Shallows of night, p.13
Shallows of Night, page 13
“Here the fat hongs and sleek functionaries of Sha’angh’sei live and build their fortunes, unseen and, for a price, safe.”
“From what?”
The black eyes studied Ronin with unwavering intensity.
“From Sha’angh’sei,” he said.
He sucked at his pipe but it had gone out. He knocked the bowl against the wall, began to refill it from a leather packet within his quilted jacket.
“No one sees the Municipal Council, my friend.” His eyes were unnaturally bright. “At all.”
The rain beat down. The avenues were slick with wet, gleaming dully. The trees rustled in the wind, flinging moisture, and somewhere a bird sang sweetly, enfolded within brown branches and green leaves.
“Where is the Council building?”
The man with the dark eyes sighed. “Take the avenue to the left. Second turning.” He moved into the shelter of an overhang.
The echoes of marble. The soft sighing. The prolonged susurration of whispering. The quiet click of boot soles.
The hall was cold and columnless and empty of ornamentation. Its only furniture was low, wide, backless benches of the same pink and back marble.
The hall echoed to his footsteps as he crossed the polished floor. Ahead of him, the desk.
He passed people sitting humped on the benches. There was a peculiar air about them, as if most of them had been here for so long that they had forgotten their purpose in coming. Expectancy had perished a long time ago.
The desk too was of marble, curved and thick, a heavy shield for the woman who sat behind its imposing façade. Although she had the black hair and almond eyes of the people of the Sha’angh’sei area, her face was nevertheless less delicate, with a more pronounced bone structure so that he knew that she had other blood in her. She had light eyes and a square chin which she knew gave her the appearance of strength. She spoke accordingly.
“Yes, sir. State your business, please.” She had before her a long list of names and was in the process of drawing a line through the third name from the top with her quill.
“I seek an audience with the Municipal Council of Sha’angh’sei.”
The quill dipped into the inkwell. “Yes?” Scratch.
“I come on a matter of the utmost urgency.”
She looked up then.
“Is that so?” She smiled charmingly with small white teeth. “I am afraid it will do you no good.”
“I am sure that when the Council hears—”
“Pardon me, but you do not seem to understand.” She wore a tightly cut green and gold quilted jacket that showed off her jutting breasts and narrow waist in a way that was severe and, because of it, sensual. Her startling sapphire nails plucked at the jacket. “One must make an appointment to see the Council.” She brandished the list in front of her. “It will be many days.”
“I do not think you appreciate the gravity of the situation,” said Ronin, but already he was feeling rather foolish.
The woman sighed and pursed her lips.
“Sir, everyone who seeks audience with the Council is on an urgent mission.”
“But—”
“Sir, you are in the Municipal Building of Sha’angh’sei, the seat of government for not only this vast city but the enormous area of land in the surrounding vicinity. Maintenance is a most complex and problem-filled task. Can you understand that?” She leaned forward, her face intent. A strand of hair came loose from its binding, stroking the side of her face as she spoke. “In the event that you do not, let me tell you that this city must feed and house not only its numerous inhabitants but also many of the outlying communities. We also must take care of the constant flood of refugees from the north.” She threw her shoulders back as if it were an act of defiance; it had a double effect. She knows her job, he thought. “Sir, through the port of Sha’angh’sei comes the bulk of the raw materials to sustain much of the continent of man. It is more than a full-time task in these evil times to keep this city running.” She finally swept a hand up, flash of deep blue, tugging the wayward strand over her ear. “Now you can appreciate why we cannot allow the Council to be errantly disturbed. Why, if everyone who came to this building were allowed an immediate audience, I cannot imagine how this city would function.” She took a deep breath, leaning back in her chair. Her breasts arched at him, an unsubtle offering of consolation.
Ronin leaned over and stared into her eyes.
“I must see the Council today. Now.”
He did not expect her to be intimidated and she was not. She clicked her sapphire nails and two men appeared armed with axes and curving dirks.
