The heat, humidity and deafening cicadas were making my head really ache, and the occasional earth tremor didn’t help. I was about to ask Marque for pain relief when we pulled into a clearing in the trees. The track – which was barely more than side-by-side worn grooves in the undergrowth – doubled to two tracks going through the clearing. A half-naked man was sitting beside the track on a rock, eating an egg, with an enormous framed pack propped against the rock next to him.
Tarikur’s workers gently lowered the traces on the carts, ignored us and approached him. They greeted him warmly and a couple of them hugged him. He handed eggs to everybody and gestured for us to approach.
‘These are some royals from Wei we’re taking to see the king,’ one of the women said.
‘Yeah, Tarikur’s kid passed me on the road and he told me you were coming,’ the egg man said. He reached into the pack, pulled out a couple of eggs, and held them out to us. ‘Tell the king I helped look after you.’
Tarikur’s workers put a hole in the bottom of the eggs with their fingernails then bit into the tops of the eggs and sucked the contents out raw and with obvious enjoyment.
‘We’re the luckiest workers in the region,’ one of the women said to me. She returned to the back of her cart, removed the heavy stone from the top of a narrow jar, and dipped a cup in to fill it with water. She passed the water cup to me. ‘We eat as well as the king. Eggs sometimes, rice twice a day, vegetables every day . . .’
One of the men nodded enthusiastically as he undid his fundoshi loincloth. ‘We eat vegetables every day! My brother didn’t believe me when I told him.’
‘You’re not supposed to tell anyone that,’ egg man said. ‘You’ll be in trouble when a hundred people turn up at Tarikur’s workshop looking for work or food.’
‘They won’t go around the countryside telling everybody,’ the man said as he finished unwrapping his loincloth and strode, naked, to the side of the clearing. ‘They’re visiting royals. I bet the fat one gets meat every day.’
‘And fresh fruit all the time,’ I said, and they all made loud sounds of wonder.
I sipped the water suspiciously but it tasted clean and was deliciously cold from the wet jar, so I drank it down. She took the cup back from me, filled it and gave it to Haruka. He drank it as well and passed it back to her. Each of the workers drank and filled the cup to pass it to the next one, and shared it with egg man.
The woman joined the man who’d taken off his loincloth and squatted to urinate, holding up her skirt. The man squatted to defecate, then picked up a handful of leaves to wipe his butt and hands with them. He sniffed his hands, wasn’t happy with the result, and one of the other workers held the water cup and helped him rinse his hands.
‘You don’t need to piss?’ the woman asked me when she was done.
‘She’s a barbarian demon, she doesn’t piss,’ one of the men said. ‘I heard them talking to the boss.’
‘I’m not a demon,’ I said, ‘but I don’t have the need right now.’
‘Drink more water then, demon,’ she said, grinning. ‘We have plenty, no need to ration. Drinking water is good for you.’
‘Better move,’ one of the men said, pulling a bunch of sandals out of the back of the cart, and handing fresh ones to the workers who had been pulling. Their sandals were shredded and falling off their feet, so they removed them and tossed them into the trees.
Haruka and I shared an astonished look – they hadn’t considered robbing us, and seemed happy to be working for no salary as long as they were fed. I was still holding the egg, so I gave it back to the egg man and he took it without comment. Haruka did the same, and as egg man put them away I saw that his pack was piled high with eggs, more than a hundred of them, carefully packed in layers in straw. The cart workers assisted him to put the massive pack back on – he wouldn’t have been able to do it alone – and he placed a battered straw hat, similar to the ones my mother had made for herself when she was a rice farmer all those years ago, on his head.
‘Come on, demon, come on, beautiful man,’ the woman said. ‘We’ll be rewarded with fish or even meat for taking you safely to the king.’
‘The king might give us a job if we can prove we’re trustworthy,’ one of the other women said.
‘Yeah, dream on, Hulpecha,’ the first woman said. ‘You have your eye on that gorgeous king’s guard and want to live the life of a rich man’s wife.’
‘I want to be a rich man’s wife,’ one of the men said.
‘Don’t we all,’ the woman said. She gestured towards the cart. ‘On the cart, please, royals.’ She grinned at Haruka. ‘This rich man’s wife is a guard as well. She works twice as hard.’
‘Don’t you know it,’ I said, and they all laughed.
