Samurai (15 page)

“In English!” Aldric protested. “What does all this mean?”

“Their fire would be more intense than any others’ in the world,” she answered. “These two Serpents cannot be allowed to unify. They are almost mythologically opposite in the enemy lore, their bloodlines are never to be crossed. Even Serpents would fear this alliance. You understand the idea of star-crossed lovers, don’t you?”

“I’m beginning to.”

“To imagine their offspring—”

“I’d rather not.”

Simon turned, hearing voices. They had moved into an alley off the street, but some people were now starting to notice the commotion the Samurai were causing.

“Dad…” warned Simon.

“Take him with us,” Taro was already saying to Akira. “He could be of value, you agree?”

Akira nodded.

“We don’t take Serpent prisoners,” Aldric said harshly. Simon looked at his father, surprised.

“We gave him our word,” Taro responded.

“What does that mean to him? He’d kill us as soon as look at us.”

Sachiko approached, seeing an argument about to develop. “We have to get out of here; we’re drawing attention.”

“I know his deathspell,” said Aldric, not breaking
eye contact with the Dragonman. “Won’t take but a moment.”

The Ice Serpent squirmed, but Taro moved Aldric back. “We can use him. If you will not keep your word, at least keep your head.”

Aldric glared at Taro, and Simon feared he’d fight for the right to destroy the Dragon—but he never had the chance. The Ice Serpent swung both of his tails around the necks of Aldric and Akira, hurtling them back with surprising strength. Taro was kicked backward, as the old Serpent scrambled over him, catching the Samurai by surprise.

No one could believe the elderly Dragon had it in him. It rushed toward Key, who was directly in its path, as Sachiko drew her sword. Simon lunged to protect the boy as well, but the Ice Serpent did not attack. It fled, veering off, down a street protected by the silvery flames left by the Japanese Dragon.

In the escape, the Ice Serpent gave himself no credit, thinking,
pathetic worm-relic, you couldn’t even choke up your own fire! Run, or you’ll die!
Ice filled his throat instead of flame. Running was his only option, and he had used every ounce of flight in him to chase a bullet train earlier in the night. Only fear gave him strength now.

Simon alone had a clear shot through the smoke, but he hesitated, still in shock, and the flames soon
blocked his view of the Dragon as well.

There was no going after him. But his words echoed in Simon’s head.

The Dragon was headed for India.

Mating season was about to begin.

“T
HIS IS THE REASON
we fail,” said Taro. “Everyone going off in their own direction! We never made mistakes like this before.”

“What could we have done?” asked Simon. “He caught us by surprise. No one knew his strength.”

“You,” Akira interrupted, “are the worst of them. You are a boy. You fight like a child. You are a danger to us all.”

Simon couldn’t help getting angry. “
You
don’t trust us; we don’t trust each other, and
that
is the danger to us all.”

“So much insolence,” Akira said, glaring at Simon.

“This is the reason,” Taro said again, tiredly. “We were caught by surprise because we were fighting amongst ourselves. Everything with the Knight is for
his own personal glory.”

“Not for the Samurai?” Aldric jabbed.

“No. The Samurai is given to personal sacrifice, not personal glory; not working for himself only, but for all. All of us.”

Aldric shook his head. “There’s your failing in a nutshell. You need to quit thinking like a pack!”

Some of the Samurai sighed, no one willing to continue the fight.

Aldric turned to Simon and spoke in a low voice, “Ignore them, Simon, you did your best. You have to fail sometimes, it’s how you learn.”

Hearing Alaythia’s words from Aldric’s mouth was strange; they didn’t fit him right.
Alaythia,
Simon thought.
How I could use you now.

Simon looked over at Key. But the boy didn’t seem to care about their argument; he was staring at something
behind
them.

Simon turned to see what it was.

The fire that the Tokyo Dragon had unleashed on the bullet train had not gone out with the spray of fire hoses. It did not behave like any fire the Dragonhunters had ever seen.

It went directly for human victims, stabbing at them, lifting them in the air on tentacles of flame. The flames moved down the street in a mass, like an octopus, but with dozens of arms, spreading, as if more of
these Creatures had grown inside the fire.

The firefighters could hear it taunting them inside their heads, over and over, the words hard to understand, but it seemed to tell them, in whispers,
See the rage I hold. Know this hatred. Know this death.

Simon and Key could see people in the distance falling, aflame, dying. Victims fell from the elevated train platform like kindling thrown onto a firepit.

“He withheld his true strength,” Sachiko observed quietly.

Simon was incredulous. “Withheld it?”

“If he had used all his capability, the result would be far worse.”

