The Final Keeper, Part Two


by
Rich Wulf


Rekai’s face was pale white and perfectly formed, the beautiful essence of what it meant to be a Crane. Her features were youthful, ageless. The Shadowlands Taint had washed away the burdens of age and restored Daidoji Rekai to her legendary vigor. Despite his nausea at her corruption, Asahina Sekawa found himself compelled by her.

Across the darkened chamber, Rekai looked at Sekawa skeptically.

“You surprise me again,” she said quietly. “If I did not think there was a chance the Jade Champion would tolerate the presence of a corrupted comrade in his midst, I would not have contacted you… but it surprises me to hear you refer to me with such respect.”

“What do you mean?” he asked. “That I call you Lady?”

Her eyes narrowed. A flicker of pain seemed to pass behind them. “I am no longer daimyo of any land that you would recognize. My title and duties belong to my son, Kikaze. Why would a servant of the Emperor call me ‘Lady’?”

Sekawa scowled and began to pace the chamber, clockwise. He moved with a curious limp, as if from a near-forgotten injury. Rekai remained a constant distance from him, watching warily.

“Hope,” he finally answered. “I hope that there is some honor yet remaining in your soul, and that you will remember what you once were.”

Rekai laughed brightly. “Sekawa, do you hope to redeem me?” she asked.

“No,” he said darkly, pausing in his circuit of the room. “You turned your back on bushido. I only wish to remember what you once were, and to regret your choice. I hope that you will remember – because I wish you nothing but pain, Lady Rekai.”

Rekai’s blue eyes met Sekawa’s evenly. There was hatred there, but she made no move to advance or attack. The Jade Champion watched her calmly, all the while prepared to unleash the full fury of his magic. He was uncertain of the extent of Rekai’s dark powers, or if a warrior as famed as she would even need magic to defeat him. Yet she made no move. If a warrior as proud as Rekai would endure such insult, then her task must be grave indeed – or the Dark Lord’s control over her must be significant.

“What is that in your eyes now, Asahina?” Rekai asked him. “Pity? Disgust? Or perhaps something deeper. Envy?”

“Why would I envy you?” he answered sharply, continuing to circle the outer wall of the chamber again. “You are a living failure.”

“The Crane mantra of excellence demands that you envy me,” she replied. “Within the heart of every perfect, beautiful Crane lurks the desire to become something terrible, something worthy of awe. Each one of us harbors a thirst to prove our superiority to those who would mock us, shun us, vilify us. Every poet wishes he could rend his foes’ reputations without mercy. Every duelist wishes that his blade could drink deeply of the blood all offenders. Every Crane secretly desires to be what I am – free. I am free to prove my excellence by destroying all those who would challenge me. Free to indulge my desires in every way that I have earned, every way that we would normally deny ourselves.”

“Free?” Sekawa scoffed. “I thought you served the Dark Lord. What freedom does a servant have?”

She looked at him knowingly. “We all make deals with powers greater than ourselves in hopes to grasp some of their majesty, don’t we? Tell me, Sekawa, did you continue visiting your doddering uncle all those years because you enjoyed his stories, or because you wished to understand what he always denied… the touch of Volturnum… the touch of the Shadowlands…”

“Do not speak of Tamako again,” Sekawa replied. “Ever.”

“You were the one who distracted me from my point with empty flattery, Jade Champion,” she answered.

“Then get to the point,” he replied sharply. “Tell me about Rosoku’s assassin, and this plan to restore him to life.”

“Shukumei,” she whispered. “Its name is Shukumei.”

“Whatever,” Sekawa replied. “What do you know about this?”

“He is not a man,” she said. “He is a thing assembled from bits and pieces of torn souls and forced into an unliving body. He is pieced together from the pain and memories of Bloodspeaker assassins who died in their service. Throughout the centuries, he has perished many times, usually while clutching the heart of his enemy. Like he did to Rosoku.”

“For a dark creature with such a legacy,” Sekawa replied, “it is strange that I have not heard of it.”

