by Paul Kidd
Listening…
Sura blinked. The sound of the waterfalls at the baths covered all other sounds. The fox ran out between the monkeys and clambered onto a tall boulder. She turned her head about, craning her pointed ears – listening – straining to catch a faint sound that drifted out amongst the falling snow.
Chiri raced up beside her, with Bifuuko and Daitanishi flashing up to join her. They all listened – then suddenly their ears caught faint, haunting melody.
A flute played somewhere out in the dark…
Sick with fear, Chiri leapt from the rock and raced towards the inn.
“Kuno!”
Sura dropped into the snow, spear in hand, and sprinted hard on Chiri’s tail.
They took the steps three by three, lunging up into the inn. The building was dark and chill, with only a faint gutter of light from the common room.
Chiri burst into the common room. A cold wind came blowing in from open doors beyond, swirling with snow. The wind trilled and ebbed to the sound of a flute playing from somewhere far out in the dark.
Tonbo lay splayed face down on the floor, trying to rise – dazed by a weird icy chill that twisted through the music. Sura staggered as the flute song seemed to blur her mind. Chiri put her hands to her ears, fighting to keep on her feet, trying to shake the spell away. She called out to Bifuuko, letting power sparkle from her hands.
“Spell of music, spell of harm!
Be banished now! Dispel the charm!”
Bifuuko set up a great humming, surging beat of her wings. She caught the cadence of the flute music, hovered raggedly for a moment, then built her wingbeats up into a low, strong hum. The flute music faded, and Chiri shook her head, clearing the mist from her brain. Sura hung on all fours on the floor, blinking and opening her eyes wide. She forced herself forward, jerking free of the spell and making her way to Tonbo’s side.
Tonbo was dazed and blinking – still half asleep and utterly confused. Chiri ran past him and looked through the open door into Kuno’s room.
“Sura san! Kuno’s gone!”
Kuno’s bed was empty and his clothes and swords were gone. Chiri sped to the porch, and saw a line of footprints leading off towards the mountain peak. The tracks were already filling with snow. The rat plunged out into the cold with Daitanishi and Bifuuko weaving through the air beside her.
“Chiri! Wait!” Sura tried to sit Tonbo up and shake him awake. Chiri was already off and away into the snowfall. “Tonbo! Wake up!”
The big man mumbled and looked like he might fall back asleep. Sura seized a handful of snow and jammed it deep into Tonbo’s pants. The man opened his eyes wide and instantly surged awake, blundering to his feet and staggering, looking extremely confused.
“What? What’s happening?”
Sura grabbed his arm. “An undead witch has Kuno! Chiri’s after them!”
“Right.” Still a little numbed, the big man saw nothing unusual in the scenario. “Let’s go!”
Sura heaved up the tetsubo and planted it in Tonbo’s hands. She seized her breastplate and tied the shoulder straps, deciding to sort the rest on the fly. Fur coat in one hand and spear in the other, she plunged out into the cold. Tonbo planted his helmet onto his head and charged after her.
The trail led off towards the mountain peak – towards the glacier. Sura raced to catch up with Chiri, driving on into the weird grey haze of snow.
A deep cave of glittering ice plunged into the mountain glacier. High above, the peak gleamed against the snow clouds, moaning as winds hissed and surged across the cliffs. The aqua-coloured ice seemed to somehow shimmer with a lingering, haunted light.
The arms of the cave stretched out, making a cleft that was sheltered from the wind. Great chunks of fallen ice littered the rocky ground – looming jagged and fantastic in the dark.
A maiden sat atop one glittering ice block. She was dressed in flowing blue-white robes, a silver circlet about her brow. Long black hair hung like liquid silk far down her back.
The girl played the flute, meditating intensely upon her art. She stared off into the night as she played, and snowflakes crystallised out of thin air and swirled about her. The music called, and snow clouds brooded thick and freezing overhead.
Kuno appeared, walking in a dream as he came traipsing from the dark. He was in a trance, captured by the music. He walked forward, and his dazed eyes saw the maiden in the snow. He smiled, and she instantly stopped her song. The girl leapt from the rock, sailing down with an eerie slowness. She landed before Kuno and folded him inside her arms.
