Red mist rose from the pieces of tile. Toshi dropped them to the blue stone pavement and stepped back.
The mist coalesced into a twisted animal shape. A crackling field of red energy danced from one end of the shape to the other, and Otawara’s population suddenly increased by one.
The barrel-chested brute was not unlike a dog, but its waist and hindquarters were thin and spindly compared to its massive head and chest. It was covered in thick hide and sharp spikes of bone. The same bony material covered its muzzle and chin, thickening to massive armored plates across its back and shoulders. It had three eyes arranged in a triangle and two sweeping, curved horns. These last two features marked it as an oni, a demonic and malevolent spirit that was hostile to human and kami alike under normal circumstances.
Toshi stepped forward, his hands open and spread wide. He didn’t want to get too close, but neither did he want to break Hidetsugu’s injunction to be the first thing the oni saw.
“Here, boy.” Toshi waved his hands at the wrist. “You work for me, right?”
The oni dog growled, a booming, dangerous sound that almost bowled Toshi over. He took a step back.
The oni regarded Toshi for a moment. Hot, rank steam puffed from its nostrils. Then, it turned and sniffed after Chiyo. Powerful muscles along its back tensed and it began to pad toward the wounded soratami.
“A gift for you, Otawara,” Toshi called to the moonfolk overhead. “From Kobo and the rest of the hyozan reckoners. Tell Mochi he’s next.”
The dog pounced. Chiyo screamed.
Toshi turned toward a shadow at the base of the nearest building and dived into it.
Michiko had experienced Mochi’s visions before, so it was she who recovered most quickly from the initial disorientation.
The princess floated free, her mind and spirit detached from her physical body. Her senses were somehow sharper, as if eyes, ears, and skin were not a conduit for external information but a barrier to it. She was a drop of rain among the thunderclouds, a breath of air in a typhoon wind. She was herself, but she was also a part of something larger, something that she could see and hear and taste without her body.
Though she saw no one, Michiko could feel her friends nearby, Pearl-Ear, Sharp-Ear, and Riko. Of the three, Pearl-Ear seemed the most tranquil.
Behold the spirit realm, Mochi’s voice said.
Michiko looked out onto the swirling mass of dust and energy, recognizing it as the kakuriyo Mochi had shown her before. She wished she could communicate with Pearl-Ear and the others, but she couldn’t even hear her own voice.
This is the spirit realm, Mochi said. Separate from your world but inextricably linked. Every physical thing in the utsushiyo has a spiritual reflection in the kakuriyo. Or perhaps every spirit here has a physical reflection there. No matter how you look at it, our homes are both remarkably similar and remarkably distinct.
In your world, Mochi continued, spirits dress themselves in physical bodies and can be drawn to specific locations through prayer and ritual. Here, they are defined not by their form but by their essence. Everything that exists here overlaps something in the solid world. The beings here live in an exalted state, free from the physical maladies of disease, decay, and death. A thing from the utsushiyo will inevitably wither and fall away, but its essential nature, its spirit, lives on in the kakuriyo.
The vast, roiling void began to divide, forming two identical halves of an enormous whole. On the one side, rocks and trees and rivers took shape; on the other, spectral reflections of the landscape shimmered into view, a perfectly symmetrical world split down the center by a hazy line.
This is why the kami that make war upon your world are so alien and strange. They were never meant to manifest so completely, so quickly, under the stress and strain of rage. Our worlds are connected, but there is great distance between them. Traversing that distance is horrendously difficult, and nothing that pierces the veil between substance and spirit does so unchanged. Think of it as diving through a wall of thorns—you are still you when you emerge from the opposite side, but your outer shape is changed, even to the point of rendering you unrecognizable. You are still you, but you are bleeding, half-blind, and twisted by pain. The realms were not meant to interact this way. Indeed, they could not until Daimyo Konda found a way to breach the barrier.
