Chapter Six
The palace was and was not the palace that Yaone knew. Armed youkai in uniforms that were hundreds of years out of date ran past her, shouting orders to each other in what sounded more like desperation and fear than any military fierceness. Everything was in motion; people running around her, jostling her as she gathered the folds of her sleeping robe against her body, children clutching at the skirts of her robe, the stormwinds which were shaking the castle pulling at her loose hair and blowing it around her in long violet furls.
"The toushin taishi!" someone shrieked again and again. "The toushin taishi, the toushin taishi!"
I'm dreaming again, she thought, and the concept consoled her. Dreams were preferable to insanity, however hopeless, however strange; one at least woke up from dreams eventually.
She pushed against the tide of struggling youkai, one hand raised to shield her face from the howling winds as she forced her way towards the doors of the main hall. From beyond, she could hear the sound of metal against metal, crashing lightning, howling fire.
Kougaiji-sama should be here, surely. Where is he? The castle is under attack, surely he would be here if the castle were under attack?
The last fleeing soldier passed her. The floor was cold under her bare feet as she set one hand on the great door handle. It trembled under her fingers, metal shaking from some concussion beyond.
"Are you sure you want to see?" Nii Jieni's voice came from behind her. It hardly made her jump or shudder, now. She was growing used to such things.
Am I even surprised that he can enter my dreams? Not really.
"I want to know what it is," she answered, not looking around.
"Your dreams? Mm. Very egotistical. I like it."
"I wouldn't have thought I'd dream based on what you wanted," Yaone snapped.
"Accurate estimation of self is a virtue -- the question is what you do with it. Do you still want to kill me, by the way?" His tone didn't change. The query was as perfectly neutral, as privately amused as the statement before it.
Yaone considered for a moment. "Yes. On general grounds."
"Such as?"
"You're dangerous."
"Oh come now, that's no proper argument. Your Hakkai-dono," he mimicked her inflection, her choice of words, "is dangerous. Isn't he? Don't you like that?"
Yaone drew herself up in rigid courtesy. "Whether I like it or not is not the question. I have no doubt that he is a capable and dangerous person."
"Aren't you going to turn around and look at me, mm?"
"This is my dream." The winds still pulled at her hair and robes. Another explosion made the door tremble under her hand again. She broke off, uncertain what she had been going to say. I do not want you in my dreams. If I turn around and look at you now, then you will always be in my dreams.
Nii Jieni laughed. "I said that this was a dream. I didn't say it was yours." His tone sharpened. "Wake up."
The floor was cold under Yaone's feet as she opened her eyes.
and again and again and again
She was in a part of the castle that she didn't recognise. It was clearly a bedroom corridor, one for courtiers or important guests. And . . . oh, this was beyond embarrassing, she was barefoot in her sleeping robe, the thin silk unbelted and loose, and her hair was unbound, just as she always wore it for sleep, and she was in a bedroom corridor, what would anyone think if she were found here? She had to get out of here, now.
"Sst." A door down the corridor behind her swung open with a quick creak. Yaone spun on the balls of her feet, trying to think of some way to hide herself, and was -- for what she vowed would be the first, last, and only time ever -- glad to see Nii Jieni poking his head around the door. "In here."
She hurried through the partly-open door, slipping under his raised arm. Her nose wrinkled at the unwashed smell of the room. Human flesh. So sweaty. His bedroom, clearly.
Nii Jieni shut the door behind her.
Wait . . .
---
The room was untidy even by Lirin's standards; a tangled nest of sheets and quilts covered the futon in the far corner, and the floor was a litter of scrolls, books, computer disks, and remnants of food or drink. A single desk lifted a computer out of the general chaos. The chair next to it was marked with countless tiny cigarette burns, and the bunny doll was propped casually in it. Yaone tried to find an empty place to stand that wasn't close to Nii Jieni or his bed.
"So good to see you." She didn't turn to look at him, but she could hear the leer in his voice. "I'd been hoping that you'd drop round, but -- mm, you've always been so shy. Is this a new stage in our relationship?"
