I can do it. I can actually do it!
Dylan laid a heavy hand on his shoulder. “It’s time to go, son.” He dragged Bran away from the door. The boy spun, losing his balance. For a moment, the world was a whirlpool of flame and smoke.
“No!” Bran cried. “Leave me alone!”
He didn’t know when the Soul Lance flashed in his hand. But he thrust it into Dylan’s chest and poured more flame along its shaft. The Lance smashed through his father’s shield, pierced his ribs and came out the back. Dylan stared at it, wide-eyed.
“You insolent brat …!”
He raised a hand. A cloud of ice, lightning and fire gathered around his fist. Bran twisted the Lance and slashed upwards, crushing Dylan’s ribs with a sickening crack.
His father vanished in a shock of lights. Bran fell on his back. The world whirled around him in a kaleidoscope of colours. He tasted ash on his tongue.
It took Bran one look at Nagomi’s sullen, despairing face to realize she must have gone through the same ordeal. He reached out and pulled her to his chest.
“I saw Sacchan …” She spoke through sobs. “Turn against us, killing you … killing Takasugi-sama … I couldn’t do anything about it. I was so weak.”
He stroked her hair. “It’s all right. It was just a bad dream.”
He looked to Yokoi. The nobleman was sitting on a boulder in his usual position. His face was grim and stern, but bore no trace of the anguish that showed in Nagomi’s eyes.
“What about you, samurai?” Bran asked. “What did the magic show you?”
“Nothing I hadn’t seen already,” replied Yokoi. “My comrades, dying in flames, the rebellion vanquished, the Taikun victorious …” He coughed. “The spell could never work on me because I have already lost all hope. When I came to, you two were still writhing in the ash. The woman,” he added, nodding towards Gwen, “helped me take you two out of range of this foul magic.”
“We owe you our rescue.” Bran bowed in the most elaborate manner he remembered.
Yokoi winced. “I don’t need gratitude from a barbarian. I did what I had to do.”
They were in the centre of the valley, beyond the stone ramparts. It was as small now as Bran had remembered. The black tower and the purple dome were gone, replaced by a stone shed, with a fallen-in roof and a crooked gate in front, a twisted caricature of a tori. It reminded him of Suwa’s Waters of Scrying. The sky was the usual steel-blue of the cold morning.
“We will have to go back across that barrier again,” he said.
“I don’t think so,” replied Yokoi. “I tried. Nothing seems to happen if you want to leave this place.”
“What about this?” asked Nagomi, pointing at the stone shed. “Is this what we came here for?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up before investigating it closer.”
Bran studied the nobleman’s face. He couldn’t figure Yokoi out. For a samurai, he was a cautious, deliberate, slow-acting man. One could almost call him cowardly. And yet, there was some spark in him that made him embark on all these risky adventures, involve himself with the situations he had no hope of resolving on his own — saving Satō’s father, joining the rebels in Mito, and now coming here, to the slopes of Fuji, to face the Serpent.
“Let’s do it, then.”
Bran came nearer the shed and investigated it with True Sight. The memory of the Shadows crawling out of the Waters of Scrying made him wary of the dark entrance beyond the crooked gate. As far as he could tell, here, too, was a staircase, carved into the hard rock. A faint wisp of sulphurous smoke rose through the cracks in the broken roof.
“It almost looks like—” Nagomi began.
“I know,” Bran said. “It must have been built for the same purpose. I don’t think you should get any closer.” He held her back. “Leave it to me and Yokoi-dono.”
“I’m not afraid of Spirits.”
“But you’re more sensitive to their influence than us, and we don’t know how corrupted they’ve become here.”
He nodded at Master Yokoi. The samurai approached with reluctant steps. “This is … older than the Abominations,” he said. He reached for the crooked gate. The stone buzzed under his touch. “The rocks are alive.”
“I will go first,” said Bran. “Whatever is down there, I can at least try to fight it with my magic — your blade will be useless.”
