Dragons on the Sea of Night (21 page)

‘Or a single man on White Lotus,' Hamaan said.

Vato-mandry nodded. ‘That, too, is possible.'

Moichi turned to his brother. ‘What are you saying?'

‘Al Rafaar has White Lotus. Selected agents, infiltrating Ala'arat have used it.' His eyes were filled with the fanatic's peculiar fire. ‘Don't you see? It is a pilot project, to gauge the root's effects, an experiment. Al Rafaar murdered Sanda, just as we suspected, a berserker on White Lotus, a madman. This is what we can expect when war is declared, brother, on a far, far larger scale.' His eyes fairly spit flames. ‘Ironic, isn't it? This is the madness from which you sought so hard to flee. And now you are imprisoned within its very heart.'

Phaidan could not remain in its present form for long, and so began the last phase of Tokagé's reanimation. He held out his mailed hands and Phaidan's upper appendages flowed over his, creeping like tree roots run riot, like serpents in a frenzy of anticipation, like the corded veins on a strongman.

Tokagé's head was thrown back, his spine arched, as if a bolt of lightning were running through him. And all the while, the features, contours and the outline of the Chaos satellite beast were collapsing into rivulets, streams and, finally, a torrent of energy pouring itself into Tokagé at the point where his breastplate ended and his throatguard began.

‘At last!' Kaijikan cried. ‘At last!'

It was the moment Chiisai had been waiting for. She recognized it without thinking and, bending down, drew out the slim tanto concealed within her right boot. In the same movement, she thrust the point of the blade into the very spot where Phaidan was flowing into the warlord.

‘Nooo!' Kaijikan screamed, as Chiisai rammed the blade home its entire length.

Tokagé staggered backward, his hands scrabbling for the blade. A nimbus of energy – Chaos energy – swirled around him, ballooning outward rather than flowing seamlessly into him. A thunderous rattling as of the bones of ten thousand skeletons filled the cavern. Tokagé, sounding as if he were choking, slammed into the cavern wall, bounced off and hit again. The nimbus, spreading darkly like the squirt of a squid's ink in water, followed him, thwarted in its goal of entering him completely.

Chiisai had no time to follow this drama, however. She had turned and was reaching to yank her dai-katana out of the fissure and, thus, abrogate the Bridge from her world to the dimension of Chaos, when she was whirled violently around.

She stared up into the raging face of Kaijikan.

‘Bitch!' Kaijikan screamed. ‘Stupid, stupid bitch!'

Kaijikan reached out slender, ephemeral arms and threw Chiisai so violently against the rock wall that she almost lost consciousness. She felt her knees buckle and she slipped to the packed dirt floor. Her head lolled on a neck that had turned to rubber. She tried to get up but she lacked both strength and coordination and she fell back.

Then Kaijikan was astride her. Spittle flew from the magus's mouth and, as Chiisai watched, horrified, her right hand elongated, the nails extruding brightly as if they were made of forged steel.

Kaijikan was spewing obscenities as her talon-like nails struck downward, puncturing Chiisai's skin and flesh. Chiisai cried out in pain, trying to twist away, but the nails were so long, penetrating so deeply that Chiisai, panicked, felt them at her very core.

‘Die!' Kaijikan cried. ‘Die!'

And, withdrawing her nails to slash them lengthwise across Chiisai's face, she turned away from the blood gurgling from the multiple wounds, and rushed to tend to her charge.

Through eyes slitted by shock and pain, Chiisai saw Kaijikan grab Tokagé and drag him, stumbling and still clawing at his neck, out of the cavern. She tried to rise, leaning hard against the wall to lever herself to her feet. Her hands were red and, when she looked down at her chest, it was covered in blood. There was no pain now, as the endorphins pumped into her system, shut down the pain receptors. She was filled with a warmth, a lassitude that made her forget why it was she had wanted to move.

With a little sigh, she slid back down to the packed earth and sat staring at her own blood leaking into the veins of metallic white which, like lightning trapped beneath glass, now seemed to flush with an almost feral light.

‘Hamaan is quite correct,' Vato-mandry said. ‘White Lotus had tipped the delicate balance of power along the Mu'ad. As long as the Adenese possess the White Lotus we Catechists must ally ourselves with Iskael.'

‘But that is in contravention of your beliefs,' Moichi said. ‘If you take sides what is to stop all the neighboring countries from doing so?'

