The Priestess and the Dragon

by Nicolette Andrews

  Kaito huffed and then said, "Do you think I have not made sacrifices for you? I am laughed at by my equals and even my inferiors. They call me weak because a human woman has captured my heart. They say the great Dragon has been brought to his knees by a mortal! I risk losing my domain because I want to be with you." He tossed his hand in her direction.

  "But if I were immortal..." she pleaded.

  "No, Kazue." He spoke her name and thunderclouds rolled and shook the sky. She did not cower, which Suzume had to admit was admirable. She had been on the receiving end of Kaito's temper plenty of times. He sighed again. The clouds cleared away, revealing once more a bright day. He reached for Kazue again and this time she fell into his embrace. He buried his head in her hair as she clutched the fabric on his chest. "Can we not enjoy this time as we have it now? I do not want to think of a future without you, but if I must, I will find you in the next life and the next. We are meant for one another."

  "You're right. I'm sorry, I will not mention it again," Kazue said. Suzume could see Kazue's expression. Suzmume had made that same face many times in her life. Kazue had made up her mind and she would not be dissuaded.

  The field melted away and in its place, Suzume stood along the craggy surface of a mountain. The center of the mountain was cracked open like an egg and molten rock bubbled and hissed within. Someone walked along a narrow pathway between jagged rocks, a cloak pulled up over their head. Suzume knew her just from the way she walked, full of intent and power.

  Suzume followed Kazue to her destination, which was a hut carved out of the volcanic rock. The door was painted bright red, and outside were scattered chunks of ore and metal. Kazue knocked on the door in a deliberate rhythm. The door swung open and revealed an old bent woman. The old woman lifted her head and revealed sockets devoid of eyes, with the lids sewn shut. Her long white hair dragged on the ground. Her large knobbly hands clutched at a hammer with an enormous iron head that was bigger than the old woman's head. She held it with ease.

  "Who is it?" the old woman said. Her voice was reedy and high pitched.

  "My name is Kazue. Please let me in, I was told you could help me."

  The old woman sniffed noisily in Kazue's direction. "Very well, come in, Priestess." The old woman stepped aside to let Kazue in.

  Suzume followed, slipping in just before the door closed. Inside, more bits of half-formed metal gathered in the corners of the room. Steam hung about the ceiling like a cloud, and at one end a large fireplace dominated a wall. Inside, Suzume could see red-hot coals burning and bubbling. Is she using the volcano to make weapons? Blacksmith tools were laid next to the bellows, an anvil, and metal forms where the swords were poured.

  Kazue stood in the center of the room, looking out of place. The old woman moved some things around, shifting hunks of ore about. She would lift them up, sniff them, and either toss them back down or throw them into the flames of her forge.

  "You've come looking for a weapon, I assume."

  "Yes," Kazue said. Her breath exhaled and with it was all the tension she had been holding in.

  "Well, you've come to the right place. What sort of weapon, perhaps a sword? Or a bow and arrow? I have an arrow that is sure to hit the mark every time."

  Kazue shook her head. "No, I am looking for a weapon that can channel my spiritual energy."

  The old woman, who had been hobbling around the room, stopped. "Are you now?" She turned her sightless face to Kazue once more and took a deep breath.

  "You're a human, but you've the stink of dragon on you. What does a priestess want with such a weapon?"

  "There is something I must do. I need the weapon to do that."

  The old woman tutted. "It will not be easy to make."

  "Name your price. Whatever it is, I am willing to give it."

  "I want a dragon scale."

  Kazue sucked in a breath.

  "Your dragon doesn't know you're here, does he?" the old woman said. She grinned and revealed rows of sharpened teeth.

  Kazue looked at her hands, which she balled into fists. "No, he would disapprove if he knew."

  The old woman cackled. "Mortals, I will never understand you. Well, that's my price, dearie. Bring me the scale and we can conclude our business."

  "I will bring it to you. I will return within the week for my weapon; have it ready."

  The old woman cackled as the vision faded.

