The Scythe and the Seer, Book 3 of the Enchanter's Cycle

With no action available to him, Surthath waited for a chance to escape his brother’s trap, observing the pieces on the board.

He’d hoped that an opportunity to use one would present itself, especially with the Dread Hammer now taking such a direct hand in events.

But he hadn’t expected this... Not yet. The sapphire-chalcedony wizard piece with the Silkrit head had changed. Hairline cracks had wracked her surface over the last hour, and just now, before his disbelieving eyes, the piece had splintered, chips falling to the board and dissipating.

The piece was no longer entirely whole; huge gouges in the material reached nearly to her core, which was rapidly darkening. Winding clockwork emerged from within the openings created, ringed with hoarfrost and releasing spiraling mist.

It pained him when he tried to touch it. Such rage, such anger...such power!

A piece like this could easily change everything; this was no longer a mortal, or even immortal. Kaileena had become something...more. Something more than anticipated, something he wasn’t prepared for.

Something that truly terrified him.

“You are a keystone in all of this.” Surthath whispered, seeing at last the slim odds on which either his doom or his triumph rested, “The prophecy cannot complete without you. And if you...-”

No. No! He wasn’t alone! He dared not say it aloud, or even think it!

Until an opportunity presented itself he had no choice but to observe, and react. The Veil and all the realms beyond depended on his success, on Kaileena’s success.

Aika crept through the foliage as evening set in, Ryū beside her, a silent but constant and welcomed presence among the seven other Te Fukushu.

They were hunting; finishing their sweep over the southern edge of the North District, while Shirudo personally led a secondary detachment further north to ascertain the condition of the Renmei Kisai.

Taking all the horses with him, she noted bitterly.

While she’d traveled in this direction before, she still found it an eerie, haunting place. The only shelter from the relentless wind was the pine trees (which they happily used), in a massive valley along the center of the North District, between a range of mountains that crowned the extreme northwest and northeast sections of the district.

Snow covered the ground in uneven patches but otherwise the footing was stable, as the dirt was frozen to the consistency of stone. That would make their jobs easier; vampyres couldn’t burrow in these conditions and had to be hiding in caves or in Human civilizations.

Once again in her familiar tunic, leather armor, and cloak, she also had a new set of throwing daggers in her bracers, and beside Jhihro’s prototype spear she bore a well-forged silver-edged naginata.

Her tabi padded along as she kept pace with Ryū only with great difficulty, and only then because he wasn’t running at his peak speed. If he had been, a horse might not have caught him.

He was magnificent; a dark shadow in the long grass, his gleaming trident the only thing that exposed him, so precise and subtle were his movements. Normally, he might have concealed the thing, but only when holding it could he walk in the sun without pain.

His great, dark cloak billowed like wings as he increased his pace, the scent of prey in the air. The sun crept lower on the horizon, nightfall nearly come. The time of the vampyre...

Dashing after him with excited abandon, Aika made certain their fellow Te Fukushu hunters were also keeping pace. This would be a precise, devastating strike, not the unfocused flailing of a mob. He had trained them better than that!

“Crossbows and spears at the flanks!” she hissed, “Swords dead center. Two columns, tight spacing.”

As they formed the desired positions, the long grass rustled against the wind, and...something emerged. What it was, she could not say, but she heard a horrible, gurgling sound, like slime bubbling onto sheet metal.

“Retreat!” Ryū snarled, brandishing his weapon, “Aika, get them back now!”

Ryū lunged at the R’yzthaek, for unlike his experience in Yokai’s tower he could see the creature in all its horrid splendor. A shapeless lump of flesh, the Kamiyonanayo of Dur’Artoth gazed back at him with dozens of many-faceted black orbs, its pincers gnashing, its tentacles writhing as it hovered unsupported at shoulder-level.

“Trloog yhak galbllrz asb lr’rrt.” the creature said in an otherworldly, bubbling voice, “Do not fight. Listen. It wishes to parley.”

The vampyre was so unsettled and confused he aborted his charge, stumbling. “Glargzg rhloylrr bzzk n’ruung lre velt et.” The R’yzthaek gurgled, “It will not harm them, will not feed on their minds.”

