Dreamlands (4 page)

DREAMLANDS

experience with it in the future. “I don’t think so. But… um… how can you tell?”

“After breakfast, we will visit the healer,” Samojirou said smoothly, not bothering to answer my question. “Tan’yu-san will be delighted with the company. I would like him to check on your eye also. Then I will go to the samurai’s practice grounds with you.” I nodded, and we waited for breakfast in what I thought was a strained silence. I studied him the way he had been studying me, even if I kept my eyes on the floor. I had learned early at the Trust that people got mad if I looked them in the eyes.

Samojirou was tall and slender. He reminded me of a snake, from the way he moved and from what I had seen in the bath last night. I hadn’t been trying to look there either, but we were both naked, so it was kind of hard not to look. Or at least
look
look, as in checking-out looking. Mason had explained the difference to me once.

Samojirou’s hair was shorter than mine, falling to just below the middle of his back, and it was dark brown rather than black. I guess people would have thought he was attractive. The scary lady had been beautiful too. Tall, slender, and elegantly dressed in a very nice kimono, she reminded me of the geisha who wandered around Tokyo, not that there were many of them anymore. Both she and Samojirou were very traditionally Japanese, very sophisticated, and I felt like a country bumpkin next to them. I had been teased in school because my family was very traditional, but now I felt alien, Western, with these two.

It didn’t take long for food to be delivered. A couple of giggly girls dropped off a traditional Japanese breakfast: miso soup, rice, tea, and assorted fruits, vegetables, and fish. Samojirou’s tray had a note on it. He read it with a faint smile. I wondered what exactly his relationship with the lady was. He was impressive and made me nervous. She was scary, and I was relieved she hadn’t wanted to keep me, even if I had to do
that
with Samojirou. She definitely reminded me of McGann with the confidence and power that I saw in her, though I doubted McGann could kill someone with a thought.

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20

I wondered where I was. The place had looked odd from what little I could remember, lush flowers and forest roads, nothing at all like the Boston I remembered from before my imprisonment. This place was rural and underdeveloped. There hadn’t been a sun out when we arrived, and it looked like there wasn’t one now. From what I could tell, it was like a weird twilight, no sun. But I hadn’t seen the sun in years, and I might have forgotten what it looked like.

I was surprisingly hungry, and I ate my breakfast quickly, not eating the fish. I’m a vegetarian, which I never told the Trust, because I hadn’t wanted to seem weird or make them think I was too much trouble. It led to a lot of missed meals, but it kept me from being noticed. Samojirou finished his breakfast at a slower pace.

“Were you not fed by your captors before?” he asked.

I looked up from my tray. How had he known I had been a prisoner before? I hadn’t said anything, but there might have been something in that note. Or the scary lady could have told him something when I was asleep.

“I am not a seer,” he said with a smile, seeing my reaction to his question. “But you are so docile, I thought that it might explain how you are acting. Also there was the small matter of the injuries that idiot inflicted upon you. Not all of them are recent.”

“Years,” I whispered, not bothering to lie. It didn’t matter, really.

“I… I had made a mistake.”

“What kind of mistake?” Samojirou asked.

I hesitated, bowing my head. “It wasn’t a game, Samojirou-sama.”

I thought I had told him something like this last night. I remember food and getting cleaned up, but everything else was a blur. But I had no doubt that Samojirou was a lord wherever this place was.

San
―mister―was an acceptable form of address in Japan, but
sama
―lord―seemed to fit much better.

“You mentioned that before,” he said softly. “I do not understand.”

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DREAMLANDS

“I thought that their servers―it’s a place called the Trust―were a game site, and I hacked into them,” I said. “I was caught, and they took me back to their headquarters, and I haven’t left there for years. They wanted me to hack into other databases and to protect theirs. The rest of the world thinks that I’m dead. My parents….” Samojirou looked confused. I knew that we were speaking the same language, Japanese, even if his had an old-fashioned sound to it, like he was my grandfather or something. He didn’t look any older than Wolf did, his late twenties. The scary lady looked like she was my age.

But both of them felt older, for some reason, and not just because of the dialect of Japanese they were speaking.

Samojirou didn’t know what I was talking about. He didn’t show it, but I knew he didn’t understand. Not because he was stupid, but because he hadn’t heard of such things, telephones or servers or video games, which was almost impossible in this day and age. There was also something odd about the maids, now that I thought about it. It wasn’t anything that I could name, just a feeling that they didn’t look right.

“That explains much,” he murmured.

“A server is like….” I didn’t know how to explain this to someone who didn’t have the basic concepts. I realized that this place didn’t have electricity or running water. It was like I had stepped back in time to the Tokugawa era, from what I had seen. I didn’t remember how I had gotten here, because one moment I was being led to the server room by the scary lady and her Reavers, monsters I knew about from working on Heiseg’s reports, and then we were all here. Wherever here was. It didn’t seem any better than Boylston Street, because I was still a prisoner and this Samojirou person wanted me like Heiseg had. I shuddered at the thought.

“Does it matter?” Samojirou asked after I fell silent. He looked concerned for a moment but then smiled. “If you are done, then we should seek out Tan’yu-san.”

“I’m done, Samojirou-sama,” I said. Why did it matter if I was done? I was his property, and he could do whatever he wanted with me.

