Nara Read online

  Her knife dropped and she dove to grab it with her other hand. But her recovery roll was wrong due to her injured arm. Blood was a sharp edge to the scent of night, the smoke from the firepit stung her eyes.

  The Hawk Cadre’s leader faced Tinnai. He was man-tall, his chin scraggly with a thin growth of whiskers. His companion fully engaged Ninka, she could do nothing to help. With a feral smile, the leader brandished the longest knife Ri had ever seen. Tinnai was in danger.

  Ri charged. No cry. Nor stealth. Nor thought. She brushed by Tinnai’s elbow and drove the pipe into the leader’s chest. The sharpened, shining point punched a hole right into him, only stopped by the bookcase he staggered against.

  His knife didn’t drop, but he didn’t raise it either. In surprise, he looked down to inspect the pipe protruding from his chest. Then he looked at Ri, just as his heart’s blood, black in the dim firelight, gushed out the open end of the pipe and sprayed all over her. The heat spread through her clothes and burned against her chilled skin. He toppled silently to the side like a stray leaf on the still winter air.

  Tinnai hamstrung Ninka’s attacker and a moment later, Ninka finished him off.

  The bookstore was silent. No more fighting. No shouts.

  Tinnai called roll. Two didn’t answer. Little Rani had killed one Hawk who’d then landed on her and knocked her out against a bookcase. She’d have a good bump for a while, but no worse. Melna was found with a knife between her breasts, but three lay dead around her. An honorable death.

  They all turned their attention to the towering bookcases.

  Books. Books beyond counting. In the flickering firelight another floor could be seen with more shelves.

  “So many books,” Ninka breathed into the warm night air inside the bookstore. “We have enough heat for a dozen winters!”

  # # #

  Ri awoke in the golden glow of morning light. And shivered. The fire had died during the night into a blackened firepit and the winter cold bit at her. And though the rest of the cadre still slept together in twos and threes, Tinnai’s place beside her was empty and held no warmth of their leader.

  She stirred the black ashes with the point of her pipe. They flaked and rose in nervous flutters upon the warmth of the embers below. These she nursed with gentle puffs of breath that filled the air with a light morning fog that faded away with the heat of the coals. A few pages, torn and placed just so and the flames caught it and curled the paper quickly. She propped a half open book on either side and let the flames lick the pages until they had caught. One more closed book, shoved deep in the coals, would burn long and slow.

  With the fire secure, she pulled on the jacket she’d been lying on. It had come from the large boy with the broken knees. Someone else had crushed his windpipe. The coat fell past her own knees and, while it might be a danger in a fight, she loved the extra warmth. She’d take the risk.

  The bookstore loomed huge, far bigger than their maintenance shed. The area of the firepit and where they’d slept had once held more bookcases. She could see the markings in the soot and blood-drenched carpet. But the Taka must have burned the shelves as soon as they were empty. This left a space big enough to have a fighting practice with half the cadre at a time. The towering rows of shelves ran toward the front of the store.

  A set of stairs exited downward, and last night she’d taken a flaming twist of pages to relock the entrance to the Zenbu tunnels from the inside. Boxes of books were stacked all about the basement. She’d become lost in the wonder of it all until the paper torch had burned her fingers and she’d been plunged into darkness. There were so many books to burn that she’d had a terrible time finding her way back to the basement stairs.

  Yet on the main floor, they had burned barely a quarter of the supply. Ri looked up. Two more floors surrounded the hollow center of the store like great balconies. The morning light shone down from above. Bounty beyond belief. It really seemed that there were enough books to burn forever.

  She was so intent on the blue walls and soft yellow ceilings embracing thousands upon thousands of multi-colored spines and shining covers, that she’d have fallen over Ninka if not for the hunter’s sharp hiss.

  “Careful, Ri. You walk like a newborn who has never seen the world before.”

