Daniel
As they approached the House’s veranda, Rana dashed on ahead. In a matter of minutes, for the frog girl was unbelievably good at finding people, she returned with Wendi. Hanmā’s pair of crossbows followed, one wielding the other.
“Danny! Sorry, I didn’t get your message,” Wendi said. “I’ve been looking for the others; something is about to happen.”
“What are you talking about?” Rana asked, alert and ready.
Wendi explained, “Ziege told me she’s got a bad feeling and that I should gather everyone together.”
Upon hearing that taboo name, Daniel flashed Rana a look of apprehension.
The frog girl met his eyes. :It’s the Wendigo’s new name.:
:She’s talking to the Wendigo?:
Rana shrugged, not offering any further insight.
At any rate, Daniel agreed with the plan, so he hopped into Wendi’s waiting hand as Hanmā grabbed his crossbows, and their group departed. The state of the House felt jarring after spending the day in seclusion. With so few paper shoji partitioning the interior, Daniel saw bare stretches of flooring for hundreds of meters.
Days ago, they couldn’t have gone a yard without stumbling across an alcove filled with hanging calligraphic scrolls, ornamental sculptures, and elaborately decorated plates. They should be seeing dining rooms, study halls, and reception areas, all built of and furnished with Tsukumogami. Where was everyone?
After a tense ride on the tatami mats, they reached a rock garden near Cassie’s room. Gone were the rake Tsukumogami who drew intricate patterns in the sand. The absence of half the perimeter shoji allowed them to see yards into the House through the gaps.
Paul, Lea, Kenta, and their guardians stood in a circle on the sand as Daniel’s group arrived. Akachochin went straight to Rana’s side, though he made no comment about her prior absence.
“Finally! Dan, what’s going on?” Kenta said, fed up and impatient with waiting.
“Wendi had a bad feeling and brought us here. I think it’s a good idea, especially as our last day here draws to a close.”
“This is pointless,” Kenta shook his head as he left the rock garden. “It’s hours before the war council. We can wait till then to talk about ‘bad feelings’ and what tomorrow will bring. I’ll stay with Cass until then.”
A paper door slid aside for Kenta as he stepped onto the veranda. While Daniel focused on improvising a speech, from the corner of his eye, he saw an old man standing in the opening.
Time slowed in the way of an impending disaster like a car crash or a sudden precipitous fall.
Daniel recognized the old man as Matsubadzue, ‘Matsu’ to those who knew him, Koto’s walking cane. The well-known and respected man, one of Koto’s elite guards/tools, was present in Tool form when Daniel and the others first met the Master of the House. Bent and gnarled with age, his wrinkled face and twisted hair were carved from lacquered pine.
Kenta stepped back to let the older man pass. Matsu cleared the doorframe and shifted his fist into the head of a cane. Then the tool’s wood turned black, emitting a mysterious dark aura that felt like the deepest heart of a forest. Its magic had a profound character Daniel read like a voice speaking to his spirit, ‘Behold, I am ancient, twisted, and scarred by the elements yet stronger for the tribulations, and you are but saplings.’
Twelve bobbing sisters shot from the buns of Kenta’s hair. The old man lunged at Kenta with his cane arm aimed at the boy’s heart. Twelve bars of steel, each thick as a wrist, crossed to intercept the blow.
Eleven snapped and fell before Matsu’s thrust.
Kenta instinctively protected his vitals without fully understanding the situation. Those reflexes brought his arm up to chest level. The twelfth steel hairpin endured, and the strike pressed it into Kenta’s forearm.
As Daniel turned in slow motion, he heard the bone break.
Time resumed its rushing course as the air filled with shrieks of alarm and escaping Tsukumogami. Sliding doors broke rank to scatter into a colorful storm of flying cloth. Straw mats rolled themselves away, and children fled in all shapes and sizes. Daniel couldn’t risk hitting civilians in a rush to help his friend, and if they fought Matsu, all their lives would be forfeit.
The sole people permitted to intervene were their guardians.
Kenta, knowing this, restrained his hair as it lashed out in pain. Wild strands dragged him away from Matsu and into the rock garden. A shockingly spry elderly man pursued close on Kenta’s heels.
Hanmā dove forward, firing at Matsu with dual crossbows. Without taking his eyes from his prey, the old man’s black cane arm whipped around to bat aside each of the high-speed projectiles with mindboggling precision—then downed Hanmā in one clean club to the torso as the bodyguard came into range.
Akachochin’s paper lantern body split like a mouth to vomit a stream of flame that blocked Matsu’s way. Gorou the scarecrow swung his nutcracker arm like a baseball bat. The old man ducked the blow and dashed through the fire without hesitation, setting his extremities ablaze.
To Daniel’s astonishment, the walkway bordering the garden bent and snapped apart—no, lifted itself and moved. The jagged boards and torn handrail of the walkway’s broken edge had the silhouette of a gigantic hand.
