DAI-SAN

BY

ERIC V. LUSTBADER


By Eric V. Lustbader
Published by Fawcett
Books:

The Sunset Warrior Cycle:
THE SUNSET
WARRIOR
SHALLOWS OF NIGHT
DAI-SAN
BENEATH AN OPAL
MOON
THE NIN1A
SIRENS
BLACK HEART
THE MIKO
JIAN
SHAN
ZERO
FRENCH KISS
WHITE NINJA
ANGEL EYES

             DAI-SAN
          Book Three of
            Me Sunset
          Warrior Cycle
             ERIC V.
             LUS~ER
    FAWCETT CREST   NEW YORK
                
Sale of this book without a front cover may be
unauthorised. If this book is coverless, it may
have been reported to the publisher as "unsold or
destroyed" and neither the author nor the
publisher may have received payment for it.

All of the characters in this book are fictitious,
and any resemblance to actual persons, living or
dead, is purely coincidental.

The poem on page 204 is adapted from Basho's
Death Poem in AN tNTRODUCI1ON TO
HAIKU by Harold G. Henderson, copyright ~
1958 by Harold G. Henderson. Reprinted by
permission of Doubleday & Company, Inc.

A Fawcen Crest Book
Published by Ballantine Books
Copyright A) 1978 by Enc Van Lustbader

All rights reserved under International and
Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published
in the United States by Ballantine Books, a
division of Random House, Inc., New York, and
simultaneously in Canada by Random House of
Canada Limited. Toronto.

This book may not be reproduced in whole or
part, by mimeograph or any other means, without
permission. For information address: Doubleday
& Company, inc., 245 Park Avenue, New York,
New York 10017.

ISBN 0-449-21648-9

This edition published by arrangement with
Doubleday, a division of Bantam, Doubleday, Dell
Publishing Group, Inc.

Manufactured in the United States of America
First Ballantine Books Edition: January 1990
Fifth Printing: October 1991

For the little boy who lived
down the lane Welcome home.
          
              Contents

 ONE  DROWNED                   I
      Sails                     3
      Heart of Stone           29
      Godgame                  57
      Aviator                  77
 TWO  BEYOND THE MYTHS
      OF MORNING               77
      Down the Kisokaido       79
      Sakura                   94
      Bujun                    128
      Deathshed                138

 THREE KAI-FENG                147
 Horse Latitudes               149
 Nemesis                       172
 Frozen Tears                  193
 The Dai-San                   228

As in the play, the man
wears a mask. Beneath
the mask is the myth.
Behind the myth is the
image of God.

 Bujun saying

            One
          DROWNED
             
                sass

|`ONIN.

  It floated in his mind like a scented jewel. An
island, an oasis in a turbulent, flashing stream.
Life in a shifting void where there should be no
other presence.

Ronin.

  Soft and sensual; dusky, alive with a meaning
more than inflection. Crimson letters, a brand of
fire written across the heavens of his mind.

  Ronin sat up, peered into the darkness. The
creakings of the ship cradled him; the gentle
sighing of the endless sea. The squat brass lamp
swung on its chain. Dimly, from above, he heard
the watch bell chime.

Imperceptibly, the gloom softened.

"Moeru?"

Yes.

  He got up. His eyes roamed the small cabin.
Then, startled: "But you cannot speak. This is a
dream."

I called youirom sleep.

  He turned slowly in a circle. The berths in the
sloping bulkhead, the narrow shelves, the basin of
water, a glint of the ocean's phosphorescence
reflected through the porthole burnishing the
brass compass. Splash of the creaming water.

"Where are you?"

Here.

  He moved to the closed door. The tiny glow
from the spangled night played along the muscles
of his naked back.

In your mind.

He pulled open the door.

"Who are you?"

I do not know.

                  3
                  
4 brie V. I'ustbader

  And he went swiftly down the companionway,
silently as a cat, to her cabin, to meet her.

  By the time he came on deck, it was already
midway through the dragonfly watch. He went up
the aft companionway to the high poop, crossed
to the stern rail. His dark green sea cloak
whipped about his legs in the pre-dawn breeze.
High aloft, the thick white canvas of the sails,
faintly luminescent with incipient light, cracked;
the yards creaked as the ship ran eastward.
Behind them, the night shrank back as if in terror
from the pearl light of the nascent sun. Their
wake was black.

  There was already some movement around the
fo'c'sle hatch, but he ignored it, staring fixedly out
to sea, contemplating the vastness upon which
they rode.

  "He spends precious time up there." The voice
came from behind him.

"Hmmm?"

"Morning, Captain."

  A tall, thickly muscled figure approached him.
Deep hazel eyes flashed.

Ronin turned from the rolling sea.

  "Are all navigators like you, Moichi? Sleepless
and ever vigilant?"

  The wide, thick-lipped mouth split in a grin, the
white teeth made more startling by contrast with
the rich cinnamon skin.

"Hah! There are none so fine as myself, Captain."

  "You mean none so foolhardy as to venture out
into uncharted waters."

  The smile did not fade as the tall man
brandished a sheet of rice paper.

  "This Bonneduce, he gave me the chart when
he hired me, Captain."

  "Your ratter is thick with the details of all the
lands to which you have sailed. Yet there is no
mention of Ama-nomori."

  Moichi put his hands into the wide cloth sash
banding his waist, looked down at his high shining
sea boots.

  "This Bonneduce, Captain, he is your friend,
am I right?" His bearded head nodded. "Well,
should he lie? This chart says there is an island
called Ama-no-mori toward which"  here he
made a swift sign across his chest "the Oruborus
willing we sail." He glanced up. "I have sailed to
many

DAI-SAN 5

ports, Captain; seen things so strange that I tell
them now as tall tales, sitting around a warm
hearth in the public room of a tavern in some
fly-blown port of call, half-drunk, while everyone
laughs and compliments me on my imagination.
Have faith, Captain "

  There came a soft cry from aloft as the lookouts
changed with the watch. The rigging swung to the
men's weight.

  "Hey, you see that sight, Captain?" He pointed
for'ard to the first pink crescent of the sun
climbing over the flat horizon. The color floated to
them, tiny scimitars on the sea's surface. "Long as
I see that come cormorant, I know that all's right."

  He made a sound not unlike an animal's bark
but which Ronin had come to know as the
navigator's laugh.

  "Let me tell you a thing about Moichi Annai-Nin
because I like you." He paused for a moment,
scratching his long nose. "I knew you were no
captain when first you set foot on board this ship.
You love the sea, yes, very much, but your time
upon it is short, am I right?" His dark head
bobbed. "Yes, well there is no shame in it, you see.
You are a man; I could see that too as soon as I
saw you, and now, sixty-six days later, I know I was
right."

  The sun spilled its strange flat light over the
expanse of the ocean, lending it a dazzling and
illusory solidity. The topsails began to burn bright.
He squinted into the pink rising sun.

  "Now most navigators want one thing more than
all else: silver. It makes no difference to them
where they sail, nor who their masters are, but
only if the cargo is valuable. For the dearer that is,
the fatter their percentage when they make port."
He slapped his broad chest. "I am different. Oh, I
will not lie to you and say that I do not enjoy my
silver for most certainly I do." The bright grin
came again, ivory cast in dusky granite. "But I live
to fill the ratter with facts and without new lands
to sail to, it does not grow. I tell you truthfully,
Captain, that when the Bonneduce showed me the
chart, I cared not one whit for the Kiaku's cargo.
'Let the captain, whoever he may be, care for the
cargo,' I said to myself. To sail a fast schooner to
an unknown isle; to turn myth into reality; the
chance of a lifetime!"

  Moichi's wide-sleeved blouse rippled in the
strengthening breeze, rolling wavelike across his
broad chest. He put a hand on the silver pommel
of his thick broadsword, which hung within a wom
tattooed leather scabbard from his right hip. A

6 Uric lE Lustbader

pair of copper-handled dirks were thrust into his
sash. He turned his head into the rising sun, and
the light fired the tiny diamond set in the flesh of
his right nostril.

  "This gimpy knows what he is talking about,
Captain. The chart is no fake, that I can tell you,
for many a forgery has been sold to me in my
youth. It is my great good fortune to take this
beauty to a land long forgotten by man."

"Then it is your opinion that Ama-no-mori still
exists."

  "Yes, Captain, in my opinion it does." The
deep-set eyes raked Ronin's face. "But do you not
feel this already" he slapped his chest "here?"

  Ronin's colorless eyes at last left the roiling sea
before them, swung to study the angular face with
its long hooked nose and hooded eyes. A depth of
strength was alive within that visage as solid as a
harsh rock promontory in a fierce gale, bartered
but victorious.

  Ronin nodded and said slowly: "You are right,
my friend, of course. But you must also
understand that for me the search for this isle has
been long, has forged my life into a shape totally
unknown to me. Now it is almost too much to
think that at last it will be over."

  Moichi's cinnamon face softened and he
gripped Ronin's shoulder momentarily.

  "It is the truth, Captain. You live with an idea
for so long a time that, after a while, it is just that
which begins to have the reality. Be careful of
that."

  Ronin smiled, then cocked his head. There was
a small silence.

"What was it that you said to me when you came
up?"

The navigator turned his head, spat over the
ship's rail.

  "That first mate of yours, he spends too much
time for'ard."

"Is there something wrong with that?"

  "Mates rarely go before the mast, Captain, 'cent
to call a man out and administer discipline. His
place is aft."

"Then why is that one for'ard9"

Moichi shrugged his massive shoulders.

  "Men at sea, they all have their particular
reasons for being here. They are misfits, Captain,
thus they avoid the land. No one asks questions
aboard ship. As for the first" he shrugged
again "perhaps there is something here he
wishes to avoid."

"You do not know this crew?"

  "Captain, navigators rarely meet the same sailor
twice. This lot must come from the four corners
of the continent of

DAI-SAN 7

man. Nothing queer about that but I cannot
vouchsafe even one of them." He crossed his arms
across his chest. "Here, I can know only Moichi
Annai-Nin. And by the Oruborus, he is the only
one I care to know about" his mouth twisted into
a smile "save yourself Captain."

"I take that as quite a compliment."

  "And well you might," said the navigator dryly,
walking off.

  Ronin turned his gaze fortard, shading his eyes
from the ablate sun now plastered onto the
burning white sky like a hot rice paper lantern.
Lances of light shot from the moving crests of the
waves. The blue was very deep in the wide troughs.
Men had begun to play out lines along the
starboard side, fishing for breakfast. Scents climbed
from the tarred deck as the sun heated the wood:
the harsh, bitter stench of fish innards, the tang of
caked salt, the aromatic spice of warm pitch and
tar, the sour scent of stale sweat.

  There came a hoarse shout and several men
starboard dropped their lines to aid a sailor who
was being dragged overboard by the weight at the
end of his hook. They hauled on the line, in
concert, singing, the quarter-rhythm coordinating
their efforts, and gradually, the dripping line piled
itself at their feet. Muscles jumped under
sun-tanned skin and sweat broke out across their
naked backs as they heaved.

  A long gray-brown tentacle curled up over the
starboard rail, then an amorphous lump perhaps
twice the length of a man flopped onto the deck.
The men, seeing it at last, stepped away from its
writhing body. One shouted for Moichi, who
turned from his chart and went across the main
deck to where they stood. After a moment's
argument, he brushed through the tight circle and,
drawing his broadsword, slew the thing. Dull green
blood spurted and a tentacle quivered about his
high boots. Someone handed him a cloth and he
wiped down his blade before sheathing it. Gingerly,
as if with enormous distaste, the men heaved the
bulk over the side. Reluctantly, they went back to
their lines, talking among themselves in low tones.

Ronin leaned over the inside rail of the poop.

"What was it, Moichi?"

The cinnamon face peered up at him briefly.

"Devilfish, Captain," he said. "It is nothing.
Nothing."

"But?"

'The men do not like it."

He went back to his charts.

8 Eric ~ [u61bader

  Fortard, Ronin could make out the gaunt figure
of the first mate, a black silhouette against the
low sun. His hideously misshapen face shadowed,
mercifully blank now. Ronin had seen him only
from a distance, as he had seen most of the men,
but he knew that the man had no lower jaw and
that his cheeks were deeply scarred. An accident
at sea, the story went, adrift in shark waters. And
by the time he had been pulled to safety It was
a miracle that he was even alive, they said.

  Ronin shrugged and turned away. If the first
mate wished to keep to himself and spend his
days before the mast, he had no objections. The
man did his job, and as Moichi had said, no one
asks questions at sea.

  His concern now was Moeru. Who was she?
After communicating with her for more than half
a watch he still had no idea because neither did
she.

  He had picked her off the streets of
Sha'angh'sei, sick and starving, and he had saved
her. On impulse, out of instinct, call it what he
might. The fact remained that, from that moment,
their fates were joined. She became, in her
convalescence at Tencho, the guardian of the
strange root which, according to the apothecary
who had been its custodian, had been the catalyst
in the creation of The Dolman many cons ago.
The same root which Ronin had eaten in the pine
forest north of Kamado, the yellow citadel, and in
so doing had been reunited with Bonneduce the
Last and his more than animal companion Hynd.

  And she had followed him north from
Sha'angh'sei in pursuit of the Makkon, to
Kamado, to the forest of the Hart of Darkness,
waiting patiently, mysteriously for him, riding with
him across the burning continent of man, to the
port of Khiyan while, behind them, the last battle
of mankind raged before the high walls of
Kamado. Dumb Moeru, who could not speak yet
now could form words in his mind. She was not
from Sha'angh'sei or its environs, her features had
not the characteristic cast. And although he had
discovered her among the refugees of the fighting
in the north who daily streamed into the streets of
Sha'angh'sei, she was hardly a peasant for her
hands were delicate and uncallused.

  She could tell him nothing for her memory had
fled her, whether from a direct blow or from
shock and extreme exposure or from something
else entirely he had no way of knowing. She
remembered only Tencho, Kiri, Matsu and
Ronin. Who she was and where she had come
from remained

DAI-SAN 9

a mystery. Yet there seemed time now, while the
Kioku Flowed the vastness of the ocean in search
of the isle of the fabulous Bujun, on this long
voyage to the end of his quest, to discover Moeru's
past.

  It was an enigma he wished to unlock, yet, too,
he longed to know the fate of those locked within
the great stone citadel of Kamado; whether the
forces of man were holding their own against the
rising tide of the human and unhuman hordes of
The Dolman. Had Kiri as yet returned from her
mission in Sha'angh'sei to unite the feuding Greens
and Reds? But, above all, had the four Makkon at
last appeared on the continent of man. Two he
already knew had been together. When all four
united, they would summon The Dolman again to
the world of man. Then surely Kamado would fall.

  The bronze bell chimed the mid-watch and he
was brought breakfast: strips of raw white fish,
skinned and cleaned, and portion of dried seaweed.

  He turned at a sound, saw Moeru reach the
poop via the aft companionway. She wore wide
cobalt blue silk pants and a quilted jacket, bottle
green, embroidered with leaping fish. As she
moved across the deck to join him, illumined by
the morning sun, he marveled once more at her
satin beauty. Her high cheekbones, accented by a
rather sharp chin and large bluegreen eyes, the
color of a far-off soundless sea, almondshaped and
tilted, were veiled by her long dark hair as the salt
breeze filmed it about her like a fine rain. She
seemed strong and fit. How different she was now
from the frail mud-soaked woman he had lifted
from the rutted streets of Sha'angh'sei. As she
stopped before him he saw that she wore the
slender silver chain with its canter flower what
was that blossom called.7 which he had given her
last night. A Bujun artifact that he had plucked
from a dying man in a dismal alley in Sha'angh'sei,
and which, later, amongst the Greens, had almost
cost him his life. He was unaccountably pleased
that she wore it.

"Hungry?"

  Yes, came the sound in his mind and he started
in spite of himself.

  He called to a sailor who brought her a plate of
food. For a time he watched her eat.

"Tell me again what happened," he said abruptly.

  She lifted her golden face to him, her eyes
catching the sun, turning white, then black as her
hair caught up with the motion, shadowing her.

10 Eric ~ Lustbader

When I called to you in the night.

"Not before." He wondered if this was a question.

  She drew a wisp of hair from in front of one
eye with her first two fingers and he thought:
Matsu, a wild uneasy cry in the night.

  Moeru stared at him for a moment, a blank,
curiously opaque look. Then she blinked as if she
were trying to remember a stray thought that had
just crossed her mind. She steadied herself against
the roll and pitch of the ship.

What did you say?

"Not before."

No. Otherwise I would have called to you sooner.
Surely.

  "I expect so." Turning from her to throw the
scraps of his meal over the side. He did not turn
back but continued to stare into the glinting
enigmatic face of the water.

  Moeru went back to her breakfast but now her
eyes studied him with some deliberation.

  For'ard, the bosun ordered men into the
shrouds to unfurl every centimeter of canvas to
the stiffening wind. The sun went behind a cloud
and the air turned abruptly chill. Then its white
face emerged and the heat returned. Farther off,
patches of shadow stained the sea, mirroring the
passage of the clouds racing across the sky.

I cannot read your mind, if that is what you are
thinking.

"I did not really "

No. Of course not. She devoured the last slice of
fish.

"All right. It did cross my mind."

I saw Moichi kill that thing that the men caught.

"The devilfish." Noted her change of subject.

  He slit its belly, did you see? Because they are
viviparous. He made certain that the babies died too.

"How would you know that?" He was genuinely
curious.

1~ do not know.

"Have you ever been to sea?"

It seems that I have, yes.

"Perhaps then your people are sailors."

  Oh no. I do not think so. She put the plate aside
and, as she bent, her hair slid across her eyes, a
swiftly flowing river of darkness. She stood up.

  "What then?" He dissected her silence. "Try not
to think. Watch the sea. What do you feel?"

  Her eyes traced the endless movement of the
waves hurling themselves against the hull of the
ship far below them. Up here, in the protection of
their eyrie. Leaning on the stern rail,

DAI-SAN 11

her chin on the backs of her slender white hands,
she sighed, a red and gold leaf in an autumn
storm.

  Perhaps merely a peasant from the north, a refugee
of the war. As youfirst saw me.

"Now I must tell you no."

  A tear glistened in the corner of one eye and
she blinked. It rolled down her cheek. He put his
arm around her and she came against his hard
body, giving in at last.

  I am adrift in the unknown and it terrifies me.
Who am 1, Ronin? What am I doing here? I feel as
if I must not leave your side. I feel a little like a
corpse, drowned on a tide, thrown up onto an alien
shore. I must

"What?"

She threw her head, her hair flying, and wiped at
her eyes.

  Tell me what happened in the forest near Kamado.
When you emerged, you were so white that I feared
you had lost blood from a severe wound.

Ronin smiled bleakly.

  "Wounded? No. At least not in the sense you
mean." He held the warmth of her body against
him like a cloak. "I encountered a bizarre creature
and it had been much on my mind of late." He
shook his head as if in disbelief. "It was a man,
Moeru, a man with a hart's great head,
black-furred, crowned by enormous treed antlers."
His voice lowered and a hard edge crept into it. "I
drew my sword but my fingers would not hold it. It
came at me and my legs would not support me. It
lifted a great black onyx sword over its head and
then a strange thing occurred. It stared into my
face and I saw within its very human eyes fear. We
were locked together, neither able to act."

  Aloft, the yards swung to and the canvas
groaned as it caught the following wind, hurtling
the schooner across the limitless sea. Muscles
rippling, sailors sprang to the lines, securing the
new set of the rigging. A man shouted, seeming far
away, and Ronin heard the peculiar, dark voice of
the first mate like hot pitch on a wound,
recalling

  This Hart of Darkness. Her blue-green eyes
moved. Why does he disturb you so?

"I do not know. I faced him and felt as if "

Patiently, she waited for him to finish.

"As if I was drowning."

And he? What do you suppose he felt?

He looked at her curiously.

12 Eric V. I~us1;bader

  "What an extraordinary thing to say. How would
I know what he felt?"

She shrugged.

I thought you might know.

He shook his head.

What did you see in his face, Ronin?

  The Hart of Darkness swam before him, that
strange mixture of man and beast. He saw the
sleekly furred snout, the wide, blunt herbivorous
teeth, the black, flaring nostrils, quivering as they
sampled scents, the oval, human eyes, and
abruptly he felt a chill at the center of his being,
heard the cool click of Bonneduce the Last's
Bones, rolling over the patterned rug in the house
in the City of Ten Thousand Paths so long ago.
You do not fear death, the little man had said, and
that is good. Yet you fear

"Stop!" cried Ronin.

  What is it? Moeru gripped his arm, the long
fingers firm and supple.

He passed a hand across his eyes.

"Nothing. Just the ghost of a dream."

You know him, Ronin.

The fear rose inside him, unbidden.

"Now you speak nonsense."

  A sky dark with vultures; the stiff rustle of their
circling flight.

I see it in your eyes.

  Irrationally, he turned on her, away from
himself. A stench worse than putrefaction.

"Chill take you, bitch! Shut up! You "

"Captain!"

  Ronin swung away, saw Moichi racing up the
aft companionway.

"What is it?"

  Moeru moved away from him, her eyes bleak
and as opaque as stones.

  "Lookouts report sails to port." The big man
approached them. He pointed. "Just visible now
over the horizon."

  "What manner of vessels?" Ronin asked,
shading his eyes as he looked out over the water.

  "Too far away as yet, Captain." His hazel eyes
were chilled. "But this far out I would hardly
expect them to be merchantmen."

  "Very well. Swing away from them." Moichi
nodded assent. "But mark you, I do not wish to
waste valuable time.

DAI-SAN IS

A swirl landfall at Ama-no-mori is imperative."

  "Aye, Captain," said Moichi, already swinging
away, calling to the bosun in his deep voice. The
bosun, at midships, relayed the order to the first.

  Slowly, the schooner heeled, beginning its wide
arc to starboard. Spray flew up into their faces,
rich and cool and fMgrant with life.

And they began their run from the oncoming ships.

  The seas rose as they plunged ahead, the men
constantly in the shrouds now to take advantage of
the shifting wind. The ocean fumed a deep green,
then a hard, flat gMy as banks of rippling
thunderheads climbed into the western skies.

  "They are gaining on us," said Moichi, on the
poop with Ronin and the helmsman. "The sails are
tetrahedral, an unfamiliar configuration to me."

"Have they seen us?" asked Ronin.

  "Seen us? I think," said the navigator, "that they
have been searching for us."

"How could that be?"

  His shoulders lifted, fell. "Captain, my expertise
is in guiding ships like this to safe ports."

  The rain began then a good distance away, a
strange sight, the downpour a dark oblique brush
flailing harshly at the sea with such furious
intensity that it appeared as if the sea water were
actually flowing upward.

  "Hard to port!" called Moichi, and the Kioku
resumed eastward with the black win and the odd
sails in full pursuit.

  Moeru left her spot at the aft Mil and came and
stood beside Ronin.

Who knows of your voyage?

  Ronin watched the shrouds staining their lines.
He had been thinking along a similar path.
Futilely.

"To my knowledge, only Bonneduce the Last."

  Moichi was too involved with the helmsman and
the sails to question the seemingly one-sided
conversation.

Still, another may know.

  Perhaps he was only half-listening then.
Certainly he did not understand her remark, part
of their previous conversation.

  Moichi left the helmsman, went across the deck,
stood at the poop's port wiling.

  "Captain," he said. "I do not think that these are
natural ships."

14 Ericustbader

  Ronin went to stand beside him, Moeru in his
wake. He saw lines creasing the navigator's face.

"What do you mean?" Ronin asked.

"These ships, Captain. Well, look for yourself."

  The trio peered into the west. The rain there
had slackened, yet still the purple skies were dark.
Out there, the sea was grey and white like the
wings of a seagull. Purple-tinged.

Moeru's fingers gripped Moichi's arm.

"Yes."

  Three ships, dark with high prows, their
silhouettes slender and swift, sped toward them.
They were still far away but now they were close
enough to make out several important details.

  Their sails were black and obviously not of
conventional canvas, for they shone in the wan
light of the dismal afternoon. Emblazoned across
the center of each sail was the image of a
grinning armored bird. They gleamed and
flickered as if they were on fire.

"Look below," said Moichi deliberately.

  They saw that the hulls of the ships were
completely dry as they ran, keelless, across the
sea, above the waves. Nevertheless, the sea
furrowed beneath them and white spray flew in
their wakes.

  "You have sorcerous foes, Captain," said
Moichi flatly. "The crew will not like that."

  "They do not have to like it," answered Ronin.
"They merely have to fight." He turned. "And
what of you, Moichi. Where do you stand?"

  "As I have said, Captain, I have beheld many
strange sights, even as you have. There is nothing
on land nor sea which frightens me." He slapped
the port rail. "I have a good ship under my feet
even if it is no match for those sorcerous ships
out there." He shrugged. "There have ever been
battles in my life."

  "Then I have no cause for worry. Have the first
mate break out the arms and prepare for
boarding."

  "Aye, Captain." The white teeth shone wolfishly.
"A pleasure."

What of me?

"Get below."

But I wish to fight..

He turned to her and watched her eyes for a
moment.

"Have the bosun get you a sword, then."

There is no choice but to fight..

DAI-SAN 15

He looked seaward.

  "We cannot outrun them. Moichi understood
that immediately. They mean to take us." His right
hand had drifted unconsciously to the hilt of his
blade and his left hand clenched inside the
Makkon gauntlet. He felt the adrenalin surging
through his chest and arms. He breathed deeply,
oxygenating his system to help forestall muscle
fatigue in the battle to come. He longed for battle
now, the warrior within him aching for release.
"And I " he said thickly, "I wish to destroy them."

  They were of obsidian, rough-hewn, sparking in
the lowering sun, which peered out from behind
jagged rents in the rippling clouds with a heavy
light that was painful to the eyes. The high prows,
sleek and sharp, still shattering the green water
beneath them as they came on, were carved into
grotesque faces, horned and beaked, resembling,
uncannily, the Makkon.

  The masts seemed to be carved from vast alien
rubies, for they were translucent, shedding thin
escarpments of bloody shadow across the narrow
decks and into the sea before the ships.

  "These craft are from another time," said Moichi
with some professional awe. "I'd give an arm to
pilot one."

  Already they could discern movement along the
enemy's decks. Through the crashing, creaming
bow waves, they could make out bright flashes of
high helms and short-bladed swords like shining,
articulated insects within a teeming hive.

  And now they saw that those who sailed the
obsidian ships were not men at all. These beings
were wide-shouldered, without the characteristic
human slant. They were waspwaisted with legs
distinguished by bulging thighs and virtually no
calfs. Their heads seemed stuck directly onto
shoulders without benefit of neck or throat. They
wore sweeping conical helms of ebon metal and
their barrel chests were encased in dark armor.

Look at theirfaces.

  Ronin stared. Above the nose they had the skull
of man, but below, black nostrils were gouged
directly into the flesh, as if plunged by some
murderous scalpel, and lower, the massive bone
was pushed out into a snout, making them appear
as if they had been dropped on the backs of their
heads as they had been born. Their eyes were not
the ovals of man but were round and beaded,
glossily obsidian, like those of birds of

16 Eric ~ I'ustbader

prey. Indeed, as the ships drew closer, he saw that
the helms were in fact long glistening plumage,
which covered the heads of these strange warriors
from crown to the center of the back.

  Ronin looked around the Kioku. All the men
were armed and the first mate had fully half the
complement along the port sheer-strake,
preparing to repel the boarders.

  And now the crash of the sea, as if the violent
surf were striking a knife-toothed shore, and three
obsidian effigies loomed over them, momentarily
blotting out the fading light. In that instant the
penumbra of the alien masts crisscrossed the
Kioku in a bloody foreshadowing.

  And now the air was filled with the whirring of
the grappling hooks as they arced in the air like
a rain of black lava, thick ropes snaking behind
their flights. The Kioku shuddered, its prow lifting
momentarily out of the water like a trapped
animal, then crashed into an oncoming wave, the
decks awash now with sea water as well as
clambering creatures.

  Drawing his sword, Ronin leapt from the high
poop, hurtling himself into the oncoming wave of
warriors. They shouted, high, piercing sounds, and
parted like grain at his intrusion. They reared
back, their short, heavy blades clashing into his
longer one.

  Within their midst, he swung two-handed at
their bodies, but finding them too well protected
by their ebon armor, he shifted his aim higher. In
a blur, he sheared off a head in a welter of yellow
bone, pink and grey matter. Feathers fluttered
and blood fountained up, pumping from a dying
heart, staining the air, filling it with an awful
stench.

  Again and again he swung, his long,
double-edged blade a platinum swath amidst dark
masses of scrambling warriors. His arteries
swelled as he increased the depth of his
breathing, compensating for the adrenalin's
oxygen drain to his system. An exquisite sensation
gripped him, his blade running with beaded blood
and bits of brain, as if he were looking within an
infinitude of mirrors and the strength of all his
replicated selves layered him in an invulnerable
mantle of strength and endurance.

  Now the strange warriors attempted to scatter
before his berserk attack, but using the Kioku's
rigging, he cut them off. Some continued to flee
only to meet the ready edges of his sailors' blades.

  At length, he turned to see Moichi still on the
poop, defending his territory with his curving
broadsword. A clutter of warriors blotted out his
view, then, moments later, he spied

DAI-SAN 17

Moeru beside the navigator, cutting her way
through the enemy with a preciseness and
efficiency that surprised him.

  There was little time to marvel, for a trio of
blades came whistling at him in great rapidity. He
slew these three warriors and hacked through
another group, finding himself in a small clearing.
He glanced around. The sailors appeared to be
holding their own, but now the second and third
ships were closing, their grappling hooks already
spinning through the air. Soon their warriors would
join the battle.

  He began to fight his way starboard, hoping to
sever the new lines and thus delay the arrival of
the reinforcements. But the warriors divined his
intent and converged to block his way. Still he
fought on, soaked now in blood and marrow.

"Moichi!" he called over the din. "The lines to
starboard!"

  The navigator left the few remaining enemy in
his area to Moeru and leaped to the main deck, his
massive frame a battering ram of muscle and force
of will.

  Sheathing his sword, he kicked out at an
advancing warrior and went into the ratlines and,
above the battle, worked his way to midships
where, drawing a copper-handled dirk, he went to
work with tight arcs, snapping the lines. They
whipped into the sea, but the ships came on and
new lines snaked aboard.

  Ronin dodged a blow meant to disembowel him
and, ducking, ripped his sodden sea cloak from
him; its weight had begun to hinder his
movements. He smashed a two-handed blow into
the seam along one side of the attacker's body
armor. The warrior screamed and clutched at his
side. Blood spurted. He went to his knees. Ronin
swiveled as he swung, shearing off another
warrior's snout. A flurry like heated snow.

  Ronin made his laborious way toward Moichi,
through forests of warriors. He thrust straight
ahead and his blade shattered the breastplate of a
warrior. He jerked it free and, in the same
movement, arced it violently backward, severing
the jugular of an advancing warrior to his rear. He
slammed headlong into two more, scattering them
in a flutter of feathers. He swung right, then left,
his bulging arms sticky and running with moisture.

  Before the mast he fought, as the decks were
piled high with corpses and the tooting became
treacherously slippery. He was aware of a tall
figure near him, hewing at the warriors, the man's
long blade just visible on the far periphery of his
vision, shearing through a plumed head. He swung
again

18 Eric ~ Lustbader

into a mass of avian warriors then he was on his
knees, coughing and shaking his head. Lights
danced in front of his eyes. He tried to focus and
could not. just the hint of a blurred shadow,
blossoming. He tasted blood and gore, still warm
and moving as if alive. He spat, attempting to rise,
slipping in the slick muck on the deck. His vision
cleared. Severed head of a plumed warrior staring
at him accusingly from the deck. Hit me, he
thought dazedly. Who threw it?

  He blinked back the mingled sweat and blood
running down his scalp. Looked up, stared into
the twisted face of the first mate.

  Indeed there was no lower jaw. White scars,
livid and pulsing, were raised from the otherwise
sunburned flesh like the hideous distended veins
of the dead. They ran from the twisted upper lip
across the gouged bridge of the nose onto an
island of scar tissue pooled under the right eye.

  The first mate laughed, a strange susurration,
and slashed out with his boot. The plumed skull
flew into Ronin's chest. And in that motion Ronin
knew, saw the swift flash of white as the light
caught the sheen of the artificial left eye, and
abruptly he was hurtled back in time to twin
feluccas flying across a vast, uncharted sea of ice,
locked together, one now to the howling, chill
wind, as two powerful figures fought, one for
control, the other for freedom, darkness and light,
a vicious battle. Ronin had fought Freidal then,
had felled the Security Saardin of the Freehold
with a brutal blow to his face.

  He had thought Freidal dead, his sadistic
torturings and murders of Ronin's old friends
avenged at last as the two ships parted with only
the Saardin's ever-present scribe left standing,
immobile and mute, aboard the helmless vessel as
he had cut it away.

  Ronin twisted away so that Freidal's next kick
only grazed his ribs instead of breaking them, as
the Saardin had intended.

He regained his feet and lifted his sword.

  "Come to me," hissed Freidal, his misshapen
mouth giving his words a distorted, leaden quality.
"Come and meet your death." He raised his own
blade. But it was he who advanced on Ronin.
Their swords clashed.

  "And where is Borros? He too I must seek out
and destroy "

The blades swung away, sliced through the air.

  "Dead and buried long ago. Free at last of his
terror and beyond your blade."

DAI-SAN 19

Freidal lunged, in and down, and Ronin turned,
parrying.

  "Do you expect me to believe that? Traitor! You
have spat upon the Law of the Freehold and there
is only one penalty for such a transgression."

  "After seeing this world, you still cling to the
Law of the Freehold?"

  Swords flashing, the panting of hot breath,
muscles locked and straining, eyes seeking an
advantage.

  "This world only validates the Law; if you were
not such a fool, you would understand that. All is
chaos here. War, death, and the dying Iying broken
in streets of mud and filth. We of the Freehold are
beyond all that. The Law is our mistress; it is what
sets us apart from this scum. We set the Law
above all else, thus are we to remain men. But this
is something that I do not expect you to
understand. You had already reverted to the
animalisms of the Surface world while in the
Freehold. You were never one of us." He lunged
again. "You flaunted the Law; now you must die."
With a grunt, he swung hard into Ronin's side,
twisting his blade in an attempt to evade Ronin's
block. But Ronin felt the excess pressure and
leaned away from it instead of fighting it and they
were at a deadlock, their faces only centimeters
apart.

  "You thought me dead," whispered Freidal, "but
I survived our last encounter, your traitorous blow.
I clung to life, I would not die, for my mission was
not yet complete. The strength of the righteous
flowed through me and, as the cold days and nights
passed, my scribe opened his veins to me. He knew
his duty. He fed me the warmth and the life from
his own body so that the Law might be served, so
that I might seek you and Borros out, so that
justice might be done."

  Freidal broke away, feinted, then swept in the
opposite direction, saying: "Law must ever be the
victor against chaos!" He cut in under Ronin's
defense and the edge of his blade sliced through
cloth and skin. Then Ronin's blade was up,
breaking the momentum of the blow and he would
not retreat.

  "Agh!" screamed the Saardin. "What sort of man
are you? Coward! Why do you not attack?"

  The whisper in his ear: a soft susurration with a
core of steel. Ronin heard again the Salamander,
his Senseii, talking to him as he took Ronin
through Combat practice on one of the high Levels
of the Freehold: "It is not just the strong arm, my
dear boy, which wins in Combat. Let your eye
judge your opponent. Stand your ground. Do not
attack, yet neither do

20 Eric ~ Lustbader

you retreat. Be the rock upon which your
opponent throws himself, thus will you see his
weaknesses. And then, dear boy, when his
frustration turns inexorably to rage, his reactions
will suffer and, if you are most clever, you will
find the proper path to victory."

  Thus he stood upon the unquiet deck, in the
shadow of the looming obsidian ships their
strange avian sails dominating the sky, and
repulsed all that Freidal threw at him. He parried
the powerful horizontal strokes, he turned aside
the vicious oblique cuts, he blocked the swift
vertical strikes, all the while gauging the feints
and false movements, the careful counterbalancing
of Combat that made it such a complex art, that
lifted its finest executors into a realm far above a
mere warrior's. And in this Ronin recognized the
truth within the distortions the Saardin mouthed:
The Freehold's Combat system had made him a
superior artist in weaponry. Knew too, on an
instinctive level, just how dangerous Freidal was.
His belief in his righteousness, in the iron fastness
of the Law, could not be shaken. He was no
mercenary, proficient but easily dealt with. His
fanaticism was his power, would feed him deep
reserves of strength and will. Thus at last did
Ronin recognise his evil as the Freehold's.

  Freidal feinted another blow, threw his sword
at Ronin instead, and in the same motion,
slammed his balled fists into Ronin's throat. His
knee lifted and smashed into Ronin's stomach.
Ronin fell against the starboard sheer-strake, his
breath gone and his eyes watering. He gagged,
willing his lungs to do their work. Freidal's good
eye gleamed as he swung from the hips, slamming
his fists alongside Ronin's head. He watched the
other sink to his knees.

  Freidal looked down and, grinning wolfishly,
bent and picked up Ronin's fallen sword.
Languidly, almost lovingly, he tested its weight
and judged its balance. Ronin's head came up and
the Saardin swiped at the face with the back of
his hand.

  Now he held Ronin's sword with both hands
and slowly lifted it high above his head. It
gleamed all along its length, a bolt of stiff
lightning that too soon began its blurred descent.

  Ronin tried to focus but all he could see was a
dark shape looming over him, a streak of white
light that hurt his eyes. The world drained of
color: two polymorphous black entities, two shards
of bitter ebon will, linked by a slashing line of
white.

His fingers like lances, stiff as steel inside the
Makkon

DAI-SAN 21

gauntlet, his body already moving without
conscious volition as something bellowed darkly
inside him, echoing on a torrent of wind filled with
animal scents. Bright and unbidden, the Hart,
stately, black, fearsomely atavistic, shook his
antlers within a deep pine glade.

  Something coalesced within him, with the
motion. The rushing of the white blade, his forked
fingers rising upward, Freidal's cruel gloating
hideous face, confident of victory, upward and
downward, the weapons crossed in an "x" pattern,
the Saardin's incipient surprise as the fingers
plunged into his eyes. Black and white; white and
black. Whistle of the impotent sword blade, a
dying insect beside his ear.

  Freidat was screaming, a loathsome, shivering
sound filled with pain and fear. His head drew
back, instinctively seeking release. But the terrible
weapon lanced forward, inexorable as metal, the
alien hide inimical to human flesh. Impaling him.
Then the fingers curled, ripping at the soft viscera,
digging with enormous strength, and with a
herculean jerking motion, they broke through the
cheekbones, stripped the flesh from the Saardin's
face.

  The sounds came again, ceaseless, like waves of
fire, an envelope of agony, a hot tomb closed by
the final smash of the gauntleted fist into the
center of the broken face, shattering the skull.
Teeth sprayed like cracked nuts and the body
collapsed, the stench overpowering as the sphincter
muscle relaxed.

Never had death been so satisfying.

  The din of the battle surrounding him came
back gradually and at length he became aware that
Moichi was calling his name. He turned his head,
saw the navigator beset by plumed warriors who
sought to stop him from severing the snaking lines
from the other obsidian ships. He plucked his
stolen sword from the nerveless fingers of the
bloody Saardin Iying at his feet and turned,
grinning. Slammed his blade through the corselet
of an oncoming warrior with such force that the
armor flew from the creature's body. He swiftly
decapitated it and, swinging his sword in great arcs,
forced his way further aft, toward the navigator.

  Hurting the plumed warriors from him, Ronin at
last made Moichi's side and, together, back to
back, they fought the oncoming tide. Clearing away
the warriors momentarily, they began to work
feverishly on the grappling lines which sang with
tension as the sailors aboard the obsidian vessels
heaved mightily and the black hulls, crystalline,
repulsing the sea water, dancing above the waves,
looming near to starboard.

22 Eric ~ Lustbader

  They hacked at the ropes as Moeru, having
cleared the poop of the enemy, worked her way
down the aft companionway to the main deck,
leading a complement of sailors across the port
sheer-strake and onto the decks of the first
obsidian ship.

  Onward the plumed warriors came and Ronin
left the cutting of the ropes to Moichi while he
turned and met the attack, his sword a bright,
bloody arc, reaping a red, hot harvest of flesh and
bone.

  Abruptly, he felt the trembling of the deck. The
Kiaku heaved in the water. More lines hissed over
the starboard sheer-strake. He looked up as the
deck rolled violently but the sky was filled with
harmless, puffy clouds racing before the unsteady
following wind. Mauve and gold, the world
readied itself for sunset. Yet the ocean below
them swelled and sucked as if a storm were
raging.

  Higher and higher the swells tossed them until,
with a great rending, the lines binding the Kiaku
to the surrounding obsidian ships split and broke
asunder. Like a great wild stallion, the Kiaku
raised her bow high above the troughs of the
waves.

Free.

  Ronin, clinging to the starboard sheer-strake,
risked a glance overboard. All about them the
seas were black and glossy, humped and agitated,
as if in reaction to the ascension of a creature of
incalculable size. The deep was alive with motion
and potency.

  The Kiaku bucked forward on the inexorable
tide of another enormous wave, which, cresting
violently and unpredictably, capsized one of the
obsidian ships. With a great roar, it disappeared
beneath the heavy sea. Onward the Kioku was
hurled by the churning swells and at last Ronin
looked about the ship.

"Moichi!" he called. "Where is Moeru?"

  The battle aboard the Kioku was all but
finished. Still, Moichi fought the last of his foes,
dispatching him with a ferocious thrust. He turned
to Ronin, wiping at his sweating brow. Blood and
gore streaked his arms and his shirt clung wetly to
his caked chest.

  "The last I saw of her, Captain, she was leading
a detachment of men onto an enemy vessel."

  Ronin raced along the deck, leaping the
mounds of the corpses and the wounded, calling
to her in his mind, thrusting aside clumps of still
fighting sailors and plumed warriors, heedless of
friend or foe. Until, at length, he was certain that

DAI-SAN 23

she was not on board, not even among the piles of
the dead or the coughing, spitting maimed. The
silence in his mind echoed like a tomb.

He ran back to Moichi, who was calling to the
men.

  "We must turn the Kiaku around," he cried. "She
is still on one of the enemy ships."

Moichi turned to him, his hazel eyes grave and
watchful.

  "Whatever unnatural thing parted us from the
obsidian ships saved our lives, Captain." He turned
his gaze out across the starboard sheer-strake,
across the high black water. "Look there, Captain.
D'you see? We cannot return." The tetrahedral
sails with their fiercely grinning avian insignia were
fast dwindling aft. "Neither tide nor winds govern
the Kioku now. A force from the deep hurls us
onward and for the moment you must face the fact
that, for as long as it may last, you are not captain
and neither am I navigator."

"Moichi "

  "My friend" a large hand gripped his shoulder;
the hazel eyes noted the pain in his face "use
your eyes. Think with your head, not your heart.
We are powerless."

  Alive or dead, drowned beneath the tidal wave,
captured by the plumed warriors, he had no way of
knowing. Moichi's raised voice came to him:
"Overboard, lads! Cast them all into the sea! Clear
the decks of this mess!"

  Ronin wiped down his bloody sword on a corpse
and sheathed it. He went carefully across the
humped deck, mounted the high poop. His hands
gripped the stern sheerstrake, his arms as rigid as
stone, watching the black sea foaming and
geysering, laced with luminescence, the flora of the
deep. He heard the heavy splashes behind him as
the Kiaku's load was lightened, as the dead meat
swirled and sank beneath the dark creaming waves.

  They were far away now, those forbidding
obsidian vessels, foundering above the unnatural
seas, and all at once it seemed to him that the
setting sun dimmed, though no cloud passed before
its orange face and, straining his ears, he thought
that he could hear a peculiar high keening,
inconstant and thin, away and away and what is she
to me anyway ?

"Captain."

  Moichi called to him and he turned and went
down the companionway to help tend to the
remaining men.

  Some of you are avenged now. Freidal's death
will not bring you back, Stahlig; it will not shorten
your journey,

24 Eric ~ Leader

Borros. But he turned from the silver and
blue-green face of the sea to watch Moichi's
hawklike features, feeling again the pressure of
the wide hand upon him, the warmth it conveyed
 I must not decieve myself, whether or not the
dead are past knowing, this revenge was for me.
The big man moved away for a moment. Yet
somewhere I suppose that I believe that they are
not yet past caring. Farewell now, my friends.

  Still for him, he knew that revenge was far from
over. The hate which continued to burn within
him like a raging fire would never be slaked until
he faced the Salamander once more. For the pale
perfect face of his sister K'reen, dead by his own
unknowing hand, still haunted him and only his
former mentor's blood would ease the torment he
felt at the fiendish trap the shrewd hunter had set
for him. Scarred but undefeated, having pried
apart the serrated jaws of that trap, he now
wished to stalk his hunter so that, one way or
another, the last account should be settled.

  The decks had already been cleared of the bulk
of the carnage. Over half the ship's crew had died
in the battle but, Moichi told him matter of factly,
nearly one and half again the number of corpses
of the plumed warriors had been cast into the sea.
Now sailors were casting down wooden buckets
into the cool green depths, hauling up sea water,
spilling it along the wide decks until the scuppers
ceased to shed the blood of man or beast.

  The residue of the great black tide pushed them
onward, almost due south, and was soon joined by
a stiff following wind out of the eastern quarter.
At first, they had tried to tack away from it but
even furling the "'gallants had not slowed their
flight and, in the end, Moichi had shrugged and
said to Ronin: "We must be patient and ride it
out. We cannot fight the elements." And Ronin,
who had learned long ago to bend before forces
which he could not control or understand, reluc-
tantly agreed.

  For a time he had stood quite still, with the salt
wind whipping his stained sea cloak about his
body, calling silently to her. Then he had cleared
his mind of all thoughts, a waiting receptacle for
communication.

Silence. Deep and unremitting.

  For much of his life, death had settled all about
him, enwrapping those closest to him, rending
them from him. Yet he now found it difficult to
reconcile himself to Moeru's passing. Her scent,
her voice in his mind like a taste, refused to fade
or blur. But survival, he knew, was impossible
amidst the

DAI-SAN 25

warriors of the obsidian ships, for they had shown
no interest in the capture of Ronin and the crew of
the Kiaku. Death was their only objective.

At last he turned from the taffrail.

Better by far for the black, turbulent sea to have
taken her.

  The days and nights passed swiftly or slowly,
depending on his mood. He spurned his cabin,
pacing the decks in the warm starlight while the
men lay awake in the stinking fo'c'sle, listening to
the heavy tramp of his boots over the planking.

  Some days he slept in the lee of the mizzenmast
while the shadows and sunlight wheeled slowly
about him. On others, he was up and about,
carefully sharpening the double edges of his blade
or climbing the shrouds, staring at the unbroken
horizon for hours. He drank little, ate even less,
and would not listen to Moichi, who did his best to
engage him in conversation.

  Gradually, the seas became greener, luminescing
just after sunset. The sun grew stronger during the
days so that the nights became warmer and almost
as humid as the daylight hours.

  They began to see flying fish, silvery and
acrobatic, swooping alongside the ship's bow,
pacing her course for entire mornings or
afternoons on end only to disappear for long
periods before resurfacing; or perhaps they were
different schools each time. It was a good sign,
Moichi said. Ronin ignored him, sunk deep within
his black arcane thoughts.

  Seven days after first sighting the flying fish they
spied a column of water off the starboard side
perhaps half a league ahead. A great black shape
lifted itself with both a heaviness and a certain
grace from beneath the waves like a shivering,
glittering bridge. Enormous blue-black flukes
waved in the air for long moments while time and
gravity seemed suspended. Then the sea crashed
over the last of the shape and it was gone in a
bouquet of silvery spray.

  Later that day, they sighted a bird, the first one
they had spied since the morning they had sailed
from the port of Khiyan, on the western shore of
the continent of man, more than ninety days ago.
It was a gull, quite large, its wings purple-grey and
white. It circled twice about the mainmast
ttgallants, wheeled and flew off into the east.

Moichi called to the helmsman to set course after
it.

  They came up on it during a night that was
dense and black with racing clouds, obscuring all
traces of the horned moon

26 Eric V. Lustbader

which had hung before them, the centerpiece in
an immense, spangled sky. He was aware of it
only because of Moichi's keen nose, the lookouts
were blind.

  Sometime later, those few still on deck could
just make out the aching cries of the gulls as they
wheeled over invisible cliffs.

Land!

  Ronin stood beside Moichi in the closeness of
the darkness and the heat.

  "Is it Ama-no-mori?" The first words he had
uttered in days.

  "We have sailed in the right general direction,
Captain. I have tried to correct as best I know
how but " He shrugged into the night.

"Then the chances are that it is not."

  "What we have before us, Captain, is an
uncharted island. Ama-no-mori is an uncharted
island."

"That is hardly sound logic."

Again the massive shoulder lifted, fell.

"Unfortunately, my friend, that is all that is left
us."

He gave the order to heave to.

  At first light, with pink staining the flat sea
behind them and all the topsails furled, they sailed
in.

  It was a humpbacked slice of land, shimmering
emerald green, seemingly all jungle, dense and
entangled. Great blue rocks jutted in a naked
headland just to port over which spray of gulls
wheeled and cried. Directly ahead, a wide beach
swept away to starboard.

  Ronin gazed in fascination. Could this crescent
of verdant land rising from the ocean's depths be
Ama-no-mori, home of the fabled Bujun? Could
this be the journey's end at last?

  The shore loomed up at them and Moichi
called for the ship to lie to. Men raced through
the shrouds. He ordered the first sounding.

  The sea was mottled: now gray-green, now
blue-white, and perhaps this is why the lookouts
failed to give the alarm. In any event, the ship
would not heave to; perhaps she was caught on a
tide. They heard the crashing of the breakers
abruptly close and Moichi yelled to the helmsman:
"Hard apart!" It made no difference. The
helmsman dragged at the wheel but the Kioku,
following some more powerful tenant, leapt
straight ahead. Ronin saw Moichi running toward
the helmsman to help him but it was far too late.

DAI-SAN 27

  A moment later, the Kietu careered madly onto
the jagged, saw-toothed spine of the coral reef
Iying barely a fathom beneath the creaming waves.
It reared up like an animal in pain as the living
mass ripped away its keel and rent its hull. The
vessel shivered and splintered with such
suddenness and force that men scrambling to get
out of the way were impaled by flying shards of
wood and metal.

  In the ensuing explosion, the restless sea
engulfed them all. Men were flung headlong onto
the cracked spine of the reef, their bodies ripped
to shreds by the impact with the natural bulwark.

  Ronin sank into the sea but as he did so he
relaxed his body, willing himself limp despite the
screaming in his brain. All about him were flailing
lumps, dark and jagged, haloed by churning
bubbles, but he forced his eyes to remain open,
alert for debris which might pin him to the sea
bottom by its weight, searching for the first sign of
the spiked coral which would flay him alive.

  His lungs full of air, he dived deep, kicking with
the powerful muscles of his legs, and he sank down
below the awful turmoil.

  An infinity of blue, dappled and darting, all
perspective gone. It became calm and he devoted
himself to concentrating on the feel of the tidal
flow against his body. Somewhere there must be a
gap in the barrier; this tide could take him there.
He knew he could not fight the sea. He swam with
it.

  Bubbles streamed from his sleek body. Already
his lungs were beginning to ache and he yearned to
cast his heavy sword from him. The blue became
dense as luminosity drifted away on another tide,
and shadows, magnified to titanic proportions by
the lens of the water, played over his moving form.
Abruptly, the dark red of the coral reef loomed at
him, balking his way. And still he swam with the
tide, feeling its febrile pull sucking at him. His
lungs were on fire and he felt his throat constrict;
he forced down an urge to open his mouth, suck in
on air that was not there. Still But now he felt
the tide quicken about him, eddying, and then it
squirted him forward. In absolute darkness all the
air was gone. He groaned inwardly and his eyes
bulged. Faster and faster. His lips pulled back from
his clenched teeth.

  Shimmering green bloomed before him, so far
away above him. It blurred, pulsing on the tide,
and with his last ounce of energy, he struck out
with his arms, kicking his legs upward,

28 Eric U Lustbader

upward, until he climbed, bursting, into sunlight
and the sweet air.

  He gasped. A rumbling in his ears. He
swallowed. A wave washed over him and he
choked.

Tumbling.

  Shooting his body upward again, the oxygen
beginning to circulate in his system. He broke the
skin of the sea, heard the thunder, felt the
shudder of the breakers. He buoyed himself up
and, waiting, launched himself on the rolling crest
of a wave, riding it, allowing it to carry the weight
of his body, making it do his work.

  And the breakers rolled endlessly in, sounding
like the birth of the world: a wild, frenetic
explosion of energy that tumbled and twisted him,
sucked at him.

  And borne on this gravid, ageless salt tide, with
the red sun rising at his back, exhausted and
gaunt, he was thrown up onto the pink sand of
this foreign beach, a pliant and unconscious bit of
flotsam given grudgingly by the cool sea onto the
curving, heated shore.

           Heart of Stone

ALL the warm morning he lay as if dead, while
the last edge of the tide washed him in its creamy
surf. Seaweed, stranded, strung across his broad
back, wreathing him in deep green, half-covering
the long scars of another battle.

  Within the wet world of the crashing sea, the
fat buzz of flies, the quizzical call of swooping
gulls and cormorants.

  Then the slosh of boots in the wet sand,
slashing obliquely through the surf, their cruel
progress disturbing the natural symmetry of the
scene. A shadow fell across his still form. The
large figure loomed over him. It was quite still for
a moment. Then it bent and a hand plucked the
drying seaweed from his back.

  They sat cross-legged on the expanse of pink
sand, drying out above the straggling black
flotsam ribbon marking the high tide line. A soft
breeze brought them the stench of rotting fish
and they saw, off to their left, along the sweep of
the beach, the blue-green pulsing of a swarm of
flies, iridescent, seemingly armor-plated, flashing
in the sunlight, rising and settling on the remains
of a small fish, swept up by the tide. Their
rhythmic movement seemed to set the thing back
to grisly life.

  Closer at hand, horseshoe crabs, their black
carapaces shining, trundled noiselessly along the
sand at the waterline, their stiff tails writing the
toil of their lentitudinous passage.

  "I was lucky," Moichi was saying. "The poop
acted something like a catapult. I was thrown over
the reef into the relatively clear water of the
lagoon out there." He looked toward the hidden
reef. "That cursed coral! How I wish you had
grown taller."

"And the others?" asked Ronin.

                 29
                  
30 Eric ~ I'ustbader

  "Captain," he said, letting the hot sand drift
through his fingers, "there are no others."

  The verge came up on them suddenly, a rich,
verdant carpet, moist, humid, smelling of loam
and minerals and natural decay, a sharp contrast
to the salt aridity of the sweeping crescent of pink
sand behind them, baking in the afternoon heat.

  He stepped into the jungle and was
immediately engulfed by the steamy cool world, so
different from anything else he had encountered
before. Engulfed in the jade cathedral, a vast
tapestry of leaves, vines, branches. Thick grey
boles gave way to shooting slender trunks, deep
brown trees, thick and gnarled, covered in carpets
of moss. Green sunlight, dusty, barred, oblique
light, crept cautiously floorward without any
success. Shadows flitted high above; flash of colon

  Moichi had brought several oval fruit with them
from the last rise of the beach. Large and green
and glossy, their fibrous husks fell away at the
touch of his dirk's blade. Inside, they found a
round, hairy sphere, brown with three spots on
one end. Moichi handed him one, showed him
how to puncture two of the spots. The milk was
thin and sweet and when he cracked the shell, he
found that the white firm flesh was sweetly
delicious.

  They moved due west, straight into the humped
interior of the island. Through the massed
underbrush of ferns, wild tangled flowers, giant
and filled with enormous insects, brief
outcroppings of rock wholly covered by grey
fungus and green moss, patches of great, brown-
and dark red-spotted mushrooms as yellow as
butter crowding around the twisted, ancient roots
of immensely tall, primordial trees. And as they
made their circuitous way into the interior of the
jungle, it seemed to Ronin that these leafy giants
must have been born during the world's first
cataclysmic upheavals, as the steaming land broke
the writhing skin of the sluicing seas, the boiling
tides slowly withdrawing their relentless dominion
over all the planet; that they had, in their long,
gleaming adolescence, been mute witness to the
birth of the slender, glittering creatures slithering
up from the deep to explore the new world of air
and dry land.

