Overhead, the moon slipped out from behind a cloud. Its light shone through a gap in Toshi's roof, casting a jagged shadow on the floor.
"You're right, big ears," he said loudly. "I can't draw any more kanji. But I can use the one I built into the roof."
As one, the moonfolk looked up. With the moonlight streaming through, the shadows from the rafters formed a clear symbol.
"Stay," Toshi read silently.
In response, a glittering purple breeze descended and crossed the room like a wave. The moonlight flickered as a cloud passed overhead. When it came back, the roomful of soratami were in the exact same positions. Their eyes darted back and forth, and some of them made low, moaning sounds, but they were otherwise frozen in place.
Toshi quickly began working his hands free. The soratami fingers holding him had enough give for him to twist himself loose, and he wriggled out from under their weight, kicking his ankles free as he went. Two of the moonfolk holding him toppled over as Toshi rose, and they remained where they landed, as still as stones.
The ochimusha quickly went to a loose floorboard and retrieved a bag of coins, his good jitte, and a small parcel wrapped in cloth and twine. He was very careful not to come into contact with the soratami. Incidental contact could disrupt the paralysis spell, and he didn't want to have to fight his way clear. He straightened his clothes and approached the female soratami where she sat on the floor.
"Here's where we all just walk away," he said, hoisting his pack over his shoulder. "I fouled up your score tonight and bloodied your noses, but I didn't kill you. Let's leave it at that. Do us all a favor and don't come looking for me again."
The woman's eyes were furious. Run fast, her voice rang in Toshi's ears, though her lips did not move. Run far. It won't save you.
He raised an eyebrow. "That was your voice in the alley, wasn't it?" He leaned down into her face. "This is twice now. See how well bothering me works out? If you want us to try to kill each other on sight from now on, that's your choice. But I can guarantee that you'll never see me coming."
Perhaps.
Toshi shrugged. "You keep saying that. It means nothing." He stood and strolled over to the trap door in the floor. He opened the trap, sat on the edge of the hole, and looked back at the two moonfolk who had fallen, each now staring helplessly up at the ceiling.
"You got off light," he called. "You should have seen the position I was going to leave you in."
Then dropped down into the fen and landed with a splash. As he took his first few steps, the moon slipped behind another cloud. When it emerged, it lit the entire area in an eerie silver light.
Toshi looked down. The shadows from the bamboo and part of his house formed a symbol in the muck that he hadn't intended. In fact, if he took a step back and included the floating bamboo leaves and swamp grass, he could clearly make out several symbols, a small group of naturally occurring kanji that his eyes had isolated from the surroundings.
Toshi sighed, then swore softly. Seeing symbols everywhere was a side-effect of mastering kanji magic, like an overly imaginative child looking up at the clouds. Toshi stared at the ground around him, not wanting to interpret the shapes but unable to prevent himself from doing so.
The shadows formed the kanji for "moon."
The leaves and grass combined to make the symbol for "unstoppable."
The oily mud kicked up by his feet spelled "disaster," or, if he squinted and cocked his head, "cataclysm."
Last, a fallen shoot of broken bamboo approximated a crude triangle, similar to the mark on his hand. As Toshi watched, the faint current caused the bamboo shoot to drift a few feet until it was partially overlapping the shadow symbol for "moon." The combined hyozan/moon symbol then burst into flame, charring the sodden ground and raising a fetid waft of gray steam.
Toshi swore again. He did not pray to any kami, but neither did he dismiss the power of the spirit world. These four symbols gave him considerable pause, because he believed that such serendipitous kanji were meant to be interpreted by those who found them. The meaning of "moon" seemed clear to him-he had a handful of angry soratami stewing on his hovel floor. The hyozan symbol pointed to his own involvement in the evening's festivities.
It was the symbols for "unstoppable" and "disaster" that were really troubling him. On their own, they didn't bode well. In taking them together with the other symbols, Toshi found a more pointed and pressing interpretation than a simple general cataclysm. Either he personally was headed for disaster, or the moonfolk were. Either the disaster was unstoppable, or the moonfolk were. He turned the potential readings over in his mind, trying to come up with something that didn't point to a conjunction of the hyozan and the moonfolk which would in turn lead to an unavoidable catastrophe for all involved.
