Guardian, Saviors of Kamigawa

CHAPTER 22

Konda’s eyes had not wavered in over a day, so he felt sure he was closing in on his prize once and for all. The closer they got, the more he felt the Taken One’s presence and the stronger it called out to him. He kept his moth-riders low, barely touching the treetops as they flew. His handpicked squad of retainers kept pace less than half a day’s march behind, moving swiftly without banners or war cries. There was no way the thief could see or hear them coming.

He was still receiving flashes from his troops in eastern Jukai, images and sounds that told him the battle with the soratami was turning to his favor. Most of the orochi had moved on to other skirmishes, but with Konda occupying a healthy share of the soratami armada the snakes were mounting a significant effort to expel the moonfolk. When Eiganjo was restored, Konda would send envoys to the snakes, especially the Kashi-tribe orochi in the far east. His new kingdom would be larger, stronger, and more diverse than ever.

Suddenly, stabbing pain lanced through both Konda’s eyes, and he cried out. Had he been in control of his own forward motion, the daimyo would have stumbled and fallen. Though his moth-rider escorts were startled by their lord’s distress, they maintained their speed and direction.

His peculiar view of the world changed then, sliding from a series of panoramic glimpses in all directions to a single, focused image of the landscape before him. It took the daimyo a moment to adjust and another to realize what had happened.

Konda ran his hands over his face, confirming what he had feared. His eyes had become normal, fixed in their sockets. Quickly, the Daimyo tested the other gifts he had received from the stone disk. He still felt young and strong, and the skin on his hands still looked no older. He was still a seventy-year-old soldier in a fifty-year-old’s body.

Neither had he lost contact with his ghost army. He could still feel their presence and send mental commands that would be obeyed without questions. Indeed, the moth-riders above and the honor guard below continued on as if nothing had changed.

Whatever foul magic the ochimusha was using had somehow partially severed Konda’s connection with the Taken One. The daimyo still retained his command and his vigor, but he was no longer able to fix upon the disk.

Unfazed, Konda ignored the searing pain in his eyes and resolved himself. He knew he was close. He knew he was going in the right direction. If the ochimusha had blocked Konda’s access to the stone, he was likely to consider himself safe and stay in one place. Konda knew he could find him. When he did, he planned to punish Toshi as long and as painfully as the thief’s body could stand.

Grim and determined, Konda urged his moth-riders on.

The Taken One emerged from the smoke and debris with precise, deliberate steps. As the only one upright in the immediate area, Toshi was the first to see her newly chosen form.

Naked and unashamed, she appeared to be a full-grown human woman. Her skin was textured like a snake’s scales that formed a cascade of subtle colors that blended into one another. On that supple canvas she carried a band of moody and intense crimson across her shoulders that became a patch of mustard yellow toward the waist, which in turn leeched into a stretch of dusty sage green. Her black hair was also tinted with the barest hints of color, but the hue changed depending on which way the light hit it. Her tresses were cropped short and stood out straight, giving her head the appearance of a lion’s mane or a dragon’s crest. Her lips were dark, ominous green, and her eyes were vibrant yellow orbs with vertical orange pupils.

As with all spirits from the kakuriyo, this one was surrounded by a cluster of floating facets, minor aspects that attended her like servants. In this case, the Taken One was surrounded by a cloud of miniature stars that glittered as bright and distant as the sky on a clear winter’s night. Even in the soft light of the forest at midday, the new arrival’s stars sparkled and shone.

The woman fixed her vivid yellow eyes on Toshi as he came around the tree. For a moment Toshi looked the Taken One full in the face, taking in the details and waiting for her to act. As they stared curiously at each other, Toshi realized why the disk-woman seemed so familiar. The eyes and the hair and the skin had distracted him from the elegant cheekbones, the small, perfect nose, and the long, graceful curve of the neck. She was wilder, more imposing, and more alien, but the Taken One looked remarkably similar to Michiko-hime.

“Greetings,” Toshi said softly. “Do you remember me?”

The Taken One blinked. She craned her head away from Toshi and then fixed him once more with her hypnotic eyes.

“I am free,” she said. Her voice sounded like three voices, a shout, a song, and a whisper all at once.

“You are. We released you according to your wishes. My name is Toshi.”

The Taken One did not look interested at all in the concept of names. “Where is this?”

“You are in the utsushiyo, the physical world. Does that mean anything to you?”

The Taken One shook her head. Then she stopped and looked perplexed. “How do I now speak? Why do I now move?”

“Well, you’re a powerful spirit,” Toshi said. “You would know better than I. But I think it has something to do with her.” He pointed to the princess.

