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By Shawn Carman
Mirumoto Jairuzu squinted against the biting wind and the blinding white of the driving snow. Elsewhere in the Empire the first signs of spring might be appearing, but in the peaks of the northernmost Dragon Mountains, it was still in the depths of winter. The scout could feel is forming in his heard and resisted the urge to wipe it away, instead keeping both blades held at the ready as he desperately scanned the plateau ahead of him for of movement.
“Be ready,’ a calm voice over his right shoulder said. Jairuzu could barely hear the voice of his sensei over the roaring wind and the sheer magnitude of the cold that burned at his ears. “Watch for the light.”
“I cannot see anything!” Jairuzu hissed, his breath billowing out in front of him like the steam from a geisha house bath.
“The light,” his sensei repeated. “Watch for the light.”
Jairuzu ground his teeth against the pain and squinted to try and clear his vision. At this rate he might well die before his foe resurfaced, and he would be lucky if he could even find his way back to the tower before the elements claimed him.
Three figures appeared in the distance, standing out from the blinding white because they blazed with the heat of the sun. Their outlines flickered, and Jairuzu imagined he could hear the crackle of the flame as the three men rushed toward them. That lasted only a moment, of course, until the sound of their screams reached his ears. “Fortunes,” he whispered. He had never grown accustomed to the horror of it, and hoped that he never would.
“End it quickly,” his sensei ordered. “They will be able to tell us nothing. There is no point in prolonging their suffering.”
Jairuzu nodded and leapt forward to intercept the first of the three. He feinted high, as if to go for the man’s head, but at the last moment dropped to his knees and slid across the iced stone, his blade sinking deep into the man’s torso. There was a welcome wave of heat as the man shrieked his death cry, then blazed even brighter to topple over in a blackened heap of seared bone and ash. He heard another, similar cry from somewhere to the right as his sensei engaged and no doubt dispatched the second of the men.
The third hissed in terrible pain and moved with surprising speed, landing a devastating open hand strike against the chest plate of Jairuzu’s armor. He felt the heat even through his clothing and growled with pain, cutting the still sizzling lacquered plate away with his wakizashi. The move nearly cost him his life, as his opponent struck again, this time a glancing blow against the side of the Dragon samurai’s helmet. Jairuzu could not suppress a yelp of surprise and dismay as he wrenched his head violently to the side, whipping the helmet off. He caught a faint smell of singed hair, then parried a third blow with his katana. The burning man screamed in pain and anger, and Jairuzu knew from experience that it would take him hours to scrub away the blackened spots on his katana where the man’s flaming flesh had touched it.
Jairuzu took a defensive stance, watching his opponent carefully. With his helmet gone the wind and cold were much worse than before, but he barely noticed. The thrill of battle had filled his spirit now, and he would see his opponent dead before he concerned himself with trivialities such as comfort or even survival. “Hurts,” the burning man whispered. “Hurts! Your fault. Your fault!”
“I am sorry,” the samurai responded. He genuinely regretted the terrible fate the man was suffering.
“Sorry!” the man roared. “Sorry!” He lunged forward, both hands held high in an attempt to hurl his body atop Jairuzu’s, a move that would no doubt kill him almost instantly.
Jairuzu knelt down as if to duck under the man’s assault, but at the last minute he threw himself backwards as far as possible, cutting upward with both blades. The longer katana entered his op; ponent’s body at the stomach, the wakizashi near the collar bone. Both bit deeply, and the man’s momentum carried him farther onto the steel blades. By the time they exited the top of his head, they had already died, and his smoldering form fell to the snow as it blazed into its final death throes. Only seconds later, there was nothing but an ash-filled area of bare snow to indicate anything had happened at all.
“A Dragon is merciful and dutiful,” Mirumoto Toraizo said, stepping forward as he sheathed his blades. “Today you have been both. You do your sensei proud.”
“Thank you, sensei,” Jairuzu said with a bow, barely taking his eyes from the blackened spot that was even now rapidly shrinking r as snow filled around the edges. “Three attacks this month.”
“Yes,” the old scout replied. “And after years of virtually nothing. There had been talk as recently as the fall of closing down the watchtowers. It seems we are fortunate that Lord Mareshi and Lady Kei decided against that, else these madmen might have reached our homes.”
The younger man grimaced. “I would not wish my younger brothers to see such a thing until they were older.”