“Speak quickly, then...” Ryū replied icily, “And do not waste my time. Why are you here?”

“Who are you talking to?” Aika called out, her eyes wide, and he waved her off, “Go, Aika.”

Conflicted, she obeyed his orders, and retreated with the other hunters into the distance.

“Mind only, now.” the R’yzthaek projected, “It cannot damage yours now...and you know why.”

Grimacing, Ryū lowered his weapon, as the creature continued, “It is called Tzruga. It knows what you plan to do, and It wishes to help. You need to know about the scythe. The Scythe of Argosaxx. With the scythe, a mortal can kill the Dread Hammer! It knows where the scythe is.”

“Tell me everything.” Ryū demanded, and the fiend did just that...

Kaileena departed Aurummn Calca, dismissing the violent impulses that even then demanded she cause more untold destruction to the beings of Moonshadow.

Though they knew her for only a short time, Ken’ichi and his family had accepted her as one of their own. But she no longer felt like a Silkrit...no longer felt like much of anything.

Armathras, for all his faults, had reminded her of what she truly was; be it in Teikoku or Moonshadow or anywhere else. She was an anomaly, an oddity, a freak. She didn’t belong.

But she wouldn’t succumb, either. She felt the urge to commit violence as she never had before; this power, boiling inside her, demanded release. She’d felt such satisfaction when she killed Armathras, reveling in her pain and his as his life energies guttered out, even knowing it was no permanent end to him.

And she felt ashamed of even that much; sick to her stomach with remorse. She wouldn’t allow herself become another guiltless warrior, claiming to champion peace while wading through blood. She couldn’t! But what was she to do?

“Everything is as it was. As it’s always been. I’ve killed enough in Surthath’s name. I’ve tainted my promises to Anima time and time again for the benefit of those I wish so dearly to protect. No more. I will save the Veil...and I will do it my way!” she decided, “First things first; I must collect the necessary ingredients.”

An idea had impressed upon her during her bout with Armathras; a viable means to suppress the powers of the Phoenix Stone, at least into a more manageable state.

Kneeling in a field below and south of Aurummn Calca, Kaileena concealed herself from divination, and projected tendrils of telekinetic energy into the soil beneath her feet, seeking out trace particles of certain minerals. The Kamiyonanayo had no doubt harvested the valuable minerals from the deep places of their planet long ago, so instead she sought out near-microscopic particles and combined them into the ore she desired.

A wisp of golden dust burst from the ground, growing exponentially as it absorbed more and more from hundreds of square miles of soil. Manifesting a plume of heat a hundred times the intensity of a forge, she melted the sediment into a bar about twice the length and width of her index finger, forged of solid gold, pure at the molecular level, before hardening it with enchantment.

“Excellent...” Kaileena said, beyond weary, “That makes one...and only leaves twenty-two to go.”

Shirudo approached the castle of dark stone at the peak of the ice-covered mountains.

His first impression had been a great black splotch on a white peak, but having approached the sheer walls of Mount Renmei it had slowly gained definition over time.

The castle was a great pagoda, lined with menacing iron battlements. Soldiers had hailed him some time ago, then continued their patrol along its width. A chain gun; the most advanced of the land’s weaponry, rested atop the front gate, which was a structurally unusual form of portcullis that opened inward as his detachment approached.

Inside, the pagoda, at least the size of Minamoto’s private villa and the surrounding barracks, beckoned. A good four or five floors high, it was an imposing structure indeed, capable of withstanding a siege akin to the one that had plagued Shimobashira Inaka.

But Shirudo knew that its allusions as a defensible structure were deceptive; its true purpose was to keep its inhabitants in, not to keep others out...

He was greeted by a score of soldiers and less heavily armored Karyudo Kisai. Bowing as they did, Shirudo listened intently as their commander cleared his throat, “Your face is not known to me, outlander, and yet you bear the finery of a lord and the escort of one too. Who are you? Why are you here?”

“News does not travel quickly to these parts, it seems. I am Shirudo, leader of the Te Fukushu, Governor of Karyu, and newly appointed Lord of the North District.”