The snow maiden stared at Kuno in utter besotted worship. She kept her hands covered by the long sleeves of her robes, caressing his face. With the cloth between them, she laid her face adoringly against his cheek.
Kuno reached up dazedly to touch her. The maiden covered his hands with her sleeves, making certain that their skin never touched. She kissed him adoringly through the cloth, so utterly in love with him that she cried.
From the sidelines, a sour, angry voice dripped with scorn.
“I do not believe you are doing this again!” The voice was young, female and searing. “You are pathetic!”
The dark haired maiden clung to Kuno. She looked back towards the ice boulders, her eyes flashing bright.
“I won’t let you hurt him. I won’t!”
“Because you love him?”
A second maiden was in the cleft, leaning sardonically against a boulder. She was a mirror image of the first – though with brilliant ice-white hair and a face filled with bitterness.
The white-haired maiden came forward, weary with absolute frustration and almost in tears.
“You know what they do to you! I can’t believe you keep on seeking them out! Men are poison!”
The first maiden gripped tightly to Kuno. “This one is different! This one is kind!”
The white-haired maiden slammed a hand against a boulder – leaving an icy mark upon the rock.
“Why? Why do you let them fool you this way? Don’t let them in! Don’t give them the power to hurt us!”
Chiri, Tonbo and Sura raced forward through the snow, following Kuno’s footprints. They kept low, weaving up the cleft beneath vast cliffs of glacial ice. They pressed flat against a boulder, glimpsing across the top to see the two maidens and Kuno. Chiri seized her natagama and wanted to race into the attack, but Sura signalled her to stay put. The fox lifted up her ears to eavesdrop on her prey.
The sour, white-haired maiden kept well away from Kuno. She flicked an embittered glance at her twin.
“By the gods, you sicken me sometimes! Do have any idea how much it hurts me to see you acting like such an idiot!”
The dark-haired girl looked at the other in sulky irritation.
“You want me to. Don’t pretend that you don’t crave love every bit as much as I do.”
Behind their boulder, Tonbo sank down and whispered quietly to Sura.
“Spirits?”
The fox nodded slowly. “Snow maidens. Ice kami. But why are there two?”
Chiri was watching the snow maidens like a hawk, her tail lashing. Daitanishi and Bifuuko kept a careful guard beside her. The dark-haired maiden clung tight to Kuno, who held her in a vague, contented daze. The white haired snow maiden could not even bring herself to look at him.
“We cannot even touch him skin-to-skin! All this talk of love is but a sham!”
“This one is different!” The black-haired snow maiden kept a tight hold on Kuno’s arm. “This one knew what I was, and didn’t care! He has been kind. He talked to us for hours and hours and hours…”
The other maiden covered her eyes in despair. “It only goes downhill from here! They say honeyed words, and then the lies begin!” The girl flapped her hands hopelessly. “It degenerates! Why must it always degenerate?”
Her dark-haired sister hung her head in misery.
“I am not good enough to hold their love.”
The white-haired maiden whirled in rage. “The fault isn�
��t ours! We’re willing to give them everything – everything! And then they just use us!” She wept torn clean through the soul. “It’s so beautiful at the beginning! Why? Why can’t it always be like it is at the beginning? Without the lies and the hurt? Without the slow loss of wanting, needing – caring?”
The white-haired maiden wept in desolation. Her sister came to her, putting an arm about her.
“Shhh. Don’t cry! You’re the strong one! Please don’t cry.” The dark-haired girl suddenly took on a look of weird, intense new inspiration. Her eyes shone bright and quite mad. “We can make the perfection last! Last forever!”
The white-haired girl looked up – full of hope, but then utterly appalled. She seemed to sink – entirely powerless. She reached for the other girl’s hand.
“No. Not again…”
The dark snow maiden had left her. She walked towards Kuno, who stood dazed and dreaming. She circled him, looking at him in sick adoration.
“We have to preserve the beauty of the beginning! That way the happiness can never tarnish!” She seemed to glow with terrible dreams.
