“Last time we had the entire cadre and it was still hard to move. Let’s try again, because I don’t like to go in the front door, even my mother could barely save us when we escaped that way so long ago.”
It was the first time she’d ever heard Ri mention a mother. Did she have fond memories as she did of her own? In this place, where life was so hard, what kind of memories would she have?
Ninka whispered into her ear as Ri cut and slashed at the vines, burrowing steadily inward.
“Ri’s mother led us from the dungeons of the Diabutsu-den when Ri was three. She was the last of the great fighters, her deeds are the history of Tancho Cadre. The last until Ri.”
“Where is she now?” She had a sick feeling. “Her mother isn’t Tinnai?”
“No,” Ninka stepped back as Ri slashed more widely with her short sword, branches and leaves flying every way in the night.
“Ri accidentally killed her mother when we last raided here, four winters ago. We discovered their foodstores through this passage Ri found. She executed their sacrificial guard. It was only later we understood who the old hag was.”
“Whose foodstores were you raiding?”
“Diabutsu-den Cadre. This is a lost entrance to their dungeons.”
“The same ones…” Suz already knew the answer, but had to ask anyway though her parched throat could barely create the words. “The same ones who slaughtered Nara-ken Cadre?”
“Yes.”
Ri ceased her efforts and led them forward into the shadows of hell cast by the arc of vines. She reached down into a dark crevice and Suz could hear a soft click.
They all pushed against the great stone wall and it slowly gave inward. Ninka gave a soft sigh of exaltation as it swung wide enough for the three of them to slip in. Ri jammed a piece of wood in the crack to keep it from closing and flipped on her headlamp.
Suz flipped on hers as well and stared at the statues. Magnificent Buddhas encrusted in gold and jewels. Elegant servants of darkened wood shrouded in dust. A samurai’s winged armor gave form to a mass of cobwebs so dense that they were nearly a blanket over the old warrior.
Ri had already moved down a stairwell to the left and Ninka stood transfixed, though not by the ancient artwork. She was staring at Suz’s forehead.
“You wear the dragon’s light on your head. And it doesn’t burn?”
She touched her hand to the cold light to demonstrate and the girl’s jaw dropped. Before Ninka could reach out, a hiss sounded from down the tunnel and the two of them shared a guilty smile before trotting after Ri. It would be nice for Ri to have a friend and Suz already found herself warming up to the awkward girl. Her leg wouldn’t be that hard to fix. She could take care of everything. And Levan couldn’t protest over a cadre of just two or three.
At the end of a short tunnel, a large wooden door filled the end of the passage. She doused her light as Ri had already done. In the dark, Ri’s whisper filled the impenetrable darkness with the echoes of hissing ghosts.
“If it is unchanged, there is a cloth over the door. I will move right, Ninka left. Suz enters last and stays low. Once the room is safe, secure the single door on the far side.”
Ri pulled the door open without waiting for their response and slid forward, a brief shadow against the pinprick holes casting a flickering light. The cloth flapped as the two girls ducked through. Suz had to square her shoulders several times before she found the nerve to step through into the unknown. Better like a lion than a lamb.
Suz stepped forward, and pushed the cloth aside.
A low row of boxes blocked the entrance. She climbed onto them in the silence of the room. By the light of a single guttering candle, Ri knelt over a prone figure. The remains, which might have once been human, was lacerated with a hundred scars. Its nose was askew and through the torn tatters of cloth, she could see that the remains of her breasts were equally scarred.
And then the corpse opened its eyes and moved a hand. Suz had to bite her fist to not scream.
“My darling Ri. Now I must be in Heaven, for I knew you would wait and be the first to greet me when I arrived.”
Ri shifted the woman’s head into her lap, it was like a withered gourd on a narrow stalk of a neck.
“You live, Mother Tinnai. I have come to save you.”
The corpse nodded its head in contentment and lay back in Ri’s lap. Suz didn’t know if even the finest medical team could save this woman’s life. But she would drive them to do so. She had to rescue someone from the disaster of Japan.
