L5r - scroll 04 - The Phoenix (25 page)

He touched his fingers to the stone and then brought his hand to his mouth. Wet. Clean tasting. Wonderful. So little of it, (hough. He leaned forward to lap up the moisture.

Something hard and heavy landed on Tadaka's shoulders.

He fell to the ground, one arm pinned under him, the other splayed wide. Neither hand could reach a weapon.

The creature on top of Tadaka slavered and gibbered. Sharp claws slashed at the back of his kimono. He felt his skin breaking and warm blood oozing from long scratches. He screamed in pain, shock, and anger.

The earth supported him, barely. His mind numb from thirst and toil, he called on the power of the rock. New strength flowed into his limbs. Not much, but enough.

The Master of Earth flexed his shoulders and rolled to the left. He shook off the creature, but it swiped at him with its claws as he went. The talons traced a fiery gash down Tadaka's left arm.

He kicked out with his foot. His toe connected with something solid. Guts. Perhaps ribs. The creature rolled away, a tornado of fur and claws.

Tadaka scrambled to his feet and drew his sword. Fog swirled between the Master of Earth and his opponent. Tadaka waited for the charge, unsure if he possessed the strength to attack. He angled his weapon low, for a hip-to-breastbone cut. The creature charged.

"Tadaka, no!" Ob's voice yelled. A stone sailed through the air, striking the creature's forehead. The monster yelped and staggered.

Tadaka stepped aside, avoiding the flailing claws. He twisted the katana in his hand and brought the pommel crashing down on the back of the creature's head.

The monster fell heavily to the ground and lay there, weeping. It was Mouse.

Her heavily matted fur shivered, and her eyes darted wildly. A small gash above her right eye bled where the mujina's rock had hit her. She babbled and cried as she lay on the bare earth. When Tadaka took a step toward her, she cowered away.

"Mouse!" Tadaka said. "It's me. Your friend Tadaka. Don't you remember me?"

The ratiing merely curled herself into a ball and wept.

Tadaka sheathed his sword.

Ob flitted over to Tadaka's shoulder and said, "I had to stop you. She doesn't know what she's doing."

Tadaka nodded. "I'm glad you did," he said. "Mouse deserves better than death at my hand. She must have found her village like this when she returned. The shock unhinged her mind. What a terrible fate."

The mujina looked around plaintively at the ruins of the nezumi village. "We could bring her with us," he said. "You can take her back to your castle and fix her up. She'll be good as new again."

Tadaka shook his head ruefully. "I hardly have strength to walk myself—never mind dragging her on my back."

"Y-you know I can't carry things," the mujina said, his lower lip shaking. "I would if I could, but...!"

Tadaka nodded. "Yes, I know. You're just a mischievous spirit.

Anything bigger than a bowl of fruit is beyond your power."

A tear peeking out of his eye, Ob said, "We can't leave her like this. Maybe I should have let you kill her after all."

Tadaka looked at Mouse's quivering form, lying helpless before him. His hand went to the hilt of his katana, and then drew away. He shook his head.

"True," he said, "it might be a mercy to kill her, but I cannot find it in my heart to do so. We cannot see the ends fate has planned for us. Perhaps the Fortunes will smile on Mouse again some day."

"I hope so," Ob said.

"I, too," Tadaka said. He reached down to Mouse's furry head, placed his hand on her brow, and recited a sutra of calming. The ratling's wild eyes closed, and she slept.

Tadaka built a small shelter for her with rocks and placed her prostrate body inside. "Sleep well, my friend," he said. He chanted a prayer to safeguard the nezumi, but his tongue tripped over the words. Tiredness overwhelmed him, and he nearly fell.

"You okay?"

"Yes, Ob, I'll be all right," Tadaka said. Drawing what strength lie could from the earth, he walked back to the escarpment. The trickle of water had stopped, but a small amount lay on the surface of the flat rock. Tadaka shimmied up the rock, placed his face to the stone, and lapped up the moisture.

