He offered a quick prayer of thanks over Takashi's grave, then let himself be led away and brought to the Palace of Serene Sanctuary. The Palace was yet another of the contrasts on Luthien. Huge factory complexes covered the planet, with sprawling metropolises in place to house all the workers needed to make the factories function. The pollution had once been so bad that the world had earned the nickname of Black Luthien. Despite efforts to reverse the ecological damage, the epithet stuck—though among the Combine's enemies the adjective black came to apply to the soul of the rulers as much as the world.
Imperial City looked little like the rest of the planet. All the architecture hearkened back to earlier, more feudal times on Terra. Several structures had been broken down and transported to Luthien stone by stone, but around them had grown up many more, like mushrooms surrounding a parent plant. The Palace of Unity had been fashioned entirely of teakwood, making it as much a work of art as a building.
The Palace of Serene Sanctuary, located a half-dozen kilometers from the Palace of Unity, was no less magnificent. Stone, wood, and tile combined to create a building that looked lifted straight out of the thirteenth century on Terra. A tall wall surrounded it, holding the rest of the city at bay, as if it were a preserve for a more gentle, less hectic era. Passing through the outer gates, Victor felt as if he were walking back in time.
Omi met him inside the foyer. She wore a white kimono decorated with embroidered pink cherry blossoms. It reminded him of the dress she had worn on Arc-Royal almost four years earlier. He remembered their walk in the garden that night and kissing her. I wanted very much to sweep her off her feet, to carry her away so we could share our love, but we both knew that could not be.
She bowed to him. "Komban-wa, Davion Victor-sama."
He returned the bow. "Komban-wa, Kurita Omi-sama." Straightening up, he smiled at her. "You remind me of a night on Arc-Royal."
"As do you." She smiled at him. "Your kimono is the same one you wore that night. The swords are an addition, but a good one."
Victor started to slip the katana and wakazashi free of his obi, but she pressed her hands to his. "Those swords are a symbol of your rank here, Victor. For you to abandon them would be disharmonious, and on a night like this, that would be a bad thing."
He caught her hands in his and nodded. "Whatever you wish of me, Omi, it will be done."
"You honor me with your trust, Victor." She freed her left hand from his right and swept it out to direct his attention to the rest of the palace. "I would show you my home."
Victor finally looked beyond her and suddenly felt overwhelmed. The palace interior had been constructed completely of oak left in its natural color. Strips of oaken planking had been precisely fitted together for the flooring while pillars and beams seamlessly hooked into each other, making it very difficult to pick out the lines where they had been joined. Moreover, the artisans who had shaped and fitted the wood had taken exquisite care to see that the wood's natural grain patterns flowed together and eddied apart, giving the stationary wood a sense of motion and life. The interior felt vital and peaceful.
Omi began to lead him through the building. "Seven years ago today the Clans attacked Luthien. The fifth of January was a day marked by a battle that ran from dawn to well after evening had fallen. The fighting was terrible and ferocious and lives in the memories of all who were here. On this day, on the fifth of January, people throughout Luthien return to the place where they were when the Clans attacked, using that time to remind them of the things that truly matter in life. We mourn those who died and offer thanks for those who survived."
Victor felt a cold chill cut at his spine. "Seven years ago I was on Alyina. I was fighting the Jade Falcons. They knew I was there, and they came after me specifically. They had me trapped, then Kai appeared out of nowhere. He crushed part of their force and, I believed at the time, died doing so."
He reached up and slipped a jade monkey pendant from beneath the cloth of his kimono. "Kai had given this to me at Christmas. It's Sun Hou-tzu, the King of the Monkeys. He said it was meant to give me luck, and to remind me to forever be myself. As I evacuated Alyina I thought it was all I had left of Kai, all I had to remember him by; so I understand the mourning and sacrifice you commemorate here on this day."
"I know where you were, Victor." Omi led him through a pair of doors and into a garden thick with dark plants, manicured shrubs, and trees covered in fragrant blooms. "You were also here, with me, through that day and into that night."