Incredulity and outrage warred for the dominant place in the Human’s expression.

“I am here under my authority as lord and the authority of the Hitorigami to observe the occupation here by both the soldiers of the North District and the Karyudo Kisai, as well as to personally pardon those here who are of a nonviolent disposition, as enchanters are no longer strictly outlawed in Teikoku. Those I find guiltless will be transferred into my custody and will accompany me back to Shimobashira to assist in the reconstruction there.”

“That is...impossible, Lord Shirudo.” the Human replied, pale, “The Hitorigami is here in Renmei Castle, and has forbidden all enchanters to leave their quarters on pain of death.”

“What?” Shirudo asked, “This is unacceptable. Take me to him at once.”

Bowing, the Human led him forward while the other guards accepted the Te Fukushu’s horses.

“Something is wrong.” he signaled to his subordinates, “Stay together, and be attentive to our surroundings.”

Tailing the Karyudo Kisai into the pagoda, Shirudo found an entry hall lined with soldiers. It was a grim, foreboding attendance, the faces coldly dispassionate. Shoulders squared, the Lord of the North District ascended to the second floor, finding a wide open audience chamber replete with furnishings.

Seated at the far end of the hall was a man in red and black armor, beside another he clearly recognized as Nobuyuki, Lord of the West District...

Hand discretely on the handle of one of his pistols, Shirudo cursed, “Damn it all...I should have brought Jhihro along. I could care less what manner of important experiment he is working on...“”

Everything was ready.

Jhihro smiled, rising from his bed and tossing aside his blankets. Numbed and yet vitalized, he scooped up some of the feathers from the mattress and tucked them into a pouch in his belt. Not quite “grave dust”, but it would do.

Looking down to his hands, he was at first unsettled by the dull red tone of his skin, the feeling of his elongated fangs puncturing his lower lip, but the sensation passed.

Rubbing the irritated skin on his chest, marked by a four-pronged puncture wound, he stretched his muscles. As a vampyre he would enjoy a host of new abilities, and with all the ingredients to create his own Blood-Forged weapon in his travel pack; darksteel, Vitrium, and ashes taken from Uejini’s corpse, he would be stronger still, with a unique enchantment that was his alone to use.

Likewise, he rubbed his wrist, from which a single puncture wound lingered, where he’d taken in the vampyric control substance. Commanding his new army to still, his laboratory suddenly went silent.

Cooped up as he was for the past months, the silence was such a complete contrast that he was momentarily disoriented. As the neurotoxin he’d set into the ventilation system slowly spread around the offices above and the corridors of the underground prison, he unlocked each cell in the lower section, then, supported by two dozen ferocious and mindlessly obedient half-breeds, he continued upward, into the larger section, which held hundreds of half-breeds in stasis.

At his silent command, previously still bodies began to stir in their cages.

As he set his servants to freeing them, Jhihro looked down at the immobilized Te Fukushu hunters at the next pair of doors. He felt an instinctual, unbearable thirst fill him, as if he had walked through a desert and an ewer of clearest water was before him. Their veins seemed so pronounced, so...tender.

“No.” he cursed, sublimating his urges with a draught of Vitrium, “There will be plenty of Humans to eat as I pillage the countryside, the better to deal with the last of the Skraul and no doubt a host of once-Human slaves.”

He’d also produced an airborne strain of neurotoxin, which could send non-Silkrit vampyres into a killing frenzy that would transcend self preservation, where the victims would recklessly feed before burning alive in the sun. He would set these weapons off somewhere far from Karyu; he didn’t want his species wiped out by the very weapons he intended to protect them with.

He would need subjects to rule in the new world he envisioned...

Canisters containing frozen and pressurized vapor were still down in his laboratory, and he set his servants to collecting them, all the while burning research notes not worth taking with him. As much as it wounded him to destroy his own work, he knew it to be necessary; he needed a new place of operation. One where he could practice the experiments he didn’t want his kin to know about...

General Nobuyuki stood beside his Hitorigami, the rightful Hitorigami, as the false Lord of the North District approached.

The lizard frowned, “General. Would you be so kind to introduce me?”

