Heretic, Betrayers of Kamigawa

CHAPTER 10

Toshi was forced to kneel before Boss Uramon. This time he was in chains with no less than four of Kiku’s flowers squirming on his torso. The ochimusha kept his eyes downcast, even as Marrow-Gnawer prodded him with a stick and capered behind him.

“So,” Uramon said. “You have returned.” She stood once more in the center of her enclosure of black sand and stones. “I no longer wish to hire you, Toshi. That ship has sailed.”

Toshi slowly looked up. He sighed heavily.

“Damn,” he said. “I was just starting to get tired of thinking for myself, too. You sure there’s nothing I can do for you?”

Uramon shook her head, her pallid face like wax. “You can die, ochimusha. You are talented but not worth the trouble. You’re barely worth the six hatchet men it cost me to bring you back here.”

Toshi smiled. “And a handful of nezumi. If we’re balancing our accounts, let’s be thorough.”

“Kiku,” Uramon said. “Have our guest suspended from the manor’s front gate. Wait until I take my seat on the second-floor balcony overlooking the courtyard before you activate your blooms. I want to watch him strain as the life leaves him.”

“Forgive me, Boss. I can’t do that.”

A ripple of annoyance crossed Uramon’s passive face. “I must have misheard you, dear. What?”

Toshi quickly scanned the chamber, noting the position of Uramon’s guards. She was taking no chances this time, even with Toshi chained and festooned with camellias. There were ten hatchet men in the room, four more outside the main door, and a half-dozen nezumi scattered around the hallways.

“Things became … complicated in the mountains.” Kiku stepped out from behind Toshi so that there was nothing between herself and Uramon. “In order to acquire Toshi and bring him here, I had to make concessions.”

“Concessions? What kind of concessions? I authorized no-”

“This kind.” As she spoke, Kiku drew her throwing axe and hurled it into the nearest guard’s chest. The man grunted and dropped to his knees, a confused expression on his face.

Marrow-Gnawer screeched as he brought his short staff down on Toshi’s back. The weak link they had used to hold his chains in place shattered, and black metal scraps jingled like coins as they rained down on Uramon’s floor. Marrow handed Toshi his jitte, turned, and buried his staff in the midsection of an approaching nezumi footpad.

The purple flowers on Toshi’s chest dropped away, withering as they fell. Kiku had not imbued them with any special magic other than enough animation to look as if they were alive.

“Kill them.” Uramon’s monotonous voice did not even rise when issuing death warrants. In fact, she sounded almost bored. Her actions belied her tone, however, as she quickly crossed the sand pit toward the side door.

Toshi grinned. He knew where that door led. He didn’t dare give Uramon enough time to reach the secret chamber in the basement, but first he had to help his fellow reckoners clear the room.

It had been a while since he’d seen Kiku or Marrow in action. Now, in the thick of this brawl with Uramon’s henchmen, he remembered why it was so important to surround himself with people who could fight.

Marrow-Gnawer was especially impressive, if only because a single nezumi was rarely a serious threat. But Marrow was a chieftain, a leader among his tribe, and he had earned his position by being tougher and nastier than the other rats. They all fought dirty, but Marrow fought with a special kind of savagery, raking eyes with his filthy, ragged claws, kicking groins with his pointed toes, ripping chunks of flesh off the other nezumi with his black and broken teeth.

Six against one was too much even for the strongest rat warrior, so Toshi slid into the confusion and rammed his jitte into the back of a rat that had taken hold of Marrow-Gnawer’s tail. He then drew his weapon and dragged the bloody tip across the face of a second nezumi aggressor. Toshi held the vermin’s rusty blade at bay with his free hand as he quickly completed a pestilence kanji on the rat-man’s face.

Once the symbol was complete, the stricken rat choked and clawed at his own throat. Thick black boils erupted across his face. As he opened his mouth to gasp for air, Toshi saw similar pustules on his tongue and the inside of his mouth. His stomach bulged, and his eyes rolled back as he toppled. He collided with two more of his fellow nezumi on the way down, and soon they too were writhing in boil-covered agony on the floor. Seconds later, their struggles ceased.

Toshi was impressed. Nezumi blood was especially potent for this kind of spell, but he hadn’t expected a reaction like this.

The remaining rats struck at Marrow again and again. While he was only slightly larger than they, their blows had no effect whatsoever. Marrow himself was the only one who seemed to be doing damage, and soon the entire tangle of screeching, biting rats was covered in blood, clumps of hair, and broken teeth. The last of Uramon’s nezumi dropped his cudgel and fell to his knees, begging Marrow for mercy. Marrow-Gnawer staved the side of the beggar’s skull with his staff and kicked him in the throat as he fell.