Simon and Key looked back at the fire in disbelief. This was the Japanese Serpent’s power now. What would it be like amplified ten times, and joined with the chaos of another Dragon?

All the Dragonhunters stood helplessly in the street and watched as the metallic flames, in a heap the size of a truck, sunk into the pavement and apparently began rolling underground through the sewer system.

The fire stabbed upward through a building and speared people in several apartments, torching them, as it burrowed through the city.

It was the mind of the phenomenon that was truly terrifying. The firefighters were the first to hear
the wailing of the angry blaze in their heads, but soon all of Tokyo could hear the unstoppable screaming of the fire, howling inside their brains, as if all the animals on earth were roaring at once.

“We caused this.” Simon grimaced. “We should’ve stopped that Thing when we could.”

“The fire won’t go out,” Sachiko said, visibly holding back emotion. “It must be one of the tricks he learned from the scroll. I’m afraid we haven’t even glimpsed his power.”

“How do we stop it?” Aldric asked Sachiko. “There must be some method.”

“Kill the Dragon, kill the fire,” she answered. “That is what the legends say.”

“He never meant to do this,” Taro conjectured. “If the Ice Serpent was right, the Japanese Creature didn’t target us. He wouldn’t want to spend his energy, not to burn his own city. It was just his anger that got the better of him.”

Toyo nodded. “He’ll still head for the Tiger Dragon. In India.”

“Then we’ll follow him,” said Aldric, startling Simon.

“Dad, what about Alaythia—”

“We can’t lose this Creature now,” snapped Aldric. “He’s got the power of a nuclear bomb in his belly. We’ve slipped off Alaythia’s trail, and there’s no sense
banging on about it. She can handle herself for a bit longer, Simon. You can see what’s out there. It’s going to keep killing.”

Simon said nothing. Aldric moved on, hungry for battle.

Najikko, the Japanese Dragon, had suffered a setback, to be sure, but he fully believed the Hunters could have no inkling whatsoever about where he was headed. Najikko had told no one; he intended to meet the Tiger Dragon alone. The plan was to pretend he was asking for a truce, a partnership. But once he had her in his sights, he would enslave her. He would destroy her lackeys, her odd collection of wild tigers, and her entire operation in one massive firestorm, thereby leaving a powerful message to any other Serpent who would dare challenge him.
I am the ruler of this new order. If you wish to survive, you will become a servant to me.

At the moment, he seemed a ruler of nothing but misery. He had managed not to use his true firespell—power spent is power lost—but he’d seriously failed to keep his temper in check and had lost equilibrium, and that caused him only more anger.

The power he now possessed seemed to be alive
even inside him.
His stomach and his heart pulsed with uncomfortable new sensations; his fire wanted out. It
wanted to soar and spin and burn. He could hear it growling in him, a kind of atom bomb with a brain of its own, which hungered for killing. It was only his supreme self-control that kept it contained, he reminded himself.
If I use this power, it will drain me. I may never have it again. Keep it in check.

He still had the appearance of Dr. Najikko, the respectable Japanese surgeon. But it was all generated by illusion, and now even this power was weak, his false leg ill-attached, hanging loosely from little silver wires, like a doll that had been yanked apart. He slumped on a lonely Tokyo bus, feeling drunk with exhaustion and confusion.

Already disgusted with the dirty environment in which he found himself, Dr. Najikko grew more ill at the sight of several beetles that were swarming around his feet and crawling up his legs, but he hadn’t the strength to burn them. He had never grown used to the insects, and they seemed to mock his power. He could never be rid of them. One of the beetles had somehow found its way
inside
his false leg, or else Najikko was imagining it; in any case, his irritation at the insect crawling about on his skin made him nearly crazy with anxiety. He shook his leg, trying to get the horrid beetle away from him, and looking all the stranger for it.

He repeated in his head an old Serpentine mantra
for relaxation, but it did him no good.

It made him ill to think that as soon as he was out of this germ pit, this cesspool, he’d be catching a bacteria-swathed airplane to a polluted, festering Bombay. He’d need a bit of time to heal, however, before he could take on the Tiger Dragon with all her trickery.

A single vagabond shared the bus with him, staring at the doctor in disgust and befuddlement. He seemed to wonder if the doctor was a figment of his intoxicated imagination.

Najikko snarled at the man. “What’s the matter with you? Never saw a man falling apart before?”

The bum continued to stare. “You need a plastic surgeon,” he replied.

The black-and-white Ice Dragon was in an entirely different state of mind. Running half the night, he got out of Tokyo as quickly as possible, and in the form of the old Swiss professor, took a flight to India. His strength was spent as well, but his spirit was overjoyed with the coming possibilities.

