Silkpunk and Steam Page 25

  I was thankful for his brief pause so that I could lean against a tree and rest. I would have given anything for a cold drink of cha about then. He probably could have made it to wherever we were going and back without resting if I hadn’t been there to slow him. There was no way I wouldn’t be late.

  The foliage was less dense and I could see farther down the hill. At the bottom, water sparkled through the trees.

  I thought about what Ipetam was saying and if it could be true. Even my thirteen-year-old grandnephew knew not to tell other villages about our secret places. I couldn’t imagine him telling an off-worlder. I couldn’t imagine Shoko Nipa would do so either, especially after all her village had been through after Unyanke Nipa had attacked them—how he had attacked her.

  I shook my head. “Why would Shoko Nipa do that? What was her explanation?”

  He walked on again. He was slow in answering and I wondered if he knew the answer himself.

  He trampled through the brush ahead of me. “She hoped he would be able to read the symbols that glowed on the walls. She thought he might be able to speak with the kasha kamuy who lived in the belly of the tatsu and gain their knowledge. If only we had their help, we might become as powerful as our ancestors in stories.”

  I grunted at that. “My tribe has stories about what that power did to our ancestors.”

  “As do we,” he said. “With power came violence and destruction.”

  We were nearly to the bottom of the hill. The valley smelled spicy and sweet with the perfume of memory moss. Another few steps and I could see this moss was like no other moss I had seen before. It was nearly as high as my chest and wafted in the breeze. I stepped closer, reaching out my hand.

  “Don’t touch it,” Ipetam warned. “It causes terrible pain.”

  I had never felt pain when touching memory moss, but I did as he bade. It wasn’t my temple.

  Ipetam continued along the path, careful to avoid the moss growing alongside us. “That gaijin filled her head with nonsense. He told her more invaders would be coming. He told her he would do all he could to protect our planet from being attacked, but he didn’t know if help would arrive before one of the bad gaijin tribes came to claim our land. I think she wanted to use the tatsu and the kamuy within as a weapon.”

  Despite the heat of the day, a chill stole up my spine. This wasn’t about the off-worlders influencing Shoko Nipa. Unyanke had infected her with his thirst for power when he’d stolen her memories and given her his own.

  We traveled along the path, avoiding the moss on either side of us. A little cave protruded from the ground from up ahead. It was decorated with swirling designs I had seen many times before in my own tribe’s ruins.

  Ipetam kicked at a clump of dirt on the path, sending it into the green fronds of moss. “That Earnshaw gaijin was gone for hours with my wife at the ruins, trying to awaken the kamuy. When I found out, I went there to stop them.”

  “Did you succeed?”

  Ipetam frowned. “I stopped them from doing something else.” He kept his eyes on the path in front of him. “I’ve forbidden her from seeing him again, but what can I do? She’s Nipa, not me.”

  “Burei ko,” I said, using the formal term for skipping politeness and formalities. I expected him to be direct. “You’re saying your wife was beguiled by one of these white men, ne? Do you expect me to believe Shoko Nipa would be attracted to a gaijin? They’re ugly and they smell bad.”

  “I saw them with my own eyes. They rutted like a pair of wild tanuki.”

  “What kind of magic does he possess that he was able to seduce your wife?” I joked. He didn’t laugh.

  “Magic? Perhaps it isn’t her fault then.” He sighed, sounding heartbroken.

  “She is Nipa. She is entitled to as many consorts as she wishes, ne?”

  He kept walking toward the cave.

  I stopped just outside the yawning mouth. “And now you bring me to your tribe’s sacred place for what? You break tradition out of revenge because your wife preferred another man over you?”

  “No! I want you to see our ruins. I want to know if they’re the same as the ruins of your sacred temple. I’m not Nipa. I’m not initiated into the secrets of this temple. But you are. You will be able to help me.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said quickly. It was a lie, of course. It was my duty as leader of the Tanukijin to keep the belly of our tatsu secret.