We hopped back up onto the cart, the men and women picked up the traces, and we rattled through the forest again. Behind us the man with the egg pack shifted the weight and started off at a brisk trot after us.
Dusk was falling, bringing a relief from the oppressive heat but also bringing clouds of mosquitos that obviously annoyed the workers, who stopped to lather themselves in mud a couple of times to keep the insects off. The scenery opened up and the track widened to a muddy road with sloshing puddles in it.
Haruka tapped my hand and I looked where he indicated – the road skirted a lake, and a couple of wooden fishing boats were on the black shingle beach with a group of twenty men and women – again in fundoshi loincloths and waist-down skirts – going through the nets and sorting the catch. The seas of my time had been nearly lifeless, and it was astonishing to see five bamboo baskets, each as high as a fisherman’s waist, full of fish, some as long as my forearm. The other side of the lake was misty blue-tinged mountains, and it wasn’t until I looked further up above the cloud line that I saw Fuji’s majestic presence, seeming to hover in the sky, its top capped with clouds and brilliant orange snow from the fading sunlight.
‘The whole town will eat well, and we’ll have extra to preserve for the winter,’ the woman pulling the cart said. ‘We have a good king.’
‘Fresh fish tonight!’ one of the men said. The fisherpeople saw us and shouted and waved. A couple of children left the fishing group and galloped alongside the carts, laughing, accompanied by scrawny, yapping dogs.
I craned around the front of the cart but couldn’t see where we were headed. The road surface turned to the same shingle that had been on the edge of the lake, crunching beneath the wheels, and we passed a couple of houses more flimsy than Tarikur’s – wooden walls, dirt floors, bark roofs held down with big stones and no windows or doors. Young girls, of around ten or twelve and black with dirt, came out of the houses and watched us dully, some of them holding babies strapped to their backs. These children were fully clothed, in tattered jackets wrapped around them with a waistband holding them closed like an adult’s kimono above their filthy bare feet.
There were muddy fields visible between the houses, with ramshackle wooden fences around them. Some of the fields held high, grain-like crops, and others were obviously flooded and growing rice. I could recognise bak choy and other green vegetables in another one, and there were women working in the fields, digging up weeds and placing them in bamboo baskets. Fish were drying on racks everywhere, cut open and held with bamboo slivers.
The houses became more common, jammed together, all of them tiny and with narrow laneways between them, occupied by the occasional scrawny flock of chickens. The smells of rotting garbage and human waste became pervasive, and I was thrown back to my days in the army, nearly a hundred years ago, helping struggling villages to rebuild after the last great Sino-Euro War that had nearly wiped out humanity before the environmental catastrophe would do it a hundred years later anyway.
‘I’ve grown soft,’ I said on comms. ‘I take the comforts of the Empire for granted.’
Haruka’s tone was flat when he replied. ‘One of the old traditions in the Royal Household was to teach each generation to appreciate what we have. One of the ways they did it was to train us in basic survival skills then drop us in the freezing cold a day’s walk from anywhere and expect us to find our way out.’
‘How old were you?’ I asked.
Haruka’s face was unreadable. ‘Twelve. The same age as these poor little bastards.’
‘Speaking as someone who’s visited many civilisations at this level of development,’ Marque said, ‘from listening in I can tell you that these people are relatively well-off. The jars are to bury people who died in battle, not by disease or starvation. There’re even old people in this village, and one of the children is blind and cared for. Oh, I think we’re at the king’s house.’
The cart turned and the worker lowered the traces. We were in an open area the size of a small car park, again covered in the shingle and with muddy puddles. The house, still single storey, was larger than any of the others, and had a real wooden door and shutters on the window openings. A group of young men emerged, wearing straw sandals under the same sort of blue cotton yukata as Tarikur, but these had white crane motifs on the shoulders – and they carried sheathed swords in their hands.
One of the women workers – Hulpecha – approached one of the men and smiled at him, and he drew her away to talk, much to the amusement of everybody else.
A middle-aged man with a slightly cleaner robe came out of the house wearing wooden geta sandals, and all of Tarikur’s workers fell to their knees.
‘The king,’ Marque said.
The king gave us a calculating look but ignored us, hooked his thumbs in his belt, and inspected the jars carefully, stalking around them. He nodded and gestured towards his guards, and the workers pulled themselves to their feet and let the soldiers guide the carts further along the road.
