L5r - scroll 01 - The Scorpion

by Stephen D. Sullivan

  Recently, the daimyo of the Lion and Crane came to an "understanding," and their petty wars diminished almost to nothing. Shoju didn't like that. A distracted enemy was easier to deceive or persuade. The Scorpion Clan had many enemies.

  That, of course, was the clan's job. Long ago the first Bayushi had been charged by the first emperor to become Rokugan's master of espionage. Since that time, the clan of the Scorpion had been distrusted by all the other clans of the Emerald Empire, and not without reason.

  People said the Scorpion heard all whispers and knew all secrets. Largely, this was true, but only Scorpions knew how hard they worked to get those secrets. Shoju and Kachiko knew best of all. Masters of spy-craft, they were privileged to serve the emperor against all his enemies, within the empire and without. Kachiko even held a formal position at the Imperial Court, as the emperor's personal aide.

  The Scorpion smiled again. He and his wife did their jobs well—too well to care that the Scorpions were despised.

  Shoju's thoughts turned once again to the Lion beyond the mountains. Akodo Toturi, born to rule the Lion Clan, schooled by monks—a master strategist and fighter. Not brash and impulsive like the other Lion leader, Matsu Tsuko, but cool and level-headed, at least on the battlefield. Though they had never met, Toturi was the one man Shoju feared in battle, the one man he could never defeat in his dreams. The Scorpion daimyo wished he knew more about the man. He made a mental note to have Kachiko's spies look into it. He would tell her after breakfast.

  Just then, the fusuma entrance to the room slid open. Instinctively, Shoju's hand went to the hilt of his katana. He relaxed as his cousin, Bayushi Tetsuo, entered the room. Two servants trailed behind the young lieutenant, carrying trays of food: fruit, bean paste, rice, nuts, and green tea. The servants set the food down, bowed, and left the two men alone, sliding the screen closed as they went.

  Tetsuo stood a few inches shorter than the Scorpion daimyo. He had a pleasant face and a square jaw. His body was strong and supple, a fact clear even under his carefully cut kimono. Tetsuo shaved his head in the traditional samurai style and tied what was left in a topknot. He seldom wore a mask while in the Bayushi stronghold, and this morning was no exception. Tetsuo liked to show off his good looks to the ladies of the castle.

  The young lieutenant bowed low to his master and laid aside his dai-sho swords as he sat on the floor beside the food. He kept the swords near his right hand, making them difficult to draw, as a sign of respect and trust.

  Shoju nodded and took a seat beside his cousin, laying aside his swords as well. Because he was left-handed, he put his swords on the left. This was not a courtesy Shoju extended to everyone. Often, when eating in public, Shoju placed his swords on the right. He did so both out of expedience and to maintain the dual nature of the Scorpion. Only those who knew Shoju intimately realized how dangerous he was with his swords in that position. Bayushi Tetsuo knew him well. Out of respect, Shoju put his swords on the left.

  "I'm honored to eat with you this morning, Lord," Tetsuo said.

  The Scorpion daimyo almost laughed. "You're not speaking to a Crane, you know," he said to the younger man. "You're among Scorpions. No need to put on such a pretty mask."

  Tetsuo's face reddened slightly. "Nevertheless. I am honored." He bowed his head a bit.

  Shoju waved his hand at Tetsuo, picked up a persimmon, and began to peel it. He carefully manipulated the food up under his mask and into his mouth.

  Tetsuo took a small bowl of bean paste in one hand and a pair of chopsticks with the other. He brought the bowl to his lips and shoveled in some of the paste. "You know, Cousin," he said around a mouthful of food, "your kitchens make the best natto in all of Rokugan. When I'm away from home, I always miss it."

  Behind his mask, Shoju smiled, though Tetsuo couldn't see it. "I despise the stuff," he said. "Though the staff knows you're fond of natto, which is why they continue to make it."

  "You won't mind if I have yours, then?" said Tetsuo. He'd finished his own bowl and now picked up the second. "Glorious morning, isn't it?" he said. "I saw Kachiko in the gardens. I'm surprised you didn't join her. You usually do, don't you?"

  Shoju nodded. "Usually, yes," he said. "But this morning I didn't want to intrude. I did not sleep well last night. I had ... a dream."

