A Mortal Song

by Megan Crewe

  The kite was caught by an impression that was purely Takeo, gallant as one of the mountain’s young pines. I drew it back. His ki resisted, dragging the kite toward him, and the corners of my mouth twitched upward.

  “Hold still!” Ayame said.

  Quieting my expression, I reeled the kite in against Takeo’s pull. At the last instant, Takeo whipped it away. It took all my self control not to lunge after it physically. I clung on with sharpened focus and yanked. The kite shot straight to me, Takeo’s connection snapping. In the room outside, he laughed at his defeat. Ayame shook her head.

  “So strong, my Sora,” she murmured. “All right, you’ll do. Walk carefully—and keep your hands away from your face!”

  I hurried with Takeo down the narrow hall that separated my rooms from my parents’. The lamps along the wall were starting to flare on with the fading of the sun. Around us, an anxious tremor rippled through the mountain’s ki. I glanced at Takeo, startled, but he showed no sign of concern. That must have been my anxiety, trembling out of me.

  My pulse beat faster as we came to a stop at the door to my parents’ private chambers. Takeo tapped on the frame and announced our presence, and Mother’s voice answered.

  “Come in.”

  She and Father were sitting on crimson cushions by their low ebony table. A light sandalwood scent wafted from the incense burner set in an alcove. Takeo eased the door shut, staying on the other side. I padded across the finely woven rush of the tatami mats to the other side of the table.

  Because kami age so slowly once they reach adulthood, Mother and Father both looked as young as humans of about twenty, but otherwise they were each other’s opposites. Mother was thin and lithe with ivory skin, while Father was broad and bulky and ruddy complexioned. The way they smiled at me matched their temperaments perfectly: Mother soft and bright, Father wide and warm.

  “We were about to send for you,” Mother said. “You look beautiful, Sora.”

  I blushed, lowering my eyes. Strong, I reminded myself. Strong and capable.

  “I can’t believe you’re already seventeen,” Father said in his rumbling voice. “Three more years and you’ll be all grown up.” He sounded strangely sad.

  “It isn’t so short a time,” Mother said gently, as if I might someday leave for college or other far away places like the Nagamotos’ children.

  A distant shout reached my ears. Mother frowned, glancing toward the hall. Kami usually got along, but occasionally there were disputes between the guests.

  The faint silhouette of Takeo’s form moved away from the door’s translucent panel. He must have gone to see what was the matter. I drew my mind back to my goal.

  “I’ve been doing everything I can to prepare,” I said.

  “Let’s not worry about that,” Mother said before I could go on. “Tonight is one of the few occasions we can think of celebration instead of duty. Your father and I wanted to give you your birthday present.”

  She nodded to Father, who lifted a long rectangular object from the floor behind him and set it on the table. It was a lacquered case with a leather strap and a gold clasp. “Open it,” he said, grinning.

  I leaned forward and pushed up the clasp. As I raised the lid, my breath caught. “Thank you!” I said, staring at the instrument inside. “It’s wonderful.”

  It was a flute made of polished bamboo, so carefully crafted I could feel how pure its sounds would be just by running my fingertips over the wood. I picked it up and brought it to my lips. The scale hummed through me as if I were as much an instrument as the flute. Each note expanded into the quiet like a flower bud unfurling. It was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever heard—and it was mine.

  I set the flute back in its case, closed the lid, and hugged it to me. “Thank you,” I said again. “I’ll play it tonight.” I’d meant to use my old flute, the one they’d given me when I’d started lessons years ago. But this was a true musician’s instrument. One for a woman, not a girl. Maybe they knew I was ready to finally find my place among the kami.

  I slid the case’s strap over my shoulder. As I opened my mouth, another shout carried through the wall, followed by a heavy crash that shocked the words from my throat. Footsteps thumped down the hall outside. Takeo pulled open the door, and one of his fellow guards stumbled to a halt on the threshold, his breath rasping.

  “Your Highnesses,” he said, “forgive my intrusion. We’re under attack.”

  2

  THE MOUNTAIN’S ki shivered through me, and I realized I hadn’t imagined the distress I’d felt in it before.

