Tomika's letters, 8/30/1583 - 8/31/1583: The City of the Sun
8/30/1583
City of the Sun...somewhere in the ocean east of Tokyo
Dearest Yukiko,
Well. It's been a day.
We began by sending Suzume off to land. I overheard Reiko asking a Sparrow hengenyokai bout why they were calling Tadaki Lord; it turns out that the possessor of the Staff of Seasons is the leader of the hengenyokai. Strange. Very, very strange, these people.
My husband was scrying as he usually does; this morning's choices were General Kenichi, who was barricaded in what appeared to be the imperial palace, a riot of some sort raging outside, and Hideyoshi, who was sitting at a large table with an odd symbol carved in it, the character for coven. Covenant. We were looking at the members of the Covenant, it seemed.
They were speaking of having found the City of the Sun, which was located high in the mountains near Kofu. A quick look at a map revealed that Kofu is somewhat near Mt. Fuji, about thirty-five miles inland. We could sail down the coast a little bit and then fly, with us in the mirror, to Kofu, there to look for this place.
After all, if the Covenant was interested in this city, it was worth at least a look.
On the way south, the librarian said that he had talked to Suzume and that the rods, for the most part, simply add to one's strength when implanted in the arms and legs. Reiko tilted her head and asked, "I suppose you'd like them put in, wouldn't you?"
"Ah, yes. Will you?"
She shrugged. "If you want. Did she say if there were any bad things that happen to one when they're implanted?"
The librarian coughed. "Ah, she said the only side effect was that one's sex drive is...increased."
The kitsune raised an eyebrow. "Really. Interesting. Well, if you want, have a seat. Actually, on second thought, could you get someone to tie you down? This is going to hurt, and I'd rather you not accidentally kill me."
Disturbing little thing, she is. Though I wonder sometimes what it would be like to be that fearless.
Four hours later, we dropped anchor, and we all piled into the mirror and Panda rode Gryphon, and we set off for Kofu.
We set down a little ways off from some ruins. There appeared to have been about twenty people come through here recently, and to the side of their trail the trail of what appeared to be five very large snakes. Gryphon tracked the snakes back to where the trail appeared, and triggered a stone that parted a thicket and led down a tunnel into the earth.
The place was dark and smelled terrible, like a slaughterhouse. We decided to retreat when Gryphon noted that something down here was hissing something about, "Humanssssssss..."
Funitsu remained behind, and scouted some more. He came back up and said that what was down there was a kind of monster known as hannya. They are terrible things--half snake, half human, very ugly, and all spellcasters. Just what we needed, let me tell you.
We tracked the humans and the hannya forward. We came across the site of a battle, where two humans had gone over a cliff and a hannya was beheaded. We kept walking, and came to the site of another battle...strangely enough, identical to the scene of the first one. Panda walked ahead of us with her illusion-combating orb, and discovered that there was a shimmering gate ahead of us. Walking through it sent people back to about a twenty-minute walk back. We found that on the other side of the gate was a gate to the city of the sun--we could see the city about an hour and a half's walk away.
We were getting ready to go when Reiko said, "Hunh. That's interesting." There was a control stone set in the tumbled stones, that, when turned, changed the destination of the door. One, as noted before, went to the city of the sun. One opened on empty air. One opened in the Hannya lair. And one, oddly enough, opened in a place that strongly resembled the Imperial palace.
We set it to empty air; after discussing it, we decided to walk to the city of the sun.
The city was blasted and ruined; only three structures had survived, including the gate that the door in the air had linked to. There was an odd golden onion-shaped dome, that Tadaki said was called a "minaret", and there was a low stone building that looked out of place among the other buildings, as if it had been built by different hands. The tracks of the humans we were following split up here, the majority of them going to the minaret, other going to the stone building, and a few just wandering around the city.
Panda said, when I mentioned that it must have been a huge fireball that had taken the city, "What do you mean? Nothing's burned. It looks like there are people who live here, even."
Startled, we all concentrated. If we looked hard enough, we could see the real city under the illusion, buildings whole. The moment our concentration lapsed, however, the illusion snapped back into place.