The more solid half of the realm began to fade from view, even as its ghostly counterpart glowed more brightly. The edge of the kakuriyo became more distinct, circling the border of the spirit realm like half-frozen river filled with sharp shards of ice. Wisps of smoky energy trailed through the barrier, disappearing and returning like a needle and thread through heavy fabric.
The mages and adepts of Kamigawa have always been able to do wondrous things by tapping into the power here. The kitsune chant that grows crops, the healer’s balm that closes wounds, the warrior’s prayer that summons courage—all these things are possible only because of the spirit realm and the essential energy it contains. This is the source of all magic in the utsushiyo, of all magic anywhere. It is the vital force that makes life and conscious thought possible.
All along the scaly border, heat and light and smoke rose to the barrier, disappeared, and returned at some distant point along the barrier. There was a natural bleed between the two realms, an exchange of essential substance that kept the two worlds in balance.
Your father was not content to seek the spirits’ blessing before he accessed their power. He bypassed the natural order of things and seized a powerful spirit himself, with his own hands, binding it to his world and his will. In doing so he created a rent in the veil between our worlds, a rift that angry kami have been widening with each new attack. But in taking direct action in your world, we become vulnerable to it as well. Just as our power affects your world, your worship affects our power. The more we interact with the physical world, the more like its native residents we become.
I cannot speak for the great myojin, but I do know that we kami, we lesser spiritual entities, form attachments to the physical world. These attachments grow stronger as we hear more prayers and you build us more shrines.
Take the wind, for example. Kamigawan sailors pray to the winds daily. They’ve personified her, given names to her different moods, even separated her into distinct entities for north, east, south, and west. She remains ever the wind, whole and monolithic, but her lesser aspects are far more familiar and accessible. When she is cold, bitter, and spiteful, they call her the Dolorous Kami of the Northern Gale. When she is warm and encouraging, they call her the Western Breath of Abundant Life.
I myself am a lesser aspect of the greater moon spirit. We are distinct, but I am ever a part of something larger. My existence, my power is tied to that of the whole moon in all of its phases.
A droning buzz started somewhere in the void. Michiko saw something like the point of a blade punch through the fabric of the spirit realm. The wound widened, becoming a long, glowing tear. The brilliant line of energy swelled at the center, expanding until it had formed a round disk. The circle of light spun in place. The substance of the void around it swirled in response, following its motion.
Dread recognition surged through Michiko’s spirit. This was the same vision Mochi had shown her before from the night of her birth. On the other side of that hole in the spirit realm with her father stood General Takeno, Headmaster Hisoka, and a hooded soratami.
This is the Konda’s crime, Mochi said. The theft of a living kami from the spirit realm. But it was no lesser spirit he captured. The prize he took was greater even than the most powerful myojin.
For just as there is a kami for every single thing in the physical world, there is one kami for all things in the physical world. I would show you its origin if I could. I would show you it whole and complete if that were possible. Know that it is the essential spirit of both worlds, brought into existence to embody and enforce the boundary between utsushiyo and kakuriyo.
The swirling portal had churned the spirit
realm into one giant vortex. Michiko saw again how the magic was creating motion that caused the stuff of this place to accrete, to bind to itself and grow ever larger. Already a flat disk was forming near the portal, gathering the raw material of the kakuriyo to itself.
Far, far in the distance, a sun bloomed to fiery life. Michiko shuddered. Soon, more suns would come to life and fill the horizon, but they were not suns, they were eyes, the eyes of something vast and terrible.
Before light separated from darkness, before chaos separated from order, it was. Long ago it was called O-Kagachi, the Great Old Serpent. Its existence marks the schism between flesh and spirit, as it was the first thing to divorce these inherent aspects from one another. Since that split in itself, it has been a tireless and stern guardian of the boundaries between our worlds.
Everything in your world is derived from its substance. Everything in ours is derived from its essence. It sundered the connection between our realms, and it will destroy both before it allows that gap to be bridged anew.
Four pairs of star-sized eyes were burning across the void. They came forward like a great wave, rolling toward the disk and the glowing portal.