  Brush strokes of scarlet and saffron, emerald
and sapphire, turquoise and coral floated and shot
through the multiterraced world high above their
heads, the calls and the flutterings of the
luxuriantly plumed birds a constant background to
their slow progress.

DAI-SAN 31

  Often they heard the deep growl or snuffling
grunt of some large predatory animal but they
sighted nothing through the thick veils of foliage.
Game, such as grouse and quail, pheasant and
rabbit, was plentiful; food was obviously no
problem.

  Time slipped away from them, down a receding
tunnel, a distant, unnatural concept, the immense
clutter and space of the jade jungle gripping them
with an almost surreal presence, seeping into their
minds as well as their bodies until all other
typography they had once known became an
improbable fevered fantasy.

  Where the ground was soft and marshy, they
were careful to pull off the brown and black
leeches, wedge-shaped and hideous, which clung
tenaciously to their exposed flesh.

  Where the jungle's floor rose along a series of
winding ridges, the trees seemed somewhat sparser
but jagged bits of volcanic rock studded the earth.

  When they tired, they paused beneath the spread
of a towering tree, plucking fruit from its lower
branches, sitting with their backs against the
smooth bole, watching large white termites burrow
and crawl. Then they would stand and again be
dwarfed into insignificance by the illimitable
whirring jungle.

  At night, with squealing bats swooping, tracing
a brown lattice-work across the open spaces aloft,
they built small, compact fires, roasting fresh meat,
caught and skinned at the abrupt onset of a brief
twilight.

  However such was the impenetrability of the
jungle that almost all gradations beyond day and
night vanished. The hours were lost to them, for
they could see neither the sun nor the moon
through the high vault of the treetops. They
learned to judge the march of the day by the
species of animals which hunted and fled around
them, for each had its own time govemed by an
internal clock that wound down only in death.

  "The first mate was known to you, Captain," said
Moichi across a crackling fire one evening.

  "Yes. An old enemy," said Ronin. "He destroyed
many of my friends back home." Looking up, he
saw the inconstant firelight illumine the red
pinpoints of the bats' eyes, their leathery wings
unfurled like the sailors of the dawned.

  "You are from the north, eh, Captain?" Moichi
threw a small bone into the chittering blackness
crawling beyond the glow of their fire. "A most
persistent fellow." He shook his head.

  "You were right." He smiled wryly, briefly. "He
did spend too much time before the mast."

32 Eric V. Lustbader

  "Ah, we all have our evil secrets, my friend."
Moichi broke the skin of a purple fruit. Juice ran
down into his thick beard. Then: "How you hate
home."

Ronin sat with his hands over his drawn-up knees.

  "Home is an evil place for me, Moichi." He
wiped the grease from his lips. "But that is all
over now."

  The navigator's eyes were a deep moss green as
he watched Ronin from across the fire.

  "My experience has been that it is never truly
over. Home has a peculiar hold on us all."

"Only on those weak enough to want to return, I
think."

Moichi shrugged.

  "Perhaps." He twirled the fruit stem between
two fingers as he scraped along his teeth with his
fingernail. "But it is also true that potent forces
are set in motion at the precise moment of our
births, because of our births. But these forces are
not so well defined as to affect only us; they touch
those who are around us also." He spat out a
piece of skin. "I do not mean just physically close."

  Ronin's eyes were half-closed and Moichi was
not even certain that he had been listening at the
end. There was no more movement at fireside.

  Aloft, the humid night shuddered with the flight
of numberless wings.

  Late the next day, as they climbed over a series
of stiff, grey roots, spiralled and fibrous, which
arched from the rich, loamy floor of the jungle
like a line of miniature bridges, Moichi stopped in
his tracks. Perfectly still, he said nothing and
Ronin was on the point of asking him why he had
paused when he saw the movement, sinuous and
glittery, at the big man's feet. Rising, curling
about his ankles, slithering above the tops of his
muddy boots, was a serpent, glossy, diamonds of
green and ocher along its length, its flat blunt
head questing.

  They stood, transformed into two more trees in
the jungle. The serpent wound its way upward,
silent and deadly, across Moichi's buttocks, along
the ridged muscles of his back, until it wound
itself along his left arm. Its forked tongue
flickered in and out, searching, its eyes two sharp
points of obsidian.

  In a blur, Moichi's right hand leapt for its head,
his thumb and forefinger digging into each side of
its jaw, jamming the hinge. The mouth gaped
open, long fangs, needle-sharp and hollow with
venom, glistened. The body writhed, winding

DAI-SAN 33

and unwinding. Moichi broke its jaw, then for the
first time, he spoke:

"Get me a broad green leaf, will you, Captain."

  Moichi knelt and placed the broken head upon
the carpet of the leaf Ronin had found for him.
Carefully he withdrew one copper-handled dirk and
slit the top of the creature's head from snout to the
beginning of its still twitching body. He pressed
down on the exposed flesh, using the tips of two
fingers. Through the hollow fangs oozed the
venom, dark red and thin, until it had all pooled
onto the leaf.

  Moichi threw the serpent from him and, cutting
green moss from the bole of an adjacent tree, let
the venom be absorbed by the substance. He
wrapped the wet moss in the leaf and stood.

  "There, my friend. The world is not very often
either black or white but only shades of gray." He
put the packet into his sash, then replaced his
drink. "You see, from the most deadly creature
comes a liquid which would kill us if the serpent
had bitten us. Yet now, drying within the organic
matter, it becomes an antidote to the other poisons
of this place."

  "How come you to know of this creature?" said
Ronin as they continued through the jungle.

  "You are from the north, Captain, where the
serpent cannot live. But I am from the south.
Farther still than this island." They cut through a
dense thicket of ferns. "It is a land, I am told, that
was once part of the continent of man, many cen-
turies ago, but as the crust of the planet resettled,
it broke away."

  "How came you then to the continent of man?"
asked Ronin. "Are your people seamen?"

  "The Iskamen?" Moichi smiled. "Ah no, Captain.
We are tillers of the soil by tradition. But we are
fishermen, also, and are greatly skilled at sailing
close to shore." He bent to avoid a broken branch,
thick and gnarled, teeming with red and black
insects. "Too, my people are warriors, a vocation
forced upon them by circumstance. We are fierce
desert fighters grown used to hardship and denial;
a proud desolate race rich in ancient tradition.
Ours, Captain, is a history of slavery and eventual
self-knowledge."

"Your land is distant from the continent of man?"

  "From Khiyan? Yes, very. It is easier to sail from
the eastern shore of the continent. In fact there is
a trade route from Sha'angh'sei. Do you know the
city?"

Ronin smiled.

34 Eric ~ I'us1;bader

"Yes. I have spent some little time there."

  "I know it!" Moichi laughed. "By the Oruborus,
we shall meet there one day in different times,
and shake each other's hands and walk along the
streets of that great enigmatic city, yes, Captain?
For having lived there, you must know that it is a
place unrivaled in all the known world for
adventure and intrigue."

  "I would look forward to such a time," Ronin
said. "But tell me now of your land."

  "In Iskael I have a brother," Moichi began,
chewing on a mint leaf which he had just plucked.
"We were born just moments apart yet we
resemble each other so little that my father
wondered if we were brothers at all."

"Surely you are exaggerating."

  Moichi shook his head; the diamond in his
nostril sparked momentarily. "My father was an
intently devout man and his belief in the God of
our fathers was unshakable; His strength, the
cornerstone of his life. He suspected, I think, that
God had planted one of us in my mother's
womb."

"Toward what end?"

Moichi's great shoulders lifted, fell.

  "Who can say? My father was an unfathomable
man. Perhaps he longed to see the long-awaited
prophet of my people appear within his own
family." He spit out the dark residue of the
chewed leaf, put another in his mouth. "My father
was quite wealthy in his own way and when we
were born he held dominion over a sizable piece
of land." Screeching, a flurry of red and gold shot
by above their heads. "But do not anticipate me,
Captain, for this is no tale of the king's two heirs,
one good and the other evil. I never wished for
my father's land, just as I never craved to be a
warrior. I wished only to travel, to find out what
lay over the vast sea, to climb aboard the great
ships with their white sails and carved
figureheads, which appeared all at once over the
flat horizon, bearing men from another world.

  "But I was the elder son and my responsibility
was great. Our land was immense and required
much attention; my tutor rode with me wherever
I went to manage my family's affairs. But ever I
would reach a crest, I would turn my gaze to the
shimmering sea, Iying like spun silver in the sun,
and wonder, as I wiped the sweat from my eyes,
when I would ride those moving crests."

  Adrift in a sea of jade, Ronin listened to
Moichi's vibrant voice as he watched the slow
parade of the mammoth trees,

DAI-SAN 35

smelled the humid, fecund air. He bent and picked
up a giant horned beetle, its blue-black carapace
shining in the diffuse light like burnished metal. He
carried it with him for a while before finally setting
it down atop a low shelf of rock slanting out of the
jungle's floor.

  "One day I came across my brother fighting with
the son of a neighboring farmer -a lord, you
might say, though we have no word for that in our
language save God. Now my brother was no
coward but in that time neither was he a warrior
though big and strong. His fists were like clubs and
he was quick. Thus the table was turned on this
boy who had sought a quick battle. Blood streamed
from his nose as my brother hit him. He called for
mercy and when my brother stopped, the boy
pulled a hidden knife. My brother, being unfamiliar
with weapons, would surely have died with the first
thrust had I not intervened. I knocked my brother
aside and grappled with the boy, who was strong
and clever. We struggled. The boy died impaled
upon his own blade."

  Beyond, in the depths of the jade ocean, the
buzz of fat flies was joined by the chirruping of
cicadas, a foreshadow of the quick slash of dusk.

  "My brother wished to stay. I did not. There was
nought else to do, in any event. My father took me
to the port city of Alara'at and with a bar of silver
paid for my passage on the first ship sailing for the
continent of man."

"How could your Other let you "

  "Our laws are quite precise, Captain, and never
more so than when it comes to murder. That
farmer owned quite a piece of land "

"But surely there was another way. Your
brother "

  "Was leagues away, as far as anyone else knew.
My father would not risk the both of us being
involved. As I have told you, he was a pious man
and our God is an unforgiving one. It was I who
struggled with the boy when he died and in truth
I cannot tell you whether it was my hand or his
that guided the dagger's blade. But to my father it
did not matter; my intervention caused the boy's
death and it was my responsibility to take the
consequences."

  The calling of the birds, echoing softly through
the high emerald gallery, haunted them as they
moved, giving Moichi's tale a spectral background.

"And your brother '!"

They ignored the dry hiss of a giant constrictor
sliding

36 Eric 11. Lustbader

along a vine linking two branches to their right.
Soon it was behind them.

  "My brother," said Moichi without inflection,
"never said a word."

  Night came with a rush of soft mauve and
before the deep green had completely
metamorphosed into black, they had built a
sputtering fire and were roasting a brace of
rabbits they had caught during the day.

  Already the nocturnal birds could be heard
over the soft crackling, the hissing of dripping fat,
their cries deeper and less shrill than their diurnal
counterparts; hoarse whispers rather than shouts.
The buzz of insects had died to a high whine,
laced with the song of the cicadas, the silences in
between, creating white noise on eardrums
already used to the soundwash of the jungle.

  In the distance, the whooshing of leaves and an
occasional yelp followed by a guttural growl
bespoke the padding of stealthy predators. An owl
hooted close by and in the reflected light of the
fire, Ronin saw its wide head swivel, its great
round eyes blinking slowly as it peered sagely
down on them from its perch among the lower
branches of the tree beside which they had built
the fire.

  They awoke at firstlight, adrift again within a
jade jewel. It had begun to rain, as it did at least
once every day, a fine oblique downpour that
nevertheless seemed more like a heavy mist by the
time it had filtered down to their level close to
the jungle's floor.

  Moichi scattered the white ashes of the cold
fire among which one ember, uncovered, still
glowed dismally. It hissed briefly, then died.

  They began, almost immediately, to climb, the
way suddenly more broken, strewn with thick
rivulets of igneous rock, shiny and bright with
embedded minerals. The ferns grew higher here,
great rustling fans bending under the weight of
the moisture and the darting insects.

  The immense trees were draped with looping
vines wherever they looked now and from these
natural connectors swung brown monkeys with
long tails and bright curious eyes. They chittered
excitedly at first sight of the intruders and the pair
could hear the echoes preceding their progress.
But gradually, the creatures' indignation appeared
to fade. Yet they continued to chatter among
themselves, calling to each other, following the
path of the two men.

DAI-SAN 87

  Just past noon, they crested the hill whose slopes
they had been climbing since early morning and by
midafternoon they were aware that the character
of the jungle had changed for good.

  The air was denser although the light seemed to
be stronger, less watery, and abruptly, they knew
that the susurrus with which they had lived for so
long, had altered subtlety.

  They plunged onward and, quite without further
warning, found themselves on the high bank of a
wide, muddy river, its waters blue-green, streaked
with gray.

  There came a heavy splash off to their left and
they saw a long scaly form heave itself into the
water until only its slightly popped eyes protruded
above the surface. But the creature's image stayed
in Ronin's brain. He wondered why until, later, he
saw one at closer range and recognised the ancient
crocodile which Bonneduce the Last had described
to him in explaining the origins of both Hynd and
the little man's Bones.

  Out into the heavy sea of moist air, down the
slope to the shore, ribbons of earth, rich and black,
trickled after them. The atmosphere was alive with
the scent of life and decay.

  The rain had ceased, at least for the moment.
Above them, the sky was white and the sun,
bloated and diffused by the haze, nevertheless
blazed down upon them. The heat was appalling
after so many days in the shadows of the jungle.
The river dazzled in the sunlight and they shaded
their eyes, halfclosing them until they became
accustomed to the high-intensity glare.

  They squatted at the bank and drank cautiously,
lifting their heads immediately as sudden ripples
became a splashing near the center of the river A
great snout reared up, purple-grey, streamered
with green and brown weed. The mouth gaped
wide, revealing enormous blunt teeth and a
mud-streaked pink interior. There came a snorting,
as of air being blown through a huge bellows.
Black eyes regarded them placidly and, with a roll,
the head disappeared beneath the lapping
waveless.

"There is obviously no point in swimming it," said
Ronin.

  "No, but ford it we must." The big man turned,
his cinnamon skin like burnished brass in the heat
and light. "There are many slender trees on this
bank, at the lip of the jungle. Have you ever built
a raft?"

  They spent the better part of that day cutting
down the smaller trees above the embankment. In
between, they collected lengths of the weeping
vines which, as Moichi had

38 Eric ~ I'ustbader

predicted, were stronger than they looked. Every
so often, Ronin found himself searching the
terraced trees at the verge of the jungle for
movement but no monkeys showed themselves.
Perhaps they had a healthy fear of the river
creatures or, more likely, did not care for the
noise and destruction the two men were making.

 - When they judged they had enough trunks,
they hacked off the tops to standardise the lengths
roughly. Then they set about tying them together
with the vines.

  Evening fell with a tired sigh and still they
worked on so that they would be ready to set out
at dawn. The far shore, high, rocky, and bankless,
held at its summit a continuation of the jungle.
After almost an entire day in the full heat of the
naked sun, Ronin found that he was grateful to be
returning to the steamy protection of the
vegetation.

  The raft was completed before darkness fell
and, after one last inspection for loose knots, they
left it on the bank and climbed back into the
jungle's chittering cover to build a fire for the
night. They feasted on fish and baked tubers.

  Before giving themselves to sleep, they hacked
down two slender branches of resilient wood and
fire-hardened their ends. "Poles against the
current," Moichi said.

  At dawn, they quit the bank and launched the
raft, leaning on their poles, breaking from the
shore, out onto the swirling current, the muddy
water washing over the wood.

  Insects buzzed, droning in the heated air. Water
spiders skated across the surface of the river,
black molecular dancers.

  Two slothful crocodiles awoke and left the
baking bank, squirming clumsily until they were
far enough into the water to glide in silent concert
toward the disturbance caused by the raft.

  Their heads went under and Ronin called softly
to Moichi, who moved from the port side, directly
aft. Ronin lifted his pole out of the water,
dropping it onto the raft.

He drew his blade.

  With a powerful rush, the long scaled snout
lifted from the depths, hinging open. The rows of
razor teeth were awesome at close range.

  "You'll have to stop their lunge," cautioned
Moichi, "else their weight will capsize us."

  The great jaws snapped shut centimeters from
the edge of the raft, then the beast disappeared
and for moments the water appeared still. Moichi
continued to pole them across.

Then the snout broke the skin of the river,
already gaping

DAI-SAN 89

wide, the short but powerful legs propelling it
upward.

  Ronin yelled and planting his feet wide apart
upon the rocking, unsteady surface, slashed an
oblique stroke beginning up over his right
shoulder. The edge of the sword bit into the
oncoming head just behind the left eye, shearing
through scales and flesh and bone in a
yellow-white spray. The great body, balked in its
upward rush, shuddered in the air, then falling,
crashed heavily into the river. As it sank, the blood
pumping out, a great boiling began just under the
surface of the water as if the current were alive
with a thousand darting predators. The river
foamed.

  On the slick deck of the raft, the long severed
head grinned in ivory disarray.

  They had saved a vine for the far shore. Making
for an overhanging tree, Ronin steadied the raft
while Moichi whipped the vine into the tangled
foliage.

  Ronin refused to relinquish his prize even on
the laborious climb up the abrupt, rocky face of
the far shore to the verge of the jungle high above
them.

  Once again enclosed within the jade shadows he
bade Moichi sit while he pried at the jaws. Then,
using the point of his dirk, he carefully set about
extracting the crocodile's teeth.

  It was quieter here and at once they missed the
friendly chattering of the monkeys and the shrill
cries of the bright plumed birds. They heard the
monotonous drone of the insects and, occasionally,
the flap of great wings swooping over their heads,
yet these sounds served only to heighten the
metamorphosed character of the jungle. They felt
alone again, somehow abandoned, as if they had
come to the last outpost of man and now, having
pased through a forbidding barrier, stood on the
brink of another world.

  At length Ronin had collected all the teeth and,
leaving the plundered skull behind, they plunged
again due west, ever deeper into the island's
hidden interior.

  For a time it rained, the jungle whooshing
around them with the weight of the pattering
drops. Then, briefly, jade light spilled over them in
complex patterns, warm and humid as honey, the
temperature rising as the sun beat down out of the
white crucible of the hidden sky.

  It was raining again when Ronin heard Moichi's
grunt and then his whispered: "Over here."

  Just ahead of them, on a slight tangent from
their intended path, was a carved stone obelisk.

40 Eric V. Lustbader

  It rose, chrysolitic, from the forest floor to just
over the height of a man. It was somewhat
tapered and all over its four sides were carved
strange pictoglyphs, outlines of men in plumed
Readdresses, standing or sitting in profile.
Invariably their features included a protruding
forehead and a long curved nose. The obelisk was
crowned by a careful carving, repeated on each of
the monument's four sides, of a grinning skull.

By late afternoon they were certain.

  They were by no means expert woodsmen but
they had spent many days now encased within the
jade sea and they were both warriors, trained in,
among other arts, the keenness of perceptions.

  They had seen no other object that seemed
made by the hand of man. But as the day crept
along on silent swaying feet they were at length
quite certain that they were not alone traveling
through the jungle. They caught no glimpse of
whoever watched them, yet they were never
without the feeling that the dense foliage hid
some beings that paralleled their path.

  Still they moved ceaselessly onward, through an
endless emerald dream, hot and sticky, the steamy
heat palpable, almost gluey now.

  At night there was little relief from the heat
and they slept fitfully, dozing for short periods
sitting cross-legged before the fire, coming awake
with a start and a swift pulse of the heart at the
sound of stealthy padding beyond the perimeter of
flickering lemon light.

  Once or twice Ronin fired a handful of a reed
which they had found would bum brightly despite
the excessive humidity and went out perhaps a
hundred meters from their camp. For a time he
saw nothing, then, as he fumed back to Moichi,
his peripheral vision caught a quick spark of
reflected light from his torch and, swinging back
around, he thought he saw the pulse of red eyes,
burning like heated embers in the night. But these
glimpses were so brief that he could not be certain
whether these lights were organic or inorganic in
origin.

  On a day when it rained steadily, fuming the
world about them a dismal pale gray-green, the
pair climbed a heavily overgrown escarpment, an
"s" shaped double-crescent and, just beyond it,
found four stone stelae perhaps three times the
size of the obelisk. These also were carved along
all four of their faces from top to bottom. The
pictoglyphs were similar to the obelisk's.

DAI-SAN 41

  The grouping, had it a horizontal section across
the top, would have constituted a gate.

  They passed between the stelae while the jungle
wept sorrowfully.

  They could hear nothing now save the hiss and
drip of the rain, which swept through the jungle in
waves, for once unintimidated by the terraces of
leaves and vines, raking the spongy floor. Visibility
was extremely poor and they were forced to move
forward cautiously.

  Half a kilometer past the stelae the jungle
ceased, its death so abrupt that they found
themselves on the brink of cleared land before they
had realized what had happened.

  They stood very still and stared at the incredible
expanse which swept majestically away before
them.

  The rain had all but stopped and, from above
them, the sun shone, against the background of
dark gMy thunderheads, into the illimitable valley,
casting into brilliant white complex stone buildings
of immense size, a towering, pyramidal city linked
by uncurving stone causeways edged by low stone
causeways edged by low stone monuments.

  The buildings were ornate, terrifyingly alien and
hypnotically familiar at the same time, and none
more so than that structure which dominated the
entire valley city.

  It was an enormous stepped pyramid in the
stone city's center. It towered over all the other
buildings, bizarre and compelling. It was
four-sided, perhaps typical of this culture, with
central stairs running up each face, set within the
cyclopean steps. At its flat summit was a stone
slab, an oval striated green and black. It looked
like an altar.

"Ama-no-mori?" whispered Moichi.

  An oval, thought Ronin, suddenly dizzy, on the
verge now, parting from the leafy shadows of the
jade sea, an enfolding talisman against the terrible
stone city crouched watchfully.

Waiting.

"It appears deserted."

"Yet, a feeling "

"I know."

"Where are the inhabitants?"

  Everywhere he looked the great stone stelae and
buildings were richly carved with strange scenes
filled with myriad figures. Were these men or
gods? Or perhaps both, mingled on the grounds of
this site, for surely they saw depicted the aban-
doned, the defeated, the humbled, the sacrificed
overshad

42 Eric ~ Lus1;bader

owed by the fierce, the victorious, the revenged,
ensplendored and revered in stone three times the
size of man.

  At the commencement of the central stone
causeway, wide and perfectly flat, they passed
between twin stone cats, giant jaws agape,
stretched forepaws many meters in length, rip-
pling shoulder muscles deeply etched, the mighty
relief of the massive chests sweeping in sinuous
curves up and away to the lifted rumps and
quiescent tails.

  Just beyond these mammoth stone guardians,
two more stelae rose on either side of the
causeway, immense, covered in such high relief
and complex glyphs that it was impossible to
count the number of their sides.

  Passing between these they saw a great stepped
plaza rising on their left. Pools on the stone steps,
remnants of the day's heavy rain, glistened in the
lowering sun. Here and there, as they moved,
their angle of vision changing, these shallow pools
broke into arcing pastel rainbows.

  On either side of the plaza, to north and south,
were high structures with windowless stone walls,
vertical and sheer on their inner sides, sloping
outward on their opposite walls. A lone doorway
set in each vertical wall led onto the plaza.

  "Strange," said Moichi as he halted before the
first steps of the plaza. He gazed all about him.
"The arch seems unknown to these people. You
see, Ronin" he pointed to the structures at
either end of the plaza "they use, instead, the
corbel vault to support their taller buildings."

  Ronin's gaze at length swung away from the
plaza complex, west, along the flat causeway, and
he called softly to his companion. Before the
great stepped pyramid which rose above them a
quarter of a kilometer away, he could make out
three silhouetted figures, tall and black,
featureless against the diffuse mauve and copper
glare of the dying sun, slipping steadily into the
highest reaches of the towering jungle beyond the
stone valley.

"This way. Come on."

They were masked.

  Two men and one woman with great feline
mantles covering their entire heads. These were
cunningly crafted, furred and spotted, with
triangular ears, black muzzles with long, stiff
whiskers, and cold, glittering eyes, the color of
gold or light green jade, translucent, glassy, and
somehow disturbing.

  All three were extremely tall, fully two and a
half meters, the men with deep chests and long,
muscular legs. Their skin was the color of stained
teak.

DAI-SAN 43

  The two men were garbed in gold and black
spotted fur cloths wound about their loins. They
wore sandals of black leather. Along their arms
were bands of gold of varying widths, beaten and
carved with fantastic designs. Ronin could pick out
a bizarre scene between several Readdressed
warriors and a multiheaded creature which he took
to be a god.

  The woman was fully as tall as the men, her
great untangled mane of blue-black hair outlasting
the length of her grotesque mask; it rode to the
small of her back. She wore a short tunic of golden
fur that reached from her heavy breasts to just past
the juncture of her thighs. Her legs were long and
beautifully formed. She wore no gold on her arms
but rather a band of pink and white jade, not more
than a centimeter across, carved into an intricate
latticework design through which the rich copper
of her skin could be seen.

The man on the left stepped forward one pace.

  "Welcome," he said, his voice distant and strange
through the grillwork of ivory fangs, "to Xich Chih,
the great city of the Chacmool."

"Time," said Cabal Xiu.

He was the shorter of the two men.

"It has ever been our greatest concern."

A light breeze ruMed the fur of his mask.

  "Thus our history is written in stone to survive
the cataclysms of the ages."

  To the north and south, low pillared edifices; to
the east, the jungle shivered, a high, almost
impenetrable barrier. On a stepped acropolis,
facing west. Across the wide, stone causeway,
another structure loomed, a stepped pyramid
perhaps one third the size of the giant structure
near the center of the stone city, made up of nine
successively smaller terraces. At the top was an
oblong building set on six thick columns, heavily
carved and worked. A set of wide steps along the
center of the near side of the edifice gave access to
the top.

  "We have waited " Cabal Xiu paused as if
debating his choice of words. "We are waiting "

  The absurdity of the situation, Ronin reflected
uneasily as his gaze swung back to the three
bizarrely disfigured creatures sitting before him,
failed to impress itself upon him. There was a
disturbing aspect to this trio that disallowed any
but the most immediately self-involving thoughts.

"Waiting for what?" said Moichi. "The end?"

The feline mask which covered Cabal Xiu's head
swiveled

44 Eric ~ Lustbader

in his direction. The ablate sun's dying rays fired
his eyes.

  "Oh no." A line of crimson light fired his
whiskers and was gone. "That has already come."

  In a hush, the sun left the land and the city of
Xich Chih was engulfed in amethyst and lapis
light. In reflection, the valley glowed, as if from a
frozen spectral fire kilometers distant.

"See to the rushes, Kin Coba," said Cabal Xiu.

  The woman rose from her alabaster stone seat,
crossed the stone acropolis to the north building.
Ronin watched the movement of her buttocks, the
strength of her firm thighs.

  She returned moments later with two reed
torches, smokily lit, which she set into stone
pillars on either side of the group.

  "This is the Chacmool," said Uxmal Chac, the
taller of the two men, speaking for the first time.
He pointed to the low table between them. It's
top was the back of a cat, stylized and perfectly
flat. The stone from which it was carved was
either stained red or was naturally ruddy. Into its
sides and back had been sunk circles of green
jade, representing spots. The table's top was
strewn with fired clay bowls of dried white corn
and a heavy milky drink, spiced and certainly
alcoholic. "It is the Red Jaguar, which still roams
this land. It is unique in all the worlds for the
Chacmool never knows defeat until all life has
fled from its body." His mask shook as he spoke;
several strands of mixed teeth and claws and
carved flint clicked against each other as they lay
around his neck. "It is the fiercest and therefore
the most feared of carnivores." His eyes were in
deep shadow. "Among our people it was told
sometimes that the Chacmool was a supernatural
being; that it could, for short periods, assume the
form of man."

  "The Red Jaguar was the basis for many tales,"
said Kin Coba, her voice evenly modulated.
"Quite natural since the creature was always
extremely rare."

"In the end," said Cabal Xiu, "it was revered as a
god."

  Now the stars, glittery in close array, manifested
themselves through the deep azure and magenta
of evening's haze, the brilliantine light of frosted
ice crystals scattered across the sky by cosmic
breath.

  The great stone city lay just beneath this eternal
blanket, an unmoving, articulated expanse of
planes and angles, mathematically precise,
perfectly situated, abruptly in harmony, now that
darkness had fallen, with the slow intense wheel
of the heavens, stupefying in its chill, cruel
calculation.

Uxmal Chac inclined his head. "Tell us "

DAI-SAN 45

  "I think," said Cabal Xiu, deliberately
interrupting, "that our guests must be fatigued-
after their long journey through the jungle." He
extended a long arm. "Kin Coba, please see that
these men are comfortable. Uxmal Chac and I
have much to discuss."

  At their backs a green and gold bird fluttered
across the cool geometric expanse of the acropolis
before disappearing into the tangled maze of the
black jungle.

Night.

  They were narrow cubicles within the building at
the north end of the acropolis. What little light fell
across their lintels was the result of reed tapers set
along the blank stone walls of the brown airless
corridors. In his and in Moichi's thin straw bed
without legs lay on the stucco floor. Next to each
was a shallow earthen bowl filled with water and,
in the opposite corner, a chamber pot.

  The walls of the cubicles were frescoed. Strange
beasts and fantastic warriors bedecked in plumed
Readdresses and animal skins, men with large
hooked noses and flat craniums, long eyes and
wide full lips; scenes painted in hues of soft maize
and brick red, deep green and lustrous midnight
blue (purple seemed an unknown color here,
except in the sky).

  "Is there anything that you require?" said Kin
Coba. She addressed both of them as they stood in
the corridor.

"Not for the moment," said Moichi.

"Well, then," she said in farewell.

  They listened to the slap of her sandals against
the hard floor diminishing as she went away from
them.

  Ronin signed to the big man and silently they
followed her out of the building.

  They watched her within the shadows of the
doorway as she headed across the adamantine
acropolis.

  "Just as well we left the rooms," whispered
Moichi. "I could hardly breathe in there."

  "Too much dust in there to believe that anyone
has slept there for a long time," said Ronin.

  Kin Coba went swiftly down the steps and across
the wide white causeway toward the pillared
building atop the pyramid to the west.

  "Who are these people?" Moichi asked himself
as much as Ronin.

  "Whoever they are, they seem singularly
uncurious about who we are or how we came
here."

46 Eric V. Lustbader

Moichi nodded.

"As it makes no difference."

"What was it Cabal Xiu said ?"

  Kin Coba had reached the foot of the pyramid.
She began to climb the stone stairway along its
near face.

"'We have been waiting'?"

"For what? Us?"

"Let us find out," said Ronin.

  And they stepped fiom the dark shadows,
following in Kin Coba's footsteps, across the
acropolis, toward the bulk of the waiting pyramid.

  "There can be only one answer," Uxmal Chac
said in his deep voice. "Surely you need no
reminder, o my 'brother'." He could not keep the
scorn from his voice.

  "I do not believe that it is so clear-cut," said
Cabal Xiu. "There must be no error. We "

  "Can you have already forgotten that though I
am commander of the Majapan, I was once, many
katun ago, a priest like you?"

  "How can one forget what has been seared into
one's brain, Uxmal Chac? Even though the
military is something with which I can have no
sympathy, still I understand your position."

  "I abhor your condescension," growled Uxmal
Chac, turning his back on the other. Kin Coba
stood between them, arms folded across her
breasts, watching them both as a lizard would a
pair of fighting cocks, with a mesmeric but rather
detached fascination.

  "Ah, at last it comes out." Cabal Xiu took a
step forward, away from the brazier of fire, the
sloping wall of hieroglyphs in high relief. Beyond,
to either side, shadowed archways rose to low
vaulted ceilings, blackened with the caked
charcoal residue of many burning torches.

  Uxmal Chac whirled around and his hands
lifted menacingly. The short stone weapon which
was neither a sword nor an ax, slapped heavily
against his thigh.

  "You will not lecture to me. I have studied the
Book of Balam; I know it as well as do you." He
pointed to the glyph wall behind the burning
brazier. "The wording is quite precise; it cannot be
twisted by you or anyone else "

  "You forget, my 'brother,'" Cabal Xiu said
calmly, "that there are no others but us. Yet."

"Oh yes. Not since the Sundering. Not since the
ending of

DAI-SAN 47

the fourth age. Yes, my 'brother,' you, the devout
one. With every beat of my heart there is pain for
the Majapan who worshiped us, for without them
the rebirth "

  "Enough blasphemy from you!" Cabal Xiu was
trembling and stiff-legged he took another step
forward. Uxmal Chac's left hand went to his right
hip. His fingers closed over the cold stone of his
weapon. Flesh jumped as his muscles tensed.

  "Is there not something you must attend to?" Kin
Coba said softly.

They were as still as statues for a moment.

  Orange light licked and flickered across dark
cool flesh and tawny fur.

  Then Uxmal Chac fumed his back on them and
strode from the building. The clatter of his leather
sandals down the stone steps echoed into the
humid night.

Cabal Xiu sighed, his body relaxing.

"He may be right, you know," he said.

"Would that it were so."

  He turned to the glyph wall and spoke,
sounding, at times, as if he were reading:

  "So many katun since the destruction of the
Majapan, our beloved race, so many barren katun,
with only the promise of the Book of Balam,
keeping us here, waiting, waiting for the katun of
Ce-Acatl to come again." He gestured and Kin
Coba moved silently to stand beside him, staring
up at the walls of glyphs. "It comes now. At
midnight the katun of Ce-Acatl returns; the
primary; the beginning of the sixth age; the time of
the Majapan's return."

  Within one arch's deep shadow Ronin gestured
to Moichi to follow Uxmal Chac while he stayed to
listen.

  "He may return to see if we are in our rooms,"
he whispered in Moichi's ear. "We will meet in
your chamber later tonight." He resumed his
attention to the pair in the light.

  "The origins of the Majapan are steeped in
mystery," Cabal Xiu continued. "They carried with
them the knowledge and the power of an age
before the birth of man. Then the Majapan lived in
a land of heat and jungle bordered on all sides by
a great fathomless sea filled with monstrous
creatures. From their gods, they received great
gifts and knowledge but they were cursed for they
came into being at the end of the Old Time and,
as the time of man grew nigh, vast upheavals of
the earth and the sea and the sky occurred.

  "And the priests, who foretold these cataclysms,
for even then was the Book of Balam in existence,
now went among

48 Eric V. Lustbader

the Majapan and, gathering them all upon an
immense plain near the shores of the writhing
seas, bade them construct ships, speaking to them
thusly: 'Now you shall build strong ships to sail
upon the seas for the land of our birth will soon
be no more. If the Majapan shall survive, it will
be in another land.'

  "And the people were terrified, for they were
not good sailors and had no love for the water
and they milled about, contending amongst
themselves. Thus the priests said unto them: 'Fear
not the high seas nor the leviathans of the deep,
for the true danger lies here. Now will our land
turn red and black and belch smoke and sulphur
and the blood of.the earth shall pour forth. Then
will our land split asunder and hurl itself into the
fathomless caverns of the earth for all time and
the seas will wash over it like two hands clasped
together.'

  "Thus spake the priests and the Majapan
listened and set themselves to build the ships of
their salvation. And they went then to their ships,
gathering up the* children and their food and
leaving all other manner of possessions behind.
And the priests took up their sacred scrolls and
left and the great wealth of the Majapan was left
behind.

  "So the Majapan set out from their doomed
land, which already burned at its heart with the
ending of the Old Time, and they were divided by
the priests. One quarter went to the north, one
quarter to the south, one quarter to the east and
one quarter to the west.

  "Thus the Majapan came to this island, this vast
jut of limestone ledge, thrusting up from the floor
of the sea. And here they founded Xich Chih, the
city of their forefathers, the true city.

  "Only here were the Majapan not assimilated
into the birthing cultures of man, who spawned
upon the world like maggots. Only here the
Majapan remained unadulterated. And when they
saw the Chacmool, they knew it at once for what
it was: the personification of Tzcatlipoca."

  "And now," breathed Kin Coba, her voice rich
and tremulous upon the thick air, "in the katun of
Ce-Acatl, in the dawning of the sixth age, the first
of the Majapan have returned to their sacred city,
where this night Tzcatlipoca may be reborn to
once again see His Xich Chih.

  Here and there streaks of water, last remnants
of the hard rain, passed to platinum in the
moonlight. Each carved stone block was moved to
eerie caligraphy by the swift interplay of

DAI-SAN 49

light and shadow; a numinous history hewn into
each surface. It is a city of the dead now, Ronin
thought, as he followed the fleet figure of Kin
Coba through the dappled city. Perhaps time and
solitude have turned them mad, for these three,
the keepers of Xich Chih, were apparently not
Majapan. What were they, beneath the Chacmool
masks, he wondered, as he moved from shadow to
shadow, down the pyramid's side, along the bright
stone causeway. Would they, naked, resemble the
figures in the pictoglyphs which encrusted the
architecture of Xich Chih?

  A dreamscape it was. Great stone heads seemed
to float in air, thrusting out as they did from
shadowed walls, immense oblique plazas with
sloping sides, crowned by crenellated tops,
endlessly tiered buildings with walls made unsolid
by the concentration of hieroglyphs.

  He lost her in a shaft of deep shadow into which
she disappeared. He went after her, cautiously,
silently, the stones his enemy now, for they would
echo his pursuit if he were not careful. The path
she had been following ran beside three buildings,
along a narrow defile for perhaps another hundred
meters beyond the pocket of shadow within which
he now stood.

  He was still for a moment, watching and,
perhaps even more acutely, listening for her muted
footfalls. All about him the chronicles of the
Majapan hulked mutely, savagely; a history in
stone, waiting.

  Moving slowly along the defile, he caught a
glimpse of movement. But now he hesitated,
unsure whether to follow or to return to the house
on the acropolis. After a moment's deliberation, he
moved onward, swifter now that he had reached a
decision.

  Down the defile and then sharply left, into a
cleft of darkness, all sight gone for long moments.

  Something had changed. Abruptly, the nature of
the darkness had altered. It was at once thicker
and more expansive and he realized that he was
out from the buildings. He looked up but could see
no stars, no moon.

  He heard again the muffled sound in front of
him and went on. There were trees now in patches
of deeper darkness and as his eyes slowly adjusted
to the werelight he saw that he loped through an
outthrusting of the jungle which surrounded the
city.

  Now and again he thought he saw a glimmering
ahead, as of some reflected light, but always it was
rather close to the

50 Eric ~ Lustbader

ground, certainly less than two meters from the
floor of the forest. Who or what was he
following? He had had an intuition that he had
lost Kin Coba somewhere within the defile. Then
why had he come here?

  The jungle gave grudgingly onto a
moon-dappled glade and he paused just outside
the lip, drenched in shadow. He heard nothing but
the whining of the nocturnal insects, the sighing of
the trees.

  He went swiftly down the aisle of the clearing,
around an abrupt turning and saw, bathed in
indifferent moonlight, the black and white edifice,
strewn, collapsing, etched into the far side of the
glade.

  It was set off the ropy jungle floor by pillars in
the shape of an undulating serpent in a repeating
squared off "S" shape so that each wave of its
body formed part of the foundation. It was the
first time that he had seen this creature
represented in the city. The building's central
stairway had fallen away in several places.

  The building itself had twelve doorways and
over the thick lintel of each was carved the same
serpent, with plumes or wings as if it were flying.

  One entire side of the building was choked with
the inevitable influx of the returning jungle.
Green moss across the steps like an unkempt
carpet.

  Something flickered at the periphery of his
vision and he went closer. The white spark came
again and now he saw that before the building
stood a statue under the shadow of an
overhanging tree. As the wind swung the heavily
laden branches, a sliver of moonlight caught the
statue's top.

  It was incomplete. Someone had deliberately
hacked away the head. It towered over him,
perhaps six and a half meters high.

It was a warrior.

  With breastplate and high boots, thickly
muscled arms. Two scabbards hung at its waist,
one filled, the other empty. One arm was raised.
That, too, had been vandalized. It ended in a
severed wrist.

  A cool wind fluttered the massed treetops some
meters away; the night insects were calling to each
other. No other sounds.

  For long moments he stood staring in dumb
fascination at the statue, hearing, perhaps, some
dark, faraway call. He felt an unknown power
seeping into his body as if from the glade

DAI-SAN 61

itself or his proximity to the stone structures. Too,
he became aware of an incipient urgency.

  Then he turned slowly away, into the rustling,
steamy shadows of the jungle.

He lifted his eyes for one last look.

  Somewhere close, above his head, feathered
wings spread and took off into the clear, calm
night.

  Outside, away from the overhanging foliage, the
vast geometrical plain was lit below the black bowl
of heaven by the full moon and the myriad dancing
stars. Away to the east, far down near the horizon,
the wide belt of thickly clustered stars stretched in
an attenuated arc. Far, far away was fragrant
Sha'angh'sei and the yellow citadel to the north,
Kamado, where the Kai-feng had already
commenced.

  In the building on the north edge of the
acropolis, Ronin closed his eyes, waiting for Moichi
to return.

  Angrily he stalks the corridors of a corroded,
forgotten house. The way is narrow and dark so
that he is continually forced to peer ahead in order
to guide himself. Because of this, he has no time to
look into the doorways which parade past him
mockingly on either side, although this is what he
wishes to do. Or perhaps not. But in any case, as
he strides along, his anger grows, a deep, fierce,
nonrational rage. He sees himself in a mirror then
and recoils from his image, stumbling away.

  He plunges onward. downward into blackness,
along the corridor. There are no others. Soon the
doorways end and solid walls rush by him as he
begins to run, faster and faster, his boot soles
echoing, echoing like drumbeats, a strange cadence
to some long hidden song. This is not prudent, he
thinks in the sightlessness. Chill take it! As the
rage burns like a spreading fire. Out of control; a
rush of doom like black, leathery wings. Faster he
rushes down the narrow corridor.

  Down and down all in a blur as he feels slightly
vertiginous. And now he realizes that the ceiling
had been lowering. Stooped and bent
uncomfortably, he stumbles forward. Faster.

  He trips, tumbling head over heels through the
blackness. Fetched up suddenly, his arms flung
over his head, his fingers gripping tightly.

  He hangs, suspended in space, grasping a bar
which is the nethermost lip of the
corridor-tunnel-funnel, arcing downward like a
spout, trying to spit him out. And down.

58 lyric ~ Lustbader

  Hot and sweating, he holds desperately on
while below him a space of incalculable depth and
width. Yawning.

  Great clashings and groanings issue forth from
the deep. A dimly seen scaffolding somewhere
below him, too far to drop, perspective dwindling
it to the width of a sword tip.

  Explosions, dull and booming, rising toward
him, painful to the ears.

  Still he peers downward, fascinated, terrified,
unable to break his gaze away.

  A writhing form appears, glutinous, tentacled,
writhing upon a translucent ellipse. A great dark
form materialises from out of the deep. Formless,
it bends over the monstrous creature, encysting it
within its corpus. The tentacles emerge with the
thing's great head, shivering. Two eyes burn,
lidless, their pupils jagged shards of obsidian.

  Then, far too rapidly for him to comprehend,
the face flickers with changing features, ten
thousand within each instant until a single eye is
formed long enough for him to be lashed to its
baleful unblinking gaze, bound and broken and
helpless.

  Heat like a cry. His eyeballs seared, his
struggling body cooked and blackened; burning,
burning. And a stench, rising . . .

  "I heard you cry out," she said, bending over
him. He stared sightlessly at her great furred
head, grotesque, distorted shadows racing across
its pelt in the flickering, dim light of the reed
torches in the corridor beyond his doorway.

  Ronin rose to one elbow on his pallet, wiped
the sweat from his face.

"Are you ill?"

  "No. No," he said slowly, still far away. "A
dream only." His voice sounded thick and furry.

"A dream."

"Yes."

Kin Coba knelt beside him.

  He stared at the fresco on the wall in front of
him. Men in plumed headdresses ran at each
other across a rectangular field bordered along
each long side by obliquely angled stone stands
surmounting sheer walls. From each side wall, at
the field's center, at a height of perhaps five
meters, protruded a carved stone nng.

"What are they doing?"

Her head turned with a rustle.

"The Majapan play the sacred ball game."

DAN-SAN 53

  The sloped stands rose on either end to form a
clawing Chacmool.

  "They were originally farmers," she said softly.
"The Majapan loved the land, the huge harvests of
maize and beans and fruits. But always there were
other tribes, fierce, powerful, decadent in their
religion. Thus the Majapan were forced to become
warriors."

He watched the wan light caress her naked thigh.

  "Yet they would have no part in war. Thus the
priests devised the sacred ball game and the
Majapan constructed the courts, and the tribes who
would war upon them were forced to pick a team
of their best warriors. Nineteen men, each side was
allowed, and they played the sacred ball game
upon the stone courts in complex and ritualistic
patterns, using flat stone paddles. The object was
to get the ball through the stone ring while
effectively blocking the opposing team from doing
the same."

His gaze swept back to the fresco.

"So there was no war."

"The Majapan way."

"And all the tribes abided by your rules."

  "All feared " She paused as if she had
committed a transgression.

  "Feared what?" He watched her face now, half
in shadow, searching for some hint of emotion,
some small betrayal, in the eyes behind the mask.

  "A god. A god we once worshiped." Her voice
had turned somber. "But," she continued more
brightly, "that was in the time-that-was; it is not
important now for that false god was banished
from this land many katun ago."

  An overgrown building, partially destroyed; a
headless statue; a plumed serpent.

  "Only the Chacmool had reigned in Xich Chih,"
she said. "His priests devised the sacred ball
game "

  "So the Majapan avoided bloodshed by playing
the game," said Ronin.

  Her head swiveled and the light caught her eyes,
shining, tawny, like perfect topazes.

  "Whatever gave you that idea?" said Kin Coba,
startled and indignant at the same time. "The
heads of the losing team were delivered into the
arms of their tribal chieftains as a warning against
further aggression. Their steaming hearts were
used to fertilize our crops. The Majapan were a
very practical race."

54 Erich: Lustbader

There was a small silence while he digested this,
then:

"You mean the Majapan never lost a game?"

"No," she said. "Never."

  A peculiar depression had descended upon him.
In an effort to break it, he said: "What lies behind
that Chacmool mask, Kin Coba?"

  Her slender hands, which had been in her lap,
rose into the still air, a silent explosion, more
truthful than words could ever be.

"Do you wish," she said, "to possess me?"

He thought her choice of words curious.

"You mean make love."

"If that is what you desire."

  He reached out, ran his finger tips up from her
knee, along the inside of her thigh. Her eyes
glittered.

"Not with that mask."

"Then you shall not have this."

  Her strong fingers took his hand, lifted it
higher. He felt her heat, steamy as the jungle at
midday. Her other hand moved along his prone
form.

"And you do want it."

  She lifted herself up and pulled at his leggings,
freeing him. Then she knelt over him, descending
slowly, her eyes closing, the lids fluttering. She
gasped. She lowered her torso and he felt the heat
of her heavy breasts and the fluttering of her
stomach. He put a hand up to her face but her
firm fingers entwined in his and she pulled his
hand down to the side of one breast. Her hips
moved downward.

  He grappled with her in the humid night,
inhaling her strange, pungent musk, wondering
what she looked like, the coupling like a great
wrestling match as their bodies lacquered with
sweat and saliva, in a rising cadence, while he felt
again the rushing down a claustrophobically
metamorphosing corridor-tunnel-funnel.

  And at the precise moment when she cried out
and her body trembled, he felt her cruelty wash
over him like a fetid tide and he felt himself
recoil, an image in a fleeting mirror. Her
fingernails gouging at his flesh, the imprisoning
grip of her powerful thighs, her torso arching up
above him, her breasts swaying, the nipples long
and hard.

  Inside, in turmoil, he tried to grapple with the
rancorous emotions that had begun to bellow
loudly in his inner ear. He felt pleasure pool itself
far away in his loins.

Her hips grinding in a circle, her breath loud and
sensuous.

DAI-SAN 55

He lifted his hands and squeezed her breasts. She
moaned. And thrust against him. And his hands
went to the mask, lifted it from her shoulders and,
even as he heard a deep growling, a harsh shout
from outside, he stared upward, outward from the
glowing gems of her eyes.

Impaled.

  Deep in the spangled night, Moichi loped from
shadow to shadow, his eyes intent on the tall figure
of Uxmal Chac as he swept away from the low
pyramid.

  Unreasonably, Moichi had expected him to head
for the great stepped pyramid to the west but,
instead, Uxmal Chac turned right, off the
causeway, toward the far side of the city.

  Glittering, secretive, it stretched away from him,
filled with the knowledge of the ages. There it
crouched upon the plain, an incipient life hovering
somewhere close.

  In all of Xich Chih, there was only one round
building, small and relatively unadorned, and it
was to this that Uxmal Chac now went.

  Moichi could see, as they approached, that the
edifice was somewhat over one hundred meters
high, a circular tower, resting on two terraces set
one upon the other; the lower broader one was of
grass, the higher, of stone. Stairways, centered on
one side, led up to the tower, which had three
doorways, set at precise though unequal distances
from each other.

  Beneath the lintel of a neighboring doorway,
depicting a priest surrounded by hieroglyphs,
Moichi watched intendy as Uxmal Chac mounted
the two stairways and stood directly in front of the
tower's first doorway, at the extreme left, staring
up into the night sky. After a time, he held
something dark to his eye.

  Moichi's gaze left him, clouded in moonlight,
swept upward. Toward which constellation did he
look? Moichi asked himself. The Seven Sisters?
The Great Bear? And where was the Serpent, the
enormous constellation which had guided him to
many a safe port from out of the uncharted sea?

  For a long time Uxmal Chac regarded the
heavens and then, apparently finding the answer to
his unvoiced question among the hard points of
unreachable light, stepped inside the tower for a
brief moment before re-emerging. He went down
the stairway, across the grass terrace, down again,
and plunged into shadow.

56 Eric V. Lustbader

  At once, Moichi left the darkness of the
doorway, moving away from the building, after the
tall figure.

  He found himself quite near the edge of the
thick, entangled jungle. Turning, he could just
make out the top of the great, stepped pyramid to
the west. He heard the soft slap of Uxmal Chac's
sandals ahead of him and he went on. A series of
low buildings stretched away from him.

  Abruptly, a dark shape crossed his path,
becoming visible as it loped from the dense
shadows of the jungle. The platinum light was
pellucid and he saw it clearly: the deep, unmis-
takable red of its glossy pelt, its bright
yellow-green eyes cold and hard as flint, glowing
as if from some internal energy source. Its long
tail flickered at the humid air.

"Chacmool," he breathed.

  It leapt at him, its great dark head extended,
jaws beginning to open, the talons of its forepaws
raking the night. It growled deep in its throat and
Moichi shouted in reflex as he drew forth a
copper-handled dirk. Then the beast was upon
him.

  The jaws gaped wide, the head reared back, as
the forepaws commenced to slash at his flesh.
Light gleamed wetly along the curved surfaces of
the Chacmool's fangs. They dripped with saliva
and something darker.

  The beast lunged for his neck. He twisted aside
and the teeth snapped together. He strove to free
his right hand, to lift the long blade of his tightly
gripped dirk into the Chacmool's belly. It growled
in frustration and doubled up its hind legs,
attempting to scrape its long talons across
Moichi's exposed stomach and thighs

  There was dark movement behind and above
him but he ignored it as he rolled on the white
stones of Xich Chih enwrapped by the Chacmool.
He strained and ground his teeth and, at last, he
had freed his right arm. The opened jaws came at
him again and he slammed his heavy copper
wristlet against the fangs. The Chacmool
screamed. He turned the blade of his dirk,
silvered by the strong moonlight, and drove it
toward the beast's heart. The thrust aborted; his
wrist immobilised. His body thrashed against the
weight of the thing, his nostrils filled with its
powerful scent, and he twisted his head to see
what

The Chacmool sank its teeth into his neck.

               Godgame

~ IME is the slayer."

A series of masks, replicated.

  "Time is the healer. Time is the boundary.
Time is the victor."

  Stone Chacmool guarded its lower reaches with
opened Jaws.

"Our heads are bowed before your inevitable
power."

  Uxmal Chac's voice began as the last echoes of
Cabal Xiu's litany died away:

  "As it must be. As it was foretold in the Long
Count, in the Book of Balarn, of the Majapan."
The note of triumph in his voice was
unmistakable. "It is midnight. Now the katun of
Ce-Acatl commences. It is the sixth age!"

Now they were maskless.

  Uxmal Chac had a face that was long and thin.
His nose was as the trunk of an elephant.

  Cabal Xiu's jaw was snoutlike. His mouth was
lipless, his nose all nostrils.

  Kin Coba's eyes were triangular, their pupils
feline slivers. Her ears, high up on her head,
twitched at every sound.

  The strange trio stood revealed on the
nethermost step of the great pyramid which
dominated the heart of Xich Chih. At their feet
Ronin and Moichi lay, conscious but unmoving.

  "Think!" cried Kin Coba, ecstatically, thrusting
out her arms. "Remember! Do you feel it?" She
whirled in the night. "Our lost power begins to
return! The Majapan, who spawned us in the Old
Time will, at dawn, return to us once more! After
an age of barrenness comes an age of plenty!"

  "These two shall return the Majapan to us!"
cried Cabal Xiu. "lPor on these steps of the
Sacred Pyramid of Tzcatlipoca will come death."
The distant trees seemed to shudder and shake
and the stone city vibrated as his voice filled with
en

                 57
                  
58 Eric ~ Lustbader

orgy and power with every word he uttered. "And
life; life for Xich Chih once more!"

  "Now it begins!" Cabal Xiu called out into the
changing night, as, black-robed, he mounted the
central stairway of the pyramid. Uxmal Chac
turned to follow him but Kin Coba grasped his
arm, took him to the side. Ronin strained to hear
their conversation even though he could not turn
his head.

  "He has seen it, Uxmal Chac, the forgotten
shrine and the  the statue."

  "What?" Uxmal Chac's eyes blazed. "The one
who followed you saw the statue of Atsbilan?" He
glanced at Ronin for a moment, then he shook his
strange head. "It matters not.
He-Who-Sets-The-Sun has been banished from
this land for katun without end, just as his Father,
whose name must not be uttered, was banished in
the Sundering." He put a hand on Kin Coba's
shoulder. "Long has Tzcatlipoca reigned in Xich
Chih and thus will it be forevermore. Now must
begin the sacrifice which will return Tzcatlipoca to
Xich Chih and, with Him, the Majapan."

Kin Coba stared up into his face.

  "Yet I am frightened, for he has been to the
place and perhaps he is the One "

  Uxmal Chac's hand slammed into her face and
she recoiled.

  "Are you mad? We are what we are, yes, but
see how shabby we have become during all the
katun without the shadow of Tzcatlipoca to make
us great!"

  "I am Kin Coba," she said proudly, ignoring the
blood which trickled down her cheek. "I do not
need you to tell me what I am. But have you
forgotten the rest of the Book of Balam's
foretelling, Uxmal Chac?"

His head twisted from her words as if they were
alive.

"Ah, wicked blasphemer!" Uxmal Chac spat.

  Above them all, Cabal Xiu neared the flat
summit of the Pyramid of Tzcatlipoca.

  "How can you bow before one section of the
Book while renouncing another?" Kin Coba's
voice held a metallic thread. "Do you not see? It
took me awhile to understand too. You know
what Cabal Xiu means to do. What will become
of us then, if all of the Book is true?"

  "Leave those thoughts behind, Kin Coba. We
have changed the Book of Balam, you know that."
His hands gripped her arms. "Have you so soon
forgotten how all of us

DAI-SAN 59

fought Him and banished Him finally from the
land of Xich Chih so that Tzcatlipoca might reign
alone here for all time? Have you so soon
forgotten our comrades lost in that titanic
struggle?"

  "No," she said sadly. "I am forever scarred by
that battle. But it is again the year of Ce-Acatl. He
was created in the year Ce-Acatl; He bore Atsbilan
in the year Ce-Acatl; we defeated Him in the year
Ce-Acatl; and the Book declares that He shall
come again in the year Ce-Acatl." Her hair
streamered back from her slanted face; her eyes
were feral. "You know that His coming means the
end of Tzcatlipoca's reign over Xich Chih. Without
His protection, the balance we fear shall be
restored and we shall perish!"

  There came a cry from far above them and
Ronin raised his eyes to the top of the stepped
pyramid, saw the tall blackgarbed figure of Cabal
Xiu before the Temple of Tzcatlipoca, heard the
deep booming voice as it echoed out over the wait-
ing empty city:

  "Oh, Itzamna, Lord of Heaven, son of Hunab
Ku, creator of the world, Thou art no more,
dethroned by Chac.