What we could see with watering eyes was that there was a tower ahead of us. We could see that it hand symbols signifying day, twilight, and night on the sides. We all looked at each other, shrugged, and headed towards it.
We came across a poor samurai who had evidently been frightened to death, and as we were discussing this, Tadaki took the opportunity to fly into a window of a nearby building. He came out in human form with a man with him, who he introduced as a Rat hengenyokai. The Rat told us that there were many hengenyokai living in the city, under the noses of the hannya; they were hiding, because they didn't want the samurai to discover them.
The dead samurai was killed by a hannya poison that causes fear. He said that the tower we were heading towards was sealed somehow, and none knew what was inside. The other two buildings were both traps, risks without rewards.
We thanked the Rat and continued.
Getting into the tower was easy enough; there were three indentations, one for each of our orbs, and a long thin slot for Tadaki's staff, the Staff of Seasons. Before we did this, however, we discussed going to kill the hannya, as we didn't want them to sneak up behind us if we were involved with the tower.
Tadaki, at this point, remembered a very peculiar piece of demon lore; hannya are deathly afraid of violets. If one is holding a violet they will not attack, and they will not enter a building that has violets in bloom by the door. It is a strange weakness, but one we exploited, picking violets and the going back to the tower.
when we activated the tower, it said in a low, grating voice, "Lord Tadaki, do you wish me to drain to orbs?" After recovering from his startlement, Tadaki said, "Ah, no."
"Do you wish me to lower the tower, then, or do you wish to climb the stairs into the magical assistance room?"
Tadaki coughed. "Ah. Stairs, please?" A door opened and we retrieved the orbs and Tadaki's staff and climbed.
The room at the to of the stairs came alive as Tadaki walked into it. Within, there were a number of softly glowing crystals, a flat vertical surface that might have been a mirror of some sort, and a chair rising out of the floor. Tadaki asked what the chair was for, and the tower replied, "To control where the city goes. There are seventeen samurai wandering the city. What do you wish done with them? I can exterminate them. One has a fragment of the twilight spirit in it."
Tadaki agreed. The body of a general appeared before us, who after some puzzling we identified as General Yori. The tower then said, "There is a human woman here who has been here some time. She did not come with the samurai. Shall she be exterminated, too?"
"Bring her here."
Oddly enough, the woman who then appeared was familiar, though it took me a moment to place her. It was Minaku, the librarian's foster mother, who we had seen in the scrying orb.
But instead of greeting the librarian, she turned to my husband, crying, "My gods, brother! I thought I would never see you again!" She flung herself on him, wrapping her arms around his neck, nearly weeping. It was Tsutsako, Funitsu's younger half-sister--but in the body of Minaku.
To make an exceedingly long story short, Minaku, her life growing shorter by the hour, had convinced Arenro to switch her soul with Tsutsako. Winter had saved the girl in the old woman's body, and transported her here, to the City of the Sun, where he had hidden her away.
We discovered that the tower was originally for splitting the three spirits into the seventy-five vessels, and had been modifed by Winter and Akechi some years ago to take those spirits and disperse them into the land. The city was mobile, and could go where Tadaki directed it. We transferred the city to the nearly-deserted island that the hengenyokai have been using as a base camp, and then flew back to the Benevolent, in need of information that only the old truth-telling monk that has been traveling with us all the time would have.
Panda shaped her question most carefully. She asked, "Who are the people currently in Japan who can return Soshi Tsutsako and Minaku to their own bodies?"
The answer was a short list:
Arenro
Edi-lo
Lao-tzu
Midori
Arenro was obviously out. Lao-tzu was a Chinese tattoo magic inscriber, hiding in Aomori from the council. Midori was a member of the Covenant, the compromised member of it, as a matter of fact.
And when Funitsu scried on Edi-lo, we were startled to see a tiny woman, hanging in chains, who looked so much like Reiko that they might be twins. The kitsune's voice was small and colorless. "That's my mother. They're holding her in Tokyo, I know."
I had never really thought about Reiko having a mother, but since we have met her father, it stands to reason that she has a mother, as well. Funitsu asked her when she had last seen her, and the kitsune shrugged. "I do not remember her. I don't think she raised me."
