Beneath an Opal Moon (10 page)

“I struggled to the surface and dug my nails into the slimy wood of the wharf just above the waterline, gaining my breath back. After that, I never truly contemplated suicide: what was waiting for me down there in the deep was far worse than whatever little life held.

“But that was a fortuitous night in my life—No, much more than that. It was a kind of sign, a symbolic turning point, because it was just after that that I met Tsuki.

“I had just come from one of the bund taverns looking for a free meal. Without luck. The one cook who liked me was off that night. I walked back out, strolling along the bund, playing the flietē if only to distract myself from the complaints of my stomach. The moon was full, I remember. A harvest moon, they sometimes call it out in the countryside: flat as a rice-paper disk and as glowing and golden as the sun itself. In retrospect, that was really the strangest part, because that's what her name means: the moon.”

Down the street, an ox-cart was approaching, making its slow and creaking way.

“She was red-haired and green-eyed with flecks of a soft brown swimming inside the irises. Her skin was full of freckles, filled with the sun, and she was wrapped in a sea-cloak of the deepest blue.” Kossori's eyes had taken on a faraway look and he ignored the rumbling cart as it drew near. “She smiled when she saw me and stopped, listening to the melody. I still remember it. Want to hear it?” And without waiting for Moichi to reply, he pursed his lips, whistling a meandering tune, as rough and mournful as a barren moor on a chill winter's morn. While it was a far cry from the accomplished complex melodies Kossori composed these days, Moichi nevertheless found within it a haunting quality prefiguring the artist's development.

“Beautiful,” Moichi murmured.

Atop the oncoming cart, a sleepy kubaru sat on the rough wooden bench. Next to him was a hunched figure, asleep perhaps, hood pulled over head. The reins were slack in the kubaru's hands as the ox mooched along. A dog, annoyed by the noise, ran out from a doorway, barking at the ox's heels until the kubaru lifted his head and shouted down at the yapping animal. The cart trundled past them, moving as slowly as if it carried within its wooden framework all the world's worries.

“It has a quality, yes,” Kossori said softly as if addressing the wind. He had been silent for a time after the ending of the tune. “But still the awkward music of a boy.

“‘You play very well,' she said to me. And, although I didn't, I was pleased at the compliment. ‘Who taught you?' she said. ‘I taught myself,' I replied. ‘Really?' She raised one eyebrow. ‘You have real talent.' Now I really didn't believe her and, wondering what she could possibly want from me, said: ‘Now how would you know that, lady?' I think perhaps I expected anger but instead she threw back her head and laughed. Then she pulled out the most beautiful flietē I had ever seen. It was wrapped in tar-cloth to protect it from salt air. It was of ebony and all the air holes were rimmed with silver. She began to play. I could not in ten thousand years describe to you what she played or how, but suffice it to say that she was a virtuoso. ‘I suppose that now you would like to learn how to play this way.' The laughter was still on her face. ‘Yes,' I said. ‘Yes I would.' ‘Then come with me and I shall teach you.' She lifted up one arm, the sea-cape spreading out like a great wave until I was enfolded.”

They had come to the end of the street, a singular occurrence in Sha'angh'sei, where all thoroughfares seemed without real beginning or end. It debouched upon a wide square—one with which Moichi was unfamiliar—surrounded by two-story dwellings all with delicate wrought-iron balconies strung in an unending line like some grotesque confection. The square was deserted, and, though these buildings were obviously entirely residential in nature, they nevertheless had the appearance of being deserted, an unthinkable actuality in crowded Sha'angh'sei.

“The townhouses of the rich,” Kossori said, as if reading Moichi's mind. “Many of those who live within the walled city find it convenient to maintain residences in the city's lower reaches—when they want to descend into the mud with the common folk.” He laughed, a harsh, discomforting sound.

How he hates authority in any form, Moichi thought. And how he covets the wealth of the fat hongs who, in truth, rule this city.