  "Oh, Chac, Thou deserter of the true Majapan,
friend of man, traitor to Tzcatlipoca, great was the
power that sent you from us "

  It was a summoning of power and, as Cabal Xiu
intoned, the Sacred Pyramid seemed to shine more
brightly, as if the moon, hanging like a platinum
teardrop in the black, spangled river of the
heavens, had grown swollen with light and energy.

Ronin turned to the big man Iying beside him.

"Moichi, can you move?"

The navigator shook his head. No.

  "What have they done to us? The last I
remember, the Chacmool "

  "They knew our movements from the first," said
Ronin quietly. "Perhaps even before we reached
the city. Those eyes in the jungle "

"The Red jaguars ?"

  A dim crackling came from the Sacred Pyramid's
summit and they lifted their eyes. Cold flames,
white and blue, had begun to flicker, twisting in
awesome splendor from the Temple of Tzcatlipoca,
throwing the figure of Cabal Xiu into sharp
silhouette.

  "Oh, old and tired deities," the priest continued
to intone, "thy time has ended, so the katun of the
Long Count in the

60 Eric V. Ims1:bader

Book of Balam has decreed. Thy power had faded
and crumbled "

  The flames writhed higher: liquid, silvered,
unnatural. Cabal Xiu lifted his anus to the waiting
moon.

  "The time is now come. It is once again the
katun of CeAcatl. It is the dawning of the sixth
age "

  Ronin blinked, for now it seemed that the black
figure throbbed and grew.

"Come, Xaman Balam!"

The flames streamed at his back.

  There came a grinding roar, as his corpus
ballooned, blurred.

The night turned platinum.

  Ronin and Moichi covered their eyes and when
they could look once again toward the Sacred
Pyramid's summit, there were four figures
descending, eschewing the central stairs, striding
across the immense steps of the structure.

  "It is done," breathed Kin Coba, her slanted
face even more alien in the unnatural light.
"Xaman Balam lives again!" She turned to look at
Ronin.

"Who is it?" he said.

  "The One-Who-Is-Four," said Uxmal Chac. He
took a step up the face of the Sacred F,yramid.
"He who survived the cataclysms of the ages. They
who held up the four corners of the world in the
Old Time when the great flood came, reaching up,
grasping the stars for support, lest they slip into
the deep."

  They were identical, these four, with long
blazing eyes, neither of man nor beast, long noses
like the trunks of elephants, narrow, tapering
skulls gleaming in the frosted light, wide mouths
with thick, curling lips. One was garbed all in red,
one in white, one in yellow; one in black.

  Simultaneously, the four mouths opened and
four identical voices rolled eerily down to them,
inundating them:

  "I am come now, unstoppable: Xib, Sac, Kan,
Irk. Xaman Balam speaks after lo these many
katun." Moichi shivered at the sound of the
voices.

  The figures continued to descend, until they
stood on the penultimate step nearest the ground.

  "The summoning of Tzcatlipoca is at hand and
when He comes He shall lead the Majapan back
from the deep to the land of the Chacmool, to
Xich Chih, most holy of cities!"

Pale green lightning crackled in the air and its
sharp stench

DAI-SAN 61

invaded them, borne from the place where Xaman
Balam had been birthed.

  "With the gathering of sides, the Sacred Sacrifice
commences." They pointed to Ronin. "You will
play against the forces of Tzcatlipoca, just as it was
done in the Old Time, for without contention,
without the spilling of blood, He cannot come.
You will ascend to the fourth step." Ronin
counted. There were nine steps in all. "The
boundaries," they continued, "are contained across
this face of the Sacred Pyramid "

  And abruptly, Ronin found himself able to
move. Yet still not in control, he watched his legs
take him up the central stairway to the fourth
level.

"The skull," said Ek, the black aspect of Xaman
Balam.

  Xib, the red aspect, stood directly above Ronin
on the seventh step. He wore a mask of a grinning
skull.

"The vulture."

  Sac, the white aspect, in a swooping bird's mask,
stood on the sixth step, to the left of Ronin.

"The crocodile."

  Kin Coba, in a mask that was all jutting jaws,
stood also on the sixth step, but to Ronin's right.

"The monkey."

  Kan, the yellow aspect, stood on the fifth step,
on Ronin's far left.

"Flint."

  Uxmal Chac, in a towering, angular mask, stood
on the fifth step, on Ronin's far right.

  "These are your adversaries," said black Ek,
ascending to the Sacred Pyramid's top step. "As
they are arrayed against you, they will attempt to
force you downward, off the face of the pyramid.
When they succeed in this, you and your com-
panion will die and in so doing you shall be
catalysts in the summoning of Tzcatlipoca. Your
severed heads, your steaming hearts, shall bring
Him once again to His beloved Xich Chih."

"And if I win?" said Ronin.

  Ek smiled, his teeth pointed and black, shining
with saliva. "If you should manage, by some
miracle, to ascend to the summit of the Sacred
Pyramid, then you and your companion shall be
free to depart from there." The strange eyes
bloomed like poisoned flowers. "But I tell you now
that there is no hope. I know that you have seen
the statue of Atsbilan, HeWho-Sets-The-Sun; I
know that you have seen the vandalised temple of
his defeated Father, whose name must not be
men

62 Eric ~ I`ustbader

tioned. But they were driven out of Xich Chih and
the memory of the Majapan at the time of the
Sundering. The book of Balam has been rewritten
and we have nothing to fear. The power of
Tzcatlipoca is supreme in Xich Chih !"

  "If this is a game," called Ronin, "then there
must be sides. Where are my forces?"

  Ek laughed, his eyes like beacons: "Find them,
mighty warrior!" And his deep voice resounded in
the close valleys and stepped hills of the stone
city, precise, geometric, deserted.

  Now from above him, Kan, in the rippling
brown monkey mask, advanced. He brandished a
staff, hooked at one end, carved into the head of
an animal.

  Ronin drew his sword in time to parry a flicking
jab of the long staff. Over and over, the monkey's
weapon slashed at him, blurry, indistinct with
speed, powered it seemed by the merest
movement of the wrists. Again and again it
slammed against him with explosive force.

  Green and blue lightning ringed the theater of
combat, emanating from the temple behind Ek at
the summit of the Sacred Pyramid.

  The monkey pressed his attack, the blows
constant and unremitting and Ronin moved slowly
backward under the intense assault along the
length of the great stone step. He was still slightly
dazed, his reflexes dull and unresponsive. His
brain refused to think clearly.

  Backward he was forced, far to his left, until he
was directly below the vulture on the sixth level.
In that moment, as the monkey held him in that
position, the vulture stepped down to the fifth
level.

  Glancing up, Ronin began to perceive what was
happening. Ek had not fully explained the rules of
this game, just as he would not divulge the nature
of Ronin's forces. He realized now that the
monkey had deliberately forced him to retreat
toward the left side of the pyramid's face in order
to allow the vulture to descend. He knew now that
he had to battle each opponent while staying away
from each of their corresponding spaces on his
step, else they were permitted to move against
him simultaneously.

  Feinting, he spun away from the monkey,
willing his body to work for him, concentrating on
clearing his mind of distractions. As he left the
vulture's space on his level, he was gratified to see
him freeze into immobility on the step just above
him.

DAI-SAN 63

  But the monkey was intent on his attack once
more and he pressed forward, forcing Ronin down
a step onto the third level. He attempted a fierce
counterattack, but when even the complexfaes
failed against the monkey, he was certain that he
would not be able to prevail using merely his
sword. Somewhere lay the key. Where are my
forces?

  He spun away from the oncoming staff, trying
desperately to think of the answer.

  "You understand now the impossibility of
victory, the inevitability of defeat," called Ek from
far above, "for you battle not men but the last gods
of the Majapan!"

  His weapon was useless for the moment; he
sheathed it. Sensing victory, the monkey lunged at
him. The staff whistled through the dark, electric
air and Ronin reached out for it. They struggled
for endless moments, linked by the wooden
weapon. The head of the staff was before his face
and abruptly, intuitively, he bent his knees, exerted
force. Muscles rippled along his mighty arms and
tendons stood out like corded rope down the sides
of his neck. He ground his teeth, grunted, finding
renewed strength within himself, transmitting it up
through his legs, muscles jumping with the strain,
into his torso. His body twisted one way and, as
the monkey began to compensate, to turn his body
with the expected force. Ronin let go, reversed the
momentum, whipping his shoulders and arms with
explosive power in the opposite direction.

  If one operates only with the conscious, one sees
just what one wants to see. but the brain registers
everything the eye picks up and in Combat Raining
one learns to allow the subconscious to scan the
entirety of the vision field, unraveling the
frequently curious paths of victory by working out
clues not readily available to the conscious.

The staff was his.

  When the weapon was in front of his face, he
had been concentrating on strength and balance
with his conscious mind. But his subconscious had
been working on survival and it had picked out
from the myriad images within his vision field, the
carven head of the monkey's weapon. He had been
mistaken when he had thought it an animal. Or
perhaps not. It was a man's head. The
subconscious had worked on the problem and had
found the solution.

  He slammed the carved head into the monkey
mask with enormous force. It shattered into a
cloud of choking powder blossoming garishly into
the humid night. Kan's headless body sank to the
cold stone.

64 Eric ~ I`ustbader

  "The first move is completed," Ek intoned
mechanically. "Man defeats monkey."

  So there is a way, after all, thought Ronin as,
peripherally, he caught a movement from just
above and saw the vulture drop down to the
fourth level. He reached up with the staff and the
vulture, his arm ramrod stiff, cracked it in half.
Ronin threw it from him. The pieces spun in the
air, bouncing off the lowest step and onto the
stone paving before the Sacred Pyramid.

  And a different counter to each opponent. But
how am I to know?

The vulture reached the third step.

  Ronin had defeated the monkey but in so doing
he had lost a step and now was one level closer to
being driven off the face of the pyramid.

  He concentrated on his second foe. The vulture
carried no weapon but his arms were thin,
brownish-yellow, scaled, and, as he lifted them,
Ronin saw that they ended in four-fingered claws
tipped with curved talons. These commenced to
beat the air in front of the vulture as it came at
him.

  In a flurry, the talons flashed out and he jerked
aside, hearing the hissing of their close passage.
They came at him again, aiming for his cheek. He
ducked and the other set of talons sank into his
shoulder, ripping at his flesh. He groaned,
staggering. The step became narrow and his boot
went over the edge. He toppled over, taking the
clutching vulture with him onto the second level.

  He scrabbled at his belt for his dirk as the claw
sank deeper into the muscles of his shoulder. At
last he pulled it free and the flickering light licked
along its blade as the edge scraped across the
scales of one of the vulture's arms, but the claw
refused to relinqulish its painful hold on him.
Again the talons twisted in his flesh and fire
seared through him. Gasping now, he hacked with
the point of the blade. A shrill call came from
within the vulture mask and he smelled an awful,
sickly sweet stench: mummified remains, Iying
within moldy corridors of the ages; cement and
limestone walls collapsing; rotting vegetation rising
thickly; fetid swamps burbling their liquid call....

  Pain; the edge of the second step like a sword
blade on his back as the vulture bore its weight
down upon him. He was on his way down to the
first level!

"Moichi!" someone cried. "Moichi!"

Up his throat.

DAI-SAN 65

And he called out again.

A rustling, a thud of boot soles.

  His body tipped precariously while the vulture
bore down even harder.

"Ah!"

A soft breeze behind him.

Talons gouged and he closed his mind against the
pain.

The vulture heaved at his body.

Going over.

No! No!

  He never reached the first step. His back fetched
up against solid flesh, immobile, rocklike. He
braced himself against the unexpected bulwark,
feeling the hard thud of the heart against the
ridged muscles of his back. He gained strength,
backstopped. He reached up with both hands,
dropping his useless dirk and, screaming, wrenched
the convulsed claw from his shoulder.

  He took a deep breath, his frame shuddering,
and as his blood oxygenated, he felt a surge of
adrenalin and now, lowering one wrist to act as a
fulcrum, he slammed his balled fist into the claw.
Sweat broke out along his forehead, rolled down
his heaving sides, along his tensed legs. The vulture
wailed as, with a splintering of bone and dry sinew,
the wrist snapped. Shards of hollow bone
punctured the rent skin and black blood ran in icy
rivulets from the maimed member.

  The vulture mask vibrated as if with hate and
the good claw flailed, the questing talons making a
dark melody as they swept through the air. Then
the vulture leapt at him.

  Gray blur blooming. deadly; heavy whiff of
discarded centuries. And, without further thought,
Ronin leapt upward and away.

  On the third step, panting, he turned, looked
downward. The broken body of the vulture knelt
against the edifice of Moichi's body as if it had hit
a stone wall instead of

  "The second move is completed," Ek intoned
from the pyramid's summit. "House defeats
vulture."

  Already there was motion above him and Kin
Coba, the crocodile, landed above him on the
fourth step. The long jaws gaped, just centimeters
from his face. He rolled away and she came after
him, brandishing a short-hefted battle ax in her
right hand.

  He drew his blade once more and it clashed
against her swing, the metal scraping together. She
pivoted, swung again, and as he ducked away, leapt
to the third step.

66 Eric ~ Lustbader

  He recovered and slashed at her, bracing for
the concussion as their weapons crashed together
in a welter of sparks and noise.

  Blood streamed from his shoulder where the
vulture's talons had sunk. For the moment, the
pumping adrenalin compensated for the energy
drain, but all too soon

  He stood his ground, letting her come against
him, over and over, gauging the manner of her
combat.

  She was a warrior. She swung from her widely
planted bare feet, using her hips and upper torso
to make up for her arms, which were more
slender than a man's. And she was clever. Time
and again she nearly got behind his guard for a
killing blow. But perhaps more importantly she
was tireless. Stunting, varying the angles of her
attacks, carefully calculating each blow, she
became a machine of destruction and, with pain
and fatigue lapping at the periphery of his senses,
the idea of defeat crept into his mind.

  He shook his head, risked a glance toward Ek
high above him. Was it his imagination or was the
ebon-robed figure bent in concentration? With
that, he knew that the thoughts of defeat were not
his own and he returned his concentration to his
battle on the third step. Once again, he knew that
his sword alone could not prevail against the god.
What then?

  And out of the corner of his eye, a possible
answer came crawling along the cold stone. A
small lizard on the step perhaps a meter behind
the crocodile, its bright eyes staring, its forked
tongue flicking the air before it.

  The clashing was hypnotic and he held his
ground. The lizard seemed transfixed by the
replicated movements of the battle. Ronin
retreated and the lizard scuttled forward. Locked
together, he allowed the crocodile to push him
further back. This time the lizard scuttled further
along the stone until it was just behind his foe.

  Abruptly he pressed his attack, exerting great
force, shoving the crocodile backward along the
step. One bare foot struck the lizard, who
squealed, terrified, and squirmed.

The crocodile stumbled for an instant.

It was all Ronin needed.

  Slamming a mighty blow with the flat of his
sword against the side of her face, he sent her
flying. She cried out as she tumbled downward,
her mask slipping off as she hit the top of one of
the great stone Chacmools at the base of the
Sacred Pyramid. A crack like thunder.

Ronin swung up onto the fourth step.

- DAI-SAN 67

  "The third move is complete," Ek cried from
above. "Lizard defeats crocodile."

While he gained the fifth level.

  Uxmal Chac: flint moving against him now; the
light of the low platinum moon, which frosted the
swaying tops of the massed trees in the west, shot
dazzlingly from his adversary's high metallic mask.

The night was waning. Would the dawn bring
Tzcatlipoca?

  Jagged blue-green lightning banded the Sacred
Pyramid; a distant growling had begun from the
interior of the Temple of Tzcatlipoca at its summit.

  Ronin felt the pain in his shoulder intensify as
his sword met the crescent flint blade of Uxmal
Chac. But he urged his body onward, his iron will
forcing the agony down into insignificance.

  It is my time now, he thought wildly and he
yelled the battle cry of his unknown ancestors, a
call of power and determination, of strength and
perseverance.

  Uxmal Chac appeared confused by the cry, his
attack brought up short. His great arms lifted his
weapon high over his head; as he began the
massive downswing, he tried to change direction,
perceiving the flight of Ronin's long blade. A blur,
it was within his guard, slamming aside his vertical
blow, and clove his high mask down the center.

  Great yellow and blue sparks flew from the
violent contact and bearing down, Ronin drove the
sword further, through bone, tissue, more bone,
and the body of Uxmal Chac dissipated like smoke
upon the air. A clapping, as of dry stones crashing.

He vaulted to the sixth level.

  "Ah, no!" Ek's voice no longer recited toneless
liturgy. And, from below, Ronin heard the
desperate cry of Kin Coba as she pulled her
broken body up the Sacred Pyramid's central
stairway:

  "It is true then. What was written in the Long
Count, in the Book of Balam, cannot be
changed "

Got it!

  "No!" cried Ronin, stalking the sixth level. "I was
born in the katun Ce-Acatl. I was driven from Xich
Chih with my Father in the /catun Ce-Acatl. And,
as the Long Count and the Book of Balam
foretold, I have returned in the katun CeAcatl!"

  "What?" Ek threw up his hands. "What madness
is this? What do you know of Atsbilan, warrior?"

68 Eric ~ I'ustbader

"All!" cried Ronin. "For I am
He-Who-Sets-The-Sun!"

Ek screamed: "Impossible! It cannot be!"

  Ronin raced along the stone step on the sixth
level, his eyes intent on Xib, the skull, coming
alive on the seventh step. A fresh breeze had
sprung up and as it reached him he turned and in
the east saw the horizon, entirely visible at this
elevation over the distant treetops of the immense
jungle, saw the faint edges of pink and pearl grey
streaked there as if by an artist's brush, presaging
dawn.

"Return!" cried Kin Coba. "Reassemble!"

Crouching, the skull advanced.

Ronin made the seventh step.

  "Oh, Tzcatlipoca." Ek raised his arms toward
the black heavens. "Master of the moon and the
pole star and the deep of night, is this truly
Atsbilan or is it some impostor?"

It was what frightened them. He used it.

  "It is 1, Ek! Atsbilan has returned! Who else
but He-WhoSets-the-Sun could prevail against the
forces of Tzcatlipoca in the sacred game?"

  He closed with the red aspect and, as he did so,
the skull drew forth an ebon rapier, ivory-handled,
its blade thin and flexible.

The two unequal blades flashed, crossing.

  "Destroy him!" sobbed Kin Coba. "He must not
reach the ninth step!" Her spine splintered, still
she strove to crawl up the central staircase, a
ruined jaguar, noble even in death.

  He used both hands to maneuver his sword
against the lightning-like rapier as the grinning
skull in his red robes caused the air to whine with
the complex patterns of thrust, feint, thrust.

  All along the seventh level they fought like
fiends, using every ounce of their strength, every
trick in their cunning combat vocabulary, their
deadly dance as precise, as coldly geometric as the
silent stone city crouched far below them. They
whirled and lunged, twisted and circled, stalking
the one instant of hesitation, searching for the
one flicker of an eyelid indicating a break in
concentration that would signal the death of one
combatant.

  The breeze from the east stiffened, tugging at
the skull's crimson robes, fluttering Ronin's long
hair.

Ek's fevered cries rose again into the dying night:

  "Tzcatlipoca, hear the call of Your children, we
who have served You faithfully and tirelessly
through the endless katun

DAI-SAN 69

of Time. We must be victorious this night for Your
time in Xich Chih has come again! Once again it
shall be filled to overflowing with Your worshipers,
who will walk with the prowling Chacmool; who
will serve You. Aid us now against Your enemy!"

  The green and blue lightning crackled and it
seemed to Ronin that Ek's desperate cry was
successful for surely now the skull's attack grew
fiercer and he grew stronger with each new thrust
of his blurred blade so that Ronin was forced back
along the stone step. Back and back under the
murderous assault, dizzying him, impossible to
stop. The skull loomed out of the mother of pearl
night, the rapier on a deadly trajectory that
nothing could stop.

  A calling, distant, sparked in his mind as the
rapier came on, a comforting sound like the gentle
chatter of a great rainfall and he felt a trembling
in the core of his being. Inside him, red and yellow
lightning-like bolts of thought, currents of energy
multiplying through him in geometric progression.

He attempted no parry.

The rapier rushed at his heart.

  But merely, dreamlike, lifting his long sword
obliquely, higher, higher still, until, with a
harmonious sigh like the profoundest of musical
chords, echoing away and away into the infinitude
of the heavens, it reached the proper angle.

  The blade seemed to ripple in pleasure as the
first rays of the leading edge of the rising red sun
shot along its length, running like molten metal.
Ronin felt the vibrations of energy and his entire
being seemed to expand with strength.

  The long beautiful blade swam with pink and an
intense bolt of light exploded from its tip, an
extension of the solar engine filling the eastern
horizon, lancing out along the line of the blade,
striking the skull at the juncture of his throat.

"Oh!"

  Such a small, pathetic sound, coming from the
lips of a god, lost now on the rising wind from the
east. The mask ballooned out grotesquely,
shattered like a glass goblet, and Xib's acephalous
body went heavily down the immense steps of the
structure, tumbling, tumbling, in a swirl of scarlet
and gray.

  While Ronin, alight with power, vaulted to the
eighth level, rolling, hurtling upward again to
stand, at last, on the ninth step, the summit of the
Sacred Pyramid of Tzcatlipoca.

Ek towered before him, his ebon robes filmy and
ethereal,

70 Eric ~ Lustbader

billowing about his lean body. He threw a crescent
of flat stone at Ronin and it struck his sword so
that it spun from his grasp, clanging against the
stones of the pyramid's summit.

  But Ronin, lunging to his right, scooped up the
huge brass brazier, burning brightly, lifting it from
its base and flinging it in a hail of blue flame and
red coals into Ek's face.

With a peculiar dry popping, the face fired.

  Ronin ran for his sword, sheathed it, and
turning, beheld not the burning form of Ek but
something else.

  The body swayed as if, weightless, it was caught
in the wind's gusting crosscurrents.

Ronin stared.

  From the blackened, smoking pit between the
wide shoulders, there came a gnashing as of huge
jaws working convulsively. A weird, unhuman cry
billowed out into night's swift close and the very
air about the tall form wavered and shuddered so
that, for an instant, Ronin could not clearly see
what was occurring.

The air cleared. And Ek was gone.

  Reunited, the four brothers from the Old Time
had become the one: Xaman Balam, the Hand of
dark Tzcatlipoca, forger of the Sundering,
instigator of the rewritten Book of Balam,
minister of the night.

  Born in the west, where ever there was
darkness, his robes were a black so deep that they
absorbed light and his huge head, which crowned
his wide, powerful shoulders, was the atavistic
visage of the Chacmool, icon of his Master: red,
ebon-spotted, pointed yellow fangs bristling from
his avenging muzzle, his round yellow and black
eyes fierce, unblinking.

  And Ronin, with the groundswell of energy still
coursing within him, yet knew that he could not
hope to do battle with this nightmare god and
emerge victorious. The power which confronted
him now was awesome, his body shaking with the
pulsing of its emanations.

  For here stood death and now life was beyond
all imagining.

  Xaman Balam's great animal jaws hinged open
and sound emerged that no mortal was ever
meant to hear. It tore at his eardrums like flint
knives.

  Thus the last great god of Xich Chih spoke and
Ronin shuddered, weak before the first
intimations of a power beyond understanding and,
as Xaman Balam strode toward

DAI-SAN 71

him he drew his sword, preparing to fight, looking
inward, setting his soul for death's dark journey.

  And Xaman Balam came on, his arms jerking
upward, the talons at the tips of his fingers curling
into the palms. Ronin gripped his useless sword
more tightly, tensing his muscles for one last
impotent blow, raising the blade.

  But the god had halted and it took Ronin
several moments to realize that the god had
abandoned his attack and was, in fact, in the act of
supplication.

Ronin turned to face the rising sun.

  -It was the brightest of lights, coming from the
east, as if a piece of the sun itself had broken
away. Writhing in the air, it bloomed as it
approached with incredible velocity.

Rippling.

  And Ronin saw now that it was a great serpent,
covered in enormous feathers of every color in
existence. It headed directly for the summit of the
sacred Pyramid of Tzcatlipoca. Xaman Balam
stood immobile as if mortally stricken.

And from just below them, Ronin heard a voice:

  "Oh Xaman Balam, here is our end! Atsbilan's
return has brought his Father back, just as the
Long Count foretold!" It was Kin Coba her face
filled with awe and pain, pale and beautiful and
hideous.

"Kukulkan is come again to Xich Chih! We are
destroyed!"

  The great serpent's head, so like the broken
stone carvings surmounting the lintels of the small
temple with its headless statue, lowered above
Xaman Balam, the enormous body in constant
motion. The fluttering of its plumes were like a
whirlwind.

  And now its rippling coils lowered and wrapped
the dark god in Heir feathered embrace,
squeezing, squeezing, until the huge, fierce jaws
gnashed and the Chacmool head arched back in
agony and me feet were lifted from the cool stone
of its beloved pyramid.

  Xaman Balam cried out, a piercing howl that
rent me skies.

  Still KukuLkan drew his coils ever tighter above
me terrifying figure.

Then Kukulkan spoke:

"Sheatme your sword, my son."

  Ronin obeyed and, at the same instant he lifted
forth his Makkon gauntlet, his hand outstretched,
palm upward, as if in friendship.

72 Eric ~ Lustbader

  It filled with ruby light, building, building,
until the color was so deep that he could not
look into its depth.

  Only then did the light leap from his
extended finger tips, splashing like acid into the
round eyes of the Chacmoolheaded god.

Heatflash.

               Awator

BLUE White. Blue. Gray-white, mottled. A
rushing in his ears; cool air against his body; a
balm to his aches and lacerations.

Weightless.

His eyes closing in weariness. Mind floating.

  His hands gripped the soft, trembling plumes.
A vast fluttering. Fans of Tencho, so far away. A
great rippling.

  His eyes opened by force of will. Day. Because
it was still light. Time enough to sleep when
darkness falls.

  He stretched, peering downward. A break in
the cloud layer, marble parting. Far, far below
him the flat sea arced away from him, following
the curvature of the world. The hot sun's reflected
light, chopped up into pin points of dazzling
whiteness, dancing along its surface, caused him
to think of a cauldron of molten gold. Searching
for a black speck, invisible within the gold. Where
are you now, Moichi?

  Thus Ronin rode Kukulkan, the Great Plumed
Serpent, out from the crumbling limestone, the
cracking wood of the humped island upon which
was built the stone city of Xich Chih, gone now in
a swift, tireless quake. The seething bluegreen
sea, rushing to claim new territory, extended its
shifting, twilit domain.

Xich Chih was adrift now on the tides.

  And above his head, the pearl grey undersides
of clouds, forming and shredding in the winds
aloft. Solid-seeming, cities in the heavens, they
part at the coming of Kukulkan, a great
articulated rainbow, rippling through the skies.

  And Ronin, drunk now with the exhilaration of
life, of this race, grips the pulsing sides, the tufted
plumes warm against his skin, and spreads wide
his arms in exultation, the blood singing in his
veins, light pulsing behond his eyes, a part of

                 73
                  
74 Eric V. Lustbader

this flying colossus, whom Kin Coba called the
Creator of the Sun, before she died.

  Cra'wling like a severed insect up the wide
stone stairway. The sky lightening now, the moon,
refusing to set in this latitude, nevertheless on the
wane. For now it was the earth which darkened
like the night as great clouds of black smoke
poured from widening gaps between the buildings
of Xich Chih.

Then the foundation of the island began to
dissemble.

  Atop the shuddering pyramid, Kin Coba averted
her ashen face as Kukulkan spoke:

"Climb upon my back, my son."

Ronin gestured. "My friend. I will not leave him
here."

The Great Plumed Serpent shook his head but
said nothing.

  Ronin turned and raced down the stairway of
the pyramid. The blue and green lightning had
ceased at the approach of Kukulkan.

"Come on!" he called to Moichi. "Come on!"

Dazedly, the big man began to climb.

  Shards of stone flew through the air while
larger chunks slid downward as if in slow motion,
colliding, crackling. His nostrils filled with dust
and he caught the pungent stench of newly
released sulphur. He slipped as another tremor
ripped through the valley. Jagged lines appeared
along the breaking causeways. Faint red glow
from the depths.

  They fell against each other and, together,
raced for the summit. Up the crumbling stairway,
they leapt over the still form of Kin Coba. Her
topaz eyes stared downward, hard as glass, away
from the enemy of Tzcatlipoca, past remembering
even the dark god whom she had served so well in
this arcane city.

  The wind was rising and now fully half the
structures were obscured by smoke.

  They were airborne in a great flutter, the
ruined city dropping swiftly away from them, its
precise geometry askew and disappearing until it
was just another vast pile of stone and dust and
bones.

And then the sea.

  My life is nought but a dream filled with
surprises, Ronin thought now, alone with the
Creator of the Sun. There is no past. There is no
future. There is only a present more compelling,
more fearsome, more beautiful, than any vision I
could imagine asleep or awake.

The ship awaited them, or so he had thought, but
dipping

DAI-SAN 75

so low that they skimmed the tops of the creaming
waves, Kukulkan said: "For the other, only. You
rise with me, my son."

Thus Moichi and Ronin had parted.

"When next we meet "

  "I will know you." And Moichi dropped to the
wooden deck.

  Creaming coral reefs fell behind them as out
across the jade deep they flew, where lurked the
unknown, unfathomable wonders born at the
dawning of the world, still alive in their dim world
of perpetual shadow. Passing the violent trenches
that still shudered from con to con, causing the
seas to rear up, swallowing ships or islands, Iying
low on their basalt foundations. Past gorges
immeasurably deep where no life or again the
beginning of all life dwelled. Past vast shelves of
layered granite worn smooth where myriad
multicolored fish swam lazily in the sun-dappled
waters, serene and uncaring.

  The planet turned below them as they sped upon
their way. Ronin dozing at last for, he suspected,
night would soon be upon them.

  Yet, though the sun dipped in its arc, heading
downward, Kukulkan flew so high that they were,
in fact, within a region where darkness could not
engulf them. Here the sun, still resplendent in all
its life and warmth, reigned supreme, where night
had never, in all the countless millennia since the
creation of Time itself, been even a brief visitor.

  Thus Ronin slept, his body resting, his strength
renewing itself from the terrible ordeal which had
expended itself across the southern face of the
Sacred Pyramid, defeated gods whose time had
come and was now gone.

And Ronin dreamed.

  Of a giant cat with the form of a woman, who
purred to him, lulling him to sleep with her warm,
susurrant body, her jutting breasts, her curving
thighs, her soft lips. Who rocked against him with
her hips, scraping her nipples against his chest.
Whose eyes were like glowing stones. Whose
cruelty was such that she desired pain instead of
tenderness.

  Of a headless statue, cracked and tilted in the
silt of a swirling lagoon, encroached by weed and
long eels, the glyphs along its base already worn
smooth by the churning tides.

  Peering down at the disappearing answer, Tell
me, he cried in an explosion of white bubbles.

76 Eric V. Lustbader

  Tell me, crooned the feline woman as her legs
drew him inward.

  Of a shadow approaching now out of the deep
green expanse of a forest filled with the sharp
points of pine needles, starred weapons. A
pungent animal smell in his nostrils. A deep
whinnying, so familiar. A guttural snort, the
blasting of cold air. Black antlers, rimed with
frost, shaking the cluster of branches, heavy with
snow. The sun behind a bank of lavender clouds.
The fierce, human eyes. The fear

Tell me now: two voices just out of synch.

He steps forward.

Into the dazzling splendor of the darkness.

  Beneath him, mighty Kukulkan delights in his
swift flight across the face of the world. Long has
he waited for the day when he would feel the
small weight of a body upon his undulating back.
He feels the heat of the sun upon his fluttering
feathers and rejoices in the energy.

"Wake up," he calls softly. "Wake up, my son."

  Ronin opens his eyes, looks downward, through
the marbled clouds, past the gyring gulls below
him, to a distant shore of steep cliffs, rearing out
of the jade sea.

"Behold," whispers Kukulkan. "Ama-no-mori."

              Two
            BEYOND
           rHE MYTHS
          OF MORNING
               
   Down the ~soka~do
Or

~ HE lavender-and-lace dragonfly leapt into the
air. The warm breeze sizzled with the quick beats
of its double wings, spread like shining fans in
the moonlight.

  From budding twig to budding twig it went, its
long, tubular body as straight as a blade. It
hovered, alighted, the beating of its transparent
wings never ceasing, then leapt heavenward
again. At length, it came upon an opened flower
with pink, belled petals, its cupped center damp
and fragrant, and it headed downward.

Ronin moved.

  The dragonfly froze, clinging to the blossom
which swayed slightly from the tiny weight. Even
its wings were at rest, like obliquely angled
harrds in a gesture of supplication.

The night beat on around them.

  Far away and below him, he could hear the
echoing crash and hiss of the breakers rushing
endlessly at the base of the steep cliff. The
chirruping of the insects surrounded him. An owl
hooted close by. He remained still for some time.
In the darkness, away from the cliff's edge, he
could hear the croakings of frogs.

  Reassured, the dragonfly came to life and
resumed its darting, erratic flight amidst the
thicket of flowers. Light from the sliver of horned
moon low in the sky splashed over the blossoms
in a chill, silver shower.

Ama-no-mori.

  The name echoed in Ronin's mind for perhaps
the hundredth time.

  They had descended at last out of the golden
sun-drenched realm, dipping earthward. Dusk,
evening, then night rushed up to embrace them
as they fell through the sky.

  Rolling off the back as the great coils floated
centimeters above the land, letting moist clods of
soil run through his

                 79
                  
80 Eric V. Lustbader

fingers, hearing only the echo of the voice as
Kukulkan rose into the air with a silent flutter, a
brief wind.

"Good-by, my son."

  Ronin stared after him as he ascended toward
the sun, hidden now below the horizon of the
world.

  Ronin sat in the meadow bordered, in the
direction he was facing, by a hanger of maples.
The night air was clean and mild. Soon, he knew,
he would set off in search of the Bujun, the
people of Ama-no-mori, of the great mage
dor-Sefrith, whose enigmatic writing he still
carried with him, sealed within the hollow hilt of
his sword, writing that once translated could turn
the destiny of all men. But for this brief moment
in time, he savored the exquisite taste of victory,
at last upon the soil of Ama-no-mori, his long,
arduous quest at an end.

  He lay back, watching the winking stars wheel
high above him, dew seeping through his shirt,
dampening the skin of his back. He thought of
Kukulkan in his domain of sun. He thought of
flying, the trembling of power, the emerald sea
drifting by far below him. The rush of a warm
wind against his face as the world spun beneath
him. Soon.

He closed his eyes.

  He awoke to the soft rustling of the grass about
him. A night bird called, unseen, in a jeweled
voice. The trilling returned; a brief clatter of busy
wings.

  Silence, save for the quiet chirruping, the
distant soft croaking.

  He stood up, hearing the sighs of the maples as
their tops swayed in the wind off the water. His
gaze swung left and he saw the intermittent
crystalline spark of a small fire. He set off in that
direction, stretching his sore muscles, glad of the
easy exercise. He breathed slowly as he went
across the meadow, consciously exhaling more
than he inhaled so that his automatic reflexes
took over and he was breathing deeply and
naturally once more. His lungs filled with the
perfumed air.

  Away from the hanger, he passed a stand of
tall, slender pines, lonely and spectacular, regal in
their aloofness, on a ridge of land, the verge of a
shallow drop to the interior of the island. The
sickle moon rode their shivering tops.

  Down the incline of brown earth and tangled
roots, through a copse and into the reeds. To his
right he could make out the black bulk of a
forest, gaining dominance over the land as he
moved obliquely into the interior.

DAI-SAN 81

  Soon he heard the ripple of water and the
rhythmic singsong of the frogs filled the night.
There came a soft splash and the creakings ceased
momentarily before starting up again. Abruptly, the
fire bloomed before him in a glow of oranges and
saffrons.

  He paused just within the circle of firelight. A
figure, a chiaroscuro of black and orange, squatted
before the fire, turning pieces of food skewered on
a green sapling stick. The head turned and an oval
face, flat and yellow, peered up at him with dark
eyes. They took in his entire figure.

  "Would you join me, warrior?" The voice was
soft and musical and, while some of the vowels
seemed distorted to his ear, he had no trouble
understanding the man.

"Yes, I " His sword felt heavy at his hip. "I am
hungry."

  "Well then." The head swiveled. "Come and sit
down, by all means."

He hesitated.

"Are strangers always so welcome here?"

  The man laughed, a silvery sound which mingled
gently with the rich clatter of the river somewhere
near on their right. "Would you slay me then for
the mouthfuls of food which are already yours? Or
perhaps you desire my fishing poles and bait." He
laughed again. "Sit. Sit."

  Ronin went and sat cross-legged near the man.
The shining face peered at him, the wide cheeks,
the flat nose, the almond eyes giving the face a
humorous countenance even when the features
were at rest. It was neither an old face nor a young
one.

  "Hoshi is my name, warrior." He handed Ronin
a chunk of hot vegetable.

  Ronin held it in his finger tips, watching the
steam disappear into the night. The frogs' song was
a steady reverberation.

"I am Ronin," he said. "I am not from this island."

  "That is quite apparent from the cast of your
face," said Hoshi. He selected a lump from the
stick, popped it into his mouth, chewed slowly,
almost reflectively. His black eyes never left
Ronin's face.

  "What is the name of this place?" After so
long, he could not hold back; his tongue almost
caught on his teeth.

  The oval face cocked at an angle, the wide lips
licked the charcoal from the blunt finger tips.

"Ama-no-mori, Ronin. The Floating Kingdom."

82 Eric ~ Lustbader

  Ronin's exhaled breath was yet another sigh
borne upon the rustling night.

  Hoshi looked down for a moment, offered him
another piece of hot vegetable.

"Where are you bound?"

"I search for the Bujun."

  "Ah." The fisherman nodded to himself. "I
should have guessed." He ground the point of the
bare stick into the white ash in the fire's center.
"Well, my repairs are completed and I travel
upriver at dawn. I can take you part of the way, at
least, hm?"

"Part of the way where?"

"To Eido, of course."

Firstlight was surreal.

  A pearl mist turned all the countryside into a
pointillist painting. Tall brown reeds floated by
them on either side as Hoshi poled the long thin
boat. The trees along the high banks were pastel
greens and faded browns and, farther off, the
rounded hillsides and the forest were the grey
wisps of a waking dream.

  The air was cool and moist. Hoshi poled with
rapid, powerful strokes in a rhythmic cadence. A
crane blew out a bamboo break to their left as
they passed, its blue body grayed and subdued in
colon The wet clatter of its rising began a chain of
calls by nearby frogs and upriver there was a brief
silvery flash and a shivering of the ghostly reeds.

  Hoshi stood amidst the slimy fruits of his work.
The unskinned fish sloshing back and forth to the
boat's movements in the few centimeters of water
he had proved for them.

  Ronin sat silently near the boat's bow, watching
the land rising from the mist, trying to clear his
mind of the thousand tumbling questions he
wished to ask but was sure that the fisherman
could not answer. He was not Bujun.

  Surprisingly, the rising sun merely warmed the
fog but could not burn it off and the world
continued to float by him serenely with little or no
signs of life. Insects buzzed in the mounting heat
and, occasionally, the low-bowing branch of a
weeping willow caused him to duck out of the way
of its lacy embrace.

  They paused under the shelter of a spreading
maple just past midday. Hoshi sat on the aft
bench, produced a knife with a curving, serrated
blade, and proceeded to skin and filet a fish. He
offered Ronin half. They chewed silently, enjoying

DAI-SAN 83

the stillness, the peace. They shared the last of
Hoshi's clear rice wine.

  Just before dusk, Hoshi altered their course
again and headed toward the right-hand shore.
When they had moored the boat, Hoshi fileted
another fish, wrapped it in oiled paper for Ronin.

  "Your way lies to the east," he said, pointing.
"Along the Kisokaido."

  Ronin thanked him and set off along the
indicated path. The mist was turning a pale
lavender and the world glowed like a lovely
amethyst held up to a light as he strode down the
winding road. The forest had finally dropped away
from them during the long afternoon and now the
road led him through rolling grasslands, rich and
fallow. He sniffed, smelling animals and looked
around. He saw none nearby and the mist made a
wider search impossible.

  It grew cooler. He began to ascend, the road
continually doubling back upon itself as the incline
became steeper. Large outcroppings of rock
became frequent and at several points he felt
certain that the Kisokaido had been cut through
solid granite.

  Gradually, he rose above the mist as the road
wound up the slopes of a mountain. He broke out
of it into the cool clear night, the sky above cloudy
and restless. He turned, looking at the tall pines
and cedars whose lower halves were still wrapped
in its moist embrace.

  It began to rain, a cleansing, drenching
downpour, refreshing and invigorating, pattering
and hissing along the rocks and earth and scrub
brush of the mountain road.

  He went on and ahead he could see, within a
stand of dancing pine, a small three-sided wooden
shelter, the stark, clean beauty of its construction
illuminated by a lone oiled paper lantern hanging
within its interior. The torrent was already turning
the narrow road to mud, as black soil washed
downward and he was glad to find some sanctuary.

  As he drew close, he saw that the lantern hung
not from a beam of the shelter but rather from the
side of a dappled mare which stood sleeping in one
corner. By her side slumped a man in a wide straw
hat, moisture beading its crown, rain still dropping
off its brim.

  Ronin entered the shelter. The horse's tail
flicked at a fly, her flank muscles jumping
reflexively. The man did not move.

  Ronin hunkered down in an opposite corner,
inhaling the mingled scents of the cedar structure
and the matted coat of

84 Eric ~ I`us1bader

the animal. There seemed no smell of human
sweat.

  He looked about him. The building was
superbly constructed: clean, angular lines, simple,
as befitted a mountain station; somehow regal in
its austerity.

  It was warmer in here despite the openness of
one side, the architecture keeping out the damp
chill of the downpour. Ronin turned his attention
to the crouched figure but his lowered sedge hat
concealed his face.

  The rain hammered against the sloped wooden
roof, the drumming lulling, hypnotic. Outside, the
dark was alive with the obliquely falling rain,
streaks of bouncing energy, silvered where the
light from the lantern hit it.

  The man in the dripping sedge hat stirred but
his head did not lift.

The beat of the rain.

Ronin slept.

  The man crouched before him, staring into his
just-opened eyes. He resisted the impulse to jump
up and draw his sword. He had glimpsed the
man's long blade as he had entered the shelter
last night. Now he saw that he carried a shorter
sword on his opposite hip. A warrior. Was he
Bujun, then? He was dressed in a brown wrapped
robe, embroidered with a green spoked wheel
pattern, plain sandals. Lacquered reed greaves
protected his legs from just under the knee to just
above the ankle. On his back was strapped a small
round shield, lacquered brown and green. His hair
was shiny black, set in a queue. His features were
flat. Ridges of muscle ran along the sides of his
thick neck. Pouches of flesh hung beneath his
eyes, which were almond-shaped but nevertheless
rather peculiar. They reminded Ronin of someone
else's but he could not think of who.

  "Good morning to you, stranger." The man
spoke softly. His eyes were unwavering.

"Good morning."

  "If one may be excused so rude a question:
where are you from?"

Ronin said nothing, observing the other.

  The man's right hand drifted languidly to the
slightly curved hilt of his long sword.

  "There are no strangers come to Ama-no-mori
for many many years," said the man even more
quietly. "Excuse me again, but I see that you are
a warrior. I would know why one

DAI-SAN 85

such as yourself would come to this island and how
he came here."

  Ronin looked steadily into the black
unfathomable eyes so close to his, keeping his gaze
studiously away from the man's hands.

  "I come to Ama-no-mori seeking the Bujun," he
said slowly, "for I have been told by those who
know that the Bujun, and only the Bujun, may aid
me now." He allowed himself an unhurried breath.
"It is on a quest of the greatest import that I have
come to Ama-no-mori. I am here as a friend of the
Bujun. I have spent much time and many lives
have been lost so that I should be here now. A
confrontation with you is the last thing I desire."
His hands were motionless on his muscled thighs.

  "How came you to Ama-no-mori?" said the man.
"No ships were sighted."

Ronin did not ask hhn how he could know this.

"I did not come by ship," he said.

  They were motionless. Outside, the rain had
ceased sometime before dawn and the sun was
already sparking along the granite and schist
outcroppings. A rainbow arced in the air. Birds
called sweetly from the high treetops behind them
on the mountainslopes. Far away but quite clear in
the still air, he heard the steady clop-clop of a
horse's hoofs along the path, ascending. The sky
was white. The cedars were very green.

"Someone comes," said Ronin.

  The man grunted abruptly, a sound both
incongruous and harmonious with the moming.

"You may accompany me to Eido, if that is your
wish."

  He stood up and turned away, went to his horse,
and while the animal fed on dry grain, pulled a
square tablet from his baggage.

  "Eat if you desire. This morning is too fine to
pass up. I will paint for a time. Then will the
journey resume."

  He strode to the edge of the enclosure, patting
his mount's withers, then went out and across the
Kisokaido, squatting in the dappled sunlight at the
far edge of the highway. He began to draw with a
black brush in short, arcing strokes, sure and
precise.

  Ronin unwrapped the oiled paper Hoshi had
given him, chewed on a piece of raw fish. It was
still juicy. Wiping his mouth, he went out onto the
road.

  The air was clear and bright, the trees
whispering behind him. The horse's clop-clop was
louder now and a small animal

86 Eric V. Lustbader

bounded out of the brush to his left, hopped
down the road for several steps, then quickly
disappeared behind a stand of thick cedars. The
day was pungent with their fragrance.

  The rider appeared, in sedge hat and deep grey
riding cloak. He nodded to Ronin and, putting
spurs to his steed's flanks, went around a turning
to their right.

Ronin went across the highway, stood beside the
man.

"What shall I call you?"

The man did not turn from his delicate, exacting
work.

"My name is Okami, stranger."

Ronin squatted beside the man.

"Does it have a meaning?"

Okami's shoulders lifted, fell.

  "All Bujun names have a meaning. Mine means
'snowwolf' in the old tongue, though why my
mother chose to call me that I cannot say. There
were no okami within a hundred leagues of the
village of my birth."

  Ronin listened to the cicadas for a time,
absorbed in Okami's drawing. Then he said: "Why
is it, do you think, that we two, born in far distant
lands, can yet speak to each other with little
difficulty? One would think that "

  "Why we are both men, of course," Okami said
reasonably.

"Are not the Bujun different?"

  "Many ages ago," said the other, ignoring him,
"or so it is said by our fathers' fathers, there were
so many folk upon the face of the world, that they
spoke a myriad of languages." He shrugged. "But
that was a different time and it is known that
these things change. When men spring from the
same root, they can converse with one another
without difficulty, though their birthplaces may
differ." His hand moved deftly over the mulberry
paper tablet. "Who knows, perhaps it is shared
destiny which makes it so."

  His skill was bringing to life the expanse of
mountain, valley, and shelves of slopes which were
before them. His rendering was delicate yet filled
with a vitality proclaiming the vibrancy inherent in
nature.

"What is your name?"

Ronin told him.

  His head turned from the scene on his lap. It
was a strong purposeful visage, the eyes intelligent
and full of understanding. His high cheekbones
and the firmness of his jaw gave him a stern
appearance yet the flatness of his features helped
to soften this effect.

DAI-SAN 87

  "Yes? Really." His eyes held a measure of
surprise for only the briefest of instants. Then he
returned to his painting. A swaying cedar
blossomed under his brush point. "That is a Bujun
word."

It was Ronin's turn to show surprise.

"But that cannot be."

  "It is, stranger. Did I not say that all men come
from the same root "

"But I am not Bujun."

"Well, you do not look Bujun "

"My people have never heard of Ama-no-mori "

  "Is that so? In that case, how came you to know
of this island?"

  Ronin thought. The City of Ten Thousand
Paths, where representatives of all lands had come
together, dwelling beneath the surface of the world
made uninhabitable by the sorcerous wars. Within
that city had dwelt both his ancestors and the great
Bujun mage, dor-Sefrith.

"Perhaps," said Ronin, "it is possible."

"Of course," said Okami, seemingly satisfied.

"What does it mean?"

"A masterless warrior."

  Laughter burst forth from Ronin, and Okami
turned, smiling quizzically, not understanding at
all.

  They left the station sometime before noon,
ascending, then descending slightly as the will of
the mountain road dictated. The gaunt crags slid
by them in a solid wall on their right. Below them,
to the left, the cliff fell gradually away, revealing
tall copses of pine and, further down, flat wet
fields of rice, shimmering in a heat haze.

"I am Bujun, yes," said Okami.

'When you know of dor-Sefrith."

"Only myths survive from the old days, I am
afraid."

"What can you tell me about him?"

  "Very little." Okami put his arm long his horse's
mane. "Why is dor-Sefrith so important to you?"

  "I carry a piece of his writing that may save all
of this world now."

  "Ah," said Okami noncommittally. "Once the
Bujun were the greatest warrior-mages in the
history of this world and we lasted far into the new
time, when virtually all other sorcery had
vanished." He slapped the mare. "But that was
many cans ago. Sorcery is no longer practiced
here."

         Eric 11: Lustbader

  "But surely there are people here who can
translate the old language."

  "I am sure that in Eido we shall find such a
one, Ronin." He smiled. "Until then, let us speak
of pleasanter matters."

  At length they came upon a break in the
inimical rock face to their right and were thus
allowed a glimpse of a narrow defile, green, leanly
shadowed, which opened onto a sunlit gorge down
which tumbled an icy waterfall. Splayed rainbows
danced at its base.

  "The day is hot," said Okami. "Shall we cool off
in the water?"

  "I would reach Eido as swiftly as possible. Who
knows how "

  "You do not wish to reach the capital stinking
like a simple farmer." He clapped Ronin on the
back. "Come. One needs to break up any
journey."

  The coolness of the defile was like a soothing
balm. Okami, leading them through, tethered his
horse beside a copse of pungent cedars and
immediately stripped off his dusty clothes, dove
into the frothy pool at the foot of the waterfall.
With a brief glance around the gorge, Ronin
joined him.

  The water was icy and clear beneath the
surface turbulence. Silver and blue fish darted
away from Ronin's arcing body. He turned
upward before he hit bottom, breaking the skin of
the pool and whipping his head around to clear
his eyes of water. Then he bent his head and
drank his fill, savoring the sweetness.

  They dried off in the sun. The power of
Okami's heavily muscled frame did not escape
Ronin's notice.

"May I see your other paintings?"

"Certainly."

  Okami wrapped his robe about his still damp
body and drew his pad from his saddlebags.

  Ronin turned the pages slowly, fascinated by
the economy of line which portrayed so stunningly
the richness of the countryside and its inhabitants.

"Each one is a station of the Kisokaido," said
Okami.

  Behind them, the water clattered busily down
the roughhewn walls of the gorge.

Ronin handed him the pad, began to get dressed.

"Would you like to learn?" said Okami.

  Ronin looked up into the other's face, perhaps
to see if he were being mocked, but Okami's eyes
were serious.

DAI-SAN 89

  "Yes," he said, surprising himself. "I would like
that very much."

  Three grey plovers left cover at the far end of
the gorge, gusting into the sky.

  "Splendid! Let us return to the highway and we
shall commence as we continue our journey." He
turned to put the pad back into its case.

  In that instant, Ronin heard the soft whistle and
began to draw his sword. Apparently Okami heard
it also, for he turned back. The arrow pierced his
left shoulder.

  Ronin's blade was out; he was in a semicrouch,
his eyes raking the dense foliage along the walls of
the gorge. Okami grasped the shaft of the arrow
and jerked powerfully. He threw the thing from
him, simultaneously drawing his own long sword.

  Down from the rocks, from behind their
emerald cover, leapt five men. Long, slightly
curved swords held before them in two-handed
grips, they landed lightly beside the pool and
advanced on the pair.

  "Resistance will be futile," said one, obviously
the leader. "Surely you can see that you are
outnumbered." The five moved closer, spreading
out in a rough semicircle. They were dressed
similarly to Okami, in dark-colored robes and
leather sandals. One carried a wooden bow
obliquely across his back. Ronin saw no shields.
"Please be good enough to hand us your money
and your horse." When they did not move, the man
said, somewhat harshly: "Drop your weapons."

  "What you want from us," said Okami carefully,
"you will have to get for yourselves."

  "So be it," said the man. He gestured. "You two,
take the tall one with the strange eyes."

  They leapt at once, howling, and he faced them
with his right side, feeling the familiar jolt of
power rush through him at the onset of combat.
His blade was held obliquely before him. Rock
steady he stood as they hurled themselves at him.
A strong pulse danced along the side of his neck
and his lips broke involuntarily into a feral grin.

  "We take the other," called the leader as the
remaining men advanced on Okami.

  The two swung their swords high above them as
they closed on Ronin and as they began their swift
downward arcs, he bent his knees, feinted a slash
to the right. The man on that side cut short his
downswing to compensate for the expected attack.
It did not come. Instead, Ronin veered his sword
to the

90 Enc ~ l['ustbader

left and, having momentarily neutralised his first
opponent, brought a vicious horizontal blow under
the second man's vertical strike. He caught the
man squarely across the chest, the force cutting
through cloth, skin, flesh, and cracking the
breastbone. The man wailed and fell to the
ground in a gush of blood.

  He withdrew his blade in time to parry the
thrust from the first man.

  In the periphery of his vision, Ronin had the
briefest glimpse of Okami's long curving blade, a
platinum blur, disemboweling one of his foes with
a blow of enormous power and speed.

  Ronin's remaining foe feinted twice and
chopped at him. Their weapons shuddered with
the force of the electric contact as he countered.
He felt the longer blade slip from his and
withdrew his extended right leg as the man sought
to cripple him with a new downward sweep.

  As they circled each other, Ronin felt respect
for his opponent's combat skills. The man was
obviously a professional

his ability and knowledge would have exceeded
those of most Bladesmen from the Freehold.

  Fierce blue sparks flew from the crashing of
their blades as they fought across the gorge,
skirting the verge of the bubbling pool.

  Ronin extended his leg again for a swift lunge.
His foe angled his blade, anticipating the attack,
and Ronin swept in high instead of low, a
powerful vertical strike which left him exposed for
a fraction of an instant. But the other had only
enough time for his eyes to open wide, registering
shock, before his skull was split open like a fruit.
His sword arm responding to galvanic action,
continued its sweep and Ronin stepped aside. The
body toppled into the pool and Ronin whirled.

  Okami had just dispatched the second man with
an economic reverse thrust as the man ran at his
exposed back. Now he confronted the leader of
the group. Okami yelled, forcing the other man
back until he was stopped by the rocks at the rear
of the gorge. Desperately, the man sought an
avenue past Okami's guard, to his neck, but with
a fierce surge of strength, Okami broke through
first. His curving blade was a white blur as it
drove deep into his foe's shoulder and chest. The
man jerked, his head thrown back. Only the
whites of his eyes showed as the body danced in
death.

Okami turned, bowed to Ronin.

DAI-SAN 91

  "Well, it seems as if this small respite from the
toils of our journey has been most beneficial."

  He wiped his long blade on the dead man's robe
and, slowly, sheathed his weapon.

"I do not like it."

"Why not?"

"It is clumsy compared to yours."

  The Kisokaido had become a steeper road, the
rocks crowding out for a time the lushness of the
jade foliage. Yet even these grays and blues
seemed austere rather than bleak. Already Okami's
paintings had taught him that.

  "Please, Ronin, do not attempt to compare those
things which have separate lives."

"But I do not "

  "It is advice only. Compare, by all means. But I
tell you this now: you will never be happy with it."

"I am not satisfied."

  "Good!" Okami clapped his hands. "An artist is
never satisfied "

"But you just said "

  "Happiness and satisfaction are two very
different feelings."

  They sat just outside the wooden overhang of a
white station high up within the mountains. It was
chilly and a thin covering of crisp snow shimmered
white and blue across the highway. It was virgin
save for their footprints and those of Okami's
mare.

  "Look here, Okami " He indicated a point on
the sheet of mulberry paper in his lap.

"Yes, and so ?"

"The trees are too squat and here the copse is
bunched up."

"Change them then."

"All right. Uhm. How is that? Better?"

"You tell me."

"Well." He paused, studying it. "Yes. I like it
better."

"There, you see? You have it."

  He smelled the sharp fragrance of the fire they
had lit in the interior of the shelter, within the
stone hearth.

