by Adam Vine
THE INFIRMARY
CLINK, CLINK, CLINK.
The sound of the chain came closer, stopped, and a shadow fell through the one-inch gap under the door.
I unsheathed Metatron as slowly and quietly as I could and stepped back into a fighting stance. Gator and Zaea did the same. But Barn Owl shook her head no, and signaled for us to hide instead.
I crouched behind one of the stone operating tables and waited. Zaea hid beside me, Barn Owl and Gator on the other side of the room.
I had barely sunk down behind my cold slab of stone when the creak of the door opening penetrated the silence. The light fixtures above the operating tables flickered off and on, overtaken by a much brighter, yellow glow slowly advancing across the floor. The person who had entered the specimen room was carrying some kind of lamp.
Clink, clink, clink.
The newcomer’s lamplight threaded between the operating tables, drawing closer and closer with each strike of his chain on the old, gray tiles.
Only Zaea was in my line of sight. Gator and Barn Owl were hiding on the other side of the room, behind tables of their own. Despite the throbbing protestations reverberating like thunder in my heart and stomach, I leaned over a few inches to try to catch a glimpse of our pursuer.
I could only see the vagueness of his shadow silhouetted behind the golden flare of his lamp, but it was enough. He was seven feet tall, and carried a twisted lantern in one hand and a long, spiked chain in the other. His cloak swirled like the ocean on a moonless night, the cloth a color deeper than black. His eyes were invisible behind the pale, broken moon of his mask, carved in the fashion of a spiral. Three slender, bladed hooks like tiny jaws were fixed on the end of his chain that snapped and bit eagerly as they bounced along the floor.
Clink, clink, clink.
Zaea saw him, too. She covered her mouth with both hands, but couldn’t stifle the sound of her whimper.
The masked man stopped and gazed in Zaea’s direction. Zaea tried to break cover and run. The masked man casually threw his chain, like my dad would’ve thrown a baseball when we played catch when I was a little kid. Zaea’s table disintegrated, solid stone exploding into a rain of dust and shale, and Zaea went down. When the debris settled, she lay prostrate on the floor, a red stain quickly blooming from the side of her skull.
Oh god Jesus that’s blood oh please no
I didn’t know if it had been rock shrapnel or the chain itself that had struck her, but I didn’t have time to find out.
The masked man moved to finish Zaea off. Across the room, Barn Owl yelled, “Hey asshole.”
His lamp flickered as he turned and was impaled by Barn Owl’s spear. There was a blink and the spear passed through him like air, striking uselessly against the far wall.
Barn Owl didn’t miss a beat. “So you really are the Ratkeeper. They say your lamp steals souls. That you turn people into dolls for your master. Well, you ain’t getting me, honey. My soul belongs to the Vermin.”
Two cruel, red, crescent moons grew from Barn Owl’s fists, slashing at the masked man’s neck as she leapt. Barn Owl dodged his chain once, twice, three times, but one of its gnashing, bladed mouths caught her on the backswing and she went down.
Gator and I both broke cover and charged. The masked man struck the table Barn Owl had fallen under with a roll of his chain, turning it over on top of her. Her scream was cut short by a mountain of rubble.
He’s trying to distract us. Focus. Focus. Oh, crap. Goddamn son of a... Focus. Breathe.
I didn’t know if Barn Owl was alive or dead. I raised my sword and advanced toward the masked man. I held Metatron firm, pointing the tip of the blade at my opponent. I stared into the pits of oblivion where his eyes should have been, and slowly bowed. It felt like walking through an earthquake.
The masked man accepted my challenge. He twirled his chain but did not strike. All I could see in the eddying vortex of his robes and the pale glaze of his mask was the tip of #41’s shinai angled at me as I stepped onto the center of the mat.
I had already lost this fight once, and it cost me everything in the world I had ever loved. I wasn’t going to lose it again.