“With pleasure. You stand before Yamato Takeru, son of Mikoto and rightful Hitorigami of Teikoku.”

Shirudo did not bow, nor did any of his soldiers. He scowled, readied a vehement demand, but Yamato waved his hand in a dismissive pass, “It matters not. My cowardly brother’s dictates have no meaning here. I am the rightful ruler of this land, and as I have taken the Renmei Kisai compound so too does it fall under my jurisdiction. And in my ideal Teikoku, enchanters live as slaves to proper citizens. If this world must suffer magicka, it will rest solely in the hands of those who wish it extinguished. This place was constructed as a prison, and a prison it remains.”

Shirudo’s expression never changed, and the General knew the lizard to be up to something. That was why he’d set up the crossbowmen...

“Attack on three.” Shirudo signaled behind his back, his nimble fingers communicating where his lips could not, “Focus on the throne. Assume powerful enchantments.”

He heard a twang as his message concluded. Leaping forward at the sound of a hundred little thuds, the Silkrit fired his first round right into the General’s sneering face, and cursed as it rebounded off an enchantment.

His next bullet, fired from his other pistol, caught a mutinous human soldier through the chin, jerking his head up and back. A dozen soldiers, all armed, burst from hidden doors on either side of the throne, and shielded Yamato and Nobuyuki.

He heard the winding sound as the archers reloaded their crossbows behind the paper walls. Accessing his situation instantly, Shirudo took note of the sixteen hunters sprouting quarrels. Nine were down, and seven of them weren’t moving.

The un-wounded among his number responded quickly, drawing flintlock rifles and firing at either wall, the better to expunge the immediate threat. All without even needing an order to. They did him proud.

Aiming a pistol over his other elbow, he fired twice through the wall, a vent now visible along its breadth, no doubt where the archers were hiding. He was satisfied to hear a wet thud as one of the bullets struck flesh, right before his eardrums went out from the volume of the blast. Kneeling, he crossed his hand back over, and fired twice beyond his hunters, through a Human soldier, and into the rear sliding door.

“Retreat!” he screamed, scooping up a fallen comrade, “Regroup outside, and make for the-”

Gasping, the Lord of the North District looked down at the point of a katana piercing his breastplate. The second volley downed four more hunters, who’d struggled and failed to draw blades after firing their rifles. He couldn’t hear their screams.

The blade pulled out from his body, and the Silkrit dived into a roll, turning with a hand on his blunderbuss. He’d specially holstered it for a close encounter...

Yamato lunged again, sword descending. Shirudo turned the barrel up, over, and shot the bastard right in the face with a shell specifically created to pierce enchantments.

Recoiling, the right side of his face blistering from muzzle flare, Yamato gasped as his sword wavered, and sheared through the tip of the rifle’s barrel instead of his arm.

Dropping his hand back to his second pistol, the Silkrit was back on his feet, hobbling towards the rear door with seventeen of his thirty hunters, three of which had managed to carry an ally out.

Hand shaking with wound-shock, Shirudo fired off another round, which caught one among the line of advancing soldiers in the kneecap, collapsing him. The rest charged forward, and he allowed himself to be led to the stairwell with a hunter’s assistance, where another dozen soldiers waited.

Thankfully, they weren’t armed with crossbows, and he took one out with a shot to the gut, after hastily drawing his third pistol, the flintlock, each of his others out of ammunition.

The next moments became a tangle of bodies and steel. He instinctively parried a sword with the butt of his pistol, all the while coughing blood, straining for air he couldn’t seem to find. Punctured lung. No arteries, though. He could make it...

Dropping his flintlock, his hands clumsy, Shirudo began reloading a three-shot revolver, wheezing. As the third round slid in he twisted and locked the mechanism and shot another soldier in the head.

Or he thought he did; the bullet hole was in the wall two finger’s breadths to the left for some reason.

...He woke to cold wind, and found himself outside the castle and in a stable, being carried between two Te Fukushu hunters. Seven more were arranged around the stables in front, setting up a perimeter and collecting their horses. Two were unconscious on the ground, their breathing faint, including the female he’d spoken with outside Shimobashira Inaka. Nonetheless, he smiled as they led Yuki to him, the mare’s eyes bright but wide in fear.

