Svaha, page 26
The mountains were gone. In their place stood four immense carved figures. An enormous hand came down from the sky and plucked the figures off of the earth, one by one, storing them in a wooden dish. The figure that the hand belonged to was so big it seemed to fill the sky. Lisa huddled against the rock slab, afraid to even breathe. The figure's immense shadow covered the mesa top, the sudden shade giving her a chill. Then the figure slowly stepped away, the ground rumbling and shaking under its tread. The shadow pulled away to follow, and there was the sun once more, blinding and bright.
Gone now, the coyote-boy said. Into the game.
Lisa sank slowly to the dirt and drew her knees up to her chin. She stared at her companion.
"I…I don't understand."
It's a part of a Wheel, he explained. Are you ready to die?
She shook her head. "I dunno. I don't want to die."
If you're not ready to die, then how can you live?
"Look, Kachina-hey-san or whoever you are, just…just let me get outta here, okay?"
You know Coyote, he said conversationally, ignoring her again. They say he made the world, brought fire into it, played a lot of tricks. But one day the Great Mystery came down out of the sky, looking like an Old Man, and he took Coyote away. Old Man left word with the People, told them that he'd send them messages by way of the little mysteries, who'd share his knowledge with the People through vision-quests.
"But you won't see me and you won't see Coyote again," Old Man told them, "not until the Earth Woman is real old. Then we'll come back, because there'll be need of a change. Coyote'll come first, so you'll know that I'm coming, and when I come, I'll be bringing all the spirits of all the dead with me. There won't be death anymore and there won't be dying. Earth Woman'll go back to her first shape and live with her children, and everything's going to be fine again."
So now what do you think of that?
"Are…are you Nanabozho?" Lisa asked.
The Bozo she knew was a coyote. He'd come back. Did that mean everything was going to be all right?
We've already talked about names, the coyote-boy said. Don't you ever listen, Stripe-faced Girl?
"I don't understand."
It means everybody's waiting for Coyote to come back, but Coyote's here—he tapped his chest —already. You go tell Swift Speaks With Thunder that. Tell him to find a Coyote Wheel, hey? He's been shown the visions—tell him it's time to stop thinking so much; time to do.
"But—" Lisa started to say, only her vision began to swim.
She felt herself falling, off the mesa top, into a black hole, then suddenly she was back in the apato's small washroom, head between her knees, weak with vertigo. She sat up, and the polished fixtures swam all around her. When they settled down, she found herself looking at Nanabozho, still sitting there on the floor in front of her, watching her with his blue eye.
"I'll tell him," she said. "Okay? Is that what you want?"
The coyote merely looked at her, tongue lolling.
TWENTY
1
Gahzee could sense spirits stirring. Manitou speaking, close at hand. He stood at the window of the apato looking out into the night. Though he strained to understand them, he could only hear the soft presence of their voices, not the content of what they said.
The Ragman stood beside him, also watching the night, speaking from time to time. But it was merely thoughts spoken aloud that he voiced; they required no answer. Gahzee didn't listen.
Finally the Ragman straightened.
"I don't like it," he said. "I wanted to spark a firefight between the yaks and the drones and let them fight things out, but I'm guessing now that the best move we can make is to take the same route Yip's lawyer friend did: sneak in ninja-style. There's no telling how close Goro's working with the drones."
Gahzee turned to look at him. "What will Goro's death really accomplish?"
"Everything, Jack. See, things have gotten way outta hand now. I'm in too deep. What happened at the Ch'ing-jen Fan last night. Hitting the flyer this afternoon. Ripping off the chip tonight. He's gonna see my hand all over it. I gotta hit him before he hits me. We're talking plain survival now—never mind what he owes me."
"I understand."
" 'Sides, we get in there, Jack, what do you wanna bet I can plug in to his system and find out what happened to that Enclave of yours for you?"
"You can do that?"
"We get in and I get the time, I can do it, Jack. I'll bet that's making you think twice now, right?"