We decided that since Edi-lo and Minaku were close together, we could kill two birds with one raid on the Imperial Palace. So tonight, we plan, and tomorrow we storm the castle, so to speak.
I do believe I am looking forward to this.
With much affection,
Tomika
8/31/1583
the Benevolent, anchored somewhere outside of Tokyo
We decided to take the sneaky way into the Imperial Palace, with Panda invisible and flying and with the rest of us in the mirror. Shiro was to stir up a distraction outside the palace walls, and Tadaki was positively gleeful about something the had planned. We went into the mirror and knew nothing for a time; when we were called out, Panda said, "We have a situation on our hands."
She had gotten into the cells below the palace easily enough, but before us was a green mist hanging in the hallway, covering it. A guard had gone through with no harm done., but Panda didn't want to chance going through herself. Whatever it was, it was a creature, somehow alive. (In retrospect, it was probably a gaki, a creature that lives by absorbing th magic of others.)
Gryphon went to talk to it, and then came back with it following him like a puppy on his heels. He des make the most unlikely friends, does the gryphon. He said, "It wants to fly free, let me lead it through the mirror to Skyhome!" and he did so. Obstacle one, done.
Down we went, encountering a guard who Haku captured with no trouble. We took his keys and continued, finding ourselves sin a long row of cells. We went through, freeing prisoners as we went, and at the end of the row was a cell with eight beautiful women in it, each chained to the wall.
One of the women looked very much like Reiko. Panda stepped into the cell and said, "Edi-lo? We're with your daughter. We've come to rescue you all."
The woman's head snapped up, her eyes wide. "My daughter? Reiko is still alive?"
Reiko waved, and said, "Ah, yes, I am."
Before we released them, Funitsu held a small marble to each of them, explaining that he had been given a bag of what amounted to kitsune half-souls--the good parts of the fox spirits that the Scorpion clan had removed hundreds of years ago in their quest for the perfect assassin. Making them whole accomplished, we unchained them and told them to follow us.
They did what seems to come naturally for kitsune, each trying to attach themselves to a member of the retinue. Reiko warned them about the Thrykreen, Panda got between Nibori and the kitsune who looked like she wanted to latch onto him, and Reiko's mother attached herself to the librarian, who looked not at all unhappy about this fact.
Haku did the strangest thing--he fed the eight a little bit of his life force. I had no idea he could do that! At the very least, the foxes looked a little less hungry after he was done. Jeron looked like he was about to say something, but he and Reiko glanced at each other and he thought better of whatever he was about to say.
We made our way through the nearly-deserted palace. There was a huge roar and screams from outside, and Tadaki grinned. "There is a creature called a Terrasque, that is basically an armored appetite. There is currently one wandering around Tokyo, eating everything in its path."
We expressed dismay at this, and he shrugged. "It's a transformed rat. It'll revert in twelve hours. But I've always wanted my own Terrasque, ever since I first heard of them, and, well, since I had the opportunity..."
I was impressed, and suspicious. The Sparrow shares my specialty, and I know I am not capable of the spell he described. Perhaps it's something to do with his staff, or his orb.
As we went along, the kitsune took care of any guards we encountered. We would pause and let them go first, and they used their magic to enthrall the guards, feeding themselves and distracting the guards. We were heading towards a room where we suspected we would find Minaku.
And find her we did. All of the kitsune other than Reiko (of course) and Edi-lo decided to leave us at this point, and made their way through the palace away from us. Reiko gave her mother an Invisibility to Enemies, a very useful spell that the kitsune uses all the time, and the rest of us pre-cast what we thought we would need.
There was a door, one that only those of Scorpion blood could walk through. The librarian and Funitsu did so, and then I saw the magic on the door power down, and the rest of us poured in.
Within were Minaku and two generals--Kenshin, who we had met before, and Katashi, who we had not. The battle was very confused for a few minutes, with Minaku giving a good account of herself and Kenshin hitting two of our party with a sword that caused paralysis. (Gryphon and the librarian were the victims of this one; while Reiko could fix Gryphon, she didn't have another of those spells to get the librarian back on his feet.) Haku was deflecting Minaku's throwing stars, taking the occasional one in the chest.
The back wall of the room was a paper screen, which Funitsu sliced through to try and see what surprises were hiding behind it.
