Assassin

Chapter Fifty

INSIDE THE CATACOMBS, YOU COULD SEE YOUR BREATH. YOU could feel the damp stone beneath your feet begin to climb your bones. She shivered, wrapping her fur-lined silks more tightly about her as she ran. She raced past dark tombs and rooms that could still knife cold fear into her heart. She’d been seven years old when she’d first set foot in this very passageway. She still awoke some nights in a terror of what she’d seen at the very end of it.

In the early seventies, her father, the Emir, commenced construction of a new mountain fortress atop the ruins of a fourteenth-century Moorish fortification. Workers had uncovered a vast network of tunnels and tombs and burial vaults deep inside the mountain. Yasmin had accompanied her father the first time he explored the honeycomb, a small girl following his flickering torch through the endless confusion of dripping and dank passageways.

They’d come at last upon a vast vault, the torchlight suddenly picking out an entire wall of the ancient dead, their eyeless sockets, lipless grins and twisted claws seeming to beckon her forward. Join us! She screamed and ran, finally rushing into the arms of her mother who, sensibly, was waiting at the entrance to the tombs. Father says it’s the Kingdom of Lost Souls, she’d cried to her mother. Long afterwards, her father would laugh at her childish fears, recounting the story with relish throughout her childhood. As if it was amusing to be afraid of death.

Many of the underground vaults she now hurried past made ideal hiding for the caches of gold and weapons the Emir and her husband were amassing for the coming wars with the infidels. Legions of political enemies were locked away in these catacombs. Many went insane under torture here, and many died or were simply forgotten.

Her father had made her a wedding gift of the present fortress. She’d named it the Blue Palace for the color of its stone. The young bride had immediately demanded the tombs be sealed, but her handsome young husband, Snay bin Wazir, had rescinded that decree. He would find many uses for the underground world, he had assured her. New horrors now occurred beneath her home. She looked but did not see.

Countless innocents had died where she now tred, Yasmin thought, as she hurried through the slimy passages, the grey stone glistening in the light of her torch. But no more. It was time for it all to stop. She herself would end it, or die trying. She’d had another dream the night before. A dream in which she herself wielded the sword of Fudo Myo-o, the god whom Ichi-san called King of Light; she had the power to stop this nightmare. Awaking, she knew she could not act alone. Some in the palace, given the opportunity, would rise up in her defense. But, there was one man whom she could trust completely. She knew where she would find him and she hurried there now.

An occasional oil lamp or guttering candle mounted on the jagged walls of the Kingdom lit the way. Passing guards dropped to the stone, prostrating themselves before her. Rats scurried before her and disappeared like the countless lost souls who had suffered and died in this dismal hell.

No more.

Word had just reached Yasmin that strange black aircraft had been spotted attempting to land atop the Blue Mountain. One plane had crashed, but there were thought to be survivors. It was, the captain of the house guards assured her, most probably a rescue party sent in search of the imprisoned American. It was insane, he laughed. But, nevertheless, quite interesting. In all these many years, no one had ever attempted anything quite so daring or quite so stupid.

Her husband, who had just returned from Suva Island, was also vastly amused by the news of the intrusion. He had just ordered a patrol outside the walls to find and capture the interlopers. Anyone foolish enough to try and land an airplane atop the Blue Mountain was sure to provide him a delightful afternoon’s entertainment.

He was ignoring her, busily making his plans for the day’s sumo celebration when his wife slipped away.

She arrived at the isolated cellblock vault where the American had been held since his abduction ten days earlier. The duty guard, who had passed food to the American for her and smuggled out his letter, hit the switch that opened the electric security door. Inside one of the dim cells, she could hear Ichi-san speaking softly to the American. Entering the cell, a silent scream caught in her throat.

“The honor in death—the death of honored ancestors—the true and solitary path of all warriors—” Ichi-san was whispering to the pale American kneeling before him on the stone floor. He was gently stroking the man’s head, offering him encouragement. The man’s frail body wore the scars of recent beatings. His head was bowed and he held the hilt of Ichi-san’s Samurai sword with both hands, the trembling tip of the blade already piercing the skin of his emaciated belly. She knew what this was called. In his desperation, Ichi-san had spoken its name often enough.

Hara-kiri.

“Stop!” Yasmin cried. “You cannot do this!”

The American slowly raised his head and looked up at her. His eyes looked like holes in a mask.

“Why?” he croaked, his parched lips barely moving. His hollow eyes were shining with tears. No food, no water, no sleep. He was broken, but he had not given up whatever it was they’d wanted. Had he, he’d be dead.

“Yes,” the sumo agreed softly. “Why? Bin Wazir’s method will be far less merciful than the blade of the Samurai.”

“If you do this now, others will die in vain.”

“Yasmin,” Ichi-san said. “I do not understand.”

“Someone has dared to come here to save him,” she said. “Unlike all the others who have died here—this man has not been forgotten.”

She fell to her knees beside the shaking prisoner and spoke, the words tumbling out in a rush. “Strange black aircraft have landed atop the mountain. It is believed that men have come for you. Put their lives at risk for your sake. My husband knows. He will surely find them and put them to death. He already intends to make sport of it. In the dohyo of the sumos.”

“You risk your life coming here,” Ichi-san said to her.

“I’ve had enough of this.”

“What can we do, Yasmin?” the sumo asked.

“Can he walk?” she asked. “His feet look—”

“Yes,” Ichi-san replied. “Barely.”

She pulled the black pajamas of a houseboy from the folds of her silks.

“Here. Dress him in this. And wrap his head in this. And bring that sword. If we are lucky, we will all live long enough to put it to good use.”

The sumo looked at Yasmin and smiled. He reached out his hand and stroked her cheek, flushed pink with the running and the damp cold here inside the mountain.

“No doubt. No confusion. No fear,” he said to her, his eyes alight for the first time since she’d met him. “We are ready now.”

“Yes, Ichi-san, I believe we are.”

“We must not be seen together. He is at the doyho, preparing for the ceremony. I must go there now.”

Yasmin caught his hand at her cheek and squeezed it.

“The harmonization of human beings,” Ichi-san said, smiling at her, “And, the timing of heaven.”