Heretic, Betrayers of Kamigawa

CHAPTER 12

Princess Michiko sat at her writing desk, staring wistfully out into the smoke and haze that had settled over Eiganjo. From her window in the tall tower, the murky mist below was like a permanent fog. She heard the sounds of battle daily as hostile kami manifested and were met by either her father’s army or the great spirit dragon Yosei.

The magical serpent had halted the kami onslaught, even if he could not turn the tide and drive them away from her father’s final stronghold. Yosei was truly a blessing from the spirit world, and he fought ferociously for the preservation of her people. She knew the daimyo had powerful mages working for him and had seen him involved in complicated rituals, but the depth of his power never ceased to amaze her. Had he been so great before he violated the spirit world, or was his majesty due primarily to the power he’d stolen?

Each day, Michiko’s thoughts went back to the vision Mochi had shown to her. Her father, flanked by master wizards from Minamo academy and mysterious advisors from the soratami, had punched a hole in the barrier between the physical world and the spirit realm. With his own hands, he had reached in and drawn something out, something so vast and inscrutable that the entire kakuriyo had reacted instantly. Daimyo Konda had disturbed the most dangerous hornet’s nest imaginable, and his nation and his people had been bearing the stings ever since. If not for the power he commanded …

Isamaru, her father’s trusted dog, grumbled on the floor beside her. The huge, cream-colored Akita was over ten years old, but he was still spry and strong enough to take down a fully armored soldier. Konda had lavished attention on the dog when it was a puppy, but as the years went by the Kami War intensified and the daimyo spent more and more time with the thing he had taken. Bereft of their kindly paternal figure, Michiko and Isamaru had found each other, and a strong friendship had taken root.

She welcomed the big dog’s company. It had taken weeks for her father to acknowledge her requests for Isamaru, and even longer for him to grant it. She suspected that General Takeno, first among her father’s officers, had allowed the dog to visit her in the tower. An old soldier like her father, Takeno at least had not forgotten the simple joys of a loyal dog.

She reached down and lightly scratched Isamaru’s ribcage. He thumped his tail appreciatively. As much as she hated her captivity, Isamaru loved it. He had nothing to do all day but be with Michiko and enjoy her frequent attention.

There had been no reply from Toshi, Riko, or any of the other messenger kanji she’d sent. Perhaps she had been using the wrong symbol or inscribing it incorrectly. The first few days were the hardest, as each passing bird and breeze brought her breathless to the window. Now, weeks after she had sent the last messenger, Michiko had all but given up hope.

Beneath her fingers, Isamaru suddenly rolled onto his belly and growled. His lip curled up over his sharp white teeth, wrinkling the flesh on his massive square head.

“Isamaru,” she said sharply. “Be quiet.”

The dog continued to stare at the corner of the room, growling ominously.

“There’s nothing there, old friend.” Michiko rose from her chair and took a step toward the corner. “See? It’s just-”

Isamaru interrupted her with a single loud, throaty bark. He also rose to his feet, but he kept his body close to the ground as he crept forward, snarling and sniffing.

The daylight was diffused by both the clouds overhead and the fog that permeated Eiganjo, but the light was still strong enough to cast shadows across Michiko’s cell. The corner of the room was half-obscured under a dark square created by the window frame and the curtains.

“Easy there, blockhead,” came a rich, smooth voice. Michiko saw no one, though she was staring directly at the source of the sound. The voice sounded familiar in its cadence and tone and its choice of words. The princess’s heart began to beat faster.

Toshi Umezawa emerged from the shadows, his face wreathed in a triumphant grin.

“Hello, Princess. I got your message.”

Isamaru let out a long series of barks that ran together like one long word. Michiko took hold of the huge dog’s collar to keep him from lunging. He could have easily pulled her along with him, but he had been trained to respect the hand that guided him.

Toshi had retreated back into the shadow, leaving the corner apparently empty.

“Someone’s sure to come investigate that,” the ochimusha’s voice said. Sure enough, footsteps were approaching her room as the guards came down the hallway.

“Not to say it doesn’t come to you naturally,” Toshi whispered, “but act innocent.”

