The Flood Dragon's Sacrifice Read online

  “No,” he heard Inari murmur beside him. “He’s summoned Flood.”

  Kai closed his eyes as his body was inundated with a rushing wave of sensations: he had experienced this every year at the Tide Festival but never quite so powerfully before. If it grew any more intense, he feared that his consciousness would be swept away and tossed into oblivion.

  Is this what it means to be Flood’s Sacrifice? Am I going to die?

  “I must stop him,” he heard Inari saying as if from very far away. “But will he listen? He’s never forgiven me…” Her voice died away.

  “Lady Inari – wait!” Kai opened his eyes to find that he was alone on the edge of the cliff. What had she meant? Again he had heard that note of longing and loss in her voice as she spoke of Prince Shiomitsu. But his question went unanswered as he saw the dark form snaking beneath the waters far out to sea, travelling straight toward the shore where Prince Hotaru still stood, holding the Flood Jewel that he had retrieved from the tide.

  Flood’s moving so fast. How can Lady Inari hope to stop him? He’s a force of nature. He’s unstoppable.

  The waters heaved and Flood suddenly broke the surface.

  ***

  Ayaka saw a great horned head rise out of the sea, its blue scales glistening with dazzling iridescence, as it fixed its piercing eyes on her. She stared back at the Tide Dragon, hypnotized by its sea-blue gaze. And at that moment, she felt another consciousness slip into hers…or did it re-awaken inside her? Memories that were not her own filled her mind and unfamiliar, powerful feelings possessed her. She found herself walking straight toward the Tide Dragon, not running away, as she had been a moment ago. She was aware that as the waves lapped about her ankles others were frantically calling out a name – but that name was no longer hers.

  Flood swam steadily on toward her, his sinuous body powering through the waves. “Empress Himiko,” he said in a dark voice dredged from the depths of the sea that sent tremors of bitter regret and longing through her whole body.

  “I gave up that title a long time ago,” she heard herself answering, “in penance for my sins.”

  “Why are you here now? Have you come to set me free?”

  “I’ve come to beg you to go back, Flood. Before it’s too late.”

  Flood lashed his powerful tail, sending up a fountain of spray and chill water. “You know that I’m bound by the curse of the Tide Jewels. It was you who bound me. If I’m summoned, I must obey.” There was no mistaking the raw anger underlying his words and Ayaka, possessed as she was, felt a sense of growing terror within her. “But I still love you, Himiko, though the gods know why, after all you did to me.”

  “I can’t ever be yours again, Flood.” It felt as if an old wound was reopening deep inside her.

  The tail lashed again, smacking hard against the waves. “Don’t call me by that name: Flood. Call me by my mortal name.”

  “I can’t,” she said, but the words came out on a sob. Tears ran down her cheeks and she had no idea why she was crying. “I just can’t.” Firm hands came to rest on her shoulders and a man’s voice breathed in her ear, “Ayaka, it’s not safe for you to stay here.” Ayaka turned her head, wondering who dared to hold her so close, and saw that it was Prince Hotaru.

  “Don’t touch her!” Flood reared up out of the incoming tide to tower threateningly over them both.

  Hotaru stood his ground, raising the translucent Flood Jewel. “Prince Shiomitsu, this is not the Empress Himiko.” Flood halted, three-clawed hands outspread as if to seize Ayaka and drag her beneath the sea. “By the power of the Tide Jewels, I command you to let her go.”

  As he challenged the dragon, Ayaka felt the alien will that had been controlling her suddenly withdraw. Had Hotaru not been supporting her, she would have collapsed onto the wet sand.

  “Himiko!” howled Flood in a voice that echoed around the bay like the roar of a cresting storm wave.

  “Himiko is gone. But I stand here, in her place.” Hotaru did not flinch, still brandishing the Flood Jewel, whose inner flame burned more fiercely, like a fiery pupil in a blue iris. “Obey me, Flood.”

  ***

  Who is she? Kai watched the young woman dressed as the First Empress as she confronted Flood. Flood’s tail smashed the water, sending a large wave rolling in toward the shore. What is she saying to him? And why is he so enraged?