“Would you care to have me add your name to the list?” she asked sweetly, her eyes never leaving his. They laughed.
“All right,” Ronin said, and gave it to her.
“Yes,” she said, the quill moving. Then she sat back and her pink tongue strayed for a moment between her lips. “That is most sensible.”
The rain was heavier and they were all within the roof’s brown overhang, squatting around a brick pit. Flames crackled and sparked. They were drinking rice wine when he came up. The man with the dark eyes peered at him through the smoke of his pipe; the others ignored him.
Ronin came unbidden out of the rain, shook the water off his cloak.
“The Council would not see me.”
“Yes,” said the man, “a predictable course.” He shrugged his shoulders. “Lamentable, but what can one do?”
Ronin squatted beside the man. No one offered him wine. “What I want,” he said, “is a way in.”
The man with the flat face looked over at him. “Throw him outside, T’ung,” he said to the man with the dark eyes. “Why waste your time?”
“Because he is not from Sha’angh’sei?” said T’ung. “Because he is not civilized?” He turned to Ronin. “What would you give me as payment?” The flat-faced man grunted knowingly.
Ronin lifted the bag of coins at his waist, letting the fat chink of the coppers speak for him.
T’ung eyed the pouch and screwed up his mouth. “Mmmm, much too small, I am afraid.” His face assumed a sad expression. “Not nearly enough.”
“What, then, would you want?”
“What else have you?”
Ronin looked at him.
“Nothing.”
“That is most unfortunate.” He sucked on his pipe, blew smoke lazily. It held on the humid air, a translucent pattern, a mysterious glyph.
“Wait. Perhaps there is something.” He dug in his boot. “A chain of silver.”
Ronin drew out the dead man’s chain. The silver blossom gleamed in the diffuse light. He handed it to T’ung.
The rain dripped dolefully, pattering against me overhang, making the leaves on the trees dance to its rhythm. T’ung sat very still, staring at the silver blossom. It flamed orange as he twisted it and it caught the firelight. Slowly he put down his pipe.
“Where,” he said softly, “did you get this?”
“What?”
A brief flash in darkness.
“Tell me.”
Black blood. The scythe blade blooming silver as it swung at him in the alley.
“I want an answer.” The voice turned harsh and grating. Heads turned. The flat-faced man rose.
Too late, Ronin thought savagely. He stood up, staring at the scythe-bladed ax hung at T’ung’s side. Greens.
The flat-faced man saw the silver blossom and his hand went to the haft of his ax. T’ung stood and the others, alerted now, dropped their cups and pipes and came toward him.
Ronin backed away, thinking furiously, Chill take me for a fool! Those were Greens in the alley.
T’ung was between him and the open gateway beyond which teeming Sha’angh’sei beckoned like a sweet reward.
T’ung clutched at the chain and withdrew his ax. And the others came on.
“Kill him now,” said the flat-faced man.
He crouched in the tangle, panting, taking deep breaths, swallowing to get the saliva back into his mouth. He listened for the sounds he knew would come, magnified by the rain. But all he heard was the rustle-drip of the soaking foliage. The sky was all but gone. The rain beat against him, running down his face. He blinked, lifted one hand across his forehead to clear his vision. He heard the sounds then.
The right arm had decided him. It was out and up, about to begin the ax’s deadly descent. They had been expecting him to use his sword and to retreat defensively. He did neither. He launched himself headlong at T’ung, lifting his forearm and knocking the ax blade aside as he smashed into the body. Taken by surprise, T’ung crashed into the wall and the way was clear.
Then he was through the gate and running in an erratic zigzag through the rain, acutely aware of the axes at his back, knowing that they could be thrown as well as swung.
Boots pounded behind him and he heard the flat-faced man screaming and, farther behind, Tung’s voice, curiously calm and remote.
He heard the panting coming closer; the flat-faced man was gaining on him because he ran in a straight line, did not have to dodge.
