Eric Van Lustbader - Dai-San - SW3

DAI-SAN

BY

ERIC V. LUSTBADER

DAI-SAN

Book Three of The Sunset WarriorCycle

The poem on page 204 is adaptedfrom Basho's

Death Poem in AN INTRODUCTION TO HAIKUby Harold G. Henderson, copyright ~

1958 by Harold G. Henderson.Reprinted by

permission of Doubleday &Company, Inc.

Contents
ONE DROWNED I

Sails 3

Heart of Stone 29

God game 57

Aviator 77

TWO BEYOND THE MYTHS

OF MORNING 77

Down the Kisokaido 79

Sakura 94

Bujun 128

Deathshed 138
THREE KAI-FENG 147

Horse Latitudes 149

Nemesis 172

Frozen Tears 193

The Dai-San 228
As in the play, the man

wears a mask. Beneath

the mask is the myth.

Behind the myth is the

image of God.
Bujun saying
One

DROWNED

sass
Ronin.

It floated in his mind like ascented jewel. An island, an oasis in a turbulent, flashing stream. Life in ashifting void where there should be no other presence.

Ronin.

Soft and sensual; dusky, alivewith a meaning more than inflection. Crimson letters, a brand of fire writtenacross the heavens of his mind.

Ronin sat up, peered into thedarkness. The creakings of the ship cradled him; the gentle sighing of theendless sea. The squat brass lamp swung on its chain. Dimly, from above, heheard the watch bell chime.

Imperceptibly, the gloomsoftened.

"Moeru?"

Yes.

He got up. His eyes roamed thesmall cabin. Then, startled: "But you cannot speak. This is a dream."

I called you in the sleep.

He turned slowly in a circle. Theberths in the sloping bulkhead, the narrow shelves, the basin of water, a glintof the ocean's phosphorescence reflected through the porthole burnishing the brasscompass. Splash of the creaming water.

"Where are you?"

Here.

He moved to the closed door. Thetiny glow from the spangled night played along the muscles of his naked back.

In your mind.

He pulled open the door.

"Who are you?"

I do not know.

And he went swiftly down thecompanionway, silently as a cat, to her cabin, to meet her.

By the time he came on deck, itwas already midway through the dragonfly watch. He went up the aft companionwayto the high poop, crossed to the stern rail. His dark green sea cloak whippedabout his legs in the pre-dawn breeze. High aloft, the thick white canvas ofthe sails, faintly luminescent with incipient light, cracked; the yards creakedas the ship ran eastward. Behind them, the night shrank back as if in terror fromthe pearl light of the nascent sun. Their wake was black.

There was already some movementaround the forecastle hatch, but he ignored it, staring fixedly out to sea, contemplatingthe vastness upon which they rode.

"He spends precious time upthere." The voice came from behind him.

"Hmmm?"

"Morning, Captain."

A tall, thickly muscled figureapproached him. Deep hazel eyes flashed.

Ronin turned from the rollingsea.

"Are all navigators likeyou, Moichi? Sleepless and ever vigilant?"

The wide, thick-lipped mouthsplit in a grin, the white teeth made more startling by contrast with the richcinnamon skin.

"Hah! There are none so fineas myself, Captain."

"You mean none so foolhardyas to venture out into uncharted waters."

The smile did not fade as thetall man brandished a sheet of rice paper.

"This Bonneduce, he gave methe chart when he hired me, Captain."

"Your ratter is thick withthe details of all the lands to which you have sailed. Yet there is no mentionof Ama-nomori."

Moichi put his hands into thewide cloth sash banding his waist, looked down at his high shining sea boots.

"This Bonneduce, Captain, heis your friend, am I right?" His bearded head nodded. "Well, shouldhe lie? This chart says there is an island called Ama-no-mori towardwhich" here he made a swift sign across his chest "the Oruborus willingwe sail." He glanced up. "I have sailed to many

ports, Captain; seen things sostrange that I tell them now as tall tales, sitting around a warm hearth in thepublic room of a tavern in some fly-blown port of call, half-drunk, whileeveryone laughs and compliments me on my imagination. Have faith, Captain

There came a soft cry from aloftas the lookouts changed with the watch. The rigging swung to the men's weight.

"Hey, you see that sight,Captain?" He pointed forward to the first pink crescent of the sun climbingover the flat horizon. The color floated to them, tiny scimitars on the sea'ssurface. "Long as I see that come cormorant, I know that all'sright."

He made a sound not unlike ananimal's bark but which Ronin had come to know as the navigator's laugh.

"Let me tell you a thingabout Moichi Annai-Nin because I like you." He paused for a moment, scratchinghis long nose. "I knew you were no captain when first you set foot onboard this ship. You love the sea, yes, very much, but your time upon it isshort, am I right?" His dark head bobbed. "Yes, well there is noshame in it, you see. You are a man; I could see that too as soon as I saw you,and now, sixty-six days later, I know I was right."

The sun spilled its strange flatlight over the expanse of the ocean, lending it a dazzling and illusorysolidity. The topsails began to burn bright. He squinted into the pink risingsun.

"Now most navigators wantone thing more than all else: silver. It makes no difference to them where theysail, nor who their masters are, but only if the cargo is valuable. For thedearer that is, the fatter their percentage when they make port." Heslapped his broad chest. "I am different. Oh, I will not lie to you andsay that I do not enjoy my silver for most certainly I do." The brightgrin came again, ivory cast in dusky granite. "But I live to fill theratter with facts and without new lands to sail to, it does not grow. I tellyou truthfully, Captain, that when the Bonneduce showed me the chart, I carednot one whit for the Kiaku's cargo. 'Let the captain, whoever he may be, carefor the cargo,' I said to myself. To sail a fast schooner to an unknown isle;to turn myth into reality; the chance of a lifetime!"

Moichi's wide-sleeved blouserippled in the strengthening breeze, rolling wavelike across his broad chest.He put a hand on the silver pommel of his thick broadsword, which hung within awom tattooed leather scabbard from his right hip. A pair of copper-handleddirks were thrust into his sash. He turned his head into the rising sun, and thelight fired the tiny diamond set in the flesh of his right nostril.

"This gimpy knows what he istalking about, Captain. The chart is no fake, that I can tell you, for many aforgery has been sold to me in my youth. It is my great good fortune to takethis beauty to a land long forgotten by man."

"Then it is your opinion thatAma-no-mori still exists."

"Yes, Captain, in my opinionit does." The deep-set eyes raked Ronin's face. "But do you not feelthis already" he slapped his chest "here?"

Ronin's colorless eyes at lastleft the roiling sea before them, swung to study the angular face with its longhooked nose and hooded eyes. A depth of strength was alive within that visageas solid as a harsh rock promontory in a fierce gale, bartered but victorious.

Ronin nodded and said slowly:"You are right, my friend, of course. But you must also understand thatfor me the search for this isle has been long, has forged my life into a shapetotally unknown to me. Now it is almost too much to think that at last it willbe over."

Moichi's cinnamon face softenedand he gripped Ronin's shoulder momentarily.

"It is the truth, Captain.You live with an idea for so long a time that, after a while, it is just that whichbegins to have the reality. Be careful of that."

Ronin smiled, then cocked hishead. There was a small silence.

"What was it that you saidto me when you came up?"