  “Attack?” Mother said faintly. “Now?”

  Father sprang to his feet. “By whom? Tell us everything.”

  “It’s a demon,” the guard said with a shudder, “with a terrible fury of power, leading an army of ghosts. They swarmed us at the entrance—they’re carrying ropes and nets so vile we can’t cast them off—and the demon burns with his touch alone. I barely managed to escape to warn you. Already some are heading this way. We’re fighting as well as we can, but...”

  Ghosts. I scrambled up, remembering Miss Sakai’s odd demeanor, the way she’d hurried away from Takeo and me. Had she known an attack was coming and not warned us? My stomach turned. Was she out there joining in the assault right now?

  “Our defenses?” Father asked.

  The guard swiped his arm through the air. “Nothing could withstand them.”

  Mother stood. “We must do everything we can to stop them and protect the mountain,” she said, her voice now firm. “There’s still a chance. We...” She hesitated, and then turned to slip her arms around me. I only had a moment to squeeze her back before she’d let me go. Behind her, an inhuman roar thundered through the palace. Goosebumps rose on my arms. Screams echoed down the hall, and Mother blanched even whiter.

  “Takeo,” she said, “you must stay here with Sora. If our enemies reach this end of the palace... You remember the instructions I gave you when you were assigned?”

  Takeo blinked at her and then nodded with a jerk. “Mother,” I said, “what—”

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “If I’d known... But there isn’t time.”

  Father squashed me in a hug as brief as hers. “Be safe, daughter,” he said roughly. He and Mother swept out of the room.

  “No!” I said, moving to run after them, but Takeo caught my arm. He closed the door as he held me away from it. The screams and shouts of the battle rose, louder, closer, and my heart thudded louder too. The way Mother and Father had embraced me—it was almost as if they never expected to see me again.

  I wrenched against Takeo’s grasp, but he refused to let go. “They ordered us to stay here,” he said, his expression strained.

  “So what?” I said. “We have to help!”

  “Your mother gave specific orders.”

  I gritted my teeth. While I was “strong” and Ayame “frantic,” the word that best described Takeo’s nature was “steadfast.” He wouldn’t have been chosen as a palace guard otherwise. But there were times when unwavering loyalty was a pain in the neck. He’d tie me up and throw me in a closet before he’d disobey my parents’ word.

  Another cry rang out. A paper screen ripped. My hands clenched. I needed my sword—in my rooms down the hall. Takeo drew his, taking a defensive stance I’d seen him fall into so many times when we’d sparred, but never to meet a real enemy. Our martial training served mostly to focus the mind and keep our traditions alive. The sorts of creatures kami might have fought against once rarely traveled close to Mt. Fuji, especially now that so many humans lived nearby. I’d never witnessed even a minor skirmish. How could this be happening? Nothing made sense.

  Takeo’s grasp on my wrist had loosened. I lunged forward, snapping his hold, and shoved open the door.

  “Sora!” Takeo said, but I was already scrambling out into the hall. The sight of the scene at the far end made my heart stop. Three palace guards and a group of other kami were caught in a wave of shadowy f
igures that blotted out what remained of the sunlight. The onslaught of ghosts moved like a tsunami, crashing through the hall. One ghost snapped a rope tight around a bear kami’s neck. Another swung a curved blade at a guard and split the billowing sleeve of her uniform. Dozens more swarmed past them, toppling some kami with the sheer mass of their momentum and heaving darkly knotted nets into their midst. The ghosts’ cackles and the kami’s grunts of pain ricocheted off the walls.

  A cold sweat had broken over my skin, but I dashed forward all the same, gathering ki in my hands. “Catch them all!” a voice was shouting. “Push them into the rooms! We can hold them there.” More ghosts charged through the panels along the hall. One burst out just a few feet ahead of me and flung a mottled net my way. I dodged backward, my feet stumbling as a sickly, rotten smell filled my nose. Then Takeo’s solid hands caught my shoulders. He yanked me back into my parents’ chambers with a surge of ki.

  “They’re almost on us,” he said. “We have to go.”

