Death of a Necromancer
Draft: April 4, 2003
Note: While this story does not seem like fanfic -- because it's so wildly, dubiously AU -- it is fanfic, inasmuch as it is based on Tokyo Babylon, and in the writing of it. None of the original CLAMP characters appear though, except by allusion.
I fooled around with a lot of things that otherwise should not be treated so frivolously. _ My only excuse is repulsive self-indulgence and laziness. So you know.
Chapter 1.
The Consort would never have come. She had always been punctilious to a fault, and teahouses, no matter how fashionable, were simply too scandalous for one of her exalted station. But by now she was a very desperate woman, and she would have agreed to a meeting in a stable yard if it had come to that. The attack on the life of the Heir Apparent had failed. He had not endured more than a sick stomach, but the son of Michizane had died nonetheless. Coming so soon after Her Majesty's shocking disgrace, what should merely be regarded as another trifling assasination attempt would now seem to have become a very uncomfortable coincidence.
But still... a teahouse? If only the Heir Apparent had died, she sighed to herself, she would not have been reduced to this!
"I perceive that you are not comfortable with our surroundings, my lady," said the man she had come to meet. His presence only made her feel more embarrassed but, really, what could one do about it? She could not see him, except for the outlines of his body as thrown into relief by the small lamps lit within by votive candles tastefully scattered about the room. He was sitting behind a standing curtain she had insisted should be placed between them. They were all alone. She had not dared take more than two of her most trusted women with her, and both of these were waiting in the carriage. The man, for all she knew, had come by himself, but he had only entered the room when she had already been seated. At least he seemed circumspect. His voice was very urbane and not a little sympathetic. She was not really surprised at the obvious sophistication, having heard of his reputation, but she had not imagined that people like him would have even better diction than the well-born third-rank officials who served in court. She allowed herself to relax a little. If she tried, she could pretend that she was in her quarters in the palace, and that this conversation was nothing more than an idle flippancy over tea. The Book of Ceremonies had an entire section devoted to murder, but never in a teahouse.
It was really too improper.
"This is not a place I would expect to find myself, no," the Consort finally replied.
"My lady need not fear," the other said smoothly. "We are ensured of complete security and privacy here, as we would never be in the palace. I do not care for my own humble self, but my lady should know that there are people even in her intimate service who, regretfully, would not be averse to--" a delicate, ironic pause -- "listen in on teatime conversations."
The Consort flushed. Why, he had read her very mind. Teatime conversations, indeed! What they say about him must be true.
"I regret that I must speak with such vulgar frankness," he continued. "However, I hope my lady appreciates the situation."
"Certainly I do," she answered with some asperity. "I would not be here otherwise."
"My lady is to be commended for her presence of mind," said the man, unstintingly and ruthlessly correct to a fault. She began to be ashamed of her ungraciousness. And then, as if to perversely disclaim this polite fiction, he said, "My lady, I deduce, is tired. Would she like to have tea?"
She wished then that she could see his face. She could predict the exigencies of ritual, and the programmatic locutions of court language were instinctive to her, but she had never had the ability to grasp the nuances of nuance.
"No, no tea," the Consort burst out. "Come, we are wasting our time--"
"The tea served in this teahouse is a very special and secret blend," the man said. His seemingly imperturbable voice sounded almost dreamy, which disconcerted the Consort even further. "It was made by the beautiful and accomplished Yoshino... Yoshino, of course, was one of the great seven tayu courtesans in the old Shimabara quarter. It is said that she was the lover of Miyamoto Musashi himself. That detail is almost certainly apocryphal, but delightful nonetheless. One winter night, or so the story goes... But my lady knows this already."
"We do not listen to such tales in the palace," the Consort said stiffly.
"A pity."
The Consort twisted her fan between her fingers. "But you may continue, if it... if it so disobliges you otherwise."
"My lady flatters me."
"One winter night," she said, nervously.
This time, she knew he was smiling. ". . . One winter night, Yoshino was hosting a supper party for Miyamoto Musashi and his friends when he slipped quietly out of the room. She was the only one to notice him leave. He returned a few moments later. But there was a splash of red on the hem of his robes."
"'What is that?' one of his friends asked."
"'Just a peony petal,' said Yoshino. 'Isn't it beautiful?'"
