The Fox's Quest

by Anna Frost

  A red fox popped into existence. Finally, you’re here! Physical travel is so slow. It turned its slanted black eyes upon him. Do you see what I mean now, Brother? This is only the beginning. Further on, it’s worse.

  “I begin to see,” he allowed. “How far can you go?”

  Not much farther. Being here is already unpleasant. Don’t you feel anything?

  Akakiba stood quietly, listening to his instincts, but he perceived nothing unusual except the lack of animal noise. Where were the singing birds and chirping squirrels? Where were the buzzing bugs?

  “I’m a bit uneasy,” Yuki said. “But I think it’s because the life here is all dying. It looks wrong.”

  You’ll feel the cause of it soon enough. Tomorrow you’ll have to go on without me. Please, be careful.

  It was so easy to trust the familiar voice, which is why Akakiba couldn’t afford to do so. He had to remember the hard truth—nobody in living memory had ever “survived” death. It was true the spirit’s aura was indistinguishable from Sanae’s, but that didn’t mean it was her. It could have been an especially strong ghost.

  Contrary to popular belief, ghosts weren’t souls unable to move on. Rather, ghosts were spirits tainted by human deaths to the point they thought they were the person. It was a sohei’s job to cleanse ghosts, to free the spirits from the taint and allow them to return to their proper existence.

  Ghosts weren’t supposed to be functional, independent entities like the Sanae lookalike was, but maybe that was because they of the Fox clan were different than humans. Or maybe—he disliked the thought the moment it formed—a spirit had somehow absorbed or copied Sanae’s soul. He’d never heard of such a thing, but it was less farfetched than the idea anyone could survive death.

  How could he discern the truth? Ask Jien to cleanse the lookalike to see what happened? There might not even be a way to find out for sure if this entity was Sanae in any real way. If he were foolish enough to believe his baby sister was here with him, only to discover otherwise later… That would hurt worse than anything.

  With these troubling thoughts swirling in his head, Akakiba returned to his meal, the roasted leftovers of a pair of rabbits he’d caught the previous night. Good thing he’d gone hunting then, as he wasn’t sure there was game to be found in this sickened area.

  The dragon munched on a bone without interest; it’d eaten plenty earlier in the week and, like a snake, it didn’t require daily feedings. Yuki, too, was eating rabbit. He looked guilty, but that would fade in time. Being part of the cycle of life was no reason to feel guilty, regardless of what human religion claimed.

  The horses usually grazed to supplement their daily feed but tonight they barely nibbled. Perhaps they were sensitive to the wrongness here, although not to a degree sufficient to act out. They’d have to be watched.

  The fox-shaped spirit hadn’t left. It currently sat on its haunches on the other side of their modest fire. I have news to share. I’ve been speaking with Father, and he says Mother has uncovered troubling information about a man named Matsumoto. Do you recall him?

  “I do,” Yuki said. “He made trouble when we were selling dragon eggs last year. An officer had to intervene. Matsumoto harassed the officer’s family because of it.”

  “I asked Mother to handle the matter,” Akakiba said, his curiosity roused. “If you know what happened to him, do tell.”

  Oh, the man became fish food months ago. However, Mother discovered he’s been blamed for bringing the dragon sickness to the city. People recall that when he first came, he had with him a dragon that slept all the time. He carried it everywhere, paying courtesy calls to everyone of importance and offering his dragon’s breeding services. His beast was one of the first to die of the sickness.

  “Are you saying he knew it was sick and deliberately sought to contaminate the others? Humans would call that heresy.”

  Yuki hissed in concert with his bonded dragon. “That bastard.”

  It’s what Mother believes. He’s a nobody and he shouldn’t have had the money to afford a dragon in the first place. It would explain why he was so anxious to get another one, after. The sick dragon must have been supplied to him.

  “I see a few possibilities,” Yuki murmured.

  As did Father. We agreed it’s likely the same person or organization who sent the shinobi. They wanted to weaken our defenses any way they could. Perhaps they’d hoped to sneak possessed people into the city itself.

  “There may have been other subtle moves made we weren’t aware of,” Akakiba said.

  Yes, that is a possibility. The spirit produced a sound comparable to a sigh. If Mother had known to extract information from Matsumoto before arranging his accident, we may have been able to learn who it is behind all this.

  Since the source was questionable, this information may or may not have been true. But it sounded plausible and didn’t seem worth lying about, so Akakiba elected to accept it at face value until he had a chance to obtain proof one way or another.

  They slept soundly and rose early, eager to go on. The Sanae impersonator turned back when the ground dipped into the valley it called the dead zone, a place where absolutely everything was lifeless. It was from the middle of this area, the impersonator believed, that spiritual energy was being stolen.

  Be careful, it called after them.

  They rode onward, staring round. The trees were naked ghosts pointing at the sky or lying broken down. All that should have been green was brown and shriveled. Not a single living creature was visible, not even a bug. Everything that could flee had evidently done so and everything that couldn’t had died. The reason the trees still stood was there were no bugs, mushrooms, or mold to eat them until they weakened and fell.

  They made their way through the dead landscape holding the reins tight, for the horses shied and danced ceaselessly. The dragon hissed but didn’t speak.

