"What is happening?!" I heard a voice call. It sounded like that of Cleft Chin, and he emerged from his hut, and shouted out, "What is going on out here?"

I took the chance. From my place of concealment, I cried out as loudly as I could, "Chinpan Ali isunder attack!"

This immediately caused all manner of ruckus as more voices called out from other huts, and within moments the entire village was roused. The black-clad women did not wait about to be discovered, however. They quickly emerged, a half-dozen of them it seemed, although it was hard to be certain. They were looking about, clearly trying to figure out from which direction had come the shouted alarm that they were in Ali's hut. One of them, it seemed, looked directly at me. I didn't move, didn't breathe. Flat in the muck as I was, I was not easily discernible under the best of circ.u.mstances, and these were certainly not those.

Then they obviously decided that they had stayed as long as they dared. The problem was that these black-clad b.i.t.c.hes would have no trouble laying waste to the entire population of the village if they were so inclined. But luckily for all concerned, they didn't have the stomach for it. They melted away into the shadows, although one of them was clutching her shoulder. I knew she was the one whom I had stabbed, and she was the last one to disappear into the darkness. She stared hard right in my direction, and I was certain she had spotted me. She made no motion of discovery, however, and within moments she, too, was gone as if never there.

People were emerging from their huts and heading straight toward Ali's. With the attacking women departed, there was no reason for me to continue to hide other than my own natural cowardice... a strong incentive, I'll grant you, but moot by that point. I got to my feet, slipped once, righted myself, and moved toward Ali's hut with the rest of them.

I heard cries and wails of lamentation and knew even before I got there what I was going to see.

Villagers gave me confused glances, not recognizing me at first. I must have looked like a monster of muck having risen from the grave.

The body of my mentor, my teacher... my friend... lay prostrate on the dirt floor that I had so meticulously sanded weeks earlier. His eyes were staring at nothing.

I should have known.

I should have been used to it.

I should have expected it. I did expect it.

It may sound like the height of selfishness that I looked upon the death of another and could only dwell upon how it affected me. Then again, I never claimed to be anything other than a selfish b.a.s.t.a.r.d, so what other reaction could reasonably be antic.i.p.ated from me?

The burning rage did not consume me immediately. It flared into existence deep in the pit of my stomach, but it did not come to instant, full fruition. Instead it nestled there, eating at me, stoking the already burning fires of my discontent.

"Everyone get back," I said, my voice choked. "Get back."

"Now, see here!" Take On Chin said, choosing that moment to act his most belligerent. "As leader of this--"

I whirled on him, my temper flaring, and with a look that could have incinerated him where he stood, I snapped, "I said get back! I'm paying respects, dammit!" They got back.

I was alone in the hut. Well, alone except for a corpse.

I simply stared at him for a good long time, wondering what it would be like to be able to bring him back to life through force of will. Then I noticed that his left hand was outstretched, as if he was reaching for something. Mentally I followed the path from the tip of his hand toward where it was pointing.

It seemed as if he'd been reaching for his trunk.

The problem was, if there was something within he sought, it was pointless to have tried to obtain it, for the trunk was empty. The women in black had been thorough about that. Various of Ali's personal effects were scattered throughout the hut, and the trunk he was reaching toward with his dying grasp had been gone over more meticulously than just about anything else there. The contents were strewn all over.

But the valuables tossed about weren't all that valuable. Old clothes, scrolls with writing upon them I couldn't begin to decipher, for though I had learned to speak their language well enough, I had not had the opportunity to learn how to write it. The alphabet was completely different from my own, and to add confusion, they wrote vertically instead of horizontally. I'd picked up a few letters, a word here and there, but that was pretty much it.

Nothing else of value seemed to be anywhere about.

Then I realized what was missing: The sword. That strange, bird-headed sword he'd used. The one that he'd employed so handily to dispatch the thugs a seeming eternity ago. There was no sign of it. Was it possible the women had taken it with them? But I hadn't spotted it. They'd seemed empty-handed when they'd left.

I called out to Double Chin, and he stuck his head in tentatively, as if afraid this was some sort of trick and I was about to decapitate him because he had not left me in solitude. I was remembering a word one of the women had said. "What is a 'tachi'?" I asked.