A surprise, all right.
Arenro stood behind that screen.
Things had suddenly become a bit more dire.
Arenro tried to cast a few spells, but Tadaki managed to interrupt him every time. (As we learned later, it was good that he did this; it seems that Tadaki has acquired the ability to do a limited bit of mind-reading, and those were very nasty spells indeed he was trying to cast.) What seemed like forever but was only a few seconds later, Haku managed to get Minaku in a lock and he and Panda hustled away through a door in reality that Funitsu had just opened with his wakizashi.
Reiko was trying to pull the librarian towards the door, but he was quite obviously too heavy for her; Jeron stepped in and told her that he'd bring him. The kitsune left, her mother in tow, and then I took the opportunity to depart, myself. Through the door we went, and into, oddly enough, the mirror--Panda was holding the mirror just on the other side of the doorway.
We were followed by both of the generals, and the fracas resumed. Funitsu and, finally, Tadaki came through, the mirror closed and Panda was away. We took care of the generals easily enough, taking them down and true sourcing them.
Afterwards, my husband said, "The oddest thing happened right before I left. Hideyoshi stepped out from a reality door, just behind Arenro. I wonder how he knew where the fight was happening?"
"Actually, it's stranger than that." Tadaki was going through the pockets of the unconscious Minaku, looking for weapons or anything shiny, as he does. "Arenro was right on my heels as I left, and he would have made it through the door before it closed, and he would have been in the mirror with us. But Hideyoshi, right behind him, grabbed his collar and pulled him back."
My personal opinion is that Hideyoshi may well be dead at this point. I somewhat hope not; he would be an invaluable ally, especially if he truly is rethinking his allegiance. However, not very many people seem to have survived Arenro's anger.
We'll see, won't we?
We returned to the Benevolent and Shrike, and Edi-lo agreed to break the permanancy on the mind-swap spell. It took her a few hours, but she accomplished it, landing each spirit in the correct body. The librarian is still thinking about what to do with Minaku, and we're probably going to send Tsutsako along with this letter to you in Skyhome, after she and my husband finish catching up.
Reiko and her mother, I last saw sitting near each other, the shaman at least seemingly at a loss for words. The more I see those two side by side, the less they resemble each other to me. Together, they are indeed quite alike physically. But it is impossible to mistake one for the other. I can't really explain why, only to say that Reiko's eyes are very different. Though Reiko looks much like her mother I think her soul takes far more after her father, though I don't think the kitsune would count it a kindness were I to tell her that.
Yet Edi-lo has sorrow of her own, grief weighing her movements, making them graceful and slow. They linger near each other, not speaking, and Jeron watches them both.
As for my part, I am more than glad that Funitsu's sister has returned to him. Oddly enough, I find myself happy for his sake, not my own. I think I will leave things lie as they are for the moment; if his affections turn towards me, so be it. If they do not...well, I at least have gotten to see the world, and have had many more adventures than I would have otherwise, had I stayed as I was with my mind controlled by the dark spirit, creating shadows out of living souls. I have perhaps made some difference in this struggle, and I find that if I am perhaps not happy, I at least am content with my lot.
Time begins to move faster, my Lady. Be well, be strong, and we will stand fast against what approaches.
With greatest affection,
Tomika
Quotes:
"I feel like Bjork, with all of the Olympic athletes under my dress."
--Laura
"Basically, we're all geeks and someone shouted toy."
--Ray, about why we went to the city of the sun.
"What's the difference between a minaret and a majorette?"
--Bryan
"Chaos is good!"
"Well, yeah, I know that!"
--Reiko and Funitsu
"You're going to dress me up, Haku? I'm a married woman."
--Panda
"I cast Summon Godzilla!"
--Bryan
"You grabbed her snatch? I thought you grabbed her arms!"
"How do you think I got the advantage?"
--Haku and Panda
"Chinese fighting muffins!"
--General outcry about the mini bundt cakes that were dessert
Meta:
Bryan finally got to let Godzilla loose on Tokyo. *facepalm* All's well that ends well, though it was a very near thing--we would have had serious casualties if Arenro had let loose. (Hooray for Tadaki, for yet again saving our collective ass.)