by Jay Kristoff
Wiping one hand across her nose, she brought it away gleaming and bloody. And with a grim nod to the arashitora, the pair stepped across the shattered threshold and walked inside.
12
ACRES OF SKIN
Skin prickling. Flinching at shadows. Teeth clenched so tight they ached.
A wide hallway stretched out before them into sodden-blanket gloom. Choked daylight streamed through filthy windows, leaking into the corridor as mud-bright stains. The wind was a hungry ghost, chilled fingers scrabbling at the shutters, moaning as it shambled about the halls. The timbers creaked like old men’s bones, walls shifting as if the monastery were some slumbering giant, lost in nightmares and praying for dawn.
Yukiko reached into the satchels over Buruu’s back, fetched a paper lantern and a wallet of matches. The crackling flare illuminated dozens of old tapestries, faded through the passing of years and the sea’s corrosive breath. Bitter cold winds howled through the blasted doors and set the talismans trembling on their hooks.
Buruu was all tingling spine and dilating eyes, wingtips scraping the walls. Brushing the feathers at his throat, her fingertips crackled with static electricity. His talons gouged the stone as they prowled into the dark, ears straining for lifesound. But there were only the tapestries whispering in the gloom, the blustering storm and their own synchronized heartbeats.
They searched every room, found nothing and no one. Dust-cloaked furniture, fabric slowly rotting, lanterns unlit for an age. The sea howling below, rainsong on the tiles above.
At the end of the hall they found an empty doorway, spitting a flight of stairs down into a gloom-soaked room. Yukiko stood on the landing, candle held high, feeble light trickling into a stubborn dark. Down the twisting stairs, she could see a vast chamber, lined with row upon row of dusty shelves. Buruu loomed behind, too big to fit through the narrow space, growling his displeasure, his nostrils filled with the pungent reek of old decay.
Bracing herself, she opened the Kenning again, reached for the thunder tiger’s mind. His warmth was sullen, distant, as if oppressed by the deafening silence around them. She could feel nothing but the two of them—no rats, mice, birds. Not a single spark of life. After weeks inundated in the Iishi, the hush should have been a blessing. Instead it planted the seeds of a slow dread in her belly, cold and deep, spreading through her insides with slick tendrils.
It looks like … a library.
YOU INTEND TO GO DOWN THERE?
If there are answers in this place, I’m guessing that’s where we’ll find them.
IT STINKS OF DEATH. THIS IS AN ASTONISHINGLY BAD IDEA.
This place has been deserted for decades, Buruu.
I WISH I HAD EYEBROWS, SO I COULD SCOWL AT YOU.
I can’t sense anything. There’s nobody here.
I WISH I HAD HANDS, SO I COULD WRITE A HISTORY OF YOUR EXPLOITS AND NAME THIS CHAPTER “THE WORST IDEA SHE EVER HAD.”
Gods, so just blast the wall with Raijin Song and come with me, then.
THE WALL IS SOLID GRANITE. WE WOULD HAVE BETTER LUCK KNOCKING HOLES IN IT WITH YOUR THICK HEAD.
Maybe you could just sarcasm it to death?
Buruu growled, fell into a moody silence. She could sense the worry in him, the affection clothed in sullen, sulky aggression. But beneath that, the pain was blooming again, the lubdub of her pulse like tiny hammer blows in the back of her head. Another surge was building, another squeal of psychic static to paint her lips crimson and make her ears bleed. She was tired of it. Tired of not knowing why.
I’ll be back soon, brother. Wait for me here.
Buruu sighed from the tip of his tail.
ALWAYS.
She turned and crept down the stairwell, the stone slick beneath her split-toed boots. Lantern light flickered on granite walls, diminishing the farther she descended. The temperature was chill, a faint smell of oil overlaid with subtle decay. Soft thunder rolled through the tiles overhead, long shadows dancing amongst tall rafters.
The shelves stood ten feet high, crisscrossing planks forming diamond-shaped partitions. Her heart beat faster as she saw the alcoves were piled with scrolls—hundreds upon hundreds, stacked one atop another, running the length of the room.
Daichi said these monks tattooed their secrets on their flesh.
YOU ARE WONDERING WHY THEY KEPT A LIBRARY.
You’re amazing. It’s like you can read my mind.
