A Sword's Poem

by Leah Cutter

She gasped. Ugly characters marred the wood there, twisted and jagged. They were painted in black, maybe with some kind of tar.

  The characters flew across the floor, as if the writer had been consumed with rage while composing them. There were again only a few characters that Kayoku recognized, but they chilled her completely: wishing the bearer a weak heart, draining strength as one drained pus from a wound.

  Kayoku started when the shoji door slid open. She held back her sharp retort when she saw that it was Priestess Ayumi from the Mori temple. She wore her usual plain dark green robe with her hair tied back in a practical bun. Today, her golden skin seemed pale—maybe she was shocked from all the bad news.

  The priestess closed the door behind her and came closer to the bed.

  “You have my condolences, my lady,” the priestess said, bowing her head.

  “Did these lead to my husband’s death?” Kayoku asked bluntly. She knew she should be more subtle about it. However, she had to know.

  “I don’t know, my lady,” Priestess Ayumi admitted. “I don’t know the full circumstances of his death. If it was more than just bad luck—if his death was caused by a weakening of his will and mind—these aided that.”

  “Thank you for telling me,” Kayoku said sincerely.

  She didn’t know how she was going to prove that Hikaru had painted these. But she knew it was the other wife who had done it.

  Why would she marry Iwao if she hated him so much? Why would she sleep with him, visit his rooms frequently enough that the scent of her lingered, if she was setting him up for death?

  Kayoku had many questions for the new wife. And she would answer them, too, when she showed up.

  Ξ

  Kayoku didn’t understand why the guards were bothering her about the stranger at the gate. It was late, she was tired, and it had been a long, strange day. She’d spent most of the evening grieving for Iwao, privately, in her own rooms, away from the prying eyes of all the others.

  Of course, she was the head wife. But really, couldn’t they turn a beggar away themselves?

  Kayoku steeled herself as she walked from her rooms to the front greeting hall, growing more angry by the minute. Couldn’t she get a moment’s peace? And Hikaru had yet to be found. Maybe she’d been a spy all along.

  The greeting hall had lamps lit all along the inside wall. Kayoku didn’t need the light to read the beautiful poems dedicated to the mountain that filled most of the walls, or to see the many watercolor paintings that hung there. Sweet nioi–bukuro packets were suspended from all the corners as well, to prevent bad spirits from entering the room.

  The stranger remained in shadows. Lamps flickered as the figure drew closer, though the room was still.

  Kayoku couldn’t help but gasp when she realized the figure before her was a woman. Her long hair hung in rivers down her back, soaked. Her robe had once been very fine, but now was streaked with mud. Her skin was still fine and white, but pale as a ghost’s. She wheezed as she breathed.

  “Kayoku!” the woman exclaimed. “Please. Help me.” The woman started weeping as if her heart would break, had already broken and nothing could stem the flood of tears.

  “Do I know you?” Kayoku asked, stepping back. Was this creature really human? Or some kind of ghost from her past, made manifest?

  The stranger stepped forward. “I am Hikaru,” she said, hiccupping and gulping in air before her tears started again.

  Hikaru? Kayoku didn’t believe it. The second wife was beautiful beyond compare. The woman before her—while still beautiful—was just pretty in an ordinary way.

  Besides, Hikaru would never have let herself be seen in public with eyes reddened by tears. Or a nose that needed wiping.

  “It is me,” the woman, this Hikaru imposter, declared. “Iwao…Iwao is dead. And I have his sword.”

  With that, the woman bent over to pick up a long shape at her feet that Kayoku hadn’t noticed before. She almost fell over as she struggled to rise with it.

  It was Seiji. Kayoku recognized the black lacquered scabbard, as well as the presence of the sword, suddenly apparent in the room. She shivered.

  “How did you get this?” Kayoku asked, striding forward.

  The woman hissed at her, made a claw of one hand and swiped at Kayoku while holding the sword to her bosom. “He is mine! My mate!”