  The sun was sinking, a flat red ablate, magnified
and distorted by the haze near the horizon, almost
directly in front of their eyes. A towering,
snow-capped peak shimmered pink and mauve in
the lowering light. A man and two women in
wide-brimmed sedge hats and wooden sandals
walked beside

92 EIIC V. I'us1:bader

a laden cart pulled by a lone ox. They came down
the mountain, passed the pair, and disappeared
around a turning to the far left.

  "We teach ourselves, we who can paint," said
Okami, after a time. "We begin to explore what
we see before us, each to our own precepts. Trust
no one who would claim to teach you that." He
pulled at the lobe of one ear. "Oh, the mechanics
can be taught. I have already showed you how to
hold the brush in order to get the strokes you
desire. But" he shrugged lightly "who knows?
You may find a better way of getting what you
want from the brush." He stared at the darkling
mountain peak jutting through the horizontal
landscape. "Painting, as with all great endeavors,
comes from the soul of man. Each individual.
None other may teach that thing which makes art
unique."

  Ronin's right hand ceased its movements across
the sheet of paper. He looked at the other.

"You paint and fight "

  Okami nodded. "All Bujun must learn delicacy
and compassion as well as fierceness and
precision. Naturally, it has always been easier to
acquire the latter qualities. One must work most
diligently to learn the former." A line of black
ants crossed the ground between them, carrying
bits of food twice their own length. "I myself had
a choice. We all do of course because the Bujun
have long understood that, in some things, at
least, authority does not engender discipline." The
ants began to disappear, one by one, into their
hill. "Dancing was not the way for me, neither the
Noh, and I confess to being a rather poor poet "

"But painting "

  "Yes, that is something in which I show some
little expertise."

"As you do with your sword."

"So."

  "Have you been down the Kisokaido before?"
said Ronin, turning a page, smoothing the new,
blank sheet of mulberry paper.

"Oh yes, many times."

"Then you have bathed in that pool before."

  "Certainly. It was most refreshing, do you not
agree?" He twisted off a stem of grass, stuck it
into the corner of his mouth.

  "I imagine one must be careful, these days,
wherever one travels."

DAI-SAN 93

  A small smile spread across Okami's face. "Oh,
most assuredly, but the prudent traveler soon
learns to avoid those places along the highway
most frequented by brigands."

"Such as the gorge."

  "You must admit," Okami said happily, "that
each of us now knows the other much better."

  Ronin had to admire the man. Each had shown
the other his worth without the embarrassment of
prying questions or the wastefulness of a direct
confrontation. He recalled the deviousness of his
first clash aboard Tuolin's ship on his way to
Sha'angh'sei. Those men, too, had wished to gain
the measure of his strengths as a warrior. How
crude and unnecessary their actions seemed now.

  "And your shoulder," said Ronin, taking up his
brush once more.

  "A flesh wound, only." Okami sat very still,
breathing deeply. "And I have had many of those."

"I will not forget this."

Okami nodded.

"A man never forgets."

Ronin gestured. Dusk was settling comfortably in.

"I would paint that peak that we have seen all
afternoon."

"Yes. I thought you might."

Ronin dipped the brush into the ink and began to
paint.

"What is its name?"

  "Fujiwara." Okami sighed in contentment. "'The
Friend of Man."' For a time, he watched the
strokes of his brush in the stranger's hand,
thinking, His name does not fit him. Once,
perhaps, but I have a feeling and are we not
taught to feel?  that he has outgrown it now. He
sighed again, his keen eyes lifting to the beauty he
saw before him. Home. He blinked. This man's
arrival will disturb the tranquility which we have
observed for so many years. Change has come
again to Amano-mori. He shrugged inwardly. Is
not change what life is all about?

  "Tomorrow," he said quietly, so that his
companion would hear yet not be disturbed from
his work, "we begin our descent into Eido."

On Ronin's lap, Fujiwara was born again.

               ~Sakara

WAITING, he stood just inside the vermilion and
green wooden gate. Above his head, a great oiled
paper lantern, lacquered in black angular
characters, swung gently from its wire moorings.

  He looked out across the wide stone courtyard
at the twostory wooden structure, its vermilion
walls and sloping roof made more startling as they
jutted from the concealment of the stand of cheny
trees. On the right, across the courtyard, beyond
the main building, rose the layered construct of a
pagoda.

The clear chime of bells came to him on the
crystalline air.

  Men in wide-shouldered robes and wooden
sandals strolled in twos and threes toward the
vermilion building. Behind them, women in long
robes and quilted coats, their heads hidden by
oiled paper umbrellas, followed, chatting among
themselves.

Plovers clattered against the wind.

  They had come down out of the cold clear
mountain air at dawn, the highway declining
serpentinely, with the sky pink and platinum.
Birds fluttered in the early sunshine, calling to
each other.

  Eido was spread out before them, flat and
variegated, sitting astride two rivers, the one,
narrow and swift, the other wide, marshy, and
sluggish, sprawling across a large plain bordered
on its far side by the first gentle slopes of
Fujiwara. Beyond them, the steep sides of the
mountain itself rose, enormous and majestic
against the lightening sky.

  Thus they stood for many moments mute,
transfixed, despite their exhaustion, their need to
bathe, by this view at the southernmost end of the
Kisokaido, which, perhaps, transcended all other
views in Ama-no-mori.

  They went directly to Okami's home, a flat,
elegant house of paper and wood and some stone
in a section of the city

                 94
                  
DAI-SAN 95

between the rivers. Lanterns swung from the
wooden gate.

"The garden is behmd the house," Okami said.

  They were met at the door by two women in
brown robes, who bowed as they entered, beautiful
as flowers, their hair dark and shining, their skin
very white. The women undressed them, taking the
clothes stiff with dried sweat, whose colors had
faded with the layers of dust, and led them to the
bath: two square stone tubs, sunken into the slatted
wooden boards of the floor. As hot water was
poured over them and the women commenced to
scrub their bodies, Ronin was once again reminded
of the pleasures of Tencho.

  Scrubbed, he floated in the warm water,
watching one of the women tend to Okami's
wound, cleaning it carefully, then cauterising it
with a deft flick of her fingers. Afterward, she
applied a small bandage.

  Okami began to talk rapidly to the second
woman, apparently giving her instructions. Ronin
stood up and, dripping, reached for a towel. The
woman who had mended Okami's shoulder rubbed
him down, then wrapped a clean robe around his
body. It was dark blue with the now familiar
spoked wheel pattern embroidered in green.

  He opened a soji and went out into the garden.
The woman glanced at Okami but he made a brief
sign to her and she remained inside.

  He went through a high stand of whispering
bamboo, heard the frogs' distant croaking. In the
heat haze, with the droning of the insects and the
whispering of the exquisitely sculpted rows of
sighing flowers, pink and gold, saffron and orange,
Ronin conjured the extraordinary temple in the
heart of Sha'angh'sei; its magnificent garden. He
thought of the languid fish, calmly floating in their
liquid world, the august tranquility of the old man
who sat by the side of the metal urn. The breath of
Eternity. Here was the complete peace that seeped
through his skin, balming his nerves.

Like coming home, not to birth, but to history.

  "First the Yoshiwara," said Okami, pushing away
his empty dish. They had dined on fresh raw fish,
sweet rice, and spiced tea.

  "And what will we find there?" Ronin drank the
last of his tea.

Okami smiled enigmatically.

  "Not what. Who." He stood up from the low
polished wood table as the women came in to clear
the remnants of the

96 Enc ~ Lustbader

meal. They were as silent as deer. "Azuki-iro.
Kunshin of the Bujun. "

"Does he not have a court?"

  "Oh yes, of course." Okami went across the
room, slid open the paper soji. The late afternoon
sun fell obliquely into the room. The green of the
garden was tinged with orange and russet. "He has
a most elaborate castle but, for the most part, he
prefers the energy, the breadth of Eido." They
went out into the burnished light. Billowing white
clouds chased each other across the arch of the
blue sky, causing myriad shadows to darken the
foliage, the stone paths, as they flew across the
face of the sun. "He enjoys people, you see, more
than anything else."

Cicadas wailed, hard-edged, like copper being
beaten.

  "You must try to understand so much about us,
Ronin, for we are a most complex people and we
baffle those foreigners who have been exposed to
us. We are traditionalists, but only in a certain
sense, I think. We are not fools."

  They strolled through high groves of fragrant
camellias, glowing like ribbons of fire in the
sunlight.

  "In our long yesterdays, our rulers were
emperors who, so our myths tell us, were
descended from the sun itself. But, over time, the
emperors' power weakened, so much so that
factions of Bujun warred among themselves for
land and wealth and, at last, we saw the
emergence of the Sho-gun. The first of these
mighty warlords rose up, defeating all the
daimyos, consolidating his power, thence ruling
Ama-no-mori, leaving the emperor as an impotent
figurehead." Sunlight flickered in chance patterns
across Okami's wide head, dappling his skin as if
he were the subject of a series of paintings. "For
some time, this worked well for us for we needed
the iron discipline the Sho-gun enforced upon us.
We grew strong and indomitable." They broke
cover and for a time, they were without shade.
Distant bamboo shivered. There was a constant
rustling. "But the Shogun were, of course, first
and foremost great martialists and the Bujun
became militant, land hungry; they sought war,
victory over their neighboring races."

  They came to the deep pool, a stone octagon
stocked with a multitude of fish, large, sleek, and
silvery, pink and blue. They sat on the cool stone
edge. A gentle breeze brushed their cheeks. "Thus
the eventual defeat of the Sho-gun was assured.
So were born the first of the warrior-mages, for it
was a time then when sorcery was tolerated in the
world and for many cons the Bujun were isolated
and content.

DAI-SAN 97

  "But eventually the sorcerous wars came and
Ama-no-mori was not left unscathed." The fish
nibbled at the algae along the stone sides of the
pool, deep down, far away from the surface. "A
number of Bujun became involved in the holo-
caust, lured by the riches of the kingdoms of man.
Chagrined, dor-Sefrith, the greatest of the Bujun,
pursued them and defeated them. Still, for the
world of man, the damage was already done.
Dor-Sefrith returned to Ama-no-mori and sadly
retold his tale of death and destruction. The Bujun
decided instantly and he caused the island to be
moved away from the continent of man so that
none might again be tempted to cause destruction.
Then he said his farewells and left Ama-no-mori to
pay his personal debt to man in the City of Ten
Thousand Paths. Thus the Bujun sank into the
mists of legend."

  "Surely there is more that you can tell me about
dor-Sefrith," said Ronin, thinking of The Dolman,
not yet wishing to voice his thoughts.

  "So." Okami shrugged. "Perhaps there are others
in Eido who know more of him." He watched their
dark reflections dance upon the surface of the
water. "We are a people who learn from history
and thus the Kunshin came into being. Not the
Emperor of the Sun; not the Sho-gun, but perhaps
a combination of both. He is a ruler without the
layers of state for he is Bujun just as I am Bujun
and this is something that he cannot forget."

"And we will find him at the Yoshiwara?"

  A brown and orange butterfly came between
them, questing.

"If he takes his pleasure," said Okami, "yes."

  Down a perfectly straight street, the wooden
two-story dwellings narrowing in perspective before
them, came the shadows of two tall men, as if they
floated on the misty amethyst of early evening.
Women in swirling, patterned robes, whitefaced,
red-lipped, carrying delicate paper parasols over
their shoulders, passed them in bunches, giggling,
whispering, flicking sidelong glances in their
direction without ever turning their heads. Perfume
on the air, cherry blossoms and musk.

  "Welcome to the Yoshiwara," said Okami as they
went through the door of a building. Beautiful
women peered down at them like unfurling,
phototropic lilies from second-story balconies.

  A plump woman with coifed, gleaming hair
greeted them, bowing. She wore a robe of mauve
and pink silk, patterned in triangles. A pair of
ivory pins went through her hair. Her face,

98 Eric ~ I~us~ader

plain and flat, was dominated by wide, inquisitive
eyes. She smiled as her head lifted. Okami
introduced Ronin and they all bowed again.

  She held out an arm and Okami removed his
sandals, Ronin his boots. They went across the
tatamis to a low wooden table, uncarved and
unlacquered, sat cross-legged around it. Two
robed women came with steaming, fragrant tea
and rice cakes. Somewhere, perhaps from the
second story of the place, tiny bells sounded, ice
flakes glittering through frigid air.

  To their left, a soji slid back and three women
entered. They were very young with exquisite
heart-shaped faces, black-maned, black-eyed,
crimson lips like bows. They smiled. The
whispering of their silken robes.

"Not now, Juku," said Okami somewhat wistfully.

She nodded and waved a hand. The women
disappeared.

"How may I help you, then?" she said when they
were alone.

"Has Azuki-iro been here this evening?"

  luku smiled and her soft hand reached out to
cover Okami's for just a moment. "You sweet
thing. Of all the houses in the Yoshiwara, it is
here that you come to inquire after Azuki-iro."
She laughed. "You must know the Kunshin well,
Okami. Yes, he was here but much earlier,
perhaps, oh, midafternoon. He did not say but
wait " She held up a hand, called softly but
distinctly: "Onjint"

  Almost immediately, a soji opened and a
woman came to their table. She knelt beside
Juku. She was fine-boned, her skin so delicate as
to be almost translucent. Her almond eyes were
large, her cheekbones high. Her silk robe was the
color of swirled grey ash.

  Juku took the woman's slender hands in hers,
softly stroking their backs. "Tell me, Onjin, when
the Kunshin was with you today, did he say where
he was going when he left here?"

  Onjin stared at the two men for a moment,
then her sooty eyes locked with those of her
mistress.

  "The Kameido, lady, is a place he mentioned
sometime  after."

"Ah," said Juku. "And no others?"

  Onjin thought for a moment, her brow
furrowing. Even those lines could not disrupt her
enormous beauty. "No others, lady "

  "All right." She put a hand to the woman's
cheek. "You may go now."

Onjin rose in a graceful stir of silk and flesh,
gliding ef

DAI-SAN 99

fortlessly across the tatamis. When the soji slid
shut behind her, Juku said, "Lovely, isn't she?"

  Okami nodded. "If there is time tonight, we
shall return to find out for ourselves." His eyes
were glittery in the low light.

"That would make me most happy, Okami," said
Juku.

"Thank you."

  The woman bowed her head. "You honor this
establishment by your presence."

  Out in the bustling street, Okami took them
right, then right again, into an area that was close
and crowded with merchants. This gave way,
abruptly, to a flat garden perhaps two hundred
meters long, dominated by gnarled plum trees.
There were two small, obliquely roofed teahouses,
wall-less on their garden sides, which bordered the
place to the south and the west. Sprinkled
throughout the garden itself were wide wooden
benches on which people sat. Most seemed to be
writing.

  "The Kameido is He garden of the literati of
Eido," said Okami. "The poets, the playwrights,
come here for inspiration from the wisdom of the
ancient plum trees and the extraordinary quietude
amidst the bustle of the city."

  Okami spoke to the proprietor of the teahouse
but he had just come to Kameido and the day
people had already gone for the evening meal. He
offered them tea.

  They stood on the steps of the building, sipping
tiny porcelain cups of tea. A young man
approached them. He was tall and slender, his
black eyes bright, his sensual mouth Ruling.

  "You are looking for Azuki-iro?" His voice had
the ring of metal.

Okami nodded.

"Yes."

"Are you sasori?"

  Okami seemed somewhat taken aback, perhaps
by the directness of the question.

"Not at all."

"Then there is no reason to tell you."

"You approached us."

The man looked around as if puzzled.

"So I did. I thought you might like to hear a poem
that I "

"Listen you "

But Ronin caught Okami's arm.

  "I would like to hear the poem," he said. He
relinquished his grip on Okami's arm only when
he felt the muscles under his fingers relax.

"Ah, splendid." The man glanced down at a small
tablet of

100 ErlcY Lustbader

rice paper that he held. His head lifted. "'And
morning comes. The raven wakes, still tired.'
Well?" He stared at them.

"And I thought my poetry was bad," Okami
muttered.

"What does it mean?" said Ronin.

  "I am sasori," said the man. "Soon the sasori
will fly at night, taking what is theirs. No longer
will we be forced to live on this small, insufficient
island. Soon there will be wealth enough for all
on Ama-no-mori, Bujun and non-Bujun "

  "Enough!" cried Okami, and this time Ronin
did not attempt to stop him. He grabbed the man
by the front of his robe. The small tablet tumbled
to the earth of the garden. "I will hear no more of
this. If you know where the Kunshin is now, you
would do well to tell me!"

  The man looked at Ronin, who said: "I think he
means it. Tell him and be done with it."

  The man shifted his gaze to Okami, who pulled
harder on his robe. The fabric began to rip.

  "There is a Noh performance at the Asakusa
tonight," he said softly. "Perhaps you will find him
there."

  The great oiled paper lantern groaned
accusingly in the wind. The plovers had
disappeared beyond the cherry trees. The top of
the Asakusa was already obscured as night rolled
in in velvet blues and violets.

  The stone courtyard was all but deserted now
as the last of the figures disappeared into the
wide wooden doorways of the vermilion building.

Okami came up beside him.

"There is time."

  They went across the courtyard, past the
bowing cherry trees.

  "The Asakusa is the most renowned Noh
theater in all of Ama-no-mori."

"The Noh are plays," said Ronin.

"Of a sort."

  Inside, the sweep of the polished wooden stage
dominated the space. Before it, down three steps,
was a coarse gravel strip perhaps three meters
wide, after which began the lowwalled polished
wooden boxes housing the audience.

  They went down the central aisle; Okami chose
a box near the front. Within, they sat on the wood
floor, cross-legged.

  Okami leaned over, whispered to a man in a
neighboring box, then said to Ronin:

"Tonight the Noh is Hagoromo."

"What does that mean?"

 DAI-SAN         101

"The Feathered Cloak."

The theater was completely filled.

"Is he here?"

Okami twisted his head briefly.

"I cannot tell."

  The thin, harsh notes of a flute heralded the
beginning of the Noh. It was not a play but more
like an articulated poem. The leading actor played
a female part. He was dressed in complex
ceremonial robes; he wore a coifed wig and a
fabulously carved mask with delicate, chiseled
features of such beauty that Ronin was reminded
of Onjin. The second actor was maskless.

  For a time, they sat on the stark polished wood
of the stage, half-singing, half-chanting in a
language that Ronin found incomprehensible,
moving only their upper torsos, and yet, because of
the actors' consummate skill, he was able to follow
the story line.

  A goddess, having lost her cloak of feathers,
descends into the world of man to retrieve it. The
cloak has been found by a common fisherman who
nevertheless understood the garment to be unique
and of high value. The goddess discovers that the
fisherman has taken her cloak and she attempts to
persuade him to return it to her, yet all her
arguments fail to move the fisherman, who refuses
to part with his prize.

  At length, the two strike a bargain. The
fisherman will consent to return the feathered
cloak if the goddess consents to dance for him.

  Thus the Noh's climax was entirely composed of
movement, devoid of all speech.

  The goddess's dance commences and it is so
unearthly, an intricate gyring so filled with intense
emotion, that none within the Asakusa can tear his
eyes away from the actor. The dance builds until
the very air is charged with a metallic tension born
of a beauty beyond mortal understanding. A
goddess has taken the stage and now dances
desperately for the life of her cloak.

  And it is, finally, in that exalted state, with the
goddess at the pinnacle of her art with the walls of
the Asakusa gone with barriers of reality aflutter,
with the encroachment of infinity pouring across
his mind, that he hears there a stirring out of the
immense silence:

Ronin.

  The river flowed around them, beneath them,
wide and blue. Along both banks, the reeds had
been cut down and fat fish swam in idle
contentment, nibbling at algae clinging to

102 Eric U Lustbader

the submerged rocks. Fireflies danced in the
shadows.

  Across the river, the other half of the enormous
inn spread itself down the embankment for many
meters, a mirror image, symmetrical and precise,
of the wooden sections, raised on stilts, which
jutted out into the bubbling water from the edge
of the banks.

  Okami had had to pull him away, in the end.
The crowd was too thick.

  The mist still flung itself across Eido, obscuring
the top of Fujiwara. Red paper lanterns hung
from the oiled sojis which served to separate the
groups of people sipping tea or rice wine while
enjoying their food. The lanterns' crimson glow
gave the vast inn a sense of intimacy it otherwise
might not have.

Alive! Ronin thought. Alive!

  The buzz of low conversation, the sighing of silk
as men and women made their way to and from
the wooden sections along the water, the brief call
of a heron, white against the blue-black water, the
surrealistic fire of the lanterns' light on the river.
There was constant motion.

  He had jumped up, turning. But the audience
was alive with movement. A great rustling sea,
indifferent to his anxiety as his eyes darted from
person to person. Somewhere there

"Rice wine?"

A young woman bent over them. Okami looked at
Ronin.

"Yes," he said. "For both of us."

  Ronin watched distractedly as she swept away
from them, gliding between the moving people.
Okami asked him a question but he did not hear.
In the audience at the Asakusa, his mind opened
by the electrifying Noh performance, he had
heard her calling to him. It was a sound which he
thought he would never hear again. Three men
and a woman entered the inn and were snaking
their winding way toward a wooden section on the
water. Idly, his eyes took them in. He felt a jolt go
through him.

"Ronin?"

He was standing, staring at the woman as she was
seated.

  "Chill take me!" He was sure. It was Moeru.
Miraculously alive and here in Eido. But how?

"Ronin!" A hand on his arm.

He bent.

What woman."

"Where?"

  "In the pink and silver robe. With the tall man
in midnight blue "

"That is Nikumu. What ?"

 DAI-SAN         103

"I know her, Okami."

"Know her? But that is impose "

Ronin was gone.

"Ronin, no! Not Nikumu! Wait !"

  Through the sultry night, Eido like a translucent
gem-in-amist, lantern-lit, far away on some flat tide,
the richly patterned robes nearby, charcoal fumes
in the air, through the maze of bodies, smiling
women with gleaming hair and white faces, their
perfumes mingling, laughing men with long queues
and stiff-shouldered robes. past serving women with
small laquered trays on which were precisely
positioned pots of tea and rice wine, plates of raw
fish and vegetables, like miniature gardens.

  On the water, a heron, phosphorescent in the
night, skimmed the surface as it took off, its long
legs trailing behind.

"Moeru," he called, coming. "Moeru."

A tightening in his chest.

Calmly, the bird climbed into the mist above Eido.

  Her oval face, pale and beautiful, upturned at his
arrival. Her eyes the color of the sea on a stormy
day. The men at her table were in stiff-shouldered
robes, two in charcoal grey with the familiar wheel
pattern in dark blue, the other, the one Okami had
called Nikumu, in the midnight blue robe with
wheels of gray. Their faces turned to his.

  Far away now, the heron was a white smudge
diminished by distance and the swirling mist.

He stared at her.

"Moeru."

His mind a receiver, waiting.

"How ?"

  Nikumu stood. He was a tall man. Thin, ascetic
nose in the midst of a wide-checked face. His
pinched mouth seemed full of tension.

"Do we know you'?"

Her eyes a murky sea, blank.

Away and away, finished in the mist.

"Moeru?"

"Where are your manners?"

"I know this woman."

  Her pale face, still upturned, the ghost of a lost
smile on her lips. And what ghost of him swam in
the blue-green depths of her eyes?

  "It is quite apparent that she does not know you."
Nikumu turned to her. "Do you know this man, my
dear?"

A slight hesitation, then a quick negative jerk of
her head,

104 Eric V. I'ustbader

almost convulsive, as if someone had pulled a
string.

  "You must be mistaken, you see." The tone
matter of fact, the conversation ended.

  "No, I " Ronin bent slightly. Something in her
eyes, a cloudy essence, a struggle, perhaps.

Nikumu sat. A muscle along his jaw twitched.

"Ke'ema," he said quietly.

  One of the men in charcoal grey rose and
gripped Ronin's bicep.

  Ronin continued to stare, an edge of panic
rising within him. Nothing.

  "You will leave us now," said the man at his
side. His grip tightened.

The perfect oval of her face.

The man began to exert real pressure.

The glint of silver around her slender white
neck

  Ronin was pushed back a step. He jabbed with
his elbow, simultaneously positioning his left foot.
He struck out with his right arm, straight and
rigid as a board. A bright crack as bone shattered.
The man's mouth opened in a silent scream as he
toppled backward into the river.

  Nikumu rose, his face drained of blood. The
remaining man in charcoal grey stepped toward
Ronin.

  Then Okami was at his side, his voice low and
penetrating, and he took Ronin swiftly away,
through the turning, curious faces, away from the
shouts and the commotion, into the deepening
mists of evening.

"What madness made you do that?"

"I know her."

"I cannot believe that."

"You must believe it."

"She is Nikumu's wife."

"What? But that cannot be!"

"My friend, what is, is."

"Her name is Moeru."

  "Yes." Okami's face furrowed in puzzlement.
"That's correct." He shook his head. "Nikumu's
wife! How ?"

"Okami, she wears the silver sakura that I gave
her "

  There was a silence between them for a time
while Okami's eyes, black as stone, searched his
face for the answer to an unknown question. And
Ronin knew that here was the true test of the
friendship that had been forged along the Kiso-
kaido, in a mountain station powdered white by
snow, in a

DAI-SAN 105

high gorge filled with falling water and metal and
death.

  Beyond the oiled rice paper soji, the tall bamboo
swayed in the gathering wind. The bright camellias
were black in the night. A frog called to its mate,
a lonely sound.

  Okami went through the opened soji, out into
the glowing dark. Ronin followed him. The sky was
so clear that the stars seemed to be burning the
fabric of the sky just above their heads.

  "The cherry blossom of Ama-no-mori," Okami
said then. "How would you get a sakura?"

  Ronin sighed, knew that this was all that was left
him now. "On the continent of man," he said
slowly, "in Sha'angh'sei its great port city, I came
upon a man being beaten in an alley. It was near
to night and all I could see was that there were
four or five against the one. I went to his aid but
it was already too late. I slew two of them but the
man was dead. In one hand he grasped a silver
chain with the sakura. For some reason, I cannot
say what, I took it from him."

They began to walk to the pool.

  "He was Bujun, of course, though why he was so
far from Ama-no-mori is a mystery."

"What has this to do with Moeru?"

  "I found her in Sha'angh'sei. She had come in,
sick and starving, with refugees from the north. She
would have been left for dead had I not taken her
to Tencho, where I stayed, to be cared for. When
I sailed from the continent of man in search of
Ama-no-mori, she was with me and I gave her the
sakura as a present. I thought her killed in an
attack by warriors in strange obsidian ships which
rode above the waves. How she came here I have
no idea."

  "Why should she not be here?" said Okami. "She
is Bujun."

The pool was silent between them.

"You do not believe me?"

"Why should she leave Ama-no-mori?"

"Why should a Bujun be in Sha'angh'sei?"

  "Because " Okarni's face was in deep shadow,
the light spilling from the house, at his back.
"Ronin, Nikumu is leader of the sason."

  The frog had ceased its croaking at their
approach. Only the cicadas chattered on,
unperturbed..

  "He is also the most powerful member of the
jogen sow, the council which advises the Kunshin
on vital matters of state policy. It is only recently
that the sasori have risen. They are

106 EncY Lustbader

martialists, Bujun not content to live on
Ama-no-mori. They wish to invade the continent
of man."

"So the Bujun in Sha'angh'sei was a spy."

  Okami nodded. "Suggested by Nikumu, passed
by the jagen sow, he was sent to inform us of the
city's strengths and weaknesses."

"Not all Bujun wish this."

  "No, of course not. Just a minority. But
recently, they have become much more powerful.
And now that Nikumu is their leader "

"What does the Kunshin think of that?"

Okami shrugged pragmatically.

"He has done nothing to stop the affiliation."

"Okami, you must trust me. I know Moeru."

  "All right. I concede there is a possibility that
she too was sent to the continent of man."

  "You do not understand, my friend. There is
something very wrong."

"What do you mean?"

  "She did not recognise me. There was nothing
in her eyes. Nothing."

  Whisper of the bamboo. A fish broke the
surface of the pool, a pale wisp of
phosphorescence.

Okami got up.

"Come with me," he said.

  Inside the house, he called for food and their
traveling cloaks.

"Where are we going ?"

"Into the countryside. Away from Eido for a
while."

"But the scroll "

  "Nikumu will send his men here looking for
you. We must be gone before then."

"But there must be other "

"He will find us in Eido," Okami said flatly.

"I will not run from him. I must get Moeru back."

Okami turned on him.

"Back? She is his wife, Ronin."

  He felt again the edge of a peculiar kind of
desperation. K'reen, Matsu, now No! There was
a chance.

  "Okami, I know her. She is not herself." Okami
donned his long cloak. "I will stay here alone
then."

  "You will not." The eyes blazed and the voice
took on the tone of command. "You will come
with me and do exactly as I say." He gripped
Ronin's arms and his face softened. "Think,

DAI-SAN 107

my friend! If there is to be any chance for you and
for Moeru, we must both leave now." Behind him,
one of Okami's women settled his cloak about his
shoulders.

Outside, in the garden, the frog began its sad song
again.

  They went south, out along the wide Tokaido, a
more traveled highway than the mountainous
Kisokaido and soon the vast sprawl of the city was
far behind them, the flat yellow light like an aurora
within the mist.

  To the west, it was already raining; here the air
was damp and still and electric. Above them, the
stars were rapidly disappearing behind rushing
black clouds. They wrapped their traveling cloaks
more tightly about them and secured their sloping
sedge hats on their heads. They were on foot
although Ronin had argued against this, but his
impatience was forced to accede to Okami's
common sense: on horseback, they would be far
more conspicuous. Now they were merely two
more travelers on the Tokaido.

  The slanting rain, hissing through the night, hit
them just as they left a forest of pine. They had
reached the foot of a steep hill. Trees lined the
Tokaido here, tall, slender bamboo, affording little
shelter. On the road stood a huge boulder, like a
marker on a page.

  "This is Nissaka," said Okami through the
downpour as they passed the rock. The brims of
their hats overlapped. "The stone is said to have
witnessed the struggle between a woman and a
mountain bandit who attacked her when she
refused his demands. The woman was pregnant
and, although she died, her baby survived because
the stone cried out, invoking the merciful goddess
Kannon, who reared the infant." The hill stretched
out before them as they climbed. It was very dark
and visibility was sharply decreased by the storm.
"The child was male and when he reached
manhood, he sought out the bandit and avenged
his mother's death."

There was only rain now, in all the world.

"Do you believe such fanciful tales?"

  "Whether the facts of the myth are true or not
makes little difference. It is the spirit of the tale
which is important. It is something by which all
Bujun live."

  "You are a vengeful people," Ronin said, aware
of the private irony of his statement.

Okami wiped the rain from his face.

  "Revenge and honor are two separate matters,
my friend. One cannot forfeit honor and live."

108 Eric ~ Lustbader

"What is the difference then?"

  "In the manner of the death. The truth of the
life must never be clouded."

  It was a hard road to travel here, especially in
the bleak weather, and they were glad, at length,
to reach the crest. Then around a turning, they
could just make out a smudge of saffron light, a
beckoning hand in the wretched darkness.

  The small inn was perched on the high, steep
slope of a hill. They were welcomed, and leaving
their soaked cloaks to dry in front of a crackling
fire of thick maple logs, Okami asked that hot tea
be brought to them out on the balcony. The
proprietress made no comment, despite the
inclemency of the weather, merely bowed and
ushered them through the inn's warm rooms.

  Out on the roofed balcony, which ran along the
far side of the inn and which overlooked a thickly
forested valley devoid of all civilisation or
cultivation, they heard the woman calling for their
tea.

  Lanterns were still lit and by their glowing light
they watched the silvered rain pour out of the sky.
Far away, thunder rumbled like a bumbling giant.
They unstrapped their hats and sat, the liquid
beating of the rain on the roof of the inn
soothing. The tea came, highly spiced and
steaming, and as they drank, Ronin told Okami all
he knew of the Makkon, the coming of The
Dolman and the Kai-feng, which had already
commenced at Kamado. More tea came. It was
drained, then replaced far into the night until
even the proprietress came to them, yawning,
excusing herself to go to bed, leaving only two
serving girls in the kitchen in the event they
wished for food or more drink.

  "If what you say is true, then the Kunshin must
be made aware of the circumstances," said Okami
when Ronin had finished his tale. "There is surely
an obligation which must be met."

"The Bujun never forget."

Okami smiled with his lips but his eyes were
grave.

"Never."

  "And what of Nikumu, he who wishes the
annexation of Ama-no-mori?"

Okami's eyes mirrored the rain.

  "I know him as all Bujun know him save the
Kunshin. He is a complex man who spends much
time in his castle in Haneda. He is a great
intellect, one of the foremost patrons of the Noh,
as is the Kunshin. When I first heard that he led
the

DAI-SAN 109

sasori I could not believe it. A year ago, they were
laughed at."

  A moth had come in from the rain, attracted by
the lanterns' light. It darted erratically about the
warm oiled paper.

"And now?"

Okami shivered.

"It is like the old days," he whispered.

  Ronin watched the moth as it rose, circling
closer to the open top of the lantern where the
light was stronger.

"Why then does the Kunshin do nothing to stop
it?"

The other shrugged.

  "Perhaps we see only part of it. Certainly
Nikumu is not a monster, though it seems to me
that he has changed much recently."

  Caught in the hot downdraft, the moth fell into
the flame at the center of the lantern. Ronin did
not even hear a pop.

  Rain continued to splatter against the bamboo
roof above their heads, just as it battered the
leaves on the maples in the valley below them.

  "Time is at an end, Okami. For man, the cons
have run their course unless The Dolman can be
stopped, unless someone here can decipher this
scroll of dor-Sefrith's." He gestured outward, to the
valley. "All this beauty gone, as if it had never
existed." Then, in a softer voice: "Where is
Haneda, Okami?"

The face did not turn.

"To the south."

His heart leapt: they traveled south from Eido.

"How far?"

"A day," said Okami. "lust a day away."

  By the time they reached the foot of the Yahagi
Bridge, the landscape had changed drastically.

  In the early afternoon, they had come upon a
winding river and the highway had commenced to
follow it through the countryside. Now the near
bank was thick with high, swaying reeds and the far
side disintegrated into wet marshland interspersed
with flat glittering fields of rice. Mountains, blue in
hazy distance, strung themselves along the far
horizon, gaunt, unforgiving sentinels.

  They set out across the long arcing span of the
wood and stone bridge, feeling naked and exposed.
Below them, white herons stalked the marsh,
occasionally climbing the stark face of a small
granite outcropping on their left.

On the far bank, they struck out to the left toward
a distant

110 Erich. Lustbader

copse of high cryptomeria trees, a cluster, an
asymmetrical forest, a dark island on the marsh.

  Far away, to the east, they spied the tall white
sails of several fishing boats heading out to sea.
Overhead, a flock of geese circled the cryptomeria
and wheeled away to the south calling to each
other in lonely concert.

  They trod a soggy, winding path through the
fields, deserted and still. Water spiders skimmed
the taut surface of the marsh like bright
fingernails scoring a fine bolt of silk.

  At length, they reached a thick copse of
bamboo from which they peered ahead and for
the first time Ronin was able to distinguish a
square blue arch and, beyond, the angled roofs of
Nikumu's castle. Haneda.

"Perhaps he is still in Eido," said Ronin.

"Hardly likely. He was in Eido for the Noh."

"He will be searching for us in the city."

  "No, his men will be carrying out that order."
He continued to stare ahead. "See there?" He
pointed. "No, further to the left. Horses. He has
returned all right and Moeru with him. He would
not dare to leave her in Eido now."

  The white sails had vanished and now nothing
broke the flat expanse save the castle of Haneda
within the cryptomeria. The air was still damp and
dense from the previous night's heavy rain. Gray
clouds scudded to the west, ragged and retreating
warriors. Behind them, the immense sky was
aglow with streaks of bronze and russet. The sun
had already gone. Night was falling fast.

There was movement within the grounds of
Haneda.

  "From this point on," whispered Okami, "until
we reach the wood, we use hand signals only, for
the marsh will carry even the tiniest sound." He
pulled at his cloak. "Now watch me." He reversed
the heavy garment and Ronin saw that it was
lined with a dull black material. Ronin followed
suit. Then they smeared their faces and the backs
of their hands with mud.

Darkness came.

  Startled, a goose flapped its wings and shot into
the air. It was a relatively small sound yet, as
Okami had foretold, in the quietude of the marsh
the clatter magnified out of proportion, a dream
sound.

  They froze near the bole of a tall maple. Off to
the left, Ronin saw an end to the rice fields.
There, in the east, rolling grasslands, studded with
low bushes and stands of thick

DAI-SAN 111

maple, led to the line of high mountains, so far
away that they looked like a painted backdrop, two
dimensional and lifeless.

  In the unraveling stillness, he heard the slosh of
boots on the pathway through the marsh. He
controlled his breathing, heard the thudding of his
heart in his ears.

  Four men in dark grey with the blue wheel
pattern went by them perhaps twelve paces away.
They were armed with swords and carried long
bamboo pikes with metal tips. There was no
talking. They were vigilant and extremely careful.

  The minute rustlings of their passage faded but
still neither he nor Okami moved. Time crawled
forward and he longed to stretch his muscles. The
water at his feet stirred. A long snake, black and
sinuous, poked its head above the surface. Gnats
hummed in the reeds, dancing above the mirrored
surface of the marsh. The moon was rising, its pale
light blanching the tops of the cryptomeria. A frog
croaked tentatively and was answered.

  At length they risked movement and slowly
peered out from behind the trunk of the tree.
Before them, the deep blue arch leading to
Haneda. Light from the castle was diffused through
the heavily foliaged trees.

  They began to circle cautiously to the left,
keeping to the reeds as much as possible in order
to approach the castle from the flank. Keeping
their eyes away from the moon and the marsh to
avoid the possibility of reflection off the whites of
their eyes.

  Very near, the first of the cryptomeria where
darkness hung like a shroud.

  The frogs ceased their singing and they froze,
crouched. Ronin's hand was on the hilt of his
dagger. His eyes searched the intense shadow of
the wood but he discerned no movement. They
waited, the sweat breaking out along their upper
lips, at their hairlines. A heron called across the
marsh.

  Okami signaled and they went into the cover of
the first line of cryptomeria.

  Within the wood the dazzle of lanterns' light was
plain enough high up through the twisted branches.
Crouched against the trunk of a tree, they were
about to move again when they heard a sound. It
was slight but sharp: the snapping of a twig along
the ground.

  Okami signaled for Ronin to move to his right
and, as he set out, he saw the other head left.
Ronin drew his dagger, holding it before him, point
higher than hilt.

He caught the movement before him, as the man
searched

112 Enc V. l:'ustbader

the wood, and he came in swiftly, silently, his
body and his arm moving in concert, the bright
blade slashing in a short arc through the man's
side, piercing a lung. There was no sound. He
caught the body as it collapsed, pulling it into the
underbrush.

  He moved on, his course taking him obliquely
toward the castle and Okami.

  Two men passed in front of him. He let them
go because silence was essential and he could not
be certain of killing them both before one cried
out.

  There was a crackling overhead. Bats swooped
and soared in the crowded, tangled sky enclosed
by the cryptomeria. And he was turning, his left
elbow jutting, as the figure leapt at him. Powerful
hands went to his throat, the thumbs pressing
inward, attempting to crush his windpipe. He
jammed backward with his elbow, smashing it into
the man just below his armpit. There was a grunt
but the man held on tenaciously. They rolled on
the ground and Ronin brought both his arms
together in front of him within the other's lock.
Using the heel of his hand like a battering ram,
he smashed into the other's nose, hit again from
the other side. Cartilage broke and the skin burst
in a hail of blood. Still the thumbs pressed inward
and he was running out of air.

  But he was on top now, if for only a moment,
and he lowered his right arm, closing his fingers,
stiffening them, lashing out against the man's
diaphragm just below the sternum. The fingers
pierced skin and flesh like a blade and he jammed
his hand upward. The man was dead before his
mouth could open.

  Ronin rolled away and moved off and, at
length, he came upon Okami standing above a
corpse. Together, they went toward the castle.

  The walls were of stone and very high. Too
high. They crouched within its hulking shadow.

"Both of us cannot get over," Ronin whispered.

  "I know, but if you leap from my shoulders, you
should make the top."

Ronin was about to say something but Okami
silenced him:

"There is no other way."

  He dropped to the ground and silently crept
toward the main building of the castle. The way
seemed clear but still he clung to the ebon
shadows of the trees. The wood rustled in the
night wind. Near the side of the structure, he
paused for a

DAI-SAN 113

moment, then coiled his body and leapt for a thick
branch overhead. He hung by his hands for a
moment, then began to swing, using the weight of
his body to overcome inertia and start his
momentum. He swung, drawing his knees up to his
chest, and he was sitting on the branch. Feeling his
way carefully, he climbed into the upper reaches of
the cryptomeria, then along another branch, and
cautiously onto the tiled roof of the castle.

  For some meters, he crawled along the sloping
roof until he came to a window below. He lay on
his stomach with his ears as close to the opening as
he could reach. He was quite still for long
moments. Bats flapped above his head. There was
no sound from inside. And no light.

He dropped down and inward, silent as a raven.

  The room was sparsely furnished. Dark wood.
Tatamis covered the floor. A lambent shaft of
moonlight illuminated a painted screen in pale
greens and browns: two robed women with white
faces, red lips, coifed hair, fans unfurled, hid
nothing, save a bolt of mother-of-pearl silk thrown
over the back of a low chair.

  He crossed to the wooden door without even a
whisper of sound, put one ear to it. With infinite
slowness, he opened it a crack. A sliver of hallway
appeared, lit by reed torches. Almost directly
across from him, a fluted wood railing.

The crackling of the burning reeds.

  He risked another centimeter, then cautiously
crept out into the hall. The railing ran away from
him to left and right, the entire length of the hall,
which was, he saw now, a kind of inner balcony
onto which the doorways of the rooms on this level
opened.

  To his left was a wide stairway leading down to
the ground level. He heard, drifting up to him,
muted footfalls echoing away. The brief clatter of
metal pots, an angry voice. Nearer to him, the
reeds expending themselves.

  To his right, the balcony's inner edge twisted
upon itself in a corkscrew flight of stone steps.
From above, a deep saffron light unfurled,
amorphous, seemingly as solid as molten metal.

  He stood very still lor long moments, listening to
the minute sounds of the castle as they blended
together, allowing the pattern to form within his
ears, against his flesh, sink in, take hold, so that
any substantial alteration would automatically be
picked up, even if his concentration was elsewhere.

 Then he headed toward the purling light.~

114 Eric V. I`ustbader

  He passed two doorways other than the one he
had come through. Cautiously he climbed the
stairs, deliberately lifting his feet high, placing the
ball of each foot on the stone before the heel. He
ascended slowly, pausing every few steps, alert for
sounds from above and below. And as he climbed,
the light grew brighter and denser, coloring him,
cascading over him until he felt awash on some
fantastic sea. He stopped. Voices. They were
indistinct yet they carried the tone of con-
versation. He moved upward.

  At length, he came upon an alcove. This gave
out on a great circular chamber with high sloping
conical walls which thrust upward, toward the
night sky. The height of the wall was irregular and
beyond a low section, he could see the swaying
tops of the cryptomeria, thick and somehow
remote, the finality of earth's domain.

  In the center of the chamber a fire burned in
an enormous oval hearth made of glazed brick
which held no trace of charcoal or soot. It was
solely from this fire that the liquid light emanated.
The flames rearing above the bricks were yellow,
with no trace of orange or blue. They were pure,
elemental.

  A door opened along the curving wall and
Ronin flattened himself within the concealing
shadows of the tiny alcove. The tall figure of
Nikumu came into view. His skin seemed yel-
lowed, patinaed like ancient ivory. His long
almond eyes glittered in the reflected light of the
fire, turning opaque, and for an instant, Ronin
found himself back in the alley in Sha'angh'sei,
kneeling over the dead body of the defeated
Bujun. Then another image superimposed itself
upon his conscious, recalling his first meeting with
Borros, deep inside the Freehold. These symbols
of sickness and death blurred his vision for a
moment. He blinked, curious.

  Nikumu, garbed in a long silk robe of midnight
blue with the repeating wheel pattern of charcoal
gray, strode across the room, stood a moment
before the rising flames. Ronin wondered where
the chamber's other occupant was. Nikumu had
not been talking to himself.

  The tall man seemed lost in thought and when
he moved it was almost as if he floated above the
floor. From a cabinet with a fluted facade he
produced a rice paper scroll.

  Across the room, Ronin caught a flicker of
movement. A shadow struck the stone hearth, fell
across the stone floor. Long and lean, it seemed
almost to be Nikumu's shadow, as if it had
somehow been dislodged from his person. Then a
figure glided into view. His back was to Ronin but
he could see that

DAI-SAN 115

the man had a long narrow skull, wide shoulders
made more impressive by the stiff-shouldered robe
he wore. His waist was narrow, as were his hips.
His black robe was belted and from each hip hung
a scabbarded sword. The one on his left hip was so
long that it scraped the floor when he moved.

"You cannot mean to go through with it," he said.

  Nikumu did not move, his head did not lift as
his eyes continued to study the scroll. Only a pulse
beating fast along the side of his neck indicated
that he had heard the other.

  "There are forces set in motion, you must know
that," continued the dark figure. "The man at "

  "What would you have me do?" cried Nikumu,
whirling toward the other, his face made hard and
lined by the chiarnscuro of the firelight.

  "I? What would I have you do?" The other
shook his head. "You are Bujun. Your soul knows
what must be done, just as hers does. Will she be
stopped because she cannot speak? She will find a
way, Nikumu, if she has not already."

"That is why she must be chained, just as I am."

"The man will come, Nikumu "

"Then I will kill him!"

  "Fool! If you could see what that thing has done
to you. Do you not understand that when he
comes, you will have to kill them both."

"No!" said Nikumu, but already his eyes were dead.
"No."

  Ronin went silently down the stairs, away from
the flowing river of light, away from the disturbing
confrontation. Much of the dialogue made no
sense to him but this much he had learned: Moeru
was indeed here and she was being held prisoner.

  On the balcony overlooking the main floor, he
paused to allow his eyes to adjust to the dimmer
light. He heard a clatter on the lower staircase, at
the opposite end of the balcony, and he retreated
into the dense shadows behind the circular stairs.

  Two armed men, one carrying a tray of food and
drink, emerged onto his level. They came toward
him and, for a moment, he thought that they were
going to climb the corkscrew stairs, but instead
they turned the other way and unlocked one of the
doors along the outer wall.

  He peered out, past their retreating backs, into
the dimly lit room. It was densely furnished, chairs
and piles of rolled rugs scattered at random as if
the accumulation of years of living had been thrust
into that small area.

On a chair in front of high curtained windows,
near the

116 Eric ~ I'ustbader

wan light of a flickering oil lamp, sat a slender
figure. Sliver of white oval face, like a new
crescent moon, long sweep of dark hair. Flash of
the sea as her eyes shifted at their approach.

  And Ronin was already leaping from his hiding
place and, swinging his left arm in a vicious arc,
slammed his balled fist into the side of the first
man's neck. The jaws gaped open as the hide of
the Makkon gauntlet tore through muscles and
tendons. The teeth dashed together, severing the
man's tongue tip. A hail of blood. And he was
already past, as the corpse began to fold in upon
itself, drawing his sword as he sprang at the
second man. The tray of food and drink went
flying and the eyes had just opened with shock
when the head tumbled to the floor, went rolling
until it struck one of her feet.

She said nothing.

  She turned her exquisite face upward to him
but her features were quiescent. She gazed into
his colorless eyes with a distant curiosity. He knelt
before her nakedness.

  "Moeru," he said urgently. "Do you recognize
me? Surely "

  Outside the cicadas orchestrated the passage of
the moon. Wind rattled branches of a nearby
cryptomeria against the closed window behind
them.

  He felt, for an instant, the keen edge of panic,
a knife blade at his throat.

Then he closed his eyes and listened to the
nothingness.

"Moeru." His lips barely moved.

Blackness, pearling.

"Moeru."

  An endless sky littered with the pale mauve
clouds of sunset.

"Moeru."

  A zigzag line of geese flying above the blue and
gold marsh, calling, calling plaintively toward the
vast low horizon.

  Abruptly a wind caught his cry, tore it from his
lips, wheeling it away, away beneath the dark
vault of the heavens, and he was in pitch
blackness, beyond the sunset, far past the last
edge of his world.

Touch was all that was left him.

  He used it, following the tingling at his finger
tips straight ahead until it lessened. Turn to the
right. No. Turn to the left. Increasing. Onward,
not walking, not running. Moving.

Tingling racing up his arms until his hands are
numb. Ears

DAI-SAN 117

blocked. Shoulder sockets vibrating. Forward. And
he hears it now. Music. A terrible liquid music at
violent decibels that violate his eardrums. His teeth
clatter and his body feels chilled. The music fills
his world, his chest flying apart with the force. His
head lifts now and his eyes blink of their own
accord. He is absolutely motionless in the kinetic
world, through the bass's brown booming, past the
heavily stringed chords.

Staring.

  Before him black peaks, shining like obsidian,
thrust upward into a black sky filled with black
stars. There is no horizon.

  He sees Moeru in bondage, chained to the black
peaks. Or rather it is her essence, he realizes, her
crying out in torment: the savage singing. The
music of pain and despair.

  Her eyes widen as she sees him and she calls to
him. The terrible music intensifies and his body
shudders. She heaves herself upon the rough-hewn
peaks.

  The sky billows like a sea shroud. Three black
suns rise in funereal procession. The crags move as
if breathing. Here, naked before him, in her
unimaginable torment, he sees the recognition
lighting her eyes. The music drives through him
like pikes, drenching him. His muscles jump in
protest. He wills his legs to work.

  She howls in agony Her skin gleams with sweat.
The ebon chains hold her fast, spread-eagled in
the center of her world.

  He raises his sword, the long blade a bright arc,
and as it comes abreast of her white body, the
music lessens, the sound somehow deflecting off its
honed edges, away from him in a spiraling crescent
of dark energy. His numbed mind begins to clear.

And now he comes for her.

  At the verge of the black peaks, writhing now,
less shiny obsidian, more scaly hide. The thing
grasps her tightly. Black and monstrous, it seeks
his death, but he is berserk now, the love a living
pulse within him, feeding his muscles, the fear an
added inducement, and he strikes again and again,
his long blade a white blur singing past her white
body, two spots of reflection in the blackness of
this pit. And the song is death.

  The peaks shear away, the air trembles, a
shower of hot, sticky slime, she climbs into his
arms, and still the sword wields destruction

Ronin, come

118 Eric ~ l:'ustbader

  Black cormorants wheel into the black suns.
Black stars burst by then

 away, now. Oh, Ronin

  A wetness against his cheek, and the blade
crying with a life of its own, demanding
vengeance, a hot wind turns chill and a frost
comes as the three black suns converge, trembling
on implosion

Now, now, now

  And with a mighty leap, Ronin carries her away
into green mist, into the light of the sea shining
behind her eyes, into the heavy air of Haneda.

  Within his powerful arms, she pants heavily as
his lips search for hers. His eyes open and he
covers her naked body in his night-black cloak.
She wrenches her mouth away from his, gasps:

"Quickly. He knows and is coming. Take me
away."

  Sheathing his sword, he raced with her to the
window, but the shutters were locked. He grasped
her hand and then they ran from the room. Down
the dim balcony. Above them, he heard a sharp
exclamation and a muMed crash. Nikumu's deep
voice. Past closed doors. The pounding of boots.
Into the doorway through which he had first
come. Noise of pursuit, increasing.

  Across the dimly lighted room to the window
gaping open. Gulp of fresh night air, an
intoxicating elixir. Thrusting her out into the
embracing branches of the spreading cryptomeria.
Then turning back into the room.

  Nikumu burst through the doorway, sword
drawn, eyes blazing.

"Where is she?" he cried.

  "Perhaps you begin to understand now," said
the voice of the other from the inner balcony. He
had not yet come through the doorway.

"Who summoned you!" Nikumu snarled.

"Why," the voice said, equably, "you did, of
course."

This seemed to enrage Nikumu further and he
ran at Ronin.

"I will kill you for this. She is mine!"

  And the tall man, lifting his long Bujun blade
above his head, ran at Ronin. He was very swift
but he was not reckless and Ronin saw this at the
last instant, recognised the enormous danger,
dodging the blow and, in the same motion, swept
both legs beyond the window sash. Wood
splintered behind him and he twisted his body in
the opposite direction. Another blow fell across
the window frame and stone shat

DAI-SAN 119

tered in a cloud of dust just as he leapt along the
thick horizontal branch of the cryptomeria, then
scrambled down the gnarled trunk, joining Moeru
on the ground.

  He peered up through the gloom of the night.
Nikumu's tall dark figure seemed bounded by two
shadows. His silk robe whipped about him as if he
were some spectral creature.

  "I will hunt you down like animals!" he called
wildly. He swung his sword in a great arc. Chips of
stone and wood flew at them with explosive force.

"You are dead now!" he cried. "Dead!"

  And a sound swept after them as they ran
through the cryptomeria wood and Ronin could
not tell whether it was the booming of laughter or
the echoing of anguished sobs.

  "There is only one place now," he said quietly,
"for us to go."

  "Yes. It is not really a difficult problem." His
voice was filled with fatigue.

"So?" The face registered surprise.

"The castle of the Kunshin."

  They sat on the covered terrace of a quiet inn
set high up on purple cliffs which dove headlong,
as if suicidal, into the churning combers far below
them. The cool light of the horned moon broke the
froth of the surf into bright diamond shards, the
spindrift into platinum lace.

  Above them and to the right, dark pines swayed
in the breeze coming in off the sea like drowsing
sentinels. To the left, the cliffs ran downward
somewhat, covered in a thick matting of scrub and
gorse.

  Somewhere high up, a snow owl hooted in the
pines, then fell silent.

  On the tiled terrace, covered in tatamis, tea
steamed before them on a low lacquered table.
Rice cakes lay on a tiny plate beside their
half-filled cups. Okami, his wide round face serene,
sat cross-legged, facing Ronin. Within the inn,
Moeru lay in exhausted sleep.

  "This adventure was a mistake, I fear," Okami
said. "Nikumu is now your enemy and a more
deadly, implacable foe in all of Eido would be hard
to find."

"He was holding her against her will. If you had
seen "

"She is his wife, after all, Ronin "

  "Does that absolve her of her rights to live her
own life? Is this the wondrous Bujun way?"

120 Eric 11: Lustbader

  Rushing clouds obscured the moon for a
moment. When its marbled light returned, Okami
said:

"My friend, I understand "

  "Excuse me for my bluntness this time, Okami,
but I must tell you that there is no way that you
could understand this situation. In some as yet
unfathomable way, Moeru and I are bound
together." After a moment, he said: "She can
speak to me."

  Okami stared out to sea, then he carefully
poured tea for Ronin and himself. He lifted his
porcelain cup with his finger tips and slowly
sipped at the hot liquid.

  "There is no use moaning about events which
have already transpired," he said quietly. "Forgive
me, my friend. For good or ill, she is here now
with us. It is our karma."

"And what of the Kunshin?"

  Okami's tone became more businesslike. "First,
he is the only Bujun on Ama-no-mori powerful
enough to repulse Nikumu's vengeful efforts "

"But Nikumu is his friend."

  "Let me finish, please. It is the scroll of
dor-Sefrith which may save us all now for, you
see, Azuki-iro, it is said, still retains some of the
lost knowledge of the warrior-mages of
Ama-no-mori's past. If it is as important as you
say, then he will have no choice but to hold
Nikumu at bay until he can make some
determination."

"And then?"

Okami shrugged.

  "When he has seen what you have brought,
perhaps then he will come to realize the evil that
lies so close to him, that has already begun to eat
into Ama-no-mori. The sasori must be destroyed.
If Nikumu is now their leader, then he must be
the first to die."

  Long after Okami had retired to the interior of
the inn, Ronin sat cross-legged on the tatamied
terrace, listening to the relentless pounding of the
surf against the purple cliffs. A grey mist hung in
the branches of the pines like the spun web of an
enormous spider. The stars were no longer visible.
The moon had gone down some time before.

  He stared outward into the mist, inward into
the core of his soul. And he made a vow. No one
would stop him. Not Nikumu. Not the Makkon.
Not even The Dolman. He would finish what he
came here to do, for he too had a karma and its
power was too strong to deny. He had no clear
idea as yet

DAI-SAN 121

what would be required of him. No matter. He
knew in his heart that the fate of the entire world
would not, could not, be decided by either Nikumu
or the Kunshin. It could be no one element. Just as
one's life was determined by a multiplicity of
factors, so was history govemed. The battle lines of
his life had been drawn long ago, forged in blood
and pain and loss. And he could not forget. Chill
take Nikumu! And the Kunshin, if he decided
against him. Yet one thing he had come to
understand this night: he was surely close to the
vortex of events toward which he had been
journeying all his life.

