You nearly fall close to the bottom, but catch yourself in a half-roll, come back up, and turn around, breathing hard. Your back is now protected, but a half-circle of gaki is coming at you, clawing and hissing and clacking and spitting. You wait. The wind picks up. It feels like a good place to die. Your only regret is that the Yuki-Onna will escape your vengeance and keep your lover’s soul. You grip the katana lightly, like a calligrapher’s brush, and prepare to write a haiku of death.
A feathered arrow sprouts from the neck of the gaki in the middle. More come arcing down at the others, in rapid succession. You advance with rapid, shuffling steps, and strike left and right. A gaki head rolls down the mountainside.
Then another ronin appears behind the gaki. He – or she, judging by her light frame – wields a naginata and wears an usagi mask, the cross-marked white face of a demon rabbit. She spins her weapon in an arc and clears a space around her, then lunges forward to pierce a gaki’s chest. She stops to look at you. Her eyes flash behind the mask.
The battle goes quickly after that. You coordinate your movements, swift sword and reaching naginata. It feels like you were back in the dojo, and even on the uneven ground of the mountain, difficult strokes become easy, and the gaki fall before you like wheat. Soon they flee, leaving dismembered bodies behind. The rocks are slick with their gore.
Afterwards, you are the first to bow.
‘Honoured ronin,’ you say. ‘You have saved my life.’
She bows back and removes her mask. Her face is dark-skinned, and her long jet-black hair is tangled with sweat.
‘The honour is mine,’ she says, with a soft voice that is like the whisper of silk wiping blood off a blade. ‘Without you, I would have fallen prey to the gaki myself.’
You bow again.
‘What is it that you seek, usagi-sama?’
‘The witch Yuki-Onna, who has done me a wrong,’ she says.
The wind picks up.
‘An ill-spoken name. I seek her also,’ you answer.
‘Shall we join in a common purpose, to seek our vengeance together?’
You hesitate.
‘My path is my own,’ you say. ‘And so are the dangers of the mountain.’
‘I understand. But we have both travelled far. Let us guard each other’s sleep tonight, and then go our separate ways.’
You nod. You return to the path together and continue the climb, with the usagi-ronin leading the way. You try to ignore a whispering voice in your head, a voice that tastes like fire and sulphur, of a bite of metal against your cheek.
Mieli, you fool, it says. Mieli, wake up.
You make camp in a cluster of pitiful, low pine trees. For a long time, you sit quietly and eat your meagre fare of rice cakes.
‘Would you honour me by allowing me to accept the first watch?’ the usagi-ronin says, after you have finished eating.
To accept the offer would be an admission of weakness, and thus you just shake your head. Could she be a creature of the witch, sent to lead you astray? It is said that everything on the slopes of the mountain belongs to her. But of course, in her eyes, you could equally well be one. So perhaps she is honouring you with her offer. You look at each other for a while, but eventually she averts her eyes and opens her sleeping pallet. You nod, rest your katana on your knees, and watch the fire as she falls asleep.
The night mountain whispers around you. The cries of birds and the wind and the distant cries of other, darker creatures blend together into a voice that speaks to you.
Do not trust her, Mieli. She is one of them.
You brush it aside. Surely, it is the voice of a baku, a dream-eater, another servant of Yuki-Onna.
But there is an absence in your chest that the sleeping form of the ronin fills, somehow. The flames dance like the fan of a geisha, colourful and bright. They make shapes that remind you of the wings of a butterfly. Or a heart, perhaps.
After a while, you become aware that the usagi-ronin is sitting up, watching you. ‘You look weary,’ she says. ‘It is your turn to rest. I will rouse you at first light.’
Watching her, you drift to sleep.
In the dream, Yuki-Onna comes to you. She looks different from what the stories say, but then, it is also said she takes many forms. To you, she appears as a gai-jin devil woman in a strange white dress, auburn hair, wearing a necklace of diamonds.
