“I studied history for years,” Michi said. “The library in the Shōgun’s palace was so big I got lost in it three times, and I never read anything about this.”
“The Guild control the airwaves,” Yukiko said. “Write the histories.”
Misaki nodded. “And the Inquisition control the Guild.”
“If they didn’t want their clan spoken of, it wouldn’t be…”
“This is foolishness,” Isamu said. “The Serpent clan have been dead two hundred years.”
Yukiko nodded. “About the same time the Lotus Guild has existed for.”
“Conspiracies everywhere, eh?” Isamu smiled. “Perhaps you’ve spent too much time at the Court of Tigers, young lady.”
Yukiko smiled in return. “Perhaps you haven’t spent enough, old man.”
The Daimyo chuckled as Yukiko turned to Misaki.
“What do these Inquisitors look like?”
“Black clothing. Bloodshot eyes. They walk and speak as if in a daze, wear breathers allowing them to imbibe lotus smoke every waking moment.”
“In that case, perhaps we could ask about this Serpent clan,” Ginjiro said.
Yukiko blinked. “What are you saying, General?”
“Our corvettes crippled three Guild ships during the rebel uprising. One was destroyed when it collided with a sky-spire, but the two others were successfully boarded. Our forces arrested and detained most of the crews.”
He glanced around the table. Rose slowly to his feet.
“We have one of these Inquisitors in our dungeons.”
13
ABOUT A GIRL
In Danro city, a rebel Guildsman walks into the Market Square, and, piece by piece, removes his metal skin. And there, sitting naked before the wondering crowd, he douses himself with chi from his tanks, and calmly sets himself on fire.
The same day, two False-Lifers contaminate the Chapterhouse Danro nutrient feed with blacksleep toxin. Thirteen shatei and two kyodai die before the cause is discovered. In the resulting arrest attempt, the False-Lifers kill three Purifiers before being killed themselves.
Upper Blooms of Chapterhouse Kigen call an emergency meeting to discuss the assassination attempt on Second Bloom Kensai. Ten minutes into the debate, a lone Lotusman enters the Hall of Council and detonates an improvised explosive device inside his chi tanks, killing almost every ranking kyodai in Kigen city.
The feeds from Kawa city speak of a gaijin horde rising from the sea. An army marching beneath a banner set with twelve red stars. The skies are filled with rotor-thopters, the boardwalk with blue-eyed devils clad in the skins of beasts, the streets with slaughter.
The First House feeds are now edged with steel, demanding the Tora fleet fly at maximum speed to rendezvous with the Earthcrusher. The Stormdancer’s insurrection in Yama must be crushed. The Earthcrusher must then march east before the gaijin establish a firm foothold in Shima. The lotus must bloom.
The feeds from Yama still crackle with constant static.
The mechabacus hum is now tinged with fear.
A mask of brass hides his expression entirely.
*
When he was younger, Kin had thought it strange that cloudwalkers spoke about sky-ships like they were women. As a boy, he’d known ships only in schematic form, never really saw anything feminine in the designs. But he’d hear cloudwalker captains come to commission the Guild shipmasters, and noticed the men always referred to the vessels as “she” or “her.”
He always wondered about that. Whether cloudwalkers spent so much time away from their families, they began to think of their ships as second brides. Perhaps when faced with the fury of a lightning storm, every sailor remembered a time when all they needed to banish the fear was the warmth of a mother’s arms.
Kin didn’t pretend to understand. He’d never known a wife or daughter or mother. He could only imagine what those things might feel like. Perhaps that was why the Guild named their ships as things instead. None of them knew. Not really.
Standing at the bow of the Daimyo’s flagship, he watched the Guild navy dip and roll across iron-red skies. Even for someone who had apprenticed on a beauty like the Thunder Child, the sight was impressive; four lumbering ironclads and a dozen sleek corvettes, filling the air with metal thunder, the sky smeared blue-black behind.
Names were painted in broad, bold kanji down each vessel’s prow—not tributes to mothers or daughters or wives, but names born of obsession with the weed at the Imperium’s foundation. The Scarlet Bloom and the Winter Harvest. Blessed Light and the Lotus Wind. The thundering fortress Kin flew upon had been the only Tora sky-ship to escape the Kagé attack on Docktown relatively unscathed. Her name had been Red Tigress under Yoritomo’s reign, but the pride of the Tiger fleet had been repaired and repainted just before they left Kigen, bold, fresh kanji now scrolling down her prow, proudly proclaiming her new name to the world.