He turns the key in his lonely apartment. The
silence is oppressive.
He turns on the computer, plays a game, heats
up his dinner, watches a show. Again. Same as last night, same as next night.
Wake up, work, eat, jerk off, rinse, repeat.
He holds on to the bow
mast of the Endeavour as the Imperial Hunters swarm around him. He can see the
cannon hatches opening on their hulls. He shouts an order to the pilot, a friend
of his from the College of Natural Philosophy he had rescued from prison just
before they took on the mission. The Endeavour banks sharply to the left, just
as the Imperial cannons roar, and avoids most of the shots.
The clouds and the
rain pelt his face as the Magnetrolyte-powered airship falls through the sky,
evading its chasers, and he has never felt as excited in his life.
The Master at Arms
scrambles up to him and tells him the Hunters are coming back for another
round. He cracks a smile and says he’s got it all under control.
He reaches out his arm
into the storm. The Electro-Capacitor Gauntlet is his own design, and the spark
plugs lighten up as it begins to bottle in energy from the lightnings.
The Hunters buzz back,
their green lights illuminating the Imperial Crest on their side. The dials and
gauges in the Gauntlet are all in the red. He presses his thumb and the blue crystal
in his palm lights up.
Lightning arcs out to
the hunters and they explode in metallic pieces.
Something. He had forgotten. Or maybe he
hadn’t, but thought he could still do it in time. Or maybe he had always known
it would fail, and the desperate weight of that certainty was what he had been
feeling.
His boss had talked to him, in the disappointed
tone of those who had seen it coming miles away. He had failed, not enormously, just rather
humiliatingly. Unsurprisingly.
He felt dejected. His feeling of self-loathing
intensified, but he had no time to lick his wounds. There were more clients to see, more deadlines to make. Always
more.
Always more to do. A never-ending stream of
dull duties and obligations.
And for what? To keep himself alive? And for what?
He inhales deeply of
the sacred herb. He keeps a pouch of it with him always, as well as his
sculpted sea-shell pipe. He holds in the smoke in and feels a wave of joy rush
out from his lungs and through his mind. Thoughts become fluid.
He buries his toes in
the warm sand, feeling the setting sun wash over him like a blanket. He adjusts
his blue robes around his waist, and the straps around his shoulders.
The elder speaks.
He follows the old
turtle, with the holy face carved on its shell along the white sanded beach.
His search for guidance has not been in vain.
The message enters his
mind not as sounds but as images. The elder speaks of the past, and the future.
He speaks of little things of tremendous brilliance, and of big things with
subtle effects. He speaks of the coming darkness.
The turtle slips back
into the surf and he is left on the sand, trying to piece together all that he
was told, holding on to the fleeting thoughts before they become lost forever.
He uses his old swordspear
as a cane, and the mystical runes carved into the ironwood glow.
He will need
to inform the Council. He will travel to the Monastery tonight, and as the
children sing the hymns of longing, and as they eat a plentiful meal of raw
fish wrapped in seaweed and vinegared rice, basking in red lamp-light, he will
tell them of the preparations they’ve been instructed to make.
He talks to the client in front of him, and
suddenly realizes it is not the same one he was talking to seconds ago. His
mind wandered off again, and he has no idea what this person in front of him is
getting so agitated about. Something important, surely, but what? He wonders if
he can piece it together without asking the client to repeat himself.
They’re all the same, even though they’re not.
They all have the same complaints, the same questions and attitude after a
while. They blend into each other in an endless procession of faces and
requests, none very different from the other.
And yet he doesn’t feel any more relaxed,
always afraid he’s going to fail at something. He couldn’t tell you what, if
you asked him. But something.
He constantly feels like he’s just hanging on
to the threads of his life to prevent it from unraveling. Always just barely
making deadlines, constantly being reminded quite by accident of very important
things he should be doing. He constantly feels like he’s missing something
crucial, and that it will be his undoing.
He stands in the
middle of the street, and tries to protect his neck from the biting gusts with
his makeshift poncho, and yet his right hand never strays far from the holster.
The street is quiet
now. No carriages, no hammerfalls from the blacksmith, no sound from the saloon.
Slowly, three figures
walk up to the middle of the road, a few dozen yards away from him. One of them
is slightly round around the edges, the other thin as a wire and with an evil
twitch in the mouth, the third wears a black coat, and a black hat.
They stand
side by side, the black hat in the middle.
The folks in town had
asked for his help. No one else they could ask. He had walked countless miles
to get here, and he had countless more ahead of him. But he was honour-bound by
the old code into helping as he could. So he did.
The strangers had
shown up months ago, brought an ill wind and ill omens with them.
Devil-dancers, the people called them, when they started killing.
Now here they
stood.
He cleared his mind
and readied his hand. It would all be over in a matter of seconds.
The trepidation of the train and the cold
morning light streaming through the window prevent him from sleeping. He went
to bed late last night. Again. He keeps promising himself he’s going to bed
early, catch some sleep, not be as tired the next day. But he never does. Not
for years now.
Going to sleep feels like giving up, to him.
Going to sleep rushes the morning, and he doesn’t like mornings.
So now he tries to rest on the train on his way
to work, but achieves only a kind of half-slumber which is even more tiresome
in its own way.
