Shallows of Night - 02 (13 page)

And with that the barriers which he had so painstakingly erected folded in upon themselves and he thought of her. Oh, K’reen, how you must have been tortured. He destroyed you day by day with the poison he fed you. The lies!

The water rippled and Ronin looked up, into the present. One of the women had climbed in beside Tuolin.

“Do you want the other one? It is perfectly all right but you must ask.”

Ronin smiled wanly. “Not just now. The water is enough.”

The blond man shrugged and splashed the woman, using his cupped hand. She giggled.

Strange. The Freehold seems like so long ago; as distant as another lifetime. But she does not. She is still with me and there is nothing, Chill take him, that the Salamander can do about that.

He glanced at his great sword, swinging a small arc, brushed by one of the women as she slipped out of the room. Within it was the scroll and perhaps, if Borros was right about this, the key to man’s survival. And he could no longer doubt the Magic Man. He had already grappled with the Makkon; felt its awesome power. And instinctively he had known that such a creature was not of this world; it held its own kind of monsters.

Of this he was certain: at least one Makkon was already here. If the scroll has not been deciphered by the time the four converge, they will summon The Dolman and mankind will surely be doomed.

“Ready?” asked Tuolin.

They both stood up, dripping.

“Let me look at you.”

The scarlet lips opened. The tiny pink tongue brushed the even white teeth.

She laughed. “She is always so clever about these things.”

He wore a silk robe of color that could have been light green or brown or blue or any one of a dozen colors. Yet it was none of these but perhaps a subtle blend to cause the finished cloth to appear colorless. Along the body and arms were fierce dragons, rampant, eyes seething, taloned limbs seeking, embroidered in gilt thread so that their hides seemed molten. Tuolin was clothed in a robe of deep blue with white herons on front and back.

“Ah, Tuolin, you must have brought me a remarkable man.” Kiri directed her eyes to Ronin’s. “You know, I will not say this to all who come to Tenchō, but Matsu chooses the robes to fit each person who enters here. She is rarely wrong in her matching.”

“And what does this mean, then?” asked Ronin, glancing down at the glittering dragons.

“Why, I am sure I do not know yet,” she said with a small smile. “I have never seen that particular pattern before.”

She turned to Tuolin then and took his arm. Her perfume came to Ronin, rich and subtle, musky and light. The three of them strolled across the room of topaz light, stopping momentarily as one of the girls offered them tea and rice wine, and Kiri introduced them one by one to the women who were not already engaged with men. All were beautiful; all were different. They smiled and stroked the air with their ornamental paper fans. At length, Tuolin made his choice, a tall slender woman with light eyes and hair and a generous mouth.

Kiri nodded and turned to Ronin.

“And you,” she said softly. “Whom do you wish?”

Ronin looked again at all the women, the jutting landscape of femaleness, and he came back to her black dusky eyes.

“It is you,” he said slowly, “that I wish.”

When the organism does not comprehend, sight and sound become meaningless. The light-haired woman therefore looked strange to him as she opened her mouth wide and emitted a sound.

She gasped, then half giggled, stifling it with a swallow as the three others stood quite still watching her. Around them the movements continued, the languid flutters of a fan, the flashes of naked legs, the sweet smell of smoke curling, the steaming of hot tea and spiced rice wine, like the slow immense wheel of the stars.

There came then the chink of a cup being set down on a lacquered tray, as separate and distinct a sound as a crack of thunder of a rain-washed night.

Tuolin said: “But that is im—”

Kiri’s delicately upraised hand halted him in mid-sentence.

“He is,” she said, “from another land. That is what you told me, Tuolin, yes?” The yellow nails were like slender torches in the light. “I asked and he replied as he wished.” Now she was gazing into Ronin’s eyes but she spoke to the blond man. “You have selected Sa, as
you
wished. Take her then.”

“But—”

“Think no more upon it, lest your harmony be broken and this house become worthless. I take no offense.” The yellow nails moved fractionally, spilling light. “I shall take care of Ronin. And he shall take care of me.”

“What happened?” asked Ronin after Tuolin and Sa had departed.

She took his arm and laughed softly. They began to walk in the room of topaz light. “Death,” she said lightly and without any trace of coyness. “It is death to ask for me, foreigner.”