  Now Kazue paced back and forth in the same meadow as before. The flowers had withered and left behind only long leaves, which brushed against the hem of Kazue's robe. In her hand Kazue held the staff. It glimmered with gold markings worked along the shaft and near the handle. Suzume reached for the staff, but in this dream world she was unarmed. I wonder what the markings mean. Perhaps Kazue can tell me? If only I could reach her.

  Kazue stopped pacing and looked to the sky. There was no more joyful anticipation. The sky overhead was a bleak gray. The rumble of Kaito's approach rippled through the meadow and the leaves trembled. Kazue set down the staff among the leaves and went back to the crest of the hill to wait for Kaito.

  This time when Kaito landed there was no playful greeting. He was angry. His blue eyes sparked and the clouds overhead grew thicker and stronger. Thunder rumbled above as Kaito marched over to Kazue.

  "Kazue, what have you done?" Kaito said with a snarl. "Did you not think I would find out about the scale, about the iron woman's deal? The moment you left, she sent word to me. How could you betray me like this?"

  "Kaito, listen, I can explain--"

  "No!" he shouted. His voice shook the sky and the ground trembled beneath his feet. Lightning flashed across the gray sky.

  "I was a fool to trust you. The others were right, humans and immortals were never meant to mix. I should have known you would use me from the start."

  She reached for him, but he slapped her hand away. She recoiled and pressed her injured hand to her mouth.

  "Kaito, I was going to tell you about the scale once I finished. I found a way to solve all our problems."

  He shook his head. "That's what you do not understand. There is no us any longer. You cannot deceive me and expect forgiveness."

  "Kaito--"

  "Silence!"

  She took a step back. Though she looked ready to cry, she did not. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and took a few steps back towards where the staff was concealed.

  Kaito saw her and took a few steps to stop her. "Kazue, I do not want to hurt you, but if you raise that weapon to me--"

  "I'm sorry, I did not want to have to do this, but you leave me no choice." Kazue's voice cracked.

  Kazue picked up the staff and twirled it in front of her. It blurred into a circle of brown and gold. She sang a high and clear note. As she sang, lights burst to life in a circle at Kaito's feet. The leaves of the flowers had hidden it from him until then. He looked down at his feet and noticed too late the circle drawn into the earth. He looked up at Kazue, his expression fierce.

  "Kazue, how could you?"

  Tears streamed down her face, but she continued to sing. The sound was melancholy and so beautiful that it hurt Suzume to listen. She felt Kazue's emotions, her fear for her unborn child growing in her womb. Her love for the man she was trapping with her spell, and most of all her guilt.

  The lights spun around Kaito, slowly at first but gradually gaining speed and closing in on him little by little. He pressed against them, but touching them burned him. He howled like a wounded animal and cursed Kazue's name as the circle enveloped him, and when the spinning stopped, all that remained was a small round stone. Kazue fell to her knees. Rain burst from the clouds overhead and soaked Kazue to the skin.

  "I promise you. I will release you as soon as I am immortal. Then you will understand and we will be together again."

  The image faded and Suzume stood back in the cave, the stone in her hand. She stared at it for a moment. Now I see why Kaito was so angry when he woke up. I would be angry too.

  "Now
that you have seen what I have done, are you willing to listen, Suzume?"

  Suzume turned slowly, uncertain at first, but then she saw her standing there. Kazue, not as she had seen her in her visions, but a statue made of red stone. Suzume's mouth was dry, and speaking proved difficult for a moment. At last she managed to reply. "I don't suppose I have much of a choice, do I?'

  The apparition that was Kazue smiled. "No, not really."

  Chapter Forty-eight

  "So," Suzume said. She was not sure where to begin. "I guess you're me in a past life?"

  Kazue smiled; it looked strange coming from someone that was a bright hue of red. Even her teeth were red; it was like looking through colored glass. "I suppose you want an explanation as to why I showed you what I did," Kazue said in response.

