Beforehand

Beforehand
This story continues with another perspective on the events of * Fits of Violence*. What was the truth of the murders that took place within the Unicorn provinces, and have the magistrates there discovered the truth of the matter?

By Shawn Carman

Edited by Fred Wan

When the universe was born, so too were the dragons.

The dragons were born from the primal stuff that existed before the universe was created, born into substance as was all else. Each embodied a concept, and drew its power from the existence of that concept. First among the dragons were those born of the elements: Air, Earth, Fire, Water, and Void. They were the mightiest of all dragonkind, and in their wake followed their siblings Celestial, born of the Heavens, and Thunder, born of the storm and the fire within the hearts of men.

In the millennia that followed, more dragons were born, each a pale imitation of their elemental siblings, but powerful nonetheless. Born mortal and immortal, they were numbered among the Fortunes and other entities of the divine, but many chose to take the form of a dragon, for what could be more majestic? Their names were known to all with even a passing interest in theology: Togashi, Fu Leng, P’an Ku, Yozo, Jotei.

But they were wrong.

P’an Ku was an enigma to even the most pious of priests. The prevalent theory was that he was a mortal who ascended to the position of Fortune and then to dragon, but who lost his name and identify to the Nothing and was rendered unto an artifact that plagued mankind in incomprehensible ways.

Was P’an Ku ever truly human?

No.

* * * * *

He came to his senses with a start so severe it almost caused him pain. He had possessed many names throughout his lifetime, but none were of consequence. He could no longer remember his true name, and would not choose to do so if given the opportunity. The name he had borne before was Hidekazu, and while that name was not truly his own, it was the name he chose to use whenever he venerated his lord P’an Ku, the conveyor of blessings, the master of his soul. The name he gave to others was Moto Chiang. It was a name he had used for some time.

Chiang regretted that his meditation had been interrupted. Of late he had felt different. As if there was something just beyond his perception. He felt that the vision he had received had been a moment of true insight into the nature of his master. Was P’an Ku attempting to reveal some grand truth to him? If so, then surely it was his failing and not his masters that he had not yet comprehended the mystery revealed to him.

Why were his robes wet?

Chiang looked down and noted that his robes were covered in blood. He felt none of the discomfort that normally accompanied a wound, although he had not felt genuine pain in decades. No, the blood was not his own. “Most strange,” he observed to himself. He glanced about curiously.

He was standing in the northern portion of the garden. He had commenced his meditations in the eastern edge, where the sun would not shine upon him after mid-day. Chiang scratched his cheek absently at the thought, smearing a ribbon of blood along his face in the process. He looked about for something that could have produced such a volume of ichor, and noticed the corpse a short distance away, half lodged in the hedge.

Chiang parted the hedge curiously and regarded what remained of the man who had invited him to enjoy the garden. The man’s name was inconsequential, particularly now, but the fact that he was an imperial tax collector was of mild interest, if only because of the rarity of such men. His body was shattered, broken and torn in ways that most men would never see, but of course Chiang had seen so much worse. Had done so much worse. And there was no question that he had done this.

“So strange,” Chiang said, his voice warm and almost bemused. He did not touch the corpse, or what remained of the corpse, because he had always felt that death was a work of art, and he had once read that an artist should never succumb to temptation when it came to changing a completed piece. He absently wiped the blood from his hands on the small portion of the man’s robes that were not saturated with it, then began removing his own robes to invert so that he could leave without arousing suspicion from anyone he passed on the street.

The vision was exhilarating, and the act of violence was slightly interesting, but Chiang found the loss of self and memory mildly disturbing. “What are you trying to tell me, master?”

* * * * *

Chiang waited until late in the afternoon to go to the temple. In his experience, that was when the fewest people attended. Devotion and piety were tremendously important to the average Rokugani, but only so much as they did not interfere with mealtime, as near as he could tell. The Temple of Natsu-togumara was not particularly well attended, particularly in the winter. The Fortune of Travelers and Experience generally saw tremendous devotion in the spring, when many ventures were underway, but few began in the winter, and so Chiang had simply waited until all those who were participating in the caravan that departed the city in a few days finished their prayers and departed. Then he would have quiet in which to pursue his meditations.

Temples were always among Chiang’s favored places to meditate, second only to gardens. He did not find the aesthetics of such places particularly interesting, but the idea of committing what others would think of as blasphemy within a temple, and having others mistake that act for one of proper devotion, delighted him immensely.

Chiang sat in one of the secondary chambers, breathing in deeply of the pungent incense that filled the small room. Wordlessly, a monk came and sat next to him, bowing his head respectfully. Chiang smiled and returned the gesture without speaking. He suspected that the man had just ended his own life by disturbing him, but he was curious to see if the phenomenon from a few days earlier would repeat itself. Time would tell!

Chiang drew another deep breath and closed his eyes, seeking to still his spirit.

* * * * *

The dragon of Air surged with the power of the wind.

The dragon of Earth rumbled with the power of an earthquake.

