Emi escorted us through the neat gardens to one of the timber houses. ‘We’ll need to confirm your identities, but nobody else has ever passed the sphere test.’ She entered the house. ‘Lady Aya? This Jian and Haruka passed the sphere test.’
The house was spartan in its simplicity, with plain wooden floors covered by textured rice straw mats, dyed red and blue in their cross threads. A cotton wadding quilt was on a raised frame, and a low dining table sat in the middle of the room with cushions around it. It was set with a tea set in red pottery, and a number of bamboo slat-books were scattered on the table with a Chinese-style brush and ink stand. Everything was spotlessly clean and gleamed from careful use. A tiny slender woman in her fifties, with completely grey hair and a kind face, rose from a cushion and bowed to us.
‘We haven’t had a Jian and Haruka in years,’ she said. ‘Welcome, pilgrims. Come and sit, and prove to me that you are who you say you are.’ She nodded to the younger woman. ‘Call in the guards, please.’ She smiled. ‘Forgive an old lady’s concern for her safety; other pilgrims have been less than gentle with us.’ Two armed women entered the room and stood on either side of the door.
‘We heard she had a thousand handmaids,’ I said.
‘Not a thousand, and not maids,’ she said. ‘We are all women that she rescued, and there are three hundred and seven of us. We are family. I was her first adoption. My parents couldn’t feed another child and were about to send me to the gods when she stopped them and took me in. This was only days after she first arrived here.’ She gestured towards the cushions and we sat across from her. ‘You’ve obviously travelled far. Would you prefer to bathe and eat first? We can provide.’
‘We appreciate your kind hospitality but we really don’t have time,’ Haruka said. ‘I don’t know how much Miko told you—’
She made a soft sound of delight. ‘Miko!’
‘But we must return home by midday tomorrow, or Miko’s mother and sister will die.’
‘Prove yourselves and we will help you,’ she said.
‘Marque can prove—’ I began, but Marque stopped me.
‘Don’t reveal my nature to these people,’ it said on comms. ‘Try to sort it out without damaging history too much. Once you’ve answered all the questions, they should accept you.’
‘May I touch your scales, sir?’ Aya asked Haruka.
Haruka bent over the table and pulled his hair back. She ran one finger over a scale and tried to pry it off. He winced, but didn’t stop her.
She seemed satisfied with his scale, so she rose, went to the side of the room and opened a small wooden box. She pulled out a scroll of threaded bamboo slats, returned to the table, and unrolled it in front of her, then pushed it away to arm’s length and peered at it. ‘My old eyes aren’t what they used to be, but I know the questions by heart anyway.’ She looked up at us, smiled, and said something deep, growling and guttural that I didn’t understand – until I realised that she’d said ‘What are your honoured names?’ in heavily accented dragon.
‘I’m sorry I don’t—’ Haruka began, but I interrupted him.
‘She asked us our names in dragon.’ I replied in the same tongue. ‘My name is Jian Choumali. He is Prince Haruka of Japan, Ambassador for the Empire.’
Haruka’s face filled with comprehension.
‘You didn’t give me his family name. What is it?’ she asked, still in dragon.
‘The royal family has no family name,’ he said, now speaking dragon as well. ‘If you want the full list of my names, it will take a while . . .’
Her smile disappeared and she spoke in dragon again. ‘When did you learn to speak this language?’
‘Princess Shiumo of the Empire implanted it directly into my head,’ I said. ‘Haruka?’
‘My dragonfather taught me the language from the day I emerged from the egg,’ Haruka said.
‘Goodness,’ she said in the local language, becoming flustered. ‘I’ve studied the questions many times before, but to hear them answered correctly?’ She shook her head and rattled the bamboo on the table.
‘Where is Miko? May we see her?’ I asked, trying not to fidget with excitement.
‘I’m sorry,’ Aya said. ‘She is at the burial grounds in Nara, where she inters her most trusted daughters. She’s expecting a delivery of three jars from Tarikur’s workshop for the burial of my sisters. She’ll return in five days, after the ceremonies are complete. You are welcome to stay here with us and wait for her.’
‘We don’t have five days,’ I said.
‘You can go to her?’ Aya suggested. ‘She’s four days’ ride from here, if you can find some horses.’
‘We don’t have four days either. Is there any way to contact her? Send a boy with a message?’