  Tetsuo stopped eating for a moment and looked at his cousin, forgetting that all he would see was the Scorpion daimyo's mask. The pale face looked back at him, neither happy nor sad, neither smiling nor frowning. "Only a dream?" Tetsuo asked.

  "A nightmare, really," Shoju said flatly. In brief, unemotional terms, he told Tetsuo of his experiences last night. Halfway through, the young lieutenant stopped eating. By the time his lord had reached the end of the tale, all Tetsuo could do was nod grimly.

  "A terrible dream. Surely you were in the grip of the oni ringetsu." Tetsuo nodded his head in a slight bow and said,"Baku kurae!" a traditional blessing against nightmares. "But you need not worry yourself. What Kachiko said is true: so long as you and she are together, there is nothing you can't accomplish."

  Shoju nodded again. Behind his mask he frowned. "Usually, I would agree with you. But this time ..." The Scorpion daimyo rose and went out onto the balcony. He leaned his hands on the railing and looked at the courtyard below. "This time," he said, "I fear the dream may hold my future—and the future of all Rokugan."

  Tetsuo rose and joined his master on the balcony. "I'm no shugenja, no expert in dreams. Perhaps you should consult one. Yogo Junzo, perhaps?"

  "Junzo thinks me a fool. He believes Kachiko leads me around by my obi, as if I were a doddering old man."

  The younger man's jaw dropped open in shock. "Junzo would never ..."

  Shoju turned on him suddenly, and Tetsuo felt glad he could not see the daimyo's face behind the bland mask. "Junzo would never say so, of course," Shoju said, almost spitting the words. "But I am the Scorpion. Little escapes my perceptions. No, Junzo may have his uses, but reading my dreams is not one of them. Not today."

  Tetsuo nodded politely. "I understand that you fear the portents of this dream," he said. "But no man may know his future—save perhaps for Uikku, the Serene Prophet."

  Shoju put his hand on the young man's shoulder. They walked back into the room together and sat down once more.

  The daimyo said, "What a Scorpion would give to know the

  things the Serene Prophet saw ... What I would give____What

  Bayushi Daijin did give...."

  "They say Daijin still haunts the catacombs beneath our deepest dungeons," Tetsuo said.

  The Scorpion daimyo looked at the younger man's face, holding Tetsuo's dark eyes with his own. "You believe this ghost story?" Shoju asked.

  Tetsuo shifted uncomfortably where he sat. "In my youth," he said slowly, "I often ventured into the catacombs. I saw many strange things there—frightening things. Whether I saw the ghost of this retainer, I cannot say for certain. But I do believe that such a ghost could exist."

  Shoju nodded slowly. "I believe it too," he said. "There is a tradition that the ghosts of our ancestors haunt the catacombs beneath the palace. In times of trial, Scorpion daimyos have sought answers from these spirits. My grandfather did so."

  "And ... ?" Tetsuo asked.

  "He never spoke of it afterward," Shoju said grimly. "And he died horribly."

  "I see," said the younger man.

  Behind his mask, Shoju's mouth drew thin and tight; his brow furrowed with determination. He stood and gazed out into the lands beyond the windows. In his mind, he saw the corpse-littered plain from his dream.

  "If such shades exist," the Scorpion daimyo said, "you and I shall find them and ask our questions. Together we will hunt the ghost of Daijin and wrest from it the secrets I need—the meaning of my dreams and the final prophecies of Uikku."

  THE DREAMER

  The hunter stalked through the ancient forest, looking for his prey. His every sense was alive with the fire of the hunt. His eyes darted, lightin
g briefly on a bent twig, a trampled bush. His ears listened for rustling underbrush. The aroma of the pine forest filled his nose; his mind set aside the evergreen smell and searched for his quarry's scent.

  He'd been on the hunt since the stars hung pale in the sky, just before the light of dawn painted the Spine of the World Mountains in gold. Now, morning cast long shadows, dappling the forest with splotches of green and yellow.

  A wide, clear stream cut across his path, and the hunter stopped at it. He dipped his hand in the cold water and brought it to his lips. He smiled at the sweet, pure taste. The serene isolation of the forest reminded him of his days in the Asoko Monastery.

  He shook his head and sighed. Those were simpler days, and sometimes the hunter missed them. His duties had called him away from his isolation, away from his studies. For whatever reason, the Fortunes had granted him great power in Rokugan. Such a fate could not be disregarded.

