Van lay staring at the cloth covering the tent entrance, which still shook gently behind Sae and Milalle. Why had they kept their fear to themselves?
They’re worried about me. Afraid that I might go after Shikan despite my injuries.
Yuna tottered over and curled up beside him. When Sae had tried to take her out, the little girl looked so sad that they decided to let her stay and nap. She mumbled to herself for a while, then pressed her face against Van’s arm and fell asleep. Van listened to her breathing and gazed at the tent ceiling, which glowed with the afternoon light.
Shikan must have slipped through the Molfah’s net. It wasn’t a hunch, but a certainty. Van had been thinking it through the entire time Sae had been talking.
Ohfan wasn’t just a dropped knife.
He recalled the triumphant grin on his face as he’d stared at Van with bloodshot eyes. Now he understood the meaning behind the expression. Ohfan wanted to kill me. He’d guessed that if Tohma and the others were attacked, Van would step in to stop it. He came there with that bomb, despite the risk, not just to trick us, but because it was the perfect chance to kill me.
Ohfan, who’d schemed so coldly and methodically, would never rely on Shikan unless he was certain he could escape the Molfah’s detection. He must have found a way. Either that or Shikan is biding his time. Would Shikan let the dogs loose in the countryside to multiply? And then have them bite men until a new Dog King appeared?
No…
That was too dangerous. The longer he stayed in Aquafa, the more likely he was to get caught. And the more complicated and time-consuming the plot, the greater the likelihood of it being discovered and thwarted.
So is he just bait to distract us from the truth?
Was there already someone else capable of controlling the Kinma dogs? Or had Shikan found a way to lead them without someone like Van or the Dog King? Van needed to consider that that was a possibility, but he felt it was doubtful.
If anyone else could lead the dogs, I wouldn’t have been important to them. There would’ve been no point in Ohfan sacrificing himself trying to kill me.
Once again, Van saw that intense expression on Ohfan’s face, his bloodshot eyes as he gripped the bomb and fought to reach Van, despite the arrows stuck in his body.
Why did he need to kill me so desperately? What do they fear from me?
If the Kinma dogs scattered into the eastern forest and the number of infected ticks exploded, there’d be nothing Van could do.
Which means they don’t want me interfering before they get that far. But what do they fear I might do? I’m only capable of controlling the Kinma dogs.
His eyes narrowed. Was Shikan plotting something that Van could foil just by turning up and taking control of the pack? If so, what? Van didn’t know. However, he had a good inkling of where. If Shikan’s final intention was to release the dogs to breed in the eastern forests, then he’d have to enact his plot east of Kazan.
Is he going to attack the procession of the Emperor’s Eyes?
Considering the timing, that was the obvious target. The Ahfal Oma undoubtedly longed to prove who deserved to be punished by their god, to show everyone that they had claimed the final victory. Attacking the Emperor’s Eyes also fulfilled their desire for revenge against the King of Aquafa, who’d betrayed and abandoned them.
But as Sae had said, the procession’s route was under meticulous surveillance. Not so much as a fly moved unnoticed. Would the Ahfal Oma really send their precious Kinma dogs and their handler to so heavily guarded a place?
Yes. They just might…
They’d do it precisely because it seemed so impossible. There was no point in considering what to do if they didn’t. Right now Van had to follow the thread back to the source of their scheme.
Assuming they plan to attack the procession, then the question is how they’d go about it. How could they successfully attack the Emperor’s Eyes and make a show of their god’s power and wrath while still ensuring the dogs and Shikan escaped? Was there even a way to achieve so much?
The key is figuring out where they could launch an ambush. It’ll have to be somewhere the Zolians and the Molfah would never expect while still being an easy location for the dogs to strike. Van had difficulty imagining such a spot.
However, a name soon emerged from the depths of his memory, as clear as a streak of lightning. He knew it to be right—it was the name Ohfan had spoken as he laughed with his comrades and patted his steed’s neck. “Fire horses can ride down cliffs, too,” he’d said during that unguarded moment. “Although not the Cliff of Alulufan. How about pyuika?”
