Chapter Seven
And in the morning, Yaone went to her laboratory.
Her feet led her there. She walked along the corridor and her feet knew the way, they guided her, and the walls stood at either side like dark mist, but she found her way there. It was morning and she was in her laboratory. That was how things should be.
Her hands knew their task as well; this was how they moved, this was how they handled tubes of glass and fires and heat and tiny portions of drugs. She could have watched her gloved fingers all day long. A dry smell of wormwood hung in the air, cleaner than the incense or perfumes which scented other parts of the fortress.
Yaone could not shake off the feeling that this was a last moment of peace before the storm. It couldn't last, and yet it was so utterly precious; here, now, to be doing something which she did well, which she understood, where she was of value. Something that was so much part of her life that she couldn't imagine herself without it.
Surely I am dreaming again. But this time, at least, I am happy.
"Excuse me." The voice came from by the door; a familiar voice, though not a close one. Yaone turned her head to see Howan-hakase standing there. The woman was hesitating in the doorway, feet still the other side of the threshold.
"Can I help you?" Yaone asked politely.
How smoothly things run in dreams, through you and past you; people arrive, they say their piece, they are gone when you look again.
"May I come in?"
Yaone smiled in a moment's fellow-feeling; of course one skilled worker would respect another's stillroom. "Please do." She set down the flask which she was holding.
Howan-hakase closed the door behind her. Her hair swung around her head in a short fan of curls. "I haven't seen you smile like that for a while."
Yaone blinked. "In that case, it was kind of you to visit and give me cause for it."
Howan-hakase gestured sharply with one hand. "We haven't got time for this. Look, whatever he wants you to do -- don't do it."
"He?"
"You know who. Him. I know he's playing games with you."
"And if he is?" Yaone asked carefully.
"Then you can't win. The best thing you can do is not to play in the first place."
"Why are you saying this to me?"
Howan-hakase glared at her through thick-lensed spectacles. "Because I don't want him to win another of his games. Is that motivation enough?"
How lazy, how sweet, how gentle the flow of conversation. "And what if I don't have an option, Howan-hakase?"
The scientist snorted. "Don't give me that. If you didn't have a choice, he wouldn't be playing. That's how he works."
Yaone tilted her head, folded her hands together. The smells of willow bark and sandalwood hung in the air from when she had been compounding them earlier. "What game did he try to play with you, Howan-hakase?"
"Bah." The other woman hesitated for a moment, as though torn between walking out at the question, or answering it. After a moment, she said, "He -- offers things. Things that people dream about. People that people dream about."
"And you said no."
"Of course I said no. No person is worth selling yourself over."
"Is that how you see it?" Yaone asked, the dream making her curiosity a slow unfolding growth rather than bridling it as she would have done before.
"Of course. I thought you at least would understand that. Knowledge is the only thing worth the getting." She folded her arms righteously.
"And yet . . ." And yet, Yaone thought, and yet, and yet. Here you are at the heart of youkai power, trying to revive Gyumaoh, Howan-hakase. What happens if you succeed? How much guilt will you carry for it, or was it all worth it for the sake of the knowledge gained?
"And yet he looks at me. Like that. As if he owns me. So. I have no obligation towards you, Yaone-san, but I felt that a word of warning might be appropriate." Howan-hakase nodded, a quick jerk of her head, and turned to open the door.
"Howan-hakase . . ." Yaone said slowly.
"Yes?" The scientist paused.
"Is the knowledge worth anything to you? Anything at all?"
Howan-hakase hesitated. "Yes," she said finally. "Anything at all." Something fluttered behind her eyes, an emotion like a wounded bird, dancing for the snake and caught and lost.
The words came out like barbs, tearing at Yaone's own heart as she spoke. Because, for no other reason, she came here to try to save me . . . "And do you think that he doesn't know that about you?"
Howan-hakase slammed the door behind her.
---
And in the afternoon, Yaone attended court.
Kougaiji-sama was not attending. Dokugakuji was with Kougaiji-sama. She knew these things, but she was not sure how she knew them. It was part of the dream that she should be aware of these things. Perhaps she had seen something earlier that had made her aware, or perhaps Dokugakuji had said something to her and now she had forgotten it.
She was moving in and out of time and reality like a fish slipping between the meshes of a net, like a shadow of a branch shaken by the wind, like a hawk falling from the sky in a single screaming stoop. It didn't matter. She was walking on a path that would take her where she wanted.
