L5r - scroll 04 - The Phoenix (31 page)

Ishikawa shook his head. "They're all samurai, proud to do their duty—proud to serve your people, and the empire."

She nodded and took a sip of sochu. "Yes, but they have also done it to spare me. They fear this knowledge will taint their souls, and they hope to spare me that evil."

"But you're aiding them," he said encouragingly. "You assist their studies."

"As do many others," she said. "I should do more."

"Your people still need a leader," he said. "Your brothers and the rest can't lead from inside the library."

"Junzo is marching north. Those who stand in his way perish. We need to know how to defeat him. This is the only way. But the cost..." She let her voice trail off, and her eyes wandered farther out to sea.

She stood. "I must return to my duty now," she said.

"Rest a while longer," he urged. "You're no good to them if you're tired."

"No," she said. "I must return. I must stand beside my brothers and my friends. Together we will win through. Together we will fathom the Evil One's secrets. Together we will turn back his dark hand."

"I pray to Amaterasu that is so," Ishikawa said. He slid pack the fusuma panel, and they both exited the room. Their path to the great stairway took them near the entrance of the castle. As they passed it, a haggard figure ran up to them.

His hair hung loosely out of his topknot, and his kimono was stained with mud. His face was pale and drawn. Concern furrowed his brow. For a moment, neither Kaede nor Ishikawa recognized Shiba Ujimitsu.

"Kaede," the champion said, gasping for breath, "I came as quickly as I could. You and the others .. . you must not do the terrible thing you're contemplating. You must not open the Black Scrolls."

"You are too late, Ujimitsu," she said. "It is already done."

The Phoenix Champion sank to the floor like a puppet whose strings had been cut. "If only I had come sooner!"

Kaede knelt and put her hand on his shoulder. "My friend," she said, "you could not have changed our minds. Do not worry. We have turned all our powers to the task."

Ujimitsu looked up at her. "It will not be enough. I know it. My soul cries out to me with the voices of a thousand years. I knew, even before I spoke to you, that I was too late. I only hoped..."

"You're not too late, Ujimitsu," Kaede said. "Our people still need your strength. I need your help and support." She rose, and he did as well.

The champion inhaled deeply. "What can I do?"

Kaede held Ujimitsu with her dark eyes. "The people are worried. While we have toiled, the rift between the bushi and the shugenja has widened. They have asked to meet with the council, but our studies will not permit it.

"Ishikawa has volunteered to help, but he is an outsider," she continued. "Our people will not listen to him as readily as they will listen to you. You are the Phoenix Champion. Talk to the people, Ujimitsu. Calm their fears. Speak with the voice and backing of the council. See that we are not disturbed."

Ujimitsu bowed. "Hai, Kaede-sama. I will do as you ask."

She bowed in return, though not as low. "Good. I return to my brethren now." She turned and walked away.

"Pray for her, Ishikawa," Ujimitsu whispered.

Ishikawa nodded and said, "I do."

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Isawa Tadaka lifted his head from the silk of his black scroll. Despite the shugenja's chanting, he had slipped into sleep. The fire of the scroll's kanji filled his brain; taint ravaged his body. His lungs ached with the oppressive air of the underground chamber.

In the shadows of the room, he glimpsed a monstrous shape. But when he turned, it had vanished. His head pounded with the intonations of the adepts outside the chamber. He heard something else as well: a soft whisper.

"Call, and I will answer," the voice said. "Ask, and I will grant your every desire."

Did the voice belong to the black scroll? Tadaka shook his head to clear it, but the seductive whisper repeated.

A new shadow flitted across the chamber wall. In its form Tadaka saw serpents, tendrils, teeth. He spun to meet it, a deadly spell forming on his lips.

Isawa Tsuke stood in the door to the chamber, smiling at him. Tadaka let the spell die away. "You know what we must do, of course?" the Master of Fire said, his rich voice filling the room.

Tadaka nodded, and a lock of sweaty black hair slipped from under his hood and fell over his forehead. "Yes, I know."

