Japanese Dreams

by Sean Wallace (ed)

  “Three hundred years ago, there came a dark time in our battle against the Horse King’s armies, and our strength wavered. The Emperor had placed his faith in his twenty bravest generals, and although they were men of honor and courage, the number that rose against them was too great. For the first time in the Age of Emperors, defeat loomed near.”

  Kagami watched Ryo as he spoke, marveling at the shadows now settling across his face. He seemed older, wiser, sadder. Perhaps this was an act to lend gravity to his story, or perhaps he had truly seen more than his few years should have permitted. He made her curious, and curiosity made her feel alive.

  “While the Emperor and his people prepared for surrender,” Ryo continued, “twenty women took action. They were the mistresses and wives of those mighty generals, and although none had ever lifted a sword in battle, they swore to come to the aid of their lovers and their Empire.”

  But how? Kagami wanted to know. How were these women to do anything but mourn for their lovers and slay their children when the time came?

  “Ah, there is the secret,” Ryo said. He sat back, lifted his chin and closed his eyes, as if remembering something equally sad and beautiful. “Ancient magic, Lady. Ancient magic abounds in our world, if only one knows where to look. And if one is willing to pay the price.”

  Yes, Kagami thought. There is always a price. She felt phantom steel slide into her stomach, a memory so vivid, she could taste the blood that had pooled in her mouth and then cascaded over her lip in one long, elegant stream of warm rubies.

  “And so they gathered,” the man continued. “These twenty women gathered, though some were no more than girls. They gathered and fasted for a week, until their bodies were cleansed of impurities and their minds unburdened by the concerns of daily life. They cared no more for songbirds or poetry, for the latest fashions or the gossip of court. Then, and only then, were they prepared to perform the ancient ritual.”

  The ancient ritual, Kagami said. Yes, yes.

  Ryo opened his eyes again and focused his gaze at her. “Each lady took up a sword, and each lady except one plunged that sword through her own body.” He paused, but only for a moment. “The one whose courage failed fled and was never heard from again. Her husband died that very night on the battlefield, and neither is spoken of in any histories.”

  But what of the others? What of the nineteen?

  “They gave themselves to their swords,” Ryo said, his eyes aglow, his voice suffused with passion. “Their spirits joined with the swords that had ended their lives in the greatest of all magics, the spirit-bond. Servants carried these swords—some of them weeping the whole time, others screaming—across the Empire. They were delivered to the battlefields, and those nineteen ladies came to the aid of their lovers and their Empire. It is said that many of the generals cried out when received their bloody gifts, but none were refused. Those great warriors fought brilliantly. No enemy could harm them in battle. Within a year, victory was secured.”

  Ryo leaned closer to her. His warm breath puffed in the cold space between them. Kagami found herself frozen, transfixed. “The swords, my lady, are what won that most terrible war. The sacrifice of nineteen women. The bringing into being of the most glorious weapons of all time, and the most sought after: the legendary Lady Blades.”

  Kagami wanted to cry, but she had no tears. She had no eyes. She had no face. She had only the slimmest body of folded steel, ground sharp along one edge and fitted into a hilt at the base.

  The memories returned, a flood of crimson screams and severed limbs. Of begging, of mercy forsaken, of unforgivable acts committed in darkness, and of death, death, death.

  “My lady, you are so silent,” the man said.

  I am weeping, she replied, in all the ways I can manage. I am weeping for what I have done and what I have become.

  Ryo stood and reached for her, his hand hovering above the flatness of her blade. He pulsed with life. Kagami yearned to taste his flesh, and the desire sickened her.

  “But there is no cause for tears, great lady,” he said. “You are revered and honored throughout time. You are magnificent.” His body quivered as he spoke of her. She did not understand his awe. Yet... it was not unfamiliar.

  She remembered men—first her husband, and then almost a dozen more. The memories were hazy at first, visions behind a parchment screen, lacking fullness. But as the memories resolved into color and scent and texture, she remembered more. She remembered each of her men, and her heart broke a little as she thought of their passing. Not one had fallen in battle, but death is cunning. Sickness, accidents, old age—against these enemies, Kagami was helpless. Her men had been good men, and they had all looked at her the same way as Ryo did now, their dark eyes glittering. They all told her she was beautiful and glorious, that she was like unto a god. And they all used her to kill.