"Here?" Victor frowned. "With the Clans coming for Imperial City, you couldn't have been here. Your father must have evacuated you to some place safe."
"He tried, but I remained here." She glanced down at the crushed stone ocean defining a semi-circle near the doorway. "My brother told me that you understand the principles of giri and ninjo, duty and compassion. While my father would have wanted me to leave Imperial City, he did not order me to evacuate. I knew, just as he and my brother and my grandfather would be out there on the plains defending Imperial City, I had a duty to be here. The men and women out there fighting against the Clans knew they were fighting for our nation and our future, but my being here gave them a focus. Dying to preserve a nation is an abstraction that does not provide comfort."
Victor nodded slowly. "Galen Cox told me much the same thing as we left Alyina. He said Kai had sacrificed himself to save me. He said I had a duty to Kai to make certain his sacrifice had not been wasted."
"Much as I have a duty to my people to see to it that their sacrifices were not in vain." Omi stepped away from him, raised her arms and spun around. "So I was here while the fighting raged out there. I could hear the sounds of explosions growing louder as the Clans forced our troops back." She traced a finger through the night sky. "I watched fighters spiral and die. I saw errant bolts of laser light burn through the air, all the while waiting for one to find me."
She hugged her arms around herself. "I have never been so terrified in my whole entire life. In my fear I sought refuge in my memories of you, Victor. I recalled our kiss on Outreach and how safe I felt in your arms. I remembered our time together, the laughter and the sorrow and the sharing. I resolved that terror was not a appropriate reaction if. I was to be worthy of you and your love."
Victor reached a hand out toward her, then drew her close and enfolded her in his arms. "I wish I had been here to calm your fears."
"But you were." She reached up and stroked his cheek with her right hand. "And had you been here on Luthien, you would have been in your 'Mech, driving the Clans away. As much as you would have liked to give me succor, your sense of duty would have overridden it. Hush, no, do not deny it, for it is not a fault or flaw. I understand these conflicts."
Omi kissed him lightly on the lips, then slipped from his grasp and retreated into the shadows of a cherry tree. "You are aware that I am the Keeper of the House Honor?"
Victor nodded. "You are the arbiter of what is correct behavior and incorrect behavior." He drew his arms to his chest to preserve the warmth of her on his flesh.
"And you are aware of the two ideals that govern everything here in the Combine?" Her blue eyes glittered in motes of light that threaded their way through the tree's foliage, making her appear more spirit than woman. "Harmony and Purity govern everything. It is to these ideals that we aspire."
"This I understand."
"Do you?" She watched him carefully. "Today is a day for remembrance and mourning, but tomorrow, the day after the great victory, will be one of celebration; yet that celebration will encompass Harmony and Purity. Families will begin tomorrow as they did seven years ago. They will go out into their neighborhoods and work with others to pick up litter, to repair broken fences, to prune shrubs, and pull weeds. They will do what they can to make the world more beautiful, to destroy the scars of disharmony and the impurity wrought by the Clans and by the inconsiderate and unthinking among us. Only after that they will rejoice."
Victor shivered. While the
knew there were plenty of people who used holidays as a day to perform housework or to beautify their own gardens, he couldn't image the sort of compulsive community action Omi described taking place in his realm. While I have no doubt our people love the Commonwealth every bit as much as the people here love the Combine, we see ourselves as a nation of individuals, not as one massive society bound by grand philosophies.
"Though my nation does not operate the same way yours does, I think, after being here, that I grasp much of what you are saying. It seems that substance is more important here than form."
"It is, but we are not without our ways of turning form into substance or vice versa. My love, the Dictum Honorium is full of anecdotes, rules, and aphorisms that indicate there are many shades to these things. For example, when your father sent the Kell Hounds and Wolf's Dragoons here to oppose the Clans, that action had the appearance of disharmony. Your father and my father had an agreement concerning the respect for each other's borders. Your father knew we needed help, but he had said he would not permit Federated Commonwealth troops to cross the border until the Clans were defeated."
