Maledictions

by Graham McNeill et al.

  ‘If you are so opposed, you do not have to join the circle,’ Baron Eiji told him. ‘Of course, being outside the circle would mean forsaking its protection. Are you so certain your god values you enough to safeguard you against the wraith we would conjure?’

  Toshimichi could see the doubt in Gunichi’s eyes. A moment more and he walked forwards and took his place within the strange design that stretched across the floor. The flickering light from the seventeen black candles arrayed about the circle did strange things to the dragon embroidered on the priest’s robes, making it seem as though the wyrm were writhing in protest and trying to pull Gunichi away.

  Toshimichi fought to suppress his own misgivings. He wondered if the priest truly knew how deeply Baron Eiji had delved into the black arts to perform this séance. The scholar’s own studies had touched upon these occult practices. The seventeen candles, for instance, had to be rendered from the fat of murdered men in order to evoke their arcane potency. The chalk that marked the floor drew its ghostly colour from the crushed bones mixed in with the powder. At the four cardinal directions, a tiny brazier smouldered and filled the hall with a sweet incense – an odour derived from the slivers of coffins exhumed under the full moon. All these things, and many other macabre preparations, were designed to draw into the room the magic of Shyish and the grisly energies of the dead.

  With Gunichi’s entry into the circle, the balance was complete. The priest took his place in the triangle where the stars of the celestial dragon had been drawn. Each member of the family stood within a geometric shape that contained a constellation peculiar to their nature. Masanori was in a rhombus with the stars of the weasel while Otami reposed in a hexagon with the lights of the dove. Toshimichi noted that his own place was a pentagram with the owl. Baron Eiji, at the centre of the complex intricacies of the circle, was bound by a chalk octagon and the constellation of the wolf.

  The dour retainers were quick to act once Gunichi was inside the circle. Keeping outside the shape, they moved to cast down powder and seal the design, creating an unbroken perimeter around the Nagashiro survivors. Their task completed, the men bowed towards Baron Eiji. A gesture from their master sent the men scurrying away. Toshimichi could hear their hasty footfalls as they withdrew through the castle’s desolate halls.

  ‘Each of you has, in a way, attempted to defy the curse of Nagashiro,’ Baron Eiji stated. ‘Be it stealing away to the protection of a temple or trying to trick a renowned swordsman into serving as your champion. All of you have tried some way to escape the revenge of Yorozuya.’

  ‘And you have promised a better way,’ Masanori growled. ‘A way that is certain to work.’

  Baron Eiji nodded. ‘It was not pride that caused me to restore this keep or fabricate the lost relics of our clan.’ He turned and looked to the Dowager. ‘You made a study of the arcane sciences in an effort to break the curse.’

  The Dowager grasped the ivory pendant with a bony hand. ‘It was my dream that I should be able to protect my children. I have failed in that ambition and now I find my last son to be rushing headlong into calamity.’

  ‘There is an old adage, mother, that the man who would escape danger must first embrace it,’ Baron Eiji stated.

  Toshimichi felt a chill rush through his body. ‘You mean to call up the spirit of Yorozuya,’ he said. There was no question in the scholar’s mind. He could read the intention in the baron’s eyes.

  Baron Eiji made a placating motion with his hand. ‘Do not be afraid. What is there to fear except the thing that already menaces each of us? Would you go back, run away to wait and tremble until the Lord Executioner finds you? Or will you stand here and help me to break this curse?’

  ‘Yorozuya will kill us all!’ objected Masanori and his argument was taken up by many of the others.

  ‘Not if you stand with me,’ Baron Eiji said. ‘The courage of a moment and you will save your lives.’

  ‘What is it you intend with this rite?’ Toshimichi asked. ‘What do you hope to accomplish when you call Yorozuya?’

  ‘I intend to deceive the ghost,’ Baron Eiji stated. ‘That is why it was necessary for all of you to come here, for all of you to enter the circle. Every living drop of Nagashiro blood is within this circle. When Yorozuya is called, he will seek a head to claim, but he will not be able to take any who stand in the circle. We will be invisible to him.’

  ‘And when he finds none to slay, he will believe his task accomplished,’ Toshimichi mused. ‘At least until the next cycle begins.’