Yokoi nodded. Still, he drew his sword by an inch, and rested his hand on the hilt. Bran lit up a flamespark, drew in his breath, and crossed the threshold of the gate.
Nothing happened. There were no more tricks or spells inside the building, only the darkness of the staircase. It was different from the cave in Suwa, hot, dry, hewn in the black tuff. A broad vein of silver quartz ran along both walls, adding eerie angles to the shadows cast by the flamespark.
The stairs reached a shallow, triangular cavern, tapering away from the entrance. There was no lake here, just a fissure running through the middle of the floor and the walls, belching a plume of yellow smoke at frequent intervals. Two rows of oddly regular stalactites hung from the ceiling on two sides, diminishing in size towards the cave’s far end. A pile of rubble, reaching almost to the roof, concealed the tip of the triangle. The floor was strewn with red ochre dust, and delicate carvings adorned the walls.
Etched in soft volcanic rock, they were too eroded to read, but Bran recognized the unmistakable style of the Ancients. Nearer the centre of the cavern, and the fissure, they were concealed under another layer of designs, a fresh one: blood runes of the Fanged.
He heard Yokoi step onto the stone floor and gasp at the sight of the carvings. “The little folk!” He said. “I have never seen so much of their art in one place!”
“You know of the Ancients?” asked Bran.
“The Ancients? Do you mean the little folk? Yes, I have studied their artefacts in Kumamoto.” He ran his fingers along the etchings. “Potsherds, horn sculptures, an occasional carving here or there … But this is amazing. Too bad it’s been defiled by the Abominations.” He touched the blood runes with disgust.
“You haven’t met any yourself, then?”
“Met?” The nobleman laughed. “They disappeared over a thousand years ago! You’d be more likely to meet a Kumaso bear-man.”
Yokoi shook his head and stepped away from the wall. “I wonder what the Serpent used this place for.”
“The runes are fresh,” said Bran. The tale of Nagomi’s meeting with Koro would have to be told some other time. “Look at the blood dried along the grooves. The spells …” He studied the streams of magic in True Sight. “Too many to tell apart. But Satō was here, I’m sure.” He knelt down. The cavern floor vibrated under his touch, rumbling with forces hidden deep under the earth. There was no trace of a teleportation hex - this must have been the last stop. “The rock is scorched by the energies in many places. As if there was a fight. Maybe she resisted.”
“That means she’s still alive,” said Yokoi.
“I didn’t doubt it for a second,” replied Bran. It also means she hasn’t been turned yet … At least not until they brought her here.
The sulphur mist was dense near the floor. He took a deep breath. The cavern lit up with a bright yellow light. He sensed the presence of ancient spirits all around him. They were terrified and angry at the intrusion of their abode, unable to tell Bran and Yokoi apart from the Fanged who had visited it earlier.
I was right not to bring Nagomi here, he thought. He stood up and let a coughing fit clear his lungs from the smoke.
“Look at this,” said Yokoi, pointing to a composition drawn above the quartz vein, on two sides of the fissure. The blood runes obscured it almost in entirety, and Bran could only discern the image with great difficulty.
“What is it?” he asked. “I can’t really tell …”
“It’s difficult if you’re not familiar with the glyphs. This here, underneath the dragon, is a mark of a great fire mountain,” said Yokoi.
“I’m guessing it’s Mount Fuji.”
“There’s a thin line running from it, through the fissure, under what looks like hills,” noted Bran. “What’s at the end? It’s almost buried under the runes …”
“A piece of paper, quick,” ordered Yokoi, snapping his fingers. Bran reached into his satchel and tore out a page from his notebook. “Do you have writing charcoal?”
“I have a pencil. Here.”
The samurai pressed the paper to the wall and rubbed out the design. He licked the tip of the pencil and, with his tongue in the corner of his lips, traced a complex line joining the remnants of the etching together. His nostrils flared.
“I don’t get it,” he said. The pattern was a jumble of triangular figures. Bran leaned over.
“What if that line goes here?” he suggested.
Yokoi redrew the lines. The pencil dropped from his hand. The pattern was now clear: three equilateral triangles, joined together to form a greater triangle. Bran was the first to speak.