  Ipetam smiled, his eyes confident. He knew I was a liar. “All the tribes have sacred places. Ours was only the first Unyanke wished to possess. Think of what the off-worlders will do if they gain knowledge of our temple. Is their power not formidable enough as it is?”

  I shrugged. The off-worlders were not my concern. They invaded far to the south. They left us alone in the jungle and the plains. Let them search for chiramantep stones or whatever else they wanted so long as they didn’t come to the north.

  He ducked inside the dark mouth of the cave. I bent my back so I fit under the ledge. The air was as cool and refreshing as a dip in the river. The path descended. As we continued, I was able to straighten and walk upright. The walls flickered to life. Purple symbols scrolled across the walls and lit our way. We turned right. I touched the smooth surface of the wall. The familiar hum buzzed under my hand. The kasha kamuy, the protective spirit in this place, thrummed with life.

  We rounded a corner and came to a chamber. The purple symbols dancing over the walls brightened and swelled. All around me the room glowed and pulsed. I could sense the kasha kamuy trying to speak with me, but I had only once been able to speak with the spirit in my own temple. I didn’t expect I would be able to communicate with this one.

  Could it be that Shoko Nipa was able to communicate with her temple’s kasha kamuy? Could it be the kamuy had instructed Shoko Nipa to make the temple known to the off-worlders? But to what purpose? How would this be any different than Unyanke Nipa? He, too, had claimed to be commanded—possessed—by his kasha kamuy. I still remembered the bracelet the kamuy had given him. It had reminded me of the tattoos girls were given when they came of age, only this was made of the same metal of the starships. The metal cuff lit up and displayed symbols like the walls before me. I’d seen Unyanke shoot blue fire from the bracelet at a man and char him into a lump of smoking cinders.

  Shoko had no such bracelets, but it didn’t mean she would stay that way. If she was possessed by a kasha kamuy, it would only be a matter of time before she wanted to take over the other tribes.

  “What would you have me do?” I asked.

  “Destroy the temple,” Ipetam said.

  I laughed. He had to be joking. “Your temple or mine?”

  “Both. All of them.”

  The kamuy of the secret temple in the cliff palace heated our hot springs and kept my people safe. She was wise and had given me council when I’d first been initiated. Though I was no longer able to fit in the passage to speak with her, I knew she was still there, running the mechanisms that made our palace function. As Nipa, it was my duty to protect my people, but more than that, it was my duty to protect the ancients. Ipetam didn’t know what he was asking. He was mad with jealousy and grief.

  I turned away to go. Ipetam placed a shoulder on my arm. “Please, hear me out.”

  He rambled on. He was too bitter over his wife’s betrayal to be rational. I pitied him. I had traveled for a week to attend their wedding ceremony. I had never imagined a gaijin would be the wedge that would drive them apart.

  Ipetam’s rant was interrupted by a scream. Two children stood in the hallway, one of them crying. I soon learned one was his daughter. So much for keeping our conversation secret.

  Ipetam lifted the crying child and raced out the cave, going on about the poisons in the moss. The air outside was stifling. It weighed me down and reminded me of my age. Or perhaps it was simply the sensation of leaving the comfort of the kamuy’s presence.

  In the sunlight, l
ittle Sumiko showed me her hand, red with blisters. I lifted her and carried her to Ipetam where he waded in the stream, splashing water over the first child’s blistered arms and legs.

  I considered all Ipetam had told me as he tended to the children. It had been foolish for Shoko to share the knowledge of her temple with her gaijin lover. I didn’t know what had gotten into her. On one hand, this was the Chiramantepjin tribe’s business. On the other, what she had done might endanger all tribes if the off-worlders sought the power of the ancients.

  A shadow passed in front of the sun and for a second the air turned cold. The sky cracked like thunder despite the clear blue sky. Smoke tickled my nose. A ship flew overhead.

  Dread settled like a lump in my gut. We were too late. The gaijin were here.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  The rumors about the East Milky Way Trading Company being involved in illegal smuggling and slave trade on inhabited worlds is completely unfounded. This is malicious slander started by my competitors to sully my good name.