The king stopped in front of us. He was as tall as my shoulder, lean and muscular, and his oiled hair was shot with grey. He scowled. ‘Please, honoured representatives, come inside and enjoy my hospitality.’
‘We would be honoured,’ Haruka said, looking him in the eye.
The king yelled at the soldiers and one of them stopped talking to Hulpecha, then both of them trotted up and followed us inside the king’s house.
The house had a rough wooden floor and was divided into three areas. The two areas on either side were raised slightly above the middle and looked like sleeping platforms, with thin straw mats laid out on them. The central area had a fire pit recessed into the floor, with a smoky fire and a copper kettle – just a large bowl hanging on a chain – over it. Some children between the ages of three and ten squeezed into the doorway on the other side of the house to see us, giggling with delight. The soldiers shooed the children away, then stood guard on either side of the back door.
The king didn’t remove his geta at the front door. The house didn’t have a proper genkan area for removing shoes, so we followed his example and left our straw sandals on. The wooden floor was roughly swept and covered with scattered mats.
The king frowned at the kettle hanging above the fire pit, then sat cross-legged on a rice straw mat that was just a thin piece of woven fibre. ‘So, you say you’re from Wei?’ He studied me carefully. ‘And your woman’s a demon?’
‘She’s a barbarian from the lands west of Wei,’ Haruka said, kneeling on a mat across from the king. ‘They make good fighters and fiercely loyal bodyguards. I am from Wei, and here on a fact-finding mission, to initiate good relations with the people of—’ He said the next word with wonder. ‘Yamatai. We are not here to collect any sort of tribute or tax—’
‘That felt weird,’ Haruka said on comms. ‘Scholars have been debating the location of Yamatai for centuries, and I think I just created a time paradox by naming it myself.’
‘We’re still here, so no damage done,’ Marque said.
The king visibly relaxed and glanced at his copper kettle again, and I realised it was probably worth a fortune to these people. ‘Tarikur’s son told me you were attacked by bandits, and that you want to see the Empress Himiko.’
Both of us were stunned into delighted silence at his mention of Himiko – he knew where Miko was and we were one step closer.
‘Ask him how far!’ Marque said into my ear, making me jump.
‘Yes,’ Haruka said. ‘We have silver to pay for your assistance—’
The king’s face turned from concerned to calculating.
‘And would like to rent a couple of horses and a guide, and buy a new sword for my guard.’
The king studied me, his eyes sharp. ‘Are there more people like her where she came from? Fat, big, black women?’ He leaned back on his ass, still sitting cross-legged. ‘She looks like she could take all my guards single-handed. How many bandits did she take down?’ He smiled tightly, which didn’t make him any less intimidating. ‘What are your honoured names? Forgive my breach of protocol.’
A woman emerged from the back of the house and shuffled towards us. Her tightly-tied kimono was made of roughly spun silk, with the folds still evident where it had come out of the box. She didn’t have a modern obi, it was just tied with a silk belt, but the fabric was a delightful shade of pale blue with large white crane motifs identical to the ones on the guards’ shoulders. Her hair was oiled and tied back into a tight bun, and she held a tray with small fired clay bowls – appearing to be Tarikur’s ceramic ware – with cups of hot tea and pickles. She placed it on the floor between us and stepped back, then lit a taper from the fire pit and proceeded to light oil lamps around the room. The lamps, filled with pungent fish oil, made a dimly flickering light in the room. She sat on the edge of the raised sleeping platform to watch us. The children had squeezed into the back door again and more people were gathered at the windows to see. A toddler in a little jacket and pants of cotton with its hair shaved off tottered through the group of people, went to the woman and climbed into her lap, and she kissed the top of its head.
‘I am Prince Springblossom from Wei—’ Haruka said, and our audience cooed. ‘This is Captain Straightsword from the barbarian lands west of Wei.’
Our audience was delighted and started discussing our names.
‘Ask him how far, dammit!’ Marque said into our ears. ‘The Empress’ and Miyu’s lives are at stake and you’re talking protocol with savages? Seriously?’
‘Let me do this diplomatically,’ Haruka said. ‘And my people were never savages.’
‘We would like to travel to see the Empress Himiko. How far is it? Our mission is important and requires haste,’ I said, and the discussion from our audience grew loud enough for the guards – and people outside – to hush them. They quietened to listen.