  Emperor Suzaku still stood motionless, staring at his brother and the young woman at the water’s edge. The Imperial Guard had surrounded him, urging him with frantic gestures to move further up the beach. But he seemed not hear them, and as Flood lashed his great tail a second time, Kai saw another wall of water, greater than the first, come rolling in, gathering speed as it approached the shore.

  Why doesn’t Prince Hotaru call Ebb to pull back the tide? Flood is out of control; he’s like a wild beast.

  Flood’s crazed behavior was infecting his own mind too; every time the Tide Dragon struck the sea with his tail, Kai felt a violent shudder rack his own body. His brain began to seethe with chaotic feelings.

  I have to keep a hold on who I am, or I’ll lose my mind. He pressed his hands together, closing his eyes, repeating the first prayer-chant Abbot Genko had taught him when he entered the monastery at nine years old, letting the sound resonate throughout his whole body to disperse the influence of Flood’s madness. And slowly the repetition of the holy words calmed him until only the burning throb of the Sacrifice seal remained.

  The tide was still rising. He had never seen the bay so full of grey, churning water before – and still it kept coming in. Only a thin crescent of pale sand remained untouched and on it, trapped, stood Prince Hotaru and the young woman dressed as Empress Himiko.

  Does Flood really believe she is the First Empress? He cried out her name before he lost control. I’ve got to get him to listen to me before the tide rises any higher and carries her away, even if that’s what he wants. And I know only one way to make Flood listen.

  Kai pulled out the flute once more and raised it to his lips. Up on the windswept cliffs he was so far away that he feared the pure high notes would not carry to the maddened dragon below. But if the wind carried his music, maybe Flood would hear it and come to his senses.

  I want to save the monastery too – but if the only way to extinguish the flames is to drown all the worshippers, then it’s too high a price to pay.

  He turned his back on the conflagration and began to play. And as he played, he heard the words of the old clan song that he had learned as a child wreathing through his mind:

  Three cranes on the shore.

  The first flaps its wings – a wind starts to blow.

  The second flaps its wings – clouds gather overhead.

  The third flaps its wings – rain begins to fall;

  Now the rice will grow strong and tall.

  Three cranes on the shore…

  But Shiomitsu, caught up in his crazed frenzy, seemed not to hear a note.

  I’m not giving up, Flood. Kai’s left wrist burned excruciatingly with every note he played, yet he began to walk down the path, playing as went. I’ll make you listen.

  ***

  The sea came rushing into the cave, washing right up to where Masao and Yūgiri were shackled to the wall, eddying around their ankles, cold and beaded with foam. In its wake it left a strange brackish salty odor.

  “High tide already?” Masao looked around in the gloom for signs of tide marks on the walls of the cavern as a clue to the height it might reach.

  “Let’s hope it doesn’t come any higher,” Yūgiri said, with an uneasy laugh.

  Masao began to work at his shackles with redoubled effort. I’ve got to get us out of here. But no matter which way he tugged and twisted at the chains, his efforts produced no results except for a thin trickle of dust.

  “This is Flood’s doing,” Yūgiri said. “Flood has come.” Masao looked up at him and saw that his eyes had gone blank again; the presence of the Tide Dragon had sent him into a
trancelike state once more. “Flood is out of control…”

  “And yet what good would it do them to drown us both?” Masao let out a grunt of frustration. “Naoki needs me to be Ebb’s Sacrifice in his stead – and he needs you as his shaman healer…”

  A sudden roar cut across his words as another wash of water came flowing into the cave. Yūgiri gasped as the chill wave caught him. “This is no normal high tide.” The sea kept on coming in surges, rising from their ankles to their knees. Soon it would reach their waists. “And it’s freezing cold.”

  “I’m damned if I’m going to let you die down here.” Masao refused to allow himself to believe that their lives were going to end. “I’ll get us out somehow.”

  ***

  Naoki gripped the top of the wall, desperately scanning the shore for Prince Hotaru, and saw Flood in all his glittering fury, smacking his tail to send wave after wave toward the shore. Each frothing wave was higher and darker than the last, smashing with elemental violence against the cliffs below, until just a thin crescent of sandy beach was left – and still the dragon churned up the sea.

  Something’s not right. Flood’s gone mad. Why doesn’t the prince call for Ebb and stop this? He’s proved he has mastery of the Flood Jewel. There’ll be no point if he drowns before he can become emperor.

