Pilgrim 2, p.28
Pilgrim 2, page 28
The sound of Kudzu’s slap echoed across the basement, Jelmay nearly tossed out of his chair.
The bakeneko shook his head quickly; rather than launch into action, he slowly began to reach for the stacks upon stacks of kip on the table which he swept into a burlap sack next to his chair.
“You’re going to want to use your Demon Speak,” Jelmay said carefully, not making eye contact with the former assassin. Danzen glanced over his shoulder to see that people were starting to crowd around him.
“Everyone sit,” Danzen said, taking control of the room. It wasn’t long before the patrons in the illegal gambling establishment did exactly as he instructed, all of them obediently turning to him as he spoke again. “Who here can arrange a carriage?”
“I can, my lord,” said the dark-robed man who had greeted them just moments ago.
“Arrange a carriage to the Third District of Suja Village. I want you to go with the driver as well, so he doesn’t stop along the way. Hurry.”
Danzen grabbed some of the kip on the table and handed it to the man.
“Hey, I earned that—”
“Quiet,” Kudzu hissed to Jelmay. “Or I’ll slap you again.”
“You guys are no fun. At least tell me where you’re going; you seriously didn’t come all the way here for me, did you?” he asked, a hint of hope in his bloodshot eyes. “And that slap hurt! You’re stronger than you look.”
“Quiet, Jelmay!” Kudzu said, clearly feeling the tension in the room.
Once the man left to arrange a carriage ride, Danzen returned his focus to the bakeneko.
“We have to deal with Soko. We will come back to the Valley within a week or so.”
“You will?” Jelmay asked, whiskers starting to appear on his face. He realized he was morphing back to a cat and quickly took hold of his power, maintaining his human form. “I… I could go with you.”
“No,” said Kudzu. “You need to go home, Jelmay.”
“Home, right…” he mumbled to himself. His eyes lit up as they fell upon the kip still on the table. “In that case, take some of the money.”
When Danzen didn’t do as Jelmay had instructed, the bakeneko began counting out bills. He reached about twenty-five thousand kip and handed the fat stack of cash to Danzen. While this was a lot of money, it didn’t seem like very much to Jelmay, who had several times that already stuffed away in his bag. “I can give you more.”
“This is plenty,” Danzen told him.
A look of remorse came across Jelmay’s face. “Sorry for the trouble.”
“Just hurry,” Kudzu told him.
The bakeneko finished gathering his things and hopped down from his chair. After shaking his arms out, Jelmay threw the bag of money over his shoulder and motioned for Danzen and Kudzu to lead him out.
“I’m ready when you are, friends.”
Once they reached the entrance of the gambler’s den, Danzen turned to the room again.
“You will forget who we are and that we ever came here tonight. You will also forget you ever had dealings with this man.”
“You should make him give the money back,” Kudzu said under her breath.
“Bah, they would have lost it to someone else,” Jelmay told her. “I didn’t cheat my way for all of it. Just most of it. Pilgrim, don’t listen to her, I earned this money fair and square.”
“You are a lucky bakeneko,” Kudzu told him once they were outside the abandoned home. They found the man that Danzen had sent after a carriage catching his breath, a single hand on his abdomen.
“My friend should be here any moment, my lord,” the man told Danzen. “I rushed, as you instructed.”
“Good, you will forget about me after you leave here. Your only goal will be getting this man to Suja Village, where you will forget you’ve ever met him.”
“Don’t patronize the kid, Pilgrim; you pretty much already told him that,” Jelmay said, a smirk taking shape on his face. “And after all the trouble it took for you to get me, I’m not going to do something like tell the driver to come back here so I can show these suckers how to really play cards. Besides, I need to get to the Valley anyway. Things are set to happen soon.”
Rather than question what he meant by the statement, Danzen looked up the street to see a carriage heading in their direction. The driver stopped in front of them; Danzen once again summoned his power to give the man instructions. After Jelmay was inside, and the other man was seated next to the driver, they departed.
As the carriage moved away from them, Jelmay stuck his hand out the window to wave it at Danzen and Kudzu, his fingers morphing into a paw.
“That stupid cat,” Kudzu said.
“Let’s get to the harbor.”
****
They made it just in time to secure a ride, Danzen able to grab one of the nicer rooms on the ship. It wasn’t quite as large as the one that they had stayed in on their previous trip to the west, but it would do, and the space was certainly big enough to serve as a place for them to bend their echoes.
At least for Danzen, anyway. By the time the ship set off, Kudzu was already waiting for the herbalist to come by so she could sleep through the trip.
The herbalist eventually came, and after taking her medicine, Kudzu relaxed on one of the beds, still in her human form.
“I can’t believe what Jelmay did,” she said, looking over to Danzen, who was seated on his bed, his Blade of Darkness on the table along with Nomin’s weapon, Astra always by his side.
“I figured we had to do something like that. We’re just lucky they didn’t attack us.”
“The stupid cat.” She tried to frown, but her grimace didn’t hold, Kudzu eventually laughing. “Did you see how much money he had?”
Danzen nodded, their room dark now, the only light coming from the moon. The space trembled some as the ship cut through a wave.
