Title: The Wizards of Ceres, chapter 7
Pairing: Kurogane/Fai
Rating: R in later chapters. This chapter, PG.
Summary: The countries of Ceres and Nihon are on the brink of war again, but Kurogane Demon-Queller has more important things to think about; like protecting the borders of his country from the dark and hungry beasts that roam the wilderness. At least, he did, until his path crossed with the King of Ceres' latest gamble to win this war...
Author's notes: The scene with Tomoyo and Kendappa at the end is this story's Bechdel scene.
"A new mission, my lord?" Fai asked, suppressing eagerness, as the door swung closed behind Yukito.
"Yes," Ashura said, turning away from Fai, his eyes tracing the lines on the map; the borders of Ceres, borders of Nihon, the tracts of unmapped wilderness beyond. "I am sorry to send you out again so soon, when you are not fully healed from your injuries --"
Fai shook his head. That never mattered to him.
Ashura gave him an approving smile, and he glowed. "In one week, I want to you leave Ceres, travel south, as before. I want you to find this demon hunter of yours, wherever in the wilderness he may be. And I need you to kill him."
Breath caught in Fai's lungs; blood turned to ice in Fai's veins. It was a long moment before he could choke out, "But... why, sire?"
"Why?" Ashura's eyebrows went up in astonishment. "Is it not obvious? He is a powerful weapon, far too powerful to be allowed to exist in the hands of Nihon. He would surely be used against us in the coming war. We must eliminate the threat he offers. You are known to him, he will not consider you a threat; it will be no matter for you to get close enough to strike the killing blow."
"But..." Fai's stomach churned; he clutched the edge of the table, and prayed he was not about to lose the Princess's lovingly crafted dinner. He swallowed hard. "But -- my lord -- this is not necessary, this is not wise, surely --?"
Ashura's eyes leveled on him, his expression turning cold, disapproving; "Do you presume to tell me what is and is not wise, Fai?"
"No, sire, no!" Fai shook his head vigorously, switched tactics. "But surely the demons are, or will be, a greater threat to us than any single warrior of Nihon could be? To -- to destroy the ones who destroy them -- that would only be increasing our danger, in the long run."
"Perhaps..." The king's face eased, fractionally; he turned back to study the maps, running one finger over his lips. "And yet... there are long range goals, and short range goals, many different ends that must be served, each in their season. For the present time, the demons are a much greater threat to Nihon than they are to us; we do not even know, for sure, that they would venture this far to the north. Nihon, not us, suffers the most from these demon's depredations.
"Yes, if we can increase the demon threat to the south -- by removing those who oppose the demons -- then we can divide their resources, force them to send troops and armaments there. In war, do we not burn the enemy's villages and fields, collapse their mines and tunnels, depriving them of the resources they use to oppose us? Crops can be re-planted, weapons re-forged... but these demon hunters, if they are as powerful and as few as you suggest, they would be a difficult resource to replace indeed."
Fai closed his eyes, took a steady breath. If he had to beg, he would beg; he had no pride left, not in front of Ashura. "Sire, please," he said. "Please reconsider. I do not wish to do this thing. I do not. He -- he is a good man, he saved my life --"
The king's attention switched back to him, his voice grew icy with censure. "And does your loyalty to him for this service outweigh your loyalty to me? To this country? Had you forgotten the promise you made, to defend this country in times of need, to protect it from the danger that will destroy it? You swore an oath, once, that you would do whatever was necessary -- whatever was necessary -- to defend Ceres, to serve me. Or will you rescind that oath, for the sake of one enemy?"
Like a heavy weight around him, heavy water, drowning him. Fai struggled against it, but lost; could barely find the air to say in a cracked whisper, "No, sire."
The king relented; the pressure eased. "Good," he said, and the word fell like a hammer blow on Fai's hurting heart. "Your kindness will always be your weakness, Fai; it does you credit, but it is a vulnerability you must guard against. In war -- in a war for our very survival, against the threat of annihilation -- there is no room for such weaknesses."