“Perfect love – forever and ever…”
She drew Kuno and the other woman on into the cave itself. Sura signalled to her friends, and they crept stealthily forward, keeping hidden back amongst great twisted pillars of ice.
The dark-haired snow maiden towed Kuno eagerly on into a great cavern that had dozens of huge icy stalagmites glittering in the darkness. The white-haired girl hung back, now reluctant and afraid. But the dark-haired maiden waved a hand in triumph.
Light blossomed from the wall of the cavern – an eerie azure glow. The stalagmites glistened – and each one was a young man encased in ice.
She had at least fifty men in her terrible gallery. Kuno followed the dark-haired maiden as she walked amongst her treasures, caressing them lovingly with her hands.
The white-haired snow maiden cringed away from the horrifying collection. She brokenly covered up her face.
“Please. Please – not again…”
“Yes. Here he will love me forever. Here, he will never betray me or forget me.” The dark-haired girl walked in the grip of a terrible, twisted joy. “A flower must be taken at its perfect time. Not left to wither on the stalk.”
She turned to gaze at Kuno.
“Perfect timeless beauty.”
Sura strode out from behind a pillar, spear levelled and a look of weary annoyance on her face.
“All righty! You! Frosty fruit-cake! Step back from the samurai or I’ll thread you like an ice-kebab!”
Both snow maidens reacted with violent anger, whipping jagged bolts of ice straight at Sura. The fox sidestepped one and parried another with her spear, slicing the bolt into a shower of razor-sharp shards. She continued her spin, spear swirling and leaving a yin-yang pattern etched into the air.
“Tao shield!”
A barrage of ice bolts spattered off a magical shield that blossomed in front of Sura. She sheltered behind the shield, protecting her face from wicked showers of ice.
The black-haired ice maiden sent a surge of magic out into the glacier. All around the walls, jagged, lethal ice elementals cracked and split, separating slowly out from the ice. Each one crept like a spider made from icy razorblades, making the air around then crackle with freezing cold.
“Children of the frozen ice, draw back – draw back in peace!”
Chiri stood, magical winds churning at her long hair. The rat spirit turned around and around, her own power thundering out into the walls and floors, quieting the ice elementals and trying to send them back down into the ice. She drew more and more power into the fight, battling the terrible control that burned inside the snow maiden. The ice elementals wavered, fighting to obey the summons and burst out into the air.
Tonbo leapt from the shadows. He crashed his tetsubo clean into the chest of the dark-haired snow maiden. The massive force of the impact flung her backwards like a doll, but she seemed to float through the air, sailing backwards to land beside a wall of ice. She put her hand straight into the glacier, drawing forth a brilliant white spear of ice – a spear so cold that the air smoked around the blade.
The white-haired maiden held a hand out towards a cave wall, and an identical spear flew into her grasp. She levelled the weapon at Sura, her silvery hair swirling, then came at the fox in rage.
Ice elementals forgotten, the other maiden charged at Tonbo, lunging at him with ferocious speed.
Weapons clashed and rang. Sura danced forward, spear tip hunting for an opening, then cracked her spear against the other weapon to sweep it aside. But the white snow maiden flicked back away from the spear thrust. She clashed her weapon against Sura’s spear, and pushed hard.
The two spears met, and the snow maiden have a hiss of triumph. Ice suddenly spread from the maiden’s spear to Sura’s, crackling and binding the weapons – reaching up towards Sura’s hand. The fox tried to jerk free, but the weapons were caught. She slammed her foot forward and kicked both shafts, shattering the ice and freeing her spear.
Sura hurtled a throwing spike at the ice maiden. It struck hard into the woman’s shoulder – but it was like trying to penetrate solid ice. The maiden ignored the strike and lunged. Sura parried and hacked hard at the other weapon, shaving great splinters of ice and frost into the air. She leapt, Leaf Cutter whirling in a blur, and swiped the orange blade clean down into the white snow maiden’s arm.
