By Shawn Carman
Edited by Fred Wan
Koten, in the Crab provinces, Month of the Horse, year 1170
Moshi Amika sat in one of the lesser corridors of the vast Crab hall of ancestors, meditating quietly on the vast rows of urns containing fallen Crab samurai, and one in particular. She had arrived, alone, late the previous evening, and arisen with the coming of Lord Sun. She had purified herself ritually for an hour in the morning, and then come here, to spend a day in prayer before the ashes of her grandfather.
She had not known him. Not really. He had married a woman of higher station, and thus joined the Moshi family. Later, he had returned to the Kuni to perform his duties, for he was a highly skilled member of that order, and also because… but no, she would not think of that. Not in this place. Not where he rested. He deserved peace and respect, and that was what she had brought him. She came on this day, and this day alone, each year to pay tribute to her family. There was regrettably little of it left anymore, it seemed.
At the end of the day, she rose, grimacing at the pain in her legs. She would return to the inn where she had secured lodgings and rest. In the morning, she would return home. It was the same every year. It was tradition, and she was honor bound to observe it, regardless of whatever else required her attention at the time.
“Good evening, Lady Mantis.”
Amika drew back slightly in surprise at the sight of a widely-built man who stood quietly in a recessed alcove across the corridor. “Good evening,” she said slowly. “Forgive me, I did not realize you were there.”
“I had no desire to interrupt your meditation, my lady,” he replied.
“May I ask your name, since you apparently are familiar with me?” Amika said.
The man smiled slightly. “It is not in the interests of the Crab to have an abundance of unidentified strangers wander our lands. We have had… difficulties… with such things in the past.”
Amika raised an eyebrow. “I imagine it must be quite difficult to track every single visitor who comes to your lands.”
The man smiled ever so slightly. “It helps, my lady, if they are of high station and adhere to a strict annual schedule.” He bowed sharply. “I am Kaiu Seison. It will be my honor to serve as your guard during the remainder of your stay, however short it may be.”
“You are gracious,” she replied, “but I travel alone for a reason. This is a matter of honor, a private matter for me.”
“And so it shall remain,” Seison said. “I have no knowledge of the purpose for your visit, and if I may be frank, my interest level is not sufficient to seek to learn more. I hope you take no offense.”
“I am a Mantis lord, Kaiu-san,” Amika answered. “You will need to work significantly harder to offer insult.”
“That is fortunate,” Seison said. “Otherwise I might shame myself with my ruthless candor.” His tone was such that he might be instructing students on the matter of history. “Are you ready to retire to your room at the inn for the evening, my lady?”
It was clear from the man’s demeanor that he had no intention of being deterred, so Amika merely smiled and nodded.
* * *
Then…
The little girl who would one day grow up to become a woman named Moshi Amika munched happily on a cake of rice and bean paste, stopping only occasionally to wipe her mouth on her sleeve, and then look up at her mother to see if she had noticed. Her mother was never pleased to find the food stains that covered little Sakura’s kimono sleeves from wrist to elbow almost every day, and she tried very hard to remember not to wipe her mouth. She was getting to be a big girl, now, and in a few years she would start her studies at the temple. She had to try and remember. Then little Sakura looked back at the delicious, sweet rice cake, and began crunching away again. The next time she wiped her mouth on her sleeve, it did not occur to her to be concerned about it.
Unfortunately, Sakura and her mother were still walking long after she had finished her rice cake. She did not speak for quite some time, because she could tell that her mother was in a poor mood. After some time, however, she could not hold her tongue any longer. “Mother, I’m tired,” she said, trying not to whine. “Where are we going?”
Her mother did not say anything for several moments, which was usually a very bad thing. After some time, however, her mother simply said, “I am taking you to see your grandmother, little one.”
Her grandmother! Sakura had always believed her grandmother was dead! Her parents certainly spoke of her as if she were. Both of her father’s parents had perished in battle when he was but a boy, which was part of the reason that he had been sent by his clan to marry into her mother’s family. Sakura was not sure what clan her father had been from. He never mentioned it.
Sakura thought about her grandmother for a long time, wondering why her mother might never have mentioned that she was alive. Adults were very strange sometimes. She was still thinking about all the things that her parents had done that convinced her this was true when she noticed that her mother had stopped, and that they had been standing for some time in front of a tiny little building high in the mountains. “Is this where grandmother lives?” she asked.
