Dragons on the Sea of Night by Eric Van Lustbader Read Free Book Online

phantasms were assailing them. Their faces twisted grotesquely in horror and dread. They fouled themselves abysmally; some wept uncontrollably in their death throes.
    And when the last of the ministers had died, Miira too, looked deep into her mirror and, it is said, died on the spot (Moichi concluded).
    Aufeya, who had been sitting up in the berth for some time now, her own aches and fears forgotten as she became more and more enthralled with the tale, said, ‘Is this story true? It is so fantastic. Terrible and fantastic.’
    â€˜Aye, it is that, but though it makes a gripping tale I doubt its veracity.’
    Aufeya seemed lost in thought for some time. Then she threw the bedclothes off and, padding about the cabin, began to dress. ‘I want to go on deck,’ she said. ‘I’m stifling in here and dawn is breaking over the water. I want to see it. It has been a long, fearful night.’
    Even in this early hour there was much activity on deck. Arasomu checked in briefly with Moichi. He had made two slight course corrections during his watch. According to the information that Moichi had provided him he believed they would sight the shore of Iskael before noon. The skies were fair, with scattered ribbons of high wispy cloud, and the wind was freshening out of the northwest quarter. It was ideal weather.
    â€˜I find it curious,’ Aufeya said when they were alone, ‘that you hold no truck with superstition yet you are a mariner and mariners are a powerfully superstitious lot.’ She tossed her head, glad to be abovedeck in fine weather. ‘In fact, I’ve heard you call upon the Oruboros even though you believe in the One God.’
    Moichi shook his head. ‘I call upon him, no. I curse him on occasion because one does not speak of the God of my people in that way. Just as one does not call upon Him to change the wind or ensure success in business. He is not like the tiny gods of smoke and stone other people kneel before. He is the universe; he is everything. He lives; He provides for His people. But He does not grant petty favors like some desert jinn out of legend.’
    Aufeya smiled. ‘And the Oruboros does.’
    He noted the mocking tone in her voice. ‘The Oruboros, the great ancient sea serpent, once lived, Aufeya. In another time his power was great, indeed.’
    â€˜You talk about him as if he no longer exists.’
    Moichi looked down at her, not knowing whether this was some game she was playing, needling him with her disbelief. Not for the first time, he was struck by how little he really knew her. ‘Ronin slew the Oruboros when he was transformed into the Dai-San.’
    At the mention of Moichi’s bond-brother Aufeya dropped her amused look. She knew full well how important this already mythical figure was to him. ‘But I don’t really understand who – or what – the Dai-San is,’ she said.
    Now Moichi smiled. ‘Does anyone, really?’ His tawny eyes were misty with remembrance. ‘Ah, Aufeya, what adventures we two shared.’ His eyes cleared as he tried to explain the unexplainable. ‘He was once a man, not unlike me, perhaps. But his fate lay in another direction. On Ama-no-mori, he was transformed by ancient Bujun sorcery that was part of a grand design. Pulled apart, then reassembled, he was compelled to ride the back of the Oruboros, to slay this venerable creature who he held dear so that he might be reborn as the Dai-San.’
    â€˜Dai-San,’ Aufeya repeated. ‘That name is of a language unfamiliar to me.’
    â€˜As it is to most. It is Bujun.’
    â€˜But the Dai-San is not Bujun.’
    Moichi shrugged. ‘Ama-no-mori has become his adoptive country. It was there that his transformation began.’
    Aufeya’s eyes were huge. ‘Is he really more than mortal man?’
    â€˜In the time of magic from which he was born anything is possible.’
    â€˜Even the legend