by RW Krpoun
“My mistress requires the service of an expert warder on very short notice, for which she would be suitably grateful,” the man said calmly.
“I am not sure I would be considered expert,” Shad said slowly.
“A source at the gates described you as being of the seventh ring, whereas the greatest warder within the city is but of the ninth, and a terrible gossip. My mistress would expect complete discretion.”
“Discretion is a byword of my practice,” Shad assured him, class knowledge erupting inside his skull to advise/remind him that the locals had a complex philosophical explanation of the level-based learning system they had been saddled with generations ago, and that the term ‘ring’ was used in place of ‘level’. “How quickly does this task need to be accomplished?”
“The sooner, the better. Today would please my mistress best.”
“Consultations are under the seal of discretion, regardless of whether I take employment or not,” Shad said slowly, thinking hard. “What is the specific nature of the problem?”
“A raigan,” the man said respectfully. “Angry and strong.”
“Ah.” Shad drummed his fingers on the table. “What is your name?”
“I have the humble pleasure to be named Abnam,” Abnam gave a seated bow.
“All right, Abnam,” Shad opened the purse in his lap and made a quick count. “Return here tomorrow two hours before sunset with two good lamps filled and fitted with new wicks, four extra pints of lantern oil, very good quality oil, and the appropriate urn. I will deal with your mistress’ issue, and then I will receive a second purse identical to this one. Thereafter it will as if I had never left this inn. Agreed?”
“It shall be as you have specified.” Abnam rose, bowed, and left.
“Did you copy his mons?” Shad muttered as the man went out the door. Fred laid wood disks with the heraldic devices sketched in charcoal pencil. “Good.”
“What is a raigan?”
“A hostile spirit, a real bad one, usually created by murder, which explains why discretion on the part of an outsider is a key issue.”
“You ready for a raigan?”
“I’m not planning on going alone. Make sure you have plenty of healing ready by tomorrow.”
Abnam showed up early with a porter bearing the requested goods, but the Talons were waiting for him, armed and ready. With a minimal exchange of conversation the slender retainer led the four across the city to an old house on the west bank.
“This is the place,” he produced a key from his sleeve. “I will return at dawn with your compensation.”
“We’ll be here,” Shad nodded shortly. When Abnam was safely out of sight the warder turned to Jeff and Derek. “What did you guys dig up?”
“He’s not flying false flags,” the Shop teacher shrugged. “He is a house retainer of Kada Akemi, better known as the Iron Fan, the Daimyo’s cousin and personal representative here. House Kada is the ruling family of this region.”
“She is the city ruler,” Derek added helpfully. “Remember, family name before the personal amongst the Samurai.”
“Seems weird that there would be a woman in charge in this time period,” Fred mumbled.
“Women are often administrators,” Derek shrugged. “In the real world, our world, Samurai women ran the household and managed the money while men saw to politics and honor. Most women are not equal here, but if you are part of a Daimyo’s extended family you’re a big deal no matter what your gender.”
“Is she in charge of the military forces here?” Shad asked.
“No, there is a garrison commander who answers directly to the Daimyo; the Daimyo doesn’t like too much power in one person even amongst his fellow Kada-ians. The Iron Fan has only her law-keepers, but the garrison commander needs her logistical support, and the Daimyo was careful to choose two leaders who do not like each other. Check and balance.”
“So intrigue is thick on the ground.”
“Massively.”
“So what is it we’re ghost-busting today, and why is she paying twenty gold ku up front and twenty more when the job is done?” Jeff asked, turning over an abandoned bucket and sitting on it.
“A raigan. When a person dies here the soul casts off all its mortal memories; think of it as a data dump. The Death Lords infiltrate places and cast these long-lasting area devices…well, let’s just call them death traps. A suitable death activates the trap, and allows a bit of malignant life to snare the cast-off memories, creating, for a lack of a better term, a ghost. Warders who take up permanent residence spend a lot of their time hunting down and eliminating death traps for a bounty. Most ghosts aren’t all that potent, just nuisance creatures, and only certain deaths can produce a ghost even when a death trap is present.”
