L5r - scroll 04 - The Phoenix (34 page)

The Master of Earth lowered his hands and extended them to the sides. The other Elemental Masters brought their hands up to mimic his, forming a ring outside the mystic barrier. As one, they pointed their hands toward the center of the circle.

Within the scintillating wall a form took shape. Green energy sprang up, like a spider poking its head through a hole. It reached out, spreading long tentacles. A blob formed amid the tentacles, a pulsating brain covered by a thin, translucent membrane. The head pushed through the magical hole in space, as though it were an infant being born. Behind it came serrated spikes, the demon's spine.

The oni thrust itself into the magical chamber, a brain on a long snakelike body with tentacles sprouting from its back and two, atrophied arms dangling below its immense head. Its skin was as green as emerald, though the surface was shot through with pink and purple veins. Its huge body coiled within the barrier like a titanic snake.

Suddenly, it sprang.

The oni's head shot forward, bending the barrier outward as if the mystic wall were nothing more than soft silk. The creature's jaws opened, revealing multiple rows of razor teeth. A crimson, rasplike tongue darted out of its maw and assaulted the mystic barrier.

The tongue dripped glowing poison. The Elemental Masters' wall dissolved where the venom touched. The creature hissed its pleasure. Nostrils flared on its eyeless head as it sought victims.

As one, Tadaka and the others rose. They changed their chant; the oni's cage blazed with lightning.

The hideous tongue poked through the barrier. Tomo stepped forward. He gestured toward the monster. Venom on the tongue turned into long nails. The spikes twisted and pinned the tongue to the outside of the barrier. The demon howled in agony.

The oni stretched, flailing its snakelike tail and its many tentacles. The magical wall bulged with the attack, sparking every time it touched the monster's body. The tail pierced the barrier and lashed out. Uona ducked, but the blow shattered the torii standing at the island's edge. Pieces of the great arch splashed into the River of Awakening.

Tentacles followed the tail through the opening in the mystic wall. One reached for Tsuke, but he burned it to cinders. Another grabbed Tadaka's ankle.

The Master of Earth drew his jade-studded katana and sundered the limb. The tentacle writhed on the grass like a headless snake. Where its blood fell, grass withered and died.

The oni flexed its huge muscles. The spines on its back glowed green and red with magical energy. It bulged up against the walls of its magical cage. Without warning, the barrier exploded.

The force of the blow knocked Tadaka and the others off their feet.

Moving with lightning speed, the creature seized Tadaka in one huge tentacle and drew the Master of Earth toward its mouth.

Tsuke reacted first. Fire blasted from his fingertips, striking the oni in its gaping maw and barely missing Tadaka.

The oni lashed out, smashing the bamboo dome with its tail. Where the tail hit, green sparks flew. The dome shattered, raining bamboo shards down on the Phoenix shugenja.

Uona summoned winds to blow aside the deadly splinters. Bamboo missiles scarred the wooden engawa and embedded themselves in the plastered wall surrounding the sacred garden.

She turned to the oni. Her winds screamed around the monster and grappled with it, forcing the tentacle holding Tadaka away from the creatures mouth.

Tsuke's fire played across the beast's many tendrils, burning them off. As each limb fell, though, another grew to take its place.

The oni bellowed with rage. It flailed around the garden with its blazing tentacles, setting fire to the wooden rail and the pillar near the entryway. Its tail smashed the dragon fountain.

At Tomo's command, the waters of the River of Awakening rose up. They flowed from their pool like a living thing and circled the oni in great coils. The Master of Water chanted power into them, and the coils squeezed.

The oni shrieked in pain.

Tadaka, still held tight in the oni's grip, saw his chance. He reached deep into his soul and summoned the earth beneath the garden's grass and the rock within the castle's walls.

Huge stone spikes sprouted out of the soil below the beast. The first spike pierced the tentacle holding Tadaka. The tentacle's grip faltered. Tadaka wriggled free, falling lightly to the grass below.

Other spikes pierced the monster's body and limbs. Where they struck, the stone formed immense manacles and chains. The demon roared as the rocky links encircled it.

"Change the spell!" Tadaka cried to the others. "Enchant the chains to hold the creature!"

The others obeyed. First water, and then air, and then fire combined with Tadaka's stone, strengthening the oni's bonds. The voices of the Elemental Masters rose as one, drifting into the night air through the shattered bamboo dome.

The creature struggled mightily against its shackles. It bellowed. The sound shook Kyuden Isawa to its foundations.

"Do it now, Tadaka!" Tsuke called. "You
must
, before the bonds give way!"

Tadaka stepped forward and scooped the bowl of bloody rice from where it lay, still untouched, on the grass. He lifted the bowl up before the monster's eyeless snout.

"Oni," Tadaka called, "with bondage I bring sacrifice."

"You cannot bind me!" the oni hissed. "You do not know me!"

"I do know you," the Master of Earth said. "I name you now. You are
Tadaka!"

For a moment, the immense creature ceased its struggles. It lowered its head, and its huge crimson tongue lapped the bowl out of Tadaka's hand. It tossed the bloodstained rice into its slavering jaws. The razor teeth came down, crushing the delicate bowl into powder.

"Yes," it hissed. "I am Tadaka!"

monsters

Itaste your blood on the rice, shugenja," the oni said to Tadaka, its voice as cold as the grave. "Why have you summoned me?"