  Behind him, the roof of the temple tower came crashing down into the heart of the furnace that had been the Tide Dragons shrine. As the firefighters retreated, he turned to see a sudden cascade of fiery sparks fountaining upward.

  “Just…like fireflies…” he murmured aloud.

  And as if someone had doused him with a bucket of cold water, he awoke to the chilling realization that the fire started by Kurika in the temple bore certain resemblances to the fire that had taken his mother’s and brother’s lives at Castle Akatobi.

  No. It can’t be. It has to be a coincidence. Why would Kurika have attacked us? Yet the harrowing memories he had tried to repress came rushing back, stirred up by the heat of conflagration and the overpowering smoky reek of burning timbers. He had nearly died that day. I wouldn’t be alive now if Masao hadn’t rescued me…

  He had left Masao and Yūgiri securely chained in the sea cave below, but with the unnaturally high flood tide the cavern must be fast filling up with water. If I don’t get them out of there soon, they’ll drown.

  As he turned around, making for the secret entrance to the underground shrine, he remembered the look Masao had turned on him as the monks began to transfer the Ebb seal into his wrist, piercing his skin with their inky needles. If it had been one of hatred, or disgust, he could have accepted it more easily – but all he had seen in Masao’s dark eyes was uncomprehending betrayal. And that had hurt him more than he had wanted to admit to himself.

  He rounded the corner, only to see Captain Kakumyo striding toward him. Instinctively, his hand closed around the hilt of Masao’s katana.

  “Well, well, if it isn’t Lord Naoki.” The captain’s eyes narrowed.

  Naoki drew.

  “Put down your sword.”

  “I’m in a hurry,” Naoki flung back at him. “You’ll have to take it from me first.”

  Kakumyo’s mouth twisted into a grin. “That’ll be my pleasure,” he said, and lunged at Naoki with his naginata.

  Chapter 44

  Another wave surged in. Ayaka clutched Prince Hotaru to keep her balance. His arms encircled her, crushing her close against him so that she could feel the warmth of his body beneath the silk of his ceremonial robes. She’d dreamed of this happening so many times… but never in such terrifying circumstances. Soon the little patch of beach on which they had become marooned would be swallowed up by the raging tide.

  Are we going to drown together? Before I’ve even had my first kiss?

  Over the roar of the sea she could hear voices desperately calling their names. Reika and the prince’s retainers were trying to battle through the tide to reach them. But each time they came a little nearer, the next cresting wave knocked them off their feet, washing them back toward the shore.

  “Can’t you stop Flood?” she begged Hotaru as the chill water reached their ankles. “Call Ebb. You have the Tide Jewels. Please. Please try.”

  She felt Hotaru let out a sigh. Why is he delaying? Is he afraid that Ebb won’t respond to his request? Then he raised his left hand and she saw the milky gleam of the Ebb Jewel cupped in his fingers. “Prince Shiohiru,” he said in commanding tones, “I call on you to save us from the flood; come, Lord of Ebb.” He bent down and placed the jewel in the eddying, foaming water where it glimmered like a giant pearl.

  “Is Ebb coming?” She gazed out to sea, praying with all her heart for a sight of the white Ebb Dragon. Another wave smashed against them, almost knocking them over; she clutched Hotaru more tightly.

  “There!” He pointed far out to sea. She noticed as she looked up at him that the lenses of his glasses were misted with sea spray. In the far distance she thought she could vaguely make out Shiohiru’s head rising above the waves, pale as translucent white jade.

  Shiomitsu seemed to sense it too, for he twisted around in the water, and she heard his great voice ring out above the roar of the waves.

  “Stay back. You can’t have her, Ebb. She belongs to me.”

  She? Does he mean me? Or Empress Himiko? Ayaka knew then for sure that she was caught up in something that had never been recorded in the annals of Cipangu’s history. Did the Empress’s spirit and I somehow become one? Images flickered through her mind, vague and dreamlike fragments that were imbued with a deep and aching sorrow.