Michiko had partially recovered from the Taken One’s release. She had risen to her knees and was staring open-mouthed at the fierce reflection of herself.

“Sister,” the princess said.

The Taken One spun to face Michiko. She approached the princess like a stalking tiger and stared down into her eyes.

“Sister,” she said. The Taken One reached down and took Michiko’s hands. Tears welled up in Michiko’s eyes as she folded the Taken One in her arms. The two sisters embraced awkwardly at first but then clung to each other as the princess’s tears rolled down the Taken One’s back.

“Forgive me,” Michiko said. “I will never be able to restore what my father took from you.”

The Taken One hissed and sprang out of Michiko’s arms. “Father,” she said. “Where?”

The princess tried to soothe the Taken One with her voice. “He is not here. I do not know where he is.”

“She means O-Kagachi,” Toshi said. Mentioning the old serpent only made the Taken One more agitated, so Toshi added, “He’s not here, either, and we’d like to keep it that way.”

The Taken One shook her head angrily. “Father,” she said, pointing at herself. “Father,” she pointed at Michiko. Then she opened her green lips and hissed.

“I don’t like them either.” Toshi stepped forward to the two women. “Michiko,” he said, “it’s important that you find out what the Taken One wants. That way-”

The Taken One hissed again, and Toshi stepped back. “What is it?”

The serpentine woman bared her fangs. “Father called me ‘Taken One.’”

“She objects,” Michiko said. She reached out to stroke her sister’s face, but the newcomer pulled away like an angry cat. “She does not wish to be known by the name my father gave her.”

“That’s easy to fix. Does she have another?”

Michiko stared at the naked double of herself for a moment. “No,” she said. “She never needed one before she was brought here.”

“Well, let’s keep it simple then. How about ‘Kyodai?’ It means ‘sibling.’”

“Kyodai,” Michiko echoed. She stepped in front of her twin and touched herself on the collarbone. “Michiko,” she said. Then the princess reached out and touched the other. “Kyodai. Sister.”

The serpentine woman stared at Michiko for a moment. Then she nodded and touched her own chest. “Kyodai.” The entity smiled for the first time, clearly pleased with her new name.

“Please.” Michiko took her outermost layer of kitsune linen from her own shoulders and draped it around Kyodai. “A gift for you, my sister.” Kyodai eyed the fabric suspiciously, but with Michiko’s help she was able to put the garment on. She was not ready for a formal dinner, but the simple kimono did make her less distracting … at least to Toshi.

“So, back to business.” Toshi bowed. “Welcome, Kyodai. Michiko and I would like to help you, and we will. But first you have to understand our situation.” Here Toshi faltered, for he had no idea how to sum up everything relevant in a way Kyodai would understand.

“Michiko,” he said at last, “can you tell her what we’re up against?”

“I don’t think I have to,” the princess said. “She isn’t comfortable speaking yet, but I’m sure she knows far more than she can say.”

Toshi glanced around the training area. “Does she know why we’re the only ones awake?” he said. “I don’t mind, but your friends have been asleep for quite a while now.”

“You,” Kyodai pointed at Toshi. “Me. Michiko. We speak now. Alone. They.” She gestured at the sprawled, sleeping bodies of the kitsune villagers. “Later.”

Toshi smiled as his stomach went cold. “You’re keeping them out?”

Kyodai considered his meaning for a moment and then nodded.

“Very wise,” Toshi said. “I commend your judgement. But what I’m getting at is this: Both your fathers are coming here. Konda wants you back as his trophy, and O-Kagachi … well, I don’t know what he wants. But it definitely involves finding you and wrecking the landscape. What do you want to do? Should we run? Fight? Bargain?”

“Slow down, Toshi. You’re just confusing her.”

“This is the price of freedom, princess. The burden of making decisions. She has to understand that all of us … you, me, her, everyone here is in danger. I don’t know if she can die, but I can. You can. We all can, and some of us would like to take steps to avoid it.”

“What would you have us do?” Michiko said. “You’ve been running for weeks and it’s changed nothing. Fighting seems equally pointless. We can do very little against the great serpent or my father’s army.”

“Speak for yourself,” Toshi said. “I saw Kyodai slap a major spirit aside with no effort, and that was when she was an inanimate piece of rock. I’m hoping she can do a lot more now that she’s got a body.” Toshi allowed himself another glimpse of that body, still tantalizing him with flashes of colorful flesh from beneath the sheer kimono. He had always appreciated Michiko’s beauty, but it was somehow even more intoxicating on Kyodai.

