Roz accompanied him down the line. His aim was to find the clothes, swords and head-gear of two high-ranking officers. Every time he came to a particularly fine-looking helmet he asked its new owner to place it in his hands. Roz and those around her watched with hushed attention as he felt its shape and texture. Sometimes that was enough, but if he got a positive feed-back, he put the helmet on his head and closed his eyes, creating a stillness at the centre of his being.

In this trance-like state, he was able to draw from the metal a series of pictures which gave him the ident.i.ty and essence of the owner.

After a dozen or so tries he struck lucky, and by the time he reached the end of the line he had found the helmets worn by Samurai-General Oshio Shinoda, the supreme military commander of the ill-fated expedition, and one of his senior officers, Samurai-Major ^kido Mitsunari.

Shinoda's helmet had been correctly matched to his breast-plate, back and hip-armour but the rest of the apparel did not belong. Finding it was not too difficult.

Once Cadillac had tuned in on the residual vibrations of the dead owners he was able to a.s.semble some eighty per cent of their original outfits from amongst the items on offer. Replacements for the missing gloves, shoes and, in the case of Shinoda, his swords, were chosen to blend in with the overall style and colour.

The last items on Cadillac's shopping list were two saddles and full sets of ta.s.selled harness. It was not necessary to match them to the battle colours of the riders. Not a single Iron Master or horse had survived the ma.s.sive tidal wave but if, by a miracle, some had, it was highly unlikely that those who staggered from the receding waters would have emerged with their original mount.

The raggle-taggle effect reinforced the story that Cadillac intended to present as his pa.s.sport to Sara-kusa the fortress home of the Yama-s.h.i.ta family. Making use of his ability to speak fluent upper-cla.s.s j.a.panese Cadillac proposed to journey with Roz into the enemy heartland, disguised as high-ranking samurai - the sole survivors of the trading expedition.

The ferocious steel masks which had earned them the name of 'dead-faces' would camouflage their Mute ident.i.ties for most of the journey, but for the occasions when people came within close range or in situations where they could not remain masked, Cadillac was relying on Roz's magic to convince any Iron Masters they met en route that they were aiding the return of their own kind. And that included their new va.s.sals, the Mute clans from the bloodline of the D'Troit.

Cadillac's plan of action was staggeringly ambitious.

On their arrival at Sara-kusa, his first objective was to re-establish the trading links between the Yamas.h.i.ta and the Plainfolk, sweetening the arrangement by offering - once again - the secrets of powered flight and other aspects of Tracker technology he had acquired from dipping into the minds of Steve, Malone and his renegades.

If the Yama-s.h.i.ta family proved amenable, Cadillac intended to reveal how Lord Yama-s.h.i.ta had been betrayed and killed, and his family humbled, by an unholy alliance between the Toh-Yota shogunate and the Federation. Having already escaped from Ne-Issan with Steve, Clearwater, Jodi and Kelso, Cadillac now knew enough about the cosy relationship between AMEXICO and the spy network controlled by Ieyasu the Shogun's uncle and princ.i.p.al advisor- to blow the Toh-Yota family out of the water.

At the very least, this information would result in a messy civil war; at best, the Progressive Party led by the Yama-s.h.i.ta would sweep aside the Toh-Yota and gain control of Ne-issan. With the country torn apart by war, the Iron Masters would be unable to implement any policy they might have for territorial expansion, and if the Progressives gained power, the Amtrak Federation could not ignore the threat to its own position. It would be compelled to intervene, diverting men and resources away from their centuries-old conflict with the Mutes.

If Roz was able to keep them both alive long enough for him to lay this information before the new leaders of the Yama-s.h.i.ta, he had not the slightest doubt that, in one short visit, he could destroy the status quo and plunge the continent into a ferment of blood-letting from which the Plainfolk would emerge victorious.

Cadillac outlined the broad aims of his plan to the a.s.sembled delegates but did not go into details. The tangled web of plot and counter-plot hatched by the opposing parties, and Ieyasu's treacherous use of the Dark Light to suppress those who sought to resurrect it would only have served to confuse his audience.

Persuaded by his eloquent presentation and the indisputable power of his companion's magic, the delegates applauded the plan and wished them both a safe and speedy return.