It flexed its huge body, but the enchanted chains held. The creature growled, a sound like distant thunder.

"We need to know the strategies of Junzo and his evil master," Tadaka said.

The oni laughed, a hideous burbling sound mixed with squeals like those of dying animals. "Why ask me, soulless man?" the beast said. "I am not even a foot soldier in the Great One's army."

"We know what you are, Oni no Tadaka," Uona said. Her voice sounded small and distant, her breathing shallow.

"I smell woman flesh," the Oni said. "So, you are not alone, soulless man. I thought your strength too great for just one."

"Not half alone, monster," Tomo said. He reached up and wiped the cold sweat from his brow with trembling fingers.

"We are the Elemental Masters," Tsuke said. "You will obey our commands."

The oni's immense head turned from side to side, sniffing the air, scanning the destroyed garden. Finally it pointed its head toward Tadaka. "You have many helpers, soulless man," it said. "You must be very weak. What can you give me for this information? I've already eaten your blood. I already have your name."

Tadaka's eyes narrowed. "I can give you . . . this!" Tadaka's jade-studded katana flashed and lopped off one of the oni's tendrils.

The creature shrieked with surprise. It struggled, but the mystic chains held.

"The Evil One's plans, oni . . . !" Tadaka said impatiently. "You're a mind slaver—the brains of Fu Leng's dark armies. You know what Junzo and his minions are planning even now. Tell us!"

"Power you have," said the creature, "but none so great as my master." It wriggled its severed limb, and the lost flesh grew back. The monster smiled, fetid slime dripping from its huge jaws.

Tomo's clear eyes narrowed with anger. "Your master is nothing before us!"

"Just because you heal quickly does not mean you are impervious to pain," Uona said, her voice as cold as the winter wind.

"It only means that you can suffer for all eternity," Tsuke added. His eyes blazed with anticipation.

Tadaka stood stiffly. The taint burned across his limbs. He felt amazed that the others couldn't see it. Still, he refused to give in. If he could resist the power of Junzo, he could resist the seductive poison of the taint. That same strength would give him mastery over the oni.

His heart soared at the thought. He knew now that the Phoenix would triumph. No one could stand in their way.

Tadaka's voice rumbled like an avalanche in the distant mountains. "In the end," he said to the demon, "you will reveal everything we desire."

Epilogue

THE WAY OF DARKNESS

The sorcerer uttered a spell, and the bones of the monk before him turned into dust. The man flopped about on the monastery courtyard like an octopus out of water. Then the weight of his own flesh crushed the life out of him.

Junzo's leathery skin pulled back from his teeth in a cruel smile. He enjoyed this part of his revenge immensely. Around him, the screams of the dead and dying echoed off the monastery walls. The blood of monks and priestesses painted the ground, the great torii, and even the roofs of the temple.

Soon the sounds of bones breaking joined the cries of the dying. A hideous slurping followed as Junzo's troops sucked the marrow from the bones of the dead—and some victims who were not so fortunate as to have died yet. The sorcerer rode on his skeletal horse through the blasphemous feast, a priest doling out blessings to grateful petitioners.

A skeletal figure on the back of an onikage rode up to Junzo. The creature's flesh was rotting and burned. It bowed and said, "No scrollsss here massster. Your ordersss?"

""Burn the place, of course," Junzo said, his voice like sand rubbing on wood, "and everyone in it—after you and the troops have had your fun, of course."

The charred specter bowed again and turned his horse away. As he rode through the carnage, his body spontaneously caught fire. He paused briefly to set things alight as he went. The last thing he touched before vanishing from Junzo's sight was the body of a priestess; she had been hung from the great torii by her own hair. Her entrails dangled down past her toes and dusted the ground when the wind stirred them.

A smile cracked Junzo's parchmentlike lips. Some of the Black Scrolls still lay beyond his reach, but his vengeance proceeded apace nonetheless.

Though the dark shugenja coveted the scrolls, they didn't need to be in his possession to do his master's bidding. After all, one stolen scroll had gained him a new ally within the Phoenix. That nicely compensated for his loss.

A refugee peasant came running across the blood-slick courtyard, screaming at the top of his lungs. Junzo watched with pleasure as his bog hounds chased the man down and devoured him alive.

Junzo nodded with gratification. Fragile white hair rustled across his crimson and black kimono as he gazed out across the devastation. Soon, this monastery would be in ruins, but there were more temples to sack, more libraries to burn.

The thought of libraries sent the sorcerer's mind back to Kyuden Isawa and the four Black Scrolls that rested inside the palace's low walls. What, Junzo wondered, had the Elemental Masters been up to since last he looked in on them? It little mattered. They could never muster the power to defeat Junzo's master, the dark god Fu Leng. Even if they were at full strength they could not. Now, without Kaede and with a traitor in their midst, they stood no chance.

Soon Junzo would see the towers of Kyuden Isawa burning. Soon, the great library would be his, or it would be ashes.

The sorcerer smiled a final time, glad he had left one unopened Black Scroll for Tadaka to find.

The demon in a Scorpion's body tugged the reins of his skeletal horse and turned away from the carnage. Guiding his nightmare steed through the fallen gates of the monastery, Yogo Junzo rode off, seeking new targets for his vengeance.