  Suzume looked down at the stone in her hand. It was warm. The inside flickered like a flame. It seemed to throb in her hand, as if she were holding a tiny heart. What I really want is to return to the life I had. I want to be revered and cared for, not tossed around and nearly killed at every turn. For some reason, it was difficult to get those words out. She was face to face with Kazue, who was the real-life embodiment of Suzume's past life, and after seeing what Kazue had gone through just to spend eternity with Kaito, even if her methods were a bit strange, it made her own wants look selfish and petty.

  "I know you want to return to your former life, but that stone will not do that for you," Kazue said, seemingly reading Suzume's mind.

  Suzume looked up in shock. "How do you know that?" she asked. I should have known Hisato would lie to me. He just wanted me to retrieve this stone.

  "Because I am a part of you, Suzume. Or more accurately, you are a part of me," Kazue explained. She tilted her head as she regarded Suzume, her hands folded in front of her, resting on her stomach.

  "Does that mean I can read your thoughts, or I can see your memories because I lived them in a past life?" Suzume stared at Kazue, trying to summon the memories of the past, just to prove she could. When nothing happened, she frowned.

  Kazue chuckled. It was a delicate sound like the tinkling of bells. "No, you cannot summon the past, just as I cannot divine the future. We are two parts of one greater whole, but we are separate."

  Suzume held up her hand. "Please spare me the poetry. I've had enough to last me a lifetime. What are you trying to say?"

  "That you are not my reincarnation, but a broken piece of my soul is lodged inside yours."

  "What?"

  Kazue glided over to Suzume. Her footfalls made no sound. In fact, her feet did not even seem to touch the ground. Kazue placed her ruby hand over Suzume's chest. Suzume's heart raced. When Kazue touched her, she was not so much solid but more like vapor. She was warm like flames, but they did not burn Suzume.

  "Inside you is a part of my soul, broken in my attempt to make myself immortal."

  Suzume felt like a part of her was trying to break free; it was reaching for Kazue. She took a step back away from Suzume. The feeling lessened, but it remained. There was an ache in her that she had never felt before, like there was a hole inside her that needed to be filled.

  Suzume put her hand over her beating heart. It felt just the same as always, a reliable rhythm that told her she was alive. "Are you saying I am you? Not just your reincarnation but you-you?"

  "No." Kazue shook her head. "You are Suzume. But a piece of my soul resides in you, more specifically, the flame of my soul."

  "So you're possessing me?"

  Kazue laughed genuinely, and it bounced off the walls and surrounded them. Suzume just glowered at her, feeling more confused than ever.

  "Perhaps it would be easier if I started at the beginning. As you saw in the vision, I wanted more than anything to be immortal so that I could spend an eternity with Kaito. He was content to live our lives as they were, but as you have seen, immortals do not live their lives as we do. They have eternity, and brief human lives are beyond their comprehension. Twenty years to us is but a summer to them. So I feared, in my own vanity, that Kaito would leave me once time ravaged me and left me old and twisted. I assumed he would just tire of me one day and I had resolved myself to my fate, until I conceived our child. As you can imagine, the immortals forbid the offspring of these unions; they are considered an abomination and oftentimes they are killed in the crib. I refused to let that same fate fall upon our child. And so I resumed my search for a way to gain immortality."

  "And did you find it?" Suzume asked. She was curious. She had never thought about what it would be like to live forever. But the idea of never dying or aging had its appeal.

  "I did. There is an old spell that could make a human immortal, but it took much power to do it. More than any mortal could hope to have on their own."

  "So you tried to convince Kaito to help you?"

  Kazue looked away as if she were looking through time and remembering the things she had seen and done. "I did. We argued about it many times, and each time he was adamant that I would not become an immortal. He was convinced he would stay with me no matter what." She sighed. It seemed strange for an apparition to do since she had no breath to breathe. Maybe she does it out of habit.

  "Is that why you sealed him away?" Suzume asked.

  Kazue turned to look at Suzume and her expression was pained. "In part, yes. I am ashamed to admit this, but I needed his power to perform the ceremony."

  "And it wasn't enough." It was obvious because Kazue was dead, or at least Suzume thought her current state qualified as dead.