"Yes, sire," Fai whispered, his eyes still locked on his hands, locked on the tabletop.
He could still feel the king's gaze on him, weighing, searching. "Do you have any tokens, of this man?" he asked.
Fai nodded, once. "He gave me a knife of his, sire."
"Very well. I will place a geas on you, for the duration of this task, attuned to the demon hunter through his weapon. It will aid you in your task, so that you will always be able to find him, in any wilderness. And when the task has been completed, I will know, and you may return to me."
The whisper of sound, the sudden movement over his head snapped Kurogane out of his doze; but he was too slow to move, too slow to grab or draw his weapons, before the blade descended. He felt the knife point connect, at the weak junction of armor between neck and shoulder, and he also felt the sudden resistance, saw the sparks of white light flying as the blade ground against some unseen barrier. And then he was able to roll away, able to scramble to his feet and draw Souhi, taking up a guard stance even as his mind reeled in shocked numbness. "What the hell are you doing, you moron?" he screamed. "Is this some kind of joke?!"
Fai was facing him, knife in hand, and his posture was anything but playful. In the brief standoff between them, he raised his empty hand, two fingers together, and drew a glowing shape on the air that Kurogane did not recognize. Kurogane felt a sudden throbbing warmth on his forehead, on his hand; then in a sudden burst of pain he felt the mark on his forehead and the ring under the gauntlet snap into twisted metal, needle-sharp spikes of pain against his hand every time he moved. He spat a curse. The wards. Tomoyo's wards! That must have been what had protected him, from that first blow -- but they wouldn't protect him from the second.
Fai leapt forward again, knife out and ready; for a moment they clashed and struggled, Kurogane parrying the short blade with his own sword. The hilts locked together, Fai trying to force the blade up over Kurogane's hilt into the unprotected space in his faceguard. Then Kurogane planted his feet and threw Fai backwards, turning as he did so to disengage; and Souhi sped around in a whistling backhand cut to follow through. He didn't pull the blow; in life-or-death combat, there could be no hesitation. You went all-out, every time, or you were dead.
Fai moved one forearm, lightning quick, to block the stroke, and Kurogane jolted to a halt. He stared in disbelief. With that blow, he ought to have cut Fai's arm and hand clean off, and continued on to cleave his torso in half. At the very least, if the armor had withstood Souhi's cutting edge, the sheer force of the blow ought to have knocked his arm aside, possibly battered the lighter man off his feet. But instead, it was like he'd swung his sword into a stone wall.
The wizard tilted his head to the side, and then his forearm turned and his fingers made another gesture in the air; still he said not a word. But Kurogane felt the sudden, unearthly cold creeping up the blade of his sword and seeping into his iron gauntlet, until his hand was too numb to keep a solid grip on Souhi's hilt, and she clattered from his unfeeling grasp onto the ground. "Shit!" Kurogane cursed, still half in shock.
He could see, over the top of Fai's armor on the side of his neck, the lines of his tattoo were beginning to glow from black to a blood red. The geas that was supposed to keep him from using his magical powers? My ass it does! Kurogane screamed silently. "What the hell is going on, wizard?" Kurogane demanded hoarsely. "Snap out of it!"
For the first time since they'd met, there was no hint of a smile or any kind of joke on Fai's face, in his eyes. He still hadn't said a word, and he was silent now as he rushed in again, this time seeking the vulnerable spots under Kurogane's shoulder joint, where the armpit offered passage directly to the heart. Kurogane blocked him, and shifted his weight to move out of the way to the side; Fai turned with him, in a movement that Kurogane was almost sure was copied from his own style -- he took advantage of that, grabbing the mage's wrist and using the angular momentum to fling them apart.
