Ryojin- the Bonded Blade

by Noah Ward

  Kaz kept to crowds, doubled back a couple of times, and slunk into alleys where she found them. However, she knew urgency had made her sloppy. Her main play was that the thing hadn’t known she’d left the inn in the first place.

  Heart in throat, sweating after just bathing, hair soaking and irritating under her wrappings, she was a condensed ball of fury and apprehension. As much as she wanted to fling people out of her path, the less violent part of her mind preached restraint.

  Breathe.

  And what of Shay in all this, Kaz?

  The girl couldn’t have been in on all this. Kaz was certain of it. She was some naive country girl from the south. Or had that been an act? No. It couldn’t have been.

  Relax, the answers will come.

  Loosing a grunt of frustration, Kaz turned the corner onto the street where she’d left Shay earlier. A few people milled around. Were they lookouts? Were Retsudan’s guards in on this? Her family evidently had some sway with them.

  Kaz ducked into one of the alleys a couple of lodgings over and proceeded to hop over or go under broken fences until she landed in the house’s garden. Straining her ears, she heard nothing. She crept towards the rear doors and listened. Silence. What about that happy reunion? It started to feel more and more like she’d been scammed albeit well paid.

  Her blade came free of its sheath and slid the door aside. The house appeared empty. No floorboards creaked, no muffled voices.

  “Shit,” Kaz spat, forgetting the chest was tucked under her arm. Her heart stopped as it tumbled onto the bare floorboards. It landed on its latch, which broke and sent a few objects--mostly flints and used whetstones--scattering.

  Seconds passed. She wasn’t dead. Just enough items remained so it did not agitate the pressure plate.

  Well, now that she was still burdened with mortality, what was she supposed to do next?

  Luckily, the door in front of her slid open and provided Kaz with an answer.

  34

  A Fated Meeting

  Shay had struck the snow and gone spilling to the ground. Her lungs felt like a couple of ringing bells, sharp pain rocketing up her limbs with every chime. The front of her hakama was soaked and dirty.

  But she was free.

  Shay couldn’t help casting one last look back to the house, expecting that thin man to appear any second. When he didn’t she fled along the road towards the wider paths of the slums where she could lose herself in the crowds. Pushing her way through the throngs and traders setting up their stalls, she ignored the shouting populace she’d barged past. A part of her mind screamed at her to look back to see if she were being followed, but she simply focused on putting as much distance between the house and herself before finally peeling off into an alley.

  Hands on her knees, she gulped in air and tried to still the adrenaline coursing through her veins. Doubled over, trying not to breathe so loudly, she waited. They could be here any moment. And moments came and went, with every person passing the mouth of the alley sending a jolt of panic through her, but none entered.

  Now what, Shay?

  Shogens knew what her next move was supposed to be. No money but she still had the sword Kaz had bought her.

  Kaz…

  Had what Denjuro said been true? He was a liar, wasn’t he?

  Agh! Shogens, she had no damn idea. He probably didn’t know her father, but wanted her for some other nefarious reason she couldn’t predict. Maybe he was a competitor of her father?

  Shay sighed and looked at the blade by her side. She could go back to Kaz, but what would she tell the woman? She could apologise, say that she lied about it, followed that man because the other option was likely imprisonment or never being allowed entry to Akimaru so she could…

  Where else was she going to go? Where had her stupid plan intended to take her from the start?

  Shay scanned the alley and found a torn rag amongst a stack of broken wood. She yanked it free and wrapped it around her head in a rough scarf. Even obscuring her hair and face a little may help avoid detection.

  Taking her time, Shay wended her way towards the gate she had entered Akimaru through earlier in the day. She approached a market trader.

  “I’m looking for a place with statues of the shogens,” she said. She tried to recall what Kaz had said in what felt like an age ago. “Shirocairn?”

