Beneath an Opal Moon, page 6
part #4 of Sunset Warrior Cycle Series
Moichi came up beside Kossori, feeling as if he were moving through water. He had practiced with his friend many times, had even seen the killing art of koppo used on wood and metal. But never on another human being. He was awed by the devastation so few short bits of motion could wreak. No wonderKossori was never armed. What need he of conventional weaponry when he possessed the secrets of koppo?
“Where did you letup that, Kossori?”
The other was staring down at the broken body of the tall Jhindo. Blood pooled darkly, seeping through his ebon garb. “We’ll have to call someone to clean up this mess,” he said, almost distractedly.
“Kossori?” Moichi put a hand gently on one shoulder. “Are you all right?”
“Quite good, this one.” Kossori’s voice was like a ghostly spiral of smoke, dissipating on the night air. ”So fast.”
“Kossori.” Moichi stepped around in front of his friend, saw the other’s eyes come slowly into focus.
He smiled and shook his head. “It takes a little time, my friend. The mental strain is the true difficulty in mastering koppo. And, of course, one tends to get caught in a kind of killing vortex. Otherwise, we’d never have the strength ” He put out his hand and Moichi glanced down at the humped body as broken as a discarded marionette ripped apart by a vengeful child.
Kossori ripped off a strip of fabric from his robe and bound up the four puncture wounds made by the Jhindo’s strikes. “I was lucky,” he said. “Those things could have been poisoned. “
Moichi went the short distance over the wood to where the oval box squatted, flat and ugly. ”I wonder what he was up to?”
Kossori joined him. “Nothing good, of that I am certain. Open the box. No doubt a clue to his night’s work will be found therein.”
Moichi stooped and opened its lacquered lid.
He saw the queue first, blue-black, gleaming with fragrant oils that must have taken hours to apply The hair was carefully and expensively coifed. This, too, had taken much time to achieve. Below, the brown almond eyes were open as if in surprise, the thick lips parted as if in incipient protest, the yellow teeth still shining with a film of saliva. Blood had pooled about the stump of the neck, a dark and brooding pond, coagulating slowly, held inside the vessel only by the thin coat of lacquer covering the interior
”I do not want any part of it.”
“I am asking you as a personal favor. I ”
“My friend, let me tell you, I am no good at mysteries. Never have been. That is an area of expertise over which you preside. I would be a fool to dabble in anything about which I have so little understanding or natural facility.”
“But that’s just it, Kossori. If you will just listen to me, I will explain how you can help me.”
“Hmph!” Kossori eyed him suspiciously but was now silent.
They were sitting at a rough plank table in a tavern on Iron Street that was crowded and bustling with business. Set before them were huge pewter plates filled with charred fowl and vegetables seared in hot oil and sesame seeds. Between them sat a fired-clay flagon of yellow wine but their handleless cups were empty.
“Last night there was a murder “
“Uhm, yes, I imagine so. One of several hundred in Sha’angh’sei. What of it?”
“If you will stop interrupting, I mean to tell you.”
Kossori grinned and spread his palms placatingly. “By all means, say on.” He commenced to eat while Moichi spoke.
“The strange thing is,” Moichi concluded, “that the two were killed in disparate fashion.”
Kossori’s shoulders lifted, fell. ‘it only means that there were two killers. Simple.” He wiped grease from his mouth with the back of one hand.
Moichi shook his head. “Not so simple, really. Omojiru was killed swiftly, efficiently and coldly as if by a a machine.”
Kossori looked at him quizzically. “Machine? What is a machine.”
Too late, Moichi realised that he had no way of explaining this concept to his friend. He himself had never seen a machine but had had it described to him by the Dai-San during their long trek through the thick jungles surrounding Xich Chih. He would have to settle for a close equivalent. “I mean to say a nonhuman source.”
“I see. And the other? This outlander from where did you say?”
“Kintai. “
“Yes. Well. How did he die?”
“Oddly. Very oddly. Something about it was very disturbing.” He described what had been done to the man’s heart.
Kossori had put his eating sticks down beside the plate of half-eaten food. “Extremely unpleasant, I agree. But there are more ways in the world, my friend, to get infommation out ofa human being, than either you or I could collate in a lifetime. The Bujun, it is said, are the most adept at this kind of thing. How do you suppose I can help?” .