With a little space, he reached behind him and ripped Ginryuu from his sheath, half determined to end it in the next few seconds with a dragon blow. But Fai's eyes moved from Kurogane's face, to his sword, and he saw a faint cherry radiance beginning to glow in the spine of the blade, as though it had been thrust directly into a blacksmith's forge. Felt the scorching heat spreading from its hilt to his hand, and was forced to drop it before he could be too badly burned.
The message was clear; no weapons. "All right," Kurogane snarled, fury beginning to overcome shock and disbelief. "Come on and get me, then, if that's what you want. You want me dead? Then what are you waiting for?"
Fai's lips moved, briefly, too quick and soundless for Kurogane to make out; and then he was attacking again, and this time Kurogane was ready for him. No swords now, just hand-to-hand against Fai and the knife.
They struggled back and forth in the flickering shadows of the firelight, with no sound except the rasping of both of their breath, the scrape of metal over metal as they wrestled for possession of the knife.
Even without Souhi, without Ginryuu, this was still nothing like an even contest. Fai was strong after all, stronger than Kurogane had thought, even seeing the effortless way he had handled the longbow. But Kurogane was still stronger.
He got a grip on Fai's knife hand, managed to force his arm back, pried his fingers open until the hilt of the knife tumbled from his grip onto the ground, to join the other two blades. And now Kurogane was able to take the offensive, to grab Fai's wrists and use his greater strength and weight to drive him backwards, scrambling over the uneven ground until he slammed Fai's back against a the trunk of a tree.
A brief scuffle, but he managed to get his knee in Fai's gut and one arm across his throat, the other still pinning his right wrist back against the trunk. "Why?" he roared, the fury coming to the surface now, fury and shock and betrayal.
Fai pulled futilely against the elbow pinning his throat, then went limp, and began to laugh, a disturbing, entirely humorless sound. "Why?" he gasped, and Kurogane lessened the pressure against his throat, just a little. "You have to ask why? You're a threat to us, Kurogane -- you're too powerful for us to let you live. Did you think you were special, somehow? Did you think you could be excused from this war just because it didn't please you?"
Kurogane knew it, he'd known all along that Fai was an enemy, but he'd let himself forget it. Wanted to forget it. He cursed himself for a fool, and twice for a blind fool -- but wanted to believe it so hard, that they could work together against the demons, that they could pretend the war didn't affect them. "Why now?" he snarled. "If you meant to kill me all along, why did you wait so long?"
Fai's eyes widened, and an emotion flickered over his face too fast for Kurogane to read it, before he half-closed his eyes and let his face drop to the side. Avoiding Kurogane's gaze.
Kurogane growled low in his throat, shifted his grip to pull Fai towards him, inches away from his face. "You did all the cooking; you could have put poison in my food the first night, or any other night. Your magic is obviously working just fine -- you could have roasted me alive in my armor, any time. You could still do that now!" On second thought, maybe he shouldn't be reminding Fai of this possibility, but his frustrated anger carried him on.
"You could have let me die in the fight with the bandits, or with the demon -- you could have put an arrow through my eye at a hundred paces! If you really wanted me dead you could have done it a hundred times by now -- you could have picked any method except sneaking up on me in the dark with a knife, and any other method would have worked! So why --"
The words died in Kurogane's throat, and his eyes widened. The answer presented itself inescapably; why indeed, unless... he hadn't really wanted to succeed. Hadn't really wanted Kurogane dead.
Fai was silent, his hair hanging over his eyes, and limp in Kurogane's grasp. Anger resurfaced again. "Answer me, damn you!" he hissed. "Quit jerking me around!" He pulled back one hand, aiming a punch at Fai's face; the mage's head tossed like a startled horse, there was a flash of blue eyes, and a sudden blue light snapped into the air, deflecting Kurogane's fist off to the side.
Kurogane threw Fai onto the ground, following him down with his hands pinning Fai into the dirt. "That geas!" Kurogane shouted at him. "Is this what that was for? To kill me? No bullshit about learning demon hunting -- is that the task you were magically bound to? Who was it who put you up to this -- was it that king of yours? King Ashura?"
