by Hubbert, Jim
If Sayaka had met Cutty, what would she say? Images of her, of those intense conversations with friends that lasted till dawn, flooded his mind. She never yielded an inch of ground to anyone. Yes, she and Cutty would have struck some serious sparks. Both aimed at something that was the same, yet crucially different. Was it really only a matter of the collective, the species, versus the interests of the individual? Or was it about something far more important?
Orville was overwhelmed with longing. When he had held Sayaka’s lithe body, the truth had always seemed so obvious. But that was in the past, in a time yet to come, a future that would never come. Like snow gleaming on distant peaks, it was gradually sublimating, vanishing into the aether.
“Cutty Sark is pretty cold-blooded. Do you trust her?” Quench’s matter-of-fact voice put an end to Orville’s musings. He rubbed the stubble on his jaw as he brought himself back to reality.
“No. Cutty’s very capable. Anyway, commanders are like that. The subunit is probably to make sure we don’t start a rebellion.”
“What a dictator,” Quench groaned.
“That’s how they made her,” Orville replied calmly enough. “No use complaining. We Messengers were made to focus on individuals. Cutty looks at the big picture. Our designers thought of everything.”
In Quench’s silence, Orville sensed that the other Messengers might have come to a decision. Finally Quench spoke. “Those of us who are going with you consider you our leader from now on. Everyone’s agreed.”
“I’m on Cutty’s blacklist now, you know,” said Orville.
“Doesn’t matter. We’re on it with you.”
Orville gave a bitter laugh. “Suit yourself.”
“Original Messenger!” said Quench. “We await your orders.”
“Assemble in London. We have to pick up the subunit, and I want to meet all of you in person.” Just then a young pilot walked past. Orville recognized him and waved him over. “Listen, when’s the next flight to London?”
“London?” asked the pilot. “No direct flights, but that Messerschmitt Gigant is leaving for Oslo in twenty minutes.” The enormous six-engine transport at the edge of the runway was taking on cargo. Orville had never seen one of these ungainly aircraft. He looked it over with interest.
“I’d be happy to fly you personally. You’ll want to reach your destination quickly, I expect.”
Orville looked at the pilot. His left hand was bandaged; he’d been wounded a week before, when the transport he was piloting had been attacked by FET. Now he was grounded. If Orville named him pilot, he could return to the air, even somewhat handicapped as he was. There were few opportunities to win distinction flying transports, but Orville knew he was one of their best.
“Then I name you pilot, Hartmann. Get your orders in the command center and report back.”
“Jawohl!” The youth’s face glowed with pleasure. He saluted and took off at a run. It was a sight Orville would never forget.
CHAPTER 7
STAGE 448JAPAN A.D. 248
By the time the Yamatai forces reached central Japan, eight thousand men had fallen.
Miyo herself led the armies in three major battles, Takahaya in eight. His captains led the troops in thirty or more smaller engagements, and every day brought short, sharp clashes with Jumpers and flying Red Snipes that harried the columns all along the march. The Eastern Sea Road, later to become the main artery between Edo and Kyoto, was still just a weed-choked path. All along its course, the armies shed casualties and a rain of discarded armor and weapons. Not a day passed without burial ceremonies for the dead.The fighting at Toyokawa was a bloody affair. Just as the Kunu messenger had warned, they found that the fan-shaped plateau extending from the foot of the mountains was so thick with wriggling Kappa and Centipede ET that the ground was hardly visible. The base of the tableland was ringed with waiting Reapers and Jumpers.
The Yamatai forces opened the battle with hundreds of huge darts fired from Scorpio catapults, a weapon from far-off Roma. Until the Messenger taught them the techniques of construction, they had known of this weapon only by name.
Equipped with steel armor and swords, the Yamatai armies charged the waiting Reapers. Eight hundred yards to the rear, in her palanquin, Miyo heard the low rumble as their lines collided. She saw dead soldiers hurtling through the air like dolls, streaming blood. Thunderous explosions sent columns of greasy smoke into the sky above the battlefield. Crossbow bolts glancing off the enemy glittered in the distance like spray in the sun.
The line was contested for hours, until the dead lay in heaps. The Messenger was always in the thick of the fighting, his great sword slashing in all directions until the ground around him was strewn with twisted metal. But it was not the Messenger who decided the battle’s outcome. It was the Emishi, whose lands had been stolen by the mononoké. They broke the enemy line after a suicide attack that claimed more than half their men. Miyo seized the opportunity and sent her small force of cavalry to strike the retreating foe. This marked the end of the Reapers. The small green Kappa and many-handed Centipedes were poor fighters and were cut down by the thousand.
When the armies reached the forest atop the plateau, they discovered round stone structures like forts on the rocky ground. The nests of the mononoké. They were extremely tough—even with war hammers the men could not break them down—but the entrances to the nests were open. The men poured in water and oil, tossed torches into the openings and sealed them. Soon the nests erupted in towering pillars of fire. The explosions were violent, incinerating the soldiers who stayed too close to the nests after delivering the oil and torches.