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22

He got to his feet gracefully. I was less than graceful and ended up stumbling and falling. I was surprised when Samojirou managed to catch me, because he had been across the room a moment before. I still flinched at his touch.

“I should have known,” he murmured. “No matter. Keno, please trust me.”

“Do I have a choice, Samojirou-sama?” I asked softly.

I waited for the hit I deserved for questioning him. Most of the Trust personnel would have hit me for being that rude. The techs had a tendency to slap me―“to keep me in line” was the phrase they used.

The strike teams just grabbed at me in odd places and called me a pretty boy and other names. Early in my captivity, I had taken to hiding down in the server room to avoid both groups. I had known for a while that what Heiseg did to me was going to happen, since my door didn’t lock. I just didn’t know that it would hurt so much.

“Not really,” he admitted ruefully.

Samojirou leaned down to kiss me again, and I let him. This kiss was just as demanding as the last one had been. It hurt a little because of the bruises on my face too. When he finished, Samojirou had an odd look on his face. He wasn’t happy about how I kissed, or maybe it was because I just let him kiss me. Well, it wasn’t like I really knew what I was doing. I hadn’t been interested in kissing anyone before the Trust grabbed me, and afterward, the one guy I had wanted to kiss acted like I was a kid.

I’d had a huge crush on Wolf Dieter for the last couple of years, which was stupid because he was the man who had dragged me out of my dorm room and taken away my life. But he was the only one who really talked to me, since he spent time with me in either the cafeteria or my room when he didn’t have to. I knew that it was stupid to have a crush on Wolf when I knew he was straight, but I was pathetic enough to have the hots for the man who had imprisoned me. I thought part of it might have been that I wanted Wolf to be my first, no matter what happened afterward. It didn’t happen though, and now I was the captive of a scary man who was trying to be nice to me.

23

DREAMLANDS

SAMOJIROU

TAN’YU shook his head and started to examine Keno when I introduced him to the healer. I let them have the privacy they needed for this and retired to the garden outside Tan’yu’s rooms to think. Keno was an odd mixture of submission and cleverness. I knew he was still confused about what was happening to him, but he also was studying me and this place despite all his downcast looks and subdued manner.

The world he had come from was so different than this one.

From what my lady Tamazusa had said, his world ran on electricity, the power of lightening harnessed. He was noticing there was nothing like that here. The Dreamlands are a simpler place because of the magic they contain, which is at odds with modern technology. It takes a while for the new ones to adjust to this. My lady and I live in the traditional manner of our time in natural surroundings with servants and the sprawling gardens we enjoyed.

Thinking of Tamazusa brought her to me, and I spied her crossing the garden, walking toward me. She smiled and shook her head when she was by my side. “I should have known that you would care for him gently.”

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I smiled. “I fear that this was not the first time that he had been

‘bruised’ in such a manner, so I wanted to have Tan’yu-san examine him.”

Her eyes darkened. “I had hoped that… no matter. How is he?” I shrugged. “Frightened. Confused. And docile.”

“He must taste as sweet as he looks,” she teased.

“I must thank you for telling me of that odd custom of kissing,” I said.

“And knowing you, you have not gone beyond that,” she half scolded me. “He is a gift. Enjoy him.”

“When it will be enjoyable for him also,” I reminded her. “I have no taste for pain.”

Her eyes darkened. “I wish that you had been my patron earlier.” We looked up when we heard the
shoji
door to Tan’yu’s rooms slide open. Tan’yu caught sight of the two of us and immediately knelt.

Keno was slightly slower, puzzled about what he had to do, but he paid his respects to Tamazusa in the same manner.

“And how is Samojirou-sama’s companion?” she asked.

“Not as damaged as was thought, Tamazusa-sama,” Tan’yu said.

“He will heal soon.” I noticed Keno was bright red, embarrassed by this.

Tamazusa walked over and lifted Keno’s chin gently. “He is beautiful. So delicate. One would almost think that he was a woman.” I laughed. “You know that I enjoy such beauty.” I liked pretty young men, not the ones who had over-muscled themselves as fighters. Keno would never be like that, since he was boyish, even with his haunted eyes. I prized androgyny in my companions. I thought I might dress Keno as a woman when I showed him off to the society here. It would also hide who he was from Fuse and her sons.

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DREAMLANDS

“One would think that he should be called Sakura-chan rather than Keno-chan,” Tamazusa said thoughtfully.

“In certain situations, that might be true,” I agreed.

I knew what she was hinting at. It wouldn’t do for Fuse’s informants to know too soon that I had this prize. We all spied on one another, playing a Game with complicated rules, and to an outsider, incomprehensible ones, having to do with honor and pride. But such things happened when one was almost immortal. We could be killed by violence or accident, but
oni
were almost indestructible. While I was not an active participant in the Game, Tamazusa was. I knew that Fuse was also, with her sons.

Keno looked adorably confused over the conversation. I would explain it to him later, but I sensed he was not one for schemes and plots or other kinds of deceptions. He also needed to be tutored in the protocol for my lady’s court. Lessons, many of them, I saw in his future, besides ones with a katana. I had decided during the night that I wanted a companion more than a doll. Keno seemed to be clever, beautiful, and someone I wanted to explore. It might have been because he was my lover’s avatar, but it also might have been because of himself. I knew this wasn’t the Keno I had fallen in love with, but I did want to see if I could love him too.