  A sound caught the hunter's ear: downstream, an animal drinking, shaking off the remnants of sleep, foraging for breakfast and a sip of cool water. His quarry.

  The hunter quietly rose from where he squatted. His sandalled feet deftly navigated a course of stepping stones across the stream. Quietly, he parted the ferns on the other side and vanished into the brush. He slipped with stealth through the undergrowth, walking mindfully as the old monks had taught him. Not a twig snapped under his feet.

  In a few moments he had ranged down the stream and had the boar in sight. The animal was foraging in the undergrowth, not fifty yards upwind. A satisfied smile came to the hunter's lips. He unslung the yumi bow from his back and nocked an arrow to it.

  The hunter aimed at the wild boar and pulled the string of the bow to his ear. He calmed his mind and listened until he could hear his own heartbeat.

  In the moment of perfect stillness, he opened his fingers. The bowstring snapped tight. The arrow flew straight and true toward its target.

  At the last moment, something—perhaps a succulent bit of root—made the boar turn its head. The animal squealed in pain as the hunter's arrow lodged in its shoulder. It turned, seeking the source of its torment, and quickly spotted the hunter.

  With a deep bellow, the boar charged through the undergrowth at the hunter. The marksman cursed his luck and dropped the bow to the ground. He didn't have time for another shot. Instead, he put his hand on the hilt of his katana and drew the sword in an on-guard posture.

  He could see the animal better now. It was large, at least four hundred pounds, with tusks that curved back nearly to its upper lip. Its eyes were red with fury, and its breath came in great puffs. Steam blew from its nostrils. The scent of the animal almost overwhelmed the hunter; it reeked of decay and anger and brute power. The boar smelled like death.

  The huntsman cleared his mind and stood ready.

  As he felt the animal's hot breath, the man jumped to one side. The boar tried to react, but it was too late. In one swift move, the hunter's sword flashed across the neck of the beast, opening a gaping wound. The boar grunted and fell to the ground, its life blood splashing on the dark earth.

  The hunter stepped forward and finished the kill.

  In less than an hour he had the beast dressed out and ready to carry. The hunter slung the boar's carcass across his shoulders and hiked back through the woods the way he'd come. Though it had taken him all morning to track and find the animal, it took him barely twenty minutes to return to his destination.

  He stepped out of the woods and into a tiny clearing. Just ahead of him stood a cabin, small, but exquisitely built. The posts and lintels of the building had been painted a cheerful red, and its paper shoji walls shone white in the morning sun. It looked like a small piece of heaven.

  The cabin stood on the side of a hill, overlooking the Kawa Mitsu Kishi, the so-called Three-Sided River, which divided the lands of the Lion from those of the Scorpion and Crane.

  The hunter frowned. He didn't like thoughts of politics to intrude on this perfect world. It didn't seem fair that so beautiful a river should be at the center of years of bloodshed. No, the hunter thought, people should appreciate the river for its beauty, rather than its strategic importance.

  The shoji screen of the cabin slid open, and out stepped an angelic figure, a bright kami—his lover, Hatsuko. Akodo Toturi adjusted the boar he carried on his shoulders and sprinted the last few yards across the clearing into the arms of the woman he loved.

  xxxxxxxx

  The Lion daimyo woke smiling. The late afternoon sun shone through the paper walls of the room, painting the tatami-covered floor with pale golden warmth. The perfume of love filled the small chamber, and Toturi drank it in like wine. He took a deep breath and exhaled it slowly.

  On the bedroll beside him, Hatsuko lay dreaming. Toturi gazed at her slender body and sighed. So beautiful. He stroked her black, silken hair, his fingers lingering over the strands. Gently, he kissed her forehead, but he did not wake her.

  This place, this time was so much like his dream. Lying here beside his love, he could almost believe the dream had been real. He could nearly imagine that the two of them were inside the mountain cabin, a fragile fortress built with his own hands.

  In reality, they lay together in a small room in a large house on the outskirts of Mura Kita Chusen, one of the towns surrounding the great city of Otosan Uchi. It was a geisha house, not a cabin—a house where Hatsuko worked entertaining samurai. This special form of entertainment she reserved for Toturi alone. He stroked her hair again.