When nothing more remained, he stood and staggered out of the small bowl-shaped valley. Ob flew beside him. As they left, they could hear the gentle sobs of Mouse, last of the Long Tail I'ack. The gray mists of the Shadowlands soon swallowed both the village and the weeping.

The fog confounded Tadaka's brain. He lost all sense of time and distance as he walked. Thirst robbed him of his strength; exhaustion stole his reason.

The mujina helped him stay on course. Through constant babbling and gentle prodding, Ob steered the weary Master of Earth through the nightmare landscape toward the edge of the Shadowlands.

Once, in his delirium, Tadaka thought he heard the cry of the Oni no Akuma—his longtime nemesis. He would have charged off into a swamp if the mujina hadn't put a stick in his way. Tadaka tripped, landing flat on his face. The fall bloodied his nose, but it also restored his senses, at least for a time.

The ground became alternately hard and spongy. Tadaka's food ran out. The scrabbling sounds of hidden fauna haunted him. He wondered if they might be good to eat. Rivulets of poison crossed his path and became fountains of his desire. Once, he almost dipped his hand into one. A cry from the mujina stopped him.

Finally, Tadaka could go no farther. The world swam around him, and his senses went dark. He hardly felt the ground strike his body as he slumped to the earth. How long he lay there, he could not have said.

He woke to a small breeze blowing across his face and an unpleasant smell in his nostrils. When he forced his heavy eyelids open, he saw the mujina sitting next to him, fanning his face with small batlike wings.

Ob said, "I got something for you."

In his small, red hands, the mujina held out a broad leaf, filled with clear, pure water. Tadaka fell on it in a frenzy, greedily sucking every drop.

"Careful!" Ob said. "You don't want to spill any!"

Tadaka slowed down, savoring the tepid liquid. It restored some of his strength, but more of his hope. He inhaled, and the air didn't seem quite so oppressive as it had before.

"Ob," he said wearily, "where did you get this?"

The mujina pointed. Through the fog, Tadaka saw the land rising into brown hills. "You were almost out when you collapsed," Ob said. "I found a stream two hills over. Think you can make it that far?"

Tadaka sat up. It was true. He'd come to the very edge of the Shadowlands.

Impending sunset painted the edges of the high clouds golden. Tadaka had seldom seen anything so beautiful.

He stood on shaky legs.

"Thank you, Ob," he said.

The mujina nodded. "Don't mention it."

The Master of Earth staggered forward. In two hundred steps he placed his feet on good, solid earth once more. He climbed up the hills, enjoying even the scrape of the stone against his skin as he pulled himself along.

One hill passed, and then another. Brown vegetation clung in l he cracks, and green lichens covered the rocks. A small evergreen, no more than a hand high, stood between the boulders.

"I thought you said it was two hills over," Tadaka complained.

"I underestimated," the mujina said, "just to get you going. It's not far now, I promise."

A cold breeze tumbled down from unseen heights, chilling the Master of Earth. He took a deep breath and coughed. The f resh air felt like needles in his lungs after so long in the poison atmosphere of the Shadowlands. He coughed until his ribs ached.

"Just over this rise," Ob said. "Really."

"Mujina, if you're lying ..."

"What are you going to do, fall on me?"

Behind his dirty hood, a smile split Tadaka's cracked lips. He forced himself to walk one more time. His swords clattered on his left hip, as heavy as a boulder. The scroll case dug into his right hip, reminding Tadaka of the burden he carried to his clan. I lis feet skidded on small rocks. Twice he caught himself, saving a precipitous fall. He topped the rise and heard a sound sweeter ill an music.

At the bottom of the slope ran a small stream, winding between jagged rocks. Tadaka stumbled downhill toward it. He could smell the water—pure, fresh, cold. He didn't mind the stones that slipped into his sandals. He didn't mind the scrapes on his hands. All that mattered was to drink.

He threw himself down by the rivulet and pulled his hood back from his mouth. He pursed his lips and placed them to the surface of the stream. For a long time, he lay there and drank, listening to the song of the water.

The sound of clattering stone roused him. He looked up.