  “I feel...itchy,” Akakiba said. “Yuki?”

  “Itchy is a good description. I also feel jumpy and eager to leave, as if there were terrible danger lurking. Which is unlikely, since there’s nothing alive…”

  This gave Akakiba the mental image of being attacked by dead things, a wildly unlikely possibility that nonetheless increased his unease exponentially.

  The sound of wind running through dead trees was like a distant, pained moan, as if the forest’s ghosts were still here. Knowing such ghosts couldn’t exist hardly made it less unnerving.

  “Stay close to me, Yuki,” he murmured, urging his mount onward. Normal horses might have bolted; these war-trained ones could yet be persuaded to go on. “Good boy,” he said, patting his mount’s sweaty neck. “It’s safe.”

  That could have been a lie. How should he know? Almost despite himself, he drew his sword to be ready to handle any enemy that presented itself. He pictured dead things rising from the ground to grasp at them with bone hands and paws.

  They wandered, trying to locate the center of the dead area, until finally they spied something shiny in the distance. They approached with caution, watching their surroundings with hawk-like attention. Not a thing moved.

  The shiny thing was a sword half buried in the trunk of a dead tree. Akakiba tied the horses before starting forward to inspect it, worried the animals might bolt if anything should happen.

  “Who could shove a sword in wood like that?” Yuki wondered.

  “I could do it with my full strength,” Akakiba said dubiously, “but why would I or anyone else want to do this?”

  “It must be the thing Sanae felt.” Yuki’s hand went to hover near the blade. “It does pull on me.”

  “Don’t touch it,” Drac hissed from horseback, for he hadn’t dismounted. “I don’t like it.”

  “How did it kill everything?” Yuki stepped back to study it at a safe distance. “It’s a demon
-slaying sword, isn’t it?”

  The exposed part of the blade had familiar glyphs on it, that much was true. They were even glowing faintly, as if they were in use. Frowning, Akakiba crouched to study the glyphs and compare them with the ones on his own sword. “These aren’t right.”

  “What do you mean? Badly carved?”

  “They’re entirely different glyphs. I can’t tell what they’re meant to do. We’d need Jien for that.”

  “Can we bring it back and show it to him? Maybe he could explain how it works. Maybe he could reverse it.”

  Akakiba reached out gingerly, allowing his palm to almost touch the blade. No pull, as far as he could tell. It was odd that he, a half-human and half-spirit being, seemed to be less sensitive to an energy-stealing sword than his human friend was. Maybe it was the dragon bond screwing things up again.

  He moved to touch the sword’s hilt and paused: it was coated in a thin film of a substance that looked like grime. He took a good sniff.

  “Poison,” he said in surprise. Reaching for the water gourd, he emptied it over the hilt. He produced a rag to wipe it down, working carefully and tossing the rag away afterward. Once satisfied, he grasped it. There may have been traces of poison remaining, but his metabolism would be able to filter it out if any got into his blood. Planting his feet on the dead tree trunk, he heaved.

  The sword refused to budge.

  “If I must…”

  Akakiba bled red. He didn’t need to see himself to know his long hair, normally jet-black, turned redder than the fall leaves. Or that his face became covered in strange markings and his eyes filled red as if with blood. With that strength, he pulled.

  The katana slid free of the tree trunk. In that moment, as he held the blade while exposing his inhuman half’s power, he felt the pull. The glyphs flared to brilliant life as the sword attacked. It began to feed, sinking its teeth in his life force. Real teeth in his real flesh would have hurt less. He couldn’t even scream.

  “Drop it!” Yuki screamed, lunging forward.

  That sounded like wonderful advice, but his muscles were locked in place, his fingers as well as frozen against the object trying to eat him alive.

  Yuki hit Akakiba’s hand at the juncture of his fingers, loosening his grasp. The sword fell and the pain vanished, leaving behind only a dull throbbing. Akakiba stopped bleeding red immediately, hiding his secret half deep within his human flesh, where it would be safe.

  “Cursed thing!” he swore, eying the sword malevolently. Then, more calmly, “Thank you, Yuki.”

  He didn’t say anything dramatic like “you saved my life,” but he thought it. If there hadn’t been anyone to get that thing out of his hand…

  They couldn’t leave it here, much as he would have liked to do just that. His hand wrapped in his sleeve for protection, he picked it up under Yuki’s watchful gaze. “I feel nothing amiss now.” He didn’t trust the feeling. The general unease they had been feeling was almost certainly this thing’s work, a sign it was trying to leech their strength, nibbling at the edges of their life energy. Proximity to this sword had killed the forest; in time, it might do the same to them. They had to get this thing contained as fast as possible.

  After wrapping the blade in a blanket, he shoved it into one of the packs hanging over his horse’s flanks. “We should leave.”

  “Agreed,” Yuki said, mounting. “I saw…” He swallowed. “It was trying to eat your life spark.”

  “I noticed.” He shuddered, remembering that split moment of pure agony.

  Their modest riding skills were taxed by the effort of keeping their horses from galloping away, as they clearly wanted; they snorted and pulled at the reins. It was too easy for a horse to break a leg when running on uneven ground. Still, they hurried away from that blighted place.

