by Aaron French
“Master, are any of our community injured?”
“Yes, many, but they will endure their injuries, even if fatal. After all, we continue.”
“My karma is now less so, Master, especially as I have lost apprentice Genda Doi.”
He turns and regards me with raised eyebrows. “Should I know this apprentice?”
My mouth must be gaping. His eyes wrinkle in amusement but not from playing with me. If he didn’t send Genda with me, then who was he? Genda approached when I tied the bundles. I was prepared to make two journeys and was feeble enough to accept help.
“Master, I thought he was one of us.”
“I trust you were kind to yourself, Tiromiso Sen.”
About the author: Geoff Nelder is co-editor at Adventure Books of Seattle. Short fiction judge of the Helen Whittaker prize 2009. Winner of the Café Doom short story competition. Author of award-winning SF novel: Exit, Pursued by a Bee. Awarded d’Or for thriller, Hot Air – published 2010.
The Power of Gods
Sean T. M. Stiennon
Sing-Kan braced himself against the marshy ground with the heel end of his staff and peered into the tendrils of mist curling across his path. Mud, water, and knotted vines formed a chaotic soup on all sides of him, with patches of water-grass wherever the dirt was solid enough for it to send down roots. Pools of dark water bubbled faintly.
This was a cursed place, the home of a cursed man.
Sing-Kan’s coarse leggings were already soaked with moisture and caked in black mud. His only other clothing was a vest made from horse-hide. His bare arms were cold, but he considered it penance. That and a goad to keep him moving forward.
He selected his path carefully, laying each sandal down gently and probing the mud with his staff. One misstep could send him plunging into the mire, where he would struggle for a minute, maybe two, before mud filled his lungs. He listened carefully to every suck and bubble of the marsh, trying to see with his ears. There were no sounds to distract him—nothing lived here.
Sing-Kan couldn’t even be certain he was still walking in the right direction. All he could do was pray in a barely audible voice. Hours of travel lay behind him. Just as he was beginning to fear that hours more lay ahead, the ground beneath his feet began to yield less easily to his staff, and the sucking morasses became less frequent.
He heard, faintly, the crackling of a fire. So he wouldn’t die in this morass. But another death lurked for him, and all his prayers over the past eleven days hadn’t told him whether he would escape it.
Noticing that his sandals had sunken nearly an inch into the muck while he had been standing still, he jerked them out. A few more minutes of walking brought him to moist but solid ground, black and crawling with white worms. They writhed when Sing-kan walked close and calmed again as he continued on. Some of them were no more than chunks of worm-meat.
He shuddered. This place was touched by evil. The mist had thickened and darkened. The outline of a house loomed ahead of him, and Sing-kan knew he had arrived at the home of Kokuro. Sing-kan tightened the cord holding his queue in place and rolled his staff across his shoulders and through two easy sweeps in a simple loosening exercise. Plates of steel bound the heel and two feet of the weapon’s opposite end. It was slightly longer than Sing-kan himself.
The house was fronted with pillars painted crimson, like the ones that supported the golden roof of the Ching-sha temple. Sing-kan’s heart went cold as his eyes traveled up and around. Temple was the right word. Ebony dragons coiled just beneath the gilded eaves, their tongues painted a sickly orange, and higher up, on the peak of the roof, Kokuro had erected a replica of the Silver Wheel.
In other places, on the beams jutting from the corners, Sing-kan recognized symbols and carvings from a dozen temples. The eagle of the Imperial Kaoists soared alongside the serpent of the Seeker Cult; the seven diamonds of Entombed Voku lay within the World Band—all combined into an unnatural stew.
Sing-kan didn’t have to wonder how such a thing had been constructed in the middle of the Yaashu Mire, on ground that could never have supported such an edifice. He knew the evil Kokuro had embraced.
He climbed the steps, his muddy sandals squelching against the polished boards, and raised his staff to strike the door. Two dragons—Imperial dragons, he noticed, with four eyes—chased each other across the blood-red wood. The doors swung open before Sing-kan’s steel-shod weapon touched them.
“So you’ve come, my brother.”
Sing-kan knew the voice as he knew his own. He advanced down a dark passageway. Sweet-smelling oil lanterns spread light on painted screens. Another pair of doors opened at the end of it.