Gyokumen sat in splendour and held court, and Yaone stood in the shadows to watch her. This time she could appreciate the woman's beauty as if it were something in a foreign language, a poisoned fruit which would be sweet in the mouth but bitter in the stomach. Perhaps Gyokumen would always be sitting there, even a hundred years later, even after her death; her ghost would walk here among the dreams, trailing long silk robes, smiling with those cherry lips, long nails flashing in the dying light, long fingers reaching out to take and hold and toy with.
Zakuro's voice came from the shadows near her. "I didn't think you'd dare to show your face in public."
Yaone kept her eyes on Gyokumen. As long as she didn't meet the other youkai's gaze, she was safe from those powers of his, and this place was too public for him to try anything gaudier, such as a knife between the ribs, or a wire around the throat, or any other game that would spill blood before Gyokumen's throne. "Why so, Zakuro-san?" She gave him the honorific, though she doubted that he deserved it. His manner was that of a jumped-up peasant.
"I'm going to kill you. You are aware of that, I hope?" Such malice in his voice. He could barely control himself enough to keep that cadenced tone, that balanced flow of words.
"Mm -- I regret that I was forced to the point of having to cause you so much annoyance, Zakuro-san. It would have been preferable if we had not had to cross each other's paths." It would have been yet more preferable if I could have killed you. You are a poisonous insect and a danger to my Prince.
"You're only talking like that because it was your friend who was in my world. Not you. If you'd been there, if you'd been in my power -- then I don't think you'd be so calm, Yaone-san. Not so calm at all."
"Perhaps not," she agreed.
The light shone around Gyokumen, queen in a world of madness.
This was a nightmare, then.
He sniggered. "I just thought you might want to know what I was going to do to you. Something to bear in mind at night."
They were two voices, together in a bright-jewelled court full of whispers and candleflames. Night would be falling outside soon. People would be dreaming. But she was already dreaming, walking through the corridors of dream, where one thing came after another and all that there was to do was to accept it and go on.
"I am aware that you may try to kill me, Zakuro-san." Words came to her, spoke through her, were gone. "I am sure that you will make it unpleasant. I will do my best to resist. But you are not going to do it here, so shall we take the threat as given and let it be?"
You shouldn't speak to him like that, something at the back of her mind whispered. You're giving him the bitterest medicine that anyone could; you're ignoring him, you're pushing him aside, you're making him irrelevant. He'll hate that. You should be more careful, Yaone. You should be careful . . .
"Ah. You think you can sound brave." He sniggered again. "I know better than that."
"I'm sorry, Zakuro-san." The dream swept her on, a leaf in the river. "I have more important things to worry about at the moment." And he can hate me if he wants, she answered herself, calm and placid. It's quite true. He isn't important at the moment.
"Bitch. Bitch."
"Yes, Zakuro-san."
Only Kougaiji-sama is important.
"I want you to know that I'll get close to you. You won't know when. You won't know how. But I will look in your eyes and you will be in my world."
His words were pieces of crystal that fell to the ground and shattered with agreeable tones, a thousand miles away from her, a thousand hours away from her.
"You're going to die slowly, and the face you will see doing it to you -- doing everything to you -- will be your, your precious Prince." He spat the words at her, choking on his own bile.
It wasn't real. It was the nightmare.
"I want you to know that."
He was a petty creature, taunting and threatening, and perhaps he had real power, perhaps he could do what he said he could do, but for a single instant she turned to look towards him.
Zakuro clearly hadn't expected her to look at him, clearly hadn't though she'd take the risk. She saw him -- so young, so arrogant, so desperate -- and then looked away from him before he could focus his concentration and meet her eyes.
"Zakuro-san," Yaone said, the words coming to her again with the same ease as her earlier conversation, with the same weight of truth. "Get out of here. You gave us a warning, and now I return it to you. This is not a safe place. This is not a sane place. You could make your way better elsewhere. There are kinder patrons and there are lords and ladies who will return loyalty for loyalty, care for care, protection for service, honour for honour. Get out while you can."
There was silence from where he had been standing.
"Please go," she said.
He laughed again. Perhaps it was his habitual answer. "You've had your warning, Yaone-san. Your pitiful begging isn't going to change my mind now."
"A pity," she said, but she knew that the words were for herself. He wasn't listening.
Gyokumen rose and declared that the court was at an end.
---
And in the evening, Yaone sought out Nii Jieni.
The silence of the castle was a thick robe of silk folded around her. She wore it like armour as she walked through the corridors, her hair bound back for battle, her hands gloved and her eyes wide open and full of shadows.
He came upon her unexpectedly, as she turned a corner and saw herself reflected in a long mirror that hung at the end of the corridor, and him beside her. He was taller than her, a threatening ghost in the darkened reflection, overshadowing her.
