Mask of the Fallen: A Cultivation/Progression Fantasy Series: (War Priest Book One)

by Harmon Cooper

  Was this an aspect of Chimaura? Arik might have been in a frenzy back in their rented room, but he had seen his face morphing in the mirror, clearly something that had never happened to him before. But what else was an illusionist able to do with Chimaura? Could they control someone’s thoughts, or greatly influence any situation?

  The two men and the cantankerous kami pressed on, now outside of the city of Iga, lightning bugs adding flashes of neon green to the path they were taking through the woods. The terrain was rough, but nothing that Arik wasn’t used to by this point, nothing that he couldn’t handle.

  He’d been through so much since leaving the Onyx Realm, the disciple hardened into something he could have never predicted, even going as far as learning the ways of an illusionist, situations that would have been trying before seeming easier now.

  He wasn’t the type to dwell on how remarkable his transformation had been, and while he could be sure of himself, Arik was also humble enough to know that he had dipped his foot into something that was much more complicated than he could have ever imagined. The false shinobi made formidable foes, but the woman, Hojo’s daughter, was truly powerful.

  He felt that this was just the tip of the iceberg of what a true illusionist could do.

  “You could actually tell us something while we walked,” Meosa suggested at some point, Hojo continuing through the brush, Arik sensing a slight panic to the way the master illusionist moved.

  “Later, when it is safe.”

  “If we are being tracked, I will kill them before they reach us,” Meosa told him matter-of-factly.

  “You don’t know what they’re capable of, at least some of them,” came Hojo’s reply.

  Arik didn’t have the same butterflies in his stomach that he had back at the compound, but he remained on his guard, aware that a poisoned kunai could come flying out of the forest at any moment, that Hojo himself could be an illusion.

  Is he an illusion? Arik thought as he watched the mysterious man slip around a low-hanging branch. While most people moved through a thicket hacking and forcing their way through, Hojo had a different approach, one of a light touch, almost as if he were trying not to disturb a single stone.

  The disciple didn’t get exhausted as easily as a normal person, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t feel as if he were overwhelmed by all the things he had experienced that night. An hour or so later and he found himself dragging his feet, Meosa offering to take over.

  “I have it from here, disciple,” the aqueous kami said in a kind way.

  Arik felt the rumble of water move over him, and soon, he was keeping up with Hojo’s quick pace, the disciple no longer in control of his body. This came with a meditative aspect to it, Arik able to even close his eyes and simply exist for the time being.

  It felt as if he were lying flat on his back and rushing down a rapidly moving river, even though he was actually using his limbs, Arik giving way completely to Meosa’s unique power. He didn’t know how long he traveled like this—he never truly slept during the process—but he did find himself in a unique mental state in which everything seemed to exist on the periphery.

  Eventually, they came to a stop, Arik blinking his eyes open to find the morning sun was coming up, the disciple surprised that he hadn’t noticed its pink hues on the inside of his eyelids. He yawned.

  “Rest here, disciple,” said the master illusionist as he took a seat on a stump. “We will leave in a few hours, and should reach Mount Osore by nightfall. Do you have the text?”

  “Text?”

  “The Coro Pache book that I’ve seen you studying.”

  Arik sat as well, and rummaged around in his bag for a moment for the book. He opened it to the passage about the Mask of the Fallen, his eyes scanning the text that Hojo was referring to:

 

 

 

 

 

  “I haven’t been able to make sense of it,” he said as he read it once again.

  “Yes, a riddle of sorts,” Hojo said as he took the book from Arik. “I will read it, and think about it while you rest.”

  “Not so fast, illusionist,” Meosa said, his watery form taking shape, clearly flustered. “You have a lot of explaining to do.”

  “What would you like to know?”

  “The nerve…” Meosa grumbled.

  “The woman in the kitsune mask was your daughter, right?” Arik asked.

  “Yes, that is correct.”

  “Was she who you were searching for in Omoto, back when we first met?”

  Hojo nodded. He removed his conical hat with a slit cut into it and placed it on the ground next to him. “Tayaura was the only student that I have trained after the School of Illusion disbanded. You are now the second.”

  Her name is Tayaura? Arik thought. I’ve never heard a name like that before… Something came to him in that moment, a flash of what had happened back at his Academy. He had battled a woman, right before Master Guri Yarna had shoved him out the window.

  It can’t be…

  “I think…” Arik shook his head. “I think I’ve met her twice, twice before last night.”

  “Twice?” Meosa asked. “Have you gone mad? We met her once in the desert. She left in the middle of the night with the armor that you carried for her.”

  “Back at my academy,” Arik said as he explained yet again what happened during his graduation ceremony, that there was a woman shinobi along with the others.

  “Tayaura would never…” Hojo lowered his head in shame. “I pray that it wasn’t…”

  “Well, she was with these same false shinobi back at the manor,” Meosa said. “So it looks like your prayers have gone unanswered.”

  “I don’t know if it was her; the attacker was wearing the same mask as the others, and it definitely wasn’t stylized like the face of a kitsune. But it was a woman,” Arik said. “What were those documents, anyway? Why are they so important to you?” he asked, referring to the papers in the red box.