His hearing strains as he
walks through the path. The pines stretch above on either side of him. His
slippers softly crush the needles beneath his feet.
He can hear them.
There are six of them. Hiding in the branches.
He does not slow his
steady pace, but instead adjusts his Katana nearer to him. When he needs to
unsheathe it, it will be over quickly.
Almost painfully he
remembers the night in the Shögun’s keep. Her name was Misako, and she was First Geisha to Homori-kun.
As one of his Samurai,
he had been invited for the victory feast, and in honour of his feats in
battle, Misako had performed a dance for him.
She had danced in the
rain, to the sound of a single Koto, and it was poetry in motion. As he sipped
at his impeccably made green tea, he realized she was the most beautiful thing
he had ever seen in his life.
That same night he
went to her room, and proclaimed his undying love for her. She raised a single,
slender, white finger to her painted lips, pointing to the mark of her
servitude. She was Geisha, a living work of art, a symbol of status, property
of the Shögun. Not to be loved, but admired.
He did what he had to
do.
They were closing in,
now. He could feel the woods breathing closer.
He catches an arrow
mid-flight with his left hand, quivering inches from his neck. The shooter had
exhaled as he released it, giving himself away. They were either nervous or over-confident.
The Chosen sits in the little row boat. His arms ache from rowing for almost an hour and his white tunic cannot seem to keep out the chill from the fog.
He shivers against his will, and the Elder sitting to his side seems not to notice. The grizzled Elder just keeps on rowing, unperturbed by the fact that his grey tunic is getting soaked with cold sea water.
In front of him, sitting on the prow, is the Wise Man. He faces the waves, beard frosted with ice. He chants prayers of protection, to calm the seas and ward off the Deep.
Two other Elders sit behind him, and chant to the rythm of his prayers. Neither of them seem to mind the cold.
The sea is the colour of lead. The sky brews heavy weather.
He is about to say something and damn his vow of silence, when he suddenly sees it.
Something in the fog. Something enormous behind the mists. Impossibly high, such that he needs to strain his neck up to see it.
A face.
A gigantic face, carved out of the black rock of an entire cliff side, with a raging mouth open in a furious but silent cry, turned towards the sea.
The fog is quickly clearing, and he can see a dozen other faces, carved into the cliff on either side of this one, fading into the distance.
As they get closer, the Chosen one notices that all of the stone faces are different. Each has their own features, and were clearly sculpted to bear the semblance of a real person, certainly long since dead.
The tiny row boat seems even smaller as they reach the foot of the cliff, among the crashing waves. Almost miraculously they manage to land the boat without smashing it against the rocks, and the Chosen wonders if the Wise Man's prayers had anything to do with that.
He knows a dozen other boats should be reaching the cliffs by now, with a dozen other Chosen Ones in them, his brothers and sisters. He wonders if they made it safely.
All that's left now is the slow, grueling climb to the top.
After what seems like hours they reach the top of the cliff.
The Chosen feels pain all over his body, from the rowing and the climbing, but his mind is clear, almost exhilarated.
The wind is picking up now. The clouds are dark and heavy, and the Storm is almost upon them.
They quickly make their way to the edge of the cliff, the preparations must start soon.
On the top of the cliff, just above the enormous stone face, there is a circle of Standing Stones. Most of them are covered by moss, and all of them have deep etchings on their sides. The Stones seem almost older than the faces carved into the side of the cliff.
It starts raining as it gets darker.
The Chosen takes his place in the center of the Stones, barefoot.
The Wise Man and the Elders gather around him in a circle. The black clouds gather above them all.
As the Wise Man begins chanting once again. The Chosen shivers, this time from excitement.
The Elders join him, chanting lines in faint discord. The rising and falling of the hypnotic chant seems to grow with the swelling of the Storm.
Or maybe it is the Storm that grows in tune with the chanting.
The wind and rain are at their full strength now and it seems as if they will be blown off the cliff at any moment. The clouds are roiling in their thick greyness, and it is almost pitch black.
The Chosen hardly feels the rain anymore, and to him it seems like the powerful chanting is coming from inside his head now.
He is vaguely aware of a deep rumbling groan coming from over the sea, as brilliant flashes of lightning strike the waves in the distance.
The Storm grows to an almost impossible violence, but not even the deafening thunder muffles the chanting in his head.
The Wise Man raises his hands to the sky, the Standing Stones around him begin to glow with energy.
The chanting rises as the Storm reaches its peak, and the Chosen screams.
And then it happens.
A pillar of light and energy burns through the dark clouds and strikes the Chosen.
As the lightning courses through his body he feels almost no pain, but the power surging in him is nearly unbearable.
The gigantic face carved on the side of the cliff becomes illuminated from within, it's eyes and open mouth glowing.
As the Chosen's scream and the roar of thunder become indistinguishable, a powerful blast of energy shoots from the raging mouth in the cliffside and into the distance, into the Storm.
Simultaneously, the other carved faces in the distance also shoot beams of white energy into the blackness of the Storm.
The horizon lights up with the lightning beams. An agonized roar can be heard over the thunder and wind, and a gigantic mass in the darkness appears to writhe in pain and slowly sink into the ocean.
