Pilgrim 4, p.5
Pilgrim 4, page 5
“This is why we will handle the nue in due time,” Abbot Monpo reminded him. “I think it would be best to start looking for shelter…” He angled himself toward the northwest, Galzo nodding in agreement.
“I will check for you.” Sansar lifted off Danzen’s shoulder, the raven taking to the sky, pressing past the upper crest of the fog.
“Do you think he will be able to find us again?” asked the bakeneko.
“He wouldn’t have left if he couldn’t have found his way back.”
“Don’t you just know everything. Bah, I tell you, bah! I’m tired of walking. Why can’t we just sleep right here?”
“This isn’t a good space to rest,” said Nomin, the blind assassin with her head dipped to some degree.
Danzen didn’t think about using the power he had learned from her. As soon as he shut his eyes, he figured he would be able to see through the fog to some degree, but even if vague echo outlines took shape on the inside of his eyelids, this simply wasn’t the case. His surroundings were still obscured, which told him something he already knew: Nomin was a cut above with her power, which made sense considering it was something that she relied entirely upon.
Sansar returned to Danzen’s shoulder a minute or so later. “Just up ahead. There is an overhang from what I can tell, and there will likely be shelter beneath it.”
Galzo and Abbot Monpo were able to find the recess in question with little guidance from Sansar, an almost instinctual nature to the way that they operated. Sure enough, there was space for them to spread out beneath the overarching ceiling.
As Danzen ducked into the alcove, a skeleton seemed to lunge for him. Astra was out before he could blink, Danzen cutting the bones away, only to realize that this had been some sort of burial, that their movement had dislodged the body.
“Whew! That was close,” Jelmay said as he relaxed a bit, the bakeneko removing his paw from the hilt of his weapon. “I thought we were going to have to fight some skeletons for a minute.”
“This appears to be an old burial ground,” said Galzo, confirming Danzen’s first thought. The way the skeleton had been positioned, upright against the wall, told him that there’d been some sort of ritual in this. Upon further examination of the bones Danzen saw that they were adorned with jewelry, but it was what he spotted next that made him wonder if there wasn’t something more sinister at play.
Crouching before a femur, he found bite marks in it.
“Check the rest,” he said to Yato and Nomin, both of whom had already started to examine another set of skeletons next to the one that had seemingly fallen out of the cave wall. As they did this, Abbot Monpo got a fire started using some of the wood he had gathered along the way. Even though there was still a bit of daylight partially blocked by the fog, the fire helped to illuminate the cave.
“How many…?” Kudzu looked up at all the vertical tombs that had been erected. What was even stranger was that it seemed as if the bodies had been smashed into the rock face, and even though some care had been taken to drape them in jewelry and arrange them in a neat way, something was off about the entire affair, something sinister.
“Let me guess,” Jelmay said as he pocketed some of the jewelry. “These were placed here by the same yokai that created the fog. Some of his earlier kills, right?”
“Likely not,” said Abbot Monpo, who had just set some of the scrolls he’d wrapped in leather in a protected corner. “The nue is incredibly large; it wouldn’t do something like this. No, these are ancient peoples.”
“What are you doing?” Kudzu asked the bakeneko as he used his sword to pull a rib cage down, bringing its upper body with it, which allowed him to remove a golden necklace.
“What does it look like I’m doing? This jewelry is probably worth a small fortune. It could be hundreds and hundreds of years old, before the fall of Sunyata. In fact…” He brought one of the pieces to his mouth and bit down on it. “Good news. It’s gold. Lady Pilgrim, Blind Pilgrim, and, well, Pilgrim, get as much of the gold jewelry as you can. This has to be worth something!”
Sansar hopped around in a troubled way. “Perhaps we should leave the dead to their jewelry…”
“And let it waste away in this cave?” Jelmay asked, almost offended by the raven’s suggestion. “Pfft! Are you insane? Clearly we should take as much as we can, and then next time we get to a bigger city, perhaps Bahlingar and maybe Odval, maybe, I’ll unload it at a fence, and we will be on our way, richer than we were yesterday. Someone has to fund this trip.”
“Jelmay, is this really necessary?” Kudzu asked, exhaustion in her voice. Danzen had heard this tone from her before. She generally started the day ready to bicker with Jelmay in an almost playful way, but by the end, especially if they had spent most of the time traveling, the kitsune would reach her breaking point.
“Relax, relax,” the cat told her. “I won’t take it all, if it makes you feel better. Just the stuff that is worth something. Lady Pilgrim, leave anything that looks cheap. Let’s see what we can loot.”
.Chapter Three.
The howling began at about midnight, sounds that were almost familiar to Danzen from the time he’d spent in the Panchen Mountains. Yet they seemed more remote out here, more nefarious. All of them were resting now aside from Nomin, who stood guard, the woman rarely sleeping since her return from Diyu. Yato certainly was awoken by the sound, as was Kudzu, the white fox standing and repositioning herself, attempting to block some of the sound by curling her head up into her body.
Danzen sat up and remained this way for a while, listening to the harrowing sounds.