Fai's head rolled to the side; he opened his eyes and looked up into Kurogane's, and his mouth curved into an unfeeling smile. "So what are you going to do about it, Kuro-chan?" he whispered, his voice hoarse. "Going to kill me after all?"
It came back to him in a flash, Fai's voice floating through the darkness; I want to be killed by someone who cares about me. Fai had been right, what he'd said that night; it was the ones you cared about who had the power to hurt you the most. And he did care about the mage, much as he hadn't meant to; he'd come to care about him and his cooking and his chatter and his stupid stupid smiles and the grace in the way he moved and the look that he surprised, sometimes, in those sky-blue eyes. Somewhere along the line he'd started to care about him, and that gave Fai the key to betray him.
And what he realized now, what drove him into a rage more than any other thing, was what they hadn't told him; that despite the hurting, despite the betrayal, he still cared about him, couldn't stop caring.
His mind hardened into resolution, and his lip curled into a sneer. "I wouldn't give you the satisfaction," he hissed, and abruptly hauled Fai up to his feet; Fai flinched, and the blue flight flashed again; Kurogane lost his grip, and the two of them stumbled apart.
Kurogane stared at him, from the distance of a few feet that seemed like an impassable gulf. "Was that your plan?" he growled. "If you couldn't kill me, you'd get me to kill you instead? Do you value your own life so little as that? Pah!"
Fai looked at him once, then quickly away, as though the sight of Kurogane standing there was painful to him. "I can't," he said quietly, his voice strained. His empty hands flexed nervously, open and closed. "I can't... disobey my king. Ashura. I can't disobey him..."
Kurogane took one stride forward; Fai flinched back again, and Kurogane half-anticipated another burst of magic, so this time he made no effort to reach out, just moved steadily forward until his face was inches from Fai's, eyes wide and frantic. "Then take me to this Ashura," Kurogane said.
"What?" Fai cried, backing up a pace. "No! He'll -- he'll kill you..."
"If Ashura wants me dead then let him do it himself," Kurogane snarled, "instead of sending others to do his dirty work for him. But he'll have to do it to my face, not sneaking around in the dark like a coward."
Fai bowed his head, his shoulders hunching; the anger still simmering in Kurogane was glad to see it, still satisfied. And after a long moment, Fai nodded.
They had traveled south for weeks, before that night; even with no more delays, no more scouting for demons, or stopping for weapons training, or for baths, it would still be at least ten days riding straight north before they came to the border.
They rode in silence, cold and suspicious; Kurogane made sure to stay behind the mage so he could watch every move he made. They pushed on until darkness made it impossible to see the trail, then made camp.
It was excruciating.
It had been awkward enough when riding, but here, all the too-familiar domestic routine of the evening camp came back to them. The mage should be flitting about, cooking, chattering; he should be doing something useful, tending to his weapons, writing his log. And sometimes answering, if the mage said something unusually interesting.
Instead, he tried to go back to his old routine, the one that he'd performed every night he'd made camp before the wizard had ridden into his life. As though the mage were not there at all. He cleaned his weapons, honed the edge of his sword, all the while keeping a watchful eye out for danger. Danger inside the range of his firelight, this time; not outside it. Drank from his canteen and ate cold stale oatbread and beef jerky.
Fai ate nothing.
The mage stayed on the other side of the fire, as though placing a barrier between them. He didn't say anything, didn't do anything, and resolutely looked away from Kurogane's constant, suspicious monitoring.
When Kurogane finally gave up and went to sleep he did so in the old, familiar way; sitting braced on the ground with his head hunched forward, Souhi held ready in one hand. He only dozed, eyes slitted, ready to move at an instant's notice at the first sign of an attack.