Yaone bit the inside of her cheek until she could keep her face still, then folded her arms and finally turned round. He was leaning against the closed door casually, as though the position meant nothing at all. "It would appear that I am here to ask for your advice, Nii-hakase," she said politely.
Nii smiled. He was still in ordinary day wear, stained lab coat, crumpled shirt and tie, casually belted trousers, and toilet slippers. Toilet slippers. "You should come by more often, Yaone. What's disturbing you? Moral qualms?"
Yaone shook her head once, determined not to let him get onto the whole topic of oh so are you really sure you want to save your Kougaiji-sama and what would you give for it and any other little areas he wanted to prod her in. Her fingers closed around her forearms. "Not at all. I was dreaming. You were in the dream and told me to wake up. Then I was here -- outside your room, that is, outside in the corridor. If this is something more that you are doing to me . . ."
"I? Oh no no no. You're doing it to yourself. Coffee?"
"No. Thank you," she added automatically.
"Really? Are you sure you want to fall asleep again?"
Yaone could feel her fingernails denting her flesh. She thought about blood and violence and wiping that smile off his face. It helped stay her against the fear that made her flesh crawl, the twin images of the mind's insanity and the flesh's weakness. If he touches me I'll kill him. "Could you please explain what you mean when you say that I'm doing it to myself, Nii-hakase?"
He clapped his hands together. "Oh, very nice. Now why don't you get down on your knees and try that again?"
"I trust that you are joking." Courtesy was important. Courtesy stopped her doing something which she would regret later. Courtesy was trained so deeply into her that she was lost without it. Even the scream and the knife were polite, even they knew their duty.
"I thought you might want to remember what it felt like to crawl."
"Hardly."
"Oh, but you're not desperate enough. You're starting to think that you can handle this sensibly. You're such a sensible girl, Yaone." He stepped away from the door, took a pace towards her. Her stomach knotted. "But we're dealing with magic here, as well as science, mm? And what do you know about magic?"
"Only what one can read. I do not practice it myself, except for the tricks of calling my spear and working alchemy." She would call her spear if he took another step closer. She promised it to herself. The promise let her keep her voice level. "Kougaiji-sama works true magic."
"Bah. He's a scholar. He doesn't go to the blood and bone of it." Nii's eyes glittered. "That's where it starts, mm? A thousand deaths for a new life. Washed in blood to begin again. The insanity of a people for the rebirth of a king. Scholars practice magic and Immortals live forever, but the magic that will change things is rooted in need and desperation. You have to want it. Mm. How badly do you want your spell?"
A half-memory of an earlier conversation that she'd heard between Kougaji-sama and Dokugakuji flickered in the back of her mind for a moment. But if that's true, Dokugakuji had said, that means any child born like that is . . .
"You must get very tired of creating sterile things," she said flatly. "Is that why you're so interested in helping me?"
"Oh no. No." A breath, a blink; he'd moved faster than her eyes could follow, and she was taking a step backwards, stumbling over the debris that littered the floor, a polystyrene cup crunching under her foot; another step and her shoulders jarred against the wall. Nii leaned forward, into her personal space, and his right hand rested against her stomach. There was nothing sexual against it. She could feel the heat of his fingers and palm through her robe. "Not at all."
Yaone's body clenched back against the wall. She bared her teeth in a snarl. "Let go of me."
"I'm teaching you something. Don't you want to understand?"
She'd been through this before in her head, and shied aside from the image each time. What if he wants my body as part of his payment? What then? It would have been simple enough to say, no, I will die before I dishonour myself. It would have been just as easy to say yes, anything for Kougaiji-sama, my life, my body, everything. And when it came down to this, here in her sleeping robe against the wall of his chamber, all that was left was, not him. Not him. Not him.
So easy to say, this wasn't our bargain.
He was pushing her further each time.
"I want to understand," Yaone answered.
Something in his eyes shifted. "Why do you serve?"
"Because I swore my loyalty." The question made no sense.
"Why don't you evver wish to be anything more?"