“Did you see how hard I hit him? By Sunyata’s grace, that felt good.” The ship lurched forward, Kudzu tensing up. “I hope the water doesn’t get too choppy,” she said, her eyes still fixed on Danzen, a bit reflective, glowing.
“You should be asleep soon.”
“And you?”
“Eventually.”
“Were you always like this?” she asked after thirty minutes or so of silence on Danzen’s part.
“Like what?”
“The silent type, not quite brooding or moody, but always keeping to yourself. I know I’ve asked similar questions before…”
“Maybe I was different when I was a child; you would have to ask someone else.”
“Like Soko.”
“She would know.”
“Do you want to kill her?”
Danzen knew the answer to this question before it left his lips. “Want has no role here. She will either back down, or I will be forced to kill her. And she’s not the type to back down, none of them are.”
“Would you back down?” Kudzu asked.
“What do you mean?”
“If it were, say, ten years ago, and an assassin like you did what you did. Would you go after them? If your teacher put out the hit, the contract, would you take it?”
“I suppose I would,” Danzen said after a long pause in which Kudzu got even more comfortable, her green robes parting just a bit as she settled onto the bed.
“So you wouldn’t back down. Would it be for the money or for the challenge?”
“Neither,” said Danzen. “It would be for my teacher.”
“So for the honor?”
“Something like that.”
“Have you ever thought about how you would go after yourself if you had been presented a contract? Does that make sense?”
“Yes, it does. And no, I haven’t,” he told her. “There was no one like me, but there are others who are powerful enough to kill me, of this I am certain.”
“So, Soko is in the last one?”
“I don’t know.”
“You humans are so ridiculously vengeful,” Kudzu said. “You would never see something like this happen between yokai. Sure, there would be rivalries, but this tainted honor, contract killing, all of it…”
Kudzu yawned, and was soon asleep, Danzen left sitting by himself on the bed across from her. He too eventually rested for the night, the ship rocking him to sleep.
The morning sun woke him several hours later.
Once he was ready, Danzen quietly got out of bed and stood in the center of the room. He withdrew Astra from its scabbard and held it with both hands, his eyes closed.
Everything had an outline, Nomin’s teachings coming to him.
Danzen slowly lifted his blade and noticed that energy trailed from its tip.
His legs locked into the stance that Abbot Monpo taught him, the former assassin pressed his weapon forward as if he were a statue slowly coming to life. He felt something but he tried not to observe it with his eyes closed, simply feeling it instead.
Danzen didn’t want to muddy the sensation.
As he bent his echo over the next forty minutes, Danzen tried to keep his focus on the subtle movement he was making, noticing occasionally that Astra trembled in his hands, even though he wasn’t gripping the sword as tightly as he could have been. He was interrupted when Kudzu came awake, the woman immediately trying to deal with her hair.
“I hate human hair,” she said with a bit of disdain. “Good morning, by the way. I suppose I should have said that first.”
“You could always take your more comfortable form,” Danzen told her as he returned Astra to its scabbard. He felt the tenseness leave him as he did so, a strain roll down his shoulders.
“You’re right, but I figured we would have breakfast first. Then we can bend our echoes together,” she said. “How’s that?”
“That would be nice.”
Danzen stepped over to the door and pulled the string that eventually brought one of the crewmembers to him, the man delivering breakfast just a few minutes later. Danzen and Kudzu enjoyed cups of hot water and boiled meats, as well as poached eggs and grilled carrots.
“I will say something about being human,” Kudzu said as she cut into a carrot with her fork. “Eating is much more eloquent.”
“It’s just fuel,” Danzen said.
Kudzu laughed. “Is that how you think of it? Don’t you enjoy food? Don’t you enjoy the flavor and the utensils necessary for you to show the world just how human you are?”
“I never thought of it that way,” Danzen admitted to her.
“Maybe I am being too poetic about it. Ha! I’m practically sounding like Jelmay over here…” Kudzu snorted. “That stupid cat. It felt so good slapping him.”
“I’m sure it did.”
“Did you see his eyes in the gambler’s den? Have you ever seen anything more terrifying?”
“I have.”
“That’s right, your power. You know, for as much talk as you have had around the subject, I’ve actually never seen you unleash these demons of yours.”
“No, you haven’t, and hopefully you never will.”
“Jelmay has,” she said as she went for a sliver of meat. “And it seemed to have an impression on him.”
“I pray that you never have to see that side of me,” he told her with finality, his voice indicating that he didn’t want to discuss the subject anymore.
They finished their meal, and after resting for a spell, Kudzu suggested that they go above deck and enjoy the views for a little while before returning to their cabin to bend their echoes.
“I would like that,” Danzen told her.
“And then it’s back to sleep for me,” she informed him with a shake of the pouch of medicine the herbalist had given her. “We will be in Arsi in no time, and I will be off this boat.”
.Chapter Three.
Over the course of the day, Danzen alternated between resting and bending his echo, getting lost in thought as he went through the movements. Sometimes, he recalled the faces of the people he had killed; other times finding himself in a peaceful bliss, thoughts and past grievances blemishes on an already-stained periphery.