Somehow, the House itself must be the body of one tremendous being! The arm/veranda interposed itself between the retreating Kenta and advancing Matsu.
The old man lifted his cane arm and brought it down like a martial arts master breaking a stack of boards. That one attack may as well have been a truck plowing through the veranda. Matsu vaulted the wreckage and sprang at Kenta.
His next strike may have ended the Kaminoke’s life but for a bolt of cotton gripping his ankle. Momen had stretched from Lea to the old man without exposing the girl’s face. For her trouble, the flames on Matsu spread to her fabric body.
Lea’s caramboles orbited at violent speeds as she stood bystander, worried any move on her part would be misconstrued as an attack. Paul, frozen, watched his guardian fail to make a difference. Wendi and Rana could do nothing, the frog girl clenching her fists hard enough to draw blood. All the kids’ hands were bound by the promise which held their sole protection. All they could do was pray someone stopped the old man in time.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
Matsu slipped from Momen’s grasp with a single-minded force of will and thrust his black cane at Kenta’s face. No one intervened as he closed the final feet.
And then Koto was there.
Wearing the fastest pair of shoes in the House gave the Tsukumogami leader speeds indistinguishable from teleportation to the untrained eye. Though Koto had numerous tools on his person, he chose to strike with nothing more than his bare fist.
That image—Koto standing between a crazed old man and a frightened boy with his arm upraised as the executioner’s axe—was one Daniel would never forget.
This was because, at that moment, as Daniel realized soon after, Koto had not yet decided which to smite.
A detonation of dust and gravel blew Daniel away in a burst of tornado-strength wind.
Debris rained on his passive shield as he regained his faculties. Dirt choked the air and stung his eyes. Though Daniel’s body dusted the junk he breathed and touched, his friends struggled to breathe. That thought propelled him to stand.
A lesser, blustering breeze swept away the airborne grime.
Koto stood at the bottom of a shallow crater in the rock garden, folding fan in one hand, healing coin in the other. The Master of the House had funneled the strength and vitality of all the Tsukumogami tools he wore into one superhuman craterous blow. His ornate fan emanated magic reminiscent of, yet distinct from the Wind Rune.
The pulsing aura of Raphael’s Token spanned the whole of the clearing and beyond. Momen re-rolled herself around Lea. Burns vanished. Hanmā, the eleven broken hairpins, and various bystander Tsukumogami all stirred as their bodies were restored. The scratches and bruises from the explosion on Daniel’s friends similarly faded. Kenta cried in pain as his broken arm set itself and expelled bone fragments through the skin, no more scarred or marked than ever when Koto finished.
Even the old man rose from the bottom of the crater as his shattered wooden frame was repaired within minutes.
Koto surveyed the ruins he’d wrought of his home, roofs and floors covered with dirt, as Biwa and Shami arrived on the edge of the scene. When everyone was healed but too shell-shocked to speak, Koto put away his tools and addressed Matsu with agony in his eyes and voice, “What have you done, old fool?”
“What have I done? Are you blind?” Matsu spat. “Can’t you see what’s going on around you?” The old man gestured wildly at Daniel and the others, “The children are falling in love with the surface again. The cycle repeats!
“Outsiders take advantage of the best part of us, our need to serve.” Tears welled in Mastu’s wrinkled eyes. “They make their promises and tell their lies! They say they want to be our allies. They ask us to fight their wars. And when we lose our usefulness, they cast us aside!
He pointed at Paul, “They promise their wonders,” he pointed at Wendi, “They pretend to be friendly to gain our trust,” he pointed at Lea, “They invite us in and make us feel valued,” he pointed at Kenta, “And then they betray us!”
Matsu pounded the ground with his fist. “Trusting outsiders and fighting their battles is what got us here. It’s what gave you the scar on your chest! It’s what killed Furiko!”
Koto flinched, but Matsu went on. “They fill our heads with sweet garbage, tempt us to trade safety for freedom, but there is nothing out there for us! We should stay here and leave the rest of the universe to rot in its own filth. I won’t let these Wildlings poison another generation! I’ll gladly give my life to expose their true nature!”
The Master of the House allowed him the time to say all he wanted. Then Koto touched the scars on his chest and said, “I agree. I wish now I’d killed them before there was any talk of Guest Rights or honor.”
Daniel broke out in a cold sweat, rightly terrified.
The Tsukumogami leader inhaled long and exhaled hard as he made a decision. “But Guest Rights were invoked. If I refuse to follow my own laws when they don’t suit me, I am a tyrant.
“If the outsiders had broken their vows, they’d already be dead. If any of them lifted a finger against you, I’d have slain them on the spot. Yet, on the very brink of death, not one of them harmed our people.” Daniel realized Koto hadn’t appeared for Kenta’s rescue at the last instant by coincidence; the Master of the House had deliberately waited. “For their virtue, they have their lives.”