It was impossible to be unaware of his physical presence. "Because -- because Kougaiji-sama is my lord, why should I want to challenge him?"
"You could challenge Doku, mm? Don't you ever get tired of being the second one? The one who your Kougaiji-sama will protect but leaves behind to look after his sister? Perhaps if you beat your senpai into the ground, he'd be a little more ... tolerant . . . about what you want from his prince?"
Yaone took a breath. "It's not like that."
Nii smiled. "Isn't it?" He leaned in closer, against her. The stubble on his cheek brushed her smoother skin.
She would not shut her eyes.
"I'll tell you a secret," he whispered in her ear. "Shall I?"
"Go on, Nii-hakase." Her voice had fallen to a murmur, like his own. This dreadful intimacy prohibited anything more.
"Sa Jien killed his own mother."
Her body trembled, and she knew that he felt it. She wanted to believe that it was a lie, but -- she wanted, she wanted to believe that it was a lie . . .
"There was something he wanted very badly indeed." Warm breath against her ear, her neck. "So he took his father's old sword and ran her through and she fell from the blade of the sword and hit the ground, like that. And the blood ran all over the floor. Isn't that a nice secret?"
Yaone tried to breathe.
"Don't you think that your Kougaiji-sama would like to know about that?"
"He knows," Yaone answered without thinking, and something of the binding cord of tension snapped.
"Mm? You think so?" But the command had drained from Nii's voice as well, and now there was only amusement there.
Yes. He knows. Because I know Dokugakuji and I know Kougaiji-sama and you may know them but you do not understand them. "He knows," she repeated. "And I know what I want."
"So you do." He drew back a little from her. "And you want to understand what's going on. Yes. Such a pity you're being left to stumble through it yourself, so hard for you, but then you are a servant, aren't you? Just as you said. You're waiting for someone to move you. So I drive you. Because you won't go otherwise."
"If that is what is required," Yaone said steadily, "then I will go."
"And don't you want anything else?" His face, his body, him next to her, holding her against the wall with nothing but his hand against her flesh.
Closeness is such a terrible thing. Was this what Gyokumen wanted from him? I will not scream. "Tell me what you did, Nii-hakase."
"I just -- unfixed you a little. With your consent, of course. You had to want it. Badly." He made something obscene of the words. "You're betwixt and between now. Walking on the edge between waking and dream. Haven't you noticed anything odd?"
"A little bit now and then," Yaone said, her lips numb.
"This whole tower is riddled with dreams. Mm? Yes. Yes, exactly." Nii nodded as though she had made an intelligent comment. "All tied together by what's below. Him. He's at the edge of all our nightmares. Nataku might have bound the body, but he couldn't bind everything."
"That -- that was Gyumaoh's dream which I was in?" The thought kindled an unholy mixture of terror and curiosity. If I had opened the doors, what would I have seen?
"Oh yes." Nii Jieni smiled again. "And none of us are free of it. Not even your Kougaiji-sama. The doors are opening, Yaone. The walls are coming down one by one. Soon you will be able to walk into your Kougaiji-sama's dreams, and . . ." He let the words tail away.
"And save him," she stated.
"And do whatever you want to do." He caught a length of her hair in his free hand. "And maybe you'll even wake up afterwards, mm?"
"And if I want it badly enough?" she asked, her tone as dry as his.
"Shh." His hand came up against her throat, fingers moving to press against her carotid arteries, what a stupid thing it is to think of anatomy at such a time, and she could feel the strands of her hair caught between his hand and her neck like threads of silk. "Go to sleep."
He was haloed in red.
"You're nearly there. Go back to your dreams."
There was blood. There was the pressure against her throat. There was his voice.
"You'll know when . . ."
There was darkness.
---
The morning light was a brilliant edge around the woven blind as Yaone opened her eyes, and her bedroom was bright enough for her to see her reflection in the mirror.
There is no dream, no reality, only where I am now and where I have to go.
A band of purple bruising threaded with tiny hair-fine scarlet cuts circled her neck.
Only where I am now and where I have to go.
