L5r - scroll 07 - The Lion

by Stephen D. Sullivan

  The huge ivory gates of the Dragon palace swung open. Great hordes of samurai and tattooed men streamed down the marble steps and into golden-scaled dragon boats waiting in the lagoon. Silently, they took their places beneath the oars as their lord and his companions watched from the head of the stairway.

  Togashi Yokuni was the very essence of power. His armor, covered in fine inlaid scales of gold and jade, shone in the darkness. The daimyo's golden eyes gleamed from beneath his horned helmet. He looked taller, larger, prouder than any man could be—though his stature was not much greater than those who stood next to him.

  On his right stood Reiko, the captain of the lord's dragon ship. Her daisho swords were tucked into the belt of her sea-green kimono. An exquisite dragon tattoo wound up her neck and curled over her left eye. A wry smile played across her pretty face.

  To the great lord's left stood the Hooded Ronin. He leaned against his flute-topped staff and watched the preparations below. The green of his cloak matched that of Yokuni's armor.

  As the final samurai settled into their positions, Reiko turned to her master, bowed, and said, "All is in readiness, great lord."

  Togashi Yokuni nodded to his samurai-ko. Prepare to leave. Though his lips never moved, his deep voice rumbled like thunder in their minds.

  Reiko bowed again and hurried down the steps. The Dragon lord turned to his companion. Now, his mind spoke for the

  Hooded Ronin alone. Tell me, my friend, do we come too late?

  The Hooded Ronin shook his head. "I know no more than you. To see the future is to change it, Shinsei tells us."

  Hai, said Yokuni. I know it well. He turned his head to survey his palace and the mountains surrounding it. This place is like paradise to me. I hate to leave it.

  "The battle to come will shake the pillars of heaven," the Hooded Ronin replied. "Perhaps, once the final echoes of conflict die away, you will need never leave your home again."

  Togashi Yokuni nodded grimly. Hai. This will be my final journey. I both dread and welcome it. My eyes gaze far, ronin, but beyond this I see only the Void." He took a deep breath of the cool mountain air. The palace seemed to shake as he exhaled. Have you spoken to the others?

  "All except one."

  Yes, and I, too.

  "We have done what we could, you and I. You have summoned the souls of the Seven Thunders even as I have gathered their bodies. Soon, body and spirit will be one. Even now, they come."

  The Seven Thunders, Yokuni rumbled, together again for the first time in a thousand years.

  "They are not the same men and women, great lord," the ronin said gently.

  Their spirits are the same, Yokuni replied. That is what matters. The strength of their souls will allow us to defeat Fu Leng once more.

  "The Fortunes willing," the hooded man added.

  Hai, the Fortunes willing. The Dragon's thoughts echoed into silence. But we have one more straggler, you and I...,

  "Your 'daughter,' Mirumoto Hitomi," the ronin said.

  Togashi Yokuni nodded. A difficult one, she. Though not of my blood, our fortunes are deeply intertwined.

  "She burns with the fires of hate," the Hooded Ronin replied.

  But she is destined for great things, said Yokuni. His voice echoed in the ronin's head. I drew the tattoos upon her body with my own hands. I have seen her future. I'm sure she'll do the job fated for her. The lord of the Dragon gazed out over his kingdom once again, and his eyes took on an otherworldly gleam.

  The Hooded Ronin regarded his old friend respectfully, waiting for the lord to speak again.

  I have seen her. I will speak to her now, for both of us.

  With that, he faded into starlight. The ronin leaned against his staff and waited. He felt the eyes of the Dragon troops on him, but he paid no attention. The samurai had seldom seen their great lord; they were not used to the miracles he could perform. In the days to come, the ronin knew, they would see many more.

  The stars turned slowly but inexorably. Finally Yokuni reappeared as silently as he had gone.

  "Did you find her?" the ronin asked.

  Hai. His voice rumbled like a volcano in the traveler's mind. I have set her feet upon the correct path.

  "Then the Day of Thunder is at hand."

  Hai—after all these countless years. Let us depart.

  Yokuni walked down the long, white steps toward Reiko's dragon boat. His armor made no more noise than the scales of a serpent plying the Sea of the Sun Goddess. The Hooded Ronin followed, his footsteps echoing off the gold and marble walls.