  "No. Kaito was powerful, but he did not have the energy I needed. So I went in search of more power. I fought many immortals. I sealed them away and gathered power from them, but still it was not enough. When my pregnancy was well advanced, I stayed at a shrine, where I learned as much as I could about immortals until my son was born. Once he was born, I gave him to the priests to watch over him. My quest was not finished and I dared not risk his life during my fight. When I left, I also left the stone that had Kaito trapped inside. I felt his hate for me swirling inside and I could not bear to keep it with me any longer. I swore to come back for both of them when the time was right.

  "I traveled for many years and met many people, both mortal and immortal, and still the answer eluded me. Until finally I met one of the eight gods by chance. She was beautiful and dangerous. Our battle lasted for days. By this time I had fought and sealed hundreds of Yokai, my power had grown beyond imagining. I tricked her into a sealing circle and trapped her inside a stone, like I had done Kaito."

  Kazue looked at her hands, turning them over. "Finally, finally, I had the power to do what I wanted. However, along the way I lost a part of my self. I forgot about my child and I forgot about Kaito, who I had sealed away. Drunk on power, all I could think about was getting more. I told myself that if I could defeat the rest of the Eight, then I would be prepared, then I would be ready to be immortal. So I went on a quest to seal them all. The Eight fell to me one by one. By then I did not just want to be immortal, I wanted to be a god."

  Kazue looked up Suzume, and her eyes were haunted. Suzume could see images playing in Kazue's eyes, her opponents falling one by one. Kazue still remembered them all, Suzume could see that. "I was too greedy, and the gods would punish me for my avarice. I went to the top of this mountain, brought with me all the elements that represented the soul: fire, water, earth, air and the void. I mixed them together and--"

  Kazue paused. Suzume could see it now, the images playing before her like in her earlier vision. There were on the mountaintop, in the courtyard where they had battled the guardian. The bleak and desolate wind howled as it pulled at Kazue's hair and clothes. Kazue knelt down; a circle had been drawn on the ground in white chalk. This place where Kazue performed the ceremony was a holy place, where the eight gods had gathered before Kazue had sealed them. How Suzume knew that, she was not certain, she just did.

  Kazue arranged the eight stones in a circle around an inner circle of five stones each a differe
nt color: red, blue, green, gold, and black. Kazue lifted the staff above her head and sang the incantation. Her voice deeper than before, it resonated through Suzume as it echoed off the surrounding mountains. The ground shifted and shook. Kazue sang the final notes, which faded away into the mountains.

  As the last notes escaped, Kazue fell to her knees and she cried out. Suzume felt it too. Her body was being ripped apart thread by thread. Everything burned, like fire, like ice, like she was a stone being ground to powder and then tossed out the window. The spell broke Kazue down to her most basic elements, fracturing her soul to the point of shattering.

  Then one piece broke out from the rest. A lumped bulged in Kazue's stomach. She pressed her hands to it, groaning in pain. She rolled over onto her side as the mass grew. It pushed outward and a black blob burst from Kazue's stomach and plopped on the ground. It twitched and coalesced as it grew. Kazue watched in horror as the mass transformed and became a man. He uncurled like a butterfly. He spread out his long pale arms and then got to his feet. His naked body stood out against the gray sky overhead. Kazue knelt in front of him, panting and shaking.

  "Hello, Mother," Hisato said.

  Kazue looked up at him. "What are you?" she gasped.

  He laughed. "I am your child, a piece of your soul born of the darkness within you."

  "You are not my son!" she shouted. She had hardly the strength to kneel and she swayed back and forth.

  Hisato stepped over to Kazue. He grabbed her chin and tilted her head back. "Oh yes, I am. Did you think that there would not be a price for immortality? I am that price. You blackened your heart to gain immortality. An immortal can have no darkness, they are not like humans, so you had to cast out the darkness in you, but the universe must maintain balance. I am that balance, Mother. I am the darkness in you. Human incarnate."

  "No. This is not what I wanted. Go back! I did not want this!" Kazue panted. There was blood at the corner of her mouth as if she had been bleeding internally.