Not that he thought an attack was likely. Fai must know as well as Kurogane did that he would not be able to take him by surprise a second time; that he had no chance of overpowering him hand-to-hand, since Kurogane had all the weapons. Barring a magical assault, which Kurogane wouldn't be able to do anything about whether he was alert for it or not, there was no way that Fai could beat him in a physical assault.
Which Fai must have known already, before he'd ever tried it. If not for the element of surprise he never would have even gotten close enough to foul on Tomoyo's wards the first time. And Kurogane remembered now, as he hadn't before, that Fai had on their very first meeting identified the wards, their location and purpose, passed his compliments on to Tomoyo about them. There was no way he couldn't have known about them when he'd lifted the knife. Absolutely no reason for him to made such a stupid move at all, unless he'd been secretly hoping to fail.
The further he got from the shock of that night, the more Kurogane wondered if he had ever been in danger from this man.
But he still kept his guard up, and slept with one eye open.
It had begun raining on the afternoon of the second day; a chill, steady drizzle that increased into a thundering downpour as the sky darkened into black. The temperature hovered just above freezing, keeping the rain from turning to snow; but Fai found himself wishing all the same that he still had his coat, the heavy, elaborately dressed layers that signified a wizard's regalia in Ceres. Even that would not have kept him warm, he realized reluctantly; it was designed to ward off snow and ice, and frozen winds, and this bone-chilling rain would have quickly soaked the layers of fabric through.
Fai sat hunched under the tree opposite Kurogane's, a leaf-bare oak that at least cut the gusts of wind, if it could not stop the water from falling. They didn't even try to build a fire that night; Kurogane again ate cold rations out of his supplies and curled up in his wary, tense crouch, pulling his cloak around him as he settled into sleep. He didn't speak to Fai.
They were up again at dawn; it was still raining, although less heavily now, but there was nothing to be done about it but to care for the horses, and go on.
Past noon the day finally lightened, the suffocating dark gray lightening to a silvery sheen as the sun made itself known, if not seen. The rain finally stopped, driven by a stiff chill breeze that hurried the last of the damp mists down the slope and away.
Fai stared for a long time down over the landscape revealed, not even bothering to guide Bella, although for the most part she needed no guidance as she picked her way down the slope. To the east the glowing bank of wards, as ominous and invincible as the clouds themselves, marked the boundary of the Nihon Empire, stretching away beyond sight. Although clouds still mounded in the sky, the air below that ceiling was crystal clear; he could see all the way north across the wooded hills and plains to the dark sharp-edged teeth of the mountains. Could see the peaks of the mountains were already white, ice and snow bleeding insidiously into the etched grooves of the mountain passes. Soon, very soon, winter would make the range impassable.
The clouds to the north broke briefly, and the flashing sun suddenly lit on the great blue-white glitter of the glacier, glimpsed for a moment between two peaks. Fai jerked his gaze away from that sight, feeling the same stab of hopeless grief and anger as he always did; the same helplessness.
How was it that even here, in this trackless wilderness, miles and weeks of travel away from his home, he could still be so hemmed in, so trapped on all sides by destiny? More than anything else he wanted to turn around and ride the other way; to go back to the days of making-pretend, not thinking about the geas, not thinking about King Ashura, not thinking about anything but the next day of traveling and discovering new ground, training with Kurogane and finding food and hunting demons with Kurogane. A pleasant, mindless diversion, one day and one mile blending into the next with no thought of past, or future.
But weeks of running away and putting off and putting off and putting off his task had brought him no solution, brought him no way out of the impossible situation he'd found himself in. He knew, on some level, that he could still escape. Kurogane, as silent and cold as any jail warder, could not stop him if he chose to flee; and he knew on another, more uncomfortable level that if he chose to use magic, to unleash the powers the geas was binding in check, then Kurogane could not stop him from completing his mission, either. And he could return to King Ashura...