Buruu’s amusement echoed in the Kenning like a tiny earthquake, setting her temples throbbing. Approaching the first shelf, Yukiko set her lantern down, picked a scroll at random. The paper was greasy under her fingertips, a thick, heavy vellum that felt almost … moist.
Unfurling the scroll, she held it out in the guttering light. Browned with age, edges slightly uneven. She could see kanji inked on the surface, tiny verses she realized were haiku. Flicking her hair aside, eyes scanning the page, budding amazement coming to full bloom.
Gods, Buruu, this is labeled as Tora Tsunedo’s work …
WHO?
He was a poet in Emperor Hirose’s court. Four, maybe five centuries ago. He was put to death by the imperial magistrates, all copies of his work supposedly burned.
POETRY SO AWFUL HE WAS KILLED FOR IT. IMPRESSIVE.
They actually put him to death for “licentiousness.” Listen:
She brought the scroll closer, squinted at it in the guttering dark.
Between your petals,
Awaits silken paradise,
Your love unfurls oh, Izanagi’s BALLS …
Yukiko dropped the scroll to the floor, wiping her hand on her trouser leg. Face twisted in revulsion, mouth dry, she looked around the shelves in growing horror.
“YOUR LOVE UNFURLS OH, IZANAGI’S BALLS.” YES. I CAN SEE WHY THEY MURDERED HIM.
Oh my gods …
I TRUST IT WAS A PAINFUL DEATH?
Buruu, it’s a nipple.
The thunder tiger poked his head through the doorway above and blinked.
YOU MAY NEED TO REPEAT THAT.
On the scroll. The scroll has a godsdamned nipple, Buruu. This isn’t paper, it’s skin.
She backed away from the shelf, one trembling hand to her mouth.
All of this is human skin.
RAIJIN’S DRUMS …
“Hello, young miss.”
Yukiko whirled, hand on Yofun’s hilt as thunder crashed again. Buruu roared, hackles rippling down his spine, wings crackling with electricity. Lightning streaked across the sky, brilliant blue-white illuminating the gloom, and in the brief flash, she caught sight of a figure standing in the shadow of the stairs.
“Peace, young miss.” The figure raised its hands. “You have no need of steel here.”
Yukiko refrained from drawing the blade but kept her grip on the katana’s hilt, squinting in the gloom gathered after the lightning flare. The figure stood a little taller than she, wrapped in a simple monk’s robe of faded blue. A deep cowl hid its face, but the stature and voice were definitely male.
“Who are you?” she demanded.
“Is this the custom in Shima now, young miss? A stranger breaks into your home, and you are expected to make introductions?”
The voice was calm, somewhat hollow, almost breathless. Her heart was thumping in her chest at the sudden fright, fingertips tingling with adrenaline. Feedback crackled down the Kenning, sudden stress opening pathways to her synapses, Buruu looming louder than the storm. She could feel his senses layered over her own, that old familiar tangle—wings at her back, talons at her fingertips, not knowing where he ended and she began. All of it underscored with a vague fear of the waiting pain. The control slipping through her grip.
“My name is Kitsune Yukiko,” she said, trying to keep her voice even. “That’s my brother Buruu.”
“Well met,” the figure bowed. “My name is Shun. I am master of this monastery.”
The figure drew back its cowl, revealing a thin and pallid face. Hairless scalp, mouth creased with age, wisdom gleaming
in the depths of heavily lidded eyes. His irises were milky, almost white, as if he suffered from cataracts. Yet his gaze was focused, drifting from her feet up to her face. He blinked. Three times. Rapid succession.
I CANNOT SMELL HIM.
Buruu’s thoughts crackled across hers with all the fury of the tempest above. She winced, tightened her grip on her sword.
I can’t feel him either. No thoughts. Nothing.
“Are you in need?” the pale monk breathed. “Do you hunger? Thirst?”
“I seek answers, Brother Shun, not comforts.”
“We have those in abundance, Kitsune Yukiko.”
“We?” Looking around the ghastly library, raising an eyebrow.
“The Painted Brethren.”
“Is it true you keep the mysteries of the world here? Secrets forgotten?”
Shun gestured to the shelves and their horrid burden. “Never forgotten.”
“Do you know the secrets of the Kenning?”
“Hmn … I believe Brother Bishamon wore some lore about beast-speaking.”
“May I talk to him? Where is he?”
“If memory serves…” the old man tapped his lip, eyes scanning the shelves, “… there. Third row. Second alcove. Though I fear you may find his conversational skills … lacking.”