Sitting on the plane, surrounded by darkness, a single light above him striking his pretty pages, he filled his journal with observations about the Dragonhunters.
The collision of East and West is working just as one would expect; they are an angry, badly coordinated troop that
are more dangerous to themselves than to Dragonkind…The Dragonkillers took the bait, believing everything that I told them. They have just enough information to fill in the rest themselves, and will join the grand conflict at just the right time. What an ending I shall have.

He shivered, both from the chill on his skin and sheer excitement.

His performance had been masterful; the decoy papers he’d left on his ship were taken as authentic. He had had the genuine version of his precious
History of Serpentkind
sent to him from Zurich, and all sixteen volumes were now safely tucked into his suitcase.

He was thrilled, snorting a laugh as other sleepy travelers stirred, moaning their complaints. Everyone on the jet felt cold and sick, of course, in the presence of the icy lizard, and the meals had turned to worm-riddled mush, so there was nothing to eat even if someone had wanted it. A tide of mosquitoes agitated the sleepers, and turbulence rocked the airplane all night.

The Ice Serpent let the mosquitoes feed on his tongue. They burned into little wispy bits of nothingness.

The airline attendants watched from the end of the plane as the strange Swiss passenger chortled amid the humming insects. The creaking of his bones as he twisted and shifted in his seat made them shudder.
Everyone was wishing he’d try to sleep. But he was writing endlessly. He’d filled a whole journal and started another before they’d gotten even an hour into the flight to Bombay.

S
IMON SPENT THE PASSAGE
to Bombay learning from Key all about his newfound companions. Such a stupid, tragic thing that the St. Georges had been out there alone all this time, with only Alaythia to help guide them. Simon was especially thankful to the Samurai now, since they helped do the chores on the ship and kept Aldric busy talking weaponry. The Samurai had been intrigued by the arsenal aboard the Ship with No Name; the weapons cache had helped convince them to use the vessel for transport.

Most of the weapons were the work of Alaythia, which impressed Sachiko. In the Asian tradition, Magicians were not just trackers and forgers of armor and war-making tools, as it was with the St. George
order, but rather, frontline warriors as well. Sachiko also fashioned the Warriors’ devices, but her work did not stop there, and while it was true that during a hunt someone always had to stay behind to watch Key, it was not always Sachiko. Key said that her leaving him clashed with Japanese tradition, but his mother wouldn’t have it any other way.

Sachiko amazed Aldric and Simon by weaving her own spells into the Ship with No Name, causing it to move with great speed. The vessel was calm, unrattled, and there was nothing on the ocean to mark their progress, but the medieval-looking navigational gauges indicated the miles were dissolving away like time in a dream.

Naturally, Aldric didn’t like Sachiko messing around with his ship, but the ship did not seem to resist, and there was no denying her power. They’d be in Bombay by the next day, nearly as fast as a commercial jet.

But it was clear to Simon that Aldric was uncomfortable with so many people aboard, and by sheer numbers, the Japanese seemed to have made the place their own, chattering, bringing out smelly foods, rearranging things to have more room.

Simon avoided his complaints. Key kept him entertained, and his mind off his worries, by telling him bits and pieces about the Samurai’s past.

“They are linked to each other,” said Key, “according to their special skills. Kisho and Mamoru are the marksmen—the arrow is like a servant to them. Old Toyo has a way with the gun, though he hates it. He sings to it before a battle, low and calm; it’s almost scary if you hear it. He knows exactly when he has the split second to reload, and how to keep his shots clear of the others. Akira is best at hand-to-hand combat and good with the sword, too, but my father is the best. And you saw how my mother is, if anyone moves against me. They all work together like the fingers of a hand. At least…until you two came into it.”

Simon tried to smile.

“They hone all of the skills so anyone can pick up the slack,” Key went on.

“They don’t talk to me much; I don’t feel like I know them,” Simon said.

“You’re not supposed to. It’s a members-only club.”

Simon accepted this. “So Akira is the angry one, Kisho is the crazy one, Toyo is the old fart…”

“Simon.” Key cut him off. “I like you very much. But you have a way of talking that is not…polite.”

Simon felt instantly ashamed.

“Old Toyo is the eldest, yes, and he’s like a grandfather to me,” said Key. “And most of what I know of history I learned from him. He would like to give up
this work; he thinks it is not in him anymore. It would destroy the honor of so many who came before to surrender his mission. But I
did
hear him say it one time.”

Simon nodded, trying to think of what to say. He looked at Fenwick and Katana lying on the galley floor, licking at fallen gravy. “But it’s the big guy you’re closest to, huh?”