  Clearly, Hikaru suffered from some sort of delusion. Had she actually cared for Iwao? Was that why she wouldn’t release his sword?

  But she’d been the one to paint those symbols in his room. Kayoku was sure of it.

  “You killed him, didn’t you?” Kayoku accused Hikaru. “Your spells. Your bad luck.”

  Kayoku had expected Hikaru to deny it. Or to laugh off her charges, as she laughed off all the chores that Kayoku had expected the second wife to do.

  She hadn’t expected Hikaru to collapse onto the floor as gracefully as a falling cherry blossom petal, wrapping herself around the sword as she descended.

  “It’s all my fault,” Hikaru whispered, moaning and crying. “All of it. The death of your husband. The corruption of mine. All my fault.”

  “What did you do?” Kayoku demanded.

  Hikaru wouldn’t answer though, lost to her own mourning and weeping. She wheezed again as she breathed, then started hacking.

  The second wife was sick.

  Kayoku did not want to take care of her, to have to nurse this despised woman back to health.

  However, if she wanted answers, and possibly retribution, she was going to have to take Hikaru back into the household. At least for a little while.

  Two

  Never Relenting

  Seiji

  Never relenting, Seiji and the others pulled themselves toward the earth.

  How dare she touch them? Why did she believe they would suffer her to wield them?

  Whoever this Hikaru being was, she had many things to learn about Seiji and his brothers, forged together in steel and blood. How they would bite her, slice her skin the first chance they got. How she would never be able to lift them from the earth.

  They refused to admire her persistence, dragging them from the hateful camp back to the estate of their rightful owner, the now dead Iwao. They didn’t feel the cold of the night, though the pattern of soft plops on their lacquered sheath told of the rain, and her shivering caused them delight.

  She had killed Iwao, through her magic and distraction. He could have won the battle against the hated Masato, could have saved the mountain.

  Now, she had damned them all.

  But Seiji no longer had limbs to move himself—he only had a memory of a dream in which he once stood upright, but even that was suspect. Maybe he only wished he could walk, so he could see the whole of the mountain, the great creation that he’d dedicated all of his souls to protect.

  At least he was back at the estate, away from the hateful camp, that odious Masato.

  Masato thought he had a right to rule the mountain. The mountain would not be ruled by a single man. And a single religion for such a large mystery? Bah!

  This Hikaru, though. She wouldn’t let go of Seiji. Wouldn’t draw him out so that he might cut her, but wouldn’t release him, either. He felt the shock of those around him. It wasn’t proper, wasn’t right, for a woman to hold onto a sword so.

  But she wouldn’t let go.

  Seiji ignored Hikaru’s rambling words as the fever took her. She kept calling out a name, Norihiko. It stirred the darker places of his soul, made him restless and angry. He had a memory of tiny pinecones still hanging from a fragrant branch, then it was gone.

  Seiji hissed at Hikaru every time she made him remember things that he didn’t understand, hissed his displeasure at any who might hear.

  Eventually, Hikaru grew silent again, stopped petting him, let him sleep.

  But she never let him leave her side.

  Three

  Karada No Ke

  Masato

  Karada no ke, tohatsu, kugi, shiga, hada />
  Niku, motode, hone, kotsuzui, ketsueki,

  Kokoro, kanzo, jinzo

  The sonorous chant went on and on, listing the thirty–two parts of the body. Masato raised his clear voice with the monk, waiting for the usual feelings of peace to wash over him even as his skin crawled with excitement. The tent that had been set aside for the Buddhist monks was well–lit by candles. The generals who had joined Masato in his early morning meditations, kneeling in neat lines, were obviously feeling worse for wear, their skin gray and their eyes tired.

  Every part of Masato’s body was on fire, though the chant was supposed to bring calm and awareness of his physical self.

  Maybe Masato should have asked for a different chant from the priests. Something to appeal to his intellect, or to reflect on the passage of the seasons. But he’d wanted something to ground him. To distract him from the blood bubbling in his veins.