"It changes nothing," Gahzee said. "We were already committed to helping you."
"Gahzee…?"
Both men turned from the window to see Lisa standing at the sliding panel that led to the washroom. Her features were still strained, but Gahzee sensed it was more than a simple continuation of her earlier shock.
He remembered. Manitou speaking.
He crossed the room in a few quick strides.
"Is something wrong?" he asked.
She shook her head and kept her eyes averted from the corpses. The Ragman slid open another panel which opened into the apato's kitchen.
"In here," he said. He slid the panel shut behind them once they were all inside. "What's up, darling?"
Lisa turned to look at Gahzee. "I…I went into the Dreamtime."
Gahzee's eyes widened slightly, but he said nothing.
"Say what?" the Ragman asked.
Lisa told them what she had seen. "Do you understand what he meant, Gahzee?" she asked when she was done.
The medé nodded slowly. "Ever since I left the Enclave, the Kachina-hey have been tugging me into the Dreamtime, not because I seek a vision, but because they wish to converse. They want me to become a Twisted Hair—but not to teach the tribes. To teach all people."
"That's good, isn't it?" Lisa asked.
"Yes and no. Outside the Enclave, I realize that it is wrong to leave Mother Earth and her children to suffer so while we live in comfort behind our barriers. But then I see events such as last night, and what we are embarking on this evening… We have nothing like this inside. We have some crime, yes, but we have no wars. Not like here. You that we left behind are the descendants of those who let the world fall into its present state. I'm afraid, from what I've seen, that you haven't learned from the mistakes of your ancestors. Instead, you merely repeat them.
"To open the Enclaves, to share our knowledge with those beyond our barriers, I believe would be a grave mistake."
"Bullshit," the Ragman said.
Gahzee looked at him. "Then how are you so different?"
"What I'm doing, Jack—it's got meaning. I'm trying to leave the world a better place than it was when I found it. What the hell do you think the Co-Op's all about?"
"And of course it doesn't hurt that you have everything you could want personally while you're doing so?"
"Fuck you! What I want is a better life for everybody, Jack. Every squats rat, china, tong, black, white, you name it. But nobody's gonna hand it to me—I gotta take it, or things are just gonna go on the way they always have. Or get worse. Now maybe I ain't got goofy shit like Wheels and dog-headed space cadets pumping me up with the good talk, but—I'm. Doing. Something. You got that?"
Gahzee nodded.
"Maybe it could work," Lisa said. "People want something to believe in—something to give 'em hope. Lookit me."
"Yes. And look at your friend the Ragman. Can you see me teaching him or his friends the Wheels?"
The Ragman started to reach across the table for him, but Lisa pushed him back onto his cushion. She turned to Gahzee.
"Does everybody have to think the same, believe the same? Is that the only way the world can work?"
"No. But it helps if people have at least agreed to take care of the world and maintain a certain non-aggressive stance."
"That what you want before you'll share the good shit and help me, Jack?" the Ragman demanded. "You want me to back offa Goro and prove I can be non-fucking-aggressive? And who's gonna keep him off my ass? The Clavers gonna fly in some big guns to help this brother? You got some Wheel that you can spin and have everything work out all pretty and nice?"
Gahzee shook his head slowly. "No."
"Then let's quit fucking around," the Ragman said. He stood up from the table. "I'm gonna call the boys and get my wheel rolling. We're going in ninja-style and we'll fuck 'em up any way we can. Anybody got problems with that?"
When he left the room, Lisa reached out and took Gahzee's hand. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to get things going like that."
"It isn't your fault. I think there's a kind of madness in this Outland air and it just makes people crazy. I feel a little crazy myself."
Lisa nodded. "That place…what happened to me with the boy with the coyote's head. I have to ask you again, was any of it real?"
Gahzee smiled wearily. "As real as we let the Fourth World be."