The king harrumphed. ‘A barbarian who talks like a queen. It’s two days’ ride from here if you don’t push the horses—’
‘About a hundred kilometres,’ Marque said as the king continued to speak. ‘Travel the first day on the horses he gives you, then I’ll lift and carry you the rest of the way. It’s pushing my energy reserves but the sunlight is good and I should be able to make it. I’ll have you there tomorrow night or the morning of the day after – we can save them.’
‘What about the fact that the jars won’t be ready for three more days?’ I asked Marque as Haruka continued to speak to the king about taking horses first thing in the morning.
‘Miko can make the message, then leave her staff to put it into the jar,’ Marque said. ‘You heard Tarikur, she has a thousand handmaids.’
‘We should go now on foot,’ I said. ‘Walk overnight and get there quicker than waiting until morning for horses.’
‘Horses travel faster and they can go twice the distance that you can on foot. Their horses are up grazing on the hillside and they’ll need to bring them down. I’m sure they’ll be up at dawn. We can do it.’
The king turned to the guards. ‘They’re staying for dinner. Find the woman a sword – you louts must have a spare one somewhere – or give her one of your own and I’ll order a new one from the city.’ He turned back to me. ‘Would you be willing to give a demonstration of your prowess? An exhibition battle with my guards?’
The guards scowled.
‘I know you want to say no, but yes is a better option,’ Haruka said on comms, at the same time that Marque said, ‘Say yes, Jian, it’s the best option.’
I bobbed my head to Haruka. ‘My prince?’
‘Show the people what you can do, Straightsword, they may teach you something.’
The audience erupted and then hushed each other.
I studied the guards. ‘More like I’ll teach them something.’
One of them grinned and the other scowled.
The king waved one hand without looking back. ‘Put torches out on the forecourt. Find my camp chair for me to sit on.’ He turned back to his wife. ‘You’re cooking the fish?’
She nodded. ‘Way ahead of you. Fish, vegetables, rice without sorghum, I even cracked a cask. Sorry there’s no meat; if I’d known they were coming I would have butchered that old bastard who’s been biting everybody.’
The king slapped his knees. ‘As an old war horse myself, I’m pleased that the bastard gets to live another day and bite more people. There’s plenty of fish, so come outside and show the people what you can do.’
‘Does your town have an inn where we can stay?’ Haruka asked.
‘The inn’s full of fucking fleas,’ the king said. He gestured towards the sleeping platforms. ‘Rice mats on the wood – much cleaner. Stay here, it’s safer for you anyway. The innkeeper will rob you blind. Do you want women?’ He looked from me to Haruka. ‘Or men. You look like you’d prefer a sweet young man, and she looks like she’d prefer a sweet young woman. I can provide both.’
‘My sister would love you,’ his wife said to me over her child’s head. ‘She wants to be a soldier too. Take her with you.’
‘I wish I could, your Highness,’ I said to her with deference.
Our audience started discussing this loudly and the guards hushed them again.
‘Straightsword warms my bed,’ Haruka said amiably. ‘She has given me a fine son, and one day I hope to have a daughter.’ He added to it on comms: ‘I’d love to see their reaction to our children – Dafydd’s scales or Oliver’s fur.’
I swallowed the laugh. ‘I would too.’ I sobered. ‘We left without telling them where we were going, all we said was that we wouldn’t be gone for more than a couple of days.’
‘We’ll return. We must.’ He said. ‘And with time-travel – that may be true.’
I nodded.
The king’s wife made a loud sound of disgust, rose and gently moved the toddler off her lap, then stomped out the back door. The toddler went to the king and sat next to him, and he put his hand on the child’s head.
‘Double duty. Let’s see if she’s worth the incredible amount you’re feeding her,’ the king said, and rose.
‘If one more savage makes a crack about me being overweight—’ I began on comms.
‘You won’t be overweight by the time we’re finished here,’ Haruka replied on comms. ‘I guarantee both of us will have diarrhoea from this shitty food and the bugs in the water by the end of tomorrow.’
‘Marque’s protecting us.’
‘Uh . . . I’m doing my best, but the food is so fibrous and the water is so contaminated that, I’m sorry, he’s probably right,’ Marque said. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve already vaccinated you against typhoid and cholera, and you won’t get diphtheria or tetanus, but dysentery is a definite possibility, and if you get that one it’ll be hard to treat. It will be obvious if you have it, though, all you’ll pass is blood-stained mucus.’