  They boarded the golden craft and took their positions at the bow.

  "Open the gates!" Reiko called to her samurai on shore. The warrior men and women worked the huge winches that opened the gigantic doors of the Dragon's secret lagoon.

  The colossal boat swept forward as a hundred samurai pulled on the mighty oars. Water surged before the ship's bow, creating great white waves to herald the Dragon lord's coming. The other ships in the armada formed up behind their daimyo, trailing close in his powerful wake.

  The dragon ship passed through the gold and ivory gates of the lagoon and into the rapids beyond. The mighty vessel seemed almost to fly through the water.

  The Hooded Ronin picked up his staff and blew a somber tune across the flute end.

  The storm is coming. Yokuni's unheard voice shook the ship's timbers. Soon, there will be thunder.

  CITY OF EVIL

  A pestilent summer wind scorched the great city of Otosan Uchi. In the emperor's gardens, flowers thrust themselves from the earth only to perish in withering heat. The great waterfall, Fudotaki, ran slowly, its river polluted with debris, plague-stricken bodies, and things far worse. The castle walls shone green with mildew and sickly moss. Ashes and dark lichens clung to the high, red-tiled roofs. In the Forbidden City, the silence was broken only by scurrying rats and screams from the city beyond.

  In the city, chaos reigned. People built piles of their plague dead and burned the bodies in the streets. Temples blazed with orange fires. Worship of Amaterasu and her kami had been replaced by supplications to just one god: the living god Hantei the 39th. The people built new altars and sacrificed their neighbors, even their children, to one they hoped would save them from the plague.

  High in the palace towers, Empress Kachiko gazed out over the city, watching greasy black smoke roll into the gray summer sky. Thunderclouds boiled constantly overhead, mingling with the smoke. From the clouds fell ebony rain. People who drank it died.

  On a distant rooftop, Kachiko noticed the sacrifice of a teenage girl. The murderers wrote the characters of the emperor's name in their victim's blood and flew it on a banner above the house.

  The fools, Kachiko thought. The blind fools. The emperor will not save you; he wants you all dead.

  She pulled her kimono tighter around her supple body, despite the warmth of the summer day. Bone-chilling cold permeated the great castle, no matter how hot it grew outside. Darkness closed in on Kachiko. She clenched her fist so tightly that her fingernails bit into her soft palms.

  Patience, she told herself. You must be patient and survive. Salvation is at hand.

  Already, the combined armies of the Great Clans massed outside the city walls. Skirmishers hemmed in the tainted city, permitting no Shadowlands sympathizers to enter Otosan Uchi. Evil men and creatures that tried to leave were killed.

  Still, the battle for the city had not yet been joined. Hantei the 39th kept his troops at the ready. Shadowlands monsters, corrupted Crab, and loyalist Lion massed within the city walls. These last, Kachiko did not understand at all.

  Tsanuri led the Lion. Kachiko knew they were loyal, but she couldn't believe that their loyalty to the Hantei outweighed their good sense. The half of the Lion led by Kitsu Motso milled outside the walls by themselves. They had not joined Toturi, and so they stood on their own, proud and defiant, but still opposed to Fu Leng.

  So far, the divided Lion forces had not fought each other. So
far, Lion had not spilled Lion blood. When they finally did, all of Rokugan would be awash in crimson. The empress cursed Toturi for not bringing the divided clan together.

  Toturi.

  His name still burned in Kachiko's brain. He had slain her husband, Bayushi Shoju. She hated him for that. Yet, now her salvation depended on him—on many people she hated. A cold hand clenched around Kachiko's heart.

  Her anger, once her strength, had now become poison. Enemies surrounded her, within the castle and without. Her husband, the dark kami's pawn, could slay her at any moment. Those outside the walls could kill her just as easily. Amaterasu knew she had given many of them cause to want her dead. Yet, in those same people lay her only hope, perhaps the hope of all Rokugan.

  Kachiko's heart faltered. In her mind, the path to the outside world blazed brightly. She knew the secret ways of the palace; no one would stop her. No one would even know she was gone before it was too late.