  “When we first met, I told you that School of Illusion had disbanded, yet one of the instructors, one of the Hidden Warriors like myself, secretly had the others killed and started his own branch.”

  “You said all that?” Meosa asked.

  “More or less.”

  “From now on you need to tell us more,” said the kami, his temper flaring again. “We can’t keep playing these games with you, illusionist.”

  “The Hidden Warrior’s name is Sengum Minamoto. Not only was I looking for him, but I was looking for her, for Tayaura. Those papers are evidence of payment, the businessman named Kugo being the go-between between Nobunaga and Sengum, the leader of these new, false shinobi. He was another reason I was down south, following him, seeing who he met with. This was why I was on my way to Avarga when I first met you. It seemed that Kogu had settled down in one of his estates there, but then he popped up in Iga. Remember that story I told you about Tenzo, the wicked businessman that killed all his competitors? Believe it or not, Kogu is related to him on his mother’s side.”

  “Why would he keep those documents?”

  “They are invoices, some of them ones that have yet to be paid by the Crimson Realm to Sengum Minamoto. My hope was that by finding these documents, I would be able to locate Sengum, and also my daughter.”

  “Then why was she there?”

  “That, I don’t know,” Hojo said. “But if I had gone after her, I would have been able to figure it out.”

  “But you came back to the inn…”

  “Yes, that’s right, disciple.”

  “Perhaps you should have been honest with us to begin with,” Meosa said, not buying Hojo’s act. “You clearly are capable of stealing your own paperwork, and must have checked it out beforeha
nd.”

  “I did.”

  “Then why did you send the disciple? Why tell us that this man had somehow come into possession of the Mask of the Fallen?”

  “It was meant to be part of your training, truly. The experience of lifting an item from a guarded compound is one that I felt would benefit you. I knew you could do it, and you would have done it had it not been for the interference of Tayaura and those false shinobi.”

  “So that’s your reasoning?” Meosa asked. “You were trying to locate this old mate of yours, the one that has heightened the iniquity of the School of Illusion, and at the same time figure out where your daughter was?”

  “Something like that, yes,” Hojo said, in his typical, slightly elusive answering style. “To hear that she may have been part of the assault on the Academy of Healing Arts…” Once again he shook his head. “I hope that this isn’t the case, I truly hope so.”

  “She was kind to me out in the desert,” said Arik, “to both of us.”

  “Speak for yourself, disciple,” Meosa told him.

  “She never said anything, but she did offer me shelter and fed me.”

  “After you saved her. And if I recall, and indeed I do, for a moment there it seemed like she was going to attack you. I knew she was trouble, knew it!” Meosa laughed bitterly. “And to find out she’s related to you…”

  “I don’t know why she would have been that far south,” Hojo admitted. “But that isn’t something that we are going to be able to figure out here. I believe I told you what you wanted to know.”

  “Not all of it,” said Arik. “I want to know more about Chimaura. Now that I have experienced it to some degree, I would like to know more.”

  “Yes, Chimaura…” Hojo glanced up at the foliage above, light filtering toward them in wispy columns. “I’ll tell you what, disciple. Make it through the tournament without dying and seek me out afterward. Only then will I teach you about Chimaura. For now, your focus should be on the Mask of the Fallen. It exists, you know, the kami can tell you that,” Hojo said as he placed a hand on the book that Arik had given him. “But you don’t have long to retrieve it if you plan to make it back to Mogra in time for the tournament. Rest for now. Give me some time to read and try to decipher this text. Perhaps I’ll find us something to eat around here as well.”

  Once again, Arik found himself nodding. He also noticed that he was starting to grow sleepy as if Hojo had snapped his fingers and commanded he fall into a deep slumber.

  Soon, he was out cold.

  ****

  The next day was defined by a long journey with little talk, one fueled by berries and edible roots that Hojo had gathered while Arik had been sleeping. Try as he might, Hojo was no closer to deciphering the meaning behind the cryptic Mask of the Fallen text, but he did appear to have a plan in mind, one that he claimed could only happen once they reached Mount Osore.

  There came a point in which Arik could actually see the mountain in the distance, the disciple not sure of how far out it was. This was about midday, the three continuing on as Meosa occasionally commented on a variety of things, from changes in the appearance of the Jade Realm—which he thought seemed to be more heavily forested than it was during his time—to various snide comments about illusionists and how he felt entirely responsible for letting Hojo’s trickery slip by them.

  As always, the master illusionist didn’t engage the kami.

  As they grew closer to the start of Mount Osore, the forest seemed to fold back, the terrain growing rockier, much of the surfaces cast in shades of silver and white. It was the sort of stone that Arik was used to in the north, the opposite of the geological features of the south with its rusty colors and golden pink hues.

  They came to a cliff that held court over a lake seemingly carved into a high plateau, Mount Osore reflecting down onto the surface of the water. From what Arik could tell, the famed mountain was devoid of trees, a bleak moonscape of jagged rocks, the only peak that didn’t seem to have snow on it.