  Two men on the shore, a woman standing between them. One man, in scarlet-lacquered armor, reaches out and grasps her hand, roughly pulling her away. She gazes back over her shoulder at the other, tears streaming down her face…

  So when the faint strains of a distant melody began to penetrate her consciousness, she couldn’t be sure whether she was dreaming or still possessed by the spirit of the dead Empress, hearing an antique music from another era. The clear, pure notes of a flute drifted across the shore, carried on the gusting breeze, flowing out over the turbulent waves.

  Had Flood heard it too? For she saw his terrifying horned head swivel around to gaze back at her, beyond her, across the heaving waters.

  Who could be playing the flute at a time like this? But I know this melody. Ayaka recognized the tune as each phrase grew more distinct. It’s the clan song of the Black Cranes: ‘Three Cranes on the Shore…’

  ***

  Naoki blocked Kakumyo’s second brutal naginata thrust, falling back a pace. It wasn’t so easy wielding Masao’s sword, which Kinkiyo had forged to suit Masao’s broad-shouldered, muscular build. And each time the blades clashed, he felt the reverberations shoot up his arm to jar the arrow-wound in his shoulder.

  I’m out of practice. And he’s good.

  The choking smoke was making Naoki’s eyes smart and water. Kakumyo’s face, smeared with cinder smuts from the fire, blurred; he blinked furiously to clear his sight. Kakumyo was in under his guard in that second; Naoki only just managed to deflect the jabbing blade, retreating another couple of steps.

  He’s driving me back toward the fire.

  “Give up, Kite boy!” Kakumyo jeered, his voice hoarse from the smoke. “You’re no match for me.” The naginata blade whistled through the air, taking Naoki by surprise; he jumped out of the way just in time. Kakumyo was purposely directing his attacks to put the maximum strain on his injured shoulder.

  The water must still be rising in the sea cave. I can’t leave them to drown. If only I could call Kurika to help me…

  “Come on, attack me, Lord Naoki.” Kakumyo beckoned to him mockingly. “Is that all you’ve got? You disappoint me. You’re weak. You’re not a patch on your father.”

  Every breath that Naoki took in was tainted with searing smoke; his throat and lungs burned as he panted, trying to summon the strength to launch an attack on Kakumyo. Gripping the sword hilt with both hands,
he let out a roar of fury and ran forward.

  Kakumyo’s naginata sliced through the air, and then deftly slipped beneath his blade. Naoki felt a sickening wrench in both wrists and the sword went spinning out of his grip to land with a clang on the ground. Thrown off balance, Naoki teetered a moment, then fell backward, putting out his hand to break his fall. Kakumyo’s eyes burned with a fierce bloodlust as he thrust the blade toward him again, aiming at his throat.

  Naoki reacted instinctively, flinging up his right hand to protect himself.

  Flame Feathers. He felt the power rise deep within him, building as it surged down his arm and crackling to dazzling life in his palm. He hurled a fistful of fiery darts at Kakumyo.

  The warrior monk’s eyes opened wide in surprise as the forbidden fire jutsu caught him full in the chest. Black scorch marks stained his pure white robes. He towered over Naoki for a second; then the naginata suddenly fell from his hand and, with a grunt, he toppled to the ground like a felled tree.

  Naoki was shaking. His fingers still extended, fire still crackling in his veins, he staggered to his feet, and slowly backed away from Kakumyo. Is he just stunned? He kicked the naginata away, out of reach, and grabbed Masao’s sword, holding it defensively across his body with trembling hands. But Kakumyo lay where he had fallen, his eyes staring, sightless, at the smoke-swirled sky.

  I’ve killed him.

  There was no time to linger. Other warrior monks could appear at any time. Naoki turned and ran toward the hidden entrance to the sea cave where they had left Masao and Yūgiri.

  ***

  Three cranes on the shore…

  Kai kept playing, as he walked determinedly on toward the seething sea below. It was hard to keep his balance on the treacherous cliff path, with little stones sliding beneath his sandaled feet.

  He stopped. Far out in the bay he saw a sight he had never witnessed before: both Tide Dragons had surfaced and were staring at each other.

  Prince Hotaru must have summoned Ebb to try to turn back the tide. But Flood is so enraged that he’s fighting the spell that binds him to obey the wielder of the Tide Jewels. Is this what happened the first time? Did he lose control of his powers and flood the land? Is that why Inari tried to stop him?