‘I don’t have a lot of time, Mieli,’ she says. ‘They are trying to find me. Do not trust the rabbit. This is a zoku Realm, a game. If it was a vir, I could help you, but I have no power here. They are trying to play you. They create mechanics to manipulate your behaviour, to create trust. My Founder brother learned it from them.
‘No matter what they tell you, they are the Great Game Zoku. You fought them for me, in the Protocol War. They have not forgotten. You have to get out of this Realm as soon as possible, before they find me.’
Her face is stern.
‘You betrayed me, but I have not betrayed you. I could self-destruct and leave you to them. Remember that. Remember.’
Then she dissolves into the rest of the dream. There is a giant butterfly that flies through the void. There is a weaselly man with a grin like the Monkey King. Feverish illusions, woven by the witch.
You wake with the usagi-ronin watching over you. She offers you water: the fire has died, and the sky is pale again. You shiver in the cold, hold the tepid liquid in your mouth and look at her. Surely, it is the mountain witch who is the mistress of many faces and lies, not this ronin who fought with honour by your side?
There is a strange, bitter taste in your mouth from the dream. As if you had just eaten a peach.
‘I have decided,’ you say. ‘We shall climb the mountain together.’
Winds blow down the side of the mountain. They drive raindrops that bite like shards of glass. The usagi-ronin uncoils silk rope from her waist, and you scale a sheer cliff together. Once, a rock crumples beneath your sandal, and you hang above an abyss by the thread. The usagi pulls you up. The thin cord cuts wounds in her hands, but she does not complain.
After the climb, there is little need for words. Your destinies are bound together now, with silk and with blood.
The alien presence in you grows stronger as you climb, perhaps strengthened by the ill wind and the ever-shifting, desolate landscape. It fears the weight of the mountain, yearning for flight. It whispers that every action you take is resolved not by nature, but by a Book of Changes, a roll of the dice; that the things you and the ronin did together should not be possible, that you should be wounded and broken. You try to ignore it, but it is becoming hard to shut it out.
At noon, the sky is grey. A fierce snowstorm starts, forcing you to seek shelter in the ruins of an old shinto temple.
A flight of tengu attacks. Bird-men, black wings like shadows in the snow, powdered faces and beak-like noses, curvy iron swords. Their bones are hollow, their bodies light, and your blows toss them around like rag dolls. But there are many of them, forcing you to retreat further into the temple.
While the usagi-ronin holds them off, you discover a scroll at the feet of a Buddha statue, a holy text whose power drives the tengu off when you speak it aloud. The ronin takes a wound, a tengu claw along her ribs. You bandage it the best you can, but from then on she leans on her naginata as she walks.
At nightfall, you arrive at the crater’s edge, and see Yuki-Onna’s palace.
They say it changes shape, and it does not look like any fortress built by human hands. It clings to the edge of the crater with stone claws. Its walls are as white as bone. There are three ascending baileys, resting on grey stone bases. Ragged, bare trees grow on top of the bailey platforms, and dark arrow slits glare at you. Low gatehouses cluster around them. It reminds you of the nest of some giant, malevolent bird.
You enter through an iron gate that stands open, waiting for you. You feel exposed, walking the long corridor that takes you through the first bailey, up a narrow, steep staircase, through small co
urtyards and deserted towers. There are faces watching you as you pass, and you think you recognise dead enemies.
There is a huge mansion at the heart of the third bailey. Dark samurai with rusty swords guard it, but they let you pass.
The throne room is lit with pale blue torches. And there, finally, is Yuki-Onna, white and beautiful and deadly. A young girl sits at the witch’s feet, clad in silk, face in shadow, her hair hanging down. There is a pile of grains next to her. She is counting them. Your heart jumps when you see her.
‘You should not have come here,’ Yuki-Onna says with a cold voice. The bitter taste is back in your mouth.
‘I will grant you this honour, sister,’ the usagi-ronin says. ‘Your courage has earned you the right to take her life.’
There is something in your mouth: a peach-stone. Its contours are rough on your tongue.
You draw your katana in one fluid movement and plunge it into the usagi-ronin’s belly.