Two Greens came through the front door, glanced around the large room for a moment, then chose an empty table just to the right of the door. They sat down, one facing Moichi. They began to talk.
“I don’t know, really. Just a feeling.” He shrugged. “Perhaps there’s nothing after all.”
The waitress approached them but they waved her off.
Kossori patted Moichi’s stout wrist. “Anyway, it’s good that you have an interest. This city’s not good for you, you know.”
Moichi smiled. The Green facing him had looked over once; he had seen it out of the corner of his eye. But when he’d taken a look, the man’s eyes had already slid away. Now he was careful not to glance their way. He seemed deep in conversation with his companion. “I find myself more and more these days thinking of home, I am afraid.”
“But that’s all to the good, don’t you see?” Kossori popped a last bit of vegetable into his mouth, chewed and swallowed. “Time you went home.” He smiled. “You don’t know how lucky you are to have a family.”
Moichi had changed his angle slightly but he still could not see their hands. He reached into his sash, withdrew some coins. “Finished?” he said, and, not waiting for an answer, spilled the copper onto the table.
“You’re leaving way too much,” Kossori observed. “Wait for the change.”
“Get up,” Moichi said in an intense whisper. “We are leaving here right now.”
He kept the Greens in sight until they had closed the tavern’s door behind them. On Iron Street, with the crowds already somewhat thinned by the lateness of the hour, he took them left then left again. They moved quickly and silently. Into an alley which led out onto Green Cricket Lane. Darkness closed about them within the alley’s dense shadows. At either end, the brief yellow flickering of the wider streets’ night lights.
”All right,” Kossori said as they paused for a moment. “What did you see?”
“Those Greens.” He was peering ahead, then behind. “I think they were looking for me.”
“But why?”
“Offhand I can think of several reasons.” He told Kossori about the early-morning attack. ”Let’s go.”
But they had only taken several paces when he stopped abruptly, put his arm across the other’s chest. He nodded. “In front of us.”
The sounds of boot heels rattling against the ground, scraping against refuse. The skittering of rats.
“Who goes there?” Moichi called, drawing his sword. Beside him, he felt Kossori’s muscles tense as he readied himself.
For a long moment, there was absolute silence. Even the tiny scavengers were still, sensing the tension in the air. Moichi saw his shadow and Kossori’s flickering along the dank walls in front of him, elongated past all human recognition, limned by the night lights along Blessant Street behind them. They seemed grotesque and monstrous in the terribly confined space.
“Moichi AnnaiNin.” Out of the darkness in front of them. “We have come for you.” A solid voice, used to command.
“By what authority?” Moichi inquired.
“By the supreme authority of our tai-pan, Du-Sing of the Ching Pang.”
“Let’s take these scum,” Kossori hissed in his ear. But Moichi ignored him.
“What is it your tai-pan wishes of me?” he inquired.
“That is for Du-Sing to say,” the voice replied from the darkness.
Moichi saw that now there was no light coming from the exit ahead to Green Cricket Lane.
“Please do not attempt anything foolish,” the voice said. And at that moment, their shadows disappeared on the wall as bodies blocked out the light from Blessant Street behind them.
The room was lined all in bamboo, split lengthwise and lacquered clear so that it gleamed in the low light emanating from the constellation of small oil lamps scattered about on low tables and mantelpieces. Above, the skylight had been drawn back revealing the icy brilliance of the glittering stars, remote, seemingly as hard as diamonds. The moon was in another quarter, unseen.
The man who sat facing them was so enormous that he seemed to overflow the bamboo chair, despite the fact that it was so outsized that it was obvious it had been constructed to order. He wore saffron silk pants from which, it appeared, an entire tent might have been woven and a short wrapped jacketwith wide sleeves, also saffron silk, quilted and low cut in front so that much of his chest was exposed. Against the naked flesh, dangling like a second heart, was an enormous tourmaline which moved as he moved.
Yet when one looked at this man, one saw first his face which was etched with the hard cruel lines that only a lifetime of constant guerrilla warfare can cause. It was a face, flat and circular as a moon, of a power as ancient as the delta upon which the nexus of the city was built. Du-Sing, tai-pan of the Ching Pang, the Greens of Sha’angh’sei, belonged to the earth and it, it was said, to him.