  I struggled against him, even though my body was trembling. A shriek pierced the air from just outside. “We can’t abandon everyone!” I said.

  “Your mother thinks this is best.” Takeo pulled me around to face him. He met my gaze, his eyes dark. “You trust her, don’t you?”

  Before I could answer, a body smashed through the door beside us.

  It was one of the guards. As he groped through the shreds of paper for the sword he must have lost, four ghosts leapt in after him, driving their knives into his chest and sides. The ethereal weapons left no damage on his corporeal body, but they’d be raking at his ki, bringing a different sort of agony. His limbs spasmed.

  The ghost at the back of the pack, a young man in a slim gray suit whose hair was streaked as red as the stain on his own knife, grinned as he watched the guard’s torment. Then his gaze flicked to Takeo and me.

  “Them too,” he said with a jab of his hand.

  I’d already shifted into a fighting stance, my legs braced and arms ready. My pulse pounded in my ears. Takeo’s hand tightened on my shoulder. His ki washed over me. “Meet me below,” he said into my ear and dragged both our now-ethereal bodies away from the ghosts, into the wall.

  We slid through the wood and into the mountain’s rock. Darkness closed in on me, so thick I could no longer see or feel Takeo beside me. I spun around, disoriented. I had to go back. The guards, Mother and Father, Ayame, Midori...

  I reached to my sash instinctively, though I was carrying no blade. My flute case, still at my back, would make a poor weapon. The image of those stabbing knives flashed through my mind. I wanted to fly at all those translucent legless figures with their vicious smirks, to drive them out of here and over the horizon.

  But I didn’t have the slightest idea how to do it.

  I drew in a shaky breath. Tears had sprung into my eyes, but the mountain’s ki wore away my urge to fight even as it shuddered with displeasure.

  There must be hundreds of ghosts in the palace, and there was only one of me. Throwing myself into the fray now wouldn’t be strong—it’d be foolish. Mother was known for her wisdom. I did trust her. Whatever instructions she’d given Takeo, maybe they’d allow us to come back and recover our home.

  I eased toward the mountainside and poked my ethereal head through the layer of soil that covered the slope. Immediately, I jerked back down. Ghosts were prowling all through that glade. The mountain was choked with them.

  Had they seen me? I needed to move. I needed to find Takeo.

  He’d told me to meet him “below,” so I began to stride downward as if on unseen stairs, following the slope. The dark rock rippled past me, its pressure tugging at the edges of my body. Simply holding myself in this ethereal state took energy—moving through solid matter was draining my ki even faster. I listened in the stillness for any sign of pursuit, but all I could hear was the uneven beat of my heart.

  As I neared the base of the mountain, the rock squeezed against me so tightly my chest ached. I couldn’t go much farther like this. Surely by now I’d left the ghosts behind?

  I peeked into the outside world and, finding myself alone, leapt up through the soil into the humid evening air, in the midst of the forest that stretched around the base of the mountain. Only the breeze stirred as I caught my balance. I turned, hugging the strap of the flute case across my chest. The mountain’s peak was hidden by the trees.

  “Takeo?” I called. “Takeo!”

  No one answered. What if the ghosts had caught him? What if they’d—

  I closed my eyes, shoving away the memory of bloody knives. Then I reached for the nearest tree, a towering pine. Pulling myself with both my muscles and my ki, I scaled it in a matter of seconds.

  The mountain rose above the green sprawl of the forest, looking perfectly normal at first glance. Then, in the ruddy light of the sunset, movement glimmered between the trees that cloaked most of its lower half. Farther up, my ki-sharpened eyes made out hazy bodies swarming the rocky peak around the more solid living figures of the tourists hiking the paths to the summit, oblivious. The ghosts would be as invisible to them as I was in my ethereal form.

  My fingers tightened around the branch I was clutching. Our enemies were everywhere.

  A sparrow hopped onto a tuft of needles beside me and chirped. “Don’t go up there,” I said tightly. “Not now.”