Ninka’s hiss drew her attention to the door. The dark passage echoed with the sound of distant voices raised in alarm. They must have tripped some trigger when they entered.
Suz jumped down and pulled several trip-charges from Ninka’s harness. She trotted a short way down the corridor and lay a charge. She set two more as she backed into the room and a final one on the door itself. With Ninka’s willing shoulder they shoved the door to and blocked it as well as they could.
She rested a hand on Ri’s shoulder. “It’s time.”
Ri scooped the woman into her arms and stood. She nearly lost her precious burden to the floor as a chain around Tinnai’s waist jerked them both up short. Ri set the dreamily smiling woman back on the floor and they inspected the chain.
Hard-forged through a massive loop sunk into the floor, the short length led to a circlet of iron about the woman’s waist. There was no opening mechanism, no lock. Nasty red scars and wrinkled skin showed where it had been forged about her.
A rippling blast of three explosions announced the arrival of the Diabutsu-den attackers. They must have been coming so fast that they had overrun the first three charges all at once. Now only the door charge remained.
“We’re out of time.”
The chain was too short to risk a blast and none of Ninka’s tools would touch the hard iron. Ri lashed out her katana sword, the long killing blade flashed in the candlelight, shimmering with death it hadn’t tasted in centuries.
Suz turned from the descending stroke unable to watch. There was a clang as the blade struck iron, and then snapped with a sharp ping of sound against the chain. The unbreakable Muramasa blade had broken with the force of the stroke. Ri stared at the chain and the shattered sword before tossing it aside.
Ri returned to her knees and stroked the woman’s gray hair out of her eyes.
“I cannot save you, Mother Tinnai. I have failed you.”
A withered hand reached up and patted her cheek. “You go ahead, dear. I’ll just rest here a while.”
The first tentative thud sounded against the blocked door.
“Ri,” Ninka hissed. “Now.”
Ninka and Suz dragged Ri to her feet and headed for the exit, she was a nerveless doll in their grasp.
“No!” Ri drew her short sword and turned.
Suz knew they were all going to die, if the blast of the last explosive trigger on the door didn’t get them, what chance would the three of them have against the most bloodthirsty cadre in Japan? She reached for her tinglers, flipping them to a lethal setting.
But Ri didn’t move toward the door. She stooped over the calmly sleeping woman.
“They shall not have you, Mother Tinnai.” The short shoto sword flashed downward, not at the chain, but across the woman’s neck. A cloud of blood anointed them all in a fine mist as the head rolled free.
Ri tossed the sword aside and stood. No weapons drawn. No expression on her face. No reaction to the renewed pounding on the door.
She and Ninka grabbed Ri and hustled behind the hanging. She practically carried Ri up the stairs as Ninka tried to jam the door. When Ninka emerged back into the gaze of the statues, Suz pulled off the girl’s harness. A loud explosion announced the breaching of the first door.
Suz set one of the charges to a ten-second delay without bothering to uncl
ip it. She tossed the whole harness down the stairs and the three of them ran back into the night of Nara, Japan. The blast bowled them over into a tumbled heap before it blew the stone door shut.
One of the walls shuddered and fell inward, collapsing the stairway if not the entire chamber. More deaths by her hands. This time directly. The night air smelled fresh and clean after the stale underground air, except for the smell of blood, Tinnai’s blood on her hands, her face, her clothes, sharp against the night.
They staggered to their feet and ran. No need to say where. Ninka hobbled in a fast pace, weaving wildly each time she swung her twisted leg to the fore, and Suz followed Ri, prodding her along to keep her moving. There was no subtlety or stealth in this dash. No thoughts of aching legs. Numb except for broken hearts, they ran. They ran forever. If any Diabutsu survived, they wouldn’t be able to recover quickly enough. They were clear of them. Mad Dog Cadre no longer survived to block their path. They simply ran.
They slid past the twisted door, and dropped one after another to the concrete rubble about the flitter. In the moonlight they skirted the craft and cycled open the hatch.