Instead he found himself in this purgatory, this cold wet ride back home in shame. Where, when Ashura learned of Fai's disobedience and failure, he would doubtless take the task upon himself at once. Could he beg Ashura to spare Kurogane's life, throw them both on the king's mercy? If Ashura had been unmoved by Fai's pleas before, Fai couldn't see him likely to change his mind once his target was within arm's easy reach.
As for Kurogane himself -- Fai supposed, as far as he could understand Kurogane's mind at all, that Kurogane harbored some secret hope of being able to turn the tables on Ashura, to strike a decisive blow for his country in the heart of the enemy empire; Fai didn't think he could make Kurogane understand, arrogant as he was, how futile that plan was.
But if by some miracle, some stroke of luck, Kurogane were to get his chance, were to come within range to strike, within hope of victory... then Fai would have no choice but to strike first, and end his chance. Fai could not, could not disobey King Ashura; but he couldn't bear to harm Kurogane. No matter what I choose, I am wrong, he thought despairingly. No matter what I do... I still make people unhappy.
He dropped his eyes to the dark wet woodlands below him, and did not look at the mountains again.
That night the temperature dropped, although at least it did not rain again, and they were able to build a fire again. Fai crouched in front of it, staring into the flames, avoiding Kurogane's piercing, accusing gaze. Still the man did not speak, and his presence was an intimidating, overpowering. It reminded Fai of King Ashura's anger, how it could press down on him and drown him without a word ever being spoken, or a hand raised.
"Hey," Kurogane said abruptly.
Fai flinched as though the word had been an arrow, hands clenching convulsively around his arms. "What?" he said, trying and failing to keep the word indifferent.
He looked up; Kurogane was glaring at him, again, his red eyes narrowed and dangerous, sparking glints in the firelight. "You going to eat tonight then, either?" Kurogane growled.
Fai stared at him, for a long moment not even registering the words, so senseless they were. "What?" he asked again, this time more baffled than defensive.
"You didn't eat anything last night. Or all of yesterday. Nor the night before that, either. When exactly were you planning to?"
Fai blinked; this was not the conversation he'd been expecting to have, if he'd expected one at all. Now that Kurogane drew his attention to it, he was dimly aware of a churning hunger, a shaking weakness in his limbs; but he'd been supressing awareness of it so thoroughly that it had barely registered except as a distant misery. Kurogane was right; he hadn't eaten anything since the night of the attack, and he hadn't even noticed that he hadn't. But Kurogane had.
Kurogane let out an exasperated breath, when no answer was forthcoming. "Or were you going to just keep going until you dropped? Starve yourself to death before we reach Ceres, was that your new plan?"
His voice was edged with heavy sarcasm and anger, and it finally connected in Fai's mind that Kurogane was upset because he hadn't eaten. Bafflement drew his brows together in his face, and he struggled for a moment for a response before he said, in honest confusion, "Why do you care?"
Kurogane stared at him for a long time, as though trying to decipher a text in another language. "I don't get you," he said, his voice strangely soft and remote. "I didn't get you even before you tried to stick a knife in me in the dark, and I understand you even less now. How can anyone so careless of himself -- of his life -- still be upright and moving in this world? You've still got your youth, but you should be old enough to know better; you've got power and position and a body whole and healthy, and yet you act like you're already dead.
He paused a minute, and then added in a voice dark with all the anger that had been missing a moment before. "I've killed people, in my time, to stay alive -- and I've had people try to kill me, to stay alive themselves. And I didn't begrudge them for that. But people who still have lives to live, but don't care about living them -- those are the people I hate most in the world."
Fai stared in frank astonishment at this little speech, almost more words than he'd heard out of Kurogane ever before. Then a strange, humorless smile began to tug at the sides of his mouth. "I guess," he said lightly, "I must be the kind of person you hate the most, then."
Silence rang between them; after a moment, he broke it. "And if you hate me so much, then what do you care about what I eat?"
A hiss of anger, like cold water being dumped on the campfire; Kurogane said, "The hell with you, thinking you know anything about what I do and don't care about?" He stood up abruptly, and Fai tensed, feeling the hairs on the back of his neck tingle with instinctive, protective magic.
