Tears trickled from Hisoka’s eyes, and he sat heavily on the floor. Dazed, he slumped against the scroll racks, buried his face in his hands, and sobbed.
“If he knew this,” Pearl-Ear said, “I daresay he didn’t fully understand it. Toshi was right about you, O Kami of the Crescent Moon. You hoard information as it suits you and share only when it serves your aims.”
Mochi bowed. “I am myself,” he said. “True to my own nature. No more, no less.”
“So what will you do now, then?” said Pearl-Ear angrily, “O-Kagachi has come. The entire world holds its breath. Are you going to stand by those who foolishly supported you, or are you going to merely watch as all crumbles around us?”
“Neither,” Mochi said. “My goals are far from achieved, and I still have work to do. Soon I will take my leave. After Konda’s tower falls and the O-Kagachi reclaims what was stolen, I shall return—then will I act. If you survive, Lady, you will see as I do. Perhaps you will even applaud my efforts.”
“I doubt that.”
“Don’t be so quick to judge,” Mochi said. “I am a subtle creature, but my influence is deep and abiding. After a time, you may find you prefer the world after I rebuild it.”
Sharp-Ear wrinkled his muzzle. “That will take more than a lifetime,” he said, “and we kitsune live extremely long lives.”
A furious pounding shook the door to Hisoka’s office. “Headmaster,” came an urgent voice. “The invaders are here! The ogre and his yamabushi are battling the kitsune and the men of Eiganjo. Our archers are assisting as they can, but it is a losing effort without …”
Mochi’s smile froze, his blue face growing pale and waxy. “What did he say?” he asked quietly.
“Yamabushi,” Sharp-Ear repeated, viciously gleeful. “The ogre has come for you after all, Mochi, and he brought kami-killers with him. Have you ever seen them fight? No, I suppose you haven’t. The fox never stops to appreciate the hound, does he?”
Mochi frowned at the fox-man.
Sharp-Ear pressed on. “Oh, I’m sorry. Are your priorities shifting again? Perhaps you can recall some of your soratami retainers to protect you. The ogre and his friends will probably make short work of them, but that will give you more time to gloat over your glorious future.”
Mochi did not move or change his expression, but a flicker of silver light crossed his eyes. Sharp-Ear grunted and was hurled back across the room, slamming into a scroll rack before disappearing under an avalanche of parchment and broken shelving.
“Sharp-Ear!” Michiko started toward the fallen fox, but Mochi stopped her with a tiny but unyielding hand.
“Stay close by, Princess. I fear we are not yet through with each other.”
Michiko struggled to free herself, but the little blue man’s grip on her arm was firm.
“Riko,” Pearl-Ear said, “please see to Sharp-Ear and make sure he is unharmed.” The student nodded and hurried to the wreckage.
“As for you—” she turned to Mochi—“You will unhand Michiko-hime now, or you will face a new enemy.” Pearl-Ear folded her arms. “Yamabushi are not the only ones who know how to harm kami.”
Mochi did not release the princess. “True,” he said, “but they are the most adept at it. You, for example, are woefully overmatched.”
“Let her go, or I will force you to test that theory.”
“I refuse. I need Michiko-hime for just a little while longer.”
Pearl-Ear tensed, preparing to leap. Mochi simply smiled, the confident smirk of an adult contesting with children.
Something hard and sharp arced down through Mochi’s wrist. The little blue man hissed in shock and pain as his hand detached from his arm, still clutching Michiko’s arm through her robes. He staggered back, his gaze darting from the clean, bloodless stump to the chubby blue fist gripping Michiko.
Toshi faded into view, his long sword glowing. Bright crimson streaks crisscrossed on the flat of the blade. His face was pale and haggard, and blood dripped from a slash on his forehead, but his eyes were fierce and his voice steady.
“Hands off,” he said. He didn’t smile. “Get it?”
The detached limb vanished in a flash of light and a waft of smoke. Mochi shook his head sadly as the appendage grew back, sprouting from the seemingly inert flesh of his stump.
“You’re a fool, ochimusha, and I no longer need you. I’ve been wondering lately if I ever did.”