"Yaone-kun," Nii Jieni said, and smiled. "Were you looking for me."
"It is time," Yaone answered. Piece after piece of the mosaic fell into place around her, settling down towards a centre of stillness. "You said that I would know when."
"I did, didn't I?" His fingers brushed her chin as he looked into her eyes. "Hm. Dear me, Yaone, if I weren't a medical man I would say that you were drugged. Does it feel good, mm? To have everything taken away from you like that?"
"It is the dreams," she answered. "It is all the same now for me." There was a time when she wouldn't have spoken so freely to him, but she had chosen to leave that behind, hadn't she? It was part of the price.
"Is it? Good, good." He wasn't carrying his bunny doll this time, she noticed. "Well, I'm very sorry, Yaone, but I'm going to have to take that away from you as well. From one extreme to the other -- interesting, isn't it? Follow me."
The mirror waited for them at the end of the corridor.
"Do you see the mirror?" Nii asked her.
"I do," she answered, looking at her reflection. Such huge drugged eyes, such a pale face. Are you still there, Yaone? Just a little longer.
"The mirror's a gateway. Mm? Do you believe it's a gateway, Yaone?"
His face so close to hers in the mirror. Thus far I have trusted. Thus far I have chosen to give my faith. "To where I need to go?"
"Yes. Yes, you put it nicely."
Whatever he wants you to do, don't do it, Howan-hakase had said.
"You need to go through the mirror now, Yaone. Take off your glove."
Her reflection hesitated, then began to work the long sleeve of silk down her arm and over her hand. Silence still lay around them like the light from a candle. She rolled up the silk and tucked it away in a pouch at her belt.
"Mm. Good girl. Now reach out your hand and go through the mirror."
Light for a moment in her mind, in her heart, and a sudden illumination that was unshaped and unformed, and gone again before she could catch it. All dreams, all delusion, and we find our satori as part of it, through lying with each other, through the falling of a leaf, through the practice of our craft, through a moment's song, through a moment's pity, and if the dreams are my key to Kougaiji-sama's imprisonment, then that is no less than any imprisonment, than my own imprisonment. That easy. That hard.
The glass rippled like water as Yaone's hand touched it, drew away from her hand, and she plunged into the mirror as though it was a curtain of dark water, through to the other side.
---
And in the morning, Yaone went to her laboratory.
Her feet led her there. She walked along the corridor and her feet knew the way, they guided her, and the walls stood at either side like dark mist, but she found her way there. It was morning and she was in her laboratory. That was how things should be.
Her hands knew their task as well; this was how they moved, this was how they handled tubes of glass and fires and heat and tiny portions of drugs. She could have watched her gloved fingers all day long. A dry smell of wormwood hung in the air, cleaner than the incense or perfumes which scented other parts of the fortress.
Yaone could not shake off the feeling that this was a last moment of peace before the storm. It couldn't last, and yet it was so utterly precious; here, now, to be doing something which she did well, which she understood, where she was of value. Something that was so much part of her life that she couldn't imagine herself without it.
Surely I am dreaming again. But this time, at least, I am happy.
"Excuse me." The voice came from by the door; a familiar voice, though not a close one. Yaone turned her head to see Howan-hakase standing there. The woman was hesitating in the doorway, feet still the other side of the threshold.
"Can I help you?" Yaone asked politely.
How smoothly things run in dreams, through you and past you; people arrive, they say their piece, they are gone when you look again.
"May I come in?"
Yaone smiled in a moment's fellow-feeling; of course one skilled worker would respect another's stillroom. "Please do." She set down the flask which she was holding.
Howan-hakase closed the door behind her. Her hair swung around her head in a short fan of curls. "I haven't seen you smile like that for a while."
Yaone blinked. "In that case, it was kind of you to visit and give me cause for it."
Howan-hakase gestured sharply with one hand. "We haven't got time for this. Look, whatever he wants you to do -- don't do it."
"He?"
"You know who. Him. I know he's playing games with you."
"And if he is?" Yaone asked carefully.
"Then you can't win. The best thing you can do is not to play in the first place."
"Why are you saying this to me?"
Howan-hakase glared at her through thick-lensed spectacles. "Because I don't want him to win another of his games. Is that motivation enough?"
How lazy, how sweet, how gentle the flow of conversation. "And what if I don't have an option, Howan-hakase?"
The scientist snorted. "Don't give me that. If you didn't have a choice, he wouldn't be playing. That's how he works."
Yaone tilted her head, folded her hands together. The smells of willow bark and sandalwood hung in the air from when she had been compounding them earlier. "What game did he try to play with you, Howan-hakase?"
