by Ree Soesbee
Epilogue
We have reached the end together, you and I. The final days have come.
The hallway is dark and cold. Sounds of battle outside the palace echo only faintly through the thick stone. Dust covers the paneled floor. Dirt and blood stain my sandals. For once, though, I am not alone. Seven Thunders, one prophet, and I walk down the shadowed corridor, and only the light of a single torch reflects from stained armor. Battered helms and unsheathed steel shine in burnished hues.
I can sense their caution.
I know their fear. It is the same fear I felt, deep within my heart, when I realized what I must do to prevent this day. The moment had passed nine hundred years ago. An eternity.
I look at the white-lipped Unicorn maiden, the cold eyes of the Lion general, and I remember their faces from times long past.
"Yokuni," the Crab whispers my name. "Can we defeat him? Can he be destroyed?"
I look toward him and see that his shattered arm has been sheathed in jade. I remember his ancestor, my brother. Hida was first among the Crab, and he raised them to fight the darkness. Mountain-tall brother, you taught them to strive and never give up.
How they have failed you, Hida. How they have fallen.
I shake my head, unwilling to answer, and the man looks away.
The wooden gates at the end of the corridor lie closed before us. For a thousand years, they have waited for our entry. I stood here, then, when the first Hantei commanded that they be placed in their brackets. Iron hinges, now rusted, cling to ancient stone. The Scorpion woman opens them with the touch of enameled fingers, a bruise staining her cheek, half-covered by shadow. One by one, they enter— the Unicorn first, as tempestuous as my sister who bore them. Behind her strides the Crab, then Crane and Lion together. With a glance, the wounded Isawa steps forward, his broken leg trembling beneath his weight. At his side, the prophet walks.
Before she can enter, I step before her. It is time for the Dragon to speak alone.
Her name is Hitomi. Coal black eyes, barely more than slits of anger in her sharp-featured face, glare up at me. I tower over her silent form, but she does not look away. A thousand years and more I have watched the world, and for a thousand years, I have feared nothing; no sword or spell. I have watched these mortals, and I have cared for them. I have never been afraid.
Until today.
A word appears in my mind, but I still it before it becomes speech. I pause to look at her once more.
Hitomi's hair has been shaved away, clean-shaven for war and out of remorse. She has borne much, and the scars on her heart-shaped face haunt her future. Her shoulders bear the caustic marks of war, and her soul still bleeds from the torment she has endured. At her side, her hand glistens in the faint light, stone over flesh. It is black, obsidian and cold, as black as the moon.
"Yokuni," she hisses, weary of the silence. I do not reply.
She begins to turn toward the open doorway. I grip her chin, forcing her eyes to meet mine. There. I see my death hovering in her soul. Where is the riddle? Where is the answer for which I have sought a thousand years?
You must not fight Fu Leng. I whisper, hearing the words echo a moment before I speak them.
Her face changes, and confusion ripples over her harsh features. "But you brought me—all of us—here to kill him. To save the empire."
I shake my head. The weariness rests on my bones like a cloak covered in mold and dust. The world is ending, and so am I.
"I have come so far, sacrificed so much," her voice is a curse. "Already, you have forced me to give up too much. I will not do it anymore, Yokuni. Not for you, not for the empire. Not for anyone." Hitomi drew up her right hand and clenched her fingers. Her fist of black glass shone in the flickering torchlight. Her fingers, veins of steel through obsidian flesh, clenched with titanic fury. "I have given my flesh, my honor, and my brother's soul. There is nothing left of me for you to take, old man. I am not the child I once was."
She is right... but she was not always like this. A faint image of her, laughing in the sunlight, echoes in the recesses of my ancient mind. Once, she was beautiful. She was the child of a powerful lord, trained in steel and meant for gentle places. Peaceful times. She was once a soul who could give birth to the dreams of men; a woman whose honor would stand true against the passing of time. Once her name meant hope. She cast aside that name long ago, when she cast aside her future. She threw it away with her honor. With her duty.
Now, she is only Hitomi.
You must not fight Fu Leng, I repeat, and the words are stone.
