by Julie Kagawa
“It reveals the way. Prove you are worthy to pass. Or die upon stone.”
I blinked. Did…did it just give us that warning in haiku?
For a heartbeat, not one of us moved. Then, Daisuke stepped forward, drawing his sword with a screech, making Okame start. “Oi, Daisuke-san,” the ronin growled. “What are you doing, peacock? You’re not going to fight Boulder one and Boulder two, are you?”
“Of course, Okame-san.” Daisuke glanced back, that strangely eager smile on his face. “Didn’t you hear it? Prove your worth to pass. Yoshitsune was one of the greatest swordsmen who ever lived. If we want to prove our selves worthy, we must defeat him in battle. Besides…” His gaze flicked to me. “I promised to escort Yumeko-san to the Steel Feather temple, and to protect both her and the Dragon scroll from any who wish to acquire it. If I cannot defeat these guardians, here and now, how can I hope to stand against Hakaimono when the time comes?”
“That is not what the spirits said, Daisuke-san,” Reika broke in, stepping forward, as well. “It is not just you who wishes passage to the Steel Feather temple. We all must prove our worth if we wish to pass.” She reached into her sleeve and withdrew an ofuda, holding the slip of paper up between two fingers. “This test must be completed together.”
I frowned. For some reason, this situation didn’t seem right. “Are you sure we have to fight them?” I asked.
Okame snickered. “Well, they’re blocking the only way up the steps, and the haiku didn’t say ‘sit down and have tea.’ I don’t think they’re going to let us pass if we just ask nicely, Yumeko-chan.”
“Correct,” Reika agreed, and turned to point at me. “You should stand back, Yumeko-chan,” she ordered. “Let your guardians take care of this.”
I scowled at the shrine maiden. “I’m not afraid.”
“I did not say you were.” Reika shot me an exasperated glare. “But you must reach the Steel Feather temple, Yumeko-chan. We are close, just one more challenge remains, and the rest of us are here only as your shields. If we fall, that is not as important as you delivering the scroll to the temple and warning them of Hakaimono.” Her eyes narrowed. “So for once, listen to your protectors, kitsune, and let us do what we came to do. We don’t need you getting your stubborn head bashed in on the temple steps. Go.” She pointed, and only when I had retreated off to the side and had stepped behind a pillar did she turn to the men. The noble waited calmly with one hand on his sword hilt, and Okame had an arrow nocked to his bow. “Taiyo-san, Okame-san? Are we ready?”
Daisuke nodded. Turning to the statues, still watching rigid and unmoving in front of the steps, he bowed. “Guardian spirits,” he announced in a solemn voice, “we will not turn back. We will be honored to accept your challenge.”
The statues’ expressions didn’t change. Without warning, the large man swung his great stone spear before him in a savage arc, cutting at the whole party. Okame yelped, jerking back as it missed him by inches, and Reika dove out of the way. Daisuke leaped straight into the air, drawing his sword as he did, and cut at the statue as he came down. But Yoshitsune stepped in front of the large man, raising one of his swords, and Daisuke’s blade screeched off the stone weapon instead. Almost at the same time, the second sword lashed out, cutting at the noble, and Daisuke twisted aside, sleeves billowing, to avoid it. He spun to face the other swordsman, and had to leap aside to avoid the giant stone spear smashing to the earth. The smaller statue pressed forward, both blades moving in a spinning, deadly dance, and the noble retreated, his own sword whirling to block and parry.
An arrow ricocheted off the large statue’s head, leaving a white gash in the stone but little else. “Um, we might be in trouble, Daisuke-san,” Okame called, taking aim from atop an empty statue plinth. He fired again, but the dart struck the large man in the neck and went flying off into the darkness. “Any ideas on how to pierce solid granite?”
“I am still working on it,” came Daisuke’s breathless, somewhat wry voice. He evaded a flurry of blows, then turned, vaulted off the head of a statue and landed atop a row of broken pillars that stood upright like broken fangs. The swordsman statue didn’t hesitate but leaped after him, and Daisuke retreated to the next shattered column. The clang of their weapons rang overhead, as the two master swordsmen continued their duel several feet off the ground.