Michiko turned to face the window, her hand still on Isamaru’s collar. She waited as the sentries unbarred and unlocked the door.

One of her father’s stewards pushed the door open and stepped inside. Two dour samurai stood respectfully in the hall, waiting.

The steward bowed. “Is everything all right, Princess?”

“Of course. Isamaru is feeling playful.” She stroked the big dog’s muzzle. “He’s growing tired of sitting still all day.”

The steward nodded. “Would you like us to take him back to the kennels?”

Michiko paused. “Yes,” she said. “Perhaps a change of scenery will do him good.”

The steward whistled, and Michiko released the dog’s collar. Isamaru took one last glance at the shadows in the corner, licked the princess’s hand, then bounded past the steward into the hall.

“Excuse the intrusion, Princess.” The steward bowed again as he backed from the room.

“Not at all.” Michiko listened to the key turning in the lock and then to the bar being replaced. She began counting to herself as soon as the sentries’ footsteps had faded away.

She reached sixty before Toshi cautiously emerged from the shadows once more.

“Well done.” He grinned.

Michiko was amazed all over again. “How did … where did you-”

“Hey, hey. You wanted a rescue, right?”

Dumbly, the princess nodded.

“Well, I’m here to rescue you.” Toshi scanned the inside of the cell. “Eventually. Will you be safe here for another few hours?”

“I think so.”

“Good. This trip was a test, to see if I could get in. Now that I know I can, I need to square a few more things away before I take you out of here. Oh, and there is the matter of payment.”

“Payment?”

Toshi nodded. “People like you have jobs that need doing. People like me take care of them for you. Nobody does it for free, Princess.”

Michiko scowled. She quickly scanned the room, then remembered the small blue jewel she wore on her finger. Disdainfully, she pulled the ring off and offered it to Toshi.

“Will this cover your expenses?”

Toshi leaned farther into the room, peering at the jewel. Before Michiko could say anything else, he had snatched it from her fingers and tucked it away inside his shirt.

“Doubly so. I apologize, Princess, but it’s best to keep things as strictly professional as possible.”

Michiko stared at him icily. “Of course.”

“I’ll be back before sundown. Be ready.”

“But where are you-”

“No time,” Toshi said again. His eyes twinkled. “Just sit tight and you’ll be free before you know it.”

Toshi receded back into the pale shadow until he’d vanished from sight.

Confused and angry, Michiko turned back toward the window and drew a piece of paper from the pile on her writing desk. She carefully folded the sheet, performing the first few steps that would transform it from a flat square into a three-dimensional bird. She made a mistake on the fifth fold.

She wished she could trust Toshi more. She wished she hadn’t given him the ring but had held it as a deposit against his return. Especially since now that she had paid, she couldn’t imagine what was more important than getting her out of the tower.

Sighing, Michiko unfolded the piece of paper and started again.

Toshi appeared just outside Hidetsugu’s wall of heads on sticks, emerging from a darkened cleft in the rocks. Using the Shadow Gate’s power was taxing, but he could already feel his body adjusting to it. He hoped it would be like long-distance running: the more he did it, the less exhausting it was.

Toshi crept along the edges of the path, carefully watching for any signs of movement ahead. He had attempted to sneak into Shinka only once before, when he was part of Uramon’s reckoners. The plan had been to take the ogre unawares and poison him to clear the way for a new black market trade route through the Sokenzan. Hidetsugu had sent Uramon’s first delegation back partially devoured and without their heads, so the Boss had been eager to make an example of him.

Things had not gone as planned. Toshi was the only survivor. He did not relish the thought of trespassing in Hidetsugu’s hut once again.

At least this time he was alone. If the ogre stayed true to his nature, he had already gathered his yamabushi dogs and headed into the Jukai Forest. Toshi crept along until he could see the ogre’s hut. Smoke still rose from the entrance, but it was not billowing as it had when he brought Marrow and Kiku here.

He paused, summoning up a mental image of the Myojin of Night’s Reach. He closed his eyes, concentrated, and faded from sight. Toshi made his slow, meticulous way down the ramp.

