Arik took a look around, surprised at this answer considering the thicket of trees they had found themselves in, some so close together that he had to step vertically between them to continue onward.
“Is this your home?” the disciple asked as he looked up at the place.
“It’s not his home,” Meosa answered for Hojo, his water form just a bit smaller than it normally was, once again floating near the disciple. “The School of Illusion has, or at least they used to have, places like this across the Jade Realm.”
“The kami is right,” Hojo said as he showed Arik the key. “There used to be a time when we looked out for one another, the illusionist before me, and those before them, buying small properties in hidden locations all with the same key.” Hojo opened the door to the home, and went about unlocking the shutters. “It is a little dusty, so we will begin by cleaning the place for not only ourselves, but to prepare for the next guests. If there are next guests.”
What proceeded was an hour of scrubbing the wooden floors and dusting the furniture, the cabin with unique movable walls that partitioned off portions of the inner space for privacy. By the time they had finished, Arik now had a private room for himself next to Hojo’s, the two sharing a common living space that also had a kitchen, although Hojo said they would likely do most of the cooking outside.
While the illusionist had promised Arik they would start training immediately after he’d woken up from his nap almost two days ago, this had yet to be the case, Hojo mostly keeping quiet during their long forested walk. During this time, numerous questions had gathered inside Arik’s mind regarding both Hojo and Meosa.
Even though Hojo had said that he, as well as the other instructors, had disbanded the School of Illusion, Arik couldn’t help but feel that there was more to the story. Meosa had pressed him as well about the woman they had encountered in the desert, the one with the kitsune mask, but the master illusionist didn’t give any indication of how he felt about this woman, merely grunting in response.
Hojo had been right in his earlier observation that Arik was an open book to some regard, wearing his trials and tribulations like phoenix embroidery on a silk robe. His two traveling companions knew plenty about him, but he knew little about them, which was something he hoped to change in the future. There was no going back now, but perhaps in the future, Arik would keep information closer to his chest.
“We begin tomorrow,” Hojo said after they’d eaten some of the food he had pilfered from the carriages, Arik having given up his protest of eating the food a day ago when he’d run out.
“I seem to recall you already telling the disciple that,” Meosa said in an annoyed tone. “Was it two days ago? Yes, I believe so. We have been wandering aimlessly through the woods for two days because you thought it was smarter than taking the main path. Yet you have taught him nothing.”
“It took me some time to formulate how I plan to go about doing this,” said Hojo, who now sat across from Arik on threadbare cushions, his legs crossed beneath him, the room slightly lit by candles. This had a way of drawing out some of the shadows, amplifying the lines on the master illusionist’s face. “You can’t possibly become an illusionist in three weeks, as I’m sure you are aware by now, disciple. Similar to how I wouldn’t be able to advance with Revivaura in that time. So I’ve been thinking about how to condense it for the time being.”
“So that’s what you’ve been doing, ‘thinking.’” Meosa made a gurgling sound with his throat. “Why, of course.”
“A student at the School of Illusion would learn things in stages, similar to the branches of your school, disciple. They would spend a year or so on disguises and deceptions, and once they graduated this stage, the illusionists would then transition to combat and understanding an opponent and their weaknesses. This would be followed by espionage and infiltration. There was another stage after that as well, but that stage needn’t be discussed for now. Then they would start all over once they reach the next title, from Ashigaru, to Kanja, to Shinobi, and finally, Hidden Warrior.”
“So what you are saying is we are going to skip the disguises and deception stage?” Arik asked. “Because I can’t possibly see how that would be helpful…”
“No, we are going to start with it.”
Arik bit his lip. “I appreciate what you’re willing to show me, Master Hojo—”
“—Just ‘Hojo’ will do, as I’ve told you. I’m not a fan of titles, not any longer.”
“I appreciate what you are willing to show me, Hojo, but I have a short amount of time to improve my skills,” he said, his voice wavering as he was forced to admit that his skills needed improvement.