  Or perhaps Masato should have chosen a different way to celebrate his defeat of that young cur, Iwao. Though he’d bargained away the sword Seiji—and it would have brought him a pretty penny from the right buyer—he still felt as though he’d gotten more than it was worth.

  Candlelight danced around Masato, not because of any breeze, but because of the waves of power that emanated from him. Junichi had been right. The fox fairies were all stupid. Why else would Hikaru have given her magic to Masato, in exchange for a worthless sword that only the dead Iwao could wield?

  Junichi had also been wrong, however.

  Masato would be able to master the fox fairy powers. They were laughably easy to learn. And he had the discipline to do it, given his long studies.

  Masato remembered the hours it had taken to master even the simplest spell that Junichi had tried to teach him, the long nights he’d spent fasting, conserving his energy, learning to focus and concentrate his power, just to light a simple fire.

  Now, with a wave of his hand, Masato could set the entire camp ablaze.

  And more, too. The magic of the fox fairy carried knowledge. It wasn’t esoteric and hidden in books where only the most learned could find. Instead, it was right there. All he had to do was be patient, listen, and learn.

  It was almost a shame to wipe them all from the face of the earth. But they didn’t deserve such power. They wasted it on trivialities like building stronger forests and wild lands, listening to the bees and speaking to the fish.

  Masato didn’t know what he’d do when he came fully into his power, when the fox fairy blood fully mingled with his.

  Maybe he’d just level the mountain after all.

  But no, there was his vision still. The one that had set him on this great quest.

  Masato had dreamed of the Buddha stepping from the mainland Shina to the main island of Nifon, his foot alighting on Mount Shirayama. In Masato’s vision, the Buddha then sank down into the mountain itself, taming the wild land, the blowing up the top of the mountain. When the dust settled, Masato saw a statue of the Buddha, carved out of the highest peak of the mountain. The Buddha’s topknot of enlightenment was lit up by every sunrise.

  And Masato’s name would be written into every stone, the mountain renamed in his honor.

  Like Junichi, Masato hadn’t been bothered to father an heir. He knew how tricky they could be. Particularly since he hadn’t stopped Junichi from killing his own father, then had later saved Junichi from his father’s guards.

  So Masato didn’t trust a human heir.

  But to have his legacy live on as a mountain…it would be forever. As long as the mountain stood, people would bow to him in awe.

  It was a much better plan to achieve immortality than Junichi’s plan for it. Eventually, the magic of the Taoist magician would fail, and Junichi would pass on.

  While the mountain would live on, as would Masato’s name.

  Masato found his mind wandering as he chanted. He tried to bring it back. Tried to focus. But his mind wandered again, thinking about his past. About the Buddha. About his future. About the stupidity of the fox fairies. How he’d soon kill them all.

  Again, Masato tried to focus on his chanting, on the body parts. His masters had always labeled him lazy.

  Perhaps he was. Perhaps he didn’t pursue his studies as diligently as they’d wanted, that is, until he’d found something worth going after.

  Another wave of magic carried Masato closer to the incense–laced roof of the tent. He relished the floating feeling, aware that he’d paused in his chant to lick his lips and marvel at the sensation.

  No wonder the fox fairies were so sensual. Every part of his body felt more intensely. His toes shot down into the earth as he walked. His knees tasted the air they parted ahead of the rest of his body. Even his back seemed more aware, more sensitive to everything he passed.

  Finally, the service ended. Masato stood with his generals, his head subtly above theirs. More than one had bloodshot eyes from their celebrations the night before.

  Good. They had need to celebrate.

  It also meant that they wouldn’t speak out of line, ask him what they were doing that day.

  Normally, the winning general would take over the property of the defeated as quickly as possible. Masato wanted to go to the estate, to proclaim it as his, to divest the Mori temple of its false kami and install the wheel of Buddha instead.

  However. The damned fox fairy powers were too distracting.

  Masato needed to be in complete control of himself before he faced Iwao’s generals. He didn’t want there to be any slip–ups or mistakes in protocol. Iwao’s appointment had been approved by the Emperor himself. Masato had to step very carefully to make sure that his rule was recognized as legitimate.

