Chameleon backed slowly into the small room. O’Hara walked to the smashed doorway and. looked in. It was a bedroom. The tatamis were laid out carefully in one end of the room, An obi lay at the head of the mats. There was a low table near the bed with a stick of incense smouldering in a holder. One overhead lantern shed an even but dim glow over the room. Chameleon slid back a panel in the wall and removed two samurai swords. The tattooed chameleons wrapped around his sides and across his back. Hardly an inch of skin had escaped the tattooist’s needle. He turned around to face O’Hara.
He was a bizarre sight, his tattooed body glistening in the yellow light from the lantern, the eye shadow, rouge and lipstick still concealing his true features. He knelt in the centre of the room and placed the swords on the floor, their hilts aimed toward O’Hara.
‘It is your choice,’ Chameleon said.
‘I did not come here to kill you,’ O’Hara said.
‘Good, then we are of the same mind. I don’t intend to let you,
‘You should not have killed Falmouth.’
‘I have killed many like him. They come for blood and I give them blood.’
‘And did you kill all of them the same way, by hiding behind the skirts of a woman and striking when their eyes were closed?’
The muscles in Chameleon’s jaw shimmered but he pressed his point. ‘You both came to kill me. He has failed. I am offering you a chance to avenge his death. Am Ito believe that a son of the sword is afraid to lift the sword?’
‘I prefer to follow the law.’
Chameleon stood as O’Hara spoke. He took one of the swords and pulled it from its wooden scabbard and took several deliberate steps toward O’Hara, stopping perhaps three feet in front of him. He placed the point of his blade on O’Hara’s throat and drew the sword slowly down to O’Hara’s waist. It snipped off the buttons of his shirt, and they clattered to the floor. Chameleon flicked the shirt open with the point of his blade. There was a hairline cut from O’Hara’s throat down to his navel.
‘Take up the samurai, Round-Eyes,’ Chameleon ordered. ‘No. I have taken a vow not to—’ defend yourself? This is an instrument of honour. To master it for play is an insult to my ancestors.’
‘If I lift the sword against you, I will dishonour it,’ O’Hara said. ‘You do not deserve honour. You kill from behind.’
‘You know the mark of okubyo, the coward? The cheek cut that brands those who are afraid to defend their own honour?’ He put the point of the samurai sword against O’Hara’s cheekbone. A pearl of blood appeared.
‘I think you are the coward,’ O’Hara said.
Rage boiled up into Chameleon’s face. He stared at O’Hara with the eyes of a reptile, beads of hate framed by his chalk-white painted face, scarlet-slashed lips and black-shadowed eyelids. He tightened his grip on the leather hilt of the sword. The sound of skin and leather feathered O’Hara’s ears.
Chameleon stepped back six inches. He raised the sword over his head and then to the side. He was in a classic striking pose. One swipe could easily lop O’Hara’s head off.
O’Hara’s jaw muscles twitched. To permit Chameleon to provoke him into betraying his own honour was unthinkable.
Chameleon leaned slightly on his right foot. His arms were raised straight out from his shoulder, the sword tilted straight up. He shifted his weight and struck.
The shining blade sighed through the air and O’Hara saw it coming in slow motion, a blur of death.
He felt it nick his Adam’s apple.
Chameleon’s recovery was perfect. In a single move he returned to the strike position, the Position of the Ox.
O’Hara could feel the warmth of his blood trickling down his neck.
Chameleon shifted his weight to the right again. His eyes lost their expression. They became fixed. O’Hara knew the next swing would behead him.
It was now a matter of defense. Honour demanded that he respond.
He stepped away from Chameleon’s sword and bowed.
He picked up the other sword. Chameleon returned to the standing position and lowered his blade.
O’Hara checked the weight of the sword, hefting it first in his right hand, then his left, weighing it by feel. It was heavier than he was accustomed to, but weighted toward the blade rather than the hilt, which was good. The hilt was scarred and old, but the cutting edge of the blade twinkled like a razor.
He knew the kendo teacher would probably favour the same death blows as the stick fighters. He would go for the chin-shoulder strike, or perhaps the hip cut.
Chameleon backed across the room and stood with his sword at his side. He began a very low chant, his eyes focused somewhere outside the room. Memories tumbled from his subconscious, bits and pieces to be flushed from his mind, purifying planes and reflexes; smoke and fire and stinking flesh and howling boluses coughing steel, and the raven-croaked gospel of death; angry-voiced silhouettes on paper screens and a woman’s soft arms along dark streets; black, steam-spitting Goliath, chaotic pilgrims, earthquake tremor and volcano’s roar, the agony-cry of iron against iron, wheel against rail, and a city, far enough behind, evaporating in boiling dust that rises to the brink of heaven.
Nightmares, congregated on the rim of his mind. Purged, they fled.
He was ready.
O’Hara fixed on the tinkle of the wind chimes, letting the sound cleanse his mind. He felt propelled out of his
