The Fox's Quest

by Anna Frost

  He lay down, thinking to rest his eyes until Aito returned with news—and awoke with a start to the sound of a ringing bell.

  “What?” He looked round fuzzily.

  Aito was already dressed and putting away his futon. “It’s the call for morning prayers, Jien.”

  “I know that! But how is it morning already? I was just resting my eyes!”

  “Hurry. It’ll draw attention if we’re late.”

  Skipping prayers in favor of sleeping in was an enticing idea, but Aito was right that any absence or tardiness would be noted.

  Jien grudgingly acquired an upright position, along with a fresh set of clothes Aito wordlessly thrust at him. “Oh, you got me a new set? Thank you.” It was the right size, too.

  They went to join the hundreds of monks kneeling in the prayer hall, arriving mere moments before the abbot came in wearing ornate ceremonial vestments to begin the ceremony. The sun was yet sleeping under the horizon at this hour. Light was provided by delicate paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling and a cluster of candles sitting on the altar alongside a variety of ritual objects. The scent of incense was thick in the air.

  Jien fell easily into the chants, years of daily practice having burned them in his mind so deeply he could chant while sleeping—which was almost what he did. Occasionally, a bell rang and cymbals were struck, contributing to keeping him somewhat awake until the end.

  Afterwards, he went to duck his head into the temple’s cold pond to try to wake up his brain. “Ugh. I forgot quite how early mornings are here.”

  “The trainees won’t leave us a thing if we’re late,” Aito said.

  “Let’s go, quick!” The trainees’ collective appetite was a credible threat to everybody else’s breakfast. Jien knew it because he’d once been one of those ravenous beasts.

  Rows upon rows of cushions and lacquered trays propped up on four legs waited in the refectory. The meal was standard temple fare, meaning it involved no fish or meat. Each person received pickled vegetables and fermented soybeans on a bed of rice. Should the meal prove unfulfilling—as was often the case with trainees—second servings were allowed. Gluttony wasn’t encouraged but depriving future sohei of the food they needed to grow strong would be counter-productive.

  It was impossible to speak of their plans in this crowded place, but Aito’s absent look hinted he was communicating with his bonded spirits, presumably to watch the trainees.

  Jien ate quietly, keeping an eye on Aito. His face was impassive but that meant nothing. He could have been tracking a whole host of demons-possessed men without looking any different.

  They lingered over fragrant tea, waiting until everybody else had filtered out to attend to their duties.

  “Anything of interest?” Jien inquired, voice pitched low.

  Aito’s eyes focused on him. “I’m following the trainees. I believe I sense a touch of dark on one of them.”

  Jien understood. “Right. The reason we didn’t see through the possessed woman we traveled with is that she looked ‘merely touched.’ We won’t make that mistake again.”

  “Yes. And if he’s not possessed, I would like to know how one of our trainees came in contact with demon energy. The boys aren’t allowed outside the grounds and demons certainly can’t come here.”

  They drifted out of the refectory and shifted the conversation to safer subjects, such as the likelihood of rain from the gloomy sky above. They traded nods with those monks they passed but were approached by none. It was probably Aito’s reputation keeping them shy.

  “Hey,” Jien said as something suddenly occurred to him. “Why is it people can acquire a taint from contact with a demon but not from contact with a white spirit? You’re in contact with several of them but your aura looks normal to me.”

  “My best theory is that it has to do with the degree of physicality,” Aito answered, so promptly it was evident he’d given it thought before. “White and neutral spirits rarely focus their energy in such a way as to be able to touch the physical world. If you tried to touch a familiar spirit, it would be like touching mist. Black spirits, which we call demons, tend to focus their energy as strongly as they can in order to simulate a physical body. It allows them to interact with the real world and to injure us in battle. That energy concentration may be what leaves a mark.”

  “You forget that white spirits touch people to heal them. Shouldn’t that leave a stain?”

  “You misunderstand how the process works. The spirit itself doesn’t touch the person. What it does is manipulate ambient energy so it is focused on the human. A sudden dose of spiritual energy can heal wounds, for reasons unknown. It’s possible the spirit sacrifices some of its own power or life-force to do it, as legends say, but that, too, is unknown.”

  In other words, it was implausible for the trainee to have been tainted by a white spirit. That left the unpleasant options. Jien adjusted his grip on his spear and rolled his shoulders, readying himself for action. It wasn’t entirely polite to go about armed with the temple’s grounds, but neither was it conspicuous. Sohei whose task it was to wander the roads were notoriously obsessive about their weapons.

  “Let’s go and meet this kid,” he said. “Do you have his location?”

  “Training in the courtyard with the others. His name is Saji.”

  Aito supplied an excuse to the monk overseeing the trainees’ workout while Jien cornered the boy they wished to interrogate. Boy, for though he was past the coming of age ceremony, trainees were considered boys until they finished their training. This one must be on the verge of receiving his very own spear for he looked to be the oldest of the pack.

  “Hey, Saji,” Jien said, resting a hand on the trainee’s shoulder. “I want to ask you something. Over here.”

