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horror lifted entirely.
    The Grand Steward concluded: “Montival
claims
the whole western half of this continent. I have not yet determined how real that is.”
    Reiko nodded; her government
claimed
all of the old Empire, but most of that was howling wilderness and haunted ruins. Her people were the children and grandchildren of remnants preserved on offshore islands with enough food—just. And not too impossibly many mouths as the Change flashed around the globe like a flicker of malignant lightning and the great world-machine stopped in its tracks. On some of those islands the aged and infirm had refused food or opened their veins or walked into the ocean lest they starve the children, or overburden those strong enough to work and fight and breed.
    “Not entirely unlike us in the breadth of their claims, then,” she said dryly. “However little substance there is to either.”
    “Every reality that we can make begins with a dream, Majesty,” the Grand Steward said. “The Seventy Loyal Men who brought your grandmother to Sado dreamed, and made the dream truth in the face of the wrath of the
Kami
.”
    “Hai, honto desu ne,”
she conceded to the unspoken reproof. “Unquestionably true. Or I would not be here.”
    Some of those men had paid with their sanity, most with their lives,many with both, and none were still among the living; but every child in Nippon learned their names now, and made offerings to their memories in summer at the Obon festival. Their
giri
had been fulfilled, but an unbreakable burden of obligation remained with the living.
    This too passes to me with Father’s death. All the generations past and those to come look to us now, their fate balancing on the blade of the sword we hold. Duty heavier than mountains, neh? But we may not escape it through death; we must triumph and live and hand down our heritage. The first duty we owe our ancestors is that they have
descendants
.
    Her shoulders moved as she set herself to it, but her face showed nothing. Koyama acknowledged the point with a gesture and continued:
    “But certainly they are pushing new settlements into the wilderness here in what the maps call California. Here the Change struck as badly as it did in Japan. Our hosts recognize the name California, by the way, but do not use it. I also have . . . mmm . . . an impression that this High Kingdom is a federation of very different units. No details yet, so sorry, Majesty.”
    Reiko made a small hissing sound of frustration, and there were nods of agreement.
    We know so little! And we cannot make sensible decisions until we
do
know more.
    The
jinnikukaburi
raids had kept Japan’s survivors isolated from any real contact with the outside world all her lifetime. There was an occasional ship from the mainland looking for salvage or trade or just fleeing chaos, but the coasts of China were mostly a wreck as bad as the main islands of Japan. And from what they had heard the interior was a bloody murk of warlords fighting each other and Tibetan and Mongol invaders, seasoned with flood and disaster as the dams and dykes and canals of the old world broke down and spilled the great rivers across their floodplains.
    The rest of the world was barely even rumors. And all her people had
wanted
to do was begin the long slow process of resettlement of their homeland, until the enemies of humanity forced them onto another path.
    “There is another matter,” Reiko said; after her first reminder, it was time to drive the lesson home. “You all watched the cremation of their High King.”
    Another series of bows. This time they masked deep unease. They had been politely distant, but close enough to know that something entirely strange had taken place.
    “You saw what happened then. I know many of you thought
Saisei Tenno
was . . . possibly unwise . . . to seek
Kusanagi-no-Tsurugi
. You thought it was a piece of mysticism, perhaps even madness, to follow visions seen in dreams. I suggest that you