"It is a type of kos.h.i.+rae," Double Chin said promptly. "A blade. About this big, generally," and he displayed his hands in a way that indicated a blade about the length of the one I'd seen Ali use, a little over two feet in length. "Single-edged. Very sharp. Very deadly, when wielded properly. Usually a.s.sociated with high-ranking warriors and officials..."

"Fine, thank you. That's all I need to know." I gestured for him to depart, and he promptly did so.

That was definitely the word I'd heard the women bandying about: "Tachi." "Where is the tachi?" they had demanded. They'd been looking for the sword, and Ali had died rather than give it over. Or perhaps had died while trying to get to it.

He'd been reaching for the trunk. Certainly the women must have seen it. Which was why they concentrated so heavily upon the trunk in their search. A search that had been aborted thanks to the awakening of the village and the a.s.sortment of witnesses they obviously desired to avoid.

But the trunk was empty.

I went to it, studied it carefully. Yes. Definitely an empty trunk. I felt around the bottom, hoping to discover some sort of place of concealment. Perhaps a false bottom, something along those lines. Still nothing. Then I remembered that, when I'd been sanding the floor, Ali had told me to steer clear of the trunk.

Not just the trunk itself, but the general area of the trunk.

I stepped back, yanked hard on the trunk, and pulled it away from the floor where it had rested. At first all I saw was more dirt, but there seemed to be a variance in coverage... and then I noticed what appeared to be a piece of bamboo stuck in the ground.

I knelt, brushed it away, and quickly uncovered exactly what I thought I was going to find: a small trapdoor. Years ago, I had kept prized possessions of mine beneath the ground, underneath floorboards in an old barn. In the end, it had done me little good: a traitorous woman had robbed me of it all anyway.

But the idea of burying one's valuables was certainly nothing new to me, and for some reason it even made me feel a little proud that my teacher adopted some of the same habits that I possessed.

I lifted the bamboo trapdoor aside and instantly saw, there beneath the ground, a bundle wrapped in oilcloth. I reached down, gripped it firmly, and extracted it. I knew the moment I saw it that it was the tachi sword. Delicately, almost reverently, I unwound the cloth until the blade was revealed. The sheath was next to it, both of them protected by the careful wrapping. I saw there was something else down in the small hole as well, and pulled it out. It was tethers to attach the scabbard to a belt.

It was certainly a different manner of scabbard than I was accustomed to. Where I came from, the typical blade hung straight down at one's hip (if not being sported on the back). In this case, it was obvious that the sword was designed to hang in a horizontal manner. I saw the superiority in terms of style. It meant one could instantly pull out the sword in a sweeping, sideways motion that was an offensive and defensive maneuver combined with the mere act of unsheathing the blade. As opposed to pulling out a broadsword, in which you were leaving yourself fully exposed and vulnerable for a direct-on attack while you were still getting ready to bring your weapon into play. In such instances, you counted on your opponent's fundamentally chivalrous nature to allow you to prepare your weapon. In other words, you lived in a fool's paradise until such time as someone killed you for doing so.

I held up the sword, snapped it through the air. It had a wonderful heft to it. So much lighter than my own sword. My b.a.s.t.a.r.d sword was designed to be utilized with one hand or two, but the one-hand approach was still a bit of a challenge just because of the sword's weight. The tachi, by contrast, was so relatively weightless that it felt less like a weapon than it did a long, sharp extension of my own arm.

"Po!" called Take On Chin, and I realized my time was minimal. I slid the sword into the sheath, rewrapped the entire thing in the oilcloth, and then shoved the bundle under my loose-robed s.h.i.+rt. I managed to obscure most of it from direct view. Then I bent over and made my way out of the hut into the rain as the others looked upon me in various forms of bewilderment. What a sight I must have seemed to them, covered with mud and muck and doubled over as I staggered from the hut that had, until recently, housed my teacher.

I returned to my own hut, pulled off my mud-covered clothes, laid the sword flat near the far edge of the hut, and tossed the filthy vestments atop them to obscure them from casual view. I'm not entirely certain why I took such pains to hide the sword from the villagers. I suppose, in my perpetual feeling of suspicion, I was concerned that the villagers would want to take it from me. That they would feel it should be given to someone worthier than myself, or of greater importance. I did not want to let that happen. I didn't know why; all I knew was that I wanted the blade. I wanted it to be mine, so I could feel a continued connection to Ali. So I could wield a blade that was capable of cutting down several men where they stood. Besides, those black-clad h.e.l.l b.i.t.c.hes had wanted it. Had been willing to kill for it.