Then, as he often did when magic showed him something he didn't want to see, Toshi became angry. It was no good going to the sea to dine on mussels if the moonfolk were going to press their complaint, if they were going to pursue him relentlessly until tragedy claimed them all.
Toshi was currently alive and healthy in large part thanks to his ability to recognize potential threats and react to them before they became dangerous. He grunted as he settled on the only sure meaning he could take from the odd collection of signs. The hyozan had come into contact with the soratami, and they were locked together until something vast and destructive happened to them all. He wouldn't be free of them without first paying a tithe of blood and fire and pain.
He felt the pressure around him change and a towering silence rose. Under his shack, the vile swamp water began to swirl, and a shapeless form began to rise. By coincidence or by the soratami's design, a kami was breaking through. Here, even in Numai, the spirits came to make war and kill a humble ochimusha in the bargain.
"Swell," Toshi said. His sense of self-preservation was one great boon that had kept him alive so long in Numai. Another was his habit of striking first. If the signs pointed to a mutually destructive event between him and the moonfolk, he would make sure that it happened on his terms and his timetable. The hyozan reckoners were in the business of revenge for hire, but sometimes they threw dice. Sometimes, like when his neck was in the noose, they were obliged to take preemptive revenge.
He tightened his pack on his shoulder, turned his back on the manifesting spirit, and disappeared into the gloom.
CHAPTER 3
By sunset on the following day, Toshi was well into the rocky foothills to the east, far away from Numai. The rugged terrain was surrounded by a series of naturally occurring stone needles that had once been broad mountains. Centuries of the cold, cutting wind had eroded them down to thin, towering mounds, their peaks invisible among the high clouds. The rest of these badlands were dotted with squat, rolling ridges and craggy bluffs, devoid of vegetation. The air was frigid here, biting and bitter, with most of the moisture concentrated above the snow line. Down here, at ground level, it was all dust and dry stone, the landscape a uniformly monotonous beige.
Normally, such a journey would have taken days even with the fastest steed and on the Daimyo's best roads. Toshi allowed himself to relax slightly. The soratami would never expect him to have come this far this quickly, even if they knew where he was headed.
Toshi patted his pack, which was lighter than it had been when he left his shack. So far, dealing with the moonfolk had forced him to reveal some of his strongest hidden assets simply to stay alive. He was thankful to keep the secret of his rapid travel for a little while longer.
Now that he was one step ahead of the soratami, Toshi concentrated on the challenges before him. He was on the fringes of Godo's realm, and the sanzoku bandit king guarded his borders zealously. As the last holdout against the Daimyo's army, Godo had been leading a guerrilla campaign against Konda for almost ten years, and it was only the vastness of his inhospitable region and the Kami War's drain on the Daimyo's resources that kept the bandits alive and free.
Godo and his band were also locked in a ter
ritorial struggle with the local akki goblin tribes, but Toshi had never cared enough to inquire further. He himself rarely came to the badlands, and when he did he followed a safe, straight line between Godo to the south and the akki to the north. He probably could have traveled directly to his goal by the same method that had brought him this far, but that would have exposed him and his secret to the bandits. It would also attract the akki, who would have chased him until they caught it. Better to go by foot and draw less attention.
Toshi hiked until the sun went down and it became too dark to see the terrain. Rather than continue and risk stumbling into an akki warren, Toshi bundled his cloak around him and scratched a kanji into the dusty ground. The symbol would make him invisible and undetectable without direct physical contact, which was unlikely in this desolate region.
It was cold and miserable and Godo's howling war dogs woke him twice, but Toshi managed to get a few hours of much-needed rest. Dawn found him already moving, following the ridge line due east. He began to see more plants and animals as the temperature rose and the cruel wind abated. To the north was the great Jukai forest, which was a lush as the badlands were barren. But Toshi's goal was elsewhere, in a deep, jagged valley on the very edge of the region.