"The others have felt it, too," Tsuke purred. "Our studies have given us the power we need. They've opened the gates of knowledge for us. Now we must walk through." The Master of Fire looked drawn, but excitement burned in his eyes.

Uona stepped into the room behind Tsuke; manic joy played on her gaunt face. "Our strength is almost complete," she said. "Just one more step."

On the other side of Tsuke, Tomo appeared. His eyes darted nervously, and his cheekbones stood out, as if the skin had been drawn tightly across his skull. "That step is the most costly, the most terrible. It has driven the Crab mad."

Tadaka's eyes blazed in the darkness. "We are stronger than they."

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Isawa Kaede walked past the chanting shugenja and into the underground council chambers. Days had melded into weeks; time had become irrelevant. Only the Void sustained her in this never-ending moment.

Ujimitsu had brought the bushi and shugenja together, but they still did not agree. The bushi pressed for war, the shugenja for patience and peace. Neither path seemed right to Kaede anymore.

She entered the study chamber and was surprised to see all the other Elemental Masters gathered in the main room. They stood around a low stone table where the four Black Scrolls lay open. Almost irresistibly, Kaede's eyes were drawn to the shimmering kanji on the ancient silks. Green fire burned into her brain, seeking her soul.

Kaede closed her eyes. The Void rushed up to protect her, driving away the darkness. She opened her eyes again and gazed at the faces of the other Elemental Masters. They looked pale and skeletal, but their eyes blazed with power.

"Brethren," Kaede's said softly.

They turned and gazed at her. The shadows in the room shifted, and for a moment, Kaede imagined she saw an immense, many-tentacled form.

"We've come to a decision," Tadaka announced.

"We have power but need more knowledge," Uona said.

Tsuke nodded. "Enlightenment such as the Crab have. Moment to moment knowledge of the Evil One's plans."

"There is no other way to save our people," Tomo added.

Fear gripped Kaede's heart. Nausea welled up in her stomach.

"You can't mean ..." she said breathlessly.

"Yes," Tadaka replied. "Tomorrow night, we will summon an Oni.

tainted victory

Shiba Tsukune drove her katana though the eye socket of a walking corpse. The point of the blade shattered the back of the zombie's skull. The creature's head shook atop its rotting neck. The Phoenix general slashed to her left, and the top of the corpse's skull flew off. The zombie toppled to the earth, dead once more.

Before her, the Fields of the Morning Sun lay strewn with the minions of the false Hoturi. Beside her rode her Phoenix cavalry. They laid into the remainder of the evil troops with gusto, slicing off heads and trampling corpses beneath the hooves of their horses.

All around, a cheer rose from the surviving samurai. Their forces had won. After a long night of death and darkness, the Crane had regained their heritage. Doji Hoturi had reclaimed his rights as daimyo and slain his evil double.

Tsukune laughed and lopped off the head of the only remaining zombie in sight. She raised

her katana high overhead and shouted for joy. She whipped off her helmet and let her long hair blow in the brisk wind. How she wished Ujimitsu could be here with her!

A Phoenix ashigaru ran up to her and offered Tsuke an earthen jar. "I've been saving this for victory," he said, his smile showing several missing teeth.

Tsukune took the jar and put it to her lips. The sake inside wasn't warm enough, but it tasted sweet nonetheless. She drank deeply and handed the jar back to the foot soldier. "Arigato."

He rubbed his unshaved chin and bowed. "Domo arigato, Tsukune-san," he said. He ran off, laughing, to join his fellows, his battered armor clattering as he went.

"Your men seem pleased." The pleasant voice coming from so close to her side startled Tsukune. She turned and saw Doji Hoturi riding beside her, a smile playing across his handsome face.

"They have much to be pleased about, as do you."

Hoturi nodded, and his smile grew wistful. The wind caught his white hair and whipped it around his face. "And much that I am not proud of as well," he said thoughtfully. Then he brightened. "But now is not the time for such things. Enjoy your rest while you may, Tsukime. Soon, the rebuilding begins."