“Why would you?” she asked. “Shukumei’s existence would be known only to the highest ranks of the cult, those who you know quite well are quite impervious to interrogation. To an outsider, one horrifying Bloodspeaker assassin is much the same as another. Why would you have had any previous reason to recognize this creature, so long as it was always destroyed?”

“So Shukumei can never truly die?” Sekawa asked.

“It can die,” she replied, “but another skilled Bloodspeaker could harvest the tattered souls and weave them anew. The assassin cannot be allowed to continue to serve them, now that it has slain Rosoku. The morale of Iuchiban’s scattered, dying ranks would be greatly bolstered. The Bloodspeakers would be reborn. This is a situation that the Dark Lord will not endure.”

“Then why does Daigotsu need my help?” Sekawa asked. “Why not deal with this problem himself?”

“Because, believe it or not, this situation is the least of the evils my master faces,” she said. “Consider my information a gift, Sekawa. A favor, from an honorable enemy.”

“I need no favors from you,” he said, pausing again.

The Jade Champion had walked a full circle around the room, and now looked at Rekai with a faint smile. He spoke a single word of magic, and suddenly the room flared with green light. Rekai’s eyes widened and she shrank into the center of the room, shielding her eyes from the brilliance. The radiance erupted from a series of crude kanji stamped on the floor around the room. She winced as she looked at the Jade Champion’s feet, noticing the curious stains of ink on the bottom of his sandals. She remembered his strange limp.

“You stamped a ward against evil around the room while we spoke,” she growled. “What a pathetic trick.”

“And yet you succumbed to it,” he answered. “Where is your excellence now? You will answer my questions, Lady Rekai. Then you will tell me all that I wish to know about your Dark Lord, for as long as I have need of you.”

“I came in good faith, Jade Champion,” she hissed. “I came to aid you in a battle against a mutual foe. If the Crane can forget their honor while the Lost remember theirs, perhaps I was right to abandon my clan.”

The Jade Champion clenched a fist and the green fire intensified, drawing a shriek of pain from Daidoji Rekai.

“Less gloating,” he retorted. “More confessing.”


 

Weeks Later…


            For months, Isawa Sezaru had led a vengeful crusade against the Bloodspeakers, having been commanded to destroy their organization by his brother, the Righteous Emperor. Violent and merciless, the Wolf struck down the servants of Iuchiban wherever they were found. The crusade had become known as the Blood Hunt. For his assistance in the Sezaru’s grim duties, Sekawa had earned no small amount of fear and notoriety as well. Common folk regarded the Jade Champion differently than they once did. Some viewed him with more respect, while others simply bowed down in obeisance and pitifully prayed for him to pass by without harm.

Sekawa was saddened that in aiding Sezaru’s righteous war he had become a symbol of fear, but he regretted nothing. His actions had served a greater purpose. The Bloodspeaker threat was now all but exterminated. Where cult cells once hid in the shadows of every city, now only a handful of survivors had escaped the Wolf’s eye. Sezaru had an uncanny ability to detect Bloodspeaker influence. His Inquisitors and Sekawa’s Jade Magistrates insured that punishment for serving Iuchiban was swift, certain, and fatal.

Their diligence had the effect of rooting out most of the Bloodspeaker menace, but such ferocity also served to make the remaining vestiges of Iuchiban’s cult all the more difficult to capture. They had fled to the darkest shadows of the Empire, abandoning all thought of revenge and focusing only on survival. The Bloodspeakers now gathered in the most unlikely places, where none would ever think to look.

Sekawa crouched in the thick brush at the edge of a jagged cliff, looking down at the pass below. The monastery was barely visible, tucked away in the natural camouflage of the wild mountainside. If Rekai had not told him where to look, he would never have suspected its presence. Such a place was the perfect hiding place for surviving Bloodspeakers. The locations of such holy sites were generally well known and catalogued by his family, but he had seen no record of this place in the Asahina records. Was this a Bloodspeaker temple? Did it serve another purpose and was later forgotten? Perhaps it was a work of the Naga or another ancient race and predated the Empire’s existence entirely? And how had she learned of this place? She had been frustratingly adamant about not revealing the true origins of her information.