Kurogane paced around the fire, coming close; Fai flinched away, but Kurogane crouched down beside him, bringing his burning eyes close. "I'll tell you one thing right now," Kurogane snarled. "This journey isn't finished yet. We've got to get back to Ceres, and across the border that's probably closed by now, and into the court itself so I can see Ashura. And to do all that, I need you. So right now I don't care what your reasons are, whatever they are -- you're going to eat."
Stunned into silence by the force of Kurogane's anger, Fai didn't resist as Kurogane pushed the food into his hands, glaring fiercely at him until he raised it to his mouth and took a bite. It tasted and felt like ashes in his mouth, and he gagged at first, before he could force himself to choke it down. "Kurogane," he said faintly, after he managed the first swallow, "I don't think -- I can't --"
And the shame, and the guilt, and the grief all came rushing back, and the gorge rose in his throat along with the frantic terror -- no, no, not that, never again, I promised -- and he was barely able to shove Kurogane aside and scramble a pace away from their fire before he threw up, emptying his stomach of the precious few bites he'd managed to get down. He kept vomiting even after his stomach was long empty, bringing up bile that seared his throat; he coughed, barely managed to avoid inhaling the acid, and retched on the frozen, slimy ground again.
To his surprise, he felt a hand on his back; heavy and cold. He looked up with watering eyes and saw Kurogane, kneeling next to him; his face was impassive, unjudgmental. "You all done?" Kurogane said quietly.
Fai coughed again, then nodded slightly. Kurogane nodded in reply. "I don't know what you expected, after not eating for three days," he said, his voice still calm, remote. He handed Fai a canteen of water -- at least there'd been no shortage of that, in all this rain. "Wash your mouth, drink a little -- then try again."
Fai stared at him in disbelief, then broke the gaze to take a drink of the cold water, rinsed it around his mouth and spat on the ground. Another drink stayed down a little better, and he could feel the shakes beginning to clear. "I don't understand you," he whispered. "Why are you acting like you still care about me?"
There was silence for a long moment. "You're right," Kurogane said, "you don't understand me."
The inner palace chamber was dark, lit only poorly by two torches flickering in the brackets. The elaborate decorations of the royal women's quarters could barely be made out along the walls. Kendappa's guards, and Tomoyo's -- even here, in the heart of the empire, they were never left unguarded -- were faded into invisible shadows along the walls.
Kendappa ignored them with a lifetime of practice, as her hands moved over the koto, eyes half-lidded as she concentrated on the music. A soothing tune turned itself over under her hands, an old simple tune that she'd played a hundred times, picked out by a delicate counterpoint that was new tonight. It was always the tiny, subtle variations that captured the attention and soothed the heart and mind, and although she'd studied a hundred disciplines from her childhood, it was always music that she returned to in times of distress.
She let the strings of the koto still, the last notes die in the darkened room, and blinked as she raised her head from the half-trance, looked over towards the couch where her sister lay, garments askew and hair in disarray.
"Are you feeling any better, my sister?" Kendappa asked quietly.
A soft breath, but no further movement from the couch. Kendappa let out a long sigh, and lifted her hands from the strings. "You must let your grief pass, Tomoyo," she said gently. "I know that he was dear to you, but he was only one man; only a servant, if one of Our strongest. It's not seemly to show such grief."
A movement in the shadows; a dark head nodded once, but the motion was forlorn, defeated. Kendappa felt a surge of sympathy; she knew that Lord Suwa had been more than a mere servant to her sister. He had been a beloved vassal, almost a friend, inasmuch as friendship could exist between master and warrior.
And for all his irreverence, his cavalier attitude towards authority, had annoyed her, Kendappa had respected the man too; he had been a magnificent fighter, a fierce and loyal spirit. But it was the fate of warriors to die gloriously, and not fitting for their commanders to grieve overmuch when they did.
