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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 [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]