“Hey there...” he whispered, shivering as he stroked her fur, before his subordinates hoisted him onto her back. He groaned as his wound began pulsing with pain, the numbness of adrenaline wearing off.

“Don’t black out again, my lord.” a hunter instructed him, “You might not come back. We’re almost ready to charge the gate. Are you?”

He stared dumbly for a moment, then breathed, “The chain gun. Mounted on the turret.”

The hunter nodded, “Two of us have one of your pistols each; with luck we can kill the operator before he gets more than a few rounds off. In these confined spaces we won’t have far to ride...you will be in the center of our push, but we will lead you to the front as we pass over. But the gate is shut and we will need to think of something.”

“My blunderbuss...” Shirudo ordered weakly, “Reload and use it on the support beams of the gate.”

That said, the rest of the hunters mounted, and charged out of the stables and into a large mass of soldiers.

He blacked out again...then found himself choking on blood, wheezing as his stomach turned.

He heard a cacophony of sound, including frantic shots from a pistol, and then opened his eyes to see the man atop the chain gun recoil from a bullet to the shoulder, then steady himself, the eight barrels of the dreadful weapon turning ever faster...

...Thunder pealed. Horses and Silkrit screamed. He was on the ground, his left arm numb.

Gasping, panting, Shirudo rose with black spots in his eyes, to find himself before the gate, just as one of the remaining six hunters fired his blunderbuss into its opening hatch. The gate creaked open, and a dozen Human soldiers approached from behind, crossing the field of death.

Yuki neighed beside him, and he gripped the horse’s flank, lifting himself up. He groaned as an arrow sank into his elbow, and a second one pierced his back, grinding itself against his shoulder blade.

The black spots swimming in his vision got thicker. He couldn’t reach the saddle, but he kept himself upright, drawing his final flintlock pistol. He’d forgotten all about it...

“Go!” he screamed as he saw his hunters foolishly coming back for him, “Get to Karyu! Warn the village and the Hitorigami!”

Slapping Yuki on the rump and sending her off, Shirudo kept himself up by willpower alone, aiming his final shot. He felt oddly detached, as if he were witnessing events occurring to someone else.

Yamato was upon him, his fiery armor glinting in the sun. Collapsing to a knee, his one good arm trembling, Shirudo pulled the hammer back on the pistol, and saw only a single narrow tunnel between the two of them. All else had gone black...

He fired...

Again the bullet pierced through Ame-no-Murakumo-no-Tsurugi’s enchantments. It sheared through his pauldron, penetrating halfway through his shoulder.

Yamato didn’t even flinch, though he sucked in air with the impact. Shirudo smiled dimly, then collapsed.

Approaching slowly, Yamato idly waved his soldiers in pursuit of the remaining Te Fukushu. As he looked down into the Silkrit’s blank expression, Yamato then looked up, to see a break in the clouds.

“Your final sight was the sun above an open sky...” he noted, thoughtful, sheathing his weapon, as General Nobuyuki sprinted beside him, short of breath. The coward hadn’t even whetted his blade.

“A fitting end for the fool...” Nobuyuki hissed, spitting at the ground beside Shirudo’s body, and Yamato was on him in an instant, lifting him off his feet with a single outstretched hand to his throat.

“A fitting end for a warrior.” Yamato corrected, “Sacrificing his life to save his comrades and offering a final act of defiance. I respect an enemy with such bravery, even if he is a foreigner; filth can sometimes resemble something greater...in a certain light.”

Gurgling a meek reply, General Nobuyuki didn’t struggle, though his face reddened and assumed a pained expression.

Releasing him, Yamato looked down at his reflection in a patch of melted snow. The entire right side of his face was a mass of wounds; a few of the pellets had punctured the muscle of his face and grated against his skull, but none penetrated it or he would likely have perished. Blisters dotted the reddened flesh where the muzzle flash had burned him, though he could still work his jaw without too much discomfort.

