More from the Iron Dog

[camwyn]

Part 2, for reference, may be found here.

Ow. . .
Can't think. Can't move. Can barely breathe. Chest's heavy, something . . . sharp? pointy . . . in the back. Rocks . . .
There was a storm. There were dragons. There was a storm.
And a boat. And light, and a dark sky. Something broke-
The boat. The boat was what broke. The storm threw it so hard it cracked in two.
Bullets and ripping cloth and explosions and the sound of feet. Those were there too.
Something tickling at the back of the throat, just like that, just on the edge of feeling, as if it were about to fall. Breathe, now, breathe deep -
Something sings out in pain when the breath comes, searing like a whipcrack, and it all comes rushing back. The raft. The Ainu.
The stolen boat, and the storm, and cursing the Gods - it all flashes through my head before I can even finish the breath. Along with another memory:

Master slid the whale hunter's eyelids down with one hand, murmuring the death-blessing under his breath and closing his own eyes. He looked very old.
"What happens now, Master?"
The kneeling, white-bearded man shook his head. "He goes to the village of they who died sick," he said softly. "For as long as we have lived on the sea, we go from life into death, to the place where the way of our dying says we belong."
"But he was a hunter. The black whale killed him."
"No," said Master, "the black whale broke all his bones. If he had died in the fight, he would have a place of honor in the village of those who died in battle, or those who died feeding their people, and he would have his spear and his weapons to guard the other dead against the oni. Or he would be in the village of those who drowned, and live in storms and floods by the great river. But he died in his bed, and now he goes to the village of the sick, where the oni take their sport."
"Oh."
Master looked up from the dead man. "Where do hinin go when they die?"
"To. . . ancestors, mostly. If we're buried and someone prays for us."
He sat back on his heels. "Even you?"
"No."
"Because you are here?"
"No. Because. . . they won't let you into the ancestors' country if part of you is missing."

That's not the sword. It feels like a rock, and it's really starting to hurt. I don't think I can move yet.

"So what happens to you?"
"The same thing as someone with no family, no prayers, no grave. I become a hungry ghost, forever."

Do ghosts feel pain? Do they feel anything but being hungry? No one ever said.

Master shook his head again. "Well, your ancestors are not here," he said, not unkindly. "I do not think they can find you to make you a ghost if you die out here. If you die a good death and you work as hard as you do now, you will be all right in one of our villages."