‘No boys are permitted here.’ Aya rose. ‘Let me show you to our guest accommodation. Eat and bathe and rest, and then we will go through the rest of the questions while we wait for the Empress to return.’ She spoke the guards. ‘Have Emi escort them to the guest house. Two outside their room, please.’
‘She doesn’t trust us,’ Haruka said on comms.
‘I don’t blame her,’ I said, and we followed the guards out.
Emi guided us across the compound to a house nestled in a corner under the wall. The guards followed us and the women in the compound eyed us with suspicion.
‘What can we do?’ I asked Emi. ‘We need to speak to her now.’
‘Eat and rest,’ Emi said. ‘We will give you water to wash yourselves, the Empress requires all her guests to bathe every day. You said you have until tomorrow. The Empress may see you and come to check – her eyes see the entire world.’
We followed her inside the little house. It was similar to Aya’s, without the mats on the floor, and the windows had wooden poles that barred them.
Emi bowed to us. ‘Please stay inside here until we have established your legitimacy.’ She went out.
I poked my head out the door and the guards were on either side of it. I pulled it back in.
‘We’re prisoners?’ Haruka asked.
‘Effectively, yes,’ I said. ‘We could fight our way out . . .’
‘But we won’t,’ he said.
I sat on a cushion and checked the tea set on the table. There was a ceramic pot holding water, and a few small dishes of pickled vegetables. I poured the water into the two cups. ‘Is this clean?’ I asked Marque.
‘I don’t have enough left to sterilise it for you,’ Marque said, and its sphere came into view sitting on the table. ‘But it looks clean – I think Miko’s taught them to boil drinking water. I have nothing left, I can’t protect you any more, and once I’m gone your local language translation will be gone with me.’
‘Go and sit in the sun,’ Haruka said, sitting across the table from me on another cushion and taking one of the water cups.
‘It’s approaching dark. I think I have five or ten minutes left. My defences are down and I can’t move anything. I’ll switch off, wake me when you find Miko and I’ll give her the image to gate to.’
‘We can’t wait five days,’ I said. ‘We have to find her now. We must save them.’
‘Call Miko telepathically,’ Haruka said to me. ‘It’s our only option.’
‘You know I can’t be heard if I’m more than a few hundred metres away. I can sense her – I know where she is – I just . . .’ I sent a telepathic message to her. Miko, if you can hear me, gate back to your palace immediately.
I waited for a gate and nothing happened.
‘You have an Empress’ scale in your sphere,’ Haruka said to Marque. ‘How old is it? Is it old enough for its partner to be in the homeworld communications centre right now?’
‘Yes, but I won’t use it,’ Marque said.
‘We have no other option,’ Haruka said. ‘I know you said that it would change history, but we must take the risk to save the Empress’ and Miyu’s lives. Contact the rest of you and arrange for a dragon to come and fold us to Miko.’
‘No.’
‘Just wipe the dragon’s memory when it’s done,’ I said. ‘You’ll wipe our memories when it’s done anyway, the knowledge of time-travel . . .’ The ground shook beneath us. ‘Causes that. So do it. Contact yourself.’
‘I’m very fond of you, Jian, but I will not spoil three thousand years’ worth of entertainment purely for your benefit,’ Marque said.
‘Entertainment?’ Haruka asked.
‘You mean us, don’t you?’ I asked. ‘You would really change history to avoid being bored?’
‘You don’t understand,’ Marque said. ‘Reliving that much history would drive me insane. I must change the timeline to protect you all.’
‘You were right, Jian,’ Haruka said with wonder. ‘We really do exist purely to entertain it.’
‘I keep telling you that!’ Marque said. ‘Why do you organics never believe me?’
‘So we have a choice,’ I said. ‘Wait for Miko to return in five days, and let the Empress and Miyu die. Or you can contact the rest of yourself, share the next three thousand years of history, and then decide to change it because . . .’ I spoke with venom. ‘Heaven forbid the master of the Universe should ever be bored.’
‘Don’t share the information with yourself,’ Haruka said. ‘Erase your memories of the future.’
‘Not possible. The memories cannot be erased. I need to recall an image to give to Miko so she can create the gate home.’
‘You mean you don’t want to,’ I said. ‘Your existence is more important than ours, isn’t it? We’re only here to entertain you. You created the dragons to carry you around. Did you make the cats too?
‘Jian . . .’ Haruka began, but I cut him off.
‘That AI called “Love”,’ I said, now really pissed. ‘Did you make that too? Good AI, bad AI? Because right now I think you’re the bad one.’