“Three dragon scales.”
“Enoshima,” said Yokoi. “There’s a tale of a tunnel leading from it to Fuji … I thought it was just another legend.”
They both looked up, in unison, towards the pile of rubble at the end of the cave. Bran was the first to reach it. “The ash is disturbed around the pile-up. This is recent.” He lit up a small flame in his hand and ran it along the boulders. “There’s a draft here.”
“It would take us hours to clean it up,” said Yokoi, eyeing the boulders.
“We don’t have to. We know where it leads. I knew we should be going to Enoshima.”
“Let’s not waste any more time,” the samurai said. “These fumes are giving me a headache.”
He started climbing the stairs. Bran stood on the first step, and took one last glance at the cavern. In the light of the flamespark, he at last noticed what it reminded him of — the stalactites, the red floor, the narrow tunnel at the end …
A dragon’s maw.
CHAPTER XIX
The sight of the giant, bearded Admiral and his men prostrating themselves before the sick-looking weakling of a man sitting on a gilded pillow would have been almost comical to Samuel, if it wasn’t for the circle of spear blades aimed at his neck.
“His Illustrious Highness the Taikun of Yamato,” said the interpreter, a slender youth trembling with anxiety, “wishes to know why this man is among you. We didn’t agree to the presence of a Dracalish representative.”
For Samuel’s benefit, Otterson pretended to understand only Dracalish. The court had access to only one interpreter of this language, until now delegated to translate for the Gorllewin envoys.
“He is not a representative, your Highness,” replied Otterson, his voice muffled by the floor into which he spoke — and his beard. “He is my personal physician.”
“Why don’t you have a Varyagan physician?”
“He fell ill,” replied Otterson. A ripple of laughter ran through the crowd of courtiers when the answer was translated. Even the Taikun raised a faint smile.
“Where did you find him?”
Why is he so interested in me? I thought we were here to discuss trade treaties, not the story of my life.
“He was a castaway from the wreck of a Dracalish skip. We picked him up just before the Sea Maze.”
There was a flurry of secretive movements in the Taikun’s entourage when the Admiral’s answer was translated. First, his wife, disinterested in the conversation until now, stirred and stared at Samuel with new curiosity. She gestured at one of the servant girls and whispered something in her ear. Then a man who had been introduced as the Chief Councillor noticed her gaze and also focused his attention on the doctor.
What’s happening?
“Is he aware there are other Dracalish in Yamato now?”
“We learned of it only a few days ago.”
“And does he know we regard them as enemies of the court?”
The Admiral glanced at Samuel. The doctor shook his head.
“I’m a physician, Your Highness,” he said. “I swore an oath to stay neutral in any conflict. My duty is to bring solace to all who suffer.”
The Taikun scoffed. “Very noble indeed. Nonetheless, I did not agree to have one of my enemies at an audience. Take him outside.”
“Your Highness, I must protest!” the Admiral raised his head.
The Taikun gave him a severe frown. “You are forgetting yourself, Varyagan.”
The spearmen closed in on Samuel and ushered him out of the audience hall. They ordered him to sit down on an embroidered cushion in the corridor, under the watchful eye of a burly, silent swordsman.
This had been his experience for most of his brief stay in the Yamato capital. Guards and spies kept constant watch over the Varyaga legation. They were held in a fortified guesthouse in the shadow of the castle walls, unable to leave beyond the garden and bathhouse until the day of the audience.
Samuel had grown irritated with the idleness. The only reason he’d agreed to travel to Edo was to investigate what he believed were the healing practices of the Yamato priests. How was he supposed to do it from the confines of a guesthouse? And now he wasn’t even allowed into the audience hall … He couldn’t hear the words spoken by the envoys and the Taikun, but he did hear when there was a lull in the conversation, followed by plucking of strings and laughter. Samuel stood up, but the guard’s heavy hand put him down on the cushion.
“Surely I can be invited to the feast, at least?” Samuel said, but the swordsman remained silent.