"When the party came to an end, she suggested lightly that he had better stay with her. With her unerring instinct she had guessed that he had been engaged in a duel to the death in the few minutes he had been away. The retainers of the two men whom he had killed, several dozen of them, were waiting outside to ambush him and exact revenge."
"Sitting in her chamber he was silent, tense in anticipation of the hopeless battle that lay ahead. Suddenly Yoshino picked up her biwa, a priceless lute, took a knife, and smashed the curved sound box to pieces. From the ruined instrument she picked out the crosspiece, a single piece of wood, and showed it to him."
"This, she explained, was the heart of the instrument; all the sound came from this. If the crosspiece were as taut and unyielding as he was at the moment, a single stroke of the plectrum would break it. But if he could be as flexible and responsive as it was, no one could defeat him. Inspired by her words, he went out into the snow and, with a few nonchalant slashes of his sword, decimated the dozens of men gathered outside. For the rest of his days, he never forgot her or her advice."
The man was silent for a while. She imagined him lifting a bowl of tea to his mouth, sipping it delicately.
"Is that -- is that it?" She tried to keep her voice steady but she stammered nonetheless. She knew she was behaving outrageously, but dread was beginning to overcome all fussiness. Oh, how did he know?
"There is more. But I am boring my lady with these tiresome little stories," said the man sedately. "I believe she has come here with a far more important purpose in mind."
Surely, the Consort considered a bit hysterically, surely once was enough? One murder attempt in itself was justifiably chic, but two in a row seemed terribly unbecoming.
"If I were to be found out after this," she said, agonized, "the Emperor would never forgive me. He has always so admired my impeccable etiquette."
"With good reason," the man commiserated. "But if Yoshino, a mere courtesan, could exhibit such magnificent deportment over an ugly little drop of blood -- a peony petal, indeed! -- what more my lady, a noblewoman of the highest rank, when she would not even see the tiniest pinprick?"
"Is that true?" she queried in a hopeful voice.
"I shall do my best," answered the other. "But, ultimately, it will be to your deciding, of course, my lady."
The Consort took a deep breath. Then she slid a slim aloeswood box from around the curtain. She caught a glimpse of thin white fingers as they took hold of the box, and pulled it to the other side of the curtain.
There was a pause, filled only by the oddly pretty, tinkling sound of metal against metal. She waited with bated breath. Then he said, "My lady, with all due respect, this will pay for perhaps one minor Intimate or two officials below the sixth rank. But a Prince..." The voice was still polite, but she sensed contempt for the first time below the surface, and impatience.
She was mortified herself and she dropped her fan in her confusion. "Forgive me. I am quite unversed in these matters. My steward informed me I needed only to pay a deposit... you will get the rest after it is done. Is that not how something like this operates?" she said, plaintively.
The man sighed. "In that case, I require a larger deposit, madame."
It was a good thing she was always prepared. This minor self-compliment mollified her a little. She pushed another box around the screen.
The man was silent. Then he sighed again. "The young ones, you understand, are more difficult. I prefer to deal with them while they sleep. If it is done correctly, they proceed directly from sleep into death. There are not many who possess this skill; I consider it to be a unique expression of my artistry. I offer you this service, but it entails extra expense..."
"How much for this... service?"
"For another twenty thosand ryo, I will send him peacefully into the Nine Realms, as gently as a petal falling. Your own sleep will be unslumbered. Understand, please, my lady, that I normally do not care to offer this option, but I thought you might be considering the necessary proprieties. The Heir Apparent is not just any ordinary boy."
Oh dear, she thought, she had a lot to learn. Perhaps that was why the first attempt had failed. Foolish of her to think she could just kill the Heir Apparent like an inconsequential palace servant! This at least she could understand. There were rituals, after all, and there were rituals.
He was speaking with more enthusiasm. "I can, of course, treat him as an adult. With adults, it is another art form entirely, one that I enjoy well, but for a different reason. It would be wasteful to deny some of my subjects the opportunity to contemplate the face of death; I must admit there is a bit of a thespian in me." She heard him laugh, quietly, as if at a private joke. "There are so many ways to portray death."