After the battle came the Wasps, the size of dogs, droning over the battleground on transparent wings. These kindred of the Messenger were keen lookouts in the sky, but they could not fight. They landed and examined the ground with their feelers, looking for small black fragments of metal to eat. They had a taste for the bodies of young mononoké. It was said they would not harm people, but no soldier dared approach them.
After the straggling Reapers and Jumpers had been dispatched, the men smashed the remains of the nests. They had completed their trial by fire acquiring the combat techniques they would use in countless future engagements.
In their camp near Lake Hamana, Miyo saw a map of Japan for the first time in her life. “This is the Land of Wa. The shaded area is ocean, the white is land,” said the Messenger.
They were in a pavilion guarded by soldiers. The Messenger’s brush sped over the silk as he drew the map. The shape that emerged was like nothing Miyo imagined, extending diagonally across the cloth from upper right to lower left. It resembled some sort of creature. Miyo looked up at the Messenger, perplexed.
“I don’t recognize this island. Where is Kunu? Or Yamatai?”
“Kunu is here, on this plain. Yamatai, in this basin here.”
“What, is Yamatai so small?” asked Miyo.
“The island is huge. To the east lies the largest plain in Wa and the biggest iron mines.” It was not just the shape of her country Miyo had never seen. The lands beyond Kunu were shrouded in mists of uncertainty. Nothing was known of their geography or the names of those places, or about the relationships between chiefdoms—which were friends and which were foe. She did not even know how far to the east the land extended. She could only listen like a child and try to remember the place names the Messenger taught her. The journey to Lake Hamana alone had seemed long enough to reach China. When she thought of the distance that lay before them, she felt close to dizzy. “The Land of Wa is so vast.”
“If that’s what you think, I’d better not show you a map of the world. You’d faint. Roma and Kentak are a hundred times farther.”
“One hundred!” exclaimed Miyo. The Messenger smiled. Miyo leaned toward him. “You have been to other countries, yes? You’ve seen Roma and Kentak?”
“I have,” said the Messenger.
“Tell me about them.” Kan brought cups and a beaker of sake. He turne
d to go, but Miyo stopped him. “Kan, you should hear this too, about the lands beyond.”
“But my lady…” Kan feared it would be presumptuous.
“Don’t be so formal. The Messenger’s tales are always better with an audience. Isn’t that right, O?” The Messenger said nothing, and Kan seemed unconvinced. Nonetheless, Miyo tugged the boy’s hand and made him sit. The Messenger took up a cup.
“Shall I tell you about Kentak, then?”
“Yes. Please.”
“I arrived in 1863, to intervene in the North-South War and destroy the ET.” The Messenger began his story. Miyo had heard many of these tales since the armies embarked on their expedition. Each began the same way, with an unknown era in an unknown land.
“At that time, Kentak was part of a country called America, where the white-skinned peoples had taken over from the red-skinned tribes. The country was divided into whites who held the black-skinned slaves by force, and other whites who were opposed to slavery.”
“They wanted to kill the slaves?” asked Miyo.
“Kill them? No, they wanted to free them.”
“Then what? Would they abandon them?”
“They assumed the slaves could fend for themselves,” replied the Messenger.
“How heartless,” said Miyo. “Slaves would die without their masters.”
“People in the north of that land thought it would be better for the slaves to die than to be worked like beasts.”
Miyo quietly poured the sake for Kan. Although Kan disliked the Messenger, he always found these tales from other times and places enchanting and strange. How could a country get along without slaves? There were curious lands indeed on the other side of the ocean. Yet as Kan the slave found himself stressing the indispensability of slaves, it occurred to him that there was something odd about it all, though he could not say exactly what.
“Well then, did you fight to free the slaves?” asked Kan.
“No. I told you, I was pursuing the ET. Slavery did not concern me. In fact, I used the slaves against the enemy. I roused them and sent them out to fight. And many of them died, among the seven hundred thousand who fell from North and South. Maybe there were more. Toward the end the situation was so confused I couldn’t keep track. Perhaps by trying to help, I only made history worse than it would have been.”
“And you joined with people in that era to fight, as you do here?” asked Miyo.
“Yes, I did.” The Messenger suddenly seemed at a loss for words. He looked up into space. Miyo waited, thinking she might hear the names of those he had known. But finally he shook his head. “They all perished.”
“You lost?” said Kan. Miyo glared at him, but he took no notice. He was gazing at the Messenger.
“It’s not as if you killed them,” said Miyo. “In fact there must have been some countries that fell before you were able to help.”
“Japan, in 1710,” said the Messenger. “It was the Genroku era. They simply did not have the strength to fight the ET. I had barely gotten them organized when Honshu was wiped out, then the three other main islands. The Satsuma clan managed to hole up in the Ryukyu Islands, but there was no way we could win. In the end I had to withdraw.”
“Where is Japan?” asked Miyo.
The Messenger smiled. Miyo rarely saw this vulnerable, relaxed expression. Even when he laughed, he rarely opened up like this, and never when conferring with his captains or urging the men on.