"I think you could do it," Lisa said. "I think you could teach rats and chinas to live a better life. I know Kay would've listened. People just need hope. Not the kinda hope that lets them see citizenship and slaving for the Kaisha as the only way outta the squats, but a hope for something that's really better."
"I don't know. Perhaps you're right. But it's not my decision to make. The council of elders would have to decide that in the various Enclaves, and I doubt, no matter how eloquent an argument we might present, that they'd allow any Outlanders within their barriers. Don't forget—I can't go back in either. If I was the one to carry the argument to them, they would probably think I was doing so for my own personal reasons."
Lisa sighed. "I guess we'll just have to make our own Enclave, then."
Gahzee looked at her. The recent messages from the Kachina-hey went whispering through his mind.
"What is it?" Lisa asked, seeing something change in his face behind the light mask of white clay and ash.
Before he could reply, the Ragman was back. "Okay—it's all set. Let's hit the road. Better get your dog, Jack. You trained him to take on yaks yet?"
But Nanabozho wasn't to be found anywhere in the apato. He'd vanished like smoke, even though they'd closed the front door while he was still in the washroom with Lisa.
"Aw, man," the Ragman said. "This just gives me the creeps. What kinda hoo-doo is that thing?"
Lisa couldn't resist teasing him. "Starting to believe a little, Ragman?"
"I tell you what, darling. Sly Bobbie and the guys are picking us up, so we're riding 'cross town. That dog shows up at Goro's, I'll give things a serious listen."
"You got a bet," Lisa said, sticking out her hand.
The Ragman shook his head. "I gotta be nuts. But I'll tell you something else, if he shows up like the coyote-headed Jack from your dreams, all bets are off, 'cause I'm gonna be outta there. I'll head out into the badlands on one of them Usaijins and just set up a squat wherever the fuel runs out. Now let's go."
2
Miko was too well known at the Goro Clan headquarters for her presence ever to be questioned there, whatever the time, day or night. The eyes of the guards in the lobby widened as they took in the bandaged left hand holding her raincoat closed—no kobun was unfamiliar with yubitsume, though, on a woman…?—but they made no remark until the elevator doors had closed and she was on her way upstairs to Goro's penthouse.
Once inside, Miko leaned against the far side of the elevator, cheek pressed against the mirrored wall, breath condensing on the glass. Her left hand throbbed with pain.
Giri.
Her heartbeat continued its measured drumming.
Debt and duty.
She could sense the fire of Goro's ki burning in the building above her. Did he sense hers?
Giri.
When she reached the top floor and the elevator door hissed open, two kobun were waiting for her. One put his foot against the door to keep it from sliding shut. The other had a drawn Steeljack in his hand. Seeing who it was, they gave her quick nods and stepped aside.
"Domo," she said. "Would you be so kind as to inform Goro-san that I will be awaiting his pleasure in his private dojo?"
Puzzled looks touched the faces of the kobun. They looked at the bandage on her hand.
"Hai," one of them quickly. "I will tell him at once."
"Domo."
She waited while he walked towards Goro's offices, then turned the other way, stopping at the doorway of the dojo. She slid the door open, flicked on a light, slid the door shut behind her.
Giri.
She walked to the far side of the room where she tossed away her hat and raincoat. Her hand was a steady ache of pain. Ignoring it, she used that hand to hold her scabbard, then slowly withdrew the katana. The scabbard joined her raincoat and hat on the floor.
Debt and duty.
She faced the doorway through which Goro would enter and assumed the ready position. Sword held in a two-handed grip, hilt level with her chin, blade pointing outward. Body turned slightly to one side, right foot pointing forward, left foot at a slight angle pointing to one side.
She held herself as rigid as the steel of her katana, but she was relaxed, her breathing steady and regular. Her ki burned inside her. Her sei cloaked her with calm. The spirit of the Sword filled her. She took strength from its ki and in the knowledge that she was fulfilling an obligation long overdue.
Giri.
Not just for Phillip, she realized, but for her mother, too.
She held herself ready.
And waited.
3
"I don't like it," Gahzee said.