As the light dims in her eyes, you feel a stab of regret. ‘I did not come to take her life,’ you say, ‘but to offer her my sword. I wished the mountain would take you first, or that I could have died for you. But it is too late.’
‘Well done, child,’ the witch says. ‘Now come to me and accept your reward.’
She gestures and the figure at her feet stands up unsteadily. You rush to her side and embrace her. She rustles in your grip. She has no flesh or bones.
She is a doll, made of cloth.
The laughter of Yuki-Onna is high and cold and blue like sunlight on snow. You let go of the doll image of your lover and fall to your knees.
Your katana claims your flesh just as hungrily as it enters your body. To your surprise, the blade is not cold but hot, burning iron just below your heart. Gripping the hilt with both hands, you twist it upwards.
The witch disappears, and so does the world. And then you are Mieli, the daughter of Karhu. And Mieli is standing on a balcony. Below her is a blue canal. It goes on forever, a thread that vanishes into a haze somewhere impossibly far. The wind is warm and gentle on her face. And above her spreads the vast, vast sky of Saturn, cut in two by the blade of a ring.
3
THE DETECTIVE AND THE FIREFLIES
The King of Mars can see everything, but there are times when he prefers not to be seen.
Invisible, hidden in a cloak of gevulot, he walks the streets of the Moving City of the Oubliette. As usual, he is late: this time, it has taken a while to elude his tzaddikim bodyguards. The Martian sky is pale, Phobos just a bright promise beyond the jagged teeth of Hellas Planitia. There is a chill in the air. Heaters are lit in the shadows of the tall grand buildings along the wide avenues of the Edge, and diners and drinkers are starting to come out. The city sways softly as it walks, and the distant boom of its steps is a constant, reassuring heartbeat. On the surface, everything is as it always has been.
But the King – Isidore Beautrelet – knows better. He tastes the tangy, bitter undercurrent of fear, sees the excessive formality in the steps of the people who no longer trust their anonymity to gevulot. A smiling couple walks past, hand in hand. The woman is tall, mahogany-skinned, and catches Isidore’s eye. By accident, he brushes her memories, remembers being Jacqi the tailor, tears running down her cheeks when she gathered with the crowd on the Permanent Avenue to watch the death of Earth in the sky, the world she had come from.
Isidore shakes his head. He can hear and remember every conversation, every thought in the Oubliette. It is a doubleedged gift given to him by his father the cryptarch, the thief Jean le Flambeur’s twisted copy, now imprisoned in the needle of the Prison, doomed to play endless games. The only way Isidore can think and breathe is by hiding and, even then, the Oubliette is always with him, just a thought away. He knows how afraid his people are. Giants are moving beyond the sky, and the soft light is not as soothing as it used to be.
His destination is near the southern rim of the city, a small house surrounded by a fenced garden. It is a curious design, round windows and soft amber concrete, almost disappearing into the dense foliage of white sword-shaped Thoris roses that grow wild and thick all about it.
As he approaches the gate, a co-memory message reaches him, as if the rich smell of the roses reminded him of the stern gaze of his mother, Raymonde. He remembers that he is supposed to be at a meeting with her, the other tzaddikim – the city’s technological vigilantes – and the zoku Elders, to discuss how to deal with the refugees. He remembers the efforts of the Oubliette’s orbital Quiet, overwhelmed by the flux of immigrants from the Inner System. He remembers the Loyalists, a new political party who insist that the Kingdom was real and that all claims to the contrary have been engineered by the zoku – and that Isidore is their tool. He remembers that his mother is going to have strong words with him, afterwards, and that he is not yet too old for a spanking.
He sighs and brushes the memory aside. There have been endless meetings in the last few months. He finds them frustrating: no solutions, just people pulling in different directions. None of the cold beauty of crimes and puzzles and architecture. And even those are lost to him now: he can find the most cunning criminal with a ’blink.
And then Jean le Flambeur’s qupt arrived three hours ago, bearing a true mystery.
He sends a small, polite co-memory to the house’s occupant, walks to the door and waits. He squeezes the thief’s Watch in his pocket.