“That’s where we differ,” Toshi said. He kept his sword pointed at Mochi as he stepped between the moon spirit and Michiko. “I’ve never needed you. I’ve known all along that you’re a smarmy little trickster who thinks he’s the cleverest fellow in the room.”
Mochi waggled the fingers on his new hand. “Oh, but I am. Can’t you see that?”
“Not really, no, but I’ve been here long enough to see your fear.”
“Me, afraid of you?” Mochi placed his fists on his hips and laughed.
Toshi kept his sword level. “I didn’t say you were afraid of me.” He jerked his head toward the outer wall. “I think you’re afraid of the yamabushi. I know you’re afraid of O-Kagachi.”
Mochi shrugged. “Fear is too strong a word. I prefer to think of myself as respectful of his power. As you should be respectful of mine.” Mochi spread his hands, light scintillating across his body. “I’m the only spirit left in Kamigawa that matters. I have only to will it and you will all be struck blind while I vanish and reappear, hundreds of miles away, completely safe and intact.”
Toshi lowered his sword. “The only one?” he said. “Sorry, you bladder full of hot air, but that’s simply not true.”
Mochi lowered his hands and the glow around him faded. “The Myojin of Night’s Reach? Surely you don’t think your half-hearted attempts at worship have swayed her to your side? I introduced you two, after all.”
“I meant to ask,” Toshi said. “Why did you do that, anyway? She really doesn’t think all that highly of you.”
“We have much in common,” Mochi said. “Night and the moon go hand in hand, after all. To your question: I expected she would chasten you or that you would find some way of usurping her power. Either way, you occupied each other and left me to my designs, which is all I wanted.” He opened his stance and glanced around the room. “That’s all I really wanted from any of you.”
“Still lying,” Toshi said. “Why don’t you tell us the whole truth for once?”
Mochi shrugged. “If I did,” he said, “you wouldn’t even understand it.” The little blue man shook his head sadly. “Enough of this now. You are trying to delay me until the yamabushi get close enough to strike. It won’t help. Even if they appeared here and now, I could escape them. All the same, I no longer wish to continue this conversation.”
He extended his new arm to Michiko. “Come with me, Princess. You can either take my hand or be tossed over my shoulder like a sack of rice.” He smiled, glancing at his own tiny body. “Metaphorically, of course, but the fact remains, we are leaving now.”
“No, Mochi.” Toshi raised his sword again. “I can’t let you do that.”
Exasperated, Mochi said, “Oh, come now. How do you intend to stop me? Will you strike me mute? Make yourself disappear?”
Toshi tilted his sword so that light reflected off it into Mochi’s eyes. Irritated, the little blue man tilted his head out of the way.
“No,” Toshi said. “I have something else in mind.”
Posed as he was, the blood dripping from his forehead splashed down onto the flat of the blade. He had to act quickly now. Perhaps the little spirit had noticed the kanji Toshi had drawn on his sword, how the sharp lines and curves formed the exact same symbol as the one that now gleamed on his forehead, glowing with a soft purple-black glow. The temperature in the room plummeted.
Mochi’s arm, still extended toward Michiko, went rigid. He glanced at his wrist, so recently struck by Toshi’s sword, and saw the thin crust of ice crawling over his flesh. The moon kami’s expression became
one of pale horror.
“You cannot—” he started, but the cold murdered the thought before it could cross his lips. Mochi stood on the desktop, a tiny blue statue under a dusty white coating of frost.
Supported by Riko, Sharp-Ear stepped up alongside Toshi. The fox-man glanced up and down the immobile spirit then back at the ochimusha. “What just happened?”
“It happened when I first came in.” Toshi sheathed his sword. “I don’t know how long that will hold,” he said. “I have to move quickly.” He crossed the room, eyeing the shadows by the door. “I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
“But the ogre,” Riko said. “The yamabushi. They have come to kill us all.”
“Unless I’m much mistaken,” Toshi said, “you’ll have much worse than that to deal with before the night is through.” He turned and faced them all, Pearl-Ear, Sharp-Ear, Riko, Michiko, even Hisoka sitting near-catatonic on the floor.
“You have to trust me,” he said.
