Pilgrim 6, p.31
Pilgrim 6, page 31
“What about Pilgrim?” asked Sansar, who was now perched on Yato’s shoulder.
“He can bunk with me,” said Yato. “There were two beds in there.”
“Absolutely not. That would be improper! Besides, my dear, he has a room as well, over here.” Jelmay opened another door across from the bedroom he would be staying in. Danzen was surprised to see a relatively large empty space beyond, with just a futon in one of the corners beneath the porthole. “I had them cleared out aside from the bed, so you could bend your echo. Or we could. Or anyone who wants to. I don’t know what this room is normally used for. Wait, yes I
do, I saw it. It was used as a dining area. Speaking of dining, I believe I’ll order some food.”
“We just ate,” Kudzu reminded him.
“And we shall surely eat again considering that I’ve already purchased the meal, Fox.”
“Are you going to be disguised as an old woman much longer?”
Jelmay’s brow furrowed. “I sort of made an error in paying for the room here as this cranky old fishwife. But maybe you could help me with that, Pilgrim. I think there may be a few people that need to have their minds cleared so I can morph into something more comfortable. Doing this voice hurts my throat, and to think I’d have to do it for a day and a half—”
Danzen nodded.
“Good, that’s my favorite response of yours, you know? I wish I was more like you, Pilgrim, able to let everyone know what I’m thinking with a simple gesture. And no, not being facetious. I mean it.
With that nod of yours, you can move planets. And I’m stuck over here having to say too much just to get my point across.”
“Have you already ordered the food?” Kudzu asked Jelmay as she sat down on one of the couches.
“No, I’ve been talking to you. Why? Are you hungry again?”
Kudzu shook her head. “Not exactly, I just know that you’ll talk less if you’re eating.”
“You’re not the first person to tell me that,” Jelmay told her after a sudden fit of laughter. “Imagine that.”
****
Danzen met with Nomin well into the night, pushing toward the morning. Sansar joined them on the private deck, the boat moving at quite the clip as the silky water lapped against its sides. They would reach Arsi by the afternoon, and Danzen assumed that whatever they planned for the Butterflies of Arsi would take place the following night. This was what he discussed with Nomin, the conversation naturally coming to what was becoming one of the more trying topics of his life.
“What do we do about Soko?” Danzen asked, without prefacing his question with any of the solutions he had already come up with.
He wanted to hear Nomin’s first take.
“You mean after?”
Danzen nodded.
“She would be foolish to attempt something now. You were stronger than her before, and by this point…” She shook her head.
“There’s not even a question.”
“That won’t stop her.”
“I know that.” Nomin tilted her gaze to the water. The cool breeze rolling across the tops of the waves carried with it a sweet smell, something not far from a floral scent. It was quite pleasant.
After another deep inhale, Nomin spoke again: “Do you want me to be the one that does it?”
Danzen knew exactly what she was referring to, and in response, he pursed his lip for a moment, deciding on an answer that could very well come back to haunt him. “After we deal with the Evils?”
“Yes, after. She won’t expect it from me, but she would expect it from you and perhaps from Yato. I do not know much about their
relationship.”
Danzen didn’t elaborate. Yato and Soko had worked together before, but they certainly weren’t cordial, Yato not trusting Soko, and Soko generally dismissive of the younger assassin. “After,” was all Danzen finally said.
“I don’t like it, but it seems necessary.”
Sansar, who was perched on the railing next to Danzen, spoke up: “If I may, sending Soko gift-wrapped to Diyu will only create an opportunity for your father or your brother to use her in whatever way they see fit. Is there truly no reasoning with this woman?”
“That’s the thing, we don’t know,” Nomin told the raven. “There hasn’t been in the past. She does what she wants when she wants, and has always acted this way. The only person she has ever listened to isn’t even a person, it is an organization.”
“The Diyu Brotherhood,” Danzen said.
“So her loyalty lies with the Brotherhood. Both of you were members of the Brotherhood, and she has formed a bond with our group, even if it is something that she may not admit.”
“You don’t know her as well as we do,” Nomin told Sansar.
“True, but bigger enemies are out there, and this may interest her. I’m aware that it would be best to keep her from learning about the Fatebricks, but there has to be another way that she can be of use to us, and we can be of use to her.”
Danzen shook his head.
He knew that Sansar was being too optimistic about Soko. As soon as the challenge was over, she would act accordingly. It may not be right there at the battle, but it would be sooner rather than later. It was hard to admit this to himself. Danzen didn’t want this to be true, yet he was well aware of how competitive Soko could be, and the fact was that Danzen had always presented a challenge to her that she couldn’t beat. He was stronger because of his blood, yet Soko was more cunning, and much more willing to take things to an extreme that was otherwise unnecessary. Torture, mutilation, unequivocal violence—these were all tools that Soko was accustomed to using.
Nomin turned to him. “It’s up to you, Danzen. If you want me to act, I will, and I will do so swiftly when the timing is right. If not, we can see just how much of a thorn in our side Soko will inevitably
become once we defeat the Evils. For now, get some rest. Think on it.”
.Chapter Three.