The masked man tapped the tip of my blade with his chain. I checked his thrust and hit him with my own downward cut. But my blade cut air. He reappeared one pace to my left, but I’d seen what he’d done to Barn Owl and pivoted, bringing my sword up in a rising block. His chain rolled off Metatron’s edge. I cut diagonal, the last of those three, little moves I had practiced for over a decade, the combination that had only failed me once before, when I was too slow.
But again, I missed. The masked man flickered like a shadow cast by a strobe, reappearing inches outside the path of my blade. I thought I saw him flinch as Metatron’s tip sailed past him and down into one of the operating tables, carrying me with it. My blade bit stone and ricocheted, sending a bolt of pain spiraling up my arm.
Before I could raise my sword again, the masked man struck. Time seemed to slow as those razor-sharp jaws floated toward me. There was nothing I could do.
In an instant the chain skewed, missing my face by fractions of an inch. The giant crimson leaf of a Wyvernwood great sword plunged through the masked man’s torso. A familiar mustachioed grin appeared over the masked man’s shoulder.
“Told ya I’d get the drop on him,” Gator said.
Gator moved to withdraw his blade, but couldn’t. Inhuman vocal chords hummed deep within the eternal twilight of the masked man’s cloak. A nauseous plummeting sensation spilled through my body. The masked man wasn’t dead. Wasn’t injured. His cloak floated open. Gator’s sword hadn’t hurt him at all.
Inside his cloak was a void.
In a single, rippling motion, the masked man turned and breathed into Gator’s face. Gator froze. Actually froze. It happened so fast that if I hadn’t been watching, I might’ve thought someone had replaced the real Gator’s body with an identical statue made of frost, all shimmering and blue-white.
Gator’s final expression was some incalculable mix of surprise and sadness. But it didn’t last. The masked man swung his chain and shattered Gator into dust.
I don’t remember much of the next few minutes. I remember the cold flurry that had been my friend only seconds before covering the masked man and I both with a rain of hail. I remember screaming at the top of my lungs and running the masked man through, aiming my sword deep into the center of the spiral in his mask. I remember him raising his lamp into my face and the light flaring just as my blade was about to thrust home, a golden spiral burning beacon-bright in the center of its tarnished, ancient glass.
These memories are vague. When I recall them it is like recalling memories from early childhood. They aren’t full images, but the pieces of pieces, the edges all torn and frayed, the centers made murky by time and self-doubt, some elements real and some imagined.
I don’t know if I dropped my sword willingly or if I was forced to. I don’t know if my legs and arms moved of their own volition or someone else’s as I went and scooped up Zaea off the floor. I don’t know if I bent my knee on purpose and offered her to him, or if I could simply no longer walk and fell helpless at his feet. I don’t know if I called to Barn Owl for help, or cried out Gator’s name, or Zaea’s, as he took her and hoisted her over his shoulder.
What I do remember vividly was the thought, He knows. He knows I’m a Visitor. He knows Zaea is, too. And he isn’t going to kill us. He came to pick us up so he can take us home.
In that haze I found a deep happiness. The longer I stared into the light of his lamp, the more it washed away all of my fears, anxieties, and sorrows, until every last drop of darkness within me evaporated and only an unshakeable contentment remained.
A gentle, long-needed splash of California sunshine enveloped me, and a voice called to me from somewhere inside that infinite paradise. I followed her voice into the light, and for the first time in years, I was whole. It was a voice I knew, that my heart had begged a god I
no longer believed in to hear every waking second since it had vanished from my life, that sated my tired soul.
“Hey my love,” Carly said.
???
“HEY MY LOVE, can we talk about something? I mean something kind of important.”
“Sure. What’s up?” I said, under-hooking her arms and pulling her in close. I kissed her and then pulled away to brush a curly, whiskey-colored lock of hair behind one ear.
We stood half-dressed in our hotel room in San Francisco amidst a bed riddled with post-sex sheets and a floor covered with clothes exploded from our suitcases. We had to be on the mats in less than an hour. The gym where the tournament was being held was at a local private high school across the street from our hotel, but if we were even a minute late my dad would be furious, and he wasn’t a guy you wanted to piss off when he had his sensei hat on. The dude had been world champion for a reason.