Night came, and as it did Kudzu awoke, the sleeve of her robe slipping off her shoulder as she sat up.
“Sorry,” she told Danzen, who looked away.
“Perhaps it’s best if I stay as a fox until the morning.”
“Do whatever makes you comfortable. I can order food.”
“And ale. Let’s have a drink,” she said as she once again went about trying to fix her hair.
Danzen pulled the string near the door which signaled to the ship staff that they were ready for their dinner.
Their food came twenty minutes later accompanied by a small keg of ale and two flagons which Danzen readily filled. They were in luck. Their dinner consisted of freshly caught fish and prawns stuffed with goat cheese, grilled to perfection, each topped with a small slab of fatty bacon. Everything looked wonderful.
The two feasted, once again enjoying each other’s company as they drank their ales.
Kudzu did most of the talking, the fox woman alternating between her thoughts on Jelmay to things that had happened in the valley over the years and how she was surprised she had never encountered Usagi, considering he had such a powerful influence over the yokai village of Osul.
“Who would have known?” she asked as she nearly finished her flagon. “And speaking of things that come as a surprise, the ale is decent. Am I right? I don’t normally drink, so I may be wrong here.”
“It is.”
“You aren’t going to abandon me in Arsi, are you?” she asked, Kudzu raising an eyebrow at Danzen. He didn’t know how she had sensed his plan, but he knew better than to lie to her now.
“I was hoping you would stay in the hotel room while I handled things. Abandoned? No, but I would suggest you stay back.”
“I didn’t come all this way to stay in a hotel room,” she said with a smile. “Of course, if it has a nice bathtub, I could be tempted to relax a bit in that way. But seriously, don’t expect to leave me in the hotel.”
“You can’t come with me.”
“I am coming with you. I am already with you.”
“It will only make things worse. Soko is a jealous type; she will misinterpret what we are.”
“What are we anyway?” Kudzu asked, tilting her ale toward him.
“Good friends.”
“I agree, we are good friends,” she said after a long pause. “You have opened my eyes to much about the human world that I did not know of previously.”
“You have done the same to me with yokai. You and Jelmay.”
“We learn from each other. I don’t want to talk about the bakeneko.”
“Neither do I,” Danzen told her, a strand of his hair falling into his face. He swept it back and finished his ale.
“Should we order more?” Kudzu asked as she tilted her empty flagon toward him.
“I’ve had enough.”
She slowly started to nod. “I believe you’re right. I might have had more than I am accustomed to having…” She started to stand but fell; Danzen quickly came to her side and helped her onto her bed.
“You should morph into your fox form; it may be easier. I will look away.”
“I don’t care how you see me,” she said.
Still, Danzen stood with his back to her, giving her plenty of time to transform.
When he finally turned around, he found her asleep, her face covered in white hair, her robes parted, Kudzu still in her human form. Danzen tucked her in, and just as he was stepping away her gray eyes came alive.
“You aren’t as bad as you think you are,” she said, a softness to her tone now.
Danzen nodded and finished tucking her in.
He returned to the table and cleaned up, leaving the empty plates, leftovers, and flagons in the hallway for the ship staff to retrieve later.
He turned back to his bed and removed his weapons, keeping Astra in its scabbard so he could sleep next to it. Danzen opened a window and got under the covers. It was then that he looked over at Kudzu to see that she was staring at him, her white hair slightly in her eyes.
“I meant what I said,” she told him.
“You are drunk.”
She tilted her head just a little, her eyes still locked on. “That’s true.”
“Good night, Kudzu.”
“Good night, Pilgrim.”
Danzen waited for her to say something else, but she never did, Kudzu turning away from him.
The former assassin relaxed onto his back and stared up at the ceiling of the ship, watching the moon reflect off the water and cast dancing light waves across the wooden planks above.
The boat creaked. Soon, he was asleep.
****
Predictably, Kudzu was a bit hungover the next morning when they arrived in Arsi. Because of this, Danzen decided it would be best to take Jelmay’s advice from their previous trip and stay on the ship so they could eat a meal before they departed.
They did just that, Kudzu eventually apologizing for her drunken behavior the previous night.
“I don’t know what came over me,” she said, shame in her eyes.
“It’s fine,” he assured her. “You didn’t do anything out of character.”
“Maybe not, but I still feel like it’s something I should apologize for.”
She glanced out the porthole, which revealed the southern banks of the city where the Floating Lantern Festival would take place. Arsi was crowded with people; it was clear that tonight would be a kickoff event, the sky clear, no moisture in the air.
Because they held the Floating Lantern Festival during monsoon season, the organizers usually chose several starting days just in case it rained. The festivities would go until the next rain came. Sometimes it only lasted a single night; other times it could span a week, which could grow taxing on a city or a larger village, most of the residents drunk, the air, trees, and nearby bodies of water littered with paper lanterns.
There were also superstitions tied to the Floating Lantern Festival regarding how long it lasted. If it stayed dry for three days, there would be a good harvest; if it went long, the harvest would come late; if there was only a night or two without rain, the farmers should expect a flood that year.