A young-looking black man opens the door. At a first glance, he looks like a Time-miser, someone who has saved the Oubliette’s intangible currency for extending his life in a Noble body, rather than using it for self-modification or opulence. But his skin has a fresh, almost glowing look, which means that he has only recently come back from the Quiet, passing through the halls of the Resurrection Men.
‘Ah,’ the man – Marcel Iseult – says. ‘Isidore Beautrelet. The famous detective. What an honour.’ There is a note of irony in his voice. He gives Isidore a weary look.
Isidore clears his throat. Even before recent events, he was featured far too often in the Oubliette’s illicit analog newspapers, but now it’s impossible to go anywhere without being recognised unless he masks his features with impolitely thick gevulot.
‘I know it’s late, but I was wondering if I could—’
The man closes the door. Isidore sighs and knocks again, sending the man a small co-memory. Slowly, the door opens again.
‘I am sorry to disturb you, but I was hoping you could help me find some answers,’ Isidore says.
‘There are no answers here. Only silence.’
‘In my experience, that’s where answers are often found.’
A spark of curiosity lights up in Marcel’s brown eyes.
‘Fine,’ he says slowly. ‘I suppose you had better come in.’
It looks like the apartment used to belong to an artist, but now it feels more like a tomb. There are sculptures covered by dusty tarpaulins, a bright working area that is covered in the clutter of decades, full of old claytronic models and sketches and found objects. The only pieces of art that are prominently displayed are paintings that have small, fleeting co-memories attached to them. They give Isidore flashes of two young men together.
‘It was time for a nightcap, anyway,’ Marcel says. ‘Can I offer you something? You look like you could use one. No wonder: you must be very busy, trying to fix the world.’
‘It sounds like you disapprove.’
‘Oh, I think your efforts are admirable, it’s just that they make little difference. We are about to be eaten, and we must enjoy the time we have left. Such as it is.’
Marcel opens a mahogany cupboard and takes out a bottle of cognac and two classes. He fills them to the brim with the dark amber liquid and offers one to Isidore. Mournful ares nova starts to play in the background, gently amelodic tones.
‘That is a very bleak view of things,’ Isidore says. ‘But I will drink to saving the world.’
Marcel lifts his glass without a word and smiles. I
sidore coughs at the sting of the drink, and only sips a little. So far, he has resisted trying to numb the constant tickle of exomemory with drugs. Besides, alcohol has a way of making him talkative, and that might be counterproductive under the present circumstances.
‘It’s a realistic view,’ Marcel says. ‘Ever since the Collapse, we have not mattered very much. I was not at all surprised by what you discovered – that our precious Kingdom was a zoku lie. If anything, I don’t think you went far enough. I believe we have always been playthings, simulations in some Omega Point where Sobornost has won.’
‘They haven’t. Not yet. That’s why I’m here.’
‘Ah. Idealism. Heroics. Very well. What can I do for you, to help you save the world?’
‘Earlier today, someone … asked for my help. It seems that at least in one instance, information about a major event outside the Oubliette that has been lost elsewhere has been preserved in the exomemory. I am trying to find out if there are other examples of unique information that cannot be found anywhere else.’
‘I see.’ Marcel touches his lips with a forefinger.
‘Paul Sernine used to visit you, did he not? He gave you a Watch.’
The words come out more rapidly than they should. When the thief asked for his help, Isidore felt something click into a gap in an old unsolved puzzle. What did Paul Sernine find on Mars? Even the thief himself failed to find out, and Isidore very badly wants to see le Flambeur’s face when he tells him the answer.
Marcel slams his glass down on a table. The cognac wobbles sluggishly in Martian gravity.
‘Yes. Yes, he did. And then he took my Time away, just because it amused him to do so, just because it was a part of his scheme. He pretended friendship because it suited him.’
Isidore sighs. Le Flambeur – posing as a man called Paul Sernine – hid something in the memories of his friends, twenty years ago, and came to reclaim it recently. As a result, nine people were sent to the Oubliette’s afterlife prematurely: after considerable effort, Raymonde and Isidore convinced the Resurrection Men to allow them to return.