Sing-kan entered a yawning room. The roof was dark lattice-work, with lamps dangling from it on gleaming chains. Red silk hangings filled the gaps between pillars of deep crimson. Gilding flashed from the woodwork.
In the center of the room, a coal fire crackled in a brazier shaped like a grotesquely fat toad. A pair of cushions rested on opposing sides, with a tea tray on a small stand to Sing-kan’s right. One of the cushions was occupied.
Kokuro lifted a porcelain cup to his lips and sipped delicately. “No greeting for me, Kan?”
Sing-kan crossed his arms. A smile twisted his lips upwards, but there was no feeling behind it. “Koku,” he said. “We are brothers no more.”
Kokuro smiled, set his cup down with a gentle clink, and ran his fingers through his black hair, which reached to the shoulders of his dark robe. He had kept it shaved close in his time with Master Sho. “We never were. Sho just liked to call us his sons, and we decided that made us brothers.”
Sing-kan nodded. Some life entered his smile. “It did, in a way.”
“Oh, yes, we did everything that brothers do. Like the time you force-fed me worms. Or the time you held me in the rain barrel until I agreed to give you the berries I found.”
“Master Sho beat me so hard he cracked my ribs. It didn’t excuse me from training.”
Kokuro sipped from his cup again. A tendril of brown tea trickled through his stubble. He wiped it away with one sleeve. “He didn’t excuse me when I got the redcough; a few cracked ribs aren’t so much.”
Kokuro refilled his cup. Sing-kan noticed the jewels he had woven into his hair.
“Some tea?” he asked.
“No.”
Kokuro showed his smile again, his teeth gleaming in the firelight. “You’re a poor guest. I thought you’d be glad to see me—it’s been seven years.”
Sing-kan nodded. “A great deal changes with time.”
“Not you. Is that the same stick?”
“I replaced it three years ago.”
“It looks identical. Scratched, tarnished, muddy. Not much of a weapon for a man of your skill.”
Sing-kan sank into a crouch, his feet supporting all his weight. “I’m sure you like yours better.”
Kokuro slurped tea and smiled again. “Do you already know everything, then? Do I have any news you haven’t heard?”
Sing-kan shrugged. “I know you killed every man, woman, and child in the village of Tenshia. Every man except the old cooper I pulled out from underneath his house.”
“Old cooper? Hm. Is he still alive, then?”
“He’ll never walk again, but yes.”
Kokuro shrugged. “Let him live, then. I don’t like killing cripples.”
The only sounds were the hissing of the coals and the quiet slurp of Kokuro drinking tea. Sing-kan flexed his fingers slowly in one of the calming exercises that had been instinctive to him since his first months under Master Sho. He had been... six years old then, his parents killed by Hanshu pirates.
“So you are a murderer.”
Kokuro finished his tea. “Yes. Some tea, Kan? This is a rare variety. You won’t have another chance.”
Sing-kan stood. His feet shifted on the polished slats of the floor, and he moved his staff to the Bull stance. “Three villages, Kokuro. Three villages burnt and massacred.”
>
He gently pushed the tea table away. “And another tomorrow.”
Sing-kan’s footsteps were nearly silent as he charged, the steel-capped tip of his staff aimed for Kokuro’s sternum. He could still see traces of the boy he had once known—the boy he had teased, defended, bullied, and loved like a brother. But those traces lay deeply hidden.
Kokuro rolled away from Sing-kan’s thrust like a shadow in the firelight, his dark robe swirling. He slid across the slats—Sing-kan saw that he was wearing lacquered clogs. Sing-kan advanced. Kokuro smiled. “Are you slow, or am I fast?”
Sing-kan didn’t let the barb slow him. His staff sliced the air in a steady wheel—heel, tip, heel, tip. Kokuro flipped away and landed on his feet, arms crossed. His breath remained even, as his smile widened. “Something’s wrong, Kan. I know you’re faster than this. Perhaps you can’t stand to strike your brother-no-more?”
Anger flashed in Sing-kan’s heart, but in the same instant he smothered it. He braced the tip of his staff against the floor and swung the slightly hooked heel up and over his head in a blow meant to shatter Kokuro’s skull. He couldn’t hold back.