Toraizo chuckled. “Nor your bride to be, I imagine. Come, let us return to the tower before we warm these stones with our dying bodies.”
The two turned and walked back in the direction of their tower, their keen sense of direction guiding them through the blinding Snow. “What do the attacks mean, sensei?” Jairuzu asked. “Why have they begun again?’
“Who can say?” the old man shrugged. “Our duty is to ensure that they do not penetrate beyond the line of towers. That is something I can understand.” He glanced upward at the impenetrable sky. “When this storm breaks, Fortunes willing, we will need to send word south to Shiro Mirumoto.”
Inwardly, Jairuzu winced at the thought of the long, arduous journey in the dead of winter, but he showed no signs of his distaste. “Of course, sensei,” was all he said.
Shiro Mirumoto, three weeks later…
MIRUMOTO MARESHI GRIMACED AS HE LOOKED at the stack of scrolls requiring his attention. Although he had not seen them, he was certain that servants entered the room silently while he was reading a scroll and deposited more for him to read, as the stack seemed larger every time he signed a completed order and placed one to the right, where those that had been completed were arranged neatly. Despite that he had been working for over an hour, the pile on the left seemed overwhelmingly larger than that on the right, and he wondered if it was some sort of enchantment laid 1 upon him by a wrathful enemy.
“Contemplating a curse from the Fortunes, husband?”
Mareshi glanced up at his wife, Mirumoto Kei, as she stood leaning against the archway leading into the chamber where he had chosen to work for the day. Her normally serene features were notably different, given the slightly mocking smile she had adopted. As he often did, he marveled that someone who so obviously took little interest in adorning herself with frivolities such as makeup or jewelry could be so lovely. “No, not today,” he answered. “It hardly seems worth the attention of the Fortunes, really.”
“What manner of business occupies your attention today?” She walked over from the archway and sank onto her knees on the cushion opposite him, taking up one of the scrolls from his left and glancing over it. “Something interesting? Assessments of troop strength, perhaps?”
“Primarily reports from the various winter courts,” Mareshi replied.
“Thrilling beyond words,” Kei replied dryly.
Mareshi raised an eyebrow “If there is a Fortune of Sarcasm, I am certain you are related to him somehow.”
“My great-uncle, I think,” she answered. “There was no formal announcement after his death but that was probably just a bureaucratic oversight.”
L., “I am sure,” Mareshi said. He glanced over another scroll and frowned. “This season did not go as I had hoped.”
“Optimism is a never-ending font of disappointment, husband,” Kei chided. “Did you honestly expect a court season with an empty throne to produce anything but conflict and bickering?”
“I had hoped,” he repeated. “The Lion and Unicorn are poised to gleefully tear one another apart, the Unicorn in defense of their homes and the Lion in honor of their Champion. The Crab and the Crane fight over something so distasteful as money. The Lion Clan’s relations with the Mantis and Phoenix grow worse by the day, and our own ambassadors are insulted and rebuffed at every turn by the Mantis.” He shook his head in disgust. “Am I to know nothing but war during the whole of my lifetime?”
“War is our purpose.” Kei took the chop from her husband and stamped one of the scrolls after making a few notes, then placed it in the completed stack and took another. “We may wish for peace, to rob us of our purpose, but we cannot complain when that for which we are born and trained comes to us.”
“There is little in this world that I have ever wished for more than to know we were born for more than warfare,” Mareshi said. “We can only hope that a suitable candidate is found to assume the throne before all is lost.”
“There are no ‘suitable candidates,’ as you say. No one living has a legitimate claim to the throne. All who claim otherwise can easily have their claims refuted, and none of them will be universally accepted by the Great Clans.” Kei placed another in the completed stack. “There will be war, until such time as the clans’ resources are exhausted sufficiently that the only choice falls between compromise and destruction.”
“After which they will stand idle only long enough to rebuild their stores, and then war will resume.”
Kei shook her head. “Not necessarily. When Toturi I took the throne after the Day of Thunder, the clans were ill-suited to wage war with one another. Yet, despite all the conflicts that arose during the War against the Darkness, Toturi I held the clans together, perhaps better than any other. His reign was one of peace. It is easy to forget that because the intermittent times of war were so terrible.” She favored her husband with a rare smile. “Perhaps I have been too critical of your optimism. I would hate for you to lose it.”