“It is now,” her mother said softly. “Stay close to me, Sakura, and do not speak.”
The little girl nodded, her eyes wide with a mix of excitement and fear. Was her grandmother sick? Was there something horribly wrong with her? Why did she live up here so far from the other Moshi?
The two of them walked into the dank little building. It looked like some of the smaller temples that Sakura had seen in the Moshi lands, only this one was very dirty and messy. If Sakura’s room looked like this her mother would certainly punish her severely! Did an adult live here, really? “Mother,” her own mother said. “I have come to honor our family tradition.”
Something moved in the darkness, and Sakura tried not to scream. She gripped her mother’s robes very tightly, and wanted to bury her face in them, but part of her wanted to see, too. Very slowly, a woman emerged from the dankness and the shadows. “Tradition?” she said, her face old and white. It looked like a piece of fruit that had dried out and started to sink into itself. “What tradition?”
Sakura’s mother winced. “I did not expect you to remember,” she said. “However, in our family, it is tradition that, when a girl is two years from beginning her studies, she spends a week with her grandmother. In order to determine if the mother has done her duty and properly prepared her daughter for her studies.” She glanced around with a disgusted expression. “I find the notion that you could criticize the performance of my duties laughable at best, but honor demands I afford you the chance.” She tilted her head to the side. “What say you?”
The old woman looked at little Sakura the way someone might look at a bug. “Your daughter?” she said, her voice confused. “You have given birth already?”
“She is six years old,” Sakura’s mother said. “Even her grandfather came to see her after she was born. I am not particularly surprised he did not bother to come here. Why would he have?”
“I have nothing to teach her, or anyone else,” the old woman said. “There is no point. None of what we know matters any more.”
“I suspected as much,” Sakura’s mother said. “No one can say I have not done my duty. Come, daughter. Say goodbye to your grandmother.”
“Goodbye,” Sakura said, and turned to leave with her mother.
* * *
The mountains of the Crab land were dramatically different than those that surrounded the Moshi and Tsuruchi provinces. They were bleaker, somehow, less vibrant and alive. At times, Amika almost felt a presence, as if the very mountains themselves were a malevolent intelligence that watched her every movement. She would not admit it, of course, but Amika was grateful for the presence of Seison. For his part, the Crab did not speak often, only answer her occasional question or offering comment on major landmarks that they passed, most of which involved battles of one kind or another.
“Lady Amika,” the Crab said, breaking a nearly hour long silence during which she had been largely consumed with the few memories she had of her grandmother, and the even fewer of her grandfather.
“Yes?” she said, raising her eyes from where they had been regarding the saddle for nearly a full hour.
“I am not a spiritual man,” Seison said. “However, I would be very, very grateful if you could please explain to me exactly what is happening.” She looked at him with a confused expression, only to have him point high into the sky, and she followed the gesture.
There was an aura around the sun, brighter than any Amika had ever seen. It was at once golden and a brilliant shade of jade, and the two colors flickered back and forth for a handful of seconds, with first one nearly overwhelming the other completely, then the other, and back again. “Fortunes,” she whispered.
“What does it mean?” the Kaiu asked.
“I have no idea,” Amika said. “I have never seen the like before.”
As the two watched, there was a flash so bright that they had to look away. When they glanced back, only one color remained, and something seemed to be tumbling, falling away, curving in such a way that it seemed to be hurtling toward the mountains. More specifically, Amika realized with dawning horror…
“I should think we will find out shortly what it is,” Seison said in an almost disinterested tone, “as it seems to be coming directly toward us.”
Amika stared in mute horror as a massive ball of roiling fire tumbled through the sky, searing the air around it and leaving a hideous scar of black and red through the heavens as it fell. Seison’s assessment was not entirely correct, but neither was it far from the mark. The ball of fire crashed into the mountains a relatively short distance away, perhaps no more than an hour’s walk, and the impact shattered the world. The mountains cracked and screamed in pain. The cloud of dust and rock that was hurled into the air would surely have blotted out all light, but the brilliance of the sun’s new aura could not be obscured, not by simple dust and rock.
“Fortunes,” Seison cursed quietly. “I knew this was an unlucky detail.”
Amika followed his gaze to a massive stone, a rock that could surely dwarf a boulder, that was hurtling through the air, thrown high by the impact. Unlike the tumbling fireball from a moment before, this stone certainly was coming directly at them, its arc descending slowly as it lumbered through the sky to destroy them.