  But she had chosen this path, had she not? What person marries her spirit to a weapon and does not expect to fight?

  Why are you here? she asked suddenly. And where is here?

  Ryo’s outstretched hand fell back to his side. “You are in a shrine, Lady. A place of honor. You were hidden here atop the Mountain of a Hundred Owls three generations ago, so that you would be closer to the arms of the sky and farther from the hands of men.”

  Ieyasu, Kagami thought suddenly. She felt the ghostlike warmth of his body next to hers, saw his aging face and beard of white, felt the strength still evident in his arms, despite his many years and countless wounds. Ieyasu had wanted to protect her.

  Despite this, you found me, she said to Ryo.

  “Yes, Lady,” he said, “though it has taken me many years and all of my money. My search has not been easy, but the rewards have been far greater than I expected.”

  She wished she could turn away from him, but she could not. Her gaze saw in all directions at once—the man, the wooden-slatted walls, the beams of the roof, the cold stone slab on which she rested.

  I see no such rewards, she said coldly, and the man had the sense to hang his head and remain silent.

  Eventually, he said, “Lady, I wish I could give you the time you need. I wish…” he searched for words, “…I did not have to do what I must do. But I was followed, and I haven’t much time.”

  Do what you must, she said. For when has it ever been otherwise?

  He reached for her then. If she’d had a heart, it would have stopped beating during that time, in that long expanse of moments when he lifted his arm and opened his hand and wrapped his fingers around her. She wondered then, would the braided cord around her hilt dig into his palm, as it had done to hers back on her last day as a woman? But it did not. Ryo’s hand was girded in calluses. He was a man accustomed to a blade.

  Kagami’s spirit lifted, even as Ryo lifted her body. Joined with him now, she remembered not just the horrors of war, but also its brutal beauty. The way a warrior, trained in the art of fighting, danced more than moved… the way she became an extension of him, a partner bound in mind and duty.

  “My Lady,” Ryo whispered, “you are singing.”

  Kagami stopped. I could not help myself, she said.

  “Nor should you ever.” She felt his heart beating faster through the flesh of his hand. “It was beautiful.”

  A noise outside. And another.

  You have lingered too long, she said. They have found us.

  Ryo questioned nothing. Like a snake, he went from stillness to motion, smashing into the wooden door and plunging them both into the cold winter of the mountainside.

  The men were waiting. Three in front of them and two circling around behind the shrine. Kagami saw them all in an instant. Without thinking, she told Ryo where they were. She knew which would strike first and she moved, slicing up, slicing across, blocking.

  She never knew, after a fight, who had been in control: she or the man claiming to wield her. The answer was both; the answer was neither. With thoughts and words flashing between them faster than blades, they moved as liquid de
ath. Only when she plunged through the heart of the last man did her conscious mind return and her thoughts once again travel in a line.

  Ryo wiped the blood from her blade, his eyes glowing in the moonlight. He opened his mouth to speak, but said nothing. He shook his head slowly, clearly awed.

  More are coming, Kagami said, and they were. She felt their feet on the mountain as they scrambled over rocks, heard the trees snort in disgust as the men sliced branches and cleared brush. Many more.

  Slowly, Ryo returned to himself, though his breath still came in audible puffs to match the deep rise and fall of his chest. “There is an army after me, Lady. I am a condemned man.”

  How is this so? she asked, even as she urged him to start moving down the mountain. He headed for a trail of footsteps already carved into the snow’s crust, the trail he had taken to find her.

  “My story is nothing like yours, Lady. I will not waste your time with the telling of it.”

  You need say nothing more, Kagami said. And then, secretly, For I can look for myself.

  In his mind, she traced the threads of his life. Woven with blacks and simple browns, his life was embroidered with reds in places, and also with pink flowers. The flowers were unexpected. She examined them more closely and saw a graceful young woman. Fair skinned with midnight hair, she laughed like chimes and danced like leaves on the wind. The ache of Ryo’s heart suffused Kagami’s spirit, and she wanted to weep for his loss.

