Dragons on the Sea of Night (15 page)

He caught himself, held on by his linked fingers, his body swinging precariously over an abyss he had overtly refused to acknowledge. Painfully and laboriously he levered himself up onto the perch then, without stopping, climbed onto the next one. Only one more to go.

But now he became aware of a soft ululation. As the echo filtered down from the opening above his head, his blood turned to ice. He knew that eerie, almost bestial, sound from his childhood. Duk Fadat. A sandstorm was brewing in the Mu'ad. Moichi wondered whether he was safer here at the edge of the Jailor's world than up there where the wind-whipped sand could flay the d'alb and skin off a man.

Then, with a whoosh, a great swirl of sand spilled through the opening, nearly detaching him from the outcrop and he knew he had to take his chances in the Duk Fadat. It was certain death to stay in the chimney; it was not a question of if but of when some gust of blasted sand would take him down.

He stretched upward, gaining purchase with his elbows, since the shifting sand outside the mouth of the chimney would provide no certain ground for his fingers. With a mixture of a groan and a gasp, he drew his torso, then his legs, up and out of the chimney. He was free at last, but into what nightmare world had he been thrust?

Tokagé, reanimated, wanted to break Chiisai's neck.

‘She is the Kunshin's daughter,' he said in a curious metallic rumble like dangerously nearby thunder. ‘She should be dead.' It seemed to emanate not from the voice box of his diaphragm but from some distant and unrecognizable shore, some pale land beyond Chiisai's imagining. She looked at Kaijikan – for she had no doubt now that this ethereal woman was the legendary Keeper of Souls – for deliverance. Strange thing! She knew she would get none from Tokagé.

‘It is because she is the Kunshin's daughter that we will keep her alive,' Kaijikan said reasonably. ‘She is far more valuable to us as a means of extortion.'

‘I say extortion be damned,' Tokagé said, tightening his grip of Chiisai and enjoying it. ‘The wreckage of this body flung down at the Kunshin's doorstep will strike terror into every Bujun warrior's heart.'

Kaijikan seemed not to exert herself at all as she came across the solarium to stand a hand's span from the huge and intimidating figure. As she did so, she appeared to become taller so that she was now the equal of his extraordinary height.

‘But you know so little about the Bujun heart,' she said. The rebuke was like a slap across his great square face and his onyx eyes glittered in anger. Noting this, she said, ‘Why do you think I had you reanimated here in Ama-no-mori? Why do you think I endured years of squalid life in this putrid swamp? Why I slunk undetected into this island Kunshindom in the first place? To complete your education. You will never rule this world until you learn to master the secrets of the Bujun heart, for the Bujun are the protectors of this world. It was their magic that created the Dai-San, your arch-nemesis.'

The mention of the Sunset Warrior's name stung him deeply. Chiisai felt his muscles twitch in involuntary spasm, heard the horrific sound of his gray tombstone teeth grinding together.

Kaijikan held out her hand. ‘Now, give her over to me, Tokagé. I know how to use her best.'

‘Tell me,' he said, his eyes canny slits. ‘Then you can have her.'

For a long moment, Chiisai listened to the silence that had sprung up between them because it was an unquiet silence, one rife with emotional sparks. If not quite a full-blown contest of wills, she recognized in the sizzling tension a psychological maneuvering unusual in allies. It was a matter of power, of course. Both were used to absolute obedience and one would have to give way each time a decision was made.

‘I had a sister once,' Kaijikan said. ‘A twin, my mother once told me, though I could never see the resemblance.' She squared her shoulders but, curiously, Chiisai could detect no sign in her that she had ceded power to him. ‘My sister was a mute from birth. She was very smart, very clever, but her muteness was her weakness and it proved her undoing. As a young warlord the Kunshin took a fancy to her and took her as his concubine. He used her when it was his will and it was gratifying to him that at other times she could not use her voice to complain or to ask for favors, for my sister was too ashamed of her disability to use writing as a substitute.' She stared unblinkingly at Tokagé. ‘I do not know whether you will understand this, but the emotions on her face were her sole form of communication. The future Kunshin had neither the time nor, apparently, the inclination for emotion. He was driven by lust: power and hormones were his sustenance and the devil take those who interfered with his unholy feedings.