"Bah." The other woman hesitated for a moment, as though torn between walking out at the question, or answering it. After a moment, she said, "He -- offers things. Things that people dream about. People that people dream about."
"And you said no."
"Of course I said no. No person is worth selling yourself over."
"Is that how you see it?" Yaone asked, the dream making her curiosity a slow unfolding growth rather than bridling it as she would have done before.
"Of course. I thought you at least would understand that. Knowledge is the only thing worth the getting." She folded her arms righteously.
"And yet . . ." And yet, Yaone thought, and yet, and yet. Here you are at the heart of youkai power, trying to revive Gyumaoh, Howan-hakase. What happens if you succeed? How much guilt will you carry for it, or was it all worth it for the sake of the knowledge gained?
"And yet he looks at me. Like that. As if he owns me. So. I have no obligation towards you, Yaone-san, but I felt that a word of warning might be appropriate." Howan-hakase nodded, a quick jerk of her head, and turned to open the door.
"Howan-hakase . . ." Yaone said slowly.
"Yes?" The scientist paused.
"Is the knowledge worth anything to you? Anything at all?"
Howan-hakase hesitated. "Yes," she said finally. "Anything at all." Something fluttered behind her eyes, an emotion like a wounded bird, dancing for the snake and caught and lost.
The words came out like barbs, tearing at Yaone's own heart as she spoke. Because, for no other reason, she came here to try to save me . . . "And do you think that he doesn't know that about you?"
Howan-hakase slammed the door behind her.
---
And in the afternoon, Yaone attended court.
Kougaiji-sama was not attending. Dokugakuji was with Kougaiji-sama. She knew these things, but she was not sure how she knew them. It was part of the dream that she should be aware of these things. Perhaps she had seen something earlier that had made her aware, or perhaps Dokugakuji had said something to her and now she had forgotten it.
She was moving in and out of time and reality like a fish slipping between the meshes of a net, like a shadow of a branch shaken by the wind, like a hawk falling from the sky in a single screaming stoop. It didn't matter. She was walking on a path that would take her where she wanted.
Gyokumen sat in splendour and held court, and Yaone stood in the shadows to watch her. This time she could appreciate the woman's beauty as if it were something in a foreign language, a poisoned fruit which would be sweet in the mouth but bitter in the stomach. Perhaps Gyokumen would always be sitting there, even a hundred years later, even after her death; her ghost would walk here among the dreams, trailing long silk robes, smiling with those cherry lips, long nails flashing in the dying light, long fingers reaching out to take and hold and toy with.
Zakuro's voice came from the shadows near her. "I didn't think you'd dare to show your face in public."
Yaone kept her eyes on Gyokumen. As long as she didn't meet the other youkai's gaze, she was safe from those powers of his, and this place was too public for him to try anything gaudier, such as a knife between the ribs, or a wire around the throat, or any other game that would spill blood before Gyokumen's throne. "Why so, Zakuro-san?" She gave him the honorific, though she doubted that he deserved it. His manner was that of a jumped-up peasant.
"I'm going to kill you. You are aware of that, I hope?" Such malice in his voice. He could barely control himself enough to keep that cadenced tone, that balanced flow of words.
"Mm -- I regret that I was forced to the point of having to cause you so much annoyance, Zakuro-san. It would have been preferable if we had not had to cross each other's paths." It would have been yet more preferable if I could have killed you. You are a poisonous insect and a danger to my Prince.
"You're only talking like that because it was your friend who was in my world. Not you. If you'd been there, if you'd been in my power -- then I don't think you'd be so calm, Yaone-san. Not so calm at all."
"Perhaps not," she agreed.
The light shone around Gyokumen, queen in a world of madness.
This was a nightmare, then.
He sniggered. "I just thought you might want to know what I was going to do to you. Something to bear in mind at night."
They were two voices, together in a bright-jewelled court full of whispers and candleflames. Night would be falling outside soon. People would be dreaming. But she was already dreaming, walking through the corridors of dream, where one thing came after another and all that there was to do was to accept it and go on.
"I am aware that you may try to kill me, Zakuro-san." Words came to her, spoke through her, were gone. "I am sure that you will make it unpleasant. I will do my best to resist. But you are not going to do it here, so shall we take the threat as given and let it be?"
You shouldn't speak to him like that, something at the back of her mind whispered. You're giving him the bitterest medicine that anyone could; you're ignoring him, you're pushing him aside, you're making him irrelevant. He'll hate that. You should be more careful, Yaone. You should be careful . . .