  Looking apprehensive—and likely trying to recall if he’d said or done something especially idiotic in the last several days—Saji nonetheless followed him around the corner of the closest building. Jien didn’t want the other trainees eavesdropping, as he knew they would if they were given half a chance. Trainees were curious like monkeys.

  Aito arrived moments later, announcing, “There’s no one in earshot.”

  “Good.” Jien eyed the trainee critically. His face was average at best, his nose slightly crooked and his eyes too far apart, and his build was thin, not quite as muscled as a sohei was expected to be. That was understandable in light of the fact this boy was meant to become one of their sword makers, who did not fight but stayed in the temple to produce the blades demon hunting required. “Listen, kid. We can see your aura is demon-touched. Mind explaining how that happened?”

  He was ready for lies, for an attack, or for an attempt to bolt.

  He wasn’t ready for Saji to lose his color and prostrate himself on the ground babbling, “It wasn’t me! The demon did it! I’m sorry I couldn’t stop it! I would have if I could! I’ll never sleep with my mouth open ever again!”

  “Whoa, whoa, calm down there. What demon? When?”

  Through the boy’s hysterical babbling, they gathered the salient facts: a demon had possessed him, stolen his knowledge, and popped right out again.

  “It’s like it had done it before,” Saji said. “It got inside me so easily! I woke in a panic and it was already too late. I had a cold at the time and I was so tired… It read my memories, about the glyphs and the relics we have. When it found out about the sword, it dug through my mind looking for details. I didn’t know much though, so it left. By morning I was certain it’d been a nightmare.”

  “How do you know the sword was stolen, if it wasn’t you who did it?”

  Saji huddled tighter, voice anguished. “I went to look, later. The sword wasn’t there. If I’d told someone right away, maybe they could have stopped the theft. After, it was too late and I was scared. My mother would never recover if
I were kicked out. She’s so proud I got accepted.”

  Jien looked at Aito, who replied with a faint sigh. Clearly, it sounded like truth to him too.

  “Now we’ve no clue who the thief is or where the sword got to,” Jien grumbled.

  “We’ll look further into this,” Aito said. “We’ve already confirmed the nature of the entity behind the theft; that’s no small deed. The foxes must be told.”

  “I’ll send a letter.” Jien nudged the trainee with his foot and spoke in the most threatening voice he could muster. “What do we do with this one? He let the sword be taken.”

  After a brief moment, Aito appeared to catch on. He hummed audibly, as if he were considering the question. “He’s a mere trainee.”

  Jien rubbed his chin theatrically. “True, true. Perhaps we’ll let it go if he proves he can hold his tongue about the matter.”

  Saji huddled on the ground. “I’ll tell no one! I swear on my vows!”

  “You’ll tell no one who has no business knowing,” Jien corrected sternly. “If a highly ranked monk asks specifically about the matter, you must be truthful.”

  “I’ll tell them! I swear on my vows!”

  Aito turned away, saying, “Jien, please take the time to purify him. I want to go and see if anyone else has a similar taint.”

  Jien understood the unspoken part: perhaps the demon had used another person—another body—to conduct the theft. It was worth looking into. They might yet unravel the mystery.

  Busy with the boring task of scrubbing Saji’s aura free of taints—it largely involved ducking the fool trainee’s head in the pool and chanting mantra—Jien didn’t realize the other problem with the situation until later.

  He went to Aito in alarm. “If Saji’s taint was so faint nobody but you could see it, it couldn’t possibly have lasted for years!”

  “You’re correct,” Aito said, unruffled.

  “Wait…” He worked it through. ”You mean the demon came back in his mind to spy? Recently? And Saji never noticed? Where did that impossibly smart demon come from?” A thought hit him like lightning, unexpected and unpleasant. “If the demon comes again, it’ll find out we spoke to Saji about the missing sword!”

  “We’ll know it has come again because Saji will be tainted once more.”

  “You mean we’ll know that it knows that we know it stole the sword?”

  Aito paused, possibly trying to make sense of the question. “Ah, yes.”

  “I see. The demon won’t realize we expect it to come again because you let Saji believe the demon only took him once. Clever.”

  “A known spy can be an asset. We may be able to pass on wrong information to it and its friends if it becomes necessary.”

  “Poor kid. He’s a pawn in our game and we can’t tell him.”

  “I’ll ask my teacher to watch over him. He’ll be in no special danger.”

  Jien wasn’t convinced. The game was quickly growing fraught with danger and nobody’s safety could be guaranteed.

  Suddenly, Aito whirled. His eyes focused on a seemingly empty spot—wait, was that a patch of mist? It swirled in a tighter and tighter pattern and finally took shape as a fox with an excessive number of tails.

  Spear extended and aimed at the apparition, Jien prodded the expert with his free arm. “Aito, what’s that? One of your familiars?”

  “No.”

  Don’t you dare stab me, Jien! a young, feminine voice said. It came from the fox, whose red aura felt most familiar. Even to someone who wasn’t peculiarly sensitive to auras, this one stood out.

  “Nice try, ghost, but I distinctly remember seeing Sanae’s corpse.” Even as Jien spoke, doubt bloomed in his mind. Ghosts—spirits who became human-tainted—didn’t copy auras that perfectly.