Suz herded Ri up the ramp, when Ninka’s cry pierced the night from behind her. She spun, and there in the ramp light, an apparition rose over the girl where she lay crumpled on the ramp, a brick still tumbling along the ramp from where it had struck her in the back. A massive figure in tattered cloth, its face lost in the shadows of a cowl, raised a club high over its head and moved up the ramp.
Suz shot it twice with the tingler before it finally tumbled sideways. Another, and a third, and a fourth rose from the base of the ramp. As she fired, one of their clubs arced through the air and slammed into her shoulder crushing her back against the side of the airlock. She dropped that one and another. A piece of concrete fell in the middle of the ramp and bounced loudly off to the side.
A cry sounded behind her and Ri tried to rush by into the hail of concrete that was now showering down upon them.
“Ninka!”
Suz grabbed Ri by her harness and hauled her back.
The girl was trying to crawl forward, blood streaming from her face, her leg horribly rebroken. One of the figures grabbed her good ankle and dragged her clear of the ramp before Suz could shoot him in the face.
Ri’s knives flashed into action and several fell clutching their eyes.
“Hai! Zenbu. Ri-san of Tancho Cadre challenges you. This one is not yours. None of you shall walk the night again.”
More dropped. And more flooded from the darkness. A hail of small boulders fell from above. Suz turned her fire upward, shooting randomly at unseen targets in hopes of buying an instant of time.
A large piece of wall crashed down and crushed Ninka’s other leg, pinning her. A spurt of blood told Suz that the girl only had seconds left, as yet another struck her in the back.
“Ri! Don’t let them have me! Don’t let them eat me alive!”
A rock struck Ri a glancing blow and she fell back into the cabin. A dozen or more figures moved up toward the fallen girl, her face looking to Suz begging for a rescue she couldn’t offer.
For a moment, Suz stood alone in the hatchway and the masonry fell slowly about her in the utter silence. Ninka’s head shook back and forth as she screamed, her eyes locked on Suz. A hand, perhaps her own, definitely her own, raised the tingler. A glancing blow knocked her wrist aside, but she kept her grip on the weapon. Brought it to bear. And in the same instant Ninka nodded and Suz ended her life. The girl’s neck snapped with the force of the charge. That sharp crack, the only sound in the night.
The flitter began to lift. She moved back into its shadow and closed the hatch, the ramp withdrawing as she did so. Soaring clear of the ruins of Japan, she could only look at the weapon in her hand.
She had killed. Not by accident. Not with some remote explosive destroying unseen enemies. Her hand, definitely her hand, had killed a friend. To save the girl’s future with death.
But her own future. How was she supposed to save that?
Chapter 13
Ri stood at the One Pillar Pagoda. Noonday heat pounded down upon the northwest edge of Old Hanoi. No tourists were stupid enough to brave the midday sun. Only the lily pads, floating in their quiet pool, weren’t drooping with the heat. Even the long kites and tassels tied along the pagoda’s eaves hung lifelessly in the still air. She felt the heat less than she’d felt the cold of Nara. Very little penetrated her black despair.
“The One Pillar Pagoda was originally built a millennia ago as thanks for a vision that provided an heir to a childless emperor.”
Ri turned to see Levan standing only a few steps away. But his eyes were not on her.
“The one pillar lifts the lotus pagoda out of the sorrows of the past.” His dark eyes turned on Ri. “Recall that when you can.”
Ri, wrung dry of tears over the last month, could find no physical expression of the aching void inside her. She had left Ninka to die beneath the mouths of the Zenbu. Lifting the shuttle to protect Suz Jeffers. To save the woman, Ri had lost everything and her friend had died the worst death possible. No time to kill Ninka herself. No password to release the ship’s armament to kill Ninka and leave her and the Zenbu in a fitting grave. She hadn’t been able to steal the weapon’s password. Hadn’t thought to.