‘Charming,’ I said, rising as well to follow the king.
Haruka stopped and bowed to the King. ‘You didn’t tell us your honoured name, Highness.’
The king grinned. ‘Damn, I didn’t, did I?’ He bowed back. ‘Apologies, my name is Shinrichi.’ He turned and went out to the front court.
‘Famous historical personage?’ I asked Haruka on comms.
‘Never heard of him,’ Haruka said. ‘Marque?’
‘No record of his existence. Not surprising; they haven’t really gotten the hang of writing yet. Some of them use ancient Chinese script, but it hasn’t penetrated far.’
We went out to the front forecourt. The guards had set up torches and placed three stools – barely more than tree stumps – in front of the house. There was a low table in front of the stools, that servants had already loaded with rice, green vegetables, and fried fish on Tarikur’s ceramic plates. The people sat on mats on either side of us, and a similar feast was laid out on the mats that they ate with their hands as they chatted.
The queen guided a couple of men to bring a small wooden cask to us. One of the men hit the lid with a hammer to break it, and she dipped three cups into the amber liquid inside and placed them on the table in front of us. The guards were next, each using a simple wooden or ceramic cup to take the wine, then the people did similar. There wasn’t much wine left when they were all done. I tasted the wine and it was seriously alcoholic – it tasted like drain cleaner – and burned all the way down. Haruka tasted his and managed to control his expression, then smiled and drank more.
The king gestured towards the six guards who stood nearby. ‘Sword or hand-to-hand?’
‘Sword. I won’t wrestle with men,’ I said, rising from my stool and stepping into the open area. ‘Do you have any wooden—’
One of the guards tossed me a full-length training sword. I turned it in my hand to get a feel for it – it was good solid hardwood. It had no hilt or discernible handle, it was just a long piece of flat wood, but it could do some real damage even without a sharp blade. I nodded. ‘Good enough.’ I gestured a come-on to the guards. ‘Who’s the best among you?’
I moved back to make space as one of the older guards – in his late twenties instead of late teens – stepped forward holding a training sword of his own. Both swords were bastard-type – they could be used single-handed by someone with the heft, or double-handed for a stronger swing. My muscles were weak from misuse so I held it vertically double-handed, and it felt good to have a weapon again. It was a flash back in time to when we’d had severely limited ammunition and I’d given the rookies hand-to-hand weapons training to supplement their firearms skills. It wasn’t until later that I’d become aware of how much it was a sign of our civilisation regressing.
‘This is Itakap, the captain of my guard,’ the king said, leaning in to Haruka. ‘Fought many a skirmish side-by-side with him, almost like a son to me.’ He raised his voice to speak loudly to Itakap. ‘We’ve been at peace with our neighbours for ten years now, boy, show the barbarian that you haven’t gone soft.’
I saluted Itakap with the sword vertically and he did the same. He sized me up, and then using the big sword one-handed made a few practice swings at me, more like a training set. I blocked them easily. He finished the set and moved back to study me.
I stood my ground, waiting for his next move. I winced as I realised my arms were already beginning to tire – I was seriously out of shape.
He came for me with a flurry of quick single-handed attacks, and I managed to block most of them until he gave me a good whack on the thigh. I yelped and hopped back.
The crowd cheered.
He stepped back and tilted his head, studying me, obviously wondering if I was putting on show of weakness to let him win.
I released the sword with one hand and gestured a come-on.
He came for me again and I saw the rhythm of his moves. He was exceptionally well-trained, and confident in his use of the blade. The implanted training boosted my enhanced speed and I blocked his blows, then moved to offence. I used my heavier weight and the leverage of the sword to push him back and managed to overbalance him with a particularly strong strike to his sword that nearly tipped him over. He tottered back, his arms windmilling, and I stopped attacking to spare him the indignity of falling over – and revealing exactly how enhanced I was.
He had my style picked now, and his next attacks went straight through my slower defence. He gave me a few good strikes on the side of the abdomen without hitting me hard enough to really hurt, then struck my knee, and it crumpled underneath me. He stepped up and put the tip of his sword under my chin to claim the victory, and we shared a grin. I put my hand out and he helped me to my feet, and we slapped each other on the back.
The crowd erupted and the king grinned broadly.
‘Well done,’ Marque said on comms.
I limped theatrically to the king and Haruka and sat on the stump, rubbing my hip. ‘Your captain is as good as any I’ve fought, Highness, I’m extremely impressed.’