‘One night, my sister got in his way. She was frightened in one way or another most of the time she was with him. My sister was used to fear and she could manage it, but when she became lonely for her family she was inconsolable. And when she refused to perform when her warlord demanded it, he had her beheaded.' Her eyes, which had been locked on Tokagé's, swung abruptly to Chiisai. ‘This is your father I am speaking of, my dear, so my advice is for you to pay close attention.'

‘It is a story, that is all,' Chiisai said. ‘An uncorroborated story.'

A flicker of raw emotion passed across Kaijikan's usually imperturbable countenance. ‘Are you foolish enough to think the Kunshin a saint, then?' she said.

‘No, he is but a man,' Chiisai said. ‘But a good man for all that.'

‘
Good
,' Tokagé spat, as if it were a filthy expletive.

Kaijikan smiled, having found common ground. ‘Good and evil are not immutable, my dear. They are not laws of nature, but concepts dreamed up by mankind. How typically naive of you to cling to notions without true meaning.'

‘You are wrong,' Chiisai said hotly. ‘Morality
is
as immutable as any law – as gravity.'

‘Really?' Kaijikan cocked her head and, with a complex weaving of her hand, began to rise off the floor. ‘
Nothing
is immutable, not gravity, not death. And here with your own eyes you witness the proof.'

Chiisai said nothing. What
could
she say? With a grunt, Tokagé flung her away from him and she was caught by silken fingers, preternaturally long, that closed around her slender wrists.

‘You are a warrior, and I admire that,' Kaijikan said. ‘Be assured that when you die – and you
will
die, my dear – it will not be a warrior's death. That would bring a modicum of solace to your father and I cannot have that. I have waited a long time for this moment. My sister's soul cries out for vengeance, and vengeance she shall have.'

Moichi was too hungry to sleep. As he crouched, slumped over, breathing hard, he saw an iridescent blue-black shape in the lee of a dune. Above it, great plumes of sand were gyring like Catechist dervishes, the fanatic sect who had carved the Mas'jahan out of the unforgiving bones and flesh of the Mu'ad.

Moichi crawled painfully toward the shape. As he did so, his tongue licked lips that were cracked and dry, bleeding now as the sand scoured them. He crawled gratefully into the lee of the dune and, ducking his head below the shrouds of sand, could not believe his luck. It was the blood-condor the Fe'edjinn had shot down. It was still fresh. How long had he been in the Jailor's enchanted lair? He had no way of knowing, but this evidence indicated it had been a shorter time than he had imagined.

He pulled the arrow from its breast. The desert sun had already half-baked it and, though Iskamen law forbade the eating of carrion predators, he tore into its flesh with his teeth, spitting out some of the feathers, swallowing others. The taste of food in his mouth overshadowed the pain in his raw lips as he gnawed at the bloody meat, sinew and bones. He sucked the blood out of those parts he did not eat, then cracked the bones, digging out the rich marrow. Finished with his meal, he threw what remained of the carcass into the wind. Then, abruptly, he lay back in the dune. His starved stomach, unused to food, let alone half-raw blood-condor, threatened to revolt on him. He gagged once, then willed his stomach into quiescence. He could not afford to vomit up the only thing that would keep him alive.

He turned over and, closing his eyes, plunged into a slumber so profound that only the scent of the Makkon could have driven him awake.

Later he started awake. In that instant between sleep and consciousness he thought the Makkon was here. His hand pulled free a dirk, then he snapped fully awake and, looking about him, laughed mirthlessly. Even the unearthly Makkon would think twice about venturing into the Mu'ad during Duk Fadat.

He was about to crawl along the lee of the dune when he saw a shape emerging over the crest and begin a remarkably steady descent out of the gusting wind and sand.

A co'chyn!

And, upon further inspection, he discovered that it wasn't a wild one, but one of the group on which he had come into the Mu'ad. How had it escaped the sand whirlpool? Then he remembered the vision Jailor had set in his mind of Dujuk'kan and Aufeya on a co'chyn. His heart leapt. As he took hold of the co'chyn's reins he was more inclined to accept the vision as the truth, for this was Tamuk's mount. He recognized the weapons-laden saddlebags. A shame it was not one of the others that held their supply of food and water. He had just feasted on the blood-condor but that sustenance would last no more than two days before his body required more. Otherwise, lassitude, extreme muscle weakness, dehydration and death would be his fate.