“Gentlemen.” A voice like distant thunder, as tactile as it was aural. “Tea?”
Moichi nodded silently while Kossori looked on, still as a statue.
Du-Sing’s eyes moved minutely and a young man in black cotton leggings and quilted jacket sprang into motion, filling cups standing on an ornate silver tray on a table along one wall of the room. Moichi accepted his cup but Kossori ignored his. There was nothing Moichi could do about this. He sipped at the hot liquid.
Du-Sing waited until he had taken that first drink before saying, “We worked well together, once upon a time.” He meant during the Kai-feng, when all men were joined as if from one family. “But that was a long time ago.” The tai-pan had left just a long enough pause between the two statements to give the latter one an ominous note. “You are remembered with great fondness from that time by the Ching Pang, Moichi AnnaiNin.” He sighed and it was like a dam about to burst, a sound of timbers cracking. “That is why I am showing you this courtesy instead of having you executed.” He snapped his fingers and the young man in black leapt to his side, put a cup of tea into his hand. It was lost inside that great fist. He drained the cup in one swallow. “And how is the Dai-San, Moichi AnnaiNin?”
“He is well, Du-Sing.”
“Good. Good.”
The tai-pan had made his point.
“Why was I attacked this morning by Ching Pang?” Moichi asked. “As you said yourself, I am no enemy of yours.”
“Yes.” Du-Sing lifted a fat finger. “I had thought you a friend of the Ching Pang. Yet you traveled in the company of a Hung Pang spy.”
“He was a messenger sent by the Regent to fetch me to the Seifu-ke. That is all.”
“Is it?” One eyebrow was raised interrogatively. “We shall find out. Presently.” He peered at Moichi over the rim of the delicate porcelain teacup. etched with gilt butterflies, almost as if he were a demure girl on her first date. “I have had a talk with the Regent. A long talk. And he has agreed to dismiss all Hung Pang from his service.”
“He has?” This did not sound at all like something Aerent would willingly accede to.
“Do you doubt the words of a tai-pan?” For a moment his eyes blazed within their folds of fat. Then the light seemed abruptly extinguished and a thin smile played about the thick lips, it did not reach any further. ” But no, of course not. You would not be so discourteous, would you, Moichi AnnaiNin? No, you have too many highly placed friends in Sha’angh’sei Not to see the supreme folly of such a course, hmm?” He signaled silently for more tea, got it.
“Can we get on with this,” Kossori said, and, alarmed, Moichi gripped his arm.
“What was that?” Du-Sing raised one eyebrow. “What was that?” He reminded Moichi of a great stage actor; what was real and what was being put on for his benefit?
The tai-pan took the cup from his lips, swung it from in front of his face. “Mmm, I see that your friend is somewhat more ignorant of the social graces than are you, Moichi AnnaiNin. So be it, then. I shall come to the point directly. I had been circling it only because it causes me much pain.” He put a great paw over his heart and now for the first time he rose up. “It is my son, my youngest son, Omojiru, murdered at the hand of the Hung Pang. This is an unforgivable affront. Even your barbarian friend must be well aware of this, eh, Moichi AnnaiNin. I have no doubt that yore are.” Now there was real fire behind his eyes and abruptly his face was transformed into a visage as awesome as that of some avenging god. He took one trembling step toward them and Moichi felt Kossori tensing again; prayed that his friend would make no move for, though he had seen no sign of guards since they entered the tai-pan’s inner sanctum, he entertained no illusions that they were alone here with Du-Sing. Koppo or no, if Kossori made any threatening move they would both die within instants.
“It is my son who is dead, Moichi AnnaiNin!” Du-Sing bellowed. ”The seed of my loins. It is I and my family; it isthe Ching Pang who grieve for him now. What right have you to interfere in a matter that does not concern you?”
“But you are inaccurate, Du-Sing. If I may point out, I am already involved through the intervention of your own family, as you put it. The Ching Pang attempted to kill me this morning. I do not take kindly to such a threat. You cannot blame me for those deaths. I have every right to defend myself. I meant them no harm.”