  The spirit sounded offended as it replied, I’m not a ghost! You’re a monk; you should know better.

  Jien thought it through. Every monk knew ghosts happened when a person died in violent or tragic circumstances and a nearby spirit was contaminated by the dying person.

  Common ghost behaviors included haunting the place of death by taking the deceased’s appearance, seeking vengeance, or attempting to fulfill the deceased’s last wish. It could be as harmless as a spirit sitting by its human’s grave until the human’s lover came by, so it might say goodbye. And it could be as horrifying as a spirit that ripped babies apart because its human had died birthing an unwanted child. Ghosts rarely displayed emotions other than anger, fear or sadness, likely because those were the emotions a dying person would feel strongest.

  A ghost would have adopted Sanae’s human appearance rather than this fox-like shape. A ghost wouldn’t sound so lively and wouldn’t act so independently as to show up somewhere its human had never been before. There was that impossibly perfect aura, too. Which meant…

  “Not a ghost,” Aito said, as if he feared Jien too dim to reach the conclusion alone. “Very unusual.” He studied Sanae intently, probably with several sets of eyes at once.

  “Ghosts don’t work that way,” Jien admitted. “So you’re, what? Sanae’s fox half?”

  The spirit who might or might not be Sanae sighed. Oh, I suppose I need to explain again. And put that spear down already!

  Chapter Seven

  Mamoru

  “—and that’s why I should go with Usagi,” Mamoru’s resident demon finished.

  Yoshio made a thoughtful noise. “I agree.”

  “You agree?”

  Mamoru couldn’t tell which of them, the human or the demon, was more surprised. When they shared the same emotion, as they did now, it was almost like they were the same person.

  Yoshio’s eyebrows rose. “What is it? Your reasoning is sound. Ensuring proper backup is always prudent and you do need to test your adaptation to human society. I have no immediate need for your assistance, but I have a colleague in Kyoto who may have a use for you.”

  At Mamoru’s urging, the demon bent their shared body in a deep bow. “I shall endeavor to make you proud.”

  “I wouldn’t allow you to go if I believed otherwise. Do remember you’re on your own if you get caught.” It was spoken pleasantly, but Mamoru had the impression there was the hint of a thread underneath.

  The demon retreated from the room with all haste, lest Yoshio find a reason to retract his approval.

  I can’t believe he agreed, the demon told Mamoru, mind to mind. He said I was a liability, before, and threatened to end me. After a beat it amended, Us.

  You’ve been learning fast. He must have decided you can be useful.

  I do well because you help me.

  I don’t want to be “ended” either, Mamoru said. But…I do wonder why he agreed. He’s plotting, that’s clear. His plans are probably dangerous to our survival and maybe Usagi’s, too.

  I can protect her.

  Mamoru said nothing—it was useless to argue with the love-sick—but his demon could probably sense his doubts anyway since they were in close mental proximity. It was easier to converse when they were in contact like this. It was the mental equivalent of casually leaning into each other, as friends might do to whisper in each other’s ears. They weren’t friends, but they were allies insofar as they both wanted to survive.

  Usagi was in her room, gathering personal items—and a few small weapons—in a pile in the middle of the floor.

  “Yoshio said yes!” the demon said as he rushed in.

  “You really asked?” Usagi laughed, the sound free of condescension for once. “What a meddlesome boy you are.” Gathering her items in her arms, she rose to her feet. “You’d best pack quickly!”

  There was a spring in her step as she went down the hallway.

  They ate their last meal in the clan house alone, the two—three—of them.

 
The demon ate as it always did, in a picky manner. It had the same tastes as Mamoru when it came to food, but no inclination to eat less favored items. It had yet to experience hunger of strength capable of driving home the fact that eating was a survival necessity, not merely a pleasure of life. The pickled vegetables were therefore largely ignored in favor of the fragrant fish and rice. Dessert, a handful of seasonal chestnuts, seemed to vanish in thin air.

  The food gone, they lingered over tea and went over their cover story.

  “I am the lady Usagi, distant relative of Advisor Yoshida,” Usagi said. “The story is that he’s taken pity on his poor relatives’ daughter—me—and agreed to find her work in the capital in hope she might attract good prospects. I expect I’ll provide entertainment for important persons; I’ve had more than enough music lessons.”

  “Who am I? Your servant?”

  “Oh no, that wouldn’t be proper. You’re a minor family relation sent along as my escort and protector. We’re related through our mothers, who—”

  A pair of older shinobi approached, one bending to murmur in Usagi’s ear and the other dropping a heavy hand on Mamoru’s shoulder. “Good luck,” he said curtly. “Make us proud.”

  “I’ll try,” the demon said uncertainly.

  Usagi watched the adults walk away. “They’re saying good luck to you and goodbye to me. I might not see any of them again.”

  “I’ll be with you,” the demon said earnestly. “Always.”

  In the corner of his mind where his self now had residence, Mamoru sighed. Why did he have to be possessed by a love-struck demon?

  More importantly, why was their clan still involved with Advisor Yoshida? He was the man who’d hired them to attack the Fox clan, a venture that had ended in complete disaster. Maybe he’d find answers in Kyoto.