“I don’t think I can,” Sharp-Ear said. “I’m only speaking for myself, but—”
“No,” Toshi said. “You have to trust me. I’m not giving you a choice. I’m going to leave now, alone. You can’t come with me, and you can’t stop me. I’ll either return with the means to reward him properly—” he gestured at Mochi—“or I’ll come back and get you all out of here.”
Pearl-Ear locked eyes with Toshi. “Why can’t you help us escape now?”
“Because I don’t know if I can. I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that.”
Riko stepped forward. “Take Michiko, then.” The student ignored protests from the kitsune, imploring Toshi with her eyes. “If you leave her here and Mochi revives, he’ll take her. If you leave her here and the ogre finds us, she’ll die. I’d rather have her alive and free, even if that means she’s at your mercy.”
Michiko looked hurt. “I would never abandon you, Riko. I would never abandon any of you.”
Toshi smiled ruefully. “Now this is trust,” he said, “but even I didn’t think you’d take it this far. Remember a few months ago when you all tried to kill me for taking her away?”
“Toshi,” Pearl-Ear said. “Riko may have a point. Better to get Michiko away from here now while we have the chance.”
“I do not wish to leave my friends,” Michiko said.
Toshi spoke to Pearl-Ear. “I have every intention of returning for her,” he said, “as I said.”
“What if you don’t come back at all, despite your good intentions?”
Toshi shrugged. “In that case your situation hasn’t really changed. You’re still stuck here with a very hostile enemy outside. Best of luck.”
“Wait,” Michiko said. She stepped forward and bowed. “Thank you for helping me.”
“You get what you pay for,” Toshi said, somewhat uncomfortably. He stared at the princess, searching for her angle, waiting for the rest of her sentence to end in a question, a plea, or a threat.
When none came, he said, “Well, don’t thank me yet.” He paused. “On second thought, do. I officially accept your thanks, because if I pull this off, you may never forgive me.”
“Where are you going?” Michiko said. “What are you trying to do?”
Toshi shook his head and said, “Just stay here. This room is about as far from Hidetsugu as you can get. Once he sweeps aside the sentries and the archers, he’s going to get serious.”
He looked up at Pearl-Ear. “If he makes it this far, throw Mochi here as far as you can and run as in the opposite direction. There’s a chance Hidetsugu will be so preoccupied he won’t even notice you. It’s not a good chance, but it’s a chance.”
Pearl-Ear nodded. “Will you answer Michiko-hime’s question?”
“Which one? Make it quick—I’m in a rush.”
“What are you trying to do?”
Toshi tossed the hair from his face. “Same as usual. Survive. Profit. Learn something new.” He straightened to his full height. “Maybe grow as a person. I’ve become much more spiritual lately.”
Pearl-Ear nodded. “I can see that,” she said dryly.
“Really?” Sharp-Ear called. “Point it out to me.”
Toshi raised an eyebrow. “When I come back to rescue you all,” he called to Sharp-Ear, “you’re last.”
He turned and walked into the shadows, which seemed to swallow him whole.
General Takeno stood on the tower’s highest balcony, a solid sheet of stone that could bear the weight of fifty men. He had spent the last few days positioning archers in each of the windows, checking the moth riders’ formations, and moving large groups of soldiers around the tower’s interior.
The daimyo remained convinced that his fortress would withstand the great spirit beast’s attack, but Takeno was not convinced. He had watched O-Kagachi shrug aside Yosei as if the white dragon were no more than a stinging fly, and now the monster was at the walls of Eiganjo, dwarfing them with his vast, grasping jaws and his endless crashing coils.
The Great Old Serpent had also acquired another head, somehow, between his battle with Yosei and his arrival at the gates. Takeno had been staring at O-Kagachi throughout the great beast’s approach, but the change had happened so swiftly that there was no transition—the serpent had had three heads, Takeno had blinked, and the serpent had had four.
The general was no longer even sure that the original three heads that fought Yosei were still there—the four that now led the avalanche of scales and muscle were completely unlike what Takeno remembered. Was the gigantic brute growing, feeding on the terror it caused? Or was it simply so vast that it could not be seen in its entirety, only in ever-changing increments?