---
The palace was and was not the palace that Yaone knew. Armed youkai in uniforms that were hundreds of years out of date ran past her, shouting orders to each other in what sounded more like desperation and fear than any military fierceness. Everything was in motion; people running around her, jostling her as she gathered the folds of her sleeping robe against her body, children clutching at the skirts of her robe, the stormwinds which were shaking the castle pulling at her loose hair and blowing it around her in long violet furls.
"The toushin taishi!" someone shrieked again and again. "The toushin taishi, the toushin taishi!"
I'm dreaming again, she thought, and the concept consoled her. Dreams were preferable to insanity, however hopeless, however strange; one at least woke up from dreams eventually.
She pushed against the tide of struggling youkai, one hand raised to shield her face from the howling winds as she forced her way towards the doors of the main hall. From beyond, she could hear the sound of metal against metal, crashing lightning, howling fire.
Kougaiji-sama should be here, surely. Where is he? The castle is under attack, surely he would be here if the castle were under attack?
The last fleeing soldier passed her. The floor was cold under her bare feet as she set one hand on the great door handle. It trembled under her fingers, metal shaking from some concussion beyond.
"Are you sure you want to see?" Nii Jieni's voice came from behind her. It hardly made her jump or shudder, now. She was growing used to such things.
Am I even surprised that he can enter my dreams? Not really.
"I want to know what it is," she answered, not looking around.
"Your dreams? Mm. Very egotistical. I like it."
"I wouldn't have thought I'd dream based on what you wanted," Yaone snapped.
"Accurate estimation of self is a virtue -- the question is what you do with it. Do you still want to kill me, by the way?" His tone didn't change. The query was as perfectly neutral, as privately amused as the statement before it.
Yaone considered for a moment. "Yes. On general grounds."
"Such as?"
"You're dangerous."
"Oh come now, that's no proper argument. Your Hakkai-dono," he mimicked her inflection, her choice of words, "is dangerous. Isn't he? Don't you like that?"
Yaone drew herself up in rigid courtesy. "Whether I like it or not is not the question. I have no doubt that he is a capable and dangerous person."
"Aren't you going to turn around and look at me, mm?"
"This is my dream." The winds still pulled at her hair and robes. Another explosion made the door tremble under her hand again. She broke off, uncertain what she had been going to say. I do not want you in my dreams. If I turn around and look at you now, then you will always be in my dreams.
Nii Jieni laughed. "I said that this was a dream. I didn't say it was yours." His tone sharpened. "Wake up."
The floor was cold under Yaone's feet as she opened her eyes.
and again and again and again
She was in a part of the castle that she didn't recognise. It was clearly a bedroom corridor, one for courtiers or important guests. And . . . oh, this was beyond embarrassing, she was barefoot in her sleeping robe, the thin silk unbelted and loose, and her hair was unbound, just as she always wore it for sleep, and she was in a bedroom corridor, what would anyone think if she were found here? She had to get out of here, now.
"Sst." A door down the corridor behind her swung open with a quick creak. Yaone spun on the balls of her feet, trying to think of some way to hide herself, and was -- for what she vowed would be the first, last, and only time ever -- glad to see Nii Jieni poking his head around the door. "In here."
She hurried through the partly-open door, slipping under his raised arm. Her nose wrinkled at the unwashed smell of the room. Human flesh. So sweaty. His bedroom, clearly.
Nii Jieni shut the door behind her.
Wait . . .
---
The room was untidy even by Lirin's standards; a tangled nest of sheets and quilts covered the futon in the far corner, and the floor was a litter of scrolls, books, computer disks, and remnants of food or drink. A single desk lifted a computer out of the general chaos. The chair next to it was marked with countless tiny cigarette burns, and the bunny doll was propped casually in it. Yaone tried to find an empty place to stand that wasn't close to Nii Jieni or his bed.
"So good to see you." She didn't turn to look at him, but she could hear the leer in his voice. "I'd been hoping that you'd drop round, but -- mm, you've always been so shy. Is this a new stage in our relationship?"