He patted the co'chyn's neck, stroked its trunk as he swung up onto its back. He pulled on the reins and its head swung around, dipping once before it took off, loping from dune to dune, always in the lee, exposing itself to the swirling sand as briefly as it could. Still, those bursts were painful, like a severe lashing with a multi-tailed whip. Moichi knew from the sun which direction to head in, and he kept it always over his left shoulder. Mas'jahan was in the extreme north-western section of the Mu'ad, in a wide sandstone waad that bordered a desolate and uninhabitable section of Aden.

The Catechists were strict political neutralists, and had remained aloof from overtures of an alliance with either the Adenese or the Iskamen. Even the Adenese Al Rafaar were leery of inciting these brutal and utterly fearless warrior-zealots. The Catechist dervishes believed in a living god who chose to walk among them anonymously. Their search for him was constant and eternal because to look upon his face meant beatification, a shedding of the mortal coil and an end to all suffering. They were devout mystics about whom other races knew little, yet because they condoned slave trading and sexual promiscuity – their peculiar religious rites had a distinct sexual edge – Mas'jahan drew a steady stream of intrepid and evil-minded infidels. Because they were rabid proselytizers the Catechists accepted – even, stories insisted, encouraged – such travelers. As far as they were concerned every evil-minded criminal they came in contact with was a potential acolyte. And, by all accounts, they were surprisingly successful in their conversions.

Moichi, hunched over the saddle in a combination of exhaustion and self-preservation, could scent the Makkon in his mind. Beyond his left shoulder, the slowly setting sun was largely obscured now by the sand devils sent aloft by the Duk Fadat. He had consulted Tamuk's maps, still rolled securely in one saddlebag, and knew that the oasis the Jailor inhaled was two-thirds of the way toward the settlement to which Hamaan had gone to bring Sanda's husband Yesquz back to Ala'arat. As it happened, this settlement was not far from Mas'jahan, but Moichi knew that in Duk Fadat with no food or water the distance might as well be that of the ocean that separated Iskael from the continent of man.

He had been elated to find the co'chyn alive but now this might prove to be a cruel jest – merely a prolongation of misery and slow death.

Time was his most precious commodity and he determined to make the most of it. Accordingly, he pressed the co'chyn to its limits and past it as he headed ever northwest. The pace he chose was not the swiftest, for the intensifying Duk Fadat obliged him to make less frequent directional sightings than he was comfortable with. He resisted the temptation to spur his mount on faster for he knew well the worst fate that could befall him was to become lost, only to find that he had chased his co'chyn's tail in a circle for days. Sun and stars were only visible sporadically through the thickening hail of sand and, as the days progressed, they became ever more faint, until at last he could have believed he was back in Jailor's underground lair.

Still, he urged his mount on a steady pace day and night. He fell asleep, swaying, slumped over his saddle, remaining there only because he tied his wrists tightly to the pommel with the reins. Once, his co'chyn found water, using its trunk to burrow in the sand where a patch of dune grass clung precariously, but Moichi was unable to find it with fingers and dirk.

He pushed on, dehydration draining him of energy and, finally, of consciousness. He awoke, choking on sand and knew that if his journey continued in this manner he would perish in less than a day.

With the utmost reluctance, he drew his dirk and slew his mount with a swift, merciful slash across its throat. He drank its blood but that merely made him more thirsty, so sprawled in the lee of a dune, half-covered in cascading sand, he carefully made an incision along the skin of its underside. He slid out the three ovals of its stomachs, opened the third one and drank the fluid inside. He made a bladder of the second one, also filled with precious fluid, then set about butchering the beast as best he could.

He ate slowly, mindful of his last meal. After he had eaten his fill, he threw out everything in Tamuk's saddlebags, loaded one side with the bladder, the other with choice slabs of co'chyn meat wrapped in skin. He slapped it over his shoulder and continued his trek northwestward. The spoor of the Makkon was stronger in his mind and this drove him on, past even his tolerance for pain and fatigue.