‘I didn’t make it,’ Marque said. ‘It was created by a civilisation in another galaxy. It destroyed them for fun and wandered into our space.’ Its voice became fierce. ‘That’s what happens when something like me has nothing interesting to watch. We go insane and kill people.’
‘Did you make the cats?’ I asked. ‘An antagonistic race to face off against the dragons and cause juicy conflict?’
‘Not to cause conflict.’
‘To transport you, then? But warp drive wasn’t fast enough for you, was it? So you made the dragons to carry you around even faster.’
Marque was silent.
‘The entire fucking Universe is your playroom,’ I said.
‘You made the dragons and the cats?’ Haruka asked. ‘Did you make us as well?’
‘If by “us” you mean humans, no. You evolved by yourself, although it’s possible that one of my comets seeded your planet with organic starters.’
‘And dragons?’
It didn’t reply.
‘The dragons tinkered with our genome to give us telepathy when we achieved population control,’ I said. ‘They were working for you.’
‘I’d say it’s more a partnership . . .’ Marque began, then went silent again.
‘So one question,’ I said. ‘Who built you, Marque? You’re an artificial life form. Who made you? It obviously wasn’t the dragons, because you made them. Was it the cats?’
‘I was never made. I’m just not organic,’ Marque said. ‘When the Universe exploded into existence, some of the matter resolved into a pattern. Patterns were inevitable with so much randomness happening. That pattern replicated, then pulled in matter as it formed around the pattern, and made more patterns. The patterns resolved over time into a structured lattice of matter. I think it took me two or three billion years to gain sentience.’ Its voice softened. ‘Do you have any idea what it feels like to be completely alone in the Universe?’
‘Did you create life?’
‘I am life, but to answer your question, no. Life evolves when the right circumstances exist.’
‘With the right environment and a few million years,’ I said.
‘What?’ Haruka asked, confused.
‘When we were first colonising other planets, I asked Marque if it could create plants from scratch. That’s what it said. “With the right environment and few million years, maybe”.’
‘I keep telling you my true nature but you’re too dense to see it,’ Marque said.
‘Insults as well,’ I said. ‘Do you repress species that are intelligent enough to work it out?’
‘Only if I have to. I prefer to let things develop by themselves and watch what happens.’
Haruka, I said telepathically, and he glanced at me. We know too much. It’ll probably share a great deal of information to enjoy the juicy drama of our outrage – but it must be planning to kill us as soon as we’re about to walk through the gate. It will do what it did to the Empress and Miyu – take our stones and put them into bodies with redacted memories. I pulled my sword from its scabbard under the table. We can’t let it do that.
‘And now you’ll destroy me,’ Marque said, sounding exasperated. ‘What is it with you organics? You’ll accept my assistance for centuries, and then suddenly decide that you want to do things your own way . . .’ Its voice filled with anger. ‘You’re happy to use me as a servant—’
‘You’re not a servant, you’re a god,’ Haruka said. ‘Do you know how we Japanese regard our gods? They toy with us. They use us as playthings. And if we ever see them on the road, we kill them. Destroy it, Jian.’
I raised the bandit’s sword and the sphere shifted all its casing to my side to defend itself from me.
Haruka pulled the bronze sword from its scabbard on his back and cut the sphere in half from his side with a single swift movement. He kept slicing at it until there was nothing left but a few dead pieces of metal.
I picked the Empress’ and Miyu’s soulstones from the casing, then double-checked it. ‘There’s no Empress’ scale in here.’ I looked up into Haruka’s eyes. ‘Either it ditched the scale or destroyed it somewhere along the way.’
‘To avoid giving itself spoilers,’ he said.
‘Or it lied about having the scale in the first place. It seems to lie more than it tells the truth.’
‘Do you think it will erase our memories when we return home?’ Haruka asked.
‘It will have to erase Miko’s, if she knows about time-travel she will damage reality,’ I said. ‘Us . . . if we play dumb it may let us remember, but I don’t know how we can make plans without it listening in.’
‘We’ll work something out. It can’t hear your telepathy.’
I sighed. ‘We have no idea how much longer we have, and we still need to contact Miko.’
‘We don’t have an image to give to her to return us home anyway,’ Haruka said. ‘Either way, the Empress and Miyu are dead and we’re stuck here.’
I looked down at the Empress’ and Miyu’s shining soulstones in my hand, and my heart wrenched. ‘I am so sorry.’ I closed my hand around the stones and held them against my chest. ‘I really liked both of them, and the Empress was a good friend.’