He needn’t have bothered with the disappearing act. There was no fire, no chanting, and no sign of Hidetsugu or his captive warrior mages. Toshi willed himself solid again and quickly crossed the dank cavern floor.

His memory was good, and the scent of choking smoke grew thicker as he approached his goal. The ill-fated wizard Choryu still hung from the wall, even more wretched and diminished than Toshi had seen him earlier. The ochimusha stepped to the pinned figure and looked up.

“I don’t know if you deserve this,” Toshi said.

Blind, barely conscious, Choryu moaned.

Toshi scowled. “If it were up to me, I’d leave you here. I liked Kobo. But in the grand scheme of things, wizard, you just aren’t that important.”

He latched on to a bump in the cavern wall and hauled himself up on it. He dug his toes into a crack in the rock then plunged his free hand into Choryu’s chest.

The wizard thrashed and howled incoherently. Toshi felt the hot gem in his hand and he closed his fist around it. With one last look at Choryu’s ruined face, Toshi tore the glowing stone free.

Choryu screamed anew. The wizard’s dying sound was a wet, hissing wheeze. His body sagged from the thick spikes holding him in place.

Toshi waited a moment to make sure Choryu’s breathing had stopped, then the ochimusha crammed the dusty orange gem back into the dead body’s torso.

Fresh back smoke poured from the hole in the corpse. Slowly, Choryu’s body flaked away, breaking up into a cloud of ashes, dust, and leathery shards. In a matter of moments, the wall was empty, and the orange gem was perched atop a sad pile of grit and debris on the alcove floor.

Toshi dropped from the wall and headed straight for the ramp that led to the surface. Hidetsugu would be furious when he returned, but Toshi saw two possible ways to escape the ogre’s retribution.

In the first, he completed his tasks before Hidetsugu reached the academy. All went well, and he had enough power to discourage even an o-bakemono from trifling with him.

In the second, Hidetsugu reached the academy first and wiped out the students, the instructors, the soratami, and their patron kami. In the wake of such a victory, Hidetsugu would scarcely notice or care that he could no longer play with his favorite toy.

Any other outcome would probably result in bad blood between Toshi and Hidetsugu, and he decided not to entertain such thoughts. They would only bring him grief.

He didn’t realize he was running until he was halfway up the ramp. He didn’t stop until he was well clear of the ogre’s hut, whereupon he disappeared into the shadows on its far side.

Lady Pearl-Ear had withdrawn from the main party to meditate and collect her thoughts. So far, the journey to Minamo had gone smoothly, albeit slowly. They had sent runners ahead to announce their arrival, and the kitsune rangers said they were less than two days from the edge of the waterfall.

She settled onto a pile of leaves under a huge tree and closed her eyes. Captivity and solitude in the tower had had one advantage that she hadn’t realized: it precluded her brother from filling her ears with his endless chatter. He had been extra-animated since her return, and now she relished this chance to sit alone in silence.

“Pssst. Hey, Pearl-Ear.”

Pearl-Ear kept her eyes closed, but her entire body tensed for action. She had heard no one approach.

“Who is there? Excuse me please, I was just taking a moment for myself.”

“Take all the time you need. I’ll be here when you’re done. You were really hard to find. Where are we, anyway?”

Pearl-Ear kept her eyes closed, but tilted her head back. She could not sense the speaker by sound or aura-smell, but she was starting to recognize the voice.

“Toshi,” she said. She opened her eyes. “You are not welcome here, murderer. Begone before I summon the Tail brothers.”

There was no sign of the kanji mage except for his dry, mocking chuckle. His voice moved around her so that she could not pinpoint his location.

“Is that a threat? Because you know I walked right out from under them last time.”

“True, but I’m sure they’d appreciate another opportunity, all the same.” Pearl-Ear made as if to rise.

“If I leave,” Toshi said, “how will you know when to expect Michiko?”

Pearl-Ear’s eyes grew fierce. “You stay away from her, ochimusha.”

“Can’t. She’s hired me to spring her from the tower. I even got paid in advance.”