Yukiko swallowed her disgust, a thick, curdled mouthful, drumming her fingers on Yofun’s hilt. “But I can … read him?”
“Hai.” Triple blink. “But it is traditional for a tithe to be given for access to our athenaeum. A small token of gratitude for the brotherhood’s efforts at preserving lore otherwise lost to the hands of time and the flames of fools.”
“I have no money.”
Shun offered a conciliatory smile. “Then we cannot ask it of you, young miss.”
Yukiko glanced at the clump of oily scrolls the brother had gestured to, saw one with the name BISHAMON carved into its handle. Buruu growled in warning, low and deadly. Lightning licked the windows, and in the shuddering flare, she became aware of other figures in the room. One cloaked in shadows behind Brother Shun, another behind her, two more at the foot of the stairs. All clad in those long bleach-blue robes, frayed hems scraping the floor, hands clasped, heads bowed. Motionless as statues. Silent as ghosts.
She was certain they hadn’t been there a moment ago.
GET OUT OF THERE, YUKIKO.
Sweat in her eyes. No spit in her mouth. The Kenning flaring wide, Buruu’s fear and aggression filling her, pupils dilating, stomach flooded with butterflies. The pain gripped tight, scalding her arteries, the answers she needed just a hand’s breadth away. She reached toward Bishamon’s scroll and Brother Shun moved, quick as lizards’ tongues, as dancing, fighting flies, grasping her wrist with one pale, ink-stained hand. His grip was cold as fresh snow, almost burning on her skin.
“Let go of me,” she gasped.
“The tithe first, young miss.”
She jerked her arm, unable to break his horrid, glacial hold. The burn scar at her shoulder stretched tight as her muscles strained, arm trembling. Two tons of thunder tiger pounded against a foot of solid granite. Buruu’s roar filled the room, rippling on the walls, in her chest, peeling her lips back from her teeth.
“I told you I don’t have any money,” she hissed.
“We have no need of iron.” Cataract eyes roamed her body, something akin to hunger swelling in their depths. “A foot should suffice.”
“What?” Yukiko twisted in his grip. “You want my feet?”
She jerked her arm again, the sleeve of Brother Shun’s robe slipping down, bunching at his elbow. And with a low moan of horror, she saw the entire limb had been peeled like fruit, skin flayed clean off, exposing wet dark muscle and gleaming bone beneath.
“Perhaps fourteen inches…” Shun smiled. “You did destroy our door, after all.”
“I said let go of me!” she roared.
Her free hand grasped Yofun’s hilt, drawing the blade with the crisp ring of metal against metal, bringing it down on the brother’s arm with all her strength. Folded steel sheared through cloth, muscle, bone, the brother flinching away with a shriek. Yukiko pivoted, kicked the monk behind her square in the privates, bringing a knee up into his face as he curled over in agony. The three others stepped forward, cutting her off from the stairs and her escape, hands outstretched. She snatched Bishamon’s scroll off the shelf, backed away from the monks. Away from Buruu. The thunder tiger roared again, pounding the walls.
YUKIKO, COME TO ME!
Head ringing with Buruu’s plea, Yukiko glanced at Yofun’s blade, noticed it was unstained. Thunder in her veins, the Kenning splitting her skull. Stuffing the ghastly scroll into her obi, she tried again to sense the brothers, seize the life within them as she’d done with Yoritomo, grind it beneath her heel. But there was nothing to grip, no heat or life to hold. Almost as if …
As if …
Brother Shun looked up at her with empty eyes, a ghastly smile splitting his lips. Reaching down to his severed arm, he plucked it from the floor, thrust it back onto the glistening stump (no blood, none at all) and as Yukiko watched in utter horror, flexed his fingers as if to ease some minor cramp. The brother whose privates she’d brutalized picked himself up off the stone, straightened the pulp she’d made of his nose, tilted his head until his vertebrae popped.
“Secrets in abundance,” Shun whispered. “As I said.”
They lunged, all five, a rolling, snarling bramble of gibber-grasping hands and milk-white eyes. The constant lessons she’d endured under her father and Kasumi and Sensei Ryusaki, the years of wooden sword drills came back to her in a flood, her body falling into the familiar stance, side-on, knees bent. She moved like liquid, like an angry tide, seething forward and rushing back, Yofun held gently in a double-handed grip, its hilt like a lover’s hand in her own. She divested one brother of his outstretched fingers, another of his leg below the knee, a third of his windpipe and jugular, the blade slicing clean through his throat. Through it all, she was backing down the row, feet skipping across the floor, wisps of hair in her eyes, hoping to double back through the shelves and make a desperate dash for the stairs.