Arik thought he adapted well to combat, and what he had learned had certainly helped him since the Academy was razed to the ground. Still, there was room for improvement. He found it hard to admit that there was still a long way to go, but knew better than to question those who were more skilled than him, people like Combat Master Altai, and Hojo, as far as he could tell.
“There is much more to fighting than simply flinging your sword around. We will spend the rest of this week, four days or so, working on disguises and deception. I will unfortunately have to brush over some of the more nuanced details, and perhaps there will be a time when we can explore them further, but this will help prepare you for the next stage, which will be understanding an opponent and their weakness. I have an idea in mind for that.”
“Great, we get to play dress-up,” Meosa said.
Hojo procured a small pencil and a sheet of parchment that had been folded and in an inner pocket of his robes, which he read from: “Disguises and deception; understanding an opponent and their weaknesses, otherwise known as combat; and finally espionage and infiltration to prepare you to steal the Mask of the Fallen back from the businessman collector in Avarga. The city, which we will visit tomorrow, will be our training grounds. It is where I will show you how an illusionist operates.”
“Right,” Arik said, not able to hide his disappointment. “But I’m not trying to be a shinobi.”
“You will never be a shinobi, so you shouldn’t worry about that,” said Hojo, which elicited a laugh from Meosa.
“What can I say, my boy? He isn’t wrong.”
“Your goal should be to learn as much as you can in as short amount of time as possible and use this to augment your own skills. I assure you, unless you do something like a run off once we reach Avarga,” Hojo said, which made Arik tense up considering he had just been thinking of doing this, “you will come out in three weeks’ time much better prepared than you were going in. You will perhaps have a chance of surviving just a little bit longer than you currently do. Perhaps. Tonight, I will tell you a famous story of deception, so you can understand how powerful it can be when utilized by a trained illusionist.”
Arik nodded, still uncertain of the decision he made to learn from Hojo. But then he remembered what he had contemplated over the last two days—the shinobi who had attacked the Academy were his enemy, and they had clearly studied whatever it was Hojo was about to teach him. Knowing their tactics would give him a fighting chance.
Yes, that’s how you should frame this, Arik thought.
“Years ago, well before my time but not before the kami’s time…”
“If I have to tell you my name one more time, I’m going to drown you.”
“There is a superstition in the Jade Realm about kami and naming them, which is why I refrain from doing so. Please, take no offense by it.”
“There’s a superstition? Since when?”
“Since the end of the Crimson-Onyx Shroud War. Now, as I was saying…” Hojo glanced up at the ceiling, watching the shadows dance for a moment, a strand of his long gray hair falling into his face. He swept it aside and tucked it behind his ear. “What I have prepared for you is a story of deception, and the lengths a trained illusionist will go to accomplish his goal. I’m not going to bore you with all the details, but it is a story that the School of
Illusion often teaches its first-year illusionists. Of course, the story and those that took part in it, are studied in more detail than what I’m about to tell you.”
“I understand.”
After a contemplative pause, Hojo began his story: “Tenzo de Katano was always a jealous man, one who was unable to run his business successfully without destroying the businesses of others. In the course of ten years, he grew his empire from Katano, a city on the western coast of the Jade Realm, all the way to the center of the country, to Iga, the former capital of this country. His competitors either joined him in his silk business, which quickly grew to everything from weapons to home goods, or he not only destroyed their businesses, but he generally did something terrible to their families as well, children disappearing and sold into slavery in the South, poisoning, that sort of thing.”
“Sounds about right,” Meosa said.
“It was in Iga that wicked Tenzo finally got some pushback from a businessman named Jiro, and as he had done in the past, Tenzo began to plot against his competitor. He ended up killing Jiro by inviting him to a gathering outside of the city, one that was supposed to be a peace offering, yet one that turned to violence quickly as Tenzo’s men overpowered Jiro.”