Whatever O-Kagachi was, it was moving inexorably toward the tower. As the old soldier stared down, the serpent touched the exterior walls for the first time, nudging them with one of its gargantuan noses, testing its strength.
Takeno felt a rush of savage pride. Here the great beast would be slowed if not halted. The entire fortress was constructed of the densest stone available and shielded by some of the most fearsome spells ever cast. It was designed and built to withstand any attack, no matter how overwhelming.
Below, O-Kagachi probed harder, bringing a second head forward to prod and pound the white stone wall. Its efforts so far had not moved a single block nor produced a single crack in the mortar. Still, it was too dangerous not to follow the plan he and Konda had developed for the fortress’s defense. There were soldiers and horses and great moths waiting for the order to attack.
Stiffly, Takeno drew his bow and nocked an arrow with an oil-soaked rag wrapped around its tip. He waved the arrow over a nearby lamp, igniting the rag. The general sighted along the northeast corner of the wall, adjusted for the wind, and let the arrow fly. The flame was dim and muted in the haze, but the old man’s aim and his arm were up to the task. The flaming missile almost reached the far wall, eventually embedding itself in the dusty ground, leaving the exposed portion of the oily rag to burn.
“Cavalry.” Takeno’s parade-ground voice was as loud and as smooth as it had been during his first command. The arrow’s flight was the signal, however, and before it even landed a great roar rose from the rear grounds of the fortress. A sound much like thunder rolled forward, a sound that Takeno had heard a thousand times while campaigning for the daimyo, a sound that comforted him and told him some things could always be relied on. The spirit of horses and the bravery of men in combat. The power and majesty of a fine steed. The purity of purpose that comes from knowing ones cause is just.
Takeno lit another arrow, but instead of using the bow he held the flaming bolt out at arm’s length over the edge of the balcony. He opened his hand and the arrow fell, flame-first.
“Archers,” he boomed. “Stand ready.”
The riders on the ground would have rallied, and the bowmen in the tower would have prepared as soon as they saw the signal, but Takeno wanted to issue the orders personally, even if he was the only one who actually heard. Overhead, he hea
rd the soft whoosh as dozens of giant moths flew toward the enemy.
Outside the wall, O-Kagachi had brought three of his heads to bear and was beginning to show signs of anger. He rained blows down upon the same section of wall, pounding it with his closed jaws, withdrawing that head then pounding with a fresh set. The rhythm grew more solid as the power behind each stroke increased. As each head fell into the cadence, O-Kagachi’s coils rolled up behind his heads, towering over the top of the wall itself.
Takeno despaired at the sight of the Great Old Serpent massing to crush the walls simply by slithering over them. Perhaps it was his pride that kept O-Kagachi hammering, or maybe he was so primal that he simply was not capable of seeing anything but the most direct path to his goal. One thing was clear: The serpent was determined to batter down Eiganjo’s mighty walls, and his lack of progress was beginning to annoy him.
Even the charmed walls of the daimyo’s strongest fortress could not stand for long against O-Kagachi’s onslaught. The first cracks appeared directly under his pounding muzzles, and the great serpent kept on. A block of stone near the top of the wall split in two, and the monster’s blows sent the top half careening across the interior courtyard. The wall began to buckle, and still the relentless drumbeat of the monster’s pounding heads continued.
Takeno lit another arrow and readied his bow. He had to turn away from O-Kagachi to have a clear shot, but he listened closely as he drew back the string. When he heard the wall go, he would signal the cavalry. Two thousand men and horses would ride around the tower and charge O-Kagachi. Once engaged by the ground forces, the aerial assault could begin. Aboard the moths were some of the most gifted battle mages in Konda’s army, but they were few in number. The daimyo had always preferred to rely on the swiftness of his steeds and the discipline of his troops in battle, reserving magic for the most dire of circumstances.
Takeno waited, listening, as the bowstring hung in the grooved calluses on his bow fingers. Sweat beaded on his forehead, and he stared straight ahead, half hypnotized by the flame. The pounding continued, but the wall held. For now.
Heretic, Betrayers of Kamigawa: Kamigawa Cycle, Book II Page 22