  He also noticed something else while standing near the edge of the cliff. There were bubbling sulfur hot springs below, the air filled with the stink of rotten egg, steam rising from some of the cracks in the rocks. It didn’t seem like a pleasant place.

  “We are here,” Hojo said, breaking what felt like a vow of silence in his announcement.

  “Here? Mount Osore is still miles and miles away,” Meosa said, his form just slightly tangible, the setting sun cutting through it and creating something akin to light through stained glass on the rocky surface beneath them.

  “We aren’t going to Mount Osore, not exactly,” Hojo said.

  “But the Mask of the Fallen…”

  “We need to find an itako. Be on the lookout for one, kami.”

  “An itako?” Meosa seemed to slink away at the mention of this word that Arik had never heard before.

  “If we find one of the local itakos, they should know what to do. Osorezan Jizo Festival happens every summer, a few weeks from now, actually. They should be preparing.”

  “What is an itako?” Arik asked.

  “An itako is an old word used for a female medium, a shaman of sorts, unique to this area,” said Hojo.

  “If someone can speak to the dead around here, maybe…” Arik didn’t finish the statement. This journey wasn’t about another chance for him to see his family or his teacher. It was about obtaining the Mask of the Fallen.

  As if he had sensed the disciple’s realization, Hojo continued: “An itako will understand the passage, I assure both of you. We just need to find one, and that shouldn’t be too hard considering they live in the area below, by the water.”

  Arik took another look down at the lake. It didn’t seem that inhabitable.

  “There isn’t much alive here aside from a particular kind of fish that seems to thrive in the acidic water of the lake. A perfect place to call home, right? Come, let’s see if any itako are about.” Hojo turned to Arik, and tilted his chin up, just a bit of sun creating a wedge on his face. “One more thing, disciple: do not be alarmed by the way they look. An itako won’t harm you.”

  With that, the master illusionist seemed to step directly over the side of the cliff, Arik feeling a rush in his chest until he saw that Hojo had found another rock, and from there another, his descent toward the lake accompanied by his usual mystic flair.

  “I’ll keep you from falling,” Meosa assured Arik as he took the same path as Hojo.

  Soon, they were amidst the bubbling springs below, the smell overwhelming until they came to a flat stretch of rocky surface made tolerable by blooming rhododendron bushes, the pale pink of the flower something Arik wasn’t expecting. He spotted a hut near the shoreline of the lake, and about the time he did, a woman who was hunched over with straw hanging off her shoulders scurried toward it, seemingly appearing out of nowhere.

  “Ah!” Meosa shouted, surprised by her appearance, the aqueous kami quickly hushed by Hojo, who brought a single finger to his mouth. The master illusionist waited for the woman to come out of her hut, one made of canvas and kept grounded by large stones.

  When she didn’t, he motioned for Arik to follow him.

  This is so bizarre, Arik thought as he grew closer to the hut, noticing the fish bones on the ground and several weatherbeaten crates kept shut by polished stones.

  Hojo cautiously approached the hut. “Mother,” he called out, “we mean you no harm. We come here seeking knowledge, and are prepared to offer you whatever you would like.”

  “The festival isn’t for another few weeks,” said an older woman, an edge to her voice that was borderline haggard.

  “We aren’t here for relatives; we are here for something else,” Hojo told her.

  “…Something else?”

  “We are here for the Mask of the Fallen.”

  The woman didn’t respond; Arik attempted to exchange glances with Hojo while they waited, but the master illusionist never looked away from the door of her hut, and soon, i
t slowly began to open.

  “Why would you seek such an object?” came the woman’s voice, slightly louder now that the door was open. She still hadn’t revealed her face, but Arik could see a hint of the setting sun reflecting off her eyes, which looked bleached to some degree.

  “Something tragic has happened, and this may be one of the only ways to address it,” Hojo explained. “I have with me a well-trained disciple, perhaps the last of his kind.”

  “So it is true, then?” the woman asked. “A war is coming.”

  “It is true. What others have told you about the impending wars is most certainly true,” Hojo told her.

  “Others? The only ones I’ve spoken to are the dead, son, but they know, and they have told me more than…” She seemed to shrink away, and was on the verge of shutting the door when Hojo stopped her.

  “We come here seeking your help, mother; we come here to right the wrongs of the recent past.”

  “So many wrongs…” the itako murmured in almost a singsong way. “So many wrongs. Who are you?” she asked, her voice suddenly with the edge to it again.

  “I am Hojo, a former Hidden Warrior.”

  “Not the last of your kind…”

  “No, mother, I’m afraid not.”

  “And the disciple is with you, yes?”

  Is she blind? Arik thought as he saw her eyes for a second time, noticing once again that they had an almost opal hue to them. The strands of her hair were so thick over her face that he still couldn’t make out her features, but he could see just the tip of her nose, and the start of a set of sharp yellow teeth.

  Hojo glanced at Arik and nodded toward the woman.

  “I am Arik Dacre, a disciple of the Academy of Healing Arts, a practitioner of the Divine Branch of Wound Transfer.”

  “Yes,” she said carefully. “And the third of you? Announce yourself.”