And what of Moeru?

Her cool fingers along his neck.

She sat down next to him.

"Free." Her voice was soft against his ears.

"Did you hear me thinking about you?"

She threw her head back and laughed joyously.

"It is like being born again," she said.

  The strong lines of her face were etched softly in
the glowing light of an opalescent dawn breaking in
a thin brushstroke beyond the towering summit of
Fujiwara. Gray-green and smoke. Her dark hair
swept over one eye and she lifted a slim hand to
take it away. He stopped her. Their fingers twined.

"How?" he said.

"Come with me."

  They got up, went across the tatamis to the
railing of the terrace. She stood with her hands flat
against the wooden railing. Their shoulders and
hips brushed.

  "We were separated when I left the Kioku during
the attack. There was a stomm that was not a
storm." She fumed to him, her long hair blown
behind her by the wind. "What was it?"

  "I do not know," he said, but he was not certain
that that was the truth. A stirring in his mind.

"Look," she pointed delightedly. "The dawn."

  Lonely pines, black against a pink, war-tom
horizon. Majestic Fujiwara. The skyline of
Ama-no-mori.

  Her face was a pale rose in the early morning
mist. Her swirling silk robe, which Okami had
bought for her in the inn, was in sharp contrast
with her black hair. One hand rose to her throat,
caressed the tiny silver flower on its chain, Iying
the hollow.

  "I resumed here because of the sakura you gave
me." The dawn wind whipped at her hair and he
saw her now through a shifting latticowork
crisscrossing her cheeks and full lips. "I

122 Eric ~ Lustbader

was overjoyed when I saw them coming. The
great waves had already taken the Kioku far from
me. We fought on but the sailors were
outnumbered. One by one they died."

  Their heads turned at a cry in the distance.
Above the creaming waves, the first flock of gulls
were already sweeping low over the burnished
brass sea, searching for breakfast. The white of
their plumage was stained pink by the rising sun.

  "It was Nikumu who made the sakura, you see,
and he gave it special properties. When the
decision was made to send a Bujun to the
continent of man, the Kunshin requested that
some form of check be used. Nikumu devised the
sakura. He knew that the Bujun would not part
with it while he was alive, thus if he met some
resistance, those on Ama-no-mori would know.
What was not known was who had possession of
the sakura after the Bujun perished. But this
person, Nikumu reasoned, was surely involved in
the Bujun's death. Thus he came for me."

  In the crying dawn, Ronin thought back,
remembered the brief darkening of the sun above
the obsidian ship which carried Moeru, said:

"He flew then."

She turned to him, her eyes startled for an
instant.

"Yes, but how did you know?"

"I saw something, very far away."

  "The steeds of ancient Ama-no-mori bore him
and three of his men."

"And the four of them defeated a shipload of
warriors?"

"They are Bujun, are they not?"

  "You-still wear the sakura. Surely he will know
where you are."

  "No, its power to act as a beacon ceased when
I returned to Ama-no-mori."

"Why do you still wear it?"

"Because you gave it to me."

"Are you his wife?"

She did not even blink.

"I am sure that Okami already told you that."

"I want to hear it from you."

"I am Nikumu's wife."

"Then what were you doing on the continent of
man?"

  She tarried her back on the light spreading
itself over the far face of Fujiwara. Her slim body
trembled against his.

"How did you free me?"

DAI-SAN 123

  A whisper, a caress, a warmth. What was behind
that question?

"Why should your husband imprison you?"

"Husbands can be as good or evil as anyone else."

Her sea eyes like whirlpools spinning him down.

"Which is Nikumu?"

  The eyes closed for an instant, a universe blotted
out. When she opened them again, they were wet.

"Neither. Both."

"Riddles."

  He watched the slow path of the tears over her
high cheekbones. Just the touch ol a hand,
reaching out. But he would not, now.

"He is afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

  Reaching the crest, they held for a moment,
quivering with her emotion, then they dropped
silently to the tatamis.

"He is no longer Nikamu. Something "

"Why is he leader of the sasori?"

She shook her head.

  "I do not know. Something happened to him
while I was away, something dreadful."

"Then he is as evil as Okami believes."

  "No, no." She gripped his arms. "He has
changed. Sometimes sometimes he is as he was
before and then, at other times, he is like a
madman."

  By their cries, he judged that the gulls had found
food. Small clouds of them skimmed the water in
tight arcs. Their calling was incessant now.

"Ronin, I fear that he is possessed."

"By what?"

"There is someone with him always now."

  "Yes, I have seen him. But he has no control
over Nikumu."

"You must do something."

  "I?" He felt like laughing in her face. "Frost,
Moeru, the man wants me dead! Now you ask me
to help him?"

"Only you can."

"What nonsense is that?"

Her face hovered near his, her lashes long and wet.

"How did you free me?"

"I did not think about it."

  "No, of course not. If you had to, you would not
have done it. Nikumu would have slain you."

124 Eric ~ Lustbader

"Something evil lurks within Haneda, Moeru."

  "Yes, but it is not Nikumu. He is a human
being, not a monster."

"But what he did to you "

"Ronin, you must help him!"

"But I am in no position to "
"Only you were able to free me "
"What you ask is madness, Moeru "
"Only your power "
"Chill take him "
"He made me mute "

" no!"

" so that I would not communicate with you."

  Even through the hissing mist of the downpour
hurtling from out of the red, fulminating sky, he
could see how enormous the pine was. Many
tiered, spreading outward like the limbs of heaven,
constantly in motion from the gusting of the wind
and the torrential rain, it arched out majestically,
dwarfing even the rooftops of the Kunshin's
sprawling stone castle.

  They stood in drenched cloaks wrapped tight
and dripping sedge hats. The wood and earth
bridge lay before them, arcing over the moat
which separated the domain of the leader of all
the Bujun from the rest of Ama-no-mori.

  Behind them rose the far eastern outskirts of
Eido, blurred and indistinct, a painting in the rain.
Beyond the last maple, where the road described
a wide turning, an old woman sold tea to weary
travelers from the inadequate shelter of a tiny
wood station.

"How can we be sure that he is here?" said Ronin.

"He is not in Eido," said Okami.

"Why not the mountains, then?"

"He is here, my friend."

  They stepped upon the eastern bridge, muddied
now by the rain, and the world of Eido slipped
away from them. Thunder rolled ominously from
a long way off. The surface of the water spanned
by the bridge's arc was goose-fleshed.

  The Kunshin's guards met them as they stepped
off the span and they were taken directly into the
castle.

  They were led into a small antechamber where
a tiny robed woman took Moeru into an adjoining
chamber after indicating their fresh clothes and
the hot water in basins with which they could wash
away the mud and dirt of their travels.

Moeru rejoined them. They all wore robes
embroidered

DAI-SAN 125

with the spoked wheel pattern of the daimyos.
They were Okami's colors.

  Two armed Bujun in wide-shouldered robes
woven with cloth-of-gold entered the chamber and
led them up a flight of wide stone steps, past
innumerable armed Bujun, down a vast hallway
fully as large as a gallery, and at length, through
double wooden doors, dark and highly polished.
Brass glyphs surrounded by a circle were set in the
center of either door.

  As they entered the room, they heard again the
hissing of the rain and Ronin looked to the large
windows, open onto the storm. The brawny lower
branches of the giant pine swayed and dipped.
Rain ran along the window glass like cool tears,
pattered onto the tatamis.

  They were in a chamber of moderate size, not at
all what Ronin had imagined the Kunshin's
quarters to be like. There were no chairs, just a
functional stool, which stood in front of a large
wooden desk along the far wall. Low lacquered
tables were set on the tatamis in an informal
grouping in the center of the room. The Bujun left
them.

Ronin watched the storm outside.

They removed their sandals.

  "He reminds me of someone," said a deep voice.
Ronin looked up, into the face of Azuki-iro. He
was not sure to whom the Kunshin spoke. "That is
significant."

  He was a man with a functional head, as if his
features had been carefully and lovingly crafted,
each for a specific purpose. He had not one
centimeter of superfluous flesh. His face was rather
flat, like Okami's, yellow-skinned with long almond
eyes and a wide, blunt nose. His thick black hair
gleamed, bound in a queue. He had a wide neck
and a barrel chest and he stood with his feet firmly
planted on the floor. A warrior's stance: confident,
not arrogant. Beneath his clothof-gold robe could
be seen the hard curve of his muscles.

  "A foreigner, yes?" said Azuki-iro. He cocked his
head to one side for a moment, as if trying to
decide a momentous issue. "I am not so certain."
His eyes never left Ronin. "Where did you pick
him up?" Only his tone of voice told of his shifting
direction.

"On the Kisokaido," Okami said.

"Who are you?" Ronin turned. "Have you lied to
me?"

  Okami's face was placid. There was no hint of
deceit in his clear eyes.

  HI told you only those things which you needed
to know. I betrayed no trust. You are here now,
before the Kunshin. Is

126 Eric ~ I`ustbader

this not why you came to Ama-no-mori? Why
look beyond your own needs?"

"I wish to know the truth."

"History shall record the truth," said Azuki-iro.

  Ronin stepped back a pace, withdrew his sword.
A laconic whisper, a deadly snake shedding its dry
lifeless skin.

  "The time is forever past when I will take only
what is given me. I would have the answers I seek
and I would have them now."

Azuki-iro's eyes narrowed and his muscles tensed.

"Hold!"

  It was Moeru's voice and for the first time the
Kunshin's face registered a hint of strong feeling:
surprise.

"Moeru," he whispered. "What ?"

"It was Ronin."

The Kunshin's eyes shifted.

  "It was," he said. Then the cloth-of-gold swirled
as he held out a strong hand. "The scroll. May I
see it?"

  The sword point poised, restive. Something
swam in Okami's eyes, half-hidden, unrealized.
What? For this moment, Ronin had journeyed
farther than any man on the face of his world. He
had fought so many battles against foes familiar
and strange. Had lost so many friends. Had seen
the slow beginnings of the ultimate evil. Had felt
the dark encroachment of terrifying forces. Yet
now he hesitated. Here, at journey's end, unsure.
Just beyond the point of his sword lay the open
palm of Azuki-iro. Where should his trust lie?
From Okami's eyes to Moeru's. He found nothing
there, had known that even before he looked.
Reflex. The forebrain trying to protect the
organism. The answer was not within any of them.

  Staring into Azuki-iro's eyes, he reversed his
sword, unscrewing the hilt, withdrawing the scroll
of dor-Sefrith. He handed it into the firm grasp of
the Kunshin.

  Without a word, Azuki-iro strode to the light of
the open window. The rain had ceased
momentarily but the great pine still wept its tears.
A nightingale trilled sweetly, abruptly filling the
room with song.

  For endless moments, the Kunshin studied the
scroll, his forehead furrowed in concentration,
until at length he returned to where they waited.
It seemed to Ronin that he had not drawn a
single breath since Azuki-iro had begun to read
the scroll. At last, an ending. At last, salvation for
man.

The Kunshin addressed them all.

"It is indeed the time." There was a sharp
inhalation of

DAI-SAN 127

breath from Okami. "The mind of dor-Sefrith
reaches out through time, through space, past the
ceasing that is death. For he returns now on the
wheel of universal force."

The Kunshin's eyes focused on the warrior before
him.

  "Ronin, I know not where you come from nor
how far you have traveled. But these are
irrelevancies now. With the return of this scroll to
Ama-no-mori, a cycle ends for the Bujun as well as
for all men. A new age commences. What it may
bring none may say with any degree of certainty,
save that the world, as we now know it, has passed
from us.

  "Those of us who are able shall survive to see
the dawn of this new age but I fear that for many
that time shall not come." He shrugged. "That is
their karma. The Kai-feng is upon us and no one
on this world may remain neutral for it is the Last
Battle. Death is as nothing to the Bujun. It is but
the manner of our death which concerns us. Thus
shall history remember us all. As heroes and as
men."

  Azuki-iro handed the scroll of dor-Sefrith back
to Ronin, and with his fingers still holding it, he
said: "I charge you now with the final part of your
journey, Ronin. And you must understand that it
is the most perilous part, for you know what will
occur should you fail." His black eyes blazed.
"Take the scroll of dor-Sefrith." His hand dropped
to his side. "Take it and give it into the hands of
the one man who can fully decipher it, the only
man who can implement dor-Sefrith's instructions.

"Take the scroll to Nikumu."

                Begun

NIGHT crept over the marsh with a furtive
deliberation. A ragged line of geese, brown and
white against the red and ocher sky, disappearing
toward the distant, rising peak of Fujiwara. To the
east, the wide veldt rustled in the soft breeze, the
calmness after the violence of the evening's squall.

  Here and there, frogs began once again to
croak after being startled into silence by the
storm. Fireflies darted in amongst the high reeds,
cautiously remaining on the verge of the marsh.

  A salamander snaked just beneath the skin of
the fecund water, crawled onto the tiny green
island of a lily pad. It stared at the erratic flight
of the fireflies, mesmerized by the patterns of
cold, winking lights.

To the west stillness reigned at Haneda.

  Even the cicadas were quiescent. A blackbird
flapped its wings, lifting off from the canopy of
the cryptomeria wood. It circled high in the red
sky, passing over the rice fields, then swept
eastward toward the open veldt.

  "There is nothing I can do," he had said, when
they were alone.

"But you are the Kunshin "

  "I am Bujun first. That is the essential issue. I
would not listen if the situation were reversed,
and if he were foolish enough to ask me, I would
kill him."

"But he is your strongest ally."

  "You must understand, Ronin, that if he
needed to ask me, he would have lost all value, to
Eido, to Ama-no-mori, as well as to me."

"It has nothing to do with position then."

"Nothing whatsoever."

"What then?"

"History," Azuki-iro had said. "The code by which
we live

                 128
                  
DAI-SAN 129

our lives is our most unshakable bond; nothing
may stand against it. We will die by our own hands
rather than lose it." The reflection of the rain
which had begun again with far less intensity,
dappled his round face as they stood near the open
window. "What Nikurnu decides now, he must
decide alone. What he has been doing in Haneda
recently, I cannot tell you, nor could any Bujun, I
think. The magus within him has gained in power,
thus he rescued Moeru where none other on
Ama-no-mori could."

"What of the sasori?"

  "They are all under surveillance. We have
nothing to fear from their virulence. It is Nikumu's
involvement which has my curiosity."

"Why?"

"It is unlike him, and it is a clumsy manifestation
of evil."

"This is too ironic."

  "Ronin, you have journeyed long to deliver the
scroll of dor-Sefrith into the rightful hands. Can
you say why you did this? Would you forsake the
obligation you took on so long ago? You do not
fear him, of that I am certain. Still, it is entirely up
to you, for you are free to leave this isle, as always
you have been. The Bujun do not hold prisoners "

"But Nikumu "

"Precisely my point. What has Nikumu become?"

  Outside, the great pine shivered in the last
gustings of the passing squall, the thick branches
scraping against the castle's outer wall. Moeru's
voice came darkly to him: He is possessed.

"Who is Okami?"

  "One of my daimyos." He lifted a hand. "Do not
be concerned. I sent him to find you."

"How did you know of my coming?"

  They went away from the glistening window, the
Kunshin's arm around his shoulders.

  "In the mythology of the Bujun," he said, "the
tiger rules the land." They sat in the center of the
room and he poured tea. "The heavens are ruled
by the dragon."

"You know of Kukulkan."

"Oh yes. By another name. But it is he."

  "I must go," said Ronin, staring out past the bulk
of Azuki-iro, at the nightingale wrapping in his
dripping bower, just past the open window.

  "Yes, it is your karma. In these matters, there is
no choice. One learns acceptance of certain basic
life patterns and forces.

130 Eric V. Lustbader

The Bujun understand this even before they are
born, I think. We accept and live in peace with
ourselves. The rest falls into place of its own
accord."

  "Would you accept then the coming of The
Dolman?" Ronin said angrily. "Will you lie down
and die in Font of his might?"

  "Now you deliberately misunderstand me," said
Azuki-iro softly. "We are not fatalists, merely
realists. What is, is, and we train ourselves to live
within that framework. That does not mean that
we do not continually strive for those things we
want." His round face was abruptly eclipsed by the
shadows of the room. "We learned well from the
agonies of our ancestors. In the end, our sorcery
was inimical to us."

"Yet sorcery seems to be man's only hope now."

  The Kunshin's dark eyes glittered Tom out of
the darkness. "Of sorcery The Dolman was born.
His death can only spring Tom the same source.
It is necessary, not desirable." He took a small sip
of tea. "No matter what transpires here, the Bujun
shall join the Kai-feng. It is our karma."

  Ronin stood up. The Kunshin set his teacup
carefully down on the top of a lacquered table.

"Why was Moeru sent to the continent of man?"

  "She went for a purpose unknown to me," said
Azuki-iro. "You must ask her husband, for it was
he who sent her."

  He had a hatchet jaw that in anyone else would
have been a mark of considerable comment. Here
it was but another bit of the unusual background
terrain upon which the network of angular white
scars was embossed, a mere hillside to the
neighboring dells of his sunken cheeks.

He looked like the walking dead.

  The web of scar tissue ran upward along his
neck, crisscrossing his square jaw, zigzagging
obliquely across his high cheekbones with such
completeness that there seemed to be no normal
skin in that area. His left eye, an earthen green
that was nevertheless hard and cold, was pulled
down at the outer corner by the last outpost of
these minute wounds. His right eyelid never
opened.

  He stood squarely in a thick bar of light
slanting obliquely through a high open window in
Haneda's west wall. Beyond the white casement,
brown sparrows chased each other through the
twisting maze of the cryptomeria. Higher up came
the leathery sound of the restless bats.

"The waiting is at an end now."

DAI-SAN 131

  Nikumu slid a sheaf of rice paper across his long
wooden table.

  "There is still some little time." Then more
softly. "There must be." A muscle spasm seemed to
grip his face. He grimaced. The other looked on
placidly. Then he shook his head and the scars
danced in the light like a thousand fireflies

"Have you not had enough of illusion?"

Nikumu about, his hands flat and deadly, the
fingers

"It is agony, pure agony!"

"Yes, I know. Do not forget "

  "Oh, I do not think for a moment that you
would ever let me forget!"

"It is what I have to give you."

  "Give me?" hissed Nikumu. "You would be
nothing  nothing without me!"

"History has already passed judgment upon me.
Your

"But you were not content with that.''

"Nor were you," the scarred man pointed out
equably

  Nikumu's features twisted. "I do not remember
asking you to be my conscience when I brought
you "

  "Do you mean to say that there was a certain
understanding between us? Nonsense!" His tone
abruptly changed, chilling the chamber. "Beyond
the summoning, events will happen as

  "Of course," cried Nikumu, "and that is why he
keeps you like this!" With a furious lunge, his
clawed fingers shot forward toward the other's
throat.

  Within the deep shadows of the alcove near the
spiral staircase, Ronin's muscles tensed. Then,
stunned, he pressed himself back against the cool
stone wall. He stifled the hiss of an indrawn
breath. Nikamu's outflung hand had passed
through the flesh of the scarred man as if it were
made of smoke

"Childish. "

  The other stepped back a pace. Nikumu did not
follow. His arm fell to his side and he clutched at
the table as if his legs would not support him.

  "He is too powerful," Nikumu whispered like a
frightened chfld.

"He has that which you will him, Nikumu."

  "I am not as strong as you were. I do not think
that I can win."

The scarred man looked away, as if deeply
disappointed.

132 Eric V. I`us~ader

Then his head snapped up and for long moments
he appeared to be listening for or perhaps to
something. Nikumu, his face full of pain, took no
notice.

  Abruptly, as if coming to a decision, the other
strode across the stone floor of the chamber,
opened a copper-bound glass case. He withdrew
three masks, one at a time. Ronin wondered at
this. Was the man truly insubstantial or had
Nikumu's attack been an illusion, some trick of
the light.

"It is time for the Noh, Nikumu. You know which
play."

  The scarred man donned one mask. He now
had the countenance of an elderly man, kind and
avancular.

  "Toshi, the priest," he announced, carrying the
second mask to Nikumu. He held it out at arm's
length.

Nikumu took it, settled it slowly on his head.

"Reisho, the warrior," said Toshi.

  One mask remained Iying atop the copper and
glass case and as Ronin stared at its glistening
face, he understood that the scarred man had
heard him somehow. He also knew for whom the
last mask had been left.

  As the scarred man drew Nikamu, now Reisho,
across the chamber, away from the case, Ronin
went silently across the stone floor and donned
the mask. He turned.

  "Look!" cried Toshi. "My lord Reisho, look who
comes behind you!"

Reisho whirled.

"Tsuchigumo!"

  The utterance, from within the mask, was alive
with overtones and the acoustics of the open
chamber acted like an amphitheater, causing his
voice to reverberate without excessive volume.

Now they were all within the Noh.

  "I warned you!" Toshi called, pointing at
Tsuchigumo. "The strange illness which
incapacitates you is caused by him!" His body
described the beautiful ritualistic turns.

  "No," said Reisho, his voice hollow. "The failing
lies within me."

  "No, sire, you must he mistaken," said Toshi,
bowing before Reisho. "Look again, it is
Tsuchigumo, the great spider. Can even one so
grand as yourself prevail against so powerful an
evil?"

  "I do not know, priest, but your words give me
hope, for perhaps in defeating Tsuchigumo, I can
prevail over myself." Thus Reisho danced slowly,
drawing his great sword. He bent his knees,
holding the blade vertically, a line cutting his face

DAI-SAN 133

into two halves. And Tsuchigumo saw that the left
half of his mask had differing features from the
right half, as if he were a man at war with himself.

  "This battle, my lord, are you wise to fight it?"
said Toshi, his tone wheedling.

  "What do you mean, priest?" Reisho paused in
his advance. "This is a struggle to the death."

  "Yes, to the death, lord," said Toshi, dancing
around Reisho. "And to what end? Tsuchigumo is
powerful and you are weak now. It will only serve
his purpose to battle you now."

"Yes, perhaps you are right."

"Certainly, lord."

  The sword lifted. "But I am Reisho, the warrior.
I am Bujun. I must do battle!"

  Tsuchigumo moved forward, into the strong light
of the fire.

  "Ah!" cried Toshi, raising a fist within which he
held a curved blade. "Now I have the power to
destroy you!" The blade began its descent, toward
Reisho's side. "For so long have I served
Tsuchigumo, all for this one instant of power!"

Reisho whirled, his blade flashing up.

"Traitor!" he cried.

His blade pierced Toshi's heart.

  And Reisho, within the same movement, turned
and rushed at his hated foe, Tsuchigumo, who,
standing his ground, withdrew his own blade,
taking the warrior's initial blow along its long
length.

  Wordlessly, with small gruntings and harsh
exhalations of breath, sounds made strange by
filtration through the masks, they matched blow
for blow, feint for feint.

They were masters, both.

  There was little actual movement around the
chamber; a fixed space of perhaps three meters on
each side was all that either required to attack or
make his defence.

  Each a superb warrior, they fought as mirror
images, almost as if they were aspects of the same
person. So evenly matched were they that the
combat appeared eerily to be more of a complexly
choreographed dance and Ronin was reminded of
the ending of the Noh he had witnessed at
Asakusa. As that actor, playing the goddess, had
filled his stage with his consummate skill, so now
these two actors, these two warriors, filled the
stage at Haneda with the culmination of their
craft.

  The metallic clangor became their music, the
harsh exhalations of their breath, the percussives
to which they matched

134 Eric U Lustbader

their oblique movements. Muscles jumped and
sweat oiled their bodies. Eyes gauged and
compensated, nerves fired, triggering swift move
after move, blurred counter after counter.

  And the air was now unclear, white and shiny
with the precise whirling of the blades, so that the
pair seemed encased in lethal glass, a bloody
womb from which only one would emerge.

  Within, Tsuchigumo saw that his path was set.
Yet it would not have been the one he would
have chosen. Still, he had chosen it and was now
locked within the combat within the Noh.
Somehow, he must get through before the
bloodshed began. Where was the scarred man?
He had understood Ronin's presence at Haneda,
had even chosen his role in the Nob: Tsuchigumo,
the title figure.

And Tsuchigumo must initiate the action. But
what?

  Reisho pressed his attack, his white blade
moving faster than ever, but Tsuchigumo refused
to move and his defense was awesome. Reversing,
he went on the attack, a ferocious barrage of
blows culminating with the difficult solenge. Tsu-
chigumo saw the startled eyes behind Reisho's
frozen visage and he was but a centimeter from
being through the guard when Reisho executed
the proper defence, the only defence, with
blurring speed.

"Enough!"

  The Reisho mask trembled and Nikumu
stripped it from his head. Ronin removed the
mask of Tsuchigumo.

  "How does a foreigner fight in the manner of
the Bujun?" Nikumu cried.

  "I cannot answer that, Nikumu, but before our
quarrel resumes, let something more important
speak to you."

He reversed his sword, unscrewed the hilt.

  "No!" cried Nikumu. His blade flashed up and
now was the moment of his destiny. The honed
tip quivered centimeters from Ronin's naked
throat. He stood his ground, a warrior still, and
watched Nikumu's flashing eyes, ignoring the
blade below.

  "You are my enemy!" Nikumu's lips were thin
and bloodless in his fury. "You have taken my
wife!"

  Ronin spoke slowly, softly: "No, Nikumu, I
freed her. She left Haneda with me because it
was her wish "

  "Liar!" He restrained himself from jamming his
blade into Ronin's flesh. "You plotted against me,
poisoned her mind. She loves me!"

DAI-SAN 135

  "She fears for you," said Ronin without emotion.
"You are no longer someone she knows. What
have you become, Nikumu? What has your sorcery
made you?"

  The tall man before him jerked as if he were a
marionette. A muscle spasm at the side of his right
eye ticked off the seconds like some monstrous
clock.

  "Where are you?" His eyes flicked about the
chamber. "Where have you gone?"

  "We are alone here, Nikumu," said Ronin. "lust
the two of us now."

  The ghost of a horrific smile creased Nikumu's
mouth for an instant. "Never alone, now. Never."

"The scarred man has gone."

"Not him, you fool! Can you not feel the
presence?"

"I see only you."

  The blade dangerously close and he began to
judge distances and reflexive times. No chance.

"It is within me that you must look!"

``T ,,
 1

"You did it with Moeru!"

  The muscles tensed, the nerves on their fevered
edge. He would be dead before he took one step.

"She wanted me to help you." Perhaps this was it.

"Then do it!"

  Had the point moved fractionally toward him?
What arcane struggle raged within Nikumu? Only
one chance now because the tension was building
far too rapidly. Nikumu was losing the battle and
when that happened, he would lunge forward and
his blade would pierce Ronin's heart. Odds were
outrageously high but he had no choice now.
Karma.

  "I will do nothing to help you." He fed emotion
into his voice. "You are pitiable. You call yourself
Bujun but it is as false as the mask you wore. You
are a coward, Nikumu! Yes! Kill me. That will
surely bring you solace! Oh, false warrior, your
sorcery has made you weak and frightened. It has
let in the gods of death and their power has made
you less than a man. Look not to the other or to
me for support. There is no succor for you this
night, for history writes itself here. The last chapter
reverberates within these stone walls and there can
be only one writer."

  The eyes before him were feral. Shadows shifted
in their dark depths as he spoke, figures fleeing
across a barren, unstable landscape, the pursuer
and the pursued.

136 Eric V. I`ustbader

 Slowly, while still he stared within those eyes,
his hands esumed their work on the hilt of his
sword.

He drew out the scroll of dor-Sefrith.

  With its release, Nikumu's gaze broke with his
and the tall man looked down. Ronin put the
scroll in his hands. His sword clattered to the
floor and his legs appeared to fail him. He sank
to his knees. Ronin stood perfectly still. Above
their heads, a bat clattered about, confused by the
light, then it raced upward into the dark of night.

  Sweat rolled down Nikumu's face, dripped onto
the stone floor. It bathed his forehead, stung his
eyes. He blinked. His mouth gaped open and he
gasped. He reached out with trembling fingers
and grasped the lip of the table. His fingers
slipped and he groaned but, as if with enormous
effort, he raised his arm again and held onto the
table. His knuckles turned white with the pressure
he exerted. He seemed a drowning man.

  With his other hand he opened the scroll of
dor-Sefrith. His fingers shook as if with palsy.

  His head Jerked again, this way and that, but at
last he forced his eyes to the writing on the scroll.

  High above them, the horned moon soared over
the tops of the cryptomeria, pouring down its
platinum light into the high chamber at Haneda.

  Nikumu's lips began to move and as their litany
began, the liquid light from the fire seemed to
fade, become insubstantial, turning them into
shades.

  Then the moonlight flooded the room
completely, cold and clear. Every shape became
sharply defined.

  Nikumu continued to recite the glyph pattern
which dorSefrith had written so many cons ago,
his voice slowly becoming more confident, less
ambiguous. He stood up.

  And now it seemed to Ronin that Nikumu was
altering form. Surely the outline of his body
became translucent, pulsing out of focus for a
brief instant. Surely now he towered over Ronin,
shoulders wide and sharp in the traditional Bujun
robe.

  Within the blink of an eye, the outline
contracted and Ronin thought he heard Nikumu
cry out. Yet it was not a sound that could have
been made by a human larynx. Nikumu's body
shuddered and swayed, his lips pulled back in a
grimace of pain, his white fists flailing the air.

Yet the litany continued.

Then from the depths of his chest came a
burgeoning sound

DAI-SAN 137

like a distant roll of thunder and the outline of his
form expanded. The thunder came again, traveling
over a summer field, arid and dry, rolling again,
coming closer and closer bringing its fertile
promise, until it washed over the chamber and its
occupants like an unstoppable tidal wave, lifting
them up upon great spread wings, all gravity
nullified, and they were as free as two soaring
eagles.

  Then he was staggering across the floor of the
chamber, staring as the face of Nikumu shattered
like a Noh mask.

  Before Ronin stood a version of the other.
Younger. A strong, vibrant figure. His face, now
scarless, had the nose of a hawk. The rest was
Bujun flat. His fierce obsidian eyes blazed with
power. His long, unbound hair trailed behind him
like a tail.

  Swept his long anus above him, stretching his
body as if to embrace the entire vast spangled
night.

His lips opened.

"At last!"

His voice was the rumble of a summer storm.

  "Through all the centuries, I have returned. For
the Kaifeng is come. I am here, therefore The
Dolman is nigh."

His gaze turned to Ronin.

  "And here is the champion of all man. Welcome,
Ronin, to the forge of Ama-no-mori, to the anvil
of Haneda. Welcome to the end of your journey."

  His anns whirled about him and blue sparks lit
the air crackling into the night. The stars went out.

  "The time is upon us. Even now the summoning
of The Dolman has begun, but fear not, a chance
for man still remains, for you are here. Nikamu
has taken his final step, fought his last battle, and
won. Thus shall history remember him for all time.
Once again the Bujun triumph.

  "But now you must prepare yourself for your
ultirpate step. For I am come; I am ready. Do you
trust yourself?"

Ronin opened his arms wide, said:

"Yes."

"Then now comes death !"

There was a clap of thunder that blotted out all
sound.

"Thus sayeth dor-Sefrith!"

Everything turned white.

              Deathshed

1 WO elements existed within the whiteness: his
essence
and the voice.
He knew that he was Outside even before the
voice told
him.
Time was a multicolored pinwheel whirring far
below him.
This is the end.
For Ronin, yes.
And for me?
The death of a myth. The concept shone on the
theater of
his unconsciousness like a castle cleared of mist.
And
Life beyond life.
He laughed, placid bubbles, white on white.
Perhaps in time past I would have thought that a
riddle.
And now?
Tell me something. You knew Nikumu. Why did
he send
Moeru to the continent of man?
Because I asked him to.
For what purpose?
His or mine?
Both.
Backup for his brother, who, under the influence,
he sent
into Sha'angh'sei to spy for the sasori. For myself,
she was
there to seek out someone, just as Bonneduce the
Last and
Hynd were sent to find you.
Who?
Setsoru.
The Hart of Darkness.
As men would call him.
I have met him.
Yes. It seemed inconceivable to me that that
confrontation

                 138
                  
DAI-SA'I 139

should ever take place on the continent of man.
Hynd did not fail his master.

  He could not. His love for Bonneduce the Last
exceeds all else in his world.

Yes. That is quite correct.

You wished to locate the Hart

Just as I wished to locate you.

Where is my body?

Shed. It is yours no longer. You belong to life; it to
death.

And what am I to become?

  Through sorcery and ancient surgery, through the
last surviving knowledge of the Bujun warrior-mages,
through methods that were old even in my time you
shall become the last myth of mankind: the Sunset
Warrior.

  The eye of Time grew faint, then disappeared
altogether. All color ceased.

  He tumbled forward into nothingness. Not fields
or mountains, rivers or marshlands. Not valleys or
forests, deserts or seas. Neither mist nor cloud
barred his way and his speed increased. He neither
walked nor ran. Neither did he fly. Once he
thought he felt the gargantuan undulations of
Kukulkan, but then he thought that he must be
mistaken.

  Then, in the absence of color, he felt the
darkness stealing over him, a relentless, restive sea,
cold and deep and mysterious. And now a shrill
wind took up around him, whining and moaning.

Before him a slowly turning vortex.

  Light and shadow, blurred and distorted, an
intense sense of vertigo and he was within a forest.
Below him, boles and limbs and foliage, all in
black and white. Perspective inverted as he
plunged into the darkness of the wood, through
leafy bowers and ridged escarpments, above
verdant underbrush, below swaying branches.

  Something at the core of his being constricted as
an intimation of what rushed at him dawned. He
remembered another day in another lifetime within
a house deep in the bowels of the world. Climbing
the stairs, hearing the deep, sonorous ticking and
the bright clicking from the second-floor room
where Bonneduce the Last crouched on a carpet of
intricate design, rolling the Bones, foretelling his
future. There had been terror then and, as the
chord at the center of his being was plucked again
by chill fingers, he felt anew that

140 Eric V. Lustbader

strange unknown emotion. You are not afraid to
die, Bonneduce the Last had said. What then?

It was coming now or he to it.

The trees parted.

Then faded away to nothing.

He faced Setsoru.

  Once again those terrible human eyes in the
black-furred stag's head stared into his own. The
great treed antlers quivered.

  "Where am I?" cried the Hart. Then: "I sent the
ships for you. Ah, no!" He screamed. "Stop this!"
His head shook. His eyes darted, rolling in their
sockets. "You can stop this. You must!"

Silence.

  And if there was anyone else in their black and
white world, he gave no tangible sign of his
presence.

  Foam flecked Setsoru's black animal lips and he
gave a high whinnying whine. His horned hands
reached for his black onyx sword but he was
naked.

  "Where are you?" called the Hart. His horned
fingers went to his head, beating at it as if it were
a mask he wished to smash.

  "Enough!" His voice edged in hysteria, rising. "I
have had enough of this jest!" Backing away from
the being in front of him. "I have served you
faithfully. I have destroyed so much life in your
name. What have you done to me now?" His
horned fingers grasped his antlers. His black lips
trembled and he began a terrible laughter.
"Power. Oh, power, where is it now? Deliver me
from this hell !"

  There are no gods here, Setsoru, came his
voice, filled with a peculiar vibration. The Hart
jerked as if stung.

  For the first time, Setsoru peered at the shape
in front of him.

"Who are you, that you should fill me with such
fear?"

  I cannot answer that, for I do not know yet. I
know only what I once was, a long time ago. Yet
your fear is my fear.

  "Truly?" The Hart held his ground, his great
head craning forward. "The light is dim. I cannot
see you clearly."

He moved closer.

  "Ah!" Setsoru exclaimed. "I know now, I can
feel it. From the forest. You stalked me like an
animal "

Not you. Another.

"He told me you were dead."

I am here.

DAI-SAN 141

  "I said you searched for me in the forest. That
while you lived, I would have no peace. You would
hound me "

He also said that I was dead.

"He would not lie to me."

He already has.

"What do you want of me?"

  They were closer together now, though neither
appeared to have moved on his own.

What do we want of each other?

  The head jerked and the wide nostrils dilated,
snorting. "I want nothing more than to be returned
to the forest at Kamado."

In time, perhaps.

"He was right. You wish me dead!" The eyes were
beserk.

I will not harm you. And thinks, Why not?

Setsoru laughed.

"You cannot!"

  They came together and the battle was joined,
an endless, deathless struggle. He realized this
instantly, knew it was a puzzle he had to solve else
they would be locked in combat, beyond the reach
of Time itself.

  He was terrified and as the panic rose within
him, he blocked it, forcing it down, away from him.
Tried to think. Mind a blank. The enormous furred
face flailing back and forth before him.

  "I fear nothing. I destroy!" The hysteria
returning to the Hart, seizing him, squeezing.
Never letting go. Never.

  A kind of night was falling, deep and dense.
Starless and endless. A blanket. To sleep. A
shroud

  Into the shrouds. Upward. Sea birds calling.
Toward the warm sun. Gone, now. Gone.

Think!

No sky. No horizon. No land.

Engulfed in the blackness.

  Tumbling over and over, they fought. The panic
deleted his strength. He had to overcome it.

Concentrate. Existence narrowing until

  He felt another touch of fear. A different kind
now and he knew that something was coming. And
he knew what it was.

Something beyond death.

The end.

No!

  Unbound, the panic welled up, a vast, tidal wave
of emotion and he relaxed now, feeling its
thunderous, deafening

142 Eric V. I'us1;bader

approach. In the shallows now, holding his ground.
Into the deep.

  And suddenly he knew and the knowledge,
flowing through him like a dancing bolt of light,
dazzled him with its energy.

You cannot harm me, he said. Watching Setsoru's
eyes.

Coming.
Airless.

You understand, he said. Tell me who you are.
"What do you mean?"

You know.

A constriction of the blackness. "You are mad!"

A rushing of foul wings.

It will all be over unless you tell me. Setsoru felt
it too, now.

I know therefore you must know. "I am afraid "

That is all he has left. It was there.

Tell me.
"I am," said Setsoru, "you."
The hiss of wind and it was gone from them.

  Beneath them, as they spun, slithered the being
at the center of the world, perhaps acephalous,
indeed an endless landscape, turning and
glistening and undulating, never the same,
eternally constant.

Borne upward to them, a salt tide on the air.
Color seeping. The Hart's body was wracked with
sobs as they held each other, drenched in salt
sweat, and then they were together inside each
other, bound, and he felt at last for Setsoru
another emotion which he could not identify.

They merged.

  Energy raced through them and he/they/he saw
the infinite fanfare of living thunder, heard the
colored sky glowing from pink to white to blue to
periwinkle to grey and brown to gold and orange
and flame and rust, felt the push and pull of mus-
cle as the working wings of vast flocks of geese
and plovers hurtled eastward, living streamers, the
parade's own celebrative bunting.

One.
An instant's flash of cold, pure gray.

DAI-SAN 143

Green semiconsciousness.

Warmth.

  As something swam through the caverns of the
sea, at the foundations of the world. And it seemed
familiar, as if at some great time past, this
something had been here. Or dreamed of it being
here.

  Amongst the towering basalt and granite at the
base of the world he swam. And grew, developing
a head and torso; arms and legs; hands and feet.
And the features began to define themselves as he
reached out and touched the immense, sloping side
of the Aegir, rolling, undulating, endless.

  Architecture built itself around him and he grew
as he spun slowly on his axis, stroking the rough
hide of the immeasurable being. He was sliced
open, slit lengthwise down his arms, the blood
pouring forth in black billowing clouds, the dust of
another life. Swiftly the skin drew itself together in
different configurations, colored and wealed,
tattooed, a living hieroglyph upon which perhaps
was written the history of all mankind.

  Bones broke, as the skin pulled apart once
again, shattering their calcium and phosphorous
into drifting powder. But the shifting sea was rich
in these minerals and others and it poured them
back into the broken body. New bones constructed
themselves in seeming odd lengths, joined and
knitted with supreme cunning and skill.

  Thus he passed from consciousness knowing only
that he was changing, forming, shifting like the sea
itself which held him in its dark and pressured
embrace. And while he slept greater changes
occurred. Merciful unconsciousness.

  His face broke into ten thousand fragments,
shards dissolving on the tides, re-forming, soft as
putty, molded in unseen hands, shaped most
delicately and carefully into a singular visage in all
the world.

  The body broadened and elongated and now the
muscles hardened, stretching themselves upon the
framework of the new limbs and torso, growing,
layer upon layer, defining themselves in ridged
plateaus.

And all the while he dreamed.

  A panoply of images raced through his mind,
people and places and events cascading in a
roaring torrent. Of some other person's past or
pasts. Ribboning like wind-swept clouds racing in
pursuit of a weltering sun.

Drifting downward to the earth.

141 Eric V. I`ustbader

  On the bank of an ancient pond, kneeling.
Across the green water, another form.

  The stillness of the pond was so absolute that
he was moved to tears. A frog leapt into the
water and ripples rolled out in an everwidening
ellipse.

He watched the water, patiently awaiting his
reflection.

  Now not even a furrow disturbed the hard
dazzle of the pond. Perhaps a hint of a breeze
floated above the surface, silent and vigilant.

He did not know what to expect.

But even so

He awoke to find Haneda altered.

  Nikumu's high, open room was a litter of stone
and wood. A holocaust had descended from the
heavens. Or a titanic battle. Rage laced the room,
a fine venomous dust hanging in the air. And a
hate so strong that it beat on into the night.
Haneda was a shambles.

He was alone.

  All the castle, sheared and ruined, echoed to
his heavy footfalls. Small fires danced where
torches had been flung, "uttering in the welter of
powdered stone and mortar.

  Naked, he descended what was left of the
staircase, leaping the last four meters into the
midst of the cryptomeria wood.

  There were none to see him. Not a sparrow,
not an owl. Not this night. Even the bats had fled
in terror.

  Through the fragrant, silent wood and out
across the wide marsh. Above him, geese rode
before the silver horns of the moon. The sky's
glittering face seemed to pulse.

  The long reeds rustled, their pale stalks
illuminated by the fitful light of fireflies. The
cicadas wailed shrilly.

  He began to run, eastward, broaching at length
the verge of the veldt. He lengthened his strides,
exulting in his indefatigable strength, and he
crossed the plain, leaving the sensation of time
behind him.

To the deep blue slopes of the mountain.

Fujiwara.

  He commenced to climb and as he did a
painting grew in his mind, a work of great design
and harmonious colors.

  The clear air turned chill. The stars signaled
their ancestral message as he went up the face of
Fujiwara.

  His coming was as silent as an animal's passage
across the floor of a jungle and, as he neared the
rim of heaven, he could

DAI-SAN 145

see the stars in the east fade and wink out. A rush
of wind. A storm was coming.

  At last he reached the cold purple summit of
Fujiwara, crunched through the pale lavender
snow.

  It began to rain, despite the cold, the clouds
roiling, seeming so close to his head that he was
almost within their wreath.

  He lifted his long arms as if to grab handfuls of
moisture and at that instant the sky opened itself
to him. Rain like platinum lances whipped his face
and body.

  And he lived now a moment that had come to
him many times within his mind, in another
lifetime, when he had been someone else.

  Pink lightning gyred in the sky, an unearthly
bridge and he began to laugh as the power surged
through him and had his heart been an entirely
human organ, it would have been split apart by the
enormous force which rang through him. But
Ronin was no more and he who stood atop Mount
Fujiwara, the center of this startling storm, just
below the billowing black and crimson clouds,
ghostly ships shifting on a restless sea, was no
longer truly human.

  I am the Sunset Warrior, he thought ecstatically,
marveling at the jump of his massive muscles,
which stretched over his altered form with electric
energy. I am come: let The Dolman beware.

  Through the corrugate corridors of Time, he
heard music from an age long destroyed or again
not yet formed. Thick, wailing voices, replicated,
mirrored, supported by instruments that seemed as
if they created energy. The music skirted and
thundered, aligning itself to his heartbeat. Crash
like an exploding hillside.

Lightning crackled around his glistening shoulders.

Dor-Sefrith? He called silently.

  But only the hissing of the rain pelting the
mountain's summit and the cracked rumble of the
echoing thunder answered him. And he stood,
immobile, realizing at last that he must now make
his own answers. He was now only partly Ronin
the seeker, was as much Setsoru, the founder.

What else waited for him?

He shrugged.

He was the Sunset Warrior.

  With that realization, he willed his mind to relax,
and as he let go of the comforting poles linking
him to the physical world, his power was unleashed
and his consciousness

146 Eric V. Lustbader

whirled inward to the core of his existence,
where Ronin had feared to look, and he found
at last the glittering axis of his power, the still
center in the rushing vortex of constant energy.
He reached out calm hands to embrace it.
Eternity.

          Three
        1~AI-FENG
            
      Horse I'at~tudes
Or

1 HE shimmering grey ice had crept southward
during the long, agonizing time of the Kai-feng. As
the three Makkon became stronger with the
imminent arrival of their liege, as The Dolman
swept toward the world from which he had once
been banished, bent on a hideous vengeance, so
the deathshead warriors burst from the confines of
their spreading encampment. Led by great beasts
with faceted eyes and shining blue-green
carapaces, these warriors hurled themselves across
the littered plain and against the high stone walls
of Kamado, the last citadel of man.

Behind the deathshead warriors came the creaking
and

  trundling of immense machines of war, designed to
eject threescore pikes at a burst in a trajectory
that would take them over the highest fortress
wall, or hurtle lifers of scalding liquid metal at
oncoming warriors. There were towering
scaffoldings housing immense horizontal
pendulums sheathed in thick metal at one end.
And more. Pulled by the dissolute and bedraggled
hordes of the northern hill tribes, inveigled into
The Dolman's employ by promises of power. So
the world of man shuddered on its axis as if it
knew by the quaking movement of these vast
machines of war the impending doom rushing
headlong to its curving hazed surface.

  The fourth Makkon was about to arrive upon
the continent of man.

  And the last allies of The Dolman were called
forth, those who had waited in secret for the time
of the Kai-feng. Arming themselves, they traveled
across frozen, bitter land, turbulent, violent seas,
by means neither human nor readily understand-
able.

  The Aegir, adrift in the deep, was preoccupied
with more important matters. It did not hinder
their progress yet it was

                 149
                  
150 EricY Lustbader

aware of them, since all karma is intertwined. It
was content to be the protector of its murderer.

  With the coming of The Dolman's last allies to
the flaming continent of man, the penultimate
step had been taken to ensure the defeat of
mankind. They watched with baleful, emotionless
eyes, the torn, scarred face of the land,
smoldering ashen, blasted, a ribboning triptych
through which they traveled, thinking only of their
destination, a forest's verge, blind to the piles of
rotting corpses alive with gorging rats and nervous
wolves. They were deaf to the pitiable cries of the
old the infirm, and the very young wretched
creatures who had somehow escaped the
slaughter. They rode onward. Assembling, the
vultures began their spiraling descent.

  As the last allies of The Dolman made their
arcane way across the continent of man, Kiri, the
Empress of Sha'angh'sei, was returning northward
to Kamado. She rode at the head of a vast
column of warriors more than a kilometer in
length. On either side of her rode two contrasting
figures, though both were powerful leaders. On
her right was an enormously fat man with keen,
intelligent eyes and a forbidding manner. He was
Du-Sing, taipan of Sha'angh'sei's Greens. On her
left was a small, slightly built individual with a flat
nose and flowing wispy beard trailing from his
strong chin. He was Lui Wu, taipan of the Reds,
who held sway in Sha'angh'sei's outlying northern
districts. Now, after countless centuries as mortal
enemies, the taipat~s of the Ching Pang and the
Hung Pang rode together as did their men behind
them. Kiri, who had united them in the common
battle, dug her boot heels into the sweating flanks
of her saffron luma, as if eager for the stench of
Kamado, the clangor of the Kaifeng. Du-Sing
took off after her, leaning forward in his saddle,
the tourmaline which hung around his neck like a
miniature sun, spinning with the motion. And Lui
Wu, signaling to the trailing column to pick up
the pace, rattled his reins, talking softly to his
mount, urging him over the last rise toward
Kamado.

  Upon gaining the high ground that led to the
great pine forest, one of the last allies of The
Dolman broke away from the others, sought out
the three Makkon.

  Past tall, gaunt deathshead warriors with the
deadly spiked globes swinging from worn leather
braces tied about their narrow hips, past creatures
with elongated skulls topped by plumes which
flowed down to the center of their backs, past

DAI-SAN 151

short, squat warriors with close-set eyes as dull as
death, past beings who looked more like
gargantuan insects than they did men.

  He found these most powerful of all creatures
save The Dolman himself in the frigid forest's
center, waiting for their last brother. A chill wind
swept sheets of snow high into the air like giant
wraiths.

  The Makkon's alien orange eyes, so terrifying,
raked the shivering, snow-laden pines for a
tangible sign of his arrival, for with it would begin
the Summoning, when at last The Dolman would
stand again upon the world of man.

"I am here," said the ally.

  One hideous, beaked head turned slowly in his
direction. The slitted pupils pulsed. The great tail
snapped back and forth. He inhaled their stench.

  The grey beak opened and a shrill screaming,
inimical to human ears, came forth. But he had
been trained, thus he heard:

"Yes. We know. We brought you on His
instruction."

"Is he coming?"

  "Would you doubt, fool? It has been promised,
thus it shall be. Even Time may not interfere now."
The orange eyes glowed. "You are held to your
vow." The outlines of the Makkon pulsed in and
out of focus. "You know the penalty if you fail "

"You need not "

The screaming increased to an unbearable level.

"You shall pray for death!"

  "There are too many centuries of planning. I
shall not fail. And then "

  The alien head swiveled away from him for a
moment and h was as if a great weight had been
lifted from him.

  "Our brother comes now. Leave us at once. Go
to the southern verge of the wood. You shall
command the central strike force at the time of the
Master's choosing. There will be direct
communication with further orders. Now go, for no
mortal may witness what is about to take place."

"But I am not "

"Got"

  And he went away from them, through the maze
of the forest, at length rejoining the others, leading
them southward into the vast, seething camp of the
legions of The Dolman. And, using a smooth voice
born to command, he set about

152 Eric V. Lustbader

deploying the warriors in his command for the
coming conflagration. And all the while, he
chuckled to himself, hugging the horde of his
secret knowledge tightly to his mailed breast.

  There came a screaming from the forest of
pines north of Kamado. In its center stood the
four Makkon, joined at last. Their outlines pulsed
irregularly, then beat more swiftly as their curved
beaks worked against the air as if it were a sub-
stance inimical to them.

As one, they called out again and again, setting a
rhythm.

  Cold fire streaked downward from somewhere
past the heavens.

  Within the high yellow walls of Kamado, the
forces of man rejoiced at the coming of the
Greens and the Reds and the safe return of Kiri.
And that gray, snow-filled night, the oil lamps
burned bright and long, flickering against the
gathering gloom, as the rikkagin and taipan met to
decide upon their strategies for repulsing the
dawn attack.

  Later, with the low ruffling skies turned red by
a chill unnatural sleet, Kiri climbed the ramparts
of the citadel. Her footsteps were hushed in the
snow covering the stone.

  Rikkagin T'ien, whom she called Tuolin, met
her along the northern rampart and there they sat
beneath a sharply angled overhang, listening to
the harsh rattle of the sleet, looking out at the
wood where the enemy was encamped.

  Kiri was reminded of another night when she
had sat atop the same ramparts with Ronin,
knowing that she had lost him forever to the
unknown quest which drove him.

  When Matsu had been slain by the Makkon in
Sha'angh'sei, part of her had died. It could not
have been otherwise. Without Matsu, she was but
half a person. Both had known the perils of such
a life and the fierce, intense joys and thus had
they each guarded the other most closely and
carefully. But the Makkon had destroyed all that
when it ripped Matsu's soft white throat from the
tendons of her neck. Because of Ronin. For it was
searching madly for him.

  Yet as she stared now into the dense wood alive
with the minions of death and destruction, she felt
only an overwhelming desire for him. She could
sleep with other men. suffer being separated from
him for long periods of time, and would, she knew
betray even her own people for him. Because
beyond all else she wanted him. Other emotions,
curious and

DAI-SAN 153

hateful to her now, swam within the dark depths of
her being, yet she would not touch them or even
acknowledge their existence. Thus she numbed
herself with the suffering of her losses for she
sensed for the first time that her ultimate undoing
would come only if she allowed herself to feel
deeply.

  After a time, she pulled forth from her heavy
robe a long pipe and filled it carefully from a small
leather pouch. She lit it from a small covered oil
lamp.

  She inhaled deeply, holding the smoke for long
moments, reluctantly letting it go, her breath
hissing in the night, a brief white mist dissipating
upon the wet, frigid air. She heard the sound of
distant voices and did not care, past knowing even
whether they were her own creation.

  Idly, she considered taking a long puff and never
exhaling. An endless ecstasy-filled corridor. She
wished to do this for she sensed dimly yet deeply
the incipience of a personal tragedy infinitely more
terrifying than the Kai-feng, to which she was now
as indifferent as all the other outside elements of
life. But, bitterly, she knew that her body would
betray her and that with the soft furry smoke filling
up all her lungs and all her body, entering her
bloodstream, with consciousness failing, her
automatic reflexes would take over and she would
exhale without conscious volition. The organism, at
least, wished to survive.

  Beside her, Tuolin stared at her beautiful
profile, pale in the red light of the sleet storm. Far
way, across the blooddrenched field, in the deep
shadows of the pine forest, something was
happening. He felt the ground shudder. Still, his
thoughts centered on her. What was she thinking?

  He had known Kiri for a long time, for as long
as he had been in Sha'angh'sei, for as long as he
had been waging war, longer than he cared to
remember. He knew her as the owner of
Sha'angh'sei's finest house of pleasure. She was
also the city's Empress. But, being a military man,
this meant little to him. Titles were for
figureheads. He was impressed only by deeds; talk
was for those who were weak, afraid to act.

  The best-known tale concerning him was told
constantly throughout his company of warriors
until it had taken on the patina of legend. Tuolin
had overheard one of his men boasting about his
exploits on the battlefield and, without comment,
he had sliced off the man's head. This one superb
action was more eloquent, more precise in its
fierce and uncompromising statement than
anything he could have said to admon

154 Eric ~ I'ustbader

ish his men for that abuse of the warrior's power.
It was also infinitely more effective.

  He leaned over and quietly watched the last of
the sweet smoke drift from the black split between
her immobile lips. Her large violet eyes were
glazed as she peered inward at the mystery of her
self.

  Gently, he opened her robe and eased her
down into the snow. Slowly, her white arms came
around him and drew him down to her waiting
loins. His mouth opened, pressed her cool lips.

  He wrapped the corners of her robe around
their moving bodies.

  Their terrible voices raised louder and the trees
around them burst into frigid flames. The pulsing
of the Makkon's bodies became more rapid and
now explosions burst within the forest, splitting
the trunks of the ancient pines.

  Through their chants, they felt the vibrations
begin, rolling outward from the epicenter at the
forest's heart. All about them, the pines were
aflame.

They redoubled their efforts.

  A howling, from far away, from the throat of
neither man nor beast.

  They stood linked by their cruel talons, in the
center of the flaming forest, hearing the sizzle of
the sleet as it hit the cold fire, hearing the
grinding of shifting rock, hearing the shriek of
their own voices.

  Their hideous cries echoed through the burning
wood, the pale chill fire arcane and terrifying, and
at last, all air was banished from the vicinity. Then
all colon Then all light.

  A darkness deeper than night, deeper than
sleep, vaster than death, stretched itself upon the
flaming skeleton of the dying pine forest, bending,
lapping, flowing. Growing.

The Dolman.

  Perhaps it was the lightning and thunder talking
to him that ultimately led him, like a blind man,
downward to a great ledge on the eastern face of
Fujiwara, still quite near the snow summit.

  Set upon the ledge was a wooden house with an
obliquely sloping roof and a long terrace
overlooking the sheer side of the mountain and
the mist-shrouded valley at its feet.

At the rear of the house, the rock face had been
cleared

DAI-SAN 155

away to make room for an enormous glazed
chimney of green brick. Before it had been built a
great forge.

  Red sparks leapt upward into the roiling
darkness in concert with the echoing sounds of
violent hammering.

  He approached the terraced side of the house
and, mounting several wide slatted wood stairs,
entered the house.

  Three robed women met him. They appeared
tiny beside his great frame. They seemed
unconcerned by his nakedness. Their dark brown
robes swirled as they bowed to him, ushering him
down a dark hall and into the bath. It was only
when he had climbed into the tub and they turned
away from him for a moment that he saw the
interlaced ellipses embroidered on the backs of
their robes, soft green fans.