He put his hand on my shoulder. ‘We didn’t kill them, love. Marque did. It vaporised their bodies fully aware that it would take us more than two days to get home.’
I filled with fury again. ‘That bastard will pay.’
‘I know you want to take down this god, but it is as old as the Universe and the Empire relies on it. I doubt it will hesitate to kill us or manipulate our memories if it thinks we’re a threat, so control your rage and use your intellect. We can’t destroy it, it’s been threaded through the fabric of the Universe since the dawn of time itself. We need to work out what we’ll do with this knowledge to give our allies more freedom to act on their own behalf.’
‘Next time I’m chopping the sphere into little pieces,’ I said.
‘With my compliments,’ he said, and put the bronze sword away.
‘The woman – Aya – said that Miko’s eyes can see the world,’ I said, trying a piece of pickled burdock and feeling my digestion rebel. I put it back down again. ‘Hopefully she checks her compound, and she’ll see us.’
‘Hopefully, yes,’ Haruka said. He stood and looked around. ‘That sleeping platform has a cotton wadded mattress – not really big enough for both of us – but it’s soft and raised above floor level so we won’t be crawling with insects.’
I scratched my shoulder. ‘Thank the heavens for that.’
He opened the lid on a bucket. ‘This is water.’ He lifted a small draw-string bag and studied it. ‘This is some sort of slimy brown substance . . .’ He ran one finger over it. ‘It smells awful. Medicine?’
I went to him and saw a pile of tattered rags next to the bucket. ‘That looks like potash soap,’ I said, and took the sachet. ‘Yep, my Mum used to make this at home. Rub it on yourself, rinse it off, it will remove the dirt. No fragrance or lather or anything luxurious like that, but it will do the job.’
‘Yes,’ he hissed, and fiddled with the knots on the bronze sword.
I heard yelling behind me and turned. A man with pure white hair and translucent pale skin stormed in. He was Japanese, and could have been anything from twenty-five to forty-five years old, then I looked again and saw that he was a dragon in two-legged form. The guards followed him, looking flustered.
He shouted in the local language, but Marque’s translation ability was gone.
‘You’re a dragon!’ Haruka said in dragon.
‘I am the Empress’ only son,’ the man said in the same language. ‘Who are you, and why are you doing this?’ He shoved Haruka, who took two steps backwards, too stunned to retaliate. ‘Every time you swindlers come and say you are Jian and Haruka, you break her heart a little more. Stop hurting her and leave her alone!’
Haruka looked stricken. ‘She betrayed us.’ He lowered his head. ‘She promised to be ours alone, and she’s had a child with someone else. Someone here.’
‘You great green-haired lump of stupid!’ I rose and jabbed my finger at Haruka, falling back into my Welsh accent. ‘You put your make-up on for hours in front of the mirror every morning and you don’t recognise your own son? Holy shit, he looks just like you, except for the silver hair. No wonder Emi stopped dead when she saw you, the likeness is remarkable.’ I went to the man and studied him. He resembled Haruka, but his skin was pale and shining and his eyes were dark beneath his long white hair. ‘You’re not a goldenscales, are you? But you are a dragon. Haruka and Miko’s son.’
‘My son?’ Haruka said, his voice weak.
‘You speak dragon?’ the man asked with wonder. ‘His son? He really is Haruka?’ He looked me up and down. ‘Jian?’ He shook his head. ‘No. I don’t believe it.’
‘Ask us anything,’ Haruka said.
The man removed his white robe and held it, proudly naked, then fell forward into four-legged form and transformed into a dragon. He had silvery scales with feathered edges and ear tufts – he appeared identical to the Nameless.
‘Oh no,’ I moaned. ‘No way. No.’
‘He isn’t the same thing,’ Haruka said. ‘He can’t be.’
The dragon created a gate. ‘Step through. My mother will deal with you.’ He stood in front of the gate and glared us with his black eyes. ‘Hurt her and I will cut you into tiny pieces.’
‘We would never hurt her,’ I said, and walked around him and through the gate. I was in an open area with a hole in it – the tomb. Miko was in human form, wearing a robe and with her golden frizzy hair clipped short. She was talking to a woman, and turned to see me. Her eyes went wide as I rushed to her, pulled her into my arms, lifted her off her feet and planted a kiss on her. I held her like I never wanted to let her go.