  But she is not dead, Kagami whispered. If she lives, then there is hope.

  Ryo laughed, short and sharp. “You have hidden skills, Lady, but no. There is no hope. She is the Emperor’s daughter, and sworn to another. Despite my service to the Emperor, the fact remains that my father was just a fisherman.” He lifted a branch and slunk under it, keeping his feet to the foot holes he had made during his ascent.

  Not ‘just,’ she said. No one is ever ‘just.’

  He nodded. “Even so, Lady, even so.”

  The lady loves you, Kagami said. I can feel it still.

  Ryo stopped his trudging. Dark trees spread their leafless branches above them like a canopy of gnarled fingers. She heard his anguished cry though no sound issued from his lips. Kagami could barely remember love, but she had never forgotten sorrow.

  Surely there is some way, she said. We could slip into the palace and steal her away disguised as a boy…

  “No,” Ryo said. “It’s too late. My family is dead, and the Emperor has placed a price on my head for my transgression. I long only for revenge.”

  You lie, Kagami said. I can feel you longing for more than that. I can taste your love like summer plums on my tongue.

  Ryo sighed. His shoulders fell, their tension released. “I mentioned a price, wondrous Lady. Ancient magic always has a price, and it has never, since time began, been payable with money.”

  Kagami thought on this and said, Then what did you pay to find me?

  Around her, the crisp air distanced her from the world, from all things living. Only the warmth of Ryo’s hand on her hilt connected her to the earth.

  “It is different for each Lady Blade,” Ryo said slowly. “The Lady Haruka does not allow her men to lie. The warrior in possession of the Lady Masako finds himself attending courtly functions and dancing until dawn. The Lady Tomoe will kill every dog unfortunate enough to bark in her presence.”

  Kagami was appalled. Had she issued such demands in the past? Did her men always wear blue, or worship the ocean, or kill their own fathers? She searched her mind and her men, and could think of nothing. She felt only fondness for them, and loyalty.

  Ryo continued, “The Lady Blades are as different as their ladies, in power and in personality. It is your curse, Lady, that men fear most.”

  She was afraid to ask. She did not want to be petty, not after so many years.

  Tell me.

  Ryo smiled. If she were a woman, she would have felt his arms wrap around her shoulders and pull her close. “No man has ever touched your blade,” he said, “and not fallen in love with you.”

  But, that is not so! Kagami cried. I saw the Emperor’s daughter in the tapestry of your heart. You are true to her.

  “No, I am not,” Ryo said. “Even now, I can feel her memory fading. Even now, I wonder how I could have loved her, when a creature such as you exists in the world.”

  Kagami fell silent; she had no words.

  Ryo laughed and began to pick his way down the mountain once again. Behind them, swords clattered against scabbards and men cursed, ever closer. But neither Ryo nor the Lady Kagami knew fear.

  Eventually, she said, Ryo, the price was too high.

  Smiling, Ryo said, “And that, my dearest Lady, is one of the many reasons why I love you.”

  In Fortune’s Marketplace

  Lisa Mantchev

  In Fortune’s Marketplace, our stall was a squat ugly mushroom in a flower-strewn meadow. No one who had a penny to spend wanted to know when they would die. They traded their silver for a golden stream of secrets, a cup of foamy pink love or a candy-striped stick of luck.

  I cast my practice bones and watched with envy as a group of girls younger than I strolled past. In my smock, I was a cobweb to their kaleidoscope; a ghost, a shadow, a shade. I wanted to slip between them and disappear into the music and lantern-light. I wanted to watch the fireworks, get a taste of spicy food and freedom.

  “Poor Kasei. Too bad you can’t come with us. Too bad your dress is so old and your eyes so far apart.” The Luckteller’s apprentice, all in red, crossed her eyes and stuck her tongue out at me.

  “It’s not nice to tease her, Mieko.” The Loveteller’s apprentice shook her head. She didn’t say anything more, but I could hear her thoughts twist between us.

