The Sky-Blue Wolves
Page 36
The gates turned moon-white and then shattered into gravel beneath a rush of golden fire. Beyond the pale shape thrashed and whimpered. Behind them the last guards fell, as the companions guarded their monarch’s backs. Órlaith and Reiko stepped forward with their blades raised and—
Time froze for a long instant. She felt, she knew what would happen as they struck. The Thing before her was the rotted husk of a man, but it was a gateway too; and that gateway was open to the Powers that she and Reiko bore. Energy exploded through the fabric of things into infinite emptiness.
That energy could not fill the void, or make it live. The glowing concentrated life of it, the torrent of possibility, could disturb the Void, trouble it . . . the concept was utterly inadequate, but they could make that endless emptiness fear.
As its channel died, the Void fled and pulled the connection between its home and this cycle of the universe closed.
Beneath them, the rent in the fabric of things ceased to be, and the Change-thinned wall of the world was restored. Órlaith and Reiko stopped and looked at each other. The obscene bulk of the Thing remained, oozing real blood, but now it merely evoked . . .
Pity, if anything, she thought. That was a child, once.
Some of the guards behind in the throne-hall had collapsed when their master died. The others were attacking still, faces contorted and howling in grief. And the stone beneath their feet began to shake. The hairs on the back of Órlaith’s neck struggled to rise, as she sensed . . .
A bear. And a Child of Heaven. That which was usurped returns, and Dangun Wanggeom returns to the kingdom He founded in the time before time. And I do not think he will be merciful to this place, or anything in it.
“We need to get out of here! Now!” she said.
Deor’s voice was sharp, raised to carry across the noise of battle.
“Yes, and quickly! This place was built with ettin-craft as well as the labor of men’s hands. Ettin-craft sustained it, against the pull of earth and the anger of the Powers truly native here. We have destroyed the force that kept it upright. We must return to our true selves in the light of common day, or die with it!”
Órlaith flogged her mind back to functioning. They were in a passageway about twenty feet across and as high; the ruins of the doors lay behind them, and the surviving guards of the Divine Leader were climbing over it. Deor had sheathed his sword, and taken up his hand-drum. The first notes were faint, but it built, demanding, pulling.
“I will hold them, Majesty,” Egawa said.
He stepped forward before them. The blade of his katana flashed; or the dream of it did, the spirit-image of the Hojo Masamune that lay by his side in Órlaith’s tent. It glittered, and the curved wakizashi that fitted over his stump was almost as bright.
“You and me, mate,” Toa said, whirling his spear around his head.
“No time for argie, Pip,” he said over his shoulder. “I promised yer mum, and that’s it.”
John threw his shield in front of her and used it to pull her back; the others of the party formed a rank behind the two men. The drum sounded louder, but louder still was the squeal of tortured stone groaning.
Egawa shouted, his voice and face towards the enemies he had fought all his life . . . and Órlaith thought towards the memory of the Tennō he had not saved, Reiko’s father, at whose side he had grown to manhood:
“I am General Egawa Noboru, Commander of the Imperial Guard of the Sovereign Majesty of Victorious Peace, victor in eight pitched battles, thirty-nine skirmishes and ship actions, and four duels! My father was Egawa Katashi, leader of the Seventy Loyal Men, who saved the dynasty and our nation! His father was Egawa Osamu, who dove his aircraft into a Beijin battleship! His father was Egawa Takeo, who lost his right arm leading his men in the storming of Mukden! For uncounted generations, the Egawa have served their Emperors and Dai-Nippon! Tennō Heika banzai!”
Then in their own language, just before the first reached him:
“Come to us and die, filth!”
“Te mate! Te mate!”
Reiko cried out in wordless protest, and then the drumming carried them away. Órlaith gasped, half-screamed, shot upright against a body chilled and stiff. When she came to herself, all were stirring . . . except the Maori and the samurai.
Pip rushed and fell to her knees beside Toa’s unbreathing form, and Reiko beside her retainer. Órlaith turned her head aside, to give them the privacy of tears.
“All who are born will die,” Reiko said after a moment. “Few so well, or for such good reason. Farewell, Egawa Noboru. Farewell, and fortunate rebirth, and eternal honor. I will bear your ashes to your family, and tell them how you died.”
John laid his hand on Pip’s shoulder. “He was a brave man, and he died for love,” he said.
She nodded, and the tears flowed. The rest of them slowly stood, and looked at one another.
We will rejoice, Órlaith thought; they had won a victory for all of human-kind, and spared the lives of nameless thousands. But not just yet.
EPILOGUE
KOREA
“I must return quickly,” Dzhambul said awkwardly, his face framed by the earflaps of his cap; the sun was well up now, but the cold was bitter. “The army will be in confusion, and only I . . . well, only Börte and I . . . know what has truly happened.”
“And we will have to figure out what to tell people,” Börte said tartly, obviously meaning I will. “So that we won’t be thought mad.”
Órlaith nodded, smiling and hiding a slight wistfulness.
“Go, and the kindly Powers go with you, Dzhambul, my friend,” she said. “The seas are not so broad as they were. Perhaps we will meet again; certainly, we will exchange letters.”
“I wish we could visit your Montival,” his sister said suddenly. “I wish I could visit!”
“And perhaps that will happen, too, someday,” Órlaith said.
The Mongols bowed, and she returned it—giving him the monarch’s honors she was fairly sure would be his in truth someday. Then they mounted, flowing into the saddle and reining about; the whole party and the escort she’d provided trotted north, across the night’s fresh snow.
Órlaith watched for a while, sighed, and turned to walk back towards her pavilion. Heuradys had spent the last few days scrounging and scheming to lay on a feast, celebration and wake for the dead all in one.
“It’ll take a month or two to make sure of things here,” she said to Reiko.
“And then back to Japan,” the Tennō Heika replied. “There will be the Sokui no rei, the Enthronement. And then my marriage. My faithful bushi’s line will live, even if he does not see it, and that blood shall mingle with mine and rule as long as the Land of the Gods endures. We will remember him, and each year at the Obon festival all will remember him, and his deeds and his honor and a pride stronger than death.”
They walked a minute in silence, and then Órlaith grinned. “I’m invited to the wedding?” she said.
And to herself: And I will make my own offering to your spirit, Egawa Noboru, and to yours, Toa the wanderer, the strong, the faithful.
“Most assuredly! Did I not say once that we must watch the cherry-blossoms together on Sadogashima? And for that, you must stay until spring. You will meet my family, and they will be extremely polite and not cry out in horror at their first sight of you.”
“I think I can endure that,” Órlaith said. “We shall watch the blossoms fall and the moon rise and recite Bashō in your bannerman’s memory. Then home . . . and a surprise for my mother. And my grandmother Juniper, who’ll be happier still at being a great-grandmother once more, since she’s not a Christian.”
She looked down at the camp, and across the years to come. “It’s an ending, I suppose. And a beginning . . .”
“Both are illusions, my friend,” Reiko said. “There is only life. That, at least, canno
t change even in this world the Change has left us.”
“And let’s go drink to that!”
CHECK OUT THE FIRST NOVEL IN S. M. STIRLING’S BRAND-NEW WORLD WAR I ALTERNATE HISTORY SERIES.
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About the Author
S. M. Stirling is the author of many science fiction and fantasy novels. A former lawyer and an amateur historian, he lives with his wife, Jan.
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