Danzen still hadn’t made a decision regarding Soko upon their arrival in Arsi, not with the history that the two shared and his feelings for her clouding his judgment. Danzen was well aware by this point that he could make it someone else’s problem by giving Nomin the signal when the time came. Not only that, with his newfound power, he could simply stop Soko midair, which would give Danzen, Nomin, or even Yato easy access to their target. There was certainly an aspect about this that was cowardly, Danzen not a fan of stabbing someone in the back. But it was an option worth pursuing if it was his intention to kill her.
As far as Danzen could tell, there really weren't any other avenues available in dealing with the female assassin. And as much as he wished it wasn’t the case, Soko would yet again be relentless in her pursuit to kill him if given the chance. Even if this wasn’t what she would do upon the completion of her self-imposed mission to help him destroy the Seven Evils, learning of the Fatebricks, an
inevitability if there ever was one, would certainly tilt Soko toward becoming a thorn in Danzen’s side yet again. Soko would understand the sheer potential of the Fatebricks immediately, and the effect they would have on her power.
A decision had to be made, and the longer he waited, the more likely it was that his brother or his father would pick up on the conflict to be, using Soko to their advantage. If the deed was done now, even if Soko had helped against the Evils in the past, she might pass into Diyu unnoticed. At least Danzen hoped this was the case.
As they left Arsi’s port that morning, Sansar leading them toward Soko’s flat, Danzen realized that he had spent most of the entire trip through the Asura Forest thinking about Soko rather than the Butterflies of Arsi, or Nyamdor, for that matter. Dealing with what was left of the Seven Evils would be equally challenging, and it required his focus, Danzen keenly aware of this as his group came to the new flats along the Sakai River. As he had during his last visit, the former assassin used his Demon Speak power on the two guards out front, who readily let them in. Danzen ushered his companions inside, not wanting to draw attention to their group. Hood over his head, same with Nomin and Yato, Danzen knew that they would catch someone’s eye if they moved about the city of Arsi too freely.
They reached Soko’s door, the female assassin opening it before Danzen could knock.
“I was wondering when you’d arrive.” Soko was in a black cloak, her face covered by the white mask that she often wore. Even if her features were obscured, Danzen could sense the suspicion on her face as she asked her next question: “Were you followed?”
Jelmay scoffed at this question. “Does it look like we were followed? We have a bird keeping track above, plus three assassins
—I’m guessing it would be hard to follow us properly.”
“Perhaps.” Soko looked Yato up and down. “I see you have returned from the wilds.”
Yato huffed a response.
“Still ornery as ever. Well, good news for all of you—my apartment is full.”
“I find that hard to believe,” Kudzu said.
“Let me rephrase—full of me. You aren’t staying here. But I have asked the neighbors to leave, and you’ll use their home for now. I hope you enjoy it.”
Jelmay raised a skeptical eyebrow at the assassin. “Asked or forced?”
“Does it matter if the results are the same? With the Butterflies in town it will be dangerous to stay at one of the nicer hotels, the kind of places that they frequent. They are an interesting group, the five of them. But I’ll explain more once we’re inside.” Soko floated past Danzen and his companions, the female assassin producing a bronze key from a pocket of her cloak. She opened the door next to hers to reveal a rather large flat with plenty of seating. “There are two bedrooms. You can fight over who stays where, I really don’t care.”
“You would say that,” Kudzu told Soko as they entered the new space.
After removing some of his gear, Jelmay dropped down onto a plush chair. He morphed back into his bakeneko form, his paws drumming on his belly as he yawned. “It’s going to be hard here without room service.”
“What about White and Nyamdor?” Sansar asked Soko from the top back of Jelmay’s chair.
“They are not in the city just yet, but they will be soon with what I have planned. I figured I would show you rather than tell you though.
You’re going to like this, Danzen. But we won’t be able to go there until night.”
“Go there?” asked Danzen. “What do you mean?”
“In due time, in due time. For now, relax. I will have food delivered soon,” Soko said, her comment directed at Jelmay. “I figured someone with your girth would need to maintain his eating patterns lest he get grumpy. While we eat, I will tell you everything I know. It’s not a lot; the Butterflies have only been rehearsing a few days now. Later, I will reveal to you the best part of what I have devised here regarding Nyamdor. I hope you are looking forward to it.”
****
As Danzen had suspected it would be, the day that followed, and Soko’s questionable way of delivering information, had been a lot to take in.
The two departed later that night, Soko using a flight of stairs outside her flat to transition to the rooftop. Danzen hadn’t noticed the stairs before, yet in doing so he now recognized another reason she had chosen the place—it provided easy access to the roofs of Arsi, where someone like Soko thrived.
Earlier, she had been insistent that Danzen and her go alone, which had brought the usual protest from Kudzu. Soko had been firm in her request, but she had eventually acquiesced and allowed Sansar to join them along the way. The three-legged raven was now circling overhead. Danzen didn’t suspect a trap, but he remained on guard, all of his weapons with him aside from his Blade of Darkness, the glaive on the ground somewhere behind him.
It was best to be ready.