No blood flowed from the wounds she inflicted, only mild grunts of surprise accompanied her sword’s travels, followed by the wet plopping of whatever extremity she’d removed hitting the stone. She noticed the leg she hacked away was skinless above the ankle. Slicing another monk across his chest, she saw no skin through the rend in his robe—merely gray pectoral muscle and a grin-white rib cage.
Thunder rolled above and she screamed to Buruu, loud as she could, heedless of the blood spilling down her nose. At the sight of the ruby fluid smeared across her lips, Shun and his brethren seemed to lose all semblance of sanity, eyes so wide she could see the whites all around, teeth bared and gleaming. Too many to fight under the best of circumstances, and her circumstances were a god’s throw from that. And so, sheathing the five feet of useless katana at her back, Yukiko did exactly what her father had told her to do in the face of overwhelming odds.
She turned and bolted.
Using the alcoves as handholds. Hauling herself up onto one of the shelves, kicking in a brother’s face as he seized her ankles. Hopping onto the ledge, she tore Yofun from its scabbard again, taking careful aim at the monk scrambling up after her. With a fierce cry, she sliced clean through his neck, blade cleaving bone as if it were butter. The brother crashed to the floor, head rolling away across the stone. Thunder roared overhead, shaking the walls. And with vomit pressing at trembling lips, Yukiko saw the headless corpse rolling about on the ground, hands groping toward its disembodied head. Lighting strobed, rendering the scene in a lurid, grisly glow. Clawing fingers. Eyes still blinking. Mouth still moving.
Maker’s breath …
Yukiko turned, leaped over the gap between one shelf and another, back toward the entrance, fighting for balance as the structure shifted underneath her. Shun and another of his brethren had scrambled up behind her,
two more cresting the shelves ahead and cutting off her escape route to the stairs. She noticed more figures now, fading out of the gloom, clad in those same bruise-blue robes. Female forms standing in the corners with impassive faces, holding armfuls of their own entrails, lit by strobing lightning strikes. Others hauling themselves up onto different shelves, closing in all about her. Dozens. Upon dozens. Upon dozens.
Buruu!
Leaping across to another shelf. Shearing through an outstretched, skinless arm. Sweat in her eyes. Breath pounding in her lungs. Blood on her lips, in her mouth, in her veins. Painted Brethren closing in about her. Backing away toward the edge of her last shelf-top and clawing the loose hair from her eyes.
BURUU!
Thunder crashed, shaking the tiles above. Lashing out with her blade. Glancing behind. Grasping hands. Snow-white eyes. Grinning teeth. Ink-stained fingers. Heels at the edge.
Nowhere to run.
Thunder again, closer this time, loud enough to shake the floor. Yukiko gasped as the ceiling above disintegrated, clay tiles smashed to dust and rubble; a tumbling, jagged waterfall crashing onto brother Shun and smashing him to pulp. The shelf collapsed below her and she fell with a shriek, landed hard on the stone. Hands clawing at her, pulling her to her feet. And then a roar, the sound of wind and pistons, a white shape diving through the shattered ceiling and splintering the flagstones beside her. Shelves tumbled like dominos, Buruu roaring again, lashing out and splitting the brother holding her in half. He struck a second time, wings spread wide, clapping together with concussive force, timbers blasted apart, leather scrolls spinning in the crackling air like dead leaves.
SISTER!
Sheathing her sword. Leaping onto his shoulders. A sea of figures all around. Rain swirling through the ceiling, static electricity setting her skin tingling. Talons parting flesh, arms from shoulders, heads from necks. A roar shaking the stones beneath them. But in a rush, the sudden press of a starving gravity, they were airborne, more shelves tumbling in the blast of their wings, soaring up through the sundered tiles and out into the open air. Wind in their faces. Rain in their eyes. Blood on their lips, spilling from their ears. They were flooded (she was flooded), body shaking, nausea rising in a rush, out of her throat and into the void, spraying through their (her) teeth as she clawed and tore and pulled back from the brink, back into herself, into her body, this tiny trembling thing with no wings, clinging to his back, small and sick and afraid.