The Lord of the Sands of Time (2 page)

The creature’s body gave off a pungent, smoldering smell. It eyed them intently and emitted a repulsive insect drone.

It is a law of nature—almost without exception—that the large prey on the small. Miyo and Kan knew this only too well. Deep in the mountains of this land were places where enormous creatures held sway, beyond the reach of men.

They were frozen with terror, struck dumb and drenched with sweat, their knees quivering. Except for a tiny boon of luck, they would have been taken where they stood. But luck did come, in the guise of a tiny deerfly. It flew, buzzing, landed on Miyo’s ankle, sank its proboscis into her flesh, and began to feed. The stinging pain brought her to her senses.

“A mononoké!”

As she recovered her voice, her sense of danger reasserted itself. She slapped Kan’s back with her open palm. Startled into awareness, the boy roared from the pit of his bowels and plunged forward.

“Eeeyaahhh!”

His sword, a green-black arc, struck the mononoké on the crown of its head. One multifaceted eye collapsed inward with a crumpling sound, but the monster showed no sign of pain. It raised its club arm high and brought it down with a dull hum. The club struck Kan’s arm with brutal force, tossing him aside as if he were a puppy. He tumbled across the ground in a cloud of dirt. In an instant Miyo was at his side, stroking his battered arm. “Kan!”

He grunted in pain and winced as he got to his feet. “Not my sword arm,” he muttered. He meant
I can keep fighting
, but that left arm was limp, dangling at his side. Very soon it would be swollen and black. “Go, Miyo.”

“Don’t talk like a fool.”

“You are the fool. Hurry!”

The mononoké dropped its head and charged, the underbrush parting with a hissing sound. Its scythe arm was raised to strike. Miyo threw her arms around Kan and rolled violently to one side. The scythe boomed past them.

Miyo raised her head from the sticky grass to see a tree thicker than her thigh toppling, sliced through. Cold spread along her spine. The beast turned and moved in closer. The grass murmured. The immense creature’s gliding, weightless silence was unnerving.

Will it eat us, like a bear? No—it has no mouth. It seeks no food. It hunts only to kill.

Without a sound, Kan leaped to his feet. His sword struck the monster’s flank like a hornet’s stinger. There was a cold, metallic clang and the weapon rebounded, shattering. Miyo took in Kan’s dazed look and the sword’s broken tip as it flew away, end over end. Was this monster made of stone? Of steel?

Despite her astonishment, Miyo maneuvered to one side of the beast. As it raised the scythe, she struck with all her strength, but the branch merely shivered from the impact. Then a tremendous blow knocked her flat.

“Kan!”

Kan threw himself atop Miyo, shielding her with his body. The scythe opened his back. To Miyo, everything seemed to be taking place in some other world.

“Kan…”

“Quickly…” The boy tried to speak.

“Kan?”

“Go quickly…” A whispered groan. Bright blood welled up from the gash, pooling on his back in a crimson lake. The mononoké emitted a creaking sound. It might be tiring, but it showed no signs of breaking off the attack. Again, it raised its club. Before it could strike, Miyo hoisted Kan’s slender frame onto her back and fled, stumbling forward as she ran.

“You think I’d leave you?” she yelled.

She heard a series of sharp cracks, the mononoké raking the standing timber as it advanced. Its footfalls swept closer with horrifying speed. Miyo plunged forward, staggering, stumbling, slipping.

Something hissed close by her ear. Miyo crouched lower, to crawl, scrabbling on all fours, climbing the slope, her pulse hammering. She gasped for air and pitched forward, eating a mouthful of dirt. She felt the rush of air as giant legs planted themselves on either side of her.

Miyo could see the western ocean shining in the distance. She looked up at the belly of the beast as it stooped over her.
Strange
, she thought.
To die like this. We could have gone the other way, over the far side of the ridge.

Was this retribution for daring to leave her realm?

A sudden sequence of huge booms split the sky over her head. The shockwave pressed her flat against the earth.

“Bolt fire ineffective. Target appears to have withdrawn voluntarily. No counters, traps, or criticals. I’d say this is a rather low-grade RET, a newborn Reaper.”

“Spare me the commentary. Any nests in the area? What about FETs?”

Two voices—one female, one male—but Miyo understood nothing they said. Her terror was unabated. Whatever it was that had brought down that roar like thunder over her head, it could only be another mononoké.

She struggled with bleary eyes to peer around her. The monster was gone. In its place stood a man, tall and powerfully built. He was arrayed like a soldier, encased in soot-blackened armor webbed with cracks. A helmet completely covered his head, its visor concealing his face. In his right hand he gripped an enormous sword. He was clearly the source of the male voice but was like no man Miyo had ever seen.

“Both humans are viable. The female has minor injuries. The male has lost a considerable amount of blood. Loss of consciousness in six minutes.” Again the female voice, but no one was there. The soldier approached and spoke to Miyo.

“Let me help the boy.”

Miyo could not understand him, but she knew he was no threat by the way he held his sword, low and casually. All she could think of was Kan. She eased him onto the ground. The horrible wound on his back seemed far beyond help, but she tore a strip from her hem and tried to bandage him.

“Subject may survive one hour if blood loss is halted. If he’s to be left here, antibiotics are required.”

The female voice. Miyo glanced up. To her amazement, the voice seemed to be coming from the sword—and the man looked to the sword as he answered.

“Later. What about FETs?”

“None detected, not even a comm net. This suggests that the RET has not been fully activated. Probably a stray,” said the sword.