  The older man at the fruit stall directed her towards the huge castle, sitting at the highest point of Akimaru. Though it would take her a while to reach it, she set off at a determined pace. Shay’s curving path took her past districts focused on smithing, inns, gambling, trading markets, and more. While there did not appear to be much symmetry in what each building was, she discovered that the further she travelled upwards, the more affluent the varieties of businesses and dwellings became. Not to mention her ragged appearance only felt more out of place the loftier her pursuits became. However, she took solace in the fact that the various servants and delivery people scurrying about the slushy streets did not appear so dissimilar to herself despite the finery many other denizens sported.

  It was around Akimaru’s sixth gate along its spiral that the fine housing gave way to the start of the castle grounds. While she could not continue to the barracks area that led to the seventh gate and the castle itself, which currently towered way above her, there were signs for Shirocairn. To reach it, she followed a curving road that wrapped around the sixth level to an area parallel with the castle. On her way along the wide road, she passed beggars and people hawking religious wares. Back in its day, Shay guessed the shrine would have brought pilgrims from far and wide across Zenitia. Since the unification, it was no secret that Retsudan and his followers thought no god was above man. It was a belief held tighter in larger towns and cities than where she had grown up, and apparently something quietly rejected here.

  Shay passed few bosans on her way up, and the small hokora shrines to different shogens remained sparse of offerings. Of those denizens she did pass, they were mostly of the older generation and she didn’t notice anyone of her own age making the trek.

  When she eventually crested the final curve to find the gates leading upwards to Shirocairn, she found that it jutted outwards from the castle, a large, outcropping of rock that had a sheer drop to either side. While there was enough space for trees to grow and railings on either side of the stairs, someone could easily hop them and plummet dozens of metres into the moat below.

  Shay took a breath and began her march up the stairs, crossing seven gates until she headed through the final eighth gate. A cobbled path led towards the temple at the far edge of the cliff; its damaged roof and flecked paint spoke of perhaps a decade of disrepair. Through the gaps in the trees and beyond the building itself, snowy plains reached out to distant mountains. The large, krystallis-powered ships bobbing in the docks below looked like giant whales, smaller vessels the fish that followed them in search of scraps.

  The few people that milled around had many summers on her and she became painfully aware of how much she stood out. Standing here, she wondered why her mother had spoken of such a place. Back in its day, it must have been quite the site of devotion; now it was nothing more than a husk, a fading memory of a time when the shogens’ grips were tighter. She couldn’t say whether that reality warmed or chilled her.

  Broken statues lined the pathway. Mudan’s smithing hammer had a large chunk missing, and his once large, bushy beard had been softened by the elements; Sephyr’s flowing robes encircling him had snapped; the orbs of light surrounding Sora had all but fallen away and you could barely recognise her slight features. The rest were too disfigured to describe but mounds of rock lay at their bases like final offerings.

  With no guards here, she did not fear being recognised, but still kept her salvaged headgear in place as she advanced on the temple. A few gave her quizzical looks, and Shay figured it was because of her age, not who she was. Still, she couldn’t help casting around, expecting to see Denjuro appear, but it was eeri
ly quiet up here, with only the whispering breeze for company.

  Despite her mother’s fond words that had sparked a light in her eyes Shay had never seen since, she found the place depressingly underwhelming. This is why she had ventured all that way, in the vain hope of finding some man that probably did not exist. Reflecting on it, he may well have never existed. Her mother and Senzen had spoken of him as if he were real; perhaps that was merely pity. All she’d had left was a child’s tale.

  Shay methodically put one foot in front of the other, entering the temple. The doors had long been broken, allowing the snow in. The large space in the centre, reserved for an effigy of a shogen that the temple was dedicated to, was empty.

  No, that wasn’t true. Something had been here, she could tell by the charred marks on the floor. It had been burned to ashes long ago. This suspicion was confirmed when she gazed upwards to the sky through a burnt, gnarled hole in the wood.