  They dried him carefully and he donned a robe
they held out for him, woven of swirling colors so
cleverly constructed that he could not tell where
one left off and another began.

  They led him through the interior of the house.
It was sparsely and simply furnished with tatamis
upon the wooden floor and small lacquered tables.
Upon the walls were prints of travelers upon two
roads, one mountainous, the other winding by the
sea.

  At length, they reached the rear, where sparks
flew and the heat was intense. They left him there
and he went slowly down the steps. The high
chimney loomed over his head.

Bellows moved.

  Hammer hit upon the flat anvil and pink and
yellow sparks shot into the air like fireworks.

  A figure, bare to the waist, wearing black silk
pants, faced away from him, working before the
forge. Long black hair with deep blue highlights
flowed down like an animal's mane. The shoulders
were wide, the waist narrow, a scabbard sword
hung from one hip

  The figure turned to him. Her bare breasts
glistened. Her dark candid eyes stared up at him.
Her wide lips curved into a smile. She lifted the
great glowing hammer.

  "Almost finished," she said in a rich musical
voice, and he started, believing for a moment that
he knew her. "You came not a moment too soon."
She pointed to a rough-hewn wooden table to her
right. "The short one's ready."

  He went to the table, picked up the scabbarded
sword, and slowly withdrew it. The long, slightly
curving blade reflected the forge's glow, spangling
the charged air.

He strapped the scabbard about his hip, spread his
legs,

156 Eric V: Lustbader

made several flashing cuts in the night. He felt its
weight and balance, satisfied. Then sheathed it.

  He was about to turn away when a shadow on
the table top caught his eye and he reached out
wonderingly. It was another Makkon gauntlet,
seemingly the mate to the one on his left hand.

  "By all means, put it on," said the smithy. "He
left it here for you, after all."

They stared at each other for a moment.

  "You know," she said, "you look different than
I had imagined. Almost unfinished " She
shrugged.

  "And you," he said, drawing on the second
gauntlet, walking toward her, "you seem so
familiar that I "

"Here, look at this."

  He stood behind her, watched her work,
because it was what she wanted. She held in her
hands a sword over one third again as long as the
one he now wore, which she had called "the short
one." The metal of its blade was blue-green down
its center, but a glowing lavender along the honed
double edges. The guard had been lovingly crafted
of a carved piece of lapis lazuli reinforced by an
inner core of metal. The hilt was constructed of a
black metal center surrounded by seagreen jade,
beveled and polished to a high gloss.

  With a hiss and a turbulent cloud of white
steam, the smithy doused the blade in a barrel of
water. She wiped it with a chamois cloth before
locking it onto the anvil. From a lacquered iron
box near the forge, she withdrew an implement
somewhat akin to a knife, using it to scrape down
the length of each edge of the blade. Next, she
produced a long file which she used to further
refine the keen edges. When she was satisfied, she
unstrapped the sword and took it a short distance
to a wooden framework within which rested a
gleaming stone. Mirrored chips danced in the
light. By using her foot on a pedal, she caused the
stone to revolve at a remarkably high speed.
Carefully, she drew the blade across the surface of
the stone.

Sparks flew like hot snow.

Again and again and again.

  He became dizzy with the watching and he
turned away lifting up his eyes to the towering
summit of Fujiwara high above his head. The
clouds had rolled away on a high dry wind and he
could once again see the glittering spray of stars,
blue-white and terribly clear in the thin air.
Perhaps they held a message for him. But he was
certain now that they contained

DAI-SAN 157

no answers, for as long as man reigned here, there
would be mysteries.

  At length, the smithy turned the edges of the
blade to an oiled stone for polishing and, finally,
she returned to the anvil, strapping it down again,
rubbing its entire length with composed flakes.

  She bent over and engraved her signature on the
tang, then burnished the entire blade with a
polishing needle.

She turned, handed it to him.

  He took it, the weight an ecstasy to him, and as
he held it up, he saw for the first time, within the
shining face of his newly forged blade, his image.

  His eyes were the palest lavender, speckled with
gold around the rims of the large irises. They were
long and almond-shaped. His angular forehead
gave way to a mane of silky black hair, which fell
unbound down to his shoulders. His skin was
tawny. His cheekbones high and hard. But beyond
these features, he could not understand the strange
configuration of his face and he looked abruptly
away, into the eyes of the blacksmith, d rk as
olives.

  She stared at him pla. idly but, whirling into
their depths, he beheld a ferocious f/ tee bound,
quivering, in check. A dark, febrile force which he
recognised.

Vengeance.

And what else did the share?

"Who are you?" he sa i.

"Are you pleased with your new weapons?"

"Yes, very much."

  "Good," she said, laughing, her breasts shaking
provocatively, and she led him back into the house.

  The robed women stripped off her pants and it
was then that he saw that they were held in place
by an oval lapis pin.

  And as she climbed into the steaming, fragrant,
polished wooden tub, the memory surfaced in a
rainbow flash, a flying fish breaking the roll of a
stormy sea, an instant's sharp vision from another's
lifetime.

"No," he said. "It~cannot be. It cannot."

  Her body seemed smaller now, pale and firm,
the sweat washed from its gleaming surface,
glowing with the stimulation of the rough sponges
of her servants.

  "I saw you die felt the ribbons of your flesh
and blood all "

She held out her arms and called to him:

"Enough, now. I am the blacksmith; you are the
sorcerer."

158 Eric AT. Lustbader

  They took his robe from him and she gasped at
his strange form, her dark eyes glowing.

  "I do not understand," he whispered.
"Dor-Sefrith is the sorcerer."

He climbed into the bath with her.

  She kissed his strange lips, crying out as they
touched, put her mouth against his ear.

"But he is no more." A breath as soft as dawn.

Her strong fingers exploring such a singular
terrain.

  His hands moved down her back, caressing her
spine. Her eyes closed. They kissed again, their
bodies sinking down into the slapping water. The
turbulence increased.

  Kneeling, the robed women wiped at the
gathering moisture with new sponges.

  He slept in her enormous bed while time stood
still, while his body adjusted itself, completed the
last of its healing, while she finished her exquisite,
arduous task.

  And when at length he awoke, the armor was
ready for him.

  He was dressed in black lacquer breastplate
banded in lapis lazuli and sea-green jade. The
scabbard for his great sword was of silver and
streaked malachite in alternating bands. He was
weaponed now on each hip, the shorter sword on
his right, the great blade on his left.

  The blacksmith placed the high curving helm of
red jade and burnished copper upon his head.
And all at once, he was eager to depart, to
descend the mountain, to leave Ama-nomori. The
urgency of the Kai-feng swept over him like a
tide. He was aware too that much more than a
confrontation with The Dolman lay before him.
He knew that without him the last remaining
might of man would perish in the Kai-feng, yet he
understood also that at every step he must be
aware of his actions and of those about him the
very acuteness of his power necessitated that for
in his regained newness had come the knowledge
of the complexity of life. Just as no one was
forged by one event so no one was created for
solely one purpose, not even the Sunset Warrior.

Fully garbed, he stood waiting.

The smithy dropped her arms to her side.

  She shook her head, her long, dark hair waving
like an undersea fan.

  And she made a movement. Just a blur. Swift
and threatening, she lunged at him with her
sword.

DAI-SAN 159

  Nerves willed muscles to instantaneous motion
while the brain still mused. Thought drifted behind
like a scarlet streamer, unwillingly forgotten, as his
arm, his hand, his fingers, thus his blade turned to
a platinum blur.

  His eyes caught the dazzle of sunlight upon a
choppy sea, just behind her, as the superbly honed
sword shot through her body.

  Red strung the air between them, as startling as
the vermilion in the snow print upon her wall.

  It splashed hotly onto his face, into his eyes, and
he plummeted downward with a sharp sense of
vertigo, crying, plunging at last into the deep, deep
green of the sea.

  Once again he found himself at the foundations
of the world. They were still enormous yet now so
too was he and he swam lazily through the colossal
edifices, searching.

  At length, he found the Aegir, the limitless
landscape of its gently curving side, pulsing slightly
with the breath of life, the rough hide rippling, and
he swam along its length with great powerful
strokes which seemed to carry him leagues with
each kick.

  He knew the way now even though the path
seemed endless. Twisting through the foundations
of the world, following the sinuous route, he went
deeper and deeper, across shale shelves, below
barrier reefs, past the black trenches, mysterious
doorways, to the core of the world.

  In time he gazed upon the head of the Aegir, so
huge that he could not even make out the end of
its snout. He was filled with infinite sadness and a
great exhilaration as he lifted the great blade over
his high helm. He struck downward, into the
Aegir's brain with a mighty blow.

  The body writhed, the head flew apart, smashing
into him in great severing hunks. He gasped, no
longer able to breathe, and swallowed convulsively.
Water filled him.

Whole, she stood before him, smiling.

  He looked from her to the long blue-green
blade, dripping blood upon her tatamis. He was
drenched in sea water.

  "So now it is named and is truly yours," she said.
"A soul of steel."

Still he stared at the shimmering blade.

"What is its name?"

"Alca-i-tsuchi," he said, not looking up.

Her head bowed before the weapon.

"I pity your enemies."

* * *

160 Eric ~ I`ustbader

"Can she be of aid to us?" said Rikkagin Aerent.

  "Now that The Dolman has come, I doubt if
anyone can be of help." Tuolin stared out at the
last of the cold flames.

"You know "

  "Yes, brother, I am aware that is not what you
meant." The pine forest was but smoking charcoal
now. "These are dismal days. We are all in ill
humor." He turned from the scene to the north
and his outstretched arm swept across the
buildings of Kamado, whose inner porticoes were
pillared with the images of the ancient gods of
war. "They can no longer aid us and I fear that
the weapons of man will not be enough to prevail
over these sorcerous creatures." Still his eyes
darted back and forth, met his brother's steady
gaze only fleetingly. "You have seen as well as I
have what those deathshead warriors can do to
our men. They do not bleed and their strength is
inhuman. If we but had a defence that would stop
them."

  Rikkagin Aerent put his strong arm about his
brother's sinewy shoulders. Both men were tall
and muscular. Tuolin, with his close-cropped
blond hair was obviously the younger, for
Rikkagin Aerent was already praying; his strong
face with its curving nose and full beard bore the
seams and scars of many campaigns. He turned
Tuolin away from the darkness of the buildings,
away from the somber streets of Kamado with
their pin points of yellow and orange light.

  "Tuolin, it is time we forgot the intervention of
gods and sorcery. All of that belongs to another
age, when other men, far different from ourselves,
walked the world "

  "I do not think that they were so different from
us except that they wielded more power."

  "Oh no, they were as different from us as we
are from the deathshead warriors out there. They
were bound to serve, Tuolin. Our lot is not to
throw ourselves upon the hard earth and grovel
before a carved figure nor to mumble incantations
from some rotting scroll. The world has changed.
Our Laws will no longer tolerate sorcery's
proliferation."

"Then what of The Dolman?"

  "The end of a life long past its time. The
Dolman was created in a forgotten age. He could
not be birthed now. We shall destroy him and his
legions." But Rikkagin Aerent's voice seemed
brittle and hollow on this sorcerous night, even to
himself.

  After a time, he followed Tuolin down the wide
stairway to the high ramparts, into the dark
streets.

"Tell me," he said gently, "why she troubles you."

DAI-SAN 161

Tuolin sighed.

  "Her soul has died. Or at least something
important inside her."

"What happened?"

  "Someone was killed. A woman, very close to
her." He turned his head away, the small ivory bar
run through the lobe of his ear flashing in the
torchlight for a moment. "I knew them both" he
laughed bitterly "I was about to say 'well,' but it
is not the truth. I knew them a long time, that was
all. I never bothered to understand their
relationship clearly "

"What of the other one?"

  "Matsu?" Tuolin shrugged awkwardly. "I should
have suspected that night when I first took Ronin
to Tencho. Matsu gave him a strangely patterned
robe and then he asked for Kiri. What a fool, I
thought. But she took him "

"Why?"

  "I do not know but I think that Matsu signaled
her. They are linked, the three of them, in some
curious way "

"But Matsu was slain, you said."

  "And now she will not talk about it." He meant
Kiri. "Perhaps they were sisters. '

"Why does it matter?"

  A dog barked angrily. A smithy's hammer
sounded, an echoing wail in the dense night.

"I feel like I am choking. This weather is
unnatural."

"About Kiri," Rikkagin Aerent prompted.

  "Why are you so interested in her?" said Tuolin,
turning toward him. Rikkagin Aerent noted the
gaunt cheeks, the hollowness around the eyes. His
gaze took in the slight rise of the right shoulder
and he wondered if his brother's wounds were
healing satisfactorily.

  "I care about you, that is all. I wish to know the
cause of your melancholy. If you desire Kiri now,
you need but ask. Once she was untouchable. She
gives you "'

"Her body. There is nothing left but the shell "

  "She gives you what she can," Rikkagin Aerent
said relentlessly.

  "Not enough," Tuolin breathed. "It is the ghost
of a halfremembered past only"

  Rikkagin Aerent heard the bitter tone of his
brother's voice and silently he mourned for him.

"I have nothing," Tuolin whispered. "Nothing."

"Yet she lives." Rikkagin Aerent gripped his
brother's

162 Eric V. Lustbader

arms. "She breathes, her heart pumps, she thinks.
Find the way "

But Tuolin was already shaking his head.

"It has died within her."

"Fool not to see what is directly before you!"

  The clang of a bell came between them. The
solid tramp of booted feet, somewhat muffled.
The watch changed.

  Rikkagin Aerent ran a hand through his hair
and in a softer tone said, "Colin, I wish you would
speak to her "

"About what?"

  "Ronin. She was closest to him, you said so
yourself. Nothing has been heard of him since he
was seen leaving the eastern edge of the forest.
That was many moons ago. Perhaps he went for
reinforcements after he slew the Hart. Perhaps
she knows "

Tuolin shoved his brother aside.

  "Why do you not ask her yourself?" His angry
voice drifted off dully into the fogbound night.

  She kissed him tenderly and he closed his lids
to his reflection in her eyes. Her lips were
incredibly soft. His long arms went about her
body.

  His mouth broke away for something more
important. To say it.

"How can I leave you?"

  She took his arm and they went out onto the
long balcony, staring out at the calmness, the last
frosted shreds of the long night. They felt, rather
than saw, the vast bulk of Fujiwara looming over
them on their left.

Space.

  They floated, a pair of powerful eagles, in the
thin, charged air.

  Her slender hands roamed his body, exploring
still. She was a delighted child. And he,
transported by the knowledge of her.

"Did he do this to you?" he said. "Dor-Sefrith?"

Did her head nod imperceptively?

"But how? And why?"

  "You already know the way." She held him close
to her. "As for the how " She shrugged. "There
is no telling, really."

"But I he saw you "

  She turned to him. "And I see you now." Her
fingers stroked his arms. "Would you have me ask
who you are?" She

DAI-SAN 163

shook her head. "You are no longer Ronin. You
are more complete. But Ronin is still there, his
essence did not perish with his body. He is but a
part now. So too with me."

"But what are you a part of?"

She climbed his body, kissed him again.

He felt a wetness on his cheeks.

  His strong, strange fingers twined in her long
hair. He searched her eyes.

"How can I leave you?" he said again.

"Soon," she whispered. "Soon."

It was but half a cry.

  He had made but a third of the circuit around
the vast citadel's ramparts when he saw her. She
was leaning against the chill stone, her back to the
cold conflagration of the pine forest. Her deep
purple cloak was wrapped tightly about her body.

"Tuolin said that I might find you here."

  Her head turned but her eyes did not move.
They observed him impassively.

"I am always here at night," she said softly.

  Below them, Kamado was still quiet, despite the
first predawn stirrings of the cooks and grooms.
Farther away, the snortings and stampings of the
horses caused him to think momentarily of her
extraordinary mount: a saffron luma. He had long
wished to own such a steed. He had never even
ridden one.

  "He has changed so much in so little time." He
sat beside her, so close that her hair, caught by the
damp wind, brushed his face. "I hardly recognize
him."

Kiri laughed humorlessly and he shivered at the
sound.

  "I can hardly recognize myself. We have all
changed. The Kai-feng "

  "My brother has lived with war all his life, Kiri.
The Kaifeng is but the last. It is not battle that
makes him sad." And then after a moment: "He
loves you."

"Yes. I know." Her voice so low, he barely heard
her.

"You will destroy him."

"I am not an evil person," she said, almost to
herself.

  "It is not you," said Rikkagin Aerent. "The
circumstances " But he broke off, for he did not
believe those words himself.

  "But it is me! You must understand. He must
understand. You must tell him. I am useless now,
worse than useless for I

164 brie V. Lustbader

no longer care about anything, not the Kai-feng,
not my people, not Tuolin "

  He watched the silent tears running down her
cheeks. Even then she appeared beautiful.

  "I fear for him." His voice clogged with
emotion. "He thinks of you only. In the morning,
when we go out to battle, he must be clear of
mind. Only that and his skill as a warrior will
keep him alive. He is my whole family " Too
late, he remembered and stopped awkwardly.

She did not wipe at the tears. Nor did she look at
him.

"Leave him be," he said, not unkindly.

Her eyes closed, the long lashes jeweled in the
damp night.

  "What power I once had has been stripped from
me," she whispered. "He will do what he must."

"Will you bring him down with you?"

  She lurched to her feet, spun away from the
wall where he still sat. Her head whipped at him
and he felt the splattering of hot tears on his face.

"What do you want of me?"

  Abruptly, he was fed up with her self-pity. He
stood up, his tall frame seeming to explode with
energy. She paused, a frightened doe mesmerised
by bright torchlight.

  "Be a woman, not a terrified child! If you wish
to die, take a knife and plunge it into your own
belly. At least, if you wish to live, have the
decency not to destroy those around you !"

  "I wish only for time to reverse itself, for Matsu
to be here with me, for Ronin to " She turned
away from him. Her hands gripped the icy stone
of the parapet like claws.

  He came up behind her and she winced at the
force of his words, as if he were beating her
physically.

  "You disgust me! How many more miracles
would you like? He fights here for the future of
all man and you pray to your private gods to
return your dead sister !"

  "She was not my sister!" And she turned on
hire, her fists beating against his chest. She was
strong and her violence startled him. He stumbled
backward against the assault, for she was a
warrior also, and now she was unleashed, a fero-
cious, deadly animal, pounding him as he fell,
straddling hirn, beating him, her violet eyes ablaze
with anger and frustration and despair.

  But the mauling was a small price to pay, he
felt, for what he was learning.

"Bastard!" she cried. "Bastard! She was me! She
was me!"

His nose cracked from a sharp blow and the skin
along one

DAI-SAN 165

cheek ripped as her knuckles skidded along it. Still
he put up only token defence. She split his lower
lip, screaming at him, and, at last, she collapsed on
his chest, gasping and sobbing, her hair wet with
perspiration.

  He said nothing, lay there feeling the blood
seeping down his neck, onto his robe, under his
breastplate. He breathed through his mouth, his
puffed and swollen lips open wide.

She sat up.

"Do you understand now?" he said softly.

She sat very straight, her eyes closed.

"What is false and what is true?"

"I no longer know who I am."

He got up from under her.

She opened her eyes, gasped at her handiwork.

"Oh!"

"Where did Ronin go, Kiri?"

  She reached down for a handful of snow, applied
it to his nose. It fumed pink.

  "Far, far away, I think. I do not know where. But
I am certain of one thing." She applied ice to his
split lip. "He will retum."

  It was only then that she wiped the drying tears
from her cheeks.

  At first snow swirled about him, pearled and soft
in the pink glow of dawn. But as he descended, he
found himself immersed in clouds where all was
diffuse and misty.

  Soon, she had said. Soon. What was behind
those eyes as dark as olives?

  Lost in the clouds, he thought of the Aegir, who
had aided him for so long when he was Ronin. He
had recognised, even as he had slain it the first
blood, anointing his long bluegreen blade, which
she had engraved with the name Aka-i-tsuchi, the
ancient Bujun words meaning: Red Tidings the
being billowing darkly in the water far below his
battered felucca, as he had made his unknowing
way to Sha'angh'sei. He knew also that it had been
the Aegir who had saved Ronin from the sorcerous
sailors of The Dolman sent by Setsoru to destroy
him before he found Ama-no-mori. The creature
had heaved its great coils, causing the unnatural
tidal waves which had swept his ship from the
enemy vessels over the sea to the distant reefs of
Xich Chih.

And he had slain the Aegir.

Why?

166 Eric ~ Lustbader

  Inwardly, he shrugged, letting it go, relaxing,
circling inward to the glowing core of his being.

  Out of the steamy clouds, their vast undersides lit
with green lightning, and onto the lower reaches of
the mountain, where the shivering turquoise pines
spoke to him in restless sibilants. Down the treelined
slopes of Fujiwara he went until the path became
abruptly less steep and his speed increased.

  In full armor, he went easily down the lower
reaches of the mountain, treading his way through
the thickening pines, inhaling their pungent mask,
hearing the distant cries of the flying geese, the
diurnal insects chirruping, all the minute quotidian
sounds of the waking world.

  And they were there, waiting for him, as he
stepped from Fujiwara's last majestic pines: Moeru,
Okami, and Azuki-iro.

  They stared upward at him as he approached and
he saw Okami and Azuki-iro lower their eyes, not in
awe but in respect for the last myth of their people,
alive and standing before them.

  "It is he who stops the darkness," whispered
Okami. "It is the Sunset Watrior."

  "Nikumu succeeded." said Azuki-iro, "as I knew he
must. He was Bujun, our traditions were too deeply
embedded within him, Karma. Now history shall
honor him."

  "Haneda is gone," said the Sunset Warrior. "Some
vast, terrible struggle took place there while I was
being born."

  "Both Ronin and Nikumu have been buried
beneath the warm ashes at Haneda," said Moeru
quietly. "There a shrine will be built in the time to
come."

 -  "To dor-Sefrith," said the Sunset Warrior.

"To all the Bujun," said the Kunshin.

  Silently, Moeru took a step forward, her gaze never
leaving the strange countenance of the Sunset
Warrior.

Azuki-iro turned to Okami.

  "Come, my friend, it is time you and I rode for
Eido. The daimyos are standing by and I must see to
them." He took a small ivory oblong from the folds of
his robe, handed it to Okami. "Take my chop and use
it at the harbor master's. Instruct him in my name to
prepare the ships. The Bujun join the Kai-feng now
that the Sunset Wartior is come." He looked briefly
upward to the amethyst slopes of Fujiwara high above
them. "Truly the mountain has proved worthy of its
name: 'Friend of Man.'"

  They went without another word across the small
field to where their horses stood tethered, chopping
the sweet grass.

DAI-SAN 167

They mounted, swinging their steeds around,
slapping their heels against the animals' flanks.

  As they rode off across the wide undulating
veldt, the Sunset Warrior turned his piercing gaze
on the face of Moeru as if seeing it for the first
time.

  Morning had already broken and the oblique
light bathed her face in pink and ocher. She turned
away from his gaze and he watched her proud
profile, the sweep of her neck as her hair fell away
from her face, blown by the stiffening east wind.
The tall pines stirred.

  A rush of grey plovers took off over her
shoulder, wheeling in the white sky. A mist was
rising from the land.

  "Why do you stare at me?" Moera said. "By
rights it is I who should stare at you."

  "You have been important to Ronin ever since
he met you. Therefore you are important to me. I
wish to know why."

  She looked off into the distance, at the
disappearing plovers

"What happened to Mkumu?"

  "He was the last of dor-Sefrith's line," said the
Sunset Warrior. "Surely you knew that he was a
warrior-mage, as the ancient Bujun used to be."

"He had used sorcery very little until quite
recently."

  "Yes. Of course dor-Sefrith knew of The
Dolman, just as he knew that the Kai-feng would
come. He was not immortal yet he knew that to
ensure the safety of the Bujun and all man, he
must somehow cheat death. Thus he worked his
magic, thus each member of his family knew of his
secrets, from generation to generation, and
because he knew that his enemies were powerful
and immortal, dor-Sefrith made plans within plans.
I do not know them all. I know only what he told
me."

  Above them, the sky brightened, and the sun,
clearing the forest's height, filled the morning with
warmth. They began to walk toward two horses
tethered some way across the field.

  "Nikumu sensed the coming of the Kai-feng and
thus it fell to him to summon dor-Sefrith.
However, The Dolman was already more powerful
than he anticipated and he was caught midway
within the spell. While his concentration was taken
up wholly by the difficult summoning, The Dolman
invaded him." Moeru shivered involuntarily put her
arias about herself. "It was something of a
deadlock. Dor-Sefrith became locked in
insubstantial form "

"The shade! It was he who I feared "

168 lyric ~ I'ustbader

  "Yes, mistakenly. But you could not know of
The Dolman. He was within Nikumu. attempting
to exert his will, and dorSefrith, though he could
speak, was powerless to aid Nikumu."

"But Ronin helped him, did he not?"

  "Perhaps. In any event, you were right to urge
him back to Haneda. He became the catalyst but,
in the end, Azuki-iro was correct, it was Nikumu's
battle. He had lost ground, assuming the
leadership of the sasori, imprisoning you. You see,
dor-Sefrith had counseled him to send you to the
continent of man to find the Hart of Darkness "

"Who?"

"Setsoru."

  "Oh yes. I was close, finally, but I became
embroiled in a battle with the Reds in the north.
I slew three before I was knocked off my feet.
Then the boot "

"You were kicked in the head "

"My memory. Setsoru?"

"I found him in the forest Ronin "

"Yes, you were so white Where is he now?"

  "We are together, Moeru. That is why Nikumu
imprisoned you. First by taking your voice from
you, then, in Haneda binding you. The Dolman
feared that Ronin would become this " He
tapped his chest.

"But what did that have to do with me?" said
Moeru.

"Perhaps that is something that we both have to
discover."

  They reached the horses and mounted. The
saddle was too small for him and he was obliged
to fold his legs up so that his feet would take the
stirrups.

  "You were right, Moeru. Nikumu was a
complex man. And a brave one. He could have
killed Ronin and lived but the shame of that deed
would not let him. He battled The Dolman with
such ferocity that it allowed dor-Sefrith to return
to life in his body "

"But what happened at Haneda? The
destruction "

  "It could only have been The Dolman. Perhaps
he and dorSefrith fought while Ronin was dying."

"In that event "

  "Yes, I know. What was the outcome?
Dor-Sefrith is no more."

  Unaccountably, he thought then of another
lifetime and the time he had shared with her. He
debated asking her if she had

DAI-SAN 169

loved Ronin but the question and thus the answer
seemed as remote as yesterday's rain.

  "No matter," he called to her, pulling on his
reins. His mount trembled and reared. "I am here
now. The Sunset Warrior is come to Ama-no-mori.
For us, the Kai-feng!" Their horses leapt forward.

  The wind shifted and he could smell, from a
distant wooden edifice Iying low on the veldt, the
pungent fragrance of steaming tea.

  In the great copper pot, rice was boiling. The
flames licked lovingly at its blackened bottom.
Steam rose up through the opened flue, into the
massive chimney.

  The cook wiped his hands on his greasy apron,
turning away from the stacks of rough-hewn
shallow wooden bowls stacked beside the high pile
of firewood.

  It was still early and the great room was empty.
A yellow and grey dog wandered in from the
narrow street, his nose close to the wooden floor,
searching for food.

  The cook yelled halfheartedly and, when the
animal made no move, kicked out. The dog yelped
as the toe of the cook's boot caught him in the
ribs. His jagged claws skittered over the Hoor as
the cook lashed out again, cursing. He went out
onto the porch and sat, licking his bruised side.

  Kiri came into the room from the street and the
cook poured her some tea before he shuffled off
into a corner near the fire to sleep before the
breakfast rush.

  She stood before the fire, feeling the heat but
blind to its light. She sipped her tea mechanically.

  When she had drained her cup, she took a bowl
from the pile and, using a great black metal ladle,
served herself a portion of the sticky rice. She went
to a long table and sat, her bowl in front of her.
She made no move to eat.

  Someone came into the room, stood watching
her back for a time, then came across the room,
sat beside her.

Toulin poured himself some tea.

  She felt her heart thudding beneath her robe as
her pulse increased. She wanted to say something,
but the unknown words stuck in her throat like
cracked bones.

  He would not look at her, nor would he speak,
and thus they sat, as the great room began to teem
with warriors who ate sitting or standing up, talking
among themselves while the

170 Eric V. Lustbader

cook hastened to refill their bowls, knowing that
they ate the first meal of a long day.

  After a while, she got up, threaded her way
through the throng.

Toulin reached out and touched her bowl of cold
rice.

  Standing in the prow of the Bujun flagship,
Shoju, the Sunset Warrior gazed out onto the
reaches of the glittering sea. The hot noon sun
left a dazzling gilt path outward, eastward, behind
him.

  He faced west toward the continent of man and
the Kaifeng.

He burned with anticipation.

  Beside him stood Moeru, armored in
breastplate of burnished metal banded with
sea-green jade and mother-of-pearl. Her long
black hair was tucked into her high copper helm.
Two Bujun swords, one longer than the other,
hung from her hips.

  All about them was frantic motion, carefully
coordinated and precise as the movements in the
climax of a Noh play, as Bujun worked to set the
vast armada's rigging.

  Azuki-iro signed to him and Moeru murmured,
"We are ready."

  There came a shout, repeated endlessly, like
the crying of the wheeling gulls circling the*
masts.

  A rhythmic singing began as Bujun bowed over
the great flat windlasses on their ships and with
creaks and groans the wheels turned, bringing up
the heavy chains of the anchors from the harbor's
floor.

  The Bujun's song, exciting and melodic, filled
the air, already rich with salt and phosphorus.

The last of the mooring lines were cast off and
made fast.

Bujun raced through the rigging.

  The water was black with the bulk of the
armada, stretching away and away, westward.

  He looked to port and starboard, at the fifty
score Bujun ships, cast off now from
Ama-no-mon, rocking gently off the coast of Eido.

  "It will take too long," Moeru said. "How will
we ever reach the continent of man in time?"

"Nichiren," he said.

  He left her, the sunlight spinning madly off her
ebon armor, white plumes shooting from his high
helm.

DAI-SAN 171

  He braced himself against the base of the
bowsprit of the Shoju.

  He drew forth his blue-green blade, Aka-i-tsuchi,
pale lavender running down its long double edges.
With both hands, he reached it forth, over the sea.

He closed his eyes.

  And the last legacy of his beastly protector
flowed up from the dark depths, called by
Aka-i-tsuchi, by his mind.

  In the east, clouds formed along the horizon,
building steep and purple. Yet where the ships
rocked gently in the water, the sun shone hotly.

It grew quite calm, not a breath of air stirring.

The clouds writhed out of the east, rushing at the
fleet.

The first hint of a wind from the east.

"Break out all sail!" called the Kunshin.

  The east wind began to rise, cool, alive with
electric intimations, filling all who felt its touch
with a peculiar exhilaration.

  The darkening clouds now raced across all the
skies for as far as they could see. Pink lightning
crackled, thunder wailed, echoing across the sea.

The wind tore at the armada.

  With that, the Kunshin gave the last sign and
the ships rushed out to meet the storm.

  The seas heaved and the wind howled through
the rigging, straining the sails to their limit, and
the vast Bujun fleet leapt westward across the
storm-tossed ocean of periwinkle and deep
lavender, racing faster than any ships made by the
hands of man.

  Moeru stood in the bow of the Shoju, just
behind the tall figure standing athwart the base of
the bowsprit, watching the unnatural light undulate
along the great blue-green blade, and what
thoughts at that moment ran through her mind,
none could say, not even the Sunset Warrior.

          lVemesis
r

~ HERE was a man within the teeming camp of
The Dolman who stayed close to certain people
even though they were relative newcomers to the
army. Obviously, they were leaders. And they did
not stink like the other generals. In fact, as far as
the man could tell, they were human.

  The man was tall and thin, his muscles hard
and ropy. His face, with its long, drooping
mustache, was gaunt and haunted. Deep within,
he mourned for his people and that aching
frustration was built until it became an emotion
so bitter that he could not bear to live with it. In
desperate selfdefense he had turned it outward,
into implacable hatred so that at least he could
wake each morning and not plunge a short sword
into his lower belly.

  Po had long ago aligned himself with the Reds
of the northern provinces for he detested the fat
bongs and eager rikkagin who held sway within
the walls of Sha'angh'sei.

  As a trader, he made frequent journeys to the
continent of man's richest city, was even welcome
within the houses of many of its wealthiest and
most influential citizens, high up in the walled city
district. He forced himself to fall neatly into the
guise of a successful trader from the north,
burying his hate by looking to the future the
future that was now remaining sharp-tongued
but carefully concealing his true feelings.

  Yet, as the time of the Kai-feng drew nigh, as
his time in the north revealed to him the true
nature of the burgeoning battle, while those
seemingly secure in their palatial homes in
Sah'angh'sei grew fat and complacent, his temper
writhed upon its tight leash, burning bright. Thus,
when he had been insulted or rather, when his
taut nerves had caused him to believe he had
been insulted he had lashed out, spilling his
guts, insulting in kind the people assembled at
Llowan's din

                 172
                  
DAI-SAN 173

ner party. And so he had forever been banned
from Llowan's home. He had castigated himself for
days for his foolish lack of control. In disgust, he
slew three Greens on the northern outskirts of the
city. Then he vowed that never again would his
emotions betray him.

  Now, as he picked his teeth after a satisfying
meal over a fragrant pine fire, he knew that it no
longer mattered. At last the war for liberation was
here and soon the rebel army, as he chose to call
it, would break through Kamado's defences. All
Sha'angh'sei stood before him, waiting like a fat
jewel to be plundered. These aliens, he knew, had
no interest in either silver or the poppy, had not,
he suspected, even the intelligence to understand
the concept of wealth. No, these peculiar creatures
lived only to kill and when they had sated them-
selves on the blood and the gore they would return
to whatever hellholes out of which they had first
crawled. He shuddered. Oh, how they stank! Then
he thought of the wealth that would soon be his.
With it he would assume control of the war-torn
city, establish a new line for his people. They
would stream in from the hills in the west,
becoming proud and powerful within the confines
of the new Sha'angh'sei. And the fat bongs would
be the first to die under his regime. This was why
he had resigned himself now to follow.

  Confident, he strode through the vast stinking
encampment, alive with the discord of alien
languages, foreign dialects, winding his way
through the teeming, bristling bodies. Twice he
spied the black, beetling heads of the insect-eyed
generals and he gave them a wide berth.

  At length, he came to the tent of the fat man.
He was a great general, Po knew, perhaps second
only to the disgusting Makkon. That was why he
had picked out the man when first he rode into
camp on the ebon animal that was hard to look at
for more than a few seconds. The fat man had
come from the heart of the pine forest, from where
Makkon were, and Po knew.

  He went past the guards and, ducking, stepped
through the tent flaps into the covered pavilion
beyond.

"You sent for me," he said, bowing his head.

  Three of the deathshead warriors passed in front
of him and, stooping, went out through the back of
the pavilion.

The fat man looked up from his charts.

"Yes," he said. "Come here."

  A Makkon stood by his side, its hideous beaked
head swiveling. Its thick tail flicked at the air,
which was heavy with its

174 Eric V. Lustbader

stench. Po averted his eyes, clamped down on his
surprise at seeing the being outside the forest.
What is happening? His thoughts darted like
unquiet fish.

  "We wish," said the fat man silkily, "for you to
do us a service."

"As you request," said Po, his head still bowed.

  "Good," said the fat man. "Tonight you will
infiltrate Kamado."

  Po concealed his surprise once again, said: "I
am, as you are no doubt aware, a prime master of
jhindo."

  "Concealment and assassination," said the fat
man. "Yes, we know well. That is why we chose
you, Po."

  The Makkon opened its hooked beak and
screamed, its grey tongue flailing at the scaled
roof of its mouth. Po shuddered and closed his
eyes momentarily, nauseated.

  "There is someone we wish slain," said the fat
man, seeming to translate the Makkon's request.
"We wish it done silently and mysteriously to
increase the terror." Then he gave Po a
description.

  "That could fit many people, sir." Still he was
sickened by this weak, subservient pose. Yet he
knew within its docility lay his ultimate strength to
outlast and thus defeat these pompous generals
and stinking aliens. "What is the name?"

  The Makkon howled again and Po felt tears
start at the corners of his eyes. His ears hurt.

"Her name," said the fat man quietly, "is Moeru."

  They had gone on, leaving him alone in
Sha'angh'sei. Behind Tencho, in the palace of the
Empress.

  In his high gleaming helm, in his black
lacquered armor ribbed in sea-green jade and
lapis lazuli, he strode through the cool marble
halls, hearing only the echoes of his footsteps.

  He stood for a moment peering down a wide
gallery, past flecked marble columns. Beaten brass
lamps hung from long chains.

The palace was deserted.

  The air was still, hanging dusty, like folded
sheets, waiting for the occupants to return from
some summer sojourn on another continent where
the sun shone and it never rained.

  For a moment, he thought he detected a
presence high up at the other end of the vast
gallery: an inquisitive voyeur, perhaps the gyring
beat of primitive music. But the air was thick and
the light dim and the shimmering was most likely
some refraction of flames off his armor.

DAI-SAN 175

  He shook his head, as if trying to remember a
snippet of another's memory, and failing, strode
from the palace, wondering what had led him to
return here when events and time pressed for him
to make all speed northward to Kamado.

  He came out onto the jeweled garden, lush still
in the ending of the year. The day was bright and
cold, as brittle as porcelain. High cirrus clouds
scoured the cerulian sky. The trees were red and
orange, as shiny as copper or brass.

  With his gauntleted hands on the bridle of his
mount, he paused, his head turning back toward
the hidden entrance to the Empress' palace,
certain now that he had forgotten something there.

  Then he shrugged, leapt upon his steed, and
without another backward glance, galloped out of
the open gates, through the maze on tumbled
streets and black back alleys, for Sha'angh'sei,
strange in their emptiness, northward to catch the
column of Bujun on the march to Kamado.

  Behind him, a great wind came into the palace
as if seeking someone or something. It batted at
the brass lamps as if in frustration of finding no
one. They fell to the floor. Cold flame ran along
the marble and the building shuddered as from a
great, angry fist.

  It was Bonneduce the Last who saw him first, at
the head of the long column, and it was he who
gave the order for the great pastern gates of
Kamado to be opened.

  The little man's face was alight with pleasure as
the Sunset Warrior reined in and dismounted.
Amid the dust and clatter of the marching Bujun,
he grasped Bonneduce the Last and picked him up
in the air.

"Old friend," he said over and over. "Old friend."

  "It is good to see you," said the little man, giving
vent to his joy. "At last."

  At their feet, Hynd, the singular mutant who
was more than animal, growled in his throat, his
round tail whipping the air.

  The Sunset Warrior bent to stroke his furred
head and Hynd coughed, his thin lips pulled back
from his wicked teeth. He nuzzled the Sunset
Warrior's leg.

  Moeru reined in her horse and, bending, kissed
the little man.

  Out of the corner of his eye, the Sunset Warrior
saw Kiri running toward him, then abruptly halt
and stare as if stricken.

176 Eric V. Leader

He watched her face as she moved backward,
away from them, her eyes never leaving his.

  "There have been changes since you embarked
on your journey. It is not for you to help Kiri
now," said Bonneduce the Last.

  "I could not aid her before," he said, turning
away. "Accompany us to the stables, old friend,
and then we shall speak of many things."

  "I will do better than that," said the little man,
leading the way down Kamado's narrow streets.

  Within the stables, they left their horses to be
cared for by the grooms. But before they left,
Bonneduce the Last took the Sunset Warrior to
the far end of the stalls. There was Ronin's dark
red luma.

The creature snorted as the Sunset Warrior
stroked its neck.

"Ah, thank you, old friend."

  Bonneduce the Last turned away, limped back
down the aisle of stalls to where Moeru waited.

  For long hours through the remainder of the
day and into the brusque twilight, while
skirmishes continued unabated without the walls,
the rikkagin of men met with the Sunset Warrior,
Bonneduce the Last, the taipan of Sha'angh'sei,
the Kunshin and his daimyos.

  "Each day," said Rikkagin Aerent, "the enemy
attacks with more men. Each day our forces grow
more depleted."

  "As you know," Tuolin said, "the deathshead
warriors can be destroyed by sword, but their
number never seems to diminish. Now they are
led by black creatures with the faceted eyes of
insects. None of these have ever been killed or
wounded. Our men are demoralised."

  "And the rikkagin?" said the Sunset Warrior,
looking about the smoky room. "The men but feel
what they see in their leaders and emulate h. A
more doom-filled group I cannot imagine. If you
are downcast and hopeless, then expect only the
same of them." His mailed fist struck the table
around which they all sat. "Now we are all
together, the last forces of mankind. The Bujun
are come. They are the greatest warriors on the
face of the world. We are at the peak of our
strength. I will not wait here within these walls
only to be beaten down by attrition. This is not
the way of the warrior." He saw, in the periphery
of his vision, Azuki-iro regarding him placidly,
smiling. "At dawn tomorrow we will go out onto
the plain, cross the river, attack the enemy. All of
us. And by day's end,

DAI-SAN 177

we shall know whether man shall live or die in the
time to come." He signaled to Rikkagin Aerent,
who spread out a detailed topographical map of
the district. Upon it had been marked in various
colored inks, the deployment of The Dolman's
forces.

  After a time, the Kunshin leaned over and
stabbed with his forefinger.

"Here," he said. "And here."

Then they got down on it.

"It is good to have you back," said Rikkagin
Aerent.

The Sunset Warrior laughed.

"Am I so unchanged then?"

  "No." Rikkagin Aerent looked away for a
moment, then his clear eyes resumed to the
strange visage before him. "Not at all. You are like
no other I have ever seen before but even so" he
grasped a long arm for a moment "even so, I
could not mistake you." He paused to allow two
warriors passage down the cramped, dark hall.
They stood between smoking tapers,
half-shadowed.

  "What happened?" he said. "Or is that an
indelicate question?"

  "Karma," said the Sunset Warrior. "I went to
meet my destiny and found it on Ama-no-mori."

  "The fabled isle exists, then?" said Rikkagin
Aerent. "Then the Bujun really come from there
and not another part of the continent of man.
There had been rumors "

"It exists," said the Sunset Warrior. "It is my home
now."

"And the woman warrior who accompanies you?"

"Moeru? What of her?"

"Who is she to you?"

"Why is it important?"

  "For Tuolin perhaps it is essential. He loves Kiri
and she "

  "Still loves me? No, Aerent, she loved Ronin
and even then there was nothing he could give
her."

"Perhaps then "

"Yes. All right. I would not hurt Tuolin "

"They will survive "

"As may we all, Aerent."

  Tapered banners fluttered from the ramparts of
Kamado, borne on a tired wind.

He stood in the icy cold, surveying the burned and
black

\

178 EricV: Lustbader

ened pine forest, thinking of his first terrifying
encounter with himself, knowing that now, within
that twisted tangle, pulsed The Dolman, come at
last to the world of man.

  Dawn would see them face to face, the
culmination of his life, the last burning page of
the history of this dying age within which they all
lived and felt joy and suffered.

Would they see the dawning of the new age?

  He did not know but he felt sure that if they
did not, no one, no thing, would.

  And as he thought of The Dolman and his
coming personal struggle, which would decide the
outcome of the Kai-feng, a bright shard of
Ronin's memory spun dazzlingly upward, from out
of the swirling deep.

The Salamander.

  Somewhere on this world, the Senseii of
Ronin's Freehold still lived, the man who had set
Ronin's sister K'reen against him so that Ronin
was at last forced to kill her. The master warrior
who had chosen Ronin for his Combat Class, who
had, in effect, begun Ronin's long, hard struggle
to become, ultimately, the Sunset Warrior.

After The Dolman

  "How different you appear," she said softly from
behind him.

He did not have to turn around to recognize
Kiri's voice.

  "Yet I could not mistake you if ten thousand
centuries had grown over us both."

  He turned at last, staring down at her with his
strange lavender eyes, and she gasped. She drew
her hand from her mouth and reached slowly,
hesitantly, out to touch him.

"He is gone, Kiri. His body is buried on
Ama-no-mori."

  "No," she said, her heart already broken,
crushed to white ash. "How can it possibly be?
You must " Her warm hand stroked the odd
planes of his cheek. Then: "How you must miss
Matsu!" But he knew exactly what she meant.

  She sobbed against his chest and, feeling the
soft whisper of her unbound hair against his face,
visions played, unbidden, across his mind: the
stirrings of a fierce, sexual woman whose warm
lips kissed his as he slashed her breast to ribbons;
a gentle, pale oval face half obscured by long
nightblack hair as it fell over one eye, her red
blood and hot gore spattering his face and hands
as the Makkon calmly, deliberately, tore out her
throat, a last impotent breath bubbling liquidly
from between her already blue lips.

The Dolman and then certainly the Salamander.

DAI-SAN 179

  They were all that existed for him now. Kiri was
as the stone of the ramparts to him and, as an
understanding of that filled her, she pushed away
from him and, turning, left to him the view of the
dark. smoking forest and the high frozen wastes of
Kamado.

  They had already secured the rope and he
slipped into the chill, rushing water. He felt the
steep bank drop away from his feet almost
immediately.

  Despite the depth of the river and the white
water bubbling about his body, he felt quite safe
as, hand over hand, he pulled himself across. A
thin reed tube extended upward from between his
closed lips, breaching the turbulent surface of the
river.

  He was garbed entirely in black. Even his face,
where the flesh was exposed, away from the tight
hood, had been blackened by charcoal, then
greased to keep the water from washing it away.
Gaining the far shore, he knelt unmoving,
breathing silently, surveying the darkness of the
night.

  Racing clouds obscured the moon and a wind
from the east rustled the leaves of the poplars, the
needles of the pines. Behind him, the rushing of
the water.

  He scuttled into the underbrush and settled
himself to dry. While he waited, he carefully wiped
away the grease on his face and reapplied the
charcoal powder until he was content that the flat
matte finish would reflect no torchlight.

  Stealthily, keeping to the deep shadows of the
trees and the low foliage, he moved in an erratic,
zigzag route toward the towering walls of Kamado.

  He heard low voices and he froze, the hilt of his
black dagger already in his right fist, point lifted
slightly.

  The voices swept nearer, borne on the wind, and
as they came up on his position, he struck in two
swift, silent cuts, ramming the dark blade through
the soft skin under their chins, across their palates,
into the base of their brains. The two warriors did
not even have time to cry out.

  Now he could have donned the clothes of either
of the slain men and thus gained entrance to
Kamado but this was not the way of the jhindo
master.

  He pulled them into a tangled clump of brush
and continued on his stealthy way until, at length,
he was at the foot of the stone walls of the citadel.
He pulled several small black metal objects from
within his tight ebon clothing and silently

180 Eric V. Lustbader

he began to climb the wall, hacking efficiently at
the mortar used to join the great stones together.

  Swiftly now, as he gained the rhythm, soaring
into the dense, starless night.

  He stroked Hynd's long, plaited back. The
horny scales rippled in pleasure.

  "It is wonderful to see the Bujun again," said
Bonneduce the Last.

"You never told Ronin "

The little man shrugged.

  "There are many things which you may now be
told. Before " His shoulders lifted again.

"Can you tell me who you are?"

"Yes." He rubbed his short leg, stretched out
before him.

"It has been told before, you know."

"Indeed. To whom?"

"G'fand."

"What? But why?"

  "He wished to know." Bonneduce the Last
reached over and touched him with one finger.
"Listen, my friend, the Bones told me that he
would die shortly in the City of Ten Thousand
Paths. There was nothing I could do about it.
Karma. It was but another death I had to suffer
knowing. It was a gift. He asked me and I told
him."

"Do you think that he believed you?"

"I cannot say Does it matter very muchT'

  There was silence for a time, while the fire
crackled cheerily in the stone hearth. He strained,
hearing again the sonorous ticking which
accompanied the little man wherever he went. He
was on the point of asking about the sound when
Bonneduce the Last continued:

  "My race is long gone, at least as it was known
in its day. I alone have been preserved to see the
Kai-feng and thus atone for the transgressions of
my liege."

  He got up, went to put another log on the fire.
He stirred the glowing coals with the tip of his
sword.

  "Hynd and I live Outside time, as you have no
doubt guessed by now. This was imperative if we
were to survive the ravages of the millennia. For
I am of the folk whose lord found the root in the
forest glade, a part of which you ate "

  "The legend of the great warrior told to me by
the old apothecary in Sha'angh'sei, the one who
had the root "

"Yes. He was Bujun "

            DAI-SAN 181
"And the garden the temple in Sha'angh'sei "

Bonneduce the Last nodded. "That, too."

What am I missing? thought the Sunset Warrior.

  The little man limped back to his chair, his hand
reaching down again to stroke Hynd's back.

  "Because of his burning desire to rule over all
the world," said the little man, returning to his
story, "he was led into the forest glade where grew
the root."

"Led by whom?"

"By God."

"Which god?"

"There is only one, my friend."

  Behind the grate, a log cracked down its length
and, with a soft crash, fell to the ashen bottom of
the hearth. Orange flames leapt up with renewed
vigor.

  "In eating it, he became the most powerful
warrior in the world and thus his thirst for
conquest was slaked "

He paused at the sight of the Sunset Warrior's
raised hand.

  Within the new mind had flashed the image of
a huge man with cinnamon skin and hazel eyes.
Unaccountably, he wished to see Moichi again,
wished at the very least to know where he was.
Upon the vast salt seas, riding the high poop of
some heavily laden ship flying full sail to catch the
wind and ride the tide, heading for some foreign
port, hidden by the curve of a lush headland, his
ratter thickened by new entries. Now what had
made him think of Moichi at just this moment? He
reviewed the conversation. There is only one, my
friend. His lavender eyes opened, gold sparking
around the irises.

"Go on," he said softly.

  "In eating the root," the little man said, "he also
caused to be created The Dolman. For as it was
then, there was nothing on the world that could
match his power and our Laws could not tolerate
such an imbalance.

  "Thus The Dolman was born, birthed to do
battle with my liege. The Dolman was victorious
but, in the process, he was severely injured and was
forced from the world of man. Yet for centuries
unending, he nurtured a growing obsession to
return, to wreak his vengeance upon all of man, for
his one lust is extinction."

"And now he waits within the forest to the north.
For me."

  "Yes," said Bonneduce the Last. "And my long
mission over the ages has been accomplished."

  The Sunset Warrior reached one gauntleted
hand into the folds of his robe, beneath his armor,
drew forth several small

182 Eric hi: Lu~tbader

shapes, off-white in colon They gleamed in the
firelight.

  "Once," he said, "you gave a gift to Ronin. I still
wear that gift. I still value its protection. Now
here is my gift to you." He reached out a hand.
"You told Ronin in Khiyan that the Bones were
no longer useful. Perhaps that was because they
belong to another time, a forgotten age. Here, my
friend. From the jaws of a crocodile of today."

  Into Bonneduce the Last's cupped palm, he
dropped the teeth Ronin had gathered in the
jungles outside of Xich Chih.

No one saw him; no one even heard his approach.

  He was like the night wind, blowing in across
the high ramparts.

His jhindo senseii would have been content.

  In the dark, dank streets of Kamado, with the
proliferation of noise and movement, he became
but another flickering shadow thrown by the
inconstant light of the swinging oil lamps.

  Within the herds of whinnying, snorting horses,
sweating, swearing soldiers, packs of lean yellow
dogs, coats filthy and matted, past the precision of
the changing of the guard at watch's end, he
flitted through the crowds of the stone citadel,
unchallenged and unnoticed, wrapped securely in
his cloak of invisibility that was the soul of jbindo.

  At various times he paused within deep
shadows, overhearing snatches of conversations,
making his way, at length, to a certain wood and
stone house. Its long, quiet porch was identical to
those of all the other barracks within Kamado.
Yet this one was different, he knew.

  He went around to the side, edging into the
pitch blackness of a narrow alley littered with
refuse. Squealing, rats skittered from underfoot.
He stood still until they quieted and when at
length he chose to move again, they made no
sound.

  Through a small window where lemon light did
not thrust back the deep shadows, he hoisted
himself lithely. Into the blackness of the building's
interior.

  Opening a wooden door just a crack, he peered
out at two warriors talking at the far end of a
long, narrow hall which was lit at intervals by
oiled reed torches. His door was almost midway
between the lights. It was the best placement he
could hope for.

Carefully, he tested the hinges of the door.

Quickly now, he opened the door without a
sound, his

DAI-SAN 183

hands already a blur. Two black metal stars sang
through the air, buried themselves in the warriors'
necks.

  The man in black moved silently away, an
articulated shadow

"All doubts should have been swept away."

"Nonsense."

  "No, old friend, I am a leader now. I feel the
weight of all mankind."

"Are you unsure then of what you can do?"

"No, not that. More of who I am."

  The hearth was carpeted with white ash. The
logs, consumed by the fire, had all collapsed
downward, shattering. Small flames still leapt and
danced, scattered among the ashes.

"All of us are composed of pieces."

  "I would feel easier knowing the outcome of the
battle at Haneda."

  "Perhaps the answer lies somewhere inside you.
None else can know. Once I could have rolled the
Bones, read the answer on their etched faces.
Now " He sighed deeply. "I am tired."

  And for the first time, as he looked at him, the
Sunset Warrior recognised a trace of mortality in
the little man.

He smiled.

  "I am here now." His voice whispered across the
semidarkness. The sonorous ticking was a
contrapuntal rhythm to their voices. "You have
completed your task. The guilt of your liege has
been expiated "

Bonneduce the Last shook his head sadly.

  "No. There has been altogether too much blood
spilled. Man is not a wheat field waving in a
summer wind, to be cut down, a harvest for
sorcerous creatures. They have no right. They must
pay. Some Laws stand for all time."

"Then The Dolman will be defeated."

  The clear grey eyes stared at him, rents in the
fabric of time.

  "Will he? It was through my liege's insatiable
greed that The Dolman was conceived. Perhaps it
is man who must now pay the ultimate price." His
shoulders lifted, fell with the finality of a death
sentence. "None can say at this moment."

"Soon, old friend."

He got up, stood near the dying fire.

184 Eric ~ l:'ustbader

  "Yes, soon an end to all the suffering I have
borne witness to. "

  He limped across the room to a low chair over
which he had thrown his worn leather shoulder
bags and reached within their depths. Abruptly,
the ticking became louder and he turned, walking
back to the Sunset Warrior.

  Bonneduce the Last held in front of him a
small object of brown onyx and red jade. It was
trapezoidal, glassed on one side. Within the
structure could be seen a sphere of fire opal

revolving back and forth to the rhythmic sound.

  "The Rhyalann," he said. "This is what keeps
Hynd and me Outside, what has allowed us the
breadth of cons."

  "Ronin often wondered what caused the ticking
that accompanies you wherever you go. I too."

  Bonneduce the Last nodded. "I know. I show it
to you now because you never asked to see it.
Beyond a certain few, no one must even know of
its existence, for with each person who sees it, its
power decreases."

"Put it away," said the Sunset Warrior. "Put it
away."

  He heard the little man's limping step over the
wooden floorboards.

Tuolin groaned.

  He lifted a trembling hand. It cost him a great
deal of energy.

I cannot, he thought.

  Then he caught himself and began the deep
breathing that was an essential part of his
training. Back to basics.

  His chest was sticky, warm and wet, but the
pain was minimal there. The fierce grinding of
flesh against bone was further up, at his shoulder
socket.

The reaction had been entirely reflexive.

  His arm like lead moving slowly upward. He
gritted his teeth, forcing his muscles to work. His
nerves screamed and he fought back the shout of
pain that bubbled in his throat. He grunted.

  The shadow had been thrown across the far
periphery of his vision. Somewhere in his brain, it
had registered.

  At length, he reached far enough and without
hesitation pulled it from his rent flesh. He almost
passed out with the pain but he returned to the
deep breathing, oxygenating his blood against the
shock, pulling himself back from the brink of
unconsciousness.

Oh, you fool, he thought. Get up!

DAI-SAN 185

  So it was his training that had saved him. It was
why he had been moving, even before he heard the
harsh hissing coming toward him, why his body had
already begun its turn away from the threat. It was
why he was alive now while one of his men lay
dead beside him.

  Looking at the weapon in his hand, a metallic
star, fivepointed, its edges serrated. And he cursed
himself again, for he knew the evil that was now
inside the walls of Kamado.

  He lurched to his feet, staggered against the
corridor's wall. Sweat broke out on his face, along
his sides, under his arms.