Sekawa was uncertain if he should even be here. He chided himself for not having the humility to ask for help. Surely one of the elder members of his family might have recalled something that the records overlooked. But no, he had set out on his own, and with each day that passed he regretted doing so more and more.

It was no secret that the Emperor’s brother had taken over many of the Jade Champion’s duties. The Emperor saw it as a necessity; the Wolf was the mightiest shugenja in Rokugan and his higher birth allowed him to move without the political entanglements Sekawa sometimes faced. Sekawa did not desire Sezaru’s power or wish to usurp his authority, but neither would he play politics while his duty was clear. Sezaru’s star rose, and Sekawa’s fell. The Jade Champion had become nothing more than a somewhat noteworthy accessory in the Wolf’s extraordinarily successful crusade.

When given the opportunity to prove himself, to bring Rosoku’s killer to justice, was it truly any surprise that Sekawa chose to do so alone? He could tell himself that it was too risky; that if he failed, his death would ultimately do little to hamper Sezaru’s ability to protect the Emperor. The truth was - Rekai was right. Sekawa wished to prove himself. He wished to show Sezaru how arrogant and foolish he had been, to destroy the assassin who had eluded the Wolf’s wards and slaughtered Shinsei’s heir. He had been arrogant in coming here, and such arrogance would only lead to ruin.

Sekawa sighed and began to turn away, but a faint sound on the air gave him pause. It was the sound of a scream, a long and agonized sound. He knew it well – the wails of the tortured. The Jade Champion’s jaw clenched.

Perhaps he had been arrogant to come here so recklessly, but he could not turn away now. He began to piece his way down the rocky ledge toward the hidden monastery.



            The Asahina were a peaceful, contemplative family by nature. They used magic for the purposes of meditation, contemplation, and the pursuit of knowledge. They had tasked themselves with the pursuit of inner peace – the quest for enlightenment. They sought to purify themselves and find perfect harmony with the universe. This quest was embodied most directly by devout pacifism. The Asahina abhorred violence, even to the extent of surrendering their own lives rather than take arms against an enemy – an unusual philosophy for a family of the samurai caste.

Yet there were exceptions to every rule, and for the Asahina, the Shadowlands were that exception. Since the days of the Clan War, when the Crane Clan was nearly exterminated by the madness of the False Hoturi, the Asahina had come to view the Shadowlands as an earthly manifestation of the very disharmony they existed to combat. Though violence was a reprehensible state of being, it was allowable against the minions of Jigoku.

Some, like Sekawa, took this compromise a step further and fiercely embraced this pursuit of purity. Yet even the most militant among the family never abandoned the subtler magics that were the Asahina trademark.

Sekawa drew upon those magics now. He whispered to the spirits of air, urging them to reach out into the shadows and reveal what lay hidden. The weaving pattern of the elements was revealed to his eyes. He saw two bundles of earth, fire, air, water, and void poised in the darkness to either side of the door. Such a mix of elements was only found within living creatures, in this case, human guards. They were alert, but tired. The balance within them could easily be tipped. Sekawa whispered to the spirits of water, urged them to venture forth and impress themselves on the guards. There was a surge, a gentle pop, and Sekawa heard the two men slump into unconsciousness. He paced forward, stalking toward the abandoned monastery with his wakizashi at the ready. Two swift strokes of the blade issued the guards the only fate their kind deserved. Sekawa entered, whispering a prayer for the damned men’s souls.

It was a cramped place, with no lights except a candle behind a distant screen. He could smell the coppery odor of blood and the revolting stench of rotting meat. Something had died here. Sekawa scowled and moved silently forward. The scream came again, erupting from behind the screen. The air spirits reported the presence of three more entities in wait behind. One was relatively normal, relaxed, at peace. The elemental harmony of the second was chaotic and jumbled - a man in pain. The third was… unspeakable. It was a mass of filth and perversion, suffused with anger and agony. Though the Shadowlands Taint often masked itself from detection, this creature made no efforts to hide what it was.