"Ah. You think you can sound brave." He sniggered again. "I know better than that."
"I'm sorry, Zakuro-san." The dream swept her on, a leaf in the river. "I have more important things to worry about at the moment." And he can hate me if he wants, she answered herself, calm and placid. It's quite true. He isn't important at the moment.
"Bitch. Bitch."
"Yes, Zakuro-san."
Only Kougaiji-sama is important.
"I want you to know that I'll get close to you. You won't know when. You won't know how. But I will look in your eyes and you will be in my world."
His words were pieces of crystal that fell to the ground and shattered with agreeable tones, a thousand miles away from her, a thousand hours away from her.
"You're going to die slowly, and the face you will see doing it to you -- doing everything to you -- will be your, your precious Prince." He spat the words at her, choking on his own bile.
It wasn't real. It was the nightmare.
"I want you to know that."
He was a petty creature, taunting and threatening, and perhaps he had real power, perhaps he could do what he said he could do, but for a single instant she turned to look towards him.
Zakuro clearly hadn't expected her to look at him, clearly hadn't though she'd take the risk. She saw him -- so young, so arrogant, so desperate -- and then looked away from him before he could focus his concentration and meet her eyes.
"Zakuro-san," Yaone said, the words coming to her again with the same ease as her earlier conversation, with the same weight of truth. "Get out of here. You gave us a warning, and now I return it to you. This is not a safe place. This is not a sane place. You could make your way better elsewhere. There are kinder patrons and there are lords and ladies who will return loyalty for loyalty, care for care, protection for service, honour for honour. Get out while you can."
There was silence from where he had been standing.
"Please go," she said.
He laughed again. Perhaps it was his habitual answer. "You've had your warning, Yaone-san. Your pitiful begging isn't going to change my mind now."
"A pity," she said, but she knew that the words were for herself. He wasn't listening.
Gyokumen rose and declared that the court was at an end.
---
And in the evening, Yaone sought out Nii Jieni.
The silence of the castle was a thick robe of silk folded around her. She wore it like armour as she walked through the corridors, her hair bound back for battle, her hands gloved and her eyes wide open and full of shadows.
He came upon her unexpectedly, as she turned a corner and saw herself reflected in a long mirror that hung at the end of the corridor, and him beside her. He was taller than her, a threatening ghost in the darkened reflection, overshadowing her.
"Yaone-kun," Nii Jieni said, and smiled. "Were you looking for me."
"It is time," Yaone answered. Piece after piece of the mosaic fell into place around her, settling down towards a centre of stillness. "You said that I would know when."
"I did, didn't I?" His fingers brushed her chin as he looked into her eyes. "Hm. Dear me, Yaone, if I weren't a medical man I would say that you were drugged. Does it feel good, mm? To have everything taken away from you like that?"
"It is the dreams," she answered. "It is all the same now for me." There was a time when she wouldn't have spoken so freely to him, but she had chosen to leave that behind, hadn't she? It was part of the price.
"Is it? Good, good." He wasn't carrying his bunny doll this time, she noticed. "Well, I'm very sorry, Yaone, but I'm going to have to take that away from you as well. From one extreme to the other -- interesting, isn't it? Follow me."
The mirror waited for them at the end of the corridor.
"Do you see the mirror?" Nii asked her.
"I do," she answered, looking at her reflection. Such huge drugged eyes, such a pale face. Are you still there, Yaone? Just a little longer.
"The mirror's a gateway. Mm? Do you believe it's a gateway, Yaone?"
His face so close to hers in the mirror. Thus far I have trusted. Thus far I have chosen to give my faith. "To where I need to go?"
"Yes. Yes, you put it nicely."
Whatever he wants you to do, don't do it, Howan-hakase had said.
"You need to go through the mirror now, Yaone. Take off your glove."
Her reflection hesitated, then began to work the long sleeve of silk down her arm and over her hand. Silence still lay around them like the light from a candle. She rolled up the silk and tucked it away in a pouch at her belt.
"Mm. Good girl. Now reach out your hand and go through the mirror."
Light for a moment in her mind, in her heart, and a sudden illumination that was unshaped and unformed, and gone again before she could catch it. All dreams, all delusion, and we find our satori as part of it, through lying with each other, through the falling of a leaf, through the practice of our craft, through a moment's song, through a moment's pity, and if the dreams are my key to Kougaiji-sama's imprisonment, then that is no less than any imprisonment, than my own imprisonment. That easy. That hard.
The glass rippled like water as Yaone's hand touched it, drew away from her hand, and she plunged into the mirror as though it was a curtain of dark water, through to the other side.
---
Fanfic Page