  After giving one last bow to the priest and the prayer wheel set up at the front of the tent, Masato strode out into the clear day. The sun had already chased away the clouds from the night before. What little grass remained in camp from the hundreds treading on it still sparkled.

  With long strides, staying in front of his generals so that none would approach him, Masato made his way back to his tent. With a mere wave of his hand, all the candle and lamp flames leapt high. The cloth barriers between the various parts of the tent swayed as if Masato carried his own breeze with him.

  Masato went directly to his writing desk. He knew exactly what to say. The words flowed from him, elegant yet precise, explaining that he was solidifying his position and would attend to the estate in a few days. The generals, the property, and all the women would be passed directly to Masato when he had the time to visit.

  He told himself that he was being generous, giving the widow of Iwao time to adjust to her new status, giving Iwao’s generals time to say their last goodbyes before Masato took their heads.

  But in his heart of hearts, Masato knew that he needed the time not just to settle his newly–inherited powers, but to revel in them.

  He’d worked long and hard to get to this point.

  Now it was time to play.

  Ξ

  Masato urged his horse to go faster as it climbed the winding mountain road. Heat rose from the ground, where the sun had baked it, turning the long grass white. Hawks screeched high in the air, seeking prey. A tumble–down cottage sat in the distance, the fields long since overgrown. Masato’s outriders rode behind him, carefully keeping their lord in sight.

  Masato had only tricked them once, the fox fairy blood singing to him of turning other people’s vision. Though Masato still sat on his horse directly in front of his men, they didn’t notice him. Their eyes slid off, like oil sliding down a pan.

  Now, the fox fairy blood urged Masato to go up, higher, to get above the trees and bask in the afternoon sunlight. Masato had never felt so comfortable out in the open like this. He assumed his guards were nervous about how exposed he was. He knew he would have felt the same two days ago. Though Masato had won the war against the guardians of the mountain, it wouldn’t be the first time that those in the field kept fighting on.

  But Masato wasn’t afr
aid. Rather, he felt exhilarated by the thought. Junichi had always warned him to be cautious.

  Masato didn’t have to be cautious anymore. Not with this much power running through his body. Sweat ran freely from his body as it burned with potential.

  Though the sword Seiji hadn’t turned out to be what Masato had envisioned, he’d still learned from it. Iwao had been truly remarkable in his swordsmanship, particularly when he’d attacked from horseback.

  Masato had gotten the finest taichi sword that he could find at the camp and had brought it with him that day. Now, he drew it while riding, slashing from one side to the other, practicing attacking and defending.

  The fox fairy blood surged up to meet the challenge. Masato wielded the blade effortlessly. Practice had never been so easy before. He didn’t even feel as though he needed to practice. Skill flowed from him, the sword showing him the way to hold it, to move, even though it wasn’t alive at all.

  A rabbit suddenly darted across the road, causing Masato’s horse to shy to the side as he was making a sweeping downward motion with the sword.

  The shocking pain of the blade glancing off Masato’s thigh brought him up short. It was a clean cut, short, tearing through the soft linen of his brown pants. The wound smarted sharply, and a small line of blood beaded up along the edge.

  However, as Masato’s men raced up to him, the pain started to fade, dribbling away like the remains of a jellyfish dying in the sun.

  Masato couldn’t help but laugh heartily. His men would probably think him mad. But he didn’t care.

  The wound healed itself in short order. All that Masato had to show for it was a small tear in his riding pants. But it didn’t matter.

  He had the life of an immortal, now.

  Ξ

  Later that evening, Masato called on the name of the Amida Buddha, nembutsu, to be saved by the inconceivable working of the Amida vow, to realize birth in the Pure Land.

  He knelt on the ground, on his usual meditation pillow, in comfortable indoor robes—the softest brown cotton beautifully adorned in golden pinecones. The scent of the senkoh burning on the altar before him delicately perfumed the entire tent, reminding Masato of the temples on the mainland.