The GoldenCity

Hollis looked inside the shop. It was a dark tunnel lined with books-some of the volumes were arranged on shelves, but most of them were stacked on top of each other or dumped into cardboard boxes. An older Japanese man wearing a tweed jacket sat at the end of the tunnel and read a book stuffed with pieces of paper. A wad of tape held his eyeglass frames together.

“Good afternoon, sir. Can I help you?”

“Just looking…” Hollis entered and found a wall of books in various foreign languages. “You got a hell of a lot of books here.”

“It is a small shop, sir. I never have enough room.”

“Ever heard of a store called White Crane Books? A friend told me to check it out when I came to Tokyo.”

The shopkeeper laughed, and then covered his mouth to be polite. “You have reached your destination, sir. This is White Crane Books and I am the owner, Akihido Kotani.”

“I’m looking for a special book. It might be difficult to find.”

“Is it a foreign book or Japanese?”

“I only know the English title. It’s called The Way of the Sword.”

Looking frightened, Kotani held up both hands. “I am sorry, but do not know this book.”

“Of course you do. It was written by a fighter who called himself ‘Sparrow.’ He was close to a German named Thorn and Frenchman named Linden.”

“You must be mistaken. I have never heard of these people. Excuse me. I must close my shop now. Gomennasai…”

Kotani wheeled one of the book shelves into the tunnel while Hollis stood on the sidewalk. “You were Sparrow’s friend, Mr. Kotani. You got his fiancé out of the country and she had a son named Lawrence Takawa. He was a brave young man, but the Tabula killed him.”

“Do not bother me. Please…” With frantic energy, the bookseller grabbed the second shelf and pushed it into his shop.

“I need your help, Mr. Kotani. It’s important.”

Kotani hurried into bookstore, pulled the door shut and locked it.

Seconds later, he peered out the display window. When he saw that Hollis was still there, he retreated into the darkness.

***

Hollis wandered down the street to a bus stop and sat on a wooden bench. He had concentrated so much on finding the bookshop that he hadn’t considered an alternative plan. Should he search for this spirit woman on his own or should he return to London? Although he had never totally believed that he could speak to Vicki again, he had felt a spark of hope. Once again he sensed the stone inside him, that constant anger that never seemed to go away.

“Excuse me, sir. Excuse me.” Hollis glanced up and saw that Akihido Kotani was standing beside the bench holding a plastic shopping bag. “I am sorry to bother you. But you left this at my shop.”

Confused, Hollis took the shopping bag. Kotani gave him a quick bow before hurrying away. Why didn’t he stay and talk? Hollis wondered. Are surveillance cameras watching on this side street? He returned to the main avenue before he inspected the bookseller’s offering. Inside the bag was a copy of The Way of the Sword and a mobile phone.

11

Michael was locked inside a metal container carried by a steam-powered crawler that was bumping its way down a country road. No one had explained where they were going. He had been dragged out of the men’s dormitory, carried across the courtyard and thrust through a narrow opening like a log being tossed on a fire.

The holding container had a teardrop shape and sloping sides. It felt as if he was sitting in an empty water boiler built with sheet metal and rivets. The only light came from an air vent near the top of the container, and Michael spent most of the morning gazing up at a rectangular patch of clouds and sky.

Late in the day, the crunch of steel wheels on gravel changed to a steady grinding noise. Michael scrambled to his feet, grabbed the grate covering the air vent and pulled himself up. Peering through the bars, he saw that the crawler was passing through a city.

The buildings that lined the street had slate roofs, round windows made of yellow glass, and walls constructed with a series of triangles, each three-sided shape outlined with a darker shade of red brick. The visionary screen had revealed a society with sophisticated technology, but Michael couldn’t see any electric lights or power cables. Porters carried baskets filled with chunks of a black substance that looked like coal, and smoke trickled out of crooked pipes that jutted from the roofs.

Michael saw one guardian wearing the distinctive green robe and two church militants patrolling the streets with clubs hanging from their belts. But the city was dominated by the faithful servants. Men and women baked bread, cobbled shoes and stitched clothing. There were street sweepers with long, feathery brooms.