“You must not,” Pearl-Ear snapped savagely. “The daimyo will-”

“I didn’t ask the daimyo,” Toshi said. “I asked her, and she wanted out, so I’m going to get her out. After that, whether I bring her here or somewhere else is totally up to you.”

Pearl-Ear calmed herself. “What do you want?”

“Well, Michiko-hime is my employer, so I want what she wants.”

“And that is?”

“She wants to be free and safe. I think she still wants to go to the academy for answers about what her father did on the night she was born, but I can tell you truly: the academy is not going to be a safe place for anyone. Maybe not ever again. If you can promise to keep away from the school, I’ll bring her to you tonight.”

“And if I will not bargain with you?”

“I will stash her in the nastiest rat’s nest I can find. You and your friends can search Numai until you wither and die, but you’ll never see her again.”

Pearl-Ear paused. Was there any reason to tell him the truth, especially as it involved the princess? There were a host of good reasons not to, chief among them his habit of taking her on jaunts halfway across Kamigawa.

“If you bring Michiko to me,” she said, “I will keep her safe. I can offer you no more.”

Toshi also waited before responding. “I can never tell when you foxes are lying,” he said. “You should take that as a compliment.”

“Strangely, I do not, but thank you just the same.”

“Fair enough.” Toshi shimmered into view a short distance away, close enough to be heard but far enough to avoid Pearl-Ear if she lunged.

“I do not trust you, Toshi. I cannot, no matter how much I may want to. I would do almost anything to free Michiko, but I will never agree to place her in your hands.”

Toshi tilted his head. “Why not? I took good care of her last time I kidnapped her.”

Pearl-Ear growled ominously. “You’d do well not to speak of that episode. You have yet to answer for Choryu.”

“Choryu’s dead,” Toshi said coldly, “and I will answer for it proudly. He murdered one of the hyozan, and the hyozan saw to him.” He placed his hands on his hips and stared boldly into Pearl-Ear’s face. “You are a good judge of character, Lady. I can tell that. Look me in the eye and judge me now: Yes, we made Choryu suffer, but I swear that I treated him mercifully in the end.”

Pearl-Ear held Toshi’s eyes. He was crafty, dishonest, and manipulative, but she was from a society of tricksters. He was telling her the truth. “Very well,” she said. “I do not recognize the authority of your oath or your murderous band. Few in this world are wise enough to dispense justice.

“Nonetheless, I accept that you believe Choryu did you wrong and that you reacted according to the rules of your harsh and brutal world.” She bowed briefly. “I accept only that. Now. What must I do for you to bring Michiko here?”

Toshi winked. “Meet us here, tonight, by this tree, but be advised, Lady. Once I give her to you, she becomes your responsibility.”

“She has always been that,” Pearl-Ear said. “Why are you doing this, ochimusha? I see no profit in this for you.”

Toshi smiled. “Recently, I got religion.”

Pearl-Ear’s face was impassive. She crossed her arms.

Toshi’s expression fell. “Why is it so hard for everyone to believe that?”

Pearl-Ear shrugged. “Perhaps you do not have a honest face. In fact, you look unwell. Are you even able to rescue Michiko?” Indeed, the ochimusha seemed pale and his breathing hitched whenever he drew anything more than a shallow breath.

“I have been traveling long distances today. It is a wearying experience. Don’t worry. If I can’t make it here, I’ll take her somewhere safe. You have my word.”

Pearl-Ear did not reply but stared skeptically as Toshi faded from view.

She said a silent prayer to the kami of the woods. She feared the outlaw’s word meant only what he said it did and nothing more.

Please, she thought. This time, let that be enough.

Toshi stepped out onto the ridge overlooking the border between the Sokenzan Mountains and Towabara. The stabbing pain in his chest and the fog in his brain grew worse with each jaunt, but he was nearly done. He just needed to make sure Hidetsugu had done as he’d been asked before he could return to the tower.

Despite the stress on his body, Toshi was growing accustomed to the power of the Shadow Gate, choosing his destinations and arriving within ten or twenty yards of his target. It helped if he were moving toward someone he knew or to a place he’d been before. With a little practice, he felt that soon he could go anywhere in Kamigawa.