"You've told me what to do for too long, old man," she snarls at me. "Who to kill—who not to kill. I am weary of it, Yokuni, tired of all your games and riddles. What is my purpose, old man?" She is bitter. "To destroy myself? Slaughter the Sun? Bring the Moon down from the sky?"
Your purpose is not to kill him, but to kill me.
Hitomi pauses, her cold stone hand matching the blackness of her empty eyes. I see the indecision in her stance—to move forward and obey her champion, or to stay and question my judgment. Perhaps it has been too long. After a cold and silent span of time, she nods.
I tell her. The moment will seize you.
"Why do you trust me?"
Because it is my karma to die at your hand.
She lingers a moment longer. "No questions for me to answer, Yokuni? No talk of paths and enigmas, and no more vanishing into the night? No more riddles?" I shake my head, and she believes me.
The answer is my death, Hitomi. The riddle is yours to ask. I see my reflection in her black eyes, and beyond, I see starlight. She has no reply except to turn away. As she vanishes into the darkness of the room beyond the archway, I hear the whisper of my brother's voice.
Fu Leng... Fu Leng, youngest child of the Sun and Moon. Favored son of the darkness. Once, he was my brother, and On-notangu's cherished son. Thrown from heaven to his death, cut free from the Celestial Heavens by the lash of Hantei's sword, he has fallen to madness and destruction. Now he has attacked the empire.
He calls to me, and I must go. I step into the room, behind her.
The Celestial Heavens open around us, swelling to fill the room. As they do, I feel each mortal heartbeat within the room, within the palace, the fields, the empire. I feel the pulse of the world, and we are wrapped around it, our claws and fangs tearing at each other with the fury of two gods sworn to kill. I have the advantage—his weakness lies in his hatred. He has the advantage—I know that I must fail.
Two dragons battle, their bodies twisted and scattered amid the heavens. I feel each cut of his claw against my body, and I hear his bone snap beneath my massive jaw. An eternity is passing in an instant, and each claw-strike releases a shower of stars into the heavens. Where our blood falls, trees wither and mountains rise. Our weight shatters the sky, and the clouds of the Celestial Heavens flee from our fury.
I know him so well... my brother, my friend, youngest of my companions, Fu Leng. You must die, and your madness must die with you, or all of Rokugan will be destroyed. Your vengeance, Fu Leng—I must stop it, even if it will mean my life.
As I have always known it would.
Fu Leng cries out, and the throne room shakes. The samurai beneath us stay back, watching as a battle that has waited an aeon is played out before them. Strike, counterstrike, great coils far larger than the room spread into infinity. The Celestial Heavens draw close. Teeth snap on bone and muscle, tearing the flesh of two gods.
At last, I falter. I cannot continue the charade any longer.
I withdraw my strike and feel the steel of his coils crush my torso into pulp.
Massive iron claws shred skin, tearing through scale and spilling the blood of
the heavens. A scream echoes through the cosmos, and I know the voice to be my own. My brother's breath is hot against my bone, his iron teeth ripping through my body. I feel his power grow, and mine begins to weaken. He releases me with a terrible roar of victory, and the Heavens withdraw their face from me.
From the roof of the world, I fall, and I hear Fu Leng's voice following after me. Die, brother. Die, as you once left me to die, in anguish and in fear. And when you do, know that you will forever be, as I was ... alone.
His cackling madness chases me as my body collapses to the floor. My dragon self dies, leaving me in blood and agony. He stands above me for only a moment, and then moves to join the battle with the Thunders. Calling each of them by name, the Dark God opens his arms. I cannot raise my head to see, but I hear the sounds of battle join around me. I hear the sounds of death.
And then, I see Hitomi.
She stands apart, unwilling to end my torment, watching each labored breath pause within my collapsed chest. For a moment, I believe she will kill me, but she falls to her knees at my side. Even after all I have put her through, all the pain and anguish, she still holds within her soul a glimmer of bushido. "I... cannot...." she whispers. "You are my champion."
It is the only time I have ever known her to hesitate.