Still, Tomoyo was not a warrior, and it was hard for her. Kendappa put aside the koto, and moved over to sit on to couch beside her sister, and took one of her hands.
"Tsukuyomi," she called, and the use of her formal title called Tomoyo back to the present, to the grave needs of their country. "Are you certain of what you felt? That the lord of Suwa did not fall in battle to some more ordinary hazard, or to of the demons, that destroyed your spells?"
"No," Tomoyo's 'voice' came back to her, grey with grief, but clear and certain. "The wards should still have existed, even if a demon were to break through them, even they failed to prevent his death. Nothing but a direct magical attack by a skilled wizard could have destroyed them entirely; and once they were destroyed, he would have no defenses..." The words trailed off, dissolving into more formless images of fire and fear, a swift and savage strike of lightning against helpless flesh.
Kendappa frowned, feeling a hard expression begin to settle on her features. "Then Ceres is making their move," she stated, and the words seemed to ring in the dark rafters overhead. "Not a direct stroke, but a subtle one; depriving us of our best warriors before the battle begins."
She looked back at Tomoyo. "Have you felt anything else, from the other demon hunters? Have there been any such attacks on the wards?"
Another wordless headshake. "No. Not yet. But... I would not be able to see it, until it happened."
"Then we still have time," Kendappa said grimly, "if we strike hard and fast, before all their plans can be carried out, then we may still have the advantage." She had been planning and pushing for just such a strike for weeks; the army was massed at the northern border, and could be at Ceres' doorstep in under a week. Once she gave the signal.
Although she hadn't spoken aloud, she knew that Tomoyo clearly understood her intent; and while her sister's gentle soul cringed at the horror of open warfare, they both well understood the necessity. Kendappa squeezed her hand gently, encouragingly. "Have you been able to see any more?"
"No," Tomoyo answered for the third time. "The wizards of Ceres still block my vision; I cannot see inside the borders of their country, either present or future. I can see nothing except that same recurring vision, of the castle floating in the sky. Nothing to explain that vision; I do not even know if it is in this time."
Kendappa sighed in frustration, but it could not be helped; one could not force a dreamseer's visions. Maybe it was just as well. It was dangerous for a commander of the ground forces to rely too much on predictions of the future; not when they needed to be able to see the situation as it was in the moment and react appropriately. That was her gift; and now, she knew, was the moment.
Still, there was an unavoidable risk inherent in this attack; once her troops were committed, there would be no turning back. "And what of the other power?" she asked. "Do you know any more of his intentions, his plans?"
Slowly, Tomoyo raised her head; her face was pale and desolate, but her eyes were resolute. She looked off past Kendappa, her eyes focussing on what seemed to be empty space in the corner of their room. A pair of moths fluttered around the torches; their shadows flitted large as bats against the yellow splash of torchlight on the walls. "I have long sensed the danger from the east, the malevolent presence, but lately the dreams are becoming stronger." her answer came slowly, heavily. "His intentions are, as they ever have been, the destruction of our country and our people. But I cannot touch his mind; I cannot see what he plans. I can only see what might be, if his intentions come to pass. The wards breaking, the walls crumbling... death in the fields, blood in the roads, the souls of our people, screaming...
"The castle, floating in the sky... if he becomes ally with the wizards of Ceres, my sister, then we are lost; beset on two fronts, none of our armies will be able to save us then. But he has not allied with them yet. We have a little time, yet."
Kendappa pressed her lips together, took a deep breath and nodded. "Then we still have a chance," she said, echoing her earlier resolution. "And we must take it. If we move swiftly, destroy the threat that Ceres presents, then they will have no chance to make alliance with our other enemy. Once we have subdued them, then we can turn all our attention to this other threat."
Kendappa moved her free hand to grip her sister's shoulder, smiled at her reassuringly. "We will prevail, my sister, do not doubt it; your lord Suwa's death will be avenged."
~to be continued...