  She started walking, leaving the pale light from the window behind, ignoring cries of death from outside the palace. She strode confidently beneath tall-timbered halls. Droplets of brown, sticky moisture fell from the high ceilings around her. The air smelled dank—like a grave. Strange, soft music drifted to her ears.

  Music. It called to mind her words with Togashi Yokuni. The Great Dragon had come to her the last time she contemplated leaving the palace to flee Fu Leng's impending wrath. Yokuni had turned her aside from her intended course. He had spoken to Kachiko of her hatred, and abandoning it to fulfill her true mission. The Mother of Scorpions bridled at the thought. She knew Yokuni as well as anyone in Rokugan. She fathomed secrets about him that only the Dragon lord—and the Scorpion—knew. This should have given her power during their meetings.

  Yet, in his presence she still felt like a child. He told her that her fate was to stay in the palace, that here she must fulfill her destiny. Though every fiber of her being told her she should flee, Kachiko had turned back.

  The Mother of Scorpions cursed her own weakness. She wished that she had ignored the Great Dragon's advice and fled the castle when she had the chance.

  Her feet slowed to a halt. Reaching into her kimono, Kachiko pulled out a small, blue crystal vial. She held it up to the window to catch the light. Little of the dark fluid remained within.

  This poison, subtly administered to the Hantei, had kept the boy emperor near death for many months. Now, though, he grew stronger, even as she increased the dosage. Kachiko feared that soon the poison would have no effect at all. She feared what would happen then, both to herself and to the world. She could not stop now; she could not flee. She was caught in a trap of her own making.

  Tears welled up in the corners of her eyes, and she longed for the advice of her slain husband, Bayushi Shoju. At night, even as she lay with the boy emperor, Kachiko sometimes felt Shoju beside her. She heard his melodious voice drifting in the sea breeze. In her mind, she saw Shoju dancing his catlike kata of destruction—the practice and exercises that had made him the greatest swordsman in Rokugan. Her body longed for his touch. Her heart ached at his absence. He was the best man she had ever known, the only man worthy of her love.

  "Bayushi Kachiko," a voice rasped from behind her, "it has been a long time."

  Kachiko's heart froze, and she spun on the balls of her feet. In the corridor behind her stood Junzo, the dark sorcerer. Once, he had been the most prominent shugenja in her clan; once, he had been her friend. Now, though, he was death incarnate, Fu Leng's herald upon the tainted soil of Rokugan.

  The empress had known Junzo was within the city walls. She had heard tales of his dark deeds. Until this moment, she had managed to avoid him. Now she stood alone with him, trapped in the middle of a decaying hallway. Kachiko's mind quickly calculated the distance to the nearest secret panel. She could not reach it before Junzo would catch her.

  Fu Leng's herald was an awful sight. Moldering crimson robes hung from his skeletal frame. Long, talonlike fingernails curved from the ends of his hands. His stringy white hair hung over his bony shoulders in long clumps. His eyes blazed with unholy green fire. He licked parchmentlike lips with a slimy, purplish tongue.

  "Yogo Junzo," Kachiko said calmly, using his "forbidden" family name as he had used hers—all Scorpions had lost their names by the emperor's decree. "I heard you were in the city. Have you slain everyone outside the walls then?"

  "Not yet," he said, his voice like steel against slate. "Soon, though." He smiled, the skin near his mouth crinkling like leather to reveal his yellow teeth. "I was hoping you and I might have a chance to . . . talk." He slowly walked forward until only a few paces separated him from the empress.

  Every fiber of Kachiko's being screamed at her to flee, but she stood her ground, regarding the shugenja calmly with her black eyes. The green flecks within her dark orbs sparked with anger. "There is little we have to say to each other."

  "There is much," Junzo said, inching closer. "We are much alike, you and I." His blazing eyes ran up and down Kachiko's magnificent form.

  She suppressed a shudder. "We are nothing alike."

  "But we are," he said, licking his pale lips. "Both of us are driven by revenge—the desire to right wrongs done to us by others. And we have much to seek redress for, many who must pay for crossing us, am I not right?" He was close enough now that she could feel his fetid breath on her smooth, white neck.

  "You are wrong."

  "I think not," he said leaning so close that he could have licked her face with his diseased tongue. "No matter how much you may deny it, we are soul mates, you and I."