  A breeze swept in through the open doors at the opposite end of the temple. And when she looked up, she finally saw it: a cherry tree, stood at the furthest point on the cliff, its pink blossoms stunning against an overcast sky. One thing of beauty still remained in Shirocairn and she then knew why her mother had spoken of this place.

  Her feet picked up as she wandered outside, past the temple’s smaller shrine, towards the base of the tree. Staring up, the tree’s pink petals swarmed her vision. Shay took a deep breath and knew she was about to weep.

  “They say that the first people who settled Akimaru followed a rose in the distance until they discovered it was this tree,” said a voice from behind her.

  Shay jumped, quickly wiped her cheeks, and, keeping her head low, turned to see who spoke to her.

  In front of her was a man of some some forty-odd summers. He wore loose, white robes. His hair, drawn up into a bristling ponytail and well-trimmed beard were white, though not because of age. Though he wore no blades at his hips, he looked like a warrior to Shay.

  “Oh…” was all she could manage.

  He gave her an easy smile and then approached the base of the tree, where he kneeled. Shay backed off a little.

  “I just need some of the soil,” he said.

  “Why?” Shay said before catching herself.

  The man gently brushed a few layers of snow away to reveal the hard, packed earth. “I’m planning to visit a temple to Mudan--you’re too young--”

  “Shogen of immovable foundations, unbending will, and faith.”

  He glanced at her, impressed. “Someone that young knowing about the shogens is a rare things these days. I’ll guess you’re not from a city.”

  “Well, er, no--my mother--I find it interesting,” she stumbled. Shay didn’t know who she could trust and couldn’t just go blurting out things that may endanger her.

  Ponytail withdrew a small wooden box from his robe. He placed it on the snow and flipped open the catch; it was empty. “Then you’ll know what I’m about to do.”

  Shay snapped her finger. “You’re taking dirt--”

  “--soil,” he corrected with a smile.

  She folded her arms. “You’re taking soil as an offering to Mudan.”

  He used one of the trees fallen twigs to make a dent in the soil and churn it up. “We owe our lives to Mudan. Our lives depend on the earth, what we grow from it, the foundations we build our cities from--”

  “Krystallis,” she offered.

  His head bobbed from side to side. “Yes, though people tend to put it above all else…” He waved the statement away and began scooping the soil into the box. After three or four handfuls, he dusted off his palms and shut the box.

  Shay, at a loss for what to say but knowing she didn’t want to be alone right now, said, “What happened to the temple? Which shogen is it?”

  Ponytail scooped up the box and made it vanish between the folds in his robes. “Around ten winters ago, there was a war. You must haven’t been very old at that point.”

  “Retsudan’s war of unification,” Shay said.

  “Correct. Though others have different names for it.” He sighed. “Anyway, Akimaru was besieged because the heads of several clans worked from this city, in the castle just over there.” He pointed slightly downwards, and Shay now only realised how this cliff managed to rise beyond the castle itself.

  “Do you know why the temple is here?” he said. When Shay shrugged, he continued, “It’s because people from Zenitia believe no man is higher than the shogens. The shogen that was once in that temple…” He turned to her. “Guess.”

  She looked off. “Mudan?” He shook his head. “Minori?” Again, a head shake. She blew out her breath. “Sora?”

  “You know what I’m going to say?” he said.

  “‘No’.”

  He nodded. “Shizanagi.”

  Shay shuddered. “Shogen of eternal blizzards, traveller of the white wastes, and harvester of souls. The reaper.”

  “She keeps both man and shogen in check. But I never called her ‘the reaper’. I like to think of her as an upholder of justice, divine retribution.” Ponytail sighed. “Though there’s always a problem if you leave one thing to mete out justice.