You are Dragon. I hear my own command, but my voice is as weak and empty as the fading heavens that surround me. The fight seems far distant now, the sounds of steel and sorcery echoing in two worlds at once. I remember hearing someone speak these words even as I say them, long before this day, and I remember her brother. But that was another time. Another death. I whisper, and my voice is faint. You must become the riddle.
Her eyes close, and I see furrows on her naked brow. Then, they open, and I see the fire of conviction.
I see my death approach, in the strike of an obsidian hand. Cold fingers close, crushing my immortal heart, stealing the rhythm of my life. Pain ... Pain ... and glory.
I look up at her cold features, feeling her fingers close about the secret that I have held within my soul. She seems startled to find it there. She is uncertain. But I look once more into her chiseled face, her shorn hair, and I feel the world shift around us.
Betrayer. Savior. Fool. Destroyer. Enigma.
She is all of these things.
She is Hitomi.
The world spins, and my flesh begins to crumble beneath the touch of her cold stone hand. The fingers close, wrapping tightly about my heart, and my form falls limp beneath her. My swords lie on the ground, a twisted tangle of iron and steel. My spirit rises, no longer at home in the decaying flesh that once housed it. The room changes in my vision, becoming at once the star-filled void of the Celestial Heavens and the earthbound throne room of the Hantei. The festering palace of my brother, Fu Leng.
I, an immortal kami, child of the Seven Heavens, look down at my own flesh and watch it die.
Hitomi's back arches, her mortal hand clutching at the ceiling as if to ward off some terrible blow. Her black eyes close, and then open. When they do, they are filled with starlight and the shadow of the moon. Her mouth twists in agony, and her bones shake within their fragile flesh, afraid of what they might become. She screams, but it is swallowed by the darkness between the stars. She is cold and alone. With a spasm, her black hand jerks out of my ruptured chest, dragging my blood-covered heart in its stone fist.
I feel her mind open beneath me, and I am washed in images of past and the present. A young man's face. A woman's laughter. The bright summer sun of a day I never knew. I see all these things and more. Her soul spreads before me like a tapestry of color and sensation, and I am drawn within it as certainly as a thread is spun within the weave. This is the prophecy of my death—the riddle destined to be answered.
I die, and she is born. It is done. My soul forever trapped within her, my heart crushed within her grasp. I feel her body shake, her obsidian hand slowly lower to the floor, and I see the reflection of Hitomi's face within the mirror of my forgotten swords. My eyes open, and I see the path that has led us both to this place. I feel her heart pound as her story becomes mine, our souls merging into one. Her past lies before me, and I watch it unfold once more.
Her eyes have become my own.
RISE OF FIRE
Strike!"
The two swords clashed. Steel rang on steel, and the mountain cliffs echoed their call. As one blade slid down the other, the gathered samurai began to cheer.
Sword leveled at his opponent's throat, the young samurai allowed himself a victorious grin. The entire fight had lasted a mere heartbeat.
The loser, a rough-looking young man with a curious grin, bowed. "Domo, Daini-san," he murmured to his opponent. "Well fought."
"And you, Taki-san," the other replied, smoothing his elegant mustache as he placed the saya of his sword firmly in the folds of his elaborate obi. "You very nearly defeated me." His flippant tone held no sincerity.
Taki flushed with annoyance. Still, the crowd that chanted around them left no room for a rebuke—and the brother of the
Mirumoto daimyo had already begun to walk across the tournament field to claim his prize. Taki simply stood silently in the center of the field, slowly sliding his blade back into its sheath.
"Well done," one of the watching samurai cried to the victor. "Well done, Daini. Don't you think so, Sukune-sama?"
By the empty ivory seat at the edge of the tournament field, Mirumoto Sukune smiled down at his foster son. He had raised Daini from the time the boy could walk, and though Daini had been born to Sukune's brother, it felt as through the young man was his own flesh and blood. The bright summer sun shone down on Sukune's bald pate where his topknot did not cover his forehead. His light brown eyes sparked with pride.