Toshi glanced over at Kiku. She had retrieved her axe and was standing among a small pile of dead men, each with a purple flower digging into his chest. Eight more of Uramon’s hatchet men had surrounded her, but none was willing to engage, having seen what she was capable of.

“Marrow,” Toshi said. “You and Kiku have to handle this from here. I’m going after the boss.”

“I don’t need his help!” Kiku broke a guard’s nose with the flat of her axe then dropped and chopped off the front half of his foot. The man screamed once before Kiku shoved a camellia in his mouth. She spun him around and ducked behind him as two of the guards’ axes slammed into his body.

“Help her anyway,” Toshi said to the nezumi. “Just don’t get too close.”

Marrow-Gnawer looked unconvinced, but he nodded.

Toshi concentrated, feeling the scar on his forearm. He saw the Myojin of Night’s Reach in his mind’s eye, and he called upon her power. Instead of fading away, however, he held the magic in reserve and rushed toward Uramon’s side door. He ran straight across the black sand pit, marring its peaceful whorls and lines, kicking stones from his path and tracking sand on the lacquered wood floor.

He kicked the closed door with all of his weight and momentum. Beyond the doorway, a stairwell led down into a dark and silent cellar.

Dark and silent, Toshi thought. Perfect. He smiled, and relaxed his mind, accepting the myojin’s blessing.

Before his body had completely faded away, Toshi leaped out over the darkened stairway, floating like a ghost until he faded from view.

Uramon moved very quickly for a woman her age. She had never been a warrior, but she was tenacious and smart enough to control her corner of Takenuma’s illegal community in the shadow of the daimyo’s own tower. Through frequent go-yo crackdowns and the expanding strife of the Kami War, Uramon had not just survived but prospered.

As she picked her way through the darkened recesses below her manor, Uramon calculated. She had assembled enough guards to contain Toshi, but not Toshi and Kiku. By now they had probably killed or incapacitated all of the hatchet men and nezumi in her meditation chamber.

However, by now word had almost certainly spread that the boss was under attack, and her more formidable bodyguards and retainers would be rushing in to earn their keep. All she had to do was stay out of harm’s way until the rest of her manor guards completed the task of killing Toshi. She hoped Kiku survived, for then Uramon would own the jushi for life. Her clan elders would never have approved their prize student’s behavior and would surely abandon her rather than seek further conflict with Uramon. The boss’s thin lips crinkled as she flirted with the beginnings of a smile. She relished the thought of Kiku’s pride tearing the jushi apart over the years it would take to make amends for this night.

Uramon paused, listening closely and peering through the dim light. Satisfied, she felt for a hidden lever in the wall. Next to the lever was a small socket. Uramon made a fist and slotted her ring into the socket, a perfect fit, then pulled the lever forward.

A section of the wall silently fell into the floor. Uramon darted inside and pulled a matching lever, and the wall rose, sealing the entrance.

Her secret passage was known to no one but herself, and she kept one of her most powerful assets hidden within. The architects who constructed this passage and the laborers who transported the asset were all dead. This section of the manor was kept in almost complete darkness, and anyone caught venturing near the stairs would be ground up, dried, and spread across Uramon’s sand garden.

The boss felt for a candle that was kept in a sconce on the wall. She took it down and lit it, holding its pale weak flame aloft as she crept along the passage. Her immobile features did not change as she walked, but her eyes grew wider and more animated.

At its end the passage opened up into a small circular alcove. The candle revealed small sections of a large silk tapestry, but Uramon knew every detail by heart without seeing it. The tapestry showed a tall, black-hooded figure with a gleaming white porcelain mask. She was surrounded by pale, emaciated hands that circled her like a flock of birds.

Before the tapestry was a sturdy oaken chest of drawers. On top of the chest stood several lit candles arranged around a silver plate. A strange artifact rested on the plate. It was just over a foot high, with two piles of square stones flanking a black metal portcullis. Fine silver filigree connected the two square columns over the portcullis, with an elegant symbol woven through in flat black iron. Uramon glanced down at her fist and saw the same symbol on her ring below the flickering light of the candle.

“This must be the Shadow Gate.”

Uramon dropped the candle and quickly backed up until she touched the wall. Toshi’s voice had come from behind her, near the passageway. It was impossible for him to be here, but she heard his voice just the same.

“Are you really here, Toshi?” she called, “or is this some common mahotsukai magic trick?” With her hands thrust deep into the sleeves of her robe, Uramon slid the poisoned needle from its sheath on her arm.

“I’m here, Boss.” The ochimusha’s voice came from the right side of the room. “I had heard you kept a shrine to the Myojin of Night’s Reach in your cellar. Have I mentioned that I’m a believer myself?”