Likewise, his eyes still functioned; most of the pellets had only grazed him, leaving deep gouge marks. Such scars wouldn’t fade without powerful enchantments. Since magicka was itself an abomination, and because he wished to remember Shirudo’s act, Yamato decided he would keep the scars.

“Kill any survivors.” he ordered, “And repair the gate.”

“Yes, my Hitorigami.” General Nobuyuki replied, and Yamato stopped him from darting off, “Also, see to it that the Silkrit bodies are buried with honor, and that Shirudo’s haori is sent to my quarters. It will validate my status as the new Lord of the North District.”

Her gold samples readied, Kaileena searched for the final ingredient she would need for her dampener rods.

Looking up, she telepathically probed for an asteroid that would be the necessary size and contain the necessary concentration of iron. As they traveled through the emptiness of space, asteroids collected the heat of nearby stars; energy which would be toxic to living things were they not protected by their world’s atmosphere or a similar, synthetic effect.

This was called radiation, and it was precisely that energy she needed to harvest in order to dull and disperse the equally toxic energies of the Phoenix Stone.

Finding a suitable specimen, Kaileena again used telekinesis and reached out to seize it. When she had a firm “grip”, she increased the flow of outputting energy and dragged the asteroid into the planet’s orbit, tracking its progress.

A sudden surge of power disintegrated her arm, and hissing in pain, Kaileena nearly lost the asteroid when her concentration broke.

When her prize finally stuck the ground before her, Kaileena looked down with a grimace. Crackling motes of energy swirled around the stump of her left arm, spiraling down as the muscle and bone regenerated itself. As she watched, transfixed, her fingers soon extended from the half-developed wrist and sprouted nails.

“Ouch...” she mused, kneeling to pick up her star sapphire and then pressing it into the palm of that hand, reinserting it.

“Ouch...” the Kaileena-thing suddenly said, startling him.

“What was that, milady?” Kaimei asked, rising from his reverie in his new lord’s private villa.

“Nothing.” the clay-like construct, a rough approximation of Kaileena’s appearance, replied in a dull, flat voice, “Carry on.”

Sighing, the enchanter unfolded his reports and resumed his documentation of all of his brothers and sisters, now freed by her decree. The Renmei Kisai was to be reorganized as a school, a prison only for enchanters who abused their powers and harmed others. It would be a dungeon and workhouse no longer, and in addition all enchanters in the South District were now under his care.

He was currently busying himself in giving them something to do, someplace to stay. Protection, if they needed it. Reparations were to be postponed until the vampyre menace was answered for, and he understood that, but Kaimei, and Kaileena, certainly, were unwilling to have them out on the streets.

Yokai had agreed to comb the South District with Tengu, seeking out traces of the Skraul. Quite a few had been found and slain already, including a lesser Broodlord.

New enchantments devised by the Lord of the South District herself were augmenting the soldiers, and the enchanters that produced them were beginning to gain acceptance as honored citizens.

None, not even the Kagemusha, could have done that.

He was hardly pleased to be working beside the late Takauji’s lackeys, some of the court preserved through the change of leadership, but it was enough. He had so much work to do anyway, so he could hardly bother with such trivialities as his discomfort...

Kaileena waited until her arm fully regenerated before setting herself to work.

After extracting the radioactive iron from the asteroid and disposing of the remains through a complex teleportation spell, she melted down the ore, compacting and concentrating it into long, narrow slivers. Surrounding each one with superheated gold, she formed rudimentary lengths out of it, then shaped each one into a four-sided, diamond-shaped stake with pointed ends.

When they cooled, Kaileena steadied herself and muted her body’s ability to feel pain. The iron slivers, altered by enchantment and safely coated in an ore that didn’t cause underlying tissue to putrefy, would serve to absorb, filter, and disperse the chaotic energies of the Phoenix Stone.

But to do so...they would have to be very close to the currents of power emanating from the stone; they required a direct connection to her circulatory and nervous system as well as a clean path outside of her body. Hence, the length of each stake, ranging from half her finger-length and width to nearly six inches and much, much thicker.

She’d also crafted a necessary subcutaneous rig to enable her spine and limbs to bear the added weight and prevent the stakes from shifting inside her body; a length of hollow disks and delicately curved lengths which she would weld right onto her bones.