With a roar, the large statue swung his spear at the ronin, and Okame dove away as the weapon smashed right through the pedestal, turning it into a crumbling pile of pebbles and dust. Okame hit the ground and rolled to his feet, but a fist-size rock struck the back of his head and he staggered, dropping to his hands and knees. The large statue didn’t make a sound as it turned, raising its spear to crush him into the stones.
I gasped and, without thinking, stepped from behind the pillar and threw a ball of kitsune-bi toward the statue about to crush Okame. The flaming globe soared over the ronin and exploded in the statue’s face, flaring a brilliant blue-white and banishing the darkness like a flash of lightning. The statue paused and staggered back, waving a hand before its eyes.
A booming howl rang through the chamber, as with a streak of glowing red and gold, an enormous komainu leaped over a broken wall and landed beside the ronin. Reika was on his back, sitting between his massive shoulders and golden mane, as Chu’s guardian form roared at the statue still looming over Okame. Reika held an ofuda before her, the strip of paper fluttering wildly, and drew her arm back as the statue turned, raising its spear.
“Shatter,” Reika cried, flinging the ofuda toward the living statue, as Chu dodged the spear blade crashing into the earth. The tiny slip of paper struck the statue’s chest and clung there for a moment, as the kanji on the surface started to glow.
With a sharp crack, a portion of the statue’s chest exploded outward, filling the air with dust and rock shards and knocking the giant back a few feet. It made no sound, but flailed as it staggered, lashing out wildly with its spear. The blow was fast and unexpected, and Chu wasn’t able to react quickly enough. The haft of the weapon struck him across a meaty shoulder, lifting him off his feet and sending him and Reika flying through the air. They hit the ground, rolled into a statue base and lay there a moment before struggling weakly to get up.
Heart pounding, I looked at the giant. There was a gaping hole in the statue’s chest, big enough for a samurai’s helmet to fit, but the stone warrior was still on its feet. And though it was nearly impossible to catch any type of expression on its stony features, I thought it looked angry now.
The clang of stone on steel echoed somewhere overhead. Daisuke and the other statue were still dueling on the pillars rising from the ground, running up broken columns and leaping from pillar to pillar, and an idea flitted through my head like a butterfly.
I bent down, snatched up a pebble and stepped away from the column toward the large statue, which was turning its terrifying gaze on Reika and Chu. As it took a thunderous step toward them, I took a deep breath and darted into the open.
“Excuse me!” I called, and the statue turned its stony gaze around, hollow eyes finding me across a shattered column. I raised one hand, a sphere of kitsune-bi igniting in my palm. “You haven’t forgotten about me, have you?” I taunted, and flung the globe of foxfire at the looming statue.
The flaming ball hit the giant square in the gaping chest hole and exploded in a flash of brilliant light, but the statue didn’t move or even flinch. Raising its spear, it turned and began to stalk toward me, its ponderous footsteps booming over the ground and making the air tremble. I flattened my ears and darted behind a trio of pillars as the tremors drew closer. Closing my eyes, I squeezed the pebble in my hand and felt my power stir to life.
Let’s hope these things can’t see through magic.
I stepped out from behind the pillars and hurled a ball of kitsune-bi at the approaching statue, causing it to explode in its face. With an angry rumble, it lunged, swinging its huge spear through the air at my head. I ducked, and the blade smashed in
to the pillar behind me, crushing stone and shearing through in a terrifying display of strength. Pebbles and dust flew everywhere as I scrambled backward and hit another pillar behind me, just as the statue swung his giant blade again. I dodged and managed to put another pair of columns between me and the statue, as his blade smashed another pillar to rubble.
“Yumeko!” I heard Reika shout as I frantically ducked behind yet another column. The clang of metal echoed somewhere close, and then it was drowned out as the giant’s spear smashed through the barrier like it was made of salt.