She cut the maiden’s hand clean off. The snow maiden staggered back a step, then rammed her hand against the glacier wall. Ice crackled, and a new hand grew out from her stump. She scooped ice from the walls and threw a massive ball towards Sura, making the fox fling herself wildly away.
Tonbo fought with massive strength. He cracked the dark-haired maiden’s spear aside and struck, shattering an ice pillar as the maiden dodged aside. She stabbed at him, and the spear touched his shoulder armour. Ice spread across the armour plates from the merest touch. But Tonbo pounded the butt of his tetsubo into the woman in a savage uppercut, slamming her backwards. He struck with the butt once again, then caught her with a massive downward blow of his iron staff.
He shattered her arm clean off. But the woman staggered back against the wall of the cave, and a new arm formed itself from the ice. She shook herself and marched towards Tonbo, moving into a run that led to a huge downward cut with her spear. Tonbo parried, but the maiden pressed in wildly close, screeching at him in hate. She tried to jam her fingers against Tonbo’s face – her grasp smoking with deadly cold. The samurai managed to nod his helmet down, and ice spread crackling across the brim – searing and burning at the skin beneath. He freed himself by kicking at the maiden and shoving her back, but she levelled her spear and came at him again.
Sura ran forward towards the white-haired maiden, clearing the creature back and away from Kuno. She flicked a glance towards Chiri, who stood with weapons drawn circling to attack the black-haired snow maiden from behind.
“Chiri! Wake Kuno!”
The black-haired maiden instantly whipped about and reached a commanding hand towards Kuno. The air crackled with power.
“My love! Kill them! Kill them all!”
Kuno blinked. He turned, settled his blank gaze upon Chiri, and drew his sword. He plunged forward, aiming a lethal cut at her head.
The rat spirit dodged back, then flicked aside again, parrying the lightning-fast sword as Kuno attacked again and again. Kuno’s face was set in an idyllic, gentle smile – his eyes happy and dreamy. Chiri wept as she frantically parried his blade.
“Kuno! Kuno – it’s me!” She locked his blade between her own.
“Kuno – I love you!”
Kuno’s eyes half unclouded. But the black-haired snow maiden seized her flute and blew one-handed. Kuno swayed and came back under her control. He kicked at Chiri and sent her flying backwards, falling to the ground. She half rose, then screamed as Kuno came at her, sword raised, slashing the terrible weapon straight down at
her skull.
Daitanishi cracked hard against Kuno’s face. Kuno missed his strike, his sword hacking into the snow. Bifuuko set up a ferocious little breeze, blowing loose snow into Kuno’s eyes. Chiri scrabbled away and back to her feet, racing clear.
Sura flicked a glance at Chiri, seeing her friend’s danger. The fox slipped sideways, skipping back away from her foe, and suddenly threw four paper seals across the cave. The fu papers slapped onto the ice about the black-haired maiden.
“Shields!”
The snow maiden was suddenly fenced in by glowing walls. Sura whirled her spear, slashing open a pathway between worlds.
“Spirit of the gentle dead!
Go now to your proper home.
Return to restful paradise
And from this world be gone!”
Light from the land of the restful dead flooded through the gate. Sura sliced a glowing word into the air – the symbol for the Tao.
“Tao seal!”
Sura hurtled a fu paper through the symbol, and the paper smacked against the snow maiden’s breast. But instead of drawing the creature through the gate, power seemed to arc over from the white-haired maiden. The fu paper shivered, then burst apart and fell away.
“Damn!”
Sura swore. The black-haired snow maiden somehow faded back into the ice wall behind her. Sura leapt forward towards the white-haired maiden, seizing hold of Tonbo.
“Tonbo! Take him out!”
Chiri was falling wildly back, trying to fend Kuno away. Tonbo charged straight across the cave, launching himself at Kuno. He held his tetsubo and caught Kuno’s cut as it came. Tonbo slammed his armoured body straight into Kuno, rocketing the smaller man back to crash against the cave wall. As Kuno rebounded, Tonbo butted him in the forehead, and Kuno collapsed like an empty sock. Tonbo seized his friend by the scruff of the neck and hauled him from the ground.