A cold wind blew up from the valley floor below. Toshi leaned over the edge of the ridge, watching the small figures scurrying below.

A woman in white floated eerily between three of the daimyo’s soldiers. One was lying supine on the rocky ground, his eyes open and vacant to the sky. Another was curled into a tight, shivering ball with his hands clapped hard over his ears. The third was being caressed by the woman, her hand tenderly stroking his cheek.

The wind changed, and the woman’s hair blew back from her face. The third soldier dropped stiffly to the ground, and she floated toward the second, who still lay shuddering and helpless.

Toshi watched the thing that looked like Princess Michiko lay hands on the final soldier. The man stiffened under her touch, and his trembling ceased.

Toshi shook his head. As he’d feared, she was too powerful. He hadn’t been able to control the aspect of shadow that drew on her essence, and it had consumed all of Uramon’s manor. Left unchecked, the yuki-onna herself would likewise engulf the entire border.

Toshi stepped back from the edge of the rock before the figure of Michiko could glance up and spot him. As he melted back into the shadows, he vowed to do something about the snow woman. Eventually, she would evolve from something that endangered his enemies to something that endangered everyone. Eventually he’d have to take steps to prevent that from happening.

Toshi nodded to himself as he soared through the void of shadows. Eventually.

Michiko sat once more at her writing desk. She had folded origami, she had paced, she had done everything she could think of to busy her mind and relieve the stress of waiting. Now she sat and stared, looking out the window as she watched the corner with her peripheral vision.

She wished she had not sent Isamaru back to the kennels. The more she thought on it, the more she realized it would be good to have a loyal dog at her side if she were to travel with Toshi.

Assuming the ochimusha ever came back. He was probably in a dreary little tavern in Numai, spending the money he’d gotten in exchange for her ring.

“Pssst. Princess. Ready to go?”

Michiko remained calm and continued to look out the window. She nodded, however, an almost imperceptible bob of the head.

Toshi appeared like a ghost, stepping from the shadowed corner. The room had grown much darker in the fading sunlight, but she could see his features clearly as he came out of the gloom.

The ochimusha looked haggard, as if he had seen and done too much. His eyes were dim, but he still wore his rakish smile. He extended his arm.

“Take my hand, Princess. I’ve not taken fellow travelers with me often enough to be overconfident.”

She wrapped her fingers around his. His hand was very cold. “I would settle for merely confident. How many times have you done this?”

“None,” he admitted cheerfully. “None times.”

“I wish to go to Minamo academy,” she said. “Can you take me there?”

“No, Princess. It is protected by spells more powerful than mine.”

Michiko’s eyes narrowed. “The spells that protect this tower are the most powerful in all Kamigawa, yet you had no trouble coming here.”

“Nonetheless.” Toshi’s smile grew strained. “I can’t take you there. I have something better in mind.”

Michiko dropped Toshi’s hand. “I am having second thoughts, ochimusha. The last time I went with you, you intended to ransom me.”

“Your hands were bound then,” Toshi said, “and we hadn’t come to an arrangement.” The blue ring appeared in his hands as if conjured directly from his pocket. “This buys my loyalty until the job is done. Why else did you think I insisted on payment? It’s for your peace of mind as much as my purse.”

Michiko stared hard at Toshi. Slowly, she extended her hand and allowed him to grasp it firmly.

“If I may,” he said. Gently, he spread her palm and fingers wide and pressed them into the center of his breastbone. She felt something squirming like a small snake under her touch.

“Good,” he said. “Now, relax, and close your eyes. In a moment, you’ll be among friends.”

Michiko smiled coldly. “So I am not now?”

Toshi cocked his head. “You’re not my friend, you’re my employer. It’s best to keep things-”

“Strictly business,” she finished. She placed her other hand on Toshi’s chest. “Please. I want to get away from here.”

“Close your eyes,” Toshi said again.

Michiko closed her eyes. She felt the strangest sensation, as if her body had melted and left only her mind. She felt a tug on her phantom arms and was plunged into an endless sea of black.