“But I bet a raigan is special,” Derek shook his head.
“Yeah. You get a raigan from the violent death, usually a murder, of a very violent and angry person. They are a serious problem.”
“And we’re going after it,” Jeff sighed.
“For forty gold ku, which is double the usual fee. Maybe the Iron Fan doesn’t want the word about the raigan to get out, it being the product of murder, after all.”
“Why the high fee?” Fred asked.
“Because they are tough to kill,” Shad pointed at the house. “And the only place you can kill them is at the site of the murder.”
“Ah.” The big Talon nodded. “So if the law-keepers said he choked on a fish bone in there, this would prove a cover-up.”
“Exactly.”
“So how do we kill it?” Jeff asked.
“I build a trap in there, and once it is trapped I have a ritual which kills it.”
“So is it in there?”
“The odds are that it is out in the city using the cast-off knowledge to wreak havoc. It will return when it senses a warder at its vulnerable point.”
“Why are we hunting a ghost with so little light?” Derek asked. “Speaking of which, why are we wasting daylight standing here talking?”
“During the hours of darkness the raigan has greater difficulty controlling its impulses; its memories and emotional residue have more control. During daylight the malignant force is dominant. Impulsive and short-tempered works in our favor.”
“If it is using its memories to wreak havoc, that would suggest its attention is upon the people it blames for its death,” Fred observed. “Such as our employer.”
“Which leads us back around to discretion being worth double pay.”
“So, if you can only kill it in the trap, what good are weapons?” Derek asked, one hand laid reassuringly on his katana.
“I’ll fix up your weapons; the raigan can be hurt with enchanted weapons, but not killed. It will attack by throwing or swinging objects, so stay alert.” Shad glanced at the lengthening shadows and sighed. “Best to start.”
“You do have enough coins, right?” Jeff asked, checking the lanterns.
“This isn’t that sort of magic,” Shad unslung a new knapsack. “Had to have this made to order. People here just wrap stuff up in a scarf.”
“It’s not a scarf, they call it…” Derek trailed off at the warder’s look.
Shad removed a stick of light blue chalk from the knapsack. “Let’s stick to primary weapons.”
“I brought my bow,” Jeff pointed out. “Do you need to do the arrows?”
“No, just the bow and your swords. Watch your backstop.” Hesitantly at first, and then with quickly growing confidence the Warder marked simple designs on their weapons, symbols which were not chalk lines but rather swipes of pale blue neon-like light hovering a quarter-inch above the material form of the blade or club.
“Cool,” Jeff examined the result. “Can we sheath them?”
“Yeah. They should last the night.”
“Let’s hope we do the same,” Fred grunted. “What is our job, specifically?”
“To keep it off me until I get the trap assembled. Once I get the trap c
ompleted the raigan will be drawn into it and held, and then it’s a race to see if it can break loose before I complete the process to put it down for good. In theory it’s very straightforward.”
“In theory so is a threesome,” Jeff observed. “But in practice someone always gets their feelings hurt.”
“Thanks for that timely observation,” Shad tossed the key to Fred. “You guys go in and pick out where we will fight it, the biggest room or area would be best. Gather up stuff it can throw and dump them outside. Once the place is to your satisfaction I’ll come in, which starts the clock.”
“What if it is already inside?” Derek asked.
“I doubt it will be as it doesn’t need to rest. If it is inside, lay into it and I’ll come running.”
“What does it look like?” Derek began doing a few stretches.
“I’ve never seen one, but class knowledge says it will be suitably awful-looking; remember the wraiths in the Prison? A tougher cousin.”
“I mowed those down like grass,” Fred pointed out smugly. “And was the last to fall.”
“Yeah, yeah, we know,” Shad waved them towards the house.
When Shad entered an hour later the house was reduced to a single large room devoid of furnishings and clutter, well-lit by the lanterns which hung from the exposed beams overhead. “It sounded like you guys were going to level the place.”