Michiko crossed her arms firmly. “I would rather the first thing we asked of her wasn’t combat.”

Thunder boomed high overhead, freezing Toshi where he stood. Tentatively, he lifted his head up and saw the terrible dark bank of clouds that had formed.

“So would I,” Toshi said, “but I think we no longer have a choice.”

In seconds the sky went from bright and clear to black and ominous. Great flaming eyes winked open across the horizon by the pair, six becoming twelve becoming sixteen. Inflamed by his daughter’s sudden release, O-Kagachi at last manifested fully, the great and terrible eight-headed serpent in all his awesome splendor. The tangled mass of heads and serpentine necks filled the entire sky in all directions, blotting out the sun, the clouds, and everything else. The only break in the field of crushing coils was directly at the center, straight up from where Michiko and Kyodai now stood.

The rest of the world literally stopped. On the distant horizon, clouds hardened into sky-bound stones that hung heavy in the air. Falling leaves froze in midflight, birds’ wings stopped between beats. The great spirit beast’s manifestation seemed to draw all other life and motion from the world, from the sky above to the treetops directly over Toshi’s head.

Toshi’s knees buckled as all eight of O-Kagachi’s heads roared down in brute fury. He experienced overwhelming dread and a sadness so profound it made him feel like a single drop in an ocean of tears. The world wasn’t ending, it had ended, and its final destruction was little more than a formality. Toshi steeled himself and swallowed his panic. He couldn’t run and he couldn’t fight, but he would at least meet his end with his eyes open. Toshi planted his hands on his hips and stared angrily, defiantly up at O-Kagachi.

Come on, he thought. Nothing in either world has ever been able to resist you before. He glanced over at Kyodai. But she is something new.

Then, like some malevolent fog, the great old serpent descended.

Kyodai bared her fangs and hissed angrily at the titanic figure. Michiko stared up in abject awe. All her previous encounters with O-Kagachi had been through visions and dreams, and in those only a few of his heads had appeared. Toshi shared the princess’s shock but not her paralysis. He ran to Kyodai and grabbed her by the shoulders.

“Call him off,” he said. “You called him to you before, so now you have to send him away. Do it now, or your sister dies.”

Kyodai tore her yellow eyes from O-Kagachi and locked them onto Toshi. She opened her mouth and her forked tongue shot out, stopping a hair’s breadth away from his face.

“Let go,” she whispered.

Michiko found her voice. “Do as she says, Toshi. She will never allow herself to be restrained again.”

Toshi held on for an extra second, unblinking as the sharp tips of Kyodai’s tongue flickered in front of his face. Then he relaxed his grip and stepped back.

“Forgive me.” He bowed. “But what I say is true.”

The princess stepped between Toshi and Kyodai. “It is as Toshi says, sister. You would be justified in letting your father destroy me. It would balance what my father did to you. But I do not wish to die. Especially not now.”

Kyodai’s fierce eyes softened. She extended her hand and took hold of Michiko’s.

“Come,” Kyodai said. “We will prepare.”

The air blurred around the sisters. Toshi blinked rapidly to clear his vision, and when he looked again Michiko and Kyodai were gone.

Overhead, O-Kagachi continued to bear down on him. Scattered around the training area, the kitsune elders, mentors, and soldiers continued to sleep. There was nowhere to run. He couldn’t fade away and he couldn’t escape into shadows. The Myojin of Night’s Reach had completely ignored all of his prayers since he’d arrived in the kitsune settlement, and she certainly wasn’t answering them now.

Toshi walked among the fallen foxes, prodding them with his toe. Some, like Pearl-Ear and her brother, stirred and groaned as if they were about to wake up. None of them did, however, and soon Toshi was back where he started, no closer to a solution but much closer to O-Kagachi. The only good thing he took from his survey was his jitte, which he found tucked in Sharp-Ear’s belt.

Furious and frustrated, he slumped heavily to the ground. He sat cross-legged and idly began gouging out small furrows in the dirt with his jitte. Here, at the end, he couldn’t even think of a useful symbol to draw. Hidetsugu had once told him it would end like this: Toshi alone, forsaken, and fresh out of tricks as retribution closed in on him. Toshi hadn’t given the prediction much credence, and when he did he was certain he’d be much, much older when it came true.

I tried, Toshi thought. The final irony was that he truly had been trying to do the right thing. To release the Taken One, to honor the wishes of Night’s Reach … he truly had been trying to help others in addition to himself.

O-Kagachi roared again. Toshi tossed his jitte into the air so that the tip stuck in the ground. This, Toshi thought. This is what I get for moral and spiritual diligence.