The Way of Death

by James Von Ohlen

  During the day the group of men, sixteen in total, took shelter in the shade of large rocks and canyons. They did their best to sleep in the tents they were given, but the rest was fitful at best. Despite the design of the sleeping quarters, specifically for use in the desert, it was still stifling hot.

  The men ate what rations they felt like and lounged about, two and three to a tent, remaining silent for the most part. Reiji took to training with his ancestors towards the end of the day, as he awoke from his restless slumber and the sun fell towards the horizon. After the march came to an end, as the sky was beginning to lighten, he would practice what he learned before entering his tent and remaining there for the rest of the day.

  Three days of this and the men seemed to fall into a routine. Marching silently in single file on the third night. Through the green-tinged haze of the night vision goggles, an outcropping of rock looming ahead of them looked the same to Reiji as a dozen others the men had passed. Were they actually going somewhere or just marching in huge fucking circles? Was Gavin a mental case who had recruited men to come die with him in the desert?

  A flash in the distance interrupted his thoughts. A greenish wash that blotted out his vision for a second before Reiji removed his goggles. His eyes adjusted to the darkness and the night sky shone again as a distant bolt of lightning split the firmament. He looked where it had been, afterimages dancing in his eyes, and counted to see how distant it was.

  No thunder reached his ears, but another bolt of lightning forked across the night sky. He paused for a moment in his march, not wanting to trip on the now unseen ground before him. Several more bolts of lightning flared and he watched them all, seemingly originating from the same spot in the far away distance.

  The dance of lights marched silently through the clouds, illuminating the sky in all directions and giving strobe-light glimpses of the distant terrain ahead. Jagged peaks and angry barren rocks choked with sand in a multitude of colors stretching in all directions. And over it all, the still silence of the dead of night.

  The only sound was the labored breathing of the man ahead of Reiji and the man behind him. Plodding along with heavy boots scuffing in the sand and pebbles that had become the entire world. No trace of the violent storm far ahead reached his ears.

  Others paused to watch and one or two took off their night vision goggles as well. Standing still and staring. Waiting with baited breath as they strained to hear the birthing cries of the pregnant skies above.

  As Reiji watched, a cold wind touched his face, weaving through the facial hair there. Three weeks without a shave. A decent beard had grown and was starting to fill in. He reached up and ran his hand through the hair and the sound of distant thunder finally reached his ears. Or possibly a distant rockslide. It was difficult to tell exactly what it was.

  Gavin brought the column to a halt with a single motion of his hand and each man froze, save for Reiji who put his goggles back on to better see signals from the men ahead.

  “Stop and get your shelters ready.” The voice was Gavin’s. Not shouted, spoken normally, but carrying back to all with a weight of decisive action behind it. There would be no discussing his order.

  “There’s a sand storm coming,” he spoke with authority, as though it was something he had seen and studied every day of his life.

  Reiji stopped and opened his pack to find a small bag marked “shelter”. He opened it and unfolded a small tent with built-in reinforced rings of thick fabric that folded back onto one another for storage, but would provide enough rigidity to keep the tent from collapsing under the weight of some sand.

  Looking over the instructions, he saw how to use it and looked for a suitable spot to set up. A smooth space between two large rocks, each about knee high called to him and he moved to place his pack there. Reiji knelt and unfolded the shelter, seeing the other men near him doing the same.

  The lightning had increased in intensity and drawn much nearer. Thunder finally sounded with regularity and the brief flashes of light showed the entire group of men working to set up their shelters. Gavin had already disappeared into his, the mechanical horse he had ridden simply kneeling next to the waist high dome. Varg and Virgil were in process of setting up near Gavin as well.

  The lightning reached a fever pitch, turning the night to day at a pace that left Reiji nearly blind. Beneath the radiant crown of electricity a wall of black approached. Rumbling and roiling with what looked to be anger, an Emperor glaring down at the peasants gathered in his shadow just moments away from condemning them all to death. Reiji didn’t think it was possible for weather to have emotions, but if it was, this storm was pissed.

  Reiji finished unpacking the small tent and expanded it into the dome that would protect him. Seeing nothing else to do, he sat on his pack and pulled the dome over himself. There was nothing left to do but wait.

  A stiff wind washed over the dome, rocking it, and through the maelstrom Reiji could hear someone swearing angrily. Seconds later the first few grains hit the outside of his shelter, sounding like errant raindrops. Perhaps it won’t be so bad, he thought.

  And then the sky picked up the earth and dropped it on him.

  Suddenly everything was far too close to him. It became hard to breathe and despite the initially cold air he began to sweat profusely. The interior of the shelter became like a sauna. Reiji sat in the darkness listening to the howling of the wind and what sounded like distant screams until everything sounded like he had cotton balls stuffed in his ears.

  After some time a humming noise caught Reiji’s attention and cool air began blowing on his face. He shifted his weight and reached into his pack, retrieving a small light. The air was coming out of a small unit sewn into the interior fabric of the shelter, labeled “O2 RECYCLER.” Outside the storm continued to rage through ears filled with water. There was no telling how much longer it would last.