“Yet your companion was a known Hung Pang spy.”
“He was a messenger for the Regent.”
“Worse still!” the tai-pan cried. ”By the gods, Moichi AnnaiNin, the Ching Pang owe you no apology! The Hung Pang work against us constantly. War is war. But now they have gone too far. To coldly murder Omojiru ”
”There is good reason to believe that the Hung Pang were not involved in your son’s death, Du-Sing. We have “
“Silence!” roared the tai-pan. “What do you, as Iskamen, know of the Hung Pang? Or the Ching Pang? Only your friendship with the Dai-San stands between you and execution now. Omejiru’s death is our business and ours alone. Do I make myself clear?”
“Eminently clear,” Moichi said.
“We are avenging that death even as we speak. That is all you need to know.” He clapped his hands once. “Chef will see you out.” Without another word, he swept from the room, moving with astonishing grace for one of his enormous bulk.
“I would as soon break his fat neck as look at him,” Kossori said as soon as they were out on Black Fox Lane. Moichi shushed him and they turned right, walking down the wide thoroughfare. Without looking back, he knew that the eyes of the Ching Pang were following their progress. He kept their pace to a saunter even though he was anxious to quit this area of the city, a Ching Pang stronghold. One could trust no one here for they were all shopkeepers and streetwalkers, priests and moneylenders alike in the employ of the Greens.
“Gods,” Kossori continued, “I can see no reason at all to have put up with that pretentious windbag’s pious sermon.”
Moichi glanced at him, a smile playing along his lips. “That pretentious windbag, as you so eloquently put it, could have dismembered us at any moment he chose. There must have been at least fifty Ching Pang waiting with weapons drawn behind the four doors to that room.”
“Huh!” was all that Kossori said, but Moichi knew that hewas properly impressed. “So I take it you’ll stop this investigation then.”
“What gives you that idea?” Moichi said.
“Oh, well, I don’t know. Maybe the great Hottentot’s ominous words back there had a bit to do with it. Otherwise, I can’t imagine where I could get such a farfetched idea.” He snorted.
Moichi threw his head back and laughed, clapping his friend on his broad back. ”I would not worry overmuch about DuSing, Kossori.”
“Oh yes, now you’ll tell me that his bark is worse than his bite, I suppose.” His voice was heavy with sarcasm.
“No, no. Not at all. I just have to be more careful in my movements, that’s all. Anyway, I may not be here too much longer. Tomorrow morning, I trust, Aerent will have the information I need on this land, Kintai, and “
”You mean to go there!” Kossori exploded.
“Yes, I guess I do at that. I think we have reached a dead end in Sha’angh’sei. If we are ever to find out why those two were murdered, Kintai will be the place to begin. Want to come along?”
“Me?” Kossori laughed. “Gods, no! I have no taste for that sort of thing.”
“At least take some time to think about it. I am not apt to depart for several days yet.”
“All right. If it’ll make you happy. But, I warn you, the result’ll be the same.” He rubbed his hands together. “Now what say we forget all about this mystery of yours and spend some time at Saito-gCshi.”
Moichi laughed. “That certainly sounds relaxing.”
Kossori guffawed leeringly. “Gods, I hope not!”
It was an ornate, three-story structure of glossy black and vermilion lacquered wood, reachable only across the exaggerated arc of a bridge that spanned the narrow but quite deep moat which completely surrounded the building. It had been constructed on a piece of land originally quite near the sea but during the time of the idai na nami this great storm’s wave was said to have reached so high that it blotted out the sun who knows how long ago, the sea had broken through, sailing across the land with such titanic force that it literally gouged away the land, forming two channels which became the basis for the present moat. How Saitogushi had been spared fromthe devastation wreaked elsewhere by the idai na nami was still a matter of much conjecture within Sha’angh’sei. However, Onna, who owned Saitogushi, was often heard to say that it was because she and her women were favorites of the Kay-Iro De and had thus been spared. Many said that this must be so because, without fail, Saitogushi was closed one night a week so that its inhabitants could make the pilgrimage across the city into the heart of the kubaru old quarter to attend services at the temple named after Sha’angh’sei’s legendary protectress.