It only remained for the delegates to arrange a new date and meeting place. There were many who supported a return to Du-Aruta. Cadillac argued against this proposal.

If the Plainfolk were to deal with the Iron Masters on equal terms, the trading post had to be located on ground of their choosing, beyond the range of the wheel-boats' cannon and the threat of a surprise attack by a waterborne army.

Never again, said Cadillac, must the Iron Masters vessels be allowed to dominate the skyline and the proceedings. Sioux Falls - the place the Mutes called Big White Running Water - was situated near the centre of Plainfolk territory; the journey would not only be much shorter for all concerned, the convergent movement towards it would also be a symbolic coming together, as opposed to a long parallel pilgrimage to the sh.o.r.es of the Great River.

From this day on, the Iron Masters would have to carry their goods across a Plainfolk sea of red gra.s.s. And instead of the alien timbers erected by the dead-faces, a new trading post- made up of elements representing each of the bloodlines - should be planted in the ground.

His words triggered a heated debate. When this showed no sign of exhausting itself, Carnegie-Hall called for a vote.

It was close, but after a recount, Cadillac's challenging call for a new start and a new tougher att.i.tude carried the day.

To ensure the new composite post fitted together, the dimensions of each piece were agreed, and from the clans who volunteered their services, five were given the honour of making them. They, in return, promised to deliver their part of the post to Sioux Falls for erection when the Plainfolk Council rea.s.sembled at the traditional time - the beginning of May in the following year. If all went as planned, Cadillac and Rain-Dancer would return on the first of the wheel-boats and lead the Iron Masters from the sh.o.r.e of the Great River to the lands once held by the Southern Da-Kota.

Escorted by fifty hands of warriors drawn from the five blood-lines represented at the Council, Cadillac and 'Rain-Dancer' headed north-eastwards on the next leg of their journey - a seven hundred mile ride from Sioux Falls to the Straits of Mackinac, where the northern tip .of Lake Michigan made a sharp right hand turn to merge with the western end of Lake Huron.

They were dressed as Iron Masters, but flying from the tip of their tall lances were the green and gold cloth banners that had become the colours of the Chosen, heralds of Talisman.

At the northern end of Green Bay, Cadillac and Roz bade farewell to their escort, removed the banners from their lances, and pressed on alone into territory known to be occupied by clans from the D'Troit.

Following the decision of their leaders to adhere to the secret pact with the Yama-s.h.i.ta family, the last one hundred and twenty miles pa.s.sed without a hitch. Each clan escorted them reverentially across their turf, then handed them over with some ceremony to the next group down the line.

Cadillac's objective was navref Cheboygan, one of the five out-stations set up by the Yama-s.h.i.ta in what was mainly D'Troit territory, to encourage year-round trade and to gather intelligence.

The out-stations consisted of a house-boat - a smaller version of the rear paddle-driven Great Lakes tradeships, a wooden jetty and a modest on-sh.o.r.e installation mainly small timber buildings and animal pens housing stores and various kinds of livestock the Iron Masters reared for the table. The extent and sophistication of these facilities depended on the degree of energy and enterprise of the Resident Agent and his wife, and the thirty-five sea-soldiers and domestic staff under their command.

The house-boats remained moored to the jetty but were always kept ready for sea in case the natives became restless. So when word reached the Cheboygan agent -Koto Shigari - that two Iron Masters in full battle armour were sitting tall in the saddle on the northern sh.o.r.e of the straits, he weighed anchor immediately.

And what an honour awaited him! There, battered but unbowed, were Samurai-General Oshio Shinoda, one of the senior military aides of the late domain-lord, and his companion-at-arms Samurai-Major Akido Mitsunari!

And what a tale they had to tell!

Mitsunari, the junior-ranking officer, had a ragged, dirty bandage covering a deep throat wound that made it impossible for him to speak but after boarding the houseboat, Shinoda gave them a graphic description of a great battle in which thousands of gra.s.s-monkeys had perished under the swords of the samurai cavalry and the knives of their trusty auxiliaries, the D'Troit and C'Natti.