Hojo grew quiet, almost as if he were a friend of Jiro’s and was remembering his legacy.
“Before they killed Jiro, Tenzo had the bottoms of his feet cut off and forced his competitor, now stripped of his clothing, to dance on hot coals in front of his two attendants, which was as humiliating as it was cruel. He then had Jiro hacked apart bit by bit, starting with fingers and toes and moving inward from there in an attempt to make him suffer as long as possible.”
Arik shook his head. It sounded barbarous.
“There is a mountainous city north of Katano called Moonagwa, and it is here that Jiro’s brother, a Hidden Warrior named Sorgus, lived. Sorgus had progressed through all of the School of Illusion’s titles only to become a farmer in the end, seemingly abandoning his training. But then word reached him that Tenzo had not only killed his brother, Jiro, but had done so in one of the more brutal ways imaginable. As it turned out, at about the same time, word reached Tenzo that Jiro had a brother who was a Hidden Warrior. You see, that title used to mean something, and had Tenzo known this, he likely wouldn’t have tricked and killed Jiro. That was the weight the School of Illusion carried with it in this realm.”
“Because Jiro’s brother was a Hidden Warrior,” Arik said.
“Precisely, Tenzo would have known that Jiro’s brother, Sorgus, would seek revenge. To protect himself, Tenzo hired every mercenary he could find, and holed himself up in his cliffside mansion in Katano. He grew increasingly paranoid until word reached him that Sorgus had moved with his family to Iga. Through spies he learned that the Hidden Warrior had gone into a deep spell of grief drinking and spending all of his money on the pillowers at local pleasure houses. At first, it was too good to be true. Had Sorgus really replaced a thirst for revenge with a thirst for ale and flesh? It appeared so, and while Tenzo could have had Sorgus killed right then and there, he knew that this would incur the wrath of the School of Illusion, which was already monitoring the situation, and knew exactly what Sorgus was doing.”
“What… was he doing?” Arik asked, not quite sure of the Hidden Warrior’s strategy, nor Hojo’s point in telling the story.
“As time passed, Sorgus ended up divorcing his wife and leaving the children with her, sending them all back with what little money he had to the village of Moonagwa, while he remained in Iga. He seemed to spiral even further, and for the next five years—yes, five years—Sorgus became nothing more than a town drunk who spent the funds he could scrounge together on ale and pillowers. Gradually, Tenzo began to relax his guard. He’d hired several hundred men to protect him, and even with his wealth, this grew increasingly expensive. Yet the wicked businessman continued to blow through his funds assuming that if Sorgus didn’t come to avenge his brother’s death, perhaps another illusionist would.”
Hojo paused long enough for Meosa to make a comment about leaving them in suspense. “Get on with it,” the kami finally said.
“With his funds dwindling, Tenzo was forced to make a trip to Iga, where a new business opportunity had presented itself. One of the larger pleasure houses was for sale, and while it wasn’t a business Tenzo had invested in in the past, he knew it would bring easy money, money he desperately needed. He could no longer afford the kind of security he was used to, so he selected his three best men and headed toward Iga, well-aware that this was the last place the Hidden Warrior Sorgus had been spotted. This had been years ago by this point, and all reports he had received since had told him of Sorgus’ decline into alcoholism and debauchery. Tenzo was on his guard to some degree, but much less so than he had been years prior. Still, precautions were made. As soon as he reached Iga, he had two of his guards find Sorgus and lock the former Hidden Warrior in a broom closet in one of the pleasure houses.”
“Let me guess, it wasn’t actually Sorgus,” Meosa said.
“No, it was him. But if you think a mere broom closet can hold a high-level illusionist, a Hidden Warrior at that, then you are sadly mistaken, kami. He could have broken out easily, but he didn’t, Sorgus staying there overnight as Tenzo grew more confident, enticed by the spirits offered to them by some of the pillowers. A key part in being an illusionist—a classically trained one, not these bastard shinobi who attacked your Academy—is understanding human nature, from curiosity to anger. This is one thing I will teach you, but it remains to be seen if you will truly embrace the lesson. Sure enough, the next morning, Tenzo’s curiosity got the best of him. He wanted to come face-to-face with the man he had been afraid of for so many years.”