  Ri rested the end of her pipe on the floor and squatted beside the chief hunter. Ninka’s dark eyes remained hidden inside the hood of her parka, which had once been silvered, but had darkened with large splotches of grime and old blood. She sat on the chain which trailed out through the bolt-hole in the door to the ankle of the sacrificial. They’d found a boy who had merely been knocked out, and chained him last night. Who knew what the Zenbu would do if the sacrificial were not offered. But he was still there, his back blocking most of the cold draft through the hole. Warm to his bare back.

  “What of the others?”

  Ninka looked left and right and pulled back her hood enough that Ri could see how wide her eyes were.

  “All gone.”

  “All?” They had stacked the bodies of the Taka Cadre outside the store. Many more than they’d first thought. It was a wonder that nineteen Tanchos had killed thirty-two Hawks. They’d thought about putting them through the door in the basement, but the risk was too great even if the other side were unlocked. One did not offer the Zenbu passage and expect to survive.

  “Every one.” Ninka looked about again. “I heard them,” she whispered and retreated back into her hood.

  “What did they say? What did they look like?”

  “Sss,” the hiss sounded again. “You are still a child, Ri. Yes, I crept to the door to hear them, but I could not understand a word. It is said they still speak the old Japanese, that they refused to learn Anglese. But one does not look upon the face of the Zenbu and live. You did well last night, but even you would die should you come face to face with The All.”

  “But the sacrificial sees—”

  “The sacrificial is already dead. The All merely bide their time. I am fourteen and have been hunting four years longer than you. None survive who have seen the Zenbu. So it is said and so it is true.”

  Ri bowed her forehead to the carpet, the thick dust clogged her nose, but she didn’t dare sneeze. One did not argue with elders, especially about such a well known truth as the death that lurked in every Zenbu’s eyes. The flush of shame burned at her cheeks. She crawled away backwards to show the abjectness of her apology. Tinnai always said that Ninka was the best. And Ri had questioned their greatest hunter who was far older and far wiser. She even had breasts. Ri had none, still a little girl.

  When she had backed out of sight, she stood and turned away. By chance she’d arrived at the bottom of the staircase reaching up to the next floor. Others scouted it last night, while she helped carry out the dead Hawks. The steps climbed forever upward until finally the high ceiling became the floor beneath her feet. More books ranged about the floor. The shelves all full, the Taka had not burned these.

  High windows. Tall bookcases barricaded the view. Pressing her face against a crack, she couldn’t quite see the sidewalk where they had stacked the bodies, but the litter-strewn street stretched clear and quiet in the morning light. The path she had cleared for their attack had already been partially obscured by leaves and bits of old cloth. Turning back to the room, further exploration revealed a small bathroom with a dry toilet and a shattered sink.

  The third floor seemed so far away, but she forced her tired legs to climb this last flight. She must learn the defenses of their new home.

  The top floor was but a duplicate of the second. Towering bookcases cluttered with the colors of the rainbow. She especially liked the ones with silver or gold that reflected the morning light until they sparkled. Where the bathroom had been below, a metal ladder led upward to a roof hatch. A heavy chain and a rusted lock held it securely in place. Many scrapes and dents marked where the
Hawks had tried to break the lock without success. Ri preferred it locked.

  At the street side of the store, great panels of glass let the pink light of morning shine in. Rather than massive barricades blocking cracked and broken windows, Ri stepped into an alcove wrapped in glass on three sides. The charred hulk of the bank filled the block below. Only one or two buildings remained intact on any city block, the rest were shattered or burned leaving only rubble.

  And the rubble had been over-foraged by the survivors of the death of the world. The hunters had to search far and wide to find food. Tales of buildings like the bookstore but with food lining the long shelves were told only late at night in disbelieving whispers.

  From her high window, Ri considered the vast plain of ruined buildings that stretched to the horizon and beyond. Were there other hunters out there in the far distance who did not know of the struggles of Tancho Cadre and their triumph over the Taka?

