Beneath an Opal Moon, page 19
part #4 of Sunset Warrior Cycle Series
The Bujun had taken this and adapted it as the basis of their surveillance techniques.
Now she knew that it was not going to work.
Because there was something missing.
In order to be able to blend in with one’s surroundings, one first needs those surroundings. In Sha’angh’sei or in her own native Eido, there would be no problem. But this was Corruha.
She needed people and there just weren’t any.
So it was not going to work.
Because the only way that wounded Tudescan would lead her to his base was if he believed that no one was following him. Had he even suspected her presence, he would lead her on a roundabout and, if she were going to sightsee, she preferred to do it on her own.
Naturally, the density of people during the daylight hours is much higher than at night. But cities such as Sha’angh’sei or Eido never sleep and even in the dead of night there are a sufficient number of people about.
Not in Corruha.
By sound alone she was liable to be given away, and the moment he suspected, she would have to call it off because of the roundabout. Now each moment she delayed increased the chances of his spotting her.
She did the only thing she could do.
She went off the streets.
He rolled off the bed, went across the room to the windows, stuck his head outside and sniffed. A red-winged blackbird, disturbed by the intrusion, clattered away in alarm. A storm
was indeed coming; from the west. Back inside the room he kept his back to the huge painting; it still gave him chills.
“Perhaps they had a fight,” he said. “A falling out.” He meant Aufeya and Hellsturm.
“I hope so. Knowing them both, it seems likely.”
He turned on her. “You are certainly taking this calmly.”
Her dark eyes watched him intently for a moment. “You do not know my daughter at all well, Moichi. She precipitates fights like clouds release rain.”
“Fights are one thing,” he said patiently. “But she was obviously terrified of the man. He tortured Cascaras, then murdered him. Cascaras was a friend of Aufeya’s.”
“Oh, well, there you have it then. Hellsturm is a jealous man when it comes to his women.”
“She said to me, ‘Only I am left to stand against him.’ I know what I heard. In any case, Cascaras was old enough to be her father.”
“That would certainly not deter her.”
“By God, senhora, I do not understand you!” he thundered.
“Quite right, my darling, you don’t.” She reached up for him. “Now come here.”
“What do you want?”
“What do you think?”
He knelt atop the bed and she drew him toward her. He kissed her opened lips, his mouth sliding down the smooth column of her neck. She was quite irresistible. Apart from the lushness of her body. Moichi had been with women who were as finely formed. But she had an aura that was palpable; a kind of sexual intensity which spoke directly to the very core of his being.
Downward to her hanging, shivering breasts.
“Mmmm,” she moaned.
Afterward, the first thing she said was, “You are in love with Aufeya.”
His head snapped up and he stared into her eyes.
“What makes you say that?”
“A mother knows.” She laughed, not unkindly.
He pulled away from her embrace. “This is fun for you.”
She smiled. “And why not? I haven’t had much fun lately.” Her fingers reached for him. “Can you tell me honestly that you did not enjoy it yourself?”
“No. But you know very well what I mean.”
“Yes,” she said, her eyes flashing, “I know only too well.
But you must take my word for it. Aufeya is in no danger. Hellsturrn will not harm her.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“Because,” she said softly, “I have promised to return to him. “
The major problem now was the inconstant moon.
Clouds had begun moving in from the northwest, riding past the face of the horned moon; its silver light played in and out.
Because of the night’s monochrome illumination, perspectives and distances were difficult enough to judge under normal circumstances.
These were far from normal circumstances. Distances were, of course, increased and motion was constant. But cerebration was continuing all the time.
The only real danger was at the edges.
Chiisai raced across a flat rooftop, slowing only just before the low tile parapet. Now the moon had gone in once more and the dense shadows leapt upward, distorting the space between the buildings. Corrections had to be made on the run.
She sprang across the narrow abyss, hit a small stone on landing and tumbled, immediately drawing herself up into a compact ball. Rolling dissipated much of the momentum and she was on her feet again, silently flitting amid the flock of bats hovering about the rooftop.
The Tudescan had never left her sight and now, though he checked behind him at odd intervals and was quite thorough in other ways, using shadows and doorways where he could, he was totally unaware of her.
Across the maze of Corruna they fled, the hunter and the hunted.
“It’s part of the bargain we made,” she said. “He cannot touch her now.”
“But I tell you that he already has.”
“That is quite impossible.”
“Then something has changed. Perhaps there is an element you know nothing about.”
“He would not put in jeopardy what he desires above all else. “
Restless, he went back to the window, searching for the moon. It was only a wan glow now, behind small and puffy cumulus driving in from the northwest.
A storm for certain, he thought.
It was nearing midnight.
“I have to go,” he said.
“Will you come back?” Her voice seemed suddenly small in the huge room with the cathedral ceiling and the fearful painting.
“Yes,” he answered. “How could I not? But perhaps not again tonight.”
“In the morning, then.”
“All right.”
She turned on him abruptly and he saw a fear shining in her jade eyes. He started slightly, seeing Aufeya there.