No. This is wrong. We were in a rush, weren’t we? It wasn’t like this.
Yes it was. It had to be. We didn’t rush. Everything was perfect.
“Babe?” I said.
Carly took a deep breath, cupped the side of my face, and said, “Dan, relax, okay? Nothing’s wrong. I just want you to know how much I love you, and that even though you’re nervous, you’re going to kill it today.”
No. This is all wrong. She didn’t…
She did. You know she did. She encouraged you.
Carly smiled at me and shrugged into her gi top, the patch of our dojo flashing purple on her left lapel. The patch showed the image of a mountain framed by the red ball of a rising sun in a violet sky, the words North Coast Martial Arts Center embroidered in white along the fringe. Carly stepped into the ample, black fabric of her hakama and pulled them up around her waist, tying the strings at the top to secure the skirt pants in place.
She was so beautiful.
Was? She’s standing right in front of you.
“Thanks, babe. I don’t know why, but I just feel kind of… off today,” I said, putting my own hakama on.
Carly finished tying her belt and leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. “Just jitters, love. Everyone gets ‘em. Myself included.”
“I know, but everyone’s gonna be there. You. My parents. Evan. You know he’s never been to one of my tournaments before?” I said.
“Dan, don’t start this, okay?” Carly said.
“That guy’s always got something going on. The fact he came all this way, planned this whole after party thing for me… at a bar! He actually called a bar. I donno. I just feel like I’m gonna choke.”
Carly rolled her eyes. “Now you’re just being Mr. Negative. Do what my dad says. Empty your mind. Let it go. Picture yourself winning. Victory is ninety-nine percent mental.”
What is this? What’s going on? Where am I?
You’re in your hotel getting ready for the West Coast Invitational Kendo tournament. Get it together, man. If you mess this up, you’ll lose your title.
I gave Carly a playful shove. “Ninety-nine percent, huh? That’s interesting, Carl. Normal people need things like technique and speed, too. I guess we can’t all be superhuman.”
“Stop. Oh! I almost forgot.” Carly knelt to dig through the smaller pockets of her suitcase.
“I thought we had to be there half an hour early,” I said.
“Half an hour early is when we’re supposed to be there, Daniel.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll get there with plenty of time for you to sit on the bleachers posting on Instagram.”
“They won’t have bleachers. They put them up. More mat space.”
“You checked?” I said.
“Your dad said they hurt his back.”
Of course she knows that. That thoughtfulness is why I love her.
No, this isn’t happening. Why do I feel like I’ve already been here, said these things, stood contemplating that same godawful geometrically patterned carpet and felt like I’d become unstuck in time?
It’s just a bit of déjà vu. Everyone gets it. Chalk it up to nerves, like Carly said.
“Has anyone ever told you you’re an overachiever?” I said, pulling Carly in close to kiss her on the lips.
She turned away and scrunched her lips like my kiss was full of plague. “You are literally the worst. Here.” She handed me a small, plain white cardboard jewelry box.
“You used literally, even though we both know how much you hate it when people use that word improperly. So, I guess this must be serious,” I said.
Carly folded her arms impatiently. “Open it.”
Inside the box was a tiny arrowhead carved from volcanic glass with a silver chain attached to the non-business end so it could be worn around the neck. “Holy shit, Car. Is this obsidian?” I said, gently taking the necklace out of the box.
“Yup,” Carly said. “My dad found it in our yard while he was digging the foundations for the shed, back when I was like, eight years old. He even asked that nice lady who works at the library about it…”
“Dorothy. She gave me that nice illustrated edition of The Divine Comedy for high school graduation. I thought that was such a lame gift until I actually read it. Ended up being my favorite poem of all time.”
Carly nodded. “Right. Dorothy. Anyway, Dorothy used to be a docent at the Native American Museum, and she said the Native Americans used arrowheads made from obsidian because it has a conchoidal fracture. That means it makes razor sharp edges when it breaks. So it’s great when put to good use, but dangerous if left lying around. Sort of like you.” She grinned.