A voice now came from behind the screen. It was an old man’s voice, twisted with anger and bitterness. “Tell us how to use it, Ikuto,” the man said. “Tell us how to unlock the magic.”

Wracked sobs were the reply. “I do not know,” the tortured man said. “If you do not understand, you never will. Torturing me gains you nothing.”

“Perhaps,” the man replied. From his tone, it sounded as if the interrogation had been progressing for some time. Sekawa could tell the questioner cared little if the man revealed anything… he remembered conducting interrogations on Bloodspeakers where he displayed a similar lack of interest.

The old man sighed. “Shukumei,” he said. “Again.”

Sekawa had heard enough. He leaped forward, pushing the screen aside. Beyond, a small man lay bound on the floor, his body crisscrossed with painful scars. The old man sat nearby, holding a curved dagger in one hand as he looked up in alarm. The third creature whirled on Sekawa immediately. It was an emaciated man, or had been a man once, but was now rotting and suffused with dark energy. It lunged at Sekawa. The Jade Champion shouted angrily in reply, unleashing the full brunt of both his magic and his rage. Jade fire erupted from his forefingers, coruscating into the animated corpse. He heard the thing cry out in pain, the patchwork voice of a dozen shattered souls. Sekawa reached deep within, redoubling his efforts, willing the fire to burn Rosoku’s assassin from within. Shukumei crumpled in a heap, crippled by the pain of its own misdeeds.

Blinded by his anger, Sekawa reacted too. The old man moved with astounding speed and agility, slashing at the Jade Champion’s hand with his wicked dagger. A crease of pain lashed across his palm. Agony rippled through his body, and Sekawa fell back. Veins of black energy now lanced through his limbs. He could feel the sickly pall of the Taint lance into his soul, attempting to seduce him, attempting to overpower him. His vision swirled with shadows. He could now see the dark magics that bound Shukumei’s trembling form together as well as the leash that bound him to the Bloodspeaker’s will. He saw the curses that wove through the tortured prisoner’s body, enhancing his pain. He saw the raw power that boiled within the old man, and for a moment, he was envious. Sekawa wondered if he should even resist. Such thoughts, he knew, did not come from within himself. This was the whisper of the Taint, seeking to control him, seeding weakness within him. He gritted his teeth and redoubled his efforts. He called upon Tamako’s training, borne of decades spent seeking balance against an evil that could never be wholly defeated. His uncle had never surrendered, though he lived with the Taint for over half his life. Could he do any less when merely faced with its power? Sekawa clutched at his bleeding hand and glared up at the Bloodspeaker defiantly.

The old man’s mocking voice rang in his ears.

“Why have you come here, Crane?” he said. “So eager to destroy my Shukumei again? So eager prove yourself to your Jade Champion?”

Sekawa smiled faintly. “I am the Jade Champion,” he answered.

The old man laughed, but the sincerity in Sekawa’s tone gave him an instant’s pause. Sekawa seized advantage. He knew his weakened magic was no match for the old man’s, now that he was ready. Instead, he wove a simple spell and channeled the dark energies that wove through him - severing the tether that bound Shukumei to its master.

“You are free now, tormented one,” Sekawa said with a laugh.

The old man looked back in terror as the abomination leapt upon him. Sekawa rolled to one side, away from the melee. The room was wracked with shrieking and the sound of snapping bones. The agony in Sekawa’s arm faded as the Taint receded from his body. The Bloodspeaker met a swift and grisly end. The Jade Champion rose to his feet, a spell ready on his lips, as he faced Shukumei. He looked into the undead assassin’s glowing eyes. He wondered if, now free from the Bloodspeaker’s control, the undead assassin might have some sense of remorse. Could a creature such as this be redeemed?

“Die, Jade Champion,” it roared and leapt at Sekawa.

The Crane snatched the cultist’s dagger from the floor, having lost his own weapon in the chaos. He buried the blade deep in Shukumei’s chest, unleashing a purifying spell of jade magic into the wound as he did so. Green fire erupted from Shukumei’s eyes. The mad creature howled in agony and crumpled into a pile of scorched bones. The sounds of violence faded, and soon all Sekawa could hear was the gentle sobbing of the Bloodspeaker’s prisoner.