Omi smiled slowly and stepped back into the light spilling into the garden from the palace doors. "Your father's solution was to order mercenaries to come to Luthien to help us. They were not Federated Commonwealth troops per se, so he preserved Harmony while allowing his goals to be serviced.
"Similarly it is often thought that the ideal of Purity is served by virginity or sexual abstinence, but this is not true." Omi opened her hands and approached him. "Were it true, there would be no children in the Combine. Purity in this sense is bound up with fidelity and discretion, choosing the appropriate partner and keeping what passes between them between them alone."
Omi pressed herself against him and settled her arms around his shoulders. "Victor, I would have you with me this night as I imagined you were seven years ago. I will give you the comfort I wish I could have given you then, and you shall comfort me as I would have had you comfort me."
Victor wrapped his arms around her waist and held her tight against his him. "I want this more than you can know, Omi, but I would not cause disharmony by having you disobey your father."
"Quiet, love." She cupped his face in her hands. "I cannot disobey him by doing something that has not been forbidden."
Not forbidden? But the Coordinator must have known this might happen. "Your father knows . . . ?"
"He knows what he wants to know." She kissed Victor on the forehead and then his lips. "This place is my world, our world. We would cause disharmony if we denied the purity of the feelings we share for one another. Tonight my sanctuary becomes our sanctuary."
Victor leaned his head forward to kiss her throat. He drank in the scent of her body, which mingled with the cherry blossoms perfume to become an intoxicating fragrance. Beneath the silk of her kimono she felt warm and soft, slender and strong. He felt her long black hair tickle the back of his hands as she unbound it.
Bringing his head up, he kissed the point of her chin. "Omi, I love you."
"And I, you, Victor."
"Iie!"
The snarled denial of their love lashed at them and spun them apart. Victor came around to see three figures clad from head to toe in black. Light reflected back from the night-vision goggles riding where their eyes should have been. All three wore katanas strapped across their backs, and the foremost among them drew his with practiced fluidity. Light gleamed along its jazored edge, and Victor's mouth went dry.
Omi's voice took on an edge he had never heard in it before. "What is the meaning of this intrusion?"
"We have come to save you from being soiled by this barbarian." The speaker leveled his sword at Victor's chest. Though four meters separated them, Victor knew his life was the man's to take. "We will not have you become a Davion whore."
Victor stabbed a finger at the speaker. "How dare you dishonor her!"
"Ha! I cannot—she has already been dishonored by her conduct with you." The man shook his head. "I will slay you, then we shall oversee Lady Omi's suicide. Only by killing herself can she redeem her honor."
"No." Victor shook his head adamantly. "She has done nothing wrong. I swear it, on my honor, as a samurai."
"What do you know of a samurai's honor?"
"I know Harmony and I know Purity." Victor looked back over his shoulder at Omi. "I know she is pure and has not been soiled. And I know her death would disrupt the harmony of the Combine. And what I know of honor is that a samurai would do his duty as best he could so others could show compassion."
Victor hit duty and compassion with emphasis, then tugged at the neck of his kimono with his left hand. "It's me you really want, not her. I will do my duty, I will die as a samurai would die, provided you do yours and make it a clean cut. Say you answered her cries for help as I attempted to ravish her. Make yourselves into heroes, but leave her alive."
"No, Victor, no." Omi clutched at his left arm. "I will not let you do this."
"Iie, Omiko-sama, this is what I must do." Victor tipped his chin up to stretch his throat. "Have we a deal?"
"Hai!" The leader looked back at his men, exchanged nods with them, then stalked forward. "I will give you the honorable death you do not deserve."
"I'll earn it." Victor pulled his arm from Omi's grasp, took a step forward, and dropped to his left knee. He brought his left hand across his chest to grab his right tricep and bowed his head forward. This better work.
