CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
REVELATION
Tetsuo rubbed his eyes. “It has been a very long day, Hiroki,” he said. “Couldn’t this meeting wait until morning?”
“I wish I could oblige you,” Hiroki told him. “It has been just as long for me, and I don’t possess your good health.” He resisted the urge to massage his own tired eyes. “But it will be better for everyone, I think, if we finish this tonight.” He looked to the south, searching the moonlit stretch of Suzaku Street for any sign of the third member of the party. “Come on, Shiro,” he said to the lonely road. At least they had a full moon to serve them tonight.
“Can you at least tell me what we’re going to do here?”
“We’re going to confront a murderer,” Hiroki told him. “Possibly two.”
“Two murderers?” Tetsuo shifted in his saddle to face Hiroki. “Why are there suddenly two?”
“Because I now believe I have been fighting my way through two completely different conspiracies,” Hiroki said. “They do not connect, not really. But they overlap, and it is because of that overlap that I have been so confused.”
“What is the overlap?” Tetsuo asked. Then he turned again to face south, and Hiroki saw the flicker of torch-light that announced Shiro’s arrival.
“The overlap,” Hiroki said, “is us.”
“You are going to explain that,” Tetsuo said.
“As soon as Shiro is here,” Hiroki told him. “Tetsuo, would you mind helping me to dismount? My knee has stiffened up again and I’m sure I should not be putting too much weight on it.”
Tetsuo nodded his agreement and dismounted. By the time Hiroki was safely on the ground Shiro had joined them.
“All is well back there,” he said. “I was very particular about asking, and none of the servants reports any visitors or inquiries about our injured guests. Katsumi sends her regards and her curses because you would not come to ask after her yourself.” Shiro’s grin looked wicked in the light of his torch. “And Akamatsu was asleep. Lord Naitō told me he had awakened briefly late in the afternoon but had not said anything.”
“I hope that he truly is out of danger now,” Hiroki said, “and in all senses of that word.”
“So now you are going to tell us about your two conspiracies,” Tetsuo said, “and how it is that we happen to be at the intersection of both.”
“Two what?” Shiro asked.
“Not the intersection,” Hiroki said. “We’re not that important. At the overlap is what I said.” He turned to look at the arms master’s gate-house. “I suppose we should go and announce ourselves now. We’ve been talking loudly enough, and Shiro’s torch is bright enough, that the guards must be wondering what we’re doing here.”
“If they aren’t nervous and reaching for their bows,” Tetsuo said. “Or are you just stalling, Hiroki, because you want to make me crazy?”
Before Hiroki could answer they were all three startled into alertness by a cry for help. Tetsuo had his sword out and ready to strike before Hiroki could even get his hand on the hilt of his own; then he heard the sound of feet on the frozen mud of the street. Before he had his own sword in his hand he heard the whistle of arrows, and a scream of such piercing intensity it could only have come from a demon.
He knew, though, that it had come from a human. And a moment later the human staggered into the circle of light cast by the torch Shiro had tossed to the ground on drawing his sword. The yellow glow revealed Togashi Shokan, his body transfixed by arrows. The wakashū’s eyes were wide open but staring at nothing the living could see; Hiroki found himself counting the arrows. Most were in the wakashū’s arms and legs — Deliberate, he wondered, or just poor aim because of darkness? — but several had entered his body and one had gone most of the way through him.
“Not — fair,” the wakashū gasped. He took one more gulping breath, then fell forward with a cracking and snapping of arrow-shafts.
“What in all the hells was that about?” Shiro asked, gazing with disgust at the gore-covered shaft that Togashi’s fall had forced back through his body.
“That,” Hiroki told him, “was part of the overlap I was about to tell you about.”
“Drop your swords, all of you,” said a voice from the dark-shadowed building to the north.
Next Characters Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6
Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14
Chapter 15 Chapter 16
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