  So much bad luck, that one. No family, no honor. If not for the Deathteller, she would have starved in the streets.

  I raised one of my bones and made as if to throw it at them. Mieko shrieked and grabbed the arms of her friends; together, they hurried into the whirl of the square.

  A sharp blow between my shoulder blades reminded me I was always watched.

  “With a girl so ugly, it’s no wonder business is bad.” Mother delivered another thump with her cane. She said a beating or two would be good for me: I was too much fire to her wood, and would burn her up if she wasn’t careful. “Come inside and clean up this mess.”

  “No one wants to hear about death when they can go to the other Fortunetellers.” I pocketed my practice bones and followed her inside, then started washing the mound of dirty dishes leaning tipsy against a wooden bucket. “They want to hear happy things, about their boy-friends and an unexpected but timely inheritance. So it’s not my face’s fault they don’t come to you.”

  “Some customers want to hear about death,” Mother said. Her knowing tone raised bumps on the flesh of my arms. “They want to hear exactly what the bones tell them. And they do not want to hear an impertinent girl speak when she should be silent.”

  I rinsed tea leaves from the bottom of a cracked cup as Mother settled herself on a heap of threadbare cushions that oozed stuffing from a dozen wounds.

  “You, Kasei, are not bone of my bone. But I have taken you in. Fed you, clothed you. And when I die, all this—” she waved a hand over her moth-eaten kingdom like a beggar queen “—will be yours.”

  And when will that be? My cheeks flamed with rebellion; I didn’t want her moldering tent or her visions of doom, but I didn’t want to wait for them either.

  Mother took my face in her hands and I braced myself for a slap that didn’t come. “No Deathteller can see her own demise, Kasei. It is our blind spot, a place where Death can hide and we cannot see. A darkness too great for the brightest lamp of our Gift.”

  Some gift.

  That time she did thump me, a ruby-ringed knuckle to the back of my head. I rubbed at the garnet pain and fought against tears.

  “Too much fire, too much fire, she will not let herself cry. No water, no water, no water
touches her flame,” Mother singsonged before straightening abruptly. “Hand me the bones.”

  I fetched them, swallowing my angry words and a great lump of pride. A customer was coming. We would eat tonight: reason enough to make myself small, to be helpful and polite and please Mother.

  They lifted the tent flap only a few minutes later. Grandfather Sato was crooked of knee and elbow, while Grandmother was all soft curves. They both bowed to Mother while I lit the candles and tried not to let my fire’s curiosity betray me.

  “Good day, Mother Deathteller.”

  “Esteemed Ones, for whom do I cast the bones today?” Mother held out her cup.

  One of Grandfather Sato’s gnarled hands dropped one coin, two, three, into the cup. “Our grandson, Taro.”

  Taro! I’d just seen him a week ago, eyes crinkled with laughter as he lifted a hand in greeting. On an errand for Mother, I hadn’t a minute to spare, but I risked a beating for a shared fruit ice. I could taste sour cherry in the back of my throat as I looked at their twin expressions of sorrow and resignation. “Are you sure?” My fire spoke before I could stop myself.

  Three faces turned in my direction, and the candles flickered in a gust of Mother’s disapproval.

  “We are certain, Kasei. We’ve been to the priest, and the Luckteller. This is… our final call.” Grandmother Sato wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

  I wanted to argue. I wanted to hit them with Mother’s cane. Leave! Don’t ask her to look! I wanted to shout at them both. I wanted to chase them away in a hail of broken tea cups, snap at their heels like a frenzied little dog all the way back to Cliff House. But the look Mother gave me promised a beating if I forgot myself again.

  I lit the incense, closed the tent flap, and said nothing more to disgrace myself. Drum in hand, I squatted down next to her and tapped out the rhythm that would help her travel into the Gray Place.

  Mother, satisfied I would behave, cupped the bones in her hands and began to croon to them. Her words tapped a path down my spine, stuck to me like sticky spider webs. I was only a step behind her and the incense became a mist that surrounded us both; I could barely make out her back as she strode to meet Him.