“Promise me you’ll come, Moichi.” Her fingers gripped him with a fierce pressure. “There is only you now in all the world.”
..I_.,
“Are you not my friend, Moichi?” she asked desperately. “Has this evening meant so lisle to you?”
“It has meant a great deal to me,” he said, thinking that perhaps he did understand her now. He had been given a gift, something quite precious, something she withheld from almost everyone. Save Hellsturm, now. It was ironic. Almost amusing, if it had not been so utterly desolately tragic. This woman’s love for her daughter transcended everything else. Now it was his turn. He could accept or refuse. “It means a great deal to me. It always will.”
“We are friends.”
“You do me a great honor.” It was formal, even seeming somewhat stilted after their previous intimacy. Yet, he knew full well, one was of the flesh and the other Well, it was quite easy to make the body perform. Drawing the spirit in was quite another thing. There was no known coercion for that; only corruption.
As if on cue, they came together, kissing each other chastely on the lips. Inside, he felt her spirit swirling toward him, felt his emerging. They danced.
The room was quite still.
Presently, they drew apart, she to draw on her robe, he to dress for the street.
Before he left, he asked her one question. ”Why do you have that painting in this room?”
“It is of the diablura. Do you know of it? No? In the Daluzan
religion the diablura is the Ancient of Night, the Emperor of Evil.”
“The Devil.”
“The Devil, yes.”
“Why is it here?”
“To remind me, always.”
“Come and sit next to me, little one,” the Dai-San had said. “Little one” was what Chiisai meant.
They were in the palace of the Kunshin, just outside of Eido, the capital of Ama-no-mori.
“Have you any idea what you wish to do with your life?”
She looked at him. He had been in Ama-no-mori for some time now but she never tired of searching the seemingly endless configurations of his strange visage. Every time she thought she had committed it to memory she would look again and find it different than she had remembered it, though she might have seen him just the day before. Sometimes there was only some subtle change; at other times, the differences were great.
He might appear frightening to others, like a god embodied and come to earth for, more than anything else, this was perhaps what he was. Yet to her, he was much more. He was a brother. A brother she had never had, but had always yearned for.
“Are you playing my father’s role now?” she asked him, only half serious.
He smiled his peculiar smile, a devastating gesture, and she realised abruptly how she cherished his friendship and his love. He stood up, towering over her. He took her hand in his, her skin feeling the harsh abrasive hide of the gauntlet.
“Shall we go outside.” The construction was of a question but the inflection was not.
It was just past midday. The heat of the lemon-colored sun struck them, enveloping them in its warmth. Cicadas shrilled and grey plovers shot up from their hiding places in the tall grass.
The horizon was laced with the domed configurations of the cryptomeria and the high sword-edged pines. Far in the distance loomed the purple slopes of Fugiwara, wreathed now in a gentle haze. And before it, she knew, was the newly completed shrine at the site of Haneda Castle, birthplace of the Dai-San, destroyed in the titanic death struggle between dor-Sefrith and The Dolman during the time of his birth.
“Are you happy here?” Though the Dai-San spoke perfect Bujun, the ancient of languages, which only a few Bujun still learned, the configurations of his mouth lent his speech peculiar inflections which took some time to decipher.
Chiisai wondered at his using the old tongue. She, of course, being the Kunshin’s daughter, was also fluent. She longed to know what he wanted or, at the very least, what it was she was expected to say.
As if divining her thought, he said, “Tell me the truth, little one. Nothing else is important.”
“All right,” she said, gratefully, feeling as if a great weight had been taken off her. Under his intense gaze, she felt a melting within herself and, with it, a subtle tension which had been holding her ebbing. “No, I’m not.”
He nodded. “I understand.”
“You do?” She had not believed that anyone would, which was why she had, until this moment, held this knowledge secret even, in some ways, from herself.
“Oh, yes,” he said, his voice like the rolling of thunder over a vast plain. “1, too, have known the restlessness which now haunts you. There was no reason to hide it, little one.”
“But my father “
“My darling, your father understands these things. He asked me to speak to you because he knows well the power of Bujun tradition. “
“I could not tell him these things directly.”
“He surmised this.”
“I want to go away,” she said, for the first time truly.realizing it herself. “But I don’t want him to think that I am abandoning him.”
“I am quite certain that whatever sadness he feels will be dispelled by his thoughts of your happiness. ” He looked away from her. “Now that that’s settled, where would you like to go?”
“I why, I don’t really know.”
“Would you care to sail to Sha’angh’sei?”
Even recalling it now, hearing his echoey voice again in her mind, she knew he had said it with complete innocence, totally devoid of overtones or hidden meanings.
She had been delighted and had accepted immediately.
He said, “When you arrive, I want you to see a friend of mine, little one. You have heard me speak his name often. My bond-brother. “
“Yes. Moichi AnnaiNin. This is very important, little one. I want you to see Moichi AnnaiNin. I want you to give him the gifts I have for him.”
