows. Water was reaching almost to her chest, and she struggled to stand against the waves and rip currents battering against her legs. Her instincts were right: somebody, or something, stirred in the wet darkness. If it called to her, she could not hear it through the roar of the wind and the sea, but she had seen enough.

  “Help me get this off,” she commanded Torishi. The bear-man hesitated.

  “What if he’s dangerous? A criminal?”

  “We still can’t let him drown like this!”

  Torishi shook his head, then pushed against the fallen beam with his strong arms. The timber did not move at first as the bear-man struggled to gain a foothold in the sandy sea bottom, but at length it creaked and gave way, splashing into the water.

  The prison box had been damaged enough that there was no need for a key. Torishi simply ripped open the soaked boards.

  Inside, cowering from the daylight was a strange creature: a small, dark-skinned man, bald, shrivelled, and naked, save for a pendant: a shard of a blue stone on a leather cord.

  Nagomi felt a creeping flash of foresight, but she pushed it away; her training with Torishi had freed her somewhat from the relentless onslaught of visions. She didn’t need another divination to remind her where she had seen the creature’s kindred before.

  The blue orb in the dark cavern.

  A shadow on the wall — a dragon’s wing.

  Torishi froze at the sight, with one of the torn bits of timber still in his hand. The creature croaked some words in a language Nagomi did not understand but, to her astonishment, the bear prince replied, faltering and stuttering, in the same clipped tongue. It sounded similar to the language of Torishi’s shamanic spells, but was somehow deeper, older, and more full of meaning.

  Torishi finally let go of the wood he was holding, grabbed the small man, and carried him gently onto dry land. Nagomi followed, bewildered.

  “Who is this?” she kept asking, but the bear-man only turned to her when he made sure the little man, wrapped in Torishi’s own cloak, was warm and safe.

  “That…” he replied with a tense face, “…is an Ancient.”

  The little man was too weak and cold to speak any further until they started a fire in the shadow of the black pines. Nagomi studied his dark, ashen-grey skin, wincing at the old traces of numerous lashings. It was hard to tell his age, but she guessed he was old by the many wrinkles around his small, round eyes and the taut veins on his arms and legs.

  An Ancient. Her entire knowledge of the diminutive race came from her conversations with Torishi. Since the visions of the dark cave and the shattering stone, she had often returned to the subject, but the bear-man had little to add to what she already knew.

  They had worshipped old Yamato dragons, lived in caves and tunnels bored into the mountains, and bore the shards of the shattered blue stone… and then they were supposed to have perished, all of them, a long, long time ago. And yet, here was one of them, real and alive.

  Warmed up, the Ancient began a quiet, sporadic conversation with Torishi. As the bear-man listened, his astonishment only grew larger. His hand wandered to where his beard was in a futile search for something to tug at in deep wonder.

  “He came here with Prince Shakushain,” Torishi said, at last, “and was fleeing Ganryū’s men, trying to reach his home in the North, when some samurai caught him at the province border.”

  “But wasn’t Shakushain-sama in Ganryū’s entourage?” asked Nagomi.

  “There was some disagreement over this,” Torishi pointed at the blue stone on the Ancient’s neck.

  Blue shard.

  “It gets better,” Torishi said, before she gathered her rapidly scattering thoughts. “He was kept in a dungeon until… a woman samurai came and ordered his release. She had him put on the ship heading for Chōfu.” He waved at the wreckage on the tideline. “I guess we will never know what they were going to do with him,” he added.

  “Woman samurai… he means Sacchan?” the priestess asked and grabbed the little man’s shoulder. He flinched in fright.

  “How is she?” she asked. “When did you last see her? Was she unharmed?”

  “She… a good man,” he croaked back, struggling with the Yamato words, “but dark. In shadow. Like the Red One.”

  She turned to Torishi with a questioning look. The bear-man removed her hand off the Ancient’s arm and asked the little man another question.

  “He saw a shadow of the Crimson Robe cast over the wizardess,” he translated the answer, “but that could mean anything,” he added, trying to sound cheerful.

  The Ancient coughed and wrapped himself tighter in Torishi’s cloak. The bear-man sat down a few feet away, letting their guest rest after the exhausting conversation.

  “What a chance,” he pondered, throwing another branch on the fire. The pine needles burst in a cloud of sparks.

  Nagomi shook her head in silence. That’s no chance. There are no coincidences in my life, she thought, remembering Lady Kazuko’s lesson. She looked into the flying sparks. In the flames she saw shattering jewels and blood staining the silken robe. Dragons dying in battle. Dark, wet tunnels, lofty mountain tops covered in snow, sea waves crashing against the entrance to a deep cave.

  She ignored the images, not trying to filter or even remember any of them. It didn’t matter anymore, she realised. She was no longer witnessing the Prophecy: she was living it. The story told to some ancient priestess a long time ago was happening here and now, and she was its hero.

  Girl is fearful, bear is bold.

  Once again, she felt used by forces beyond her understanding, led astray by the Spirits and chance encounters, blown around by the winds of Fate.

  No, she resisted the approaching gloom, not this time. It was her own decision to go to Kokura, to sail to Heian. They could have stayed in Mekari, or in Chōfu, they could have waited for events to unfold around them. If she had done so, or even delayed a day longer, the Ancient would have perished in the coming tide. That they found him was the first proof that, by leaving Mekari, Nagomi had started making correct decisions all on her own.

  The thought cheered her up, and for the first time in days she ventured a smile.

  “What do we do with him?” asked Torishi, when the tired Ancient — Koro, as he introduced himself — dozed off by the fire. If it wasn’t for the loud, rasping snoring, the little man would resemble a frail, sleeping child.

  “We take him with us, of course,” Nagomi decided at once.

  “It’s dangerous enough for the two of us.”

  “Would you rather we left him here? He needs to get back north. And I need him to tell me about the Tide Stone.”

  The bear-man shook his head. It was odd not to see the gesture followed by the familiar waving of the beard. “
It’s too much of a burden. I say we leave him at the shrine, in the care of the priests.”

  She was taken aback by his callousness. Can he not see there’s a reason why we found him? Would he really give away this gift from the Fate?

  She took a deep breath and stared into the flames again; of course, she understood, he just wants to protect me.

  She reached out to touch his rugged hand, and looked him in the eye. “It will be alright,” she said. “I promise.”

  Without his beard and long hair he seemed milder and softer, almost weak — though she knew better than anyone the real strength hiding behind the gentle face — and sensed the muscles tense under the skin. He laid his other palm on hers. His chest raised in a sigh.

  “You’re the one who can see into the future.”

  She mustered an encouraging smile, though in their future she saw nothing but dense, blood-tinged clouds of thick black smoke.

  The summer evenings on Chinzei were long, warm, and bright.

  Nagomi didn’t feel the need to stay close to the fire, neither to warm up, nor to read through the scroll she’d received from Ōen. Leaving Torishi with Koro, she climbed halfway up a gentle hill and lay on the angling slope, facing the waves of Dan-no-Ura, shimmering against the shore; she raised the unrolled scroll above her head.

  It’d been years since she’d last read something in this way. Back in Kiyō she would often find a bald patch of the Suwa Hill, and lie there while preparing for a lecture or lesson. The thought made her nostalgic for the earlier, innocent time.

  We would be preparing for the Obon festival right about now, she thought. For Tanabata, Sacchan would write down something about learning new spells. I would wish for my parents to stay healthy, or for Ine to find a husband…