She thought he could see her then, through the figured silk hangings. Maybe he was deciding which sort of death he would design for her. Habit, she supposed. She suddenly felt naked in his presence, sensing his familiarity, like a physician's, with the human anatomy, even cast in shadow.
"Very well," the Consort said hastily. "You will receive the money by courier early tomorrow morning."
"My lady is so kind," he replied. She heard him close the boxes. "So kind."
Her throat felt dry. She fought the urge to swallow. "And now," she said, trying to speak in her old grand manner, "perhaps I might have a taste of that tea you were speaking of. I normally don't drink tea brewed by ordinary courtesans, but after this, I feel entitled to a restorative."
"But of course, madame."
"And you will tell me another story," she said after a moment's hesitation.
"If my lady so wishes," he said. The Consort thought she heard him laugh again but decided he wouldn't be so rude. "Another story."
Lord Hajime Saemon entered the Club Seimei at exactly ten o'clock in the morning. The doorman, old Sosuke, who had been doorman for as far back as he could remember, seemed shocked to see him. He was sitting in the veranda adjoining the teahouse which overlooked the Kamo-gawa, enjoying a breakfast of rice gruel and fruit, when Hajime announced himself.
"Don't stare so, Sosuke. You won't deny me entry this time will you?" Hajime said, grinning. "As you can see, I actually bathed. And changed my clothes."
Sosuke recovered himself and gave Hajime a repressive frown. "That is the first truly rude thing you have ever said to me, Hajime-sama. And believe me, I've heard a lot of outrageous babble from you, especially when you're in your cups."
Hajime's grin widened. "I apologize. Is Seimei awake already?"
Sosuke shook his head. "We were all up until five in the morning. A party of young gentlemen stayed for a game of chess and were rather raucous for a good part of it. We had to put them up for the night. No doubt they won't be ready to come down until late afternoon, if at all." He looked disgusted.
He raised an eyebrow. "They didn't break anything, did they? These punks can no more control their chess pieces than their own shikigami. It's disgraceful. You should have thrown them out."
"The wards held," said Sosuke in a dry voice. "And Master Hajime is in no position to speak so, as he had been a -- how did he put it? -- young punk himself not so long ago. I distinctly recall your father Lord Saemon disowning you for a time after you nearly burned the entire quarter down. Was it Shachmat?"
"No. An entirely unwarranted Alea. Even back then, Manago was prone to hysterical endgames. Now you are teasing me, Sosuke." Hajime peered at him. "You should be resting yourself. You look exhausted. No, wait, that was another rude thing to say." He laughed at Sosuke's indignant expression.
"Be off with you," muttered Sosuke and sat back down. "I'll send Mitsu with your tea." He picked up a broadsheet and retreated behind it, yawning.
"Oh," he said casually just as Hajime was about to step into the bridgeway leading to the teahouse interior, "Amaru-sama is waiting for you."
Hajime whipped around. "He's here already?" he demanded, looking at once rueful and resigned. "Damn. And here I was, thinking I was early for once."
"Don't worry, Hajime-sama," said Sosuke, smiling rather maliciously. "Sumeragi will not think any less of you because of it."
"One day, you might just feel what it is to be at the receiving end of my Schachmat, Sosuke," called out Hajime over his shoulder. "You old punk."
Sosuke chuckled.
He spotted Amaru immediately, seated at a table near the open sliding panels leading out to the inner garden. There was no one else around, which would explain the unwonted visibility, beside the fact that it was far too early in the morning. Amaru usually met him in a small private parlor located at the back of the teahouse which Seimei maintained for him. No one else was allowed to use it, except for Amaru, who exercised this privilege at the most ungodly hours and with absolutely no due consideration. This monomaniac thoughtlessness would in the scheme of things seem to be nothing more than a charming and whimsical eccentricity, if it were anybody else but Amaru (and Aludia, Hajime qualified). But Seimei was one of those very rare people who still believed in sparing Amaru's non-existent tender sensibilities. He really did think Amaru refused to be seen in the public rooms because of the inevitable censure he would be subjected to should he do so. Hajime had tried to disprove this touching but exceedingly misplaced psychoanalysis once, and had resolved never to try it again.
"But he's just a child, Hajime-san!" exclaimed Seimei, looking shocked, not to mention scandalized. "To say such things!" he added reprovingly.