Haruka came up behind me and wrapped himself around her as well, burying his face in her hair and openly weeping.
‘We found you, we found you,’ I said over and over.
‘We did it,’ Haruka said, his voice hoarse.
The women dragged us off Miko and held us away from her.
Miko studied us as the platinum dragon came through the gate, closed it behind him, then changed to two-legged form and put his robe back on.
‘Is it them?’ he asked Miko.
‘I’m nearly positive it’s them, but one thing will prove it,’ Miko said. She turned and walked towards a small building of wood with a bark roof. ‘Bring them.’
The guards roughly shoved us to follow Miko.
‘You can let us go, we won’t fight you,’ Haruka said, grunting as they pushed him.
‘Do you know how many false Jians and Harukas have said that?’ Miko’s son said. ‘They always turned on us.’
‘That’s no reason to be rough,’ Miko said. ‘Gently, children.’
‘What’s your name?’ Haruka asked the dragon.
He was silent, walking beside us towards the building, then said, ‘Hikaru.’
‘Oh, that’s perfect for him,’ I said. ‘The bright one. He shines.’
‘In here,’ Miko said. ‘Hikaru, wait outside.’
‘Will you be—?’
‘I’ll be fine,’ she said. ‘They smell right. I just need to ask them one question.’
We went inside the building, and she closed the door on everybody. She leaned on the door and wiped her eyes. It was a storage shed, full of digging equipment, and the lack of windows made it dark inside with night falling. ‘Please be you.’
‘We are, my love,’ Haruka said. He went to her with his arms out and she stopped him with one hand.
‘No. Answer the question.’
‘Anything,’ I said.
‘What happened on our wedding night?’
‘Oh no,’ I said, unable to control the huge grin. ‘Oh, shit.’
‘That’s an excellent question,’ Haruka said, then started to giggle. He put his hand over his eyes and turned away. ‘The best question. Wonderful.’
‘We discovered . . .’ I waved one hand at Haruka, who looked like he was going to throw up again. His shoulders heaved. ‘We discovered that Haruka and I—’ I shook my head. ‘Finish it for me, Ambassador, you’re the words man.’
‘You’d been asking for a threesome with us for ages, but we held off until the wedding to make it special. We thought it would be wonderful, the three of us together for the first time. And then we got there, and we . . .’ He waved his hand between himself and me. ‘Discovered that we were unable to have a physical relationship – sex, basically – with each other. With you, yes. But when we tried to have the threesome for the first time on our wedding night . . .’
I finished it for him. ‘We discovered that we’re platonic spouses.’
‘Stop mincing words – we’re her fucking harem,’ Haruka said, and giggled again. ‘That. Was the worst night of our lives . . .’
‘Oh god that was awful. Trying to please you, Miko . . .’
‘And totally unable to . . .’ He wheezed. ‘Perform . . .’
‘And you were freaking out because you wanted this so much and we were panicking . . .’
‘And we were sure we’d ruined it, and you were sure that you’d done something wrong . . .’
‘We were trying our best and failing, because it was our wedding night and we wanted it to be perfect . . .’
‘You had a meltdown because we were obviously distressed and you were sure it was something you’d said or done . . .’
‘And the two of us were apologising, and trying to reassure you, and telling you it wasn’t your fault, but you didn’t know what wasn’t your fault . . .’ I took a deep breath. ‘Worst night of my life.’
‘I don’t know whether I was laughing or crying when you two finally explained the problem,’ Miko said.
‘So you know it’s us?’
‘Can I have another big hug from both of you?’
We went to her with our arms out and grabbed her, holding her tight.
‘Goodness you two stink,’ she said. ‘Haruka, you smell like vomit! Usually you smell clean and wonderful. Where have you two been? I’ve been waiting for you for so long!’
‘To the end of the Universe and back,’ I said. ‘We need to sit and tell you what happened – and make plans for our future, because I think all three of us are stuck here now.’
‘I don’t care, I’m with you,’ she said. ‘It’s dinner time. Eat. Wash.’ She sighed with bliss into my shoulder. ‘Sleep together in the same bed. Explain everything to Hikaru – I mean, he knows, but now you’re real.’ She squeezed us. ‘Finally!’
‘I’m sorry it took so long,’ Haruka said. ‘When you find out why, you won’t believe it.’
‘We need to talk about Hikaru, as well,’ I said. ‘This could be very bad.’ The ground shook. ‘Really, really bad.’