A tiny girl in a pink quilted jacket came up to them to offer rice wine.

“Please,” Kiri said and he handed her a cup, took one for himself. He sipped at the wine; it was quite different from the rice wine of the tavern. The spices added a tang and sweetness that he appreciated.

“I will choose another then.”

There was muted laughter and the sinuous rustle of fabric against scented skin. The sweet smoke was heavier now.

“Is that what you wish?”

“No.”

“You told me what you desired.”

He stopped and looked at her. “Yes, but—”

“Hmmm?” The scarlet lips opened and curled in a smile.

“I wish also to abide by the rules of your people.”

She urged him to begin walking again.

“The one thing you must remember about Sha’angh’sei, the only thing worth remembering is that there are no laws here.”

“But you just told me—”

“That it is death to ask for me, yes.”

The yellow nails traced the gilt dragons of his robe, over flaring nostrils, open mouth, and snake tongue, down the serpentine body, across the rampant claws, following the sinuous tail.

“But everything is yours for the taking. The factions of this city bind themselves in codes and unwritten rules.” Her eyes were huge and mysterious; he felt the pressure of her nails through the cloth. Her voice was a whisper now: “Who dwells in Sha’angh’sei but the dominators and the dominated?” He drew toward her. “Yet law is unknown here.”

It was less dense in the room of topaz light as the couples began to disperse. The girls were cleaning up in perfect silence and soon its tawny splendor was left to them alone.

“No,” she said, and when she shook her head her hair was like a forest in the night, “you are not from Sha’angh’sei or anywhere close. You are totally untouched by the city.”

“Is that so important?”

“Yes,” she whispered. “Oh yes.”

“Tell me again why you have come to Sha’angh’sei.”

“You have heard it before.”

“Yes, but this time I wish Tuolin to hear it.”

“I had never heard of the city until you told me of it.”

“Of course,” he said, not unkindly.

Rikkagin Tien sat cross-legged behind a green lacquered table on which stood a fired clay teapot, a cup showing me dregs of many fillings in its bottom, an inkwell, and a quill pen. He put aside the sheaf of rice papers upon which he had been writing a vertical list of figures.

“Begin, please.”

Ronin told the story of the scroll of dor-Sefrith, the gathering of the Makkon, the coming of The Dolman.

There was silence in the room when he had finished. Yellow light streamed obliquely through the leaded glass panes beyond which, one story below, lay Double Bass Street where the rikkagin and his men were quartered and from which they would depart at dawn tomorrow for the long march to Kamado.

He saw T’ien glancing at Tuolin, who stood, hands clasped behind him, facing away from the windows. With the light at his back, his face was in deep shadow. It occurred to him then that they did not believe him; that, despite Rikkagin T’ien’s words to the contrary, they perhaps thought him still an enemy. Nevertheless, I must ask.

“Perhaps you could help.”

“What?” T’ien had been pulled from some deep thought. “Help in what way?”

“By deciphering the scroll.”

The rikkagin smiled somewhat sadly. “I am afraid that is quite impossible.”

“Perhaps the Council could aid him,” said Tuolin.

Rikkagin T’ien looked bewildered for a moment and he stared at the blond man as if he were a statue which had just spoken. Then he said, “Yes, now that you have brought it up, that might be the answer.” He seemed lost in thought again.

“You see,” said Tuolin, “the city is governed by a Municipal Council: nine members with the major factions represented and the minor ones currying favors through taels of silver and other commodities. If any in this city possess the knowledge you seek, they would.”

“Where does the Council meet?”

“In the walled city, on the mountain above us. But you will have to wait until tomorrow; I do not believe there is a Council session today. Is that not correct, Rikkagin?” Tuolin smiled.

“Hmmm? Oh yes, quite so,” T’ien said, but his mind still seemed preoccupied with other matters.

In the small silence, the soft clatter of the rikkagin’s men attending to their preparations drifted lazily through the open windows.