  “If the teachings are to be believed, Mudan was considered a hermit,shunning himself from the battles the other shogens and their underlings fought. He cocooned himself deep within the core of the shogen world. However, after Shizanagi’s fractious relationship with the other shogens, she convinced Mudan to fashion a new world. He took his chisel and formed the base of the new world, which was kept hidden from the other shogen. Our world.” He waved the story away. “But that’s beside the point. Retsudan’s soldiers burned Shizanagi’s effigy down while Zenitia’s leaders watched from within the castle. Soon after, they were killed or surrendered. And that was that, the war was done.”

  Shay looked at the husk of a temple and swallowed. “You fought in the war,” she said. She could sense the lassitude in his voice upon speaking of it.

  “I did,” he conceded.

  “You’re from Zenitia?”

  “I am.”

  “Akimaru?”

  “No.” He glanced at her from the corner of his eye. “And don’t ask what you’re going to ask.”

  “I wasn’t…” Shay said. “No one ever gives me an answer anyway.” Kaz hadn’t been willing to divulge which side she fought for and clearly this stranger wasn’t going to. Shay didn’t know why she wanted to know so badly. In her village people had been too scared to talk about it, and though she knew Kaizen had thrived after the war, the land seemed in even more unrest now, and no one seemed happy in Zenitia. Perhaps this was just the way it always was and always would be and the war was just some bump in a depressing road that still led to the same destination.

  “They have their reasons, I assure you.”

  “But...I,” she said, before stopping herself.

  “What?”

  “I just want to know who was right, that’s all…” It was a childish and naive question, she knew that.

  “That’s the problem, isn’t it?” Ponytail said. “We have to find that answer for ourselves and hope that it’s the right one.”

  Shay looked up to him. “And if it wasn’t?”

  “We do what we must to make amends.” Ponytail smoothed his robes and allowed the silence to hang for a moment before he looked Shay up and down. “Are you hungry?”

  “Err…” Shay knew she didn’t have any money with her. All she had was her blade, which she’d concealed in her hakama as best she could.

  Oh shogens, Shay, you’re broke…

  “It’s okay,” he said and nodded back towards the temple. “There is a place on the way down.”

  Shay was tired, hungry, and the man seemed nice enough. It wasn’t like she had anywhere else to go or any clue what to do next. Any distraction was welcome.

  “Okay,” she said and then followed him.

  The two walked in silence through the temple and back down the set of stairs to where a few p
eople had been attempting to hawk their wares. Ponytail stopped by a man who was sitting by a small stove, grilling skewered fish. Shay’s stomach rumbled on instinct.

  “I take it you’re a little hungry,” he said offhandedly before approaching the vendor and ordering. He slipped the vendor well more than the food was worth. Then, he proffered several of the fish to Shay.

  “Go on,” he said, when he saw her hesitating before leaning in conspiratorially. “You should see how I’ve been forced to eat in the past.”

  He’d barely finished speaking before she began tearing at the fish. The combination of salty fish, probably caught from surrounding waters, mixed with the sweet plum glaze, made her mouth salivate. Before she knew it, she was done, and Ponytail was handing her a cup of warm tea, which she gulped down.

  “Feeling better?” he asked.

  “Much,” said Shay, taking a contented breath.

  He looked around, which sparked a pang of fear in her gut. She’d gotten distracted; someone could well be here…

  “You’re not from around here, are you?” he said.

  “Well...no.” He was from Zenitia, so would easily be able to tell.

  “There is a bit of the north in you, though.”

  “I’m here visiting family,” she said on instinct.

  “You need a blade to fend them off?” he said.

  “What? I?”

  He held up his palms. “I can tell, that’s all. You’re best wearing a cloak if you want to keep it hidden.”

  “I’m trained, is all. But sometimes when people see a girl with a sword…”

  “They underestimate you.”

  Shay shrugged and blushed. “I’ve been practicing for summers…”

  Ponytail laughed and she suddenly felt embarrassed.

  “Oh, I’m not laughing at you,” he said. “I was just thinking that I’d sworn never to let my daughter near a blade.”

  “You have a daughter?”