‘Perhaps they should,' Hamaan said heatedly. ‘If the Adenese successfully overrun Iskael do you think they will stop at its borders? Once they taste such power they will be unable to stop. They will try to conquer the entire region.'

‘Your brother speaks wisely,' the Catechist said.

‘No, no, this is madness, pure and simple,' Moichi said. ‘Any escalation of the feud between Iskael and Aden is unthinkable.'

‘I have had enough of your attitude!' Hamaan shouted, pulling him up by the front of his shirt. ‘Who are you to come back here and begin giving orders? We are not in the family villa and you are no longer Father's surrogate. Feud? Listen to yourself. You are describing an old women's altercation. We are speaking of basic rights now: to be free. The Adenese want to enslave us, as it was in the beginning. We cannot allow that.' He was shaking with rage. ‘What you have uttered here is treasonous. I am Qa'tach. I could order your incarceration or your execution and none would gainsay me.'

His eyes blazing, Moichi said, ‘We are not in Iskael now, or in the Mu'ad. In Mas'jahan your rank is meaningless.'

‘Freebooter, anarchist, traitor! Even the avowed neutralists know when to take sides. But not you.' Hamaan drew a weapon. ‘I will teach you the importance of earned rank.'

‘That is enough, both of you!'

Vato-mandry stood, his legs spread, his arms thrown wide. The long sleeves of his robe had been thrust back and they could see the welter of runish tattoos wound around his arms like the coils of a serpent.

‘You are not here to bury one another, but to bury a common enemy,' he admonished them. ‘You must discover the trader Yesquz's source for White Lotus. It is imperative you sever the ties Al Rafaar have with the Shinju.'

‘Even you must agree with that, brother,' Hamaan said disgustedly.

‘I do.'

‘Then it is agreed,' Vato-mandry said, looking hopefully from one brother to another for any sign of a truce.

Hamaan nodded. ‘We will see him immediately.'

‘Yessir!' The Fe'edjinn snapped to attention at their arrival. ‘The prisoner is resting.'

‘Resting?' Hamaan said, as they marched down the hallway. ‘Has he had his meal?'

‘He indicated that he was not hungry,' the Fe'edjinn said crisply.

‘I left strict orders that he should not be deprived,' Hamaan said, annoyed.

‘Yessir, but I did not believe that meant force-feeding the prisoner.'

‘He is not a prisoner, Third Darman. At least, not yet.'

‘Yessir.'

The hallway in which they found themselves was part of a vast labyrinth of like-looking corridors – a veritable warren in one of Mas'jahan's myriad pleasure palaces. But since sex and religion were deliberately intertwined among the Catechists, there were as many dervishers as there were half-naked women there. Many, Moichi saw, appeared to be both.

‘In their endless proselytizing, the Catechists believe that sex is the lure and religion is the hook. They are quite right, often enough,' Sardonyx whispered.

Another Fe'edjinn guarded a locked door at the end of the corridor. He, too, was at attention before they arrived in front of him.

‘How is your charge, Second Darman?' Hamaan asked sourly. ‘Still starving himself?'

‘Yessir!' the Fe'edjinn replied. ‘That is, I believe so. I have not heard a word from him since he refused his food.'

‘Open the door,' Hamaan said impatiently. ‘And see that we are not–'

‘What was that?' Moichi pushed the guard aside, put his ear to the door.

‘What did you hear?' Hamaan said.

‘I do not know,' Moichi replied, ‘but it sounded like a chair being kicked over.'

‘Open the door!' Hamaan roared.

While the startled guard fumbled with his keys, Moichi took a step back, smashed his bootsole just above the door lock. It shattered and the door swung wildly inward.

Inside, the room smelled of sweat, blood and fecal matter. It was a small beamed cubicle furnished with the bare minimum: a mattress on the floor, a nightstand with a pitcher of water, a chair and rickety table. Tatty curtains billowed about an open window in the far wall.

‘Chill take it!' Hamaan cried.

For Yesquz, his face sickly and bloated, hung from a rope that had been tied to the center rafter. Below him, a chair on which he had been standing had been kicked over, perhaps by him. Perhaps not.