That alone was enough for me to want to possess it. Which, when one thinks upon it in the cold light of years later, was a demented att.i.tude for me to have. If something was that dangerous, traditionally I would want to separate myself from it. Put as much distance--preferably the width of a continent--between myself and something so desirable that there were those eager to kill the one who had it.

But I was not thinking clearly at the time, for the aforementioned burning anger was beginning to swell ever hotter.

I took a deep breath, let it out, and steadied myself. Minutes later, with water gathered from the rain, I had washed myself off as best I could and was seated in clean clothes, cross-legged upon the floor. I had a small fire burning in the dug-hole fireplace in the middle of the hut, and was warming my hands in front of it. My thoughts were spinning.

There came a gentle tap at my door. "Yes, what?" I said brusquely.

Double Chin entered, Lun Chin beside him. Both were soaked from the rain, but neither seemed to notice or care. They bowed upon entering. From where I was seated, I gave a halfhearted bow in return.

They settled to their knees opposite me. Nothing was said at first.

"Ali would have wanted you to celebrate his life," Double Chin ventured finally, "rather than to mourn his pa.s.sing."

"I tend to think Ali would have wanted to live, and the rest of it is speculation designed to make us feel better," I replied. I leaned forward, probably looking an eerie sight as the light from the flame danced across my face. "I saw one of his killers. A woman."

"A woman?" echoed Lun Chin. She looked apprehensively at her husband. It was purely a guess on my part, but I felt as if she suspected something already.

"Yes. Dressed in black. She came in here while looking for Ali, and she..."

I stopped. I suddenly felt rather uncomfortable with the notion of trying to explain what had happened. I wasn't entirely sure that even I understood it, and I had been there for it.

To my astonishment, Double Chin said, "Did she try to take advantage of you s.e.xually?"

"Yes. That's correct..."

"And as she did so," asked Lun Chin, "did she speak in an overwrought, emotionally driven manner involving similes and metaphors that made little to no sense? In an almost superreal fas.h.i.+on?"

"Yes!" I couldn't believe it. "How did you know? Do you know who these women are? You must.

You couldn't have just guessed all that..."

The older couple exchanged significant glances. Then Double Chin took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "One hundred and fifty years ago," he said, "a group of monks fell out of favor with the Imperior... himself a rather dyspeptic and vicious man who abused his power terribly. Women, in particular, suffered his wrath, some in the most vicious and unthinkable of ways.

"The Imperior feared the fighting skills of the monks, and came to believe court advisors who told himthe monks posed a threat. So the Imperior set his deadliest and fiercest warriors upon them, and hounded them out of the heart of Chinpan. Eventually they founded a monastery, high in the mountain range known as the Anais. And there, in hiding, they became a place where women who feared the Imperior went to study, to learn self-defense. To become something other than victims."

"Eventually, the monks died off," Lun Chin spoke up, "but more and more women came to the monastery, there to study and learn from those who had absorbed all the monks had to teach them. They expanded their studies beyond anything the monks could have dreamt of. They learned to draw strength from their pa.s.sions, to use their s.e.xuality as a source of power, and to celebrate that s.e.xuality in a variety of ways."

"And they became a warrior caste," said Double Chin. "Shadow warriors bursting with l.u.s.t, and tormentedly twisted ways of expressing it. They meld with the darkness, wives of the moon, sisters of the silhouettes. They are..." And he paused and glanced around as if making certain no one else was listening, and said in a lowered voice, "...the Anais Ninjas."

"And why would these Anais Ninjas have an interest in killing my teacher?" I demanded.

I didn't truly expect them to have the answer and, as it turned out, I wasn't disappointed. They shrugged, shook their heads. "The important thing to remember," Double Chin told me, "is that Ali is with the ancestors now. He is truly honored."

"He is truly dead, and the Anais Ninjas will pay."

Double and Lun Chin looked saddened. "There is no point to vengeance."

"There doesn't have to be a point," I replied. "It's an end in itself. It's just... it's too much."

"Too much?" His eyebrows knit.

"You don't know. You can't know!" I said, my voice getting louder, and it was with tremendous effort that I reined it in. More softly, but speaking with a tremor that I couldn't quite control, I repeated, "You can't know."