  The vista made her wonder for the first time about the vast possibilities of the world before it had died. Could the old vehicles that littered the streets have taken her to strange and wonderful places? Were there once vehicles that flew along the mighty bands of steel that stretched out from the Kintetsu Rail Station where Kintetsu Cadre squatted? Had the street below once been filled with people? What magic lay deep in the tunnels of the Zenbu?

  Ri tried to picture it, a huge throng would be needed if the street were to be clogged, but she could not stretch her mind beyond two or perhaps three cadres’ hunters carefully avoiding each other as they crept by on opposite sides of the street, pretending the others were not there.

  From this bay window she could see almost the entire street, though the sacrificial huddled out of view directly below. Two more windows thrust out from the front of the building. She hurried to the next and nearly fell into Tinnai’s lap. Her leader squatted on the floor with a book open in front of her. There were no pictures, just lines of tiny black writing. Her wounded arm in a sling.

  “What are you doing, Mother Tinnai?”

  “Good morning to you as well, Ri-chan.”

  Heat flooded her cheeks as she dropped to the floor and bowed her head to the carpet, softer and much cleaner than the one by the entrance.

  “It’s okay little one. After last night you are no longer a child. It was wrong to call you so.”

  A gentle hand tipped her back to sitting position. Tinnai sat bathed in the morning’s reds and golds, haloed by the sun now rising over the ruined city. Leaning forward, Ri could indeed see the sacrificial squatting by the door below. From here, a guard could watch the whole street.

  “I am reading about a man named Watson. He is looking for a place to live. And a man who is dripping blood from his finger,” she pointed her own finger at the book and squinted at it, “a Holmes. They decide to live together.”

  “A wounded hunter. Do they find it? Do they find the place to live?”

  Tinnai flipped the page forward and followed her finger slowly down the page.

  “Yes, on a street called Baker.”

  “Just like us. It is a good story, Mother Tinnai. Are there others?”

  She waved her good hand at the towering bookshelves about them. “What did you think those were?”

  Ri looked up at the row upon row of towering bookcases. There were not just a few stories there, not even hundreds, there must be millions. Every page might have a story of new homes.

  There must be other secrets about homes in these stories. Ways to protect their home. Ways to make the Tancho Cadre safe. And powerful.

  “Mother Tinnai, you must teach me to read. You must. Then I can help you save the Tancho and we shall become great and wealthy and rebuild the last city of the world into the great wonder it once was. We shall send people out exploring to build other cities. We will save the hunters there, or send new ones. I must know what is in these books, Mother Tinnai. You must teach me.”

  Her merry laugh finally stumbled Ri to a halt.

  “It would be my honor to teach you, Ri-san of the Great Hope.”

  Her grown up name. Ri bowed her head to the carpet and tears ran from her eyes and made dark spots on the sun-golden carpet. Ri-san of the Great Hope.

  “I will not let you down, Mother Tinnai. I promise. I will never fail the cadre.”

  Chapter 3

  Bryce Jr. cursed and looked away. He stared at the pianist who studiously ignored him. He checked out the palm tree that he’d been trying to disappear behind. But it was too late. Looking at his grandfather always drew the man’s attention. Tall and elegant in his period tux and tails, whereas Bryce only looked like an overgrown beanstalk in his matching straitjacket. It was hard to believe these had ever been all the rage, or that the old man would bring them back after a century and a half of being out of style.

  Of course there was something about the flapper style that suited many of the girls, and didn’t suit most of the women. The overfed mistresses of politicians looked no better in thin clingy fabric than they did in shimmer-light jumpsuits. All of these matrons, displaying the weaknesses of their current surgeon busy trying to foist off their already-altered nubile daughters. Foist them specifically on him.

  “Oo, what a catch dearie. He’s the Right Hand’s grandson. Go! Ask him to dance! Take him to bed if you have to.” “If you can,” implied clearly enough.

  His strategic move between the piano and the palm tree had blockaded most of their attacks. But even out of the corner of his eye, Bryce could see the juggernaut that would breach a defense that deterred the fluttery slips of young flesh as if it didn’t exist. His battleship of a grandfather cut a wide swath across the floor.