  —Lord Archibald Klark, New London Times

  The memories slid away from me and I fell back into my own body and my own mind. I pulled away from Shiromainu and plopped on the ground beside him so I wouldn’t crush him. His breath came and went in a wheezing tide.

  I now understood why Shiromainu had tried to protect me from the knowledge of this memory. He hadn’t wanted me to know about the secret places and let this information slip to Faith. Surely, he must have thought gaijin possessed some strange power to make us fall in love with them. Not only my mother, but Taishi and me. We’d all been enthralled by their exoticness. Whether Shiromainu had been bewitched by Faith’s beauty as well and had hoped she would bed him, I couldn’t tell.

  I could see why he might fear her beyond her being a stranger and different and a gaijin.

  There had been more to the memory than just that, as well as why Shiromainu wouldn’t want to share it with me, but I wasn’t ready to think about the rest yet. Shiromainu was wise to make me promise not to do anything rash.

  “Nipa,” I said. “You do know I wasn’t always fond of Faith-chan, don’t you?”

  “Hmm,” he said.

  “When my brother found me and returned me to his tribe, I didn’t trust Faith-chan because she was a gaijin. I was like you, distrusting of all sisam. Then I got to know her. Do you remember how I shared a memory with you about her drawing? She traded her food so another woman would nurse Michi? That isn’t even Faith-chan’s daughter. It’s her sister’s and Taishi’s.” I didn’t know if he remembered anymore. He had given the memory back to me.

  He coughed.

  “Do you want your memory back, anata?” I hoped he would take it back. I didn’t want to know all this about my parents. Yet, if I did, how would I remember his perspective? How would I understand the secret places?

  He grunted noncommittally.

  I let him rest.

  As he slept, I was alone with my thoughts. There was no one worse to be alone with.

  Shiromainu hadn’t wanted me to know about my mother’s past. I hadn’t wanted to know about my mother’s and father’s past, but I had insisted. It shouldn’t have troubled me that my mother might have had a relationship with Faith’s father. Over a year ago, Shiromainu had shown me my early memory of my parents discussing tsuma no koukan. My father hadn’t wanted her to perform it with Earnshaw Nipa. Sharing the body and the mind was common in a spouse swap. But my mother hadn’t observed the traditional methods for this custom. If she had, my father would have been given a woman from the off-worlder’s party.

  That meant my mother had performed memory exchange and had an affair. And my father had betrayed our tribe’s secrets, possibly to get back at her.

  Ice settled like a lump in my stomach. My parents had been different from the people I had thought they were.

  I wanted to believe my mother had a reason in telling Faith’s father. He had told her other gaijin would come who wanted the world and he’d been right. Only it must have happened sooner than they’d expected.

  Shiromainu thought the attacks had happened because the gaijin wanted the kasha kamuy’s power. But if that was the case, they wouldn’t have destroyed the temple. I still remembered the dream Shipo and I had shared of the beautiful woman burning and melting. Shipo had called her the tatsu woman. She must have been the protective spirit of my tribe’s secret place.

  Would my village have survived if we’d had the help of the kasha kamuy? Or would the power have corrupted my mother like it had with Unyanke Nipa, the Tatsujin leader Tomomi had told me about?

  I had to convince Shiromainu that Faith wouldn’t want to know the secrets of the Tanukijin palace. Nor would she know what to do with them if she did know his secrets. She wasn’t a warrior. It was my job to make him see that.

  I only hoped time was on my side.

  The days passed by much like the first. My duties consisted of caring for the leader of the Tanukijin. When he was awake, I tried to talk to him about the memory he had showed me and why it wasn’t connected to the attacks on the village, but he waved me off.

  “I’m a dying old man. I don’t want to waste my last hours hearing about this.”

  “You aren’t dying,” I insisted. “You are still a nipa, and you need to listen to the truth so that innocent people don’t suffer and starve.”

  He barked out so loudly I thought he was himself again, “That’s right—I am Nipa! And I command you to be silent.”