Kossori led the way, taking them obliquely across the deserted square from right to left, and presently they had plunged back into the twisting labyrinth of the city's streets, taking Purple Peacock Way into Frostlight Lane and thence to Pearling Fast Road. They were very far indeed from the Nanking, Moichi knew, Sha'angh'sei's main thoroughfare. In point of fact, they were a good distance from any well-known landmark.

“She took me to that inn,” Kossori continued, as if there had been no interruption in the flow of his narrative. He was taking his time, Moichi knew. But he was also aware that he was hearing a tale that was both extremely important to Kossori and which, he was quite certain, no other had ever heard. Kossori was an individual of few friends and great reticence. Moichi was being accorded a singular honor and he was careful not to take it too lightly. “It was the same one where I had been thrown out earlier that evening. Now they were ever so solicitous, for, it seemed, Tsuki was well-known here. If she was not from Sha'angh'sei, then she was obviously a frequent visitor—”

“You did not ask her where she was from?”

Kossori glared at him as if he had been asking the other to get ahead of himself. “No,” he said slowly. “It never occurred to me to ask.”

Moichi shrugged and remained silent, listening.

“She had them bring food for me. In all my life, I never ate so much nor has food ever tasted so delicious to me. In time, I was sated and we went up a winding rickety staircase, along a dark hall and thence into a warm room with an enormous high down bed against the far wall. Above its covers, a double, leaded-glass window was open onto the now quiet bund and the ships at anchor just beyond. The scent of the sea was very strong.”

“I can see where this is leading.”

Kossori turned to him. “No, my friend,” he said quietly, “I don't believe you do.” He pointed left and they turned off of Four Forbidden Road into a tiny crooked lane, seemingly without a name. “I went to sleep, exhausted.”

The lane had begun to run on a slight incline and Moichi became abruptly aware that they were ascending its winding way up a hill. It was darker here, the narrow houses piled one against the other without surcease. Too, the city's night lights were fading, left behind in the tangle of wider streets, and the starlight, where it touched them, gave their faces and hands a slightly bluish cast.

“I awoke late in the night,” Kossori continued, “when the moon had already gone down. I heard the cry of a gull quite close and that put me in mind of being on a ship far out to sea. I think I even imagined I could feel the pitch and roll of the vessel beneath me. I was still half asleep and, turning over, I came in contact with her curled body. Her warmth and the scent of her rich musk suffused me. Quite without thinking, I put my arm around her. She stirred and, in her sleep, put her hand against my cheek and neck with such tenderness and a kind of specialness that I cannot adequately describe save to say it was as if I were the first and only person she had ever touched in that manner; I began to weep silent tears. There was an inexplicable tightness in my chest and crying seemed the only way to ease it. She awoke then, by what stroke of magic I still cannot imagine. Her eyes, so close to mine, seemed like the sighting of a far shore through some mysterious telescope. Her kiss was the most beautiful in the world.”

The lane, in its myriad turnings and switchbacks, at length crested, giving out onto a rather wide street totally devoid of residential life. Large shops lined both sides without the usual second-story apartment windows in evidence. Rather, here, the upper levels stared blackly at them, windowless, apparently used for storage only. They paused for a moment.

Moichi was moved by Kossori's story but, beyond that, he found himself shaken by the intensity of emotions he felt being recreated. It had obviously been an enormously powerful union. “And she taught you to play the flietē,” he said.

Kossori nodded. “That. And the
koppo
.” He pointed to a narrow alleyway running between two shops. “It is just behind there tonight, the Sha-rida.”

But Moichi grabbed his arm, held him back. “The black death take the Sha-rida, Kossori! Finish your story.”

Kossori smiled, spread his hands. “But I have, my friend. I have told you all there is to tell.”

“But what happened to her? Where is she now, this woman of yours?”

Kossori's face darkened. “Gone, Moichi. Away, very far away. She disappeared one day as if into the very air. I made inquiries all along the bund but no one had seen her. If she had departed on some ship bound outward into the world, no one knew of it.”

“And she never returned?”

“No,” Kossori said. “Never.” One hand went to his sash. “But she left me this.” He lifted out an oilskin case from which he slipped a flietē of ebony and silver.