Storms and floods by the great river. I can hear waves. . . are they going to make me a slave again, for ever? Or do ghosts hurt?
I can't think. I don't want to. None of it sounds any good at all. Maybe if I just get a hand under there and get that rock out, it will be easier to think.
/ Get up, lander. I am tired of watching you sleep. /
That's Nyiimin. I don't think oni speak Nyiimin. I know most Ainu don't. When I open my eyes the world is too bright to see. Everything still feels too weak for words, but I've got to sit up, so I close my eyes and push until I'm sitting upright again. The pain sings out again. Maybe I broke a rib? Waves, seabirds, wind over sand - I can hear all these things. That, and the grunt of someone's voice behind me. I don't dare take my hands off the sand but I can just about turn my head towards that grunt
I can make his outline out against the sand - no, not sand, pebbles. They're pressing into my leg, like the rock was. The land is all pebbles and scree here. He's in human shape, I can make out that much. . . ah, all right, I can see a little better in the light now. He's a little shorter than I am, I think, but he's crouching so it's hard to tell. Naked, like all the Nyimi I've ever
seen. Broad dark stripes on the arms and legs, more than Kouri and Oki had. Have I seen those stripes before? Maybe.
His narrow, angular features wrinkle up as he sees me looking. / Crooked nose, grey eyes, and stripes. You are the shadow person who saved the life of Nakitsuku Jinkei, / he states flatly. / This is so, yes? /
I reach up reflexively to touch the place where my first master broke my nose, but it sets off the pain again. Broken rib, definitely. Nakitsuku Jinkei. . . that's a woman's name, I've heard it before. Nyimi have names from the clans that used to live on the eastern islands of the Dragon Land, the ones that were never quite Ainu to begin with. Most Ainu have names in their own clan dialect, but use the eastern clans' language as a common tongue, so the Nyimi use that language too.
He's scowling - I owe him an answer. / Yes, / I say slowly. My jaw doesn't quite want to move. / At least I think I am. /
He makes a 'hnnnh' noise, folding his arms across his chest. / You do not remember. /
/ No, / I admit. / I don't, I'm sorry. /
The set of his shoulders shifts a little bit. / Fourteen tides ago, / he says, / a ship of landers with fishing nets came into these waters. Jinkei was here, hunting one who the currents had carried off. They went after her with spears and nets. She stung two of them and got away, but she had many wounds- /
Fourteen tides ago would make it a little more than a year - he means moon-tides, months. There was a Nyimi woman who came to us bleeding then.
/ She swam faster than the sea dragons and her heart nearly stopped, but she found a raft - are you listening to me, lander? /
/ I- I'm sorry, I was remembering. / I can feel the blood coming to my face. I guess I should've paid more attention to his words, but I was remembering. My master was busy that day. A bushi's wife was in labor and it was going so badly the midwife was beyond her power to do anything. They sent for him, and he took all the sharp objects and left me alone.
/ Fine, / says the Nyimi, / then you can tell me the rest. Since now you are remembering. /
/ I remember sitting by the hole in the raft, / I say slowly. / It was late in the day and very quiet. Master had just left and I did not know what to do. The - the water broke, like when a dolphin pops up, only it was a Nyimi woman with blood all over. / He grunts. / She just barely managed to turn herself human before she passed out. I had to pull her up onto the raft, but she was bleeding everywhere. / So much blood. . .
/ She told me you tied her wounds, / he says, a little less harshly this time.
/ I stopped the bleeding. / There was so much. Some of those harpoons nearly went through her. / I used the bandages, and my belt. She would have died. /
/ And you stayed at her side while she recovered. /
/ Yes. / Master came back later that day. The bushi's wife had died, but she'd given birth to a son and there was a wet-nurse, so he'd been rewarded with ivory. / Master said I could. /
He nods. / Many times she almost died, / he says softly. / It was several tides before she could swim freely again. /
Every day for three months I had to help her into the sling that my master kept for the Nyimi, then winch her down into the water so that she could change her shape and breathe the sea for a while. The salt scalded her wounds, but she hardly showed it. I remember envying her that kind of calm. / She got better in the end, / I say to him, and he nods again.
/ Jinkei recovered, / he acknowledges. / She came back to us before the death-songs could be finished. For that we have owed you. I was hunting in the waters of your people - /
It comes out without my even willing it: / They are not my people. /
I don't remember the last time I had the nerve to interrupt someone.
Is that approval in his eyes? I can't tell. / The waters of the Ainu who held you, then, / he allows. / When the waters began singing of the storm I thought I had better leave before the currents grew too strong. Something happened on the raft, I do not know what, and there were many landers in the water and much bamboo. It drew the dragons. They did not even notice me when I came up under your boat as it broke. / He gives me a long, narrow-eyed look. / Why do you wear that thing? It hides your stripes. I almost left you to drown. /
The robe handled the wreck worse than I did. It looks like every free-floating piece of wood or bamboo from the boat got caught in it and tried to chew its way out. I'll have to stand up to take it off, and I can tell my knees won't obey me if I try. / It meant the Ainu did not look at me twice, / I answer, plucking at what's left of it. / They saw this and thought I was one of them. / The last time I saw that kind of look, my master was trying to get one of the Nyimi to drink hot broth. / It was not as ragged when I put it on. /
He looks out to sea for a moment, watching one of the gulls, then looks back with a slight nod. / It does you no good now. There is not enough to keep you warm, and the holes are not enough to know you by your stripes. /
/ They're not stripes, they're scars, / I protest.
He shrugs. / Landers who have stripes are known to us, / he says calmly. / They are part of our blood. You have saved my sister's life- / Sister's?- / and you have saved many others besides. All the songs of the ones who live come back from the raft with the names of the ones who saved them. You have the stripes, you have the nose, you have the shadow person's eyes - you are Inu, who - /
/ No. / Somehow I struggle to my feet. / My name is not Inu. They called me that. My name is Zheng He. / He gets a very strange look on his face, and I realize he's probably never heard the Chinese sounds before in his life. / All right, I don't care if you can't say that. Just don't ever call me Inu. /
/ Hnnnnh. / He straightens up - he's definitely taller than me. There's a peculiar look in his eyes, as if he were sizing me up. / No, you are not Inu. And you are not a shadow person, any more. But you are still the one who saved my sister's life. My name is Nakitsuku Konki, and I thank you for that. / He bows.

No one has ever bowed to me.

I want to bow back, and I want to tell him not to do that, but both the impulses are running up against his words in my head. It makes it hard to hear him as he adds, / And it has been more than a sun tide since I found you in the water. Neither of us has eaten. I will catch something. / He turns and walks into the shining waves, shifting from human to finned form between one big breaker and the next, and I'm all alone on the beach.
'Shadow person' is what the Nyimi call slaves. Not a shadow person, not any more. . .
I should probably look for water, right? Or other food, since all Konki will catch is fish, or maybe firewood for me, since Nyimi eat their fish whole and raw. I should do all of those. Any of those. But the words are bouncing around my head like a sand flea in a conch shell. Not a shadow person, not any more. No Ainu for miles, not kindly ones like the physician, not cruel bushi like my first master - none of them, not anywhere, except somewhere on the other side of the horizon. I got away. I don't have a damn idea where I am, but I got away, and I'm not a shadow person any more -
I don't even see Konki come back. I've got my knees up against my chest. I'm holding onto my ankles. I'm whooping like some kind of deranged seabird despite the pain even as the tears spill down my face and onto the wreck of a robe. I did it. I got away. I'm free.
Everything else in the world can wait. This is the only part that matters. Baba, Mama, I'm coming home!