A massive tremor went through the ground, as pillars, statues and columns that had been holding each other up collapsed with the roar of a landslide. The granite columns smashed to the ground, crushing the large statue and everything around him, including the illusion of a kitsune he had been trying to smash into the rock. Overhead, the statue of the swordsman, who had been pursuing Daisuke across the pillars, halted as the stone beneath him gave way. Both swordsmen tried to leap to safety; Daisuke sprang atop a falling pillar, ran along the edge as it fell and flung himself onto the Jade Prophet’s enormous head. The living statue tried to follow him, lost its balance and plummeted like a bag of stones to the ground. It struck the rocks and cracked into several pieces where it landed, its head rolling several yards away and vanishing behind a ruined pedestal.
The rumbles faded, and the dust began to settle. I exhaled and stepped out from the column I’d been hiding behind while the stone warrior chased my double around the room. The swordsmaster, Yoshitsune, lay shattered against the pillars, and his enormous friend was nowhere to be seen, buried as he was under several tons of granite. I doubted either of them would come after us again.
“Yumeko!”
Okame’s frantic voice rang out behind me, a moment before the ronin skidded into view a few yards away. He was panting, staring furiously at the mountain of rubble, the dust clouds still billowing into the air. Reika was right behind him, she, too, gazing at the pile of stone in utter dismay.
“No,” she whispered, and put a hand to her mouth. “Great Kami, please no.”
Confused, I stepped forward. “Reika-san, Okame-san,” I called, and they both spun on me, wide-eyed. “Are you all right? The statues are destroyed.” I blinked at the sudden fury on Reika’s face and took a step back. “Ano…is something wrong?”
My ears flattened, for the shrine maiden was stalking toward me with a hard, almost manic look in her eyes. Her fingers dug into my skin as she seized me by the shoulders, her face almost white.
“You’re alive,” she whispered, giving me a little shake. “You’re not an illusion. Thank the kami.” She let out her breath in a puff, then glared furiously. “I have half a mind to kill you, fox.”
“Ite,” I complained, wincing as thin, shockingly strong fingers squeezed my flesh like a vise. “I’m confused, Reika-san. Are you happy that I’m alive, or not?”
Thankfully, she let me go, still glaring at me with eyes like onyx daggers. “I suppose I should be grateful that it was an illusion I watched get crushed beneath all that rock and stone,” she snapped, almost sounding embarrassed. “I suppose I should be thankful that you never listen when we tell you something. That you will, in fact, do the exact opposite, because you are a kitsune and chaos flows through your veins as surely as evil through an oni.”
I blinked at her. “I’m still confused, Reika-san.”
“Yumeko.” Okame sighed, and I felt a hand on my head, resting between my ears, as he came up behind me. “Don’t scare us like that. We’ve got to figure out some sort of signal when you’re about to do your kitsune thing, so the rest of us don’t blunder off a cliff or dive under a collapsing roof trying to save an illusion.”
“Indeed,” said a new, slightly strained voice, as Daisuke stepped around the rubble pile. He moved smoothly across the rocky ground toward us, but I suspected he was doing his best not to limp. Okame stiffened and stepped around me, brow furrowed, as the noble joined us.
“That was quite the impressive display, Yumeko-san,” Daisuke told me, though his smile was pained. “I am correct in assuming you are the one responsible for the sudden collapse of everything, yes? My attention was somewhat diverted when the pillars began to fall.”
I winced. Everything had happened so fast. With the giant statue looming over Okame and Reika, I’d made a split-second decision. Only now did I realize it had put Daisuke in danger, too. “Gomen, Daisuke-san.”
“No.” He shook his head. “No need for apologies. Your course of action was possibly the best. Although I admit I would have rather finished that fight myself, steel blades can do precious little against solid stone.” He gazed down at his sword, eyes narrowed, before glancing over the rubble pile. “In any case, we completed the challenge. The way up the stairs should be clear.”
Picking our way over fallen pillars and broken statues, we made our way back to the staircase. However, as soon as we approached the bottom step, there was another loud grinding of stone, and four more statues stepped off their plinths to crash to the steps, blocking our way.
“What?” Okame stumbled back, staring at the new guardians who had stepped forward. “More of them? How many of these things are we going to have to fight?”
“As many as we must.” Daisuke stepped forward and, even though he was bloody, bruised and exhausted, raised his chin and put one hand on his sword hilt. “The entire room, if it means we must get through this challenge.”