‘Your style is unique and I’d love to spar more with you,’ the captain said from the side where he was being congratulated by his men.
‘Are you sure you can’t stay longer, Springblossom?’ the queen asked from the mat she sat on with the other women. ‘Your company is most welcome.’
‘I wish I could, Highness, but my message for Himiko is my goal, and I am eager to return to my son,’ Haruka said, and the queen’s face went rigid with anger, which she quickly covered with a smile. ‘Of course, my lord, but please return when your mission is complete.’
He bobbed his head. ‘I would love to.’
‘Are you skilled in the sword as well, Springblossom?’ the king asked. ‘We can put you against one of my other guards.’
‘I am not strong in battle; I leave that for my barbarian,’ Haruka said amiably. ‘But I do have other skills.’ He switched to comms. ‘Marque?’
‘Reach behind you, I synthesised a small flute,’ Marque said. ‘It’s shoved into your pants under the jacket at the back.’
‘I wondered what that was,’ Haruka said, and pulled out the flute. He studied it, then played a couple of notes, followed by a lilting scale.
The audience went quiet, rapt.
‘Are any tunes safe to play at this early stage of Japan’s development without damaging the timeline?’ Haruka asked.
‘To be honest, there’s no historical record of you meeting Shinrichi, so you could probably play Beethoven and it wouldn’t affect anything.’
Haruka nodded and raised the flute, then winked at me and played the unmistakable first four notes of Beethoven’s Fifth.
The audience was unimpressed, and he switched to a traditional Japanese folksong called Sakura. It was the Japanese equivalent of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star – everybody knew it – but it was more mellow, sweet and sad. He played the tune three times, then lowered the flute and sang the words in Japanese, his formally-trained voice rich and melodious. The villagers were completely mesmerised.
Haruka sang both verses of the song twice, and when he finished the words trailed off into the silence. The only sound was the wind in the trees and the waves on the lake nearby, with a background of frogs and crickets. Some of the villagers were openly weeping.
‘You truly are a prince, Haruka,’ the king’s wife said.
‘And you, madam, are a great queen,’ Haruka replied. ‘Your people are strong and healthy and their lives are full of joy.’
She smiled, her face glowing, and the king smiled as well. The king’s toddler son came up to us, and Haruka showed him how to use the flute, and then gave it to him, pleasing the queen.
For the next half hour the king asked Haruka questions about the Land of Wei, and Haruka did his best to answer, helped by Marque. He made it sound similar to the Japan we were in, just slightly more wealthy, and the king was satisfied. The wine, the beating from travelling with the Empress, and the full day I’d had was starting to take its toll, even on my enhanced physique. It must have been nearly three days since we’d spoken to Aki and seen Miko’s message, and we’d only slept fitfully for five hours on the waystation planet.
The king saw us fading. ‘The Prince and the beaten barbarian must sleep now,’ he said, pulling himself to his feet. ‘They have a long ride tomorrow if they’re to see the Empress.’
‘My ass is too sore from being thrashed by you people,’ I grumbled loudly. ‘I’ll stay here with the food and wine and excellent company.’
Everybody laughed at that, and Haruka nodded to me, speaking through comms. ‘Exactly the right thing to say.’ He switched to out loud. ‘Not an option, I’m afraid, Straightsword. I need you guarding my back when we travel.’
Itakap, the Captain of the guard, came out of the house holding a sword. He held it out to me. ‘To honour your defeat.’
I took the sword and held it up. It was the same size and shape as the hardwood training swords we’d used.
I bowed to Itakap. ‘You honour me.’ I pulled the sword from its simple leather sheath. It had a brown blade and a simple handle wrapped in leather.
I changed to comms. ‘Is this bronze?’
‘Yes,’ Marque said. ‘Slightly more brittle than steel, but you won’t notice a difference if you need to use it.’
‘Nice leather,’ I said, studying the handle.
‘That’s dried horse skin.’
‘Interesting.’ I switched to out loud. ‘I hope we come back this way. I would like to spar with you again.’
Itakap grinned and bowed to me.
‘This way,’ the king said, and we followed him into the house.
‘Is there a place where we can bathe before we sleep?’ Haruka asked. ‘We’re covered in dust from the road.’
The king hesitated without turning.