Kaiu Seison stepped in front of Amika, his blade in one hand and a deadly war fan in the next. His face betrayed no hint of fear or regret. There was nothing he could hope to do by standing in front of her, and she realized that, but it was his duty, and he performed it without hesitation or complaint. When the day of her death came, Amika thought, she would be honored to stand side by side with such a man.
But that day was not today.
Amika reached over the man’s shoulder and gestured at the rock, shouting out a prayer to the kami, imploring their aid to protect an old friend. The air around the two crackled, and an arc of lightning leapt from her open palm, an arc so great that it singed the cloth between the plates of Seison’s armor. The wrath of air and fire struck the boulder in its center, and it was shattered into thousands upon thousands of pieces. A rain of stone showered down on the two samurai, one piece large and jagged enough to cut Amika across the forehead. Seison’s armor seemed to protect him from the worst of it, however, and he in turn shielded her.
The Crab glanced back over his shoulder. “I apologize. I think perhaps you are quite lucky.”
“We must hurry,” Amika said, starting toward the still smoldering crater in the distance.
“No,” Seison said sharply, reaching out to block her path.
Amika looked up in irritation, her eye still blazing slightly with the charge left with her by the kami. “I am not interested in your…”
“Look,” Seison said, pointing to the ground. There were long, jagged cracks that emanated from the distant crater. Pebbles were still rolling and disappearing within them. “Stress fractures in the rock. We are on a plateau, my lady, and beneath it is a honeycomb of tunnels carved by underwater springs. This is extremely dangerous.”
Amika frowned. “What can be done? I must see the crater.”
Seison bowed his head. “Then follow me, my lady. Step exactly where I step. Unless I fall in, of course.”
* * *
Amika stopped for a moment to take a short drink of water from one of the small clay bottles that she carried in the satchel on her hip. It had been nine years since she had last climbed this particular peak, but she was pleased to discover that she remembered the path exactly. Her one trip to the peak all those years ago was among her most vivid memories, and had been the source of much deep thought in the time since then.
Three days ago, Amika had undergone her gempukku ceremony and taken her adult name. It was still very strange to think of herself by a new name, but on the other hand it was pleasant. There had been so many Sakuras and Ichiros among her class that it had been maddening to try and keep track of everyone. Many of them had picked out their adult names years ago and gotten other students to call them by those names for no other reason than to have something that resembled an actual identity.
For her part, however, Amika had a different interest. On the evening of the ceremony when she had become an adult, Amika had asked her mother the truth about her grandmother. Her mother had been angry, but she had told her everything. It was Amika’s right to know, she had said.
The truth had not been what she expected.
Amika stood outside the small shrine for several minutes, collecting herself. She was not entirely sure what she expected to find within. There was certainly any number of unpleasant outcomes that could come from her journey here, and few that would be productive. Still, she wanted to understand, and to do that, she needed to speak to her grandmother in person. Assuming she was still lucid, of course.
“Grandmother!” Amika called out when she had finally worked up the courage. “Grandmother, I have come to speak with you! I am Moshi Amika, daughter of Sinjuko. I am coming inside!”
Delicately, Amika stepped inside the tiny shrine. She glanced around in the gloom, wincing at the smell of discarded food and unclean cloth. She looked around for any sign of her mother’s mother, but could see very little in the gloom. She tried not to think about what could cause her feet to stick to the floor so. “Grandmother?”
Her foot struck something near the altar, a great lump of cloth. She looked down in annoyance, and then drew back in horror. It was not clothing at all, but the dead form of her grandmother. From appearances, she had committed jigai, cutting her own throat in a version of the seppuku ritual reserved for women of high standing and minimal martial training.
Amika struggled not to wretch at the thought of how many ways she had become unclean by entering the shrine. It was a difficult battle, but one she eventually won. She raced out to the mountainside, her breath coming in great gulping gasps. Her mother had told her the truth about her grandmother, how she had abandoned her duties and her family in abject grief over the death of Lady Amaterasu. Whereas many Moshi had succumbed to despair when that celestial travesty had occurred, they had recovered and moved on. Some small number had taken their own lives, unable to deal with the horror. Amika’s grandmother was alone in that she had instead simply abandoned her duties and lived in seclusion for years on end, a living disgrace to her entire branch of the family. Amika had sworn that she would redeem her family’s honor at any cost, but she had hoped to better understand the matter first. Now it seemed that would not be possible.