“Difficult, but not impossible.” Mareshi stopped and looked up at the artist’s paintings of past Dragon victories, both military and otherwise, that adorned the walls of this particular chamber. It was known as the Chamber of Victory for exactly that reason, and Mareshi enjoyed performing his administrative duties there. “I long for the days of old,” he confessed. “The days when the Dragon remained apart from the Empire, observing. Is that weakness?”
“To want a simpler life is not weakness. If you acted upon that desire and worked to withdraw the Dragon from the Empire, that would be cowardice.” Another scroll. “But of course there is no one who believes you a coward.”
Mareshi was not so certain. “Perhaps,” he conceded. “The point remains that so long as the throne sits empty, the Dragon, and the Empire as a whole, are at great risk. There must be a solution.”
“Mirumoto Masae certainly believes so.”
The mention of the Keeper of Air brought a frown to Mareshi’s face. “I do not know how I feel about her… endorsement,” he confessed.
Kei nodded. “It does seem somewhat unusual,” she agreed. “It seems as though the Keepers should be above the concerns of politics, somehow.”
The Keepers of the Elements were five samurai who had solved the riddles of the prophet Rosoku, and as a result had begun the path of enlightenment. They had served both the prophet, a direct descendant of Shinsei himself, as well as the previous Jade Champion, Asahina Sekawa. With both their former masters gone, one dead and one disappeared from the Empire, the Keepers were charged, ostensibly, with the spiritual guidance of the people of Rokugan. As such they often worked alongside the Brotherhood of Shinsei, the Empire’s united monastic orders, as well as various shugenja families. But recently, the Keeper of Air had publicly announced that she believed Togashi Satsu, Champion of the Dragon Clan, was the most suitable candidate to take the throne. “If it had been any other Keeper,” Mareshi began.
“Her endorsement would have more weight, yes,” his wife agreed. As it stands, most believe she is placing her clan affiliation above her position as Keeper. She has not only compromised her own influence, but struck a blow against those within the Dragon who legitimately support the notion of Satsu-sama taking the throne.”
“Those who support that idea will not be harmed by the endorsement of a Keeper,” Mareshi noted. “Satsu-sama will never take the throne for himself. It is not who he is.”
“Perhaps, and perhaps not.” Kei placed three more scrolls in the completed stack. “He is not a man who desires power for its own sake, but he is very much concerned with the fate of the Empire as a whole, is he not? If it were for the safety of the Empire, I believe he would accept the position if there were sufficient support. Not only among the Dragon, of course, but among all those who believe that genuine divine blood is required in order to rule an Empire.”
“For the safety of the Empire,” Mareshi repeated. “You speak of this supposed prophecy. The one that was issued at the Jade Championship?’
“Supposed prophecy?” Kei raised an eyebrow. “I would expect you of all people to have more faith in such things. The prophecies of Uikku foresaw the Clan War nearly a thousand years before it took place. And did your mother’s people not use divination to gain insight into the future? After all that we have seen and heard, is it so difficult to believe in such things?”
“The Naga used divination, yes,” Mareshi admitted, “but the process was imperfect, and may have resulted in their early awakening during the Clan War. And Uikku’s prophecies may have actually caused Bayushi Shoju to take the actions he did leading up to the Clan War, causing that conflict rather than predicting it.”
“I see. You do not doubt that prophecy is possible, you are merely concerned with its veracity.” Two more scrolls. “That much I can understand. It is a foolish general who enacts a strategy based on poor intelligence regarding the enemy.”
“Ever the officer,” Mareshi said with a wry smile. His expression quickly grew somber again. “My fear is that Lord Satsu’s benevolence will lead him to action that leads to ruin. The path of the damned is lined with the souls of those with good intentions.”
“A quote from the Tao. How very introspective!” Kei chided. “Perhaps you are familiar with this one: those who fear to act have already failed.”
“If we are to trade quotes I suppose we could be here all day,” the half-Naga said. “Perhaps we can simply agree that acting on the prophecy is dangerous, as is failing to do so. Whatever path, we can only advise Lord Satsu to exercise caution.”
“Which he is likely to do regardless, meaning that we will have ultimately done nothing,” she said. “Surely there are matters at hand to deal with, and in doing so feel somewhat productive?”
“One would imagine,” Mareshi said. “You are familiar with the reports from Kyuden Bayushi?”
Kei grimaced. “I have heard rumors, but none of the reports I have read thus far deal with the matter directly.”