  ‘That would be a century from now,’ Otami said. ‘There will be no menace over any of us.’

  ‘A century from now, our descendants can simply repeat the ritual,’ Masanori suggested. ‘That will put them outside the wraith’s reach.’ He grinned at Baron Eiji. ‘It is a brilliant design. You will save all of us.’

  ‘I will confound the curse,’ Baron Eiji declared. He looked over to the Dowager. ‘The last of our blood will endure,’ he told his mother. The Dowager said nothing, but simply removed the pendant from around her neck and handed it to her son.

  The gesture brought dampness to Baron Eiji’s eyes. He gripped the ivory tight in his hand and nodded to the others. ‘The hour draws late and I must begin the ritual. Whatever may happen, keep silent and do not leave the circle. The least disruption of my magic could bring disaster to us all.’

  The baron pointed to each of the candles. As he did so, their flames billowed higher even as the light they gave off became subdued. Toshimichi felt a biting cold fill the room, his breath turning to mist as he exhaled. The smell of the incense became heavier, the sweetness fading into a rank, earthy smell. The reek of graveyard dirt and despoiled tombs.

  Baron Eiji’s voice rose in the sharp intonations of his ritual. The language was unknown to Toshimichi, but there was a sinister, inhuman cadence to it, evoking images of giant serpents hissing and the scratching of claws against stone. Through it all, there was one name that was distinct in the baron’s invocation. That of the Great Necromancer. The name of Nagash.

  Toshimichi felt his pulse quickening as the uncanny atmosphere within the circle intensified. A damp clamminess wrapped itself around him, making it difficult to breathe.

  Then, with shocking abruptness, the great hall returned to normal. The glow of the candles was again restored, the eerie chill vanished from the air. Toshimichi had heard a cry, a voice raised in terror. He knew it was not Baron Eiji who had shouted, for his invocation could still be heard.

  Who it was that had cried out, Toshimichi never knew. The question itself was forgotten when he looked towards Baron Eiji. A black mass, thicker than the shadows that filled the great hall, was rapidly gathering around the nobleman. There was just the suggestion of a head and shoulders, the dark outline of a raised sword…

  Before anyone could move, the baron’s invocation was silenced. Eiji’s head leaped from his shoulders in a welter of gore, spraying blood as it rolled across the arcane circle.

  ‘He’s called Yorozuya!’ Gunichi shrieked. ‘But the Lord Executioner is inside with us!’

  The séance exploded into a chorus of screams and shouts. Toshimichi fled with the others as they rushed from the circle and out across the gloomy great hall. For the rest of them, he supposed they had no more thought than escape, but Toshimichi cast a parting look at Baron Eiji’s decapitated head, smiling up at him from a pool of Nagashiro blood.

  Toshimichi ran down the stairs that stretched down to the keep’s main gates. Far from the most robust of physiques, the scholar was well behind the press of panicked humanity that rushed ahead of him. He saw the terrified Masanori and Komatsu push past Otami, flinging the widow aside with callous disregard. He helped her back to her feet. She started to say something, whether of gratitude or protest he never knew, for in that moment her eyes widened with horror.

  Otami was gazing at something on the stairway above th
em, something back in the direction of the great hall. Toshimichi risked a backwards glance and was at once riveted by an awful fascination. The Dowager was descending the steps, not quickly but with the indifference she might have exhibited at a public function. She had a sombre look on her face, almost wistful in its way.

  Following after her was a dark mass, but far more distinct in its appearance than the shadow that had fallen upon Baron Eiji. It was the shrouded semblance of a man, its head wrapped in the leather folds of a headsman’s hood. Its dimensions were incomplete, fading away into the tatters of its shroud. It did not stride upon legs, but instead drifted in a vaporous state. As it moved, a litter of grubs and worms fell from its body, squirming away into the dark.

  ‘Run!’ Toshimichi shouted, but the Dowager only smiled sadly at him. She did not quicken her pace or even turn around. She seemed to know what it was that stalked after her and had resigned herself to her fate.

  Toshimichi did not wait to see the wraith make use of the gigantic sword clenched in its skeletal talons. Gripping Otami’s arm, he took his own advice and fled down the stairs, hurrying after the others towards the main gate.