“Sounds like a very human mistake,” Meosa quipped.
“While Sorgus could have easily disposed of Tenzo once he opened the broom closet, he didn’t. Instead, he took a beating from the three men, laughing the entire time until he infuriated Tenzo to the point that the businessman wanted to get a hit in himself. As soon as his fist met Sorgus’ stomach, Sorgus reached his hand around and dislodged a poisoned needle he had been palming all along. Tenzo froze, the poison acting immediately as Sorgus spun the other way and drove a kunai dagger into the side of his neck. Much faster than the guards due to his intense training, he swiveled behind Tenzo and held him, keeping the dagger in his neck as he bled out. He told the guards that there was a bag in the closet with money, for them to take it. They did so, because these guards were mercenaries and they had no real loyalty to Tenzo.”
“So it was all a set-up?” Arik asked. “From the beginning?”
“Indeed it was, including the supposed sale of the pleasure house. As a single illusionist, or even a team of several, taking on hundreds of mercenaries when one could simply lure their enemy to their turf would be unreasonable. Think of an illusionist as a spider, think of the world as its web.”
“Simply lure?” Meosa asked. “There was nothing simple about this harebrained, five-year-long scheme. This Sorgus fellow gave up his way of life and became a drunkard just to get revenge.”
“Correct. And to an illusionist, someone dedicated to the way I was taught, this is what it means to master deception and disguises. This is what I will try to impart to you over the next several weeks, disciple.”
“What…” Arik shook his head, not yet truly picking up the lesson that Hojo was imparting to him. “What of his family? His wife and children?”
“After Sorgus killed Tenzo, he returned to the village of Moonagwa and joined them, becoming a farmer again.”
“Did they know all along?”
“No, they did not. Had they known, there could have been potential for Tenzo to act differently once he came to the city of Iga, perhaps bring more guards, or maybe he would just hire someone to kill Sorgus after he was captured. It would have been a risk for his family to know, as Tenzo would have surely deployed spies to the village to see if it was indeed the c
ase.”
“Tenzo should have just killed him in the first place,” Meosa said, “rather than spend his fortune on mercenaries.”
“Yet in doing so he would have brought the wrath of every illusionist in the country,” Hojo reminded him. “But that is not the point of the story, nor has it been told to you to speculate on how Tenzo should or shouldn’t have acted. The point of the story, and remember what I have told you here is an abridged version, is to introduce you to the dedication necessary to truly master disguises and deception. Even if you don’t ultimately become an illusionist, understanding human nature and how to exploit it could very well prolong your life, disciple. Now, enough has been said for the evening. Avarga awaits in the morning.”
****
There was always the option of turning back, of figuring out a different way to prepare for the tournament in Mogra, especially as time started to dwindle. But Arik decided he would give it another day or two with Hojo, that like his chance encounter with Meosa, their fates seemed intertwined, that he shouldn’t overlook this fact.
Still, a not so insignificant part of him had his doubts.
I don’t want to become a trickster or a thief, Arik thought, especially after Hojo had given him his first task once they reached the city of Avarga. It was something he would have never dreamed of doing before, something completely against his code of ethics.
And for it to be his first lesson?
“Remember,” Hojo said as they neared the city, “you are to use your cunning and cleverness to your advantage. That’s my only instruction here.”
“And you?” Arik asked as Hojo slipped under a branch blocking their path. As always, the mysterious illusionist was in his conical hat with the slit cut into the front, and had been all morning, including as they ate a small breakfast of broth and dried fish.
Mask of the Fallen: A Cultivation/Progression Fantasy Series: (War Priest Book One) Page 21