Michiko focused her thoughts. My father captured the O-Kagachi?
Mochi’s voice laughed musically in her head. Bless you, child, but that is not possible even for a man of your father’s stature. No, he seized an aspect of the Great Old Serpent, a portion of its essence, which he then brought to your world.
Think of it this way. When you brush your hair, you barely notice if a strand comes off on the bristles. But if you were asleep in your bed and someone tore out a handful of your tresses and a section of your scalp, you would react … violently.
From the portal, Konda’s powerful voice commanded, “Come!” The stony disk began to drift toward the glowing circle, and Konda cried again, “Come!”
Your father did more than tear out the O-Kagachi’s hair. He tore out its heart, the part that gives the rest of its existence purpose. It is now mad with grief and rage, furious to reclaim what was stolen and punish those who took it. The spirits are not like you, Princess, least of all O-Kagachi. The only way you can understand the depths of its rage is for me to put it in human terms: On the night a daughter came to Daimyo Konda, Konda stole O-Kagachi’s daughter from the spirit realm. That which was taken was as precious to the great serpent as any true child could ever be.
Michiko watched the entire spirit realm freeze as Konda’s hands came through the portal and seized the stone disk. Her thoughts were a confusing jumble. Daughter?
Your birth was the key. The confluence of events infused the daimyo’s spell with sympathetic magic. The stars were right, the worlds in perfect alignment. As you emerged into this world, so did O-Kagachi’s daughter. The spirit in your father’s hands is derived from the Great Old Serpent, and occupies the same position to him as you do to Daimyo Konda.
We may think of her as The Taken One. Her power has made Konda’s nation stronger than ever before. It has also all but destroyed her, and we must see that your father’s folly does not finish the job. For if balance is not restored, the Great Old Serpent will rise in his terrible glory, destroying both realms and obliterating Kamigawa itself.
Her father’s hands dragged the disk through the portal. All motion froze as the O-Kagachi roared. Then, the vision changed. They were no longer witnessing past events in the spirit world but current ones in the physical world. Three of O-Kagachi’s terrible heads knotted and undulated across the skies of Kamigawa, bearing down on the tower at Eiganjo.
Now we must depart, Mochi said. The stakes could not be any higher, nor could I make them more plain.
Michiko did not weep as the spirit world faded from view. She was tired of weeping, tired of bearing the onerous burden of her father’s crime. She was tired of the terrible, destructive wrath Konda had brought down on his own people, her people, all the people of Kamigawa. She was tired of being the daimyo’s daughter.
General Takeno was surprised to find Isamaru running loose inside the tower. In the confusion surrounding the evacuation, the dog must have been taken from the kennels and brought inside, but he was now unaccompanied. His face lit up when he saw Takeno, and he barked happily, his tail a blur.
Takeno considered the burly Akita for a moment. The daimyo’s dog had been trained as a bodyguard to protect Michiko, but it was not a war dog like the feral brutes used by Godo’s raiders. Still, Isamaru had mastered all the basic commands and knew when to attack and when to wait for the command to do so.
Thunder boomed overhead. Takeno quickly crossed to the nearest window, Isamaru happily padding beside him.
The three-headed monster was almost close enough to strike. Its wriggling, serpentine necks folded back on each other, twisting into a complicated knot that nearly filled the sky. A single one of his heads was as large as the tower.
Takeno said a quick prayer to the Myojin of Cleansing Fire, the spirit of justice that had always fought with Towabara in the past. Then, the old soldier reached down and removed Isamaru’s collar.
The big dog shook itself then met Takeno’s dour glare with happy eyes.
“Lieutenant.” Takeno’s voice was quiet and firm.
“General!” The young-faced soldier snapped to crisp attention and saluted.
“Take this stray dog—” he pointed at Isamaru—“and release him through the north gate. He seems healthy enough. His chances are far better on the plains than here.”
