Страница 68 из 70
Epilogue
Katana’s Journal
15 January 3136
Andre said take a vacation. Right. I’ve been so busy pla
Andre suggested this out-of-the-way place. Five-Waters, because of the rivers that converge there to form the great Okuninoshi: twice as wide and three times as long as the Amazon on Terra. That’s a lot of river. The path we took—Andre and I in the lead, the Old Master trailing a meter behind—meandered along the shore through fragrant river grasses. Clouds of iridescent blue butterflies danced over fields of tiny white blossoms. Giant Mizunami cypress with beards of gray-green moss hugged the riverbank, and the water was so clear and clean I could see a mosaic of multicolored pebbles, and silver fish undulating between roots as thick as my leg.
Okay. It was pretty. But why would the coordinator…? Then it hit me. I turned to Andre. “You set this up.”
“My lips are sealed.” And then Andre gri
I was ready to rip out his tonsils but settled for grumbling and nasty looks. But it wasn’t until we mounted that rise and I saw the house that I started to get an inkling that something was really up. Wasn’t the house so much; nothing more than a few airy rooms with a covered porch wider than an engawa and shojis open to the breeze. A white gravel path led to three wooden steps in front of the house; at the back, I saw another curl of gravel, this one winding to a garden of Japanese cedar, Keyaki and ground cypress. We took that meandering path through willowy green bamboo—and then I saw it: a cone of light. An old man sitting on a crag of black stone; back turned, a long shock of snow-white hair. Su
Even now, though it is very late and the flame from my candle threatens to drown in hot wax, I remember that moment, that eerie frisson of something very close to fear. Tripping over a secret hope? A desire? I don’t know. That old man’s face was pruned by wrinkles, and age had bent his back so that he seemed to fold in two, but I knew… and somehow, finally, I managed a single word: “Father?”
He tottered to his feet. He was very thin, his limbs no thicker than twigs, and his fingers were gnarled by age and long use. Still, he was a warrior; you could tell from the way he held himself. “Gashi, Musume,” he said, in a voice still surprisingly rich.
I didn’t scream. I didn’t faint. I didn’t melt into his arms, everything forgiven and forgotten. At first, I felt nothing but a curious, unpleasant numbness; then heat seeped through my veins but—how strange—my fingers and hands and lips were icy with shock. I just… stood there until Andre whispered in my ear. “Go to him, Katana.”
But instead I turned on Andre, and he read my face. “You can be angry at me if you wish, Katana. But whatever else your father did or was, he was an agent of the O5P and a noble, courageous man. I am O5P, and this much is certain: We do not forget our own—and we were always watching. Even in your darkest hour, we were always there.”
Always there… I didn’t understand that then. But I do now. The coordinator was always watching, always. I was never far from his reach as he worked through the Keeper and then through the Keeper’s agents, through Andre and countless others. Never far at all.
So I did what Andre said. I went to my father. I bowed with the reverence and respect the elderly deserve. And I said, “I’m not sorry for my beliefs, Father. At the time, I made my choices as you made yours. I don’t know how I’ll feel about my choices when I’m old. But I think that you were wrong.”
Not exactly a daughterly rapprochement. Maybe that was the only type of closeness I could allow. But my father didn’t bite. “Perhaps,” he said. “But who cares? My time is over. You are the future. So, come. Sit and tell me of your life.”
So I did. I talked about… well, everything. He listened. I don’t know when Andre left, but when we rose to have our first meal together in so many years, Andre was gone. But the Old Master remained, and he’s here now, standing outside my room, even though it’s late and the moon is high and crickets make their music. Somewhere the river slides by, a changeless ribbon of silver that is forever, like time and memory.
Tomorrow, or the next day, I’ll have to leave because a warlord’s work is never done and I have a campaign to plan. Out there, somewhere, are my enemies: men like Bhatia, who would see me fail and the Tormark name forever erased from history, and there’s probably another Sakamoto waiting his turn. But there are my people, the brothers and sisters of my Dragon’s Fury, and the wider family of the Combine I have yet to know. There are the spirits I will mourn: my mother, my fallen comrades, the i
Tomorrow, perhaps, I will seek out a Shinto priest and make an offering of thanks and gratitude to the kami. Yes, perhaps tomorrow.
But for now, I am content. For now, I’m home.
Imperial City, Luthien
Pesht Military District, Draconis Combine
30 January 3136
He had a tantrum, flinging food like a three-year-old. Miko did her best, but Bhatia finally sent her away because he really wasn’t in the mood. Galling; bad enough to lose out to a Tormark, but to be unable to function asa man …
Katana Tormark, a tai-shu! Unbelievable; she must’ve slept with Theodore. Certainly would suit the coordinator; Theodore must produce an heir. What does that Peacock care where his son plants his seed so long as the line continues? Irritably, Bhatia backhanded that little bitch’s latest decree: that those damnably loyal yakuza rank among the most honorable of the Combine’s citizens, that they be promoted within the DCMS!
Bhatia paced. Best to focus, perhaps, on what he’d gained. Sakamoto was dead, a big plus because he couldn’t be implicated in directly supporting the idiot’s campaign. And Wahab Fusilli; yes, back in Katana’s camp, even rewarded for his bravery on Al Na’ir… ha! Despite everything, Bhatia gri
Yet her death would not answer the root of the Combine’s problem: the Peacock. Anything he did hereafter must bring about two complementary aims: Katana’s destruction, and Vincent Kurita’s demise. Theodore would have to go, of course; there was no way around that. And Emi Kurita… no, he mustn’t forget about their resourceful little Keeper of the House Honor. Certainly, no secret where her allegiances lay. She would have to be dealt with as well. “Because there is yet another,” he said, and his thoughts centered on the look in New Samarkand Warlord Matsuhari Toranaga’s eyes that day in the Black Room almost a year before. “There is yet one more way.”