第25节

Master's side, only pausing when he, as Shinoda, and the ever-silent

Mitsunari had clawed their way out of a tangled mass of timber and

bodies - unrecognisable fragments, torn from their great ships whose

dismembered hulls now lay spread across the landscape. A scene of

bloody 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 associated 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 grass-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 illustrious ass, 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 grass-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 amusement 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 illustrious passengers had

vari-coloured skins just like the grass-monkeys whose magic powers they

had casually dismissed. Cadillac and Roz had removed their face masks

allowed themselves to be undressed and assisted 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 japanese. 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.