The excitement faded, Guildsmen returning to their stations, several casting wary glances at the railing above the transmission. It was a miracle the Fifth Bloom had escaped unscathed. To think what might have happened if Brother Shinji had not been there …
Maseo stepped up and took Kin’s arm, slung it around his shoulder. Shinji supported the other side, and the pair shuffled toward the spiral stairwell, Kin draped between them.
“Walk slowly, brothers,” Kin said. “My legs are still shaking.”
A humorless smile.
“And we have much to talk about, after all.”
*
The listening post operator looked up as Kaori stepped onto the tower walkway. She dragged her fringe down over her face with one hand.
“Brother Isao has been compromised,” she said. “Atsushi and Takeshi also. Send word throughout the network. Any intelligence from them must be viewed as suspect. Any transmission from them is to be ignored.”
The signalman nodded. “Hai.”
Without another word, she slipped down the ladder and off into the dark.
20
CAN’T AND WON’T
When it came to his “Ten Things I’d Rather Make Sweet, Sweet Love to the Dark Mother Than Do” list, Yoshi had decided “Flying On the Back of a Thunder Tiger” sat quite comfortably at number two.
“Falling Off the Back of a Thunder Tiger” was number one.
Oh, it was a pretty thing at first, to be sure. Storm growling at their backs as they sliced through the air, wind whipping through his clothes like knives. But once the initial thrill faded, Yoshi was left with a vague sense of wrongness about it all. The clutch of gravity. The vertigo as he peered into the drop below. If Lord Izanagi intended for him to be up here, he wouldn’t feel like a virgin bride on her wedding night. And, to step aside from the metaphysical and into the practical for a moment, the saddle on Buruu’s back had been made for a person with a different … configuration than his own.
Son of a ronin’s whore, my balls are killing me.
YOU TELL ME THIS WHY?
Some sympathy would kill you?
I COULD KISS THEM BETTER FOR YOU?
You don’t have lips, Mockingbird. You have a beak that can cut steel.
IT MAY END BADLY FOR YOU, YES.
Yoshi’s hands were entwined in Buruu’s feathers, freezing wind threatening to snatch the goggles from his face and hurl them into the mile-long drop beneath. He kept his eyes fixed on the southern horizon, squinting through the haze.
This smog is toxic. Makes me feel like tossing breakfast.
NOT ON MY BACK YOU WON’T, BOY.
Yoshi dared a quick glance at the land rushing away below them.
Looks so much worse from up here. I never knew it’d got so bad. You don’t hear about it on the radio. You don’t see the scope of it from the city. Fuckers have kept us so blind.
YOUR LAND IS DYING.
And here you are, fighting to save it. Not sure I see the point now. Even if the Guild was destroyed tomorrow, how the hells will you ever fix all this?
WHO SAID WE WOULD?
You must think there’s a chance, or you wouldn’t be here.
I DID NOT COME HERE TO SAVE YOUR HOME, BOY. I CAME BECAUSE I LOST MY OWN.
Family troubles?
ONE MIGHT SAY.
Know that feeling.
A curtain of rank black rain seethed across their path, so Buruu swept above the cloud cover, high into the freezing air. Yoshi curled into a ball of miserable shivers on his back, but peering over one wingtip, he realized he couldn’t see the ground anymore—just a rolling floor of iron-gray that looked thick enough to catch him if he fell. And though he knew it preposterous, somehow the thought calmed him enough that his guts climbed down from his ribs.
Yoshi caressed the metal frame covering Buruu’s feathers, watching the machinery at work as the beast’s wings sliced the sky. The contraption was beaten, bent, held together by third-rate jury-rigging and a prayer. As he watched, a severed white feather fell away and drifted down into the abyss. Yoshi felt his stomach begin climbing again.
You sure these clockwork wings are flight-worthy?
THEY HAVE SEEN BETTER DAYS.
Where’d you get them?
A BOY MADE THEM FOR ME.
This Kin I heard about? The traitor?
YES.
Sounded like a little bastard to me.
NOT ENTIRELY TRUE. NOR ENTIRELY FAIR.
That knife in your back doesn’t make you itch?
IT MAKES ME SAD. IF NOT FOR KIN, YUKIKO WOULD BE DEAD, AND I, A SLAVE. I WOULD NOT HAVE BELIEVED HIM CAPABLE OF BETRAYAL. PART OF ME STILL CANNOT.
We’re all of us made of scars, Mockingbird.
IT IS WORSE FOR YUKIKO. SOON, THEY WILL BE ALL SHE IS.
You really care about her, eh?
ONE MIGHT SAY.
I don’t want to offend you or anything, given our present altitude and the whole gravity thing, but she struck me as something of a bitch.
Buruu’s growl traveled up Yoshi’s spine as he added a hasty addendum.
Really nice cheekbones, though …
YOU DO NOT KNOW HER. WHAT SHE HAS BEEN THROUGH. THE WEIGHT OF THIS ENTIRE COUNTRY IS ON HER. SHE IS SEVENTEEN WINTERS OLD. HOW DO YOU THINK SUCH A MANTLE WOULD SIT ON YOUR SHOULDERS, BOY?
Badly. Why the hells you think I’m not in Yama right now?
Buruu remained silent, eyes narrowed against the howling wind.
Thing is, Mockingbird, I’m wondering the same thing about you.