  I half jumped, half glided down to the lower branches. From there, I peered into the depths of the forest, hoping my position would keep me hidden if the ghosts ventured this far. A more tender memory tickled up: playing hide and seek among the mountain’s trees with Takeo as a child. Once he’d hidden so well that after a half hour of searching I’d burst into tears. And then he’d been there at my side in an instant, hugging me and promising he would never truly disappear.

  A lump filled my throat. I set my jaw and gave all my senses over to the forest. After several long minutes, the crackle of pine needles reached my ears. I twisted and caught a flash of silver embroidery amid the trees.

  “Takeo!” I dropped to the ground and raced to him. At my voice, he swiveled toward me. He met me halfway, catching me by the arms. A few strands of his hair had slipped from its knot, softening the severe style, but his expression was determined.

  “Thank the heavens,” he said. “You’re all right?”

  “They have the mountain,” I said as I nodded. “All of it. Everyone there...” Not just the palace kami, but all the guests who had gathered. Was that why the demon had chosen tonight to attack—had it wanted to capture as many of us as possible? Or had it simply hoped the party would leave us distracted?

  “They’ll be alive,” Takeo said. “The demon and his ghosts might have been powerful enough to overcome us, but every kami on the mountain has enough ki to live through ten more battles like that.”

  It was true that while kami could die, it took a long time to wear down the ki that sustained us. The people we’d left behind could still be saved. But the stabbed guard hadn’t looked as if he had much more battle left in him. And even now the ghosts could be torturing my family, my friends. Hurting us had seemed to amuse them.

  “I don’t understand,” I said. “What could they want? Why would they attack us?”

  “I don’t know,” Takeo said. “I’ve seen ghosts hurt humans before, but never kami.”

  “How is it even possible? I wouldn’t have thought there were that many ghosts in the entire world.”

  “Neither would I,” Takeo agreed. “And normally the few of the dead who remain in the world of the living are tied to the places of their deaths. For them to travel this far, to gather so many together... Perhaps the demon has lent them power somehow. But I’ve never heard of a demon working with ghosts either.”

  “What does it want? Where did it come from?” I hadn’t been aware of a demon existing near the mountain in the entire time I’d been alive. They were rare enough that I knew of them only from old stories, in which they were monstrous creatures, full of ma
levolent energy and eager to destroy. I wouldn’t have expected any to be powerful enough to subdue the entire palace, though. No enemy had ever even attempted that. My gut twisted. “Did you have any idea we might be in danger?”

  Takeo shook his head. “But we may have someone else we can turn to for answers.”

  “Mother’s instructions.” I stared at him. He’d been keeping a secret from me—for how long? “What did she tell you, and when?”

  He lowered his head, abruptly awkward. “It was so long ago, I’d put it out of my mind. When I was named your principal guard when you were eleven years old, your mother gave me orders she told me I must keep to myself. She said that if the mountain ever faced so great a threat that our survival was uncertain, I was to go to the valley of the doves to speak to the kami sage Rin, and if possible bring you with me. I’m supposed to tell Sage Rin that the time of the prophecy has come, and she should tell us what to do.”

  “Prophecy?” I repeated. “Then they knew...? But Mother and Father didn’t seem prepared. They hadn’t expected the attack.”

  “Whatever your mother anticipated, I don’t think she believed it would happen soon,” Takeo said. “She said she was telling me merely as a precaution, but it was likely I’d never need to act on it. She seemed to think it was best I didn’t know more.”

  Best for her then maybe, but not for us now. “Rin.” The name sounded familiar. “Rin the Obtuse! Oh, no. Ayame’s told me tales about her. In all of them she gives advice no one can figure out until it’s too late to use it. She’s supposed to help us?”

  “According to your mother,” Takeo said. “Perhaps the stories exaggerated.”

  I glanced back toward the mountain. We’d have to hope so. We had no other path to follow. And we couldn’t know how long the kami trapped in the palace would be able to withstand the ghosts’ torment.

  “Let’s hurry to this valley of the doves then,” I said.

  Takeo crouched down and detached a sheath from his boot, half the length of the one that hung by his hip. “My short sword,” he said. “We should make our way as quickly as possible, but you’ll need to be armed in case we have no choice but to fight.”