"Can't know what, Po?" asked Lun Chin.

"Me. What I've been through. The things..."

I was accustomed to lying. So accustomed to it, in fact, that it was almost painful for me to speak the truth, as if I was paying the price for flexing long-unused muscles. But for once, I wanted to tell the complete, unvarnished truth. I had to say it aloud, lest I explode, and I had to say it to someone, lest I go insane.

"You have no idea of the life I've led," I said. "Every person I've ever loved has either been taken from me or betrayed me or tried to use me in some way for personal gain. Every thing I've ever owned of any real value, ranging from treasure to friends.h.i.+p, has been lost to me."

"Have you brought it on yourself?" Double Chin inquired.

It was a softly phrased question, but it cut through with the precision of a hot needle. I was fond of seeing myself as the perpetual victim. As fortune's fool, the favorite object of G.o.dly torment. I loweredmy head and said softly, "Sometimes. Sometimes, yes. I have betrayed others. I have betrayed friends, and let them down. I was responsible for the death of my best friend, after stealing his fate. As much as I cry out over the misfortunes that fall like s.h.i.+te-filled raindrops upon me, the truth is that I've brought it on myself, more often than not. Payment in full for the misdeeds I have done to others."

I raised my gaze, looking up at them, not quite believing that I had been so candid with them. They were staring at me blankly. Then Double Chin said, "We didn't understand a word you just said. You spoke in your native tongue."

I blinked owlishly, and then laughed in self-deprecation. How typical. One of the few times in my life I'd ever been honest, and my basic nature kicked in and made sure they wouldn't comprehend what I'd said.

Well, who was I to argue with my basic nature?

"No. I've never brought it on myself, except that I've tried to live a good and decent life, and the world and the G.o.ds themselves have allied to prevent it," I said.

They nodded sympathetically. "There are some who are made to suffer," said Double Chin sagely.

"I know. And I'm tired of being one of them."

There had been times in my life in which I was struck by what I considered to be moments of clarity.

Instants where I saw beyond where I had been, and was able to have a clear vision of where I should be going. They had been few and far between, but had always had a catastrophic impact on my existence, and sent my life into unexpected and unorthodox directions.

This was one of those instances.

The anger that I had mentioned earlier, burning within me, was stoked to new heights.

"Yes. Tired of being one of them. Tired of loss. Tired of..." I stared at them, but my mind was years agone and thousands of miles away. "My mother was killed. The only creature on this planet who never betrayed me, and she was murdered by a heartless brute. And do you know what I wanted to do in retaliation? I wanted to hunt down, not the murderer... but the murderer's mother, and kill her."

"As an act of vengeance, it has a certain poetic justice to it," Double Chin said judiciously.

"It was cowardice! Cowardice on my part!"

"It... could be seen in that way..."

I got to my feet, suddenly sensing that I was at a crossroads. But for once, it was a crossroads that I was not being propelled toward by outside forces, but instead striding toward myself. "Everything that I ever have is taken away from me! Everyone I ever loved has been killed or left me! And I let it happen!

Every d.a.m.ned time, I let it happen, and I never do a d.a.m.ned thing about it. That's why it keeps happening!"

Lun Chin looked confused. "I... I don't understan--"

"It keeps happening because the G.o.ds look down upon me and say, 'Oh, look there! There'sApropos!'" I was pacing back and forth as fast as my right leg would allow. "'We can do anything we want to him, and he'll just keep taking it and taking it!' Well, no more! No more! I was on the verge of something with Ali. I'm not sure what it was, and now I'll never know. That's the real killer of it. I'll never know! And I'm sick of it! Sick of not knowing what could have been! Sick of a life full of... of might-haves and just-missed-its! Those women, those Anais Ninjas, took Ali from me, and they didn't just do it at random. They did it for someone.

"But they didn't just do it to Ali. They did it to me. And I'm not taking it anymore. Do you understand? It ends here and now! It ends today!"

I'd gotten myself so worked up that I was shouting at the top of my lungs. My head was pounding, and the veins were sticking out on the side of my head. But I didn't care, because it felt good. It felt good to care about something so pa.s.sionately that I could get myself so exercised.

"What... will you do, though, Po?" asked Double Chin. "You are but one man. What can you possibly do?"

"Find them," I said intently. "Find them... and kill them all."

Chapter 8.

Dragon My Tail