  How much his dreams seemed like reality, and how much reality seemed a dream. Didn't Shinsei teach something about that? With his mind beclouded by sleep and love, Akodo Toturi couldn't quite remember.

  Indeed, this morning he had forsaken the town for the solitude of the hunt. As general to the emperor, Toturi had leave to hunt in the Imperial Forest, Fudaraku no Mori. He had seen great trees and a rushing stream similar to those of his dream.

  But his quarry today had been a doe, not a boar. The boar had been another day, another forest, the sprawling woods of his homeland, near the Scorpion border. No, this day he had not faced death, merely a challenge to his skills as a hunter. Of course he had triumphed. Toturi almost laughed to think how even so small a victory filled him with pleasure, but he remembered Hatsuko sleeping beside him and stifled the noise.

  So sweet, she was. In his dream she had met him at the cabin step. In reality, he and his doe "offering" had been met at the gate to the geisha house by Kitsune Junko, mistress of the house. Though the Lion general had come in disguise, as he always did, Junko fussed over him nonetheless. Toturi could never quite make up his mind whether to be flattered or annoyed by all the attention.

  In the end, Junko allowed him to bring his present through the inner sanctums of the house to the cooking pit out back. Hatsuko greeted him politely, as she always did. Later, the passion between them flared—as it always did.

  Toturi slipped out from under the bed's soft quilt, making sure the blanket covered Hatsuko before he left. Stretching, he crossed the small room and fetched his short kimono from where it lay. The Lion daimyo put the robe on and smiled again. He and Hatsuko had slept through most of the day, but Toturi didn't care.

  Here, in the Willow World of the geisha house, his responsibilities as head of his clan seemed a world away. Perhaps that was why he liked this place so much. He scratched himself and slipped his sandals onto his bare feet.

  Quietly sliding open the room's shoji screen, Toturi crossed the small porch beyond and went outside. Near the house, the doe still roasted on a spit over a fire pit. The fire had grown low. Toturi fetched a few logs and threw them onto the smoldering pyre. This diminished the log pile to a point that made Toturi frown. He walked behind the house to where the unchopped wood lay.

  The geisha mistress Junko would never have allowed him to stoop to so menial a task. The thought made him smile. Monks—even former monks—did many things in pursuit of a self-sufficient life, things no other samurai would
consider. He selected an armful of stout logs, took them to a nearby stump, picked up an ax, and began to split them. When they were done, he got another armful to work on.

  Soon a soft sheen of sweat began to bead on his forehead. This, too, brought a smile to the Lion daimyo's face. Chop wood, carry water, he thought. How simple, how clear life seemed here beside Hatsuko. How like his life at the Asoko Monastery.

  But Hatsuko wasn't like life in the monastery. Not in the least. She was everything good that the world had to offer. Soft-spoken, kind, warm to the touch, and sweet to kiss. Lips like nectar. Toturi licked his own lips at the thought—and split another log.

  He remembered the first time they'd met, at this very geisha house. His general, Ikoma Bentai, had brought Toturi here along with a number of other officers after a successful strike against a cadre of bandits.

  It wasn't a large victory by Lion standards, but in the peace that Toturi and his friend, Crane Daimyo Doji Hoturi, had imposed between their two houses, any battle was cause for celebration. The bandits had not been the pushovers they'd expected, either. They'd even had a rogue shugenja working with them. Toturi lost two samurai to the magician's flame tongues before he put his sword through the man.

  The bandit chief proved easier to kill. Bentai had piked his head even before the shugenja fell. Normally, the Lion daimyo wouldn't have ridden out on such a trivial matter, but the peace had made his men edgy. They needed to see him.

  Toturi's monastic background made him suspect to many in his clan. His brother, Arasou, had been expected to succeed to the clan's leadership, but Arasou had been killed in the battle to take the Crane city of Toshi Ranbo wo Shien Shite Reigisaho. The city of Violence Behind Courtliness had lived up to its name. Leadership of the Lions suddenly fell to the quiet, contemplative Toturi—who was summoned home from the monastery to fulfill his family's obligation.

  At first, the burden of leadership sat heavily on the young man. Soon, he discovered that his flair for strategy served his people well. Now, there was little the Lion armies could not accomplish militarily under his command.