  Best put this time to good use, Reiji thought as he searched through his pack for his data plug. Finding it, he activated the family data crystal.

  He pushed the pack off to the side, sitting on the hard ground. He took a few deep breaths before crossing his legs into a lotus position and straightened his back. Reaching up with his right hand, he placed the data plug into the socket behind his right ear, and the interior of the shelter faded away.

  HIS head rolled along the tatami mats yet again. The world of the hall of ancestors spinning about him in all directions as he allowed the visual input to continue for a moment before resetting it.

  Reiji had chosen to fight against not one, or even two, but three men during this session. He couldn’t say why he’d chosen that number, but it seemed somehow appropriate. He’d fought multiple enemies before in the real world, and crushed them easily enough. But here he fought against three men who were skilled warriors. Each a master of the blade.

  And it showed in how often they had struck him down.

  He reset the fight, once more in the moment before his death. Searching for a way that it could be avoided. After a dozen tries, he gave up and reset the fight altogether. Better to not find oneself in that situation than to be forced to escape from it.

  They moved as one as he faced them.

  Grandfathers turned into armored monsters for the purpose of training. Reiji wasn’t even sure which of his grandfathers it was that he faced. The features of old men in his family line apparently blurred together until you were just a squinting mass of wrinkles and white facial hair. He could only tell that his father and his father’s father weren’t among them. They watched along with the others, kneeling at the edge of the tatami in dramatically black robes. Watching intently.

  After the bout was finished, they would all be more than happy to share their thoughts on Reiji’s lack of skill and where he needed to improve. Everywhere, if they were to be believed. That would likely be followed by a series of statements questioning his lineage and the observation that he was without honor.

  Business as usual.


  “Come now, Reiji.” One of the armored warriors who faced him spoke. “You fight like you live your life. Without direction. You allow others to dictate circumstance to you.” The ancient warrior’s voice echoed throughout the training hall. Clearly a reference to Reiji having chosen to accept Gavin’s job.

  “Agreed, grandfather.” One of the other armored warriors spoke. Even they referred their elders as grandfather in this place. “The boy is content to drift along aimlessly. He will live the entirety of his life without ever truly knowing the path of the warrior. With no true knowledge of bushido.”

  “Aye,” the third warrior spoke. “He will finish his days only reacting to the world around him. Tossed about like trash in the wind. Never forging his own path.”

  Utter bullshit, Reiji thought as he wove Kai and Little Brother back and forth in front of him. He had been living life on his own terms for as long as he could remember. The old men were just pissed that he hadn’t followed them in service to some fat, rich guy who needed bodyguards. And if he could not claim the title “warrior”, then who could?

  The three old warriors moved to encircle Reiji as they advanced on one another. He saw his path, clear as day, and struck. With three quick steps Reiji stormed forward, cutting the leg from underneath one man with Kai, lunging into a stab with Little Brother that pierced armor and heart beneath alike, and a back-handed strike from Kai that eviscerated the final warrior even as he moved to avoid the blow. The last blow, something he’d learned from the ancestors only recently.

  The three fell the ground as one and the fight was finished.

  “Perhaps there is hope for you yet, Reiji.” One of the grandfathers spoke. One he had just battled and defeated. “Remember the lesson re-learned here, yet again. Forge your own path in life as you would in battle. Hesitation and inaction in a fight is death. Hesitation and inaction in life is living death. Adapt when necessary, but always strive to forge your own destiny.”

  Reiji considered the words with an appropriate amount of gravitas shown on his face, though he thought the words to be so much hot air. Had the old man been reading a fortune cookie to him? Such things were obvious and only a fool would see wisdom there.

  “And now,” another shriveled old man began as he stepped forward onto the tatami. “We will begin the chanoyu. You need to learn focus and to clear your mind.”

  Reiji bowed his head, while simultaneously dreaming of cutting this old man’s head from his shoulders. The fucking tea ceremony… He couldn’t think of anything more tedious. But its practice seemed to be a condition of his training here. As if he was going to learn something from it.

  But as much as he hated to admit it, the ceremony did allow him to clear his mind. He found no errant thoughts intruding and his training immediately following always seemed to be more productive, despite the banality of it all.

  Reiji approached a small table that appeared in the middle of the tatami, bearing the instruments necessary for the ceremony. A thick scroll sat there, which he picked up and unrolled before approaching the nearest wall and placing it there. From the scroll a series of strokes of an old ink pen had produced the likeness of a bird in flight, soaring above jagged peaks like those he had seen beneath the lightning from the storm.

  Beneath the hanging scroll a bowl of hot water appeared. Reiji rolled up his sleeves and washed his hands and forearms before rinsing his face and finally washing out his mouth.

  As he spit the water back into the bowl it vanished and a gong sounded, summoning him to return to the table. He knelt there in silence for a moment before lighting a small stick of incense and inhaling deeply of the thickly scented smoked. He closed his eyes and concentrated on his breathing before he bowed his head once to the gathered ancestors and began to purify the utensils for the preparation of the tea.