“I can’t sleep,” Yato told him, the younger assassin pointing out the obvious. She was lying on her side and staring at him, a hint of light reflecting off her eyes.
Jelmay rolled over to his other side and began to snore loudly, the volume at the point that Danzen was surprised that it hadn’t rattled more of the bones loose from the walls. They’d left the rest of the open coffins mostly undisturbed aside from the bakeneko’s looting, which made the space that they were staying in a bit more ominous with all the dead bodies surrounding them.
“I’ll check on things.”
Danzen stood, and after retrieving Astra, he approached Nomin at the front of the alcove. Rather than say anything, he stood guard a few feet away from her, listening to the sounds, which were somewhere between a powerful wind and the howl of a wild animal, the former assassin eventually finding himself in a meditative state even though he was now on his feet. He expected Yato to join him, the young assassin generally curious about their ways, those trained by the Brotherhood, but she never did.
It was about an hour later that Nomin spoke, her quiet voice at odds with the shrieks in the distance, the sense of something violent in the air. “You can rest,” she told him, which would have been the same thing Danzen would have told Yato had she decided to join them.
They may have been trained to kill from very young ages, all three of them, but the assassins shared a sense of camaraderie, even if some had strayed far from the path like Soko, and others had given into their competitive nature.
“I think I’ll be fine,” Danzen told her.
It was a long spell before she spoke again: “Do you remember what happened in Arsi? It must’ve been twelve or thirteen years ago.”
Danzen turned to the blind woman, who continued to stare out at the distance as if she had spotted something on the horizon, the moon tracing a line along her pointed features.
“There was an uprising, a few of us had been tasked with quelling it. You don’t remember?”
Danzen nodded. “I do now.”
It hadn’t been that difficult of a task considering his command over people, his Demon Speak ability allowing him to simply tell those protesting recent changes in state-purchased grain prices to stop.
But that wasn’t how it ended, sadly.
Nomin had been tasked with leading the group, which included Danzen, and a few other assassins that he hadn’t thought about in years, and Nomin wanted blood.
It was blood that Danzen and the other assassins gave her, the small group mercilessly killing all of the protesters, farmers and their sons, merchants and their employees. It wasn’t a challenge to them at all, and now that he thought about it, the event had been one of the cracks that eventually led to his retirement.
Why did they slaughter mostly innocent people? Who would put a contract out like that?
Danzen had since reached a point that he had completely blocked out what happened that night, the senseless bloodbath, but now that he thought about it, he knew that it was precisely why things had played out the way that they had for him later on.
“Those people didn’t deserve to die,” said Nomin.
“No, they did not.”
“But I’m not sorry for what I did.”
Danzen didn’t say anything.
“At least I wasn’t at the time. Now that I think about it, I wish we had used another avenue, perhaps your unique gift to persuade people to leave the area.”
“Right.”
No further words were exchanged between the two of them, both lost in their troubled memories of the past, Danzen finally deciding to get some rest once the howling died down. He sat with his back against a rock and closed his eyes, the former assassin falling into a light slumber.
He awoke just as the sun was coming up. The fog cleared and there was a chill to the air, Nomin still standing guard, the others asleep aside from Abbot Monpo, who sat now in meditation.
“I’m going to go bend my echo,” said Danzen, his morning routine coming to him almost immediately. He had conditioned himself to do this to the point that it had become second nature. To think that he had spent his entire life shying away from it only made him want to bend further. “I won’t be far away.”
Whereas Kudzu would have perhaps said something, asking him to stay or remind him to be careful, Nomin simply bobbed her head left and right, a note of affirmation, and Abbot Monpo didn’t respond.
To make things easy, Danzen stepped out from beneath the overhang and sent his power into his legs, feeling the energy surge through him as he shot into the air. He landed on the top of the rock, above where everyone was still sleeping, no sound accompanying his feet as they touched the ground.
Danzen withdrew his boomerang sword and moved into position, prepared to start his practice.
He imagined an invisible opponent before him and thrust his weapon forward, feeling an uncoiling of his core, his echo suddenly alive and rippling through him. He kept moving, the only sound accompanying his feet being the wind gracing across the folds of his robes.
Danzen came to a point in which he felt one with the world around him, that his movements could cause windstorms, that bringing his sword down could even do something like summon a lightning bolt.
He felt power, he felt serenity, he felt pure.
And then he heard the voice behind.
“Always striving to get better, aren’t you, son?”
Danzen’s eyes flashed open.
He turned to find Tengir Gantulga in his dark-purple armor, a bemused look on his father’s face. There was something eternal about his visage, his long hair perfect, beard expertly trimmed, a vibrancy to his eyes as he observed his son, the ruler of Diyu without his enormous odachi sword this time.
“You dare…” Danzen would have tried.
Had he not just been bending his echo and focusing his breath, he would have attempted to kill his father even if he knew that it was impossible. He didn’t possess the strength, nor a weapon sharp enough to take Tengir Gantulga down, and he knew it.
“I am assuming you may be concerned about your mother.”
Danzen’s shoulders heaved up and down, his sudden flash of anger hard to bottle. He had to remind himself what his father was capable of, that his companions were below and if his father wanted, he could easily take them with him, or worse, cast them into the deepest pit in Diyu and leave them to suffer.