He knew he was close when he saw the row of heads on pikes. They were in various stages of decay, but most were overly brave or stupid bandits who had strayed too far from camp. Some were would-be apprentices who had not survived their training period. There were also a few non-human skulls that Toshi couldn't identify.
Beyond the row of heads was a huge square rock that completely blocked the well-worn footpath leading east. Alongside the rock was a giant hammer, with a handle taller than Toshi and a head as big as a palanquin. The rock had been cracked and broken in places by the hammer, but judging by the mound of sand and dust the wind had piled up on one side, the huge weapon hadn't been wielded in years.
Toshi nodded, impressed. Between the heads and the hammer, the message was clear: this is o-bakemono country, and you are not welcome. The ogre mages did not like visitors but did like eating people. For the o-bakemono, especially the one he had come to see, the warnings were a remarkably social gesture.
Toshi turned sideways to slip between the pikes and circled around the huge block of stone to get back on the path. The rear face of the stone block had two large kanji carved into it. Most people who dared to come this far would be dissuaded by the symbols on the rock, which denoted the name and status of the creature who ruled this valley: Hidetsugu the ogre, o-bakemono shaman.
Toshi continued down into the valley. As he expected, it didn't take long for a response once he was past the gruesome warnings on the path.
A tall, broad-shouldered youth in dusty red robes came out of a stone hut at the bottom of the valley. He was bald and though he walked with a slight limp, he came toward Toshi with confidence, even malice.
"Turn and run," the bald youth called. His voice was like his body, thick and burly. "Master Hidetsugu already has a student."
Toshi dropped his pack and held his arms out. "I am Toshi Umezawa, and I have business with your master. Fetch him."
The youth drew closer, and Toshi saw he was covered in scars. His forearms and chest were criss-crossed by a network of ragged slashes. His left eye was split by a gash that might have been made with an axe or one of Master Hidetsugu's fingernails. His chin was off center and his nose was flattened across his right cheek.
The hulking youth stopped and reached behind him. He drew a vicious-looking tetsubo from his back, an octagonal war club lined with sharp metal studs.
"Turn and go," he said. "Or join the other heads." He swung the heavy tetsubo as effortlessly as a willow switch. "If your skull remains solid."
"I'm not going to do either of those things," Toshi said, "because I'm so intimidated. Look, just go get Hidetsugu and say the following three things to him: Toshi, hyozan, questions. If he still doesn't want to talk to me, you can bash my brains in as much as you like."
The bald youth snarled and took a step forward, raising his club.
"Enough." Hidetsugu's voice rolled out of the stone hut like an avalanche. It was pitched so low it made Toshi's spine tingle. "Stand aside, Kobo. I recognize this one."
The bald youth lowered his club and turned his profile to Toshi, tilting his head down. His eyes were closed and Toshi heard him whispering a student's mantra.
Hidetsugu the o-bakemono pulled himself out of the hut. The door was twice as tall as Toshi, but the ogre still had to crouch and strain to force himself through. When he was clear, he rose to his feet and lumbered up the path. With each ponderous step, the ground shook and dust rose.
Hidetsugu stood over twenty-five feet tall, each of his limbs as thick as Toshi's whole body. He wore a red robe similar to his student's, only his was trimmed in black. He carried a heavy, segmented plate of burnished metal on each shoulder and a girdle of similar metal covered him from his waist to his knees. His enormous head was flat and wide like a dragon's, with a sharp crest of bone running from the center of his forehead to the back of his skull. His great slashing teeth spilled out over his lips, as if even his powerful jaws could not keep them contained. He too carried a club, but Hidetsugu's seemed to be an entire tree trunk with arm-sized nails driven through it. His deep-set eyes glowed like red stars and his tongue lolled hungrily from one side of his mouth.
Toshi quickly pulled up his sleeve and showed the tattoo. "Greetings, oath-brother Hidetsugu."
The ogre kept coming, past Kobo and right up to Toshi. He dropped the thicker end of his club to the ground and used it to support his weight as he leaned forward.