Yaone bit the inside of her cheek until she could keep her face still, then folded her arms and finally turned round. He was leaning against the closed door casually, as though the position meant nothing at all. "It would appear that I am here to ask for your advice, Nii-hakase," she said politely.
Nii smiled. He was still in ordinary day wear, stained lab coat, crumpled shirt and tie, casually belted trousers, and toilet slippers. Toilet slippers. "You should come by more often, Yaone. What's disturbing you? Moral qualms?"
Yaone shook her head once, determined not to let him get onto the whole topic of oh so are you really sure you want to save your Kougaiji-sama and what would you give for it and any other little areas he wanted to prod her in. Her fingers closed around her forearms. "Not at all. I was dreaming. You were in the dream and told me to wake up. Then I was here -- outside your room, that is, outside in the corridor. If this is something more that you are doing to me . . ."
"I? Oh no no no. You're doing it to yourself. Coffee?"
"No. Thank you," she added automatically.
"Really? Are you sure you want to fall asleep again?"
Yaone could feel her fingernails denting her flesh. She thought about blood and violence and wiping that smile off his face. It helped stay her against the fear that made her flesh crawl, the twin images of the mind's insanity and the flesh's weakness. If he touches me I'll kill him. "Could you please explain what you mean when you say that I'm doing it to myself, Nii-hakase?"
He clapped his hands together. "Oh, very nice. Now why don't you get down on your knees and try that again?"
"I trust that you are joking." Courtesy was important. Courtesy stopped her doing something which she would regret later. Courtesy was trained so deeply into her that she was lost without it. Even the scream and the knife were polite, even they knew their duty.
"I thought you might want to remember what it felt like to crawl."
"Hardly."
"Oh, but you're not desperate enough. You're starting to think that you can handle this sensibly. You're such a sensible girl, Yaone." He stepped away from the door, took a pace towards her. Her stomach knotted. "But we're dealing with magic here, as well as science, mm? And what do you know about magic?"
"Only what one can read. I do not practice it myself, except for the tricks of calling my spear and working alchemy." She would call her spear if he took another step closer. She promised it to herself. The promise let her keep her voice level. "Kougaiji-sama works true magic."
"Bah. He's a scholar. He doesn't go to the blood and bone of it." Nii's eyes glittered. "That's where it starts, mm? A thousand deaths for a new life. Washed in blood to begin again. The insanity of a people for the rebirth of a king. Scholars practice magic and Immortals live forever, but the magic that will change things is rooted in need and desperation. You have to want it. Mm. How badly do you want your spell?"
A half-memory of an earlier conversation that she'd heard between Kougaji-sama and Dokugakuji flickered in the back of her mind for a moment. But if that's true, Dokugakuji had said, that means any child born like that is . . .
"You must get very tired of creating sterile things," she said flatly. "Is that why you're so interested in helping me?"
"Oh no. No." A breath, a blink; he'd moved faster than her eyes could follow, and she was taking a step backwards, stumbling over the debris that littered the floor, a polystyrene cup crunching under her foot; another step and her shoulders jarred against the wall. Nii leaned forward, into her personal space, and his right hand rested against her stomach. There was nothing sexual against it. She could feel the heat of his fingers and palm through her robe. "Not at all."
Yaone's body clenched back against the wall. She bared her teeth in a snarl. "Let go of me."
"I'm teaching you something. Don't you want to understand?"
She'd been through this before in her head, and shied aside from the image each time. What if he wants my body as part of his payment? What then? It would have been simple enough to say, no, I will die before I dishonour myself. It would have been just as easy to say yes, anything for Kougaiji-sama, my life, my body, everything. And when it came down to this, here in her sleeping robe against the wall of his chamber, all that was left was, not him. Not him. Not him.
So easy to say, this wasn't our bargain.
He was pushing her further each time.
"I want to understand," Yaone answered.
Something in his eyes shifted. "Why do you serve?"
"Because I swore my loyalty." The question made no sense.
"Why don't you evver wish to be anything more?"