The hall door opened. Samuel rose from the cushion. The young interpreter came up to him and leaned in to speak.
“What was the ship’s name?” he asked. He pronounced the words well, but his accent was odd, as if he had learned the language from one of the Gorllewin.
“Who wants to know?” asked Samuel.
“Princess Atsu — the Taikun’s wife.”
“Mistfire Ship Ladon,” he replied.
“And was there … was there a boy named–” He unrolled a crumpled piece of paper. “Bran apu Dir … Diran on board?”
Samuel stood up, brushing the swordsman’s hand off his shoulder. “Bran ap … How do you know this? Yes, yes, he was there, I thought he perished in the disaster!”
“Thank you, that is all.” The interpreter bowed and turned back for the door.
“Wait!” cried Samuel. “Wait — how do you know Bran’s name?” The swordsman’s hand rested on his chest, stopping him from chasing after the interpreter. “What’s going on here?”
The door to the audience hall closed after the Yamato, leaving Samuel alone in the corridor with his unanswered questions.
The next day the young interpreter appeared at the guesthouse accompanied by several samurai.
“Princess Atsu requests your presence, physician,” he said.
Otterson raised an eyebrow. “Vad is going on? You caused quite a stir yesterday. They were more interested in your skip than our submarin.”
“I’m not sure. They know something about the Ladon. About its crew. Perhaps some bodies washed-up on the shores of Yamato. Believe me, no one is more intrigued about this than I am.”
“Be careful, doktor” Otterson said. “I don’t trust the bastards.”
“I will remember it. Thank you, Amiral.”
The interpreter and his escort took Samuel through the castle gates, then down a different path from the one leading to the audience hall, through a smaller, sand-covered courtyard.
“What do I call you?” asked Samuel when they passed one of the small, ornamental gateways covered in flowering vines.
“Moriyama Einosuke,” replied the interpreter.
“I’m Samuel. Samuel ben Hagin.”
Einosuke bowed. Samuel returned the bow.
“How did you learn Dracalish so well?”
“From a man named Black Raven.”
“Was he from Gorllewin, then?”
“I believe so. He di
dn’t talk about his past much.”
“I thought so. Your vocabulary and accent are not pure Dracalish.”
“I see. I was not aware. I’m sorry. Here we are,” Einosuke said. They reached a small pavilion with a wide veranda overlooking a pond of water lilies. A white heron waded through the reeds, undisturbed by the armed men marching past it.
Beyond the veranda door sat the princess, flanked by two handmaidens, dressed in a beautiful red robe embroidered with white flowers. She smiled at Samuel and the interpreter and dismissed the rest of the entourage with an elegant nod of her hand.
“Highness.” Samuel bowed. They sat down on the cushions on the veranda and waited for the handmaidens to pour straw-green cha into dainty blue-glazed cups. The silence lengthened. The heron splashed in the pond and flew off with a small eel in its long beak.
“You asked about a boy called Bran,” he began.
“Yes.” The princess stared at the pond. He sensed she had a problem in finding the best way to form a question. “You knew him well?”
“We spent six months together on one ship — but he was just one of a hundred crew members under my care. I knew his father better. I’m sorry, princess, but — how is it possible you know of him?”
Her answer stunned the interpreter. Einosuke stared at her, then at Samuel, with his mouth agape. “The princess … she says she met the boy.”
“He survived the wreckage!”
“It is so.”
“And where is he now? Is he still in the country?” He knew before the signing of the treaty with the Gorllewin that the Yamato were hostile even to the castaways. Was he imprisoned? Tortured? Killed?
“I don’t know. The last time I saw him, he was trying to free his dorako from my father’s custody. I have not heard from him since. I would know if he was captured, I think ... Perhaps he reached Dejima, and returned to your homelands from there.”
Samuel rubbed a bald patch on the top of his head. If he still had the dragon, he would’ve tried to fly to Qin … Would that mount of his even make it over the Sea Maze?
The Shattering Waves (The Year of the Dragon, Book 7) Page 22