  ‘It was Yorozuya!’ Otami cried, over and again. ‘He has come for us!’

  ‘First he has to catch us,’ Toshimichi told her, hating how empty the words sounded even to himself. Perhaps a great wizard could do something to defy the wraith, but the few spells and cantrips he knew would merely be an annoyance to such a monster. No, they couldn’t fight it. Their only hope was to get beyond the Lord Executioner’s reach. If such a thing was even possible.

  Toshimichi could see the hulking main gates at the bottom of the steps as he led Otami down the final length of the stairway. The others were there already, but curiously none had made a move to open them or even approach too closely. He soon found the reason why. The brewer Chihaya lay sprawled on the floor, pierced through the breast by an arrow.

  ‘Baron Eiji’s servants,’ Masanori cursed. ‘They’ve barred the gates and will shoot anyone who tries to get past!’

  The restoration of the keep had been haphazard and there were many gaps in the dilapidated gates. Holes through which a person, or an arrow, might pass. Toshimichi looked over at the torches that lined the stairway. The backlight they provided would expose anyone who tried to squirm through the broken panels. They were caught, trapped between the guarded gate and the ghost.

  ‘We have to get through!’ Otami shouted. ‘Yorozuya is coming! We saw him murder the Dowager!’

  Komatsu rushed towards the gate, hurling abuse at the men outside. ‘You hear that, you curs! Let us out!’ His only reply was the arrow that hissed past his head, nearly taking off his ear. The swordsman hurriedly drew back.

  ‘They are afraid they will let the wraith out,’ Gunichi said. ‘You cannot reason with frightened men.’

  Toshimichi glowered at the sealed portals and at the unseen archers beyond. He wondered if it was merely fear. ‘Maybe the baron ordered them to keep us inside,’ he suggested.

  ‘Why?’ Masanori demanded. ‘To what purpose? Besides, he is dead.’ The merchant turned towards the gate and shouted to the retainers outside. ‘Do you hear? Your master is dead!’

  Masanori’s entreaties only brought more arrows hissing through the gaps in the gate. ‘I can pay you,’ he shouted, his hands fumbling to free the purse strapped to his belt.

  Toshimichi felt the intense cold that suddenly swept through the air, a chill of soul rather than flesh. He turned and lifted his eyes to the top of the stairway. A dark apparition took shape there, manifesting as a rapidly forming shadow. The hooded Lord Executioner hefted its massive sword. The blaze of its eyes could be seen glowing behind its black mask as it stared down at the Nagashiro.

  ‘It is too late,’ Toshimichi said and pointed up at the wraith.

  Masanori intensified his efforts at bribery while the others looked on. Toshimichi knew they were debating which death to prefer – Yorozuya’s sword or the arrows. It was the same hideous decision he was trying to decide.

  Gunichi chose to confront the wraith. Turning from the gate, he ascended the stairs, his steps slow and measured. A religious mantra droned from his lips as he moved upwards and his hands were folded across his chest in the symbol of Dracothion. Toshimichi did not know the priestly language, but he recognised some of the gestures Gunichi used. He was trying to invoke divine protection against evil forces.

  Yorozuya remained at the top of the stairs, seemingly paralysed by Gunichi’s prayers. That was, at least, until the priest was midway between the gate and the wraith. ‘Stop!’ Toshimichi called. ‘Go no farther!’ In his occult studies, his efforts to understand and break the curse on the Nagashiro, he had learned something of the black arts. Among the arcane principles that empowered profane magics was that of the crossroads, the midpoint between one thing and another. Dusk and dawn, the moments between day and night. Doorways and gates, neither within nor without. There was peril here as Gunichi closed the distance and put himself both equally near and far from the Lord Executioner.

  The priest either did not hear or did not heed Toshimichi’s warning. He took that final step, resting himself on the stair that was exactly between the gate and Yorozuya. Whatever power his prayers had to hold back the wraith was undone. In a flash of shifting darkness the ghost vanished from the top of the stair and reappeared before Gunichi. The shadowy form was enveloped in a fiery light, whatever sacred energy was yet gathered around the priest. By that light, the dark shroud was burned away, exposing a ragged skeleton, its bones pitted with the bore-holes of worms and beetles.

