something so overt. So cruel.
She eased away from the contact with the hound, blinking hard, licking at the blood drying on her upper lip. And tentatively, she projected herself through Red’s eyes, reaching out to touch the boy’s thoughts. The migraine grew awful; like a metal vise grinding the base of her skull. She had to fight to maintain her grip, to stay inside the noise and light of a human mind, so utterly different from the beasts she’d swam in for most of her life.
The boy dragged Red across the catchment room floor, through the double doors and up the spiral stairwell. Yukiko tried to speak into his head, to frame words Ilyitch might understand, but they slipped away from her, all a-tumble, white and empty noise, like hollow pipes falling upon a sodden floor.
The boy stopped, looked around him with a frown. Red whined, hackles rising. She could feel the dog’s trepidation, his instinctive sense that something was very wrong.
She tried again, to form a greeting and project it through the dog, but it collapsed like a castle of sand between her fingers; just a muddled jumble of consonants and vowels and hissing static. Ilyitch tilted his head to one side, eyes screwed shut, holding his nose and trying to pop his eardrums. Yukiko backed off, lingering on the edge of his warmth, and he grabbed Red’s collar again, hauled him up the stairs.
It was as if the constructs in the boy’s head were too different from her own: square pegs into round holes. Language was never an issue with animals, but perhaps that was because animals didn’t really speak? Perhaps the Kenning was never meant for this?
What could she do? How could she leap the barrier between them? She needed a way of communicating that they both understood …
She recalled Danyk looming over her, the katana blade slipping down over her tattoo. His eyes fixed upon the picture inked into her skin, the symbol he understood without her needing to speak a word.
… That was it.
The answer.
Yukiko formed an image and pushed it into Ilyitch’s mind; herself, sinking beneath the waves as he dove into the thrashing waters to save her. The boy reeled back against the railing, hand to his brow. She gave him another image; of her and Buruu flying through clear skies, her arms around his neck. She tried to inject emotional content into the picture, the simple warmth of friendship and trust.
Ilyitch steadied himself, blinking as if he’d been struck in the face. Sure enough, the boy loosed his grip on Red’s collar and looked to the stairwell above. He ascended at a scuffing, cautious pace, Red on his heels, heavy footfalls ringing on metal as he reached the landing and started down the corridor toward her room.
The sensation was disorientating, almost nauseating; watching the boy walking down the hallway, Red beside him, hearing their footfalls through Ilyitch’s ears, the same footsteps coming closer in her own. So she broke full contact and opened her eyes, wiped her nose as best she could on her shoulder and leaned back against the wall. As she did so, she pushed one last picture out to the gaijin boy; an image of herself, helpless, frightened and wretched. Bound wrists and pleading eyes, desperate and alone, looking to him, her only hope.
When Ilyitch opened the door a few moments later, that was exactly what he saw.
26
FOOTPRINTS IN THE SNOW
The Gentleman knelt on a satin cushion at the head of a long oaken table. The reflections of the overheads on its surface were tiny stars on lacquered midnight, twinkling with more vibrancy than the real stars overhead could ever dream. A pretty duet of koto and shamisen music drifted through the drinking house walls, competing with the growl of the generator downstairs.
The table was dressed for eight, each place set with fine porcelain, a sake cup, a thousand-thread linen napkin; all as white as Iishi snow. Jimen the accountant sat at the Gentleman’s right hand. Each other cushion was occupied by a yakuza lieutenant; a collection of muscle and scars, narrowed eyes and gleaming, tattooed flesh. Five men and one woman, each stripped to the waist, every inch of flesh below their necks and above their wrists sporting beautiful, intricate ink work. Canvases of flesh, painted by the greatest artisans in Kigen.
Seimi knelt with fists upon knees, Hida beside him, pawing at one cauliflower ear. The room was cool as autumn’s kiss, the heady scent of liquor veiling the stink of sweat and exhaust from nearby sky-docks. Seimi could see the horizon through the bay windows, the shades of night studded with the silhouettes of docked sky-ships, forlorn as abandoned lovers.
And not a breath of wind.
“Brothers.” Jimen looked around the room. “The Gentleman thanks you all for coming.”
As one, the lieutenants covered their fists and bowed. The Gentleman nodded in return, saying nothing.
“Why are you here?” Jimen asked.
Uncertain glances flickering amongst the yakuza. No one made a sound.
The Gentleman waited a long, silent moment, breathing slow, the mournful notes of the duet drifting in the air like the scent of old chi.
He clapped his hands.
Half a dozen serving girls slipped into the room, charcoal eyes downcast, painted faces pale as the hungry dead. Pink kimonos, drum bows the color of rain clouds at their waists, tiny steps as quiet as smoke. Delicate hands laid two rice-paper bundles before each lieutenant. The packages were long and cylindrical, arranged on the place settings with all the precision of a tea ceremony. When they were done, the girls bowed as one to the Gentleman, then scuttled from the room with eyes still on the floor.
“Open them,” Jimen said.
The room was filled with the whisper of tearing paper, translucent strips fluttering to the ground. When he was done, Seimi stared down at the gifts before him. The thicker package contained a tanto in a short, lacquered sheath, mother-of-pearl inlays gleaming on the hilt. The second gift was a six-inch iron file: sawtoothed and thoroughly ordinary.
“Each of you has failed our oyabun.” Jimen stared around the room, not a hint of anger in his voice. “Each of you has been robbed by these gutter-thieves who plague us. Each of you will now be given the opportunity to atone.”
The Gentleman said nothing. Simply folded his arms and waited, patient as a glacier.
Seimi and Hida glanced at each other, then picked up their napkins. The other lieutenants followed suit, using the snow-white cloth to tie a tight knot around the top knuckle of their left-most fingers. Several were already missing the tips of their smallest digits and were forced to tie the knot at the second knuckle. Seimi unsheathed the tanto, watched his fingernail turning purple. The lieutenants filled the room with the ring of drawn blades.
All save one.
“Nakai-san.” Jimen aimed a cold stare in one man’s direction. “You falter?”
The other yakuza looked at Nakai. He was a few years older than the rest, graying hair swept into a thin topknot. His ink was faded with the slow press of time, blacks running to blue. A knot of lean muscle, bloodshot eyes and a slightly gray hue to his skin telling his fellows that he’d been hitting the smoke a little too hard recently. He stared at his left hand, at the empty knuckle where his little finger should have been, the ring finger already missing its first joint. He held it up to the Gentleman, blinking over severed digits.
“Oyabun,” he said. “My sword grip will be ruined.”
“Why do you need a sword?” Jimen raised an eyebrow. “In a room full of your kin?”
“Not here.” He nodded toward the window. “Out there.”
“On the street?”
“Hai.”