“It may be a stray, but it’s also a threat. Location?”

“Thirty-five meters from your position and holding. O—look out!”

A log hurtled from the trees, striking the soldier like a battering ram and flinging him through the air. The sword flew out of his hand and plunged into the ground, inches from Miyo. The mononoké scudded out of the woods and onto the ridge. It pounced on the soldier.

“Sword!” As the soldier shouted, the monster’s heavy club swung down. With astonishing speed the soldier sprang to his feet, out of harm’s way. He touched his hip and a swarm of small stones flew at the beast and exploded in a flurry of detonations. The mononoké flinched for just a moment, then advanced as if it had hardly noticed. Swinging club, then scythe, then club again, it pressed the attack.

“Throw me, woman.” Miyo was transfixed by the fighting, but when she heard the voice of the sword she wheeled in surprise. It spoke again.

“Throw me to him.
Now
!”

The blade was huge, gently curved. The spine was milky white, but the edge was transparent and shone with a blinding radiance. This was nothing like Kan’s sword, neither in make nor material. And it spoke!

“Quickly, woman!”

“Give me Cutty!” As sword and soldier called out to Miyo in the same moment, she understood. She wrenched the sword from the soil, marveling at its unexpected weight, and took a running start before flinging it through the air. Turning through its arc, the sword plunged grip first toward the soldier, who sprang to catch it.

The blade flashed white.

The giant’s upraised club arm dropped away like a stalk of grass beneath a razor. The swinging scythe shattered like glass. As the mononoké staggered, the sword swept across its belly. The soldier leaped atop the creature and hacked at the bug-like head, severing it from the body. Then he plunged the sword into the creature’s neck and twisted it. “Burn!” he roared.

From the stump came a hissing sound like hot iron plunged in water, then a thin plume of smoke. The dismembered behemoth toppled backward as the soldier jumped down from it. The soldier stowed his sword in the sheath across his back and walked over to Miyo.

Surely this was some waking dream. How could Miyo have defeated such a being? She might have needed a hundred soldiers or more, and a stout fort. They might have lured it into a deep pit. That was the only defense she could imagine. Yet this man took mere seconds to cleave the horror into pieces. Miyo knew no other legend to match it, and so she knew him, the ancient sage whose word was proclaimed throughout Heaven and Earth. There could be no other answer.

“You are…the Messenger? Of the Laws?”

The soldier spoke over his shoulder. “Language.”

“There seems to be some vowel shift relative to the root stream, but the language is still recognizable as archaic Japanese. Shall I translate?”

“Confirm the era and I’ll do it myself. Chronocompass reads two, four, eight
CE
. Yours?”

“The same.”

The soldier nodded and spoke to Miyo. “I am Messenger O. Do you understand?”
O. The word for king,
Miyo thought. “I understand. You are Messenger…O.”

“I bring tidings of war.”

Miyo lifted the hand she’d been pressing against Kan’s wound and bowed her head deeply. “Messenger O, I thank you. You have delivered us.”

“Save it for later. Let’s have a look at the boy.”

Miyo wordlessly yielded her place beside Kan. The Messenger leaned over the boy and touched his wound. Miyo caught a glimpse of blood-soaked white muscle through a gap in the bandage and reflexively turned away. After a few moments she looked back. Her eyes widened when she saw that the gash had been closed by a thin film.

“His wound…” Miyo faltered.

“There’s nothing I can do about the blood. He needs rest,” said the Messenger.

“I have no words to thank you.” Miyo knelt, touching her forehead to the ground. Her eyes brimmed with tears of relief, but in another part of her mind she was beginning to feel uneasy. How would her ministers react to the coming of the Messenger, creator of the Laws? No doubt she would have to perform a divination to determine whether this event was propitious or not. But would tortoise shell or deer bone divination be enough? For an event of such momentous importance, someone might demand a sacrifice divination—the beheading of a condemned prisoner, with the future gleaned in the splash of blood.

And Miyo would have to preside over the sacrifice.
There is no need to go that far
, she thought. Miyo wanted to avoid a sacrifice at all costs. The Messenger stood.

“Tell me, woman. Is this your country? Are you a slave?”

“No.”

“An outsider? Do you know anyone living nearby? I need information on local geography and the state of affairs in this country. Do you also call this place Mount Shigi?” asked the Messenger.

“Shiki. I know no one near here.”

“You must know the way down the mountain, at least. I need to find a village. Show me the way.”

“Why?”

“I came to meet the ruler of this land. He must prepare for war.”

Miyo looked up at him. The ruler? Did the Messenger say he had come to meet not officials of state but the nominal ruler? If so, there might be a way out—a way to force her ministers accept him. What she needed was to link this strange occurrence with everything she had learned over the years. It just might work. No—she was certain it would. After all, if this were a matter for divination, why had she not foreseen it?

“Messenger O.” Miyo stood tall and looked straight into his eyes, so as not to be intimidated by his towering presence. “I am no foreigner. When I spoke before, I meant that I am not a slave.”

“I see. A princess, then?”

“No. I rule.”

Miyo wiped her cheeks with care, revealing the tattoo of the shaman. She opened her tunic, exposing one breast, and drew forth the palm-sized bronze mirror. Carried as proof of her identity, this was the first time she had actually used it. She drew herself up, as if pronouncing an oracle, and solemnly spoke the name she had been given by kings and ministers.

“I am Himiko, Ruler of Wa, Friend of Wei, Queen of the land of Yamatai.”