"Umezawa," he rumbled. He pulled the armor away from his left collarbone, revealing a triangle like Toshi's burned into his flesh. The hyozan kanji was seared below the triangle.
"You said 'questions,' ochimusha. Make them brief." Hidetsugu let the armor fall back into place, covering the brand.
"Can we talk inside? I'd like to get out of the cold and wash the dust from my throat."
Hidetsugu stood up and thumped his club on the ground. "Questions," he repeated. "Make them brief. I have other guests, more important than you."
"Right," Toshi said. "Because you're such a gregarious fellow."
Hidetsugu growled and tightened his grip on the club.
"Master," the bald youth said. "If this worm is distressing you-"
"Relax, lumpy," Toshi said. "I came to Hidetsugu years ago, and we formed a pact. I can annoy him, but we're oath-bound to protect and avenge each other."
Hidetsugu cocked his head. "Your memory is very selective, Toshi. I recall you coming with some of
Uramon's dogs in order to kill me. As I was picking the last of them from my teeth, you offered to parley."
Toshi shrugged. "I had already devised a way out of Uramon's gang. You just gave me the opportunity."
"More like you amused me. And I was full."
"Don't make yourself sound so generous. I gave you the means to get Uramon off your back once and for all. She knows ogres, too. And demons. And monsters. Sooner or later, one of them would have come for you."
"Or all of them. Which was why I agreed to your proposition. I hate interruptions."
"Evidenced by your welcome mat of decapitated visitors."
Hidetsugu thumped his club. "Right now, oath-brother, you are an interruption. Get on with it."
"Okay, okay. Let's see. Questions, brief questions." He snapped his fingers and said, "Soratami? Kami in an uproar? Portents. Unstoppable, disaster, my neck on the block. Hyozan." He made a show of ticking off each point with his fingers. "Pact. Oath. My problems are your problems."
The ogre grunted, but did not reply. Toshi's playful smile faded.
"Something big is brewing, Hidetsugu. I've got trouble with the soratami, and the kanji don't look good. The signs say moonfolk and hyozan are bound to destroy each other. I get nervous when portents use such generalities."
Hidetsugu
squinted. "That seems specific enough."
"But it doesn't mention me," Toshi said. "Or you. If the hyozan and the moonfolk disappear, what happens to the individuals in each group? I'm not planning to wait to find out if this mess will claim me in the end."
Hidetsugu grinned, exposing his tusk-like teeth.
Toshi's stomach went cold. He liked ogre mirth even less than equivocal portents.
"Hidetsugu," he said. "Oath-brother. What do you know?"
The ogre's eyes danced as the brain behind them calculated. He raised his club, and Toshi sprang back, but Hidetsugu merely lowered the weapon back down onto his own armored shoulder.
"Kobo," he said, without looking at the bald youth. "Go to the spring and fill a bucket. Toshi is our final guest today, and even I did not expect him. We will shortly have grave matters to discuss."
"Inside." Toshi added.
Hidetsugu grunted again. "Inside."
*****
Hidetsugu's home was deceptively small from the outside. The stone hut covered a great sloping tunnel that led to a deep underground cavern that the ogre had excavated himself. The cavern was dimly lit and seemed to go on indefinitely. As far as Toshi could see, small patches of light created by torches and braziers were spaced unevenly across the vast expanse of darkness. Toshi's steps echoed off something hard and stony in the distance, but he had only the vaguest guess as to the room's dimensions.
Hidetsugu led him to a large, flaming brazier next to a brick furnace on the eastern wall. There was a crude wooden bench with a series of metal rods carefully laid out like cutlery at a formal dinner. The ogre began fiddling with the twisted, sooty pieces of metal.
"This is Toshi," he growled. "An ochimusha from the marsh." He twisted a small attachment onto one of the rods with a metallic click and tossed the contraption into the furnace with one end protruding.
"So?" The voices spoke as one from the left and right of the furnace, but the fire prevented Toshi from seeing who spoke.
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