Sun and Moon, Part III

by Nancy Sauer

Editing by Fred Wan

The lands of the Phoenix Clan consisted mostly of forests, separated at random intervals by groves, copses, and tree-studded meadows. They had last seen a village a day and a half ago, and the overgrown trail they currently followed did not promise to lead to another any time soon. Tsuruchi Etsui spent a moment thinking about what it would be like to walk through the endless array of Phoenix trees and frowned. “We shouldn’t push the horses so hard,” he said.

His companion shook her head briefly. “Horses can be replaced,” Kakita Kyruko said, “and we are late as it is. Unavoidable, given the amount of information I needed to collect, but we need to hurry as much as possible.”

“Late?” Etsui said. “Late for what?” Kyruko hadn’t told him what this trip was for, beyond ‘furthering his advancement in the Kolat’, and his resentment of being kept ignorant was growing. It was an irritatingly familiar pattern in his dealings with her.

Kyruko made as if to speak, paused, gave him a considering look, then started again. “We are going to the Hidden Temple; all of the Masters are gathering there. Many things are happening in the Empire–Yakamo’s fall, Togashi’s return to the Celestial Heavens, the wave of assassinations– and it has become necessary for the full council to consider what to do next.”

Etsui was surprised. He had heard of the Temple but had never expected to know where it was, much less go there. “So why I am here?”

“When you are Emperor you will have the power to put our policies into action, but it will be harder for us to contact you–the members of the Imperial Court spent hours each day finding out who managed to secure an audience with the Emperor and for what reason. The more instructions we can give you now, the easier it will be for us later.”

Etsui made no reply. The pair rode on silently until they had reached a copse of trees with a stream running through it, and then Kyruko pulled her horse to stop. “We can have a rest here while I contact the Temple and inform them where we are,” she said.

“How will you do that?” Etsui asked. Kyruko didn’t even glance back at him as she tied her horse to a young tree and then strode off towards a clump of bushes. She was, Etsui reflected, the rudest Crane he had ever had to deal with, and there were many contenders for that title. But the arrogant merchant patrons he had dealt with in the past had been deliberately rude as a negotiating tactic, while Kyruko was rude because she simply couldn’t be bothered to care. That she had survived for so long with such an attitude said a great deal about her social status and her skill with a blade.

Etsui swung down off of his own horse and found a comfortable patch of grass to sit on. Reaching into a sleeve he pulled out a silvery baton, and with a practiced motion he twisted it apart into two slim blades, then twisted them back together into a baton. He never picked it up without remembering the sweet, festering smell of the Shadowlands, or the sound a man’s body made when an oni ripped it in half, or the fierce urgency in the Emperor’s eyes as he spoke his last words. He tossed it from hand to hand, thinking.

In the weeks after the battle of Shinsei’s Tomb Etsui had had many nightmares about the Shadowlands, but in time they had gone away–replaced by nightmares about Naseru. He had entrusted to Etsui the knowledge of where to find his will, with the instructions to inform the Imperial Court as soon as the Tsuruchi had reached Toshi Ranbo. Instead Etsui had kept it a secret, passing it only to his superiors in the Kolat. He believed in the Kolat, as much as he believe in anything, but as time went on and the Empire grew more fragmented and bloody he had begun to wonder if maybe he should have honored his promise to Naseru. Had he done so Kaneka would be alive, and Etsui would not now be living with the fear that the Kolat and the Mantis Clan would together succeed in making him the next Emperor. And he would not be waking up in the middle of the night with the memory of Naseru’s eyes haunting him.

There was a sound like a startled oath from the bushes Kyruko had vanished behind and then she was walking back towards her horse, agitation showing plainly in her gait. “Hurry up and mount,” she said. “We are riding to Nanashi Mura.”

“The temple is in Nanashi Mura?” Etsui said, getting up. “Why were we traveling north then? We could have saved hours if–”

“The temple is being attacked,” Kyruko said. “By the Scorpion Clan, according to Cloud. He thinks he can turn matters to his advantage, but the day I rely on that rock-addled dreamer is the day my horse talks.”

“This is a disaster,” Etsui said. “They will destroy us!”

Kyruko shrugged. “A horrible setback, to be sure. But our plans to promote you have already been set in motion, and I can rebuild the organization.”

“If it is the Scorpion they will be looking for you–they won’t rest until they have all the Masters dead.”

Kyruko gave him a wide smile. “And why should I fear them? I am a noble of the Kakita family, an expert in the Empire’s greatest dueling style, the Master of the reborn Kolat, and the personal confidant of the Emperor himself. Let them try to harm me.”

For a moment Etsui thought about what she had said, imagining what Kyruko could accomplish if she really were publicly known to have access to the Emperor, and privately was in control of the Kolat as well. “I don’t think they will be a problem, Kakita-sama,” he replied. Acting on a decision he hadn’t realized he’d made he smoothly unlocked the blades from the baton and threw them. The first one stuck her just below the ribs; the second found its way to a lung. Kyruko looked down at the hilts of the knives and then looked up at him with a scowl. “You bastard,” she whispered, and then she collapsed.