She closed her eyes and continued breathing deeply, trying to force the stench from her nostrils. It did not matter, she told herself. Redemption would come. She would ensure that, no matter the cost.
* * *
As the two samurai approached the smoldering crater, it became more and more obvious that there had been terrible repercussions from the impact. There were vast patches in the air surrounding the crater that were oddly colored, and seemed to swirl and ripple like water. Seison’s expression had grown grim. “What are those areas?”
Amika shook her head. “I am not certain,” she said.
“Guess,” he said. “Please.”
She craned her neck to peer at the different aberrations. There were some where the surface of the air seemed to be stretching, as if pushed by something that she could not see. “I think… I think that the boundaries between the realms have been weakened. I think the impact shattered far more than stone. Anything could come through. The hungry dead from Gaki-do, slaughter spirits of Toshigoku, even oni from the Realm of Evil.”
Seison nodded slowly. “How much time do you need?”
She glanced down into the pit that had been created by the impact. She could see nothing, shrouded as it was by mist and vapor. “I do not know.”
“You seem to say that often,” Seison said. “But take whatever time you require. I will see to it that you are not disturbed.” He drew the blade from his belt.
Amika glanced at the tetsubo the man had strapped to his back. “I thought all Crab fought with a tetsubo.”
“Not always,” he answered. “And in any event, I feel confident a tetsubo will not injure a spirit.”
“But your blade will?” she asked, her tone mildly exasperated despite the circumstances.
“I am marginally less certain about it!” Seison insisted. He was glancing at the various rock formations that had been created by the crash, and Amika could see him plotting movements, leverage, and position in his head. “Please go quickly,” he said. “I do not know how much time I will be able to afford you.”
Amika nodded wordlessly and stepped from the edge, the kami slowing her descent to a gentle downward drift. She settled on the bottom, waving away the mist that clogged her vision. She could feel the heat from the stone through the bottom of her sandals, and made a mental note not to touch any thing with her bare skin. She stumbled through the crater looking for its center, and there she found a prone form lying in the stone, nearly imbedded within it. The man’s face looked vaguely familiar, but for a moment Amika did not recognize him. Then she realized that a variant of his image had been depicted thousands of times over and over again, all throughout the Empire. Some were quite accurate, while others were grossly off-base, but there could be no mistaking it.
The man in the crater was the former Hida Yakamo, a figure millions had worshiped as Lord Sun after he had ascended to the Celestial Heavens to take the place of Lady Amaterasu after she had committed jigai decades ago.
“Oh no,” she moaned. “Oh, Fortunes, please… not again.”
Lord Sun’s eyes opened at once, and he turned toward her. Blood stained his lips, and it was obvious that his body was broken beyond repair. Nothing she had ever seen any kami do could help this man, not by any stretch of the imagination. “Are you a child of the Kami?” he demanded, his voice at once booming and weak.
Amika blinked for a moment, then bowed her head. “My grandfather was Kuni Tomaken, follower of the line of Hida.”
Yakamo nodded. “The creature that deposed me… it is worthy.”
“My lord, what happened?” Amika implored. “What has taken place in the Heavens?”
“It does not matter,” Yakamo said. “I have been defeated, and my position is forfeit. I accept this, as all must.” He turned back toward her. “You must take this to them. They must accept. I charge you with this.”
She shook her head in confusion. “I… if you wish it, Lord Sun. Your will… it shall be done.”
The man that had been the Sun nodded, and then it seemed that the last of his divinity drained away, and he was nothing more than a man again. He coughed weakly. “A shadow draws across the moon,” he said, his voice just above a whisper. “There will be another.”
“What?” she said. “No! Not again!”
“Listen!” he said sharply. “The Moon shall be what it must! But there will be a third, and it will bring poison into the heart of the Empire.”
“I don’t understand,” she said, sobbing uncontrollably. “Please, I don’t understand.”
“A third will fall, and in its place a darkness will grow,” he whispered. “The fire is a lie, girl. You must tell them. Promise me. The fire… is a lie.”
“Yes,” she said weakly. “I will tell them. I give you my word. Please.”
“Good child,” he said. “Do not weep for me. This… is the death I have always known… would be mine. Tell my nephew…”
But he was gone.
Amika knelt in the crater for a long time, weeping over the death of a god as the sounds of Seison’s flawless warfare resounded far above her.
*
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