Soko had already told him what she had learned in stalking the Butterflies and watching them rehearse their performance. They truly were planning to put on a show, and this was one aspect of their operation that Soko didn’t quite understand. It made perfect sense to Jelmay, who explained that the Butterflies had always had a flair for the dramatic. “Especially the one with red hair, their leader,” he had said as he gnawed on a chicken leg. “I don’t recall her name. But
she’s something else. You’ll see. If I were an assassin, I would kill her first. But what do I know? Expect the unexpected with them.
They’re back, they want their glory, but they also want to make sure Pilgrim here is delivered to Diyu in an orderly fashion.”
As the bakeneko had told them previously, Soko confirmed that the Butterflies indeed had bladed hand fan weapons. They were incredibly fast, and from what Soko had seen, the Butterflies were able to utilize the wind and what looked like portals to their advantage. At one point, she had called them wind wielders, a term Danzen was familiar with. He hadn’t met one before, but in his studies at the Brotherhood, they had discussed this technique, which usually came from remnant abusers.
Another topic as they waited until night was how they would pull the assault off in the first place. How would they trick White and Nyamdor into coming to the fairgrounds? Soko remained steadfast in withholding a key detail until Danzen could see it for himself, which was why they were headed there now.
“Here,” Soko said as they reached a tiled roof of a two-story building with walls covered in thorny vines, the place not far from the hotels of the famed riverside city. “The anticipation is killing me,”
Soko said before dropping to the ground in a flash, Danzen following after. Rather than enter the building, she approached a cellar. “Open it.”
Yet again, Danzen felt a hint of apprehension. He was certain it wasn’t a trap, yet the way she stood back and how she had been firm in her requirement that he come alone had him on edge.
“Is there a problem?”
“No,” Danzen told Soko once Sansar landed on the roof above.
Soko showed him her hands, as if to indicate she wasn’t going to draw her blade. “You’re going to like this, I assure you.”
Danzen opened the cellar, expecting everything from an explosion to an onslaught of assassins. He was greeted instead with an eerie silence and a stench he was intimately familiar with. Things happened to bodies after someone’s life was extinguished. There was a smell to it, one Danzen recognized.
“What have you done?”
“Go, see for yourself.”
Danzen took a step back.
“I’ll show you.” Soko floated ahead. “I know you can see in the dark, but I don’t know how well you can see. This should help.” She lit a torch, the light rising up the walls of cellar. “Well? Are you coming or what?”
Sansar flew in and Danzen followed. At first, he didn’t recognize the man lying on his side, his back facing the cellar entrance. The man was certainly older, with white hair, his robes saturated with blood. There was also blood around the man’s body, and it had congealed to some degree. He’d been in the cellar for at least two days by Danzen’s estimate.
“What have you done?” Danzen asked again, almost as an afterthought this time.
“Aren’t you going to ask me who he is first?”
Danzen didn’t say anything as he approached the body.
He crouched, and slowly as ever, Danzen turned the body toward him.
Even with the bruises and scabbed-over lacerations, he recognized the face immediately, yet it took him a moment to remember the man’s name. “Dojan,” he whispered, recalling the
former Halcyon assassin who had retired in the village of Cadoh.
Danzen took another look at the man. It had to be him. Dojan had been the man who had helped Lazenthro dispose of his wife’s dead body, which had resulted in a pretty intense altercation with a demonic onryo.
“I don’t understand,” said Sansar after he too confirmed it was Dojan. “Why would you kill this man?”
“You two actually know him?”
“We’ve met him before, not too long ago actually.” Danzen looked up at the ghoul of an assassin. “His name was Dojan.”
“Dojan is it? I never got his name. Do you know who his brother is?” Even though Soko now floated in front of the torch, her face obscured, Danzen could tell that she was grinning.
“No. I know little of the man.”
“Want to take a guess?”
“I have no idea,” Danzen told her, still not certain why she had killed the man.
“White. He is White’s brother. That’s how we’re going to lure White out, with his brother’s dead body. Smart, right? And it will
work. Look at the surprise on your face. That’s what I was waiting to see. That’s what I’ve been holding from you all day.”
“How did you find this man?” asked Sansar.
“He met with White a few days ago. They had a meal and some tea, a family reunion of sorts. I waited until White had returned to the manor and then, well, you see what happened then.”
Danzen once again took the body in.
“And you’re going to help me deliver the body. Any way you’d like to dress it?” Soko asked.
Surprise turned to disgust on Danzen’s face.
“Don’t be so soft, Danzen. If we’re going to get White and Nyamdor to do what we want, we’re going to need some leverage.
This is our leverage.”
****
Danzen wasn’t there when it happened, but he was fairly certain of what it would have looked like. Soko had plenty of locals in her
employ, which was one of the ways she’d come into contact with Yato before she had joined Danzen and his group. It was simple enough for Soko to tell some of her people to take a carriage to the manor where White was staying, make a sudden announcement, open the door, and let White’s dead brother Dojan fall out.
Sansar had tracked all of the proceeding events, of course, and had confirmed that this was exactly what happened. Even worse had been White’s reaction.