  The Right Hand. Tall, graying, immensely fit, handsome—all the women said—beyond belief, and powerful. The Right Hand of James Wirden, the world’s unchallenged ruler for over three decades, provided one didn’t count the assassination and coup attempts that were so carefully ignored by the media.

  The Right Hand of God. Had his grandfather made the connection? Stupid idea. He’d started the nickname himself. Made both James and himself more powerful as it spread.

  How did Bryce know things like that with such certainty? He hated it when his inner thoughts about his grandfather were impossibly confirmed. It was unnerving at best, often bordering on creepy.

  The Right Hand worked his way from handshake to brief conversation to joke, but his target was unerring. A shimmer of silk and blond hair intercepted him and Bryce dared breathe for a moment. Celia Wirden halted the old man’s attack, though the wake behind him still stirred and flowed from his passage.

  Her laugh was a little too bright and carried over the music. His grandfather’s hand, where none but he himself and the orchestra could see, held her hand for longer than was, well, decent. But the Premier had his back turned, joking with some General.

  They kissed each other’s cheek and then she was gone from Grandfather’s thoughts, and blue-gray eyes once more drilled into Bryce. The old man circled the palm tree and slapped him hard on the shoulder, knocking him into the piano. Bryce tried to apologize to the pianist, but if before he’d been ignored, now he was on another planet.

  “So, boy, how’s eighth grade? Growing up tall like me. Strapping boy, just need to get some meat on those bones.” Another crushing bow-shot of bonhomie pounded into his flesh.

  “Third year of college, Grandfather. I was 12 in eighth grade. That was five years ago. I was skipped ahead again.” Four levels skipped. Four years younger than everyone around him. At seventeen he knew more than any of his professors. No one had use for the boy genius in boarding school and neither did they in college.

  “Damn, if you aren’t a chip of the old block. Skipped two years myself at Shelton, toughest school on the planet. What happened to your eye, boy?”

  Bryce had forgotten about the frat boys who had pounded the shit out of him last week just for
the hell of it.

  Bryce shrugged as Grandfather plowed on.

  “I never did learn much about fighting, least not hand-to-hand. Guess I should have.” Bryce Sr. nudged him out from behind the piano and headed him toward a side door. None would interfere when the Right Hand was talking to his grandson. Especially not when they looked so alike. Especially now dressed in matching tuxedos.

  Even he couldn’t miss it, and the shock of seeing his grandfather in the bathroom mirror had to be the worst way to start a day that had ever been invented. Why couldn’t he have taken after his petite, auburn and gold-haired mother, long ago left behind by his overlong frame.

  “Fighting. Oh, that’d be great, Grandfather. Shelton’s most famous graduate could come back, and on his triumphant return beat the shit out of every single kid in the school that hates me. That’d be just swell.” Bryce followed the sharp proddings that guided him out of the ballroom and down a hall.

  The man’s laugh echoed ahead of them. “You still don’t get it, boy. Damn, but I’m wonderful. Let that be a lesson to you, Bryce, always get the best. Pay them, threaten them, kidnap them, bribe them, whatever it takes. Just always get the best.”

  At the first door down the hallway, Bryce Sr. slapped the panel with his thumb and shoved Bryce through as the door slid aside.

  # # #

  Suzie jumped from her chair and wrapped her robe more tightly about her throat. Her father herded Brycie into the room like a dog behind a duck. She checked her viser, but the screen saver had popped into place when it detected her leaving the immediate vicinity. The words “Thank you” slowly spun and twisted in the space above her desk reminding her to be thankful for each day she managed to survive in this house.

  “Suzie, what are you doing here? And why the hell are you dressed that way? You’re supposed to be at the party.” Her father’s broadside rattled about the room.

  “Thought I’d do you a favor, Dad. I’m always so bad at those parties of yours that I figured I’d give you a present and stay away.”