  Sanae reappeared when they stopped for food and rest. She didn’t coalesce into a fox and didn’t come closer than necessary, appearing as a bright flicker between the trees.

  You have it! What is it?

  “It’s a strange sword,” Akakiba replied, almost shouting to be heard. “The Great Temples would know what to make of it. We’ll bring it to them so they can neutralize it.” If the monks didn’t know how, then nobody did.

  I’d better get away; this is too close for me. I’ll tell Father. It popped out of existence.

  Yuki looked at him. “If you don’t believe she’s truly your sister, why are you telling her vital information?”

  Akakiba opened his mouth and found he couldn’t frame a coherent reply. He’d somehow slipped and treated the spirit as his sister. His poor dead sister, who wouldn’t come back to life simply because he wished it.

  What a cursed fool he was.

  Chapter Six

  Jien

  Jien sat cross-legged before the writing table, painstakingly writing down the names of those Aito considered “suspicious persons to investigate.” The list included anyone of a rank sufficiently high to have known of the energy-siphoning sword’s presence in their temple, along with most of the sword makers.

  Jien shook his cramped hand. “Why am I doing the writing? I’m terrible at it.” The Great Temples ensured their wandering sohei had minimal skills in writing and reading, but Jien rarely had reason to practice. His brush lines were unsteady and his kanji leaned every which way.

  “I never learned the skill,” Aito said stiffly. “I couldn’t focus sufficiently.”

  “Lucky.”

  “That’s not what people say when they hear about an illiterate monk.”

  Jien paused. Monks, along with priests and samurai, were expected to be learned men. Yuki had surely learned the basics from his father. Akakiba—well, he could probably read. But it wouldn’t have been entirely out of character if he’d refused to learn these skills because they wouldn’t help him slay demons. The man was obsessed.

  Samurai could be forgiven shaky literacy since they did most of their thinking with their sword. For monks, who were supposed to be wise and able to pass on their wisdom, literacy was of greater importance.

  “Even monkeys fall from trees,” Jien said, using the idiom that meant “nobody’s perfect.” “I can’t get familiar spirits; you can’t write. That’s how it is.” He glanced at his scroll and the disgraceful scrawls on it. “Are we done? I’m running out of room.”

  “That should be all.”

  “That’s hardly comforting, when ‘all’ means dozens and dozens of names. Where do we begin?” They considered the matter in silence until Jien suggested, “Can’t your familiars act as spies to overhear incriminating conversations?”

  “What do you think I have been doing these past months? The matter is too old for that tactic to work. The guilty party or parties have no reason to speak of it.”

  Jien drummed his fingers on the writing table, scowling at the list as if it might shrink to please him. “If your hunch is correct, the sword is now in the hands of a possessed person. I see two possibilities: either we have a traitor who sold the blade for money or there’s a possessed spy within our midst. It would be easier if the culprit was possessed, wouldn’t it? With the dragons they now put at the gates, he’d be caught sooner or later.”

  “Unless he deserted,” Aito said. “Everybody who went missing in the year after the theft was investigated as best as possible, often with my participation, but a wise spy would have waited longer before vanishing. We would have marked him down as missing in action and forgotten about it. The last three names on the list belong to such missing persons; they’ll be hardest to investigate.”

  “Let’s be optimistic and say our hypothetical possessed thief and spy is still here gathering information. Has anyone taken to staying in the temple since they began guarding the gates with dragons?”

  “Some of the elders never go far. And—”Aito�
�s head jerked up. “The trainees. They’re forbidden from leaving the grounds.” A monk’s training took ten years, meaning a trainee could have performed the theft all these years back and still be here. “They also have no or little contact with the monks who have dragons. If one of them were possessed, we might not notice.”

  “A trainee working with the blade makers would have had the opportunity to learn of the blade,” Jien added, growing excited. “How can we find out which trainees were training with the blade makers at the time of the theft?”

  “I need to consult my teacher,” Aito said as he rose to his feet. “He has access to the records and we can trust him.”

  “Who do you mean?”

  “Toshishiro. You would know him as Crazy Toshi.”

  Jien’s eyebrows climbed up. “I thought he was insane. He’s always talking to himself, isn’t he?”

  A smile fleetingly lit Aito’s face. “In truth, he’s always talking to his familiar spirit. He forgets not to do it aloud. He’s the reason I was sent to this particular temple. Until I came, he was the only sohei in the order of the Great Temples with a familiar spirit. The knowledge is usually kept from the lower ranks, however. Hence the nickname.”

  “Ahh, it all makes sense now. We always wondered why the teachers bowed to him so deeply. We thought he’d been a war hero.”

  Aito was already half out the door, speaking over his shoulder. “Rest from your journey while I visit him. We have much to do tomorrow.”

  Left alone, Jien retrieved and laid out two futon. The room was spacious enough for two, a sign Aito was granted more respect than his mere rank accounted for. Jien could have obtained a tiny room of his own, but knowing there was a traitor out there made him inclined to stay close to a trusted ally. He remembered old Tadashi’s fate, murdered in his guest room by people he thought friends.