“There is some evidence to suggest that the… unpleasantness with the Crane there was directly manipulated by the Scorpion.” Mareshi clenched his fist at the thought. “It is my hope that the evidence is in error.”
“Agreed,” Kei said. “The notion that our oldest and most trusted allies would betray us in such a manner… it is difficult to contemplate.” She paused. “Still, it is our duty to consider the issue: would the Scorpion sacrifice their alliance with us if they believed that it would gain them the throne? You are more familiar with Bayushi Paneki than I.”
“For all the brotherhood he alleges to feel toward our clan,” Mareshi said after a moment’s consideration, “I believe that there is little he would not sacrifice if he felt it served the Scorpion in a greater capacity. Are you familiar with the account of Mirumoto Narumi and Kitsuki Nagiken regarding the abduction and recovery of Toturi Miyako?”
“Yes,” Kei said with a nod. “Fortunes, that is not a man I would wish to have angry with me, I think.”
“Agreed. I think that, much though it may pain us to do so, we must be very cautious in our dealings with the Scorpion from this point on.” He frowned. “I do not wish to play the role of the frog in Shinsei’s parable of the scorpion.”
Kei smiled and started to say something, then paused as she read the scroll before her. “Have you read this account from the watchtowers?” she asked.
“I know that the attacks have begun again,” he answered. “You were wise to advise against closing the towers for the season.”
“This concerns me,” she said. “There appears to be no discernable pattern to the attacks, at least not so far as the line commander can determine. From what I know of the traitor Chosai, he was hardly the sort for random tactics.”
Mareshi shrugged. “He may have gone mad. There is certainly a precedent for men of such power losing their minds.” Seeing that she was not placated, he pondered a moment.
“What do you suggest?”
“I do not know.”
“Perhaps we could send word for Iweko to dispatch some of her agents to the north, then,” he suggested. “They may be able to see a pattern that our soldiers have missed. At the very least they may be able to gain some information on where the attackers are coming from.”
“I think that would be wise,” she said with a nod. “I will send word to Iweko at once.”
Mareshi chuckled. “She will likely be grateful for the opportunity. I think the court season unsettled her badly.”
Kei did not share her husband’s amusement. “I can understand that members of her family wish to support her as a candidate for the throne,” she said. “She would certainly be difficult to outmaneuver or assassinate, that much is certain. However, that they have allowed or perhaps even deliberately spread these rumors outside the clan is grossly inappropriate. Perhaps even blasphemous, given the hope that Lord Satsu may yet be convinced to consider that path for himself.”
Mareshi shrugged. “Lord Satsu has specifically said that he does not wish to take the position. What grounds are there to forbid the Kitsuki to speak thus of their lord? I see no harm in the matter.”
Kei’s frown deepened. “Perhaps not yet,” she muttered. “But we shall see.”
Somewhere far north of Rokugan…
Deep within a cave inside the dreaded Mountain of Fire, the man who had once been called Tamori Chosai peered into the flame of seeing that he had summoned, and he gnashed his teeth in anger at what he saw. Once again, his minions failed to breach the northern wall of towers. Once again, his vengeance was denied. He swung his open hand angrily through the flame, dissipating it as he did. The face of Isawa Nakamuro floated before him, just as it did in his dreams. Taunting him. Mocking him. Chosai would have his revenge, no matter the cost.
“Oracle.”
Chosai turned in irritation, curious as to which of his vassals would dare address him in such a disrespectful manner. As he watched, the wall of flames that separated his private chambers from the rest of his stronghold parted, and a woman clad in thick, desert robes stepped through. The heat and flame did not seem to bother her, and her clothing showed no signs of being adversely affected. “Ebon Daughter,” he whispered, bowing his head slightly out of respect. “I did not hear your approach.”
“Obviously,” the woman said, speaking flawless Rokugani. “I take it from your mood that your latest attempt at petty vengeance has failed.”
Chosai’s features twisted in a snarl. “Careful that you watch your tone, woman,” he spat. “Your master may command my respect, but you are nothing more than a mote, to be swatted aside if you annoy me.”
“If that is your choice,” she said casually. “It would be a shame to rob my master of so useful a tool, not only myself but you as well, for you certainly would not survive the wrath that would unfold as a result.”
Chosai waved the comment away. “What is it you want?” “The time has come. That which my master desires is within your former Empire, and we must acquire it at all costs. Are you prepared?”
“Oh yes,” Chosai whispered, his face splitting in an evil grin. “Oh my, yes.”