After they landed, Hanoi Launch had cleaned her up. Suz had tried to reach her, until she had finally just left, walked out through the security perimeter and into the night without a word. She’d survived as she could in the slums of old Hanoi. Unable to even receive dole, due to her being an unregistered person. She had worked when she could, starved when she couldn’t, and aged a thousand years in her heart.
Until this morning. Until the unsigned request to come here at an hour when the park around the pagoda was sure to be deserted.
Levan didn’t move closer. He faced the pagoda, rather than her as he spoke.
“In April, 2051, fifty years ago, scientists detected a pending earthquake in Japan. A big one. Only five years before the Japanese financial dictatorship of the world had been broken and the Japanese, your ancestors, were chased back to their own soil. A massive blockade imprisoned the millions, hundreds of millions within their former homeland. Far more than the land could support. The suffering was terrible.
“But despite lack of resources, they began once again to build weapons of terrible power. We knew they were planning a counterattack that might destroy the planet. But I don’t think it would be weapons of battle. After all, it had been a century since they’d last gone to war. Their skill was money.”
Levan nodded toward the small pagoda perched atop its pillar. “Before they collapsed, the world economic markets had been the pinnacle of their achievements. We didn’t know what they planned, but the power to shape the world, which they definitely had, includes the power to destroy it.”
That was a lesson Ri had truly learned as her world was destroyed about her.
“Parvati and her government, a vast improvement over the Japanese dictatorship, feared what the Japanese might do. They detected the pending earthquake. A small team was assembled. On the first Tuesday in April we infiltrated the blockade and planted a device.”
Levan fell silent. His inward-turned eyes made Ri wonder if he could see her at all. He was walking another world half a lifetime ago.
“Was our device any less terrible than theirs might have been?”
His voice was so soft she could imagine it was just a memory of that emperor from a thousand years before.
“We triggered the earthquake. We were able to amplify it a hundred-fold. It was the greatest shock ever felt anywhere in the world. The very crust shattered, sinking half the islands underwater with their great burdens of humanity. Whatever wasn’t drowned or destroyed by volcano was inundated by a massive tsunami. The result—”
Levan shuddered. “It was worse th
an we’d imagined possible. Only a few isolated pockets survived due to anomalies of geography. We watched as they, your people, descended into barbarism or worse. We should have exterminated them all. It would have been a mercy. But we hadn’t the heart. Yet we feared them too much to let them loose. Only six of us knew our part in the deed. Only the leader benefitted. Only he had the unmitigated gall to do so. Bryce Randall Stevens used that stepping stone to vault himself into power and eventually overthrow Parvati’s government.”
Levan’s eyes suddenly focused on Ri. “Now I have paid a debt to Susan Jeffers that I cannot pay to her in person. Words I don’t dare to repeat in that house. Words she can never risk to say, or even know so near the traitor. But you aren’t going back there. Hopefully I have also paid back some small part of my role in the destruction of your country. Here.”
He thrust a card into Ri’s numb hands.
“You are now a registered person, she wants it that way. I gave you her chosen last name that came from her mother. There is a flight pass in your name at Hanoi Launch with orders that will take you off-planet by nightfall. You are the greatest warrior I have ever met, and I can’t risk you falling under the control of the World Premier. He knows about you now. Do not take this personally, but if you ever return to Earth, I will kill you to keep you free of his control. If I do not, her father will make you wish I had. For you have what he lacks.”
Levan unslung a harness from over his shoulder and leaned it against the low rock wall of the pagoda’s pool. He afforded her a deep bow, one she was unable to return with more than the slightest nod of her weary soul. Rising slowly, he looked directly at her for the first time.
“You have honor.” He spun on his heel and strode away.
Ri looked at the nondescript piece of plastic in her hand, blue with a red stripe. Her picture, thumbprint, and retinal scan all stored within. The harness, worn, dirty and with no adornment, still lay where he’d set it. She didn’t need to open it to know that it held the steel pipe, Tinnai’s pipe, that he’d taken from her a lifetime ago when he’d extracted her from Nara.
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