Laura Rowland - Black Lotus

She had an unsettling sense of the earth swallowing her. Her heart hammered, and a chill draft shivered her skin. The underground seemed alive, breathing pure malevolence. Reiko alighted in a junction of three tunnels. Drawing her dagger, she looked around, expecting to see a horde of armed nuns and priests, but no one appeared. The clattering pulsation accompanied rushes of air that wavered the flames in oil lamps on the walls. Haru’s wheezes and footsteps echoed from one branch of the tunnel.

In the temple precinct, Sano lashed his sword at the priests clamoring around him and his horse. “Get away!” he shouted, trying to clear a path to Reiko’s palanquin.

White-robed figures poured out the open gate, chased by soldiers. Wounded sect members gulped the contents of vials that hung on strings around their necks and expired in violent convulsions, having poisoned themselves to avoid capture. Though the grounds were covered with fallen priests and nuns, the temple yielded up a seemingly endless supply of new attackers. The fires caused by the torches had lit the shrubbery. Anraku’s conflagration had begun. Sano feared that his army wouldn’t be able to contain the violence, and he would fail in his duty to prevent the destruction of Edo.

As he fought his way closer to Reiko’s palanquin, an object the size of a teapot soared through the air ahead of him, trailing a short tail with a burning end. It thudded to the ground amid a nearby group of combatants and exploded with a tremendous boom and blinding flash of light.

Sano exclaimed in shock. His horse reared. A huge smoke cloud burgeoned at the site of the explosion. Out of this flew bodies hurled by the blast. Agonized screams arose. The Black Lotus had begun deploying gunpowder bombs intended for the destruction of Japan. All around the temple, priests ignited fuses and flung more bombs. More explosions produced more screams and maimed corpses. Injured survivors moaned. Then Sano saw a bomb land on the roof of the palanquin.

“Reiko!” he yelled, horrified. “Get out! Run!”

He vaulted from his saddle, over the priests around him, and landed hard in a crouch. The impact rolled him heels over head, across rough grass, until he halted some ten paces from the palanquin. Still gripping his sword, he leapt to his feet, just as the palanquin exploded.

The blast threw him backward. He felt intense heat. Broken boards showered down upon him. Gunpowder fumes seared his lungs. Then he was crawling through the smoke, frantically pawing the wreckage of the palanquin.

“Reiko!” His ears were ringing from the explosion; he could barely hear himself. A dark afterimage of the flash obscured his vision. “Where are you? Answer me!”

Heedless of the flames that licked his hands, he flung aside splintered panels. A motionless, bloody form appeared.

“No!” The violent denial erupted from Sano.

Then he noticed the corpse’s shaved head: It was a nun. Yet Reiko must be here somewhere. Willing her to be alive, Sano worked furiously until he’d cleared all the debris off the palanquin’s shattered base. But he found no trace of Reiko, nor Haru. Sano’s relief was transient, obliterated by fresh horror. He looked up and saw Hirata running toward him.

“They’re gone,” he shouted over the noise of more explosions.

“What?” Hirata, grimy and sporting cuts in his armor, halted and looked at Sano in confusion. “Who?”

“Reiko and Haru.”

“Where?”

“I don’t know. “ As Sano looked around for the women, dread sank icy roots deep in his heart. “Help me gather some troops. We’ve got to find them.”

Gripping her dagger, Reiko hurried down the tunnel, stumbling over rocks embedded in the floor, past closed doors. The lamps cast her fleeting shadow on the walls; the passage wound on. Reiko couldn’t see Haru, but the tunnels amplified noises, and she followed Haru’s wheezes. She became aware of other, distant noises-marching footsteps, garbled voices, and the ring of metal on stone. Her heart seemed to expand with her fear, thudding against her rib cage. If the Black Lotus discovered her, they would surely kill her. But she had to catch Haru.

A turn brought Reiko to a fork in the tunnel. From one branch came the unexpected, chilling sound of children laughing and chattering. The Black Lotus had evidently hidden their young underground. From the other passage came a loud pounding, and Haru’s voice shouting, “Let me in!”

Reiko ran down that passage. She rounded a curve and saw Haru banging on a door. It opened inward, and Haru tumbled through it. The door creaked shut. Reiko halted, panting. Her terror burgeoned as she wondered who had taken Haru in and a likely answer occurred to her. Still, she was duty bound to stick with Haru. She crept to the door.

It wasn’t completely closed, and there was a small, barred window at eye level in its iron-banded surface. Cautiously, Reiko peered through the window. Color dazzled her eyes. The spacious room inside was lined with curtains printed in brilliant, swirling abstract patterns of crimson, orange, and purple. The curtains shimmered in the light of lanterns; bathing in garish radiance the people in the room.;

At the back, High Priest Anraku sat cross-legged on a platform. His white robe glowed ruddy; his brocade stole sparkled. To his right stood Priest Kumashiro, like a bronze statue in saffron robe and armor tunic, swords at his waist. Abbess Junketsu-in, clad in white robe and head drape, was kneeling on the tatami at the left side of the room. Opposite her knelt Dr. Miwa, in formal dark kimono.

Reiko realized that this was where the Black Lotus leaders planned to wait out the conflagration they’d devised. Eight priests-evidently high sect officials-stood along the walls. Everyone stared at Haru, crouched on hands and knees in the center of the room, facing Anraku.

Dr. Miwa said to her, “How did you get here?”

“The sōsakan-sama brought me. I sneaked away.” Haru spoke as if proud of her cleverness.

“Did anyone see you enter the tunnels?” Kumashiro said, obviously concerned about security in the temple’s underground.

He looked toward the door, and Reiko ducked beneath the window. She heard Haru say, “No, there was so much confusion, nobody knows I left.” Haru was still lying, Reiko observed with irony; the girl couldn’t have forgotten that there was one person who would have noticed her absence. “Oh, Anraku-san, I’m so glad to be with you again.” Haru’s voice trembled with emotion, then faltered, “Aren’t you glad I came back?”

“After you traded our secrets to get better treatment for yourself?” Junketsu-in said incredulously. Reiko understood that the sect had learned the results of Haru’s trial. “You betrayed us. And now you expect us to welcome you? Hah!”

Reiko risked another peek through the window and saw Anraku appraising Haru in thoughtful silence. Haru beseeched him, “Please let me explain. I only did what I did because they made me.” Though Reiko couldn’t see Haru’s face, she could picture its expression of wounded innocence. Haru was still making excuses, Reiko noted in disgust, and still blaming other people for her actions.

“Wicked little traitor,” Junketsu-in hissed at Haru.

“I’ll get rid of her,” Kumashiro said. Striding over to Haru, he grabbed her arm.

“Let me go,” Haru cried. As Kumashiro hauled her toward the door, she appealed to Anraku, who sat grave and still on his altar: “I can’t bear to be separated from you again. If you throw me out, they’ll catch me and kill me. I’m sorry for causing you trouble. I beg you to forgive me. If you let me stay, I’ll prove how loyal I am.” She was crying now, and Reiko glimpsed her panic-stricken face. “I promise!”