Etsui waited until she had stopped moving, and then a little while more for safety. He knew there were people in the world who thought they were faster than a Kakita duelist, but he was not one of them. When he was sure she was dead he walked over to her and retrieved the blades, marveling over how deep they had sunk. He still had no idea how they got into the Tomb or why the baton would open only for him, but clearly he had found a good use for them. “Maybe I’m not an honorable man, Naseru,” he muttered to himself, “but I’ve saved your empire from one evil. Put that against my debt.”

Moving to Kyruko’s horse he stripped off its tackle and drove it off. Then he mounted his own and rode off, leaving the body where it lay. The odds were good that scavengers would devour the body before anyone came by to discover it.

•

The southern reaches of the Dragon Heart Plain were a rocky, inhospitable place, but here and there springs of water broke though to the surface to create patches of lushness. Etsui led his weary horse down into a small dell where a spring-fed pond offered browse for the horse and water for the both of them. After drinking Etsui sat down while the horse grazed. The sun was getting low in the west, but he thought that he could probably get a few more hours of travel in before it became too dark. Once he reached Nanashi Mura he could blend in with the Mantis samurai who hung about the fringes of the Dragon Clan lands and rest a few days.

Suddenly Etsui jerked awake, blinking furiously as he tried to clear the darkness from his sight. He quickly realized that he had fallen asleep, it was now night, and the darkness would not be blinked away. He looked around, trying to figure out what had woken him without–he checked–waking his sleeping horse. It wasn’t a Scorpion, he knew, because he was still alive. There was no movement around that he could see, and the silence of the plain was absolute. The moonlight flickered, as from clouds racing across the moon. Etsui glanced up to gauge the weather and was stunned by what he saw.

The gibbous moon hung low in the sky, surrounded by an aurora of pearly light. As Etsui watched, slack-awed in amazement, the aurora divided into concentric bands of pearl and black, then reformed. The moon itself was afflicted as well, with inky shadows boiling out of its dark section into the light. Etsui’s mind flashed to the words in Moshi Amika’s report of Yakamo’s death. ‘A shadow draws across the moon’–had Lady Moon’s battle come to her?

As he watched the darkness overtook the light, flickered, and dissolved into a flash of light that changed the moon from gibbous to full. A moment more and he realized that the moon had not changed, but there was a very bright silvery object hurtling towards him.

Acting on instinct he sprang for his horse and grabbed the reins. The object passed overhead with a whistling noise that woke the animal up and at the explosion that followed it tried to run away. Etsui held on and tried to soothe it. Out of the corner of his vision he noted the debris sailing overhead, and thanked his ancestors that he was shielded by the dip of the land.

When Etsui had the horse calmed down he mounted and headed up the side of the dell, pausing at the top to look around. Off to the west he spotted a glowing mist rising of the ground. He kicked the horse into a gallop and headed towards it.

A few miles away the land started to show signs of violence, with deep ripples showing in the stony ground. Cold, glowing mists drifted about, becoming denser as he went on. The horse started to act uneasy, slowly mincing forward only when he urged it. Finally Etsui gave up and dismounted. Securing it the best he could he drew his sword and walked on into the mist. He knew he was being foolish; Amika’s yojimbo had almost died fighting the various spirits that Yakamo’s fall had unleashed and he was here alone, and yet something inside compelled him to keep going.

He came to the lip of a great crater and flinched from the cold that welled up from it. The mists were thicker and somewhere, just beyond the edge of hearing, there were a multitude of distant buzzing voices. Etsui licked his lips and started to pick his way down.

He found her lying at the bottom of the crater, coughing up blood. Half of her face was warm with living flesh, and half was of cold black stone. As he watched the stone part was slowly receding and flesh was taking its place.

“Lady Moon,” he started to say and then stopped, unsure of how to continue.

“For a little while,” she rasped out. “Damned dragon! Let it remember this: I challenged the moon once before when it threatened the Empire and I will do so again if I must.” She coughed again, the drops of her blood shining like rubies against the cold white ground.

Etsui stared at her, remembering every detail of Amika’s report. “Lady Moon,” he said, “do you have something you wish to say? Some word for me to carry back?”

Hitomi gave him a contemptuous look. “And why should I tell you anything, Kolat? My divinity is leaving me, but that doesn’t mean I don’t know what you have done–or not done.”

Etsui dropped to his knees, placed his hands on the ground in front of him and made a full formal bow, ignoring the searing cold. “Please, Lady. Give me your message. Give me… give me another chance. A chance to do what I should have done the first time.”

The former Lady Moon stared at him for a moment, as if considering his words. “Tell the Dragon they are free now,” she said, her face a grimace of pain. “They are beholden to no one. They make their own path. They must… they must choose. Let nothing deter them. Watch no longer. Act.”

“I will tell them, my lady,” he said. “Is there anything else?”

There was a silence, and then Hitomi drew in a deep rattling breath. “Tell them to build a wall,” she whispered. “A wall in the north.”

“A wall?” Etsui repeated, looking up at her. Her face was now all flesh, and she gave him one determined shake of her head. Then she fell back, her dead eyes fixed on the moon.

Etsui bowed down again before the woman who had challenged a god. Then he rose to his feet and hurried up the side of the crater. He had a message to deliver, and he would not delay.