  A jbindo master within Kamado. His mind raced
as he followed the path of the moving shadow.
Even if he had not seen the direction of the wraith
as he was falling with superreal clarity because
the intense concentration helped to block the pain
and shock to the nervous system while the
organism tried to adjust to the invasion of its
flesh he would have known which way to go.
There was only one target that made sense in this
barracks: the Sunset Warrior.

There were two guards in front of the door.

  He stood quite still in the flickering shadows of
the corridor. He was reasonably certain of his
destination. Still, he wished to leave nothing at all
to chance. Therefore, he determined that one
would have to live, if only for the few moments it
would take for the confirmation.

  He launched himself, silently and swiftly, a
human dart, his right hand snaking out in a blur,
the ridged muscles, heavily calloused, a knife,
breaking the sternum of the right-hand guard.

  Even before the man fell, choking on his own
blood as it poured into his lungs, the jhindo had
broken the collarbones of the second guard with a
fierce chop of each hand. He grabbed the man as
he began to slide down the wall.

  For the briefest moment, there was a whispered
dialogue, then the jhindo slit the guard's throat
with a hidden blade.

Crouching low, he threw open the door, rolling
inside.

  Onward, his stomach heaving, trying to force its
contents up his throat.

  Around the near turning, the corridor leapt up
before his eyes as if pulled by strings controlled by
a madman. He leaned against a wall, panting,
pressing his forehead against the cool stone, urging
himself onward, his soldier's instinct

186 Eric V. Lustbader

screaming. His tongue licked his dry lips. He
knew he was dehydrating, the combination of
shock, the loss of blood, and the sweat of his
efforts.

  He concentrated on the hate, cold and efficient,
and with it came the release of adrenalin,
bolstering his system. He willed his thoughts away
from his crooked left arm and the warm blood
leaking out of his shoulder.

  The sight of the two sprawled bodies brought
him up short. The door behind them was slightly
ajar and though his nerves were screaming for
immediate action, frantic at the time lost, he
willed himself to stand perfectly still and close his
eyes, because inside the room, it was darker than
the dimness of the corridor and he would not go
in there blind. lust an instant's blindness while he
adjusted and the jhindo master could kill him six
different ways. He knew enough about the secret
art not to underestimate its practitioners.

  He went in with a rush, crouching and rolling
across the floor as soon as he had crossed the
threshold. Away from the leakage of the lethal
light.

  Platinum glow from a rising moon, briefly freed
from its dense cloud cover, splashed into the
chamber through high, narrow windows whose
shutters had been opened to the compound
outside. Shimmering bars of some liquid prison.

  His sword drawn, Tuolin's eyes swept the room,
taking in the corner first, then the deepest
shadows thrown by the placement of furniture.

  He found them together on the wide
cream-colored bed, locked in silent struggle.

The jbindo and Moeru.

  He was above her, a dark, humped shape, and
her legs were locked across his back as if they
were in the act of making love. But her powerful
thigh muscles were corded as they strained across
his kidneys, her heels locked at the small of his
back, pressing inward, seeking purchase to break
his spine.

  The jhindo's hands were at her throat, the
thumbs searching for the soft flesh just beneath
her jaw, directly below her ears.

  The jbindo grunted as Moeru jerked her legs,
digging her heels in. But he had found the spot
now and he jabbed. Moeru gagged, tears of pain
welling in her eyes, spilling down across her high
cheeks.

  She coughed, brought her left hand up in a
swift arc, the edge stiff, slamming it into the
jhindo's head just behind his

DAI-SAN 187

ear. His head snapped up and his eyes seemed to
glow with a feral hunger as he applied more
pressure.

Moeru cried out.

  Tuolin broke out of his stupor and, rushing to
the bed, smashed the hilt of his sword into the
jhindo's rib cage with enormous force. The man
grunted, his body twisted, and he released Moeru
as he leapt at Tuolin.

  The deadly hands were a blur, sweeping the
rikkagin's blade from his grasp and at the same
time describing a mysterious blurred pass.

  In the next instant, the jbindo planted his feet
and swung from his shoulder. Tuolin saw him
wince, then he was struck in the face.

  Flesh ripped away and he felt a searing pain. He
looked down. A row of black metal spikes covered
the jhindo's knuckles, shiny now with blood.

  Tuolin circled to his left, toward the jhindo's
hurt side. He wiped the blood from his face. His
cheekbone was not broken as it most surely would
have been if the jhindo had not been injured, thus
preventing the blow from landing with full force.
Tuolin counted himself lucky and moved in.

  In dimness, one learns to memorize outlines and
shapes and when those change, the body moves
and thinks later. Tuolin sank to the floor, his mind
racing to recall the instant before the action,
tracing in slow motion what his eyes had seen to
trigger the instinctive response.

  It was the jhindo's face. An added line, silvered
by the light of the thin shafts of moonlight. He
heard the whirring above him as he hit the floor
and rolled away into deep shadow. His mind
retained the latent image of the outward puffing of
the jhindo's cheeks as he prepared to fire the poi-
soned dart.

  The jbindo spit and Tuolin heard the tiny clatter
of the concealed blowgun.

  He ran straight at his foe, his arms locking
about his waist. He grimaced with the pain.

  He slammed his balled fists against the rib cage,
heard several sharp cracks.

  The jhindo's eyes rolled whitely and Tuolin
almost missed the puckering of the lips. Then he
saw the glint of the blowgun still within the
jhindo's mouth. Despairingly, he cursed himself for
falling for the ruse.

He increased his grip as he heard the soft phit
through the

1~ Eric V. Lustbader

air and at the same instant he saw the hand
descending in a blur.

  Slim fingers pressed inward at the base of the
jhindo's neck. The eyes rolled up and his lips
went slack. Air, withheld, abruptly sighed out of
his mouth, the blowgun dropped. The jhindo fell
to the floor.

"I do not want him to know yet."

Her blue-green eyes stared into his.

She finished bandaging him.

"Do you understand?"

  His eyes were still filled with the pain of his
burning shoulder. His neck ached. He could not
lift his arm.

"Not really. No."

  Her gaze left him and swung to the
unconscious ebon figure spread-eagled on the
bed. His hands and feet were bound securely to
the four metal corners. An obsidian star, like one
of his own weapons.

"He came for me, Tuolin, do you realize that?"

"But I thought "

  "Naturally. You assumed that he had come to
kill the Sunset Warrior and found me here
instead." She shook her head, dark hair floating.
"There was no mistake, of that I am certain. He
attacked me, Tuolin. He was searching for no
other."

Tuolin turned.

"We must tell the Sunset Warrior "

Her hand on his good arm stopped him.

  "Do you know what he would do," she said
quietly, "if he were to come in here now?"

"And you will not kill him?"

  She laughed, her voice a cool nocturnal
whisper. "Oh yes, rikkagin. I shall kill him, but not
now and not soon. Not before he tells me what I
wish to know."

  Tuolin moved his left arm into a more
comfortable position. Already blood was
darkening the bandage. His hand was numb.

  "I too am curious about how our enemies knew
of you but, Moeru, he is jbindo. He will die rather
thar say one word."

  "Still," she said, staring at the cloaked figure, "I
must know who sent him here."

"You will get nothing from him."

Her eyes glittered in the pale moonlight.

"Watch."

DAt-SAN 189

  She moved silently to the bed and, reaching out,
slapped the jhindo sharply across the face. Again.

  She waited patiently until he was fully
COliSCiOUS, until the eyes were no longer glassy,
before she tore off his ebon mask.

His dark eyes locked onto hers.

"Who sent you?"

  She said it quietly, making sure that he could
see her lips forming each word.

He stared at her unblinkingly.

  She reached down, seeming only to press gently
against his body. The jhindo's eyes opened wide.
His face went white as blood drained from it. After
a while, he opened his mouth to scream but
nothing came out.

  She repeated the process, talk and movement,
and gradually Tuolin became aware that she had
set a rhythm that somehow intensified the effect of
her actions.

  The air in the room grew heated even though
the night was chill. The smell of sweat and
something else hung heavily.

  Tuolin went to a pitcher on a plain plank table,
drank the cool water.

  Every so often, the jhindo passed out. During
one of these times, Tuolin said:

  "Is this truly necessary? We waste time here.
This man will not talk."

"I do not think you understand."

  "What can it matter who sent him: Kill him and
be done with it."

"He will tell me, eventually."

"I do not like this."

Her eyes never left the white face beneath her.

  "Can a rikkagin be so squeamish?" Then she
said: "Perhaps I frighten you."

He laughed hollowly.

"You begin to fear that I enjoy this work."

"No, I " He came nearer to her. "Well, it could be
true."

"What if it is ?"

"You are with him always "

  She turned her head to him now, still crouched
over the sweating body.

  "Look, I did not mean " He paused, conscious
of her clear eyes raking his face. "You saved my
life. You are Bujun, an exceptional warrior, but
I "

"What?"

"I do not understand you."

190 Eric V. Lustbader

  "What you mean," she said simply, "is that you
cannot equate good and evil within one person."

He stepped back a pace.

"I do not think that you "

  "Oh, I understand you well enough, Tuolin." At
precise intervals she kept glancing back at the
gleaming, drawn face beneath her.

"So you think of yourself as a good person,
hmm?"

He thought of Kiri.

"Yes."

  "Then it is not possible for you to harbor any ill
feelings, any hate? You cannot destroy."

  "I am a soldier," he said warily. "My business is
to destroy."

"So it is your profession; you chose it."

"Yes. Certainly."

  The jhindo groaned. His eyelids began to flutter
as he rose again toward consciousness.

  She put a hand on the waxen chest, monitoring
respiration and pulse at the same time.

Now Tuolin bristled somewhat.

  "I am a professional. What would you have
done if I had not "

"And that is the extent of it."

He checked his discourse.

"Yes."

  "Fool! Have you never looked inside yourself?
Have you been so busy going about your efficient,
professional killing that you have failed to
recognize your totality?"

  She turned her attention back to the jhindo
and, when she was certain that he was fully
conscious, commenced to work on the nerves high
up on the inside of his thighs. Sweat broke out
anew on his forehead and his chest fluttered. His
eyes rolled up, going white as he went into a
trance, but she reached her fingers across his
body, manipulating, pulling him out of it. His eyes
snapped open, focusing, and for the first time,
some emotion swam there.

She leaned over the trembling body, whispered:

  "The thing is, that you will not die after all this.
Because I will not let you. You know now that I
have that power. If you do not tell me who sent
you, I will bind your hands and feet and throw
you back across the river. What will happen then
when they know? What will your masters do to
you when they find out you have failed?" She
paused for just the right

DAI-SAN 191

amount of time, allowing grudging seconds to pile
up before she continued. "And were captured?"

  Her slender, powerful fingers dug in once more.
His body arched and his mouth stretched
soundlessly. He passed out.

  "So I am an evil woman, Tuolin. Why listen to
what I have to say? I will only lie."

  "No," he said heavily, "I do not think that." He
sat down on the bed, as if he were infinitely weary.
"What is the truth, then?"

  Her eyes left him, for a moment, flicking across
the haggard visage of the jhindo.

  "The truth lies within yourself, rikkagin. There
are no easy answers. Words of wisdom from the
sages are a part of myth. Life is rarely that simple."
She checked again. "Have faith in yourself. Do not
fear the bestial side of you. Accept it. You cannot
live without doing that."

"What have I been doing up until now?"

"You have survived."

  She palpated the jhindo's chest, bringing him out
of it prematurely. His eyes sprang open, slightly
glazed. They focused. She reached down and now,
for the first time, Tuolin saw clearly what she did.
With infinite slowness.

"Tell me."

Tighter.

  And he was drenched in sweat. He tried to
vomit but she depressed his windpipe and his body
would not let him strangle on his own fluids; his
jhindo control was finite.

"Tell me."

  The violent cramping of his body began at last
and she pressed the advantage, bringing the
threshold of pain into the realm of the unbearable.
His eyelids fluttered and his breathing became
irregular. He gasped but already one spreading
palm was across his mouth, forcing him to breathe
through his nose. The oxygen intake was
insufficient to maintain the system in his present
state and she knew now that it was a matter of
time.

  She maintained the pain level, marveling at his
fortitude, saddened still that it would end, how it
would terminate-itself.

  The lack of oxygen was now acute, intensifying
the pain, and it was not the fear of death which
obsessed him now but the knowledge that when he
retained consciousness, the process would begin
anew.

She brought him to the edge.

"Tell me "

192 Eric V. I'ustbader

And in twilight, he did.

  His brain half numbed, his training stripped
from him for precious moments, he uttered two
words. Her thumbs went in all the way and blood
"outed, a viscous cloud.

  Drenched, she quit the bed and, fuming to
luolin, helped him to a low couch across the
room. He seemed feverish, his shoulder swollen.
She peered beneath the bandage, then fed him
some water. She looked at him.

"Now who," she said, "is the Salamander?"

        Frozen Tears
CCAR

E you certain now?"

"Perfectly. There was never a question."

"How long?"

"Long enough."

"Um. Tell me again. Everything."

She repeated the story.

  He listened, looking for a moment at the white,
anguished face of Po, the bitter trader who had
loved his people above all other things and who
had betrayed mankind for them. He was a mess
now.

  The Sunset Warrior turned away, knowing what
she had done and understanding it.

"How did they know about me?"

  "There is another question of far more import
which needs be answered."

  He looked at her oval face, pale and exquisite
in the dancing lamplight: at the forest of her hair,
the long sweep of her neck, the full arch of her
lips, the crimson of her lacquered nails, gleaming
with light flecks. A dark, glittering drop of blood
lay on her collarbone.

  Something inexplicable stirred within him.
Ronin had loved her, he knew, yet there was
about their strange relationship an abstractness,
an implicitness rather than an explicitness, which
resolved itself in a striving for something further.
Now he knew that it went beyond love, far
beyond, into territory new and mysterious. He
trembled in anticipation.

"Ronin knew that mum."

"The jbindo?"

"Another wasted life "

"He knew the Salamander too "

The Sunset Warrior laughed but his eyes were
quite cold. It

                 193
                  
194 Eric V. Lustbader

seemed quite logical now and he wondered why
he had not been able to predict this moment.

  "Your voice still seems strange to me." He
walked to the high windows. It was pitch black
outside save for the pin points of the small lamps
visible here and there along the narrow street. He
peered up at the thick cloud cover, feeling its
oppressive weight.

Shall we speak this way? she said in his mind.

The moon is down now, I think. It reminds me

  He did not finish the thought and she did not
press him. And perhaps she caught a hint of a
picture, an image that she understood better than
he might expect.

  She went across the room, unself-consciously
opening the sash of her robe, caked with dried
blood and flecks of viscera, watching the lamplight
firing across the strange, fierce planes of his
arcane face. She poured water into a bowl,
cupped her hands.

"You are less alien to me now, do you know
that?"

  He turned from the window, closing the
shutters behind him.

  Her long lithe legs, the narrow waist, the flaring
hips, her firm breasts gleamed now with spilled
water.

  "I thought I loved my husband." Hair, dark and
jeweled with moisture, flung itself across her
shoulders. "For a time I fought my feelings. I
would not let myself care. After all Ronin was not
Bujun, even though he fought like one." She
pulled a large cloth from the back of a couch,
towered her body dry. "But then I found you."
Like this. Her voice in his mind, a caress.

"And then ?"

And then youfound me.

  Her hair cascaded over her face momentarily as
she moved. She brought a hand up to move it
aside.

His eyes watched hers, then broke away.

"What of Tuolin?"

  Dropping the cloth, she stood quite naked
before him. Then, stooping, she belted a fresh
robe around her.

"I will get Kiri "

"Let one of the men "

"No. "

"The security "

"Is adequate. I wish "

DAN-SAN 195

  "The blowgun missed him." As if he was just now
beginning to understand.

  "Yes, but the suriken that wounded him was also
poisoned. His left arm is already paralysed."

"There is nothing "

"I will fetch her."

For a long moment, she kissed him.

  Kiri shuddered and stopped in the midst of
refilling her long, thin pipe. For just a moment,
she thought she heard Matsu crying out as if she
were still alive somewhere. She shook her head.
She knew too well the effects of the poppy. It was
why she smoked now. Matsu used to smoke, she
knew, but the feeling now was far different. Her
fingers automatically filled the small bowl while
she thought. But what if Matsu were alive?
Impossible! She castigated herself again with the
frightful images: the beautiful white body pooled in
steaming blood, her head attached to the torso
only by a thin stretch of wet skin; the Makkon's
talons gripping her throat and the base of her
brain.

  She fought down the gorge rising in her own
throat at the remembrance of deaths cold grasp.
Even once removed She felt again the hilt of the
straight-bladed knife Iying comfortingly against her
belly in its ceremonial scabbard. Waiting patiently,
she knew, for the hand that would push its cold,
white blade into her entrails.

  She closed her eyelids against the wetness
welling there. And for the thousandth time since
the murder she thought: I am dying without her.

"Kiri."

She opened her eyes. Moeru crouched before her.

"Kiri, listen to me. How much have you smoked?"

  Mutely, Kiri shook her head. She had a terrible
intimation, pulled from the other woman's eyes.

  "A jbindo infiltrated Kamado. He was sent to
assassinate me. Tuolin fought with him and was
injured."

"How bad?"

"I think you should see him."

  She felt the cold stone against her cheek. She
closed her eyes.

"Fine," he said. "I feel fine."

The skin of his forehead was hot and dry.

196 Eric ~ Lustbader

  She felt his hand softly stroking her face. So
gently. There was something unrecognisable in his
eyes.

"I love you," he said softly.

  And she could not hold it back any longer. The
stoic within her relented, the tears rolling down
her cheeks, and at last she let go, all the hurt and
anguish flowing out of her in great sobs while
Tuolin held her in his arms, rocking her, stroking
her hair. She clung to him as if she were a child in
desperate need, unself-conscious and, now, not
alone.

"It has been a long night," he said to her.

"Surprise," said Du-Sing.

  "Yes," said Azuki-iro. "Most definitely. By the
thrust of our main force, so will the Makkon guide
the counterattack."

"Deployment is the key," said Rikkagin Aerent.

  "Yes. Our deployment," said Lui Wu. "Perhaps
we should already have crossed the river
here" his long finger stabbed at the mulberry
paper tnap "where it is most fordable when they
counter."

  "I do not think that would be wise," and
Azuki-iro. "The Bujun, being an island people,
have much experience with warfare near water
and I tell you now that if we overextend ourselves
and they begin to overrun us, we shall be backed
up like a swollen sewer and the ensuing confusion
will utterly destroy us."

"What then do you propose?" said Rikkagin
Aerent.

  "Feint a river crossing but give them ample
warning," said the Kunshin. "They will come out to
cut us off and when they hit the water, we attack.
Use the soldiers to cover the archers then let
them come forward as the enemy founders in the
mud."

"Sound strategy," said Rikkagin Aerent.

  "We shall need every device, every bit of
cunning this day," said Bonneduce the Last.

"We are terribly outnumbered," said Rikkagin
Aerent.

  "What happens when The Dolman enters the
battle?" said an older rikkagin. "What chance have
we then?"

  "Leave The Dolman to me," said the Sunset
Warrior. "Everyone must concentrate on his
section of the battle, else they will surely overrun
us."

  "I would feel much more secure," said Rikkagin
Aerent, "if we had a clearer idea of their current
deployment. Many changes may have taken place
beneath this night's concealing

DAI-SAN 19?

darkness. But we dare not waste the manpower.
Those who we have sent out on previous nights
have not returned."

There was a small silence, then the Sunset
Warrior said:

"That, too, is something I can take care of."

"What are you doing?" she cried.

"There is a job to be done."

"You must know how ill he is!"

"It is his choice, Kiri."

She knelt before Tuolin's half-reclining figure.

"What are you doing?"

"I am a soldier," he said.

"Must you obey every order?"

  "No one ordered me to do this. It is
something I want I must do."

She lifted her head and her eyes flashed.

"What did you say to him?"

  The Sunset Warrior looked down at her
without expression. Behind him, Moeru stood
with her back against the door opening onto the
narrow corridor of the barracks building.

"I said only that I needed his help "

  "His help?" Her tone was scornful. "You know
it will kill him."

"Tuolin must do as he sees fit."

She turned.

"Moeru, please talk to them."

"Kiri, a decision has been made, surely you see
that."

  "I see only that another life is being thrown
away for some nocturnal foray whose idea was
this anyway? Which bright rikkagin schemed
this? Let him go!"

  "No one knows the terrain as well as Tuolin. If
the mission is to succeed "

"Curse the mission!"

  Tuolin got up, the pain showing on his face.
He gripped Kiri, stood holding her. He turned to
them.

"Let me talk to her for a moment."

  They went out of the chamber. Moeru closed
the door behind them. They stood in the hall,
waiting.

It was quite still.

After a time, they heard Kiri's muMed: "No!"

  Then Tuolin came out, alone. Together, he
and the Sunset Warrior went down the hall away
from the quiet room.

* * *

198 Eric ~ Lustbader

A whippoorwill sounded in the dead of night.

  They crouched in the dense shadow of a stand
of poplars. In the distance, they could hear the
rushing of the river. The moon had gone down
and the night was still starless, dense with
climbing cloud. Mist hung in the treetops like a
spider's ghostly web.

  Tuolin pointed off to their left. Through the
longer, lower branches of the trees, they could see
movement, black against black.

  Cautiously, they moved within the stand of
trees until they could hear the muffled chink of
metal against metal, the harsh, guttural whispers
of the enemy.

  The pair moved closer, flitting among the deep
shadows of the tree trunks. They were clothed in
black. Each carried a pair of long-bladed stilettos,
scabbardless, tucked into their wide sashes.

  Now they could clearly make out fully a score
of the squat warriors hard at work on one of the
huge war machines. They had posted guards at
intervals around the work perimeter.

  Snow covered the ground and with the
temperature still falling, it had become brittle,
forming a thin but solid crust. The hazard now
was sound, not sight.

  Crept through the close copse of poplars, their
tops already hidden in the descending mist,
carefully through the crunching snow, and they
were rolling, into a kicked up, silent blizzard as
the long bodies dropped out of the trees, giant
black bats piling into the pair.

It began to snow. The night turned gray.

  White plumes of their breath clouding the chill
air, they grappled with their foes.

  These are new, thought the Sunset Warrior,
and I know why they were standing guard at
night.

  They had eyes like owls, large and round and
light brown. Quick, missing nothing Their heads
moved on their stubby necks in the same manner
as birds, as if their eyes could not move in their
sockets. Nose and mouth ran together, a hooked
cartilaginous mass that was, nevertheless, not
quite a beak. Hands beating winglike with fingers
long and thin, sinewy as rope.

They made no sound.

Their eyes were bright beacons.

  The Sunset Warrior used his Makkon gauntlets,
his fists like heavy hammers as he sought the
sockets, junctures of bone against bone, against
which he applied great force.

DAI-SAN 199

  Desiccated. Fleshless, they seemed to have been
baked in hot desert winds for cons. They were
implacable warriors. They gave no quarter.

  Tuolin struggled to pull a stiletto from his sash,
feeling the oblique strikes against him. He twisted
his left shoulder away. Reached up. Slashed the
weapon into the breast of one of the creatures.
Heard a sharp crack, unnaturally distinct in the
cold, damp air. The blade stuck, as if wedged into
a seam in the bone.

  He used his forearms as a defense against the
ferocious strikes, acutely aware of the numbness
which gripped his left arm. Used his legs finally,
seeking purchase, finding a humped ridge of ice
and earth, kicking outward from that base, his
boot tip sinking into the juncture of the thighs.

  A grunt and the creature rolling off him, only to
be replaced by two others.

  The Sunset Warrior crossed his wrists and
twisted. With a dry snap, a creature's neck
snapped, canted at an impossible angle.

  Hands like boards, still and deadly, blurring
through the dense, smoke-filled night, smashing
bone and cartilage.

  He crouched, breathing deeply; the center of a
low mound of corpses.

  Tuolin feinted with his useless left arm, broke
through a creature's defense with a lightning strike
of his right elbow. Broke the cartilaginous
were-beak, gouged into the wide cold eyes. While
other hands, clawlike, at his throat, throttling his
windpipe. Stars dancing before his eyes, lungs
burning for air. Arms pinned, he doubled his legs,
broke upward, his boots describing a precisely
measured arc, tearing through the leather corselet
just below the avian rib cage. Flurry of sticky
blood. Snow a pink hail and he averted his face,
rolling away across the sharp frozen ground.
Stopped by the strong hands of the Sunset
Warrior.

  "Let us away from here," he whispered, sucking
in lungfuls of air. "Quickly now."

Later, in the deep darkness:

  "I have heard of a place. Three Reds were killed
while on patrol. I was with Greens. They killed two
outright before I could stop them. The third " A
snow owl hooted forlornly in the branches of the
copse of trees to their left. "The third I took care
of and he talked before I allowed him to die. I
thought then that he spoke in delirium, but now I
think we should check his story." The snow fell on
all about them, their

200 Erich. Lustbader

friend now, deadening sound. Breath clouding the
air in front of their faces. "A cave, it is said,
where things are born."

"What things?"

"I do not know."

"What of the location?"

  "This way " Pointing off to the left.
"Somewhere beyond the trees." He started up.

The Sunset Warrior put a gauntleted hand on his
arm.

"Have you the strength?"

"We must go now."

  The Sunset Warrior handed him one of his
stilettos but Tuolin shook his head, saying softly:
"I can only use one at a time now."

  They raced across the open field and into the
tangled cover of the trees, moving cautiously now,
lifting their boots high in order to avoid the
invisible outthrusts of roots. Not far away, they
could hear the rush of the river. The sound
increased until they broke cover and found
themselves on the reed-lined bank.

  "The water is sufficiently shallow to cross here,"
said Tuolin.

  They slipped past the reeds and into the
freezing water. Black boulders strewn near the
banks of the river here caused the racing current
to slow, eddy, and whorl back upon itself so that
the long passage was made somewhat easier. In
mid-river, the current was still swift and once or
twice Tuolin lost his balance.

  They reached the far bank without any
untoward incident, scrambling up the brush-filled
shore and racing for a stand of scrubby firs.

They sat and listened. Tuolin shivered slightly.

  Far off a bell, muffled and somehow sad,
seemed to be tolling. Then nothing but the quiet
hiss of the snowfall. Surreptitiously. Tuolin felt
along his left side, down across his ribs. Numb.

"This way," he whispered, moving off.

  Past the trees, they came to a series of dells, as
if the land here was serrated, and now they took
great care for they were heading deeper into the
territory of The Dolman. Secretly, the Sunset
Warrior perhaps hoped to come across the path
of one of the Makkon, for he still remembered
what one had done to those close to Ronin, but
the night was quite still and they saw no Makkon.

DAI-SAN 201

  Increasingly, the dells became more rocky, until
by the fourth one, there seemed no earth
whatsoever.

  They crouched on the high verge, peering
through the snow, two black boulders among the
many.

Both saw it at once.

A brief flicker of orange.

  Using the rocks as cover they crept down into
the dell, careful that their boots did not dislodge
any loose stones.

  The snow fluttered down, increasing in intensity,
softly numbing.

  They had an anxious moment crossing a small
patch of open ground before clinging to the
sloping sides of the ice-encrusted rocks but the
visibility was down now.

  Slowly they wove their way through the maze of
stone until they could observe the tiny clearing.

  Around the fire sat a pair of the dark,
insect-eyed generals. Past them, slightly to the
right, several squat warriors were going in and out
of a cave entrance, blacker than the night.

They drew back for a moment.

"You have no idea what is inside?" said the Sunset
Warrior.

Tuolin shook his head.

  "All right, there is only one way that I can see
that we will have any success. I will engage the
creatures while you explore the cave."

"There seems to be no light in there."

"Yes, I know. You will have to use a torch from
the fire."

  The Sunset Warrior withdrew Aka-i-tsuchi. The
long, bluegreen blade seemed to glow in the night,
the snowflakes whispering against its angry metal
skin, turning to watered tears.

  With a great leap, the Sunset Warrior bounded
into the clearing and, with two great sweeps of his
sword, slew three of the squat warriors before they
could make a move against him.

  The insect-eyed generals rose and withdrew
their weapons great serrated sickles as thick as
cleavers, purple-black, single-edged.

  He rushed them and their blades clashed
together, beginning the heavily percussive music of
combat.

  While behind the broad back of the Sunset
Warrior, Tuolin raced for the fire, scooping up a
burning brand and rushing headlong down the
ebon throat of the tunnel.

  Out of their unhuman eyes, the black creatures
spied the blur of Tuolin's back and moved to
follow him. The Sunset Warrior blocked their path.

202 Eric ~ Lustbader

  Aka-i-tsuchi screamed in the air as it battered
the generals in a swift series of oblique strikes.

  Now that he was close to them, the Sunset
Warrior saw that their faces were triangular,
composed entirely of sharp angles. They had tiny
mouths and no noses, merely slits in the hard,
shell-like flesh of their faces. From their cheeks,
protruded curving, hornlike tusks like those of the
stag beetle.

  Aka-i-tsuchi slashed downward, through the
guard of one of the creatures, cleaving its head
from its body. Viscous black blood spurted,
congealing almost instantly in the cold.

  The second creature reared up and attacked
with a ferocity bordering almost on desperation.
It seemed intent on following Tuolin down the
black hole of the cave mouth.

  The Sunset Warrior stepped aside and with an
ill-aimed swipe it was by him, loping for the
underground entrance. Alca-i-tsuchi flashed
outward, the dense air crying with its swift
passage, and the creature collapsed to the snow.

  The Sunset Warrior heard a cry from within the
cave and he sprinted over the white ground,
disappearing into blackness.

  Ahead he saw a fitful, feral glow. There came,
echoing down the cave's long corridor, the clash
of metal, then a brief cry, choked off.

  He went downward, feeling the chill dissipating
until it grew quite warm.

  Around a turning, he found Tuolin back up
against the cave's wall, slimy with humidity. Two
squat warriors lay dead at his feet. Wordlessly, he
pointed ahead.

  Before them, the cave ended in a cul-de-sac.
Piled up. Within its warm confines, were perhaps
ten score spheroids, glossy, iridescent. As they
watched, a crack zigzagged its way across the
shining shell of one of the spheroids.

It broke open.

  Bathed in slime, a tiny creature pulled itself
out. It grew before their eyes and, as he saw the
formation of the two glossy black insect eyes in its
head, the Sunset Warrior lifted his sword and
slew the infant.

"Eggs," he whispered. "Sorcerous eggs."

  And now cracks were appearing in more of the
shells. Too many for him to slay, and turning, he
grabbed the burning torch from Tuolin's hand and
fired the dead creature. With a pop the thing
blazed up and now he fired the eggs as they split
until the small fires were so numerous that they
rushed tot "ether, covered all the splitting mound.

DAI-SAN 203

  Noxious gases bloomed from the blaze and thick
oily smoke filled the underground chamber.

  The Sunset Warrior threw the torch into the
flames, and coughing, they made their way upward
to the surface of the world.

  Out of the clearing they raced, hearing distant
calls of alarms drawing nearer. Over the dells, they
ran, conscious that little cover lay ahead until they
reached the copse of firs just this side of the river.

  Numbness had reached his hip and now Tuolin
stumbled over a rock hidden by the thick carpet of
snow. He sprawled on the ground, tried to pick
himself up. The Sunset Warrior reached down,
pulled, and they went on, hearing the cries gaining
in intensity. There came the fierce barking of dogs.

  The trees were in sight now but the numbness
was traveling swiftly down Tuolin's leg and he
could no longer feel the ground with his left foot.

  The Sunset Watrior was otherwise occupied. He
peered ahead through the fog and the swirling
snow at the stand of firs, certain now that their
configuration had altered somewhat. He called to
Tuolin and unsheathed Aka-i-tsuchi. Their haven
was alive with the enemy.

  The squat warriors had set up a line of defense
and now, before the swaying firs, they came
together. Aka-i-tsuchi sang through the night.
Tuolin jabbed with his stiletto, his body
concentrating on the efforts of combat while his
mind composed a poem.

  He slew two of the squat warriors with his
weapon before he was felled by a blow through his
stomach. Still, he killed the attacker before he
collapsed to the cold earth.

  They were through the line but the air was alive
now with the deadly whisper of black arrows as
their pursuers closed in. The howling of the dogs
grew in intensity.

  The Sunset Warrior knelt beside him, about to
catty him off.

  "Wait." His voice like a sigh on the night. "My
friend. I will not last the river crossing."

  "We have accomplished what we came here for,"
said the Sunset Watrior.

  "That was my line," said Tuolin, smiling thinly.
His blood blackened the snow around him. With
his cupped hands the Sunset Warrior attempted to
keep Tuolin's organs within his rent flesh.

"Oh, my Sha'angh'sei," Tuolin said, his breath a
whisper.

204 [Eric V. Lus1bader

"I will never see your crimson skyline again." He
paused for a moment as if to gather strength. The
dogs were howling hysterically, nearer now. "I
think she understood, in the end."

"I am sure she did."

  "I could not stay there in that yellow hole to
die. I am a warrior. I am happy now." The rustle
of the snow, powdering his upturned face, whiter
than white. The Sunset Warrior wiped the sweat
from his eyes. "I love her, you know."

"Yes."

"I told her."

"I know."

The arrows had ceased. The warriors must be very
close.

"That was so important."

"And what did she say?"

"She loved me."

"She understood, my friend. She is a warrior also."

  "She loved me. That was why she cried out
'No!' when I told her." His eyes were glazing. "I
know. You must go."

"I will not leave you."

  "No, it is I who must leave." A rustling beyond
the firs' branches laden with snow. Foot soldiers.
Barking, sharp and insistent. He grasped the
Sunset Warrior's arm with his right hand. Those
fingers were the only part of his body not numb.
"Now listen," he whispered thickly, "listen to me:

On a journey, ill, Over endless, withered fields
dreams go wandering, still."

His eyes closed as if in dream.

  The Sunset Warrior could hear the animals'
panting, the harsh scrape of metal, the creak of
leather.

  He bore Tuolin up in his arms, ducking his
head, went into the stand of firs.

  Out the far side of the stand and down the
brush, into the black swirling water. The snow hid
them and in any event the river washed away their
scent. The pursuers would not cross the water this
night.

  On the far bank, he waded through the reeds
and climbed onto the humped earth.

  Now he took his time, picking a space away
from Kamado's hulking walls, away from the field
of battle.

Silently, he buried Tuolin.

DAI-SAN 205

  He lay his stilettos across the rikkagin's chest at
an oblique angle.

Then the earth bore him away.

"It is beautiful."

"Yes."

"You told her, of course."

"Everything."

"Good. It will help, I think."

  The windows were open. It was quite still
outside in Kamado in the last several hours before
dawn. Mist hung like smoke.

"Do you think there are more?"

  He watched the burnished light on the soft
planes of her face. Her skin shone like silk.

"The caves?" He shrugged. "Who can say?"

  Outside, boots crunched in the snow, climbed
down wooden steps. A door closed.

  "What will you find, do you think, at journey's
end?" Her blue-green eyes caught the light for a
moment as she turned her head. They flashed
white, then black, as shadows stole over her head.

"Vengeance," said the Sunset Warrior.

"For your friends who are long dead?"

"For all mankind, Moeru."

  "And what of us? You and 1? You said once
that we were bound."

"There is no time now to think of that."

"It is important "

"Yes," he said. "It is."

"Because both our dreams are wandering still "

  In the streets of Kamado even the dogs were
silent as if aware of the coming of this last dawn
and of its portent.

On the vast plain, the tattered banners are waving.

  War horses snort and stamp nervously, nostrils
dilated, producing plumes of smoke.

  The numerous ranks of foot soldiers deploy
themselves under the direction of their rikkagin.
Men still march out from Kamado, a long, brave
line, toward the flanks of the army of man.

  Dawn had come but the smeary light was thin
and watery, as if the pale sun was at last too spent
to shine. Pink light spilled across the plain,
vaporous and unnatural.

206 Eric ~ I'ustbader

The chink of metal against metal.

The clash of dented armor.

  Battle standards of the various Bujun daimyos
waving slightly, rising above the flashing helms of
the mounted warriors.

Dogs running free. barking.

A sneeze.

  Then the harsh ram's horn sounding and the
ranks of cavalry prancing down the slight incline
and across the plain, past the stand of poplars,
toward the dull water of the wide river. They
stared curiously at the rent war machine,
destroyed just before dawn by a raiding party led
by the Sunset Warrior and Rikkagin Aerent.

  As the cavalry drew closer, a kinetic wave
undulating over the earth, the riders saw the far
shore black and teeming with the legions of The
Dolman.

  Just behind the cavalry, as the council of war
had planned, marched the archers, bows already
strung taut dense forests of arrows across their
backs in quivers. They loped after the cavalry,
crouched, expectant.

  Rikkagin Aerent led the cavalry charge and
gradually he speeded the wave of horsemen
forward until they were galloping over the
undulating turf.

  A flock of blackbirds quit the high grass at their
thunderous approach, flung themselves into the
cloud-laden skies.

  The plain shook to the music of half a million
hoofs. Clods of brown and white earth and snow
flew upward in their wake.

  There was shouting from the far shore, flung
across the turbulent grey water, and as the cavalry
approached, the enemy hurled themselves down
the bank and into the water, moving out to meet
the charge.

  Rikkagin Aerent could see the black,
insect-eyed generals calling to their soldiers,
fearful that they were spreading themselves out in
too ragged a line.

  At the last moment, Rikkagin Aerent flung up
his right arm and the horsemen jerked on their
reins, parting down the center, their horses
wheeling toward the army's flanks. Thus the
archers were revealed. In the first line, each man
sank to one knee and, drawing forth arrows, let fly
with a thick volley into the midst of the wading
enemy.

  The air was momentarily black with metal rain
as the deadly cloud passed over the heads of the
passing cavalry. The heavy air hummed and
soldiers midway across the river died

DAI-SAN 207

clutching at throats and chests, sinking beneath the
waves, drowning in great numbers.

  But now over the soldiers' backs leapt the
deathshead warriors, tall and gaunt, almost
skeletal, who bled not blood but a fine grey
powder in a mist, whose snapping jaws could sever
a man's leg.

  The battery of archers on the near shore tired
again the second line, then the third, behind
it and again the air grew dark across the river.
Yet the deathshead warriors were unaffected. They
swatted at the arrows which had buried themselves
in their bodies as if they were insects, snapping the
hefts, ignoring the buried points. Coming on in a
pale tide, dripping and invulnerable.

  And now the air was filled with the harsh hiss of
their tanged globes which they swung above their
heads by metal chains. Rearing up from the heavy
silt, they crashed into the first line of archers and
the crunching of bones was a constant noise on the
plain.

  Rikkagin Aerent had jerked the reins of his
mount and was already calling his cavalry inward
from the flanks. They attacked the deathshead
warriors from two sides.

  Behind him he saw the foot soldiers sweeping
across the undulating plain, down the bank of the
river, as they began to engage the enemy along
either flank.

  He drew his sword as his horse broke through
the enemy lines. He swung in economical arcs. His
blade clove through a gaunt skull and grey dust
puffed like the breath from a tomb in the humid
air.

  The archers were caught, dying by the score
under the onslaught of the hissing globes, but now
Rikkagin Aerent's cavalry had closed its ranks,
pressing inward with a rush, and the deathshead
warriors turned from the center outward to meet
the attack. The remaining archers scrambled up
the near bank, retreating.

  The wan light of the sun had disappeared
altogether as burnt billowing clouds tumbled across
the sky, close and hanging like incipient tears. An
icy sleet began, oblique and gray, adding to the din
of the battle.

  Banners flew back and forth across the field as
small forays and skirmishes were won and lost. The
bright, sharp standards of the Bujun could be seen
advancing, always advancing.

  Drawing his great blue-green blade,
Aka-i-tsuchi5 the Sunset Warrior urged his crimson
luma down the near shore, wading into the thick
of the battle at the great river crossing.

208 Eric V. Lustbader

  Aka-i-tsuchi carved a wide swath through the
enemy warriors. It seemed to sing in the air,
delighted in the carnage it was wreaking. The
peculiar metal, forged for so long and with such
love by the smithy high on the snowbound slopes
of Fujiwara, appeared to glow a deeper blue-green
and the desiccated flesh of the deathshead
warriors sizzled where it cut through to the white
bones.

  Inhuman jaws with their pointed fangs clashed
upward at him and the luma reared to take him
out of danger. The hissing of the globes increased
until it sounded like the onset of a swarm of
famished locusts as the enemy jammed about him,
trying to bring him down.

  Moeru and Bonneduce the Last, both mounted,
were fighting their way across the plain and now
they grabbed their reins, kicking into their steeds'
flanks, racing for the river crossing.

  The sleet increased to a driving, pelting rush as
hard as hail. It rattled off the armor and weapons
of the warriors. And now even the shouts of the
victorious and the screams of the dying were but
muted background sounds to the clashing of metal
upon metal and the hideous drum of the chilling
sleet.

  The banks of the river, muddy with alluvial soil
at the beginning of the battle, ran red and the
bodies of the fallen, dead or not, were ground into
the earth by hoof and boot alike until the
combatants fought on a higher level, battling
across an expanse of shifting, crunching soil
without dirt or grass.

  Already strike forces, composed of the
combined Greens and Reds, who were more
familiar with the terrain, had been dispatched by
their taipan to disable the great war machines of
The Dolman. Certainly, it was unlikely that they
would be used once the armies came fully
together but the rikkagin felt it incumbent upon
them to destroy the machines' effectiveness.

  Moeru narrowly missed being decapitated by
crashing jaws, slammed her blade down the center
line of the forehead, and the deathshead skull
splintered, blinding her momentarily with shards
of bone and marrow and bits of brain. She felt a
searing pain along her left arm and spun away as
the acephalous body swung again reflexively, the
ranged globe dark in the torrential downpour.

  She slipped along a smooth piece of armor
underfoot as she dismounted, the way clogged
with bodies and her horse bleeding from a dozen
wounds. She cracked a skull with her boot. Off
balance, she swung, correcting her weight, her

DAI-SAN 209

sword shearing through the torso of another
warrior. This time, she ducked as the globe hissed
in the air where her head had been. Then she
raised her sword and slew her horse.

  Waving to Bonneduce the Last, she waded
through the soldiers and swung up upon his steed,
just behind him. They went forward.

  Adrenalin and something more soared through
the Sunset Warrior's huge frame as he moved
further into the enemy's ranks. His immense blade
swung like a blurred scythe, so swiftly that his very
outline dimmed. It ripped through four warriors on
the forward strike, three as he reversed the mo-
mentum, swung the other way.

  At his back, the foot soldiers, fresh from
Kamado's gates, broke like a wedge into the midst
of the deathshead warriors.

  As Rikkagin Aerent saw the Sunset Warrior
wade into the central attack, he wheeled his mount
and signaled to his remaining cavalry to move out
onto the army's right flank where the defense
appeared weakest. Strange crested creatures were
now directly behind the wave of deathshead
warriors, commanded by the insect-eyed rikkagin.

  He spurred his horse along the foaming banks of
the river, the water a high silver spray in the
hissing sleet. He heard the ram's horn sounding
the charge. He leaned forward in his saddle,
lashing at the enemy warriors who climbed out of
the turbulent water. Here they were short muscular
men with no necks and broad backs. They carried
long black metal pikes and thick-bladed
single-edged swords scabbarded at their hips.

  Rikkagin Aerent turned in his saddle, shouting
to be heard above the roar about him, attempting
to deploy his men along the near bank, for the
defense was weaker here than he had at first
thought.

  A blade flashed over one ear and the heft of a
pike splintered and fell across the pommel of his
saddle. He turned back, cursing, decapitating the
warrior who had tried to impale him. He lifted his
streaming blade to the soldier who had saved his
life, then spurred his steed onward.

  The squat warriors and the plumed soldiers
poured up from the river crossing in great numbers
now and Rikkagin Aerent sent two of his men back
up the field for reinforcements.

  The foot soldiers were falling back under the
intense assault of the pikemen, giving ground
grudgingly as the wave forced them from the near
shore up onto the field.

  "Into the river!" called Rikkagin Aerent, and his
horsemen plunged into the pink water in an
attempt to outflank the

210 Eric U Lustbader

emerging warriors. He used his men as a wedge,
surging horses bodies and flashing horny hoofs
against the solid wall of the pikemen, forcing
them in upon themselves.

  His arm grew weary as he lofted his sword,
striking downward over and over, as the squat
soldiers fell beneath his assault.

  Seeing the effectiveness of the cavalry, the foot
soldiers rallied themselves under the cries of their
rikkagin, standing their ground, then gradually
beginning to advance upon their foes.

  Then over the deafening tumult of the battle,
Rikkagin Aerent heard a muted shout and he saw
a squad of warriors streaming across the river
crossing directly at him. In their midst, riding an
ebon creature that was difficult to look at, he saw
the rikkagin of the central forces of The Dolman.

  He was an immense bulk of a man, with
obsidian eyes. Long dark hair swept back from his
temples like the wings of some predatory bird.
Above him and just behind arced two banners,
fresh and whipping in the sleet storm. Straining,
Rikkagin Aerent made out the ensign of silk: an
ebon field with a writhing lizard as crimson as the
flames which danced at its feet.

  The Sunset Warrior felt it before anyone else.
Deep within the tangle of metal and flesh, bone
and blood and gore, he tensed. The pressure of
numbers which had occupied him all the morning
was mysteriously giving way.

  He looked up. Still the deathshead warriors
streamed across the river crossing, mixing with the
plumed warriors and the pikemen. But now they
came in two lines and their shouts echoed
through the din of banle. They called to each
other and pointed off to their right.

  Putting a gauntleted hand to his forehead, he
peered into the distance, downriver. And now he
saw a dark shape

emerging from the sleeting mist. He began to
fight his way to his left, to get nearer to it.

  It plunged into the river where the water was
very deep and quite swift, perhaps two hundred
meters downriver from him, directly across from
a jutting headland on the near shore.

  He saw clearly the cold orange eyes pulsing
through the snow, heard now its hideous cry
echoing across the rampaging water.

The Makkon.

But he was a long way from that part of the river
and

DAI-SAN 211

though he swung his great blade to and fro, though
he lurched through the heaving sea of writhing,
flailing bodies, he could make little headway, so
packed was the near bank.

  The Makkon came on, swinging its wickedly
curved talons. Its beaked mouth opened and
closed spasmodically, revealing its stubby, grey
tongue. Its call was an ululation, hitting the water
flatly and rebounding like a skipped stone.

  Kiri, riding her saffron luma, raised her head
from the slaughter about her and, jerking her
mount's reins, spurred it along the near bank and
out onto the promontory.

  Upon this narrow spit of land Kiri now rushed,
her flashing blade and the hoofs of her luma
throwing aside the deathshead warriors and squat
pikemen from in front of her.

  Her eyes were wild, the pupils dilated with
excitement and fear. With a swipe of her sword,
she cut a foe in two. Her heart pounding, she
stared into the baleful gaze of the Makkon midway
across the river.

  She was at the edge of the land now, her luma
rearing, the idea burning in her mind.

  "I am Kiri," she seemed to speak to the river.
"Empress of Sha'angh'sei. I call you now to your
task, for vengeance must be ours and you must
heed my call!"

  She drew the short knife in its ceremonial
scabbard from the warm place at the base of her
stomach and threw it behind her. Then, leaping
from the saddle, her body arched in a long dive,
cleaving the surface of the choppy water.

  The Sunset Warrior, making his slow way
toward the Makkon, saw Kiri, heard her words
over the din of battle, and reaching down for
another bright shard of someone's memory, knew
what was coming.

  Out in the river with the white sleet slanting
down and the wind rising, the waters before the
oncoming Makkon began to boil. The Sunset
Warrior saw Kiri's head and arms as she broke the
skin of the water, as she swam toward the waiting
Makkon.

Into the boiling water.

  Her head went down suddenly as if something
below the surface had sucked her below. For only
a brief moment, herwhite fist remained above the
churning waves, a hard, defiant gesture, then it too
disappeared into the midst of a dark stain
spreading itself directly in the path of the Makkon.
Where the water churned madly.

  The Sunset Warrior bellowed his war cry and his
great sword became a blur. He was a killing
machine. Berserk and

212 Eric V. I`ustbader

lethal, he advanced upon the enemy along the
near bank. And now even the deathshead
warriors, who knew no fear, fell back under his
fierce assault, fleeing from the death that came at
them on an inexorable tide.

  In the river, the Makkon slapped the unquiet
waters with the flat of its great hands. A funneling
waterspout rose before it, whirling moisture into
its beaked face. And its head raised to the top of
the spout, black with its living canter, and its
inhuman orange eyes gazed upon the face of the
Lamiae, Kay-lro De, half goddess, half sea
serpent, the protectress of Sha'angh'sei.

  Now Kay-lro De rose from the top of the spout,
the great scaled serpent's body surmounted by the
female head with dead-white skin and dripping
seaweed hair.

  Now the head of the Lamiae turned and her
eyes locked with the Sunset Warrior and even
though he was prepared, still he felt a shock travel
through him.

  What he saw was Kiri's face, fierce and serene.
A languid smile spread across the lips as the
graceful head turned back and with a writhing of
her coils, Kay-lro De twined herself about the
muscular, pulsing form of the Makkon.

  Tighter and tighter the slick body wrapped
about the creature, squeezing while the thing
screamed and flailed at the water. Its powerful
arms were pinioned to its side by the spiraling
coils and it used its cruel beak to bite into the
enwrapping serpent. Water creamed upward and
outward, in a frantic froth.

  The Makkon screamed again, calling, calling,
and at last out from the fog-bound shadows of the
far shore another hulking shape loomed.

  The Sunset Warrior clove through the ranks of
the enemy like a deadly whirlwind, preceded by
the sounds of crunching bones, in his wake the
moans of the dying.

  Out in the writhing river, the Lamiae's coils slid
upward, wrapping about the Makkon's sturdy
thick neck. Its eyes bulged and the beak ripped at
the scaled hide. But Kay-Iro De's eyes blazed like
living lightning and her lips drew back, half-snarl,
half-laugh. The Makkon began to choke.

  The Sunset Warrior cut through the last of the
enemy line foaming in the shallows of the
riverbank as he saw the bulk of the second
Makkon wading out into the water almost directly
across the river from him. Between them, the
struggle.

  The Makkon, entwined, gave a great heave but
the Lamiae's coil wound even tighter. There came
a sharp snap, as

DAI-SAN 213

distinct as a crack of thunder on a wind-swept day,
and the Makkon's head lurched to one side.

  A great cry of triumph trumpeted from the
Lamiae as she shot upward, bleeding profusely.
Then she sank beneath the grey waves of the river.

  The dim, close skies cracked with lightning and
the sleet became tinged with silver, so that it had
the appearance of metal. The day grew dark and
oppressive, dense with cold and pressure.

  The strange, plumed warriors poured across the
river crossing, directed by the immense rikkagin
under the billowing lizard banner, sprinting upriver
where the defences of the army of man seemed
weakest.

  Okami, at the head of one of the Bujun
divisions, met with three other daimyos in order to
revise their coordinated strategy.

  Slowly, they began to work their divisions down
the plain in a pincer movement, in order to destroy
the vanguard of the deathshead warriors who were
threatening to breach the first line of the army's
defence.

  The far shore still teemed with soldiers waiting
to ford the river, for in all other places it was far
too deep for them to cross.

  Moeru and Bonneduce the Last galloped along
the near bank into the conflagration upriver,
rallying the forces of man. She ducked the thrust
of pike and, off balance, slid from the horse. She
waved for the little man to go on without her and
he raced off as she began to lead a group of foot
soldiers out into the water.

  The Sunset Warrior stalked the second Makkon,
moving with the current to his left, away from
Kamado. Downriver, the creature had not yet seen
him and he intended that it should remain that
way until he was ready.

  The thing's outline pulsed darkly through the
fog and the pink sleet and even at mid-river he
could smell the stench. He swam effortlessly,
hindered neither by the swift current nor the
weight of his armor and weapons.

  He moved cautiously into the shallows, using a
stand of high reeds to cover his movements until
he had gained the far shore.

  The plain stretched away from him, littered with
the detritus of half a million soldiers.

The camp of the enemy.

214 Eric ~ Leader

  And but a half kilometer further back he could
make out the hazy outline of the great pine forest,
black, charred beyond restoration, where lurked
The Dolman.

  Up the far bank he ran, slipping in the mud
that the sleet had washed into the churning brown
and grey waters of the ever.

Coming up on it in a rush.

  Visions of Ronin's battle in the City of Ten
Thousand Paths, or G'fand's screaming face, his
dead, bulging eyes. The weredawn at Tencho
when Ronin had burst into Matsu's room, the
thing's baleful, uncurious eyes staring into Ronin's
as it deliberately tore out her throat, shredding it
in a spray of blood and viscera.

  And the power of the Hart, at his core,
white-hot, atavistic, inexhaustible, crying its rage,
swept through him and he screamed, a holocaust,
and the Makkon fumed its cold orange eyes like
beacons probing his. And he wondered if this was
the one, for while he knew now that they were all
linked in some unfathomable way still he hoped
for the body which had caused the suffering and
death.

  His great sword whispered in the air and the
head snapped back, the beak opening soundlessly.
It batted at the sword, then howled in pain and
rage. It had never before been afraid of metal.
But this was Aka-i-tsuchi and immediately it grew
wary, dodging the swift strikes, attempting to
move in for the deadly blows of its talon-tipped
claws. Its thick tail whipped back and forth.

  It lunged at him abruptly in an effort to get
within his defense but the Sunset Warrior
reversed the sword in his twohanded gnp, using
Aka-i-tsuchi as if it were an enormous dagger.
With explosive force, the blue-green blade
penetrated the Makkon's chest and he drove it
swiftly downward into the creature's bowels.

  Then he was spun off his feet by a tremendous
blow. He saw the Makkon staggering, its heavy
legs trembling, its claws scrabbling to pull the
sword from its imnards, howling as its hide burned
from the contact. It sank to its knees, began to
topple over and for the first time he saw a
Makkon bleed, a sticky black viscous fluid flowing
over the ragged wound.

Darkness fell over him.

A third Makkon.

  The creature smiled a secret smile as it bent
over him. It reached down, its talons outstretched.
He rolled but the straddle of its legs prevented his
escape.

DAI-SAN 215

  Then he became aware that he did not feel the
numbing cold which Ronin had struggled against in
his two battles with the Makkon. He recalled
Bonneduce the Last's words to Ronin in Khiyan
just before he set sail in the Kiaku in search for
Ama-no-mori: You cannot yet defeat the Makhon.
But Ronin was no more. His Hart cried out again,
bellowing, and with this came the knowledge that
at last he was on equal terms with the Makkon.

  He yelled, batting away the reaching talons,
stiffening his fingers inside his Makkon-hide
gauntlets, and slammed them into the creature's
unprotected throat.

  The Makkon howled, an ululation, and he
ducked a powerful strike from its talons.

  With an enormous blow, he smashed the
Makkon to the earth beside him.

  He pounded at its face, the memory of Matsu
filling him like a perfume, a mist in his eyes. He
paid not the slightest attention to the snaking of its
arms as the powerful claws reached up and closed
about his throat.

  He continued to pummel the Makkon, staring
into the wicked eyes with their slit pupils of ebon
and with great satisfaction heard the sharp crack as
its beak spht.

  He smashed his gauntleted fists down again and
the beak shattered, splintering fragments of keratin
into his face. Matsu's hot blood and flesh in a
nauseating spatter across Ronin's eyes. The
hideous head whipped from side to side.

  But now the thing's talons had gripped his
throat, gaining control, squeezing all at once. His
lungs were filled with air and he lifted his fists
again, smashing them into the pulpy wound. He
ripped off the last remaining shard of beak, the
black blood flying, cold and wet, and drew its
jagged edge across the Makkon's eyes. The
serrations ripped into the eyeballs.

  BrieRy, he felt the sting of the points of the
talons as they sank into his flesh, trying to rip out
his throat, but he bent his body lower, bringing
pressure to bear, maintaining his leverage.

  He dug in deeper with the beak, slashing
through hide and viscera. Flesh came away in long,
raw strips. The talons were digging deeper and the
Makkon began a series of jerking motions with its
arms.

  With one last titanic effort, even as he felt the
fierce pull at the flesh of his throat, he rammed
the jagged shard deep be

216 Eric ~ I`ustbader

hind the Makkon's right eye up into the brain,
pounding it home as if it were a spike.

  The huge body jerked under him and blood
and bits of pink and dusky yellow spurted upward.
He choked and wiped at his face with his corded
arms, leaning the weight of his whole frame
behind the strike.