A figure walked downstream toward him—the Kuni witch hunter.

Her jade mask wore the same grim expression it had when they had first met. Her black hair tumbled past her waist. Her

white robes billowed in the slight breeze. She picked her way among the stones. In her hand, she held a forked spear. Leaning against a tall rock, Tadaka waved to her. The witch hunter lowered her spear and charged.

the eyes of darkness

Isawa Kaede frowned as Kachiko put a white stone on the board and surrounded two of her black stones. A smile broke over the empress' beautiful face, though Kaede noticed worry lines behind her Scorpion mask. Despite her careful demeanor, something was troubling the Mother of Scorpions.

The two of them sat inside an audience chamber, not far from the throne room. They had been forced indoors by the weather, too cold and rainy for a match by the lotus pond. They'd played many games within the castle walls of late—not all of them over an ishii board. Paper lanterns lit the chamber with flickering red light. The air smelled of incense.

I am trapped, Kaede thought—realizing the parallel between the game and her life. Every day the walls of the castle weighed more heavily on her. In the distance, she could hear the banging of carpenters. On her way to the game, she had passed plasterers trying to whitewash

decay from the castle's mighty walls. With the fortress' windows closed, the air had become oppressive, almost diseased.

"I see no escape for you, Kaede-san," Kachiko said.

Kaede nodded grimly. "Nor do 1.1 pass."

"As do I," Kachiko replied. "I believe that gives me the game." She smiled, but victory sparkled less brightly in the empress' black eyes. Kachiko straightened the folds in her immense robes. "Thank you for the game, Kaede."

Kaede bowed low. "It is I who thank you, Kachiko-sama," she said.

Kachiko nodded her acknowledgment. She turned to the man sitting on her left. He was a thin, muscular samurai, dressed in midnight blue with a red obi and collar. His face was ruggedly handsome behind his sparse mask, though his black eyes showed the travails he had lived through.

"Aramoro," Kachiko said to him, "see that Mistress Kaede reaches her chambers safely." Aramoro, the half-brother of Kachiko's dead husband, nodded and rose.

"Domo arigato, Kachiko-sama," Kaede said, "but I can find my own way." She rose to go.

"As you wish," Kachiko said. She motioned for Aramoro to seat himself once more. He did.

"Shall we have another game tomorrow?" Kaede asked.

Kachiko shook her head, her long black hair forming sensuous waves as she did so. "Not tomorrow," she said. "I have other affairs that need tending. Perhaps at the end of the week."

Kaede bowed. "As you wish, Empress." She turned and went to the door. Two samurai dressed in the same midnight blue as Aramoro drew back the fusuma panel covering the room's entrance. Kaede stepped through and into the long hall beyond. Guards nodded at her but did not impede her passage. She chose a path toward the castle's exterior, hoping to get some air to clear the gloom from her head.

When she came to an outside wall, she found a window and propped open the shutter. Cold wind blew in, bringing with it a few flakes of snow. The breeze tossed Kaede's black hair and nipped her cheeks. She stood there for a while, taking long, deep breaths. Ishikawa found her, still at the window.

"Feeling all right?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, nodding. "I just needed some fresh air."

"Perhaps a walk would do you good?" he asked.

"In this weather?" she replied.

"There's a tearoom on the near edge of the western gardens," he said. "I built a fire there this morning."

Kaede nodded. "I'll put on something warmer."

Ishikawa bowed, and the two of them walked back to her quarters. It didn't take Kaede long to change. She added woolen socks and a heavy outer robe to her kimono. A round straw hat fastened with a silk scarf completed her ensemble.

Ishikawa sent servants ahead to prepare the room. He waited while Kaede changed. Neither spoke much until they arrived at the tearoom. Ishikawa pulled open the shoji screen to admit Kaede, and then closed it behind them.

They sat on the thick tatami mat that covered the wooden floor, one on each side of the small fire pit that provided heat. A pot of tea had been set over the fire. Ishikawa poured some for each of them into delicate lacquer cups.