Mentally prepared, she bit her lip and began the fist incision...

Koukatsuna sat beside his lady in the carriage, opposite a silent and fuming Atsushi.

He didn’t make eye contact, though he would have liked to for the sake of gloating, abstaining mostly because it would make Rinshi even more uncomfortable.

Finally, the Human sat up, “These regular trips are draining. I will leave you for a short time to gather myself and enjoy a little air.”

With that he ducked out of the carriage, and Koukatsuna shrugged when he was out of earshot.

“You planned that all out.” Rinshi noted with awe, and he smiled, “Aye. People never give me enough credit...except you, maybe. You give me too much.”

“How so?” the girl asked, confused, and he snorted, “Nice? Nice? Never once have I been called that before.”

“Well...” Rinshi replied, “...Maybe you should be. What you did for me was very, very nice. In fact, I would call it the most selfless thing I have ever witnessed.”

“Huh?” he parried, “Maybe I did it to better my station. Never thought of that.”

Rinshi laughed, “You may be smarter than most think, but you aren’t a convincing liar.”

Shrugging, Koukatsuna endured the abuse, “Nice? Ugh. That will take getting used to.”

Rinshi relaxed, “Well, get used to it then. As your lady, I can always make that an order.”

“Yes, milady.” Koukatsuna said with mock drama and wounded submissiveness, and Rinshi laughed harder, “Since my marriage was announced, I feared being alone. I won’t have to worry now, with my best friend here.”

”Best friend?” Koukatsuna asked, continuing the banter, “Damn. Nobody must like you.”

“I was perhaps the least popular of Minamoto’s offspring.” she replied, killing his smile, before shrugging, “I found it odd that Atsushi chose me; my sister would have been much better from a political standpoint...and she’s prettier than me.”

Sighing, she lay back in her cushioned seat, before adding, “You don’t know how much what you did means to me. I won’t forget it.”

“Relax, then.” Koukatsuna asked, “And smile a little more. Consider that my request to you as your champion.”

“I will...consider it...”

Arteth waited outside with Shinabi, his exacting preparations for the ritual nearly completed. The wind was mild but constant, carrying the scent of loam and fresh water. The grass rustled, creating endless amusement for the puppy, who attacked it like wounded prey or fled from it like an unbeatable foe as the mood struck him.

His tower cast a narrow shadow to the east, like the dial of a massive clock. Late evening, four days after Kaileena had set out to find her family. He’d left a telepathic link between them for her to access should the need arise.

Her presence was constant, but her thoughts and emotions were not, for she’d kept them closed from him, and the days had been lonely even with his furry companion. He was eager in several ways to get this started.

A child...his child. He’d sired many in his uncounted millennia-long life as Firstborn, but never had he felt such exhilaration, such trepidation. Kaileena’s child; their shared legacy. He couldn’t wait. To make it, to see it, hold it in his arms, and hear its first sounds.

A ripple of distorted space opened before him, startling him. There was a whoosh of displaced air as the teleportation concluded, revealing...

“Gods.” Arteth gasped, in disbelief. It was Kaileena...but not the Kaileena that set out to find her family, not the Kaileena he knew. She was clothed differently; the style was similar, but in the fine details it was a polar opposite.

Her high boots were the same, but the gown was jet black. Over it was a black, hooded haori with violet trim and embroidered splashes of lotus petals. Around her neck was a necklace of golden links and rosy quartz charms carved in the shape of jagged teeth.

Two rings, one of them her wedding band, were on her left hand, but otherwise, all her other jewelry was gone.

More horrifyingly, it seemed she had conceived a gruesome means to safely control her power. Embedded all throughout her flesh were golden stakes, tapered near the ends. He could detect all of them by their faint, peculiar emanations.

Those near her face were smaller than those in her limbs and tail, which were in turn smaller than the ones lining her spine which he couldn’t directly see. The red, puffy, irritated flesh ringing the incisions was hard, artificially calcified into cartilage.