“Her flietē!”

“Yes. And, of course, there's the
koppo
. She was an adept and, as such, well capable of teaching. So now I know how to use my hands to break bones, a feat which, some believe, is sorcerous in nature. Naturally, that's not so. Well, you know that. I've taught you all the basic responses. Those, as you well know, are much easier to learn than the attacks. But here is something I'm quite certain you
don't
know because we have never spoken of it.
Koppo
is nearly three-quarters mental. A gathering of internal energy, a focusing, an application derived through physical means.” He lifted his open hands up.

“Have you ever been in a battle with another
koppo
adept?” Moichi asked. “I mean a real enemy, not working with a teacher.”

Kossori smiled. “No. And I doubt I ever will be. There are extremely few
koppo
adepts in the world. Its tradition is ancient yet so shrouded in mystery that it is rare even to find an individual who knows of it, let alone one who practices it.”

“But what would happen,” Moichi persisted, “if you did come up against one—hypothetically, that is?” And as he asked the question, he wondered what it was that was making him pursue this line of thought.

Kossori shrugged, concentrating. “I'm not sure, really. I doubt, however, that its outcome would be determined by force. Cunning is the key to victory against a
koppo
adept. And quickness, of course. Such battles, I would imagine, are quite brief, even among adepts. Shock is one of
koppo
's most potent traits; it's over almost before it begins. But by cunning I mean that one would have to find a way of breaking one's opponent's concentration. A split instant would be sufficient. Unless one can manage that, there is little hope of surviving such an encounter. You see, the
koppo
's power is often called
mizo-no-tsuki
, or the moon on water. The surface of a river gathers up the moonlight as long as the sky is clear. But should a passing cloud slide across the moon's face, then the light is gone and darkness prevails.” He laughed and clapped Moichi on his back. “But why be so serious, my friend? You need have no fear. The only
koppo
adept you will meet would never harm you.”

But Moichi did not return the smile for his thoughts were elsewhere. Something Kossori had said, a word, or a phrase, he was not certain which, had triggered off a remembrance, up until now forgotten, from his recent dream.

Light and shadows. It had something to do with—Then he had it and he exclaimed excitedly, gripping Kossori's arms.

“I have it!” he cried. “I have it, Kossori! The dream I had tonight. It
was
trying to tell me something. In it, I recreated the scene of the reallife discovery of that body. Never mind that one was during the day and the other, night. The
light pattern
was the same. That dappling was deep, disrupting perspective just enough so that I did not know what I was seeing.” He saw Kossori looking at him uncomprehendingly. “Don't you see? My eyes and therefore my brain picked up all the detail, storing it away. It was only my conscious mind which was fooled. That's why it came out in the dream!”

“What came out in the dream?”

“That man from Kintai,” Moichi said excitedly. “I think he was killed by
koppo
.”

Circus of Souls

It was a configuration of shabby tents; a five-pointed star. Once, no doubt, they had been gaily colored but over the years sun and sand and rain and snow had faded the patterns until now they were barely distinguishable.

Circling the tents at irregular intervals were reed torches set into holes carved into the tops of wooden pilasters. These were quite old, their paint and lacquer worn away so that the natural wood grain showed through and this had been smoothed and polished until it shone. These pilasters depicted fierce warriors with great curling beards, glowering expressions and rings through their noses; mermaids with fish-scaled tails wrapped around their bodies, their upper torsos naked and very human, bits of seashells and periwinkles peeping through their long winding hair; or, again, maidens of war, replete with ornate breastplates and greaves, their calloused hands gripping long spears.

In all, the place had the air of a rather disreputable carnival struggling to survive, an anachronism in the midst of changing time.

They had at last quit Blue Illusion Way, the street of fancy shops, and, as they had plunged into the utter blackness of the alleyway, Kossori had said to him, “You must be mistaken, my friend. What you have described to me, what was done to this unfortunate man's heart, is certainly not
koppo
, but a rather extreme, perverse form of torture whose origins are totally unknown to me.”