Van had thought it odd that he should name a bluff in east Aquafa rather than a place in the Yukata or Toga mountains. Now he understood.
The Cliff of Alulufan.
It must have been on Ohfan’s mind constantly for him to blurt it out when in the presence of Van the Pyuika Rider. How he must have regretted that slip of the tongue.
Ohfan…
The man who’d stood in the bright sunshine, proudly stroking his beloved steed, was gone. Life was such a fleeting thing.
Yuna slept with her nose pressed against Van’s arm, her breath brushing his skin.
Was there any point in leaving this child behind, in wrenching himself away from the warmth of a family circle that was only now coming together?
If I go… It was unlikely that he should ever return.
Van couldn’t lead those dogs without becoming the Dog King. But once he turned inside out, he would lose the power of speech. The human part of him would dwindle and vanish.
If he let his body and mind trade places, if he joined souls with those hounds and led them deep into the wilderness where no man dared to tread, he would lose the link to his humanity. The small piece of Van that was his identity would dissolve into that vast expanse where all things became flowing specks of light, and he would become a beast.
The pale light of evening fell on Yuna’s rosy cheeks. She wasn’t in any particular danger. Black wolf fever was a scourge for the Aquafaese if they caught it, but there were so many other diseases that were just as bad. Van had been swept into this strange battle against his will. Was it really worth sacrificing his life?
He closed his eyes. Behind his lids, mirage-like images rose in succession. Ticks breeding, mice migrating from the fields to the city, people stricken with disease and dying in agony, their loved ones watching…
A distant memory drifted into his mind. He saw himself by his son’s bedside at night, praying desperately as he listened to the boy’s labored breathing. “Please. I would do anything, if only…”
If only he had the power to eradicate the disease that claimed his son. He would ask for nothing more, not even his own life.
How ironic. The power Van had once longed for body and soul was his at last.
Ohfan had seen the face of his god in disease. Sickness was so far removed from the hands of people that it did seem godlike. Deities wrote unknown destinies, making it impossible to tell when or why one might fall ill, or what separated those who lived from those who died.
But that doesn’t mean it’s all right to give up hope. Life is the very struggle to survive amid all that.
The endless pinpricks of light that Van had glimpsed while inside out were small and feeble, but each still shone as brightly as it could. Countless lights, fighting to live and give life, sometimes losing, sometimes winning, sometimes reaching out to help others. Every living creature took the body they received at birth and waged endless little battles just to live and pass life on. Some existed by taking lives, others, by supporting them. Myriad ways competed, mingled, and flowed, but all of them were life.
Only those without choice have the right to relinquish hope. And only those who can’t save them have the right to turn a blind eye when the lives of others are threatened.
In the darkness behind his closed eyes, Van thought he saw a small deer prancing and leaping. And with each bound, its life shone brightly.
Shine on, o dancing deer.
Face the crushing darkness, and shine on, o little dancing deer.
“Aleesa, Moshilu.” Van whispered the names of his wife and son, long unspoken, and felt heat trickle down his throat. “Would you mind if I did for them what I couldn’t do for you, even though I’m not bound to them by blood?”
If they would only say yes, he could go without regret or doubt. He smiled bitterly. Hot tears stung his eyes. The dead did not speak. As ever, Van was left to find the answer inside himself.
He looked down at Yuna, who breathed peacefully. As he stroked her plump little cheek with his finger, he was overcome with a deep affection. He closed his eyes. “Forgive me.”
If he failed to return, Yuna would weep inconsolably. But she was still young. Time would pass and heal her sorrow until Van became a distant dream from the past. She had kin now. Kiya, Tohma, Ohma, Chida, and the others. They would love her and raise her like their own. How glad Van was that he’d met Tohma in that freezing rain. Thanks to that chance encounter, he could leave this child, born into a cruel fate, in the warm embrace of family.
Opening his eyes, Van rose softly so as not to wake her.