Steel rang, and the heel of Sing-kan’s staff rebounded off the floor ten feet away. Kokuro followed through on his stroke and returned to an impeccable Cobra stance. Sing-kan hadn’t seen him draw the sword, and he wore no scabbard.
The blade was blacker than darkness, its outline gently curved in the style of a Hanshu blade. Its only feature was a fissure of deep, smoldering flame that ran along the blade’s axis like a blood groove, wavering between yellow and red. It had depth—that was no painted design.
“Krellu-Doom,” Kokuro said, tenderly.
A long-ago sparring match flashed before Sing-kan’s eyes. The day had been bright, with only the cold blue sky of the Goni Mountains above. Tendrils of dust had curled up from the earth every time one of them had fallen. Sing-kan had fallen more often. That had been later; when they were both fourteen and the dark-haired boy had caught up to Sing-kan in skill.
There had been no teasing. Kokuro had accepted victory graciously.
The black sword bit into the floor, slicing through cedar planks with no more sound than a faint crackling. Sing-kan spun on his heel and let the shaft of his staff slide along his palm, throwing it out to its full extent. Kokuro’s head was hopelessly exposed.
Krellu-Doom came up faster than any steel sword could have. Sing-kan snapped his arm back, wrenching his muscles, and withdrew his staff before the black blade sliced through it.
Kokuro smiled. He tossed Krellu-Doom lightly, watched its spinning blade draw a line of flame through the air, then caught it easily. His grip was casual and his stance loose.
Sing-kan drew breath slowly and took the Mantis stance, staff held over his head with the point almost brushing the floor. Ten years with Master Sho had given him speed and strength, the battle eye and the crushing hand. He could not hold back. If he didn’t take Kokuro’s life, hundreds, thousands would die to the power of his sword and his black heart.
Kokuro sidestepped and launched himself over the toad-shaped brazier. His sword carved arcs of darkness in the air. Sing-kan feinted upwards, as if he was about to strike for the chin, then dropped his staff again and threw his weight down on the tip. The weapon became a vaulting pole, launching him into the air. Kokuro’s arm was slower than his blade. They passed in midair. Sing-kan uncoiled one hand from the staff and slammed it into Kokuro’s gut. A metal plate covered his knuckles beneath the wrapping.
Kokuro fell with a howl. Sing-kan came down on the other side of the brazier and pulled his staff after him. He noticed that end of the sliced-off heel was faintly scorched. The black-haired man writhed on the floor like a wounded snake, but Sing-kan didn’t give him a moment to recover. He thrust the steel-capped end of his staff between the brazier’s grotesque feet and the floor. A little strength was all he needed to overturn it. Steel clanged and coals poured out across the floor, but Kokuro wasn’t caught by them—he rolled to his feet. “Fire, Kan? I can build another house on this one’s ashes.”
Sing-kan’s hand went to the four studs set a foot below the tip of his staff. He unscrewed each one with calloused fingers, wrenching at sockets faintly rusted over, and let the steel cap clang to the floor, revealing a foot-long blade of water-steel.
“And now a spear. I thought you and Sho preferred not to kill.”
“I don’t kill unless I must.”
Krellu-Doom struck for him, like a cobra in Kokuro’s hands. Sing-kan launched himself into a flip and repeated the motion the instant his feet hit the floor. He used his spear for a hail of thrusts at Kokuro’s eyes, throat, heart, hamstring, groan, armpits. The dark-haired man’s teeth showed in a snarl. The spear had a longer reach than his sword.
One blade gleamed in the light of the coals. The other seemed to repel all light. They moved around the hall like ritual dancers. Kokuro advanced with a series of swift thrusts that drove Sing-kan back—he couldn’t deflect them, only retreat. He stepped into one of the scarlet hangings between the pillars and spun quickly to one side. Krellu-doom went through the spot where his heart had been a moment before and sank into the silk. Sing-kan saw that the spilled coals had ignited the floor.
Kokuro struggled for a moment, enmeshed in silk. Sing-kan rolled the spear across his hips. The blade swept towards Kokuro’s shoulders.
The dark man bent his knees and ducked just in time. The spear slashed away a lock of black hair. Sing-kan didn’t let himself hesitate for an instant. He sidestepped and slammed the arch of his foot into Kokuro’s back. The man howled something and went forward into the hanging. His sword carved a slit in it as he rolled.