He tugged on his reins, and his horse veered away from the Phoenix general. He spared her one backward glance as he rode away. A sparkle in his eyes reminded her of happier times. She smiled back. Then he turned away and rode off among his troops.

A low moan nearby brought Tsukune back to reality. The wounded, she thought. How could I forget about them?

Looking down, she saw Fumina, a young samurai-ko under her command. Tsukune dismounted and knelt by the woman's side. An enemy sword had opened Fumina's stomach and spilled her intestines.

"Aid! I need aid!" Tsukune called, looking around for a shugenja healer.

"Too late, my general," the dying woman said, blood burbling from her lips. "But at least, we won the day ...!" Fumina's eyes rolled back, and her mouth grew slack.

Tsukune stood and looked at her own gore-spattered hands. She wondered how she would ever wash the blood away. The sun dipped behind the mountains. Tomorrow, the goddess would be reborn—like a phoenix rising from the sea. Tsukune wondered if her kinsmen watched the same sunset. She wondered if the Phoenix would emerge from the long, dark winter and take their rightful place in the sun.

In her mind, she felt Ujimitsu's presence or, perhaps, his absence. Tsukune wondered about her friend. Where was he now? What was he doing? Was he eating dinner on Kyuden Isawa's western parapets, or was he knee-deep in blood on some forgotten battlefield?

If he truly needed her, would she be there for him again, as he had been so many times for her?

Tsukune pulled her sheathed katana from her obi, stuck the point in the ground, and leaned against the weapon as if it were a staff. The sun dipped below a tall peak, and darkness crept across the land. A shudder passed through Tsukune. It felt as though her samurai soul were crying out in fear. Cold sweat beaded on her body, and she shivered.

She knew in her bones that something terrible had happened to her clan, and she knew that she was powerless to stop it.

struggle

Isawa Tadaka immersed himself in the bath, but the hot water couldn't wash the taint from his skin. He gazed at his face reflected in the surface of the liquid and barely recognized the man staring back.

Sickly green veins traced across his throat and up his jaw to near his left ear. He frowned and rubbed his stubbly chin. The hand that did the rubbing was gnarled and shot through with green striations. Hideous arteries ran from the fingertips of both hands, nearly to his shoulders. Taint sprouted up again on his chest, a patchwork of venomous scars.

What have I done to myself? Tadaka thought.

He picked up a vial from the side of the tub and emptied its green powder into the water. Immediately, the bath roiled. Tadaka's skin burned as the jade mixed with the water. He scooped up the caustic liquid and rubbed it over his tainted body. He gritted his teeth

against the pain and chanted a sutra to drive the taint away. For long minutes he burned and scrubbed, scrubbed and burned. When he stopped, the water in the tub was covered with an oily black film.

The Master of Earth rinsed himself off with several buckets of clear water. He stepped onto the low wooden platform next to the round bathtub and looked at his body.

His skin was pink with scrubbing. Signs of the taint had faded to a pale, yellowish color, but they had not vanished entirely. Tadaka doubted he would ever be rid of them. He frowned, dried himself with a cotton towel, and pulled on his fundoshi loincloth.

He dressed quickly and mechanically, donning a crimson kosode, a black hood, and a red kimono decorated with flames and feathers. He fastened his black obi about his waist and stuck his daisho swords into it.

"You know," said a familiar voice, "looking at you, a guy would never know what a wreck you are."

Tadaka spun at the sound and said, "Ob! I thought I'd seen the last of you." Behind his hood, the Master of Earth's face fought between a smile and a frown. He gritted his teeth.

"Sorry," the mujina said, smiling. "I haven't given up on you yet."

"Well, I've given up on mujina, and other such foolishness," Tadaka said. He pulled on black woolen socks and donned his sandals.

"Does that mean you've given up on yourself as well?" the mujina asked. "Your ancestor lost his name to a demon— remember? Don't make the same mistake."