Seimei was one of the most cunning and intelligent people Hajime knew -- he would have to be, to inherit something like this teahouse and to run it as he did -- but he had his blind spots like the next person and Amaru, unfortunately, was one of them. Hajime could never quite figure out how and when that happened.
Amaru was fiddling with his tea cup absently as Hajime approached, but the green eyes he turned to him were anything but distracted. "You're late," he said in his coldest voice.
Hajime rolled his eyes. He pulled back a chair and sat on it, dropping the cloth satchel he was holding on the polished glass floor. "Give me a break, kid. It's not even dinner time yet."
"You were the one who wanted to meet with me," said Amaru. "I have other things to do so don't waste my time. What is it?"
"Not even a good morning, Amaru-kun?" Hajime chided. "No? I thought not." He sighed and took a seat, extracting a tin of cigarettes from inside his tailored morning coat. "Your manners are execrable. Who could have brought you up to be such an embarrassment?"
Amaru glared.
"Don't answer that either," said Hajime with revolting cheerfulness. He lit a cigarette and smoked contentedly for a while, ignoring Amaru's narrowed eyes upon him. "God, this feels good. Couldn't even get a decent stick in the palace. Damn those priggish stewards and their loathsome snuff boxes."
"So that's where you were," said Amaru.
"Where else?" Hajime exhaled smoke into the high-domed ceiling where a battered old fan whirred desultorily. One of its spokes was spattered with blood, expressed in the figurations of a heart. "You know what happened."
"How is Lord Michizane?" Amaru asked without much interest.
Hajime took another drag from his cigarette, short and hard and bitter, and then ground it slowly on a small copper tray. "What do you think? His son died. Murdered, in all probability."
Amaru put his tea cup down on the table. "Have they found who did it?"
"No, but give them time." Hajime's mouth twisted into a thin narrow smile. "The entire affair was something of a disgrace, actually. They even found the Heir Apparent's purported suicide note." He snorted. "Imagine, a suicide note. Sewn on his death robes yet."
An expression of distaste flickered across Amaru's pale face. "Not, of course, that the death robes are black," he said caustically.
"But what else?" said Hajime, goading him.
"I'm sure you would like to tell me vulgar fables all day long, Saemon," said Amaru coolly. "I am not interested. If you've got nothing intelligent to say to me, get out."
Hajime raised an eyebrow at him and lit another cigarette. "I should rinse your mouth with purified salt, Sumeragi," he said. "Not interested? From what the Chief told me last night, I rather thought you would be more than interested. And what's this about incinerating a suspect's private parts? The Chief looked like he was about to cry. It was very frightening, on top of it all. Do think of your elders' sensibilities once in a while, Amaru-kun."
Amaru pushed his chair back.
Hajime sighed. "Fine. We'll do it your way." He bent down to pick the satchel, and smoke from his cigarette raised a glimmer of fog on the glass floor. He placed the satchel on the table. "Well?" he said, indicating it with his cigarette. "Aren't you going to look at it?"
Amaru studied him for a rather long nerve-racking moment and then sat back down again. He untied the knots keeping the satchel closed -- without any effort at all, Hajime noted with some cynical amusement -- and withdrew a thick wooden box which he opened without even once bothering to pause at the lock.
"You found them," he said, finally.
"Yes," said Hajime, watching the Sumeragi's face closely. "Did you have any doubt?"
"What a stupid question," replied Amaru. Impatiently, Hajime thought, and was somewhat gratified.
"What do you want with them?"
Amaru shrugged. "Research."
"Research," Hajime repeated.
He had seen them before -- he had found them, after all -- but he was beginning to think he should not have given them to Amaru at the first opportunity, especially considering the situation now. If he had more time, he would have had them checked properly first, but Amaru would inevitably find out and would get them for himself through means that did not bear thinking about. And they were the only reason he could think of to get Amaru to see him. Not that he would actually learn anything from this interview, no. Amaru spoke a sort of third-degree language that, when it wasn't turned against one, transposed itself into a perpetual statement to mind one's own business. And now this business involved Babylonian demon bowls, all thanks to him, Hajime reflected grimly. But, as the Chief put it, what else could we do?