“What… what have you done to her?”
“Shodren is fine,” said Tengir Gantulga in a disinterested way. “She will get used to her new home in time. But I assure you, she isn’t being hurt or anything of the sort. In fact, she is being pampered, even if it’s not what she wants. You and your mother both have a stubborn streak that I intend to break. But that is not why I’m here, son.”
“I don’t care why you’re here.”
“Perhaps, but it would be good for you to hear me out anyway. Your brother has come up with a…” Tengir Gantulga lifted his eyebrows as he searched for the right word to describe what Danzen’s half-brother had concocted. “It wasn’t what I expected, let’s say that. There are places in Diyu where we have sent the worst demons imaginable, ones that even bother me to some degree. Do you remember Shutendorji, the demon I asked you to handle outside of your mother’s nunnery?”
Danzen nodded, recalling what it’d been like to fight Shutendorji in the Outer Regions, the towering demon and his incredible strength.
“He is there now, in the very same place that Nomtoi has decided to look for his next…” Tengir Gantulga smiled. “Assassins. Let’s call them assassins, a word you are intimately familiar with. Or challenges, perhaps that is a better choice of words. There is a title for this group that was used long ago, so maybe we could call them that. The Seven Evils. I didn’t think Nomtoi would go to this extreme, yet he truly does want my throne and while he is a fool, I am starting to appreciate his perseverance. I’m starting to appreciate his initiative.”
“Just give it to him, I don’t want it.”
“What you want or don’t want really doesn’t concern me, son. It is your heritage, it is your right. But, your brother has shown me that he is willing to fight for it and I have decided to let him try. Obviously, you two are not at the same strength level, so that wouldn’t be a fair battle, but you may be able to stop the people he has tasked with killing you. As for now, there are seven that I have allowed him to free, but the depths of Diyu do contain others. Did I mention I had to give him my approval to do this? Heh. Consider it a challenge. I could tell you more, but I think that it will be more interesting this way, to let you discover what you may well one day command once you take my throne. You will likely encounter the first of the Seven Evils soon enough, and I believe it is within my rights to level the playing field to some degree. Would you like that?”
“I don’t need your help.”
“Yes, you do,” Tengir Gantulga told him. “The blood that courses through you is mine, even if you have some of your mother’s as well. Demon blood is much stronger than human blood, infused with a dark aspect of what humans would call a person’s echo. This is how you are able to do some of the things you’re able to do. I shouldn’t have to explain much more of this to you, but I’m telling you all this for a reason. Your blood.”
“My blood…” Danzen said through gritted teeth. He knew what happened when he broke skin, and he had only recently been able to control his demons to some degree.
“It is not just blood capable of conjuring demons upon being spilled, or sparking your true power. Your blood is a weapon itself.”
“I’m not interested in your help,” Danzen said as he brought his sword to the ready. “You have done enough.”
His father laughed again. “When you encounter the individuals that your brother has summoned from the depths of Diyu, you will think differently. The Seven Evils are not humans, nor are they truly demons. They are somewhere in between, individuals who lived long before the fall of Sunyata, monsters who have been boiling and toiling in Diyu long enough to not only grow powerful and endure the torture they have been sentenced to, but also develop unique powers. Frightening things, really.”
“Why did you keep them?”
“We will have the conversation another day on how Diyu works, because clearly you don’t have a good understanding of it, but you should know that I, and my predecessor, and the ruler of Diyu before him, kept these demonic beings for a reason. The last time the Seven Evils were unleashed was right before the fall of Sunyata, which may give you an indication as to how heaven was destroyed. Are you ready to learn what I have to show you?”
Danzen shook his head, and as he did he noticed movement behind his father.
Nomin had appeared, the blind assassin gripping her short sword, prepared to attack.
His father grinned cheek to cheek, his teeth bright and shining. “You are making a fatal mistake. And you, Nomin, you should have more respect for the man who brought you back to life.”
“Leave,” said Nomin, almost as if she were reading Danzen’s mind, the courage he needed in that moment taking shape in the single word that left her lips.
Tengir Gantulga’s feet started to blur, dark energy melting up his torso. “It is a pity, really. You are going to need what I had intended to show you, but perhaps you will find that out on your own. You and your mother, your pathetic human stubbornness. It will be interesting to see how many of your companions die before you ask for my help. I’ll see you soon, son. You know how to reach me. Simply ask.”
And with that, the ruler of Diyu was gone.
****
It took Danzen a full minute to relax, the former assassin gripping his sword as he glared at the space where his father had just stood.
“What did he say?” Nomin was looking directly at him, her eyes bleached white and matching the robes that she wore, the blind assassin with a ghostly appeal.
“He said… he said that my brother has unleashed some of Diyu’s most dangerous…” Danzen recalled his father’s words, that they weren’t human or demon. “He called them demonic beings, called them the Seven Evils.”
“Released?” Nomin asked.
“They were kept in the depths of Diyu and used last during the fall of Sunyata. My brother has unleashed them to hunt me, or as my father put it, to give me a challenge.”