There came a knock on the door and Tuolin crossed the room before T’ien had a chance to say anything. A soldier bowed his way in, handing Tuolin a slip of folded rice paper. The blond man opened it and read its contents, his brows furrowing in concentration or anxiety. He shook his head at the soldier, who immediately departed. Then Tuolin crossed the room and laid the paper open in front of the rikkagin. While T’ien read it, he said, “I am afraid that a number of last-minute administrative problems have arisen and they will require the attention of the rikkagin and myself for the remainder of the day. Please feel free to see the city but we should like it if you would return here and take the evening meal with us.” The smile came again.

T’ien looked up. “Ask one of the men downstairs for directions. They have been instructed to give you a bag of coins. You cannot get anything in Sha’angh’sei without paying for it.”

Outside, he turned left and then right, walking down a street of some incline. The day was overcast and a yellow mist was still rising. He caught himself thinking of T’ien and Tuolin. Again he had the feeling that he had missed something vital in their exchange, yet the answer remained elusive. He shrugged and put the problem out of his mind.

He came to a broad avenue after several minutes and the noise of the city welled up at him. Rows of stalls lined the crowded street. One sold fowl. They were hung by their necks, cooked and varnished with a shiny vermilion sauce so that they looked wooden and unreal. As he watched, people stopped, putting down a few coins. The stall’s owner brought out bowls of rice and sticks and commenced to cut up pieces of the cooked bird into the rice. The people ate standing up. For another coin they received a small cup of green tea to wash down the meal.

Elsewhere, a tailor of leather worked, making boots and cloaks. And at a busy intersection a fat man with a thin drooping mustache sat within a square metal cage, lending money at the day’s going rate, which, Ronin surmised, was somewhat higher than yesterday’s.

He heard the cadence of boots and a group of soldiers tramped by, moving disdainfully through the clouds of people.

He walked the city’s twisting fluid streets, caught up in the rapid pulse, repeating and changing, flashes of color, a riot of sound, aromatic spices drifting across his meandering path.

He observed transactions of all kinds, handled in quick sharp movements; he watched people who seemed to do nothing but watch other people, standing by shop windows or sitting along the sides of buildings.

He was staring at a line of six barrel-chested birds on a thick wooden perch, preening their long saffron feathers, when it came to him, strained through the myriad sounds of the city, yet perfectly clear as it gyred in the wind. Following his ears, the sound pulling him in like a net, through the turnings of broken streets and dark alleyways until at length he stood before a stone wall and listened to the tolling of the bells, coloring the air. An ancient wooden door was set into the stone wall. Without thinking, he opened it and went through.

The tonal wash of the city faded as he crossed the threshold and he heard the bells more clearly now although their source seemed still far away.

Across a sudden background of misty silence he heard a horn sound once.

The bells tolled sweetly once again, in the garden neat, precise, beautiful. Glistening flowers of white and yellow and pink were arranged amid rocks and furry moss and feathery ferns in exquisite patterns.

Water burbled and farther on he found a tiny waterfall and a pool filled with small fat fish with long silver fins fanning the green water like veils. He walked on a path paved with brilliant white gravel.

The bells ceased and the horn sounded again. A quiet chanting began, lilting, pleasing to the ear, drifting somnolently on the still air. Ronin strained his ears but could discern no sound from the city without the stone wall.

In the center of the garden was a large metal urn, of brass perhaps. Beside it sat an ancient man in brown robes. His wrinkled face was serene, his eyes were closed. His sparse hair was white, his beard long and wispy. He sat still as stone.

Ronin reached out and touched the bulging metal sides and felt—nothing. So pure a nothingness that it was tangible. An immutable space yawned, years falling like dry leaves, centuries passing like silent drops of rain, eons emerging, merging, sundered. And an immense quietude entered him: the thunder of eternity.

He was shaken.

He found that he had closed his eyes. When he opened them, the bells were tolling again, high in the air. He went on stiff legs through a wooden doorway and it was as if a gust of melody had transported him to another world. The air was humid with incense, the light was dim and brown as if it were ancient. Stone walls and marble pillars, a ceiling indistinguishable in the gloom.

In the distance, masses of squat yellow candles were lit, the tiny flames swaying like a chorus of dancers preparing for a performance. The incense and the tallow caused the air to take on a third dimension. Thus he moved now, feeling like the fish in the pond outside, as slowly as through water. The centuries hung upon him as taels of silver, dense and beautiful.