“Mamoru. His name is Mamoru.”

“I know. I’m sorry; the names are hard for me to get.”

Key looked annoyed. “Mamoru has a giant aquarium in his apartment, the place he kept with his late wife,” he said. “Almost the only thing there, except for a really big refrigerator. The refrigerator is this giant thing—as big as him. It’s filled with food, most especially frozen fast-food so he can have it anytime. It’s his big secret. He loves the fast-food, fried chicken. He used to give me the little toys from the kids’ meals as presents, and he still thinks I don’t know where he got them.”

“Mamoru’s a cheap guy?”

“He spends it all on the aquarium. He even keeps Samurai crab in there.”

“Samurai crab?”

“You never heard of them? You should see them sometime. They’re…A long time ago, there was this naval battle, and the soldiers were outnumbered so
they sacrificed themselves and leapt into the sea. Their spirits found refuge in the crabs, and they’re still there to this day, waiting forever to defend the island. If you look on the backs of these crabs, you still see the faces of the soldiers, or so they say.”

Over the journey, Key told more stories about the old ways of the Samurai. “If a warrior was condemned to die,” Key said, “the Samurai executioner would have to swing the blade down on his head so that it would not be completely cut off, just
almost
cut off, hanging by a strand of skin at the neck. Very hard to do.”

Simon traded him. “In Europe, they used to execute people on the rack. They’d stretch them out really bad, until they broke apart, or they’d be drawn and quartered, where they pull people’s arms and legs out and then slice the body into quarters so they die slowly.”

“Yes. I know of that,” Key replied.

“Also people would come out and have parties watching executions,” Simon offered.

“Yes. I know of that,” Key replied. “In parts of Asia, it’s said that soldiers would cut the eyes out of dead people and lay the eyeballs on their backs, to defile them, so they could not see in the afterlife.”

Simon racked his brain for a story as gross as this, but he didn’t know nearly as much history as Key did.

“In
seppuku,
” Key added, “the warrior commits
ritual suicide, by disemboweling himself. He uses the hara-kiri knife, and severs the skin right below the belly, and the insides just fall out.”

“That’s twisted.”

“It’s tradition. For Samurai, the stomach is the center of a person’s spirit, not the heart.”

“Anyone you know ever do that?” Simon was joking, but Key actually nodded.

“I didn’t know him,” Key replied. “But there was a soldier before I was born who did this. He had failed to protect Mamoru’s wife during a Serpent battle.”

Simon was shocked. “Who was it?”

“Akira’s cousin. No one asked it of him, but he knew the code. Akira took it very bad. In these times it’s very hard to follow the old ways.”

“I can sort of see that.”

“I have trouble thinking how it should go, everything has changed so much. In the days of old, there was no technology, except the gun, the cannon, the sword. It’s so much more now. It makes unity harder. We argue what to hold on to from the old ways. Keeping the group together is the most important thing. For the Warrior to even conceal his weapons, it’s improper, but we have to make adjustments for the real world. We don’t agree on it. Toyo thinks we’ve gone too far away from the old code.”

The oldest Samurai had just now climbed down
the ladder to enter the room, so Simon and Key quit talking, but when he was out of earshot, Key whispered, “He bends the code, though. His favorite thing is the comedy shows. Not exactly keeping his emotions flat, you know? I hear him laughing late at night in his room.”

Taro entered next, and told his son to get to his studies. “
He
can be very funny, too,” Key whispered. “But never for me.” Key took out a schoolbook and added respectfully, “When the others leave, my father is still in the training chamber for hours, never breaking his concentration.”

Simon looked at Taro, who stood across the room, still and watchful, his eyes clouded with worry over what lay ahead.

The Ship with No Name reached the city of Bombay, greeted by palm trees swaying in the hot winds, the hum of motors, the multicolored motion of crowds, the exhausted beauty of an ancient city. Simon followed Aldric and the others down into the stench of the streets, which were truly an assault on the senses. For safety, Aldric paid a group of men to watch the ship.

“Too much money,” mumbled Taro.

Aldric glared at him. “This ship was made by my late wife from the undying forests of the Norwegian Hidden Woods. I won’t have it torn apart by vandals.”

Taro nodded. “Some trees, I see,
are
sacred.”

“And I don’t need any help managing my money,” Aldric added. He was already in a foul mood from the cramped conditions on the journey.

“You gave them enough to buy their own ship.”

“I’m quite aware of that, thank you, I’m not an imbecile,” said Aldric, but he quietly slipped the rest of their bills to Simon. “You handle the money, Simon.”