Shigari had already received incoherent accounts of the engagement from the very same gra.s.s-monkeys, and he told the General that a brief report had been sent to Sara-kusa by carrier-pigeon. But, he asked respectfully, had the lake really risen up and swept all before it?

Ahab! Yes!

Now firmly established in his impersonation of the Samurai-General, Cadillac used the wealth of anecdotal material he had ama.s.sed on the disaster to weave a spell-binding narrative that had the mouths of Mr and Mrs Shigari and their trusty sergeant-at-arms opening and closing like three goldfish glued nose-first to the side of their gla.s.s bowl.

Beginning at the point when the wheel-boats had come in sight of the sh.o.r.e, Cadillac took them through the battle as seen from the Iron Master's side, only pausing when he, as Shinoda, and the ever-silent Mitsunari had clawed their way out of a tangled ma.s.s of timber and bodies - unrecognisable fragments, torn from their great ships whose dismembered hulls now lay spread across the landscape. A scene of b.l.o.o.d.y horror and utter desolation.

Hhhhawwwww!!

Shinoda went on to relate how he and Mitsunari had met while trying to round up the five half-crazed horses whose lives had been spared by the same divine hand.

They eventually managed to catch two, riding away as the hordes of Mutes came streaming down the bluffs to plunder the scattered heaps of wreckage and bodies of those who had died bravely at their posts.

But the wall of water, ventured Shigari, where had it come from?

Tsunami, the great wave that could appear on the oceans, overwhelming everything in its path, was a well-known and justly-feared phenomenon, but it was not one a.s.sociated with navigation of the Great Lakes.

Exactly! replied Shinoda. This wall of water was not a work of Nature. This was witchcraft! It had been raised by diabolic forces called from the bowels of the earth - primal energies which certain of the despised gra.s.s-monkeys, known as summoners, were able to mould to their will and fashion into a weapon that could strike down whole armies!

HhhhawWwww!!

Shigari and his small entourage bowed low on hearing these startling revelations, but privately he was drawn to the idea that either Shinoda had been unhinged by the experience which - without any need for exaggeration had been an appalling tragedy, or he was rehearsing the story which he planned to use to cover his ill.u.s.trious a.s.s, and that of his silent companion.

As supreme commander of the expedition, the blame for any tactical blunders or lack or preparedness was bound to fall on his shoulders and would probably cost Shinoda his life.

To Koto Shigari, the idea that these misshapen gra.s.s-monkeys could conjure up evil kami at will and apply their diabolic force in such a selective way was quite laughable - but no hint of the amus.e.m.e.nt it caused showed on the Resident's face. As a middle-ranking 'commercial', Shigari was the social inferior of the military men who now sat facing him. Any sign of disrespect on his part could send his head rolling across the tatami. But witchcraft? No .... By the time his two war-weary guests reached Sara-kusa, they would need a better excuse than that.

As the house-boat headed eastwards across Lake Huron, Shigari and his staff were completely unaware that their ill.u.s.trious pa.s.sengers had vari-coloured skins just like the gra.s.s-monkeys whose magic powers they had casually dismissed. Cadillac and Roz had removed their face masks allowed themselves to be undressed and a.s.sisted as they savoured the joys of a hot, deep bath, had donned fresh kimonos (furnished with the usual abject apologies for offering garments of such inferior quality to cover the bodies of those appointed to high office) and had eaten a meal served with yet more apologies without anyone seeing them as they really were.

What Shigari, his wife Ono, and their staff saw were two battle-hardened samurai, and the voice they heard was Cadillac's, speaking faultless j.a.panese. Roz had drawn the physical shape of their characters from Cadillac's memory and implanted them in the minds of their hosts. And the images were so real that when the bandages on her neck were carefully unwound, they revealed a deep, suppurating neck wound created from her own medical knowledge. A wound that Ono Shigari had cleaned with the utmost delicacy, without ever knowing that it was her own mind that was projecting the livid gash and surrounding inflammation onto Roz's unbroken skin.

It was only when their hosts retired, leaving them alone in their quarters, that Roz relaxed her grip on their minds.

But by that time, Shigfiri and everyone else aboard were totally convinced they were carrying two VIPs on the next stage of their journey to Sarakusa.