Around him, fields spread out where the mountain had been tamed. Rich green grass rustled in the cold wind of an approaching autumn. Banners fluttered, and orange leaves spun from still-green boughs. The tournament ground was filled with brightly garbed courtiers and bushi, for this was a day of festival. The Dragon Clan had every right to celebrate. The harvests had been good, and the clan was prosperous. Beyond the fields, jagged mountain peaks rose to break the crisp blue of the sky. Small white clouds clustered around the palace in the distance—Mirumoto Palace, the Iron Mountain.
It was Sukune's home, and Daini's as well. Since the death of their parents, Sukune had raised both Daini and his elder sister. Sukune's duty to his deceased brother was finished, but his pride remained. As Daini approached, Sukune's smile faded into solemnity, as befit the general of the Mirumoto armies.
Daini knelt at the edge of the daimyo's dais, placing his sword before him in a gesture of obedience.
"Well done, indeed, son of my heart." Sukune peered at the boy he had fostered for more than ten years.
The sixteen-year-old had pale skin, and hair drawn back in an oiled topknot. Each strand was carefully smoothed, and his elegant new mustache—one the youth had grown for more than six months in anticipation of this day—was carefully combed.
"You have taken the last test required of a Mirumoto samurai and proven your mastery of niten, the Strike of Two Swords. I wish that your sister had been here to see your victory, but other duties have kept Hitomi from the field."
At the mention of his sister's name, Daini's face clouded. "Hitomi has the duties of a daimyo," he said politely, each clipped word sharp and rote. "She cannot be expected to attend to each small thing in her provinces. Even such a celebration." His voice held sarcasm, though faindy, and Sukune was glad the youth kept his voice low. Despite the reasons for Hitomi's absence, Sukune knew it had nothing to do with her duties as daimyo. Hitomi had not performed them since she had taken the position.
Still, Sukune thought, it is bushido that a samurai did not speak poorly of his lord—even when that lord was his sister. "There are wars, Daini-san, and she must learn of them. The messengers that came this morning speak of dark tidings. Hitomi has a duty to fulfill."
"
They say she is afraid of Yukihera," Daini's voice dropped to a low, bitter whisper. "He performs her duties and gives orders as the daimyo should, and she does nothing. The samurai say—"
"I do not care what they say, Daini-san. For as long as Hitomi is daimyo of the Mirumoto, it is your duty to obey her."
"And I will, Sukune-sama, for as long as she leads us. My life belongs to the Dragon Clan. One day, I'll be general of the Mirumoto, in your place. And when that day comes, I will show the empire that the Dragon are strong." Daini's face shone with pride and confidence. "You'll see, Father. That day will come."
Sukune tried not to chuckle at the raw arrogance in the youth's cultured voice. It was good for a boy to have dreams-better, still, when those dreams gave the clan strength.
A sudden shout came from the field. "Hitomi comes!" A messenger child jogged swiftly to Sukune's side, pausing only for the swiftest of bows. "She's on her way. She's almost here...." The young boy's exuberance overstepped the bounds of protocol, and he nearly hopped up and down in impatience.
Sukune grunted. Damn her that she had not come a scant ten minutes ago. Her absence from the final rounds of the tournament was an embarrassment, and her arrival now would make it seem she deliberately slighted her brother. Most of the guests had assumed Hitomi would not arrive—she rarely attended public gatherings, even in her own lands—and the courtiers had already begun speaking to Mirumoto Yukihera, Sukune's son, about trade negotiations. In Hitomi's absence, her cousin took charge of such things. Her appearance now could only disrupt the negotiations.
Sukune sighed. "Tell Hitomi—"
"Too late." Daini muttered softly, looking across the field toward the stone gates of Mirumoto Palace. "The daimyo has already arrived."
Few of the courtiers in the crowd even recognized the often-absent daimyo of the Mirumoto. She marched across the turned earth of the tournament ground. Tattooed monks scattered before her. The swords at her belt hung loosely, and her face was dark with thought. It seemed Hitomi barely noticed the gracefully fluttering robes of the courtiers, or the shouts of brave samurai near her, but she did see Sukune. Mirumoto Hitomi did not waver even to step around a kneeling servant. Rather, she lifted her foot over the heimin and walked directly until she reached her foster father.
