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For Horne of the Sixteenth Generation, this sensation would remain unforgettable all his life-in his perception, nothing was hidden in that direction. There was only a pure, heart-stopping "emptiness."
It was neither camouflage nor a concealed presence, but some fundamental "absence."
The old man with the drooping snow-white beard bowed to the shadow beneath the lowered hood, his hands tucked into his sleeves like blades sealed away.
"Such a traceless arrival."
His voice resembled a reef worn down a thousand times by the sea wind, the bloody tang of bygone days pressed into its cracks.
As he turned, his cuff brushed past the rusty iron tang of a dockside mooring post-the moored ship resembled a beast with its claws and fangs withdrawn in the twilight.
"The feast is ready. Lord Shiki awaits you."
Before the wind's moan through the ropes had faded, an exceedingly faint creak of compressed wood came from the deck.
The white-robed figure stood beside the railing, as though he had been there from the beginning.
Ten thousand meters above, islands hung suspended like scattered game pieces.
The green of farmland, the gray of factories, the rank, bloated stench steaming from beast pens-sixteen Floating Islands slowly revolved in the air currents, tearing clouds into wispy shreds.
This was a stomach, a nest, the roots that could sustain a fleet as it gnawed at the seas for years.
The buildings of the Main Island huddled within a blizzard.
Wind raked ripples through the white sand of the dry landscape garden. Ice crusted the pine branches, and plum petals fell with the snow onto the rims of gilt-gold platters piled with roasted beast legs.
Bitter cold and searing heat tore at each other in the air, like two breaths refusing to yield.
"-Ha!"
Laughter cleaved through the