  In the distant past, his ancestors on Old Earth had taken great care to codify the procedure. The Ikeda clan had modified it over the years as they spread throughout the stars with the rest of humanity, developing their own style. Here it proceeded as Reiji saw fit. After working through it many times upon this tatami, he had found the optimal approach to best clear his thoughts and renew his senses.

  He worked through the steps, moving slowly, and some might even say gracefully. Each gentle movement a harsh contrast to the actions of violence that the training hall of his mind normally witnessed. The aroma of the tea washed over him and he felt his mouth begin to water.

  When the arrangement and ceremony were complete, Reiji placed two cups on the table as he knelt. Making sure each one was in the proper spot before sitting. One of the grandfathers stepped forward and sat with him. Each man acknowledged the other with a nod and reached for the cup. Minutes passed as each sipped contentedly on the brew in silence.

  As each finished, the cups were placed back on the table. As the last cup touched its surface, the table vanished leaving the two men sitting and facing one another. The old man looked at Reiji passively and then slowly pushed himself to his feet.

  “You will face me now,” he spoke. “Unarmed.”

  “Good.” Reiji answered with enthusiasm. He would enjoy punching this old man in the face. “It has been too long since we have fought hand-to-hand.” Or maybe he would ragdoll him with a few throws or twist his limbs into knots. Reiji had always enjoyed training Judo and Jiujutsu. Few, even among the ancestors, could best him there.

  The old man looked at him passively for a long moment, blinking a few times before he responded.

  “Hand-to-hand?” he began. “No. You will be unarmed. Not I.” The old man nearly doubled in size as he finished the sentence, drawing a short blade and advancing upon Reiji with quickness.

  The blade flashed and Reiji’s flesh parted beneath it.

  TWENTY times. It had taken him twenty fucking times, from the very beginning of the fight, to disarm the old man without being struck down. Each time he had been struck down, the moment was repeated ad nauseam until he could successfully escape or counter the attack. Each time he was cut, he felt the pain.

  Better to feel it here than in an actual fight. Reiji forced that thought into his mind. There was absolute truth in those words, but it did nothing to dull the pain. Through the neural interface implant, his brain experienced every sensation here. There was no detachment like in the games that children played and grown men wasted their time with.

  This was as real as it could get without someone actually dying.

  Finally, when Reiji triumphed over the old man, from beginning to end and every point in between, the fight ended. The grandfather returned to his normal size and the blade vanished from his hands. He turned and walked to take his place among the ancestors.

  Reiji knelt on the tatami before touching his forehead to the ground as he removed the data plug from his neural interface implant. For a moment he thought about how it was the same unit handed down father to son for some generations, just like the blades he carried. The spot where the data plug fit had been in his father’s head and his grandfather’s head as well.

  Darkness engulfed him as it was removed. He still sat in a lotus position in the cool air of the shelter, the oxygen recycling unit humming away. But now there was no all-encompassing roar of sandstorm.

  He pushed against the peak of the dome, fifteen centimeters or so above his head, feeling resistance. There was sand accumulated on the outside, but not so much that he couldn’t move it. Reiji worked his way to his knees and pushed up and the shelter gave way. Sand poured in through the gap between the bottom of the dome and the ground, but not so much that it threatened to bury him.

  He continued pushing and eventually found himself standing knee-deep in powder soft sand, in broad daylight. The brightness of the sun and the oppressive heat of the air assaulted him from all directions simultaneously. People actually lived out there, he thought. What the fuck was wrong with them?

  He looked around seeing a few other men milling about, and Gavin leading a few others. The man carried
a small data slate and pointed to a clump of sand beneath the face of a short cliff. Some twenty meters above, an errant bird sat staring down at them before it took flight, seemingly offended by their presence.

  “There,” Gavin said loudly as he pointed. “Start digging.”

  Men moved to obey and the man turned to face Reiji.

  “Good morning, Reiji.” Gavin pronounced his name oddly, making it sound like an adjective. Ragey.

  “Our friend, John, the one who liked to brag about his skill at the art of rape, is somewhere beneath all of that.” He motioned back to the pile of sand beneath the cliff. “It would make you look good if you were to assist in his rescue.” Gavin concluded.

  Reiji wasn’t concerned with how he looked to the others. Fuck the others, he thought. But it was clear by the way that Gavin had spoken that he was expected to do so as part of his job. And he hadn’t earned enough yet to tell his employer to fuck off. He returned to his pack and extracted a small collapsible shovel and joined the other men already working into the sand.

  Only a few hours into the day, by the position of the son, and already it was hotter than an oven. Within minutes of joining the work, Reiji was drenched in sweat. He paused long enough to strip down to the waist and instantly regretted it as the sun began burning his skin. If it took much longer to find this asshole and get him out of the ground, Reiji would be covered with blisters by the end of the day.

  Two hours passed as the men dug into the sand, looking for the missing man. Presumably buried by the sand building up and then falling en masse from the cliff above.

  Reiji had only known the man a short time, but he already hated him. If this fuck had paid attention and not done some stupid shit like putting his shelter beneath an obvious danger like that, they’d all be lounging in their day tents. In relative comfort if not actual comfort.