The crushed stones crunched as the assassin came to a stop in front of Victor. As the man raised his sword, Victor dropped his right hand to the hilt of his katana and drew the blade as he started to come up. The draw cut was weak, but slashed at the assassin's face, knocking the goggles askew. The man began to spin away from the attack as Victor flicked his wrist and arced the tip of his sword around one hundred and twenty degrees. With two hands now on the hilt, he chopped the katana down and to the left, slicing cleanly through the assassin's spine.
The blade came free and splashed a black line of blood across the white stones.
"Run, Omi, run!" Victor brandished the katana and interposed himself between her and the other two assassins. "Run, Omi."
"Iie, Victor, I will not run."
He heard fear and resignation in her voice, but the next assassin leaped at him and gave him no time to convince Omi to leave. The assassin's attacks came fast and furious, causing Victor to retreat quickly. He dodged right and left as he went, trying to make the assassin repeat the mistake made by his compatriot. Night-vision goggles severely limit the user's field of vision. When I dropped to one knee, I literally dropped from the man's sight for a few seconds. This one seems smarter than his dead companion.
Beyond the assassin Victor saw Omi sink to her knees beside the first man's body. The third assassin knelt on one knee beside it and reached a hand out toward the first assassin's throat, ostensibly to feel for a pulse. Victor saw no more as his foe forced him back to the palace doorway, then engaged him in the high-ceilinged oak room.
Victor parried an overhand head-cut, then tried to disengage his blade and slash at the assassin's belly, but his opponent leaped back from the attack. Worse yet, the assassin reached up with his left hand and tore the goggles from his face. He tossed them at Victor, and when the Prince ducked to avoid them, the assassin closed.
Victor blocked a transverse cut, then ducked below a head-cut and backed away. Their blades rang as they met, sending shivers up the Prince's arms. He twisted aside from one lunge, felt the burning sting of a slice over his ribs, then tumbled over an oaken banister and into a narrow corridor. The assassin's slash at him planed a curly wisp of oak from the railing, then the killer vaulted the banister and came at Victor even harder.
Panic threatened to overwhelm him, but Victor forced it away. He focused on the center of his foe, not watching arms or legs, but watching his heart and his belly. Everything else he could see at the periphery, but by watching the man's core, he could see the attacks
coming and read the feints. Victor narrowed the cone of his own responses to attacks, blocking them before they could do damage, but not letting his blade get drawn too wide by a feint.
Victor parried a cut at his left shoulder, then quickly brought his blade over and around in the sort of circular fencing parry Tancred Sandoval had shown him. As the katana's point swung back into line with the assassin's chest, Victor lunged. The blade pierced the man's shirt on the left and a hissed breath told Victor he'd hurt him, though he guessed the blade had scored only a flesh wound over a rib.
Without warning the assassin's left fist crashed in and snapped Victor's head around to the left. The Prince saw stars explode and began to stumble back. His world went black for a moment, just a heartbeat, but as his vision cleared he discovered he was off balance and falling. He heard his left elbow crack against the hardwood floor a second before he felt pain shooting up through the limb. A half-second later he landed hard on his back. Somehow he managed to keep his head from hitting, but the jarring impact freed his sword from his grip.
His katana clattered against the floor as the assassin loomed over him like the shadow of Death. The assassin raised the katana like a sacrificial dagger and plunged it downward as Victor leaned to the left and whipped his right foot up into the assassin's groin.
In the half-second before silvery bolts of agony shook him, Victor felt the pressure of the katana punching through a rib on the right side of his chest. It stabbed clean through him and drove on into the oaken floor. A scream ripped through his throat, and for a heartbeat the sound overrode the pain coursing through him. In its wake the pain receded for a moment, leaving Victor an instant of clarity in which he realized he was more seriously wounded than he had ever been before.
Anger exploded in him and he commanded himself to stop whimpering. I will not go to my death mewling like a whipped kitten! He clenched his teeth against the sound and only then realized he was not producing it. Raising his head, he looked past the shaft of steel sticking up from his right side and saw the crumpled, simpering figure of a man clutching at crushed testicles.
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