There were three pairs in each forearm at differing angles, from below and under the bicep to the tip of the wrist, all pointing out towards her hands, as well as one facing upward, inward, and diagonally from each clavicle. There were five thicker, heavier pairs of stakes lining her spine. There were three along her tail, each one emerging from a different angle and region of the flesh. These were accompanied by a pair in each leg and a pair along the back of her neck, both facing outward and downward, and one on each side of her chin, facing down, to the side, and out. They glinted with potent enchantments, though he knew not what they were.

But it was the eyes...the eyes were what’d changed so much. Gone was her uncertainly, her gentle timidity. Nothing remotely Human or even mortal resonated; they were like pits. Holes in reality.

“My love.” she said flatly, as if she were issuing a greeting to a stranger on the side of the road, and Arteth cringed.

“Kaileena.” he replied, “Was your sojourn...successful?”

“In a sense.” she said simply, never once ceasing eye contact.

“Very well.” Arteth replied uneasily, “The ritual is prepared, if you are ready to join with me.”

“That is no longer my most immediate need.” Kaileena stated in that empty, dead tone.

“Then what is?” Arteth asked, his heart aching. What had happened? What had gone wrong?

“I have discovered something...” Kaileena noted, her eyes becoming distant, “In my youth, I’d always believed that things occurred for a purpose. That all actions, even those that...ended poorly, benefited some hidden cause. Anima’s doctrines reinforced this belief; that all evil was a prelude to greater good. That all things could mend and be anew.”

She looked away, “I didn’t despair for my fathers or my mother...for I knew, knew, in my heart, that life continued in spite of death. That they returned to the land that birthed them, or had adopted them in my mother’s case. That they were at peace, and needed no grief beyond that of the purely physical variety; that of loss.”

“I believe I was mistaken.” Kaileena continued, her voice hardening, “The Phoenix Stone has shown me that life alone is not proof of life’s sanctity. I have come to see the ineptness of the gods that rule over us, that we desire to rule over us...”

“...But I see now that very sanctity as only an illusion; an artificial construct brandished as absolute by short-lived beings that cannot possibly comprehend the subtleties of the absolute. But I have become absolute. So I will create purpose, which will become the purpose of all things that are and shall ever be.”

“And what purpose is that?” Arteth asked again, a hole opening in his stomach.

“Peace.” Kaileena said bluntly, holding out her hand for him to see. As he watched, horrified, the veins lining it burned a searing white, and her nails lengthened, thickened, and sharpened, “This power; this burning hatred...cries out for release. I feel the urge to seek vengeance, or justice, upon all those who have allowed me to be. First upon the Dread Hammer, then upon his allies, and then upon Surthath. But this serves no purpose. I don’t want to make relieving my pain my purpose, so I will do something entirely unexpected. I won’t kill them. I will save them instead. I will demand lasting peace, and all that is will bend to me to make it so.”

“Will you assist me?” she asked plainly, and he was beside himself. Surthath? Of course...

“I have suffered the indignity of fate for far too long.” Kaileena explained, “We both have. As has the rest of the Veil. The gods have proven themselves inadequate, as have the thousands of petty rulers of petty kingdoms. The time of gods and mortals is ending. I will see to it. Unable to ensure peace, I have gained the power to force peace, from the gods and from all living things. Will you assist me?”

“Kaileena...” he breathed, taking her into his arms, looking down into those terrible eyes, “I don’t know what has happened, but I can help you. Let me help you, please...”

She frowned, “I love you still. But it is my love; for you, for my family, for my home, that Surthath has used against me time and time again. For my love for Teikoku and for my ideals I subjected myself to self-destruction, and for the love we share and the promise of a new family together I faced recreation; being torn apart and reformed at the molecular level a thousand times.”

She scowled, “But I discovered the true price of the Phoenix Stone; to live eternally. To become a walking monstrosity who cannot die, cannot feel for risk of destroying all around them. So be it. I will endure until time’s end, connected only to my power and my rage. I will save the Veil, on my terms. You will assist me.”

Now it was no request.

The last dregs of his eagerness and joy washed away, replaced by a silent grief. Not this...not this... What had his father wrought?

“Very well.” he replied, beyond hope, “Where do we begin?”