  A moment only, Yorozuya stood thus exposed. Then the spectral shroud and hood flowed back into being, cloaking it in darkness once again. Silently, the apparition raised its executioner’s blade. Gunichi’s mantra faltered. He raised his voice in a scream of protest and threw up his hands to defend against the downward sweep of the razor-edged blade.

  Toshimichi heard Otami scream and felt her clutch his arm in a terrified grip. They saw Yorozuya’s sword shear through Gunichi’s arms, sending them tumbling down the steps. With the same stroke, the priest’s head was severed at the neck. In uncanny silence, his body slopped to the floor and rolled downwards until it crashed against the wall.

  ‘No!’ The cry rose from Komatsu. ‘I am not a Nagashiro!’ The swordsman spun around and seized Masanori. Before the merchant could react, Komatsu’s blade stabbed into his side. The wounded man collapsed to his knees, his face gripped by shock. ‘Listen to me, ghost! I will help you! I will give you the head of Masanori!’

  Toshimichi recoiled away from the crazed swordsman, dragging Otami with him. They looked on as Komatsu hacked away at Masanori’s neck. Blood spurted from the merchant’s veins, spattering the walls and the onlookers as the blade slashed into him again and again. It took four blows before Komatsu decapitated his victim. Stooping, he snatched up the head by its hair and held it aloft.

  ‘My gift to you!’ Komatsu shrieked at Yorozuya. ‘The head of a Nagashiro!’

  While Komatsu murdered his father-in-law, the wraith had been slowly descending the stairs. Now it came hurtling downwards in a blur of darkness. In a heartbeat, Yorozuya hovered before the red-handed swordsman. He cringed back and waved the head back and forth, as though the ghost had simply failed to see what he had done.

  The wraith merely raised its executioner’s blade. Komatsu had time enough to react. He threw the severed head at the apparition. It passed harmlessly through the spirit and landed at the foot of the stairs. Yorozuya brought its heavy blade sweeping down. Komatsu met it with his own blood-drenched weapon. There was a crash of steel as the two blades met.

  Toshimichi had to regard Komatsu with respect. Had his foe been mortal, the swordsman would surely have beaten him. The two weapons parried one another in a fierce display. The stairway echoed with the ring of battle. Twice, Komatsu slipped past Yorozuya’s
guard and slashed at the wraith’s shadowy essence. A living man would have died from either of those blows, but instead all Komatsu accomplished was to send a few shadowy grubs and maggots spilling from the ghost’s shrouded bones.

  Panic seized Komatsu, and in that panic his skill faltered. His parries became sloppy and now it was Yorozuya’s blade that prevailed. At first, there were only glancing cuts that nicked shoulder or arm, but then there came the grisly moment that had become inevitable. Weakened by fear and injury, Komatsu failed to block the killing stroke. Yorozuya’s murderous sword came whipping around at him, hewing through his throat in a mighty stroke that cut clear through the spine.

  During the fray, Emiko and Hirao rushed the gate. No arrows greeted the pair. Hearing the conflict within, aware of the monster which was coming for the Nagashiro, the retainers had fled. Now it was the courtesan and demigryph breeder who sought to escape. Squirming through the holes, the two deserted Sho Castle.

  Otami would have run after them, but Toshimichi held her back. He was looking at Komatsu’s body and at the gory mess of Masanori. ‘Wait,’ he urged her. ‘There is something wrong here!’ Even if his observation meant nothing, there was no salvation by simply running. As it rose from the swordsman, Yorozuya turned to the gate. The wraith’s spectral essence needed no hole to squeeze through as it pursued Emiko and Hirao, it simply passed through the barrier as though it did not exist.

  ‘We can escape now!’ Otami pleaded, but Toshimichi would not let her go.

  ‘Yorozuya would find us,’ he said. ‘Wherever we went, he would find us.’ He shook his head. ‘Baron Eiji had a purpose in bringing us all here. I think this is all by design, exactly as he wanted it to be.’ He pointed to the bodies of Masanori and Komatsu. ‘Look at them,’ he ordered when Otami would have turned from the grisly sight. ‘When Masanori was decapitated there was blood everywhere, but Komatsu’s wound did not bleed.’ He glanced up the steps at Gunichi. ‘We saw no blood when the priest died.’