Daniel released his held breath.
“Matsubadzue,” Koto addressed the decrepit old man.
“At your service, sir,” Matsu whispered, loyal to the end.
“You avoided killing civilians and the bodyguards. For this, you have your life.”
“It matters not. I have been prepared to die from the beginn—”
“—However!” Koto added with enough severity to make the old man wince. “You endangered civilian lives, violated sacred Guest Rights, disobeyed my direct orders, and broke our laws. You have dishonored yourself, the name of the elite guard, and your colony’s Governor—”
“Sir, I—”
“—Furthermore! You have earned excommunication and banishment from your people, but none of that is the worst of it.” The old man quailed before Koto’s wrath. “Your highest failure is that, for all your sacrifice, you accomplished the exact opposite of your goal!”
“What?” Matsu asked, baffled.
Koto explained, “I said I agreed with you. My laws restrict access to the surface. I reduced our expeditions to almost nothing. All the children knew of the universe were stories and history. The one boy who took our past glory too seriously was dishonored. The outsiders sparked their interest, true—but mere stories would fade with time and reason. Now, look around you.”
Daniel raised his eyes with Matsu to behold the scene.
As the two Tsukumogami had spoken, a crowd of multitudes congregated. Tens of thousands of Tsukumogami in every conceivable shape were on display. Tiles spilled off the roofs, mats peaked from under the verandas, plates clustered in the sliding doorways, dolls stood on each other’s shoulders, scarecrows clung to the lantern lines, bolts of cloth swarmed the air, and rakes hung from the stalactites. No one was on duty. Everyone had come to see.
“No matter your intentions, the children saw you break oath, and the outsiders stand true.”
The old man’s wooden body paled to birch.
“I can’t stop the people from legally petitioning their views and desires. If I do not listen to them, they may force me to step down as their leader. The best I can do from now on is to ensure the next generation learns from the past’s mistakes.” As Koto spoke, his eyes fixed on Tarō, who’d come to stand with Daniel’s group.
“And now I must do my duty. Prepare yourself, Matsubadzue.” The old man straightened as best he could. “Choose your form wisely; it is the one you’ll die with.”
Murmurs rolled through the crowd.
“Then I choose one that reminds me of better days,” Matsu said as he donned a cape of red oil-paper reminiscent of an umbrella—and Daniel recognized the design, placing Matsu as the umbrella that fought with Koto and the grandfather clock woman against the Capricorn in the fusuma tableau. Koto nodded once.
“In the name of Nurarihyon, our father and first of his kind,” Koto seemed to swell with power as he spoke, “For your violations of our laws,” he raised his hand, “With your peers to witness,” placed it over Matsu’s heart, “As the elected representative of this colony,” gripped the golden embroidered emblem there, “I hereby strip you of your magic and birthrights,” and tore it off.
The old man’s kimono and red cloak faded to a dull grey. Daniel sensed the magic leaving the excommunicated Tsukumogami like a bird taking flight. The old man’s eyes were no longer Tsukumogami eyes, but gloomy iridescent. Then the golden emblem of an umbrella disintegrated in Koto’s fingers.
“It is done,” Koto said, and half a dozen Tsukumogami sprang from him and shifted from item to humanoid form—pocket mirror, stoppered bottle, wooden sandals, folding fan, a lacquered box, and a scroll case—to gather around Matsu and embrace him in turn. The folding fan Tsukumogami gave Daniel and the others, but especially Kenta, a very dirty look.
“You will not leave the way watched by mages,” Koto said when the elite guard finished. “I don’t want them to confirm who we are or give them the opportunity to interrogate you about our numbers and defenses.”
“I would sooner die,” Matsu objected.
“Silence, outsider,” Koto said, and those words struck the old man harder than any fist. “Kyōrinrin, hand me a Rune set and our most recent map to the City.” The scroll case man popped his top and withdrew two sheets of paper. “For the short time you remain with us before your departure, you are our Guest. As such, I am honor-bound to comply with any trivial request you may make.” Koto waited, motionless.
After a few moments of prideful reluctance, Matsu caved in and said, “May I please have a Rune set and a map to the City?”
Koto handed him the scrolls. “Take your time in the tunnels to familiarize yourself with the Runes and identify the one with which you are most talented. Practice until its magic saturates your body. Disguise yourself as human. Find the City. Join the Sorcerers Association; they don’t investigate their members’ true appearances. Report your findings via Shew Stone. Live.”
“Yes, sir, at your service, sir.”
“I am your master no more,” Koto said. “Leave this house.” Matsubadzue obeyed. Koto looked up at the assembled crowd. “Return to your places!” he shouted, and the community scattered in seconds.
Daniel and the others were not far behind. The Tsukumogami stayed far away from them until the final hours of their stay.
Late that night, as he tried to sleep after the war council, Daniel heard music drifting through the House. Mournful strings plucked their lament until sunrise.