Part 5 (1/2)

'So, in other words, I must let sleeping dogs lie.”

'I'm sure we can come up with some ploys that'll give them a few restless nights. But even if the Tohs.h.i.+ba went over, it still wouldn't guarantee Lord Yama-s.h.i.+ta a clean hit. Neither side wants to get bogged down in another long-running civil war. We've all got too much to lose. No - what we've got on our hands right now is a battle for hearts and minds.”

'The most difficult kind of battle to win.”

Tos.h.i.+ro bowed. 'Sire, with you at the helm...”

'Is that aliT' 'Not quite.”

Yoritomo sighed again. This time, the air of regret had been replaced by a note of weary exasperation. 'Tread carefully, my friend. You're beginning to spoil the view.”

Tos.h.i.+ro accepted this philosophically. The risk of incurring the Shogun's wrath by being the bearer of bad tidings went with the territory. 'A rumour, sire, nothing more. I just thought you ought to know about it.”

'I'm waiting.”

Tos.h.i.+ro steeled himself. Rumour it might be but it was still dynamite.

'The flying-horse was driven through the air by an engine whose workings could not be fathomed.”

'I know. Yama-s.h.i.+ta ordered it to be destroyed.”

'It wasn't.”

The news raised the Shogun's painted eyebrows.

'Nothing's happened yet, but the word is our friends in the north have decided to ask their tame long-dog to reveal its secrets and help them devise ways to ' 'To what...?”

'To recapture the...” Tos.h.i.+ro's throat dried.

'... The Dark Light.” The words conjured up a chill spectre of death and disaster.

The five samurai guarding the Shogun did not understand what he was saying, but they sensed the feeling of dread in his voice and looked at each other uneasily.

Tos.h.i.+ro averted his eyes as Yoritomo willed himself to remain calm. In this situation, the laws of etiquette forbade him to look at the Shogun. He had to kneel with his head bowed until Yoritomo addressed him.

As the present holder of the supreme office and guardian of the sacred principles and traditions that governed the world of the samurai, the Dark Light was the thing Yoritomo feared most. It was the evil force that had led to the destruction of The World Before; the power that must never again be allowed to fall into the hands of men. Its secrets had become hidden knowledge, shunned and feared like the magic spells cast by the wizards and witches of ancient times.

The long-dogs were masters of the Dark Light and also its slaves. It gave strength to their awesome weapons and controlled their thoughts.

It was the lifeblood of their underground world; its beating heart.

But it was a diseased organ; within it were the seeds of a plague that weakened the body, paralysed the brain and destroyed the soul. In time, the Sons of Ne-Issan would find a way to tear that heart from its earthly body. And once it was stilled, the long-dogs would be trapped like maggots in a buried corpse, forced to feed on each other in the darkness until the last were overcome by suffocation and the stench of decay.

But first, their advance had to be halted with the aid of the Plainfolk. Only then, when a way had been found to overcome their war machines, could they be driven back into their desert lair and sealed off for ever from the rest of mankind.

The Dark Light was both beautiful and terrible. It seduced and corrupted, and made prisoners of all who tried to master it. The fools who now sought to resurrect it would first be driven mad, then be utterly destroyed by the demons that dwelt within it. From the moment the warriors of the Seventh Wave had stormed ash.o.r.e, those demons had been banished from the lands bordering the Eastern Sea, and those that haunted the minds of the long-dogs had been kept at bay far beyond the Western Hills. But now, moved by blind ambition, a cabal of domain-lords was planning to let them loose again! It was insane!

Yoritomo felt himself gripped by a deepening despair. Was history forever bound to repeat itself?.

Like all true Sons of Ne-Issan, Yoritomo knew the story well. It was a cautionary tale that had been handed down through the ages; a lesson to which, from early childhood to his accession, his parents, teachers and advisers had constantly returned.