“We considered it,” Fred jerked a thumb towards the nearest lantern. “These are going to get us killed.”
“You would think so,” Shad nodded as he pulled a rose-colored stick of chalk from his haversack and began inscribing symbols on the bottom of the lantern, the glowing lines not quite touching the metal. “The thing is that Undead generally only meet a warder once in their existence and do not communicate with each other, whereas the reverse is not true. Makes for a steep learning curve for the Undead.”
Finished, he worked on the other lamp. “Done. I’ll use the center of the floor, it takes about ten feet on a side. Try not to step on it, but it isn’t the end of the world if you do. Once the raigan gets drawn in, get up against the walls. From there it’s all on me.”
“What do we do if it gets loose?” Derek asked.
“Go back to beating on it while I reset the trap. It dies in here or we do.”
“Can’t it just cut and run?”
“Nope. The trap works no matter where it is. Its only shot at survival is to kill me before I kill it.”
“How does a warder ever work alone?” Fred wondered.
“By drawing a safe zone around himself, which is a lot slower and complicated. I knew I would have you guys so I skipped all that when I chose my spells and focused exclusively on trapping and killing. In that regard I am probably more effective than well-rounded warders two levels higher.”
“Good planning.”
“Let’s hope so.” Shad removed sticks of yellow and pale blue chalk from his haversack and began drawing complicated designs in swirls of blue and gold neon light on the floor, or rather just above the surface of the floor.
Derek kicked his sandals into a corner, his thick socks providing ample traction. Gripping his hands in the small of his back he began to waltz around the edge of the room, the skirts of his kimono swirling as he moved.
“What the hell are you doing?” Jeff asked.
“Warming up. The art of the blade is as much about footwork as it is the stroke itself.”
The Shop teacher thought about that. “Yeah, I can see that.”
“I still don’t like these lamps,” Fred mumbled, eyeing the walls, his club resting on one broad shoulder.
“If you are right Shad will never hear the end of it,” Jeff shrugged. “With that hanging over his head I expect he has considered his moves carefully.”
“Shad being careful?”
“I can hear you,” the warder pointed out.
One moment there were three Talons watching the fourth draw complex glowing lines above the floor, and the next there was a dark swirling mass in mid-air between Derek and Fred, a swirling mass that was a cross between smoke and a dark cloak swirling in an unfelt wind, exposing hints of a skeletal frame within.
Even as Derek turned, his katana sliding from his scabbard like an adder’s strike, and Fred got his club up the raigan seized the nearest lantern and flung it at the big healer. The lantern shattered against Fred’s broad chest, but even as it broke the Undead was flooded with roaring fire, sending the creature reeling away in agony as the broken lantern fell harmlessly to the floor.
Shad paused in his drawing to flip a coin into the air, and a softball-sized ball of light soared to adhere to the beam where the lantern had been.
Jeff put an arrow into the writhing shape even as the fire died out, and was gratified to see that the shaft shattered with a spray of sparks that ate at the raigan’s form. Plucking an arrow from the row of shafts he had stuck into the wall next to him, he drew and released as Derek swept in, sword flashing into the Undead creature’s side.
The raigan shrieked, producing a sound like a recording of twenty broad fingernails dragging down a chalkboard being broadcast over really high quality speakers with the volume knobs red-lined.
Squinting against the pain ripping through his ears, Fred gave the raigan a solid two handed bash, his club rebounding from the impact as if he had hit a vertical roll of gym mats. Grunting with the effort he parried a wild swipe from the shade and speared the top of his club into what looked like it’s midsection. The raigan retreated as blows hammered into it, and the healer took heart: this looked to be easier than he had expected.
The bright light of hope was extinguished a second later as the creature caught the skirts of Derek’s kimono and used the howling Ronin as a bludgeon to smash Jeff off his feet. Setting his feet Fred swung his club with all his might, the impact forcing the creature to drop the cursing Derek.