He turned then, planting his feet and withdrawing his sword in one motion. The flat-faced man was quick and agile but he was angry and that would help. Ronin swung first and his foot slipped on the wet paving. Idiot!
Grinning now, the flat-faced man dodged the blow, came on, and the blade of his ax was a blur in the rain. Ronin was moving away when it bit into his arm with a searing white heat. Ignore. He swung his own blade in a reverse arc and the Green, not used to double-bladed weapons, was slow to react. Ronin’s blade caught him beneath the arm, sinking deep into the socket. He cried out, his body jerked, and the bloody ax fell from his trembling fingers. His gaping mouth filled with water. Ronin wrenched at the hilt to free it and the arm came off. The flat-faced man shrieked and folded like a paper doll. Rain washed at the running blood. The others were coming now and Ronin took off down King Knife Street.
Through the beat of the rain he heard the boots and the echoing shouts; he kept his body low and the sounds were amplified. Then voices came to him on the wind: queries, shouts of anger. He risked some movement in order to get a visual fix. Led by T’ung, the Greens fanned out, searching for him. One was coming directly toward him.
In the end, the cart had saved him. It swerved out of a walkway blind to King Knife Street and he almost ran the owner down but there was just enough time and he missed it. It was now, however, directly in the path of his pursuers. The delay was brief but sufficient. Around the next turning, rows of houses and an explosive tangle of wild greenery, within which he promptly lost himself.
Still and calm, he remained behind his house of trees and tall ferns. Drip, drip. The rain beading and streaking the leaves. They quivered before his face. A bird fluttered in the branches above him. Crunch. The sound very close indeed and he felt the presence, separated only by the tenuous curtain of greenery. He held his breath. Perhaps—no, the branches low down swayed and began to part and he had no choice. Silently he put down his sword, then turned away from its mirrored surface, his reflection distorted by the moisture.
After a time, with Ronin’s forearm jammed against his windpipe, the Green’s eyes rolled up and he collapsed without a sound, his face white and pasty. Ronin crouched, listening. Still. The pinging of the rain. He dragged the Green behind a dense section of foliage, went back to where he had left his sword. He wiped it down and sheathed it, then crouched again behind the sheltering leaves until he was certain that they had gone back to the gate.
The rain had ceased by the time the shops of Sha’angh’sei built themselves around him once again on the cluttered level ground of the lower reaches of the city. Through the filth of the milling throng he pushed himself, his left arm soaked in blood and the pain a constant thing now that he attempted to clamp down on.
He passed a large group of people, wide straw hats, torn and uneven, feet bare and black with the muck of the streets, all carrying sacks and hurriedly tied bundles. Soldiers were directing them to a building farther along the street.
“Refugees,” said a soldier in response to Ronin’s question. “Refugees from the fighting in the north.”
“Is it worse?”
“I do not see how it could be,” the soldier sighed. “This way,” he called sharply to a straggling few, staggering in exhaustion. One of them, a frail figure, fell into a puddle of brackish water. No one paid the slightest attention.
Ronin moved toward the still form.
“He is beyond help,” said the soldier.
Ronin knelt and turned the body over, wiping the black mud from the gaunt face. The mouth was slack, the eyes closed. It was a woman, young and still beautiful despite the ravages of near starvation. Ronin pushed back her stiff wide-brimmed hat, felt along the side of her neck. He opened her mouth wide and breathed into it, slowly, deeply.
The soldier sauntered over. Most of the refugees had been herded inside now.
“Save it,” he said, taking a large bite out of a tightly rolled brown stick. “She is gone.”
“No,” said Ronin. “There is life within her still.”
The soldier laughed, a dark and evil sound. “She is less than worthless.” He hawked and spit. “Unless you lack the coppers for a woman. Still she seems a poor—”
But Ronin had risen, turned, hand on sword hilt. Jaw set, muscles rigid, staring into the soldier’s eyes. He said something, his voice like the whistle of a steel blade as it strikes.