Simon slipped the cash into his backpack. The pack was too heavy to make off with easily, but he still worried it might be an attractive target for thieves, and guarded it closely.

“Not good,” Akira was mumbling. “We should send the boys back. Someone should guard them at the ship. More safe for them, by far.” But no one was listening; Sachiko wanted to watch Key personally and she would not be left behind. There was no arguing with her.

The future is going to look a lot like Bombay,
Simon thought. Beggars called to him, and smog stirred around them like Dragonsmoke. The world was creaking under the weight of so many people, and it would have so many more people to endure in the years to come. If a place like Bombay could survive, the human race itself could survive.

But Bombay had more than just overpopulation to deal with. The Tiger Dragon was nestled here,
thriving on the pain and the sorrows of the city. The question, as always, was where? The city was overstuffed with sinister and fantastic architecture. Over here, a patch of European buildings were crammed in, as though squeezed together by a giant; over there, dome-capped traditional Indian structures were vying for dignity against apartments thrown up seemingly in a hurry, still wrapped in their scaffolding. Wide boulevards were gobbled by worried crowds, and narrow streets sagged with the sick and exhausted.

Simon watched the people carefully, their faces anxious, wrapped in their own concerns. Most of the passersby were in ordinary clothes—tan shirts, brown pants—brushing past others in brighter traditional robes—usually women.

Pungent spice smells floated by, the scent of summer warmth, of secrets, of things long lost.

Up ahead, Simon was surprised to see what looked like a modern shopping mall blazing with festive colors and lights. Not far away, merchants waited wearily in marketplace stalls that looked like the forts Simon made as a kid, built of posts hung with colored sheets. Wealth and poverty mingled easily here.

An occasional Rolls-Royce or Mercedes trumpeted in the nervous traffic of yellow-topped black taxis, and gold-painted mansions lorded over the slums. Everything about Bombay offered perfect refuge to a Serpent.

The St. Georges had lost the scent of the Japanese Dragon, but its target was the same as theirs. If they could locate the Tiger Serpent, everything might come together perfectly—if you could consider facing two Dragons at once a perfect situation.

It sounded like a joke to Simon. What’s worse than the two worst Dragons on earth? The two worst Dragons on earth
mating
.

The Ice Dragon was also out there somewhere. Simon and Key had been discussing how he played into these events, but neither could come up with an answer.

“Too many people,” observed Taro. “Do they never consider how crowded this makes things?”

“This from a guy who lives in Japan?” muttered Simon. Aldric hushed him with a look.

“There are better ways to use our resources,” Sachiko said to Taro. “I think we should split up and search for Dragonsigns.”

“If we split up,” said Taro, “we are less effective.”

“We can always call for help,” she answered.

Aldric looked at them. “Is this going to be another day-long debate session?”

Taro glared.

As the adults began to argue, Simon and Key stood together with their exotic pets in tow, looking at the crowd.

“A lot of sadness here,” said Key.

Simon nodded. “It’s going to be hard to see where it begins.”

“Tourists?” said a voice. A very old Indian man astride a bicycle cab was staring at them, grinning a toothless smile.

“I guess you could say that,” Simon answered.

“I take you anywhere,” said the pleasant old man in English, but his knobby knees did not look capable of pulling them very far.

Key stared back doubtfully, but Simon asked him, “Where is the saddest place in the city? The worst of the worst.”

The old man scowled at him, questioningly.

“We have our reasons,” said Simon. “It’s like a geography lesson. Are there any really rundown hospitals or orphanages we could take a look at?”

The old fellow regarded him. “You are not the average tourist.”

“We want to see the places no one goes to—the real India,” Simon explained. “We want to see the dark side of the city.”

“This is a city with many dark sides,” said the old Indian. “But I think I can find the darkest point. I can get you to the midnight place, if that’s what you wish for.”

“Yes,” said Key, seeing what Simon was up to.
“We want the midnight place.”

The old Indian nodded. He introduced himself as Rajiv, and Simon and Key climbed into the cart attached to his bike. Fenwick and Katana jumped in at their feet.

“We’re not going to be too heavy, are we?” asked Key.

“Not at all,” Rajiv said cheerfully, but Simon could see his skinny legs were straining hard, and the bicycle was going nowhere whatsoever. Simon actually breathed in, hoping to make himself somehow lighter. He worried his backpack alone could crush the wheels.

The bicycle remained firmly in place. The old driver was turning red from exertion. Auto rickshaws—motorcycles with canopies over them—zoomed past. Finally, Rajiv’s cycle
inched
forward, and thankfully started to roll slowly down the street.

Sachiko had been watching the boys, her arms crossed in displeasure, as Aldric and Taro finally noticed them.