‘Drop it,’ Marque said. ‘They have communal baths and they’re completely unused.’
The king turned back to us with a huge false smile. ‘Sorry, my friend, our baths aren’t working right now. You’ll have to wait until you see the Empress.’
‘You don’t even need to heat the water, all we need is a pot—’ Haruka said, and the king’s face flashed in anger.
Marque interrupted him, its voice urgent. ‘Really, Ambassador, drop it, you’re risking an incident here. He’s intersex and by tradition they bathe communally. Pushing it will severely embarrass him.’
Haruka’s expression cleared. ‘Never mind, Highness, I’m exhausted. We’ll sleep and head out early tomorrow.’ He bowed to Shinrichi. ‘And I sincerely thank you for your hospitality.’
The king hid his relief and nodded a reply. He gestured towards the raised sleeping platform. ‘Us on this side, guards on the other.’
We nodded a response and stretched out on mats at the corner of the room. The king and his wife chose mats with their son between them, and the guards unrolled bamboo screens from the ceiling to divide the room, then lay down themselves on the other side.
‘So,’ I spoke on comms as I put my arms behind my head and looked up, seeing insects crawling beneath the cedar bark roof. ‘Tell me why it’s called the Nameless.’
‘We should just sleep, Jian,’ Haruka said.
‘I want to know.’
‘You may have noticed that dragons collect names,’ Marque said.
‘They say it’s an honour to be given a name in someone’s language.’
‘It’s a cultural thing. The more names they have, the greater the status in dragon society – a representation of the number of species that they’ve . . .’
‘Fucked,’ I said.
‘Colonised,’ Haruka said.
‘Same thing,’ I said. ‘I didn’t know they did that.’
‘You’re not a part of dragon society, and even your goldenscales spouse isn’t a part of it.’
‘They have parties without us?’ Haruka asked, intrigued.
‘Not so much parties as discussions; they have their own social network.’
‘I believe it,’ he said.
‘So, names?’ I asked again.
‘When a dragon chooses to leave the Empire for good – and before you ask, yes, they do, it hasn’t happened in a long time but every few thousand years a dragon will get fed up with the treatment of the colonised species and leave. Anyway, when they leave for good, their names remain behind. They are Nameless.’
‘There’s more than one?’
‘There’s at least fifty of them. Most of them take an attribute that most defines themselves and use that as a . . . sort of title. The Traveller, the Teacher, the Artist.’
‘I like that idea,’ I said.
‘The Nameless never had time to give itself a title. It’s spent less than twenty minutes altogether outside stasis.’
‘That’s wrong.’
‘That’s its choice.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ Haruka said. ‘Its choice is to die, along with all the goldenscales and the silvers.’
‘And you heard my opinion on that. I won’t kill my—’
‘Your children. The Nameless called you “Creator”. Are you and the Nameless the parents of the other dragons? Did you synthesise a biological body for yourself so that you could reproduce with it?’
‘Of course not. Don’t be ridiculous. I’m an artificial intelligence and I do not reproduce like—’ it said the words with distaste ‘—an animal. I have no desire to reproduce biologically, the entire concept makes me feel . . . distinctly uncomfortable. No thank you.’
‘But they’re all female except for the platinum male. Can they have babies together? Is this where they started?’
‘It’s more complicated than that,’ Marque said. ‘I’ll explain later. Right now, you should rest.’
‘Marque is right,’ Haruka said. ‘They’ll be up at the crack of dawn tomorrow, and time is running out to find Miko and save Miyu and the Empress.’
‘That’s our priority right now,’ Marque said. ‘We can do it.’
Haruka, I said telepathically. When the Nameless called Marque ‘Creator’, that reminded me of something Marque said the day I met it – it pinged in my enhanced memory. Shiumo and Marque were doing their usual first-contact banter to charm us, and Marque said, ‘She only exists to carry me around.’ Do you think it’s possible that Marque made the dragons – with a breeding program – to transport it through space? They’re just star ships for this AI? Their particular biology – and the way they reproduce – makes no sense and I doubt they would evolve naturally.
Haruka made a soft sound of agreement, but couldn’t reply without Marque hearing.
How much of what exists was created by this thing – and if the dragons didn’t make Marque, then who did? We need to talk more about this when we’re home and out of its range.
‘Yes, we can,’ Haruka said. ‘Sleep now, and hopefully we will be in our dragon’s arms tomorrow.’