The candle still burned on the floor, but it was dying quickly. The candles on the chest of drawers were adequate for lighting up the artifact on the plate, but they did not help illuminate the room. Uramon narrowed her eyes and tried to pinpoint Toshi’s location by sound.

“A believer in what?” Uramon kept her arms wrapped tightly around herself, the long needle ready in her hand. “And who told you this?”

“The Myojin of Night’s Reach,” Toshi said, from the left side of the chamber. “And the Smiling Kami of the Crescent Moon. I don’t think he meant to tell me, he was just making conversation.”

Uramon spared a quick glance at the tapestry. The image was indeed of the Myojin of Night’s Reach, and the Shadow Gate below it drew its power from her. Uramon gritted her teeth in the darkness. Toshi’s greatest strength and his greatest weakness had always been his refusal to subordinate himself to one of the major kami. If now he had, as he claimed, the ochimusha was even more unpredictable and dangerous.

Uramon relaxed her grip but maintained her hold on the needle. She took a slow step toward the artifact on the plate.

Toshi’s voice was very close to her, but moving all the while as he spoke.

“Ahh,” he said. “This is where things come to head, boss. You want to use the Gate to escape … possibly to a place where there are more guards and fewer disobedient former reckoners.

“But I also want the Gate. I need it for the next step in my spiritual evolution.”

Uramon’s temper flared, both at Toshi’s sarcastic tone and the suggestion that he would relieve her of her property. Her voice, however, remained dull and monotonous. “The Shadow Gate is mine,” she droned. She took another step toward it. “It is for my use only. You have neither the skill nor the knowledge to employ it safely.”

“Worried about my welfare?” Toshi mocked. “Thank you, Boss, but I’m no longer your employee. Let me worry about me.”

Uramon took another step. She was nearly there. “I care not at all for you, Toshi. I just want you to understand there’s no profit in stealing the Gate, or even trying to use it. It will not function for you.”

“Not without the right preparations,” Toshi said. “And your ring.”

Uramon drew the poisoned needle with one hand an lunged for the artifact with the other. She drove her clenched fist with the ring extended directly at the center of the silver filigree.

A numbing wave of cold surged through Uramon, and she felt the air around her thicken. She still strained with all her might to reach the chest of drawers, but she could see her hand inching forward, slowing, stopping as if there were five stout men holding her back. Her breath clouded in front of her eyes, and stabbing pain shot up her arms and legs.

Uramon fell heavily to the floor, her outstretched fist mere inches from the chest of drawers. The long needle snapped in two beneath her falling body, but luckily she did not stick herself with the pointed end.

She could not move. She could not speak. She could only lie still in this prone position with one arm twisted beneath her and the other failing to reach the Shadow Gate. Her view of the secret chamber was tilted ninety degrees, so that the floor was the wall and the wall was the floor.

Toshi strode out of the darkness. A purple-black kanji had appeared on his forehead, and while Uramon was extremely learned, she did not recognize the symbol. It seemed to be a combination of the kanji for “frigid,” a second symbol she didn’t recognize, and Toshi’s own hyozan triangle.

The bruise-colored kanji pulsated. Uramon felt a fresh wave of numbness cross her entire body. She blinked tiny crystals of ice from her eyes.

With practiced motions, Toshi turned her over and removed the pieces of poisoned needle. He lifted her wrist and gently pried the ring from her finger.

“This ring,” he said, “allows you to employ the Myojin’s power. The Shadow Gate contains that power, keeping it in check until you need it.” Toshi dropped the ring next to Uramon’s face and crushed it beneath his sandal.

“Shadow is an aspect of Night,” Toshi intoned. “And I am an acolyte of Shadow.” He stepped forward and lifted the stone-and-metal artifact off the plate. “This power now belongs to me.”

A moan escaped Uramon’s blue lips. Without the ring, the Gate was worthless to her. If Toshi tried to use it, he would either be consumed or sent to some unimaginably distant place, perhaps even arriving with his insides outside.

Spitefully, she moaned again, trying to infuse her cries with panic and desperation. If Toshi thought she didn’t want him to use the gate, he was almost certain to do so. Once he did, she would have time to thaw and summon help.

But Toshi ignored her. His plans, whatever their final goal, included seizing the Shadow Gate immediately.

With the artifact in his hands, Toshi smiled and bowed at Uramon. The silver metal began to glow as the black symbol woven through it absorbed the light like sand absorbs water.

Toshi held the Shadow Gate in both hands as the glow slowly spread across his body. As the symbol drew in the glow back in, it also absorbed Toshi and the Gate itself.

The last thing Uramon saw before the room went black was the ochimusha’s cruel smile, and his wide, expectant eyes.

Then the cold claimed her and Uramon fell into a death-like sleep.