  Kachiko held her breath. She forced her gaze away from his burning eyes and looked past him. She felt the sallow warmth of his body. He will embrace me, and I will die, she thought. Then, her eyes caught sight of something that made her heart sing. Bayushi Aramoro, her brother-in-law and most faithful servant, stepped silently from a secret passage at the end of the corridor.

  Aramoro was a tall, lithe figure—strong but supple, much like her late husband. He had a rugged, handsome face and black eyes that sparkled in the corridor's dim light. His midnight blue kimono made no noise as he walked, nor did his footsteps make a sound on the wooden floorboards. Seeing the confrontation between Kachiko and Junzo, his hand stole to the hilt of his katana.

  Kill him! Kachiko thought, urging her brother-in-law forward. Kill him! She kept her eyes from focusing on her friend, but Junzo felt his presence nonetheless.

  "I sense that we are no longer alone," the dark shugenja said, turning to look at Aramoro. "Bayushi Aramoro, it has been a long time."

  "Much has changed since we last met, Junzo," Aramoro said in his pleasant, deep voice.

  "Still a lapdog, I see," Junzo said.

  "And you as well," Aramoro replied.

  Junzo's ashen face flushed red with anger. His blazing eyes gazed from Kachiko to Aramoro, and then back again.

  He is judging whether he can kill Aramoro and then do what he wants with me, Kachiko thought. Or whether he may have to kill us both. The Mother of Scorpions felt none too sure of the odds. She had never met anyone, save her late husband, that Aramoro could not kill—but she had never met anyone like Junzo, either. The empress held her lips tight, lest they should quiver.

  "Isn't it time you checked on the emperor?" she asked.

  Junzo looked around nervously and listened. "Perhaps you are right, Lady Kachiko," he finally said. Bowing curtly, he turned and glided away, his bony feet floating lightly above the polished wooden floor.

  Aramoro walked quickly to Kachiko's side. "Did he harm you?"

  Kachiko shook her head. "He might have if you had not arrived when you did. Thank you."

  "I could still slay him if you like," Aramoro said, gazing down the hall in the direction Junzo left.

  "Don't be so sure," Kachiko replied. She reached up and brushed a damp lock of hair from her forehead. Until that moment, she hadn't realized how much she had been sweating.

  Aramoro nodded to her.
"You should let me take you out of here."

  Images flashed before Kachiko's mind: the Spine of the World Mountains; the great sea Umi Amaterasu, so close to the walls, yet forbidden to her; the River of Gold, flowing through lands once controlled by the Scorpion; Kyuden Bayushi, now lying in ruins. Ruins.

  "I can't," she said. "Though it tears my heart to do so, I must stay. The Hantei must be stopped."

  "I understand. What do you want me to do?"

  Kachiko took a deep breath. "You must be my link to Toturi and the others."

  "Toturi..." Aramoro said softly, venom in his voice.

  The empress continued as if she had not heard him. "My husband has cut me off from the rest of my servants, and there is no one else I would trust with the job anyway. You alone can escape the emperor's gaze. Only you can pass in and out of the castle and live. You must be my eyes and ears in the outside world."

  Aramoro bowed slightly. "I understand."

  "Go now. Bring me news as soon as you are able. Tell Toturi . . ." she paused and looked around nervously,". . . tell Toturi I am with him. I wait only for the proper moment."

  "I still think you should leave."

  Kachiko shook her head and her raven locks danced around her perfect shoulders.

  "Then I go." Aramoro bowed once more, moved swiftly down the corridor, opened a secret panel, and slipped inside.

  Only after he had left did Kachiko let her control slip. Her body shook, and her knees went weak. Cold sweat beaded on her skin. She stepped through another secret panel, exited to an exterior corridor, and threw the window open to get some fresh air.

  Hot, smoke-filled wind from the city flooded into the hallway. Kachiko coughed and backed away, a wave of nausea sweeping over her. She slumped to her knees, and her eyes stung with tears.

  Thunder shook the castle's foundations, and Kachiko tightly clenched her fists. Small rivulets of blood trickled down her palms and spattered gently on the floor.

  Soon, the storm would break.

  THE THUNDERS ASSEMBLE