Moichi ran to the open window, looked down into a narrow gray alley. A Fe'edjinn lay on the ground, one floor below, either unconscious or dead. Behind him, he could hear Hamaan bellowing at the top of his lungs, and there was the martial sound of booted feet coming at the double. He levered himself through the window, dropped to the ground.

Crouched beside the Fe'edjinn for a moment, he took his pulse, then turned his head. Throat slit neatly and expertly. He looked around. Sand had built up in the alley and he could see the faint outline of footprints. Large ones. He took off after them.

The alley debouched on a crowded street that led to the spice market. He saw a big man in a d'alb hurrying into the closest edge of the stalls and he headed that way, shouldering people aside. He moved quickly and efficiently past the tented awnings beneath which were heaped aromatic bins filled with star anise, cardamom, leaf sage, orange pepper, along with a cornucopia of other spices, familiar and alien. The voices of the proprietors filled the air like the braying whistles of bright-plumaged macaws and cockatiels. Haggling was expected and intense, a way of life for the traders.

Moichi, on the lookout for the big man, glimpsed him again, the d'alb's cowl concealing his face, and, bowling over a pair of spindly traders, he raced toward him.

His burly arms burnished bronze with cinnamon, the big man turned as he heard Moichi approach. Dujuk'kan looked into Moichi's face. He stuck his left hand into the pile of cinnamon, then took off.

His girth belied his quickness. Besides, he was thoroughly familiar with the citadel and he slipped through the throngs like an eel through a coral reef.

Moichi lost sight of him, then, putting on a burst of speed, found him again. He was obliged to leap atop a spice bin to round a corner in time to see Dujuk'kan pass behind a cart full of whole nutmeg kernels, veined with red mace.

He followed, closing the gap somewhat. But Dujuk'kan had thrown a handful of the nutmeg on the ground and Moichi slipped on one, skidding painfully against the wall of a building.

He saw Dujuk'kan's grin as he picked up steam, heading away. But as Moichi rose, Sardonyx appeared at the other end of the street. He shouted, racing toward her and the Adenese. Dujuk'kan came to an abrupt halt, seeing her. Of course, he did not recognize her, having seen her only as Aufeya, but from her drawn weapon and the manner in which she advanced on him, he gathered her intent.

He looked once over his shoulder at Moichi coming on, then back at her. He whirled and disappeared into the doorway of a building on the left. Moichi and Sardonyx arrived at the doorway at almost the same time. He gave her a quick smile and they headed through. It was another sex palace, another warren of narrow corridors, small rooms and back entrances.

‘Clever bastard,' Moichi said. ‘We will never find him in here.'

A Catechist approached them and told them they were disturbing the patrons. When they told him their intent, he politely but firmly ordered them to leave. They had no choice but to comply.

Outside, in the street, Sardonyx pulled him into the shadows of a doorway.

‘Turn and face the door,' she said, and when he looked at her she put a hand on his shoulder. ‘Do you trust me?'

He did as she asked. Later, he would swear that his eyes were open, but a shadow so deep passed before him that it was as if he had fallen asleep. There was a brief sensation of falling but not falling, as if in a dream. Then he felt her hand turn him around.

He was looking into the face of a male Fianarantsoa. He was about to open his mouth in protest when he looked into the Catechist's clear blue eyes and saw Sardonyx. He was getting a measure of proficiency at this. On impulse, he put his hands up to his face, pulled at the full beard that now covered his face, touched the brimless leather hat on his head. He looked down at his striped robes.

‘We will try this again,' Sardonyx said, and as two Fianarantsoa elders, they re-entered the sex palace.

This time, the Catechist bowed in respect and gave them no second glance. They had free run of the place.

‘Where shall we begin?' Moichi asked.

‘Begin at the end,' Sardonyx said, leading him up a set of well-worn sandstone stairs. ‘I have divined Dujuk'kan's whereabouts.'

Oiled women, their flesh gleaming in torchlight, slipped through the corridors like fish in a stream. Their long hair fell free – the only place a female Catechist was allowed this freedom – swaying across the indentation of their spines, alternately revealing and concealing bare hips and buttocks. They carried with them like pilot fish cut-throats and murderous traders, embezzlers in flight and con-men of every description. It was like diving into a bay full of sharks.

Though she had never been here before Sardonyx guided him unerringly through the noisome warren. Eventually, the corridor gave out onto a large room filled with people. These were clustered around a circular stage made of fragrant oiled cedar that ramped up from the floor.