They needed Amaru's help -- cooperation was of course impossible -- and the best way to get it was to give him everything he wanted. At least, the Chief consoled him, though he sounded like he was talking to himself, he could not possibly use those old useless bowls to sacrifice anybody. Hajime's mouth twisted at the recollection. The Chief really was too morbid sometimes.
The demon bowls, as they were called, were fired earthenware vessels, originally excavated in situ in Persia, dating, Hajime surmised, from the sixth to the eighth century. There was nothing extraordinary about their craftsmanship, except for the elaborate inscriptions, in Syriac, Aramaic, and Mandaic, written in spiral form beginning from the rim to the center of the bowl. He could read Aramaic with some facility, but as far as he could see, the texts had nothing to do at all with the bowl, though they declaimed the usual motifs -- common divine names, familiar voces magicae, the ouroboros, the characteres...
"They are protective devices," said Amaru, looking bored.
"They better be," said Hajime with a great deal of skepticism. "I have never known you to be the least bit interested in defensive magic."
Amaru closed the box and placed it back inside the bag. "Aludia might be."
"Is that true," said Hajime, straightening in his chair.
"She wanted to know if you have found her recipe book," Amaru said.
Hajime sighed again. "Tell her to forget it."
"All right," said Amaru. He stood up. "There are other people she probably knows."
Hajime closed his eyes briefly. "On second thought, tell her I just need a little more time. If she will be so kind as to wait and not do anything that can lead to -- dangerous things."
"You are being repetitive."
"The Chief observed the same thing about himself, too. Dear me, I must be getting old," Hajime answered wryly. "I gather Ikuhara was suitably tickled."
"I'm going," said Amaru.
"Amaru," said Hajime. For once, he dropped his wary, casual manner, and he looked at Amaru with something approaching warning in his eyes. "When will you and Aludia stop playing these games?"
Amaru's bright green eyes flickered. Hajime didn't flinch. "What games?"
"Not of the teahouse variety. You know what I am talking about," he said. "Everything else is becoming circumstantial to whatever madness you two are intent on perpetrating. One day, one of you might get hurt." He knew this last was ridiculous as soon as the words left his mouth, but he himself was a victim of undesirable fatalisms.
"Spare me your pretty conceits," said Amaru, mockingly. "One day, one of us will die, Saemon."
Hajime kept his face carefully blank but he knew Amaru had seen him flinch. Sadist, he thought furiously. Goddamn unscrupulous brat.
Amaru smirked at him.
He passed a startled Mitsu on the threshold, who immediately flattened himself against the wall, trying not to spill his tea tray.
"Give my regards to Aludia," Hajime called out after a pause. Amaru didn't even look back.
Mitsu looked Hajime over carefully, then retreated from of the room without a word.
Hajime didn't even notice. Somewhat angry, and very, very exasperated, which was his usual state of mind after a 'conversation' with Amaru, he lit his third -- fourth? fifth? tenth? he no longer noticed -- cigarette of the day. The floor was littered with ash. Seimei would raise a fuss. At least he wasn't drunk yet, otherwise he might just punch a hole through the beautiful glass, and what would his father say to that?
Of course he could ask -- maybe Seimei would even let him do it for free -- but Lord Saemon was only marginally less human than Amaru, and he was already a ghost.
Detective Inspector Ikuhara was rather inclined to arrange a rendezvous at Club Seimei that night himself, but a glance at the almanac made him prudently decide otherwise. The Mid-God must be having, at this very moment, the time of his life blocking the direction to the teahouse. Nakagami was a killjoy that way. There were other routes, but Ikuhara did not really fancy a boating expedition on the Kamo River. One never knew with gods, and plotting a directional taboo was not what one would call a precise science. Why, there was once a man who thought he was being very clever, going to his mistress' house from the northeast direction because he thought Nakagami was all happy and immovable in the southwest, but as it turned out, his wife, who knew of the affair, had replaced their almanac with an outdated one, and so instead he found himself smack in the middle of Nakagami's blockade. The rest of the story was just simply too hair-raising as it involved huge and pissed yin-yang deities, ogre-transforming husbands, and Aludia out picking sakura petals on a handbasket.
"You're making that up," said Hikaru, looking extremely irritated. "Look, Ikuhara, just don't fucking go if you're so... No. I don't want to hear it... What? ... SHE DID NOT."
End Chapter 1