Okame cast a nervous glance at the dozens, perhaps hundreds, of statues lining the steps and scattered throughout the cavern. “There’s an awful lot of statues in here, peacock. If they all come to life and attack us, we’re not going to have a good day.”
Daisuke only smiled. “A true warrior welcomes battle,” he stated quietly. “If he must stand against an army, he knows his death will be with honor.”
“Daisuke-san,” I said, with a sudden flash of insight, “wait.”
Stepping beside the noble, I grabbed his sleeve, making him turn with a puzzled frown. “The haiku in the beginning,” I said. “How did it go, again?”
“It reveals the way,” Daisuke supplied, still keeping an eye on the statues. “Prove you are worthy to pass. Or die upon stone.”
“What if it wasn’t a challenge or a test?” I mused, staring at the line of guardians. “What if it was a warning? We tried fighting them, and that didn’t work. What are we missing?”
It reveals the way.
“Yumeko!” Reika called, as Daisuke drew his blade in a flash of steel. “Watch out!” The stone statues had started down the few steps separating us, raising their weapons to strike.
Oh!
“Wait!” I cried, and reached into my robes, shoving my hand between layers of cloth to find what I needed. Taking one step forward even as the statues loomed overhead, I pulled out the scroll and held it up before me. “Stop!”
The statues froze. I glanced up and with a chill, saw that their huge stone blades had come to a halt midswing, and had all been aimed at me. “This is what you wanted, isn’t it?” I whispered, somehow managing words around the throbbing of my pulse. “This was the key, the it that revealed the way. You just needed to make sure we had the scroll.”
The statues didn’t move. They stood clustered on the steps, silent and motionless, like they had been standing there, motionless, for hundreds of years. I reached out and prodded a stony knuckle, and a bit of dust flaked off to drift to the ground.
Very carefully, still holding the scroll out like a torch, I stepped forward, ready to leap away if any of them twitched. Nothing happened as I eased between granite arms and stony elbows, slipping through the mass until I stood above the statues on the other side. “I think it’s safe now,” I said, glancing back at my companions. “They know we’re not intruders. That we have a piece of the Dragon scroll.”
Reika let out her breath in a rush. “One of these days, your luck is going to run out, fox,” she warned as the rest of them started
up the staircase. “And then what are you going to do?”
“I don’t know, Reika-san, but I’m sure I’ll think of something.”
Two gigantic statues guarded the gates at the top of the stairs, twin figures that dwarfed even the large statue with the spear. They looked more like ancient kami or yokai than mortal men. Their bodies and faces were human, but great feathered wings sprouted from their backs, and their eyes were slitted like a bird’s. I wondered if these were the final guardians, the last defense against intruders if all the other statues had failed. Looking into their stern, fierce features, I was glad we’d never have to find out.
The great iron doors through the gateway weren’t barred, but it took all of us pushing together to get them to budge. They finally gave way with a reluctant groan, and a cloud of centuries-old dust billowed from the opening. Another stone staircase lay beyond the threshold, this time leading up to a rectangle of navy sky and stars.
Warily, we climbed the final staircase. The air drifting into the passage was shockingly cold and crisp, instead of the dusty, stale air we had left behind in the cavern. Overhead, the stars and a brilliant orange moon blazed down on us, seemingly closer than they had ever been before.
We reached the top step and came out of the passage. A blast of icy wind hit my face, tossing my hair and making my cheeks tingle, and the air tasted of frost.
“Sugoi,” I whispered, staring up at what lay before us.
A massive mountain peak rose straight into the air, jagged and unbowed. The very top, scraping the sky and raking the clouds, was tipped with snow. Built into the very side of the cliffs, looking like it was carved from the mountain itself, an enormous temple loomed against the stars. Ancient pagoda roofs swept the sky, curled up at the corners like wings, so weathered and wind-scoured they looked more stone than tile. The walls of the temple might have been any color once, but were now the same uniform gray as the cliff face. From what I could see, there were no roads, stairs, even a treacherous mountain goat path winding up the peaks. Either there was a secret way into the temple that I wasn’t seeing, or we were going to have to learn to fly.