The dragon of Fire burned with the power of a volcano.

The dragon of Water crashed with the power of a tsunami.

The dragon of the Void seethed with power unknowable.

And then there was P’an Ku. P’an Ku was different, but no less powerful for it. It was madness and chaos, power and unbridled change barely contained within a static form. It shifted and melted, constantly forming and reforming. The madness that it represented consumed it from within, and the other dragons feared it for that.

* * * * *

For the second time in a week, Chiang returned to his sense with a start, jolting from his meditation and nearly falling over from the lotus position as he lost his balance. He gasped from the intensity of the vision. Its abrupt conclusion left him disoriented and his senses jumbled. More so than that, he felt genuine sadness, something that he had not experienced in longer than he could remember. Why had the visions come to him, if he was not permitted to reach the conclusion? What was interfering with his clarity? Why would these insights into the true nature of his master be so abruptly taken away before they could give him the truths he needed?

The blood on his clothing was more of a distraction than anything else. He ignored it. The scent of the incense, once so calming, inflamed his senses and drove him to anger. He kicked the body of the monk lying near him, unsurprised at its presence and uninterested in its particulars. What was the meaning of it? Why was this happening? What had changed?

The last question caused Chiang to freeze where he stood. He was a fool for having missed something so blindingly obvious. P’an Ku was change, chaos, and disorder. It had once embodied those concepts, but of course that could never truly happen with a static form, and the struggle to maintain such had doubtless driven its divine majesty mad. In madness, P’an Ku had found its true, glorious perfection. It was formless, bodiless, virtually nameless save for a few devout followers and several half-remembered legends, and even those were contradictory and poorly misunderstood. That the universe had ever been born with the notion of an ordered being representing chaos was absolute madness, and it was no wonder that his master had been remade such as he was. Chiang chuckled at the ridiculousness of it all. Truly, only P’an Ku was sane, and that sanity came from madness. Others could never understand it, but Chiang could.

But it was Chiang who was the problem, was it not? Not P’an Ku’s most devout follower, but the idea of Moto Chiang. How long had he pretended to be Chiang? It did not seem like terribly long, but in truth it surely must have been years now. Years. Dramatically longer than any of his previous ruses. He was attempting to introduce an element of stability into the madness and the chaos that was P’an Ku. He was presenting an affront to his lord and master, and as a result his abilities had begun to fragment. Hidekazu had attempted to deny it, even to himself, but there were times, days even, when he spent all day thinking and acting as Chiang. And now there were times when he was consumed by chaos, when he was lost to the world and committed acts of incredible violence complete at random.

Chiang was a lie. The violence was truth.

And the matter was that simple. Chiang must be cast aside. Another man might mourn the loss of such influence and prestige, for was Chiang not a personal friend and trusted former scout for the Shogun of the Empire himself? But Hidekazu cared nothing for such things. He cared only for the blessings and favor of his master. Lesser devotees might wonder if they had lost P’an Ku’s favor, but of course that was ridiculous. P’an Ku did not have disfavor. Those who displeased the master perished in unimaginable ways or simply disappeared, ceasing to exist altogether. That was what it meant to serve chaos.

Hidekazu left the temple, leaving behind both the physical body that had once belonged to one of the monks, and the soul of Moto Chiang, invisible and undetectable to all but no less real because of that.

* * * * *

A simple young man called Toru, once known as Hidekazu, once known as Moto Chiang, drew his furs closer about him and shivered from the cold. He did not feel the cold, not really, but that was what others were doing as they worked to prepare the caravan for departure, and he had no wish to seem unusual. At least, not yet.

“Inari’s wrath!” one of the other men swore, stamping his feet and rubbing his hands together. “It’s been many a year since I was part of a winter caravan! Just long enough for me to have forgotten how miserable they are, apparently!”

“Oh come on now!” Toru said, his voice fairly dripping with youthful enthusiasm. “It will be an adventure!”

The older man rolled his eyes and grinned at one of the others. “Fortunes save us from the young!” he said with a chuckle. The other man laughed too. Toru laughed as well. He was not certain if the men were being good-natured or not. Sometimes it was difficult to tell, so he just joined in. Either they would appreciate him or think he was a simpleton. Either option worked just as well, really.

Across the way was another man, one who certainly did not seem good natured at all. His expression was severe, a sharp contrast to the basket-hat wearing man to whom he spoke. The man bore two mons, one of which was Imperial in nature, and seemed to scan the caravan carefully. Toru had heard there was a magistrate in the city, searching for Moto Chiang. It was unlikely that this was the same man, for the odds of such a thing were quite preposterous, but it was another sign of P’an Ku’s favor that he had abandoned his previous identity when he had. To have done otherwise would have imperiled his freedom and his work. All praise to the master! Toru smiled and waved at the chrysanthemum-bearing man. He made a mental note to avoid any overt oddities until they reached the Imperial City. No sense in arousing too much attention too soon!

It truly was going to be an exciting and adventurous winter.