The house rang with the raigan’s high-pitched screeching and the curses and challenges shouted by the engaged Black Talons, but Shad remained focused on the delicate process of tracing the required sigils in the correct colors. It went against the grain not to be directly involved in the battle, especially when Jeff tumbled across the floor nearby, bouncing back to his feet after a modified parachute landing fall, ripping his swords from their scabbards as he dove back into the fray, but the warder’s job was to deliver the killing blow.
Fred slammed into the wall after a backhand blow sent him reeling, pausing to catch his breath and to burn a couple charms on his cracked ribs. The raigan had no finesse or style, simply swatting at the three men, admittedly with terrible force. It fought doggedly, without much in the way of cunning, confident that its wounds were unimportant while its foes grew weary. Hefting his massive maul-like club, the big man hurled himself back into the fray.
Completing the last rune with the same care with which he had drawn the first, Shad sat back on his heels and surveyed his handiwork: a complex net of blue and gold swirled across the center of the floor. Satisfied, he flipped a pierced brass coin onto a specific rune and hopped back as the neon light pulsed and then stretched to the ceiling as the raigan abruptly appeared within the glowing symbols, its raging screams oddly diluted and distant.
Plucking a stick of green chalk from his haversack Shad began to etch strange letters of green neon which hung in mid-air as if he were standing before a transparent chalkboard.
Jeff gave a disheveled Derek a hand up. “That sucked.”
“This is it for kimonos in a fight,” the Ronin swore, carefully sheathing his katana before examining his ripped garments. “It used my skirts as a handhold.”
“Good thing you knew how to land,” Jeff nodded as Fred applied healing charms to the battered Radio Shack manager. “That was like fighting a tornado.”
“Are we done?” Fred scowled at the Undead creature’s efforts to break free from its neon cage. “Can it get out?”
“I hope not,” Jeff sheathed his swords and rubbed his face tiredly.
“We were like three toddlers attacking a lumberjack.”
“Should the lights be changing color like that?” Derek pointed.
“I’m the wrong class, but I would say no,” Fred worked his shoulders. “Looks like round two is about to start.”
Even as the net of light began to visibly fail Shad thrust an engraved coin into his green writing and the raigan was enveloped in jade fire, writhing like a moth on a bug-zapper.
“Damn, that thing is cooking…” Derek started to say, and then the raigan and the entire assembly of light soundlessly exploded, flinging the Black Talons about like bowling pins after a strike.
“Shit,” Jeff gasped from where he was a tumbled heap in a corner. “What the hell do you plan to do for an encore, Shad? Set fire to the place?”
“It wasn’t supposed to do that,” Shad explained as he climbed to his feet. “I got the mix wrong. My first time, remember?”
“Whatever. Tell me you killed it at least.”
Flipping a coin to create another ball of light to replace the last lamp, which had been smashed by the eruption, the warder limped to the center of the scorched patch of floor and knelt to study a small pile of smoking debris. “Yeah, it’s dead.”
“Good.” Fred levered himself upright with his club. “Who needs healing?”
“What I need is light,” Derek announced from where he was prying at a support beam with his tanto. Shad gestured and the first ball of light floated over to the Ronin.
“What do you have?” Jeff asked without interest as he looked around for his bow.
“A hidden compartment. The blast knocked it ajar.” Derek discarded a section of wood that had appeared to be a solid potion of the ten-by-ten timber, exposing a hollow within.
“You do remember that I can find and deal with traps, right?” Shad asked.
“If that blast didn’t set them off, I won’t.”
“Loot-happy bugger,” the warder shook his head and turned back to the remains of the raigan.
“Anything good?” Fred asked.
“Bag of money and some scrolls.”
“So there was a brutal murder here, probably the occupant of the place,” Fred said slowly. “Those who killed him certainly searched. Then the place sits empty, so you know the local criminal element tossed the place. But we just happen to find a hidden compartment purely by luck.”