  Beneath him, the Makkon shuddered, a brown
liquid gurgled from the thing's mouth and the
talons fell away from him.

  On his knees, straddling the Makkon's corpse,
he slammed his fist one more time into the ruined
face of the Makkon. Then he stood, strode to
where his sword rose like a grave marker above
the body of the second Makkon. He ripped it
from its flesh, sheathed it, turned away, loping to
the river, feeling the chill water cleansing him of
the caked filth which covered him. He ducked his
head, came up snorting.

  On the point of returning to the far bank, he
heard, over the din of battle, screaming from
upriver. The sleet had lessened momentarily and
the sounds came to him clearly, funneled along
the acoustic channel of the river.

  Across the water, the enemy had broken
through the lines of defence. He squinted into the
afternoon gloom, saw the whipping banners as the
forefront of the enormous wedge of warriors
breaking out from their foothold on the bank,
sweeping upward onto the field before Kamado's
towering walls.

  Crimson lizard on an ebon field and, his heart
pounding, he struck out across the river with long,
powerful strokes.

  Whatever is happening downriver where the
Bujun fight, we are losing the battle here, thought
Rikkagin Aerent. He wheeled his horse about.
The glistening hide was flecked with foam, blood,
and gore. It trampled several wounded men as he
drove it up a short rise.

  He surveyed the scene, sickened by the
monumental devastation. So many deaths and the
day is but half gone.

  The plain was a vast noisome sea of flailing
flesh and ground bone, "outing grey dust and
spurting blood. The field itself seemed to have
undergone basic geological changes since the
morning. Where once it had been a softly
undulating expanse, it had now metamorphosed
into a series of humpbacked hillocks by the
carnage of the day's fighting. Immense mounds of
the dead and wounded rolled away from him for
as far as he could see. The constant sleet, pouring
down from the angry skies, melting in the
bloodheat, turned the whole into a

DAI-SAN 217

grisly morass as it mingled with the spilled fluids of
the fallen combatants.

  He hacked at a squat warrior who ran at him,
taking off the weapon arm at its socket. He pulled
on the reins of his mount and it stamped on the
falling body, its hard hoofs cracking the skull
above the eyes.

  Not for the first time, he thought about sending
one of his men back up the field for the Bujun. He
had witnessed their brilliant, fierce pincer attack,
saw how it had wiped out the attacking deathshead
warriors. Now they fought downriver and he
turned to take in the extent of his remaining
forces. They were so depleted that he could not
afford to send a courier. Besides, the chances of
one man surviving the long passage across the field
were quite slim. He would just have to hold on
here until help arrived.

  Curse that rikkagin, whoever he was! thought
Rikkagin Aerent. The lizard banners had haunted
his cavalry all the day, matching him strategy for
strategy, and all the while the sheer force of the
enemy's numbers was slowly overpowering his line
of defence.

  He felt angry and helpless, as if caught in an
immense and unmoving vise from which he seemed
unable to extricate himself and his men.

  Rikkagin Aerent knew his duty and now he felt
that he was failing to perform it. He had had but
one thought as he rode out onto the plain at the
dawning of this unnatural day: to win. Now he felt
that goal slipping away from him as the unseen sun
dragged itself like a wounded dragon across the
unquiet heavens.

  Abruptly the tide of the battle brought Moeru
close to him. She was mounted on some dead
soldier's horse. Through the slime and muck of the
jammed field she came toward him.

  "I have been pinned for too long by that bastard
lizard rikkagin!" he shouted to her. "Moeru, can
you take command of the cavalry? I must
penetrate to the rikkagin's standards and destroy
him before his forces totally overrun this position."

  Moeru nodded and spurred her blood-soaked
steed toward the last beleaguered remnants of
Rikkagin Aerent's cavalry. No officers were left
alive.

  She called to the riders and peeled off with ten
of them, wheeling them in a tight arc, spinning
them into a flank attack on the squat pikemen.
They used their mounts' hoofs as battering rams.

Satisfied that he had made the correct decision,
Rikkagin

HIS, Eric ~ I'ustbader

Aerent jerked on his reins. His horse's head came
about snorting, and it reared into the air.

Now we go, he said to himself.

  With a leap he rushed across the field of baule,
up steep ridges of cracked armor and pink,
flecked bones, toward a high picket line of pikes
formed by fallen warriors. Onward, avoiding
forests of pikes, hacking at marauding bands of
plumed warriors, ducking the hissing, deadly
globes of the deathshead warriors.

  He plunged forward in a furious burst of killing
breaking through the enemy guard line, the way
black with their beetling bodies. Ahead lay the
pike line and beyond the billowing banners of the
rampant ebon lizard. Down a tunnel bristling with
pikes and brandished swords he galloped, over
rise after rise of mounded bodies, squirming and
dank, splashing through puddles of blood, bogs of
entrails, crunching skulls and spines, always the
black banners flapping in the wind like expectant
vultures, above him, just over the next rise of
bodies, and he plunged onward with iron
determination as the squat warriors screamed and
seized at him with torn and bloody fingers, long
nails twisted and peeling painfully away as they
scraped along his mount's flanks and withers,
grasping greasily at his boots, flailing their short
swords, slipping in the mire that was the remnants
of their fallen comrades.

  His sword arm lifted and fell, over and over,
endlessly, replicating death and destruction as he
plowed through the quicksand of the battle, the
sleet in his eyes, rimming his beard and eyebrows
with pink frost. Blood and spittle flew at him.
Limbs and heads were sheared away, fingers split,
weapons spinning slowly in the thick, frosted air,
the grim meatgrinderof his passage. And still the
ebon and crimson banners flew triumphantly
before him, seeming to mock his efforts, just
ahead now, past another ten score warriors.
Almost there.

  And at length a rent opened up in the line and
Rikkagin Aerent galloped madly through.

  Bonneduce the Last, fighting quite near the
lizard banners, saw the rikkagin hit the enemy
position and squirt through. He spurred his luma
forward, leaning low in the saddle and striking
along his left flank, making considerable headway
toward the black banners.

  Now he saw Rikkagin Aerent nearing the huge
figure riding atop the strange black beast and, as
Bonneduce too broke through the line in a
ferocious attack, his gaze swung toward the
Salamander.

DAI-SAN 219

  He gasped, uttering a name borne away on the
tidal noise of the battle.

  Now he whispered to his luma, urging it
forward, through the twisting bodies, and as he
topped a rise he found himself quite close to the
lizard banners and he stared at the proud face, the
cold, obsidian eyes, the wind-swept hair, the layers
of fat added to disguise the characteristic shape of
the high cheekbones and thought, So this is what
has happened. Oh, I am happy that he is not here
to witness this ultimate shame.

  Now Bonneduce the Last turned once again to
the mundane, numbing business of killing, using
his luma to do some of the work, guiding it so that
it plunged ahead, kicking out with its forelegs,
battering helm and breastplate, cracking pike heft,
as he slashed to left and right.

Over the slimy ridge and into the last dell.

  Above his head the twin lizards crawled in their
beds of flame.

  He saw the Salamander's head come up and
swing around as shouts from his guard presaged
Rikkagin Aerent's swift approach. Staying the pike
of one of his guards, he drew forth from the folds
of his ebon robes two stubby sticks made of
polished wood linked by a short length of black
metal chain. Almost casually he gripped the sticks.

  Rikkagin Aerent thrust his sword high in the air,
screaming his battle cry, decapitating a squat
warrior.

  Bonneduce the Last spurred his luma forward,
calling out a warning to the charging rikkagin. But
even if his words had not been lost in the din of
the conflagration, it would have been too late.

  The Salamander had wheeled his mount, and
with a deceptive flick of his left wrist, he tossed the
weapon.

  Rikkagin Aerent saw only a whirling blur. He
tried to duck but he was too close and the thing
was upon him almost before reflexive action could
occur. The heavy, weighted wood slammed into his
collarbone, the doubled iron chain whipping at him
an instant later. The force of the dual blow threw
him from his saddle. He was knocked sideways,
twisting, and as he fell one boot was trapped in his
stirrup.

  Panicked, his mount leapt forward, dragging the
rikkagin across the lumped ground. His body
fetched up against the line of pikes over which the
lizard banners flew and a bone splintered in his
leg. His boot flew from the stirrup and he lay as if
dead atop a mass of bleeding corpses over which
clouds of flies had begun to settle.

220 Eric V. Lustbader

  The Salamander had already turned away from
him, directing his foot soldiers into a small breach
in the defences of the army of many. The squat
warriors leapt to do his bidding.

  Bonneduce the Last urged his luma across the
shallow valley, passing the twisted form of
Rikkagin Aerent.

He made directly for the Salamander.

  The thunder of his steed's hoofs echoed in his
ears. He thought of Hynd, pacing restlessly, safe
behind the walls of Kamado, reluctant to leave his
side but knowing his duty nonetheless. Too, he
thought of the Rhyalann ticking within the folds
of his worn leather bags in the barracks house in
Kamado. He had left it there on purpose,
knowing full well the consequences of his action.
At last he understood completely the meaning of
his long miserable quest over the cons, beyond
Time itself.

  He brandished his nicked sword, black with
blood, shards of white bone clinging to its long
length.

  "Tokage!" he called. "Here I am! Is it not I for
whom you have sought all this morning?"

  With infinite slowness, the immense head, the
pads of thick fat guarding his features, turned in
his direction. The onyx eyes, lusterless as granite,
glared at him, and the thicklipped, pouting mouth
curved gently upward.

  "Fool to have come to me," said the
Salamander, his voice rolling sonorously over the
confused din of the raging conflict. "But I knew
you would."

  Bonneduce reined in his luma. It pranced
nervously upon the insecure footing, disliking the
tight rein. Eager to run again, it danced over the
cracked skulls of the dead.

- "How you escaped death I cannot imagine," said
the little man.

  The Salamander's face registered neither anger
nor surprise.

  "Did you expect me to submit to death? I
would have thought that you knew me better than
that. " He chuckled with real humor, a sound as
rich as brocaded silk. He paused as if delighting
in a sound long unused and quite remarkable to
him.

His guards called nervously to him.

  "Take the perimeter," he told them softly.
"Guard it well. Let none interfere." They fanned
out surrounding the pair atop their mounts. Only
the two standard-bearers with the enormous
banners fluttering above their heads, the wings of
a giant nocturnal bird of prey, stayed behind with
their master.

"No, no," he said to Bonneduce the Last. "How
unclever

DAI-SAN 221

you are not to have guessed. Only we survived.
And how? Think! Like you I made a pact."

  "With that thing. And with its power you flew
across the ages like an animal, for that is all you
really are. How many lives "

  "Candles snuffed out by an ungentle wind. They
were all unimportant." He pulled on his reins,
fighting for control of his ebon monster, the stench
of blood a constant thing in its nostrils. "No, let me
say rather, less important than myself, for I value
this person above all others "

"lf dor-Sefrith were here "

  The Salamander's huge face darkened
momentarily. "But he is not. He has been
destroyed. Yes" seeing the look on the other's
face "he is finally gone for all time. As he prom-
ised, The Dolman destroyed him, attacking him
directly when he was otherwise occupied. That
foray delayed The Dolman's arrival but it was
worth it, I believe. No more tampering "

  The black beast reared high in the air, it's eyes
rolling madly.

  "Now it is but you and I. For you are the last of
the race and you alone can tell Ronin "

  Bonneduce the Last had spurred his luma
forward. He kept his features in careful repose but
beneath the stone exterior he exulted. The Dolman
must know of the coming of the Sunset Warrior, of
who he had been, yet he had chosen not to inform
his disciple.

  "The end is nigh, Tokage!" called Bonneduce the
Last as he closed with the huge man. The
Rhyalann was gone and its safety with it. He
shrugged inwardly. It had been given to him, a
sacred trust he could not refuse, just as he could
not refuse the suffering of his quest. Not after the
shame his lord had brought to his folk.

  "The old name!" hissed the Salamander, his face
twisting in rage for the first time. "On your knees,
if you would use it, little man!" And he flung out
his hand.

Bonneduce the Last saw them coming.

Suriken. Black metal stars.

  His boots had already been freed from the
prison of his stirrups.

He slid from the saddle.

There was time for nothing else.

  His ears were filled with the buzzing as if from
a swarm of angry bees. Two of the weapons buried
themselves in his luma's head and it went down on
its knees, toppling, and he

222 Eric V. Lu~tI>ader

had to roll, roll in the filth to avoid being crushed
by its weight.

  Over the sticky, slippery ground, spiked with
fallen weapons. Hearing the booming laughter of
Tokage and, in his mind, the echoes reverberating
along the vast corridors of Time, the long cons of
his sorrowful existence, mocking all the good men
whose blood he had spilled. Tokage! The bones
he had splintered, the tears of death he had
caused. The unspeakable anguish.

  Bonneduce the Last rose, climbing the
mountains of the dead and the dying, his leg
paining him now, his mind turning automatically
away from the long-known, familiar physical
agony. He tuned himself now to the grief of his
long-dead people. Restless still. Crying out for
retribution. Shamed by history. By Tokage, their
liege.

  "I learned many things over the ages," Tokage
was saying to him. "I am no longer an animal,
despite what you believe. I wish you to understand
this before I kill you. It is evil's day, the cycle has
come, as I knew it would. It is as simple as that.
Who will be victorious "

  Bonneduce the Last came on, oblivious to the
words flying at him, adrenalin pumping through
his body, vibrating his sword arm. He heard only
the cries of his shamed people calling to him over
the interminable centuries. He felt only their
torment. He meant only to end it.

  "I would not wish this alliance," Tokage
continued, and his massive head turned briefly to
look across the river, to the hissing charcoal pine
forest, no more than a kilometer away. He turned
back. "I do not love that hideous thing; no man
could. It is annihilation. But what choice did I
have? It was this or death "

  Bonneduce the Last felt the eyes of his people
upon him, felt their strength bubbling inside him,
and for the first time in long cons he felt what it
was like to be alive. He marveled.

Now I am what I am, he thought.

  "You would have made the same bargain," said
Tokage. "I know that. You have not stared death
in the face. You have not felt its cold embrace,
the slipping away of all consciousness, all
volition " The ebon beast reared again at
Bonneduce the Last's approach. "I could not let
go of life!" His eyes got small as a cunning look
spread over his face. "And then I understood that
it would be all right for I found that with each
passing day I grew more powerful and secretly I
began to leech more power away from him and
soon, very soon, even

DAI-SAN 228

he will not be able to stop me. Then can I end this
servitude and destroy him!"

  Somewhere in the back of his mind, Bonneduce
the Last felt some last shred of compassion for this
haunted man, driven by the unrelenting ghosts of
power. Old associations, perhaps, he told himself.
Then that too disappeared, engulfed by the red
storm of his final avenging assault.

  Carrying out the Salamander's directive, flogged
mercilessly by their insect-eyed rikkagin, the squat
warriors poured through the widening rent in the
defences of the army of man. They set a picket
line of pikes which they moved outward, breaking
the attempt at a counteroffensive.

  Through the rent which they protected charged
the plumed warriors, up the plain, toward the high
walls of Kamado.

Screaming.

  Moeru, seeing the toot soldiers routed, gathered
up the few remaining cavalry about her and,
wheeling, galloped downstream, searching for the
Bujun.

  They fought each other with long blades, as they
had been taught cons ago, in the ancient manner,
the thrusts and parries so swift that one began
before the other ended, a constant flow of
precisely directed energy.

  "There is no one better than I, little one," said
Tokage. "Accept your fate. You shall die
honorably, like a warrior."

  "The time for talk is long past," said Bonneduce
the last. "Your acts speak for themselves. There is
nothing you can say to expiate your guilt."

"My guilt? I did only what I had to in order to
survive "

"You groveled like an animal "

"And I lived, fool!"

"To survive is not enough. Life must have
meaning."

  "All that matters is that I am here now. And I
will destroy you!"

  She found Okami in the muddy shallows of the
river, thrice wounded but battling still. He
mobilized the Bujun battalions under his command
and they moved off upriver in an attempt to
enfilade the enemy breakthrough.

  Up from the silty banks and across the littered
plain rushed the Bujun, reaping a bloody harvest
of all who stood in their path.

* * *

224 Eric ~ Lustbader

  The thin round blade flicked out as they closed.
A sixth finger, it was aimed for the jugular, but
Tokage countered with the tokto, the short metal
weapon with a clawed trident at each end.

  Tokage jerked his wrist and the thin blade
emanating from the inside of Bonneduce the
Last's wrist snapped. Immediately he reversed the
tokho, dragging it across the little man's chest.

  Bonneduce the Last groaned inwardly with the
pain. He reached up and pulled Tokage down
from his high saddle. The black beast leapt high
in the air as the little man jabbed it with a
powerful strike.

Into the mire of the grisly battlefield.

  "Feel what it is like to be down here in the
quagmire of death, Tokage," Bonneduce the Last
said.

  Tokage lurched, slipping across the curvature of
a partially buried helm under his boot sole.

  Bonneduce the Last attacked, a thin-bladed
stiletto pushed forward.

  In the instant of his attack he understood the
nature of the other's ruse.

  He ignored the blade which bloomed in
Tokage's fist, concentrating on what he knew he
had to do.

  He felt the cold metal like a fire as it pierced
his armor and the flesh of his shoulder.

  Perception narrowed as he consciously dulled
the agony which swept through him as Tokage's
arm descended.

  The point of his stiletto pierced Tokage's right
eye at the precise instant he felt the shock wave
of the other's cruel blade.

  A peculiar warmth suffused his body and, as he
completed the strike, he had time to remember, a
feeling denied him for many centuries. It was all
he wished for.

  Then Tokage's blade swept relentlessly through
his torso, splitting his spine.

  He toppled over, his blood spilling out,
mingling with the entrails, the bones, of the
warriors piled beneath his body.

  His eyes stared upward. The great black and
crimson banners filled a hazy sky. Dimly he was
aware of the prickle of the sleet against his
upturned face. It filled him with a sudden, bright
passion and, unaccountably, he wept.

  Slowly, the banners seemed to settle over him
like a shroud.

* * *

DAI-SAN 225

  Dripping from the river's moisture, the Sunset
Warrior climbed the high shore, shaking the
encroaching enemy warriors from him almost as if
they were drops of water.

  Seizing the reins of Kiri's abandoned luma, he
swung into the saddle and dug his boot heels into
the foam-flecked flanks.

  In a silver shower, he sped along the near bank,
upriver to where the enemy had broken through
the defences and was pouring across the plain
toward Kamado.

  Onto the field of battle he plunged, screaming as
he went, drawing Aka-i-tsr~chi, and indeed his
wake across the undulating plain was an explosion
of blood and bones. He leapt barriers of broken
bodies, barricades of war horses and fallen pikes.
Corpses clung to him, their corded muscles
twitching in death, their legs flapping like shredded
banners against his steed's flanks, slowing him
down. He hacked at their limbs, shedding them
like great, frozen tears.

  The fluttering of the Salamander's standards
bloomed before him out of the driving sleet. He
passed a ragged fence of waving pikes.

  And then he caught sight of the huge frame
clothed in ebon armor and ebon robes. He rode a
black beast. As he watched the Salamander bent to
the side for a moment, reaching down to wipe his
blade upon the tattered clothing of a warrior who
had died upon his feet because there was no longer
any space for his body to fall.

  Perhaps he heard the insistent drumming of the
Sunset Warrior's luma approaching, for the
Salamander's huge head turned and his cruel
obsidian eyes focused on the oncoming rider.

  He spent no time in identifying the figure but
wheeled his mount, calling to his guard. He took
off over the plain toward the bank of the river, his
ebon banners rippling in his wake.

  The Sunset Warrior topped the last rise and
sped across the shallow valley to the spot where
the Salamander had stood. He missed Rikkagin
Aerent atop the pile of the dead but he saw the
still form of Bonneduce the Last and although he
longed to overtake the Salamander now he knew
that he could not.

  Dismounting even as he drew back on the reins,
he ran over the jellied earth. He knelt almost knee
deep in the viscous slime and picked the small
body off the ground.

"Oh, my friend, what has he done to you?"

  There was no response and the Sunset Warrior
felt his heart breaking. He had thought he was
beyond all that. And at last

226 Eric ~ Lustbader

he understood. As Ronin he had cut himself off
from any more hurt after he killed K'reen.
Because of that he had not seen the love that
MaLsu had for him. Worse he had not un-
derstood his own love for her until it was too late.
To live was to feel. Thus he wept for Bonneduce
the Last.

  The little man opened his eyes. He felt the life
leaking out of him yet was glad to see the strange,
terrifyingly fierce face so close above him. He felt
the enormous strength of the arms which held
him tightly and was comforted. Only then did he
feel the tears mingling with the sleet on his face.

  "Do not mourn for me, old friend, there is no
time." He closed his eyes, heard the harsh rustle
of his own breathing. His lungs were beginning to
fill up with his own fluids. "There is much to tell
you before I die, so listen to me now. Your old
nemesis, the Salamander, is known to me. When
I was given the Rhyalann, sent on my quest, I
thought all of my folk had perished." He coughed
and the Sunset Warrior wiped the pink spittle
from his dry lips. "He is Tokage, my liege. It was
he whose unquenchable thirst for power caused
the creation of The Dolman. Yes. Yes. It is true."
His voice was harsh and insistent. "For all these
cons I thought him dead, destroyed by the very
thing he had caused to be born. But I was wrong.
He was too clever to die. He made a pact with
The Dolman. It is his master now and it has made
him immortal, given him great power." His head
went slack and his eyelids fluttered as he fought
for a few more momenus of life. Time, he
thought, you were always my enemy.

  "My friend, there is a chance for you now. I
know it. He has not been told what you have
become. He calls you Ronin still. The Dolman
has kept the knowledge from him. He believes he
can win against that horror but even he does not
understand what he unleashed. He cannot face
that fact." He was wracked with coughs and he
thought: Must hold on just a little longer. He
clung to the Sunset Warrior like a child.

"Rikk-Rikkagin Aerent, did you see him?"

"No."

  "Tokage felled him near here. Find him. I do
not think that he is dead. He tried to destroy
Tokag6. Such a hero."

"I will find him."

"And Moeru?"

"Somewhere on the battlefield."

"No. No. She must be beside you " He became
agitated.

"Calm yourself, my friend."

"Tokage told me. The Dolman attacked
dor-Sefrith while

              DAI-SAN 227
he was otherwise occupied. That is is how he
put it "

"What does that "

"The Dolman attacked him while the process of
change "

"Mine."

"Yes."

"I see, but "

  Bonneduce the Last's body convulsed, his entire
frame shuddering as if a titanic struggle were
taking place within him. The worn face drained of
all colon The Sunset Warrior was drenched with
his blood. And there was little left. Only this:

  "Tokage is dor-Sefrith's father." The voice was
but a dry rattle. "The Dolman killed his son.
As as Tokage wished."

  The Sunset Warrior knelt in the chill quagmire
holding the dead man. He got to his feet, slowly,
slowly.

  A shout came to him over the tumult of the
battle and he spun about.

  Moeru spurred her steel toward him. The smile
on her face disappeared as she saw the small body
he held. She reined in, her mount reared, and she
patted its glistening hide. She was covered with
blood and gore, her breastplate dark and running,
her leggings sopping wet. Her hair flew from the
confines of her dented helm.

"Okami also," she said.

He nodded.

  "Rikkagin Aerent is wounded somewhere near.
Can you spare someone?"

"Now perhaps yes."

  She pointed downriver, toward the sea so many
kilometers away.

"See there!" Her voice held a measure of
excitement.

  He peered through the sleet. Sailing up the river
was a fleet of ships of a strange configuration all
flying the same flag: black bars on a maroon field.

  "It is Moichi!" Her voice a cry of delight. "His
people come to join the Kai-feng!"

  And the Sunset Warrior, feeling the enormous
weight of the small body Iying against his chest,
thought: But still, too late for some.

             The Da`-San

` OW he left them to it.

For him no longer the battle of man against man.

For him the Salamander and The Dolman.

  For him the world had ceased to spin on its
axis. The seasons were frozen, the sun invisible,
the moon gone. For now the ultimate purpose of
his life was before him.

All else fell away. A dream only.

  Thus did he pursue the whipping banners of the
rampant ebon lizard, tail in its open mouth,
crimson flames licking at its body. And he
recalled words from the ancient mythology of his
world: Thus the Salamander, rising from the living
flames, eschews death to command, in league with
Evil.

  Across the death-strewn plain he rode, pushing
the luma past even its enormous limits. Its
forelegs became battering rams as it flung aside
the living and the dead alike, jumping piles of
corpses black with buzzing furry flies, careening
past death struggles, decapitations,
disembowelings, past massacres and stalemates
until at last it collapsed under him, tumbling with
him down the slope of the near bank, greasy with
mud and blood and entrails.

  He leapt, uncoiling his powerful leg muscles,
and hit the lapping water in a flat, economical
dive, hurling himself outward, not down into the
depths.

  He surfaced nearly a third of the way across,
shaking his head free of water, and kicked
scissor-fashion with his legs, his limbs working in
concert, establishing a rapid rhythm.

  Came up out of the water, calling, calling, even
as he launched himself up the steep incline of the
far shore. And he heard the thunder of its hoofs
and he loped across the hard ground to meet it.

  He mounted his crimson luma in one wide
sweep of his parted legs. It reared, snorting, and
he spoke to it softly,

                 228
                  
DAI-SAN 229

crooning, and it took off after the rapidly
disappearing banners.

  Sang softly to it as it ran easily, effortlessly, over
the wide field, away from the charcoal wood, and
now its speed increased until they were fairly
flying. And together they rejoiced in the passion of
wind and sleet against their bodies.

Find her Bring her.

  Within the high yellow walls of Kamado, Hynd
knew of Bonneduce the Last's passing. Rather
than mourning, he felt only the warmth of their
long years of friendship. He had known of the
little man's vast torment and he was happy now
that at last the pain had been stripped away, shed
like the old and lifeless skin of a snake.

Find her Bring her.

  He prowled the narrow, deserted streets, past all
the dark, dead gods, pillared as if crucified.
Angrily, he sought an answer to a question beyond
him.

Find her Bring her.

  The last thought glowing in his mind before the
silken cord had been severed by Bonneduce the
Last's death. A banner rippling against the skies of
his mind.

  Obviously he had meant Moeru. There was no
doubt of that.

Abruptly he reined in, squinting ahead.

  Six horsemen, including the two
standard-bearers. And between them the
coal-black creature upon whom sat

  He pulled hard on the reins. The luma leapt
into the air, wheeling. He cursed himself for a fool
as he dug his boot heels into his luma's gleaming
flanks, heading back across the barren plain
toward the verge of the ebon forest.

  It was not the Salamander who rode that
devilish thing, though the figure was fully as huge
and was dressed in his black robes. The wind had
shifted, coming directly at him from the party
ahead, and he had caught the horrid stench of the
thing which rode the monster.

Decoyed.

  And now behind him, the fourth Makkon
pounded its great malformed fists against the
steaming coat of the creature upon whose back it
rode And it left the standard-bearers and the
guards behind as it took off after the Sunset
Warrior.

* * *

230 Elic ~ Lustbader

  They both had seen the incompleteness that
first moment when the Sunset Warrior had
galloped into Kamado but there was nothing to
say. Even if they could have told him which they
both knew they could not what was there to say?
DorSefrith was the only one and he was dead
now.

  At long last all the gods were gone, all the wise
men used up, all the hosts of the mages dreaming
their endless dreams.

  We are left alone now to make our own
decisions, thought Hynd. If we die, then it will be
by our own hands. And if we live, then we will
have earned all that we shall inherit. This world
with its day and its night. Perhaps even the stars.

  Down the refuse-strewn streets he ran, his
round tail flying, and rats shrieked, scampering
from his path. Out of the high gates and onto the
vast field.

  He knew now what he had to do. He wondered
if the same could be said for the Sunset Warrior.

  He left the panting luma at the edge of the
dead forest and went in on foot.

  Before the fire caused by the coming of The
Dolman, the forest had been dense. In death it
remained difficult to penetrate. Remarkably, none
of the branches or trunks had been destroyed by
the unnatural conflagration, only the foliage, so
that now the wood had. more than ever, the
appearance of a maze.

  He ignored the muffled sounds behind him,
keeping to an imaginary path that took him due
north. Time and again, he was obliged to make
circuitous detours. He did not use his sword or
any other weapon for he was quite determined to
give his foes no advantage whatsoever and this
included any forewarning of his approach. The
sounds of his cleaving the brittle branches would
be heard a kilometer away. Now and then a
thought threatened to intrude upon his
consciousness or perhaps feeling was the more
appropriate word. But his mind was narrowing as
his concentration heightened and the wisp of
intuition was thrust aside, losing itself on a
sudden gust of wind.

  At length he came to a clearing. The sleet had
ceased but the day was darker now, oppressive
and colder than ever. He peered up at the violent
skies, watching for a moment the heavy amber
clouds stretched across the world like the taut
skin of a fevered animal. He thought briefly of
Kukulkan, the lord of light, writhing in his domain
far above the destruction encompassing the world
Here the sun did not exist.

DAI-SAN 231

  He whirled even before he heard the crashing
behind him. He drew Aka-i-tsuchi.

  There was green mist among the trees, pale and
opalescent, swirling, fuming, rolling into the tiny
glade. Behind the mist, a dark, hulking shape,
looming. Orange eyes like blazing beacons.

The fourth Makkon.

  The Salamander's robes, torn and muddy,
streamed open, fluttering to the earth. The reek of
the MakLon scent filled the clearing. The long
powerful tail whipped back and forth behind it,
freeing itself from the last remnants of the ebon
cloth. A wailing came from the curved beak.

  This Makkon seemed taller than its brothers and
perhaps it was older, though that concept might
have been inimical to the creature. Its eyes were
cold and alien and clever. Its outline pulsed,
growing blurred here and there.

  As it advanced, its arms swung out, and the
movement was accompanied by a sound like that of
scythes cutting through ripe wheat. And now the
Sunset Warrior saw that where its brothers had
possessed scaled, six-fingered claws, this one had
hands fashioned from what appeared to be clear,
cut quartz. But beneath the hard, glistening
surface, lights of pastel reds and purples shot
through the length of the curved fingers, magnified
as if seen through the eye of a lens.

  The grey beak, yellowed somewhat, opened
spasmodically and the stiff triangular tongue
fluttered again and again. The Makkon hurled its
titanic bulk at him and he pivoted on his left leg,
facing the charge with his left side. Slammed the
flat of his sword across the shoulders of the thing.

  As the massive frame hurtled past him, he heard
the repeated sounds coming from the Makkon.
Over and over it called and he believed now that
it was the speech of man, garbled and tortured, as
if the creature had spent long years learning one
phrase and was now forcing it out of a larynx not
meant to reproduce such syllables.

"I want them," said the Makkon.

  It charged him again and he twisted, but this
time it was ready, and more swiftly than it seemed
possible for a thing of such bulk, it feinted, coming
in under his guard. He felt a searing pain in his left
arm. As if liquid ice were being injected into his
veins.

  The quartz hand had grasped him and the
transparent talons had sunk into the inside of his
arm just above the ending of the Makkon gauntlet.
The living lights within the crystal skin

232 Eric ~ Lustbader

lanced out of the tips of the hollow claws into his
flesh. He jerked at the contact but could not
break the grip. He swung his sword but his
position was awkward and he had little leverage.
The blow glanced, skittering off the pulsing hide.
The hideous beak opened and a terrible howling
broke from the Makkon's mouth.

"I want them."

  He wrenched at his arm again, feeling the ice
flowing into him. Pain raced through him and the
blackened trees spun around him. He went to his
knees, the strength abruptly deserting his legs. He
dropped his useless sword.

"I want them."

  The Makkon's other hand came down on the
hide of the gauntlet and, with a raking motion,
tried to peel it off his hand. He clenched his fist
against the pressure and abruptly another
memory hurled itself into the spotlight of his con-
sciousness. Dor-Sefrith's green glazed brick house
in the City of Ten Thousand Paths. Within the
second story, an empty glass case with two
imprints of things which resembled a man's hand.
Larger. More fingers? Of course! The gauntlets
had been the magus' doing. Had dor-Sefrith
battled this Makkon? Had it been he who had cut
the hands off it? He stared into the glowing,
febrile eyes and kr~ew.

  Now the chill blackness threatened to engulf
him and he cursed himself for his carelessness.
He was in serious trouble, finished before he had
even begun. He spiraled his mind inward.

The world turned upside down.

  Hit the ground with the soles of his boots,
allowing them to take the brunt of the velocity.
He leaned forward and rolled. Free.

  Because he had fought harder, pulling against
the fury of the Makkon, building the strength
within him, setting up the increasingly high
stresses of the tug of war, digging his heels into
the snow and ice, increasing the pressure, his
teeth grinding, ignoring the encroaching
blackness, feeling the answering response as the
Makkon pulled harder against him. Reversed it
then, using the thing's strength against him,
entering when pulled, stepping through the move,
slamming into the frame, then arching himself up
and over the stumbling Makkon, the boiling
amber sky the floor of his world for a long
moment when the wind whistled through his hair
and piled snow was a white barrier over his head.

The tearing almost wrenched his arm from its
socket but

DAI-SAN 233

the talons left his flesh, their lights shooting into
the air momentarily. Rolling across the hard
ground, his high helm spinning into a snowdrift.

  But the Makkon had already recovered and was
upon him as he uncoiled, its transparent talons
searching again for his flesh. He felt its humid
terrible breath, choking him in viscous fumes, and
he smashed his balled fist against the Makkon's
skull. It staggered and fell over sideways, its long
arms flailing dangerously but again it was a feint
and one hand whipped in under his guard and
crashed against his cheek. Immediately the whole
side of his face went numb. Felt as if the
cheekbone had shattered. Sight in that eye
suddenly blurred and he lost depth perception.
Something cold and slimy slithered around his
neck. The Makkon's tail. It wrapped itself about
his throat and the jeweled claw came for him,
reaching for his eyes. It slashed. And at the same
time he thrust the gauntlet up, smashing it into the
underside of the Makkon's beak. It shattered and
the creature howled in pain and rage. But the
noose of the tail tightened, keeping the air in his
lungs trapped, and as his system extracted the
oxygen, manufacturing carbon dioxide, it became a
poison. He was killing himself.

  He fought one hand down to his side and drew
his short blade. Its virgin metal whispered in the
glade, bespeaking the mysteries of warfare, death,
and destruction, and he thrust it up blindly, into
the rent mouth. The hide had already been split
and he searched for the broken flesh, sawing
desperately with the blade. But the Makkon
twisted, would not let the sword's point reach the
vulnerable spot at the top of its palate. Viscous
black fluid, Makkon's blood, "outed over him in a
sickening wave and the creature's crystal talons
sought purchase along his arms, opening the flesh,
and time now narrowed into a few agonisingly
short moments as the Sunset Warrior hacked at
the flesh and the Makkon pumped its strange
poison into his opened veins. Flesh ribboning and
breath fouling.

  The ice was a crimson tide leeching the strength
from him, ten thousand flecks of shining death
probing deep into him, and he ignored the rising
agony and twisted, sight returning to his eye, depth
perception critical now. He moved another cen-
timeter to the left, concentrated his entire force
upward from the sole of his boot, through his bent
leg, straightening it, striking at the proper angle,
the power thus magnified, totally awesome,
crashing just under the Makkon's chin. It howled
and the tail unwound, whiplike, but the talons
remained em

234 Eric ~ Lustbader

bedded. Used the sword, thrusting mightily into
the Makkon's mouth, feeling the blade breaching
the roof, the sighing blade bisecting the creature's
brain. It reared up, dragging itself over him in its
last desperate attempt to outrun the shining
sword, but he hung on, tenacious and relentless,
increasing the force of the thrust until his muscles
screamed for release from the enormous tension
and. twisting, hotheaded the massive body onto its
back, siding astride it and, using both hands,
showing the orange eyes the sight of its own dead
hands being used to kill it, jammed the blade all
the way through the head, shattering the back of
the skull in a burst of fury. The point buried itself
in the white frost beneath them.

  The great frame shuddered, spasming, and its
ruined face turned into the snow as the Sunset
Warrior pulled the short blade free.

 - He bathed the sword in the snow away from
the corpse and, sheathing it, he retrieved
Aka-i-tsuchi and his high helm. Transferring the
long sword to his left hand momentarily, he set
the helm back upon his head.

  Above him the amber sky was darkening still
although there was much time before the sunset.
The day died and now he lived in perpetual
twilight.

  He quit the clearing and the sprawled body
seeping its wastes blackly upon the whiteness of
the forest's floor, plunging northward into the
twisted, charred maze.

  No birds sang here, or insects fluttering
delicately amid the ribboning boles of the trees;
no brush, no lichen, nothing save the endless
trunks like makeshift grave markers set in the fro-
zen, snow-covered ground.

  He embarked upon an incline, the way
becoming abruptly steep, the wood's floor littered
with grey boulders around which the trees thrust
themselves with tenacious fury as if in defiance of
the force which exfoliated them.

  Upward he climbed toward the ridge's high
crest. He clambered through the snow and ice,
using the blackened branches now to haul himself
upward with increasing speed.

  The ridge went on and on, stretching away
from him on both sides in an undulating line, the
end of the world. As he neared its crest, he saw
the scarlet cloth billowing in the wet wind, the
banners of the damned.

  The lapis and sea-green jade of his ribbed
armor gleamed as he lifted one hand to his high
helm and carefully lowered its visor. And the
world was finite now, seen through ebon bars,

- DAI-SAN 235

a prison of vengeance and death. The crimson
banners beckoned to him.

  He topped the rise, just to the east of the
immense figure who stood astride the crest of the
ridge garbed in a breastplate of carved obsidian.
Over the heart a lizard of dusky red was set like a
giant, malformed ruby. His crimson cloak flapped
behind him.

  Fat fleshed out the face so that the prominent
cheekbones which Ronin would have considered
alien were successfully hidden. Folds of skin
cleverly cloaked the shape of the long almond eyes
whose irises had been as bright as obsidian so that
the Sunset Warrior wondered if he had seen some
surgeon. Because now he saw beneath the layers of
fat and flesh to the face's bone structure and he
saw the ancestor of the Bujun. What had happened
to the Salamander's right eye? It was a blackened
hole over which a makeshift patch flapped
ineffectually. Bonneduce the Last?

  "Oh, Ronin, how foolish to have found me," said
the Salamander, leaping at the Sunset Warrior.
Their blades clashed once and parted. They stood
facing each other.

  "I see that your new friends have given you
another sword," said the Salamander, "but it will do
you no good. You were never my equal in
anything." They eyed each other. "Do you still
think your punishment so severe for your betrayal?
Fidelity is a hard lesson but once learned it is
salvation."

  "Freidal is dead," said the Sunset Warrior, his
voice muffled by the closed helm so that the
Salamander could not make out its strange new
tones.

  "Well, I expected nothing less from my pupil.
Was his death slow and agonizing? It should have
been. The man was a sadist."

The Sunset Warrior laughed.

"You are amused?"

"K'reen." He just managed to say it.

  "You defied me!" cried the Salamander. "I made
you what you are. Only I knew what you could
have been. You were mine to mold. You had no
right to leave!"

  Blue-white sparks flying, the echoing clang of
metal against metal. The Sunset Warrior let
Aka-i-tsuchi speak for him.

  "I have his power now," said the Salamander.
"See what your vengeance brings you? Only your
own death!"

Their blades came together over and over in
oblique strikes

236 Eric V. Lustbader

as they moved along the humped back of the
snaking ridge, a white scar along the grey and
umber land.

  "Your new weapons and armordo not fool me!
I was told what to expect." His laugh bounded
through the wood, sharp and distorted by the
clogged air, the twisted trees like cracked mirrors
sending off shards of reflections pulled out of
shape.

  He went against the fat man with short
chopping arcs and the Salamander parried them
all, standing his ground, then counterattacking
with enormous swiftness, his blade a blur of living
lightning, and now it was the Sunset Warrior's
turn to parry all that was sent against him.

  They hurled themselves at each other,
battering, feinting, lunging. The Salamander
moved to the right, his sword swinging out in a
flat arc, the Sunset Warrior moved to counter as
the blade hit the extreme edge of its parabolic arc
and began to slash inward. But the Salamander's
body moved the opposite way and the edge of his
knee slammed into the Sunset Warrior's hip just
below the protective lower edge of the ribbed
breastplate.

  The Salamander's booted foot reared into the
air, blurred with momentum, a striking reptile,
and the sole struck the Sunset Warrior on the
point of his chin. He staggered under the force of
the strike, felt the imminence of the killing blow
as it headed for his unprotected neck. He knew
the sequence, heard the soft whistle of the blade
through the dense air on its way to cleave his
head from his shoulders. He swayed, stood his
ground, lifted his weaponless left hand, and
almost languidly, allowed the Salamander's blade
to strike the gleaming scales of the Makkon
gauntlet. The sword edge slid harmlessly away.

  He looked for it then, within the hard depths of
the Salamander's eyes, and saw it, the first glint of
an emotion long foreign to the big man For just
an instant it fluttered nakedly. Then it was gone,
squeezed out by the flat glitter of the ebon pupils.

  "If it is sorcery you wish," said the Salamander,
"then it is sorcery you shall have."

  As the Sunset Warrior advanced there was a
dizzying swirl of crimson and the huge man was
gone from the ridge. In his place stood his
dusky-red namesake, a giant lizard, long forked
tongue questing from its lipless mouth at one end
of the wedge-shaped head.

  Hissing, it leapt upon the Sunset Warrior, its
jaws hinged wide, snapping at his face. The fangs
dripped with dark

DAI-SAN 237

venom. But he slashed sideways with Aka-i-tsuchi,
sliced open its belly as if it were rice paper. He was
engulfed by a warm wind of putrefaction.

  The lizard was gone, not even its stretched
corpse remained upon the ridge's crest.

  "So you have disposed of my vassal," said the
Salamander resumed in a billow of scarlet and
onyx. He struck at the Sunset Warrior. "Still I have
delayed you and the Makkon will be here shortly."

  The Sunset Warrior struck downward, then
across, obliquely, shearing through the
Salamander's blade.

"The last Makkon is gone," he said.

  Again that foreign emotion slid across the
Salamander's visage.

"I do not believe you. You could not have slain it."

  "The one with the crystal claws? But I have. It
lies back, behind us, just another feast for the
vultures."

  "So, have I underestimated you?" As he spoke
the Salamander drew from the folds of his
billowing robe a tasselated black metal fan. Arcing
up from its hilt the Sunset Warrior saw the pointed
jitte and he set himself for the finality of this
moment, for from Ronin's memory he knew that in
all the Freehold there was none to stand against
the Salamander when he chose to use the Bunsen.
In times gone by, his students would shudder at its
appearance for he never opened it unless he
wished to kill.

  Now the gunsen fluttered open in the stifling air,
the flight of a lethal insect. The black metal was
dull in the uncertain light, the spiked jitte a
constant threat even as a defensive weapon.

  The Sunset Warrior attacked with his shorter
sword, thrusting upward from below his hips, and
the gunsen described its barely seen pattems. The
jitte spiked his sword, locked to it near the narrow
guard. The Salamander twisted his wrist and,
fuming, made a flicking movement with his other
hand.

  A moment before the Sunset Warrior had seen
the glint of pale light off one of the honed points.
He ducked. But the distance was the major factor,
for and against. He had no time but the weapon
could not gain much momentum.

  The star-shaped suriken embedded itself in his
armor at the junction of his right arm and
shoulder. At the same instant, the Salamander
twisted the Bunsen, hooking away the Sunset
Warrior's short sword. The Bunsen blurred upward,
smashing into his high helm. The visor was ripped
away and, even as he

238 Eric V. Lustbader

slapped at the Bunsen with his guantlet, bending
one of its metal ribs, he watched the flat onyx
eyes staring into his and at last he saw the fat face
react. For it was not Ronin upon whom the
Salamander now gazed but some strange alien
creature whose countenance he found terribly
frightening, and within those searing, singular eyes
he found that which he could not imagine: his
death.

  He fell back as if stricken, calling upon his
master for salvation. But the nightmare came
after him. The Sunset Warrior used his legs,
lashing out with immense force, so that he
cracked the Salamander's obsidian breastplate.

"Why did it not tell me?" wailed the Salamander.

  "The master deceiver had been deceived," said
the Sunset Warrior. He used the edges of his
hands now, pummeling the Salamander.

"Who are you?" cried the Salamander.

"He who comes to slay you."

"Tell me!"

  "I am a friend of Bonneduce the Last. That is
all you need to know," said the Sunset Warrior.
"The cons have caught up with you at last. Chill
take you! All the people you have killed, all the
people you have caused to be slaughtered under
your cursed banner, for your holy cause."

  "Power!" screamed the Salamander. "You must
give me more!" He called to the billowing amber
clouds.

  "Finished," said the Sunset Warrior. The one
word, echoing within the twisted, nightmare
forest, an epitaph.

  And Aka-i-tsuchi was raised, came down upon
the huge head with titanic force that was as much
will as muscle. For Ronin. For the Hart. For all of
Bonneduce the Last's folk. For K'reen.

The skull shattered.

  But it was no longer the Salamander's. Nor was
it Tokage's. For the fat had already commenced
to run like rivulets of wax down the rapidly
atrophying musculature. The arms and legs
bloated up as if filled with violent, bubbling fluid.
The fat torso split apart, massing itself into
another configuration, growing before him,
horrifying in aspect though it had barely begun to
form.

  The Sunset Warrior stepped back, feeling the
intense cold swirl about his ankles, knowing that
at last the great battle had commenced, for here
upon this last lonely ridge in the arcane

DAI-SAN 239

forest of charcoal, he gazed upon the still-forming
shape of fear and annihilation.

The Dolman.

  They moved with great deliberation into the
blackened forest, a strange pair: a Bujun woman
and a four-legged creature who was far more than
an animal.

  Hynd was concerned now. He did not know
where he was leading her. But he was compelled as
if through some atavistic homing instinct to cross
the river, take them into the forest. He knew what
lurked there. They all did. This did not bother him.

  Something was wrong and he worried at it as a
dog would a fresh, juicy bone, turning it around so
that he could see all its faces, every angle. Still he
could not understand it.

  And then the thought came to him: Dor-Sefrith
is gone Bonneduce the Last is gone. What had
they in mind?

  Circling the massive broken body with the
curious crystal hands, the ripped, blackened face,
they commenced to climb the first gentle slopes of
a wide-ranging ridge.

COME.

Echoes.

COME. WAVE-MAN.

Echoes upon echoes.

DEATH AWAITS, WARRIOR WITH NO
NAME.

The words a physical assault.

THY MENIY)R IS NO MORE. I HAVE
SLAIN HIM.

Brain buzzing with reverberations.

  THEE HAS NO POWER NOW. NICHIREN
PASSES, DOR-SEFRITH PASSES. NOW IS
THY TURN TO DIE. SOON ALL MEN. WE
NEAR THE WALLS OF KAMADO.

Hallucinations beginning.

ONLY THE DOLMAN SURVIVES.

Flashes of pain.

COME WITH ME INTO THE DEEP.

  The twisted forest dissolving into a waving
morass of copper kelp, fuzzy fronds filtering the
purple light which spread over him in
ever-widening ripples of dark and light, zebraed
bands fluttering hypnotically away forever,
replicated without end, a seashell world.

Outside.

Time lost in a fevered dream, caught on the lip of
an incip

240 Eric ~ Lustbader

lent held motionless, halted in midnight.. Impaled
helplessly.

No one beside him.

Alone, within the jaws of annihilation.

  And The Dolman in front of him, growing and
glowing, writhing, hideous, a madness, the
embodiment of fear, the nemesis of life itself.

It was not clear what The Dolman was.

  Perhaps it had a multitude of tentacles, a
spade-shaped tail, huge round eyes, lidless with
double pupils, slit of a maw which pulsed.

  Perhaps, too, it had an enormous beak and
ridged skin. Was it horned? It had no teeth, yet
its gaping mouth was far more abhorrent than if
it was ranged.

  Felt something rising within him, thought it was
panic and chased it down, away into the
unfiltered, unplumbed depths of his being.

  He did not know how to fight it. He swung with
Aka-i-tsuchi but the alien atmosphere was so thick
that all momentum was dissipated.

It drew him toward it, saying:

IS THIS WHAT I HAVE FEARED?

  Broke upon his mind like a violent storm,
shaking his universe.

He was stunned.

  Numb, he felt himself being pulled into its
pulsing grasp and he felt death enwrap him.

Consciousness fled. He was impotent.

  And soon he would be a lifeless husk, swaying
on the tide, another bit of copper flotsam in the
death sea.

  Perhaps they heard a voice as they topped the
long snaking crest of the forest ridge.

A calling.

  It was snowing, the unnatural light lending the
flakes a pink hue as if some vast animal bled
upon them as they were driven downward through
the thick, exhausted air.

The curling mist made them choke.

The ridge had no far side.

  There was nothing but mist, green and opaque,
encroaching upon the reality of the world as if
eating it alive, the old flesh crumbling, dissolving
in the oncoming tide.

Here, said Hynd in her mind.

Moeru and Hynd, staring at each other.

DAI-SAN 241

  Silence, more complete than was possible on the
world of man.

  Still their eyes locked. Still their minds exerted
their wills, seeing only what they wished to see.

Hynd prowled restlessly.

"What is happening?" whispered Moeru.

Something. Are you afraid?

"Yes."

Even he did not know the answer.

They heard it then, the calling.

Abruptly there was no air.

  She fumed to the mist, the woman, stepped
quickly into it, out from the shallows into a
darkness more complete than night.

  Had it been a trick of the billowing mist or had
two figures vanished into its solidity?

  Hynd knew at last, and without a backward
glance, he loped easily down the ridge back toward
the Kai-feng across the wide river.

  It came to him, crying on the lonely wind which
whipped the slender pines atop the last hillock of
his soul.

  His body was taken, the tentacles, if such they
were, lacerating his flesh, seeping into his bones,
melting them.

  Yet he held onto the last shreds of his existence
knowing that he held the key.

What is it?

I have no name.

Stillness entering his soul as death crept higher.

  And he let in the bright spark, the rain at the
core of his being, because he had nothing left to
lose and it was all now that was left for him.
Whatever it held.

Salvation.

  He called, understanding at last that he was the
sorcerer now, accepting it. Karma. And more. He
accepted who he was, opening the floodgates. At
first he had thought to call the blacksmith, for he
recognized that he had no anchor, thus no solidity.
He was being destroyed, drowned in The Dolman
because of this. The blacksmith was the anchor and
he needed her and he had set his thoughts to the
snowbound slopes of Fujiwara. But he had seen in
his mind the cold forges, the empty house, and
knew that she was not the answer. What then?

He called, the crying of gulls off a limitless shore,
an end

242 E'ic V. Lustbader

to drowning, an end to hiding himself from
himself. He felt her close now, his final third, the
last piece of dor-Sefrith's handiwork, balked by
The Dolman's fierce attack at Haneda.

They would not come together.

Why?

He turned inward, ignoring annihilation.

And found the blacksmith within himself.

  Then she entered him and he felt the bright
sparks gyring about him, red, green. blue, and he
touched them, one by one, in wonderment and
delight, laughing, crying, his entire being alight
with the knowledge that at last he was whole; that
this is what The Dolman feared. There were no
more masters no more protectors thus the
Aegir's death no more sages. An end to
childhood.

  Ronin, Setsoru, and now the Sunset Warrior
caressed the facets of his final third. Red, green,
blue. K'reen, Moeru, Matsu. Love, strength, trust.
The merging of all his traits, all his power: the
Dai-San.

  Energy ran through him like a rushing river,
endless depthless, ageless. He thought of
dor-Sefrith's last trick. The mage, knowing his
defeat was imminent, had cast one final card: he
created the blacksmith, using Matsu's essence
pulled from the sleeping mind of the forming
Sunset Warrior. As a signpost. And the Sunset
Warrior had used it. Now his universe was
infinite, the source of his power illuminated. Him-
self.

  His great mailed fingers curled about the thick
heft of Aka-i-tsuchi Red Tidings and he
plunged its glowing tip into the heart of The
Dolman. His intense kineticism lashed the being
surrounding him like a cruel whip. Bolts of green
and blue fire, hotter than the core of the sun,
rippled like molten ribbon along the lavender
edges of his slashing blade, rolling all along its
length from hilt-guard to its double-edged tip,
eating, eating ravenously. He heard a delicious
humming which grew with a great heat until it
filled all his world matching the fierce beating of
his heart. Exhilaration turned to ecstasy.

  Perhaps then The Dolman screamed, realizing
the proximity of its death.

  Swirling, its life force gushed over him, spilling
like a gurgling sewer from the enormous rents
made by Aka-i-tsuchi as he struck downward at it
again and again with unbridled fury. And now he
inhaled its entire hideous history. Scene after
scene of torment and destruction swept over him,
each

DAI-SAN 243

one more ghastly than the next. The taste of
incalculable despair.

  The atmosphere wavered as he labored. Then it
bubbled as if blistering, boiling. The horizon
buckled and heaved and he heard dimly the hoarse
hissing of steam under immense pressure. There
came an unbearable whining and then

A soundless scar upon the fabric of the universe.

  When Moichi saw the figure cross the river, he
did not know what to make of it.

  Day was done. A last pale streak of sunlight was
being bludgeoned into the wet crimson snow.

  Even with the aid of his folk, the army of man
had been sorely pressed, forced to retreat into the
shadows of Kamado's high walls. Defeat had been
at hand for a sedge now within the citadel would
surely mean starvation and death.

  And then, not long ago, so swiftly that none
could say truly when it began, the tide of battle
turned. The black, insecteyed rikkagin who so
cleverly directed the enemy began to lose control.
Perhaps they went mad, for they sent their warriors
careening insanely into each other. Entire platoons
of the pike men were easily decoyed and
slaughtered.

  The Bujun came to the fore, having destroyed
the remaining deathshead warriors, and now they
sought out the insecteyed rikkagin, killing them
wholesale. Other soldiers who had for most of the
long day feared the intervention of the Makkon
and The Dolman saw now that these sorcerous
creatures were not forthcoming and their
superstitious fear fell away and they launched
themselves upon their foes with enormous ferocity.

  The Bujun and Moichi's folk led the
counterattack and now only the last few pockets of
enemy warriors remained, isolated and fast
crumbling. All the sorcerous creatures were so
much carrion.

  The field was a mounded sea of corpses, a vast
humped marsh of spilled blood and seeping
entrails, shattered skulls and broken bones.

  Moichi was sick with battle, weary beyond
exhaustion. It went beyond his muscles into his
soul. His clothes, under his armor, were sopping,
so heavy with soaked up blood that he felt
disfigured with the added weight. Where the blood
had already dried, the cloth was so stiff that it
might have been metal plate.

His gaze swept over the vast plain of death to the
swirling

244 1 IiC 17. I~ustbader

river, pearled and frothy, and at once he had seen
the splashing, like a fount of liquid light.

  And now he watched the tall figure stride up
the near bank, swollen with bodies, bristling with
fallen swords, water streaming from him, and he
knew even before he saw that strange transfigured
face that he beheld the last living legend of the
sorcerous age of mankind. The only one to cross
the barrier into the last dying days of this year,
with the winter's chill still staining lovely, faraway
Sha'angh'sei, jeweled snow hanging in the
columnated gardens and on the flat roofs of the
harttins of the city, the promise of spring already
a thought held close in the minds of the kubaru
who jammed the long wharves and slept their
short dreamless sleeps upon the rocking tasstans.

  The numinous figure stopped now and raised
his great blue-green sword so that its long tip
caught the last ray of sunlight breaking through
the rents in the flying clouds at the rim of the
horizon in the west. It fired all along the gleaming
length until the light seemed to stretch upward
into the very heart of heaven.

  And Moichi, sheathing his blade, caked with
blood and brains, ran out into the mounded field
of the dead, out from the high blank walls of
Kamado behind which fires had already begun,
memorials for the dead, a razing against the
Kai-feng, a celebration of the day of man, out
from the dark loomings of the citadel's shadows,
out into the light of a new age.

Out to meet the Dai-San.

          About the Author

ERIC V. LUSTBADER is the author of Zero,
Shan Jian, Black Heart, and The Ninja, all
bestsellers. He lives in New York City and in
Southampton, Long Island, with his wife, editor
Victoria Schochet Lustbader.

            You met him in
              THE ~I~cJA.
              He survived
              TtIE 81~0e
        Look for the return of
          Nicholas Linnear in
             WHITE ZINNIA
         by Eric ~ Lustbader.
  Coming in February '90 in hardcover
          from Faweett Books.
          Narivuki no matsu.