  He wasn’t dying, I told myself. He was growing stronger. His coughing was less sporadic, though when it did attack him, it was violent and he spat out thick, green pus.

  “It’s because my little wife makes me happy,” he said. “I have something to live for.”

  I smiled and smoothed his hair back from his brow. I wanted it to be true.

  Pana and sometimes Hekketek came to bring my meals, though neither were permitted to enter, by order of the grandmothers. For once I agreed with the bossy old women. Shiromainu wasn’t fit to be seen by young eyes. Each time Pana came, she announced herself outside the door and waited for me to come to her. Each time she hugged me and let me bury my face in her hair and cry.

  She didn’t complain that I smelled, which I was certain I did after days of not bathing. She didn’t chide me for behaving as a child and crying. I trusted she wouldn’t tell anyone these things either. She was the keeper of my secrets.

  On the fourth day, Grandmother Pirka took me aside as Shiromainu rested. “The council wishes to meet to discuss matters of business. They wish to know if Nipa is well enough to attend this afternoon.”

  “Of course, he isn’t!” I snapped.

  Immediately, I regretted the harshness of my words.

  She bowed her head in apology, though I knew the fault was my own, not hers. “Sumimasen, Sumiko-sama. I only ask as a formality. The council shows their respect by asking his permission to meet without him in this way.”

  I bowed multiple times like Opere would. “Gomenasai. Forgive my rudeness. I am tired from lack of sleep. I will let him know when he wakes.”

  She left and came back three times to see if I had told him yet. I could see she was waiting to pass on his word so the council would be able to meet without him. I didn’t want to disturb him, but I could see I had to.

  I crouched by his bed. Gently, I placed a hand on his shoulder and whispered that I would like to speak with him if it wouldn’t disturb him too much.

  He stirred and moaned. It broke my heart to see him in such pain.

  Between gasps for breath he said, “Anything for my little wife.”

  “The council invites you to meet with them. Shall I tell them you might join them next time?” I asked.

  “Send them my apologies for being unable to fulfill my duty.” His head lulled to the side and his gaze fixed on the grandmother waiting just within the noren curtains of his room. “Grandmother Pirka, take my wife in my st
ead. She will report to me on their doings.”

  The old woman bowed. “Thank you for honoring us with your presence by proxy.” Her eyes raked me over and she hesitated before addressing me. “I will send for someone to take Sumiko-sama’s place.”

  Shortly after, Grandmother Annosuke, a woman I had known from the Chiramantep village, came to relieve me. She hugged me and pinched my cheeks as though I were still a child. If anyone should have been pinching cheeks it should have been me. She’d gotten plump while in the Tanukijin village. I smiled.

  She held me at an arm’s length and her nose crinkled. “You go to the onsen and refresh yourself, ne?”

  I must have smelled really bad. “I don’t have time. The council is waiting for me.”

  She clucked her tongue at me. “No one wants to meet with a smelly young woman, Nipa’s proxy or not.”

  Shiromainu’s snort drew my attention. His eyes were closed and he pretended to sleep. He looked as though he were trying not to smile.

  Grandmother Annosuke waved me off. “You go now. Pirka-sama said she will have someone bring you fresh clothes.”

  Opere and Chinatsu met me at the onsen. They hastened to help me undress and wash me. It had been days since I’d brushed my hair and Opere did this for me as I soaked. Both of them now wore the black tattoos of girls who had come of age. They were both adults and I was still a child. They chattered away pleasantly, but I didn’t have the energy to converse. I hadn’t been in the water for more than a minute before I fell asleep. I must have slouched forward and dropped my face in the water because I sat up sputtering.

  “You poor dear. We need to do this properly after the meeting, ne?” Chinatsu said.

  Opere shook my shoulder to make me stay awake. “Sumiko-sama, do you notice anything different about me?” She nudged me until I turned to look at her. She grinned and waved a hand at her chest.

  I glanced at her breasts. “No,” I said.

  Chinatsu laughed.

  “I have two breasts now, ne?” Opere insisted. “Can’t you tell how much they’ve grown?”