There was a long moment when he saw the soldier weighing it in his mind. He looked for his comrades, found none.
“All right,” said the soldier. “Do whatever you wish. It is no concern of mine. Let the Greens handle it.” He turned away, heading toward the building into which the refugees had gone.
She was taking shallow breaths now but her eyes were still closed and clearly she was seriously hurt or ill, perhaps both. He could not leave her here and, since he had been on his way to the apothecary’s, he hoisted the frail form carefully onto his massive shoulder and disappeared into the hurrying masses of humanity.
The enormous jar hung suspended, creaking on its chains in the lowering light, the metal burnished. The dust seemed thicker in the shop, as if he were returning here after a century instead of merely a day.
“Ah,” exclaimed the old man without much surprise. “So you went through the alley after all.” His long chin whiskers trembled with the movement of his mouth.
Ronin went down the narrow aisle, put the woman onto a stool. The apothecary came around from behind his counter. He wore a wide-sleeved yellow silk robe and strange shoes which seemed but wooden platforms for his feet. He glanced at Ronin, then looked at the huddled figure.
“She is not from Sha’angh’sei—”
“Yes, I can see that.” The hands moved deftly.
“She is from the north, the soldier told me. Fleeing the fighting.”
The old head shook from side to side. He touched her face, then went behind the counter, reached out packets of powders, red, gray, gold, mixed them with a milky liquid. He pushed the contents across to Ronin.
“Get her to drink that.” He turned. “You will take her with you?”
“Yes, I cannot leave her. I am sure that they will take care of her at Tenchō.”
Something inexplicable came into the apothecary’s eyes and he nodded.
Ronin pressed the hinge of her jaw and the mouth gaped open. She was still unconscious. He cradled the back of her head, mindful of the angle, and let the thick liquid dribble into her lips. Half of it went down her neck and he had to depress her tongue to prevent her choking, but he got a fair amount in her.
The apothecary returned from the musty interior of the shop and began to work on Ronin’s arm, laying a square greasy pad along the wound, then wrapping it in white cloth. Over this he poured a clear liquid which seeped into the cloth and thence into the wound. For a moment the pain was exquisitely sharp. Then, almost immediately, it was gone.
There was time now, he thought.
“Tell me about the root.”
The apothecary poured more liquid, wiped at the seepage.
“It is said that it was found by a warrior.” The voice was dry and dusty like the wind of the ages. “The greatest warrior of a people now long dead. The warrior was out riding, for he was bored. His skill was so great that none could stand against him, so that that thing which he desired most—the conquest of a powerful foe—was denied him.” He wrapped the shoulder in dry bandages.
“As evening drew nigh,” the apothecary continued, “he came upon a glade in the high forest of his land. No other thing grew near it and a pale new moon, already lambent in the sky, illuminated the root. The glade was quite large and as he dismounted he found that cracked and weathered stone slabs were set in the earth, as if this place were an ancient burial place, but of what people he could not imagine, for time had long ago beaten the writing on the stones.”
Dust swirled in the shop, as if a wind from an unmentionable quarter had sprung up.
“The warrior went to the root and pulled it from the soil. He found that he was suddenly ravenous and he cut a piece of the root and ate it.” The apothecary was putting the last of the packets away.
Ronin stared at him.
“The warrior, so the tale goes, became more than man.”
“A god?”
“Perhaps.” The apothecary shrugged. “If you wish. It is but a myth.”
“Not a pleasant one, you told me.”
“Yes, that is true.” The old man’s eyes blinked, looked huge. “The warrior indeed became more than man but in so doing he became a danger to the old laws because now surely there was none to stand against him. So was unleashed upon him a terrible foe. The Dolman.”
The vertigo was so severe that he thought for an instant that the tiled floor of the shop had become a river. He worked to control his breathing. Somewhere the echo of laughter.
“What was The Dolman?” It sounded like someone else’s voice, faraway and indistinct.
