Kiku’s eyes opened wider. She turned to Toshi and said, “You can do it, too, can’t you? You’re crafty.” She held up her hand, showing Toshi the triangular hyozan symbol on her palm. “You tricked me into joining your gang. If you can trick the moonfolk and get me close enough, I can release the full power of the masters’ ritual and wipe them all out.” She smiled dreamily. “Again.”
Toshi nodded. This was going to be easier than he thought. “And do right by the memory of your clan. Your masters-”
“My masters can starve in the cold gray hell,” Kiku flared, and for a second she was very much like her old self. “This.” She circled her own face with her hands. “I need to be free of this. I can’t think with this. I’m not me with this.” She sagged, sad and defeated. “Take this from me, Toshi. I don’t want it. Please, oath-brother. Help me.”
Kiku’s eyes closed and she lurched forward. Toshi caught her in his arms, her face pressed against his neck.
“I’ll help you, Kiku. We’ll help each other.”
Kiku did not withdraw from Toshi’s chest. “Thank you, oath-brother.”
“We … uh, Kiku? What are you doing?”
The mahotsukai’s lips were leaving delicate trails along Toshi’s throat. Was she kissing him? He felt the hard, straight edges of her teeth as she seized his flesh between them, and squawked as she bit down.
Kiku lifted her head, fixing the ochimusha with a fierce glare. “Shut up, stupid Toshi.” She grabbed the back of his head with both hands and pressed his face into her, mashing their lips together. She leaned back as she kissed him, pulling him partially up onto the altar beside her.
“Ah, Kiku, I-”
She pulled back, her eyes wild. “As you said, oath-brother, we can help each other.” She pushed Toshi back and slid off the altar. In the blink of an eye she tossed the thin shift over her head and let it flutter forgotten to the floor. Kiku wore a silver chain around her waist and a golden one around her left ankle. There was a brilliant purple flower tattooed on her right hip.
She kept her eyes on Toshi and extended a delicate hand, beckoning him. “Now,” she said. “Come here.”
Toshi stared goggle-eyed. Kiku was in shock. She must be in shock, or drunk, or overwhelmed by grief and the power of her masters’ spell. At the very least she was doing this to bind Toshi to her cause, using him to achieve her own goals.
Kiku stood, watching him, waiting for him. “Well?”
Toshi took her hand, drew her to him, and kissed her. They stood embracing for an endless moment before Toshi remembered something and pushed her away.
“Two things, mahotsukai.”
Kiku stepped back, demurely crossing her arms. “I’m not used to accepting conditions at this stage.”
“Two simple things, easily addressed. One, we agree to talk more in the morning.”
“Of course. And the second?”
Toshi grimaced. “Stop calling me ‘oath-brother.’ It’s making me queasy.”
Kiku laughed lightly, a short crystalline sound that carried beauty and sharp edges alike. Once more, Toshi was given a glimpse of Kiku the way he knew her, confident, beautiful, strong, and more than a little bit frightening.
“Done,” she said. She opened her arms once more, and Toshi leaned forward, bearing her back up onto the altar.
CHAPTER 5
The moon shone down on the fortress of Eiganjo. For the first time in over a decade, the glowing half-orb hung from a clear and cloudless sky, surrounded by pinpoints of clean, white starlight. Fat, lazy clouds drifted across the night sky, but even they curved around the moon as if unwilling to spoil the view from below.
Far beneath the waxing moon stood the tower-fortress of Eiganjo, a massive white-stone edifice that stretched proud and strong up to the very clouds themselves. Moonlight cast the tower’s shadow far across the lowlands to the south, with only its ragged tip to spoil the smooth and solid wall of black. The tower’s uppermost level was an irregular line of broken rock, and its shadow passed through a similar jagged gap in the mighty walls around Eiganjo. There were no signs of life from the tower or the courtyard within the fortress walls. From a distance, Eiganjo appeared as silent as a tomb, as pale as a spirit, and as lonely as a headstone.
The hooded figure of Toshi Umezawa stepped from the shadows at the northwest corner of the walls. He adjusted his finest acolyte’s robe (or, at least, the finest robe he could steal that looked like an acolyte’s robe) and stole a quick glance around the deserted parade grounds. With his head bowed, he began to shuffle across the courtyard toward a two-story outbuilding on the west side of the tower.
His journey continued in complete silence until he approached the door to the outbuilding. From just outside the wide double doors, he heard a strange burbling sound. It was a clean, flowing sound like the tone from some fabulously exquisite musical instrument. The hooded figure tilted his head up to the second floor, the source of the sound.
The lush, soothing song was interrupted by a ferocious barking from inside the building. Toshi stepped back as a huge pale dog erupted from the double doors, its gruff voice both alarm and threat.
Oh, good, the ochimusha thought. He drew a hook-shaped weapon from beneath his robes and held it point-first toward the dog. The hook had been hammered from dull, gray metal and shaped so that the shorter, blunt tine stood below the thicker tapering spike above. The dog stopped just outside the double doors, still barking at top volume.
Toshi peered from beneath his cowl. “I know you,” he said to the dog. “Why are you always so loud when you see me?”
“You may know Isamaru,” a thin but steady voice said. “However, he does not know you. Stand very still, sir. I would regret it if you were bitten accidentally.”
“Isamaru,” Toshi said, memorizing the name. The next time he saw this dog he wanted to be able to order it around by name. He nodded to Isamaru and dropped his jitte to his side but did not sheathe it. He called out over the dog’s barking, “This is Princess Michiko’s dog.”
“Sir. That dog belongs to Daimyo Konda himself.” An elderly man in a rumpled white uniform stepped out of the building. His skin was like translucent paper stretched tight over his bones. Wisps of silver hair peeked out from under his helmet and his left hand trembled. In his right he carried a long pole with a paper lantern strung to the end. Shuddering slightly, the old man lit the lantern and extended it out over the newcomer’s head.
“I am Acting Constable Aoyama,” the old man said. He peered at the robed man, scanning him from head to toe. Isamaru stopped barking but stood alert and ready within springing distance of the new arrival.
Constable Aoyama’s lamp shook as he spoke. “What are you doing near the stables, priest?”
Toshi shook his head, more amused than he expected to be. “I’m no priest.”
The constable grunted. “You wear the robes of a seeker. Are you a monk?”
“I am a seeker, but not a monk. I’m more of an acolyte, a follower. I aspire to spiritual greatness, but aspiration is a long way from achievement.”
The old man lowered the lantern. “Well, whatever you are, don’t try to preach strange religious beliefs in Eiganjo. The spirits have brought great hardship upon us lately.”
Toshi tilted his head toward the broken walls and the damaged tower. “So I see,” he said. “But rest easy, constable. I’m not one for preaching, though I do feel much safer knowing you’re on the job.”
Aoyama laughed. “Don’t be too confident,” he said. “All of our able-bodied men are dead or fighting on the frontier. That leaves patrols and other mundane duties to old men like me. I’m really just a groomsman with a uniform.” He lowered the pole to the ground to steady the lantern and drew his own weapon, a metal truncheon similar to Toshi’s.