Lisa nodded. "Me neither. Who says they bring their prisoners in through the front door of the place, anyway?"
"Trust the Ragman, darling. Nobody travels this area at night unless they’re connected, okay? And it's the only way in—least it is for us—so it's the chance we gotta take."
They were gathered in the mouth of an alleyway between two warehouses across from the building that housed the Goro Clan's headquarters. Besides the three of them, the Ragman's fifteen bullyboys were hiding in the shadows with them, along with four of the rats who'd been playing the role of swagger girls. There was no sign of Nanabozho.
The Ragman was looking like himself again, raggedy clothes, the dreadlock mohawk, ebony skin making him almost invisible in the darkness.
"I gotta admit," Sly Bobbie said, "I liked the first plan better. Lob a few of those sweet smart missiles of yours at the side of the building, when they come running out, we hit 'em, then fade back and let the drones take over."
"I'm telling you, Jack," the Ragman said, "the yaks got some kinda deal cooking with the drones. I don't even think the drones'd come."
"Last night—"
"I don't give a shit about last night. We're talking now, Jack, and the Ragman says we run things his way. It's my show."
"I count five yaks in the lobby," Jimmy Poon said, joining them at the mouth of the alley.
He was dressed up in yak gear, along with his cousin Huai Jen Pa and a rogue Nipponjin who just called himself Kikkawa. He looked the part so well in his yak gear that the Ragman was tempted to check his back for tattoos.
"And we gotta hit 'em all," the Ragman said, "before they send in an alarm, or the deal's fucked. So are you ready, girls? Then let's go."
He put his hands behind his back and Jen Pa wrapped a cord loosely around them. When the Ragman gave the cords a sharp tug to test them, they fell free. He nodded to Jen Pa to put them back in place. Jimmy Poon picked them up from the ground and tossed them to his cousin.
The four squats girls and a half-dozen of the strongarms moved out. Some were taking positions on nearby buildings with rocket launchers. Others were going to move in on the headquarters from the side and back. Poon and his men put the Ragman on the back of one of the stolen Usaijins, then the three machines pulled out of the alley and approached the front of the headquarters building. Those left behind—Gahzee, Lisa, and the remaining six strongarms—drew closer to the front of the alley to watch.
To the Ragman's credit, everything went as smoothly as he'd promised. On the signal they were waiting for, Gahzee and the remaining strongarms set out from the alley at a run, heading for the yakuza building. Lisa followed behind them, heart in her throat.
What the hell am I doing here? she asked herself as she ran. Think of Kay. And Donnybrook. It helped. Thinking about them stirred the coals inside her, fanning them into flames, but it wasn't quite enough. She was still scared shitless. She'd seen too many dead people in the last couple of days. Somehow, she didn't think a few more were really gonna even the odds.
Then she was inside and it was too late for anything but staying on her toes. The grip of her Steeljack was sweaty in her hands. She forced herself to look at the dead yaks. They got what was coming to them, she told herself.
It still didn't seem right.
"We're going up, girls," the Ragman told the three strongarms in yak gear. "Anybody comes in through that door that you don't know, kill 'em. Things get too hot, you got a choice: Come up to the top floor, or get your asses outta here."
He was the last to squeeze into the elevator.
"Watch where you're putting your hand, asshole," someone muttered at the back.
Gahzee found Lisa's fingers and gave them a squeeze. She looked up gratefully.
"When those doors open," the Ragman said, "there's gonna be yaks sitting right in our faces. Linton, you and Fat Bo get up front here. If we can take 'em quiet with your knives, everything's gonna go so much smoother."
All Lisa could do was crane her neck up and stare at the floor lights as they lit up, one after the other. Then they reached the top floor.
"Showtime, girls," the Ragman whispered.
The doors began to open.
4
Goro came alone into the dojo. When he saw Miko at the far side of the room, assuming the ready stance, katana blade glittering in the light, he slowly slid the door shut behind him.
"What is this?" he asked softly.