“How long shall I stay in Sha’angh’sei?” she asked.
He fumed to her, the sunlight striking the odd planes of his face. Never had he looked more startling nor more beautiful to her. “That is entirely up to you, but I imagine that you may wish to stay there quite some time.”
Now, as she flitted like some human bat across the sloping rooftops of Corruna, Chiisai wondered at that long-ago meeting. She thought that, for once, the Dai-San had been proven wrong for she had surely not stayed in Sha’angh’sei for any length of time. Yet though she might well have felt alone and afraid in this strange city, she felt only a kind of excited warmth stealing over her. Was this truly why she had come to the continent of man? And was it merely a coincidence that she had arrived at Sha’angh’sei? It was, after all, the continent of man’s largest port and, not so coincidentally, the closest one to Ama-no-mori.
Still, she could not put out of her mind the fact that the DaiSan had suggested it as her destination. She had never questioned that nor second-guessed herself. Surely it had been she and she alone who had been master of her fate. She had always been free to choose whatever destination she had desired. She had chosen Sha’angh’sei.
Or had she?
Echoes of the Dai-San’s last words to her rebounded in her mind now. I imagine that you may wish to stay there quite some time. old he know something that she did not?
She shrugged mentally, putting the puzzle aside for the moment. She had more pressing matters to occupy her attention.
They were now in the far western quarter of Corruna and the Tudescan, despite his twists and sums, was still heading almost due west. At this rate, they would soon leave the city far behind them.
She glanced upward for a moment, checking the position of the moon to gauge the time. It was but a diffuse glow now, sifting through the scudding clouds which had begun to move in more strongly from the northwest. Perhaps a storm, she thought, and fervently hoped that it would hold off until the Tudescan reached his destination.
He was still moving west and she knew that unless she broke
off she would never make the rendezvous with Moichi. Sweat broke out along the line of her forehead and on her upper lip but, wiping it away, she remembered Martyne and silently prayed to her gods that the woman had been victorious and would make the rendezvous in her stead. For the moment, she ignored the other problem.
For now the Tudescan was at last slowing, carefully making a final check in all directions. This was it and, waiting until he had completed his survey of the surrounding area, she swung down from the rooftop into the street behind him, grateful, because the diminished light was making long-range surveillance hazardous.
They were in a section of the city densely packed with twostory buildings only Corruna’s iglesias seemed to be taller windowless, with flat undecorated roofs. Warehouses, she surmised, for it was here that the major overland trade routes to other Daluzan cities, and to the lands beyond Dalucia’s borders, converged at Corruna’s western outskirts.
Here, for the first time, she saw families of people asleep in the streets, against building walls, in darkened doorways. These were workers who awakened each day just as dawn was about to break in the eastern sky to meet the vast silent caravans arriving from far-off lands and were paid a few coppers to offload the myriad dry goods, ferrying them on their backs to the nearby warehouses of the merchants.
She went carefully between them as the wounded Tudescan had not wanted to wake them and, at length, in a huge courtyard, she spied a small caravan of perhaps six camels waiting to depart. They were within the shadows of the high western gate of the city.
It was to this group of men, squatting around a small fire, that the Tudescan went. Chiisai dared not get close enough, in the quiet, desolate night, to hear what they were saying but she crept up until she had a decent view. One put a blanket onto the ground for the wounded man, working on him, while another, squatting near the prone man’s head, questioned him about what had transpired. There came a quick movement from the squatting man. He shouted something that was quite incoherent to her and hauled the wounded man up onto his feet. He seemed enormously powerful. There came more shouting and, abruptly, she felt movement behind her and whirled, saw two huge eyes staring past her out of a small face. It was a young cambujo girl, one of the many children of the workers’
families who lived here without proper housing. She had been awakened by the noise and now craned her neck to see what all the commotion was about.
Chiisai returned her attention to the scene of the argument just in time to see the brief flash of metal as the angered man thrust a knife into the stomach of the wounded man. He threw the corpse from him with the tip of his boot as if it was just so much fetid garbage. Could this be Hellsturm? If so, he had not taken kindly to his henchman’s failure.
Now Chiisai could feel the presence of the young girl closer behind her, so near, in fact, that she could discern the other’s shivers. She turned her body slightly and opened out her right arm. The girl crawled into the warm space and Chiisai wrapped her in her cloak.
Then, as she watched the caravan camp, she knew that she had run out of time. All the men were standing. One of them kicked desultorily at the fire. Another swung a canvas saddlebag onto the neck of one of the camels. She saw now that the animals had been feeding. They were nearly finished. When that happened, she knew, the caravan would be off.
She looked at the shivering girl crouched beside her, head on her shoulder, then back to the readying caravan. From her sash, she drew out three copper coins, held them out so that the girl could see what they were. Then she pressed them into the small hand, closing the fingers around them.
The girl lifted her head, staring at her wonderingly, and Chiisai put her lips to the girl’s ear for long moments. The girl’s eyes were wide, black as obsidian.