“Such a comedian. Are you here all week?” I said.
“Since it’s been sitting on our living room bookshelf for, like, ever, I… I mean, we… wanted to give it to you.”
“So you’re saying your dad made this from some obsidian he bought online and hid it in the backyard so you’d think it was a magical Indian arrowhead?” I said.
Carly growled. “Ugh, you are so…”
I pushed her onto the bed and kissed her. “So what?”
No I didn’t. I wanted to, but we didn’t have time. Right…?
We rolled and kissed and groped each other for a blissfully long moment before she pulled away. “Later, okay? We gotta go. But I promise, we are going to have the best victory sex of your life when we get back,” Carly said.
“And what if I lose?” I said.
She tapped a finger on my chest. “Then that big, bruised ego of yours is going to need me to take care of you. Either way, it’s a win-win. Now, c’mon. Get the gear. We need to go.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The audience at the convention center was a sparse scattering of familiar faces, senseis and senior students from schools all over California, most of whom were my dad’s friends and many I had trained or competed against before. Kendo is a small community, so the turnout at these things was always relatively low. A hundred people would have been considered a good crowd.
Carly and I found my parents and Evan sitting with the other people from my school on the metal folding chairs lining the mats, stretched, and put on our gear, and then hugged everyone for good luck. I thought we’d have some time to drill before my first match, but I was one of the first names called when the buzzer sounded.
I won my first match with a straight head cut, and then my second with a head cut-block-wrist cut combo. When the final elimination round was revealed, I was paired up against #41, Jaime Jimenez, the dude who had won all kinds of kendo and western fencing tournaments on the East Coast, and who’d been the subject of a feature article on Bullshido.com only last week.
What the hell is a New Yorker doing in our tournament? Did he fly out here just to sandbag?
You know why. He’s here to steal your title.
I’d hoped someone else would’ve eliminated Jaime before the final round, but I should’ve known that was foolish. Jaime was one of the best kendo players in the country. If I didn’t fight him, and win, it would mean losing a title I’d held for t
he past six years.
Our names were called, and we both bowed and stepped onto the mat, mirrored shadows clad in nightmarish robes and masks of empty, featureless mesh, the bundled tips of our shinai angled and ready, drawing closer and closer together as we circled each other, two lost planets falling into each other’s gravity.
The buzzer sounded and the match began. The ten or so seconds we spent sizing each other up with tiny, noncommittal jabs at the ends of each other’s swords seemed to last hours. Then everything exploded. #41 lunged, flying forward off his toes and throwing a tiny, lightning-fast cut for the top of my wrists.
Two paths unfolded before me in my mind’s eye. In the first, I reacted like I had so many times in training, checked his blow and counter-struck with my own thrust to his mask, winning the match and keeping my title. At the trailhead of that other, much darker road, I choked and checked him a fraction of a second too late. He cut me on the wrist and head, and it was his shinai that hit home, costing me the match, my title, Carly, my entire world.
I checked his blow and slammed the tip of my shinai into his forehead. We collided, both carried by the momentum of our strikes. The ref called the match. I won.
The cheers of my friends, family, and dozens of strangers rising from their seats to give me standing, howling applause rose to a deafening din. They were all screaming my name: Carly, Evan, my parents and fellow students. Their hoots and cheers went on for a long time, even after #41 and I bowed to each other and exited the mat. I watched Jaime as he returned to his corner. He didn’t throw down his sword and mask like I did when I lost, didn’t do anything but fall into the condoling arms of his fellow students and loved ones.
But I didn’t lose. I won. Beat that asshole to the jump, just like she said I would.
No you didn’t. That isn’t how it went down.
I returned to my own corner and took off my mask to a flurry of handshakes, embraces, and head rubs. Carly jumped on me and covered me with triumphant kisses. Evan wrapped me under one arm and said, “I’m proud of you, man.” My mom hugged and kissed me ecstatically. My dad shook my hand and told me he was proud of me, before leading me to the podium, where I was crowned Kendo Champion of the State of California, Adult 18-26 division, for the seventh year in a row.