Sing-kan went inside his reach and rammed both his fists into Kokuro’s chest, driving him to the floor. He heard the hanging tear away from the pillars on either side as he stomped the dark man’s sword-wrist, pinning it with all his weight, and he threw a storm of punches. Neck, sternum, gut, armpits, face. Blood sprayed as Kokuro’s nose shattered, and Sing-kan felt one of his ribs crack.
A roar rolled up out of Kokuro’s throat, and Sing-kan felt Kokuro’s body buckle with terrible strength, unbalancing him. He turned the movement into a flip, carrying him just beyond a sweeping slash from Krellu-Doom. He grabbed his spear and rolled again, coming to his feet on the floorboards several feet away. He could hear crackling flame and smell smoke.
Dark fire burned in Kokuro’s eyes as he stood, blood pouring down his face and neck. Krellu-Doom shimmered in his grasp.
Sing-kan spun into the Seven Suns sequence, whipping his spear in flashing circles. His feet left the floor and he rolled at Kokuro. His spear slashed for the man’s ankles. Kokuro leapt above the blade, flipped in the air, and aimed the point of his black sword just ahead of Sing-kan. He remembered the sequence and knew how it ended.
But there were variations on it he didn’t know. Sing-kan thrust his legs out and kicked off the slick floorboards, sending himself rolling in the opposite direction from Krellu-Doom. He dug his spear into the floor and used it to pull himself to his feet.
Kokuro spat blood. “You’re good,” he hissed. “That goat taught you something.”
“You haven’t forgotten everything,” Sing-kan answered. His chest heaved. “Only what was important. And all for a sword.”
“A sword?” Kokuro said, face split by a joyless grin. “Not just a sword. A weapon forged by gods beyond your imagining. How did I build this house? How did I destroy the villages? Power, Kan. Godly power.”
Sing-kan breathed deeply. “You know nothing of gods.”
“I know this blade’s name.”
“You should never have learned it.” Sing-kan realized that Kokuro’s broken nose had stopped bleeding, and there was no strain to his breathing.
Kokuro stretched his arms lazily. “I’ll admit, Kan, it’s hard not to... hold back, even for me. But you cannot defeat the power of gods.”
“There is a power beyond any of your gods.”
“You believe that?”
“Sho did.”
“Sho is dead.”
Kokuro spat the words out like a curse and, as soon as they had faded, he plunged his hand into the burning crack that ran along his sword. It sank in. Sparks and tendrils of red flame leapt around his wrist. Sing-kan saw his muscles tighten as he grasped something and pulled it out between lips of black metal.
A lump of black and orange seeped through his fingers. He threw it down on the floor with a wet smack, where it throbbed like a heated coal.
Then Sing-kan saw eyes like lumps of molten iron and misshapen wings cut from fire. The thing rose, stretching out black limbs tipped with crimson talons. It grew, flaring up like a fire, until its wings were as wide as Sing-kan’s shoulders. A furnace mouth hissed.
Kokuro tossed a second one onto the floor as the first dived at Sing-kan.
He snapped his spear up in a quick chop, but it twisted in mid-air with evil agility and stretched molten talons for his neck. He dropped, catching himself against the floor on one hand. He used his shoulders as a fulcrum to swing the other end of his staff at the demon. The hard wood smashed into its burning ribs. The thing was solid enough to go flying across the room, leaving scorch marks on the wood.
Sing-kan flipped to his feet just ahead of the second demon’s attack. Kokuro threw another—no, two—onto the floor. Both spread wings and attacked. Kokuro came just behind them.
Years of training had ingrained the motions of battle deep into Sing-kan’s mind, and he drew on every minute of it as fire and heat and talons and a deep black blade swirled around him. Fire was spreading across the room. One of the hangings was ablaze. Heat pounded against him and he leapt and spun, using every muscle to save himself.
Kokuro’s blade cut across his arm, slashing through muscle. Sing-kan screamed. This pain was unlike any he had felt. It sent fire through his blood, seeming to burn down to his heart. He continued his turn, swiping his spear at Kokuro’s head. The man ducked easily and laughed. Two of the demons came at Sing-kan from his right. He knew the others were behind him. The black sword stabbed for his heart.