Sekawa drew upon what magic he had remaining, summoning soothing water spirits to ease the man’s pain. From what he saw, he could do little but ease the man’s final moments. The Bloodspeakers had not intended their prisoner to survive for long. If anything, the Bloodspeaker’s maho had actually prolonged the doomed man’s life so he could be tortured longer.

“Be at peace, Ikuto-san,” Sekawa lied gently. “You are safe now.”

“No, I am not,” the man said. “None of us are. Never again. It is dead. It is gone.”

“What is dead?” Sekawa asked. “Shukumei?”

Ikuto pointed to a rough satchel laying upon the floor. “Look within,” he said. “See for yourself what we have lost!”

Sekawa frowned. He sensed no magic whatsoever in the bag, dangerous or otherwise. He opened it and drew out its contents. He found a thick, heavily bound volume. On the cover were emblazoned the symbols of the five elements.

“What is this?” Sekawa asked, looking at Ikuto sharply.

“In this place,” the man moaned, “the descendants of Shinsei hid for generations. They were raised here, taught here. My brothers and I were sworn to protect them, hide them, serve them… When Rosoku ventured out, I told him he was being foolish… but he was too stubborn. He said it was too important that the books be placed.”

“The Books of Enlightenment,” Sekawa said. “This is one of them?”

“The final volume,” the man said, sobbing as he stared hopelessly at the ceiling. “The Book of Five Rings. The greatest of them all. I should never have questioned my master. I have doomed an Empire. Enlightenment is dead.”

“What are you talking about?” Sekawa demanded.

“Five books were found,” Ikuto said, “but when Rosoku saw the petty divisions that wracked your Empire, he knew that any Keeper who descended from the clans would only bring greater strife. He chose to return the final book here. He had returned to Rokugan again only to say his goodbyes.” Ikuto looked at Sekawa, his eyes bulging madly. “Do you see? Do you understand? They followed him. They killed my brothers and took the book! Rosoku’s tests are incomplete because he rescinded the last challenge. No final Keeper will ever be found… and now Rosoku is dead. There is no enlightenment, Jade Champion. And there never will be.” The man’s sobbing trailed off into rhythmic, tortured breath. Sekawa sat beside the dying man in silence, staring at the cover of Rosoku’s last book.

Soon, the sound of breathing faded as well, and Sekawa was left alone.

For hours he stared at the book, not daring to open it or even touch it. With Rosoku’s death, the only hope many had for the future was that his final challenge might yet be met – that the final Keeper would be found. Was all of it for naught?

Sekawa could take the book. He could bring it back to Rokugan, declare himself the final Keeper.

Who was to say that such a claim was not true?

Shinsei himself had passed no arbitrary challenges to gain enlightenment. He had merely proven himself.

And perhaps this was, in fact, Rosoku’s final challenge. It was said only a man who could master all of the previous challenges could claim the book, but Sekawa had not led an army across the Empire in a single night. He had not defeated a thousand enemies in a single stroke. He had not crafted a helmet strong enough to shatter a thousand blades. And yet – none of the other challenges were met in ways that were at all obvious. Perhaps the only way to truly master all of the challenges was to realize that the challenges were meaningless.

Enlightenment was not dead.

It merely belonged only to those who dared to grasp it when all others had lost hope.

But what if he was wrong?

If he were wrong, and he claimed the book, then there was no harm done. If the Empire was already doomed – should he not try to save it, even if he must lie?

But what if he was right?

If he was right and he chose to do nothing – then enlightenment would truly die. His cowardice would doom all of Rokugan.

Sekawa continued to stare at the Book of Five Rings until the sun rose, unable to make a decision.

Finally, he rose. He tightened the rough bandage around his hand and whispered a brief prayer for the servants of Rosoku. He walked out of the burning monastery, back toward the Empire, with enlightenment tucked under one arm.