Wherever he went, thousands were caught up in his exploits. The harder he fought, the more men died. Mountains of dead and oceans of blood marked his path. Expecting him to shed tears when recounting these horrors was useless. He must have lost the strength to cry long ago.
For Miyo it was the same. Since leaving her homeland, she had seen nothing but death. The soldiers guarding her palanquin seemed to change daily. These men, whose laughter and quarrels she heard through the wicker screen, were like chestnuts being fed into an enormous mortar, daily broken into pieces.
She ordered them to fight. She ordered them to cut down anyone who tried to run away. All she could do in return was to promise to make each day’s burials as lavish as possible. And still they obeyed her. They heard again and again that their homes would burn if they were defeated, and seeing the ruined villages along the way, the men faced the enemy with a boldness that startled their leaders.
Miyo noticed Kan was nodding off. She sent him away. Now she was alone with the Messenger. “Aren’t you going to turn in, Miyo?” he said.
“I should ask the same of you,” Miyo replied. He gave her a sharp look of concern. Then he gradually seemed to understand, but shifted nervously in his place on the dais. “So you haven’t been sleeping either,” he said.
“No. There are too many ghosts,” said Miyo.
“I’m sorry I pulled you into this. You didn’t have to be here. Lord Ikima should have come in your place.”
“I’m not sorry. It’s given me the chance to know you.”
“I’m not worth knowing,” said the Messenger.
“Really? I would know you more.” Miyo felt her pulse quicken as she took his hand. It was a huge, muscular hand with tapered fingers. He recoiled in surprise, but she gripped his hand tight and placed it against her breast.
“You don’t have a wife, do you?”
“No, but…”
“I know,” said Miyo. “You promised yourself to another, and you intend to return to her one day. But when will that be? Ten years from now? A hundred? A thousand?” Miyo tugged on his arm but he did not move. Instead she drew herself toward him. “Is this woman so important that you would wait alone for a thousand years just to spend a bit more time with her?”
The Messenger turned away. He was staring at his other hand. “This hand remembers her. This remembers that human form, how it felt. That’s the basic difference between me and Cutty Sark, a difference my makers granted me. If I forgot about Sayaka, it would be like forgetting who I am.”
“O…” Miyo had feared these very words, but on actually hearing them, she felt her strength draining away. Her cheeks burned with embarrassment and anger at being spurned for another, yet she could hardly deny his feelings. But as she began to withdraw her hand, he gripped it harder. “Miyo,” O said. He looked at her, his faced etched with pain. “I can’t go back.”
“What?”
“I’ll never go back. We’ve changed too much history. Sayaka’s timestream is buried under the far reaches of eternity. The odds of her being born again are a hundred billion to one—no, even less. There’s no way I could ever reach her now. My memories of her are all I have, but even my memory isn’t immune to the passing of time.”
He clasped her roughly, holding her with a fierce strength. Passionately he whispered the name of a stranger in her ear, over and over. Just as passionately, Miyo suppressed the resentment she felt rising within her. O had carried this burden for far longer than she could imagine. He had abandoned his native land, knowing he could never return.
She exhaled deeply, releasing the tension in her body. If necessary, she was ready to be his lost lover. All she wanted was to bring this man some measure of peace.
“O, tell me your name. Your real name.”
“My name.”
“Let me call you by your true name.”
“Orville.”
“Orville,” she repeated. For a moment the Messenger shuddered violently, as if an electric current had passed through him. He began to weep uncontrollably. Miyo struggled free, then embraced his powerful body again.
From that night on, Miyo and Orville shared the same bed. Neither of them spoke of it, but they did not tell their attendants to keep it secret, and thus it soon became widely known. Miyo worried for a moment that the morale of her troops might be affected, but her fears were groundless. The pairing of a demigod who wrote the Laws of the Messenger with the shaman queen who served the gods and spirits was not so surprising; the armies seemed to think it augured well. Gifts of meat and f
ruit from the soldiers arrived each day.
The Yamatai armies left Lake Hamana strengthened by twenty thousand men from the western chiefdoms. They were now a huge force of thirty-seven thousand. They also heard rumors of aid, soon to come, from a great chief who held sway over the far lands facing the northern ocean.They pressed on, encountering many unknown chiefdoms of the Emishi. Most had been ravaged by the mononoké and were now resigned to their doom. The Yamatai forces took the survivors as slaves or slaughtered them as enemies. And still the armies crept forward, like the kudzu vines that spread across the land.
As they headed east, summer turned to autumn. It took them a day to round the smoking, savage cone of Mount Fuji. That night was cold, and at dawn the next morning they saw the mountain crowned with silver. Above the soldiers’ heads, geese and swans called stridently as they crossed over, enormous flocks flying now high, now low in the sky.
As the armies neared the Sasago Pass, the peak of Fuji, dyed a mysterious blue, towered above them in the distance. In a fierce ambush, the troops lost several hundred soldiers and many veteran captains. Takahaya came to their aid immediately, pursuing the mononoké through the pass and destroying them with overwhelming force once on open ground. But Orville looked grim as he watched the Wasps pick over the battlefield.
“Has something gone wrong, O?” asked Miyo.