It was impossible to be unaware of his physical presence. "Because -- because Kougaiji-sama is my lord, why should I want to challenge him?"
"You could challenge Doku, mm? Don't you ever get tired of being the second one? The one who your Kougaiji-sama will protect but leaves behind to look after his sister? Perhaps if you beat your senpai into the ground, he'd be a little more ... tolerant . . . about what you want from his prince?"
Yaone took a breath. "It's not like that."
Nii smiled. "Isn't it?" He leaned in closer, against her. The stubble on his cheek brushed her smoother skin.
She would not shut her eyes.
"I'll tell you a secret," he whispered in her ear. "Shall I?"
"Go on, Nii-hakase." Her voice had fallen to a murmur, like his own. This dreadful intimacy prohibited anything more.
"Sa Jien killed his own mother."
Her body trembled, and she knew that he felt it. She wanted to believe that it was a lie, but -- she wanted, she wanted to believe that it was a lie . . .
"There was something he wanted very badly indeed." Warm breath against her ear, her neck. "So he took his father's old sword and ran her through and she fell from the blade of the sword and hit the ground, like that. And the blood ran all over the floor. Isn't that a nice secret?"
Yaone tried to breathe.
"Don't you think that your Kougaiji-sama would like to know about that?"
"He knows," Yaone answered without thinking, and something of the binding cord of tension snapped.
"Mm? You think so?" But the command had drained from Nii's voice as well, and now there was only amusement there.
Yes. He knows. Because I know Dokugakuji and I know Kougaiji-sama and you may know them but you do not understand them. "He knows," she repeated. "And I know what I want."
"So you do." He drew back a little from her. "And you want to understand what's going on. Yes. Such a pity you're being left to stumble through it yourself, so hard for you, but then you are a servant, aren't you? Just as you said. You're waiting for someone to move you. So I drive you. Because you won't go otherwise."
"If that is what is required," Yaone said steadily, "then I will go."
"And don't you want anything else?" His face, his body, him next to her, holding her against the wall with nothing but his hand against her flesh.
Closeness is such a terrible thing. Was this what Gyokumen wanted from him? I will not scream. "Tell me what you did, Nii-hakase."
"I just -- unfixed you a little. With your consent, of course. You had to want it. Badly." He made something obscene of the words. "You're betwixt and between now. Walking on the edge between waking and dream. Haven't you noticed anything odd?"
"A little bit now and then," Yaone said, her lips numb.
"This whole tower is riddled with dreams. Mm? Yes. Yes, exactly." Nii nodded as though she had made an intelligent comment. "All tied together by what's below. Him. He's at the edge of all our nightmares. Nataku might have bound the body, but he couldn't bind everything."
"That -- that was Gyumaoh's dream which I was in?" The thought kindled an unholy mixture of terror and curiosity. If I had opened the doors, what would I have seen?
"Oh yes." Nii Jieni smiled again. "And none of us are free of it. Not even your Kougaiji-sama. The doors are opening, Yaone. The walls are coming down one by one. Soon you will be able to walk into your Kougaiji-sama's dreams, and . . ." He let the words tail away.
"And save him," she stated.
"And do whatever you want to do." He caught a length of her hair in his free hand. "And maybe you'll even wake up afterwards, mm?"
"And if I want it badly enough?" she asked, her tone as dry as his.
"Shh." His hand came up against her throat, fingers moving to press against her carotid arteries, what a stupid thing it is to think of anatomy at such a time, and she could feel the strands of her hair caught between his hand and her neck like threads of silk. "Go to sleep."
He was haloed in red.
"You're nearly there. Go back to your dreams."
There was blood. There was the pressure against her throat. There was his voice.
"You'll know when . . ."
There was darkness.
---
The morning light was a brilliant edge around the woven blind as Yaone opened her eyes, and her bedroom was bright enough for her to see her reflection in the mirror.
There is no dream, no reality, only where I am now and where I have to go.
A band of purple bruising threaded with tiny hair-fine scarlet cuts circled her neck.
Only where I am now and where I have to go.
---
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