“Yes, General.” The young man gave no sign that he recognized the dog, but every soldier in Eiganjo knew Isamaru. The dog let out one last booming bark, then scrambled to follow the lieutenant down to ground level.
Takeno made a mental note to credit the lieutenant’s devotion to duty. If he wondered why Takeno was sending the daimyo’s dog away or if he wondered why a dog’s chances were better outside than a soldier’s were inside, he was disciplined enough to keep his concerns to himself. Such resolve was rare these days, especially among Konda’s new recruits.
The general took one last look at the looming figure of O-Kagachi. He crossed the tower to the far side. Yosei still circled the tower, and his eagerness for the upcoming fight visibly increasing as three-headed serpent drew closer.
Takeno leaned forward and stared down at the north gate below. The haze was thick, and his eyes were old, but he could just make out the exterior walls and the great stone doorway.
He looked out over the plains north of Eiganjo. The refugees were out of sight, long gone, but he trusted Captain Okazawa to keep them moving. The farther away they were, the safer they’d be.
He glanced down at Isamaru’s collar, forgotten in his hand. If all went well, the daimyo’s dog would find a home with the survivors he met on the plains. If not, he would probably wander the fertile acres, living on what he could find until starvation, disease, or a kami attack claimed him. He might not live very long, but he would live.
Takeno extended his hand out of the window. He bid Isamaru a fond farewell and dropped the dog’s collar. It twisted as it fell, and Takeno followed its progress until it too became lost in the fog.
The old soldier turned and ascended the interior staircase that led to Konda’s private chamber, preparing himself for his final battle.
Back in Hisoka’s offices, Mochi’s vision had taken its toll. Riko was wide-eyed and silent, clearly overwhelmed by what she had seen. Pearl-Ear and Michiko stood by each other, their hands clasped, their eyes resolutely on the smiling blue kami. Sharp-Ear stood, flabbergasted, repeating, “Is it true? Is what we just saw real?”
“It was real, Sharp-Ear of the kitsune.” Mochi had stood and clasped his hands behind his back once more. As they spoke, he paced back and forth.
“Hisoka and the soratami became involved only when we saw there was no way to dissuade Konda from his goal. I thought we could minimize the impact of his crime, maybe even prevent him from committing it, but he was like a man possessed and gave us no chance fo
r sabotage.
“Since then, we’ve been laboring to find a way to undo what Konda did. So long as he had the prize and communed with it daily, it was impossible. He was impervious to all arguments and compulsions. His body ceased to age, perhaps because it was so saturated with spiritual energy. Even I do not understand all the powers he reaps simply from possessing The Taken One. His will is firmer than ever, proof against the strongest magic. We could not force him to act once the prize had been taken, could not cajole or convince him to turn aside from his aims.
“I fear his constant proximity to the O-Kagachi’s child has driven the daimyo insane. He no longer sees any distinction between the rest of the world and himself. The human mind was not meant to contain the power Konda has. I think he has lost sight of what he was striving to attain. Now, all he cares about is keeping what he has: his life, his prize, and the rule of a great nation.”
A single pair of hands began a slow, measured, mocking round of applause from the corner of the room.
“Quite a show,” said a smooth voice, “but some of us have seen it before.”
Everyone except Mochi present turned toward the sound, their faces all showing various degrees of confusion. The little blue kami shook his head as he stared down at the desktop. His smile grew pained and he sighed softly.
“I wondered where you were, Toshi.”
Toshi emerged from the shadows, still clapping with machinelike precision.
Mochi turned and bowed. “An aspect of Night,” he said. “Very well done.”
Toshi winked. “Just getting started, actually.”
Sharp-Ear sprang forward, positioning himself between Toshi and the others. “What is he doing here?”
“Settle down, Fuzzy. I’ve listened to Mochi’s stories before. You can’t just take them at face value.”
“Stand easy, Sharp-Ear,” Michiko said. “Toshi and I have an understanding.”
Heretic, Betrayers of Kamigawa: Kamigawa Cycle, Book II Page 18